Chapter 1
Fat, heavy drops of rain splattered against the windshield. The sky was overcast and sullen, blotting out the sun and bringing a premature night that the car's headlights barely cut through. The car, an elderly gold Crown Victoria, crawled down an abandoned stretch of road, swinging slowly from side to side to avoid the many potholes. On either side of the worn and rippled blacktop, weeds grew in abundance, occasionally spilling out over the roadway.
"Where are you taking me?"
The driver—a man in his early twenties with scraggly hair along his jaw that he liked to consider a beard—gave a reassuring smile. "We're almost there," he said.
"Seriously, Matt. This is, like, somewhere you would dump a dead body."
The passenger gave a shrill, nervous laugh, as if this were an idea he couldn't quite dismiss. The run-down state of the neighborhood didn't do anything to reassure him, either. Abandoned houses loomed out of the darkness like derelict ships, appearing for a moment before sinking back into the shadows. None of the street lights were on, adding even more to the oppressive darkness.
"Relax, Dan-my-man," Matt replied, using the old nickname from when they'd been stuck in a dorm together. "It's just up ahead. We rented ourselves a house."
The car moved slowly through the rain for a few more minutes before Dan said, "You still haven't told me what this is all about."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Matt looked over and shot Dan a grin. "Look, you trust me, right?"
Dan squirmed in his seat for a few seconds before replying. "I guess. It would be nice to know why you need me, though."
"You're going to be our resident expert. Oh, hold up, we're here."
The house that they had parked in front of had once been the height of class, though that had been long before either of the young men in the car had been born. Now, the best that could be said about it was that it wasn't in quite as rough shape as its neighbors. The paint, possibly once a dark blue, looked black where it wasn't peeling from the frame. The shingles on the roof were curled with age. Still, there was a warm yellow glow of electric light through the windows that weren't boarded up, which was a welcome sight.
Matt pulled his car up in front of the house just as the began to rain let up. There were several other vehicles all parked there as well, none of which looked like they belonged in this rough of a neighborhood. Dan recognized one of them: A bright red pickup truck with gleaming chrome and a bumper sticker that read "I banged your mom."
"Oh, god," Dan moaned. "You didn't tell me Justin was going to be here!"
"Would you have come if I did?" Matt asked, amused.
"No." Dan adjusted his windbreaker, crossed his arms over his chest and sunk back into his seat.
"Come on, he's not so bad."
"He's an ass. He's always been an ass." Dan scowled. "He thinks it's funny to call me a theater fag."
"Well, I'll make sure he's not a jerk tonight, okay?" Matt waited a few seconds, but Dan just sat there with a pout on his face. He sighed. "Look. If he starts anything, just let me know and I'll drive you back. Okay?"
Dan scowled at the dashboard for a while before shrugging. "Fine." As he opened the door, he muttered, "No way this is bullshit is worth only fifty bucks."
The two of them got out of the car and bolted to the house. The open porch sheltered them from the rain as Matt banged on the door. The two could hear activity from inside the house, footsteps drawing nearer. The man who opened the door was in his late twenties, sported a mustache that most people considered ridiculous, and had a cowboy hat slapped on his head. He grinned at the two newcomers.
"Well, how about that? A couple of drowned rats," he said, tilting his hat back on his head with two fingers.
"Shove it, Justin," Matt said, though he grinned as he said it.
Justin laughed and stood aside, gesturing for the other two to enter the house. They stepped inside, Dan taking a moment to look around.
Much like the outside, the inside had seen better days. The wallpaper was peeling where it wasn't missing completely, and some of the plaster had fallen off of the ceiling to show the skeletal lath left behind. Still, the space was clean enough. And, much to Dan's surprise, the living room just to the right of the entryway had all brand-new furniture.
Sitting on the furniture and looking up from an interrupted conversation were three men, two of whom Dan recognized vaguely from around the college campus. If he had to guess, they were both physics majors, like Matt and Justin. The third, with a full grey beard and thick-rimmed glasses, had the look of a professor. They were all sitting around a coffee table, and all of them were staring at Dan, who suddenly found himself even more on-edge than he had before.
The bearded man stood and looked at Matt. "This is your guy?"
Matt swept his arms dramatically, showing Dan off as if he were some prize won at a game show. "This is him!"
The older man gave him a critical look. "So, what kind of qualifications does he have?"
Matt snorted, then reached out and flicked Dan's jacket open. Dan yelped, glaring at Matt as he tugged his jacket closed again, but not before everyone in the room had seen his T-shirt.
The T-shirt in question had a picture of a cartoon pony, blue-colored with a rainbow mane. The caption below it read "Bronies are 20% cooler."
