After the door closed behind us, I decided to take a moment and revel in the joys of being outside as a pony. The not-so-clean smelling air, the cool wind brushing into my fur, and through my wing feathers, forcing them to flutter, the cold ground beneath my hooves...and the dirt...
"Well shit, another thing I'll have to get use to is dirty hooves since I was that 'always wanted to be clean' type as a human. But I really should stop thinking of the cons, I'm a freaking pony for celestia's sake! I should be happy." But overall, I suddenly felt like galloping.
I looked over at Thunderlane and grinned. "Hey, wanna gallop to the bus stop instead? I just feel the need to run, plus I can get more exercise this way."
He nodded. "Sure, I wanna see how well I do." And got into a ready position.
On the count of three ... one... two... THREE! We galloped off, leaving a slight dust trail behind us. I'll tell you, running as ponies felt amazing. The thundering clop of our hooves pounding the ground, as well as the wind rushing through our manes and tails. I had a big smile on my face, shouting out. "This is the greatest few minutes being outside as ponies ever!"
Turning the corner and about halfway to the bus stop we slowed to a stop. Why? It was because a lady wearing jeans, a plain white shirt and sneakers was blocking our path. Sure, we can cross to the other side or just fly over her, if we trust our wings enough right now to make that happen. But what caught our attention was her facial expression which was probably one of the biggest grins I've ever seen and oh, the two pairs of collars and leashes in her hands. "This should be interesting." I muttered to Thunderlane, pupils shrinking slightly between the two of us.
"Hello...my cute little ponies." Her grin turned into a smirk.
"Um, hello... person who I've never seen before. How can we uh, help you?" I said awkwardly.
"You can help becoming my pet ponies." She gave us a wink. "Thunderclap and Thunderlane, or should I say Victor and William?"
My mind could only come up with one word at that moment; "What?"
She continued. "When I found out that the both of you became ponies from that show, I just knew that my dream would finally come true to have pet ponies. Also, don't try anything funny, because I know where you live."
"Wait, how can you possibly know ahead of time that we were ponies? For that matter, how the hell do you even know where we live, when we're just seeing you for the first time. Plus, you don't even really know who we were before we became ponies in the first place! And knowing our names is just plain freaky for someone we only met now." Thunderlane shouted with some annoyance and confusion.
"Would it help if I said that I was stalking you two, and that I was mysterious like that?" She smiled sheepishly.
A round of facehooves was met with that answer. "Great..." I groaned. "Why am I not surprised? Listen, as much as you really want us to be your pets, we will have to decline. We really have somewhere to go, so could you please move?"
She didn't move an inch, and continued to stare down at the both of us, "Stop acting like that, and come with me." Oh, she was determined.
"Please, if anything I rather be Thunderlane's pet, since we're together....." At that moment I noticed the first bus leave from the stop. "Shit... thirteen minutes went by that fast?"
My right eye twitched.
"Uh-oh you've done it now." Thunderlane said backing up slightly.
"Hmm?" The lady looked down at Thunderlane, "Done what?"
I instantly shot up into the air not really thinking about that I was actually flying in that moment hovering in front of her touching my snout with her nose with anger clearly on my face and nervousness on hers.
"Now listen here you little shit, we were trying to be nice to you and decline because we're not interested, but of course you don't get it! And now we missed the bus!" I snorted and flicked my tail. "But today is your lucky day, because we decided to leave early to make sure if something were to happen because we somehow became ponies, we can get lucky with the next bus to make sure we still have time to catch the connecting bus to Toys R' Us fifty minutes from now."
I slowly moved my hoof up and down across her cheek, smiling with an innocent smile which slighty comforted her. "Just something else you should keep in mind though." My face quickly turned into a glare. "The next time you waste our time and make us miss another bus, I will hurt you. Badly." My face then slowly turned into an evil grin. "I have yet to hit any human with these hooves, and I'm sure your face would look great with hoof prints all over it, so remember all of that and we're good, got that?"
She gulped and nodded.
"Good." I landed back down and looked over to Thunderlane. "Come on, lets go before we miss the next one." And trotted off noticing that us three attracted some attention with other people, voicing their surprise and excitement of seeing two ponies out of no where. It felt great to have better hearing.
"Coming!" Thunderlane shouted and hurry up to catch up.
"This isn't over my little ponies! I will have you as my pets, no matter what!"
"Yeah yeah, I would like to see you try." I swear I heard her do a cliche villain laugh after I said that.
"You know, Thunderclap," Thunderlane smiled and nuzzled me as we continued walking. "I'm glad we stopped, because that was interesting to watch and to know that you wanted to be my pet?"
