Leaving Home

It was a good two hours before everyone would believe us. And even after Twi, Alex and I wasted a good half-hour on the rest of the real Mane 6, even their faces still showed doubt. The other five humans tried to contribute, but even their points confounded them. And by the time we were through, questions were already pouring out of them. I won't go into details, but it was dark out by the time we were done and just about everypony was exhausted. Walter was the first to change the subject. "Has anypony seen Spike around?"

We heard a voice coming from the upstairs room. "Sorry guys, I was just taking a nap." Yeah, right. All of us knew right off the bat he was lying.

"Spike, we know you're lying. You've been eavesdropping, haven't you?" Twi spoke up.

"Okay, fine. You got me there. But shouldn't you guys be doing something to fix this mess?"

"Come down here first, then we can sort things out."

Spike wandered down the steps of Twi's staircase until his poor little green eyes met one of the weirdest things any of us had probably ever seen: Two sets of the Mane 6 and me. His words after that almost made me laugh. "Wow. Two Raritys?"

A couple of us humans laughed before suddenly realizing the situation was serious. "Well, are you going to help or what?" Twi said.

"Um, right. Well, as said by these guys, er, girls, we should probably go see what's going on in the barn." And just as though our prayers had been answered, (LOL not.) we all jumped at the sound of an explosion and the sight of a bizarre cloud formation over Sweet Apple Acres out of the library window.

"C'mon! We can't just wait here!" Bill chimed in.

Everypony raced out the door to find that the cloud formation was really compiled ash. Even worse. As we neared the barn in the dark, it looked fine. It would have been completely fine with all of us if it weren't for the fact that a creepy (and loud) whooshing noise was coming from the inside. A brave Applejack bucked open the door to find that the entire inside of the barn was a massive vortex of black and purple, and nopony approved of that. Especially Applejack, who kept gawking at it.

But before we could figure out what to do from here, we heard an all too familiar voice behind us. "Have fun." And just like that, all fourteen of us were sucked into the vortex and all was black. Now I know what you're thinking. Discord. Eeyup, he pushed us in, and now we're swirling in the interdimensional portal between Earth and Equestria. But something happened that made all of us question his plan, or what we thought it was. He came with us.

It wasn't until we found ourselves all in a swirling blue tube similar to the one in the intro for Doctor Who that we noticed he was in there with us. "Hello again!"

"Discord! What are you doing in here? What the hell is even going on here?" I found myself speaking up.

"Listen to me! We have a few minutes in here before  we get to Earth, so I might as well explain to you what's going on."

"So you aren't trying to kill us?"

"Don't get crazy ideas! I never actually hurt anypony! Anyway, let me explain the reason you're in here. It's Hasbro. I used to work for them a couple of years back when FiM was in development."

"A couple of years? Hasbro? So you are a human... But you were have supposed to be imprisoned for thousands of years!"

"Time works differently here! Ever read the Chronicles of Narnia?"

He got me there. Narnia was a fictional place where time was perceived much faster, so that the characters of the story could be gone for years and neither their parents or siblings would have noticed a minute of it. This was all making sense, and maybe a little too much so. "Yeah I have. What's your point?"

"TV stations and animators are really hired by the government to explore alternate dimensions, and document their findings. The more interesting ones make it to the public disguised as comedy. Twisted, if you ask me. I was one of the luckier ones to be sent to a more friendly environment. Unfortunately, through a little too much exploring and expirimenting, I modified the world to the point where ponies became afraid of me, then eventually terrified. To pacify them I had to create new characters to defeat me, and those were Princess Celestia and Luna. They turned me to stone for about four thousand years until the Mane 6 showed up. I didn't create them, they were perfectly natural. I knew they would defeat me shortly after I awoke again, so I had to put off time to experiment more, so that's where that delusional maze came from. That's when I discovered that TV studios are really ripping apart our universe from the inside out, and it has to be stopped. So I brought in you, and the link between Earth and Equestria slowly turned into this wormhole that we're in now. Make sense?"

Everypony was astounded by Discord's story, and not one of us knew how to respond. Eventually a timid Fluttershy stepped in. "So... You're a good guy?"

"Now, I don't quite know about that, but right now, I am fighting for a legit cause."

None of us knew how to respond to that, so Applejack stepped in. "Hold on, everypony! Here we go!"

We could all see that the wormhole was ending, and we still had no idea what to expect from this. For all we knew, it could end in a lot of pain or even death. Suddenly, the end of the tunnel stopped, and all fifteen of us were tossed into the portal. And a couple of loud, dark seconds later, we found ourselves thrown into the living room of a small house, which later turned out to be Bill's. On our backs. It hurt.

I raised my head to look around the room, and to my sort-of-surprise, all of us had turned into humans. I could only trust that us real humans were in our own bodies. Remembering how to stand as a human, I quickly got to my feet. "Is everyp... I mean, is everybody okay?" I heard muffled curses emerge from the heap of people in response.

"What happened?" A voice that sounded like RD said. She stood up to find that she was now a scrawny teen girl with orange hair and a tomboyish face. Surprisingly enough, she had clothes. And she freaked out. "GAH!!! WHAT IS THIS?!?"

My response? "You. A human." She took it surprisingly cool under the circumstances. She took a quick survey of the room, which looked like a lodge. There was a nice stone fireplace on one wall, where the opposite wall had an arch leading to another room. I was honestly surprised that they could stand up, let alone walk, which is what RD did shortly after the rest of us got up and examined ourselves. Luckily, Walter had the idea for everyone to stand up and state who they were. Applejack was a highly freckled, stout girl, which I would have guessed, Rarity was a chubby, pale girl with a slightly snooty-looking face (which some of us honestly laughed at), Twilight and Fluttershy both were nerdy looking scrawny girls with fairly long brown hair, while Pinkie Pie... Who we found hiding away below us... well, she was still herself.

She soon found everyone staring at her. Discord spoke up first, who by the way, looked like a stereotypical businessman with a bald head and one of those 'professional' faces on all the time. Kind of like my freshman English teacher. Or pretty much every other male teacher, for that matter. "How are you not human?!"

