The (mis)Adventures Begin

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MLP:FIM is the intellectual property of Hasbro and the Hub; I lay no claims to it, any related characters, or related places and locales. I also lay no claims to the fanfictions referenced here, which will be properly cited at all times.

Prelude

A giggle, ringing through the darkness sounds horribly familiar, but twisted, the mad chuckle of a true sadist. Peering through the swirling mists of my sleeping conscious, I try to see who’s there, while half-formed nonsense tumbles past me: dancing robotic bears, a flying monkey, a city made of donuts. I see a flash of white, a black and white shock of hair pulled quickly out of sight while a voice shouted in alarm and shock, and I hear that chortle of unholy amusement again, and then-“Wake up!”

Chapter 1

The sunlight stabbed into my eyes in an extremely unwelcome way. I groaned, trying to roll over or pull the sheets up to escape from the light a little longer. It’s the weekend, I shouldn’t have to put up with this. That was when I realized that there was no blanket and I was not in my bed. Or in my room. As my eyes shot open, I quickly realized I wasn’t even in my house.

I blinked, looking around to try to figure out where I was. No immediate answers came to mind. Damn. At least I was dressed, which raised the questions of 1) How did I get here, 2) Why didn’t I remember it, and 3) Where was here? Might as well be methodical about this, I decided. I’m underage, so I probably didn’t get drunk, therefore this probably isn’t the tail end of some crazy party or Hangover craziness. This is further supported by the fact that I clearly remember getting into my bed last night after finishing some homework, surfing the web a little, and then just heading upstairs to my room, ready to really sleep for the first time that week. Scratching my head confusedly, I conclude that that’s all I know as far as the first two questions are concerned, and as to the third, I seem to be in some sort of meadow. There are trees all around, there are only a handful of clouds in the sky, and the sun is shining down in all its sadistic, overly energetic glory.

There’s a strange look to everything, though. Colours seem more solid and defined, without the natural shading you would expect to see. The texture on things isn’t clear unless you look right at them, and while looking closely, I can see that everything, myself included, has a sort of faint outline, made of a band of color either darker or lighter then whatever it’s outlining. The overall effect is of a bright, crisp world with little shading or texture. It’s weird, like either the universe’s graphics card has expired, or I’m somehow in a cartoon.

Yeah, right. It’s just leftover head trauma, more likely. I pinched myself, and decided that I probably wasn’t dreaming. Seeing as how I don’t have any tops or chess pieces to check that, I’m going to assume for now that I’m just seeing things in a strange way and that I can’t do much about it for now other than resolve to mention it to the first medical person I come across.

Going by video game logic, now would be a good time to check my inventory. A quick check of myself reveals that I am wearing my usual choice of attire, and that everything’s in the places I expect them to be. Wallet, keys, handkerchief, notebook and pencil in my jean pockets; my glasses hooked in the collar of my shirt; gloves and a pair of sunglasses in the pockets of my jacket; watch on my wrist; jade ring and lucky medallion on my finger and neck respectively; and thankfully, my favorite scarf is also around my neck. As my first order of business, I donned the sunglasses, putting my regular glasses into the breast pocket of my jacket. “Take that, Celestia. Or Helios, or whoever’s in charge of that dumb explosion.” I muttered, getting up and glancing reproachfully at the sun. By my watch, it was about 4:20, EST, and the sun indeed looked to be in about the right place in the sky.

Oh, right: where am I, again? In front of me is a forest of some kind. A very dark, creepy looking forest, that seems oddly familiar. Tempting, but I doubt I want to go in there. You know that feeling you get when you’re watching a horror movie, and you see the camp in the middle of nowhere, or the abandoned house, and you just know that place is bad news? That tingle that goes through your sense of common sense, and right to your motive center, and makes you unconsciously lean back a little? Yeah, it’s like that. Behind me is what looks like an orchard: neatly trimmed trees lined up in neat, orderly rows. That means there’s probably someone who goes out on a regular basis to look after these trees, so they probably live nearby, or will leave a clear-cut, well traveled path towards where they do live. Between possible civilization, and a creepy forest of creepy darkness, I choose to go towards the orchard.

There isn’t any sort of path, but the trees are well spaced. They seem to be apple trees from the handful or so that have some not-quite ripe apples on them, although they are a bit taller than the memories I have of an apple orchard I once visited before. To be fair, that was when I was in elementary school, though. That isn’t the only real difference, though. The trees seem to be stereotypically tree-shaped; as I remember, apple trees tend to have one trunk that branches out into a few larger branches maybe a third of the way up, and then the top third or so of their height is the actual leaves and branches portion. These have one sturdy trunk that becomes an almost cartoon like sphere of branches and leaves about one half to two thirds of the way up the trunk. The grass is also more uniformly green, and all about the same length, and is only grass, without any of the other plants you almost always see trying to blend in with grass. The overall effect is almost cartoony, like an idealised drawing of what an apple orchard is. The one odd thing that stands out is that all of the trees have some chips and dents in the trunk, just a little above waist height for me. Most of the denting is in roughly the shape of two semi-circles set side by side, and they mostly ring around the trunk at that one height, as if someone was varying where they hit the tree to make sure that the trees weren’t too badly damaged by whatever process required beating on them regularly. For some reason, that thought makes me feel like I should know where I am. Noticing an apple sitting on the ground, I lean down and pick it up, giving it a quick rub on my jacket before biting into it. What? I didn’t get breakfast.

At this point, I find myself on top of a hill, looking over the orchard. Chewing thoughtfully on my apple, I look out over my surroundings... and promptly drop the apple. Looking at the barn I can see just down the hill a little ways, I realise why this place all seems so familiar and why everything looks the way it does. Accept why it all seems familiar, not necessarily, but now I at least can put a name to this orchard. There are some corn fields, a well, and what looks like a few smaller buildings for assorted livestock, but the barn itself is bright violet. With pink trim. And there’s a painting of a smiling pink pony and a sun on one side of it.

I’d tell you all more about what was running through my mind as I realised that somehow I was in Equestria, (Sweet Apple Acres to be exact) but to be honest, most of what I was thinking at the time was nowhere near being coherent or sensible. I was just starting to regain control over my higher brain functions when I heard a voice.

“What in the... whut in Equestria are you?”

Being a staunch brony, I would recognise that southern twang anywhere. I clear my throat, prepare myself to meet a character who has, for the past year or so, been both a fixation and inspiration in my life, turn around to face the direction where the feminine southern accent came from, and...

…

I was not expecting this. That, along with a faintly curious thought about where exactly my jaw has dropped to, is the last thing to run through my mind when things suddenly go dark.

She Is Your God Now, Bring Her Your X

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Chapter 2

The sun wasn't quite as agonizing as I regained consciousness this time. Partly because I was already wearing my sunglasses, partly because the pony standing over me provided a bit of shade. I blinked a bit, as my understandably rattled sanity adjusted to the fact that a supposedly fictional, talking equine was actually there in front of me. I absently noted that Applejack is the best sunshade, before I realized that she was saying something.

"Are y'all alright?"

I thought about it for a moment, and came to the conclusion that if I am in fact, insane, and am actually escaping into an imaginary world out from a padded cell somewhere, then there's nothing to lose by following out this delusion through whatever course it runs. And if this is real life, then I should respond, because to do otherwise would be rude.

"Yeah, I'm okay." I picked myself slowly off the ground, brushing all the grass and whatnot off while also checking to make sure nothing had fallen out of my pockets or gotten broken. I then looked back to Applejack. She looked frazzled, which is perhaps to be expected when a presumably unknown species suddenly appears in front of you. That wasn't the most physically striking thing about her, though.

I saw something once that estimated a pony's height, Applejack's specifically, to be about 3 feet, 4 inches as indicated by some nearby apples. That being said, I was able to comfortably look right into Applejack's eyes from my own 6 feet. She was also leaner then the show usually depicts her as, built more along the proportions of an alicorn then an earth pony. That she had the build of an alicorn is only fitting, considering that a pair of wings were folded at her sides, and her customary stetson hat was tilted at an angle that was a little farther back than usual to accommodate the horn on her head. Her blond mane wasn't in it's regular ponytail either, probably because it was longer and a little wilder then it ought to have been. Her fur was still a comfortable orange, though.

All right, just because you're meeting a fictional character, doesn't mean you have to go crazy. Keep it cool, keep it cool, keep it cool-

"Well, howdy there, pardner. Can ah help you with somethang?"

