> Guided Rhythm
>  by Valshe
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Waking Up to the Wub
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1: Waking Up to the Wub
_________________

You know, when it comes to my life, it was very uneventful. My name is Gage Leboeuf, and I have possibly the most boring life ever. My schedule is always the same. Wake up, go to work, go home, and then play games for the rest of the night. That's how it was every single night nowadays, for I was in a rut with no way to get out. Well, that's how life is when you're living in the middle of nowhere known as Raceland, Louisiana. Possibly the most eventful thing yet was the fact that each day of the year now has its own name.

So, today was Wagnesday, and as usual, the sun came rolling in through the windows beckoning me to wake up. As a reflex to the sudden intrusion of light, I hurried up and rolled the other way so I could get those few extra minutes of blissful sleep. Then, as I was just about to doze off again, the alarm on my phone started up, so now I'm hearing the chorus from AcoustiMandoBrony's Nightmare in Everfree. My eyes opened to the sight of my phone vibrating on the small box I use as a makeshift table, blaring the music as if it were a Bose speaker.

"Okay! I'm awake!"

I then stopped dead. That was NOT my voice. It was too feminine to be my voice. My voice was supposed to be manly! I had just stared back at my phone, which by then the ringtone had ended. My voice suddenly changing like that? That was quite terrifying. I then went to speak up again, just to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

With that, I muttered a small "Hello" to make sure I wasn't just imagining that. Even though the volume was at Fluttershy-quiet, the same feminine voice came from my vocal chords, and out of my mouth. I wasn't imagining this; my voice had indeed changed. So, after this, I had decided to get out of bed to check what is wrong with my voice. So, as I went to raise up my arm to rub my eyes, I noticed that in place of my arm was a nub. It was pure white in color, and I was able to move it like it was an arm. I moved it over my head, behind my head, and flailed it in the air above me.

"What happened to my arm!?" I cried out in alarm before finally taking a look at myself. My body stopped at least halfway down the length of my futon. It looked as if someone sneaked in my room and stole half of my body. Just wondering what the heck happened to me, I lifted the covers off of me and what I saw sent so many feels through me I had no idea what to call this feeling.

My body was covered in white fur, and underneath me was an unkempt tail of two different hues of blue. Nervously, I looked at my now-flank and saw that I had a cutie mark consisting of two connected eighth notes like they are played without pause. I noticed that my legs had transformed into stumps as well and my whole body now reached down to the halfway point of my bed. After examining myself, the first thing I had asked myself was, "Had I become a pony!?" Even though this really made me nervous, I had a hunch as to who who I became, but I had to see a mirror just to make sure. Though, just that thought alone outright terrified me.

The first thing I had to do was getting out of bed. Well, that was easy since my bed was low to the ground, so I just rolled right off of it. So now I'm laying on the soft carpet, and I have to get to the bathroom down the hall. I looked up and took a look at my surroundings from this new height. The entertainment center behind me towered over me not unlike a skyscraper would. My X-Box 360 now looked so much bulkier as it stood not too far from where I'm laying. The last thing I took a look at was my shelf of video games. Stacked up so that the entire thing is taller than me, I wondered how would I get to my favorite games should this transformation actually be permanent. Luckily my parents are both at work right now, or else I'd have an explanation to make with no time to think of anything to say.

"Okay, now to get up!" I said to myself as I wobbled to my hooves. "Okay, left, right, left, right...I swear, whoever said this was easy, I will smack them with the force of a thousand suns!"  Honestly, it was the oddest I ever felt. Still trying to get used to this new sensation of being a quadruped, I wobbled to the door, which luckily, was slightly open. Thankfully, my room was moderately clean, so I didn't have the added challenge of stepping over dirty laundry or wires from my X-Box 360. I had pushed the door open and started to walk to the bathroom door.

As I reached the door, I realized I had to open this door. I thought for a second, then an idea came to mind. If I am who I think I am, then I should have a horn, and should be able to have access to magic! So I lifted a hoof over my head and felt something protruding from my head. Just as I thought, I had a horn. So, all I need to do was focus on the door handle.

"Focus....Foooocuuuussss......FOCUS!"

But it was all for naught. The door would not open no matter how hard I focused. Maybe I was doing it wrong? Maybe I had to imagine me opening the door instead of just staring at the door handle. So, I began to focus again. This time, I was imagining the door opening and voilà! The door opened, but at the cost of some fatigue. It felt like I had lifted a dumbbell up over my head.

"Ugh...Better...not do that too often." I said between panted breaths of fatigue.

When I walked in the small bathroom, I clicked the light switch, which was pretty easy, no magic required. (Not that I wanted to do magic.) As soon as the light engulfed the darkness, I was able to get a look at myself in the mirror. What I saw had shocked me.

Now, I knew I had become a pony, but actually looking at it in the mirror was a completely different experience. What I saw in the mirror was none other than Vinyl Scratch, better known as DJ Pon-3. It sent a shock wave through my body. Staring back at me was those magenta eyes, blinking when I blink. The unkempt mane of two different hues of blue, reflecting my movements as my hoof went through it. It made just stand there, completely silent for at least five minutes as I tried to get my thoughts together.

"Okay, so last night, I crashed while all-nighting Skyrim, and when I wake up, I'm the queen of wubs. Just what happened!?" I was absolutely shocked, and to tell you the truth, I haven't been keeping up with current events, I'm addicted to video games, so I never really bothered with watching TV or the news for that matter. It always bored the hell out of me. The only news I ever paid attention to was if the words "Game Informer" were said or listed. Figuring it was time to change that, especially since that this happened to me, I hurried back to my room. I had found my laptop which was sitting on my bed as I carefully opened it up. With me not wanting to tire myself out using magic to type, I picked up a nearby pen with my mouth and typed in my long password.

As the screen came to my desktop, I clicked the icon for Google Chrome and then checked out the humdrum of the media by clicking two of the most useful sites for me: Facebook and YouTube. I looked through many posts about pointless status updates and shared pictures before finally coming across a post that was relevant to my mysterious transformation. Apparently, it was happening all over the world, and not just in a select area. Also, I found out I wasn't the only one. I then decided that now would be a good time to check video feed of any ponies travelling the country right now. I came across a number of videos about this phenomenon. Being the most legit news channel I know, I had clicked the video made by The Young Turks, even though it was two days old. What I saw truly astounded me.

It was a report about an incident at an IHOP involving Pinkie Pie, some cosplayers, a shirtless guy, a police man, and a gazelle. At first, I wondered how that could even happen, but then I just summed it up to, "It's Pinkie, there is no need for an explanation." As I continued to search through the videos, I began seeing more and more about ponies wandering the country. It was then that I heard one mentioning about travelling to New York because Lauren Faust, who had become Princess Celestia, ordered the ones who had become the Mane Six to go there.

This was the only clue as to what had happened around the world. New York is where most, if not all of the people who transformed are headed. It was then that an idea came to me. "Maybe if I go to New York, I'll be able to get answers for all of this. But first, I need to get a ride, pack some essentials, and get my wallet....Thank Celestia that I keep my money as cash."

Wait...Did I just say what I think I said? Confound these ponies taking over my vocabulary! I hurried back to Facebook and messaged the two people I trust the most to help me out in this emergency.

The first was my friend Luis. Since he was the only one of the two people I trust that actually has a car, it was a no-brainer to contact him.

Hey Luis, I need you to get over to my house. Immediately, for this is an emergency. No joke, I need you here now. I'll explain everything as soon as you get here.

As I hit the send button, it didn't take long for me to get a reply. I could tell he was confused, but nonetheless he agreed to come over. Since he lived close, I'd only have to wait about ten minutes or so before he got here. In the meantime, I looked at myself. I needed clothes. I didn't want to be roaming New York naked!

I looked through my closet just to see what would fit. None of my jeans would fit me anymore, so I had to do much more digging until I came across a pair of black shorts. They would have to do, so I used magic to lift the shorts up while I made a hole in it with my horn for my tail to fit through. Next thing was a shirt. Luckily I found that old Dalek shirt, because that fit perfectly over my new form. Since I would have basic magic, I really wouldn't have the need to grab things with my now-hoof. So I decided to pack other necessities: clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, wallet, cell phone with charger, MP3 player, and my laptop.

"Wait....My glasses! I'll need my glasses!" I exclaimed out loud while looking for my glasses. Without them, I'm like Velma from Scooby Doo. I searched high and low for them. I could not remember for the life of me where I had put them. Even through Vinyl's eyes my vision was still bad. My glasses were nowhere to be found. Instead, I found Vinyl's famous shades in the place of my glasses. It was then that I had a sudden urge to put them on. As I put on the glasses, it felt...It felt right. Like, I had to have these on. So then I decided to take one final look at myself before waiting for my friend to show up. 



I walked back to the bathroom mirror and took one final look at myself. I really looked the part of a DJ. The glasses, the mane, the tail, and the fact that there's a music player next to me looked pretty awesome in my opinion. I couldn't help but stare at myself in awe.

It was then that I heard the sounds of a car rolling down the driveway and then the sound of a car door closing. I was nervous as all hell, but there was no turning back now. I had to get to New York, and my friend was my only hope of getting there.

> The Start of a Journey
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2: The Start of a Journey
_________________

        The sound of that car door made me so nervous to the point that I was shaking. How the hell would he to react to me suddenly transformed into Vinyl Scratch? My mind rushed through all the possible outcomes that could happen upon seeing my new form, none of which looked good. However, there was no turning back now. Luis had showed up and had started knocking on the door. As soon as I heard that knocking on the door, my nervousness changed into full on panic. What was I going to do? It was then that a thought, no, a voice came to my head.

        “You gotta face this head on! You can do this!”

        I didn’t know why, but that voice suddenly calmed me down and gave me the courage to get out of the bathroom and to go to the front door. I trotted out of the bathroom and into the living room. From this new perspective, everything seemed so surreal. The archway leading to the kitchen seemed like walking underneath the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Even though that was just an exaggeration, it felt that much bigger to me. The leather sofa and recliners were not taller than me by a full foot, and the TV was literally twice as big as me, but I was quickly brought out of my trance when the knocking at the door got louder.

        I trotted up to the door and got up on my hind legs to try and open it. It was really hard to open it with my hooves, so I tried to open it with my mouth. I bit down on the knob, but my teeth kept sliding off of the knob. I tried and tried again, but each time I failed. So, reluctantly, I was forced to use magic. I took a few steps back to brace myself for the tiring experience of using magic.

        I focused my energy into my horn and imagined in my head the door opening wide. After so much focusing, the door opened a little bit. That was probably the most tiring experience ever. I actually had to sit down because it took so much out of me. After opening the front door, I climbed up on the leather couch and sat down.

        “Come....in...” I had said between panted breaths.

        The door opened up and my friend Luis had walked in. At first, he didn’t see me on the couch because by then, I had laid down on it, but he was quite surprised by the unknown female voice he heard.

        “Hey Gage, since when did you get a lady friend?” He said before he chuckled at that statement. He was always like that, joking around whenever he could.

        Oh, if only it was actually like that. I had rolled my eyes at that statement before finally lifting my head over the back of the sofa. He was taking a look around to see where I was, completely unaware of the small pony making eye contact with him. When he looked toward my direction, I had said, “No, I became the lady!”

        To say he was startled by that would have been the understatement of the century. Luis was so startled by that he jumped back and slammed himself into the wall behind him. I can see the look on his face. It was a mix of fright, shock, and bewilderment. It looked kind of cliche to be honest. As he tried to comprehend just what he was seeing, I can hear him stutter, “Y....Y....Y...You can’t be serious, right?”

        I had slumped over the back of the sofa and said, “I wish this was just some weird dream or a sick practical joke, but this is what you see. I suddenly became DJ Pon-3. I don’t even know how it happened...I just...woke up like this. There would be no way in hell that I would ever WANT to get rid of my masculinity.”

        Luis just stood there, trying to comprehend just what he was seeing. One of his best friends had just turned into a pony. A DJ Pon-3 to be exact. After about a minute of an awkward silence between the two of us, I had finally broken it by finally stating the real reason why I messaged him to come over. Well, I needed to get to New York after all, and he was the only person I can trust who can drive. 

        “Well, I didn’t call you over here just to show you how I now look. The real reason I had called you over is because...well...I’ll just be blunt here. I need to get to New York. I can’t afford a plane ticket and you can drive.”

        After I told him why I had him come over, he contemplated on what he should do. He sat down on the same sofa I was sitting in and begun to think. After about five minutes of indecisiveness, he finally spoke.

        “Well...Alright, just be thankful that I recently finished by college classes.”

        He was always really easy to convince, but I was surprised he agreed to a trip to New York! When he said that, I was so overjoyed that I hugged him so hard his face started turning blue. Upon seeing him look like a smurf, I let go of him. I couldn’t help it; I actually had a ride to New York! I’ll be able to undo what has happened to me....or so I assumed.  Even though I wasn’t exactly sure what was up in New York, I was pretty sure it had the answers to all of my questions. Well, there was only one way to find out.

        As we finally got everything together, we walked outside. The outside world looked so much bigger. The storage building next to my house looked taller. It was now a skyscraper to me. The field across the street looked so much larger now. From a new perspective, everything was so much different! When we reached the doors to Luis’s car, I had a hard time opening the car door. As we all know, car doors weren’t made with hooves in mind, so you can guess how well that went.

        I tried opening the door by grabbing it between my front hooves and pulling. My hooves only slid off of the handle. I tried to fit my mouth around the door handle. Because of my new height and center of gravity, it was near-impossible for me. I even tried magic, but I tired out before I could even get to open it. It was at the eleventh attempt to open the car door that Luis opened the window and I jumped in through it, Dukes of Hazard style.

        After I got in the car, I had a hard time trying buckle myself up for the ride. Sure, I could have used magic to just buckle myself up, but I was too tired to even try that. Magic takes a lot out of me, so I wasn’t going to try any magic any time soon. So, after trying to find the least awkward sitting position, I was finally able to ask Luis to help me with the seatbelt.

        Okay, let me pause right here for a moment and tell you how the current scene is. I am in a silver prius. Inside the car is a my friend Luis, a mexican with black curly hair and glasses who’s wearing a shirt with Rainbow Dash’s silhouette that says “20% Cooler” and basic blue jeans. Next to him is Vinyl Scratch, wearing her signature glasses and also wearing a black shirt with a red Dalek on it. On that shirt, is the word “Exterminate”. Also, Vinyl is wearing black shorts, but they are almost long enough to be considered pants. And finally, she has a laptop case slung over her as a makeshift saddlebag. Got it? Good, because I won’t be explaining it again, ever.

        After getting situated with the seatbelt, we had begun to leave my house. As I took one last look at my house, many thoughts came rushing through my mind.

        “I’m basically running away from home.”

        “I’m never going to return here again for a long while.”

        “I wonder how New York is like?”

        “Is the Trump Tower as big as they say it is?”

        Well, my thoughts were scrambling everywhere, so a few random thoughts popped up as well, though I was quickly brought out of that thought process whenever we actually started to get on the road. We began driving down the quiet street towards our ultimate destination. It was going to be a long drive, but luckily, we had my MP3 and an AV cord to hook up to his car’s speakers, so we weren’t forced to listen to the radio and its overplayed music. As we drove down the road, another thought came to my mind. It would get boring with just the two of us driving to New York, so I decided that we needed to pick up one more person.

        “Luis, we need one more person to help us out with the drive to New York.” I said in a deadpan-ish voice.

        He looked at me with some confusion and asked me, “Who are you talking about?”

        I had looked at him with a grin on my face, “Why, obviously our good friend Merille!”

        Luis had agreed with me, and so we made the journey to my friend Merille’s house. We had to take a small detour since his house was a bit out of the way. It wasn’t long before we got to his house. We had parked just outside on the side of the road and Luis told me that we should give him a call. Since I had hooves, there was no way I could use my cell phone, since everything was on a touch screen and I lacked a stylus. So Luis had to make the call for me.

        It wasn’t much longer before we saw the white garage door to the orange brick house open up. Appearing from behind the garage door was my friend Merille. He had short, blonde hair and a stubble. He was wearing a T-shirt that had the Skyrim logo on it, along with blue jeans and old, white sneakers. He approached the door to the the Prius and when he looked through the open window, the look on his face was priceless. 

        He stood there, looking at me with the most dumbfounded look on his face. The first thing that he has said upon seeing me was, “Is that a talking pony in your car, or am I just drunk and just seeing things?” His look continued to dart back and forth between me and Luis before I finally spoke up.

        “No, you aren’t drunk, and there is certainly is a talking pony in Luis’s car. Also, I know you don’t recognize me in this form, but it’s me! Your old pal Gage!” I had the biggest grin on my face as I saw his reaction.

        Merille’s jaw dropped at that statement. He looked at me with that look and had said, “Bullshit....” I then laughed a little before saying, “No. It’s me, and I can prove it by one simple task. As you know, you are the only other person who knows the password to my laptop. Now, just let me get my lappy and I’ll show you that I’ll be able to access it!”

        With Luis’s help, I was able to pull out my laptop and power it back up. Merille’s face was shocked whenever I typed the password to it with no problems whatsoever. As I looked back up to him, I gave him a serious look and said, “Now do you believe me?” He looked at me and simply nodded. Though, after that, he started asking me a series of questions. The first thing he asked me was, “How did you become a talking pony?”

        To tell you the truth, I never really thought of that. How did it happen, or better yet, why did I become this? I didn’t have an answer for that one, so I said what I normally say in times of uncertainty, “Eh, shit happens.” Merille just simply shrugged and accepted that answer.

        The second thing he asked me was, “So, you came all the way here just to show me what you became? Or is there something else?”

        I had nodded and said, “Actually, there is something else. You see, Luis and I are about to go on a great journey...One worthy of the bards to sing throughout the times to come!” I then made a dramatic pause, “Actually, we’re going to New York, and we want you to come along.” Luckily, he kept up with current events and knew the severity of the situation at hand, so he agreed to come along with us.

        The third and final question he asked was, “So, one final thing. Are you even prepared for a trip all the way to New York?”

        I then thought about that. We weren’t really prepared for a long trip like that. We probably could last a couple of hours, much less a long road trip to New York. Then it hit me. We needed supplies, and we needed to be cheap. There’s only one place where we could save money.

        My face lit up and said, “No, but we can get prepared. We need supplies, and what other place sells everything in one store besides Wal-Mart?” I then looked at my wallet. I had four hundred and fifty bucks. With the money Luis and Merille have, we had a grand total of seven hundred bucks. So, we had enough money to get us prepared for a long ride.

        I looked at my friends and yelled at the top of my lungs, “TO THE WALL MARKET!”

> Save Money, Live Better, Then Run For Your Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3: Save Money, Live Better, Run For Your Life
_________________

        Well, to say the ride to Wal-Mart was uneventful would be an overstatement. I was so bored on the ride there that I fell asleep during the ride. All I remember is being woken up by Luis shaking me awake.

        “Hey! We’re here.”

        My eyes fluttered open and when I got up, we were already parked in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. It was a busy day today as the lot was packed with cars. When I got down from Luis’s car, I took a look around before I finally set my eyes on the big superstore. It felt weird, knowing that I’d be shopping at the very Wal-Mart I’m supposed to be working in. I worked as a cashier at the very Wal-Mart we arrived at. Though, even though I was scheduled to work today, I didn’t think I would be able to work because of my new form. So, I figured it would be alright to shop here. I mean, no one would be able to recognize me.

        We began to walk down the lot to the entrance of the store itself. As we walked down the row of cars, we had gotten some looks directed towards us... Well, to me specifically. I don’t blame them for the weird looks. It isn’t everyday that you see a talking unicorn with a neon blue mane wearing Doctor Who merch. By the time we reached the entrance to the store, the door greeter lady had just stared at me with the most bewildered expression ever. Well, what would you do if you see a talking horse start to shop?

        As we walked into the store, we passed by the Subway that was built inside the store. As soon as we walked close enough to it, my stomach began to rumble. I’m pretty sure Luis and Merille heard it because they wound up looking at me. It was kind of embarrassing. Since I was too freaked out over transforming into a pony, I forgot to get something to eat. “So, you didn’t get anything to eat before we left?” asked Luis as he looked to the Subway, “Alright, let’s get a quick bite to eat then.”

        When we walked into Subway the smell of freshly cooked food was in the air. It made my mouth water just smelling all of that food. Luckily the line wasn’t long so we headed to the front. When Luis rang the little bell to let employees know that there were customers, an older lady came from the back room. She took a look at Luis and Merille and asked what they would like to order. Since I knew she didn’t see me, I lifted my hoof into the air and said, “I want a footlong meatball marinara on flatbread!” She looked down at me with a face of pure shock and surprise when I made my statement. While she looked at me, I said, “I’m hungry. Hurry on with the food making!”

        After getting Luis’s and Merille’s orders, we finally received our sandwiches. I had ordered what I always bought when I go to a Subway, a meatball marinara on flat bread with mozzarella cheese and bacon and tea to finally finish the meal. As we sat down at the table we talked about what we would be needing to get for our roadtrip to New York. My stomach growled again when I finally decided to just shut up and eat. I thought that, even though I transformed into Vinyl, I could still eat the foods that I loved from when I was a human.

        Oh how wrong I was...

        When I took that first bite, it tasted funny, but I decided to pony up and eat it anyway. After all, I had paid for the damn thing. When I swallowed the piece of sandwich, I immediately began to choke up.  My face scrunched up and I began to feel sick. It didn’t sit well with my stomach at all. I got up from the seat and said, “Gotta go.... bathroom!” before I bolted off, leaving behind a confused Luis and Merille.

        I don’t know how many funny looks I got when I galloped for the bathroom. I felt like vomiting and it wasn’t going to wait if I took count of the people. I galloped as fast as I could before stopping in front of the restrooms. I looked up and looked at the signs. Which one would I use!? Would I use the men’s restroom; since that was the one I used all of my life? Or would I use the women’s restroom; since I was now a mare? It was the dilemma of a lifetime, as I sat there, trying to figure out which one to go to. My stomach made the answer for me, as I began to feel that sandwich come back up. I decided that I would just go into one randomly, and worry about that problem later.

        I bolted into a random restroom and found the nearest available toilet. I assumed I wound up in the men’s bathroom because I heard the voices of Merille and Luis on the other side of the door. While I was up-chucking the food I just ate, I heard Merille ask, “Hey Gage, you alright in there?” 

When it finally stopped, I said, “Yeah... Just peachy! I’m in a bathroom stall vomiting! There’s nothing wrong with me!” Though that was the only sentence I got out before I started again.

        When I had finally stopped, I walked out of the stall saying, “Alright, two things we need to take note of. Number one, we’re going to need some DayQuil and Pepto-Bismol. Second thing, never again will I eat meat. I’m going to miss bacon so much.”

        After we walked out of the restroom, we quickly gathered notes on what we should get. Luis was to head to the grocery section and buy all of the food we needed. Merille was to head to the general merchandise section and buy travel necessities: toiletries, batteries, car chargers for our phones, etc. Finally, I was to head on over to Pharmacy and buy some medicines, deodorants, and stuff of the like. We all agreed to meet back up at the Prius whenever we finished shopping.

        As I walked through the aisles of the Pharmacy section, looking through the different things they had for sale, I heard a voice. At first, I assumed that it was just someone making a silly comment about me shopping. As I got closer to the source of the voice, it began to sound a lot more clearer to me. “Gah! This is so hard, trying to pick things up with just hooves or a mouth!”

        I paused for a second... Hooves? I was frankly quite surprised. I thought I was the only one in this town who transformed into a pony. I turned my head around the corner to the next aisle and saw that someone else had indeed turned into a pony. This person had transformed into Nurse Redheart. She looked exactly like how she did in the show. She had her pink mane tied up in a bun, and even wore the nurse cap with the red cross on it. The only difference I saw was that she wore green scrubs over her body. Upon seeing this, I had to offer her help.

