Blacklight Retribution: Stranger on a Stranger World

“So run that shit through me again, mate,” Freddie pressed on, “Why are we letting them win?”

“You can’t take a loss?” Ondra chuckled.

“It’s not that, you damned fool,” Freddie pointed a hoof at him, “You know damned well what I’m talkin’ about.”

He sighed in defeat and only stared at him with the look best bros give to show that they’re serious about something... And it was the other bro’s job to know automatically.

“No,” Freddie was developing laughter, “You don’t mean.”

“And you’d better shut the fuck up,” Ondra jabbed a hoof, “I lost a bet and it has to happen.”

“What do you have to do,” Freddie leaned with his exoskeleton face putting up a mischievous face, “It’s Skittles ain’t it?”

Ondra rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I have to have lunch. If you say anything about this, I’ll burn those white lines to match with your damned exoskeleton.”

Freddie held his forehooves up in the air, “Alright, alright. Not a word about this ‘shit’.”

“Good,” Ondra huffed.

***

“Twilight,” Rainbow tapped at Twilight, who was focusing her magic on finding the two finding them.

“I don’t see anything,” Twilight said with wide eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she repeated becoming delirious, “THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow pleaded for a sane answer, “What can’t be right?”

Twilight was lost in her own thoughts as to why she couldn’t find the signature of a Changeling and the only Pegasus with metal wings, “I can’t find them.”

“Because they’re invisible,” Rainbow responded with a deadpanned expression.

She shook her head, “No, everypony here has a magic signature that I can track. Those two don’t have one.”

“So,” Rainbow trailed off, “Got a plan B?”

In all her days in Ponyville having at least some answer for anything especially the research of Pinkie Sense, Twilight never thought she’d face a problem with using magic tracker.

Rainbow Dash despite her rants with the use of HRV by Midnight Flame, she knows that Twilight’s heart is pure and would not use magic in ways that would deem ‘bad’. She had full confidence in her because... Well, she’s the element of loyalty.

Twilight took a deep breath, “Plan B?! We need a plan C-D-E-F... WE NEED MORE ALPHABETS!”

***

Freddie couldn’t hold his laughter from what he just heard.

“Did you hear that?” Ondra was laughing heartily on comms as well.

“Yeah,” he tried his damndest to talk while laughing, “I need a breather.”

“You,” Ondra paused, “didn’t even do shit.”

“Whatever,” he huffed in response, “How are we going to do this?”

“A lost of your equipment was burned into that body, correct?” it was an insane question.

“Yeah,” Freddie trailed off.

“And you said it reads nervous impulses to communicate with you?”

“Yeah,” anticipation of ‘cutting to the chase’ was rising.

“You still got that sound pack you used to prank Tanny?”

Freddie’s eyes widened, “Oh my shit. You think it’s still there?!”

“Hey, I’m not the one who had his equipment become part of him,” Ondra scoffed on comms.

“Let me see,” Freddie having a toothy grin going through digital storage of his equipment.

“So how was he?” Ondra paused, “I mean Tanny, when I wasn’t part of your group.”

“Tanny was a nice fellow, knew when to call me a faggot or child and knew when to be serious about something. You could consider him to be the most sober friend you can have.”

“I’m sorry,”

“Don’t worry,” Freddie plastered a soft smile, “I’m sure we’ll find him here like you found me.”

“You found me,”

“I know,” Freddie was holding that conversation all the while looking for the one sound pack that he always kept in his digital storage, “one-hundred fifty megabytes. This seems promising.”

Ondra whistled, “You got a shitload of sounds. Did you ever repeat one during a week?”

He chuckled in response, “I don’t think so.”

***

“Twilight,” Rainbow whispered, “Something wrong?”

“I have some more questions to add to what I’m already going to ask those two,” Twilight narrowed her eyes to the outside.

“I’m sure it’s because they’re invisible, Twilight,”

“Was I able to detect a magic signature on Midnight Flame before the Crystal Empire incident?” Twilight asked the pegasus, which made her glare at her for ignorance.

“I’m a pegasus,” Rainbow keeping her glare.

Twilight gave a sheepish smile, “Sorry.”

