A Home Set Apart

Now, based on what I've seen and heard from ponies who had been through the Changeling Invasion and Discord's outbursts, ponies are remarkably resilient when it comes to changing circumstances. Massive horde of insectoid succubi invade the capital city? Let's panic a little bit, banish them with love, and forget it ever happened. Wannabe "God of Chaos" turns a small town into a cross between Wonderland and the Eye of Terror? Let's go about our day like nothing's wrong, have a bunch of super heroines tun him into stone, and ignore the broken pieces of our psyche. Seriously, if I didn't know better, I'd say the whole country has the best weed in existence.

Humans, however, are creatures of habit, and as such don't like change. Even in my homeland of America, where we thrive on changing times, we cannot stand something interrupting our daily lives. When we hear about a recession on the news, we shrug about it and move on. But when that same recession causes events that lead to losing your job, we give a collective "Oh HELL no," and riot in the streets about it.

So when presented with a situation where our home has been moved without consent, and placed in a world of magic, talking cartoon ponies and no humans, its easy to see why mi familia acted the way they did.

* * *

That morning, Dad was the first one to know (besides me) that some weird shit was going down. Not only was he able to see me and my new roommate, but he could also see out my window. Outside, where our suburban neighborhood had been transformed into a quaint rural village, all brightly colored and cutesy.

Dad tilted his head slightly, looking between me, Derpy (my mind still boggled from that) and the window, trying to wrap his mind around what had happened. He took a step forward, not noticing the broken glass beneath his slippers. All he could think of to say was, "What the hell?"

"Hey, I'm just as surprised as you are." I told him.

"Where the hell are we?" He asked in disbelief. "That's not our street. That doesn't even look real!"

"I could ask the same thing for you guys." Derpy chirped. "I've never seen anything like you guys here in Equestria. How did you teleport the house like that?"

Teleport? I thought. Wait, if the dream said I was moving, and Derpy just plops into my room like that, then that means... oh, son of a bitch!

* * *

Meanwhile

Twilight Sparkle had awakened to a massive discharge of magical energy- almost as powerful as when the Crystal Heart activated. Except is was really focused and precise, and it was very close by. Rubbing her eyes, she looked out the window by her bed, searching for whatever could've made the energy spike.

Sure enough, there was something new outside, glowing with the halo from the rising sun. A house stood in the middle of town square, painted all white and having a tiled roof akin to Canterlot mansions. And it was right where the town fountain used to be, complete with a little circle of debris.

Twilight stared at the sight, her logical mind trying to understand what had happened. Had there been a temporal displacement spell cast, like Sombra's spell on the Crystal Empire?

Before she could muse on the house more, a certain cyan pegasus did as she always did early in the morning- that is, she crashed through Twilight's window, and took both of them crashing into her bedroom.

"Rainbow!" She shouted, coming off more whiny than she intended, "Stop crashing into me like that! One of these days you're going to break one of my legs."

"Twilight!" Rainbow cried out, ignoring the unicorn's protests as she shook her like a filly, "Did you see that house out there? Where did it come from? Did you do another botched summoning spell, like that time with the flying spaghetti monster?!"

"I thought everypony agreed not to mention that again!" Twilight hissed, pushing the flustered pegasus off of her.

"Sorry." Dash looked down, but continued, "Anyway, we gotta get the girls together and check it out, before somepony unleashes a monster from it or something."

"Rainbow, not everything is like those Daring Do books. Not all strange events have to do with curses, monsters or ancient gods."

"Then how do you explain the house? Whether its good magic or bad magic, we've gotta get the girls all together, and get ready to deal whatever happens."

"Okay, okay," The unicorn snapped, still irritable in the morning, "Go and get everypony gathered up, while I open up the Elements of Harmony."

"Good. Meet us out front in half an hour." The pegasus flew out the same window she entered, leaving Twilight annoyed and still sleepy...

* * *

"... So, based on our change of neighbors," I explained to everyone, "And our window-crashing friend here, I'm left to conclude that we have been sent to the magical world of Equestria. You guys with me so far?"

The three other humans- and one pony- stared back at me with blank, confused expressions. I wasn't sure if that was because it was still early in the morning, or if my explanation was just too fucking much for them to handle. Either way, I needed to rephrase my explanation.

"Okay," I continued, "Let me put it this way. Through some scientific-magical mumbo-jumbo, The Powers That Be decided to send us into a kid's tv show. As incredibly unbelievable as that sounds, do realize that there is pegasus here going to town on all our chocolate muffins."

Everyone then looked at Derpy, who just midway into taking a bite. She looked back at us, saying defensively, "What? This muffin is tasty."

"Okay," My dad finally said, exasperated, "If what you're saying is true, and there's a bunch of talking pony things out there, what are we going to do? Its not like these guys see humans often, right?"

I hesitated before I answered. While I wanted to say yes, I had no idea if we had actually entered the Equestria of the show, or one of the many fanfic worlds. This could easily be a nice world, like that of Past Sins, or Petriculture. It could also be a war fic involving 40k or Halo or Mass Effect. Maybe it was a hella grimdark world, like Cupcakes, Rainbow Factory, or Fallout Equestria before the War. Or maybe it was like Xenophillia, and some schmuck with barely any personality would take all the females and be annoyingly perfect in every way.

Sweet Merciful Man-Jesus, what if we're the overly lucky, ridiculously perfect Mary Sue HiEs?!

