"SO!" asked Zegram as the group awaited their train. "Head any better?"
"Ugh" muttered Twilight as she tended to her tender head with a deceptively soft hoof. Pony anatomy was still a mystery to Zegram, as was the feeling that of the now three fuckwits, he was the only one wondering about such quirks. Dingo had her excuse though, as she was lacking the couple days' experience that he and Lemon had.
"No, sadly. It's still throbbing, but I think I have a handle on it now. Look, I'm sorry for snapping at you two like that. None of us had any clue that you would get...morphed like this. Thank Celestia that things didn't go even more south though, right?" she remarked, wallowing in her embarrassment.
"Hey c'mon, it's fine. Everyone gets cranky with a nasty headache." he responded, casually waving away the tension.
"Everypony" added the scholar.
"No." was his curt response. It was kinder than the fuck you sparkle butt ringing in his head.
Though there were only 13 of them, the group was effectively a crowd all on it's own on the train platform, and Zegram broke away from Twilight in search of Dingo, feeling there was most certainly a mess to discuss. He only made a few steps before he was intercepted by a certain prismatic personality, who thudded down abruptly before him.
"Hey!" Rainbow chirped at him, before adopting a softer composure. "Yeah uhm, sorry about your wings. I'd be lost without mine." she said, in what she thought was a comforting common-ground admission.
"Aaah it's fine" dismissed Zegram. "Never been a big fan of heights in the first place. I've been an earthbound creature most of my life, I think I can manage a return to status quo."
"Wh-huh?" puzzled Rainbow, not only at his verbose ramble. "Nevermind. Listen, I uh...I need your help with something." she told him.
"And what would that be?"
"I need you to uhm, I want you to set me up with your friend." she said, with a nervous whip of her tail.
Zegram could do little but stare at her. Her nerves only climbed, and the resulting reaction form Zegram was not very encouraging, as he erupted into a hearty laugh.
He even fell over.
"HAHAHAhahoo, I dontHAHA I dont think she'd be into thaHAHAAAT" he managed, catching his breath as quick as he spent it.
"No I meant the oth-wait, you know?" she asked, now perplexed. "Who told you?" she demanded.
Unfortunately, Zegram had come to identify one overall problem in Equestria whenever it's denizens attempted something other than relaxed diplomacy.
A creature like Rainbow Dash trying to intimidate him into confessing the source of his knowledge was far too adorable in it's own right, and under the current circumstances it was too hilarious, and so the only response Rainbow got to her grilling was renewed laughter. She even tried her most impressive wing flare and everything.
However, the comedy of the situation was dampened slightly when Rainbow adopted a pleading attitude.
"C'mon, just help me out with this. It'll be awesome, a-and I could do you a favour back!"
This was a surprise to him, and the sobering notion allowed him the control to compose himself. Mostly.
"Dash, I..." he said, without making the face.
"I don't think you understand what I meant by that."
"Well what DID you mean then?" she asked, impatient with him.
"Listen, if you were a chicken, aand you found yourself in a world of say, goats, and you became a goat, would you at any point want to have sex with a goat? Sure you're a goat now but you were always a chicken, and you would likely prefer chickens. Ya get me?"
Apparently she got it, because Zegram could see the moment the gears turned and Rainbow's body sagged some.
"Pony feathers!" she muttered, dejected. "She's so ho-"
"THEN AGAIN!" Zegram chirped, silently surprised that he had just made that sound. There were still questions in his mind about things like pony language and how he was understanding sounds that certainly did not match up with his ideas of language. But aside from that, his chirping perked her up.
"She DID mention something about being like, omnisexual." he said. Rainbow knew not what it meant, but it sounded promising.
"What's that mean?" she asked, hopefully.
"Means she'd fuck anything" he replied, rather casually.
"Fuck?" said Rainbow, tilting her head like a confused dog.
"Sssssex" was his bemused and partially-sarcastic response.
"But Applejack sai-"
"YOU KNOW WHAT NEVERMIND! I'll see what I can do."
"YESSS!" hissed Rainbow as she hoofpumped "You're awesome dude!" she said, as she turned and headed back through the crowd, likely to prepare for a date.
"I ain't gonna do a damn thing" Zegram muttered to himself.
================================================================================
Life was boring for the spirit of Chaos. Discord, a being almost entirely dependent on surprises and fun, was not enjoying his term in the land of harmonious order.
He even hated the word order.
Ever since he was reformed, Discord had actually managed to spread a decent amount of chaos without incurring the wrath of the skittles canon.
