//------------------------------//
// Total Recall (Church) 
// Story: Stuck in a Rainbow 
// by theRedBrony 
//------------------------------//

Previously on Stuck…




Church and Spitfire are trapped in a room. Spitfire tries to get Church to see the bright side of being trapped in Rainbow Dash's body. The sun comes up and they escape, flying towards Ponyville. Before they make it, night falls, and they get caught in a freak storm. Church sucks at flying so he stumbles and falls.

Spitfire manages to catch him, and slow their descent until they hit the ground in the middle of a certain dark and mysterious forest. Wherein Church meets an old friend…






"Morgan?!"

"Hello Church." The familiar face smiles at me.

"Y-you know this thing?" Spitfire stammers.

"Yeah!" I answer. "He's my buddy! Man, Morgan, I can't tell you how nice it is to see a familiar face!"

"So that's what you humans look like? Ew…"

Only rolling my eyes at Spitfire's comment, I trot up to Morgan and ask, "What're you doing here pal?"

"Well, Church… it's about that actually. We have a little problem." He looks down and takes off his sunglasses, folds them, and pockets them.

Uh oh. Morgan taking off his shades? This is serious. "Oh?"

"Yeah," he sighs. "I know this might be a little hard to believe buddy, but I'm not actually here."

"Say what?"

"I'm not here. And neither are you."

"Heh heh. The hell are you talking about Morgan?"

"You're dreaming, Church. None of this is real."

…

"I FUCKING KNEW IT!"

"You're actually in some kind of coma–"

"I HAVE been spending too much time around fucking bronies! This is YOUR fault Morgan!"

"Uh–"

"Relax, I'm not mad, dude. I'm just glad you're here. Now how the hell do I wake up?"

"Well, um, the doctors tell me that you just need to be ready… to wake up. You need to let go of this dream reality you've invented."

Spitfire leans over and whispers in my ear, "Church, this sounds like a load of horseapples to me. You're not dreaming. I'm real, you're real, this is all very real."

Morgan continues, "All you have to do is prove to yourself that you're ready to let go."

"Ok, so what do I do?"

"Eat this flower." He holds up a blooming purple flower. "All you have to do is eat it, as a symbol of your desire to come back home. To come back to me. And your mother, she's worried sick about you, Church."

I am so ready for this crap to end. I reach out and grab the flower with my hoof.

"Church! What in Celestia's name are you doing? You don't just eat flowers from the Everfree Forest! It could be poisonous! I don't know who this guy is, but he's full of it. You're not dreaming. Don't fall for his ruse!"

I hold the flower up and look at it. It's a very pretty flower with round-ish purple petals. I look at Spitfire, then Morgan.

I think of Celestia. How she looked like she was ready to give up when her useless guard turned out to be a bad guy. The face of heartbreak when her sister turned evil. Again. And… how fucking pissed off she was when I told her to take a hike, so to speak. …I told her I'd be someone to lean on. A friend.

And I meant it.

But if this is all a dream… then does any of that matter? Bringing the flower up to my nose, I take a whiff. It smells like honey and leaves. It brings to mind the image of drinking tea with honey in the middle of a flower garden. I take another whiff, this time of the air around me. Dank forest and fresh rain, mixed with a tiny whiff of my own horsey body odor.

"Church," Spitfire begs, "what are you doing?! Put that down!"

I don't remember ever smelling things so vividly in a dream. In fact… all this, the sights, the smells, the pain, the crack of lightning right next to my head, the wet fur, the pulling on my tail. No. Something is wrong here. Very wrong.

"Are you ready to come home, Church?"

"Yes."

Spitfire facehoof-s.

Morgan smiles.

"But," I say, "I was thinking."

"Oh?"

"I know you want me to wake up and everything, and I sure as hell want to buddy, believe me I do. But I tell ya what. Why don't you and I spend a little more time here? I know you want to…" I put on a sly smirk.

"Church, buddy, I don't want to be involved in your paranoid delusions. I just want my friend back."

"But Morgan… Ponies! I mean, look! I'm Rainbow freaking Dash for crying out loud! This is Spitfire! The actual Spitfire! And we're only a short walk away from Ponyville. Come on, man, the rest of the mane six are there!"

"Church–"

"Rarity's there! And Celestia. And Discord too! This place might be a nightmare for me, man, but it's gotta be a wet dream for you!"

He looks unsure. He finally shakes his head 'no.' "I- I don't want anything to do with your little ponies. Please, just eat the flower and end this."

I lock eyes with Morgan. Spitfire looks back and forth between us several times.

"You're not Morgan! YOU'RE AN IMPOSTER!" I drop the flower and crush it under my hoof.

Morgan growls, and his voice changes to a much higher pitch. "You insolent foal!"

Nobody imposterizes my friends! I spin around and buck him in the balls. When I turn back around–

“Zoinks! It’s Nightmare Bitch!”

"Foolish human! I granted the wish that brought you to this realm! And I will make sure that you stay here! Forever! AH HA HA HA HA!!!"

"Spitfire, any bright ideas?" I ask.

"Run."

"Got it!"

We turn tail and flee into the dark, damp, foreboding forest of doom! Nightmare is right behind us! Bursts of magic zip past us, wood splinters, and branches fall. Crazy bitch be trying to kill us!

POP

Still jumping over roots, weaving between trees, and running for my life, I see Discord floating merrily alongside us as we go like a bastion of insanity.

"Ah, there you are, Not-Rainbow. I see you and your new filly friend have been playing in the Everfree Forest with Tia's estranged possessed sister. I do hate to interrupt again, but it seems you're wanted over in Ponyville. And I suppose your filly friend can tag along, too."

