"Don't miss your stop," the bus driver said. When he did, the passengers shook their heads, as if coming out of a hypnotic trance. They looked around, taking in their surroundings in a bit of a daze. Aside from some new memories and a bit of confusion, they were exactly as they had been. Externally, at least. Well, seven of them. Five of the passengers were simply gone, almost without a trace. Robert quickly grabbed his mother's purse and strung it over his shoulder with the slightest blush, while Relena grabbed her father's wallet and keys, lying on the seat where he should have been. Ryan, Monique, and Benjamin were simply gone, leaving nothing but a somber reminder of the reality the survivors had just escaped.
Thinking fast, Daniel called out, let's all get off at the McDonald's ahead. "We should trade contact info, and keep in touch," he said. "I know it's not the best, but I'll buy."
"I'm going straight home," Frank countered. "I'll give you my info, but I'm not waiting any longer to see my wife and children."
And so, six passengers got off a few stops later, leaving Frank alone with the bus driver who seemed oblivious to the supernatural events that had occurred on his ride.
It didn't take them long to order, nor to receive their food. Robert had to check with Relena as to how much to order; his body had reverted to the ten year old he had been when he first crossed to Equestria, the fifteen years of time loops erased from his physical form but not his mind. A happy meal was a simple enough suggestion to solve the problem.
They were an odd assortment who sat down to eat. Daniel, the young man who had taken charge, a software engineer who had just experienced life as a magically enhanced cyborg of sorts. Robert, a young boy who had just experienced fifteen years of alternate timelines, only to have the physical signs of it wiped away in an instant. Zeke, a teenaged boy who had used a deck of cards to play with real magic, and managed to learn a small bit himself. Relena, an eight year old girl whose father gave his life to protect her, leaving her to face life alone. Scott, a welfare dependent who had enjoyed a brief stint as a magically empowered restaurateur. And Angelica, a teenage girl who had managed to avoid the war and drama, spending a few weeks exposing the ponies of Vanhoover to the wonders of Earth's Internet.
"So," Zeke began awkwardly. "That happened." Everyone nodded solemnly, eating quietly for a bit.
Scott looked to the youngest two, "are you two going to be okay? I mean, without your parents.."
Robert looked thoughtful. "I know how to take care of myself in a place like Equestria, with a bow and sword I no longer have.. here in the modern world? As terribly awkward as it's all going to be for me, I think my best shot, honestly is to deal with whatever the foster system has in mind for orphans.. at least I've already 'grown up' once.. should help some. If nothing else I'd like to hope it gave me.. perspective."
Relena shook her head. "You can go play orphan if you want to. I'm going to my dad's cabin. I actually have a bow there and know how to use it. Actually.. maybe you should come with me. We could do quite well together."
Angelica laughed a bit. "Are you for real? How are you going to, like, pay the bills?"
Relena huffed. "I've been paying the bills for over a year. I have.. had more free time than daddy, and getting the paperwork out of the way meant more time together. Besides, he always wanted me to be prepared to take care of myself.. we just.. thought it would be another decade before it happened."
"Do you have good internet access from that cabin of yours?" Angelica asked.
Relena nodded. "It's not the fastest, but it's good enough. Daddy tried to keep himself away from it when he was out there, but it wasn't practical to cut himself off entirely."
"Speaking of internet", Daniel interjected, finally looking up from his phone, "I've sent all of the contact details you guys gave me to the email addresses you gave me. We should keep in touch. After all that.. I think, we may need someone who can relate to the, well, unrelatable. I know all of our experiences there were pretty different, but at least we won't just write each other off as crazy. And it sounds like at least some of us are going to need a bit of help here on this side from time to time."
"We should come up with a name for ourselves. Something we can use to refer to our group without sounding too weird to outsiders who might overhear," Zeke suggested.
They all thought for a moment before Relena offered, "how about the Eastside Equestrian Club?"
This got a mixed bag of reactions, but eventually they settled on it. The ambiguity of the term masked its meaning enough to use it freely, letting outsiders come to their own incorrect assumptions. It even brought up an obvious reason to mention 'ponies'.
"It's decided then. I hearby adjourn the inaugural meeting of the Eastside Equestrian Club," Daniel said. "It's about time for the next bus to come by, so let's all get where we're going. I'll be in touch."
"Dibs on making the website!" Angelica said cheerily as they made their exit.
