The Blessing and the Curse

by Equestria Buck Yeah

Chapter 3

That evening came and went without any unusual occurrences that Matt and those who knew of his new toy had been wary of, and the following morning did the same. While things were as peaceful as ever in the early part of the day out on Sweet Apple Acres, peace of mind was something Applejack had not had since Matt's freak-out two nights prior. She hadn't seen him so troubled in an incredibly long time, and although she was as fascinated by the phone's appearance as Matt was – as well as what it could do – a part of her wished it never showed up to begin with. It also didn't help that he had been absent on the farm since then.

She hadn't said much to anypony yesterday and that morning so far hadn't been any different. As her mind wandered and she hoped that Matt was doing better than he was that strange evening, she barely noticed her brother dragging his plow past her in the fields they were tilling together in an effort to cut the workload in half.

Normally, pulling the plow was something that took only a bit of strength on her part, but she just wasn't feeling it. Big Mac coming to a stop several feet past her and looking back at her curiously told her he was well aware that something was troubling her. Based on what he said the other day, it wasn't hard for her to assume that he knew what it was. What he and Granny Smith blurted to her had gotten under her skin, even though she would never admit it.

Applejack glanced up at the big red stallion and sighed, quickly averting her eyes. Maybe he was right. But still, he had only been in one relationship in his life – one with Cheerilee – and that eventually turned into a simple friendship after they both agreed that they had too many responsibilities to be worrying about romance. He wasn't any kind of expert in the matter. However, she did know somepony who she could talk to a bit more frankly in private, provided she could muster the courage to just spit it out.

She did need to hurry along though if she planned to go talk to this pony. It wasn't too long ago that the clock tower struck ten, and she and the girls were going to be having lunch in town that day. A bit of solid advice could help calm her nerves and keep her stomach from tying itself in knots as well as possibly help keep her food down once she started eating.

"Err, Big Mac?"

"Eeyup?"

"I know there's a lot to do today and all, and I hate to ask, but...would you mind at all if I headed into town a little early? There's, um...I mean, I kind of was hoping to talk to somepony about...w-well–"

Before she could think of the right words, he raised a quieting hoof. No reason to let her embarrass herself any further. She got the hint with a simple nod toward town and smiled.

"Thanks, Big Mac," she said with relief as she undid her harness.

"Eeyup."

-----

The farm girl crept up to the elegant door and felt her pulse start to race. She hesitated to knock and thought about turning right around and heading back home for a moment. No, she needed to do this. Steeling herself with a deep breath, she gritted her teeth behind her lips and quickly rapped at the door.

She slowly glanced around as she waited, making sure nopony noticed her standing outside the boutique. Nopony other than Big Mac and Granny Smith knew, right? Hm, none of the others she saw walking around were looking at her, oddly or not. Good. That just means no fuss will be made.

Still, what will Rarity think? She was one of her closest friends; she'll understand and give her some good advice, right? As long as she didn't go around blabbing about what she felt for–

"Oh, hello Applejack!" the fashionista said as she opened the door, the bell overhead startling the cowgirl out of her worries. "Come in, come in! A little early for our midday get-together, are you not?"

The country mare trotted inside, happy to be out of sight. "Hey Rarity. H-how's it going?"

"Fine, dearie. Just working on a couple projects, nothing out of the ordinary really. Would you care for some tea?"

"Uh...sure, why not?"

Rarity took only two steps toward the kitchen before turning to face her friend, a single brow raised. "Are you alright, Applejack?"

"W-what?!" Oh jeez, was she onto her somehow?

"Well, it's just that you almost never say 'yes' to tea," the unicorn teased.

"Oh! Heh, yeah, you...you got me there! Heh heh!"

With a giggle, the designer continued inside with the farmer a tentative step behind, hoping that her heart would stop trying to make its way out of her chest. Applejack took a seat at the table as Rarity hunted through her cabinets and pantry for the necessary supplies.

"Any particular flavor you'd like?"

"Whatever you decide is fine."

"Alright."

Rarity hummed away as she turned on the stove and filled the kettle she found with some water to heat. A tea pot made its way to the counter beside the stove and from the cupboard floated the small box of tea packets she selected.

