• Published 9th Nov 2019
  • 14,825 Views, 419 Comments

Adventures in the life of Beetle - Symphony_in_152mm



Zach, a former fan of that popular pony show, finds himself transported to equestria! Now with hooves instead of hands and walking on all fours, he's left to figure out how to live life as a Changeling and if there's any way to get back home.

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CH.1: So, is this a dream, or...?

Previously...
He took in the saturated colors, the trees and bushes, the vines…the gently shrouding darkness in the furthest reaches of treeline in the distance. The trickling of a stream nearby, little croppings of hill mounds and burrows…

He was in a deep forest, an uncomfortably familiar forest.

Our story continues...

Not just any forest, no, he recognized this forest the longer he looked at it. His surroundings almost exactly matched what the Everfree Forest looked like in the pilot episodes of the show. He didn’t immediately dismiss the possibility of it being some sort of other forest that his subconscious threw together to create a scene, as it so often had done with other scenery in his past dreams. Yet, he couldn't shake it, this was almost a One to One mockup of the Everfree, with an astonishing attention to details even he had originally missed.

The one question though, was, why? Why would he be having a dream about this? He’d only just started watching the show that night and wasn't more than a few episodes in yet! It shouldn’t already be planted in his subconscious; that’s not how dreams are supposed to work!

“Ok, Subconscious, we’ve gotta talk…I-” He said aloud. The voice that spoke it startled him, and he recoiled in surprise. “Wh-whoa…holy cow, is that me? That’s, it is me! That’s my voice?!” He sounded like he had a twangy gargling in his throat when he spoke, and it was a noticeable few pitches higher than he recalled his normal voice being.

“Aeiou…Aaeeiioouu…falalalaaaaa” he sounded out a few vocals with this new gargly, vibrating voice of his. “Hoo hoo, haa haa, hee hee…” He offered a chuckle. “Ok, not gonna lie, this is pretty neat.”

This was a definite first for him, in terms of dreams. He’s had plenty of dreams before where his voice had been reduced to little more than a whisper, or where his mouth was prevented from speaking altogether; but this? This was very new. Zach never had a dream where his voice changed into something else before, “Points for originality, subconscious. I approve!”

After testing out his new vocals for a good minute, Zach eventually decided it was time to stop laying on the ground. He moved to rise to his feet, standing up straight… and promptly fell forward due to an unusually placed center of gravity, causing him to face-plant.

“…ow…” was all he managed to get out.

That, hurt. Dreams weren’t supposed to hurt like that! Dreams weren’t supposed to hurt at all. Well, you were supposed to think you were experiencing pain, but you wouldn’t actually feel any pain.

This right here was actual pain.

“OK, another first for me…not only do I have a tangible center of gravity, and an actual response to gravity, but I can feel pain now too. Boy oh boy, you really outdid yourself, Subconscious…” Zach said rather weakly.

He picked himself up off the ground, dusted himself off and tried again, though he was forced forward once more due to his offset center of gravity and mass. He caught himself this time on his forehooves.

Hooves.
Hooves?

Zach stared at the ground, and the dark, almost black hooves; he eyed them for what felt like an hour before he could find the words to speak. “Am… am I a pony? Subconscious, am I seriously having a pony dream? After watching like three episodes tops?” Zach looked up into the air at nothing specific. "Ok, maybe more than three, but still!"

If this was a pony dream, then that would explain why this looked like a convincing mockup of the Everfree. Yet, why was it so detailed? Why was it so vivid and... for lack of a better term, real?

He was convinced that something odd would happen to illustrate that this was in fact a dream, any moment now. Odd of course being a relative term, as one would find the setting of a cartoon show about magical ponies on its own pretty odd. No, what he really wanted to see was something familiar, the kind of odd that was truly odd: like a spider that acts like a dog, that your brain tells you is a dog, even though it is obviously a spider.

“Yeah, you outdid yourself this time, subconscious, but I know all your tricks! You’re gonna slip up somewhere, somehow, and I’m gonna catch it.” Zach was determined, he was going to prove that this was an elaborate dream…

Actually, now that he thought about it, he was acting foolish. Why should he work to prove if this is a dream or not? All he’d do by proving he was dreaming would be to wake himself up. He was already lucid and aware of how abnormal everything was, it was what he'd always wanted in a dream... why ruin a good thing?

The scenery was nice enough, the air was crisp and had a cool breeze to it… he was a pony, or so he was convinced. If he was dreaming, it was one of the best dreams he'd ever had. It was legitimately peaceful here in this dream; it was a surprise to be sure, but a very welcome one from the standard fare of organized chaos he was used to.

The content and setting weren't his first choice, he'd much rather have had his fantasy game with his adventurer avatar. That being said, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and boy oh boy did he hate that that phrase was a pun in this context. “You know what? I change my mind; this is fine. I am OK with this.”

