“Oh wow! So this Earth! It’s even more strange that Celestia said it would be!” Pinkie Pie was jumping around David’s kitchen. David and his mum could only look on in pure disarray at the pink pony that had teleported into their house. “Hmm, then again, a pink talking pony must seem pretty strange to you.” Her attention was now back on David and his mum. “That was hilarious how you got me here, I would have never thought of making potatoes grow like that!” The floor of David’s kitchen was now covered in potato plants that had grown without water or soil.
“I...uh...” David didn’t know what to say, “did... did I break the fourth wall?”
“What?” Pinkie gave him a confused look, “No, you just helped stabilize an quantum-thaumatic einstein-rosen bridge silly!”
“A...a what?”
“Oh yeah, guess that would be a little hard to explain, it’s like that show you watch here with the guy and the police box, ya know, the one you all thought was in Equestria as well?”
“D-david?” his mum was completely flabergasted, “w-what’s going on?”
“I...I think I summoned Pinkie Pie.”
“What is a Pinkie Pie?”
“I am!” Pinkie got right in his mum’s face.
“Ahh!” She screamed as she fell back.
“Oh wow, you humans are hilarious! This is gonna be a piece of cake!”
“What is?” David nervously asked.
“Getting you to use your element of course!”
“My what?!”
“This thing!” Pinkie pointed at the necklace draped around her neck. “Actually, I should probably give it to you.” She took off the necklace and handed it over to David.
David could only stare in confusion at the jewelry. “What...what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Use it, duh, at least that's what the Princess said.”
“How?” David took the jewelry and fiddled it around in his hooves.
“Well...hmm,” Pinkie raised, “it took Twilight’s spark to get them to work for us, but... Oh! I know! Make me laugh!”
“W-what?”
“You sure like saying that word a lot, is that something humans do? Say ‘what’ a bunch of times?”
“Please!” David held out a hoof in front of her face, “can you please just slow down and try to explain things to me?”
“Oh yeah, guess this is a little confusing and all... hey, that’s right I don’t even know your name! It’d be kinda weird to just call you human-pony.” She held out a hoof to shake.
“I...I’m David Muller.” He stretched out a hoof meet hers, and she vigorously shook it.
“Nice to meet you David, I’m Pinkie Pie! But you probably already knew that.”
“So...” he looked at the necklace that had fallen on the ground in the confusion, “I have to use that?”
“Yeah, I’m here, so that means you’re good at making everypony laugh!”
“I mean, I can crack a few jokes at the pub with my mates, but I don’t think I could represent laughter.”
“Oh don’t give up, it’s just like my granny used to say, ‘ya just gotta laugh!’”
“I...” David put a hoof to his head to steady himself, “I think I need a drink.”
“Oooh, ya got any cider? Trans-dimensional travel can make you thirsty.”
“I’ll...” David’s mum searched for something to say, “I’ll make some tea, it’ll help calm everything down. Um, David? Why don’t you and our guest go watch the Telly and talk. You...you probably can handle this better than I can.” David knew that was his cue to leave the kitchen with Pinkie, his mum couldn’t take much more.
The two Earth Ponies trotted into the living room. On the Telly, the news anchors were literally scrabbling to get live coverage of events around the world. Right now, they were showing four separate feeds of Berlin, Shanghai, Jerusalem, and New Delhi: the structures of the buildings in the feeds varied, but David guessed they were showing government buildings. All four buildings had riot police deployed to defend the brown boxes that had materialized by the buildings.
“Oh wow!” Pinkie commented, “So this is the TV thing Celestia was talking about. Hmm, wish everypony would stop fighting like that though, the Princess said there was enough for everypony.”
“Trust me, that’s not bad rioting, I’ve seen worse at football matches,” David commentated, but then he remembered that he was talking Pinkie Pie and the surrealness of the situation flooded back on him. “You... are you really Pinkie Pie?”
With a single hoof, she somehow managed to pull her pink, fluffy hair down and look at it; then she looked at the three balloons on her flank, “Pretty sure I’m Pin- OH! You mean TV Pinkie. Well, I mean, I’m kinda like her, but it’s not like I can touch the edge of a screen and my hoof will pop out on the other edge. That’d just be silly in reality. Ooh, or making everypony sing and dance perfectly, I mean I do that by myself all the time, but there’s no way I’d ever get everypony to sing and dance like TV me does. But other than that, Celestia said you got stuff pretty close to the truth."
“Oh, um, I see.”
“You ok?”
