Suddenly Starlet

Chapters

What Stays What Goes
They Will See Me
Cawtion
Ponies On Th4 Grid
Hurricane Dial
Bronies Are Weird
Made Up Your Mind
Leaving
Teach Me Your Secrets
Be Assertive
I Hear Hoofsteps
One of Us
Epilogue: Triumph of Friendship
Backfire

What Stays What Goes

My eyes flicked open, ‘No dream, such a shame’ I thought to myself, I always liked dreams. I had this uncanny feeling something was wrong, something felt, off. I laid there for, two thoughts were going through my head, one was ‘Do I want to get up?’ while the other was ‘What feels off?’ I finally tried my memory to remember what I was doing before I fell asleep, I had been reading and listening to music. As per usual, sometime around midnight I had opted to finally go to sleep, but something had happened. Not being able to think of what it was I pushed the thought away; trying to think on what was feeling wrong, being half asleep does not help my mind.

Still being tired I yawned, it was four o’ clock, A.M. mind you. I had a very weird sleep schedule, it was about four or less hours every day, maybe a little more on weekends. Apparently this was no such weekend, my mind decided on waking up, but being stubborn as I am my body decided to stay in bed for many more minutes as I actually woke up. I yawned one more time before stopping, something was wrong with that yawn, it didn't sound right. I gasped as what felt wrong hit me, it was everything, but upon further diagnoses I felt, or rather didn't feel multiple appendages.

“oh... oh my.” I said in a voice that sounded nothing like my own, this was a little disconcerting, but I brushed this thought aside and opted to get out of bed.

I rolled over and put what should have been a hand on the floor, I put down one of my legs and noticed that the shape looked very similar to the front one. I took in the sight a little more calm than I'm assuming I should have because I didn't freak out, I instead decided to shed some light on the subject. It was nearly pitch black in our room, waking up at four o' clock it tended to be a lot darker, so I could really only see shapes. I felt that my center of balance had shifted a lot, putting all my limbs on the ground I felt my equilibrium even out, I felt content at this as I inspected myself as good as I could. I looked down at my used to be hands and held it close to my face, it appeared to be a hoof, I could bend it in ways different from a hoof though. I put it down and looked back, I could see a tail sprouting out of my hind-side, my suspicions were then confirmed.

“well, this sure is surprising.” I spoke to myself, my thoughtful look turned to one of goofy delight, “i'm a pony.”

I was getting used to the voice, it was a soft melodic type of voice, turning toward the door I stopped. I looked at it in aggravation, I thought about how I would go about this, opening doors and such. I was very thankful that it was a handle and not a knob, I don't even know how I would cope with knobs. Rearing up on my hind legs I managed to steady myself against the wall enough not to fall over, I brought my fore-hooves down on the handle and pulled ever so slightly, it did the trick. The door opened ever so slightly, but it was enough for me to pull on the mass of jackets on the back of the door to get it open.

I was glad that the door was so silent, it used to open very loudly and wake everyone up. It would have creaked loudly at the slightest touch, but eventually me and my brother (mostly my brother) put WD-40 on the door so it wouldn't creak every time we open it. Thanks to my sleep schedule I tended to go to the bathroom late at night, my parents claimed the door kept waking them up, but my step-dad is usually still up around then, he's usually up until about three or so in the morning playing video-games.

Thankfully my bathroom is right next to my bedroom, so there was no need to stumble about in the dark using legs that aren't familiar to me. I was stumbling a lot already, but I was getting around a lot better than I would have expected. I stumbled into the bathroom, I remembered that even with my old legs if I thought about how I was walking it tended to make it harder. I flicked the light on with my muzzle, I got up on my hind legs and looked into the mirror, I saw a silver unicorn mare staring back at me. She was about as where my waist used to be on all fours, this was a guess because I had been at eye level with the counter before, so I was a little taller than my old waist level. The pony I was looking at had beautiful blood red eyes that complimented her hair nicely; speaking of, her hair was a dark brown like mine had been, but hers had red tips, the red used for the tips looked to be a darker red then her eyes but it was still a very bright color.

I looked back at my flank to see three hearts adorning it, one had a band-aid, and one had a slight curve towards the bottom with a twinkle at the top. My new tail also had the same red tips with some streaks of red here and there in the rest. 'well I’ll be darned, at least I know who I am.' I thought to myself, it gave some clarity to this situation, I was my OC. My OC was a very kind and gentle mare named Starlet Mint, she was a very curious figure in terms of background, there was and wasn't a lot of background I don't want to go into, but she was not a normal pony, not spiritually at least. I looked her over for a second and finally exited the room, I would have gone back into my room, but unfortunately my brother was still in there, so I walk into the living room to think.

My brother and I share a room, he is two years younger than me, but despite this he gets the bigger bed and far wall, I don't mind much though. I have learned to love my bunk bed, I sleep on the bottom bunk and the top is generally unused, but I keep a lot of my stuff up there. Though it is occasionally used for guests (namely me and my brother's friend nick), or my other little brother. My other little brother that looks up to my brother, he isn't blood related, him and my two sisters are not blood related to me and my brother, but that doesn't make them not family. 'I’m glad I didn't go back into the room' I think back, 'he was staying in our room, he was in the top bunk s I didn't notice.' I remembered being lazy and not wanting to pull it down, I don't especially like him sleeping above me, but I was too lazy to care. It's mostly the fact that the bed isn't supported well on the top bunk, it doesn't have a frame, it has a flimsy piece of plywood.

I walked into the kitchen to check the time, the clock on the oven read 4:27 and the microwave read 4:25, so it was 4:26. the reason I went into the kitchen is the simple fact that there are no clocks in the living room, there used to be the cable box, but then we got DirectTV and the box for that didn't have a clock. The reason the clocks are one minute off is my fault, one morning about two months ago I came home and the power had gone out. I didn't think too much of it except for what an inconvenience it was, later a guy came by our block to fix the power box in the road. He fixed it and the power came on, but it was a half day that day and it would still be a while before anyone else came home, I am always the first home, and I am the only one home for a while, especially on half days. So I decided I would set the clocks, but I ended up putting them both off by a minute, and again with my laziness I just ignored it and let it be. Now its not just my laziness, I would like to point it out, it would take all of a minute to fix, and it's been two months, so it's everyone else who's being lazy too.

I opted to do some walking practice in the time I had, which was a lot taking into account what time people usually woke up on a weekend. After an hour of walking practice I got my coordination down, not a whole lot of coordination, but enough to get by. After that I started to practice magic, I started with levitation as I found it wasn't that hard at all, but it did take a while to get my strength with it up. When 6:40 came around I was extremely proficient with my telekinesis, and I had started trying teleportation.

The first try I ended up outside, so I snuck back in the backdoor as quietly as possible. My next teleport was much better, I realized that the basics to the concept was to think on the location and think about yourself being there, then concentrate on the spell itself and how it feels to move there. After the first time it gets easier because you know how it should feel when you go there, I did have to wait 1 minutes between each teleport though because it can drain a lot out of you. It would have drained me a lot more, but I had improved my magical stability and aptitude.

As seven o' clock rolled around I decided food was a good idea, I carefully levitated all the fixings for a bowl of cereal. After fixing myself up some cereal and finishing up the dishes a thought hit me. I glanced nervously towards the bathroom, I was wondering how my new pony body would be different, it made it a bit awkward. I eventually gave into my need and used the restroom, besides the struggles acquitted with having a different shape, the bathroom proved no trouble at all. After the initial nervousness was passed it hadn't been as awkward; now much more comfortable with my body I sat at the couch.

Levitating the computer over to me I opened it and started it up, it was a nice laptop, nothing great, but it was nice, it wasn't the fastest, but it made do. It had recently been formatted, which had taken off all my stuff, it was all thanks to my brother, he had downloaded a bunch of games and other programs and had left our computer horribly slow. As a result our computer was formatted, but it had been easy to put all my stuff back, well most of it. I had lost a few files, but nothing important, I kept all the stuff I cared about on backup, which was a small red thumb-drive I used for a lot of stuff.

I stared at my input password screen, I silently cursed myself for making my password exactly 20 characters long (I had gotten bored once and had wondered how long my password was, to my surprise it was exactly 20 characters, I had managed to entertain myself for a whole half a minute and for some reason kept that fact in my mind). Using the tip of my hoof I slowly tapped in my password, all twenty of the horrid characters. Once I was past that ordeal I opened up google chrome, 'I love chrome, it's so fast and easy' I thought while clicking the URL bar. I stared at it and thought of what to look for. I pulled open Equestria Daily, I had gotten into the site more as season 4 came around, but it was still quite a way away.

Looking at the tabs I saw nothing in particular, there was no mention of people turning to ponies, I wasn't content with that so I searched it up and got the same results on google. ' so it's just me' I thought, 'great this will be easy to explain' just as I thought that I heard a door opening, I looked over to see my mom walking by, but she didn't look over.

“morning Sky,” I heard her call from the kitchen, but instead of answering I just sat there silently contemplating my options.

“your up early,” she continued in more of a questioning tone than a statement.

She rounded the corner and stopped, I heard the falter in her step, turning around I saw her stand there in shock. 'welp, times up, let's see how the popular I am!' I could feel the sarcasm dripping in my head.

“h-hi Mom.” I finally answered in a nervous tone, my reply could have had been better.

They Will See Me

OK, so maybe I didn't do the best thing, but they would find out eventually. It's not like I was just some random person, er... pony, sitting in their living room, right? Actually, that's exactly what I was. I just sat there waiting for what she would do; she stood there for as long as I did, not even blinking she reached directly to her side and grabbed a pool-stick.

I jumped at this, I probably should have taken account of the fact that aggression is a very possible outcome. Sure there was a couch between us, but she could always throw it. I glanced around nervously, I don't know what I was looking for, but I couldn't find it. OK calm down, get a grip I took in a deep breath and looked back up to see her holding the pool-stick in a menacing way.

“mom, it's me, calm down,” as soon as I said that I grimaced at my own stupidity, how would she know who I am? I mentally slapped myself.

“who are you?!” she demanded, “what are you?” the pool-stick was motioning towards me menacingly.

Being the sensible person I am I replied, “shh... you'll wake the kids,” I motioned with my head towards their room.

She lowered her voice enough so she wasn't yelling, “answer me!” she hissed. You could literally hear the force in her whisper.

Keeping my cool composure I decided to be straightforward, “it's me, Skylar,” I decided that this wasn't exactly true; “more or less,” I finished, I looked down at myself and decided that my answer was good enough. “you see, about the body, heh, funny story really” – I looked up and back, you know how people do that when it's awkward? Well this was awkward and it seemed appropriate – “i kinda, sorta... woke up as a pony.” I looked back at her to see she had lowered the pool-stick a little.

“how do I know your telling the truth? And if you are, how did this happen?” she looked as if she wasn't sure, but at the same time was trying to look menacing.

I smiled at her efforts, “ I pinkie promise, cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” I went through the motions acquainted with said promise. “as for the how it happened, I have no clue,” I stated with finality; I felt like I knew the answer, but I couldn't think of what it might be. she seemed a little unsure but started to put away the pool-stick.

She began to cross the room over to me, not wanting to alarm her I stayed where I was. I followed her with my eyes as she rounded the couch, when she got near to me I shifted a little to face her head on. She was right next to me, she got on her knees and we stayed like that looking into each-others eye's for a minute or so. She pulled me in for a hug after a while, I wasn't that surprised at this, but I was hesitant for a second.

Seemingly out of instinct I stroked my hoof down her back trying to comfort her. I faltered in my stroking as a thought hit me, I've never done that before I thought before going back to doing it. We stayed like this a while until I heard another door open; now don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of doors, but my heart skipped a beat or two when I heard that door. Then another door opened and closed, I was about to freak out when I heard the water running. I calmed down as I realized that it was just my older sister taking her morning shower.

It was no0w that my mom released me from her tight hug, she backed off and sat down on the couch. She wiped a tear from her eye and just sat there looking at me. Now I never loved being the center of attention so I tried to avert her priorities back on track.

“don't you have to go to work?” I motioned towards the door, I floated her purse over to her.

I'm not being selfish and just sending her away because it's what I want, but the world does not simply stop for me. She just looked at the floating purse, she didn't reach for it. When she looked back to me I realized she was still concerned.

“mom, I’m fine. I'll be fine.” I assured her, I dropped the purse on her lap and floated over her phone. Placing the phone in the purse I held the keys at eye level in my magical grip. She nodded to me and grabbed the keys without a word. When she reached the door I called out to her, “mom, forgot your coffee.” I floated the thermos over to her.

“t-thanks.” she nodded in my direction with a nervous smile and grabbed the thermos. She left without another word. Shaking my head I sat back down on the couch, i hope she'll be alright, I thought to myself. I pushed my worries away, there were more pressing issues. I flipped the computer back open and logged back in. opening up a new tab I pulled Facebook open, after a short debate with myself I decided that it would do me well to make a new account. I proceeded to type in all the information, I took a picture with the camera on the computer of my new body.

I wasn't sure how much this would help, but I was pretty sure I wasn't the only pony out there. and maybe they might see me, then I'd be able to talk about it with someone. With that settled I turned my attention to the clock on the computer, 8:14 was what it read. I heard the shower stop, this was going to be interesting.

I turned to the entrance to the living room near the front door. it was wide, big, and it was shaped like a mushroom. I had decided already that running was not a good idea, so I waited to meet the rest of my family. No, no, wait one sec... gears turning... idea!

Okay; so I would eventually meet them, but in the meantime why not have some fun? I dashed under the pool table, our house is very open, so there are no doors aside from our bedroom and bathrooms. This makes dashing from room to room stealthily much easier, It also gives our pool table clear view of our kitchen. I watched as my sister walked into the kitchen, she was going about the routine we all basically had.

She was the older of my two sisters; her age was around that of my biological brother, give or take a few months. I levitated a pencil over to her and poked her in the side, I then watched she turned around with a jump. She was surprised to find no one there, I watched her look around confused. I stifled a laugh, but it still came out as a giggle. I poked her again in the side and she spun around to find the floating pencil.

She stepped back in shock as it floated it there, it did nothing else but float there encased in red magic. I couldn't contain myself any longer, I burst out in laughter. The pencil dropped as I lost my concentration on the grip I was holding it with. She had turned to look at me and was staring with an even more shocked expression, if that was even possible. I crawled out and regained my composure, I stood up still giggling to myself.

“oh, that was priceless! Maybe this gig ain't so bad, besides having no fingers; I mean that's pretty hard to get used to, it just complicates a lot of things,” I announced between giggles, “oh yeah, sorry 'bout that. Just having some fun, go back to eating breakfast,” I walked away from the kitchen and back to the computer.

“what are you?” she muttered, she had walked over to the couch. She was in the living room now, but still at a good distance. Her look was one of amazement then of fear, I felt a little better knowing that not everyone would react with violence.

“what? Oh yeah,” – I realized that I hadn't told her yet – “I'm a pony.” I turned away from the computer to have a civil conversation with her. Getting up from the couch I walked over to the other side of the couch so I was directly in front of her.

“p-pony?” her look was similar to that of someone at an amusement park, a look of nervous enthusiasm.

“well, yeah. Can't you tell?” I made a circle where I was standing to show her what I was referring to.

“who are you?” she asked with a little more confidence, it seemed she was getting over her initial shock

I grinned wide, “it is I, –” I teleported onto the pool table “– the great and powerful Trixie!” I boasted, after my theatrics were over I hopped down. “heh, just kidding, it's me, Skylar!” I composed myself once more and flashed her a wide grin.

She stared for several minutes, her face contorted from fear, to shock, to joy, to excitement, and then to disbelief. She looked down at me with that look that she didn't believe me, “i don't believe you.” she finally stated.

I dropped my grin, “suit yourself.” I rolled my eyes and walked back around the couch. After successfully logging in I heard a gasp, I turned my head to see her with another shocked expression.

“Skylar? Is that really you?” she stared at me with the same look of disbelief as earlier.

“don't look so surprised, I already told you didn't I?” I let out an exasperated sigh “yes, I am Skylar.” I deadpanned, “well, more or less.” I added with a little chuckle. I went back onto my Facebook and checked my new account, there were a couple of friend requests. There were also a couple messages regarding how realisticly cartoonish my profile pic looked. I laughed at the messages, if only they knew I thought to myself. I decided that none of them were ponies themselves, I was not that content with the results this was pulling in.

yes, that's it, I'll post a shout out of sorts to inform others of my dilemma. “hello every-pony! My name is Starlet Mint, and as you might have seen on my profile pic, I am a pony. Though I have not always been a pony, I woke up this morning to find myself like this. If any-pony finds themselves in the same predicament as me, I urge you to contact me. If we can talk, we might be able to figure this out. Thank you for your time!” I re-read the message to check for spelling mistakes and such. Satisfied with the quality I posted it, now they will at least know to contact me.

I signed off and handed (can I even call it that without hands?) the computer to my sister, “don't spend it all in one place,” I looked around to find something to do. My eyes glanced over our PS3, well, why not. I mean, how hard could it be? I thought as I pressed the power button down with the same pencil from earlier.

After I had put in Black Ops 2 I floated my headset into place, but it sat weirdly on my head. I looked at it in disappointment; I almost put it back, but then I had a stroke of pure brilliance. I fired up my magic; I had no idea how or if this would even work, but it was worth a shot. I concentrated on the headphones and envisioned a shape that would fit my head, I felt my magic surge through my horn; the power felt like a fire rushing through my veins, but it didn't burn. My eyes were shut, but that didn't stop me from seeing the bright flash of light; I felt the power stop its flow and felt the exhaustion sink in.