1000 years to learn that lesson. No wonder Celestia sent Twilight Sparkle somewhere else to learn about it, she was terrible at teaching friendship lessons.
Nothing new had happened in such a long time (Except for his plunder vines finally growing, now THAT had been funny), and for a while it seemed like not much would.
But then something even Discord didn't anticipate. Humans breached the void and entered this universe. Actual, live humans. But they weren't humans, not currently. A universe so harmonious and ordered wouldn't allow that. Even Discord wasn't capable of existing in his most truest incarnation here. The humans had been reconfigured into ponies, by the universe of ponies which they had entered.
That alone was funny enough, but then the ex-humans would prove to be highly amusing in their own rights, and that was just golden.
The Yellow one. He seemed easy-going enough and it was not hard to tell that he was thoroughly enjoying most of the experience that was Equestria. There was an underlying madness within this one that Discord was particularly interested in, but it was buried under layers of learned control and prohibitive alcoholism. Discord had wrestled with the idea of simply unlocking him by using his ever unbeatable powers to simply infuse the creature's blood with alcohol, but it seemed too easy, and the genuinely reformed part of him argued that it would even be somewhat villainous. Soon enough Discord reasoned with himself that this one's quest to acquire drink would be entertaining by itself, and the following drunken antics just an afterthought bonus.
That and he was actually a fun fellow, with good ideas for relatively harmless pranks. The inner chaos of the yellow one was promising.
Then there was the Orange one. Now there was an enigma. Lacking the writhing scribble of a mess that was his friend's buried madness, this one had a burning fire of pure insanity burning in him, but it was a slow burn. Embers of an entire sun of madness. This one had not a coiled beast of fun to be let out, but he had a lot of fuel to keep it alive. And fuel could always be consumed quicker, if something were to set it off. Discord regarded him mostly as a ticking timebomb, but what the explosion would bring about was a mystery, for his mind was all together difficult to read.
His thoughts were easy enough, sure. At first this one was curious and engaged, before he became bogged down with reasoning and the desire to discover answers to questions. At that point Discord had regarded him as a boring soppy bookworm like the newly crowned Princess, but there was still that ember which kept his notice. It's promise was far too great. It had the makings of a new era of chaos within this one, but the control was far too strong. Unlike the yellow one, this one's control was built into his being, and his concern for getting home was a very overbearing thought that kept his madness at bay.
There was also the desire he had that the yellow one did not. As entertaining and chaotic as the yellow one would be, this orange one had a genuine desire to really screw with the minds of ponies, and Discord admired that, for it reminded him of himself.
They were working to find a way to leave this place, and Discord aimed to oppose this. He couldn't bear the thought of these two fun-seekers just leaving.
So he set up a little goose-chase, as it were. Afterall, these two had expressed a desire to tour Equestria, and this plan would set about granting them just that. The orange one, the reasonable one, had a very real concern that he might not make it back home, and Discord sympathized, but he had that covered. Of that he was certain.
And so the stage was set, and Discord could sit back and enjoy the chaos that these two were spreading, both intentionally and not.
But they were growing accustomed to things, and the influence of those element-bearers was bogging them down and making them boring. Left to their own devices these two would bounce their respective chaotic features off eachother and spread all wonderous kinds of amusement, and it was this thought that gave Discord a genius idea.
Throw another one into the mix!
All he had to do was use incredibly unpredictible magic to reach across space, time, and a Dennys to pull another being from another plane of existence, sit it down right in front of an abomination woven from other animals, and explain that he just wants to have some fun.
'This is one of those times chaos magic really sucks' Discord thought to himself, though he'd never admit that to ANYTHING.
So Discord had to use a more orderly spell.
Using the faint traces of magic that the 2 gave off, he could pull something with a similar type of resonance from their universe to him.
Though that was a curious thing, that they gave off something similar to chaos magic,without it being exactly that. Likely it was simply their being out of place both in location and state of being.
But, now is not the time for Discord to think about the logical.
Now was the time for fun.
================================================================================
"So how far around the world do you reach?" Lemon inquired
"Like, this far, dude." Replied the grass
"Yeheheeaaah, rock on man"
The newly acquired earth-pony talents of communicating directly and literally with nature were certainly being put to good use. Lemon had managed to discover that the grass, spanning as far as it did across this land, was infact high as all manner of kite.
Over to the side, Rarity and Applejack were staring at him with disconcertion.