“It...it’s just been an odd couple of days, ya know? I mean, just a week ago I was walking on two legs and hanging with my mates at school. Now, I’m a horse-”
“Pony!”
“Um, pony, that can make plants pop out of nothing and now I’m talking to somepony who I thought was a cartoon. It’s a little confusing.”
“Like being spun around really fast while you’re trying to hold your breath?”
“Um, yeah, I think.”
“Well, don’t worry, we’re all here now to help you with the elements!” She smiled at David, he could almost feel the energy flowing of her.
“Wait, so if you’re here does that me-”
“We now go live to Buckingham Palace,” a new reporter interrupted David, “where Her Majesty will address the kingdom.” The camera switched to a live feed of the palace, but the Queen wasn’t in sight yet.
“Oooh, you have a monarch too? Yay! I got th-”
“Shh!” David’s attention was fully on the screen.
“My people!” came the Queen’s voice, “As you have just heard, our kingdom, nay, our planet stands on the brink of collapse. But we are the United Kingdom! We have withstood the tests of time, war, and natural disasters! Now we must remain united!” An aged blue pegaus with a blue and white mane now slowly trotted in front of the cameras, she had the Queen’s voice. “As monarch, I am a representative of my people to the Lord and to the world. Therefore, I ask you, as my subjects, to stand firm in human spirit, while entering this brave new world as the great explorers of old did!” The Queen flared up her wings in a grand gesture.
“Oh my lord! Her Majesty’s a pegasus!” David swore he felt his heart miss a beat.
“Right now,” the Queen continued “I, along with the Prime Minster, have deployed our royal and military forces to secure and distribute the potion in an orderly fashion. We of the United Kingdom are a noble people and I ask that we all act noble now as well. With that said, I issue a royal decree that all my subjects go to the nearest major city and get converted. We will show the world our unity in our effort to preserve the human race!”
The screen returned to the news anchor, the director actually had to tell him to pull it together to snap him out of his shock. “Ladies and gentlemen, her majesty has evidently taken the, er, pony potion and has now issued a royal decree to take the pony potion as soon as possible. In... are we really saying that? In light of these events, the BBC will be canceling all other programs to cover the Equestria crisis. It has also come to our attention, that maintaining operation of the BBC may... may no longer be possible once the nation has reached 100% conversion.” The news anchor had a nervous look in his eye and was sweating profusely as he spoke. “B-but, in honor of Her Majesty’s choice, we and our other networks will now be playing our national anthem before continuing our coverage of these events.”
David’s mouth hung open in shock.
“You ok?” Pinkie asked. She waved a hoof in front of David, but got no reaction. He’d pretty much gone catatonic. “Hello, Mr. Muller?” she sang the question. “Oh no, did the TV break your mind? Oh Celestia warmed me about that!” She got up and instantly bucked the Telly. That snapped David out of his stupor.
“Huh, what?!”
“Ok, good you’re back, thought I’d lost ya there for a second.”
“David?” David’s mum walked back into the room and dropped the tea when she saw the broken Telly. “What...what happened in here?!”
“Mum,” David slowly turned over to her, “mum, Her Majesty is now a pony.”
His mum brought her hands to her mouth, “Oh my lord! What did she say?!”
“Just to get converted.”
“But she also looked pretty good for an old pegasus!” Pinkie chimed in.
“Then... then where is that stuff you brought home?” His mum asked.
“Mum... you’re not gonna...” David was nervous.
“Her Majesty ordered it. Besides, I think the streets are about to get more loopy than they are on New Years.” As she talked, she went into the kitchen pulled out the still-full pint of potion. “Anything special I should know about this?”
“Just that you need to take three ounces and that the flavor is apparently awful,” Pinkie smiled at the prospect of another pony. “Oooh, I wonder what type you’ll be.”
“Don’t really care whether I’ve got wings, or a horn, or whatever. I just want to be with my son.” As she spoke she poured the drink into a shot glass. It had been David’s father’s. David hadn’t seen it out of the cupboard since his father had passed away.
“Now when you drink it, you might wanna-” David’s mum downed the potion as Pinkie was talking. David barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground. “-lay down.” David backed away from her as her skin turned white.
“Is...is she gonna be alright?” David asked Pinkie.
“She’ll be fine, we might wanna wait in the other room though, I heard it’s not pretty to watch.” As Pinkie spoke, her left forehoof bent oddly to touch her neck. “Plus, I think we’re gonna have company in a few seconds.”
“What do yo-” David was cut off by a blinding flash.