"Well, I didn't want to be a human, now did I?"

I had no idea if her breaking the fourth wall this time would help us or break us (Maybe it's the fifth wall. I don't know.). But, she was proof that it had happened, so that could help us. It was certainly interesting to see a pony compared to a human side-by-side, mainly because there was a drastic height (and color) difference. She was only about three feet tall when standing up straight. And naturally, I, again, was the one to break the awkward silence.

"Can... we continue?" It must have been weird for the other humans to find out that the person that was suggesting to them what to do all this time (me) was a scrawny teenage boy with fairly long brown hair (still me). And as it turns out, Alex was a teenager that looked a lot like me, except blonde hair. Steph looked like the stereotypical diner waiter with her curly black hair. Walter was a scruffy, but not short man that looked like a lumberjack, Jackie (honestly) looked like a hippie (no further comments, except that she didn't act like it at all), and Francine was a bubbly African-American lady (OMGLOLWUT). And what I thought was the funniest part was that Bill looked like a younger version of Bill from Left 4 dead. I made no comment.

"Well, what now?" And sure enough, nobody knew what to do. The other six humans and Spike (who was a short, lean cute Latino boy (WTF) with short, dusty hair and a round face, BTW) seemed relieved of that. I had no idea what any of the Mane 6 could do here pertaining to their abilities in Equestria, so I asked them to give it a shot. I had another WTF moment, officially making this the craziest couple of days in my entire life. Bill, Jackie, Dash and Fluttershy still had their wings. Instead of being small and sleek, they were surprisingly large and feathery to be coming out of their backs. Of course, human physics is much different than Equestrian physics, so they probably couldn't fly nearly as fast, but that's going to come in an insane amount of usefulness. If we ever find out what to do. And Steph, Alex, Rarity and Twi could still use magic, to my surprise. They found themselves easily moving objects around the room. However, Francine and Pinkie's 'pinkie sense' didn't work at all and Discord couldn’t do nearly as much as he could before, sadly. On my own note, I tried to conjure some electricity to my hands and soon found myself looking like a mage in Skyrim. Still friggin' badass. But still... You'd be surprised at how fast one gets used to the surprises of magic.

Although I was confused about why we could still use magic and wings, I didn't question it. We were going  to need it, no doubt. I still wanted to know what we were going to do from here... "Discord. What now?"

"Um, could you turn off those... hands of yours? You're kind of freaking us out." I looked down to find that my hands were still sparking with blue lightning.

"Oh... yeah. Sorry. Heh." I shut off the power to my arms. "So, seriously. Where do we go from here?"

"Right. I may need to have some thinking time before I can plan this out, but I know that we need to destroy or at least disable the machine that's opening up these wormholes." I was interested to know if Twilight had done any research on this area of space-time physics.

"Yo, Twi! Do you recall learning about this stuff?" I asked her.

"It's not just stuff, but yes I have. I got a lesson a couple of months back from the princess... *GASP* WAIT A MINUTE! Did she know about this beforehand? Did you?" She pointed a hand at Discord.

And Discord, being the sly little mother hubbard he is, said "Yes. I subliminally altered Celestia's thought process to give you the 'wrong' lesson and foreshadow you on what could be next. But you didn't bring that to concern, didn't you?"

"Not really... But altering the princess' thoughts? You're more powerful in magic than I expected..."

"Yeah, well you didn't seem to think much of it when you used the Elements of Harmony, now did you? You could have killed somepony with that, and I'm sure as hell that you could have done a lot more damage than just turning me into a stupid statue. Well, I suppose your intentions with it weren't to harm, so I'm safe there."

"But who originally made the Elements of Harmony?"

"I did, along with making the two princesses. I knew that Alicorns were powerful, but they would need something else to help."

"So you made the original Alicorns. What the hay now."

"Well, I did make the two most powerful, but Alicorns actually occur naturally. You see, breeding works very weirdly in Equestria. Because there are three different outcomes on what the breed of pony can be, there are three different chromosomes..." He continued screwing with our heads using genetic science until our heads were about ready to explode. I can wrap up what he said in a nutshell, though. Alicorns are a rare output of a male unicorn and a female pegasus. There.

"Wow... I had no idea." Twilight seemed rather dumbfounded, which in return made me feel rather smart. I was surprised that she didn't know much of it.

"Of course you didn't, dear. I never told you."

It was around this time that I had only eaten twice since this entire ordeal started. "Hey Bill. Yah got food? Ahm stavin'..." Well, there's my inner Applejack.

"Uh, yeh. Wait right here guys." Bill wandered over into the next (far less crowded) room, that was supposedly the kitchen. And about twenty minutes later of Twilight and Discord pointlessly arguing, Bill eventually came back out with a huge pot of pasta. "Come and get it! Bowls and spoons are on the counter in the kitchen."

Us humans welcomed the food, but the ponies were reluctant on finding an appetite for the stuff. Even Pinkie Pie, who eats human food all the time. She said it looked too... noodly for her. Well, guess who made up a word today.

After all of us chowed down (and liked it, I should add), we tried to get Discord to talk about his plans for the next few days. His response was to train ourselves for the next few days and to try to get to know each other. He didn't seem interested in what we were doing, so the rest of us just went into the other room to discuss what to do.

"Alright everypo- I mean everyone, we need to split into groups to find out what we can and cannot do here." Twi said with a strict tone. Since everyone knew that she was the best at magic and group leading, nobody had a problem with her being our temporary 'leader'. After a few short minutes of conversing and arguing, we split up into groups outside depending on what type of pony we were in Equestria. So I got stuck in a group with Steph, Alex, Twi, Rarity, and Spike. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

"Well. Does anyone know where we can train?" Rarity spoke up. This is about the time that I wondered if I could still use my internal phone. You'd expect someone to go insane with that kind of knowledge, but it was nice to be able to look up things only when I wanted. In response to Rarity's request. I launched up Google Earth (like a baws, I might add) and instantly found a small, uninhabited valley adjacent to where we were. Ended up just east of where we were now.

