//------------------------------//
// Wherein There is Something to be Afraid of 
// Story: Wonderbolt Down 
// by Rebonack 
//------------------------------//

	It's nice having mom finally open up to me.  Though truth be told I really could have gone without the being traumatized and having my mind squashed by Discord's curse parts.  But that's life for you.  Take the good along with the bad.  Our conversation quickly turns to who, or what, I really am.  But thankfully there isn't hate being thrown around this time.  I can tell mom is still uncomfortable with what's happened to me, but at least she's talking about it now.

“I hadn't realized just how much I had changed until dad spelled it out for me,” I admit.  “I mean...  I knew I was different.  But I thought it was just a few little things that wouldn't be important or noticeable.”

I take another cookie and nibble on it.  They're really good.  In fact, I think they taste better than they used to.  Maybe that has something to do with my improved sense of smell?

“I think it would be even worse if you were just like Lance with a few small differences,” mom says as she studies her cup of coffee.  “Like an imperfect simulation.  The better it is the more the flaws stand out.”

She looks up at me with a deep sadness in her eyes.  “They told me that I was going to lose you unless they could fix you.  That you were some kind of... I don't know... some kind of alien intelligence that was taking over and pretending to be my son.  If that were true you're only a passable actor.”

I give a snorting laugh.  “Come on, I'm not that bad am I?”

“You aren't someone trying to pretend to be my son, I'm pretty sure of that now,” mom sighs.  “You're more like... like my son has been mixed together with another person and you're the result.  A soul smoothie.”

Heh.  Soul smoothie.  I like that.

“I think that's pretty close to the truth,” I muse.  “I'm not becoming the old Equestrian Geneva because my human memories aren't going anywhere.  I'm Geneva Pressure Front and Lance Hopkins.  I'll keep remembering things from Equestria and I'll keep changing little by little.  I've thought about this a lot.  What does it mean to suddenly have a new body?  What does it mean to have a new brain?  A different personality?  New memories?  Does that change who I am?”

I slowly shake my head.  Then polish off another chocolate strawberry cookie.

“I don't think it does.  I'm not the same me I was yesterday.  Or last year.  Or fifteen years ago.  Or before I was banished from Equestria.  I was a different me when I was attending flight school and a different me when I was in fledgling school.  I was a different me when I was just a few years old and getting tangled up in my parents' legs.  I'll be a different me tomorrow.  But I'll still be me.  And I'll try to be the best me I can be.”  With the speech done I awkwardly scratch at the base of my mane and flash a sheepish smile.  “That's the best answer I've come up with.  Or at least the best one that doesn't cause me to curl up on the ground and have an existential nervous breakdown.”

Mom smiles, gives a small laugh, and picks up a cookie.  I feel a tremendous swell of love and hope welling up in me.  Laughter is a huge step forward from smoldering hate.

“I want to be frank with you... Geneva,” mom says.  “When I look at you I'm reminded that the boy I loved and raised is gone.”

I open my mouth to object and she motions for me to wait.

“I don't feel the same love for you that I felt toward Lance.  I know you disagree, but you aren't him.  You're what's left of him,” she continues while I fidget uncomfortably.  “But you still love me just like he loved me.  You still carry his love in your heart.  And for that love, for his sake, I think I'm willing to call you my daughter.”

A small smile tugs at the corners of my beak.  That isn't ideal.  Not what I had hoped for.  But it's still better than nothing.  Better than believing that I somehow over-wrote myself.  “Thanks mom.”

“Did you enjoy the cookies?” she asks.

I give a nod.  “Yeah, they were wonderful.  You know, as I've been remembering things from my life in Equestria one memory that really stands out was going with my mother to get ice cream or pastries.  Chocolate and strawberry was my favorite back then, too.  I'm starting to wonder how many traits I inherited from the old Geneva.  Her desire to understand how things work for sure.  Do you remember how long it took me to settle on a major because I was interested in everything?”

“It sounds like you two had quite a bit in common.  Why don't we go out to the garden?  The flowers are doing wonderfully.  And I've love to see some of that 'magic' the Equestrians can do,” she says as she heads off toward the patio door.  Somewhat puzzled I get up and follow her.

The garden is as lovely as ever.  A riot of brilliant colors and a array of heady aromas assault me as soon as I step outside.  The scent of the flowers is almost intoxicating.  Don't ponies eat flowers?  I'm a bit tempted to try one, but I doubt mom would approve of me snacking on one of her prized roses.

