• Published 27th Jul 2013
  • 3,246 Views, 319 Comments

Wonderbolt Down - Rebonack



Sharing a birthday with three of my closest friends? Great! Discovering that we've all acquired the cutie mark of relatively minor Wonderbolts? A little awkward. Actually becoming said Wonderbolts? Now that's just downright creepy.

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Wherein Surprise Has a Flashback

“You in the window! Freeze!” one of the grumpy looking humans in the flexible cloth armor shouted up at Geneva. The hippogriff yelped and flew away. Surprise was hoping that her friends would be okay without her. They weren't very good at hiding at all! But she was pretty sure this was what she needed to do, so she was doing it.

The humans started shouting a lot and some of them were waving their arms around and the guy who looked kind of like that one person there were lots of copies of in that one movie was just watching everything unfold. He seemed really boring to Surprise. He wouldn't tell her his name and he wouldn't smile and he made her feel a little bit nervous. It was like somepony decided to make the blandest, most boring person possible and then stick them in a black suit. She wasn't sure why a guy in a suit should make her feel so uneasy, but he sure did. But every time she started feeling afraid for herself and her friends she would laugh.

“Snortle at the spooky!” Surprise giggled.

Her friends would be safe. They were really smart and clever and talented! It would be just like that time the Princess sent them to deal with those pirates off the coast of Zebrabar.

Surprise pondered that memory. Was she supposed to be remembering that one yet? Hmm... Clearly she was, since she just did. If she wasn't then she wouldn't. Because whether she does or doesn't or wouldn't then what's going to happen will happen, right? Right. That reminded Surprise of a song so she began humming it.

Surprise hummed so long and so well that she hardly even noticed when two more cages were delivered until she recognized the smell and voice of her friends Winter Night and Corn Silk! After all Surprise wouldn't be a very good friend if she couldn't remember what her friends smell like. Knowing how your friends stink is a very important facet of being friends with ponies, of this Surprise is quite sure. If it wasn't important then why would everypony smell so different from each other? And for that matter why would ponies need such sensitive shnozzles?

Was shnozzles even a word? If it wasn't then it should be. It was like a cross between schnoz and nozzle. Both of those were pretty silly sounding words and they worked really well together. Especially since noses are kind of like nozzles when you get sad or sick. Like a snot nozzle! Shnozzle!

“What's going to happen to us?” Winter whimpered sadly. “They... they aren't going to dissect us are they?”

Aaww... Surprise could tell that Winter was really sad and afraid! And that just wouldn't do. Surprise's special place in the world was giving her friends the funnest and most wonderful surprises that she can! And sometimes scaring them too because sometimes it's really fun to be scared but right now Winter and some of the other ponies were already frightened and not the good kind of frightened either like the kind of frightened when you laugh a whole bunch afterward because you got startled by someone wearing a mask of Richard Nixon and it's just so funny that you got scared by something like that! Boy, Surprise really had fun at that party. She wished that she could go back to the same party again, but then it wouldn't be as much of a surprise anymore would it? She would know everything that was going to happen and then it wouldn't be as much fun. Like that cake! Who would have ever expected to mix chocolate and vanilla cream cheese frosting inside the cake?

Wait...

What was she thinking about again?

Oh yeah!

“Don't worry Winter! Everything is going to be just fine!” Surprise said brightly. “This is just like when everyone was freaking out about Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn but it turned out to be a great opportunity for character growth!”

“Oh no, Surprise...” Corn Silk muttered. “They caught you too?”

Haha! Surprise getting caught? Like that would happen. Nopony surprises Surprise! Unless of course they're wearing a Richard Nixon mask, but that was before her magic came back in full force and when she was still that silly human. What was her name? Iree? Irony? Ivory! That was it! Ivory was a neat human and Surprise had a lot of fun being her for a while. Especially since she owned a party supply store. If Surprise wasn't a Wonder Bolt then a party supply store would be a fun job. Of course that would come secondary to being a party pony. Being a party pony is a really super important job since somepony needs to help keep everypony else happy and cheerful!