He'd play along and enjoy this for what it was, if he didn't then he’d end up waking up and having to go and get ready for work. He liked work, but he’d much prefer to be in a dream than hauling himself off to work if he had the choice.

“Hey, next time, make it about my adventure games, ok subconscious? Or, or you could make it about one of my favorite anime! That would be cool! I can only imagine how cool a ninja dream would be, or a space bounty hunter dream!” Now that he knew his subconscious could pull off something like this, he couldn’t wait to see what it could do with one of those settings.

Zach went to take his first step in this dream world, and promptly mis-stepped and faceplanted. “Ow…right…four legs.” He brought himself back to his feet and looked to his hooves. Were those, holes? He had tangible holes in his hooves. “I gotcha, subconscious! Hooves aren’t supposed to have holes in them! Ha! Proof that this is a dream, checkmate.”

he paused and quickly added, "Not that that's a bad thing! I'm cool with it, just uh, keep dreaming!"

Now that that was settled, he had to learn how to move forward.

Zach struggled to walk for a good several minutes, maybe longer, he’d lost track of time as he so regularly did. “Ok, ok, first, one foot forward, next foot…now this foot, AGH!” He faceplanted for the sixth time in a row, failing to make even a foot’s worth of progress.

He pounded his hooves into the dirt and let out a growl of frustration, “Why the flying heck is this so difficult!? Come on subconscious! A little help would be nice!” Zach mumbled to himself as he struggled to get back onto his four feet. Wait, could he call them feet if they weren’t feet? Should he start calling them hooves? Questions for later.

"You know what, I want to see what I look like." He elected to just scoot himself across the ground for now. It was dumb, but it worked.

“I know I have dark gray fur, or whatever this coating is on my hooves, my subconscious slipped up and I have holes in my hooves for whatever reason. Where’s a body of water when you need one?” Zach looked about, eventually finding a little puddle he could use.

“Well that’s convenient, now to see what kind of pony I am. Maybe I’m a unicorn! Always wanted to dabble in magic. Though…being able to fly as a Pegasus would also be pretty awesome. I’m pretty sure I’ve flown in dreams before though, but if my subconscious is making this a consistent dream, flying as a Pegasus will be amazing for sure!”

A thought crossed his mind, “Oh, what if…what if I’m an alicorn!? That’d be amazing! I could fly and do magic!” Zach glanced up at the sky and said aloud, “Oh please please please, subconscious, make me be an alicorn! I would love to be able to fly and do magic!”

Without further ado, he scooted himself over and peered into the puddle to gaze upon his reflection.

He wasn’t expecting much, half of the time in his dreams he didn’t have any reflection at all, and mirrors were literally just windows into an exact copy of the room he was in when looking into a reflective surface. Either that, or, regardless of what form his dream had him be in, his reflection was always human for some reason or another. Dreaming about being a dinosaur? Nah you're just a human avatar pretending to be a dinosaur. Those dreams kinda stank...

However, what he saw in his reflection just now as he peered into the puddle, it was unexpected to say the very least.

“…Oh…” was all Zach could say as he took in the surprisingly frightful details of his visage. His heart sank ever so slightly the longer he looked at himself.

“That’s…not a pony at all. That’s obviously not human either.”

Zach Recognized the sleek, dark gray coloration and chitinous coating, the fangs; the large, solid blue eyes. He couldn’t tell whether or not the eyes were compound insect eyes or regular eyes. He could see a clear, solid image of his surroundings, so he imagined they were regular eyes. Then there were the wings, filled with holes, the jagged spike of a horn, the holes in his hooves that now made perfect sense, his lack of a mane, the weird fin thing sprouting from the back of his neck. Then there were those jagged ears that looked like chunks were missing from the edges.

He was 100% sure he was, in fact, a Changeling.

Really!?” Zach shouted into the air. The irony of it wasn't lost on him, he puffed out his cheeks with an air of annoyance.

He had gotten exactly what he asked for: a horn and wings, the ability to fly and do magic. It was a technicality, one that irked him to no end. “Ok, very funny subconscious, hysterical…make me something other than a bug pony now, please. Oh, and not an earth pony either.”

Its not that he had anything against Earth ponies, he was just squeamish about the concept of using his mouth to do menial tasks. Last year he went into food service as a job, and that had made him exceptionally more fearful about bacteria and hygiene than he’d ever been prior.

Zach stood there and he waited. “Any day now, subconscious!” He waited some more, but nothing happened.

“Come on, I know you’re listening!”

Again, he waited, but nothing happened.

He threw his arms into the air and cried out, “Oh you lousy, good for no-” Zach faceplanted for the…eighth time? Ninth? Didn’t matter at this point. His sentence was finished with a muffled tone as he ate dirt. “-mrrfhhrrmmm…”

He pulled his face from the hole it’d put in the earth, brushed himself off, and huffed indignantly, “Right…quadrupedal, not bipedal…. Gravity also works in this dream. Can’t stay mad at consistency, especially not in my dreams.”