Matt grinned. "Trust me. He's perfect."
~~*~~
The bearded man turned out to be named Professor Steven Johansson, though he insisted on just being called "Professor". The two young men he'd been talking to when Matt and Dan had entered were introduced as Mike and Tom. And it didn't take long for them to get to the point, urging Dan down into the basement. He went reluctantly, imagining that some sort of brutal hazing was coming, or perhaps some weird experiments.
Dan's life up to this point hadn't led him to be too trusting of people. The only reason he hadn't run was because had no idea where he was. He was counting on his friend Matt to drive him home.
"It's down here where the magic happens," Mike said as he reached the bottom of the poorly-lit stairway. He flipped a switch just as Dan reached the concrete floor, illuminating the entirety of the basement.
Much to his relief, Dan didn't see any Satanic-looking ritual circles or stainless-steel operating tables with leather straps. Instead, the basement was filled to the brim with equipment. Six large cubical devices, five feet per side, took up the majority of one wall. Thick bundles of cable led out of the cubes and up into the rafters, eventually coming back down, affixed to the house's support beams. Those cables fed into other equipment, which included several video cameras, a rack of servers and a podium with controls on it. An industrial-sized portable air conditioner loomed in one corner, a flexible exhaust hose snaking up to a window as it ran, blowing cold, dry air into the basement.
In the center of the basement was a steel and plastic frame, about ten feet across and eight high. Thick bundles of power cables drooped down from the ceiling, plugging into it at the top. Bundles of velcro-wrapped cabling ran along the floor from the frame, some going to the bank of servers and the rest going to the podium with the control panel.
"It takes a full day for us to get a shot at this," Professor Johansson said, flicking some switches on a control panel. The steel frame started to hum, a bass vibration that Dan could feel in his teeth. He gestured at the six cubes along the wall. "That's what those things are, by the way. Battery packs. The house can't supply all the power we require at once, so we store it up."
The lights on the frame flickered faster and faster. The hum got louder. Dan took a step back and bumped into Justin, who had been standing behind him. Justin grinned down at him from under his cheesy mustache. Dan scowled and looked back at the steel frame.
There was a glowing point in the middle of the frame.
"It's a gateway, you see!" the Professor shouted over the rising din. "Thank Justin for funding this after the university cut me off!"
The glow spread, slowly at first, then suddenly snapping across the entirety of the metal frame. Dan blinked and looked away, his eyes watering as the "gateway" got brighter and brighter.
"Here we go!" Professor Johansson shouted. He flicked another switch, rotated a dial and, with shocking suddenness, both the loud hum and the bright light vanished as if cut off by a light switch. "Take a look at that, eh?"
Dan, furiously blinking his eyes to clear away the tears, looked. Then he blinked again.
Everyone looked at the light, then Dan. Nobody dared to say anything for a long moment.
"That's not possible," Dan said eventually. "That's Ponyville."
~~*~~
"So, you see why we need you," Matt said half an hour later. "We've been trying to watch the show, but only we only have so much time. None of us are experts. But I remembered from when we were roommates that you loved that show." He gestured expansively. "And, here you are!"
"Yeah," Dan said.
The six of them were sitting around a large, heavy wooden table, eating reheated pizza and drinking cheap beer. Everyone was excited and chattering, except for Dan, who was still feeling poleaxed.
Ponyville. It wasn't exactly like the show, but it was close. The view had been limited to the street and part of an open-air market, the buildings all around blocking out any view of the sky, but the general gloom made it look like the weather was probably extremely cloudy.
Dan had been entranced, staring into the window between worlds, trying to soak in every detail. The ponies were proportioned differently, with longer and thinner legs than he would have expected, but they still had the cute, soft round bodies heads that were in the show. Large, expressive eyes. Coats in a large variety of colors, and manes in even more colors. Cutie marks. The pegasi had wings that actually worked.
Dan had almost hyperventilated. Three times.
He'd seen Rarity, her purple curls bouncing as she walked. The window was too far away to get many details, and there wasn't any sound, but she'd been talking to a pony behind a counter in a stall in the open-air market. And then she placed her purchase into her saddlebags with her mouth and trotted off.
No sign of the other Mane Six, at least not before the window blipped out of existence.
"Need to save up some more juice for another run," the Professor said in between his second and third slice of godawful reheated pizza. "Should be about twenty-four hours until we're ready."
"And they can't see us?" Dan asked. He hadn't touched the pizza after a bite of his first slice, though he was on his second beer.
"Apparently not," Tom said. "And, as you probably noticed, no sound comes through. It's visual-only."
"Visual-only was still enough to make the little guy jizz his pants, though."
