Chapters On the outskirts of Ponyville, far away from the center of town, and almost to the edge of the fields of Sweet Apple Acres, was a perfectly straight stretch of dirt road. It was long enough that if you were standing in the center and you looked down the road, it would appear as if it went all the way down to touch the very edge of the world itself. This path was flanked on either side by rows of apple trees which ran perpendicular to the road, each the same exact distance from its neighbor, and trimmed to appear almost exactly alike. This scene of uniformity and homogeneity was unbroken except for a strange wagon that sat on the dirt road, surrounded by six ponies.
“Now that we've lugged this thing here can you finally tell us wha’ in the name of Celestia are we doin’ with this contraption ?” Applejack said as she leaned up against the wagon.
Twilight, who was adjusting a large spider web of wires which ran the length of the wagon until they connected with a set of 4 harnesses that were attached to the front of the machine had a sheepish smile on her face as she admitted, “Alright, fine I’ll tell you.”
At hearing this, Pinke Pie, who had been inside the wagon, jumped out and exclaimed “It’s a parade float, isn’t it ? Or maybe a super duper fancy confetti cannon ! Or it’s a hug-”
“Pinkie dear, let her speak,” Rarity interrupted, who at the time was pacing somewhere near the front of the wagon. Pinkie let out an apologetic smile before looking back over towards Twilight.
“Ah, chill out Rarity,” Rainbow dash retorted as she hovered over the group, before landing atop one of the nearby trees, which sent down a shower of apples and leaves onto Fluttershy, who had been sitting directly below.
Fluttershy made a small yelp as one of the apples fell down onto her head.
“Sorry Fluttershy,” Rainbow said as she leaned over the canopy of the tree and looked down towards the bewildered pony, which sent down another small shower of leaves.
“It’s fine,” Fluttershy quietly let out as she reached up and brushed a leaf out from a lock of her long pink hair.
Rainbow gave Fluttershy a warm smile before looking over towards a now annoyed Twilight Sparkle.
“Anyway, as I was trying to say, I brought all of you out here to try and help me complete a spell that could solve many of the great mysteries of the Equestria !” Twilight exclaimed with her hoof raised up to point towards the sky.
Rainbow dash attempted to hold in her laughter at the overly-stoic Twilight, while the rest of the ponies just looked on with quizzical expressions.
Twilight lowered her hoof and turned back to face the group before continuing, “I’m sure you can all recall my costume from last Nightmare Night ?”
“Oh yeah ? The clown ? That was a really great costume Twilight !” Pinkie exclaimed.
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes, “No, Star Swirl the Bearded !”
The group looked back at Twilight with blinking eyes and expressionless faces.
Twilight groaned before lamenting, “He was one of the most important conjurers of the Pre-Classical era, and when Pinkie, Spike, and I went to his wing in the Canterlot Library Princess Celestia let me borrow some of his journals.”
Rainbow dash let out a short yawn, while receiving a sharp glare from Rarity.
“As all of you SHOULD know, before Equestria was even founded, he went into the Everfree forest and was never seen for over 30 years. But, when he finally did return he helped introduce the language we still use today, because beforehand each of the different tribes had a different language, and he also helped create many other pieces of technology that changed the pony world and helped move us into the Classical era !”
“Yeah, yeah, they told us ere in school that he lived in a cave or somthin’ and spent those 30 years makin’ spells an' stuff,” Applejack said.
“I heard he went loony too,“ Rainbow dash said as she rolled her eyes around in her head and stuck out her tongue.
“Yeah, he said that everything was made up of tiny little thingies that are all the same, but just look different because they were arranged in different ways, like a big stained glass window ! What a weirdo,” Pinkie exclaimed from her resting place inside the wagon.
“Except, after I’ve been studying his notes I think I may have found out he didn’t actually stay in the Everfree forest, but instead that he did some spell that teleported him to an entirely different place,” Twilight exclaimed with a proud expression on her face.
“But, umm, don’ you do that all the time sugercube ? The teleportin’ thing,” Applejack commented.
“No, no, not like that. I can’t tell for sure from what he wrote down, but it seems like he went somewhere ... different,” Twilight spoke with a some-what worried expression on here face.
“You mean somewhere … scary ?” Fluttershy let out in her sheepish voice, from her resting place beneath the tree.
“Well, that is what we’re here to find out !” Twilight exclaimed as she dramatically rose her hoof into the air once again, before quickly lowering it and adding as she looked over towards Fluttershy, “But, I’m sure whatever it is, its not scary”.
Fluttershy flashed a small smile back towards Twilight before standing up and beginning to walk towards the wagon.
“ Okay,” Twilight said in authoritative tone, “ It says here,” at this twilight magically levitated a scroll out from the wagon and in front of here face, unraveling it to face the group, “ that we need to be doing the spell while moving at 8.8 wing power.” Twilight pointed to the anemometer from Tornado Day, which was now attached firmly to the front of the wagon.
“Easy as Granny Smith’s apple pie!” Rainbow Dash retorted as she jumped down from her perch and landed onto the ground next to Applejack.
“But, you’ll need to be pulling the wagon with me and Rarity inside of it, since this spell is too powerful for me to do by myself,” Twilight retorted back, causing Dash‘s arrogant smile to fade, “And, that is why you, Applejack, Pinkie, and Fluttershy will all need to be pulling the wagon at the same time."
“But, hun’ how did Swirl Smoothie the Bearded manage to do the spell without anyone’s help, seeing that he wasn’t a pegasus ?” Applejack questioned.
“Well …” Twilight sparkled mumbled as she lifted her hoof up to rub her chin, “it seems from his journals that he jumped off a cliff, and used his velocity in order to get up to speed, and then did the spell before he hit the ground.”
The other five ponies sat silent for a moment with bewildered faces until Rainbow Dash quietly commented, “Okay, I like the wagon idea, yeah, lets go with that." The other ponies all nodded in agreement, as they began to walk to their places.
Rainbow dash glided over and lifted the front right hitch to the wagon up onto her back, with Fluttershy gently did the same to the front left spot. Applejack squatted down and hitched herself up behind Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie jumped down from the wagon to the hitch directly behind Fluttershy, which caused the entire machine to rock back and forth slightly. Rarity carefully made her way up into the back of the wagon, while Twilight, who was already inside, was making adjustments to a panel of crudely made switches.
Suddenly, a object that looked like a metal ice-cream cone with a long wire coming out of the tip magically was lifted up and set onto Rarity’s horn by Twilight.
“Oh, isn’t that just … stylish,” Rarity commented in a sarcastic tone as she craned her neck to look towards the contraption that was not affixed on her head.
Twilight, oblivious to Rarity’s sarcasm, said “Oh, its not for style, it conducts our magic so that it can be combined and can also be conducted down the entire wagon.”
“Yeah, don’t worry you look just fine Rarity!” Rainbow dash yelled from the front of the wagon as she burst out into a small fit of laughter.
Twilight rolled her eyes as she lifted up another magic-conductor-Ice-cream-cone-thingy and attached it firmly on her horn.
“Alright, you girls ready ?” yelled out Twilight as she and Rarity moved to stand directly across from each other.
“Ready to rock !” yelled out Rainbow Dash over her shoulder.
“I reckon’ I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Applejack said as she pawed the ground slightly with her hoof.
“Lets DO THIS,” Pinkie exclaimed as she hopped up and down in her harness.
“Ok … I guess,” Fluttershy said in an almost inaudible tone.
“I do believe I’m ready,” Rarity commented as she turned her head down to look towards the anemometer readout.
Alright then, lets GO !” Twilight yelled out, and directly after she bent low and started exerting all of the magical energy she could. Rarity also bent over and began to do the same. Suddenly, the entire wagon jolted forward, partly due to the sudden surge of magical energy, and partly because Rainbow Dash had leapt forward as soon as Twilight had yelled out go, with Applejack, Pinkie, and Fluttershy doing so only a moment after.
As the wagon began to rattle down the dirt road, with a large dust cloud looming up behind them, the machine started becoming enveloped with what looked to be like a clear magical bubble.