Keep it cool, keep it cool, keep it cool-

"Mah name's Applejack, who're you?"

And then she held out her hoof to shake, and I promptly failed my "Keep it cool" test.

"You're Applejack- this is so amazing, you're actually Applejack, I can't believe this! I'm actually in Equestria, this is amazing, and you're an alicorn! What's with all this? Why am I here? And I don't mean in a cosmic sense, why am I here in Equestria, and why are you an alicorn, and are the other mane 5 alicorns too, is this some kind of alternate-"

If anyone ever tells you that I sounded like an excited little girl while squealing- I mean, saying all that, I will deny it. With a chainsaw. I don't actually have a chainsaw currently, but I'm expecting one for Christmas next year. In other news, Applejack's face had gone from cautious hospitality straight to creeped the buck out. Not good. I cleared my throat, held out my hand, and tried again.

"I'm sorry about that. My name is Jack Perry, and I'm a human. Can we rewind our conversation to before I started babbling like Twilight on a deadline?"

Remember, denial with a chainsaw.

Applejack chuckled for a moment, then returned the hand/hoof shake. "Jus' promise me that y'all ain't another Pinkie Pie, and ah think we can work somethin' out."

"I promise that I will try to control my more talkative urges from now on," I solemnly vowed, while doing just that with the fanboy squees triggered by shaking Applejack's hoof. Cool and composed. Just like that.

"That's nice t- how d'yall know who Twahlight is? And what's tha' about 'the other main 5?'"

Uh oh. Think fast. "Ah, well, you see, us humans, we... have this ability. See, we don't have magic, and can't walk on clouds, or anything like that, so instead we have this sort of ability where we instinctively know some general information about wherever we find ourselves." Got it. Covers up that last outburst, and any others I may end up accidentally making in the future. Just as long as she doesn't see through the mostly-white lie.

"Issat so?" Crap. I forgot that she's the Element of Honesty. Raise shields. I put on my best poker face, and hoped for the best. Apparently, she either bought it, or didn't want to push it, because she suddenly seemed to drop her suspicious look and just look... sad.

"Is everything alright?" I asked hesitatingly. Something about this whole situation seemed familiar. That last thought about Applejack being Honesty sparked some memory, something about an explanation for Applejack being an alicorn... maybe a fan fiction I once read?

"No, ah'm fine, ah just..." She looked up at the sky for a moment, then met my eyes again with her mostly calm green ones. I was reminded somewhat of newly grown grass for a moment. "Ah suppose ah just... was lookin' forward to talkin' with somepony, or somehuman, tha' wouldn' be goin' loopy over all o' this." She motioned towards herself with one hoof as she looked down at the ground, then suddenly frowned as she saw the apple I had taken a couple of bites out of. "Did y'all steal one a mah apples?"

If I could have sweat-dropped like they do in manga, that would've been the perfect moment for it. "No, well, maybe: it was on the ground, and I just picked it up. If you want we could work out some kind of payment, or we could just talk without me 'goin' loopy over all o' this.'" I smiled, and she slowly smiled back, before reaching up to adjust her hat, and then starting to walk towards the barn that we could see from our little hill.

"Ah was jus' about done this field anyways. Come on pardner, ah'll take you to the farmhouse." As we walked off, I chanced a quick look towards her flank. Yep, that confirms it, and told me where where I was, mostly. Her cutie mark wasn't the traditional three apples, it was a blue circle with a cross in it and a leaf underneath, probably an apple leaf.

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Merry May stared at the creature from her hiding spot in an apple tree. The salad she had put together with Applejack's favorite dressings and toppings, which had actually been somewhat difficult to discover, sat on a branch next to her. She'd meant to leave it as a gift for the new princess, but now she realized that she had a much more important mission: protecting her from whatever this... thing was.

The green and pink pegasus stared at the weird thing. It was somewhat similar to the minotaur that had given that course on assertiveness a while ago, in that it stood on two legs, and had two arms that ended in hands, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of being huge and muscular, it reminded her more of Spike midway through his transformation that one crazy day, with it's long and skinny proportions. Lanky was the word that came to mind. Also unlike Iron Will, this thing didn't have normal hooves, instead there was what looked like a single horribly elongated black hoof made of cloth or rubber protruding from the end of the blue pants the thing was wearing. She couldn't even understand how anything that tall stood up straight on only two legs with no tail to balance it. It wore what looked like a green jacket and a green and brown scarf over some sort of deep blue shirt on it's upper body, but it's face was probably the strangest thing about it. It had no snout or muzzle, just a weird bump with two nostrils on it's underside protruding from the middle of it's face, independent of the mouth below. She couldn't see it's eyes under the sunglasses it wore, but if the size of the sunglasses was any indication, it had small, beady eyes. Beneath the untidy mop of brown hair, it had two small, round ears that were just stuck onto the side of it's head.

All in all, it was the single strangest thing she had ever seen, equal parts disconcerting and hilarious, and if she had just run into it, she might have just laughed. But it was walking with Princess Applejack, and she remembered Lyra telling her about a strange, bipedal creature that had haunted her family for thousands of years, appearing and disappearing quickly enough that it could never be fully seen except for quick glimpses, although that may have been a good thing: Heartstring family legend held that this awful creature was the cause for the family's fall from nobility and grace.

And now it was here, threatening Princess Applejack. Sure, she couldn't hear what it was saying to her, but she could see the misery on the Princess's face, so clearly this thing was here to ruin Equestria's newest goddess, and thus it fell to her, Merry May, to think of a way to stop it somehow.

I need help, she thought as she stealthily crept out of her tree and flew in the direction of Ponyville, all the help I can get. If this thing can torture a goddess with mere words, I can't take it on on my own.

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"An' on top of ahll that, now thangs are just appearing around me! Ah keep findin' glasses ah cider an' tools aroun' the place, like somepony's jus leavin' them out for me. Ah appreciate that whoever it is is bein' hospitable, but it's still a little creepy, ya know?" Applejack sighed. "Ah jus' don' see why everypony else is makin' such a huge fuss over this."

I nodded, listening as best I could while turning over everything I remembered about this story in my mind to try to remember what happened next in the course of the story. I remembered that somehow, Applejack and Luna ended up fighting in the desert, but what happened between then and now that would cause that? I kept trying to remember while I responded to Applejack.

"Applejack, I can't really say that I've been in your exact situation, but I do sort of know about what it's like having people expect things from you." Every reading-of-the-report-card by the parents ever. "But I'm going to share some wisdom from my homeland with you. 'With great power, comes great responsibility.'"

"Ah know, just because ah can do some things, doesn't mean ah should. Ah'm well aware of that."

"There's more to it then that. It means that if you can help someone, you have a moral obligation to do so. If you have an ability that could be used to help people, you have to use it to help people."

"Ah am usin' it! Mah family would'n be able to keep the farm if ah jus' up an left, so ah'm helpin' them by stayin' here."

"I know, I know. I don't expect you to just leave your family, but you can't just stay here for all eternity, either." I paused, thinking about what I'd just said. "Well, you could, but that doesn't mean you should. Maybe you should actually talk to Luna and Celestia, instead of just arguing with them. I think you sort of owe it to them, and everyone else, to consider taking up the responsibilities you've unfortunately inherited. Maybe you all could come to some sort of agreement about what you do with your, uh, new self."

Applejack seemed to think about it for a minute. We were coming up on the farmhouse, and I was getting this major itchy feeling in the back of my mind, like I was missing something obvious. Something about how this fic was supposed to go...

"Well, ah guess maybe..." Applejack smiled wryly. "Ah suppose ah could've actually talked to them, but ah'm no princess. Ah never even dreamed ah'd have to make a decision like this. Ah'm just Applejack. Ah farm apples, run Sweet Apple Acres, and represen' Honesty sometimes. Tha's all. Ah'm not a goddess, and ah never asked t' be one, either."

I nodded solemnly, and was just trying to think about what I was going to say next when suddenly a panicked bass voice interrupted my thought stream.

"AJ! We got a problem!"

I looked up towards the shout to see Big Mac standing at the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres, looking out over the rapidly approaching angry mob. They were holding the obligatory torches, pitchforks, and effigies of the person who's blood they were out for: a vaguely bipedal looking thing wearing green and blue. I looked down over myself. There wasn't much doubt over who they had come for, even if I hadn't been the only biped around I knew of. I gulped.

