The Equestrian Adventures of Billy and Mandy

by TheDriderPony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Crossover, Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Other
Length: 5363

An idiot, a sociopath, and a skeleton end up in Equestria.

Once, long ago, two children made a bet with Death over the soul of their hamster. Death lost, and by contractual obligation became their "Best Friend Forever". Together, the three went on countless adventures, facing off against foes both supernatural and mundane. But when a portal goes awry, they find themselves in a strange new land. With no immediate way to get home, they're going to have to try and blend in with the locals to survive. But it's hard to remain inconspicuous when the sheer magical presence of a Reaper acts like a beacon to every two-bit monster and crackpot whack-job for miles around.

It's a wonder they don't go mad.

Tags may swap around a bit as we go.

Published 2016-09-12 00:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-09-12 00:40:01 UTC

Unstable Portal

Everything was white. An eternal lifeless plain, infinite in every direction, lacking sound, color, or distinction. Except for one spot. In one particular spot of the infinite plain of nothing, three figures stood. Two were short, childlike even, while the third towered above them, gaunt and crooked. A time passed. It could have been an eternity or maybe mere moments, there was no way to tell. Finally, one of the shorter figures spoke.

"Alright bonehead and brainless, how have you two managed to screw everything up this time?" She asked impatiently.

"Don' you go blamin' me, child! It's all his fault!" 'Bonehead' responded, pointing an emancipated finger at 'Brainless'.

"Nuh-uh! I had nothing to do with it! N-U-T-I-N, nothing!" The second short figure stomped his foot in indignation, making his prodigious nose wobble in response. "Your sickle messed up making the swirly magic hole."

"Ain't nothing wrong with me scythe! You tried to open a rift to someplace that doesn't exist, which even you'd have realized was a bad idea if you had anything other than earwax and empty space between your ears!"

"Well you're ugly!"

"Enough!" The first to speak demanded. The other two stopped mid-insult, momentarily frozen in place. "Grim, I want you to tell me exactly why I woke up in a field of nothing, accompanied by only you two and not my morning coffee. And Billy, if you interrupt I'm going to use you as a paintbrush to give this place a fresh red coat. Now, talk."

The recently renamed Grim sighed, "I've only just about pieced it together meself. Billy here, woke me up in de middle of de night, yelling and babbling about a dream he had with robot-dinosaur-ninjas or somthin', and demanding I make a portal so he can go visit."

Billy nodded furiously in agreement, a silly smile on his face as he remembered his prior ecstasy.

"I told him I couldn't, since de place don't exist, but he kept up so I threw him across de room. So den de fool takes me scythe and tries to open the portal himself. You can't go somewhere dat doesn't exist, so we ended up here-" he gestured to emptiness around them with overplayed bravado, "The Realm Between Realms."

She raised an eyebrow impatiently. "And I'm here because..."

He shrugged sheepishly. "Magic works funny in this realm, so my scythe's magic pulled you along too."

"Fine, whatever. Just open a portal and take us back. I had things to do tomorrow, including a long list of chores for you."

He tapped his scythe awkwardly against the ground, laughing nervously. "Well Mandy... uh... I- I can't."

The realm seemed to grow colder just then, as she narrowed her eyes at her undead companion. "Why not?" Her words echoed the sudden chill in the air.

"De same reason Billy couldn't go to space-pirate-monkey land or wherever-"

"Robo-Dino-Ninja land," Billy interrupted, risking Mandy's wrath for what he felt like was an important clarification.

"Whatever." Grim waved his comment off. "Anyway, you need two tings to make a stable portal. A destination, and a starting point. We're stuck here since Billy's portal didn't have a destination, and I can't open a stable portal from here since 'here' doesn't count as a place. Dere is no here, no point of reference. If I tried to open a portal here, de other end could open literally anywhere, in any dimension, in anytime."

"Even Robo-Dino-Ninja land!?" Billy gasped excitedly.

"...No. Dat place is too stupid to exist."

"So we'll end up in Valhalla, or Lord Pain's realm, or Jurassic Endsville." Mandy counted off nonchalantly. "Doesn't seem like much of problem. Once we're somewhere, then we can go where we want. So make with the portal, bonehead."

