"Who's a pretty pony?"
"Stop that."
"You's a pretty pony!"
"I mean it. Knock it off."
When the guard was first stuck in the cell with Conrad he had been terrified beyond measure. But terror gave way to boredom, as it does in situations like this, and then to full-blown annoyance at Conrad's antics.
At first the guard had been terrified that the human would do intolerable evil to him. Eventually he realized that Conrad was merely intolerable.
"Ooh, I know!" Conrad said. "We could have a mask party!"
Brave Heart stared deadpan at Conrad.
"A mask party," Brave Heart said.
"Sure, a mask party! We each put on masks and pretend to be somebody else! Here, take this!"
Conrad threw a mask at Brave Heart, who caught it and examined it.
Brave Heart said, "This is a mask of you."
"Uh huh!" Conrad said, putting his mask on. "And mine is a mask of you!"
"That's not the point of a costume party!" Brave Heart yelled. "You pretend to be some pony well-known and important, like Princess Celestia or Fancy Pants or some pony. You don't pretend to be the only other person in the very same prison cell as you!"
"Oh. Well that's too bad, because I only have these two masks."
"Yeah, I- wait, where did you get these?"
"Over there," Conrad said, vaguely gesturing somewhere else in the dungeon.
Brave Heart sighed and put the mask on. "Fine, if it makes you happy."
"Yaaaaay!"
"Now what?"
"Well, now we try to guess who each other really is underneath the mask!"
"You can't be serious."
"I am! Are youuuuuu... Princess Celestia?"
Brave Heart facehooved.
There was a bright white flash of light. Celestia had teleported into the dungeon.
Conrad-wearing-a-Brave-Heart-mask smiled and waved at Celestia. "Hi!" He said cheerfully.
"Quickly!" yelled Celestia. "I'm here to rescue you! There is no time to talk! We must be off!"
There was another flash of light and Princess Celestia disappeared along with Conrad.
There was a long pause.
"Okay, what the hell just happened?" Brave Heart asked.
---------------------------------------------------------
"Though it pains me to admit it," Celestia said, "I have done you wrong. I let my fears get the better of me and forgot my responsibilities to you. My sister reminded me of my duties and obligations, while you were stuck in that cell with a horrible monster."
Well, that's a bit harsh to Brave Heart, thought Conrad.
"Tell me, my little pony," she said with eyes shining with unshed tears, "can you ever forgive me?"
"Okay!" he said cheerfully.
Princess Celestia sighed with relief.
"I'm very glad to hear that," she said. "Now please tell me, is there anything I can do to make this up to you?"
Conrad looked at a map of Equestria hung up on one of the walls.
"I'd like to travel," he said. "It's always been a dream of mine."
"Of course. Where would you like to travel to?"
"I don't know!" he said. "Let's find out."
*Thunk!*
Faster than Celestia could react to, Conrad tossed a throwing dart at the map. He then walked over to the map and inspected the spot the dart landed on.
"'Ponyville', huh? Well, I guess that's where I'm going! I hope it's a boring place."
---------------------------------------------------------
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!"
The giant squid monster had rallied its flying monkey troops and was rampaging through downtown Ponyville. Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity had been taken out an hour earlier by Trixie's unexpected treachery, and Spike had been knocked unconscious in the first few minutes of the engagement.
"Don't worry, every pony! I got this!" yelled Pinkie Pie, coming over the hill with a large vat strapped to her back.
"It's Pinkie Pie!" yelled Twilight from her containment globe. "And she brought the chocolate-chip frosting!"
"We're saved!" yelled Rarity.
---------------------------------------------------------
"'tis a rather boring, normal place," Celestia said, speaking honestly as far as she knew. "You'll like it there. Additionally, there is the matter of restitution. When the crown has been found guilty of crimes against its citizens, the leader may choose to give the victim money to compensate him or her for their loss. It can never truly make you whole, but please accept this weregild as a sincere token of my regret."
Celestia levitated a bag containing hundreds of bits to Conrad. As she passed him the bag he said, "Where gild? There gild!" and pointed to it.
There was an awkward silence.
"Well, I thought it was funny" he muttered to himself.
---------------------------------------------------------
Despite the fact that the Brave Heart mask was a completely inanimate object, with no volition of its own, it still somehow managed to decide that Conrad's life wasn't chaotic or awkward enough, and chose to slip off his face just as the train passenger in the seat in front of him had turned around and was facing Conrad. The passenger screamed loudly. Conrad slid the mask back into place as quickly as he could.
"Don't worry, ma'am," he said, "I'm just a normal pony, just like anybody else here."
"You said anybody! That's not a normal thing for a pony to say."
"No I didn't."
"Yes, you did!"
"No, I didn't."
"I swear you did!"
"I didn't."
...
"Well, maybe you didn't. But I still have my eyes on you."
The pony in question gestured with her hoof back and forth between her eyes and Conrad's in a "I'm watching you" gesture before turning back around.
