The Life Of D-Pad: Unlikely Heroes(Cancelled)

Chapters

Not the Best Way to Meet...
Well, That's One Way to Make an Impression...
P. A. R. T. Y? Because I Gotta!
Does This Count as Castle Crashing?
Bury it With a Dragon
Double Your Fun
What a Night for a Fright!
What a Wonderful Day in Pleasant Town!
Lightning Never Strikes Twice

Not the Best Way to Meet...

Augh…oh my God…oh my head hurts…ugh…wait…my head hurts…MY HEAD HURTS!!! OH GOD YES! MY HEAD HURTS!! AHAHAHAHA-OOOW!! I shake Nikolas a couple of times.

“No…no more…I do not need more cows…” He grumbles.

“Nik! Wake up! Were alive!” I shout to him.

“Oh, hey Adam. We are alive? That’s good.” He yawns, lying back in his seat.

…wait for it…3…2…1…

Nikolas springs awake. “We made it?!” He shouts. “We lived!?” He opens the door and steps outside. “Hah! HAHAAHAH! WE ARE ALIVE!” He begins dancing like a fool. I hop out and join him. We lock arms and start cheering and hollering.

“I’ve never felt so glad to be alive!” I say, dropping to the ground. I begin kissing the grass and dirt. I then begin kissing a warm red liquid. I can tell that the liquid is blood. A cold chill rolls down my spine. I have the most ungodly urge to start lapping up the blood. I shake my head and begin looking for the source. I look at the front of the…oh no.

There is a small grey horse lying down in front of the car. It is halfway under the car. It has a couple of open wounds on its body. It seems to still be alive, but unconscious.

“Nik! We need some kind of wrap right now! I think we almost killed a horse!” I shout.

“What?” He walks over and sees the injured animal. “Oh shit! Hang on! I have a first aid kit in the back seat of my car!” He exclaims, rushing to the rear passage seat.

I carefully pull the horse out from under the car. What the hell…why on God’s green earth does it have a treble clef on its ass? And a purple treble clef at that! I shake my head. Not the time, Adam. Nikolas runs over with a red first aid kit. He begins pulling out cotton and bandages out of the kit. He puts on some latex gloves and begins cleaning the open wounds with a bottle of water he had in the kit. He wraps the horse’s body in gauze bandages, covering all the open wounds.

“Is it going to be okay?” I ask, worried.

“I don’t know…I hope so…I don’t think I could put the little thing out of its misery.” Nikolas replies.

Nikolas goes back to his car and tries to start it. The engine doesn’t even rev up. He gets out of the car.

“Chert voz'mi! The battery must have shorted out.” He says, smacking the hood of his car.

“Nik, lets worry about the car tomorrow. We need to get some sleep.” I say, picking up the small horse.

I look at the bandaged horse in my arms. “I am so sorry, little horsey.”

“Did you just call the horse a horsey?” Nikolas asks.

‘It makes me feel better, okay? So, shaddup!” I reply.

We walk over to a brushy patch of grass. I gently lay the horse down on the ground, and lay down a few feet away from it. Nik lies down near my feet. After a few minutes, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

I am awoken to the sound of rustling of grass and panicked breathing. I open my eyes to see the small grey horse just staring at me in fear. I stand up and the horse begins to back away. She comes to about half my height. It has rather large eyes for being a horse.

I glance up at the sky; the sun has yet to rise. The reddening sky indicates that it’s almost sunrise.

“Hey, you’re awake.” I say, looking back at the horse.

The poor thing begins scrambling backwards in fear. It winces in pain as it steps on it hoof wrong.

“Whoa, careful. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, trying to calm it down.

It looks frightened at me. I notice Nik didn’t put away the first aid kit. I walk over to it and open it up. I take out the now half-empty bottle of water. I unscrew the cap off the bottle and bring it over to the horse.

“You must be thirsty as a corn plant in hell.” I joke. “Here…it’s okay, it’s just water.”

It looks at the bottled water and then back to me. It then leans forward grabs the mouth of the bottle with her teeth. She tilts her head back finishes the rest of the bottle. That’s amazing. It seems to grasp the concept of drinking from fluid containers. Astounding.

It puts the bottle down on the ground. It has seemed to calm down, a bit.

“Aaaugh… morning, Adam.” I hear Nikolas yawn.

He stands up. The horse begins to back away again, frightened by Nik.

“It’s okay.” I say, trying to calm it down. “He’s my friend. He patched you up when you were unconscious.”

The horse looks at its bandaged body. It looks at us in question.

“Our car must have landed on you.” Nikolas guesses. “Your body was in bad shape, so my friend pulled you out from under the car, and I cleaned the wounds and wrapped bandages around you.”

I swear to God the damned thing smiled at us. This horse is amazing…DAMNIT I JUST THOUGHT OF THAT WEEBL SONG!! “Adam can I talk to you for a minute?” Nikolas asks me. We walk a few feet away from the horse.

“Adam, did you seem to notice that horse seem to be aware of what we were saying to it?” He whispers.

“That, I did notice…this horse is brilliant!” I whisper back.

“How in the hell does it know what we’re saying?” Nikolas asks.

“I don’t know…but this horse it the shiznit.” I reply.

We both walk back to the grey horse. “You are quite the anomaly, little guy.” Nik says, kneeling next to the horse.

The horse looks offended at his remark.

“Looks like “She” didn’t like the little guy comment.” I joke.

She nods at me. Wait…what?

“Did…did you just nod you head in agreement?” I ask the horse.

She nods her head again. Oh…my…God…It understands English.

“Nik! I think it understands our language!” I shout at Nikolas.

“Only one way to find out for certain.” He comments, kneeling down to the horse. “My name is Nikolas Alvang. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He extends his hand in greeting.

The horse places its hoof in Nik’s hand. Nik shakes the horse’s hoof. “Incredible…Simply incredible…” He says, astonished.

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Alvang. My name is Octavia Melody.”

“Nice name.” Nikolas replies.

Well, isn’t she polite…FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…

“NOPE!” I shout as I throw my hands in the air and walk away from Nikolas and Octavia. “NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!! THAT HORSE DID NOT JUST SPEAK!”

“I am a pony, sir.” She corrects me.

“STOP IT! YOU SHOULD NOT BE TALKING, LET ALONE CORRECTING ME!” I shout.

“Quit shouting, Adam. You’re going to scare Octavia.” Nikolas says, walking over to me.

“WHY ARE YOU NOT FLIPPING OUT RIGHT NOW!?!” I shout at Nikolas.

“Adam, there are many of things that could have killed us in the night, and you’re worried about a talking horse.” Nikolas comments.

“Pony.” Octavia corrects him.

“Right, pony.” Nikolas amends.

…this is a bad dream…all a bad dream…I am gonna close my eyes and when I open them, I am gonna be back in bed. I close my eyes, and open them back-oh it’s still there…WHY!?!

“I…IT’S…BUT IT’S…

…

…BORED NOW!”

“Of course you are. Now say hi to Octavia like a normal person.” Nikolas tells me.

“Garlic!” I shout, extending my hand in greeting. Nikolas places his hand on his face.

“Uh…hello?” she replies, shaking my hand with her hoof, eyebrow raised.

“He means hello. Sorry, he’s not quite all there.” He apologizes. “Adam, check if we have a signal so we can call for help. And try to get your internet running. The more means of communication, the better.” He commands me.

“Righto, I’ll get right on it.” I say pulling out my phone.

“Is he always like that?” Octavia asks.

“Only when he wants to be. Trust me. That isn’t the weirdest thing he likes to do.” Nikolas comments.

I open my phone. No signal…Damn it all. I walk back to the car and boot my laptop up. No internet…oh no! My daily dose of cat videos! Only joking…I don’t like cat videos...usually…I walk back to Nikolas, who is currently trying to examine Octavia’s wounds. He is starting to remove the bandages.

“No signal from either device, Nik.” I say to him.

“Chert! Well, we’re just going to have to find another way to communicate.” He says, pulling some of the bandages away.

“Now let’s check to make sure you didn’t get any infections.” He says, examining Octavia’s wounds.

She suddenly screams in pain. Nikolas retracts his hand. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“It’s…it’s okay. The bandage just stung coming off.” She reassures him.

I look around. Wow, it’s very bright considering the sun hasn’t risen yet. Strange…the colors of the trees seem brighter than those in Minnesota. In fact…everything seems a brighter color than Minnesota. Curiouser and Curiouser…what’s that in the sky? Looks like a yellow bird of some kind…it’s getting bigger!

“Hey Nik! What d’you make of that?” I say, pointing at the yellow bird.

He looks up at the bird. “Don’t know…Say is it getting closer?”

“LEAVE MY FILLYFRIEND ALONE YOU BUCKING FREAKSHOWS!!”

“Say what now?” I comment.

WHAM!

I slam into the larger of the two creatures, knocking him to the ground. I hear it whimper in pain. It says something about having someone stop the room from spinning. I pin its head to the ground. I am suddenly tackled off the large creature by the skinnier creature. It pins me against the ground. It stares angrily at me at first, and then looks at me in amazement. A blue aura lifts him up in the air and tosses him into a tree. He begins cringing in pain.

“You doin okay, D-Pad!?” Vinyl shouts to me. The slimmer one of the two creatures is back on his feet. Vinyl lifts up a rock with her magic.

“STOP! STOP! WE COME IN PEACE FOR GOD SAKES!” It shouts.

“D-Pad! Stop it!” Octavia exclaims, grabbing me by the tail.

“Octavia! Those creeps were trying to hurt you!” I shout, trying to move forward.

“I’ll have you know that these creatures bandaged me up after the accident with Miss Sparkle. Mr. Alvang was examining my wounds to make sure they were not infected.” She defends.

“Look…can we just talk about this like gentlemen?” The slimmer creature says.

WHAM!

Miss Rainbow Dash tackles the creature and bucks him in the legs. He begins grabbing his leg with its foreleg.

“Never fear, Rainbow Dash is here!” She says, making a heroic pose while standing on the creature.

“NEED A HUG?!” a new voice bellows.

The larger of the two creatures grabs Rainbow Dash and begins squeezing her tightly. He begins thrashing her about. She begins screaming in pain. The creature then tightens his grip. Rainbow dash tries to scream, but cannot utter a sound.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!”

A pink aura pulls the big creature away from Rainbow Dash. The creature is now stuck inside a pink ball. Twilight Sparkle walks out from behind us and walks over to the creature.

“UNHAND ME, VILE DEMON TEMPTRESS!” The larger creature shouts.

“Not until you promise me that you will refrain from attacking us.” She replies, calmly.

“…Fine…but only if you promise that you will stop attacking us…” He growls.

The purple aura surrounding me dissipates, and I fall flat on my face. I am pretty sure I deserved that. I pick myself up of the ground and brush myself off.

“Thank you.” I growl at her.

I pick Nikolas up off the ground. He is struggling to stay standing. I offer him my shoulder, to which shakes his hand at me.

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a few minutes to stand on it.” Nikolas says.

I look over at the group of horses. I have never seen such colorful horses in my life. Wait…That white one…is a unicorn…WAIT, WHAT!

“Hang on! Stop the music! Cut!” I shout. “The white horse is a unicorn!”

“Pony.” She corrects me.

“DOESN’T MATTER! STILL UNICORN!” I shout.

“Yeah…don’t you have unicorns where you come from?” She asks.

…when’s the last time I took LSD?

“No, and we don’t have hors-ponies that FLY ALL OVER THE PLACE!!” I shout, pointing at the blue pony with the rainbow hair.

She looks at me with anger. Yeah? Well, fuck you! You hurt my friend, I hurt you back. And besides this is not ancient Greece, why is there a pegasus here? I look at the purple…winged unicorn…you know what? I am not even surprised anymore.

“Look, I know we could stand here all morning and gibber-jabber, but we really need a phone right now.” I say.

“What’s a phone?” The yellow pony with light yellow bat wings asks.

…well…fuck…

“You guys don’t even know what a phone is?” Nikolas asks.

All of the ponies shake their heads…great…just great…

“Okay, soooooooo…What do we do now?” I ask Nikolas.

“Excuse me, miss…” he begins, talking to the purple one.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

SHE’S A PRINCESS?!?!

“Ok…Do you know somewhere where we can discover where we are? Perhaps an information booth, an archive…hell, even a library?” Nikolas asks her.

“You’re in luck.” She says, smiling. “I happen to be the librarian at the Golden Oaks Library. I’d be glad to help you Mister…”

“Nikolas Alvang.” He replies. “And this big lug over here is…”

“I am Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate(TM)!” I shout proudly, making a heroic pose.

OW! Nikolas just smacked me in the back of the head. Y U DO DIS!?

“My name is Adam Welling, and like the Twinkie, I have a delicious cream filling.” I state proudly. Nikolas facepalms himself. The ponies all raise their eyebrows at me…hehehehehehe…I love messing things up.

“Right…well, you know my name.” The purple one says.

“My name is D-Pad.” The yellow pegasus with bat wings says. “Hey, sorry for jumping to conclusions about you two creatures.”

“Well, no harm done, so were good. Isn’t that right, Adam?”

“Hey, you apologized. It takes balls to do that.” I say.

“Well, you know me as well.” Octavia says.

“Name’s Vinyl Sctatch.” The white unicorn says. “You guys know any good music?”

“You kiddin’? I got stuff you probably never heard of.” I comment.

I look over at the blue pegasus with the rainbow mane. “And what’s your name, miss?”

“Rainbow Dash, and don’t think that just because we know each other’s names doesn’t mean everythings all patched up. I don’t trust you…heck, I don’t even like you. All you need to know is my name and that I am the fastest flier anywhere.” She growls.

“You don’t need to be a bitch about it…” I comment.

She turns and walks away. I go back to the car, put my computer in my book bag, and walk back to the group of ponies. Nikolas grabs a duffle bag from the back seat of his car and walks back to us.

“Lead the way.” Nikolas says.

Well, That's One Way to Make an Impression...

“So in short...” Nikolas says to Twilight Sparkle. “You and your friends were going to do a rough take on your performance for a summer festival. While you were performing a weather spell, things went awry and you ended up creating some sort of portal that must have warped us here.”

“That is what I am presuming.” She replies to Nikolas.

We have been sitting inside this library for some time, listening to Twilight talk about this world. Turns out we are no longer on Earth. We are now in the magical world of Equestria. Yeah…If the ponies are capable of human speech, I’d say it’s magical. Now, the world here is populated by three main groups. The first are earth ponies, which do not possess any magical ability. This group trends to being the group that does most of the farming. This is not always the case as many do find other ways to help out. Next are pegasi, the flying ponies. Somehow, they are able to manipulate the weather, and are tasked with controlling the weather in Equestria. So, this leads me to conclude that pegasi and earth ponies need each other to survive. Last of the main group are the unicorns, the magical horned ponies. They are capable of performing magic using their horns. What magic they do varies on how much they learn. This is some fascinating stuff.

There are exceptions to these three. The biggest exception is the alicorns, or flying unicorns. Twilight is one of these exceptions. Not only do they have the ability to fly, but they also boast more magical power then the unicorns. Some can even live for long periods of time. The most fascinating of these alicorns is the two rulers of this land. The rulers are sisters, as Twilight tells me. The eldest of the two has one of the biggest responsibilities anyone in this world has…making the sun rise. The younger raises the moon. My God…if these things can alter the cosmos…Eugh, I shudder to think any further.

Getting to the library was quite amazing. Before we entered the town, the two pegasi made a thick fog in their town. Under the cover of fog, we snuck around the town, avoiding the few other citizens. As we made it to the library, I noticed the library was a tree. It was then that Twilight said that the library was in the tree.

…and here I now sit, listening to Nikolas and Twilight talk about the world of Equestria. Drinkin mai hot chocolate…mmmm…OH YEAH! MARSHMALLOW!

“But here I am talking my head off…What can you tell me about yourself, Mr. Alvang?” She asks Nikolas politely.

“Nothing really big… I am 22 years old as of today. I was born in St. Petersburg in Russia. I had a pretty decent childhood. I am glad my parents took the time to mold me into a good-hearted citizen. My father moved to the United States when I was 16. At 18, I moved to America with my brothers and sister to be with my father, who was suffering from polio. At 19, I became acquainted with some marksmen and started my career as a competitive shooter. I met this big lug at one of the competitions.” He says.

They both look at me. I wave my hand over my head.

“What about you, Mr. Welling?” She asks.

“Me? These nothing much to tell, really.” I tell her. “I’m 21 years old. I was born and raised in the small town of Fulda, Minnesota. At 18, I graduated from the town’s high school and am now enrolled in the college in the nearby city of Worthington. As for work, I’m a tutor at the college. At 20, I started investigating supernatural occurrences, and began writing books on many supernatural creatures. As of today, I am an unofficial supernatural investigator. I’m also quite mad in the head. I choose abnormality as a way of living. Perhaps it’s because I have been hanging around supernatural entities for too long. Maybe it’s because I have ADHD. MAYHAPS IT’S BECAUSE I HAS LEECHES IN MAH BRAIN! AAAAAAAAUGH!!” and then I fall out of my seat.

Nikolas facepalms himself.

“Is he always like that?” Twilight asks.

“More than you can ever imagine…” Nikolas mumbles.

And now I am hungry. “Hey, where can I get something to eat?” I ask, standing up.

“Depends…what exactly does your kind eat?” She asks.

“Well, I am Omnivorous, so plants or meat.” I reply, to which Twilight looks at me in shock.

“You eat other animals?!” She gasps.

“Yeah. I like beef in particular. Delicious, especially with some garlic and lemon juice. MMMMmmmmMMMm, them’s good eating.” I comment.

Twilight looks at me with concern. “We don’t have any meat…We have spinach…” She suggests, slightly bothered.

SPINACH…FUCK YEAH!!

“I LOVE SPINACH! Great on sandwiches, and plain. I would love spinach!” I say, happily.

She seems to be at ease now. “Wonderful, I’ll be right back.” She says walking up the stairs.

“I don’t care! I don’t trust them, and neither should you!” Rainbow Dash exclaims.

“Well, it’s our fault that the got hostile with us.” I shoot back.

“Indeed, and besides, they seem friendly enough. If they were kind enough to help me, how bad can they be?” Octavia chimes in.

“I’m siding with D-Pad on this one.” Vinyl states. “They didn’t do anything to us, we attacked first.”

Rainbow Dash groans with exasperation. She stomps over to the window. Twilight walks into the room.

“Is everything okay?” Twilight asks, walking over to Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah, Rainbow Dash is still having some trust issues with the humans.” I say.

“And you’d be smart not to trust them either, Twilight.” Rainbow Dash says, placing a hoof on Twilight’s chest.

“Don’t worry Rainbow Dash. They are being peaceful. My only concern is that they are meat eaters, but they seem to eat plants as well. Other than that, they seem to be fine. They’re very patient, even when I gave them our history of our world.” She says.

“Even the big guy?” Rainbow Dash asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Well…he tried. He has some trouble paying attention. And he’s very random. Like, more than Pinkie Pie.” Twilight replies.

Rainbow Dash looks at Twilight in surprise. I’m quite surprised as well. I met Pinkie Pie on multiple occasions, and she has been unpredictable every time. I’ve seen her sneeze confetti, and even she didn’t know where it came from.

“How random?” Rainbow Dash asks Twilight.

“Let’s just say this is the first time I heard somepony shout “I am the poop train conductor, now where is my ramrod” in a sentence.” She replies.

I stifle a chuckle. That shouldn’t be funny, but when you here a princess say it, you tend to giggle a bit.

She walks over to a small icebox. She opens it and pulls out a bag of spinach. She then closes the icebox and walks back downstairs.

“You know, I could trust the thin one. It the larger one I don’t trust.” Rainbow Dash states.

“Oh, come on. You’re just mad because he grabbed hold of you.” Vinyl comments.

“If he would have squeezed you as hard as he did to me, you wouldn’t like him either. I could not breathe, and it felt like he was going to break my ribs.” She retorts.

Twilight dashes up the stairs. “They’re gone! They left the library!” She exclaims.

“What was that about trusting them, D-Pad?” Rainbow Dash says, smirking gladly at me.

“D’you feel bad about sneaking out of the library?” I ask Nikolas.

We walk out of the library and sneak around some of the shops, staying out of sight. Nikolas is carrying his duffle bag.

“A little bit.” He replies. “She is very nice, and she shares the same scientific interests as I do. She is very talkative, which is good and bad. Good, as she explains everything we ask about. Bad, as she liked to talk about everything else, including our world.”

“She reminds me of you, bud. Gotta learn it all.” I joke.

"Da, no kidding. Good job distracting her, by the way. I was just waiting for a moment like that.” He compliments me.

“Thanks, but you owe me a bag of spinach.” I say.

Nikolas laughs. “I’ll make it up to you. First, we are going to try and hunt a deer. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t bring this bad boy just to eat cabbage and potatoes.” He says, patting his duffle bag.

We both peek out of our hiding space. The coast seems to be clear. We run across the street and hide behind some of the cottages. I can see a forest close to here. We keep sneaking around the town, getting closer and closer to the forest.

“Just a bit further.” Nikolas whispers. “Let us just pass by here…”

Nikolas accidentally trips over a barrel. He flops onto the ground. A bunch of ponies come over and look at him. The look at him in wonder and awe. As he stands up, the ponies start prodding and poking him. Damn it, Nikolas, we don’t need this attention. Looks like I’m going to have to save your ass…again.

I step out of my hiding spot, take a deep breath, and raise my hands over my head.

“WHERE’S THE BLAAAAAAAAACKSMITH!!!” I bellow.

The ponies jump and start running around screaming. I grab Nikolas and we bolt to the forest. We walk for what I presume is a mile into the forest. Nikolas puts down his duffle bag, unzips it, and pulls out a bolt-action rifle and some rifle bullets. He loads the bullets, zips up his duffle bag, puts it on, and continues forward.

We walk for a while, talking about what we are going to do to get back to our world. We make jokes and tell stories of our lives. Suddenly, Nikolas puts a finger up to his mouth and makes a shushing noise. He points forward. I look and see what I can make out as a large deer. Nikolas kneels down and points his rifle at the deer. He takes a couple deep breaths. He then takes a deep breath and holds it. He pulls the trigger. There is a thundering boom, followed by a splatter of red from the head of the deer.

“Oh yeah! Perfect!” Nikolas shouts.

“Very unsportsman like, Nik.” I say.

“Oh hush up…this is not a sporting event, this is hunting for food. No rules tovarishch, no rules.” He retorts.

We walk over to the deer. There is a large hole in its head, and there is pool of blood forming under it. Nikolas puts his rifle back in his duffle bag.

“Adam, could you carry the deer for me?” Nikolas asks.

