Jailhouse Rock
OK, what?
First Izzy, now Zipp knows us? And us is the important bit, by the way. One pony knowing information they logically shouldn't is quite one thing, but suddenly two with information they shouldn't have? What in Equestria was going on?
I glanced over to Izzy to see how she was reacting to this, only to see her still stuck in her previous position. "Err, Izzy?"
Izzy still didn't respond. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Truth be told I would be were it not for the fact there was a pegasus in front of me. I never thought I'd ever actually get to meet AN ACTUAL PEGASUS!
Suddenly, there was clanking from round the side of a rock. Oh boy, here come Thunder and Zoom.
Zipp looked at us. "I'll see you two in the throne room. Just don't tell them you saw me." And with that she jumped off the cliff face and down into the canyon below.
"There's no way we could! We don't even know your name!" Izzy said, recreating the 'voice volume dropping' moment perfectly. Of course, we did know who she was, but that would have attracted suspicion. "She seems nice."
I shook my head. "But how does she know us?" Something seriously weird was going on around here. But I had no chance to ruminate on it further as the two guards saw us.
"How did they get here?" Thunder asked.
Zoom seemed just as annoyed as she had been in the film. "Probably climbed up. Stop overreacting."
"B- but it's a unicorn! And an earth pony!"
"They're harmless!" Zoom said. Oh. Maybe she isn't as narrow minded as other pegasi seem to be. "Earth ponies have very tiny brains."
Really? Earth ponies have tiny brains? That doesn't even make sense! The size of the brain does not regulate intelligence, as it doesn't function like any other organ! In fact, did you know that we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about how the brain works?
Sorry, I'm getting off topic. I pulled a face in frustration. Yeah, it's not fun when racist attitudes are being thrown directly at you. Now I knew how Izzy felt back in Maretime Bay. In fact, I was so annoyed that I lost focus on what was going on. One second I was on a rocky ledge, the next I was in a lift and Izzy had a tennis ball on her horn.
There were also the guards behind me, so to try and break the ice I decided to engage in a little casual conversation. "So, what's flying like?"
Thunder just looked at me, mildly confused. "Excuse me?"
I rattled off the list of questions as quickly as I could. "What is it like to fly? What's your wingspan? What's the maximum altitude a pegasus can fly to?"
"Is it the moon?" Izzy asked.
"No, because there's no air in space," Thunder pointed out. "If we went to the moon we would die."
As I suspected. I then decided to drop in one of the others. "Do you guys wear horseshoes?"
"No, but I do collect sneakers. I can show the coll-"
"Thunder!" Zoom barked. "Do not talk to the prisoners. They could be spies."
As we looked out of the lift, Zephyr Heights emerged from the clouds. And it was absolutely beautiful. For the sake of sounding like a stuck record it is impossible to reiterate how incredible this place was. Towers of white and gold streaking effortlessly into the sky. Walls and screens buzzing with colour and light. Wide boulevards full of ponies. Cafes, streetcars, flying machines, even a railway based on the sounds from below!
I glanced over to the news screen to see Pipp's pre-recorded message for her fans playing. I wonder if she's a human as well, I thought to myself.
Suddenly, the elevator arrived at the top, and we stepped out. As per my recollection of the film, I noticed no pegasi were flying. "Izzy, nopony is flying. As per the movie."
Izzy, however, wasn't paying attention. "They have a castle!" she said suddenly. I glanced up and saw the Zephyr Heights Royal Palace in front of me. "Look at that! It's just like in Disneyland! I wonder if it gets smaller the closer to the top you get to create the illusion it's taller than it actually is?"
"Why don't we ask?" I said, and turned to Zoom. "Does the castle ge-"
"No speaking unless spoken to!" Zoom replied. "You're coming with us."
Well, here's hoping the meeting with Queen Haven goes better than in the film.
I was wrong. That meeting couldn't have gone worse. The Queen had been just as suspicious of us as in the film, and Pipp had caused panic by streaming our existance. I was internally cringing at how badly that had gone. And they even had the gall to take my journal!
"Hey! Give that back!" I shouted at the guard who had the book. "That belongs to me!"
"Not anymore it doesn't," he said, with a cruel smile. "Finder's keepers. Besides, wouldn't want any spies revealing information to our enemies, would we?"
I turned my head back to the throne. "Your Majesty, please. That book is of great sen-"
And then the three of them just flew off! How rude!
Izzy looked at me whilst we were taken away to the cells. ""They don't seem so nice," she said. "Then again, given that this place is in a state of cold war, other races turning up uninvited would cause some concern."
I sighed. "What else can go wrong today?"
Not much, it turned out. But things were less wrong and more weird. No sooner were we in the cell then we found out we were sharing it with a third pony. Not a problem.
The weird bit was who it was in the cell with us. It was Misty! As in Brightdawn! What in Equestria was she doing here this early?