“Now then,” mom says with a pleasant smile.  “Let's see some of that magic.”

“I think earth pony magic would probably be more interesting given your garden and all.  But I guess I can show you what I can do,” I chirp.  With a subtle swooshing sound I spread my wings and begin to gently beat them to rise a few feet off the ground.  “The magic of pegasi and griffins focuses mostly on flight and manipulating weather.”

“You're hardly moving your wings are all,” mom laughs.  “You may as well be flying by flapping your arms up and down.”

I can't help but grin at that observation.  “We don't fly using any of the usual laws of aerodynamics.  Instead we just use our magic to apply or absorb forces acting on us.  Right now I'm using my magic to simply cancel out the force of gravity.  I can push myself around in any direction with equal ease.”

“Well isn't that something else...” mom mutters.

“Oh!  And we can make clouds, too,” I say as I dart over to a nearby sprinkler and begin collecting water with my wings.  Before long I have a poofy white cloud to show off.  “We can interact with them as if they were solid objects.  And as you can see they look fairly cartoon-like once we're done with them.  Now this next part will take a few minutes...”

Mom watches curiously as I work together a bit of mist stone into a rough shape.  I pop out a talon with a distinctive snikt! sound and begin carefully shaving and smoothing the surface of the stone.  Once I've got the shape just right I use my feathers to polish it to a lustrous sheen.  With a wide smile I offer my simple creation to my mother.

She takes the gift and looks it over.  A tennis ball sized bluish purple stone with pleasantly spiraling curves and swirls of lighter color carved into the shape of a heart.  Etched into the surface is the simple message 'For Mom'.

“Surprise named it mist stone.  I'm pretty sure that's what it was called back in Equestria, too,” I gleefully explain.  “It's some sort of phase between solid and liquid that's neutrally buoyant in air.  You can set it mid-air and it'll just hang there.  Isn't it neat?”

Mom doesn't reply.  She's just looking at the little stone heart and crying quietly.

“...mom?” I ask, worry and concern beginning to squirm about in my gut.

“You're so much like him...” she mutters as she rubs the piece of mist stone between her fingers.  “You really believe you're Lance.  This would have been... easier if you had just been an imposter.”

My eyes widen with realization as it hits me what she must be talking about.  I reach out with my pressure sense, but the fence around the garden in blocking it in.  They're coming for me.  I just know it.  “Mom!  How could you!” I say as I spread my wings wide and try to figure out the best direction to flee in.

“They contacted me last night.  They knew you were coming here and asked me to keep you in one place,” she says as she motions for me to calm down.  “They seem to know what's going on.  They said they can make you human again.  You wanted to know what it would take for me to trust you?  Let them try to help you.”

“Mom, I don't need help,” I say, stomping my hoof on the ground.  “This isn't some disease.  It's a curse that expired.  This is who I'm supposed to be.  I don't want to forget who I was and I don't want to be deafened to the sky's song.  I don't want to be human again.  I don't-”

Mother leans in and kisses me on the forehead, silencing the words in my mouth.  She brushes my mane out of my face and smiles... lovingly.  The first look she's given me that has borne any affection since I arrived home.  I'm at a bit of a loss.

“You're a beautiful lady, Geneva Pressure Front Hopkins.  And you're old enough to make your own choices.  I just hoped that you might be willing to indulge your mother's wishes,” she says while gently rubbing her fingers through my fur.  “The trap isn't supposed to spring for another two hours.  You can stay here and let them help you, or you can leave.  It's up to you.”

Before I can say anything she pulls me into an embrace.  “Mom...” I mutter.  “I can't.  I can't go with them after I saw how they were treating those ponies.  I have a really bad feeling about them and I'm going to trust my gut on this one.”

I step back and spread my wings again, lifting into the air.  “Thank you for telling me.  And... I'll always love you, mom.  No matter which me I am.  And tell dad I'll look into finding some help to make a grandfoal for him.  But that'll have to wait until we save the world.”

“Wait!” mom calls out and I nearly stall in the air.  “Wait just a moment.”

She hurries back into the house and returns with an old backpack as well as an armload of other odds and ins a few minutes later.  “You can wear this on your underside, right?  I packed some ham inside a lunch box and filled up the thermos with cold water.”

“Mom...”

“Oh!  And some cookies are in there too.  I found this map so you can figure out where you're going.  And you'll need a blanket in case it gets cold wherever you decide to sleep.”