Man…I hate carrying dead things…”Sure.” I grumble. I pick up the deer and put it on my shoulders. We start walking back to the town.

“You’re certain they went this way?” I ask one of the scared.

“Y-yes, the big one began hollering about the blacksmith. Why does he want to know where our blacksmith is?” She asks, worried.

“I’m not sure, but I think he just wants to talk to him.” I guess.

“We're whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon, but there ain’t no whales, so we tell tall tales, and we sing our whaling tune!” I hear Adam sing.

I turn around to see Adam and Nikolas walking towards me, with a dead deer over Adam’s shoulders.

“What happened?!” I say, examining the deer.

“I killed it. One bullet to the brain, and he went and flopped down. Perfect shot.” Nikolas says.

“YOU DID WHAT!!” I shout.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle fly down to us.

“What happened to it?!” Twilight asked, pointing at the deer on Adam’s shoulder.

“Nikolas killed it!” I growl.

“You did what!?” Twilight shouts at Nikolas.

“I killed it! And I plan on eating it too! I don’t care that you guys are vegetarians; I am going to eat meat and I do not care what you think about it!” Nikolas shouts.

“Nik, calm down.” Adam says. “You don’t need to be a jerk about it.”

“It’s not my fault they can’t deal with the fact that I killed an animal that I intend to eat.” Nikolas grumbles at Adam.

“Yeah maybe, but the fact that your being a douche about it doesn’t make our appearance any better.” Adam retorts.

“If you had any good appearance…” Rainbow Dash comments.

“You need to shut your pretty little mouth before somebody shuts it for you!” Nikolas shouts. “I swear to God, you are getting on my nerves, you little bitch!”

“Who are you calling a bitch?!” Rainbow Dash shouts, poking Nikolas in the chest.

Nikolas grabs her forearm. “I would not touch me again if I were you!” He shouts.

“Or what, you furless freak!?” Rainbow Dash shout, pushing Nikolas with her other hoof.

Nikolas grabs what looks like piece of metal with a wooden handle from his duffle bag. He puts it right at Rainbow Dash’s throat. “How much do you love eating with your mouth?!” Nikolas shouts.

“WHOA! NO! NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD!” Adam shouts, backing up. “Nik, just calmly put the gun down! Take a couple deep breaths…and lower the gun.”

Nikolas begins to take a couple deep breaths. He puts the “gun” in his pocket and lets Rainbow Dash go. She begins rubbing her throat.

“I…I am sorry…” He says, rubbing his head. “I should have been more delicate about this.”

Everypony stands still, not saying a word. This goes on for a couple of minutes. Suddenly, I see Vinyl and Octavia galloping toward us. They look like the world is ending.

“Dragon! At the town hall!” Octavia shouts.

“…WADAYA MEAN A DRAGON!?!? WHEN WAS THIS A THING!?!?” Adam shouts, flabbergasted.

“Now is not the time!” I shout. “We got to go and stop it from destroying Ponyville!”

Everypony starts running toward the center of Ponyville. Adam drops the deer corpse as he runs.

Dragons…WHY THE HELL ARE THERE DRAGONS! IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! WAIT! I FORGOT! NOTHING MAKES SENSE HERE…fuck my life…

We get to what I presume is the center of the town. The biggest building here, the town hall as I am guessing, is being perched upon by a jet-black dragon. Some pegasi in blue uniforms are trying to get it off the building.

“You think we should tell them that what they’re doing isn’t working?” I ask the group.

The dragon swats the pegasi out of the sky. “Oup, never mind.” I say. Rainbow Dash and D-Pad fly up towards the dragon. They fly in a couple of maneuvers that seem to be working. Well, until the dragon grabs them both, and begins squeezing the life out of them.

“What do we do!?” Octavia shouts.

I raise my hand in the air.

“I got dis.”

I walk over to the Town Hall. “HEY, FUNGUS BREATH!” I shout to the beast.

The dragon looks down at me, and growls at me.

“Get yo ass down here!” I shout, to which the dragon roars at me. “DON’T YOU UAAAAAUAUAUAAUGH AT ME, I SAID GET YO ASS DOWN HERE!!!”

The dragon roars at me again. “I don’t think he is willing to listen to you.” Octavia comments.

“Well then, I’m just going to have to climb up there!” I say running towards the town hall.

I jump up to the balcony and pull myself up. I start scaling the building. The dragon notices me and swings its tail at me. Seeing it coming, I take the opportunity to jump onto its tail and hang on tight. The dragon begins flailing its tail around. The dragon brings its tail to its face, which is the STUPIDEST thing it could do. I leap to its face and grab its snout. It begins roaring and thrashing its head about.

“This is your captain speaking; we are experiencing some MAJOR TURBULENCE!!” I shout.

The dragon lets go of the two pegasi and grabs me. He starts trying to squeeze the life out of me.

“Look.” I say, pulling my arms out. “We both know you’re not going to win. Why don’t you just give up now and I won’t punch you in the noggin.”

The dragon roars at me again. I get it, your scary, look at me cower in fear, aaaaaaah…I’m getting bored now. Let’s get this over with…

I pry myself out of the dragons grip. I run up the dragon’s arm to his face, and punch him right in the snout. I think I hear something break. I hop on his face and begin stomping on his head. He raises both of his claws up trying to swat me away. Now he has no leverage to the town hall. I jump as high as I can, which is a good couple of feet. As I come falling down, I bring my feet at full force onto its snout. The shock sends the dragon flying forward onto the ground. I scramble onto the dragons back, just in time to avoid getting crushed by the weight of the dragon. I step over the dragons head and climb down onto the ground.

“And THAT ladies and gentlemen is how you bring down a dragon!” I shout proudly. Nikolas and the rest of the ponies stare at me with awe and amazement. I hear the dragon growl behind me. I see a large shadow take form under me. I instinctively leap out of the way, just in time to avoid being crushed by the dragon’s hand. I look back at the dragon, and it roars at me yet again.

Rrrrrgh…BRAVO! YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY PISSED ME THE HELL OFF! I walk over to the dragons face. “FUS RO FUCK YOU!!!” I shout as I punch the dragon in the snout repeatedly. The dragon begins whimpering. “ARE YA DONE!?” I shout, to which the dragon nods. “THEN GET YO ASS OUTTA ERE!” The dragon quickly picks itself up and scrambles to take off. It then darts as fast as it can towards the sky. Take a deep breath…and release…

“So, where were we?” I say calmly. I notice that there is now a huge crowd of ponies forming behind Nikolas. They are staring in awe. They murmur amongst themselves. Vinyl Scratch trots over to me.

“May I have your attention please!” She shouts to the crowd. “I am proud present…the most amazing, the most death-defying human Equestria will ever see! He’s big…he powerful…he’s more random than square tires. Mares and gentlestallions! ADAM!”

The entire crowd begins cheering and applauding. Nikolas walks over to me. “Well!” He shouts over the crowd. “This turned out to be a better day than I expected!”

D-Pad flies down to me and high fives me. “Feels good, doesn’t it!” He shouts.

I take Nikolas aside. “You think I should tell them I do this shit for a living?” I say.

…

“Nah.” We both say together.

P. A. R. T. Y? Because I Gotta!

“There. It is finished!” Nikolas says, admiring his work. I fly around and look at his carpentry work. The stage looks fantastic.

I fly up higher to get a topical view of the stage. Looking out from the park, I see a couple of ponies setting up some stands for the party in the park. I see Adam pulling a cart with a bunch of speakers on a cart towards the stage. Vinyl and Octavia are walking behind the cart. I fly down next to Octavia and Vinyl.

“You okay up there big guy!?” I shout up to Adam.

“RUTHERFORDIUM!!” He shouts back. I am going to assume that’s a positive response.

“Can’t believe you took down a dragon!” I shout to him. “Not even the Wonderbolts were able to stop it!”

“Those weirdoes in the blue suits? You may want to tell their employer that they suck at their job!” Adam shouts back.

That may not be the best idea…considering who their employer is…

“Thanks again for hauling my DJ equipment to the stage, Adam.” Vinyl thanks Adam.

“Not a problem, but you gotta show me how to make a dishwasher like yours. I wanna wash my dishes with wubs, too.” Adam says.

We approach the stage. Adam starts lifting the equipment onto the stage.

“How the Tartarus are you that strong?” Octavia asks. “Forgive me for saying, but you don’t look exactly built for heavy lifting.”

Adam pokes his stomach. “It jiggles when I poke it.” He giggles. “Oh yeah you asked a question…uh, I guess the best answer to the question is that I’m full of surprises.”

“That…doesn’t really help.” I say.

“Bored now! Gonna go see Twilight Sparkle! Why don’t you come with me D-Pad?” Adam asks me.

“Sure, what can go wrong?” I say. I kiss Octavia on the cheek, and walk with Adam. We walk for a few minutes. Adam shakes the hooves of a couple of ponies as we walk along.

“You and that Octavia lady make a great couple.” He comments as we walk. “You remind me of me when I had a girlfriend.”

“She’s the most wonderful pony I ever met.” I say. “I love her with all my heart.”

He smiles. “You’re going to make a good husband.” He says. He stops to look at an aquamarine unicorn mare with a white and light aquamarine mane. She is staring in amazement at Adam. She walks up to Adam and pokes him.

“Eyeeeees?” Adam says.

The unicorn squeals with delight. “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! A human! A real live human!” she shouts. She grabs Adam’s hand and begins just staring at it.

“Okaaaaay…this is getting creepy.” Adam comments.

She is giggling like crazy. “So…amazing…” she gasps.

“I’m sorry miss, but we’re very busy right now.”” I say, pulling Adam away. “But if you want to come to the party in the park at 8:00 tonight, we’re going to be there.”

She continues to stare at Adam and giggle as we walk away.

“Too spooky for me.” Adam whimpers.

“Hi there, Adam. I’m glad you could make it.” Twilight Sparkle greets Adam. “Oh, hi D-Pad. I didn’t see you there.”

We walk into the library. There is a large mechanical device with flashing lights and buttons sitting in the middle of the library. Rainbow Dash is reading a book. Ah, Daring Do…one of my favorites. “Hi Rainbow Dash.” I greet her.

Rainbow Dash looks up from her book. She notices me and smiles. She then notices Adam and puts her head back down. “Something wrong?” I ask. She mumbles something about Adam gloating.

“HI RAINBOW DASH!” Adam shouts.

She sighs and walks over to Adam. “Go on, just get it over with.” She grumbles.

“Excuse me?” Adam asks.

“Go on and gloat. I couldn’t take down a dragon, and you manage to do it by yourself. Just gloat already so I can get on with my day.” She grumbles.

“…you know I really like your mane.” Adam complements her.

She raises an eyebrow at Adam. “Well, go on…gloat.” She says.

“You know, you remind of a girlfriend I used to date. Very determined girl. Loved to be the best at anything she could. I remember beating her at a game of chess.” Adam laughs. “You…you should have seen her. She was fuming. Oh, did she hate losing. It took me days for me to finally get her to go and get some ice cream with me. But there’s one thing that I never did when I beat her. And that was gloat. Everyone loses and has their off days. Today was just your day. Trust me; I had quite a few of those days myself.” Adam tells Rainbow Dash. He smiles at her. Rainbow Dash brightens up and grins back at him.

“You’re pretty cool, Adam. Strange as Tartarus, but cool.” She complements Adam.

Adam walks over to the device. “What even is this thing, Twilight?” Adam asks.

“Put this helmet on.” Twilight Sparkle instructs him. Adam places the helmet on his head and straps it on. It is connected to the machine with wires. Twilight places a helmet on her head, which is also connected to the machine with wires. “Now, how would you describe your mind to the normal pony?” She asks Adam.

“A jumbled mess of OH GOD WHY!!!” I reply.

“Exactly. With this machine, I am going to examine what exactly goes on inside your head.” She says, pushing a bunch on buttons on the machine.

“Is this gonna warp my fragile little mind? Cause even if this isn’t one of the most used things on my body, I still need it.” Adam says.

“Of course not, this is perfectly safe.” She replies. “I’ve had time to test this on a couple other ponies, and no ill effects have been reported.”

She presses a large blue button on the machine. “Now, first we do a test. Think of any word you know. Don’t say it, but think it.” They both stand still for a few seconds. “…Tupperware?” She asks.

“Sexiest word in the English language.” Adam replies.

“Right…well, let’s metaphorically dive into you mind.” She says. She presses a few more buttons. She begins writing some things down on a clipboard. “Condition is nominal; we are beginning our test with a memory of…”

She suddenly stops and drops the clipboard and pencil. Her eyes dilate. She suddenly has the biggest grin I have ever seen on her face.

“DESKS!” She shouts. “PUMPERNICKLE!!”

“Uh…you okay Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asks, walking over to Twilight.

Twilight slams her head against the floor multiple times. “RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD!” She half sings half shouts. She then lays on the floor and makes vrooming noises.

“It’s official. Twilight Sparkle has flipped her lid.” I say.

“I’m sorry; I’m not here to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the beep. BEEP!” Twilight says.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Adam asks.

“…wabbajack…waaaaaaaaaaaabbajack…” Twilight murmurs, sliding across the floor. She then places her head against Adam’s leg. “Brush heavy’s hair.” She commands, with an accent similar to the accent that Nikolas has.

“Is this because I’m thinking this?” Adam asks.

“BRUSH IT…NOW!” She shouts in the accent.

“BUT I DON’T HAVE A BRUSH!” Adam shouts back.

What follows is a small chase between the two. Adam is running away from Twilight, who is hollering incoherently. Adam runs into the machine, smacking his head into the large blue button.

Twilight begins shaking her head. “Ugh…my head hurts…What happened?” She asks.

“WHY YOU CHASE MEH!!” Adam shouts, trying to climb a bookcase.

“You kinda lost it for a bit. You did some weird things, including banging your head on the floor.” I say.

“Well that solves one mystery.” Twilight says, rubbing her head.

“Can I come down now?” Adam asks, fully perched on a bookcase.

“Get down from there! We still need to get back to the stage and finish setting up!” I exclaim.

Adam leaps down from the bookcase. “Don’t forget! 8:00 tonight. Bring your friends to the park. It gon be good.” Adam says to Rainbow Dash and Twilight.

Adam takes off his helmet, and we both walk out of the library.

“…So you just place what songs you want to hear in the queue and press play. I let you sample some of mai freaky fresh beats.”

I hand Vinyl my laptop. She plugs her headphones into the laptop. Nikolas and I start moving the speakers into places marked by tape. It is evening, and the sun has fully set. The stage and the surrounding area are lit up by means of spotlights. After the speakers are in place, we start connecting them to the DJ booth. After a half an hour, the stage is set up and ready for awesomesauseness. I set up a mic stand at the front of the stage.

“Zamechatel'no! It’s perfect!” Nikolas exclaims, stepping down and admiring the stage.

“Dude! You have some awesome dubstep on this! Where did’ja get it!?” Vinyl asks me, taking her headphones off.

“I bought the music.” I reply, jumping off the stage. “Yeah, I got the good shit on there. Skrillex…Zomboy…even some Knife Party.”

She walks offstage and admires the stage with us. “Great job, guys!” She says, high-fiving us.

“Anypony order a couple of beer kegs!?” D-Pad shouts from behind us.

I look back and see D-Pad and Octavia pulling a cart with several kegs in it…ooooooooh… that sweet nectar.

“Oh, thank God, Jesus, and all of the saints in heaven.” I say, as I start unloading the kegs.

Octavia unhitches herself from the cart. “Hey, we need to get everything in place. It’s about an hour to 8:00.” She says, rolling a keg.

“Okay. Let’s move these over to the bar stand.” I say, picking up two kegs and putting them on my shoulders.

The rest of the group grabs a keg and transports it to a small bar stand. A bartender pony takes them from us and starts to set up the stand.

“Is the stage set up?” D-Pad asks.

I hop onto the stage, and grab the mic stand. “Testing…one two…” I speak into the microphone. “Nik! Gimme a beat.”

Nikolas starts beat-boxing a simple beat.

“Now, walk up to the club like, “What up? I got a big cock!” I'm so pumped about some shit from the thrift shop. Ice on the fringe, it's so damn frosty. That people like, “Damn! That's a cold ass honkey.” I start singing.

“Hey, that was on your laptop. “Thrift Shop”, right?” Vinyl comments.

“DING DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!” I shout. “Well, it works. What now?”

“Now…we get ready to party…” Nikolas says.

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENING, PONYVILLE!!” I shout to the crowd.

The response is deafening. Hundreds of ponies start cheering at everyone onstage. D-Pad is standing by me onstage. I look at Nikolas. He mouths the word “eight”. I give him an okay signal with my hands and grab the microphone.

“Great to be here, I tell ya.” I say into the mic. “We got a great show for you guys. We got music, we got beer…Hell, we even have the best DJ here.” I point over to Vinyl, to which the crowd cheers again. Vinyl connects my laptop to her DJ booth. She begins to play a Song. Oh yes…Knife party…Fire Hive…Start out with a kick ass bass beat…Oh my God, the look on D-Pads face…He loves it.

“LET’S ABANDON PROGRAM!!” I shout with the song.

BLAST THE BASS!! OH GOD YES!! I start bobbing my head to the beat. D-Pad joins me, and the crowd soon follows suit. I start jumping around like an idiot. Thankfully, D-Pad and Octavia join me in my silly jumping. To make things even better, the crowd begins to jump with me. I can’t believe this…I’M A THING!! The beat dies down for an interlude.

“Everybody! SAY IT WITH ME!!” I shout.

“LET’S ABANDON PROGRAM!!!” The crowd shouts. The bass begins to blare out of the speakers again. I start pumping my fist in the air to the beat. Vinyl begins tossing glow sticks to the crowd. She hands me three glow sticks. I begin to dance in place, with a glow stick in both hands, and one in my mouth. The song ends, and the crowd applauds.

…This is gonna be the best night EVER!!

“THANK YOU FOR COMING! YOU’VE BEEN A GREAT CROWD!!” Adam shouts to the crowd.

I watch as the crowd leaves the park. Some of the ponies are staggering out of the park, leaning on another pony, or falling over. Looks like a couple of ponies had a great time. Wow…I’m still pumped and active. That party was awesome!

“Great job, everypony!” I shout to everypony onstage with me. “I say this party was a big hit!”

Twilight Sparkle walks onto the stage with us. “Phenomenal party, eveypony. I had a great time.” She complements us.

“Thanks, we had fun putting the thing together.” Adam says. He jumps down from the stage and walks over to the bar stand.

Rainbow Dash walks over to the stage. “I have to admit, some of those rock songs weren’t too bad.” She says. “You guys did pretty well.”

“Pretty well? We rocked the fuck out of Ponyville.” Nikolas laughs.

“I concur, this party has been…well, for lack of better words…bucking amazing.” Octavia agrees. “This is the most fun I have had in a while.”

“I’d have to say, that is one of the better bashes I’ve thrown.” Vinyl admits.

“By the way, who was that pink pony with the puffy mane? She seems very energetic and random.” Nikolas asks.

“That would be Pinkie Pie.” I say.

“She’s just like Adam. I would love to see what those two would do if they met each other.” Nikolas comments.

“Right after he’s getting done being chased by that aquamarine unicorn.” I laugh. “Did you see how she reacted when he let her hold his hand? Wouldn’t let go for anything. Adam started running away, with the unicorn hanging on to him. I thought we were gonna need a crowbar to pry them apart.”

Everypony starts laughing. Adam walks back to the stage carrying two kegs. “What’s so funny? YOUR LAUGHING AT MY EXPENCE, AREN’T YOU!?” Adam shouts.

“Oh, Adam…let me touch your hand.” I mimic the unicorn.

“SHADDUP! THAT PONY WAS SPOOKY! LIKE SPOOKY SCARY SKELETONS!!” Adam shouts.

“What’s with the kegs?” Nikolas asks.

“Got any red solo cups?” Adam asks.

“Oh here we go!” Nikolas exclaims happily.

“Now where can we set up for the after party?” Adam ponders.

“You do realize that its 10:00 right? Shouldn’t we get some rest?” Octavia asks.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Nikolas says.

“Party don’t stop to the sun comes up, baby.” Adam says in a suave voice.

“I’m up for it. We can use my house.” Vinyl says, jumping of the stage.

“Vinyl! First of all, it’s OUR house. And second of all, you can’t just invite ponies over without my permission.” She growls.

“It’s fine. We can find another place.” Adam says.

“Pleeeeeeeeeeese Octavia.” Vinyl begs. Her lip starts quivering as she tries to make herself look more innocently cute.

“…Fine…” Octavia sighs.

“Awesome! You’re the best!” Vinyl says, hugging Octavia.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Octavia mumbles.

“Hey, it’s fine.” I say to Octavia. “Maybe you should join them. It could be fun. I’m going.”

“Well, I don’t really have anything to do, and it has been a while since we’ve had a drink together.” She says, trying to make light of things.

“I might as well go; I got nothing better to do.” Rainbow Dash comments.

“I guess a drink couldn’t hurt…” Twilight Sparkle states.

“AWESOMESAUCE!” Adam shouts.

“Lead the way, Vinyl.” Nikolas says.

“No, under does not technically rhyme with shudder. It’s a near rhyme.” I say, taking a swig of beer from my red solo cup.

So, here we are. Sitting in the backyard of a small white house, drinking beer, and singing. We’re actually singing because of an idea I thought of from watching old reruns of Whose Line is it Anyway. Right now we’re singing some Irish drinking songs.

“I thought it was.” D-Pad states.

“Near rhymes work for this game. Let’s start again.” I say.

Everyone raises their glasses. “OOOOooooooooh…Eye de dye de dye de dye de dye de dye de dye!” We all sing as we swing our glasses.

“I ‘member once in Amsterdam…” I begin.

“I met a bonnie lass…” Nikolas follows up.

“Her eyes are blue as the skyline…” Octavia continues.

“Her legs as smooth as grass.” D-Pad finishes the first verse.

“We had a couple cocktails…” Vinyl begins the second verse.

“And finished up with wine…” Twilight continues.

“That’s when the lass did show me…” Rainbow Dash follows.

“A dick that’s bigger than mine!” I finish.

We were not able to continue on with that, for we are laughing too hard.

“Now try to aim the ball into one of the cups of beer.” I say to Rainbow Dash and Vinyl Scratch.

So, as of right now, we are showing the ponies how to play beer pong. Luckily, Twilight had a long enough folding table to substitute as a ping pong table. Spike, her assistant WHO IS ALSO A DRAGON…well, baby dragon…brought it over to Vinyl and Octavia’s house. I watch as the two try to land the ball into the cups of Vinyl and D-Pad.

“So, tell me about yourself, Spike.” Nikolas asks Spike.

