Ugh... what day is it? Wait, Celestia and Luna raise the sun and the moon here, right? Huh, guess the very idea of hours equaling days can be scrapped. Screw it, at least everything has stopped spinning and my head has stopped pounding.
Okay, first rule of survival in Equestria. Do not, I repeat, do not, go to Pinkie’s parties without proper preparation. I was never a big party person, but I did at least go out to a few of them (there’s a time and a place for everything, it’s called college). I don’t think a rave regular would come out of Pinkie’s parties unscathed. Seriously, aside from a feeling of contentment, I don’t remember a good chunk of the the last three days, er, um the last three times the sun went up and down.
I was currently sprawled out on reclined couch thing. I think somepony was on another couch thing near me. I couldn’t really tell since my glasses were currently somewhere else. “Ugh, who am I talking to?”
“I don’t know,” said a voice that I’m pretty sure was Sun’s. “Are you a princess?”
“Do I sound like one?” I brought a hoof to my head both to check that I hadn’t gained a horn and to shield my eyes from the light. It was currently streaming through the large windows that lined the room we were in. “Kinda wish I could make the sun go away for a little though.”
“Silly!” The doors to the room burst open and Pinkie popped in, pushing a cart. “Only the Princesses can do that!”
“Pinkie!” Sun yelled. “Not so loud.”
“Amen to that!” Forest said from behind Sun’s couch. Alvarez–yeah, that was his name before, I think– changed his name sometime at least two days ago. I couldn’t for the life me set an actual time for when the change happened. Huh, guess I’m the last seed with a human name. I sighed a little.
“Sorry,” Pinkie whispered as she pushed the cart over. “I just thought it’d be nice to have some of my super-special-party-recovery breakfast.” Pinkie stopped and pulled the lid of one of the dishes on the cart.
“Tacos?” Forest asked. He groaned and got up from behind the couch and trotted over to the dish. “They have tacos here?”
“Yep!” Pinkie smiled. “My own hay-oat-corn tacos! The ultimate party cure!” Pinkie lifted up the lid on another dish. “Plus cherrychongas!” Pinkie lifted another lid. “And medical scrabble!” Pinkie was somehow balancing on one hoof while holding the three dish covers.
To me, the first dish looked like a white splotch, the second one looked like a red and pink blob, and the third dish looked like a blur of yellow and green. But the smell, oh man, once more, smell was the thing that made my stomach grumble. Guess it was fitting that we were in a castle, the stuff smelled like something royalty would eat. “It’s not gonna have us bouncing off the walls is it?”
“No, I think we’ve had enough partying. Oh! Princess Celestia also wanted me to tell you something important.”
“Which is?” I asked as I got off the couch. Something glinted in the light. I trotted off the over to it and saw it was my glasses. I with a quick maneuver of my wings, I slipped my glasses on, then I trotted over to the food and grabbed myself a plate.
“She said she’s got some your living areas set up now. Oh! You’re all going to love it! It’s just a hop skip and a jump away from Ponyville!”
“It’s not in that new area?” Sun asked as she trotted over and took a cherrychanga for herself. “Mmm, these are really good!”
“Well, the new place didn’t exist until a few days ago, so how could we have built something there? Oh, and yeah, it took me forever to figure out which tasted better: a cherrychanga or a chimicherry. They’re both good, but who would want to eat a chimicherry for breakfast?”
“Um, riiighhhttt,” Sun replied as she snatched up another cherrychanga.
“So that’s all Celestia wanted to tell us?” Forest asked before munching on the eggs.
“Well you’re gonna need to get your stuff. An empty house is kinda boring.” Pinkie stuffed the eggs and a cherrychanga into a taco and ate it in one bite.
Crap! Home! I completely forgot! Shoot! I need to check on everypony. “When can we leave?”
“As soon as you’re...” I dashed past Pinkie into the hall, “ready.”
I quickly found the exit and took the to the skies. I think the best way to describe flight in Equestria is like being able to photoshop the sky. There’s a cool breeze that blows through the entire place (at least what I’ve explored of it), but I noticed you sort of create your own wind when you fly. It’s like the butterfly effect, the simple act of flapping my wings helped stir the wind currents in Equestria.
