Expedition

by Prince Luna

No Rest for Something Wicked

I never imagined that this would happen. I mean, who would call me? Everyone I know is aware that I'm away. I realise the song is still playing, quickly pull out my phone and deny the call. It was from Sam, who was also on Duke of Edinburgh, but I still ignore the call. Applejack looks at me in horror and confusion, then asks me what that was all about.

I think now. Do I tell her? It didn't happen this fast in My Little Dashie, right? They knew each other for years before Rainbow Dash found out about the show. What would her reaction be? The same? Perhaps she would be more accepting? She may have figured out something seeing as she's a cartoon and we all look different to the norm for her.

"It's a side-effect to my magic," I hurriedly say.

Applejack jerks her head back and forth and turns her back to me, "it ain't that. There's somethin' more to ya."

I look at my friends and they have no idea what to say too, either because they're relying on me too much for this or that they have the same thoughts as me.

"Tell me the truth," Applejack demands.

"You won't handle the truth!" I argue.

"I can handle any information! Tell me what in the hay is goin' on!"

"It'd be best for you not to know," I mutter.

Applejack sighs and her angry expression grows completely neutral, "is that so?"

Before I can get another word in, the earth pony quickly gallops away. I would normally be able to keep the same pace if I ran, but I feel that my leg would instantly snap off if I even attempted to lift it higher than I already could.

"Applejack!" I yell as she disappears through some trees.

Mel sighs and her voice grows a distracting and uneasy tone, "we better just leave her. We need to keep going."

It wasn't my leg that snapped, it was a nerve, I look her dead in the eyes and growl deeply. I curse the Duke of Edinburgh award and smack the map out of her hands violently. I angrily and audibly breathe through my gritting teeth, then I get even more pissed off. My phone rings again.

"My Little Pony!"

I would have picked up my phone and slammed it to the ground I was looking at and tears leapt to, but something on that ground catches my attention immediately. It is the map. I see a small purple dot appear and fade in time with the chants of 'My Little Pony' on my ringtone.

I muster up the strength to bend down and pick up the map, then deny the call from Sam and grab quickly onto the map. I pull out my phone without a word and flick through it.

"What are you doing?" Gabby asks.

I concentrate on my phone. I unlock the iPhone and quickly select the music app, then browse through the list of albums. The Best of Crush 40. Barenaked Ladies. Cars 2 Soundtrack. I scroll through more then get to what I'm looking for. An album simply titled 'MLP: FIM' and open it. I see our favourite songs from the series and look for the right one to test a theory I had just created after seeing the light on the map. Winter Wrap-Up is what I select.

Three months of Winter coolness, and awesome holidays...

A blue dot lights up on a different location on the map.

We've kept our hoofsies warm at home, time off from work to play...

The blue dot fades and a pink one appears at a further point, which then fades as the next line comes in.

But the food we've stored is runnin' out, and we can't grow in this cold...

I smile as I see an orange dot moving slowly near our location. I quickly move the time marker back to replay the line; I did have a difficult, songless pony to find first, but she suddenly stops and close by too. Mel nods to the others and lets me go forth to find her and explain everything.

It's about ten minutes until I see her sitting under a small, broken tree staring into space. I crouch quietly beside her. She knows I'm there, but stays silent as she either shuns me or waits for me to talk. I sigh and repeat that she's not from this world. She mumbles to acknowledge.

"But at the same time, you are," I say.

She looks at me dead on in the eye, "like how?"

"You're a work of fiction in the world," I begin to explain, I have her whole attention, "you're a part of a beloved series. Here in my world, the human world, we have this form of entertainment called 'television'."

I then explain a lot to her for maybe half an hour or so, even my friends help out. I describe what television is, how it works, then what her series is. I explain My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the fanbase, her role.

"Can't rightly recall some of those stories," she says, tapping her hoof on her chin after I describe some episodes, "defeatin' Nightmare Moon, that happened. The Royal Wedding was a blast, too!"

She chuckles to herself, then explains some of what didn't happen out of what I've explained. She had never heard of a pony named Derpy Hooves. Fluttershy never got assertiveness training from a minotaur. The Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn't worked for their school newspaper to the best of her memory. I assumed these things were events for the future, since she had been pulled out of the show. But had my doubts as she acknowledged me when I mentioned the events of the Last Roundup, past Derpy Hooves. She says there was a grey, blonde pegasus there, but her name was Bubble Squeak and her eyes were perfectly normal and the building was destroyed due to a prior accident.

I then stand up and tell Mel to show Applejack the map. I play her line of Winter Wrap-Up and Mel points out Applejack's spot on the map. I then let the song carry on.

And even though I love my boots, this fashion's getting old...

A white dot, Rarity's, shows up not too far off. A while behind where we're meeting to go home. Remembering that Fluttershy does not have much singing time in Winter Wrap-Up, I play 'So Many Wonders'.

