An Explosive Journey

So, to recap: we were at Twilight's place after traveling to another time in my world instead of where we wanted to go, and ended up leaving Rainbow Dash to sit there and worry about us until we got back. After that was dealt with, the three of us - being myself, Rainbow, and Lyra, headed off to Vinyl and Octavia's house for a lunch get together. Along the way, Lyra decides to try and scare me as punishment for thinking too much and spacing out while walking. When she goes through with scaring me, I accidentally end up teleporting into a patch of poison joke plants; Lyra, being ever so smart, teleports right after me, and lands in them as well. As a result, we end up swapping genders. Lyra, being unable to handle the hormones and other things that come with being a guy, ends up getting really, really turned on while we were on our way to Zecora's hut. Long story short, we defiled Rarity's couch, because we weren't going to be doing that sort of thing on the forest floor. This brings us to the current part of the story.

Sweetie Belle, Carousel Boutique

Sleep, something that we all like to do when there's nothing special to do during the day... and it's something that the sun has robbed me of today! I stretched and got out of bed, brushed my teeth, and then headed downstairs for some breakfast. Rarity was already in the kitchen making food, so I went into the main room and sat on the couch... or at least attempted to. Looking down on the couch after standing up on it, I saw that there were a few stains on it that were just a little bit damp; I sniffed them out of curiosity, and found that they smelled a bit weird.

"Raaaaarityyyyy, the couch smells funnyyyyyyyyy." The work in the kitchen stopped for a moment.

"Really Sweetie Belle, there's no way that the couch could smell funny unless you or one of your friends spilled something on it."

"But it doesn't smell like anything anypony would eat, and I can tell it's not from any of our crusading adventures."

"Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to check it out." Rarity came into the main room; I jumped off of the couch so she had room to see.

Rarity took a whiff, and instantly shot back. "DEAR SWEET CELESTIA, GO TAKE A SHOWER SWEETIE BELLE, THE COUCH IS ABSOLUTELY FILTHY!"

I rolled my eyes and went upstairs, and went into the bathroom to start a shower. The warm water against my coat felt relaxing; I grabbed the soap and shampoo, and massaged it into my coat, as well as my mane and tail. It was kind of tiring because I wasn't able to use my magic yet for some reason, but it was worth it. My coat smelled of strawberries and my mane smelled of cotton candy. Rinsing off the soap and shampoo, I stepped out of the shower and dried myself using the towel that was hanging on the rack across from the sink.

I walked downstairs and found Rarity hard at work, scrubbing the couch with the bottle of extremely powerful cleaning fluid - something that she rarely uses... she brought it out the day that I tried to make breakfast that one day, but all she needed was a single drop in a full bucket of water to clean the entire kitchen. Here she was, using a bucket half full of cleaning fluid, the other half was hot water. I trotted up behind her, and I was finally able to make out what she was muttering.

"Filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy," which was emphasized by every scrub of the brush she was using.

'There's no way that I can tear her away from cleaning that, and the last time I tried to cook I nearly burned down the kitchen. Well, I guess I could go to Sugarcube Corner for a muffin or something.'

I turned back to Rarity, who was still scrubbing away at the couch, "Rarity, I'm going out to Sugarcube Corner for some breakfast."

"Be careful Sweetie."

"I will."

I exited our house and headed out to Sugarcube Corner for a nice muffin and lemonade breakfast.

Princess Celestia, Bedroom Chambers

Today was it, today was going to be the day that I break Luna out of that prison she locked herself into. Honestly, 3 days of gaming without sleep, and she had a stockpile of food in her room. What had started as a simple idea that would bring her closer to her subjects, turned into something ridiculous, as she now spends most of her free time cooped up in that room, occasionally shouting at nothing but the large LED flatscreen TV whenever she got upset about a part in whatever game it was.

'Luna, you really must grow up...'

