Collision Code

Act I: Unexpected Collisions

Chapter 2: An Agreement, Tested

The walk to Ponyville should have been grueling to Corey, given that he was not by any means known for exercise. Hell, when he was a kid, walking while trick-or-treating was exhausting to him, and back then he was actually thin. His stamina had always been nothing less than absolute crap. But now that he was a pony...still hobbling along, mind you, he noticed there was a marked difference in stamina, as far as trotting was concerned. After about twenty minutes of following the path since they started moving, they noticed a few ponies here and there. They were getting close to Ponyville.

"We're almost there..." Corey noted, looking up briefly from the walk to address his friends.

"Ungh...ugh..." Leo grunted, having practiced hovering with his wings during the trip to Ponyville. He was actually able to do it, though he was still showing some strain in using his wings to perform the task. "...Okay...I think I've got hovering down..."

"...Good for you..." came Ivan's listless response. The green unicorn was alarmed by his friend's change in tiredness, but passed it off as adrenaline fading. Now that he thought about it, Corey realized the adrenaline was starting to fade out in his bloodstream. He would probably need a nap before long, but Corey wasn't sure if Ivan was going to fall asleep standing up before a plan of action could be reached. But first thing was first, Corey needed to secure an agreement. There was something that needed to be addressed, something relating to where they were now.

"N--Leo, Ivan, listen carefully." The former human looked up. Ivan sleepily looked up to him, his eyes clearly bagged.

"Yeah, what is it?" asked the brown earth pony as he appeared to nod off. Leo said nothing, merely looking to Corey.

"Come over here...don't want any..." Corey halted himself midsentence, brow furrowing. He didn't exactly like the puns in Equestria, given that no one back on Earth said "anyhuman" or "everyhuman", but if the trio was going to remain somewhat incognito for the moment, he was going to have to suck it up and deal with the Equestrian grammar. "...pony...to listen in..."

Ivan staggered just a little as he trotted up to Corey, apparently already used to his body as far as walking on four legs was concerned, in spite of his tiredness. Leo tried to hover at a slow pace to Corey, but when he fell flat on his ass again, drawing the attention of a few nameless background ponies, the silver pegasus quickly walked up.

"So what is it, then?" Leo asked.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to let any of these ponies know they're..." his voice dropped to an even lower whisper. "...Ivan, you awake?"

"...Go on, I'm awake." Ivan reassured, though right afterward, he yawned.

"Good." Leo answered.

"Leo, not now..." Corey whispered in an agitated manner. "...we can't let them know they aren't real. It may seem like a good idea to be truthful...but...I think that if they find out..." Ivan yawned again, even worse than last time. "Stay with me! ...that...in our eyes, they're...fictional, we might get cast into a world without meaning or rules."

"You mean subspace, right?" Ivan cut in.

"Yes, that." Corey responded. He didn't want to run the risk of ending up there, not when he had a life to go back to. Floating around in a white void was not his idea of eternal vacation. "You two get what I mean, right?"

Both Ivan and Leo nodded.

"So what are we gonna do about our real problem, then? You know, the part where we're stuck in a non-high-tech world, but we need high-tech to get back?" Leo asked.

"We'll discuss this more in the city limits..." Corey responded. "Let's get the rest of the way in there, before my body decides to return to its normal stamina levels...let me tell you, that's a horrible level of stamina to have..."

Corey and Leo began to walk towards the city limits. They got about fifty feet, when both realized that Ivan's hoofsteps weren't being heard behind them.

"Ivan?" Corey asked.

"Yamch--I mean, Ivan?" Leo asked. A moment later, they heard a loud thud, like something falling over facefirst. Just as Corey began to turn his head, he heard the same sound. He fully circled his head around, and immediately wanted to rub his eyes.