I opened my eyes to see that the spell had worked, I thanked my magic as I admired the new headset. My subconscious must have a knack for detail because there were etchings of red along the side of the headset. I put on the head-wear and turned to the screen, it was telling me there was an update needed. I tapped the X button and waited, I was glad I had to wait anyway. The spell had taken a lot out of me and I needed to gather my strength.

Cawtion

The game eventually loaded after a few minutes, I had gathered up my strength enough to use my magic proficiently again. I had taken the time waiting to figure out how I was going to play, it hadn't taken long for me to devise a strategy. When the start screen pulled up I tested my strategy. My strategy was that by focusing the magic I could press the buttons on the controller, and to my surprise it worked.

I joined a lobby, I decided on playing some good ol' team death-match. I wasn't good at call of duty before, and I’m still not good at it. But when I got changed the aid of magic made it easier for me to be quick with my reflexes. When the motions go straight from your head to the controller without the medium of fingers to slow you down, you will find it makes you much better than with fingers.

It was all fine except for when it came to most of the other players; I never did like the guys on here, but they never really bothered me so it was no problem. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm some extreme feminist who thinks that all men are scum. It's not even exclusively males, I just don't have much faith in humanity at all. I do believe there are a few upstanding members of society, but those were far and few. I tried to ignore them, it wasn't working. They just kept on making snide comments and hitting on me, they were horrible at it by the way.

Me being the nice person I was tried to be polite and nice about it, bad idea. This just fueled their fire and I made it worst, it started to grind on my nerves. I grew more and more irritated as every lobby I went to had the same problem, it was getting ridiculous. There was only one guy in this lobby, but I was about to lose it.

“hey leave her alone, I'm sure your boyfriend is getting jealous,” a voice spoke up in my defense, I looked at the players to see who had spoken. A smile spread across my face as the two snapped at each-other. The two went on like that for a while, it ended with the other guy leaving the lobby in an angry fit.

“hey, thanks. I was about to lose my cool myself,” I told the guy who had come to my aid.

“it's no big deal. besides, I couldn't just stand by and let him treat a lady like that, what kind of man would I be then?” I could almost hear him shrugging. Almost.

“yeah, lady... anyway, thanks. You wanna play some search and destroy?” I started putting his name into the friend request message.

“yeah, sure” he left the lobby and a second later I got a request to join his game. I sent the friend request and accepted the game request. We played for a while, not many more incidents occurred in the rest of the time. At about ten o' clock I signed off, pulling the headset off I heard the kids talking. (the kids is how I refer to my step-siblings as a collective whole)

I realized that while I was playing a lot of the kids had woken up, all except my biological brother. This was no surprise though, but when I walked into the kitchen only two were in there. The two in the kitchen happened to be my younger brother and sister, the older of the two sisters mind you.

Since it's getting repetitive to say which sister I'm just gonna call her Thing 1. You got that? Good, cause that's what she will be referred to as. My youngest sister is Thing 2, and I’ll just call my youngest brother, hmm... I'll think on that. Well anyway, whatever I decide to call him he was ecstatic at seeing me. He was a Brony and it was all because of a person named Corbin; my biological brother is at fault; I know being a Brony isn't a fault, but when it's for the reason my younger brother has, it's a fault.

Let me explain, I had one day decided to watch the show. I don't remember why, but I think it had piqued my interest a day or so before. This was before Bronies were well known, and when I watched it I found myself liking it. After that I watched it more and more, I got up nearly every morning to watch it in private. One day my brother happened to catch me watching it, he laughed at me and I just denied it. Then he grew attached to it when he learned about how this whole Brony thing was becoming popular.

My brother placed himself in this category openly, I stayed a closet Brony. My youngest brother looks up to my brother, Corbin. He thinks that everything Corbin likes is cool, this is because my youngest brother, like all my other step-siblings, is a huge copycat. They all copy Corbin with just about everything, and even he was getting tired of it. I don't mind though cause they stay away from anything I like unless if it happens to coincide with something Corbin likes. They even started stealing his signature stuff, his style. I do have some sympathy for him her; I mean, you don't take someone's style.

Anyways my youngest brother is a Brony and while I was thinking that he had run over to me and was currently strangling me with a hug. “can't... breath...” I rasped; I seriously couldn't, looks like his tae-kwon-do was paying off. He backed off and I took in a deep breath.

“a pony! Can I keep it? Can you talk?” he asked in rapid succession

“no, you cannot keep me,” I thought of what I should say, I thought on how if I told him who I really was it might not be great. Looking over to Thing 1 she seemed to be giving me a look that mirrored my thoughts. “I am Starlet Mint” I sat down waiting for a reply, he just looked at me in disinterest.

“never heard of you, do you know rainbow dash?” he said quickly. He was looking around frantically as if he might find another pony somewhere. He finally settled down and looked over to me, “she's not here is she?”

“no I don't know rainbow dash personally, and no she is not here,” I replied. He looked disappointed, but hen he looked back at me with a little more excitement.

“so, why are you here?” he had this very blatantly obvious look of crazed excitedness, it was very unnerving.

“I'm...” this was a very valid question, why was I here? “I'm not entirely sure, but I hope to find out very soon” I got up and went into our room, I had to get out before Thing 2 got out of the bathroom. I went into the room and my little brother follow me, he realized where we were going.

“why are you going into Corbins room?” he questioned, he was a smart little bugger he was. Though what he said annoyed me, it wasn't Corbin and Skylars room it was just Corbins

“I, umm... I'm very close to Skylar, and I need to use some of Skylars things” I felt satisfied with this as I walked in.

“where is Skylar?” darn it, why do you make this so hard. Would it be easier to tell him the truth? No, I’ll just have to think of something.

“Skylar's away for now, and Corbin wants you to stay out,” I slammed the door shut before he could ask any more questions. Now that he was out of my hair I realized another thing, Corbin was waking up. I turned around to see him shift in bed, I stood stock stiff as I watched him heave himself into an upright position. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and opened up his dresser. I waited for him to notice me, he was more than halfway through getting dressed when he noticed me.

“whoa, what are you doing here? What are you? Who are you? Why are you in my room? Why were you watching me get dressed? What is wrong with you? Are you a pony? It looks like you are? Can you talk? Guess not, that's just silly. Wait, am I still asleep? Well if I was asleep couldn't I let you talk? So I guess –” he started to ramble, he had this surprised look on his face, but it had turned from surprise to fascination.

“Shut up!” I yelled at him, “seriously, I can't think straight with all your non-stop yammering...” I looked at him aggravated. “my name is Starlet mint as far as your concerned, and you shall address me as such. I woke up as a pony and I need you to shut the buck up,” I turned to my dresser and proceeded with what I had planned on doing when I walked in. so I did nothing, I mostly just looked at all my stuff and sat there confused.

“Skylar?” Corbin asked incredulously.

“the one and only.” my reply was dripping with sarcasm, I looked over to him. He was on the verge of breaking out in laughter. “don't you dare say a word.”

“oh, I won't.” he stated before bursting out into laughter, he dropped to the floor and laughed his heart out.

“I’m glad this is so funny.” I rolled my eyes at him, this was going to be a very long day.

Ponies On Th4 Grid

I stayed there for a while, I wasn't doing anything. I just needed a moment to think things through, but I didn't know what to think about. It was getting pretty hard to think about anything with my brother just sitting there and staring at me. He hadn't even bothered to finish getting dressed.

“can you please put on your shirt? I never went around with mine off, can't you do the same.” wow, that sounded a lot snarkier than I meant it to. “sorry, but please put on a shirt. It's just nerves, this is getting to me,” I apologized to him. He simply nodded and put on the shirt, once he was decent I went back to thinking.

“so...” Corbin started, “your a pony.” he looked me over intensely

“yes, don't ask me any questions that you can't obviously answer yourself,” I warned, he was disrupting my thinking.

“who did you turn into?” he waited for an answer patiently.

At least it was a question I could answer, “my OC Starlet Mint.” I looked over to him. He looked to be thinking over my answer, he looked content with it.

“why are you like this?” do they all really follow essentially the same questions?

“i don't know why or how this happened, but it did and I need to fix it. So if you'll excuse me I need to go back to brainstorming” I turned back to my bed.

“how you gonna face guy?” wow, that was actually a decent question.

“i don't know, probably the same way I dealt with all of you.” no matter how good the question was, I still had no answer to it.

“How you gonna go places?” man does he ever shut up?

“look, I don't know, OK?! I'm trying to think, so stop with the questions.” I snapped

“yeesh, you on your period?” he put on a sly grin.

“OUT!” that was it, I was done with him, “NOW.” I picked him up in my telekinesis and lifted him outside the door. He looked at me in surprise as I unceremoniously dropped him outside the door and slammed it shut. Now I was left in silence as I heard him scramble up from the floor and go into the kitchen. I could only imagine that was where he went because he didn't try and come back in. I let out an aggravated sigh and looked over to my bedside clock, it read 10:27. unlike the oven and microwave clock I had set this one correctly, It wasn't even past noon yet and I had already had my fill of interaction.

What to do, what to do. OK, so let's get everything straight; I am a pony, and there are no other known cases yet. How would I even go about solving this, I don't even know what I would look for. I have read some fan-fictions where this had happened, but there was an explanation to it when they woke up. They had somewhere to go, a big city or something. They had someone tell them what to do, there was someone obviously at fault. But I had none of this information, not even another person to help me.

So what do I do in a situation like this? That is the question. Well since I have nothing better to do, I will continue with my life like normal. Well I need some fresh air and I need something sweet, I grabbed my wallet in a magical grip. I checked to make sure I still had some money, content with the contents (wow, that sounded really funny) I headed towards the door to the house.

“I'm gonna go get something, be back in a bit.” I headed out the front door, before I closed it it sounded like they were about to stop me. They didn't try to pursue me though, which I was grateful for. It was before noon so the streets were completely barren, one car went by in the whole time and I could see the driver was to busy texting to pay me any attention. wow, that guy's a real piece of work. Hope he doesn't hit anyone. I thought as he passed me.

The Shell gas station isn't that far, but it's not exactly close either. I was fairly surprised when I got to it without incident. There were no cars parked outside, it was a pretty slow day for the gas station. I walked into the Shell and saw no other customers, there was only a guy behind the counter.

“good morning” he didn't even turn as he said it, he just kept on doing whatever it was he was doing.

“morning” I walked over to the snacks to see what I wanted, I picked out two bags of gummy worms and a bag of peach rings. I also walked over to the drinks and floated myself out a green tea. I walked over to the counter, I looked at everything else to see if there was anything else I wanted. I looked at the jerky and I cringed, my stomach churned at the thought of eating me. new body, new diet I reminded myself, that's gonna take some getting used to. I walked up to the counter to see the guy was still doing whatever it was he was doing.

“I would like to make a purchase” I placed my items onto the counter.

“certainly mam, I'll be right with you.” he started finishing up whatever it was he was doing, it seemed to be he was stocking up the cigarette's behind the counter.

“take your time.” I just sat there patiently.

“OK now, what can I do for y-” he looked around in confusion, he looked everywhere but down. “where'd you go?”

“this is all.” I spoke up from just below the counter. He noticed me then, his eyes went wide and he stumbled back. “jeez, I'm just trying to make a purchase.” I rolled my eyes at his antics. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“you-” he pointed at me, “you just talked.”

“um, yeah. Can I just buy these things? It's been a weird morning for both of us and I just want to get this stuff and get home.” I floated up a ten dollar bill, “I'll just buy these things and be out of your hair.”

he scrambled over to the phone and I could hear him yelling something about a talking animal and then I heard the address. I just checked myself out and left the receipt and a generous tip, but I wasn't fast enough cause by the time I was checked out there were cop cars and news vans all around me. I sighed as a police officer walked in, they had been waiting outside for a while.

“officer, I haven't stolen anything, you can check my receipt and the register.” I held my bag up in front of me. He was obviously startled by me talking.

“what are you?” he cautiously asked me, he put his gun away slowly. I was grateful; I mean there were still guns pointed at me, but one less is a good start.

“i am a pony, my name is, er... was Skylar. I am a pony named Starlet Mint now,” I hoped this was enough for him, but it obviously wasn't. The news crews started pouring in as he questioned me.

“what are you here for?” he asked, he must think I'm some alien here to invade.

“like I said earlier,i just came to acquire some items” I lifted up the bag in emphasis.

This time he took the bag, “sweets?” he questioned.

“i know they aren't good for you, but I was hungry,” I replied with a shrug.

He gave me a questioning look, “how did you get here?”

“I walked,” me being the smart guy I was, I probably shouldn't antagonize the police like that.

He gave me an annoyed look, “i meant how did you get here, on earth. You are an alien, are you not?” he glared at me.

I sighed, might as well give him a straight answer. “i don't really know, I mean, I didn't use to be a pony. I just sorta, woke up like this today. It's kinda new to me too,” I looked myself over, yeah I was positive this was new to me too.

He didn't buy the story, “you expect me to believe that you just woke up like this?” he gave me a raised eyebrow. He obviously wasn't impressed with my answer.

“um... yeah, I do. I mean innocent until proven guilty, right?” I just looked at him, he just looked at me.

“I'm gonna have to ask you to come with me.” he finally walked over to me, he looked down at me and motioned for me to follow.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline,” I stayed where I was, “you see, I promised my family that I'd be right back, and I intend to keep my promise, I would love to answer more questions, but I more than likely don't have the answers your looking for.”

he looked at me with a glare, “it wasn't a request.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, but I really must be going now. I mean I don't want to worry my family,” I walked towards the door. The camera people followed my every move, hey camera's. That's it, the news! That could get my message out! I turned towards the nearest camera, “hello there world! Nice to see you! Now as I'm sure you noticed, I am a pony. But I highly doubt I'm the only one. Now if you find yourself in a similar situation, I would like to hear from you. I have a Facebook that you can reach me on, it is Starlet Mint. We may be able to fix this if we work together. I really must be going now though.”

I was walking towards the door when a familiar voice sounded out, “stop right there. I cannot allow a potential threat to leave,” he pointed his gun at me. Looked closer, it appeared to be a stun gun.

“well, I don't think you can stop me. So ta ta,” with those words I picked up my bag and thought hard about home. With a flash I was gone, I appeared in my living room. I fell to the floor in a heap, long distance teleportation is really hard. I laid there for a solid ten minutes before I even attempted to move, and then I only sat up. I saw that the kids were all surrounding me, I just sat there with a cocky grin on my face. I felt to make sure the bag was still around my neck, it was.

“what did you do?” one of them finally asked, I couldn't tell who it was cause my head was still spinning.

“oh, you know. I just went to Shell, bought a few things; oh and then I escaped from the cops,” I smirked at how crazy it sounded. OK, in hindsight I probably shouldn't have done that, but at least I got a message out. Oh, and I got some snacks, can't forget the snacks.

Hurricane Dial

Of course I can only push my luck so long until it catches up with me, I turned my head and saw that standing in the archway was a very confused step-parent. It was our step-dad, his name is Guy. No joke, I'm not even just saying that, but his name is literally Guy. Crazy, right? Yeah, this probably won't end well. Of course, the world can always surprise me. That's one thing about the world, it tends to have an organized chaos.

“hey Guy, how's it going...” I trailed off at the sheer awkwardness of this whole thing. I just watched as he tried to process something.

“get away from that thing,” he motioned for all the kids to come over to him, of course they complied. They were all just wondering how this would play out.

“ouch, that hurt, hit me right in the heart you know. Come on Guy be reasonable, I mean we're all family here.” I feigned getting hit in the heart and chuckled at my antics. I probably shouldn't joke at this point, but I couldn't help myself. It's how I handle pressure sometimes, especially really awkward situations.

“Family? Who are you? How do you know my name? Why are you in my house? Why are you here? You're not welcome, here.” he said it with force in his voice, he walked back into his room and I thought he had left me alone and just ignored me. Of course I had no such luck as he returned with the sword he keeps hanging on the wall of his bedroom.

“whoa now, there's no need for that. Let's just sit down and have some nice saltines and tomatoes and watch the game,” I giggled at my reference and continued, “Come on Guy, don't ya know it's me! Skylar! Well, more or less, but I'm still me!”

he faltered at this, he lowered the sword so it wasn't so menacing. “why should I believe you? How do I know your not lying?” he kept the sword at ready, but it wasn't a danger.

“well you know, you could just trust me. Or I could tell you about something, but you'll probably tell me it happened a different way. Or I could remind you that the sun is eight light minutes from the earth,” I deadpanned the last part.

Let me explain this before it sounds like I put out some random fact and he just automatically believed me. Thing is, when I learned that the sun was eight light minutes from earth they asked what I learned in school that day. Of course I told them that and they didn't believe me, they honestly believed that the sun was light-years away and it could have blown up years ago and we wouldn't know about it. Eventually Guy looked it up and found I was right and admitted his mistake, I remember that day fondly.

Now as I previously said, he believed me now, he obviously remembered that conversation too and he put the sword down. He took a step over to me, and then he made a circle around me. He inspected me up and down and finally came to a conclusion. “you're a horse.”