She only slowly nodded in response.

A pause, and silence to accompany it. They were not anticipating that the game would become intense to the point where it would feel like it was life-scarring.

Suddenly a scream of terror and agony... Sounded like it came from a cheesy horror film, then it was followed by a beastial roar to cut the screaming to a halt as mush splattering to and fro served as ambient noise.

The two froze in silence and fear of what they just heard.

“Uh Twilight?” Rainbow disturbed the silence, “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” her voice trembling with adrenaline, “And that’s the scary part.”

Standing their ground was all they could do as they thought that making movement would lure the beast to home in on the noise of hoof steps.

***

“I’m going to drop a book,” Ondra whispered on comms with his helmet on mute, “Get ready.”

Freddie was getting in position, in between the two.

The book started floating, and that was Freddie’s cue.

“Would you like to learn how to make cupcakes?” he hissed between in his fangs sadistically, “I certainly wo-”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!” Rainbow went crashing through the front door, Freddie unable to contain his laughter. He ended up disabling cloak as Twilight only glared at him in disappointment.

“What was that?”

“If this was the only place to hide, then you certainly can’t win this,” Freddie looked at Ondra’s position, “But I’ll let you win. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Twilight blinked, “What?”

“That’s right,” Freddie gestured her to leave, “You’re free to go. Now shoo.”

“I have some questions for-”

“Later,” the changeling placed a hoof on her mouth, which she surprisingly did not swat off. Enabling cloak, he was walking away.

***

“Well,” Freddie scoffed, “Didn’t see that coming.”

“We need to find Rainbow Dash,”

“Skittles,” Freddie corrected.

“I’m going to use HRV,” he ignored his comment.

“Oh hell naw!” Freddie called out, “You damned hypocrite!”

“You used it first, asshole,” that banter ended with Freddie pouted, then asked, “So where are you having lunch with this lady?”

Ondra pointed to a cafe, “Why?”

“A best bro can’t ask another best bro that kind of question?” Freddie asked defensively.

He sighed in amusement as a response, “Right.”

Ondra looked at him with a curious look, “Do you have something else to do?”

Freddie tapped his chin, “I’ll go look around. Good luck with Skittles, you’re going to need it.”

“Her name’s not Skittles,” Ondra chuckled as he rolled his eyes, watching Freddie leave him to himself, “Her name’s Rainbow Dash.”

***

Rainbow Dash was running with a fear plastered on her face. She was more used to flying, but she really needed to be subtle about getting away from the bad ponies.

“Rainbow Dash!” she heard a voice call out behind her, “Wait up!”

She looked back and there was nothing, she stopped, having a determined look on her face.

Ondra did the same looking in surprise to how she reacted to him calling his name, he decided to have some fun with that.

Focusing on telekinesis, Rainbow Dash was focused on her senses to detect a pursuer so much that she didn’t notice that she was lifting off the ground.

When it finally hit her, the reaction was too much for Ondra.

She was flailing her limbs all around in an undignified manner, then the outburst of laughing became audible to her as Ondra accidentally disabled mute on his helmet... And he managed to turn off cloak in fast succession.

Rainbow Dash saw a stallion pegasus in full armor that was laughing at her; she did not like that, not one bit. So she lunged at the oblivious Ondra and started through the most generic punches that hooves could deliver, and they hurt.

“Rainbow Dash wait!” Ondra tried to defend himself, “It’s me!”

“I know that!” she spat back as she continued throwing punches, this was making a scene for everyone to see. By the time, they stop it would already be too late.

“Rainbow Dash,” Ondra breathed, “STOP!”

Those blue-hoofed punches were still coming. Ondra realised they were in a public opening and he needed to act fast.

“I SAID,” he grunted, “STOP!”

Ondra embraced her in a bear hug position. Unfortunately the rear legs ended up becoming in between each other so when they rolled over, Rainbow Dash ended up being the one on top again.

He looked around to see that there were ponies gathered around to see, and young ones eyes covered, which was a sign that it was bad but he was frozen in fear much like Rainbow Dash. Only able to look back at all the eyes staring that them with either disgust or pity.