Zach rose to his feet and angrily shook a hoof at the sky. “This isn’t over, you hear me!?” Though he quickly had to steady himself to prevent another faceplant.

There wasn’t really anything he could do about his situation, all things considered. It could be infinitely worse, so he elected to count his blessings and temper his frustration.

Zach decided to try and get more accustomed to navigating on four feet…err, hooves. If he was going to be here for any significant amount of time, he may as well figure out the whole "four legged" thing and get himself moving properly. Scooting across the ground wasn’t a suitable method of locomotion in the long term.

He spent the next half hour or so practicing, trying to get the mental processes going and familiarizing himself with the new purpose of his upper torso appendages. “How the heck to horses do this!? The cognitive processes are there, but its so hard to keep my balance centered and move myself at the same time! Why is walking on four legs so much more difficult than walking on two!?” He ranted aloud to no one in particular.

Zach’s mind wandered, as it normally did, and lighted upon what knowledge he had of horses, and navigating as a bipedal. “Wait, humans can walk on two legs because they have the brainpower needed to balance on only two locomotion points, whereas balancing on four legs requires less…brainpower…” The irony gave him a slap in the face, and he swiftly bit out, “Shut up! Shut up… I’ll figure this out. If horses can do this, I can do it! I can ride a bicycle with no hands for goodness sake!”

“I mean, not for very long, but I can do it.”

Zach successfully avoided any additional instances of falling face-first, though now he was starting to fall flat on his rear. It was an improvement in his book, at the very least. “I don’t understand, this should be easy! I’ve walked on all fours as a kid plenty of times! Where am I going wrong?”

Zach dove into his own mind and got to analyzing. “OK, maybe it has something to do with the fact that my mind still associates my forelegs with arms, and the distance available for my arms as I remember them… That’d explain the coordination issues I’m having.” He mentally scratched his chin and imagined himself next to a horse, trying to map his limbs to the horse’s limbs.

“Now that I think about it, maybe that’s, my problem? I think I need to start associating these forelegs as an extra pair of legs, or as an extension of my original legs. What if I start by synchronizing my forelegs with my back legs, try and match the muscle movement, will that do the trick?” He contemplated and mused over the idea, looking at it from multiple directions before he was remotely satisfied with the idea.

"All that's left to do is to try it out.”

Zach started his walk cycle, except this time he moved his back legs first, and tried to match the movement with his forelegs. It took some doing to override the natural brain processes he still had from being human, but eventually he got some semblance of coordinated moving going. “So far so g-” He managed to make it a few steps before stumbling and catching himself.

That counts! That counts, I’m counting it. Progress!’ He mentally fist pumped.

Zach reoriented himself and started again, “Ok, this time a bit more focus on balance and counter balance….and…one, two….three four….” He took steps, and a few more steps. He wavered briefly, but caught himself, then took some more steps. “Who-oah..easy…”

A chuckle escaped his lips, “I…I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it! Yes! It only took me four hours, but I’m walking like a horse!” He laughed aloud and cheered.

“Wait…has it really been four hours?” He stopped abruptly and had to think about that. “Four hours…in a, dream.” That would definitely set the record of longest amount of time he's ever spent in a dream. He wasn't even sure if that was possible, and it was all really starting to bother him with how unusually real everything looked and felt.

“Gah, no, what am I saying? My sense of time passage is terrible…for all I know I could have been here all of fifteen minutes! That’s what I always have a watch for, darnit!” He moved a hoof to the trees and shrubbery around him, and to his own reflection in the little puddle nearby. “I mean, look at all this! There is no way that any of this is real!”

He quickly waved off the possibility of this being anything but a dream, content with his reasoning. “This is all from a children’s cartoon show about magical colorful ponies and magical friendship! Yes, the only logical explanation for all of this is that my subconscious is working in overdrive and doing this on purpose! I. Am. Dreaming. I’ll wake up any moment now and have to get ready for work, especially now that I know for a fact that I am dreaming!”

Zach stood up and waited. He looked about, glancing around as if expecting at any moment he’d be back in his own bed, the sunlight creeping through his window blinds and his alarms singing his grating wakeup call. He waited for something, anything to happen.

“I mean... alternatively, I'd be OK staying in this dream for a little bit longer too...”

Nothing happened, besides the relatively ordinary sounds of birds and chittering insects softly floating in the air, and the breeze gingerly weaving between the trees.

Zach narrowed his eyes and uttered the words, “Well played, subconscious…well played.”

“Ah, to heck with this, if I’m gonna be stuck in this dream and at the whims of a troll-happy, oddly consistent subconscious, I may as well roll with it.” Zach outstretched a hoof and declared in a half-joking manner, “Onwards, adventure awaits!”

