A Different Kind of Paradise

Chapter I: Arrival

Gabriel let out a chilling scream as he jumped to his hooves and began to look himself over, in between panicked gasps he realized that he had become a pony; his coat was grey, except for one spot on his flank that had a dove on it, somehow his glasses stayed on his face, and as far as he could tell his hair was the same.  No matter what he looked like though, he had a hard time believing that he had become a pony, and began to tear up.

“Noooooo, NOOOOOOOO!”  Gabriel cried as he put his hooves on his head.  “Why me God?  I don’t want to be a pony, I HATE PONIES!!”  He stopped crying and began to giggle like a maniac as he began to nervously toy with his mane.  “I-I’m not a pony, this is a dream.  A very, very… very bad dream.”  He began to fiddle with his tail “I don’t have a tail, or hooves, or a dove on my butt; I’m going to wake up any second now in the hospital, or my room, and wipe the sweat off my brow with my HUMAN hands.”   He let out another manic giggle and began to wait, after a few seconds he began to cry again.  He felt better when somepony began to pat his shoulder, he looked up at who was comforting him in between sobs and saw a green pony with wings and a short, black, curly mane “Thank you” he said, before jumping back in shock.

“Hey, hey, hey it’s me Gabe.”  The green pony said in a familiar voice.

Gabriel’s jaw dropped “Michael?”

Nero laughed and said “Yeah, it’s me.  I’m a pony.”

Gabe began to sway back and forth before putting a hoof on his head and groaning.  “I can’t believe what’s happening to us.  This is the worst possible… wait.”  Gabriel interrupted himself as he realized something.  “If you’re here, then that means that…” his jaw fell open “God help me.”  He said as his pupils shrunk.

I must take your farewell

Carried by destiny

Bound to obey

I must take your farewell

Trails of discovery

Lead me an ocean away

So far away

When the tide is high

I won't dwell or wait no longer

A blue unicorn sang with wild brown hair and glasses sang as his horn glowed and rock music played around him.  The serious look that matched the tone of the song melted into a massive smile as the instrumental break began.  Gabriel and Nero watched from a short distance away, Gabriel actually stopped whining for long enough to notice that they were in a large, grassy field.  “Where’s that music coming from?”  Gabriel asked.

Nero laughed before answering “I have no idea.  I just woke Danny up, he went all happy-manic, his horn started to spark and all of a sudden there was music.”

I must take your farewell

Trails of discovery

Lead me an ocean away

Daniel’s song concluded, and a short while after it did the music became dark and sinister.  As Gabriel approached him and heard the change of notation, he felt the same cold he did in his nightmare.  He quickly trotted to him and shook him to get his attention; Daniel shook his head, as if coming out of a trance, he looked at Gabe for about 3 seconds before a giant smile appeared on his face.

“Oh no” Gabriel immediately regretted his actions.

Daniel wrapped his forelegs around Gabe in a hug-like fashion before talking his ear off.  “ohmygoshGabeisn’tthisthegreatestthingever?I’maunicorn,Nero’sapegasus,andyou’reanearthpony!Idon’tthinkthiscouldpossiblygetanybetter…”

He was interrupted when Gabriel pushed him off of himself.  Danny landed on his back, and promptly began rolling on the grass, the smile never leaving his face.

“I’m in hell” Gabe sighed.  “Nero killed me, and I’m in hell.”

He was about to whine some more when something heavy fell on him.  He turned his head to see Nero lying on top of him.  “It’s not that bad” he started.  “Hey look, I can fly… sorta.”  He flapped his wings to show off.

Gabriel then noticed something; where there was a dove on his flank, there was a blue rose with lightning coming out of it on his, and he then looked to Danny who had a half-white, half-black record in the shape of a heart.  He shook himself and focused on the pegasus who was still on top of him.  “GET OFF ME!”  He yelled as he tossed Nero off “whoa” he said, surprised by his own strength.  “No!”  He shook his head, trying to focus.  “This is bad; we’re trapped in another world, and not a cool world like Heaven, or the Pokémon world; we’re in the My Little Pony world!  This is very bad!”

“Equestria” Danny cut in.

Gabriel leered at Danny and said “what?”

