When Lightning Strikesby Zaiker42ChaptersPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoPrologueWhen Lightning Strikes Prologue I yawned and stretched, feeling my back and neck crack and my whole body whine. It was probably about 8 in the morning and every joint I had was screaming at me to go back to sleep. But I refused, knowing I was in control of them, instead of it being the other way around. I immediately walked over to my desk, sat down, and opened my laptop. Okay, so maybe I should fill you in on the setting of this day a bit more. It was a bright, summer-y Saturday morning and i was about to check one of my most frequented web sites - iBrony. It's sort of like a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, but for Bronies and Pegasisters. The creators of that site were geniuses. Anyway, I blew a good hour and a half on my computer before I remembered this one thing that could make your stomach stop gurgling and growling at you, and that I had neglected to obtain any. Food. So I reluctantly got up out of my comfy desk chair and headed to the kitchen. Now let me tell you how a teenage male eats food. It goes in steps. Step 1 - Find any appetizing food you can. Step 2 - Devour it in as short a time as possible. So yeah,the whole eating process didn't take too long, and before i knew it I was back on the Internet, chatting with some friends. After wasting all of my morning, and some of the afternoon, on the Web, I finally closed my computer, reacquainted my legs with the 'standing' position, and decided to actually get dressed and go outside for some decent exercise. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but I couldn't just spend all of my time indoors, right? Right? Right. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved to run, still do, actually, but I just preferred being indoors with my ponies and stuff. I threw on a pair of jeans and my favorite tee-shirt, a dull greenish one with an eagle emblazoned across the front,a real epic article of clothing that was, threw my old tennis shoes on, headed outside and decided to go to the nearby park, running at sort of a half jog, half sprint, my usual running pace. I felt my knees creak every step, but hey, like I said before, I knew I needed the exercise. Once I reached the park I immediately headed for the swings. Call me childish,but the swings have always been my favorite part of any park or related area. In fact, don't even think about calling me childish. You're the one reading stories about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. We're all equally childish here. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, park, swings, that stuff. I sat down and wasted away at least an hour on the swings, either actually swinging or just sitting there daydreaming. Pretty sure I spent most of it daydreaming. That's how I spent most of my schooling years, at least, so I'll just assume that was it. When I finally came back to the world of the living, I noticed it had gotten dark out really fast, like some sort of huge storm was brewing. I didn't like the idea of that at all, so I hastily began the jog home. Mere minutes after leaving the park, the storm had hit full swing. Rain thundered down to the sidewalk as i sprinted towards the direction of my home, not that I could really make anything out. Everything just blurred together. Did I mention I wore glasses back then? No? Because they made it really hard to see in rain sometimes. At this point I was freaking out, because I had seen lightning and heard thunder so many times in the past few minutes I was afraid it was all aiming at me or something. I was really paranoid like that, thanks to the news and my mother's constant warnings about everything ever. At some point, I fell down. It wasn't just a stumble either,I seriously just face-planted onto the sidewalk. And let me tell you, that kind of crap is NOT fun. I don't care how funny it looks in cartoons, it hurts like heck. I kind of just curled up on the spot, pulling my legs into the fetal position. Looking back, I probably looked pretty dang silly, just laying there. But at the time I was truly terrified. And that's when it happened. A brilliant streak of pure white lightning, much different from any other I'd seen before, came cascading down next to me, singing the ground two feet in front of me. A similar streak grazed the ground behind me. In shock, I flipped onto my back to look straight into the sky... ...And witnessed a third bolt of lightning drive itself into my chest. It didn't hurt, no. And it didn't just hit me. It seemed to...go inside me, I guess. Next thing I knew, I was glowing almost as brilliantly white as the streak that hit me, and i saw that everything around me seemed to just fall out of existence. I was whisked away into a 'room' of pure nothingness. There was no sound, nothing to look at, just a white backdrop with nothing on the foreground. It was a pretty surreal place. Then suddenly, I felt an intense heat seem to expand across the entire back side of my body. I turned around to discover the source of the heat, when I was blinded by an extremely radiant, orange light, as if i had looked at the sun itself. The whole 'sun; thought occurred to me back then as well, and the gears in my mind had begun to twirl. I opened my eyes again, noticing the light seemed to pull back in intensity, as if noticing I couldn't look at it properly. I got a clear look at the orange ball of light this time. It still looked remarkably like the sun, but more like how you'd see it on TV, as in, it wasn't blinding me. "I'm sorry," a smooth, silky, feminine voice began, "I did not wish to harm you in any way. The sun likes to...flare up on occasion, regardless of how much i try to keep it in check. A way for it to retain some sort of 'independence,' you could say." Now I'm sure you've already all guessed who this was by now, but at the time I just couldn't believe it. I slowly turned around, and there, smiling warmly at me, was the magnificent Princess of the day herself, Princess Celestia. My jaw dropped, my mind working in overdrive in a vain attempt to process this new information. "I'm sure you're confused, and perhaps you have many a question for me. Alas, I cannot help you. Not because I don't want to of course, I would be delighted to. No, because I simply know nothing of your appearance here. Perhaps there was some sort of divine intervention from some sort of higher being than even myself. Perhaps it was fate. I could not tell you if i wanted, young one." I felt instantly warm, and increasingly comfortable as she continued talking. She seemed to regard me as some sort of close, personal friend instead of just another random stranger to her land. And her voice. It seemed to just pull me in and make me feel warm, welcome, and accepted. I had never experienced anything quite like this feeling before. Unable to find my voice to make any sort of coherent response, I simply nodded at her. She softly and gently laughed at my apparent display of wonderment, "Well, you don't exactly seem to be as full of questions and queries as I thought you'd be. I expect you are simply in an extended state of shock, and will recover on your own soon. I will wait for that time. When you find your voice and have readied yourself, please speak to me." She turned and walked over to the small ball of light. i assume you all know what she looks like, seeing as she's a very prominent character in the show, but I feel the need to describe her anyway. You know, because she's royalty and all. She was, of course, at least a foot taller than me, putting her at about six foot-something, and her coat shined a brilliant, pearly white. Her horn reached out from underneath her ethereal, eternally billowing multicolored mane, her crown resting not far behind, reaching around to her ears and around to the back of her head. Her great, white wings appeared large and powerful, each feather as striking as the next, unfolded wide and unwavering as she attended to her sun. Her gleaming, golden pendant adorned with a single, diamond shaped amethyst was a sight to behold in itself, and the ensemble was completed by the golden "shoes" adorning each of her hooves. Finally, my eyes moved to her flank, and I took in the glorious tattoo of the sun that was her Cutie Mark, and finally decided to steel myself and talk to her. "P-Princess?" I managed unsteadily, "Y-You wanted to speak with me, right?" She turned back to me, the same, wonderful smile on her face, "Yes. Yes I did. I'm glad you finally decided to stop ogling me over there and speak up," she giggled. I blinked in surprise, "W-What? No! I was just-" "Relax, young one. I was just joking. I don't get enough chances to be silly and fool around in my position, so I relish every chance I get. I apologize if I offended you." I let out a small chuckle despite myself, "Oh, I wouldn't say 'offended', Princess. just, uh, surprised is all." "My victims usually are," she laughed again, "Anyway, as I said before, I wish to talk to you. However, also mentioned