"What... tha..." Applejack was slackjawed. Perhaps not surprising, given that this had come out of nowhere. I mean, an angry mobs worth of pitchforks does not, and should not, be able to simply show up out of nowhere. Except now, when apparently they do. What's up with that? And did they seriously just have effigies of humans laying around just in case, or did they somehow make them in the ten minutes or so I've been here?

I was distracted by my musings into the workings of hammerspace when I heard a war cry coming from above. I looked up, and quickly threw myself to the side to avoid the double pegasi hooves coming right for my face.

Applejack still stood there stock still, stunned.

I ran for the farmhouse, an angry pink maned, mint green pegasus right on my heels. I saw something that looked to be some sort of plank, or at least had those right proportions to be a makeshift weapon leaning against the door, and grabbed it, swinging it back behind me as I planted my foot and spun around and-

BLANG!

"That was oddly... musical." I mused, looking at the dazed pegasus pony. "What did I even..." My voice trailed off as I looked at the now ruined banjo I had apparently hit Merry May in the face with. "Oops."

I don't know if that's the straw that broke the camel's back, or if the situation had finally gotten through to Applejack's thinking processes because she suddenly screamed. It sounded like a scream of rage in the same way a lion's roar sounds like a kitten's mewl. I was actually picked up and hurled out of Sweet Apple Acres by the sheer decibel force, thankfully just before a massive wall of thorns, thistles, and brambles grew up out of nowhere around the entire farm and orchard. It still wasn't a pleasant experience.

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Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were running along the road to Sweet Apple Acres as fast as they could when suddenly a massive wall of brambles and thorns grew up from the ground, forming a huge dome around the whole of Sweet Apple Acres. They skidded to a halt just outside where the gate used to be, staring at both the dome and the frenzied mob trying to get inside.

"Do you think it was that monster everypony was talking about that did this?" Rarity finally asked, as the mob hammered away at the barrier with pitchforks, saws, axes, and a kitchen sink.

"That thing had better not have hurt her," Rainbow growled, knocking her front hooves together in anger. "If it did, I'll kick it all the way to-"

Pinkie Pie interupted. "Dashie, I don't think we should all just leap to conclusions, especially when-"

"Now Pinkie, you must admit, it is all a rather hefty coincidence, a strange being appearing in Sweet Apple Acres, and then a massive dome of overgrown weeds appears around it. It is perfectly natural to be worried about Applejack's safety." Rarity interjected.

"But the dome was probably put up by AJ, don't you see? And we really shouldn't just condemn the new guy, especially since-"

Rainbow interrupted angrily. "Maybe she put this thing up to try to get rid of that thing! Come on girls, we've go to help them!" And with that she flew off to join the mob trying to get through the wall.

"Oh, I hope Applejack's okay." Fluttershy whispered. A shadow of something terrible passed over her face momentarily as she added "I don't know what I'd do if something had happened to her."

"Girls, I'm trying to tell you that the blame is on the wrong hoof, and that the new guy is right..." Pinkie Pie trailed off as the thumping of two booted feet heralded a shadow falling over her, Rarity, and Fluttershy. She looked up to see a tall, broken-banjo wielding biped looming over her and the girls. "...Behind us." She finished.

Jack Perry cracked his neck bones with a sharp twist of his head, rested the banjo against his shoulder, and studied the wall. He pursed his lips, checking the horizons for... yep, there they were. Two large winged silhouettes accompanied by many smaller ones flying towards Sweet Apple Acres from Canterlot, right on schedule. He turned towards the wall, scratching his chin and frowning.

Pinkie Pie bounced up in front of him. "Hey there! I'm Pinkie Pie, but you probably already know that. What's your name, and do you like parties? Cause I love parties! Oh, but you probably already know that too, silly me!"

The human cut her off before she could continue, planting a firm hand on her head to stop her bouncing. "Pinkie, it's an honor to meet you and all, but we have slightly bigger problems right now then when we have a party." He sighed. "Now what do we do about all of this? I tried to fix things for the better, but now things are even worse." He paused for a moment. "If this is what being a deity is like, I may have to give religion another chance. This is hard work."

Rarity finally spoke up cautiously. "You mean you aren't responsible for all of this?" She gestured towards all the bedlam currently around and over the resident apple orchard.

"Only partly. A similar scenario would have unfolded had I not been present..." his voice trailed off as his mind tripped over a possible solution to this crazy tale. Something crazy enough to get through to a stubborn farm pony and a millenias-old lunar princess, and maybe make them listen to reason. He whipped his head around to look at the approaching royals and their entourage as they flapped closer and closer, then whipped his head back. "Fluttershy!"

The named butter yellow pegasus flinched as the biped shouted her name. "Um, yes?" She stuttered, trying to hide behind her mane.

Jack knelt down to her level, and pulled off his sunglasses. His green eyes shone with a repressed manic glee as he spoke (relatively) reassuringly and calmly. "I need to borrow an eagle, please. Preferably a bald one."

Birds of Prey and Rifts. In. SPAAACE!

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Twilight looked at her friend uncertainly. She was very thankful that Applejack hadn’t visibly turned evil when she’d arrived- what would you even call an evil Earth alicorn? Cemetery Planter? After hearing what she had to say, though, Twilight was starting to think maybe she should have brought some of the rest of the girls with her when she teleported through the dome. Possibly the Elements as well.

“Applejack... do you know where this ‘human’ is now?”

“Ah ahctually don’ know. He was standin’ near Merry May when...” Applejack gestured tiredly towards the foliage problem. “Ahll o’ that happened. Ah didn’ see what happened t’him aftah that, though.” She looked down towards where Big Mac had laid Merry May on a couch. There were still banjo fragments in the unconscious mare’s mane.

Twilight nodded, feeling slightly jealous at the moment. Everything happened to Applejack, it seemed. First there was the alicorn transformation, and now meeting a potentially new species... although maybe not that new.

“Applejack, I have to ask... had you ever heard of humans before today?”

“No. Ya mean there’s more ah them?”

Twilight shrugged. “Maybe. Lyra ransacks my library every once in awhile looking for any mentions of them. She has this crazy family story-”

There was the flash of ancient magics releasing, and the popping BANG of an alicorn’s worth of air being suddenly pushed out of the way. While the laws of physics quietly went into a corner to sulk at how blatantly they had just been ignored, Princess Luna stood revealed in all her majestic glory. Applejack’s indignation was revealed in its equally majestic glory a quarter second later.

“Faust’s sake, Luna! Y’all have no respect fer privacy!”

Luna either had yet to grasp the relatively modern tradition of knocking on the door, or she would not be deterred from her mission by petty things like manners. “Applejack! It is not too late. You may yet be redeemed, but you must turn aside from this dark path you have chosen!”

“Dark path? Wha? No! Listen here, prin-cess. Ah am sick ‘n’ tired of you ‘n’ everypony else’s nonsense. There ain’t no law against a pony puttin’ up a fence around her personal, private property! NOW GET THE HAY OFF MAH PROPERTY BEFORE AH PUT YOU OFF!”

The tension in the air was as oppressive as the blast of heat from an open oven on a hot summer day. Two titanic tempers had been ignited: the cold fury of the void, and the sudden tectonic rage of the Earth. Neither one would back down now, and the only reason why Applejack hadn’t lit her horn up in preparation for battle was that somewhere, she remembered the advice of a certain biped. He’d told her to give Luna and Celestia more of a chance, and although she may not have remembered it at the moment, she still knew it on some level.

Luna didn’t quite have those qualms. “Applejack, we have come to try to makest thou see reason: surely thou must see now that things cannot continue as before, and that thou must accept that thou hast-”

“Ah don’ wanna, ah don’ hafta, an’ y’all can’t make me! This is mah choice to make, an’ ah ain’t gonna let y’all make it for me!” Twilight and Big Mac had long since found shelter behind the couch, underneath a protective shield made from an upturned table. Granny Smith hadn’t woken up, but passed her comment on the situation by turning over in bed.

Luna’s eyes flared momentarily with power. “If thou shalt not listen to reason, thou leave us no choice but to make thee listen!”

As one, the two goddesses lit up their horns. The very Earth trembled as it felt its mistress preparing to lay down the law, and the shadows seemed to coil around Luna as her own powers manifested for the divine smiting that was about to ensue. But first, the obligatory pre-fight trashtalk.

“Y’all have pretty dumb reasons ah reckon!”

“We shall see who is the dumb one when we are finished here!”

“An’ that’ll be y’all!”

“No, it shall be thee!”

Eyes narrowed on both sides. Tensions rose even higher.

“Nah, you!”

“No, thee!”