“Oh please don’t tell me we’re in,” Ondra grumbled to himself as he looked up, “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” she started squirming, which placed Ondra under pain, forcing him to sit up and embrace her again in hopes of restraining her.

“I know this is embarrassing, but you need to stop!” the thrashing continued for a time until he assumed that what he pleaded for sank into her head because she stopped moving and starting grumbling to herself.

“Let go,” she demanded coldly, making Ondra let go of the embrace slowly, which was only making her more impatient. She bolted back and punched Ondra in the face, “I SAID LET GO!”

Ondra was in fetus position holding his face for dear life, he was on the verge of tears until he realised that he was the stallion that had to show no weakness, though his only weakness was his changeling friend: Freddie.

The crowd started dispersing with chatter that was going to be a gossip thing for at least a week. This made Ondra groan both in pain and irritation, she did a beating on his stomach area, he clutched it with one hoof as he tried to get up with three.

An orange mare started walking which was significant among the crowd.

“Y’all got a lot of nerve doing that to mah friend there, ‘hero’,” she hissed with southern hostility.

“I was trying to-”

“No,” she continued to approach, “You’ve done enough damage. Ah think it’s time you left this good town.”

Ondra only hung his head solemnly.

“Oh!” she said excitedly, “Seems the royal guard is here to take ya away! Don’t come back here.”

She said the last part coldly, which made Ondra look at the chariot with shame.

“I tried,” Ondra finally said.

“Ya didn’t try hard enough,” she huffed.

“Midnight Flame?” one of the guards asked, making Ondra nod.

“Yes,”

“What happened?”

“I got assaulted by a mare,”

“This mare?” the guard glared at her, which made her furious.

“WHAT?! It wasn’t me!”

“Who was it?” the guard intensifying his glare at the orange mare.

“What will happen if I tell you?” Applejack began to feel uncomfortable to ratting out her friends.

“She will be tried for assaulting an equestrian hero,” he replied flatly as Ondra whistled impressively at that.

“Equestrian hero?! Oh for the love of!” she was sputtering out in frustration, held her temples with both hooves then sighed in defeat, “It’s Rainbow Dash.”

The guard gestured to the others to supposedly find her. Ondra approached Applejack in hopes of lightening the mood.

“You know you could have lied,”

“That’s not mah thing,” she was hiding something.

“I won’t pry,” Ondra chuckled as he left the mare alone, “How long do you think until-?”

A blue blur went into a complete stop in front of the chariot... Or in front of the two.

“Princess Celestia needed to see me,” she turned around then had a look of disgust on her face, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Sorry Rainbow,” Applejack rubbed the back of her head in childish shame. Rainbow narrowed her eyes.

“What did you do?”

“Ah kinda told the guards that you were involved in this here stallion’s beating,” Applejack whistled innocently.

“You what?” Rainbow then glared at Ondra, “I assaulted him?!”

“To be realistic, I was in more physical pain than you,” Ondra chuckled, “Emphasis on physically.”

Rainbow scoffed, “You’re a hero of Equestria, I’m sure you could handle something like that and not tell the royal guards a mare beat your sorry flank.”

“They asked first,” Ondra deadpanned.

“It doesn’t matter!” she snapped back.

“Ah’ll,” Applejack trailed off, “just be headin’ off.”

“Princess Celestia wants all the element bearers to be present at the meeting,” that generic guard came from behind the scene.

“We’re supposed to wait for all of them?” Ondra asked.

“They will meet you at Canterlot,” he replied motioning for the three to go to the chariot.

Ondra gave a nod and was the first to start his way to the Chariot.

***

Chariot Ride

***

“So what happened between you and Rainbow?” Applejack asked curiously to Ondra.

He chuckled in response, “Stranger and I wanted to play pony hunt until it got out of hand. Rainbow was running about and I needed to take care of something with her, but you saw how that ended up.”

“You were playing hide and seek? What are ya, a foal?” Applejack asked with distaste.

Ondra scoffed, “Take it however you like, I was the most hurt.”

Applehack rolled her eyes and turned to a silent Rainbow Dash, “How was it?”

Rainbow ignored the question and continued looking out to the sky, then decided to speak to the guard, “Why can’t I fly next to you guys?”