        “Excuse me, Miss Redheart?” I asked in a polite tone.

        She jumped a bit at the sudden call of the name Redheart. She turned to me and was surprised to see me, or Vinyl Scratch to be exact. She seemed surprised, then calmed down as she knew that it was happening everywhere. “Please, would it be okay if you didn’t call me Redheart? I don’t like it when someone calls me by that.”

        I tilted my head to the side, wondering what I should call her, “Well then Miss.....”

        She interrupted me by simply stating, “Serah. Serah Valentine.”

        I then continued my statement with a smile on my face, “Serah Valentine, eh? So, how did you did you end up like that and how did you end up here?”

        She sighed for a bit then said, “Well. I was working my shift at local hospital. I’m an intern there. I usually get late shifts like that and while I was filling out some simple paperwork, I got so tired I passed out. Next thing I know, I’m woken up by a shout and a look in a mirror showed why someone had shouted.”

        “So, you fell asleep on the job!” I said in an accusing tone.

        She deadpanned and said, “You try working until five in the morning filling out paperwork.” She returned to her normal tone before continuing her story, “Anyway, after I had my panic attack, I had been told by some of the other employees that it happened all over the nation. Some were told to head to New York, but I can’t go that far. I don’t know anyone who can drive me that far... I walked here for pete’s sake! And I can’t just head home either. It’s way too far for me to walk to. I came here hoping that I could use a phone for a taxi or something while I get a few things I needed.”

        I began to sympathize with her. She really had nowhere to go. She had walked from the local hospital to here.  The nearest one was Oschner Hospital. By car, it wasn’t far. That was a ten minute drive. But to walk that distance? That would have taken well over two hours! “Hey, Serah? Well you happen to be in luck. My two friends and I are actually preparing for a long road trip to New York. Knowing them, they’ll let you come along for the ride.”

        She glanced at me with a look that I could describe as a mix of sorrow and wonder. “Do you really think so? I mean... I don’t want to impose or anything.”

        I gave her a pat on the back and said, “It’ll be no problem at all! Let’s hurry over to the grocery side of the store and meet Luis! He should still be over there.”

        Before we trotted off, she stopped me and said, “You know. You still haven’t told me your name yet.”

        I had simply turned around and said with a serious tone, “Bond. James Bond,” but then I cracked up and told her, “Nah. My name’s Gage, but if you want to call me Vinyl, then go right ahead.”

        We made our way out of the Pharmacy section towards the other side of the store, where the groceries were. As we walked across  the store, we had begun to talk some more. We conversed more about the situation at hand with everyone transforming into ponies and how much longer it would be until people stopped or until the world was dominated by talking horses. I also explained to her how I became Vinyl and what I went through to get here. Before we knew it, we wound up bumping into Luis who was still shopping for groceries. When he first wondered who was it that bumped into him, he looked down and saw me, but then very quickly realized that there was Nurse Redheart now standing there.

        Luis looked back and forth between us before finally saying, “So Gage, I guess you weren’t the only one in this town who became a pony.”

        I had explained Serah’s situation to Luis in much detail about how she had nowhere to go, and no one to help her out.  When he took one final look at Serah, he said, “All right, she can come along since I have enough room in my car.” 

        Serah’s eyes just lit up at that statement. She was so happy, she gave Luis a hug so tight, I actually had to pry her loose from his waist. 

        After her excitement died down, she blushed a bit and said, “Sorry about that. I tend to get excited easily...”

        I laughed a bit and then said, “See? I told you he’d let you come along.”

        Luis smiled and said, “Well, I’ve always been the ‘Good Guy Greg’ type of person. Well, anyway. I’ve just about wrapped up the grocery shopping. After I check out, I’ll head on over to the car. Why don’t you go help out Merille so we can get done with this faster?”

        After we parted ways with Luis, we began to head on over to the general merchandise section of Wal-Mart. It was a pretty silent walk until we passed by the electronics section. We heard some voices being raised, as though there was an argument going on. We took a look to see what was going on. 

        We saw that there were four guys, all of them seeming to be between eighteen and thirty years of age. Three of them were caucasian, one was hispanic. They all wore clothes that had definitely seen better days. But the most distinguishing piece was that each of them wore matching baseball caps with the acronym “P.A.P.A” written on it. It was then that we were able to hear what they were arguing about.

        The one with the beard said, “You told us that one of those things was here!”

        The youngest one took a step back and said, “I was positive that I saw it head inside here!”

        I had no idea what they were talking about. Who were they looking for? Why did they call this person a thing? Were they looking for The Thing? Though I couldn’t think for long as while we were eavesdropping, one of those people who ride the motor scooters had snuck up behind us and said, “Excuse me. Get out of the way.”

        This caught the attention of the hispanic one. He looked up and saw me and Serah’s faces. He then tapped his buddies on the shoulder and pointed in our direction. It was clear to me then that they were looking for ponies like us. When they saw us, they each grinned. Not a grin that displayed kindness, but an evil grin. “That’s the one right there! The white and pink one!” said the youngest.

        We took a couple of steps back as they walked closer to us. We soon hit one of the shelves of the aisle behind us and it wasn’t long before they were directly in front of us. As they looked at us, I knew that if we didn’t escape, they were more than likely going to hurt us. I guarded Serah and said, “Come on now. You wouldn’t hit somebody with glasses, would ya?”

        It was then that the oldest one, who had been silent, took the glasses off of my face and hit me with them kind of hard. As I tried to stop my head from spinning, I said, “Oh... I get it.... You hit me.... With the glasses... Clever.”

        When I finally got my head to stop spinning, I took the glasses back before tripping the old guy. It was then that Serah and I made a run for it. We galloped as fast as we could toward the automotive section, which was close to the electronic section. We heard the sounds of footsteps following us. They really wanted to capture us. As we made a left turn, we were soon greeted by kayaks, billiards sticks, baseball bats, and basketballs. We were now in the sporting goods section, possibly the worst section to be in at this current moment. We took a look behind us and noticed that one of them grabbed a billiards stick. 

        “Holy crap! Do they want us dead!?” I yelled while still galloping.

        “I would assume so! These people are crazy! Just who are they!” exclaimed Serah, who was galloping as fast as she could.

        “We need to find Merille, and get the hell out of here!” I yelled while trying to find a way to lose the people chasing us.

        The commotion going on had caused a lot of attention to come our way. People started gathering around the area, curious about the cause of all the ruckus going on. It was then that an idea hit me. I told Serah to just follow my lead as I rushed into an aisle full of people. Since we were smaller, we were able to easily maneuver our ways around the people. Those other guys weren’t so lucky. They bumped into everyone in the aisle. One guy got mad enough that he started a fight with the bearded pursuer. So now we only had three people chasing us now. We galloped again, but not for long as we soon crashed into Merille. After getting back to our hooves and feet, Merille asked, “Geez. What the hell?”

        It was then that not me, but Serah made the outburst, “No time to talk! Just run!”

        I looked at Merille and said, “Just trust her. Run for it.”

        It didn’t take any more convincing as the youngest one, who had the pool stick, snuck up behind us and tried to hit us. Luckily he missed, which gave us seconds to run away. As we ran, we heard the speaker call for security. It wasn’t much later that some police officers showed up and grabbed the one with the pool stick. Though we still had two more of those creeps looking for us. We took a look around for the other two. They were nowhere to be seen.

        I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “We must have lost them in the confusion.”

        Merille looked at us with confused looks and said, “Just who were those guys? And why were they trying to kill you?”

        As I sat there, trying to catch my breath, I said, “No idea. They just attacked us...By the way, this is Serah. Serah, this is Merille. Merille, she’s coming with us.”

        Merille decided to just not question it and go along with it. We took one final look around and realized that we ended up back in the electronics section. I took a quick glance around and found my glasses on the floor. One of the lens popped out, but nothing was cracked or shattered. I decided to fix them later and put them in my laptop case.

        Not wanting to have any more trouble happen, we decided to just ditch the stuff Merille had in his buggy and headed for the exit. We made a beeline straight to Luis’s car. When we met back up with Luis, he was already waiting inside the prius. He saw that we had bought nothing and asked, “Hey! What about the stuff?”

        I simply looked at him and deadpanned, “Don’t ask. We’ll just get our stuff from some other store,” before emphasizing, “Far away from here!”

        We all hopped in the car, with Luis and Merille in the front while me and Serah sat in the back. As Luis began to drive off, we told him about the people who attacked us. He immediately recognized the acronym and said, “Those people were part of a group called ‘People Against Ponies Association’. They hate all of those little ponies and publicly speak out their hatred of them. Sort of like the KKK, but with ponies.”

        Curious, Serah asked, “So, they hunt down and try to attack these people-turned-ponies like it was the fifties?”

        Luis, while keeping his eyes locked on the road, said, “From what I heard, some do. But from I’ve seen on the news, most just express it in speech.”

        That’s when Merille had piped in and said, “Freedom of Speech can be a bitch at times.”

        A we drove down the road, I began to feel myself get very tired again. I was exhausted after running for my life. I took a look to my left and saw that Serah was fast asleep. I don’t blame her; we weren’t used to that kind of adrenaline rush. It wasn’t much longer that I dozed off and soon fell fast asleep.

> The Revelations of Magic and Music
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4: The Revelations of Magic and Music
______________

        The last thing I remember was falling asleep in Luis’s car. Now all of a sudden I’m in an abandoned nightclub. As I was trying to understand how I got here, I began to hear a faint sound. It sounded like a slow rhythm, almost like the beginning of a dubstep track. It sounded very faint, for if I wasn’t paying attention, I could have easily missed the sound. 

        I looked around for the source of the music, though it wasn’t anywhere to be found. It was then that I heard the sound of a very familiar tune. Before I transformed into Vinyl, I always loved classical music. Needless to say, I was surprised when I heard the melody of a violin. Though it was soon mixed in with the bass and drops of a dubstep track. 

        The second the bass dropped, the entire nightclub lit up. It was as if the place suddenly came to life, and on the stage was a silhouette of DJ equipment and a figure I knew all too well. The music suddenly became so much louder to the point where it was deafening. I felt the vibrations of the bass throughout my body as the track shook the room. As I began to walk closer to the shadows, I noticed something. I was walking on two feet. I felt the individual digits of my fingers as I went to take a better look at my body. I brushed my hand through my short hair. I couldn’t believe it; I was human once more. 

        I was brought out of my trance by a sudden bass drop and continued to walk forward to the silhouette that played the music. As I approached the edge of the stage, the music began to die down and then I heard a voice.

        “Well lookie here! I guess this is the first time you actually meet me, right?”

        I was startled by the sudden voice. I knew that voice very well. It sounded just like the voice from that video Epic Wub Time. 

        I stood there, staring at the stage when I answered, “Vinyl?”

        The stage lit up and the silhouette vanished, leaving only behind Vinyl Scratch herself.

        “The one and only!” she said as she stepped forward to the edge of the stage, meeting me on eye-level.

        She looked at me with one of the most serious expressions I ever saw and said, “Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Maybe I know the answer as to why you became me’, so I’ll give you the most thought out answer I can possibly give you... I have no freaking idea.”

        I facepalmed at this statement, “Well, thanks for being such a big help.”

        She laughed to herself for a little bit before saying, “Look, I’m just as confused as you are about this whole situation, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you out either!”

        I looked at her with confusion before asking, “How can you possibly help me?”

        “Simple. We can start with your magic abilities. You’re going about it the wrong way, and that’s why it tires you out so fast.” She stated in a matter-of-factly tone, “You focus way too hard on getting simple things done that you barely even have the energy to release it.”

        “So this entire time I’ve been doing it wrong?” I asked in a surprised tone.

        “Yeah! Now let me show you how magic’s really done!”

        It felt like hours had passed when she showed me how to use magic properly. I learned that throughout the entire time I used magic, I used a lot of unnecessary focusing. Instead, all I had to do was simply channel the energy to use magic. Kind of like a bender from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She showed me how to levitate and use basic telekinesis, and as it turns out, I was still able to use magic in my human form.

        After hours of training, I felt a strange rumble. Before I knew it, the entire building I was in dissolved around me and with it, Vinyl. As in dissolved, I mean that the walls, floor, ceiling, and everything turned into a gigantic flock of birds and flew away. The next thing I knew, I was standing on a stained glass pillar. When I looked down at the glass design, it made my jaw drop.

        It was a Station of Awakening. I was standing over a gigantic mural of Vinyl and myself. Vinyl was on the right, in a similar position that Sora was on his in Kingdom Hearts. I saw myself on the left side of the mural, mirroring Vinyl’s pose. Both of our eyes were closed but her back hoof and my right leg crossed each other on the mural. Above us on the design were seven small circles, each with a portrait of a someone in them. I noticed three of them immediately. They were my friends Merille and Luis, with the third being Redheart. The other four confused me. I knew who each one was, yet I never met them. Why did the faces of Zecora, Trixie, Snips, and Snails appear on the Station as well?

        It was a breathtaking, yet confusing sight. Many thoughts passed through my head...Why was I here? What does this mural stand for? What role do I play in all of this!? I had a gut feeling that only time would answer all of the questions that I had. As I began to think about everything that has happened just now, a stairset formed at the edge of the Station. One by one, each step appeared out of thin air, leading upwards towards a light. With no other way to go, I slowly took steps forward and onto the stairs. Each step I took towards the light, my vision began to fade, my sense of being alert vanishing with each step. Eventually, I made my way to the top, but I was soon blinded by the light.


______________________________




        My eyes fluttered open to the sight of passing trees. I took a quick look around to see what everyone was doing. Merille and Luis were debating over video games. That was pretty typical of them. Then again, that was typical for all three of us. Serah was still fast asleep. All of that stress of waking up as a pony, then all of that walking, and then galloping for her life must have really taken a toll on her. I can’t blame her either. Anyone would be exhausted after all of that. I then checked out of the window to see where we were headed. I couldn’t see any road signs, so I asked Luis as to where we were headed.

        “Hey Luis... What city are we headed to next?”

        “Well, the closest city is Gulfport, Mississippi. We’re going to take a quick stop there to fill up on gas.”

        It was then that Serah woke up as well. She looked outside the window with wonder. Before she even had a chance to ask where we were headed to, I spoke up.

        “We’re going to Gulfport, Mississippi. The car’s running low on gas.”

        Serah just nodded before relaxing back on the seat, looking out of the window. Seeing how we would probably still be a little while before we actually arrived at the city, I decided I would take out my laptop and play video games until we reached the Gulfport. The second I started up Skyrim, time seemed to fly by.

        We stopped at a nearby gas station to fill up the Prius. When we all stepped out of the car, Merille, Serah, and I decided to get a few things for the road while Luis filled the car with gas. We spread out within the small store. Walking through the different aisles, my eyes laid upon a bag of beef jerky. When I was human, that was my favorite thing to snack on. I started to levitate the bag to myself, but then I remembered the incident with the Subway sandwich. So, feeling down about how I can’t eat meat anymore, I put it back on the shelf. Instead, I went to the drinks and grabbed me the vanilla flavored Starbucks Coffee drink.

        As I walked to the counter, I took notice of the song the radio was playing. The clerk had it on a radio station that played classics from the seventies and eighties. As Merille, Serah, and I were ready to pay for everything, I suddenly realized I forgot the Cheetos. I trotted back to the aisle where the chips were, but before I could bring the bag to the counter, I heard screaming and yelling from one guy. I turned the corner to see a man in a black hoodie wearing a Batman mask pointing a gun at the clerk and demanding money.

        I saw the faces of Serah and Merille. They were terrified, and it looked like I was the only one that could help them out. They were forced on the ground, and the gunman told the clerk to open the register. It was then that I remembered the magic lessons given to me by Vinyl from that dream. I channeled my energy and turned the volume of the radio up to its max setting. As the split-second silence happened, I hoped that my crazy idea would work.

YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!
The jig is up, the news is out,
They finally found me.
The renegade, who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty.
Never more to go astray,
This’ll be the end today,
Of the wanted man!

        This startled the robber and he tried to shoot the radio that was blaring the Styx song. Thankfully, the gun jammed and he couldn’t fire a shot at all. Merille and Serah then used that chance to extend his arm and her hoof to cause the gunman to trip and fall. He fell over and faceplanted on the counter. When he went to get up and run out, Luis was standing at the doorway. What then followed was something straight out of a fighting game as Luis judo flipped the robber onto the ground.

        When the gunman was on the ground in pain, the clerk used some duct tape to restrain the man until police arrived. When the police took the Batman mask off, it fell to the ground. I saw where it landed and levitated it towards me.

        As I looked in the direction of the robber, I called him out before putting on the mask myself and saying in my best Batman impression, “Don’t ever let me find you out here again.”

        Though, after I said that, the police took the mask away to use for evidence. They then asked us to travel with them to the station to give our witness statements. We all got back in the Prius and travelled straight to the station. The station itself was pretty big, about two stories high. Though we didn’t have time to get a good look at it as we were quickly escorted to the inside of the building. 

We were led by a police officer who wore the basic street cop gear, though he wore aviator-style sunglasses. He led us past a few office rooms before we had to take a left into a bigger office. The room was adorned with many certificates and medals adorning the walls. The desk itself was mahogany with simple office supplies on it. In front of the desk were two leather chairs, each one mirroring the other’s position. Against the wall were two simpler chairs, both of them your basic office chair.

        “Please, take a seat,” said the officer as he sat down in his chair behind the desk.

        Merille and Luis took a seat on the leather chairs, while Serah and I each took a seat on the simple chairs. We sat there in silence for about five minutes while the cop searched through the drawers of his desk.

        Once he found what he needed, he spoke up again, “Now, I know you don’t want to be here longer than you need to be, but I need to have you write down your witness testimony. Once you write down what you’ve seen, you’ll be free to go.”

        We were handed the papers and pencils and asked to be as detailed as possible when writing about the robbery. I saw Merille and Luis begin to write down what they witnessed. I levitated the pencil up to the paper and began to write down on how I saw the robber demanded money, followed by when I blared the volume on the radio and startled him, then finally how he was tripped and flipped by Merille, Luis, and Serah.

        When I looked up again, I noticed that Serah had serious trouble trying to hold the pencil. She tried using her hooves and then tried using her mouth, but that ended in failure. I could tell by the look on her face that she was getting frustrated trying to write the statement herself. It was then that the officer lended a hand to help her write down the statement.

        After we finished, we had begun to walk out of the station. We started to talk amongst ourselves on what to do now, since all of that was seriously unexpected. When we reached the exit, we decided that now would be a good time to just go and find a place to relax, as Luis and Merille would be a bit too shaken up for either of them to drive. Luckily, within walking distance, we saw an arcade named Final Frontier. It was a big place, as it included both an arcade and a laser tag arena. We saw a sign twirler spinning a sign about a laser tag tournament going on, and that sign-ups were still available. We concluded that we really needed something fun to do to get our minds off of the robbery. Though we wondered if we should just play games or enter in the tournament.

        “Hey, how much money do we have on us?” I asked, digging in my pocket and pulling out my wallet, which had about twenty dollars left.

        Luis pulled out his wallet and said, “Not much. I only got thirty.”

        Merille pulled out his and said, “Flat broke...”

        While Luis, Merille, and I were talking amongst each other, we noticed that Serah had trotted over to the arcade.

        “What’s she up to?” asked Merille as we walked over there ourselves.

        By the time we got to the front door of the arcade, Serah emerged through the doors before saying, “The prize for winning the laser tag is a thousand bucks. Get ready, for we have a tournament to enter.”
> The Final Frontier
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5: The Final Frontier
__________________

        We all stared dumbfounded at Serah. She entered us in a laser tag tournament while we were wondering how to earn more money. She looked at us with a face of curiosity as she asked, “Well, what were we supposed to do? Besides, how does one burn through seven hundred dollars so fast?”

        That was a good question. How DID we go through that much, that fast? I turned to look at Luis and Merille, both of them doing that “innocent” whistle.

        When I saw them do that, I deadpanned, “You blew it on more than just necessities, didn’t you.”

        Merille was the first to crack, “Well, sorry but I just had to get Dishonored and a couple of PSN cards.”

        Following Merille’s confession, Luis admitted, “Well, I did get something for myself... An iPad.”

        When they told us what they did, both Serah and I shouted, “You two are such idiots!”

        As I walked into the arcade, I said in frustration, “Thanks to Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum here, we got to put the rest of our budget on chance!”

        The arcade itself was pretty big. The first floor had a large concession stand that had a popcorn machine, a pizza oven, along with other things usually associated with a concession stand. There were also a few vending machines next to an open archway that led to a room full of arcade machines. Across from that was another open archway that led to a room all about laser tag. There was also a set of stairs near us that led up to the second floor of the building. Also, the ceiling had a space theme, keeping true to the name of the place.

        We walked to the clerk at the concession stand and as we approached him, I asked, "Hey, when does the tournament start?"

        The clerk glanced at us before taking a quick look on the computer, "Well, let's see... You're the one entered as Vinyl Scratch, right?"

        I took a look at Serah who said, "Well, it was easier to just put our names down as who we are now instead of our actual names. That's why I'll be listed as Redheart, and you'll be listed as Vinyl."

        I turned back to the clerk and said, "Yeah. Vinyl Scratch."

        The clerk checked the computer and said, "Well, you'll be in the second match of the first round on the Blue Team along with your friends. The tournament itself doesn't start for a little while, so you have time to relax and play a few games before then."

        After thanking the clerk for the information, we walked into the room with the arcade machines. There were so many different games, we were wondering which one we should play. Along the wall, they had the classics like Pac-Man, Galaga, Space Invaders, Mortal Kombat, Pong, Donkey Kong, along with others. Around the center, they had more modern games like Pump It Up: Exceed, Cruising USA, Time Crisis, Guitar Hero, some First-Person Shooters, and other racing games. Behind that were games like Air Hockey, those Basketball games where you throw the ball into the hoop, and skee ball.

        We split up to play different games, and I wandered off to the Pump It Up: Exceed machine. It was like Dance Dance Revolution, but this one was the one that had the arrows on the corners with a button on the center. Before becoming Vinyl, this was one of my favorite games to play as it had a great song selection and, in my opinion, was just all around better than than DDR. I hopped onto the dance pad and levitated a couple of quarters from my wallet into the machine.

        I was too busy focusing on the game starting up that I didn't notice another pair of quarters be inserted into the machine. It wasn't until I heard the sound for another player joining in that I looked to see who it was. He was about six feet tall, lanky, and had short, brown hair. He wore glasses with a black plastic frame, and wore a white, long sleeved shirt with a brown jacket and jeans. In short, he looked like David Tennant, only younger.

        "Well now, it seems that Vinyl herself is a fan of Doctor Who. Now that is a surprise to me," he said with a chuckle.

        I glanced down at my shirt before looking back up to him, "Well, yeah. Doctor Who is pretty awesome... Especially the most recent doctor, Matt Smith."

        "Well, anyway, nice to meet you Vinyl. I'm Tom Baker."

        I laughed at the irony of his name. He was a fan of Doctor Who, he looked like the Tenth Doctor, and shared the same name of the Fourth Doctor. Though I didn't get a chance to reply back as the game finally got to the song selection menu and before I did anything, I set the game so that I played on three times the normal speed. I then went to the K-Pop selection of songs and picked my favorite song in the entire game.

        Tom Baker seemed impressed as he said, " Ah. 'Hot' by 1TYM. Nice song choice there. "

        As the song started up, I noticed it was actually pretty easy for me to get the hang of this game in my new body. It startled me how many of the notes I was getting. It just felt natural to me as I found the rhythm of the song.

        While we were dancing, Tom had asked me, "So, how long has it been since you were transformed into Vinyl?"

        When he made that comment, it caught me off guard as it came so suddenly. I was curious as to how that question came up so suddenly, "I woke up today like this, actually. Though I gotta ask, why the sudden question?"