“pony,” I corrected, he stood directly in front of me. When I was human he was taller than me, but now he was towering over me. I'll have to admit that it was at least a little intimidating. “i kind of just woke up like this.” you know, this gets really annoying after a while. I've said the same thing about five or six times now, and it's getting ridiculous. Fortunately he didn't seem to have any more questions and he just put his sword back and stayed in his room for the time being.

“so, what did'ja get?” Corbin spoke up.

I glared at him, “nun'ya” I turned my back to him. I was still pretty pissed at his earlier comment.

“well sorry you can't take a joke,” he emphasized his sorry as much as I wanted to punch him. I took a deep breath and ignored him, I pulled open the bag still hanging around my neck. I rummaged through the contents and pulled out one of the gummy worm bags, I threw it to him with my magic.

“you're lucky we're family” I muttered, my voice didn't sound as icy as I hoped. He was about to say something before I glared at him, that made him think twice about what he was about to say.

“thanks,” he opened the bag and popped one in his mouth, he walked off into the kitchen still chewing on the gummy.

I opened my own bag of gummy worms and tossed each of the other kids three or four gummy worms, “go nuts,” I said as I walked back over to my bedroom. I shut the door behind me, I didn't need to turn on the light because my brother left it on. I silently cursed him about his laziness and decided I was in no mood to call him out on it. I pulled out my tablet, this was going to be tough but not impossible.

I held down the power button and waited for it to start up, after it flicked on I put in my lock code. The tough part about it was how to position my hooves, I was wishing more and more that I had spent the money on a stylus. I decided to float a pencil over, it worked surprisingly well. I opened up Facebook and logged into my new account, I could be Skylar when this whole thing blew over. There were a bunch of messages from some excited people, apparently the news story had gotten out. I looked through each one in turn, there was one hat message for every two good messages. Well, good being a subjective term.

Some of the messages were reasonable, Wow, your a pony? That is so cool! What's it like? is what some of the reasonable ones were. There were some less than reasonable ones, I love you, will you have half pony half human baby's with me? were some of the more tame unreasonable ones. I won't even go into the completely unreasonable ones. YOU PONY ARE ALL SCUM, YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE US OVER. WE WILL STOP YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! read some of the hate mail, seriously those guys were crazy. There was not one message from another pony though, I finally got off of Facebook and decided to find some fan-fictions that might have some answers on what to do next. I looked through and I found nothing of use. I spent until 2:00 just looking through until I finally decided I was getting nowhere. The ones I could find all said the same thing, meet up with other ponies.

Yeah, whoop-Dee-frickin-do. I looked over to my clock, I had wasted most of the day thinking and still I wasn't any closer to finding anything out. I groaned in annoyance, I can't believe that I couldn't get anything out of this. Not one other person had contacted me as a pony. I can't believe that out of the whole world I was the only one this happened to. Well, time to check Facebook again. I have to assure myself that I'm all alone in the world. After some time on Facebook, I got the exact same results as all the other times.

I finally just went to watching YouTube videos, sure enough at the top of my feed was a news cast. I saw that there was a picture of me for the video, this must be that footage of me I thought to myself. I clicked on the video and it loaded up, I might as well see how the country reacts to me. The video finished loading and on the screen was some news station; I would tell you which one, but I never watched news so I didn't know. Straight from the start they were talking about me, or more about what happened in an Arizona gas station.

“well, this is a new one. In an Arizona gas station a talking pony attempts to buy some goods. Well this is some real news, a talking pony. Wait, this is serious? There is footage? Oh, well then pull it up, by all means.” the news cast looked shocked at the revelation but managed to keep that look that people in the reporting business have, that face that no matter what they keep their calm resolve.

The video of my speech popped up, after the end when I teleported away it switched over to a reporter. “yes we are all in shock at what just happened, there was in fact a talking pony at the gas station. As I'm sure you noticed she claimed to have been human once, most peculiar in deed. She did not seem a threat and even has a Facebook account she is encouraging others in her situation to contact her. The local police is looking into this and I have been informed even the CIA is looking into it as well. If you have any knowledge we urge you to call the local authorities and tell them what you know.”

... oh s\*\*\* I looked at the number at the bottom of the screen. Great, just great. Now I have the CIA on my tail, I am so glad that I didn't use my debit card back there. I got up from my bed and paced around the room, well as long as they don't have my information then I should be fine. I calmed down after a few deep breaths, it was going to be OK. Besides what would happen if the CIA got me? Just ask a few questions I'm sure, it's not like they were going to dissect me or anything... right?

I was freaking out again, I started to pace faster. I stayed like that for a while before finally calming down. If they had any information they could use they would have found me already right? Yeah, why would they wait three or so hours to find me–. I didn't get to finish thinking that though as I heard a doorbell. I walked into the hall as my brother got it, I stayed at a distance as Corbin opened the door.

“can I help you?” Corbin asked.

“Yes I need to see Skylar” my heart sank as I heard my name. This was it, I had been caught.

Bronies Are Weird

I froze in place, I thought for a second on if I should run or not. They obviously have my information so it would be pointless. I sighed as I walked forward in defeat, “I'm here” I sulked in front of the door. I looked up to see a young man, he wasn't wearing anything especially fancy. He must be in disguise, “how did you find me?” I asked in sorrow.

He held my wallet up to his face. He looked back at me and let out a little giggle, “i found this, so that's you huh? Well, here you go.” he tossed the wallet to me and I caught it with m magic. He stood there a second and shrugged, he started to turn around.

I stopped him, “wait that's it?” I questioned incredulously.

“yeah, pretty much. Why were you expecting more?” he turned back to the door.

“you're not CIA?” I queried.

“nope” he just smiled at me.

“and your not gonna call the cops and tell them where I am?” I gave him a confused look. I was honestly confused at his reaction.

“why would I do that?” he was walking back now.

“I don't know, it just seems like something you would do.” I just stared at the man before me, I had to have a really stupid look on my face because he laughed.

“it's none of my business what you are, or used to be. I mean, I don't want anyone to be harmed because I was stupid enough to trust the system.” he had settled down to a small chuckle, “anyways, I might as well be going, it would seem you don't want to be found, so I'll just mosey on out.” he almost turned around to leave.

“wait! I haven't thanked you properly, could I interest you in a cup of tea?” I stopped him yet again, but this time I had something to offer.

“well, I guess it couldn't hurt.” he let out a chuckle to himself as he followed me inside. He looked around the house, “nice place” he was looking into a case that had a bunch of fragile glass figures.

“thanks, though it's not necessarily mine,” I got the kettle on the stove and walked over to look at the case with him. “this is mine, I made it,” I floated up a small cat figure, pulling it out of the case. I blew into a hole in its mouth and the air came out the back along with a whistling noise, “it's a whistle” I exclaimed.

“nice, you must be very good with your hands,” he held the cat in his hands, he looked it over. He put it back in it's place, he turned towards the piano. “do you play?” he looked at the piano in intrigue.

“i wish, I haven't been bothered to learn, my brother used to play.” I walked over to the piano and looked at the keys. In my head I thought of a tune I had always liked to learn, but I had never actually learned it. I remembered seeing some Synthesia videos about it and hummed happily as the tune came to my head. I had my eyes closed for some reason and when I opened them I saw that the man was just standing there smirking at me.

“you don't play huh?” he gave me an impressed look as I realized I could still hear the tune. I gasped and the tune stopped, I looked over to the piano.

“was I..?” I trailed off in amazement.

“yeah, you were. Nice song by the way.” he looked over at the piano, then he returned his gaze to me. “so, how long have you been that way?”

I sighed, “since this morning, it's kind of unnerving since no one else seems to be in the same predicament. I'm not sure what I should do,” I just looked at my hooves.

I guess I sounded really sad cause he knelt down to hug me, “hey, it's OK. I'm sure you'll figure this all out,” he released me.

I looked up at him, “thanks, I hope so,” the kettle started to whistle, “oh, the tea is done.” I walked back into the kitchen and pulled down the tea packets. “which one do you want?” I asked him, he inspected his choices carefully.

“I’ll have some hot chocolate if you don't mind,” he reached for one of the cartons behind me.

“oh, not at all, by all means.” I floated the kettle over a mug and filled it with the boiling water. I placed the packet in and handed him the mug. He graciously accepted it and we sat at the kitchen table.

“so, are you a Brony?” he asked in such a casual tone.

I froze up at this, what type of question is that? I looked at him curiously, “yeah, why do you ask?”

“oh, just seemed to be right. I mean, a non-Brony turning into a pony? That just seems a little funny, but if you are a Brony, it would explain the OC.” he took a sip of his hot chocolate.

“how did you know it was an OC?” I asked a little more than surprised by his thinking.

“cause I'm a Brony, and I know a pony when I see one. But I don't exactly know any ponies with mane-styles like that.” he continued on in his casual demeanor. I guess that made sense, I just dropped the topic.

After a while of drinking he finally spoke up, “thank you for your kindness, but I'm afraid I must be going. I do hope we meet again, actually– ” he pulled a notepad out of his pocket and a pencil out of another, “here's my number, if you ever need anything at all don't be afraid to ask,” he handed me a piece of paper with his number.

“thanks, I'll keep that in mind.” I waved my hoof to him as he walked away from the door. He turned back and flashed a smile and a wave back before he started up his car. I watched him drive away and even a little after that, I walked back into the house and poured myself another cup of tea. he was really nice, if a little weird. I'll have to make note of that, meet Bronies. They are weird, but they're nice.

the next hour was spent by me mostly just doing nothing as dinner was prepared, I wouldn't have been much help anyway. I couldn't stand the smell of the raw meat in there, it made me want to throw up pin-needles. When Dinner was made I walked out of my room, the smell of cooked meat was at least bearable, but I couldn't eat it still. Mom had gotten home and had gotten over the fact that I was a pony by now. Dinner went by without a hitch, the salad I had was yummy. It didn't even need any salad dressing or anything, looks like new taste-buds can really change a lot.

After dinner I helped with the dishes and just lazed around for a hour or so. When 8:00 rolled around I was feeling incredibly tired, so I hit the hay a bit earlier than usual. I got ready for bed, it's not all that hard when you don't wear clothes. As I lay in bed I thought on what to do next, I didn't have long to think before sleep fell upon me.

Made Up Your Mind

My eyes flicked open, I could feel energy coursing through my veins. I felt much more energized this morning than in most mornings, but of course I was still a pony. I was going to sigh, but I figured that I was overusing it; so I groaned in frustration. I stumbled from the bed, not because I forgot how to walk, but because I was entangled in my sheets. I freed myself from the blankets and looked at the clock, it read 8:00.

wow, almost a whole twelve hours, no wonder I feel so rested, I thought as I walked over to our door. I exited the room and entered the bathroom. After having dealt with my morning needs I wandered into the kitchen. When I walked in I saw who was up, it was my mom Thing 1, and my little brother. I could hear Thing 2 in the bathroom across the hall, and I assumed that Guy was still asleep.

I was about to float down a bowl when I noticed that my mom had decided to make breakfast that morning. I sat down at the table to wait for the breakfast. No one said a word, we were to hungry for talking. When mom came over she broke the silence though, “I'm not sure if you want this, it's sausage.”

“no, I don't plan on having any sausage. But I would like some eggs and hash-browns please,” I replied, my hunger decreased a little at the sight of the sausage.

“can you have eggs?” she looked at me with a confused look.

“yeah, eggs are fine,” I assured her, my appetite picked back up at seeing the eggs and hash-browns.

“OK, they'll be done in a sec,” she turned back to the eggs and I decided to get out the bread.

I pop two slices of bread into the toaster, “anyone else want some?” I queried. Everyone just shook their heads, so I put the toast back and waited for my toast to pop up. My mom started to serve me my eggs as the toast popped up, I floated my toast over and pulled out the butter. I'll tell you, buttering toast gets really tricky, but I was proficient with my magic by now; so it wasn't that hard. “thanks for breakfast, looks delicious,” I lifted my fork up.

“your welcome,” she sat down with her own breakfast next to me. After a while she tried to start up a conversation, “so... what's it like being a horse?” she looked over to me with interest.

“pony,” I corrected, “and its different, I can tell you that.” I knew where this was going and stopped it before she could get the next words out, “don't you even say a word about that...” I warned.

She backed off, she knew that I knew what she was about to say. “sorry, I won't mention it.” surprisingly she kept her word. “so who was that guy yesterday?” of course she goes to a topic that's just as bad.

“no one. He had my wallet and he came to give it to me, that's that.” I replied bitterly. I didn't like the idea of any type of romantic relationship, especially when my family had some insinuations.

“so you invited him in and gave him tea?” she tried to keep a cool face, but I could see her holding back the laughter at my predicament.

“I-I... I was just trying to be polite!” my cheeks burned as I felt all the blood rush to them. I stormed out of the room, I made sure to pt my dishes in the sink carefully as I went to my room to stew. As soon as I left the room I could hear my mom burst out in laughter, I'd let her soak it all in.

I turned to my tablet and opened up chrome to see if anymore news popped up. I expected nothing, but what I saw was not nothing, wait what? I thought as I pulled open the top article. It was labeled as fausticorn revealed it was a link to a video of a conference of some sort. It looked like an article from a fan-fiction about this sort of thing, though the contents seemed very different.

“Lauren Faust, creator of hit series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has been found to have been turned into the show's matriarch. An Alicorn Princess by the name of Celestia, she was taken into questioning earlier by the CIA and has been confirmed as the real Lauren Faust. Another Alicorn Princess from the show has been taken into similar questioning, she claims to be Tara Strong. She urges anyone with information to contact her, and she has called for the same respect to these people turned ponies that you would give anyone else. She held a press conference earlier with some important names, these names included the president himself. These are not the first confirmed sightings of any ponies however, there seems to have been an incident yesterday in a small city in Arizona. There is assumed to be more cases later if not right now, if you find yourself in this situation you are urged to contact so a correct count on the number of cases per day can be found.”

I stared in awe at the article for a while more before letting out a squeal of delight. I clamped my right hoof over my mouth, I've never done that before. I continued to look for more news aside from this article, it didn't seem any more cases had come up yet. There was article that piqued my interest, I was a little scared if it was what I thought it was. I opened the article and sure enough, there it was. “P.eople A.gainst P.onies A.ssociation” or PAPA for short, it was the name I had been expecting. Someone was really bad at coming up with names, that was the same name that some of the fan-fictions I read had given the anti-pony hate groups.

As I read the article I didn't feel much better about their group, it seemed that they were protesting ponies. Saying I was a little scared was an understatement, I saw how some of these guys acted in those stories. I could only hope that they weren't so crazy in real life. I flipped out of the article before I got to out of sorts. I decided that checking Facebook was a sound idea, I found that I had gained a lot of popularity over night. Skimming through all the messages there was really only one that interested me, it was from Faust herself.

“hello, I am aware that you are in the same condition as I am, as you may have heard I have turned into Princess Celestia. It seemed rather peculiar to me that you appeared a whole day before all this happened. I was wondering if you had any answers at all to why this might have happened?” I read the message again before composing an answer.

“dear Princess Celestia,–” I paused to laugh at this, “–I'm afraid I have not learned anything about our current situation. I wish I had something to tell you, but I think what we need is the element bearers. I have noticed that when I became this unicorn I still had magic, so it serves to reason that the element bearers will have their magic too. And if their magic came through, then they might have carried the elements through too. The elements are just the magic of their friendship in a physical form, the elements would be the strongest form of magic we have, and if I had to guess I'd say that this was caused by magic. I propose that we try to see if we can find and get the element bearers in one place. We should gather them up there with you in new york. You are still an important figure, try to stay safe, that's why were coming to you. The group known as PAPA could be potentially dangerous, I think I have a good idea on how they act. I just hope I'm wrong. I will see you in New York.” I finished up my message and sent it.

Wait, did I just? Did I just figure out my problem? I spent all of two minutes today thinking about the problem and it comes right to me. I spent all of yesterday thinking on the exact same predicament and I got nothing. I hate you sometimes brain. Well now I have to get up to New York, how in the hay am I supposed to do that? OK, so I am in the body of my OC, and I need to get up to new york to help Princess Celestia/Lauren Faust find the six ponies that could potentially be our ticket out of this whole mess. Oh, and on top of that I have to avoid a potentially dangerous pony hate group trying to kill us all; this is sounding a lot like some of those fan-fictions I read, what next? Is Discord gonna be the one behind it all?

I grumbled at how uncreative life is, this whole mess is just unbelievably cliché. Well I guess I have to get some money for a cross country road trip to get all the way to the Big Apple, and I need to pack my things. I walked out into the kitchen and grabbed a whole bunch of food and brought it back into my room. I put it all inside a suitcase I had, next up is my stuff. I turned back to my dresser and floated all the things I usually take with me into my backpack. This of course included my tablet, my phone, my wallet, a book, my notebook, my drawing book, my thumb-drive, all my chargers for that stuff, and my teddy bear.

now before you get all judgmental about my teddy bear, I'll have you know that he has been with me through thick and thin. He is a great teddy bear and I'd be heartbroken to leave on a long trip without him, so I am taking him with me. I looked at all my other stuff, I floated on one of my necklaces, a nice one that had a cool design. It wasn't much but I liked it, I also grabbed one of my jackets. I almost never left the house without my jacket, so I grabbed my gray one and put it on. It was a nice light gray that matched my silver coat, it had a small feather on the front and feather bursting into a multitude of birds on the back.

I also grabbed my scarf, because I thought it looked cool and it might get cold sometime; but mostly because it looked good, and I am not one to dismiss fashion. I looked around and decided I was content with my decision, I turned to my bag. I tried to put it on, but it sat weirdly and dug into my back. I took it back off and stared at it in mild annoyance, but then I remembered the other day when I changed the headphones.

