Life's Discoveriesby ExtantdreadChaptersGood MorningDiscoveryTelling the WorldPresident and PoniesA Not So Happy PartyBalancingDay OneGood MorningChapter One: Good Morning The beginning of a fresh new day. Wondrous, no? Here you are, adjusting yourself, getting ready to finally obtain those oh so longly desired explanations, as I’ve promised. Only at 14, almost 15 years of age this all occurred for those of you in the cryptic future. May it permanently haunt me for my own heart’s sake, as I’m afraid my soul might have left me already. The wolves have made sure of that. Note to you, from Jacob of July: With this you will find my own personal entries from the process of producing this text. They are scattered about. Shall we now read and relive? That new fresh day had lifted my own most positively glorious self out of bed at by far the most appropriate hour, 11 A.M. This typical teenager’s regular routine was out of place, for it was Tuesday. Time, currently being early May, made this even a bit more odd. Of course, this in reality wasn’t all that odd, for I was having a dentist’s check up just in a hour or two. Being a teenager, that just gives the perfect excuse to sleep in a tiny bit. So my body went through the clockwork putting on of clothes, taking a shower, and then as I would always do, the panicking brushing and flossing. Soon enough, I had flung myself down the stairs, ready to relax a bit before taking the ramble. After turning on the TV and console, the dogs started acting up, as I usually wasn’t the one to let them outside to do their bidding. They scratched on the door, marking the glass even worse than it had already been. You could hear a soft sigh come from yours truly, me knowing that somehow that would be entirely my fault when the parents arrived. I opened the sliding glass door, and gave a glimpse to the glistening mountains not more than 10 miles away. Maybe my brother would blame me as well, just for fun. He always poked at me a little too much for my liking, but overall he was pretty OK. I eyed the clock for a moment. 11:50. Where is he anyway? The guy usually got here five minutes earlier for his lunch break, I couldn’t imagine what he’d gotten himself into to make him more than a minute late. He hated his work, seemed to me that he would always take any time off he could get. Being curious, I walked to the front door and looked for his car, and there it was, just down the street a little, he was going quick though, obviously he knew he was late. And boom, there it was. The perfect balance of chemicals and matter that triggered it. There was a tinge of yellow on window that suddenly caught my attention. At first, I only dismissed it as pollen. But it grew, oh it grew. Then it glowed. I saw the red lights on the front of my brother’s car. The glow was brightening, from the level of a firefly to the level of the sun. My eyes were wide, I’m sure my brother’s too. Now I dove back into the windowless hall, still hearing the wind-like flow of energy surrounding my house. The unsure shaking of an earthquake started too. That sound got higher, sharper, ‘till it broke abruptly. The movement more intense, then it broke as well. There was a brief moment of silence, then the entire house felt like it dropped a foot, crashing a lot of picture frames, glass candlesticks, dishes, and other breakable things to the ground. And many of them lived up to that fragile label. The sounds of cracking glass kept occurring for a good 10 seconds at least. In this time I had closed my eyes, put my hands over my ears, and lifted a foot off the ground. My entire body cringed at the resonating noise that would surely bring my imminent death by the spilling of blood of my mother’s sharp words. The glass finally stopped falling all at once, allowing my ringing ears to recoup. Now the shattering was only occasional. My mind was finally starting to comprehend the absolute ridiculousness of what had just happened. I almost started walking, but at the last moment before putting my foot down it stopped as if on its own, realizing the glass was everywhere. Carefully I hopped a bit to the coat closet with the snow boots. Opening the door caused a magnitude of coats and steel-toed boots to fall onto my face. Thankfully it didn’t push me enough to knock me over, however I did manage to get a steel-toe to the cheek, leaving a nice big red mark there. The boots were extremely helpful, they were nice and thick, my feet didn’t feel a thing. My only concern then was the fact that falling over was now not only much easier with shards of slippery glass everywhere, but also much more painful. Then the scratching on the door started again. Oh God, the dogs! I hadn’t even thought of them, they were outside, where the glass didn’t fall on them, but the huge amount of light might’ve blinded them. Slowly, my boots shuffled to the door to the backyard. Out of my upper peripheral vision the yellow glow was still there, going down though Firstly, I opened the door, but blocked it with my heavy footwear. I stepped outside, looking down at the two pooches, them looking back with an excitement in their eyes. As luck would have it, both of them seemed to be not blind at all, and they still saw just fine. Now with my important worries out of the way, my head went up to observe the damage, but that’s not at all what it noticed. No longer was the line of mountains there, instead many tall, darkened trees. I looked even farther up, and even with the glare from the now non-blinding sun, I could see one streak of contrast shooting up into the blue, a single, steep, sumptuous mountain. “Huh. I’m just gonna go wake up now.” I turned around, stupefied and utterly convinced that my mind had for some reason started dreaming about ponies. Heck, I liked dreaming about fiction anyday, but it hadn’t happened with ponies before. The door slid to the right, but I wasn’t confident in my assumptions enough to let the dogs inside with the glass, so I left them out. It was a nice temperature outside anyway. Up the steps, all 16 of them. Down the hall, last door on the right, just like it still is. As soon as I was next to the bed, I flopped down on it. If there was one thing that I had to be wrong about on that day, I would not have picked my dreaming idea, cause that idea rapidly proved itself very wrong to me when I flopped my body down. Before I could think about reconsidering my decision in falling onto the bed, my mind had already done it, and this was very unfortunate for my poor arm. The lamp had fallen over, and the shade hid the many tiny shards of bulb that now were covering my elbow. Predictably my body flung itself back up from the resting place, my vocal cords disapproving heavily of the newly implanted features. The shards were tiny enough to not puncture deep, and all I had was just a few spots of red by the time I had rubbed them all out. After I got over that incident, I looked out my window again to look at the mountain. There is no way in the world. It really just can’t be that. Come on, Jacob! What else could it possibly be? Now my head was arguing with itself, but my eyes had already decided it. That, in the distance, looked exactly like Canterlot Mountain. It looked almost the same as it did from the nearby familiar town in fact. DiscoveryChapter Two: Discovery My eyes were deceiving me. That had to be the only explanation, or so I thought. "Is this a dream?" My thoughts asked. I smacked an arm against the edge of a table, seeing if there was pain. Yeah, not one of my better ideas. Of course it hurt. What was wrong with me? The idea that I was where I thought I was shocking. Unbelievable, even. You don't know how it felt. You won't. Words cannot describe the feeling in your chest. There was an unnatural urge to scream in my heart. Joy swept through me like a wave onto a beach. Oh yeah, I probably should tell you what was out there. I seemed to be around what was the Everfree Forest. From Friendship is Magic. The world looked... animated. Cartoony. Colorful. Very unusual for a forest, wouldn't you think, even if it was getting dark? I had always dreamed of going to Equestria. "No. No, it is not what you think it is. It's a trick. It's just a trick." Well, that's what I told myself, trying to not get my hopes up. I mean come on, would you believe you just got randomly transported to a fantasy world full of talking ponies? For all I knew, it could've been a cruel joke using a painting or picture or maybe I just got transported to a regular forest somewhere. I've seen weirder things than bright forests. So, with my thought of it being a joke, I went out to see how they actually did it, and why they chose me specifically. I could take a prank. Even if it was unintentionally a little mean. I went outside, leaving the two dogs some water, in case I was going to be out there for a while. The scenery, it was so bright and colorful, and I don't mean pink and yellow everywhere. Just... the beauty of it. The shades of green. And it was annoying, not because of it's nature, but because of how it looked against our property. It didn't 'blend' at all, so to speak. It was... wrong. I'm failing to describe it properly. I don't care how things look usually. I mean, it was just unnatural. It looked like someone poorly photoshopped a picture of a regular house in the middle of a drawing. It made my mind's alerts (For lack of a better term) go off. They were telling me that this wasn't right, and that something has gone completely and utterly wrong. I even looked wrong against it. "Of course something's wrong! It's a painting put against the real world!" I shouted out, trying to get my brain to stop giving me a headache. To prove my own point for no one other then myself, I ran towards what I thought would be a piece of paper or canvas. To my surprise, I didn't run into anything. "I'm standing on it. I have to be." And I wasn't. The dirt was... well... dirt. I went up to a tree, and touched it. It felt like a regular tree, with the rough bark. It just all looked like it shouldn't feel the way it looked. My mind was starting to accept the fact that I must of been teleported or transported somewhere. The hope that it was Equestria rose up inside of me once more. I was a brony, so when I walked back outside to check on the house once more, I looked up. Why, well... there wasn't a reason, or, at least, I don't remember there being one. Maybe I was just getting a feeling, or I was looking for something. But no matter the reason, I saw one thing other than the bright clouds, sun and sky. A flying creature. Equine. Gray. A mark of clear circles on its flank. Carrying some mailbags. Flying (What looked to me to be quite clumsily). I yelled out "WOOHOO, THIS IS ACTUALLY REAL!". Turns out that was a stupid move, because she started to look around. Before she was able to see me, I dove behind a bush, which are thankfully plentiful in forests. She moved on, not noticing my house. Thankfully that was covered by trees. Maybe that plus the walled eyes made it harder to see? I dunno. I should've asked her when I had the chance. Getting out of the bush, I went back inside, and tried to absorb the real possibility that this might be Equestria. Finally telling myself that what I was doing wasn't helping at all, I checked the dogs once more, locking them in the basement, to not cause anymore suspicion from the barking that was bound to happen if they saw a creature of sorts out of the windows. So, after that was done, I left. After not even going a quarter of a mile, there it was. What I recognized as Fluttershy's cottage. Knowing Fluttershy, she would probably go hide under the nearest table as soon as she saw me. That is not how I wanted my first meeting to happen. So, hoping meeting another one of the ponies first and then having me introduced to her by one of them would go better, I went by her house quietly. Spotting a sign that said Ponyville was only a ½ mile away, I stopped. "Miles?" I thought. Of course, I should be in another universe. Or dimension. I didn't know how it worked then. I still don't, really. Anyways, I questioned myself. How they would have the same system of length was unknown to me, at the time. I dismissed it, promising my curious inner consciousness that I would find out later. So, I jogged, figuring I would be there in a few minutes. When I arrived, I hid behind some bushes when I saw some unicorns coming towards me. This confirmed it. This wasn't the most well thought out, and most cruel joke ever. They didn't see me. After they passed, I got out of the bush. Looking around, I spotted a fitting alleyway for a nice secretive stroll through Ponyville. 30 minutes later... "Ah, there it is," I said to myself after about a half hour walking around back alleys randomly through town. The place I knew as Twilight Sparkle's tree house (or house in a tree, I guess...) was only a couple hundred yards away. I started thinking about what I would do. I eventually decided I would just knock and hope Twilight opened the door. Fairly bad plan, but would you have been able to think clearly after all of that? I figured it wouldn't be a total disaster if Spike opened the door. When the coast was clear, I made a run for it. Thankfully, that part of Ponyville seemed to be residential, so it didn't seem very busy. I calmed down, and holding my breath, I knocked. I heard a familiar voice that said "Coming!" It sounded JUST like her voice actor, Tara Strong. Or, I guess Tara sounded like Twilight. Twilight Sparkle. I had met Twilight. It was real. My favorite character, real. "How am I so lucky?" I questioned no one in particular. She opened the door. That was it. Twilight Sparkle herself was standing in front of me. I was a bit startled from my thoughts being broken, but she was much more startled than I. I just asked her "Could I come in?" She seemed a little suspicious, but she let me in, so it went better than I expected. Then, the questions started flowing. I had decided on my jog I would tell whoever I was gonna meet about them existing in my world right at the start. I introduced myself as my actual name, Robert Pickard, but told them she could just call me RJ or Rob. I told her I was a human. She seemed a bit confused. "You're a what now?" I told her again I was a human once again. She immediately ran to an aisle of books behind some others, and I could hear her pulling a few of the texts and scrolls out. After a few minutes, she came back and seemed to stare at me questionably. It was already awkward enough. We hadn't even had a proper introduction, and I was already starting to be feared. "OK Twilight, it's not really helping me out when you stare at me like that," I said. She asked "Wait, how do you know my name?" "Oh... um... uh... I'll explain later, but I know all your friends names, and the names of quite a few other ponies. But you see, I'm not from here. Equestria I mean. In fact, I'm not even sure if I'm from this universe. At least... I don't really think I am." She was definitely growing more suspicious. Who wouldn't be, though? "Fine then, prove you know all our names," she ordered. I stated with immense ease, "You, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's most faithful student, Applejack, who works on her family's farm 'Sweet Apple Acre's', Rarity, the local fashion designer and clothes maker, Rainbow Dash, self-proclaimed fastest flier in all of Equestria, Pinkie Pie, the party pony, and Fluttershy, your animal loving friend." She stared at me. Then I said, "Oh, I almost forgot, Spike, your #1 assistant." I smiled. She just kept staring at me. I sighed. "This is gonna be a story to tell someday." After shushing her confusion, I asked her if she could get her friends to come to her house. She woke Spike up and introduced me to him. He was intimidated, I could tell. Unfortunately, he went back up to who knows where. I saw him peeking out of upstairs every once in a while. Twilight told Spike to keep an eye on me. I didn't really mind. Not different from what I would have done at all, really. After looking around a bit, and seeing if I could possibly read their books (which I couldn't) I heard the door open. I was instantly bombarded with questions as soon as they saw me. Pinkie Pie was able to say more nonsense then... well... anything, really. Should I have been surprised? No, I don't think so. I saw all of them, except for Fluttershy, who was hiding under a table shivering (Quite the ironic scene, trying to avoid that in the first place). After finally getting over my shock that this was really happening, I decided it would be best to make sure they knew I was not dangerous. I told them "Hey, everyo- Er, everypony (I silently chuckled), I just want to get this out of the way, so please listen, I didn't come here on purpose, I don't know how I got here, I'm a human, I'm not going to hurt you at all, actually I hope quite the opposite, and my name is Robert, but just call me RJ, or Rob." They were silent, and it seemed like they were stunned at my ability to talk. So I said, "Also, I'll explain how I know this soon, but your names are (I looked at each pony as I said their name.) Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie," (Who was jumping up and down, whispering loudly into Dash's ear about my surprise party). At this point, Fluttershy stopped shivering. She opened her eyes to look at me. They all seemed shocked even more. Continuing, I said "I come from a planet called Earth, in the country known as the United States of America. I lived in the state of Utah." They started mumbling to each other. I asked if I could sit down. I wanted to get the awkward stuff out of the way first. Twilight said yes, and they all stopped and listened again. I sighed once more, trying to resist the urge to just blurt everything out. "My world is kind of different, and it may take me a while to get used to around here. I'm sure that you may have a hard time hearing what I have to tell some of you." They all nodded in understanding. "I also want you to know that I'm an omnivore." Every one of them except Rainbow gasped. Dash asked, "OK, what is an omnivore? It sounds threatening." While she tensed up, I answered her question. "An omnivore is an animal or creature that eats both plants AND meat." They all backed up when I confirmed their fears. Applejack asked in a scared voice "Well, ya'll ain't gonna eat us, are ya?" I started talking faster, wanting to get this over with. "No. The main animals humans eat are pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and turkey." Fluttershy was gonna need a just a little bit more than that. So, I walked up to her and explained in my most confident voice "Fluttershy, I know this is hard on you. I need you to understand that it's very hard on me and other humans to go without meat. I'll become a vegetarian once things run out in my house or it rots, but I also want you to know it's not impossible for me to go without meat. Will it be easy? No. Do I eat anything even remotely similar to ponies, or anything equine except cows? No. Will I try to hunt? No. I-" Fluttershy, the ONE and ONLY Fluttershy, hugged me. I think my heart stopped. What was going on in my mind when that happened? Nothing. Everything. You have not had a hug until you have hugged Fluttershy. Then, she talked to me. "I'm sorry Rob. I shouldn't have freaked out. I have plenty of carnivorous animals. I don't know why I broke down when I heard you say you were one, will you please forgive me?" "You are kidding right, Fluttershy? Of course I will! How could I even think of saying no to you?" I said while giving her a scratch behind the ears. "I'm sorry too... Owlicious goes to the fields sometimes to... Well, you know, go hunt." Twilight said. "Seriously, it's alright. I can understand why you would freak out." With that out of the way, I needed to explain my world. That took a while. I explained our culture for the most part, excluding religion, the show, and things like poverty, the homeless, the starving, etc... "That doesn't seem bad at all, my dear!" Rarity said as I wrapped it up. "I haven't even started." "Started on what?" Rainbow asked in her squeaky voice. "Started to tell you about the bad stuff." "Well, why can't you?" She continued. "I don't want to tell you. Not right now, at least. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to trust me. Any other questions?" Twilight asked me predictably "So, what do you study in school specifically? "Me, specifically? Right now, I'm in the 8th grade. I study Geometry, English, the history of my country in general, health, technology, and a few other things. I'll explain the education system to you personally later Twilight. I could probably give you a few of my textbooks, even." I then moaned, because I would probably have to keep up with my work while I was here. Nopony asked anything more, so I thought I would tell them about how I knew their names. "Alrighty, let's move on. I would prepare yourselves here." I cringed, then said very fast (Like I was admitting something that I had done) "I know that you're going to be confused, and I'll show you later, but you exist as a TV show on my planet." They stared at me. "Oh yeah, no TV's. Come on, let's go to my house, I'll explain on the way." After somewhat properly introducing myself to Spike and explaining to him what was going on, we all left Twi's house. "Oh, uh, I'm not sure how the ponies here would react to you, Robert," Twilight said. "Yeah, is there anyway I could possibly just sneak by?" "I'm sure we could think of a few ways." They distracted the ponies, and I sprinted though the shadows, trying to stay hidden. After I got past the last house, I slowed to a gentle walk, waiting for them to catch up. After they did, we walked in quiet, as we headed to what I guess was now my house... well... at least temporarily. We got there, and Rarity instantly started talking about how bland the brown colored house with it's somewhat dead, crunchy, and as I'm sure it looked to them, odd grass. I just told her to stop and give me a chance to explain to them all why. I opened the garage door with the push of a few buttons on the side, and they all gasped as it started to slowly go up mechanically. Of course, Twilight asked how I was using magic, and where it was coming from. I responded by telling them all to be patient, and it was getting clear that they were all getting a little anxious, especially Rainbow. So, I started to explain. In the garage was my bike, my mom's SUV, my dad's motorcycle, and the collection of 4-wheelers that we went on every so often. Since we humans don't have magic, I needed to explain to them why we had so much technology. And, right on time, Twilight asked what the hunk of metal that was the SUV was. I said "Ah, now that is gonna take a bit more explaining. Well, you see, you ponies choose magic, but in our world, we don't have magic, it doesn't exist." She gasped. "So we chose science, and we have all this cool technology that helps us in place of it. These things are all examples of the technology we have. These wonderful things are all quite cool, but I'll explain some of the best ones." "This," I patted the mini-van, "is a car. An SUV to be exact. It's made to carry lots of people on a fast trip. It wouldn't take more than a few days to travel across the country. It travels on land, and it costs a lot of money, but it's usually worth it. It takes a fuel called gasoline. It's one of the main ways we get around on my world. The problem is, I don't know how to drive it. Too young for a license, unfortunately." "How fast does it go?" Rainbow Dash asked. "You guys have miles per hour, right? I saw a sign back ther-" They nodded (In unison), wanting me to get to the point. "Well then, the law limits how fast you can go, and usually the fastest they'll let you go is 75 MPH. Ready to move on?" Rainbow of course was now flying around it and inspecting it. Then I pointed at the motorcycle. "That is a motorcycle, it is like a car, but it's a ton smaller and you're exposed to the outside. So we only use them during the spring, summer, or fall. Also, you have to balance on it, since it has only 2 wheels." Then the bicycles. "These are like motorcycles, except they have no engine, so we use our feet to turn the little steps on the sides, which turns the gears, which turns the wheels." I showed them our family's ATVs (Four-wheelers), which I explained as being like motorcycles, except you didn't have to balance. Then suddenly, the dogs started barking. It was quiet from downstairs, but still unexpected. They all jumped, and Fluttershy asked what was making the noise. I said "My dogs." Fluttershy jumped back up after cowering a bit from the door from where the noise was coming from. I just said they were very protective and wanted to help me. They all went, "Awwwww," I blushed, and said I would calm them down. Fluttershy wanted to help, but I told her that they would bite if I didn't calm them down first. She said, "Oh… OK then…" and seemed disappointed. I told them all to act nice and not be scared, because our version of a dog was different from, say, Winona. So I got the dogs, not letting them see what was in the garage. I got a few treats, put them in my pocket, and held them by their collars. They instantly started barking as soon as they saw the ponies. "Territorial, I guess." I thought. I calmed them down, and led the two dogs to Fluttershy. She reached out her hoof and they sniffed. They licked her leg. The dogs liked her quite a bit actually. She petted them with her hoof, which was a little awkward, but meaningful none the less. Next was Rainbow Dash, who Sully liked but Flint didn't. Flint and Dash were complete opposites. Dash just gave a defeated "Hmph." As Flint walked to the next pony, who was Twilight. Both dogs liked Twilight fairly well. Applejack asked if her dog Winona could play with my dogs later. I said yes, but not at the moment. So next was Rarity, who "Despised dogs, and liked cats much better." and refused to let them lick her. Finally Pinkie Pie, who the dogs loved. I let her give them the treats. So, after that little interruption, I told them no more questions until I finished explaining how I knew their names, and how they didn't know me. I led them inside. They all gaped at my house's size. Well, we do have a big family. We get visits from extended family often too. Plus, our house is tall. I said, "OK, first off, you're all celebrities with probably a couple million fans on my planet, including me. I am a fan of a TV show called 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. Now I know you're going to ask what a TV show is. I know you have cameras, right?" Some nodded yes, while some seemed to be stuck, including Rarity, who had dilated her eyes and just keep mouthing the words celebrity, famous, and stars. "Overwhelmed, much?" I thought, amused. "Well, on Earth we have cameras too. But we also have special types of cameras that instead of capturing still photos capture a video. A video is basically a bunch of pictures put together to make a "moving picture". Remembering my cell phone, I said I would be right back and got it. I set it up record a video. I said for them to say "Hi". I started recording and motioned to them to say hi. They did, suspiciously, but still. I stopped recording and showed them the tiny screen, and played it. They all looked in amazement at what I would consider simple and low quality. Telling the WorldChapter Three: Telling the World Twilight asked what this had to do with TV shows. I said “Well, this is basically what a TV show is. Moving pictures, but they are supposed to be entertaining. Like a play.” I pointed to the black screen behind me and explained what a TV was. I turned on the TV. "Wait... this won't wo-" Somehow, it came up. How? How could I access any Earth satellites from here? I found the first episode of MLP: FiM from the recordings and played it, explaining that they didn’t use cameras here, but drew every picture using a machine to help since our worlds looked different. So we watched. No one said anything. I had them watch the second episode too, since it wouldn't make much sense to not. I think I was putting too much on them. I mean, finding out you’re a celebrity with a few million fans without even knowing anything at first must be hard. I told them that there were 2 “seasons” of their show, and that there were about 45 episodes of it. Twilight said that the show was exactly what had happened. It was just a little more detailed in the actual happenings of the events. Rarity asked “But… How?” I said I didn’t know. I told them a woman named Lauren Faust had come up with the idea to do it. By that time, it was 7:30. I told them that I would explain more tomorrow. Even Pinkie looked a little overwhelmed when she left. I wondered what I would do, in this new world. I had a huge amount of food, since my family was big. We had prepared for a disaster, so I had even more food in a cold storage area downstairs. This was meant to last around a month for our entire family of 7. Then I wondered. If the house disappeared on Earth, what were they gonna do? I realized, they probably thought I was dead. I got my phone back out quickly and saw that I somehow had service. Guess it was like the satellite signal. I called my mom’s cell phone. It rang. Someone picked up. I heard a sniffling voice that said “Hello?” I said “Mom, it’s me.” She screamed “HE’S ALIVE, OH MY GOD HONEY, HE’S ALIVE!!! WHERE ARE YOU ROBERT?!?!” I asked her to please be quieter. I then said “Mom, I’m in Equestria. I’m fine, the house is fine, and the dogs are fine. We’re safe.” She gave a sigh of relief, then asked in a confused voice “Wait, where’s Equestria?” I thought she might ask that. “Mom, Equestria is a country…” Before I was finished she said “Oh, we’ll figure out how to get you back, the police are figuring it out. They’re listening right now.” I then finished with “on another planet. I think. It might be another universe. I dunno really.” I think she fainted. After some questioning with the police, and telling them about the ponies, they of course didn't believe me. I said I could prove it, and sent the video of them all saying hi. I explained to them that I was explaining to the ponies what a video was. They had an expert examine it and he told them it was one of the most obviously fake videos he had ever seen. Not very helpful. I don't know what they thought was going on, but I told my mom I would use my computer and get on Skype, since I have a webcam. After another 5 minutes, we were talking to each other on Skype. She was overwhelmed with joy, from me being alive and all. I realized at that moment, that I would have to go back. Somehow. I just couldn’t abandon my family and the rest of the world to frolic with a bunch of cartoon ponies. While it definitely sounded nice, I knew my family would have a tough time without me. And the house and dogs too. Plus, the ponies were technically aliens to us, and I was quite sure they wouldn’t start a war with us, as all the horror films depicted. So that would be interesting, Earth finally contacting another life form from another world. Especially friendly ones. That reminded me of what else I had to tell the ponies. I really, REALLY hate being the bringer of bad news, but I wouldn't dare leave them uninformed. I sighed, knowing that if they were gonna see my world for real, I should probably tell them everything about it. So, after I finished assuring and reassuring my family and close friends that I was perfectly safe and fine, I was talking to the police again. They had contacted