Zach set his legs in motion and gradually moved himself along. Once he grew more comfortable with locomotion, he ever so gradually increased his speed, until he was walking at a brisk pace. Walking? Trotting? It didn’t matter to him, not really. He was moving forward and that's all he really cared about.

“This isn’t so bad, see? I’m already getting the hang of wa-WHOA, easy, eeeasy…there, walking, easy peasy. Phew.” He nearly lost his balance there, but he was getting the hang of this.

Zach steadied himself and kept on walking; He glanced around at the scenery as he strolled casually through the woods, trying to pinpoint where exactly he was in this magical dreamstate fantasy world forest. “Ok, so if I’m remembering correctly, the Everfree Forest is a bad place that I kinda don’t want to be in…” Looking around, it most definitely looked the part of the Everfree forest, but then again, there could have been other forests in Equestria that he didn’t know about. "Wait, but if I don't know about them, why would my subconscious put me there? Yeah, its safe to just assume this is the Everfree." For a moment, Zach thought he saw a clearing in the distance, but he wasn’t too sure.

The last thing he wanted right now was to remain in the 'magical forest of death' for any longer than he had to, if that was indeed where he was as he’d assumed, dream or not. Zach dug deep into his mind and tried to remember what he could about the land of Equestria, what little bits and pieces he could put together from the many stories he’d read and artwork he’d seen. It took some doing but he eventually recalled seeing a map once before.

It was a vague recollection, but if he was remembering correctly, and that was a big if, then he needed to be heading…north west. That direction would eventually bring him out of the Everfree forest and into proximity of Ponyville. That’s all he needed, really, a general sense of direction.

That is, assuming his dream would still have the consistency of appropriately matching the geographical locations of Equestria and not just randomly plop him someplace else the second he exited the forest. Or drop him off in another world and a completely different story entirely as his subconscious was so fond of doing.

“Ok, now I just need to find what direction North is.” He said aloud.

He blinked a few times, realizing how difficult that task is going to be and then adds, “Aaaaand I don’t have a compass, nor do I have a magnet and needle to rig one up survival style. Greeeeaat, I’m more or less lost in the supernatural woods of untimely demise!” His voice carried an air of sarcasm towards the end.

Zach stood there deep in thought for a good moment before mentally facepalming after vaguely remembering a TV show he used to watch when he was a kid. “Idiot! You know how to navigate! Sort of…” He said to himself, then looked to the sky. If Equestria’s solar system was similar or the same as the one back home, then finding north should be easy! Again, assuming his subconscious kept up with its current level of consistency, which he had no reason to doubt.

Despite the amount of cloud cover that still remained overhead, the sun was visible and shining through the canopy. In a stroke of luck, it hung in the sky at just enough of an angle to be noticeable. “Bingo! Alright, so the sun rises in the east and sets in the west back home. So, if I assume that it behaves the same way here, then that means…" he eyed and aimed a hoof following the sun's guidance. "That way is north!”

“When in doubt, trust in space; thank you for the lessons, Science Guy.”

Zach stopped and mentally kicked himself upon realizing that he didn’t know what the time of day was. The sun, for all he knew, could be rising, and that would mean he’d be going in the exact opposite direction. That’d be taking him deeper into the Everfree Forest! The very last thing he wanted was to go deeper into the mystical treeline of colorful doom.

He took a seat and mulled over his options. Zach could go for what he thought was a clearing in the distance, in the direction he thought was north west. Or, he could wait for an hour or so and try to discern if the sun was in its afternoon phase or morning phase, thus confirming his sense of direction.

Waiting was out of the question, if he was being honest with himself. The sooner he got out of the magical death forest, the better. Plus, he had no way of knowing if his subconscious would still be that consistent as to properly include the acting solar system. Well, that, and he hated waiting.

“Clearing it is, fingers crossed. Metaphorical fingers, I mean." Zach proceeded into a brisk pace once more, walking ever closer to what he thought was a clearing in the distance.

A few moments later, he’d closed the gap and arrived at what he assumed to be a clearing. “Aaaand looks like I was right!” He mentally cheered as his assumption proved correct; as it turned out, he was correct in his assumption and it was a clearing in the woods. He looked to the sky and was relieved to see that the overcast was clearing up, but that relief soured when he looked further back into the forest.

The overcast he'd seen earlier was not in fact overcast, it was a full blown storm.

He based this assessment on what knowledge he had to go on in terms of storms, it looked like a storm cloud, cumulonimbus if he remembered correctly. The only problem was, it was tiny; miniscule even, compared to the hulking behemoth storm clouds he was used to seeing back home.

Tiny or not, though, it sure didn’t look very friendly.

“Yikes, glad I avoided whatever that is.”