        He continued to play the game as he stated, "Well, my eight year old sister had transformed into one of those characters today as well."

        This only slightly surprised me. It seemed that not even children were safe from transforming. Though, it did make me ask, "Exactly who did she become?"

        He then said in an interested tone, "It's actually pretty surprising as to who she transformed into. She became her original character I made for her, a filly changeling named Copycat."

        That was the thing that shocked me and caused me to screw up a bit on the game, "So, people have a possibility of transforming into OC's they made? And not just ponies, but other species from the show as well? Are you afraid that you would wind up in a pony body?"

        He continued to be focused on the game as he said, "To answer your questions in order... Yes, it seems possible. And yes, by what my sis became, it's not just ponies, and no, not really. I'm not a fan of the show, as it seems to affect only those who have an interest in it. The only reason why I know so much is because one of my friends and my sister constantly talk about it."

        The song had finally finished as we both performed a trick to finish up the round. By then, we had both gotten off of the machine, ending it early. By then, Luis and Merille had watched us perform and took over for us.

        After they took over on the game, I had looked to Tom and asked, "So, do you plan on going to New York to find out what exactly is going on?"

        He started to walk toward the area of the room that had air hockey tables as he said, "Yeah, but I kind of have no choice since I'm from New York. My family was just coming back from vacationing here in Mississippi when this transformation happened. In fact, I need to check up on her before that laser tag thing starts."

        When we reached the air hockey tables, we saw a small figure hovering next to the air hockey table. I was able to immediately identify it as a changeling, though it had noticeable differences. For one, the mane was neck length and parted in the middle, though it was purple and had the little holes in the mane like Chysalis's hairstyle was. The eyes were a matching purple as well along with the insect-like wings. She wore a pink striped hoodie over herself, and the only reason I was able to see the wings was because there were holes for the wings to fit through.

        As soon as she noticed Tom, she hovered over to him and gave him a big hug. To be honest, it looked adorable. She then quickly looked down at me and gave this big squee before hovering to me. She was much smaller than me, the top of her head reaching just below my chin.

        "Vinyl is one of her favorite characters. She loves music and relates to Vinyl the most," said Tom as he looked at us. "By the way, this is my sister, Yuna."

        She stared at me with glee before saying, "Hey! Did you enter that laser tag thingy too?"

        The way she looked at me was probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen, so I said with a smug expression, "Yeah. I'm in the contest, and I'll be the one to win it!."

        She giggled a lot before saying, "My big bro is going to be in it too, but I'll be cheering for you instead!"

        Tom took that off guard as he complained, "You mean you won't be cheering for your own brother!?"

        She went back to him and said, "Well, this is Vinyl. She's more important than you."

        I couldn't help but laugh at that, "Kids sure say the darndest things."

        It wasn't much longer before the we heard on the speakers that the laser tag tournament was about to start. As I followed Tom to the briefing room for the laser tag tournament, we met back up with Luis, Merille, and Serah. The guy running the tournament told us how it would be. The first round would be two matches of Red Team vs Blue Team, while the second round would be the winning teams against each other, and the final round would be the winning team in a free for all match until one person is left. We were each handed a paper that had the names of the participants and which team they would be on. Upon looking at my sheet, I noticed that Luis, Merille, and Serah were on the same team as me. It made me breathe a sigh of relief as it meant that we had a greater chance of winning should we get to the final round. Though at the same time, it made me more nervous as for if we lose one round, then we lose it all. We would all be on the Red Team in the second match. We were told that we can observe the first match if we headed upstairs to the observatory deck.

        After we dispersed, Luis, Serah, Merille, and I headed straight to the observatory area on the second floor to check out what kind of area and people we would be dealing with. The second floor led to a room that had a few tables and chairs laid about the room. On the wall was a flat-screen TV that showed the scores of the teams during the match, and which player had the most points. It also showed a "kill count" and a "death count" as to how many times a player scored points and how many times a player was tagged by another player. Next to the TV was a door that led to the observatory deck itself. Finally, at the other end of the room were doors to restrooms. 

        I followed the others through the door to the observatory deck to watch the match. The area was pretty dark, but it had neon lights and fog throughout the arena. The arena was designed to look like that an enemy spaceship had just landed and that the area around it was a ruined science-fiction base. Put at seemingly random spots on the map were small mirrors designed to redirect lasers for strategic corner and stealthy shots. We saw two doors on opposite ends of the arena open up and noticed that participants had set themselves up in certain areas.

        Thirty seconds later, we heard a robotic female voice say, "The wheel of fate is turning! The final battle will now commence! Three... Two... One... BEGIN!"


> Make It or Break It! One Thousand on the Line!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 6: Make It or Break It! One Thousand on the Line!
__________________

        The second I heard the announcer yell for them to go, I saw twenty people rush for the middle of the arena.  The music started blaring out for all to hear while they began to open fire on each other. I noticed that one of the figures from the red team had looked up and waved in my direction. I had to squint, but I quickly realized that the person who waved at me was none other than Tom Baker. I had waved back, and as I did, he was already focusing on the match and fired his laser at a randomly placed mirror. The laser ricocheted off of the mirror and hit a member of the blue team. When the blue team member got hit, we heard the sound effect of lasers hitting a target. Though it wasn’t long before Tom himself was hit. 

        He had to wait a few seconds before his gear powered back up in order to continue the fight, but during that time we heard the robotic announcer say, “Red Base under attack! Repeat. Red Base under attack!”

        Almost the entire Blue Team had charged the Red Team’s base. Flashes of blue flew everywhere, and all we could hear were the sounds of Red Team members getting hit. It was then that a torrent of red flashes start flying out, hitting targets as we saw blue vests turn off for a few seconds. This had caused the Blue Team to spread across the arena while the Red Team had seemingly vanished from sight.

        “Hmm... I wonder what happened to the Red Team. I can’t see them at all,” I had thought to myself as the Blue Team continued to scatter.

        A bright beam of red emerged from the Blue Team’s base, hitting a mirror and getting a Blue guy. I quickly glanced to the Blue Base to find that Tom had stealthily moved his way past the enemy team and into the base.

        I cheered on for Tom as I heard those magic words, “Blue Base under attack! Repeat, Blue Base under attack!”

        It was an amazing sight as Red Team members emerged from their hiding places and began to unleash a barrage of lasers on to their opponents. All over the arena, there were light shows as we heard the guns fire off into the fog and hit their targets. This left the Blue Team in a panic as they shot in any direction that had an open path. They were absolutely helpless as the Red Team kept scoring points.

        Wondering how much the Red Team had scored after that onslaught, I decided to head back into the upstairs briefing room just to see how much the score was. Though before I had headed out, I realized I needed to do something important. Throughout this entire road trip, I forgot to check my Facebook account!

        Knowing that my laptop case was still in the Prius, I had to turn to Luis and ask, “Hey Luis, I need to check something on my laptop. Can I see the keys to the car?”

        Luis, too engrossed in watching the match, simply handed me the keys without saying a word. I took the keys with my magic and had walked back into the briefing room. I turned my head to take a quick look at the flat screen. The Red Team was winning by over five hundred points! They had this match in the bag, so I quickly walked down the stairs back to the first floor. The front door was right next to the stairs, so I proceeded to quickly exit the building.

        The Prius was parked not too far from the place, so it was a short walk straight to the car. Luckily, there wasn’t really any traffic, especially since the nearby area was still closed off thanks to that robbery from earlier. Still, I looked both ways before crossing the street. The Prius was still exactly where we left it, in the Police Station parking lot. I lifted the key to the lock, used my magic to insert it into the slot, unlocked it, and opened the door. I quickly jumped inside the car and crawled over the car console to the back seat, where my laptop case laid. Once I saw it, I levitated it over to me and slung the case over my head to rest on my shoulder. Luckily, it didn’t drag as I crawled back out of the car and onto the ground. 

        After closing the door and locking it again, I hurried back to the Final Frontier Arcade. I barged in through the doors and hurried my way back up the stairs into the briefing room. Since no one was in the room, I had guess that the match was still going on. I turned my head back to the screen to see the scores. The Blue Team had scored a few more points, but still behind the Red Team. I turned and laid my laptop case on a nearby table. As I climbed up on a chair, I began to open the case using my magic. As the laptop slid out from the case and on the table, I opened and powered it up. After being greeted by the login screen, I had to take out a pen that was in the case and type in the password manually. I still had no idea how to type using my magic. 

        When the desktop had appeared, it automatically connected to the Wi-Fi here, so all I had to do was open up my handy dandy Google Chrome. When the new tab page popped up, I had quickly clicked to Facebook. Since I already had a Facebook profile, I thought it would be pointless to make a new one simply because I transformed into Vinyl Scratch. As I browsed through my newsfeed, skimming past random pictures and pointless teen drama statuses, one post caught my eye. It had popped up as a suggested page that I should like. It was a YouTube video posted to Facebook by someone who was named Zecora. I moved my mouse pointer over the play button and began to watch the video.

        “Greetings, fellow YouTubers, we are on the bus to Montgomery, Alabama, just leaving Pensacola and you will never believe who I ran into!” the guy in the video said as he leaned over his seat to face the passenger behind him, “Say hello to YouTube, Zecora!”

        I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw Zecora. She was on the bus going to Montgomery, Alabama, and by the way things are being paced, we had a chance of meeting up in Alabama. I shocked myself at that realization. That was the second time I saw Zecora, the first being her image popping up in that weird dream I had. It made me wonder if fate had something to do with this, or if it were mere coincidence. I continued to watch the video as the bronies kept pestering Zecora until she finally snapped at them. After watching that video, I decided to leave a simple comment.

        “Wow. Talk about being bothersome. Lol.”

        I continued to browse through my newsfeed searching for anything else that could be interesting. Though after about a minute of browsing, I had received a notification. It was a reply from Zecora. Apparently, she was online right now. As I clicked back to the notification, she did indeed reply back to me.

        “Yes, they were quite the frustration, but had left at the last station"

        I giggled a little inside. She even typed in rhyme. After reading her comment, I replied back saying, “So, on the bus headed to Montgomery? I’m guessing you’re headed to New York as well?”

        It didn’t take long at all for her to reply back to me saying, “Yes, with little time to waste, I've been trying to make great haste."

        At first I actually wondered how in the hell she was able to reply back so fast. It takes me about two minutes just to get a simple coherent reply.

        Eventually, I posted back a reply saying, “We’ve all been trying to get to New York. Though, luckily I’ll be able to find out soon what exactly is there to see in New York, since I have a contact whose living up there. So, if you want, I can message you some cool heads ups when I find out.”

        Not even a minute later, I received another reply from Zecora, this one saying, “You’re trying to get there too? May I ask who are you?”

        This sent a thought straight to my head. Should I just tell her the truth? Or should I just sidestep the question altogether? It was then that the dream I had earlier came flooding back again, so it didn’t take long for me to decide.

        “Well, as you can tell, my name is Gage Ray LeBoeuf, though ever since earlier today, I haven’t gone by that name once. Although I know who I am on the inside, on the outside, everyone else sees me as a particularly famous disc jockey known as Vinyl Scratch, or DJ Pon-3. I’m currently in Mississippi right now, getting some more funds for my trip.”

        There was really no point in trying to avoid the truth. I’d just have to get used to being called Vinyl for Celestia knows how long. After admitting to Zecora as to who I became, I received another reply from her shortly after.

        “Thank You Vinyl, for now I'll have to bring this conversation to an end, but before I go may I request to have a friend?”

        It was then that I received a friend request from Zecora. I immediately accepted it as I gave out one last reply to her.

        “Hell yeah you can friend request me! :D Well, it was nice meeting you. Talk to you later... Zeccy.”

        I laughed a bit as I coined up a little pet name for her. I thought to myself, “Maybe if I do meet her, I could call her that again.” 

After that, I received one final comment from Zecora simply stating, “Cya later”

        It seemed strange, seeing a response from Zecora that didn’t rhyme. Still, I had a little victory cheer on the inside as I got her to speak without rhyming. After checking a few more things in my newsfeed, I left a status on my profile just to let everyone know what happened to me in the recent hours.

        “Well... It happened to me. I became one of those ponies just like some others around the country. In case you’re wondering as to whom I transformed into, it was DJ Pon-3, otherwise known as Vinyl Scratch. Already left home (Currently in Mississippi, heading to Alabama next) and travelling with a few close friends, so any plans I have are cancelled from here on out... Also some people tried to attack me, but it was no big deal.”

        As I closed Google Chrome, I took one last look at the scoreboard. The match was over and the Red Team had won by fifty points. It was a close match then as one “kill” was fifty points. I turned to look back at the door that led to the observatory deck, and saw people exiting the door.

        It was then that the intercom came on and said, “The second match of the first round will be starting soon. So all participants of the next match please proceed to the preparation room.”

        I put my laptop back in its case and slung it back over my head before heading down to the preparation room. As I saw Tom walking out of there, I passed the case to him and asked him to watch over it for me while I headed inside the room. When I walked inside, everyone else and I were led to a second room which had twenty laser tag vests and guns, ten on each side of the narrow room. The vests on the right were blue while the ones on the left were red. I took a quick look around and saw Luis, Merille, and Serah already fitted with their gear. I also noticed an official at the end of the room, waiting for everyone to finish getting ready. I stood up on my hind legs and levitated the vest over myself, sliding it on easily. I then put the gun in the holster that now dangled on my side.

        As soon as we were ready, the man watching over the match had began giving instructions to everyone within the room, “Alright, the match will be ten minutes long. Everyone on the Red Team, enter the door on the left and proceed down the hallway to the entrance of the arena. Blue Team, enter through the door right behind me and you will be in the arena. Now, when the announcer says to begin, you must find members of the enemy team and take them out to score fifty points. If a player gets to the opposing team’s base, then extra points will be awarded for every minute spent within the base. However, if you are hit by a laser and it starts back up within the opponent’s base, no extra points will be awarded. The team with the most points will move on to the semifinals. Oh and one last thing...” He then began to look dead at me, “As to any of those horse-creatures that have entered in this, only use magic to levitate your guns should you choose to. Any magic used on anything else is instant disqualification.”

        We all gave an approving nod as he then stated, “With that, get to your battle stations and prepare for the match.”

        I saw the members of the Red Team vanish through the door on the left, though I still heard cheering from them. Everyone else that was in the room had followed a tall, lanky guy through the doors into the Blue Team Base. It was made to look like the inside of a UFO that had just crash landed on Earth. There were ‘broken’ tubes, ‘smashed’ computers, and a big hole where the team would exit.

        Before the match started, a tall, lanky man with black hair had said, “Well, it’ll be a few minutes before the match actually starts. Let’s take this moment to at least introduce ourselves, since we will be on the same team for the next couple of matches. Just first names will do. I’m Aaron.”

        The black guy with the emo hairstyle was the next to speak up, “Alright then, call me Marston.”

        The asian guy who seemed to have a chip on his shoulder followed up simply with, “Johnathan.”

        Next up was the seemingly optimistic lady with shoulder length red hair, “Alyssia.”

        After her was the young boy with the british accent, “You can call me Oliver!”

        Then was the big middle-aged man with the goatee, “And I’m Miguel.”

        After they had made their intros, I decided to introduce all four of us, “Well, the mexican with the glasses is Luis, the guy with the blonde hair is Merille, the white pony with the pink mane is Redheart, and finally there’s yours truly, Vinyl Scratch.”

        Upon introducing ourselves, we heard the robotic announcer say, “The match will begin in thirty seconds. Prepare for the final battle.”

        I watched my teammates spread out throughout our side of the arena, I found my place next to a small platform and a low hanging wall.

        After waiting for a few seconds, the intercom blared up and said, “The wheel of fate is turning! The final battle will now commence! Three... Two... One... BEGIN!”

        The second the intercom said to begin, an electronica trance theme began to be heard throughout the entire arena. When I heard the announcer state to begin, I rushed forward out of the base and into a narrow corridor. I used my magic to levitate my gun as I traversed the halls, alert in case someone tried to get the jump on me. As I took the next corner, I came face to face with a Red Team member. We both jumped back and fired our lasers at the same time. Thus, we hit each other. I took the time to run past him as my gear kicked back on.

        As I galloped to the other side of the arena, I found another Red Team member as I yelled, “Get ya’ guns on!” and scored a hit on him. I continued to gallop down a hallway before coming across Serah. She was fumbling around with the gun trying to hold it right, but to no avail. She kept on dropping it each time. I used a hoof to tap her on the shoulder, which caused her to nearly jump out of her vest.

        She looked back at me before saying, “Geez, Gage. You startled me.”

        I noticed that that was the first time in a while that someone called me by my real name. I hurriedly shook that thought out of my head before stating, “Well, I noticed that you were having trouble with your gun.”

        She blushed from embarrassment before saying, “I was hoping you didn’t see that. It’s just... It’s so hard to hold this thing without fingers!”

        Before I had a chance to reply, there was a red flash in the corner of my eye, just missing me. We both looked up and saw a Red Team member camping inside of one of the small towers. We both watched as he aimed again, this time right at us. I glanced down and noticed that I accidentally dropped my gun. There was no time for me to pick it back up. I thought for sure we were going to get hit, but then a blue laser shot from nowhere and hit the Red Team guy.

        We both turned around and saw Marston with a grin on his face as he said, “Always be on the lookout. Never know when the other team can get the jump on you.”

        Both Serah and I laughed as we thanked him for the save. 

Marston then walked up, picked up Serah’s gun and said, “Tell ya’ what, Miss Redheart, follow me and be a second set of eyes for me. I’ll handle any and all of the shooting. Vinyl, head on over to the other side of the arena, Aaron has a plan to help us win the match.”

I gave Marston a quick nod before galloping over to the other side of the arena. It was odd that I didn’t encounter any Red Team members along the way. I trotted past another corner and saw Aaron huddled in a corner with Johnathan. They were talking amongst themselves before spotting me and beckoning me to stand next to them.

Aaron looked back at both of us and said, “Alright, the Red Team has camped out in their base. They have vantage points all around the arena. It’s a good plan, though they have one fatal flaw. There’s no one guarding their backs. We just need to take out one of the campers, and we’ll be able to get the jump on the rest.”

I looked at Aaron and asked, “Well, how are we supposed to do that?”

He flatly stated, “Simple. You’re going to be the bait, just like Redheart and Marston are, “ He then pointed to the towers farthest from us, “See how they’re preoccupied with trying to get Marston and Redheart? Get the attention of the players on this side of the field while I meet up with Merille to get the jump on them. Even if we are found out, the warning sound will most likely scramble the Red Team. They think they have it good, but in reality, they’re just a bunch of noobs.”

Johnathan had glanced to me and asked, “You ready to do this, pony?”

I took a quick notice at how he simply called me “pony”, but I quickly shrugged it off as we rushed into the open and caught the attention of the Red Team. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Aaron and Merille sneak in the Red Base. It was then that the warning alarm sounded, and, as predicted, the Red Team members scrambled to find Aaron and Merille. Soon enough, I heard lasers firing from both ends of the arena. I rushed in and helped out the others in getting Red Team members.

I was able to get at least two people before the alarm blared out that the match had ended. As we heard the alarm, the crowd watching from the observatory deck started cheering and applauding. I looked up at them before giving a quick wave as I began to trot out of the arena. We headed back to the briefing room where an official was waiting for us with a projector set. He turned on the projector and it showed the scores from the match.

He looked at us with a grin as he said, “Well, by the looks of the scores here, the Blue Team won by two hundred points.”

While the Red Team members silently walked out of the room, the rest of us gave a big celebratory cheer. Well, everyone except for one. I noticed that Johnathan was the only one that didn’t celebrate. Instead, he silently began to walk out of the room.

I trotted after Johnathan as I said, “Wait up! Is everything alright?”

He didn’t even look at me as he said, “Just get out of my sight, okay?”

I was taken aback by that statement. All I did was ask if he was alright, and then he snapped at me? I pondered that for a moment before Alyssia snuck up behind me.

“I’ve known Johnathan for a long time. He hates ponies with a near passion,” she said as she patted my head.

I turned to look up at her before asking, “Why? Surely there must be a reason. I mean, I have some friends that don’t like the show, but they don’t act that cold when the topic is ever brought up.”

She sighed as I followed her to a nearby bench. I began to try and sit like a certain mint-green unicorn from the show, but found it nearly impossible. So I settled with laying down on the bench.

She began to explain to me, “Well, it all starts with a friend Johnathan had since childhood. The two were nearly inseparable. They shared almost all of the same common interests...”

I cut her off as I asked, “Almost?”

She sighed again as she continued, “Well, his friend became a brony. Johnathan himself hated the show, but the two still hung out with each other. That is... They did until a few weeks back. It started with a college project for a presentation. Johnathan, his friend, and myself were assigned the topic of certain ways positive and negative influences could affect the mind and psyche of the affected. The thing is though, while Johnathan worked on the speeches, me and his friend were working on the visual aids for the presentation. Well, we had worked really hard on it, but the thing is, Johnathan’s friend wanted to include ponies into the presentation.”

I asked her, “I’m guessing that Johnathan didn’t like that idea?”

Alyssia simply gave a nod of confirmation before continuing, “At first, it was just a differing of opinions. The two always debated on what they should do when the topic of the presentation popped up. They never came to an agreeable conclusion. Eventually, what were once simple debates became full-blown arguments. The project soon after began to take on their full friendship.”

After hearing that, I had to ask, “It got that bad between them?”

She had looked down at me and said, “It got pretty bad. They couldn’t even talk to each other without arguing. Well, on the day before it was due, Johnathan came by to check up on the project. Well, when he saw the ponies, he deleted the file, erasing all of our data, and demanded that we redo it.”

“So...” I piped in, “I’m guessing that the friend didn’t take it too well?”

Alyssia had simply said, “You guessed right. The two got into a brawl with each other. Resulting in a few bruises and a bloody nose. Of course, we all failed the project due to that happening. The two never talked again, and eventually Johnathan’s friend moved to New York... So they could never repair their friendship.”

I stared at her with shock, “So naturally, he blamed the ponies for ruining what was once a great friendship.”

As she nodded, I looked over to the arcade portion of the building and noticed Johnathan had hopped on Cruis’n World. I trotted over to the Cruis’n World machine next to his and inserted my quarter into the machine. He glared at me before returning his attention to the game. Since I started up my game immediately after his, it automatically went to multiplayer mode. Since he obviously didn’t want to talk to me at all, I figured I could break the ice, maybe even soften his view on ponies.

“So... I talked with your friend Alyssia...”

He just ignored me and focused more on the game.

“She told me some stuff...” I said, my volume getting lower, “And about what happened between you and your friend...”

He cut me off by saying, “She told you about that?”

I simply nodded and said, “She told me everything... And about your reasoning behind hating everything about me and what I’ve become...”

He stared intently on the game screen as he asked, “So why are you here talking to me then?”

I continued to keep my eyes on the race as I said, “Well, I just want to ask you... Why shun me? Sure, I became a unicorn, but I never asked for this. All I wanted to do was wake up and go about my normal routine. But, if you still want to hate me, then fine, but at least do something for me... There’s one guy who we’re going to be facing in the next round; his name is Tom Baker, and his eight year old sister became a Changeling, a creature from the show. So, if you ever see her, please don’t be mean towards her. She’s still a little kid.”

Johnathan didn’t answer, nor did I give him a chance to. I instead swerved the steering wheel to the left and hopped off the arcade machine, even though the race was still going on. As I walked out of the arcade, Yuna trotted by me.

She stopped to look at me and said, “Wow Vinyl! You did great during the match!”

I giggled a bit before saying, “Well, you know me. Lasers and fog machines are normal for a club hopping mare like me!”

She gave me a hug and said, “I bet! Well, I’m gonna play that racing game over there! It looks like fun!”

I watched as she walked over to the very game I was on and popped in her quarter. I saw Johnathan glance down as he saw her scoot the seat up as close as possible so she could try and reach the pedals. Johnathan looked back at me before giving me a silent nod. What I saw next surprised me.