“Oh, well…I’m Twilight’s number one assistant.” He says. “I help her keep the library in order. I also deliver and receive messages from the princess of Equestria.”

“Like, you just mail them through your postal service?” I ask.

“AW YEAH! DRINK UP, D-PAD!” Rainbow Dash shouts.

“Well, I actually use my magical fire breath to send…”

“Whoa, hang on there! Magical fire breath?! This is new! Why is this now a thing?!” I exclaim.

“Okay, so your fire breath sends mail to the princess. That’s cool.” Nikolas comments.

“NIIIIiiiIIIK! WHY YOU NO ASK HOW HE BREATHES MAGIC FIRE!!” I shout.

“Why not?” Nikolas retorts.

“I…cannot offer a rebuttal to that.” I say, calmly.

“Man that…that last game was in-intense…” I say, staggering over to Adam.

“I’d say someone isn’t very good at this game.” He comments.

“Oh shush.” I say. “I very gooood at this game.”

“You and Rainbow Dash are not very good at this game.” Nikolas comments.

“Shu-shuddup…” Rainbow Dash sputters. “I doin fine.”

“Actually, anyone know where we can set up a fire?” Adam asks.

“Yeah, over there” Octavia says, pointing over to a fire pit a few meters away. There is a pile of wood next to it. “It’s our fire pit we made a couple weeks back.”

“Perfect. Just cool enough for a warm fire.” Adam says, licking one of his fingers and putting it up in the air.

I am quite impressed on how Nikolas was able to get the fire started. Nikolas grabbed some steel thing and a rock from his pocket. He struck the rock on the steel thing, and it started making sparks. He used some old newspapers Vinyl had to make a small flame, which he used to start the wood that Adam placed in the fire pit on fire.

We are currently clapping our hooves to a steady beat as Nikolas and Adam are dancing about a meter away from the fire.

“IIAAM GETTING DRUNK ALL NIGHT! AAIM GETTEN DRUNK ALL DAY! Adam sings.

“AAAIM GETTING DRUNK ALL NIGHT! IM SORRY BUDI HAVTA SAY…” Nikolas sings.

“I’M TOO DRUNK TO FUCK!” We all sing.

We all start laughing. Adam and Nikolas sit down by the fire.

“THAT…Tha is one o my fa-favorid sthongs.” Nikolas sputters.

“Eryup.” Adam burps. “Ish a good shong

“I…am…incrl…increbly habby right now.” Twilight manages to say.

“I havin feld this go-good in laong time.” Rainbow Dash slurs.

“I…yes, I…feeeeel reaaaaly…good…ragh noh…” Octavia sputters.

“You g-guys are shooooo…weak.” Vinyl slurs. “I’ve…Ibeen drunker dan dis…andi still wath still aber to…walk.”

“I…clam…noangon…claim…burshit.” I sputter.

I gotta pee. I stagger over to a large bush where everypony cannot see me and begin to relieve myself. Oh sweet sensation. Now if the ground would stop spinning, we’d be gold.

“Hay thar *hic* Shexshy.” I hear Octavia slur behind me.

“Aah! Ot-Ocdabia! Whad are you…”

She then kisses me full on the mouth. She slides her tongue around in my mouth. This would be very passionate if we weren’t drunk off our flanks right now. She then turns around with her flank to me.

“I din know bout you…but Iam nod too drunk to ffffffffuck…”

…Am I really going to do this? We’re not in our right minds. AND I AM SO PLOWING THAT ASS!!

“Din…Din Tavi jus…go over der a few minis ago?” Vinyl slurs.

I stand up, albeit a little wobbly. I walk over to the brush and that the two went over to…

“OH CELESTIA, YES!!” Octavia squeals with delight as she is…uh…uuuuuh…

I did not need to see that. I did NOT need to see THAT. I walk back to the fire.

“Whuappen?” Nikolas asks.

“Coitus happn.”I reply.

Nikolas begins laughing out loud. “Lahke righd naow?!” He laughs.

The ponies begin to laugh as well.

…can’t believe I’m doing this...

I am carrying a sleeping D-Pad and Octavia into the house. I lay them on the couch I manage to find in the dark. I look at the clock. 2:00 P.M. Good thing I had time to sober up a little bit. Course, there’s not much use to be able to form complete sentences again, as everyone is asleep. I drink a couple glasses of water, sneak a few pieces of bread, and head back outside. Nikolas is sleeping next to the smoldering fire. I dump some of my water onto the fire, putting it out.

Would you look at that sky…beautiful…I’ll give this place one thing, they sure have a stunning night sky. I eat the bread I “borrowed” from the house and continue to look up at the sky. Huuuuuuuagh…you know…I could fall asleep…to…this…view…

Does This Count as Castle Crashing?

…ugh…my head…it feels like my head is being crushed. I open my eyes-OH CELESTIA WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT!? …Ugh…my stomach hurts…actually my entire body hurts…I stand up and look around. I am inside Vinyl’s and Octavia’s house. The clock says 7:30. I walk outside. Ugh, it’s so bright…

“MORNING STARSHINE!” Adam shouts.

Ow...my ears…Everything hurts…I peer through my squinting eyes to see Adam sitting next to the fire pit with a small fire going. He has a couple of pans with various food items to which I presume he is cooking.

“Somebody looks hung-over.” Adam says, motioning for me to come closer.

“Shhhh!” I shush Adam, putting my hoof to his mouth. “You’re loud as Tartarus.”

I get a better look at the food Adam is cooking. There is some eggs, some bread in a cinnamony batter, and a red slab of what I presume is deer meat. Celestia, how can these humans stomach the body of the once living?

“And here’s your order!” He says happily, handing me some fried eggs and a sort of fried cinnamon French toast on a paper plate. As much as I’d like to tell him that I am not sure whether I trust his cooking or not, I am quite hungry. I take a bite out of the eggs, hoping that Adam has some skill at cooking…Wow! This…this is delicious!

“This is surprisingly good.” I comment. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“My ex-girlfriend taught me some things.” He replies. “I taught myself the rest.”

I take a bite out of the toast. How the Tartarus did he get it taste like chocolate? “Is this your own recipe?” I ask, taking another bite out of the toast.

“Yep. Made it especially for the mornings after drinking parties.” He replies. “My homemade hangover French toast; so good you’ll feel better by lunch.”

I hear the door of Octavia’s and Vinyl’s house open. I look back and see a groggy Octavia and Vinyl.

“What happened last night?” Octavia moans.

You know, I wonder the same thing. What DID happen?

“You gonna finish the rest of that?” Vinyl grumbles, pointing at my eggs.

“Hey, sah good. I’m making more. Two more eggs and toast comin oooooooup!” Adam shouts cheerfully.

Octavia and Vinyl cover their ears. Apparently Adam’s chipper attitude brought out the higher decibels in his voice.

“How are you so happy? Aren’t you hung-over?” Vinyl asks.

“Nope.avi.” Adam replies. “I drank lotsa water and ate some bread last night. Only thing I got is a slight headache.”

“Where’s Nik? Wasn’t he sleeping outside?” Octavia asks.

“He went over to the Golden Oaks Library to get some more studying in.” Adam replies. “He still wants to learn more about this place.”

“So, out of curiousity, how much do you know about this place?” I ask.

“More eggs?” He asks me.

“Yes please!” I reply happily, handing him my plate. Seriously, this guy is a tutor? How is he not a cook?

“Welp, I know the three major areas located relatively close to your town of Ponyville.” He replies. “First, we have Cloudsdale. The city is home to the Weather Factory, where Pegasi manufacture clouds and various other weather instances. The place is inhabited by Pegasi, as they are the only pony that can stand on clouds.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but how does your weather work?” I interrupt.

“Huh? Oh, it just does it by itself. Just like how the sun and moon set and rise by themselves.” He replies. I look at him shock. They just…move by themselves? How? How in Tartarus does that work?

“The second major area is Canterlot.” He continues. “This city is dominated by unicorns. It is a more fancy and regal community. The Royal Castle is located there. The two princesses, of which both are sisters, inhabit the castle in what I presume is a joint monarchy rule.”

“The last major location is the Everfree Forest.” He continues, handing Vinyl and Octavia some toast and eggs. “According to my understanding, it is a forest of unnatural occurrences. The plant-life grows on its own. Animals fend for themselves. The clouds move with anybody moving them. To be honest, it sounds like the place where I came from. It is also considered that the forest is still not fully discovered.”

“Wow…you did some studying.” Octavia says, taking a bite of her toast.

“Actually, I have a question.” Adam says, placing the cooked deer meat on his plate. “Who is this Celestia lady? I came across her name in one of the guidebooks Twilight had.”

…What?! Is he serious? We all give Adam a quizzical look.

“You really don’t know?” Vinyl asks.

“Besides her being the ruler of this land and her being an alicorn, that’s all I know. How does she behave? Does she rule well? What do the people think of her?” Adam asks.

“Well, I’ve met her twice.” I say. “She’s kind and understanding. She stays on top of things. To be honest, I’ve really not seen her enough times to make anything of her behavior. As of her rule, I’ve never been happier. She seems to keep everything in check.”

“Not unexpectant coming from a deity…” Adam says, taking a large bite out of the deer meat.

“Say what now?” I ask.

“ADAM!”

We all look to see Nikolas, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash heading this way. Twilight does not look too pleased, and Nikolas looks pissed off. Nikolas tosses a scroll over to Adam, to which Adam catches it.

“What’s this?” Adam asks.

“Take a look at it.” Nikolas replies.

Adam unrolls the scroll. “Dear Twilight Sparkle. It has come to my attention that two creatures from a world far from ours have appeared in the land of Equestria. I have learned that they are here because a weather spell that you attempted to cast went awry. While I am not angry or upset about the accident, I do question the motives of these two creatures. I am writing to you to ask that you keep an eye on the creatures and send me letters describing the two.” Adam reads aloud. “It is signed by Princess Celestia.”

“It appears that we have gotten the attention of their queen.” Nikolas says.

“Keeping tabs on us, Miss Sparkle?” Adam asks.

“Only because the princess asked me to.” Twilight responds in a defensive tone.

Adam looked at Nikolas.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Nikolas asks Adam.

“Knowing how messed up my mind is, probably not.” Adam says, with a huge grin on his face.

“If the queen wants to know more about us, then maybe it is best if she met the creatures she is so interested in face to face.” Nikolas states.

“It’s time to pay this monarch a visit.”

You know, as I watch Nikolas almost march through Ponyville with Adam trailing behind, I’m getting the feeling Adam doesn’t share the same bitterness that Nikolas has. Adam is waving to ponies, skipping along merrily. He seems practically oblivious to the fact that they’re heading straight for the royal castle.

“This is a very bad idea…” Twilight mumbles.

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you decide to spy on us.” Nikolas growls.

Adam begins running ahead with his arms flailing above his head. He begins shouting something about explosions and a guy named Torgue or something. He then starts shouting incoherently.

I lean over to Rainbow Dash. “Psst. Hey Rainbow.” I whisper. She leans over to me. “What?” she whispers back. “Do you think Princess Celestia is in danger?”

We pause as Adam runs back toward us and continues on, still yelling random things.

“I don’t know…” She whispers. “To be honest, I’m not sure which of them I can trust. Nikolas seems okay, but he seems to have some anger issues. Adam is very friendly and kind, but he is so random that I can’t tell what he is going to do next.”

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Octavia asks, pointing toward a small commotion outside the town hall.

As we walk closer I see a blue pegasus stallion with a light blue mane shouting at a gray pegasus mare with a blonde mane. She is wearing a mail bag and one eye is cocked downward.

“That is the third time today! How can you lose a large package three times in a row?!” The stallion shouts.

“I’m sorry…I’ll try harder.” The mare whimpers with a slight lisp.

“Derpy, you keep telling me that and yet you still lose stuff! I swear, sometimes I wish you were normal!” He exclaims.

The mare hangs her head low. She looks like she is on the verge of tears. The stallion walks away towards an apple cart. Suddenly , I see Adam stomp over to the stallion.

“Excuse me.” Adam says politely.

The stallion turns around. “What do you wa…”

“I’LL PEEL YOUR FLESH OFF AND MAKE PUPPETS FROM YOUR MEAT!!” Adam bellows angrily.

The stallion shouts in fear and jets off into the sky. Adam then walks over to the gray pegasus and starts rubbing her back.

“Hey…it’s okay…” He says calmly.

“…I wish I was normal…” She mumbles.

“What? Normal? Honey, normal is just a word that other peo…other ponies use to describe being boring. Look at me. I am completely out of my mind, and I’ve never been happier!” Adam says. He begins standing on his head and begins singing “row row row your boat”. The gray pegasus begins laughing. “See, that’s bet-OHGOD!” He shouts as he falls over. The gray pegasus laughs hard.

“You’re funny, mister!” She replies, still laughing.

“I WIN!” Adam cheers, throwing up his hands in victory. He walks back over to us. “Official standing: Day has been made.”

“Let’s go. Nikolas is already boarding the train.” Vinyl says, running ahead.

Nikolas begins pounding on the doors of the castle. “Open this door!” he shouts. He begins pounding on the door again.

“Please stop! We don’t need the attention!” Twilight exclaims.

“I don’t think he’s going to listen to you.” Adam comments.

“Do not make me break this door down!” Nikolas yells as he tries as hard as he can to yank the door open.

“Knock it off! She probably is far too busy for company.” Rainbow Dash shouts.

“D-Pad, do something!” Octavia whispers to me.

“Adam, get this door open.” Nikolas commands Adam.

“Nik, this is a bad idea.” Adam replies.

“What are you all doing?” A voice comes from behind us.

I turn to see a royal pegasus guard standing at the bottom of the steps.

“Trying to get in the castle.” Nikolas says.

“Why is this door locked?” Adam asks.

“Oh, sorry about that. There was a meeting with the princesses, and the door was to be locked. I forgot to unlock it. I’ll go get the key.” He says as he trots off.

“There. We don’t need to break the door down.” I say.

Nikolas pulls out the metal thing that Adam called a “gun” and put it up against the lock of the door.

“Nikolas…what are you doing?” Vinyl asks.

BANG!!

WHAT THE BUCK!! Holy shit…the “gun” just lit up, made a loud noise, and blasted the lock apart. What the…what kind of magic is that?! I look around to see all of my friends staring at the “gun”.

“And that is what a magnum is good for.” Nikolas laughs.

“WHAT IN THE BUCK WAS THAT!?!” Rainbow Dash shouts.

“I hate waiting.” Nikolas says, yanking the door open.

“I am so sorry.” Adam apologizes as he walks in with Nikolas. As he walks into the castle, I hear him mumble something about crashing castles.

We all walk into the castle…jeez, I haven’t been here in a long time. I think the last time I was here…I murdered Octavia’s father. There is a large, finely decorated table in the middle of the main hall. On the table is a mountain of papers.

“Well…this is over the top…” Nikolas murmurs.

“STOP RIGHT THERE, VILE CREATURES!!”

About a hundred royal guards swarm the main hall. There are so many guards, that I cannot see the checkered floors. They all have spears and lances pointed at Nikolas and Adam.

“Well would you look at the time, it’s been great, but I have got to turn on the cat!” Adam says running back toward the door.

A bunch of guards block off the entrance. Adam walks backwards nervously. “Th-that’s a big lance there, bud.” He says to one guard.

The guards begin to close in on them.

“Damnit Nik! Why you gotta get us in trouble everywhere we go!” Adam growls at Nikolas.

“Oh come on, I can fix the lock.” Nikolas states.

“You just barged into a royal castle that is heavily guarded, and you’re worried about the lock?!” Adam shouts.

The two begin bickering with one another. They start speaking in languages I don’t know. Nikolas is speaking in a language that fits his accent, and Adam is speaking a whole new language. I hear the word dune-cough from Adam. The two seem to understand what each other is saying.

Goodness! What is all the commotion?”

Princess Celestia is standing at the top of the stairs of the main hall. She is looking down at Nikolas and Adam, who seem to be too interested in their argument to notice her.

“Bozh'yey Materi...” Nikolas gasps, snapping his attention to the princess.

“What…Oh my giddy aunt…” Adam gasps, following Nikolas’s gaze.

The princess gently steps down the stairs. Her royal garb glows in the light of the open door. The guards make a path for her as she approaches Adam and Nikolas. As she comes face to face with the two, I note she stands about the same height as them.

“Ah, Nikolas Alvang…it is quite the pleasure to meet you.” She says, shaking Nikolas hoo…I mean hand.

“Uh…thanks…uh…sorry about the door.” Nikolas replies.

“It’s fine. We can get the door repaired.” She reassures Nikolas. She’s taking the whole barging thing pretty well. She then turns to Adam. “And you must be…”

“Hades, lord of the dead. Hi, how are ya.” Adam says, extending his hand.

Nikolas slaps Adam in the back of the head. Adam yelps in pain.

“My name is Adam Welling, and I am not a choking hazard for children under 3 years of age.” Adam says, bowing.

Nikolas brings his hand to his face. “God damnit Adam…” I hear Nikolas mumble.

“Well, that is an interesting introduction. It is good to meet you.” She replies. “Please follow me. We have much to discuss.”

“So I got angry. I wanted answers for why you we spying on us. And I kind of got mad enough to blast open the lock. So, like I said, I am sorry.”

Everyone is sitting in the study of Princess Celestia. There are a couple of bookshelves and a large table with a map of their world. There is a fireplace alit in the study. I can see a large balcony leading outside that has a telescope on it. I sip on my tea as everyone listens to Nikolas explain what happened.

“Do not worry, you are forgiven. I was actually about to send Twilight a letter asking her to bring you to here.” The princess says.

“Why?! Don’t tell me it was about that big party! I NEVER MET THE WOMAN! SHE SAID SHE WAS OF AGE!” I shout.

Nikolas smacks me in the back of the head again. This time it didn’t hurt. Everyone looks at me like I am crazy…which is not inaccurate.

“Ahem, yes well…” the princess clears her throat. “You all remember what happened yesterday with the dragon.”

There is a murmur between the ponies. Most of the murmur is in agreement.

“Many years ago, before I was ruler of Equestria, a black dragon terrorized the lands of Equestria. It razed crops, buildings, everything. Those who tried to destroy the dragon met a horrifying end. The dragon was eventually captured and imprisoned with a magic seal in a tomb far underground.” The princess explains.

“So…the guy got out…I beat the living hell out of it. Crisis resolved.” I say leaning back against a wall.

“…Crisis not resolved! It’s still out there!” Octavia exclaims.

“Please, let us not rile ourselves up.” The princess says. “Do not worry about the dragon. He has been detained and is to be sealed back in his tomb. I would like to thank you personally for stopping the dragon from destroying Ponyville, Adam. Without you, the dragon would have been strong enough to wipe out more than half of my royal guard.”

I bring my hand up to salute her, realizing too late that my hand was coming up too fast then I wanted. I ended up chopping my forehead, to which I let a small yelp of pain. “WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?!” I shout as I rub my forehead.

Nikolas facepalms himself. “So, we just need to seal him back up?” Nikolas asks.

“It is not as simple as that.” The princess replies. “We could seal him back up, but he would just get out again.”

“How exactly would he get out again?” Octavia asks.

The princess sighs. “Something terrible has happened. Our magic is starting to become unstable. Magic is happening where it shouldn’t, and it’s starting to disappear from where it should be. Because of this, Equestria is in turmoil.”

“What kinda turmoil are we talking about?” Vinyl asks.

“My scouts have been receiving messages from everywhere…there’s been reports of impossible weather patterns, stories about the dead walking, creatures that have never been seen in Equestria…everything is in chaos.” The princess explains

“The…dead walking?” D-Pad gulps.

“There is more…” The princess continues. “…I am losing my magic…” The ponies in the room gasp. “I am having trouble performing even the simplest tasks, let alone raise the sun. If it gets any worse, Equestria may be plunged into darkness for centuries.”

“Princess, what can we do to help?” I ask.

“Oh no, no you don’t!” Nikolas shouts. “We are not getting involved! I didn’t get accidentally teleported to this realm just to help someone else’s problems!”

“BUT NIIIIIiiiiiIIIIK! They need help!” I reply.

“No, I just want to get out of here with my car. So, if you’ll just…”

I’m afraid it is not possible for you to go back right now…” The princess states. “Even if we had the magic to send you back, it could take weeks to learn the spell to do so. I am afraid you are stuck here for a while.”

“Yeblya!” Nikolas shouts, kicking the bookshelf. A couple of books are knocked to the floor. He shakes his head in anger, sighing. “What’s it going to take to get your magic back?” He growls.

“I understand your frustration, but please try to keep yourself calm.” The princess states. “Now, this whole catastrophe has happened once before. The books say that a unicorn found the artifacts known as the Five Pieces of the Hero. With them he restored magic to its normal state, and became the ruler of Equestria. While there wasn’t a lot of detail on how he was removed from power, it does say that he hid the artifacts in secret. They have never been found to this day.”

“So, dig them up and bring them to you…GOT IT!” I say.

“Like it’s going to be that easy…” Rainbow Dash mumbles.

“Well, there is some good news.” The princess says. “There is evidence that the unicorn may have hidden one of the pieces in the tomb of the dragon.”

“Hah! Want to hide an important item? BURY IT WITH A DRAGON!” Adam shouts.

“Well then, we got our first piece.” Nikolas states. “Let’s go get it.”

“The tomb is located north of Canterlot. There is a large crater in the ground so you shouldn’t miss it. You should be able to the tomb in a few hours.” The princess states.

Nikolas begins walking towards the exit.

“Wait…before you leave, I have one request.” The princess says. “You must not tell anyone that you are looking for.”

“But Princess…” Twilight interrupts.

“No buts, Twilight Sparkle.” The princess says sternly. “The more ponies that know the five pieces exist, the bigger chance that somepony may get seriously hurt.”

“But the Elements of Harmony…” Rainbow Dash comments

"Even if we were to use the Elements of Harmony to try to return Equestria to normal, the results may be unpredictable. It may make the problem worse. I need those pieces to return Equestria to its normal state.”

“Well…no use standing around here when there’s work to be done.” Nikolas says.

Nikolas walks out of the study. “Mr. Alvang! Wait!” Twilight exclaims, rushing after him. The rest of the ponies follow Twilight out. Princess Celestia walks out onto the balcony, to which I sneak out and follow her. She begins looking out at all of the land. She does this for a few minutes.

“You know, staring off into space for extended periods of time is one of the first signs of ADD.” I joke.

She whips around to face me. “My goodness, you scared me!” she exclaims.