I felt my cheeks burn with a noticeable red glow coming from my dark gray fur. "W-well yes, I mean last night I did say that tonight, after everything is over, you can have your way with me. And now that we're ponies, well...that changes things in a much sexier way now." I leaned over giving him a nuzzle and a kiss. "Plus, it will be fun being your pet...I really can't wait for tonight, it will be so much fun!"
"Damn right it will!" Thunderlane winked. "I crave to hear you squeak with that new deeper voice of yours!"
I laughed and shook my head. "I can only imagine all of the stuff you probably have planned for me later tonight."
Finally reaching the corner, we were stopped yet again with this time being two guys wearing slightly baggy pants, more sneakers and black shirts... typical, and looked like they were in their mid twenties, if I had to guess staring down at us with a look of hate.
"Oh great...here we go again." I rolled my eyes.
One of the men stepped forward, and crouched down to be at eye level with us. "What are you pony freaks doing here?"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me! We don't take kindly to ponies being in this area, even though you two are the only ponies we saw."
I tapped my chin with a hoof for a moment to think about what he just told me. "Okay, you do realize how stupid that made you sound? Unless of course the both of you knew about us ahead of time then I can understand..." "Then again Celestia said in the letter that the magic changed other things on our world so that would explain how some of these people would know already, but I also know that not everyone is aware of this, so it will be fun as time goes on."
The guy in front of us cracked his knuckles and his neck. "You calling me stupid?"
"So what if I am? I ain't afraid of you."
"Is that a challenge?"
"Maybe."
"Uh... Thunderclap." Thunderlane tapped me with a hoof to catch my attention. "There goes the next bus."
"Wait, what?" Looking behind the two guys I can see that in fact Thunderlane was right and there went the second bus. I pressed the button on my phone, only to see that somehow twenty more minutes had gone by and that the time was now nine twenty-eight. "How the hell did we just miss two buses?! And just how did twenty minutes go by so fast?!" To say that, I wanted to bash the two guys heads in would be an understatement. My patience was beginning to wear thin.
Thunderlane was sensing that I was getting annoyed now. "Hey, uh, guys? I think you should leave before you feel the wrath of Thunderclap."
Both of them still didn't leave, with the man in front of us raising an eyebrow. "Oh really? See I don't think you understand, you two aren't going anywhere until we teach you two a lesson for being in our area. Isn't that right Kurt?"
The guy in question who just stayed back to watch the whole scene nodded and grinned balling up his fists. "Damn right, Hunter, and I'm not afraid of what wrath a little pony might bring."
"This is getting stupid. I'm trying not to overreact here, but these two guys aren't giving me a choice...I just hope this Hunter guy is even stupider than I thought. Time to bring on the pain in the form of a hoof!"
Smiling with an 'innocent' smile, I was ready. "Oh Hunter! Can you come closer please?" Hunter turned back around to face me and got closer. "Ugh, what do you want, pony?"
"You should've listened to Thunderlane you wanna know why?"
"Why?"
I smirked.
BAM!
"OW, MY FUCKING BALLS!"
My hoof connected with his groin area so hard that, well, he fell down to the ground holding said area, screaming a bunch of expletives in pain. Kurt instantly cringed at the sight.
Walking up to Hunter, I punched him in the balls again, and felt satisfied at hearing him scream in pain, until it died down to whimpering a few minutes later.
"Ya know something Hunter, you should've listen to me and especially Thunderlane, because when I miss a bus over stupidity such as this, I get angry and this is the first time that I've reacted like this while being a pony. That lady before us got real lucky, but, it does prove something that I figured out while talking to you, and that is that you are really stupid! And you made us miss two of them somehow!"
Hunter only glared at me as I leaned down, my muzzle only an inch from his face. "Take this as a warning, if I find out that you and your buddy over there did anything to any other pony in the same way like you two were trying to do here with me and Thunderlane, I will find you and I will enjoy you being in agony as I think of ways to hurt your pride, so don't fuck with us!"
Hunter's glare instantly turned into fear and nodded.
"Good, I moved back and pointed a hoof at Kurt." And you! You got lucky today, but you better take that same warning I gave your buddy seriously, unless you don't care much for the equipment you have down there, because we ponies are here to stay, and more will appear so you better deal with it."
Kurt nodded quickly and helped Hunter up. "Come on man, let's get out of here! These ponies are scaring me."
"Yeah...sure...ow...those were really hard hits."