"Go to Hell, Justin," Dan said vaguely, more out of reflex than any actual anger. He was still in shock from what he'd seen.
Matt punched Justin lightly in the arm and wagged a finger at him.
"We're trying to figure out how to make the gateway two-directional. To allow physical access between the two areas." Professor Johansson shrugged. "It's been tricky."
"I still say we go public," Mike said. "We've got enough, now—"
The professor shook his head. "I want it at one-hundred percent, first. Full, two-way access."
"I need to lay down," said Dan. "I'm feeling dizzy."
The beds were new, too. Justin, the rich kid, had furnished nearly everything to make this house livable. Probably, Dan thought as lay down, because he knew his portion of whatever riches came out of this research would make him a billionaire.
His phone didn't work. There was no signal. This neighborhood had been all but abandoned years ago, so it made sense that there would be no cell towers anywhere nearby. Dan sighed and put his phone away.
It took hours for him to fall asleep. When he did, he dreamed of ponies.
~~*~~
"I'm only showing what I think are the most important episodes," Dan said. "The ones that really showcase the world or the characters."
The television was brand-new, and much nicer than the crappy little monitor Dan was forced to use when watching movies in his dorm room.
"This one is called 'Winter Wrap-Up'." Dan looked around the room at his audience. "Uh. Have we actually seen the pegasi doing stuff with the clouds? It seemed pretty overcast."
"I don't think so," Tom replied. “But we can’t see the sky, so who knows?”
Dan considered this, then shrugged. "Well, maybe they can control the weather, maybe they can't. Still, it's a good episode, even if it's beyond what they're capable of."
And it had a damned catchy tune. A few hours later, when Dan caught Justin humming the familiar song under his breath, he allowed himself a small, secret smile.
~~*~~
Another day, another gateway. Dan was still wearing the same clothes as he had the day before, and he didn't care. He hadn't showered, either. The water came out of the taps all brown.
Dan stood almost perilously close to the shimmering portal, staring through and trying to absorb every detail. At first, he'd been chastised for getting in the way of the cameras. Then he was given a camera of his own and told to film whatever he thought was important.
"But don't touch the gateway," Mike had told him. "You'll get one hell of a zap if you do."
Ten minutes wasn't enough time to learn much of anything new. It was, however, enough time for him to see Pinkie Pie, grinning around the handle of the huge basket that she had clamped in her teeth. There was a checkered cloth over it, with steam rising up through the cloth.
"So, definitely Ponyville, then?" Professor Johansson asked. "I only ask because it doesn't look identical to the cartoon."
Dan watched as Pinkie Pie pronked away, the basket swaying crazily beneath her. "Yeah," he said. "Definitely Ponyville."
Maybe it was just his imagination that made him think he could smell freshly-baked apple pie.
~~*~~
The days went by quickly. Dan moved into the house full-time on the second day, becoming the one full-time resident. The others came and went, though they were all always there whenever the gate was due to be opened. Dan was the only one without a car, so he was usually stuck by himself. At least the water had stopped showing up as rust-brown after the third day, which allowed him to finally start showering. Cold showers only, though. The water heater was shot.
Dan kept trying to show the others episodes of the show, though without much success. The Professor, citing a lack of time, asked him to simply type up a synopsis of each episode. With the hectic schedules of the others, the only time he could show them episodes was either right before or right after a gateway opened up.
The only one who really made time for watching the cartoon was Matt, who was slowly but surely being brought "into the herd", as Dan put it. They were up to season three, already.
~~*~~
“Weird how the weather never seems to change,” Dan said.
He was once again standing in front of the gateway, watching the ponies go about their daily lives. Matt, who was standing next to him, asked, “What?”
“Judging by the light, the sky is still overcast.” Dan shrugged. “Seems weird, if the pegasi can control the weather. Wouldn’t they have some nice days, too?”
“Maybe they can’t actually control the weather,” Matt suggested. “Or, maybe there’s a reason to keep it cloudy. It could be fall over there, for all we know.”
Dan grunted and shrugged, going back to watching the ponies for a few minutes.
“Oh, look who’s back,” Matt said. “It’s our bossy little friend.”
The pony in question was a grey-green unicorn mare with a sickly yellow mane and hard, angry green eyes. Her cutie mark was a megaphone. Dan's personal theory was that her cutie mark represented her love of telling other ponies off, because every time she popped up, it seemed to be to rebuke some other pony. Without exception, the pony in question would bow their heads and slink off, looking ashamed.
Right now, the grey-green mare was speaking with apparent harshness to one of the ponies manning a stall in the open-air market. The pony in question was starting to shrink down behind her counter, ears dropped down and her head hunched back over her withers.