"Alrighty then, I just found a small valley just east of here. Uninhabited. How's that sound?"

"Fine with me. It's dark out though... How do we get around?" Steph asked. It was a bizarre moment after she said that that both Twilight and I made our own means of unnaturally bright light. She flashed up her hands (which looked surprisingly like flashlights built into her palms), which were now glowing, while I re-sparked my hands up. There was a couple muffled laughs afterwards, and just  like that, our point had been made.

We started east out the back door, with me leading and Twi in the back of us. Finding direction was fairly easy, mainly because most phones are directly connected to satellites, and because I pretty much am a phone right now, you can see where that'll go. I can explain it as this: When I want to pull up something, a mental overlay above my eyes happens, so I can see it, but nobody else can. That reminded me... I hadn't used the real-time communication on my phone since I was in Arizona. Which legitimately felt like a week, even though it was really three days. I tried pulling up Facebook first, but then regretted it right away and pulled up Youtube instead realizing that I was probably being searched for. I hadn't seen anyone that I actually knew in... Well, on Earth, just about a day. I went over to the Upload page to see what I could do there... And supposedly, I could actually upload my memories. And it wasn't until I accidentally did that that I found that out. Long story short, I immediately erased that sucker. Going back to reality, I was surprised to find out that no time had actually passed. So I guess I can't mentally call anyone after all. Can't tell if good or bad... Or friggin' awesome.

Still realizing that I was in Bill's grassy back yard, I saw a brick wall that separated the yard and a mountain, which had the valley at the other side. I realized that I had an opportunity to show Rarity, Twi, and Spike a little of my own skillset. I lived in a very dense neighborhood, so the only shortcuts that we knew about were the ones over fences and walls. "Watch this. Just a useful trick to getting around as a human that you should know... It's called freerunning. Essentially getting from point A to point B in the fastest, most boss-like way possible on foot. Taught me some stuff, like this." I started running towards the brick fence in front of us as Twi and Rarity  looked on in worry. Spike was egging me on, and the two humans didn't seem to care at all.

It wasn't until just before I started to jump the wall that something absolutely insane happened. Now I've had some crazy rushes and adrenalin surges before, but this was an exception. Mainly because both of my legs exploded in a fury of sparks as I soared up and over the wall, without swinging my legs over as I usually did while jumping crazy things. It wasn't I nearly crashed into a mound of dirt that I had realized what had even happened. That certainly must have been a spectacle for the bystanders, seeing a human launch himself up and over an eight foot fence without touching it.

"HAH!! DID ANYONE SEE THAT? That TOTALLY wasn't what I meant to do, BUT WHO THE HELL CARES! THAT WAS FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!" I guess I noticed my legs were still flowing with power, so I tried to do it again as I jumped back over the wall, again with a little too much ease. This time I ended up on the roof of Bill's house on accident with a loud crash. I found everyone in my group staring up at me with a rather dumbfounded look on their face. Rarity was the first to respond to that one.

"What the... How is that even possible?"

"Who cares. If he can teach us how to do that, we'll be useful as hell." Alex replied.

I leapt down from the roof and let out a small wave of sparks that fried the nearby Twilight. Although I was shocked by what I had done (dammit, no pun to see here), Twi was the one to respond with an impressed tone of voice. "Wow... Well, you're one to pick up on magic like no other."

I smirked and replied with a smartass "I know." I still love magic. More so now, though.

As we started our ascent up the mountain, I still wanted to see how much light that I could generate from myself. I re-sparked my arms to try it, and BAM. The entire side of the mountain was engulfed in an unearthly glow, as if part of a light show. I immediately realized how painful that must have been for the rest of us after the vulgar responses from my group mates (Example. Alex: "Dammit Tyler, if you can't keep that wretched fancy-pants magic of yours under control, imma end up stapling you to a wall!") were said, and downed it to just a glow.

From that point on, it was really easy to get up the mountain for some reason. I couldn't figure out why a lot of energy was coming to us, let alone to me to be able to blow up Twi's library and all of that stuff, but I was just wondering how it was 8:00 and all of us were still wide awake. After trudging through tons of weeds and trees to get to the top of the mountain, we were greeted by a small, enclosed valley, just perfect for what we were about to do to it. As we descended some twenty feet into the valley, I brought the group back together. "Should we get started?"

I heard a few murmurs of agreement to start with our self-training. Since we were in a small valley, there was plenty of room to spread out, but everyone was more interested in what I had done with my newfound electrical power. Of course, I had no interest in telling all of them about my 'techniques', and just ended up shunning them off. Mainly because I had no idea what to say to them. It really made me wonder from that point onward how exactly Twilight 'studied' about spells. All I could guess was that the books helped with concentration with the spells. If you even have the guts to call it that.

But then I had a rather interesting idea... I recalled seeing a couple of episodes of the CMCs trying to get their cutie marks and remembering that Twilight tried to help Applebloom get hers with magic. I knew it didn't work then, but I figured that now that we were on Earth that a different story would emerge. But before I called Twi over to see if that would work here, I absentmindedly decided to look down at my side to see if it was still there. I ruffled up my shirt (black, BTW) to find a white lightning bolt still just above my waistline. OHGAWD WAT. I had to tell the others, who were still finding a place to practice about fifty feet away from me. "Hey guys! We still have cutie marks!" They were just as shocked as I was (trollface.jpg).

I saw the others look down their sides to find that they really did have theirs. Except Spike. Poor Spike. I couldn't see them with my distance, but I had a split second thought to try to see if I could still teleport. And before I knew it, a flash that I didn't even know happened had died down as I found myself standing next to Alex. With clothes still on. Like a baws. He squealed out of shock before jumping back and then letting me ask him what I was going to. "What's yours?"

"My what?"

"Your cutie mark, of course."

"Oh..." A telltale 'derp' expression found its way onto his face. "Right. It was a cloud. No idea what it could mean, but I wasn't a pegasus, so it could mean wind, or maybe weather... Idk. I'll find out."