If they weren't happy and cheerful then the chaos spirits in Tartaurus might wriggle free and that would be bad. Which in retrospect is pretty much exactly what they did.

“Nah! I got into the cage on my own. I'm on a secret spy mission! They won't ever expect subterfuge from the inside!” Surprise whispered conspiratorially. And loudly enough to be heard from the other side of the room. It was important that the bad guys knew about her cunning plan.

“But who's going to save us?” Winter murmured. “Who's going to stop us from being dissected?”

“Hehe! Don't worry about getting dissected! That would be way too [Dark] for this story,” Surprise stated matter of factly.

“...what?”

“Exactly! We just need to keep our spirits high until the right time comes and then we'll be doing our big escape thingy! It'll be an adventure!” Surprise didn't-explain.

“Alright you horses, pipe down,” one of the mean humans with the guns said whilst banging the butt of his weapon on a cage. “No talking while we're transporting you or there'll be trouble.”

Tarps were draped over the cages as they were loaded onto luggage transports and carted out to the aircraft waiting on the runway. The ponies were obediently quiet for the transition. Once aboard the cargo plane the tarps were pulled off and a startling discovery was made.

“Where the hell did the white pegasus go?” one of the SWAT guys mumbled. “No way she could have slipped out while we were moving the cages.”

“I'll tell the resident suit about it,” replied another. “One less pony isn't that big of a deal. We'll still have plenty of them to get the boss' plan rolling.”

Finding Surprise turned out to be a complete fool's errand and the plane took off just slightly behind schedule. Once it was in the air, though? That's when the fun and games started. “I've gotta take a piss,” one of them announced as he unbuckled himself from his seat and headed toward the nose of the plane. Into the lavatory he went, completely oblivious to the white pegasus pressed up against the ceiling and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Waiting in the bathroom for one of the bad guys to walk away from the rest had been really boring! And Surprise couldn't even risk humming one of her songs or she might have been heard. So instead she had passed the time by making all sorts of funny little origami animals with the toilet paper. The guard looked really confused when he spotted the flock of cranes littered about the bathroom. Surprise could understand that feeling. Like that one time she had decided to throw a surprise 'glad you finished your new bathroom' party for one of her friends inside of their bath tub. Getting all the balloons and party games crammed in there had been a real feat. Everypony had lots of fun even if the cake left a pink ring on the inside of the bathtub. Come to think of it, Surprise could have really gone for some cake right now but her saddlebags had been taken away and all her food was stored in there. She had tried keeping cake in her mane once, but the frosting just got everywhere and it was really messy.

Speaking of messy, Surprise decided that she would wait until after the guard was done peeing before she jumped on him so he wouldn't soil any of her cranes. She had worked really hard on those and she was planning on giving them to the nice ponies in the cargo bay and soiled cranes just wouldn't be the same. Boy, he sure was taking a long time wasn't he? Oop! Now he's done, ninja sneak attack time! Surprise pulled her trusty rubber chicken from her mane and clobbered the guard upside the head with it. Thankfully she had remembered to fill it with little steel ball bearings this time instead of whipped cream.

The whipped cream was great for a gag. Not so good for knocking out bad guys.

The guard banged his head heavily against the sink and slumped into a heap. A bright flash of green washed over him, burning away human flesh and clothing to reveal a chitinous skeletal creature pockmarked with holes. Changelings! But human-shaped instead of pony-shaped? Weird. That was probably some kind of ominous foreshadowing, but Surprise wasn't sure what it would mean and settled with stealing the changeling's combat knife and helmet. It didn't fit her very well and her wild cataclysm of a mane was sticking out of it at all sorts of silly angles, but it would do!

Surprise got a firm grip on the changeling's head with her hooves and gave a sharp twist. There was a snappy crackly noise like breaking waffle cookies and the changeling's body dissolved away into green goop that evaporated into nothing. Sure is convenient that the changelings melt like that when the get killed. Wasn't it supposed to be so their enemies couldn't just collect their bodies as proof of their infiltration? Something like that. One down, three to go.