I sighed and returned to the throne room after clearing my mind, the pegasus guards paying no mind to my absence in the first place. Now that I sat on the throne once more, the court secretary allowed the next pony into the antechamber to voice their concerns about town issues and how one of us could help to alleviate said problem. One by one, more ponies came in to voice their problems and opinions, soaking up most of my time. Sure, I'm the princess and I can do pretty much anything I darn well wanted to most of the time, I still felt it necessary to listen to the voiced opinions of the public so as to help keep things in order - as they say, it's better to listen to what's going on with a problem before offering a solution.

'I may be a princess, and it may be my royal duty to assist in issues that affect the lives of my subjects, but for once I wish I could just take a vacation, just for one day; this is seriously starting to get boring, and I don't know how much longer I can take this. Being princess shouldn't be a privilege, it should be a punishment, on the highest level... and the board meetings surely do not help things.'

Sure enough, my wishes were granted, as I could feel that Discord was finally back from the moon. His invisibility trick had caused me to sense him right away, and I could tell that he was heading back for his room. Suddenly things didn't seem so boring, as I was able to keep my attention on those that kept coming into the courts to address some issue that could have been dealt with differently and still benefit the town or city.

Princess Luna, Bedroom Chambers

"TAKE THAT, AND THAT, AND THA - OH CRAP! CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP - NOOOOOO! WHY MUST YOU DESOLATE ME EVERY TIME, TAURUS DEMON!?" I yelled unceremoniously at the large LCD screen in front of me, clearly playing a new game that had just come out for the Haystation 3 and other consoles, Mark Souls. It had been merely hours after the game's release that I had received my copy in the mail... though I hadn't actually ordered it - I figured that one of the guards must have let it slip that I love video games and it spread to one of the stores, thus resulting in a limited edition preorder only copy of Mark Souls in my personal mailbox yesterday. Giving up on trying to get past that certain part in the game, I resigned to playing a game which was brought by Nova when he had come here. No, I didn't steal it, I had Discord sneak in and make a copy of it instead. The only thing that was left, was to boot up the computer...

The game was a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved. Sure, the game was old, but it held something special about it.

I popped the disc into the computer system that Discord had bought for me, and started the installer. The game controls were almost the same as some of the other games I have, so it wasn't that hard to learn the new configuration. As soon as the game had finished installing, the first thing I did was what any good gamer would do - start the campaign mission to familiarize myself with the game mechanics and controls, before heading into multiplayer mayhem.

The first few moments of the game were nothing special, just exposition on the current events, and setting the plot for the main character in the game. People from Nova's world, according to Dissy, had said that this game had launched an incredibly large franchise, worth well over $100,000,000. To be honest, this game is quite creative for the time that it had been released, and we have yet to see a counterpart here in Equestria.

The grunts in this game are just so darn hilarious, the way that they flail around everywhere, running and screaming; I'm not saying that I enjoy torturing beings, but I just find it amusing how these characters were developed in the game. The elites are a pain at times, though I can deal with them... most of the time.

The needler pistols, the needler pistols... OH THOSE CELESTIA DAMNED NEEDLER PISTOLS! THEY ARE A NUISANCE AND SHOULD BE OBLITERATED FROM THIS GAME ENTIRELY! One second I'm taking down an elite and I am low on health, but my shields are holding up, then out of nowhere, A FREAKING GRUNT SHOWS UP WITH A NEEDLER, AND DESECRATES ME WITH ITS POINTY PINK PROJECTILES OF DOOM! MICROSOFT STUDIOS, YOU SHALL RUE THE DAY THAT YOU DECIDED THAT NEEDLER PISTOLS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO BE PUT IN THIS GAME! MARK MY WORDS, YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED!

"Come on, come on, almost there, gotta get to the health pa - NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I screamed in frustration as yet another elite that had a cloak enabled had smacked me in the back of the head. Cheapshots.

"Alright, I guess I could take a break from that and start up multiplayer."

I exited to the main menu, and then scrolled down to multiplayer, and then selected my color - or I would have, if they had midnight blue. Seeing as they did not have my coat color, I settled for the next best thing, black. I checked over the settings one more time, making sure that everything was set right. Feeling that everything was set the way I liked it, I jumped into the foray on a random server; it was a free for all match, and the score limit was 50.