Right there, in front of a dozing Ivan, was a light pink-furred Earth pony with a dark pink mane and tail, that poofed out as though inflated like a balloon. She was in the exact same pose as he was, rump raised in the air, chin on ground, forelegs straight as a ruler, trailing behind the pony. Corey was incredibly curious as to how this would play out, and thus circled around to a side view.

"Corey! No...! She'll--!" Leo whispered in fear.

"Leo...what did we just talk about..." Corey responded, and with that, the silver pegasus reluctantly followed Corey's lead. Confirming this pony's identity once and for all were the cyan eyes, but also the cutie mark: the party balloons, one cyan, two yellow.

Pinkie Pie, not only the quintessential logic-defying pony, based on what Corey had seen, but the most cartoonish out of all the leads as well. She also was insanely hyperactive on top of it all, making her abilities to break logic magnified tenfold. So once he considered exactly what had happened in the two seconds it took for him and Leo to circle around, he wasn't surprised at this. Pinkie's smile was normal, not showing teeth, but clearly happy.

"...It would be Ivan that would be first..." And Pinkie was also the character in Cupcakes that maimed and killed another one of the lead characters, which is why Leo was having a sudden, massive burst of paranoia right about now.

"...Leo, I swear to God..." Corey groaned through clenched teeth, his natural scowl in full force as he hung his head in an agitated manner.

"Wakey-wakey..." Pinkie said to Ivan, strangely not noticing either the new unicorn or new pegasus in town straight away. Apparently she thought Ivan's pose was awesome even though he was clearly falling over dead tired. "Day's still young, the hills are alive, and you're new here..."

How in the hell did she not notice us...? Corey thought. ...Corey, Pinkie Pie. You'd be better off wondering why cows go "Moo".

Ivan seemed to oblige to Pinkie's command, his eyes fluttering open. As soon as he caught sight of Pinkie, he gave a surprised look, the bags under his eyes seeming to vanish. At the same time, Pinkie's smile widened, showing her perfectly white teeth.

"...'Sup." Evidently, Ivan could only think of one thing to say in this situation, the look of surprise fading away into a smile, though not nearly as wide as Pinkie's. One of the brown pony's eyes trailed over in Corey's direction, and then he nodded over to them. Pinkie looked from him to his friends, and immediately began counting...in her own special way.

"One..." she slid one of her hooves out in front of her, "Two..." the other foreleg came up, pointing straight in Corey's direction. "Three?!" Her tail circled around and pointed directly at Leo, who gasped and tried to duck for cover behind the fat green unicorn. Meanwhile, Pinkie gave a sudden, sharp inhale with an impossibly high jump to boot, her "new pony" gasp from the very first episode, and darted off, leaving behind a Pinkie Pie-shaped dust cloud in her wake.

"W-well, at least I'll be the last to die..." said the silver former human. Ivan and Corey both ignored his creepypasta bellyaching, the latter of whom became very nervous, the feeling working its way into his scowl.

"Oh...oh man...unavoidable social contact imminent..." Corey, being the socially awkward one of the trio of former humans, knew exactly what Pinkie had just dashed off to do. Preparations for a "Welcome to Ponyville" party. While he knew there likely wouldn't be a way around meeting the ponies anyway, he also knew that he detested social gatherings. Too much noise. "Let's move into the city limits and...find out what we want to do..."

Leo and Ivan didn't object to this, the former still scared to death by the encounter with Pinkie and the latter at least somewhat awake for the moment. Then again, being personally greeted by a fictional character would wake just about anybody up, regardless of whether or not you liked them. Corey himself was experiencing a slight level of euphoria at realizing exactly what happened himself, but knew there were more important matters to deal with. So as soon as they reached a suitable intersection, Corey immediately turned to the pegasus and earth pony that accompanied him.

"Alright, we're in the city...so, what do we do now that we're here, that relates to our ultimate problem of being here and our need to get back home?" The green unicorn gave the problem statement in the form of a question, wondering if his friends had any ideas before he would pitch his own. He spoke in a hushed voice, making sure no background ponies could overhear them. "Either of you got any ideas?"

