Camp Equestria

by mojomcm

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Other, Nightmare Moon, Spike, Comedy
Length: 3259

Put this book away if you value your life. You can continue reading, but don't say I didn't warn you. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my story.

Put this book away right now.
If you think this is some work of fiction, you would be wrong. Oh so very wrong.
Put this book away if you value your life.
Stop reading if you feel something inside you stiring, because chances are, you're one of us. Trust me, you do not want to be like us.
Put this book away.
You can continue reading, but don't say I didn't warn you. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my story.

Rated dark-ish for dark-ish parts. Based off of the Percy Jackson series.

Published 2014-02-22 05:20:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-01 18:51:44 UTC

Chapter 1

Today was Tuesday.

Now, this was not an ordinary observation because, as we all know, nothing good ever happens on Tuesdays. The day was different from all the other days because one could not look ahead to the weekend since the weekend was many more days away, and unlike Monday, one was no longer rested after the last weekend. The same might have been said of, say, Wednesday, but Wednesday was a good day, simply because of the fact that it was no longer Tuesday.

On this particular Tuesday, Twilight Sparkle was pondering the strange universal fact so called “Tuesday” as her brother drove her to summer camp.

“Cheer up, Twiley!” Shining Armor said as he tilted the rear-view mirror in such a way as to see his favorite (and only) younger sister.

His statement, however, only caused the young Twilight to slouch farther in her seat on the back row of Shining’s new car. “I don’t want to go. Shiny, don’t make me go to summer camp.”

Shining Armor sighed at his sister. He would have laughed; her slouched position, pouted lips, and crossed arms made for a rather comical situation, but he didn’t want to hurt Twilight’s feelings. Running a hand through his messy “mane” of blue hair, he said, “You can’t lock yourself in a library forever, Twi’. You need to get out into the world and make some friends. Besides, you’ll like Camp Equestria.”

“No I won’t,” Twilight muttered. She rubbed her pet iguana, Spike on the head as she considered making a break for it when they stopped. This idea was soon crushed as Twilight remembered the numerous books that she had stashed in her backpack.

Twilight scowled as she thought of Camp Equestria. Her parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light, had said that it would be a “good experience”, although she had yet to be the judge of that. Summer camp, as Twilight said, was where kids who have nothing better to do (in her case, read) and were desperate to make friends went. She insisted that the fate of the world did not rest in her making some friends. In fact, Twilight had plenty of friends! Let’s see, there was Shining Armor, her parents, Spike, and…that was about it.

“You know,” Shining Armor said. “If you look out the right side, you can see the edge of the Everfree Forest.”

“Huh?” Twilight tilted her head. “The what now?”

Shining chuckled, “The Everfree. It’s a forest that surrounds Camp Equestria. Keeps all you ‘reluctant’ campers inside.”

Twilight rolled her eyes at her brother. Surely he was joking.

Soon, they passed the tree line that marked the edge of the Everfree. Most of the sunlight was blocked by the tall trees and the other flora. Shining Armor fell silent after they entered the forest, almost as if he were being cautious to not let anything, or anyone, hear his approach. Twilight shook her head; her brother was not the kind to sneak up on, or past, something.

As they drove deeper and deeper into the Everfree Forest, the road ahead grew darker and the trees on either side of them seemed to become creepier and creepier. Twilight could have sworn that she saw the ruins of an old castle as they passed through. She jumped as a loud crash resounded from her left. An enormous, scaly leg had stomped down, just missing the car by a few feet. Shining Armor swerved to avoid the…

“HYDRA?!” Twilight shrieked as she looked up at the (supposedly) mythical creature that had nearly flattened them.

“Hang on!” Shining called out as the car began to roll. He had tipped into a ditch and the car had lost its balance. The siblings found themselves upside-down when the car came to a stop.

“Are you okay?” Shining asked his sister. He turned around in his seat to see Twilight curled up in a ball around Spike, who was struggling for freedom. “We need to get out of the car NOW.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she began to panic. “You never said anything about hydras being real, much less at summer camp!”

Shining ignored his sister as he shoved the doors open. “Out. Hurry before it comes back.”

Twi’ shivered as she realized the weight of Shining Armor’s words. She slipped Spike into her backpack (and slipped a few books out) as she crawled out of the car. The hydra had realized by then that there were tasty little people nearby and its left-most head (the smartest one) had seen Shining and Twilight exit their car. The hydra’s heads roared as one head grabbed the new-ish car in its jaws and crushed it.

