Three Professors Conquer Equestria

The Celestial Plane above every Equus where all is seen and nothing can be unseen:

This will be fun. Three beings with of great talent and ability have fallen through the veil between realities. It was all for the best that they left their old reality anyway. They were wasting all that potential in that terrible place where fools lead in grandeur and the wise suffer into obscurity.

Here they get to use that potential for a great purpose: Conquering Equestria, the greatest and most powerful nation on Equus. These three will have no combat ability, so they will have to rely on their wits and those who they can persuade to their cause.

I wonder what path they will take. Will they amass a large army and attack? Perhaps, they will starve Equestria of trade and magic. Only these three will know.

Earth Charlie - Marble University - College of Liberal Arts - Breakroom

Two old men stared at each other, taking slow deliberate bites of their respective lunches. Due to the cold that seeped through the old, rickety college building, the two dressed warmly even indoors. One wore a fashionable blazer and a bowtie as he forked at his lightly seasoned chicken caesar salad. His grey hair was cut in a military crew cut and his face clean shaven. His shoes were an expensive pair of brown loafers.

The other wore a leather jacket over a simple collared shirt as he took a bite out his gyro sandwich. His long white hair was tied back in a ponytail. His small, round wire-framed sunglasses complemented his finely trimmed goatee. On his feet, he possessed a well-worn pair of sandals.

A third man in his late twenties walked into the breakroom and could see almost visible static fling between the two.

“Um, hello!” the young man greeted meekly. He wore a clean dress shirt and tie, so others wouldn’t think he was a student. The man lifted up a small tupperware full of leftover spaghetti. Before the other two could respond to his implied question, a wave of force and sound passed through the room from down below. It did not faze the finely dress older gentleman, but the young man needed to lean on the doorframe in order to remain upright. The professor with the ponytail grumbled as he picked up his gyro from the floor and flung it into the garbage can.

“What was that?” youth asked.

“A damned physics experiment,” the sandwichless professor responded, leaving the poor guy even more confused than before he made his query.

“Golly, young people these days. There are going to take down this whole building someday,” the unfazed professor added.

“I heard they were trying to knock a hole through to another dimension. They really shouldn’t be doing those kinds of high level experiments in this building anyway. We don’t have the right kind of equipment in a liberal arts building to make it safe.”

“Um…”

“Why are you just waiting there for?” professor with the goatee pointedly asked. “It is not like you need our permission to use a microwave. We are all adults here.”

“No need to be rude, Bodo,” the bowtied elder admonished. “I am Doctor Thomas Mackey, Professor of Ancient and Classical Philosophy, and this is Doctor Bodo Stein, who is unfortunately only my colleague in the Philosophy Department.”

“I am assigned to nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy,” Dr. Stein added with playful annoyance at his colleague’s poor introduction of him. “We both teach Modern philosophy together - not that it matters to you.”

It didn’t.

“I am Luther…. I mean Professor Luther Wright. I am an adjunct for the accounting department. I am using one of the rooms here since there were no more available rooms in the business department for classes. You had a few leftover.”

“Yeah, a few,” Dr. Stein muttered with a mixture of anger and despondency.

Professor Wright slid over to the microwave. The buttons had long faded away on the old thing. The accountant didn’t know the first thing he should do to get it to work.

Dr. Stein popped up next to him. “Let me help you there,” he said.

The goateed man opened the microwave and put in Wright’s food into it on his behalf. After punching in several seemingly random buttons, the good doctor hit what the accountant assumed was the start button.

Nothing happened.

“ Are you losing your touch there, old boy?” Dr. Mackey snidely questioned.

“Just a moment, old man.”

With three thumps on the top of the old machine, a light finally turned on inside the ancient relic, and the pasta, which looked disturbingly like a brain, slowly spun around on the little turntable.

“Wow!” Wright clapped his hands like a child who just saw a magic trick but then chastised himself for his juvenile display. I don’t want them thinking I am just some kid. I am a professor now.

“Yeah, I got a talent for reviving the dead,” Stein gloated with mild pride. “They say this old hunk of junk has been around since the day they built the liberal arts building. Did you know this whole building used to be dedicated to philosophy with two dozen full-time professors?”