The perky pegasus went trotting back to the cargo hold humming the tune to 'Weasel Stomping Day'.

“What took you so long?” one of the guards asked. “Thought you had fallen in or something.”

“Oh, I just ran into a little surprise is all!” the totally-not-a-pegasus replied with a tittering giggle.

“Huh. What sort of surprise?”

With a powerful beat of her wings Surprise launched herself at the two guards closest to each other, driving her hoof into one's face with a sickening crunch. Out came the combat knife and into the second guard it went. In the same fluid motion Surprise yanked the weapon out and hurled it straight into the third before he had time to react to the rather unexpected assault.

“An unpleasant surprise!” the pegasus retorted to the two dead and melting changelings. And of course an unconscious third.

A beat.

“Wait, I'm supposed to say the punchline before I kill them all, aren't I?” Surprise huffed. “I always get that backwards don't I?”

She began pulling the knocked out chaos spirit out of its harness. “That was a really good joke, but you won't get to hear it. Ah well! No use crying over spilled punchlines. Come on mister liar-mc-liar-pants. Time to show all those scared ponies your true colors!”

There was a collective gasp from the imprisoned ponies when Surprise dumped the comatose changeling in front of them. Surprise totally expected that since the changelings were pretty unexpected! And these ones were ugly, too. The ones from Equestria had been pony-shaped and sort of skeletal bug things. But these monsters are human-shaped and sort of skeletal bug things! Like the Terminator, except with more crinkly insect wings! Hopefully they weren't traveling back in time to kill an important pony in the past because time travel is really confusing and Surprise would rather not have to keep track of several time lines all at once. But then it would turn out that the terrible future would happen not matter what happened in the past because of the implacable human desire to give all control over the nation's nuclear missiles to a computer for some reason! It happened in at least two movies that Surprise knew of so it must be true.

“What is that thing?” one earth pony mare exclaimed.

“An evil robot endoskeleton with synthetic flesh to hide its true form!” Surprise replied.

“R-really?”

“Nope! It's a changeling. They're chaos spirits from Tartaurus but this one doesn't look like a horse,” Surprise quickly corrected. She had let herself get side tracked again! Thankfully she acted quickly enough to make it sound like a joke.

“I think I liked the robot explanation more...” the earth pony muttered.

“So, what? The guards were those things all along?” a unicorn mare asked. “This was all a trick? They said they could make me human again! I don't want to be stuck as a girl pony!”

“They lied,” Surprise said, nodding sagely. “Spirits of deception will do that.”

You would think more people would know that trusting shady people claiming to be government agents without saying who they are or what agency they're part of wouldn't be trustworthy. Especially if those people are actually extra-dimensional demon-beasts in disguise. Or possibly killer robots from the future. What a bunch of silly fillies.

“Aaww, come on everypony. Don't look so scared! We're going to give them a real nasty surprise when the plane lands. Then we can escape! It'll be like an action movie with explosions and chase scenes and cheap popcorn with artificial butter substitute!” Surprise said, using her best encouraging voice. “They'll never know what hit 'em! Chaos spirits might be bad news, but when ponies stand up to them working together in friendship they don't stand a chance!”

“But how are we going to get out of the cages?” the white unicorn mare with an amber mane asked.

“That's easy!” Surprise laughed whilst pulling off her pilfered helmet. “The guard had the codes for the locks hidden inside his hat! That's why you should always check everything carefully when you're looting bad guys. You never know when they might have a quest item on them.”

“Okay everypony. I need names and talents so I know what I'm working with,” Surprise said.

Surprise was met with a rush of useful information! Though she tried really hard to stay focused on all of her new friends instead of thinking about the best way to stop an evil computer network from taking over the world with robots and missiles. She knew Corn Silk and Winter Night already, though apparently Night had figured out how to cast really neat story-based illusions!

Then there was the amber-maned unicorn mare Bubble Wrap. She used to be a member of the royal guard before they all got banished! She had a neat spell that creates bubbles! She was nice enough to make a swarm of little ones and everypony had some fun swatting them out of the air.