"How does passion fruit sound?" the dressmaker asked.

Ugh, she just had to pick one with 'passion' in the name, didn't she?

"That'll work," Applejack muttered.

"It's one of my favorites. I think you'll like it. So–" The fashionista brought out a pair of cups and saucers, placing them at the table where her guest waited. "–what brings you here today, Applejack?"

The country pony bit her lip and tap-tap-tapped her hooves on the edge of the table. She found it just as hard to maintain eye contact as it was to answer the question. Still, she needed to say something.

"I, uh...I wanted to ask you about...um...well, y-you've always known what you've...wanted and knew how to go about gettin' it, and I was, um...well, I've never exactly been in such a situation before and...I-I was hopin' you could give me some advice."

"Of course, darling. What did you need advice about?"

"Err...I'm...I kinda, maybe, sorta..."

Applejack's little shrug and her constant fidgeting gave the observant unicorn all the clues she needed. Her twinkling blue eyes burst open and she let out a giddy gasp.

"You're in love!"

The nervous cowgirl froze, briefly surprised that Rarity was able to figure it out so quickly with so few words said. Then again, she was always pretty good at reading ponies.

"Yeah," she sighed.

"Then why are you so upset, dear?" The fashionista gasped again. "Does he not like you back?!"

"I...I honestly don't know."

"Oh, what am I saying? He'd be crazy not to like a catch like you back!" She took her orange friend by the hooves, a big silly grin across her face. "Ooo, this is so exciting! Tell me, Applejack, who's the lucky stud, hmm? Is it Caramel?"

"Uh, no, it's not him."

"Lucky Clover?"

"No."

"Hm...is it that one stallion I've seen around that likes to babble on about time or something?"

"No," Applejack groaned, growing more irritated with each guess.

"How about–"

"It's Matt, okay?!" she hollered, making Rarity jump in surprise. She instantly regretted her outburst. "It...it's Matt."

"Why, that's wonderful, Applejack!" the unicorn cooed.

"No it isn't!"

"What do you mean? Of course it is!"

"No, you don't get it," Applejack said as she slouched. "It's just...what do you think of when you think of the Apple family?"

Rarity tapped her chin. "Mmmm...dependable? Hard-working?"

"Err, yes, but that's not what I mean."

"How about apples? Farming? Honest?"

"Well, those are all true, but–"

"So what exactly are you looking for, Applejack? I'm sorry, but I've never been terribly fond of guessing games," Rarity moaned.

"I'm talkin' about tradition," the farmer replied.

"Oh! Well, I suppose that's true too. But what does that have to do with anything?"

Applejack let out an exasperated sigh. Trying to explain her feelings was quickly becoming more irritating than anything. "I've seen pictures of family that go back generations. We've always been earth ponies. I'm honestly not even sure if there are any pegasi or unicorns in our family tree, but if there are, they're still...well, ponies."

"What, are you worried about the fact that Matt isn't the same species as you or I? Applejack, we're all well aware of how Spike feels about me and, though I feel the little dearie is a few years too young for me right now, there have been plenty of times when ponies and dragons had been together, according to history," Rarity retorted.

"But Spike is still Equestrian. Matt's not. What would the townsponies think if Matt and I got together? What if they thought I was some kind of weirdo or something? They wouldn't want to associate or do business with a weirdo, and if I started losin' business, I might not be able to take care of my family or the farm as well as I need to after a while, especially if everypony were to start avoidin' me because they thought I was some kind of fruitcake! What would happen if it got so bad that we had to do something drastic all because of...well, y'know?" the cowgirl explained, becoming more and more panicked as she rambled.

The stylish unicorn glared at her friend with a deadpan look. "Applejack, sweetie, I really think you're blowing this way out of proportion. Everypony in town knows you and everypony in town knows Matt, especially after everything he's done for us. I sincerely doubt they'd find anything the matter with the two of you getting together."

"Well, what if I ask him and he says no?" Applejack's eyes started to water at the idea.

"At least you'll know! It's something you're going to need to do eventually unless you want to drive yourself crazy for the rest of your life. Besides, even if that does happen, he doesn't seem like the type of individual who'd stop being your friend. From what you've told me before, he tends to show up out of the blue at the farm fairly often, yes?"

