//------------------------------// // 1 // Story: Tales of a Brighton Phoenix // by The Stainmore Phoenix //------------------------------// To say that me and my fraternity mates were stuck would be an understatement. No power and our car was in the shops so we had next to nothing to do while the thunder raged on outside on this miserable Summer Storm in Oregon. Britain can suck it. As least their rainy summers are fun. Oregon rains are more like the clouds sucked up the whole damn ocean and decided to drop it on us. “Anyone want to play Monopoly?” A blond haired 17 year old teen asked. “Somerset, we've played Monopoly until our brains have fallen out,” another boy, who looked exactly like him. “Somerset, Dorset, should we find another game?” a girl asked. She had red hair, slightly smaller than them. “Tins, please? We've not played Monopoly that much, only 450,258 times, but not all that much,” they pleaded. “No,” “Tins” said. “Thanks Tintin, we owe you for sparing us,” another girl said. “Any time, Skylar,” she said. “Anyway, how are those drawings coming along?” “Well, they're done,” she said. “All of our ponysonas with me taking up the character of Skyla. I know, obvious, but it's all I could do.” “We'll call it square and move on,” Tintin said. We agreed. Another burst of lightning and thunder bellowed out as if it was a hunting bear. Skylar pulled me close. I soothed her and said that everything would be alright. The battery powered clock chimed out that it was six pm. “Dinner time,” another boy said. “I'll go,” I said. The others bid me farewell for the hour trip to the local supermarket. Luckily, it's a 15 minute walk there and 45 minutes back because of all the groceries. Halfway along, I saw a stray lightning bolt strike a large lamp post. I was caught by the large lightbulb and shot into a near by tree. I felt the tree give way under my 215 lbs. “Ow,” was all I could say, but it hurt like hell and after the lightbulb fell away and rolled clear, I fell face first in the mud. I heard noises and they were confused. Unlike most HIE's where the person is fully unconscious or a small child, I was a college student who was in pain, but conscious. Looking up from the mud, I saw six winged unicorns or Alicorns. My mind went into overdrive and eventually reasoned out that I was in ancient Greek Mythology, where Alicorns were used as pure farming ponies and nothing more. “Is...it alive?” one asked. It? I'm not an it! I'm...never mind. Getting bent out of shape over words isn't worth it. Instead, I got to my feet, not withstanding the pain that felt like someone dropped six tons of steel on my and then ran me over with a steamroller. Staggering onwards, I made it to the market and made my purchases. Upon exiting, I saw them again, but this time, there were two more Alicorns there. Writing it off as hallucinating, I limped home. Opening the front door, the house seemed to be both dead and alive. Dead in the sense that the power was off and the darkened clouds above made the house uninviting. Alive because me and my dear friends were inside and ready to go to town. Luckily, making sandwiches from cold materials requires no electricity, just skills. Only one word can describe the thought that ran through our minds-DINNER!!! Single file line and buffet style certainly beats going to an actual buffet. Why? No noisy crowds and rude customers. In fact, we had nothing to really talk about or at least, we thought we hadn't until someone mentioned My Little Pony. “Oh, that reminds me, were there ever six Alicorns at any given time in any MLP episode?” I asked. “No, only three-Cadence, Celestia and Luna. After Season 3, we gained Twilight Sparkle,” Dorset said. “What about Nightmare Moon? Or if we include the comics, Lyra, and Trixie? Maybe include the delusional Sunset Shimmer?” Somerset quizzed. “Your crazy,” came another voice. Before the conversation dropped to bickering, Tintin stopped it and looked at me. “Why'd you ask?” she quizzed. I explained everything and the others all looked at me, then at each other. We were getting ready to dismiss it, when more thunder and lightning came out for more fun and as it flashed out, we all saw a certain Alabaster Alicorn. Something told us we weren't dreaming, but another flash of thunder and lightning seemed to say otherwise. “What...the...actual...hell?” was all that was heard. “Okay, who bought beers?” Another girl asked. “I didn't!” I protested. “We have the rule of no Alcohol in the house and I haven't brought any in.” “Hmmmm...interesting,” another boy said. More lightning flashed and thunder crashed. Just then, the lights sprang back to life and the television flashed on and the episode “The Cutie Re-Mark” flashed on screen before Starlight pulled something new out of nowhere...she stared right at the television screen and pointed to us. What was going on? “I want any and all ponies for my perfect world!” she snapped. Okay, we need to stop watching MLP or anything horror related. As we tried to reason out why things were happening, lights began to dance as if we were at a rave party. My stomach felt like a concrete pillar. Normally I couldn't be bothered to care, but this was not normal. Suddenly, the room was plunged deep into darkness, as if it was cut out of the house and plunged into a bottomless pit. I tried to find the others, but darkness was all that was there. “What happened?” I groaned. Looking around, I saw changelings, moth ponies, unicorns, earth ponies, pegasi, thestrals and one Alicorn. What had happened? “Okay, so where are we?” I asked. “I don't know,” said Dorset. I examined the other ponies with the care of a detective. One of the pegasi had strange looking wings. Upon examination, I saw that the wings were cast titanium. However, the pony said they were lightweight and easy to use. As we looked at our surroundings, we began to notice how cartoony everything looked. Glancing around again, a breeze whipped up and danced around us. As that was happening, the sun sank beyond the horizon and the moon began to rise slowly, as if being dredged up from some kind of ocean. “Come on, we should find some sort of shelter,” Tintin said. Agreeing, we walked towards the forest exit. Upon reaching the exit, we looked upon a tiny town that would have fit inside a British Railway Mark 1 coach. Looking around at the town, we noticed how 18th century the buildings looked. None of the signs had any words, which made it difficult to figure out where the hell we were. “So, is someone going to direct us to the town hall?” another member of our team asked. The question was answered by crickets. We looked around and stuck together as if we were one block of wood. Looking up, down, left and right we saw shadows moving in the shadows and heard voices that weren't there. I felt something but up close to me and saw it was the only Alicorn. “It'll be fine,” I said. “Thanks, big bro,” the Alicorn said. I paid no attention to the pony's words and instead focused on finding shelter. Hopefully, we'd find a hotel or someplace where we can stay until morning, where up on we can find out who brought us here. “Does anyone here get the feeling we're not alone?” I heard another member of our group ask. “Yep,” I said. Suddenly, there was a clanking that sounded very unfamiliar rang out. We all saw the same thing, an Alicorn in royal jewelry and headdress coming our way. Wanting to not stay there, we turned tail and bolted. The woods parted to make way for a town board that said “Welcome to Appleloosa”. Okay this has to be some sicko's prank, but whatever, it got us out of the woods and into civilization. Finding a local inn, we realized one tiny important detail and that was that we didn't have the local currency. In fact, we didn't have any money on us and trying to lodge for free would lead to more hell. Deciding on the best move for the moment, we found an out of the way and run down cottage to utilize. After shutting, locking and barring the door and windows, we fell asleep on the uncomfortable floor.