The Call
“Josh, Anya. I know you two can hear me. It’s Jerry. Listen, I know that I haven’t made any communications with either of you for the past month, and I’m sorry about that, but I have a very real reason why I haven’t been able to communicate with either of you: It’s because I have been living in Equestria for about a month now. I know that sounds insane, but that’s the truth. I’ve taken on the form of this world’s inhabitants, and because of that, I’ve been able to live in harmony with them. However, I’ve recently discovered something that every brony needs to be aware of, on the double. If they don’t, they’ll likely meet the same fate that I’m desperately trying to avoid right now. What fate is that? Let me explain…
This all started about a month ago. I was just sitting around one day, enjoying my free time, when I suddenly saw a bright flash of light surround me, blinding me. While I was blinded, I suddenly felt my consiousness fade away for a while. When I had finally woken up, I discovered that I looked exactly like my OC! This shocked me beyond belief, but it wasn’t the worst feeling I’d ever had (it came in around 3rd for me.) Once I had gotten over that fact, I took a look around and saw that I was in a grassy field. I got back up on my feet (or hooves, I guess I should say.) and saw the town of Ponyville a little distance away. I shrugged my shoulders and decided to just head over to it, simply because it was the only place I recognized. When I arrived at Ponyville, I was worried that they may treat me like some sort of outsider. However, the opposite was true, as the entire town was very welcoming of me, and made me feel right at home. It took me a bit to adjust to, y’know, being a pony in Equestria now and all, but I was still able to quickly get a job, get a home and make a relatively comfortable life for myself regardless, all thanks to the town’s kindness and hospitality. Unfortunatly, I soon learned that it wouldn’t last for long.
You see, right from day one, I always felt like a certain six ponies were a bit, how do I say this, off. Sure, they may have shown me arguably more hospitality than any other pony in this town, as well as displaying a wide range of emotions, desires, and interests (par for the course for them, really) but for some reason, I never felt them to be genuine. It always felt like an act. At first, I simply assumed it to be paranoia on my part, until about a week ago, when not only did I feel the usual insincerity during a conversation with them, but also a bit of malice coming from the one who is supposedly ‘the element of Kindness’. This feeling of malice quickly spread from one pony’s soul to the next, until they all began looking at me with a smile that, while apparently warm to a passerby, felt almost like a smile a predator would give just before trapping its prey. Their smiles scared me, and I ran back to the place I had made for myself before anything could come of it.
The next night, while they were all away on a camping trip, I decided I had to see if there was anything odd about any one of the Mane Six’s homes. I spent that night sneaking into each one (except for the one that belonged to ‘the element of Loyalty’, for obvious reasons), starting with the element of Laughter’s. At first, I failed to notice anything odd about her home; it really did just seem to be an ordinary bakery. However, that feeling faded when I entered the back. In the back, I discovered one of the most realistic looking pony mannequins I’d ever seen sitting on a chair, glaring at me. I jumped backwards, then stared straight at it for a bit, before I realized it was a mannequin. Once I realized that, I had a weak laugh at my paranoia, before I noticed that it was wearing a crown with indents in the shape of the letters s, m, i, l, and e. I let my curiosity get the better of me, and went to the refrigerator to get the correct letter magnets off so I could place them in the indents. Once I placed in the last one, I swear that the mannequin’s frown changed to a smile, and then it suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving a door in the floor where it once was. I wondered if I had just imagined that mannequin, but didn’t give it much thought and headed down to the cellar.
