> Stuck in a Rainbow > by theRedBrony > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Wouldn't be the first time I woke up outside... (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's get something perfectly straight. I am not a brony. But a guy can only spend so much time on the internet without being exposed to some of this crap. The troll pictures and the bronies trying to get me to join their 'herd,' they make me rage! But, unfortunately, even some of my friends have fallen victim to this pony obsession, so I've kind of come to terms with its existence. So one day, I'm just hanging out in TeamSpeak, as usual, just talking with my buddies, when one guy puts a tumblr link in the text chat. What else is new, right? I'm always getting stupid links from stupid people. The guy who sent it to me is a complete moron. You can't listen to him talk without losing a few IQ points. But at least this link was a little entertaining. It's a little 'game' called 'Birthday Scenario Game – Pony Edition.' At that point, I was completely unfazed by pony shit. Half the people I know on the net are bronies. Anyway this image had a bunch of ponies, one for each day of the month, and then it had a scenario for each month. So you match up the scenario and the pony for your birth month and day, respectively. In my case, it was 'Switch lives with' for June and Rainbow Dash for the 20th. So naturally, I was like 'I get to switch lives with Rainbow Dyke, oh joy.' Could've been worse, I could have been stuck baking cupcakes with Pinkamena. Oh yes. That's right, I know about Cupcakes. Don't ask me how. I know what you're thinking right now, if you hate ponies so much, what the hell happened? Well, I was at a point where I hated my boring, humdrum life that seemed to be going nowhere fast. So when my birthday came around, only a few days after I got that link, I made use of my birthday wish. There I was, staring into the flames of six candles on a delicious-looking chocolate cake. Why six, I had no idea. I was 19. I closed my eyes and, I figured, what the hell, I'll make a stupid wish. I never really believed it would come true. I mean let's face it, how many wishes have you made that didn't? About all of them maybe? But for some reason, we all do it anyway. I was no exception. I knew… not just believed or thought, I KNEW that nothing would happen. You were thinking I wished about ponies? Ha. No. I wished that I could live in a fantasy world. Maybe fight the forces of evil alongside other brave warriors… you know, that old chestnut. I inhaled. I leaned forward and blew out all the candles in one breath, but right before I finished… that damn pony game popped into my head, for just a split second. I inhaled again to replace the lost breath, for a second I hesitated, my heart was beating rapidly in my chest, I wondered if my wish might have somehow magically come true. Something felt special this time. And then I opened my eyes. Instantly my eyes were bedazzled by the sight of a beautiful… chocolate cake, and I heard my immediate family clapping half-heartedly. Nothing happened, and I wasn't the least bit surprised. I KNEW nothing would happen, that's exactly why I made that stupid wish. Later that night, I went to bed. Another un-spectacular birthday over, another year closer to the end of this lousy existence. My mind was plagued with all the things I'd have to do at work the next day. Eventually, sleep took me. 'If I'm lucky,' I thought on the way to dreamland, 'maybe I'll have a good dream.' Sun's shining in through my eyelids. I roll over. Sun's still in my eyes. It's windy and kinda cold. My blanket is gone. Wait… windy? Blanket missing and bright sun in my eyes? "GOD DAMMIT STAN! Did you get drunk and drag me outside-" I open my eyes open and sit up. This isn't my porch. "…again?" This isn't even my neighborhood. And my brother Stan moved out of the house two years ago. This is so weird. It's like I'm up in an airplane, but not moving. A couple clouds here and there, mountains in the distance, green and trees below. Far below. This is like some crazy dream. That's it! I'm dreaming! Of course! Hey look! I have horse hooves for hands! Oh. Of course. Fucking would be a pony-related dream. Not that I have those, or anything. I've just been hanging around bronies way too damn long. I look down at myself. Let's see… light blue fur, rainbow tail, hooves. Oh my gawd… Rainbow Dyke? Seriously? How cliché. Wait. She has wings, right? I always wanted to fly in a dream! I roll over on my bed… er… cloud?? I'm on a cloud, really? Well I guess that makes sense, I'm up high in the sky. I try to stand up on all four hooves. It feels so strange, but somehow not wrong. Seems legit. I move my feet around, getting a feel for standing on this cloud. Really sturdy for being made of water vapor. It's like a rock. A squishy rock. Which is weird, since it felt like nothing when I was laying on it. Friggin’ magical pony cloud. Ok, let's fly! I lean forward to take off, to let the wind take me, to soar among the clouds… POOF I fall forward on my face. Soft cloud at least. What a shitty dream. I'll just wait for the dream to move itself along. Can’t be long. Dreams always advance rapidly, right? 30 Minutes Later Why couldn't I dream of being an anthro fox, or something cool? Not that I'm a furry, or anything. But come on, I'm a goddamn pony. And not just any goddamn pony, the gayest goddamn pony. "Hi Rainbow Dash!" I hear a nasally voice call from behind me. I cringe at the name. I almost turn around, but since I'm obviously not a rainbow pony, I don't bother. I just grumble something with my mouth closed in response, in the deepest tone I can muster, trying to retain some semblance of my manliness in this condition. "You ok, Rainbow Dash?" I grumble again, but I forget to deepen my voice, and I yelp in response to hearing that raspy and (questionably) feminine voice. A gray pony lands on my little slice of heaven. Those eyes are a dead giveaway. Derpy. Why do I know this?! Why?! We just stare at each other awkwardly. At least I think she's staring back at me. Kinda hard to tell with this one. After a while she pipes up, "I was just on the way home from work, I thought I'd check on you." She looks sad. Well uhhhhh... "Well uhhhhh..." Still don't know if she's looking at me. "Thank you?" She doesn't look that smart, maybe I could pull one over on her… "Hey, can you help me get to the ground? I think I'm coming down with a cold or something." "Uh oh… It's not the feather flu is it?" She asks, reeling back a little and scrunching up her nose. I secretly wonder if I can make that adorable scrunchy face. "Uh, sure, whatever." I hate this voice. Derpy steps back even further and flies backwards off the cloud. She holds her arm(?) over her nose. "Hang on, I'll be right back!" I wait. After a few minutes I see a dark cloud moving towards me. Whatever? It floats right over my head and stops. Derpy appears from behind said cloud, then flies up on top of it where I can't see her. Suddenly the cloud starts shaking violently. I look up… SPLASH …only to be drenched by ice cold rain, making me jump up in surprise. Scumbag cloud. I'm freezing cold and soaking wet now. I try to shake off the water like a dog. It somewhat works. BANG I jump again as a bolt of lightning shoots (RIGHT NEXT TO ME OH MY GOD) from the cloud to the ground. I hate dreaming. Derpy flutters back down to my cloud. I give her the dirtiest look I can muster. "What the hell was that all about?" I ask. "I don't wanna catch the feather flu! The water will keep the dander down, I thought you knew that?" "…Right." "Ok! Let's get you down to good ol' terra firma!" She flies backwards a bit and then pushes down the cloud I'm on with her arms(?). I just sit on this cloud, still soaked, shivering, and generally looking miserable all the way to the ground. I had no idea how cold it was up there until I got wet. Hang on… I don't remember feeling this cold in a dream before… Just as the cloud touches the ground, it poofs into thin air, and I fall a couple feet onto my ass, on the grassy ground. "Ow." "There ya go! Hope you get better soon, Rainbow Dash! I'll seeya later!" Derpy waves and flies off. "Thanks for the 'help'…" I say sarcastically. She probably can't hear me by now anyway. Still sitting on my ass, I look around. It's a grassy field with some trees, looks like a forest behind me. Not much else. Hmm. Can’t sit here forever, that'd be a boring dream! I have a brilliant idea! I'll go into the woods, maybe I'll find someone there! I stand up and start heading into the woods… THUNK …and promptly fall flat on my face after taking the first step. Ah yes, I have four legs now, how easily I forget. I get up and press a hoof against my sore nose. I have to learn how to walk… in a dream? Sigh One hoof in front of the other, first with front legs, then with the back ones. I get the basic walking step down pretty fast, but I still have to pay full attention while working these things. I trot around in circles in this field. Oh gawd. I'm a feckin' horse. I pick up the pace and see if I can manage to run… er… gallop? I'm running so clumsily on these hooves. Miracle I haven't tripped yet. SMACK "And there it is!" Let's see if I can do a buck. Might need to defend myself against the cute fluffy woodland animals in this cute cuddly pony world. (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.) I squat my hind legs and jump with them. I try to kick them back and… KER-THUNK "Ow…!" How'd I manage to fall on my face?! Whatever, fuck it. I'm going in there. BAY LIFE! I trot (…) gingerly into the woods. A damp, musty air permeates my nostrils. The woods are getting thicker and it's pretty dark. And now, it smells like shit. A big steaming pile of it. I hear birds singing, so that's good. I walk towards the direction I hear them. The tree cover is so dense here I can barely see my hoof in front of my face. (…) I come up to a small clearing with a little bit of sunlight shining through the leaves. Sure enough, there are a few colorful birds there, singing. Like actually singing, not with words, but not just chirping either. They scatter as I walk into the clearing. Aw… I just look around in disappointment. I hear a slight rustle of leaves in the darkness. I look to see a pair of demonic glowing yellow eyes in the shadows. And growling. "BAY LIFE!!!!!!!1" I run! I run and I run! I try desperately to keep my footing. (Hoofing? AGH! NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT STUPID PONY TERMINOLOGY!) KER-THUNK "OW!" I tripped over a tree root and scramble to get back on my feet. I catch a glimpse of the beast chasing me. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! It looks like a huge wolf with the oakflesh spell on it! What? I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. Sue me. Wait. I think I saw two of them. Shit! This is just a dream! This is just a dream! WAKE UP CHURCH! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!!! I'm almost out of the woods! I see the light! SMACK "OW!" Something stepped in front of me. I think I heard it yelp when I bumped into it. I don't care! Shaking my head, I get back up and keep running, down a grassy field on onto a dirt road! > I'm a... colt?! (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hard to breathe. Hard to breathe. Face in cloud but hard to breathe… Unless… Face in pillow? I don't remember having a pillow on this cloud. And… this cloud's pretty hard. Maybe I'm at home. Pretty sure I was on a cloud. Ugh… Oh well, I'll just go back to sleep. … My head feels like it's spinning. What they hay is going on? I open my eyes. It's still dark? Wait… no, I'm in a room. This… isn't my house. I can't tell where I am, my eyes are still blurry. I rub my eyes with a foreleg. Hey… that didn't feel right. I look at my leg. Well that's just wrong, what happened to my fur? And my hoof!? I have… a claw?! …Cool! I check out my new claws in the darkness. Oh Gilda, whatever happened between us? I make a 'fist' just like her when we got in that fight at flight camp. I do a 'thumbs up' and make a dirty gesture she once taught me about. Hehe. I wanna grab something! I manage a sloppy grip on the blanket covering me, and throw it off. WOW… it's freezing in here! And… hey… that's totally not me down there… What the hay? My fur is gone! Except for way down there… "MOTHER OF CELESTIA!" I put a hoo- um… claw over my mouth as I realize the voice that came out was a lot more masculine than it usually is... Not that my voice is masculine or anything. I'm a colt! And I'm a… I don't even know what I am! But I'm obviously a colt! OH no no no no no no no! This can’t be happening! I can’t just be a freaky furless colt! I gotta find out what's going on! I gotta get out of this bed! I roll over onto my belly, and moving my freaky new hind legs (without hooves!), I manage to back myself off the bed, putting my hind… paws? Feet? Whatever! On the floor. Wow, the floor feels weird. Or is it these feet? I rub them into this carpet. I can feel it brush up against my bare skin… that's a new feeling. I back myself off the bed a little more. These legs don't feel right. All the joints are in the wrong places! I'm not gonna be able to stand like this! I wonder… what if I… use my forelegs to push myself up, rearing up on my hind legs, which is… surprisingly easy. I'm standing here… on just my hind legs? How am I balanced so well? I don't know, but since I am, I take a look around. Obviously somepony's bedroom, as if the bed wasn't enough of a giveaway… There's a window in front of the bed, but it's covered by some weird kind of curtain, and there’s some machine thing in the bottom of it, blowing out freezing cold air. Dresser, desk, bookcase, and two doors… with doorknobs… the bane of my existence. I take a step forward. I'm a little wobbly. I take another step… THUNK "YOW!" I fell back on my flank. I guess I wasn't balanced as well as I thought... I try to stand back up. Wow, there is no way I can walk on all fours like this. Yeah, it just ain't gonna happen. Propping myself on the edge of the bed, I pull myself back up to my hind legs. Reminds me of that one time… "Oh yeah? Let's see how far y'all can walk on yer hind legs." Applejack challenged me. "Pssh. How hard can it be?!" "No wings, RD…" "I don't need wings to walk on my hind legs!" "We'll see…" She gave me a mischievous smile. Of course I took that challenge. I made it three steps before I lost my balance and fell back down to all fours. Applejack just laughed in my face. "OH YEAH?! I'd like to see you try!" She reared up and walked at least ten steps before lowering herself – not falling – down and giving me a smug grin. "Wha- how?" I gaped at her. "Strong legs! Years of applebuckin'…" I walk, step by step (still moving my forelegs to the steps, can't help it), to the door next to the bookcase. It's so weird walking on my hind legs… but it's like… not, at the same time. Ah, doorknob. My old nemesis. We meet again. But hey I got claws now! HA! Take that you stupid knob! I grab the metal abomination and it sends a shiver up my spine, making me let go. It has a defense mechanism! I gently touch it again and realize it's just cold. It FEELS cold. I turn it (AH HA!) and pull the door open. Stuffy warm air washes over me as I walk slowly through the door frame and look around. There's some stairs and another open door. I don't think I'm ready to take on stairs with only two legs, so I shakily walk to the other door. Another bedroom, with a really big bed. Kind of reminds me of my parents' bedroom. Has that sort of organized bedroom vibe that could only come from parents. There's a dresser with some kind of black rectangle thing on it. And another desk with a mirror on it. I shuffle over to it, trying not to look in the mirror. But I do anyway. What the hay is that?! That thing is definitely not me! It has… (I have!) tiny little eyes, I lean closer to the mirror, they look kinda blue-green. No fur on my face… wait… is that a beard or a patch of fur? It's sort of light brown, like the mane. Pointy nose… funny ears… in the wrong place. I back up from the mirror. Are those titties? Why are they up here? I thought I was a colt…? Slowly I twist myself sideways… and… yep, that's what I was afraid of… No wings… I walk over to the bed. Turns out, walking's not so hard, but staying standing is another story. Can't lock these knees to just relax. As I turn around to sit, I notice… I don't have a tail. And no cutie marks on my flanks? I guess that kinda makes sense, since I don't have fur… Sigh This… is really me, isn’t it? I guess I got my wish… Serves me right I guess. I’m a terrible friend… Sniff Right when I plop down on the bed I realize something. I just woke up and I have to pee. Really bad. I look, reluctantly, between my hind legs… The other door in this room is cracked open. I push myself back up on two legs and walk to it. I push it open and look inside. Some light seeps in from a window, and rain softly patters on the glass. I wonder if there's pegasi up above those rain clouds… Right, back to the task at hoof. This kinda looks like a bathroom. There's a tub over there, and a sink, and a… toilet? Well, THAT was interesting. Claws definitely helped though, you have no idea. Well… even if I deserve this, I’m not just gonna sit around and sulk all day. Maybe I can find a way out of this mess? A way back home? Somepony to help me? Right now, I have nothing else to do but try to tackle those stairs. They look like they go down forever, makes me dizzy just thinking about it. But I'm not gonna be beaten by some stupid stairs and a weird new body! I grab the railing on the side – hey, is that what railings are for? – and take them on one step at a time. I finally make it to the bottom. A big room with a couple couches greets me. More of those strange black rectangle things, a big one on a table, the other on a desk. I wonder what they are? A clock on the wall fills the room with a constant ticking that even the rain can’t drown out, it's ten past one. Hey, another door. This room looks like a kitchen. I open (what I think is) the icebox and a light comes on inside. A bunch of food packages and bottles are spread out on the shelves. Milk, apple juice, is that bread? Who the hay puts bread in the icebox? And what the hay is 'Miracle Whip'? Hmm, ok, yogurt, a head of lettuce, a jar of olives (I hate olives), what the hay is 'bacon'? Turkey… Wait, turkey? Like… the bird…? Whatever I am… must eat meat. Like griffons. Hmm… "Hey G," I looked at Gilda with my head cocked sideways, "Whatcha eatin'?" She looked like she saw a ghost, "Dash, um…" "It's meat isn't it?" I’d known for a while what griffons ate, but I didn’t really know how to approach the subject, so I usually just avoided it. But that day was different. "So griffons eat meat, huh?" "Yeah…" She carefully responded. "Hmm…" I scratched my chin with a hoof. Something had always interested me about eating dead animals (as gross as that sounds). And I couldn’t help but wonder, what do they taste like? (Don't judge me!) But that’s not something I could ever tell my pony friends, of course. Gilda, on the other hoof… She rolled her eyes at me and took another bite of her lunch. I had this chance to finally satisfy my morbid curiosity, "Can I try some?" She spit out her food. "DASH! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" My stomach rumbles. Well… Like Gilda used to say, ‘meat’s meat and a griffon’s gotta eat.’ Turkey can't be that different from Gilda's chicken… > What Has Been Seen... (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think I heard something. I keep running. No idea where I'm going. Better than being eaten by whatever in the hell is chasing me. I hear it again. Almost sounded like someone calling 'Rainbow Dash.' I turn my head around to check on the freaky wolves chasing me. Instead I see a yellow horse flying after me. I scramble to a halt, dredging up a bunch of dirt from the road as I do. Hey, at least I didn't fall on my face! "Oh my goodness! What were you doing in the Everfree Forest, Rainbow?" She asks with a strangely adorable look of concern in her eyes. She lands in front of me, a little bit too far inside my personal space bubble for my comfort. Yellow, butterflies, Fluttershy. "Uh, wh- who are you?" "Wha? What are you talking about Rainbow?" She looks confusedly into my eyes. "No, what are you talking about...?" "What?" She looks around for a moment. "Oh, I get it! This is one of those pranks that Pinkie's always talking about isn't it? Oh, Rainbow, this isn't the time for pranks…" I try to look confused, "Pink…ie?" "Rainbow? Ar- Are you alright? Did you hit your head on something? Oh my, what happened to your face?" She asks, leaning in to take a look at my face. "Huh? Oh, I guess I fell a few times.” Geez does it look that bad? “Anyway, who is this ‘Rainbow’ person? Is it... me?" "Oh my! You poor thing! We have to get you to Twilight right away!" "Eh?" SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. THE LAST THING I WANT IS THAT PURPLE ONE’S GODDAMN PET 'DRAGON' TALKING ANYWHERE NEAR ME. "Come on now, follow me, I’m sure Twilight knows some kind of spell to fix amnesia, we'll get you fixed right up!" She says in a shaky little voice. I gotta find a way out of this, or at least stall until I can think of something. "So, uh, what's your name?" She turns around and looks at me through teary eyes, biting her lower lip. "I'm…" sniff "Fluttershy…" She trails off, mumbling and sniffing. "Flutter? What's wrong Flutter?" "Um… n- nothing… please… j- just follow me, ok?" She's doing all she can not to break down crying. Sigh I can't stand watching her cry. I hate seeing people cry. "Sure, but can you tell me what's wrong, did I do something wrong?" She starts sobbing now. Crap! I'm just making it worse! FUCK. STUPID CHURCH. MAKING PEOPLE CRY. Er… ponies? You know what I mean. I look around nervously, and walk closer to her. "Hey, I'll follow you ok? Just please, stop crying," I say awkwardly, putting a hand… arm… leg… (goddammit) hoof gently on her back. She stops crying and sniffs a couple times. "O..." sniff "Kay." I follow her down the dirt road to town. It's quiet and boring. She (obviously) isn't trying to start a conversation, and neither am I. As I walk, though, the adrenaline rush from being chased by fluffy cartoon critters begins to wear off and the pain in my face is really starting to get to me. I'm starting to have a really bad feeling… that I'm not dreaming. We walk into town and I start getting weird looks from all the… ponies. It's getting annoying. Is my face really that messed up from falling on it so many times? Before I get to think about it too much, a tiny orange pony runs up in front of me and starts walking backwards as it faces me with a disturbingly large smile. Aw shit. I know who that is too. Fuck my life. Scootaloo? Right? "Oh hi, Scootaloo," Fluttershy says. Seriously? Fuck my Steam Friends list. "Hi Fluttershy! Hi Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo says. All I can muster is, "Uh…" Fluttershy cuts me off, weakly saying, "I don't think now is…" She trails off. "Hey, I heard the good news Rainbow! Congrats!" The orange one says over Fluttershy. “This is SO awesome! I can’t believe you… I mean of course you would, but-“ "Scootaloo," Fluttershy says firmly, but still softly, getting the little one's full attention. "Now's not the best time, ok?" "Oh… um ok Fluttershy, see you later. Bye Rainbow!" And with that, Scootaloo runs off. What the hell was that all about? Whatever, Fluttershy starts walking again and I follow suit. We're still getting the weird looks. And I could swear I saw a camera flash somewhere back there. Before long, we arrive at a giant tree carved into a house. Or a library. Oh yeah, Twilight's library. Goddammit. Fluttershy opens the door, somehow managing to turn a doorknob with a single hoof – how the hell did she do that? – and I follow her inside. "Hello?" Fluttershy calls out. That sorry little excuse for a dragon waddles down the stairs. GODDAMMIT! Ok, ok, just cage in your anger… breathe… I'd pinch the bridge of my nose right now if I still HAD FINGERS! Ok, try not to look angry. Ok Church? Everything's cool. I'm just some regular guy in the magical land of whatever-it's-called, pretending to be Rainbow Dash with amnesia- oh my gawd. This is ridiculous! "Oh, hi Spike." Fluttershy smiles weakly. "Where's Twilight?" "Oh, she just went out to find you guys, actually." Spike answers with a shrug. "Is that supposed to be a dragon? He's so puny." Dammit! I let that slip. "Very funny, Rainbow," he replies flatly, giving me a dirty look. "Oh goodness… she's out looking for us then, I should go find her…" Fluttershy says as she gets ready to head back out. "Uhhh, should I go with you? I'd rather go with you." I'm not staying here. Fuck Spike. "Oh no, no… um, ok, I guess…" She turns toward the door and walks back out. And I follow. Again… Ok, now I'm sure I saw some camera flashes. Some random ponies are waving at me. "Uhhhh, hi?" Keep walking… Creepy. At least it was a short walk to this giant gingerbread-looking house. Flutters walks up to the (great, now I'm using nicknames…) door but it opens in front of her and misses her nose by an inch. Twilight’s standing in the doorway. "Oh, perfect, I was just about to go look for you two. Rainbow, can you go get Applejack please?" she asks, in the tone of a command. "Twilight, we have a little problem… with Rainbow…" Flutters pipes up, glancing awkwardly in my direction. "Oh, I know…" Twilight turns to me, looking sad but serious, "We all understand, Rainbow, but we all really need your help right now, Equestria needs your help." Well, let's see if Twilight can see through a lie. "Who?..." Where's a 20 sided die when ya need one? She stares at me with a cocked eyebrow for a moment. "Huh?" "Oh, but Twilight, Rainbow's…" Flutters protests, trying to tell Twilight. Twilight interrupts , "Yes, Fluttershy, we all know.” She gives a sage little nod. "Who's Applejack?" I butt in. "This is no time for jokes, Rainbow," Twilight glares at me. "Shut up! I can't remember anything!" That was probably going a little too far, wasn't it? Awkward silence is awkward. I hear Flutters mumbling to Twilight but I pick out the word 'amnesia' and I think Twilight does too. "You… you really don't remember… anything?" A pink blur bounces out the door from behind Twilight. "Hi Dashie! Hi Flutters!" Pinkie. Freaking. Pie. Before I can say anything, Twilight orders Pinkie, "Pinkie, please go get Applejack and Rarity and bring them to the library." "OKIE DOKIE LOKIE!" Fuck Pinkie Pie. Good riddance. "Ok," Twilight continues, "Let's see what you can remember. What's your name?" "Flutters keeps calling me 'Rainbow'." "Alright, what year is it?" "2013?" "Uh… ok. What's the name of Equestria's Princess?" "Princess Smellestia." Twilight gives me a look of thorough un-amusement. "Well… what do you remember then?" "Nothing, I woke up on a cloud and couldn't get down. Then I ran into Flutters," I claim, it's mostly true. "Oh! And some gray pony." "Oh for the love of… let's go talk about it at the library." She just about does a facepa-hoof. "So, do you remember anything at all before waking up today?" Twilight asks with a suspicious eye. I stare angrily at Spike and say, "Nope." Twilight sits down and rubs her temples with her front hooves. "Why are you looking at me?" Spike says, looking uncomfortable in my gaze. "Because... I. Don't. Like. You." He keeps shifting uncomfortably. Twilight sighs, "I didn't think this would happen so soon…" Fluttershy pipes up, "Can you help her, Twilight?" "Yes. Yes I can. Just like last time," she says, walking towards me with a mischievous smile. "Wait, last time? What happened last time?" I look between Twilight and Fluttershy for an answer. "Last time, when Discord unleashed chaos all over Equestria. Although this doesn’t seem to be exactly the same thing, this spell should still work." What was Discord again? Oh well, I keep staring at Spike. “Wait. Spell? What spell?!” I don’t want her using her pointy horn magic on me! Whoa. I feel a tickling sensation on my head. More like in my head. Kinda feels nice. I just roll with it. For a moment, I saw… what can only be described as my life flashing before my eyes. It's hard to tell, it happened so fast. As I come out of my daze, I feel tired. Like someone just woke me up. And my head is swimming. "…Rainbow?" I hear two voices chime together. I only manage to mumble a little. "Do you remember anything?" I manage to focus my eyes on Twilight. "Noooope..." I say with my best imitation of Chuck Testa. "Shoot!" Twilight stomps a hoof on the floor. "Well I remember some names..." I say, looking hopeful. Flutters and Twilight perk up at this, Spike is just sitting there ignoring everything like the shitty dragon he is. "But that's about it." "Oh really? Whose names?" Twilight curiously asks. "Princess Smellestia." She squints at me with discontent. "…Well, let me try this a little differently." She aims that pointy horn at me, and I feel the same sensation from before, but it's a little different. Not as pleasant. Almost painful. "Ow." Suddenly, images start rolling in my head. Like memories being replayed. But, they're not mine this time. I don't think they're Rainbow Dash's either… There’s a flying rainbow pony, whooshing around the sky. She lands on a small bridge and says, "What'd I say? Ten. Seconds. Flat." She pushes her nose in my face, "Are you a SPY?" There she is again, her wings are tied up with rope and she’s laughing. “What? You’re not an athlete, you’re a… well… you’re an egghead!” She squishes her cheeks together. "SO. AWESOME!" "OHMYGOSH! OHMYGOSH! OHMYGOSH!" "I was busy. Napping." She’s up on a dark cloud at night, wearing a cheesy gimp suit and angry looking goggles. "Lighten up old timer! This is the best time of the year for pranks!” A book goes flying over her shoulder. “No thanks! I SOOOO don’t read.” "Ow." Did she just… Did I just… fucking… watch… My… FUCKING Little… FUCKING PONY?! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "GODDAMMIT! "GODDAMMIT! GODDAMMIT! GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT! "YOU…FUCKING…!!! "I…!!! "FUCK! "FUCK! FUCK! FUCKITTY FUCK! "WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN!!!!!" > I love this story! (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mmmmm. That was a good sandwich. Turkey, lettuce, and that 'Miracle Whip' crap on white bread… I think I'm getting this whole meat thing now. But… I ate a bird… But, but, it was delicious… UGH! Whatever, there's nothing like good food to take a filly's mind off her problems. Horseapples. I'm not a filly anymore, or even a pony! I'm not sure which one's worse. Sigh Well… it can't be that long before the girls find out I'm missing and figure out a way to come get me and save the day. Right? Oh no… no no no! What if they think I left them?! Or ran off? I mean, they might! They know what happened… and I was gone for a couple days… they didn't look for me then! Of all the stupidest wishes I ever made, why did this one have to come true?! Last night, on a cloud in the sky… I was sitting there, looking up into Luna's starry night sky. I had been hiding from my friends for two days by then… just wondering what I should do. I had a tough choice to make, and I didn't want any of them to try to sway me. I had to decide by myself. Even if I could've really used a friend right about then… A little sparkle of light trickled across the sky. A shooting star. "I wish I didn't have to be Rainbow Dash right now…" I closed my eyes and felt a few tears roll onto the wet stains on my cheeks. "WHY?!" I put my head in my hoo- claws and just cry. That stupid wish only added to my problems… Sniff I wearily lean back in my chair and look out the kitchen window. The dark gray sky stares back at me. Lighting silently flashes in the distance. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. RUMBLE Wow, that's a big storm. Cloudy skies and rainy days always make me feel all gloomy… I mean, I of all ponies should KNOW what they're for, (heck, I'm usually the one who puts the rainclouds up there to begin with!) they water all the plants and stuff. Rain gives the earth life. It makes flowers bloom and gives us food. They shouldn't make me feel gloomy… So why do they? Well it looks like I might be stuck indoors for a while, never mind wherever the hay I am. I'm probably a million miles away from… home. I might as well at least try to make myself comfortable… What is there to do around here? I drag myself over to the other closed door in the kitchen. Hmm, there's a bunch of clothes in here… is this… a laundry room? The only pony I know who has a laundry room is Rarity. Me? I just don't get the whole 'clothes' thing. I think I'll go back upstairs and check out that bookcase. Going up the stairs now. Hey, this is easier than I thought it would be. These two legs feel pretty strong, weird, but strong. I wonder how fast I could run… Wow, it's still cold in this room. I'm not digging this whole no-fur thing. What's this? I pick some kind of clothing off the floor. It looks like a shirt. It's red, there's a picture of a funny looking… shoe? – I look down at my feet. Yeah, that's what this thing's shoe would look like – in the middle, and it says 'Section V State Qualifiers' with a big 12 in the background. I wonder what that means… I might as well put it on, since it's so cold in here. I guess clothes do make a little sense now. Ok, books, books… let's see what you got, bookcase. Hmm, why are ALL of these books titled 'Shonen Jump'? Oh wait, there's a few different ones on the bottom shelf… 'Goosebumps'? What the hay is that? 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' – sounds depressing, last thing I need right now – 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' that… kinda sounds like a really bad Daring Do knockoff. Meh, why not? 'Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…' 8 hours later… I… I love this story! I know it's all magic and stuff, but it's still really cool, and they can fly on broomsticks! How crazy is that?! So apparently, I'm a 'person' and these are 'hands.' There's still a bunch of stuff in this book I don't get, but hey, it's still a great story… SLAM What was that? "I'M HOME!" Uh oh! Um… Um… Hide under the bed! 4 minutes later… Somepony's coming upstairs! Ohmygosh! AH! They're walking in here! Click The room gets really bright all of a sudden, I can see the light even from under the bed. "The hell are you doing?" I hear a feminine voice say. Can they see me?! They can see me can't they? Sigh I shift around uncomfortably under the bed. "What are you looking for, in the dark, under your bed?" MY bed? "Uhhhhhhhhh…" I poke my head out and look at the pon- person looking down at me. She's an older mare, wearing clothes, with a sort of salt and pepper gray mane. And she's looking at me like I just flew upside down into a window. "…Apples?" WHY, oh why, was that the first thing that came to mind?! "What...? Why would there be apples under your bed?" Her eyes shift around in confusion. "Were you eating apples last night?" She scratches her head. "Uhhhhh… yes?" I hope I have a better poker face than Applejack. "O kaaaaaaaay..." She says with a really confused face and walks out of the room. I scooch out from under the bed and sit up on the floor. Ok… who's that? So… if I'm a colt, er, boy (man? What's the age cutoff for that?)… and she's an older mare, er, woman… who lives here… in a different bedroom… My… Mother? Er, well, this colt's mother? Uh oh, she's coming back in here. "JESUS CHURCH! WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING ANY PANTS?!" Pants… Pants… "Pants? What the hay are pants?" "Oh you know darling, they cover your hind legs," Rarity helpfully informed while she stuck pins in the fabric draped over my back. "You mean, like a dress?" "No dear, dresses are for mares, and besides – could you lift your wings please? – a dress would also cover your tail, pants only cover your hind legs." "Oh…" "You might see an older stallion in fancy dress wearing them. Not that mares can't wear pants too… you know… if you wanted to." Rarity chuckled nervously. "Now straighten up and hold still." "Uhhhh…" I look at mother's hind legs… yep, pants. Blue pants. I look around the room and I see a few clothes that look similar. I pick up something, pants I think, that's next to me. They're a different kind of cloth, black with a blue stripe on the side of the leg part. "I was… just… looking… for some… heh heh." I say, trying to look innocent. "Ugh… whatever Church." She shakes her head. "I'll have supper ready in an hour." She turns around and leaves. Maybe she's as confused as I am. Note to self: 'people' wear 'pants.' All the time I guess. I slip these 'pants' on with a kind of trial-and-error method. I still can't believe I have a… Sigh I squint up at the light in the room. My eyes fall on a white rectangular thing on the wall next to the door. Oh… that was a light switch? Click The light turns off. Click Click Click Click Click My stomach rumbles to remind me I'm hungry. How long was I reading for? I look around. On a little bedside table, there's a strange little box with an orange number on it. '10:24' it says. That's a cool clock. It just tells you the time in numbers. So yeah, I'd say I've been reading for a while. The still-open book on the floor calls to me. I got another hour before supper! > Bad Dragon (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a fit of rage lasting about five minutes… Spike… is a really bad dragon… I just lay on the floor staring at him, completely spent from all the cursing. He's staring back at me. Growl He runs and hides behind Twilight. That's right. Be afraid. Oh hey there's more ponies now. "Ya alright sugar cube?" Alright. Fuck this. Close my eyes. Applejack isn't here with Pinkie Pie. I’m not in a cartoon with cute little ponies… But, if I am, I can fly away! Ha ha! Open my eyes. THAT’S IT, I am done! Hey these things actually work now! CRASH I lay in a pile of books, utterly defeated by a… BONK …bookshelf and that one special book that decided to fall off the shelf last and hit me square on the head! Don't they have any paperbacks here?! "Ow." Scumbag Library. Sigh "I hate being a stupid pony…" I grumble under my breath. All the books start floating off of me. Twilight walks up. "I'm so sorry Rainbow, I don't understand what went wrong,” she says apologetically. "Yeah. Me neither..." I say sarcastically. I go back to staring (and growling) at Spike, who's now cowering behind Rarity. "Ar- Are you alright darling?" She asks, gently pointing a marshmallowy hoof in my direction. "No... I don't want to be… here," I spit. I'm done. I get up and start walking towards the door. I hear some comments along the lines of 'where are you going' but I tune them out. As I near the door, I come near Fluttershy. She's not protesting at all, only biting her lower lip and fighting off tears as she stares straight into my soul with those huge adorable puppy dog pony eyes. Fuck. If I leave… she'll cry. Sigh I walk back to Spike and Rarity, sit down my pony ass down on the floor dejectedly, and stare at the fat lizard silently. Scumbag Spike, shitty dragon. "Rainbow…? Do you… remember anything now?" Twilight asks sheepishly from behind my back. More than I'd care to. "Certain… events…" "Such as?" "I remember when Celestia disappeared and Nightmare Moon showed up." There was a lot of that when I… she… "That's about it." "Should I try again?" "SURE, why not…?" I ask sarcastically. She shoots me and I suffer another barrage of memories. Clearly Twilight's memories, of Rainbow. When the torture ends, I hold my hooves to my throbbing temples. Well... it wasn't any worse than last time. "Did it work?" Twilight asks. "I was JOKING!" "Oh. Well… do you remember anything now?" "They're just your memories!" "Oh…” she bashfully scratches the back of her neck. “I hoped they would… help spur your own memories…" "Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, you said earlier that you needed me, what for?” I try to change the subject to avoid any more magical memory torture. “I might as well try to help…" while I'm here. Everyone looks at Twilight inquisitively. She brought them here for something, and it sure as hell wasn't me. "Alright girls. Rainbow wasn't the reason I called you all here," Twilight announces, all the other ponies in the room glance nervously at each other. "We're going to Canterlot, it seems Discord's gone rogue again." She rolls her eyes. Gasps in unison. I just go back to staring at Spike. "Come on girls, let's get to the train station." "H-He wouldn't!" Fluttershy softly protests. "And what'll we do about Rainbow?" "We'll just have to help her on the train ride there." Twilight turns to Spike. "Spike! Get me… THE book." "What book?" He asks uncomfortably, peeking out from behind Rarity's ass. I have a feeling he likes it there. "The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide." "Oh… THAT book." He runs off across the room, climbs a few steps up a ladder, and grabs a large fancy book from a shelf. I don’t let him escape my gaze. He waddles over to Twilight and gives her the book. She floats it in front of her and opens it, a sparkly golden glow comes from within and washes over her. Appearing satisfied, she slaps it closed and drops it into her saddlebags. "You know Twi, I still think you should put them on display in a glass case." "I'll think about it Spike, but a magic-blocking book just seems so much safer. We don't really know if they'll react adversely to all the highly theoretical and sometimes unstable spells I'm always testing around here. Ok girls, let's go! Come on Rainbow! Spike, you stay here and watch the library." "Alright, I guess. If it gets me away from creepy Rainbow," Spike shrugs. I sigh and stand up. I silently follow them out the door, keeping my head down, just staring at my fee- hooves all the way to the train station. We're all waiting for the train, on the station platform. The ponies are talking amongst themselves about something – I’m not listening. Fluttershy carefully walks up to me, "How are you feeling?" I don't need people to worry about me... "Meh, I'll be fine." "Oh… I certainly hope so." She walks closer to me and… rubs her nose on my neck. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh… da fuq? Was that supposed to be affectionate? I feel violated… Applejack breaks off from their little conversation group next. "Ya pullin' through, sugar cube?" "Yep, I'll be fine." I swear to god if they all do this in sequence I'm going to murder someone. "I know what'll cheer ya up…" She digs a hoof in her saddlebag, pulls out an apple, and offers it to me. Meh, why not? I am a little hungry. "Sure, thanks." I just stare at the apple in her hoof for a second. I look down at my own hooves. Meh. I grab the apple with my teeth. Applejack gives me an awkward forced smile. Crunch Hmm. This apple's not bad. Oh, now Pinkie is walking over here. Hang on. Doesn't she have fluffy hair? How come it's flat? Oh… Oh! Oh. Uh oh. Isn't she like, a psychopath when her hair is flat? "Oh, Dashie," she says dramatically with sad eyes as she sits down in front of me. "I'm just so super-duper sad that you got amnesia and Twilight's memory spell didn't work and Discord’s a big meanie-pants again and now we're going to Canterlot but Twilight says you might not be able to use your element because you have amnesia and I…” She sighs. “I could really use a cupcake right now… how about you?" Huh? So she's just hella sad...? "Ummmm aren't you always in the mood for cupcakes and..." Holy shit. Cupcakes... "I'm sure everything will work out in the end, and I think I've lost my appetite for any and all pastries at the moment,” I try to change the subject. She sniffles and wipes some snot on her leg. "I hope it will." I can't help but sit there and look sad with her. At least I have an apple to munch on. Thankfully, a distant steam whistle ends the awkward moment. After a minute, the gaudy, colorful train decorated with heart shapes chugs into the station, pulling and screeching to a stop. The doors open and ponies make their way out of the cars. "Ponyville to Canterlot! Allllllll aboard!" Shouts a conductor. I stand up and follow Twilight and the others onto a train car. These weird bench seats are more like little beds. I follow the others' examples and climb up onto one, and sort-of-sit at a window seat. I usually like watching the scenery roll by, maybe it’ll help keep my mind off things. A long, painfully awkward silence permeates the still air inside the train car. The whistle blows and the car rattles briefly as it’s jerked into motion. The trees slowly start passing by outside the window. After a good long time, Twilight quietly takes a seat next to me. "So, Rainbow…" she nervously tries to start some semblance of a conversation. "So, Twilight," I counter. "I know I kind of asked you this already, but I don't suppose you have any idea how this happened, do you?" "Not a clue. But I'm willing to blame magic." Stupid magic. "Maybe Discord's magic…” She sighs. “Does the name 'the Wonderbolts' mean anything to you?" Suddenly all the six ponies in the car are looking at me and it seems to have gotten more quiet in here. Just the muffled clicks and clanks as the wheels roll over the tracks remain. I hate how much I know about this fucking show. Um… "Sounds familiar, what do they do again?" Everyone else looks away, I guess in disappointment. "Oh… Well, they're a pegasus stunt flyer team. You um…" Everyone looks at me again. Boy, they really are keeping tabs on this conversation. "…they just… you um...” She squirms uncomfortably. “You got an acceptance letter from them two days ago." This was obviously a touchy subject, if them all looking at me and Twilight's hesitation is any indication. "Hmmmmmm... Well, I don't remember getting any letters and I can't even remember how to fly." They all gasp and Rarity over-dramatically wails and faints and falls onto Pinkie, who seems completely unfazed by it. "Oh my gosh… this IS serious! Maybe Princess Celestia will be able to help…" Twilight suggests. I take a deep breath and go back to staring at the scenery whizzing by outside the window. Wait a minute... are they taking me to see queen bitch?! I look to Twilight, who looks up to me and gives me a weak, pained smile. You would. About an hour later… The train's pulling into the station now. Finally. The ponies don their saddlebags, and I follow them off the train. We're greeted by a bunch of white ponies in shimmering golden armor. One of them, with fancier armor than the rest, greets all of us and exchanges some words with Twilight. She and him seem… comfortable with each other… Come to think of it… he does look familiar. Afterwards, he leads us away from the station, and the other armored ponies surround us as we walk. I turn to Fluttershy, "Nyu nyu nyu?" "Um, what?" She replies in confusion. "Oh, nothing." I guess the boredom is getting the better of me. This city is a definitely more urban than the other one. The roads are paved with cobblestone and the buildings are more crowded and… Whoa… Huge castle. It just keeps getting bigger as we walk. It's almost messy in design with its towers and spires all over the place. Still, it looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. Or, you know, a little girl's cartoon. Whichever comes first. As we reach the front gate I can see that the walls are actually made of white marble, that almost looks seamless. We walk through a courtyard, up some stairs, and into a huge room with a lush red carpet leading up to some stairs with a huge stained glass window behind the landing. And there's the queen bitch. > The Letter (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I… still can't believe it was professor Quirrell… this whole time. "SUPPER'S READY!" Mother shouts from downstairs. With my newly-equipped blue striped 'pants,' I trot downstairs. Hey, I'm getting used to these funky legs. I get to the bottom of the stairs and I hear talking. Mother's not talking, she's just sitting on the couch and eating. I walk up a little and look where she's looking. She's watching a… film? On that big black rectangle box thing? I don’t see a projector anywhere. There are po- people talking about stuff. The people go away and the box says, "We now return to Paranormal Files." What the hay kinda movie is this? These people are talking about stuff… like ghosts and a haunted house. I don't really… get it… Hey, there's that word again… 'human.' Why does that sound so familiar? "Hey, Lyra, whatcha readin'?" "Oh, it's nothing…" She said, closing the book. "Aw, c'mon! What is it?" Lyra was really only just an acquaintance, but I was trying to make idle conversation. "Erm… it's about… humans…" "Hu- what?" "Humans… they're um… mythical… creatures." "I never heard of 'em. What're they like?" She perked up when I asked that. "Well, they're like big hairless monkeys that walk on their hind legs!" "Uh… huh…" "Hey, go get some food." Mother glances over at the kitchen. "Huh? Oh, right." I snap out of my flashback and walk into the kitchen. I get a whiff of deliciousness as I step through the doorway. A pot on the stove has some pasta noodles, and the pan next to it has some tasty smelling tomato sauce. I grab a plate from the counter (it feels cold in my hand) and help myself. I also grab a glass of water, and I walk out of the kitchen, with a big smile plastered on my mug. Hey, I'm walking AND holding two things at the same time! Guess this freakish body has its perks. I mean, I could hold some things with my wings, but this is totally different. This is like… unicorn level stuff right here. As I walk by my new mother, I notice something. She's holding a fork, and using it to eat the pasta. Now that looks a lot better than getting pasta sauce all over my face fur. I go back to the kitchen and find a fork. I walk past new-mom and the magic movie-box, the people are babbling something about big feet, and I walk upstairs. Slowly! I don't have my balance 100%, so walking up stairs with stuff in my hands is a little bit hard. But I make it upstairs anyway. I sit on the floor and chow down. Mmm… this sauce is really good. But it's sorta chunky. I roll a chunk around on my tongue. Oh. Meat. Still tastes good. I finish up my food and jump in bed, it's been a long day. Blargh. Why is this cloud so hard? Oh yeah, I'm on a bed. YAWN I rub my eyes with a… hand. Oh, that's right, I remember where I am now. I look at the clock, 9:22. Pushing myself off the bed, I stumble around a little and head for the bathroom. Ahhhhh… much better. Still not used to being a colt, er… you know what I mean… But, you know, losing my wings, race, species, friends, and… everything… being about as not-me as possible… that's what really gets me… And I wished for this… All because of that stupid letter… Dear Ms. Rainbow Dash, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Wonderbolts Stunt Fliers of Equestria as a Junior Member! We are proud to accept such an outstanding pegasus to our ranks and we applaud the techniques and maneuvers you displayed at the academy. The 'sonic rainboom' was most impressive, and I personally did not believe it was possible to perform. Report to the Wonderbolts headquarters in Los Pegasus on September 3rd, promptly at 8:00 AM for orientation. After this, in-depth training will begin on technique and structure. Captain Spitfire has personally requested to speak with you after orientation about possible one-on-one training with her. Make sure you discuss this with her once orientation is over. You'll be expected to live in our complementary Residence Halls. We recommend that you bring all necessities and belongings you will need for daily life, as your new schedule will allow very little free time to return home. Three meals a day will be provided as part of the special dietary plan. Needless to say, the Residence Halls offer a variety of activities and leisure for anypony to be comfortable, as well as various nighttime attractions and venues in the city. We sincerely hope you enjoy your stay at your new home with your new friends and teammates. Best regards, Stormy Weather Senior Recruiter Los Pegasus is a long trip from Ponyville. I'd never see my friends again… Why do I have to choose between my dream and my friends…? Sigh Before I open the bedroom door, I notice a little square yellow paper stuck to it. Bacon in fridge, warm it up, make sure you eat! Hmm… 'bacon,' that stuff I saw in the icebox… Walking downstairs… the house is dead quiet. Kinda creepy… I head for the kitchen. I open the icebox, and sure enough, there's a plate with these wrinkled up strips of reddish meat-looking stuff. I looks nasty. Yuck. 'Warm it up,' hmm… there's a frying pan on the stove. Maybe that’s the pan new-mom used to cook this meat stuff in the first place. I toss it in the pan. Now to figure this stove out. Never been much of a cook myself. Well, there's knobs on it… Ok! I got me some greasy, stinky, warmed-up dead animal! Let's try some! Crunch Ooh, it's crunchy. And kinda smoky. And really greasy… And… And… Delicious! Crunch I could get used to this meat stuff! I wonder if we have bacon back home… …NO! What am I thinking?! That's gross! Ponies don't eat meat. Period. End of discussion. It's nasty. And wrong! It's just… Gilda let me try some chicken that one time… but I never told anypony about that. And I didn't even like it much… UGH! Why does this ‘bacon’ stuff have to be so delicious?! Alright, as much as I can't wait to see what happens in the next Harry Potter book, I've been cooped up for way too long. I HATE being cooped up! With pair of blue pants and a neat little white shirt with some crazy art design sketched on it, I go to the front door. And I stop for a second. I should probably find the key to the door and lock it before I leave. Nopony else is home. I go back upstairs and look around my room. On the desk, there's a couple keys on a ring. There's also a folded black rectangle pouch-type thing made out of some kind of smooth cloth, and a hard plastic rectangle. They were right next to the keys. Something's telling me to take them. Alright! Now I need a saddlebag for these… I'm not seeing any saddlebags. How would I even wear one anyway? Hmm… I look down at my pants. Are those… pockets! Perfect! Back downstairs, I open the door and walk right out. "OW!" What the hay! I stepped on something! Oh great, a rock. I need some kind of shoes. Never did get the point of shoes. They looked pretty I guess, but why? Kinda like clothes. Horseshoes, on the other hoof, I understand. Working ponies like Applejack need 'em. I go back in, and by the door, I see some shoes. What the hay? There's only two of them! Oh! Duh! I facehoof at my slip up. Still not used to the whole walk-on-two-legs thing. I slip them on my freaky flesh feet and head back out, locking the door behind me. Brave new world. Not so different though. There's houses and a grey stone road. Everything seems a lot more square, but otherwise, a lot of paralells. A shiny red cart-wagon-train type thing on wheels passes by me. Well that's new. It wasn't being pulled by anything. Magic? Oh wait, I know! That must be a 'car'! I walk in the direction it went. There's a lot of houses around here, but that's pretty much it. Houses… and cars. After about ten minutes of walking, I'm at a cross road. I see another car go down it, so I follow that one. I walk and I walk. It's funny. I feel like I could run. I'm not sure I want to, but I have kind of an itch to do it. Like I've been cooped up inside all day and I need to stretch my wings. If I couldn't, I'd eventually have to just flap as hard as I could, purposefully not getting lift, until the urge went away. My mom called it a case of 'the flies.' Ah, what the hay? Pant Turns out Pant I can run Pant pretty fast. Pant I don't know exactly how far I am (but I'm not lost, you can't be as good a flier as me and have a bad sense of direction, I'm not Derpy), but it looks like I'm in some kind of town. Small town, sort of. Doesn't look anything like Ponyville, or Canterlot. Everything's so… square. I walk past some shops. This place almost reminds me of Fillydelphia… But definitely not as big. There's a few people here, none of them look like they know me. Which is good. The last thing I need is one of them walking up to me and being like– "Hey Church, where ya headed?" "Huh?" > Discord's Bedroom (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, we came as quickly as we could!" Twilight almost shouts at the two tall figures on the landing. I quickly bow before them, the last thing I need right now is to piss her off and get fried to a crisp by the sun… or something. All the rest of the ponies follow my lead, including the guards, but not Twilight. A little strange to bow like this, it's more like kneeling halfway, but I'm getting used to strange shit, so I just improvise. We all straighten up and the guards walk backwards a little bit before turning around and leaving. SLAM I jump at the sound of the huge doors being slammed on the guards' exit. "My little ponies, thank you for coming," queen bitch says, in an almost motherly tone, but with a very sorrowful expression. "Princess…" Twilight starts. "Not here Twilight, please, follow me," Celestia interrupts. Everyone starts walking towards the stairs. I swear, if this bitch offers me a banana... Ok, stairs are new. I just stare at the first step for a while. "Ya comin' RD?" Applejack asks me, looking down at me from a few steps up. "Yeah." One foot… hoof at a time. I manage to climb the stairs slowly. Going down is gonna be another story. Of course… yet another large room. Same fairy tale castle decorations, tapestries, stain glass windows, velvet carpet, the works. It's actually starting to grow on me… No! Bad brain! I don't like this shiny pony shit! The big white one finally pipes up, "I'm sure Twilight has told you all… I suspect Discord has gone rogue again." The ponies murmur at this, except Twilight who asks, "But Princess, everything's normal. I don't see any chaos." "Yeah, there's no chocolate rain…" Pinkie adds in a very somber tone, with an almost-pouty face. "Or popcorn-on-the-cob and giant apples," Apple jack points out. "Or freakishly mutated bunny rabbits," Fluttershy suggests. "Or those tacky cotton candy clouds," Rarity adds. "Or those delicious chocolate-raining cotton candy clouds!" Pinkie adds again. "I am well aware. However, Discord himself is still missing, and this note was found in his chambers," Celestia adds. A little piece of paper floats over to Twilight. " 'Off to cause some chaos. BRB.' Princess, what's a 'BRB'?" "I'm not quite sure, this doesn't make any sense." For some reason there's a long awkward silence, as if the ponies expect something to happen. When nothing does, I clear my throat. "Be right back." "Where you off to, RD?" Applejack asks. Queen bitch looks at me. "Nowhere. BRB is… 'Be Right Back' " I clarify. "Oh… I see." "Um, Princess, we have a teensy little problem with Rainbow Dash…" Twilight says bashfully. "Oh? What's seems to be the trouble?" Celestia asks. "Oh, it's nothing," Twilight starts, "She seems to have very minor case of… COMPLETE amnesia. I tried a few spells myself, but nothing worked." The Princess turns to me and walks closer. Damn she's tall. She actually has to kneel down to meet my eye level. "What can you remember, my little pony?" She asks, giving me a gentle smile, yet to me, it's completely unnerving. "Ummmmmm..." Shit, fuck... better look as confused as possible until I can think of something. "Are you in pain, Rainbow?" "Huh? No." "Well, you looked like- oh, never mind." "I guess I just remember waking up on a cloud and all of Twilight's memories about me." "What do you mean?" She looks over to Twilight. "Twilight, did you…? do… what I think you did?" "I… thought it would help!" Twilight defends herself. A slightly annoyed sigh comes from Celestia. Her breath smells like flowers. More like roses. Not really the best smell. "I see… Well, do you mind if I have a look?" …Good Game. Guess this is it. "Sure…" Celestia looks at me and hesitates. "…If you don't want me to, I won't." "Well… I think I've had enough mind invasion for one day." Church 1, ponies 0. Wait, I'm a pony… Church 1, dumb ponies 0. "Well, we can work this out later. I'm sure Rainbow's memory will return on its own soon." Celestia says to the others, she looks at me and continues, "For now, I just need you to be strong for your friends, and use your element should you have to." The other princess, the blue one, wanders towards us. She looks tired. Dead tired. She's all wobbly on her feet. "Art thou…" she shakes her head, "Are you capable, Rainbow Dash?" She asks from behind half-lidded eyes. "I dunno... are you ok?" "We are very tired. We… I have not slept since yesterday. Or was that the day before? Our internal calendar has suffered from our sleep deprivation, it seems." She looks like she's about to fall over. Somebody get this bitch a cup of coffee, damn. "And why haven't you slept...?" "We intend to be awake for this event with Discord. Being the Princess of the Night, I had slept through the last time, when the Bringer of Chaos escaped his stone imprisonment… And I also slept through the entire changeling invasion of Canterlot… So we will be awake this time…" She says, almost nodding off. "Oh Luna, you look like you're about to fall over! Won't you please get some sleep?" "Not this time, sister," she says defiantly. "Hmm… well…" Celestia turns to the rest of us, "Discord is nowhere to be found, so you all must find some clue as to where he went, and if possible, track down the draconequus himself. Do you have the Elements, Twilight?" Twilight levitates the book out of her saddlebags and opens it to show Celestia. She gives a little smirk at the contents and says, "Good. I still agree with Spike though, you should keep them on display in the library." "Well, I agree that they would make a beautiful decoration for the library, but I'm just worried that they'll be affected by some stray magic from all the spells I'm always working on." "You worry too much, my faithful student. Alright everypony, I think it would be best if you would start the search in Discord's chambers." "And make haste, we are tired," Luna adds. "Right! Let's go!" Twilight says. "Oh, before you go, would anypony care for some fruit?" Did Celestia just… That's it, I'm outta here! I'm not getting blasted off to the moon! Fuck that! I get up off the carpet and run for the door! A minute later I hear hooves pounding the floor behind me. "WHOA, GIRL! Hold up!" It's Applejack. Suddenly I feel a strong tugging on my ass. That, and my little pony hooves loose traction and I stop moving. A quick glance behind me AJ has my fag-flag tail gripped firmly between her teeth. I give up running in place, my head hung low in defeat. She walks over to face me and looks at me questioningly. "I... uh… don't like fruit?" "Now lookie here RD… I know there's something ya ain't tellin' us." "Uh… no?" "I can't rightly say I know what's goin' on in that there noggin o' yours, and maybe y'all do have amnesier," she shrugs. How can they shrug like that? "But I just want to let you know that we'll always be your friends and we'll be behind ya no matter what choice ya make. Even if ya do wanna move away to Los Pegasus." "Oh… kay…?" I have no idea what she's talking about! "But I still can't shake the feeling y'all are hidin' something from us, amnesier or not. When you're good 'n ready to tell us, jus' go ahead. I promise ya, I won't be mad. C'mon, let's head back. Our friends are waitin'." "Sure..." I follow her as she walks off. "Oh there you are darling," Rarity says from behind a happy façade. "Are you ok Rainbow? What was that all about?" Says Twilight, showing genuine concern. Pinkie and Fluttershy remain depressingly quiet. I look at Applejack, her hat's hung low and despite the little pep talk she gave me, it's pitifully obvious that she's sad too. All because of me and my botched birthday wish. They're sad, I'm stuck in a lesbian cartoon pony's body, this sucks for both parties and I want it to be over fast. Activating poker face. "I'm so sorry Rainbow, I didn't mean to upset you." What? No, this, this… it's my poker face. Not my upset face, my poker face. Dammit. "Well, never mind," Twilight dismisses. "Let's get going," She says as she walks out the doors. "Go where?" I ask. Twilight looks back to me- DAMN they can turn their heads far! Can horses do that? "Discord's… bedroom." I wonder if I can do that too? "Maybe we can find some clues… Rainbow, what are you looking at?" I whip my head back forwards to face Twilight again. "Oh, nothing." "Um… aren't you… going in?" I gesture at the plain wooden door. It would look like a closet or something, if it wasn't covered in posters and stickers like a teenager's bedroom door. It even has a 'do not enter' street sign… "I guess we have to..." Twilight concedes, but neither her nor anyone else makes any effort to open the door. I sigh and reach for the door knob. Wait. I don't have fingers. How in the hell… why would they make door knobs?! That's so dumb! "Alright, enough dilly-dallyin." Applejack walks up to the door. "Well ain't that just like the rascal, puttin' up posters of himself." I take another look at the posters on the door. All of them feature this weird (and familiar) looking creature. Except for one. A poster of Fluttershy modeling a stylish dress. Huh. With a skilled proficiency that I could never hope to achieve, Applejack turns the door knob and nudges the door. It creaks as it swings open. She audibly gulps and treads warily into the darkness. "Uh, a little light here Twi? Oh wait. I found a light chain." Click-click Damn that's bright! After my eyes adjust, I chance a peek inside the room… Hey, it's not a room at all, it's outside! We all walk in. The first thing I notice, other than being outside when I should be inside, is that the floor is different. It's not hard marble or even velvet carpet… it's grass. Pink grass, with a checkerboard pattern. Oh hey there's that pull chain for the light. I trace it upwards (ow my eyes) straight up to the sun. Clocks melted over tree branches. A house floating a hundred feet off the ground, upside down. A life size sand castle. A house of cards… cards bigger than me. There's a mountain off in the distance that looks like it's made of ice cream, and the snow on top is whipped cream. I keep looking around and… hey wait, where's the castle? It's not here! The door… is just a door frame! Just standing there, still open to the castle hallway we came from. Man this is some trippy shit. "Whoa nelly, this is just downright weird!" "Tacky is more like it," Rarity snobbishly replies. "I dunno, I kinda like it in here!" Pinkie seems to brighten up. "It's… scary," Fluttershy peeps. "This… is Discord's bedroom?" Twilight asks in confusion. "Makes sense to me! He likes things to be all chaos-y waos-y! Right?" Pinkie exclaims. "Well. What now?" AJ asks. I clear my throat. "Alright gang, let's split up and look for clues." My Scooby Doo reference goes completely unnoticed by Twilight, who answers, "Um… I guess so. Why don't you and Fluttershy check out the… uh… over-there area?" She points to the gingerbread plains. "Rarity and Pinkie Pie check over there," she points to the fudgy marshlands. "And Applejack, you're with me." Me and Fluttershy look at each other. And we take the yellow brick road in the direction Twilight pointed. No. Literally. It's a road paved with yellow bricks. We pass candy cane trees on the way to the gingerbread mansion over here. This isn't a bedroom. It's goddamn world. "So, wanna check out that place?" I ask Flutters. "Um, I guess so…" Her enthusiasm amazes me. It's about the same as mine, actually. I sigh and look down at the red grass. It looks like… Sniff Licorice? Ah, what the hell. I'll take a bite of grass, I'm a horse anyway. Oh hey, it is licorice. Yum. Fluttershy gives me a funny look. "Try some." She reluctantly does so, and looks pleasantly surprised as she munches the sticky candy. "Hey Flutters, what's it like to fly, like how easy is it?" She looks uneasy about the question, but answers anyway, "Well… I was never very good at it… but still, after a while, it just comes naturally." "Oh... so it's not something that you can teach?" "So you did forget how to fly…" She says sadly, pawing the licorice grass. "I wouldn’t really be good enough to teach you…" She looks up and sees my best puppy dog eyes, "…but I guess I could try…" YES! SCORE! I walk closer to Flutters. "So um, where do we start?" "Well… um… spread out your wings…" "Uhhhhhh…" The hell? I did it earlier. I wiggle my back around a bit, trying to find the muscles, but I just can't, all I feel is the tickle of feathers brushing against fur. (It's kind of a neat feeling actually. Don't judge me.) I twist around a bit... oh, hey… kinda working. I think… I… POMF "AH HA!" "Good… now um, give them a flap." Flap Flap I… actually felt that being wrong. "Oh, good… but um… you need to kind of arch them on the way up… sort of." She extends a wing and demonstrates the motion. Flap Flap Flap Hey! I actually got some lift going on here! "Good! Now you just need to…" CRASH "…work on your control..." Ow. Pthhtooie. I spit out a couple of waffles, and try to dislodge myself from this waffle bush. "That was um… a really good try, Rainbow…" I feel like my eyes are rolling around in my skull. I shake my head to clear my vision. "I was never good at hovering when I was little… maybe you should try flying in a straight line." "Mmk. I'll give it a go." I'M FLYING! "WEEEEEEEEEE!" CRASH "OOF! Ow." I made it about ten yards then I fell and rolled on the ground. It's kinda fun though, minus the pain. Nothing but air under my feet (goddammit) hooves, it's nice. I shake myself like a wet dog drying off to dislodge any licorice and waffles stuck in my coat from all this contact with candyland. As I finish, I hear a strange laughter… deep manly laughter, but not something I'd call evil… coming from over by the giant gingerbread house. "Um… Flutters, I hear someone over there," I point a hoof to the house. "Oh, my… Um, I don't know, should we go look?" "Maybe we should get the others first." "Ok, let's go find them." I walk back down the road, with Flutters following close behind. Every so often I do a wing-assisted jump for a little practice. Can't hover worth shit though. Oh, look, Twilight's walking this way, with Applejack in tow. "Did you find anything, girls?" Twilight asks us. "No, not really. But we heard someone laughing over there by the house," I respond, Flutters just nods lightly in agreement. "Rainbow, could you fly over… actually, Fluttershy, do you think you could fly over and see who's over there?" Twilight commands. "Oh… um… ok…" "Well wouldn't it be better if we all went in together? What if Flutters gets caught?" Good guy Church, looks out for his team. "Yeah, it might be a trap for all we know," Applejack adds. "Hmm… maybe you're right, let's go get Rarity and Pinkie." And we follow to somewhere near the door, where Rarity and Pinkie were waiting. Twilight regales us with her part of the search. Something about trekking up an active volcano, where this Dick-cord guy's bed was hovering right over a pit of lava. And apparently his bed is a giant, live tongue with marshmallows for pillows and lasagna noodles for blankets. But no clues. Twilight asks, "How did your search go girls?" "It was fun!" Pinkie answers. "Ugh… but we didn't find much of anything," Rarity says with clear distaste. Her hooves are covered in shi- probably chocolate, let's go with chocolate. Pinkie's face is covered in it. Pinkie giggle-snorts. "Yeah but there was chocolate everywhere!" "Well," Twilight starts, "Rainbow and Fluttershy said they heard laughter over by that house. Let's go check it out." And so we do. We quietly sneak around back of the house, hiding behind the waffle-bushes, where we can clearly hear two dudes talking and laughing. "You're so sweet…" One dude says… kind of seductively. "Hehe stop teasing, it's just the chocolate," the other dude says, audibly splashing some liquid. "Yeah it is the chocolate. And you're the marshmallow." "Hey so are you." "Yeah, just you and me. Two lonely marshmallows in this cup of hot cocoa. Mmm…" Twilight bursts through the bushes. "Who are you two?! And what are you doing here?" She accuses. The rest of us come out of hiding and we see a giant coffee mug halfway in the ground, filled to the brim with steaming, bubbling hot chocolate. There's pony guard armor pieces scattered around the ground and the two white ponies (two DUDES) sitting neck-deep in the drink / hot tub are starting to turn an even paler white than they were already. "Uhhhhhh…" The one guy looks to the other one for an answer. And doesn't get one. He gives us a sheepish smile, and shrugs innocently. "It's not what it looks like?" > Brave New World (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you mean 'huh'?" "I mean uh, hi?" I smile like an idiot. This guy's just giving me a blank stare. I'm kinda nervous, he must know me… "You're not very good at listening are you?" "Not really," I shrug helplessly. Whoever this is, he has a long, slightly wavy, black mane, with slicked-back bangs. He's wearing black sunglasses that are… a lot like my favorite pair back home, actually. "Shame," he smirks, "so where ya headed?" He asks. "I uh… nowhere special. Just um… felt like getting out of the house," I answer on the fly. Hey, it's pretty much true. "Well, I'm heading to Danny's house. Kinda thought you'd be going there today, too. But first, I'm going to the gas station. Care to join me, pal?" "…Sure?" I immediately regret my decision… should have just said no and went back home. Now I'm going to dig myself into a hole! I follow him in awkward silence for maybe five minutes. But now I notice something. Something bright on his depressing black clothes, a little lanyard type thing hanging out of one of his flank pockets (not that I was looking at his flank, or anything…). It's white and has a little pendant thing on the end. I walk a little closer to him and squint at the thing, trying to get a better look. No way. I'd know those blue diamonds anywhere! What is this guy doing with Rarity's cutie mark hanging out of his pocket?! "Hey, uh," (guy who's name I don't know!), "what's with the thing hanging out of your pocket?" "What? This?" He says, grabbing it from his pocket. "It's the lanyard that Claire got me last Friday. Thought I showed it to you already…?" "I mean… what's that on it? The diamonds…" "Yep. They're diamonds alright..." He says sarcastically. "Oh for the love of…!" I facehoof… (facehand?) "I mean… where are they from? What do they mean? You know!" "Dude. Come on. You know it's Rarity's cutie mark from MLP. Stop playing with me man, you should know this." So it is! It's not a coincidence. I don't know what em-el-pee is, but that IS Rarity's cutie mark! "So um…" I'm trying to sound as casual as possible, "you know Rarity?" I know it's a stupid question, I'm pretty sure I'd know if Rarity knew any of these humans… but how else was I supposed to ask this? "What kind of question is that, Church?" Ugh! Why is this guy being so difficult?! "You know… uh…" I can't drop this now! If he knows Rarity, he might know a way back! Or at least a way to send a letter… or something! "Well you have to know Rarity if you have her cutie mark on a lanyard!" "Oh yeah, like I got this from Rarity herself or something. Also, last time a checked, you never liked MLP. So, did you finally watch it?" He's giving me a huge smile with that question. "What the hay is em-el-pee?!" Oops, I let that slip! It was probably something I should have known about, like this guy's name and where in the hay I am right now! "Holy shit." He stops walking completely and whips off his shades. "Church just said 'what the hay.' Wow. Somebody check the temperature in hell! You like ponies don't you?" He says with a huge toothy grin, biting his lower lip. "Uh, I guess. Why wouldn't I?" He's so completely flabbergasted that he just stares at me for a couple seconds. "Hell, about a month ago you told me you completely loath-… er, didn't really like them, unless you were lying then…?" He asks with a playful little smirk, as he slowly slides his shades back on his face. Even if he's just playing with me, I still talked myself into some kind of corner… "Uh…" Oh look, a little truth… "A lot's changed since then…" "Well that's good! So who's your favorite? Come on, tell me, tell me!" That smile seems to be plastered on his face now, what's with that? He's creeping me out! "Who's my favorite… what? Pony?" "Well, doy!" Why do I have to pick a favorite? I have five best friends. I could name a random acquaintance… but maybe this is a trick question! Maybe he's a SPY! My mind suddenly turns to a little orange filly. Probably the only pony I'd let down by not joining the Wonderbolts. She looks up to me. Like a big sister. Now that I think about it, I probably should spend some more time with my number one fan / sort-of-little-sister. She reminds me of myself when I was her age… head in the clouds. Figuratively. She can't fly yet, but she tries so hard to when I'm with her. It's so cute. "Scootaloo." "Scoots? Really? I mean, hey, awesome pick, but uh, you just don't seem like the type- ah, what the hell. She's cool." That's it? He seems to be done with this convo, oh well. I'll have to weasel some more information out of him later. Anyway, I think this is the 'gas station' we were headed for. There's a lot of these car-things here. Not really sure why. I follow him inside a little building with a glass door. He walks to the back of this store, and opens another glass door, with stuff behind it, and picks up a can. I can't read the label. "You want anything?" He asks, pointing to the bottles and cans behind glass doors. Drinks. I could use a drink after that little sprint. "You buying?" I smile as I ask, I don't think I have any bits on me. "For our new brony here, why not?" Well that's nice of him. "Cool." What's