Zach turned his head back to the front and stepped through into the clearing. He took a closer look at the land just beyond the forest, and he was surprised to find what he believed to be an almost perfect replica of what he recalled Ponyville looking like, nestled in between a series of large rolling hills. Further away were sizeable mountains obscured by distant mist and fog.

The view was very concerning when he thought more critically about it. “OK, subconscious, why are you being so consistent all of a sudden? You’re kinda freaking me out, buddy…can ya toss in at least a little obscurity or randomness for me, huh? I uh, I liked the dog spider! Really! Can I have another dog spider please?”

There was no answer, and nothing resembling any acknowledgement on the part of his subconscious. That thought of this might not be a dream found its way into his mind. “Nonono, this has to be a dream! It’s a children’s cartoon for goodness sake!”

'Yes, but what if it isn’t?' The thought wouldn’t go away and established itself fully in his brain. There was no shaking it, the doubt lingered, no matter how Zach tried to logic and reason his way around it.

“OK, fine, ‘maybe’ this isn’t a dream! There, you happy!? Until further notice though, I am proceeding under the impression that this is a dream!” He declared to no-one in particular. “Heck, maybe I slipped into a coma, or this is a fever dream. Those are supposed to be more consistent and real than regular dreams, I think. It’d be just my luck, too.”

The gentle breeze blew through the treeline and rustled the leaves above his head in the pause he took to mull it over.

“I’m gonna be really upset if I wake up in a hospital bed and missed work.” Zach shook his head and refocused his thoughts on his current situation.

He was a changeling, currently in Equestria, or some kind of very convincing look-alike. He was standing at the edge of the Everfree forest, looking out upon an arguably scenic view of rolling hills and valleys with a mock-up of Ponyville nestled at the center of it all.

Based on what he remembered from the show, changelings were depicted as the stereotypical villains. The last thing he wanted was to stroll into a pony town and be arrested on sight for being the "villain" race. That would be one heck of a way to end this little adventure before it even began.

“Wait, do they even do that sort of thing?” Zach mused aloud. “I mean, that doesn’t seem like something ponies would do…but, then again, what the heck do I know?”

He chewed it over, "The show never really depicted the judicial system of the ponies, or how they'd actually treat a changeling if they found one... It seemed like ponies didn't know what changelings were up until after they revealed themselves at the Canterlot incident. Maybe they explored it further down the line in the show, I don't know. Man I really wish they gave the cool bug monsters more lore."

A glaring thought came by and gave him a knock to the noggin. If this was a dream, then surely, the dream would manifest only what he actually knew about the show!

'And if this isn’t a dream?'

Zach was at a crossroads here…

He could go for broke and try strolling up to Ponyville and hope for the best, or he could wait until a lone pony came close enough for him to reveal himself and then test the waters with that single pony. Walking into town was the surefire way to determine pony reception, but also the quickest way to end this crazy adventure if they reacted badly and attacked him. However, if he waited and revealed himself to a solitary pony, he could judge, based on their reaction, how receptive the rest of the pony population might be to his presence.

One pony reacting poorly was manageable. An entire town reacting poorly, not so much.

Zach shrugged, “Whatever I do, I'd be wise to lean on the side of caution.” It seemed to be the reasonable thing to do to play it safe and not just walk into town. It was settled, he’d wait for a pony to come close enough for him to call out and get their attention, then he’d reveal himself to them and see how they reacted.

After he had a good base to go on for how ponies would react to his appearance, he’d be set to proceed to “phase two” from there. What “phase two” was exactly, well, that had yet to be decided. He was confident his subconscious would have something interesting planned out. If not, he’d wing it.

Almost on cue, Zach noticed a group of pegasi headed in his general direction, their trajectory indicating that they must have come from ponyville. “Well that’s convenient, what are we at now, two for two?” Zach quickly hid himself just out of sight of the approaching pegasi, keeping tabs on them as best he could. He briefly overheard them speaking amongst themselves once they got close enough.

“…didn’t have anything like this scheduled, and none of the projections predicted this. It’s a freak occurrence and we’ve gotta deal with it!”

It was a bit difficult to hear them this distance away, but he thought he could make out enough of what the first Pegasus was saying. It was a male by the sound of it, the dialogue sounded about right to him, at any rate.

The second pegasi, upon closer inspection, he instantly recognized. She had a full spectrum of colors for her mane and tail, and her coat was a bright blue; there was no mistaking who she was (assuming there wasn't a duplicate pegasi in equestria, but what were the odds?)

He could hear her talking back to the first Pegasus, confirming that she was in fact, Rainbow Dash. Her voice was almost exactly as he remembered it being from the show, “All I’m saying is, why the hay can’t we deal with it later? It’s not acting like any storm I’ve ever seen before, it’s just sitting here drifting along, not even picking up steam or anything! It did what it was gonna do already for all we know. We’re just wasting our time!”