“Sorry bout that. Didn’t mean to.” I say walking over to her. I lean on the balcony rail. Wow…would you look at that view. It looks like something you’d see in a movie. The land is filled with a wide variety of trees, crystal clear lakes, and a cascade of colorful flora and fauna. You know, it reminds me of that time I went to Duluth last summer…Hey, there’s Ponyville! And that city over there in the sky with the hundreds of pegasi flying around must be Cloudsdale. That large forest over there to the south of Ponyville must be the Everfree Forest. Hey, there’s that group of ponies in the blue suits again, soaring through the late morning sky with a trail of dark clouds and lightning following them.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” The princess comments. “Sometimes I spend hours looking out at the land, forgetting about all my worries.”

“It is quite the sight.” I agree.

We stand there, looking out at the scenery for a minute.

“Goodness, but here I am being rude…Did you wish to ask me something?” She asks.

“No…actually, yes I do.” I admit. “What happened to the other humans?”

She looks at me with a look of befuddlement on her face. “What do you mean? You and your friend are the only two humans Equestria has ever seen.” She responds.

“Princess…I’m not stupid, even though I act like it.” I comment. “Here’s an interesting question for you. If a unicorn knows what a human is, even though there is no way possible that humans have been here, how does an alicorn, let alone a queen not know about it?”

“…you are quite the bright one. You impress me.” She complements me. “Well, it is far too long of a story to explain one day. All that needs to be known is that you were not the first human in Equestria. I am sorry, but for the safety of my kind, I cannot say any more.”

I stand up on the ledge. “Very well…but remember this princess.” I say. “The more you hide from the fears of your past, the harder it is for you to hide from the fears of the future. For there are always worse things to come.

She nods her head. “I will keep that in mind.”

“Auf Wiedersehen!” I bid her farewell as I lean and fall backwards off the ledge.

Bury it With a Dragon

“CANNONBALL!!” Adam shouts as he leaps naked into the water.

You know, as enthusiastically as the humans were to head to the dragon’s tomb, they seem to find every little thing to curtail their mission. Right now they are swimming naked in a lake. The rest of us are sitting under some trees, waiting for them to finish.

“Remind me, what are we doing here?” I ask.

“I have not bathed in two days, and it is driving me crazy.” Nikolas replies. “Sure, my clothes are dirty, but by God at least I am going to be clean.”

“Cleanliness is next to godliness, and godliness is next to pumpernickel.” Adam chimes in.

Everypony, including me, raise an eyebrow to Adam. “What?” Adam asked. “EMERGENCY SITUATION! PEOPLE ARE STARING!! DIVE DIVE DIVE!!” Adam shouts as he submerges himself under water. Nikolas slaps his forehead.

“Okay, I gotta ask.” I say to Nikolas. “What is up with him? Why is he like that?”

“Who knows…” Nikolas replies, swimming over to the shoreline. “He’s been like that for quite a while. It’s funny…he wasn’t always like that. He used to be the most organized person I ever met. We hung out, and he was still funny, but most of the stuff made sense.”

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“There was a mishap.” He replies. “We went out on a trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. A few days into the trip, we were attacked by an abnormally huge pack of wolves. As I was fighting for my life, I watched as Adam was dragged by the wolves and was nearly torn apart by them. After I broke free and drove the wolves off, I took Adam to the nearest hospital. The doctors said he was probably going to die in the middle of the night. But he made a full recovery in just a few days.”

“Wow…that’s just…wow.” I say, amazed. That explains the claw and bite marks.

“Ever since then, Adam hasn’t been right in the head since. I think he does it because it is his way of escaping from remembering it. After doing it for a while, he seemed to enjoy it. Personally, I got used to it. It’s stupid, but do not let that fool you. His knowledge on the supernatural is uncanny, and is only matched by his strength.” Nikolas continues.

“DUH DUH…DUHDA DUHDA…” Adam shouts, making a shark fin with his hand.

“Adam, let’s get our clothes on.” Nikolas says, pulling himself out of the water. He then cups his genital region and walks over to his clothes.

“You know, you don’t need to be embarrassed about showing your…“member” in public. You do realize we’re not wearing clothes either.” Octavia says.

“Da, but I would rather let force of habits remain force of habits.” He says, grabing his clothes with one hand and still holding is “boys” in the other. I hear Adam get out of the water. I look ov-Oh dear Celestia. He is laying in what I presume is a sexual human pose.

“Hello, ladies.” He says in a suave accent. “Don’t worry, I am available.”

“Adam, that is wrong on every level!” Nikolas shouts from behind some bushes. “And besides, you wouldn’t even know how to do it!”

“Nik! NO ONE knows how to properly do it!” Adam shouts back. “I watched D-Pad and Octavia do it last night, and it was the sloppiest sex I ever seen.”

My jaw drops. I…I had sex…with Octavia?!

“WHAT!?!?” Octavia and I shout in unison.

“You can’t count that!” Nikolas yells. “They were drunk! Tell me one person who was able to have the best sex of his life while heavily intoxicated! It’s damn near impossible to get a hard on when you’re drunk!”

Adam lies on the ground for a minute. “You win this time, Mr.Alvang!” Adam shouts, as he gets up. He shakes rapidly, trying to get the water off him. He picks up his clothes and begins dressing himself in his tan shorts and his shirts.

“You…you watched us…have sex?” I ask.

“For only a few seconds, then I walked away.” Adam replies, pulling his pants up. “By the way, work on your form. I ain’t a professional on this, but usually when you mate, the penis is supposed to go into the vagina.”

“Hah! How bout that, D-Pad.” Vinyl laughs. “You’re getting mating tips from a human.”

The rest of the ponies laugh. I wish I could share the same humor. I can’t imagine what Octavia’s thinking right now. I have a lot of things to think about. Am I ready for a foal? Is Octavia ready? Are we even going to have one? Damn it…I really screwed up. I decide against saying anything and wait for the humans to get their clothes.

“SO DAPPER!” Adam shouts as he makes a heroic pose.

“Oh good, your clothed.” Nikolas states, coming out from behind the bushes with his clothes on. “Miss Twilight, where are we?”

“I’m not sure…Rainbow, can you fly up and see if you can locate the tomb?” Twilight asks Rainbow Dash.

“Sure, no problem.” Rainbow Dash replies. She flies straight up into the sky and begins scanning the area.

“I see it! It over that way!” She shouts, pointing a hoof northward. “I’ll make my way over to the tomb and meet you ponies there!” She then jets away northward.

“Very well! NORTHWARD IT IS! ONWARDS MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!” Adam shouts as he begins marching northward.

“Get back here, Eager McBeaver!” Nikolas exclaims, grabbing Adam. “Wait for everyone else.”

As everypony walks ahead of the two, Nikolas lets Adam go. We all walk for a while.

“Excuse me, if I may break the silence and pose a question, why do you humans refer to everypony as everybody?” Octavia asks Nikolas and Adam.

“An excellent question, my young apprentice.” Adam says over-extravagantly. Nikolas then brings his hand to his face again.

“It’s basically the same thing as everypony, but it basically referencing every physical body in the room.” Nikolas states.

“Oh, okay. If you don’t mind may I ask you another question?” Octavia asks.

“Fire away!” Adam says, happily.

“Who is the God guy you guys keep referring to?” She asks.

That IS a good question. I’ve been wondering that as well. The two humans look at each other in concern and then look back at us and grin uncomfortably.

“That’s…kinda hard to explain.” Adam says.

“Think of it as a guy just like your ruler, Celestia.” Nikolas states. “Only he rules over somewhere far bigger than just your land.”

Whoa…bigger than Equestria? That’s…that’s amazing! “Well, I would like to meet this guy!” I exclaim.

“Err…that’s going to be difficult to do.” Adam says.

“How so?” Octavia asks.

“You know, this is a very difficult subject to talk about “on the fly”, as they say.” Nikolas avoids the question. “Perhaps we should discuss it when we are more prepared to talk about it.”

“It sounds like you don’t want to talk about it.” Twilight states.

“We don’t.” Adam tells Twilight. “To be honest, this subject is far beyond your comprehension.”

“What do you mean by far beyond our comprehension? Are you calling us stupid!?” Vinyl says, offended.

“No, but I don’t think the idea that God is a person who created the heavens and earth, and that he rules over all of us in heaven is an idea that you ponies are able to understand.” Adam growls, obviously getting irritated.

…Wow…that’s…interesting…

“Vinyl, perhaps it would be a rather good idea to just drop the subject.” Octavia says, hurriedly.

“A guy who rules over you humans in heaven…well, if I didn’t have reason to question how sane you guys were before…” Vinyl jokes.

“EXCUSE ME!?” Nikolas shouts.

“Ok! You need to shut up right now!” Adam barks, pointing at Vinyl.

…Oh boy…

“Everypony, please stop.” Twilight commands everypony. “We have far more important matters to worry about.”

Nikolas storms of northward, groaning in anger. “This coming from a civilization who named their queen as their God!”

Adam grumbles something under his breath and follows Nikolas.

“Damn it, Vinyl.” Octavia growls. “You couldn’t just let it go, could you?”

“I didn’t think they were going to get mad!” Vinyl defends.

“Look, let’s just go.” Twilight interrupts. “They’re going to get ahead of us.”

Way to go Vinyl…that’s the second time you’ve made an assumption that backfired in your face. I think you and I both know the first.

As we catch up with Adam and Nikolas, I can see this massive pit in the ground in the distance, with the jet black dragon tied up and in a cage.

“Hey…uh…Adam and…Nikolas…” Vinyl speaks in a low tone.

The two humans turn to her.

“I’m sorry for making fun in what you believe in.” she apologizes.

They stand there and look at her. They then look to each other. Nikolas smiles and nods to Adam.

“AND HOW CAN I HOLD A GRUDGE WITH SOMETHING SO ADORABLE!!” Adam shouts as he picks up Vinyl and bear-hugs her.

“Easy there, big chief.” Nikolas laughs. “We forgive you. Let us just try to avoid talking about our beliefs until we are ready to talk about it.

“EVERYBODY! RACE! THREETWOONEGO!” Adam shouts as he puts down Vinyl and runs off towards the pit.

“Hey! No fair!” Nikolas shouts as he runs after Adam.

“Oh I am so kicking your asses!” Vinyl shouts as she gallops after them.

“Can you believe them? They’re behaving like foals.” She laughs.

“Hey Octavia. I have a question.” I state.

“What do you need to ask?” she asks me.

“How’s it feel to be in last place!?” I joke, galloping off.

“Hey!” She shouts, galloping after me.

I easily past Vinyl and Nikolas. Adam is running faster than anypony I’ve ever met! How does he do that?! I slowly start creeping closer towards him. “You gotta be faster if you wanna beat me, Adam!” I shout as I catch up with Adam.

“You want faster!? I’LL GIVE YOU FASTER!!” Adam shouts. As quick as a wink, he jets forward, moving twice as fast as he was going before. Ok…how the Tartarus did he do that? I try desperately to keep up with him. After a few minutes we reach the pit, with Adam far ahead of me. “I WIN!” Adam shouts jovially.

“How the heck did you just speed off like that!? You…you don’t look built for that kind of speed…Just what kind of human are you, Mr. Welling?” I ask, panting.

We wait for the rest of the group to catch up. Vinyl runs toward us first, followed by Nikolas, Octavia, and lastly Twilight Sparkle. All of them are trying to catch their breaths, while Adam isn’t even breaking a sweat.

“Hoo…It’s…It’s been…awhile since…I ran…like that.” Nikolas rasps, gasping for air.

Rainbow Dash is talking to a blue unicorn with a brown mane and book as his cutie mark. She looks over at us and flies over to us. “Took you guys long enough. I was getting bored.”

“So, besides this place being the burial site for the dragon, what do we know about this place?” Adam asks.

“Not a whole lot…” Rainbow admits. “The stallion in charge of research here says that it doesn’t look like anything but the dragon was in there. He doesn’t even think that there’s a Piece of the Hero in there.”

“Well, we won’t know anything unless we look around.” Nikolas states, walking around the pit. We all separate and look around the pit.

“Hey, D-Pad.” Adam says. “Let’s look in the pit.”

Adam jumps into the pit, to which I fly down next to him. The whole pit is nothing but dirt. Rainbow wasn’t kidding. It doesn’t look like anything else is here. Adam starts digging around in the dirt. I fail to see anything of interest as I scan the area again. “Looks like we hit a dead end…maybe the princess was misinformed.” I surmise.

Adam continues to dig in the dirt. “Hey Adam. I think you can stop digging.” I say.

“WHAR!?” Adam bellows, as he pulls his head out of the ground. He has a book in his mouth.

“What is that?” I ask. I take it from his mouth and open it up. It looks to be like a book on dragons. Well, it’s something at least. Adam continues digging. After a few minutes, Adam stops.

“I found something!” Adam shouts.

I look at what he found. It looks like an old wooden trapdoor. “Hey, we found something!” I shout upward. The rest of the group looks in the pit.

“What did’ja find!?” Vinyl shouts.

“A trapdoor!” I shout in reply. “It looks like it goes under the tomb!”

Everypony and Nikolas jump down into the pit. Adam yanks open the trapdoor, only to rip it from its hinges. I not surprised, as the hinges are nearly worn away. We all look down into the hole. It is pitch black, with the exception of the light coming from the open hole.

“So…Anyone got a light?” Nikolas asks, looking at all of us.

“I can give us some light.” Vinyl states.

“As can I.” Twilight adds.

“Ok, I’ll lower you down into the pit, Vinyl.” I say.

“Rainbow, could you help me fly down into the pit?” Octavia asks Rainbow Dash.

“Sure, but how are we going to get the humans down there?” Rainbow asked.

“GERONIMO!” Adam shouts as he jumps head first into the hole.

“Vniz kogda ya idu!” Nikolas shouts as he jumps into the hole, feet first.

“Well, that’s one problem solved.” I joke.

“Are you two okay down there?!” Twilight shouts into the hole.

“We are okay, but we still are in need of some light!” Nikolas shouts.

“IS DARK! DON’T ATTACK ME, GRUE!!!” Adam yells.

I take Vinyl’s hoof and fly her down to the floor of the hole. She then uses her magic to slightly illuminate the room. I can only make out some shapes of things, but not exact definitions of what the shape is. As Twilight flies down, albeit a little wobbly, she lights up her own horn. Now I can see that we are in a small room with some old bookshelves and a musty table with some moldy chairs. A couple books lay on the table.

“So…what exactly are we looking for?” Octavia asks as she is lowered onto the floor by Rainbow Dash.

“Anything that talks about the Pieces of the Hero.” Twilight says, using her magic to pull a book off the bookshelves.

Everypony begins looking around the small room. I walk over to the table and start looking at the books. Unfortunately, none of them seem to reference the Pieces of the Hero.

“Hey, Twilight! I has a question!” Adam shouts, waving his hand over his head.

“It’s “have”, and what do you need?” Twilight asks.

“You girls said something about Elements of Harmony back at the castle. What are those? And please be simplistic, my attention span is very bad.” Adam asks as he puts his ear to the ground and begins knocking on the ground.

“Ah!” Twilight exclaims happily. “They are magical, well, artifacts that have very powerful abilities. They have been used to free Princess Luna from herself as Nightmare Moon, and imprisoned the Draconequus, Discord.”

“Ooo! Can we meet this Discord guy? He sounds fun.” Adam interrupts Twilight.

“Please continue Twilight. I am interested in these Elements of Harmony.” Nikolas asks, as he opens a book. “So, can anyone use them?”

“Only if they have a strong link to one of the traits: Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty, Honesty, and Magic. They also only work if they are used together. I wield the element of magic, and Rainbow Dash wields the element of loyalty. My other friends wield the others. Applejack wields…”

“Hey! I think I’ve found something!” Octavia shouts.

“Ah, let us discuss this later.” Nikolas says walking over to Octavia.

Everypony walks over to a wall that Octavia is looking at. The wall is cracked and there are some words on the wall in a language I’ve never seen before. It looks like Equestrian, but with a bunch of words that don’t even make sense. Gemüts…Königin…I’ve never seen those words.

“Hey, that is German!” Nikolas exclaims. “Adam, come over here and translate this!”

Adam knows what it means?!

“Don’t worry everypony! I GOT DIS!” Adam shouts, strutting over to the words. “Okay so…“In der Stille, spricht die Stimme des Gemüts die am lautesten”…So, in the silence…the voice of the heart…no, wait…the voice of the mind…is the loudest. “In the silence, the voice of the mind is the loudest.” Huh…this place was sealed up along with the dragon right?”

“It would seem so, why” Twilight asks.

“Someone took the time to write this on the wall. So they knew German, but from what I’ve seen you guys don’t really know German. And given the age being a very long time, it doesn’t seem possible that there is a pony that knows German. The question is…who wrote this?” Adam asks.

That’s…a very good question…

“And the second part?” Rainbow Dash asks.

“OH YEAH!!” Adam yells. “Ok…”Das Stück liegt mit der Stimme der vergessenen eins”…The piece is with…the voice… of the forgotten one. “The piece is with the voice of the forgotten one.” It might be behind this wall.” Adam says. Before we can say anything, he starts punching the wall. It crumbles with every punch he throws. After a few more punches, a part of the wall collapses, making a hole in the wall big enough for us to walk through. “Ladies first.” He says, standing back from the wall and bowing with his arms pointing at the opening.

“Why, thank you.” Octavia says as she walks over the rubble. She is followed by the rest of the mares, and then by me. The humans follow behind us.

The next room is a lot bigger, but a lot more vacant of anything. A couple of statues of ponies are located in the middle of the room with a path leading over to them and that’s pretty much it. The place looks like some sort of underground shrine.

“Would you look at that!?” Twilight gasps in awe.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Could be a place of worship.” Nikolas states.

Well, that would make sense, considering the pony statues in the middle of the room…

“Yeah, the pony statues standing in the middle of the room do make it look like some sort of religious place.” Adam states.

That’s exactly what I was thinking…

“Well, great minds think alike, don’t they?” Adam smirks at me, as he and Nikolas walk over to the statues.

Wait…did he just respond to my thought?

“What do you mean your thought?” Vinyl asks. “You just said that you were thinking the same thing.”

“I didn’t say anything! I swear!” I shout.

“Oh great, D-Pad is going crazy.” I hear Rainbow Dash grumble.

“Hey, I’m not going crazy!” I shout to Rainbow Dash.

She looks at me in surprise. “I-I didn’t say you were!” She defends.

“Actually, you did say that he was going crazy.” Octavia states.

“NO I DIDN’T! Rainbow shouts. The two begin bickering bout what they did or didn’t hear.

“Jeez, it’s like a mad house.” I hear Vinyl state.

“Yeah it’s getting really weird.” I agree.

Vinyl looks over at me with confusion. “Uh…I didn’t say anything.”

Wait…I got an idea…

“What do you mean?” Vinyl asks.

“Watch my face and mouth, ok?” I say, to which Vinyl nods her head. I look straight at her.

Ok…one, two, three, four, five…

She looks at me in shock. “How…how did you do that?!” Vinyl asks, befuddled.

“Quick, think of something! Anything!” I exclaim.

“Uhh…Tomato soup with cabbage.” Vinyl says, without moving her mouth at all.

I look at her with amazement. By Celestia, this is amazing!

“We…can hear each other’s thoughts?” Vinyl thinks to me.

Well…in this room at least. I doubt we will keep this ability when we leave.

“This is so awesome…Hey want to have a little fun?” Vinyl thinks, grinning at me.

You read my mind. She whispers her plan in my ear. Oooh, this is gonna be fun.

“Hey everypony! Look what I can do!” She shouts at the other ponies. Everypony looks at us. Vinyl nods at me. “Hi! I’m D-Pad! I’m the coolest pony ever!” She thinks as I mouth what she says.

“Hah! I didn’t you were a ventriloquist, Vinyl.” Octavia laughs.

“Hey, I can do it too!” I exclaim. My name is Vinyl Scratch, and I like dubstep! Vinyl mouths the words I think.

“That’s very impressive!” Twilight complements us.

I then open my mouth wide open. I’m so good I can talk perfectly with my mouth open wide.

The mares applaud as I bow. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.” I joke.

“Should we tell them?” Vinyl thinks to me.

Perhaps we should let them “think” about that themselves. I wink at Vinyl.

“Tell us what?” Twilight asks.

“You’ll figure it out if you put your mind to it.” Vinyl jokes.

Ooo…good one.

“Wow, thanks a lot...” I hear Rainbow Dash think.

“You’re very welcome.” I remark.

Rainbow looks in surprise at me. “Ok, how the Tartarus are you doing that!” She exclaims.

Like Vinyl said, put your mind to it.

“Wait…they can read our minds?” Octavia thinks.

And you can read mine.

The mares gasp. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever it is, it’s causing our thoughts to project into sound.” I state.

“Wait…“In the silence, the voice of the mind is the loudest.”…That’s what it means!” Twilight exclaims. “Which means that we have to find the voice of the “Forgotten one.”

“Hey, druz'ya!” Nikolas shouts, waving over to us. “We think we found something!”

We all walk trot over to Nikolas. Twilight thinks a couple of things and gasps in awe as we respond to her. As we get closer to the statues, I can hear Adam saying a couple of things.

“And now I’m thinking about sandwiches…now I’m thinking about boats…now, chocolates…” Adam thinks. He looks over at us. “OOO, now I’m thinking about ponies…”

“Please kill me…” Nikolas thinks.

“Oh, so you do know that we can hear each other’s thoughts.” I say.

“And he won’t…shut…up…” Nikolas growls.

“…and now I’m thinking about Hydrogen…” Adam thinks.

“So, what did you find?” Twilight asks.

Nikolas holds out a gold chain with one fourth of a circle on it. It is adorned with small rubies. “What we’re looking for.”

“That’s the Piece of the Hero? How do you know?” Vinyl asks.

Nikolas holds up a book and motions behind him. We all look behind him to see a skeleton of a pony lying against the wall. I hear a bunch of disgusted noises from the rest of the ponies.

“Poor bastard was holding this thing close to him. I took it from him and this thing fell out of the journal.” Nikolas says. He gives me the book. I open it and read an excerpt.

“November 21. It’s over…I’m stuck here…they left me here…the dragon started trying to break free of its prison…I had to seal off this area, with me in it…it’s ironic huh…put the thing in a prison just to put myself in one…I’m bleeding very bad…if they are needed again, I know where they are…One’s with me, and the others are written in code on the back cover of my journal…whoever is reading this, let’s hope you are just retrieving these for historical proposes…and you are what I think you are…February 4, 1943…Good luck…” I read aloud.

“February 4…What for? And why 1943?” Nikolas asks.

That’s what I’m wondering…1943…is that some kind of further dating system?

“Yeah, that’s the year.” Adam says.

The buck is a year?

“Uh…well where we come from, a year is how long it takes the planet to revolve around the sun.” Nikolas states. “So, it’s pretty much talking about the 1943rd time it revolved around the sun.”