a 'brony'? I canter over and look. I honestly don't know what I'm looking for. Cider would hit the spot right about now, but I don't think they'd have any. I guess I'll just have what he's having. I pick up a can that looks like the one he had. And it's nice and cold. He walks over to the… shopkeeper… and I follow him there and put my can on the counter next to his. He pulls a black cloth thing out of his pocket, that looks suspiciously like the one in my pocket right now, and pulls a piece of paper out of it. Paper money? Weird. The shopkeeper gives him some coins back. So paper and coins? Huh. Drinks paid for, my new friend and I walk out the door, and back down the path we came from. It's a quiet walk, with just us two sipping our drinks (which I followed his example on how to open), and him still smiling like a complete idiot, back to the three-way intersection where I bumped into him. He starts taking me down the road I haven't been down yet, when I suddenly hear a funny noise. Like music. He digs in his pocket and takes out a black rectangle thing. He taps it with a finger and puts it up to his ear. "Y'ello? Yeah. What!? Where are you gonna be? Alright. Alright, I- I'll be right there." (I think he's talking into the box.) He pockets the thingy again and talks to me this time, "Hey sorry Church, got a family emergency I gotta tend to. When you get to Danny's, tell him I'll be there later… probably." Aw, horseapples. I don't know where I'm going! "Um, actually, I think I have to go home! I uh… left my icebox open!" "What? Well whatever man, gotta run! Seeya! Oh, and welcome to the herd!" And he sprints off, through a lot full of cars that nopony is in, chucking his drink can as he goes. Whatever that was all about must be important. "That was a close save though…" I turn back and go down the road I came from. There's almost nopony around now. Funny, I could swear there were more people earlier. And I didn't get to see much of this place when I was running through. I pass a bunch of houses. There's a really big building, looks like it might be a big school. Past that, there's a old cracked road that leads down to some rundown buildings, maybe a factory or something. I walk and a few more houses go by. Geez it seems like everything around here is rundown. There's trash everywhere, like newspapers and empty cans in the road. A way's down, and across the road from me, I see another 'gas station.' But this one obviously hasn't been used in a while. The stone paved lot has tons of weeds growing out of it. I keep walking. But I'm stopped by something unusual… a stray cardboard box in the middle of the sidewalk. I notice this particular box because it happens to be in my way. A person seems to come from the direction of the gas station and crosses the road to get to me. Another friend I guess? "Hey Church, what's up?" This dude is kind of scrawny. He has a stupid haircut, and an even stupider smile. "Uh, not much, just headed home. Heh heh." "Awwww, why? When you could hang out with your best friend Dyllen?" He puts his arm around my shoulder. Personal space, dude. Yep, another friend… Now I know how Twilight felt when she first came to Ponyville and met all of us. I look up to the sun, it can't be much past noon. I have a whole day of moping around the house planned for the rest of the day. That, and maybe some Harry Potter and bacon. Mmm, bacon… "Eh, sure, why not?" At least 'Dyllen' unintentionally introduced himself. Makes this a little easier. "Well alright, let's go." He crosses the street toward the old gas station. That's funny, looks like he's going into the deserted gas station shop. BRRRRRRRR What the hay? BRRRRRRRR There's something moving in my pocket! I dig around in there and find the plastic rectangle thing is vibrating. A little window on the top of it says 'Call from Danny.' Wasn't that the guy me and what's-his-face were going to go see? The thing vibrates some more. I notice it looks like it opens up, so I flip it open. There's another little window on the inside and some buttons with numbers. It still says 'Danny.' "Hello?" The thing says. "Uh, hello?" I ask the thing. "Hey, aren't you coming over today?" Wait, am I talking to Danny? Cool. "Uh… I don't think so, I'm hanging out with Dyllen…" "Uhhh, so you are coming over then?" He asks sarcastically. Huh? Wait. "Does that mean Dyllen is over there with you?" I ask, worrying and waiting for an answer. "Naw, he was bored of waiting for you so he went out to find something to do." Oh… thank Celestia… "HAHA! Yeah, right! You know all he does is sit around the house! He's here waiting for you to come over so we can play." I look over to the guy who just said he was Dyllen. But now this Danny says Dyllen is with him… Oh buck. I hope it's not… Gasp CHANGELINGS! > Speak of the Devil (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two pony soldiers in a chocolate hot tub. You know what? I'm not even surprised anymore. As we walk away, Twilight goes, "While they technically abandoned their post, since Discord isn't in here, I guess they don't really have much to guard anyway. So let's just leave them alone and get out of here." I hear the guards talking from behind us. "I'll be Shining Armor, you can be Princess Cadence." "Aw, I was Cadence last time!" Twilight chimes in, "Let's go before Fluttershy hears any more of this." Flutters looks offended, "I'm a year older than you." We start walking back to the door. Rarity leans over and whispers to Fluttershy, "I don't think that froth was whipped cream in that hot chocolate," she snickers. "Oh… my," her yellow friend blushes. Pinkie bounces over, "I ate some of it! Ima go get some more!" AJ bites Pinkie's tail and holds her back. "Oh no you don't Pinkie!" What's Twilight's next ingenious plan? "So what now?" "Well… I'm stumped," Twilight admits. "Discord just came to us last time he caused trouble." Pinkie slides past us, like she's ice skating on the brick path. "Look! This astroglide stuff makes my hooves all slippery!" She faces us, holding a little clear bottle in her mouth. "What is this stuff?" "Pinkie!" AJ shouts, "put that down!" She spits it off to the side and we keep walking. Awkward silence hangs in the air as we walk the yellow brick road back to the bedroom door. The quiet is broken by a low rumbling noise… that seems to be coming from my stomach. "I think RD's got the right idea. Can't save the world on a empty stomach!" Applejack enthusiastically responds to my bowel noises. "I could use a cupcake… or twenty!" says Pinkie. I swear to god if we eat cupcakes for dinner, Ima kill someone. "Pinkie, ya just had a whole mess o' chocolate!" "Exactly! Now I need some nice vanilla cupcakes to balance out the chocolate!" Well, at least Pinkie's in a much more chipper mood now. After bringing Celestia up to speed, and watching Luna repeatedly doze off, we find ourselves in some kind of dining room (though the word 'hall' might fit better), being waited on hand and foot… wait… how does that work here? Hand and hoof, hoof and foot, hoof and hoof… dammit… by an army of servants. We're all seated on fluffy cushions instead of chairs… which somehow makes sense. The kitchen staff must be used to serving guests, they have a menu prepared, and I lean over the table to read the one in front of me. I look at the menu. 'DLT' sandwich… daisy, lettuce, and tomato. Huh. Chrysanthemum crostinis. Buckwheat sandwich on barley bread. Spaghetti and wheatballs. Hay fries. Hay, pink rose, and hay sandwich on egg bread. Cabbage, cauliflower, and hay stew. Hay quiche. Hay cordon bleu. Brazed hay in tortellini. Hay soufflé. Hay truffles. Hay brulee. Hay burgundy. Hay mignon with mushrooms and sauce pinot noir. Tomato, hay, and basil bruschetta. Hay marsala. Hay alfredo. Hay parmesan. Hay, hay, hay, baked beans, and hay. Spinach and tofu lasagna seasoned with fresh herbs and garnished with steamed carrots, broccoli, and… hay. I look behind me to the waiter. "Do you have anything without hay in it?" "Well, there's the hay, pink rose, and hay sandwich on egg bread. It's not got much hay in it." "I don't want any hay! Or flowers…" Applejack leans over toward me. "Why can't you have the tomato, hay, and basil bruschetta?" "That's got hay in it!" "Not as much as the hay, rose, and hay sandwich," she says. "Look, could I have the tomato, hay, and basil bruschetta, without the hay?" I ask. "Ew!" The waiter sticks his tongue out in disgust. "What d'ya mean 'ew'?! I don't like hay!" "HAY, HAY, HAY, HAY," all the waiters start chanting! "SHUT UP! Stop singing!" The waiter yells at his coworkers. "You can't have the tomato, hay, and basil bruschetta without hay because it wouldn't be tomato, hay, and basil bruschetta!" "Oh don't make a fuss Rainbow, I'll eat your hay," Applejack says, "I love it! I'm having hay, hay, hay, baked beans, and hay!" They're chanting 'hay' again… "SHUT IT!" The waiter yells. "Just give me the goddamn pumpkin pie. A lot of it." "Just the pumpkin pie, madam?" Madam? FUCK. "Yes. Thank you." The rest of my team orders flower sandwiches and alfalfa salads, Pinkie ordered a cake. Like no joke, a whole cake. The food arrives, they literally serve it on silver platters, and the waiters make a show of it, too. I drool at the huge slice of pie before me. I look across the table from me and notice that Applejack has a frosty glass beer mug filled with some foamy amber liquid. She gives me a smug smile while raising her glass, and downs some cider. She would. I look back down to my plate and grab a fork. Hang on. I can't. Why is there silverware here?! I look around. Oh… scumbag unicorns can use the silverware… A quick glance at Applejack tells me it's A-ok to just dig in with my mouth. When in Rome… As we finish our food, conversation finally breaks the heavy silence in the air. Pinkie Pie is laying back on her cushion, patting her full belly. She belches obnoxiously, sits up, and asks, "So Twilight, where do you think Discord went? Maybe we should go talk to those guards in the chocolate hot tub again!" "Uh, no, I don't think we should. Let's just… let them have their privacy," Twilight replies. "I wonder if he really did go… bad again," AJ ponders. "Bad? Hmph, of course not bad. Well… 'bad' is a relative term! Heh heh heh… but maybe just a tiny bit naughty." Gasps, and all the heads in the room turn to where the new voice came from, a few seats away from us, down the table. "DISCORD!" Twilight venomously shouts as she takes an offensive stance on her seat cushion. The waiters scurry out of the room. "Oh, hello Twilight," the thing smiles politely, "Nice to see you again too," his voice drips with sarcasm. Ah, so he finally makes an appearance. He does look vaguely familiar. He's like a mesh of a bunch of different animal parts, like a chimera. Somehow, he has a giant pile of sandwiches on a platter in front of him. Just chowing down. Are those ham sandwiches? "Mmm, oh, don't mind me! Carry on your little conversation," Discord says with a mouthful of food, waving a paw for them to continue. Applejack slams a hoof on the table. "Where've you been all this time? Ya mangy varmint!" "Oh, Applejack, I'm doing just swell! Thank you so much for asking…" He takes a bite out of a sandwich and talks with his mouth full, "I've been over in the Griffon Kingdom, having a little fun. Turns out, griffons can be quite violent." He reaches behind him and pulls a bloody dagger out of his back, making a schlick sound. He examines the blade for a second, and tosses it over his shoulder. "Oh well," he says with a shrug. "Discord…" Fluttershy says carefully, "were you being bad in the Griffon Kingdom?" She stares at him intently. "Hi Fluttershy," he smiles sincerely, "long time no see." "Discord." He sighs, "Oh Fluttershy, you just don't know what it's like to be a spirit of CHAOS. Sometimes I just need to get out there and stretch the old chaos muscles." He stretches out his mismatched arms. "You sure did enough of that in your so-called bedroom!" Twilight accuses. "Oh sure, Celestia lets me have my way with that little broom closet, but what fun is chaos if there's nopony around to enjoy it?" Twilight looks disturbed and angry. "Now, now, don't worry Twilight. I didn't do anything nearly as 'bad' as last time." He air-quoted 'bad.' "Do define 'bad' for us, darling," Rarity rolls her eyes. "Wait. Have you all been looking for me? I left a note, you know." "Discord," Twilight takes a breath and calms down a bit. "it was very vague." "Well I'm sorry. I didn't know I had a curfew. I am supposed to be 'reformed,' you know." Isn't he a bad guy in this show? "They reformed you?" I ask incredulously. "Yes, Rainbow Dash, remember? You were there-" he stops mid sentence and stares me right in the eyes with a big fuzzy white eyebrow cocked way up high. In a flash of light he disappears, then with another flash, reappears right beside me. "Discord," Flutters starts, "you leave her alone. She's had a really hard day." "Don't be ridiculous, Fluttershy. I'm not going to hurt her. After all, any friend of yours is a friend of mine… but this one's not exactly a friend of yours, is she?" Is it just me, or did it just get warmer in here? I just look up at the big guy as he towers over me, examining me with a claw stroking his goatee. "Ummmmmmmmmm, can I help you?" I ask him. He just chuckles in response. In fact, he starts laughing. Maniacally. Yeah… I'm gonna back off… towards the door. The ponies give me weird looks as I back away. I turn and high tail it outta there. The giant double doors slam shut. SMASH Ow! My nose! Discord's laugh slows to a chuckle, and he manages to say, "And where do you think you're going?" I spy some open windows on the other side of the table, but it's too far, he'll close them before I can fly out. I think I'll just inch my way around the table. "What in heaven's name is going on, Discord?" Rarity asks. "This is just priceless!" He answers, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "What're you talkin' bout?!" Applejack barks. There's a bunch of 'yeah's from the others. I'm at the end of the table now, near the kitchen doors. So close… "It's- it's just so funny because you all actually think that's Rainbow!" He teleports next to Twilight. "What's the matter Twilight? Don't recognize a mind swap when you see one? I know I do!" "Shut up you… you stupid chimera! This is probably your fault anyway!" I try to buy some time as I inch towards the open window. "Oh, I'd think I'd know if this was my work, Not-Rainbow. I haven't done a mind swap in eons! But they were SO much fun!" "Mind swap?" Twilight asks, completely confused. Discord conjures up a bubble pipe and a monocle. "Hmm, quite." "So, what yer sayin' is… that's Rainbow, but not?" Applejack asks. There's some murmurs from the others. He flashes over to Applejack, and puts his arm around her shoulders. "How intuitive of you, Applejack… What part about 'mind swap' don't you get? Here, let me show you an example." He looks over to Pinkie and Flutters with a mischievous smirk. He snaps his talon fingers, and bright flashes of light come from both of them. Pinkie holds her hooves in front of her face, looks at them wide-eyed, and says in a very soft voice, "Oh… oh my…" then she faints and falls sideways onto the cushion she was sitting on. Flutters just flies around in a circle, screaming, "WEEEEEEE!!!" And then lands on top of one of the massive crystal chandeliers, making it jingle. Well shit... How the hell can she fly already? "…What did you just do?" I ask, trying to buy even more time. Discord turns to me, leaning on Applejack, much to her annoyance, and looks me up and down (I think he noticed I moved). "Oh, just a little mind swap, Pinkie's much more entertaining as a pegasus, don't you think?" He says, pointing to Not-Fluttershy, who's flying between the chandeliers and giggling now. "Discord! You put them back this instant!" Rarity demands. "Now why would I do that? Look! She's doing barrel rolls now! Ha ha!" He claps his hands. Twilight turns her dumfounded face back to Discord. "But if she's not Rainbow, then who is she?" She asks, taking a glance in my direction. Discord throws his mismatched arms up in the air, "I HAVE NO IDEA!" At this, I jump out the open window and flutter off. "Ok, where the hell could Princess Smellestia be, up in that tower maybe?" I ask myself as I wobbly fly across a courtyard. Holy shit, that's a long way down! Uh oh. That tower's a little farther than I thought it was. I'm losing my rhythm! C'mon! C'mon you can make it Church! How the hell was this so easy for Pinkie?! AH! I'M DRIFTING TO THE LEFT! SO CLOSE! AH! AH! AH… oh look I landed already. I'm on a big balcony hanging off the top of this tower. There's a telescope on the edge of the balcony, pointed downward. The glass door to inside is open, creaking as it moves back and forth slightly in the breeze. I slip in. The room is strangely dark, but no one's here. There's not much to look at, a desk with some papers, that's about it. I open the door at the back of the room. Thank god for lever type door handles. I look and see the stairs leading down. But I hear someone galloping up the stairs. Fast. Before I know it, I'm face to face with the princess I was looking for. She says nothing and rushes past me. I back up and fall on my rump. She magicks the door closed in front of me. "Rainbow Dash! What are you doing here?!" She yells at me in a whisper. "Um, great minds think alike?" She gives me an angry glare then reverts to her previous look of anxious confusion. "But really, Discord's in your castle." "WHAT?!" She yells, for real this time. "Mind swapping your ponies." "WHAT?!?!" We both look to the door as we hear hoofsteps coming up the stairs. And here comes… "Princess! Are you in there?!" The door says in a gruff voice. "Who's that?" I whisper, pointing a non-existent thumb toward the door. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK "One of my personal guards." "Princess, it's me! Cutlass! Please open the door!" The door says. "I can't trust you, 'Cutlass'!" Oh man… I could hear the quotes around his name. Thank god I'm 100% trustworthy. BANG The guard is trying to break the door down, apparently. "Any plans?" BANG She looks at me, then looks longingly out towards the balcony. "Fly away?" She says with a twinge of sadness in her voice. BANG "Where to?" BANG She looks despairingly at the floor, and answers, "Anywhere but here…" Damn. Someone's having a rough day… BANG "Alright, we should go get your sister first, right? Which tower is she in?" BANG "Yes." She perks up. "We should see if she's safe. Her bedchamber is in the east wing. Follow me." She gallops out to the balcony and takes flight. As I follow suit as best as I can, I ask, "So she finally went to sleep then?" I don't get an answer. As I clumsily follow her, I notice we're flying further away from the dining hall. Thankfully, it's not far and we land on another balcony, much lower to the ground, on a long side of the castle. As we land, something clicks in my head. "Wait, why can you trust me over your personal guard?" She stops in her tracks, and turns her head to face me. "My other guard, Heavy Steel…" She inhales deeply. "Was a changeling…" > Dungeons and Dragons (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buck. I know I don't know any of these ponies, er, people, but now this Danny guy is telling me this 'Dyllen' guy's somewhere else, but this guy right in front of me claims he's Dyllen! Maybe I know two of them? Nah, how many ponies have the same names? So that means… one of them is lying to me… Right? Are there changeling humans? "... Hello?" The voice from the thing in my hand asks. "Uh, what?" I say as I snap out of my thoughts. That's right, I was talking to Danny on the thing. "So, you gonna come over or what?" He asks. What do I do? Somepony's lying here… "Um… I think I might be a little busy…" I don't even know where his place is, wouldn't be able to go anyway. "Oh please, Church, like you have a life. Just get over here." Buck! "No, I'm uh… pretty busy! Yeah, I got a date with my uh… marefriend Fluttershy!" I just realized… Dyllen is staring at me. One of his eyebrows is cocked up, he must have heard me. "lolwhat?" Danny says… "Uh… gotta go!" I close the talky thingy, and shove it in my pocket. "Sooooo… where's this 'Fluttershy'?" Dyllen asks, a wry smirk plastered on his mug. "Uh…" I wonder… "Nowhere! Just made her up!" I chuckle nervously. "Right, so are we gonna go to Danny's?" "What?!" WHAT IS GOING ON?! "I was just talking with him! He said you were over there with him!" "No? I was just walking there, I left home a few minutes ago." "What the hay is going on here…?" I mutter. "You know what? FINE. Let's go! I wanna get to the bottom of this!" "The bottom of… what?" "Don't play dumb with me! You know exactly what I mean!" I get up close to him and poke him in the chest. "Right… Um, ok buddy." "I'm not your buddy, pal!" "Wow, that's… not very nice, Church. Whatever, let's just go already." So I followed 'Dyllen' back through town and down that one street that what's-his-face led me down part way. It's been about 15 minutes. We're still walking, it looks like we're not really in town anymore. We're getting closer to a house on a small hill. Hmm, this place looks… familiar somehow. There's a barn off to the side of the house, and a little shack that almost looks like the Cutie Mark Crusaders' club house… minus the tree. I follow him inside the house. Directly to my left, there's a scruffy looking plump man sitting on a couch and watching the magic movie box thing. Er, actually, it looks like he's doing something with it. Like playing a game or something. The couch guy stops what he's doing and turns to look at us. "Oh, there you are! We're still waiting for Silas to get here, then we can start." Couch guy sounds a lot like the 'Danny' I talked with on the thing. Funny… he didn't mention me flaking out on him. "So, wanna play?" Danny asks me, offering me a funny-shaped white thing with buttons on it. "Uhhhhhh…" My masculine voice reaches a very high note at the end of that. "Sure?" I take the device and fall into the couch. Danny walks over to Dyllen and whispers something to him. I look at the magic movie box. It says 'Soul Calibur V.' What the hay is this? "You suck," Dyllen keeps saying that, but he's just trying to get under my fur. Him and Danny are standing behind the couch and snickering while I play this game. Danny's actually trying to help by telling me what to do. It's not really working though. This is crazy! The buttons he's telling me to push make no sense, and I haven't even gotten used to working these hands yet! After a while, a tall guy with a warmhearted smile walks in. Maybe that's 'Silas'? "Hey guys, what's up?" "I give up on this game," I declare, tossing the controller on the couch. "Good, we're all here. Now we can start," Danny says in a really ominous voice. I get all shaky. "Start… what?" I ask, trying not to show any fear. Danny's creepy grin turns into a lighthearted smile. "Dungeons and Dragons, of course!" "We're all set up in the game room, go on in," Silas points a long finger at a door. They all stand still. They expect me to go in first. I gulp. Something's very fishy about all this… I take careful, slow steps towards the door. I turn the handle and gently push it open… First thing I see is a table with some kind of board game set up on it. Huh. "So how do we-" THWACK Ow. My head. Hurts. I hear voices. I keep my eyes closed. "What are we going to do with him?" Is that Danny? "IDIOT! You know what we're doing with him! He's the whole reason we're HERE!" Dyllen…? "He's not. She is…" I think that's the tall guy. What's his name again? Silas? Ow! My head is pounding! "We'll probably be done with her by tomorrow anyway," Dyllen says nonchalantly. "Once everything is prepared…" Danny says, chuckling evilly. I open my eyes, they're looking right at me. "What do you want with me?!" I yell! I try to get up, but I'm tied to this chair! The rope chafes against my arms as I try to pull them free. "We need your loyalty," Danny responds flatly. "SHUT UP!" Dyllen punches his friend in the arm. While they growl at each other I hear a noise from outside… wherever I am. Sounds like a car. Then a slamming sound like someone's closing the car's door. Danny asks, "Who's that?" As if accusing his friends. The other two shrug and they follow Danny to leave. I'm still a little dazed. This headache's not helping. Did they hit me in the head? Where am I anyway? I'm surrounded by boxes and junk. This whole big room is filled with them. Wait. I think I'm in that barn next to the house. CLICK And now I'm in the dark. Great. These ropes are pretty tight, these weirdos could give Applejack a run for her money when it comes to roping things. Hey wait… this chair isn't tied down. Come to think of it… I'm not gagged either. I take a deep breath. "HHHHHEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!!" I hope whoever's out there heard me. I try to hop this chair around but it doesn't go very far. I scream for help again. CLICK Hoofsteps. Someone's coming. "Ha, I bet you wish I was someone else." It's Dyllen… I sigh, "Let me go you dork!" "Why should I? Where are you gonna go?" "Away from you!" I snarl at him. He has a point though… I don't really know where to go… "Alright, you can get away from me... kind of. Enjoy your night." He winks at me and walks off. "Huh?" CLICK "Aw, what the hay?" I sigh in the darkness and hang my head in defeat. It's been about half an hour of sitting alone in the quiet, musty smelling darkness of this barn. Tied up to this chair. I hear something outside, sounds like that car that I heard earlier, only now it's probably leaving. CLICK "Ah! It's bright!" I cringe as my eyes adjust to the bright light. Hoofsteps coming. "Hey guys. Back so soon?" I sarcastically ask. "Good to see you too," Danny quips. "So how long am I gonna stay tied up like this?" "Until we finish dinner," Dyllen replies. "Ugh, well go finish your dinner then! I have to take a leak!" "Well alright then, we're just checking on you, we'll be right back. Then, we'll just let you go!" Danny laughs as they all walk away again. CLICK ARGH! Why do I feel like they're doing this on purpose? Keep coming and going, and leaving me in the dark, just to mess with me?! A few minutes later I hear hoofsteps again. But sounds like only one of them this time. Whoever it is walks up behind me. Wow, I can't turn my head that far… what gives? "I knew something was wrong with them," a voice whispers at me. Hey! I know that voice! It's what's-his-face I met in town! "Boy am I glad to see you!" "Shh." He starts untying me. "What the hell is going on here?" "I don't know!" I shrug. "That Dyllen guy wanted me to go to Danny's house so I followed him there. But before that Danny… 'called' me and said that Dyllen was with him, but he wasn't because I was talking to Dyllen when he called me! Then I got there and they knocked me out, and then they were talking all creepy-like, and then… well here I am!" "The hell is wrong with the guys…?" He says, shaking his head solemnly. "Do they do this… a lot?" "What? No! That's ridiculous!" "Well, I don't know… but thanks for finding me dude. I owe you one." I get off the chair and stretch out. "Yeah, no problem. I'd like to think you'd do the same for me. We should probably get out of here." We sneak around all the boxes and junk in the barn, and make it to the door. I open it to the darkness outside and he walks me through all the backyards and down a side road to his car. We get in and he works the levers and buttons and we get moving. As we go, he just stares out the window aimlessly. "Should I take you home?" He asks. "I… don't know… do you think they'll come looking for me?" "Good point, then we probably shouldn't take you to my house either." "Buck." "What?" "I don't know, all this stuff is just getting to me." "I believe it," he sighs. "So… do you have any friends… who aren't crazy… that we could ask for help?" "Probably a good idea." I watch all the houses go by outside the window. This is all familiar, I see my – well, Church's – house go by. After about half a mile, he pulls the car over. "Where are we?" I ask. "Claire's house..." He looks at me funny, "you've been here before." "Oh, right. I knew that." "Anyway, you should stay in here, I'll see if it's ok for you to stay the night here." "Ok." And now I wait. He knocks on the door, it opens, he walks in. After a minute he comes back out. "Alright, Claire ok-ed you sleeping here for the night. I'll probably stay here too." "Cool." I fumble with the door handle and get out. Inside the house, I meet a girl. She's all smiley and happy. She must be Claire. "Hiya Church, what's up dude?" "Uh, hi. A lot actually. You have no idea…" "Awww that sucks, do you need a hug?" She gives me a huge smile. With a smile like that, how could I turn her down? I spread my arms to invite her over. She gasps as she runs over and hugs me. Normally I'm not into sappy stuff like this, but I think I needed it right now. "Ha! You hugged me! I win!" She says. "Huh?" "You told me you'd never hug me! You even wrote it in my yearbook I win!!!" "Hehe, right. Oh well, guess I lose." I put on a playful smirk. That's kinda weird. Whatever. "Oh, by the way, you said something was wrong with your brother earlier?" Rarity-guy asks Claire. "Yeah, Conner's been feeling really sick since... yesterday." "That sucks," I say. "Yeah," Morgan agrees. "Anyway it's getting late we should probably go to bed. Church, we can figure out what's going on in the morning." "Sounds good to me." "Babe, you don't mind if I spend the night here too, do ya?" "Oh no baby, you can spend all your nights here. Tee hee!" After Rarity-dude and his obvious marefriend finish flirting, she leads me to a guest bedroom, "You can sleep here tonight Church." And then she offers another hug. "Ah, what the hay, I already lost, right?" "YAY!" She shouts with glee. We hug and say goodnight. As I lay in another unfamiliar bed, I look out the window and think for a bit. I have a lot on my mind, including a killer headache, but sleep still comes easily. Huh? I sit up in bed like I woke up from a nightmare. Though I can't remember having one. Moonlight shines in from the window. Still dark out, what gives? I look over and see a tall man standing over me. "AH!" I scooch away from him. "Who are you?!" I gulp and clutch my blankets. "Mmm… You smell delicious…" The shadowy figure grins at me in the dark. The moonlight reflects off of his teeth. His much-sharper-than-normal-human teeth! > Tia's Troubling Times (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ok Celestia, let me get this straight. They're love-sucking, wedding-crashing, shape-shifting, bug-ponies?" "Hmm… yes I suppose one could describe them as such." "Got it." Cool thing about faking memory loss, when you need something obvious explained to you, nobody questions it. Funny though, these bad guys were not something I knew about. Our leisurely walk through the castle finally ends in a giant pair of doors, engraved with the image of the starry night sky, and painted to perfectly match the real deal. Jewels form the stars and moon. This must be her room. No guards here. "No guards?" I look up to her. "Hmm… they would not abandon their posts so lightly… Either my sister is not here… or they were not her actual guards." Celestia magicks the doors open, gently and quietly. She walks in slowly, and I follow next to her. The sunlight from the hallway pours into the room, casting our shadows along the floor. Blues and whites color the walls and floor, dark hues contrast with the light ones, looks pretty boss actually. Right in front of us is a giant canopy bed, semi-transparent white curtains obscure the sleeping princess. She's snoring like she's sawing logs. Celestia trots up next to the bed, I stand at the foot of it. She clears her throat. "Sister?" She tries softly. The sleeping mass stirs a little and snorts. "Sister?" She tries a little louder. That gets a response. Luna slowly sits up in her bed and yawns. "I am very sorry to wake you, sister. But we have a problem, or two, on our hooves." She grumbles a little in response and smacks her lips. "Yes I know, you haven't slept long. I'm sorry, but we really must go." Luna chuckles a little at that. "Luna, are you alright?" Chuckles escalate into maniacal laughter "I am not your PRECIOUS LUNA!" The curtains whip open to reveal a pitch black pony, the size and shape of Luna. Even the splotch on her ass with the moon and her magicky mane are similar. But her eyes are demonic and sharp fangs decorate her malevolent grin. Her flowing blue mane has turned into a violently agitated starry blob. Celestia looks like Fred Sanford having a heart attack. Hell, even I know who this bitch is... I point at her and yell, "Send her... TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNAAAAAAA!!!!!!" Nightmare Moon laughs maniacally at Celestia's confused face. Celestia turns tail and runs out of the room. Damn. I expected something cool to happen. I run out too. "AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! FLEE! FLEE FROM THE TERROR OF NIGHTMARE MOON! AHAHAHahahahahahahahahaha!!!" As her evil laughter fades behind me, I see a flash of white light in front of Celestia. She stops running and skids to a halt on the polished marble floor. I do about the same. What kind of horse architect, with hooves, would design a building with a polished floor?! "Discord!" She says bitterly. "Celestia darling, hi, how've you been? I heard you were looking for me," Discord replies with a wicked smirk. "...This guy again," I mumble. "Are YOU responsible for this?!" She demands, stamping a forehoof on the floor. "Ugh, if you're referring to your loyal subject here, then no," he responds, making overdramatic gestures in irritation. "That particular mind swap wasn't my doing… but whoever did it deserves a cookie!" Celestia stammers for a moment, but the anger hasn't left her face. "What? No! I meant my sister?!" "Speaking of her, we probably shouldn't be standing around waiting for her to attack us," I helpfully suggest. "Who, Luna? Where is ol' Lulu anyway? I haven't seen her in eons! She's always sleeping, that one…" he says, playfully looking around the hallway. "DAMNIT ALL DISCORD!" Celestia thunders. A white marble tiles shatters under the stomp of her hoof. He looks surprised for just a moment, then smiles. "You always did have a short fuse around me, Celestia." He giggles as he gently runs a bear-paw-finger under her chin and smiles at her. "I haven't done anything to your sister… Not yet anyways," he says mischievously. Discord pauses with his finger on her chin. "Oh… wait! You don't mean…?!" The look on her face must give it away. He starts laughing. While he's cracking up, in between laughs, he manages to say, "Oh! Oh!... This… is… PRICELESS!" He falls down on the floor, cackling and rolling around. "DISCORD! This is NOT funny!" He stops laughing and wipes some tears from his eyes. "On the contrary, Celestia, I find it to be hilarious! I'm gone for two days and I come back to a mind-swapped Element of Loyalty, changelings for Royal Guards, and Nightmare Moon?! I should have stayed away longer! You ponies are wreaking chaos all by yourselves!" I can't stand waiting here to be attacked by Nightmare bitch any longer. "Can you blow open one of those windows if I distract him?" I ask Celestia. "We probably shouldn't be here." She looks at me for a second, then back to laughing Discord. She turns her head to a window and points her horn at it. While she's doing that, I charge at Discord. He's bent over laughing again, and as I go I hear glass shatter behind me. I'm gonna kick him! POOF This isn't Discord… this is a clou… nope… it's pink cotton candy. I ran into a mass of cotton candy. "Tsk, tsk. Not-Rainbow, did you really think I'd let my guard down?" He asks me condescendingly, with his cheek resting on a bear-paw fist, and his elbow leaning on the cotton candy. "You must be new here." "Yeah, you never seemed that smart to me." He laughs at my comment. "You know, I think I kind of like you this way, Not-Rainbow." "What a coincidence," I break loose from the sticky cotton candy. "I've never really liked you!" I turn tail and run to the open window Celestia is perched in. "Au revoir! Not-Rainbow!" He calls to me. She jumps out the window and I follow her, taking to the air again. This cotton candy has got all up in my feathers, making them pinch and bind. It's annoying. "Where are the rest of the Elements?" Celestia shouts back to me. "They're in the dining hall, wherever that is from here," I shout to her over the sound of wind rushing past us. She changes her direction. "...And look..." I start, feeling a pang of guilt now. "...I'm sorry for lying to all of you... I just wasn't sure what to do." She looks back to me over her shoulder, then back forward and changes her direction again. Celestia lands on a nearby balcony sticking out of a tower. I land behind her. She looks me deeply in the eyes and asks, "So it's true?" "Yeah... I went to sleep one night and just woke up here... like this," I look down and gesture to myself. "Yesterday was my birthday." "I thought Discord was making an assumption… This would certainly explain your so-called 'memory loss.' " She rolls her eyes. "So if you are not Rainbow Dash, who are you?" "Name's Church, just some random human, from a place with no magic mind you." " 'Human?' Now that's a word I haven't heard in a very long time." "Yeah, I'm sure Dash will be able to tell you all about us when you get her back." Oh boy… she's not taking this well. Rough day would probably be an understatement. She looks like she's about to lose her royal composure and just start bawling. I can't believe I'm about to do this… "I'm sorry, I'll help you any way I can tonight. It seems like you need..." Gasp "…a friend." I walk a little closer and rub my nose- I mean, nuzzle her affectionately. "Thank you Ra… 'Church.' Yes… I think I could use a friend right about now." She nuzzles me back and wraps one of her gigantic wings around me. This is actually kind of nice. Warm and fluffy. Don't judge me. Hmm... I'd probably make her feel more comfortable if I acted more like Rainbow Dash... "Alright, so what's the plan? Go in there, kick some butt, save everyone?" I get a little chuckle out of her before she says, "Let's find your friends… or rather, Rainbow's friends first, we will need the Elements of Harmony." She backs up from me and takes off. I'm about to take off, but I get a little intuition and decide to look through the glass doors into the dark room. In the shadows, there is a white Royal Guard staring back at me. Nothing special about him. He doesn't look menacing or anything, he's not even moving. I look over my shoulder, Celestia is already out of sight. Shit, I can't leave her after I just told her all of that... "Coming!" I apologize, shouting after Celestia as I take to the air. I turn around and give the guard the middle finger, but fail miserably for obvious reasons. I catch up with Celestia who's much further down