//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Brightside // Story: Bush Beat’s Journey // by Tree Sharp //------------------------------// In an old building, a group of people of varying ages met up. Some of them wore clothing bearing My Little Pony-related motifs. Intermixed with stuffed toys, a few were sitting on a sofa, happily chatting away. Several tables with various card and board games in progress punctuated the room. Albert Sollers was absorbed in a game of chess. After long and intensive thinking, he eventually picked up a bishop and moved it diagonally across the board. “Check,” he proclaimed. His opponent gave the board a bewildered look, but was quickly distracted by something far more unusual. A bright light appeared in the room’s center, and soon the entire space became engulfed in radial beams of energy, stretching all across as everybody fell silent. A buzzing sound, accompanied by soft crackling, cut through the silence, until it abruptly finished in a plopping sound. The light vanished. “Aaaaah!” The cry came from a shivering green pony that had now appeared in the middle of the room with his head on the floor, hooves covering his face. Total silence engulfed the atmosphere, as all the humans speechlessly stared at the living, breathing pony. One of them tightened his hug around a stuffed Fluttershy toy. Albert was the first to break the silence. He hesitantly walked towards the stallion. “Hello, my little pony,” he carefully articulated, crouching in front of him. Bush Beat slowly moved away one leg, revealing one eye. It looked at the human with an expression of disbelief. Then he put both his hooves down and raised his body to a standing position. “Where in the wide world of Equestria am I?” he asked. “W-well, you’re... not in Equestria anymore,” Albert said, knowing full well it wasn’t much of an explanation. “Did you just come here from Equestria?” “Um,” Bush Beat stammered, mentally scrambling for something to say. “Y-yes. I... I tried to... teleport! Now tell me where I am!” Albert faked a smile in the hopes that it would calm the nervous pony. “You’re in a different world now. This world is populated by humans.” He motioned his hand to indicate the people in the room. “There are no earth ponies, pegasi or unicorns in this world, apart from...” He faltered. “Apart from you now.” The bronies in the room began bustling as they whispered to each other. “What the heck?” “That some sort of animatronics, or what?” “It can’t be real!... Can it?” The pony asked, “So how do I get back?” His fake smile undeterred, Albert replied, “How am I supposed to know? You’re the one who teleported here. Can’t you use the same spell to get back?” “W-well...” Bush Beat stammered. He felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead, as he clasped his lower lip between his teeth. “I-I guess I... can try...” Eyes closed, he fully concentrated on lighting his horn. The bustling from the room intensified, as everyone intently stared at him. Him, and whatever was going to happen next. Albert laid both of his hands on the pony’s shoulders and lowered his head. Within an instant, a ball of light flashed through the room, followed by a popping sound, and the two disappeared. The people standing around gasped. They fell silent again, looking at each other in disbelief, still trying to sort out what had just happened. Eventually, one of them cried out, “Nooooo! Take me to Equestria too!” and jumped into the space where Albert and the pony had vanished moments before. But he wouldn’t get any response. “Aw, dang!” Another flash of light and a pop sound later, the pony and Albert reappeared. “Woo-hoo! I’m back!” Bush Beat declared enthusiastically. Looking around however, his expression soon turned to confusion. “Wait... where am I? This isn’t Equestria.” Albert calmly rose back onto his feet. “No, this is my apartment.” The small one-room housing was scarcely furnished. There was a desk with a few machines unfamiliar to the pony, barely anything else resting on top. A wardrobe, a bookshelf, a table with four chairs, and a barely noticeable bed in a corner rounded off the image. A wooden counter separated the main room from a small kitchen area, as well as a door leading to what Bush Beat assumed would be a human bathroom. There was a large window and a transparent door on one side through which one could recognize not only the apartment having a balcony, but also that it was at least three floors up. “Your... apartment?... How did we get here? How can I have teleported to your apartment?” “You didn’t. I did,” said Albert. “Huh?” Bush Beat looked at the human, confused. He hadn’t noticed a magical horn on any of these peoples’ foreheads earlier. But somehow, Albert had one on his forehead now, and it was glowing. Albert looked like he was preparing a complex spell. Bush Beat watched him, paralyzed. A white, swirling aura began to surround the human body, expanding upwards and inwards. The body began to change shape. Its entire metamorphosis took no longer than five seconds, after which the bright flashing dissipated, and a unicorn pony emerged from it: a cornflower blue pony with a darker blue mane. “The name is Brightside,” the unicorn introduced himself, holding out a foreleg. “And you