"...I vote we go find a bed..." Ivan cut in. Corey suddenly felt the pull of gravity on his horn increase tenfold as he hung his head in an emotional state only describable as "what-are-you-thinking". "I need a nap more than anything else."

"But you just woke up after exposure to..." Corey's voice dropped lower. "...Pinkie Pie..."

"Well, is she here right now?" Right as Ivan made this observation, the bags returned below his eyes and he looked as though he were about to nod off at any moment. "Her energy just wore off..."

"You don't say..." Corey scowled, "No...Leo, how about you?"

"You first..." Leo said. "I don't think my idea's that good..."

"...Okay..." He wasn't quite ready to reveal his own idea, but the green unicorn decided to put his inhibitions aside. "...Well, I think we should find the library...find Twilight...she might know something on how to get us back."

"Twilight" referred to another character from the show, a purple unicorn who specialized in the use of magic. She did almost nothing but study and occasionally question Pinkie Pie's logic, so Corey had a feeling she might know something about it.

"That's a total shot in the dark, Corey," Leo cut in, basically shitting all over his fellow former human's idea. "For one thing, we can't just expect her to believe us. Have you looked at us? We look like we belong here..." There was a certain air of euphoria detectable in the silver pegasus's words, but Corey willfully ignored it, pissed at how his idea was shot down in flames.

Ivan, despite his sleepy haze, was able to tune in to the conversation. Perhaps Pinkie's energy hadn't completely left him yet. Usually he'd have passed out due to how tired he was by now, but there was something about the current situation that was forcing him to stay somewhat awake. He tried to avoid nodding off during the conversation.

"Well, alright then, Leo, you got a better idea? Since you seem to think you do..." Corey cut in, his scowl returning.

"Let me try this again..." Leo responded. A moment later, Ivan felt the stinging caress of Leo's hooves on his face again. Ivan stumbled, but stopped himself from falling over, but barely. "Nope, nothing."

"Leo...!" Corey's voice was wavering with unspoken anger, but he tried to whisper his statement. "Keep this...this...manure up, and the instant I learn magic, I'm gonna telekinetically throw you into the ground until I start to feel physical pain..."

Apparently, this got the silver former human to stop screwing around, his eyes widening. Corey's anger was a rare sight, at least as far as Skype conversations went. So Leo obliged to Corey's threat, and immediately went on suggesting his course of action.

"Well, um, in that case..." the silver former human began. "How about we get to know...the locals? The...ponilians...?!" He was smiling and laughing. Ivan knew this idea was ridiculous, and probably even indicative of a desire to stay.

"The word you're looking for is 'Equestrians'--gah...!--and we'd be doing that anyway given Pinkie saw us..." The green former human interjected, seeming to itch at his mane every time he gave a small grunt. "...Ugh...! Looks like my idea's...the best we've got...but even that's...really bad...God my head itches like no other...!"

As Corey seemed to be fighting with the itch in his mane, Ivan began to think.

If Corey wants to stay too, which he might given he doesn't have anything really big going on in his life right now...lucky prick's on Spring Break...then I'm being more rational than Corey... Ivan considered his feelings on the matter of Equestria vs Earth. I wouldn't mind staying, sure, but I know we have to get back home eventually...just us being here could bring about disaster even if we manage to keep the whole "fiction" thing secret.

The former human slowly realized this was the most thinking he'd done while tired. But then again, these weren't normal conditions. He and two friends...well, one friend and one guy who says he's a friend but keeps abusing him, were now ponies in a world dominated by them and mystical creatures. All because of the latter friend's anger at him for insulting him over a disgusting picture, and mind you, he still hadn't apologized one bit for anything he'd done, instead suggesting a course of action that would, as Corey pointed out, happen anyway.

Ivan knew he wasn't in the most normal of moods either: he was tired and in shock.

He was pissed.

