The Disembodied VoiceView OnlineDisplacing the DisplacedThe Disembodied VoiceHello! I am Disembodied Voice. How I got here is a pretty common tale. You’ve heard it before. Likely too many times. You know, what with all the people disappearing at the Comic Con in glowing portals after buying cheap and ridiculously realistic replicas of everything you could think of being sold by The Merchant. Or I should say… mostly. You see, people are not completely stupid. We’re a bunch of nerds and geeks. We read comics and books and fan fiction and play video games and role play. So we know a convenient plot hole when we see one. This has resulted in many consequences. Tightened security for one thing. Lots of scientists and government agents scoping the convention trying to find the cause of said glowing portals is another. Lots and LOTS of more people attending the convention is a third. The biggest consequence would be the ton of people dressing as The Merchant in order to hock their wares to the gullible noob hoping for a glowing portal. You’d think they’d cancel the convention? Yeah, right. One word. “Money.” No more need be said. And then there’s me. I’d been to the convention a couple of times before this one. I don’t go in costume though. Attend a giant convention center in an outfit that doesn’t breathe with smelly nerds and geeks in similar stifling costumes? No thank you. The stench is bad enough without contributing to it. I would rather be in comfortable cloths. That’s not to say that I don’t have fun. Last time I brought my SLR and pretended to be a fashion photographer, telling various cos players ‘work it!’ while taking pictures. Lots of hilarious photos. This year? I brought a toy microphone. You know the kind. It was ridiculously large and boomed your voice when you spoke into it? Takes four C batteries? So I went around narrating various cos players as they went around the convention center. It’s a lot of fun when they go along with it. Which eventually brought us to the Merchant’s. Merchant’s. As in plural. I mentioned this earlier. This is also where the vast majority of the people attending the comic con were in attendance. Not to mention all the security personnel and the scientists and the government agents. A byproduct of glowing portal incidents. Amidst the entire Merchant’s was a Merchant. A Merchant with a lot of really cool realistic replicas of everything you could think of. A Merchant that looked remarkably like The Merchant. The Merchant was also looking rather disgruntled and glaring at all the other Merchant’s. Every time he got someone at the table, some other Merchant would loudly yell his wares and draw them off. I was about to walk over there myself. The guy had some awesome looking replicas from that flop of Super Mario Bros movie back in ’93… which I was secretly a fan of… I walked over to a different vendor instead. While the other guy didn’t have as realistic of goods, they were guaranteed to be a hella lot cheaper. I even got a cool Key Blade key chain! That’s when things went sour. As I walked away, The Merchant with the really cool realistic stuff screamed in apparent frustration. (No one buying anything of apparently awesome quality will do that I guess.) He grabbed a box from under the table and threw the contents into the crowd yelling. “Someone just take the damn things!” (Queue slow motion.) The box of awesome contents flew across the crowd with many geeks and nerds grasping as the cool replicas like the needy little man children they were. Amidst them were Thor’s Hammer. Mjolnir. It was awesome. It was even more awesome in slow motion! This thing was everything the Avengers movie prop wished it could be! It thrummed with a power and realness that other Thor’s Hammer’s didn’t. In fact, I could safely say this was the first Hammer of thrumming Power I’d ever seen! And wow this slow motion thing is taking a while… And it was moving right at me! Also moving in slow motion, I reached out to grab it… Oh… Shiny! I could almost FEEL the thrumming power in my hand! (No dick jokes please.) Right when I was ass-checked by a fat guy in a Thor Costume. Who was, evidently NOT worthy, as the Hammer beamed him right in the head… and knocked him over onto a group cosplay of Sailor Moon. (Those poor, poor girls…) Meanwhile the nerds and geeks converged on trying to get their free shit… This left ample room for a glowing portal to appear, where for