Fall of the Rightful King-Clean

Alan

This shouldn't have been an impossible thing to do. Sure, celebs and other famous people tried to keep stuff like their addresses and phone numbers private, but you could find it out. There were always people who got the information and shared it, or you could find the aliases they used. No one famous was good enough to hide everything.

Except, apparently, the freaking geniuses who hid Lauren Faust. They erased freaking everything. Wikipedia page? Gone. Backups of the page? Gone. Caches? History? Gone. And they were that thorough everywhere. The only thing was the talk page arguing about who did it and why they couldn't restore it. Brittney tried some of the sketchier forums where they'd posted her information before, but it'd been wiped. Even the... less legal sites had been hit. I mean, seriously, cool your jets, guy.

Then the spookbusters came through. Crap, they came through a little too much. I got page after page after page of information. I guess that the idea was that any specific list of info just related to Faust would have been erased, but these big data dumps might have the information in there somewhere.

Everyone was helping. Paper Back and I went through the pages, double checking each other. Nick had a stack he was going through, and so did Brittney. Erin couldn't really help, naturally, so she mostly just hung out by Nick and rubbed his back.

My eyes kept flicking over to Nick. He really was fit and strong for his weight. He smelled nice, too.

Dang it, Paper Back, this was awkward enough last time.

I wasn’t awake last time… she said. She had a sing-song voice, like she was happy about something.

Seriously, we need to focus.

So… focus!

Kind of hard, I said. My ears keep moving and I can’t stop thinking about Nick.

And you keep playing with my mane. Did you not notice? She said.

Plus I’ve got this weird fluttery feeling and… woooow. You’re into Nick.

Alan…

Come on, he has a girlfriend!

I don’t like Nick that way. Humans are weird! You’ve got wiggly fingers and flat faces. You don’t even have fur!

I got up and walked into the bathroom. I was starting to feel a pit in my stomach.

Ok, are you screwing with me?

No. Are you ok?

Dang it, Paper Back, please tell me you’re screwing with me. I won’t even be mad!

I’m not. Alan…

My eyes got hot and started to get wet.

You’re crying.

No I’m not!

Alan…

Crap. It wasn’t Paper Back. It was just me. Gosh dang freaking girl body screwing with my freaking mind. My nose started running.

Alan, talk to me.

It’s so screwed up! Now I’m attracted to my best friend and he’s got a girlfriend so he’ll never like me like that and I don’t even want to like him. We’re both guys!

It’s going to be ok.

No it’s not! Now he’s not even going to want to be friends with me.

“Alan, yes he will.” Paper Back said. She wiped our nose. Hearing her voice kind of brought me back. “It’s ok,” she whispered. “These feelings are normal. This is just kind of how you feel when you like a colt.”

It still freaking sucks.

“Yeah,” she said. “It kind of does. Are you ok to go back?”

I sniffed. Yeah.

The sun went down and we were still going through freaking dozens of pages of information. We took a break for dinner and went right at it again, because I didn't have any other ideas.

It was getting hard to focus when I decided, freak it, we're just going to look at the intros for the next group.

hey i got all the information you need just gotta pay me-

My frends at the Nigerian Embasy can get the information from you, but we require-

You'll find her in Toronto. She's under the protection of the Canadian government, and her phone number is 647

Dude whyt are you even looking for wthi s crap is not like

"Hey, wait," Paper Back said. "Go back one."

"Oh... yeah, hey guys, I think we got something." Everyone got around me and I read the letter. Basically, the guy said he had connections in the Canadian government and he knows where they're hiding her. But get this - he gave us the phone number they're using for her safe house. He said she set up the voicemail, but it's not under her own name.

"Hey, Britt, could you recognize her voice?"

"Probably," she said.

"Ok. Let's call it."

Nick dialed the phone and held it up to Britt's ear. I could still hear the message, thanks to pony ears.

"Hi, this is Tara Oliver! Leave a message."

Nick hung up and Brittney squeaked. "That's her! And she mixed two of the actress' names for hers! It's Lauren Faust!"

"Ok, freaking finally, some progress," I said. "Let's look over the rest of the stuff he sent." The data had an address, what the house looked like, and even suggested a good time to visit. The last part kind of worried me.

Hurry, and be careful. You're not the only one looking for her.

"Ok, we need to do this quickly!" Paper Back said. I could tell she was excited about this. She might even be able to find a way ho-

The room turned gold as this freaking light wave shot through us. It didn't hit us, but everyone freaking passed out except for Nick and me. The second it hit us, Paper Back's voice cut off.

Crap! Crap! Paper Back! Paper Back, come on, don't be dead! Wake up!

She wasn't talking. I took a few deep breaths and really freaking concentrated. I could feel that she was still there. Thank goodness. What the heck just happened, though?

I noticed my face was pressed against the floor and stood back up. Brittney and Erin were both lying on the ground, and Nick was over Erin, trying to wake her up. She kind of woozily came awake.

"Hey," she said slowly. "Hi Nick."

"Oh, wow, Erin," he said, hugging her. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Why?" she asked, her voice still slow and weirdly calm. There was something very wrong here. What had the wave done? We were done changing, and it didn't feel like one of the earlier ones.

"Because you passed out," Nick said, sounding confused. "I... Alexander cast some kind of spell and I..."

"But he wouldn't hurt us," she said, her voice still weirdly calm and flat. There was like, no tone to her voice at all. "Alexander's a good man. He should be in charge of all of us, don't you think?"

"Erin? What... what are you saying?" Nick said, his eyebrows pressed together.

"Well, it's just, you know, he's just trying to help everyone. That's why he turned us into ponies."

"That MONSTER!" Paper Back yelled.

Glad to see you're ok, I said.

"That freaking monster! Oh, Celestia send him straight to Tartarus!" she yelled again. "Nick, it's a mind control spell!"

And he just cast that on the whole world... I realized. All my fur stood on end.

“What do we do?” Nick asked. He held Erin in his arms, but her face was still blank.

“Just, I don’t know. We have to cancel the spell somehow. Let me get over.”

Paper Back moved us over, put our horn on Erin’s head, and ran a spell through it. Erin started blinking rapidly and looked around.

“What… what just happened to me?”

“It’s a mind control spell,” Paper Back said. “Alexander’s trying to make us think that he’d be a good leader. I can’t believe he’d do that! I knew he was evil, but this is… this is disgusting! He’s actually trying to take over the world!”

“Nick?” Erin asked.

“I’m here,” he said, and pulled her into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re ok.”

“How did you know how to do that?” I asked.

“I had to learn it for a graduation exam,” she said. “We need to check on-”

“Brittney!” Erin yelled. She jumped right out of Nick’s arms and over to her sister. Brittney was breathing, but unconscious.

Nick shook Brittney awake.