Roy's Journal

Chapters

Prologue
Part 1: Go Ahead
Part 2: As You Waste Your Days With Thinking
Part 3: When You Fall, Everyone Stands
Part 4: Another Day
Part 5: You've Had Your Fill of Sinking
Part 6: The Life Held In Your...
Part 7: Hooves Are Shaking Cold; These Hooves Aren't Meant To Hold
Epilogue

Prologue

June 4th, 2012

I know this isn't exactly a journal, just a sheet if computer paper, but I really need somewhere to write down my thoughts. Let me just say that my life is awful. If you're reading this, you're probably thinking that I'm just overreacting, but if you give me a moment to explain my life, you'll understand. I can't stay above a 70 in any of my classes, not even gym. It's certainly not because I'm dumb, it's mostly because I'm dreadfully lazy. I'm just naturally unmotivated to do just about anything. However, grades aren't the worst of my problems. My biggest problem is my social awkwardness. I can't make eye contact with anyone without feeling like I'm creeping them out. I just respond with "yes" and "no" while pulling at my fingers and staring at the ground. The kids at school mock me for it, too. Apparently I'm a homosexual just because I hadn't banged 20 girls by the time I turned 15. I have no idea as to why they use homosexuality as an insult; I see nothing wrong with it. I've even had my own "curious" thoughts, but I'd never tell them that.

Anyway, my birthday was just two days ago. I had a pathetic birthday party at Bill Gray's with my dad, my dad's girlfriend, and their unborn fetus still inside of her. I did get a cracked iPod touch, so that's at least one plus. Speaking of my birthday, my peers at school decided to give me 15 birthday swirlies in the toilet. That wasn't the worst part; the toilet had crap in it. That still wasn't the worst part; one of the kids took that crap in the toilet, while the other two held me down and made me watch. AND THEY CALL ME THE GAY ONE?!?!?!? THEY'RE THE ONES MAKING MEN WATCH THEM TAKE A CRAP!!!!!!!!

I know, if I get too angry I'll have a heart attack or something, but then again, maybe I'm better off having one. The world doesn't need me anyway.

The complete worst of it all is the memory that has haunted me for a long time. This was the death of my mother, which I witnessed when I was eight.

One cold, winter morning of my childhood, I woke up with my bear, which a therapist had given to me for personality problems. That bear and I did everything together for as long as I could remember. When I walked downstairs, I saw my parents arguing rather viciously. In fear, I ran back upstairs and cried into my stuffed bear. My mom felt bad, and decided to take me out for ice cream early in the morning. So my mom, my bear, and I got in the car and set off.for ice cream early in the winter morning. As luck would have it, a drunk teen coming home from some all-night party was on the icy road. My mom started to make a turn, and the teen slid past a red light and smashed into the car by the drivers' seat. Immediately we flipped, and I lost the grip on my bear, and he flung out the window. We flipped a bit more, and came to a crashing halt into a tree. I fell backwards, and was pinned under some tires and a lot of rubble.

I opened my eyes, and looked out.

There was my mom, right next to my bear. She was screaming as flames consumed her body and I was forced to watch as she burned to ashes.

All because I wanted some stupid ice cream.

June 5th, 2012

Earlier today I found an old rope in my dad's closet. If I hook it up to my ceiling fan, it makes a perfect noose. I just need one more nudge, one more push, to convince me that I'm not needed, and I'll do it. I'll leave this universe. My molecules will belong to the bacteria and my thoughts of hatred will be lost forever. It's about 10PM now, I have to go to bed.

Well, that's it. 11:57PM on June 5th, 2012 and I'm calling it. I'm getting out of here. Tomorrow morning. Why? My dad came home drunk, and started beating his girlfriend. Her and the baby are now lying dead on the floor. I'm scared shitless to do anything about it in fear that he'll beat me up too, and I'd rather have my death be as quick and as painless as possible. I'd better hide out in my closet until tomorrow. Good... Bad Night.

Part 1: Go Ahead

June 6th, 2012

Dear Dad,

I know you never loved me, or cared for me, so I'll make this quick, since you're not going to care about me anyway.

Goodbye, cruel world.

Now that I think about it, I should probably say goodbye to my "friends" on the OpenFeint forums before I go. Not that they'll care either, I'm not at all a popular member, and I've only been on for about two months, since I found the OpenFeint option on Fruit Ninja Lite. I don't mind if my dad reads this part, too. He has no idea OpenFeint has been my obsession for the past two months, but what is he going to do? Beat up my carcass?

An OFer told me that I should watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and that it helped her out of her depression. Why not? I have nothing to lose.

I found "Season 1 Episode 1: Friendship is Magic" on YouTube. maybe I'll watch a it to get my final laughs at how pathetic it is.

If you don't mind I'm going to write down some commentary as I watch this. Of course you don't mind. You're a sheet of paper.

Well, that purple pony that was running looks kind of cute.

A letter from the Princess telling her to make friends? Cheesy. This is ridiculous.

Wow, that yellow pony reminds me of me, and that orange pony with the hat reminds me of my crush, Ashley, who I'll never have a chance with, anyway.

Well, the first episode wasn't bad, let me find the sequel.

Wow, that wasn't bad either. How many more episodes are there?

Haha, Applejack's so funny when she's tireless.

That blue unicorn is a bitch, AJ should buck her right in the face.

"It needs to be about 20% cooler?" That's hilarious!

Did they just get saved by a Rainbow-colored nuclear explosion? They did, wow. Why did that give me goosebumps?

Wow, I didn't think much of Rarity, but she's pretty clever.

THIIIIS IS WHINING.

"I'd like to be a tree," and "Huffy the magic dragon?" that whole conversation was hilarious.

Insane Pinkie Pie was amazing!

Discord, wow, I've never seen a more perfect villain in any children's show.

Insane Twilight was even better than insane Pinkie Pie!

Pickle barrel! Kumquat! Pickle barrel! Kumquat! That is fun to say!

"We'll be able to fix that hole in the roof, but if you don't come back, we'll never be able to fix the hole in our hearts." Oh, barf.

June 7th, 2012?

Wow! That song about smiling Pinkie sang sure is catchy. I replayed it five times.

That song about the wedding was catchy, too. Damn.

HOLY CRAP! WAS THAT JUST, A FULL OUT BRAWL, ON A Y-RATED SHOW? WOW!

Did I seriously just spend 19 hours watching My Little Pony?

I did, and now it's 4am. I better go back and write down when I think the day changed. And then sleep. I don't know if I can, I have a hell of a lot to think about.

Right now, it's about 1PM. The cops just came to my house and took away my dad. Someone had called the cops because they were trying to contact my mom for about the entire time I was hiding from my dad in this closet. Also, I've been doing a whole lot of research on my iPod since I woke up. Apparently there's a teenage fandom of My Little Pony called "bronies." I believe I may be one of them. Those smiling ponies just make me feel like... Like I'm worth something. I feel, like I want to live, just for ponies. I think I should go now. I can't stay in this closet in an empty house. I'll write later.

I think it's about 10:30 or so. There's no clock in here, so I'm not sure. Funny story, the person who was trying to contact my dad's girlfriend turned out to be her other boyfriend. Heh. On a similar note, I was just sent to a foster home, because both of my dad's parents are dead, everyone on my mom's side wants nothing to do with me, and my dad's dead girlfriend's mom is in a mental hospital after taking out a pistol in a preschool and killing six kids. So, I have no relatives that aren't locked up. I'm surrounded by a bunch of kids that are all at least five years younger than me, and I'm certain that they're all wondering what the heck I'm writing. Oh well. I have ponies to think about. Good night.

June 8th, 2012

My first day in the foster home wasn't too bad. After missing school the past two days, I returned to school. All the kids at school had heard about what happened, and most of them were surprisingly being nice to me. However, the group of three boys who gave me the "birthday swirlies" were using this event to mock me even more. I responded by calling them assholes (which is the truth, like AJ's element of harmony), they responded by kicking me in the shins (And no, I didn't say the AJ thing out loud). Surprisingly, after all this, I'm still happy. My Little Pony has taken over my thoughts, and I'm not going to stop it.

June 10th, 2012

The kids found my "journal" yesterday. The older ones called me a gay for watching My Little Pony (they're only ten, where did they learn this stuff?). They know I can't do a thing about it, the staff watch me like a hawk. Can't talk anymore. The kids are watching me.

June 13th, 2012

I finally found a time to slip away from the kids. Now I can write. I hate this place. The kids at school quickly started to ignore me again. At least I still have ponies.

June 14, 2012

I had to cut it short yesterday because someone was coming. Oh well. So, a sudden realization hit me today. My Little Pony is just a TV show, and my life SUCKS ASS. I'm falling back into depression, but it's true. I'm useless.

June 15, 2012

There is absolutely no way to die here! The staff continues to watch me like a hawk, and has been looking at me even closer ever since I was banging my head on my bed frame earlier today. I still haven't forgot about ponies, but I curse the screen that keeps us apart. If only I could just go to Equestria, even for one day, one hour, just to meet the ponies. I'd do anything for that. But since that is impossible, I now sit here, hating life. If Heaven exists, maybe I can conjure up MLP ponies there or something. But I doubt I'd go to Heaven anyway.

June 18, 2012

I'm currently in the forbidden basement of the foster home. I stole a few more sheets of computer paper from the office and rushed down here. I just need a place to write down all my thoughts about this place. Let's start with the sleeping quarters. There's about a dozen kids stuffed into each room. Me, being the insomniac I am, can't sleep at all when I hear the snores, wheezes, and breaths of eleven other ponies... I mean people. God, did I just write that? Oh, I still love My Little Pony. With all of my existence, I can't get that show out of my head. Anyway, I'll talk about the food next. In a foster home full of kids, I usually end up with just about nothing for each meal. Maybe one egg for breakfast, a quarter of a sandwich for lunch (on weekends, but I actually get fed pretty good at school), and about two ounces of chicken for dinner. That might be a satisfying meal to some of the youngest kids, but me... Well I'm freaking starving. My Little Pony: Friendship is magic is one of the best shows in existence. Nopony is going to tell me otherwise.

Sorry for getting off topic, again. I think it's the hunger talking. Lastly, I'll talk about the people. My major disappointment is that they're all male. I can't take being away from girls this long. As mentioned before, none of them are above the age of ten. For some reason, these ten year olds swear like sailors. They clearly weren't raised by parents that cared about them too much, if they've even seen their parents. I mean... These little col

...

I did. I just started to write colts instead of boys. I can't help it. This TV show has invaded my mind. There's no use trying to stop it anymore. But it's still fake. A vicious tease of a good reality, behind a screen of lies. Wow, that was cheesy. Urghhh... Now I'm thinking about cheese...

I drew myself as a pony on a different sheet of paper, and then threw it in the furnace, screaming "WHY CAN'T I BE YOU?"

Reality, I have five fingers. The middle one is just for you.

June 20th, 2012

Sit down and get comfy. I have a story to tell you. I'm not going to give away any of the story in the beginning, just to keep the mood going.

So, the day was Tuesday, June 19, 2012. I woke up depressed and suicidal, as usual. I went through my usual routine of eating my meager breakfast, getting dressed in front of a bunch of young boys, which is creepy for all of us, brushing my teeth, getting my school stuff, getting on the bus, sitting, breathing, responding to stimulus, I think you get the idea. It was a rainy day. Most of the people on the bus were talking excitedly because school ended a week from that day. I had nothing to look forward to in the summer, and I almost liked the school better than the foster home, so I wasn't too excited. Upon getting off the bus and entering my first period class, I learned something that was certainly important to me. Two kids from my school had ran away from home and were nowhere to be found. One of them was Luke. He was the closest to a friend I had. We didn't hang out much, but we do have a few conversations every now and then, although I've realized that he's just as bad at conversation as I am. The other kid was a sophomore named Cece. I knew nothing about her.