convenience sake, no one else had already been standing in. The portal? Right in the direction of where I was being ass-checked into. (Keep in mind all of this is still happening in slow motion.) As I flew through the air, I could see past the grasping nerds… The Merchant face palmed as government agents closed on him. I neared the portal… Grabby nerds and geeks realized what they missed out on in their distraction and looked at me with envy. (Just as well. If they hadn’t been distracted I probably would have been dog piled.) I instinctively reached for the glowing portal… Oh… shiny! (I was a magpie in another life.) (STOP JUDGING ME!) And because I was a bit of a ham… My last words? “Surprise Motherfucker!” …Of course, if I knew the portal led to magic pony land I might have had second thoughts about getting flung into it. Nah! “And that’s how I came to be who I am.” ‘What?’ “What?” ‘What?’ “What do you mean ‘what?’ I just got done telling you what!” ‘No you didn’t!’ “You mean I didn’t just explain my life’s story to you?” ‘No. You just floated existentially outside my statue quietly before stating ‘And that’s how I came to be who I am.’ “Oh.” The silence in the garden of Discord’s statue… or petrified state depend on who you asked… hung awkwardly. Which was odd, because if it wasn’t there you wouldn’t think silence could hang at all, being an absence of sound. It did so remarkably well. “Well, since I don’t want to go through it again, I’ll just summarize. Shit happened, and here I am now.” ‘I understand completely, my friend.’ Though unable to move, Discord did give the air of agreement. “Anyway, I’m off to Troll the Princesses now.” ‘Have fun!’ I drifted on the metaphysical wind in the direction of the castle. When I came to this world, I came as a disembodied voice. I have no substance that I can tell. The only way I can react with the world is through narration with a microphone… that technically doesn’t exist. (Discord’s the exception, as usual.) Magic is weird. The pony princesses would have turned me to stone along with Discord… If they had some understanding of how the Elements of Harmony worked. Which they didn’t. For Pan’s sake! (God of theatrical criticism, if you were wondering.) They were magical amplifiers! Powerful focus for which to do magic on a stupidly massive scale to achieve whatever your goal! Anyone should be able to see that! How else could they turn Discord to stone AND banish Luna AND heal her? Then again, those last two things haven’t happened yet so it’s possible they just haven’t figured that out yet. If they knew, then they could simply use the elements to make me corporeal again. I wasn’t going to say anything. To be fair, the elements had only been discovered a few short years ago. But even then, Celestia and Luna hadn’t put much effort into figuring out their mechanics. It’s like a microwave. No one cares how it works, so long as it works. Let’s go Troll a Princess Pony.
Roll With ItView OnlineDisplacing the DisplacedRoll With ItThis story begins with (like most) a glowy magic portal in the color of your choosing. Though it was slightly odd (only slightly mind you) that the portal was in the ground and not the sky. Not that such a thing really mattered since it still spat 5 bodies… in one grouped mass into a large pile of bodies on the ground beside it. “Was it really necessary to bum rush the magic portal all at once?” A muffled female voice from the bottom of the pile questioned. “Of course it was!” An aggrieved Billy Goat standing on top of the pile replied. “Don’t you read these stories? The magic portal always disappears shortly after someone enters it. If we tried to go one at a time it would have closed leaving everyone else out of what will assuredly be an awesome fantastical adventure!” Billy’s fur bristled as he looked down at the pile of shifting bodies beneath him. “Man, what a bunch of asses.” Despite the view, only two of them were in fact asses. The pile shifted, dropping said goat and others to the ground. “Equestria! Awe yeah! Magical pony adventures!” A Jack Ass with a red mopish mane cheered. That is, until he looked down at himself. “Aw man. Why am I a donkey? I wanted to be a Unicorn.” “Dude. We talked about this in the forums remember? Humans are not inherently magical. So why would we turn into a magical anything?” An earth pony mare with blond fur and platinum mane smacked him upside the head with a hoof. Said donkey