"I don't tink you quite understand the gravity of our situation." Grim's voice turned eerily harsh and stern. "All de places you've seen thus far in our time together have been practically next door to each other. Consider this: If every realm you've visited with me was a house in Endsville, then opening a portal here could just as easily land us in another solar system. Realms and dimensions where humans never existed, where de laws of physics are completely alien. Realms where time never began. Did you never find it odd, how everywhere we went you could breathe just fine? Dat gravity was constant, or dat water was wet? Dere are many worlds I've never shown you simply because your weak mortal frames would not be able to bear it. So take heed, Billy and Mandy, when I say we are in a very dangerous position."

There was silence for a time, before Mandy turned and slapped Billy upside the head causing him to completely flip over and smack his face into the nonexistent floor.

"You. Complete. And utter. Idiot! Of all the things you've done, this has to be the most stupid!" Mandy yelled, as she continued to rain blows on Billy's rapidly bruising and swelling form. Grim winced in sympathy with each impact. When she finally calmed down, he was barely recognizable as human, so twisted was his form.

Spitting out a tooth, Billy managed to gasp out a response. "But... but... Robo-Dino-Ninja land..."

The sounds of hand and bone meeting face and skull echoed across the empty vista.

Taking a deep breath, Mandy calmed herself down. Being the only intelligent one of the group, she knew it would come down to her to make the decision that would either save or kill them. On one hand, opening a random portal had a decent chance of killing them all. But then again, she did have the literal personification of death at her beck and call. His contract to be their "best friend forever" most likely included keeping them alive at the very least. On the other hand, staying here there was no risk of dying or landing in some nightmarish dimension where television doesn't exist or the universe is inhabited by idyllic singing flowers.

She shuddered. Never again.

Grim could probably conjure up everything they'd need to survive. Food, water, cable, the basic standards of living. But the promise of safety also came at the cost of spending eternity with absolutely no one except those two. With that fact in mind, she made her decision.

"Grim, grab the human bruise, we're leaving."

"Didn't you listen to a word I said, child?! We could end up, in the most literal sense, literally anywhere!"

"I heard," She acknowledged stoically. "and I've made my decision. We're leaving. We'll figure out what to do next once we land somewhere."

Grim groaned. "Fine, whatever. You made dis decision, so don't complain if we get stuck somewhere terrible." Slinging Billy over his shoulder, he began charging his scythe with supernatural energies. "My magic will make sure that you two can survive wherever we end up. Just don't be blaming me if dat means you turn into a fish because we land in a universe dat's entirely water."

"Fine." Mandy agreed as the glow from Grim's scythe grew ever brighter. "Even life with gills would be better than an eternity stuck here with nothing but you two."

A moment more, and it was time. With a mighty swing, the Grim Reaper brought down his scythe through the air in front of them. After a moment of resistance, space itself began to tear along the scythe's path. It left behind a jagged hole, a rough oval with torn edges that spiraled like fractals into infinitely smaller rips. The space within the portal pulsed with a sickly green glow, indistinct colors and shapes flashing for fractions of a second before dissolving back into the void. Its very existence felt wrong somehow. Like everything else in the universe was struggling to force this interruption of the endless whiteness back into uniformity.

"Should it be doing that?" Mandy asked, approaching it cautiously. While all of Grim's portals were unholy tears in the fabric of the universe, this one looked positively ragged.

"I told you it'd be unstable." Grim stood in front of the portal by her side, the eerie green glow illuminating his eye sockets. "It won't stay open long, and dere's not enough magic here for me to open another, so it's now or never Mandy."

She nodded, "Now then," and stepped through.

Grim shrugged. "Well dey won't die, but with any luck it might at least be amusing to see how dey react to some of the weirdness out dere." With one skeletal hand holding tight to his scythe and the other dragging a moaning Billy behind, Grim stepped through the portal as well.

As it's power source vanished, the portal winked out. It was quickly followed by the entire dimension which was never meant to exist in the first place.

As the fogginess of unconsciousness began to clear, Mandy noticed one important thing. She was alive. That was a good start to this dimension. Trying to move, she found she was unable. Perhaps it would be better to start by opening her eyes anyway. Blearily, that much she could manage, though she could tell it would be some time before she could do much else. Apparently travelling through unstable portals to unknown realms could have a negative effect on the body. Food for thought.

As her eyes began adjusting to the surprisingly bright light, Mandy started assessing her surroundings.