"I don't like that mare," Dan said.
"Yeah, she seems like kind of a jerk," Matt replied.
The unicorn stalked off, leaving the shopkeeper little more than a huddled mess.
~~*~~
After her third appearance, due to her cutie mark, Matt had nicknamed that particular pony "Megaphone". Currently, Megaphone was chewing out a yellow earth pony stallion for some unknown reason. The earth pony just nodded fearfully every once in a while, and then trotted away.
"How long?" Matt asked.
The professor shouted from behind them. "Making the change in ten seconds."
Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stone.
The gateway shimmered, then the frame started humming once again.
"Go!" Professor Johansson shouted, and Matt's arm whipped forward like he was throwing a baseball.
The stone struck the center of the gateway, hung there for a second, and then fell straight down. It landed on the street in Ponyville. Everyone in the room cheered as if they'd just lost their minds, loudly congratulating each other and slapping each other on the backs. Nobody noticed that every pony in sight of the gateway had suddenly stopped, their ears rotating around for a few seconds, as if searching for a noise.
~~*~~
"Obviously, we should leave first contact up to the government," Mike said as they shared yet another reheated pizza.
"Screw that," Justin replied. "The government would just mess everything up. They'd probably make the whole project confidential and take it all away from us."
"Over my dead body," Johansson growled.
"So, we should go public, first?" Matt asked. "Get it all out in the open. They can't hide it, then."
"I want to present it to my colleagues, first," said the professor. "Especially Doctor Wentworth. The prick."
"Works for me," Justin said as he slid another greasy bit of pizza onto his plate. "We going to bother opening any more gates between then and now?"
"Of course. We've got to make sure we can replicate before we do any kind of presentation."
Dan sat there quietly, not knowing what to say. They'd be able to open a gateway to Equestria. He'd finally be able to see more of it than just that one street and that section of the market. He'd be able to see the rest of the Mane Six, too. So far, every one of them had gone by the gateway at one point or another, with the exception of Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy.
Still, there was a sinking feeling in Dan's gut. His experience told him that, when something he was given seemed too good to be true, it was time to start looking for the hidden traps.
"I bet pony-boy here will be the first one through," Justin said, slapping Dan in the back.
Nearly a month of being in Justin's presence didn't do much to endear him to Dan, who said, "Piss off, Justin."
~~*~~
It was storming again, off and on throughout the whole day. Right now, things were just gloomy outside, with a depressing drizzle of rain. The team was back in the basement again, with Dan in his traditional spot near the gateway, and Matt standing just behind him and slightly off to one side.
Everyone's heart was racing. Matt, in particular, seemed on edge. He was shifting from foot to foot impatiently while the deep bass hum of the gateway ramped up. The gateway snapped into place, and the group was treated to a brand new sight.
Pinkie Pie was dancing around, singing to a crowd of smiling ponies. No sound, not yet at least, but whatever it was she was singing had the ponies in her audience tapping their hooves and bobbing their heads. Dan would have traded everything he owned to be able to hear what she was singing.
“Okay, two minutes,” Professor Johansson said.
Mike piped up then. “Don’t look now, but here comes Little Miss ‘Stop Having Fun’.”
Sure enough, Megaphone had stalked into view, a scowl across her face. Pinkie Pie stopped, looking anxious and scared as the mare approached. When Megaphone started speaking to her, Pinkie’s ears drooped and her head sunk towards the ground. The ponies in her audience all looked away, as if they didn’t want to catch any of the flak.
“What a bitch,” Matt said, wearing a scowl of his own.
“Yeah,” Dan said. He was frowning as well, but only partially about Pinkie being yelled at. Something about this seemed uneasily familiar.
Megaphone stalked off once again, exiting the area from the same direction she’d entered from. Pinkie Pie gathered shuddered before she visibly gathered herself.
“One minute,” came the call from Johansson.
“Hey, what’s Pinkie doing?” Tom asked.
Pinkie Pie was walking with what looked like practiced calm back to where she’d been when she’d first started singing. She stood in that spot for a long moment, her head down and her face unreadable. Then her head snapped up, and a huge smile fixed itself across her face.
“Looks like Pinkie isn’t letting Megaphone keep her down,” Matt said.
Sure enough, the pink pony started up dancing once again, her mouth drawing open as she began to sing.
The voice of the professor floated up from behind Dan and Matt. “Ten seconds.”
Pinkie was whirling through the crowd, looking like her typical happy self, but something about the situation had Dan completely on edge. Something about the way Megaphone had acted, and Pinkie’s reaction.
For some reason, he started thinking of his freshman year, when he’d first decided to be a theater major, setting him off on a different path than most of his friends.