I continued the rest of the day normally. I didn't do my homework for any of my classes, and they're back to getting mad at me for it. At lunch, I sat at my usual spot at the "nerd table" and didn't say a word. Then I went home on the bus, to reflect on yet another thing that went wrong in my life. After my small dinner, I went to bed. When I closed my eyes and started to drift off, I suddenly felt that something was... Odd. I tried to push it off, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I opened my eyes. I was staring at a black ceiling, laying on a black ground, with pitch black walls around me. I was sure I was just lucid dreaming, so I just rubbed my eyes with my hoof and then went along with it.

...Hoof?

I looked down at myself. I was... Red. Not my skin, but my... Fur? I felt my head. My hair was still the same style, but felt thicker. Although I still believed this was a dream, I was startled by the sound of footsteps coming. I looked forward and saw two ponies walking towards me. The one on the right seemed vaguely familiar. She was a mint green unicorn with an off-white mane. Since I only knew the names of the canon ponies at the time, I didn't know that this was Lyra Heartstrings. The one on the right had a black coat, and bright white, glowing eyes. The pony was in a full suit of armor. Extending their hoof, this pony tried to help me up. I was still shocked to move, so they set it down. In a stallions voice, he began talking.

"You're probably very confused right now." He said, as I gave a weak nod, "Allow me to introduce myself. You can call me Saibot. I am the leader of Gamma Pony Force 9, or GPF9 for short. We were assigned the task of recruiting six new ponies to control the Elements of Harmony. The mane six became disconnected to the Elements after Rarity got her big break as a fashion designer and moved far away to live her dream. We first tried to only replace Rarity, and find a pony that held the element of generosity, but no one we could find in Equestria fit the ticket. So that's when Lyra here joined our team." He nodded at Lyra, who continued.

"I had knowledge of alternate dimensions through my studies, and I knew that people like you were out there, we just needed to find a way to reach you."

Saibot continued. "So me, Lyra, and a talented pony known as Dr.Whooves built a portal to suit this purpose. It took about three weeks of construction, but we finally finished. The first person we teleported here was a sixteen year old boy named Drew. But you should know him by his stallion name, Rainbow Eclipse. We gave him the element, and tested it... Nothing. That's when we found out the mane six only work when together. It's all or nothing. So we had to recruit five more humans, each we knew were willing to become ponies. You are one of the lucky five. If you have any questions, you should see Appleseed. He's another one of the five recruited humans. He's likely at Sweet Apple Acres, or wherever Applejack is right now. Good luck, and enjoy the ride."

I blinked. I was suddenly in a new place. My back was to the Everfree Forest and I was looking at the entrance to Ponyville. Inside, these were my approximate thoughts: HOLY CRAP I'M IN PONYVILLE THIS IS SO FREAKING AMAZING I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I HOPE I GET TO MEET APPLEJACK AND CHEERILEE AND TWILIGHT AND... But on the outside, I had a blank stare. I first looked down at what I looked like. I was a red stallion, about the same color as Big Macintosh, but nowhere near the amount of muscle as he had. My hair, from what I could see, was a burnt yellow color, and in a somewhat bowl-cut shape, like the hair of Dumbbell, one of the stallions who calls Rainbow Dash "Rainbow Crash" in Sonic Rainboom. Except, these weren't just TV episodes anymore, this was real. The last thing I looked at was my cutie mark. I penciled in a simple quarter note on my OC's hip when I drew it, but this was two lime green pairs of eighth notes. (I've always liked music because it was my escape from reality before ponies.) It looked... amazing! The rest of me looked like a better drawn version of my OC. My one last realization before I walked on was that I was naked. A thought ran through my head. Who made my body? Did they like... Sculpt me, and my new... Pony areas? Nevermind. I should stop thinking. I know everyone... Everypony else was naked, also. But it still felt awkward. I decided to suck it up and walk on.

Part 2: As You Waste Your Days With Thinking

So I decided to begin my trek through Ponyville. My first step was a success. My second hoofstep was miscalculated a bit and I ended up falling flat on my face. My shoulders slumped down next to my head and my back legs fell out from underneath me. I'm sure quite a few ponies were looking at me weird, but I tried to ignore them as I tried to get up, which wasn't easy. This happened quite a few times but I eventually got the hang of it. Awkwardly, I began walking, and looking at the sights. It was all... So real, and so familiar. It's exactly what it looked like when I was trapped behind that cracked iPod screen. But now I could feel it, smell it, taste it... With all these thoughts running through my head, I wasn't looking where I was going. I suddenly got a literal Facebook. I fell to the ground, and when my eyes came into focus, I saw... TWILIGHT SPARKLE! I couldn't believe my eyes. She began talking.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sir." She said, and then suddenly put on a confused face. "Why are you staring at me like that?" I was pretty sure I had a creepy grin on my face, because it's hard not to when you're basically meeting one of your idols. I awkwardly got off the ground and tried to get my thoughts together.

"I'm sorry." I replied, barely making eye contact. "I'm new here, and I don't know many people." My voice sounded different, like... Older. I tried to hide my shock.

"Well why didn't you say so? My name is Twilight Sparkle. What's your name?"

I hadn't exactly given a name to my pony, so I quickly stated the first name that materialized in my mind.

"I'm Music Medic, nice to meet you." Hmmm... Not bad for having no time to ponder about it.

"Nice to meet you, too." Twilight replied. "If you need anything, I can assist you."

I remembered what Saibot had told me about looking for Appleseed at Sweet Apple Acres.

"Can you tell me where Sweet Apple Acres is?"

"Certainly. It's up the street, then take a right at the apple stand. You'll see a big wooden sign. You can't miss it. Also, if you see my friend Applejack, tell her I said hi."

"Ok, thank you." I said, and I walked off feeling proud of myself. I just had a conversation that I didn't say something stupid and fudge it up.

So I continued to walk, avoiding eye contact with everyone. But then I came across a familiar pink pony.

"HEY! ARE YOU NEW? WELL I KNOW WE'RE GOING TO BE BEST FRIENDS! I'M GONNA THROW YOU A PARTY! WHAT FLAVOR CAKE DO YOU WANT? I HAVE ANGEL FOOD CAKE, CHOCOLATE. VANILLA, STRAWBERRY, FRENCH VANILLA, DARK CHOCOLATE, DEVILS FOOD CHOCOLATE, LEMON, AND CARROT CAKE, not to be confused with one of my guardians, his name is Carrot Cake, too! I ALSO HAVE MARSHMALLOW FLAVOR WHICH I MADE ALL BY MYSELF NOT TOO LONG AFTER RARITY LEFT FOR HER 'FASHION CAREER.' SO WHAT CAN I PUT YOU DOWN FOR?"

"Uhhh... chocolate is fine." I said with a small migraine.

"OKEY-DOKEY-LOKEY" Pinkie Pie said, as she ran off. Although my head was spinning, I kept walking. I walked a few feet, and then I accidentally didn't step far enough on one of my steps again, and I fell flat on my stomach with a cacophonous 'OOF!' Before I could wrap my head around what just happened, I felt a hoof step on my head. I looked up to see the backside of a yellow pony. Her back left hoof was on my head, and her back right hoof was on the ground next to me, so I came to the sudden realization that I was looking right at her... I quickly shook the thought off. She turned around.

"I'm... Terribly sorry sir... I didn't... See you there... I was just... Trying to lead my baby ducks... Through town..." Fluttershy said, staring at the sky.

"Oh, that's ok." I said, not making eye contact either. "I just kind of... Fell."

"Ok" She said, barely audible.

I was going to get up and walk away, when I realized something. I couldn't. I couldn't get up.

"Can you lend a hand... I mean hoof?" Still not making eye contact, she helped me up.

"Thank you." I said, as we walked our separate ways. Going back to my thoughts, I still had a lot to think about. I mean... I was living my dream, I was in Ponyville! It is what I wanted all along. I was still in shock and doubt, but the excitement overtook those feelings, and my heart was racing. I looked into the sky. That's when I saw a flash of rainbow. I knew exactly which Pegasus this was, so I decided to keep watching. She did a few corkscrews in the air, then a few barrel rolls, and many other tricks which I had no idea what they were. A few minutes later, she landed right next to me.

"Hey. I saw you watching me do my tricks up there. Would you saw my aviation skills are... Awesome?" Rainbow said to me.

"Yeah" was all I could muster up the strength to say, but that isn't unusual for me.

"Would you say I was Wonderbolt awesome?"

"Of course!" I said, agreeing that she certainly should be a Wonderbolt from what I've seen in the show and in person.

"Thanks." She replied "Are you a big fan of the Wonderbolts?"

"Yup." I lied.

"So who do you think is going to win the 4000m tomorrow? I personally think Soarin has the edge it that race. What do you think?"

"Uuuuuhhhhmm..."

"I knew you were actually a Wonderbolt fan! I just had to make sure. It was a trick question, you and I both know that Soarin isn't competing in the 4000m tomorrow."

"Yep, that must've been why I sounded confused." I lied again.

"Alright, well... Wait! What's your name?"

"Music Medic"

"Alright, the name's Rainbow Dash. See you later." She flew away. I looked back in front of me and there it was, Sweet Apple Acres. I started trotting a little faster, only to end up on my face again. So I walked slowly, and eventually got to the farm. The first pony I saw was a stallion with the same color fur as me.

"Excuse me, have you seen a pony named Appleseed? I asked.

He pointed down the farm and I saw three ponies in the distance. A dark blue one, an orange one, and a yellow one.

"Thank you" I said.

"Eeyup."

So I walked down the farm, avoiding trees and whatnot, and I eventually got to the three ponies. One of the ponies was Applejack, one of them was a tall pegasus mare with a dark blue coat and off-white mane and tail, and the third was a burnt yellow-colored stallion earth pony with a brown colored mane and tail.

"Hello!" I said "Anypony here named Appleseed?"

"That's me!" The yellow stallion said. Then to Applejack, he said, "You go along, I'll catch up." He then whispered. "What was the name of the pony who sent you here?"

"I believe it was Sailbot." I said.

"It was Saibot, but you were close enough." He said, and then his face changed into a serious expression. "Did you tell anyone you were a human?"

"No"

"Good. Nopony is supposed to know, well, at least not yet." The dark blue mare walked over. Appleseed continued speaking. "This here is Chaotica, the third pony transported here. She's pretty quiet, except around me, because I knew her back when we were humans."

"Ok. So what am I supposed to do here?" I asked.

"Today, just go through town, find something to do, and come to training at 6."

"Training?"

"Saibot didn't tell you about that? Wow, he leaves everything up to me." He trailed off for a moment. "Anyway, about the training, it's at six o'clock in the basement of Sugarcube Corner. The leaders of GPF9 are going to reach us how to fight in our new pony bodies. We'll have to sneak out during the party."

"Ok."

"You're not gonna ask me what party?"

"No, I already got the welcome from Pinkie Pie."

"Alright, now all you need is these." Appleseed handed me a watch and a bag full of coins. I dropped them.

"You're gonna have to learn to carry things in your mouth." He said. "But that will come later. The watch can easily fit around your front shin and the bag goes on your back like this" He put the bag of coins on my back. My knees quickly buckled and I fell on my face into the mud... Or at least I hope it was just mud. Appleseed helped me back up.

"Sorry about that. I did the same thing eight months ago, when I came here. You get used to it. That's what the training is for."

"You've been here for eight months?" I asked, unaware of how many annoying questions I was asking.

"Yes. You see, the portal that Saibot and Lyra used to teleport you here takes about two months to set up and operate after each use. So Rainbow Eclipse has been here ten months, I've been here eight, Chaotica here has been here six, Sweetpea has been here four, and Cutie Pie has been here only two. You'll meet them all at training. Any other questions?"

"No, sir."

"Appleseed is fine, but thank you." He then extended his hoof to me. I reached out to shake it, but lost my balance and fell on my face... Again. He helped me up.

"You really need to stop doing that." He said, helping me up again. "So, Sugarcube Corner at six. Don't be late."

"Alright, see you later." I said, and started to walk away.

"Adios" Appleseed said.

