Fall of the Rightful King

Chapter Eleven

Alan

Oh shit. I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I was actually going to fucking die.

“And some of the dragons are like Spike and are nice to get along with, but most are mean and terrible. Princess Eclipse’s boyfriend is half dragon, but they can’t be together because his dad hates the ponies. He only ra-”

So this started as a good idea. Or at least a non-suicidal idea. Brittney wanted to talk to Paper Back about Equestria and I was like, whatever, probably good for both of them, right? Brittney gets to learn about her pony world and Paper Back gets to, you know, calm down and shit. Then we got into the whole clusterfuck of “Oh, by the way, we have a TV show about you,” and explaining that shit. People, you know what, if you don’t want to see what the government’s doing under your noses, whatever. But when there’s a fucking TV show about a fucking parallel universe and it’s all fucking right, there’s some crazy shit going down.

“-but even Princess Celestia got turned into a mannequin! So then Princess Eclipse had to fight Rarity and steal the book and use its powers to turn everypony back, so that’s how she got her third cutie mark.”

So explaining all that to Paper Back had been a hell of a conversation. But even that wasn’t this bad. Paper Back had been acting pretty weird during all of the explanation. I mean, that made sense, but she just kept getting distracted and kept saying how tired she felt. I mean, we’d only been up for like an hour or two. All of a sudden she’d passed out. Just like… gone. I mean, she was still there, but she was definitely asleep. Probably some magic shit.

“and then when Discord turned evil again and turned all the ponies into bats, only Princess Eclipse could talk to him about friendship. So she had to use her dead mother’s jewelry…”

I’d asked Brittney if I’d be able to use magic like I thought I would. That was forty-five fucking minutes ago and she still hadn’t stopped talking. Yes, unicorns could use magic. Pegasi also had magic, which they used to fly and walk on clouds, apparently. Then that led into all the fucking races, dragons, dogs, fucking buffalo, all kinds of shit. And every damn time she had to mention that damn “Princess Eclipse.” Brittney’s shit “OC” had apparently done everything and met everyone worth knowing, had all kinds of special powers and adventures, but noooooo, she’s still so tormented and distraught.

Damn it, I just wanted to know what kind of magic I could do, not a whole fucking lecture on a TV show or that goddamned Princess Eclipse. At least all this talking had finally fixed that fucking lisp thing she had going on.

Brittney was still talking. Of course she was still talking. Somehow she’d actually run full circle and gotten back to what I had first asked her. Fucking miracle.

“And so that’s how everyone has magic in Equestria.”

She stopped. Holy fuck, she stopped.

“Yeah, thanks for all that,” I said.

“So were you listening?” she asked.

Fuck. I couldn’t tell her no.

“Yeah, yeah. I can move shit around, right?”

“Yep!” she nodded energetically.

“And winged ponies can fly and walk on clouds and shit.”

“Mm-hmm!” she nodded again. Fuck, I wasn’t doing too badly. “And earth ponies?” she asked.

Shit.

“They… um… don’t get magic, right?”

“No, we get super strong and have a special connection to the earth. Remember?”

Nope.

“So you can, like, talk to trees?”

“No, it just means that we can be super good at farming, which is why almost all farmers are earth ponies.”

My mouth made an observation before I could stop it. “That kind of sucks for you, though. I mean, I get fucking magic, some ponies get to fly, but you just get good at farming and are strong? I mean, horses are always fucking strong.”

“Not like us,” she said. “We’re really strong.”

“Uh huh,” I said, not convinced. She tilted her head to the side.

“You guys have a fruit tree outside, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s the apartment’s. None of it’s good, though, and they don’t like people taking any.”

She started heading towards the door. “I’m gonna go buck the fruit off. Come watch!”

Well, shit, this’d be entertaining. We went outside. A couple people were outside, but barely any. They looked at us but stayed away and didn’t freak out. At least people knew about Alexander and what he was up to. The day felt like shit anyway, so no one was staying out. After a minute or two, we were alone and by the tree. It hadn’t felt huge when I had two legs, but trees are big when you’re like four feet tall. I really didn’t think Brittney was going to do anything except hurt her legs.

She walked up to the tree, turned around, and gave it a kick with both back legs. The leaves shook a little.

“Uh huh, you’re really strong…” I said. She shook her head.

“Let me try that again,” she said, before kicking the tree a lot harder. This time a few leaves fell off.

“Oh, fantastic, pony girl,” I said, putting as much sarcasm in as I could. “Earth ponies are really strong,”

“No, I’m just,” she said, but I kept talking.

