Previous Chapters Next
Close
Chapter 13,415 words
Chapter 22,923 words
Chapter 33,189 words
Chapter 43,771 words
Chapter 54,118 words
Chapter 65,047 words
Chapter 74,451 words
Chapter 84,448 words
Chapter 95,076 words
Chapter 105,864 words
Chapter 114,298 words
Chapter 124,383 words
Chapter 134,199 words

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“How’s the Subject faring?”

“How do you think? She’s going up against me, after all.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“She’s not doing too well. Last I saw she was falling to her death over a forest of spikes. You know, I think I’ll actually miss this one when she’s gone. She put up quite a fight, I’ll never deny that, and she even surprised me a few times.”

“You prattle on about her as if her fate was sealed. She isn’t dead yet—don’t let your guard down unless you know for sure that she is.”

“Fine. After all, she’s turned the tables on me plenty of times already, who’s to say she won’t do the same when she’s falling at terminal velocity towards a field of death while in an comatose state due to lack of energy?”

“Enough. Finish the job and finish her or she’ll finish you. Is that clear?”

“Whatever. Wait, what’s that—”
. . .

“H…?

“He…?

“Hello…?”

“Get back you filthy piece of paint!” Lauren screamed as she lurched out of the bed, hand darting to her holster to whip out the spray can of thinner—only to find that it wasn’t there! “What?! Where’s my gear! Where’s anything?!”

Lauren’s eyes darted around her, seeing and feeling none of the comforting weight of her Animation Agent equipment, from her spring shoes to her can of paint thinner or anything in between…

…Including her clothes.

“And why am I naked?!”

“You sure shout a lot,” complained another voice, different from the one that had woken her up. “And threatening the friends of the person who saved your life isn’t exactly a welcome way to say thanks.”

Lauren finally looked up from where she was lying in the bed someone had placed her in to see six pairs of eyes watching her, some nervously, some curiously, but all with a mix of fascination of fear. The eye’s owners were all vaguely equine in shape, but smaller and definitely differently colored and proportioned from any horse-like animals she had ever known.

Except for…

“Wait a minute,” Lauren began to chuckle. “I don’t believe this! You’re all My Little Ponies!”

“What?”

“The toy franchise,” Lauren went on. “I used to play with miniature versions of you when I was little. Let me see…if I remember my classes at the Bureau correctly, you all had various stages of development in the animation industry during the 80s, but no cartoons that really went anywhere. None of your franchise is even in reruns anymore. But then again, you guys don’t exactly look quite like the toys I remember…”

“I think she must have hit her head when fighting Discord,” said a cyan pegasus with a multicolored mane and tail, hovering overhead—the same one who had claimed to save her life.

“Maybe she was already crazy?” ventured a snow-white unicorn with purple hair in twisting curls sitting at the foot of the bed, at what Lauren guessed she deemed was a safe distance from the strange creature. “I think she’d have to be to fight Discord on her own. I mean, we barely did it ourselves when we all worked together!”

“Maybe it’s just a communication barrier,” suggested a lavender unicorn studying Lauren intently from beside her. The unicorn leaned in to stare closely at Lauren’s face, and Lauren backed up accordingly, unnerved. Apparently My Little Ponies had no conception of personal space—then again, most Animated beings didn’t, but despite all the time she had spent with them Lauren still hadn’t gotten used to it. “Her language might only sound like ours, but actually be completely different, or at least a different dialect. I’d love to do a dissection on her brain—”

“That’s it!” Lauren announced, wrapping the bed covers around her and standing up. The ponies backed up as she towered over them, looking up to her nervously. “Who are you, where are my clothes, and what is going on?”

“You’re right, Rainbow Dash,” commented the ivory unicorn to the sky-blue pegasus. “She is indeed rather rude. And why is she insisting on covering up like that?”

“I’m covering up because you—where are my clothes?” Lauren demanded. “And my gear? You know, robbing an Animation Bureau Agent is punishable by at least one-hundred years in Detention, whether you’re a discovered world or not!”

Lauren suddenly seemed to soften up a bit. Then, grumbling, she muttered “Never mind. I’ll keep that out of the field report if one of you will just please tell me what’s going on?”

“I can do that!” declared the blue pegasus, Rainbow Dash according to the white unicorn, puffing out her chest proudly. “I saw you fighting Discord, and I was like, whoa, she’ taking on that rotten no-good piece of dung all by herself, and then you stopped glowing and started to fall towards the spikes Discord turned the Everfree Forest into, and then I swooped into action and rescued you!”

“Then Rainbow brought you here to my cottage so I could take a look at you,” mumbled a creamy pegasus with flowing pink locks almost imperceptibly. “You were in a pretty deep sleep, but thankfully that seemed to be all that was wrong with you, but we took off your shell just in case there were any wounds to tend to. We were doing just that when you woke up.”

“And Fluttershy had thought it would be a good idea to call the rest of us over to help think of what to do with you,” finished the purple unicorn. “We’ve never seen a creature like you before. Are you native to Equestria, or are you from another land?”