are...?” “I’m... wait a second.” Bush Beat’s hoof moved to his head. “Let me get this straight. You’re a unicorn pony?! And you disguised yourself as... as one of them?” “Calm down,” Brightside suggested with a smile, repeating his question. “What’s your name?” “I’m...” Bush Beat hesitated, but then gave in and shook Brightside’s hoof. “I’m Bush Beat.” “Pleased to meet you, Bush Beat. Welcome to Birmingham.” Noticing a hint of puzzlement in his eyes, Brightside added, “That’s the name of this city.” Bush Beat nodded. Brightside’s face became more serious. “Now. I reckon you want to get back to Equestria. I’m willing to help you, but we need to be honest with each other. And I don’t think you’re telling me the whole story. A normal teleport doesn’t send you into a whole other universe just like that. What were you really doing?” Bush Beat sighed. There was no way Brightside would still offer his help once he learned about the trial and his history of run-ins with the law. This was one of those moments Bush Beat wished he was a better liar; situations like this one would be so much easier to get through. “Well... I... I was going to learn to teleport. Somepony tried to teach me. I tried to do everything exactly as they said, but... I... guess I didn’t really know what I was doing. I have never actually teleported before. But you... you can teleport! Can’t you... send me back?” “If I could do that,” Brightside responded, “I wouldn’t still be here, now, would I?” There was a brief awkward silence until Bush Beat lowered his head and admitted, “No, I suppose not. But...” He raised his head again to restore eye contact. “But then... how did you get here?” “It was an accident.” Brightside sighed as he sat down on his haunches. “I worked as a research assistant at the University of Fillydelphia. We were conducting some magic experiments, and one day an experiment went wrong and I found myself here.” “Research? You mean, like, science stuff?” “Yes,” Brightside explained. “As a colt, magic research was a fixation of mine. At the time, I thought it was going to be my destiny, or at least this was what my cutie mark seemed to be telling me.” He eyed Bush Beat’s haunches. “Speaking of which... shouldn’t you have a cutie mark at your age?” Bush Beat rolled his eyes and promptly attempted to change the topic back. “If you’re a scientist, and you already know how to teleport, can’t you find a way to... repeat that spell?” Brightside threw up a hoof. “I already tried that. I guess you could say I became the researcher, myself. In a sense it was a dream come true, but in a comically twisted way. I knew I had to replicate the same spell all by myself in order to get home, but I had nopony available for assistance, no literature to refer to, and no measuring devices. However, I’m very well-versed in measuring spells, and I had a lot of our earlier measurements written down in several notepads. I kept those in my saddle bags, which came along with me. After a year or so I gave up and concluded that I can’t pull it off on my own. I might be able to do it with help from another unicorn, but nopony came after me back then. You’re the first pony I’ve seen in ten years.” Bush Beat gasped. “Ten years? I had no idea.” After a pause, he continued curiously. “Why didn’t you ask the humans for help?” “Oh, you have no idea. Humans do not know harmony. They can be incredibly fearful and dangerous towards whoever isn’t one of them.” Bush Beat swallowed, realizing what Brightside was saying about the world they were in. “You see, humans are the only sentient species in this world. Anything that talks and isn’t a human, is somewhere between a world-shattering discovery and a threatening danger. When I first got here, I was chased, captured and imprisoned. I tried to talk some sense into my captors, but none of them could be reasoned with. They argued it was for my own safety. And actually believed it, I think. Luckily, I was still able to teleport, and could escape them pretty easily. Still, I’m telling you, you can’t possibly go out there as a pony. You have to stay in here. If word gets out about us, we’re in trouble.” Bush Beat nodded and fell silent. He had a rough past, but Brightside’s description provided a frightening new perspective. Suddenly, life as a homeless pony in Manehattan seemed like a walk in the park by comparison. Spending the rest of his life either wandering about an alien world full of hostile creatures or staying permanently penned up in the only single-room apartment that could keep him safe — the thought sent a chill down his spine. “But... but... there’s something I don’t get. You made it sound like they’ve never heard of us ponies... but the humans I saw earlier had pony stuffed toys and pictures of ponies on their clothing and everything...?” Bush Beat’s expression of confusion was genuine. “Oh. That. Right. Where do I begin explaining that...” Brightside scratched the back of his head. “You see, something happened in this world about a year ago that I don’t really understand myself. Basically, someone in this world created a TV show — it’s like a series of short movies — which depicts... Equestria. It’s surprisingly accurate. There’s earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, as well as Princess