some officials. Apparently some other people doubted the expert and they were researching the show. To help them out, I went outside, taking my mom’s Canon camera. I took a few photos of the land, since it was all animated. Then I took a picture of the house against the land. Another one of the grass in-between the “real” grass and the animated grass. I decided I would go to Ponyville again tomorrow and take a few pictures of the town. I took a video of me walking outside, just so they could see it from my perspective, and then went inside. It had been a really odd day, so I thought I was going to go to bed, but before I did, I checked what was going on in the world. I checked on the news, and apparently they let the story go. My picture was everywhere. Apparently my mom told them that I did watch the show and occasionally called myself a “brony” when she wasn’t looking. She also gave away my YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and various other account names away. I now went from a few subs on YouTube, to a few thousand. On Facebook, I had a huge amount of friend requests, and on Twitter there were thousands of people following me. I sighed, knowing I should probably say something. After all, the police didn’t say anything about putting those pictures up early… So, I did. Instantly, after I refreshed my page a minute after the 20 second video of me walking outside was uploaded, it already had 300 likes. I sighed, sent an email asking my mom why she had to do that and told her to look at my accounts. I went to bed. I woke up the next morning at 8:30, to hear someone pounding at my door. I opened it, to find Rainbow Dash. I asked her what she was doing here. She said in a doubting voice, “I still don’t trust you. If you hurt any of my friends in any way, you will regret it.” I sighed once more, and told her to follow me. I showed her the pages of people who had been begging for something from me. She looked at them, but didn’t seem convinced. I went to the YouTube video of me walking outside, and showed her it, and then showed her all the comments and likes on it so far. I decided to do one last thing to convince her. I got my recording software up, and the camera, and started recording on both. I typed in “Hey guys, Rainbow Dash is sitting right next to me. She doesn’t seem convinced that I’m not gonna hurt her or any of her friends. So I need you all to say something convincing. I’ll post a video of her reaction soon. GO!” I commented, and then turned on “Update Automatically” on the comments, and about 20 seconds later, they started showing up. I picked up the camera, looking back and forth from her to the comments, and after about a minute and about 400 comments later, I asked for people to keep checking in. I stopped recording. She seemed flabbergasted. She kept watching it, and after 600 comments, she was convinced. So, I plugged the camera's SD card into the computer, and edited them both into 1 video. I uploaded it, and about 15 minutes later, after the video uploaded, I looked at Yahoo, and pretty much half the stories were about me. I realized that I was a celebrity now. I looked on Twitter, and Tara Strong, Notch, The Discovery Channel, Mythbusters crew, (Horrifyingly) Justin Bieber, and a whole bunch of other famous people were following me. I couldn’t believe it. I answered some of their questions. The first one was from Tara. She asked “I’m assuming you’ve met them, so did Twilight sound just like my voice for her?!?!” I answered with a simple yes. Discovery Channel asked how I got there. I answered with “Dunno. I felt like I was sick, so I sat down and fell asleep. Next thing I knew, I was here.” The rest of them were like that. So after another half hour of doing this, with Dash watching and listening as I was explaining who they were. I said I had to go, and left. I took the camera, my mom’s laptop, and my tablet in my backpack. I started walking with Dash, answering a few more questions about my world. She seemed much more comfortable around me now, seeing that I wasn't out to harm them. I asked in a nervous voice “Have there been any disappearings here recently? Any mysterious murders?” She said “What? No! Why do YOU want to know?” in a tense voice once again. Thank God. No Cupcakes here. So, nothing other than canon. I started to once again wonder how the producers did it. You know, finding out about this world. Or, at least, copying it down to the last detail. It was exactly like the show. “That’s mostly good.” I thought to myself. I also asked if she knew a stallion with a light brown coat, dark brown sort of messed up mane, with an hourglass as a cutie mark. She said “Yep. He called himself 'The Doctor' when he first came here, then started calling himself 'Doctor Whooves'." “HA!” I yelled. So he was real. Running back to my house, I got the 10th Doctors Sonic Screwdriver model I had gotten for Christmas, put it in my backpack, and ran to meet up with Dash. "Now I get to meet The Doctor too? Sweet. So, if the show is his universe, then are mine and this one alternate? Is there a main universe? How will he react when I tell him?" I questioned myself, until Rainbow interrupted. "Come on!" "Wha... What? Oh... Sorry Dash, just thinking." I responded in confusion. "Well, you've been 'thinking' for forever! She sighed, and then said "Come on, let's get going again." We went towards Fluttershy’s cottage on the way. Dash talked to her and explained that I needed pictures for the leader of my country to show the rest of my world. And since it showed Fluttershy’s house in later episodes, they could compare it. So I took around 10 pictures, took a picture of all 3 of us, and recorded a video of them actually talking. I sat down behind them just so they could have a comparison. I asked Fluttershy if she would come, and thankfully she said yes. So we got to Ponyville, and they distracted everyone while I snuck off to Pinkie’s house. Well, she seemed back to normal after yesterday. “*GASP* OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH ROBBIE I JUST REALIZED YOU’RE NEW AND I NEED TO DO SOMETHING AND I’LL BE RIGHT BA-“ I caught her by the tail right as she was about to run back in and asked her before she goes and does this 'something' (Which I had a pretty good suspicion of what it was) that I needed her to come with me. She said “Oh, alright, anything for a friend.” I smiled. One of them had called me their friend. I was just overwhelmed again. This was all real. All of it. President and PoniesChapter Four: President and Ponies After getting Pinkie to come along with us, we all went to Twilight’s tree house (Or is it a house in a tree?). She had already sent a letter to the Princesses, and said that they should respond later today. I sighed, just hoping this madness would just stop for a second so I actually get to know the ponies better. But that was for later, and I would enjoy it when it came. Twilight let me take a couple more pictures, and then we went over to Rarity’s, then to AJ’s. Finally, I was able to take a picture of them all together. As we walked back to Ponyville, I was finally able to take a picture of the small town. My *ahem* “mission” was accomplished. So, I offered to have them come over to my house and look at some of my stuff. After the 15 minute walk to my house, they started marveling over all my stuff. I was going back and forth between them explaining things, occasionally yelling “WAIT, DON’T!” at them. That included one incident where Fluttershy almost looked into the freezer, which I knew had frozen fish in it. After another 10 minutes of that, I offered them something to eat and drink, since it was 11:30. They accepted, so I asked them what they would like. They all blurted out different things at once. So I offered to just make something from my world. They looked uneasy, so I again had to reassure them that I wouldn’t feed them any meat. I started up the stove, with Twilight saying “Whoa, what do you use that for?” I answered with “Well, we use it for cooking, and that’s what I’m doing. Making some called mashed potatoes. Do you guys have potatoes here?” She nodded but then said “Yes, but we don't eat them all that much..." "Oh, do you want me to make something else?" "Oh, no it's fine." "Have you ever had them with butter and pepper?" "Nope!" "Well then I'll just make a little bit so you can all try it." I also got out a steamer, and this really big plastic box of white rice. Our family always loved white rice. It’s so simple. I asked her if they had rice. She said no. “Oh well,” I thought once again. They were all just staring, watching in awe while I cooked up what seemed like a regular lunch or dinner. I also got out some Mac and cheese. While that was all cooking, I asked them what they usually drank. They all said either water or tea would be fine. I knew I was gonna regret asking this, but I asked if they had ever tried soda. It was only 11:45, and I had gotten Pinkie Pie hooked on soda. Warning to everyone/pony: Do not give Pinkamena Diane Pie soda of any kind. She had tried Coke, Sprite, Cherry Pepsi, and some sort of fruit soda. She said she liked the Sprite the best. Twilight and Applejack both tried the Cherry Pepsi. Fluttershy liked the Grape soda. Rarity didn’t like any of them. She stuck her tougue out dramatically and said “Bleh! What is this horrid stuff?” to the can of Coke. I guess she didn’t like the fizziniss. Knowing her, I sorta expected that. But Dash definitely liked the Coke. After they seemed satisfied with finding out about all the stuff in my home, I introduced them to my computer. I tried explaining it to them, but just failed. So, I thought it better to show them. I turned it on, and the blue light came on inside the transparent case. I loved my computer. I went and showed them around. Twilight was very interested in how I could store and organize any document I wanted to, and that I could make a presentation very quickly. Then, I started explaining the Internet to them. I explained how their show had gotten so popular through the Internet, and that almost every piece of info on my world was accessible through the Internet. I said that you could talk with someone across the world easily. Twilight definitely seemed to like it. I opened up my email, and explained I was sending all those pictures so they could show them to analysts. Rainbow asked “What do you do for entertainment?”, and I answered “What do you think I’m showing you?” I sighed, and then listed off from my mind “TV, movies, comedy, theatre, animation, comics, dance, exercise… sort of, music, and my favorite, video games.” So, naturally I showed them a video game. I went over to the Xbox 360 and got out a racing game, thinking that I should show them the violent games like Fallout, Modern Warfare, Assassin’s Creed, and other games like that later. I put it in, and thankfully, they didn’t react as badly this time as last time I showed an electronic. I selected “Time trial” and just drove around and showed them a few races. Now this is where Dash got interested. “Hey, Robert, what kind of sports do you have on your world?” She said in her tomboyish voice. “Well, there are tons of sports in my world, but the big ones in my country are football, baseball, soccer, track and field, bowling, golf, tennis, boxing, racing of all kinds, and ping pong. But that’s not nearly all of them. There’s a ton more! Maybe I’ll show you later.” I said. “Oh, ok…” She said, while looking confused. I guess she didn’t know what most of those were. This made sense, considering ponies didn’t have hands. Then, pretty much everything started beeping. The Mac and cheese was done, the mashed potatoes needed stirring, the rice needed to come out. It was complete and utter chaos. Thankfully, since Pinkie had knowledge of baking some things correctly, and Twilight using her magic, we were able to get it all finished. After 5 more minutes of getting it all prepared, it was ready. I never really cooked this much of a meal. Honestly, I really only cooked for myself and my brother during the summer. So, with that, I put everything on the table, and got plates out for everyone. I got some soy sauce, salt and pepper, and butter in case anyone wanted it. I got out a set of spoons and forks, and then I realized once again, that they had no hands and fingers. So, I only took out a pair for me, Rarity, and Twilight. Then Rarity asked “Dearie, why are you putting the forks and spoons away?” I said in my defense “But… You don’t have hands… And only you and Twilight have magic…” “So?” Rarity said. “So, how are they going to hold them? They don’t have hands.” “HEY!” Dash yelled. “Everypony has a little bit of magic in them! Just watch.” I gazed in awe while she held my fork in her hoof, like there were some invisible fingers around it. I shook my head, and then shivered. “What’s wrong?” She asked. “But… But… HOW?” I said, in an annoyed state. I then said before she could answer “Oh, never mind.” I then proceeded to whisper myself “It’s just like Pinkie Sense… It’s just like Pinkie Sense…” “But why haven’t they invented any sports like I have in my world?” I argued to my conscious. “Or maybe they have.” I then noticed that they were all staring at me, while I was mumbling. “Uh, why were ya talking to yerself there sugahcube?” AJ asked “Oh. I just don’t like things I don’t understand.” “Really?” Twilight asked, “I hate that feeling! I’m glad somepony else feels like that too.” She also said while beaming her smile at me. After finally accepting the fact that ponies could hold things without hands, I handed out forks and spoons. “Wow, this is great!” they all said in unison. They were munching it down faster than I could eat a hamburger. “Well, thanks guys… Er, I mean girls. It’s really not much. I could make a REAL feast if I wanted to. This isn't really much. I’ll just have to remember not to make it so it finishes all at once,” I said in an embarrassed voice. After we finished my apparently “superb” meal, I invited them to take a look at a part of my culture that wasn’t My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I wanted to make sure that they knew that there was still good in my world, even if there wasn’t a lot of it. I got up, and put the DVD in. While waiting for it to get started from going through those annoying unskippable previews, I made some popcorn, explaining while it was going what the microwave was. The popcorn beeped, and I took it out. Pinkie Pie ate it all in one gulp. “Predictable,” I thought. *dun dun dun duuunnn, dun dun dun duuuun,dun dun dun dun dun…* I won’t really describe the next hour, since you all should know the fourth episode of Star Wars. After watching for an hour, I got up to check the news to see if my pictures had shown up anywhere. They all looked at me in confusion. I explained to them that I was just checking the news. As I logged on and saw the Yahoo homepage, my heart just about stopped. PRESIDENT TO SPEAK ABOUT PONY ALIENS I ran out of the office and changed the input to the TV. I switched it to a news channel with the other ponies all yelling at me in confusion from behind. There he was. The President of the U.S.A... And he was going to talk about... me. I realized once again how significant this was. I was here, with aliens, and ones that we’ve unknowingly known about since the October of 2010. “I’m freaking famous!” I thought. I smiled as they said I was a fairly close follower of the show. “Hah. I never told my mom I was a brony,” I thought. But she obviously knew now. I heard a ringing come from my pocket, making everyone jump. It was my mom once again, just happening to call right when I was thinking about her. I swear, this cartoon world made everything like… well… Cartoons. I told them that it was only my mom, I sighed, and then answered, after telling them it was another way to talk to other people when you weren't with them. “Hello?” I said. “Oh good sweetie, you’re there. I was just checking up on you. None of them are hurting you, right?” She asked in a very concerned voice. “I already told you mom, they’re completely harmless, and they wouldn’t hurt a fly!” AJ then proceeded to slap a rather annoying looking fly with her tail, and I resisted the urge to face palm from the cartoonish irony. “Oh good, now what have you been doing during all of this?” She asked. “Have you even glanced at my Twitter account lately?” I asked. “Well… No… I haven’t. But I heard you sent in those pictures of the place you’re stuck in to The President! What did you call it again? Equtree?” I sighed (For what I hoped would be the last time for at least a FEW minutes.). I then said “Mom, just look at my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. Now. And it’s called “Equestria”, not whatever you called it. “Oh, so you’re friends with them now, are you? I will look at your accounts, sweetie.” She said in an annoyed voice. “Yes, mom, they’re cute, adorable ponies (a few of the ponies looked over when I said that) that I’ve known about since what? Early this year, I think.” I answered to her first question. I then said “Well, did you want to talk to my “friend’s” mom?” “Oh, yes please!” she said in a now overly enthusiastic/sarcastic voice. So, I whispered to the rest of them (Who all looked very confused, except Dash.) that my mom wanted to talk to them. Hoping that it wouldn’t go too bad, I turned it on speaker, and sat back and watched the fun. “Hello, I understand you’re the ponies that my son has been associating with.” My (slighty) over-protective mother said. “Yes,” or variations of that was what the ponies answered back. “Well, I just want to let you know, that if you hurt him in ANY way, at ALL. You will be dead.