“Wait a minute…pardon me for going off track, but I’m in the middle of a breakthrough here.” Adam states. “Ok, I have a theory. Whoever wrote the words on the wall knew that this guy sealed himself in there. This means the person…well, pony in this case, wanted it to be found. If that’s the case, he wanted a certain pony to see it. A pony who knew German. A new question arises from this…Did we get lucky that we were able to find this place, or were we supposed to find it, like some sort of prophecy-like fulfillment?

“Did…did he just get smarter?” Rainbow Dash thinks.

“…and now I’m thinking about cheese…” Adam thinks.

And he’s back…I look at the back cover of the journal. By Celestia…there are four lines of symbols that I don’t even know what they are. I lay the thing out for everypony to see.

“Двадцать четыре. Семьдесят три. Четырнадцать. Габаритные рифтовая.”

“神々がトレッドを恐れるところ.”

“איפה הליכה המתים בינינו.”

“哪裡月亮是最高的.”

“What do they mean?” Twilight asks.

“Hey, the first one’s in Russian!” Nikolas exclaims.

“You know what it says?” Rainbow Dash inquires.

“Da, but just the first line. It is the numbers 24, 73, and 14, followed by the word Dimensional Rift.” He replies.

“Wait…1943…they had a dimensional rift working back then?” Adam says.

“Yeah I don’t understand it either…Well, if they did it back then, we can do it now.” Nikolas states.

“You guys are going to build a dimensional rift?” I ask.

“Something like that. Let’s go back to my car. I have an idea. And grab that journal. It may prove useful later.” Nikolas says.

I pick up the journal as everypony leaves the room. Adam stands by the hole in the wall, waiting for me. As I approach the hole, I grin as I have one more thing on my mind.

I like trains…

“And now I’m thinking about trains.” Adam thinks, smiling.

Double Your Fun

“So what are you planning to do with your…“car”?” Twilight asks Nikolas.

We’re at the place where we first met Adam and Nikolas. Nikolas is messing around with the metal beast that they came in. He pulled out a scorched black box a few minutes ago. Adam is lying down in the grass, sleeping. The rest of the mares are shooting the breeze.

I begin looking at the old journal again. I really feel bad for the guy…having to sacrifice himself just to keep the dragon in. I want to read his earlier entries, but they’re so worn away that I can’t make heads or tails of them. What I am more curious about is the date that was mentioned. February 4, 1943…I just want to know what’s so important about that date.

“Well, I’m looking at the damage the car took from the lightning.” Nikolas replies. “Seems to be that the battery took most of the damage. Once I get the power source replaced, I have a good idea on how to make a dimensional rift.”

Huh, can’t wait to see what he wants to try.

“D-Pad!!”

Bolt, my little brother runs over to me. The pale red pegasus foal gives me a big hug. He looks at me with his hazel eyes and with the biggest smile on his face. My family must have just got back from Baltimare.

“Hey, Bolt.” I laugh. “How was Baltimare?”

“Really cool! I got to see some huge ships!” He says, almost jumping with excitement. “You shoulda seen it! There was this big fair, and there was some cool…” He pauses as he stares at Nikolas.

“Hi there!” Nikolas says.

“AAAH! MOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!” He yells as he runs away.

“Oh dear…” Nikolas mumbles.

“What was that noise?” Adam yawns as he woke up.

“That was my little brother. They just got back from Baltimare.” I say.

“Baltimore?” Adam asks.

“Baltimare.” I correct him.

“…Ugh…the pun…it hurts…” Adam grumbles as he lies back down.

“What on Equestria are you talking…Oh my Celestia…”

I look over to see my mother staring with her jaw agape at Nikolas with Bolt hiding behind her. The bright red pegasus mare with hazel eyes and a long blonde mane slowly walks over to Nikolas.

“Can I help you?” Nikolas asks.

She gasps and jumps backwards. “You can talk!” She exclaims. “What…what are you?”

“Hi mom.” I say. “Windstorm, meet Nikolas the human. Nikolas, meet my mother, Windstorm.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Nikolas says, smiling and holding out his blacked hand in greeting.

“Oh well, pleased to meet you too.” My mom greets him, smiling sweetly and shaking Nikolas’s hand.

Adam gets up of the ground and yawns again. “WEELL HEEEEELUUUUUU!” He says in a squeaky voice.

“AUGH…err…Hello?” She greets Adam. “And you are?”

“I am Buzz Lightyear of Star Command!” Adam shouts proudly, making a heroic pose. Nikolas walks over to Adam and smacks him in the back of the head.

“Please Adam, this is my mom.” I say to Adam.

“Hah! Really? Well, I’m Adam Welling, ace janitor! You know, with the wing difference, I was going to make an adoption joke.” He laughs.

“…I was adopted.” I grumble, offended.

Adam’s smile drastically fades. “Oh…I-I-I…I’m really sorry.” He apologizes. He sits down, forming a look of depression. Wow…this is the first time I’ve seen him look so sad.

“Hey, are you ok?” I ask.

“I hate offending people…” Adam mumbles. “I only want to make people laugh…make them feel good about their day. When I make someone sad…it’s the worst thing in my life.”

“Hey…it’s okay.” I say trying to cheer him up. “It happens to everypony. You didn’t know I was adopted.”

“It doesn’t make what I said right.” Adam mumbles.

“Come on, you got this!” I shout. “Say it!”

“I got this.” Adam grumbles.

“Louder!” I shout.

“I got this!” Adam shouts in reply.

“LOUDER!” I yell.

“I got dis!” Adam shouts even louder.

“LOUDER!!!” I yell again.

“I GOT DIS!!!” Adam bellows. He jumps up and runs around yelling “I got dis.” Now there’s the Adam I’ve grown to love…that sounds weird.

“Well, he’s full of pep.” My mom laughs.

“Hey D-Pad! What’s this?” Bolt says, holding up the journal.

“Careful with that! We need that!” I shout.

“Why in Equestria do you…” My mother stops mid-sentence. “Oh, D-Pad…please don’t tell me you’re putting yourself in danger again.”

“Well…not really.”

“LITTLE LARRY LIES A LOT! QUIT LYING!!” Adam shouts at my response.

“Please tell me, and I want the truth…I just don’t want to worry about you.” She implores me.

I want to lie and tell her everything is okay…everypony is looking at me, expecting the truth…

…well…here goes nothing…

“So…right now we’re working on trying to open up a dimensional rift…” I finish explaining the whole story to her.

She sits down on the ground. “Well, you never did like to lead the quiet life.” She jokes.

“In all honesty miss, we have been very careful and no one has been hurt.” Nikolas states.

“And we already have one of the pieces, see?” Vinyl says, holding up the first piece.

“I don’t know…” Windstorm sighs. “I mean…I almost lost you before…

“Windstorm…” Octavia speaks up. “I know what you’re feeling right now. When D-Pad had to destroy my father, I worried constantly about him. But we are with him.” She then walks over to me and leans against me.

“Yeah, we got his back!” Vinyl adds, as she walks over to me.

“Yeah! He’s a pretty cool stallion.” Rainbow Dash says as she puts a hoof on my shoulder.

“Equestria is lucky to have somepony so devoted to keeping it safe. I’ll help him every step of the way.” Twilight states, walking over to me.”

“There’s a phrase in my country. "You get to really know your friends when trouble comes." I wouldn’t mind getting in trouble with him more often.” Nikolas says as he stands next to me.

“FRIENDSHIP IS AWESOME MAGIC!” Adam shouts. He runs over to us and puts me on his shoulders.

My mom starts crying. “…How lucky you are, to have such wonderful friends…”

“Mom…”

She hugs me. “Just be careful, okay?”

“I promise.” I reply.

“I’ll see you tonight.” My mom says, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Okay, that should do it.” Nikolas says. “The turbines are linked up to the engine and ready for traveling. All we need is a power source.”

“So how are we going to get a new car battery?” Adam asks.

“Let me see something.” Vinyl says, looking into the metal beast. “…Hah! I can get this thing up and running, no problem.” Vinyl laughs.

“That is going to be interesting to see.” Nikolas laughs, skeptically.

“Excuse me Mr. Alvang, but have you figured out what the numbers meant?” Twilight asks.

“X, Y, and Z.” Nikolas replies. “As far as I am sure, they are possible points in the dimensional plane. I’ve connected Adam’s laptop to the car and, using a program I created and added to his computer, set up the coordinates according to where the points meet.”

“So…who’s going?” I ask.

“OOOOH! OOOOH! MEMEMEMEME!! I’LL DO IT!!!” Adam shouts happily.

“That seems like a bad idea.” Rainbow Dash states.

“Actually it’s not.” Nikolas whispers to her. “Unfortunately, he’s the most expendable of the group. If anything, four people should go. Adam is one.”

“D-Pad, why don’t you come with me?!” Adam suggests.

“Actually, that would be a good idea.” Nikolas comments. “In fact, a human, an earth pony, a unicorn, and a pegasus, would prove the most useful for whatever is beyond the rift.”

“Okay, no problem.” I say. “Vinyl can get the car running, so she should come with…You want to come with us Octavia?”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Octavia asked Nikolas.

“Not really, no.” Nikolas admits.

“…Oh well, I’ve lived a good life.” Octavia sighs.

“Excellent. Well, if you ponies and Adam would please get in the car…”Nikolas says.

Nikolas opens up a hatch on the metal beast and opens it up. Inside are two cushioned seats. I slide in as Octavia slides in next to me. Adam and Vinyl sit in some cushioned seats ahead of us. Adam grabs hold of a wheel connected to a hard plastic thing in front of both of them.

“Okay so, here’s what you do. Turn the car on, then press the enter key on your laptop.” He says as he points to the “laptop” connected to the car with wires. “After that, flick the switch on the dashboard, and then floor it. When you get the piece just get back in the car hit the enter key and just repeat the process. Oh, and don’t think about how this works. We are definitely breaking multiple rules of physics, and if it finds out, you atoms will explode one-by-one until you cease to exist.” Nikolas explains.

I swallow hard. Well somepony better distract us. Nikolas steps a couple meters back. “Vinyl! Start her up!” Nikolas shouts.

Vinyl’s horn glows blue as the metal beast makes the weirdest noise I ever heard…like it’s trying to breathe with a very bad cold. After second or two, the thing begins to make a steady humming noise. Adam taps a button on his laptop. He the flicks the switch on hard plastic thing, and pushes a lever at his feet. The humming gets very loud. The metal beast begins glowing and rocking back and forth. I feel my body becoming lighter than air as I start to lose consciousness.

“I DON’T WANNA CLOSE MY EYES! I DON’T WANNA FALL ASLEEP, CAUSE I MISS YOU BABY, AND I DON’T WANNA MISS A THING!!” Adam shout-sings.

“Hey! Hey D-Pad…D-PAD!! Wake up!!”

I open my eyes. Octavia is standing over me, looking worried. She sighs in relief as she sees me wake up.

“Thank Celestia… come on, up on your feet.” She says, pushing me up on my feet.

I look around to see we are now in a dense forest. It looks like I was dragged out of the metal beast.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“No clue.” Vinyl speaks up from inside the car. “Whatever happened, it worked.”

“Where’s Adam?” I ask, as I continue to scan the area.

“OVER HERE!!” Adam shouts from behind the metal beast. He walks out from behind the metal beast.

“Well…at least we made it…” I sigh.

“What now?” Octavia asks.

“Well, if I were Nik, I’d probably look for a location marker or something. Why don’t we go in different directions and look for a point of interest. When we find one, let’s head back to the car.” Adam states. He then instructs the two mares to go east and west, and then tells me to go south as he heads north.

After about ten minutes of walking southward, I’ve yet to find anything of interest. Ugh, I know it’s important that we need to find some place of interest, but it’s like this place is just one big forest maze. Every step I take is like I’m in the same spot that I was a few seconds ago…maybe I should just head back. I’m certain one of the mares or Adam must have found something…

“Hello? Is somepony out there?! Amy?! Joystick?! Record?!” Anypony?!” I hear a voice call out.

“Over here!” I call out. I gallop over to where I heard the voice. Where is the-OHCRAP!!

I ram into a gray stallion, and knock him to the ground.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!” I say as I pick him up off the ground.

“Oh, you’re quite fine. I’ll be okay.” He says, stretching his legs out.

Wait…something’s odd about this stallion. The gray fur, the black mane in a pompadourish style…the purple treble clef cutie mark!?!?

“O-Octavia?” I gasp.

“Who? I’m sorry I’m not quite sure who you’re talking about.” The gray stallion states. “Wait…you look like one of my friends. Have we met before?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I say.

“Well, anyways, I’m Melodicai. Please to make your acquaintance.” He says, stretching out a hoof in greeting.

“I’m D-Pad, pleased to meet you.” I shake his hoof in greeting. “Why don’t you come with me? We have a sort of home base that we’re using. Your friends might be there.”

“We can only hope. Lead the way.” He says.

Getting bored…bored, bored, bored, bored, bored…board…shuffleboard…shuffling…EREDAY I’M SHUFFLIN.

As I walk forward, I find it harder and harder to keep myself entertained. Great…it’s been ten minutes and I’m already disinterested in our mission. I’m thinking about turning back. Mostly because I’m running out of humorous things to think about.

“Hey! Anypony out there!” I hear a male voice call out.

“A voice! FOLLOW ME, MAGICAL VOICE!” I bellow.

A hear the pounding of hoof steps as the get closer. It looks like Vinyl Scratch has also found…

“Whoa… another human? Who are you?” A white unicorn stallion with blue hair asks me.

That’s…not Vinyl…well it is…but it isn’t…MY BRAIN HURTS!! Okay…it’s a male unicorn that looks like Vinyl…hmm…I think I know what’s going on…

“I’m Adam, the greatest thing to happen to this place since sliced bread. And you are?” I reply.

“Record Skip, or to my fans, DJ ST4LL10N. You know, you remind me of a human I just came to this place with. She very…weird.” He states.

“Yeah that’s pretty much me.” I say. “Why don’t you come back with me? I think I have a logical explanation of what is happening here. We’ll go back to my car.”

“A car? You have a car?!” He exclaims.

“Yeah, we’ll walk and talk. FOLLOW ME TO THE WIZARD!!”

“And here we are right back at…whatever Adam calls it.” I say as we reach the metal beast.

“…What are you playing at?” He growls.

“Excuse me?” I ask. I look behind me, and Melodicai is in an offensive stance. He lunges at me and tackles me to the ground, and then pins me against the ground. “Hey! Get…off!”

“This isn’t your car! This is the car I came in! How dare you think you can just take it!” He growls.

“It’s not yours! I came in this car! Now, get off me or I’ll make you get off!!” I shout, angrily.

“You aren’t going anywhere!” He says as he places a hoof on my throat. “I-I’m not afraid to kill you! My girlfriend killed my mother to stop her from destroying Equestria half a year ago, so don’t think I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

My eyes widen and my jaw drops.

…what the buck is going on here?! I killed Octavia’s DAD to save Equestria, not this stallion’s mother, and I KNOW I was the one who killed him…

“D-Pad!” I hear Adam’s voice. “Get off of him!!” I see Adam yank Melodicai off of me.

“HEY! Leave my friend alone!” A white unicorn stallion that looks almost like Vinyl Scratch slams into the back of Adam. The two stallions start attacking Adam, although Adam does pretty well at defending himself.

“STOP!” I shout. Everypony stops fighting. “Look, there seems to be a miscommunication between us. Why don’t we find the rest of our groups; then we can decide whether to kill each other or not.”

“Fine. Do you think we should wait for them?” Melodicai asks.

“Actually, I’ve been forming a theory.” Adam says. “I bet if we head in that diagonal direction, we’ll find your friends.” He points toward the north-east.

“Great, by the way, Record Skip, good ta meet ya.” He says.

“D-Pad.” I say.

“My name is Melodicai. Sorry for trying to hurt you.” He says to Adam.

“Name’s Adam, and don’t worry about it. I’ve been attacked so many times, I hardly feel pain anymore.” Adam jokes. Melodicai laughs lightly. Celestia, even his laugh is really close to Octavia’s. “Let’s roll! ONWARDS TO GLORY!!!” Adam shouts.

“We’ve been walking for a half an hour.” Record grumbles. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

“Course I know!” Adam shouts. “I am best navigator ever! Now we were heading north-east, right?

“Oh great…we’re doomed.” Melodicai groans.

“Oh great…we’re doomed.” I hear Octavia groan.

“Octavia!?” I shout.

“Melodicai!?” I hear a mare’s voice shout.

Melodicai’s ears perk up. He begins galloping towards the voices, as do I.

Thank Celestia! I’m glad she’s safe. I continue forward to come face to face with…

…A pale yellow bat-winged pegasus mare, with a long, untidy brown mane and bushy tail, light green eyes, and a video game controller cutie mark.

“What the…” We both say in unison. We raise our respective left hooves at the same time. We then touch each other’s left hoof.

“Is that…me?” we say in unison.

“Jeez, don’t run ahead of us like…”Adam and a mare’s voice stop in mid-sentence. “Oh my giddy aunt…”

The mare isn’t a mare at all, but a female human. She is wearing the same thing Adam is wearing, but it seems to fit a little better for her, probably because she quite a bit thinner than Adam. She also has a brown bob cut mane…err hair.

“Hello?” They say in unison. “Hey, don’t copy me!”

The rest of the ponies make their way to the others Vinyl and Octavia examine Melodicai and Record Skip.

“What’s going on?” My mare counterpart and I say in unison.

“It’s just what I thought.” Adam and the female human say in unison. “We have found ourselves on a plane of existence in which our parallel universe counterparts are able to travel to which I presume they are looking for something, the Piece of the Hero in this case. There are probably two here, in theory.”

“So, why are we saying the same thing at the same time?” Octavia and Melodicai ask in unison.

“Presumably, were just doing whatever we are intended to do by the timelines. Put simply, the only thing altered is our genders. As such there are not a lot of changes, hence why we talk at the same time. However…If we can just break the “time link” that makes do what the other does, we may be able to communicate with our counterparts.” The two humans explain.

“How do we do that?” My mare counterpart and I ask.

“Even in multiverses, there is at least one discrepancy. Usually, the discrepancies are very simple. Unfortunately, were pretty much gonna have to guess.” The humans say together.

“Great so what, we just start guessing words like, Apple and we can talk normally with our mare counterparts?” I ask.

“Great so what, we just start guessing words like, Plum and that’s it? We can talk with the others?” My mare counterpart asks.

We both gasp. “Did you just say something differently?” She asks me. She then gasps again.

“Or you can get it on the first try.” Adam jokes.

“PROGRESSION SUCCESSION!!” The female human shouts.

“Ok, I like you.” Adam says, pointing a finger at the female human.

“So, we can talk normally now?” Vinyl asks.

“Indubitably.” Adam replies.

“OOO! I love that word!” the female human comments.

“I know right!?” Adam agrees.

Everyone begins to introduce themselves to each other.

“My name is D-Pad. It’s good to meet you.” I say, shaking my mare counterpart’s hoof.

“My name is Joystick.” She replies. “This…this is just so weird, and yet so cool! I’m actually talking with a stallion version of me!”

Took the words right out of my mouth…

“Adam Welling, illegal in two states and one country, at your service!” Adam states.

“Amy Welling, still dancing with myself, good to meet you.” The female human states.

“Well, now that we have that formality out of the way, what is our next course of action?” Melodicai asks.

“WAIT!!” Amy shouts. “My brain is working! This is presumably the center of the entire area right?”

“Right…” We all say in unison.

“OH! OH! So you think that the piece has to be around here somewhere!! I AM MASTER MINDREADER!!!” Adam shouts, starting to dig in the dirt.

“I WANNA DIG TOO!!” Amy shouts, joining Adam in the digging.

“And you thought one was enough…” Vinyl jokes, to which Record Skip chuckles.

We all begin using our hooves to dig around in the dirt. We chat with our counterparts, and learn that most of their lives have been the same as ours. They have two princes instead of princesses as their leaders. I say how it would be interesting to see our parents in the reversed world, to which Melodicai sighs. Oh, right…his mom...

“Hey, can I ask a question.” I ask Joystick.

“Fire away.” She states.

I motion to her to come closer.

“Do…do mares in your world get pregnant the same way in our world?” I whisper.

She raises an eyebrow at me.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…well…I just…” I murmur.

“Shh…” she hushes me, placing a hoof on my mouth. “I know what you’re going to say. I know how worried you are about it. I mean, I still am troubled by it. But you and I both know we will make good parents. Don’t worry about it. You have many friends to help you out.”

“I know…but…”

“Look. If you’re so concerned about it, just talk to Octavia.” Joystick says. “I’m certain it will ease both of your fears.”

“You sound like my mom…” I joke.

“Actually I was going off what I thought my dad would say.” She comments.

We chuckle and continue digging. After an hour of digging, I come across a pair of books. “Hey, I found something!” I call out.

“What did you…Lord Almighty…” Adam gasps.

He picks up the books and brushes them off. He opens one of them up and a gold one fourth of a circle that is adorned with sapphires. “Well…in a way, I should thank God for this.” Adam jokes, picking up the Piece of Hero.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask.

He hands me the book…The Holy Bible? What kinda book is this? I open it up…that’s some small print. Someone has scribbled words in here in a language I don’t even know…wait, it looks like one of the lines on the journal the “Forgotten one” wrote down.

“Hey Adam!” I exclaim. “There are symbols that look a lot like those in the journal!” Adam and Amy both look in the journal. Their eyes widen.

“…HEBREW!!” The two humans shout in unison.

“Excuse me? He brew what?” Joystick asks.

“No, Hebrew. As in, the Jewish language.” Adam exclaims.

“…what?” Octavia asks, befuddled.

“So is there another piece of…AHA!” Melodicai says as he opens the other book and takes out a Piece of Hero exactly like Adams.

“OH YEAH! HEADBUMP!” Amy shouts. Adam and Amy then bump heads and then begin groaning about how what they did hurt.

“Well, that was relatively easy.” Octavia comments.

“Yeah…easy…” Adam agrees. He seems to be in thought.

“Something on your mind?” I ask him.

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I think we can head back. We got the Piece of the Hero, and one heck of an interesting story.” Adam states.

“Do you have to leave!? I LIKE YOU!!” Amy whines.

“We have to leave too, you know.” Record Skip points out.

“Oh yeah…” She says, smiling.

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you all for the brief period that we did.” Octavia states.

“The pleasure has been all mine.” Melodicai says as he bows. Record Skip groans and facehoofs himself.

Everypony laughs.

“So, what’s up? You seemed concerned about it being too easy.” I say as I climbed into the metal beast.

