The Ponyville Connundrum III: Saving Simon

The spell worked. Like a charm. They always seem to.

Well, being the one to cast the spell, I was fine in seconds. But, of course, there was only one other figure up when I awoke. I turned away and counted my friends. 1... 2... 3,4,5... 6, 7... 8,9... 10... Then who was the other figure? I did a double take to realize that Simon was standing on the hill side, fuming and covered in soda.

"What you lookin' at, bitch?" he yelled. Knowing "bitch" was an insult, I blasted him with a sound barrier bubble and lifted him in the air. A muffled yelling sound from him erupted, before I witnessed a horrible change in his body. He slowly, but surely, was turning into a colt.

He turned into an earth pony with a turquoise coat and maroon-pink striped mane. The color combination was enough to make Rarity flinch. He looked down at himself and passed out. I heard somepony stir from behind me, and I turned to look. Of course, Pinkie Pie was the first one up.

"OOH! Who's that? A new pony in Ponyville! PARTY!!!! OH, WE MUST PA--" she started to sing, but a muffled "SHUT UP!" from Simon cut her off. "Ooh! This isn't going to be like Cranky, is it?"

"I should hope not..." groaned Spike. Applejack got up after him.

"Ah don' feel good..." she moaned. (RAN: Moaned, groaned, saxaphoned, ice-cream-coned, styrafoamed, marijuana-stoned, I could go all day!)

"DON'T TOUCH ME YOU MONSTER!" yelled Rainbow Dash and got up by kicking Rarity in the face. She blushed and sank back. "Er, sorry, night terrors."

"That was unnessicarily uncooth!" Rarity yelled, rubbing the spot on her face. Applebloom got up.

"Y'all sure do lahk thayut word!" she grunted. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle got up after her.

"Well, it fits me..." argued Rarity. Scootaloo rolled her eyes. The entire group turned to Derpy, still sleeping, and sucking her hoof.

"Mmf... Yes, Doctor, more muffins, please. Oh... I'll take them all..." Derpy mumbled and rolled over in her sleep. Applejack dragged her awake, anticipating the trip back home. She had a farm to take care of.

The Ponyville Connundrum III

Chapter 1: Faceplant to Reality

"How long've we been gone?" asked Rainbow Dash, eyes darting nervously.

"By earth standards, two weeks. Who knows how that translates," I reported. To be honest, I had no idea. Simon shrugged.

"'Cuz I think some things have changed," she continued, drawing out the word "changed".

I looked around to see what should have been the Everfree Forest, but wasn't. Most of it was missing, replaced by what seemed to be a military base. While on Earth, I saw plenty of Fort Riley to know what one looked like. It had a few sullen-looking unicorns inside, running around frantically. But, the most prominent thing about this base was that it went over what was supposed to have been...

"My cottage!" yelled Fluttershy, running over to the base's top-right corner. Simon began to laugh. "Angel Bunny! Boris! Mister Kittie-Kins! All gone!"

"Ah'm sure they're safe 'Shah, but more importantly, if we've only been gone fer a week, how come there's all this here stuff goin' on. Surely they'd wait 'fore tearin' down Fluttershah's house?" Applejack asked. I looked over in the general direction of Ponyville. What I saw struck fear in my heart. I could only say three words.

"Girls. Canterlot. Now," I managed and galloped for the train station.

Why? Because I knew that there wasn't supposed to be an emergency watchtower where my library used to be. Those were never used unless...

"Sorry, lady. A national emergency has been declared," explained the guard on the city limits of Ponyville. "Nopony gets in, nopony gets out."

My worst fears answered.

Worse yet, there was a goldfish-bowl like shield around the city.

"Who's protecting the city?" I asked. The guard shook his head.

"No can do, ma'am. I'm not supposed to tell anypony anything about the crisis at hand. Threat of treason, or worse," he apologized. "If you could move on, ma'am..."

"Alright, buster!" Rainbow Dash yelled and flew past us, right into the guard's face. "You let us in, or so help me!"

"Ma'am, please, don't make me resort to..." the guard began to tremble.

"Don't 'ma'am' me!" screamed Rainbow, nearly knocking the poor guard over. "Do you know who you're talking to? Do you? Do the words 'Elem-- mmf!" I covered her mouth, and magically dragged her to the ground.

"Um... Heh... Rainbow? Calm down... I'm sure if we just be on our way, we'll be fine!" I faked acceptance of the situation and flashed a fake smile at the guard. Upon this, I turned to Rainbow and whispered harshly in her ear. "We're sneaking in. Whatever happened, they don't recognize the element wielders, so the Elements may not be a good thing!" She nodded. "Alright, girls! Let's be on our way!"

Rarity began to say something, but Rainbow, Spike, and I were already gone, others reluctantly following.

"Twi-i-i-i-light!" whined Rarity. "Where are we going? My hooves are practically jelly!"

"We haven't even walked two minutes..." Scootaloo grumbled.

"We're here!" I yelled suddenly. I had actually no idea where we were headed, but I had a plan.