"Time to teach these insolent beings who their leader is." I smiled as the match started; these fools had no idea what was coming to them...

Nova, Home

Out of all the things not to work, it just HAD to be the antidote for poison joke. Sure, Lyra was back to her normal self, but I'm still stuck as a girl. Don't get me wrong, it's nice, but sometimes I miss my old body... and I'm already getting tired of Lyra staring off into space and having her eyes gravitate towards my chest. I currently sat on the couch in the living room, wondering what we could do today, as the two of us really didn't have anything planned.

"So Nova, got any good games back in your world?"

"Lyra, you have my memories, so it's safe to say that if you want to know that answer, ask yourself." Lyra pouted and shot a hurt look at me, though I knew she was just foaling around.

"Have I ever told you that you're really mean?" The hurt look was still on her face, but I wasn't buying it.

"No, you haven't. Also, I have an idea: why don't we hop over to my world and bring over my computers, and we can play something together." That pouting face she had no doubt perfected was washed away in an instant, replaced by a happy grin, almost covering her whole face.

"Sweet, what game were you thinking?"

"Halo: Combat Evolved." Her smile vanished at the same speed it appeared on her face.

"Really?" The sarcasm was so obvious in her voice that it was almost as if it were a sign being smacked into my face.

"Hey, you gotta enjoy the classics, Lyra. This game is what started the whole Halo franchise in the first place. Plus, if we do get my computers and play together, we can also play people from my world, as the systems would be dimensionally locked."

"Though I doubt you can get back to your world, considering what happened the last time we tried."

"One, we were using traditional magic, and two, it didn't help that Rainbow Dash came crashing in just before it was done."

"Still, it's not like you can use the one you wrote out in your world, because as you said, it can only be done by those that are a resident of that world in that time frame."

"Technically speaking, I could, I just didn't want to be the guinea pig myself, because I wasn't sure how using magic outside of Equestria would work... turns out that I could charge it just fine." Lyra facehoofed.

"Nova, you are ridiculous sometimes."

"I know, and that's why you love me!" Lyra giggled.

"Yeah, ridiculous but still sweet and charming, in your own way."

I briefly hugged Lyra, running my fingers through her soft mane; she responded by nuzzling into my neck... I almost melted in her embrace. After a couple minutes, we separated, and I had opted to give Lyra a few pointers before we go.

"So, a little foreword about taking a trip to my world: I can pretty much tell you that they won't be able to accept the fact that Equestria actually exists yet. True, there are bronies that wish to be here, but to them it's still a fleeting dream."

"Implying...?"

"I'm gonna have to change your form into a human before we go."

"Oh, cool."

I began charging up the energy needed to pull of the transformation spell, and then started changing Lyra's form. Her stature was just a bit larger than mine, only a few inches taller, and her skin tone was just a tad darker, as if she had a tan. Her hair was a bit shorter than mine, and kept its original color scheme, white and aquamarine. She was wearing a pair of skinny jeans that accentuated her lovely behind quite nicely, which ended halfway down her forelegs. Her shirt was a turquoise colored t-shirt, and her shoes were a pair of green converse, though instead of the official logo, it had a lyre in its place. Her, 'airbags', were pretty decent; they were almost the same size as mine, which were around 35c.

As the transformation finished, I couldn't stop myself from drooling while admittedly ogling at her hot form. Lyra giggled at me, probably because I had a stupid look on my face.

"Like what you see?" There was a hint of naughtiness in her voice, which made it that much harder to keep my hands at my sides.

"Oh hell yes. Lyra, I thought you were cute before, but now... I'd have to say that you'd give almost every girl in my world a run for their money."

"Down girl."

I pouted, "Yes."

"So, when do we leave?" Lyra's voice was full of eagerness, her energy just pooling out of her.

"Actually, in a couple minutes, it'll take a bit to properly aim the vortex at the right point in time."

I charged up the energy required to rip open a hole, and then started calculating for the other end of the vortex to open right into my bedroom, in the present time; about five minutes later, a window opened up, and through it, my bedroom could be seen. The two of us stepped through the hole, and as we crossed over, the hole closed. Lyra looked at me worriedly, but I just gave her a look that told her this happens normally.