“Oh, this is going to be so hard to explain,” Lauren exasperated. “Normally they send in a Contact Team to deal with this sort of thing, but when…Discord, yeah, that’s the guy…when he portal-jumped back into this undiscovered world and I had to follow him…Hmm…

“Let me put it like this,” Lauren explained. “I’m not from this ‘Equestria,’ and I’m also not from any place you’ve ever heard of. I’m from another planet entirely, one called Earth—”

“You mean you’re a space alien?!” the creamy pegasus squeaked. “You’re not going to eat our brains, are you?!”

“Alien is one thing, but I’m something even farther away than that,” Lauren continued. “Uh, have any of you ever heard of quantum physics?”

“I have!” the lavender unicorn spoke up with interest. “It’s a theoretical field of advanced magical study!”

“Maybe in this world,” Lauren went on. “Where I come from, we call it science. Well, a while ago some practitioners of science invented these things called portals. They were supposed to open doorways to other universes—”

“OTHER universes?” a pink pony devoid of wings or horn in the back of the room questioned. “Yay! That means there’s even more people to party with than I thought!”

“—and they did, in a way, but not in any way we expected,” Lauren further explained. “For some reason, and the scientists have this big fancy explanation for why this is but I couldn’t explain that part if my life depended on it, the portals opened onto worlds that we already knew, sort of. They opened onto cartoons we had all grown up with, worlds that we had only thought to be imaginary—but they were every bit as real as Earth was, and we hastily explored them. After a while things started getting out of hand with inter-world travel, so the Animation Bureau was set up to oversee anything having to do with the portals. This world hadn’t been discovered yet, but the person I’m chasing came from it and went back to it, all without going through all the Bureau’s legal mumbo-jumbo, so I, being an Agent of the Bureau, have to catch him. Personally, I couldn’t care less if he just wanted to go back home, but this ‘Discord’ seemed like a real jerk.”

“…Um, did anypony follow that?” Rainbow Dash asked her fellow equines. “And why is she snickering at me?!”

“You mean to tell me that you’re not just from another planet, you’re from another UNIVERSE?” the purple unicorn gasped with awe. “This is AMAZING! Imagine all we could learn from each other! And of course, all the wonders that come with having been the first to discover a new species AND a new world—”

“Hey, I discovered her first!” Rainbow Dash insisted. “I saved her life!”

“I think she means that the credit would go to all of us, dear,” said the white unicorn. “And I must admit I am deeply curious as to the fashion of this ‘Earth.’ Your shell was most interesting, but what do you…Earth-things have in the way of dresses?”

“Shell?” Lauren echoed, then began to laugh. “Oh, you mean my Agent uniform? It’s not a shell, it’s just a special suit that's supposed to help me function as an operative of the Bureau. The hard bits are just extra padding and light armor should things get rough…though they wouldn’t have saved me from those spikes, so, thanks, uh…Rainbow Dash?”

“You’re welcome!” the winged cyan pony replied, happy to finally get some gratitude.

“But I need that suit, so if you all would kindly show me where it is?” Lauren asked, beginning to relax now that formalities were out of the way and these ponies definitely didn’t seem to be a threat. “Then I’ll be out of your hair…manes? Drat, Discord’s probably halfway across the country by now.”

“Discord’s still in Ponyville,” the purple unicorn told her. “He’s been turning the place upside-down—literally. In fact, I think he might even be looking for you—”

“Not anymore!” Discord laughed, discarding his invisibility at last. “Oh, Lauren, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that! And finally, the perfect moment—and you’re even naked! This is just priceless!”

“Discord!” the lavender unicorn shouted angrily as she sprang between Lauren and the draconequus in a defensive stance. “How did you find us?!”

“Find you?!” Discord was laughing so hard that tears were streaming from his eyes. “I never lost you! I turned invisible and followed little miss multicolor here all the way back to this crappy cottage!”

“No you didn’t, silly!” the pink pony gleefully stated the opposite of the obvious. “We saw you out there turning Ponyville all topsy-turvy for most of the afternoon—

“Afternoon?!” Lauren exclaimed. “It was morning when I tracked Discord here. I’ve been out that long?”

“—and that’s why we hid here at Fluttershy’s house till the princess told us what to do or Lauren here came to!” the pink pony finished, giggling at her unintentional rhyme.

“That was an illusion, a doppelgänger, Pinkie Pie,” Discord explained as if talking to a small, slow child. “I’ve been waiting here the whole time!”

“Then why did you wait till now to show yourself?!” the purple unicorn demanded. “If you knew where she was all along, then why didn’t you do anything against her, or for that matter, us? Or did you forget how we stopped you last time? Come to think of it…how did you get out again, anyway? Last time I saw you, you were as stony as your heart!”