"Yeah. Just seems to want to help out and hang around and stuff. Occasionally we go out and do things."

Rarity slid up beside the cowgirl and wrapped a forelimb around her shoulders, poking her gently in the chest. "There you go then! There's no reason you shouldn't have talked to him about it by now!"

"I-I'm just afraid to take that chance. It just feels like no matter what I do, I'm going to lose something, even if I choose never to say anything," Applejack whined, unable to look her friend in the eye.

"Well, if you want, maybe I can drop a few hints his way and–"

"No!" the nervous mare blurted. "Err, no, that's okay. I gotta be able to do that on my own."

The designer pulled Applejack in close, squishing their cheeks together. "Alright. But if you need some words or wisdom or an ear or something, you let me know, okay? Ohhh, I'm so happy for you!"

"Heh, thanks Rares. Just do me a favor and keep this all to yourself, okay?"

"If that's what you want, sure."

"Thanks." She felt her cheeks turning red though it might have been because the kettle by now had a steady breath of steam pouring from its spout. Still, thinking about the object of her affection probably had more of a hoof in her rising temperature than the boiling water. "I think the water's ready."

"Oh, you're right!" As Rarity prepared their drinks, Applejack could feel a weight lifting off her shoulders. It certainly did feel a lot better to talk to somepony about how she felt. It made her wonder why she didn't do it before, but her initial concerns remained regardless. At least her stomach had calmed down a bit.

The teapot floated its way to the table and sat itself in the middle thanks to the unicorn's magic. Rarity followed right behind it and made herself comfortable on her chair, beaming at her orange friend. "Now, why don't you tell me how it all happened, hmm?"

-----

While Applejack made her way over to Carousel Boutique, Matt had still been fast asleep at home. The last couple nights understandably left him with a lot to think about and he had inadvertently stayed up much later than he probably should have. The tower indicated ten o'clock maybe a half hour ago but he hadn't heard it; he did however heard a knocking at his bedroom window.

He snapped awake, still incredibly groggy. He hoisted himself up, taking in a deep breath, and looked over to the source of his disturbance. Outside the window flapped a familiar sky blue pegasus. Tossing the sheet off, he stumbled out of bed in all his glory, forcing Rainbow Dash to look away until he put something on. Despite being only half-awake, he couldn't figure out why Rainbow – or any other pony for that matter – would be uptight about seeing him au natural, what with rarely wearing clothes themselves. After slipping on a pair of shorts, he hobbled his way to the window and unlocked it for his guest but she chose to remain outside.

"Hey R.D., what's up?" Matt asked with a yawn.

"Not you, apparently."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Come on in."

The pegasus glanced below her and winced. "Actually, I was kind of wondering if you could come with me. I found something kind of...weird north of town during my weather patrol this morning."

"Like what?"

"A, uh...a house. That wasn't there yesterday."

Whatever fatigue he may have had evaporated in an instant. He looked back at his nightstand where the iPhone sat through the corner of his eye. He hoped to high heaven this was just a bad, coincidental joke that Rainbow Dash was telling, but she looked just as concerned as he did the evening the phone first appeared.

"...Why come to me about this? Why not, like, Twilight or something?" he muttered nervously.

Rainbow reached to the ground and pulled a small, plastic object into Matt's sight. "This was by one of the doors. I figured you may know what it is just because of what it looked like."

He took the foot-tall item into his hands, uneasily studying its pointy red hat, rosy red cheeks and stout, bipedal body. Its little smile still looked creepy even after not seeing one in so long.

"What is it?" Rainbow asked.

"It's a...garden gnome."

"The heck's a garden gnome?"

"An awful decoration," he quipped, despite a nervous fear starting to wash over him.

The pair was silent for a moment as Matt's mind began to race all over again. Why couldn't one of the townsfolk bring him a steak instead of what had been appearing out of nowhere lately?

Rainbow Dash finally spoke up, sounding as worried as her tall friend. "Matt, why is there a house here when there wasn't one there yesterday?"