“Mom?”

“And you'll need this, too.  I'm not sure how you'll wear it but you really need to cover up so you aren't showing off your muff every time you flip your tail.”

“Mom!” I shout, half with laughter and half with exasperation.  “Thank you.  I'm glad you're worried about my well-being.  But I really need to go.  I love you!  I'll see you again at the Memorial Day barbeque.”

And with that I launch myself skyward.


~~~~~


“Mister Hopkins has departed ahead of schedule.”

“Unfortunate.  It would seem Missus Hopkins had a change of heart.”

“That location would have been ideal.”

“A suitable alternative will be arranged.”


~~~~~


Alright.  Flying too high isn't an option this time.  Because if I'm flying too high I get spotted by radar and kill-bots are sent after me.  If I can avoid any further encounters with missiles then that would be really great.  A better option would be to stick near ground level and lower speeds.  Though staying away from roads would probably be a decent idea.  I don't want to distract anyone and cause an accident after all.

For now I'll just take a quick jaunt up into the sky to get my bearings and figure out which direction I want to head in.  Far below on a nice sandy beach I catch sight of something small and colorful galloping at break-neck speed.  Unmistakably a pony.  I dip my wings and dive down to the surface, the object of my attention growing ever larger in my sight.  An off-white unicorn stallion with a fiery orange mane is running pell-mell across the beach with his eyes widened in terror.

“Hey!” I call down at the pony as I swoop closer.  “Do you need help?

I get an incoherent word-salad of an answer, but the general gist is that something has scared the poor stallion out of his mind.  He jitters about on his hooves near me as a land, apparently willing to take comfort in the presence of someone else.  His ears keep flopping between pressed tight against his ears and poised in search of the slightest sound.  Though strangest are the black growths of crystal speckling his horn.

“Calm down a bit,” I say with a reassuring smile.  “Just calm down.  If you can still yourself then I can fly you out of here.  There's nothing to be afraid of.”

“Ah, to the contrary, Mister Hopkins.  There's always something to be afraid of.”

That voice.  There's no way.  The beach was clear when I saw it from above.  There wasn't anyone down here other than the stallion running for his life.  I turn toward the speaker and find one of those creepy G-Men walking across the sand at a slow, measured pace.

“You have been causing us a great deal of trouble, Mister Hopkins,” the G-Man drones as he draws closer.  Behind me I can hear the stallion whimpering and my nostrils are assaulted by the scent of urine.  Did... he just pee himself?  Over one human?  My gut is telling me this guy is really bad news.

“People are most easily motivated by fear, Mister Hopkins.  And when videos surface of Equestrians having their manes played with by little girls it becomes very difficult for us to encourage people to fear you.”

I'm keeping close tabs on my pressure sense.  At any moment more folks with guns might show up out of the blue and I'll want to split the scene in a hurry.  But for now my curiosity is driving me to listen.  Something is going on here and I want to know what it is.

“What's the point of making people afraid of ponies?” I ask incredulously.  Because really, ponies don't seem like the sort of thing that would be an easy object of mass terror.  Folks might initially be nervous about the idea of aliens living on Earth, but humans are remarkably resilient when it comes to growing accustomed to things.

“Power and control, Mister Hopkins.  The same point as everything,” the G-Man replies evenly.  “Now then, you will be given a choice.  You can come with us peacefully, or you can resist.  Either way, you and your friend there will be accompanying me.”

“Oh God, please don't let them take me...” the white unicorn grovels.  I somehow doubt he'll be of much help if I decided to go with the resistance plan.

“I think I would rather encourage humans to join in friendship with us instead of inciting fear,” I reply defiantly as I spread my wings and give my tail a flick.  The muscles in my limbs coil as I begin sifting through my memories of the principles of magic I had learned a lifetime ago.  Lots of basics.  Lots of fundamentals.  But they are important.  I remember that most pegasi used their magic based on intuition.  What felt right.  I broke it down into its mechanics and designed tricks on what should be theoretically possible.  I can remember a few of the early uses of magic I discovered.  Hopefully they'll help in case things get ugly.

I give my wings a fluff and my feathers scrape against each other with a metallic ring.  Iron Wing.  An old trick invented by the griffins ages ago and used by some of the pegasi in Celestia's royal guard.  Mom was pretty upset when I chopped through her sunflower with it.  She wasn't happy about me learning combat tricks of all things.  Mostly I just wanted to see if it would work and discovered an application of magic all on my own.  Dad thought it was hilarious.