The fight to come would’ve taken place over several continents and leave its mark all over a certain desert, were it not for the fact that the situation of two technicolor cartoon equine goddesses arguing like the target audience in preparation for an Ultimate Showdown, was made even more surreal when suddenly a bird of prey was introduced to the mix.

CAAAAW!!!

“BY THE POWER INVESTED IN ME BY THIS GIANT BALD BIRD,

ALICORNS SHALL NOT ACT LIKE THE FOOLS OF THE HERD!”

Luna and Applejack turned as one, both losing hold over the eldritch powers they had been on the verge of releasing. Luna had no idea what the buck was going on, and while Applejack knew a little bit more about what the buck was going on, it still wasn’t very much. All fighting ceased for the moment while the two alicorns tried to figure what exactly was going on in front of them.

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“Luna, I wanna like you! Quit making bad deductions!

You need to stop jumping to bad conclusions!”

I turned, pointing my finger at Applejack, who once again had that creeped out look I’d seen on her earlier. Which was perhaps understandable.

“And you: Applejack! You’re acting like Rarity discorded!

You need to put your head back on straight before everything gets desolated!”

Stepping back a little to address them both, I finished my shamelessly stolen reprimand.

“I’ll properly reach across this aisle and scold you both as equals,

Of the ponies,”

I poked Applejack in the chest and she actually took a step back.

“By the ponies,”

I did the same to Luna now. Both of them still seemed pretty shocked.

“For the ponies, EAGLE!”

The eagle resting on my arm considerately let out another screech right on cue. Thank goodness Fluttershy is so good with animals: convincing a bald eagle to perch on a crazy biped’s arm while he reprimands two goddesses probably isn’t easy.

It was just as I had that thought that the full insanity of what I had done occurred to me. A cold line of sweat ran down my spine and I got this weird feeling in my gut as I backed up a couple of steps. The eagle’s talons suddenly felt a lot sharper, even through the improvised falconer’s glove made by wrapping my belt around my left forearm. I was probably headed for some celestial body now. Maybe the sun, or possibly a pit in the Earth. Wherever it was, I was probably going to be banished to it, and then put in a dungeon after being banished to it-

BUMP

I turned around to apologise to whoever or whatever I had just backed into. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t...”

Turns out I was headed for the sun after all, in a manner of speaking: I had just bumped into Celestia. She had a very neutral facial expression. I soon realised that what I was looking at was a poker face that had been perfected over thousands of years, and had been the epitome of non-expression for longer than some civilizations had existed.

She coughed politely into her hoof. “Well, that was a most unexpected turn of events.”

I nodded mutely. All I could think about at the moment were the Trollestia, Tyrannestia, (and worse still) memes, pictures, and jokes beyond number that I had seen. I also really, really hoped that Celestia wasn’t telepathic.

“In fact, your very presence here is unexpected. I don’t suppose you know Megan?”

It took me a few moments to realise what she was referring to. There had been a reference to a human named Megan in the original fic I had found myself in, something about one of the (shudder) earlier generations of the show.

“Oh-uh, well, you’re going to have to be more specific than that, Megan’s a pretty common name, I think there are at least two at my school.”

Celestia raised a single eyebrow. “I see. Well, in that case, would you mind telling me how and why it is you’ve come here? And was it really necessary to have an eagle with you while berating my sisters?”

I thought for a couple of seconds. I hadn’t arrived in Twilight’s library, so it was unlikely that she had summoned me. Likewise, there hadn’t been anybody around when I arrived, which ruled out the notion that anyone had summoned me. Admittedly, I’d been asleep when I came through, but still... also, I hadn’t heard Discord’s voice at any point, so he probably hadn’t brought me here to act as his replacement... I hadn’t been within 100 miles of CERN or any other groundbreaking physics research centers recently, so that officially emptied out my bucket of theories.

“Nope. No idea how I got here, even less of what I’m going to do now.” I frowned as I remembered what else she had said. “Hey, the eagle was totally necessary. The eagle is a proud and majestic symbol that has served my race well throughout the years. It has been carried with pride by humanity from the Roman times, through to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the Russian royalty, my own United States, and countless personal heraldries. It is a powerful and enduring symbol of strength, majesty, and-”

“D’all y’all humans talk this much?” Applejack had apparently recovered just in time to cut me off before I got too far into things.

“Not usually,” I said, scratching my head sheepishly, “Apparently it’s some kind of stress coping measure for me. I usually don’t babble anywhere as much as I am now.”

“Well, I feel your coping measure might have prevented a possible war.” Celestia trotted past me to face the other two alicorns present. I smiled a little as I noticed Twilight and Big Mac carefully poking their heads around the corner. Luna was pawing at the ground, looking a little embarrassed. Applejack was making a conscious effort to take this all in stride, relatively speaking. She looked a bit sheepish as well. Celestia, meanwhile, took command of the situation with the grace and experience I expected from the immortal sun goddess. “Now that we have all calmed down a bit, let’s talk this over. Applejack, why did you put this dome up?”

Applejack cleared her throat. “Well, ah was doin’ mah work, when he,” she gestured at me while I did my best to be unobtrusive and get the eagle off of my arm, “popped out ah nowhere. Well, we got to talkin’, an’ ah was jus’ takin’ him back to th’ farmhouse, when this mob showed up bayin’ for him. An’ ah jus’ suppose everythin’ over the past week jus’ got to me an... this happened.”

Luna turned an imperious eye on me. “And what might you have done to provoke this?”

I turned away from the window I had been trying to convince the eagle to fly out through. “I have never been in Equestria in my life, so no, I don’t know why your subjects were so keen to embark upon violent quests against my person.” I tried shaking my arm a little. Unfortunately, my arm was apparently much more comfortable than anything else in Equestria, because the bird refused to budge. Thank goodness for cartoon physics, otherwise I don’t think the skin on my arm would be in good condition right now from having a bird of prey sitting there, makeshift glove or not. That odd feeling in my gut hadn’t gone away either. Brilliant.

Luna frowned at me. “We saw the mob outside: they had effigies of thou, pitchforks, and torches. What other explanation is there for their behavior then that thee did something to provoke it?”

I spread out my hands in the universal gesture for ‘I dunno,’ then went back to resignedly rubbing the eagle. I could’ve sworn the smug avian bastard smiled a little. And now I was definitely getting an odd feeling in my gut. It wasn’t hunger, it was more like a gentle pulling sensation in the pit of my stomach. If I was hallucinating all this, that was probably my body reacting to the not-so controlled substances that were responsible for my delirium tremens. I idly figured I was probably going to regret waking up, judging by this feeling.

“I don’t know, but-” I was cut off by a pegasus slamming into me. Now, the average pony on earth weighs about 200 to 300 kilograms. In pounds that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 pounds. Equestrian ponies are quite a bit smaller, (their heads are about waist height) and pegasi tend to weigh even less, possibly because their bones are, if not fully hollow, at least pretty close to it. That’s not to say it didn’t hurt when Merry May slammed into me. It was akin to the sensation you would expect to feel when a professional linebacker learns that you were the one who replaced his manly deodorant with some absurdly expensive French ladies perfume made from flower scents, star sprinkles, sugar spice, and whale vomit. On the bright side, the bird let go of me.

“Don’t worry Princesses! I’ve got it!”

“AUGH! What are doing? Get off me!”

“... Merry May.” Applejack sounded upset. That’s all I noticed, because I was busy fending off the pony determined to giving me a structurally superfluous new behind.

“Get off me, you crazy horse! I don’t know what I did to make you mad but QUIT IT!”

“It’s all right Princess! I’ll hold it still, you go ahead and charge up your magic!”

“Merry May.”

“If I have to spend a thousand years fighting this monster on the moon in order to keep you safe, I consider that sacrifice well worth making!”

“MERRY MAY!” The shout wasn’t at full Royal Canterlot volumes, but that three different ponies delivered it meant it was pretty close. Needless to say, all fighting stopped. Luna and Applejack turned to see Twilight standing with them, glaring razor blades at Merry May, panting a little from joining them in shouting. They both just sort of shrugged, and joined her in glaring at Merry- nope, Luna was still glaring at me as well. She had that in common with Merry at least.

“Merry, y’all mind tellin’ me why y’all hate Jack here so much?”

“Well, it’s a monster! I mean, look at it! It’s got hands! Everypony knows only big scary monsters like minotaurs, sea serpents, and chaos spirits have hands!”