now. "Sorry, I saw a guard through the window and stopped to figure out if I should ask him for help, but he might be a changeling." She flies through the dining hall window I left from earlier and lands inside. "A guard you say? Yes, better safe than sorry…" She says. The room is empty… and the floor is covered with a layer of chocolate milk. "Also, all I saw before I left here was Pinkie being changed with Flutters." "You mean Discord… mind… swapped them?" "I think so, I'm not sure, I kind of wanted to get out as fast as possible and get to you. Wanna check the kitchen?" "…Alright. Lead the way," she says glumly. I walk into the kitchen, it's big, definitely befitting the majestic dining hall it serves. The smells of hot foods still lingers in the air. A few pans and dishes are on the floor, which is free of chocolate milk, but otherwise it looks untouched since the servants left. "No one's here, they must have left. Do you think Twilight would have gone looking for you?" I ask. "Probably… but I'm not sure where she'd look." We leave the kitchen and head out the dining room door into a large ornate hallway, just like all the others. This place is a maze. As I splosh through the chocolate milk, I realize… I'm leaving footprints. And there's more hoofprints leading away from here. "Hmmmm, we should probably follow these." After 200 feet or so, the tracks fade to nothing. I look to Celestia. "I think I know where they went," she helps. "Oh? Where?" "The throne room, follow me." "K." I follow her. She makes a quick pace to a huge doorway (seriously, what's with all the huge doors around here? Were the door makers trying to compensate for something?) which is open this time. Celestia stops midway through the doorway and looks up. Flutters is flying around and performing mid-air stunts. "...Pinkie," I mutter. The rest of the gang is nowhere to be see- "PRINCESS!" Applejack shouts as she walks in from another room off to the side of the thrones. She's missing her hat. I wonder who is who... "Applejack…?" Celestia asks cautiously. "Um… no…" "Twilight, isn't it," I deadpan. The orange one looks at me and nods solemnly. Celestia is still trying to process this. "So then who's applejack...?" I ask. The rest of the gang trots through the doorway, and they all look… discontent. And Rarity is wearing a familiar cowboy hat. "Discord…" Celestia mumbles. "Twilight," she's talking to Applejack, er Apple-Twilight? "Do you still have the Elements?" "Yes, Discord said he had no interest in them… because they're useless now…" Apple-Twi looks in my direction. This is going to get real confusing, real fast. "...It's not like I wanted to be Rainbow..." I grumble. "Speaking of which," Celestia starts, "Everypony gather 'round. Rainbow Dash has something to say." They all look at me, and Flutter-Pie lands next to them. Shit... what should I say...? I hate being put on the spot! Ok, I told her that I'm not RD, I told her I wanted to be her friend, and I told her I'd help her... She nudges me with a giant-ass wing. "Look umm... I'm not actually Rainbow Dash and..." This is gonna hurt to say… "...I'm sorry for lying to all of you, I was just afraid of what would happen if I told you the truth." I look at Celestia wondering if that was what she wanted me to say. She manages to force a little smile. I look back to the others. Flutter-Pie looks confused, Apple-Twi just has an eyebrow cocked, Pinkie-? looks disappointed in me, Twilight-? looks devastatingly sad, and cowboy-hat-wearing Rarity… "An' what IS the truth, exactly?" She demands with a southern accent. "...That I'm really a human named Church." I get various 'huh?'s and 'what?'s. "A what-now?" Rari-Jack asks me. "Umm, like the top half of a centaur or a mermaid... It's kinda hard to explain. But we don't have any magic or ass tattoos for special talents." "Huh?" That seems to have confused them more. "I'm also a dude." They all gasp and Pinkie wails and faints. "Anyway…" Celestia says uncomfortably, "that's not important right now. What is important, is that we have more problems than just Discord," she says grimly. Pinkie perks up. I thought she fainted… "Oh? What could possibly be worse than… Discord?" She says in a very high-pitched, sophisticated voice. Pinkie-Rarity? Pinkie-Rare… Pinkie… Pink-ity? I got nothing. The sun starts setting abnormally quick and everything becomes dark. Once my eyes adjust, I can see moonlight creeping in from the windows. From my preexisting pony knowledge, and from all those memories Twilight jimmied into my brain, I have an idea of what's going on. I hang my head down. I'm pretty sure Celestia's doing the same. "Oh great, he's doing that again…" Apple-Twi complains. "No," Celestia starts darkly. "That's not Discord's doing." Suddenly, the sun shoots back into the sky. "Uh, Princess, are you sure?" It then slowly fades to darkness and moonlight once more. "Yes, Ap- Twilight, I am sure." "Well come now," Pinkie-Rarity starts, holding a hoof out, "there's only one other pony who could… Surely you don’t mean…" "Whoa nelly!" Rari-jack exclaims. "Are we all talkin' 'bout you-know-who?" "Oh… no… not… her" Twilight… (Fluttershy, has to be…) cowers on the ground, shaking, with both of her forehooves covering her face. Flutter-Pie gasps sharply with a look of horror on her face. "Yes, my little ponies," Celestia announces, "Nightmare Moon." > Drones and Dumbasses (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Mmm… You smell delicious…" The big, scary, sharp-tooth-ed human standing at the side of my bed looks like he's about ready to eat me! "Don't eat me!" I yell! "Why not!? I just woke up and I'm sooo hungry…" The weird guy standing over me smiles evilly. Humans have… big… sharp teeth… "B-B-But you can't! I'm fattening!" "Oh, as if I can't change the way I look, unlike you… fatass." He lunges at me with his arms out. "AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" What's he doing?! I punch him in the gut! "OOH!!" He gets knocked back and I jump out of the bed. I can't go for the door, he's blocking me. I look at him doubled over in pain… must have been a good punch… All this bucking crap that's happened to me… it finally gets to me. I let it all out on this creepy guy right here. Punch after punch after punch. I think I blacked out for a second because now I'm just sitting on top of this guy and looking at his bloody face. Did I do that? Wow. He's out for the count. I get off him. Hmm, that's funny, nopony woke up from all that commotion? I quietly open the door and look around. Nope. Hmm, what should I do? Let's see, what would my friends do? Apologize softly then walk away slowly. Trap him in a force field or something. Complain about his fashion sense. Throw him a party tomorrow. Hogtie him. Hmm…… Ah, a job well done. He won't be bothering anypony any time soon. Bed sheets don't make the best rope… and I'm not too good with knots, but it'll do. I'm still pretty tired. Think I'll hit the hay. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Huh? Wha? I open my eyes. I see Claire kneeling over the guy that attacked me last night. "What the hell is wrong with you Church!?!?" "Oh yeah…" I sit up and rub my eyes. "He came in here last night and attacked me. Said he wanted to eat me or something creepy like that." I yawn. Rarity-guy walks in. He looks sleepy, must have just woke up. "Wait…" Claire starts. Oh boy this looks bad for me, don't it? "…This isn't my brother!" Oh maybe not. Gotta get lucky sometimes I guess. "What do you mean that isn't your brother?" I ask. I didn't even know he was supposed to be! "I mean just look at him, he doesn't look like Conner. I mean, maybe a bit, but…" She pushes his busted lip up and looks at his huge, sharp teeth. "So then where is he?!?!" Rarity-guy just mumbles, "...Same as with the guys..." All these weird things going on, all these weird guys… sharp teeth… 'as if I can't change the way I look'… "…Changelings…" I mutter. "We should tie him up… betterly… those sheets don't look like they'll hold him." I chuckle, "Hey, I was improvising!" He walks out of the room and comes back soon after, with some rope. "I keep rope stashed all over Claire's house, in case of rope emergency." He winks at me. Ok…? I lend a hoof in re-tying this guy up. "Should we try to wake him up?" I ask. "Sure, I don't see why not." He shakes the guy on the floor. It doesn't work. Rarity-guy looks to me for suggestions. "Smack him?" I shrug. He gives him a few slaps on the face. "Harder," I say. A couple more and he starts to come to. "Ah! What's going on? What's happening sis?" The guy says. "Shut up!" Claire kneels down and looks the guy dead in the eyes. "Where is my brother?!?!" "What? I'm right here sis!" "Fuck you! No you're not!" He doesn't answer her. "So where the fuck is he?!?!?!" She demands again. "He's in the closet, he should probably come out." He smiles at that. Claire's eyes light up in rage and she clocks him right in the face. Looks like he's out for the count… again. She got… scary all of a sudden. Remind me not to tick her off. "Should we check the closet?" I ask. Claire jumps up over to me and… THUMP "OW!" She punched me in the face! HARD! "What the buck?!" Ow! My nose is bleeding! Rarity-guy is holding her so she doesn't come at me again. "What the hay is wrong with everypony?!" "Alright maybe she shouldn't be here for the questioning of this… person. Just wake him up again and ask him some more. Make sure you figure out where Claire's brother is." He drags Claire out of the room kicking and screaming, and leaves me alone with this tied up mystery imposter here. After cleaning up my nose bleed and slapping this guy awake again – which I admit was kinda fun – I get down to business. "Who are you?! Are you a spy?!" "I am changeling drone number 10231. Why the fuck should I tell you who I am?!" "Ah ha! So you ARE a changeling!" "Damn Fetlock Holmes, you sure outsmarted me." "Where's Claire's brother?!" "Wow, didn't you check the closet?" I get up and check the closet in this bedroom. It's empty. "HAHAHAH! YOU FRICKIN' DUMBASS!" I go over and kick him in the ribs. "Where is he?!" He coughs and wheezes for a second, then looks up at me. "Why do you care? Shouldn't you be figuring out where you are?" He asks softly, giving me puppy dog eyes and a pouty lip. "Because I… wait a minute. You mean you know… who I am?" "Who's who, now?" He asks sarcastically. He knows who I am… and he's a changeling. I guess those other guys were changelings too? Are changelings behind all this? What the hay is going on around here? "Ok, I'm gonna ask you again, what did you do with Claire's brother?" "Calm down, he's safe... somewhere in town." "Oh yeah? Where?" "Awww c'mon, that's no fun." "…Yeah, that's the idea." "What's wrong? Don't enjoy a challenge Dashie?" "Are you kidding me? I love a good challenge!" Aw, buck. "Haha, then go find them. Good luck." "Aww…!" I blew it didn't I? Hey, wait… "What do you mean, 'them?' " "Are you dumb? What do you think I meant? Those books you read must be absolute shit." "What? No, Harry P. was awesome! Wait, what does that have to do with anything?" "...I'm saying maybe you should read something that makes you more… smart-er." "That's it! I'm done with you!" I walk out of the room. "HAHAHA, goodnight!" He yells after me. "IT'S MORNING!" I yell back over my shoulder. He mumbles something back but I can't hear him from down the hallway. I find the two I'm looking for in another bedroom. "Well…" I start. "So did you find out where he is?!" Claire demands. She's scary when she's angry… "He said he was safe, and 'in town'," I do air quotes. "I couldn't get an exact place…" "…You..." Claire growls at me. "There's more… he said I should go find 'them.' So… it's not just your bro, Claire." I look at Rarity-guy (whose name I STILL don't know!) hoping he'll get my hint. He speaks up, "Alright, we should probably go looking for them. We'll bring Not-Conner with us, ya know, so you don't kill him." He glares at Claire. "Meh, if we have to…" I shrug. We dragged this changeling guy out to the car and threw him in the back seat. Me and Rarity-guy get in and he starts driving. "Alright," he starts, "let's check out all the abandoned buildings first. If they aren't there then I only have one guess as to where they're hiding them." "Wow, thanks for bringing me with you Dashie, you're so kind." I look back at the changeling and he's wearing an evil grin. I look back to Rarity guy and he looks at me with one eyebrow way higher up on his face than it's supposed to be. "Dashie...?" He asks. "Uh… I'm uh… this is…" I stammer. "Oh he didn't know? I'm so sorry Dashie, what should I call you so he doesn't figure it out?" "Buck." I insert my face into my hand. "Roger that, Buck." "Oh for the love of Pete!" "Uh, Church, what's this clown talking about?" Great. > Taking One for the Team (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The doors to the throne room are dramatically pushed open by a guard. Funny, I thought they were already open. The guard, wearing slightly different armor than the rest of them, shakily walks in. He's a familiar-looking white regular pony with blue hair. He's panting, tired, and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth. Dude looks like he galloped a marathon. "Princess!" He calls out. "I'm so glad I found you!" Ok, that guy has to be Twilight's brother… In fact, I think I saw them talking when we got to Canterlot. Wait a minute… "Shiny!?" Apple-Twi shouts. "Stop right there, Shining Armor," Celestia commands. He hesitates but obeys, and bows before her. "Your majesty, I…" She cuts him off, "Silence!" She points her horn at him and blasts him with magic. It knocks him over. Dude's out for the count. Apple-Twi runs over to him and cradles his head in her hooves. "So... what spell was that?" I look up to her and casually ask. "Changeling unmasking spell," she announces loudly for all to hear. "CH-CHANGELINGS?" Apple-Twi shouts in surprise. "Yes, I was getting to that." There are murmurs from the others. Whispers of yet another enemy. Shining, who still looks the same, starts to wake up. "Wha? Huh?" He shakes his head and looks up into the eyes of the pony holding him. He squints. "Uh… Ap- Applejack?" "Heh heh… no, it's me, Twilight." She scratches the back of her neck. "Huh?" He tries to get up and Apple-Twi helps him. "So him being here is good news, right?" I ask Celestia. "Well, yes, it appears he is still himself. That is indeed good news, but..." "Princess!" Shining gallops closer and bows. "Report?" "There's been a complete breakdown in military command! Some of our guards were found out to be changelings! And well… everypony started fighting each other mindlessly! It's a huge mess out there… and, um…" He chuckles nervously. "I don't know if you noticed…" He points to his forehead. "Yes, I did notice. That's why I suspected you of being an imposter." "What happened to your horn?" Apple-Twi asks as she walks up next to him. "Well, I guess Discord liked the idea of changelings running around Canterlot as Royal Guards…" "Oh…" Twilight sighs. "I was warming up to cast the force field spell, to put a stop to all the mayhem, and the ol' Spirit of Chaos himself just teleported next to me! He grabbed my horn, and popped it right off!" Apple-Twi winces. "Just like that! Pop! It didn't hurt or anything. He said 'I'll be keeping this' and then he disappeared." Celestia lets out a deep sigh. "Well, at least it can't get any worse…" Famous last words, much? Suddenly a window shatters, a cloud of smoke comes in through the window, glass sprinkles everywhere, sparkling in the moonlight, shards slide across the floor. The smoke clears to reveal six pegasi in blue and yellow gimp suits. "Great, who are these guys now?" ...Pretty sure one of them is named Spitfire, though. "Your majesty!" The orange and yellow one steps forward and bows. She's Spitfire I think. Her friends follow her example and bow too. "Rise," Celestia says with slight annoyance, probably because they broke her window. The light blue guy with dark blue hair waves at me with a sheepish smile on his face. I just look back at him, confused. "Princess, we are here to offer any assistance we can!" Spitfire announces. She sighs and says, "Good. Please go and find the whereabouts of Discord and Nightmare Moon." "Nigh- I'm sorry, did you say Nightmare Moon?!" "Yes. I did." The gimp suit ponies look nervous. "Princess, it may be a little difficult to search in the dark." The sun conveniently shoots up into the sky again. "Or not. Report back to me when you have their locations. Dismissed!" Spitfire turns to leave. Our eyes meet for a second. She gives me a slight nod of greeting and then flies off out the broken window, her compatriots following her. "Well Celestia, what do you think we should do?" I ask. "Do ALL humans treat royalty as if they were commoners?" Pinkie-Rarity snobbishly complains at me. "I suggest you refer to her as 'Princess' or 'Princess Celestia,' after all, she no doubt saved you from whatever trouble you've caused during your short time here. I'm only surprised that you've bothered to bow, but the way you've shown disrespect to such an esteemed pony such as the princess is downright abhorrent." "...Sorry?" I shrug at Pink-ity. "Oh, it's quite alright… Rarity? These are extra-ordinary circumstances after all," Celestia says. "Hmph." "Well?" I ask again. "I think we should get them back to themselves again," she says, looking at the ponies. "How do you plan on doing that, do you know the spell?" "No, but I know where we can look." Celestia looks knowingly at Apple-Twi. "THE ARCHIVES!" We're walking to the archives apparently, where hopefully they'll find a spell to mindswap them all back to normal. Apple-Twi brought Shiny up to speed on that whole thing and everything else. "So, if'n ya don't mind me askin' princess, why are we all walkin' again? Can't you jus' teleport us there?" A cowboy-hat-wearing Rarity asks. "Well Applejack, if we would have teleported, Discord could have followed us from the residual magic left by the teleportation," Celestia explains. "But princess," Apple-Twi starts, "Discord's teleported to me before, even when I hadn't. Doesn't that mean he can find us where ever we go?" Celestia giggles as a little smirk plays its way across her lips, but only for a split second before it turns back into a frown. "No, he does not know where somepony is at all times. He just happens to be very good at guessing things like that. So, we'll have to outsmart him." "So then what's your plan if he's waiting at the archives?" I ask. "Ah, yes Church, that is a possibility. I'm just hoping he won't be, we are running out of options at this point." "Well shouldn't we wait for... erm, Spitfire to report in?" "That is assuming they find either of them. And that is also assuming that the Wonderbolts are still the Wonderbolts. Besides," she leans close to me and whispers, "the Wonderbolts are not actually very good at actual military operations." We all stop walking, hearing hooves clopping quickly on the stone floor behind us. A single white pegasus guard, with all the armor except his helmet, is running towards us. "STOP RIGHT THERE!" Celestia orders. He complies and slides on his hooves… seriously… these floors… He bows with about as much grace as he can after stumbling like that. "Be gone with you, 'Cutlass'." Oh… so this is the guy who was banging on that door in the tower. "B-But your highness!" "Neigh! Leave us!" "I can't do that, your highness." "And why not?" "It is my sworn duty to protect you, my princess!" "Protect me? Heavy Steel was replaced by a changeling for who knows how long, and yet you did not notice… or chose not to notice… It could have been FEEDING on me, and was almost certainly spying on me! A fine job you've done protecting your princess!" She barks. I cut in, "...In his defense, I don't think I've ever seen the guards do a good job..." Celestia shoots me a dirty look for that. "Oh yeah, that's right... I'm not me either. Silly me." "I… I," Cutlass starts, "I have failed you, my princess…" He bows his head all the way to the floor. Well at least the guards know they're terrible. "Let me redeem myself!" He lifts up his head and looks directly at her. "Let me be at your service once more!" "I need to know I can trust you. I need to know that you are not a changeling." Celestia responds grimly. "Anything to prove my loyalty!" He stands back up. Celestia points her horn at him, he closes his eyes and braces for impact, knowing full well what's about to happen. She blasts him. It looks a lot more brutal than when she did that to Shiny. He gets thrown clear down the hallway, back the way he came. I'm fairly certain I heard a crunch when it hit him. "Don't you think you might have went a little overboard with that Celes... er, princess?" She looks at me, a little unsure. "I do not…" She sighs. "Maybe I was venting my anger just a little bit." "Well, better go check on him." No one else looked like they were going to do it. I trek down the hall a ways. I look behind me, they're letting me go alone. He's laying here, apparently unconscious. The first thing I notice is a low crackling sound… like electricity discharging. But other than that, he still looks the same. "Hey Robot Boy," I kick the armor covering his chest. "Wake up!" One of his legs twitches, an electric spark arcs across his chest armor. Fuck it. I walk back. "Well?" Celestia asks. "Well. The dude's a robot." "HUH?!" Everyone says in unison. "Well he made a sound that sounds like electricity and when I touched him he twitched like a robot. Therefore… he's a robot." Celestia starts giggling and everyone else follows her example with forced chuckles. Then she stops. And so do they. Celestia lifts an eyebrow at me. "Come on, everypony, let's go see…" When we get there the guy is still out cold. Maybe he's not a robot... Hmmmmm… "Shining," Celestia calls. "See if you can wake your fellow guardstallion." He obeys and shakes him a little. He shakes him a little harder. He stirs a little bit. He smacks him on the face gently. How gentle hooves could be, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be working. SMACK Ouch! "AHHhaHA!" Looks like that worked. He stumbles back on his hooves. "Oh... my head…" Celestia looks at me funny, but not angrily, and turns around and walks down the hall, the way we were going. I run up to 'Cutlass,' and ask him, "Quick! What's the square root of 1369?" "Uh…" he responds, still a little hazy, "I don't know…?" "I'm keeping my eye on you..." I point a hoof at him. "Um, ok…?" A long, boring walk and several different buildings and bridges later… And we find ourselves in the archives, apparently. Big giant library-looking dump. "Well princess, where should we look?" Apple-Twi asks. "Oh, I think I have an idea…" Celestia answers. Some shelves later… "Alright, my little ponies, start reading," Celestia announces. "OK!" Flutter-Pie dives right in. "Alright, princess," Apple-Twi starts biting some scrolls from a shelf. "Well, if it helps us get back to normal, I guess it's worth getting some dust on my hooves," Pink-ity complains. Shiny just goes to a shelf and fumbles trying to grab a book with his hooves. "Yes, your highness," Cutlass obeys. "Um… ok…" Twi-Shy meekly agrees. "Beg pardon, princess, but what exactly are we lookin' for?" Rari-Jack asks. Dear god I hate reading... But I'll do it. For the team. > The Changeling Gets Punched Again (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Uh, Church, what's this clown talking about?" Rarity guy points a thumb towards our new friend in the back of the car. " 'Church'? That's actually a name here? I hate this place," The changeling comments from the back seat. "Church…?" Rarity asks again. "Uh… heh heh… is this a bad time to tell you that I'm not really Church?" I force a smile and scratch the back of my neck. He looks completely disturbed, "Then who the hell are you?" "Uh…" "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" The changeling cackles from the back seat. "This is priceless!" "Well, at least I'm not a changeling." I glance at the guy in the back. Rarity guy is really confused. He stops the car in front of some dumpy old building. He tries to read my face for a second. "You're going to explain this shit to me later. First, let's find the real Conner." He gets out of the car and drags the Conner impersonator out of the back. His legs are untied so he can walk around with us. He walks up to a door and asks, "Think you can kick this down? I've got my hands full," he gestures to his prisoner. The wooden door looks pretty old. Kick it down? There's no way I can do a buck in this body. "I'll try." I put one foot on the door and try to get a feel for how I'm gonna do this. I should get a running start, so I back up a bit. And I go for it. CRUNCH Thump I fell on my flank… but I did it! "Wow, nice one," Rarity-guy cracks. Our pet changeling just snickers at me. "Yeah, yeah," I grumble as I get back up and dust myself off. I look inside, and carefully step in. It's pretty dark in here, there's a little light seeping in through the boards covering the windows. Trash scattered around on the floor, and most of the walls have been knocked out, just the frames are left. A little further in, there's a staircase in the back that goes up. I don't see anything else around here, the guys are right behind me, so I figure I'll check out upstairs. Same story up here, busted walls and garbage. At least the missing walls mean I don't have to check every room. "ANYP- ANYONE IN HERE?!" I yell. "Do you see anyone? No? We can go now, you guessed wrong," changeling pipes up. Rarity-guy gives him a dirty look, and I say, "Maybe that's just what you want us to think!" "Or… maybe I want you to think that's what I want you to think so you search an empty building some more." I look around at the stale emptiness. "Fine, let's go." Back outside, Rarity guy looks towards another boarded up building, it looks like a factory. "Should we try that one?" I ask. "WHAT!? NO, there's nothing in there…" the changeling insists. "Shut up," Rarity-guy says as he pushes the changeling forwards. I don't think I can kick this door down. It's a really big, solid metal door. "Try a window maybe?" Rarity-guy helpfully suggests. I walk down the side of the building, there are a lot of windows, all up high over my head. What I wouldn't give for a pair of wings. Towards the back, there's a pile of crates and big wire spools and junk, that'll do. I climb up onto the stuff and wouldn't you know it? This window's cracked open. Almost like somepony's been in here already. I pull it open and look inside. There's three people standing in the middle of the factory. "Hey, hold on, I forgot there are a bunch of druggies around here," Rarity-guy says. "HEY GUYS HOW ARE YOU DOING?!" The changeling yells obnoxiously. "Shit." "Horseapples." One of the guys looks up to me at the window, "Yo man, what's up?!" Our changeling friend decides to answer for me. "Not much, just being tied up and forced to random buildings against my will!" He yells. The guys inside start laughing. I jump down from the pile of junk. "Well I'm guessing what we're looking for isn't in there..." "I dunno… this changeling didn't want us to go in there…" "Look I don't want to deal with druggies any more than you ponies do," changeling explains. Rarity-guy cocks an eyebrow in confusion. "What do you think?" I ask. "I don't know, we can't really trust him can we? We can come back after we're done searching if we don't find anything else." "I guess so." "Ya know, you didn't even try asking politely," he suggests. "Who, you or them?" His handler asks. "Both of you, maybe you should learn something and report it to the Princess." "I'LL REPORT YOU TO THE… Oh for the love of… Ok… would you pretty please tell us where you're hiding the guys?" "Haha, no, but thanks for asking, you're such a nice pony, Dashie." "Dashie?" "ARGH!... Whatever… so where do we go next?" "Well there's an abandoned train station down the road, you probably passed it on the way to Danny's." "Sounds good. Let's go." "Sooooooooooooo, Dashie, what do you think about all of this...?" Changeling asks from the back seat of the car, with a smug smile on his face. I look back at him over the seat. "I think changelings are ANNOYING!" "Awwwww c'mon, think harder," he teases me. "Hmm…" I hit my head a few times. "I got nothing." "C'mon pea-brain! You woke up in some random body in some random world you've never heard about right?" "Yeah… and…?" "RIIIIIGGGHHHTTTT?!?!?" "I SAID YEAH! …And you guys probably have something to do with it!" "So there is probably someone in your body messing up your life… RIIIIIGGGHHHTTTT?!?!?" "Well, I never really thought about it that way… He could be lying to my friends… and pretending to be me!" I turn to Rarity dude. "Would Church do that?! Would he lie to my friends?!" "I have no clue what you're talking about. But you're- I mean, Church isn't much of a liar. He's just a loud mouth." "Oh… well, ok, I guess. See?" I look to the back seat. "He's not messing up my life." "So... I'm sorry, I gotta ask. If you're not Church…who in the hell are you?" Rarity dude asks me. "Uh… Name's Rainbow Dash!" "...You're fucking kidding me," he deadpans. "No?" "Rainbow Dash. The pegasus?" "Yeah! That's me! Why, ya heard of me?" "Ok ok ok… let me try to get this straight. You're a pony… AND you're inhabiting Church's body at the moment?" I look down at myself. "…Yeah. Seems like it." "…Church, you've lost your fucking mind," he mumbles. "Well then... I'm sure you wouldn't mind answering some questions..." "Questions? Ok, I guess…" "Ya know, just to prove it's you." "Makes sense." He thinks for a second, just concentrating on driving. He finally takes a deep breath… and stares me dead in the eyes. "Why did you want to go to the Grand Galloping Gala? What's your job for Winter Wrap Up? What place did you get in the Running of the Leaves? Whose side were you on at Appleoosa? Annnnnnnnnnd… Why did you pick a turtle as a pet?" He looks back at the road in front of him and swerves the car back onto the right side, jerking me towards him. "Pfft… that's easy. I wanted to hang out with the Wonder Bolts at the Gala. I'm always on weather duty for Winter Wrap Up day, mostly moving clouds. I got… last place in the Running of the Leaves. Well, second-to-last. I kinda sided with the buffalos. Annnnnnnnnnd… Tank saved me when my wing got stuck under a boulder from an avalanche." "And he isn't a turtle, he's a tortoise." "Ugh! Same thing!" "And I'm Changeling drone number 10231, pleased to meet you!" "Oh my god. You people have all lost your goddamned minds. I regret ever mentioning ponies to either of you. Well, I guess not to Conner, because I'm pretty sure this guy isn't Conner. And let's just say I believed you guys for a second. Cuz I totally don't! But let's just say!" He throws his hands up in the air. "Do either of you know WHY YOU'RE HERE!?" "No, but I bet THEY have something to it!" I sneer at what's-his-number in the back seat. "Oh come now Dashie, are you implying that I'm so horrid as to separate you from your beloved friends? Your delectable emotions would taste horrible that way." SCREEEEEECH The car suddenly screeches to a halt, and we all jerk forward. "Alright! Let's try here. It's an old train station, shut down like 80 years ago..." "Sounds good…" Ok, so we managed to break in from a little side door. I'm in a lobby kind of room, with some chairs here and there. It's dark in here, but there's a red light coming from somewhere… it's making the whole place dark red… kinda creepy. There's two doorways… the one on the left leads to a small hallway full of doors and on the right is an open room with a bunch of metal scaffolding. "Let's check those rooms." I almost forgot Rarity guy and changeling are behind me. "Ok…" I go and look in some empty office type rooms. "Nothing." "Yeah, same here," I say. There's a ladder at the end of the hallway, I grab onto it… hehe… and climb up through a hatch in the ceiling. The room it goes to looks like a control room or something. It has big windows looking down onto the train station platform. "Ah, this is the perfect secret hiding place, a giant, obvious building," changeling says a little loudly. I look out the big windows… there are a bunch of old crates, garbage everywhere, and some more scaffolds, but that's it. I climb back down the ladder. "No good, I don't see anyone out there." I point to the other doorway that now obviously leads to the platform. "Damn, empty too then... there's only one more place I can think of." "Want a riddle?" the changeling asks. "A hint? A guess?" "Do we have a choice?" I deadpan. "Nope." I sigh -slash- grunt. "...Well you have to ask politely. Don't be rude Dashie." "Please?" "Wow is that it? Please what?" Even Rarity guy sighs. "Please give us a hint," I ask through clenched teeth. "Oh, no, I lied, I was never gonna give you a hint. I figured that was pretty obvious. But now that I have your attention... How would you feel about Church if he was ruining your life? Ya know, acting lame in front of the Wonderbolts for example." What'd he just say? "Oh! He probably can't even fly! Hahahahahaa! Yeah, you're so lame now, reputation ruined forever." THUMP I punched him in the face. Boy it feels good. "AND WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT REPUTATIONS?! HUH?! You… you… LOVE SUCKING MONSTER!!!" He spits some blood onto the dusty wood floor. "Ha, well I know about bad ones, clearly. Just think of all the mean things he's doing, all the lies he's telling, and of the friends he's hurting. It's fair to say that they're not even themselves anymore and it's all your fault." I give him another in the gut this time. "Hey! That's enough." Rarity guy pulls the changeling away from me. He coughs a little bit, hunched over in pain. "Wow, you punch like a filly. Pretty cute if you ask me. But you probably deserve that hint after all, you brutal, brutal creature, you. "I'll give you a hint in the way of a question. If you were to infiltrate a town disguised as the people that lived there, would you... A. Live in an abandoned building B. Live in the building that those people lived in C. Live on the street Or... D. Live in the clouds, like some frilly little horse?" "FRILLY? WHO YOU CALLIN' FRILLY, CHUMP?!" "Yes, you know, little horses that have rainbow colored manes. You only see that on the frilliest!" "WHAT? That's my natural color, HOW DOES THAT MAKE ME FRILLY?!" "Oh my gawd…" Rarity guy facehoof's. "Because it's just so girly and cute! You might as well call yourself Rarity Junior!" "WHA… never mind… I dunno, you'd probably live in the house those people lived in. I don't see what that has to do with where you'd put the people…" "Wow, are you kidding me... can you use that frilly brain to its full potential for once?" "Well, what do you think… you know, I never did get your name…?" "Oh, it's Morgan and I just rolled a 3, so I have no clue at all." "Huh?" "Huh?" "Are you kidding me?! Think of the one building you've been in where the only creature that was in it was a Changeling! It's so simple even the bubble pony could figure it out!" Morgan and me look at each other and gasp in realization. "DANNY'S HOUSE!" "CLAIRE'S HOUSE!" "Um… Morgan? Don't you mean Danny's house? The one with the barn, right? You know, where they had me tied up?" The changeling and I exchange looks. "Yeah… I was at Claire's house, but you know… so was Claire? And she's not a changeling, so…" changeling hints. "Oh..." Morgan looks down. "I hate rolling low on intelligence checks…" "To Danny's house then!" > Going Home (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Four hours. FOUR HOURS. OF READING. I guess on the bright side, we haven't seen hide nor hair of either Discord or Nightmare Moon. The sun's still been going up and down randomly, but I don't think either of them are around here anymore. I wonder what they're up to… "Any luck Pinkie?" Apple-Twi asks Flutter-Pie. "Nah, no mind swap stuff. All I found so far was something about mind switching…" "What?! Where?!" "Hmm…" Flutter-Pie walks over to a pile of discarded books and scrolls. She bites a dusty old tome by the spine, tucks it under a wing, and walks over a bunch of books on the floor to Apple-Twi, who meets her halfway. She manages to hand Apple-Twi the book with her wing. HER WING. What the fuck. She mastered flight and she can use wings for holding stuff? Right after being mind swapped? Why can't I do that shit? "Mind switched!" She says… somehow correcting my thoughts! Now that's a little creepy. "Ummm, you know that switching and swapping are the same thing right?" I ask. "Hehehehe… I dunno." "PRINCESS!" Apple-Twi gets everyone's attention with that. Celestia, Shiny, and Cutlass all come galloping upstairs. A quick look over the balcony railing shows me how hard they were looking. They managed to make an ever bigger mess than we did! The vast carpeted floor has been covered with wall-to-wall books and papers. "What have you found?" Celestia asks. "I think this will do it. It's actually called 'Mind-Switch'." Apple-Twi announces. Shiny walks up to look at the book. "Where'd you find it?" Flutter-Pie shouts, "It was in a book about teleportation!" Celestia sticks her nose in the book. "Ah, this is rather complex… should not be too hard for me, though." She looks up at us with an encouraging little smile. "Alright, Twilight, you have been switched with Applejack, correct?" "Um…" Apple-Twi starts. "Not exactly, Princess," says Rari-Jack as she steps next to Apple-Twi. "Oh… my. This might not be as easy as I thought," Celestia mutters. It took about half an hour to get them straightened out. They were all pretty much triple-swapped so it was a little confusing. Apple-Twi and Rari-Jack were the first to get switched, so Applejack was the first to be normal again. She celebrated by bucking the side of a bookshelf. Coulda sworn I heard something fall off of it. She said it was the closest thing she could get to a tree at the moment. Twilight actually didn't do much when she got back to normal. She just lit up her horn to make sure it still worked and that was that. Fluttershy started preening her feathers. I'm assuming Pinkie messed them up or something. And actually, Pinkie got to be Rarity for a bit. She pranced around with her nose in the air like a high class snob. It was kinda funny. Rarity (who was still in Pinkie's body at the time) didn't take too kindly to that, and mocked Pinkie as best as she could, which only made her laugh. And wouldn't you know it, Pinkie somehow managed to master magic too. For a good minute, she was teleporting around the library so fast we couldn't keep our eyes on her. Rarity and Pinkie were the last to get switched. Rarity managed to conjure a hair brush out of nowhere and started brushing her hair… she's still doing it now. And finally, Pinkie celebrated by bouncing. Yep, that's it, just bouncing. "Well, glad to see you're all back to normal. How are you feeling Celestia?" I ask. "I am quite alright," she lies with a little smile under tired eyes. "Well I hate to ask but…" Shiny trots