Not another One-Shot-Ober

by Admiral Biscuit

Undisplaced

Undisplaced
Admiral Biscuit

I used to be somepony.

I know you don't believe me, but hear me out.

...Yeah, I'm sure you hear a lot of mares bragging like that in the bar. But I'm not trying to pick you up, dude.

I guess you're cute enough. But trust me, I'm not interested. Do you wanna hear what I've got to say?

Alright. Keep this under your horn, okay? I swear to Celestia, this is true.

I used to be somepony . . . I used to be Radiance.

Sheesh, are you alright? Cough; get all that whiskey out of your lungs.

You gonna make it?

Guess stallions can't handle their liquor. Anyway, yeah. I used to be Radiance. Up until about a month ago.

See, here's what happened. We'd heard that Pharaoh Phetlock was going to try a daring raid at the city art museum. They were hosting a big show and had the traveling Saddle Arabian crown jewels . . . it was a really big deal. The city police department had put extra ponies on duty, but we knew that it wouldn't be enough . . . he'd find some way to steal the artifacts and make his escape.

Of course, we couldn't just be there in our superhero outfits. Hay, the mayor told us we weren't supposed to be there at all, but we had to be. We just had to.

So we all went in street clothes. Heh, it was weird going out in public wearing a dress. I don't think I'd worn a dress since . . . well, I don't remember. I'm sure I did when I was in school. Probably prom or something.

Yeah, I went to school. What, do you think superheros just appear as full-grown mares, ready to save Maretropolis? How would we even know how to begin if we didn't have a good education? It's not all spells and fighting; there's a mental element as well. Do you know how many hours The Masked Matter-Horn spent going over blueprints, trying to figure out how Pharaoh Phetlock was going to pull off his heist? She's got a doctorate, for Celestia's sake.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, so we all went in street clothes. I was in the lower lobby; there were a couple of fire exits that could have been used either to get in, or as his escape route. Wearing my dress. My outfit was in a Barneigh's shopping bag.

Hey, you'd be surprised how fast you can get one of those on with practice.

Anyhow, the plan was to observe and report. Whoever saw him first would try and delay him, while the other five got dressed and dealt with him. Fili-Second had figured out every permutation, and we were sure it was a perfect plan.

As I now know, it wasn't. We hadn't accounted for the artifact he triggered, the centerpiece of the display. Whether he knew what it was or not is moot; the last thing I heard The Masked Matter-Horn say was “It's a displacement spell,” and then, boom. Here I am.

Prove it?

Well, that's the problem, bub. I could give you all sorts of information that wouldn't prove it to your satisfaction. You want to know Fili-Second's horseshoe size? Trust me, we all knew that; she wore through those things like nopony's business. I could tell you that The Masked Matter-Horn's doctorate is from Vanhoover University. Or that Mistress Marevelous secretly hates pears. But that ain't going to get you to believe me.

No, you want to see me do something. Something only Radiance could do.

Well, I can't. That's the problem with being Displaced. You wind up with all the powers of whatever you're dressed up as.

So yeah, in my case, I've got an average unicorn's field strength, and average spell knowledge. I've basically inexplicably become a normal unicorn mare. See this? Yeah. This shot glass is about all I can lift in one go.

So that's my sad tale. I'm stuck here as a boring normal unicorn until somepony captures Pharaoh Phetlock and sets things back to normal.

Author's Note:

This probably isn't the only anti-Displaced fic you'll see from me; I've been wanting to do one for a while now. Problem is, I'm not that up on superheros, since I don't particularly enjoy that genre (yeah, yeah, toss your pitchforks).

However, after discussions at a bar with two other authors whose names I'm not telling you, we decided (after one of them said "Why would you want to write a Displaced fic?") that the best character to use would be Wonder Woman. Choice two was someone who dresses up as Pope Francis and suddenly gets all the papal powers, for all the good they'll do him in Equestria.

And this would have been one of those stories, but . . . I wanted to avoid this collection having too many HiEs. Yeah, yeah, I know, the previous chapter.

So I came up with this. I almost had the character be Mistress Mare-velous, but like Batman, her powers are more her gadgets (that, and I felt bad making fun of Applejack).

So the short of it is that if I write a second Displaced parody, it'll pretty much be the same plot as this, only it will be Wonder Woman or Pope Francis. It will also be longer, which probably isn't a good selling point.

Comments

[Admiral Biscuit]

Also, this was going to be the art at the bottom:
orig10.deviantart.net/601d/f/2014/041/4/f/mistress_marevelous_by_kp_shadowsquirrel-d75w43b.png
But then I changed what Power Pony it was.

[badninja]

I would recommend using that Neil DeGrass Tyson guy. I mean him showing up in Equestria would be funny because everything he knows would be wrong and he would half to deal with magic!

[Alex Prior]

Okay, speaking as a Displaced writer, that was hilarious as Fudge.

[an1979]

Name's typo.

I used to be Radience.

(In 2nd "I used to be ...")

[Admiral Biscuit]

6567803
That would be something. Dress up like Neil DeGrasse Tyson--or even Bill Nye--and show up in Equestria with no actual powers except for a brilliant mind.

6568609
Thanks! Sorry to mock your genre (okay, I'm not really sorry).

I've never actually read a single Displaced fic. I would imagine that like any other genre, some of them are good, and some of them suck.

6569198
Fixed it! You're lucky you didn't read it before I did a read-through (most of these stories were published immediately without any proofing). This one had a lot of mechanical errors in it, and one of the earlier stories had a character switch gender midway through (not counting Bows, where that was intentional).

[howard035]

I really want to read that Pope Francis story, written by someone who actually knows lots of catholic dogma and can list off the pope's powers. (If he baptizes a pony, what happens when that pony dies?)

[Sunny]

Dangit Biscuit, come back to this state down south and go to bars here, and stuff.

Or go to Ciderfest and stay Sunday evening because that's the only night I can safely drink for REASONS

[Pretentious Narwhal]

Choice two was someone who dresses up as Pope Francis and suddenly gets all the papal powers, for all the good they'll do him in Equestria.

I can't help but think about some comic books I found once about Jesus portrayed as a superhero.

[Admiral Biscuit]

7630911

I can't help but think about some comic books I found once about Jesus portrayed as a superhero.

You wouldn't happen to remember the name of them, would you? Because that actually sounds kind of interesting.

[metallusionsismagic]

It occurs to me that a tear on the flanks of the costume would be more damning to a superpony's secret identity than de-masking them. After all, there's lots of ponies with the same face or even hairstyle.

[Admiral Biscuit]

8367298

It occurs to me that a tear on the flanks of the costume would be more damning to a superpony's secret identity than de-masking them. After all, there's lots of ponies with the same face or even hairstyle.

As long as the cutie mark stays covered, they're still anonymous.

They probably put duct tape or something over it, just to make sure. Especially whichever one Fluttershy turned into.

[PresentPerfect]

What the heck. XD

[Admiral Biscuit]

8440776

What the heck. XD

In a displaced story, you get all the powers of the costume you're wearing. Stands to reason that the reverse would also be true.