previously, I cannot even guess as to how you ended up here. I would first like to ask if you have any guesses or explanations for me?" I scratched my head and shrugged, "Honestly, Princess-" "Please, just call me 'Celestia'." I nodded, then continued, "Right, Celestia. I have no idea either. One minute I'm in a park, then there was a storm, then I got hit by some weird lightning and ended up here. Not really anything to go by." "Weird lightning, you say?" "Um, yeah," I nodded again, "instead of the usual, bright blue, it was just...white. Like you. All shiny and radiant and then BLAM! It sent me into subspace. or wherever this is. Where exactly are we?" She looked around, then back to me, and shrugged in the way only pegasi and allicorns can, with that little shift of her wings, "I have no idea. I assume we're in some sort of dreamworld-esque limbo. I can't really be sure of the exact location." "Wait..." I asked, thinking over her words, "so I'm just dreaming all of this,and none of it's real?" She smiled, walked over to me and nuzzled me. She was so real and soft and warm. She looked at me and said, "Dream or not, this is real. You know that as well as i do. I wish to know more about you, young one. Once you wake up, I'd like you to come find me. I'll be waiting." And with that, she disappeared in a flash of golden light, and the orange ball exploded into a mass of color and sound, and I was wrenched from the dream and deposited onto what felt like some sort of field or prairie or something. "Thanks, Celestia," I mumbled to myself, "you couldn't have at least warned me, huh?" Chapter OneWhen Lightning Strikes Chapter One I coughed out a mouthful of dirt and attempted to look around. For some reason, my body didn't seem to be working the same way it always had before. I couldn't understand what was happening at all. Except of course I'm lying to you, seeing as I knew exactly why my body was all... weird. Things were about to get so magical it would blow the Harry Potter series out of the water, pick it up, throw it back into the water, and blow it out again. What I'm saying is that things were getting extremely magical, if that fact somehow eluded you. I decided to look down at myself bracing for the 'surprise' waiting for me. Not that I hadn't already guessed what happened. Yep. Big surprise this was. Totally unexpected. Real shocker. Is that enough sarcasm for you to find me funny? No? Didn't think so. As you probably guessed, there it was. My new pony body. I could tell that I was a fairly tall stallion, above average height anyway, probably not 'Big Macintosh' huge, but whatever. This was sort of expected seeing as I was pretty above average in terms of height as a human as well. My coat was a sort of a dull silvery-gray, not too light, but not, "oh look at me, I'm so emo and cool and stuff, indifferent grunt" dark either. No, that was reserved for my mane and tail. Deep, dark, slate gray. My mane was similar to Soarin the Wonderbolt's in cut, spiky and wild and awesome, but of course there was the color difference and mine had a second hue,which consisted of an upbeat, golden yellow that also added some color to my short, dull tail. What I noticed was a little weird was that I had the slate gray and yellow colors making up some sort of pattern on my wings as well. The outer sides of the feathers seemed to be striped. I lifted them experimentally, testing the new joints and winced. "But hey, at least I ended up as a pegasus," I said to nopony in particular. Hearing myself talk would probably make me feel less lost and alone, so I decided to just do away with sanity until I re-discovered the God-send that would be civilization, "Okay, so. You're a pony, a pegasus to be more specific, and you're in Equestria. Totally haven't heard that one before. Oh, quiet you. Oh, well if that's how you want to b-DON'T LEAVE ME!" I screamed, causing every bird within a 50 foot or so radius to take flight in surprise. I blinked, "Okay, maybe staying quiet and just heading toward where my instincts tell me will do something for me." I struggled to push myself up on four hooves, but after a few minutes of struggling, I planted them to the ground and steadied myself. So, Equestrian Achievement #1: I had mastered the art of standing still and doing nothing. Aww yeah. Next, I decided to try and work my wings a bit more. You may be wondering, 'Why didn't you try walking first?' Well you know why? Ever hear that old saying, 'Before you can walk, you've gotta learn to fly!'? No? Thought so. 'Cause I just made it up. Well, not 'fly', necessarily, but you know what i mean. Anyway... As I said before, these joints were new to me, so moving them was a little awkward, but after a few minutes i was comfortably flapping them in a steady beat, practicing for the inevitable flight practice I was going to have to go through. it was at this time when I first noticed that some of my smaller, inside feathers (what are they called again, primaries, or, no, wait, are those the bigger ones?) were gold as well. You know, I still to this day haven't met a pegasus with the same weird wing-patterns as me. I brushed it off at the time though, and decided to move on to what would prove to be the easiest thing I'd ever done. Walking around as a quadruped. At first, when I started moving my hooves I thought I was going to become increasingly familiar with the taste of grass and dirt, but surprisingly enough it came almost naturally to me. Like I was born to be a four-legged creature. It sure felt that way, and honestly, I can't remember how I walked on just two, though I can probably stay on my rear legs longer than a heck of a lot of other ponies. Like riding a bike. Except I can't do that anymore. Pony anatomy. Alright, getting off-topic, where was I? Oh, yeah, so now that I knew how to work my new body, I decided to survey the surrounding environments, you know, to pick out anything familiar that I could follow. Unfortunately I had wound up in the middle of some random field and couldn't find anything that had been shown in the show, which was a bit of a downer. Can't win 'em all. Though what i did notice was the sun rising over some sort of pointy object some good 20 or so miles away. And that's when i saw it. Gleaming pearly white as the Princess of the Sun herself, standing gloriously over what i could only currently presume to be Canterlot. The Canterlot Palace, built, like the city itself, into the side of a mountain. I stood in awe for a few moments, then began jogging. I knew that if I was to get there and have that Face-to-Face Part 2 with Celestia I would need to get there sometime soon. Occasionally I lifted myself off of the ground for a few seconds with a couple of flaps of my wings but soon descended. I couldn't really keep my balance or get enough height yet. All in due time, I thought to myself. After about 2 hours of travel, I was pretty exhausted. Not to mention I sure didn't feel that I had even closed much of the gap between me and the palace. "GAH!" I shouted in frustration, before panting a bit. "Why... why couldn't I... have been a unicorn...? I'm sure teleporting could have come in handy here... " I resumed my now slow, somewhat lethargic pace, continuing towards the only thing I recognized in this large, pastel-y, colorful world of stuff I can't be bothered to fully describe to you. What? What do you mean, "That's what makes a story good"? Fine, let me give you a little mental picture in the next paragraph. I was currently walking through a forest. It wasn't like the Everfree Forest or anything, just a nice, large collection of trees. The sun shone brightly on the tall grass that reached up to my knees, the path I was travelling on looked nice and worn, a sign I was probably on some kind of well-traveled trade route. I saw a bunch of different wildlife on the way. Looking back, it was actually pretty dang beautiful, but I was a bit too exhausted to appreciate it at the time. I saw a bunch of animals there, some berries and weird plants, flowers and different types of trees. Yeah, it was actually pretty nice. Maybe i'll go find it sometime and show it to Fluttershy. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. I moved through the forest as swiftly as i could in my state, which wasn't really too fast. I stopped to take a break somewhere along the line and got a good 3-hour nap in. After that I continued, slightly reinvigorated, for some time untili finally reached the gates of the great city. I approached them, ready to take my first few strides into Canterlot with all the dignity I could muster... ... And was instantly denied by two pegasus guards. "Halt!" the one on the left ordered, extending his left wing like a blade. "State your business, stranger," the one on the right continued as he too extended his wing. I gulped and laughed nervously. "H-hey, guys. I, uh, just wanted to, um, get to my appointment with Princess Celestia. You know, the one at the Castle. Inside the city?" The left guard broke his stoic expression and raised an eyebrow. "Appointment with the Princess?" he asked suspiciously. "How can we be sure your intentions are pure? We don't know if you're even telling us the truth." asked the right one. "Um," I started, unnerved, "I, uh, I can't really..." "That's enough, you two," a serene voice announced. The guards and I turned to see the Princess of the Day herself, standing before us, smiling warmly. She approached me and put her wing around me, turning to face the guards as she did so. "Commander Sharp Wing, Lieutenant Dusty Trails, you have no need to worry. He speaks the truth. I personally invited him to the castle. Thank you very much for your concern, but alas, it was unneeded. He is harmless. Now if you two will kindly excuse us, I fear we have some important business to attend to." Suddenly, there was a short, white flash and Celestia's wing and warm body left my side and she moved to lie down on a plush, red cushion trimmed with gold. I looked around for a few moments and realized we were in the Princess's own study. She motioned for me to take a seat on a smaller cushion position in front of her own. I complied without a word. "So, Young One," she began, "I assume you are the young human who was propelled into our world not so long ago? If not, then please do forget everything I just said." I laughed a little and shook my head, "No, no, you're right, Princess. It's me again. Not like you actually had any doubts, though. I guess walking up to the city gates without a reason isn't exactly too common?" "Not particularly. Usually if ponies come to Canterlot it's on business they can prove via paperwork. Or they're accompanied by my protegee, in which case they are immediately allowed entrance in fear I would banish them to the moon." I raised an eyebrow, feigning ignorance. "The moon, Princess?" Her face was somber for a moment, but her radiant smile soon returned. "That, my little pony, is a story for another time. I'm sure you'd love to hear it." I already have, actually. Probably shouldn't have asked... I thought. "So, you said we had 'important business' to discuss?" "Yes. But I'm afraid the most important matter at hand is the most obvious question, 'How did you get here and why are you suddenly a pony?'" "Yeah, and neither of us has any sort of answer." "So that's one currently unresolved issue. Also, may I ask where the scar came from?" "The scar? What do you mean, Princess?" "The one that's across your left eye. I don't remember seeing it before when i spoke to you." I felt my eye carefully with my hoof. I did notice there was some sort of gash that ran down my left eye, top to bottom, about the same length on both ends. I didn't really know what to make of it, so I stood and walked over to the large mirror on what appeared to be Celestia's vanity. "Huh," I observed as I looked more closely at myself. "That definitely wasn't there this morning. Then again, I could say that for a lot of things in this mirror." "Well, best not to dwell on it." Celestia said as she joined me at the mirror. "I'm sorry I pointed it out for no reason, I hope you don't mind." "Oh, no, I don't care. Actually, it makes me look sort of cool! Now all I need is some sort of mustache!" And as quickly as I said it, a large, curly mustache appeared on my upper lip. I grinned and stood there checking myself out and posing or a few minutes before a giggling Celestia's horn glowed gold and "poofed" my glorious facial hair away. "Hey!" I exclamied dejectedly. "Not cool, Celestia!" "'Celestia'?" She asked,eyebrow quirked. "What happened to 'Princess'?" I pouted and returned to the smaller cushion. "You took my mustache, that's what happened." She rolled her eyes and came to join me once again. "Well, I suppose all this silliness has sort of derailed this entire meeting, hasn't it?" I nodded in agreement. "So what do you think we should do with you?" I blinked in shock. "Do with me?" I asked, a little afraid. "Wh-why would you need to do anything with me?" She rolled her eyes again. "No, my little pony, nothing like that. I simply meant, 'What should we do about your living arrangements and other basic needs?' You can't just go back to wherever you came from. Not as far as I know, anyway. Also, I can't keep dodging around our name. You do have one, yes?" I relaxed and nodded. "Yeah, I've got a name. But...," I thought for a moment, and decided to use my Internet name, purely for the sake of being at least somewhat original, "...you can just call me 'Zaiker.'" "Zaiker? Odd name,but I like it. And your living arrangements?" "Well, um, maybe i could stay here in the palace for a few days or maybe a week or two, and then head off to some other town to settle down a bit more 'permanently'?" She raised a hoof to her chin in thought, and after a few moments, shrugged and smiled. "I don't see why not. I'll have your room ready in an hour's time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bit of work I must be getting to. You know, royalty never rests." "I understand, Princess." I said as I stood and bowed."Thank you so much." She smiled that radiant smile at me and laughed. "Please, just call me Celestia. Oh, and... welcome to Equestria." Chapter TwoWhen Lightning Strikes Chapter Two "WHEEEE~!" I yelled as I flew around the North Tower, evading the two rather irritated pegasi guards' attempting to detain me. "Zaiker!" a voice shouted from below. "Come on, Zaiker, you need to come down here right now!" it called to me. "But Shinnyy~!" I whined loudly over the sound of the wind rushing past me as I dodged this way and that to avoid the two guards. "You're just gonna yell at me again! I don't wanna~!" Shining Armor groaned and smacked his hoof against his forehead. I always felt strangely accomplished when I got him to do that. Big old, serious face Captain of the Guard, and I just rustled his jimmies so hard that he was beginning to lose his patience. "Zaiker! I do not want to deal with you right now!" he snapped at me angrily. "Cadence is sick of me always being late coming home because you've been forcing me to babysit you for the past three weeks!" I slowed down and looked at him for a minute or two, then I decided it was time to cool off and flew down to him. "Alright, Shiny. You win. I'll be good." "Finally. Thank you. Now come on, you little brat. Princess Celestia wants to see you." "Big Sunny wants me? Uh-oh. Must have screwed up pretty badly this time." "Actually," Armor said, looking at me. "This is apparently about something else." I went over a few options in my mind, then shrugged."Maybe it's about my living arrangements. Maybe she's finally kicking me out." "Possibly. Wouldn't be that big of a surprise." We walked in silence for a few moments. Not one of those comfortable, content silences, like you hear in a lot of those stories. We just didn't say anything for a while. Probably because he was still ticked at me. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I liked Shining Armor in the season 2 finale and the season 3 premiere, which is why I found screwing with him to be so much fun. So of course when he got like this it made me feel bad. Especially when I realized that he wasn't just sort of a character in a TV show here. He had real feelings and real stuff he had to do. Like, you know, spend time with his wife? That thing he couldn't do because I always had him running around? Be the Captain of the Royal Guard, which once again, was impossible thanks to my idiocy? Yeah, things like those. "Shining Armor?" I finally said, after about 10 minutes of uninterrupted hoofsteps. "Hm?" He asked, turning his eyes toward me, continuing our brisk walking pace through the halls. "I'm sorry I'm such a nuisance." That stopped him short. I actually had to back up a few steps to stand next to him again. "Huh?" "I said, 'I'm sorry I'm such a nuisance.'" I repeated, looking straight ahead, not wanting to look him in the eyes. "I'm always messing around, getting in trouble and such, and bothering you in the process. So I'm sorry." "It's... it's fine." "So...," I started, as we both began walking again. "How is Cadence, anyway?" "Cadence? Well, Princess Celestia's sort of been showing her the basics of running the kingdom full time, you know, in case anything... well, you know." He had such a way with words. "Uh, yeah. I know. Go on." "Well, she's just been really stressed lately. Scared that she won't be able to step up and perform all of the royal duties in case something really should happen. I'm worried about her," he finished, looking down at the floor. I once again focused my vision directly in front of us and noticed we were approaching Celestia's grandiose chambers. I looked at Shining Armor and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry," i repeated, "You probably wouldn't have to worry so much if you could see her and talk to her more often." He too noticed where we were and looked back to me. "I'll forget all about it if you promise not to cause so much trouble around here." We stopped in front of Celestia's large double door and I turned to him and nodded. "You have my word. I'll try to chill out a bit for your sake." He gave