He shook his head. There was no way he could answer such a thing...again. He nodded her inside and tossed the gnome on the bed. "Let me go brush my teeth and stuff and then you can take me to this place."

As he went into the bathroom and Rainbow shut the window behind her, she happened upon the phone, glancing over it curiously. Just like Apple Bloom did when she and her friends first found it, Rainbow was having similar difficulty getting it to work.

"Hey, what in the world is this thing?" she called out over the sink's running water.

A couple minutes later, Matt came out and headed to the closet to grab a shirt and his shoes, noticing that she was holding out the phone for him. "Remember that thing I gave to the dragon so he'd leave us alone that one day?" he said from the other room.

"Oh yeah! Won't ever forget how you got rid of him. That was awesome! ...What'd it do again?"

"Could talk to someone on the other side of the world like they were right in front of you. That thing does a bunch of other stuff."

She poked and prodded the phone hard enough for Matt to wince and snatch it out of her hoof as he finished getting dressed in front of her. "It's not doing anything."

"I'll show you what it does on the way, but yeah, show me where this house is."

"Where'd you get it?" she asked.

"Apple Bloom found it near school in some bushes a couple days ago. I went down there yesterday to check the area out, but I didn't find anything weird. Twilight took a look at it to see if there were any traces of magic on it. Came up short," he said with a shrug as he tossed the phone in his pocket and marched for the front door with Rainbow Dash a step behind.

"Wait, you mean that...uh..."

"Phone."

"...phone just showed up out of nowhere and...?"

"And now a house has just shown up out of nowhere," he added for her.

"Just like you did." She held in a gasp as a horrible thought hit her. "You don't think he has something to do with it, do you?"

"That's what I thought at first too, but I don't think so. We'd know if he did." He sneered and sighed long and loud. "I don't get it either, Rainbow. Was so hoping the phone was a one-time thing. Can never be normal around here, huh?"

"No kidding," she mumbled as they left Matt's home.

-----

It was about twenty minutes later when Matt and Rainbow walked up the red brick trail that led to the front door of the off-white mystery house. On the door frame sat the number '2743', obviously the house's street number. The single-story home seemed to be well taken care of with no real imperfections across its surface. To the right of the entrance stood a couple palm trees in the middle of a small, plain garden that was bordered by numerous smooth stones. To the left was the garage door, but unfortunately it didn't have any windows.

Matt did his best to peer inside the large window by the garden but was having trouble seeing much. Wasn't any reason to believe the house had any power. He didn't see any power lines connected anywhere, and even if he did, they probably wouldn't be attached to anything. The narrow windows on either side of the front door didn't help any either.

"Did you happen to see anyone from the window?" he asked the pegasus.

"No. I tried knocking and yelling to see if anypony was home but I didn't get any response."

He fiddled at the doorknob and found it locked. A quick glance around didn't seem to show any signs of life anywhere, either in or near the place. He decided to give knocking a try. Maybe if there really was someone inside, they got a look at the small, flying pony when she stopped by earlier and hid.

"Hello? Uh...human being here!" he cried out. "I'm unarmed! ...Hello?!"

"Now what?" she asked.

"It's possible there's something inside that may show us how it got here. Plus, well, I can't deny I'm kind of curious."

It took half a second for Matt to remember the rocks by the garden. With a purse of his lips, he took another fast look around and snatched one up. Still all quiet. Good. At least no one would see him smashing in the window panes by the doorknob, he supposed.

"Dude!" Rainbow gasped.

He shot her a sheepish look and carefully wiggled his arm through the hole in the window, fumbling for the locks. With a couple clicks, the door unlocked. After freeing his arm, Matt cautiously cracked open the door, inching inside and hoping someone wasn't waiting in the shadows with a shotgun or something.

"Hello? Anybody home?" he called out, knocking again as he entered. "Uh...sorry about your window."

A small piece of glass crunched under Matt's foot as he walked to his right toward the living room, Rainbow Dash hovering behind him and closing the door. Even with the sun beaming in through the large window, it was still a bit dark. Still, he could make out the dark green leather furniture, the various electronics, some shelves with CDs and DVDs, and the decor easy enough. Unfortunately, it was excruciatingly warm, what without any air conditioning.