I walked over to where Steph was to find her trying to summon some random stuff. She already ended up with a few coins. "How about you?"

"I don't really care. It sucks anyway."

"That still doesn't tell me what it is."

"Okay, fine. It's a plate. Whoopdeefrickindoo. Just means that I wait tables."

I could tell by her tone of voice and posture that I wasn't wanted there, so I just walked up to where Twilight and Spike were trying to see if he could still breathe fire. He lit part of a tree on fire, so there's your answer. Seeing what Steph was trying to do with conjuring and summoning sparked some interest in me towards it. "Hey, Twi, how does one summon things?"

I was glad to see that she wanted to help. "Well, since I see you've got the teleportation aspect down, it's pretty much just that, but with differet objects other than you. So think of an object, its location, and bringing it to you. In that order. It basically brings you a temporary copy of the item, which is very useful for tools, but basically worthless for food and other disposable things like that."

"Thanks." I wondered if that would work with toilet paper. HEH! I turned away to find an open spot to practice this when I realized how nicely lit the small valley was now it was in the moonlight. Thank goodness for that, or else Twi and I would have to teach the rest of them how to provide their own light. I walked to a small opening in the forest to find a small pond in it, and decided that it was the best place to start practice. I still didn't know where to go with this, but I had a little logic left from what Discord told us... A machine was tearing apart our universe. A machine! Bingo. Remembering my incident with the phone, I immediately wanted to see what else I could do with electronics. I remember my dad owning a laptop, and I also remembered that he kept it underneath his bed in a satchel. Object, location... Teleportation. I quickly imagined the laptop being in front of me. A subtle flashbang filled the dim valley and I soon found a laptop sitting in front of me in the tall grass (A wild laptop appeared!). YEA, I JUST FREAKING DUPLICATED A FREAKING LAPTOP. Your argument has officially now been rendered invalid.

It wasn't until I got over the thought that I had just done the impossible about nine times today that I realized what I could do with this. I recall watching Heroes... A show about these average people getting these weird powers... And how one of the characters could communicate with circuitry and technology. I wasn't that good with computers (the geekiest things I have ever done with computers were counting to one thousand in binary and making a web browser in Visual Basic), but I figured it wouldn't be too hard now that I already had a built in phone. Literally.

I picked up the laptop and held it out in front of me, not exactly sure where this would (or could, for that matter) go. I wasn't sure if it was a coincidence or not, but right as I was about to try and tap into the laptop, RD came soaring up and over the west ridge of the valley. The sight of a human with wings and flying was crazy to see, but I had no time to admire it. We could tell things were getting urgent, mainly because she looked very frantic. "GUYS!! I'VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU!! COME QUICK TO THE LIVING ROOM!!!"

There certainly was no hesitation on our part, because I think everyone knew what the problem was. As far as we were concerned, the link between Earth and Equestria hadn't shut down yet, and we had no idea who (or what) else could have gone through. Twilight, Alex and I instantly teleported into Bill's house (bringing my laptop too), pretty much not caring what Steph, Spike and Rarity were up to. But when we arrived in the living room, we were greeted by a new person. She had pale, white skin and was shaking while sitting quietly next to Discord. She also didn't seem alarmed when we teleported, so I think I knew who it was right away, which (of course) had a following 'OH S***' moment. "Celestia?" I heard an equally stunned Twilight mutter.

"Sadly, yes." Discord was actually the first to speak up. "She's a little shaky and very emotional right now, but she will be fine."

"Can she talk?" Twi said.

"I'm not sure. I know she can hear me, though. I haven't explained anything to her yet, though. I'm afraid of what she would do." Discord nudged Celestia in the shoulder. "Can you speak?"

"Y-yes. N-now... I have q-questions. What am I?"

Figures. First question. Discord nodded at me. "A human. You're on Earth now. If you can use your body, you'll be just fine." I answered.

"And how do you guys know who I am?" I wasn't surprised to see that Twi was the first to answer to that.

"It's me... Twilight." Celestia's eyes widened in fear. "Discord and the rest of us are here."

"IMPOSSIBLE!!!" She swung an arm in my direction. "How did he get here, and where is he?"

I stammered into the conversation. "Same way you got here, through the wormhole in the barn. And Discord's the one sitting next to you."

Celestia jumped up from the couch and started to freak out. "Worm-what?!?"

Dammit, this conversation was going to hell. "Worm hole. Don't you remember when you came through the barn to get here?"

"How do you know I went through a barn to get here?"

"I was in Equestria earlier today."

"Then what is your name? Prove that you were once a citizen."

"My name is Tyler, and I never was a citizen, dammit! Sit down, stop asking questions, and cool your jets! Nobody's going to get anything done here if you don't listen to what we have to say."

She reluctantly sat down next to her former enemy and heard us talk about how I originally came to Appleloosa and started this whole damn thing. Although  RD got the rest of the party in with a massive interruption, it wasn't until Celestia saw Pinkie Pie that she actually believed us. Explaining everything took a lot shorter from then on. And now since I've evaded enough details for now, I'll explain why I am doing so. Remember the cell phone incident? Yeah, I'm writing this entire damn thing on Notepad. After everything happened. Well, not everything. I'm on a bus right now. Technically. And I don't know where this information will end up if it ever makes it past me (literally), but if it goes to someplace like Deviantart, congats. I just saved your asses via a sci-fi fanfic.

After Celestia was done shaking and generally being creepy like that, she spoke up to Discord. "You... created me... I don't know if I can believe that. How...?"

At this point I wanted to step up and yell 'Bitch, you're on Earth right now. Everything's possible.' Luckily Discord broke temptations by basically making the same point.

"Anything's possible right now. But that's not important. What is is that you are alive and well. Anyway, I have been observing the others and found that the former pegusi and unicorns still could fly and use magic. Can you do either one? Both, I hope?"