Corey was slowly coming to terms with the fact he may never leave the pony world, due to the way they were stuck in Equestria until high-tech came along, if it even could in his unicorn lifetime. None of the trio had a solid plan on what to do next. Leo sounded like he wanted to stay a while, which by all accounts they would be anyway, and Ivan wasn't in the best thinking conditions right now. His plan was the best, but it was more or less like comparing a Papillion's pile of poop to a Husky's pile of poop. And he can say that because unlike some people, comparing dog breeds' poop was almost a tradition in his household by this point.

Of course, the realization of this was causing him stress. Much like most normal people, stress affected his body negatively, and the same held true for his pony body. When he was afflicted with sufficient stress, his scalp began to itch like no other. Without fingers, he had no choice but to rub one of his hooves on his head to attempt to relieve the itch. But that wasn't working. In a fit of desperation, and forgetting his body wasn't built with two arms and two legs, but four legs now, he threw up his other foreleg to his scalp and tried to scratch his mane with all his might.

"Corey...!" Ivan sleepily warned. He apparently realized it was futile, though, and moved to his right. For about five seconds, it seemed Corey's ingenious plan was working. But then Murphy's Law caught up to him. His hind legs started to wobble under his weight, and Corey started stumbling about. He tried to regain control by slamming his forelegs on the ground, but this only made it worse, his momentum carrying him forward.

"What in tarnation--" a familiar southern accent said, but Corey had closed his eyes, already knowing where this was going. His trajectory continued. Corey's head lowered, and a few moments later, his momentum stopped again, Corey feeling his new horn once again impale the ground. He opened his eyes, and sure enough, all he could see was ground. A few moments passed, during which Corey rolled his vision up to see four orange legs, and could see a blond tail tied off at the end past the stomach. Thankfully, the green unicorn didn't see or smell blood, so at least he hadn't sliced Applejack's chest open in his freefall.

...What the Hell did I ever do to deserve this... Corey thought to himself, stunned into an embarrassed freeze frame. If he'd done this with Pinkie, Pinkie would have been in his face instead. He would have been in a stunned silence, and she may have even said something hilarious in relation to his natural scowl, but no...

He had to nearly slice Applejack open by total accident. As he slowly came to terms with the fact karma was going in the wrong human-pony's ass to punish him, he heard Leo, the rightful victim of karma, snorting in suppressed laughter.

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you douche...

Applejack had seen quite a few strange things in her recent past, but there was just something off about the green unicorn that had dang near skewered her stumbling about like that. Well, even though he looked roughly her age, give or take a couple years, he didn't have any control whatsoever over his back legs when standing on them. Almost everypony she knew had at least some degree of ability to stand on their rear legs. Maybe it was the fact he was a little more heavy set...and not in a muscular sense either, from the look of him.

The farmer pony hadn't quite expected this from a newcomer. Ponyville had its share of new colts and mares, all of whom had parties thrown for them. She had--somehow--managed to catch Pinkie Pie when she was rushing by. The party pony had just enough time to tell her what they looked like before she darted off for the planning aspect.

A snort of laughter brought her out of her thought. She looked over to a silver pegasus with a strangely feminine face, though from the vocal sounds, she assumed he was male. Next to him was a brown earth pony that looked really, really tired. First thing was first, though. She decided to put aside the fact the green unicorn before her was incredibly clumsy for the time being and welcome him, and his friends, to Ponyville--formally, of course.

"You need help there, part--"

"FINE!" the green unicorn shouted, apparently only now realizing what had happened himself and was now struggling against the ground, trying to pop his horn out. He apparently heard his friend...or travelling companion, Applejack didn't really know which, snickering behind his back, and appeared to mouth to himself in anger. "...I can...help myself up..." Now he was talking in a normal voice. The orange pony took a few steps back, watching the green unicorn struggle against the ground, trying to get himself unstuck. At this distance, she could see his teeth were clenched...and his face was bright red. She couldn't tell if he was embarrassed that his horn was stuck in the ground or because he had yelled like he just did, or some combination of the two. He struggled, and fell flat on his stomach after a few seconds.