So, naturally, whilst Izzy was busy using the chair to relax, it fell to me to interact with Misty. Poor thing. She probably didn't get much social stimulus whilst in that castle. "So," I said, "what brought you here Misty?"
Misty looked at me. "Oh, you know, stuff," she said, awkwardly. Something about her behaviour was a bit odd, but I chose to let it slide. I was pretty socially awkward too. "The usual reason a unicorn ends up in a place like this."
"I see," I replied, checking the food bowl. "Fancy some food?"
"Not yet," Misty answered. "The guards prefer we eat to strictly set hours. The food here's surprisingly good though- I was expecting we'd just be fed inedible slop."
A few more minutes passed, when suddenly Zipp appeared. "You three, we need to talk."
"Your Majesticfulness!" Izzy said. "How can we verily serve thee with our unhastidious ablutions?"
That left us all speechless for a moment. Even I knew that wasn't a proper title, and before all this pony stuff began I lived in a country that still had a King and Queen! But what Zipp had to offer us was more remarkable. Not only was she formerly a human (like everypony in Equestria would be at this rate), she had my journal! I cannot express in words how happy I was to have that back. That book had meant so much to dad. In a sense it was one of the links I had left to him.
But who should bounce in to interrupt but Pipp. "Zipp!" she hissed. "What are you doing here? Mom told you to stay away!" OK. That would suggest she isn't a former human, as if she was she wouldn't be acting so paranoid.
"Right, right. Then what are you doing here?" Zipp had seemingly switched to an alternate mode, which further confirmed my suspicion Pipp wasn't a human.
"For the content!" Pipp abruptly turned and began snapping selfies. Izzy suddenly pulled me into an embrace in such a way my mouth was locked in an awkward grin.
"Princess, why is nopony flying?" I asked.
Pipp scoffed, as if the answer to the question was obvious. "It's common knowledge that only we Royals can fly," she said, bouncing up and down innefectually whilst flapping her wings. It may have just been me, but I can't recall her being this smug. "And if we could teach it to the populace of the Empire, you know we would in a wingbeat! Right, Zipp?"
And with a sudden buzz from a phone (and most certainly not something else) Pipp was off on her way, reciting what I can only assume is the pony equivalent of 'red lorry, yellow lorry'.
Zipp then offered to get us out of here, and with that we were on our own again. As the three of us settled down to a nice meal produced by Izzy, I certainly had a lot to mull over in my mind.
What had Zipp meant by leverage? And precisely how many humans were there out in Equestria?
Well, this moment was coming. At this point, the plotlines of several characters all converge. In no particular order, the new characters are from the following:
As a result, from this point onwards we'll be seeing quite a few scenes from the perspectives of multiple different characters. But never fear; this will be no mere copy and paste job.
The remark about Disneyland is a reference to an architecture trick called 'forced perspective', where the scale of a building gradually decreases the higher up it goes. Disney is one of the main users of this visual trick, though Izzy has made a geography error; she is thinking of Cinderella Castle, which stands in the Magic Kingdom, which is in Walt Disney World, not Disneyland.
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Ladies and gentlecolts! This story is back!
Well, glad to see this story back up and running. Again, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are wonderfully done. REALLY liked the reflections on the events of the arrest from "Sunny's" point of view (especially the [actually correct, but he/she doesn't know that yet] suspicion about "Pipp" also being a human turned pony and "Sunny's" reaction to meeting "Misty" early).
VERY certainly looking forward to more of this.
great chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
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Seeing as we'd already covered the confrontation from the viewpoints of the other characters it made more sense to compact it here and focus on things that matter to Sunny. And as you correctly identify the chances for dramatic irony are many.
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Still a stunning moment in the franchise when ZH was revealed in all its glory.
Sure is a lot to take in.
Huh, that's interesting.
They're not!!
I'd so punch thunder if I there myself!
What a twist!
For a kingdom ruled by pegasi they somehow know how to treat a prison good?
Sometimes I forget how much I hate Pipp in the first part of the movie.
More like ridiculous imo.
What?
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1. What could it all mean?
2. Indeed. Intelligence be not regulated by brain size.
3. Well said, but Zoom doesn't know this.
4. It's not Thunder. It's a different guard.
5. Indeed.
6. Clearly they get prisoners regularly.
7. Pipp's characterisation (or rather lack thereof) was one thing the film was criticised for, and understandably so- she doesn't contribute an enormous amount and is a bit of a flat character in comparison to the others. Luckily, MYM/TYT did a great job of fleshing her character out.
8. The lengths they went to preserving that idea were truly absurd.
9. 'Red feather, yellow feather' is a reference to the vocal exercise 'red lorry, yellow lorry' (lorries are equivalent to trucks in US English). The idea is that it's meant to test one's diction and pronunciation.
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Thx
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No problem.