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Understand?” She said in a very serious and obviously annoyed voice. “Ah… Yes ma’am…” Applejack, who was the only one to respond, said. “Good. Now, who are you? If you’re going to be with my Robby pumpkins (You could hear a very loud slap on the forehead in the background) for most of the time, I’d like to know who you all are.” She said in a much nicer voice. So, they introduced themselves, surprised at my mother's sudden turn of heart. Pinkie actually got Fluttershy to too. And they talked. And talked. And talked. Just like… Ugh. I’m not going into it. After another 5 minutes, I finally was able to get their attention. “WHAT!?!?” Everyone else said at once. “Well, I thought you’d wanna see the speech where the FRICKIN’ PRESIDENT IS TALKING ABOUT YOU!” They all looked hurt. “Look, I’m sorry. But I think you should really, REALLY see this speech. You guys and I are what everyone is talking about right now on my planet. You, my friends, are famous. Quick question Twilight, what is the population of ponies on this planet?” “Uhmmm… I’d say about 30 million ponies.” “Ha. You aren’t gonna believe this. Wanna guess how many humans there are on Earth?” “Uh… 100 million?” She guessed. “Nowhere NEAR close. One more time.” “How about 500 million?” “Nope. 7 billion. 7 billion things like me inhabit my world. Whoa, you guys OK?” “Now it’s my turn. HOW!?!?” She screamed at me. “Uh… I dunno. We've existed for a long time? But that's the amount of people... Maybe take away 2 billion for those in lower tech areas... that now know about you. “Wait… I’M A EVEN BIGGER CELEBRITY!?!?” Rarity said. And then she made that squeeing sound effect… Geez. How much of this was real? I shook my head in disbelief once again, and then answered “Yes Rarity, you are.” “Oh, mom. We should all be watching the speech! Here, I’ll hang up. Bye mom!” “Bye sweetie, stay safe, would you?” “I will mom. Bye!” I hung up. “She wasn’t that bad!” Pinkie Pie said. “Well, she was kinda overprotective of you, Robert.” Dash said while snickering. “Hey, I thought that was kinda sweet, if not a little rude.” Rarity said. By this point I was blushing pretty badly. “Uh, don’t you girls think we should start watching the speech now?” I asked. “Ooo! Yes! I want to see your leader! This is gonna be great!” Twilight said as she (somehow) pulled a quill and a piece of paper from seemingly nowhere. I turned up the volume on the TV, and we started watching. They had already gone through most of the intro, it looked like. But I think I’ll just describe the entire thing like this. You haven’t lived, until you hear President Barack Obama present a speech about cartoon ponies. Seriously. Funniest. Thing. EVER. So, yeah. It was pretty funny, but it was a great intro to people who weren't bronies, and probably had never heard of the show before. I’m glad he didn’t give the show a bad name. It looked like our government’s researchers had actually done something right for once. “Huh.” Twilight exclaimed as they concluded it with our nation’s national anthem. “Well, what’d you guys think? I thought it was actua-“ There was a crunching noise outside. I ran up to the window, and found to be looking at me, the Princess!?!? “AH!” I exclaimed, jumping back, the Princess looked slightly dazed, I opened the door quickly, and before I could say anything, I was interrupted by Twilight. “Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?” “Why, answering to your letter, of course!” A Not So Happy PartyChapter 5: A Not So Happy Party “Princess, why are you here so soon?” Twilight asked the Princess. “To see to it that this… MONSTER, leaves here, and goes back to the Everfree, or from wherever he came from. Are you alright, my dear Twilight?” Princess Celestia said worryingly. “Uh, Princess, I don’t think you understand.” “I think I completely understand you humans with your lies and deceiving ways.” “With all due respect, Princess Celestia, I think my friends here would vouch for me. Also, I’d like to know, when was the last time you saw one of us humans?” I said, kneeling down slowly. The rest saw what I was doing, and with embarrassment, also started to go down. “What? A human… Kneeling to me? I thought that you humans said we were “scum”. Why are you doing such a thing, shouldn’t you be trying to capture me? Or is this another one of your tricks?” She said. Because of that, the guards around her tensed up even more and they pointed their spears at me. I guess they weren’t aware of how apparently dangerous I was. I sighed, and then asked “Okay, so you’ve obviously seen humans before, so please tell me, how long ago was the last time you met one of us?” “I’d say one-thousand two hundred years.” “So… You think we haven’t changed in one THOUSAND two HUNDRED years?” She sighed. “I’m not taking any chances. Not with the way I saw you creatures behaving back then. You were a violent race. I have no idea where your kind went after the disturbance, but I was in no hurry to find out. You even killed some of my little ponies. I’m afraid I cannot forgive you for your crimes.” I explained my story. I showed her the first few minutes of the first episode. She was amazed that our race didn’t remember it, when we apparently came there. That we only thought of her kingdom as a figment of our imagination. By this point, the other ponies were backing me up. It helped. “Hmmm… So, you looked up to us? We… entertained you, so to speak? You DON’T want to kill us for sport anymore?” “Yes. You made quite a few of our people happy. And NO! No way. I mean… We’re still omnivores, but I’ll survive without… meat. We don’t even eat anything equine.” “Well then Robert, I grant you residence to Equestria! You’ll have to come to Canterlot to fill out some paperwork of course, but that won’t be too much of a problem, will it?” I was silent for a few seconds, and then answered her. “I… I thought I made it clear. I need to go back.” The other ponies gasped. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to mention this. I did mention SOMEWHERE along the line, right? I really didn't? How? Wouldn’t they ASSUME I would try to go back? Why wouldn’t they? I wanted both. But despite my dreams and wishes, I couldn’t stay. Not with my family knowing I was alive and safe. “I… I wish… I wish I could do both. Stay with my family and be with you. But I can’t just abandon them! Their house, money, transportation, and pretty much everything else is here! They need me; I’m a part of their family. You’ve got to understand. Would any of you abandon Equestria just to go live in some fantasy land in a book?” Silence was there still. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know if I’m in the same universe, or dimension or ANYTHING! I-it’s probably not even possible…” “I’m sure there is a way.” Celestia said, failing to convince me. I wasn’t as sure. I still sometimes wish she was wrong. I still should’ve seen it coming. Yet another one of my favorite things would ruin me. They didn’t mean to, of course. It’s just how things happen around them. 30 minutes later “Rob, you should really come out. Come on! We’re gonna be leaving soon!” Twilight yelled at my bedroom door. I still can’t believe how fast they recover. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock of it all. Celestia had left, and promised to put some of her best to work on this problem. “Please… Just go away.” I said “Come on! Stupid door! OK, I’m coming in there, whether you like it or not!” She said, while my door’s lock was surrounded by a purple glow. “Fine, fine. Come in. I don’t like it, but you obviously won’t be giving up anytime soon. I don't want a broken door.” I said while sighing, getting up to get the door. “Thank you!” I had opened the door, while Twilight and the other five came in. Pinkie, always being cheerful, hummed a bright little tune, made me a bit happier. They came in. “Sugarcube, are you ahright?” Applejack asked. “Yes, I-I’m fine.” “If ya’ll watch that show so much, then you should know that Ah’m the best lie detector from Las Pegasus to Manehattan. Plus, you ain't the convincin' type,” She said while grinning. “I know… Look, I’m sorry for lying, but could you just please leave me alone for a little longer?” They thankfully all left, but I held Twilight back. “Twi, I know that Pinkie Pie’s gonna throw a surprise party for me, but could you make sure it’s here, and also make sure she invites everypony. She does that regularly, right? And, make sure she sets it up out in the living area, alright?” I said while pointing to the living room, right below us. “Oh, you really do know… Okay. I will. But one last thing, I know you’re upset about something, and I’m sorry for whatever it is, but are you ever gonna tell us?” “Yes, thanks for your concern. I will, soon. But could you just leave now? Thanks.” I said calmly. They all left. I was planning something to tell them almost everything about my world. It was getting late, so I turned in. Sleep wasn’t easy, because of how nervous I was. I questioned myself. I had just been transported… Is it teleported? I don’t really know anymore. I had just been teleported to the land of my favorite TV show and I had just… Not really questioned it. Why? Why me? Am I special in some sort of way? How, even? What is it that caused this all? I was so confused then. So very confused. The next day… “There we are.” I had said to myself, as I finished cleaning up so Pinkie and whoever else helped set it up wouldn’t have as much of a hassle. I hadn’t done much, really. Just went to sleep, got up, and started cleaning. There was a knock on my door. Good timing. I think that happens a lot in that world. It’s just the way it works, I think. I opened it to find none other than Twilight. “I’m supposed to distract you, while everypony else sets it up. So I thought you’d might want to take a walk.” Twilight said. “Sure! Here, I’ll bring some stuff, so I can explain it better.” I said while running to take my mom’s laptop. “Oh good, I hoped you might do something like that.” A few minutes later, I was explaining how to create presentations, documents, images, you get it. I won’t go into detail. My phone rang once again, startling us both. It was once again, my mother. I put it on speaker for us both to be able to talk and hear. She greeted me in a sad and sort of annoyed voice “Hello, Rob.” “Uh, hi? What’s going on? What happened?” “Grandma Marylyn died a few hours ago, and I have to go to Illinois for her funeral.” “What? I thought… I thought… But…” I said in a confused and sad voice. Twilight just stood there looking dumbfounded. I wasn’t anywhere near close with that grandmother in particular. She was my mom’s dad’s wife. We hadn’t talked much. Just, you know, gave each other a hug and said goodbye when we left from visiting. But still, it isn’t easy losing someone you’ve known you’re entire life. “Sweetie, I have to go now. We’re busy setting things up. Goodbye.” I just closed the phone, and sat down under the nearest tree. “Twilight, come here. You need an explanation, now.” She had just walked clumsily towards me. “OK, now I know that came as a big shock to you, but I need you to understand. She probably had a heart attack, or a stroke. It may seem heartless that I’m acting like this, but I wasn’t that close to her. She wasn’t very social and I don’t think she wanted to be. She had a lot of problems with herself and from what I’ve seen, was in pain. I’m sort of happy in a way that she passed on, because now she doesn't have to live with that pain anymore.” “But… But… She died… Why? Why did she just die?” Twilight asked senselessly. “Twilight, listen to me!” I said, taking her head and making her look into my eyes. “I’m going to tell you everything, now. Don’t try to explain it to everyone else. My favorite grandpa, Grandpa Bob, died last summer, and I cried. A lot. I went to his funeral, and helped carry his coffin to his grave. By now, I’ve gotten over it, but I know he is in a better place, running along golden streets. He was a war veteran. He had been awarded a Purple Heart. You don’t even know what that is, but all you need to know is that it is very important. He was in pain too. My world isn't a happy place. It’s a place of war, pain, torture, and discomfort to most people. There are wars going on right now. Many wars. But there have been worse. A lot worse. Death is common. But you know what? Your show, your wonderful show Twilight, is one of the few happy things that kept people going. That willed them, and me, to live life. I’m not saying that I would've committed suicide or been utterly depressed or anything like that, no. Not anything close to that. But my life would’ve been a lot more sad and boring without you guys. I’m serious right now; I’ve seen so many deaths, so much carnage… It seems like we humans don’t even care about anything but fighting. And I’m actually very lucky. I’ve got it made in my world. My parents are fairly rich, not millionaires or anything, but we’ve got it pretty easy. They both work, and that’s the one of the few downsides… But even despite that, I’ve seen a lot. Now, of course, two of my grandparents dead. My brother losing half his pinkie finger from a lawn mower, my mom suffering from Lyme Disease, pets dying, all that violence from media, war, Twilight. Real, present, war. The 9/11 attacks… I… I could go on for a long time…” At that point, I was just randomly spitting out everything I had. I was tearing up. I really was lucky. The worst thing that ever happened to me were accidentally cutting my chin open badly enough that it needed stitches when I was four, and I guess having to witness all those other things happen. “Twilight, I’m sorry you had to see me like… like this.” I stuttered. “Ro-Robert… I didn’t know… But… I think… I…” She said, and then just hugged me. I didn’t know what to do… So I just let her hug me. I’m really not much of a hugger, but you don’t deny Twilight Sparkle. Heh. It was enjoyable, to say the least. It cheered me up, but I was still crying. “Let’s… Just go. OK?” Twilight said. We walked along in silence, as I kicked a rock every once in a while. “Look, I’m sorry I had to tell you all that, and even now, I still haven’t showed you everything. But now, I want to show you some happy stuff. I also want you to realize something. You think I’ve got it bad, don’t you?” “Yeah…” She said, obviously despaired. “My family is in the top 15 million richest people in the world. Remember? 