“Five seconds,” The professor called, before starting a countdown.
“Hey, buddy,” Matt said.
“Four.”
“Yeah, Matt?”
“Three.”
“Wish me luck, okay?”
“Two.”
“What?” Dan asked.
“One. Making the change.”
The gateway flickered briefly, the humming of the gate started up once again, and a burst of sound came through from the other side. Pinkie’s song was going on in the background, something about how everypony needed love. Dan would have dearly loved to have been able to listen, but Matt suddenly rushed past him, running straight into the gateway.
“Matt!” Dan shouted, aware of the others shouting behind him.
“Get back here, you idiot!” Professor Johansson yelled.
Matt struck the gate and was held there, as if he were stuck in fly paper. Then, slowly at first, he started moving forward, staggering and almost falling before straightening.
Dan could only stare. His friend was standing in Equestria.
Pinkie’s song cut off suddenly, her wide blue eyes staring blankly at Matt, who was standing ramrod straight and staring back. The other ponies all looked around, freezing when they saw the intruder.
In the show, the sudden appearance of a strange creature in Ponyville might have been the cause of a panic, or at least some curious whispering. Instead, they all stared at Matt as he walked forward with his hands up, their faces expressionless as he waved.
“I come in peace,” Matt was saying loudly as he walked forward. “I want to be your friend.”
Dan shuddered as that feeling of wrongness crept up once again. These ponies weren’t acting right, not at all. He saw Megaphone come in from the side, scowling like thunder, only to stop and stare blankly at Matt like the rest of the ponies.
All background noise stopped, with the exception of the humming gateway. Then Megaphone’s muzzle turned up in a smile. She said something that Dan and the others couldn’t make out, and the ponies of Ponyville started walking towards Matt.
Matt, for his part, had stopped in the middle of the road, rubbing his hands briskly on his arms as if cold. The ponies surrounded him in a half-circle, still staring, and he reached out with a hand toward Pinkie Pie.
Then, without any pony so much as laying a hoof on him, he collapsed. As he lay on his back, staring upwards with the ponies surrounding him, Matt’s voice came through the gateway loud and clear.
“There’s no sky,” he said, his voice slurred, confused and wondering. “Where’s the sky?”
“Close the gate,” Dan said, feeling numb. He had figured out what was bothering him.
“Matt is over there,” Justin protested. “We can’t just—”
“Close it!” Dan screamed. He couldn’t find the words to explain what he’d finally figured out.
Dan’s voice must have carried through the gate, because the heads of the nearest dozen ponies snapped up and stared straight at him. Megaphone’s cruel green eyes met his, and she licked her lips.
Professor Johansson cursed and started hitting switches. The gateway shimmered again as the crowd rushed forward, every pony with a manic grin on their features. Dan shrieked and hunched down on himself just as the gateway blipped out of existence.
Breathing heavily, Dan straightened up, staring where the gate had been, where his best friend had gone through. The reality of the situation just felt too big for his mind to encompass. He felt weak in the knees, his hands shaking with adrenaline. Mike and Tom were standing next to their equipment, stunned. Professor Johansson had slumped to the floor and was just sitting there with his hands over his face. Justin looked just as pale and shocked as Dan imagined he looked.
“What… What was that?” Tom finally asked.
“I… I don’t think they were ponies,” Dan replied.
“What?”
“I just figured it out,” Dan said. “Megaphone wasn’t just being a busybody, she was directing. Which means that the others were all acting out some kind of role.”
“What about Matt?” Justin asked shakily, his face white as a sheet.
“I think…” Dan’s throat locked up and he had to swallow a few times. “I don’t think he made it.”
“What should we do now?” Tom asked faintly. “Can we get him back?”
“No way I’m going to be anywhere near here if you open that gateway again,” Justin replied.
They stood in silence for a long while, each lost in their thoughts. That is, until Mike piped up.
“Does anyone else hear humming?”
Dan shot a panicked look at the gateway. There was a glowing dot in the center. “Turn it off!” he shrieked, falling back.
“It is off!” Professor Johansson sprung to his feet and started smacking the control console. “There isn’t enough power left to start it up, anyway!”
The glowing dot was growing. Though, oddly enough, it was tinted a light green. The humming was getting louder. All five men began shouting at cross purposes, nobody really knowing what to do. Tom ran over and began shutting down the batteries. Professor Johansson started yanking the power cables out of the console. Mike and Justin ran up and started kicking the sides of the steel structure where the gateway was still growing.
The gateway snapped into place. Dan backed away, horrified revulsion making his skin crawl. Every pony he’d seen since the start of the project was just on the other side of the gate, their faces frozen in wide, feral grins under glassy, staring eyes.