“It’s nothing really…it just seems too simple…” He admits. “We come here, with very little resistance I might add, and just get the Piece of Hero. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Perhaps the unicorn that brought it here figured that it would be near impossible to get here.” Octavia guesses as she slides next to me.

“I’m not so certain.” Adam responds. “Most people in this case, as the objects were being hidden, would have some sense of paranoia. Psychologically, simply burying the books underground isn’t the most discreet approach.”

“When did you get so smart?” Vinyl Scratch asks.

“I always have been; I just choose to entertain the masses with my randomness and insanity.” Adam replies. “If you would kindly, Vinyl.”

Vinyl’s horn glows as the beast begins sputtering again. Adam hits the key on his laptop and flicks the switch on the hard plastic thing. As the beast begins roaring and rocking again, I once again feel my body begin to feel lighter than air. I once again start to lose consciousness.

“TEENAGERS SCARE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OFME!! THEY COULD CARE LESS AS LONG AS SOMEON WILL BLEED! SO DARKEN YOUR CLOTHES OR STRIKE A VIOLENT POSE! MAYBE THEY'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE, BUT NOT ME!!!” Adam shout-sings.

What a Night for a Fright!

“This is great and all, but it will still take time to translate the Hebrew language.” Nikolas says, taking the book from Adam.

We make our way into Ponyville. The sun is starting to set and many of the ponies are closing up their shops and heading home to their families.

“You know, I kinda wonder why the Bible was here.” Adam comments.

“Who knows? But it does go to show whoever this unicorn of legend was, he was aware of the existence of other religions.” Nikolas states

“Kind of a baseless claim don’t you think?” Adam says.

Adam looks around in the town.

“Not a lot goes on in the evening, huh?” Adam comments.

“Not really, most ponies are going to settle in their homes.” Twilight says. “Well, I’d hate to leave you guys alone, but I need some rest. I’ll see you ponies and humans tomorrow.” She then walks away from us.

“Yeah, I’m tired as well…” Nikolas says as he yawns. “Perhaps we should find a place to sleep.”

“Hey D-Pad!!” I hear Quicksilver, my older brother, shout.

The large, maneless, dark red pegasus stallion with bright brown eyes and a drop of silver as his cutie mark lands in front of me. He looks up at the humans and nods his head in greeting. “Evening gentlestallions.

“HAI DERE!!” Adam shouts.

“Evening, Mr…” Nikolas states.

“Ah, Quicksilver, and you must be Nikolas…mom talked about you.” He greets him. “She also mentioned a human by the name of Adam, and said that he was quite…anomalous.”

“IM AN ANOMOLY!! AWESOME!!!” Adam shouts with joy.

“Quite appropriate in this case.” Quicksilver laughs.

“Hey Quick, do you think mom will mind if I bring the two humans over? They have no place to stay for the night.” I ask.

“Knowing our mom, she’d take in a rabid manticore.” Quicksilver jokes.

“You don’t have to trouble yourselves; we can find a place.” Nikolas states.

“Please, you guys must be bushed. It’d be nice to sleep on something comfortable than on the ground.” I insist.

“Welp, I’m going home.” Vinyl yawns. “If we got another big day ahead of us, I wanna be ready and raring to go.”

“I suppose I should head home too.” Octavia says. “Goodnight D-Pad.” We kiss and she walks away with Vinyl.

“How bout that…my little bro, the stallion who was the most frightening thing in Ponyville over half a year ago, kissing his fillyfriend on the mouth.” Quicksilver laughs.

“Come on, don’t make me blush…” I say, turning a bright red.

“I think you’d make a fine husband.” Nikolas states.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m gonna hit the hay. I’ll see you stallions tomorrow.” Rainbow says as she flies off.

“Yeah, we better get home too.” Quicksilver says. The humans follow us as we made our way to my house.

As the moon begins to rise over the horizon, I can see the red, two story cottage that my family lives in. There is a blacksmith’s forge a few meters away from the cottage.

“And here we are.” Quicksilver speaks up.

“Looks quaint.” Nikolas states.

“And old fashioned.” Adam chimes in.

Nikolas brings his hand to his head. “That’s the same thing as what I said.” Nikolas groans.

“Oh, ok…” Adam says.

“Well, well…”

Adam and Nikolas jump as a voice comes from behind us. We all turn around.

“Oh, Hi dad!” I greet my father.

My dad, a dark gray pegasus with a black comb over mane, silver eyes, and a blacksmith’s anvil as a cutie mark, smiles as I greet him. “Ah, Nikolas and Adam…Windstorm spoke highly of you two. It great to see that my adopted son can make friends with even the strangest of creatures.”

“Daw…your jus sayin dat…” Adam says, holding his hands behind his back and kicks the ground playfully.

“Your son has been kind enough to offer us somewhere to rest for the night.” Nikolas says. “If it is okay…”

“Of course! We love new company!” He exclaims. “If you hurry, I think Windstorm is making tea.”

“Ohohohoh, you guys haven’t lived until you’ve had a cup of my mom’s tea.” I joke.

We all walk to my house. Forge opens the door and we step in. The living room, which has a couple of comfy chairs, a sofa and a dining table, is connected to the dining room. Mom is setting up a couple cups of tea on the dining room table.

“Oh my goodness, I didn’t know we had guests coming.” Windstorm states, noticing us. “Give a minute and I’ll get you some tea. Oh and dears, please don’t be too loud. Bolt is asleep and he has school tomorrow.”

“Mom, can Adam and Nikolas stay the night?” I ask. “I’d hate for them to wander around at night looking for somewhere to sleep.”

“Of course! As long as they are respectable in the house, they are welcome to stay as long as they need to.” She says from the kitchen.

“Hey mom, have you seen my…” My sister Storm Drum asks as she trots down the stairs, only to stop mid-sentence. The white pegasus mare with a black bob cut mane and blue highlights, light blue eyes, and a drum as her cutie mark just stares at the humans, jaw agape.

“Hello!” Adam greets her.

“Uh…um…hi?” She mumbles.

“Hey, where’s Swift Strike?” I ask.

“He’ll be back in the morning. He was going to Detrot to meet up with an old friend of his.” My mom replies as she brings out two more cups of tea.

We all sit down and start drinking tea. “Mmmm…this is some very good tea.” Nikolas comments.

“Thank you, I make all my own tea.” Windstorm thanks Nikolas, smiling. “It’s not my calling, but it is a hobby of mine.”

“Oh yeah, the thingys on your butts. That’s supposed to be what your calling is. I read that in a book.” Adam comments.

I see Nikolas cover his mouth at the butt joke, holding in some laughter. “Don’t worry, he just tells it like he sees it. He never means to offend.” Nikolas struggles to say without laughing.

“It is fine.” She laughs. “He did catch me off guard, but I am good now.”

We talk for a bit about random things. Where the humans came from. What it’s like in their world. That sort of stuff.

“So you’re the one who stopped the dragon?” Quicksilver asks. “Everypony says it was some large creature with a flowery shirt. And you fit the description pretty well.”

“Yes sir. I stopped the dragon. Pretty easy dragon, too.” Adam answers.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but a “pretty easy dragon?” I doubt any dragon is easy.” Forge comments.

“Oh, trust me, Adam has fought tougher dragons. And zombies and werewolves and vampires…” Nikolas states.

“Excuse me?” Windstorm comments. “I apologize, but besides dragons, none of those things exist. They’re just fairy tale monsters usually found in ghost stories.”

“Oh no, they’re real.” Adam says as he takes another sip of his tea. “Trust me, I’ve seen and “dispatched” my fair share of them.”

Storm Drum laughs at Adam. “I’m nineteen years old. I think I’m a little old for ghost stories.” She laughs.

“That’s easy to say for someone who hasn’t seen one.” Adam kindly retorts.

“Well, if they do exist, where’s the proof?” She offers as a rebuttal.

“Proof.” Adam grumbles. “That’s always the case with everyone. Too skeptical to believe in anything, so they ramble on about their proof. Is it impossible to take things on good faith anymore?”

“Well, sir.” Quicksilver states. “In all honesty, if we haven’t seen one in all of our lives that we lived here, it’s quite hard to say that you aren’t off your rocker.”

Adam shakes his head, stands up and walks toward the door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Nikolas asks.

“For a walk, I need to think.” Adam grumbles as he opens the door, walks outside, and closes the door behind him.

“Storm Drum, that was not nice at all.” Windstorm scolds.

“Oh come on, mom!” Storm Drum laughs. “Seriously, you’ve never seen any zombies or ghosts or werewolves, and I certainly haven’t. Perhaps the guy is a little batty.”

Nikolas begins looking in his tea, frowning. Whatever Adam has seen, Nikolas must believe in them too. I kinda feel sorry for Adam. He honestly believes in the stuff.

“Well, how was your day D-Pad?” My mom says to me, trying to change the subject.

Proof. Bloody proof. That’s all they want anymore! Can’t be bothered to listen to the story, all they want is cold hard facts. Eugh…if only they’d have seen what I’ve seen… had what happen to me happen to them…then they’d believe.

“Heh, what you doing up?” A voice from above asks.

I look up. Sitting upon a cloud is Rainbow Dash looking down at me, smirking.

“Can’t sleep.” I reply.

“Join the club.” She says as she flies down next to me.

“Well, I thought maybe a walk would tucker me out a bit. Would you like to join me?” I ask.

“Sure, a walk might do me some good.” Rainbow Dash comments.

We begin to walk down the path to Ponyville. I note that I kind of slouch as I walk along.

“Wassup? You look kinda bummed.” Rainbow Dash comments.

“It’s nothing.” I state.

Na-ah. It’s never just nothing. What’s up?” She asks.

“…You ever tell someone something, and they won’t believe you unless you prove it, but you can’t show them proof.” I ask in reply.

“Heh.” Rainbow Dash chuckles. “Not really, I can usually back up my claims.” She then flexes her arms.

I laugh.

“…Just like my old girlfriend.”

We walk for a few more minutes.

“Okay, I gotta ask.” Rainbow Dash speaks up. “Can you tell me about your girlfriend?”

“Of course.” I reply, as I sit down on the side of the path. “I met Veronika Alvang when I went to watch her brother Nikolas shoot for sport…”

“Whoa hold up! You dated Nikolas’s sister?! Isn’t that a little weird?” She comments as she sits next to me.

“I don’t think who you’re dating matters as long as you love them, and let me tell you, I loved her.” I state. “I loved every minute I was with her. I took her out on dates, visited her on the weekends…hell, we got so hammered once that she ended up staying at my house and we fell asleep on the couch together. I skipped college classes just to be with her if she was in town.”

What did she look like?” Rainbow Dash asks.

“She was beautiful…Blonde hair, a beautiful thin body, and a bright, charismatic personality that could light the darkest room. She was very competitive. I told you about how she wouldn’t even talk to me for a while after I beat her at chess. Seemed like she always wanted to prove something.” I begin.

“Heh, sounds a bit like me.” Rainbow Dash chuckled.

“And she was loyal. I’ve never seen someone so proud and ready to defend her beliefs and the new country she moved to, no matter how bad it got. I’d see people bad mouth the country, and she defended her new home till she couldn’t defend the country anymore. It’s funny…she came all the way from another continent, and pretty much swore allegiance with the country she moved to. I still think to this day she didn’t have any faith in her old country.” I continue.

“She sounds cool! Whatever happened to her?” Rainbow inquires.

I take a deep breath and sigh. I can feel tears starting to well up in my eyes. “…Last October on the 29th, I woke up to a call from Nikolas. He was crying, and I could hear what he said at first. I asked him to repeat what he said…”

“…Veronika is dead…She hung herself…”

Rainbow Dash gasps. “Oh my Celestia…I…I…I am so sorry…”

I hang my head and begin to cry. I feel the cold tears flow down my face. “It’s hard, ya know? You think you give someone all the joy you can muster up and they still suffer from the harshness of the world….I still have no idea why she hung herself. I try to think about it, and it hurts too much to think about. All I can think about is that I never got to say I loved her more than anything in the world.”

Rainbow begins to rub my back. “Hey…it’s okay…I bet she died knowing that someone so wonderful still cared for her.”

“That’s why I act so crazy.” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. “I feel that, even if there is no hope left for a person, they need to know that there is still some guy who wants to give them hope by making them laugh. I don’t want to have anyone suffer the same way that I did.”

“You know, I’d have to say you’re luckier than me.” Rainbow states. “You at least had a “girlfriend”…I still haven’t been able to find the perfect stallion for me.”

“Well, maybe you just need to go out and look around. In a world full of candy colored ponies, there’s gotta be a stallion you could grow to love.” I say.

“I wish it were that easy.” She continues her rant. “Every time I meet a potential date, we never seem to stay together. It feels like I get bored of being together or it the stallion can’t take being with me.”

“Sounds like a case of setting ones standards to high.” I comment.

“Please, if you wanna see high standards, go talk to my friend Rarity.” Rainbow Dash laughs. “I just wanna meet some stallion who likes racing, speed, competition, and can still be interesting.”

“I’m interesting and I can run fast…I GOT A SHOT!!” I shout.

“Yeah, when you turn into a pony, then we’ll talk.” Rainbow Dash laughs as she rolls her eyes.

“Hey, you’ve seen the kind of stuff that can happen here. It’s not impossible. Improbable, unlikely, but not impossible.” I say.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re pretty cool, even if you are random and weird. But I don’t see you and me ever dating, even if you were a pony.” Rainbow says, standing up.

“Ah, but as the phrase goes, “time will tell”.” I state as I stand up and continue walking. Rainbow rolls her eyes and follows me as we walk for a few minutes.

“Right well-OW!” She shouts as I hear a small smash of glass. She lifts her hoof up to reveal a broken bottle. “Damn it, why would anypony just leave that around.” She then looks at her hoof to see a small gash on it. The wound begins dripping blood.

“Damn it…well at least it’s just a small cut, right Adam?” Rainbow Dash comments.

I…I…I can’t speak. My heart begins pounding harder and harder in my chest. I just stare at the blood. As it drips to the ground, it feels like it falls slower and slower before it splashes magnificently to the ground.

“Adam?” Rainbow Dash states.

I begin to drool as my head cocks to the side, never leaving my sight from the wound. I feel so hungry…I just want to tear the wound open even more and just drink from it like it’s a fountain.

“Hey! Equestria to Adam!” Rainbow Dash shouts

What’s one pony gone missing right? Right? I mean, I’m not important to her, she’s not important to me. Just take care of her now, hide the body and never mention it again. It’s so easy! Just do it!

“HEY ADAM!” Rainbow yells in my face.

No…No I can’t…I just can’t do it…not to her…I need to find something else…I feel my legs buckle as the bones in my leg feel like they’re going to break. Oh damn it…not now…

“Rainbow, listen I got to do something on my own. It’s very important, and I would like to keep it private. Thanks, bye.” I rush as I run away to the nearest forest.

“HEY WAIT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” I hear Rainbow Dash shout.

“You seem very interested in the Elements of Harmony, Nikolas.” I say.

“Well, that’s they ARE interesting. I’ve never seen anything like them.” Nikolas comments. “And trust me; I’ve seen a lot in my time.”

“I think it’s weird how you haven’t heard of them.” Quicksilver states.

“Well believe me, I asked enough questions to be almost a scholar on them.” Nikolas jokes. “With you guys being gone, I practically gathered as much information as I could. I was going to talk to Adam about them.”

“Speaking of which, is your friend going to be okay? He’s been gone for a while.” Windstorm asks Nikolas.

“Oh I’m certain he’s fine. If the guy can take on a dragon, he can handle whatever is out there.” He jokes.

“Yeah, like those vampires!” Storm Drum laughs.

“Storm Drum, that’s quite enough about that.” Forge scolds Storm Drum. “I know what he believes in is quite…“interesting”, but we must respect what he believes.”

“You know, I think I’m gonna go look for him.” I say as I stand up and walk over to the door.

“Okay, but be careful.” Windstorm bids me farewell.

As I step outside and take off toward the sky with my bat wings, the cool summer air feels soothing as it flows past me and my wings. It’s just a gorgeous night. The bright full moon looks beautiful in the starry sky. It’s nights like these I could just look up at the sky and stare for hours. Huh…that cloud seems out of place…wonder what it’s doing there? I move the cloud back up with the other clouds.

In the distance I hear a wolf howl. Strange…that sounded kind of close. Must be a timberwolf out and about. I thought the usually stayed in or at least near the Everfree Forest. Maybe it’s just a wolf then. I fly around for a bit calling out Adam’s name. I then notice a small spot of red on the path to Ponyville.

As I land down on the path, I examine the red splotch on the ground. It smells like blood. I look around and see more blotches of red along with a broken glass bottle. Well, I guess a pony or something must have accidentally stepped on it, and cut themselves on it. The red splotches seem to form a path towards a small forest not too far from here. I decide to follow the trail.

As I reach the forest, I hear another wolf howl. It sounds very close. My better judgement is telling me to avoid the forest, but whatever cut itself ran into the forest. I’d feel like a total jerk if I let something die in the forest and I could have helped it. I trot into the forest, making my way through the brush and flora.

As I follow the path of blood, I come across a floral shirt. It looks just like the one Adam was…Oh no…

“Adam!! Are you there!?!” I shout. “Damn it, Adam! This better not be a joke!”

There is a rustling in the bushes ahead of me. I jump and shout in surprise. I then take a defensive pose and flare my wings out. “Don’t come near me!!” I growl. “I am not afraid to hurt you!”

“Is that you D-Pad?” I hear Rainbow Dash speak. She peaks her head out from the bushes. She then steps out, keeping one of her hooves off the ground. Her lifted hoof is bleeding a bit. That Celestia, that solves one problem. I stand back up normally.

“Are you okay?” I say, looking at her hoof.

“Heh, this? This is nothing.” She states proudly.

“What are you doing in this forest?” I ask her.

“I could ask you the same question.” she returned.

“I was following a blood trail to this forest.” I state. “But it didn’t take long to find out what was bleeding. You really should get that bandaged.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Rainbow defends.

“So anyways, what are you doing the forest?” I ask.

“Looking for Adam.” She replies. “He started acting really strange after I cut my hoof, and just ran off into this forest for no apparent reason.”

“Why in Equestria would he come here?” I inquire.

“Your guess is as good as…” Rainbow Dash stops and looks in fear at the top of my head.

“What are you…” I begin to ask.

Warm air begins blowing on the back of my head. I hear heavy breathing and growling. I feel my body just lock up as my hair stands up on end.

“Th-there’s s-s-something b-bad behind me, isn’t there?” I ask, my voice trembling. Rainbow Dash slowly nods her head.

I slowly turn my head and look at what is behind me. A giant, brown, bipedal wolf is right behind me. It is staring back at me with glowing gold eyes. The stench of blood and wet fur emanates from the wolf. It stands up on its hind legs and howls upwards toward the sky. Its hand-shaped paws and claws glisten with dark red as blood drips from them. Its face and its body are caked with blood.

I jump away quickly and land next to Rainbow Dash. “Back…Back off!!” I shout at it.

It gets back down on all fours as it begins to sniff towards us. It begins to crawl its way closer. I swallow hard as it gets right next to us and begins sniffing our bodies. It then squats down on its hind legs and reaches a bloody hand out to Rainbow Dash.

“I said BACK OFF!!” I shout as I ram my head into the wolf’s stomach.

It backs away and rubs its stomach. It looks at me and whines as its ears lower and it tucks its tail between its legs. I take a step towards it and it gets down on all fours and back away. “What do you want, you…you monster!” I yell at it. It whimpers as it backs away again. “Oh, so you think it’s okay to sneak up on me like that, but as soon as I hurt you and yell at you, you start running away! What do you have to say for yourself?!” I yell at it again.

It rolls on its back in submission. “Well!?!?” I shout.

“I…want…pet…po…nee…” it rasps.

“You…what?” I ask, looking at it in question.

“I…want…pet…po…nee…” It growls passively.

It crawls over to Rainbow Dash. She takes an aggressive stance and the wolf…begins stroking her mane. “Pret…ty…po…nee…” it growls with happiness.

“What…what are you?” Rainbow Dash asks as she jerks her head away.

“I’m more concerned about why he is so bloody.” I comment.

The wolf’s ears perk up and it jumps into the brush. After a minute, it comes back with disemboweled deer.

“Oh my Celestia…’ I gag.

“Is…yum…mee…” It growls happily as it tears a leg off of the carcass and begins eating it.

We watch as the wolf begins picking apart the deer and begins eating it.

“Well whatever you are…did a human pass by here a while ago?” I ask it.

Its ears perk up and it stops eating. It cocks its head at me in question.

“His name is Adam.” I add.

He then looks at me with sadness. “Wait…what did you do with him!” Rainbow Dash growls.

He begins backing up again.

“Please, we need to know. Even if he is dead, we need to know.” I state.

It hangs its head. Oh no…he killed him…

It begins closing it eyes and howling at the moon again. Suddenly its fur begins shedding rapidly. Its snout begins pushing into his head as his ears begin lowering to the side of its head. His tail recedes into his rump and I hear its legs break and reform. It howls in pain as its arms and hands crack and break and magically reform into shorter, less wolf like hands and arms. His claws fall out. I hear the creature begin crying in pain.

And I watch as Adam crawls forward from where the creature was, naked and crying.

It hurts…it hurts so much…no matter how many times it happens…I look at the two pegasi standing in front of me. They look like they can’t believe what they’re seeing. A naked man, crawling their way on all fours, and just turned back from a werewolf. I don’t blame them in the slightest. I stand back up on my feet and cup my goods.

“I-I can explain.” I say.

“You better damn well!! What the buck was that!?!” Rainbow shouts.

“I…I don’t even know what to say, Adam.” D-Pad states. “I…I’ve never seen…well THAT.”

“Ok…That wolf attack that I was in?” Adam says.

“Yeah, so?” Rainbow Dash growls.

“Wolves weren’t the only thing there…they were led by a werewolf…and I got bit.” I say grimly.

A silence falls upon all of us.

“Th-that’s not possible.” Rainbow Dash half laughs, half refutes.

“You just saw what I did! “ I announce. “And you still don’t believe it?! And here I thought I was weird!”

“So, you got bit by a werewolf?” D-Pad reiterates.

“Yeah…” I sigh. “I have been a werewolf since a last summer.”

“This…well, this is just…wow.” D-Pad comments.

“Don’t worry though. I’ve learned to maintain control of the other me.Nikolas knows about this and he’s been helping me control myself.” I reassure the two. “I’ve not hurt anyone besides the deer, I promise.”

“I would hope so.” D-Pad comments. “Is there anything else we should be worried about?”

“That it.” I say. “I have nothing else to hide.”

“Right!” Rainbow Dash scoffs. “Of course you have nothing else to hide.”