me a sort of half-smile and gestured me toward the door. "Go on, I'm sure she's sick of waiting." I opened the large doors and walked slowly into the huge, ornate, princess-worthy bedroom. Not like, her study or anything, with the fireplace and the little cushion thing where she writes letters and stuff, but the big MB (that is, uh, "Master Bedroom," in case you didn't quite get that). Had like, 2 or three gold sofas with orange cushions in addition to the gigantic four-post bed with the same color scheme, big sun banners that matched her Cutie Mark all over the place, and her own personal library in there. "Admiring the scenery?" inquired a regal sounding voice from the general direction of the door leading to what I presumed was a balcony. "Yes, actually, Mysterious Voice from Beyond. Could do with a little something more, though. Needs, like, a plasma screen TV over there," I said as I pointed to one of the corners of the room, next to one of her many bookshelves. "And maybe a chocolate fountain or some ice sculptures over by the couch things. The whole thing'sjust not overly gaudy enough." Celestia walked into the room and rolled her eyes at me, a small, at least somewhat amused smile on her face. "Oh, i apologize, I guess i'll just have to find some new royal interior designers who will attempt to incorporate your ideas. On a more serious note," she continued, "let's talk about why I called you here, my little pony." "Hah! You said it!" "What?" "Nothing, nothing, just a thing. Go on." "Ah, yes, well, where to begin?" she said, mostly to herself, furrowing her eyebrows in concentration as if she was trying to consult some sort of mental list or something. "Oh, wow, am I in for it," I said ominously. Good thing I don't really like bananas." She immediately lost her concentration the moment those words left my mouth. It was almost funny to watch her attempt to figure out how to respond to that. After opening and closing her mouth for a few minutes, though, she just sort of gave up and went back to her list. "Alright, so first things first: Not being from here, I'm sure you'll need someone to teach you all about this world and how it works, correct?" she asked me in an official tone. "That'd actually be a negatory, Signora Sunflank." I replied. "I knew quite a lot about this world already when I got here, actually. And in the little under a month I've been here I've been learning more and more about it. Honestly, thinking about it, I'm surprised you didn't suggest this one earlier." She frowned at me. "Well,I suppose you do seem to have become rather well-acquainted with the workings of your new body and home already, but I think you should allow me to appoint someone to mentor you in the more complex inner workings of our world before i send you out." "Send me out?" I asked in confusion. "Send me out where?" "Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Ponyville, Appleoosa, or maybe even somewhere else here in Canterlot. Somewhere that isn't here. We did agree on your stay in this castle being temporary, did we not?" "True." "That actually covers the second thing i wanted to talk to you about, so I'll move straight on to the third. This one retains to your little... hi-jinks involving my guards and many of the castle staff members." I grinned sheepishly and laughed. "Uh, heheh, about all that--," I began. "Keep up the good work," she said, cutting me off. "Some of these ponies really need to learn to loosen up once in a while. Although you may want to tone it back a bit. Get any more out of hoof and we'll be having ourselves riots in the hallways." I blinked the momentary shock away and laughed. "See, this is why you're my favorite princess. So is that everything?" She smiled momentarily at the comment, then shook her head. "No,not quite.The fourth and final thing I wish to speak to you about is your current, ah, how should I put this... 'unique situation'." "I take it this is probably going somewhere along the lines of 'I still have absolutely no idea why you're here and how to send you back home,' right?" "Well... yes, that is indeed exactly where it's going." "Figures." "You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "That is to say, you'll be okay with staying here for until I can find a solution to return you to your world?" I grinned and nodded fiercely. "You kidding me? I don't really want to stay here forever or anything, but I sure as heck ain't ready to leave yet! I've got a lot more I want to do as a pony!" "Like what?" she inquired, obviously amused by my enthusiasm. I stood and looked at her for a few moments, trying to think of anything specific I actually wanted to do as a pony that I couldn't do as a human that I hadn't already done. Naturally, I couldn't actually think of anything at all, so I went with the obvious answer: "PONY THINGS!" I shouted excitedly. She shook her head at me and laughed a little. "I should have known." "So, you said that was all you wanted to talk tome about?" I inquired, redirecting the conversation back toward the original topic at hoof. "Yes, that is indeed all I wished to talk to you about today. However, if all goes according to plan, I shall summon you in the morning to introduce you to your new mentor. I'm sure she will be happy to meet you. Now you may go, with the knowledge that I will not be available for the rest of the day," Celestia stated as she waved a great white wing towards the door. "Why would I need to know that?" "I'm mostly just asking you to please not burn Equestria to the ground in my pseudo-absence is all." "Meh, we'll see," I replied as I turned and walked out of the door. "Later, Sunbeam!" i called as I stepped out into the hallway. I looked around to find that the hall was rather abandoned. She didn't have any guards posted or anything, and Shining Armor was nowhere to be seen. I nonchalantly shrugged my wings, feeling oddly privileged to be able to do so and continued through the castle, passing a few servants and guards here and there, most of who looked surprised as they returned my subdued little waves. Probably just wondering why I wasn't busy stealing the royal throne or blowing up Canterlot or something. As I approached the massive front door of the great castle, I noticed two pegasus guards, one male and one female, coming in from the courtyard, looking more than a little frustrated. As we made eye contact, I also noticed that they were the two guards I was playing mega tag with not even two hours ago. I sheepishly smiled as I walked up to them, trying to ignore their unfriendly glares. "Hey, guys!" I said cheerily. "Nice weather out there today, huh?" "Yeah, so nice," said the stallion, "especially since it's been raining for about twenty minutes now." "Oh. Well. Uh...," I stammered,not really knowing what to say. "If that's all you have to say, then I suppose I will be taking my leave now," he cut in, scowling at me as he walked away. "Wow. Somebody's PMS'ing pretty hard today." "PM-what-ing?" asked the confused looking mare guard. "Oh, uh, you know, just, 'being angered easily,' I guess." She nodded, smirking. "Oh, yeah. That's just him all the time, really. Trust me. We've been partnered up for a few months now. If you'd ask me, that guy could stand to be a bit more like you sometimes, Mr. Troublemaker." I laughed. "Nah, I'm sure that'd just get him in loads of trouble with the Big C all the time. So why aren't you all mad at me for running you guys ragged like he is?" "Frankly, I was more impressed that you were out-flying us the way you were earlier than anything else. Takes some serious skill to outdo the Royal Guard, you know." "Skill? I was mostly just screwing around." "Shush, you. If I say it was your skill, it makes you look better. It was supposed to be a compliment. Name's Storm Front, by the way. You never asked, but I thought I'd tell you." "Storm Front? Neat! My name's Z--" "Zaiker. Trust me, not a single pony in this castle doesn't know who you are by now. Well, I should probably go try to cheer up ol' Grumps over there. Doesn't usually work right away, but it makes him easier to deal with. I'll see you later, Zaiker." "Later, Storm!" I said as she walked away. I turned back to the door, exited the castle, and continued on to the great city of Canterlot, enjoying the feel of the light rain on my coat. Mr. Gruard (Grumpy Guard) had really made the rain seem worse than it was. It was basically just a light drizzle that felt like it was going to stop within a matter of minutes. I sighed contentedly and began to wander the streets of the city, "ooh"-ing and "ahh"-ing at basically every single building and structure and ponyI saw, earning myself some well-deserved strange glances. Eventually, though, I finally came upon my destination, Donut Joe's doughnut shop. By now a few hours had passed and I would probably have to head back to the castle pretty soon, but since I was already there, I pulled out the little coin pouch that Celestia had gifted me with two days prior, and smiled at the shop-owner. I'll take about thirty or so chocolate-frosted doughnuts, please!" And so I feasted. I feasted like a king.