When I got to the bottom of the cellar, I lit a match and took a look around. All the match’s light did was show a nearby candle, which I promptly proceeded to light. Once it was lit, I immediately saw a scroll symbol on a pale colored background apparently stapled to the wall behind the candle. I tilted my head at this, considering there was so much that was odd about that thing. Not only did the coloration and symbol look incredibly familiar, but the background was in a really odd shape, as if it was hastily cut. In addition to that, there seemed to be bits of red on the outer edges of the background. I placed a hoof on the symbol, which felt like… flesh. It felt like this used to be somepony’s flank! However, I wanted to make sure that that was the actual case. I went to another nearby candle that could now be seen thanks to the light from the first candle, and proceeded to light this one as well. Once this candle was lit, it revealed a tombstone symbol on a gray colored background stapled to the wall behind it. I touched my hoof to this symbol as well, and once again determined that this one was also flesh. My heart started racing as I remembered a story I had read where the element of Laughter had performed this sort of thing. However, there was something odd about these two symbols that made this situation seem far different than that one. I had a hunch about what was odd about them, but I rushed to light the other candles just to be sure. Once they were all lit, I saw that the candles that had a pattern behind them all had one thing in common: every flank pattern appeared to belong to a relatively famous brony’s OC from back home. Once I saw this, I became incredibly scared, as everything was starting to come together: why the Mane 6 seemed so fake, why the six of them had that malice in that conversation, and why I was here at all suddenly seemed to make sense. However, I decided to check a few other homes, just to ensure that my hunch was correct. Unfortunatly, each house I visited had similar results. In the element of Generosity’s house, I discovered a collection of various mane and tail colors that matched with the cutie marks past owners perfectly. In the element of Honesty’s cellar, I discovered a pile of various accessories, including a couple sets of headphones, several pairs of glasses, a couple jackets, and a toilet paper tube. In the bedroom that belongs to the element of Kindness, I discovered a box with several unicorn horns and pegasus wings inside of it. However, it was the element of Magic’s home that shook me the most. Inside of her basement, I discovered a list of famous bronies, with most of the names crossed out. Only about two dozen or so names remained, and the three of us were included on that list! At that point, I knew that there was no other possiblility: the Mane Six were hunting us down. I have no idea why they’re doing that, but that’s what’s happening all the same. Once I realized that, I tried to get back to my house but found that I was simply too tired to run the two miles across Ponyville to reach home (it was about two o’clock at night at that point, after all), and decided to just rest a night at the nearby Hay and Stay Hotel.
The next morning, I woke up and looked toward my house. However, my heart stopped when I saw that two of the Mane six (specifically the bearers of Magic and Honesty) were standing guard out in front of my house, as if they were waiting for me. This made my blood run cold, because if they were waiting for me, then clearly they must’ve figured out that I’d been rummaging through their homes the previous night and had discovered their… intentions, I suppose is the best word. I realized that I could no longer go home, but where could I go? I didn’t know that, but I did know one thing: I had to get out of Ponyville. I rushed down the stairs, returned my key, payed the bill, and dashed out of the hotel as quickly as possible, running in the opposite direction of my house, as to get some distance between me and the Mane Six. Unfortunatly, I didn’t look where I was going, and ended up running smack dab into the element of Loyalty! We both fell onto the ground before I immediately got up and started to back away. She got up as well and said, “’Sup?”
I looked at her bewildered and said, “Hello, Rainbow Dash… Sorry for bumping into you like that…”
She merely laughed and said, “It’s cool. It takes a lot more than someone running into me to get me angry. Anyway, how was last night?”
“It was fine, Rainbow Dash. Listen, I’ve gotta go now.”
I turned around in the other direction to try to run from her, but by the time I took a single step, she was already blocking my path. I tried to get around her, but this proved fruitless, as she was fast enough to block my path in any direction.
“I don’t think you have to go anywhere. I think we should just talk about last night, instead.” She replied.
I simply stood there in silence, as I was far too terrified to say anything to her. She stared back at me for a moment, not smiling or doing anything, really. After a moment, some of the terror left my body, mainly because I was more confused as to why she was remaining so quiet, as opposed to terrified of what she wanted to say. She noticed my confusion, and simply pointed her head toward a couple of ponies who were just walking along the road. Once I saw them, I realized that she clearly wanted to talk to me in private. I considered calling those ponies for help, but I knew that couldn’t result in anything good. They’d never take my side, considering she’s one of the saviors of her planet, while I was just a random pony who’s only been around Ponyville for a month. They’d never think of her as a murderer of any sort. I took a deep breath, and followed her into a nearby shed, since I knew that there was no way in hell that I could outrun her. Once we were in there, she started talking.
“So, I heard that you broke into our houses last night.”