We both looked around the room - everything was in the same place that it was left the day that I got the call to go for that interview in L.A.; clothes on the floor, games all over my desk and chair, console controllers in random places, and all three of my computer towers on. I did not want to see my electricity bill.

"Wait, you have three computers?"

"Yeah, I do. One's for just producing music, the other one is for gaming, and the third is the guest computer."

"Wow, you're organized, though I can't really say that while looking at the state of your room."

"Oh be quiet you." I playfully punched Lyra in the shoulder; she hit right back, laughing.

"Owie." I gave her a pouty face.

"Oh don't look at me like that, it's not gonna work."

"Whatever. Hey, you wanna go take a walk around town? Actually, I'll be right back, I'm gonna go get someone who I think will be very interested to meet us, but first..." I concentrated my spark energy, and changed my form back to how I should be, male, with my slightly muscular build, mullet that was tied into a ponytail, and my normal clothes. Lyra looked pretty ticked.

"YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE ENTIRE TIME? WHY DID WE WASTE ALL THAT TIME AT ZECORA'S TRYING TO GET YOU BACK TO NORMAL?"

"Because I wanted to see if anything would work, and I kinda forgot I could do that til now." I gave Lyra a peck on the lips, "So, I shall be back in a little bit, try not to wreck anything... and don't touch my production studio, I have that set up just the way I want it; if you want something to do, why not watch a movie or something on one of the other computers. I'll be back in a bit."

I walked over to a corner that was always covered by a shadow, and stepped through, keeping in mind the place I wanted to go: the house of my drinking buddy, John Hughes.

I stepped through the shadow, and emerged just outside of his house in an alleyway; I walked around to the front, and saw that his car was in the driveway. I knocked on the door, and waited for the door to be answered. Two minutes passed by before the door was opened, and heralded a surprised John.

"Jason, what the hell happened, I thought you were gone! You were on TV bro, they showed the footage of you just vanishing in a white light at the airport." Intrigued, I walked in, and saw on the TV that very footage being played on SpikeTV. I turned towards John, ready to tell him just about everything.

"John, I am going to tell you something, but this is something that has to be kept secret, even moreso than The Doctor's real name." John nodded, allowing me to continue.

"That white flash, was me being brought to Equestria; I stepped on a lay-line that was right on top of a rip in the universe, which hurled me into Equestria." Surprisingly, he was taking this info well so far.

"When I arrived, I landed in somepony's home, and I have more news: we're officially together!" John extended his fist towards me.

/)*(\

"That's awesome, Jason. Oh, have you met Twilight?" Yeah, John's a brony, and he absolutely ADORES Twilight!

"Yeah, and I borrowed a few books from her so I could do magic... wait, I came here to fetch you and go back to my house. Dude, come with me!" Before John could say anything, I dragged him by the wrist, outside, and into the alleyway; he looked at me like I had two heads, though that was before we shadow walked. As soon as we passed through and ended up back at my place, his look changed in an instant.

Nova, (former) Home

John and I came back to my house through the shadow corner, and his eyes laid upon the sole person standing in the room - Lyra. He turned to look at me as if I had two heads again.

"I thought you said that you were with Lyra..."

Lyra cleared her throat, "Um, that's me." She waved a hand at John, "Hi."

John confusedly raised his hand and waved back at her, "Um, hi..?"

"You don't think I'm telling the truth, do you?"

"Personally, no."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Dude, do you really think that I would let Lyra come here as a pony, and risk someone seeing her through the window? You know what, come with me, we're going back to Equestria." Before John could say anything, I opened the vortex that led back to Ponyville, and walked through, with Lyra and John in tow.

Nova, Home

As soon as all three of us had stepped onto the other side, I quickly made sure that we were all accounted for, and nothing had been horribly mismatched when going through the portal. After the once over, I turned to Lyra, waiting patiently.

"Oh fine, you can turn me back now..." She sighed, which made me feel a little guilty for cutting her fun a little short.