Celestia and Canterlot and everything. It’s far too similar to the world we know — and far too different from the human world — to be a coincidence.” “So they do know about Equestria!” Bush Beat interjected. “Well, you see,” Brightside explained, “to them, it’s all a fiction. No-one in this world considers it even remotely thinkable that Equestria might be a real place. The humans that you saw are simply fans of the show, and the stuffed toys you saw are tokens of admiration for... fictional characters.” There was an awkward pause before Brightside continued. “I only found out about that show and its fans very recently. At that time, it had already been on air for a while. It’s become a big thing since and made a significant impact on some of the culture over here. I honestly do fear for the future of Equestria if humans were ever to find out about its existence, or discover some way to get there. Just imagine tens of millions of humans flooding in at once—” “Tens of millions?” Bush Beat interrupted. “Is that how many humans there are?” “Ooh, no. No. That’s just the fans of the show. There are seven billion humans in this world.” Bush Beat gasped and then sighed. “Well, they saw me today.” Brightside nodded and mumbled to himself, “I can only hope that none of them recorded a video or anything.” Then he addressed Bush Beat again. “From what you told me, it sounds like you have good magic aptitude. You just need the proper instruction to foster it. If I instruct you, together we might be able to get you back to Equestria.” His grin widened. “What do you say?” “O-Okay,” Bush Beat replied. After all, he didn’t have much of a choice. “Good. We’ll start tomorrow morning. Good thing it’s a Saturday, so I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.” Brightside yawned slightly while he used magic to open his wardrobe. “You can use the bed if you like. I’ll use this spare blanket as a makeshift.” He pulled the blanket from the bottom of the wardrobe and spread it across the floor near the middle of the room, closing the wardrobe’s door behind himself. “You’re... very generous,” Bush Beat muttered softly, as he walked towards the bed. “Thank you.” “Don’t mention it. Good night.” A click was heard as Brightside turned off the lights. “Who’s there?” a timid Bush Beat asked. Dreadful silence permeated the empty streets of Manehattan. The grey concrete, lit dimly by the moon’s humble light, competed merely with the relentlessly shining lanterns that lined the sidewalk. A howling gust of wind blew through Bush Beat’s mane. “I-Is anypony here?” he repeated, somewhat louder than before, simultaneously turning to look in all directions. He stood on a large junction of perpendicular identical-looking roads. His words dissolved into the bleak, sterile hollowness around. In the distance a shadow appeared to rush across the street with startling pace, gripping the stallion’s attention. As he struggled to focus his eyes, another shadow passed by in the same direction. Bush Beat started trotting towards the uncanny presence. Coming closer, he could make out the sound of hooves. They were galloping. And they were not alone. The reverberation sounded like dozens of ponies sprinting. Hundreds, possibly. More and more of them joined within every second. The sprint turned into a frantic race, the sound into a thunderous roar, the herd into a panicking stampede. “Hello?” Bush Beat addressed the cold, unfaltering crowd. “Anypony?” But his voice drowned in the overwhelming cacophony of stomping hooves. Suddenly, a silhouette of a pony emerged from the horde and launched straight towards him with alarming speed. Bush Beat scrambled to get out of the way, but the faceless form collided with him painfully, sending him falling backwards and tumbling. With eyes closed, Bush Beat felt himself rolling across the rough asphalt. Suddenly he rolled off a ledge, plunged a fair height, and finally smashed down onto a hard surface. Groaning and aching, he opened his eyes. He found himself in a dark, rectangular room with no discernible light source. Yet somehow, a dim spotlight shone from above casting an oval illumination onto the timber floor. “Who are you, anyway?” a stern, impatient voice demanded, coming from the pitch-black darkness beyond the cone of light. “Who, I ask?” “I-I... you...” Bush Beat felt overcome with dread. The words refused to take shape in his mouth. “I’ll tell you who! You’re a nopony!” said the voice with derision and contempt. “Yeah! A nopony!” said another, younger voice from behind him. “And a blank flank!” added another. “Nopony!” “Blank flank!” The voices started coming from all directions. Suddenly the stern pony jumped into the light. It was a light blue unicorn stallion, staring at him with a rigid expression of disdain on his face. He yelled, “Go home!” Bush Beat panicked and felt all the muscles in his body jerk vigorously while his eyes opened forcefully. He found himself lying in bed, breathing heavily, his heartbeat racing and his coat drenched in sweat. Disoriented, he scanned the room. He was still in bed in Brightside’s apartment. Brightside himself was sound asleep on his blanket, breathing calmly. Bush Beat sighed in relief, replaced his head onto the pillow and tried going back to sleep.