"Well you don't need to worry about me," Conrad said loudly, "because I'm going to sleep now."
The pony sitting next to him piped up. "Why?" she asked. "It's the middle of the day."
"Well, I spent a lot of time in the dark and I'm not really adjusted to a proper sleep schedule yet."
"Oh. You spent a lot of time in a different time zone?"
"No, I've spent the last century and a half in the Canterlot Dungeons."
The pony giggled. "And why is that?" she asked playfully.
"You know," Conrad said thoughtfully, "I'm not really sure. The princess told me to surrender, and I did, and then she put me in the prison cell, so I just sort of stayed there."
The pony giggled again. "You're silly," she said. "So what are you doing out of jail? Was there a jailbreak?"
"Again, I don't really know. I was throwing a mask party with my new friend, and then Celestia set me free and apologized for throwing me in there, which I thought was rather nice of her to do. So now I'm travelling to Ponyville, because I wanted to explore and it's someplace I've never been before."
"Well you shouldn't go to sleep now, 'cuz then you won't be able to wake up on time tomorrow! You should talk to me instead!"
Conrad thought about this. "Okay."
Conrad and the pony (he learned her name was "Rose") talked for several hours. They talked about the world he came from, about Rose's family (two brothers, one sister), about their favorite things, and about whatever came to their minds. Eventually Conrad couldn't keep his eyes open any more and he slowly fell asleep. Rose smiled but said nothing.
---------------------------------------------------------
The ponies Ketchup and Mayo saw Conrad and started screaming.
"Please don't scream!" Conrad said. "I'm not a bad person!"
"Do you think he's telling the truth?" Relish asked Hamburger.
"For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I believe him," replied Condiments.
Conrad smiled. Was this all it took? Ever since he'd arrived here, Conrad had wished he knew the right things to say to make friends with these skittish ponies. Now, at last, it seemed that everything could be good and peaceful.
A fish floated by, wearing a top hat and monacle. "Good day," it said to Conrad, doffing its top hat as it floated past.
"Oh bugger," said Conrad. "This is only a dream."
---------------------------------------------------------
Conrad drooled a bit as he leaned against the window. Rose had fallen asleep as well, and she unconsciously snuggled against Conrad's body as she slept.
Mrs. Harshwhinny, the pony sitting in front of Conrad, poked her head over the back of her own seat.
They're both asleep. Excellent.
She climbed over the back of her own seat and reached out towards the mask that Conrad wore that no other pony seemed to notice. Closer and closer her hoof inched towards Conrad's face.
It was particularly unfortunate for her, then, that at that moment the train hit a particularly bumpy patch of track. She lost her balance and toppled towards Conrad just as Conrad slumped forward towards her. Their foreheads collided, knocking Mrs. Harshwhinny out and throwing her back into her own seat.
Conrad opened his eyes groggily, saw nothing but the back of the seat in front of him, shook his head, and went back to sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------
"Well, looks like this is my stop," Conrad said.
"It's my stop too, you know," Rose replied.
Conrad chuckled. "You know what I mean."
Rose smiled. "I do. If you ever need a place to stay or some pony to talk to, just look me up. I'm staying at-"
A giant squid tentacle reached in through the open window, grabbed Conrad, and tossed him high into the air outside the train. After several seconds of hang-time, gravity kicked in and slammed him to the ground dozens of yards away from the train.
Rose put her hooves to her mouth in shock and horror.
Conrad got to his feet and yelled, "I'm okay!"
That's when he was trampled by the army of winged monkeys fleeing the city.
it would have been funnier if, when he was run over by the monkeys, he shouted "... less okay..."
5743456
I like that idea, but it means he's at the same spot at the end of the scene. The way I have it now, the monkey stampede can act as a transition between scenes, dragging him to wherever I want him to be in time for the next scene to start.
Giant squid-monsters make everything better!
I couldn't help but chuckle throughout the entire chapter, man. It's all just pure comedy gold!
I don't think even a wtf is video could make this more understandable
Well...I hope Conrad meets Pinkie. Other than that, I got nothing else to say. This story is just that hilarious!
the power of the mask XD
fimfiction-static.net/images/story_images/45907.jpg?1345352317
That's a pretty effective mask he has, there!
That pony is a spy!
fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/052/c/7/pony_spy_spray_by_kitmehsu-d5vpxri.png
this is the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time thank you good sir or madam
Spy approved.
i.ytimg.com/vi/fqyjOc3EpT4/maxresdefault.jpg
This is my first i read fiction about most innocent thing i ever hear.
*Meanwhile from other place*
derpicdn.net/img/2015/1/18/809396/large.png
Second chapter, still funny.
5743710
Thank God for that. My biggest concern was that the story quality would decrease once I was no longer basing it off of somebody else's story. That happened when I was writing Kingdom of Darkness: as soon as I stopped rewriting the general plot of Seasons of Darkness and took the story in my own direction, page views on updates dropped by half and I stopped making the Featured box.