When Frank arrived home, he could already hear his son crying through the door. That was a bit unusual. Usually, little Georgie didn't start crying until he heard his father approaching, too impatient to wait for him to take off his shoes and coat. It was unusual, but not really suspicious. Babies cried, sometimes for no discernable reason, or over little things like being unable to reach something they shouldn't be playing with anyways. So Frank opened the door, put away his coat and shoes, and proceeded to greet his son with a loud, excited "George!"
The one year old, just starting to toddle, lit up with happy laughter and began crawling toward him eagerly, soon to be scooped up. He smothered the child in kisses before meeting his wife, Eliza, in an uncommonly passionate kiss. If he had had a normal day, he might have asked her why she was in such a forward mood, but instead he savored it for all it was worth, simply glad to be home at last after so long. There was something a bit more pleasurable than usual in the exchange, unsurprising after such a long and stressful absence.
When they finally broke contact, Frank inquired "is dinner almost ready? I'm really hungry."
Eliza seemed a bit surprised at this, quickly covering. "I thought perhaps we could go out to eat tonight. Your choice."
Frank thought a moment, "I don't really feel like going back out again tonight.. why don't we have something delivered?"
Oddly, Eliza seemed surprised by that option as well. "Sure, why don't you order something for us, then?"
And so he ordered some Chinese food, and stepped up to feed their hungry son while they waited. It was kind of odd, like somehow his stay at home wife had forgotten all of her responsibilities. It seemed more like forgetfulness than laziness, as every little thing seemed like a small surprise to her. On the other hand, she was awfully affectionate the whole time.
George was unusually fussy and tired, so Frank put him to bed early, finishing just in time to answer the door when their food arrived. Eliza barely ate anything.. which was not all that unusual at this stage of her pregnancy. The internal organs moving around tended to limit how much she could eat at once, even if bouts of hunger throughout the day left her eating more altogether. But she was very forward and affectionate today. Most days the pregnancy sapped too much of her energy to get up to much of anything, but today she seemed full of energy, and intent on catching up on missed opportunities.
Something in the back of Frank's brain insisted that all was not quite right. But a louder part insisted that he not miss this opportunity, especially since it had been so much longer for him than she realized. And so, Frank took his wife back to the master bedroom. By the time he finally fell asleep, he was thoroughly exhausted, in a much deeper and more complete way than he had ever experienced. He slept deeply, for once, even sleeping through their son's cries in the night, but woke up still feeling drained.
Still.. it was so good to finally be home.
Dopple sat unsteadily upon the throne. It was meant for a changeling more than twice his height, and he wasn't about to change his form just to fit. Maybe later, when he was more established, but for now, he had to be openly recognized as himself. Dopple. Dopple the human slayer. Dopple the war hero.
It had all been dumb luck, in a way. He had been at his Queen's side when she confronted the princesses and their human allies, only for one of the humans to somehow magically banish him back to his home. Normally, going home from a fight wasn't all that bad, but in this case his home was full of hostile murder-dogs. But the murder-dogs had a weakness, and with nothing better to do he had been able to find it. If you attacked from far enough away, you could take them out before they closed, and if you kept airborne they basically ignored you as you picked them off at your leisure.
The human had had a weakness too. The dogs could see through a changeling's disguise like it wasn't even there, but the human could not. He didn't even think to be suspicious of a dog wielding a crossbow. Or if he had, he was too distracted by the world's worst case of sunburn to care. Honestly, Celestia probably deserved more credit for ending the human than he did, but he wasn't in a position to argue.
Literally.
Their queen had been missing for less than an hour, and already fighting factions had broken out amongst his changeling brethren, arguing about who should be in charge. As a war hero, no one could object to him openly, and he had been more or less installed by a coalition of opposing factions in order to keep each others' choices out of the throne. Arguing his way out of the job would just make the fighting start again, and maybe it wouldn't be bloodless this time.
He was a little nervous about their queen suddenly showing up and demanding his head for sitting in her seat, but he hoped his war hero status would give him enough leniency to survive stepping down. He didn't really want to be the queen. Or king. Or whatever he was. Leader. Fearless leader. That was a lie, but it would serve.
"The first order of business, I, your fearless leader, have for you is to secure food for us," he began. "All of our feeding pods were destroyed by the brutal and cruel human, not even sparing the ponies locked inside. You have an hour to prepare plans for me for how each of you think we should restore our supplies, and I will chose which of those plans, if any, are enacted. Understood?"
He had to keep repeating 'Fearless leader, fearless leader, fearless leader' in his mind to keep himself from acting timid before the group of would-be leaders standing fearlessly before him. But they all bought it, or at least saw no reason to undermine him, so he sat back into the throne and waited for their suggestions.
[Oh Crysalis, where are you?!] he thought.