Wright shook his head while watching his brain-like meal get cooked in the old machine. He couldn’t imagine any college or university dedicating a whole building to the antiquated and silly subject.

“They should really just replace the microwave,” Mackey commented offhandedly.

“You would like that,” the leather-clad hip professor barked back. “You just want it to die. That would be just great.”

“The thing is practically useless now. Its time has come.”

“If you had your way, we would replace it after cooked its first good meal.”

“...If there weren’t anymore meals left to cook with that machine, then what is the point of keeping it around.”

“There are obviously more meals to cook, Tommy! Look even this man is cooking a meal. We live in the modern age with meals those philosophers long dead couldn’t have even imagined.”

“Gee golly, Dr. Stein, what about all the new microwaves? Are they not more efficient? Don’t they have more functions that allow them to cook meals this one can’t? I am pretty sure Professor Wright here would have preferred a better tool to cook his meal than this old thing.”

“This one is just fine. It works and cooks all the meals we need it to.”

“It only cooks the meals we want it to as only we know how to use it. For everyone else, it is completely inaccessible with its long faded buttons and obscure inner workings.”

“Tommy, it wouldn’t be that way if you didn’t make it so technical.”

“Dr. Stein, I don’t want to be chastised about making it incomprehensible by a postmodernist.”

Luther Wright watched the exchange, swinging his head back and forth between the two philosophers as if it were a tennis match.

“Um...aren’t you talking about a microwave?” the accountant asked since they seemed content with staring at each other down again while slowly eating their food at their little lonely table. Before they could answer, the microwave beeped.

Wright removed his food and cautiously made his way to the table. He was impressed at how well cooked his brain-like pasta had come out. They really don’t make microwaves like they used to, I guess. He just arrived at the table when the whole building shook. The part-time accounting professor fell face first onto steamy hot food, screaming in pain. Then everything went white.

Equus Bravo - Minos Peninsula - Changeling Enclave - Feeding Room

“Awwwww!” a changeling screamed, clearly in pain.

This prompted an entire swarm of changeling guards to rush into the room to find two very confused changelings and one hysterical changeling standing alone in a room surrounded by the chitinous corpses of their own kind. They were quickly restrained and taken to a throne room for questioning.

“So why do you find it necessary to interrupt my feeding by bringing these three nameless drones before me, Praetorian Phalanx?” a giant bug horse inquired in an nonchalant manner. Her most notable feature was the turquoise and moth-eaten mop on her head that only the brainwashed would call a mane. She curled a perforated hoof around an emaciated cat man who had the picture of abject bliss painted across his face. The tom notably wore a bright blue collar with a cute little bell on it.

“Your Majesty, these three were found in the center of what seemed to be an explosion,” the Praetorian Phalanx said, indicating the three. “Five drones were found dead next to them in the Feeding Room.”

“What says you, drones?” the largest creature in the room asked, turning her attention to tied down changelings.

“Queen Chrysalis! You are Queen Chrysalis. We are changelings. Am I dreaming?” one of the drones half-asked, half-stated.

The Queen rolled her eyes at the hysterical one and pointed at one with a stoic and analytical expression. “You in the middle, explain.”

“I don’t know what happened, ma’am.”

“That is ‘Your Majesty’ to you, drone!” the buff changeling growled with a jab of a spear.

“I mean I don’t know what happened, Your Majesty.”

The Queen smiled evilly. “Oh, you expect to tell me that you don’t know how an explosion occurred right next to you and killed five of your hatchmates?”

Before the second drone could respond, the third cut it off.

“I know what happened, Your Majesty.”

“Go on, worm, before I decide to just free your head from your shoulders so that I can get back to my lunch.” She punctuated this by pulling the cat man into her chest and draining him some more. The poor creature almost collapsed and die there. “Note that I will know the moment you lie and can force you to tell the truth if I must.”

Her eyes glowed a sinister green.

“They were experimenting with power beyond their comprehension,” the third began. “We warned them that they might cause a major accident and even take down the whole place. We were lucky not to have died.”