A brown earth pony mare with a black and bright green mane named Willow Leaf was another valuable find. She had guard experience too and a talent for keeping other ponies safe. She also had a talent for flirting with anything that breathed, but that wouldn't be quite as important to Surprise's plan. It might help improve morale after the plan though!

The other ponies had a fairly sundry list of domestic talents that probably wouldn't be too terribly useful in the coming escape.

The plan was simple. All the cages were unlocked, but most of the ponies remained inside. Surprise, Night, Bubble, and Willow donned the fallen guard's helmets so no one would be the wiser if they came back to check on the cargo. Because surely no one would ever recognize them if they were wearing guard hats. As soon as the cargo doors were opened they would all come pouring out and make a break for it! It was Willow's job to keep the rest of the herd together and out of trouble while Night and Bubble would lay down a defensive screen. Surprise would pounce on anything that got past her friends. A perfect plan!

Some time later Surprise felt the plane touch down and she knew. This was it. This was game time. This was her chance to shine! Her chance to show that she still had it! That Surprise Party was still in the game! Because if she didn't then the chaos spirits would probably do really terrible things to them. Like force them to eat pound cake with no strawberries or whipped cream! She was sure they fiendish enough to try something that vile to break them.

With a groan the cargo bay of the plane eased open, filling the space with sunlight and arid air. Outside another luggage transport was waiting on the runway with two SWAT look-alikes flanking it. The G-Man came walking in from the nose of the plane pausing briefly to peer at Bubble Wrap and her totally legit disguise. The unicorn smiled lamely.

“Load the ponies,” the suit said simply.

“Change of plans!” Willow Leaf bellowed as she leaped out of her seat, spun in place, and bucked the G-Man clean in the chest with a resounding crack. The force of the impact sent him tumbling down the ramp and he crashing into one of the shocked changeling guards. “Alright everypony! Run for it!”

The remaining changeling guard raised his weapon to fire, but suddenly found the end of his gun enveloped by a road-cone orange bubble. Instead of sticking into a pony the dart began ricocheting around inside the colorful shield. By the time he had processed what just happened he was being tramped by a stampede of ponies racing out of the back of the plane!

“Keep close together everypony!” Willow yelled. “That'll make it easier for our friends to cover for us!”

Winter began reciting a description of Mirkwood from memory and laid down an illusionary forest between the fleeing ponies and their pursuers. Bubble sent several extra-large orbs bouncing along behind them at any changelings that broke through the phantom trees. Upon contact with the bubbles the demons were enveloped and sent rolling along like a hamster inside a ball. A fence loomed in the herd's way, but it was a simple enough task for the earth ponies to kick it down for their friends to pass.

“To the town everypony!” Surprise called out. “We're going to make it!”

Of course that's when the ground split open. In retrospect Surprise is pretty sure that she shouldn't have commented that they were going to make it. Commenting that they're going to make it always seems to be the trigger phrase for the monster to arrive on the scene and start causing some trouble! Thankfully the monster wasn't too giant. It was as if someone had taken a human skeleton, added a bunch of bony spikes and eagle-like feet to it, slathered it with molten rock, gave it two extra heads, and then set it on fire for good measure. Thick black smoke billowed from the abomination's back like a pair of massive wings as it strode toward the ponies.

Ah ha! Surprise knew exactly what this thing was! A fury! The furies were some of the toughest chaos spirits since kindness and beating up evil monsters usually didn't mix very well. Surprise could try being really nice to it, but it would probably set her on fire and Surprise really didn't want to get set on fire. She's allergic to being on fire after all. It causes her to break out in horrible burns.

Surprise chipped cheerfully at her friends. “You guys go around. I'll keep it busy!”

Surprise was given an 'are you sure?' look by Willow, to which the quirky pegasus nodded. “Don't worry about me! I know just what to do!”

The herd of ponies continued their flight and Surprise interposed herself between the abomination and her friends! And of course she said exactly what should always been said when faced with a demon of flame and suffocating smoke.

“You can not pass!” Surprise yelled as she beat her wings all the harder, wind whipping around her.