I knew exactly where I was flying. The barrier was, well, a barrier. I could easily tell where the magic ended. Still, the flight took a long time, much longer than it had a few days ago. But there was still a mountain range close to the barrier and that odd stretch of land where the sky met the ground. That still weirded me out. I flew close to the portal and took a deep breath. “I’m not getting wet this time.” I was probably a couple hundred feet up in the air when I leapt through to the other side.
A tall wave lapped at my hooves. “Darn it!” I flew higher and saw that I was only about a foot away from the water. “Hmm, that’ll be annoying on future trips. Wonder how big this thing is now.” Before I could examine the expanding sphere, a voice on a loudspeaker called out.
“Attention! This is the United States Coast Guard. We mean no harm. We only wish to contact your leaders.” I saw that the voice was coming from a white ship. There were many other ships by it.
“Geez, just getting more and more welcome parties.” I shivered a little. “I hope I don’t get a celebration on this side too.” I flew over to the lead ship and landed on it. All the crewmen’s jaws dropped. Yep, they’ve got the “I just saw a sentient flying horse” look down to a T. “Um, hi?”
A gruff looking old guy with a scar over his right eyebrow stepped out onto the deck. “Yes, hello. Is there any special greeting your kind ha– wait, weren’t you on TV a few days ago?”
“Heh,” I awkwardly scratched my head, “yeah, probably the first pony to ever stay in the White House.”
“Oh well that makes this easier then if you were human.” The man took off his cap, bent down and held out his hand. “I’m Captain Decken of the U.S.S. Terran.” I shook his hand with a hoof. “It’s a bit of new ship, but I guess we’re all dealing with new things right now.”
“Wait till ya get the hooves, trust me it’s pretty crazy.”
“That time will have to wait until I’m relieved of duty.” Decken furrowed his brow. “Have you come with further instructions on the state of the singularity?”
“Singul– oh,” I looked back at the bubble, “you mean Equestria. Hmm, not sure how much I can say on it. Probably not a good idea for any full humans to go into it. Actually, might be best to stay away from it in general. I’ve dealt with enough magic to know it is some pretty crazy stuff.”
“We’ll consider that in the future.” Decken stood back up and looked down at me. I in turn, flew up to meet him at eye level. “But for now, is there anything else that realm’s monarch told you?”
“Just to get my stuff packed up. Didn’t expect to be doing that until May when school ended... guess that’s a moot point now.”
“A shame, we were hoping to get some communication going between the President and–”
“Me?” A voice boomed from the sky. I looked up and saw two suns in the sky.
“I think you got your wish,” I said as I used a wing to shield my eyes.
“Mother of god! What is that?!” Decken used his cap to cover his eyes.
“Hello human.” Celestia floated down in front of the ship. “I am Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria. Your leader wishes to speak with me?”
“Y-yes, your, uh, majesty.” Decken was sweating bricks. Can’t really blame the grizzled old dude for freaking out.
“Very well, I’m sure there are a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered”
“We have a jet ready to take you to meet with the President in the capital.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Celestia’s horn started to glow as she looked at me. “Bring whatever you want to Equestria, my little pony. I look forward to seeing everypony back there.”
“Right.” I started to fly away from the boat. I didn’t want to get caught in Celestia’s transportation.
“Captain?” Celestia asked Decken. “Are you required to stay here?”
“No, your majesty. My orders were to wait here until contact could be made with you. Other than that, my men just have orders to keep watch on the anomaly.”
“Well then,” Celestia’s horn grew brighter. “I think you should give that report directly. You seem to have done a very good job.” I saw a flash behind me as a flew off towards my home.
~~~
Has the world always been this dull? Okay, maybe it was just the area between California and Arizona that was dull. I mean, it’s pretty much sand dunes and rocks. Still, even the air felt kind of muted and I usually love the desert air. Actually, the air felt both muted and crowded. It was lacking something important, yet at the same time, it was bombarding me with stuff. It was kinda like a bunch of ponies trying to watch one thing at the same time. I kept feeling like I was being pushed back from my space in the sky. Wonder if this is how Dash felt when she was here?
After about an hour and a half or so of flight, my hometown came into view. Unfortunately, I saw a little smoke rising out of downtown. Crap, guess every place had a little unrest. Before I flew home I decided to just check to make sure everything was okay. Hmm, if it’s not too bad, maybe I’ll grab a bite to eat at that pub. Before I could fly down, something tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see another pegasus. He had a light blue coat and a blond mane.