On the wall beside him was a few light switches, but as he expected, nothing happened when he flipped them. Everything in the room seemed normal enough; no crazy portals or hints of unusual activity anywhere.

As Matt continued ahead to check out the musical and cinematic selections this particular family had, Rainbow zipped up to the flat screen TV, studying every inch of the strange device. A word stuck out near the bottom of the screen.

"Pan-a-sonic. That what this is?"

"No, that's just the company that makes it. That's a television," Matt explained. "It's sort of like a movie theater for your home, but if you don't like what's on, you can change the channel like you can the radio."

"And those?" she asked, flying up beside him.

He pointed to a group of cases– "Movies." –then to a group of smaller ones. "CDs." He slid a DVD out and opened the case, showing Rainbow the small disc inside.

"Wow, those are your movies? Jeez, so much more convenient than huge rolls of film."

"Mhm. The CDs are basically our version of records. They look like these too," Matt explained, motioning with the movie disc in his hand.

"Cool."

On top of the shelves sat a few picture frames, the owners of the home. The photos looked to have been taken years apart. One appeared to be a glamour shot of a couple that may have been in their late thirties and a son who obviously didn't want to be there. He may have been preteen. The other shot next to that showed the same couple but older, maybe by about a decade or so. Matt reasoned that the son must have been in his late teens or early twenties if the more recent picture wasn't too old, but who knew? They could have been senior citizens by now, but their musical selection seemed to indicate otherwise. Baby boomers, no doubt.

Most of the albums he saw were probably played on most classic rock or top-forty stations back on Earth. Judging by some of the artists, he could figure out a few of the discs that likely belonged to the husband and which were probably the wife's.

"Do you know them?" Rainbow asked, still staring at the pictures.

He shook his head and moved on to the dark hallway a few feet away. Probably went to the bedrooms, bathrooms, maybe a storage closet.

The first door on the right was indeed a bathroom, as hard as it was to see inside. There weren't any windows, but enough light from the kitchen behind them snuck in that allowed him to notice a couple things. It would have been nice if he was able to get a better look inside in case they found the origin of whatever had been happening recently. Moving on with a smirk, the door to their immediate left was filled with linens and towels – nothing interesting there.

Several paces forward, another door came, but this one was open. Several sunbeams poured in through the venetian blinds, bathing the room in tiny rows of lights. Looking across the walls, it was clear to Matt that they had entered the son's room. Posters of hard rock and heavy metal bands as well as a few sports teams covered a sizable portion of the walls. An electric guitar sat in its stand next to the young man's bed and a computer desk and large CD tower beside that. Across from the bed was a dresser with a small TV, a modest stereo system, and a pair of gaming consoles sitting on top of it.

The pegasus zoomed around the room, glancing over anything and everything that looked alien in complete wonder. "Why does this guy have two televisions?" Rainbow asked, referring to the computer monitor erroneously.

As Matt made a beeline for the window and opened the blind completely, he explained, "That's a computer monitor. That big black box next to the desk is the actual computer itself. The screen just lets you see what you're doing."

"And it does...?"

He sat down on the bed and strummed away at the guitar, saying, "Play games. Communicate with others like my phone. Store information. A better question would probably be what doesn't it do, but without any power, I can't really explain it properly. Just one of those things you have to see."

"That sucks. This stuff is just...wow. I know you told us all about a bunch of stuff when you first came here, but now that I see it, I want to play with it all!"

"Heh, A.J. said something like that when I showed her what the phone can do."

"You realize when Twilight eventually sees this, she's going to blow a gasket, right?"

"A.J. said something like that too."

The computer seemed to fascinate Rainbow the most out of everything, particularly the keyboard. Like a child, she poked at the keys with her hooves, realizing it was designed with fingers in mind but was still having fun being ridiculous anyway. The muted plucks of guitar strings stole her attention away though.

"Did you play?" she asked, sitting down on the bed next to him.

"Eh, when I was half my age, a friend showed me how to play a few simple things. I asked Mom to buy me a guitar but, being a stupid kid, I didn't realize how much work it'd take to actually get good at it, so I ended up stopping after a few months or so." Rainbow got a chuckle out of that. "She wasn't terribly happy when I told her I stopped. Few hundred dollars down the drain."