* * *

Outside of the strange house, a growing crowd of spectator ponies was standing watch, eagerly awaiting something to happen. Earth Ponies, pegasai and unicorns surrounded the building as an unexpected fence, keeping watch over the place. By the time all the Mane Six were all gathered up, half the town was there.

"Ok, Twi," Applejack said, adjusting her hat, "What's the plan here?"

"Well, isn't it obvious, darling?" Rarity quipped, rubbing the grime out of her eyes. "One of us should go up there and knock on the front door, see if anyone is home."

"But who's going to knock?" Fluttershy whispered. "Whoever lives in there could be dangerous or cranky."

The ponies looked at each other, expecting somepony- most likely Rainbow or Applejack- to go up and knock. But then Pinkie, with her curly cotton-candy hair and bouncy disposition, chirped, "I'll do it. I'm not afraid of any big scary house."

"Are you sure, Pinkie?" Twilight warned, "We don't know anything about this place. For all we know, the front door might be booby-trapped."

"Oh Twilight, you silly filly," Pinkie giggled, "I don' need no stinkin' doors. Getting inside will be easy as one, two-"

POP!

And just like that, she was gone. The mares were dumbfounded, actually seeing Pinkie's "magic" for the first time. How does she do that?

* * *

"Mom, why are you taking out your gun?" I asked nervously.

She had loaded the chamber of her 10mm, and put it into her holster. "Its just a safety measure, hon." She told me, sounding rather calm. "I don't think I'll need it, but I've got it just in case."

I honestly hoped it wouldn't come to that. She was a CHP officer, and was one of the best shots in the service. Then there was my Dad, who had a .22 rimfire over his back, while my brother and I had and machete and a crowbar, respectively. The idea was that if indeed we had entered a dangerous world- as I had briefly told them a few moments before- we would at least be able to defend ourselves enough to make an escape, pull a Rambo out in the forest or something.

Derpy, of course, wasn't liking this at all.

"Robert," She asked me, her eyes getting more "derped" by the minute, "Are you really going to fight my friends? That's not very nice."

"I don't think so, Derpy," I told calmly, "As long as we don't get any surprises, we should be fine."

"-THREE!" A big pink blur popped up from behind a mirror on one of our walls. My dad, being the closest one to it, gave a yelp of surprise, and did what lots of humans do when surprised- threw a left hook into the blur's face.

There was a sound that was a cross between a Whack! and a Crunch!, and the pink thing flopped down on the floor. As its front limbs went to cover its face, it began crying, and I noticed the curly mane and tail it had. This thing- this obvious pony- had a three balloon design on her flank, and blood was already seeping through her hooves.

"Holy Shit, Dad!" I exclaimed, "You punched Pinkie Pie in the face!"

"She fucking scared me!" He shouted back, looking terrified. "How the fuck did she do that? She jumped out of the mirror, tha-, how, that's fuckin' impossible!"

"Ow, ah tink yo bro' me nos!" Pinkie moaned, "Dat's nev' hap'n be'fo'!"

My ass that's never happened before. I thought. Popping out of nowhere in front of people is how you lose teeth, not make friends.

Before anyone else could say anything, a blue-and-rainbow blur crashed through our front window, stopping just in front of us. It was, of course, Rainbow Dash, looking extraordinarily pissed. And that was before she saw her friend crying and bleeding. She growled rather menacingly, "What did you do to my friend?!"

My mom- never one for fainting under pressure- drew her gun on the pegasus, and barked, "Hey, back off! She attacked us!"

"Hey, um, guys..." Derpy tapped my leg, trying to get my attention. I, of course, was too enthralled by the growing shitstrom to notice. There was a flash from upstairs, coming from our workout room, unnoticed by everyone.

Suddenly, the front door was blasted inward, as Applejack bucked her way into my house. She was accompanied by Rarity and Fluttershy- the former looking mad, while the latter looked scared- while Twilight herself teleported behind us in the livingroom.

"Leave our friend alone, you ruffians!" Rarity shouted menacingly, hooves raised like a boxer. As if she had ever fought a day in her life. I would've laughed at the display if our situation wasn't so dire.

Dad raised his .22 at the feisty unicorn, and challenged, "Try me, bitch! It'll be the last thing you ever do!"

Things were going downhill very fast. I had to salvage what was left of the moment before our First Contact became a repeat of the Waco Disaster.

"All of you, shut up!" I shouted, empathising my point by slamming the crowbar into the wall. The impact was strong enough to crack it, and got everyone's attention off each other and on me. I capitalized on that moment.

"Now, I know that we have all had a crazy morning so far," I said, my hands up in a peaceful gesture, "And we've all been guilty of a little overreacting. But I know that none of us have any ill intent, so if we could all just sit down and talk this out like civilized people, we can work this thing out."

"Um, Robert." Derpy nudged me again. "What, Derpy?" I asked, sounding a little harsher than I intended.

"WHAT IN THE TARTARUS IS GOING ON HERE?!" A voice shouted out, a Royal Canterlot Voice if ever there was one. Everyone looked up to see a big white alicorn standing tall on the landing of my stairs. It was good old Princess Celestia, eyes all narrowed, the power of the sun at her beck and call, and a pair of guards at her sides. I could only imagine how the scene looked to her; a bunch of her subjects- including her favored apprentice Twilight- one of them on ground all bloody, surrounding a group strange-looking creatures with dangerous weapons, and everyone looking ready for a fight.

Its times like this that makes a man want to say, "Dude, fuck my life."