"bye..." A quiet female voice mumbled. I looked the way of the voice, and Chaotica looked away. I gave a slightly stronger goodbye back, and went on my way.

I wasn't sure what I should do first. I could do anything I dreamed about for the past few weeks. I mean I WAS A GOD DAMN PONY IN GOD DAMN EQUESTRIA! IT IS JUST SO FREAKING AWESOME! I left the farm and then decided to check the time. I lifted up my right front hoof... and fell on my face, once agian. Laying on the ground I looked at my wrist, which was technically my ankle, and looked at my wristwatch. I had to think about it for a second because I hadn't used an analog clock in a long time, but I eventually figured out it was 3:25. I had time to spare, but I was hungry, so I decided get up to go to Sugarcube Corner to see if I could buy a donut or cake or something. I saw the building that I recognized from the show to be Sugarcube Corner, so I went to it. I walked in and saw a line leading to a counter where Mr. Carrot Cake and Mrs. Cup Cake were selling baked goods. I hadn't eaten any good food in weeks, so I eagerly got on line. I was about half way through the line when Pinkie Pie jumped out of the vase sitting next to me.

"HEY! NEW GUY! I FORGOT TO ASK YOU YOUR NAME!" She said, at an almost irritating volume.

"Oh... Well it's Music Medic."

"WELL, OK, MED. I'M PINKIE PIE IF I DIDN'T ALREADY TELL YOU BEFORE! YOU WANNA COME BACK HERE AT FIVE O'CLOCK? I HAVE SOMETHING... SPECIAL PLANNED AND I WANT YOU TO BE HERE! OKEY-DOKEY-LOKEY?" She spit on her hoof and extended it to me. After an awkward hesitation on my part, I held out my hoof, and then fell on my face. I really needed to stop doing that. "You alright? You seem a little clumsy." she giggled and said.

"I'm fine." I said.

"Well, okey-dokey-lokey then, I'll see you later!" Then she trotted upstairs. I was pretty sure the something special planned was a party, but a bunch of other random possibilities, some not G rated, went through my head. My mind is weird. I noticed that I was now just second in line, so I got up and walked back to my place in line. The stallion in front of me left with a large birthday cake, so it was now my turn. I couldn't hide the hungry look in my eyes, and I looked at the pastries with eager anticipation.

"Woah there, deary" Mrs. Cake exclaimed. "You seem a bit too excited."

"Oh, sorry" I said, masking my hunger. "I'm pretty hungry. You see I'm new..."

"Well you must've been the pony Pinkie told us about. It's nice to meet you. Have a donut on the house." She handed me a glazed donut. "Anything else you'd like?"

I then looked around at the various pastries. A tray of white and purple cupcakes quickly caught my eye.

"Yeah, I'll take a... Dozen of those."

"A dozen? Well you must have a family to feed at home, I see." She then yelled to Mr. Cake. "We need more Marshmallow cupcakes, stat!"

"On it, honey." Mr. Cake said, running back and forth between doors. On one of his trips, he returned with a tray of cupcakes. Mrs.Cake took the tray and put twelve of the cupcakes into a bag, and gave it to me.

"Thanks" I said. I gave her three bits, and then I left. Now, I needed a place to eat my food. I found a picnic table near a restaurant that looked perfect. I set my stuff down, then looked at the chair... How the hell do I sit? I first tried sitting in it like a human, by putting my front legs on the arms and lowering myself down. It seems horses legs don't bend the same way humans legs do, and as my back hooves came up, they hit the table. Hard. It jumped up and down a few times, mumbled a few swear words, and then calmed down. A few ponies were staring at me with a variety of expressions, so I just decided to stand up and eat. But of course, I couldn't lift my leg up to grab my food, so I had to eat with my face buried in my food like a dog. Looking around, many other ponies were doing the same thing I was, so I felt less awkward about it, and I started eating happily. My thoughts left me for a bit, and when I came back into focus, all my food was gone. Shit, I was damn hungry. But not anymore, as I finally felt the my stomach sending positive thoughts to my brain. I slumped down on the ground, when the thought to check my watch went through my brain. I looked, and saw that it was 4:53. Crap. I didn't have time to slump. I had a surprise party to get to. Slight problem, I couldn't get up. I looked around for the nearest pony, and that pony turned out to be Big Macintosh. I cleared my vocal chords and began speaking.

"Uhhhh..." Uuuugh? Why not 'Excuse me?' seriously, brain? Big Macintosh looked my way, despite my pathetic interjection.

"Mind lending me a... a hoof?" I said, as Big Mac unattached himself from the cart and came over to help me. He bent down, and extended his hoof. I grasped it with my wrist, and he pulled me up. There was a problem here. Either I underestimated Big Mac's strength, or he underestimated my lightness. Either way, he pulled me far too hard, and I was sent airborne for a few feet. Before I could collect my thoughts, I felt my head hit something. Something hard. I fell down on the ground, barely conscious, and then split seconds later I felt an excruciating pain run up the left side of my back. Something heavy had just fallen on me. I heard a few sickening cracks, as my bone marrow began to separate. It hurt like hell. I tasted blood, smelled blood, and all I saw was red. I started to scream, and then I blacked out.

Part 3: When You Fall, Everyone Stands

When I came to, I was being loaded into an ambulance. There were three mares and one stallion loading me into the back. When I looked at the stallion, who was brown with a black mane, it looked like he winked at me. It may have just been the obliterated bones talking, though. All of a sudden, I heard crying, and it wasn't coming from me this time. Then I heard a familiar voice.

"Excuse me." the voice said "That man is my husband, can I get on?"

"Of course!" The brown stallion said, although it looked as if the other three paramedics were going to object to this. I was still confused. I'm married? The pony stepped onto the ambulance. It was Lyra. I was still very confused, but seeing a familiar face reassured me.

"Hello, honey." She said, and winked at me. I understood what what she was doing and attempted to play along.

"Hello, dear." I said, and I couldn't help but grin. Hopefully the nurses thought my terrible acting was due to the fact that I was hurt, although it actually didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. I could, by her face, tell Lyra had something up her sleeve when she sat down. She waited a few seconds, and her horn suddenly began to glow. My legs suddenly stopped hurting. I tried to move my leg, and it felt 100% functional. I was so very confused at this point. But that's when we arrived at the hospital, and I was quickly rushed into a room. The doctor came in with a nervous look on his face, as if he was going to have to perform an urgent life-or-death surgery. Two nurse ponies secured a mask on my face, and I was prepared to go into an anesthetic sleep, when the doctor yelled "WAIT!" The nurses froze. Much to my confusion, he commanded them to remove my mask.

"This stallion looks just fine. He has a few bumps and bruises, but nothing major." He looked directly at one of the nurses, and continued speaking. "Are you sure it was a Model D Sweet Apple Acres Apple Cart?"

"I'm sure of it, sir. That cart was huge." The nurse said.

"Well that means this stallion has some very strong bones." He chuckled, and said to me, "You're one lucky SOB I'll tell you what." He looked serious again "These injuries are minor, we just need to put on some bandages and you'll be clear to leave."

"Okay" I said, but at this point I was beyond confusion. He left the room, and it was only seconds later when I overheard a loud conversation.

"IS HE GOING TO BE OKAY, DOCTOR?" Lyra said, in a very believable overreacting wife voice.

"Yes, he's going to be just fine." The Doctor said. "Just a few minor scrapes and bruises."

"Thank you, Doctor!" From the sounds of things, Lyra could win an Oscar. The nurses came back with a few bandages, and applied them to my now minor wounds. They helped me up, and I started walking away. Then I fell on my face, as usual.

Fast forward to outside the Hospital, me and Lyra had just left. She didn't say anything until we were completely outside.

"Come with me." she said. I followed, of course, as she walked to the back of the hospital, out of view of the parking lot and any people. "Now let's get these useless things off." She grabbed my bandages with her teeth, and gave them a hard tug. I started to involuntarily scream as my fur was being torn from my flesh, but she covered my mouth. She finished, and stood up, dropped the bandages, and began talking.

"You're probably very confused right now, is that correct?"

"Very much so."

"Allow me to explain. We, well actually Dr. Whooves, who you met on the ambulance, constructed the body you're in right now. That means we have a lot of control over it. With my unicorn magic I can fix any of your injuries, and can teleport you anywhere if you're within five feet of me, and I can even take control of your body and move you." Her horn began to glow. I jumped up in the air involuntarily. "See? But there's still some things I can't do. If you're not within five feet of me, I can't teleport you or move you. Although I can always teleport to you if I have to. Another thing I can't do is kill you, so rest assured. That doesn't mean I would if I could, however. Any questions?"

I understood, for the most part. "So why didn't you just heal me completely on the ambulance, why did you wait so that you had to pull off my bandages? That hurts alot when you have fur..."

"Simple. If you just got crushed by a giant wagon, and you show up to the E.R. completely unscathed, the Doctor will get suspicious. We don't want him to get suspicious. We want you out of there as quickly as possible, so that we can bring you to training, which started a few minutes ago. Hold onto me a second." I did as she told, although I was slightly confused. My vision suddenly changed to a green flash of light, and when it refocused, I was in an unfamiliar room with seven other ponies.

"Welcome to training!" Saibot said. "Everypony, this here is Music Medic. He is our newest and final recruit." He looked back at me. "Let me introduce you to your new best friends."

"This here is Rainbow Eclipse" He pointed to a dark gray colored stallion unicorn with a red, yellow, and blue streaked mane. "He represents the Element of Generosity."

"I believe you met Appleseed." He pointed to Appleseed, who remarked with a "Howdy!" in his usual Southern drawl. "He represents the Element of Honesty."

"Now this here is Chaotica" He pointed to... Nopony. "Ahem... Chaotica!" Nooby yelled. She quickly scurried out from behind Appleseed. She didn't make eye contact and said something very inaudible. "We have not yet assigned her an Element."

The next pony he pointed to was a mare earth pony. She had deep purple fur and a flowing red mane. "This here is Sweetpea. She also has yet to be assigned to an element." Sweetpea had her face buried in a book, but she stopped reading for a moment to say "Hi!" and I said "Hi, Sweetpea!" and then Saibot moved on to the next pony.

"Besides you, this is our most recent recruit. This is..."

A light blue colored pegasus mare with a pink, curly mane began talking. "Hi! I'm Cutie Pie! I know we're gonna be best friends, don't you think? Do you wanna here a joke?"

Saibot interrupted. "We quickly gave her the Element of Laughter."

"That makes sense." I said.

"Alright, now, I have to give you the speech I had to give everypony here when they came about how..." Lyra walked up to Saibot and whispered something in his ear. "Oh, so you've already heard some of it. Excellent. That means I can go directly to the rules, which all of you should listen to again, so we don't have another incident like we did a few weeks ago." He glared at Appleseed. Appleseed looked away and whistled.

"Anyway, let's begin with Rule #1. Don't get too personal with the ponies." He glared at Appleseed again, then continued. "You can talk and "flirt" with them all you want, but dating, kissing, and anything beyond that is strictly forbidden, and a bit gross." He paused for a few seconds, then continued. "And don't think you'll get away with anything. Thanks to technology that I'm not going to get into detail about right now, we can see exactly what you're doing, 24/7."

"Rule #2: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT tell anyone you are a human. If you do, I won't hesitate to erase your memory and throw you back in your pathetic human lives. What happens in this room, stays right here in this room."

"Last but not least, Rule #3. Do not leave Ponyville! Lyra can always teleport to you and bring you back, but she still only has a certain range, and if you go out of that range, anything could happen to you and it's out of our control. Any questions?"

"No, sir!" Everypony except me said in unison.

"Alright! Let the training begin! Rainbow, let's start with you. You were on level 57, correct?"

"Yes, sir." Rainbow Eclipse said.