I thought on the bags and I felt the familiar tingle of power surging through my horn, I focused on what a saddlebag was shaped like. I felt the power flicker out and thought for a second that it hadn't worked. Opening my eyes I was greeted with a filled saddlebag, I made sure to check that all my stuff was still there. I looked over my stuff in glee as I turned to look at the suitcase, it had been changed to a small pouch. I did a double take at the bag and looked at it angrily, I didn't even know where the food had gone.

I eventually went to see if the food had been shrunk to fit it, I opened the pouch to pull some of it out. As I pulled the food from the bag I noticed it was full sized, all of my food was there. I looked in amazement at the size of the pile of food next to me in comparison to the size of the pouch. I'm not even going to question it I decided as I shoved all the food back into the pouch and put the pouch into the saddlebags. I looked around in satisfaction as I went to go confront my parents about going to New York.

Leaving

I walked into the living room to find both my parents sitting on the couch and watching TV. I walked up to the couch and sat down, after a while I decided to speak up. “I'm leaving,” this earned a couple looks. There was some surprise and then some sadness, but they settled on surprise.

“you're leaving?” mom finally asked the one question they were thinking.

“yeah, I gotta go,”i looked away from the TV over to my mom.

“Why? Where are you going? How are you going to get there? We can't take you.” she said with finality, she acted like this might deter me.

“I have to go to New York to get this whole mess sorted out, I will find a way to get there. I know you guys are busy.” I watched her confidence deflate a little.

“do you have to go?” she pleaded

“unfortunately, yes. I promise I'll keep in touch though.” I hated to see her sad.

“well I always thought we'd get you out when you were eighteen,” she let out a small laugh.

“yeah, me too,”i walked over to her to comfort her.

“well, then you'll need money,” she moved over to her purse and looked into it. “here,” she held out my debit card, “you'll need this, I'll transfer over a couple hundred.”

“couple hundred? But, isn't that a bit much?” I looked more than a little shocked to be trusted with this much money. In hindsight I should have some money saved up anyway, but I'm bad at saving.

“no, New York is pretty far. And I'm pretty sure you're not gonna take an airplane. I mean, you don't have a way of identification,” I took the debit card and put it in my wallet.

“yeah, I guess your right. I need to find someone that can help me get there...” I sat there for a good ten minutes just thinking over who I could ask. I was fairly certain none of my friends could or wanted to drive the new me all the way across the country to New York just for my own reasons. I was about to give up when I remembered the guy from yesterday, if you ever need anything at all, don't be afraid to ask. Maybe I'd take him up on his offer, or I'd at least ask him. I pulled up my phone and pulled out the same slip of paper from earlier, I input his phone number and the phone dialed.

“hello?” I smiled as I heard the familiar voice.

“hey, remember me? Yeah, well I'm in a bit of a pickle and I was wondering if you could help me. How would you feel about going to New York?” I tried to act as casual as I could, but the truth is that I was pretty excited about going on a road-trip.

“you're serious? Why do you need to get to New York?” he asked after a while.

“I need to figure this thing out with Faust and some of the others.” I am really trying hard not to sound too excited.

He waited for a while, he seemed to be weighing his options. “OK, let me get packed. I need to get my van filled and stuff, when are we leaving?” he actually agreed, I couldn't hold in my excitement.

“oh, thank you so much! I plan on departing as soon as you're ready, I'm all set to go!” I was only a little ashamed that I couldn't contain my excitement.

“OK, I'll be over as soon as I'm ready,” I could hear him chuckling at my outburst.

“see ya soon!” I hung up the phone, I was wearing a really goofy type of grin. I'm going to New York! I thought to myself in glee. Well now I just wait for him, right? That's easier said than done, especially when you're really excited. “now to check my Facebook, let's see if anyone else has contacted me,” I floated my computer over to me. a whole ton of nothing still, oh! Whats this? I looked at one of the messages, the profile pic had a pony on it. This message looked promising, I opened it and I was delighted at what I saw.

“Hello! I have found myself in a similar situation to the one you are in yourself. I seem to have turned into my OC too! I would love to meet up, and possibly work with you! It would be super great!” I read the message over and decided that it would be a splendid idea to go meet her. maybe she can help us get to New York or even just help us figure this out, I got ready to type up a reply.

“Hello to you too! I would love to meet up, I will try to incorporate where you are into my route. Thing is I will need to know where you are in order to get to you! If you could supply this information I will make that my first stop!” I sent out the message. I looked around and found very little else of interest, but there was one other message that intrigued me. I had no way of knowing if it was a pony or not, but it seemed that it was by someone actually concerned about the crisis.

“hello there! I am so sorry to interrupt any of the things you could possibly be doing, but I was just wondering if you had any information at all on the situation with the ponies? That would be super-rific!” I thought about this for a second. at least this person cares about the problem and isn't just fascinated over me being a pony I figured it would do no harm to tell them about the solution I'd worked out.

“hello Anthony, I have no real information on this crisis, but I am led to believe that the solution may lie in getting the elements of harmony together in one spot. Namely New York, I am headed there myself to help in any way possible.” I sent him the message, there were no other people that seemed credible as actually concerned.

I was about to log off when I got an answer back from the other pony, “I am currently in Phoenix AZ. I await your arrival, I can meet you at Harmony Park in Gilbert when you get up here.” I looked the message over and decided that was an acceptable spot to meet up. I was about to reply, but I felt it was unnecessary at the moment. I heard the ding of a notification from the other person I had replied to.

“well, it just so happens that I am the element of laughter. I guess that means I have to head up to New York huh? Mind if I tag along with you? I am in Loveland, Colorado. I live on Ferguson Ct. I'll wait for you if I can hitch a ride. Tell me when you get near so I know when to be home.” I re-read the message, this is great! I can pick up one of the elements, that gets us one element closer to getting them all to New York.

“yes, that's great, I expect it should take us two or three days to get up there. We will have another pony with us. I look forward to meeting you!” I sent the message and shut-down the computer, all I have to do know is wait for Mr.... you know, I don't actually know his name. I'll have to ask him when he gets here. Waiting is hard when you're really excited about going. I felt like someone gave me ten energy drinks mixed with a pound of sugar and told me to sit still. Like no way that was happening, so I got up and checked on all my stuff.

Whenever I have nothing to do and I'm going somewhere, I tend to wander around and just make sure everything is set to go. I just look into all my drawers and rummage around, I spent a good hour doing this. When it rolled around to an hour and a half I heard wheels pulling up into our driveway. My ride was here at last, I picked up my saddlebags and headed over to the living room. It seemed everyone else heard the van too because they all went over to the door, I looked out it to see my good friend.

I turned over to my parents, “well, it seems my ride is here. I'm sorry, but I have to go. I'll be sure to keep in touch, I'll be back after this whole thing blows over.” with that I gave each of my family a hug before turning towards the door. “I'm ready,” I walked out the door towards the man who would drive me to New York; sure I was a little sad to go, but you only get this type of chance once in a lifetime. Besides, I'd be back in no time at all.

As we got into the car a thought occurred to me, “hey, what's your name?” he looked over to me with a smile.

“Ron, my name is Ron.” he held out a fist and I bumped it.

“well then Ron, next stop is Phoenix Arizona; Avante!” this adventure was shaping to be brilliant!

Teach Me Your Secrets

We spent most of the next hour in silence as we drove on, we didn't make any stops at all, and I was getting bored of my book. Any book can do that to you in an hour, unless if it's a really good book. Or I guess if your twilight sparkle, but maybe even twilight gets bored of some books? Maybe she has something about her that makes her never tire of any book, no matter the content, that would be pretty cool. Well as good as my book was it was getting boring, and I cannot fully retain knowledge when I'm not completely interested in the topic. And I'm not twilight sparkle either, so I decide to give the book a rest.

I turn to my traveling companion to see him lamely staring at the road, he was paying attention and it was killing him. “You’re not used to long drives, are you?” I asked, he shook his head.

“No I am, I always found them quite boring to be honest. This one is no exception, but it's a good cause to go on a long trip. So I'll be fine, I just need something to entertain me without taking my eyes off the road.” he looked over and saw that I had put away my book. “Guess even a book as interesting as that gets boring?” I could hear the sarcasm in his voice, he just laughed.

“Yeah,” I sighed, and then I looked up to him. Maybe we should get better acquainted, “so Ron, tell me about yourself,” I sat back and waited for him to answer.

“Well aren't you the forward one, why are you waiting till just now to ask? Did you not care before? Not exactly a great idea to go on a trip across the country with someone you barely know!” he laughed, I just thought this over.

“Well I waited till now, because I wasn't bored before. I figure we should leave the interesting stuff for when were bored as hell. And to be frank, I didn't want to intrude too much on your privacy, but I feel we trust each other enough to share; don't you think?” I saw him give me a wary look.

“Yeah, I guess I can trust you...” he laughed as soon as he let up with his act. I laughed with him for a while, as we both came to a top he turned back to me. “So, ladies first,” he looked at me smugly for a second before turning back to the road. I grimaced and thought for a while before finding what I wanted to retaliate with.

“nuh-uh, I asked first,” I never said my retaliation would be good, but he accepted it.

“OK then, what do you want to know?” he glanced over to me, I thought for a while. I didn't actually know what I wanted to know, that seemed to always be my problem.

“I don't know, what do you want to tell me?” I decided I'd just let him tell me what he thought I might need to or want to know.

“Hmm... OK, well I'm a 20 year old computer repair guy living alone. I haven't gone to college and decided to start up my own business on fixing computers. It's not doing great, but it's enough to get by.” he paused and waited to see if I had any comments or questions, and I did.

“Computer repair, must be pretty handy. I know what it takes to start your own business, must've been rough.” I commented.

He looked at me incredulously, “you know what it takes to start your own business? What, do you run your own business already?” he looked over to see me grinning.

“Oh, nothing like that I don't think I could handle starting my own business. I can hardly handle turning in all the assignments in that class as it is!” I laughed at my bad work ethic.

“Class? You’re taking a class on starting your own business? Do you plan on starting one? Did you ever plan on starting one?” he was more than a little confused at my outburst so I slowed down and explained it to him.

“I am taking a class; it is called starting your own business. I never have or will have any intention on starting my own business; I took the class because mom made me change my classes to include Driver's Ed. That took off art which was a whole credit, and replaced it with Driver's Ed which is a half credit. I needed another half credit to fill the gap in my schedule, the only other stuff there was music stuff. I can't play an instrument, well I couldn't do it before, but I guess now I can. And I couldn't sing, I'm not sure if I can now, but that isn't the point. Point is that I didn't want to take anything else so I decided to take starting your own business.” when I explain things I don't like to give vague ideas and let people assume things, it never ends how I want it. So I try to explain all of my reasons in depth and very clearly.

He thought this over and nodded his head, “so you’re very sensitive?” I just looked at him in confusion. He wasn't necessarily wrong, but I was more interested on what made him think that. “You explained more than you needed to, and I'm pretty sure there were other classes, but you exaggerated the fact that you weren't good at the things involving music.” I continued to stare as I processed what he had said. He had analyzed my words; this guy was smarter than he was letting on. “Working with computers gives you attention to detail,” he added quickly before I could ask how he came to his conclusion.

“Well, yeah. I am pretty sensitive, but I'm really not that good at those things. And i don't like people misinterpreting my words so I try to give a full explanation.” I explained, he just nodded his head.

“So then, how about you sing me a song then?” he grinned widely at me.

I sat shocked for a few minutes, “but, didn't I just tell you I'm no good at singing?” I attempted to back out of it sheepishly.

“Yeah, but I don't believe you. So let's hear this singing,” he sat there; I tried to think of a way out of it.

“I-I-I um... well I don't want to sing over the radio–” he turned the volume down to zero and looked at me, “I-I, my throat is pretty dry s–” he handed me a bottle of water and looked at me expectantly. “Is there any way I can get out of this?” he shook his head. I sighed in defeat; my mind went blank as I thought on what I should sing. I sat there for several minutes, I couldn't think of a single thing.

He must've thought I was stalling because he cleared his throat and looked at me, I looked back blankly. “Can I, can I do it later when I'm more comfortable with it?” he looked really disappointed and let out a groan.

“Fine...” he stopped nagging me on it and I sighed in relief, “but it will happen, and you will sing. I will get it out of you before this whole ordeal is over!” he turned back to the road and I let out another sigh. This time it was a sigh of exasperation, looks like there was no getting out of it. “So, let's hear about you,” I looked at him in confusion and remembered our original conversation. Right, it's my turn “well, I'm a high school student with a sort of split personality, which I'm surprised hasn't come out by now...” he looked a little surprised at this.

“You? Split personality? Seriously? How many?” he was obviously surprised.

“I dunno, I don't even know if it's legitimate split personality. I just know I act different ways online and offline. Offline I tend to be more ignorant, arrogant, and overall less sociable; online I tend to be kind, friendly, timid, helpful, and really happy! Like I'm being now...” I was a little put off by this. It wasn't bad that the less friendly me hadn't come out, but if he wasn't here I was worried where he was. Sure he wasn't sociable and even I disliked him, but he was me. He was a part of who I am, and I was only afraid because I don't know what will happen without him.

“Well I haven't seen you acting un-sociable or un-friendly, so I don't know about this other you. But I like this you, this you is nice.” I smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, I'm not sure where he's at, but he doesn't seem to be here. To be honest, I do feel like a weight has been lifted. Maybe his leaving was for the best, but maybe he isn't gone. I guess we'll see,” I turned to the window and looked at the reflection I could barely see in the glass.

“Well, anything else I should know that I don't already?” he was looking straight ahead at the road; he didn't bother to see if I heard this time.

“Well... I did draw, and I wrote, I was actually working on a story... but I didn't get to finish it yet. I had the ending all planned out. It was going to end in a cliffhanger; it was going to lead into a sequel. I just hadn't figured out what the sequel was going to–” I paused, A sequel. A sequel. I was planning for a sequel. Could this? No, that's ridiculous. Well I can read some minds, that's not very logical either. I shouldn't discount my theory just yet though... I snapped back to reality as I noticed that Ron was giving me a strange look. I tried to play it off with a smile, but he saw through my guise.

“What were you thinking about?” he cuts straight to the point doesn't he?

“Oh, well I hadn't finished m story, and I was thinking about how this is going to affect my view. They are probably going to think I was being lazy and not working on it.” I acted smooth, he nodded and turned back to the road.

“So what's this story of yours called?” I thought for a second, a little self-advertisement wouldn't hurt.

“Possibilities of a dreary day,” I answered, “It's a My Little Pony fan-fiction,” I added a little sheepishly.

He didn't seem all that concerned about it, “is that so...” he paused, “what's it about?” he was actually interested in my story.

“Oh it's nothing really, it's a story of my OC” I paused to gesture to myself, “and how she helps each of the mane six individually,” I tried not to explain too much about her powers.

“Is it posted anywhere?” he finally asked.

I nodded, “yeah, on FimFiction, but it's still far from finished. And it's no-where near great, some people really like it though. I can't say it's great, but it could use some work, maybe an editor or proof-reader. But I'm not too concerned about it since it's only my first. This little incident has put me behind schedule though...” he seemed content with my answer.

“I'll have to check it out sometime,” we sat silently for a while. It was getting to be around noon and we were at the edges of phoenix, “almost there, shouldn't be long till we get to the park.” I nodded. We were close to our meeting point; we could get some lunch beforehand at a spot with Wi-Fi. This detour would probably give me a chance to contact our friend and meet them at the park; I just hope that phoenix doesn't prove a problem.

Be Assertive

We drove into Phoenix, I looked around. It has been a while since I've been here, last time I spent any amount of time here was summer. But that was only really stopping for gas or eating at a restaurant and then driving on, I haven't really gotten to walk around or just hang out in phoenix. I could go for a good walk anyways, maybe we'll get some time to just stretch our legs at the park. We drove along the highway and I looked out the windows, I rolled it down and could feel the rush of wind in my mane. Feeling the wind like that gave me a comfortable chill down my spine, I sucked in the fresh air from outside of our confined space.

“I'm guessing you don't do well on long trips?” he laughed at my display of affection for the outside world.

“no I handle long trips quite well, I just like the feel of the wind in my mane. The fresh air that isn't tainted by your smell is a nice touch too,” I turned to him with a grin and he relented.

“okay, I get it. Don't mock your odd habits, you don't have to be so harsh,” we both laughed at his mock surrender as he pulled his hands from the wheel for a second.

“jeez, your gonna get us killed. Keep your hands on the wheel,” I snickered as I turned to the window.

“so, where do you suggest we dine?” he was looking at the exit signs to make sure we didn't miss ours.

“well I guess that depends on what's in Gilbert. But I have to say that fast-food is a no. I need sustenance, not junk,” he nodded his head in agreement.

“you trying to watch your weight?” he chuckled at my word choice.

I glared at him, “do you think I need to?” I didn't ease on my glare.

“whoa, calm down. It was a joke, easy. No, I don't think you need to, lighten up,” I could hear the falter in his voice, I had obviously gotten to him.

I turned back to looking out of the window, “wise answer, and no. I am not watching my weight, I'm just not a fan of fast-food on road-trips. It just makes you feel lazy and fat and you can't work it out of your system. That and the fact that almost every fast-food place puts meat or similar in everything. I'm a vegetarian now, so that doesn't sit well with me. If you want to waste away on greasy junk, by all means go ahead. But I will find alternative forms of nourishment if you choose to do so.” I could hear him sigh.