only pointed an indignant hoof back at her. She looked down at herself. “I’m a pony?” Then she began to hop around excitedly. “I’m a pony! I’m a pony! I’m a pony!” “Calm down, Richard Simmons.” Billy chuckled and looked around at his four companions. “How are ya feeling, Jack?” Jack, the donkey with horn envy snorted and looked back at his friend with a grin. “Just fine, how about you Billy?” Billy looked down at himself and gave an amused huff. “Son of a Nanny. Equestrian pun strikes again.” “What the heck kind of donkey am I? I got weird stripes on my legs…” The other Ass with a black mane looked back and forth from him and Jack, doing a quick comparison. “My fur is darker than yours is too.” Billy gasped and pointed a hoof at him. “You’re a Wild Ass!” He then proceeded to fall over laughing in the grass. It took a few moments for Clarence to process what he was talking about before the glared up at the sky. “This had better not be because I’m Black!” The fifth member leapt to his toes. “Yay, I’m a Llama again! Wait…” Pedro ignored the guffaws behind him with an eye roll. “By your line of reasoning…” Jack twirled a hoof in the air while contemplating. “If humans are not inherently magical why would we have turning into anything through the simple expedient of traveling a portal?” “Shh!” Pedro stuck his toes to his mouth with a worried glance around. “Plot Hole! Don’t step in it!” Billy harrumphed in reply. “Well, the simple answer would be that, while humans are not inherently magical, we can still be affected by magic, as is evident by having just traveled a magic portal.” “Wait!” Jack piped up again. “Surely if humans are not magical you should not have turned into a pony.” He pointed a hoof at the female of the group again. “Dude!” Pedro pranced in place panicking ponderously on the perils of permanent predicaments. “Keep pointing out plot holes and you’re gonna get retconed!” Said mare rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “I guess I should have said MOST humans are not inherently magical. I mean, how often do you see people on Tumblr claiming to be witches?” She looked at Jack. “And don’t call me Shirley.” The guys nodded and looked to each other in understanding. “She’s a witch!” “Burn Her!” “Buuuurn Heeeerrrr!” “Quiet! Quiet!” Billy stepped forward as the voice of reason. “What makes you think she is a witch?” Pedro jumped forward. “Well, she turned me into a newt!” Billy looked up at him carefully. Not difficult, seeing as Billy was now the shortest of them, and Pedro the tallest. “A newt?” To which Pedro gave himself a once over as well. “I got better.” Shirley face hoofed. “Can we not do this right now?” The others nodded. “Anyway no, I’m not a witch.” She shuffled nervously. “I’m a medium. It kind of runs in the family.” She got a lot of blank looks. “You know. Second sight? Third Eye?” She tried again. She got more blank looks. She sighed in resignation. “I see dead ponies.” The other guys all high hoofed… and toed. “I knew we’d get her to say it.” Clarence laughed. “Hey! Check out her cutie mark!” Jack pointed, to which they all crowded around. “Third eye!” “And fourth, if you count the other side of her flanks.” To which Billy pointed. “Same shape and eye coloration as her normal eyes if you look closely.” Pedro pointed prominently. There were nods all around. Shirley glared at all of them. “You can stop staring at my butt now.” “Ha-ha! Yes!” A black and red blur shot straight up out of the portal in the color of your choosing. “I am gonna rule this world!” A red and black Alicorn stallion shouted in glee, completely missing the fact that he’d reached the apex of his air time. Until he realized he was dropping back down into the portal. “What? Oh SHI-“ The portal promptly vanished with him. Silence filled the group until it was broken by Jack. “Was that Gary?” “Well…” Billy looked to where the portal in the color of your choosing used to be. “It was.” “Good riddance.” Clarence shrugged. “Nothing against him personally, but all of his characters in our Role Plays had a tendency to be annoyingly perfect.” “Role it, DM!” Pedro pointed at Shirley. “Pedro runs screaming gaily into the town of Ponyville!” Shirley pulled out a 20 die and looked at it quizzically, wondering just where she pulled it from. “You know you don’t really need to role for those kinds of actions.” “Should we change your name to something more pony friendly? Shirley is kind of donkey-ish.” Clarence wondered as they made their way toward town. Except Pedro who was doing his best Pinkie impersonation. “Second Sight maybe?” “Nah.” Shirley waved a hoof negatively. “I’d end up forgetting to respond to it. Besides, I always said my parents were a couple of Asses.”
