Jack Patrick: The Secret World of Mesozoica

In Jack's room, hours after he finishes his homework with help from Twilight, Jack is on his computer playing Minecraft, while Twilight's on Jack's bed reading one of his books; it and every other book being non-fiction.

Twilight is reading a dinosaur book. "Wow! I've never seen any animal like these. So these are dinosaurs, right?"

"Yeah," Jack replies.

"Well, some of them look like dragons, but yet, all of them don't have wings...well some of the smaller ones do, but only with feathers."

"You have dragons in Equestria?" He asks, acting like he’s inquisitive.

"Well, I have a friend who is a dragon. His name is Spike, and he's just a juvenile."

"Wow. I thought dragons were merely a myth."

"Excuse me?" Twilight asks, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I mean, there have been many stories about people of the medieval times fighting dragons, but...I never thought they were real."

Twilight's surprised. "How do your people know about dragons then?"

Jack pauses the game. "Well, this is... strange. People think dragons are real, but it turns out...they are. Only they’re also extraterrestrials from your home planet."

"Your home planet does seem to be the same, mostly anyway. Except...it doesn't have magic. Do you believe in magic?"

"Kinda." Jack answers. "I mean, I have known that there are many who try to practice it, like witch doctors, but I always thought magic was the rarest element in the universe."

"Something tells me our planet is connected somehow. I mean, the plants and animals look very similar to the ones in Equestria."

"It's called convergent evolution. It's where unrelated or distantly related organisms evolve to have similar body forms, coloration, organs, and adaptations. It's kinda like when God made a crocodile with fins of a dolphin and a tail of a shark. Maybe your planet looks very similar to Earth with similar ecosystems; that must be how these organisms look almost the same except for the fact your kind is the dominant species on your planet."

"Ponies aren't the only ones who are the dominant species. We have Griffins, Minotaurs, Dragons, Mules, Donkeys, and some other creatures who are sapient."

"What about primates?"

Twilight shrugs. "I don't see sapient primates, not even humans. I've heard that you humans are apes, is that correct?"

"Well...I wouldn’t say that,” Jack says, becoming nervous because he doesn’t quite know how to put it, “I mean, humans and apes do have some similar characteristics, but, we’re not entirely related to them.”

"Oh.” Twilight says. “Well, are there sapient dinosaurs?"

"I don’t think so. In fact, the chances of that are slim,” Jack explains, “We've heard that the Troodon is the most intelligent dinosaur ever, but we've never found any fossil evidence of them using tools and weapons during the Mesozoic era."

"So the dinosaurs were already extinct for sixty-five million years, right?"

Her question surprises Jack because he has no idea how she could know that. “How did you know?"

Twilight shows Jack an image of an asteroid hitting Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs. "It shows it right here on this page."

Jack chuckles. "Right."

On Jack's desk, his cell phone vibrates.

"Hey, Jack? Someone's calling you." Twilight says.

Jack takes off his headphones. "Oh, okay. Thanks."

He stands up from his chair and he walks to his phone right next to Toast Plushie.

Twilight giggles when she sees a funny-looking toy. "That's a funny-looking stuffed animal. What is it?"

"Oh, it's a Toast Plushie. I got it online."

"It looks like a, uh... K-arno...ta-ur?"

"Carnotaurus." Jack corrects as he picks up his phone. "Close enough though, I’ll tell ya that."

"Right. Thanks."

Jack glances at the text message which is from his Mom, and he becomes wide-eyed with fear upon what he’s reading.

Hi, Jack. I'm off from work. I'll be home in about five minutes.

Jack gasps. "Oh no!"

"What's wrong?"

"I-It’s my Mom. She'll be home shortly.” He exclaims with real worry.

Twilight gasps. "Oh my goodness, I forgot! What should I do when your Mom gets back?"

Jack turns to the window, and from there, he sees his backyard. "Follow me."

They walk out of Jack's room. Then, like it’s a race against time, they run towards the back door.

When they arrive at the back door, Jack opens it up.

“Just hide in the bushes. Hurry!” Jack quickly says.

"Okay." Twilight runs towards the bushes.

"And if you need me, go to the right side of the house. My bedroom window's in between two windows," Jack calls.