Megaphone stood front and center, her horn glowing an intense green. She looked up at Dan and winked an eye just before a burst of green fire traveled down her body. When the fire dissipated, the grey-green unicorn had been replaced by a much taller, more regal figure.
Similar fire pulsed over every other pony a the gate, revealing their true forms. And then, at some unspoken signal, the changelings rushed through with a hungry yowl that mingled with the screams of the humans.
~~*~~
Three months later
The young man stared down at the box on his doorstep. Inside the box, something light blue with rose-colored eyes underneath a rainbow mane stared back at him. She was tiny, about the size of a small dog, and her flank was bare.
No matter how he blinked or shook his head, the tiny pegasus filly was still there, smiling and giving him a look of pure and open trust. He finally accepted the evidence of his own senses.
“My own little Dashie,” the young man said in a breathless whisper.
He looked around for whoever might have dropped the box off, but there was nobody, and nopony in sight. The tiny Dash in the box made a gurgling sound, and the young man felt his heart swell with love.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he carefully gathered up the box. “I’ll take care of you.”
He closed the door behind him, carrying the precious cargo in his arms. And, as he made his way back to the living room, he made a mental note to call someone in to check out his furnace. It must have been malfunctioning. It was starting to get really cold in that old house.
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Awesome ending there. In no way a terifying twist at all
That's some... terrifying ending there
I loved it!
But I am very curious as to whether the Scientist consciously chose the reality where the gate would go, or if he chalked up to just plain coincidence. Personally I'd start to wonder on the mechanics of the multiverse if the first thing that popped up was something we would be familiar with.
I thought this felt like "Window". Though I never read the short story... Saw a TV show that Fox used to do where they did this story (starring Bill Pullman).
I'm just gonna sit here and shiver for a few moments.
So it being grey all the time, "no sky", Matt collapsing and shivering... off-world or low-oxygen training facility?
Wow.
5157907
Interior of the hive, artificially lit to simulate daylight
5156487
Oh, cool. I didn't know they made a TV show! I will have to go check that out.
Hope you wouldn't mind me pointing out a few things I noticed when reading.
Should probably read No way this bullshit is worth only fifty bucks., except I can't figure out from context what bullshit is he referring to
Also, two spaces in front of every paragraph is very annoying. If you want indents in front of every paragraph, make it wider. Otherwise, the spacing in between each paragraph is sufficient. Right now it looks like the first line of each paragraph is misaligned, making it look messy and giving my OCD brain fits.
The story is surprisingly not horrible. The material and setting (ie. MLP:FiM) doesn't quite lend itself to the sort of psychological tension the story demands, however. You mentioned the Cold War in the author's notes, and that reminded me of Philip K. Dick's stories, especially Second Variety, which executes a similar idea, but with better tension in a perhaps somewhat more fitting environment.
Building up the tension could be done better, and so could the ending - it's hard to understand what the Changelings were doing in a mock Ponyville until I read the author's notes. The story almost, but not quite worked for me. At the point where the big reveal is done, my first thoughts should be oh shit everything is fucked and not huh, why are there Changelings in Ponyville. Also, one more issue - it's understandable why every other pony must be disguised, but why the Director too? These things makes the ending less dramatic, if only because I had to pause and think about them.
All that said, congratulations on writing a [Humans] fic that's actually not horrible. Those are so hard to find these days.
5158506 Had to look it up via Wikipedia, but it's from an old Fox TV show called "Night Visions", which was an anthology show of horror stories. It was a roughly 15-20 minutes segment called "A View Through the Window".
Edit: Even better! Found the episode on YouTube! The first half of the episode is what I am talking about, so you can ignore the next half lol.
Great story, I especially loved the part about the sky, it made the whole thing pretty eerie. The ending felt a bit forced for me though, probably because My Little Dashie is a bit overdone. Maybe it would have worked better to have Pinkie turn around and smile at a bunch of kids as they're watching an episode or something.
The characters all got me hooked and felt alive. I really can't help but admire the way you always write well rounded human characters that manage to hold their own in the middle of the more colorful ponies.
I read two times and still dont ubderstand ghey are not the ponies and they make people when neae then. What happened i dont grt it
5159502
They aren't ponies. They're changelings. The entire town is a set, and they're practicing for when they meet real ponies. Their presence makes people feel cold because they are draining the love and life out of them. And now that they've opened the gateway themselves, they have an entirely new audience to feed on.
Wonderful twist, there. I like it.
Nifty!
Keep going! ;)
I was honestly disappointed with the ending.