What the hay?View OnlineDisplacing the DisplacedWhat the hay?“I talk to the trees, but they don’t listen to me. I talk to the stars, but they never hear me! The wind hasn’t time, to stop and hear what I say. I talk to them all… in vain.” “But suddenly my words reach someone else’s ears… at someone else’s heartstrings too. I tell you my dreams, and while you’re listening to me… I suddenly see them- TOMATOES!” 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 So yeah, he’d been here a while now. Not sure how long since the days kinda run together and keeping up with the calendar served no purpose since he currently had no purpose here. He has since adjusted here… after a while. A bunch of intelligent ponies helped. Since then he’d been given a residence, he had friends and he had food. Kind of. His family had horses when he’d been little. He remembered well enough about horse care though the knowledge was mostly moot on account of the ponies taking well enough care of themselves. The problem was the food. The main staple of horse food around here was hay. Now, it’s not like they ate it out of a feed around their neck or anything. But they did eat a lot of it. They ground it into a thick paste, or slurry, or powder and then shaped it, seasoned it and cooked it. They did this usually with or alongside other cooked or uncooked fruits and vegetables. It was like baking with flour being the main ingredient. Or in this case, hay was the main ingredient. They still had and used flour. Wheat, bleached, stone ground and everything. They had plenty of vegetables: carrots and celery and beets and beans and corn and lettuce and squash and more. They had plenty of fruits: apples and oranges and pears and mangoes and bananas and peaches and plums and lemons and limes and so on. They had flour and yeast and sugar and everything else to make any sort of confectionery you might want. They even had dairy products! They also had hay. They mostly had hay. Aside from name brands, they came in two types. The first was the cheap stuff. This was made of various grass like rye, timothy, brome and fescue. The second was the expensive stuff made from various legumes like soybean, peas, beans, lentils, linseed and more. The first one was entirely indigestible. The second was only barely digestible. Many of the seeds and beans that went into it were edible. A lot of the grasses and chutes that were harvested with them were not so much. Now before you start getting all shirty, he knew what he was talking about. He used to be a chef. He went to a four month culinary school, took a two week independent bakers course and a two week independent nutrition course. He was a line cook. A glorified cafeteria cook really, but he had the advantage of cooking for 12 years now. As he’d gotten promoted, he’d gained all sorts of knowledge and abilities to his career. He’d even made assistant manager position! And he wasn’t afraid to cook and try new foods. Still, this was a bit of a limit on his new eating and dietary habits. Fortunately, ponies ate eggs and the pegasai ate fish so he wasn’t entirely without protein. But it was still a large limitation on what he could eat. So today he was going foraging in the big (scary?) forest. The ponies around here seemed scared of it anyway. “Oh, onion grass! Sa-weet!” So far, it wasn’t going too badly. Found some wild potatoes earlier after some digging. Tiny little things though. He’d give some other guys left foot for some wild garlic. Looking over his shoulder, he watched one of the wooden puppet wolf things watching him about 100 yards back. Those glowing eyes were a bit of a giveaway in this gloomy forest. Now, he’d never lived in an area frequented by wolves. That was way out of his territory. But he did watch Discovery Channel. Wolves typically didn’t go after anything that wasn’t natural prey unless they were starving. If it got too close, he should make himself look as big as possible and make a lot of noise. Or was that for bears? Maybe he should have watched more Discovery Channel. 