“You’re just like unicorns and pegasuses.”

“Pegasi!”

“Whatever. Being strong is-”

She glared at me. Her nostrils flared, she snorted, and then she bucked. There was this huge fucking crack, splinters went everywhere, and then the motherfucking tree fell over. We sat there, staring at the shattered stump and fallen tree for a few seconds, before Brittney started giggling.

“Holy fucking shit…” I said, poking at the stump.

“Do you wanna see it again?” she asked, still giggling.

“Fuck, no, let’s… holy shit.” I really hadn’t expected her to be that strong. “Let’s get inside quick.” We headed for the door.

“Did that hurt your legs?” I asked, looking at her and keeping my distance. I couldn’t help noticing the muscles in her legs now. They looked a lot more dangerous than they had before.

“No, it felt really good, actually,” she said. “Just bunching up all that energy and then WHAMMO! I wanna do it again!”

“Better not,” I said, as she pushed open the door. “We don’t want people coming after us for breaking their shit.”

I walked past Brittney and she stuck her nose in my fucking mane. Hair, I mean.

“You smell good,” she said.

“Ok,” I said. That’s not creepy at – fucking shit, Paper Back! She’d stopped me from talking.

“Thanks, Britt,” she said.

“Can I touch your mane?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she started rubbing her hooves through our hair.

“Um… ok,” Paper Back said, sitting down. Brittney found our horn and started rubbing it. It was a weird feeling – you couldn’t like actually feel anything that touched it, because it was hard, but there was this weird tingly magic shit that I could feel around Brittney, and I could tell that was rubbing my horn.

“Can you feel this?” she asked.

“No,” Paper Back said, standing up slowly, “Unicorn horns are bone and-”

“Oh! Did unicorns used to fight with their horns like deer do with their antlers?”

“I guess… I wasn’t ever really good at history.”

“So can we pick things up with your hooves like they do in the show?”

“Um,” Paper Back said, starting to get a little flustered.

Heh heh heh. See, I tried to stop this…

“Nope, just with magic or your mouth,” she said, putting on a fake smile.

Be nice. She doesn’t mean anything bad. She’s just curious and this is helping her handle what’s happening to her.

She seems fine to me.

Alan, nopony could go through a body change like this and be fine. Brittney just handles it differently than you do.

“And how do you do your hai-mane and tail if you don’t have magic?” she said, holding up her front hooves. “I tried and I just made a mess.”

I looked up as Erin suddenly appeared at the door. Thank fucking Christ. She was crying and almost fell on top of us.

“Britt, I need you to come with me. We have to go to the hospital.”

“Hospital?” I asked. “Are you ok? Is Nick ok?”

“Alan, it’s fine, we just have to go. Now!”

They left in a rush. “Ok then,” I called out to the empty air. “I’ll just be here.” I walked back inside and shut the door behind me. It was getting easier and easier to use magic for simple things, though I was nowhere near the control and power Paper Back had shown off earlier.

“So, Paper Back...” I said. She didn't answer right away. "Paper Back?" When she answered, she was like, really quiet.

“I’m so tired all of a sudden…” she said. “I’m… going to nap.”

And she was gone. Well, that was weird. Now that she was asleep, though, that gave me an idea. Something that might help a bit. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. Thank fuck magic somehow worked on touchscreens. I held the phone between my ear and mouth, and flicked my ear towards the speaker. A girl answered.

“Amy? It’s Alan. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a mare now.” I waited for her giggling to stop. Every goddamned time someone who knew me before found out…

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, still giggling.

“So on facebook you said you still have your hands?” I asked.

“Yeah! I mean, I’m learning to use my horn, but I’ve still got my hands for now.”

“Cool. Can you come over? I have a favor I want to ask.”

When Paper Back woke up, Amy was already here. She’d turned into a furry, so she had like hind hooves, a tail, and a muzzle, but she still had her hands. One of her hands only had 4 fingers now, so she wasn’t staying like this.

“Hi!” Amy said. Paper Back blinked.

“Paper Back, this is Amy,” I said.

“Hi!” she said, surprised. Our eyes were dancing over Amy’s body. I could tell PB wasn’t super sure what to do with this.

“So Alan asked me to come over,” Amy said. “I’m an artist and I draw a lot of ponies.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought you could, like, talk to her about what your family looks like and she could try drawing them.”

Paper Back didn’t respond.