"Hah, yeah, I'll bet!"

Wiping the collecting sweat off his neck, Matt stood and opened up the son's closet, but alas, it was too dark to see much. Seemed this room was normal too. Onto the next one.

"Come on, let's keep going," he said, nodding at Rainbow to follow.

"Right."

The hall broke right and another door sat only a few feet ahead. Inside must have been a guest bedroom – there wasn't much other than a bed and a dresser. Still, Matt felt he should at least look around.

Another window made this room easy to inspect too, as well as the fact that it wasn't cluttered with all kinds of entertainment products. Even so, everything looked fine there too. The sliding mirrors on the right revealed a shallow, empty closet. Zilch.

The two headed back out and made their way to the door at the end of the hall where they found the master bedroom, brightly lit thanks to three large windows around the room. To the right was another door, exposing a counter top to their bathroom.

"Go check in there, see if you spot anything."

As Rainbow split off, Matt checked everywhere he could: The dresser drawers, the bed, behind the armoire, in the nightstands. However, like the rest of the house, there simply wasn't anything to find. It was just an ordinary house from top to bottom.

"I got nothing," Rainbow said as she floated back into the room.

Wait a second! "We didn't check the kitchen yet. Could be something in there. Hell, maybe we can find a snack if we get lucky."

"Well, me and the girls are meeting up for lunch today at about 11:30. I don't think they'll mind if I'm a little late though."

"You mean you're not usually late to things like that anyway?" Matt joked as they headed back down the hall.

"Eh, kind of."

"No harm done then."

"Yep!"

The two passed a rather nice dining room table on their way to the kitchen, Matt taking the time to rub his hand across it. He headed straight for the fridge once his feet hit the tiles, a curious idea swimming in his head.

He opened the appliance and grabbed hold of a can of Coke. Strange, it still seemed a bit cool. He checked the freezer as well and found that while everything seemed to be thawed, they weren't thawed so much that there were puddles all over its floor. That probably meant the house couldn't have popped into existence more than a few hours ago.

It also didn't help that his search through every pantry, cabinet, cupboard, drawer and appliance for anything suspicious turned up empty. However, as he neared the end of his scouring, he came across something that perked him up in a second: A series of key hooks, one of which had a set hanging on it! That means the door next to it was...

Could there really be a vehicle inside?! Holy hell, that would be awesome! The keychain's alarm buttons tempted him without a fight and he pressed the one with the open lock.

Chirp chirp!

Any concern about why the house was there was instantly thrown out the window as Matt giggled like a schoolgirl. "Oh my God!"

"The heck was that?" the pegasus asked.

"Head out the front and wait by the garage door!"

"The what?"

"The big metal thing outside, you'll see it!" he instructed as he threw open the door and searched for the garage door opener, eventually finding it and pushing it repeatedly.

...Wait. No power. Right.

"Ugh, gotta go fumbling around in the dark. Oh, whatever!" He turned to Rainbow, a big stupid grin on his face, and shooed her away. "Go, go! I'll see outside in a few!"

"Uh, alright."

As she left, Matt took a distinctively un-cautious step into the dark garage, too excited by the prospect of finding a car, and bumped into things nearly every step of the way, swearing like a sailor in the process. After a moment or two of feeling his way toward the garage door using what felt like an SUV as his guide, he located the lock. It took several twists, turns and tugs, but Matt eventually triumphed and lifted the large panels up over his head.

"Whoa!" Rainbow Dash gasped. "That's...awesome! What is that?!"

"Ummmm–" He snapped his fingers, trying to think of a good way to describe the red Chevy Blazer in front of them. He knew he told them about some of the vehicles back on Earth when he arrived. "–ah ha! Motorized carriages, I probably told you about those. You remember?"

"Ehhhh, not really."

"Oh! There's a sport where smaller, sleeker versions of these things raced!"

"Now that I remember!"

"Sweet!" Matt cheered with a boisterous clap. "Oh God, I cannot believe this! Wait a minute...!" His smile grew even wider. "Rainbow, come inside again! I have an idea!"