“Dash, you know why. If this is a magical storm, then we need to clear it as quickly as possible while it’s still dormant. The last thing we need is this thing springing up and turning into a supercell when we can deal with it now and get it over with.” The first Pegasus stated.

The third pegasi spoke next. This one was also easily recognizeable, albeit somewhat less so with their plain yellow mane and gray body. It was her eyes that gave her away, 'That one's gotta be Derpy, or Ditzy Doo. Whatever her name is, the muffin mailpony mare.' Her voice was slow paced, as if she were carefully considering her words as she was speaking them. “Yeah Rainbow Dash! the summer sun celebration is tomorrow. The Mayor Mare doesn’t wanna take any chances leaving a storm to grow and make everything all gloomy and muddy the day before the celebration! That’d be awful, then we couldn’t see the sun rise!”

“Derpy,” The first Pegasus said in a mildly stern manner, “The Mayor asked you to tag along because we were short on pegasi available and needed an extra pair of hooves. Just follow our lead and don’t go wandering off, OK?”

Derpy nodded with a smile. "Okay! Just tell me where you need me to be!"

The male pegasus then turned to Rainbow Dash and addressed her, “I'll handle the Anvil, you take Derpy and deal with the flanks and work your way inward. Once that's done, we'll regroup and hit the center mass. Come on, the sooner we get this started, the quicker we can be done with it.”

Rainbow Dash made the exaggerated body motions as if she were growling in frustration before she conceded. “Fiiiine! Let’s get this dumb storm over and dealt with.”

Derpy let out a cheer, “Yeah, lets do it!”

Dash offered one last quip before they began, “For the record, I think the storm's done and we’re wasting our time.”

"Thank you, Dash, duly noted."

Zach dug through what he could remember from the show, but he couldn't remember anything about the male pegasus in their group. It was possible that he was simply one of the many "background ponies" as they were called.

Zach watched the three pegasi as they got to work. It was pretty fascinating, the way they zipped around and grabbed clumps of cloud between their hooves, picking away at the mass of the storm bit by bit and then dissipating those loose clumps with swift kicks.

As interesting as it was to watch them work, he still had the problem from before, but with an added challenge. He turned away for the moment and gave it some thought.

Sure, he could call out to all three pegasi, but he really wasn’t too keen on revealing himself to all three of them. If one pony reacted badly and went screaming to the locals, that’d be one thing… It would probably be dismissed and ignored.

However, if all three of them reacted badly and corroborated their story of the bug pony in the woods? 'Yeeeah, I can’t imagine that’d go too well for me.'

He idly walked as he thought, pacing near the tree cover; Maybe if he could call to one of them while they were separated with just enough space… perhaps he’d be able to get the attention of just one of them. It was risky, but what other choice did he have?

He turned around and looked to the three pegasi and began planning…though he then noticed that there were only two of the pegasi visible now: Dash and the male pegasus.

Derpy was missing. Zach cocked his head to the side and tried to look more closely, eyeing over the rest of the sky around that storm cloud, with no success. “Where the heck did the other one go?” Zach said aloud, wondering if perhaps his subconscious was playing one of those ‘now you see them now you don’t’ tricks on him.

“Where did who go?” Came the carefully worded, gently slow voice of Derpy… from just a few feet away to his right.

The hair, err, fin, whatever it was on the back of Zach’s neck, stuck up straight and his fear response kicked into overdrive. He cried out and whirled to face the sudden Pegasus with a wide eyed expression. "GAAH!"

Derpy seemed unphased. “You’re…weeeird lookin, like a…a pony, except you’re also a bug!” She said in her slow, careful manner of speaking. "A...bug pony!"

Zach’s mind raced furiously, desperately trying to figure out the best way to proceed, now that his original plan had gone screaming out the window. ‘A curveball, of course you would, subconscious!’

He stammered for a good moment, trying to find the words that he could use to take back control of the situation. Unfortunately for Zach, this situation had him at one heck of a disadvantage, and he did not work well under pressure.

“I, I, I….I am, uh, Hello there. Yes, hi, greetings.” Was the best he could come up with, much to his dismay. Worse still, his execution and tone of voice left a substantial amount to be desired. Zach was mentally kicking himself over and over again. ‘You idiot, you’re screwing it up! Throw me a bone here, subconscious!’

“Cooooool! I’ve never met anyone like you before!” Came Derpy’s slow paced response. “Are those holes in your hooves real?”

Again, Zach was at a disadvantage. “I…don’t know. Maybe? I think they're real.”

Off in the distance, Rainbow Dash could be heard, “Derpy! Where’d ya go!? This is gonna take a lot longer if we have to do this without ya! C’mon, I don’t wanna be out here any longer than I have to!”

Derpy’s ears perked up, and she turned to shout back, “Hey, Rainbow Dash, ya gotta come here and check this out, I found a bug pony! You gotta see em!”