The room stayed quiet as the Queen stared deeply into the third changeling’s eyes.

“Your Majesty, their story checks out,” Phalanx added. “An unusual energy signature was at the explosion site.”

Her eyes stopped glowing green. She turned her attention to the guard.

“It seems your drones lack discipline, Phalanx. I can’t have them endangering the hive.”

The room became deafeningly silent for three palpable moments. The praetorian guard went bug eyed as the implication hit him.

A green aura enveloped her horn. “Would you kindly kill yourself for your gross incompetence, Praetorian Phalanx?”

The praetorian guard who had brought in the three changelings in for questioning floated up a few feet off the ground. Pink magic slowly poured out of his body and into the hungry broodmother. The syphon quickly increased in pace. When there looked to be nothing left for him to give, his body crumbled away starting from his extremities and ending with his core. His body matter all decomposed into the same pinkish energy.

The Queen licked her fangs as the pink aura that grew around her steadily turned green and then seeped into her chitin. The aura faded from her horn. The Queen dismissed her cat man consort as she no longer had any need to feed off him anymore. He slouched his way out of the room. With the dying tom gone, the Chrysalis returned her attention to the three restrained changelings.

“You three seem to have good heads on your shoulders, and I seem to be in dire need of more competent drones.”

The two of the three changelings shivered in their bindings. None of them wanted what happened to Phalanx to happen to them. The memory of his death would haunt them until they died.

The Queen’s long snake-like tongue wiped her teeth clean once more. She delighted in teasing her drones just as much as she enjoyed consuming their magical essence. Her jagged black horn once more took on a sinister green aura.

“The scouts have told me there is a kingdom with an unprecedented amount of love in it. They say it is called Equestria. Would you kindly infiltrate this pathetic nation for me? I want it as completely conquered as possible, so that by the time I am done with this place, I can waltz right in and sit on their throne like their rightful ruler that I am. You will have only three years to do this. You will have to send reports on a quarterly basis along with a thirty-five percent love tax. We wouldn’t want those back at the hive to starve would we now that the feeding room is in shambles thanks to your comrades?”

They all shook their heads in order to appease the malevolent bug equine. The three knew that the request was absurd. ‘How would they conquer an entire country in only three years? Would it even be possible?’ they all thought.

“Very good. You are dismissed. I don’t want to see you again until you are done,” she commanded and then laughed at some unsaid joke. “Oh and before I forget, if you fail my mission in anyway, would you kindly die?”

‘She must want us to become her snack when she arrives. That must be it.’

If changelings could pale, they would look like ghosts then. They looked at each other. Their blue eyes flashed green as the command embedded itself deeply into their psyches. They were completely slaves to the Queen’s whim, and they would have to dedicate their whole being and combined knowledge to the seemingly impossible task.

The remaining guards untied them and their bodies automatically began to leave the throne room. Whether it was the mind control or some memory innate to their bodies, the three found quadrupedal walking natural.

Equus Bravo - Minos Peninsula - Iona - Outskirts

The three changelings stopped and stared at the town before them.

“Jiminy Cricket, this is some nightmare.”

“Descartes’ Demon has nothing on this kind of bullshit. Everything feels so real. I almost wonder if this is reality and my previous life was a dream.”

“...Is that you, Dr. Stein?”

“Indubitably, your esteemed professorship, Herr Doctor Thomas Mackey! For fuck’s sake, would you please stop calling me Dr. Stein? Not only have we worked together for ten years, but we’re no longer in the university. We are damn bugs in a damned alternate universe or dream and for some damned reason I can’t get it out of my damned head that I have to conquer this damned Equestria.”

The changeling version of Mackey didn’t even flinch at his colleagues outburst.

“We both worked very hard for our doctorates,” he countered. “It is just respectful to refer to each other with respect.”

“We both worked very hard? I worked hard. I grew up in East Germany. After reunification, I had to work my butt off just to follow my passions. While other students took the right to ask questions freely for granted living their happy, privileged lives, I had to risk poverty to pursue a doctorate in philosophy. If Marble were to close their philosophy department like almost all the other universities are, I would be without anything to fall back on.