7 billion people? There are orphans, diseased, and starving all around my world. America, the country I live in, has it good. We’re in a depression right now, but we’re much better off than those people in those situations. It happens all over the world, but much more in continents like Africa, Asia, South America… You don’t know what those are… Oh well. I think I still have a few pictures. I want you to see my family. You've seen pictures of them around my house, but I want to introduce you to them.” I opened up my mom’s laptop, and looked for the pictures. I found them eventually. “Look, here’s me and my family.” I said, pulling up the picture we took of our immediate family just last fall. She smiled a sad smile. “You guys make it look like there’s nothing wrong.” “Well, we want to make it look happy." She sighed and looked a bit nervous. "What’s wrong?” I asked. “Could I see a picture of your… Um… Deceased grandfather and grandmother?” “Twilight. You can just say they’re dead. Like I said, I’m over it now.” I pulled up a recent picture of him. He said he had been growing his hair back. There was just a little bit on the top. A few years ago there was none. He was determined to get some though. She again, smiled a very sad smile. “He looks nice.” She said. “He was nice, I consider him the best grandpa anyone could ever have. He knew how to tell a good joke. Whenever there was someone who needed a ride home, he gave it, even if it was completely out of his way. Almost no one else would even take a second glance at someone like that. We need more people like him in my world.” “Wow.” “Yeah… The scary thing is, he could become a protector in a moment that would do anything to make sure that the people he was protecting were safe. He got that Purple Heart I was talking about earlier, in the Korean War, for jumping out of an exploding jeep.” “Oh my, was he OK?” She said in awe. “He was after a while. And I like to think he still is.” I said, looking up to the sky. “How did he die?” “Old age. He had a heart attack.” “Wait… Robert, how old are you anyway?” My eyes opened wide. How could I have not thought of this? Not telling them that I wanted to go back, and now this? Really, me? Stupid, stupid, stupid. What if they didn’t live as long? What if they only lived to be about 25 years old, like horses did back on Earth? “Uh… 13. How… How long do ponies live, Twilight?” “You’re… You’re already 13… But Celestia said you looked young… Are you a kid, or an adult? Or are you in-between?” “Wait… How… How old are you? You never mentioned it… And you’re a mare, not a filly, right? You’re an adult? I would assume so, since you’re living on your own with a baby dragon and a few pets. Oh… To answer your questions, I’m pretty much just starting the *ahem* transformation to adulthood, so in-between, if you want to put it in a nice way.” “I’m 13… Almost 14… And yes, I am a mare. But that would mean…” “Humans live longer. A lot longer.” I finished. “How long do you live?” “If you die of age, like most ponies do, then you live to be 80 to 85 years old, sometimes longer.” “Wait… What? How does that work?” I questioned my logic. “But… But humans live to be about the same age as you mentioned… How does that work? I’m still technically a kid, and we’re close in age, so how do you and all the others know so much more? How did you cram that all into school? Do the foals freaking stay in school until dark or something?” “I don’t really know. Well, the foals will still usually stay until 3:00 in the afternoon. How long do you stay?” “Okay then. That is odd. I stay until about 3:00 too. Do ponies just adapt to new concepts better or something? Oh, when are we supposed to be going anyway?” “Oh my! Look at the time, we’re already almost late, can you gal- I mean run fast?” She asked. “Er, sort of. I’m not overweight or anything, I’m just not athletic. We'll talk about that later! Here, just let me just pack this up.” I said while putting the laptop back in my backpack. “Hehe, don’t worry. I’m not really into exercising much either.” She said We were running, and in about 5 minutes, we were there. “We’re… Here…” She said while huffing. “Alright, here’s the plan *huh*, I’ll go in, and tell everyone you’re outside, and not to be freaked out. *huff* You ready?” “*huff* Not really.” I said. “Well, you’ll have to be. Come in about a minute after I go in.” I readied myself, remembering to be "surprised". I sighed, and got ready to tell the ponies about my world. I walked in after a bit, and purposely stumbled when they all said “SURPRISE!” And it went downhill from there. After I noticed that, I started talking. “Hello, uh… My name is Robert Pickard, but just call me Rob. I’m a human, not a pony, as you can all see.” Geez. I can really make a bad introduction when I’m nervous. There were a few certain ponies staring at me particularly with their jaws down. One mint green, one brown with a hour glass cutie mark, and the other cream-colored with a blue and pink mane. “Oh boy. Here we go. Doctor, I presume that the fanon was right, and you’re the space and time-traveling Timelord I know. Can you just wait for me to finish this little speech I’m about to give, then I’ll come talk to you afterwards." He shook his head attempting to clear the disbelief from his head and gave me a little nod. With that out of the way, I ran and got a short stool, just so everypony could see me. “I’m from a different planet that is called Earth. I’m actually probably from another universe… Or dimension? I don’t really know. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve been here for the past 2 days, and I’ve been talking to these six right here. Now, I want no questions for a while, because I’m going to show you all something.” I promised to explain what I was doing with all the lights and buttons later, and turned on my TV and Xbox 360, going straight to YouTube. I knew that Twilight and the rest would be bored if they watched the episode I just showed them. So, for a bit of a laugh, I selected the first 2 episodes of the second season. I clicked it, and told everypony to just watch. You wouldn’t believe how much they enjoyed that. Then I played the second episode. I saw Fluttershy cringe as she saw herself say “YOUR FACE! *CRASH*” While everypony else just laughed. So, I walked over to her. “Hey, you were the only one that wasn’t convinced. He forced it on you, ya know. You couldn’t do anything about it.” I said, trying to comfort her. “HERE COMES TOM!” Twilight repeated, looking like she was dying from laughter. I saw Fluttershy trying to hold back a laugh. “Hey, come on, laugh. If you think something’s funny, then take some advice from Pinkie Pie over there and start laughing!” I said while pointing at the pink pony that was on the floor laughing. Fluttershy chuckled, then laughed, and then couldn’t stop. “See? I told you.” I said while I walked away. I waited near the back, for the show to finish. Once it finished after about another 10 minutes, I asked “Okay, did you all like that?” “Yeah!” They all said in unison. How’d they do that again? “Alrighty then, here it goes, now you’re probably wondering why you ponies show up on my nice thin magic box here (referring to the TV), right?” They nodded. Nodding in unison too? How wonderful. “Well then, here I go.” I said. I started explaining and did lots of it. "Alrighty then, let me show you a few things. Anything in particular that you might to see first? I saw two certain ponies sitting together in the back smile. Especially the one with a crazy blue mane. "How about some music?" said the pony with the shades. “Hm, alright. Oi, Octavia, I think you’ll enjoy these first two pieces I have right here!” She, of course, gasped when I said her name. “Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet, have I? Well, that magic box has a lot more moving pictures. By a lot, I mean a lot. More than you could imagine. More than you could ever watch. Not just of you guys, though. Actually, most of it isn't of this world, but of other things from my world. Oh, and what it does show of you, it definitely shows more than just the Princesses and the bearers. You all saw Cheerilee and the class at the beginning. You all saw Discord. You saw Spike. It shows a lot of you. There’s Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, Lyra, Carrot Top, as I think you know him, Doctor Whooves," I said staring at him, “and Bon-Bon and Derpy too… Derpy, your name still is Derpy, right? Please tell me it is? You want a blueberry muffin? I think I have one…” Her face lit up with joy. And in that wonderful, old voice, said “With butter, please?” My face. It was probably too happy. “Ha, you haven’t changed!” I said, moving toward her. “But... why are you so concerned about me?” She asked, still looking at me with happiness that someone loved hearing her talk. “Here, let’s go get you that muffin and I’ll explain then. Oh, sorry everyone. I’ll give you a little break.” I walked over to my computer, with Derpy following, and then she asked “There doesn't seem to be any muffins around here…” “Nope. I’m gonna turn the music on real quick. Octavia, I’m turning the music on! This one’s called “Ode to Joy”, by Beethoven, a really famous composer from a long time ago! I put on a shortened version of “Ode to Joy” by Beethoven (The real version is over an hour long), watching Octavia slowly close her eyes and smile. “Let’s go get you that muffin now.” “Yay!” “Ok, about why I was concerned. Derpy, a lot of people absolutely loved you back on my world. Then one day, about a couple of months ago, you talked. For the first time we ever heard. But then, and I’m really sorry to say this, Derpy, but then, people were offended. They thought your character insulted the disabled, with your name, and eyes, and your voice. I really thought it was quite cute, but there’s always gonna be the negative people, especially with humans. I need you to understand that.” “That’s alright. I’m used to being called names.” “You… You are? I’m really sorry to hear that. You sound like an amazing mare. Do you have a daughter? Her name is Dinky, right?” “Yes, I do. She’s sometimes teased, but we get through it all fine.” Now, I was searching through the pantry, trying to keep the meat out of sight. I eventually found the muffin I was thinking of, pulled it out, and got the butter out. She insisted that she should spread the butter and that I got back to the crowd. Ode to Joy was almost done, so I turned to the office, and selected the next song. A combination of all the My Little Pony songs orchestrated. 20 minutes long. Perfect stuff to explain with. “Alright, ya’ll might be able to recognize this. And I’ll explain why. We humans don’t have magic. At all. None. It’s all a legend. So are Unicorns and Pegasi and Alicorns. So, instead of magic, we focus on technology.” Winter Wrap Up started playing. Perfect. “You probably recognize this, I hope.” Some of their faces lit up with realization, and they started humming. They all eventually realized what was playing. “And, as a part of that technology, we have electricity. Electricity is basically our magic. It powers everything. These lights are all using electricity, the magic box, which is called a television or TV for short. The heating, cooking, and pretty much anything else that requires energy also uses electricity. It’s cool stuff. That music is being heard with it. No magic whatsoever. I’m just gonna shut down a little early on the classical, sorry Octavia. I’m gonna turn on something a little more appropriate for a party.” And then pony music. TheLivingTombstone, The Aviators, Bronyfied, JackleApp, Glaze, MicTheMicrophone, you name it, I probably had it. Even ones that weren't obviously related to ponies, they got pretty quickly. “Do you all hear this? This was all made because of you guys. I know, you’re probably wondering why the heck I’m going so all out on this, but you’ll know soon enough.” Of course, Vinyl was rocking out. Most of the songs I had had them listen to were just things generally based on ponies. So, I started playing a few based on the individuals. I started playing more and more songs. Everypony was having a great time. But I had almost spent an hour over on this. So, I explained more and more, showing them bits and pieces of video games, TV shows, movies, etc… And when that was done, there were only a few things left that I wanted to show them in particular. “Alright, there’s one last thing I want to show you, then I’ll get into some more… Em… sad stuff.” I went to my computer (I had already explained it to them.) and plugged in my joystick. I put in Flight Simulator X. “I explained cars already, right?” A few of them nodded. “Well, we also have boats, trains, bicycles, and one other thing. Airplanes. Anyon- Geez, I got to get into the hang of things. AnyPONY wanna take a guess on what that is?” None of them really did anything, and just waited for me to move on. So, I went on. “Well then. An airplane is a way of transportation, just like cars, except they don’t go on the ground. Heh. They FLY. And fast, too.” Rainbow started not to look bored anymore. “Knew you were gonna start paying a bit of attention there Rainbow. Oh don’t worry; you’re actually REALLY fast compared to the average plane.” “Average?” She questioned. “Average. We can beat you, just not in any easy way.?” “I wanna see this.” “How do you suppose I do that?” “I dunno, one of those camera thingies?” “Good idea. Alright, space shuttle news video, here we come.” I exited out of the simulator, and just looked up a space shuttle take off video. They’re pretty easy to find. “Here’s one.” I played it. Kaboom. The video of the shuttle showed it going faster and faster. By the time the video was finishing, the spaceship was going over three miles a second. “Need any more proof?” I said, noticing her jaw had dropped. “But… But… I’m…” “Heh. Don't worry. You do realize those are rockets, right? Huge amounts of artificial man-made fuel? You’re NATURAL. You don’t need any rocket fuel to go over the speed of sound.” I said, trying to reassure her. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” “Alright, let’s move on then. Here’s what we would usually fly.” I started the simulator again. I set it up to go from an airport near my town, and selected the Cessna 172. “This is a basic airplane, it’s still very expensive and complicated, but still one of the most basic. This game is called ‘Flight Simulator X’. It’s the newest and one of the best flying simulators. Ah, it’s loading. This game simulates my ENTIRE world. ALL OF IT. I can go anywhere, if I take the time. So, I’m gonna show you guys where I live. This is the northern area of Utah, where I come from. Here it is…” I said. They all gaped at how complicated it was. “Alright, now this probably looks complicated to most of you. First I have to ask permission to taxi to the runway.” “Why?” A random unicorn asked. “So I don’t crash into anyone else, of course! If you crash one of these, then it’s gone, and you won’t be flying it for either a long time, or never again. Of course, it doesn't matter in a simulator. But I follow the rules anyway.” I said, while I taxied to the runway. “OK, I’m asking permission to takeoff, and it’s granted. Here I go.” Just trying to keep them informed. I turned onto the runway, and put on full throttle. Once I hit 60 knots, I slowly lifted the nose, and flew. “Wow…” was what the crowd said. “It doesn’t look THAT fast.” Dash said. “Ha. You wanna see fast? Okay then.” I exited out of the flight, with a few disappointed groans. “Oh, you won’t be disappointed with this.” I said. I selected the F/A 18, selected Salt Lake International, since I needed a big runway, and made it so it was on the runway already. “I just made it to be on the runway, instead of putting me in a place where I have to taxi.” I told everypony. “Just how fast is this one?” She started looking nervous. “It can go almost twelve hundred miles per hour. Oi, you’re gonna wanna see this. Afterburners, here we go.” I turned on the fiery form of thrust, and off it went, faster and faster. I got closer and closer… 500, 600, and then BOOM! I hit the sound barrier, and kept speeding on, going up to around a 1000. “There we go, my friend. How’s that for ya?” “Awesome!” “Well, I guess that doesn’t really help my explanation, but, I’ll go through with it anyway. I didn’t think you guys were real. You were a form of entertainment on my world. This is a… Fantasy land, so to speak for me. For everyone back on my world. It was really good, too! I won’t go into details, but you sorta get it, right?” Nodding in unison, again. So, after that little bit of excitement, I moved onto the tough part. Talking about death, war, hatred, other things like that. You get the gist of it. “Alright, everypony (I was seriously trying to keep myself from laughing every time I said that), there’s one last thing I need to show you, then we can get this party started. I hope.” I said. “I’ve probably made my world sound like a pretty good place, right?” I asked. I heard an “Eeyup” in there somewhere. “It’s not. Before I say anything else, I think you guys should be really grateful that there’s almost no war, hatred, poverty, or anything else like that here. My world is full of it. There have been too many wars to name. Hundreds of MILLIONS of people have died in war. There are many wars going on right now. I need you to understand this. I come from a cruel place, and when you’re in a place like that, it rubs off on you, so I’m sorry if I seem a little cruel. People are dying as I speak. And I’m gonna show you it. This may seem heartless, but it’s for the best. The one my country is mainly involved in now started just over 10 years ago. Airplanes like the ones I just showed you, but bigger, and they carry more people, were hijacked by groups of people called “Terrorists”. Then, they killed themselves, plus thousands of people, by crashing into the World Trade Center towers, The Pentagon, and one that failed that crashed into a field. All the people on board every plane died, probably instantaneously.” I said. I didn’t know I even remembered all this stuff. I then searched on YouTube, “2nd tower hit” and clicked on a shorter one. I watched, in despair, as the ponies looked in horror at the video. There was a little black dot falling at the very start, and I pointed it out and rewound it. As those emotion thick seconds ended, I searched “saving private ryan”, just to… Just to prove to them what a horrible world mine was. They watched, just like their eyes were glued to the screen. And then the doors opened. They looked in horror, just complete and utter horror, as the bombs went off, and dead bodies appeared everywhere. They all gasped when it showed the now legless soldier, and once again gasped when they burst on fire. When they saw the man without the arm, some of them started crying. I let it play the few more seconds, and it ended. “They can’t look at me anymore.” I thought. “There’s one last thing. My world basically tried to make this appear fun, and make some of those video games out of it. And I’m gonna show you it.” I took out Modern Warfare and put it in the Xbox. I clicked on multiplayer, and started. People were of course going crazy over the fact I was on. I just tried to play. I’m not the best, and I didn’t do too well, but our team won. “Do you see? A game. That’s what this is viewed as. But no. I have it easy. Our family is fairly rich. Richer than others in third world countries. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. There are 7 billion humans on my planet. Sure, I’ve seen a lot. But not as much as others.” I said while quitting the game. “You know what? You've seen more enough. I don’t know how, but we’re gonna do something to lighten up the mood.” They breathed a sigh of relief. Seriously, how do they do that in unison? None of them left, at least. So, I turned the music back on, and set up something a bit nicer. A nice little video game. Since I didn’t really have anything other than racing and shooting games, I just chose Forza Motorsports. My brother's PS3 was downstairs, so I went down there and tried to clean up a bit. The reason I didn’t want them to go down there was because of a deer head from a buck that my dad shot in Wyoming. Wouldn’t be the best thing for them to see. After just clearing it out, I turned on his PS3 and put in Little Big Planet. “You can come downstairs, everypony!” So, when about half of them arrived, I explained the PS3, and just told them to have fun with it. After doing the same with the Xbox upstairs, I took the six, The Doctor, Lyra, and Bon-Bon aside. “Upstairs, right now. I’ll explain everything.” So, after going into my bedroom, I went to go get a few things. Pretty much all the Doctor Who merchandise I had. The 10th and 11th Doctor’s screwdrivers and my Doctor Whooves T-shirt. I went back. "You are going to tell me what's going on ri-" I stopped him. “Actually, I think you might be interested in these!” I said, taking out the models and activating them. That was a really bad choice. “He... You… My sonicsc… You… OK, THAT IS IT. YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE RIGHT NOW!” Yeah. Wasn't expecting that. He knocked the screwdrivers from my hands, and stood up to my face, knocking me over. “Eh, heheh, uh. Sorry for being a bit sudden, but you’re basically a TV show from BBC in what I guess is my universe.” “I’m a WHAT?” “Yeah. Really good show, too. One of my favorites. These are just toys. They aren't real. Just plastic.” “Well then… That’s not what I was really expecting.” He said, taking out the REAL Sonic Screwdriver. The Sonic Screwdriver. My mind's panic mode went crazy. He started to scan me. "Ooo, oh now, that's interesting. No... That's not possible. There is no way that is possible." He said, obviously scaring me a bit." “What do you mean, 'not possible'?” BalancingChapter Six: Balancing “You’re from another universe,” said the Doctor, very surprised. “Yeah, I thought I mentioned that,” I said, much relieved. “But how, HOW did you get here? The only species that ever had a way to travel to different universes in this section were the Timelords before the war... Unless. No. NO. That hasn't ever been OBSERVED by ANYONE EVER. You can’t be...” Again, he raised my anxiety to a whole new level, “I... I couldn’t be what?” “The balancer. You’re a balancer. An ALIVE balancer. The first to be ever seen.” “May I ask what a balancer is, Dr. Whooves?” Rarity asked politely. “It’s the Doctor. Just... the Doctor. And it is what it is. It balances. However, it’s what the balancers balance that matters. Balancers balance the Universes.” “What... Why balance universes? HOW do you balance universes? I just appeared here with my house...” I said. “OK, let me explain. Inside each and every metaverse there are basically an infinity of universes. Sections of these universes are... connected. Balanced. Yours and this universe are an example. When these universes become unbalanced, the universes naturally “corrects” themselves. That’s where the balancers come in. They are the perfect objects with the perfect mass and energy to set the differential factor of the universes to exactly zero. It exchanges the objects, and poof, everything is back to normal!” “That... that’s kind of brilliant actually,” I stated. “Now think. Compare the amount of intelligent organic mass there is to other mass. It is an absolutely tiny amount. You are the first living intelligent balancer. Now here’s the problem. The universes don’t care what they send over, as long as it’s perfect. It could be an asteroid, a flower, or anything else. Since the chances of it being intelligent are so low, the universes don’t take that into account-” “But what about you? Why are you here? Is this your universe too?” I asked before he went any further. “Ha! Don’t be silly, I’m just taking a bit of a break. Everyone needs one of those every once in a while, don’tcha think? Oh, don’t worry about me disrupting the balance, I’ve made sure all my things are hidden, and really I just try to fit in. Well, I guess these six will know now, but my existence here is nothing compared to yours.” “I suppose so, yeah.” “Anyways, intelligent life is... well... Intelligent. Its atoms are aligned so perfectly that it actually collectively responds to its environments. So, instead of doing its job of balancing everything out by just existing in a different universe, it interacts. Of course, this is more than likely going to put the universe more out of whack than what it started with.” “So how do you know about all of this, if it’s never been seen?” “Rumors, stories, legends, all from Gallifrey.” “Huh. So, am I dangerous? Do we need to do something?” “I... don’t really know. This has never happened before where it wasn’t fixed almost immediately. So no one really knows what happens when the universes become unbalanced, not even the Timelords.” “Well, guess we’ll just have to found out. It... Won’t be Torchwood and the ghosts again... will it?” “Oh, no no no. The crack you’ve made is quite tiny. For it to cause what almost happened to the Earths in those universes would take millions of years.” “OK, that’s good.” “I-I’m sorry Doctor, but I’m not really sure what’s going on still...” Fluttershy said, looking quite confused, just like all the others in the room. “Ah, don’t worry. There aren’t any Daleks around for thousands of universes, I don’t think they’ll be able to detect this tiny event,” The Doctor replied. “Oh... Ok.” She said, still quite confused. “Well then, I’ll be off,” the Doctor said. “Wait! Where are you going?” “To scan. I’ve got to make sure you’re not making the crack too much bigger, and I’m going to make sure no Genesis Arc ships are here. None of you have happened to see any ghost’s that look like Robert here have you?” Thankfully they all said no. “Good, then like I said, I’ll be off,” he said running out of the door. As soon as he was gone and out of hearing range Applejack quite loudly stated, “Do any of you understand what he just said?” “I’m trying to, but not really...” Twilight said back. The rest of them just stayed silent. “Well, I think I do.” “So, what did he mean? Why do you even trust him?” Rainbow asked. “Well, he’s the Doctor. Like I said earlier, there’s a TV show about him, just like you guys.” “But... how does he know so much? What is he?” Twilight asked. “He’s a Timelord. He’s not a pony. I don’t know how he looks light a pony, usually he looks human... Well, technically humans look like Timelords but that doesn’t matter. Timelords are basically the ultimate overseers of the universe. They do not fight unless fought against. Unfortunately that’s what happened to him. He is pretty much the last Timelord in his universe... well... Let me think. He’s the 10th incarnation of the Doctor, so River has still existed in his future, he will have his half human half timelord self in the other parallel universe, and his sort of daughter is still alive or will be still alive, even though he doesn’t kno- Oh my God. He doesn’t know his daughter is alive. Uh... What do I do? I... I can’t tell him. That’s got to mess something up, cause it never mentioned in the show him knowing about that. ” “Uh, Rob? What are you going on about?” Twilight asked. “The Doctor. He has a sort of daughter, but he thinks she’s dead. She... She was shot. But then she regenerated, and the Doctor thought she couldn’t... because she’s only half-timelord. Twilight... what do I do? Should I tell him? I CAN’T! This isn’t right...” “But... why can’t you tell him?” She said. “Ok, Ok. In the show, the 10th doctor is already gone. From the time his daughter was shot ‘till the end of his life, he never mentioned her again. This doctor is the 10th for sure, so he hasn’t changed yet. So he doesn’t know. If I tell him, it could change everything, because I already know that he doesn’t know. And if I change things it could be very bad.” “So... you can’t tell him...” she said. “And none of you can either. Oh God. Why did I ever say any of that out loud? OK, OK. All of you. You cannot say ANYTHING I just said to the Doctor. Lyra, Bon-Bon, you can’t either. I know that I haven’t said anything to you guys, but have you ever heard of humans before?” “Yes! Of course! I can’t believe you’re actually here!” Lyra said. “Yeah, did you really have to come here? Lyra was obsessed going through books trying to find out more about you humans. I thought I got rid of her rants about my “disbeliefs” after she got bored of you months ago.” Bon-Bon said. “And look who was right Bon!” “Yeah yeah... Now I’m never gonna hear the end of this...” “OK, OK, I’m sorry for coming,” I said while chuckling, “Just, can you promise not to tell him? This is really important not only to me, but to him.” “Alright, alright. I wasn’t going to anyway,” Lyra said “I didn’t plan on it either,” Bon-Bon said agreeing. “And I hope I can trust you six, right? Pinkie, you haven’t said anything this entire time, you’re not gonna do it, right?” “Hehe! Don’t worry Robbie, I wouldn’t ever! I cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie said. “Well, now I know for sure that you won’t. What about the rest of you?” They all reassured me that they wouldn’t in their own words. “Well, I’ll be keeping my eye on you anyway.” And with that, we all went back downstairs. “OK, I think we could end this party now, don’tcha think?” I said, going back to the Xbox room, “How about you guys go and get everypony downstairs to stop?” “I think we could manage that.” AJ said. The others nodded in agreement. “Well, we have a plan then. See you in a second then.” We separated, them going down the other flight of stairs. “Alright everypony, time to wrap it up. It’s getting a little late, and I need to clean this up.” There was a collective “Aw...”, as they seemed like they were having quite a bit of fun. There wasn’t any disagreement however, because it was getting dark outside. As I got them to take their things, the others started filing up the stairs, and started to take their things as well. I stood by the door as they left saying goodbye. The last few went out the front door, and then it was just Lyra and Bon-Bon and the six. “Well, are you two gonna be leaving?” I asked. “Yes, I think so.” Bon-Bon said. “Alright then, don’t worry though Lyra. I’ll be sure to come and talk sometime.” I said. “Oh thank you! I was going to ask you to, but I guess I don’t have to anymore.” Lyra said. “We’ll be on our way then, Rob. We’ll see you sometime then.” Bon-Bon mentioned. “Yep, see you guys sometime. Bye!” I said as they started to walk out the door. “Goodbye!” they both responded. “Wow, it’s quiet in here without everyone” I remarked after I closed the door, “Would you guys help me clean up this mess before you leave? It’d be kind of hard to do it by my lonesome.” “Of course!” was their general answer. With seven, the cleaning was fairly quick, and before we knew it, it was time for them to go. “Seems like we’ve finished! Thank you guys, I would’ve been up all night trying to clear this up!” I reported after about a half hour. “We