“He is not a monster, my little pony.” Celestia’s voice was like a cool breeze cutting through a stuffy room. “He is a human, a clever and talented species that hasn’t appeared in Equestria for thousands of years. I once knew one, and she was one of the best friends I had had. Some humans are somewhat dark-minded, true, but I believe this one is one of those good ones.”

“But Lyra told me about how there’s a monster that looks like that-” she waved a righteous hoof in my face- “that’s haunted her family for years! How can you just assume that that thing hasn’t decided to try to destroy the princess? We need to deal with it now!”

Celestia’s poker face got even stonier. While I tried to make the mental connection that Merry’s little speech had opened up, Luna just looked confused while Applejack raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to start giving a lecture on- Oh. Now I get it. I cleared my throat.

“Celestia? I know you’re an immortal goddess, and that I probably don’t have the right to criticize you,” (I could have sworn I heard a derisive snorting sound coming from one of the other ponies right then) “but I think you owe a certain one of your subjects an apology.”

“Wait, what?” That, and a few other variations on that phrase, echoed out from pretty much everyone else present, which now included Big Mac.

“Well, you see, what happened was thousands of years ago, a certain unicorn nobleman, or I guess noblepony would be the phrase, acted very... what would be a polite way of saying it?”

“Boorishly.” Luna chimed in. She had an ‘aha!’ expression, as she’d seen what I’d seen.

“There you go. This unicorn acted very boorishly towards Luna, so Celestia unleashed nine kinds of divine smiting on his punk flank, and just to make the point, has made sure to remind that unicorn’s descendants every once in awhile that they are cursed in her eyes.”

Twilight was understandably shocked. “What? But Princess Celestia wouldn’t hold a grudge like that, she...” She seemed to notice that Celestia still hadn’t reacted visibly. “Princess?”

“That doesn’t prove anything! So you know how the princesses deal with trouble makers, that just raises the question of how come you were dumb enough to try it now! That story doesn’t even have anything to do with this situation!”

“The human has a point.” Luna seemed to have finally decided I wasn’t deserving of glares, and was nodding sagely in response to Merry May’s outburst. “The curse that my sister and I wrought upon that stallion was to drive him insane with visions of a tall, bipedal creature dressed all in black, with only a blank white space where its face should be. For our sake, she has continued to visit that unicorn’s descendants with the occasional glimpse of a strange, bipedal creature that they can never catch. It was harmless, up until today.”

Merry May looked about ready to demand more answers when Celestia finally spoke. “The unicorn’s name was Heartstrings.”

Merry May blinked, swallowed, and then finally said “Oh.”

Awkward silence ensued. Along with a slow, silent facehoof from Twilight.

Then Applejack cleared her throat, prodded Merry May with a hoof, and gestured towards me. Ears flat, she turned towards me, coughed, and then stammered out her apology “I, uh, guess I’m, uh sorry for beating you up? And starting a riot.”

I raised an eyebrow as I looked at her. Yeah, it was nice that she’d apologised, but I still hurt from getting tackled by her and... damn. She was just sitting there, with a pouty expression, ears flat, and... confound these ponies and their adorableness! They drive me to repentance!

“And I’m sorry I hit you in the head with a banjo.”

“About, that, Jack. Y’all owe me a new banjo. An’ there’s still that apple y’all took earlier.” Everyone was a bit more relaxed now that there wasn’t any sign of an imminent war, but Applejack seemed somewhat serious still.

“Uhm... I don’t have any Equestrian money. Can we work something out?”

Luna interjected. “We shall cover the cost of any fruits he has devoured,” she proclaimed,
“And we shall also see to restoring your banjo, dear Applejack.” She hesitated, and then plunged on. “We, I, am sorry. We of all ponies know what it means to be unfairly judged, and we can see that that is what we did to you. Will you accept our- my, friendship?” She held out her hoof. Applejack studied it for a moment, and then, smiling, met it with her own.

“Ah reckon ah will.”

And there was much rejoicing.

As I picked myself up from the floor (and most of the ponies engaged in one of those cardiac-arrestingly cute group hugs), I put an uncertain hand to my belly. This was no normal upset stomach feeling. It had come back stronger than ever just now, and it felt like my innards were being twisted and pulled on by a little gremlin armed with a large hook. At least the building was large enough to accommodate me, so I didn’t have to worry about a sore back from any low ceilings.

“Well, I think we’ve all done very well today. We’ve stopped a potential feud between alicorns, and reintroduced a lost species to Equestria. Now, I think we should probably do something about that dome of plants outside.” Celestia motioned towards the door. “Shall we?”

I hid the discomfort from my face, and being somewhat old-fashioned in some ways, decided the chivalrous thing to do would be to open the door for them all. “Please, allow me.” I said, as I opened the door, bowing a long, low, theatrical bow. I suddenly heard a few gasps. Looking up, I saw that whatever was making all the ponies turn pale (even Celestia) was apparently just outside the doorway. I turned around and saw some horrific gold and green edged rift in reality behind me. I don’t really know how to describe it, beyond saying that it looked just like a seeping wound in the air, bleeding sparks of golden power, through which you could just barely see the chaotic matter that was the skeleton of reality. I had just enough time to notice that the pain in my gut suddenly flared before a yellow glowing tentacle reached out of the rift and pulled me in.

“Jack!” I turned to see Twilight had managed to grab one of my arms with her magic, and for a moment that held me within the rift. I desperately clawed towards them as best I could, but even with their help, it felt like I was swimming right towards one of those current jets in a pool: I just couldn’t hold onto my foraward momentum long enough to move forward.

“Hang on there, partner!” I saw Applejack trotting back into view, lasso held ready to cast, when suddenly something seemed to shift within the rift and the rift closed like a snapping turtle’s jaws on a tasty worm. Twilight’s magic faded from around my arm.

I’d like to say I said something dry and witty, but the truth is I was just screaming my head off. “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH-”

Kerthud.

I blinked. One moment, chaotically skipping lights of every imaginable and unimaginable color had been dancing in front of my eyes while my guts tried to tie themselves into a monkey’s paw knot, and then I was just standing in a field. The weird feeling in my torso was gone too.

I looked around. I could see some mountains in the distance, and that this was a grassy field, but other than that, nothing. I guessed there must have been a storm somewhere off in the distance, because I heard a distant boom like thunder. No sign of Sweet Apple Acres, or Ponyville, or anything I recognized.

I sighed. “Well, that was bizarre. When I do get out of this fever dream, first thing I’m doing is finding myself a psychiatrist.” I muttered as I polished my sunglasses on a corner of my scarf. As I did so, I noticed that I was still animated in that distinctive MLP:FiM style. “At least I know I’m still in Equestria. Would be helpful if the show bothered to explain its own geography though.”

I looked around once again, and for no other reason other than the fact that I was already facing that direction, started walking forward.

It was sort of strange, though. The animation style was the same, but now I could see some small differences in my surroundings from what I expected. The clouds were higher up in the sky, and they looked more wispy and less substantial and cartoony then they should have, more like Earth clouds.

That thought made me stop walking for a moment. I thought about it for a minute, and then decided:

“Nope. There’s no way I just got yoinked out of one fanfiction, and into another one where the clouds look different for some reason. This is all just one long hallucination. There’s probably some perfectly logical reason why the clouds in this part of Equestria look different, but that doesn’t matter, because I’m probably going to wake up any second now with a killer headache...” I trailed off as I listened. I could hear something getting louder, some sort of droning, whining sound. You know, that sound they always play in movies when a plane has lost power, and is plummeting to the ground. I looked up and-

SUDDENLY RAINBOW DASH FROM THE SKY.

I dove to one side just as she slammed into the ground just behind where I’d been a second ago. I trembled for a moment as I realised that her velocity and course would’ve taken my head clean off. Then I knocked that off and got back up. What was it with pegasi throwing themselves at me today?

Then I realised that Rainbow was unconscious. She also looked to be in bad condition. I’m no expert, but the way those wings were bent couldn’t have been healthy. Or those legs. The silver dart stuck in her flank, just above her cutie mark couldn’t have helped either. There was also a sizable pool of blood under her, from numerous gashes and scrapes.

“What in Celestia’s day... are you?” At the sound of someone speaking in some strange language, I turned to see a white-coated pegasus mare, with a red and yellow mane. Her cutie mark was seven pointed star in a circle, and her eyes were blue. She was panting a little with exertion, and her coat had a slight brown tinge from dirt and dust.

Her voice seemed to have woken up Rainbow, who stirred a little at the sound. I held up my hands in the air and stepped back a little. Seemed to me a pegasus would be better equipped to deal with an injured pegasus than a human would.