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 “Don’t eat that!” WHAM! Ah yes. Aside from the food, there was one other problem. That was his near complete and utter lack of communication. “Spit it out!” PROD “Drop it!” PROD “Bad monkey!” PROD “Hack!” My tomato… “These are poisonous! They’re a part of the nightshade family! You can’t eat those!” He looked forlornly at the tomato he’d just spit to the ground. “I have no idea what you just said, but you just cost me a tomato.” He glared at the yellow and pink butterfly pegasus. “I swear, you treat me more like a pet monkey than anything else.” “Bad monkey!” Turns out, pegasai can control the weather with magic. Regulars can grow things… with magic? And unicorns can cast spells with magic. This became apparent when he met the purple unicorn star butt pony. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a magic pony. He wasn’t a magic human either, or a magic anything really. So all of those spells the purple unicorn cast of him had zero effect. Some of which were presumably translation spells because that’s how these fantasy settings usually worked. Of course, that didn’t stop the purple unicorn from getting excited and trying again every couple of days. Still you couldn’t argue that ponies weren’t smart. They had to be. Their society damn near mirrored his in several aspects. Despite having hooves they still became a tool wielding race. So pantomime and charades went a long way in communication where other attempts had all failed. This was mostly because teaching was not one of his talents and his attempt and speaking pony got him a kick to shin and a glare. “Bad monkey.” His caretaker repeated herself and gave him a consoling pat on the head. “No!” He swatted the hoof away. “These are good! I’ve snacked on tomatoes since I was a kid!” He pantomimed eating one and rubbing his stomach, complete with ‘yum’ sounds, a big smile and a thumbs up. “Oh, you must be hungry! Come on, I’ll get you something good to eat back at my cottage!” Of course, that only works when said pony bothers to listen to you. He grumbled as the yellow and pink butterfly pegasus started dragging him away from the forest. He looked back at the tomatoes. “I’m coming back for you.” “Gasp!” And yes, he actually said the word gasp instead of just gasping. “Peppers…” YOINK! “Don’t eat that!” WHAM! Someday, yellow and pink butterfly pegasus… some day…
No Monkey BuisnessView OnlineDisplacing the DisplacedNo Monkey BuisnessAuthor's Note Because its just so easy... No Monkey Buisness “And that’s how I got here.” Berry Punch looked at the seven foot 500 pound gorilla sitting at her bar. He was surprisingly lucid considering how much he’d had to drink. He was in fact her last patron, the rest having left hours ago. “I don’t know…” Berry knocked a shot back as she finished locking away the last of her stock on hoof and began to wipe down tables. “Used to be a hairless ape? Sure. Changed into a party costume? Yeah. Punted into this world by a divine being? Okay. Chess game of the Gods? That’s pushing it.” The now Gorilla Grodd “Just Grodd if you will. I don’t call you Pony Punch do I?” paused in his trying to get every last drop of alcohol from his glass to give her a weak glare. “Hey, I’ve read enough fantasy novels and fan fiction to know what I’m talking about.” Berry rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh.” “Okay then Miss Smarty Pants.” Grodd folded his arms in surety. “What Gods do you know of that would do this not for some grandiose plan, but just for the heck of it?” *Cough* “Discord.” *Cough* Grodd pointed a meaty finger in her direction before dropping it in grudging acceptance. “Point.” And dropped his head to the bar with a loud- *THUNK* Berry winced. Said bar top now had a solid layer of gold. Since Grodd had no local currency he transmuted the thing to pay for his drinks. Normally she would object to this, since transmuting gold was bad for the economy. (And kind of illegal) But it was so shiny that she couldn’t help but be pleased. That it made a tidy nest egg had nothing to do with it. “Come of Groddy. Bar is closing. Time to go.” She smacked him with a wet towel. “Awww.” “Pfft- ha-ha! Don’t give me those puppy dog eyes! They look ridiculous on you. Go on. Shoo!” She smacked him a few more times for good measure. “Why can’t I stay here?” He hugged his empty shot glasses protectively. “Cause I got a little sister at home to take care of who needs me to make her breakfast before I take her to school. So git.” “One for the road?” He hugged his glasses even more closely and looked at her pleadingly. He unfortunately missed the mischievous look in her eyes. “Sure. Most potent stuff in the house.” “You’re a pal, Berry!” Trotting back behind the bar, she pulled open a dusty cabinet that looked like it didn’t see much use. Inside it was a bottle of shimmering gold liquid. Pouring a shot, she slit it to the eagerly awaiting paws of Grodd. “One shot of Zecora’s morning elixir.” He immediately threw back the shot with a sigh of satisfaction. That is, until the happy buzzing started to disappear. “Hey! I’m sobering!” Then the hangover kicked in. *CRASH!