“Not a good idea buddy. There’s been a lot of fighting going on downtown over the potion. If anypony sees ya, they might not be too pleased. Wait a minute, you look a little familiar.” My mouth dropped. I recognized the pony’s voice anywhere.
“Sam?! Dude, what the buck?! It’s me, John!” Damn! Going pony made him slim! Can’t believe I didn’t recognize the hair.
“Holy crap! You were on fricking TV! How the buck did I forget that?!” Sam facehoofed.
“Don’t worry about it.” I looked down at my hooves. “I think it’d be a little hard to recognize anypony without talking to them. Still...” I looked at my friend floating in the air. “Looks like you got the hang of the wings pretty fast.”
“Dude, it is awesome! Seriously, the show didn’t do it justice. But you should have seen the look on Amanda and Jeremy’s face when you were on TV. It was priceless.”
“I’m assuming you were just perfectly chill with it?” I asked in a sarcastic tone.
“Well, I might have been a little excited.” Sam swirled a hoof in circles as we talked.
“A little? You’re the first person who ever even brought this stuff up to me. So how’s everypony else doing?”
“Don’t know, my family and I have just been staying at home after we took the stuff. I mean, there’s been chaos everywhere, but overall its been okay.”
“Wait, what are you doing downtown anyway?” Sam’s house was close to mine, and my house was a good thirty minute drive away (don’t know how long that is in flight).
“I was the only one in my family to get wings and my parents got overprotective with all the crazy stuff going on. I kept telling them they itched like hell, but they pulled that all ‘for your own safety’ crap.”
“Yeah, the wings get to you.” I started flying north, Sam followed. “Heh, at least you didn’t quarantine yourself like I did.”
“Huh?” Sam was sweating a little as we flew. Can’t really blame him, my hometown is always hot.
“Reason I was on TV was cause I was one of the first converts, freaked me the buck out. Plus, I didn’t get an explanation for anything because my stupid alarm clock broke up my dream.”
“The one with Celestia and Luna?” Sam turned to me, but accidentally started curving down as he flew. “That was pretty trippy, sucks you missed out on seeing them.”
“Eh,” I shrugged my shoulders rather than my wings, “I think I got enough of both of them over the last few days.” I turned my head and raised my voice. “Acclimate yourself before you go to anything involving Pinkie, she’s equivalent to ecstasy or something else illegal. I’ve been recovering for past... how many days has it been since the bubble went up?”
“You mean the crazy thing in the Pacific? Four days. But what does that have to do with Pi–” Sam stopped flying and looked at me with eyes that were filled with excitement. “You went there didn’t you?!”
“It was just for a litt–” Sam tackled me out of the air. “Sam,you idiot! We’re gonna fall!” We crashed right into an office building. I shook off glass shards as larger glass pieces crunched beneath my hooves. “I did not need that. You okay Sam?” I trotted over and helped my friend up.
“Sorry about that John. Guess I got a little excited.” He flexed his wings and shimmering glass shards fell to the ground. “Still, you lucky pony! You got to go to Equestria! What’s it like?”
“Unbelievable. Heh, I know it’s kinda fitting, but it’s like something out of a TV show. It’s pristine to a level that shouldn’t be possible. Just wait until you try flying sometimes.”
Sam sighed a little and his wings drooped. “I’m still just getting used to them.” A shard of glass fell out of the broken window and down to the street. “I still need a lot of work.”
“You’ll get used to it eventually. So you still gonna keep practicing now?”
“Well, there was one other reason I was downtown.” Sam glanced out into the sky. “I kinda wanted to stock up on some comics, and the downtown shop is the best one.”
“Hmm,” I started hovering in the air, “I’ll need to probably stop by there sometime too.” I looked down at Sam. “You mind going to one stop before that?”
“Where?”
“I’m back in town, I need some food, and I wanna have one last celebration for Earth. I’ve got some restaurants to cover before they’re gone.”
“That why you were flying to the pub?”
“Yep!” I smiled as I flew out the broken window. I’d feel bad about the damage if, you know, the world wasn’t ending. “Now I’m more in the mood for sushi though... darn, not sure if I can eat fish anymore.” I tapped a hoof to my face as I hovered above the ground. “Eh, I’ll just get vegetarian stuff.” I started flying off in the restaurant's direction. I turned my head around when I noticed Sam wasn’t following me. “You coming?”