In a single smooth motion the G-Man draws his gun and opens fire.  I fan my wings in front of myself and feel whatever he just fired slam into me.  The force of the impact is mostly absorbed, but it still feels like someone punched me in the wing.  I lower my wings just in time to see the G-Man toss his weapon aside and begin walking toward me again.

I decide that I'm not going to give him the chance to do whatever he's planning on doing.  In a rush of magic I launch myself forward and dig one set of talons into the sand.  A plume of grit is thrown into the air as I pivot around my anchor point, spinning on a dime to bring my rear legs into perfect position to launch a buck.

My hooves strike true true and I feel the G-Man launched backwards by the force.  I'll admit I held back.  I don't want to kill him after all.  I honestly don't even want to hurt him.  But if this is what it takes to get him to leave us alone then so be it.  Hopefully that buck will have winded him to the point that he won't be any further trouble.

“Come on, let's get going!” I call out to the petrified stallion who's still staring wide-eyed at the human I had just kicked for a loop.  “There might be more of them coming, so we need to get away from here fast.”

“I believe, Mister Hopkins, that escaping isn't one of the choices I provided you with.”

No way.

The G-Man is already up again.  He doesn't look like he's in pain.  He isn't limping.  He isn't breathing hard.  He's not even dirty from taking a tumble across a beach.  He just casually adjusts his tie and begins walking toward me again.

That's when I feel the fear.

In a flash I pounce on the stallion, wrap him in my arms, and leap into the air.  There's something horribly wrong with that guy.  We have to get out of here.

I feel an iron-hard grip on my tail, a blur of motion, and then I'm rolling across the sand quite against my wishes.  I didn't have time to brace for the impact and now I'm feeling pretty sore.  Seems my tail has betrayed me again.  Once my head stops spinning I focus on the G-Man who's nearly on top of me.

Quick as a flash I plant my hands against the sand and lash out with another buck.  This time I don't feel my hooves grinding against ribs.  I feel that vice-like grip wrap around them and suddenly I'm air-born again.  This time I have the presence of mind magically brace myself and the force of the ground flying up to greet me is mostly absorbed.

I'm back to my hooves in a blink of an eye with my teeth bared and a guttural snarl curdling in my throat.  Alright.  Time to get serious now.  I have no idea what this guy is, but there's no way he's human unless someone invented skin-tight Iron Man suits without anyone noticing.  Out come the talons.

If he's worried at all he doesn't show it.  He throws a mean hook at me, but I deflect it with a wing.  Pain shoots up my limb.  From the force of the blow it felt like someone just clobbered me with a fifteen pound sledge hammer made of granite.  I really don't want to know what would have happened if I hadn't used Iron Wing at the start of this mess.  With his guard open I lash out with my talons.  My claws dig through clothing and scrape against something unnaturally hard.

Two strips of fabric flutter down to the ground as the G-Man's tie goes limp.  He makes no sign of mourning over the loss of his fashionable accessory.  He does, however, kick me in the chest with enough force to send the breath whooshing out of my lungs and the rest of me whooshing through the air.  I flare my wings to level myself out just in time to see the G-Man sailing toward me with an arm cocked back for a hay-maker.

Trying to meet a Wonderbolt in the air?

Bad idea.

I dart to the side to avoid the punch and grab his arm.  With a flap of my wings I whirl the G-Man around and send him hurtling into the beach.  I drop out of the sky on him with my hooves as he starts to rise, pummeling him back into the sand.  I can feel something crunch under my weight, but it doesn't feel at all like flesh or bone.  With all the force of a battle axe I slam a wing into G-Man with a terrible grating sound of metal on stone.

I don't let up.  Another ringing axe-blow.  Then a third.  Sparks fly as steel-like feathers clash against stone-like skin.  Then I haul the thing back to its feet and buck it away.  It's still moving, but slowly now.  I take to the sky again and cry out to the air around me.  And it heeds by call.  It gathers far faster now that I'm beginning to remember how my magic works.  The air compresses and jitters and roils in front of me like a mirage on a warm day.  It strains and pulses and twists in my magic seeking to free itself.

With a grunt of effort I hurl the ball of boiling air down at the G-Man.

“Dodge this!”

And then release my magical grip on it.

It explodes.

It explodes a lot.