PrologueWhen Lightning Strikes Prologue I yawned and stretched, feeling my back and neck crack and my whole body whine. It was probably about 8 in the morning and every joint I had was screaming at me to go back to sleep. But I refused, knowing I was in control of them, instead of it being the other way around. I immediately walked over to my desk, sat down, and opened my laptop. Okay, so maybe I should fill you in on the setting of this day a bit more. It was a bright, summer-y Saturday morning and i was about to check one of my most frequented web sites - iBrony. It's sort of like a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, but for Bronies and Pegasisters. The creators of that site were geniuses. Anyway, I blew a good hour and a half on my computer before I remembered this one thing that could make your stomach stop gurgling and growling at you, and that I had neglected to obtain any. Food. So I reluctantly got up out of my comfy desk chair and headed to the kitchen. Now let me tell you how a teenage male eats food. It goes in steps. Step 1 - Find any appetizing food you can. Step 2 - Devour it in as short a time as possible. So yeah,the whole eating process didn't take too long, and before i knew it I was back on the Internet, chatting with some friends. After wasting all of my morning, and some of the afternoon, on the Web, I finally closed my computer, reacquainted my legs with the 'standing' position, and decided to actually get dressed and go outside for some decent exercise. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but I couldn't just spend all of my time indoors, right? Right? Right. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved to run, still do, actually, but I just preferred being indoors with my ponies and stuff. I threw on a pair of jeans and my favorite tee-shirt, a dull greenish one with an eagle emblazoned across the front,a real epic article of clothing that was, threw my old tennis shoes on, headed outside and decided to go to the nearby park, running at sort of a half jog, half sprint, my usual running pace. I felt my knees creak every step, but hey, like I said before, I knew I needed the exercise. Once I reached the park I immediately headed for the swings. Call me childish,but the swings have always been my favorite part of any park or related area. In fact, don't even think about calling me childish. You're the one reading stories about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. We're all equally childish here. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, park, swings, that stuff. I sat down and wasted away at least an hour on the swings, either actually swinging or just sitting there daydreaming. Pretty sure I spent most of it daydreaming. That's how I spent most of my schooling years, at least, so I'll just assume that was it. When I finally came back to the world of the living, I noticed it had gotten dark out really fast, like some sort of huge storm was brewing. I didn't like the idea of that at all, so I hastily began the jog home. Mere minutes after leaving the park, the storm had hit full swing. Rain thundered down to the sidewalk as i sprinted towards the direction of my home, not that I could really make anything out. Everything just blurred together. Did I mention I wore glasses back then? No? Because they made it really hard to see in rain sometimes. At this point I was freaking out, because I had seen lightning and heard thunder so many times in the past few minutes I was afraid it was all aiming at me or something. I was really paranoid like that, thanks to the news and my mother's constant warnings about everything ever. At some point, I fell down. It wasn't just a stumble either,I seriously just face-planted onto the sidewalk. And let me tell you, that kind of crap is NOT fun. I don't care how funny it looks in cartoons, it hurts like heck. I kind of just curled up on the spot, pulling my legs into the fetal position. Looking back, I probably looked pretty dang silly, just laying there. But at the time I was truly terrified. And that's when it happened. A brilliant streak of pure white lightning, much different from any other I'd seen before, came cascading down next to me, singing the ground two feet in front of me. A similar streak grazed the ground behind me. In shock, I flipped onto my back to look straight into the sky... ...And witnessed a third bolt of lightning drive itself into my chest. It didn't hurt, no. And it didn't just hit me. It seemed to...go inside me, I guess. Next thing I knew, I was glowing almost as brilliantly white as the streak that hit me, and i saw that everything around me seemed to just fall out of existence. I was whisked away into a 'room' of pure nothingness. There was no sound, nothing to look at, just a white backdrop with nothing on the foreground. It was a pretty surreal place. Then suddenly, I felt an intense heat seem to expand across the entire back side of my body. I turned around to discover the source of the heat, when I was blinded by an extremely radiant, orange light, as if i had looked at the sun itself. The whole 'sun; thought occurred to me back then as well, and the gears in my mind had begun to twirl. I opened my eyes again, noticing the light seemed to pull back in intensity, as if noticing I couldn't look at it properly. I got a clear look at the orange ball of light this time. It still looked remarkably like the sun, but more like how you'd see it on TV, as in, it wasn't blinding me. "I'm sorry," a smooth, silky, feminine voice began, "I did not wish to harm you in any way. The sun likes to...flare up on occasion, regardless of how much i try to keep it in check. A way for it to retain some sort of 'independence,' you could say." Now I'm sure you've already all guessed who this was by now, but at the time I just couldn't believe it. I slowly turned around, and there, smiling warmly at me, was the magnificent Princess of the day herself, Princess Celestia. My jaw dropped, my mind working in overdrive in a vain attempt to process this new information. "I'm sure you're confused, and perhaps you have many a question for me. Alas, I cannot help you. Not because I don't want to of course, I would be delighted to. No, because I simply know nothing of your appearance here. Perhaps there was some sort of divine intervention from some sort of higher being than even myself. Perhaps it was fate. I could not tell you if i wanted, young one." I felt instantly warm, and increasingly comfortable as she continued talking. She seemed to regard me as some sort of close, personal friend instead of just another random stranger to her land. And her voice. It seemed to just pull me in and make me feel warm, welcome, and accepted. I had never experienced anything quite like this feeling before. Unable to find my voice to make any sort of coherent response, I simply nodded at her. She softly and gently laughed at my apparent display of wonderment, "Well, you don't exactly seem to be as full of questions and queries as I thought you'd be. I expect you are simply in an extended state of shock, and will recover on your own soon. I will wait for that time. When you find your voice and have readied yourself, please speak to me." She turned and walked over to the small ball of light. i assume you all know what she looks like, seeing as she's a very prominent character in the show, but I feel the need to describe her anyway. You know, because she's royalty and all. She was, of course, at least a foot taller than me, putting her at about six foot-something, and her coat shined a brilliant, pearly white. Her horn reached out from underneath her ethereal, eternally billowing multicolored mane, her crown resting not far behind, reaching around to her ears and around to the back of her head. Her great, white wings appeared large and powerful, each feather as striking as the next, unfolded wide and unwavering as she attended to her sun. Her gleaming, golden pendant adorned with a single, diamond shaped amethyst was a sight to behold in itself, and the ensemble was completed by the golden "shoes" adorning each of her hooves. Finally, my eyes moved to her flank, and I took in the glorious tattoo of the sun that was her Cutie Mark, and finally decided to steel myself and talk to her. "P-Princess?" I managed unsteadily, "Y-You wanted to speak with me, right?" She turned back to me, the same, wonderful smile on her face, "Yes. Yes I did. I'm glad you finally decided to stop ogling me over there and speak up," she giggled. I blinked in surprise, "W-What? No! I was just-" "Relax, young one. I was just joking. I don't get enough chances to be silly and fool around in my position, so I relish every chance I get. I apologize if I offended you." I let out a small chuckle despite myself, "Oh, I wouldn't say 'offended', Princess. just, uh, surprised is all." "My victims usually are," she laughed again, "Anyway, as I said before, I wish to talk to you. However, also mentioned previously, I cannot even guess as to how you ended