“I seriously don’t! You have to trust me.” I defend

“Trust!? TRUST!?!?” She yells. “Adam, you have just lost my trust with you! With something this dangerous, you should have told somepony that you were a werewolf! I don’t care how crazy it sounds, somepony would listen! Heck, I know Princess Celestia would have listened, and she could have explained it to us! You can’t just hide something as dangerous as this!”

“I couldn’t do that!” I shout.

“And why not!” she retorts.

“Because everyone who I thought I could trust with my secret couldn’t! I told a handful of people and…and they tried to kill me…and I had to kill them in self-defense.” I shout as I start to tear up.

“That’s why I don’t trust you…I guess now you’re gonna kill us if we try to kill you because we know?” She growls.

“I swear to God I won’t hurt you.” I say.

“Yeah…keep telling yourself that” Rainbow sneers. She then takes off to the sky.

“God…fucking…DAMNIT!!!” I shout. I begin punching a tree.

“Adam…look I can keep your secret safe.” D-Pad tries to comfort me.

“It’s not going to matter anymore! Knowing her, she’s going to tell this entire world that I’m a werewolf!” I yell.

“Look, I’ll reason with her. I’ll get her to keep it a secret. You can trust me on that.” D-Pad states firmly.

I look over at him. He is smiling kindly to me. I can’t help but smile back at him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a true friend D-Pad?” I state.

“Yeah, but this is the first human that ever said it to me. I’m wondering if I can get an award for it.” He jokes.

We laugh as we walk out of the forest. We walk back toward his house.

You know, for just this moment, I don’t care that I’m a werewolf. I don’t care that Rainbow Dash knows and is probably going to tell everyone in this world that I’m a werewolf. I look up towards the full moon. I smile as I scan the sky. I don’t care about anything bad anymore.

God, if you’re looking down on me right now…I just want to say…thank's for this great pony who I can call a friend.

What a Wonderful Day in Pleasant Town!

“GOOD MORNING EQUESTRIA!!!” Adam shouts as Nikolas and I go outside.

“Oh God, please put some pants on!” Nikolas exclaims, covering his eyes.

As we stand outside my house, I yawn and rub my eyes as I watch the sun rise. My hooves are wet from the fresh dew on the grass. I watch the horizon as the warm sun shines its warm colors onto the land. I hear my dad and older brother hard at work at the forge.

“What? OOOOH YEAH!!” Adam shouts. “I need clothes.”

“I think I got a spare set of clothes in my duffle bag.” Nikolas states. “Let me go check.”

Nikolas runs off toward the direction of his car, leaving me and Adam at the house. We stand in silence for a minute or two

“Soooo…” Adam breaks the silence. “You read any good books lately?”

“Uh…I’m getting close to finishing off the Daring Do series.” I reply.

“That’s good. I just finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth.” Adam says.

“That’s nice, course I’ve never heard of it.” I comment.

“That’s fine. Hey, is that Octavia?” Adam says, pointing over towards the path to Ponyville.

I look and, as Adam said, Octavia is trotting toward us. Vinyl is following her close behind.

“Is it true?” Octavia inquires as she stands right in front of Adam, looking in concern.

“Is what true?” Adam replies with a question. “That I’m awesome? Oh honey, I’ve know that fact since I was born.

“No, that you’re a werewolf!” Vinyl exclaims.

“Ah…well, yeah.” Adam grumbles, as he rubs the back of his head. “I’m guessing you talked to Rainbow Dash, huh.

“She pretty much made it sound like you were a horrific monster.” Vinyl comments.

“Great. Just what I need. A plethora of paranoid ponies petrified of my presence.” Adam sighs. He then smiles widely. “ALLITERATION FOR THE WIN!” He shouts.

“I think she said something about going to see Twilight Sparkle.” Octavia states. “If we hurry, we should be able to at least stop her from riling up the whole town.”

“Stop who from riling the whole town?” Nikolas shouts as her runs back from his trip to his car, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He then hands Adam some shorts and underwear. “Sorry, it’s the only thing that would fit you.”

“We need to get to the library.” Adam states firmly as he puts on the clothing. “They know…”

Nikolas looks at Adam in confusion. He then looks with understanding and nods his head. “We better hurry then.” Nikolas notes.

We all begin to gallop toward Ponyville. Once again, Adam dashes ahead of us at breakneck speeds. Heh, at least now I know how he does it. As we run into Ponyville, I watch many of citizens stare in confusion as we dash past them. Adam almost runs into a cart, but leaps up about a good two meters just in time to avoid it. In the distance, I can see the library. A small crowd of ponies are in our way. As I take off to avoid them, I watch Adam leap over the entire crowd. As I reach the library, I watch Adam throws his body into the door, tearing it from its hinges.

“HEEEEEEERE’S JOHNNY!!” I hear Adam shout.

I hear some screams from inside the library. I gallop in and see Rainbow Dash in a defensive stance. She is guarding Twilight Sparkle and Spike.

“Back off you filthy dog!!” Rainbow Dash snaps.

“Well that’s not nice…he’s just a pegasus.” Adam says, looking back at me.

“Very funny, Adam.” I chuckle.

“Mr. Welling…” Twilight quietly speaks up. “Are you really…”

“Adam Welling, supernatural investigator, tutor, cook, professional cat confuser, and werewolf, at your service.” Adam states proudly, bowing.

Immediately, I see Twilight’s eyes light up. She then leaps out from behind Rainbow Dash and begins thoroughly examining Adam.

“Oh my gosh…a REAL werewolf!” She squeals with delight. “Granted, it’s not a pony, but still, you’re a werewolf!!”

“…Getting kinda uncomfortable here, Twilight.” Adam comments.

She begins touching his feet. Adam then screams and begins scaling the bookcase. “Leave my feet alone!” Adam shouts. “I NEED AN ADULT!!” He then takes a couple of books from the bookshelf and puts them around him.

“Adam what are you…” Nikolas says as he walks into the library. He then takes a look at the situation. “Well, this is awkward…”

“I have so many questions to ask! What’s it like? Does it hurt when you change into a werewolf? What are the stipulations of your transformations? Is it true that you have to eat hearts to satisfy your hunger?”

This goes on as Twilight continues to bombard Adam with questions. Adam then covers his ears with his hands and yells “My brain is overheating”.

“Twilight! Don’t you know what this means?!” Rainbow shouts. “He’s a monster that can really hurt us, maybe even kill us!”

“You know, if I was trying to kill you, I would have crushed your ribcage when we first met.” Adam reasons. “Really, I was trying to put you in a sleeper hold and put you in an unconscious state.”

“That doesn’t make you less of a monster.” Rainbow Dash growls.

“My dear, if in your life you ever read another book, definitely think about reading Frankenstein. You might learn something about the so called “monsters” you bad mouth.” Adam retorts, smirking.

Rainbow Dash begins to mutter under her breath as Adam climbs down from the bookcase.

“So, didja figure out what the symbols meant Nik?” Adam asks Nikolas.

“Yeah, but do you know what it means by “Where the dead walk among us"?” Nikolas replies with a question.

“The best I can consider is zombies.” Adam responds.

“Zombies!?” All of the ponies, including me, shout.

“Let’s not get too hasty, that’s not a guarantee that its zombies.” Nikolas states.

“True, true…what do you think the best course of action is?” Adam asks.

“Well, to gather information of course.” Nikolas chuckles. “Vinyl, Octavia, could you go out look around for newspapers from the past few days? Check for anything relating to ponies getting bit by other ponies, cases of violent insanity, accidents with pony’s heads being decapitated, or disease based deaths that no pony has seen before.” He asks the two mares. “If it is a zombie outbreak, that’s where we should start looking.

“No problem, be back in a flash.” Vinyl replies cheerfully as she trots outside with Octavia following her.

“Twilight, could you look around the library for a book on communities that have a history of the dead coming back to life, or something along those lines?” Nikolas asks Twilight.

“I highly doubt that there’s anything that fits the description in here, but I will check.” Twilight states.

“Spike, you can send letters directly to Princess Celestia, correct?” Nikolas asks Spike.

“Yep. Do you need to send her something?” Spike answers.

“She mentioned before that a report came in about the dead were walking. Ask her where the report came from.” Nikolas commands.

“I’ll get right on it.” He replies as he runs upstairs.

“That leaves the three of us to keep watch over Rainbow Dash.” Nikolas states.

“What!? You can’t keep me here!!” Rainbow Dash protests as her wings flare out.

“Not unless you promise not to go blabbing about how Adam is a werewolf. We don’t need the unwanted attention.” I state firmly.

“I can say what I want! You can’t stop me from saying what I want!” She shouts.

Nikolas pulls out his “gun” from his pocket. Rainbow Dash quickly backs away and her wings contract back to her sides. “You want to bet?” Nikolas growls.

“Nik, not a good idea.” Adam comments. Adam walks over to Rainbow Dash. She responds by narrowing her gaze at him and taking a defensive pose. “Look, I know we aren’t on very good terms right now, but I need you to do this for me.”

“Buck. You.” She snarls.

“You know what? I wanna ask you something.” Adam comments. “And if you answer it honestly and truthfully, you can leave. You can tell everyone that I’m a werewolf or whatever, I don’t care.”

“Great, lay it on me so I can go about my business.” Rainbow Dash scoffs.

Adam sits there for a moment looking Rainbow Dash in the eye.

“Why do you care about me?” Adam asks.

She looks back at Adam in surprise. “What…what kind of question is that? I don’t care about you! I hate you! I don’t even what to be near you! Why would I care about you!?” She protests.

“Rainbow, I know a liar when I see them. You don’t think I’m a bad guy. In fact, I think you kind of like me. You’ve only bound you’re feelings inside of you because of anger. You’re still upset that I betrayed your trust. You’re right…I should have told you a while ago…I’m sorry.” Adam speaks. “So…why do you care about me?”

Rainbow looks at Adam with confusion. She looks like she wants to say something, but can’t.

“Okay, I just sent the message.” Spike says as he walks down the stairs.

“That’s good. Now we wait for a reply.” Nikolas sighs, leaning against one of the bookcases.

“Anyone know any good jokes?” Adam asks.

Nikolas takes a book off one of the shelves. “Do you mind if I read this, Twilight.” Nikolas asks.

“Oh please do!” Twilight exclaims happily. She then turns to Adam. “So, Mr. Welling, what’s it like being a werewolf?”

“Well to be honest, I pretty much better than anyone else where I come from.” Adam replies. “I have better speed, stamina, strength, and damn near impossible to kill. I can be killed by silver weaponry or decapitation, but that’s it.”

“So, what about transformation? Can you do it now?” Twilight asks.

“I am not restricted by the moon and I can transform at will, but I’d rather not…” Adam responds. “First, the amount of pain I have to go through in transformation is near nightmarish hell. Bones break and reform, skin stretches, the feeling like your brain is on fire…It’s not fun. Second, in my other state, I cannot promise your safety. In my human form, I have complete control.”

“Like last night?” Rainbow Dash remarks sarcastically.

“Okay, near complete control.” Adam grumbles. “It was a couple of days since I fed, and I was damn near starving. I just ate last night, so I’m good for a couple more days. Oh, and no, we just have to satisfy the hunger, it doesn’t mean we have to ingest hearts to satisfy it. Although I’ll admit, the heart is the most juicy and delicious part of the body.”

“Were back!” Vinyl shouts as she walks in the doorway. “Sorry Nikolas, but there’s nothing about any of the things you asked about.”

"Don’t apologize, that’s a very good thing.” He responds. “That means it is unlikely that there was a zombie outbreak, or the outbreak was too small that it was needed to be documented.”

“Thank Celestia…at least we don’t have to worry about zombies.” I sigh in relief.

“That does make our job a little more difficult, however.” Nikolas states. “With no evidence of what the passage means by “Where the dead walk among us”, were running blindly into God knows what.”

Spike makes a face that looks like he’s going to throw up. He then burps, and a scroll appears in a green flame. He picks the scroll up, and reads it. “The reports came from a community of earth ponies living far south of the Everfree Forest. When my guards got there, a mare came to them ranting and raving about how none of it was real and the citizens were dead. The guards tried to calm the poor mare down, but she became violent and had to be sedated. She is currently under psychiatric evaluation. As far as I can read from the report, the community is a bustling and a thriving farm community. The town is named Pleasant Town.”

“I got a bad feeling about this…” Adam comments.

“We’d better get going. If a Piece of the Hero is there, one of the ponies of the community may have it, and from what I’ve experienced, it’s probably important to the towns peo-er, ponies.” Nikolas states, as he puts his book back on the shelf.

“Right, let’s get moving everypony. We have a few hours of traveling to get to the…” I stop mid-sentence as I walk outside. There is a large carriage with two royal pegasus guards at the front of it latched to the cart.

“Princess Celestia presumed that your group was headed on the way to the town. We have been ordered to take you there as fast as possible.” One of them says.

“Wow, really? That’s wonderful!” Octavia exclaims.

“I get to ride a in a carriage that is pulled by talking ponies. I love my strange and twisted life.” Adam laughs.

Everypony and the humans climb into the carriage. The pegasi flap their wings and jettison off with us into the sky.

“AGH! FAST!! VERY FAST!!!” Adam shouts.

“By Celestia, this is so awesome!!” Vinyl shouts as she leans over the edge of the carriage and looks down at the ground. “The ponies look like ants!”

“Bud'te ostorozhny! Be careful! We don’t want you to fall off!” Nikolas shouts, grabbing Vinyl by the tail.

As we watch the scenery flies by, we began chatting about random things. Nikolas begins filling in Adam about the Elements of Harmony. Octavia begins chatting with Twilight about etiquette and a possible meeting. Vinyl continues gazing at the ground. Rainbow is sitting in silence and is just staring out at the skyline.

“So…how’s thing’s?” I strike up a conversation with Rainbow Dash.

She grumbles something unintelligible.

“Uh…could you repeat that?” I ask.

“Adam’s an idiot…I don’t care about him…I don’t like him in the slightest.” Rainbow mumbles.

“He does make a good point, though.” I admit. “You did kinda like him before you found out he was a werewolf. I would think he only did it because he didn’t want to scare you.”

“Hmph…That’s not an excuse.” She turns away from me.

“Well, what would have you said if he told you he was a werewolf? Wouldn’t you have tried beating the Tartarus out of him?” I inquire

She doesn’t utter a sound. “Ah, is that silence because you don’t want to say something, or you can’t?” I ask. She glares at me. If looks could kill…

“Admit it.” I say. “You still care about him. You’re just too full of yourself to forgive him he hid that secret that he was a werewolf away from you. And the only reason you’re mad at him is because you like him.”

“SHUT UP!!” She yells at me. The entire carriage slips into silence. Everypony stares at Rainbow Dash. “Uh, are you alright Rainbow?” Twilight Sparkle asks. Rainbow Dash groans and turns her back from the rest of us.

Adam leans over the edge of the carriage, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

I sit down next to Nikolas.

“Stubborn one isn’t she.” Nikolas jokes.

“I know she must have some liking for Adam. She could have flown away at any time and told the whole town. So why stay?” I whisper.

“If I may state, she reminds me of my deceased sister. It took her ages to forgive Adam when he first turned into a werewolf. But for some reason she remained loyal to him. She was the first person to not try to kill him when he turned. They made a great couple.” He cups his head. “Th-they were a great couple.” He begins to cry.

I pat his back. “It’s okay. I’m sure wherever she is, she’s watching over you and Adam.”

“T-Thanks.” He sniffles. He wipes the tears from his eyes. “You know, you’re a good friend to have, D-Pad. Even if you are a talking, flying bat-winged pony.”

“Okay so that’s the first two humans that I’ve made friends with. Where’s my bucking medal?” I joke.

Nikolas laughs.

“HEY! I SEE COTTAGES!!!” Adam shouts.

He then…OH MY CELESTIA HE JUST JUMPED OFF THE CARRIAGE!!

“Adam! What the hell!” Nikolas shouts.

I jump off and fly down after him. This human is gonna get himself hurt! Damnit I’m flying too slow! Dear Celestia, he’s just about to hit the…

Adam slams into the ground with enough force to crack the ground. There is a small dip where Adam lands. He picks himself up and brushes his shorts and skin off.

“I AM METEOR!!! WATCH ME SOAR!!” He bellows, as he runs toward the town, his arms flailing wildly.

…I’m not even surprised about this outcome…

“We are here.” One of the guards says. Everypony gets out from the carriage. We step onto a path leading to a small town. “We will wait north of the town until you have retrieved the Piece of the Hero.” With that, they fly off northward.

“I JUST CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC!!!” Adam shouts as he runs toward the town.

“Come back here, psikh!” Nikolas shouts as he runs after Adam.

“After you.” I say, bowing to Octavia and extending a hoof towards the town.

“Aww…you’re so sweet.” She laughs and kisses me on the cheek. Vinyl makes a gaging noise.

We make our way into the town. As we enter the town, we are greeted with a brightly lit sign that says “Welcome to Pleasant Town. The town’s houses look like the ones in Canterlot, finely decorated and brightly painted with warm colors. The ponies around town laugh and chat with each other. The street lamps have balloons tied to them…Oh dear; Adam is talking to one of the townsfolk.

“HAY LAAAAADEEE!!” Adam shouts. Nikolas, who is standing behind Adam, brings his hand to his head once again.

“My, aren’t you the peppy one! Welcome to Pleasant Town!” she laughs, extending a hoof in greeting.

Adam shakes the ponies hoof. “I have integrated into their society! NOW THE MATING CAN BEGIN!!” He bellows.

Nikolas smacks Adam in the back of the head, and from the sounds of Adam’s yelp, I would guess he hit him very hard.

“My goodness, visitors!” A pony says. The rest of the ponies turn to me and the rest of my squad. They all begin to greet us and shake our hoofs.

“Friendly town isn’t it.” Vinyl laughs.

“Now, now. Let’s not crowd our new visitors.” An elderly pony with a top hat says. “Greetings visitors, and welcome to our humble hamlet! I am Mayor Shepard.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mayor Shepard. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle.” She says, shaking the hoof of the mayor. “My friends and I are looking for something in your town. Would you know anything about something called a Piece of the Hero?”

For a split second, he looked at Adam and Nikolas with surprise. He then smiled brightly again.

“Hmm…nope, sorry can’t say that I have. You sure what you’re looking for is here?” The mayor responds.

“Indeed, sir.” Octavia replies. “We are very sure that the piece is here.”

“Well, I don’t think I know about it, but feel free to look about the town. If you need a place to stay for a night, we have a motel. Oh goodness, look at the time! I’m late for a meeting. Do enjoy your stay in Pleasant Town.” The mayor states, as he walks away.

“FLY ME TO THE MOON!!” Adam shouts. A couple of pegasi mares are lifting him in the air and examining him.

“Adam! Come here!” I shout to him.

“Okay guys, I got to get back to work.” Adam says as he lands back on the ground. The mares whine as he walks away from them. “So whatcha, whatcha, whatcha want?” He asks.

“What do you think we should do?” I ask him.

“I think we should split up.” Nikolas buts in. “Twilight, why don’t you and I look in the north part of town? Adam and Vinyl can look in the south part of town. D-Pad and Octavia can look in the west, and…” He pauses and sighs. “…Rainbow can look in the east part of town.”

Everypony agrees to their posts. Octavia and I walk westward, moving through the market streets.. “Hey, Octavia…about that night we got hammered.” I speak up.

“Yes? What seems to be troubling you, honey?” She inqures.

“Uhh…I have to ask…Are you okay with…Do you think we’re ready for a foal?” I muster up the words.

She smiles. “Honey, I know you’re worried about what happened, but you shouldn’t be.” She hugs me. “Don’t worry; if we do have a foal, I know you’ll make a wonderful father.”

I smile. “Well, I just wasn’t sure about what you were thinking.” I admit.

“If you want my honest opinion, I was more concerned about why you didn’t try to have intercourse with me earlier. I mean nine months?” She states.

We both laugh, and then kiss. We walk down the market street, asking everypony about the Piece of the Hero. A bombardment of no’s seem to plague us as we continue our questioning. As we reach the end of the street, it seems that nopony knows about the piece.

“Well, this is getting rather tedious…isn’t there at least one pony that knows about it?” Octavia complains.

“I dunno…hey look a café!” I say, pointing at café named the Barnyard Café. “Perhaps somepony in there will know something.”

We walk into the café. The smell of baked potatoes and cooked veggies fill the air. We walk across the black and white checkered floor over to a booth. A waitress trots over to us. “Hiya! My name’s Tessa and I’ll be your waitress today. What can I get you?”

“Just some green tea, please.” Octavia says.

“I’ll have the same.” I state.

“Alright, I’ll be right back with your tea.” Tessa responds as she trots away. I look out the window. Looks like a stallion is washing the windows of a second story-OH MY CELESTIA! The ladder topples over and the stallion slams headfirst into the ground. I can see that his head has been gashed open. I can see his muscle…I think I’m gonna be sick.

“Oh my Celestia…” I gasp. Octavia looks out where I’m looking and gasps as well. “Somepony needs to call a hospital! The poor stallion is…”

What follows next…I…I can’t even…The stallion gets up, blood still dripping from his head wound and his muscle tissue still exposed, and sets his ladder back up. He then begins climbing the ladder and continues working like nothing happened.

“What…What the buck…” I manage to speak.

“Excuse me sir…”

I turn around to see Tessa with our tea. “Th-th-thanks.” I studder. I begin drinking my tea.

“By Celestia…what the Tartarus…” Octavia gasps, continuing to watch the stallion wash windows.

“Ok…something is very wrong here…” I whisper to Octavia. “Let’s just finish up our tea and get the Tartarus out of here.”

“We still need to find the Piece of the Hero.” She whispers back.

“…right…” I take a sip of my tea, to which I spit it right out. I look in the tea. It is a thick red liquid. Celestia…I think its blood!

“Octavia…We need to leave now.” I state.

“What are you…” She looks in her tea and gasps. “By Celestia…”

I place some bits on the table and we both hurry over to the door. Tessa stands in front of the doorway. “My goodness, what’s the rush?” She pulls out a knife. “You haven’t told us how you wanted to be roasted” All the other ponies in the café stand up and start slowly walking toward us.

“Mother of Celestia…” I gasp as Octavia and I back away from the crowd, only to bump into the back wall.

“D-Pad…whatever happens…I love you.” Octavia states. She begins to hold me tightly. The crowd inches closer to us.

“COOK ‘EM RARE!”

“NO! WELL DONE!!”

“I love you, honey.” I say as I close my eyes as Tessa raises the knife high above her head.

BAM!!!

As I slowly open my eyes, I see Tessa has stopped moving, she has a small hole in her head. I hear a couple more loud bangs and watch as metal ball things tear into her skin and jettison out the other side.