I charged up the needed magic and transformed Lyra from a human, back into a pony. John stared between me and Lyra, in complete and utter shock. I honestly thought it was hilarious seeing his reaction when I had used magic, and to transform someone from being a human, back to a pony.

"Nova... how are you able to do that?" I didn't want to reveal all of the details to him yet... so I opted to only tell him a limited bit of info.

"When I was at the airport, I must have stepped on a ley-line that was right on top of a hole in the universe, which resulted in me being transported to a random universe, I just happened to be so lucky as to land here." Pfffft, more like I was dragged here after falling out of my own universe. The Spark inside me must have become active when I stepped on that line, thus ejecting me from the universe at that moment.

John pensively scratched just below his sideburns in thought, "Yeah, I get that explains how you got here, but it doesn't explain how you're able to do magic..."

"Right; to be honest, I have almost no idea as to how I am able to do magic, but hey, it's magic, why look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"I guess you're right on that one."

Let me explain something before things go any further: John is actually about 3 years older than I am, and he has a habit of trying to analyze almost every detail; if John is missing details of something that he wants to know, he will drive himself into the ground until he figures it out... He's so much like Twilight that it's uncanny.

My jaw almost hit the floor - this was so unlike John to just simply dismiss something he's interested in finding out... then again, we ARE in Equestria, and I don't know everything about him.

"Well, that's new."

"There's quite a bit you don't know about me yet, Nova, and I know there's a lot that I don't know about you either, so we're even on that one."

"Touche."

"Um, HELLO! DOES ANYONE KNOW THAT I EXIST!?" The two of us turned towards Lyra, grins on our faces.

"If you didn't exist Lyra, who would I have to snuggle in bed with?" Lyra unintentionally turned up the cute by blushing, adding a shade of pink to her bright aquamarine coat. 'D'AAAAWWWWWWWW!'

"Hey John, how bout I bring you over to Twilight's and introduce you?" Right then and there, John's face lit up, and he began shaking more than a kid in a candy store with a one million dollar spending budget. Seriously, I was considering renting him out to the construction crew as a spare jackhammer...

"Holy crap YES! WHEN DO WE GO?" I giggled silently.

"RIGHT NOW!"

"Mind if I come too, Nova?"

"You kidding me? Of course you can come. You didn't really have to ask, I thought you were coming with us anyway."

The three of us exited our home, and set out towards Twilight's house.

John, Ponyville

I just couldn't believe it - we were all walking towards Twilight's place, and I was barely able to contain my excitement. Lyra and Jason giggled at me while we walked... well, they walked, while I skipped happily down the road. Many ponies were staring at us, though I could care less... then again, it could be the shirt that I'm currently wearing - it's a white t-shirt with Twilight enthusiastically pointing with both of her hooves at the word 'SCIENCE', while standing upright on her hind legs.

The closer we got to the library, the more excited I got, I just couldn't suppress the gigantic grin I wore while walking there, and I wouldn't have it any other way - I was meeting my favorite pony, and my beacon of hope. Twilight played an important role in my life, when things got hard at work, I used to have nothing to turn to, what with some of the co-workers giving me a hard time because I was fairly new. When I had discovered Friendship is Magic, I instantly felt a connection with Twilight; I felt that I could relate with her when it came to meticulously detailing everything, never skipping over anything, wanting to find out exactly what makes everything tick. She would be there for her friends in an instant, and never give up when being faced with a near-impossible task when it came to her friends. In a way, I admired Twilight for that, and because of her, I managed to overcome most of the stuff that goes on at work and in the lab, and to smile through life.

When we had finally reached Twilight's library, I felt like my heart was going to explode from beating so fast. My back felt chills, my hands were shaking more than a tambourine being played by a gypsy, and my mind was going a thousand miles a minute. Jason stepped up to the door and knocked; nothing happened at first, but then Spike opened the door. Jason and spike brohoofed, and we were all led inside.

"Twilight, you got visitors! Nova and Lyra are here, and they brought another human with them!"

I turned towards Jason, "Nova, huh? When did that happen?"

Lyra spoke just before Jason could open his mouth, "When Jason first came here, we had to think of another name for him that would fit better; after sitting around and trying to figure one out, he randomly blurted out 'Nova,' and we just went with it."