"Are ya sure ya don't need help?" asked Applejack again.

"No, no, I'm fine..." The green unicorn responded. This time, he managed to jerk somewhat, indicating his horn was starting to come out. "Stay back..." This was a warning tone, but it was barely discernible now that he sounded as though he'd calmed down (the color of his face telling a different story entirely). Exactly two seconds later, he'd managed to dislodge himself, leaving a small welt in the ground where he'd gotten his horn stuck.

Now that he was facing her directly--no, scratch that, facing her as directly as he appeared he could stand to, she could see he had a pronounced scowl on his face. The blush diminished the scowl somewhat, but he still looked...angry about something, but Applejack couldn't put her hoof on it straight away. Dismissing his facial cues and his facing the ground rather than her as his embarrassment at the current situation, Applejack continued, also noticing his eyes appeared to be bagged.

"Well, now that you've gotten yourself out of that pickle, what's your name?" she asked, still trying to be friendly. The pony she was addressing looked up at her, seemingly thinking. Why would he need to think about his name--

"C..." He stuttered, seeming frustrated that he was doing so. "...Corey."

Well, I've never heard a name like that before...Applejack thought to himself. Is that why he was hesitating...or...?

Well fuck, I just blew our cover... Corey thought to himself, watching Applejack's reaction carefully to his name. Back on Earth, the name Corey is gender-neutral, and common. 'Ivan' and 'Leo' aren't exactly Equestrian normal either...

"Can't say I've ever heard a name like that before, partner..." Applejack finally responded.

Really? Corey thought to himself. He had finally returned to his normal facial temperature, an indicator to him that he wasn't tomato...or apple...red any more. He was still unable to make complete eye contact, his face still turned towards the ground.

"...but pleased to meet ya all the same..."

"I see...well, uh," Great. He was stuttering again. Any longer and Leo or Ivan would think he was developing a crush on the farmer pony. "...and you are...?"

"My name's Applejack," responded the orange earth pony with a hat. "What brings you here to Ponyville?"

Shit! Need an alibi, quick! Uh, think, Corey... Corey's imagination went straight to one place: recreation. Well, Equestria definitely doesn't have Wi-fi or technology, so Internet and video games are out. Same with cartoons. Sightseeing...? Not my thing. Looks like it's books. Or writing.

"Well, I don't know what my friends are here for, but..." Corey couldn't believe what he was attempting to do: lie to the Element of Honesty; but he would have to try anyway, "I guess I'm here to see if there's any good books here that I can pick up."

Applejack seemed strangely convinced with this answer. Was she just not in a "lie-detecting" mood? Or did she, in some strange twist of fate, believe what the former human just told her? Corey couldn't really figure this out, but decided not to test his luck.

"I get it, I think," said Applejack at last. She did appear to have thought about it for the moment. "You know, I have a friend who was a lot like you at one point...'cept the scowling and clumsiness."

...Did I just get compared to Twilight?! Corey thought to himself. Is it because green is the inverted color of purple?! ...Corey, calm down, act fast so Leo doesn't capitalize.

"I see." The former human tried to keep his voice as level and as neutral as possible. "My friends over there can introduce themselves."

Applejack nodded, somewhat disturbed by Corey's behavior. In some senses, he did remind her of Twilight Sparkle when she first met her, but his asocial behaviors were way worse. He was a little on the cold side and seemed to be scowling most of the time. Maybe he was still embarrassed on the inside about his clumsy misstep? And there was just something about his whole reason for coming to Ponyville that rubbed her the wrong way, but he sounded convincing enough.