“Goret' v adu , suka!” I hear somepony say as one of the windows are smashed open. Nikolas walks through the window as he puts some metal things in the “gun”. He then points the gun at the crowd and begins firing his “gun at the ponies. “Get out of here you two!” He shouts.

“Oh, they can’t leave. Their meat hasn’t been prepared.” Tessa says, facing Nikolas. Her face is bleeding badly, but she doesn’t seem to even care. She charges Nikolas. Nikolas leaps out of the way and fires another metal ball into Tessa, knocking her to the ground.

“This way! Twilight shouts from outside. Octavia and I jump out the window and onto the sidewalk. Thousands of ponies are walking toward us. Twilight starts blasting ponies back with her magic, but to no avail. They just keep getting back up.

In the distance, I see something plowing its way through the crowd of ponies. Whatever it is, it must be something very powerful, as ponies are flying all over the place. What even is it?

“WOOWOOO!! ALL ABOARD THE PAIN TRAIN!! WE HAVE THE BEST FROZEN DELICACIES IN THE LAND!!”

Well, that’s one question solved.

“WOOO! Tear ‘em a new one!” Vinyl shouts, who is riding on Adam’s back. Adam stops right in front of us and Vinyl gets down off of Adam’s back. At the same moment, Nikolas jumps back out of the window.

“You know, you’re a bad influence on these ponies.” Nikolas comments, firing his “gun” at another pony.

“I blame society!” Adam comments as he picks up one of the ponies and tosses it at the crowd.

Eveypony begins fighting back the ponies. It doesn’t seem to help, since no matter what we do, they keep getting back up.

Adam literally yanks the head off one of them.

“NOT SO GOOD WITHOUT A HEAD, ARE YA!!” He yells threateningly.

The decapitated pony body continues to walk forward.

“NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! SO MUCH NOPE!” He screams.

“LOOKOUT!!” I hear Rainbow Dash yell. I look up and see her careening right for us, being chased by a group of pegasi.

“I got ya!” Adam shouts as he jumps up. He catches her and is blasted back a couple meters, tumbling and rolling while trying to protect Rainbow Dash. They come to a halt, and Adam is badly battered. “You okay, Rainbow.” He asks, twitching from the pain.

She looks at Adam. “You…you…Yeah, I’m fine.” Adam lets her go. She stands up on her feet. “Everypony okay?” She asks.

“We won’t be if we don’t find some shelter, and fast!” Nikolas shouts, now aiming his “gun” at the incoming pegasi.

“When I was flying around, I saw a cemetery with an old building in the middle of it. I don’t know if it will help, but it seems to be a place where the ponies avoid.” Rainbow states.

“Then that’s where our next destination is!” Nikolas shouts.

“I’ll lead you ponies there!” Rainbow shouts, taking off to the sky once again. Nikolas grabs hold of her back legs. “Hey! No free rides!”

“Oh shut up and fly!” He growls. Twilight takes off after them, struggling to keep altitude.

Adam picks up Vinyl and begins charging through the crowd of ponies. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGARBARGARBAAAAAAAAR!!” He bellows.

I grab onto Octavia. “Hold on.” I tell her. I flap my wings and lift us both into the air. We begin to follow Rainbow Dash. As I look down, I watch Adam leap from building to building with Vinyl hanging on for dear life.

After a few minutes, I see a large cemetery. There is a small metal building about the size of a woodshed in the center. “That the place, Rainbow!?” I ask. She turns her head towards me and nods. I swoop downwards into the cemetery and land, setting Octavia down gently.

“Hope that wasn’t too rough of a ride for you.” I say.

Everypony lands in the cemetery. Adam runs up to the shed and kicks the door down. “I’M THE TANK!” He shouts.

“You’re the tank!!” Vinyl shouts in agreement, jumping down from Adam’s shoulders.

We run into the shed. There is nothing in here, except a stairway leading downwards.

“Where does this go?” Twilight asks.

“Better than where we are right now!” Nikolas shouts as he runs down the stairs. The rest of us run down after him. It seems like the stairs go down for minutes upon minutes. We reach the bottom only to be in a dimly lit area. Blue lights are coming from small T.V. screens. Wow, you could play hundreds of video games with this setup. There is a large pad with letters and numbers on it.

Adam walks over to the screens. “Looks like a supercomputer set up.” He comments. He pushes some buttons on the pad. The screens begin showing some weird pictures. The pictures depict a bunch of humans in weird dark green coats and wearing weird furry hats, with large metal weapons killing hundreds of ponies. My…My Celestia…Everypony gasps as the pictures continue to pop up. The last thing that appears up is a single date that pops up on every screen.

… February 4, 1943…

“What…What the fuck is this?” Adam mumbles.

“Those…those are World War Two Soviet Union uniforms.” Nikolas gasps.

“Who is there?”

Everypony jumps and turns around to the voice. There is an incredibly old earth pony stallion strapped in a wheelchair. He has a bunch of tubes and wires connected to him. There is a monitor with the words “Heart rate” on it that is beeping.

“Oh my…I…I am so sorry…we didn’t know somepony was down here.” Twilight apologizes.

“Do not be sorry, dear child.” He coughs.

“Who…who are you?” I ask.

“My name is Shepard…I was the mayor of this town over a hundred years ago.” He rasps.

“Wait…do you know that there is some stallion up there that it is claiming he’s you?” Rainbow states.

“Of course, I made him…I made everyone from the blueprints I was given by Concerto Melody.” He replies.

Vinyl, Octavia, and I look at the stallion in shock. I knew we wouldn’t hear the last of him.

“My…my father helped you?” She gasps.

“You were related to him? Well, it’s is quite a wonder to see the offspring of one of the most brilliant minds of the new age of Equestria. Yes, he helped me. He showed me how to make clones of all the dead ponies of this town, and I repopulated the town.”

“What do you mean dead? Like dead, dead?” Rainbow Dash asks. The stallion nods. “So those ponies up there were trying to kill us…” Rainbow shakes her head in disbelief. “Why…why are they trying to kill us?”

“I…I programmed them to.” Shepard admits. “I see you’ve seen my pictures…When I first became the mayor of Pleasant town, an incident occurred where a bunch of creatures like these two here…” He points at Adam and Nikolas. “…attacked the town. They had metal weapons that spewed metal ball things at rapid speed. I hid underground, and the royal guard destroyed the humans, but not without heavy casualties. When I came back to the surface, I saw nothing but death. Years pasted. I couldn’t leave this place. I just couldn’t. It felt wrong to just leave. A few years ago, I was approached by Mr. Melody and asked if he could try and clone a mutation. When I agreed, he took a sample from a dead mare, and he made a clone that couldn’t be killed unless its link is killed.”

“That’s…that’s impossible…not even our world has gotten the full hang of cloning.” Nikolas interrupts.

“I was skeptical as well.” Shepard continued. “But the proof was there. Yes, the clones were imperfect but now I could make my community come back. I made devices that would simulate the daily lives of the ponies, and made the computers able to watch the lives of the ponies through their eyes. I also made them kill any human and their companions that came here.”

“Thanks, you almost killed us, mudak!” Nikolas growls.

“Sir, we are looking for something.” Octavia speaks up. “Do you know where the Piece of the Hero is?”

“Is that what this is?” He responds, wheeling over to the computers, he opens up one of the drawers. “I found it down here the first time I came here. There is a treat here, as well.” He hands Octavia the piece and the treat. She hands the treat to Nikolas.

“Woo! Three down, two to go!” Vinyl cheers.

“A Chinese fortune cookie?” Nikolas inquires, looking at the treat funny. He breaks the treat open, and large wad of paper falls to the ground. He picks it up and opens the paper. “Heh, the Chinese alphabet. Clever.”

“So, how are we going to get out?” Adam asks. “Is there a way to turn them off?”

“I am linked directly to the ponies. As long as I live, they will live.”

“Okay. Then there’s only one way to fix this.” Nikolas says. He then pulls out his “gun” and…points it directly at Shepard.

“NIikolas! What are you…” Rainbow begins.

He fires the “gun”. A splatter of red comes from Shepard’s head. He slumps to the floor and begins to bleed out. There is a long monotonous beep.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU NIK!?!” Adam shouts angrily.

I hear the sound of bodies falling down the stairs. A couple of ponies fall onto the floor we are on, staring at us with lifeless eyes. Nikolas walks over to them, steps over the bodies and begins to climb the stairs.

Adam just stands there, looking at the lifeless body. “I…I‘ve never wanted to see anything like that. I never wanted to see anything like that.” He mumbles sadly.

Rainbow Dash walks over to him. “Adam…Are you okay?” She asks, rubbing his back.

Adam just walks away from the body and walks over to the stairs, proceeding to walk up them. I look back at everypony else. They’re all looking at the corpse in shock. I…I don’t even know what to say right now. Why did Nikolas do that? Is he that heartless?

“Let’s go…” I say, as I turn away from the body. I hear everypony follow me to the stairs, to which I let everypony go ahead of me. I look back at the corpse one more time. I turn back and begin my ascension to the surface.

Lightning Never Strikes Twice

RING RING! RING RING! RING RING! RING RING!

“I swear I’m innocent! She told me she was…wait…oh for the love of…Who the hell is calling me at this late at night?”

I fling my blanket off of me and stand up in my pitch black room. I look over at a small light emitting from my cell phone. I pick up my phone, open it, and hit the answer button.

“Hello?” I ask.

“Adam! Evening, tovarishch! Hey, guess what?” A thick Russian accent comes from the phone.

Nikolas…why am I not surprised?

I rub my eyes. “Nikolas, what time is it?” I ask.

“About midnight…why exactly?” Nikolas replies over the phone.

…Are you fucking kidding me? MIDNIGHT?! BLOODY MIDNIGHT?!

“You had better have a good reason for waking me up, Nik.” I growl.

“Trust me, it is amazing reason! Get onto Highway 59 and go north. And bring your laptop. Trust me, you won’t regret it.” Nikolas says happily.

Highway 59…That’s the highway to get out of Fulda. He’s in Fulda? Why is he not in Brandon, South Dakota right now?

“Wait, you’re near Fulda? What are you doing in Minnesota?” I ask.

“I will tell you when you get here.” Nikolas replies.

I hear a beep and then a steady lower beep. I hit the end call button, close my phone and set it down. I pull a cord on the wall. A large florescent light lights up the room. LET THERE BE LIGHT! I examine my room. My bed is against the wall. On the opposite wall is a 20 inch TV. To the left of my bed is my desk. On it, a mountain of notebooks is stacked next to his cellphone and wallet. Each notebook has a name of a supernatural entity on it. I glance at a couple of the notebooks I have finished. Ghosts…Vampire…Dragons…I chuckle to myself I remember the days I just sat around in my tutors area at college filling all these notebooks with information that he dug up on these creatures. I glance at a notebook at the other side of the desk. It is titled "Werewolves”. Oh…that one… I open up a random page.

“…Nikolas and I have found a prime location for werewolves…The Black Hills in South Dakota…planning a trip in a few days…Bringing silver bullets and a silver cross…

I lift my white nightshirt. Large claw marks cover the entirety of my large stomach. Well, that’s pretty much how that trip turned out. Oh well…I close my notebook. I grab my book bag in the corner of the room. My laptop is already in it. I open my bedroom door and walk into the bathroom. Handy, isn’t it? Turning on the bathroom light I take off my pajamas…well, “take off” is a fancier word then makes mock porno music with my mouth and try to take my clothes of as sexually as possible. I pull open a small plastic cabinet full of clothes. Oh yeah! Mom got it cleaned. My mom is awesome. I put on a pair of tan shorts and a white undershirt with a Hawaiian shirt on top of it. OH YEAH! STYLISH! I look at myself in the mirror. Look at that tall, broad shoulder, heavy build badass. I have very short brown hair with green eyes. I am clean shaven. Not that I can’t grow a beard mind you. I just don’t have time to nurture the man hair to its full potential…and it itches like crazy. I then put on a pair of socks and my black tennis shoes. VANS, BABY! I walk back into my room, put my cellphone and wallet in my pocket, and turn off the light. I put on my back pack, turn off the bathroom light and open the second bathroom door.

OH YEAH! TOO PRO! Mom didn’t even hear me leave the house! I walk into the garage. I grin and look at my car. A 1991 Buick LeSaber Limited. It’s a piece of shit car…but it’s MY piece of shit car. I pat the hood of my car. Sure, one of the parking lights is gone and duct tape covers a hole in the car, but this metal beast has gotten me out of a jam on more than one occasion. I open the driver side door of the car and sit in the car seat. I open the garage door with the clicker in my car. I close the car door and turned the key in the ignition, starting the car up…IT’S ALIVE! He backed out of the drive way into the street, and drove away.

…ONWARDS TO VICTORY!!!

Well, north on Highway 59. HIIIIIIIIIIGH WAY TO HELL!! Oh right, I’m doing something aren’t I? Now, where are you Nik? Nik! NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIK! Fine! DON’T ANSWER THE VOICES IN MY HEAD! What’s on the radio? I turn the radio on.

“…New music is up next, but first is an urgent message from the National Weather Service. I’m being told that a massive thunderstorm is sweeping through southwest Minnesota. The storm is capable of producing grapefruit size hail and multiple tornadoes. It is recommended that those in the path of the storm find shelter as soon as they can…” The radio announcer speaks over the radio.

What the hell are we doing out here?! Nik better have a good reason for being out here. Shit’s about to hit the fan…Now where in hell is he? NIIIII-Oh wait, he can’t hear my inner thoughts…derp. Now where are…Oh.

Looking out my front window, I see a tan Buick Park Avenue on the side of the road with a large metal rod welded to the roof of the car. There are a bunch of wires going into the back end of the car. Yep…that’s Nikolas. I park my car behind it and walk over to the tan Buick. I look in the car. I bright light comes from behind me.

“Kakoy gorod yavlyayetsya stolitsey Rossii?”

“The capital of Russia is Moscow, Nik. You don’t need to ask me the same question we meet…and turn that head lamp off.” I reply, turning around.

Nikolas turns off his headlamp and sets it down on the car. He is wearing blue jeans and black shirt. He is wearing a pair of black Converse shoes. He has a black fauxhawk and…why the hell does he have a soul patch? No seriously…Why? Whatever…I’m still pissed that he’s thinner than me, but hey, I make husky look sexy. Oooh Yeah.

“You do realize there is a huge storm a’coming, right?” I ask Nikolas.

“That is exactly why I am here.” He replies, leaning against his car.

Oh great…now Nik’s gone into storm watching…crazy bastard.

“Why are we out here?” I ask.

“I am glad you asked.” Nikolas replies. “You’ve seen how gas prices are going through the metaphorical roof as of today right?”

“Yeah…what’s that got to do with a storm?” I inquire.

“This…” He says, tapping the metal rod. “This is the way of the future. The lightning rod is connected to a pair of small generators that I installed in the trunk of the car. Now with the modification I made to the fuel line and the generators, I can use the energy from my generators to propel my vehicle. Do you know what this means? I can harness the raw power of Mother Nature to power my car!”

Leave it to Nik to come up with a brilliant invention just to power his car. THIS IS WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO US, ECONOMY! IMPLYING THE ECONOMY IS AN ANIMATE OBJECT! WHY AM I SHOUTING IN MY HEAD?!?!

“OK! Oh, ahem.” I clear my throat. “Ok, so that’s great. I assume you’ve tested this invention out.”

“Nope.”

Course you didn’t. That’s why I’m here. Your guinea pig awaits your torture chamber, master.

“So, I’m going to test this invention right? With a hellish storm on the way. Great…this is gonna be just like the Marshmallow incident.” I grumble.

“Relax, I’m going with you this time…and that was not my fault. The metal wire was not meant to send 2500 volts of electricity into the marshmallow.” He defends.

I get into the passenger’s side of Nik’s car. I place my book bag on the floor.

“So…we just wait for the storm to come?” I ask.

“Yes…you did bring your laptop, correct?” Nikolas inquires.

I pull out my laptop and boot it up.

“What do you want to do?” I ask.

“Got any good music?” He inquires.

Have I got good music? Does a skunk smell? Yes…why did I answer myself?

“You opened up into my arms…And we laughed as I held you.” I sing.

“I'll never go back to Georgia…Not at least till I have to.” Nikolas sings.

“Down and to the left.” We both sing.

The song ends, and we both high-five each other. “Ok, I think Mayday Parade is now my new favorite band.” Nikolas admits.

“They are an awesome band.” I agree.

I start looking for another song on my computer.

“So…how’s your condition treating you?” He asks.

“What…oh, that…pretty good. I finally have more control of my outbursts. I don’t have problems when I go out drinking anymore. So that’s a plus. God, you’d think with all the precautions and moving about I do I’d be a bit thinner. Course, it would be nicer if I could get some sleep once in a while.” I joke.

Nikolas laughs. We stare up into the sky. Clouds start to cover the starry night sky. It starts to rain, slowly misting at first and then begins to downpour. Lightning starts flashing right and left, hitting the ground violently.

“Get ready Adam!” Nikolas shouts. “It’s about to get a little bright!”

Nik flips a switch on the dashboard. I hear the metal rod above us start moving upwards. After a few minutes, it stops. I hear a booming noise above us, which makes me cover my ears in pain. A few seconds later, I see a steady glow coming from above us.

“Ok, give me a second!” He shouts, as the winds start to shift the car. He flicks a different switch on the dashboard. I hear a humming noise coming from the trunk of the car. “Hope for the best!” Nikolas shouts, as he turns the key in the ignition. The motor doesn’t do anything at first, but after a second, it begins to rev up. The car slowly but surely gets to running capability.

“IT IS WORKING! IT IS WORKING!!!” Nikolas shouts, ecstatic.

Another bolt of lightning strikes the metal rod. The generators begin wiring louder and the car starts to overheat.

“YEBAT'! I FORGOT TO LOWER THE ROD!” He shouts, frantically flicking the first switch. Nothing seems to be happening. He opens his door and practically leaps out of the car.

“NIK! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?” I shout, jumping out my car door after him.

It is blowing like a hurricane outside. The rain pelts my face, stinging me. If this is what the rain feels like I’d hate to feel what the hail…why did it suddenly stop raining.

I look up at the rod, which is now black and charred. I look over at Nik, who is staring straight up, wide-eyed and jaw dropped. I look u-WHAT THE FUCK?

The clouds are now a vibrant shade of purple and are now sparkling. A purple and pink snowflake falls on my face. I then see a ball of pinkish lightning forming.

FUCK!

“NIK! IN THE CAR! I shout.

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” He shouts back.

We both jump into the car. Nik begins flicking the second switch frantically. “Come on, you stupid piece of shit!” He yells, pounding on the dash board. The engine dies. Nik begins to panic. He then regains his composure and folds his hands in prayer. I fold my hands with in prayer with Nik. He begins to hum “Amazing Grace", to which I hum with him.

The car is surrounded by the pink ball of lightning. I close my eyes and wait for the end.

There is a loud cracking noise as I feel my body become lighter and lighter. I begin to lose consciousness.

Veronika…we’ll be together once again…just wait.

D-Pad! Hurry up, were going to be late!” Octavia shouts to me.

“I’m coming Octavia! I’m flying as fast as I can.” I shout back to her.

I can’t believe I forgot about the evening meeting for the Summer Festival! I said I was going to do some aerial tricks with one of Ponyville’s fastest fliers. Come on, D-Pad move those wings. You got to look impressive. I see the clearing where I was supposed meet the rest of the group. I land in the area next to Octavia.

Octavia…I remember the first day I met my fillyfriend. As I recall, I shouted directly into her face. Heh, not very smooth for my first meeting. I look at that beautiful Earth pony mare. That grey body, the beautiful long, dark grey mane, those sweet light purple eyes, and her purple treble clef cutie mark. I lean up against her playfully.

“Not now, D-Pad.” She giggles.

"Having fun are we.” Vinyl says, walking into the clearing.

I look over to the white unicorn with the bridged eighth-note cutie mark. She is wearing her purple glasses and has that blue spiky mane she always has had. It was really nice of her to offer to DJ for the performance. I love the music she plays…although secretly, I really love the dubstep she plays.

“Let me guess…light yellow fur…brown, short, untidy mane with bushy tail…light yellow bat wings…video controller cutie mark….you must be D-Pad.” I voice came from behind me.

I turn around. Standing in front of me is a purple alicorn with a dark blue mane and tail with purple and pink streaks in them. She has purple eyes, and a pink six-pointed star with a white six-pointed star behind it, with multiple white stars surrounding it as her cutie mark.

“Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is a pleasure to talk to you.” I say, bowing.

“Well, aren’t you the gentlestallion.” She says.

“So, what exactly are we doing tonight?” I ask, standing back up.

“Well, I want to try and do some weather manipulation. I am going to try to make a brilliant light show and water show with the weather.” She explains.

“Cool. That’s gonna be sweet!” Vinyl exclaims, excitedly.

“Excuse me, but wasn’t there supposed to be another pegasus supposed to be here?” Octavia asks.

As Octavia said those words, a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail, magenta eyes, and a cloud with a lightning bolt that is red, yellow, and blue lands next to Twilight.

“There you are Rainbow Dash. You remember D-Pad, right.”

I remember Rainbow Dash alright…Tried to impress some fillies with some aerial acrobatics, and she zips by me, nearly knocking me out of the sky

Rainbow Dash examines me. “Whats up? D-Pad right? You’re going to be my flight partner? Well, let’s hope you can keep up. I don’t have time for pegasi that will slow me down.”

…Very proud, this mare…

“Hey, if you don’t mind, could you show me what you can do with the weather? I would like to see what we are going to be flying around.” I ask Twilight.

She nods at me. She walks to the center of the clearing. Her horn glows pink, and clouds are clumping together in side a pink aura until the cloud is clumped into a big ball. She closes her eyes and transfers the aura inside the cloud. The cloud then begins flashing brilliant shade of colors and rainbow lightning strikes onto the ground. Suddenly, the cloud begins expanding and becoming more violent. A lightning bolt nearly strikes me down. I run over to Twilight Sparkle.

“Miss Sparkle! You need to stop! It’s getting too dangerous!” I shout over the storm.

“I…I can’t stop! I can’t break focus!” She exclaims in fear, her eyes firmly shut.

“You have to try! If this storm gets any bigger, you could kill somepony!” I shout.

She begins gritting her teeth, trying to lose focus. I watch as the cloud turns to a very bright shade of purple and begins sparkling. As Octavia arrives beside me to help, Twilight’s eyes shoot open. As her eyes open, a giant ball of lightning explodes from inside the cloud. Everypony is blasted backwards. I hit the ground hard. My vision is blurring as a start to lose consciousness. The last thing I see is a giant tan beast with glowing eyes.

Well…this is it D-Pad…you’ve lived a good life…Goodbye…Equest…ria...