Rainbow’s eyes opened, focusing on the strange pegasus. “Please tell me you speak Equestrian” she said tiredly, at which the pegasus seemed to flinch. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, I’ve seen this before.

The white pegasus haltingly responded “I do speak,” in a strange sort of accent, very formal and hesitant.

"Cool," Rainbow said with a grin that I winced just looking at. "I think I'm about to pass out, so if you could stick around till I wake up that... that would... be... awesome."

And then she did pass out. As the pegasus turned towards me warily, I held out my hands again. “Hey, I was just walking here, and she came dropping out of nowhere. I didn’t do anything.”

She started, and then said “You speak Equestrian Old as addition?”

“In addition,” I corrected automatically, pointing towards the unconscious Rainbow, “and we should probably help her before talking about languages.” I don’t know this universe quite as well as I do Applethosis, but if I’m right about where I am now, having Rainbow up and running as soon as possible would be a good thing, I thought to myself as I watched Star Fall call for help. This was going to be rough.

Suns and Storms

View Online

“One... two... three...”

It was morning in the Nightlands. Now there’s a wonderfully ironic oxymoron for you. The sun was shining out over the grassy plain, making the faint layering of morning dew sparkle as it started to evaporate.

“Six... seven... eight...”

I was standing out on the plain, a fair distance from the tent where my impromptu roommates and I had spent the night. I had left my shirt and glasses over to one side, and so I just had my jeans and boots on as I engaged in some early morning aerobics. Right now, I was busy doing squats. Movement made it easier for me to think; something I had found out long ago.

This ‘fan fiction’ I was in now was very different from the Appletheosis I had just left... or been evicted from, or whatever. As close as I could remember, the backstory was that at some point, Luna and Celestia had one of those delightful sibling clashes that threatens the very stability of the universe. While they and their armies were fighting each other, some unknown alicorn known only as the Grey Mare appeared. Both sides thought that the Grey Mare worked for the other side, and didn’t realise the truth until much too late.

“Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen...”

When Celestia, Luna, and both of their respective forces took on the Grey Mare, both Celestia and Luna were exiled to their respective heavenly bodies, and the Grey Mare basically was reduced to the status of a vengeful storm spirit, haunting this massive, everlasting storm known as, surprise surprise, the Everstorm. The Everstorm apparently stretches all the way around the whole Faust-danged planet, cutting it neatly into two halves. The Daylands are inhabited by griffons and ponies who worship the two alicorn sisters as goddesses (well, mostly Celestia). The Nightlands, where I currently was, were inhabited by the Lunar Republic, which is almost exactly what it sounds like. Apparently there are also changelings in the Nightlands, and diamond dogs roam on both sides of the Everstorm.

“Twenty-five.”

I stopped squatting and switched to a fairly generic arm and shoulders stretch. It wasn’t anything to write home about, so I won’t bore you with the details.

So then Rainbow Dash gets thrown several hundred years, maybe even a millenium, into this future. She meets Star Fall, a pegasus with a special talent in Magic. How that even works, I’m not sure, except apparently at this point in Equestrian history circles are magic. That, or the author is a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist, because now magic can be done with geometric shapes and circles on a piece of paper. Don’t ask me to explain it, I’m a brony, not a magician, damnit.

Anyway, she meets Star Fall and her griffon bodyguard, and they go back to the Sunlands. That’s how it’s supposed to happen. Things might be different now that I’m messing things up with my presence. Also, there’s the small matter of the changeling spy the Lunar Republic has sent after the rainbow colored super pony a couple of their agents encountered, and then... there’s Max Cash.

I quit stretching my arms and back, took a couple of deep breaths, and started doing some push ups.

“One...”

I went over the little I knew about Max Cash: he was some pony crimelord, one of those slippery ones who covers up his tracks well enough that no one (or pony) could touch him, but it was common knowledge that he spent more time breaking the law than not. He also apparently had some sort of fetish for archeological sites, in addition to being a textbook sociopath.

"Five..."

The mindless repetition of the exercise let my mind wander across half baked theories of why I was here and what I should be doing while I was.

I had no idea how I had gotten into Appletheosis. I had gone through the wormhole... or whatever that thing was... that brought me here, but I still didn’t know how or why this all was happening. There was still a chance that this was all a hallucination, but that was seeming less and less likely the longer things dragged on. But still... Equestria? Out of all the possible alternate dimensions out there, I have so far been dropped in not one, but two versions of Equestria? And what’s more, they’re versions I’ve read about, and both times, I’ve landed in the thick of the action, so to speak. I’m not so good at fancy mathematics, but even to me that seems pretty unlikely, bordering on the impossible.

“You know there’s a problem when you find the possibility of being stuck in an alternate dimension more probable than what’s actually going on,” I muttered to myself, as I finished up my exercises, and stared down at the ground.
My hypothesis was that someone, or something, was messing with me. It has been my observation that one does not simply wake up on another world, there has to be some force that acts on you. That, and there was the fact that the portal... wormhole... thing... hadn’t actually sucked me in. Some glowing yellow force reached out of it and yanked me in. Just remembering the sensation of travelling through it made me nauseous, but I remembered the predominant color of the inside of the portal being green. So what was that yellow glow from?

My frown became more pronounced as my gaze settled on my stomach on its way to the ground. I may not have a six pack, but at least I don’t have a keg either, I thought to myself as I picked my shirt up off the ground and put it back on, walking back towards the tent.

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

Star Fall was looking over some sheets covered in magic runes while absent-mindedly munching on a hoof-full of grass. She looked up momentarily, and then turned back to her papers armed with a correction quill. “Breakfast is on plate,” She informed me as she made a judicious edit on one page.

“On the plate.” I corrected automatically. I sat cross legged opposite her and reached over to pick up a plate with a portion of ration bread on it. I bit down on the loaf, shuddered, and reluctantly swallowed. It was pretty reminiscent in both taste and texture of bad granola bars. “Well, that’s one more thing our worlds have in common,” I muttered in between bites of bread.

“And what would that be?” Star rattled off her question in New Equestrian.

After a moment’s thought, I replied “No, I do not own a monkey.”

We looked at each other for a moment.

A rather awkward moment.

“... You are not well at learning languages, are you?” Star questioned in regular English/Equestrian.

I hung my head. “Not at all.”

Star sighed, and motioned towards the tent. “She has been recovering from bad head, and she still knows most than you.”

“More than you.”

“Close enough. Now, listen carefully: what would that be?”

I frowned as I ran the sequence of New Equestrian through my brain. It was recognizably descended from English/Equestrian as far as grammar rules went, but had an utterly different vocabulary. It was sort of like trying to understand genuine Old English, as in Chaucer era Old English, not just Shakespearian. In any case, it’s not the sort of thing one can easily learn in just a week. “What what would be?” I tried.

Star rolled her eyes as she pushed her papers to the side. “No, what would that be?”

“That’s what I’m asking: what would what be?”

“No, I say ‘what would that be,’ and you are saying ‘what would what be.”

“That’s what I’m asking you!”

“... What?”

“He’s on second base.”

“... Who is where?”

“First base.”

Star facehoofed. “I’m seriously doubting by this point that your species is in fact sentient.”

“Do you expect me to try to translate that as well, or are you taking advantage of the fact that I can’t understand you to insult me?” I inquired with a raised eyebrow.

Star Fall fumed. “You... do you try to make ponies angry?”

“... Well, I haven’t really had many chances to engage ponies in conversation before.” I took note of the way the sheet her hoof was laying on was starting to crumple. “I’ll leave you alone now.”

I sighed as I crawled into the tent that had been set up for the lot of us to stay in. It had not been designed with bipeds taller than a pony in mind, so I spent a good deal time either inside sitting, or outside if I wanted to stand up. I settled into a crouch as I looked over at the recovering Rainbow Dash. Unsurprisingly, she was sleeping.

I looked her over for the umpteemth time in the week since I had arrived here in the Harmony Theory-verse. The past week had been mostly occupied with Star Fall working to help Dash recover after the crash she had been involved in, as well as trying to educate both Dash and myself in Futuristic Equestrian. Other than that, though, I hadn’t had much to do besides stare at the equines and griffon around me. That much, at least, hadn’t changed much from when I was back on Earth.