Alright, first of all: Can I move?... No, not yet, but maybe soon. Good. Grim said this realm could be different in literally any way, so I'll need to get moving soon. Now where am I? She attempted to discern details from the slowly clearing haze. A room. Wooden too. That means there's trees and civilization here. Excellent. I can work with that. Her eyesight failing to reveal any more clues for the moment, she turned her focus to her hearing. A groan came from nearby, but out of view. Most likely either Grim of Billy. She'd deal with them later. There was something else too, coming from very far away. It sounded like... birdsong? But nothing like the crows that inhabited Endsville. These sounded more like robins. Or maybe blue-jays? Identifying bird calls was not one of Mandy's strong points. But it did give her much needed information about her environment. Birdsong meant birds, which meant life, nature, and at least somewhat familiar animals existed here. Maybe they'd gotten lucky and found a dimension not too different from home? She was startled out of her thoughts by the groaning next to her suddenly increasing in volume and intensity.

"OOoooohh my head!" The voice moaned. Mandy thought it sounded somewhat like Billy, but there was something... off about it. The pitch and timber were wrong.

"My nose feels funny," It continued. "And my legs. And my stomach. BWAAARP!!! Okay, tummy's better now." Mandy sighed mentally. Despite the strange voice, that was definitely Billy. It made sense that he was the first to recover. Getting battered around so often as close to the magic of the Grim Reaper as he was had made him pretty resilient to damage.

"OOoo! Looks like I gots all transmogrified again!"

Mandy's eyes snapped to attention. If she could move she would have spun around to face him. Grim had warned that they may be transformed to survive, but she had still hoped to retain at least her body on this unknown plane.

"Would you pipe down boy?!" Another voice chimed in, this one somewhat deeper than Billy's. "I've got a headache something fierce and your yammering isn't doing it any good."

That must be Grim. Mandy thought. His voice seemed changed as well. It was not quite the smooth bass she had grown accustomed to over the years. It was instead closer to a tenor and his accent seemed to have taken a slight shift as well, with a few vowel sounds stressed differently than before.

"I- Oh... well dis is new. Interesting... I've never been to a realm with forms like dese before." The surprise was evident in Grim's voice. If it was something he'd never seen before...

"Hey Grim! Is that really you? Wow, you're shorter than me now! Gasp... and you have a tail! Do I have a tail? I do! It's so short and fluffy!"

"Clam down," Grim's voiced silenced the babbling Billy. "It's not like dis be the strangest thing you've turned into. No tentacles dis time for one ting. De wings are new though. We need to find Mandy and make sure she didn't get lost in de chaos between dimensions. Oh I can just picture her now," his voice turned almost wistful, "writhing in agony as she's twisted and pulled in every direction and none at all. Unable to die until I decide to rescue her. Hmm... maybe we should leave her dere for a while, a little payback for all those chores."

She'd had enough. "Hey bonehead, I'm over here. Now will one of you two get over here already so I can see how you've changed. I can't move yet."

Mandy heard an odd clip-clopping sound approaching from outside her limited frame of view, before a very strange creature walked into view. It looked like a horse, or more accurately, something horse-like based off a toy horse. Like a stuffed animal brought to life. She (a female, judging by the bow in her mane), had a yellow coat and a long mane the color of ripe cherries. Her face was set in an apprehensive grin.

"Ah, dere you are." She said with a voice that seemed just a little too deep to match her small frame. "Hehe... I was uh, joking about de whole 'abandoning you in chaos' ting. Billy, I would, but probably not you."

"Grim?"

"Yes?"

"Care to tell me why you're a yellow horse... cat... thing that looks like it fell out of one of Billy's sugar nightmares?"

He smiled darkly, an expression which seemed very out of place on his new body. "I told you we might be changed in order to survive in dis world. You accepted de risk, and might I say, you came out rather well. De word 'adorable' comes to mind."

Her mind froze. If the Grim Reaper, living skeleton and master of the forces of life and death, had been changed to a tiny, innocent (possibly even cute) horse-cat to fit this world, what kind of saccharine abomination must she look like? She needed to know.

"Billy, get over here!" She ordered, "And bring something reflective."

A few clip-clops later, and another small horse-cat appeared. This one was a shade of orange not too far off from Billy's human hair. Its mane, however, was a short, scraggly mulberry mess. It's muzzle looked slightly out of proportion with it's body; just a little too big and a little too long. Surprisingly, this one also had wings on it's back, albeit small ones. The dopey expression on it's face immediately identified it as Billy, despite the radical change in species. In his mouth, he clutched a small hand mirror. It was finely crafted from some sort of white wood, with a trio of sapphires inlaid in the back. A hairline crack stretched across the mirror's surface, shifting half of the reflection a degree away from the other. As he approached, Billy spat the mirror out, revealing several large and painful looking splinters on his tongue.