Zach’s mind went into overdrive, he could almost feel his inner gears working past their safe limits. ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic, whatever you do, don’t panic.’

Dash called back, “What? What the hay is a bug pony? Hold on, I’ll be there in a sec.”

PANIC’

Zach's heart beat like a frenzied drum in his chest; This was exactly the thing he did not want to happen! He scoured his mind for anything, any kind of idea to fix the situation. Could he turn invisible? No, changelings can't do that and he wouldn't know how to do that anyway!

“Derpy, where are ya?” He heard Dash call from nearby.

Derpy turned away and shouted back, “I’m over here! Come quick!”

Now’s my chance!’ In a moment of panicked desperation, he looked for the closest hiding spot he could see. A bush, just big enough to accommodate him, perfect!

Zach threw himself to the bush and dove headfirst into it…and was immediately greeted with pain. It was made immediately known to him that this bush was filled with thorns. He instinctively covered his mouth with a hoof to keep the numerous noises he involuntarily made from escaping his lips.

Looking back, careful not to inflict more pain on himself with the pricker bush’s many thorns, he could see Derpy. She hadn’t heard him, or hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings, either way, she seemed to be completely unaware of what had just transpired behind her.

Zach held his breath as Rainbow Dash swooped into the space between the trees, landing next to Derpy. “Alright alright, I’m here, what’s so important that you had to wander off and then drag me over to see?”

Derpy offered a chuckle, “This!” She turned to point at where Zach had been previously standing, “Check it out, I found a…” Derpy stopped mid stride and her expression took up a confused note. “Huh? Where’d he go?”

“Where’d who go?” Rainbow Dash asked with an impatient tone to her voice and matching expression.

“The bug pony!” Derpy furrowed her brow and looked to Dash with an expression that had a hint of sadness to it, “I don’t understand, he was right here a second ago!”

Rainbow Dash had a look that illustrated she was less than amused, “Well, whoever you saw, whatever you saw, they’re not here now, so stop messing around!”

“I just don’t understand. He was right here, really!”

Rainbow took up a softer expression and tone as she tried to coax Derpy back towards the storm, “I guess he ran off, c’mon Derpy, lets get back to it. I wanna get this done so I can get back to what I was doing before this dumb ‘storm’ popped up.”

Derpy eventually was able to be coaxed away from the spot, and soon went airborne with Rainbow Dash. “Hey wait a minute, you weren’t doing anything before the storm popped up!”

Dash scoffed and retorted, “Hey! I put a lot of effort into doing nothing!”

Once the two pegasi had gone, and Zach was confident they wouldn't see him, he exhaled a sizeable sigh of relief.

Well, that’s what he intended to do, but instead of a sigh of relief, a deep whine of pain was all that left his mouth. “I…hate…pricker bushes…” He looked up at nothing in particular and said through gritted teeth, “And I hate you, subconscious, for putting this bush here, having it be a pricker bush in the first place, and having them be this painful!”

“…if this even is the work of my subconscious anymore.”

Zach forced himself upward, letting out little exclamations of pain with each movement he made. “Ow….ow…ow…oww..” He stepped forward, wincing as the prickers clung to him and didn’t quite want to let him leave the bush. “Owwwww…” With a final effort, he yanked free of the last of the thorns and shuddered.

Zach looked himself over, examining to see how badly the pricker bush had got him. Unsurprisingly, it got him plenty. However, as much as being in that bush had hurt, the actual injuries he’d sustained were…well, surprisingly miniscule. Little more than scratches and a few pinpricks here and there, nothing worth considering, really. The chitinous coating to his skin seemed to have offered him a semblance of protection from those thorns, though it didn't do much to prevent the encounter from hurting.

He quickly turned and glared daggers at the unholy abomination of vegetation. “I’ll be back…and I’m bringing a gallon container of Roundup, you hear me?”

Zach snorted and stomped a hoof into the ground to punctuate his declaration of war against the demon-spawn plant. “OK, now that that is done and over with…”

He returned his attention back to the matter at hand. He inadvertently had his question answered by the Pegasus that somehow managed to sneak up on him. If he wasn’t mistaken, Derpy didn’t know what kind of creature he was, which was a relatively good sign.

If her response was anything to go by, he may have been incorrect in assuming the town would immediately imprison him for being a changeling. After all, if ponies don’t know what he is, they’re unlikely to raise the pitchforks and torches towards him if they end up seeing him. Sure, they might see him as frightening, and shun him, but being shunned by everyone didn’t bother him, he dealt with that nonsense way back in elementary school. It was no big deal back then and it won't be anything to worry about now.

Assuming this dream, or whatever it was, was consistent with the show...what point in the series was he dropped into?

Zach considered the information he had at hand.