couldn’t have just left you to tidy up your own surprise party!” Pinkie responded. “Oh yes, thank you for throwing this for me Pinkie, it was very fun for the most part!” “Yeah, you gotta stop being so sad all the time! You made me sad when you talked about all that sad stuff!” She said as she jumped onto my chest squeezing me. “Whoa! Uh, heh, sorry about that again. I think I got it all out of me though.” “I sure hope so. You seriously got some ponies stressed from that speech of yours.” “OK, OK Rainbow, I promise I won’t do that again. I wasn’t considering to anyway.” “Darling, if you wouldn’t mind, could you come over to the boutique sometime and maybe tell me about the fashion from your world? Rarity added. “Oh yeah, sure! I’d love to come over.” “A-and do you think you could come to my cottage and tell me about the animals and plants from your world? Fluttershy said slowly. “Yep! I’d love to meet your animals as well!” “Sugarcube, could you come over and maybe teach me a few things from your world?” asked Applejack “I could definitely try, but the way you ponies seem to farm is a lot better than our ways.” And with that, the ponies started leaving. I said goodbye as each went out the door. Twilight was last. “Rob, you wouldn’t mind if I came back sometime right? I think the princess would definitely want me to report what I’ve learned about you,” Twilight asked “Of course not Twi. You’re welcome anytime, but I’ll probably be visiting the others tomorrow, so don’t count on me being here then.” “Oh, that’s fine. I’m sure I can wait a little while.” “Alright, I’ll see you when I see you then. Bye!” “Goodbye Robert!” I watched as Twilight ran to catch up to the others, and then walked along with them. I couldn’t believe it again. They were there. I was just a few yards away from them somehow. Everytime I wasn’t distracted I thought about myself being there in Equestria. That was such an amazing time when I was still there. I only wish I could go back, have just one more day to say goodbye. Day OneChapter Seven: Day One Today is the second day of me being “normal” once again. I figured I might as well keep a little journal to myself of what happened after it all ended. One day maybe I’ll look back on this, though I kinda doubt it considering the quality of this paper. Found an old notebook from a school year long gone under my bed. I don’t really have anything else to use, so I guess I’ll just rip the pages out of this and file them somewhere. So I just finished the beginnings of that book. I worked on that all day, all 18,000 words of it. At least that’s what Word told me. The reporters and press and media and interviewers all stopped knocking on the door after a few hours. My family has barely talked to me since I came back. I don’t really blame them, considering how much I’ve changed in what? The few weeks I’ve been gone? Back to the book, I’m not really concerned about the writing quality, I just wanna give the world a guide that tells them exactly what happened. I think that 18,000 words in one day is pretty good, but then again, it’s pretty easy describing what happened to yourself. Before I write anymore of these, I wanna set a rule. I’m just going to write these journals once a day, and I’m limiting myself to one page. That doesn’t leave me with much room for today, so good night.
Good MorningChapter One: Good Morning The beginning of a fresh new day. Wondrous, no? Here you are, adjusting yourself, getting ready to finally obtain those oh so longly desired explanations, as I’ve promised. Only at 14, almost 15 years of age this all occurred for those of you in the cryptic future. May it permanently haunt me for my own heart’s sake, as I’m afraid my soul might have left me already. The wolves have made sure of that. Note to you, from Jacob of July: With this you will find my own personal entries from the process of producing this text. They are scattered about. Shall we now read and relive? That new fresh day had lifted my own most positively glorious self out of bed at by far the most appropriate hour, 11 A.M. This typical teenager’s regular routine was out of place, for it was Tuesday. Time, currently being early May, made this even a bit more odd. Of course, this in reality wasn’t all that odd, for I was having a dentist’s check up just in a hour or two. Being a teenager, that just gives the perfect excuse to sleep in a tiny bit. So my body went through the clockwork putting on of clothes, taking a shower, and then as I would always do, the panicking brushing and flossing. Soon enough, I had flung myself down the stairs, ready to relax a bit before taking the ramble. After turning on the TV and console, the dogs started acting up, as I usually wasn’t the one to let them outside to do their bidding. They scratched on the door, marking the glass even worse than it had already been. You could hear a soft sigh come from yours truly, me knowing that somehow that would be entirely my fault when the parents arrived. I opened the sliding glass door, and gave a glimpse to the glistening mountains not more than 10 miles away. Maybe my brother would blame me as well, just for fun. He always poked at me a little too much for my liking, but overall he was pretty OK. I eyed the clock for a moment. 11:50. Where is he anyway? The guy usually got here five minutes earlier for his lunch break, I couldn’t imagine what he’d gotten himself into to make him more than a minute late. He hated his work, seemed to me that he would always take any time off he could get. Being curious, I walked to the front door and looked for his car, and there it was, just down the street a little, he was going quick though, obviously he knew he was late. And boom, there it was. The perfect balance of chemicals and matter that triggered it. There was a tinge of yellow on window that suddenly caught my attention. At first, I only dismissed it as pollen. But it grew, oh it grew. Then it glowed. I saw the red lights on the front of my brother’s car. The glow was brightening, from the level of a firefly to the level of the sun. My eyes were wide, I’m sure my brother’s too. Now I dove back into the windowless hall, still hearing the wind-like flow of energy surrounding my house. The unsure shaking of an earthquake started too. That sound got higher, sharper, ‘till it broke abruptly. The movement more intense, then it broke as well. There was a brief moment of silence, then the entire house felt like it dropped a foot, crashing a lot of picture frames, glass candlesticks, dishes, and other breakable things to the ground. And many of them lived up to that fragile label. The sounds of cracking glass kept occurring for a good 10 seconds at least. In this time I had closed my eyes, put my hands over my ears, and lifted a foot off the ground. My entire body cringed at the resonating noise that would surely bring my imminent death by the spilling of blood of my mother’s sharp words. The glass finally stopped falling all at once, allowing my ringing ears to recoup. Now the shattering was only occasional. My mind was finally starting to comprehend the absolute ridiculousness of what had just happened. I almost started walking, but at the last moment before putting my foot down it stopped as if on its own, realizing the glass was everywhere. Carefully I hopped a bit to the coat closet with the snow boots. Opening the door caused a magnitude of coats and steel-toed boots to fall onto my face. Thankfully it didn’t push me enough to knock me over, however I did manage to get a steel-toe to the cheek, leaving a nice big red mark there. The boots were extremely helpful, they were nice and thick, my feet didn’t feel a thing. My only concern then was the fact that falling over was now not only much easier with shards of slippery glass everywhere, but also much more painful. Then the scratching on the door started again. Oh God, the dogs! I hadn’t even thought of them, they were outside, where the glass didn’t fall on them, but the huge amount of light might’ve blinded them. Slowly, my boots shuffled to the door to the backyard. Out of my upper peripheral vision the yellow glow was still there, going down though Firstly, I opened the door, but blocked it with my heavy footwear. I stepped outside, looking down at the two pooches, them looking back with an excitement in their eyes. As luck would have it, both of them seemed to be not blind at all, and they still saw just fine. Now with my important worries out of the way, my head went up to observe the damage, but that’s not at all what it noticed. No longer was the line of mountains there, instead many tall, darkened trees. I looked even farther up, and even with the glare from the now non-blinding sun, I could see one streak of contrast shooting up into the blue, a single, steep, sumptuous mountain. “Huh. I’m just gonna go wake up now.” I turned around, stupefied and utterly convinced that my mind had for some reason started dreaming about ponies. Heck, I liked dreaming about fiction anyday, but it hadn’t happened with ponies before. The door slid to the right, but I wasn’t confident in my assumptions enough to let the dogs inside with the glass, so I left them out. It was a nice temperature outside anyway. Up the steps, all 16 of them. Down the hall, last door on the right, just like it still is. As soon as I was next to the bed, I flopped down on it. If there was one thing that I had to be wrong about on that day, I would not have picked my dreaming idea, cause that idea rapidly proved itself very wrong to me when I flopped my body down. Before I could think about reconsidering my decision in falling onto the bed, my mind had already done it, and this was very unfortunate for my poor arm. The lamp had fallen over, and the shade hid the many tiny shards of bulb that now were covering my elbow. Predictably my body flung itself back up from the resting place, my vocal cords disapproving heavily of the newly implanted features. The shards were tiny enough to not puncture deep, and all I had was just a few spots of red by the time I had rubbed them all out. After I got over that incident, I looked out my window again to look at the mountain. There is no way in the world. It really just can’t be that. Come on, Jacob! What else could it possibly be? Now my head was arguing with itself, but my eyes had already decided it. That, in the distance, looked exactly like Canterlot Mountain. It looked almost the same as it did from the nearby familiar town in fact.
DiscoveryChapter Two: Discovery My eyes were deceiving me. That had to be the only explanation, or so I thought. "Is this a dream?" My thoughts asked. I smacked an arm against the edge of a table, seeing if there was pain. Yeah, not one of my better ideas. Of course it hurt. What was wrong with me? The idea that I was where I thought I was shocking. Unbelievable, even. You don't know how it felt. You won't. Words cannot describe the feeling in your chest. There was an unnatural urge to scream in my heart. Joy swept through me like a wave onto a beach. Oh yeah, I probably should tell you what was out there. I seemed to be around what was the Everfree Forest. From Friendship is Magic. The world looked... animated. Cartoony. Colorful. Very unusual for a forest, wouldn't you think, even if it was getting dark? I had always dreamed of going to Equestria. "No. No, it is not what you think it is. It's a trick. It's just a trick." Well, that's what I told myself, trying to not get my hopes up. I mean come on, would you believe you just got randomly transported to a fantasy world full of talking ponies? For all I knew, it could've been a cruel joke using a painting or picture or maybe I just got transported to a regular forest somewhere. I've seen weirder things than bright forests. So, with my thought of it being a joke, I went out to see how they actually did it, and why they chose me specifically. I could take a prank. Even if it was unintentionally a little mean. I went outside, leaving the two dogs some water, in case I was going to be out there for a while. The scenery, it was so bright and colorful, and I don't mean pink and yellow everywhere. Just... the beauty of it. The shades of green. And it was annoying, not because of it's nature, but because of how it looked against our property. It didn't 'blend' at all, so to speak. It was... wrong. I'm failing to describe it properly. I don't care how things look usually. I mean, it was just unnatural. It looked like someone poorly photoshopped a picture of a regular house in the middle of a drawing. It made my mind's alerts (For lack of a better term) go off. They were telling me that this wasn't right, and that something has gone completely and utterly wrong. I even looked wrong against it. "Of course something's wrong! It's a painting put against the real world!" I shouted out, trying to get my brain to stop giving me a headache. To prove my own point for no one other then myself, I ran towards what I thought would be a piece of paper or canvas. To my surprise, I didn't run into anything. "I'm standing on it. I have to be." And I wasn't. The dirt was... well... dirt. I went up to a tree, and touched it. It felt like a regular tree, with the rough bark. It just all looked like it shouldn't feel the way it looked. My mind was starting to accept the fact that I must of been teleported or transported somewhere. The hope that it was Equestria rose up inside of me once more. I was a brony, so when I walked back outside to check on the house once more, I looked up. Why, well... there wasn't a reason, or, at least, I don't remember there being one. Maybe I was just getting a feeling, or I was looking for something. But no matter the reason, I saw one thing other than the bright clouds, sun and sky. A flying creature. Equine. Gray. A mark of clear circles on its flank. Carrying some mailbags. Flying (What looked to me to be quite clumsily). I yelled out "WOOHOO, THIS IS ACTUALLY REAL!". Turns out that was a stupid move, because she started to look around. Before she was able to see me, I dove behind a bush, which are thankfully plentiful in forests. She moved on, not noticing my house. Thankfully that was covered by trees. Maybe that plus the walled eyes made it harder to see? I dunno. I should've asked her when I had the chance. Getting out of the bush, I went back inside, and tried to absorb the real possibility that this might be Equestria. Finally telling myself that what I was doing wasn't helping at all, I checked the dogs once more, locking them in the basement, to not cause anymore suspicion from the barking that was bound to happen if they saw a creature of sorts out of the windows. So, after that was done, I left. After not even going a quarter of a mile, there it was. What I recognized as Fluttershy's cottage. Knowing Fluttershy, she would probably go hide under the nearest table as soon as she saw me. That is not how I wanted my first meeting to happen. So, hoping meeting another one of the ponies first and then having me introduced to her by one of them would go better, I went by her house quietly. Spotting a sign that said Ponyville was only a ½ mile away, I stopped. "Miles?" I thought. Of course, I should be in another universe. Or dimension. I didn't know how it worked then. I still don't, really. Anyways, I questioned myself. How they would have the same system of length was unknown to me, at the time. I dismissed it, promising my curious inner consciousness that I would find out later. So, I jogged, figuring I would be there in a few minutes. When I arrived, I hid behind some bushes when I saw some unicorns coming towards me. This confirmed it. This wasn't the most well thought out, and most cruel joke ever. They didn't see me. After they passed, I got out of the bush. Looking around, I spotted a fitting alleyway for a nice secretive stroll through Ponyville. 