I thought that because he hated ponies so much, he would have shunned her immediately, but instead I heard him say, “After you pick your car, I’ll pick the Hawaii stage since it’s the easiest.”

After walking off, I came across Tom and Merille chatting amongst each other next to the stairs. By the looks on their faces, I could tell it was a serious conversation. The two looked over to me and beckoned me to go over there.

When I reached the two, Tom had looked at me with a stern look before saying, “Your friend Merille just told me about the crazy group of people that attacked you at Wal-Mart earlier this morning. Let me tell you right now. Be very careful out there, for those people are a part of a large group called the People Against Ponies Association.”

Merille looked at me as well and said, “Apparently, they’re like the KKK, just against ponies.”

I began to think for a bit before speaking, “So, it’s a giant group of people nationwide? So, we’ll have to be a lot more careful on where we tread now, right?”

Tom had stared off into space before saying, “Yeah. They’re haters who took the hate too far. They’ll attack anyone even remotely involved in the pony fiasco. A group even recently tried to murder one, luckily she made a full recovery.”

That shocked me, for some of them were even willing to stoop so low as to commit attempted murder. I gave the two a silent nod thanking them for the information before walking off. Though, while I started to walk off, I heard a yell before a sharp pain coursed through my head. All I remember was feeling something heavy land on me before blacking out.

I found myself waking inside of a dark room that was completely silent. The only light came from above and shone down on a small pond. I crawled over to the pond and took a look at the reflection. What stared back at me was shocking. I saw my human form. The way the hair was styled, the brown eyes, glasses, and skin complexion were unmistakable. The most shocking thing however, was the color of my hair was now neon blue and the new white pony-like ears that perked up. I stood up and found a matching neon blue tail protruding from my lower body. I had become a pony-neko.

I heard a small giggle which caused me to take a look around. There wasn’t a person or thing in sight. I soon took a step forward as I heard music begin to play. I immediately recognized it as my favorite song from Kingdom Hearts II. I followed the sound of the music until I came across a stairway leading down. Cautiously, I began to walk down the stairs. Eventually I came across a small platform with a single light shining down in the middle. Underneath that light was Vinyl Scratch, set on her turntables and looking quite happy. It turns out that she wasn’t even playing the music. It seemed to be coming from nowhere. 

Vinyl wasn’t wearing her glasses when she looked up at me and said, “Well, it seems you went and knocked yourself out.”

“I knocked myself out?” I asked with confusion.

She giggled a bit and said, “Yeah. Something fell on your head the second you started walking away from your friends,” Her tone became more serious as she continued, “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to show you something really weird.”

She turned on her turntables and the platform began to form a mural. I watched as the platform began to change shape and begin to form pictures. I gasped in awe as I saw the finished product. Circling the bottom was jack-o-lanterns, each with a different face. Circling the top were small portraits of Vinyl, Luis, Redheart, Trixie, Snips, and Snails. Strangely, Merille was missing from the ones circling the top. Instead of Merille, it was Soarin. In the center of the mural was Zecora, though she was looking up at the smaller portraits with an uneasy expression.

It felt ominous just being on the station, but there was nowhere else to go. I looked back at Vinyl, who seemed to be focused on the mural. 

Without even looking back at me, she said, “I don’t know what these things are for, though it changed from that other picture right before you got knocked out.”

After staring at it for a few more seconds, we both shrugged said at the same time, “Oh well. We’ll find out what it all means later.”

Vinyl laughed a bit before saying, “Jinx!” Though she suddenly became more surprised as she finally got a good look at me, “Woah! Since when did ya’ get that bitchin’ hair color?”

I brushed a hand through my hair and said, “No idea. When I woke up here, it was like that.”

She began to think for a moment before saying, “I think I know why!”

She had begun to explain to me her idea as to why I looked like that, but I couldn’t hear her as my vision began to fade. Soon, I went basically deaf before feeling weak and crashing on the floor.

Next thing I knew, I suddenly felt a stinging sensation across my face as I shot awake.

I looked and saw Merille looking at the others who were on my laser tag team. They were all looking at me with worry, even Johnathan, which surprised me.

“See, I told you all slapping her would work!” said Merille as he laughed it off.

Oliver had walked over to me and asked, “Hey. Are you feeling alright? That bloke insisted slappin’ you would wake you up.”

I soon realized I was laying on a table in the upstairs room. I carefully climbed off of the table and said, “Yeah. I feel great, actually. Not counting what just happened to my face. Now, how much longer ‘till the second round starts?”

Miguel raised an eyebrow at me and said, “Second round? You completely missed it. You were out for about fifteen minutes.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. It had felt like only a couple of minutes had passed inside that dream-world-thing. Could it be that time passes by faster when talking to Vinyl?

After seeing my shocked face, Oliver piped in with, “Yeah, so we went ahead and did the match without ya. They didn’t stand a chance!”

I brought a hoof and rubbed my head a bit, “So, you won the match, but what was it exactly that knocked me out?”

Merille was the one to answer the question for me, “Well, apparently one of the members of the Red Team from the first round had her purse upstairs and while she was walking down the stairs, she tripped and her purse slipped from her grasp. The thing was surprisingly heavy! Luckily, you both were alright. Though she immediately left after she got up.”

I decided to just leave it at that before going to my next question, “So, when does the final match start?”

It was Aaron that spoke up, “Well, the next match starts in about a minute. So, let’s hurry down... And let the best man, or pony, win.”

Soon, everyone headed down to the downstairs area... Well, everyone except for me and Johnathan. Instead, he stared at me with the most serious glare ever.

It was about five seconds before he said, “Listen... I’m sorry for the way I treated you earlier. It was wrong of me to be rude towards you.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, “What made you have a sudden change of heart?”

He chuckled a little bit before saying, “Believe it or not, it was something that little girl... bug... thing said. I’m not even sure if she realizes how much of an impact it was. Now hurry up Vinyl, we have a match to participate in.”

We hurried down the stairs and once more into the briefing room. There, of course, was the official to gives us the rules for the final match.

He took a deep breath before stating, “Alright. This is the final match, and the rules are different now. You will all be playing by elimination, not by score. Each person is on their own as they will traverse the arena to find and eliminate others from the competition. Each person will have two chances. So, you can be tagged once, and still be in the match. Get tagged twice, and you will be eliminated from the competition. Your gear will shut down and you will no longer be able to play. You all know what the grand prize is, so get out there and show them who’s number one. Once we let you in the arena, find what you think will be the best spot and give ‘em all hell when we signal for the match to begin.”

The official opened the doors and we all rushed in. I quickly headed for the other side of the arena as I waited for the signal to start. Soon, I heard the sounds of the fog machines activating and then the neon lights had turned on. Soon, I heard my gear start up and then the music began to blare.

Then, I heard the announcer say, “The final decisive battle is now upon us! Now is the time! MAKE IT OR BREAK IT! ONE THOUSAND IS ON THE LINE!”

I rushed forward, turning every corner as fast as I can. My laser gun was at the ready should anyone come in my way. Sure enough, the first person I ran into was Miguel. The second he saw me, we immediately started firing at each other. We fired blindly until we each took cover. Surprisingly, both of us missed every shot. I hurried up and began to gallop away from Miguel only to run into Luis. As a reflex, I accidentally pulled the trigger and tagged him.

Luis had gave me a quick glared before laughing it off, “It’s alright dude. Mistakes happen.”

I gave him a quick brohoof before we parted ways. I turned a corner and saw Alyssia looking for any targets. She hadn’t seen me yet so I snuck up behind her and tagged her at point blank range. She was startled a bit by the sudden tag, but as she turned around to see who it was, I was already making a run for it. Though, as I turned a corner, I came face to face with Oliver, who took no hesitation in tagging me.

“Sorry ‘bout that Vinyl, but this is a competition,” said Oliver as he laughed.

I quickly took cover as my gear started back up. I had to be sure to be a lot more careful as one more tag would mean my elimination from the tournament. I took a look around to make sure no one was around me before I jumped out of cover. I ran to one of the towers where I came across Marston. I took aim and fired right at him, tagging him instantly. I took notice as he put the laser gun in its holster.

He looked at me with a small frown and said, “That’s it. I’m out. Aaron tagged me once earlier, so you know what that means.”

He began to walk off as he gave me a quick wave to me, saying goodbye. I set up at one of the windows of the towers. Looking through the scope of the gun, I noticed Miguel meet up with Marston and Alyssia as they began to walk of the arena, for they must have gotten out as well. Through my scope, I noticed Serah actually figure out a way to hold the laser gun and I watched her tag Aaron. Though, what seemed to be an immediate chain reaction, I saw Johnathan tag her. I took aim and fired right at Johnathan, tagging him.

I continued to look through my scope, trying to find anyone that wasn’t Merille, Serah, or Luis. After that fiasco, they all scattered so It was difficult to see anyone. After seeing no one, I trotted down the tower and back into the arena. I bobbed and weaved through corners and eventually made my way to the other side of the arena. I found myself standing in the middle of the prop spaceship, only to quickly turn as I saw Johnathan approaching me.

“Well, talk about cliché. The pony and the hater meet face to face. Well, we each got one tag on us. Oliver told me before I tagged him out,” said Johnathan as he readied his laser gun.

“Well, I need that money to get to New York, so I can’t lose now,” I said, readying my laser gun.

We both had our aim steady, eyeing each other like it was a western standoff. The tension in the air was so tense that you could cut it with a knife. The standoff lasted what seemed like forever, yet in reality was probably only a couple of seconds. We each focused on each other as we finally fired the laser guns.

“Well, it looks like I win...” said Johnathan.

It took a few seconds to realize that his gear was still on and mine wasn’t. I was out of the tournament. I silently holstered my laser gun and proceeded to walk out of the arena, the feeling of defeat hanging over my head. When I walked out of the arena, I saw Luis, Merille, and Serah all standing there.

Luis was the first to speak, “We all lost as well.”

Merille was next to speak up, “It sucks, but we should just head home now. We lost all of our money.”

Serah was the last to speak, though she was vocally disagreeing with Merille, “We can’t just give up now! We came so far.”

I can tell there was an argument about to brew, so I said, “Well, what are we to do then Luis? It is your car after all.”

Luis didn’t answer, he was too lost in thought, trying to figure out what to do. We were broke, we couldn’t finish the trip unless we became no better than beggars. Merille and Serah’s argument began to escalate as they continued to debate on what to do now. We were so lost in our individual thoughts that we didn’t notice someone behind us until that person tapped me on the head. I quickly turned to see Johnathan and Oliver.

Oliver had been the one to tap me on the head when he said, “Hey, the match is over. After you got out, Johnathan finished up the match in record time by getting Aaron and myself out in less than a minute!”

Johnathan had gave me a small smile before saying, “I know how to solve your dilemma.”

What happened next surprised me. He walked over to the official and whispered something in his ear. Johnathan looked back to all of us and gave us a big grin.

The official looked over to me and said, “Well, it looks like our winner has decided to give half of the prize money to you.”

I was in awe. He selflessly gave away half of the money just so that we could finish our trip to New York.

I looked at him with a big look of confusion on my face before asking, “Why?”

He gave me a stern look before saying, “Look, I was wrong to hate you for no good reason. So, after talking with Tom and his sister, they convinced me to do the right thing. Though promise me one thing...”

I looked up at him and asked, “What is it that you want then?”

He patted me on the head and said before handing me a piece of paper with a phone number on it, “When you get to New York City, and by some weird chance you come across a guy named Brennan Wallace, tell him that an old friend wants to apologize for being a huge jackass.”

                                -------------------

After chatting with everyone for the last time and getting Tom Baker’s Skype contact, we had the money in my wallet and were ready to set off. While we were in the parking lot, we were confronted by Tom.

He gave me a hoof bump to me and Redheart and he high-fived Merille and Luis before saying, “Well, my family is heading back to New York tomorrow, so whenever you get to the area, look me up. We’ll let you have a place to stay. And with that, I gotta run. See you later.”

Luis had started up the Prius and hooked up my MP3 player to the stereo system. The song that came up was unintentionally fitting, as we were back on the road, and nothing would stop us now, no matter what!

> Nerve-wracking-vana
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7: Nerve-wracking-vana
_________________

Remember how I said nothing would stop us? Yeah, we might have been stuck again because I was about to smack Luis so hard, Helen Keller would have cringed at the sight. In case of you’re wondering on why I was so pissed off at him, not long after leaving Mississippi, we had stopped at another convenience store for a quick bathroom break, but after that, we somehow got lost on the road.

“Okay, seriously... Where the fuck are we even at!?” I yelled at Luis, “We’ve been on these back roads for a while.”

I took a look at the clock, it read 4:30 P.M. We were going in circles for the past four hours. God damn, we had a hopeless sense of direction. Had our GPS not have decided to break on us, we’d be halfway through Tennessee by now, but instead we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, Alabama.

Luis glared at me, “That’s the fourth time you asked me! Again, I have no clue. I’m just trying to find my way to the highway, or at least someone who isn’t too drunk or stupid to give directions.”

Merille amped up the volume on my MP3 player, “Well, that’s Alabama for you. They seem to be almost enforcing their stereotypes.”

Well, it was true. The people we came across were either alcoholics, or people so stupid you’d wonder how they even graduated from school.

After more bickering among us, we eventually came across a rest stop. There was small building that had restrooms along with a lobby area that housed maps of the area and countless brochures. The area outside comprised of a few benches and a grassy hill in the field next to it. We decided to stop here to stretch our legs for a bit while Luis went to get us a map. I stepped out of the car and stretched my limbs a bit before heading up the hill. I laid down on my back in the grass and began to stare at the clouds. It was something that always helped me relax and get my mind off of things. I took the time to reminisce on all of things I had left behind when we decided to go on this journey. I thought back to the day immediately before my transformation.




***********************************


“Hey man, you’ve been keeping up with the news lately?” asked the older man with the goatee who stood in front of my register.

Since it was a slow day at Wal-Mart, and there was no one behind him, I had time to chat for a little bit. “A little bit, though sadly I haven’t been watching any news stations.”

He looked at me dead in the eyes and said, “Well, across the country, there’ve been people who are turnin’ into them colored horses from some girl’s show.” 

Of course, I knew about that, but I pretended not to just to keep the guy’s attention. “Really now?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. All over the nation. I believe they might one day take over the world and bring us humans to extinction!” he exclaimed while making weird arm gestures.

“Great. Another conspiracy theorist.” I said to myself as he continued his bullshit prediction about how ponies will one day have world domination if they aren’t stopped. Eventually, he stopped and handed me what looked like a business card.

“You seem like a decent enough feller, take this card here. You should give these people a call. They’re a group against these ponies.” 

When he walked off, I didn’t even bother to look at the card before I threw it away. When I looked back up, someone had placed some groceries on the conveyor belt. I looked down the lane and there was woman and something else placing groceries on the register’s belt. The woman wore an evening dress that had a floral pattern. The other thing was not a person, but in fact, a griffon. He had white head feathers with yellow highlights and a grey fur color and grey wings on his body. The jacket he was wearing had holes placed for the wings to fit through. If I had to guess, he was his own fan made character.

They both approached my register, and both seemed perfectly content. So, out of curiosity, I spoke up first, “Sorry to ask, but I’m guessing that’s an OC you made and somehow became it?”

The griffon kid, who I guessed was no older than eleven, said, “Yeah, but I’m perfectly happy like this. As long as I have fingers, well, claws now, and can grab things with no problem, I’m good.”

Talk about having a positive outlook on things. While scanning their things, I asked the kid’s mother, “He’s quite the optimist. Though, I’m curious as to what your original reaction was upon seeing him like that.”

She looked down at her son and said, “Well, it was quite the shock at first. While we were shopping for clothes about a week ago, Jimmy went in the fitting room as a human, but then came out the way he is now. It took some time getting used to, but as long as he’s happy, then I don’t mind.”

I finished scanning their items and soon received their payment. Though before they left, I took a picture with Jimmy and saved it to my phone. As they walked off, I thought to myself, “That’s one hell of a tolerant mom, though I’m quite curious as to what causes people to transform into these characters.” 


***************************************




Thinking back, I noticed that the guy who tried to get me to join the People Against Ponies Association was also one of the attackers at Walmart this morning. Then there was that kid. Before him, I never came into contact with a single pony, and then the very next day was when I transform into Vinyl Scratch. While I was laying there, I heard Luis shout my name. I stood back up on my hooves when I noticed Luis leaving the rest stop with the map we needed. I walked down the hill and past the benches as I approached my friends.

Luis waved the map in front of us and said, “Well, we got a map. Turns out, we were way off course. The closest place now is a town called Albertville.”

We soon piled back into the car and began to take off once more. We fired up my MP3 and browsed through the many tracks until we settled on a classic. With Merille reading from the map and giving Luis directions, we eventually found our way back to the highway. As we were jamming out to Ratt, a sudden urge came to me...

I realized that I really needed to go to the bathroom really bad. “Luis. Stop the car at whatever the next building is! I need to piss really bad!”

After getting Luis to stop at some random bus station, I hurried up out of the car and ran for the bathroom. Finally, I got me the bathroom break I needed. Though, as I was walking out of the bathroom, I began to hear yelling from a voice that sounded insanely familiar to me.

“... And every time we’ve tried to purchase something, or even just stand in one spot, we’ve been discriminated against. We might walk on four legs, be half your height, and have a horn sticking out of our head, but that does not excuse you to suddenly drop the constitution because it doesn’t suit you!”

Four legs? Half height? Horn sticking out of head? I was seriously intrigued about who was causing a commotion here. I galloped to the source of the scene. It was easy to find as I saw a crowd begin to form around one of the ticket booths. After making my way through the crowd, I finally took note of who was raising their voice.

She was a blue unicorn with a silver mane. A wizard’s hat and cape adorned her body, both pieces of clothing bearing a star pattern. Her cutie mark was unmistakable, as it was a wand with a magic trail. I had come across The Great and Powerful Trixie. Though, by the way she looked, I guess you could call her “The Dirty and Disheveled Trixie.”

Obviously, she looked like she was just moments away from snapping at someone, so I decided to at least attempt to calm her down. “Hey, hey, hey! Let’s all take a chill pill and calm down!”

She looked around and after some searching, immediately set her sights on me, glaring daggers. By looking at her, you could tell she was in no mood to just sit down and talk things out rationally. She looked like she was prepared to fight anyone who she could get her hooves on.

“Don’t tell us to calm down!” she shouted. Her knees bent so she lowered to the ground, as though to charge, and pointed her horn at the me.

Now, I was never one to start a fight, and I didn’t want to fight her. Though if someone does fight me, I sure as hell would finish it. If she did charge at me, it would’ve been a bad idea. Even though I’m now a pony, it wouldn’t be too hard to adapt my old Tae Kwon Do moves back from when I took classes as a kid to my new pony body. I decided to give her a simple warning, “Really now? I was hoping to be the voice of reason, but if you start charging at me, I’ll fight back!”

Well that didn’t work, as she immediately retorted with, “Reason? Funny, because every time we’ve tried to use it, we’ve been denied services. We were even chased out of a travel agency by some crazy guy with a bat!” she shook her head before indicating my two friends behind me. “At least you’ve got people that others are willing to talk to without automatically wanting to spit in their face.”

After what she said, making herself sound like she had it so horrible really made me mad. I had family members who were like that, always making their problems sound like it’s worse than everyone else’s. Then they shoot down everyone else’s problems like they were nothing important. People like that always grinded my gears to no end.

I could feel the anger rising as I recanted what happened to me earlier today, “You think you have it bad!? Just earlier today, I was almost killed! Even with my friends there! Instead of one guy with a bat, how about having to deal with four mental people who chase you through a superstore! Each armed with something very deadly! And not much longer after that, I was almost shot at by an armed gunman!”

I can tell she didn’t believe me, as she pressed a hoof to her chest. “We sincerely doubt that any of that actually happened, we may have been dealt a bad hoof of cards, but we know that you just made that up to pump up your own grandeur to make yourself feel better when compared to us.”

That’s it, I knew she was just brushing off my problems as unimportant. This got me even angrier, especially coming from Trixie, who was shown in the show to be arrogant and full of herself. That’s when the hypothetical devil horns came out as I said, “Make myself feel better than you!? Bitch, please. Almost everyone in this room is better than you! At least I can back up my boasts with actual talent!”

This pissed her off even more, as I saw her get ready for what looked like charging up a spell. I was about ready to sling her across the room so fast—

“The both of you, enough of these threats, before you do something you regret,” a voice called out suddenly.



My head turned in the direction of the rhyming voice. Through my glasses, I could make out a black-and-white striped figure in a black hoodie trotting towards us. There was no mistaking it. It was Zecora. The very same Zecora who I talked to on Facebook this morning. It was then that a realization struck me. Trixie and Zecora... These were the same two shown in those weird dreams that I had.

Everything had been tuned out as I realized how strange this was. Out of all of the possible outcomes that could have happened, I wound up meeting the two ponies who appeared nonstop in my chats with Vinyl. The only word that I could think of saying was, “...Zeccy!” as I galloped up to her and hugged her.

“Oh, my, God!”

I was quickly brought out of my trance when I heard someone yell at the top of their lungs. I quickly released Zecora and looked back at the crowd. Rushing between the many people were none other than Snips and Snails.

“It’s, it’s, it’s!” Pablo stuttered, his lanky legs carrying him towards us. “Redheart!” His legs carried him towards Serah so quickly, I could have almost sworn he teleported. “Me encanta!” Bowing his head to her hooves, he puckered his lips.

“A Mexican Snails?” I thought to myself as he kissed her hoof, trying to act like a gentleman. I saw the look on Serah’s face. She gave a nervous chuckle and mouthed the words “Please help.” I honestly couldn’t blame her, since that was a really awkward moment.

I turned and I saw Snips next to Zecora, the former trying to flirt with her and utterly failing. I noticed the very nervous look on Zecora’s face, as her cheeks turned red. “Look! Zecora’s black, white, and red all over!”

Snips was rolling on his hooves, a silly smile on his face as he looked up at Zecora, his pudgy body shaking as he did so. “Hey there, pretty lady, I’m Enrique! But you can call me Rick if you want to...”

Zecora merely grinned sheepishly as she backed up, “Umm, why hello, little fellow?” she stopped when she backed into me, “I am not sure I see, if there is something you need from me?”

I kept on looking back and forth between Snips and Snails, watching as they kept on trying to score brownie points with Serah and Zecora.

“So what’s it like?” Pablo asked. “Taking care of the patients I mean. It must get lonely, being there in the hospital with nobody but the sick?”

“Zecora, care to tell me about some of the things you see in the Everfree Forest? I’m sure you see all sorts of exciting things,” Enrique said.

While watching the two lovestruck idiots keep on hitting on the nurse and herbalist, Merille and Luis finally approached Snips and Snails and picked them up so they couldn’t get close to Serah and Zecora.

Luis, who was now carrying Snips, said, “Someone, somewhere wants what you two have to offer, but it isn’t these two Romeo.”

He then was approached by Trixie who said, “You have no idea how much we wish to have thought of saying that a day earlier, Mr...” She trailed off.

“Luis Bonilla, but just Luis will do.” He extended a fist for Trixie to bump after tucking Snips under one arm.

“Trixie Lulamoon,” she replied, obliging the gesture by raising her hoof up and allowing him to bump his fist into it as he smirked. “Though of course you’d already know that.”

“There they are!”

We all looked over to see the woman who Trixie was yelling at earlier. Accompanying her was the security guard for the bus station. He was a big dude with tanned skin and a balding head, but he had a handgun holstered to his hip that he had a hand over.

“Gentlemen...” He suddenly paused, as if he was trying to figure out the best word choice for the situation. “Ponies?” Eh, whatever floats his boat. “I’m’a gonna have to ask you to leave the bus station, right now.”