up and cuts me off. "Alright! Now that everypony else is normal – except for you, uh, Rainbow… whoever – you can find a spell to grow my horn back! Right? Um, your highness!" "I am afraid not, Shining." "What?! How come?" "Because, you cannot simply 'grow back' what you have not actually lost." "Come again?" Celestia breathes a small but ragged sigh of irritation for having to spell out this explanation for him. "Discord did not simply remove your horn, he sort of… just relocated it." "Huh?" "It has not actually been disconnected from you, despite the fact that it is clearly no longer on your body." "Oh… so… if it's still connected to me, I should still be able to use it!" "Well… no. Twilight, would you care to explain?" "Sure, princess." Twilight turns to her brother. "You see, big brother, our horns are simply a focal point, that we can direct the magical energy in our bodies through, with the brain. So even though, as Princess Celestia says, your horn hasn't actually been removed, it's still not physically on your head. So you can't focus your magic, the magic in your body, through it." She looks to Celestia for approval and gets a slight nod from her. "Aww…" Shiny grumbles. "Didn't they teach you this stuff at the academy?" Twi asks. "Yeah, I never paid much attention," he says, smiling smugly. "A shining example of my Royal Guard," Celestia quips. LOL Shiny gives me a dirty look for laughing at that. "...HAHAhahaha... ha… heh… um… ahem… sorry." Seriously, the guards suck. "Princess, if you don't mind me asking," Twilight starts, making a point of ignoring me, "How did you know how Discord does that? Even I never got a chance to study it when he did it to me… last time." "Oh, he did it to me once…" A tiny smirk graces Celestia's lips as she looks off somewhere, wistfully. But for only a split second, then her smile is gone again. "…Long ago." "Um, Celestia?" I ask. "Yes, Church?" "Do you think you could do one more swap?" I look up to her with a big dumb smile, and my best puppy dog eyes. "For you?" Celestia asks. "Hmm, I am not sure it would be that easy. Let us see what the book has to say." She walks over to the book again, it's sitting on a little wooden table that was dragged over just for it. She looks up at me for a second, then goes back to reading. She flips pages back and forth a couple times as well. "Did you say there is no magic in your world?" "Not that I know of…" "Hmm, well, we can try. But first, I do need to know a bit of who you were… so I am going to need to take a look… in there," she points to my head. "Well… ok…" With that she actually rests that huge pointy thing on top of my head. She lights it up and I close my eyes. After a few seconds of feeling nothing, I look at her, still concentrating. She stops and backs up. "Interesting," Celestia notes. "I could only get bits and pieces, but all that I saw definitely belonged to Rainbow Dash." She walks back to the book and flips some pages. "Ah yes, I thought so. Whatever switched your minds probably used this same spell, or at least one like it. It says: 'The magical aura of the bodies of the creatures being switched shall remain the same, and furthermore, an additional aura will be present to prevent others using detection magic from discovering the difference of minds.' " "Twilight, are you familiar with the aura cleansing spell?" "Um, yes!" She giddily responds. "Would you be so kind as to cast it on Church here?" "Of course." "Is this going to hurt?" I respond. "This spell is actually meant for medical purposes, it purges the magical aura of a pony and thus allows it to be refilled with… basically fresh magic. Yes, it may… sting a little," Twilight giggles with a sheepish little smile. "Like alcohol-in-a-wound sting or...?" ZAP "FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!1" SON OF A BITCH IT HURT- oh, it stopped. "Ow." "Alright, now I can try again," Celestia nears me and tries again. This time it tingles. A harmless tingle, kind of like a limb 'falling asleep' except in my head. Is that bad? Brain falling asleep? "Ah, good, I have what I need." With that, Celestia points her horn up to the sky, or ceiling in this case, and lights it up. It glows white for a few seconds and then fizzles out. "Well, I believe I've found Rainbow Dash... at least enough so to do the mind swap." "Good," I say. "Well, it looks like you'll be going home, Church… but before we say our goodbyes, just one last question, which actually pertains to the spell…" "Sure." "Did you wish for this, Church?" "I… Oh… I may have kinda wished that I could be in a fantasy world... I DID NOT want to be a pony!" Awkward silence. "Ahem. No offense to any of you." They all shift around uncomfortably. Except for Twilight. "This world is a fantasy for you?" She asks with an eyebrow quirked. "Well uhh..." Shit. "Your world has magic, mine doesn't. That makes it pretty… uh… fantastic to me. Wouldn't you agree?" Ha! See what I did there? Applejack butts in, "Well I still reckon there’s somethin' you ain’t tellin' us." She gives me a serious look. "Nope, that's about it." There's no easy way to tell someone: 'Hey you actually don't exist where I'm from! You're just stupid fictional characters that fat smelly men are for some reason sexually attracted to.' Yeah, no, I'm not saying that. Celestia frowns. "Is that all we are to you Church, just fiction?" "What?" Did she just... read my thoughts? "Did I just do it? No, I never left from earlier." Twilight cocks an eyebrow at us. Ummm, can you get out of my head please? I'd like to think of this as a private place. "No. Now I must ask you: When I change you back will you still think of us as just fictional?" ... I don't know. All of this barely makes any sense to me. I don't believe any of you are real, but yet here I am! Looking right at you. "So... You don't believe any of us are real…?" Celestia asks sadly. Oh, for fuck's sake. The rest of the ponies are all surprised (maybe even angry) at this statement from what would look like a totally one sided conversation. They're clearly taking this out of context! "Of course we're real silly, just look at me!" Pinkie does a cartwheel then happily bounces around the room and rambles incoherently. "Alright! What the hay are y'all talkin' about?!" A very confused and angry Applejack demands. Twilight is just standing there, looking at me and Celestia, as if trying to decipher what's going on. Fluttershy doesn't seem to know what to make of this, she just keeps preening nervously. "You… you don't think we're real?" Rarity overdramatically asks. "Pfft, why… that's… I find that strangely insulting." She looks disgusted. "And who in their right mind would even say such a thing? Although, who knows what all these mind swaps have done to our mental health, but STILL! That was absolutely inappropriate and uncalled for! Humph. Why, I've never seen anyone with such a complete disregard for the feelings-" Ok, yeah, I'm tuning her out now. Shiny and Cutlass find this funny. Shiny is cross-eyed and circling a hoof around his ear as if to say 'coo-koo.' Cutlass is getting a kick out of it and trying to stifle his laughter. Celestia looks back to me with a frown. "Church I-" she sighs, "I thought we were friends?" Well I'm sorry you thought that. Now if you'd kindly get the fuck outta my head… Twilight gasps. Et tu, Twilight? Et tu? Do I need to start thinking of gay furry porn? I've seen enough of it. Because I'll do it! "Well..." Celestia starts, in a low, flat tone. "At least now we know. Let's send you back. Goodbye Church, have a nice life." She looks disappointed. Celestia looks completely and utterly… devastatingly disappointed. Like my mom would look at me if I did something wrong. The kind of look that's so much worse than anger or hate or disgust or outrage. Sheer, unbridled, motherly disappointment. She points her horn at me. It glows white for a few seconds, I close my eyes. I shouldn't have said any of that. Stupid, stupid. Why did she have to go inside my head? The light turns into a bright flash and it makes a loud 'pop.' I open my eyes. Well, shit. "What happened princess?" Twilight innocently asks… trying to hide a sneaky little smile. "I am assuming Church's world indeed does not have magic. The book mentions mind swapping between worlds, and it goes on to say that if one being is in a world without magic, that they…" Celestia pokes her nose in the book again. "…They must 'either be intelligent enough and willing to switch bodies, OR must be uncomfortable with their current situation or life.' Actually it goes on to say: 'Furthermore a wish in a non-magical universe regarding a mind switch in any way shall become priority over all those who do not wish for a switch to occur'." She slams the book closed. "A wish," she repeats. "...So… why am I still here?" Celestia looks at me condescendingly for a second before looking away. "Apparently, there is no magic in your world and Rainbow Dash does not wish to switch back." "So I'm stuck here?" "Unfortunately…" Celestia says bitterly with scowl on her face, still not looking at me. "...Stuck here with... with these stupid wings," I flutter up a little and drop back down. "A-and these stupid books," I buck a pile of books. "In this stupid fairy tale castle!" I manage to stand on my hind legs and use my hooves to gesture to the whole place around me. "…IN THIS STUPID COLORFUL WORLD!" I flutter up again and fly straight out the door we came in. "ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO HOME AND DELETE ALL THE FUCKING BRONIES ON MY FRIENDS LIST! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?!" I think I hear Twilight calling after me. I fly out the nearest open window and find a nice tall tower, where I can sulk in peace under the temporary moonlight. > Brilliantly Planned Heist (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're in Morgan's car, stopped right down the road from the house with the barn. Danny's house. The one place where everyone was definitely a changeling… "So… do you think this could be a trap? I mean… what's-his-number over here kinda told us to come here…" I ask Morgan. "We'll never know until it happens," Morgan points out. "Besides, it's not like we can ask for help. Haven't you noticed something strange around town today? How many people have you seen? Seems like nobody is out today. If we're really dealing with…" he looks behind him, "changelings… I can't help but wonder if they're behind that, too." I look behind me. Our pet changeling eyes us innocently and shrugs. "So I'd rather be on the safe side. Trust no one. That's the main reason I wanted to stay away from the druggies, they were acting weird… even for druggies. Just keep your eyes peeled, we only know about three or four of these… imposters, but there could be more." "Dude," backseat changeling pipes up, "Did you suddenly take a brain steroid? I liked you better when you were dumb and reckless…" Morgan pointedly ignores that. "Well… Ok, I guess…" I agree. "By the way Dashie, why aren't you trying to find a way to get home? All you're doing is helping these lame humans, it's really boring," what's-his-number complains. "Huh?" "I mean, think of all the things that crazy 'Church' guy is doing in your body! Ha, imagine you, the great Rainbow Dash, making poor, poor, little Fluttershy cry." He wouldn’t do that… would he? I look down at myself. He doesn't seem like a bad… person. "Oh, how the hay would you know anyway?" I ask. "Well how long do you think I've been in this world? I saw 'you' make Flutters cry and then laugh about it. I even felt a little sorry for her." "What?! Why would he do that…? Morgan, why would Church do that?!" "…You were, er, he was never... the biggest pony fan… Aw, don't worry. I'm still sure he wouldn't do that… without a good reason, anyway." He smiles reassuringly. "Wow! And I thought I was the liar." "Ah HA! So you were lying!" I accuse! "Keep saying that when you go back to your body and everyone hates you. Better go back soon before Church can do anything really stupid." "I kinda don't know how, and like I was saying Morgan, you think maybe we should bring some kind of weapons with us?" He thinks about it. Morgan leans over and whispers to me, "I've heard changelings are hurt by silver…" "Oh no! Not silver!? OUR ONE TRUE WEAKNESS!!! That's werewolves moron." "Well," Morgan starts, "unless we sneak up on them they'll probably know we're coming anyway. Besides, I have a feeling they have a way to communicate and this guy already warned them." "Seriously, when did you suddenly become intelligent?" "Ok, you wanna go or what? And what should we do with this guy?" I ask. "Oh you can just leave me here, I'm sure no one will take me. Just roll the window down a little bit, I'll be fine." Morgan looks at him in the back seat. "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley." Morgan rolls his eyes and sighs. "Anyway," he looks back to me, "you should try to stay in the open as best as you can. Forgive me Church, but I'm having a hard time believing you're a pony. But I guess it's either that, or you've lost your goddamned mind. Either way, I don't know if you can tell, but you aren't exactly built to fight, you're built to run. If we fight, it's kick and run, got it?" I look at my human body in disappointment. He's probably right. I was hoping to kick some changeling flank, other than the punching bag in the back seat, of course, but oh well… "Yeah, kick and run, got it." Morgan drives us closer and we get out. "Well… if you need to run…" he points, "out the back, run to the trail to the woods. If you need to run out the front, run into town and hide somewhere." Morgan looks at me like we're going on a suicide mission. I gulp. "Got it." We walk up to the house, place almost looks deserted. It's quiet. Too quiet. Most of the windows are open. Morgan starts sneaking up to the side. I follow closely behind him. The door is open, Morgan quietly opens it and pokes his head inside. He waves his hand, signaling me to follow him inside. It's a living room, there's some couches and a coffee table. Two doors, one closed, one open, and one doorway into another room. Morgan picks that doorway, while I pick the closed door. I slowly turn the knob… hehe… and crack the door open. I look inside, nopony's here. It's just some office with a desk. I figure I'll go join Morgan. I pass by the open door and look inside. A laundry room. Morgan goes through the doorway into a kitchen. There are two doorways on the left and one hallway. Morgan leads the way, clearing the first door, then the hall, which I can see the front door at the end of. Actually, there's another door down the hallway, but he doesn't seem to care about it. We walk through the dining room, and we wind up in the room with the comfy couch, where I played that game. Morgan taps his chin in thought, "Hmmm... I feel like I'm missing something," he whispers. I glance outside a window. Ack! Stupid sun got in my eyes! I look back outside, carefully this time, I squint at the car… "Great, our friend is missing," I whisper to Morgan, and point out the window. We can see the front door from here, it's still closed and I never heard it open. "Great, he must be sneaking around the back. Wanna check out the basement or upstairs?" "Umm… can we get in the basement from outside? Or is there a window maybe, so we can sneak up on them?" I whisper as quietly as possible. "Yeah there's tons of windows in the basement. There is only one entrance to it, it's in the back." "Cool, let's go outside then." Morgan walks out the front door and we go around the house. In back, there's three windows, all open, and a back door to the basement. Clunk I'm pretty sure that was a door closing inside the house. Looks like Morgan heard it too. Probably that one door in the hallway we skipped. I take a look in one of the windows. I see a pool table, three couches, a set of weights, a small table, a door, and stairs going up. I check another window and it looks like that one door goes to a room full of boxes and junk. "Hey, let's try to get in that door." I point to the door. "Alright." He walks to the entrance to the basement but the door won't open. I look up. If only I could just fly up there… "Wait, instead of going in there and having our flanks handed to us, couldn't we get them to come outside?" "We can try, but it seems like they're avoiding us." A few seconds pass… neither of us know what to do… "I think we should just go inside and clear all the rooms," Morgan finally says. "Didn't we just… do that?" "Well we probably missed something… Let's just go." He walks off towards the other back entrance. He's acting weird…er than usual. "Fine." I follow him. At least the door was unlocked. We're in that office-y room I saw earlier. We manage to sneak down the stairs to the basement without getting caught. Down here, we try the only door, and it's locked. "Any idea where they keep the keys?" I ask. "Probably on them..." "Hmm…" I crouch down and try to get a look under the door, but all I see is a concrete floor… "Is anyone in there?" I ask the door as quietly as possible. I hear scratching on the door. "Is that a dog?" "A cat." "Great…" "What do they think we are, stupid?" Maybe they just put a cat in there to trick us… "Got any brilliant plans?" Morgan asks. "I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'…" I'm sick of snooping around… "You wanna just go upstairs and take them head on?" "Not really but I can't think of anything else." "If we're gonna fight them anyway, we could just break the door open, then they'll come to us and we might find the missing people," I helpfully suggest. "They're obviously guarding something upstairs and won't come down until we leave or go up there." "Alright, whatever. Let's do this!" "Hold on, I just had an idea." "Oh... what? NOW you have an idea?!" "…" "Well, spit it out already!" "Ok basically, I leave you here. Ok?" "What?! How does that even…? You know what, fine. Go ahead. Maybe I can get this door open while you're out." He leaves, and I fiddle with this door for a while. But nothing seems to work. After a couple minutes, Morgan comes back in. "Ok, it might work." "Cool. What might work?" "You. Hiding in a bathroom." "…What…?" "You. Hiding in a bathroom, then sneaking upstairs." "So… you'll distract them?" "Kinda..." "Oh… kay…?" He quietly walks up the stairs, peeks his head out to check if the coast is clear, and I follow him out. He points to a door right by the stairs, the bathroom. Thankfully, the door doesn't make that much noise opening. I get inside, and close the door, hiding in the dark. I hear Morgan going back downstairs. A minute later, I hear his car driving away. Did he really just… leave me here? Before I think about it too long, I hear two sets of footsteps come from upstairs and they leave out the front door. Ha! I knew a distraction would work! Then two more come much slower, one leaves out the front door and the other seems to go down to the basement. That's my cue, I quietly slip out of the bathroom and make my way up the stairs. Up here, there's a little hallway, with five doors, two on my right and three to the left. I pick the first one on the right. The door opens to a medium sized bedroom, with nothing but a mattress on the floor with a little TV in front of it. But I check the closet just to be sure. The next bedroom is a little smaller but has more bedroom-y furniture, and the walls are painted Pinkie Pie pink… No closet, but I check under the bed. The next bedroom is a bathroom. Nothing to see here. The door at the end of the hall is locked… I jiggle the knob, but it won't budge. Last door, and it's locked too. But hey, what's that? There's something shiny on top of the door frame… A key! I fumble with the lock but get it open. Inside! There's a… 'nother bedroom. Sigh Nothing special. I check the closet though… Uh oh… the guy in the basement is coming back upstairs! Thinking fast, I close the bedroom door as quickly and quietly as possible, then I hide in the closet. He takes his time coming up the stairs. Seems like he wanders around the hallway a little. Click Oh, buck. He's in my room… don't open the closet, don't open the- "Oh hey there Dashie, we thought you left." BUCK! Our douchebag Conner imposter lunges at me in the closet but I side step him and get out of the door. Ha! He grabs me by the legs and throws them upward, leaving me to fall flat on my face. He tackles me and grapples me until it's practically unbreakable! I keep struggling, trying to get out of his grip. I think I'm getting loose- THUD Wha? Where am I? Ow, my head! I try to lift my arm, but… I can't. I look around, squinting from the bright light. Oh joy, I'm in the barn again… tied to a chair… again… "Oh not again!" "Good afternoon Dashie, how are you feeling after your little power nap?" "Like crap," I answer instinctively then look up. Conner… "Oh, it's you…" "Yeeessss… looks like the horseshoe's on the other hoof, eh Dashie?" He smirks at me like the smart-flank he is. Ain't that the truth. Now he's got me tied up. I hope I don't get to be his punching bag like he was mine… "Untie me, I gotta take a leak." "Well then, that chair's going to get increasingly more uncomfortable for you isn't it?" He says with a devious little grin. Sigh "You're not letting me outta here are you?" "Well it's my job to make you as angry and miserable as possible, and that's just step one. I think I'm going to enjoy my time with you…." "Oh you stupid…!" Wait… "Hang on… why would you want me to be angry? Don't you guys eat love and, ya know, good emotions…?" "Oh please, you don't have any good emotions." "I… what? Of course I do!" "Oh? Then why are you here? You must dearly love your friends if you wished to be here." Ugh! "Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about," I say through gritted teeth. "Well I think it's very clear that I do know what I'm talking about," he says smugly. "Oh, you should see what this kid is doing in your body, it's hilaaaarious!" "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?! Wait. How would you know?! You're just saying that to make me angry!" "Oh, I keep in touch with my friends. They told me all about how Church ran away from all your friends at the first sign of trouble. Pretty funny, they didn't even know he was mind-swapped with you. Their Element of Loyalty just up and ran away from them… what a good friend." "OK! You know what? I'M ANGRY! NOW WHAT?!" "Now we wait." He starts humming some catchy tune. I just sit and glare daggers at him. "Oh don't look at me like that, you're the one that wanted to be here. Besides… you should be sad, you're never gonna see your friends again." "They'll figure it out and come get me. I got here, right?! How could I not be able to get back?!" "Well I hope they don't. We're having such a great time together aren't we?" Sarcasm. "Yeah, barrels of fun…" I could use a cider right now. "Really?" He frowns. "Well I'm not doing a very good job then am I? Want to hear another story?" "Not really…" "Oh ok." He hums some more. "After Church ran away he found Celestia and continued to lie to her about being Rainbow Dash. Thankfully all your friends trust you… or else he wouldn't be able to ruin your life." "Oh, come on! How could he just pretend to be me?! You can't fake this level of awesome!" "Are you asking a changeling how someone can pretend to be someone?" He chuckles. "He knows you by the way, at least somewhat." "How could this Church guy know me?" Wait. Morgan knew about Rarity… "Oh come on, I don't know everything. But he at least knows that you're a lesbian." "What?! No I'm not!" "…Really?" "That thing with Gilda was one time! ONE TIME!" "Oh please, like I actually care about that." He rolls his eyes. "You really shouldn't lie to yourself though," he says condescendingly. Ok… it might have been more than once… "Buck off." "Well I see you talking, but all I can hear is 'Tell me more stories'. I told you about the time Church made Fluttershy cry right? Heh, that was priceless." "Yeah, ya told me that one." "Funny right?" I stare at him menacingly. "THAT'S NOT A YES!" "You're right! It isn't!" "Well I thought it was funny." … "Hey isn't Twilight supposed to be really smart, why can't she see through Church? She seems pretty dumb to me." "Twilight's not dumb! She's the biggest egghead around." "Well then she's probably not a very good friend if she can't tell that you aren't you. Maybe you're not as good of friends as you think. Don't you want to go back and figure that out?" "Yes!" "Pity." I hear the door to the barn open and footsteps running towards us. It's what's his name? Silas I think. The tall guy. He's got what looks like a scroll. He hands it to eh, what's-his-number who reads it in disapproval. He looks up from the paper and glares at me. "Rainbow..." he says, walking closer. THUMP "OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" He punched me in the face REAL hard! "...Why aren't you gone yet?" > Purple Haze (Church) - w/ Previous Chapter Summary > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Church finds himself and several other ponies, including the rest of the Mane Six, Shining Armor, Celestia's personal guard named Cutlass, and Celestia herself, in the archives of Canterlot Castle. There, they search tirelessly for a magic spell they can use to reverse the chaos that Discord has bestowed upon them. Celestia has taken every precaution in weaving her way to the archives, so that the mischievous draconequus would not be able to find her and the few ponies left following her. You see, Canterlot has apparently fallen to chaos. Changelings have been discovered in the Royal Guard, upsetting all military structure. Upon rousing her sister from her sleep, Celestia discovers that Luna is gone and a Nightmare is in her place. Church and the ponies succeed in finding a spell to fix everything. Having sorted all the mind-swaps (courtesy of Discord), Church asks Celestia to get him home. In the process, she pokes around inside his very mind, and stumbles upon a stray thought of his that indicates exactly how he views his current situation: As a dream. A fictional reality. This upsets Celestia. But what upsets her more is that, in his rage from having an alicorn reading his very thoughts, Church said a few things that he'd regret otherwise. He told her that they were not friends. Celestia tries to send him home, to be rid of him, but finds that she cannot. Because, for whatever reason, Rainbow Dash doesn't want to switch back. Church then flies off angrily, and finds a nice tower to be alone on. The sun pops up. "HEY RAINBOW DASH!" "...Huh...?" I look around and see a pony flying towards my tower. It's one of the gimp suit ponies. The orange and yellow one… what's the British car? Spitfire I think. She lands neatly on the balcony, kicking up dust that of course gets in my eyes. "Where's…" she takes a breath, "the princess?" "I dunno…" I shrug. She lifts up her flight goggles and squints at me. "Have you been crying?" I suck in my gut and sit up straight. Who does this pony think she is? Accusing me of crying! Pfft, I'm a MAN, damn it! "That bad, huh?" She asks with a cocky smile on her face. I slouch in defeat and she takes a seat next to me. "Come on, talk to me." "You… really want me to explain everything to you? Cuz it's a really long story." "Dash, you and me are gonna be teammates soon. We might as well get to know each other, right?" She nudges me in the side and gives me a sly little smile. I take a deep breath… "Well…" "Wow Church, that really sucks." "Gee, thanks..." "Hey. I call 'em like I see 'em. So, like, you're really a dude?" "Yes," I deadpan. "For the eleventh time: I'm a guy. We've been through this, remember?" "I know, I know, it's just kinda hard to wrap my head around that." "The 'being a dude' thing is the hard part about all this to understand?!" "Well," she chuckles, "since you put it that way…" "Ugh, you're no help," I complain. "Hey. I listened, didn't I?" "Yeah, I know." "I always try to help my comrades, even if they have been possessed by an opposite-gender ghost from another reality. Or whatever the heck you are. How's that working out for you by the way? The whole 'you're a girl now' thing?" "Honestly? Being a chick doesn't seem like such a big deal next to being a fucking horse – no offense." "None taken. I think." "I think I've kinda gotten over the initial shock, even if this whole thing," I gesture to the whole world around us, "is still pretty. Freakin'. Weird. But right now what's really bothering me is just… this whole thing with Celestia." "Well, she was poking around in your head, I think I'd be pretty ticked too if somepony did that to me… freakin' unicorns." "What do you think the worst thing I said was?" "The part when you told her you were sorry that she thought you two were friends. Definitely that part. It was just awful. Especially since you're the one who offered to be her friend in the first place. What kind of prick does that?" "...Yeah, you're probably right." "I mean, saying something that bad would take a colossal douche– I mean uh, you're gonna go back and patch things up with her, right?" "I probably should but.... I'm not very good at apologizing," I shrug helplessly. "Well…" She puts a hoof around my shoulders. "Don't worry so much. Just go in there and say you're sorry. It's OK if you suck at it, they'll appreciate the gesture either way." She smiles gently at me. "Thanks, but... well I guess I'll try." "That's the spirit! Now go get 'em champ!" She slaps me on the back. Except with a hoof, so it kinda hurts. "Uh... I kinda have no idea where they are…" I admit with a shrug. "Oh… where were they before?" "They were in the archives when I left them." "As good a place as any, let's start there." She stands up and flexes her wings. "K." I get up and look over the balcony. Man, it's a long way down. POP A wild Discord has appeared. "Oh, there you are, Not-Rainbow! I've been looking all over for you and-" I cut him off, "Get lost you stupid chimera!" He gives me a surprised look. "Well, well. There's no need to be so testy! What's got your tail in a twist?" "You mean aside from-" He snaps my mouth shut with his bear paw. "Oh never mind. I can see when I'm not wanted. You probably just want to spend some time with your new filly friend here." "Filly friend?" Spitfire asks. I squirm in his grip. Let me go you crazy goat-bearded monstrosity! "Don't worry, I'm certainly not one to judge your… unique tastes in companionship. I'll just leave you two alone." With that, he pops out of existence again. Spitfire and I exchange awkward glances. Back at the archives… We flew in through the same window I left from. I lead the way back into the large library-like room we were in. By the looks of it, Celestia and the gang are long gone. "Where do you think they would have gone?" I ask. "Eh, I'm not sure, where does Celestia hide when stuff like this happens?" Spitfire asks with a half-hearted sarcastic smirk. If that was a joke, it's lost on me. "She doesn't seem like the kind to hide but I have a feeling that she left the castle…" ...Anywhere but here... "Well, I don't really know my way around the castle… which way did you guys come from?" I helpfully point to the door on the other side of the room. "Well, retrace your steps I guess?" "So go deeper into the castle? That's what you're saying?" "Have you seen the streets of Canterlot? It's practically a riot. I don't think they'd be out there." "Well I haven't seen the streets..." "Trust me, you don't wanna." I sigh and turn to walk towards the door on the other side of the room. Hey… it looks like there's something on the door. Suddenly, the entire room becomes pitch black. Who turned off the sun? I can't see anything! As my eyes adjust I see a cloud of purple sparkly dust float in front of the door and then disappear. "Spitfire, did you see that?" "Yeah, it took something!" "What? Let's get it!" We run for the door and throw it open. "It's getting away!" Spitfire shouts. The cloud whips down the hallway, we slide on the STUPID marble floors when it hangs a sharp right and just when it looks like it's about to get away with whatever the hell it took, the sun pops back up. Still running, I squint and see the dust cloud slow down and dissipate into thin air. Spitfire stops a little ahead of me, and puts her hoof on what looks like a sheet of paper. "It had a note," she says. "What's it say?" I pant. "Church, gone to Ponyville. Signed, Twilight Sparkle." "That purple idiot," I shake my head. "What if Discord found that? Then again, he knows where everyone is anyway. Or something like that, I think. I wouldn't imagine we'd be able to get a train to Ponyville – God that's a stupid name for a place – do you know how far away it is?" "Ponyville? About a half hour. By wing." "By wing? I just learned how to fly. Today. Dunno if I'm up for a long haul just yet…" "Eh, what are you worried about? Those wings can break the sound barrier, ya know. You'll be fine. Besides, I'll help ya out. I gotta join the rest of my team there anyway. I had them go ahead without me so I could keep an eye out around here for you-know-who." "You mean Discord or Nightmare Bitch? Cuz we just missed Discord, remember?" "I thought he was 'reformed'." "Oh god, that's right, you guys 'reformed' a bad guy… Whatever, there's an open window in that room, let's get out of here." "Right behind ya." We enter the room, some kind of lavishly decorated sitting room, and immediately the sun goes down again. Both of us are blind for a moment, but the first thing we can see afterwards is that we're both standing in a purple haze. The door slams closed behind us. Spitfire jumps up and shoots off towards the open window, I try to follow as fast as I can on foot. The window slams closed and she flies into it like a bird into freshly cleaned glass, making a tremendous 'thud.' I cringe as she falls to the floor and the curtains draw closed over all the windows in the room. Somehow, it feels like what little moonlight is left gets sucked out of the room. It's completely pitch black in here, I can't see a thing. And… it feels cold. Like the life got sucked out of the room with the light. "Spitfire? You ok?" I ask the darkness. "Ugh. I think I broke my nothe." She sounds like she's a mile away from me. "I'm coming. Where are you?" "Over here." Her voice is distant, and it seems like it echoes from the walls of the room, making it harder to pinpoint. I take slow, careful steps, trying not to trip or bump into something. "Marco!" "What?" "It's a game, say 'Polo' when I say 'Marco'… Marco!" "Polo?" We bounce the names back and forth until I finally find her, leaned up against a wall. She was way closer than she sounded. "Your face was introduced to that window pretty hard. You ok?" "I think I sprained a hoof when I fell, and I'm pretty sure I broke my nose." "Well, that's not too bad, right?" "Yeah, I guess not." I lean up against the wall, next to her. "That stupid purple haze, all around. I feel like we're sitting in it… it just feels strange, like… not normal… somehow." "Whatever it is, it doesn't want us to leave." "Well, maybe if it turns to day again, we'll be able to get out. Seemed like last time when it turned to day, this purple crap just disappeared. What the hell is doing that anyway?" "The purple crap or the day-night thing? "The day-night thing." "The night is definitely Nightmare Moon. All she wants is for it to be nighttime forever. But the day… I dunno, could be Princess Celestia, could be Discord. He did that too, last time, when he flipped Ponyville upside down, he made it day or night every other minute or so. Hopefully one of them will raise the sun again, soon, and we can get you to Princess Celestia and fix this whole mess." "Oh. Um. About that… I kinda have no idea what we're gonna do. Apparently since I'm not Rainbow Dash, their little magic necklace things won't work anymore." "Yeah… well, let's just hope the Princess has a plan. For now, we'll have to settle with you apologizing to her." "Somehow I doubt my apology will make Nightmare Bitch stop being evil, make that stupid chimera stop being an ass, and stop wedding-crashing bug-horses from invading the fairy tale castle." "Well, when ya put it that way… it kinda just makes me want to sit here and do nothing." "Eh, it's alright. That's kinda what I want to do, too." > Evil Overlords (Dash) - w/ Previous Chapter Summary > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Rainbow Dash, stuck in Church's body, explored the town with Church's friend Morgan. Together they searched for the people this group of changelings have replaced. With them, they have a captured changeling who is still impersonating Claire's brother, Conner. Though his impression wasn't good enough to fool her or Morgan. Morgan still doesn't entirely believe Church is possessed by a pony, and that changelings have invaded their town and replaced his friends. At the fake Conner's suggestion, Morgan and Rainbow go to investigate the only place that was 'definitely' occupied by changelings: Danny's house. The one with the barn in which Rainbow had been tied to a chair. Thinking it's a trap, the duo take extra care to sneak their way inside the house. Having quietly searched the basement and first floor, Morgan decides that he will be a distraction to lure the other baddies out of the house. He gets in his car and drives away, effectively abandoning Rainbow, but giving her the opportunity to sneak upstairs and look around. Sadly, she finds absolutely nothing, and gets in a scuffle with their previously-detained Conner imposter, who knocks her out. She wakes up tied to a chair again, wherein the Conner imposter spends some time annoying her until he receives a message from the Silas imposter. After reading it, Conner punches Rainbow in the face and asks her why she isn't gone yet. "Why aren't you gone yet?" I cringe from the fresh dull pain in my face, and spit blood on the floor. "What are you talking about...?" I ask woozily. "Nothing, and now you're stuck here… forever." With that, Not-Conner walks away. I can't be stuck here... forever…!? No no no no no… This can't be happening! Forever is waaaaay too long to be stuck in this crazy place! I mean… that's like… FOREVER! I gotta get outta here! I fight my binds, jerk my arms around, but the ropes hold my hands tightly behind this chair. I keep trying but I finally give up and lower my head in defeat. It's only now that I realize, Silas is still standing there, watching me. I glare at him through wet eyes for a moment, then he leaves. I… I miss my friends… I miss my wings… I- I miss my LIFE… I sniffle and try to shake off my tears when I hear someone approaching. It's Silas again, he's holding a rag. He comes close to me. "Don't touch me, you filthy bugpony!" He backs off a bit, "Hey, easy now. I'm not gonna hurt ya." Silas gently starts wiping the blood and tears from my face. "Try not to mind him, out of all of the overlords, he hated ponies the most. You've had a long day. And it looks like mine is just about to get longer. Why don't you get a little shut eye." "Please don't hit me," I beg. He laughs