"As for the rest of you, work on the current level you're on until you're called." He then turned to look at me. "As for you, your first task is simple: walking. Work on it on an available practice mat. Lyra will come around and give you pointers." I took this time to look around the room and study it's contents. The room was about half the size of a gymnasium. In the middle was a large blue mat where Saibot was watching as Rainbow Eclipse attempted a side-sweep kick. In the back of the room were five smaller mats, where the remaining ponies were attempting various tricks that seemed impossible for me to do in this body. Lyra circulated through them and occasionally talked to the ponies. I walked to the only available mat and began practicing my walking, which was starting to get easy for me. I started to increase the pace. I was surprised at myself. I increased my pace to about a jogging speed. At this pace, I fell on my face. That rhymes. Anyway, this is about the time Lyra showed up. She helped me up.

"You're not stepping far enough." She said.

"I'm not?"

"No. When you walk, that works just fine. But when you run, you need to take bigger strides. Otherwise, your body will be moving faster than your legs and you'll fall on your face. Let me show you." She ran across the mat, taking short strides. She was leaning forward at a sharp angle. She eventually fell over, but got up quickly. "That's what you were doing. Let me show you what you're supposed to do." She bent down near the ground with a focused expression, and took off. I'd never seen anyone run that fast, but that's probably because ponies run far faster than humans. She circled back around.

"That's how it's done. I want to see you running like that."

"Aye, aye, cap'n" I said, in a joking tone. She chuckled pitifully and left. I started working on running.

About twenty minutes later, Saibot called me to the center mat. "Alright, Med. You are at level one, walking. Walk from this side of the made to the other." I did as told, with ease. "Impressive. Now, you're at level two, jog back." I did as told again, and about halfway to the other the other side, I stumbled a bit, but managed to stay up.

"Not perfect, but acceptable. For level three you must run to the other side. Begin." I started running the way Lyra had showed me. I made it about three-quarters of the way across flawless, but then a misstep caused me to skid across the mat.

"Not bad for a first time." Saibot said. "But you don't pass level three yet. Keep working on it." I went back to my mat. He called me back a few more times and I managed to get to, but failed at, level five which was a push-up, and that's when Saibot announced that it was the end of training for today. Everyone seemed to know what to do and left. Saibot walked up to me.

"Now, we need to find you a place to live." He said, but then mumbled to himself, "Let's see... Chaotica and Apples are staying at Sweet Apple Acres... Rainbow's at Sugar Cube Corner... Sweetpea's at Fluttershy's... And Cutie Pie's up in Cloudsdale... So that leaves..."

He looked back up. "Congratulations! Twilight Sparkle is your new roommate!"

To be perfectly honest, I was as nervous as hell. Being the socially awkward person... or pony I was, I was afraid sleeping in the same house as an individual of the opposite gender would feel... weird. But I had no reason to protest, so I followed as we walked to the library. Saibot told Lyra to hide, because Twilight knew Lyra, and then he knocked on the door. Twilight opened it about twenty seconds later.

"Oh, hello!" She said, then yawned. "Anything I can assist you with?"

"Yes, you can." Saibot said in a serious and low voice. "I am a Canterlot messenger here to give you this message from Princess Celestia." He took out a scroll and placed it in her hoof.

"Why couldn't she just deliver it through magic?" Twilight asked, confused.

"Simple, my dear." He pointed at me. "This matter involves him, and Celestia can't send him through magic as well."

"Well OK, then." She read the note, as she was reading, Saibot pulled me to the side.

He whispered. "You're one of Celestia's star pupils. You're here to study the magic of friendship since Twilight was disconnected from the Elements."

"But... I can't act"

"Just try not to overact. If things go wrong, I can always take control of your body."

"Ok" I responded doubtfully, then walked back to the door. Twilight finished reading the note.

"Nice to see you again, Music Medic! I thought you looked familiar." She looked at Saibot. "Thank you." Saibot saluted and left. She closed the door and showed me inside. As it was instructed on her note from the princess, she told me I could have the guest bed, which was in the same room as Twilight's bed. That didn't help the awkwardness I felt at all.

Nonetheless, she gave me a tour of the library and told me about how I'd be living for the next I-have-no-idea-how-long, once again as instructed on her note from the "princess." I'll wrap up the day here, because this is getting boring and I'm tired. For the record, Equestrian time is not the same as Earth's time, but I'll get into this when it's relevant. Night.

Part 4: Another Day

I'm tired, but my brain has decided to wake me up at 4AM and fill me with thoughts of finishing writing my story, so I can't fall back asleep until I do this.

I'll pick the story up in the afternoon of the next day. I had eaten breakfast at Twilight's, she had asked me all about my experiences in Canterlot. I made up the stories, but Twilight didn't seem to see through my fibs. I'll fast forward the story at about 1PM now. Twilight had left to go meet her friends. Spike was cleaning up and I was reading. I don't usually read, because books bore the living hell out of me, but I had nothing better to do until about six, when the next training session was. It was about that time I decided to hit the town and see what I could do until six. When I got up, I realized I was very sore from the vigorous training last night. After shaking off a painful charlie horse, I said goodbye to Spike and walked out.

Fast forward again to about 3:30PM. I had finished eating lunch, still standing of course, because sitting in a chair as a horse is harder than solving a Rubik's Cube. That's when Appleseed, Applejack, and Chaotica walked by. I decided to start talking to them, because it was good to see a familiar face. I walked up to them and overheard their conversation.

"Come on, sugarcube. Why not?" This was Applejack speaking.

"Ah just can't, alright?" Appleseed responded.

"Ya still haven't given me a reason." I decided to not intrude in on their conversation, and I walked back a bit and talked to Chaotica.

"What are they talking about?" I whispered.

"Oh... I wasn't supposed to tell anyone... But... I think they might... Like each other..."

"But, he has a human mind. Don't you think that's a bit... Weird?"

"I don't know..." She said, and looked away.

"And doesn't Saibot know exactly what we're doing at all times?"

"Umm... I wasn't supposed to tell you... But..."

"But what?"

"Oh... Nothing..." She clearly didn't want to tell me, and I wasn't going to force it out of her. I went back up to eavesdrop.

Applejack was talking "There isn't anyone you can tell? Is... Is it because there's more? Is it that green unicorn that walked by us that one day?"

"Oh, no, of course not! You're the only..."

"Oh, howdy, newcomer!" I'd been spotted by Applejack. I tried to hide, but Appleseed knew I was there now, and he gave me an evil eye, then his expression changed.

"Hey, Music Medic! Have you met Applejack?" I shook my head, although I knew damn well who Applejack was. Appleseed continued. "Well, this is Applejack."

Applejack nudged him, and said "Please?" in a low volume.

Appleseed put on a clearly fake smile, and said "She's my girlfriend!" Applejack smiled, and he said to her "You go ahead, Ah'll catch up in a second."

Applejack trotted along, looking pretty happy, and Chaotica stayed behind with us. Appleseed went back to an angry expression, and backed me up into a wall.

"DON'T. TELL. A SOUL. YOU HEAR ME?" He whisper-yelled.

My heart was still racing from the startling outburst. "You mean, that you're dating AJ?"

"YES. TELL NOPONY."

"But... I thought Saibot could see us at all times."

He chortled a bit. "You actually believed that? He just says that to make us obey him."

"Oh... Really?"

"Of course. I'm the element of honesty, aren't I?"

"Oh... Yeah..."

He seemed to calm down. "Believe me, I tried to stick to the rules, but I could tell AJ was coming on to me, and I couldn't just pass up the opportunity..." For some reason, I understood exactly how he was feeling. Even if I didn't, I'm not one for spreading secrets. I nodded, and he backed away from me. "Now let's go catch up with AJ."

We walked back towards Applejack, had some conversations, ate dinner, etc. etc. etc. and then it was six o'clock.

The rest of the GPF9 and I were now at training. I learned how to stand on my hind legs by shifting my weight to my thighs, and advanced to level eight, which was basic punching.

Then, I went back home, a bit sore from multiple falls and hyperextended limbs. This is where a second story began, the first being between me and the rest of the GPF9, the second between me and the mane six, but mostly Twilight Sparkle. I walked into the library and it was dark. Before I could find a light, I was hit with a bright flash of light and a big "SURPRISE!" I fell backwards. It hadn't even crossed my mind that Pinkie would throw me another surprise party because I was hospitalized for the first one. I was greeted by the flamboyant pony herself.

"HEY THERE, MED! HAPPY I FINALLY GOT YOU A PARTY? LET'S GO GET SOME PUNCH!" She trotted briskly over to the refreshment table. I followed close by, dodging many mingling ponies along the way. When I got to the punch table I saw ten ponies huddled around it, and they included the Mane 6 ponies (excluding Rarity) and the rest of the trainees in the GPF9. Twilight walked up to me.

"You didn't tell me you were one of the ponies that were gonna take over the Elements of Harmony!"

"Oh, yeah..." I was confused and lost in thought.

"That's awesome. I thought they gave up on that search about ten months ago, but I guess they must have found you guys."

"Yeah." I seem to have problems saying anything else but that.

"So what do you have to do as a holder of an Element of Harmony?"

"Not much, just if an enemy comes into town it's our job to take care of them." I finally started saying words. I was getting comfortable in the conversation, which continued for a whole from there. To be perfectly honest, I don't remember most of it. About the time we finished, the party ended, and everypony went home. So it was me and Twilight again, with Spike asleep. We were both tired, so we went to our separate beds and fell asleep.

Now being a hormone-filled fifteen year old male, I seek excitement in my life. Sitting here writing is not too exciting, but I will do it if it means I will never forget what happened to me. So I will lay here and write the HELL out of this story, except that starring now I'm going to skip through to the more important parts.

So I woke up that morning fresh as a... Cartoon pony. Thanks to a talk with Lyra at the previous night's training, I knew how to use the shower, make myself breakfast, and get ready to go outside. The shower was nowhere near as private as showers in human world, but that's probably because ponies are almost always naked. It still felt awkward showering with Spike and Twilight right there, so I just washed my mane and got out. Me and Twilight had a pretty lengthy conversation at breakfast.

You heard me correctly. I HAD A LENGTHY CONVERSATION! I also managed to keep from saying something to blow my cover. Whatever was happening to me, I sure as hell loved it. That day at training, Saibot taught me all about my "experiences" in Canterlot that I could use as a backstory. I also began to learn to walk on my hind legs. The rest of the day went by uneventful.

The next few days were uneventful as well. Throughout those days, I began to learn all about Twilight and her life, while she learned all about my fake one. At training, I had advanced all the way to jumping-jacks.

Now, it was my eighth day in Equestria. I was at training. Saibot had given the six of us a different task than usual, bonding. I groaned in my head, but I kept it to myself.

"Yes, bonding." Saibot explained. "If you're going to save all the ponies in Equestria from certain death, you need to work as a team." I wasn't sure where this was going. "So I decided that you're all going bowling!" This kind of sounded like a good idea. I'd make some new friends and learn how to bowl as a pony.

"SIR, YES, SIR!" I was becoming more confident by the minute.

"Thanks for the enthusiasm, Med." So we headed off to the bowling alley. We walked in somewhat of a horizontal line formation. However, I felt like I was being pushed out of the conversation the ponies who have all known each other longer than me were having, and I was eventually pushed out of the line and behind everypony. This used to happen often in school, I tried to talk to someone, and another person came by and stood on the other side of me, and I was eventually pushed behind as they continued to talk like I wasn't there.

NO. Not today. I held my ground where I was and Appleseed and Rainbow, the two ponies on either side of me moved over to give me room again. I liked this confidence. I wanted more of it. They seemed to be talking about something I wasn't here for, so I remained silent. This trip to the bowling alley had one more important event before we arrived. I was lost in thought about who-knows-what when a heard a loud but short scream come from Chaotica. When we all similtaneously looked over, we saw Chaotica blushing.

"Sorry..." she said "I just... I saw a bug..."

We then arrived at the bowling alley. It looked the exact same as it did in "The Cutie Pox," although there were no parodies of Big Lebowski to be found. We went inside, signed up, and trotted to our lane. I'm positive I was nervous, considering I sucked at bowling as a human, and I was sure bowling as a pony would be ten times more brutal.