I expected (and wanted) it to be an actual different dimension (with Equestria maybe never even having been real) of horrifying hellish creatures masquerading as ponies for the sole purposes of some brony scientists one day opening a gateway to them (hey, evil demonic dimensions don't have to make complete sense). It just being actual changelings from Equestria kinda ruined the extremely spooky setup and was very underwhelming...
So IMO up until the reveal it was perfect, but I didn't care for the "twist".
This is in danger of becoming its own verse.
Fun times ahead!
The scientists were correct -- they should have published and all instead of sending a man through.
Not that I could resist the temptation of course -- but for a project like that -- cold detachment is needed or you end up with scenarios like this one, or where they were demons from hell, or some other scenario where they were seeing what they wanted to see.
yes....
yes...
Yes!
YES!!
Wonderful story! I really enjoyed it!
This is not helping me after reading creepypastas all day.....
Meh.
Why would changelings even know humans were setting up a portal device? And they can what just magic it open? Call me cynical but it would have been more convincing if they led the humans along to keep the portal open until they had control of the machine on the other side. Just that special moment of triumph when a pony truly walks the earth, and then the eyes of the adoring fans fill with the fire of betrayal.
Now that was pretty terrifying implication. Really well written though.
Makes you wonder what happened to the actual ponies, if they were fine or not, and/or if the changelings just made this happen away from everyone else so they won't be found out.
5167730 the changelings didn't know. This was a training facility, designed to emulate ponyville. The portal happened to open and the changelings capitalized on the opportunity.
Vivid imagery, deep and well written characters, jaw-dropping(and subtly foreshadowed) twist, and a corrupting of the familiar into the unsettling at the end in the best traditions of stephen king.
Magnificent.
I'm reminded of how I once told you that your best work was in the early parts of any given story, or the one-shots. You've gotten even better since then, and likewise your short stories have become even more amazing with the rest of it - You've hit god tier this time.
That was weird, and pretty creepy. The setup was pretty good, and the reveal didn't quite follow up as well as I hoping it would, but it was still a strong finish. Good stuff.
I think you meant "rain began to"
Amazing story. The changelings are like:
Hmm... the single huge problem is the sudden convenience that the changelings, having never seen an interdimensional portal before are instantly able to open one, and open it using a device they've never encountered before.
That's far too plot-convenient if we are to understand that these are the changelings we know from the show merely pretending to be ponies to prepare themselves for an invasion. They don't have high-level technology, nor would they instantaneously be able to adapt their magic to open a portal which was opened via machine from our side.
The other issue is Chrysalis being 'Megaphone'. If she was directing this whole production and there were no real ponies in the fake town at all, why would she be in disguise if she was acting as primary authority figure and not acting in a role herself?
Might have been better had something unseen, always BEHIND the portal seemed to be shouting at the 'ponies', and then Matt happens to look behind him and see the truth after he goes through.
Honestly, it would have been better off if they'd then revealed themselves to attack Matt before the humans shut the portal in sudden terror and that was that.
If the changelings DID eventually open it again, it'd be more plausible for it to occur much later after they'd had time to analyze the 'signal' or whatever remained in Equestria and researched a magical method of opening the portal. Then, there's more time for the humans to go, "Whew! Dodged a bullet there!" Only for portals to open everywhere on Earth some months later and millions of fully-powered changelings swarm through, the automatic implication being that (and Dan could state it in very few words) "My god... That's why "Canterlot Wedding" felt so forced at the end... the changelings won."
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN!!!!
The alternate possibility is that these changelings were already planning to invade Earth... but that lacks internal evidence. We see no sign that they know of humans, interdimensional portals, nothing that would clue us in that the humans just happened to randomly (which is, again, far too great a coincidence to be plausible) spy on the changelings' interdimensional ploy for brony subterfuge.
Good enough opening, but the 'twist' was too hasty to be believable.
See, if they hadn't been wussy nerds, one of them would've thought fast, grabbed a crowbar, and smashed her horn with it as she came through the portal.
She'd have been vulnerable in that instant she crossed over. THAT'S when you can attack with impunity!
Also very silly of them to build a portal without an iris for emergencies. This is why portals are best left in government hands!
*Alondro is trained in dealing with invaders who use Stargates...*
Any way, only one choice left! We must engage project 'Nuke Equestria Through the Changeling Portal'.
southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/images/shows/south-park/clip-thumbnails/season-11/1111/south-park-s11e11c19-nuke-our-imagination-16x9.jpg
5168377 Think about it this way: If the changelings had already won, why would they be training to act like the ponies they already had in pods and were sucking dry until they were lifeless husks like the MURDEROUS FAUST-DAMED FREAKING EVIL HORRID NASTY INCONTINENTDISGUSTING VILE BUG-PONY FREAKS THEY ARE!!! *Alondro is currently frothing at the mouth and bleeding from the eyes in a seething conniption fit of abject hatred*
MUST KILLS ALL DA CHERNGELERNGS!!!