softly and shifts the rag around, holding the clean side out, and gently holds it over my nose and mouth. "G'night." It smells funny. Where am I? Hey, I'm on my cloud. So cool and fluffy. The sun is shining brightly on my face, warm and comforting. Birds are chirping in the trees, all that jazz. I look at my hooves for a second… I don't really know why, was something funny about them? I look up and see a huge nasty storm cloud heading straight for Ponyville! Ohhhh no. That rogue cloud's not gonna ruin today's beautiful weather on my watch! I fly up and chase after it. Wow! This thing's a lot bigger than I thought it was! I need some help! I look around, not a pegasus in sight. I make a beeline for Ponyville. Nopony's outside. Maybe they saw the storm that's rolling in. I fly in near Sugar Cube Corner, looking down the main road, the nasty storm cloud's already at the edge of the forest near Fluttershy's place. I fly down the road yelling, "HEY! I need a couple pegasi to help me with this storm! Anypony?! Hellooooo?!" I'm at the library, I can't believe not a single pony even came outside to see what I was yelling about! The cloud is getting closer and its shadow is dark as night, looming over the houses. It rumbles with thunder and the wind is starting to pick up. I open the door to the tree and walk in. "Twilight! Hey Twilight!" "Rainbow Dash? Is that you?" I hear her call from upstairs, and she starts walking down. "Yeah. Hey where is everypony? I need help with that big storm cloud!" "Oh don't bother. These storms hit us every now and again, heh, I guess that's what happens when Derpy's in charge of the weather," she rolls her eyes, "I'm actually more interested in why you're back! Some kind of holiday in Los Pegasus? Or do Wonderbolts have vacation days? Actually I have so many questions for you..." "Wonderbolts? Oh no…" "So, how is Los Pegasus? Is it nice and sunny?" Twilight starts to look sad. "Do you like being a Wonderbolt? Do they treat you all right?" She starts tearing. "Did you miss us? How long can you stay?" She starts crying. "H-H-How are the rooms, do they-ey remind you of home?" Twilight is completely sobbing by now. I run over and hug her. "Twilight! I'm not a Wonderbolt! I- I love you guys, I don't wanna leave!" "...Well it's a little late for that don't you think? You've been gone for almost a year." She isn't crying anymore. "W- What are you talking about? A whole year? What's going on?!" "Well... let's not worry about that right now. Don't you want to visit the rest of your old friends today?" "Old friends?" "Let's go to Sugar Cube Corner. Fluttershy is there. And so is Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Ready to go?" "Uh, sure…" Her horn flashes and we're in Sugar Cube Corner. A familiar pink blur appears from below my vision. GASP "DASHIE!!! Oh my gosh I missed you!!" She suffocates me with a hug. "I missed you too Pinkie! I didn't even know I was gone so long…" "So how's it been? How long you staying? How's Los Pegasus?" With every question she appears at a different point in my vision, typical Pinkie, but just like Twilight, her smile starts drooping as it leads to her final question. Unlike the other times, now she's standing still in front of me with tears starting to form. "How... How... where were you Rainbow Dash? Why did you leave us?" Her hair begins to lose its poofy quality and go flat before she curls into a ball on the ground, sobbing her eyes out. "I- I don't know! I wasn't gone that long! I don't even know what happened!" Pinkie starts in a low tone, "Half a year ago you didn't-" Rarity runs up and shoves a hoof in her mouth. "You see, about half a year ago was when these storm clouds started to appear – poor Pinkie always gets like this during these storms, but that's why I'm here! It's good to see you again Rainbow." She said the last bit in a strange tone. She turns her head away from me to tend to Pinkie. Before I can say anything I hear a faint whisper from across the room. I turn to look at Fluttershy, who somehow looks older. Her mane is longer, almost enough to touch the ground, no doubt from her fear of scissors… that she most likely has. She isn't even looking at me but rather at the ground to her right. She mumbles something, then looks up and notices me looking at her when she finally says recognizable words. "Uhmm... It's good to see you again Rainbow Dash, how have you been?" As she starts to walk towards me she seems to succumb to the same crying disease that everypony but Rarity has had so far. "Fluttershy, don't cry… I'm here now, right?" I go in for a hug. "Yeah you're right. sniff It's just that things without you sniff aren't the same." Twilight pipes us, even she's starting to tear up again. "Girls.... do you think we should tell her? I mean she is the Element of Loyalty after all..." "Was the Element of Loyalty is more like it," pops in the voice of Applejack, entering from outside. "Rainbow I can't believe you! I never wanted to say it back then, but how could ya choose them over us?" "I didn't! I… really didn't choose! I don't-" "Now I don't wanna hear none of that. Ya know darn well what you chose Rainbow. Now I'm here to set ya straight." "Wait! Let me tell her, please!" Twilight cries out to Applejack, who just stares at me before turning to look at Twilight with a nod. "Fine, but don't sugarcoat nothin', let her know what she's done." "Alright, some time after you left, Celestia called us to Canterlot. She needed our help, but we couldn't get to you in time. We… we tried to save Equestria without you, but…" "But now I'm in charge of this sorry excuse for a country you flea-bitten dirt ponies call home." I turn and see the face of evil itself: the changeling Queen. "Your poor Princess Celestia didn't stand a chance against me, after all. Especially not without her precious 'Element of Loyalty.' Don't worry though. We're not bad evil overlords, we just need a little snack-rifice every now and then. Oh, this one should do…" She picks up Fluttershy and sinks her pointy fangs right into her neck. I blink. Silas is looking at me. "Bad dream?" He asks. "Huh? No… I mean… yeah maybe…" Did I have a bad dream? I can't remember. "I can tell." "Did what's-his-face, Conner, send you in here to annoy me some more?" "Ha ha. No, I think I'll be handling you from here on out. You see, while you've been snoozing, a lot has changed." "What do you mean?" "Shh. Listen. You hear that?" Now that he mentions it, there's a loud thrumming noise outside in the distance. "Uh, yeah… I hear it." "It looks like your buddy Morgan called in some backup. Those are flying machines the humans use, called 'helicopters.' I imagine they're trying to scope out the place before moving in. Some kind of military or guard I suppose." I hear some kind of big truck pulling up outside. It stopped. Now I hear a lot of people walking. More like marching, actually. Silas looks at me. "Time for me to disappear." And he walks off and disappears among the piles of boxes and junk in this barn. I hear the door being kicked open, and people walking in slowly. "HEY! I'm over here! Help!" A few men in helmets and black vests with the word 'SWAT' show up in front of me. "We've located a hostage, over." "Thank Celestia! Hey listen there's still a changeling in here!" "Relax sir, everything's gonna be fine." Sir? BUCK. "Yeah, but there's still a bad guy in here!" "We have a possible hostile in the barn, over." "He's a tall skinny human- no wait! Actually he could look like anything! Be super careful!" "I'll guard the hostage, you two help secure the area." The other two guys leave. "Did they hurt you sir?" "Well I think I took a couple punches, but I've had worse. Are you guys guards?" "I guess you could say that." "Did my friend get you guys to come out here?" "I'm not sure I know who you're talking about sir." He doesn't look at me while talking. He just keeps looking around him, pointing his metal thing where ever he looks. "We just got called out here. Apparently almost everyone in this town has gone missing in the past 24 hours, and some guy told the police in the next town over that there was a possible hostage situation at this residence. Maybe that was your friend?" I smile. "Yeah, that was Morgan alright. For a while there I thought he deserted me." "Well everything's gonna be fine-" "Smith! I need backup!" Another guard calls. 'Smith' marches away from me behind some boxes. I'm stuck here waiting helplessly tied to this chair. I hear some footsteps for a while, then they stop. I wait here in frightening silence for what feels like forever. It was probably just a few minutes though, and Smith comes marching back to me. Funny… he's actually looking at me now. "These guards are pathetic. Though I have to say, at least they have a little more tact than your average Royal Guard." I narrow my eyes at him. "Changeling." I take a deep breath. "HEL-" He covers my mouth with a gloved hand. "Ah, ah, ah. No need to make a scene, Dash." I struggle around in his grip and bite his hand! "OW!" "HELP!" Another SWAT guy comes running over. "Smith! What's going on?" He asks. "HE'S A CHANGELING!" "This hostage is insane." "DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING HE SAYS." "I think they have him drugged up or something." "LIES!!! FILTHY CHANGELING LIES!" "Martinez, I haven't heard from the rest of the team. I think their comms are down. Go to the truck and see if you can find anything out." "Roger that." Martinez turns to walk away, but when he does, the changeling disguised as Smith knocks his helmet off and bashes him in the head with his metal contraption. He catches Martinez as he falls, and gently leans his unconscious body up against some crates. "I have to go to the truck. There's probably one last guy there. I'll be back." Not-Smith says as he casually strolls away. You mean… he just downed an entire squad of armed guards? Some tense minutes later, and the changeling, who now looks like Silas again (with his regular clothes, not the guard getup) strolls on back to me. He leans against a crate and drums his fingers on top of it. "Phew. What a workout. Haven't done anything like that in a while!" "You… you bastard. They were gonna save me!" "Nah. They were only gonna get hurt." "Yeah! You just knocked them out!" He chuckles softly. "I spared them, alright? You don't wanna know what Righty would've done with them." "Who?" He takes in a deep breath and exhales. "Tell me, Rainbow, you know how magic works right?" "Uh… kinda? I might've slept through that lesson in school." "Well you see, it's very hard for a normal changeling to control their magic like unicorns do, so far only eight of us, that we know of, have been able to master it. And you see, we had six cities. 'Hives' you might call them. So Queen Chrysalis thought it was a good idea to put one of each of those mages in charge of each of the hives. We call them 'overlords'." "Overlords?" "Yes. But that leaves out two, doesn't it? It just so happens that the two most powerful changeling mages would be Queen Chrysalis' personal guards. You might say underlings, if you'll pardon the pun. They were given the names, in your tongue, 'Right' and 'Left'. Righty was the more aggressive type while Lefty was more…" he chuckles, "…passive. Not that it mattered much…" His voice turns sour, "because Queen Chrysalis had all of us under her complete control anyways…" "You mean, she did that mind-control-y thing?" "Yes… Anyway, our magic works differently from ponies, you see. While you get your magic passively from nature, friendship, love, harmony, and all that ridiculous crap, we changelings do not. And while it's true, we need love to survive, we get our magic from… hate and despair. And you know, in Equestria there really isn't enough hate to go around – besides in the hives, but they hardly count – but this place… here despair and hate flow freely through the air. It's… empowering… intoxicating." "Wait, wait. Hang on. What do you mean you get your magic from hate and stuff? I thought your queen got all super-powerful because Shining Armor thought she was Cadence and loved the heck out of her?" "Ah. Yes. Our Queen, though not very talented with conventional spells and so forth, possessed the most superior innate changeling abilities of any of us. She was one of very few who could even use mind control, let alone control eight changelings, at all times, for decades. She also had the strange ability of being able to feed on hate and gain magical power from love." "Did you say she was? Does that mean she's…?" "Dead? Most likely." "Uuhhhh………………" Should I say it? I have no idea. "Sorry?" "Ah, don't be. You can call me Lefty, by the way." > Come Hell or High Water (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Church sulks on top of a castle tower, because he pissed off Celestia, and he just wants to go home. Spitfire finds him there by chance and talks to him, learning his whole crazy story up until that point. She encourages Church to go apologize to Celestia, and tags along while he looks for her and the rest of the gang. In their search, a mysterious cloud of purple smoke tries to stop them. Yet it only seems to be effective at night. Fortunate that Discord and Nightmare Moon seem to be fighting over raising the sun or the moon. It snatches a note left by Twilight, telling Church that they all went to Ponyville. Then it traps Church and Spitfire in a room as they try to fly out... "What did I do to deserve this crap?" I ask the darkness. "You wished for it, didn't you?" Spitfire responds. "What? No! I wished that I could live in a fantasy world. You know, with wizards and elves and stuff. And I'd go on an adventure! Fight the forces of evil!" "Look, Church. I'm a Wonderbolt. We live and breathe adventure, and let me tell you… it's not all it's cracked up to be. It can be dirty and bloody and… heartbreaking, sometimes. It's not like something you'd read in a fantasy book. Besides – well, ok, I get that you have something against ponies, for whatever reason, I don't know – but the point is: just take a look at yourself." "It's pitch black in here." She sighs. "No, you dumb monkey, I meant figuratively. Look, you have wings. You said you guys don't have 'em, right? You can fly now. C'mon, that's cool. You're living every ground-walker's dream. And… magic? You guys don't have that either. It's all over the place, here." Now I sigh. "What's the last one you said? Fight the forces of evil? You can't get much more evil than Nightmare Moon. I told you what she wants, yeah?" "Yeah… Nighttime forever." "You ever stop to think what that means? Nighttime. Eternal. She'd be condemning every stallion, mare, and foal, every living creature, and every plant down to the last blade of grass, to a horribly slow death of darkness, cold, and hunger." "Well when you put it that way…" I'd say it sounds kinda dark for a frickin' kids' show. "See? You even got the forces of evil. Every cloud has a silver lining, Church." She lightly punches me in the shoulder. "Yeah, but every silver lining's got a touch of gray." "Pfft. Ya got your wish, dude, just shut up and enjoy it." "I'd love to, but right now I'm trapped in a dark room with–" Sunlight starts seeping in from the closed curtains. Just enough light to see the smartass smirk Spitfire's giving me. "Let's blow this joint." Ah… flight. A spectacular feeling it is, to be seemingly suspended in mid air, with nothing beneath me. The ground is so far down that I wouldn't be able to tell how fast I'm going if it weren't for the wind rushing against my face. I look to my right to see Spitfire, flying gracefully and effortlessly, a duck in water compared to me, I can feel my sloppy rhythm and I'm pretty sure I'm not doing this right… ACK! CROSSWIND! CROSSWIND! I've lost control! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! I feel a tugging on my tail (THAT totally doesn't feel weird in any way at all) and I stabilize. I look back and catch a glimpse of Spitfire with a mouthful of rainbow colored tail. "...Sorry," I apologize. "Hey, no problem!" "Got any tips on how to do this better?" I ask as she comes up next to me again. "Use your legs for balance!" She sticks her forelegs forward then back against her chest, stretches her hind legs back, then back in. I try it a little too fast and almost fall forward, but I correct it quick enough, and try again slowly. Yeah, I can see how that works, now I try my back legs. Hmm… might help. We're getting closer to Ponyville, I can make out the buildings now, they're not just a blur on the horizon anymore. It's starting to look like we'll actually make it there before– The sun dips below the horizon. "Oh god dammit!" "Stay close to me!" Spitfire shouts. I can't see anything! And no sooner than the sun fell, it starts raining. From where, I don't know, there were no clouds that I could see. "Church!" Spitfire shouts. I've lost sight of her. "Fly up!" "Ok!" I point myself up and flap harder. The rain gets worse. What started as a drizzle is turning into a monsoon. Oh, great, now the wind is kicking up, too. CA-CRACK Lighting strikes to my side, leaving my ears ringing, but with the flash I spot Spitfire not far in front of me. And a thick layer of black clouds a mile above us. The wind gains speed and starts to change direction. I'm losing my grip on the air! I try to use my legs to balance– ACK! DOWNDRAFT! "SPITFIRE! HELP!" I'm spinning out of control! I can't see in all this darkness! It's just like being underwater and not knowing which way is up! CA-CRACK Lightning and thunder crash down right beside me, I completely lose what little hold on the air that I had. And I'm falling. Definitely falling. I am so… utterly… boned right now. Then… Something grapples me, and I stop spinning. I look up. "Spitfire! You caught me!" "Yeah!" I think for a moment. "We're still falling!" "I know!" All I can do is look into her eyes as she struggles to keep us aloft in this storm. It only takes another second before we fall through a layer of tree branches and– THUD I don't want to open my eyes. "Am I dead?" Spitfire answers. "No… hurts too much," she pants. I look up and see the trees and the rain still pouring down, falling through the dense canopy. Some moonlight pokes through as well. "Thank you," I say to Spitfire, who's laying on top of me, panting her lungs out, and still holding onto me with a death grip. "Don't mention it…" POP We both turn to see Discord. Him and I both seem to realize at the exact same moment… that Spitfire is laying on top of me, breathing hard, and this all looks very… suggestive. He instantly looks away from us, and clears his throat awkwardly. "Ahem. I can see you two are busy. I'll just… come back later." He slowly walks backward then turns and steps through a door that just materialized. He closes it gently and it pops out of existence. "Hey Spitfire?" "Yeah?" "Think you could… I dunno, give me some personal space?" "Yep." She rolls off of me. I roll onto my hooves and stand up. All my legs are shaking. I stretch out, flex my wings, sore all over, but nothing broken. The rain seems to be easing up, but I'm still soaking wet. I wander over to a dry-ish spot next to a tree and shake myself dry, like a dog. It's strangely effective. My head turns instantly as I hear a twig snap. Spitfire hops up and dashes over to me, away from whatever hideous thing is approaching us. I can barely make out its silhouette in the scarce moonlight and shadows. It's big. Easily twice as tall as me. It lumbers closer on two feet… like bigfoot. It finally steps into our little clearing… "Morgan?!" "Hello Church." > Lefty Loosey (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Rainbow Dash is tied to a chair in the barn again. After the Conner imposter is done badgering her, the Silas imposter shows her some kindness. And some chloroform. She takes a nap and has a nightmare about abandoning her friends. She wakes up and sees Silas. He tells her a lot has changed while she was asleep. Minutes later, a team of SWAT officers busts into the barn. Apparently, Morgan called in some backup. Rainbow thinks she's saved, but they all seem to just disappear. Until, that is, Rainbow witnesses Silas disguised as one of them, in order to trick another and knock him out. Though Silas insists that he spared them all from getting hurt much worse. He explains that changelings eat love, but gain magical power from hate. And that only eight changelings were talented mages. Six were made 'Overlords' of their six 'Hives' and the other two were Chrysalis' personal guards / underlings. These two were named Right and Left. Right is aggressive and Left is passive. Just so happens that the Silas imposter is Lefty. "You can call me Lefty, by the way." "You're Lefty? So then who's Righty?" "Oh haven't you guessed? Uh, you might know him as Conner. I imagine you got to know him pretty well, you and your pal Morgan had him tied up and you two were dragging him around all day." "Oh yeah, him." "Yeah. Him. Look, Rainbow, I have a very important question for you." His face gets all serious. "Uh…" "Are you really a lesbian?" "WHAT?!" He smiles and shrugs with his hands up. "Well that's just what I've heard." "Oh come on! That was just one time!" "One time? Exactly how many 'one time's?" He snickers. "Just twice- buck off." "Oh relax Rainbow. I'm not judging you, only teasing. Just trying to lighten the mood, that's all." "Lighten the mood?! You have me tied to a chair!" He momentarily looks at the chair. Then pointedly ignores it. "In all seriousness, I do have some questions for you." "Why should I tell you anything? You have me tied to a chair for pony's sake!" "If… I untied you… would you answer me truthfully?" I avoid eye contact. "And you have to promise not to run away." I only grumble. "I tell you what. Answer me truthfully, and I promise to untie you." "Really?" "I swear on my changeling honor." "Oh why should I believe you? All of you have done nothing but lie to me and trick me the whole time I've been here!" "I told you my name, didn't I? You think changelings just go around telling ponies their real names? Think about it. I've told you way too much already. Consider that a symbol of mutual trust." "Well… I guess that kinda makes sense. You better not be lying to me though!" "Not this time, Rainbow." "Alright, hurry up and ask me those questions already! I have to pee!" "Heh heh. Fair enough. First question: why don't you want to go back home?" He asks with a serious face. "I… do!" "Ah. No you don't. You hesitated just there." "But I do!" "Nope. You hesitated, which means you don't. I'm a changeling, we're good at picking up those kinds of subtleties. The question is, why don't you want to go back?" "I… don’t know…" Don't I want to go back? I miss my friends… but… if I go back, I'll have to choose. Choose between them and the Wonderbolts. The whole reason I'm here. The whole reason I made that stupid wish! But then… there's also Morgan. And Claire. I kinda promised I'd help them find her brother, and the rest of Morgan's friends. I don't want to let them down, even if I kinda have already… "Well… I may have… kind of… sort of… possibly…" "Yes?" "I wished I wasn't myself! Ugh..." I roll my eyes. "I got accepted to the Wonderbolts..." "Let me guess. If you join them, you'd feel like you're abandoning your friends?" "…How did you know?" "Changeling. We're good at this kind of stuff. So you don't want to abandon your friends. Noble. But you realize you've already done that, right?" "Yeah. I noticed. THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME." "Well I'm not exactly an expert on friendship – though I'd like to think I know enough – but wouldn't they want you to be happy? Which way would make you happy?" "Oh, doy! Of course you don't understand! It's not that simple! Yeah, they want me to be happy, right? But I also want them to be happy. And how can they be happy without a totally awesome friend like me around? I can't just leave them for my own selfish desires… that's what it means to be a friend! That's what it means to be… loyal…" "Seems to me you're stuck between a rock and a hard place." "You can say that again." "What's the big deal, anyhow? Can't you be a Wonderbolt and have friends?" "Ugh, they wanted me to live in Los Pegasus, it's like a whole day's trip between there and Ponyville. I'd never have the time to go home, and even if I did, I wanna be with my friends all the time, not just once in a while…" "Well… I could go turn Los Pegasus into a Hive if you want…" Hmm… "The whole city. All changelings. You wouldn't even know the difference. But you could have everything your way. How's that sound?" Hmm… "No!" He looks down and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Well, we need to figure out why you don't want to go back. And fix that. I hate to say this Rainbow, but if we don't fix it, you're never going back. Is there anything else? Any other reason you might not want to go back? Anything at all?" "…Well there is one other thing…" I say with a smirk. "Yes?" "It's the uh, people, you guys replaced. I kinda promised Morgan I'd help him get to the bottom of this." "Oh, well, I tell you what. That leads me to my next question. I don't suppose you remember when I woke you up a few minutes ago, what I told you then? Well, I said a lot has changed while you were asleep…" "Such as?" "I need your help." "Come again?" "I need your help. You're the only one around here that can do this thing I need done." "What is it?" "I need your love." "Well that's not freaky at all! Do you have to like… bite me with those freaky fangs of yours?" "Ha, no. In fact, you won't even be giving me your love." "Who then?" "Righty." "HIM?!" "Yes, him. And in exchange for your love, I will give you all of your human friends back. How's that sound?" "But… I don't… what do I have to do?" "I told you, just love him." "Yeah, I got that… but how am I supposed to do that?" "Well don't look at me, I don't know! I'm a changeling, remember? You ponies make the love, we just eat it. If we could just make love like you do, my people wouldn't be starving!" He looks away from me, hiding his face for a moment. Changelings… starving? That's kindof… sad. That's really sad actually. I mean, it's not like love grows on trees or something. I guess they take what they can get, and if they don't get it then… wow. I never thought about it like that. I kinda feel sorry for him. Lefty clears his throat. "Ahem. Anyway, look, you love your friends, right? Just do the same thing. Simple enough." "Not… really." "Well, look. My offer stands. All the humans we have for a little love." "Why him anyway? He's a douchebag. Is he hungry or something?" "Ah. If only it were so simple. So, if you recall, hate fuels our magic. But it also does strange things to a changeling. Makes them feel powerful. Ever heard the expression 'power corrupts'?" "Yeah?" "Well if hate equals power…" "So he's… corrupted?" "Extremely so." "How'd that happen?" "Funny story, actually. It seems these two bumbling idiots tied him up and spent the whole day belittling him and using him as a punching bag." "Oh… crap. No wonder he kept egging us on." "Yeah. That was an awful lot of hate. Human hate, too, which seems really strong compared to pony hate. It's delicious by the way. But try not to give me too much, I'm kind of a lightweight." "So let me get this straight. I hated Righty a whole bunch, so now he's super-powerful and corrupted?" "Yes. And he wants to take over this world, enslave all the humans, and become the new changeling King, did I mention that part?" "No. No you didn't. So anyway, all I gotta do is give him a little love and he'll stop being… evil?" "Well, probably a lot of love, but yes. The love should counteract all that hate that's making him power-drunk." "And then you'll let all my human friends go?" "Yes, and all the rest of them." "Wait. The rest? How many do you have?" "Oh… I think we've lost count, but probably in the hundreds." "WHAT?!" "Don't look at me! It was Righty's idea." "WHY?!" "To secure the town- that's not important right now! Do you accept my offer or not?" "Yeah sure. Dunno how I'm gonna pull it off, but I'll figure something out. I'm awesome! Now untie me! I have to go to the can!" Lefty walks behind my chair. The ropes fall free from my arms. "One thing, Rainbow. Can't use the bathroom in the house. Righty's in there. Just piss on the side of the barn or something." "Do you have to watch me while I do this?" "Well, no. I'm just fascinated by it." "Ok, weird. You know I'm actually a filly, right?" "So am I." "…I think that just made this even weirder somehow. Just turn around, will ya?!" He/she/Lefty turns around. …Aaaah. "So why the hay are you changelings even here in the first place? It's pretty obvious you're from where I'm from, cuz you seem like you know all about me. So, what, you followed me here?" "Oh, haven't you guessed? We came here to get you. We're the good guys!" > Total Recall (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Church and Spitfire are trapped in a room. Spitfire tries to get Church to see the bright side of being trapped in Rainbow Dash's body. The sun comes up and they escape, flying towards Ponyville. Before they make it, night falls, and they get caught in a freak storm. Church sucks at flying so he stumbles and falls. Spitfire manages to catch him, and slow their descent until they hit the ground in the middle of a certain dark and mysterious forest. Wherein Church meets an old friend… "Morgan?!" "Hello Church." The familiar face smiles at me. "Y-you know this thing?" Spitfire stammers. "Yeah!" I answer. "He's my buddy! Man, Morgan, I can't tell you how nice it is to see a familiar face!" "So that's what you humans look like? Ew…" Only rolling my eyes at Spitfire's comment, I trot up to Morgan and ask, "What're you doing here pal?" "Well, Church… it's about that actually. We have a little problem." He looks down and takes off his sunglasses, folds them, and pockets them. Uh oh. Morgan taking off his shades? This is serious. "Oh?" "Yeah," he sighs. "I know this might be a little hard to believe buddy, but I'm not actually here." "Say what?" "I'm not here. And neither are you." "Heh heh. The hell are you talking about Morgan?" "You're dreaming, Church. None of this is real." … "I FUCKING KNEW IT!" "You're actually in some kind of coma–" "I HAVE been spending too much time around fucking bronies! This is YOUR fault Morgan!" "Uh–" "Relax, I'm not mad, dude. I'm just glad you're here. Now how the hell do I wake up?" "Well, um, the doctors tell me that you just need to be ready… to wake up. You need to let go of this dream reality you've invented." Spitfire leans over and whispers in my ear, "Church, this sounds like a load of horseapples to me. You're not dreaming. I'm real, you're real, this is all very real." Morgan continues, "All you have to do is prove to yourself that you're ready to let go." "Ok, so what do I do?" "Eat this flower." He holds up a blooming purple flower. "All you have to do is eat it, as a symbol of your desire to come back home. To come back to me. And your mother, she's worried sick about you, Church." I am so ready for this crap to end. I reach out and grab the flower with my hoof. "Church! What in Celestia's name are you doing? You don't just eat flowers from the Everfree Forest! It could be poisonous! I don't know who this guy is, but he's full of it. You're not dreaming. Don't fall for his ruse!" I hold the flower up and look at it. It's a very pretty flower with round-ish purple petals. I look at Spitfire, then Morgan. I think of Celestia. How she looked like she was ready to give up when her useless guard turned out to be a bad guy. The face of heartbreak when her sister turned evil. Again. And… how fucking pissed off she was when I told her to take a hike, so to speak. …I told her I'd be someone to lean on. A friend. And I meant it. But if this is all a dream… then does any of that matter? Bringing the flower up to my nose, I take a whiff. It smells like honey and leaves. It brings to mind the image of drinking tea with honey in the middle of a flower garden. I take another whiff, this time of the air around me. Dank forest and fresh rain, mixed with a tiny whiff of my own horsey body odor. "Church," Spitfire begs, "what are you doing?! Put that down!" I don't remember ever smelling things so vividly in a dream. In fact… all this, the sights, the smells, the pain, the crack of lightning right next to my head, the wet fur, the pulling on my tail. No. Something is wrong here. Very wrong. "Are you ready to come home, Church?" "Yes." Spitfire facehoof-s. Morgan smiles. "But," I say, "I was thinking." "Oh?" "I know you want me to wake up and everything, and I sure as hell want to buddy, believe me I do. But I tell ya what. Why don't you and I spend a little more time here? I know you want to…" I put on a sly smirk. "Church, buddy, I don't want to be involved in your paranoid delusions. I just want my friend back." "But Morgan… Ponies! I mean, look! I'm Rainbow freaking Dash for crying out loud! This is Spitfire! The actual Spitfire! And we're only a short walk away from Ponyville. Come on, man, the rest of the mane six are there!" "Church–" "Rarity's there! And Celestia. And Discord too! This place might be a nightmare for me, man, but it's gotta be a wet dream for you!" He looks unsure. He finally shakes his head 'no.' "I- I don't want anything to do with your little ponies. Please, just eat the flower and end this." I lock eyes with Morgan. Spitfire looks back and forth between us several times. "You're not Morgan! YOU'RE AN IMPOSTER!" I drop the flower and crush it under my hoof. Morgan growls, and his voice changes to a much higher pitch. "You insolent foal!" Nobody imposterizes my friends! I spin around and buck him in the balls. When I turn back around– “Zoinks! It’s Nightmare Bitch!” "Foolish human! I granted the wish that brought you to this realm! And I will make sure that you stay here! Forever! AH HA HA HA HA!!!" "Spitfire, any bright ideas?" I ask. "Run." "Got it!" We turn tail and flee into the dark, damp, foreboding forest of doom! Nightmare is right behind us! Bursts of magic zip past us, wood splinters, and branches fall. Crazy bitch be trying to kill us! POP Still jumping over roots, weaving between trees, and running for my life, I see Discord floating merrily alongside us as we go like a bastion of insanity. "Ah, there you are, Not-Rainbow. I see you and your new filly friend have been playing in the Everfree Forest with Tia's estranged possessed sister. I do hate to interrupt again, but it seems you're wanted over in Ponyville. And I suppose your filly friend can tag along, too." POP I stumble and fall face first into the ground. Looking up, I see I'm in Ponyville again, under moonlight this time. Oh, hey, Spitfire's next to me. "Church!" Oh, look, it’s Twilight and the rest of the gang. "Are you alright? What has Discord done to you?" Twilight asks. "Uh, other than being a pain in my ass… not much." The freaky chimera in question slowly leans over my shoulder. "I seem to recall saving a certain somepony from a certain possessed alicorn bent on killing that certain somepony…" I really don't want to say this… "Thanks, I guess." Discord smiles smugly and backs off. "Well if it isn't Twilight and company, it seems I've finally caught up with you!" "Discord!" Twilight shouts. "If you're here to wreak chaos then you can just turn around and go back to your bedroom in the castle. In case you hadn't noticed, we have enough chaos on our hooves for one day!" "Moi? Wreaking chaos? Never! I'm reformed, remember?" "Then why did you leave after mind-swapping all of us?!" "I had to visit the little draconequus's room… I thought I said that." Applejack steps forward. "Well what took ya?!" "Well, my dear Applejack, in case you haven't noticed, there's a Nightmare Moon running about. I tried to find you ponies, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t. I haven't the faintest idea why…" All of them, even Celestia, glance around awkwardly. Discord stutters, "Uh, I, wait. W-were you all hiding from me?" Pinkie's the one to answer, "Maybe just the teeeniest tiniest little bit." "Hmpf, I see how it is. I suppose you'll all want be put back to normal then?" The five of them answer simultaneously, "NO." Twilight clears her throat. "Well you see, we kind of… figured that out on our own already," she says bashfully. "Well fine. I can see when I'm not needed." Flutters flies up to Discord, "Wait! We're sorry Discord. You took so long coming back. We were just scared, that's all. Now we're all back to normal, er…" she looks at me, "most of us are anyway. But you should know better than to use your magic on somepony without their consent. That can be really scary, Discord." "Erm… sorry, Fluttershy.” This guy melts like butter in Fluttershy’s gaze. Not literally. He just got all sappy and he’s twiddling his thumbs. “I was going to come right back and put everypony back to normal, I swear!" He faces the rest of the group. "Sorry… everypony." "There is just one more pony that you need to apologize to," Fluttershy says. "Twilight's big brother." Discord puts a finger to his mouth in thought. "Oh. Huh. I forgot all about him." He snaps his fingers, and in a flash, Shining Armor appears in mid-air and falls to the ground in a heap. Shiny spots Discord and enters a defensive stance. "Discord!" He snarls. "Whoa, hey now." Discord plays all innocent. "I just want to give you this back." He grabs his one pointy tooth, pops it out, and puts it on Shiny's forehead. Somehow… it looks like his normal horn now. And Discord's tooth is back. Huh. Shiny still growls a little bit. "Sorry?" Discord shrugs. Snarling now, Shiny shouts, "I should blast you right now, you know that? Thanks to your little prank, Canterlot has fallen to changelings! Again!" Discord bursts out in chuckles. "Oh ho ho! Canterlot hasn't fallen to anyone! Everypony there is just acting a little…" He wiggles his big bushy eyebrows up and down. "…chaotic.” "They were in our ranks! And thanks to you, I wasn’t able to keep my stallions from panicking about it!" "Oh sure, just because I'm chaos incarnate, you blame all the ensuing pandemonium on me." Everyone glances around. Discord shrugs. "Whaaaat? It was just a silly little prank. And I'll have you know that changelings are not invading… there just so happened to be a few of them pretending to be Royal Guards, that's all." "You knew about this?!" Twilight shouts. Discord looks surprised. "Me? Don't be silly. Of course I didn't! I'm not in the habit of examining each and every Royal Guard to see if they're somepony they're not. Have you any idea how many of those useless guards there are? A lot, that's how many." I laugh. "Heh heh. He thinks they're useless too." Shiny stomps his hoof and snorts. "I think you took away my horn so I couldn't stop them invading!" "I already told you, they haven't 'invaded' anywhere! Besides, I think Celestia here has bigger things to worry about than a few measly little bug ponies. Isn't that right, Tia? One might say it's the stuff of… Nightmares... even?" Celestia looks displeased. "Tell