The chaos spirit raised itself on high from its hunched position, flames roaring across its body as it bellowed at the little pegasus with all the heat of a blast furnace.

“I am a servant of the solar crown, wielder of the brightness of laughter,” Surprise called back at the beast as she drew her rubber chicken. The spirit clutched one hand, causing a blazing sword to erupt into its grip. “The fires of anger will not avail you, Flame of Erinys!”

With a three-fold roar the demon heaved its blade toward Surprise like a thunderbolt while the pony countered with her mighty rubber chicken! The rubber chicken exploded unceremoniously and Surprise was sent hurtling through the air trailing a plume of smoke. She hit the ground, bounced twice, and landed in a prickly shrub.

Surprise coughed out a small cloud of smoke. “That didn't go quite as planned... Yeep!” the pegasus quickly darted into the air to avoid a blob of molten rock that obliterated the bush that had broken her fall. “Nyeh nyeh! You can't hit me!”

And with that Surprise dove behind a bush!

A bush that was obliterated with a lava bomb moments later. The demon snorted and began stomping toward the burning bit of scrub to find a charred pony corpse. Instead it just found a burned bush.

“Whoops! Over here!” Surprise laughed, popping out from behind another shrub.

Another lava bomb is hurled at her and once again she dropped out of sight.

“Nope! Over here! No wait, over here! Whoopsy, missed again! I'm over here!”

The fury gave a roar of seething rage, the heat from its body becoming absolutely unbearable and causing the bushes around it to begin bursting into flames.

“Wuh oh, time to go! Buh bye mister fury!” Surprise laughed as she went zooming away to catch up with her friends. She sure didn't beat the monster, but she did stall it long enough for her friends to escape. And that's what really mattered, right? After all, you get your XP if you beat the challenge. And sometimes beating the challenge just means making sure everypony gets away! Though alas Surprise is pretty sure she didn't level up off this encounter. If she had then there would have been a 'ding!' or maybe a pillar of light would have exploded out of her or something. At the very least she would have noticed some unused skill points to invest in something. She had been debating between Underwater Basket Weaving and Metaknowledge for her next skill point investment.

“Surprise, are you alright?” Corn Silk asked as the quirky pegasus drew close.

“How do you feel about underwater basket weaving?” Surprise asked. This was an important question! Maybe her friends could help her come to a decision about it

Corn Silk stared at Surprise blankly. “Umm... I don't think I really have an opinion on it?”

“Darn,” Surprise muttered. “Maybe I should just go with Craft: Silly Pun...”

When everypony reached the town they were met with a pretty disturbing sight. Here and there the landscape was tainted with patches of dark scoria, choking ash, and volcanic vents belching out noxious fumes that stunk of death and decay. It made the bleak arid area surrounding the airport look positively cheerful by contrast. In some places the landscape was frozen over, in others it was crackling with flames, in others it was studded with black crystals or languid pools of purple sludge. Nothing grew on the blighted ground. And any structures that the corruption had consumed had become dark and twisted. For all the world it looked like hell was slowly creeping into the town.

The sight made Surprise feel sad. This was wrong and bad and it must be terrible for the people that lived there! She didn't recognize the alien features overtaking the town aside from a few elements, but she had the feeling that something really awful was going down here. Especially since there were changelings patrolling around in their undisguised state and no one seemed to be outside! The changelings seemed pretty agitated, especially when Surprise waved a hoof at them cheerfully. They seemed even more agitated when a gunshot rang out and one of them dropped to the ground in a heap. Then the last one stopped being agitated when it got blasted in the face with a red bolt of magic.

A black unicorn mare with an orange mane and a weight inside a red star as a cutie mark comes galloping out of a ruined storefront. At her side is a human woman with a rifle in her hands. They both look like they're in a really big hurry and maybe just a little bit worried to Surprise. That makes a lot of sense. They were both wearing some bandages and the woman's clothing looks a little tattered. Judging from the setting they must be the resistance! They just needed some resistance hats. Surprise would have to fix that problem for them.