“Y-y-y-yes, I d-d-d-did, R-rainbow.” I said, trying my hardest to sound calm, but failing miserably.
“Why? Were you trying to steal something from us?” she asked. Right when she asked that however, I noticed something odd about her eyes. Her magenta eyes seemed to become a little bit more faded than normal. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not, but it was definitely a bit nerve-wrecking, to say the least.
“N-n-n-no, Ma’am.” I said.
She laughed at that and said, “No need to call me Ma’am. I’m perfectly cool with Rainbow. Either way, why did you break in?” Once she had finished saying that, I noticed her magenta eyes fade slightly again.
I once again shrugged it off and replied with, “W-w-well, I sort of suspected you and the others of… foul play. You seemed to be looking at me with an almost predator-esque look in your eyes the other day, which when combined with my other instincts, made me believe that the six of you had something terrible planned for me. That’s why I checked your homes.”
“I see. Did you check all of our homes?” she said, as her eyes once again became a bit paler.
“Almost all of them. I didn’t see yours, obviously because I can’t fly, but I did find evidence in all of your friend's homes convincing me that my instincts were correct.” I said to her. She didn't say anything, and continued to stare me down. She must've been staring at me for several minutesx before she slowly shook her head as the faintest of smiles began to creep onto her face.
“… I should’ve guessed. I’ll be honest with you, when I saw you the other day after our conversation, I sort of felt like you had caught on. I wasn’t sure though, so I decided to just keep quiet about it. That was a mistake on my part, and I apologize for it. No sense in hiding it anymore: we do play this game occasionally.” She said as the last bits of magenta in her eyes faded away, leaving pure glowing white eyes free of any pupils.
Once I saw that, I gasped in horror and said, “W-w-w-what happened to your eyes?”
She laughed and said, “Sorry about my eyes, they just get like that when I really get pumped up for this!”
“F-for what?”
“The game, of course! And now that you’re here, this is a perfect opportunity to get started!”
“Ummm… I really don’t want to play…” I managed to say.
“Well too bad! You're playing anyway!” She exclaimed, her smile now spread across her face.
“W-w-w-w-w-what are the r-r-rules then, R-r-r-r-rainbow?” I just barely managed to spit out.
“Well, here’s the deal. The spell that brought you here lasts for about a month and a half. All you need to do to win is to survive that long. You get a two hour head start to flee to anywhere you wish, be it the land, sea, sky, or whatever. After those two hours, we start looking for you. If we can find you before the spell ends, then it’s a safe bet that you will end up being the newest edition to our little 'museum of OC's'. If you can last until the spell wears off, you’ll end up back in your world. Simple!” she said with a toothy grin. That grin combined with her now soulless eyes sent a chill down my spine. I tried to respond to her, but I was far too terrified to do so.
She stared back at me with that horrifying grin for a moment, before saying, “I take it from your silence that you understand the rules perfectly. That’s great! That means we can get started that much quicker! You’d better get going, before time runs out. In exactly two hours, I will leave this shed and notify the others that it’s time to get going after you. When that happens, just let it be known that all six of us will hunt you down and find you. That’s all I have to say. Good luck!” she said while still holding that grin of hers. I slowly backed away from her, until I reached the doors. I immediately flung the doors open and bolted away from that shed at top speed, hoping to put as much distance between myself and the Mane 6 as possible. I rushed away by train, by boat, and even by mail carrier, until I eventually found an abandoned communication center of some sort several days later. I’m currently hiding out in it right now, making this call to you two, which I can surprisingly do, despite it being to another world.
Anyway, I need to get moving soon, so just listen: if I don’t make it back, let everyone you two know awa…”
“Oh, there you are, Silly-Billy! We’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Wha… OH GOD NO, NOT YOU!”
“Yes me, silly. Who else?”
“NO, GET AWAY!”
“Nah. Fair’s fair, Jerry. We found you… you lost. I’ll give you props that you lasted longer than most of the others, but it was all for naught, I guess. Oh well, not important. Let’s go!”
“NO! LET GO OF ME! GET YOUR HOOVES OFF OF M-(click).”