“Now consider your situation. You are a yuppie born into old money. You had your whole education paid for and have a fortune to fall back onto if things goes south. That is the problem with your whole culture. Thinking is a rich man’s pastime designed specifically to be so far away from the interests of real people that the common person cannot participate in it. Not that I blame them, the jobs for the poor are designed so thoughtfulness isn’t required. It must be easy when the poor can’t afford to question why they are poor.

“You got to get your head back into the game. If I hadn’t stepped in back there and half-lied on our behalf, we would have all died. Thinking isn’t a pastime for the rich. It is what will keep us alive. So again, Get Your Head In The Game.”

Dr. Stein’s second outburst caught cut into the core of Mackey’s very being. Even the esteemed professor of classical philosophy, who had known the former communist from the German Democratic Republic for years, hadn’t expected such scathing remarks to come out of his colleague.

“It wasn’t easy for me either,” Thomas muttered. Taking a deep breath, he added more clearly: “Alright, Bodo, I admit we are in this together even if it all turns out to be a convoluted dream. We need to figure out where we are and how to get to Equestria.”

All their eyes flashed green as the imperative to conquer said country reinforced itself in their psyches.

“We are on Equus,” the third changeling answered. The other two looked at it questioningly. “Um...I am Luther Wright. The accounting professor, remember?”

They did.

“How do you know?” Bodo asked. “I don’t remember that witch saying anything about an Equus.”

“I have seen this place before,” Wright explained. “I know a lot of things about this world. For example, we are changelings and can shapeshift. Most importantly, we need to feed on love to survive.”

“So this is your dream then?” Mackey reasonably inquired.

“I don’t think so” was all the accountant could muster in response.

“You said we could shapeshift...how?”

The changeling considered the philosopher’s question. Could it be that I just need to use the magic of imagination? Thinking hard about a form, a green flame passed up its body like it were made of flash paper. In its place stood the immaculate form of Luther Wright.

The other two looked at the man and blinked.

“You just gotta use your imagination,” he said, pointing to his noodle. A particular Spongebob episode ran through said noodle when he said this.

The other two both enveloped themselves in flames and out came the old man named Thomas Mackey and a white-leather-clad Elvis Presley impersonator.

“What? Bodo?” the elder sputtered.

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out. Thank you very much,” Bodo-Elvis replied. He then transformed into a younger version of himself. He still had the same outfit he had been wearing in the liberal arts breakroom, but his suddenly youthful face made him looked like a half-german, half-turkish version of John Lennon. “No one said we had to turn into ourselves. Oh, it is good not to have that eternal backache anymore.”

Mackey quickly followed suit and turned into his youthful self. His hands went through his short hair, which had regained its orange hue. When he was done, he stared at his hands which, once gnarled, had returned to a smooth softness reflective of his delicate upbringing.

Professor Wright watched the two as his thoughts turned inward. We can be anything…. I can be anything, really. I can even be....

“Well, I guess we need to begin to plan our plan of attack,” Bodo said.

“Righty oh, that we should. I promise to have my ‘head in the game,’ as you say.”

The two philosophers got into a discussion, utilizing all they knew about culture, economics, sociology, psychology, and politics to best satisfy the Queen’s imperative. They had no control of their actions. Wright ignored them as he worked on his own transformation. Unlike the previous ones, this time it took a full minute to complete. The philosophers didn’t even notice as they got sidetracked by the ‘‘important’’ terminological difference between ‘’knowledge is power’’ and ‘‘power-knowledge’’.

After the transformation ran its course, a dryad replaced Luther Wright. The new female was taller than the other two by more than two feet, being eight feet tall. Oak leaves in autumn hues composed her hair. Thick but short branches served as ears. Her face was angular and regal like one would imagine royalty of some distant land having. Her skin had changed to a tan resembling the color of live wood.