"Ugh, what now?" In, out...jeez, Matt needed to make up his mind.

Matt barged back into the kitchen, diving straight for the cabinet under the sink. "I know I saw them...here we are!"

He pulled out a box of forty-gallon garbage bags and yanked several out, tossing them all over the floor.

"What are you doing?"

In a flash, Rainbow's hoof was taken in Matt's hand and a bag was tossed into her grip. He went to speak, but paused when he recalled how many CDs were in the son's room. He snatched up another bag and held it open below the one the pegasus was holding already.

"Here, open that up and put it in here. All those CDs are probably going to be a bit heavy and one bag may not be enough."

"What are you going on about?"

"Those plastic things in the son's room in that tower there. Go grab them and toss them in here!" he commanded, albeit in a giddy manner. "I'll grab some of the stuff off the wall over there."

"You...you mean you're just going to take them?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "They're not yours!"

"The car too."

"Matt!"

"Oh, come on Rainbow, I haven't seen this stuff in, like, forever!" he pouted.

"What are you going to do if the owners suddenly show up at some point too?" she asked, secretly hoping that whatever insanity that was causing houses to appear out of thin air wasn't going to become a regular occurrence.

"If I recognize them, I'll give them back their stuff and apologize. Now, come on! I promise you, you're going to love this! You wanted to know how some of it worked, right? Well, here you go!"

"Well, why do you want those records anyway?"

"Because that thing can play music and I want to hear some kick-ass stuff that I haven't heard in a year and a half," he explained, tossing a thumb over his shoulder to the waiting vehicle.

Rainbow floated there glaring at her friend, still not quite convinced nor impressed.

"I know most of the bands in those posters in his rooo-ooom. I'll bet you'll like some of theeeeem. They rock pretty haaa-aard."

Her eye shift was enough for Matt to know he had gotten through to her.

"They rock pretty hard, huh?"

"Mhm!"

She sighed in defeat. "Alright, I'll give it a shot. But remember, you promised."

"I know," he said as he got to his feet and headed into the living room. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash flew down the hall into the son's room, shaking her head.

Several minutes went by as Matt dumped whatever CDs he could into his own double bag. As he was finishing up, Rainbow was making her way to him, weighed down heavily by the load she was hauling.

"This had better be worth it," she growled as she came into the living room.

"It will be," he replied.

With a heavy grunt, he threw his own bag over his shoulder, nearly falling over in the process. The two hobbled out to the car, got the tailgate popped open and tossed the ridiculous amount of discs inside.

"Alright, get on in and we'll go!" Matt said as he closed the hatch.

Unfortunately, he failed to take into account that the handles were made for fingers, leaving an annoyed pegasus to struggle against it. "Uh, little help here?"

He came to a sudden stop and turned right around, wondering what was up now. Rainbow floated there glaring at him, mockingly trying to use the handle.

"Oh! Heh, sorry about that."

With a roll of her eyes, she sat down on the seat and Matt closed the door behind her. With that taken care of, he jogged around the car again and hopped in. He smiled at the key before inserting it and firing up the engine. The heart of the Blazer roaring to life made him bounce with glee in his chair. The sudden blast of air conditioning didn't hurt either.

"Oh dear Celestia, that feels soooooooo good after being in that house," Rainbow mumbled.

Matt checked over the gauges on the dashboard out of curiosity. Everything looked perfectly fine, but he was particularly interested in how much gas it had. Hm, halfway between three-quarters and full – excellent! Overhead, he happened to notice a CD holder on the visor and slid a few discs out, instantly recognizing one of them. "Ohhh, Undertow. I had this one."

Quickly making sure there wasn't already a disc in the player, he slid the Tool album in, skipped to the second track and smirked as the first sounds of the song erupted from the speakers. Not having any idea what to expect, Rainbow nearly jumped out of her skin – and out of the air-conditioning-induced euphoria – but warmed up to the unique sounds quickly enough.

"Okay! You were right! So worth it!" she had to yell.

"Told you!" he hollered back, sharing a hoof-fist.