Merille, who was still holding Snails, stepped in front of the guard. “Sorry about that sir,” he said. “We were just leaving anyways.”

As he said that, everyone who participated in the fiasco had begun to walk out of the building. I turned back one last time to see Zecora just standing there, wide-eyed at the people staring at her.

I waved to Zecora and yelled, “Hey, Zeccy! You coming or not!?” 

She got the message and followed the rest of us out of the station. We all walked towards Luis’s silver Prius. I stopped next to Merille with Zecora being the last to stop altogether. I guess she felt nervous being around a strange group of ponies, because it looked like anxiety was taking its toll on her.

When Luis was about to put his hand on the car door, he said, “Oh! Before we depart, how about we get the formal introductions out of the way?” He then looked towards Zecora and Trixie’s group, “Well, that is, if you want to travel with us, since I’m pretty sure we’re all going to the same place.”

“Vaudeville and Broadway,” Trixie answered, before continuing. “We’re okay with all of you just calling us Trixie.” Pointing to Snails and Snips respectively, she continued. “The orange one is Snails, or Pablo as he prefers, and with him is his brother, Enrique, or Snips.”

Luis pointed to himself, me, Serah, and Merille while saying, “Well, my name is Luis Bonilla, but you can just call me Luis. Over here is Vinyl Scratch, or Gage. It doesn’t really matter to him what you decide to call her.” He continued, “Right here is Redheart, or Serah as she prefers. Finally, this here is Merille Robichaux, or just Merille.” 

There was a pause for a moment as we looked at Zecora, “Oh! Right sorry, of course you mean me. My name with grace, is quite simply J...” She paused awkwardly for a moment as her face contorted “It’s Zecora,” she spoke very un-whimsically.

Taking note of the sudden break from rhyming, we took care of introductions. I began to walk towards a car door to hop in when Trixie offered, “So, you’ve got transportation? We have gas money if you need it.”

Remembering the lazer tag tournament, I replied with, “Actually, we have that covered. We recently got around five-hundred bucks before we left Mississippi. Though, if you still want to chip in, that’d be great.”

As Luis and Merille began to adjust the back seats of the Prius to accommodate all of us, Serah had taken notice of the sky and said, “Hey, you all realize it’s getting late. I saw a Holiday Inn while we were coming here, how about we get a room there for the night?”

Zecora quickly nodded in agreement as she readjusted her pack. “Having rushed on hoof from town to town, I could certainly use a sit down.”

Trixie gave an unrepentant yawn. “Ah, yes, we have wearied from travelling so much over the day.”

Noticing how Trixie kept saying “we”, I wondered, “Hey, when you say ‘we’, you mean you and the two dolts over there with the orange one close to Serah...again. Or is it like that outdated royal ‘we’ that I’ve seen this one guy use back at the Ren Fair?”

Her eyes practically popped out of her head. I guess she was shocked that I caught it so fast. She gave off an audible gulp before saying, “Yes.”

I had opened my mouth to reply to her, but Luis cut me off, “Well, we have it set to fit everyone. Since I’m driving and Merille will be in the passenger seat, who’s sitting where?”

Serah was the first to speak up, “As far away from Snips and Snails as possible. I’m sure Zecora would agree with me.”

“I guess... that would be best.” Zecora nodded as she glanced back to the duo. “I’d rather not have another exchange. That last one was certainly strange.”

Trixie clopped her front hooves together as she excitedly said, “Excellent! They can stay in the trunk, we can take the folded seat, and you two can take the rest of the back seat!”

“So that means we’re set!” I said while adjusting my glasses, “Alright then, Dumb and Dumber, in the trunk you go! Oh, Trixie and Zeccy, I hope you don’t mind some J-Rock and Vocaloid tracks, as my MP3 player is hooked up to the car’s speakers.”

“I’ve never even heard of those genres,” she answered while getting in the Prius, “Is it like country?”

Laughing a bit, I hopped into the car and said, “Well Trix, J-Rock and Vocaloid will just have to be something I need to show you then.”

As I signaled Merille to play one of my favorite Vocaloid tracks, the car soon filled with music blasting at a decent volume. I took a quick look and saw Zecora humming to the beat. “Hey Zeccy. I see you like the song. Pretty upbeat, right?”

“Hmm?” she hummed, “Oh yes this music I absolutely adore, but I don’t think I’ve heard of this artist before.”

“Well, that’s because Hatsune Miku is first of all, really popular in Japan. Second of all, Miku isn’t even real.”

“I’m not quite sure I understand,” she questioned “is it some sort of made-up band?”

“Actually, it’s a synthesized voice. Using a real life voice as a base, and then synthesizing it to make a whole new sound!” I explained to her with glee. “Most of the time, they use a character to represent the voice. In this case, an anime character.”

“I didn’t think that a voice could be made that way, into such a sort of musical array,” pondered Zecora.

“Speaking of anime...” I had paused for a bit before continuing, “I’m assuming you’re a Naruto fan? Or at least a fan of Gaara?”

There was a pause before Zecora finally spoke up again “Oh, yes Gaara is one of my favorites of the show. I’ve only enjoyed certain anime’s although...” She paused for a moment, “But enough of me, what of you? What sort of things do you like to do?”

“Well, before becoming Vinyl, my life was kind of boring. I was a hardcore role-playing gamer. When I wasn’t working a dead-end job, I mainly played stuff like Skyrim or listened to music. If I wasn’t doing that, I usually was at a friend’s house.”

We continued to chat with each other until I heard Pablo and Enrique chatting amongst each other.

“I can’t believe I am in the same vehicle as Redheart! I am so excited!” said Pablo, sound absolutely giddy with excitement.

“Forget that!” hissed Enrique. “We’re with Zecora, honestly, how cool is that.”

“So...” Enrique started, “do you think Nurse Redheart was a nurse before all this?”

Pablo responded, “All I know is that she has my heart!”

I decided to at least tell them a little something, since they probably wouldn’t shut up about them for the rest of the ride even if we told them to. “Actually, she was a nurse before becoming Redheart. Quite the coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Doy gracias a dios!” Pablo yelled.

Knowing little to no Spanish, I turned to Trixie, “Hey, Trixie, do you have any idea what Snails just said?” questioned Vinyl.

“Nothing overly important, I’m sure.” She lifted her head to look out of the window before facing us again. “So I suppose you want to know who I was before all this?”

Well, I was curious, so I told her, “Well it would be interesting to find out, but if you don’t want to share it with us, I won’t press the issue.”

Zecora’s ears perked up when she looked at Trixie. “It would be interesting to share, if you wouldn't mind much or care.”

“Alright,” she explained, “University student, I was taking this fall off in order to get familiar with a few things I should have looked up when I was younger.” She paused for a bit before turning to the two in the trunk. “Pablo, Enrique, you interested in telling us what you did before we met?”

“I worked at a power sub-station,” Enrique answered, “patrolled it at night to make sure nothing went wrong. As for my brother, he was in Junior High.”

“That... explains quite a bit actually.” Trixie said as she turned my head back to the others.

While we were all conversing amongst each other, Luis had turned towards us and said, “Hey, I’m not sure about you guys, but I’m really hungry. How about we stop at a diner and get us a quick bite to eat?”

There was a quick squeak from Zecora, “Oh uh, well if thats best I’m unsure, my funds are somewhat insecure...”

“No problem,”  responded Trixie. “We can cover the meal for tonight. What do you see, Luis?”

Luis looked to his right and said, “Well, there’s a little place called Rosie’s Diner. How about there?”

“If there is no disagreement.” Trixie looked to all of us, her head poking into the trunk briefly. She then looked over to everyone else. I nodded and she said, “Alright Luis, Rosie’s it is.”

Luis pulled into the parking lot and soon we all climbed out. We entered the diner. This place screamed fifties diner. There was a steel counter along the length of it with red-upholstered stools in front of it, and plenty of booths with the same upholstery. I always loved these local places. They always took more care in preparing their food compared to popular franchises like Burger King or McDonalds, who really didn’t give a damn how your food turned out.

One of the waitresses walked towards us, asking how many people were in our group. Luis told the woman that there was a total of eight people and that we would like to be seated in adjacent tables. We were soon set at the window seats in the middle of the diner.

Zecora and Redheart sat at one booth, and were soon joined by Pablo and Enrique, who sat across from them. Zecora and Redheart looked at each other and smiled before hopping out of their seats and coming to join Trixie and myself. If they didn’t get that hint, then they really are lost causes.

Pablo stood up to jump out of the booth, but was stopped when Merille stood in front of him. “Hey, let’s talk, us four, ‘kay?”

The waitress handed each of us a menu, and I used my magic to open it up to check out what they had to offer. I saw the specials... All of them were meat-based products. I cried on the inside on how I wouldn’t be able to eat bacon.  Soon, the waitress came back asking for our orders.

I couldn’t really decide on what I wanted when Trixie spoke up, “Vegetarian pasta for us, we suppose. We’d risk meatballs, but we didn’t really enjoy the prospect of sausages for my first breakfast... As for the drink, ice tea please.”

Under the reasoning of ‘fuck it,’ I decided to just get the same thing Trixie ordered. “What she said, and a diet coke.”

Zecora glanced up at the waitress, “I guess a salad will do for me, along with umm... uhh sweet tea?”

The waitress nodded, then inclined her head to Serah, who didn’t really bother looking at the menu. “I’ll just take a salad as well. With a glass of water.”

After getting all of our orders, the waitress headed to the kitchen to tell the chef to begin cooking our meals.

Without looking at me, Trixie put both hooves on the table and said, “We suppose you are owed an apology.”

I rubbed a hoof on the back of my head as I said, “Ditto. We did get way too out of hand... er well, hoof now, I guess.”

Trixie stayed still as she replied, “Agreed.”

The waitress came back with our drinks, sweet tea for Zecora, ice tea for Trixie, water for Serah, and diet coke for me.

I began to lift my drink up with magic to take a sip when I heard a gasp, then the clink of glass on the table. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”

Trixie let out a yelp as water spilled off of the table and onto her. Serah’s glass was spilled on the side, completely empty now.

After cleaning up the contents of Serah’s glass by levitating many napkins onto the spill, Trixie turned to Serah. “You ask for the refill; we’d probably be rejected.”

After giving a silent nod, she walked to the waitress who had served our drinks to get a refill. I soon turned to Trixie and asked, “You know, we’ll probably be travelling with each other’s company for a while. How about we take the time to get to know each other better?”

Soon Serah returned, with a full glass in her mouth. This time, there was a straw in the cup. The waitress soon followed, with our meals balanced on a tray. Setting us up, the waitress smiled at us, then went to the other booth. “I’ll get your meals in just a minute,” she said to Luis, Merille, Pablo, and Enrique.

“Very well, we shall start. We woke up like this two days ago, and began our travel to New York since yesterday. That was when we met with...” Trixie tilted her head to the other booth and nodded towards the others. “Them. Enrique was still human, but halfway through the trip he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed the car, and turned into a pony.” When she said it like that, it sounded like one of those B-rated comedy movies. “Then we had to march through some backwater town, contacted Zecora, and the rest...” She leaned back in her seat for a dramatic pause. “Is history.”

That story did raise a few questions. I had to ask her why Enrique suddenly went comatose like that. “Is there a reason that Enrique fell asleep at the wheel? Was he narcoleptic or something? Or does becoming a pony suddenly make someone sleepy?”

“Were we to hazard a guess,” Trixie responded between wads of noodles in her mouth, “we would say that it was the latter. Particularly considering that just after, Discord showed up.”

Upon hearing that, I was absolutely shocked. So shocked that it caused me to do a classic spit-take as I was drinking my diet coke at the time, “Discord!? He’s here!?”

The drink I spat out flew in Trixie’s direction. She dabbed more napkins to dry herself off again. “Well, here in the relative sense, we suppose, here on Earth,” she answered. “He’s in all likelihood responsible for this whole mess, unless some poor sod woke up as him and couldn’t handle it.” she finished cleaning her face, and turned to Zecora. “What about you? Anything else to make the musical blowhard spoil my cape some more?” she asked in a total deadpan.

Zecora turned to face Trixie after a distracted glance “Oh me?” She asked before waving her hoof, “Well, there is not that much at all to say. I woke up like this the other day. I only set off this morning, by bus; I’ll admit it was boring.”

Well that was very anti-climatic. I took a few more big sips from my drink as I began to tell Zecora and Trixie the epic tale of my journey. “I guess it’s my turn. Well, to begin, before I became Vinyl this morning, I had actually just graduated from high school, and was working a dead-end job as a cashier. I became Vinyl this morning, actually.” It was then I realized that I said the same sentence twice.  I then pointed to Merille and Luis. “The two humans behind me, lifelong friends who helped since this crazy adventure began. I ran into Serah here at Wal-Mart this morning, only to be chased out by that crazy extremist group against ponies. I was in Mississippi when I was caught up in a gas station holdup and was in a laser tag tournament that I lost in. Also, I actually met Zecora on Facebook then. Then we got lost and by chance, met you guys at the station.”

Trixie simply, and slightly sarcastically, said, “Right.”

I could tell she still didn’t believe me.  I always hated that about myself, when I could tell the solid truth, it’d get written off as a lie. Yet when I lie, most people believed it as the truth.

I simply looked back at my food a bit dejectedly and said, “I remember how you basically called BS on my story back at the station when arguing, but I’m dead serious. In fact, if you want me to, I could show you the news report that was made on it.”

“I’ll wait for the security footage to show up on Spike TV one of these days,” she answered.

“Well, I guess it’s my turn now.” Redheart giggled a bit, “I worked at a local hospital back in Louisiana. I was more of a paperwork person, but I did see a patient or two now and again. It was actually pretty early in the morning when I became Nurse Redheart, as Vinyl had stated. So, from the hospital, I travelled on hoof to Wal-Mart, since I didn’t have a car. It was Vinyl who came across me in the Pharmacy section, and well... You know the rest from Vinyl.”

I noticed that Zecora glanced at the fork placed in front of her by the waitress with a confused look on her face. The fork was then surrounded by a light blue glow, and it lifted up to Zecora’s mouth. I glanced over and saw Trixie’s horn glowing the same color.

Zecora glanced at the fork surrounded in the light blue aura before glancing back to Trixie. “Oh, um thank you,” she said embarrassingly. It was probably a bit diffident for her.

I couldn’t suppress my laughter at the sight as I said, “... Gallons of shipping fuel right there.”

Trixie glared daggers at me when Serah tapped me on the shoulder and gestured to her fork. I felt like life just slapped me across the face. “Sometimes, I really hate you Karma...”

As I used my magic to lift up the fork, it began to envelop in a sky blue aura. I guided the fork to pick up a few leaves of lettuce and over to her mouth. I heard Pablo say, “Gracias!” before immediately hearing the sound of his muzzle slamming into what to me sounded like soup.

Trixie looked over to the duo of colts and said to me, “If that’s what happens to you for teasing us, imagine what we had to do to get that guy.”

I chuckled at the statement before trying to get a few sips from my drink, only to find out that it was empty. “Damn. My drink is empty already. Need a refill.”

Zecora stared at the empty cup as Vinyl placed it back on the table before she pulled it back over to herself. “I don't think there’s need for distress,” she commented as she placed her hoof on top of the lid, “It just requires a bit of finesse.” The sound of ice in liquid being shaken suddenly returned to the cup. Zecora tilted her head, and her eyes widened at the sight of what she had done.

The second I saw that, I squeed an inhuman squee. “Zecora, I now officially love you forever!”

“What was that about shipping fuel again?” Trixie interjected. Lifting up her cup of ice tea, she shook it in front of Zecora. “Don’t suppose you could fill it up with Bailey’s?”

I shrugged off her retort as I laughed a bit before saying, “Oh shut up Trixie.”

Zecora chuckled hesitantly as she took Trixie’s cup, “Oh.. uhh well I suppose its worth a try,” There was no sound this time though as she looked back to it sadly “Or... well... fie.”

We continued to eat in silence as I enjoyed the relative peace. After what had happened to all of us today, it looks like fate was throwing us a bone and letting us have a night of laughter and merriment.
	


> Realizations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 8: Realizations

________________________________________________

There wasn’t much else interesting that happened as we finished our meals rather quickly. We soon all piled back into the car, and began to find the nearest hotel.

“I don’t know about you guys, but that was one of the best meals I had in a long while!” I said as I continued to clean my teeth out with a toothpick.

“Indeed,” Trixie agreed, “we had become quite famished from the day’s exertions. It was quite refreshing, some incidents aside.”

“Again,” Serah spoke up, sounding apologetic, “Sorry for spilling my drink all over the table.”

“Your apology is suitable,”  The show mare replied casually.

“I’m still sorry for not being very skilled, it would’ve easy to get your cups refilled.” Zecora said while looking over in Trixie’s direction. I did feel a bit bad that I got a free drink, and she didn’t... But on the bright side, free drink! 

“And I’m sorry for not respecting you as a person, Zecora,” A voice from the back announced.

“Yeah, what Enrique said, but to Nurse Red—Serah,” Pablo was quick to respond to Snip’s apology.

Serah gave a sincere smile and said, “Apology accepted. Just don’t go doing that again. Okay?”

I heard some muffled whispering in the trunk, then Pablo asked, “Never again?” Trixie turned her head to stare daggers at him, and he cowered. “Okay,” he said.

Well, now that the apology war was finally over, Luis had turned into the parking lot for a local Holiday Inn.

Luis looked to all of us. “Hey, we’re here. Merille and I will go in and pay for all eight of us, then we’ll come back and help everyone with their stuff.”

Trixie opened the door with a quick spell once the car came to a complete stop, and we got out of the car. Looking over to Luis and Merille as the headed for the lobby. “Two rooms!” Trixie called.

Luis looked back over to me and gave a quick nod before heading inside the lobby. I soon began to wonder why we would waste more money and get two rooms.

“Wait. Why would we need to get two... OH! Now I get why!” I said as it suddenly came to me.

“Correct, this isn’t Europe,” Trixie said. “Don’t need four folks piling into the same bed. Eight into one Prius is quite enough. The question remains, who goes to which room?”

        Completely clueless to Trixie’s saying, I wondered... What does Europe have to do with that? Oh well, I’d just Google it later, as she did bring up a point. Who gets which room?

Snips and Snails ground their hooves into the pavement, looking at it intently. “We’ll stick to one room,” they said.

Trixie sneaked a quick glance to the lobby, from which Luis and Merille were coming back to us, Merille twirling two sets of key’s on his finger. “Got the rooms, right beside each other as well,” Merille said. He stopped by one door as Luis grabbed all of the bags from the trunk.

Merille opened the first door and held it open as Luis dragged the stage magician’s bag from the car to the room. They didn’t even have to ask which room we were taking. Trixie looked over to Pablo and Enrique. I guessed that they had come to an agreement prior to brief trip to the motel.

Luis rubbed his shoulder as he walked up to Merille, “Care to handle your bag and mine?” he asked. Merille nodded, handing him the keys, then heading to the car while Luis opened the other door. He held it open, and Pablo and Enrique stepped inside as Merille brought his own bags.

Trixie walked over to the other room and poked her head inside, spying the two colts. “Anything either of you are going to need from the suitcase?”

Enrique shook his head. “No, we’ll be fine, thanks for asking though.”

After being sure that they had everything they needed, she quickly followed us into the hotel room.

It was your usual setup for a motel room. Two double beds with a night stand between them on the right side of the room, and the bathroom past that. On the left side of the room there was, from closest to the door to farthest, a desk with a chair and phone, a dresser with a television on it, and a table with a coffee maker on it. The carpet was a light brown, no doubt to hide dirt, if the feeling on my hooves was anything to go by. The walls were painted beige, and the window was covered with a dark forest green set of curtains.

I was exhausted from today’s events, so I quickly wanted to get sleeping arrangements out of the way. “Alrighty then! How about this, me and Zeccy got dibs on the bed next to the window, while Trix and Serah get the other bed!”

Everyone seemed to be okay with it as they all nodded. “Very well.” I walked past us before looking at Serah. “Just... no drinking in bed... please.” She looked at her while chuckling nervously.

I trotted over to where my bed is and inspected my glasses. Before all of this, they were prescription glasses that I needed to see with, as my vision was horrid without them. It also made me think of a few things... We all were headed to New York simply because of one statement from someone we didn’t even know personally. We all had different reasonings, but I was curious as to why they were headed there as well.

I looked over to Trixie and the others and said, “We’re all going to the same place, yet none of us even know our reasonings behind it. We could have all just stayed put and not do anything, yet here we are. So, I just gotta ask, what’s your reasoning for going on this trip?”

“And leave solving this situation to that foolish filly, Twilight Sparkle?” Trixie quipped as she shut her eyes and turned her nose to the air, “Please, Trixie does not leave such things to chance.”

        I guessed Trixie was refusing to let bygones be bygones.

Zecora took a moment before she finally spoke up. “I don’t know if I have a part to play.” She looked idly at the rings on her foreleg. “I just want to know why I became this way. How this form I had come to obtain, and what must be done to go back again.”

Trixie was still laying on the bed, not even bothering to pick her head up. “What about you, Serah? Sounded to me like you just ended up being dragged along by Vinyl.” 

She shrugged and said, “Well, I before I met Vinyl, I was in a position where I had almost nowhere to go... And I when I told her that I was curious about the whole New York situation, she offered to let me go with them. So, with nothing else to do, I took up on that offer.”

“Y tú, Vinyl?” Trixie asked. “What made you decide to travel across the country?”

I had laid down on the bed as I answered honestly. “To get some answers to my questions. ‘Why was it me that transformed?’ ‘Why into Vinyl Scratch of all ponies?’ and ‘How the hell do I change back, if I can at all?’”

At that moment, my cell phone began to ring.

I looked at who was calling me. My eyes went wide when I saw who it was. No amount of preparing would ready me for this. It was my mother. The one whom I abandoned when I began the journey. I knew it was wrong of me to do, but I didn’t want them to get involved in this. Besides, I needed to go. I had to get answers, something I would have never gotten if I stayed home. 

        I quickly turned to the ponies in front of me, “Sorry... But I have to take this call.”

        I trotted out the door to answer the call. It was always a habit of mine, I would stay outside for the duration of a call, no matter the weather or temperature. I galloped to the far end of the building, to make sure nobody was in earshot. 

        I pressed the answer button as I brought the phone to my head. “H-Hello?”

        The response on the other end of the line sounded shocked, “Who is this? Why do you have my son’s phone?”

        I figured it would be best to just be blunt about it. “That’s because this is your son. You remember on the news how people were becoming those technicolor horses? Yeah, it happened to me.”

        I could tell by her tone that she was surprised, “It happened to you? Then where are you?”

        I cringed a bit, I had to tell her the truth, there was no denying it, “I’m with a couple of friends, but I’m not at their house right now...” I hesitated a bit, it was now or never, “I... I’m... I’m not even in Louisiana...”

        I could tell that she was getting angry with me, “You mean to tell me you aren’t even in the state!? Where are you!?”

        I gulped audibly at this. I didn’t want them to get involved at all. No matter what. “I... Can’t tell you, but all you need to know is that I’m safe.”

        “Why can’t you tell me? Why do you have to keep it a secret from me?” she asked with both anger and worry in her voice.

        I stood there in silence, her voice asking me why. “Because... I didn’t want to drag you into this, okay!?”

        I knew I was going about this the wrong way. I knew I could have just stayed there at home, and everything would have been fine, but I didn’t. I left home. I ran away from everything that made me feel safe. Now, I was too afraid to confront my own mother behind my admittedly terrible choice. Without thinking, I used my magic and flung my phone as far away from me as possible. 

        I don’t know where it landed, but I heard an audible crash when it hit the pavement. I stood there in total silence, reflecting on what I had done. I put my friends and people in danger, just for my own selfish needs. Needless to say, I felt terrible. I remembered back at Wal-Mart, I had gotten my friends in near-mortal danger just because I had the nerve to confront terrible people directly. In Mississippi, we were almost killed by a robber, and now when confronted myself with my choices, I instead ran away from them.