The pressure wave parts around me as it goes racing past.  Nudging the flow of the air seems almost trivial now that I know what I'm doing.  A plume of sand is blasted high into the air from the crater I just created in the otherwise pristine beach.

That was it.

That had to be it.

Nothing should be able to survive an explosion like that from close range.

Fear.

The fear isn't gone.

The fear isn't dead.

The fear steps out of the billowing cloud of debris, suit torn and ruined.  Under the tattered clothing reside crystal plates black as a starless night.  Cracks and fissures run through it, a sickly green light bleeding through the fractures.  Its sunglasses have been utterly destroyed, revealing its eyes of baleful green trailing wisps of purple smoke.

Fear.

“God help me...” I mutter.  “Wh-what in Tartaurus are you?”

“Fear, Mister Hopkins.  Fear itself,” the... the thing says as it casually rips the remains of one sleeve away.  “I must congratulate you, Mister Hopkins.  Your public appearances thus far have left us with very little to work with.  However, this scuffle has largely resolved that issue.”

I glance back over my shoulder toward the town and find an audience.  Quite an audience, in fact.  An audience watching with no small amount of worry.  Now that I'm not totally focused on that crystal abomination I can hear sirens in the far distance drawing closer.  People must have heard that explosion from miles away.

“They'll see that you're a monster!” I snarl down at the G-Man.

“Mister Hopkins, they are afraid.  They will see only what we want them to see.”

Enough of this.

I take in a deep breath, pool my magic, and loose a bone-shattering roar that blasts the crystal abomination down to one knee and sends further fractures spider-webbing across its body.  As it begins to rise I dive on it like a hawk on a mouse, snapping my wings into it with all the force I can muster.  I pummel it with my wings and stomp at it with my hooves and rend at it with my talons.  I have to destroy the fear.  I have to kill it.  I keep flailing at the monster until it lays broken at my hooves, its green glow extinguished and a few dying wisps of purple drifting away.

In my fury I scarcely feel the prick in my flank.  