“My car!” Shining groaned as the hydra dropped the pile of rubble and twisted metal in front of him. “Aw, c’mon!”

Twilight backed away from the four-headed serpent as it fixated three of its heads on her. “Uh, Shiny? We’ve got bigger problems.”

“Right.” Shining pulled her behind him. “When I say so, run. I’ll keep it distracted.”

“WHAT?!” The hydra took this chance to strike at the two siblings. Twilight shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable chomping, eating, and maiming that should have occurred. When it didn’t, she stared open-mouthed at her brother. His arms were outstretched at the serpent, and the hydra’s head was smushed up against a shimmering pink shield.

“Run!” Twilight jumped at Shining’s words. “Run, Twiley! I can’t hold this up for forever.” With that, she spun around and ran down the road.

Twilight dared not think about the hydra, or the fate of her brother, were he not able to hold up against the beast. Instead, her mind was focused on the road ahead of her, not tripping over her feet and shoelace, and not running into the trees that seemingly appeared out of nowhere for the sole purpose of steering her off track.

Just as she started to lose hope that the forest would ever end, it did. Suddenly and abruptly, this caused Twilight to lose her footing and trip head-over-heels. Spike let out a disgruntled squeak as he clamored out of Twilight’s backpack and onto her shoulder.

“I guess this is Camp Equestria.”

Chapter 2

Twilight stood up as she looked out on the camp around her. She could see dozens of campers, and every single one seemed to have a brightly colored hair-do that was a rare sight in the “outside world”. Twilight fingered a strand of her own purple-pink “mane” as she walked towards the closest camper. This just so happened to be a hyper child the same age as Twilight, with frizzy pink pigtails that bounced around as their owner did.

“Excuse me,” Twilight tapped the girl on the shoulder, which was her first mistake.

The bouncy pink-haired girl jumped literally three feet in the air before spinning around and gasping the gasp of all gasps. “Ohmygoshomigoshomeigosh! Are you new here? I mean, of course you’re new! I know everybody in Ponyville and everybody in Ponyville knows me! So you’ve got to be new, because I don’t know you yet! But I will. I always do! So, are you new?!”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. The pink-haired girl never seemed to shut up!

“My name’s Pinkie Pie, which is short for Pinkemena Diane Pie, but nobody calls me that, except for my parents, and only when I’m in trouble.” Pinkie grabbed Twilight’s hand and shook it rapidly at the same speed at which she spoke. “What’s your name? Can I guess? I love guessing games! I’m the grand champion of all of Ponyville when it comes to guessing games. Is your name Violet? How about Midnight? No, you seem more like a dusk-y type of person to me. Is that your name? Dusk? Hmmm?”

“N-no,” Twilight said, with her arm still jerking up and down, even though Pinkie had let go. “M-my name’s Twilight Sparkle. Yes, I am new, although I can’t stay.”

With that, Pinkie seemed to deflate a little. “But if you don’t stay, how can I throw you the extra-special-super-duper-welcome-to-Ponyville party that I had planned?”

“When did you plan a party?” Twilight asked.

“Just now!” Twilight rolled her eyes at Pinkie’s antics. “Do you know which cabin you’re staying in? If not, I can help you find out!”

Twilight pondered this for a second. She really wanted to find out if her brother was alright. Perhaps he had found some way to escape the hydra and had walked to camp along a different route. She could easily find out at the same place that Pinkie wanted to drag her to.

“Sure! I mean, no, I don’t know which cabin I’m in,” Twilight sighed. “Can you help me?”

“Okey dokey lokey!” Pinkie skipped towards the center of the closest group of buildings. “How long have you known about Camp Equestria?”

Twilight walked behind Pinkie as she thought about the question, “My brother came here when he was younger, but he would never tell me anything about it. Come to think of it, he always said that I would ‘just have to wait and see’.”

Pinkie nodded, “Camp Equestria isn’t actually supposed to exist in this world, nor any of its campers. It’s because we have something the rest of the world wants, but can’t have. They’re downright jealous!”

“And that is?”

“Magic!” Pinkie grinned at Twilight, who stared at her in disbelief.

“That isn’t possible.” Twilight frowned. “Magic doesn’t exist. Magic is only a term for anything we don’t understand.”

“Does too exist.”

“Does not.”

Pinkie giggled, “Then how do you explain Shining Armor’s shimmering pink shield that he conjured up to block the hydra?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Bu-bu-but how?! How did you know about that?!”