I smirked watching both of them leave, and hopefully never bother us again or any other human who might end up as a pony for that matter. Looking behind me, I noticed that we had attracted a small crowd of onlookers with faces showing mostly shock, seeing two ponies while the men had their hands around their private area, staring at us nervously.
Thunderlane and I waved at the crowd smiling sheepishly, "Don't mind us, we're just trying to get to Toys R' Us right now, and those other guys were trying to cause us problems."
"Yeah, and Thunderclap here punched one of them in the balls to teach him a lesson for making us miss buses."
"You're not helping Thunderlane!" I hissed. "We're suppose to be cute, not look more intimidating!"
"So?"
I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but that guy was asking for it. But now that the show is over, all of you can go about your business."
Everyone looked at each other before slowly leaving doing as told while me and Thunderlane quickly crossed the street to stand in front of the bus stop.
Looking at the phone again I noticed that we had about five minutes until the next bus comes.
Thunderlane nudged me. "Remind me to never be one of those reasons as to why you miss the bus."
I looked up and noticed that Thunderlane's expression was just like the others, 'fear'. I smiled and nuzzled him, hoping that I can comfort him some. "Don't worry, I love you so much that I just can't see myself hurting you because of that. Trust me, okay?"
Thunderlane nuzzled back. "You're such a softie sometimes, Thunderclap. And I feel better to hear you say that, so I'll trust you on that." Thunderlane backed up a bit and looked in the direction the bus would be coming. "Do you think we will get there in time?"
"I honestly hope so, I mean, I'm not in the mood to be waiting all day, and we only have two more chances to catch the bus here to catch the connecting one at either a minute after ten or at ten thirty-three. Then, after that, if we were to miss those two, then it would be almost forty more minutes until the next one. But, with the way the morning is going so far, we'll be lucky to even leave here..." I stared at my wings. "If only we could just fly there, as that would cut our time in half at best, but I rather not attempt long distance flying yet though. At least we can do short flight and hovering just fine."
"Don't worry, we'll get there, and oh, look, here comes the next bus!" Thunderlane said happily.
Looking over I could see that it was in fact coming, and on time what a rare moment that is. Noticing that it was coming pretty fast, I quickly stuck out my right hoof to signal the driver to stop, which he did. That's when I noticed he only stopped because the light turned red.
"Great... I guess he didn't see us. Come on Thunderlane, let's go around to the drivers side window and see if we can talk him into getting inside, we have at least ninety seconds until that light changes."
Trotting on over to the driver side of the bus, we both flapped our wings to hover right in front of the window, while I knocked on the sliding window with a hoof.
The driver looked over and instantly jumped in surprise, which would be hilarious were it not for the fact that I was kinda annoyed already, but, Thunderlane did laugh.
Quickly he opened his window as his surprise turned into curiosity, staring directly at us. "P-ponies? How...what? How is this even possible?"
"Good to see that your reaction is what we would expect. Now, we were humans just like you and well...we made wishes last night to be ponies after seeing some shooting stars and it came to be true so yeah, magic is real, so can we get on the bus? We got some shopping to do and look we even got our bus cards!" I showed him mines while Thunderlane showed his.
He bit his lip and looked behind him and fidgeted before looking back at us. "As much as I would like to, I'm pretty packed, so I'm very sorry."
And he was right, looking at the windows I can tell that it was full. I let out a sigh. "What about letting us stay on the roof of the bus?"
"I'm not comfortable with that happening."
I facehoofed. "So much for that... Fine just go, we have one more chance anyway." And flew back to the stop with Thunderlane right next to me.
The driver opened the door this time. "Hey, um... just what are your names? Pony names I mean, and I also have another question before I go."
"I'm Thunderclap and he's Thunderlane and alright, what is it? What's your name?"
"I'm James, Do you think I should be a pony?"
I shrugged. "Well James, It's up to you. Wanna live the life of a pony? Then go for it. Its fun, even though we haven't been having the type of morning we were hoping for, but I know once this gets out on a massive scale, a bunch of people will be up at night waiting for a shooting star to appear to make their wishes. It's all about the magic, and you should let your passengers know about that too because given time, more ponies will walk among humans and remember, it your choice and theirs, I'm not forcing you or anything."
"Alright, I will keep that in mind, thanks, oh! And also thanks for understanding my situation, I just hope you get to do what you two were planning." With that he closed the door, and drove off while we waved at the overly excited passengers.
"Well, at least he was nice enough, right Thunderlane?"
"Yep! And I bet he and most of the passengers were bronies." Thunderlane snorted. "Still, it sucks that almost 50 minutes passed and we only got as far as two blocks."