Before I could say anything else, there came a voice from upstairs, "I'll be right there, just a minute!" There were sounds of books being closed and frantic running around. Jason facepalmed.

"You've got to be kidding me, she's STILL researching that project of hers... seriously, I'm gonna need to have a talk with that crazy mare."

Lyra and I responded, ("What project?"("What project?"))

Another facepalm, "Really guys? But yeah, Sparkles is working on a project that she's very adamant in completing, and no, I don't know the details."

Twilight started descending down the stairs, and she must've heard us, cause she replied, "And you're not going to know the details, cause it's private. Sorry to disappoint you three... Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and it's nice to meet you, um..."

"It's John, John Hughes."

"John Hooves?"

"John Hughes."

"John Who?"

"John Hughes."

"John Moose?"

"It's John Hughes."

"John Shoes?"

"Ugh, it's John Hughes!"

Twilight laughed, "It's alright, I was just having a bit of fun," She grinned, and there was the one and only 'squee' sound, "Sorry 'bout that."

I sighed, "Nah, it's ok, at least you didn't mess up my first name."

"Oh, John, why do you have a shirt with a picture of me on it pointing at the word science?"

This is one of the things that I wish I didn't have to explain to the ponies, though I guess there was no avoiding it; though just before I opened my mouth, Jason responded.

"Yeah, um, Twilight, this is something that is easier shown than merely explained. I'm going to give you a run through with a memory spell, because honestly, I don't want to embarrass myself having to explain it... that, and it's a LOT less time consuming." Jason closed his eyes, and held a hand over Twilight's head. Just before I thought that it may not actually work, Jason's hand was covered in an orange-yellow magic aura, and then Twilight's eyes went wide...

The song I Know Humans Exist by Neighsayer fits perfectly with this scene...

Twilight, Library

Nova closed his eyes and put a hand over top of my head, channeling the needed amount of magic for the spell, and then he started showing me memories from before the time he arrived here. The memories started with the invention of the television, how it had evolved, and so on; a few seconds later, Nova moved on from that, to a few shows that this 'Lauren Faust' had created, and the following she had gained because of the quality of the shows that she had produced. Next up was her draft for a show called 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. At first I was shocked at the details of this show, but I just patiently sat through the rest of the memories.

What was shown after that, was an essay which was written, berating the show before it even aired; the interesting part was where it ended up - on a website called '4-chan', and it had gained the attention of a few people... I saw how a few people had decided to check out the show, and started liking it, because of the animation, the character depth, and so on. As the show went on, it started gathering a larger crowd, who heralded the show as a beacon of hope in an otherwise oppressive media-driven society.

I was astounded at the sheer number of people who have been touched by the show and the community of 'bronies' that follow it, and its creed of 'love and tolerance.' I can honestly say, that I had never thought of anything like that happening. People's lives were saved from their own suicide attempts, it made people become accepting of others' differences as well as their own, they reached out to good causes everywhere, and they have the biggest hearts; when one of them is feeling sad, another takes notice and tries their hardest at cheering them up in any way they can. Some people have been inspired to reach their goals, no matter what they were, all because of the show that revolved around me and my friends, as well as our adventures; some have gone from being complete jerks, to the nicest people in the world, all because of this one show. It is absolutely amazing that a show about me and my friends could so something so astounding.

I opened my eyes, which were threatening to burst into tears at the revelation that I just had about Nova and the other bronies; without any warning whatsoever, John knelt down and brought me into a hug, stroking the back of my neck; it felt nice.

John then spoke, "I take it he showed you everything, right?" I nodded.

"I never knew that my friends and I meant so much to so many people, I didn't think any of us would have that big of an impact on your world. Compared to us, all of you do so much in the name of friendship and harmony that you even put Celestia and Luna, as well as the Elements of Harmony themselves to shame."

All of us stayed silent for a few minutes, thinking about the many contributions of bronies everywhere...

'Thank you, everyone, wherever you may be at this time; I thank you for what you all do, from the bottom of my heart.'