The dryad’s cloths were actually part of her body. She wore a light yellow fabric-like leaf as a poncho. It rolled over her new bust and tented over her waist. Dark brown pine bark covered her legs and vaguely resembled pants. She went barefoot and had talon-like roots for feet. A single Stewartstonian Azalea flower was tied to her left wrist like a bracelet. In her left hand, she held a ten foot staff. It was composed of two branches which spun around each other in a double helix fashion. A gem at it top emitted a calming green light.

In all, she was fairly bizarre by human standards, but she would be popular in the convention scene for the originality and quality of her appearance. Her beauty existed in the details as every vein in every leaf had a unique, almost hand-drawn quality to it. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that Luther Wright had become a kind dryad of secrets after considering all the details the transformed being had put into their appearance.

The dryad had already finished her transformation while the other two were still bickering. She had expected a reaction or at least their attention given the immensity of the change.

“Um, guys.” The dryad shivered as she adjusted to her new higher pitched voice.

“What?” Bodo asked. He tilted his head upwards at the new taller form Luther had taken. “Yeah, we can be anything. I don’t think I would go for a form that exotic though, even considering we are in wonderland now.

“Well, now that you spoken up. We need some help. Tommy here thinks we should try taking over Equestria’s educational system. I think we could try to hit a few more baskets as well. Build up an independent mercenary group and manufacture items only we know how to produce. Since you know this place, we will need to know everything you know. There might be things we can come up with due to our knowledge.”

“You aren’t surprised I am female now?”

“Are we supposed to be?” Thomas wondered. His face was mildly confused.

“But I am transgender! I always wanted to be called Autumn. This is my alter ego I created.”

‘My OC...but I would explain that to these geezers or ever admit it.’

The two old buggers looked at each other and then back to the newly dubbed Autumn. Thomas was the first to speak up.

“Autumn, think about it this way: Should we care about your gender? If not, we should just move onto our mission. If us philosophers are anything, we are reasonable. Golly, I think finding myself a shapeshifting bug is far more surprising than you being transgender, even if it ends up just being a dream.”

“More importantly, are those melons?” Bodo wondered out loud to his and everyone else’s embarrassment.

Autumn vented her annoyance at the question by growing a pinecone in her right hand and throwing it at the offending scholar. She regretted it a bit as she felt exhausted afterwards. I guess I don’t have that much magic right now. Perhaps if I feed on enough love, I can do some really powerful spells.

“Hey, hey, I didn’t mean that to be harassment. It was a legitimate biological question, seeing you are a plant girl now.”

The dryad hadn’t considered that but wasn’t going to check in front them. If she wasn’t so hard to make that pinecone, she would have tossed another one at the offending philosopher.

Holding the pinecone in his hands, Bodo considered an unspoken question, having push aside the whole embarrassing debacle. He transformed into a Mick Jagger and conjured a Fender Jaguar electric guitar. It sounded just fine to the other two when he strummed it, but Bodo-Jagger frowned in dissatisfaction. He strummed again and furrowed his brow in continued agitation at its sound.

“What’s wrong?” Thomas questioned. The rockstar professor passed the guitar to his colleague. Thomas held it for awhile. It felt just like a guitar. He plucked the strings, and they made what he thought was a normal guitar sound.

“Push your hand against the guitar a bit harder.”

Thomas complied. Holding the guitar in his right, he pushed the base of the guitar with his left. Instead of stopping, his hand just passed through the guitar.

“Jiminy Crickets.”

“Yeah, it is an illusion. I figured it out when my fingers passed through the strings. Sure, it felt mostly correct, but if you have played as long as I have, you can tell that something is off.”

Autumn stared at the guitar. “How did you make that illusion so big? Just making my pinecone exhausted me.”

Bodo-Mick stepped on her pinecone he had discarded earlier to play the guitar. The cone gave a satisfying crunch under his foot. Lifting his shoe, they all saw it had flatten on her shoe.

“I think it is because yours is real.”

“What? So I have plant powers? I am not really a dryad.”

Thomas rubbed his chin and looked at the electric guitar in his hands. Transforming into Ira Louvin, the usually calm man took the guitar by the neck, lifted it above his head, and dramatically smashed it on the rocky ground of the Minos Peninsula.

“My Fender Jaguar!” Bodo-Mick cried.