Rainbow Eclipse went first. He began to levitate the ball with his horn, until Appleseed cried out:

"Come on, Rainbah, that ain't fair!" Rainbow Eclipse rolled his eyes, and attempted to grab the ball with his hooves. After a few tries, he got it up off the ground. He slowly got the ball to roll down the lane, and it managed to knock over three pins. His next roll went straight into the gutter. Appleseed laughed, and grabbed the ball out of Rainbow's hooves.

"Let me show you how it's done." Appleseed snickered. He placed the ball on his wrist and twisted his arm to hold the ball. It looked as if he had done this many times before. With a flick of the wrist, the ball was sent right down the center of the lane for a strike. Appleseed looked over to the lane next to him.

"Did you see that, ladies?" Half the mares bowling in the lane next to use rolled their eyes, while the other half swooned. One pantomimed talking on a telephone and mouthed the words "call me." My studying of the mares was interrupted by the sound of celebration.

"BUCK YEAH! MOTHERBUCKER! THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE!" Who said these words? Why... It was Chaotica of course.

Chaotica?

I looked over to our lane to see all the pins knocked down and a blue pegasus celebrating loudly. I looked back at the other ponies, and they all had their mouths agape, Saibot, Lyra, and myself included.

"I guess that's why she calls herself Chaotica." Sweetpea said. Chaotica trotted back to her seat and sat down proudly.

Rainbow Eclipse broke the silence. "I guess it just takes bowling to open a girl up."

Appleseed fell on the floor and started uncontrollably laughing. "Yeah, just roll that ball through the lane and she's opened up!" Appleseed said through his chuckles.

"Shut up, that's not what I meant!" Rainbow rolled his eyes.

"SO WHY DO THEY CALL IT BOWLING ANYWAY?" Cutie Pie shifted the mood. "I MEAN, THERE ARE NO BOWLS!"

The next five frames went by uneventful, and I honestly don't remember most of it. But then it was my turn on frame six. After a few falls, missed throws, and gutters, I was boasting a score of zero. Not that it made too much of a difference, for Cutie Pie had three, and Sweetpea had nine. But this frame was indeed an important one. So I began my bowl. I picked up the ball with both of my hooves, and backed up. I ran forward using the ball to support me. I pulled the ball back to bowl, but my body managed to keep moving forward without it. I was sent sliding down the bowling lane, which must have been freshly waxed, because it was quite slippery. I tried to lift a hoof to stopped myself after I regained my thoughts, but to no avail. The last thing I remembered hearing was the faint screams of Lyra as I hit my head hard on a metal bar.

*********************************

I woke up in my bed. I looked at my hand. It was... a hand. I fell to my pillow and shut my eyes. It was all a dream...

Part 5: You've Had Your Fill of Sinking

...Or was it?

It was. There's no use in kidding myself. I'm just a depressed teenager who had an elaborate dream about my favorite TV show. I guess I can just try to run into the street and get hit by a car tomorrow. For now, I need to sleep.

At least... This is what I THOUGHT...

"ROY!" I opened my eyes only seconds later to a familiar voice. Saibot? I was in the black room again. Perhaps it was not a dream. All the time I was thinking about this, Saibot was pacing back and forth frantically.

"MOY! RED! FOCUS!" Saibot forced out of his mouth.

"I... I didn't," I was confused.

"SHUSH!" Saibot cut me off, then he wiped his brow. He took many deep breaths, and then finally began speaking.

"Ok. So... Music Medic is dead."

I interrupted "I am?"

"SHUSH!" Saibot was hyperventilating again. He began talking again after about thirty seconds. "Yes, Music Medic died. That bar went right through his pony brain."

He paused, then continued. "The problem is, in order to make you a new body and put you into it, it will take three months tops, now that it's only me and Doctor Whooves working." He was half talking to himself, half taking to me.

I started to ask about Lyra, but I decided to keep my mouth shut.

"The reason it would take even longer is because Lyra's still in the hospital. She broke her horn and it's useless until they can fix it. You following?"

I nodded.

"You can talk now."

"Why can't I just wait out the three months on Earth? The time change makes it seem like only about half a day to me."

"You've actually been gone for a few days already. We already had a funeral and..." He changed to a facial expression that said 'I should just get to the point...' then yelled, "CHAOTICA KIDNAPPED EVERYPONY!"

"Eh?"

Saibot began to hyperventilate again. "CHAOTICA, SHE... SHE TOOK... THEM ALL... TO THE HIVE!"

"Of the... Changelings?"

"YES!" Saibot paused for about a minute to calm down again. "Last night, Chaotica paid a surprise visit to Rainbow, Appleseed, Sweetpea, and Cutie Pie. She knocked them out when she opened the door and stuffed them all in a bag. I saw it. She came to my house to bring me, but when she hit me, she forgot I was in armor. I saw the other four ponies tied up and attempted to grab her, but she flew away to the hive with the bag, and I don't have wings."

"Perhaps Chaotica was replaced by a changeling somewhere along the way?"

"Always I possiblity. But I... I DON'T KNOW!" Saibot let out a grunt. We were teleported into the training room. He began speaking immediately. "OK, so you're going to fight an entire army of changelings. Any questions?"

"I... I can't do that!" I retorted.

"I know... But what other choice do I have? I'm not going to have four... Maybe five kids be killed!"

"...Can you go?"

Saibot looked completely shocked by this question. "No." was all he said.

"Why not?"

"I can't" Saibot was being stubborn.

"WHY NOT?"

"I just can't!"

"Well, that's fine... I'm sure five innocent teenagers wanted to die anyw-"

Saibot put his fist over my mouth. "Do you want to know WHY? You want to know WHY I can't go alone?"

I nodded. Saibot appeared to be contemplating something for a few moments, and then he reluctantly began to lift his hooves to his head. He took off his mask for a few milliseconds, and then collapsed to the floor. Through his deep coughs and spits, he managed to get his helmet back on.

"Roy. I have never told anyone this before. I am actually a human, transported to Equestria, just like you." Although I didn't show it on the outside, on the inside my jaw was dropping to the floor. "I can't remember my exact origins, but I was a powerful ancient warrior for years. That is, until I died. It wasn't until years later that my body was seen again, dead on the battlefield. A sorcerer named Quan Chi had heard all about what I had done, and resurrected me for a mission. This mission was to save Equestria from destruction at the hands of the Scorpioponies. These were viscious creatures who spread hatred throughout Equestria, interrupting the balance of harmony. I was given 24 hours on a portal to either kill their leaders or negotiate with them, and hell, they wouldn't negotiate. So I went to assassinate them, as instructed. Unfortunately, I was caught, and I had to fight off hordes after hordes of Scorpioponies. I fought off a lot of them, but I eventually fell to the ground, weakened. They took me into a prison camp, where I was tortured in anguish for about five years." He paused a moment. "That's when the previous controllers of the Elements of Harmony, six ponies just like the mane six today, except all males, came to defeat the Scropieponies. They found me just barely struggling for life. So they quickly took me to the doctor most qualified for the job, a stallion known as The Doctor, although he is known to most ponies as Time Turner, or the occasional Doctor Whooves. Turns out he used to be a human too. Actually, he was a Time-Lord in human form, but he knew and loved the human race well before he was marooned here. After he took me into his care, he built me this suit and saved my life. We became good friends after that, which was obvious considering we with both from the same dimension and he saved my life. He showed me the wonders of being a pony in Equestria. I quickly learned it was so much better than being a human, and I decided to stay." He paused again, and he didn't look like he was going to continue.

I started to laugh as if he was joking. His gaze was dead serious.

"Yes," I said, "But what are we going to do to save the others? There's no chance in Hell I can defeat all the changelings on my own."

"Roy." Saibot placed a hand on my shoulder, and looked as if he was holding back a grin. "We're gonna have to reveal your secret."

**********************************

They came one by one. Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and then Pinkie Pie. Saibot walked in last.

"Meet the highest trained warriors bits can buy! I'm sure you're familiar with them."

Raibow Dash piped up, "So we're getting paid?"

"Unfortunately, I have nothing. But that's beside the point. I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here, and why there's a human standing in front of you." They all nodded. "Ladies, meet Music Medic!"

Twilght chimed in, "Music Medic? I thought..."

"Yes! He is dead! At least his pony form, that is. BUT, he was actually..." Saibot gulped. "A human."

"Human?" Applejack questioned, "What in tarnation is a human?"

"I think I heard about them in my books. Some theorists believed that humans existed in an alternate dimension." This was Twilight.

"WHAT'S A DIMENSION? IS IT EDIBLE?" This was Pinkie Pie.

"FOCUS!" Saibot interrupted their idle chat. "You're all familiar that the ponies that were controlling the Elements of Harmony mysteriously vanished last night, correct?"

"Correct."

"Excellent. They were humans, too."

There were a couple gasps from the crowd of five.

"Yes. Rainbow Eclipse, Sweetpea, Cutie Pie, and..." He looked at Applejack. "Appleseed."

Applejack looked a little green. She then attempted to shake it off and spoke, "Well what in tarnation are we gunna do? Those darn changelings m'aght eat 'em, or work 'em to death, or push them into Gasley Gorge, or..."

"Or make CUPCAKES out of them! I like cupcakes!" Pinkie Pie interrupted brusquely.

"I am well aware of the power of the changelings." This was Saibot again. "That is why you five are here. From seeing you guys fight the changelings at the royal wedding, I can tell you're the best candidates out there."

The mane six began talking simultaneously, so I could only pick out a few sentences. "I think that was more of a fluke, I can't do that again!"

"Are you kidding? I could take down a changeling army twice that size in ten seconds flat!"

"Ummm... Guys?"

Saibot interrupted the chatter. "I'm sorry, guys. I see no other options."

"But there's just no way!"

"DO I NEED TO GET MY PARTY CANNON?"

"Ah still can't believe mah Appleseed lied tah me..."

"Uhhhmmm... Guys?"

"Perhaps if we work out an attack strategy..."

"Come on, Twilight. Who needs plans when you have this brawn?"

"GUUUUUUUUUYS!" Everypony instantly turned to look at the blushing yellow equine. "I was thinking... I mean... If it's alright with you guys... That we could... Just like... sneak in... instead of fighting all those... scary changelings."

Rainbow Dash interjected without hesitation, "But I was really looking forward to kicking some changeling tail!"

"That's actually not a bad idea!" This was Saibot again. "If we can sneak in, stealthily, grab the ponies, and then get the hell out, we'll avoid the chance of death!" Everypony in the room, myself and Rainbow Dash included, winced at the word death.

"But what about Chaotica?" This was me, finally saying words.

"I'm sorry to tell you, but there's really nothing I can do, Roy."

I sullenly shrugged. Trying to think beyond the cloud of confusion in my mind was beyond impossible at this point.

"Alright, Twilight, do you still have that book on the research of changelings?" Saibot asked Twilight.

"Yeah. No one ever checks that one out."

"Good. We're going to need that. We'll pick it up along the way and plan. As for the rest of you, follow along."

"What about me?" This was... Me.

"Oh, right. We can't just bring a human through town, now can we?" He contemplated for a moment. "I'd assume we could stuff you in a bag and carry it..."

To be perfectly honest, I just wanted to do whatever it took to get back to bed the quickest. "Ok..." I said, raising the tone my voice as if I was asking a question.

"I have a better idea! Be right back." Twilight said, before running off. She returned with two books about ten minutes later. "I brought my spell book which I had previously bookmarked on the page with the human-pony transfer spell, as well as the guide to Changelings, so that we don't have to pick it up later.

"So you're suggesting we turn Roy back into a pony?" Saibot asked.

"No, I thought I'd utilize this book as a hat." Twilight responded, not one to resist sarcasm. "Yes, that was precisely my suggestion."

"Brilliant idea, Twilight, why hadn't I thought of that?"

"Oh, it's no big deal. There's one small problem though, it only lasts 24 hours. Do you think that would be enough time to be able to rescue Roy's friends and escape?"