At least until the world starts to get all tippy.


~~~~~


Uuuugh...  Chemically induced naps aren't fun to wake up from.  I try standing up only to bang my head on the inside of a cage  Wonderful.  Just wonderful.  Looks like I've been caught.  My pack is gone of course.  Those jerks took my cookies.  I was going to eat those.  They took my ham, too!  Why does the universe keep conspiring to steal my meat!

The cage I've been stuck in is so tight that I can hardly move.  To make matters worse my hands have been zip-tied behind me and there's a muzzle over my beak to keep my from roaring myself free.  No wings, no claws, no roar, and there isn't enough room to even throw a proper buck.  Considering that these cages were designed to survive earth pony hooves I doubt I would be able to put a dent in them.

I can smell ponies in here with me.  It's sort of a muddled scent, probably because this vehicle has been used quite a bit of late to move ponies around.  At the very least I'm not alone.  Geeze this is a lot worse than I thought...  These guys were bad enough when they were just spooky government guys.  But they're what?  Aliens?  Some other monster from Equestria?  Maybe somepony in here knows what they are.

“Hey,” I mutter through the muzzle.  My voice is a bit muffled but still audible.  Thankfully.  “Those black crystal things.  Does anypony know what we're dealing with?”

I get a few whimpers in reply.  And one useful response.  “They're the chaos spirits that broke free from Tartaurus in season five,” says a stallion somewhere behind me.

“Chaos spirits?  What, like demons or something?” I reply.

“No, chaos spirits.  You can't have demons on a kid's show,” the stallion corrects.

I give a little huff and a roll of my eyes.

“The black crystal ones are spirits of fear.  There are five others, too.  Anger, hate, avarice, apathy, and deception.  Celestia and Discord were fighting a spirit of anger before Discord betrayed her in the last episode,” the stallion says.

Yeah.  I remember that.  The big burning hellspawn thing.  In retrospect it did look pretty angry.  But then big burning hellspawn things tend to look really angry in general, so I'm not surprised I failed to make any sort of connection.  Hmm...  Wait a moment.  Those spirits almost sound like...

“Are they supposed to be opposites of the Elements of Harmony?” I ask.

“Yeah, that was the fan speculation.  But no one ever came out and confirmed it,” the stallion says.  “Oh!  I'm Bobby Pin.”

“Geneva Pressure Front,” I reply.

“Whoa, the Wonderbolt?  You lucked out.  I got some random background pony mane-stylist,” the stallion laughs.

“You seem awfully chipper about all of this,” I grumble.  I'm trying to avoid a sour mood.  After all it isn't this pony's fault that I'm stuck in here.  That's my own stupidity for falling for an obvious trap and failing to pay attention to my surroundings.

“Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure this will all work out,” Bobby says, his tone filled with confidence.

Really?  Things are looking pretty bleak right now.  We're all stuck in cages, bound, and being driven toward God-knows-where.  “How so?”

“Because this is just a continuation of the show!” Bobby laughs.

“I don't follow...” I reply.  Now I feel utterly lost.  I thought the show was real and some random humans just happened to know what had gone down in Equestria for mysterious reasons.

“Well, think about it.  The good guys always win in the end in Equestria.  That's just how it works.  This past twenty five years was just one giant 'To Be Continued...' that had to wait until Twilight Sparkle became herself again,” he says.

“I still don't follow.  Why her specifically?” I ask.  “Why not the rest of us?”

“Because the show was following her perspective on things of course!  How did the last episode end?” Bobby prompts.

“With Twilight being... banished.”

Oh.

Ooooooh!

I get it now!  The show was following Twilight's perspective because she must have had something to do with its production!  And it ends when she's banished because that was her last memory of Equestria!  Wow...  to think that she had her memories of Equestria all this time?  I can imagine why she wouldn't have mentioned it to anyone.  Humans would have thought she was crazy.

“Okay, I think I understand.  Maybe,” I say tentatively.  “Twilight and her friends are banished to Earth for five score divided by four years.  Once they start becoming ponies again that triggers the next part of the 'To Be Continued...'  Then we get another episode where they finish becoming ponies and set out to find each other.  Then another episode about going back to Equestria and stopping Discord once and for all?”

“Probably!  Or maybe a movie,” Bobby replies matter of factly.

“Alright.  So how does that help us?” I ask.  “Are the ManeSix going to come swooping out of nowhere and friendship cannon all these chaos spirits and rescue us?”

“Nah, I think we might be on our own for that one,” Bobby reasons.  “We're all just background ponies after all.  And you're just a supporting pony!  You've only got one line in the whole show!”

I heave a sigh.  “Bobby, there's more to our lives than what Twilight Sparkle happened to know about us at the time of her banishment.  You remember what your life back in Equestria was like, don't you?”

“Nope!” he replies cheerfully.  “All I remember of it was Discord's little curse poem and that's it!”

What.

What!

Why?

Why do I have to deal with my personality radically altering because of the addition of new memories?  Why do I have to deal with my mom viewing me as a different person but this guy doesn't?  Uuugh!  That isn't fair at all!  Maybe Discord just thought it would be funny to smoothie the divergent personalities of random victims together while leaving others intact.  Or... just completely replace human personalities with the old pony one's.  I might have really dodged the bullet, comparatively speaking.

I can almost hear that chimeric plot-face's nasally laughter.

Oh, wait.  No.  That's someone's cellphone coming from the front of the vehicle.

I strain my ears to hear the conversation, but the noise of traffic is drowning it out.  Doesn't help that Bobby just started singing the Smile song.  “Hey Bobby?”