* Berry rolled her eyes in amusement at the theatrics of the gorilla as he moaned and rolled back and forth across the floor in agony. “Oh, you wretched, evil pony… You tricked me!” He clutched his head and sat up to glare at her. “Come on Grodd! You asked for it, remember?” She nosed him to the door. “I’ll see you later?” “Sure.” With that, the door slammed behind him with an echoing laughter. Leaving him standing in the middle of Ponyville with the hangover from Tartarus as the sun began to creep over the horizon. “Stupid sun.” He griped as the light seared his eyeballs. Now half blind, he stumbled into town proper in search of lodging. “MONSTER!” “RUN AWAY!” “The horror! THE HORROR!” Blinking repeatedly, he watched as the ponies panicked and ran about everywhere while screaming. Some of which he recognized. “Oh, come on! I was drinking with you last night and you didn’t have a problem with me then!” But then, alcohol will do that. “Hey! You stupid monkey!” He looked up and glared at the blue and rainbow maned Pegasus. “How dare you attack my town! I’ll show you!” She flew in a flying kick. “Hiiii-Yah!” He instinctively threw a fist out- *POW!* He looked from his fist to the stumbling and dazed Pegasus in front of him in confusion. “Hey, ya varmint! Wha’d ya do ta mah friend?” “You big Meany McMeany! Two Earth pony mares stood in front of him in aggressive stances. One was a farmer… or a country singer going by the accent. The other was a pink eyesore that made his hangover worse just looking at her. “She attacked me and flew into my fist! Tell me how smart that was.” The blue Pegasus came out of her daze and glared at him. “You got lucky, monkey! Won’t happen again!” “Bring it, you stupid little horsey!” He felt his anger rise. He hated monkey puns. When she reared up on her hind legs he grabbed her hoof with his telekinesis and started to hit her face with her own hoof. Power ups were awesome. *WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!* “Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself? Ha-ha-ha- Ooff!” He fell backward and clutched his head after an orange pair clocked him good. “Hangover… worsening…!” “STOP!” A purple Alicorn teleported in between them and glared at everyone for good measure, though she did do a double take when she saw him sitting up. “What is going on?” The blue Pegasus jumped forward. “This monkey-“ “Gorilla.” Purple Alicorn corrected her. “Huh?” “It’s a gorilla, Dash. Not a monkey.” “Same thing.” Grodd cracked his knuckles threateningly. “If you have a learning disability, I can fix that for you, stupid little mesohippus.” “A what?” The purple Alicorn sighed. “A cave pony.” “Oh… HEY!” The orange farmer grabbed the Pegasus by the tail and dragged her back while the purple Alicorn stepped forward. “Look Mister… Gorilla?” “Grodd.” He relaxed his own stance as they did theirs. “Mr. Grodd.” She nodded. “I am Twilight Sparkle. That’s Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie.” She motioned to each, as if he really couldn’t tell the difference from their names. “Howdy.” A tip of the hat had him nodding at Applejack. “Hey Mister Not a New Pony in Town!” A frenzied wave from Pinkie had him giving a half wave in return when it became apparent she wouldn’t stop until he returned it. So much pink… “Yeah, whatever.” Rainbow got a confused non cultural rude gesture. “Were you attacking the town?” Twilight asked him. At lease she asked. That got a lot of points in his book. “No. I was just leaving the bar.” He pointed to the building 30 feet behind him. “I got in last night. I just walked out to find lodging. Ponies panicked. Rainbow chick attacked me.” “Twi! Are you really gonna take the words of this monkey over mine?” Dash flew up into her face. “Considering your tendency to jump to