I smiled slightly. The rainbow-maned pegasus even made sleep look cool. Granted, almost everyone looks relaxed when they’re sleeping, but Dash seemed to have this knack for making it seem as though she were radiating enough coolness that she didn’t even have to be awake to be awesome. Plus, that little snoring thing she does is adorable.
I shook myself out of... whatever it was I was just doing. Time to leave before I tip over the edge back into obsessive fan mode, I thought to myself as I snatched up my jacket from where I’d left it inside the tent, and flipped open my notebook to study a couple pages of notes before wandering outside to sit opposite Star Fall once again. I cleared my throat as I found the particular scribbled notes I wanted.

“I am sorry I that make you mad. Please continue.”

Star raised an eyebrow, before saying dryly “That I make you mad. Word order matters.”

I groaned inwardly. Holding in the natural response that was waiting on my tongue, I readied myself for a lengthy language lesson.

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

It had been about a week since I had arrived here from the wormhole. I had spent that time deflecting questions from Astrid the griffin about my origins, (failing at) learning the language, and generally doing whatever I could to avoid falling into shell shock over everything. The stress of facing this kind of existential crisis, combined with sharing a tent with two pegasi (one of whom snores) and a griffon was taking its toll on me: I was crankier and snarkier than usual. Dash was still recovering from her fall, although Star was amazed by how quickly she was doing so. Apparently because magic saturates Equestria so deeply, all creatures in Equestria had evolved to rely on magic about as much as they do on air and everything else. Unfortunately, the whole Grey Mare debacle seriously messed with the flow of magic, or something, so now all living things could barely survive. Dash, having been born long before then, still had enough magic flowing through her that she could do things ponies today couldn’t even dream of. One of which included rapid healing, apparently.

“I told you Star, I’m fine! I just need to-”

“Rest! It has been only a week, and you had many broken bones! There is no way that you could be able to walking already.”

“Walk.” Dash and I spoke in chorus, her from where she was trying to limp her way off of the bed, me from where I was poking my head into the tent.

Star paused in her attempts to keep Dash from getting out of the bed without actually touching her to give me a sardonic look. “You are not helping!” Dash shared a grin with me, before adopting an innocent expression when Star whirled back around to stare her down.

“You’re right, he’s not. We both are. We’re helping you learn to talk right!” Dash feinted, and then slalomed her way around Star when she dove the wrong way. “By the way, how’s that ‘keeping the fastest pegasus in Equestria down’ thing working for you?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Star yelled as she finally grabbed the mare by the tail. “You should not have lived through that fall, and it has only been a week! You need to let your wings heal before fly around-”

“I’m not gonna go flying,” Dash sighed heavily as she rolled her eyes. “I just need to get some fresh air! It’s so booooring in here, I feel like my brain’s going to melt. What do you think I’m gonna do, try doing my full stunt routine with a broken wing?”

Neither Star nor I missed a beat before saying “Yes.”

“Ha ha. Come on Star, please? I just need to get out of this tent!”

Star Fall, reluctantly let go of the rainbow-hued tail she’d been holding in her teeth. “All is right, but if I see you try to place one feather in the air, Astrid will haul you back inside herself.”

I don’t know if Dash caught anything beyond Star’s capitulation, but either she did hear Star’s warning or else her wings were really hurting, because she walked just a few feet out from the tent before promptly sitting down and staring up into the sky.

I shifted where I was sitting just outside the tent. While it’s never easy to identify with a female, multicolored pegasus, I believed I had a good idea what was going on in her head just then. That awful feeling of thinking you might never see home again-

I shook the depression out of my skull. I couldn’t afford to think like that. All I had to do was get my sanity to last long enough that I got to talk with Professor Twinkle Shine, Star Fall’s mentor. If anyone could get me home, it would be her. Although there was the slight issue of her being possessed by Nightmare Umbra to worry about...

“So how do you know her?”

I started as Star Sat down next to me. Considering she had hooves, she didn’t make all that much noise. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. “What do you mean?” I whispered back.

“You know who she is, but somehow she does not.” Star whispered aside to me as she kept a watchful eye on Dash. Astrid plonked down on my other side to give me the full force of her “I’m watching you” look. “You never seem surprising when she talks on who she thinks she is.”

I thought about it for a moment. I could just say that I came from a world where Star was a character in a fanfic about a show Rainbow was in- aaand I can already tell that that’s a horrible idea. Plan B: BS her.

“Rainbow Dash is... well, she’s a legend. Surely you’ve heard the stories, because I have.”

Star narrowed her eyes. “Yes. But stories is what they are, almost a thousand years old. It is impossible that she is the Rainbow Dash.”

“Not impossible. Merely highly improbable.” Under my breath I added, “About as improbable as my being here.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” I leaned back and looked up at the stars while Star translated our conversation so far to Astrid and Astrid replied in her growling dialect of New Equestrian.

“Astrid says she still does not quite trust you.” Star pointedly said.

“And I suppose she’s very proud of that.” I mused as I studied the stars. I didn’t recognise a single constellation. Oh well, gave me an opportunity to brush up on my “connect the dots” skills. Look, a Rorschach test in space!
Star sighed exasperatedly. “We will leave for the Sunlands in a four or five days. I suggest if you are to go to leave, you should consider doing so soon.”

I frowned. A bunch of major problems in the original story, I recall, happened because Dash and company ran into the Lunar Republic changeling agent hunting Dash down while crossing the Everstorm. Figuring that we might as well save on a couple of brawls, I casually suggested “We might perhaps want to shift up that schedule. Maybe leave within a couple of days.”

Star gave me a distrustful look as she translated for Astrid, whose feather’s immediately ruffled up slightly. “Why is that?”

I tried to think up a good story. “Well, put it like this. You’re the commander of a Lunar Republic police force. Two of your men- or stallions, rather, two of your stallions run into some kind of supermare that mentions Celestia a lot, and then leaves at supersonic speeds. After being shot with a tranquiliser dart.” I paused to let that sink in, and then continued. “I don’t know about you, but if I were a Lunar commander, I’d be trying to find this supermare and quickly, just so I know where the potentially overpowered Celestian agent is.”

Star brought Astrid up to date, and then exchanged some hushed words with her. “Dash still is not well enough to be moved,” Star confided in me. “It is a blessing that she can already walk, but she cannot cross the Everstorm yet.”
“She’s gonna have to. I don’t much fancy getting Changelings sicced on me, and I doubt you two do either.” I frowned, rubbing my head. I had this faint feeling at the back of my thoughts, like I was forgetting something. But it wasn’t like I was forgetting something, more that something was broken, and I didn’t know what it was. Just what was going on with me and my feels lately?

“Still, she is not ready for a trip through the Everstorm! One just does not walk through the Everstorm, you have to have the right spells, and be in peak condition as well, or else it will just eat you up.”

“That sounds like a challenge, and I accept!”

Our heads all whiplashed around to face Rainbow, who no one had noticed moving over into hearing range. Star, naturally, was the first to find her voice. “Rainbow, you are not well enough yet. If we just wait a few more days, then we can try it safely.”

“I think we have more to worry about than safety.” Dash seemed oddly calm about it all. “The sooner we get to your professor, Star, the sooner I can get back home. Besides,” she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly for a moment, “I don’t think those Lunar Republic guys were too happy with me the last time we met. I’d rather not run into them again when I’m not at the top of my game.”

Star facehoofed. “You admit that you are not at “the top of your game,” but you still want to go through the Everstorm? I had enough trouble getting Astrid and myself through last time, but now that there are four of us-”

“Now that there are four of us, even if we can’t just slip through, I’m sure that between the four of us we have enough spells,” I gestured to Star Fall. “Daring,” I pointed to Dash, who grinned widely, “brawn,” I gestured to Astrid, who was getting a fast translation from Star Fall now that the conversation was slowing down, “and cunning to make it through.” I tapped my chest proudly with my last words.

“What makes you the brains?” Rainbow snickered, soon followed by Astrid, who she translated the joke to.

“The point is,” I frowned, “that between the lot of us, we should be able to make it through this thing. Besides, things are never as bad as people say they are. I am sure that in that aspect, the Everstorm is no different.”

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

“Sweet mother of holy #@$#&, that is a huge storm!”

Rainbow smirked a little, amused by my outburst, but apparently unable to laugh while looking at the storm in front of us. Star Fall just wasn’t amused at all.

“Have not you ever heard of the Everstorm?” She quipped as she drew out a spell sheet from her saddlebags and checked it for the umpteenth time. I shook my head.