"Just the life of two ponies in a city full of humans, but there's still that third person Celestia mentioned in that letter and I can only wonder how he's handling it right now." I looked at the phone again. "Only a minute remains until the next one.
On cue the bus in question pulled out of the parking lot a block away... with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic wrapping advertising on it for some reason.
"Hey, Thunderlane?"
"Yeah, Thunderclap?"
"I think we will finally get on a bus!" I shouted happily.
The bus quickly pulled over and stopped in front of us with the door open, and I thought I heard squeeing from the guy driving it.
"Get on!"
We got on fast, showed our bus cards and sat down being greeted by a crowd of bronies as the driver pulled off. "Yep, that magic sure changed things alright. But, finally we can rest our hooves after standing for so long."
"Oh my gosh! I can't believe it! Ponies from Friendship is Magic are actually here in this city and are real! EEEEEE!!!" The woman that said it squealed in delight.
"Yeah, this is pretty unexpected." Another woman said.
"I'm just wondering how is this even possible." One of the guys spoke up.
"Well..." I smirked. "Believe it or not, we were humans just like all of you."
"What?!"
"No way?!"
"Impossibru!!"
"Oh it's very much true." I laughed. "And it's all because of shooting stars and making wishes with Luna and Celestia wanting to have fun after finding out somehow."
The first woman spoke up again. "Really, that's it? Well I know what I'm going to be doing tonight then." Everyone else nodded.
"Trust me, since all of you are fans, being a pony will be the best thing ever, and I know the princesses will just love granting them. Also, I'm sure almost everywhere on this planet will be filled with ponies once more people find out about this."
"You know..." Thunderlane took that moment to speak. "As happy as we are, I gotta wonder, what's with the pony advertising wrap on this bus?"
"Just advertising ponies is all."
"And did any of you really know that there were ponies around?"
"Not exactly... but our brony senses were tingling and we knew something was up and well, here we are!"
"Seems almost too legit." Thunderlane said raising an eyebrow.
"Well it's true, so can you come and sit with us so we don't have to keep standing? We just have so much more to ask!"
Thunderlane thought about it for a moment and nodded and flew to the back of the bus with everyone cheering and following after him.
I decided to take that moment and talk to the bus driver. "So, what's your name?"
"Josh, and it's nice to meet you, Thunderclap."
"Heh, likewise." Not really questioning how he knew that name. Then again, bronies know a lot of stuff. "So, you gonna join the herd if you know what I mean?"
"Damn right I am." Josh glanced back at me and winked. "Most of us dreamed of what it would be like being a pony, sure it might seem crazy but hey, it's what we choose to think am I right?"
"Right."
"And after hearing what you said and seeing you and Thunderlane in the flesh, we can now make those dreams a reality."
"Glad to know we helped you in that." I smirked.
"So where were you two headed anyway?"
"Oh just stopping at Toys R' Us and Hot Topic to buy some pony sets and some Vinyl Collectibles for our collections. We're stopping at downtown first to get on another bus to get to Toys R' Us to shop there, then fly over to the mall to Hot Topic after we do some flying practice."
"I see... how about I just take you straight to Toys R' Us instead?"
My eyes grew wide as a smile appeared on my face. "Really, you would do that for us?"
"Yes, indeed! You helped us with that information which bronies would find valuable, so I'm more than happy to help you out by doing that."
My face turned curious after that though, "Wait, don't you have work though? Even though I didn't see a destination listed on the screen with the route number."
"Oh, that." He waived dismissively. "Today is my day off, but I was still able to use one of the buses for an occasion just like this."
Odd, but good enough reason for me and I wasn't going to question it as I flew over to him and wrapped him in a hug, "Thank you, it really means a lot to us."
He smiled and hugged back, "Don't mention it."
-----------------------------
The rest of the trip went smoothly, with me enjoying the view after learning everyone's name, while everyone was around Thunderlane asking him more questions dealing with who he was before, to where he lives, but it was mostly pony related. I'm sure he was enjoying the attention a lot.
As the bus came to a stop in the parking lot of Toys R' Us that also has adjacent Big Lots store and an Ikea at the other end of the lot, the door opened and Thunderlane and I got off.
"Now, when you're done, call me with the number I gave you alright? All of us can come pick you up at the mall when you are finished with everything. As for us, we'll be around doing random things to kill time." The door closed, the bus driving away with us waving at our new fans.
I looked over at Thunderlane. "Finally, after everything, that lady, those two haters and all the fans, just everything, we are here at Toys R' Us. Now let's get this over with already, and see what kind of reactions we'll get once inside."
"Agreed."
And we both trotted up to the automatic sliding doors as it opened, walking inside.