        I sat down on the stairway, glasses to the side of me as I cried. The realizations finally hit home. I ran away from everything, and when faced with it directly, I couldn’t handle it, so I continued to run. The cool night air only made me feel worse as I stayed there, unable to move. If I just stayed home, none of this would have happened. Most likely, we would have all been at home, being bored, but safe and sound. I don’t know how long I sat there, as the moon was covered by clouds. Though during that time, I did something I hadn’t done in many, many years...

        I prayed.

        “Please God... I beg you... When this is all over, let me be able to right my wrongs... Please let me have some sort of redemption...”

        I picked up my glasses and headed back inside the hotel room. I had started to feel really sleepy. I assumed all of that sobbing really took it out of me. Though I took one last stop to stare at the moon. I made one last promise to myself that I would make things better tomorrow. Then, I’d start to face my problems directly, no matter how tough.

When I walked in the room, I took notice of the duo in front of me. “Hey Zecora, Redheart. Don’t bother me. I’m going to sleep.”

        I soon climbed into the bed and put my glasses on the end table next to a lamp. When I covered myself up, I got comfortable and soon let myself drift off to sleep.


_______________________


        
        I awoke to the sound of snoring. Lifting my head off of my pillow, I took a look around at my surroundings. Zecora was fast asleep next to me. Trixie was sprawled out on the bed, and Redheart on the floor, apparently having been kicked off of the bed by Trixie. I took a look at the clock beside me.

        “One thirty-five... Perfect... Just enough time to get my work done.”

        After ninjaing my way out of the bed, I immediately grabbed the small clock radio that laid on the end table. Thankfully technology here is similar to tech back in Equestria. Using my magic to rip open the contraption, I carefully began to rewire and reshape the system to make it look more like a cannon. Using my magic, I began to supercharge the wires and hardware to be amplified. So far, it was coming out great. My jerry rigging was turning out to make the radio look like the way I planned it to be. I couldn’t help but bask in my glory.

        I think I basked too much though as I began to hear hoofsteps from the direction of the bed.

“Vinyl... its so late, why are you awake?” Zecora groaned as I turned to face her. I could tell from her eyes she still seemed half asleep. 

I chuckled a bit to myself, “Well sleepy zebra, I’m crafting a portable Bass Cannon from that old clock radio that was on the night stand.”

Zecora’s eyes furrowed as I explained as if she had never heard of a Bass Cannon before. “A... Bass Cannon?” she asked in a deadpanned tone. Guess that earned enough for even a break in rhyme.

I cocked my head to the side and gave her a grin. “It was an old trick of mine that I cooked up by accident back in my days as a freelance DJ. Back in Ponyville, I was trying to amplify my stereo system to create a light show to go with my concerts. They were supposed to make sound waves that move to the rhythm, but what came out was a blast that blew a hole in my wall.”

Zecora just seemed to stare at me glass eyed for some reason. “But, what you are saying certainly can not be right... Red...” She caught herself before saying the rest of the nurse’s name “Your home was in Louisiana before tonight.”

That’s when it hit me. She thought I was still Gage! “Nah, dude. You’re not talking to Gage. He’s not here right now. You’re talking to DJ Pon-3 herself.” I raised a hoof to Zecora, “Vinyl Scratch. Nice to meet ya’.”

        The now fully awake Zebra didn't return my hoof bump. Odd, it was highly unusual for anypony to turn one down from the wubmaster herself. “What do you mean he’s not here? Did...” Zecora paused for a moment as her voice shook slightly. “ Did he just disappear?” 

        I looked at her with confusion. “He’s not here, as in. Not taking part of this conversation. Don’t worry. He’ll be back in the morning.”

Zeccy’s face didn't seem to inspire reassurance. “This seems all too premature... but he is safe, you are sure?” she spoke with a bit of a stutter in her voice. Geez, I’d seen some pretty insecure ponies before but this zebra seemed to take the cake.

        I waved my hoof and said, “Of course I’m sure. What? You thought he was vanishing or something?”

        “I... didn't mean to make such a suggestion...” Zecora trailed off as she let out a hesitant chuckle. “I suppose it was a silly question.”

I chuckled and soon returned to work on the mini-cannon. After reshaping a few parts of the speaker and using the glass parts that were for the clock to act as magnifiers, I was finally finished with it. It was a really quick job, but one that would pay off in the near-future.

        I quickly shoved the thing in Zecora’s face as I said in a loud whisper, “Look! My creation is complete! Time to test this thing!”

        I quickly grabbed Zecora by her hoof and quite literally dragged her outside into the parking lot of the hotel.


“GAH!” Zecora yelped in surprise as I began to drag her to the door with my masterpiece. She quickly quieted down as I brought a hoof to my mouth to shush her from waking the others.

I quickly, but quietly, opened the door to the hotel room and brought Zecora with me to the parking lot outside. I found a spot that had no cars in the surrounding area as I began to show the finished product once again to the zebra.

“Check it out. If made right, this thing has enough power to blast any threat back at least thirty feet. It should knock the wind right out of them!” I quickly handed the mini Bass Cannon to Zecora. “Go on! Give it a try. Aim for the trees over there and press the button on top of the cannon.”

Zecora looked at the device with doubtful eyes. “I don't know Vinyl. I don't have much faith, that this is very safe.” She paused as she looked at the speaker, staring it down as if it was some sort of alien artifact. “All these wires are thrown to nether, it all just seem so thrown together.”

I waved my hoof and gave her a nonchalant look, “Don’t worry. It’ll work fine. There’s nothing that can go wrong.”

She stared at the device a moment more before she hovered her hoof over the large button I added on the top of it before looking back at me for a bit of reassurance. I simply waved a hoof at her before pressing her hoof against the button.



The blast that ensued was magnificent. The sound that emerged was perfect for something so great. It was a blue beam that shot out of the speaker, past the trees that we were aiming at. Instead, it hit a car parked at the nearby building. It shattered the window, which caused the car alarm to go off.

I brought my hooves up in the air in a victory cheer. “It works!”

I glanced back to Zecora, who was covering her ears with surprise. At first her expression was of utter confusion, but quickly turned into a grin as she looked towards me when she realized it had worked. “Wow...” was all she managed to say. “but... owee...” she spoke as she rubbed her ears again.

After we basked in the glory of a successful Bass Cannon, I picked up the mini-cannon and quickly began leading Zecora back to the hotel room. “We need to hurry back inside. The cops are probably going to be here soon with that car alarm going off like that and I don’t want to spend a night in a jail cell!”

        “No need to say those words twice, just once is enough to suffice.” Zecora spoke quickly as her expression changed. Even in the night I could tell she seemed about ready to panic as she shuffled on her hooves as she looked to the Camaro still going off loudly. 

        When we got back to the hotel room, we couldn’t help but giggle at the escapade we got into. I took another quick look at the mini-cannon before stuffing it in Zecora’s gourd-bag. 

I gave her a wink as I said, “Here, you keep it for now. Don’t tell the others about it just yet. Let’s keep the thing a secret between us until you need to use it.”

Zecora gave me her now trademark confused stare as I spoke to her and tilted her head slightly. It had become almost a natural thing every time I spoke to the mare so far. “Alright...?” She spoke distantly as she bit her lip. “But why would you give this to me to protect? Wouldn't Gage be a better choice to select?”

I put a hoof on her shoulder and solemnly said, “Because he isn’t ready yet. He’s still a kid fresh out of school, so he’s the youngest out of the entire group. Minus only Snails, as Snips may be young now physically, but before that, he was an adult. I’m scared that he might be reckless with it, and bring more harm than good.”

I took my hooves off of her as I took the glasses off of my head. “He still has much to learn about responsibility... Something he can learn from you and Trixie. Only when I give you permission, then you can hand it over to him. Until then, make sure he doesn’t know of its existence.”

Zecora just stared at me and then back to Trixie’s bed. “Why not Trixie or even Redheart?” Guess she gave up on the names. “They’ve both been trusting and rather smart... I don't believe-”

I sighed and put my hoof to her mouth before she could finish. “Trixie...” I gestured  to the two sleeping forms in the other bed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t completely trust her yet. As for Redheart, she seems to have a problem with keeping secrets.” I looked back to Zecora, “Since you’re hiding a bunch of stuff already, I know you can be the one to keep that hidden as well... Also, you were already awake.”

“I, err, don't know what you're trying to convey, I’ve had nothing I’ve tried to hide away,” She lied quite obviously. Whatever the zebra was hiding she was doing a horrible job at it. I mean really, her entire face changed and she immediately looked away from me. “But... if you want me to keep it secure... your secret I shall try to endure.” Well, at least I could count on her to keep a secret.

I smiled at her as I hopped back in the bed. “Thanks. Anyway, you should head back to bed, since from what I heard, a holiday is tomorrow... Well, today... You get my meaning.”

The zebra simply nodded hesitantly as I laid my head back on the pillow and fell back asleep.

> Small, White, and Can't Fight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 9: Small, White, and Can’t Fight
________________________________________________


        I drifted into the place between sleep and wakefulness to someone yelling, but in my half-asleep state, I decided to just keep my eyes closed. I wanted to sleep for about another fifteen minutes. Then I heard the clopping of hooves heading towards the door, but soon heard a startled yelp as I heard Merille’s voice.

“Hey, everyone else is up already. We were wondering if you wanted to come get some breakfast with us.”

        Since I figured I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, I decided to wake up. Also, my stomach was growling now, and the mention of breakfast made me excited. “Breakfast! So, where we going? Waffle House? IHOP?”

“Gah!’ I heard a startled voice shout beside me. I quickly turned to see that Zecora was trying to regain her composure. “I’m glad you are now awake, but must every morning start with a headache.”

When she asked if every morning would start with a headache, an idea came to me. It’s not everyday you would wake up as a talking technicolor horse that can use magic. I thought that an event like this deserved to be immortalized in an epic photo album. Ideas come to me at the weirdest of times. “Hey... I just got a great idea. How about we start taking pictures while we’re on this road trip! Breakfast can wait a bit.”

Zecora put a hoof to her chin as she began to speak her thoughts. “Pictures of all four of us? I guess its not too much of a fuss.” 

Serah clopped her hooves together, “That sounds like a fun idea! It isn’t often that someone goes across the country.”

“I have journeyed across the country plenty of times,” said Trixie, “though I suppose a record of our exploits would do no harm.”

I had quickly turned to Merille and asked, “You got your phone with you, right?”He nodded a bit, “Could you take a photo of us four sitting on the bed?” I quickly got up on the bed and took a seat.

Serah giggled a bit as she happily climbed up on the bed, back legs kicking for a few moments as she pulled herself up from the edge.

“So, if I may?” Zecora asked aloud, “Is this spot ok?” Redheart simply nodded and grinned. 

“On the bed?” Trixie asked, raising a hoof and scrunching up her face.

I rolled my eyes a bit as I grabbed her with my magic. “Yes, on the bed!”

“Aye!” yipped Trixie as she bounced onto the mattress, landing softly next to me.

Taking a quick glance at Trixie, I threw a hoof over her shoulder. “Come on, Trixie, smile for the camera!”

There was a quick flash as Merille snapped the picture. He took a quick look at it and said, “It came out good, but for some reason, the colors of the room changed to blue.” He flipped the phone over to show us, and, true to his word, the colors of the picture were quite different from that of the actual room.



“Well, we are all travelling to New York to stop Discord, maybe he thought such a simple parlour trick would frighten us?” Trixie suggested, pulling herself out of my grip and hopping off the bed. 

It sounded reasonable, knowing Discord, he’d do anything from small pranks to worldwide catastrophes. Though he would have to do a lot more to scare us off, like a producing a group of insane bikers. Something like that might deter us, but the chances of that happening were pretty damn low.

I hopped off of the bed and started to head towards the door. “Now, with that out of the way, how’s about we get some food?”

“Hmmm...” Trixie smacked her lips together. “Breakfast does sound like an amazing idea right now.” She stretched, yawned, then tensed as she glanced over at the night stand. “What time is it? The clock appears to be missing.”

Everyone else looked at to where the clock once was.That was odd, what could have happened to it? I pondered it for a bit before my stomach reminded me that I was hungry. “That’s weird. Oh well. I’m too hungry to care.”

Zecora looked right at me and raised an eyebrow. “Hmm.? Don't you recall? The changes you installed...” She trailed off for some reason.

I just continued to look at her confused, “What are you talking about? I don’t know how to install anything unless it deals with a computer.” I giggled a bit as she was stumbling a bit on her words, “You must have had one odd dream.”

“Oh....” Zecora made a faux grin and rubbed the back of her head. “I guess that’s easier to accept. I... might have broken it as I slept...”

Hearing that made me laugh a bit, the thought of the sage-like Zecora kicking things in her sleep sounded hilarious to me. “Wow Zeccy, I had no idea you would break things as you sleep. Anyway, let’s get some breakfast. I’m starving!”

It wasn't long afterwards that we found ourselves packing our things and making our way back to Luis’ Prius. We needed to get to New York as soon as possible, so we rushed a lot of things headed off to the car with bags not fully zipped.

Standing next to the Prius was Luis, Snips, and Snails. Luis was putting the two colts in the trunk as we arrived. He looked over to us and asked, “You all ready to go? We’re going to head over to the nearby Waffle House.”

“I am prepared!” Trixie shouted from inside the car. “Onward, driver!”

A quick drive across the two city lights and we found ourselves at the small diner. As I stepped out of the car, I took a look at the sign. The “W” and “U” were broken off, so it made it look like it said “Affle Hose.” I thought that was kind of funny. It gave the place character. Overall, I had a good feeling about this place. I giggled at the sign a bit before Trixie magicked the door open. The moment I stepped through the door people stared at us. I gave a friendly wave to the other customers.

Trixie stepped up to the counter, stares following her intently as she reared up and leaned her fore hooves against the counter. “Ahem,” yes, she actually said ‘ahem’. She floated her hat above the counter and waved it at one of the cashiers. “Excuse me, I’d like to order some food.”

        The cashier looked down to see who or what waved the hat. I guessed by his surprised look, he had never seen a pony yet. “Uh, Sure ma’am. Is the others behind you with you as well?”

        “Yes, they are,” Trixie answered, ignoring the confused overtones of the cashier. “I’ll have a double waffle and some apple juice.”

        I hurried next to Trixie and placed my order, “Cheese omelette, with toast and hash browns! And some good ol’ fashioned OJ as my drink!”

        I took a quick look at Zecora, who was kind of frozen in place. With my magic, I dragged her to the cashier’s counter. She began to look at the menu and cringed each time in which (I assumed) a meat-based product appeared.

After looking through it for about a minute, she said quietly,“I think, just... some pecan pancakes would be fine? That is, if no one would mind.”

The cashier gave me a funny look before he added it all into the register. The rest of the group ordered, and we seated ourselves in two adjacent booths. Merille, myself, Redheart and Zecora sat at one while Trixie, Snips, Snails, and Luis sat at the other. In a few minutes our orders were brought to us, and I was left to stare at my plate of the cheese omelette, toast, hash browns, and bacon. Oh bacon, how I missed thee so. Sadly, with mine newest form, I shan’t be able to taste what was once the sweet nectar of the gods.

“Why would they give me meat, that I can't even eat.” Zecora groaned as she pushed the plate away.

With a forlorn feel, I handed my side dish of bacon to Merille. “Here, you’ll love it more than I will.”

        When everyone handed Merille the bacon, he looked at the food with a disgusted look. That was odd of him, as two of his favorite foods were bacon and nutella. “Hey, Merille, you don’t feel too good? You look like you’re about to—” That’s when I saw it... His hair, which was formerly blonde, was now navy blue. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR!?”

        After cringing a bit at my sudden amplification of the volume of my voice, Zecora looked at Merille and gawked at his hair. “I.. er.. don't mean to stare, but why’d you dye your hair?”

Merille continued to look at us with a confused expression when Trixie’s head poked over the edge of her booth, head hovering over his hair. She nodded at the hair and smiled. “Excellent choice in hair color if I do say so myself,” she said, pointing at her cornflower coat as she spoke.

Snips poked his head out from the edge of the booth, and as he saw Merille’s abnormal color change, he visibly paled. “El Discord ha llegado para ti!”

The smile on Trixie’s face fell off as her pupils narrowed. “We need to go, now.”

Sure, Discord might have had something to do with a hair dye, but I was still hungry. “But I’m still eating here!”

Trixie jumped out of her booth seat. Horn glowing, a levitated Snails floated behind her as she stared daggers at me. “Now!”

Well, I didn’t want to start another fight, so I gave in. I took the food in a magic grip, not the dishes, just the food, and hopped out of the booth.

        Zecora looked at Trixie, confused by the show mare’s panic. “But its barely even noon.” She asked lightly. “Why must we leave so soon?”

        Merille took a quick look at his reflection in the window, and immediately started to freak out. “What the... WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!? We’re definitely leaving. Now that I’m turning into Sonic the Hedgehog.”

        I giggled to myself a bit. That was pretty funny. Of course he’d crack some joke out of it.

        Zecora covered her ears at the now blue-haired human’s outburst. “Ok, ok we’ll go.” She mumbled. “Just please, enough yelling though.” She sighed as she left the waffles behind and followed Trixie towards the door.

        I watched the show mare curiously as she walked towards the front door. Something definitely had spooked her bad, and it didn't seem to be Merille’s hair. What was it that spooked her so badly?

Snips, still floating in Trixie’s magic, turned to look at Merille. “Madre de dios...”

“Pablo, not helping,” Trixie hissed. Her face brightened, smiling to all the people in the Waffle House staring at the spectacle. “Hello, good morning, wonderfully humid this morning, isn’t it?” She put Snips on the ground and braced her hooves against the door, pushing it open. She held it open, waving her hoof to usher us back towards the car.

After signaling us to follow, I took a quick glance to Serah, who shrugged. Though after following me out, she shouted, “The car! It’s being vandalized by thugs!”

I quickly turned to see who was trying to destroy the Prius.

And then my food fell from my magical grip.

There were five masked men relieving their pent up anger on our car. I watched as one of them took a metal bat and swung it at a window, shattering it. Even though they wore masks, the group still had the hats which identified what hate group they belonged to.

PAPA

Zecora took cover behind me as I began to seethe with anger. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to just stay out of trouble today, on Halloween no less! I was just about ready to lunge at them, when I heard a voice in my head.

“Hey, those guys look dangerous. Let me take over, I’ll be able to take them down.” It was Vinyl, who was able to hear and see the chaos.

I just got angrier the more those vandals were messing up the car, one of them taking out Luis’s GPS and promptly breaking it.

I started growling now, that was the last straw. “No Vinyl. This is personal now.”

One of the humans, a skinny and spry-looking goon with gaunt features, went slack-jawed as his eyes passed over us. “Holy! You weren’t kidding! It’s a swarm of them! A pack!”

“Uh...” Snails stepped forward, holding a hoof to his chin. “Actually, we’re more of a herd?”

I suddenly heard Vinyl make a gagging sound, probably slack-jawed now, “Please tell me that I didn’t hear what I think I heard.”

The PAPA goon stepped forward, leaning down towards Snails. A light-blue glow surrounded his tail, and he was pulled back with a yelp as the human tried to snatch him up.

Snails floated mid-air beside Trixie, who scowled. “Hands off the crazed fanboy!” she called.

That guy was about to hurt a kid. Add to the fact that they are causing a shit-ton of damage to the car, our only means of transportation, made me go straight to attack mode. “You fuckers are gonna pay for messing up my friend’s car!”

I was just about to grab him, but then one of those guys grabbed me mid-step. I tried to think fast, but all I got was a quick hoof to the forehead as he quickly flung me to the now-broken car door. I felt my head smash whatever glass was left on the window before hitting the ground.

“You see what happened!? If only you let me take over, you wouldn’t have gotten your ass kicked so badly!” yelled Vinyl. In hindsight, I should have listened to her, but I let my anger get the best of me.



And right then and there, I learned my lesson that I should never count my chickens before they hatch, as the metal bat rolled off of the car and hit me right on the horn and temple.“Less okay...”
        
        “Vinyl!” I heard a voice call out. I couldn’t tell who yelled it, as there was now a constant ringing sound in my head and because my glasses fell off of my face, everything was a bit blurry.

        I soon felt myself being dragged behind the car, and I see a white and pink blur standing right in front of me. I rubbed my eyes and everything started to clear up a bit. Serah was standing before me, the trunk was now open as she grabbed a small first-aid kit.

        I could hear screaming and yelling as Serah began to tend to my wounds. She looked at me with a worried expression. “Never do something as stupid as that again! You had us all scared!”

        My head was spinning as I tried to make sense of what had happened.  One moment, I was with the group staring in horror. The next, I was now behind the car with a possible concussion. Serah quickly galloped towards Merille, whom she told to put me in the car. As I was lifted up and placed in the back seat, I heard yelling and screaming from quite a bit of people and ponies, though I couldn’t see what was going on.

        When I was placed in the car, Serah followed me inside with my glasses placed on her head. She brought the small first-aid kit with her as well as she continued to check my head.

 “You have a small cut right here next to your horn. Luckily it isn’t anything major. You got really lucky, as that impact looked very scary. Though don’t do anything rash, as you might have a concussion.”

        I couldn’t look Serah in the eyes, as I knew I had screwed up badly. I shouldn’t have acted so rash, and there I was paying the price with a head injury.

        Soon, we heard a roar of a car as Luis pumped his fist in triumph. “Yes! Got it running, now let’s get the rest of the group and floor it out of here.”

He ran off and signaled for everyone else. He pointed to the Prius and said, “We got the car ready to go. Redheart’s looking over Vinyl’s injury. Just pile in the back seat, we don't have time to put everyone where they’re supposed to be.”

After we all quickly piled into the car, positioning ourselves amongst the torn cushions, Luis almost floored it as we left the Waffle House, though it took a few tries. The damage must have been really bad. It was a miracle that the car even started up.

Snails was pressed right next to Trixie, examining her hoof. “Is there a chip? I need to know if there’s a chip. What about my horn? If I damaged my horn protecting you...” She turned to Serah, who was applying a small bandage to my head. “Is it alright?”

Serah took a quick once-over at Trixie and said, “Yes. You’re alright. I can tell just by looking at you.”

All of that whining was really making my head hurt.  She really needed to shut up for a bit. “Could you can it, Trixie? My head’s already hurting as it is.”

“No talent you said. Hmph!” Trixie turned her nose up. “Went charging into a fight and got knocked out instantly!”

I had opened my mouth to respond, but was quickly cut off by Merille. “Something’s really bothering my rump. I just can’t seem to get comfortable.” He kept on shifting around, trying to get comfortable, but each position only made him look even more uncomfortable. “God damn. Did those guys mess up the seats that bad?”

“It was totally awesome!” Snails yelled, pressing towards myself and Redheart. “The PAPA hit you like ‘Busch!’ Then Zecora was like ‘Dios es mio!’ but then she totally kicked their flanks!”

Zecora blushed deeply at the praise, then quickly turned away. “All I did was a buck, it was just simple luck.” 

Really? So the once timid Zecora actually kicked some ass? I thought to myself as I looked over to her.

Soon enough, Merille kept complaining, “Really man this is very aggravating I...” He stopped for a moment as he stared slack-jawed at something, “have a tail now...”

Trixie’s ears twitched for a moment. “What!? That’s impossible, you’re awake!”

Merille simply held up a fluff of his tail to show it to us. “It’s Discord. You think he’d have a set of rules to go by? Ever thought he’s doing this just to fuck with us?”

Trixie stared, slack-jawed as the coarse, navy-blue hairs swayed a bit as Merille moved the tail. “It’s a-a... It’s a-it’s a-it’s a...” Her mouth flexed up and down as she kept mouthing the two words silently.