Apparently I'm a stronger comedy writer than I am an adventure writer. Who knew?
With comedy stories I can just throw random funny stuff in any time I feel like it. When I was writing other genres it often felt like I had to slog through the boring parts to get to the parts that were interesting for me to write. In retrospect, maybe that should have been a sign that I was working in the wrong genre.
Okay, this is getting simply absurd. I love it!
Edit: Also, just now remembered - fun how only one of those ponies even thought of doing a spycheck.
Soo... Did anyone else picture the monkeys like the ones in The Wizard of Oz? *hint* *hint*
In other news: I'm surprised this is still going strong. Keep it going man. We love your sophisticated writing style.
You actually made me say "What the fuck?" out loud in the last two paragraphs.
Giant squid monster...
Tentacles...
...
...
...
... DAMN YOU JAPAN!!!!!
Hahahaah! XD This story man, holy crap its great!
its random, but awesome! I love it! XD
Nice job dude!
Keep it up!
"Okay." Single best line.
...I may be a pile of dirt, but I make a damn fine island native! Even though melons hurt my mouth.
I guess ice cream could work but Minecraft will wait later. I don't know why but I want to fly high in the sky with butterfly legs...
10/10 United States Central Intelligence Agency...
5743992 I AGREEEEE!!! JAAAAPPPPAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!!!!
5744814
5744824
*Insert scene from Chuggaconroy's okamiden let's play when he yells japan*
5744824 You sir are french, ca va ?
I'm kinda scared this story is going to suffer from power creep (one upping itself until it hits a wall) but so far it's really funny and i'm loving it
This story amuses me. Hooray!
5744935 Bien, merci. Québécois pour être exact.
5745804 Français .... Québécois, quelques mots, quelques expressions et quelques milliers de Km de différence, pas grand chose quoi
Yay more crazy
So crazy I don't know how to respond.
I think... I... It's... Uhm...
Wait a sec.
rs2img.memecdn.com/eye-bleach_o_2873725.jpg
Ahhh. Bliss. I can now rebuild my brain, starting with this chapter as the basis for life, the universe, and funny things.
Why do I want calamari now?
This was so freaking funny.
5743468 This guy right here, is a magnificently clever bastard. And I mean that in the best possible way.
That Conrad is a spy!
It seems Conrad is not the only spy.
There's a spy around here!
Achtung! Spy!
Aw, the ponies only love the mask not the man beneath it.
This story is absolutely beautifully random!
what. What! WHAT!!
More man more!!
5743476
Unless you're a magical female of vague humanoid shape fighting in Japan. Then Japan makes you wear impractial outfits and insis you use medieval weaponry to do battle with them. And on your first encounter, if any of your school friends show up to help you, you'll lose for about ten to fifteen minutes, then after they get grabbed too, then you'll 'pull a Bleach' and unleash power you did know you had and win.
And of course, you'll need a shower afterwards.
5743992
5748812
See, everything is better!
Conrad: Hi!
Pinkie: Hi!
Conrad: My name is Conrad, do you like mask parties?
Pinkie: *GASP!* DO I EVER!
<And the most epic costume party to ever occur on Equestrian soil happens and lasts a full year. Everypony was happy. Except Celestia. She's a poopy head.>
So, I like the stories this is making fun of.
But... I like parodies of things I like more than those things I like.
So this is amazing, keep up the good work.
5747337 People everywhere only love the Mask...
librarising.com/astrology/celebs/images2/J/jimcarrey2.jpg
5745007 Nah, Celestia will probably wake up in a psych ward and find out she's really a schizophrenic mental patient named Lurlene who was abused by her drunken father for 20 years and suffered many mental breakdowns from additional PTSD.
(suddenly grimdark)
The Faust-is-God story just went pretty much where everyone expected.
And naturally, idiot-balled Celestia had no idea until beaten over the head with the obvious.
It makes this story even that much funnier, because it's so damned true about all stories of this type.
The only thing I can think of in this chapter is---
Troll lol lol lol tralalala trooollolo tralalala~ troll song
And when Brave Heart removes his Conrad mask and finds a way to escape, he and Conrad (who is still wearing his Brave Heart mask) are confronted by Celestia, only for her to ask, "WHICH ONE OF YOU IS CONRAD?!"
Brave Heart would point at him and say, "HE IS!"
Conrad would raise his hand and say, "Ooh! That's me!"
Then Celestia would point her horn at Brave Heart and say, "YOUR MIND CONTROL TRICKS WON'T WORK ON ME THIS TIME!"
The next thing you know, Brave Heart is trapped in the dungeons again, but with more restraints over him.
5751198
LMAO. Love it.
5751207 Ooh, really? Thanks!
Giant squid monster?
quickmeme.com/img/5d/5d685979e708593a2de148b447bb9c7070d3eeb81cec2fa42f7059cd846e3db3.jpg
More, please.