"Got it!" Twilight dives into the bushes.

"Don't let my Mom see you. And if she's outside don't move a muscle."

Like a meerkat popping out of a hole, Twilight's head emerges out of the bushes. “Got it!" She replies before her head disappears back into the bushes like a meerkat.

"Good luck!" Jack tells her.

Quickly, Jack closes the door behind him, before suddenly sliding his back down the door, sitting on the floor, and sighing.

He’s glad that that Twilight is at least safe for now, but he’s worried that she’ll suffer from the cold outside.

As if to take his mind off of the whole thing, Jack glances at the table to look at the book, and the ring on top of it, wondering what to do with them.

Something in my gut tells me that the ring and book are connected somehow. He thinks.

He walks over to the table and picks up the ring, deciding to have another look at it.

He glances at the symbols. “Triangles and a dot in the center of each? I wonder what that means?”

Before Jack could look into the book and find something related to the ring, the front door opens.

"Jack! I'm home!” His mother calls out.

Quickly, Jack puts the ring into his pocket and grabs the book, before running off to meet up with his Mom, not wanting to keep her waiting or course her to wonder why he wouldn’t come to see her.

He arrives a distance from the front door to see his Mom closing it. This time, she’s wearing a violet office dress.

"Hi, Mom." He greets.

"Hey, Jack.” She greets, locking the door behind her. “You feel better?"

"Yeah." Jack says. “So... can I still go visit Emily's place?"

"As long as you take your phone with you, then yes."

"Great!" He walks to his room.

"And if anything bad happens to you, I'll call the cops.”

"Okay." Jack shuts his bedroom door behind him.

When Jack glances at the window, he sees Twilight outside. Jack looks at the door and puts his ear against it to make sure his Mom is out of his room. He walks to the window and opens it.

"Is the coast clear?" Twilight whispers.

"Yeah," Jack says.

Out of nowhere, a chilly wind suddenly makes itself known, and it causes Twilight to shiver because of how chilly it is.

"Jack, I'm... freezing," Twilight says to him.

"You could sleep in my closet." Jack offers.

Suddenly, a growling noise coming from Twilight’s stomach makes itself known to both Twilight and Jack.

Twilight chuckles and blushes with nervousness. "Could I have something to eat too?"

"Sure,” Jack replies. “How do carrots sound?”

"Oh, um, pretty good. Thanks."

And with the arrangement set in motion, Jack closes the window, leaving Twilight to conceal herself in the bushes again.

Meanwhile, Starlight and the gang trek past the trees, searching for Twilight.

As they trek though, Starlight can’t help but have a feeling about this planet. A feeling of...familiarity.

As if to confirm her thoughts, she suddenly sees a dandelion on the ground. She also suddenly hears a chittering sound above her.

Looking up, she finds a grey squirrel up on a tree branch, watching her and her friends before scurrying along with an acorn in its mouth.

"Hey, Fluttershy? Does this place seem familiar?" Starlight asks.

"Well... maybe,” Fluttershy answers, “Why?”

"Something tells me that this planet is so similar to ours,” Starlight explains, “The plants, animals, all of them look similar."

"Hmmm...” Fluttershy thinks, “Maybe it's convergent evolution."

"Well, it's more than that. I've heard that other habitable worlds are very different compared to ours, but this world... to me, it doesn't look as alien as one would expect."

"You mean... it looks almost the same?"

"Kind of. Except for the fact that humans are the only species that can... speak?"

"This is kind of strange, what with this world not being as different as our world.” Fluttershy comments.

Fluttershy and Starlight put their hooves on their chins in thought, trying to figure out what this could mean.

“Hey, guys,” Rainbow says to catch their attention, “Wouldn’t it be better to think about that later after we find Twilight?”

“Rainbow Dash is right, Darlings,” Rarity agrees, “When we find Twilight, we can think more about this situation later. Perhaps we could ask her if she knows something about it as well.”

"Well, at least those changelings aren’t after us now,” Pinkie says, and giggles, “We probably won’t be seeing them again in another million years.”

“Pinkie, how can ya be so sure?” Applejack asks.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m just hoping.”