Beads of sweat were developing on the brows of Twilight and Rarity as they continued to put all of their effort into conducting magic into the machine. Sparks shot from the wires, and as the wagon began to speed up faster and faster, the magical bubble that surrounded them became thicker and thicker.
“5.5 wing power, keep it up !” Twilight yelled out over the roar and rattle of the wagon. The magical bubble, which had now enveloped the entire wagon, was becoming so thick that all you could see through it was the general outline of trees rushing past on either side of the road.
“7.7 !” Rarity exclaimed before clamping her eyes shut due to a combination of overexertion and adrenaline. Sweat rolled down the necks of the four pulling ponies as the pounded down the dirt road, with each step bringing them slightly closer to their mark.
Then, just as the dial hit 8.8 and Twilight started to yell out in exclamation, the now solid white bubble of magic shrunk inward and a bright flash of light immersed the ponies.
As the light slowly faded and the dust died down on the dirt road, the only sign of the ponies’ exploits was a line of fire that ran along the rutted marks where the wagon’s wheels had tumbled along only moments before.
Twilight blinked her eyes and smiled to herself as she looked up towards the puffy white clouds that hung above her in the blue sky. The only thing that stood out was a strange bird which wasn’t moving its wings as it glided across the sky in a perfectly straight line. She sighed and took in the scene of serenity and peace, until her mind suddenly came rushing back to her about what events had just unfolded and she jarred herself upright.
She was sitting on a dirt road, but instead of being flanked by Apples trees, a long white fence ran parallel to the road, and directly beyond the fence stood a huge field of fully grown corn. Twilight smirked to herself momentarily, for this had confirmed that they had indeed been teleported somewhere, but as she turned around to face her friends she was struck with a sudden shock which felt as if someone had just hit her directly in the stomach.
The first sight she saw as she turned around was that the wagon, which had previously been made of wood, was now solid metal. But, not only was it solid metal, but the wagon seemed to be fully enclosed with 2 doors on either side, and instead of just two wooden wheels towards the back, there was four wheels that looked to be made of some sort of black substance. It also appeared as though the entire group had fallen out of it since the vehicle was skidded to the side of the road with it doors open. This, although being an unexpected result, was not what had shocked Twilight so much, what she couldn’t understand was what had happened to her friends.
All of them had turned into human doppelgangers of their previous selves.
A wide eyed what-used-to-be-Pinkie-Pie was laying down on the road and running her newfound fingers in and out of the dirt. Meanwhile, the rainbow-haired-girl who was unmistakably Rainbow Dash’s new self was spinning around in the dirt and grabbing at her back while yelling out “Where the BUCK are my wings !?!”. At the same time the new Applejack was just staring down at her new form in a state of confusion. And the humanized Fluttershy was laying down on her back with an expression of paralyzed shock on her face. Each of the girls was wearing a t-shirt which was correspondent with color that they used to be, and included their cutie mark stitched onto the front. In addition, they all had hair which exactly matched what their manes had appeared like. They also all had a simple set of shoes and denim jeans, except for Pinkie who was wearing a short pink skirt and pink stockings.
After staring out at the scene for a couple seconds, Twilight gulped and looked down at her own body to find that it too had changed. ( Although considering what she had just previously witnessed, this wasn’t that much of a surprise. ) She unsteadily lifted up her hand and brushed away her hair to find that her horn, like Flutter and Dash’s wings, was nowhere to be found.
“I … I thought that humans were just an old mares tale …” Twilight muttered under her breath before she suddenly remembered that part of the reason that people thought Star Swirl the Bearded was insane is because he had insisted that humans were real.
“What’d you say we are ?” questioned Applejack as she continued to stare blankly down towards her new body.
“I don’t give a flying feather what the hell we are,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she jumped over to Twilight and began to shake her violently back and forth, “just tell me what HAPPENED TO MY WINGS !?!” she suddenly stopped shaking the now even further exasperated Twilight and crouched down into the fetal position while muttering something about how she can’t live without wings.
“I said that we’re humans,” Twilight lamented as she let out a sigh, “Humans are an ancient mythical creature who ponies say visited Equestria long, long ago. Girls, I’m sorry that this happened. I had no idea what would to happen to us and I guess I was so excited to find out about what was going to happen, that I didn’t take enough necessary precautions …”
“Its okay … I didn’t like my wings that much anyway,” Fluttershy calmly said as she sat upright, bending her knees out in front of her and holding them with her hands.
“But I DID!” yelled out Rainbow Dash, who was now clutching onto the back of Applejack, who rolled her eyes in response.
Pinkie looked up from the small pile of dirt she had pushed together in front of her, and flashed one of her signature smiles before saying, “Well, I think these new hooves are awesome !” at this she wiggled her newfound fingers back and forth, before diving them back into the pile of dirt in front of her.
Twilight gave Pinkie a short smile before her expression of fear and worry returned back to her face. She looked down at her “new hooves” as well, studying them for a moment before suddenly flicking up her head and frantically turning it back and forth.
“Wait, where is Rarity ?” Twilight said, which caused the same realization on the other girl’s faces, except for Rainbow Dash, who continued to whimper on the ground about her lost wings. Only a second after Twilight said this, a loud moan was heard off in the direction of the new-metal-wagon-thingy. Which caused all of the girls to suddenly jump to their feet and dash towards the direction of the sound. As they approached the metal machine, the new Rarity lumbered out of it while rubbing her head, only to fall a second later due to the high heels she was now wearing.
Unlike the other girls, she was wearing a white cocktail dress and a set of pearly white high heels. Each of which had her cutie mark stitched on it in various places. But, like the other girls, she seemed to retain the same style hair, and a similar looking face to that of her old self.
Pinkie Pie, who had arrived at the fallen Rarity first, reached down her arms around her and helped pick up the wobbly lady, who had about as much skill with walking in heels as a newborn deer. While Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy went over and attempted to assist Pinkie, Rainbow Dash found herself more entranced with the new appearance of the wagon.
From this closer viewpoint, it was visible that the wagon now had the words “DMC” printed on the front in small metal letters, and as Dash ran her fingers along the cold metal body of it, she could also see that the wheels where in-fact some combination of metal and rubber, with the letters “DMC” in the center as well. The enclosed metal body of it had several windows allowing someone to see out, and inside there was two gray leather chairs, one of which had a weird circular thing sitting directly over where someone’s legs would go. As Dash bent her head under the door, which when open looked a lot like wings, she noticed that at the front of the interior there was a huge mess of buttons, switches, and dials. Most of which had words that she couldn’t recognize, like “Air Conditioning” and “Speedometer”.
Rainbow Dash lifted her head out of the new wagon, and turned back to face towards her friends, who now were attempting to calm down Rarity, who appeared as if she had just finished crying. Rainbow Dash started to roll her eyes at this outward display of emotion, but then she recalled her own distraught about losing her wings only moments before, and decided instead to just to walk over to the group.
“No, just look at me, I’m hideous !” Rainbow Dash could hear Rarity cry out as she walked within earshot, “Rarity, I think you still look beautiful,” Fluttershy said in her quiet tone, which prompted all of the others to nod in agreement.
“Thank you dear,” Rarity said as she lifted up her hand to wipe a leftover tear from her eye, “I suppose we are all in the same boat anyway.”
“Well, Twi’ now that we’ve all seemed to get over the shock of what we are, couldya’ maybe explain where we are ?” Applejack questioned aloud.
Twilight glanced around before sighing and saying back, “I don’t have any idea where we are, and more importantly I can’t think how we are going to get home, since we no longer have magic to do the return spell.”
Rarity let out a small gasp before being interrupted by Pinkie. “Well Twilight, I don’t know where we are right now, BUT, it looks like we must be near somepony named Washington. Maybe he can help us !” Pinkie said as she lifted up her hand to point at a green metal sign on the side of the road which said, “Washington D.C - 45 miles”.
“Twiiiilightttt, what does DMC mean ? Cause whatever it is, this pony must really like it since it is written on this thing like a million billion times,” Pinkie exclaimed while she bent over slightly to look at the badge on the front of the machine.