Danny got up and walked towards Gabe, remembering to give him plenty of personal space, and began to lecture his friends about the setting of a little girl’s cartoon.  “Now, the world isn’t called Equestria, that’s the name of the country, but still.  Now I am a unicorn as you can see by the horn protruding from my brow” he tapped his horn.  “Unicorns have a variety of magical abilities, the base is telekinesis, but different unicorns will have different spells based on their special talent.”  Even though he was dead on he was blushing due to the nature of his topic.

“Um, teacher I have a question.”  Nero said as he put a hoof in the air.

His face now completely red, Danny answered “Umm, yes Nero?”

“What do you mean special talent?”  He asked.

Gabriel groaned.  “How is any of this relevant?”

Danny stopped blushing, and his smile disappeared as he hung his head.  “I… I just thought that because we’re here now…”

“Well we won’t be for long, so it’s pointless talking about all of this irrelevant gibberish.”  Gabe interrupted.

Danny opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and slowly laid himself down, curled up and looking away from the others.

Both Nero and Gabe noticed the strange feeling they started to feel when he did that.  They couldn’t explain it but it felt like there was something in the air trying to make them depressed to.

Not paying any attention to it, Nero pulled Gabriel to the side and spoke to him so that Danny wouldn’t hear them.  “Listen, Gabe; I know you don’t dig any of this happy rainbow unicorn stuff, but I think that because Danny’s the expert on this…”

Gabe made a disgusted face when he heard Nero refer to Danny as an “expert” because he was hopelessly addicted to a little girl’s TV show.

“… I think we should hear him out and y’know… just give this pony thing a chance.”   Nero finished.

Gabe just stared at Nero for a few seconds; after a while his eye began to twitch, and he began to give heavy, agitated breaths.  “FINE” he spat at Nero, who actually took it as a personal victory.  As he went over to reassure Danny he felt that weird aura again; he felt as if something was trying to make him feel sorrow, to make matters worse he could have sworn he heard a voice:  A familiar voice.  He took in a deep breath and faked a smile, with his hoof he nudged Danny “Hey Danny, I’m sorry about that, I’m just having a bit of a hard time taking all of this in.  I didn’t mean to snap buddy.”

Slowly but surely Danny brought his head up, when Gabe saw his face he gasped in shock; when he looked into Danny’s eyes he saw that there was some sort of blue mixing with his normal brown, as if it was trying to replace it.

“So we cool?”  Gabe said while smiling sheepishly.

“I… I… yes.”  Danny said, still in a down mood.  Gabe expected this, for some reason Danny had always been really moody; ecstatic one moment and sullen the next, he knew that all he had to do wait his depression out and he’d be perky and hyper again.

“Do you have any ideas for our next move?”  Gabe asked, trying to speed up his friend’s recovery.

“W-well I was th-th, I was th-thi-thi…”  Danny paused and lowered his head, ashamed that he couldn’t form the word “thinking.”   “Nero should fly up to see where we are.”  He forced out.

Gabriel thought that was an awful idea, but fortunately Nero intercepted his criticism by agreeing “Alright; I’m pretty sure I’ve got these bad boys worked out.”  He said, flexing his wings.  Before Gabe could open his mouth to object Nero took off into the sky, he did waver and stumble at times, but eventually he was going in a perfectly straight line.

Gabe sighed to himself, he decided to cut the crap and talk to Danny sincerely; a real conversation, not just trying to cut him out of his mopey-stage.  “What about this show appealed to you so much?”

Danny started blushing again “Well…”  He didn’t answer.  For a few minutes he just sat there in deep though, his eyes moving; as if searching through different options.  “I guess I could say…”

He was cut off when Nero fell on him, knocking him out cold.  He casually got up and said “Town; that-a-way.”  And pointed, he tried to lead his friends but the moment he took a step he kicked an unconscious Daniel.  “Rise and shine Danny boy, I think we found our first stop.”

Danny groaned as he got to his hooves “that’s great buddy.”

Nero and Gabe helped stabilize him.  Then Nero explained more on his find as the group started walking “The place we’re going to actually looks like a pretty cool place.  I even got the name: Ponyville.”

Hearing this made Danny freeze in his tracks; he began to giggle like a madman, and fainted.