“You flatter me, Twilight Sparkle,” Discord said, assuming a dramatic pose. “But contrary to what you misguided little ponies think, there’s more than one way to escape petrification, and there are threats besides the Elements of Harmony. Besides, killing little Lauren here in her sleep would’ve ended the fun! She’s quite fun to mess with, you know! I mean, just look at her! Her face is as red as her hair! Humans are so strange, they actually feel embarrassed when seen without their clothes on, though that cover seems to be making a worthy substitute—let’s change that, shall we?”

With a snap of his fingers, Discord turned the blanket separating Lauren from the rest of the room into a writhing python that instantly coiled around her and went for the Agent’s neck.

“Not so fast!” Discord called out, and the snake stopped just as soon as it had started, waiting for further orders. With another snap of his fingers Discord was sitting comfortably in a cushiony chair, throwing popcorn to himself with glee. “Alright, continue, but rather than just poison her, let’s see her squeezed to death! I want to see her eyes bulge until they pop out!”

The python happily complied, coiling itself tighter around Lauren’s defenseless, but thankfully at least now fully covered, form.

“At least I can die modestly,” the Agent muttered under her breath.

“Indeed you can, but die you will!” Discord laughed.

“No!” the lavender unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, according to Discord, called. “Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, free our new friend from that snake! Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, you’re with me! Let’s get Discord!”

“Get me?” Discord chuckled. “Oh, this is just too much. What are you going to do, steal my popcorn?”

“My…uniform…there’s…a can of…thinner…” Lauren managed to get out as the snake further constricted her lungs.

“Right!” Twilight nodded. “Stuff in your uniform that’s useful against Discord, got it!”

With a flash of her horn, the unicorn made Lauren’s discarded uniform appear from across the room while the white unicorn, the pink featureless pony, and the orange, freckled, Stetson-wearing pony that hadn’t spoken yet launched themselves at the snake, biting and pulling at it with all their might. Lauren felt the snake unconstrict somewhat, and gasped in a welcome breath of air.

“So you really do want to kill me?” Lauren managed to get out between breaths. “I pegged you for a ‘fate-worse-than-death’ kind of guy?”

“With you, I can’t afford to take any chances,” Discord said, snapping his fingers as Twilight finally found the can of thinner in Lauren’s uniform only to have it disappear with a flash of the chimaera's magic. “The others were easier, they followed the Bureau’s rules exactly. With you, it’s a little tougher.”

“Others?” Lauren wondered. “What are you talking about?”

“Oops, I’ve said too much,” Discord slapped a paw to his mouth in mock-fright. “Now I really, REALLY have to kill you.”

“Give us back that can, Discord!” Twilight demanded, stamping her hoof and snorting angrily at the chimaera.

“If you knew what was in it, my dear Twilight, you would’ve thanked me for taking it away from you,” Discord lazily smirked. “Which reminds me…let’s remove your precious Element helpers, shall we? They’re slowing my poor snake down!”

Discord made with the magic again, and this time all the ponies but Twilight were levitated in the air, unable to reach the floor, each other, or anything else.

Lauren gasped for breath as she felt the snake, now unhindered once more, retighten its iron grip on her lungs.

“There’s…can…in…uniform…” Lauren rasped, her eyes actually starting to bulge out this time, much to Discord’s delight.

“Don’t try to confuse the poor filly,” Discord laughed. “Lauren, you know as well as I do that the Bureau only allows one can of thinner per Agent!”

“Different…can…”

“Different can?” Twilight echoed, riffling furiously through Lauren’s uniform once again. “Got it!”

Twilight held up a dented, bent old tin can.

“Now, now,” Discord snapped, ripping the can out of Twilight’s mouth and levitating it to himself. “Can’t have any heroic escapes, now can we?”

Popping the lid off the can, Discord peered warily inside to find—

“Spinach?!” the draconequus laughed heartily. “You’ve got to be kidding me! If your last request is a can of old leafy greens, then be my guest!”

Discord tossed the can disinterestedly back to Twilight, who rushed frantically over to Lauren, clawed her way up the snake, and poured the spinach into Lauren’s mouth. With her last few breaths, Lauren chewed furiously, then forced a swallow.

Suddenly, the snake began to shudder and shake, wobbling uncontrollably.

“Oh, what’s this?” Discord wondered with slight concern.

The python suddenly exploded off of Lauren and shot towards Discord, wrapping around his face into a neat bow and ribbon.

Lauren stood there, brandishing her arms, which had grown in size and sported new muscles that would make an Olympic weightlifter shudder with fear.

“I’m tough to the finish,” Lauren spat at Discord, her arm stretching impossibly long as it reached over to snag her uniform.

“Cause I eats my spinach,” Lauren continued, whirling around faster than the human, pony, or draconequus eye could follow. When the Agent abruptly stopped, a blast of wind flung Discord, and only Discord, back against the wall.

“Like Popeye the Sailor Man!” Lauren finished as the fully clothed, armed to the teeth, and gigantically-muscled Agent advanced slowly towards Discord, who was still stuck to the wall as the python knotted to his head had gotten tangled up in a coatrack.

Discord gulped.

2,944 views

108

Previous Chapters Next