The trio of Pegasi mentioned the "Summer Sun Celebration", which was a pretty significant clue to start with on its own. "The first episode starts with the summer sun celebration, but if I'm remembering the lore correctly, the SSC is an annual event. It could mean that I'm at the start, which would match up with me rewatching the series starting with the first episode...but then again, it might also not be the case..." Knowing the Summer Sun Celebration was soon told him the time of year at the very least, but not necessarily what year it was.

What he did know for certain though, was that he had to be in a time before the Canterlot Wedding incident with the changelings, seeing as Rainbow Dash didn’t react to the term ‘bug pony’ with any hint of concern. Well, unless she was an idiot, which Zach highly doubted, if what he remembered of her character was anything to go by. It significantly narrowed down the time frame he had to work with, which was good.

If he was at the start of the show, there was a very easy way to find that out. All he had to do was wait until night fell and have a look at the moon.

“Oh what am I even thinking!? This is either a crazy fever dream, I’m in a coma, or I’ve officially gone over the top insane! Frankly, neither one of those explanations are particularly appealing scenarios!” Zach was careful to keep his voice down as he ranted out loud, lest the pegasi hear him.

There's also the possibility of... "No! don't you start with the whole, oh maybe it's not a dream crap! This is a dream, it has to be! There's no possible way any of this could be real!"

Zach took a few deep breaths and sighed in defeat, “Well, whatever the case may be, I think I don’t have much of a choice but to continue to play along with…whatever the heck this is.”

He set aside his thoughts for the time being and refocused on the task at hand.

“Ok, Zach, time for Phase two…” Zach said aloud with a determined look on his face.

“Now to just figure out what Phase two of my plan is going to be! Should be easy enough.”

Author's Note:

This is chapter 1, the adventure truly begins here!

As I stated in the prologue, I elected against having the protagonist be myself for several reasons. One of which being, it's more fun to imagine the responses of someone I may disagree with than just put my own responses onto paper.
Personally, I'd love to be a changeling!
Being able to fly around and do magic, and take whatever shape I wanted, it'd be pretty neat!
Heck, I'd love to visit Equestria too while I'm at it.

I'd like to think I wouldn't immediately jump into full blown denial mode and dismiss everything I was seeing as a dream if it were to happen to me.
Maybe I'd have an overload of excitement, but I digress.

I actually had an alternate ending to this chapter where the protagonist avoids being seen by turning himself invisible via a "deus ex machina" of changeling instincts saving his bug bacon, but I elected to scrap that in favor of the pricker bush. I felt it added more humor and was far less contrived.
That, and I don't think changelings have the ability to become invisible. Then again, the extent of their powers isn't exactly ironed out in the lore, and I wasn't comfortable taking that kind of artistic liberty so soon.

The one thing I'm most apprehensive about is how to write the characters from the show. I want to match them to be accurate to their representations in the show, but I know I have a bad habit of misinterpreting character behavior.
In this chapter, I "dipped my toe in the water" so to speak.
I selected Rainbow Dash and Derpy (and an unnamed side-pony) as a safe place to start.

I'm fairly confident with writing for Rainbow Dash.
I think I managed to accurately portray Rainbow Dash's character, but I'm biased to it seeing as I wrote her dialogue and I may not notice flaws as easily as someone reading it.
I tagged it as an AU, but I'm not going to be lazy about it and just wave away incorrect character portrayals as "oh its an AU", I'm going to try to keep them as close to their in-show counterparts as I can manage.

Characters like Derpy are more...open ended and flexible in terms of character portrayal.
I took a bit of artistic liberty with her characterization, given she doesn't get a lot in the show. I don't want to treat her like a blank canvas, but, you get the idea.

I love the show and the characters, and I wanna make sure I do them justice with my interpretations.

I still don't know if I have the right story tags... I want the story to be funny, but to also be able to be taken seriously.
It's got plenty of comedy elements in it, but its also a drama and an adventure so, idk.
And the human tag, like I said in the prologue, he was a human, up until now at least, so... I guess that counts? Better safe than sorry.

*EDIT After careful consideration, I rewrote some of the second half of this chapter and removed the "memory loss" plot point, as its at best "redundant" and at worst actively working against the direction and overall plot I have in store for the first few chapters.

I thought it'd give a bit of mystery to things at first, but in the end, it really didn't accomplish what I thought it was going to accomplish. It ended up just making things confusing and convoluted. The fact that Zach hasn't seen the show in years, and the general direction I'm taking the story in anyway renders the "memory loss" plot point rather, well, pointless.

Hopefully I'll get a pre-reader or two to help me out in the future, so I won't need to edit out things like this.

anywho
Feel free to leave me feedback. (please try to keep it constructive)
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my imagination.

I'll see you next chapter!

*Update* trimmed a lot of the excess fat from the monologue tangents and cut out some of the parts where it dragged on too much.
Hopefully this version will be much easier to read and flow a lot smoother.