up here. I would first like to ask if you have any guesses or explanations for me?" I scratched my head and shrugged, "Honestly, Princess-" "Please, just call me 'Celestia'." I nodded, then continued, "Right, Celestia. I have no idea either. One minute I'm in a park, then there was a storm, then I got hit by some weird lightning and ended up here. Not really anything to go by." "Weird lightning, you say?" "Um, yeah," I nodded again, "instead of the usual, bright blue, it was just...white. Like you. All shiny and radiant and then BLAM! It sent me into subspace. or wherever this is. Where exactly are we?" She looked around, then back to me, and shrugged in the way only pegasi and allicorns can, with that little shift of her wings, "I have no idea. I assume we're in some sort of dreamworld-esque limbo. I can't really be sure of the exact location." "Wait..." I asked, thinking over her words, "so I'm just dreaming all of this,and none of it's real?" She smiled, walked over to me and nuzzled me. She was so real and soft and warm. She looked at me and said, "Dream or not, this is real. You know that as well as i do. I wish to know more about you, young one. Once you wake up, I'd like you to come find me. I'll be waiting." And with that, she disappeared in a flash of golden light, and the orange ball exploded into a mass of color and sound, and I was wrenched from the dream and deposited onto what felt like some sort of field or prairie or something. "Thanks, Celestia," I mumbled to myself, "you couldn't have at least warned me, huh?"
Chapter OneWhen Lightning Strikes Chapter One I coughed out a mouthful of dirt and attempted to look around. For some reason, my body didn't seem to be working the same way it always had before. I couldn't understand what was happening at all. Except of course I'm lying to you, seeing as I knew exactly why my body was all... weird. Things were about to get so magical it would blow the Harry Potter series out of the water, pick it up, throw it back into the water, and blow it out again. What I'm saying is that things were getting extremely magical, if that fact somehow eluded you. I decided to look down at myself bracing for the 'surprise' waiting for me. Not that I hadn't already guessed what happened. Yep. Big surprise this was. Totally unexpected. Real shocker. Is that enough sarcasm for you to find me funny? No? Didn't think so. As you probably guessed, there it was. My new pony body. I could tell that I was a fairly tall stallion, above average height anyway, probably not 'Big Macintosh' huge, but whatever. This was sort of expected seeing as I was pretty above average in terms of height as a human as well. My coat was a sort of a dull silvery-gray, not too light, but not, "oh look at me, I'm so emo and cool and stuff, indifferent grunt" dark either. No, that was reserved for my mane and tail. Deep, dark, slate gray. My mane was similar to Soarin the Wonderbolt's in cut, spiky and wild and awesome, but of course there was the color difference and mine had a second hue,which consisted of an upbeat, golden yellow that also added some color to my short, dull tail. What I noticed was a little weird was that I had the slate gray and yellow colors making up some sort of pattern on my wings as well. The outer sides of the feathers seemed to be striped. I lifted them experimentally, testing the new joints and winced. "But hey, at least I ended up as a pegasus," I said to nopony in particular. Hearing myself talk would probably make me feel less lost and alone, so I decided to just do away with sanity until I re-discovered the God-send that would be civilization, "Okay, so. You're a pony, a pegasus to be more specific, and you're in Equestria. Totally haven't heard that one before. Oh, quiet you. Oh, well if that's how you want to b-DON'T LEAVE ME!" I screamed, causing every bird within a 50 foot or so radius to take flight in surprise. I blinked, "Okay, maybe staying quiet and just heading toward where my instincts tell me will do something for me." I struggled to push myself up on four hooves, but after a few minutes of struggling, I planted them to the ground and steadied myself. So, Equestrian Achievement #1: I had mastered the art of standing still and doing nothing. Aww yeah. Next, I decided to try and work my wings a bit more. You may be wondering, 'Why didn't you try walking first?' Well you know why? Ever hear that old saying, 'Before you can walk, you've gotta learn to fly!'? No? Thought so. 'Cause I just made it up. Well, not 'fly', necessarily, but you know what i mean. Anyway... As I said before, these joints were new to me, so moving them was a little awkward, but after a few minutes i was comfortably flapping them in a steady beat, practicing for the inevitable flight practice I was going to have to go through. it was at this time when I first noticed that some of my smaller, inside feathers (what are they called again, primaries, or, no, wait, are those the bigger ones?) were gold as well. You know, I still to this day haven't met a pegasus with the same weird wing-patterns as me. I brushed it off at the time though, and decided to move on to what would prove to be the easiest thing I'd ever done. Walking around as a quadruped. At first, when I started moving my hooves I thought I was going to become increasingly familiar with the taste of grass and dirt, but surprisingly enough it came almost naturally to me. Like I was born to be a four-legged creature. It sure felt that way, and honestly, I can't remember how I walked on just two, though I can probably stay on my rear legs longer than a heck of a lot of other ponies. Like riding a bike. Except I can't do that anymore. Pony anatomy. Alright, getting off-topic, where was I? Oh, yeah, so now that I knew how to work my new body, I decided to survey the surrounding environments, you know, to pick out anything familiar that I could follow. Unfortunately I had wound up in the middle of some random field and couldn't find anything that had been shown in the show, which was a bit of a downer. Can't win 'em all. Though what i did notice was the sun rising over some sort of pointy object some good 20 or so miles away. And that's when i saw it. Gleaming pearly white as the Princess of the Sun herself, standing gloriously over what i could only currently presume to be Canterlot. The Canterlot Palace, built, like the city itself, into the side of a mountain. I stood in awe for a few moments, then began jogging. I knew that if I was to get there and have that Face-to-Face Part 2 with Celestia I would need to get there sometime soon. Occasionally I lifted myself off of the ground for a few seconds with a couple of flaps of my wings but soon descended. I couldn't really keep my balance or get enough height yet. All in due time, I thought to myself. After about 2 hours of travel, I was pretty exhausted. Not to mention I sure didn't feel that I had even closed much of the gap between me and the palace. "GAH!" I shouted in frustration, before panting a bit. "Why... why couldn't I... have been a unicorn...? I'm sure teleporting could have come in handy here... " I resumed my now slow, somewhat lethargic pace, continuing towards the only thing I recognized in this large, pastel-y, colorful world of stuff I can't be bothered to fully describe to you. What? What do you mean, "That's what makes a story good"? Fine, let me give you a little mental picture in the next paragraph. I was currently walking through a forest. It wasn't like the Everfree Forest or anything, just a nice, large collection of trees. The sun shone brightly on the tall grass that reached up to my knees, the path I was travelling on looked nice and worn, a sign I was probably on some kind of well-traveled trade route. I saw a bunch of different wildlife on the way. Looking back, it was actually pretty dang beautiful, but I was a bit too exhausted to appreciate it at the time. I saw a bunch of animals there, some berries and weird plants, flowers and different types of trees. Yeah, it was actually pretty nice. Maybe i'll go find it sometime and show it to Fluttershy. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. I moved through the forest as swiftly as i could in my state, which wasn't really too fast. I stopped to take a break somewhere along the line and got a good 3-hour nap in. After that I continued, slightly reinvigorated, for some time untili finally reached the gates of the great city. I approached them, ready to take my first few strides into Canterlot with all the dignity I could muster... ... And was instantly denied by two pegasus guards. "Halt!" the one on the left ordered, extending his left wing like a blade. "State your business, stranger," the one on the right continued as he too extended his wing. I gulped and laughed nervously. "H-hey, guys. I, uh, just wanted to, um, get to my appointment with Princess Celestia. You know, the one at the Castle. Inside the city?" The left guard broke his stoic expression and raised an eyebrow. "Appointment with the Princess?" he asked suspiciously. "How can we be sure your intentions are pure? We don't know if you're even telling us the truth." asked the right one. "Um," I started, unnerved, "I, uh, I can't really..." "That's enough, you two," a serene voice announced. The guards and I turned to see the Princess of the Day herself, standing before us, smiling warmly. She approached me and put her wing around me, turning to face the guards as she did so. "Commander Sharp Wing, Lieutenant Dusty Trails, you have no need to worry. He speaks the truth. I personally invited him to the castle. Thank you very much for your concern, but alas, it was unneeded. He is harmless. Now if you two will kindly excuse us, I fear we have some important business to attend to." Suddenly, there was a short, white flash and Celestia's wing and warm body left my side and she moved to lie down on a plush, red cushion trimmed with gold. I looked around for a few moments and realized we were in the Princess's own study. She motioned for me to take a seat on a smaller cushion position in front of her own. I complied without a word. "So, Young One," she began, "I assume you are the young human who was propelled into our world not so long ago? If not, then please do forget everything I just said." I laughed a little and shook my head, "No, no, you're right, Princess. It's me again. Not like you actually had any doubts, though. I guess walking up to the city gates without a reason isn't exactly too common?" "Not particularly. Usually if ponies come to Canterlot it's on business they can prove via paperwork. Or they're accompanied by my protegee, in which case they are immediately allowed entrance in fear I would banish them to the moon." I raised an eyebrow, feigning ignorance. "The moon, Princess?" Her face was somber for a moment, but her radiant smile soon returned. "That, my little pony, is a story for another time. I'm sure you'd love to hear it." I already have, actually. Probably shouldn't have asked... I thought. "So, you said we had 'important business' to discuss?" "Yes. But I'm afraid the most important matter at hand is the most obvious question, 'How did you get here and why are you suddenly a pony?'" "Yeah, and neither of us has any sort of answer." "So that's one currently unresolved issue. Also, may I ask where the scar came from?" "The scar? What do you mean, Princess?" "The one that's across your left eye. I don't remember seeing it before when i spoke to you." I felt my eye carefully with my hoof. I did notice there was some sort of gash that ran down my left eye, top to bottom, about the same length on both ends. I didn't really know what to make of it, so I stood and walked over to the large mirror on what appeared to be Celestia's vanity. "Huh," I observed as I looked more closely at myself. "That definitely wasn't there this morning. Then again, I could say that for a lot of things in this mirror." "Well, best not to dwell on it." Celestia said as she joined me at the mirror. "I'm sorry I pointed it out for no reason, I hope you don't mind." "Oh, no, I don't care. Actually, it makes me look sort of cool! Now all I need is some sort of mustache!" And as quickly as I said it, a large, curly mustache appeared on my upper lip. I grinned and stood there checking myself out and posing or a few minutes before a giggling Celestia's horn glowed gold and "poofed" my glorious facial hair away. "Hey!" I exclamied dejectedly. "Not cool, Celestia!" "'Celestia'?" She asked,eyebrow quirked. "What happened to 'Princess'?" I pouted and returned to the smaller cushion. "You took my mustache, that's what happened." She rolled her eyes and came to join me once again. "Well, I suppose all this silliness has sort of derailed this entire meeting, hasn't it?" I nodded in agreement. "So what do you think we should do with you?" I blinked in shock. "Do with me?" I asked, a little afraid. "Wh-why would you need to do anything with me?" She rolled her eyes again. "No, my little pony, nothing like that. I simply meant, 'What should we do about your living arrangements and other basic needs?' You can't just go back to wherever you came from. Not as far as I know, anyway. Also, I can't keep dodging around our name. You do have one, yes?" I relaxed and nodded. "Yeah, I've got a name. But...," I thought for a moment, and decided to use my Internet name, purely for the sake of being at least somewhat original, "...you can just call me 'Zaiker.'" "Zaiker? Odd name,but I like it. And your living arrangements?" "Well, um, maybe i could stay here in the palace for a few days or maybe a week or two, and then head off to some other town to settle down a bit more 'permanently'?" She raised a hoof to her chin in thought, and after a few moments, shrugged and smiled. "I don't see why not. I'll have your room ready in an hour's time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bit of work I must be getting to. You know, royalty never rests." "I understand, Princess." I said as I stood and bowed."Thank you so much." She smiled that radiant smile at me and laughed. "Please, just call me Celestia. Oh, and... welcome to Equestria."
Chapter TwoWhen Lightning Strikes Chapter Two "WHEEEE~!" I yelled as I flew around the North Tower, evading the two rather irritated pegasi guards' attempting to detain me. "Zaiker!" a voice shouted from below. "Come on, Zaiker, you need to come down here right now!" it called to me. "But Shinnyy~!" I whined loudly over the sound of the wind rushing past me as I dodged this way and that to avoid the two guards. "You're just gonna yell at me again! I don't wanna~!" Shining Armor groaned and smacked his hoof against his forehead. I always felt strangely accomplished when I got him to do that. Big old, serious face Captain of the Guard, and I just rustled his jimmies so hard that he was beginning to lose his patience. "Zaiker! I do not want to deal with you right now!" he snapped at me angrily. "Cadence is sick of me always being late coming home because you've been forcing me to babysit you for the past three weeks!" I slowed down and looked at him for a minute or two, then I decided it was time to cool off and flew down to him. "Alright, Shiny. You win. I'll be good." "Finally. Thank you. Now come on, you little brat. Princess Celestia wants to see you." "Big Sunny wants me? Uh-oh. Must have screwed up pretty badly this time." "Actually," Armor said, looking at me. "This is apparently about something else." I went over a few options in my mind, then shrugged."Maybe it's about my living arrangements. Maybe she's finally kicking me out." "Possibly. Wouldn't be that big of a surprise." We walked in silence for a few moments. Not one of those comfortable, content silences, like you hear in a lot of those stories. We just didn't say anything for a while. Probably because he was still ticked at me. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I liked Shining Armor in the season 2 finale and the season 3 premiere, which is why I found screwing with him to be so much fun. So of course when he got like this it made me feel bad. Especially when I realized that he wasn't just sort of a character in a TV show here. He had real feelings and real stuff he had to do. Like, you know, spend time with his wife? That thing he couldn't do because I always had him running around? Be the Captain of the Royal Guard, which once again, was impossible thanks to my idiocy? Yeah, things like those. "Shining Armor?" I finally said, after about 10 minutes of uninterrupted hoofsteps. "Hm?" He asked, turning his eyes toward me, continuing our brisk walking pace through the halls. "I'm sorry I'm such a nuisance." That stopped him short. I actually had to back up a few steps to stand next to him again. "Huh?" "I said, 'I'm sorry I'm such a nuisance.'" I repeated, looking straight ahead, not wanting to look him in the eyes. "I'm always messing around, getting in trouble and such, and bothering you in the process. So I'm sorry." "It's... it's fine." "So...," I started, as we both began walking again. "How is Cadence, anyway?" "Cadence? Well, Princess Celestia's sort of been showing her the basics of running the kingdom full time, you know, in case anything... well, you know." He had such a way with words. "Uh, yeah. I know. Go on." "Well, she's just been really stressed lately. Scared that she won't be able to step up and perform all of the royal duties in case something really should happen. I'm worried about her," he finished, looking down at the floor. I once again focused my vision directly in front of us and noticed we were approaching Celestia's grandiose chambers. I looked at Shining Armor and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry," i repeated, "You probably wouldn't have to worry so much if you could see her and talk to her more often." He too noticed where we were and looked back to me. "I'll forget all about it if you promise not to cause so much trouble around here." We stopped in front of Celestia's large double door and I turned to him and nodded. "You have my word. I'll try to chill out a bit for your sake." He gave me a sort of half-smile and gestured me toward