I whispered to Spike a letter for the princess. He raised a skeptical eyebrow, but presented a parchment and quill out of nowhere, mumbling something about "Thank Celestia for spares," and began writing. He then set the parchment to flames and watched it fly off. We all stared at him for a moment. Even Simon seemed to care.

After a long five minutes, a loud burp broke the silence.

"Wail?" Applebloom prodded. Spike cleared his throat.

"Dearest Twilight,

I write to inform you: I was worried sick! You've been gone for a month. A month. I usually know about your little adventures with your friends, but conveniently before a crisis, you and those pesky humans vanish! I am very disappointed, Twilight. I am arranging an escort to Canterlot for you, and, as one of those humans may say, you better have a damn fine explanation for what's happened!

Closing,

Princess Celestia."

An awkward pause followed this.

"Well, jeez!" Pinkie exclaimed, breaking the silence.

"That's a bit harsh, ain't it?" agreed Applejack. Sweetie Belle shrugged.

"I dunno. If I were a princess with six loyal subjects who all went missing..." she dragged out "missing".

"I'd go ballistic, too!" finished Scootaloo. Spike nodded in agreement. I nudged him to shut up.

"I'm not sure, darling," Rarity mumbled nervously. "We should go see her; anyway, I'm sure she's just... disappointed, like she said, not angry."

"I don't know. It's just so... uncharacteristic of her," I decided, walking towards the bubbledome that was Ponyville. "Does it say where to meet?"

"Says stay put," Spike read and poked the bottom of the letter. "She'll send the escort to us."

"Strange..." Pinkie mumbled. "Too strange..."

"All we can do is wait," Fluttershy spoke up. Realizing the attention was on her, she shrank down and slid down against some nearby rock into a sitting position. "I just hope Angel is okay."

Simon rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure he's fine..." Scootaloo comforted as she satdown next to her. She began to pat Fluttershy on the back, as Fluttershy began to sniffle. All of the sudden, she burst into tears, and began sobbing on Scootaloo's shoulder. Not expecting this reaction, Scootaloo cringed, and tried to back away, but Fluttershy would have just fallen over, so she just sat there.

"Definitely not getting my cutie mark in therapy..." she mumbled, and began looking to the other crusaders for help. They just shrugged.

It seemed like hours, waiting. It dragged on like this, menially. Nopony was really having much fun at all. Pinkie Pie beat Rarity in at least forty games of tic-tac-toe, the crusaders were so bored that they tried to get their cutie marks in napping. The older Pegasi, Derpy, Rainbow, and Fluttershy, played a game of fly-tag, but Rainbow Dash constantly made the other two butts of her jokes. Spike spent his time setting things on fire, and I played twenty-odd games of magical solitaire. Simon just sang a song over and over.

But, after Pinkie got another three X's in a row, Derpy got electrocuted for the umpteenth time, and Scootaloo woke up, a hooded figure was approaching. I nearly ran to it I was so glad to see someone else for a change.

"Hello?" Rarity called out. The figure flashed with light, then teleported to us. I only knew two ponies who wore a hood.

Hoping for the best, I timidly questioned the figure of its name. "Zecora?"

A rough, boastful female voice answered. "Guess again, spud-for-brains!" The voice sounded familiar, but different. A voice I knew, but it was covered in what sounded like years of too many addictive substances. If one were to scrape off all that grime on this pony's speech, it would sound like, and I prayed it wouldn't be... "I am th Great and Powerful... TRIXIE!"

"Not this again!" yelled Spike, throwing his hands up in the air, in defeat. Simon looked very confused.

"Luckily for the lot of us, I'm only supposed to teleport you to Canterlot, so I need not socially interact with you further," she finished, gratefully. I stopped her before she could perform the spell.

"Wait just a minute. How can you teleport a group this large to a place so far while maintaining, and being able to create in the first place, a force field?" I asked. She laughed.

"With thi-i-is!" she took off her robe to reveal an amulet. It closely resembled a certain amulet that corrupted the user, but the eyes glowed a soft purple instead of red. "It's not what you're thinking, by the way. This isn't the Alicorn Amulet. It's something Celestia whipped up. It even gives non-magical ponies, and other non-magical beings, magical powers!"

It looked as if she wasn't shutting up any time soon. "I'm in charge of Ponyville with this one..." Fluttershy and I developed very irrate facial expressions. "Those brothers, Flim and Flam, in charge of Manehattan..." Applejack snarled. "Gilda Grivinhauf, a griffon, has Los Pegasus..." Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie growled at the mention of Gilda. "Oh! And, um, the Diamond Dogs are in charge of Hoofington." Rarity gave an angry well-I'd-never. Simon was extremely confused, and had no idea what was going on.

"I don't believe this!" I yelled. I didn't even know I'd yelled it, until she began sniggering at me.

"If you've been gone as long as you have? The believing's just starting!" she giggled in a high-pitched voice. A flash of bright light made me see spots, but before I knew it, we were in Canterlot.