Sam trotted over to the edge of the building. He kicked a piece of the window to the ground. “Yeah.” He unfurled his wings. “Sorry, little nervous is all.” He slowly flew up to me.
“Eh, Dash says every pegasus is nervous at first.”
“You got to talk to Dash too?!”
“I’ll tell you about it on the way there. Better hurry, they normally close at two.” I rushed off to the sushi bar.
“If they’re open at all,” Sam said as he flew after me.
~~~
“Christ man, and I thought just become a pony was insane.” Sam and I were hovering at the sushi bar. It was too high to stand at and human chairs had once more been the bane of pony relaxation.
“Yeah it was a pretty strange ride, I’m just glad everypony made it out okay.” I sipped some iced green tea through a straw. Best invention ever.
“You think they eat sushi there?” The chef asked. This was one of my favorite restaurants for two reasons: one was that the food was awesome (a little dulled now though, if the appetizer was any indication), the other was that the chef was pretty chill. We still made his mouth drop when we walked in and again when I told him who I was. Luckily, we were the only ones there at the time.
“I don’t think they’d be that big on fish, but hey ya still got ramen, edamame, tofu, and a whole bunch of vegetarian rolls. Who knows? You could be a first in Equestria.” I took another bite of the appetizer; a bunch of pickled vegetables. “Sorry about not using chopsticks.”
“It’s fine, I’m just glad ponies can still eat this stuff.” As he spoke, the chef chopped up some cucumbers. “Heh, kinda funny, you’ve been the only customers today.So what are ya gonna have as a main dish?”
“Sam?” I looked next to my friend.
“I think I’ll just stick with the agedashi tofu.”
“I’ll have the soba. At least with that I don’t run the risk of scorching everything.”
“Coming right up,” the chef replied as he placed the order for the main kitchen to handle.
“Gotta admit,” I looked around the dimly lit restaurant, “I’m just amazed you’re actually open.”
“We’ve been closed for the past few days, trying to sort things out. But we’ve had this place for a while, so we’ll keep it running as long as we can. Actually, any clue how long until that bubble gets here?”
“Can’t tell ya, it did look a little bigger when I left this morning though.”
“Well, I’m just glad things calmed down a few days ago.” The chef passed us a veggie roll.
“They did?” Sam asked as he tried to pick up a piece of the roll, but eventually had to resort to using his mouth.
“Yeah, this place had actually been closed ever since our friend here was on TV.” The chef used his free hand to point at me. “Planning for the future and all that stuff, plus there were some pretty crazy people on the streets. I couldn’t even tell if it was safer to say you wanted to be a pony or not.”
“You run into those weird doomsayers as well?” Sam asked. Now he was using his wings to dip a sushi piece into the soy sauce.
“Which ones? The ones who called ponies devilspawn or the ones who said that Princess was the second coming?” The chef put his blade down. “All of them scared me half to death.”
“That happened here too?” I asked before sipping on my tea some more.
“Wait,” Sam stopped eating his food. “I thought you were just in D.C., California, and Equestria.”
“I still had to fly to California to summon it with everypony else.” I glanced back at my wings for a second. “I kinda had a run in with some cultists.” I shivered a little.”I forgot to tell you that part.”
“Eh,” the chef shrugged, “it might take a bit to get everything ready. With all the power outages we’ve had lately, it’s been a little hard to procure everything. ‘Nother reason we’ve been closed lately.”
“Guess I’ll be telling this story a lot anyways. Well after that stint in D.C. I kinda had to summon a tornado in the middle of...”
~~~
It may not be as good as I remember it, but the food here still rocks. Despite taking caution, the area in front of me was still a mess. Soba sauce was pretty much everywhere. Should just mimicked what Sam ordered, he only got a dirty muzzle from all of this. I sighed. “Sorry about the mess.”
“It’s fine, I’m sure if more ponies come in it’ll be just as messy.” The chef walked out from behind the bar and picked up our plates. “A shame the waitress didn’t show up today. Maybe she already got ponified.”
“Maybe,” Sam mused as he sucked on the coffee candy that usually came with the ch–
Oh crap.
I facehoofed. “Crud! I haven’t had cash on me since god knows when! I’m really sorry, do you need us to clean dishes or something?”