me, Celestia. How DO you plan on defeating the Dark One this time, hm? Send her to the moon again? Perhaps Not-Rainbow over here–" "My name is Church!" "Perhaps 'Church' over here can wield the Element of Loyalty and her and the rest of your little errand-ponies can purge the evil and disharmony from your beloved sister once more. Or does our little rainbow pony Church have some grand master plan to fix everything?" Great, everyone's looking at me. "Uh… not that I know of?" Sighs, all around. "But," I clear my throat. "I suppose now might be a good time to uh… say… I'm sorry. I… shouldn't have yelled at you guys, and I'm sorry about… you know, what I said to you… Celestia. I want you to know that I meant what I said earlier. Like before all that. About being your friend..." "Church," Celestia says sadly, "I fear I may have deserved some of that. I should never have invaded the private sanctuary of your mind. That is something I have not done for almost a thousand years. I am sorry too." “Well… ahem.” Everyone’s looking at me. “What’re you all looking at?” Oh, great, now Celestia’s smiling at me. “Church,” she calls. She makes a gesture with her head. Oh no, don’t tell me. “Come here.” Aw fuck. I walk to her and sit. She sits next to me. Oh no. Oh god. Oh no. No she isn’t. No she isn’t. She is. She totally is. She’s hugging me. > Righty Tighty (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… The changeling Overlord known as 'Lefty' (disguised as the human known as 'Silas') goes and talks to a tied-up Rainbow Dash. He asks her why she doesn't want to go back home. To which she ultimately answers that she was unable to decide whether she should follow her dreams and join the Wonderbolts, whilst moving far away from all her friends, or to let her lifelong dream slip past her in order to stay in Ponyville with her friends. Oh, and she also promised Morgan and Claire that she'd find the missing people. Lefty offers Rainbow a deal. In exchange for some love, he will release her and all the humans the changelings have captive (practically the whole town, some hundreds). The catch, however, is that the love has to be given to Lefty's colleague, Righty. Who has, through being constantly fed nothing but hate by Rainbow and Morgan, become incredibly powerful and somewhat insane. And then Lefty mentions that the reason him and all his changeling friends are in the human world is specifically to retrieve Rainbow Dash. "You're the good guys? But you're changelings!" "Wow. I mean, just wow. That's kind of racist- er, specist, Rainbow," Lefty responds, crossing his arms in disappointment. "What're you talking about? You guys openly attacked Canterlot!" "Oh, if only you understood, Rainbow." He shakes his head. "Besides, if you're going to blame someone, blame our Queen. Like I said, all of us Overlords were under her mind control at the time. We hardly had a choice in the matter. Not that we wouldn't have done it anyway, but that's not the point here." "So you're the good guys, huh?" "…For the third time, yes." "Ok. So. Let me get this straight." "Ugh." "You guys followed me to this… world-place… because you're the good guys?" "Oh for the love of Chrysalis! Rainbow, we have more important things to do than sit here and talk about this. And we don't have much time to do it. Now come on, let's go find Righty and just finish this whole thing." "B-b-but! I don't even know what to do! I mean… ya got any pointers on how to love an evil changeling overlord bent on enslaving all the humans?" "Why, yes, I just so happen to have some helpful tips written on flash cards… No I don't have any tips! I already told you Rainbow… I have no idea. I can fake love and all the little nuances that make it look genuine… but in truth, I have absolutely no idea how to actually do it myself." "Uh, ok, well, how about we think up a game plan before we just march into the dragon's den?" Lefty looks troubled as he avoids eye contact. "We don't have much time Rainbow. An entire town of humans is unaccounted for. It's only a matter of time before… oh, who am I kidding? They already sent a bunch of armed guards in. And they're all out for the count. Whoever sent them is probably wondering why they haven't reported back yet. Humans are well connected, you gotta give them that. Honestly I'm surprised they haven't sent an army by now. And if they do…" "What? What'll happen then?" I ask. "Righty will probably start showing the humans who their new owner is." "Oh." "I'm sure he'll kill at least a few humans to make an example, whether or not he succeeds in winning the battle." "Ouch." "Yeah. So. This could get messy. I'm thinking we have maybe an hour before someone shows up looking for all the missing people." "Ok, so-" "So let's go!" Lefty gets behind me and nudges me away from the barn and towards the house. "But I don't know what to do!" "Ah, just wing it Rainbow!" He's shoving me now. "That's not funny!" "Hehe, come on! You'll think of something. You're awesome! Right?" "Well, I guess I am kinda awesome…" As we approach the house, I see two of the changelings, Danny and Dyllen, sitting on the front porch, looking at me. "Right's not going to like this," Danny says to Lefty, clearly talking about me. "Well his methods weren't working, like I told him they wouldn't," Left says. Danny and Dyllen exchange glances. Dyllen looks back to Lefty, "Are you sure you want to do this? I don't know if you've noticed, but Right's kind of-" The front door swings open, with none other than Conner, who I now know is Righty, standing in the doorway. "Kind of what, exactly?" "U-uh," Dyllen stammers. "N-nothing, boss." "Ah, ah, ah. It's 'king' now." "Yes sir, Mr. King, sir." Righty only looks mildly annoyed for a second before walking down the front porch steps, past Dyllen and Danny who've stood up, and he steps right up close in front of me. "What are you doing?" He asks. "Uh, nothing?" Lefty answers for me, "I'm doing what we came here to do, in case you've forgotten." "Heh, well I think maybe you forgot why we came here to do what we were gonna do." "Or maybe you've forgotten how we got in the situation that was the reason why we came here to do what we're doing." "You forgot whose fault it was that we got in that situation that meant we had to come here to do what we were going to do!" "I think you've forgotten the whole reason why it was whose fault that we needed to come here to do what we're doing!" "…Wait, what?" Righty asks. Lefty answers, "Yeah I think I got lost in there too." "Point is! We're here for a different reason now-" "Well still technically the same root cause, but-" "Shut up. We're here for a new reason now." "What about the old reason?" "Who cares about the other world anymore, huh? Here, we have all the love, and hate, anyling could possibly want. And the humans are practically defenseless without magic! Why should we go crawling and begging for help from our natural enemies, when we have a land full of opportunity right here," his voice suddenly turns dark as he clenches his fist, "Ripe for the taking!" "Then what about me, huh?" I ask. "Look, Dashie. You're not my problem anymore. See, I got bigger fish to fry now. And as delicious and empowering all your hate and anger towards me has been, I just don't have time to play with you anymore. So this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send you home." "Home?" "Yeah! Just like that! Me and my friends here are gonna open a gateway to Equestria, all you gotta do is walk through. You go find your counterpart / host / human / thing / person inhabiting your body… Church! That's it, this 'Church' dude who's in your pony body, and I'm sure your princess will be happy to magic you two all back to normal." "Uh huh…" "What'd'ya say? Ready to just drop this mess you've gotten yourself into and just go home to your friends?" "What about Church?" "Ah," he dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure my friends on the other side would be happy to send him back here, once you two are all sorted out." "Well… well what about this place? What're you gonna do with it?" "Dashie, Dashie." He reaches out and puts his hand on my shoulder. "What do you care? Huh? You're an entire reality away from this world. Church's world. And Church? He's a lying douchebag with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Did I mention he hates ponies for some reason? I have no clue why, but he does. He hates ponies. You don't need to bother yourself with him and his world. Wash your hooves of this reality and go back to your own." He's still smiling. What should I do? I could go straight home, right now, and everything would be right again. And… I might not get this chance again. Like Lefty said… if I don't fix the reason I don't want to go home, soon, I might never go back. If I can't find a way to love this… jerk, then I might not be able to fix anything! Like, here with the humans OR me getting home! But… on the other hoof, if I do find a way to love him, I could fix everything in the human world. Get all the humans back and stop Righty from enslaving them all to be his personal… hate-cows. Love-cows? I dunno. I mean, it is kinda my fault they're even here in the first place, or so Lefty tells me. If I fix everything here, then I can just make a decision about the Wonderbolts and… go home? I have no idea how that works. Walking through a gateway sounds a lot more straightforward. There's still a chance that I'll never make up my mind. And maybe I can fix crap here, but I won't be able to go home. Argh! This is so complicated! Why can't I just have everything I want?! "You know what? That's it. I'm done with decisions I can't make! I'm done choosing between my friends and my dreams! And I'm done with jerks like you telling me what to do!" "Oh, really?" Righty asks sarcastically. "Yeah! Really!" He totally bursts my personal space bubble, and sticks his nose in my face. "And what are you gonna do about it? Huh?!" We mash noses together. "I'm gonna kick your flank! That's what!" He backs off and laughs. "Haha! My little Dashie… it wouldn't be a fair fight!" He shrugs. "What're you talking about? I got you good earlier!" "Because I let you. Your hate was delicious." "Ew." "All you have is that scrawny human body-" "Hey you look like one too!" "-and I'm a changeling… filled to the brim with power." He holds his hand up and clenches his fist. As he does, I feel a tingle all over my body. That familiar tingle of magic. I float off the ground! He's looking me in the eyes- I CAN'T BREATHE! ACK! HE'S CHOKING ME! And I fall down. "See?" He says. "Wouldn't even be a challenge. That's no fun…" "Oh yeah?" I get back to my feet. "Then why don't you put your money where my FIST is about to be!" "So feisty. You want a challenge?" He looks me up and down. "I hear this Church guy's quite the runner. You like sporty stuff, right? Running's a sport. Let's make it a race!" I look to Lefty for an answer. He only shrugs. "If I win?" "If you win, I'll accept your challenge and fight you. And win, of course." "Pfft, yeah right! You're on!" I hate this guy so much right now. But I know I can't! Lefty pulls me to the side and whispers in my ear, "You're losing either way and you know it. Just remember you can't hate him, you'll only make him stronger. Find a way to love him. Pity him maybe. Something. Good luck." "Oh, don't bother, Lefty," says Righty. "She doesn't have a snowball's chance in Tartarus." Lefty says nothing, and only looks down. "Hmm, now where should the finish line be? How about Church's house?" Righty happily suggests. I nod in agreement. "First one to the front door gets to beat the living snot out of a changeling overlord!" "Last one there gets stuffed in a cocoon to be changeling food! Come on Dashie! To the starting line!" I run over to the foot of the porch steps. Righty, next to me, looking as happy as a clam and cool as a cucumber, says to me, "Ready to lose, Dashie? Lose everything? Your friends, your future, these stupid humans?" But, you know, no pressure or anything. "Ready!" All I have to do is love him. "Set!" Love the douchebag-iest changeling overlord I've ever met… "GO!" He kicks up dust as he takes off down the gravel path. But he's not that fast! I catch up quickly, right on his tail! We get into town and I notice… this place is completely dead. Not one human in sight. Doors are closed, curtains are drawn, newspapers fly around the empty street in the breeze. Righty weaves around cars just sitting in the middle of the road… just left there. Lefty wasn't kidding. They must have hundreds of humans… just stashed somewhere, in cocoons or something. The whole town. That SWAT guy said it too, that a lot of people were missing. And Righty wants to enslave them all. These humans need me. And I really hate to say this, but… they need me more than my friends do. I'm keeping up with Righty. This Church dude has good legs, I'll give him that. But Righty seems like he's got a step up on me. It's a long distance, and I can feel I'm almost at the end of my rope. Church's house! We're almost there. Now's the time. This is it, now or never. Time to pull a Twilight and sprint to the finish! He cuts across the lawn. I give it everything I have left, I'm right on his heels! He steps foot on the porch and… I tackle him! We slam against the front door of Church's house, breaking it down! We're on top of each other on the floor, but I got him good! He's not going anywhere! "Hahahah!" He laughs. "Was that actually a tie? Good race though! I'll kill you quickly just cuz you were a good sport, Dashie!" I still have my arms around him. I don't know what to do. The humans need you. The what now? The humans need you. The humans need me? Yes, you. How many times do I have to say it? They need me. Morgan and Claire… they're good people. They helped me. Silas and Dyllen, Danny and Conner – the real ones – and Church's mom… they need me. This whole place is a ghost town because of these changelings... because of me. If I weren't here, none of this would have happened. "Ah, that race was too short. Shame, ain't it?" These humans deserve better than this scumbag. "Ok, Dashie, get off of me now. I have some cocooning to do, and you have some being-cocooned to do." They don't deserve to be eaten by changelings… or whatever it is they do with them. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way." I feel my body tingling with magic, tugging at me, trying to lift me off. "What the fuck? Get off!" I finally look him in the eyes. "Why can't I get you off me?!" He squirms in my grasp. His magic keeps tugging at me. But it's so weak, barely stronger than a stiff breeze. Why is that? Oh. Oh! Wait just a minute. "I got it!" "Got what?!" "I've got the answer!" "What in Tartarus are you talking about? You stupid, stubborn pony!" "I think… in some weird way, I love this place. The humans, I mean. They're just like ponies, just trying to live their lives, ya know? And they don't deserve to be cocooned or eaten or whatever. They shouldn't have to be slaves to some douchebag changeling king! I have to fix this! For them! I can't love you, but I can love them!" I hug him harder. He struggles more, and starts yelling. "AHHH! Get off! Get off! It hurts! NO! MY POWER! STOP IT!" He tries desperately to escape my hug of doom, but no matter how hard he tries to break my grip or magic me off, it's easy as pie to keep him right where I want him. His angry pleas devolve into unrelenting screams of agony. Bloodcurdling screeching that makes my eyes roll back in my head as it painfully scrapes at my eardrums. I… can't… take it any longer! I have to make him shut up! But I can't let him go! I do the only thing that comes to mind! I head butt him as hard as I can. KABOOM! > Horse Pile (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Nightmare Moon tries to fool Church by appearing to be his friend, Morgan. Church figures it out, and he and Spitfire high-tail it out of there. Discord pops in and gives them a shortcut to the rest of the mane six. Church mans up and apologizes to Celestia. Celestia is hugging me. All the other ponies are watching. And they're all going 'd'aww' at the scene. Except for Shiny. Oh him and his useless guard buddy Cutlass… they're snickering. Celestia whispers in my ear, "I am so glad you found your way back to us, Church." "Well, that's me. Good guy Church. Sticks with his team. Heh heh…" Oh god, she's squeezing me tighter. Must. Resist. Urge to struggle. "And thank you for the apology. That means a lot to me." "Yeah, I'm uh glad I got that off my chest. I went through hell to get here and say that." "Oh?" "Yeah, this stupid purple cloud kept making things difficult for me and Spitfire over there, I finally figured out that it was… um… Nightmare. I guess she didn't want me to get to you. She even said she could send me home. But I told her to shove it! She also mentioned that she was the one who brought me here in the first place… but I'm not really sure how that would work. Can you let go of me now?" "Oh, yes, of course." I turn to Twilight and ask, "So, uh, shouldn't we be finding Nightmare to, you know, fix it?" "Well, yes…" Twilight answers, looking unsure of herself. "But I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do with her if we found her." "Can't you just use those magic thingies?" "The elements?" "Yeah, those!" "Unfortunately, all six of us need to be here." She looks mildly irritated. "The real Rainbow Dash isn't here." "Well, hey. We gotta try, right?" "We?" "I gotta at least try to use the thingy-" "Element." "Yeah, that. Because I told Celestia I'd help her." "But you-" "Yeah, I know, I said a lot of stupid things. I'm stupid, ok? But I told her I'd help her, and I meant that." "Well… if you say so. Girls, looks like we're going searching for a Nightmare." We get collective groans from everyone, Shiny and Cutlass included. Discord pops in close to us. "You aren't all going to go wandering about, trying to find her, are you? Because when you wasted eight chapters looking for me, it became incredibly boring." "You got a better idea, mister?" AJ asks. "Actually? Yes. I do." In a flash, Nightmare Moon materializes right where Discord was standing. "GET OFF ME, YOU DEMON!" Nightmare shouts at Discord, who's sitting on her back, all casual about it. "Demon? Moi?" Discord suddenly has red devil horns on his head and he's holding a pointy red pitchfork, yet for some reason he seems utterly insulted, like some high class rich lady would be if you told her that her eye shadow didn't match her evening gown. "Well I never!" "Discord!" Twilight shouts. "Hold her down so we can use the elements!" "Are you kidding me? I'm not standing in the line of fire of those things for a third time. Not willingly, anyway. I have a better idea!" Nightmare starts jumping and bucking, trying to get Discord off of her. Meanwhile he magically pops the horn off her head, and the wings off her back. With just a 'pop' and a flash of light, probably the same thing he did to Twilight's bro. Then he jumps off her back. "RETURN MY APPENDAGES AT ONCE! FIEND!" "Ah, ah, ah. No wings. And no magic." He boops her on the nose while she snarls at him. "Now girls!" Twilight shouts. "…and guy!" "Go ahead!" Nightmare dares us. "They will not work without your precious loyalty! You must have at least some semblance of the six to make them work! AH HAHAHA!" Twilight and I exchange glances. The rest of the girls are all in a circular formation, ready to go. "Do your thing, Twi," I say. Suddenly, we all start floating gradually higher and higher. My little horse body tingles with some kind of energy. But a moment later, it all stops, and we fall to the ground. Nightmare laughs. "What happened?" I ask. "It didn't work. I knew it wouldn't work. You're no element of loyalty, Church… you're kind of the opposite, actually… you abandoned us, remember?" "Well… yeah. I guess I did. Wait. No. I came back… didn't I? I damn well did come back! So at least I'm trying. I might not be perfect. Not perfectly loyal… or whatever, but I am trying." Tia walks over, puts a hoof on my shoulder. "He's right. He did come back. And I'm afraid I am partly to blame for him leaving in the first place. Regardless, it takes a big pony to come back and apologize for such a thing. It takes… a good friend… to do that." "Well," Nightmare loudly comments. "Isn't this quite the tear-jerker." "Excuse me," Discord says, "I believe I'm in charge of the snarky comments around here, thank you very much." "Will you return my appendages yet?" "Hmm… no." "Am I to sit here until they figure out their elements are completely useless and just accept their miserable crushing defeat?" "Either that, or until they blast you with their rainbow-ray. You know, they have managed to get the upper hoof over both of us in the past." "Are you suggesting a partnership?" "A-HEM!" Fluttershy loudly clears her throat. "Oh, no, no," Discord nervously continues. "Merely making an observation, my dear." " 'Tis for the best. There can be only one throne in Equestria, and it belongs to me!" Nightmare actually snarled saying that. Discord and Nightmare continue bickering while Celestia pulls me aside. She whispers to me, "It saddens me to know that somewhere deep inside that monster is my sweet sister…" "I know, Celestia. I know. I guess I'm not loyal enough, or whatever, for this crap to work. I'm sorry." "Oh, it's alright Church. We will figure something out." "You know, I said it before, but I want to say it again. I know I say a lot of crap, but when I commit to something, like I told you I'd be your friend, when it really comes down to it, I mean it. And I don't think I've ever had a sibling get possessed by an evil demon bent on making it nighttime forever, but I have lost some good friends. Over stupid things. And… I know how shitty that feels. So I'm gonna do whatever I can to help you. I just… wish I could do something." "Hey Churchie!" Pinkie bounds over to me. "Churchie, look! Your thingy's glowing!" "You mean my element?" "Yeah, that! It's glowing, look!" Huh, so it is. The little lightning bolt shaped gem in the necklace is glowing. "Hey Twilight! I think it's working! Let's try again, yeah?" Twilight looks around, then looks up at her crown thingy. "No Church… it's just yours. I'm not sure why it's doing that." "Yeah but… it's working! Let's try again!" "Well, I guess it can't hurt. One more time, girls!" It doesn't work, and Nightmare is oblivious to our failed attempt, she's still bickering with Discord. Twilight points at my element. "It seems like yours is working fine, Church. But the rest of ours aren't. I wonder why." "It's probably because you guys hate me," I say. "We don't hate you…" Flutters says. "Well I reckon we just…" AJ starts. "…Don't particularly care for..." Rarity continues. "We totally don't like you at all!" And Pinkie finishes… "Wow… what the hell, Pinkie?" "Shots fired," Shiny comments. "What?" Pinkie shrugs. "It's ok Churchie! We can still be friends! Even if we don't like you. Just look at Discord!" "Uh, I guess? Still doesn't solve our problem. Twi, if my element is working, can't we just make the rest of them work?" "No… I don’t really know how I could do that, they've only worked with us. Except in the past, when Princess Celestia used them." "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on. You mean Tia can use them?" " 'Tia'?" Celestia remarks. "How come we didn't just give the elements to her in the first place?" "Church," Tia says in a hushed voice, "When I used the elements against Nightmare Moon over a thousand years ago, I was not able to purge the evil from my sister. Instead I could only seal her in the moon for that great amount of time. I will not risk that happening again. I will not… I cannot lose her again." "So how come the elements didn't work right, way back when?" "I am afraid it is because I am not truly the embodiment of the elements of harmony." She sighs. "I'm just close enough." "Well, look. How about you and I try it, huh? Because mine is working and we know you can use them." "No… I cannot risk it." I walk closer to Tia. "You know… I know that’s your sister and you care a lot about her. So you have to try, right? You have to try for her. I can't do it alone, they can't do it with me, you can't do it alone, but maybe, just maybe you and I can do it together. I'm here for you… so let's save your sister, together." Celestia gulps hard, and a tear rolls down her cheek. "And what if you are wrong?" "Yeah, maybe I am. But I have a good feeling about this. I feel like it's going to work. Call it intuition I guess." She nods in agreement. "Alright." The girls fork over their elements to her, and we try again. Just me and Tia. We get Nightmare's attention this time. "Are you two serious? The one who botched it last time, and the disloyal alien?" Already I can feel the tingling sensation all over me. We float up above the ground, rainbow-colored light swirls around us. It feels right this time. "Oh yeah! It's gonna work!" Nightmare is worried now. She stands up, and snarls at us. "HOW CAN THIS BE?" Discord snaps his fingers and in a flash, Nightmare suddenly has her horn back. She points it and blasts us. I flinch. Opening my eyes, though, I see nothing has changed. Her magic just harmlessly bounces away from me and Celestia. "I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS-" A giant rainbow manifests itself and targets the enemy! I take this opportunity to say an epic one-liner. "Nightmare's over, bitch." "NOOOOOO!!!" The rainbow ray obliterates Nightmare moon, leaving behind a blue pony princess with baggy eyes, huddled on the ground. Celestia gallops over to her sister, and holds Luna in her pony arms. Luna awakes with a start, "Sister! 'Twas not my fault, I swear it!" "I know, Lulu, I know." " 'Twas… 'twas not my fault." Luna tiredly nods off. "Everything is fine, Luna. You're safe now. Church," Celestia beckons to me, "come here." I comply and for my trouble I get a big, slobbery horse kiss on the cheek from Princess Celestia. "Thank you, Church! You helped save my sister. You helped me do what I could not do!" She kisses me again. Yuck. The Nightmare is gone and Luna is – finally – back to her normal, sleep-deprived self. Twilight comes over to thank me herself. "Thank you, Church. Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to judge you after all. I guess we can be friends, even if you're a bit of a…" She trails off and looks at Discord. "A douchenozzle?" I suggest. "Heh. Yeah, but we can still be friends." "Well, I gotta say, you guys aren't so bad yourselves. I pulled a lot of shit with you and you gave me a second chance. It takes a pretty big person to do that, probably wouldn’t have been able to do that myself, to forgive someone like me. So yeah, I guess we can…" The rest of the girls smile at that. Then they all come at me for a group hug that turns into more of a dog pile. Or horse pile. Whichever. Celestia included. Man is she heavy. "Get off me!" > Friendship is Magic (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Lefty explained to Rainbow that Righty is corrupted with hate-fueled power, and the only way to fix him is by giving him some love instead of hate. Rainbow doesn't really know how to do this, and meanwhile Righty challenges her to a race to Church's house. If she wins, she gets to fight him (and probably lose). She gladly accepts, saying that she's tired of people telling her what to do. During the race, she sees the empty town and thinks of all the people Righty is going to hurt if he gets away with this. She uses her feelings towards humans in general to hold Righty down after tackling him. No matter how much he tries, he just can't get her off of him, and whatever Rainbow is doing, it works. "Ow. What the hay just happened?" I ask nopony in particular as I rub my head. Oh yeah. I was hugging Righty and then he… exploded? Huh? Seriously. What? Well whatever the hay happened, I think it worked. If it didn't, I'm pretty sure Righty'd be trying to strangle me or something right now. I get up and dust myself off. Say, where'd he go anyway? For that matter, how'd I get all the way into the living room? I thought we were by the front door. Oh boy. We were. Mother of Celestia. That is a changeling. Like, not a changeling looking like a human, no no, it's an actual, freaking changeling! A real live ch- oh horseapples, I hope he's alive! Lefty would be pretty ticked if I loved him to death or something. I kneel down next to him, and wow… he's so… small. He's breathing, so that's good. I poke him to see if he wakes up. Poke him again. Nope, he's out for the count. Did I mention he's small? I dunno, he just seems like he's a very small little thing. But I guess I don't really know how big humans are, like compared to ponies, but he still seems really small. And skinny. Boy, I'm not kidding, he's just skin and bones. Or… whatever changelings are made of. I look out the busted-down front door as I hear a car pulling up. Hey! That's Morgan's car! Walking out to greet him, I see Lefty's with him too, that'll save me some explaining. Lefty gets out of the car and runs up to me, he grabs my shirt and jerks me toward his face. "Did you do it?! Did it work?!" "Yeah, I kinda-" He shoves me out of the way and goes to his unconscious buddy on the floor. Morgan waltzes over to me. "Hey Church, er… Rainbow. Still coming to grips with that one. Sorry I left you back at Danny's place." "Yeah, I'll be honest, I had my doubts. But then those 'swat' guys showed up!" "I might've had something to do with that." He smiles proudly. "Yeah, one of them told me about that. Pretty cool, dude, I thought ya left me hangin'." "Nah, I'd never leave my deranged friend hangin'. But I guess they didn't help much, huh?" "Yeah… about that." "Silas- um… 'Lefty'," he air-quotes with his fingers, "told me he… 'took care of them.' Whatever that means." "He, uh… might've kinda knocked them all out. But hey, it's ok, I think I fixed everything anyway!" "So Silas tells me. I dunno, I still don't believe any of this crap. You're Rainbow Dash, the guys are changelings, one of them's gone mad with power, they – for some reason completely unbeknownst to me – abducted everyone in the whole town – ok, well that one I believe. I mean, the place is a ghost town. The only reason the cops in Cloverdale believed a word I said was because the cops here didn't answer the phone. Hell, no one did." "Well, thanks anyway Morgan. So uh, did Lefty tell you? He promised he'd give all the humans back if I loved his friend!" Silence. "That didn't sound right, did it?" Morgan slowly shakes his head 'no.' "Well they're changelings so… they eat love or something, and Righty ate too much hate from us ragging on him-" "Church, Church – Rainbow, whatever – Silas explained all that to me already. I just… don't believe it." "Oh. Yeah, I guess I can see that. Your friend comes out of the blue and claims to be somepony he's not, and your other friends aren't actually your friends, and then they try to take over the world – yeah, I wouldn't believe it either. But hey! There's an actual real-life changeling over there! That's gotta count for something." Morgan carefully steps past me. I follow him into Church's house where still-human-Silas Lefty is sitting on the floor next to Righty. Morgan is frozen in place. Lefty stands up and talks to Morgan. "Listen, Morgan, I'd rather you didn't see this. It was hard enough for me to let Rainbow in on our little secrets-" Morgan, completely ignoring Lefty, just walks past him and kneels down in front of Righty. "Morgan," Lefty says with a sigh. Morgan starts poking the changeling on the floor. "Hey. Morgan." Lefty taps Morgan on the shoulder. "You know he's my… him and I are kind of… can you please stop poking him?" Morgan stops poking the changeling and looks like he just had the realization of a lifetime. "If changelings are real then… holy shit." He stands up. "That means you're actually Rainbow Dash!" "The one and only!" Morgan looks like Pinkie Pie after somepony told her it's time for a party. He lets loose a string of babble that sounds roughly like him apologizing for not believing me and how happy he is to meet me. Pfft. Typical fanboy. "Yeah yeah. Don’t sweat it Morgan." Lefty clears his throat, and ignores the still-rambling Morgan while he talks to me instead. "Well Rainbow, looks like you did it. Congratulations, thank you, all that jive. You saved the day… and Righty. And I'm sure he'll thank you properly, too… eventually." "Well of course I was gonna save the day! Was there ever any doubt?" "Uh, yeah. A lot. Particularly on my part," Lefty answers. "Gee, thanks. See Morgan? I told you I fixed everything! And now that Righty's fixed, Lefty here's gonna give back all the humans they took. You are keeping that promise, aren't you?" Lefty answers with a smirk, "Changeling honor." "I cannot believe all this is happening," Morgan says. "So… Lefty, right? Everything's cool then? I mean like… you're the good changeling?" Lefty gives a half-hearted chuckle. "Morgan, my naïve little human, you can't just divide the world into 'good' and 'evil.' " "But-" I interrupt Morgan, "I think what Morgan's trying to say is: when do I get to go home?" "Well… If we did all this right, and everything you said is true, then all we have to do… is wait. And you'll just wind up home eventually by yourself." "Wait. By myself? You mean like, I'll just magically appear back home?" "You just magically appeared here, didn't you? You'll probably go to sleep here and wake up in your bed back in your comfy cloud house, in your furry pony body." "Well… what if I don’t?" "If you don't, we still have our backup plan. We can just pop open a gateway, you jump through, and ask the princess to fix you. That is, you and your counterpart, Church. Find him and I'm fairly certain the princess can fix you two. Then Church can just jump right back through, you stay in Equestria, and you all live happily ever after." "Well that's lame. I thought I'd get to go home! Can't you just pop open that gateway right now?" "NO. Because of two very good reasons. One: we need all four of us changeling mages to do that. One of which is unconscious, and probably a little bit peeved about the whole… sort of knocking him off his high horse thing. And two: the magic spell that switched up you and Church in the first place is complex, powerful, and sensitive. Throwing a bunch of other magic on top of it could be disastrous. That's a last resort, Rainbow. Besides, it's gonna be a little while either way, so just hang in there. Everything's fixed now…" He pauses to look around the empty street and dead town. His shoulders sag. "Sort of. And-" "Whoa! Hold on," Morgan loudly interrupts. "Let me get this perfectly straight! You guys have a portal?" Lefty opens his mouth to respond, but no sound comes out. "To Equestria?!" For the first time since I've met him, Morgan's sunglasses are completely removed from his face. Lefty's mouth is still open, unsure how to answer. "Can- can I go there?" Morgan smiles like an idiot. Lefty just sighs in sheer annoyance. "…No." Morgan's stupid smile falls flat and he drops down to his knees in front of Lefty. "PLEASE? Just for a week? A day? An hour?! A MINUTE?! Can I at least write a letter to the princess?!" He bends over and kisses Lefty's shoes. Well this got awkward real quick. "I guess if he wants to come to Equestria that bad… I mean, he's an ok dude, so… I guess he could come with me…" Lefty clears his throat and looks down at Morgan, who has a really good set of puppy dog eyes right now. And a nice pouty lip too. "Maybe if you're a good little human and you don’t beat up any more changelings – or, you know, violently hate them – then we'll talk about it." Morgan jumps up and does a fist pump. "Yes!" "Calm down. I said we'll talk about it. That’s it." "So uh," I ask, "what do we do with Righty? We can't just leave him here, right?" Lefty walks over to where Righty's laying on the floor. "Leave him out in the open like this? Of course not! Let's put him in the car and take him back to Danny's house." Somehow me and Morgan get stuck carrying the knocked-out changeling. I have his hind legs and Morgan has his forelegs. Lefty keeps telling us to be gentle with him. On the bright side, he's pretty light. Lefty holds open the back door of Morgan's car and we shove him inside. Morgan wipes the sweat from his forehead. "We should tie him up." Lefty closes the car door. "Absolutely not. That's how we got into this mess in the first place." "Well," I defend Morgan, "he did try to kill me. More than once." "And enslave the entire human race, apparently," Morgan thoughtfully adds. "Look, guys," Lefty holds up his hands to both of us. "He's not a bad guy." Morgan and I glance at each other. "He's really not! It's just… so easy to become corrupted with that kind of power. You don’t… you just don't understand what that's like for a changeling, ok? Hate like that is just… addictive, you can't help but want more. And it just blinds you to everything else. That’s what happened to our Queen. Except her case was special. She had the unique ability to use love to gain power and consume hate for food, and vice versa. She's the only one who could do that. So, for her, every little emotion she got, happy, sad, hate, love, they were all just fuel for the raging fire that burned within her. It wasn't long before the power she got began controlling her, just like it did Righty. But even in her most corrupted state, Queen Chrysalis still had her people's interests in mind. No matter how insane she got. "In a way, Righty was doing the same thing. He still had his people's interests in mind, but he was blind to what we were trying to do, what we should've been doing, and any other options we had, other than just…" Lefty makes a silly face, " 'Hey! Let's all invade the human world! There's plenty of hate to go around, and some love too!' " His goofy expression turns into a frown as he completely avoids eye contact with us. "He's not a bad guy… he just… forgot, that's all." In fact, he looks downright sad. I put my hand on Lefty's shoulder. "Sounds like you two are good friends." "Pfft. Don't be ridiculous. We've just been through a lot together." "Uh, yeah. Like friends?" Lefty looks up at me. Morgan butts in, "Friendship is magic, after all." Morgan and me smiling at him seems to get to him. "Yeah…" He shrugs. "I guess you could say he's my friend." He cracks a little smile himself. > Soldier is SPY! (Church) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Church and Celestia manage to use the elements of harmony to purge the evil from Nightmare Moon. Celestia is happy. With Luna fixed, everything's calmed down. It's night now, apparently it's supposed to be. The only pony outside besides us is a lone dude walking around lighting the streetlamps of Ponyville. Man, the whole 'sun going up and down' thing kind of messed with my internal clock, I could swear it should still be light out. None of us seem to want to break the silent reverie of our victory. But I want to address the elephant in the room. "Aren't there some other baddies that