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

“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.