“I think your story and saving the world can count as payment.” The chef smiled at us as we went back down to the ground. “Be sure to stop in again before Equestria gets here though.”
“Thank you so much!” I said as I held to the door open for Sam. “Good luck if you get ponified. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and get a horn.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Where ya off to now?”
“Home,” I replied and took off into the air with Sam. I really should have learned his name.
~~~
Today should just be renamed “I can’t remember anything” day. After Sam flew back to my house, I made my way home. Too bad my keys were two states over. “Crap, I’m gonna have to fly back to school.” I looked at my house and sighed. “Oh well, I guess I’ll ju–”
“John!” I heard the galloping of hooves and then something tackled me.
“Mom?! Oh god, get off me! Ponies could see you!” She bent down and nuzzled me.
“I was just so worried! Especially when the news covered that flash a few days ago. I was scared I wouldn’t see you until we were there too.”
“How did you get back home anyway?” Mom got off of me and let me stand up. She now had a simple hoof print on her flank.
“Oh, we got to ride Air Force One. Your father tried teleporting, but we all wound up crammed in a D.C. public bathroom.
“Sounds neat. Well at least now that you’re here this’ll make things easier.” We started walking up my driveway to my garage; Mom must have been checking the mail.
“Oh, the dogs will be so happy to see you.”
“They still recognize all of you?” Hmm, another I’ll have to add to “things I haven’t done since I was a human: say hi to my dogs.
“Of course, they’re our dogs after all.” Now this I raised an eyebrow to.
“Well if you say so.” We were now in the garage. I looked over at the rounded door knob attached to the entrance of my house. “Guess you must have gotten better body control to open that?”
“Your father’s magic helped a lot over the past few days, but we’ve managed to get by. But go on, I think they already heard you.” I could hear a scratching sound and some yelping on the other side of the door.
“This is gonna be weird. Oxy! Cloe! It’s me, John!” The scratching increased and the yelping turned into barking as I opened the door. Two black balls of fur jumped into my face. “Guh! Dog tongue right on the mouth.” My dogs kept jumping up at me. I petted them both with my hooves. “Calm down guys.” I looked back at mom. “Guess they do recognize me.”
“Well of course. That reminds me, do you need anything to eat? You must be hungry after all the flying you’ve done... you did just get back, right?”
“I kinda ran into Sam and we grabbed a bite to eat at Iro,” I replied as I lied on the ground and played with my dogs.
“You went to Iro without me? You know I haven’t been there since winter break.”
“Sorry mom, I just kinda ran into him and I was hungry. Plus, I had to go through downtown anyway.”
“How is Sam anyway?”
“Pegasus, you know, the usual.” Weird thing is that’ll actually be true I guess in a few years, maybe even months.
“Um, well that’s good to hear.”
“Everything is good here though?” I looked around and noticed that the house pretty much looked looked like normal, except for the kitchen, that was a disaster zone. Flour was dusted over everything, dirty bowls filled the sink, and the stove was covered in blackened food. “It looks a little messy.”
“Just trying to figure out how to cook with these things.” Mom waved a hoof and flapped her wings. “Had to throw out all the meat though. I did manage to make some banana nut bread though.”
“Seriously? Where?”
“Oven.” She gestured a hoof over to the machine.
“Oh my god, it’s gonna smell so good in a se–” I was cut off by a blinding light filling the room. Suddenly, dad was there.
“Oh John! You’re back!” He galloped over and gave me a hug. Unfortunately, his bag also hit my right leg.
“Oww!” I pulled away and rubbed the hit area with a hoof. “What are you carrying? A bag a bricks?!”
“Bag of books. Had to teleport all around town to find a store that was open.” Dad patted the bag at his side... wait, is that a saddle bag?
“Why do you have a saddle bag?”
“This?” Dad turned to show the bag fully. It was a dark blue bag with the U.S. seal on it. “Parting gift from D.C., custom made too.”
“Sounds like you’ve had some interesting trips as well. Where is Rachel anyway?”
“Gloating to her friends about being a pony,” mom answered and sighed. “She’s already using your father as a vehicle pretty much.”
“I should have expected as much. Oh well.” I shrugged my wings. “It’ll make packing easier without her yelling about everything.”
“Packing for what?” Dad asked.
“Remember how you wanted to move out once Rachel went to college? Well instead of moving to that gated place you always talked about, how do you feel about some interdimesional travel?”