//------------------------------// // Roll Out the Red Carpet // Story: The Revolution will be Ponified // by Dark Water //------------------------------// Stepping out of the cottage and towards his army, Maxim overheard some of the soldiers observing that the sun had risen unusually quickly. Others claimed to have seen a yellow streak dashing out of the hut. The latter seemed to corroborate what he himself saw out of the corner of his eye while searching the kitchen. Ah well, it was most likely nothing important. The commissar turned on his loudspeaker, “COMRADES! “, he shouted. The troops all simultaneously stopped any vodka drinking, idle chit-chat, or staring into space that they were previously engaged in, snapping to attention facing their chief commissar. “FOR REASONS THAT ARE CURRENTLY UNKNOWN, WE SUDDENLY FIND OURSELVES IN AN UNKOWN LAND! WE HAVE SEARCHED THE COTTAGE AND FOUND NO CLUES AS TO WHERE WE ARE! OUR BEST BET IS THAT TOWN AHEAD! I NEED TWO SICKLE PILOTS TO GIVE THE TOWN A FLYOVER, FIND OUT IF THERE ARE ANY ENEMEY SOLDIERS THERE!” Rainbow Dash’s morning had taken a strange turn. It started out normally, after breakfast; she had called the Ponyville weather team together to tell them that today’s weather was to be the usual sunshine with mild cloud cover. On her way back home, however, she had noticed that everypony on the streets below were staring at the sky, mouths agape. She had put “morning power nap” before “fly around and be awesome” on her schedule for that day, but she figured that if ponies were going to stare at her in awe, she might as well indulge them a loop or two. Rainbow started a loop-de-loop when HOLY CRAP! Rainbow suddenly aborted her loop into a leftward and downward hairpin turn to avoid a grisly fate at the whirling blades of the machine that had so rudely flown above her. It resembled Pinky’s gyrocopter, except it was bigger, and seemed to be made of metal. Whoever was flying that thing, they clearly needed to be taught some manners! Swiftly catching up to the monstrosity and perching upon it in front of the upper bubble-like window, she paused for a brief moment upon seeing the hairless face and bipedal form of the pilot. However, the need to educate this creature on the finer points of not shredding unsuspecting pegasi to bloody ribbons won out and she began to give this pilot a piece of her mind. Mikhail’s morning had taken a strange turn. That fact was especially strange considering how strangely Mikhail’s morning had started off. At first, it was an afternoon, and he was flying over a battlefield near the Great Wall of China, then he ended up near a forest before sunrise, and he certainly had no recollection of travelling that far! Furthermore, while the architecture of the houses combined with the presence of a purple castle in the village below would suggest that he and his wingman were flying over Europe, he did not remember so many brightly colored ponies, and so few people, in Europe. He would have suspected that some prankster had been tampering with his rations, but his gunner and his wingman had both confirmed what he himself saw, and were just as shocked as Mikhail was. The garnish on top of this weird borscht, however, had to be the flying, blue, rainbow-maned pony that was currently pounding on his cockpit and angrily berating him. He couldn’t understand what it was saying, thanks to the helicopter’s engine noise and the fact that he was wearing a headset over his ears, but he could tell that it was very angry with him. However, what was more important was the fact that this pony was blocking his view of where he was flying! “Get the hell off of my helicopter!” He shouted, sweeping his arms as far to the right as the cockpit would allow to drive home his point. Unfortunately, he bumped the control stick while making the motion, causing the sickle to veer off to side, right through a cloud formation that resembled a house! He was certain that he caught a glimpse of a yellow-green pony taking a shower! It was becoming increasingly clear that wherever this place was, it was no ordinary town, and now that he had shaken off that blue pony, he could report his findings to the commissar. Rainbow was quite shocked at the nerve of that..that… monkey! First, he almost killed her, then he interrupted her rant, then he crashed that huge-flank gyrocopter of his into somepony’s house! That reckless flyer would have to be dealt with later though, her friend could be hurt! “Raindrops! Are you okay!” she shouted, flying through the hole and into Raindrops’ living room. “Yeah, Rainbow, I’m fine.” Raindrops responded from upstairs, stoic as usual despite the outlandish situation she was in. “You sure you don’t need any help?” “I can get some ponies to repair the house.” “Don’t worry, I’m gonna get the creature who did this!” “Wait ‘till I’ve dried off. I need to buck that pervert through a wall.” “The village is populated by WHAT?!” Maxim shouted. Under normal circumstances, a report like the one he just heard would have gotten the pilots thrown in a gulag for possession of drugs, this would then by followed by a purge of the Corps looking for the subversive counter-revolutionary agent responsible