One of the fliers looked back, “You can, just don’t move off course. We’re headed to Canterlot.”

She put up a smile of triumph, “Sweet!”

***

Some time had passed, Canterlot was not exactly close.

“So what does it feel like?” Applejack trailed off, “I was meaning to ask you all this time.”

“Was this the thing that kept you from talking to me all that time at the Crystal Empire?”

She nodded, “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that?”

“What’s with the hat?” Ondra asked out of nowhere, making Applejack tilt her head.

“Why you askin’?”

He decided to dismiss the subject with a hoof, “Nevermind. What was it you needed to talk to me about?”

She gulped and held her hat to her chest, the hair exposed in the way he never saw before, “What does it feel like to die twice?”

When the question finally sank into his head, Ondra tapped his chin with a hoof, “It’s not exactly what you can describe in words, but what I can tell you is that it was not what I expected. People where I came from always talk about something to look forward to after death, like a place where everything goes right for you, a sort of super home. Sorry for lack of better terms, but dying twice, I saw nothing.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes, “You did see something.”

“Naw,” Ondra’s poker face was flawless.

“Tell me the truth,” she asked politely with a calm face, Ondra knew this conversation was going to get violent if he didn’t appease the female. He decided to humor her with the real truth.

Ondra was rummaging through the pockets of his armor, looking for his chibi.

He pulled it out and passed it to Applejack, “That.”

Applejack looked at him in disbelief, but before she could say anything.

“That’s my sister’s before she was taken away from me,” he said looking thoughtfully at the figure, “It was limited edition apparently.”

Applejack inspected the chibi with her hooves and decided not to get the story of how she got taken away, “What what she like?”

“She was,” Ondra took a deep breath, “The best sister you could ask for, though that statement is not exactly impressive coming from her brother. She did what I liked to do, I liked to do what she liked to do. And she was not one of those girls that like what an average girl likes; for example, sleep overs and that kind of thing. We played video games together.”

He paused to realise that video games probably don’t exist in this world yet, Applejack stayed silent as he intently listened which made Ondra smile.

“It was the most fun I had, having a sister play Arma 3 with me as the other players act like she’s a queen because she’s a ‘gamer girl’,” Ondra chuckled in spite of his teary eyes, “Good times.”

“She sounds like the best sister ever,” Applejack chimed, “Ah think Ah would’ve liked to meet’er.”

Ondra gave a solemn nod, motioning to receive the chibi, and repeated one of her last words, “Don’t make a girl a promise... If you know you can’t keep it.”

Applejack took notice of this, “She wanted you to do something?”

Ondra nodded as he closed his eyes and placed the chibi back in the pocket, “Before she passed, she wanted me to do the thing she knew would be the hardest part of losing her.”

He trailed off, thinking of all the things he had done to keep that promise.

Applejack continued to stay in silence of anticipation.

“She wanted me to live,” he breathed.

“I’m sorry,” Applejack looked at Midnight Flame in a new way, a way where she found the stallion more insightful and sensitive. The fiasco that happened in the middle of town was just some accident that they all could let go. There was no sense in keeping a grudge for that.

Applejack held out a hoof to Ondra, which caught him by surprise, “Friends?”

Ondra chuckled heartily and followed the gesture through, “Friends.”

“What are ya going to do about Rainbow Dash?” she pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash who was doing flips like there was no tomorrow.

“I tried to have lunch with her,” Ondra shrugged, “But she decided to beat me up before I could explain myself.”

Applejack laughed to the winds, “Just let’er blow off some steam. Ah know she’ll forgive ya.”

Ondra hummed, “I don’t know, maybe I should have lunch with my new friend.”

“Heh,” she chuckled nervously darting her eyes from Rainbow and Ondra, “I’m pretty busy at the farm, maybe you should just go with Rainbow Dash.”

He leaned back and shrugged, “What a shame.”

“We’re almost there, get ready,”

“Yeah,” Ondra felt an obligation to respond to everything they say, they seem to hold some sort of military authority around this world.

“What do you think Princess Celestia wants to talk about?”

“A lot of things,” Ondra mused.