I thought to myself: "I have friends?"

Saibot responded: "No. But it's always worth a shot." Him and everypony in the room who was paying attention shrugged.

"Ok. Then let's do this. Roy, come here." Twilight was talking to me now. I stood up and walked over to her. "This may sting a little, because I'm positive human bodies weren't built for this." I nodded and braced. She stepped back, strained, and shot me with a purple stream of light. I immediately felt anguish as my organs shifted and buckled into a different form. My hooves finally hit the ground, my transformation complete.

I breathed heavily. "Why didn't this hurt that much the first time?"

"Simple." Saibot responded. "Your body was filled up with anesthesia before the transport. We didn't have time for that now."

"Ok." I responded, unable to give an intelligent response with the time given.

"Alright, now that that's settled, let's head off for the Hive!" The five mares and myself trotted reluctantly after Saibot, Twilight quickly emerging from the pack to the front to discuss plans with Saibot. We walked through the town in silence, until we reached the edge of the Everfree Forest, at the exact point where I had originally spawned. Except this time, it was different. The dim light of the moon casted an eerie glow upon the trees. A bird swooped down and grabbed a worm, then proceeded to smash its head in, leaving the oddest looking puddle of cartoon blood. The whole place seemed ten times more cryptic in the early morning.

We continued into the Everfree Forest, every small sound in the dark causing our ears to perk up. Even Rainbow Dash looked scared, despite the failed mask of courage she tried to show. Twilight and Saibot continued discussing plans regardless. They suddenly stopped when they were interrupted from a certain pink equine. I had remembered from the very first episode that Pinkie Pie laughed in the face of danger, so my heart sunk as I looked over towards Pinkie...

Nothing. Nothing but a laughing pink equine.

"Pinkie!" Applejack broke the awkward silence. "What in tarnation are y'all doin'? Ya' nearly scared the apples outta me!"

"Sorry." Pinkie was having trouble talking through laughter. "I think this is a Pinkie sense." She laughed again. "Never had this one before, my belly tickles like craaazy!"

"Well stop it! We have lives to save and we don't want your laughing messing it up!" This was Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie Pie couldn't stop. Whatever this sense was indicating, it was close. We all stood in silence, minus the laughing pink equine, who was laughing so hard she was crying. I believe I heard the words "Help me" escape her mouth, but it was extremely unclear. With that distraction, we didn't notice what was approaching right behind us.

Suddenly, two black figures jumped out and pounced directly on Saibot. One of these figures grabbed Saibot by the helmet and pulled it off. Gasping for air, Saibot struggled in trying to fight back, but appeared to be losing. The rest of the ponies seemed to be frozen in shock.

"You're transferring your weight too much to the front." Lyra had said, "Remember, you don't have feet anymore. Try standing on your heels, then moving your weight to the front of your right hoof and kicking out with your left."

I did as instructed, and I gave a hard kick right to the side of Lyra's thigh.

I turned red. "Oops, sorry! I didn't mean to..."

She interrupted, "No, it's... alright." She gave a halfhearted smile and trotted away.

The memory of my training flashed through my mind's eye, and the next thing I knew, my shin was in a Changeling's face. The blow from my hoof sent him flying backwards into his partner, as they collided head-on and tumbled a few feet away. Before I could react, they ran away whimpering, leaving behind more oddly colored cartoon blood. That's when I remembered Saibot. I looked back down to see Twilight already putting his mask back on and asking him questions.

One problem though, he wasn't responding. Twilight placed an ear up to Saibot's chest.

"He's breathing guys, he's just unconscious!" Everypony breathed a sigh of relief. "We still need to make it to the Hive quickly, though. Does somepony want to volunteer to carry him?"

The orange cowfilly spoke up brusquely. "Ah think Dash here can take care a' him. She's got the wings."

The mentioned pegasus groaned. "Ugggggh... Can't Applejack do it?"

"Nope!" She replied, and gave a proud smile.

The Pegasus looked at the purple unicorn in hope of assistance. "Sorry Rainbow Dash, but Applejack has a point there."

"Ha!" Applejack got in the first word again, still glowing with pride.

"Fine..." She groaned, then stuck her tongue out in annoyance at the proud cowfilly. She then picked up Saibot and placed him on her back, then started flying with a bored expression.

"Alright then, I think I remember enough of Saibot's plan. It was rather peculiar, but he knows this place better than I do, so who am I to argue?"

"So let's go PARTY!" The energetic pink equine interjected.

"Quietly." Twilight gave Pinkie a look and went on her way as the rest of us followed. She then slowed down a little and came close to my side.

"That was a nice move you did there, Med." She said, winking.

"Yeah. Honestly I have no idea how I did it, it just kinda happened." I responded in an almost bored tone.

"Well I'm sure you can do it again, being the awesome fighter you are." She winked again.

I started sweating a little. "Yeah" I repeated. She then walked back to the front. On the plus side, I was no longer in an awkward social situation. However, I was no longer talking to Twilight.

We continued on the rest of the path in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts and realizations about what we're about to do. Fluttershy tried to sneak back home a few times, but the sounds from the Everfree Forest frightened her and she huddled closely with the group. After about 10 minutes of walking behind Twilight's guidance, it came into view. The "Hive" was what appeared to be a large system of caves, each guarded by hundreds of black figures, which I couldn't make out from that distance. Twilight took us to the side and instructed her in her plot.

"Each of the changelings can fly and use magic, but their powers are limited. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, we need you two to..." When Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash, she noticed something. "RAINBOW DASH, WHERE'S SAIBOT?"

"Oh! I left him out on the path."

"GO GET HIM! NOW! WHAT IF HE GETS ATTACKED AGAIN?"

"Alright... Fine..." Rainbow Dash flew groggily out of the bushes, and returned with a limp body. All of a sudden, this limp body shook its head.

"Wh... Where am I?" When Saibot spoke, Rainbow Dash dropped him on the ground.

"RAINBAH DASH!"

"Sorry!" The blue mare lifted up Saibot's head, and he spoke again.

"What happened?"

The studious unicorn spoke again. "Two Changelings jumped out at you and attacked you. You were incapacitated by them. We were just about to begin your mission."

"Excellent!" He grinned.

He was cut off by the sound of bushes rattling behind us. I turned my head to see what was happening.

The last thing I remembered was something hard cracking the back of my skull.

Part 6: The Life Held In Your...

My eyes shot open from the impact of the frigid water splashing against my scalp. Quickly my eyes came into focus, and it was none other than Saibot standing in front of me, grinning.

"Hey there, Music Medic. Glad you're awake." He chuckled to himself.

"Wha- What? Where am I?" I asked, bemused beyond belief.

"Currently, you're tied to a wall in a cave. Where exactly in this cave you are, that's confidential, my friend."

I took that time to notice my surroundings. What Saibot had said was true. I was hanging on a cave wall by my ankles and wrists. As I looked around, I saw the mane six, excluding Rarity, to my left. Looking to the right, I saw five more familiar faces. In order from closest to furthest away from me, they were Appleseed, Rainbow Eclipse, Cutie Pie, Sweetpea, and... Chaotica. Each pony on either side of me had an enormous bump on the back of their head. It was then I noticed the pain on the back of my skull I was hiding. Whatever I was hit with, I was hit with it hard. I decided to speak the most vulgar, yet obvious question on my mind.

"What the hell is going on?" I yelled, then winced at how that sent another jolt of pain through the back of my head.

"Ah... You'll find out soon enough, my little pony. But I have important matters to attend to first."

Saibot left and returned with many buckets of water and a couple pieces of paper. He set the paper down and woke up each equine in the room one at a time, the same way he woke me up, he skipped Pinkie and Cutie Pie, claiming they wouldn't pay attention and they'd just be an annoyance. After waking everypony else and then telling each of them to shut up, he stood on a pedestal in the middle of the cave and began talking.

"Greetings, all. Welcome to your final destination!" Saibot was grinning. "Now that everypony's here, I can tell you why you're here. I know some of you who were here earlier were waiting ever so patiently to hear this." Saibot said this part in a sarcastic tone, while gesturing towards the five ponies who arrived the night before.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, SAIBOT?!?" Appleseed yelled, almost growling.

"I thought I told you to shut up!" Saibot responded.

"NEVER!"

"Fine then." Saibot left the room, and returned a few seconds later with something in his hand. He walked up to Appleseed and stuck a gag in his mouth without warning, and Appleseed shut up.

"Now that that's settled, allow me to calmly explain to you why you're here." He ponited at Twilight. "You see, when this fool and her friends here ruined our plans to take over Equestria at the royal wedding, we knew, in order to have a chance to take over, we had to get rid of them. To do that, we devised a plan. My advisor Nooby... I mean I... went into Ponyville to spy on the ponies who ruined our plans, while acting as if I was a regular pony. I even got a job as a janitor in a laboratory. Turns out this laboratory was full of ponies, studying alternate dimensions, most importantly to them, the human universe. I worked there for a couple months, and I was able to rent an apartment close enough to the library to see what was going on. One day at my job, the pony named Doctor Whooves claimed that he finally finished a portal. They took it into testing, and everypony was very excited, including myself, since I'd heard such great things about humans. Boy, was I wrong. After the doctors did some random calculations or something, they pushed a few buttons, and within seconds, out came a large black-haired man. Before I could fully observe this creature, it jumped out and attacked me, yelling something along the lines of 'KAAAAAAAAN'"

Sweetpea interrupted. "Genghis Kahn?"

"I don't know, maybe. But shut up before I gag you like boy toy over here."

This remark made Appleseed struggle for a few seconds, while saying something inaudible.

"Anyway, he charged right at me and slashed at me with his bronze sword repeatedly. I blacked out, but when I awoke, I was in a hospital bed wearing this armor. Whooves and Lyra approached me as I woke, and told me they were deeply sorry for what happened, and that they'd do almost anything to make it up to me. I told them I needed some time to think about it. That night, my thoughts were filled with nothing but human resentment, and I knew what I had to do. The next day, I messaged my queen about my ideas, and we devised a secret plan. Now, we had to set this plan into action."

He heard Rainbow Dash give a big snore. He stormed out of the room and returned with a bucket of ice water, which he proceeded to dump on Rainbow Dash's head.

"I'm sorry, is my backstory interrupting your nap?"

The athlete shivered while giving a weak shake of the head.

"Good." Saibot walked back to the center. "As I was saying, we devised an evil plan to take down some humans, as well as achieve our ultimate goal of taking down those fools. Our first step, was to lure in one of you, and disconnect you from your 'Elephants of Armory' whatever you call your crappy powers. To do that, we had to get rid of one of you. This one was too gullible."

Saibot threw the papers he was holding onto the floor, and the pictures on them were very revealing shots of Rarity. As a looked around, I saw a wide variety of different expressions. I saw some disgusted faces, some in pure shock, and one face that clearly said "Me Gusta" from Appleseed. I didn't really know what to think. Saibot started speaking again, in what resembled a French accent.

"Oh hello Rarity, I'm a famous fashion designer in Manehattan! I love your work, come with me and we'll talk business!" Saibot returned to a normal voice. "She was too easy..."

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?" Twilight growled as she struggled in her ropes.

"Oh, don't worry. She's alive and well. Quite well, from what I've heard." Saibot snickered. "Anyway, the people at the laboratory had heard the news of Rarity's disconnection from the elements, so I gave them the idea to send in humans as ponies to be the new controllers. After looking all over Equestria and realizing there was just nopony to replace Rarity, they agreed. They invented a machine to turn humans that go through the portal into ponies, and they completely revised it to be more user-friendly. After about three months of waiting, they had finished. So they scanned through the human universe, looking at all the people who fit the generosity element. They found that the best candidate was an adolescent male from the 21st century, Andrew, here." He pointed at Rainbow Eclipse. "Since our brain scanner said the boy was having some serious suicidal thoughts, we knew he would be willing. So we brought him to Equestria as a rather hideous, but effective pony. Then I took on the job of training him as they reset the system for another go, which took longer than I expected, two months. Eventually, we found five more candidates and brought them all here, those five candidates being you five. After we had gotten you all assimilated into Equestria, I was ready to put my master plan into action. That's when Medic here decided to be an idiot and get himself killed. We had to revise our plan completely. Luckily, the portal only takes about a week if the human to pony transfer is not done, so that didn't set us back too far. That's when we came up with a better idea. Using Chaotica as a scapegoat, I acted as if she was the one take them all to the hive, when in reality I just had a changeling take my form and guide them. We had to keep one pony, Medic, in Equestria so that we could use the sympathy of the former controllers of the elements of harmony towards Roy as their fatal flaw. The rest, most of you were there for, and you may have realized I hit you in the head with a lead brick. It's super effective. Anyway, any questions?"