“You know,” I said, starting to feel more and more awkward. “So you could have something that at least kind of looks like them…”

Paper Back teared up and stomped a hoof. “I… I wish I could hug you!” she said.

“Oh,” I said and smiled. Thought I’d fucked up for a second there. Amy sat down with her tablet and started drawing as Paper Back described her family. There were four of them – her dad “Dusty Codex,” who was dark gray and a pegasus. Her mom, “Paper Mache” who was almost white, was a unicorn. So were her older brother “Sharp Cut” and her little sister “Livrette.” I couldn’t see Paper Back’s memories, but judging by how she felt as the picture filled out, Amy did a damn good job. It took them a couple hours, just going over the different details. Amy asked all kinds of questions about what real ponies were like. I was mostly trying to figure out my next move.

Because fuck standing still and just letting shit happen. That bitch Alexander was going to get Paper Back back home and put me back in my body. The government might be cooperating with him, but if they weren’t, they’d be trying to take him out. Shit, would they try to nuke him? I mean, that’d mean nuking the States. Hope not, because there wasn’t a lot you could do about a fucking nuclear attack.

Nah, that’d be retarded. If they weren’t working with him (or for him,) they’d want to get his powers, right? And that meant keeping him alive. Especially because a fuckton of us had magic now. It wasn’t going to be so easy for him to do shit.

Maybe he was just doing this solo. Just some fucked up old wizard. Maybe it wasn’t even really him!

Nope, bad idea. I had a tail and lady bits. It had to be magic. Hmm. What could we do?

I kept thinking about it for a while. It was a pretty damn screwed up situation. Amy finished at some point and we got the picture printed. Looked fucking awesome, too. Paper Back did this weird hug thing where she rubbed her face against Amy’s neck.

It’s how we hug! You’re weird that you use your front legs.

Too busy to come up with a good reply.

We said goodbye and thanks to Amy. I paid her what we’d agreed on.

“Hey,” Paper Back said as we hung up the picture. “I want to thank you. That was really sweet.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I said.

“I just… it’s going to remind me of home.” She said.

“Yep.”

“I…” her voice caught. Just for a second, but I was her. Kind of. So I caught it.

“It’s ok.” I said. “You’ll get back to them. I promise.”

“Hug,” she said.

“Um… I kind of…” I said.

“No, I mean I can’t actually hug you so… ‘hug.’” She shrugged. “So what were you thinking about?”

“I really want to talk to the people who made the My Little Pony show.” I said. “They know way, way too much.”

“Ok, but Brittney said there were four versions of the show, and they were all different,” Paper Back started.

“But this one’s exactly like what’s going on in your world,” I said.

“Well, I don’t know! I don’t know any of those mares. I don’t even have family in Ponyville.”

“But there is a Ponyville, and a Canterplace and a Horsehatten?”

She rolled our eyes. “Close enough, but yeah.”

“And the princess and the whole monster thing with Satan?”

“Who?”

“Um, red, beard, horns, fucking giant.”

“Tirek?” she asked. She shuddered. “Yes. That definitely happened. I remember.”

“Ok. There’s no fucking way that’s a coincidence.”

“Do you think they might be ponies?” she asked. “Like they were brought here and turned into humans?”

“Eh, they’d have to be a part of a conspiracy to fit in that easily,” I said. “Which I’m not ruling out…”

“Oh, wait! Maybe they just have magic and they can see into our world?”

“Or maybe they have secret government contacts and we figured out wormholes decades ago.”

“What if they can see other universes?”

“Maybe the Illuminati are aliens and they’ve been to both worlds…”

“Ugh,” Paper Back said. “These are just ideas, though, and we can’t find out.”

“We have to talk to them.” I realized. “We have to find them and talk to them. Maybe they’ll know why this is happening to us!”

We went online to try and find out more. Turns out we weren’t the first people to think of this. Or even the ten thousandth. The official story was that the head writers, directors, animators etc. had all gone into hiding. More likely the government had arrested them, or they were taken back to their secret headquarters…

I could feel Paper Back giggling and rolling our eyes again.

“What?” I asked.

“Your ideas are so silly,” she said. “Maybe they’re just confused and scared like the rest of us? Or maybe Alexander put it into their heads somehow?”

Well those ideas were… I mean, that’s just… reasonable.

"Um... not changing the subject or anything..." she said.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"But... can we watch some of the TV show? I want to see what it's like!"

Ugh. Fine, I guess. I'd just have to deal with it. Couldn't be that bad, could it?

"My Little Pony, My Little Pony..."

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.