“Your too serious about this stuff, you know I didn't mean to offend you. We'll pick somewhere that's not fast-food, so will you please not be such a mood-killer?” I turned to look at him.

“yeah sure, but only cause your my ride,” I laughed and he smiled. “sorry, I think it's just nerve's that are getting to me,” my stomach growled. “or I could just be hungry, my mom always talks about how she gets aggravated easier when she's hungry. Maybe I just take after her,” we both laughed together. We were so busy laughing we almost missed our exit, Ron pulled the car into the exit and off of the highway onto south Val Vista drive. We were getting closer and closer to our destination. It wasn't much longer till we got a decent ways up south Val Vista and we found some places to eat.

We pulled into a lot that had signs reading for numerous places to eat. One place in particular caught my eye, I pointed it out to Ron and he smiled. It was a Chinese restaurant called taste of china, I figured they would probably have some vegetarian meals. We pulled into the lot, it wasn't empty, but it was pretty barren. It was only about half filled, I kind of expected more cars for a parking lot this big. We pulled into a parking space easily though, if the lot was filled then we wouldn't be able to do that as easy, so I guess not being famous has it's advantages.

We got out of the car and looked around, I didn't see anyone. Of course this is just the lot, so they could all be inside. I bet inside is nice and warm, it is quite cold out here. It's not too cold, because only my ears are getting cold. It's only about halfway through November, but it's starting to get darker earlier and the temperature is dropping, it's only going to get worst. Good thing I have a thick coat, and I brought my scarf just in case, I'm also wearing my jacket. But as I said before, only my ears are cold, and that's only because they are less cold resistant than the rest of my body.

We walked into the Chinese restaurant and were greeted with many shocked stares, the place was surprisingly busy in such a seemingly unpopular place. We waited calmly to be seated, when one of the waitresses came out to find the whole shop silent she looked around. The first time she swept the room she didn't see me and just gazed at all the customers, the second sweep she traced the stares and saw me. She too was shocked first, then she was a little excited. She composed herself before coming up to us and welcoming us.

“welcome to Taste of China!” she cheerily greeted us, her voice was a little excited. She took a moment to calm her voice and continued, “this way please,” she directed us to a booth. She stood aside and showed us our table, we sat down. I noticed she was looking at me out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look at her she averted her gaze. “what would you like to drink?” she asked pulling out a notepad to take our requests. I looked at the menu and ordered tea, orange spice tea. Ron ordered a coke, the waitress nodded and left hastily. I had a creeping feeling the cooks and managers were about to learn of my presence.

I looked over the menu, there were some nice sounding meat dishes, but I knew I couldn't stomach them. I didn't think that becoming vegetarian made you hate the smell, but I think that's just a side effect from the one time it happened to me before. I didn't become a pony but I couldn't stand meat, it was weird. One day I just woke up and tried to avoid meat, the thought of eating it made my stomach turn. I even didn't finish my bratwurst for dinner, it was only one, and I always finish my food; always. I got over it after a day or two, but apparently the effects lingered in my mind. As I looked over the menu I settled on a dish called Chippies Family Style Tofu, it was bean curd lightly deep-fried with assorted vegetables sauteed with a brown sauce.

The waiter came back, all of the eyes on the restaurant were dead set on us, I tried to ignore them as much as I could. “are you ready to order?” I looked over to Ron and he nodded.

“yes, I will have the Chippies Family Style Tofu,” I floated her the menu and she grabbed it eagerly. I rolled my eyes at how much she showed her affection towards the menu I used, it was just a menu after all.

“I'll have the Home Made Spicy Chicken Noodle and the Shrimp & Lobster Sauce,” he handed her the menu and she grabbed it as enthusiastically as she grabbed mine. Maybe she isn't showing affection towards my menu, not any more than she does to all the other menus at least. I found her enthusiasm towards the job a little funny, it raised my spirits a little. I tried to smile, but I just continued with my bored look. I knew that deep down I felt happy, but at the surface I was bored. I must just be hungry, I need to get that food into my stomach quick.

“sure thing! Your food will be out shortly, your drinks should also be out right... about... now.” as if on cue another waiter walked out of the kitchen with our drinks in hand. He walked over to the table with a scowl on his face, he walked over to us. He gave Ron his drink and just placed mine down on the table in front of me, he turned to our waiter. He whispered something into her ear and she nodded, she kept her cheery attitude the whole time and the man scowled at me one more time before going back to the kitchen. Even if she did keep her cheery attitude she was obviously concerned about something, “I need to go take care of something, If you need anything, don't be afraid to ask any of the waiters. If any of them give you a problem,” she picked up my drink and moved it closer to me, “be sure to tell me,” she gave me a wink and I nodded graciously.

“thanks,” she retreated back into the kitchen, I looked over to Ron and he had an annoyed look on his face. “what's up?” he looked at me as if I had grown a second head.

“that guy! Did you see how he was looking at you? He was just being a douche!” he looked ready to blow up any second. I could see the fire in his eyes as he looked towards the kitchen, he looked ready to fight.

“Language, there might be kids in the shop,” I turned to see if there were, I couldn't find any. “and calm down. That guy didn't do anything, were lucky he's not crazy. Besides, why are you getting defensive over me? I can fight my own battles you know,” he looked at me incredulously.

“what do you mean were lucky? Are there crazy ones out there?” he looked like I had told him he was about to die in one hour.

“you don't know what these guys are capable of, this guy was tame. The whole P.A.P.A. Organization is crazy, we don't want to run in with them.” I was saying this as casually as if I was talking about my neighbor. I didn't have to act casual, it was casual. Ron on the other hand was freaking out.

“P.A.P.A?” he finally asked, he was obviously out of the loop about this whole pony hate group thing.

“People Against Ponies Association, a bad bunch they are,” I took a sip of my tea, it warmed my throat. The spices burned in the back of my throat in that pleasant way that doesn't hurt. It's that feeling that's like if you touch an electric fence, it hurts, but only for a second; after the pain you remember that buzz and want to feel it again, except this buzz is toned down a little.

“and you know what they're capable of?” he looked at me confused, “you just became a pony and haven't had any interactions with these guys. How do you know they aren't peaceful? Is this more of your weird mind powers at work?” he was genuinely confused.

I laughed at his assumption, “no, it's not my mind powers. It's just that I've read about them, but they are much worse in real life. There are some peaceful ones, but there is always a crazy bunch to even out the rest. You'll see, not long from now, we'll start seeing news about them.” I took another sip of my tea, “but lets drop this topic okay? I don't want to be stressed out more thinking about the people trying to murder me,” I watched him struggle to drop the conversation. I could see he had a lot more questions on his mind. Finally he won the internal struggle and decided to leave that conversation for later.

We waited in silence, well it was silent for us. I could hear all the other people that had been staring and listening to us talking were now talking about us. I pulled out my tablet to find an open internet source from the safe-way next to us. I pulled open Facebook, “Hey Pixel! Were close to the park, we've stopped to eat and will be there in about a half an hour. If we don't run into trouble that is, hope to see you soon!” I sent the message an turned off my tablet. I decided it would be a good idea to try and hear what everyone was saying about us.

I started to listen to the people closest to us, “why are they here? Why are you asking me? Why don't you ask them? Maybe I will!” they were whispering to each-other.

“sorry to interrupt, but I thought I'd put your minds at ease. Were here to eat, I thought it was pretty obvious, but apparently not,” I turned back to them and they jumped up. “any more questions?” they looked at each-other and one raise a hand. I picked on the skinny one, he was tall with black hair.

“what we meant by here is on earth, why are you on earth?” he looked at me nervously.

“oh, I've always been on earth, I was human. I just woke up as a pony, so I guess I'm here for the same reason you are,” I could see them look incredulously at me. I picked the other one this time, he had blond hair and was thicker with muscle.

“you were human? How did you change? Can you change back?” these were all valid questions, but I didn't know the answer to most.

“yes, I was human. I don't know how I changed, or if I can change back, but that's why were going to find out.” I looked at them both raise their hands again, I picked the skinny one.

“where are you going?” should I tell him? I don't see why not, I'm sure Celestia will if she already hasn't announced that the elements need to meet up in New York.

“New York, I'm sure Celestia will announce how all the element users need to go to New York.” I looked at the two of them as they put their hands down, they were thinking on a question, I heard a man clear his throat. I looked across the room to see a man smiling with his hand up. “yes?” I asked him.

“are these element users important?” he asked, he obviously wasn't a Brony.

“yeah, They are the ponies we need,” I answered, “only they can use the elements of harmony, those elements are powerful and may be just what we need,” he looked very thoughtful for a second.

“are you one of the elements that is going?” I see how one could surmise that.

“no, I'm going to help though,” he looked a little disappointed a this, he turned to his friends and I looked around the shop. No one had any more questions, they were all contemplating my words. I saw the one man who had asked the last questions huddled with his buddy's, I couldn't hear what they were saying. I turned back to Ron and saw he was looking at me.

“do you just answer any question?” he was obviously just making conversation, we were still waiting for our food.

“I figure that it would ease some of their worries,” I replied, I could see a waitress carrying food out of the kitchen, she directed herself to our table. She smiled as she gave us our food, we thanked her and she walked back to the kitchen. I looked at my food eagerly, I floated my fork and stabbed it through a couple of vegetables. I shove the fork into my mouth hungrily and my taste-buds are over-whelmed by the flavor. The brown sauce was savory and sweet, the tofu soaked up the savory flavor and added it's weird texture to the mix. I could taste the variety of vegetables in there, I could even taste water chestnuts. I love water chestnuts, they feel cool when you bite into them. The whole dish together tasted great, you could taste all the individual tastes and at the same time all the tastes blended into a tasty dish full of flavor.

I saw Ron was enjoying his dish just as much as I was mine, we finished both of our dishes up. We both sat back, we were full. I saw the man from earlier eyeing me out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and he turned away, as soon as I turned away I could feel his glare on me again. I called over the waitress for our bill, I payed it and the waitress started to clean our table. Me and Ron got up, I could see the man still watching us, we headed towards the door and his group wasn't that far behind us.

As we got out the door I turned to Ron, “you go to the car, I have some business to take care of. I'll be in the car soon,” I turned and walked down the sidewalk towards an alley. The men followed me, I saw one of them go the opposite direction, but he wasn't pursuing Ron. I turned into the alley and walked down to he end, I sat there and waited for them. They turned the corner and pulled out some weapons, they all wielded knives. I looked at each one in turn, they were obviously untrained. I wasn't trained myself, but I wasn't worried. I felt my anger rise as I looked at them, I kept it in check and sat there calmly.

I felt the urge to beat the crap out of them enveloping me, but I just sat there. The man who had asked the questions before stepped forward, “we have you surrounded freak,” he spat the last word. I inspected him, he wasn't much, he wasn't even well built or anything. I looked at the rest of his group and saw the same thing.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” my anger was about to burst, I stayed calm though. It was a miracle I wasn't weaker, I probably would have gotten myself killed by rushing at them.

“oh yeah? And why not?” he obviously wasn't intimidated. Time to remedy that.

“because it won't look good for you, attacking an innocent. You'll give your group a bad name. That and you can't win, I have magic, you have knives” I looked at the puny blades with distaste, “plus, I don't want to hurt you, so just let me go and no one gets hurt,” he looked furious.

“B**** you're just some animal! I'll teach you to talk down to us!” he lunged at me and I stepped out of the way, I let out my hoof and he tripped.

“pathetic, really...” I shook my head as he hit the ground hard. His buddy's came to join in the struggle, one of them leaped at me and I gripped him in my magic, I set him down on top of his friend and he got up, he was pissed. I looked over to see the other guy ready to attack, I ducked back. His knife nicked my shoulder, I felt the knife slice the flesh. I ignored the pain in my shoulder and looked at all three of them. The two had gotten up from their pile an were coming to join in the brawl. I picked up a trash can lid and slammed it into one of the guys, it barreled him over and the other two leaped at me. I teleported out of the way and they both landed with a thud, I had only teleported back a foot or so.

I grabbed their knives in my telekinetic grip, I tossed them into the trash can. I saw them both get up and look around frantically, I bucked one of them in the stomach and he keeled over. His friend socked me in the side and I stagger for a second. Only for a second, I picked up a rock by my foot and launched it towards him, it hit him straight in the chest. He clenched the wound and fell to the floor trying to get his breath. I turned to the man who had asked the question, he was getting up dazed from the trash can lid. I pulled his knife out of his hand and he watched in horror as I bent the blade in my grip and tossed it back to him. He looked at his friends and looked at me scared, I looked at him bored.

My business was finished, they shouldn't fight me anymore. I turned around to leave and felt a rock hit the back of my head. I turned around to the man with an annoyed look on my face. I take it back, this was no man. This is a coward, a weak coward, he tried to outnumber and attack an innocent and only got in a shot when their back was turned. I turned away from him, he wasn't worth my time. I walked back to the car, I would be lucky if every P.A.P.A. member was this easy to deal with.

I Hear Hoofsteps

I walked up to the car calmly, Ron was waiting for me. “what was that about?” he asked.

“I had some business to attend to, I took care of it though. It shouldn't be back very soon,” I hopped into the car and instantly regretted it. I pulled myself up into the seat and then I lifted my front Right hoof up, the wound in my shoulder bone (if it could even be called that) was finally getting to me. I turned my head to see the wound and saw that my fur was glistening with blood, the bleeding was slow, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

“Something wrong?” he leaned over me and looked at my side. He got wide eyed when he saw the blood, “What was the business you had to take care of?! Are you okay?! I'll get some water to wash out the wound, step out of the car,” he started to rummage around in the bags and found what he was looking for. I stepped out of the car carefully, I shifted my weight so it was mostly on my left side.

“It was nothing, I took care of it. Wasn't any trouble at all, I'm fine. Just a little scratch, that's what I get for being a second too slow...” he got out of the car and walked around to me. He was shaking his head in disapproval as he started to clean the wound.

“No trouble?! Do we have guys coming after us since you ran?!” he was looking around hastily, I chuckled a little at his concern. “This isn't funny, we could have a serious problem on our hand! Mobsters don't usually like it when you run from them, and you're not exactly hard to find!” he was frantic at this point, I put my hoof on his shoulder to calm him down.

“I didn't run, they shouldn't chase after us. Not any more than they were already at least, we should be fine,” I turned back to my wound, it was clean and it had stopped bleeding for the most part. But it still hurt and I wanted a bandage to make sure I didn't get any more blood on my fur, I turned to Ron. “could you get a band-aid on this? I would, but I don't know where they are in that box of yours,” I motioned towards the first aid kit beside him.

He reached in and grabbed out a big band-aid and placed it over the wound, he checked it over and looked satisfied with it. He packed up his little box and we both climbed into the car, he started up the engine and we pulled back onto Val Vista. “what do you mean you didn't run? Did you fight them?” he looked a little shocked and scared, I don't know why.

“Well, I tried not to. But they kept on attacking, and I can't dodge forever. I didn't severely hurt them, at least I don't think I did. I bucked one, and threw a trash can lid at another. I also threw a rock at one and tripped a guy, But I didn't really fight them. I mostly just dodged, if they are hurt it's not my fault,” I looked over to him and he stared at me.

“How many were there? One? Two?” he looked back towards the road and just waited for me to answer.

“Three,” I see no reason to lie, its not like they were close to him or anything.

“You took on three full grown men and won? Can I hire you as my personal body guard?” he laughed and I joined him.

“Yeah, no. I didn't really fight them, I just dodged. If I was actually defending someone it would be a lot harder for me to escape without major wounds” I looked at the band-aid on my shoulder, I was pretty lucky to have escaped without major wounds this time.

He nodded, “Well, I'm glad it turned out alright. What were you originally doing anyway? You just told me to wait at the car, did you even get it done?” he looked over to me for an answer.

“That was it, I had to get them off of our tail,” I saw him turn his head to me quickly and then put them back on the road.

“You knew they were going to attack you? And you told me to wait it out?” he looked a little mad.

“I couldn't risk you getting hurt, and if things got sticky I could always teleport back to you. If you got in trouble you couldn't have teleported,” he seemed to calm down a little, but it was obvious he was hurt.

“But still, why couldn't you let me protect you? What if you hadn't made it back? What would I do? What would I tell your parents? Sorry but your child died because I wasn't there to help?” I could understand his frustration. He was responsible for me whether he liked it or not, and he couldn't let anything happen to me. I was glad that he cared this much, but I can fight my own battles.

“I'm not a baby anymore, I can take care of myself,” I tried to pull off the best Applebloom voice I could, it came out surprisingly well. He still looked a little hurt but he smiled, I smiled too.

“Yeah, I guess you can. But promise me you won't leave me out next time?” at least he understood, I nodded.

“I promise, I won't leave you out of the next fight,” he smiled towards me and I smiled back.

“That was a pretty good Sweetie belle voice by the way, sounded just like her,” we laughed at how similar it sounded.

“Thank y'all mighty kindly,” I drawled, pretending to dip an invisible stetson at him. He laughed at my Applejack imitation, when he finished laughing he spoke up.

“You're pretty good at voices, who else can you do?” I thought for a moment. I had planned for my pony to be able to do voices, but I had scrapped the idea. Maybe I could do any voice, there is really only one way to find out.