"Is... Is he completely mad or is he actually talking to the grass?" Asked Rarity
"Ahm gonna hafta say both, Sugarcube." said Applejack
A clumsy thud on the ground announced the arrival of Dingo, who had been struggling with walking upright, given that she was still new to her evidently volatile form. From Human to winged horse to flightless horse in a single day, she had decided to simply refuse the changes. It wasn't working.
Toppling over did give her a moment to notice things however.
Dingo looked upon Lemon and said "...Where did he get weed?"
"Weed?" was his response, as he perked up.
"What?" said a weed.
"The fuck're you doing man?" she asked the green and yellow fuckwit.
"Ta-uh talking to the grass." he deadpanned.
"Wh-...why?"
At this point he stood up fully, and closed the gap so as to whisper into her ear, which immediately whapped him on the nose as he began whispering.
"Being an earth pony is boooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiing."
He backed up, no longer able to take the vicious assault to his face that her ear was giving him.
"I can run for longer and talk to plants, whoop de doo, I'm a shittier version of Aqua Man!"
"Hey c'mon now." she said to him, smirking a little. "Aquaman's not that ba-GHRK! Sorry, sorry. Ahem. He's not that baANOPE! Can't -snrk!- say it and not -snrk!- laugh." she said, struggling to keep a straight face.
Their little repartee was interrupted by the arrival of Zegram, who had found his target.
"SO! Dingo!"
"Yes?"
"Yes?"
"Quiet, you're not Dingo."
"Fine"
"What'd you want Zegram?"
"What's with you being here? People don't just show up here for no reason." he said to her, bluntly.
Dingo tried to scan the environs for some kind of escape.
Applejack and Big Mac were huddled with Braeburn, hats off and solemn faces. Fluttershy was nannying the crusaders, who were contented with literally running around her in a circle, and Twilight was discussing magic with Rarity. Pinkie was sitting, unnervingly calm, clutching onto the sack that the artifact had been put into. She was rocking slowly, but the look on her face said vigilance, not disturbed. She was clearly on guard duty.
"Y-yeah" she stammered. "That doesn't just happen I guess."
Trying to back away without actually moving, Dingo straightened up and tried a new ploy.
"How'd YOU guys get here anyways?" she asked.
"I won the lottery!" offered Lemon, and received a blank stare in response.
"What? I DID!"
"It's true. He got fucktons of money, bought a moonrock, I went with him to collect it 'cause plot device, and the rock did a thing." explained Zegram, theatrically wafting his hooves through the air.
"So basically we hung out with Luna for a day and then when she went home we kinda followed her 'cause we were thinking why the fuck not, we have rock."
"You lucky fucks" Dingo interjected.
"I miss rock" grumbled Lemon.
"Only when we stepped through we mutated, which fucking hurt by the way, aaaand then the rock just exploded. Just like fuckin' that."
"Poof" whined Lemon, morose at the memory of rock.
The poof was clearly a signal, for at that moment, the train arrived rather abruptly at the station. Upon it's arrival, Twilight had already rounded up the rest of the group, ready to board. She approached the fuckwits thus.
"Well we're ready to head back to Ponyville now. You three best get aboard."
"Ponyville?" asked fuckwit du jour. "We were headed to The Crystal Empire we thought."
"We are, but we'll be stopping back at Ponyville first. It's a long trip and I need Spike to send my correspondence to Cadance before we arrive. Plus, we're likely to need extra supplies. The Crystal Empire is a cold place you know. Oh, who am I kidding, ofcourse you know!" said Twilight, casually disregrding the fact that the lives of her and her friends had been the subject of infantile observation as fictitious writings.
And so it was that Applejack and Big Mac said their goodbyes to Braeburn, who in turn told them that the funeral would be a week from then, as Rarity and Rainbow Dash helped Fluttershy herd the fillies aboard. Pinkie climbed aboard with the artifact safely stowed away in her hammerspace mane, glancing around in a suspicious manner to root out suspicious behaviour, whilst Twilight and the fuckwits simply boarded like adults.
Except for Lemon, who was caught staring into space and slammed his muzzle into the doorway.
Aboard the train, The three fuckskateers and the mane 6 were gathered in one cart, and the fillies and Big Mac were left in the neighbouring one, no doubt getting up to all kinds of silliness.
Being the entourage of a Princess had it's perks.
"So." Dingo hashed out, rubbing her hooves together nervously. "Where to start."
She was put off slightly by the fact that the six faces of cartoon characters she knew were now staring her in the face intently, awaiting her world-class storytelling.