Celestia (supposedly) tried to levitate some random objects across the room. But, as fourth-wall foreshadowing may have told you, nothing happened. Question for you bronies/g-men out there: Exactly how many 'OH S***'/'WTF'/'F***' moments have we had so far? Yeah, I'll call it out at around nine. Smacked down into single digit history though when we discovered she had no wings either.

"What the hell happened? We all got ours..." Bill said through all of the mass confusion/chaos. Okay, maybe not mass confusion. More like group-wide infectious stupidity.

"Well, calm the f*** down and get this sorted out so we can at least start to do something about the damn situation!" Thanks, Alex. The conversation needed that.

"QUIET!!!" Discord finally ended up being the heroic savior of annoying conversation. *awkward silence while everyone stares at Discord* "Great. Now does anyone have a contributing point to add?" *more staring and silence* "Very well. Now that we pretty much can't do anything about Celestia, I shall come back to the real situation at hand. I recall the so called 'studio' of MLP being somewhere in Northern Cali, so now I have a plan. But first I should probably suggest you get some rest."

The rest of us agreed reluctantly as Twi conjured some sleeping bags (dammit, I hate that phrase) and us humans and mane characters went to sleep. I trusted to have Discord help us, so we just ended up sleeping like babies. Well, that's what universe-jumping and a hellova lot of magic use will do to you at the end of the day, and sleeping felt unusually satisfying for that reason. At least this time. And I remember having the strangest dream that night.

{log status = idle}

[recording = false]

Location: Silverton, Colorado, USA

Date: June 17, 2012

Time: 8:30 AM

{log status = begun}

[recording = active]

I woke up in Twilight's basement again. All of it seemed real at the time, but this time I was still human. Twilight came down the set of stairs leading to the weirdly shaped room to greet me, but when I tried to wave at her, I found my hoofs to be hands. I saw Twilight with a look of bizarre shock on her face for a couple of seconds, but that slowly turned into a wretched smile as she slowly walked out of the room, still staring at me with a 'lesson zero'-ish look. Genuinely creepy, but just wait. She came back a couple of seconds later with a f***ing knife. Cupcake much? She ran towards me, the knife magically levitating just in front of her deranged face, and just as I tried to get away (of course, knowing all bad nightmares, I couldn't), she lunged towards me and stabbed.

And I woke up. Yeah, I'm never going to look at Twilight the same way again. Heart beating out of my damned chest, I stammered in a ball of sweat right on the floor of Bill's house only to find that most of the group had left. I checked my watch (8:36) and took a break in the kitchen for a glass of water and some chill pills. Well, at least I wasn't too late to wake up. I went back to the living room and surveyed the room to find that Fluttershy was sleeping on the couch in a ball of cute and Alex was lounged out in front of the fireplace, among a few others. I walked up to the couch to see if anyone else was up for waking up.

"Flootershai?"

She tossed a little bit before opening her eyes. "Tyler? What time is it?" Well, at least she didn't seem to be bothered.

I checked my watch again. "8:37. Do you know where everyone else is?"

She looked around the room as a look of dawning comprehension shadowed her face. "Oh dear. I don't know..." Well, that settles it. This day already sucks.

"Um, okay. Thanks. You can go back to bed now." She quickly drifted off to sleep (SQUEE). Recalling the episode from last night, I realized that my laptop was almost useless. Well, to me at least. But that got me to wonder if I could bring back my phone... I wanted to try. And just as my sub mindedness took over, a small flash appeared in front of me and in my hands was now an iPhone. OMGLOL. I tried the phone's overlay again with my vision, and of course, it didn't work. Now I really wanted to know if I could still use my 'nothing pockets' anymore... I'll spare details, but I can just say that it worked. In a weird way. Well, I pulled back out my phone and quickly reabsorbed it, this time along with the laptop.

I wandered out to the front yard of Bill's house to see a few more members of the group outside in a circle right in Bill's driveway. "Uh, hi. Might I ask what are you doing here?"

Discord spoke up. "Oh, we wanted to have a talk without disturbing the others, so we went out here."

I walked into the circle and tried to be part of the conversation. "So, now what are you plotting?"

"Actually, we were wondering if anyone knew how to summon a bus. Could you?"

I laughed. "Yeah, sure. I already did it with a laptop last night, so how hard could a f***in' bus be?"

Pretty much nobody appreciated my sarcasm, but at least RD stifled a laugh before getting elbowed by Steph. And of course, Discord was the one to break up the awkward silence that followed. "Just do it."

"Okay, fine." And then I manned the f*** up as I walked down the driveway to make sure that none of the citizens around me would see. I recalled there being a charter bus being parked at my church last sunday, so... Location. The charter bus was also grey with a blue interior. Object. And... Teleportation. I concentrated hard as a whooshing sound came around me... And sure enough, just seconds later, there was now a random bus parked in front of me in the street. I heard scattered applause. "So, now what?" I asked.

"Well, we can start by getting the rest of us woken and fed so we can leave to shut down the generator thingy." Applejack said.

"Generator thingy? Oh man. That's descriptive."

"Lookie here. I don't know what it's called, so I'm just gonna leave it at that."

"Well, if we argue about stupid things like this, we won't get anything done, now will we?" Discord... Breaking up an argument. C-c-c-combo Breaker!

"Just get everyone out here!" Twilight yelled.

We mindlessly wandered back into the house as a group, probably waking up everyone else in the process. Well, mission accomplice. An oblivious Fluttershy spoke after our stampede inside. "Hi... What are you doing?"

"Most importantly getting you guys up and away. Do you know where Celestia is?" Jackie asked.

"That's Princess Celestia to you, thanks." A head poked up from a sleeping bag across the room and squawked at us.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but here, you're just another human." Jackie backtalked.

"And what do you have on me?" I'm sure she immediately regretted that statement of hers, especially after Jackie flashed her wings at Celestia. "Oh. Okay. I see how it is. You were saying...?"

"I was saying that we need to leave. So... Everyone up!" More moans and tired noises came from the room as more and more people (and a pony) sat up and got out of their makeshift beds as Twilight desommoned (unsommoned? Are those even words? IDK, LOL) them.