“Hello, my name is twilight sparkle,” I spoke, I had focused my voice on how I would have to speak to sound like that. I thought on how her voice sounded, it must have come out pretty good. Ron was laughing as he pulled up into the park, he parked the car and calmed himself down.

“That was perfect, how are you so good? Lot's of practice?” he laughed and I just rolled my eyes.

“I had originally planned for my character to be good at voices, years alive can give you a lot of chances to perfect your impressions.” I realized what I had just said and shut my mouth, I hopped out of the car quickly. “let's find us a pony! I exclaimed quickly, he gave me a look.

“What was that? Years alive? What did you mean by that?” crap, he had noticed my slip up. Maybe I could play it off, maybe he wouldn't think too much about it.

“My mare is, just aged. Yeah, aged! But we have a friend to find...” I turned around to look for the pony, unfortunately Ron isn't so easily led astray.

“No, that's not it. What aren't you telling me?” I sighed, there really was no escaping it. It was probably inevitable, even if I had somehow gotten out of answering it now.

“Well... I don't have any proof, or even know if it's true, but I think I have become my OC. As in I have all the traits of my OC, I might just have some of her traits though. I have reason to believe more towards the latter, but that just means that I am talented. That's it, I had just gotten a little anxious,” it wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth. He seemed to notice it too, but he just brushed it off. He gave me a look that seemed to say that he believed me, so I turned back towards the park.

“Now let's find us a filly! Pinkie Pie style!” I tried to ease the mood with a perfect impersonation of pinkie pie, impressions seemed to be pretty easy. All I had to do to impersonate anyone was think of how their voice sounded and think of making my voice like that, my voice seemed to automatically adjust itself to how I wanted to sound. It was like instinct to my vocal chords, my brain just had to tell them what it wanted to do. We both laughed as we looked around the park, we didn't see any ponies at first. We made our way around, but we didn't see any sign of a pony at all.

“She must not be here yet. We can wait for a while,” I turned to see we were near a playground, I walked over to it. I had just intended to wait at one of the benches for our friend, but it had been a bad idea to walk towards the playground at all. As soon as I stepped into view I was assaulted by children, they had all seen me walking up. I could try to push through the hoard of children, but I might hurt them. I saw a couple parents start to make their way, they were trying to pry their kids from me.

“Leave the pony alone, I'm sure she's very busy,” some of the kids started to walk away, I spoke up.

“Oh, it's okay. I don't mind, so long as their gentle,” the kids all perked back up and ran back over. I saw the parents stay close, they were watching over the children. All of the kids started to pet me, it felt nice. Every once in a while a kid would pull on my fur and I would turn to them, “gentle please,” they would nod and continue to pet me. After a while the kids started to get bored and the crowd thinned out, eventually the children went back to playing. The parents started to walk away too as the children started to walk away, one walked over to me though.

I made my way over to the closest bench and looked up towards the parent that was walking over, she looked at the seat next to me and I motioned for her to sit. “That was nice of you, I'm sorry if they were any trouble,” she finally spoke up.

“Not at all, they were perfectly behaved,” I smiled to her, she seemed to lighten up.

“That's good to hear,” she paused, she looked like she was trying to find the right way to word an awkward question. “If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing here? In Phoenix I mean, weren't you the one from down in Sierra Vista?” she looked at me a little warily.

I blushed a little at the scene I made at the Shell station, “Oh, yeah. My standings with the authorities probably aren't the best after that little stunt, are they?” I looked sheepishly over to her.

She laughed, “No, I guess not,” she composed herself and I remembered her question.

“Well, I'm just passing through, but I need to pick up a friend. She should be here soon, then I'm off to New York.” she gave me a questioning look.

“Why New York? What's in New York?” there wasn't really anything there yet, nothing of importance.

“Well, the plan is to get the element bearers up there and try to fix this,” I motioned to my equine form, “We aren't

exactly sure how to fix it yet, but I have reason to believe the element users will have a big part in it. I am the one to originally come up with the plan, so I am going up to help, however I can,” I looked over to her and she seemed thoughtful.

“Oh, I see. Are you one of these, element users?” she was trying to think this through.

“No, but I still want to help however I can,” how can I help? I had thought out the original plan, but I don't know how the elements work exactly so I can't really contribute more.

“Well, good luck. I am glad I had a chance to talk to you. You're pretty nice, my friend seems to think you all are evil,” I shook my head, her friend must be part of P.A.P.A.

“I'm only as evil as any other human,” I looked at the band-aid on my side.

“What happened there, that seems like a big band-aid, are you okay?” she looked concerned.

“It's fine, I just had a run-in with P.A.P.A. not too long ago,” she looked shocked at that. I guess she did know about the P.A.P.A.

“P.A.P.A. did that to you?” so she did know about them, but she was obviously not aware of how they were.

“Yeah, I'm not in the highest regards with them. I was lucky to get away without more injuries,” she looked completely shocked. Like I had just revealed the secrets of the universe, I never found it a secret that the world is a harsh place.

“Are you alright? I can't believe they would do this to you, you must have run into the worst type of P.A.P.A. All the ones I know are nice,” I scoffed at the word. P.A.P.A. and nice did not belong in the same sentence unless there was a not preceding either words.

“I ran into some of the sane ones, I'm afraid that there are people in P.A.P.A. much worse than the group I met. I hope you don't have to see the true P.A.P.A.” she didn't really have anything to say to that. We sat there in an awkward silence before she spoke up again.

“Well, what's it like being a pony?” I thought for a second.

“it's different, but once you get used to it it's alright, magic is pretty new to me, but I am pretty proficient already,” I demonstrated by lifting up a rock and bringing it over. I thought on the bench across the sidewalk and teleported over to it, I teleported back and looked over to her. She looked impressed and excited, I guess that teleportation is a cool idea. It is pretty cool to teleport, but a lot of the awe is taken out of it when you can actually do it. “It's pretty much regular to me now, I don't have to think about the actions anymore, I am not great with my hooves, but I'm decent with them,” there wasn't much else to it. Not that I could think of, I think I covered everything.

“I see, and you don't know why this is happening?” I thought about that. Earlier I had that idea about my story, but that's just ridiculous. Besides, I don't actually know if it's true. I just shook my head in response, she nodded and thought for a while. “Well, good luck. It sounds like you need it,” she got up.

“Thank you, good luck to you too. I hope you and your kid stay well,” we smiled to each-other and she left. I watched as she walked back to her child and I saw Ron walking towards me with a pony by his side, our friend must have gotten here.

“Who was that?” Ron asked as he walked up.

“A friend,” I hoped she didn't mind being called friend, “I see you found our other friend,” I nodded towards the pony beside him.

She was slightly bouncing in place, “Oh my god! You're here!” I looked her over. She was a white unicorn with a very colorful pastel blue and pink mane, she had a large bow on the back of her head and wore a necklace adorned with a pink heart-shaped stone. I looked her over, she was wearing a sort of cloak, it had a hood but just draped over her back. It reminded me of Trixies cape, except it was a plain black fabric. The cape wasn't as long either, it only went back to about her tail. She was looking me over too, “Wow, I love her hair!” I looked up at her face to see her admiring my hair.

“Thanks! I like my hair too!” I cheered looking over her once more, “your hairs pretty nice too, I like the pastel colors,” she looked a little shocked.

“Oh, thanks…” she looked uncertain about something. “I didn’t say anything about her hair,” I was too busy inspecting her necklace to think on what I heard.

“That’s a nice necklace, where did you get it?” she smiled nervously.

“My Grandma gave it to me before she died,” I looked up from the necklace to see her nervous smile; she looked ready to say more.

“Oh, my condolences, I didn’t realize it was a touchy subject. I’m sorry I brought it up,” her mouth opened as if to say something but then it snapped shut and she stared at me. I looked at her curiously, why was she staring at me like that? Did I say something offensive? I don’t think so… I thought back on what I had said and found nothing that might have offended her, I couldn’t think of anything.

“Who are you?” I was snapped out of my thoughts by the question.

“Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce myself, I am Skylar, but I am in the body of my OC Starlet mint. You can call me Starlet, I would rather my real name didn’t get out in the public too much.” I nodded to her in greeting she looked at me and I went back to looking at her necklace. It was that heart shaped stone on a pink leather cord. The stone it appeared to be made of marble, it had the look of marble and it seemed smooth just like polished marble. Her grandmother must have been a very good artist, or sculpist, or whoever it was that made this sort of thing.

“Did you answer my question?” the voice sounded a little shocked, I looked up to see the same expression on her face.

“Did you not want me too?” she was starting to confuse me, it hadn’t sounded rhetorical. So why was this mare so shocked that I answered it. I looked over her cape, the cape had some bad stitch work, but it was hardly noticeable against the dark fabric.

“Well, I did want you to answer, I just never asked it…” what is this mare talking about of course she asked it.

“Yeah you did, you asked who I was,” I inspected her mane. She had a wavy mane, her pink and blue pastel hair. But the colors were separated into whole strands of the color, unlike my mane. My mane had only a portion of each strand dyed, and it wasn’t really wavy, my mane was a mess. Well not completely, it was a stylish mess. My mane is ruffled, that’s it, it’s ruffled. But it’s still neat; it just sticks out into spikes at certain points. It’s hard to describe how my hair is messy, but it’s still styled. Think of an anime guy’s hair, how you can tell where groups of hair stick out. If anyone knows kingdom hearts, my mane is like a female and pony version of Sora’s hair. Except only towards the ends, it’s not spiky all throughout.

“Can you stop that? It’s confusing me!” her loud yell shook me out of my inspecting, I looked at her startled.

“Stop what? Looking at you?” she was looking at me like I was clueless, which at this point I guess I was.

“No! Answering questions I’m not saying! Actually, no. stop reading my mind!” it took me a while to process what she had just said.

“W-What?! Oh, I am s-so sorry! I-I h-had-dn't r-realized!” I stuttered, my face was burning up from embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I had done that without even noticing it, I was trying to avert my eyes to avoid hers.

“What was up with that? Are you a psychic?” she was looking at me incredulously, I checked to make sure her mouth had moved.

“N-No! I-I mean, I don’t think so. I didn’t use to be, I don’t really know how it works. It only works sometimes…” I looked over to her and she was staring at me. I could still feel my embarrassed smile and blood still heating my cheeks, I averted my eyes when I saw her looking at me.

“She looks pretty cute when she’s embarrassed…” I let out a gasp and a took a step back.

“I-I’m sorry, but could you not… I already had a weird experience with that…” she looked at me with a confused stare, then she laughed.

She finally was able to gasp through the laughing, “Ow my sides! That’s just too funny! Well it’s true you know, your blush isn’t helping your case,” she finished laughing and pointed a hoof towards my cheeks. I felt like if I blushed anymore I would pass out from blood loss, it would all just go into my cheeks and leave my brain. My blush didn't let up and it got worse the more she laughed, but eventually she stopped. “You know, I had a friend who had a sister named Skylar. Is yours spelt with an A or an E?” she finally let up with that whole embarrassment.

“It's uh, it's spelled with an A,” I was still recovering but I could feel my cheeks cooling down.

“No kidding? So is hers!” it seemed like there wasn't a thing that could bring this mare down, she just seemed so happy.

“It's always a she isn't it? There's no guys ever with this name...” I muttered it, but she heard me.

“It's a girls name though isn't it?” she was looking at me curiously.

“No, it's a gender neutral name,” I was getting used to correcting people about that.

“Have you ever met a guy with the name? Spelled exactly like that?” she was obviously going to make a point of this.

“Well... no, but–” I was cut off by her before I could finish.

“There you go, I bet there isn't even a single guy with that na–” I cut her off like she did me. I needed to tell her before she finished that thought.

“I was a guy with that name,” she stopped what she was saying and looked me over.

“Seriously?” why is that so hard to believe?

“Seriously, I don't like to talk about it...” she looked at me for a second before bursting out in more laughter. I grimaced as she continued to laugh at my expense, it was bad enough being mistaken for a girl multiple times throughout my life, but what really takes the cake is the fact that I was one now. There wasn't much I could do about it, I just accepted the fact. But it didn't sit well with me when people try to use that for their entertainment, hence me shushing Ron so much. I didn't want to be reminded of it, it just doesn't sit well with me remembering my masculinity. What I had of it anyway, it's not like I was using it.

“Don't mention it, I don't like to be reminded...” she looked up and was about to say something. She froze when she saw my gaze, she shrunk back a little.

“Okay, okay. Just put away the death-glare, its really freaking creepy...” I returned to my normal smile and returned to my normal joy.

“Okay, well Leandra, I have a proposal for you,” I looked at her expectantly, but before I could finish she halted me.

“I never told you my name was Leandra,” I thought on this, she hadn't. It must be that weird psychic power I keep stumbling upon, why does it only work sometimes?

“Well, that doesn't matter. What's important right now is whether your coming with us or not,” I looked her over and she seemed to be thinking.

“Well where are you going? I kinda have to get home too, I'm sure they're worried about me...” I looked at her, I agree family is more important.

“Well, were going to New York City. But I understand that family should come first,” she perked up at that.

“That's perfect, I live in a city not that far from New York City. If I could come with you to New York I can get the rest of the way home easily. Also I kinda don't have any way to get anywhere yet, so this would be best,” I was amazed at how much of a coincidence it was, but that's not been the most shocking thing yet.

“Well then that's great. Welcome to our little group,” I watched as she bounced a little in excitement. At least now I have another pony to talk to, Ron is great, But he doesn't have experience with being a pony.

One of Us

We all walk back to the car as a group, I don’t hear very much of her thoughts, it always seems like a low mumble. I could tell that I could still hear them, but they are mostly quiet. If I try really hard I can make out a few words, but I don’t want to intrude on her privacy. Every once in a while a thought will jump out and I will hear it. I try to ignore it for the most part, but I look over every once in a while when I can’t tell thought from speech. This mind reading thing was really concerning me, I can’t take my mind off of it. I ignore the thoughts coming from Leandra, I might as well try conversing with her.

“So, do you know what pony you turned into?” I look back at her to make sure I know when she answers.

“What? Oh, yeah. I became my OC Pixel Berry,” she looks herself over as if she isn’t quite sure of it herself.

“I see…” it seems like OC’s are a common thing. The pony from the gas-station looked like a background pony, but I can’t be sure it wasn’t an OC. Does this have any significance? Probably not, there aren’t that many ponies in the show compared to people in the world. It would make sense if there were a lot of ponies that looked like the OC’s. All of the OC’s do exist somewhere, if we think about the infinite universe theory. Maybe they aren’t shown because they aren’t in the area the show encompasses. There is probably a lot more to Equestria than Ponyville and Canterlot, including a few other choice places.

That is to assume that these bodies came from that universe, but I can’t really assume that. The way this is going I would bet more money that we became those ponies, it makes sense. That would explain the abundance of OC’s, and why the pony isn’t actually here. We aren’t that pony, we just look like them, so where would the mind have to go? Where would our body go? It only makes sense that this is our body, and it just looks like that pony. I guess attributes of the pony must come with the body, how else would the voice imitation and mind reading be explained?

That’s another thing, the mind reading. How does it work? Why does it work? When does it work? Who does it work on? What are the implications? Why can I not find any answers? The more I think about it, the less answers I get. Which is to say I am only raising more questions, I guess I should just not think about it. Answers may just come in time.

“What’s she thinking about?” I was snapped out of my thoughts.

“Oh, just thinking on all the things that are happening…” I really am clueless, I face-hoof when I realized what I just did. “Sorry, it’s pretty hard for me to focus on that all the time. The only real difference between the sounds is a slight distortion, or difference in your actual voice that’s hard to detect. Most of the thoughts are muddled, but when I do hear some of them they are clear. There isn’t any distortion like the other, it’s just crystal clear,” She just nods in understanding.

We finally make it back to Ron's van and we all hop in, Ron starts up the vehicle. I make an attempt at conversation, “So, tell us about yourself,” I look to pixel and she looks back at me.

“What don't you already know?” she directed that thought at me on purpose.

“Please don't do that, I' already uncomfortable with it as it is. I don't need to be thinking you hate me for it,” she just looks at me and sighs.

“Sorry, I guess I' just not all that used to it. But, honestly, what do you know?” I guess I have to think about that.

“Well, your name is Leandra, your seventeen. Your close to your family, especially your little brother. Your a music enthusiast and you like most types of art. Your not a big reader, but you'll enjoy a good book. As a human you were a very intelligent young lady, and I must say that you certainly had better grades than me. You were out here with some friends, and you missed the flight back today... because of the situation you've found yourself in. that sucks, well, welcome aboard anyhow. Do you want more?” she shakes her head.

“So you can find out essentially anything?” she asks.

“Essentially, but I assume it would take a lot of concentration. Like I said, some thoughts are stronger than others,” she looks at me as though I'm a puzzle waiting to be solved. I wish I was as easy to be solved as a puzzle.

“So... what about Ron? What do you know about him?” she asks after a while.

“Surprisingly, very little. He's in computer repair, and it makes him pretty sharp. He's twenty something, and his name is Ron. Oh, and he thinks I'm beautiful,” I add just the right tone to let it be known the last part is a joke, only Ron notices.

“I thought you couldn't read my mind?” he jokes. I'm glad he played along, jokes are just awkward if both sides don't play their part.

“I don't need to be able too, of course you think I'm beautiful,” I give a flip of my mane. I chuckle slightly and settle back down,

“just kidding, I know I'm not all that. I mean, look at my hair, even if it is an organized mess, it's still as unmanageable as before. Well, actually it's worse,” pixel holds her hoof before I can go on obsessing over my mane.