“All of you come with us. Those chaos spirits hold most of this part of the town,” the mare said while the human woman kept an eye out for any more changelings. “Reinforcements are exactly what we need right now. Everypony move on the double!”

The little herd followed human and unicorn through the twisting streets and ruined homes of the town. It was a lot like a game of follow the leader! Except instead of just having fun prancing around and laughing everypony was all hushed and quiet and dour. Surprise really didn't like it when ponies are dour but sometimes dour is the only mood that really fits. Something super duper terrible had happened in this town and she wanted to find out what it was so she could help! Surprise was putting her money on an army of evil demon-robot-chaos-spirit-androids that had invaded the world from the future, no doubt to kill someone important here in the past. Well if she was involved there was no way the leader of the future resistance was going to be lost!

Of course the tricky part would be finding the future leader of the resistance before the bad guys do. Surprise wasn't even sure who she should be looking for! That seemed like a pretty major plot-critical detail that somepony had forgotten to inform her of. Maybe she should just check the script again? Ooooh, but if she did that then she might create a temporal pair ah socks! And if anything this story wasn't nearly saucy enough for ponies to be trotting around wearing socks. No, she would resist and puzzle through it on her own to protect the impressionable minds of the youth.

“I'm going to go talk to the terminators so I can find out who they're trying to terminate,” Surprise commented brightly whilst pulling a little collar out of her mane and snapping it around her neck.

“What? No, that's a terrible idea!” Star Field replied. “We need to stay out of sight.”

Surprise resolved her course of action and trotted out into the middle of a street despite the hissed warnings of the black unicorn. There were three changelings milling around near a burned out car chatting about subjects that were probably important for changelings to chat about. Surprise had often wondered what sorts of things changelings would chat about. The ones from Equestria never really talked all that much except when they were doing mean things like tricking ponies into thinking they were somepony else. Maybe they were just shy? Or evil. Probably more likely they were evil.

“Have you read some of the stuff humans have written about us?” one of the skeletal insectoid monsters buzzed to the others.

“Oh Discord's greasy beard, not this again,” the second groaned. “You waste so much time on that crap.”

“Hey, on the Internet no one knows that you're an empathic vampire,” the first changeling countered. “And besides, it's not like we're doing anything important. Everything's on auto-pilot by now anyway.”

“First of all, we're changelings. No one in real life should know that we're empathic vampires either,” the creature's peer said. “And second, if one of the furies catches you talking like that they'll use you for target practice.”

“Ooooh, I'm shaking in my chitin. I would get banished back to Tartaurus for, like, two weeks. Who cares? We've got this whole thing in the bag,” the first changeling scoffed.

“Would you two shut up?” the third growled. “Something's coming this way.”

“Woof! I'm a dog!” Surprise said. Obviously she was a dog and not a pegasus, since she was wearing a dog collar and ponies don't wear dog collars unless they're into bondage which is totally okay but not really Surprise's style.

“Calm your tits, it's just a mutt,” the first changeling laughed. “So like I was saying. Most of the stuff the humans wrote about us? I shit you not we're all misunderstood and sympathetic and stuff in at least half the stories. Even Queen Chrysalis is just some poor creature who loves her hive and wants to make sure they're fed. In some of the stories one of the Elements of Harmony is a changeling. Can you believe that?”

“Who the hell is Queen Chrysalis?” the third changeling asks, taking its eyes off the creature which is without question a totally normal dog.

“Hehe. Queen Titania never introduced herself during the invasion. What's the point of getting on a first name basis with meat, anyway?” the first changeling laughed. “The humans just made up a name for her.”

“Huh. So they actually have something nice to say about the bitch queen? And since when did we have hives?”

“Eh, beats me. None of the humans seem to be able to agree on what we're like. Guess they'll find out soon enough, though,” the first changeling said with a malevolent sneer. “A lot of them think vampires are sexy. I for one plan on taking full advantage of that.”

Surprise really didn't like the direction the conversation was going. These changelings didn't seem very nice. Not even a little bit! She would have to find a way to get them to talk about their evil plan so she could foil it. Hmm, but how?