Rainbow Dash chuckled a bit while she continued to tap her fingers on the wheel-shaped-thing that was suspended over her legs in the seat she was sitting in. Sitting next to her, in the seat without the wheel-shaped-thing was Twilight, who was opening a door on some compartment that was directly in front of her seat. Meanwhile, Applejack was leaning on the back of the machine,and Rarity and Fluttershy sat some distance away on the grass near the edge of the road.
“Well, it looks like it stands for Delorean Motor Company,” Twilight said as she lifted a leather bound book out from the compartment and set it on her lap. The book was about and inch or two thick, and had the words ‘Delorean Motor Company - Owner’s Manual’ embossed into the leather cover.
“Hmm, well what does Prnd mean ?” Rainbow Dash said as she pointed at some letters that were printed near a stick that stuck out between her and Twilight’s seats.
“I’m sure we’ll get to that eventually,” Twilight replied as she opened up to the first page and began to read aloud, “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for selecting a Delorean motor car and to wish you many years of trouble free motoring.” Rainbow Dash sighed and set her head down onto the wheel-shaped-thing while Twilight commented, “So I guess this thing is called a car.” Before she continued to read aloud the next paragraph, “This handbook should be considered a permanent part of the vehicle, please read it carefully as it contains important operating, maintenance, and safety informa-”
“Boring, lets just skip to the part about what it actually does,” Rainbow Dash said as she interrupted the once-unicorn while she was in mid sentence.
“Well, it just said to read the whole thing because it contains important information, and when we’re dealing with something we don’t have any clue about, it is probably a good idea to do whatever the book says,” Twilight lashed back, causing Rainbow Dash to scoff slightly before lifting up her feet from beneath the wheel-shaped-thing and set them on top of it in a relaxed fashion. But, just as she set down her feet onto the middle of the wheel, a loud honk erupted from the front of the car, causing the rainbow-haired girl to jump up and fall down out of the open door onto the ground.
“What the hay was that ?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she picked herself up from the ground and sat back down into the seat, accompanied by the laughter of the rest of the girls.
“That,” Twilight commented as she stopped her laughing and flipped a couple pages forward in the book, “is called a ‘horn’ and next time I’d recommend you’d keep your hooves off of it and on the floor of the car.”
“Keep your hooves on the floor of the car,” Rainbow Dash said in a bad imitation of Twilight’s voice, “You sound just like my mom.”
Twilight let out another casual chuckle as she flipped past another page in the manual. After reading it for a moment she lifted up her finger and pointed to a bolded title on the page, and turned it around slightly to face Rainbow Dash.
“Alright, here is how to start it, although I still think I should go back and read the safety section,” Twilight said. Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes slightly and looked down towards the section that Twilight was pointing at. The rainbow-haired girl mouthed out some of the words to herself as she obviously struggled to comprehend the paragraph, until Twilight rolled her eyes and flipped it back around to face herself.
“I’ll just tell you what to do, genius,” Twilight scoffed as she lowered her finger down and traced it underneath the words on the page as she said, “it looks like you’re supposed to take that key that is stuck onto the side of thing you put your hooves on,” Twilight lowered her finger back to the edge of the manual and flipped a couple pages back and added, “Its called a ‘steering wheel’ and the thingy that the key is in is called a ‘ignition switch’ and you turn the key like you would to unlock a door.” Rainbow Dash reluctantly nodded, who still somewhat resentful from falling out of the car, and did exactly as Twilight instructed. As she turned the key into the first position, a whole barrage of lights lit up in front of the pair, and as she moved onto the second position even more flicked to life. And then finally, as she pushed the key into the third position a loud rumble resonated from the front of the car. Which caused Pinkie Pie, who was sitting on the front at the time, to jump off the car with a yelp.
“Is it … mad ?” Fluttershy commented as she and Rarity continued to act as audience to the comical scene that unfolded in front of them.
Applejack, who had stopped leaning on the car and stepped back cautiously once it had starting running said, “I reckon they just got it to do … whatever it is supposed to do.” Directly after saying so she began to cough slightly from some kind of gas that was coming out of a pipe in the back, prompting her to take a few steps even further back.
“Okay, now that its doing … something, lets just move onto that Prnd thing you were talking about,” Twilight said, receiving a nod from Rainbow Dash in return as she flipped though several pages until she got to one with a picture of the stick-thingy between their seats.
“It says that it stand for Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive. And whatever the stick is next to is what it does, that seems easy enough,” Twilight said as she looked up from the manual and down towards the stick.
“But I already tried it and it doesn’t move,” Rainbow Dash replied as she reached down and attempted pull on it as if to prove her statement to Twilight.
“It says that you have to push down on the brake to make it move, that’s one of those things on the floor that you have to press with you hooves,” Twilight replied as she glanced down at the manual yet again. The rainbow-haired girl nodded, and moved right foot to press down onto the far right pedal while pulling on the stick.
The car’s noises got louder, but the stick still couldn’t move no matter how hard Rainbow Dash pulled, and after tugging on it for a full minute she sighed and let her foot off of the pedal.
“Maybe push the other one ?” Twilight suggested as she watched the former pegasus with a confused expression.
Rainbow Dash pushed down on the other pedal with her feet, but instead of the car getting louder, it just continued to make the same mechanical purr. Rainbow Dash reached down and easily slid the stick so that it no longer sat next to the ‘P’ but instead next to the ‘D’ and released her foot from the pedal.
As soon as she released her foot from the pedal, the car started to slowly roll forward on its own, causing Pinkie Pie, who had clambered back up onto the car again, to jump off yet again in surprise.
“That’s awesome ! But next time could you tell me when you’re gonna move that thing again,” Pinkie stated as she smiled towards the pair in the car.
Twilight smirked a bit from the success of getting this foreign machine to function and nodded to Pinkie, while Rainbow Dash let a small cocky smile flood her face as well.
“Alright Dashie, stop the car,” Twilight said calmly as she looked back down towards the manual yet again. Rainbow Dash frowned a bit from the use of her least favorite pet name for herself, and pushed down her foot all the way down onto the pedal again.
Except, as she pressed the pedal down, instead of the car coming to a gentle stop, it leapt forward and started speeding down the dirt road with a large cloud of dust following behind. Wind rushed into the interior of the car through the wide-open doors, causing the pages of the manual to flutter around frantically as Twilight screamed out in terror.
Pinkie, who had just barley escaped getting hit by the car as it shot off, started to run after the speeding vehicle with little success. Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy jumped up and followed Pinkie’s lead, but with just about the same amount of success.
Meanwhile, inside the runaway car, Dash recovered from her intial shock and let her foot off of the pedal and grabbed onto the steering wheel with her hands. As she moved over her foot to slam down onto the brake, she frantically turned the wheel to the left, sending the car into a slide along the loose dirt. The car spun all the way around and came to a stop facing the exact opposite direction it had previously been in, with a dramatic cloud of dust rising around it as well.
“That - was - AWESOME !” Rainbow dash exclaimed as the dust began to settle around the car. Twilight, who’s hair was now windblown out in every direction possible, sat hyperventilating while clutching the manual close to her chest, as if it were her own child.
“I believe …. That was the wrong pedal,” Twilight managed to say between breaths, before leaning out of the car and regurgitating her lunch onto the dirt road. Once Twilight had finished and lifted her head back into the car, Rainbow Dash chuckled and let her foot off the brake, letting the car slowly roll back towards the other girls, who were still frantically running towards the car.
“Are you okay ?” Fluttershy said as Rainbow Dash pulled the Delorean up to a jerky stop next to the girls.
“Yeah, but it seems like Twi couldn’t handle it,” Rainbow Dash replied as she stuck out her thumb towards the still flustered Twilight Sparkle.
“Deary, how about you let Rainbow practice a bit and sit down with us,” Rarity said as she bent over and helped the unsteady Twilight out of the car and towards the edge of the road, with some assistance from Pinkie and Applejack. Rainbow Dash nodded and reached her hand across the center of the car to shut Twilight’s door as she stepped out, and then did the same to her own door.