If Merille was transforming, then I guessed it spread like a virus. A sickness that causes people to turn into pastel colored talking horses. That caused me to chuckle a bit. “So, Merille caught a case of the pony, eh? Not really all that surprising to be honest. I kinda saw it coming.”

“Well, it could be worse,” piped up Trixie.

“How could this become any worse?” Zecora asked, her voice full of wonder and some frustration. “It’s starting to look more like a curse...”

It was then that I heard Vinyl’s voice in my head, “Now why do I think that something cliche is going to happen now?”

“No, a curse would be turning into short, white, and Little-Miss Can’t Fight here,” Trixie replied, pointing a hoof at me. There was a choking sound from the engine as Luis pulled to into a parking lot. Trixie winced. “Or that could happen.”

“Called it,” said Vinyl while laughing.

I looked out the window to see where we stopped at. It was a run-down bar full of Harleys in the front lot. To sum it up real quick, it was a real life Salty Spitoon.

Luis put both hands on his forehead in frustration. “Looks like she’s dead. Guess we have no choice but to ask for help. If it wasn’t for those damn vandals, we’d be halfway to Tennessee by now.”

“What!?” came a simultaneous exclamation from both myself and Serah.

With some protest from Serah, I climbed over to face Luis, “So you mean we’re stuck here!?” I pointed my hoof out of the window. “Here!? At a run-down bar?”

Zecora peered out the smashed car window at the bar. “Can't you try starting it up again? Surely we can't stop at this bikers’ den.”

The door opened and Trixie squeezed past Zecora. “Come on, one of us needs to call for a tow truck or taxi.”

Luis stepped out of the Prius before pulling a cell phone out of his pocket, “No worries. I’ll just make the call for a tow truck.”

He held the phone to his ear as he waited for a few moments. Not much longer later, he held the phone away from his ear as he turned towards us. “Damn. No signal.”

Zecora gave an audible sigh as she hopped out shortly behind Trixie. “This may be hard to construe, but what is it you plan to do?”

“Well,” said Trixie, “We’ll just have to hope there’s a phone...” She pointed to the bar with a hoof. “In there.”

Luis nodded his head in agreement as he turned towards the bar, but soon went wide-eyed as he said, “Hey Merille! Don’t go in just yet!”

Trixie face-hoofed and sighed. “Alright, we need to get this done soon.” She trotted past me and towards the door. “Luis, Zecora, find Merille while I get a phone. Redheart, make sure Vinyl doesn’t hurt herself anymore.”

The gravel crunched as Snips and Snails walked by Trixie, hooves moving in controlled motion in an attempt at stealth to no doubt follow their idol.

Trixie spun on her hooves and looked at the two colts. “You two,” she said to them. They perked up, listening attentively. Trixie’s head bobbed slightly as her face scrunched up in thought. “Keep watch.”

Both the brothers’ ears visibly drooped as they heard Trixie’s command, but they obeyed as they sulked back to mine and Serah’s side by the broken down car. I watched as the group of Zecora, Trixie, and Luis entered the bar.

After they entered the bar, I turned to Serah and said, “Hopefully, they won’t have any problems in there.”

She nodded as she hopped out of the car. “Yeah. We’ve all had enough drama for one day, even though it’s still morning.”

I followed her as I felt my hooves touch the gravel. I lifted my hoof up to head to prod a bit at my injury, but was quickly stopped by Serah. “Don’t do that, it won’t help your wound.”

I giggled a bit as I quickly brought my hoof back down. “Sorry. Sometimes, I just can’t help it.” 

As Serah finished scolding me a bit, I heard a groan coming from behind me. I turned around to see Snails whining.

“What’s taking them so long?” Snails said, spinning around in circles.

“Easy brother,” responded Snips.

“But what if something happened to them? We should check.” Snails started for the door but Snips clamped down on the orange colt’s tail.

“Mm mm,” Snips grunted. “You’re not going in the bar, too young.” He spat out the tail. “Besides, we’re supposed to keep watch, right?” Snips was left with a light cloud of dust as Snails trotted to the door and used his mouth to open the door, leaving a drop of saliva on it.

Snips moaned in agitation and followed suit, sliding in through the door just as it swung shut. After seeing that, I tried to hurry and follow them inside, but I heard the roar of an engine pull in to the lot. I turned around to see a biker park an old van. He opened the back doors, pulled out a Harley, placed it next to the long row of other bikes, and start walking towards the bar door, but he stopped and stared right at me.

“Just what in the bloody hell are you supposed to be?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

I gave a nervous laugh and weak smile as I said, “Well. Where do I begin? As you can see, I am a talking, oddly colored horse who happens to be associated with electronica music.”

I looked behind the guy and saw Serah frozen in place, apparently stymied by the appearance of the biker. He saw me turn my head towards Serah and the now broken Prius.

He gestured towards Serah and asked, “She with you?”

I nodded nervously. “Yeah, so is the Prius. But it got fucked up this morning. Some thugs messed it up pretty badly.”

He put a hand to his chin before asking, “Wait... So that’s why news reporters are swarming the Waffle House right now? Because those dudes that got arrested messed up a car? That ain’t cool man.”

Something told me that this guy wasn’t going to kill us, in fact, something told me that he actually might help us. It was the same feeling that I got with Tom Baker and Jonathan back in Mississippi.

I calmed down as I approached the Prius, signaling the biker to follow. “Yeah man, I mean, look at this. Though here’s what I don’t get... They said they want to stop the ponies from spreading, yet we’re going to New York to stop a guy named Discord, who is the one behind all of this.”

He took a look at the car before looking to his van. “You know, I can help you with that.” He broke the lock on the trunk of the Prius. “Let’s put all of your stuff in my van.”

Serah, who had finally broke from her trance grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled, “Are you insane!? You trust some random biker...”

She was cut off by the biker, who was putting some bags in the van. “Just sayin’... My name’s George.”

Serah gave an annoyed grunt before continuing, “You trust George to help us out? Someone whom you met for a total of three minutes!?”

I shrugged her off as I said, “Don’t worry. I got a good feeling about him. I don’t think that he’ll hurt us at all. Besides, it’s a free ride. Better than being stuck paying an unknown amount of money for a trashed Prius and be stranded here in Alabama.”

She groaned in agreement as she picked up a couple of bags with her mouth and dropped it in the van. As we finished putting the bags in the van, a biker burst from the bar doors and ran to George.

“Dude, there are some horse freaks in there causing a riot!” He looked past George and saw us. “What are those things doing with you?”

George looked back to myself and Redheart, “These two? Don’t worry. They’re cool. Believe it or not, they actually used to ride with us.” I saw the look on his face, he was obviously lying, just to try and make sure that this second biker wouldn’t hurt us.

The second biker’s jaw dropped, obviously buying it. “So that’s what happened to—”

He was cut off as Zecora, Luis, and Merille burst through the doors. Zecora was being carried by Luis and Merille now sported feathery pegasus wings.

Zecora fidgeted around as she asked, “What happened to our friends? I thought they were on our back end.” She kept glancing back to the bar doors with a frightened look on her face.

The door burst open again, and Snips and Snail tumbled out end-over-end as Trixie galloped out behind them. As the bar door slammed shut, she immediately glared over at Merille. “What were you thinking!? You just plunked us right into the middle of a bar brawl!”

Before Merille could even have a chance to respond, the second biker banged a metal pipe against the van to get their attention. “I hope you know you’ve just been green-lighted. You know what that means?” He said in a menacing tone.

Before he could say another word, George punched that second biker dead on in the face. The guy was down in a single hit. George turned back to me and gave me a thumbs up. 

Zecora stared wide-eyed at me. “What in Equestria was that about?”

I hopped over the downed biker and looked up to George. “Thanks George. Now, how about helping us with getting out of here?”

The biker shook his head and reached into his pocket. “No, I gotta stay here and try to keep them from following right away.” He pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to me, which I caught with my magic.

I looked at Luis with a huge grin on my face and tossed the keys to him, “I’ll tell you all the story later, but for now, we need you to drive as fast as possible.”

Luis slid the door open, and we clambered inside, grateful for the extra room that it provided. As Luis turned the key in the ignition, bringing the engine to a roaring start, George yelled out. “Go, little ponies! This is no place for you.” We sped out of the driveway, several of us still panting from the excitement.

Not long after we were back on the road, we heard Luis say, “Hey guys, looks like we’re getting one more surprise today. Looks like we now finally know who the hell Merille became.”

We all looked over the seat and found what was once Merille, now fast-asleep in the passenger seat. His pants were now way too baggy for him, and his shoes now lay on the floor of the van. His skin was now covered with blue fur, and was now the size of the rest of us. Sure enough, sitting in the passenger seat was now a pegasus pony who looked very familiar.

“Uhhh...” Snails worked his jaw for a moment, no doubt contemplating the situation for all it was worth. “Soarin?”

> Rising Concerns
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 10: Rising Concerns
________________________________________________


        Holy-fucking-shit. The very person who I’ve known for years was now no longer the blonde jackass that I knew as my best friend. What now sat in the front seat of the van was the famed Wonderbolt, Soarin. His body splayed over the seat with his back hooves resting on the center console and his front hoofs dangling off the front seat. His head swayed with the movements of the car as he snored. A rivulet of spittle flowed down on a string of spit. His right wing was stretched up the backrest, with his left folded, the feathers rustling as the fan blew air on him.

        This was so strange, seeing this change occur basically right in front of my eyes. He was sleeping right there on the seat as if nothing happened at all. What I’m wondering is how the hell he didn’t feel the transformation from human to talking horse.

        “Trixie,” Zecora asked hesitantly. “From your words last night, you’ve seen this before, right?”

Trixie’s lips worked over her teeth for a moment before she gulped, as if she was trying to form a response. “Yes… Enrique changed into Snips while he was driving; we crashed into a swamp. But this… But that was like in an instant, he was out like a light, then the change came. It wasn’t over the course of a morning like this.” She leaned forward a little, looking to Luis. “He was right: Discord did it to mess with us.”

        Snips and Snails nodded, lips turned downward as they shuffled towards the back.

Both myself and Redheart leaned forward to take a look at Soarin—formerly Merille. Neither of us could form any words at what laid before us. However, as Redheart continued to look over him, she turned to Luis and asked, “Luis, could you pull over for a moment? I need to get a better look at this.”

What she just said was pure madness. There was no way she could have been serious, “You mean you want to pull over now? When there’s a group of murderous bikers chasing after us!?”

        Trixie jumped in between us and pointed up the road. “There’s a side road up there, go down it, should lead us to the main highway, we’ll travel faster once we’re on it, the bikers will keep following the road we’re on, and have less to worry about.”

        I crossed my hooves as I gave it some thought. We had to get away fast, but going to an out-of-the-way road would be smart, “Well… Alright then, but make it real quick!”

        Luis, who had nodded towards us, slowed down a bit as he turned into a side road. It was a bumpy road, as we felt the van bounce up multiple times. Snails, being so light, was actually bounced into the air as we kept going down the street.

        Wooden telephone poles guided wires down the left side of the road with aspens and poplar trees flanking us on the steep hill to our right. Luis pulled into an overgrown driveway leading to an empty lot, and put the van in park. “Okay,” he said, “let’s move Merille.”

        He got out of the van and opened the back for all of us. Trixie and Redheart hopped out of the back and walked to the front passenger seat where Soarin’ still slept. As the passenger door opened, Trixie asked, “Alright, what do you need me to do?”

        Redheart pointed at Soarin’ and said in a commanding tone, “Use your magic to lift Soarin from the passenger seat. Luis and I will then lay him down in the back.”

        “I ran myself into the ground hauling a colt around a parking lot, do you really think I’m going to be able to lift a star-athlete of the Wonderbolts through a van without bashing him into something?” Trixie deadpanned.

        Redheart facehoofed as she glared daggers at Trixie, “Fine then... Drape him over my back while I carry him to the back of the van. Just make sure he doesn’t fall off.”

        “That I should be able to do,” Trixie answered, horn glowing as light enveloped Soarin’. He floated out of the seat, his body had not shifted position at all until he was lowered onto Redheart’s back while a glow of magic kept his head cradled as Redheart made her way to the back of the van. They deposited Soarin’ next to Zecora, and clambered in themselves. As soon as Soarin was put in the back of the van, a glow of magic shut the van doors behind him.
        
        Trixie tapped Luis on the shoulder and gave a smirk. “We’re good; let’s go.”

        As Soarin’ now lay in the back, Redheart made a quick examination of him. She lifted his head up and turned his head to the side, lifted his eyelid and took a look at his eyes, and even examined his wings on his back.

        “I don’t know what to say about this. He’s completely changed. No sign of his human part remains… Well physically at least. We just have to wait until he wakes up and hopefully not startle him.”

        Snails approached Soarin’ and prodded him with a hoof, jabbing just underneath his wing. Trixie batted the colt’s hoof as he prepared to test Soarin’s wing.

“No poking.”

Tired of listening to just the sounds of the road bumps that the van travels over occasionally and Merille’s snoring, I began to search through the CD cases that were strewn about the back. Although George’s van had many mix CD’s, they were all of a similar genre, which was country.

Hearing the snoring get slightly louder, I turned to everyone and asked, “So, how much longer do you think it’ll be until he wakes up?”

        Snips sat by Merille’s head. “Eh, I think I’ve got an idea of how to wake him up.” Snips, took a deep breath, and then shouted in the van, “Come and get your freshly-baked apple pie!”

        I don’t think Zecora could have rolled her eyes any harder. She looked towards the chubby pony and said, “Snips,To trick Merille with desert, won't make him awake and alert.”

        “Mmmmm… Pie…” Soarin mumbled in his sleep while mimicking a chewing motion.

        Zecora let out a sigh and mumbled, “Though I’ve been wrong before…”

        An evil thought passed through my head as I grinned grinned, “Well, it seemed to work a bit.” I lowered my head to Soarin’s ear and said, “There’s a sale on pies at the local bakery.”

        Soarin continued to mumble more about pie as he shifted even more in his sleep. Seeing that, I laughed a bit harder.

Trixie stepped beside Snips and lowered her muzzle in front of Soarin’s. “Delicious… piieee!” she proclaimed before lifting her head up and giggling. Soarin’s wing fluttered briefly as he tossed his head about. Bringing a hoof to her mouth, Trixie whispered to Zecora, “Go on, do it, Zecora, it’s funny!”

“I, well...” She looked back and forth between us and shifted a bit. She seemed to be a bit unsure about it until she finally caved in, “Oh alright.”

         Zecora scooted forward towards the sleeping Pegasus and whispered into his ear, “A delicious dutch pie, with glorious apple filling, and cinnamon.” The words seemed to make the stallion begin to drool. “Wouldn't it sound lovely to eat?” She said with a bit of a giggle.

Suddenly, as if to answer her question, Soarin leaned his head forward towards Zecora. Getting up so quickly didn’t give Zecora any time to reach as his muzzle slammed right to hers. It looked as if they were kissing each other.

To say I laughed would be the understatement of the century.

Soarin’s slowly opened his eyes and as soon as he saw what happened, his pupils immediately turned to pinpricks. Startled, he jumped back as his wings fluttered in response which caused him to hit his head on the roof of the van. He fell back down rubbing his head and turning away in embarrassment.

Zecora immediately fell over backwards as she wasn't sure what just had happened. All she could do was stutter out, “I… They… It... Them!”

I was bowling over in laughter as tears began to form, “If I had a camera, that would’ve SO been posted to Facebook!” Zecora glared daggers at me for that, but it couldn’t calm me down.

Trixie sat there, smirking as she looked between the stuttering Zebra and the freshly-awakened pegasus. “Come on, it’s not everyday you get to wake up with a kiss!”

Soarin’, who was trying not to make eye-contact with Zecora, muttered, “Just… What exactly happened?”

“They asked me to do it!” She blurted as she looked back to the confused stallion before looking back down again in embarrassment. The way she looked, it was as if she never kissed someone before. 

“What are you going on about?” Trixie elbowed Snails. “I distinctly recall Zecora wanting him to wake up to a mare with her own racing stripes! Isn’t that right Snails?”

The colt nodded mutely before adding, “Uh huh!”

She huffed as her face reddened, “It was merely a mistake! A silly little prank!”

Suddenly, Redheart approached Zecora and laid a hoof on her shoulder, “Don’t worry. It’s alright we all know that it was unintentional,” She said as she glared daggers at all of us and said with venom in her voice, “RIGHT?”

Snails cowed under Redheart’s eyes, but Trixie kept her wan smile on her face.

I quickly looked away from Redheart and scratched the back of my head before giving a motion like a thumb up, giving my best Larry Butz impersonation, “Yeah! Just an accident!”

Soarin, who was now looking over his new form, turned to us with wonder on his face, “So, who exactly am I now?”

“You are the flying ace, and pie-loving Wonderbolt, Soarin’,” Trixie stated. “So all in all, you shouldn’t be feeling too blue about who you became.”

“Soooo…” Merille asked, “That’s a guy character right?”

Deciding to save my friend the horror of the gender check, I said, “Yes Merille. Soarin’s a guy. There, I saved you from the gender check.” Afterwards, I resumed searching through the countless amounts of CDs.

Merille took another once-over of himself and said enthusiastically, “Well, at least I didn’t go through the unexpected gender swap. So I dodged that bullet and… Wait,” Soarin quickly stared at his wings with amazement, “I can fly!”

He flapped his wings in excitement as he jumped up and, once again, hit his head on the roof of the van. “Ow!”

Luis, who was eyeing the road quickly turned his head around and scolded Soarin, “Hey! You might want to quit hitting the top before you break through the van or give yourself a minor case of serious brain damage.”

Trixie turned around and poked her head into the front compartment. “How’re we doing for time?” she asked.

Luis, who finally turned on the main highway, took a quick look at the road signs and said, “We’re actually getting close to Chattanooga, Tennessee. So, we’re making good time.”

“We should be able to make Knoxville before too long. Keep it up, you’re the only one whose face matches their license now.” Trixie turned back to us and sighed. “Well, that was hectic. Anybody else feel like leading us into a biker bar? Maybe we can go roast marshmallows at a Klan meeting? Pilfer some donuts from Westboro?” As she spoke, her look slowly centered on Soarin’.

Soarin’ noticed Trixie’s angry glare and shuffled around a bit, “I honestly don’t know what came over me. Before then I never even cared that much for a pie.”

Trixie closed her eyes, sagged down, then dragged herself past us towards the back. “I-I’m beat… If something important comes up…” She hit the carpeted floor with a thump. “You know where I am.” 

After a few minutes of looking, I found a few good discs, so I pulled out a few and said, “Hey, how about we listen to some music while we ride? Who here’s a fan of Johnny Cash? All I found was country stuff. It’s a mix CD of a bunch of his and other artists’ stuff.”

Trixie’s tail thumped against the carpet, accompanied by a muffled “Me.”

I reached over and levitated the CD into the CD player and hit play. A solo guitar began to play from the van’s speakers, soon followed by a Johnny Cash’s voice. Zecora's ears perked up as she listened to the song, apparently being unfamiliar to her. It didn’t sound too bad actually, dated, but it was easy on the ears.

“Western Vinyl?” Zecora asked as she looked toward me. “I didn't think you the type.”

I rolled my eyes a bit, “I’m not. But listening to something is better than listening to nothing. Besides, I recognize this song. It’s a cover of Soundgarden’s ‘Rusty Cage.’” An thought came to me and I said, “You know, this song is like the theme for our van here. The title fits so well!”

Zecora took a glance around the van and noticed the interior walls had tons of rust around the doors and edges. “Is it because it is old, and covered with rust and mold?”

I yawned a bit and said, “Exactly. You know...Trixie has the right idea. I’m going to catch some Z’s. Wake me up when we get to a pit stop.”

I took a quick once around and saw a backpack filled with clothing. It looked soft enough, so I grabbed it and placed it under my head as I slowly began to feel the hold of sleep get the better of me.
_______________________________________________________

        I saw myself in an unfamiliar place once more. I began to wonder to myself if every time I sleep will be like this. All of these weird lucid dreams were getting tiring. I just wished I would have a normal dream… Like fighting zombies… Or being in Minecraft. I took a look at myself and gave a dejected sigh. Now even in my dreams I was now ponified. I took my shades off of me and took a look at my face through the reflection. I looked exactly like Vinyl now, save for a few details which made me look slightly more masculine. Everywhere around me was foggy until I began to walk forward. With each step I took, the fog began to clear and soon enough, I found myself inside of a nightclub.

        The entire place was lit up and colorful lasers were flashing about. Speakers were set up on a stage where an empty DJ booth sat. In front of it was a dance floor which was lit up with many colors and effects. As I continued to walk forward onto the dance floor, a heard a fog machine go off and a silhouette form behind the DJ booth. The shape was of the figure was Vinyl, no doubt about it. She lit up her horn and placed the needle on the vinyl disc and soon enough, I started to hear techno music.

        The fog around the stage soon cleared up and Vinyl was now clearly visible on stage. She let the DJ booth continue to play as she approached me. She slowly stepped off the stage and stepped closer to me. Soon, she stood less than a foot from me. 

She leaned her head close and just when her face was just inches from mine, the music suddenly stopped and yelled in my face, “Just what the hell was that back at the diner!?”

        I flinched at the tone and volume of her voice. I tried to regain my composure to say something, but it was all for naught as no words left my mouth. I was suddenly struck with Silent Protagonist Syndrome.

        She lifted her shades over her eyes and I was now able to see the anger in her. “That was the stupidest thing you could have ever done! I mean, I can be reckless at times, but never something as stupid as that!”

        All I could do was hold my head in shame. I fucked up badly back at the Waffle House. I had let my emotions get the better of me. I recklessly charged at a group of armed thugs and almost gotten myself seriously injured.There really was no excuse for my stupid behavior.

        I held my head down and finally said, “Yeah, I know... I screwed up badly. But I learned my lesson.”

        I looked at her in the eyes while lifting my head slightly, “I know now to not be a hero like in any of the Elder Scrolls or Kingdom Hearts games I’ve played. Teamwork is important… And necessary for survival.”

        She gave me a confused look, “Like in what now? Kingdom… Scrolls and Elder… Wha?” She asked aloud, wondering what Kingdom Hearts and Elder Scrolls were.

        I lifted my head a bit, “They’re video games… But the lesson I learned though is still true!”

        She gave me the stink eye for at least five seconds before giving a smirk and lightly bonking me on the head, “Alright, I believe ya, knucklehead!”

        After that little bonk, I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. She really knew how to lighten up a mood. However, when the laughter finally died down, I had realized something. This dream is different from the others I’ve had. Before, my dreams were of something I was familiar with. Mainly the Stations of Awakening from the Kingdom Hearts series. Now, it’s a nightclub that was obviously made with ponies in mind. It was a place I had absolutely no familiarity with.

        I assumed Vinyl must have noticed me taking a look all over the place, as she said, “This place was the start of my career… The place where I had my very first gig.”

        She had mumbled something else to herself, but I couldn’t hear it clear enough to understand. We both began to head to the backstage area and approached a door with a sign that said “Vinyl Arpeggio Scratch A.K.A. DJ Pon-3.” When we walked into Vinyl’s room, the place was a mess. There were papers and trash strewn about, and speaker cases being used as makeshift tables. On one table-case was a pizza box with the brand name “Little Celestia’s.” Vinyl had taken a seat on the worn couch and grabbed a slice. 

         She levitated a slice towards me and said in a teasing tone, “You know you want one.” She then waved it around and said in a sing-song voice, “It’s supreeeeme!”

        After sitting on the opposite end of the couch, I took the slice she levitated at me. Though when I looked down at the slice, I noticed something that I thought, at the time, shouldn’t have been there.

        “There’s meat on this slice.”

        Vinyl looked at me and said in the most sarcastic tone ever, “You don’t say?”