“Uh, duh!” Pinkie grinned as she began to skip off, causing Twilight to follow. “I read the last chapter, silly.”

“Huh?”

Pinkie didn’t reply immediately; instead, she stopped suddenly. She was grinning from ear to ear as she hurriedly ran to a rainbow-haired girl who was standing at an apple cart.

“Dash!” Pinkie hugged the girl and began to talk at a million miles an hour. “I’m so glad to see you! I can’t hardly believe you’re back from Cloudsdale already!”

Rainbow Dash, for that was the girl’s name smiled. “Hey, Pinkie. How’s it hangin’ here in Ponyville?”

“Great! I met a new camper!”

“Oh?” Rainbow looked up at Twilight, who had just walked up. “So you’re the newbie? Can’t say you’re a very exciting kid, unless…” She leaned up to Twilight. “Have you got wings?”

“Wings? No, I can’t say that I do.”

“Bummer.” Rainbow sighed. “I was hoping for a few new skyborn campers, but all that seems to come in are dirtborn and magicborn.”

“Rainbow!” The blond girl who sat at the apple cart scolded. “Et’s earthborn, and both Pinkie and Ah are plenty happy with our feet on the ground and not somewhere up in the clouds.”

“Actually, I do sometimes wonder what cloud-walking feels like.”

Rainbow chuckled, “Sorry, Applejack. It’s just, wings make anything about twenty percent cooler!”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ten bits say yer wrong, RD.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rainbow taunted, a wide grin spreading across her face. “How about it, AJ”

“Yer on!” Applejack smirked.

Rainbow spread her wings, bright cyan feathers settled into place before she shot into the sky. Her last words were “Race ya!”

“Woo ho!” Pinkie cheered while Twilight simply stared open-mouthed at the speedy skyborn.

“What was that?” Twilight muttered once she was able to spit out a coherent sentence.

“That?” Pinkie grinned. “That was Rainbow Dash! She’s, like, the fastest flier in all of camp!”

Twilight shook her head, “People can’t fly! This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Of course it does, silly! You just don’t know how it does yet.” Pinkie then pulled down a projector screen with a map of Camp Equestria on it.

“There are three ‘tribes’ of people. Four if you count the normal, non-magical people. I won’t. The three tribes are the skyborn, the earthborn, and the magicborn. Applejack and I are both earthborn. We carry our magic in our feet, and it helps us grow things like plants. Rainbow Dash is a skyborn, which are people with wings. They can also walk on clouds and control the weather. Magicborn people can harness all kinds of magic in spells and such. Levitation and teleportation are two spells I know of.

“There are also three sections of cabins: Ponyville, Canterlot, and Cloudsdale. The Skyborn live in Cloudsdale, the magicborn in Canterlot, and the earthborn in Ponyville, which is here.

“Any questions?”

Twilight slowly raised her hand. “Just one. Where on earth did you get that map?”

Chapter 3

Pinkemena “Pinkie” Pie was officially the craziest girl that Twilight had ever met, though that wasn’t really saying much. She hadn't really met anyone who was very crazy before. Twilight frowned as she saw where the pink-haired girl was taking her.

“Why do you have a city hall in the middle of camp?”

Pinkie stared at Twilight before she giggled, “Duh! In case of a city hall emergency! I’d really hate to be around during one of those without a city hall.”

Twilight decided not to ask, partially because it would lead nowhere, and partially because her pet iguana, Spike spoke up.

“Can’t you let me sleep ten more minutes, Sparkle?”

This would have been an entirely normal occurrence, were it not that iguanas could not talk. However, Spike was no ordinary iguana, nor was he even an iguana at all! Tiny, leathery wings were held tight against his sides and thin trails of smoke puffed out of his nostrils when he spoke. This made it very clear that Spike was a dragon, not an iguana.

However, Twilight Sparkle did not know all this as she jumped at his voice and flung poor Spike from her shoulder where he was sitting.

“Whoa! What gives, Twilight?!” Spike yelped, struggling to flap his wings to keep himself at the girl’s eyelevel.

“’What gives’? ‘What gives’?!” Twilight was almost shouting. “You! You talk?! And you can fly! Since when could you fly?”

Spike scratched his head while his scales shimmered before turning purple as the last of the illusion spells failed. “Always? You just never knew? At least, I think that’s what happened. I remember meeting your brother during his first year at camp. Shining had to promise not to let anyone know that I was a dragon, so he put several very elaborate disguise spells on me. I think. They weren’t very good; otherwise they wouldn’t have shattered when we got here. Shining was never really good at those. Shield spells were his forte.”