“So, Twilight do you think that thingy can get us home ?” Pinkie asked as Rainbow Dash pulled off down the road, leaving another small cloud of dust behind.
“No, I don’t think it can. From what I’ve read in this book it seems that all this machine does is move with some sort of magic called ‘Unleaded Gasoline’ although I have no idea how to turn the magic that runs the car into magic that can be used for spells,” Twilight said as she lifted up her hand to her head and rubbed her temple for a moment. A few hundred feet down the dirt road Rainbow Dash was turning around the Delorean and heading back towards the girls.
“Well, I reckon the best thing we can do is find somepony who can tell us where we are, and maybe they can use their magic to send us back home,” Applejack replied with a smile directed towards the somber Twilight, just as Rainbow Dash roared past the group in the car.
“I do believe she has the right idea,” Rarity commented, while Rainbow Dash slowed turned around on the single lane road to head back towards the girls again.
“Yeah, lets go see if we can find that pony who’s name was on that sign Pinkie saw,” Twilight replied as she stood up and waved her arms back and forth to signal Rainbow Dash to stop.
Rainbow Dash brought the Delorean to a gentle stop next to the girls, showing some obvious improvement with her braking skills. Applejack opened up the passenger door and slid into the car, with the rest of the girls following suit. It was convenient that none of them were very large, but they still were stacked together like sardines when they finally managed to all get inside the car and shut the door again. Pinkie Pie actually had to sit on top of the stick thing that sat between the two seats, forcing her to move whenever Rainbow Dash needed to change gear.
They pulled off and started to head in the direction that the green sign had been pointing, but after only after a couple minutes of driving along the path Pinkie pointed out of the window and exclaimed, “LOOK, there is somepony we can talk to !”
If you are interested, here is the manual that Twilight was reading.
“Maybe they don’t speak the same language as us,” Pinkie flatly remarked as she hung her new body over the edge of the fence she was resting on.
“Pff, doesn’t look like they speak much of anything,” Rainbow Dash scoffed as she kicked around some dirt beneath her feet while she sat on the hood of the Delorean.
The girls had stopped and pulled to the side of the dirt road, and presently were attempting to strike up conversation with a small group horses.
Twilight, who was sitting next to Applejack and Rarity on the fence, was staring eye level with one the light-brown horses as she said, "Can - you - please - tell - us - where - we - are ?" She elongated every syllable as she spoke, and accompanied her statement with a variety of hand motions as if it would better convey her message.
The stallion just kept staring forward with a blank and emotionless stare.
Fluttershy, who was the only one of the girls who had ventured across the fence, was running her hand along the mane of the shortest of the horses. "Umm, Twilight, it is almost as if these ponies are ... Animals ..."
The rest of the girls looked from Fluttershy, then to the horses, then back to Fluttershy with dumbfounded expressions on their faces. All of them attempting to comprehend that something which resembled their own species in so many ways was, in this twisted world, nothing more than a mindless animal.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by the loud sound of metal grinding on metal, in addition to a variety of clanking noises which resonated from down the dirt road. All of the girls, except for Fluttershy, who was still distracted by the horses, whipped their heads around in the direction of the clatter.
The sound came from what appeared to be something very similar to their own car, except instead of it being low and squatty on the ground, this machine was rather tall and boxy in shape. In addition, this new type of car looked like it had been crossed with a wagon since it had a open area behind where the driver sat, which at the present time seemed to be holding several potted plants. The driver couldn’t be seen through the dust-covered window until he pulled to a stop near the girls and stepped out.
The human who stepped out, was from what the girls could tell, a male. He seemed rather old, and wore a red checkered shirt which was tucked into a old pair of denim jeans. His face was littered with deep grooves and pores that told the human’s age, but also told you that he was a kind and gentle person. Much like his mode of transportation, he seemed to be well worn and dirty, but in a way that caused you to respect him rather than be disgusted by him.
“Can I help you girls ? Ya’ll seem kinda lost,” the man questioned as he stepped from the wagon-car and shut the old rusted door behind him with a loud clap.
The girls sat just sat silent dumbfounded for a moment, until Applejack awkwardly questioned, “Right we are, do you know where we can find Equestria ? Or do you perhaps know where we are?”
The human lifted up his hand to scratch his bald head before replying, “I don’t believe I’ve eva’ heard of anyplace called Ques-triam, but I can tell you that you’re on a little ol’ country road in Nokesville, Veer-gina. About fitty or so miles away from DC."
"Well, you see, my friend over ere," Applejack said as she pointed to the girl sitting next to her on the fence. "She was doing a spell and we somehow ended up here as humans, and so we'd much appreciate it if you could direct us to a Unicorn or somepony who can do magic so we can see bout gettin on home."
The kind old man's smile flipped itself upside down as he muttered under his breath, "I thought I was done dealing with these damn hippies when I left DC." Before he replied back to the girls in a rather irritated and authoritative tone, "When I pulled up I reckoned you people to to be fine folk, but I guess you girls are just like the rest of these damn kids today with their drugs and whatnot. So let me just bring you back down to planet earth by tellin' yah that there ain't no such thing as unicorns, and there ain't no such thing as magic neither." He glared at the girls for a second, before lifting up a single wrinkled finger to point towards Fluttershy. "And you stay away from my horses." And with that, he spun around, stepped into his wagon-car, and drove off down the road. Which left the girls with the same bewildered and dumbfounded expressions as when the human had first arrived.
"Well somepony seems to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed," Pinkie finally said, breaking the moment of awkward silence.
"What does he mean there isn't such thing as magic ?" Rainbow Dash questioned aloud as she looked over to Twilight with a worried expression on her face.
“If there isn’t any unicorns here, then how are we supposed to get home ?” Rarity asked as she looked towards Twilight.
“Maybe we can find somepony else ? Maybe that one guy just didn’t know what he was talking about …” Twilight trailed off her last sentence with the unmistakable air of uncertainty, but still kept a optimistic smile on her face.
“Yeah, maybe that guy didn’t have all his apples in the same basket,” Applejack replied as she helped Fluttershy climb back up over the fence and onto the same side of the rest of the girls.
"Yeah, let's get going, we'll just flag down another human when we see them," Rainbow Dash said as she opened up the driver's door on the DeLorean and stepped inside.
But, as the day went on and the girls continued to follow the dirt road, everypony they tried to talk to responded in the same way as the first.
As the fifth person drove off down the road and away from the girls, Twilight sat on the back of their car in deep thought.
"I don't think we're gaining much ground like this Twilight." Rarity said from the inside the DeLorean, since she hadn't even bothered getting out after the third human they had stopped told them all to go to ‘hell’.
Twilight nodded silently before replying, “I think … that we might need more information in order to make any attempt to get home. But, it seems that claiming you used to be a pony is just about the same as claiming you’re a human in our own world, but probably more-so because apparently this world doesn’t know about the power of magic. Therefore, I suggest that until we have had the chance to find out more information about this world and what we can possibly use to assist us in traversing back to our own universe , that we remain incognito.”
“Huh.” Rainbow Dash said with her mouth agape as she stared at Twilight.
Twilight chuckled a bit to herself before replying to the flabbergasted Rainbow Dash, “I mean that we’re going to just have to act like we’re humans until we can find a way to get home.”
Rainbow Dash replied with a curt nod before running back and leaping into the car through the open driver’s door, almost hitting Rarity in the process.
“Lets get going then !”
After the rest of the girls had piled themselves into the Delorean, Rainbow Dash pulled off down the dirt road with a cloud of dirt and dust following close behind.
91 Octane Unleaded Gasoline.
“Hello ! Do you sell …” Twilight paused for a second to glance down at the Delorean manual, before looking back up and continuing, “... any 91 Octane Unleaded Gasoline ?”
The young blond haired woman, who was wearing a bright red shirt that had “Mcdonalds” printed onto the front in white letters, looked from across the counter to the purple and pink haired girl with a look that could only be described as ‘You’re bucking kidding me ? Right ?’.