As the calm voice begins to sing what is this place filled with so many wonders, a yellow dot fades in and moves. It's literally just ahead of us. No kidding, about ten minutes ahead. I jump up, much to my pain, and urge everyone to move on quickly. The burst of energy as I realise we could meet Fluttershy overwhelms me and I walk at a pace that would have been impossible a minute ago.
I keep the song on repeat, but it bores us after a while as the calm yet repetitive voice keeps on repeat. Whilst playing the looped song, I find more Fluttershy heavy songs into a playlist called 'Finding Fluttershy'. This includes; So Many Wonders, Best of the Litter, Hush Now Quiet Now and At the Gala. We keep the catchy playlist shuffling and repeating and keep a close eye on the map. Fluttershy is still dead ahead and going on the same track as we are.

The music stops, and my ringtone begins. Sam calls for the third time. I answer, frustrated.

"Yes?"

"Luke! You finally picked up! What's been keeping you?" he replies.

"I've been pre-occupied," I say, looking at Applejack.

"So, Luke, you know My Little Pony?" Sam suddenly asks.

My heart leaps. I see just ahead of us, through a gate, Sam and the rest of his group walking. With them is something yellow, somepony yellow. They have Fluttershy with them.

"Stop walking!" I shout.

The groups stops and turn around, seeing me wave frantically. They begin to walk towards me and my group to them. Their group is larger than ours, six people; four boys, two girls. Seven if you count Fluttershy. Our two groups meet at the gate and Applejack, stood next to me, quickly gallops to Fluttershy, cowering at the back of her group. The two cry happily and repeat each other's names with joy.

"You had one too?" Another boy, James, asks.

"Yeah. They're lost in our world," I say.

"But how can they be real? It's a toy!" a girl, Angie, asks.

I laugh, "it's a TV show too! Looks like they've been ripped out of it," I say, feeling I repeat that term perhaps too much.

"I still don't understand how this can be possible. It's a bloody TV show," James emphasizes.

I explain the magic concept of it and perhaps, in some twisted turn of events, they came to our universe with magic. I provide my three explanations of how it could have happened.

Number one: We truly live in a multiverse and one of the universes is where the show's events are true and real. A spell gone wrong could have caused them to skip universes to ours.

Number two: The creators, currently at work on season three, made an episode where a pony performs magic and sends the ponies to another dimension. Somehow, they made it really happen just by thinking of it.

Number three: Number two caused number one to happen. The episode will never be finished.

I can tell all of them will not take me seriously. I then explain that we can locate the other ponies and demonstrate how, but again, nobody actually wants to take me seriously but those in my group. Applejack tells Fluttershy she needs to come with us to find the others. She, sorry about this in advance, SHYLY introduces herself to me and I return a greeting through nervousness, but staying happy. She seems to be able to trust me and leave the other group to stay here and eat their lunch. We don't need them to drown us in questions we can't answer or not believing what is right there.

Soon, we reach a three-way fork in the road. We can go forward, left, or right. An elderly woman approaches from the front. Now this is difficult, contact with an unaware person. I tell Applejack and Fluttershy to quickly hide as we ask for directions. The lady tells us that to get to our destination, we literally need to continue going forwards and we will reach there in no time. We are glad and shout for joy, to which the ponies crawl out of the shrubs at the side and we explain what we need to do next.

A few hours later, I discover more about the pony world from both Fluttershy and Applejack. I insistently ask about fan favourite characters, in awe at what I learn. I could write a whole chapter or more of what I learn, but since I want to keep to the story, here are some of the things that they told me. Lyra Heartstrings is her name! They have no idea why she sits like she does but she is good friends with a pony named Sweet Drops, which fits the physical description of who we know as Bon Bon. Berryshine (Berry Punch to us) is a pony with a sweet-tooth when it comes to fruit juices. Big Macintosh often talks, Applejack says she has troubles getting him to shut up a lot of the time and finally, Vinyl Scratch, otherwise known as DJ-PON3 onstage, likes many kinds of music, not one particularly.

I need to focus on the story now, but there honestly is not much. Soon, we reach a not so busy motorway and start to see signs pointing to where we're headed for a mile and a half away. Some mile and a half later, we reach the town that is our destination! We then trawl downhill exhaustedly, with Sam's group just behind us and find the spot we are stopping at. The teachers or buses aren't there yet, which confuses us. We think we're just early. Alice and I are the only ones making conversation with the ponies, the others just stare in some form of disgust or horror. We then see a familiar man in a car, one of the teachers, and I hurriedly help the ponies hide in a shrub nearby.

Turns out the teacher actually didn't know this was the last stop of our final walk. He thought we were just catching a breather to carry on. Thankfully, he believed us and went to fetch the other teachers and the buses.

Now it struck me. I can't leave the ponies here on their own, or give them my phone and the map. I can't take them with me when we know the others are all in the Forest of Dean. My heart pounds so much I can hear it as my brain frantically searches for ways to stay here, or bring the ponies. What can I do? The teachers aren't trustworthy enough to know about them and they surely won't let me stay behind on my own.

What the buck do I do?

Comments

[StarSorio]

FIRST!!

Now that that's outta my system, good story! But... there are some issues. You kind of go by many parts way to fast. Finding applejack was really rushed though Fluttershy hardly had an introduction at all. You should show how they communicate to one another. You should put more details of how they interact with things, not just "He did this while that was happening and we did that about it." if you know what i mean. I mean it took me a second to realize that the dots were in the real world and not the iphone itself.

Don't get me wrong though, this story has potential, it just seems a bit to rushed with this chapter