“Yeah?” the stallion answers.

“How did the ManeSix fight the fear spirits in the show?” I ask.

“You mean you don't know?” he replies incredulously.

I heave another sigh.  This pony is kind of irritating.  “No, I didn't watch My Little Pony.  I saw maybe three episodes when it was airing.  And part of season one after all this insanity started.  I was a Transformers fan.  I've got a cat named Soundwave and everything.”

“So you were a neighsayer, then,” Bobby replies with some degree of edge to his tone.

I'm dead certain that 'naysayer' is a horse pun.  A terrible one.  But I'm going to try to ignore that.

“How I felt about a kid's show really isn't very important, Bobby.  I need to know how the ManeSix dealt with the fear spirits.  I managed to take one down back in Monterey, but it was a really nasty fight.  If there's any way to make it easier then I need to know about it,” I say.  Hopefully he'll recognize how important this information is.

“You probably aren't even happy about becoming a pony, are you?” Bobby snorts.

“Technically only my back half is a pony,” I point out as I give a slight shiver.  Is it just me or is it getting colder in here?  “Well, except my tail.  And my front half is kind of a mix of pony, lion, and eagle I guess?  But seriously, Bobby.  This doesn't matter.  I need to know-”

“Come on, admit it!  You weren't happy about becoming a pony!” Bobby yells.

By now I can feel frustration knotting up inside me.  The fact that my front legs are tied and I keep grinding my jaw on the bottom of my cage each time the vehicle bounces really isn't doing anything to improve my mood.  “No.  I was terrified and pretty upset when I first became a hippogriff,” I say.  “But once-”

“Ah ha!  I knew it!  You're a human lover!” Bobby spits.  “Ponies are way better than humans.  Humans are all just selfish and greedy and evil.  They're the worst thing that ever happened to this planet and it would be better if they were all gone.  Humans are just as bad as the evil creatures that were locked away in Tartaurus.  In fact Earth may as well be one giant awful mix of Tartaurus and the Everfree Forest considering how bad humans have made everything.”

By now my teeth are starting to chatter and I can see my breath.  Why is it so darn cold in here?

“Bobby, this isn't a good time for a misanthropic rant about the shortcomings of humanity,” I say.  I'm trying to keep the irritation I'm feeling from growing into something more insidious.  “I really need to know how the ManeSix deal with these monsters.  I have no idea when I might get a chance to act so the sooner I know what I'll need to do the better.”

“No way.  I'm not telling you anything, you human lover,” Bobby growls back.  “Not until you fully embrace poniness and renounce humanity.”

“I'm not renouncing humanity, I love my parents and my friends,” I reply.  “You're sounding absolutely irrational, Bobby.  You need to cool off a bit.”

“No!  I hate humans!  Humans are all evil monsters!”

Hate?

Wasn't that one of the spirits of chaos?

I hear a scraping, crackling noise like ice grinding against ice and Bobby falls silent.

“Hello?” I call out.  I'm met with only the sounds of traffic and whimpering ponies.

Great.  My one useful source of information isn't talking to me anymore.  And it still feels like a refrigerator in here.  I have the feeling that if I knew more about Pony this would somehow make sense.  Sadly my Pony-literacy is notoriously lacking.  If the world weren't in some form of immediate peril I would make a point of running a marathon of the whole series if only for educational purposes.

I'm not sure how long I sit there in the quiet, shivering and bouncing in my cage.  But it isn't all that much fun.  The monotony is the worst part.  Bobby Pin was irritating, but at least he was somepony to talk to.  Every time I feel like I'm going to nod off we hit another bump in the road and I'm jolted awake again.  This ride is even more miserable than the one with all the children.

The monotony is broken by the sound of our vehicle's tires exploding.  It swerves heavily for a few seconds before grinding to a stop.  I can hear people shouting up front and... is someone playing pop goes the weasel on a jack in the box?  The shouting redoubles and now I hear a chorus of pony battle cries.  More yelling and confusion and a few howls of pain.  The sounds of spells and crushing kicks and lightning bolts and even some gunfire.  And then singing.  Singing about laughter and friendship and how wonderful sharing and caring are.  There comes an ear splitting spectral wail followed by a hail of intense focus fire.  The ghostly keening fades away as though banished by the winds of friendship itself.  And lots of bullets.

A pair of mighty earth pony hooves smash against the back doors of the van, causing them to crumple inward with all the resistance of aluminum foil.  Then they're wrapped in the prismatic glow of several unicorn's magic and wrenched open.  Standing outside is a rainbow of ponies of all tribes.  And even several humans!  They're all wearing berets for some reason.  They begin dragging us out of the van and using bolt cutters to set us free.  As soon as my restraints are off somepony decides that it would be fun to shove a beret onto my head.

“Viva la resistance!” cheers a certain quirky white pegasus.

A huge grin spreads across my beak.  “Surprise!  You escaped!  How did you get all the way...” I pause and glance about at our arid surroundings.  “Wherever here is?”

“Hmmm...  It's a pretty long story,” Surprise says as she rubs her chin thoughtfully.  Then as an idea comes to her she snaps her hoof!  Somehow.  “I've got it!  I'll have a flashback!  It all started when I got caught by those mean grumpy ignory agent people...”

Surprise trails off and begins staring into space.

I glance over my should to see if she's looking at something behind me.  “Uh, Surprise?”

No reply.

“Surprise?”

Nothing.

“Surprise!”

“I didn't eat Birthday Party's whole cake I promise!” Surprise yelps.  She blinks heavily and glances around.  “Aww...  The flashback didn't work.  Here!  Let me try again!  Ahem!”

“It all started when I got caught by those mean grumpy ignory agent people...”


~~~~~