Fluttershy, who noticed the confused gaze that the woman had given Twilight added sheepishly, “I mean it’s fine if you don’t have any …”
The lady sighed and flatly remarked to the two girls, “Listen, I don’t know what trick you’re trying to pull. Or if you two are just high-”
“Yes, we’ve been called that several times today.” Twilight said as she cut-off the woman with a look of resentment. Although she didn’t know what ‘high’ meant, she could tell from the way that humans had been saying it that it wasn’t a good thing to be called.
“Just tell us where we can find some 91 …” Twilight paused to look down at the manual again, “... Octane Unleaded Gasoline,” letting her hand come rest down onto the counter in a aggressive manner as she said so.
“Please,” Fluttershy quietly added.
“There is a Exxon down the street, no need to get prissy you little emo prick,” the woman replied with her index finger jabbing towards Twilight’s multi-colored hair as she said the last three words.
Twilight scoffed as she haughtily turned around to exit the building, with Fluttershy following closely in her wake like a gosling to a mother hen. As they walked out into the nighttime air, neither Fluttershy nor Twilight noticed a small, colorful plastic display case in the corner of the restaurant that read ‘My Little Pony’.
“So did you get the thing to make the light go off ?” Rainbow Dash said as she looked over towards Twilight and Fluttershy, who had were cramming themselves back into the vehicle.
The dimly lit Mcdonalds parking lot made the interior of the DeLorean blend together into blobs of black and shadowy outlines, but the soft glow from the dashboard lit up the faces of the girls enough to allow them to see one another. Rarity, who had fallen asleep, was slumped down into the passenger seat with her head resting on Pinkie’s lap. Pinkie was still sitting on the center console, and also had Applejack’s sleeping head sitting on her lap, who was slumped over in the driver’s seat next to Rainbow Dash. The hair of Rarity and Applejack streamed over Pinkie’s lap making it look as though she had a purple and gold waterfall cascading down her legs. The bags under Pinkie and Rainbow Dash’s eyes told that they had been awake all night, although Pinkie still kept a small smile on her face despite her fatigue.
“No, but that lady said that there was a place down the street that sold it, called Exxon,” Twilight replied while she reached her hand up and pulled down the gullwing door.
“She wasn’t a very nice lady,” Fluttershy remarked as she scooted more towards Rarity to make room for Twilight in the cramped passenger seat.
“What did she do ?” Pinkie asked as she awkwardly adjusted her seating position while trying not to wake up Applejack and Rarity.
“She called me a ‘emo’. I’m not sure what that means, but from the way she said it you could tell it was meant to be insulting.” Twilight replied with a scowl on her face, “These humans might be the most aggressive creatures I’ve ever studied, or at least from what I’ve seen so far.”
“Maybe they just all need a hug,” Pinkie replied with a shrug.
The girls all quietly chuckled at Pinkie’s comment before Rainbow Dash started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading down the small town street and towards the bright fluorescent lights of the Exxon station, which stood out among the low orange glow of the street lights that lined the road. The station looked so out of place among the old dark brick buildings that it seemed as though somepony had left it there by accident.
They pulled underneath the brightly illuminated canopy, next to one of two machines that were emblazoned with the words Exxon. Connected to the canopy and to the right of the car was a small, high-tech looking store that was the source of the fluorescent illumination. Through the large clear windows that acted as walls for the building it was easily visible that it contained a plethora of colorful candies and goodies inside.
Pinkie’s mouth watered as she stared out towards the rows of sweets, attracted to the sight like a moth to a bug zapper.
“Twiiiiiiiilllllllllllliighht,” Pinkie quietly moaned, “Can I please get some caaaaannnnddddy?”
Twilight sighed as she followed Pinkie’s gaze, “How do you even know if its candy ? Maybe its just colorful packages of inedible … things.”
“I - just - know,” Pinkie replied with a wide-eyed gaze, “Also, it says candy on the top of the display thingie.”
“Fine, I’ll just get you something inside since you look a little occupied at the moment.” Twilight gestured towards the two sleeping girls on Pinkie’s lap as she opened the door and stepped out of the car with Fluttershy.
“Oh no, that's not a problem !” Pinkie quietly proclaimed as she somehow managed to slip out from underneath the girls and let their heads slide down onto the center console without waking them.
While she bounced out of the Delorean, Rainbow Dash said, “I’ll just stay here with Applejack and Rarity, I’m not really in the mood for food from another dimension.”
As the girls approached the entrance to the store, the double glass doors suddenly shot open with a metallic hum. This caused Fluttershy to suddenly jump into the air with a yelp, instantly assuming that this would be the source of her death in this strange world. Twilight and Pinkie Pie, although moderately surprised by the magic doors, simply stepped through the threshold and into the store.
Even after the doors had shut behind them and sealed back up the entrance, Fluttershy still remained outside, frozen in place with fear. Pinkie glanced over her shoulder, and laughed a bit to herself before running back up to the doors, forcing them to slide back open once again.
“Oh don’t be such a scaredy-pony and get in here,” Pinkie said with a bright smile lit up on her face.
“Umm .. alright.”
Fluttershy cautiously stepped towards the door, keeping her eyes glued to her feet the entire time. When she was just about to cross over the threshold and into the store she picked up her head and looked up at Pinkie as if she was searching for some sort of approval. Pinkie only replied with a bigger smile than before, so Fluttershy took a deep breath and quickly ran over the threshold and into the store.
“See its not that hard,” Pinkie said as bounced past Fluttershy and made a beeline straight to the candy aisle.
The interior of the store was rather deceiving based on how high-tech it had looked from the exterior. For one, the floor was lined with a thick film of dirt and grime. Various tattered and worn signs from beer companies hung from the ceiling in a state of despair. A drink machine sat in the corner of the store upon homemade wooden counter, and was affixed with what one could assume was a permanent “Out of Order” sign. The shelves that lined the aisles of the store didn’t seem to fare any better than the rest of the interior. One of the aisles was void of anything except for the empty metal shelves and small handwritten price tags of items that hadn’t been there in a lifetime. Yet another was filled with clear baggies that contained various toys that looked like they would probably fall apart if a child even managed to touch one. Miraculously though, the candy aisle seemed to be the only one that had any sort of semblance of order. The aisle was lined with mostly empty boxes of various candies and boxes that held a different type of candy than they were supposed to be inside, but it was good enough for Pinkie Pie. She scooped up about fifty different types of candy and shoved them all into one of the empty boxes before sticking it under her arm and walking up to the check-out, which is where Twilight was currently engaging in a conversation with a young dark-skinned human.
“So you have 91 Octane Unleaded Gasoline ?” Twilight said with the most friendly smile she could muster directed towards the tired-looking gas station employee.
The man reached up his hand and slowly ran it through his black hair as he replied nonchalantly to the eager girl, “Yeah … you choose what grade when you fill the car up.”
“Perfect ! We need-” Twilight lifted up the manual, which was still in her hand, and glanced at the page she had held with her finger, “51 point 6 Liters, please.”
“We sell it by the gallon … this is America. Not some Euro-crap country.”
“Oh, well then-” Twilight glanced down at the manual with a worried expression on her face, but just as quickly as it came the expression of worry faded after she saw the amount in gallons was right next to the liters, “we need 13.6 gallons.”
“Please,” Fluttershy added as she silently walked up behind Twilight.
“Listen, girls,” the man looked back in forth between the two young women with a slightly annoyed scowl on his face, “Here is how it works. You pay me an amount of money. That is the amount of gas you get, you can do the math yourself.”
Twilight’s heart suddenly sunk as soon as she had heard the word money, because only then had she realized that they had nothing to purchase things with in this world. The fear of being stuck in this town and having to work in order to earn money for gas flooded her mind, but then suddenly she remembered.
Without a word, Twilight ran out of the store and headed straight towards the Delorean, leaving Fluttershy and the clerk to awkwardly stand there in complete silence. There was the sound of Twilight opening the door of the car and yelling something to Rainbow Dash before running straight back into the store again with several green sheets of paper clutched in her hand.