for distributing drugs to the Red Army. However, the sickle pilots showed none of the other signs of narcotic influence and he didn’t know if there was any gulag nearby to throw them into. More importantly, the pilots’ report didn’t seem to indicate the presence of a serious threat. If the most these “ponies” could do was give angry lectures then surely the mighty Red Army could march into their town unimpeded and, once there, find out exactly where they were and how they got there… Bon-Bon’s morning started the way most of her mornings did, arguing with Lyra about humans. “I’m telling you, Bon-Bon, humans used to rule this planet.” “How could they do that, Lyra? From what you told me before, humans were not very strong, tough, or fast, and they couldn’t use magic. They couldn’t even control the weather! How could a species that, for lack of a better word, pathetic, ever become a dominant species?” “I told you before, they used technology! They could build gadgets the likes of which nopony has ever seen.” “You mean like the Flim-Flam brothers? Pffft, if that’s all they had going for them no wonder their all gone now.” “HA! So you admit that they existed once!” “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” And so on and so forth. Thankfully, the argument had died down by the time the pair reached their favorite bench. However, when two strange flying objects appeared over town, Lyra started up again. “There can only be one species capable of building things like that...” “Lyra, you don’t mean-” “The prophecy has been fulfilled.” “What are you talking about, what prophecy?!” “The appointed time is upon us, follow me.” Bon-Bon followed Lyra into their house, curious to see what Lyra’s sudden cryptic-ness could be about. The pair proceeded into Lyra’s bedroom. “Now.” The mint-coated mare whispered huskily as she closed the door behind them. “Lyra, what are you going to do?” Bon-Bon replied, her roommate’s behavior having just gained 5 points on the creepy scale (a scale which she was never exactly low on to begin with). “Something I’ve wanted to do for a loooooong time my friend.” Lyra responded, her face inching ever closer to Bon-Bon’s. “Are you ready for me to rock your world?” she whispered, practically into Bon-Bon’s ear. To Bon-Bon, this situation was now 22 out of 10 on the creepy scale. “Ummmmm. I think I had better open up shop before it gets too late in the morrrrrrrr” the chocolatier started to say, only for her jaw to drop in amazement as Lyra opened her closet door, revealing what looked to be a mirror, only blacker, and much more worn with age. There were more doohickeys on the ancient-looking contraption. She hadn’t seen their like before, but, judging from their broken-down appearance, she was certain they were just barely functional, if at all. Lyra pushed a button on the black mirror’s side and one more on one of the other gadgets. The mirror suddenly changed. What was once a fairly reflective surface, despite numerous scratches and even a few cracks, now displayed a moving pattern of black and white specks. It also produced a noise much like crashing waves on a beach, only louder and more uniform. The volume and suddenness of the noise spooked Bon-Bon, whose nerves were already frayed by all the other bits of strangeness that had occurred that morning. “Ahhhhhh!” she screamed as she stumbled backwards onto Lyra’s bed. “It’s alright Bon-Bon, for such is the price humanity extracts for the privilege of hearing its message!” The noise continued for some time before a new image appeared on the black mirror. A strange, ape-like creature, wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket (among other things) appeared on the mirror, “I’ll be back” he said in a deep voiced Germaneian-sounding accent. The mirror then returned to displaying the black and white specks and producing that unalicornly noise. Thankfully, Lyra pushed some buttons and the mirror went back to displaying the black reflection. “Now that the humans are back, we must be ready to receive their ancient wisdom!” Lyra said. Bon-Bon was in a speechless daze as her friend led her out the door. Maxim was in a speechless daze. There were ponies, ponies everywhere and not a human to be seen, and these were not just any ponies either, but large-eyed, pastel-colored ponies, some even had horns or were flying with wings! It was all pretty much exactly as the sickle pilots had described, which allayed the commissar’s fears of the Red Army being corrupted by narcotics. There was only one rational explanation for this, bioengineering! But, who would be crazy enough to even attempt genetic engineering of this nature? The way these ponies and this town looked, whoever did this wasn’t attempting to create the same kinds of monsters that were the new terrors of the South American jungles, but rather, to bring a set of little girl’s toys to life. Maxim was pondering that very question when he tripped on something. When he looked back at the obstacle, he saw a mint-green pony with a white mane and tail, accompanied by a white pony with a purple mane and tail. “Hail, human!” said the green one, bowing to Maxim as the white one followed suit. “Teach us your wisdom!”