"Don't just drop it. Hold it up so I can see how much of a pounding I need to give Grim." Mandy glared at him, angry and jealous of his speedier recovery. With a good deal of fumbling, Billy eventually managed to coordinate holding the mirror between both front hooves, a wing, and his chin. He tilted it slowly in Mandy's direction.

The first thing Mandy saw was a hoof, as white as fresh snow. She counted herself lucky that she at least wasn't some ridiculous color. The mirror kept tilting, and a few locks of mane fell into view. One was pink, the other a pastel purple. Oh Grim's going to get it for that. Even if it wasn't intentional he's so going to get it for giving me such ridiculous hair, she thought to herself.

Just then, Billy lost his grip with his still unfamiliar wing, causing the mirror to rapidly pan the rest of the way over to point directly at her face.

There was a silence. Mandy stared into her eyes, as her own new green eyes looked back at her. She was horribly, hideously, unrepentantly... cute. There was no getting around it. She was the most adorable thing she had ever laid eyes on. It filled her with disgust. The only things marring her angelic face were her glowering eyes and disgusted scowl. Grim reached over a yellow hoof and brushed aside a lock of mane from her forehead, revealing a short conical horn. A horn. Not only was she a tiny white horse-cat with cotton candy hair... but a unicorn version as well.

"Grim..." Mandy said in a disturbingly even tone. "You'd better start running. Because when I can move again, you're going to find out exactly how sharp this horn is and what it looks like in yellow and red."

Grim blanched to a point where it appeared as if he were a skeleton again.

Meanwhile, in the far off mountain city of Canterlot, Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia had just unceremoniously cancelled the Day Court. Right as Baron Bit Pincher was really starting to hit his stride in an impassioned speech about demolishing a block of lower income housing to make space for an exclusive opera house, the Princess cut him off mid-sentence, declaring the Court closed for the day due to pressing matters of national concern. Since then, she had been purposefully striding towards her sister's bedroom suite. Truthfully, she would have much rather galloped there, as time was of the essence, but she refrained from doing so in order to avoid alarming her staff and guards. As she finished climbing Princess Luna's tower, the door opened for her from the inside. Luna stood on the other side, her mane and tail in complete disarray, indicating she had just woken up.

"I take it you felt it too then," Celestia stated as she approached her sister.

Luna indicated for her to come inside, "Yes. The aura was strong enough that I felt it even in the dream realm. But what was it?"

Celestia entered Luna's sitting room. "I know not for sure, Luna. But some force of incredible darkness has entered our world."

"Entered? Surely you mean 'awakened'? Some foe of old whom we thought gone, resurging back to power much like Discord or Tirek? Grogar, perhaps? Mayhaps even the Leviathan?"

"I'm afraid not, dear sister." Celestia shook her head ruefully, "Whatever this malevolent force is, it is new. The presence we felt was it forcefully entering our world, tearing the aetheric field as it did. I feel this threat may be unlike any we have encountered before."

"Then let us rally the guard!" Luna stepped dramatically with a strong gesture of her hoof. "We shall descend upon this monster and eliminate the threat before it prepare itself for us!"

"Actually," Celestia deescalated, "I had a more discreet plan in mind. Though the pulse of magic was brief, I was able to partially trace the effects of the rift back to it's source. It seems to have originated somewhere near Ponyville."

Luna rolled her eyes as she collapsed back down in her seat. "Ponyville... of course. Sister are you entirely sure that that village was not built upon ancient Buffalo burial grounds? Or is evil just drawn there for some reason?" She sighed. "And I suppose that you shall have Princess Twilight once more sort out the situation on our behalf?"

"It would seem the prudent choice," Celestia explained as she took a seat by her sister. "Twilight has had much success in dealing with dark forces in the past. In addition, she and her friends would be able to deal with the matter discreetly and thus avoid disturbing the general populace and causing a panic."

"Still..." Luna mused, "While I would never wish misfortune upon our nation, I do sometimes pine for the old days when we were more... direct in how we handled such matters."

Celestia smiled softly. "Charging into battle headlong?"

"With nothing but our wits, our magic, and each other at our sides," Luna added.

"And your halberd."

"Yes, her too, as well as your hammer."