“This stuff ?” Twilight questioned as she neatly laid out the green pieces of paper onto the counter in front of her.
The man looked down at the sheets of paper, his expression turning from moderate annoyance to mild confusion, “You realize that is like 2,000 dollars ?”
Each of the pieces of paper Twilight had laid out had a number 100 written on it in fancy script and an ornate picture of a old human was visible on one side. The total amount of pieces of paper was somewhere around twenty-ish, making the man’s math correct.
“Yep. How much does 91 Octane Unleaded Gasoline cost ?” Twilight asked with a rather smug expression on her face, having realized from the man’s expression that she was the owner of quite a large sum of cash in this universe.
“Only like 3 dollars a gallon … just let me give you like forty dollars worth,” the man replied as he lifted up a single sheet of paper from the pile in front of him.
“Don’t forget these !” Pinkie exclaimed as she spontaneously appeared from behind Flutttershy and Twilight, slamming down her box of candy with a gentle thud onto the counter near the pile of green paper.
“Just keep the change,” Twilight replied with a smirk as she reached out a single hand to grab the remaining paper money.
After the man had finished pressing each of the pieces of candy up to a little red light that came from a small window installed inside the counter, he slid forward the box back towards Pinkie, who eagerly grabbed it and ran out to the waiting car.
“Sure you don’t want your change ?” He said as he turned his gaze back towards Twilight.
“Nope, I’m fine.” Twilight casually remarked as she silently rocked back and forth in place.
“Alright.”
The man, Fluttershy, and Twilight all stood in silence for a couple of seconds until the man awkwardly asked, “You don’t need anything else ?”
“Nope.”
“Alright.”
After another couple seconds of eerie silence, the man finally said with an expression of annoyed confusion, “Then why don’t you go back to your car...”
“You still haven’t given me my 91 Octane Unleaded Gasoline.” Twilight replied with a serious expression set into her face.
The man sighed and reached his hand up to rub his forehead before lifting up his other hand to point out in the general direction of the front door. “You get the gas from the machines out front …”
Twilight glanced in the direction he was pointing before sheepishly replying, “Oh sorry … thanks for your help!”
“No problem.”
Twilight turned around and started to head out towards the car, but then she caught something out of the corner of her eye. She walked over to a once-white-now-yellow stand that held in it a multitude of various pamphlets and flyers. The one that had attracted her attention was a small folded up sheet of paper labeled: Washington D.C and Surrounding Area Tourism Map. She thought about it for a moment, before she finally decided to pluck out the map, and put it with the stack of money she had been holding in her other hand.
“Twilight ? How did you get all that money ?” Fluttershy whispered to Twilight as she stepped away from the pamphlet display and started to head back out the front door.
“Well, at first I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get the gas to fix the car, but then I remembered that I had left some of my bits in the wagon when we left.” Twilight replied with a smug smile of accomplishment on her face.
“But those aren’t bits …”
“Indeed they aren’t, but just like how when we came here we changed into humans and the wagon turned into a car, my bits changed into currency of this world.” Twilight said as they both walked around the front of the car to face the foreign machine that was emblazoned with the word “Exxon” in various places.
After a long bit of trial-and-error, and a fair amount of assistance from the Delorean manual, the girls finally managed to fill up the gas tank of the car. Even if some of the gas had spilled onto the ground once, or twice, or a few times.
“Alright, try it now Dashie.” Twilight said as she screwed shut the cap which covered the hole where they had to put the liquid in.
Rainbow Dash started up the vehicle with a flick of the keys in the ignition and happily nodded towards Twilight and Fluttershy as the little gauge rose up to the “F” mark and the warning light shut off.
“So … back on the road again ?” Rainbow Dash asked as Fluttershy and Twilight clambered back into the vehicle and shut the door.
“Yea-f we-lts go!” Pinkie said between bites of some sort of peanut and chocolate mixture.She had somehow managed to slip herself back underneath the two sleeping girls without waking them, and was even using their sleeping heads as a table to set her box of candy on.
The brick buildings surrounding the gas station of the small town glowed with a soft-orange tone as the sun began to peek over the horizon. With the rising sun ahead of the girls, they pulled out of the parking lot and headed back down the long stretch of road towards Washington.
“Wow it looks like it’s from Cloudsdale …” Rainbow Dash remarked as she stared out the window of the Delorean and towards a large white building that sat across a field of perfectly trimmed green grass. The layout of the building was that of a large dome in the center, with a square shaped base spanning around it. The structure was much taller than any building that was back in Ponyville, and even larger than most of the buildings in Canterlot. Like Rainbow Dash had said, the building’s white stone exterior and numerous pillars that surrounded the dome made it strongly resemble the architecture of her own hometown.
“It says here that it is called The Capitol Building, and inside it is something called the Senate and The House of Representatives. Based on those titles they sound like they might be the advisors for the king, queen, or princess who rules here.” Twilight said as she looked down at the tourism map she had unfolded and laid out onto her lap, the map was mostly covered in small little cartoony pictures of the buildings that they represented, but also included basic information such as street names and locations of restaurants.
“Well, it sure is big !” Pinkie exclaimed as she leaned over from her slightly elevated position on the center console to get a better view of the Capitol Building, almost shoving her hand through Twilight’s map in the process.
“Well wha-” Rarity started to say before she was cut off by the loud blare from a large, boxy looking car behind them. Since the girls had headed out from the gas station at the small town they had seen an increasing amount of cars of all different kinds and sizes, with more being seen the closer they had come to Washington D.C.
“Rainbow, keep on movin,” Applejack commented as she flicked her head around to glare at the driver of the car behind them. Rainbow Dash had accidentally stopped while the girls had been admiring The Capitol Building, causing a small collection of cars to stack up behind them.
“Oh yeah … stupid that you can’t just stop with these things. These humans have too many rules.” The rainbow haired girl lashed back as she started moving again, heading parallel to the large white building on their left.
“Oh come on, so far that is the only good quality that I’ve seen them have. Look at how well they can organize all of these different paths for these cars, they even have them in sequential order,” Twilight replied as she continued to look down at the map. “1st street, 2nd street, 3rd street, and right now we’re on 4th street,” Twilight happily added as she ran her finger along the map to point at the various roadways. The organization and structure that surrounded almost everything in this world appealed to her obsessive compulsive nature, almost as much as the haphazard nature her own world sometimes drove her to insanity.
"Well, as I was trying to ask," Rarity said as she looked in the opposite direction of the large white building, "what is that thing ?"
Twilight followed Rarity's gaze, which was directed towards a large white pointed tower that stood off in the distance, before looking back towards her map.
“It’s called the Washington Monument, they really should come up with some more original names.”
Rainbow Dash looked over at the monument for a moment, before turning her gaze back towards the traffic in front of her again, which was moving at a horribly slow pace.
“These cars are awesome when you can actually drive around, but in this city they’re just a pain in the flank,” Rainbow Dash stated.
“Well then why don’t we just park over in that car corral and walk around ?” Applejack replied.
“No, we don’t have time for sightseeing, we have to just concentrate on finding out how to get out of this place. So we have to go right here,” Twilight retorted as she pointed her index finger in a overly dramatic fashion towards one of the little buildings on the page.
Fluttershy leaned over slightly to look down at the building before replying, “Oh yes, garden looks very nice Twilight.”
Twilight looked down at the map and sighed before moving her finger slightly to the left, “I meant the library, it says on here that it is the largest library in this world so therefore it should hold any answers we could possibly need.”
“Really Twilight ? Even in another dimension you are the most boring pony in the world.” Rainbow Dash replied as she turned the car off of the street and onto a smaller one, heading away from the large clog of traffic near the center of the city.
“Well, if you ever want to fly again you better do what I say,” Twilight haughtily replied
Rainbow Dash grumbled a bit to herself, but still headed towards the library while Twilight barked out directions from the passenger seat. Meanwhile, the rest of the girls continued to admire the strange collection of buildings that sprawled around the city, as well as the humans that occupied them.