conclusions, the lack of any attack, and the townsponies tendency to panicking at everything? Yes.” Twilight shrugged apologetically. Dash dropped to the ground with a huff. Applejack sidled up to her friend. “Dash, we don’t doubt yer heart wuz in th’right place, but ya do have a habbit a’ jumpin the fence.” “Fine.” Dash jumped back into the air to again invade his personal space. “I say you cheated in the fight though. Using magic like that.” He snorted. “I don’t use magic.” “See!” Dash turned to her friends. “He’s lying already! He used telekinesis to grab my hoof and hit me in the face with it!” Applejack guffawed. “Really?” “Shut up!” “Dash, Gorilla’s don’t have magic.” Twilight told her. “But he did!” “Yes I did.” He stepped forward. “Rather successfully at that. Fun too.” Twilight’s jaw fell open. “B- but how?! You can’t form a telekinetic field without magic!” He chuckled and folded his arms before using said telekinesis to flick an ear on Dash. “Ouch!” “Says who?” He floated a nearby basket of apples to his feet. “My abilities are psionic in nature. Pure mental energies. No magic, see? No aura.” “WOW!” Twilight rushed forward. With a flare from her horn she summoned a parchment and quill and began to circle around him. “I’ve never met a species capable of non-magical telekinesis before!” “Hold on there, sugar cube.” Applejack pushed her friend back. “Ya can geek out over him AFTER we find out what he’s here fer.” “Right!” Twilight readied her notes. “So what brings you to Ponyville?” “Ironically enough, a magical mishap.” He finally stood up and cracked his back. “But you said-“ “I didn’t say it was caused by me.” He grumbled. “Oh! Oh! I got a question for Groddy!” Pinkie jumped forward and bounced in front of him with a much too large of a smile for the size of her face. “Do you like parties?” He blinked. “Sure, I suppose. Small ones in any case.” “Gasp!” Pinkie leaped up into the air and vanished in a trail of smoke. “What?” “Don’t worry none.” Applejack chuckled and grabbed the basket of apples, expertly balancing it on her back. “She’s just planin yer party. If’n there’s no trouble, I gotta open the stall.” “And I got a nap to catch up on.” Dash glared at him and motioned to her eyes. “I’ll be watching you, Grodd.” “Don’t watch too closely. I wouldn’t want you to get excited.” He grinned and gave an exaggerated flex of his muscles. To which the Pegasus gagged and glared harder before flying up to the clouds. That left Twilight, who was grinning and visibly shaking in excitement. “Cultural Studies! I have so many questions for you!” He winced as his hangover reared its ugly head if only to make the whole thing worse. “If we do this, I’m either going to need coffee or sleep first.” Twilight nodded in acceptance. “There’s a good coffee place just down the block from here.” She began leading the way. “So…” She readied her parchment. “Where exactly are you from?” He took a moment to consider this. “Gorilla City, or San Diego depending on the specifics of your question. And you?” “Canterlot. It’s the city capital on the mountain ridge over there.” She pointed a hoof in the distance to the… He squinted at the distant city scape. The small white blot was only just visible at this distance though he could see the- “You mean volcano.” “Huh?” Twilight paused to look up at him in confusion. “Mountains are typically formed by the shifting of tectonic plates or other large bodied land masses pushing together. That’s why mountains are seen in chains and called a range. That is likely the cause of one or several volcanic eruptions. Is there any history of earthquakes there?” “None that I can recall.” “Then it’s likely a long dead and extinct volcano.” Twilight paused as she assimilated said new found knowledge. “That… I didn’t even KNOW that!” She began to bounce up and down as she grew more excited. “I get to learn a new science! I have to write all of this down! I have to send it to the university so they can do a more thorough geologic survey of the caverns-“ “Whoa! Twilight! Coffee?” “Right!” She took several deep breaths in order to calm herself down, but couldn’t contain the “Squee!” of excitement as she bounced around the corner. He paused when he saw the coffee shop. A very familiar coffee shop. A coffee shop with identical construction and similar large green logo on the doors and signs only with a hippocampus instead of a mermaid. “God damned Starbucks are everywhere.”