“Well, that does not prove your theory,” Thomas plainly stated, returning back to his normal form. “Bodo, my good man, it wasn’t real, so calm down.”

His words didn’t prevent the rockstar professor from crying at the very sight of the ruined instrument.

“So my pinecone is an illusion?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Thomas took the broken neck of his guitar and rubbed its jagged edge against his arm. He winced a bit but not even a scratch was left. Picking up the pinecone, he did the same thing, but this time it left a faint mark on his skin.

“So they both can cause pain like a real objects, but your pinecone can cause physical damage. Fascinating.” The monotone way he said this almost made him sound unimpressed, but Bodo knew Thomas was excited on the inside. The man almost never got this focused on anything outside his philosophy books. He only became this monotone when he in the zone and having the contemplative time of his life. It would be hard for a non-philosopher to understand. “Let us both transform into Autumn and create pinecones and see if it is related to the form.”

Bodo complied, and they both attempted to make pinecones. Bodo-Autumn was successful and didn’t get exhausted by the effort. Thomas-Autumn couldn’t even manage a bud. Taking the two pinecones, Bodo found that his still didn’t leave a scratch.

“I think this might be because we have different talents,” the real Autumn offered. “In this world, people tend to have special skills that only they possess. Perhaps only Bodo can make illusions, and because illusions are simpler than the real deal, it costs less power to make them.”

“That is a possibility, but that leaves us to figuring out the nature of your special skill and what my special skill is,” the philosopher of classical philosophy replied. The philosopher didn’t really like the change in her voice, so she returned to her old male self. Bodo, on the other hand, didn’t immediately change back. She was a bit curious after all.

The postmodernist had satisfied her curiosity quickly and discreetly while the others looked around.

“Why don’t we change into something else? I have a hunch.” Bodo-Autumn had a smirk on her face as she said this.

“Like what?”

“Well, we are in fantasy land, so why not a dragon?”

Autumn thought about it for a moment and nodded. When a small cyan dragon form appeared in her mind, she began her transformation. It took a good whole minute before it completed like that time. The other two transformed in just a second.

“Wow, we are all Ember, but...why does it take me so long to transform?”

“Can dragons here breath fire” - Autumn-Ember nodded even though this didn’t answer her question - “then let us all give it a try.”

Bodo-Ember let out a mighty fireball that harmlessly dissipated against some nearby plant life. Autumn-Ember let out a weak sputtering flame that wouldn’t have even lit a campfire. She looked pale as she almost used up the last bit of her magical reserves. Thomas-Ember couldn’t even manage that, frowning at her impotence.

“Don’t worry girl. It will come with time.” Bodo-Ember teased her older colleague. Thomas Mackey quickly turned back into his younger overdressed self. “I guess that means my hunch was correct. You, Autumn, have the power of mimicry. If the creature you turn into has a special ability you can copy it, granted you have enough power to perform it. The extra time you spend transforming might come from the fact your disguise is deeper than ours.”

The postmodernist summoned a cane with her head on it. Bodo-Ember spun it a few times and then leaned on it only to fall through it. “My illusions will feel and behave like real objects until you force them to reveal their true nature like trying to use them hold your weight. Since they are not really there, they can’t provide any real leverage. I do wonder what would happen though if I were to put more juice into it because I can already tell that I could put in a lot more power into them.”

“We should table that question for later and get Autumn some food first,” Mackey stated.

“Yeah, I am not feeling too good.”

“What was it that you said we eat again? Love?” Bodo-Ember asked. “How in the world do you eat an abstract concept?”

“I don’t know. It was never explained to me.”

“Hmmm, well, I guess we will have to find out. Autumn, since you a bunch of stuff about this Equus place, you fill us in on everything we should know. We have a mission after all.”

All their eyes flashed green once more.

As they walked, Thomas morosely thought to himself. Three years. Welp, we got to start planning right away it seems. Hopefully, our good colleague, Autumn, has enough information for us to at least get a started. Also, why do I have to be the only one who doesn’t know their special ability? I would never say this to Dr. Stein, but this really annoys me.