“Hey, do we have any word on the Elements of Harmony yet?” the third changeling piped up.

The first shrugged. “Not officially. There have been a few possible leads. The suits are checking it out like usual.”

The third changeling shuddered. “Friggin' boogies. Those guys give me the jeebies. I don't know why Queen Titania decided to throw in with the King Baboulas and the other tribes. These humans are so clueless that we probably could have managed this whole operation on our own.”

“I think it's a great idea,” the second changeling said. Its two peers glowered at it. “What? Think about it. We were all fighting with each other and against the mortal races, too. But then they united and started locking us in that damned prison one at a time. If we all work together there's no way we can be beaten.”

“Ugh. That sounds an awful lot like harmony to me,” the first changeling said. It gagged slightly even so much as uttering the word harmony aloud.

“I prefer to think of it as enlightened self-interest,” the second changeling retorted. “Once the plan is done then we can go back to murdering each other. But for now we're supposed to keep everyone happy.”

“I'm pretty sure the boogies aren't even capable of being happy. Not a drop of positive emotion on those creeps,” the third changeling said whilst making a sour face. “Trying to feed off them is like chewing a mouthful of ash.”

“Well, good thing we've got a couple billion humans then, right?” the first changeling said with a predatory grin. “And remember. Vampires? Sexy.”

“What happens if the Elements of Harmony get together again? You think they might give us trouble?” the third changeling wondered aloud.

“Nah. This place isn't like back home. The bad guys win all the time here. Most humans don't give two shits about other humans suffering so long as they don't see it. Besides, the Elements of Harmony will be too focused on trying to get back to Equestria to kick Discord's hodge-podge ass. I don't know what kind of nasty surprise he's got waiting for those stupid horses, but it'll probably be hilarious. So Discord gets Equestria and we get this hell-hole. Good deal if you ask me. Fingers rock,” the first changeling said whilst wiggling its armored digits.

Surprise's eye widened a little. The evil robot demon chaos spirit androids were planning on taking over Earth! But how? She had to know! Surprise needed to come up with some kind of clever, cunning plan to encourage the bad guys to talk about the specifics of their nefarious plot! It had to be something subtle. Something they wouldn't ever expect. Something that these evil henchmen would fall for without being the wiser.

Ah ha!

That would work!

“So how are you guys going to take over the planet?” Surprise asked. “That sounds super-duper tough.”

Never had there been a plan as cunning as this one.

“Eh, it isn't so hard when we can just replace important leaders,” the first changeling said with a shrug. “And once the twenty sixth rolls around we'll-”

“Did that dog just talk?”

“Yep!” Surprise replied brightly.

“Sweet! You figured out how to mimic animals?” the third changeling asked, excitement creeping into its voice. “This I've got to hear. Next time those humans pop up I wanna try turning into a bear and cuffing one upside the head.”

“I need to know what happens on the twenty sixth though!” Surprise objected. “And what the evil plan is!”

That got some suspicious looks. One very suspicious look in particular. “Everyone knows about the plan. Why wouldn't you-”

“Shit! That isn't a dog! That's a pony!”

Surprise sprung into action. Sadly she didn't have any camera to pan around her as she leaped into the air and crane-kicked one of the changelings square in the jaw. Nor did she get any cool dramatic close-ups whilst whirling around to back-hoof the second, crushing its neck. And when she grabbed the gagging changeling and twirled behind it to use its chitinous body to absorb a blast of livid green faerie fire from its comrade’s unfriendly organic looking weapon there wasn't any slow-mo sequence. Though when she lifted the limp changeling's arm and used its own horn-gun-thingy to blast the remaining changeling dead center in the chest it did get launched backwards in a pretty satisfying way.

The jaw-kicked changeling was beginning to rise rather shakily, but a buck torso discouraged that. Surprise snatched up the injured chaos spirit and slammed it against the car.

“Where is she!” the pegasus bellowed in a voice that sounded like she had been gargling gravel.

“I don't know what you're talking about!” the changeling groveled.