need their asses zapped by the helements of armory?" Discord is keen to comment first. "I certainly hope you're not talking about me." "Besides you. That's obvious." For a moment, no one else wants to answer. Until Shining Armor glances around and clears his throat. "Ahem." He stands up, and his guard buddy Cutlass looks at him as if he's about to give orders. "I don't know how many times I have to say this, but there are changelings in Canterlot!" The girls mumble affirmative responses. Cutlass remains silent. Luna's asleep in Celestia's arms, who also hasn't said anything. "Princess?" Twilight looks to Tia for guidance. Celestia briefly looks around, no doubt trying to read us. "We must return to Canterlot. Twilight?" "Yes, princess?" "May I borrow the use of your bed? For Luna. I fear she may not be safe in the castle, and I do not wish to disturb her slumber." "Of course, princess." "We should hurry to Canterlot then. There is no telling what damage they've done already." "PRINCESS!" All eyes turn to the useless pony guard, Cutlass. He suddenly regrets saying that so loud, with everyone looking at him now, he's all nervous. "Um… princess, if I may…" "Yes Cutlass?" "I um… that is to say that… I need to… tell you something." I catch a glimpse of Discord doing something, and I see that he's now reclined in a comfy armchair and eating popcorn. "Cutlass," Celestia says, "I am afraid that time may be an issue. Perhaps you can tell me on the way…" "No! I have to say it now… your majesty." "I am listening." "I… I'm…" He breathes in, and exhales slowly. "I have information about the changelings." "Is there any particular reason you did not impart this information sooner?" "Uh… the… matter with your sister seemed more important?" "Was that a question?" "No. No, it was a statement, your majesty." "Under any other circumstances, I would be inclined to disagree with you. But please continue." "I… the changelings have… infiltrated the royal guard in order to gather information about Equestria's response to us-them." "I knew it!" Shiny shouts. "Wait. What'd he just say?" "I-I…" Cutlass stutters. "This looks bad, doesn't it?" "Increasingly so," Celestia says as she gently sets her sister's sleeping head down. "So wait," I interrupt. "You mean the useless guard was a spy?" Shiny and Celestia slowly close in on him, and boy is he sweating bullets now. Cutlass holds up a hoof and begs, "If I promise to surrender, will you promise to at least hear me out?" Tia stops where she is and mulls it over. "I suppose…" "Well it's like this… I'm a… I'm a changeling." "Really, dipshit?" I remark. "No one's surprised! You already gave yourself away." Ignoring me, he continues, "We have been gathering intelligence over the past couple months, to see if Equestria was planning an act of retribution against us for invading the capital city." Celestia's right eyebrow moves up just a tiny notch. "We also wanted to see what the anti-changeling climate was like in the Equestrian government." The eyebrow moves another notch upward. "If feelings against us were relatively calm within another couple months, we planned to make our move…" Her one eyebrow is all the way up. "And try to bargain for a truce." Now both of her eyebrows are raised all the way. "Unfortunately this whole Nightmare Moon thing forced us to accelerate our plans. However, we did at least find our bargaining chip today." Cutlass looks at me. "What?" I ask. "What're you looking at me for?" "Not you," he says. "Rainbow Dash." "What about her?" I ask. "We have been looking for a proverbial olive branch for some months now, some kind of gift to present to her majesty princess Celestia to show our good will. Sadly, we were not able to come up with any ideas until today." "Do you mean to tell me…" Tia grits her teeth, clearly pissed. "That your kind are responsible for the disappearance of Rainbow Dash?" "NO! No, no. Heh heh… no. We were in the room with you when you greeted the element bearers upon their arrival in the castle. We quickly figured out what was wrong, secretly worked on finding the real Rainbow, and we… had hoped that we could return her in time for her to use her element. Then we would've all come clean, and Rainbow would've told you herself that we were the reason she was returned home. Then we could've written up a truce and all lived happily ever after! But uh… we had some difficulties getting her back." "A very fanciful story. Forgive me if I withhold my judgment until the real Rainbow is actually returned." "Of course, your majesty." "You needn't call me that. You are, after all, not really a royal guard." "But I took the oath, your majesty." "Whilst lying about your identity." "I took the oath in good faith. I swore to protect you. That's why I returned even after you wanted nothing to do with me." Tia seems to think for a moment. "How did you circumvent the unmasking spell I cast on you?" "Changeling mage!" He points to himself. "All of us changelings in the royal guard are mages. Very good with magic." "So it seems. Well, until Rainbow and Church switch back with each other and she can speak for herself, we are going to Canterlot. You can wait in the dungeon, while we sort out the mess you've made." "Tia-" I say. "Stop calling me that." "Just hang on. I got this." I decide to ask the useless guard bugpony spy a question or two. "Hey bugpony, how'd you know I'm not me?" "That's easy. We're changelings! Being imposters is what we do. You think we can't spot another fake?" "Ok, well… if you really know where the real Rainbow Dash is, then you gotta know all about where I'm from, right?" "Well… I know as much as my colleagues have reported." "Your 'colleagues'?" "Yeah, the ones in your world with the real Rainbow Dash who's stuck in your sasquatch body." "Sasquatch?" "Yeah, big hairless apes, right?" "…Whatever. Ok, you know so much about me, what's my town called?" "Wheaton." "How about my friends?" "Morgan, Claire, Danny, Dyllen, Silas, and Conner?" Damn. "Oh yeah? Where does Danny hide his Cheetos?" "What the heck are 'cheetos'? And should I know? I've never been there!" "Well what do you know then?" "I know… you run track and field. I know Silas is good at basketball and Conner isn't very good at football, but he likes to think he is. I know Dyllen is super awkward but kind of funny. Morgan's a geek but he acts all slick, and wears his sunglasses in even in the dark for some reason. Claire is scary when she's mad and Danny is kind of quiet and uninteresting but you guys hang out with him because he has a really big television set." "Princess? I'm gonna go ahead and say this guy knows what he's talking about." "Yes. I do. But Princess Celestia doesn't believe me. Can't say I blame her. It's alright, when the dust settles, she'll see it all clearly. I can wait." "Maybe you can, but I can't. I'm dyin' here! Whose pony ass do I gotta kiss to speed this thing up?!" "I thought you all knew how the spell worked?" "I… refresh my memory." "Both you and Rainbow Dash made a conscious wish to make the switch. I can't tell you who cast the spell, or why it was you and her and not anyone else in any other realms, but you both wished for it, didn't you?" "I… guess? Technically?" "So all you have to do is wish to switch back." "I hate to break this to you pal, but I've been wishin' to go back since I got here!" "I meant the collective 'you.' As in both of you. Rainbow included. She apparently has reasons to stay put. But we're working on it, don't worry." Tia clears her throat. "Enough. We must get to Canterlot and assess the situation there." "Uh, your majesty?" Cutlass says. "As far as I know, your majesty, there is no situation that any of my people are directly responsible for. I do know that my colleague, you will know him as Heavy Steel, was accidentally exposed as a changeling today. I heard that Discord may have had something to do with that." All eyes turn to Discord. "Oopsie?" "Apparently that caused a huge ruckus among the Royal Guards. Maybe the rest of the city, but as I said, nothing that we directly or intentionally caused." "Discord?" Tia asks. "Whaaaat? You should be glad that I pointed out the traitor in your midst. Hmf. You're welcome." Tia rolls her eyes at him. Later, in Canterlot… "This… does not look like chaos to me," Celestia remarks, looking over the city from a castle balcony. "And I suppose you're the ranking expert around here?" Discord asks sarcastically. "At least we did not waste the girls' time by bringing them here with us," Tia says. "They deserved some rest." "Well," I say, "if everything's ok here, how about we find bugpony's friends and ask them what the hell is up with Rainbow and when I can go home?" I look up at Cutlass, who's floating along like a helium balloon, tethered by a string that Discord is holding. "Can I come down now?" He asks. "No," Discord answers flatly. "I think Church has a point," Tia says. "Where are your friends?" "Well…" Discord and I are waiting outside of Celestia's office, while she interrogates the bugpony brigade. We're sitting with our backs against the door… We were trying to eavesdrop, but the door is pretty solid, and we can't really hear what's going on inside. "So did you really cause some mayhem by exposing that one spy?" "Mayh-! Why does everypony keep insinuating that I'm wreaking chaos all the time?" "Well… aren't you?" "No! I am not!" "But you did expose him, and that did start some kind of ruckus… right?" "Erm. Yes, I suppose." "And you took away Shiny's horn." "Now that I did so he wouldn't hurt the poor changeling." "Poor changeling?" "He hadn't done anything wrong." "He was a spy! They were probably planning world domination or something!" "Oh, no such thing, Church. Didn't you hear 'Cutlass'? He said they were trying to be friendly." "And you knew that when you exposed that spy?" "Hmm… Heh heh." He shrugs. "You didn't, did you?" "What I knew, what I didn't know, does any of that really matter now?" "Yeah… I guess not." "They're talking about getting you home in there, you know." "Really? You can hear them?" "I'm not really paying much attention. I'm sure they'll tell you soon." "Speaking of me going home… I'll hopefully never come back, but I don't want to leave any more bridges burnt here than I have to. And uh… well… you know… you're uh, not so bad, Discord." "I'll take that as a compliment." "What I'm trying to say is, I've been pretty shitty to you, and… I'm sorry." He smiles. "No more than I deserve I suppose. Friends?" "Friends." Click The door that was our backrest opens behind us and we fall over onto the floor. "We weren't eavesdropping, honest!" Discord says to Tia, who's looking down at him on the floor. "Mostly because we couldn't," I add. "Get up, you two," Tia orders. We get up. "So what's going on?" I ask. "In short, I am starting to believe their story. Apparently, they actually opened a portal to your world, Church, and sent in four changelings to try and get Rainbow Dash back here. However, they are currently having some kind of difficulties, and they are insisting that it won't take any longer than two more days." "Two whole days? Aw man…" "The changelings refuse to take credit for this mix-up happening in the first place, so that leaves us only with what you said. That Nightmare Moon took credit for you being here." "That's what she said… but wait. That doesn't make sense. Because Luna wasn't Nightmare when I first got here." "Unless the entity that is Nightmare Moon… somehow granted the wish that switched you two… without having a physical presence in this world?" "Could Nightmare have been inside Luna this whole time? And like… granted a wish-" "That was made upon a star? A wish that Luna could have heard if she so chose?" "That's… not what I was gonna say, but I'll roll with it." "It is starting to seem plausible. Perhaps Luna will know more when she wakes up." "Yes. Perhaps. So what am I supposed to do for two days?" "Ah, yes, I was getting to that. I have an essential task for you." "Why do I get the feeling you're about to ask me-" "To go to Ponyville and make some friends!" "Oh gawd." "Come now, will it really be that bad? It is only for a couple of days." "Well what about you, we're friends right? Doesn't that count?" "Yes, we are." She smiles. "And I would love to spend some time with you, but, as you can see, I am going to be quite busy cleaning this mess up." "Fine." "I think you'll enjoy yourself, Church. You have plenty of friends to start with. Right, Discord?" "Him?" I point to Discord. "Hey!" Discord protests. "What was all that about being friends a second ago?" "I dunno. Anyway, do I have to?" "Yes," Tia answers flatly. "Le sigh." > Cleaning Up and Making Up (Dash) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previously on Stuck… Rainbow hugged Righty and he exploded. Literally, and not in whatever way you were thinking, you perv. But he's ok, just unconscious. Morgan and Lefty swing by, exposition happens, Lefty says Righty is not a bad guy, just corrupted by power. And they get Lefty to admit that he and Righty are friends. "Hey Lefty," Morgan asks, "So how do we do this? Put all these people back, without them knowing what happened?" "It's not that complicated, but we have a lot of captives to return, so it'll take a while," Lefty says. "This is so cool! I can't believe I'm gonna get to see how you guys operate!" "Ugh," I grunt, "It's not that exciting, sounds more like boring work to me." "Oh come on Dashie! Aren't you the least bit interested in changelings?" "Since when are you calling me Dashie?" "Oh. I'm sorry, I mean… can I? That'd be… pretty cool if I could," Morgan smiles at me. "Yeah, fine whatever. Let's get this over with." "Yes! So Lefty," Morgan starts, "Do you have cocoons?" "Well… kind of…" "How do you capture a pony? Or human?" "We have-" "Do you even capture them?" "Well-" "Do you knock them out? Do you have a spell?" "No-" "Do you erase their memories? Do you implant new memories?" "Sort of-" "Do you just put them in their bed and hope they wake up and don’t remember anything?" "Usually it's-" "Isn't there going to be a lot of time loss since most of these people have been gone for a whole day? How do you fix that? Is magic involv-" "MORGAN. SHUT UP." "Sorry…" Lefty sighs. "You're going to be helping me return these humans. You'll see how it's all done. Ok?" Morgan nods. Lefty and Morgan are carring an unconscious human guy from the car into the random human's house. I hold the door open for them and they carry him through to a bedroom. They lay him gently on a bed. Morgan goes, "Can I do this one?" And Lefty says, "Ok, you remember what I told you?" "Yes. Make it random and different from the last person." "And?" "And… make the captive suspect anyone but us." "Very good. As long as they suspect anything but us, we did our job right. So what's the setup?" "Well, last person you smashed her cell phone and stole her lipstick. Not sure what that'll look like to her when she wakes up…" "But that's the point. Create confusion." "Ah. Right. Can I punch this guy in the face?" "Sure, he won't wake up." Morgan socks the guy in the face, and then rolls him off the bed onto the floor. "Good?" "It'll confuse the shit out of him when he wakes up… so yeah. Why punch him though?" "Oh, I hate that guy. Total douche." "Hmm… try not to make things personal. It leads to mistakes. NEXT HOUSE!" It was dark out when we finally got back to Danny's house. I was sore all over from the run earlier and from carrying around a bunch of sleeping humans. Humans are heavy. "How many humans did we do today?" I ask as I sit on the couch. "I think I lost count after fifty," Morgan answers as he plops down next to me. "107 captives at 72 residences," Lefty answers. "Man. Felt like more." Morgan lazily leans back and turns the TV on. There's a lady on the screen. "The alleged hostage situation in Wheaton is now confirmed to be a hoax. Authorities say that the SWAT team dispatched to handle the situation found only an empty barn, with no hostages or terrorists. Authorities suspect, however, that the hostage scare was a result of the complete loss of communications with the entire town of Wheaton for over 12 hours now. Including all telephone, radio, internet, and cell phone services. Even the radio comms of the SWAT team for the two hours they were in Wheaton. Local communications providers say they have no records of any malfunctions of their systems. Most connections have been reestablished with the town, but they are working as quickly as they can to restore telephone and internet services back to one hundred percent operation. The local authorities want to again stress that there is no terrorist situation in Wheaton. In other news…" "Huh," Morgan says. "They bought it." "I sold it," says a smug Lefty. He plops down into the couch next to Morgan. "Alright Lefty," I say, "now that we're done, you got some 'splaining to do." He heaves a sigh. "Yeah I have to agree with Dashie," Morgan agrees, turning slightly on the couch to face Lefty. "Let's start with just why in the hay you changelings even foalnapped all those humans to begin with." "I told you, it was Righty's idea," Lefty defends, "and you know he was kind of going insane at the time, right?" "But… why didn't you just… I dunno… not do what he said?" I ask. "Eh, it wasn't long after we got here that I could tell what was happening to him. I knew he was becoming powerful, so I didn't want to cross him. I myself had already been pretty weak ever since… the invasion. I had hoped I would be able to talk him out of his foolish plans, but it was no use. Hence why I finally came to you for help, Dashie." "Why is everypony calling me Dashie?" "I don't know. It's what Righty kept calling you." "Morgan?" "Uh… because reasons?" "Whatever. Ok, so basically because Righty was nuts. Got it. Now you wanna tell me exactly why you guys supposedly came to this world-place to get me?" "What?" Morgan asks. "I wasn't aware of this." "Oh yeah," I say, "Didn't Lefty tell you? That's the whole reason they're here. To get me." Lefty sighs again. "Well it's like this, Dashie. Remember that whole invasion thing? Yeah, well, our Queen started a war that we can't win. We're in dire straits… it was bad before, but now… my people are starving. We're desperate. You see, all eight of us Overlords have been hiding in Canterlot for some time now, organizing, planning, spying on the Equestrian government." "You what?" "Hear me out Dashie. We have been trying to come up with a plan, some way to end the animosity towards us changelings, and maybe get some kind of aid from Equestria. To strike a truce of some sort. But it's a little hard to just come out of the blue and ask for peace, when you're the ones who initiated violence in the first place." "Yeah, no kidding." "So we came up with the idea that we should have some sort of gift to show Princess Celestia our sincerity. Some sort of peace offering, an olive branch, so to speak. Of course, we had next to nothing, and no idea what would even constitute a meaningful gift. That is until… one of us saw a certain rainbow colored pegasus that wasn't who she was supposed to be. And not a changeling, either." "Wait… how did you know it wasn't me?" "We're changelings, Dashie. We know when a pony is not a pony. Besides, we Overlords are mages, the best. That kind of magic sticks out to us. We worked together, secretly deciphering the spell and tracking you back to this human world, without Church or anypony else noticing us. We figured that this was our chance. We would get you back, and prove we did it to Princess Celestia. That would be our olive branch." "So let me get this straight: you want peace between ponies and changelings, and punching the Princess' Element of Loyalty was your plan? Real good thinking guys. Freakin' genius." Lefty smiles and shrugs, "Hey, that's how the spell works. You go back when both you and Church want to go back. I don't make the rules." "What about Church then?" Morgan asks. "Oh, we're pretty sure he's wanted to go back home since he got there. He actually does hate ponies for some reason. We have no idea why." Morgan inhales through grit teeth. "Ooh. Yeah. About that." "You said something about that earlier didn't you, Morgan?" I ask. "Eh, heh, heh. It's uh… complicated. But hey look, I don't think Church would do anything stupid." Lefty clears his throat obnoxiously and gives Morgan a funny look. "Well, ok, nothing that stupid." Lefty sighs, "As far as we know, he hasn't caused any permanent damage anyway." "What did he do?!" "Nothing, nothing. Just relax Rainbow. He's just made a fool out of himself, that's all. I'm sure all your pony friends will be able to look back at all this and laugh. So cheer up." "Do they… do they miss me?" "C'mon Dashie-" Morgan starts. "Of course they miss you-" Lefty interrupts. I reach over Morgan and grab Lefty by the collar. "Do. They. Miss. Me?" "Well I'm not there myself, but from what I understand, yes, they miss you. They already figured out what's going on and already tried to get you back. Church even helped them, kind of. Though I guess that would be self-serving for him, so…" "Oh… good." "Ahem," Morgan gently pushes me away from Lefty, him sitting between us. "So um, do you miss them?" "Yeah. I miss everypony…" "Hey Left." I look over and see Danny and Dyllen in the doorway. "Right wants to speak with you," Dyllen says. Lefty heaves himself up and out of the grasp of the big fluffy couch. Morgan leans in for a whisper, "What do you suppose Right's going to say?" "I dunno. But it better not be 'I'm taking over the world'." "Heh heh. So how'd you knock him out anyway? Bash him in the head?" "Oh no, it was waaay cooler than that. So, like, we were racing to Church's place, right? Well, right on the doorstep I tackled him. I kind of hugged him-" "You hugged him?" "Well no, I was holding his arms so he couldn't fight back. Anyway, Lefty told me to love him-" "That still sounds so wrong." "Shut up. So I couldn't – because he's such a jackass – but then I realized-" "Wait, wait. Hold on. You just said 'jackass'." "Yeah, so?" "But like, where you come from… jackasses are actual people. So is that like… some kind of racial slur?" "…Dude, what?" "Oh, never mind." "So anyways, I figured out that I didn't have to love him, I could just love the rest of you guys!" "Kinky." I punch Morgan lightly in the shoulder. "Point is, he couldn't get me off him. He even tried magicking me off, didn't work. Then he started screaming. Oh Celestia, the screaming. So I head-butt him." "You head-butt-ed him?" "Yeah, still feeling that one," I rub my forehead. "And then he EXPLODED." "Exploded?" "EXPLODED." "Kinky!" I punch him hard this time. "Hehe, sorry. Couldn't help it." "Ugh, colts. After that, he was down for the count. And Rainbow Dash saved the day once again!" "Well, hey. That you did. Um, thank you!" "Aaah… when you're as awesome as me, it's no big deal. Want me to autograph your chest?" "My god. You really are Rainbow Dash." "Hey guys?" Lefty calls from behind us. Morgan and I look over behind us. "My… friend… Righty, would like to say something." Lefty steps aside, revealing the same tiny scrawny changeling I poked back on Church's floor. He walks into the room, leaning up against Lefty / Silas's long human legs for support. It takes him a while, looks like he's in pain. He finally comes to sit on the floor in front of us. Lefty sits next to him, Danny and Dyllen take spots on the floor behind the two. It takes Righty a while. Seems like he's thinking real hard about what to say. Even though he's a bugpony, even I can see on his face that he's got a lot on his mind. And he doesn't want to look us in the eye, either. "Well," he finally says very quietly, his voice sounding strange and totally unlike Conner's. "Where do I start?" " 'I'm sorry' maybe?" I blurted out. Morgan nudges me and gives me a dirty look. Righty finally looks up, and when he does, it's heartbreaking. I suddenly wish I hadn't said anything at all. That is just the saddest face I've ever seen. It doesn't even matter that he has scary fangs or freaky dull-blue eyes, that look, it's like… like somepony just killed his dog. After burning down his house. And stealing his marefriend. And he just lost his job. And somepony else took a dump in his corn flakes that morning. Heart-wrenching, really. He swallows hard. "I am sorry." "I think we're all sorry," says Lefty. "I- I am so sorry Rainbow. For everything I put you through… I- I shouldn't have… I know I hit you a few times." "And tried to kill me, but hey! It's ok. I socked you good a couple times too, right? Besides, I've had worse. I'm made of pretty tough stuff ya know. It's gonna take way more than a couple of punches to knock this filly down." "Morgan… I know I gave you a hard time too, and we… I… foalnapped your friends. And I hope… I didn't upset your relationship with Claire… I'm sorry Morgan." "Well, I'm sure… I can convince Claire that her brother was actually a power-crazed changeling. That should clear everything up," says Morgan. "Dashie… now is probably the worst time to ask you this… and I would completely understand if you said 'no,' but… we would, all of us, owe you a really big favor if you would… maybe… put in a good word for us with the Princess? "Well-" Morgan nudges me. He leans in for a whisper. "You know, you got these guys by the balls-" "Lefty's a girl." Morgan's mouth hangs open for a moment while he processes what I just said. He shakes his head and continues, "I say we squeeze. You could ask them for anything." "Pfft. I just wanna go home." "But that's already part of the deal! We gotta get them for something." "Hmm… I wonder if they could help me with my Wonderbolts predicament." "What?" "Oh, that's right. I didn't tell you. Eh, later. Anyway, what'd you have in mind?" "Well… Lefty said they had a portal…" "Really?" I ask flatly. "Why do you wanna go there so bad anyway?" "I just want to hang out with you and your friends!" Morgan smiles like an idiot. Keeping that smile plastered on his mug. Obviously waiting for me to react. I don't. "You know, because you're all so awesome! Especially you, Dashie!" "I… guess it'd be cool." "Alright! So you gonna ask them?" "I got it. Ahem! I will put in a good word for you guys, BUT, you owe me a huge favor and Morgan gets to go to Equestria. Sometime. For a little while. Deal?" Lefty smiles. "I think we can live with that, right guys? Righty?" They all nod in agreement. "One more thing Dashie," Righty looks up. "I just wanted to say… thank you. Not for just this, but for everything. I came here to save you… and you wound up saving me. Nopony has ever… actually, you're the first pony to ever do anything for me. So thank you. You too Morgan." "Yeah, I'm awesome. But ya know, you should really be thanking Lefty. He's the one- er… she's the one who had your back this whole time." Righty looks up to Lefty and they smile at each other. "Thanks Left." "Any time, Right." Lefty actually leans in and hugs Righty. It's a very tender moment between those two. They must've known each other forever, through thick and thin. Morgan slowly stands up. He takes his sunglasses off and places them gently on the coffee table. He kneels down and hugs the both of them. "Come on guys," Morgan says, "group hug! Who's hungry? Come on, you know you want some of this!" Danny and Dyllen join in the group hug. Morgan looks behind at me sideways. His face silently egging me on. "Oh. Why not?" I go over and wrap my arms around 'em. We all share a couple of giggles. Then Morgan gets an idea all of a sudden. "Hey! Let's go wake up the rest of the guys and do a dungeon crawl!" > Church's Epilogue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Princess Celestia, Spending two days in Ponyville sucked. Ok, ok. It didn't suck. It was tolerable. Even though, you know, I still can't help thinking of the 'mane six' as… well never mind that. It turns out that they're not so bad to hang with. And even Discord's good for a couple of laughs. The people in Ponyville are… well, people. Or ponies, whatever. Speaking of which, yesterday it occurred to me that one of my good friends, Morgan, who Nightmare was pretending to be, he actually would really like to come visit Ponyville. And I'm pretty sure by now that he figured out that a rainbow horse pony has been living in my body for the past couple days. My point is, that if I came back and had nothing to tell him about this place, his jimmies would be seriously rustled. So I asked the girls to show me around Ponyville, and they were happy to. Twilight showed me her tree and a bunch of nerd stuff, Rarity made me wear a dress (but she also made me wear a suit and got a worrying amount of satisfaction from it), I met some of Flutter's pets (that rabbit is a little prick, but the bear was actually a real bro), Applejack showed me apple stuff (because, you know, apples), and Pinkie showed me the bakery she works at (but I turned down a tour of the basement). I… kind of apologized to Spike, but he still irritates me. Oh, and I got to see Lyra sitting on a bench. Joy of joys… I've also slept the past two nights in Rainbow's cloud house. Living IN a cloud is… really abnormal. But I'll never complain about the bed, that's for sure. Wish I could have me one of those back home. I got your message, by the way. I hope those bugponies aren't pulling our legs, because I'm really ready to go home. And I know everypony oh my god I can't believe I just wrote that – everybody here wants Rainbow back. Her boss from the weather department was super peeved about this whole thing, and wanted me to work her job anyway, even though I have no clue how to weather. I didn't have to, thankfully. I know I've made plenty of bad impressions on all of you already, the last thing I want to do is leave you guys with some kind of freak tornado or something to remember me by. Anyway, if the bugponies are right, Rainbow and me will be switched back tonight while we're asleep. Twilight is bothering me about writing some kind of lesson I learned while I was here? Um… let's see. Never pretend to have amnesia when you wake up in the body of a lesbian pony. Yeah, that seems like the real lesson here. Oh, ok, fine. Um, don't be a jerk to people that are trying to help you? Twilight says that's probably the best she's going to get out of me, so that must be right. Alright Tia, I'm going to hit the hay. Wait, not literally, I mean I'm going to sleep. Let's hope everything goes back to normal in the morning. Your human friend, Church P.S. – Writing with my mouth is a lot easier than I imagined it being. Gotta try this when I'm human again. One Week Later… It's night, and I'm asleep. Or at least I was, before I was shaken awake by someone. I open my eyes and in the dark of my room I see a rainbow pony standing next to my bed. "Church! You have to come back with me," Rainbow Dash demands in her raspy girl voice. "What? Back where?" "Back… to Equestria!" "…Are you fucking serious?" "Yes!" She smiles. "Righty, have you been up late watching movies with Danny again?" "Aw, how'd you know it was me?" "It's four in the fucking morning!" "It's Saturday!" "Get the fuck outta my house dude! How'd you even get in here?" "Danny has a copy of your house key." "Righty…!" "Fine, fine!" 'Rainbow Dash' erupts in a swirl of green flame, and in her place is Conner. Conner wearing a very odd pink nightgown. Whatever. He's leaving anyway. Having bugponies for friends is strange. Very, very strange. Never a dull moment, at the very least. It turns out they need four of them to hold open a portal to Equestria or from there to here. So when they came here to find Rainbow, they didn't expect to go home. I guess the portals only work one way, or something? There's some reason their friends on the other side can't open a portal for them, I don't know. Anyway, they came here to save Rainbow on a suicide mission, for queen and country. Or, I guess they hated their queen, but you know what I mean. Pretty ballsy of them. I'm still trying to get them to use their powers to rob a bank or something, but they won't. Probably best, anyway. They do love playing pranks on people though. Me, the guys, our parents, people in town, people on facebook, you name it. And I have had them get me out of work once or twice, heh heh. I can't complain though. They're good guys. It took all of us a while to warm up to them, especially, because, you know, they kind of kidnapped four of the guys, and apparently the whole town. Not Morgan though, he's been as thick as thieves with all of them from the get-go. Freaking brony. All in all, this whole experience has been pretty cool. I can look back on it and laugh, at least. Spitfire was right, I got to get away for a while and have an adventure of sorts. I did get to fly, I mean, how many people can say that? Like not in an airplane, literally flying on my own feathery wings. Pretty damn boss. I actually made friends with living incarnations of cartoon characters – despite which ones they were – and hey, they were alright people. And now that it's all over, I have some cool new changeling friends to remind me of my little out-of-body adventure. Nope, can't complain one bit. And, no, I haven't actually watched the show yet. Church out. > Dashie's Epilogue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A lot of things happened that day. A lot of stuff to take my mind off of my worries, like the whole reason I was stuck in the human world to begin with. At the end of the day, when I plopped down on Church's bed, all alone in the dark with nopony but myself, I remembered my problems. Lefty put it best: stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hoof, I had all my friends in Ponyville, and on the other hoof, I had all my hopes and dreams at the Wonderbolts flight academy in Los Pegasus. If I follow my lifelong dream, then I'd be far away from my friends for a long, long time. Of course, I had an ace in my hoof. I had a bunch of changelings owing me a favor! A big favor. So that was something… but was it enough? I laid in Church's bed for hours on end, thinking about everything. My Ponyville friends deserve to have my awesome self to hang with, but should I really give up my dream for them? That would be the loyal thing to do… but even though they need me, they all said that I should go and follow my dream. And you know, as I laid there, staring at the ceiling in the dark, I started to think… maybe they were right. I mean, after all, it wouldn't be forever. It might be a long time, sure, but not forever. There would be holidays and… oh boy would I miss them. But it wouldn't be forever. And now, after all this crap with the changelings in the human world, and saving the humans from Righty, well… I started to think that maybe I should be awesome for other people too. Then, if being a Wonderbolt means I'd be helping other ponies like I helped the humans, I should go do it. Finally I had made my choice, and I drifted off to sleep. The next thing I knew, I felt something moving around in my bed. I didn't know what it was, so I cracked open one eye and saw Tank cuddling up next to me. I was home. And I went back to sleep. In the morning – that is, the afternoon – while I was making some nice oats for breakfast, Pinkie Pie knocked on my cloud door by, well, just walking through it. Somehow she just knew it was me. I wondered if she knew that Church was Church, but I found out later that she didn't. The rest of my friends let themselves in and we all shared some sappy moments together. Twilight said we had to go to Canterlot to talk to the princess, and we went. I was kind of nervous on the trip there. In a way, I had to lie to Princess Celestia… but at the same time, it wasn't a lie. About the changelings, that is. Of course the girls asked me what happened, but I just told them the basics, and left out the awful parts. When the time came, I told the princess that the changelings tried to help me, and that it was an honest effort. She had trouble believing my story though, and she asked to talk to me privately in her office. I wound up telling her most of the bad parts of the story… I even tried explaining how the spell was supposed to work, but for a while there, Celestia wasn't having any of it. I guess I didn't really need to make the changelings look good. But… I honestly felt sorry for them. I really did, and that saved them. When the princess heard how I felt about them, that was their saving grace. I'll never tell them that though. I don't want them to think that Celestia would've held a grudge against them for punching me a little bit, even though that was kinda how the spell worked, it wasn't their fault. And the whole thing with Righty wasn't really his fault either, it was mine. I guess I was just surprised that the princess would be… so angry at them. Is that weird? I probably – actually I did feel the same way before. But… I dunno, after hearing Lefty's side of the story, being mad at them just seemed… kind of… petty, I guess. I dunno. Anyway, Celestia is working on some kind of peace treaty with them now. So that's awesome. Which means I got my favor. But a funny thing happened the day after I got back. Spitfire herself came by my place to see me. She told me she met Church and talked to him about a lot of stuff. I actually started thinking maybe he wasn't such a bad guy. I was a little nervous about talking to her though. Because of my whole situation. At some point, she said something like, "I hope we work well together, to get you trained." And I said, "I bet all the new recruits will be grateful to train under you." Then she said the weirdest thing, "Yeah, I bet they would be grateful. Shame I'm only training you." I didn't know what to say. "What, you didn't know? They should have said that in your orientation letter." I shook my head 'no.' "Huh. I'll have to talk to Stormy. Yeah, you got the very best all to yourself, Dash. We're gonna put you through your paces at Cloudsdale-" "Wait, what?!" "Yeah… Cloudsdale. Didn't say that in the letter, either, huh?" "No! They said I'd be stuck in Los Pegasus!" "Heh, normal recruits train there. But you'll only have the orientation there. You're training with me, and I'm based in Cloudsdale." Los Pegasus would have completely separated me from my friends, but Cloudsdale is only a twenty minute flight from Ponyville! I was so excited, I went and told everypony the good news right away. I couldn't believe all this stupid stuff happened to me just because somepony typing a letter forget to mention something so important. I actually got my cake and got to eat it too. I couldn't believe it. As happy of an ending as I could hope for, even better, actually. Heh heh. I still had a huge favor to call in with a bunch of changelings. But that one I might save for a rainy day. > Human Character Pictures! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: Conner and Claire are siblings. Claire and Morgan are in a relationship. Danny's house is the hang out spot for the guys, it's the one with the barn full of junk. Dyllen is just... awkward. Church was on the track and field team when he was in high school. Pictures by KaoKay