“Hold up, you can't read his mind? Why the hell not?” she looks a little jealous at this.

“I don't know why, but it only seems to work on some people,” I just shrug.

“That's stupid,” I agree, but I can't change it. “So what about you?” what should I tell them?

“What about me?” I try to buy myself time as I argue over what I should tell them. I finally decide that the truth will be the easiest to explain.

“Who are you? What should I know?” I don't really know the answer to either of those questions.

“What do you want to know?” how long will we continue answering questions with more questions?

“Whatever your willing to tell me,” I feel that the world mocks your internal sarcasm with situational irony. At least I think it's situational irony... I'm not very knowledgeable on irony.

“I'm an optimistic skeptic that dabbles in a little bit of just about every form of art. When I say every, I'm exaggerating, it's only about a few. I love to read though, and writing is a passion of mine. I love romance and have a certain affinity to emotions and feelings. I love to help and give advice, though it's debatable how good my help is. I'm gonna hope it's pretty good, considering it's my special talent,” I look down at my cutie mark to solidify my point. It starts to make me wonder though, is it really my cutie mark? I am only in the body of starlet, maybe it's just her cutie mark. She is made in my image, but she is still a different pony. You can't exactly choose your cutie mark, so maybe it's not my cutie mark.

“Uh-huh, what about your family?” she continues.

“They're pretty okay, nobody's perfect though,” most of the time we'll get along nicely and we're all happy. Lately things have been less pleasant, mostly because of my brother. I'm not saying he's bad, I don't even think it's entirely his fault. But lately he's been acting up, and his grades have plummeted. The thing is that he has an attitude issue, and he does some things he shouldn't. Such as talking back, or acting on impulse. So he get's in trouble a lot, nothing terrible, it's just a bunch of small things that add up. Me and him also share a bad work ethic, him more so than me. And that's saying something, considering I consider myself to have a terrible work ethic. I actually do the work, as in chores and stuff, that we have to. He'll just laze around and let me do it all, or just say he'll do it later. I'd try to get him to do it, but that only results in him refusing to do anything at all. Thus some of the problems he has with doing what he's supposed to, and with not listening to authority.

“You okay?” I must have been spacing out there.

“No, I potentially have split personality disorder and maybe even mood swings. I'm crazy and probably have multiple other symptoms I never have and will never be diagnosed with. But I'm fine, it's nothing new,” I give her a smile as I tell her about my mental health. She might as well know know what she may be getting herself into.

“You sure?” she looks like the unsure one, but I'm not all that sure either. I never really have been, though I know that that's just the case with everything.

“Yeah, no I'm fine,” it's true that I have problems, but I don't care. I am truly fine, perfectly fine. I am absolutely, positively, one hundred percent, okay. The more times I think it, the more it seems like a lie. “Welp, let's continue onto Cameron, we have to make it before it get's too late!” Ron nods and continues driving.

I hadn't even noticed that pixel had a bag on beneath her hood... cape... thing. She pulled out her I-pod and escaped into her music. I left her to her own devices, and I turned on my own. I put my music on too, I then opened up the kindle app. I went back to my book on dream psychology and psychoanalysis. Dreams have meant something to me ever since I had the dream. Not just any dream, but a special dream. It's one of the only dreams I remember in detail, the only bad part is that I can't ever remember two things. The main one is why it means something to me.

The part I'm reading is talking about how even a bad dream is a dream of wish fulfillment. It's talking about how a bad dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish. Sometimes a person may have a wish they don't know or don't want to know about. Thus is the case with masochistic dreams, masochistic in the sense of embarrassment or emotional, as opposed to physical. I can understand the masochistic part, sometimes I wish I had someone who would break my heart. Something that I can feel pain for, but then I realize that I don't really want that.

“Hey starlet, what you reading?” It's Pixel Berry.

I begin to answer, but I realize I can't even hear myself over my music. I put it on the loudest safe volume so that I can drown out the car's music. I pull out my ear-buds and respond, “dream psychology and psychoanalysis for beginners,” she gives me a look of curiosity.

“Why are you reading that?” she asks after she finds out I'm not kidding. Is it really that unusual to read this?

“Cause it's interesting,” in my defense, it is very interesting. If you care about dreams, I guess, and if you can understand it. To which the answer for me is yes on both accounts.

“So how are you with being a pony?” that's right, we have pony things to talk about.

“I'm doing pretty well, I can't think of anything that's terribly wrong. I've got used to it,” after a while, being a pony gets easy.

“Right, well... what can you do with your magic,” magic is still exciting no matter how much your used to it.

“Teleportation, levitation, and simple transformation magic,” probably more if I try hard enough, but that's what I can do now.

“Transformation magic?! That's awesome! What can you transform?” right, she might not be very advanced in her magic.

“Average sized objects, but it really drains me,” I just hope she doesn't ask for a demonstration.

“ I bet. I can only do levitation, I haven't tried much else though,” I'll have to help her practice sometime, though, she might not need it. “So you have split personalities?” the question caught me completely off guard.

“I think so,” I have always just accepted it; I never really made sure that is actually what it is, but there is a possibility that I don't have it.

“I haven't noticed a split personality,” she's pretty sharp too. This is another of my worries, I would've thought that he would come out by now. It's not like him to not even make a snide remark by now. I haven't had the urge to tell anyone to f*** off or anything else similarly vulgar. Though I have snapped at Ron a couple of times, maybe that's him. I doubt it though, it just doesn't seem like him. Regardless, it's still unnerving to not see much of him. It's like when someone you don't like becomes so routine, that when it stops, your unnerved. Not because you care all that much about him, but because it's not the usual.

“Me neither,” she doesn't push the matter anymore.

“Hey! Maybe we should exchange numbers! In case we get separated,” I hadn't even thought about that. That will be the best way to stay safe and together, or at least together.

“Mine's: 520-782-7538” she taps in the numbers slowly with her hoof.

“Got it, mines: 914-532-6382,” I pull out my phone and tap the number in quickly with my magic. She stares in fascination as I don't even lift a hoof to type it in.

“Wow, you need to teach me how you do some of these things,” I just nod and put my phone away. “I forget, where are we going?” she asks.

“We're going to Cameron,” she gives me a blank stare, “Arizona,” still nothing... “Where my grandma lives,” her blank stare turns to a look of curiosity.

“Your grandma? Is that where we're going” do I have difficulty explaining my plans, or are people just not listening to me like always?

“Yes, I'm gonna see if we can crash with her for the night,” I can literally hear the gears turning in her head. Actually it sounds like a quick mumbling, but that's close enough. Is she trying to imagine who my grandma is or something?

“Oh, okay. Is it really cool with her if we just stop by like this?” she finally asks

“Yeah, she's always telling me how the reservation is my home. Also how I can always stay with her if I ever find the need to,” that earns a slow nod, but it's clear she has a question.

“Reservation?” of course, nobody knows about the reservation.

“The Native American reservation,” I wait for her next question.

“Your Native American?” a reasonable question, I don't exactly look like it anymore.

“Yeah, I'm half Navajo and less of other tribes,” I'm not completely sure I remember what they all are.

“So we get to meet some of your family? That will be great!” I nod my head and she smiles.

“That reminds me, I gotta plan our route for tomorrow,” she nods and turns back to her I-pod and I open up the Google maps app. We need to get to Loveland Colorado from Cameron Arizona, that shouldn't be too hard. Where do we have to stop in between? Definitely the Grand Canyon, it wouldn't feel right to go to Cameron and not even visit the Canyon. Plus, it'll be nice to visit my family there; I wouldn't be able to see them all, but maybe some of them. Besides, she said she wanted to see my family right? Then again... they won't really recognize me, so maybe it's not such a good idea to visit them... regardless, we're definitely going there. I'll decide on whether we'll stop and visit later. Where else?

We could head through Utah, see some of our family on our mom's side; namely my grandparents. That would mean going through Hyrum and seeing my grandparents, maybe our great grandparents, but really only my grandparents seeing as they're the only ones that I know where they live. I don't know if going there is a good idea though, I know how Utah is. The whole state is crawling with religion, almost everyone there is religious. I know that's probably a huge overstatement and more than likely horribly wrong, but there is still a lot of religion. Especially where we'd be driving too, cause I know my grandparents are very religious. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against religion, I'm Mormon. But only as a title, not all of my beliefs line up with the Mormon religion.

My point is that there's religion, and where there's religion, there's conflict. There's conflict everywhere, but religious conflict is especially common. It's inevitable, especially in our situation. How do people usually act towards things that are different? They act in fear, you know who else acts like that? P.A.P.A. acts like that. P.A.P.A. is just a group of people reacting against an unknown problem, they act in fear of this problem being a threat. Now I love religion, or at least the idea of it, but do you know how religion is always discriminating against certain group of people? When people use religion like that it makes me want no part in it. I have no problem with believing in god, in fact, I think religion would be better if that's all it was. Other people try to put god in everything, they try and force other people to believe. While their intent is good, execution of their plan needs some work.

So we should steer clear of the religious fanatics just to be safe, they could prove to be troublesome. I can't think of anywhere else we should go; maybe I should ask the others, it would be pretty selfish of me to only put places of interest for me. This is their journey as much as it is mine.

“Hey guys, anywhere in particular you want to go?” they both think on it for a second.

“Grand Canyon, I've always wanted to go there,” pixel replies.

“Me too, does that fit into our route?” Ron asks.

“I actually already had that in our route, anywhere else? We're going to Colorado, so anywhere from Cameron to there. We can go other places, we just have to save those for later,” I answer.

“Right, right...” they both go quiet for another while. “How about four corners?” Ron eventually asks.

“Four corners? Sounds good, I'll see what I can do. Anywhere else?” they both shake their heads. I turn back to the map to see where these points are, I've never really had to plan a trip. I've also never been to four corners, didn't even cross my mind. I find the locations without great difficulty thankfully. The route is a bit lengthy, but if we leave early we should be fine on time.

I return to my book after I save our route. I'm getting bored of the book again, after a while I finally put it away. What to do, what to do... I look out the window to see snow, looks like I was reading for longer than I thought. We must be near flagstaff, and that means it's close to dinner time.

“Hey, we should stop here in flagstaff for dinner. We might not get a better chance than this for a while, and that will be well past dinner time,” Ron nods and continues driving. Maybe some food will calm my mind, cause I'm really nervous-cited about being so close to seeing grandma.

Epilogue: Triumph of Friendship

“Ugh…” I moan as I awaken from a dreamless slumber. I didn’t dream? What was happening before I fell asleep? My mind thinks back to the events of earlier and I can feel myself smiling. My eyes flicker open at the memory. We had just used the elements of harmony save earth and stop discord; we being Me, Vinyl, Sunset, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Celestia, and Luna. Sunset had wielded the element of magic with the other girls while Twilight had enhanced their magic, with twilight being an element bearer she had been able to enhance the harmony further. Celestia and Luna had roles similar to twilights in enhancing the power. I had to use Starlet’s natural powers and connection to the void to direct where discord and everypony would go. Vinyl has a special spell for bass boosting, Twilight helped tweak the spell so it could boost non-audial types of harmony. Vinyl had cast the spell to boost the harmony’s magic into a wider radius. With the power that the spell had, everything should be fixed. I hold what should be my hands up to my face and I just find hooves.

“What?!” I scramble to my hooves and look around, All I find is the unconscious bodies of the ponies I was just thinking about. “No, it can’t be! We carefully planned! Everything was perfect! That should have worked!” I shout in frustration at the failure. We had all worked so hard, just to find out that it didn’t work?! I sigh in defeat, there’s nothing we can do if it didn’t work. Wait… if it didn’t work, then where’s Discord? I would be sure that there would either be more chaos, or he would be here to taunt us about our failures? Maybe it partially worked? No, there’s no partially in harmony, it either did or didn’t work.

Whatever the case, I need to get everyone inside before they catch a cold. We may have fur, but it is freezing up here. Remind me again why we decided to have a showdown on the top of this skyscraper?

Because we traced Discords magical signature up to here? I jump as I hear Starlet’s voice in my head.

So you decided to join me up here? It was getting kind of lonely.

I wouldn’t wait up here, I have reason to believe that the spell worked. and if so, then we can’t let anyone see you eleven, I look at the ponies on the ground.

What are you talking about? We’re still ponies, of course it didn’t work.

Do you see any chaos? Neither do I. It definitely worked and, as you said before, harmony isn’t partial. I’ll explain after you are all out of view and everypony wakes up, I sigh in defeat and look at how I’m going to carry ten ponies to our safe-house, also known as the abandoned warehouse that we took refuge in.

How do you propose I do this?

Pocket dimension

Really? Didn’t you say that was dangerous?

Only if you don’t let them out, you can get to the ground floor Safe-house undetected right?

