Becoming Raindrops

“Is that everything out of the truck?”

“Should be, I'll check one last time.”

“I already did, that's all there is.”

“Suhweet! We can set up a quick fire for a bit.”

“I was thinking we should skip the fire; it's late anyway, we'll probably be off to bed soon enough as it is.”

“Plus we did plan on Ape Caves early tomorrow.”

“True... so how about we set up the tent and stuff, chat a bit and head to bed?”

“I like that plan... but we've still got about an hour before we really need to head to bed. I mean, it's only eight."

"Good point. Stay up for an hour or two, then?"

"Sure. Let's set up, first."

As we set up our shared, large tent in our small campsite, we chatted about the latest developments.

“So how are you down here during college time, Andrew?”

“My classes are on Monday through Friday,” Andrew responded, as he used a mallet to pound a stake through one of his tent's securing holes. “Not Marsday to whatever the last day of the week is.”

“Yeah, that was kinda weird, huh?” TJ commented. “What's today supposed to be, again? Threesday?”

“It's just Discord, no worries.”

“Is that a pony thing, Thomas?”

“He's from the show, yeah,” I nodded. “I mean, how many villains do you know pop up out of nowhere and make one week 365 days long? Not to mention Fried-Zucchini-Day... I mean, really, that's just telegraphing his presence. Pass the mallet, please.”

“Here you go. So what makes you so certain it's him?”

“He's more or less the embodiment of chaos and disharmony. And we all know how those calender scientists reacted at the change of the days.”

“True,” TJ agreed. “But that doesn't guarantee that it's him.”

“Aside from Lauren Faust, creator of the show, and Tara Strong, voice actress of the main character, being turned into alicorns and publically stating who did it?”

“Aside from that, yeah.”

I shrugged, I wasn't exactly sure what convinced me that this was all because of the guy. I didn't care for him either way during the show, although when I watched his episodes I found his form of chaos to not be all that, well... chaotic. He just turned the world into a giant playground, and played pranks that could be either funny or harmful, but none of that was the kind of chaos this world could create. While we could more or less do what he did – minus the part of messing with gravity – we could, however, make big, giant pranks that were very funny and completely harmless, just like he did. We could also bring about lots of destruction and pain, something that wasn't showcased in his episodes, which disappoints me even now. Although, he was kinda making up for it.

“Hey, Thomas?” TJ called.

“Yeah?” I answered, as I finished pounding in the last stake on the side of the tent I was working on.

“Could you pass the mallet?”

“Sure.”

I opened the large tent by the zipper and carefully chucked my pack in to the area I was calling dibs on. We all finished putting our stuff in our spots, mostly because we knew what we were doing already, although we saved putting out our sleeping bags and pads out for later.

“How does some smores sound?” TJ asked.

I grin as we grab some of the firewood in the back of the truck, “I like this idea. I'll set up the firepit.”

“You do that, I'll get the food.”

“Dude. You're doing it wrong.”

“I can't help it, it's been a year since I last camped! And no I'm not, shavings in the center, big sticks on the outside.”

“At least the wood's dry,” Andrew commented.

We just laughed at that, we'd all experienced camping in wet weather. It could be less than pleasant. We shared stories of what we'd gone through as scouts, the funny stories, the sad ones, all of that. Then we moved on to current events. Like the strange days and such.

“So Thomas, you mentioned someone from My Little Pony being the guy who caused all this?” Andrew said.

I took a moment to swallow my deliciously burnt smore, “Yeah, it only makes sense to me that he'd be the one behind it. His very presence causes chaos. Not the kind of destructive, killing chaos we cause in war and such, more like... Fred and George from Harry Potter chaos. Pranks and such. Turning entire hillsides into checkerboard patterns with slip-n-slide roads included.”

TJ just gave a nod, “Sounds like chaos to me.”

“And now he's causing trouble here. I have no idea why, but whatever.”

“Including turning bronies into ponies.”

“Andrew, we're not in Seussical the Musical anymore. You can stop rhyming now.”

“Shut up,” He responded, even though TJ and I laughed and he soon followed.

“Anyway, yeah, he's randomly turning people into ponies. I don't know why, but I guess it has something to do with him being who he is.”

“And the fact that those two princesses are now real. Who were they, again?”

“Lauren Faust and Tara Strong. Lauren did Powerpuff Girls, and Tara's voice Bubbles, Ben in Ben 10, and Timmy Turner.”

“Really? She was Timmy?”

“Yup.”

“Well, hopefully you won't turn into a pony, eh?” TJ grinned.

I scoffed, “Please, there's like a gazillion of us awesome people out there. The odds of me getting changed is the same chance of me winning the lottery.”

“You've mentioned your luck with things like that.”

I paused for a moment. “True. All those raffles that I shouldn't have won on such low odds.”

“Yeah, how'd you do that?”

“Well,” I ruffled my hair a bit. “I don't want to say sheer dumb luck, but... sheer dumb luck.”

We shared a quick laugh at that. For those who don't know, I had really fickle luck. For things like opening Magic card packs, I sucked at getting what I wanted. For a raffle where others put in like, twenty tickets, and I put in four or two, I get first place or something I didn't want. Like senior grad party. Fourteen tickets to all of us for free, ten of mine in the TV raffle, two in a camera raffle, and the other two to other things. What do I get? First person drawn on the bloody camera.

After a few more stories, we decided to head to bed in our shared tent. The more rest we got the better. I took a few minutes to set up my pad and sleeping bag, crawling in soon after. It was surprisingly warm up here near Mount St. Helens, where we were. I had been to the Ape Caves a few years ago with my scout troop, and a small group of us had taken the easy side of the caves. The rest of the troop took the hard route. Tomorrow we would be doing both before lunch. With a giddy, excited smile on my face, I quickly fell asleep, all bundled up in my toasty-warm mummy bag.

“Tomorrow can't come fast enough,” I whispered to myself just before sleep overtook me.

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“Uhh... this is awkward.”

“Yeah... I think he got that raffle luck again.”

What did they mean by that? I slowly opened my eyes to find both of my friends more or less staring at me rather sheepishly. Or something like that. Apparently noticing me waking up, Andrew opted to speak first.

“Uh... Thomas, this may seem a bit strange, but, uh... don't freak, okay?”

Andrew pulled out his smart phone and pointed the reflective surface towards me. Unlike the human face I'd expected to see, I saw a yellow muzzle, sky blue mane, equally blue eyes, and an over-all not-human face. I had become a pony, a pony that I thankfully recognized as Raindrops the pegasus, but it still meant that my fickle luck had chosen me as another winner of Discord's raffle.

I take back what I said last night. Today can take as long as it wants to get here. Can I go back to yesterday? No?

Well... crud.