"What's gonna happen to us...?" The mumble from the bashful dark blue Pegasus was barely audible.

"Glad you asked, my little Chaotica. You see, you guys are all our personal slaves, and will do as we say, when we say it! If you don't... let's just say we have methods to make sure you never make that mistake again." Twilight looked down at the picture on the floor and gulped. I myself was rather nervous as to what would become of me. "Well, good luck! I'll be on my merry way!" With that, Saibot trotted out. He came back in for a second.

"One more thing, you're being monitored. Any of you make a peep, you'll face the consequences." For the life of me I was afraid to ask what these consequences were.

So there we sat, exchanging nervous glances as each of us hung on the wall, afraid to try to escape, by fear of what would happen to us. Occasionally, a few coughs were heard, but besides that, no one dared made a peep. Not even Appleseed made a sound, although we usually couldn't get him to shut up. Eventually, I droned out into my own thoughts, thinking about a wide variety of things. Although it was hard to not think about, since I'm a fifteen year old boy, I had to keep my usual sexual thoughts out of my head. Why, you ask, did I have to restrict my thoughts? Let's just say everypony was a little "spread out" on the wall...

After about twenty minutes of my random thoughts, I was snapped out by a coughing fit by Twilight. When I looked at her, she was gesturing towards me. I gave my attention, and she proceeded to point at me with her hoof, and then move her neck down to where her hoof was tied. She made a neck slashing gesture with her tied hoof.

Was she... Asking me to kill myself?

Twily repeated the symbol.

I had a sudden realization. I get it! When I die, I go back to Earth. She was trying to help me escape. But what about her? If I left her alone, would she perish?

I gestured just that the best I could, shrugging and pointing at her, attempting to ask "What about you?"

I must have gotten the message across, because she shrugged and looked at the floor, then quickly up to the ceiling, with the clopographic images of her friend still sitting on the floor. Once again, we went back to silence. Through my scattered thoughts, I eventually fell asleep. I didn't know how long I was out, but I perked up when I heard a loud yell of "GOOD MORNING!" in the voice of Saibot. I looked over at Saibot, and I swear I saw Queen Chrysalis for a second there. Shaking it off as a dream, I gave attention as my warden spoke again.

"Hello, everypony! Today begins the first day of work! First, each of you will be called down one at a time. Once everypony is done, I will permit you to ask anymore questions you may have. Anypony who talks now suffers the consequences." Saibot pointed at Eclipse. "Drew, you're first. Let's go." He untied Eclipse and they walked out. After only a couple minutes, they returned.

The next to be called was Appleseed. Just like last time, he returned within a couple minutes and was tied back up.

"ROY!"

My heart felt as if it was coming up my throat. I knew he was gonna call my name eventually, but I was scared as hell to know why. I was untied, and I followed Saibot through a few dark hallways on wobbly legs. We then reached a door, and he opened it for me. I entered a dark room, unable to see anything. I turned around and expected Saibot to be walking in after me. Instead, a door slammed right into my face. I heard a crack and saw a few sparks as I was flung backwards. Tasting blood, I opened my eyes to see a black and green blur. After a few moments I refocused, and I saw the smiling face of a villain all too familiar to me.

"Hello there, my little Music Medic." Queen Chrysalis spoke, with a grin.

Part 7: Hooves Are Shaking Cold; These Hooves Aren't Meant To Hold

I tried to squirm out from underneath the powerful Changeling, but to no avail. Immediately two of her minions came to the sides of my head, then proceeded to hit me repeatedly. With every connection I saw stars in my eyes, especially when their hard hooves came into contact with my nose, still tender from the door. After what felt like an hour, they grabbed me, pinned me to the wall, and NAILED my hooves to the wall.

FUCKING. NAILS. IT HURT LIKE HELL.

Although I was wincing from the metal stabbing through my skin tissue, I kept my eyes open as Chrysalis walked towards me.

"Alright, you three. I'm gonna give two options, both of them seeming rather appalling to you, coming from your soft-skinned pony culture."

"The first," she continued, "is that we send you back into the room with the mares, and you will be forced to do various tasks with them as we command you to."

I had a sick feeling as to what these tasks were, and it made me feel seriously uncomfortable thinking about it.

"The second is that you get removed from this world, and put back into your pathetic human lives. However, everypony else will remain here, to torture without you." She immediately jumped towards Eclipse and stuck her horn up to his throat. "So what will it be Rainbow Eclipse, stay, or go?"

Eclipse was sweating furiously, and he looked as if he was having trouble thinking. He finally settled on a decision. "The former, please."

Chrysalis gave a nod and released him, ordering her minions to send him back to the room and send the changeling they used to replace Eclipse back to her. She then proceeded to jump towards Appleseed and ask him the same question.

Without skipping a beat, he responded, grinning, "Chrysalis, I'd love to stay here."

"Well then, you seem too happy about this. Guards, find out what makes him miserable, and do it to him. I despise happiness. But first, take him back, like you did with Rainbow Eclipse."

The Changelings saluted to their master and did as instructed. I knew what was coming next. Chrysalis jumped at me, at stuck her horn up to my neck, slightly breaking the skin and bloodying the tip of her horn.

"Music Medic, stay, or go?"

I couldn't breathe, mostly from the sharp object piercing the tissue of my esophagus. I knew what I wanted, but... I wasn't sure.

"MUSIC MEDIC! STAY OR GO?" Chrysalis repeated her question.

Now I admit what I did next was a very pussy move, but I seriously wanted it.

"I just wanna go home..."

"With pleasure." Chrysalis' horn lit up, and the next thing I knew my skull was snapped into my bits, and my brain was on every corner of the room.

I blinked. There I was, back in my room. I looked at my iPod, it was 4:00, of the same night I left for Equestria.

So anyway, it seems as if one day in Equestria is one hour on Earth. I was gone for a little over eight days (not including my little bowling alley scrap) and I returned eight hours later.

So that's my story. That whole story took me about an hour and a half to write out, and I have to wake up at six. Great. I'll call it a night for now, as I am too tired to think.

So I decided to fake being sick today, which wasn't really that hard. I got to go back to my bed and it's now about 6:30 AM. A sudden realization just came to my head that ten souls are being tortured right now and I was too much of a coward to help them... Why am I such an idiot? I wanna go back to Equestria, I hate it here.

June 22nd, 2012

Sorry for not writing on you, paper, but I fell asleep after that last sentence and I couldn't get any alone time until now. Anyway, I took the day off again, and I'm alone in the room for once. I can't live with the fact that those ponies are getting tortured without me, so I decided I'm just not gonna live. I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier, it's so easy to kill yourself when all the kids are away at school! A bunch of the kids have ties in their closet. It can't be that hard to make a noose, right?

So that's just what I did. I put a tie around my neck, wrapped it around the ceiling fan, closed my eyes, and jumped from a chair. Not a single doubt was in my head. However, someone... somepony else did have some reasons for keeping me alive.

I made a loud 'OOF!' as I was hit hard in the stomach. I fell off my chair and onto the floor with a thud. As I griped in pain, I looked up to see a panting Lyra Heartstrings laying on top of me. I felt mixed feelings once again at this point. Disappointed that I wasn't dead, happy that Lyra came back, a little excited that I had a panting female laying on top of me, yet a little disturbed that I had a panting female laying on top of me.

"ROOOOOOOOY!" She yelled, still breathing heavily, then lowered her tone. "Don't check out yet, we still need you!"

"But... I'm a coward... I don't like facing my problems." Well, that was brutally honest of myself.

"Well get over it! There are lives on the..."

One of the advisors opened the door to check on me. He expected me to be dead with a tie around my neck a lot more than he expected what he actually saw. He just stood there, wide-eyed for a few moments, and then Lyra shot him with her magic. He immediately walked out the door without a word.

"Amnesia spells." She chuckled. "I told Doc they'd come in handy." She proceeded to roll off of me, then sat down on one of my roommates' beds. "So, Roy. We have some time to kill before Doc resets the portal and can bring us back. What do you know so far?"

I sat down on my bed and explained all that Saibot had told me to the best of my ability.

"Alright then, you know almost as much as I know. Did you figure out me and Doc had absolutely no coherence with the changelings and did not know of Saibot's secret plans?"

I had figured, so I nodded, happy to see that my she of all ponies wasn't plotting to kill me.

"Good." Lyra said, creating an awkward silence.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes. After all that, I was still a nervous prick.

All of a sudden, the room around us began to fade to black. When I blinked, I was in some sort of dark cave, Lyra still there, hovering as if she was in a chair. Gravity kicked in, and we both fell to the ground with a thud. I looked at myself and realized I was still human.

Lyra took awareness quickly. "Doc? Where are we?" She seemed to say this to herself, but then I realized she had an earpiece on. "Oh, perfect!" She interjected, and I felt a little relieved that Lyra knew where we were. She proceeded to tell me to follow her, and I did as instructed, occasionally tripping over bumps in the cave which were difficult to see in the dark. She stopped in her tracks when we heard the sound of voices and perked up; I followed her example and did the same.

"You mean to tell me you changed your mind? You can't back out now!"

"I'm sorry, my lord, but I misjudged them. They're actually rather..."

"Enough! What is it? Are you gonna help us torture the humans or not?"

"Sorry, I can't."

"Fine then, you're fired."

"What?"

"You heard me, get out. Your services are no longer required."

I recognized the two voices, Queen Chrysalis and Saibot. Saibot had just been fired, but why?

"Let's keep moving," Lyra whispered and broke up my thoughts. I did as instructed, until a light was in view. Lyra hugged. tightly against the wall, and I did the same.

We inched slowly across the wall, until we finally reached the light. The light was coming from inside a room, the door of the room being wide open. Lyra stopped to peek in, and I saw her nod.

"It's all clear from guards. Wanna take a look?"

"What's in there?"

"Your friends."

I liked how Lyra still called them my friends, even though I'm sure she thought in the back of her head that friends shouldn't abandon each other, which is exactly what I did to all of them. I slid past Lyra and stuck my head in the entrance.

What I saw was mortifying. All the ponies were tied up in their usual spots, although Appleseed was moved over to my spot, and everypony to his right was one space over as well. The problem, though, was that they didn't look like themselves. Applejack and Appleseed took the most torture, both boasting serious blisters and rope burns burns, all the unicorns had dulled off horns, and all the pegasi had their wings in a bloody mess. Cutie Pie was hanging upside down, and she vomited. Seeing that made me want to vomit as well, but luckily Lyra pulled me away before I could see any more bodily fluids.

"What happened?" I asked.

"They've been forced to brutally torture each other. Chrysalis would make their pain ten times worse if they didn't. It's a sick, twisted mindset, but this is what changelings do for fun."

"You mean... These aren't the first people they've done this to?"

"Heck no! They have a whole system of rooms where changelings watch as ponies are forced to basically rape each other. This room here is now the main attraction, since they all hate Twilight Sparkle and everyone associated with her." Lyra looked to the ground. "Once again, sick and twis-"

She was cut off by the sound of footsteps, she lowered her voice to a whisper, telling me to stay down and in the darkness. I urgently did as instructed. As the sound of footsteps got closer, my heartbeat raced faster and faster, Lyra's arm being the only thing keeping me from shaking hard enough for it to be noticeable in the dark. The silhouette came into view, and the familiar helmet stuck out like a sore thumb.