"I...see..." She tried not to show how many questions she'd had in her heart. While he, nor his friends, struck her as bad in any way, they still seemed...out-of-place. If that whole mess a couple months back was anything to go on, Twilight would be the first to see right through whatever act they were putting on, if they were in fact bad ponies. With this in mind, the farmer pony dropped the subject, walking past Corey, who she could have sworn she heard sigh in relief, to the brown earth pony and silver pegasus. "So...what are your names?"

She could have sworn she saw the silver pegasus flinch before responding: "My name is Leo." It almost sounded like he was throwing that name out there because he detested what his name really was, but she'd never heard a nickname like this before. And, judging from his voice, he was definitely male now that she heard him speaking.

"And you?" She turned to the brown earth pony, which, now that she was close to him, she could see his eyes were bagged. To summarize, if Rarity saw Corey's condition, she might flip out because of his messy mane and bagged eyes, but if she saw this pony's, she'd really flip out over the bagged eyes alone! He must have been very tired.

"Ivan..." said the brown earth pony, his name once again a name that she'd never heard before. Seeing him in his condition bothered Applejack to no end. If these three were here because of Corey's need to read, assuming he was here to do that, it was a little insensitive of him to drag him along...

"...My stars, partner, you look tuckered out!" Applejack exclaimed.

"...I do need a bed..." Ivan responded. To this, Applejack began considering something. It wouldn't exactly be normal, and indeed she should wait a little bit before asking him this question since these three struck her as odd, but this pony seriously looked like he was about to fall over sleeping. With a sigh, the orange farmer pony relented to her sense of pity.

"C'mon, let's get you back to my farm. You can nap there if you want."

Corey and Leo were both shocked by Applejack's statement. She just met Ivan, and even though it sounded crazy, she was offering him a bed to use...maybe. Corey wanted the three of them to stick together, at least for the moment, so he turned to see what Ivan's statement was. Leo, on the other hand, didn't appear to care one way or the other what Ivan decided to do.

Ivan, on the other hand, had only one thing on his mind right now. The opportunity presented itself, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to explain matters given how tired he was. So, he gave in to sleep.

"You sure you want to let me..." He yawned, unable to stifle it.

"Getting to a bed will be a lot better than passin' out in the street, sugarcube!" Applejack now seemed to be insisting on it. None of the former humans could quite understand why. Their names all must have sounded strange to her, same with Corey's alibi, since the green unicorn in question was firmly convinced she must have seen something in that as odd.

"...If you insist..." responded Ivan. Applejack seemed to be pleased that he'd seen it her way.

"Then follow me...try not to fall asleep along the way." said Applejack, beginning to walk away, passing Corey once more. "...You sorta look tired there too, you gonna be alright?"

"I'm a long way off from passing out. Ivan needs the nap more than me." Corey responded, still trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. "Besides, I'm genuinely curious what Ponyville literature has to offer..."

Applejack seemed to be better satisified by this answer and said, "See ya around," trotting off, with Ivan sleepily ambling off after her. Corey trotted up to Leo after this was over.

"Well, it's just you and me now, like back on Hamachi," Corey whispered. "Way back when we first met. Before I started--"

To avoid product placement in this fanfiction, Leo cut off his friend: "C'mon, we'd better go, Mr. Reader..."

"Hey, I'm genuinely curious about what literature in this world is like. Maybe I'll find a Pony and the Beast or something..."

"Isn't that the whole thing with Rarity and Spike?" Leo asked, making sure to be as quiet as possible so nobody...or rather, nopony, overheard them.

"Maybe a 'real life' one..."

Realizing their banter was getting them nowhere, Leo and Corey continued on their trek, having decided to follow Corey's plan.

Find Twilight Sparkle, and try to explain the situation to her.

So, there we have Applejack and Pinkie Pie introduced. I wanted to get them out of the way before I actually submitted it. I am still in doubt if the Mane 6 are in-character for the entire first Act. When we were RPing this out, we were trying to, but for this version, codenamed "Plat", I had to make in-characterness and plot-based refineries myself, correcting the mistakes we made while RPing this out.