Yeah, you taught me that cloaking spell. I put the ten ponies into my pocket dimension easily and put up the cloaking spell. I head down the stairs leading towards the bottom floor, I’ll have to be quick.

~~~~~~~

Nice job at the end there, Starlet says as I flash into the safe-house.

“Shut up, it’s not like anyones gonna believe him if he says anything. He’ll more than likely brush it off as nothing, I only bumped into him…” I pull out the ten ponies from my pocket dimension and I almost immediately regret it. My ears are met with complaints of various degrees, most of them from sunset.

“What the hay?! Why were you carrying us around like luggage!” Sunset yells.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” I turn away from sunset to find Celestia towering over me menacingly.

“What is the meaning of this?” She demands. Her tone isn’t harsh, but it’s not soft either.

“I don’t really know, but Starlet said we had to keep out of sight,” Celestia glares at me and I hold her gaze.

Starlet, a little help?

I can only help you as much as you can

That’s right, we merged. Well, we were merged. Then discord thought it’d be funny to fracture my personalities again, except this time they fractured into me and Starlet. When we fixed ourselves, though, we didn’t merge again. We did, but we stayed seperate. That is to say, that our two halves are exactly the same, they just think on their own.

“Starlet, why are we still ponies? I thought you said it would fix us, didn’t it work?” I hear twilight call from behind me.

“We are wondering the same thing… what doth thou have to say for yourself?” Luna is giving us a look similar to the one her sister is giving me.

“I don’t actually know all of it, I have an idea of what it might be, but Starlet has somehow figured it out first. I’ll let her explain things,” I slip out of the drivers seat and into the recesses of my mind.

“I don’t get it, didn’t you guys merge? or partially merge or something? sure, Discord split you in two, but aren’t both sides the same?” Rainbow says, I look up to see her hovering above me.

“Well, yes. And no. Skylar and I were already quite similar, but we we’re almost opposites as well. While both halves are the same, when they’re offered different choices, they’ll do things different than the other side. When we realized that we were still two, and that those two are one and the same, we took action. This side of me, was named Starlet. while the other side that you were just talking to, was named Skylar. Both of us have a talent for lying and masking ourselves, so we get into character. When I was named Starlet, I adopted how Starlet used to act. When the other half was named Skylar, it started acting how Skylar used to act. Since we’ve adapted to different masks, we have essentially made ourselves into two different beings. Though, we are still just one pony on the inside.” Starlet explains.

“Why did you kidnap us?” Starlet shouts.

“No need to yell… I told him to keep you hidden, that just happened to include unconventional means of travel… The spell worked, but not on us,” Starlet is stopped here by exclamatory shouts.

“What do you mean it didn’t work on us?” Rarity asks. I have already figured out what Starlet was getting at, it makes sense.

“The elements work on a basis of harmony, there is a power of harmony within everypony. The elements take that and amplify and enhance that natural magic within everyone, that’s how they work. We all put our personal magic into that solution, so it had every one of our magical signatures. The elements excluded themselves and all other power bearers from the solution, we were all in harmony. Since we were in harmony, setting us back to normal didn’t seem right to the elements. Basically, since we supplied the power it looked over us,” I can see their frantic looks as Starlet explains our dilemma.

“So we can’t change back because we are the only way to change?!” Rainbow shouts, yet I can see twilight thinking something over.

“No, not quite. It’ll just take longer… after all, we have an extra bearer here,” everypony turns to the mare mentioned. “Actually Sunset, I haven’t really gotten to thank you yet,” Twilight says to her.

“Me? What did I do? I only helped you with the elements because I want to go back to Equestria also,” Sunset says matter of factly.

“Well, that too. But I’ve been meaning to thank you for looking after the girls after I left. I know that they must have taken it hard, and I’m glad that you actually managed to befriend them. I’m sure we’d all love to be your friend too, and by the look of it you would like to be ours as well,” Twilight places a hoof on Sunset’s shoulder.

“What gives you that idea?” Sunset says, a small blush rises to her cheeks.

“The elements wouldn’t have worked if you didn’t think of them as your friends,” Twilight points out.

“Well, it’s not like we can be friends anyway. They’re all dead in our dimension, right?” Twilight flinches at Sunset’s bluntness.

“Yeah, I guess so… but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still be their friend,” Twilight smiles hopefully.

“I guess not…” Twilight hugs Sunset abruptly, Sunset looks at Twilight in shock before begrudgingly pulling a hoof around her. “Yeah, that’s enough… I may be getting soft, but I’m not that soft,” Sunset gently pushes twilight away and sits up straighter.

“So, how is this going to work?” Pinkie asks Twilight.

“Well… could it be possible that we change you five back and not send you back to Equestria?” Starlet nods and twilight continues “Could the princesses wield the elements again and change us back?” Starlet halters for a second.

“I don’t know… I think it might work,” Starlet answers.

“Whoa! Starlet doesn’t know something?” Rainbow mocks.

“Oh, hush you. I happen to not know a great deal of things. It just so happens that I Research magic as an important part of my job, mind you,” Starlet retorts.

“Can we get this along? As fun as this is, I’d rather be my own pony again. Half of me was cool before, and the other half was just some dork.” Sunset sighs impatiently.

“Yeah, let’s all get back to separate people and ponies,” Rainbow says. Twilight floats the crown from off of Sunset and onto her own head. The crown lights up and the room is enveloped with the magic of harmony.

I can feel the magic coursing through my veins. The power of the elements of harmony is really something, I can even feel the happiness that rarity was talking about. I can feel myself being torn from the body of Starlet, but it’s for the best. I feel the magic flowing around me, and then I feel the air flowing through my hair. The light passes and I open my eyes to see Twilight looking at me in shock. I just look back at her blankly, her mouth is hanging open. It looks like she plans on saying something so I wait for her to say it. She snaps her mouth shut and looks behind me frantically. I look behind me and see quite the sight.

I can see all the normal ponies on one side of the group, and then I can see humans on the other side with features that match the ponies. for instance, hair colors are identical. Eye color is another thing, but that’s less of a concern. I turn to Starlet and she’s looking at me wide-eyed.

“What happened?” I gasp at the sound of my voice, it still sounds like Starlet’s. “Mirror.” I hold my hand out to Starlet and she obliges my request. I hold the mirror up and I almost drop it in shock. I’m a human female with dark-brown hair and red-dyed tips. The more shocking fact is that I have pony ears on top of my head, pale grey pony ears. My eyes are a striking blood red, I look like a human replica of starlet. I’m wearing my baggy pajamas that I was wearing before the change. They were baggy before and that was when I had a more solid and masculine build, Now they are much too baggy and are having trouble staying on.

“What happened?” I see the others all turning to Starlet for an answer.

“If I have to guess, it would be that part of your coding was overwritten by your equestrian half. Since you merged, all of your coding merged too. the elements did their best to seperate it, but even that wasn’t perfect. There was a memory of the exact coding, but that’s in the bodies. since the absolute coding for the ponies was the most dominant coding, the pony body wasn’t changed. The human halves were ejected and the magic formed them a body, but the ponies already have a body. If it had been the other way around, the ponies might have had similar changes.” Starlet answers.

“Why am I the only one that actually has pony features then?!” I shout.

“Well…” Our halves were already split and in a stasis of harmony still. When the elements went through, they found two halves were already arranged. The only thing the elements felt obliged to do there was attempt to sort out our personalities, as that was the only thing that the halves disagreed about. I would be Identical to how you are now if I didn’t have this body already there for me…” Starlet looks at me with embarrassment.

“I can’t believe this, how am I supposed to stay low if I’m half pony!?” I shout in exasperation.

“Um… Skylar? I don’t know if this changes anything, but you all have magical signatures,” I look at Twilight blankly. “Do you remember how I said that the other humans saw had no magic?” Twilight continues.

“I saw that as well,” Celestia adds.

“I noticed it,” Luna inputs.

“I did too, but i didn’t pay much attention to it,” Sunset adds.

“Magical signatures? What? I didn’t see anything,” Vinyl adds.

“Wait, are you saying…” I manage to pull my tablet out from the pocket dimension I put it in, I gasp. “We have magic?” I say in awe.

“Yes, you do. Do you think that this might help with concealing those ears and tail?” Twilight says. I blink as I try to comprehend what she’s just said, suddenly my mind catches up.

“I have a tail?!” I spin around and look at my rear to find a long tail flowing over the top of my pants. “Okay, this is going to take some getting used to…” I stuff the tail down one of my pant legs and turn to Twilight. “As for the magic thing, I think I should be able to use some of the concealment spells Starlet’s taught me to conceal the extra parts with magic.” I reach up to feel my ear and it flickers at the touch.

“Okay, well, princesses? can you focus on doing the exact same thing that Twilight and the others did? We need them for the last spell,” Starlet speaks up. Twilight and the others give Celestia and Luna the elements. There is another flash of light and then we see more humans that have pony features. I face palm as I see the wings, how are they supposed to conceal those?

“Wings?! Thats so cool!” Zackery shouts, being Rainbows counterpart would make flying seem that much cooler.

“This is going to be a predicament…” I muse as I look at the two people who used to be Fluttershy and Rainbow dashs’ counterparts. As I look on I see Fluttershys’ wings fold against her back, they’re almost unnoticeable aside from the hole they slipped into. “Maybe not… just try not to make a scene,” I say. Zackery and Clemente both nod, I turn back to see Twilight and the others getting their elements back from the princesses. “Those elements sure are powerful, to do things like this repeatedly. We should hurry and do this last spell though,” Twilight nods and we all look at eachother in silence.

“I’m gonna miss you guys!” Pinkie Screams as she pulls all of us Humans into a hug, “and girls,” Pinkie winks at me and Alice, I roll my eyes.

“We’ll miss you too Pinkie,” I attempt to hug her back harder, but Pinkie just increases her force. I relent and she motions for all the other ponies to join in, They all comply. Even Sunset wills herself over and joins in.

“We’ll always be there for eachother in our hearts,” I say as the hug breaks up.

“Of course, Friendship can’t be deterred by distance,” Twilight says.

“Not even the longest of distances,” Clarence finishes his former counterparts thought. They exchange smiles and we all group together once again.

“Twilight? would you mind sending us all home?” I ask, Twilight smiles.

“Sure thing, just think of your house,” She says, I Picture my house.

“Hey guys, be sure to stay in touch,” Zackery says.

“Sure thing, I’d love to hang out with you guys some time,” I answer, there are various other affirmations.

“Goodbye, we’ll all miss you,” Fluttershy says. Twilight and the others all float up as the magic of harmony starts working again. I close my eyes and picture my house’s exterior. As I feel the magic flow over me a giant smile plasters itself on my face.

~~~~~~~

“Ahh, home sweet home…” I walk towards my door, I had spent the last hour or so changing back to how I used to look, wouldn’t it be a surprise for your son to come home not as your son? I had to pull a reference of myself from a picture on my tablet, it’s pretty sad that I forgot what I used to look like. I’m still wondering if I should tell them anything about my not being the same. I’m sure they might understand it after all this pony business, but I’m not so sure that they’ll expect it. I open the door and I find it looks exactly the same as I left it.

“Hey mom, I’m home,” I say as I see my mom sitting on the recliner.

“Skylar, I’m so glad that you’re back!” she gets up to give me a big hug and I hug her back.

“Yeah, New York was crazy,” I comment, she pulls me back and gives me a look.

“You mean Washington?” I look at her quizzically, but I just nod. why would she think I was in Washington.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking…” I think on what she’s said.

“How’d you get here?” She asks

“Twilight sent us here,” I say on instinct, but I stop myself before I say too much. she has this face of concern.

“Who’s Twilight?” she gives me a hard stare and I look back in disbelief.

“She was the… taxi driver. Yeah,” Does she not remember the whole pony incident.

“That's good. I was so worried you’d miss the first day of school when they said your flight was delayed, be sure to thank your father for the taxi money,” I look over to the computer earnestly, why doesn’t she remember the pony incident? does nobody remember it?

“Where are your bags?” she asks, looking around.

“They’re already in the room,” I reply. “I have something I need to do, would you excuse me?” I move away and over towards the computer.

“Be sure to be ready for school, the new semester starts tomorrow,” I hadn’t even thought about what day it was, is it really already the sixth of January? According to discords new calendar, only about three weeks or so passed, but here she is saying that more than that passed. I need more answers.

~~~~~~~

I open my eyes to see an expanse of darkness, with only the grass at my feet to be seen. If I look closely, though, I can see dim lights off in the distance. They look almost like stars in this expanse of darkness, But I recognize this place enough to know better. This is Void space, or, at least, a really realistic replica. I’m shaken out of my thoughts by a voice behind me.

“There you are, It takes you long enough to fall asleep,” Starlet is standing behind me.

“Starlet? Are you real? You said I am asleep. Does that mean that you’re just a dream image?” I don’t really expect an answer, I wasn’t even really asking questions.

“I am real, we have a mental link still. All of you humans have one to your former counterparts, and everyone else is already here. It appears that we can all stay in touch through our dreams, though I’m afraid that there isn’t much to do here. Come on, everyponies waiting.” I follow Starlet to an out of place room, it’s actually more of just a door. The door leads into a room, but the room isn’t visible on the outside. There doesn’t appear to be any walls in the room, but the inside of the room looks like a beautiful forest. Starlet leads me down a forest path and into a clearing, in the clearing I can see all my friends from earlier yesterday. If I had known I’d be seeing them, I would have fallen asleep sooner.

I had been spending all night up until midnight researching information about the pony predicament, but I found no information on it whatsoever. It’s like it hadn’t happened at all, which is fine. It means that everything is back to normal, nobody asking about the pony phenomena. And if that means that nobody would believe me if I told them this story, that’s okay. As long as I get to stick with my new friends, I don’t care if I have to hide a secret my whole life. I’m a good liar, my entire personality is centered around what facade I put up next. It’s who I am, and I’m fine with that.

Backfire

We were cruising down the highway when Ron decided to speak up, “so, why Phoenix?” he questioned. I really hope he's OK with picking up some more ponies.

“well, we have someone were going to meet, and more than likely take with us to New York. I hope you don't mind,” I looked over to him.

He shook his head, “no, not at all. The more the merrier,” he looked over and flashed me a grin before turning his head back to the road. “so where we picking up our guest?” he asked without taking his eyes of the road again.

“we are to meet her at Harmony Park in Gilbert” I thought back to the message she had sent me, “we need to contact her when we get close.”

he nodded, “got it, well it'll be about three and a half hours before we get there. And it's still early, so we should be able to get farther than that at that rate. Do you know anywhere up farther?” he looked over and I just nodded to show him I heard. I thought, do I know anywhere farther up?

“actually I do. My grandma lives in Cameron Arizona, we could pick up my friend and continue on up to Flagstaff for dinner. After dinner we can continue on to Cameron and stop by my Grandma's house. I'm sure she'll let us stay at her place.” I turned to see Ron smiling and slowly nodding.

“OK, you can remember that, and I'll focus on driving.” he laughed and I joined with him. After we had settled down more I turned to the window, we had a good three hours until we got to our first stop I pulled out my tablet and turned on my music, I started to jam out and pulled open one of my game apps. I closed it after multiple failed attempt at playing with hooves, I finally settled on reading.

I looked through my books, there were a bunch I hadn't read. I mostly hadn't read them because I had put off reading them until the right time. Right now is a good a time as any so I opened up the first book. It was titled “dream psychology psychoanalysis for beginners” by Sigmund Freud. I wasn't as big a bookworm as twilight sparkle, but I had my moments. I had downloaded this and multiple other books like it one day and hadn't gotten around to reading them. I was truly interested in them, but I had gotten too caught up in other things to actually read them.

I started to read the book and found it to be quite interesting, but after some time in silence Ron spoke up. “what'cha doing?” he looked over to me and I snapped out of my intensive reading.

“oh, just catching up on some reading,” I returned to my book only to be peeled away again.

“what'cha reading?” he smiled as I sighed and looked over to him.

“Dream Psychology Psychoanalysis for Beginners,” I stared at him as I saw him take his eyes of the road for a second to look at me, he turned back to the road.

“Seriously?” he looked genuinely shocked.

“Seriously,” I turned back to my book, I read for a couple more seconds before my beautiful silence was demolished.

“why are you reading that?” he finally asked.

“because I find it interesting,” I continued to read, but it seemed it was not meant to be as he interrupted yet again.

“aren't you like 15 or something?” he asked.

“never ask a lady her age” I said stubbornly, he raised an eyebrow at me.

“if I recall correctly...” I stopped him with an icy glare. He happened to look over and see it, that shut him up.

“i wouldn't go there if I were you. I know what you were going to say, and I'm warning you not to mention it,” I hissed icily, I let my voice go back to just annoyed. “besides, what does it matter what age I am. I can read what I want, no matter my age,” I turned back to my book and finally got the silence I wanted.

“I guess so, just seemed odd that you would be interested in that. I bet you had really good grades in school, right?” he finally asked after a while. I just sighed, it was an OK question.

“to be honest, not really. People always looked to me for answers and expected me to know stuff. I did know it, but I didn't care. If they asked I would help them, but I didn't have good work ethic. I had a lot of missing assignments, and I currently still do. I will turn them in, but at my own pace.” I looked over to him to see a look of thoughtfulness.

“i see, so you're just lazy?” he turned to me and saw that he probably shouldn't have said lazy. I glared at him hard, “sorry, so you weren't lazy?” he apologized.

“not lazy. Unmotivated,” I turned back to my book, “huge difference.”

“right, right. So I'm guessing you want to be a Psychologist?” he asked.

“not exactly. Either that or an Author. There was a while I wanted to be a psychic,” I looked up from my book, “but alas, I have no mystical mind-reading powers.” I paused as that thought hit me. “aww, I don't have mystical mind-powers...” seems like I got an aspect of my OC wrong. I wonder what else about her is wrong? Maybe she isn't a dimension hopping re-incarnating trans-dimensional healer, that would explain why I haven't just disappeared into the void space by now.

There'll be time to question how much I've miscalculated the background of my OC later, right now we have a place to get to. Besides, how would I even prove any of what I said? Well I guess I could prove the re-incarnating part wrong by dying, but if I am wrong; I kind of don't want to die, so that's a no. I turned back to my book and continued to read, the silence carried on for a while more before Ron spoke up again.

“I'm gonna pull over for gas, you can go use the restroom if you have too.” truth was I did have to go. I looked out the window to see that we were in a well-sized city, we pulled up to a nearby gas station.

“where are we?” I asked, I looked around for any signs.

“Tuscon” came the reply, well that would explain why it looked so nice. Or at least it looked nicer than some other small towns in Arizona. I walked into the gas station as Ron began to pump some gas into the van. I finished up and walked out of the restroom, I saw Ron paying for the gas at the counter. I turned to the drinks and floated out a cherry lemonade, I then picked up some gummy worms and headed up to the counter. I gasped a little as I saw there was a pony behind the counter, I can't believe I didn't see him before.

He turned to me and I saw he was just as surprised, “oh, look another,” I placed my stuff on the counter. “quite the appetite, but some good tastes.”

“it's not all for now, but thank you” I said, he looked a little confused as I spoke.

“what the hay is that crazy mare talking about?”

“oh, I was just saying that it's not all for now. You were saying something about my appetite? And my tastes? So I was just responding,” I looked at him as his eyes grew wide.

“I didn't say any of that.” I was about to say something but what I noticed stopped me in my tracks. He hadn't moved his mouth, yet I heard him clear as day. I looked back at him with eyes just as wide. I tried to just smile, But it just came out awkward.

“oops, my bad.” I blushed a little as I pulled out my debit card, I swiped it and paid for my stuff. I grabbed the bag and made for the door.

“she's pretty cute,” I heard from behind me as i reached the door. I blushed furiously and ran over to the car. I slammed the door as I felt the heat rising in my cheeks, I wasn't sure what I was more concerned about. On one hoof, I had cool mind powers. On the other hoof, they only worked sometimes. I was forced out of my thoughts as I heard Ron, he was trying to talk to me.

“hey, you okay?” I jumped and blushed even harder. I was sure my cheeks would catch on fire anytime now with all this blushing.

“I-I'm fine,” I stammered, he saw my blush and laughed.

“So, do you find a fancy for the stallion behind the counter?” he laughed.

“N-no, but apparently he finds a fancy for me...” I muttered. I hadn't really thought I said it loud enough for him to hear, but he had heard and he started to laugh a little more.

“and what makes you so sure?” he asked.

“I heard him...” I turned to Ron and he was laughing so hard he couldn't breath.

“He hit on you?” he asked between fits of laughter.

“Not exactly...” I watched as Ron calmed down.

“No? Well then what did he do?” Ron was curious now.

“He called me cute...” I mumbled.

“That's kind of what hitting on someone is!” he exclaimed and almost broke into laughter again, but I interrupted him.

“He didn't say it to me, he thought it.” I deadpanned. This earned me a few looks from Ron, he was obviously skeptical.

“And how do you know what he was thinking?” he asked, he wasn't laughing now.

“Cause I could hear it,” I looked at Ron and he looked at me.

“Oh, that's a good one!” he started laughing but stopped as he saw my look, “You're serious?” I just nodded and he just looked at me. “well, can you hear what I'm thinking?”

“No but I know you think I'm crazy,” I sighed as I turned away from Ron.

Ron stared at me a while before turning on the car, he pulled away from the gas station in silence. We drove on in silence for a couple miles before he spoke to me again. “So, what did he say?” he asked after a while.

“Not much, just something about my appetite and good tastes. Then he thought I was crazy. And as I was leaving he thought I was cute.” I turned away from the window and looked at Ron as he just nodded his head.

“So you can read his mind, but not mine?” he looked over to me and I just nodded. “well okay then, you have mind powers. But only on some people? How exactly does that work?”

I just shrugged, “I dunno, but I'm gonna go back to reading,” I turned away from Ron and he left me to my reading. He was obviously trying to think out the thought reading thing, I just continued my reading. We fell into silence as we continued our journey, we didn't have anything to say.