"So. Shall we hit the road?" Walter said.

More weird murmurs. Mostly in agreement. And we, as a group of sixteen, packed up some of Bill's stuff and loaded on the bus.

"Does anyone consider themselves a... Good driver?" Discord said from the inside of the bus. All of the 'mane 6 clones' hands went up. "Well, we have a start. Anyone up for the driver rotation idea? Every, say, hour and a half?" Well. This was actually going smoothly. Alex was the first volunteer. And before we knew it,  Steph summoned a map, and we were off.

Finally on the road and rolling, I wanted to know what else the laptop could do. Turns out, it still had a couple of old games on it, so I spent what seemed like an hour on Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 before realizing that it was still in my overlay and I couldn't tell time outside. So when I went back to the real world, we still weren't even off of Bill's street. Eeyup, imma genius. But at least we weren't doing harm from this... So then I got another idea. One, that, as far as I'm concerned, is the weirdest yet. And so I thought to myself, I'd create a log. Real time. So, I linked up my actions to a Notepad app... And here we are. Now. Everything I do is now documented on my phone. And after recalling the last two days, that came on here too, so I can document a log on my phone while using internet and various things over nine thousand on my laptop. There. Does everything make sense now? Yes? Onward!

{log status = idle}

[recording = false]

Location: Silverton, Colorado, USA

Date: June 16, 2012

Time: 8:48 AM

{log status = begun}

[recording = active]

On the road, it was a lot easier to get acquainted with the others. So even though we could be really spread out, we just crammed ourselves in the front of the charter bus, now on our way to Sacramento, CA... Home of the MLP: FiM studio. I got a spot next to Dash (My face: /)*3*(\ ). Win. "So, Dash, umm... What do you think of Earth so far? I mean, I know it's not that different in terms of landscaping and wildlife, but what about stuff like physics? Coping well? And how did last night go before the Celestia incident?" I said to her.

"No. Not coping well. I was a lot... Freer in Equestria. Or more free. Whatever. It just seems like I'm so... Limited here. Physics are dragging me down... And now that I think of it, I realize how structured the way Earth works is. It's like everything has rules and nobody breaks them. In Equestria, compared to here, it's almost like we just... make up everything as we go along. I mean, for example, pegasi could walk on clouds... And unicorns/Earth ponies couldn't. Nobody questioned why, it just... happened. And about last night, we learned how bizarre the world can get. Flying is a lot more... Satisfying here. There's a good breeze in your mane... I mean, hair instead of the hurricane speeds tearing through your hair that I'm used to, being a racer and all. We were all out front of Bill's house before we got interrupted by Pinkie and all hay broke loose... But that reminds me... Nothing in Equestria was really ever explained. And, I might add, now everything in Equestria seems so... undetailed. Like... Well, a human cartoon. And here you have to use... Fingers." She held up her hands. "So complex compared to a hoof, and yet, can do the exact same things. Like a few Earth ponies can... Wait a second. Earth ponies. Earth... What the hay. This makes no sense."

"Well, everything does make sense here, but you don't have to question it. Discovering that kind of stuff along your lifespan is one of the things that makes life worth living. Among many others, of course... Anyway, you were saying?"

"Earth ponies... In Equestria. AAUGGH!! WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?!? Hay! Anyway, some Earth ponies can play piano. That doesn't make sense now..."

"Yeah, I guess you can compare being a pony to being high. Everything makes sense until you're... Well, not. Knowledge falls apart, and all that you're left with is a yearning to go back to the state from which you came."

"High, huh? Never though humans could get high."

HOLD THE PHONE, BITCH!! "WAIT A MINUTE! Are you telling me that there's a... darker side of Equestria? Like, bad stuff and crime you don't see in MLP?"

"MLP? What the hay is that? And yes, I have learned that there is a darker side to everything."

"Dammit, I thought Discord told you. MLP is the show that we watch. It's just you guys, just the stuff you do. It's what Discord was a part of. It's a good show, but the fanbase that us original humans were a part of... That's what everyone liked to be a part of. We drew pictures of you guys, although some sexual, we wrote stories about you, and in some cases, even pretended to be you. There are a lot of people here that would kill to be you. So what I'm getting at is that here, as well as in Equestria, you are pretty buckin' famous."

"Show? Prove it. Prove you've seen me before."

"Okay, let's see. You got your cutie mark by breaking the sound barrier."

"Holy bit..."

"And you still have it too." She lifted up her shirt just enough to spot a rainbow storm cloud on her side.

"Wow. I guess I have no choice but to believe you... So what else have you seen us do?"

I told her everything about the show. Everything from the 'fight' with Nightmare Moon, to AJ's insomnia, to the CMC, to Pinkie Pie's funk, to Twilight cracking. It must have been an odd realization that their entire world was a source of entertainment for humans. Oh yeah, I didn't forget about the fanbase. Told her about that, too. She didn't believe that ship-pics existed until I whipped up the laptop and showed her that. More awkward reactions. The worst ones came from the ones with her and Soarin'. But still, it must have been another odd realization for RD that some humans take enjoyment in portraying her and AJ as naked human lesbians. Well, she was bound to see it eventually. But what alarmed me was what she said afterwards...

"We do this too... Porn, you would call it. We don't have a name for it, though. Kind of sad... But different. I don't want to explain." RD looked suddenly sad.

"That's okay. I can understand. Or at least try too. But that saddens me too... Just to find that the being we long to be are just as flawed as we are. Wait a second... That means there could be truth to some of the darker fanfics out there. Cupcakes..." I regretted saying that instantly, because I knew she would ask about it and I would have to answer.

"Cupcakes?" Here we go.

"Yeah... It's a famous fanfic where... Yeah, Pinkie Pie goes crazy and brutally murders you. I have not read it and never plan too."

"Ugh. I disapprove. But if anybody goes legitimately crazy, I guess it would be Twi or Rarity. Something about unicorns... I don't get them. But I just wanted to bring something up that you could take interest in. We actually swear on the show. Though as far as I'm concerned, we've only used 'hay' in front of you. Equivalent to hell. And in some cases, 'holy bit' means the same as 'holy s***'. Same thing with 'buck' and 'f***'. Make sense?"