The pair sat briefly in silence, lost in memories of past victories won, not through negotiations and subterfuge, but through the strength of their magics and the will to protect their ponies. A subtle smile played across Luna's lips. Having always been the more brash of the two, it had often been she who would run in first. Celestia's smile faltered, as she remembered battles after Luna had been banished. When she alone was not strong enough to overcome her foes, and had to raise armies, forge alliances, and learn to live with the loss of those she couldn't protect. With grim determination, she rose.

"Regardless, that was then and this is now. A delicate hoof is needed in these matters."

Luna bent her head in resignation. "I suppose you are right. Send your message to Twilight and we shall allow her to deal with the situation."

Celestia made her way to the door. "I'm glad we could come to an agreement, Luna." She smirked slightly, "With Twilight's track record she'll likely have this villain defeated or befriended within the week."

Luna smiled back, "We shall see sister, we shall see." With that, Celestia left to return to her Day Court. As she closed the door, Luna raised her head to reveal a somewhat more sneaky smile she'd kept hidden. "Although, I'm sure Princess Twilight would never turn down an offer of help from an agent acting in my name. I do believe one of her early friendship reports was on the topic of learning to accept offered help in times of crisis."

It had been about an half an hour since Mandy regained consciousness, and she, as well as the others, had just about become acclimated to their new quadrupedal forms. Well, at least in terms of basic movement that is. The sun was high in the sky as the three regrouped in the center of the room to discuss their situation.

"Alright," Mandy began, "so we're stuck here for the time being and there's nothing we can do about it. Grim, how long till we can portal out of here?"

Grim shook his head, causing his new locks to bounce about. "Unfortunately, it's not dat simple. Dis world has a lot of magic, but it's alignment and spectrum is all different from what I know. Given time I should be able to adjust, but until den my powers will be limited. So portals are out of de question for now."

"What about your scythe?" Billy asked, "Don't it have a much of hoo-doo voodoo magic of it's own?"

"For once, I agree with the moron." Mandy added, "Speaking of it, where is your scythe?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Grim looked back and forth. "I can feel its supernatural energies nearby, but no matter where I look it feels like it's behind me! It may have taken on a new form, much like we did, to better blend in with dis world."

Grim spun around slowly, looking for anything in the room which might have once been a powerful weapon of supreme destruction. Billy, for his part, looked under various objects including the cabinet, carpet, and himself. He whistled and called out for "Scythe-y" much like one would for a dog. Mandy, however, stood still and took stock, looking for any small detail that seemed out of place. As Grim passed beneath a window, what almost looked like a faint metallic gleam caught his ribbon. Deciding that was a detail worth acting on, Mandy reached out and hooked a trailing end of the ribbon with a hoof. With a deft tug, the bow came undone and Grim's mane fell across his face.

"Hey!" he called in indignation, "What was dat for?" He glared at Mandy, who was studying the ribbon now lying stretched on the floor.

"Quiet numbskull, I'm thinking." Holding one end, she gave the crimson ribbon a flick as if she were trying to crack a whip. As the motion of the whipcrack passed along the length of the ribbon, the material began to change and thicken. Supple silk strengthened into hardy wood, as the red coloration faded away. The end of the ribbon took a sudden ninety degree turn, as the remaining length widened into a wicked blade, sharp enough to split a hair. Sunlight glinted along its polished length as Mandy tested the weight of the reformed scythe. The handle was several feet shorter than its old length, making it surprisingly proportional for fillies of their size. She tossed it to Grim, who fumbled to catch it through the red curtain over his eyes. He held it up in the light, making small noises as he examined the changes.

"Well, at least it's discreet." He commented finally. Using the scythe as a makeshift crutch, Grim pulled himself up onto his hind-legs. With a steady motion, he struck the ground beneath him with it's base. Instantly, all the shadows in the room began to distort and stretch towards him. As their edges reached the staff, the shadows began to climb his body, encasing it like tar. Within moments the liquid shadows had covered all but his face, which was rapidly being enclosed upon as well. He tapped his scythe again, and the shadows quickly retreated to their original positions, leaving behind the parts covering his body. His face twisted in exertion briefly, when with a sudden 'POP!' the bottom portion of his cocoon flared out as his face relaxed. What remained from the brief magic was a robe, dark as the abyss itself, the inside red as blood. Grim's body was completely obscured, save for the tips of his forelegs and his face which sat like an over-sized jaundiced eye from the cloak's hood. A only little bit of red mane poked out from the edges.

Grim sighed as he lowered back down to four legs. "Ah, much better. I was feeling so... so naked."

Billy tilted his head in confusion. "But we've seen you without your dress before, Grim. Back when you were all boney an' stuff."