Saibot.

As the the shadowy stallion came into the light, I looked at his face. He was at the point of crying, and I almost felt sympathy for him. I immediately shook off that thought, that backstabbing asshole deserved what he received. He made a brisk turn into the room and smaller the door. Taking advantage of the now-pitch black hallway, Lyra and I stuck our ears up to the door and listened.

"Alright, rise and shine, everypony, I need to get you out of here!"

"Wait, you're letting us go?" Eclipse asked, bemused.

"Yes. If I'm leaving, so are you!"

"What do you mean you're leaving?" Appleseed asked, also in a confused tone.

A long period of silence separated Saibot's speaking. I heard the clop of hooves on the rock floor every few seconds, most likely from Saibot untying each of them individually.

Saibot cleared his throat and then spoke again.

"It's a long story, but something has come up, and I've decided to be on your side again! You have to believe me, I really want to help you guys now! You guys really showed me that humans aren't as evil as I once thought! I want to make sure you get a safe trip home, I already started panning some esc-"

"NO" a collective unison yelled at Saibot, Appleseed's voice being the most powerful.

"But... But..."

Appleseed interrupted again, "But nothing, Saibot! You stab us in the back after all we've done for you, not to mention lying about how you defeated the 'Scorpioponies', tying us to a wall, and stuffing a bloody gag in my mouth, and you expect us to trust you again? No thanks." Not a single pony in the room gave an objection to this.

For a few seconds, not a sound was heard from the chamber. I couldn't see what was going on, but I'm sure nopony in the room was happy. The slow beat of Saibot walking away told me and Lyra to get away from the door, as it was about to be opened. We rolled out of the way and narrowly avoided the door slamming open. In the same manner it was opened, the door was slammed by Saibot; he ran down the hall dejectedly for the last time, clearly not noticing me and Lyra. After Saibot was completely out of view, Lyra instructed me to get up, and we walked into the room.

The mane five were certainly overjoyed to see me. All of them sprung up at me and hugged me, Twilight being the first. The ponies of GPF9 had various reactions, since they had yet to me in my human form, but most of them hadn't seen a human being in quite a while. The most peculiar reaction came from Appleseed.

"Roy?" Appleseed asked, getting my attention, especially since I didn't recall telling him my name.

"Yeah?" I responded.

"You... You were Music Medic?"

"Yeah... And?" I responded, it was kind of hard to talk, since everypony else was listening in, instead of being involved in their own conversation.

"I'm Luke."

THAT Luke? There's just no way!

"The one that sits next to me in History and occasionally lets me copy his homework?"

"Eeyup." He responded in a bad Big Macintosh voice.

"But... But... You're nothing like Luke! He's shy and terrible with ladies!"

"I guess ponies can change a man!" He snickered.

"I... Guess so?" I said, unsure, but eager to end the awkward conversation. He nodded, and gave a tip of his imaginary cap.

Lyra interjected, "Let's get a move on, guys! We're busting out of this place!"

"Right now?" A female voice replied.

"Right now!" The green unicorn assured her, "A guard could be coming to check on us at any moment, and if they see you untied we're all done for." With that, she trotted out the door, as the rest of us followed. When we rounded the corner, she huddled us together and whispered, "Okay, there are guards stationed everywhere throughout the complex, so I'm gonna need you guys to do what I say, when I say. Got it?

A wide range of positive responses and bad Big Macintosh impressions were given.

Lyra, happy with the responses, said brusquely, "Alright! Let's roll!" and then got up and trotted along, looking carefully around for signs of life. As per usual, we followed her.

I was surprised at how little guarding there actually was, as we walked for about 30 minutes completely unseen. The only thing that really happened along the way was that Pinkie complained that her legs were tired and Twilight asked Rainbow Dash to carry her, and she groggily agreed. Nonetheless, the door finally came into view after all that tedious walking.

Cautiously, Lyra tried to nudge open the door. Big mistake.

BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEP!

The human-loving unicorn cursed under her breath, and instructed us to run. We followed he through the courtyard, trying to make it back to the Everfree Forest without detection.

Unfortunately, a certain queen was a few steps ahead of us. She dropped directly in front of Lyra, causing us all to come to a screeching halt. The rest of her crew fluttered behind her, disabling us from advancing.

"RUN THE OTHER WAY!" Lyra thought quickly and instructed us. We ran, but I quickly noticed I was going nowhere on two legs. Twilight had the same thought; she turned around and told me to get on her back, and I did. We ran back inside, hoping to find another unguarded exit. These hopes were rather far-fetched, as we were outnumbered by far.

I felt my heart beating out of my chest as I looked back again to see the queen gaining on us, deadly spells flying from her horn, all missing wild. I turned back to look where we were going.

BAM!

I saw stars once again, this time for quite a few seconds, before I finally recollected my thoughts and sat up. I looked at what hit me, a wall. We were in a dead end, the only escape being a door on the wall to the left of me. Appleseed, who was the closest to it, tried desperately to open it, but it was locked. Chrysalis and her gigantic mass of changelings finally caught up to us.

"Nice to see you back again, Music Medic." Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to meet each other again.

She lowered her head, and I was suddenly frozen in a dark green aura. She had me in the grasp of her magic, and was fully prepared to take my life. Dying here meant serious death, considering I was now a human, and no longer a pony. I tried to escape, but there was no use. All twelve of us were slammed into each other, as I saw Chrysalis' horn lighting up once more, creating an electric ball. After a few seconds of this aura growing, I saw a big flash of light and winced, expecting death. My eyes remained closed for a couple seconds, but I didn't feel a thing. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the foster home ceiling, or maybe even a math class I fell asleep in, or maybe even Satan.

The last thing I expected was to see Saibot, having a seizure on the floor, coughing up blood. Everypony in their room had their mouth agape. Saibot had apparently come out of the locked door and jumped in front of Chrysalis' beam, saving all of us.

The silence was broken by a scream by Chaotica, running up to Chrysalis and snapping her neck with a brutal crunch. The Queen's brain was immediately disconnected from her body, and she had a spasm for a few seconds before falling limp and dead on the floor, still with a sheeting grin on her face. Chaotica walked away with pride on her face.

I prepared for a bloody war, as I assumed the rest of the changelings would want revenge for their fallen master. Boy, was I wrong. The sea of black changelings turned into a wide array of colorful ponies, and they all jumped for joy.

The cries of happiness were broken up by a usually bashful yellow pegasus, who yelled "QUIET!" and immediately shut them up so that she could tend to Saibot.

Oh right, Saibot!

I looked down at the betrayer. The majority of his body was completely charred, and he was coughing up blood. I knelt down next to him.

"Roy... Thanks." He coughed and sputtered some more. "You changed... what I thought about humans." *cough* "You guys aren't what I thought you were..."

"You're welcome, Saibot! Thanks for saving my life. I owe you one."

Whether or not he heard my final words spoken to him, I'll never know. Saibot stopped breathing and he went limp, never to hear again. I wiped a tear from my eye, and walked over to the crowd of ponies, each of them looking confused and sad at what happened shortly after they were freed. They suddenly snapped out of it, and remembered they were freed from their mind control. Once again, they cheered. A stallion similar in color to me, but certainly more muscular came up and hugged me, then ran back to cheer with his friends.

Lyra came up behind me. "I see you met Crimson Capella. He was a member of Beta Pony Force 3."

"There were more pony forces besides just us?"

"Oh, heck yes! Mixed in there are Alpha and Beta 1 through 9, and Gamma 1 through 8. They were all failed attempts..."

"So what you're saying is that we were the first to get it right, and finally defeat Chrysalis?"

"Much more than that! Long ago, before my time, even, Chysalis ravaged through all the cities in Equestria and took the weak as slaves. Our ultimate goal of these projects was to free them. But yes, you were the first to get it right." She winked, chuckled, and trotted away.

Epilogue

After a couple days of meeting, greeting, and partying, Lyra had to break the news to us that we couldn't stay in Equestria. As much as I loved that place, I almost missed my old life. Almost. I still preferred being here, but I had no choice in the matter.

During the couple days of reunions, many ponies were found in jail cells beneath the caves. Included in this bunch were Rarity, Scootaloo, and Bonbon, the best friend of Lyra, who didn't inform me that her best friend was missing until then. Nonetheless, the two were reunited happily with a couple of hugs and kisses.

The five humans, the eight mares, the orange filly, and I prepared to take our final walk together as we headed back to Ponyville so that six of us could return to our homes on Earth.

As I took one last look around, I came to a realization that gave me a sudden surge of optimism.

Every single one of them was a human.

Just like me.

Every single one of them used to be depressed.

Just like me.

Every single one of them likes My Little Pony.

Just. Like. Me.

For all those years I thought I was alone in my struggles, but it's clear that I was mistaken. There must have been two hundred people-ponies here, each with their own unique story that ultimately led them here.

It was about this time I looked ahead, and realized the rest of my group was starting to walk away. I caught back up to them, and prepared myself for my final hours spent with the characters who brought me joy when I was feeling down. The walk was almost made in pure silence, with occasional side chat from Lyra and Bonbon reconnecting, Applejack and Appleseed flirting, and Rainbow Dash, who was talking to Scootaloo about how she was going to start giving Scootaloo flying lessons, and that she didn't forget while Scootaloo was imprisoned.

If your reading this and you see the paper is slightly wet, it's because I am crying from this being too freaking cute just spilled a little bit of my water bottle on the paper. No big deal.

At dusk, we arrived at the laboratory, and somberly stepped inside. Lyra guided us to the place where we'd be sent back home, where we met Doctor Whooves, who was working on a large purple machine. It was only seconds before he finished, and instructed us to get in.

"Are you sure we can't stay?" A quiet voice came from Chaotica, who spoke the words that were on all of our minds.

"I'm sorry..." Doctor Whooves spoke softly, "But I simply can't, you see this inter-dimensional travel is harmful enough to time as it is. Leaving you here would just make it worse. Besides, wouldn't your loving families miss you?"

I could feel myself involuntarily shaking my head. As it turns out, I wasn't the only one. Every other human-pony in the room thought the same thing I did.

"Well then," he responded, "that's just rubbish, now I'm starting to feel a little bad I'm going to have to do this."

We all sulked, knowing now that we certainly had to go home.

Twilight walked up to me, "So I guess, this is goodbye?"

"I guess it-"

I was cut off by Twilight, who jumped up and wrapped her arms around me in one final hug, I savored the moment since I knew it would be my last time ever hugging a pony, and I would have to live the rest of my life behind the computer screen. I felt a not-so-manly tear run down my face.

We separated and I backed up towards the portal, steering clear of Applejack and Appleseed's final make-out session. The tan Time Lord instructed us to all stand near the portal so that we could depart. Crestfallen, the other five ponies joined me near the portal. Looking back at Twilght, I saw her secretly grabbing something out of Lyra's hoof, but I thought nothing of it at the time.

Doctor Whooves made one final announcement. "Has everypony said their goodbyes?"

"Actually, sir, I have one last thing," my favorite purple unicorn said, then trotted towards me and extended a hoof. Bemused, I reached my hoof out for a handshake. Twilight pulled her face close to mine, and whispered in my ear. "Just in case you ever wanted to come back," she said with a wink, and it was at that time I noticed there was something in her hoof. It felt almost like a remote, and I understood what she meant. I took it, and she kissed me on the cheek and trotted back to Lyra.

The next thing I knew, I was back in my bed. The kids were still away at school, the tie was still dangling on the ceiling fan, and all was quiet. I wrote down the rest of my memoir, which I happen to be writing right now.

Now, I want to look at this remote Twilight gave me. It's rectangular with only one red button on it. I assume that if I press it, it will take me to Equestria, but I'll save it for later.

Anyways, the rest of the kids are gonna be here any minute, so I'd better put the remote away.

So that's what I did. I got up to go put the remote and my story away, and immediately fell on my face.