"Yeah. But on a happier subject, I'm kindova thrill junkie. Coaster enthusiast... Did you have anything like that in Equestria?"

"Yeah, of course. We have amusement parks, if that's what you're looking for. Some have roller coasters... Giant wooden creations that send a special train screaming over rails. I've never been on one, but supposedly Pegasi get a similar feeling with flight. So I don't have too much use for them."

"Hah! Wow... Only wooden ones, huh?"

"What do you mean, 'only'? What else would you build it out of?"

"Steel. Apparently humans have better ways of getting resources than ponies. Here, look at this." I pulled up Roller Coaster Database on my laptop and showed her some of my favorites (Magnum XL200, Maverick, Rip Ride Rockit, etc.). She was really interested after she found out that the steel ones could invert. I showed her around some parks on Google Maps, then that sparked some obsession. Good, at least I'm not the only one here obsessed with them. After a while, she got a little crazy and told me we had to go to Cedar Pointy (as she called it) after this ordeal was sorted out. I agreed. Again, /)*3*(.

And then it was time for Alex to turn the wheel over to Steph, and that meant a breakfast, finally. I reclaimed my laptop and pulled up my phone to see where we were, and as it turns out, we hadn't gone far. We were only on the road for two hours. I was never happier to go to McDonalds, to be honest. BREAKFAST BURRITO FTW. I don't know who (or what) was paying for a group of sixteen humans (half of which, I might add, had only been human for a mere fourteen hours), but all I can say is that I was greatful. I plopped down next to Jackie (who had pancakes) and tried to spark a conversation. Regretted that shortly after we found out that her table wasn't big enough for two smartasses (morning person FAIL.) and just decided it was best to go to where AJ and Walter were.

"Hey, Tyler. What's happenin'?" Walter said with a very welcoming tone of voice.

"Tiredness. And frustration, you could say." I replied.

"Why is that?"

"Trying to explain everything to Dashie while she tried to explain Equestria. Wore me out..."

"I heard yah. Sittin' behind you the whole two hours we've already been on the road. I never thought you would have the nerve to bring up Cupcakes. I even shudder at that thought..."

"Anyway, how did last night go for you?"

"Interesting. Pinkie Pie went a little nuts with the human variation of cookies and wouldn't stop tearin' up the kitchen. Took a half an hour to pry her away from that, and then Celestia showed up. Pinkie dashed out to the Pegasus group and let them know, who supposedly let you know." Applejack chimed in.

"Well... Sounds funnier than what happened to the rest of us."

"And what would that be?" Both of them said in near-perfect unison. I told them about my real power with electricity, then the cutie marks (Walter's was a bike), then the pegasus part of the story before getting to the Celestia. Dammit, I need to stop calling it that.

"Well, can't say it was bad. Well, I'm done here. How about you, AJ?" Walter said finally. Applejack agreed, and soon all of us were back on the bus waiting for Steph to drive. And this time around, I got stuck with Flootershai. You know, I'd call this whole ordeal a dream come true if it weren't for the fact that the fabric of the friggin' cosmos was in our hands.

"Hai." Well, it was a start.

"Uh, hi. What brings you over here?"

"I dunno, I guess I just wanted to try and start a conversation about your thoughts on where you're from and Earth."

"Well, I trust Rainbow Dash told you that Equestria isn't as good as you may think... So I might as well tell you what I think of Earth... Almost the same in a lot of ways..." She rambled around with that until I realized that she basically just said the same thing as RD. It was worth it just to hear it in her voice, to be honest. But by the time she was done, the other thing that dawned on me was that I was leaning on Fluttershy. And to be honest, I really only found that after Bill and Francine (who were sitting behind us, BTW) daaw'd in sync at us. I quickly backed away and told her I wanted to show her something. I recalled my laptop and pulled the memebase site for MLP and showed her all of the memes for 'flutterwry' and 'flutterrage'. She was a bit embarrassed about it at first, but then found it funny after I showed her the remix for the 'your face' incident on Youtube.

After another hour or so of derping around on memebase, it was around 11:30 and so we decided to go for an early lunch in Laughlin, Nevada. There were casinos everywhere, so finding a restaurant wasn't hard either. And therefore we went to a buffet. HAH! Victory. Well, it wasn't much for socializing, but at least the shrimp cocktail was good.

Back on the bus, Walter was up for driving, which meant I was with Celestia this time. That was an interesting conversation, mainly because she kicked it off with a bizarre question.

"How does Earth's government work?" Okay not bizarre, just a weirdly legitimate question. And knowing very little about how America actually works, I almost didn't know how to respond.

"Well, it's kind of weird. It's called a democracy, and rather than having one or two royalty figures, we have a president running the country, and that person changes every four years. The citizens vote who gets to be the next president rather than the president. We think it works better than a despotism or a monarchy, so that means that our country is rather new. How does your country work?"

"Well, things are bizarre like that. The history of Equestria is rather... Well, interesting. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns weren't always united."

"Sorry to bust a bubble of yours, but I've already known that. Season 2, episode 11. Bazinga."

"What? How do you know?" Here we go AGAIN.

"DAMMIT! WHY DIDN'T DISCORD TELL YOU THESE THINGS?!"

"Calm down! Nothing is accomplished with yelling!"

"Augh. Okay. Remember how Discord told you about him actually being an interdimensional explorer?"

"Yes..."

"Well, his discoveries came through to Earth and some of Twilight and her friend's adventures made it to us in the form of entertainment. That's why we knew a lot about Equestria before we even got there. So pretty much nobody here knows you actually exist. Make sense?"

"Us? Entertainment? This is an outrage! Some of the little 'adventures' we had were downright dangerous! Serious as can be... And nobody thought we existed. Fools." She stuck up her nose.