the door. "Go on, I'm sure she's sick of waiting." I opened the large doors and walked slowly into the huge, ornate, princess-worthy bedroom. Not like, her study or anything, with the fireplace and the little cushion thing where she writes letters and stuff, but the big MB (that is, uh, "Master Bedroom," in case you didn't quite get that). Had like, 2 or three gold sofas with orange cushions in addition to the gigantic four-post bed with the same color scheme, big sun banners that matched her Cutie Mark all over the place, and her own personal library in there. "Admiring the scenery?" inquired a regal sounding voice from the general direction of the door leading to what I presumed was a balcony. "Yes, actually, Mysterious Voice from Beyond. Could do with a little something more, though. Needs, like, a plasma screen TV over there," I said as I pointed to one of the corners of the room, next to one of her many bookshelves. "And maybe a chocolate fountain or some ice sculptures over by the couch things. The whole thing'sjust not overly gaudy enough." Celestia walked into the room and rolled her eyes at me, a small, at least somewhat amused smile on her face. "Oh, i apologize, I guess i'll just have to find some new royal interior designers who will attempt to incorporate your ideas. On a more serious note," she continued, "let's talk about why I called you here, my little pony." "Hah! You said it!" "What?" "Nothing, nothing, just a thing. Go on." "Ah, yes, well, where to begin?" she said, mostly to herself, furrowing her eyebrows in concentration as if she was trying to consult some sort of mental list or something. "Oh, wow, am I in for it," I said ominously. Good thing I don't really like bananas." She immediately lost her concentration the moment those words left my mouth. It was almost funny to watch her attempt to figure out how to respond to that. After opening and closing her mouth for a few minutes, though, she just sort of gave up and went back to her list. "Alright, so first things first: Not being from here, I'm sure you'll need someone to teach you all about this world and how it works, correct?" she asked me in an official tone. "That'd actually be a negatory, Signora Sunflank." I replied. "I knew quite a lot about this world already when I got here, actually. And in the little under a month I've been here I've been learning more and more about it. Honestly, thinking about it, I'm surprised you didn't suggest this one earlier." She frowned at me. "Well,I suppose you do seem to have become rather well-acquainted with the workings of your new body and home already, but I think you should allow me to appoint someone to mentor you in the more complex inner workings of our world before i send you out." "Send me out?" I asked in confusion. "Send me out where?" "Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Ponyville, Appleoosa, or maybe even somewhere else here in Canterlot. Somewhere that isn't here. We did agree on your stay in this castle being temporary, did we not?" "True." "That actually covers the second thing i wanted to talk to you about, so I'll move straight on to the third. This one retains to your little... hi-jinks involving my guards and many of the castle staff members." I grinned sheepishly and laughed. "Uh, heheh, about all that--," I began. "Keep up the good work," she said, cutting me off. "Some of these ponies really need to learn to loosen up once in a while. Although you may want to tone it back a bit. Get any more out of hoof and we'll be having ourselves riots in the hallways." I blinked the momentary shock away and laughed. "See, this is why you're my favorite princess. So is that everything?" She smiled momentarily at the comment, then shook her head. "No,not quite.The fourth and final thing I wish to speak to you about is your current, ah, how should I put this... 'unique situation'." "I take it this is probably going somewhere along the lines of 'I still have absolutely no idea why you're here and how to send you back home,' right?" "Well... yes, that is indeed exactly where it's going." "Figures." "You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "That is to say, you'll be okay with staying here for until I can find a solution to return you to your world?" I grinned and nodded fiercely. "You kidding me? I don't really want to stay here forever or anything, but I sure as heck ain't ready to leave yet! I've got a lot more I want to do as a pony!" "Like what?" she inquired, obviously amused by my enthusiasm. I stood and looked at her for a few moments, trying to think of anything specific I actually wanted to do as a pony that I couldn't do as a human that I hadn't already done. Naturally, I couldn't actually think of anything at all, so I went with the obvious answer: "PONY THINGS!" I shouted excitedly. She shook her head at me and laughed a little. "I should have known." "So, you said that was all you wanted to talk tome about?" I inquired, redirecting the conversation back toward the original topic at hoof. "Yes, that is indeed all I wished to talk to you about today. However, if all goes according to plan, I shall summon you in the morning to introduce you to your new mentor. I'm sure she will be happy to meet you. Now you may go, with the knowledge that I will not be available for the rest of the day," Celestia stated as she waved a great white wing towards the door. "Why would I need to know that?" "I'm mostly just asking you to please not burn Equestria to the ground in my pseudo-absence is all." "Meh, we'll see," I replied as I turned and walked out of the door. "Later, Sunbeam!" i called as I stepped out into the hallway. I looked around to find that the hall was rather abandoned. She didn't have any guards posted or anything, and Shining Armor was nowhere to be seen. I nonchalantly shrugged my wings, feeling oddly privileged to be able to do so and continued through the castle, passing a few servants and guards here and there, most of who looked surprised as they returned my subdued little waves. Probably just wondering why I wasn't busy stealing the royal throne or blowing up Canterlot or something. As I approached the massive front door of the great castle, I noticed two pegasus guards, one male and one female, coming in from the courtyard, looking more than a little frustrated. As we made eye contact, I also noticed that they were the two guards I was playing mega tag with not even two hours ago. I sheepishly smiled as I walked up to them, trying to ignore their unfriendly glares. "Hey, guys!" I said cheerily. "Nice weather out there today, huh?" "Yeah, so nice," said the stallion, "especially since it's been raining for about twenty minutes now." "Oh. Well. Uh...," I stammered,not really knowing what to say. "If that's all you have to say, then I suppose I will be taking my leave now," he cut in, scowling at me as he walked away. "Wow. Somebody's PMS'ing pretty hard today." "PM-what-ing?" asked the confused looking mare guard. "Oh, uh, you know, just, 'being angered easily,' I guess." She nodded, smirking. "Oh, yeah. That's just him all the time, really. Trust me. We've been partnered up for a few months now. If you'd ask me, that guy could stand to be a bit more like you sometimes, Mr. Troublemaker." I laughed. "Nah, I'm sure that'd just get him in loads of trouble with the Big C all the time. So why aren't you all mad at me for running you guys ragged like he is?" "Frankly, I was more impressed that you were out-flying us the way you were earlier than anything else. Takes some serious skill to outdo the Royal Guard, you know." "Skill? I was mostly just screwing around." "Shush, you. If I say it was your skill, it makes you look better. It was supposed to be a compliment. Name's Storm Front, by the way. You never asked, but I thought I'd tell you." "Storm Front? Neat! My name's Z--" "Zaiker. Trust me, not a single pony in this castle doesn't know who you are by now. Well, I should probably go try to cheer up ol' Grumps over there. Doesn't usually work right away, but it makes him easier to deal with. I'll see you later, Zaiker." "Later, Storm!" I said as she walked away. I turned back to the door, exited the castle, and continued on to the great city of Canterlot, enjoying the feel of the light rain on my coat. Mr. Gruard (Grumpy Guard) had really made the rain seem worse than it was. It was basically just a light drizzle that felt like it was going to stop within a matter of minutes. I sighed contentedly and began to wander the streets of the city, "ooh"-ing and "ahh"-ing at basically every single building and structure and ponyI saw, earning myself some well-deserved strange glances. Eventually, though, I finally came upon my destination, Donut Joe's doughnut shop. By now a few hours had passed and I would probably have to head back to the castle pretty soon, but since I was already there, I pulled out the little coin pouch that Celestia had gifted me with two days prior, and smiled at the shop-owner. I'll take about thirty or so chocolate-frosted doughnuts, please!" And so I feasted. I feasted like a king.