He threw the Blazer into reverse and whipped it out of the garage but got out to make sure both the front and garage doors were closed. No sense in leaving them wide open for the world to see and risk something else getting taken. He did have some decency. Getting back in the car, he set it in 'drive', floored it and couldn't help but laugh when Rainbow Dash cheered in enthusiasm as they sped off.

-----

The rest of the girls sat outside at their diner of choice, already halfway through their meals. While they sat patiently for Rainbow Dash to join them, it wasn't unheard of for her to be a few minutes late. However, it was getting to be much more than that by now and a couple of them were having a little trouble hiding their disapproval.

"She did say she was going to be here, yes?" Rarity asked. "It feels like we've been waiting forever for her."

"You know she did," Applejack replied. "Knowin' her, she probably got caught up in one of her naps."

"Just be patient, girls. She'll show up. She always does."

As the group made their small talk, the shrieking of panicking ponies echoed out in the air in the distance. Barely a minute went by when their cries were accompanied by a faint but dull roar and a weird beeping sound.

"Uh, y'all hear that?"

They turned to the strange sound and squinted to see something glistening in the midday sun barreling down on them, its steady, angry growl getting louder as it came.

"W-what in Equestria is that?!" Twilight asked in fright.

"I don't know, but it's coming right at us!"

The big red...thing with wheels came to a halt in the street in front of them, kicking up gravel and dust. Loud, bizarre sounds that almost sounded...musical?...hummed through what looked like dark plates of glass. The rhythmic noises quieted down and the gutteral rumbles came to a stop, but their surprise and confusion only doubled when Rainbow Dash flew out from behind the object.

"Hey girls! Sorry I'm late."

"R-Rainbow?! Wha...err...huh?!"

"What're you doing with that thing? And...just...what is it?!"

As the girls fumbled through their understandable questions all at once, the window in front of them opened up to reveal the vehicle's cocky but still ecstatic pilot.

"Matt?!" Applejack blurted. "What in the world is going on?!"

"Hey girls! Check out my sexy new riiiiiide! ...God, that sounded so high school."

Comments

[Love Moth]

This is a masterpiece. What's going to happen next

[lumberjack]

So the question becomes are these things just appearing at random or are bigger and bigger things popping into existence in Equestria?

And what happens when guns appear? What if a foal gets a hold of that? Not that they'd be able to use it, having hooves and not fingers.

If the house is from the US, there's a distinct possibility that they have guns stashed somewhere.

I like the update every two weeks thing. It's consistent, although I kinda wish it was more often BECAUSE THE STORY'S JUST THAT GOOD!

[sjo3989]

thanks for the update, cant wait to see how you make Twilight go crazy over everything.

[kotor511]

What I had liked to see, were some occupants in that house, that got tucked along when the house landed there. They could have been asleep and Matt could have woken them up. Didn't have to be the whole family maybe only the son, when he was home alone. He could have opened they front door, take a look at Matt and Rainbow, shrug it of as a dream and closed the door again....
A good Idea also could have been, even if a bit cruel, that a small child was in that house, all alone. That might have resulted in a nice bonding situation for Applejack and Matt, seeing as they could have worked as a family substitued for the child.
Oh well a nice car and some music isn't so bad aswell.

But more importantly now, they really need to check on whatever causes those random teleportations of objects into their world, maybe better tell the princess about it, she needs to know anyway.
I could very well imagen that, if they don't treat this properly, worse things get teleported, for example an oil tanker in the middle of the everfree forest or even at the townsquare . Right know they were lucky that no humans were transported, but what if an airbus with poeple onbord suddenly appears in the sky?... Cloudsdale won't be happy about this.

[Equestria Buck Yeah]

3943841 Oh, don't you worry! This is just the beginning!

[Turbo Tinker]

I really enjoy this story! Thanks for writing, I hope to read more soon!

[WorldWalker128]

Your writing has improved since the previous fic, and nothing beats rocking to awesome music in modern Human tech in a world that hasn't even discovered the light bulb yet. Nothing.

[Regreme]

Still catching up on this, but I loved what you did to explain Big Mac and Cheerilee. It's not that they don't like each other as more than friends... it's just that they're so busy that fitting in time for each other is hard to do.