*Alondro hates changelings since a 3-legged changeling murdered his wife and framed him for it. Ever since, he has been on the run from Apploosa Marshals... and I can't find a Tommy Lee Jones or "The Fugitive" pony crossover to link here... the fandom has failed me.*
Nicely done, I like the logic that when Chrysalis found out about the portal, she'd figure out how to re-open it and feed on the beings from the other side.
5244980
an iris?
5396767 LOOK IT UP!!!
Stargate!! Iris!! You'll find it instantly!
Good lord, can't people ever learn to use search engines?
The one thing the cherngelerngs don't realize is some of us have stockpiled DDT.
We knew why the government REALLY banned it!
*Conspiracy theory #17274783648493979: The US government is working for the cherngelerngs and DDT is the only thing that can stop them!*
5398281
Also the reason why everyone is pushing anti-smoking ordinances. Nicotine makes a damned effective insecticide. Of course, it's also deadly to humans...
5398333 Eh, so is caffeine if you take too much. Nicotine by itself actually has fairly low toxicity compared to other commonly used medications and drugs. I'd place it about in the medium range of toxicity.
But in any case, bug ponies are MUCH more susceptible!
I have experimented frequently upon them (brief shot to Alondro's inhumane lab of horrors where various changelings in various numbers of pieces beg the camerapony to kill them and end their agony) and the LD50 of nicotine in chernglerngs is a mere 0.001 mg/kg! A single cigarette would kill them! Kinda like how that guy in 'Mushishi' uses a special cigarette to ward off mushi, smokers will never be approached by chernglerngs, and you can use the smoke to find a cherngelerng in your special extermination squad cuz they'll choke and gag and lose their false form right quick!
Then you and your buddies can gleefully hack them to pieces!
*Changelings avoid Alondro for good reason...*
5398270
well, somwtimes the things have multiple meaning so finding the exact one...but whatever...
Like a couple of others, I found the story disturbing enough, but the plot holes too serious to accept. First, why would the Changelings even have a mock Ponyville to begin with, and be so carefully orchestrating an illusion of normal life? Second, if the Changelings can make portals so easily, why did they wait for the humans to go through in the first place instead of simply reversing the first one that showed up while it was still view-only?
The first could be partially addressed by assuming it's for invasion training purposes, but that leaves Chrysalis' disguise unaccounted for, and it also doesn't really explain why it has to be so dead-on perfect in every respect, which would take far more effort than simply training agents to mimic individual ponies in isolation, for only a tiny benefit. Or, it could be assumed that this sort of interdimensional sting operation was intended in the first place (as my initial reading led me to suppose), but that relies on either absurd luck, or some sort of portal-redirection device/magic to ensure that portals opened in the right place, and not, say, canted upward 20 degrees, or half a mile away, or in any of the other 99.99999% of locations on the world. But such a redirector would imply, again, that they have no real reason not to grab the first viable portal viewer and reverse it immediately, since they'd need a deep understanding of the principles involved.
As for the second, well, Chrysalis is not Twilight Sparkle, and "snap analysis of mysterious complex new magitech phenomenon with a 5-minute reverse engineering turnaround" is most decidedly not in her purview. Not even a little. (Whether even Twilight would really be able to pull that off is dubious enough, but at least you could sort of vaguely hoofwave the problem.) Maybe you could throw in some jargon about "weakening the veil" or whatever making it easier to cross over, but none of that was actually in there, and that still leaves 99% of the problem unaddressed. Namely, the complex process of interdimensional crossing. For that matter, if EqG/RR is canon, it takes ponies a magic mirror that can only be used at long, precise intervals and with a preset destination to pull off this sort of stunt, and changelings are not plausibly significantly more magically capable than Celestia+Sunset Shimmer+Twilight+…, so doing the same job on the spur of the moment to an arbitrary destination with no gear is … not gonna happen.
Oh, wow. That was... slightly disturbing. Good work XD
This was creepy but.. hard to make sense of what was actually going on here. Why were the Changelings putting on an act? How did Chryssi open a portal that easily, what was the 'there's no sky' about? Was it some interdeminsional void thing? Creepy, and shocking but, not quite sure what was actually going on.
That was unsettling, and definitely eerie, but brilliant.
Training ground in the best for changelings pretending to be the townsfolk in case travelers from elsewhere in Equestria showed up... Yikes.