        That was probably the funniest thing I’ve seen since, well ten minutes ago, but still... I had completely lost it. I laughed so hard I actually fell off the chair. When I hit the floor, I had hurt my head a bit, but I soon regained my composure.

        After dusting myself off, I sat back down on the couch and said, “But I thought equines couldn’t eat meat. I had gotten sick after that sandwich, which was loaded with meat products.”

        She shook her head, “Well, there’s your problem. It was overloaded with stuff like beef, pork, and things. Ponies can indeed eat meat, but not in abundance like you humans. You’d have no problem eating a chicken salad, as long as there’s not too much chicken. Just don’t try eating a steak covered in gravy.”

        I facehoofed. That was why I felt so nauseated after that sandwich. After wolfing down the slice, I remembered why we came in here in the first place, “So… You said this was your first gig?”

        She nodded and pointed to a calendar on the wall, “Yeah. It was eight years ago today, if this calendar in the room is correct.”

        I lifted another slice of pizza in the air, “Happy eighth then.”

        She giggled a bit and lifted her second slice in the air, mimicking what fancy people would do when they give a toast, “Happy eighth.”

        As I began to munch on that slice, I realized that if one were not to count fanon, I knew nothing about Vinyl. In the show, she only had a few one-second appearances. I decided to use this opportunity to get to know just who’s mind I’m sharing.

        “Hey Vinyl, I was wondering… Mind telling me more about yourself? I mean, we’re sharing a body and yet, I still know very little about you. Like, your parents and stuff.”

“Well shit. You’re actually right. I guess we never really had the chance to chat, you know… With all of that stuff happening… And then me teaching you basic magic things. I guess now’s a better time than ever!” she said excitedly.

My voice went to inhuman high pitches, “Really!?” Out of all of the people in the world, I got to be the one to learn about Vinyl’s actual backstory! To say I was excited would be the understatement of the century.

She saw my silly reaction and said with a smile, “Yeah, really.”

I soon calmed down on the outside, but I was fanboying like crazy internally.

She relaxed on the couch and began to tell her tale, “Well, as you saw on the sign, my full name is ‘Vinyl Arpeggio Scratch.’ My father was a local radio DJ while my mother was a pianist for the Canterlot Orchestra. Yeah. They were total opposites, yet at the same time, they were head-over-hooves in love with each other. Her yin to his yang, ya’ know? Well anyway, my mother wanted me to try out for piano classes. Well, I’m pretty sure you know how that turned out.”

I leaned back on the arm of the couch, “You couldn’t stay still for long enough and were bored way too easily?”

She flicked her hoof mid-air, “Bingo. I just found piano to be way too boring! I guess it didn’t help that most of those students were stuck-up pricks. I dropped the classes altogether a few weeks later. After that, I really had no direction. I mean, I already had my cutie mark for making music, but I still had no idea what instrument I would play.”

When she said that, I was confused, “Then how’d you get your mark then?”

She waved her hoof dismissively, “School play. Wrote the songs for it. Anyway, after I dropped the piano classes, my dad offered me the chance to help him out at the radio station. When I began working the turntables for the first time, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. So, after working there for a while, I bought my own set and the rest is history… And if it weren’t for my friend Neon Lights giving me the chance and gave me my first gig here, then I don’t think I would’ve gotten as famous as I did… Though I think he’s a bit jealous of me since I was considered by magazines somewhat of a prodigy.”

Hearing Vinyl’s history was awesome. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me. Besides, I wasn’t asking for an autobiography. We continued to make small talk until Vinyl asked about me, “Well, you know about me, but I don’t know much about you.”

        I sat up on the couch and began to explain a bit about my life, “Well, my life is pretty uneventful. My mother’s an assistant director of a daycare. I’m a high school graduate, having graduated just a few months ago. I’ve worked at the local supermarket as a cashier. Though I’ve had a few experiences there. In fact, it was working there in where I encountered ponykind for the first time.”

        Vinyl raised an eyebrow, “Oh? Mind telling me?”

        I shrugged and said, “Alright then. Well, it was a few days before I transformed into you. It was during my shift when I met a mother whose son had turned into a griffon. It was a pretty short time period, all I did was ask a few generic questions and took a picture.”

        “Sounds like it was a pretty cool thing to see.” Vinyl said while smirking, “But I’m curious, what do you plan to do after all of this is over?”

I shrugged once more and told her, “I always wanted to go to college to become a game designer. But, as you can see, I don’t think I can attend any college while looking… Y’know, like this. Honestly, I’m surprised that I didn’t just hide until this blew over. And here’s the thing… I don’t regret leaving home. Usually, I’d turn tail and head back.”

        Vinyl gave me an approving look, “Good for you. Just keep in mind that in this little trip, you’re not alone. Just keep your head up, and keep looking toward the future.”

        I flashed a smile her way as I felt my vision blurring, “I think I’m gonna wake up soon. It was nice to just sit and chat, y’know?”

        The last thing I remember doing before finally blacking out was giving her a single hoof bump.
        
_______________________________________________________

I felt myself being woken by the bumps in the road. In my half-asleep state, I heard a muffled voice. 

“We need more gas if we want to make it to New York. Might as well wake everyone up to see if they want anything to snack on.”

As I began to wake up more, I heard Trixie’s voice.

 “Mmm, a meal does sound wonderful right now.”

Now finally awake, I rolled onto my stomach, stood up, and stretch, “Mmm, where’d we stop at?”

Zecora looked out the window once more as the van came to a slow stop underneath a large roof, beside two large pumps. “It appears to be a gas station by my guess, but it will give us a chance to leave this small recess.” 

I looked at the sign and immediately recognized it. It was one of the best convenience stores ever! I didn’t even wait. I used my magic to quickly open the back doors and hop out into the fresh daylight.

I quickly turned to my now-ponified friend, “Hey Merille, it’s a RaceTrac! Remember the last time we were at one? Those cups of ice cream were delicious!”

Soarin’ laughed a bit as he said, “Well, I told you that they had some good ice cream.”

“Ice cream, nachos, cheese puffs, soda; I’m just about willing to eat anything so long as it doesn’t dirty my appearance!” Trixie declared, walking with Zecora and poking her head out the door. While Zecora joined Merille and I, Trixie withdrew her head and went to her own bag, pulling out her laptop. “Luis, go get us food while I see what the situation is abroad. There are people outside, and I will not go before my audience with a rumbling belly.”

Redheart, who had been talking with Luis through the door, finally hopped out of the van, “So... Trixie, Snips, Snails… Want anything in particular while we’re inside?”

Looking up from the laptop, Trixie nodded. “A large slushie for each of us, a large bottle of water, and cheese puffs.” She turned to Snips. “Root-beer flavor?” Snips nodded, and Trixie turned to Snails, who was already nodding himself. “All root-beer flavor, please.”

Zecora nodded and made a mental note of it, “Alright, I’ll keep it all in mind, just tell us what you happen to find.” 

I turned to Luis who beckoned for us to follow him. We made our way to the front doors and upon entering the convenience store, saw an astonishingly clean interior. The brown false-stone linoleum stretched past several shelves filled with junk foods to the coffee and baked-goods bars at the back. Along the right side of the store were the frozen yogurt and slushie dispensers. At the back left were two cash registers, working through a small line of people.

Before walking off on my own, I turned to the others and said, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be making the ultimate ice-cream sundae.”

        I walked over to the frozen yogurt dispensers and grabbed the large cup. The place had multiple flavors ranging from vanilla to chocolate to mango to pineapple and everything in between. The moment I went to put my cup on the mango flavor dispenser I heard a fangirl squeal.

        “OH! MY! GOD! It’s DJ PON-3!”

        I barely had time to register where the voice came from before I got surprise-hugged, “Wait, what?”

        Suddenly, I felt myself squeezed between a torso and two arms. I almost couldn’t breathe as she squeezed the life out of me, “Ugh! Can’t… breathe…”

        “Oh! Sorry!” she said as she released me from her vice grip. “It’s just that… Well… You’re Vinyl herself! The best electronica artist ever!”

        I laughed a bit and said, “Well, thanks. Though, just don’t crush me to death like you did just now.”

        I took a look around, and it seemed that the girl’s squeal garnered some attention. Soon, others were looking in my direction. Some looked at me with indifference while some looked at me with pure glee on their faces. Soon I saw the flash of a camera and quickly turned to the source. It was from some guy’s camera phone from across the bar that had all of the ice cream toppings. Not long after that flash went off, more people started taking out their phones and snapping pictures.

        Before anymore pictures can be snapped, I signaled for them to stop, “Look, if you want pictures, then just one at a time, and let me actually be ready for the pic, okay?”

        The fans complied and began to ask to pose with them in pictures with them. I must have been really in the moment, as when I turned around, I saw two things. The first thing was that one of the fans had made my frozen yogurt for me and had put everything on it; just how I liked it. The second thing was that Zecora was now standing in front of the bathroom door with a very confused look on her face.

Deciding that it would be nice to give everyone an extra picture I called over to her, “Hey Zecora! Come over here and take a picture or two with me!”

“I… a-alright.” she stuttered a bit, but agreed to it.

She was really taking her time getting to the group, so I walked over and pushed her forward, “Come on, it’s just a few pictures.”

Zecora mumbled something, but I didn’t hear her as I draped my foreleg over her, “Smile!”.

Zecora flinched slightly, but still had a grin on her face, “Has this happened everywhere you’ve gone?” she asked me as the crowd started to disperse. “You seem rather content about it.”

I gave her a playful noogie and said, “Actually, no. This is the first time that’s happened since my little change. But it feels just like the times when I was at anime conventions, and people stopped me for pictures of my cosplay.”

“Cos...play conventions?” she repeated back. Soon, all of the crowd was now gone and we headed our way back to Luis. She gave me a confused look and said, “Sometimes you say the strangest things.”

We soon made our way back to Luis, who had a bunch of snacks for the road. He looked over to Zecora and said, “Anything you want to get before we head out?”

“If there are any zeb-” She stopped herself mid sentence, “Umm, I think I’ll be fine, perhaps just a drink for the road?”

She tried to make sure no one heard her begin to say “zebra cakes,” but I heard it. Remembering the little picture I saw on Facebook yesterday, I said from behind her, “Hey! How’s about some zebra cakes for Zecora?” The look she gave me was priceless. It was hard for me not to laugh, “I saw that picture on Facebook by the way.”

I tossed Zecora a box and heard her say followed by a weak chuckle, “Oh, right. How could I forget those.”

__________________________________________________________________

Shortly Luis and the rest of us made our way hastily out of the convenience store and back towards the van, juggling a few bags of road snacks between us. 

For the most part it fell to the only two that either still had hands or capable of magic to carry the drinks, but the rest weren’t completely useless.Redheart and Zecora each carried a bag in their mouths, much to the amusement of the store clerk and a few other customers.

Trixie quickly put down her laptop to help the moment we began piling the supplies into the van. 

After that, Luis drove us out of Tennessee and down single lane road. Just past a bridge, we pulled out to a rest area, a simple gravel lot with a building for washrooms. A short path off to led to the shore of the river, burbling over the smooth stones. After everything that has happened these past two days, it was nice to finally have a short reprieve away from it all.

“Well, this is as good a place as any on the road, I suppose,” said Trixie.

Zecora nodded in agreement as she took a look around the area, “That, I do agree, it is quite homely.” 

While munching on my frozen yogurt, I raised an eyebrow in Trixie’s direction, “Something on your mind?”

She nodded. “Indeed, the brothers and I were looking on the web while at the gas station, trying to find out if anything new has occurred, what people’s opinions are…”

Redheart also eyed Trixie curiously, “What people’s opinions are?”

“Well, there are still a lot of people asking that we wear clothes, and somebody has been photoshopping pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin fist-fighting Princess Celestia… That’s about it besides the lurid comments and insults.” Trixie removed her hat and cleared her throat. “But that’s all less significant. I went on Facebook as well, and some stranger commented on the group picture of us in the motel, saying, ‘Take care of my son.’” Reaching to her neck, Trixie rubbed it as she looked between Snips and Snails. “Now these two tell me it wasn’t their mother, the username didn’t match up, and I know it isn’t mine. So I’m wondering, which of you has a mother named Karen Banner?”

        Although I was laughing internally about the mental image of Vladimir Putin and Celestia, the more important issue was who this mysterious woman was, “Nah. It couldn’t be mine. I could bring up my Facebook to prove it.”

        Redheart, who grabbed a tube of Pringles out from a bag, turned to Trixie and said, “It said, ‘Take care of my son.’ I believe that should be enough to clear me. Besides, I’m twenty-five. The last thing my mother thinks about is my well-being.”

        Snips recoiled slightly. “What kind of mother doesn’t care about their child?”

        Redheart waved a hoof in response, “Mine, for starters. But that’s beside the point. Anyway, could it be the Wonderbolt’s mother? Or the only bipedal person among us?”

        “Luis and Merille weren’t in the picture, so it’s doubtful it was one of theirs,” said Trixie Vinyl, care to confirm?”

        I took another spoonful of ice cream and said, “Definitely not Merille or Luis’ mother. For one, Merille’s mother is named Kim. And another thing is that Luis here was born in Mexico, so I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t find anyone really named ‘Karen’ down there.”
        Trixie’s horn glowed with a click-clacking of her laptop, along with a few tones from her phone. She turned each one over and showed the contact information labeled ‘mom’ and a picture of one on the computer, a portly mid-western woman. “My mother, Brigette Krimm. So it isn’t mine either.”

        Turning to the two colt brothers, Trixie asked, “I’m guessing it isn’t the case for you either?”

Both colts shook their head. “Our mother is Clarisa,” said Snips.

Trixie floated over her laptop, along with a pen. “Mind finding a picture of her or something else to go on? Just to be certain?”

Taking the pen in his mouth, Snips said, “Alright, would you like a birth certificate, passport, and social security number as well?” He then started typing into the computer with the pen, grumbling all the while.

        I quickly grabbed my laptop from its case, and began typing in the password to unlock it. As soon as it did, I opened up my Facebook profile and picked out a photo, turning it around to show the others. It was a picture of a short, thin woman with black hair.

        I pointed my hoof to the screen and said, “Well. Here’s a picture of my mother, Leanna Richman.”

Snails leaned forward to look at my laptop as Snips showed their own picture of a woman of slight build, but dark complexion.

        “W-wow! Nice picture!” exclaimed Snails. The collective thud of Trixie and Snips’ smacking their hooves to their faces let me know what disappointment sounded like in stereo.

        Shutting down her laptop’s browser as she floated it to Soarin’, Trixie said, “Here, mind showing us so we can be sure?” She looked over to Redheart. “You too?”

        I floated my laptop over to Redheart for her to use. She had grabbed a pen from her bag and opened up Twitter. Looking through old tweets, she found the photo she was looking for. It was a picture of two people, the one on the left being a young redhead woman and the other being an older brunette with brown hair.

        She turned the laptop to show everyone, “That’s me on the left, and my mother, Rose Valentine, on the right.”

There was a momentary silence after Snails had given a cat call whistle at the name ‘Rose Valentine’.

Now this time, it was me who smacked my hoof to my face, as I gave a groan, “You might not want to do that again.”

        Merille, who was having some difficulty typing, eventually found the picture he was looking for, a picture of a southern portly woman with blonde hair, “Alright! Found it! Here’s a pic of my mom, Kim Robichaux.”

        “Well…” Trixie floated her laptop from Soarin’ and towards Zecora. “That just leaves you, Zecora.”

        Trixie turned around to look at the zebra before putting her laptop to the side. Unfortunately, Zecora seemed to have completely zoned out the rest of the world, “Zecora? Hello? … ZECORA!” yelled Trixie, waving a hoof in front of her face. “We’re waiting for an answer, you, Karen Banner, connection?”

“Huh?”Zecora was quickly brought back to reality as she scrambled a bit, accidentally knocking over her drink. “What a waste of a fine treat… I’m sorry, could you please repeat?”

Trixie, obviously frustrated now looked at her dead-center in the eyes, “Zecora, I just asked the group if any of them knew a Karen Banner, and if they were her son. Vinyl said no, Redheart said no, even Soarin’ said no, and he wasn’t even in the picture. That just leaves you. Is your mom Karen Banner? The others had pictures and phone contacts showing who their mothers were.”

Zecora shook her head quickly, “I, well, of course not.” She was obviously trying to avoid the question, and she was doing a horrible job of it. 

She was looking between all of us, her head constantly switching back and forth. She took a deep breath and tried to come up with an excuse.

“Well, before any questions have begun, they told you to take care of their son.” she said as calmly as she could, “As you can see, that can’t be me.”

“Both Vinyl and myself switched genders when we transformed, and there are stories all over the place of that happening to others,” Trixie retorted.

Shaking her head as she got up, she began to speak up once again in her defense, “I, never have transformed, this has always been my norm.”

There was a quick moment of shock amongst everyone. Everything suddenly went quiet after her declaration. Things were so silent, you could hear a pin drop or, in our case, my spoon falling from my mouth and into the cup of ice cream. This was a huge revelation, and I don’t think the severity of the situation never really sunk in until that point.

“Well… shit,” said Trixie.

“Well, at least now we know who’s mother it is that commented on the picture,” I said in the most somber tone I’ve ever spoken in.

“Woah woah woah, uno momento,” said Snails, holding his hooves outwards. “That’s not right, you don’t remember being human? Nothing? Nada? Las luces están encendidas pero no hay nadie en casa?” Snails clutched his head, bending it at a sharp angle, Zecora’s statement obviously scaring him to his wit’s end. “What if I forget being human? Days at the beach, grandma’s stories... Todas las chicas hermosas que quería besar!”

I seriously felt bad for the kid. He was only in middle school after all. Honestly, I was able to relate to him. It scared me too.

I was about to get up to comfort him, but Redheart beat me to the punch, going over and giving him a big hug “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to you!”

Snails’ forelegs wrapped around Redheart’s neck, taking in a shuddering breath. “Ah, la chica hermosa.”

Zecora arched her eyebrow at Snail’s panicking, as if she said nothing out of the ordinary, “I, don't understand, I’m still me. Why is it such a big deal?”

“How do you know that if you don’t even remember what you were like before? Or without anyone who knew what you were like before?” asked Trixie. “Aren’t you even able to pluck through your brain to figure out what’s old and what’s new?”

“Yeah! You’re forgetting who you even are!” I shouted in a panicky tone. “This just provides more reason for us to get to New York ASAP!”

“Yes! We should go to New York now, come on!” Snails walked over to the front, poking his head beside Luis. “Let’s go!”

Luis yawned a bit and said, “Yeah, I know, but I’ve been at the wheel all day. We need to make a pit stop somewhere.”

Snails sagged a bit and turned as I opened the van door. Luis, Redheart, Merille, and the two young ones followed me out, leaving Zecora alone.

        We headed towards the small building that wasn’t too far from the van. Nearby was a small park bench which I had sat down on.

Looking towards the others, I asked, “So, do you think the same could happen to us? You know, forgetting our human selves completely?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t noticed any signs. I mean, I’m not getting dreams or flashbacks or particularly vivid thoughts,” said Snips. “Don’t think mi hermano here has either. Just an old waifu crush on Trixie, but that was even before all of this.”

Snails nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh!”

Redheart shrugged and said, “I’m not too sure either. I mean, I have been getting some vivid thoughts, but it doesn’t seem like anything bad is going to happen to me.”

When I leaned back on the park bench, a thought came to my head, “Hey, what are we going to do if Luis transforms along the way? Like, what if he’s driving and BAM! He becomes a pony.”

“Hope a rubber duck materializes when we crash?” offered Snails.

“It was a Gummy Bear, brother.” Snips glanced at the orange colt and shook his head.

“Oh, right.”

Soarin had a look of confusion on his face, “A Gummy Bear?”

“Yep! And then Discord came and started taunting Trixie and the rest of us, then she had to use her magic to get us out of the swamp.” Snails nodded, his mane flailing wildly with the motions of his head. His eyes were shut tight the entire time. It was probably for the best, as it spared in the confused looks from everyone but his brother.

I stared blankly as he explained the Gummy Bear thing, “Well then, that was… Interesting, but the point still stands. What if Luis becomes a pony before we reach New York? Last I checked, ponies can’t look over the steering wheel while pressing a hoof down on the gas pedal.”

Luis shrugged and said, “Well, if that were to happen, we’d probably walk a bit, then call for a cab or a bus. There, problem solved, since money isn’t really an issue now.”

        I heard a couple of giggles from Luis’ blunt answer. Even though it was very simple, it was a solid enough plan for it to be a backup. Though, when New York was mentioned, I remembered the friend I made back in Mississippi. I remembered getting him as a friend on Skype, and then add to the fact that he lived in New York, we would have an advantage over most people headed to the Big Apple. We could be better prepared over others.

        After telling the others that I’d be right back, I headed for the van to grab my laptop. When I opened the van door, I noticed both Zecora and Trixie were absent. Figuring that they would be fine, I opened up my case and immediately signed in to Skype. A couple of seconds passed as I found my friend’s Skype name. Hooking up my mouse, I used my magic to move it to the “Call” selection.

        I heard the monotone beeps as the call tried to connect, and it wasn’t long before I heard a voice on the other end, “Hey Vinyl!”

        I sighed in relief, being thankful that the internet was surprisingly good here, “Hey Tom. How’s it going?”

        I heard a small groan before he said, “Not too good actually. Well, where I’m at is fine, but closer towards the city is pretty bad.”

        Wondering just how bad it could be, I asked, “How bad is it? I mean, it can’t be too bad.”

        “I really hope you didn’t just jinx the situation,” he said in a worried tone.

        I arched an eyebrow at the screen, “How could I jinx it?”

        “Remember your tropes. What you had just said is a classic example of Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” After that, he quickly went back on topic, “Anyway, things in New York City have gotten pretty bad. Protests have been on the rise, lately. It’s almost always between the supporters of ponies versus the anti-ponies. If you were to hear their arguments, it’s pretty cringeworthy on both sides.”

        I began to think a bit, wondering what would be the best course of action when we actually get there, “So, I guess when we get there, we’re going to have to stick to the back roads and alleys.”

        Tom seemed to have agreed with me to an extent, “Yeah, but New York is pretty much a time bomb waiting to go off now. Oh, and before you head in the city, my parents agreed to let your group use our place as a bit of a safe house.”

        I pumped a hoof in the air to cheer a bit, “Thanks, man. Now, we’ll have at least some form of shelter over there. Anyway, I have to go now. Talk to ya later.”

        I ended the call right after and closed my laptop. Putting it back in the case, I left it in the van as I hopped back out, closing the doors behind me. I quickly returned to my friends back at the rest stop.

        “Hey, I just news on how the situation is over in New York City!” I exclaimed in an excited tone.

        “Really?” Snips inquired. “How is it? Are they plastering pictures of Barack Obama fighting Luna all over Times Square?”

        “As funny as that would be,” I said, “It turns out that there’s massive protesting all over the city, almost all of it being Pro-Ponies versus those Anti-Ponies. From what I heard, both sides are acting pretty stupid.”

        Redheart, who was visibly bothered by the level of tension in the city, asked, “By the sound of that, it seems like things are just deteriorating.”

        I shrugged and said, “Yeah, it’s pretty much a time bomb just waiting to explode.”

        Luis put his hand to his chin and began to wonder aloud, “So driving on the main roads in New York City would pretty much mean suicide if things get bad enough.”

        Merille, who stole my spot on the bench, said, “So we’re probably going to have to keep to the back roads, right?”

        I let my eyes wander from here and there, “Pretty much. Oh, and my friend said that we can use his place to prepare should we need it.”

        After I said that, I heard the sound of hooves walking across the gravel. I quickly turned and saw the signature blue unicorn approaching us, “Oh. Hey Trixie. Where were you?”

        The mare finished walking towards me. She lifted up her chin as her haunches hit the ground. Her eyes passed over the rest of us, her brow arched. Then she sagged. “I was talking to Zecora, and I need to explain some things about her… and me.”