Applejack blinks. “Oh.”

“Well, it might be shorter than that.” A voice sounding like Starlight says.

Pinkie and the others direct their attention to Starlight. “What do you mean, Starlight?”

“What? I didn’t say anything.” Starlight says.

“Actually, it was me.” A voice sounding like Rainbow says, with Rainbow herself looking around like she’s hearing things.

“Honestly, Rainbow, what’s the idea of the ventriloquism and impersonation of Starlight rolled into one?” Rarity questions Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, it wasn’t me.” Rainbow defends.

“Yes, it was.” A voice sounding like Spike says.

All eyes turns to Spike, with Rainbow’s eyes making daggers at the dragon.

“Spike, I don’t do any ventriloquist acts nor impersonate my friends like this. Why are you accusing me?” Rainbow questions.

“I wasn’t accusing you, Rainbow, honest,” Spike quickly insists, “I know you didn’t do it, so why would I say you did?”

Suddenly, some scary and evil cackling makes itself known, frightening the others.

“Wh-Who’s that?” Spike asks with fright.

Suddenly, as if fate decides to answer Spike’s question, the three changelings from before appear in their views, having camouflaged themselves to blend in with the surrounding trees.

They look upon the heroes with malicious grins.

“Nice to see ya again,” The Changeling leader says, “We literally thought you drowned, but then, we heard your voices while we were here. But, as they say, ‘If at first, you don’t succeed. Try, try again’.”

The changelings growl at our heroes and position themselves like they’re ready to pounce on them.

"RUN!" Starlight yells.

The gang turn and run to the opposite direction, screaming as they do. They run faster than their enemies anticipated.

The changelings pursue them quickly.

In about a few yards of running, Fluttershy, who is behind the gang, suddenly feels herself get caught on something, and it causes her to trip with a jolt. She turns to find that her tail is caught by some thorns on a bush.

She hears the changelings getting closer and closer, and she becomes all the more scared. With a couple of tugs, she gets her tail unstuck. However, the force behind the pull causes her to go tumbling down a ditch, screaming as she falls.

After a few tumbles, she falls and disappears into another bush with thorns, only bigger.

At the top meanwhile, the changelings pass by, not knowing Fluttershy is in the bush, and going farther and farther away.

The moment they disappear, the bush starts shaking. Fluttershy’s head and chest emerge out of the right side of the bush, covered in scratches from the thorns.

Realizing that her friends are way ahead of her, she tries to escape quickly. However, all of her legs are entangled by the branches, and the thorns are hooked to her skin. She struggles to get out, squeaking as she does so because of how scared she is and the pain the thorns are giving her.

Meanwhile, the changelings are still far behind the rest of the gang, persistently chasing after them despite the benefit of their victims’ head-start.

Suddenly, however...

The leader stops, “Hold it!”

But the others don’t. The sudden stop causes them to collide on their leader, and everyone falls on the ground.

The two others realize that they are on top of their leader, and quickly get up. After that, the leader gets up and dusts himself off.

“What is it, sir?” One of them asks.

“Take a sniff.” The leader responds.

And he and the others immediately sniff the air.

“You smell that?” He asks the others.

“I do!” The second one says, “It’s the pegasus with the pink hair, and she isn’t far behind!”

“I smell her too!” The first one says, “She must have gotten separated from the others.”

“You’re right. Come on,” The leader orders, and he and the others immediately go back the way they came. “With the others way ahead of us, the yellow one will be right in our grasp! Our queen will be so pleased.”

And they don’t waste any time in going back to where she is, despite having no idea how they passed by her in the first place.

Elsewhere, our loving and kind-hearted pegasus continues to struggle for freedom. But so far, every attempt has been to no avail.

Suddenly, Fluttershy's ears catch the slightest sounds of soft padding and growling, coming from the bushes to her right. Rustling begins to follow with that.

She turns to see what could be coming her way.

Then, like something out of a horror-thriller movie, a pack of coyotes emerge from the bushes, hungry and looking as menacing as one would expect. And their eyes...are set on Fluttershy.

She gasps with fright because she knows what they’re here for. She struggles again, but this time, it’s also accompanied by a scream.