“I’ve read about it, but... god dangit, that is huge!” Just half a mile or so in front of us was a literal wall of clouds. Not even a single blade of grass was being disturbed that I could see, but the clouds were swirling and rocketing past as if caught in a tornado. Lightning flickered in every color that it could, and a few that it shouldn’t, within the roiling slate grey clouds, and a faint howling sound like a million angry hornets, could be heard. That much I had expected: I’d read the story, I was expecting a wall of clouds and storms. I was not expecting it to be this big, though: it reached way up into the sky, up from its earthly beginnings in a way that not even mountains do, and it stretched from horizon to horizon in one unbroken line. It was like the constructors of the world had gotten this far, thrown up their hands, said “screw it,” and just parked a huge cloud bank here to cover up their lazy workmanship. There was a malevolent feeling about it I had never felt before, except for that time I looked at the Everfree Forest. Which was probably an apt comparison. I heaved out a resigned breath. I felt tired just looking at that thing.

"This is nothing. Once we get inside, that's when you'll see the real shit. Remember the rules?" I didn’t quite grasp what Astrid said in New Equestrian, but her world weary tone got the general point across.

"Yeah, stick close to Star," Dash replied. I nodded numbly. That part I had gotten.

"Don't get more than five feet away from her, no matter what you see or hear," Astrid warned. "The Everstorm likes to trick you, to separate groups and make ponies walk off of cliffs or into a vortex. It can make you see things that aren't there, hear people you know calling for you. You can't trust any of your senses. Distance, size, everything you take for granted in navigating the world are skewed. Fall's magic holds most of that at bay, but you can still hear things, and sometimes see things."

Dash swallowed hard. I coughed sheepishly. “Mind running that by me again?”

Dash rolled her eyes at me. "No running off. That’s the general gist of it." She stared at the menacing wall of storm. "How many times have you gone through?"

Astrid replied with a curt New Equestrian sentence. I half-caught and half-remembered her answer from the fic well enough to get a number. “I wouldn’t have thought anyone would be crazy enough to go through that thing once, let alone tence... decaduple...” I frowned. “Okay, that thing has me making up words. Let’s do this before I really loose it.” We all started marching forward again.”

"And ponies do this all the time, right?"

"Yeah. Some ponies do. And a lot of them never make it out the other side," Astrid looked down at Rainbow Dash. "You're shaking a bit there, Dash. Don't tell me that you, the 'awesomest' pony in Equestria is afraid?" She also smirked over at me. “I wouldn’t have thought a self- proclaimed meat eater would be so cowardly, either. Although I guess I shouldn't be so surprised if you can’t even clean and gut a fresh catch!” I frowned. I didn’t catch the exact phrase, but it sounded similar to the disdainful comments Astrid had been been making in my hearing ever since I nearly hurled the first time she brought me a freshly killed rodent in an attempt to be friendly, or at least sociable. It had taken her damn near ten minutes to stop laughing, and I’d just gone back meekly to vegetarian rations after that.

Dash narrowed her eyes as she visibly stopped shivering. "Me? Frightened? Ha! It's just a big storm, and there's no storm in the world in any time that can get the better of Rainbow Dash!" She glanced over towards me. “How about you? Don’t tell me you’re about to chicken out on us all!”

I grinned at her, displaying my full set of omnivore’s teeth. Something I had noticed over the past week: grinning at ponies disturbs them if you have actual canines. Probably a latent herbivore instinct: avoid anything with sharper teeth than you. “Last I checked, my color scheme was blue and green, not purple and orange. The only thing I’m worried about is possibly having to carry you through that storm myself.”

Rainbow gasped. “Hey, you saying that I’m... heavy?” She raised a dramatic foreleg to her forehead as she almost swooned. Her Rarity impression was ruined only by her voice, and the incessant grin threatening to break out all over her face.

Astrid rolled her eyes, catching the drift, if not the exact meaning, of our conversation. “Ladies, you’re both pretty,” she said, elbowing the two of us apart.

I frowned. “She just insulted both of us, didn’t she?”

“Nope. Just you.”

“Well, as long as- hey!”

"Done," Star Fall said, stepping up to the three of us. She had several rolled up spellsheets sticking out of her saddlebags, in easy reach. She looked worriedly at the storm, rattling off a string of New Equestrian, before translating for my benefit: "We are going to need to make good time. I figure how long we have with the spells we have, and unless we pull up our usual speed by twenty percent we will not have enough to completely exit the Everstorm."

I cocked my head while Astrid and Star started arguing routes. “Twenty percent.” I grinned. “I see what you did there, Sharaloth.“

I picked the thread of the conversation back up right about then. Star Fall was explaining her intention to cut through the eye of the Everstorm, a calm spot in terms of wind and lightning, but even more active in terms of magic. For that reason, Astrid did not believe that it would work.

"It will work!" Star Fall was insisting. "The dampening spell is designed to negate magic. I know it won't do that in there, but I've calibrated it to be strong enough that while we'll still get a lot of magic leakage, it won't be enough to make us sick. Look, this is the only way! If we don't cut through the eye we will run out of protection before we reach the other side."

I cleared my throat, and folded my arms across my chest. “Do we really even need the protective spells? I mean, sure that looks a helluva bad, I’ll admit. But I have a feeling that using protective spells might just piss that storm off, and make it even worse than it normally is, especially for anyone else who might be travelling through...” I trailed off as I looked down to catch the ‘are you fucking kidding me/crazy’ looks I was getting from Star and Dash. Astrid confusedly looked at me, then at the others, barked (squawked?) out a question, rolled her eyes at the quick explanation from Star, then flapped a wing beat up to smack me across the top of the head.

BAP

“Okay, so that was a stupid question. I’ll just shut up now.” I stepped back, and let Rainbow explain how since Star was the resident egghead, she was going to trust her judgement.

Astrid sighed out an agreement. Dash promptly teased her for being “afraid of a little storm.”

"This Storm? Yes." Astrid said. "Damn right I'm afraid."

I sighed, looking reluctantly forward towards the storm that was now only a few feet in front of us as Star activated the first spell sheet we would be using to push our way through. “You and I as well, sister.”

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

Hard Boiled rubbed his horn as he pushed what seemed like the thousandth paper he’d read that evening to the side. The Lunar Republic Police detective growled under his breath, eyeing the seemingly unchanged pile of literature he had yet to look through. With a thought, the book on the top of the pile was picked up by a field of shimmering magic. Clenching his teeth at the effort, the detective plopped the book down in front of him, dusting off the cover with one forehoof to read the embossed title, Pre-Schism Myths and Legends, by Studious Note. He sighed as he reached for a nearby mug with one hoof, while holding a bottle of pills steady with the other so that he could pry the lid off with telekinesis. He frowned, examining the suspiciously light mug with a critical eye. Empty.

“No rest for the wicked,” he muttered, standing up from his seat, and walking off to get a refill, with his mug held in his magic. Ever since this Luna-damned Celestian super-mare had beaten two of his officers senseless, after being suspiciously close to a murder scene, he’d been burning even more midnight oil and medication for his horn problem, just trying to find out who she damn well was. It didn’t help that the only mare who matched her distinctive description had been dead for almost a thousand years, but if she had taken a fashion choice from an almost forgotten mythic hero, maybe there was more that could be learned about her by finding out more about this ‘Rainbow Dash.’

It was ironic that a pony so devoted to the pursuit of truth and knowledge completely failed to notice what happened behind him. The volume he had placed in front of his chair suddenly lifted up, surrounded by a distinct golden-yellow glow. In mid air, it vibrated for a moment, before flipping open to a random page, a vague illustration and description of a barely recognizable cockatrice. The glow intensified, settling over the page in question as its contents melted and twisted, before vanishing to let the book drop back down just a split second before Hard Boiled walked back into the room.
He squinted around the library’s reading room. “Hello? Anypony there?” He looked with distrust toward all of the room’s shadows, before grunting, and returning to his seat. Taking a pill and washing it down with a swig of coffee, he looked back down towards his work...

… Only to be graced by the vivid image of a screaming, bipedal thing resembling a deformed minotaur, a sun-like insignia branded into its bare chest. Jumping a little at the shock, Boiled leaned in and looked closer, taking note of the fanatical gleam in the creature’s beady eyes, and the fists clenched around its wooden club.
“Humans: Worshippers of the Demon Sun,” Hard Boiled muttered aloud, as he settled down to read the description below the disturbing picture.

Brony vs. Fanfics

by Cog Archival

The (mis)Adventures Begin

She Is Your God Now, Bring Her Your X

Birds of Prey and Rifts. In. SPAAACE!

Suns and Storms