Twilight gaped open-mouthed at Spike, although she had already done so far too many times. “So all this time…YOU COULD TALK?!”

The force of her outburst was so strong that it shoved both Spike and Pinkie Pie, who had the unfortunate luck to be standing behind the dragon, back a few feet.

“Yes!” Spike dared not chuckle at the violet-haired girl. He sighed as he landed back on Twilight’s shoulder, the latter not moving in shock. “Now can we please stop yelling at me? I need my beauty sleep.”

Twilight nodded mutely before Pinkie giggled and grabbed her wrist and ran into the city hall. Inside, there were only two people; a graying woman who could only be the “mayor” of Ponyville (at least, in Pinkie’s mind), and a beautiful pale girl with curly purple hair. The second drew Spike’s attention almost instantly, causing him to forget all about his lack of sleep.

Pinkie walked up to the pair, “Hiya, Rarity, hiya Mayor Mare! Guess who I brought! Guess, guess, guess! It’s Twilight Sparkle, and she’s a new camper! Don't you think that's great? I certainly do! Know why? Because I get to throw her a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party! Cool, huh? Problem is, Twi—can I call you ‘Twi’?—doesn’t have a cabin yet, so can you help us, hmmm?”

Mayor Mare nodded slowly as she processed all Pinkie Pie had said, “Yes, yes, I think I can help.”

“Great!”

“I just need to see your cutie mark to know where to put you,” the mayor finished.

"'Cutie mark'?"

Pinkie frowned, “Hey, you’re right! What is your cutie mark, Twi?”

Twilight frowned as the three others looked at her expectantly. “I…uh…I don’t know what a ‘cutie mark’ is.”

Rarity gasped, “You don’t even know what a cutie mark is? That has got to be the. Worst. Possible. Thing!” With that, she pretended to faint back onto an expertly placed fainting couch.

Pinkie giggled, “Rarity, you’re such a drama queen!”

“Why, thank you, my dear! I certainly try.”

Mayor Mare sighed at the girls’ antics. “One’s cutie mark is a symbol of their destiny. It appears when that person realizes who they are and what they are meant to do.” She held out her hand, which had the image of a tied up scroll on the back. “My cutie mark symbolizes my destiny as a mayor in Ponyville.”

Pinkie grinned and showed Twilight her cutie mark of three balloons. “Mine tells me that I like to party!”

Rarity sat up on her couch as she showed off her cutie mark of three diamonds, “I’m a fashonista dressmaker because that’s what my cutie mark means.”

Twilight nodded, “Okay, but I still don’t have a cutie mark.”

Mayor Mare smiled. “I can give you a list of the cabins that have room in them, and you can stay in whichever you fit in best.”

Pinkie giggled excitedly, “Ohmygoshomigoshomegosh! I can help you move in!”

“Really?” Twilight smiled at the energetic girl. “You know you don’t have to.”

“But of course, darling!” Rarity said. “You’re our friend, so we’ve got to help you. Besides, I cannot possibly allow you to wear such atrocious clothing—if you can even call it that.”

“Huh? It’s just a tee-shirt and jeans!”

“My point exactly.”

Twilight rolled her eyes as Mayor Mare handed her a scroll—Really? This isn't the sixteenth century!—that had a list of the cabins that had at least one empty bed in them.

Carousel Boutique

Sugarcube Corner

Sweet Apple Acres

Quills and Sofas

The Day Spa

The Everfree Cottage

The Schoolhouse

The Crusader Clubhouse

Golden Oak Library

Twilight thought one thing as she studied the list. Boy, do these cabins have some strange names.

Author's Note

Sorry this chapter is so short. It is really meant as a filler chapter to explain some of the upcoming things in later chapters.

Chapter π (a.k.a. Author's Note)

I have a lot of ideas for this alternate universe, and not all of them might end up in this story. This is stuff like background information, character appearances, and other things that I don't know if I can explain them in story form without having one character do a lecture.

So, without furthur ado, I refer you to my deviantart page: mojomcm.deviantart.com.

Everything relating to this story will be labled with "SNEAK PEEK" in the title. This includes the story's cover (which I did make myself). Most of the "sneak peaks" already have some information about the topic shown in the picture. These should be updated even more frequently than these story chapters.

Thank you for reading this important message. Remember, in case of emergency, corral wild snapping turtles into two year old baby’s playpen. Enough said.

Pie out.