"Celestia, listen. For most of us, having it called entertainment would be an insult. Fun fact: Even this 'show' was supposed to be for females aged eight to twelve, 80% of the audience is over the age of fifteen and is male. Even crazier is the fanbase." Again, as I was compelled, I pulled out the laptop and showed her My Little Brony. I was alarmed to find out that she actually found it funny. Although I didn't explain Rule 34 to her (You're welcome, dammit.).

After much time spent being generally weird, I took a leap forward in seriousness when I decided to show her the actual show. I figured episode 4 of season 2 would be a good one. After finishing the episode, I realized what a look of shock Celestia had on her face. It was a while before she would say anything. Eventually it came to this: "Wow. That really happened. And is it really true that..." She looked at the bottom right corner of the Youtube player. "Is it true that exactly 63,596 people have seen this?"

"I'm as sure as you could ever be. The point is, everyone in Equestria is well respected. You most of all."

"Wow... Thanks. I don't know what else to say."

"Don't mention it." And with that, I decided it was time to talk with someone else. But it wasn't a good time, since we were about to switch places and drivers (Francine was next up) while fuelling up our bus. So, in a nutshell, nothing interesting happened. And again, we made our way back to the bus, where it was announced that our ETA was in two hours, meaning no more stops and one more social visit. I had to choose fast this time, so I figured, why not Pinkie Pie? I had just realized how much she reminded me of myself in the way that nobody really knows how or why we do things. E.g.: A few days ago (Earth time), I found a way onto my roof without using a ladder and cranked out four free-verse poems in ten minutes when I was up there. That let me go off on a tangent with myself, making me realize that all of my weird ideas come to me when I'm in the shower with the heat turned up as high as I can bear it. NVM.

Once sitting next to the small pink pony, I laughed at how silly she looked sitting down. Kind of like a cat sitting up, but more comical. Actually, just picture the Sitting Lyra meme.

"What?" She yelled jokingly.

"Oh, I don't know. I just wanted to ask a question."

"What would that be?"

I dropped the bomb. I needed to... "Did you know what a human was before getting here? It's because of MLP... The show you were on. You seemed to interact with the audience. We called it you breaking the fourth wall, but I don't know what you would have called it..."

"Interacting... Yeah, I did know about humans here. It was weird though... All that I saw was one in a chair in an office. That started everything. It was after we were leaving Appleloosa after that crazy incident with the buffalo. I noticed a small glowing portal-thingie in front of me... It was closing slowly... I remember saying something, then sticking my head into it. Everything was dark in there, but then something happened. A human's face appeared in it... Then after that, the next few nights were plagued with dreams of more of them watching me. But when I woke up, none of them were there in real life. Then, every single 'episode' we had every single week, I would see that first portal-thing everywhere. I guess, talking about that show, that face was... filming me. I was scared at first, but then I started screwing around with it just for fun. I never thought that would mean that humans would think I was interacting with them... I'm sorry." The sadness that showed on her face scared me.

"No, don't be sorry. That's one of the main reasons humans love you so much." I whipped up the laptop again and googled 'pinkie pie fourth wall'. It relieved me to see she was in a better mood afterwards. And for a long time afterwards, knowing that she, a previously normal pony, had turned into a human icon, brony or not.

Knowing that she was happy made me probably just as happy for the rest of the bus trip. Which, by the way, was spent with Twilight trying to explain the concept of movies to her. And believe me, that was hell. Not as much as the 'minecraft affair', though.

"So people actually just watch these with friends? In a theater? This makes no sense."

"Twi, it's entertainment. It doesn't have to make any sense. Like, to us humans, you are entertainment to us, and you definitely don't make any sense here on Earth."

"But still, you call going to a theater with friends a social outing, even though you don't really socialize with each other."

"Well, we yell at the screen and do mad-libs and such. So there. Close enough."

The hell was stopped when a pissed of Fluttershy started the quiet game and I agreed (she was still cute as a human, what else could I do?) while Twilight disagreed. We went our separate ways, while staying in the same two seats. It was one hell of a long ride from there. But, like everything, it came to an end as a tired Francine pulled up at a motel after being guided by a GPS that I had summoned back at Bill's.

"Well everyone, it would appear as though we are here. If you had anything with you when you got on here, please be sure to take it off." Bill and Alex were the only ones to move at this point. Bill pulled out a duffel bag while Alex conjured a bicycle. Winning.

As it turns out, we wouldn't be staying here yet. At least not for the night... A crazy idea waddled into my head and made me walk up to Discord with a question.

"How did we get from Silverton to Sacramento in only eight hours? Were you speeding?"

He smirked. "You'd be amazed what some simple enchanting will do to human items."

I cringed and said no more as I walked back to the bus, but before I could make it, Discord made an announcement to all of us: "Oh yes... One more thing. We need to do a little... Surveying of our target location before shutting down the generator. We can do it easiest now, while nobody is working."

We reluctantly agreed to it as we loaded back into the bus once again. Luckily, it wasn't that far to the MLP headquarters, so we were there in about five minutes. Well, not really there... but on the pretty-damn-close lookout nearby. I call it close enough. Once there, Discord gave us instructions to try and locate the machine, then find a path to it. "Use these." He then conjured several pairs of binoculars and told us to look around. The facility was rather bland, with the notable exception of an eight-story tower in the middle of it, surrounded by power lines and studio warehouses. Gee, I wonder where all that electricity is going. By now, everyone else was using their binoculars, while mine were still sitting beside me. And being the crazy idea maker that I am, I got another wicked idea of what else I could do with magic from a Harry Potter book. The phrase? Extra-sensory charm. The purpose? Duh. Increased vision. And, of course, I needed to try it. And although I have no idea how, I did. And it worked. Everything went sharp as hell, and suddenly, I became instantly aware of everything around me. Everything was louder, felt better, and looked way better. Using this, I quickly located what looked like a dangerous generator (villainous cliché?) through a window in the tower. Bazinga. My work here is done. AnI let Discord know, and soon enough, we were back at the motel. At this point, I figured: Tomorrow’s gonna be crazy.