"So basically, these two-" she motioned toward Zegram and Lemon, who were oblivious as they quietly argued amongst themselves and occasionally blew raspberries at eachother
"-and I are from the same world. Or universe. I think. Sometimes I wonder but I'm pretty sure we're form the same place.
"Awfully convenient, isn't it." commented Rarity, in that high-society faux-sarcasm tone that only she would even dare adopt.
Stow it thought Dingo, but bit her tongue. Literally, chomp.
Dingo, the human, had experienced a rotten day. The events of the day were on par, but a single event therein had ruined the whole affair, and so a rotten day was had.
An uneventful and routine morning gave no forewarning of the events to come, so as Dingo arrived at her workplace only to find a pair of co-workers sprinting by and screaming, she had nothing by way of preparation.
That... That's not a happy thing. She thought to herself as she took it upon herself to investigate, a cursory glance in the direction they had run from. What she discovered gave her a start and the forefront of her mind decided that her co-workers had the right idea, and she joined in their panic.
Standing outside the gooey remains of her place of employment, Dingo ruminated on what had just happened. The pair of geniuses had gotten it into their heads to stuff marshmallow peeps into the break-room microwave, for the purposes of delicious science and discovery. What they discovered instead was that this gave the peeps the bright idea to expand. And expand some more. And to not stop expanding until their marshmallowey goodness encompassed the entirety of the store's interior in a solid mass of burning goop.
Since a solid object, made of lava-hot marshmallow was not a fit place of employment, the employees were all suddenly without work.
The walk home was an angry one. And an astounded one, considering she'd had no idea peeps were capable of such a destructive transformation. Microwaves were a weird and dangerous science, to be sure. She decided then, that to soothe her temper at the unfortunate circumstance, she would attempt art. Why she thought art would be a salve to the savage heat of anger is anyone's guess.
Her decision was inspired. The unpredictable chaos of the peeps expansion gave her thoughts of Discord, the mis-matched creature of fun from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Not being a talentless reject, a picture was drawn, and the colours began being added. About halfway through, as Dingo fussed with the shade of pink for his tail, when he felt it necessary to comment.
"It's actually a shade lighter than that" he commented helpfully.
"Oh thanks" she replied, before realizing. The realization brought about screaming, at which point the computer she was sat at decided to bloom to a blinding light which sucked her in, tron-style.
It didn't stop when she landed infront of the laughing god in Fluttershy's back yard. It didn't stop when he explained what he was after, which was chiefly entertainment. It did stop however, when he mentioned The Humans.
"Lemon and Zegram, they are called. I think you would like them."
"THOSE TWO ARE HERE!?"
"Oh! You know them?"
The plot had indeed thickened.
"Ye-uh, yeah. Yeah they're my friends."
"Oh now that is interesting. Those two are forging quite the epic tale in their wake. Perhaps you want to be included?"
"S-uh...sure."
"Excellent!" at which point the Dragonequus snapped his finger and the human girl was instantly replaced by a bright red pegasus mare, decked out with a two-tone mane and a very fetching collar-wristband set.
"Now get to your place! The show begins soon!" he said excitedly, and with another snap, Dingo found herself in the middle of Appleoosa. Or above it, at any rate. Sat on a cloud, she frightfully glided down to the ground and hit the Appleoosa dirt with a thud.
================================================================================
"Aaand now im here." ended Dingo. The others had continued to listen intently, chiming in now and again with remarks and little questions.
Twilight Sparkle on the other hand, had stopped listening the second Discord had been revealed to be the culprit. It wasn't that she didn't care, its that she needed the time to think of how she was going to do horrible things to the Annoying Draconequus.
"-Gonna use a Melon Baller to scoop his eyes out-"
"Twilight?" said Applejack, trying to snap the mare out of it
"-Throw his hot ash into a lake and then POISON the lake-"
"Twilight." said AJ, a little louder
"-And then when that box gets to me ILL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!"
"Twilight!" AJ shouted into Twilights ear, startling the mare and snapping her out of her ranting.
This brought her out of it, and she decided to excuse herself from the car with an embarrassed chuckle and a flash-poof.
Zegram however, was Confused.
"How...How do Peeps just gain enough mass to-" he started, but was cut off as Lemon put a hoof onto his muzzle. "Ssshh, dont think about it" said Lemon.
"But-"
But the second interruption was from Lemon's face being pressed against his. The angle was a few degrees off from a kiss, but nevertheless the situation was still highly awkward and confusing.
"SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH"
================================================================================
"I dont think you can."
"I can and I will!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yeah-huh!"
Zegram had moved himself to the other train car, wherein the fillies were driving Big Mac's legendarily calm demeanor to it's limit.
He had chosen to volunteer himself to take a shift of babysitting for two important reasons.
The first was obvious. He had experience with children, and under the current circumstances of the car behind him it was a welcome option compared to sitting in a room listening to ponies girl-talk. Though he had experience with girl-talk, it was certainly the greater of two evils.
Dingo had stayed behind to get better acquainted with ponies she had previously thought fictional, resulting in the girl-talk. This caught Lemon's ire, who was not a fan of being the only hot-dog at a clam party, as it were, and he took it upon himself to get to snooping around the train.
The second reason for Zegram's volunteering only made itself evident when he entered the car.
Big Mac was so very done. His eyes begged for relief the likes of which would usually be found in one of six revolving chambers. It was a look known only to those who had themselves reached that precipice of breaking down. Pitying the poor red goliath, Zegram relieved him of his post with a nod, and received a quick and grateful nod in return, as the worn out stallion lumbered away from the the little ones.
Big Brothers look out for one-another.
Thus, Zegram found himself holding a ball aloft, as three little fillies adorably hopped impotently up and down in an attempt to wrest it from his grasp. It was Scootaloo's ball, that she had brought along for the trip, which had resulted in a game of catch, followed by a game of keep-away, only to end in Zegram's declaration, in a moment of utter silliness, that it could not be taken from him.
"NUH-UH!" he taunted, as the three fillies tried to overpower him with their little tackles, which felt to him like being pelted with large cotton puffs. Lemon was nowhere to be seen at this time and had he been there he would have staunchly refused to get involved. Children were not exactly his forté.
Eventually, he had succumbed to the relentless assault, and feigning defeat, slumped over to the ground, dropping the ball. Scootaloo and Applebloom had him pinned as Sweetiebelle retrieved the ball, much to his faux-ire.
"No! My evil plan to save the world is ruined!" he cried dramatically, causing the fillies to fall over giggling.
====
As the train pulled up to town, the group piled out. Applejack took a casual glance about her, only to have her attention caught.
"Uh, Sugarcube?" she asked Zegram and his new accessory. "Why's lil' Scootaloo sittin' up on yer head?"
"Why this is Scootahat" he deadpanned as the little filly sat, dignified, atop his head. Applejack simply stared at him.
"This was decided by the Cutie Mark Council." said Zegram, the CMC nodding in agreement. "It's a very serious thing, Sis" said Apple bloom in confirmation of this democratic decision.
"Uh...Huh." Said Applejack. "I'mma go ask Twilight what stuff ah should bring with us." Applejack said, walking away.
Zegram and his not-at-all-silly adornment approached the unsuspecting Rainbow Dash instead, and exchanged glances. "Okay ready?" He said. Scootaloo nodded. "Alright, 3 2 1..."
"SCOOTAHAT TRANSFER!" they both yelled right behind Rainbow Dash, startling her just as she felt a sudden weight on her head. She looked up to see Scootaloo perched on her head and waving at her. "Hi, Rainbow!" Scootaloo said excitedly, as Dash chuckled at the adorableness.
"Okay, Squirt, its time to hop down." Scootaloo frowned at this and declared her refusal.
"I cant Rainbow Dash, I'm a hat until stated otherwise."
Confused for just a moment, Rainbow decided to play along.
"Hmm... I should go ask Rarity if it 'matches my mane'" Rainbow said in her best canterlot accent, getting a laugh out of Scootaloo. The rest of the CMC followed Rainbow to Rarity's boutique.
The rest of the Fuckwits met up in town. "Alright, What do we do now?" asked Zegram.
"I WANNA LOOK AROUND!" Dingo exclaimed excitedly
"Someone's not aware of just how remote and country this place is yet." said Zegram sourly, recalling the boring disappointment of his own first tour of the town.
"You know..." said Lemon apprehensively. "Maaaybe we should stick to somepony? We don't actually need anyone to know we're humans."
Zegram spun around to look Lemon in the eyes. "Oh what, is Lyra gonna just so happen to be around to hear us admit that we're human and That is happening right now isnt it?"
"Uhh. Yeaaah." Said Bon Bon, looking confused while standing next to an incredibly Excited looking Lyra.
"Shit." said Lemon and Zegram at the same time.