Eventually the Delorean rolled up over a hill and the library came into view, it also had that cloudsdale-like architecture, with its multiple columns and numerous carved pieces of white stone that made up its exterior. Rainbow Dash pulled the Delorean up into one of the areas where cars are supposed to be put, and after numerous retries and small adjustments, she managed to pull the car in between the white lines just like all of the other cars.
“Do we all need to go in ?” Rarity remarked as she stepped from the car with the rest of the girls.
“Of course, we’ve got an ENTIRE universe worth of information to find out,” Twilight replied as she shut the passenger door behind Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
“Ughhhhhhhhh,” Rainbow Dash groaned as she shut the driver’s side door and began to sulk her way up the staircase.
But, when the girls made their way up the staircase and opened the large wooden doors that led into the library, even Rainbow Dash’s mouth dropped at the sight that met them. The large circular lobby was lined at every available surface with mountains of books, and dozens of arched corridors led off to span in every direction, leading to what one could only assume was even more literature.
“Wow,” Twilight finally managed to say, her eyes darting around the huge room with awe.
“Eh, its not that great,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Oh be quiet Rainbow, we all know you are just as surprised as we are,” Applejack said with a chuckle.
“Alright …” Twilight paused in mid sentence, still mesmerized by the amount of information that had just been laid out in front of her on a silver platter, “lets just go find a little corner where we can make camp at, since we might be here longer than I thought.”
The girls eventually navigated through the corridors of the massive library until they came to a small corner area that seemed secluded enough for them to not be bothered by anypony. It was under the section of books devoted to the history mathematics, and all of the relatively old books that surrounded them on the shelves were coated with a thick layer of dust. In the corner there was several old wooden tables and also a few desks with some sort of machine on them that was comprised of what looked like a movie screen and a little black both. There was also a set of 2 old leather couches that had been set perpendicular to each other so that they both faced an oddly shaped box with a sheet of glass affixed on the front of it.
“You girls just stay here, while I get some books that we need,” Twilight said as she turned around and began to head away from their corner of the library, before turning her head back around again to look at Applejack, “Actually I might need some help carrying all of them,” she added with a smile. Applejack nodded and jogged up to Twilight to follow her down one of the adjacent corridors.
“Well what are we supposed to do then ?” Rainbow Dash yelled as the pair began to drift out of sight, but they were already too far away to be hear.
“Oooo, look Dashie its like a movie projector, but in a box” Pinkie said, causing Rainbow Dash and Rarity to turn around and look over at the pink haired girl.
Pinkie was crouched down near the black box with the glass on the front, except now she had somehow turned the machine on and there was the image of a blonde haired lady being projected onto the glass.
“How does that even wo-,” Rainbow Dash began to say, “you know what, I’m not even gonna question it anymore, this place is just too weird.” She walked over and sat down next to Pinkie Pie on the couch, who was currently holding a small black square that was covered in buttons, and was attempting to press every single one of them.
The pictures flicked back and forth and changed continuously as Pinkie quickly grasped what the buttons did, until Rainbow Dash yelled out stop when the images of several clouds appeared on the screen. The clouds stood on the screen for a few seconds, until several large 3D letters floated out of them that organized themselves to spell out, “Channel 5 Weather Report”. The screen faded, and a man in front of little pictures of the sun and numbers appeared, he started talking about what the weather would be like for the next few days, announcing various figures and numbers that the girls couldn’t recognize, but they did manage to catch the words cloudy and sunny.
“I guess he must be the weatherhuman, Dashie,” Pinkie said, before adding with a smile, “Just like you.”
“Or like I was …” Rainbow Dash replied with a slight frown on her face.
“Thats funny, I didn’t think humans could fly,” Rarity said, she had sat down on the couch a few feet behind Rainbow Dash and Pinkie, who were sitting on the ground directly in front of the black box.
“Maybe they have a machine to do that too ?” Pinkie said as she went back to going through the different images on the black box.
Rainbow Dash thought about if for a moment, picturing in her head some sort of winged combination of a car and a pegasus, before looking back at the pictures on the screen.
Pinkie had stopped moving through the different images and the box currently showed the image of several different brightly colored cars moving down a road, accompanied with an upbeat song as the words “Top Gear” rose up to cover the cars on the screen.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie eagerly watched and listened to the energetic humans who appeared on the screen. Rainbow Dash seemed to have a unique interest for the cars that appeared on the program, although she didn’t understand a good majority of what the men were talking. While Pinkie seemed to enjoy the highly random antics of the presenters on the program. Rarity on the other hand, who had considered cars to be a vulgar machines from the moment she had set her eyes on them, entertained herself with a stack of outdated magazines that sat on one of the tables nearby.
Eventually the creak of metal rubbing on metal resonated from down one of the nearby hallways, and around the corner came Applejack pushing a well-worn cart covered in books, with Twilight trotting behind her with several books of her own held in her hands.
“We’re back !” Twilight whisper-yelled as they walked up, apparently trying to show proper library etiquette even when nopony else was even nearby.
Applejack sighed in relief as she brought the creaking cartful of books to a rest next to the wooden table, “Yeah, Twi ere’ wanted ever book in the whole place,” she paused to catch her breath before continuing, “it was mighty hard to convince her not to get another cart.”
“Well of course, imagine all the information that could be held within these pages that nopony in Equestria has ever even thought of before,” Twilight replied gleefully as she pulled a chair out from the table and sat down.
“Now everyone just be quiet and let me read,” Twilight added as she cracked open one of the books and turned to the first page.
“You’re kidding me right ?” Rainbow Dash said, who was still sitting in front of the black box with Pinkie.
“You expect us to sit here while you read ALL of that ?” She waved her hand over in the direction of the large stack of books on the cart, with a look of combined annoyance and disbelief.
Twilight looked up from her book, and turned to look towards Dash, but instead of looking at her, she looked through her and towards the black box that she had only just now noticed was running.
“What’s that ?”
“Its like a movie projector, but like super duper smaller and it doesn’t have film and it also has more than one movie and you can change the movie with this thing,” Pinkie blurted out as she held up the smaller black box with buttons in her hand.
“Wow,” Twilight managed to reply after a brief moment of contemplation about seeing yet another unbelievable device in this strange world.
“This is exactly why we need to read these books, if these humans can make all these other machines I’m sure it shouldn’t be too hard to produce one that can get us home. I’ve got here a good selection that should give us a good amount of basic knowledge in a variety of subjects; science, human history, technology, human phyc-”
“Yeah, but what are WE supposed to do while you do your egghead thing ?” Rainbow Dash said, cutting of Twilight in mid-sentence.
“How about you try to read some too ? All of you actually, the more we divide it up the faster we can get this done.” Twilight replied in her standard lecturing tone.
“Ugh, but all those books are boring …” Rainbow Dash began to moan.
Twilight rolled her eyes and reached over to the cart, grabbed a small paperback book and tossed it towards Rainbow Dash, who caught it firmly in her hands.
“Try that, it was in the fiction section so it probably won’t have any useful information, but it looked like it might keep you from moaning for awhile.”
Rainbow Dash looked down at the book in her hands, which was titled “Indiana Jones” and also included a image of a man in a fedora who looked vaguely familiar to her.
“Fine …” Rainbow Dash said as she cracked open the old book and leaned her back against the nearby couch.
All the other girls picked up books of their own and sat down around “their” corner of the library, returning the library back to the same silence it had been before their arrival.
Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes, only to find the words “Jefferson Memorial” hanging directly in front of her face. She lifted up her hands and pushed aside the tourism map, which she had apparently been using as a blanket when she fell asleep last night.
After a short while of reading, most of the girls had started to drift off last night. Rarity and Applejack were both laying with their heads planted onto the tables in front of them, and Twilight was currently using an opened book on Physics as a pillow. Fluttershy was curled up like a dog in one of the larger chairs, and Pinkie must have fallen asleep while watching the movie-box-thing because her face was lying up against the glass, allowing the moving pictures to light up her face with a colorful glow.
Rainbow Dash yawned to herself as she sat up from the couch, looking down to the various Indiana Jones books that were strewn across the floor. She squinted as she looked across the room at a clock on the wall, since telling time in the dim, windowless corner of the library was near to impossible.