“Oh, hehe! Wrong movie! I'm supposed to do that one later,” Surprise laughed. She tightened her grip and began beating her wings, hoisting the chaos spirit off its feet. “What have you done with those plans?

“Go to hell, pony!” the changeling gasped.

Aaww... It didn't say anything about transmissions. Doesn't it know how you're supposed to do this sort of thing? When someone makes a movie reference in the midst of a pitched battled you're supposed to respond in kind or it falls flat. Maybe it just didn't understand how these things work? Hopefully a little explanation would clear the waters.

“Okay, see that's wrong,” Surprise said. “I just quoted Star Wars. Then you're supposed to counter with another Star Wars quote. Like calling me a scruffy looking nerf-herder or saying that you're on a diplomatic mission. ”

“You're insane! You've lost your mind!” the changeling wheezed.

“Okay, I guess a line from the Disney sequel trilogy works,” Surprise mused thoughtfully. “Though that's not really ideal. But at least you didn't quote the prequel trilogy! Boy, I really didn't enjoy those very much. The special effects looked neat I suppose, but it just didn't have that classic feel you know?” A beat. “Hello?”

Surprise gave the finally-dead changeling a shake.

“Aaww... I broke it,” the pegasus sighed and dropped the changeling on the ground. “Somepony really needs to look into the quality control on mass-produced evil minions. But the bottom of the barrel has to start somewhere doesn't it? Hmm... something big on the twenty sixth. Twenty five days after this crazy mess started. But what could it be?”

Surprise glanced back at the rest of the group only to discover that they had moved on without her while she was interrogating the bad guys!

“Ponyfeathers,” the quirky pegasus said. “Guess I'll just have to go find them then.”

And now Surprise was playing hide and seek! She could just fly up in the sky and take a look around, but that would probably be cheating. That and the changelings would almost certainly spot her and Surprise really didn't want to have a big hole blasted in her by one of those changeling faerie fire guns. Getting holes blasted in her would probably disorganize her organs and Surprise needed those for organizing!

Even yelling 'marco!' probably wouldn't work. That would just attract more bad guys. Ah well, that just means more sneaking through the streets! Thankfully turning that into a fun game was easy as one two drop that old wooden crate over herself! A pegasus inside of a box was a pretty good disguise, but not ideal. For an idea disguise she would need a pinwheel and a set of Groucho Marx glasses. Sadly she was lacking both of those and hadn't had the forethought to collect either. After all, it wasn't as if she could pull any old useful object out of her mane.

That would be silly.

And thus Surprise began shuffling about through the streets of town under a box! Of her cunning disguise none of the chaos spirits were the wiser. Though there was that close call with a patrol of changelings. Thankfully she had an old insects Zoobooks magazine to distract them with. Because who in their right mind wouldn't carry around a complete collection of Zoobooks with them at all times?

It wasn't long after that Surprise stumbled upon a young human bound in icky green goop with two changelings looming over him! Clearly he must have been captured and would surely be consigned to a terrible fate if Surprise didn't save him. Thankfully two changelings were well within Surprise's range of ability to deal with. Especially since she found that old tether ball a few blocks back!

One of the changelings gave a yelp of surprise when a tether ball began wrapping around it. Its comrade immediately jumped to attention only to have a crate dumped over its head and a pair of hooves collide with its gut! Several well placed bucks later the bad guys were down for the count!

Surprise began pulling the poor human free from the changeling's goopy restraints. “I'm Surprise Party,” the pegasus announced. “Who are you?”

“I'm John Conner,” the boy said whilst rubbing his sore wrists.

The quirky pegasus gave a delighted gasp upon hearing that particular name. She straightened herself up, put on a pair of sunglasses, and then spoke in the deepest voice she could muster. “Come with me if you want to live.”

~~~~~

“And that's the story of how I rescued John Conner from Skynet and saved the future!” Surprise announces suddenly.

I shake my head and give a good natured chuckle. “Surprise, you've been spacing out for the past ten minutes. I can't see flashbacks going on inside your head.”

“Oh...” Surprise grunts. “I knew that.”