POP

I stumble and fall face first into the ground. Looking up, I see I'm in Ponyville again, under moonlight this time. Oh, hey, Spitfire's next to me.

"Church!"

Oh, look, it’s Twilight and the rest of the gang.

"Are you alright? What has Discord done to you?" Twilight asks.

"Uh, other than being a pain in my ass… not much."

The freaky chimera in question slowly leans over my shoulder. "I seem to recall saving a certain somepony from a certain possessed alicorn bent on killing that certain somepony…"

I really don't want to say this… "Thanks, I guess."

Discord smiles smugly and backs off. "Well if it isn't Twilight and company, it seems I've finally caught up with you!"

"Discord!" Twilight shouts. "If you're here to wreak chaos then you can just turn around and go back to your bedroom in the castle. In case you hadn't noticed, we have enough chaos on our hooves for one day!"

"Moi? Wreaking chaos? Never! I'm reformed, remember?"

"Then why did you leave after mind-swapping all of us?!"

"I had to visit the little draconequus's room… I thought I said that."

Applejack steps forward. "Well what took ya?!"

"Well, my dear Applejack, in case you haven't noticed, there's a Nightmare Moon running about. I tried to find you ponies, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t. I haven't the faintest idea why…"

All of them, even Celestia, glance around awkwardly.

Discord stutters, "Uh, I, wait. W-were you all hiding from me?"

Pinkie's the one to answer, "Maybe just the teeeniest tiniest little bit."

"Hmpf, I see how it is. I suppose you'll all want be put back to normal then?"

The five of them answer simultaneously, "NO."

Twilight clears her throat. "Well you see, we kind of… figured that out on our own already," she says bashfully.

"Well fine. I can see when I'm not needed."

Flutters flies up to Discord, "Wait! We're sorry Discord. You took so long coming back. We were just scared, that's all. Now we're all back to normal, er…" she looks at me, "most of us are anyway. But you should know better than to use your magic on somepony without their consent. That can be really scary, Discord."

"Erm… sorry, Fluttershy.” This guy melts like butter in Fluttershy’s gaze. Not literally. He just got all sappy and he’s twiddling his thumbs. “I was going to come right back and put everypony back to normal, I swear!" He faces the rest of the group. "Sorry… everypony."

"There is just one more pony that you need to apologize to," Fluttershy says. "Twilight's big brother."

Discord puts a finger to his mouth in thought. "Oh. Huh. I forgot all about him." He snaps his fingers, and in a flash, Shining Armor appears in mid-air and falls to the ground in a heap.

Shiny spots Discord and enters a defensive stance. "Discord!" He snarls.

"Whoa, hey now." Discord plays all innocent. "I just want to give you this back." He grabs his one pointy tooth, pops it out, and puts it on Shiny's forehead. Somehow… it looks like his normal horn now. And Discord's tooth is back. Huh.

Shiny still growls a little bit.

"Sorry?" Discord shrugs.

Snarling now, Shiny shouts, "I should blast you right now, you know that? Thanks to your little prank, Canterlot has fallen to changelings! Again!"

Discord bursts out in chuckles. "Oh ho ho! Canterlot hasn't fallen to anyone! Everypony there is just acting a little…" He wiggles his big bushy eyebrows up and down. "…chaotic.”

"They were in our ranks! And thanks to you, I wasn’t able to keep my stallions from panicking about it!"

"Oh sure, just because I'm chaos incarnate, you blame all the ensuing pandemonium on me."

Everyone glances around.

Discord shrugs. "Whaaaat? It was just a silly little prank. And I'll have you know that changelings are not invading… there just so happened to be a few of them pretending to be Royal Guards, that's all."

"You knew about this?!" Twilight shouts.

Discord looks surprised. "Me? Don't be silly. Of course I didn't! I'm not in the habit of examining each and every Royal Guard to see if they're somepony they're not. Have you any idea how many of those useless guards there are? A lot, that's how many."

I laugh. "Heh heh. He thinks they're useless too."

Shiny stomps his hoof and snorts. "I think you took away my horn so I couldn't stop them invading!"

"I already told you, they haven't 'invaded' anywhere! Besides, I think Celestia here has bigger things to worry about than a few measly little bug ponies. Isn't that right, Tia? One might say it's the stuff of… Nightmares... even?"

Celestia looks displeased.

"Tell me, Celestia. How DO you plan on defeating the Dark One this time, hm? Send her to the moon again? Perhaps Not-Rainbow over here–"

"My name is Church!"

"Perhaps 'Church' over here can wield the Element of Loyalty and her and the rest of your little errand-ponies can purge the evil and disharmony from your beloved sister once more. Or does our little rainbow pony Church have some grand master plan to fix everything?"

Great, everyone's looking at me. "Uh… not that I know of?"

Sighs, all around.

"But," I clear my throat. "I suppose now might be a good time to uh… say… I'm sorry. I… shouldn't have yelled at you guys, and I'm sorry about… you know, what I said to you… Celestia. I want you to know that I meant what I said earlier. Like before all that. About being your friend..."

"Church," Celestia says sadly, "I fear I may have deserved some of that. I should never have invaded the private sanctuary of your mind. That is something I have not done for almost a thousand years. I am sorry too."

“Well… ahem.” Everyone’s looking at me. “What’re you all looking at?” Oh, great, now Celestia’s smiling at me.

“Church,” she calls. She makes a gesture with her head.

Oh no, don’t tell me.

“Come here.”

Aw fuck.

I walk to her and sit. She sits next to me.

Oh no.

Oh god.

Oh no.

No she isn’t. No she isn’t. She is. She totally is.

She’s hugging me.