The clock read 5:35.
Rainbow Dash was used to waking up early in the morning, but since she wasn’t able to jump out of her window and into the open air of Ponyville, she just sat on the couch, watching the hand of the clock slowly tick around in a circle.
That lasted about 15 seconds.
“Psst … Pinkie”
Pinkie’s eyes suddenly shot open at the sound of her name, although since her head was resting against the movie-box they stared directly into the bright light of the machine, which was currently playing some kind of soap opera in a foreign language.
Pinkie jumped back in surprise and landed in front of the box, saying in a half-dazed tone, “No entinedo senor, no quiero aquellos carmelos …” as she rubbed her eyes.
Rainbow Dash quietly chuckled to herself as she said, “Shhhh Pinkie, everypony is asleep. How long did you stay up watching that thing anyway.”
Pinkie lowered down her hand and let out a yawn before replying to the rainbow haired girl, “I don’t know really, but you wouldn’t believe all the stuff they have on this TV, that is what this thing is called, they have like shows for food and for cars and there are some boring ones and there is also some really super neat ones …” Pinkies volume continued to elevate as she talked.
“Really ? Did you see any of those flying car things ?” Rainbow Dash replied, she had read a little bit about some kind of flying machine in the one of the Indiana Jones books, but they didn’t really go into enough detail other than that it was called a “plane”.
“Yeah I think I saw one once, but I can’t be super duper sure since there seems to be a lot of shows with stuff that's like not really real.”
“Huh ?”
“Well like some of them are like made-up-story kinda stuff, but some are like real-life-real kinda stuff, but I can’t be super sure cause I don’t know what is real here and what isn’t.” Pinkie finished off her run-on sentence with a beaming smile.
“Dang, I really kinda wanted to see what one of those things was like, cause I mean cars are really cool and all, so can you imagine one that could fly ?”
“Well why don’t we just go there silly ?” Pinkie replied as she pointed past Dashie and towards the tourist map she had thrown down onto the ground only moments before.
“Huh ?”
Pinkie jumped over and picked up the map, pointing towards a building that was only a couple blocks from where the library was. Rainbow Dash wasn’t exactly sure how Pinkie had managed to read the tiny print all the way across the room, but was too distracted by the prospect of seeing a plane to care.
“The National Air and Space Museum ?” Rainbow Dash questioned as she read aloud the text near the place Pinkie was pointing.
“Yeah, look! It has the word air and space! Those are both flying words!”
“I guess …” Rainbow Dash replied cautiously, she didn’t want to end up in some boring museum, but as she thought about it a little longer, anything was better than staying in this library for the next few days with Twilight.
“So let's wake up everypony else and go!” Pinkie exclaimed slightly too loud, causing Applejack to roll over and mutter something about apples before falling back asleep.
“Shh, let's just like leave a note or something and go ourselves, plus Twi would probably say no anyway if she was awake.”
Pinkie nodded in response and soon the girls found a sheet of paper and a pen amongst the various items strewn across the floor.
Rainbow Dash grabbed the pen and set it in her mouth, and leaned over the sheet of paper that she had just set down on the table so that she could write out the note. But, as she attempted to to write out like she and all the ponies normally did, it seemed impossible to control the pen and all she succeeded in doing was marking up the paper with scribbles.
“Dashie, I think you’re supposed to do it like Spike does.” Pinkie replied as she stuck out her hand and pulled the pen from the rainbow-haired girl’s mouth, and set it into her hand as she wrote out the message.
HEY TWILIGHT !
Me and Dashie went to go see planes at the National Air and Space museum we saw on the map thingie, we’ll be back later !
-Pinkie Pie
P.S. If you could get me some more candy that would be super.
“That's how the humans wrote stuff on the Tee-Vee.” Pinkie explained as she finished the last period and set the note onto the table in front of Twilight.
Rainbow Dash silently nodded, and the two girls proceeded to make their way out of the library and into the morning air. The girls walked down the stone steps of the Library and towards the almost-empty parking lot, heading towards the Delorean.
“How far away is this place ?” Rainbow Dash asked as she retrieved the keys to the Delorean from her pocket.
“It looks like it is only a couple of blocks over.” Pinkie replied as she looked down at the map she was holding, despite the fact that she was holding it upside-down.
“Lets just walk over there then, but first lets get some of that money Twilight had.” Rainbow Dash said as she slid the key into the door to unlock the Delorean.
“But isn’t that Twilight’s money ?” Pinkie replied with a slightly confused frown on her face.
“Nah, she won’t mind.” Dashie nonchalantly replied as she reached into the car and pulled out a couple of the green sheets of paper.
“Oki doki loki” Pinkie said with an upbeat smile spread across her face.
Rainbow Dash slammed shut the door, and after a quick glance at the map (And turning it around right side up) the two girls headed off in the direction of the museum.
“They went to a museum !?! They just got up and went alone to go explore a world we know nothing about !?!”
Twilight was close to hyperventilating as she paced back and forth in the library, with the remaining girls watching her from a safe distance.
“Umm, well. They did go together so they weren’t really alone.” Fluttershy sheepishly remarked from behind the couch.
“Yeah sugarcube, I’m sure they're fine.” Applejack added as she dared to walk up to the enraged Twilight, setting a comforting hand onto her shoulder.
“Ugh, I guess they will be. Those two have done worse before...” Twilight replied with a sigh as she tossed the note down onto the floor and sat down into a nearby chair.
“Anypony find anything useful while reading last night ?” Twilight asked as she turned the chair around to face the table covered with her various books.
“Well we had been doing all that driving and I had been awake so long I didn’t really get a chance to read any of those *fascinating* books you had laid out. A girl must get her beauty sleep you know.” Rarity said from while she sat on top of the table next to Twilight's.
“Umm … I really was trying to find something … but some of it was hard to read and I found a book with pictures of animals and I kinda got distracted. I’m sorry.” Fluttershy sheepishly remarked as she got out from behind the couch.
“I wanted to see if they had apples ere, and I found out that apparently apple refers to some sort of religion in this dimension, cause there was a lot of books worshiping someun’ called Steve Jobs. But, other than that I didn’ really learn much.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help Twilight …” Fluttershy stated again as Twilight opened back another book and began reading.
“Well, here is what I found out.” Twilight started to say, not letting her eyes leave the book as she talked, “I started out by researching about possible references to magic, most of which lead to fiction books, but the few non-fiction books confirmed what we had already feared, that no one in this world understands magic.”
Twilight paused for a moment to allow this to sink in.
“Although, while I was searching for things on magic I found several different myths that referred to a man known as Merlin the Bearded. Most of the myths say he was a powerful magician about 1500 hundred years or so ago, which is in fact almost the exact same time period that Star-Swirl the Bearded left our world and came to this one. I’m pretty sure we can safely assume that Merlin is the alias that Star-Swirl took when he came to this world.”
“But Twilight … didn’t you say it was a myth ?” Fluttershy sheepishly asked.
“Well, if there's one thing that we learned from our experience with Nightmare Moon, it is that sometimes myths can turn out to be true.” Twilight replied.
“I suppose you’re right,” Rarity said.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Twilight began to say, switching herself back into her lecture mode.
“The fact that Star-Swirl visited this world about fifteen hundred years ago solves a least a few of the questions I had about this world. For one, this explains why we have a similar language to the humans of this world, because when Star-Swirl came to this dimension he must have taken back with him much of the knowledge of this world. Including the language, which he taught to the various tribes of Equestria. He also obviously took some of the knowledge of architecture and basic technology as well, since many of our buildings seem to resemble ones from the same time period that Star-Swirl went to.” Twilight lifted up a nearby book and turned the cover around so that the other girls could see, it read “6th Century English Architecture” and had a picture of a large stone castle on the front that closely resembled the castle in Canterlot.
“But, more importantly than all that,” Twilight continued, “is the fact that since we know Star-Swirl the Bearded came to this world AND returned, that it is possible for us to get back home.”
“Yay.” Fluttershy replied with a small smile.