"Well, now I have skin so tings are different," Grim countered. "Plus, I didn't like you seeing me without me cloak back den anyways!" He paused, "And it's not a dress!"

"Aw, but I thought you screamed because you were happy to see me?

"No one would be happy to see your snot-nosed self during their private bathing time!"

"That's enough, you bozos," Mandy commanded. "And Grim, I thought you said your powers were limited here?"

"Oh dat?" He asked making a casual brushing motion with his hoof, "Dat was practically a parlor trick. Me cloak is a part of me being. See?" Foregoing the fanfare, he made his cloak disappear and reappear several times. "Like flexing a muscle."

Mandy rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever. Getting back on track, if we're going to survive here for the time being we'll need information. A history book, a newspaper, anything that can tell us enough about local culture for us to ble- Billy, what are you doing?"

The Billy in question was, in fact, not paying attention to Mandy at all. Instead, he seemed to be attempting to eat some sort of scroll. "Hime Hurmning!" he attempted to say through a mouthful of paper. Spitting it out with an unpleasant squelching sound, he tried again.

"I'm learning!" He declared.

"Do tell." Many deadpanned.

"Weeelll... I found this weird rolled up book thingy over there," he pointed with a wing vaguely towards one of the shelves in the back, "So I tried to read it but the words didn't make any sense so I thought that since we're goats now and goats eat everything then I could learn what it said if I ate it!" He grinned widely, "Plus it smelled like cookies!"

Mandy rolled her eyes in exasperation. Kicking the still soggy scroll over to Grim, she replied, "Well it's something. Remind me to give you a dog treat when we get home."

Billy barked happily and attempted to do a flip, though he ended up smacking the floor with his face instead.

Grim gingerly unrolled the scroll, stopping every few moments to shake more drool off his hooves. It ended up being about an eight foot long document filled with an undecipherable script. Some of the text was either scrunched in the margins or in a different color, indicating it had been clumsily edited several times. At several spots it was dotted with what looked like stick figure versions of whatever creatures they were now.

"Let's see now," Grim began. He made several low muttering sounds beneath his breath as he inspected the beginning of the document. After a few moments he shook his head in frustration. "No, I can't make heads or tails of dis. Let me get me glasses." Reaching a hoof into the opposing sleeve of his cloak, a few moments of rummaging resulted in him pulling out a small pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. Placing them lightly on his muzzle, he approached the top of the document once more. "Ah, here we go. Dis is much better." He cleared his throat loudly, and began reading.

Official Hoofbook of the Cutie Mark Crusaders

Region: Central Equestria__________ District: Ponyville__________ Branch: Sweet Apple Acres__________

Members: Applebloom

Sweetie Belle

Scootaloo

Discord*

Goals:
1) Acquire cutie marks

a) Try new activities and stuff till we find our special talents

i) Think of new stuff to try

ii) ~~Buy paper for new list~~ Buy better paper
2) Find new members

a) Help new members find cutie marks

b) Help ~~new members~~ junior crusaders start new chapters of the Cutie Mark Crusaders
3) ~~Become as awesome as Rai-~~ Rewrite Official Hoofbook nicely and on better paper

Invocation of New Members:
We, the ponies of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect (Insert new member's name here) to join us as a sister, friend, confidante, ally, bosom buddy, gal pal, compadre, chum of chums, homegirl, amiga-

Grim paused his recitation. "I'm going to skip ahead a little." His hoof trailed down several feet of document. "It goes on like dis for awhile." He kept going until he reached nearly the end of the page. He looked up, "Dat's about it really. After dat part ends dere's a couple extra pieces of paper taped on de end with a bunch of activities written down and crossed out."

Mandy waved off his concern. Walking over, she gave the top of the scroll a light kick, causing it to sluggishly but assuredly roll back up. She strode over to the podium by the back of the room. "It'll have to be enough," she admitted. "Still, there was some useful intel." She stepped up behind the podium, giving her a distinct height advantage over Grim and Billy. "We know where we are, what we are, and have three cover names all lined up to help us blend in. Frankly, we could be worse off."

"So whadda we gonna do now if we're stuck here till Grim gets accamamamusted to the magic here?" Billy asked curiously.

Mandy's face curled into cruel and downright frightening smile as she steepled her forehooves together. "Well we wouldn't want to be poor guests in this dimension." The room seemed to grow darker, even the bright colors seeming to fade around unsettling white unicorn.

"So let's go have some fun..."