30 minutes later... "Ah, there it is," I said to myself after about a half hour walking around back alleys randomly through town. The place I knew as Twilight Sparkle's tree house (or house in a tree, I guess...) was only a couple hundred yards away. I started thinking about what I would do. I eventually decided I would just knock and hope Twilight opened the door. Fairly bad plan, but would you have been able to think clearly after all of that? I figured it wouldn't be a total disaster if Spike opened the door. When the coast was clear, I made a run for it. Thankfully, that part of Ponyville seemed to be residential, so it didn't seem very busy. I calmed down, and holding my breath, I knocked. I heard a familiar voice that said "Coming!" It sounded JUST like her voice actor, Tara Strong. Or, I guess Tara sounded like Twilight. Twilight Sparkle. I had met Twilight. It was real. My favorite character, real. "How am I so lucky?" I questioned no one in particular. She opened the door. That was it. Twilight Sparkle herself was standing in front of me. I was a bit startled from my thoughts being broken, but she was much more startled than I. I just asked her "Could I come in?" She seemed a little suspicious, but she let me in, so it went better than I expected. Then, the questions started flowing. I had decided on my jog I would tell whoever I was gonna meet about them existing in my world right at the start. I introduced myself as my actual name, Robert Pickard, but told them she could just call me RJ or Rob. I told her I was a human. She seemed a bit confused. "You're a what now?" I told her again I was a human once again. She immediately ran to an aisle of books behind some others, and I could hear her pulling a few of the texts and scrolls out. After a few minutes, she came back and seemed to stare at me questionably. It was already awkward enough. We hadn't even had a proper introduction, and I was already starting to be feared. "OK Twilight, it's not really helping me out when you stare at me like that," I said. She asked "Wait, how do you know my name?" "Oh... um... uh... I'll explain later, but I know all your friends names, and the names of quite a few other ponies. But you see, I'm not from here. Equestria I mean. In fact, I'm not even sure if I'm from this universe. At least... I don't really think I am." She was definitely growing more suspicious. Who wouldn't be, though? "Fine then, prove you know all our names," she ordered. I stated with immense ease, "You, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's most faithful student, Applejack, who works on her family's farm 'Sweet Apple Acre's', Rarity, the local fashion designer and clothes maker, Rainbow Dash, self-proclaimed fastest flier in all of Equestria, Pinkie Pie, the party pony, and Fluttershy, your animal loving friend." She stared at me. Then I said, "Oh, I almost forgot, Spike, your #1 assistant." I smiled. She just kept staring at me. I sighed. "This is gonna be a story to tell someday." After shushing her confusion, I asked her if she could get her friends to come to her house. She woke Spike up and introduced me to him. He was intimidated, I could tell. Unfortunately, he went back up to who knows where. I saw him peeking out of upstairs every once in a while. Twilight told Spike to keep an eye on me. I didn't really mind. Not different from what I would have done at all, really. After looking around a bit, and seeing if I could possibly read their books (which I couldn't) I heard the door open. I was instantly bombarded with questions as soon as they saw me. Pinkie Pie was able to say more nonsense then... well... anything, really. Should I have been surprised? No, I don't think so. I saw all of them, except for Fluttershy, who was hiding under a table shivering (Quite the ironic scene, trying to avoid that in the first place). After finally getting over my shock that this was really happening, I decided it would be best to make sure they knew I was not dangerous. I told them "Hey, everyo- Er, everypony (I silently chuckled), I just want to get this out of the way, so please listen, I didn't come here on purpose, I don't know how I got here, I'm a human, I'm not going to hurt you at all, actually I hope quite the opposite, and my name is Robert, but just call me RJ, or Rob." They were silent, and it seemed like they were stunned at my ability to talk. So I said, "Also, I'll explain how I know this soon, but your names are (I looked at each pony as I said their name.) Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie," (Who was jumping up and down, whispering loudly into Dash's ear about my surprise party). At this point, Fluttershy stopped shivering. She opened her eyes to look at me. They all seemed shocked even more. Continuing, I said "I come from a planet called Earth, in the country known as the United States of America. I lived in the state of Utah." They started mumbling to each other. I asked if I could sit down. I wanted to get the awkward stuff out of the way first. Twilight said yes, and they all stopped and listened again. I sighed once more, trying to resist the urge to just blurt everything out. "My world is kind of different, and it may take me a while to get used to around here. I'm sure that you may have a hard time hearing what I have to tell some of you." They all nodded in understanding. "I also want you to know that I'm an omnivore." Every one of them except Rainbow gasped. Dash asked, "OK, what is an omnivore? It sounds threatening." While she tensed up, I answered her question. "An omnivore is an animal or creature that eats both plants AND meat." They all backed up when I confirmed their fears. Applejack asked in a scared voice "Well, ya'll ain't gonna eat us, are ya?" I started talking faster, wanting to get this over with. "No. The main animals humans eat are pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and turkey." Fluttershy was gonna need a just a little bit more than that. So, I walked up to her and explained in my most confident voice "Fluttershy, I know this is hard on you. I need you to understand that it's very hard on me and other humans to go without meat. I'll become a vegetarian once things run out in my house or it rots, but I also want you to know it's not impossible for me to go without meat. Will it be easy? No. Do I eat anything even remotely similar to ponies, or anything equine except cows? No. Will I try to hunt? No. I-" Fluttershy, the ONE and ONLY Fluttershy, hugged me. I think my heart stopped. What was going on in my mind when that happened? Nothing. Everything. You have not had a hug until you have hugged Fluttershy. Then, she talked to me. "I'm sorry Rob. I shouldn't have freaked out. I have plenty of carnivorous animals. I don't know why I broke down when I heard you say you were one, will you please forgive me?" "You are kidding right, Fluttershy? Of course I will! How could I even think of saying no to you?" I said while giving her a scratch behind the ears. "I'm sorry too... Owlicious goes to the fields sometimes to... Well, you know, go hunt." Twilight said. "Seriously, it's alright. I can understand why you would freak out." With that out of the way, I needed to explain my world. That took a while. I explained our culture for the most part, excluding religion, the show, and things like poverty, the homeless, the starving, etc... "That doesn't seem bad at all, my dear!" Rarity said as I wrapped it up. "I haven't even started." "Started on what?" Rainbow asked in her squeaky voice. "Started to tell you about the bad stuff." "Well, why can't you?" She continued. "I don't want to tell you. Not right now, at least. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to trust me. Any other questions?" Twilight asked me predictably "So, what do you study in school specifically? "Me, specifically? Right now, I'm in the 8th grade. I study Geometry, English, the history of my country in general, health, technology, and a few other things. I'll explain the education system to you personally later Twilight. I could probably give you a few of my textbooks, even." I then moaned, because I would probably have to keep up with my work while I was here. Nopony asked anything more, so I thought I would tell them about how I knew their names. "Alrighty, let's move on. I would prepare yourselves here." I cringed, then said very fast (Like I was admitting something that I had done) "I know that you're going to be confused, and I'll show you later, but you exist as a TV show on my planet." They stared at me. "Oh yeah, no TV's. Come on, let's go to my house, I'll explain on the way." After somewhat properly introducing myself to Spike and explaining to him what was going on, we all left Twi's house. "Oh, uh, I'm not sure how the ponies here would react to you, Robert," Twilight said. "Yeah, is there anyway I could possibly just sneak by?" "I'm sure we could think of a few ways." They distracted the ponies, and I sprinted though the shadows, trying to stay hidden. After I got past the last house, I slowed to a gentle walk, waiting for them to catch up. After they did, we walked in quiet, as we headed to what I guess was now my house... well... at least temporarily. We got there, and Rarity instantly started talking about how bland the brown colored house with it's somewhat dead, crunchy, and as I'm sure it looked to them, odd grass. I just told her to stop and give me a chance to explain to them all why. I opened the garage door with the push of a few buttons on the side, and they all gasped as it started to slowly go up mechanically. Of course, Twilight asked how I was using magic, and where it was coming from. I responded by telling them all to be patient, and it was getting clear that they were all getting a little anxious, especially Rainbow. So, I started to explain. In the garage was my bike, my mom's SUV, my dad's motorcycle, and the collection of 4-wheelers that we went on every so often. Since we humans don't have magic, I needed to explain to them why we had so much technology. And, right on time, Twilight asked what the hunk of metal that was the SUV was. I said "Ah, now that is gonna take a bit more explaining. Well, you see, you ponies choose magic, but in our world, we don't have magic, it doesn't exist." She gasped. "So we chose science, and we have all this cool technology that helps us in place of it. These things are all examples of the technology we have. These wonderful things are all quite cool, but I'll explain some of the best ones." "This," I patted the mini-van, "is a car. An SUV to be exact. It's made to carry lots of people on a fast trip. It wouldn't take more than a few days to travel across the country. It travels on land, and it costs a lot of money, but it's usually worth it. It takes a fuel called gasoline. It's one of the main ways we get around on my world. The problem is, I don't know how to drive it. Too young for a license, unfortunately." "How fast does it go?" Rainbow Dash asked. "You guys have miles per hour, right? I saw a sign back ther-" They nodded (In unison), wanting me to get to the point. "Well then, the law limits how fast you can go, and usually the fastest they'll let you go is 75 MPH. Ready to move on?" Rainbow of course was now flying around it and inspecting it. Then I pointed at the motorcycle. "That is a motorcycle, it is like a car, but it's a ton smaller and you're exposed to the outside. So we only use them during the spring, summer, or fall. Also, you have to balance on it, since it has only 2 wheels." Then the bicycles. "These are like motorcycles, except they have no engine, so we use our feet to turn the little steps on the sides, which turns the gears, which turns the wheels." I showed them our family's ATVs (Four-wheelers), which I explained as being like motorcycles, except you didn't have to balance. Then suddenly, the dogs started barking. It was quiet from downstairs, but still unexpected. They all jumped, and Fluttershy asked what was making the noise. I said "My dogs." Fluttershy jumped back up after cowering a bit from the door from where the noise was coming from. I just said they were very protective and wanted to help me. They all went, "Awwwww," I blushed, and said I would calm them down. Fluttershy wanted to help, but I told her that they would bite if I didn't calm them down first. She said, "Oh… OK then…" and seemed disappointed. I told them all to act nice and not be scared, because our version of a dog was different from, say, Winona. So I got the dogs, not letting them see what was in the garage. I got a few treats, put them in my pocket, and held them by their collars. They instantly started barking as soon as they saw the ponies. "Territorial, I guess." I thought. I calmed them down, and led the two dogs to Fluttershy. She reached out her hoof and they sniffed. They licked her leg. The dogs liked her quite a bit actually. She petted them with her hoof, which was a little awkward, but meaningful none the less. Next was Rainbow Dash, who Sully liked but Flint didn't. Flint and Dash were complete opposites. Dash just gave a defeated "Hmph." As Flint walked to the next pony, who was Twilight. Both dogs liked Twilight fairly well. Applejack asked if her dog Winona could play with my dogs later. I said yes, but not at the moment. So next was Rarity, who "Despised dogs, and liked cats much better." and refused to let them lick her. Finally Pinkie Pie, who the dogs loved. I let her give them the treats. So, after that little interruption, I told them no more questions until I finished explaining how I knew their names, and how they didn't know me. I led them inside. They all gaped at my house's size. Well, we do have a big family. We get visits from extended family often too. Plus, our house is tall. I said, "OK, first off, you're all celebrities with probably a couple million fans on my planet, including me. I am a fan of a TV show called 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. Now I know you're going to ask what a TV show is. I know you have cameras, right?" Some nodded yes, while some seemed to be stuck, including Rarity, who had dilated her eyes and just keep mouthing the words celebrity, famous, and stars. "Overwhelmed, much?" I thought, amused. "Well, on Earth we have cameras too. But we also have special types of cameras that instead of capturing still photos capture a video. A video is basically a bunch of pictures put together to make a "moving picture". Remembering my cell phone, I said I would be right back and got it. I set it up record a video. I said for them to say "Hi". I started recording and motioned to them to say hi. They did, suspiciously, but still. I stopped recording and showed them the tiny screen, and played it. They all looked in amazement at what I would consider simple and low quality.
Telling the WorldChapter Three: Telling the World Twilight asked what this had to do with TV shows. I said “Well, this is basically what a TV show is. Moving pictures, but they are supposed to be entertaining. Like a play.” I pointed to the black screen behind me and explained what a TV was. I turned on the TV. "Wait... this won't wo-" Somehow, it came up. How? How could I access any Earth satellites from here? I found the first episode of MLP: FiM from the recordings and played it, explaining that they didn’t use cameras here, but drew every picture using a machine to help since our worlds looked different. So we watched. No one said anything. I had them watch the second episode too, since it wouldn't make much sense to not. I think I was putting too much on them. I mean, finding out you’re a celebrity with a few million fans without even knowing anything at first must be hard. I told them that there were 2 “seasons” of their show, and that there were about 45 episodes of it. Twilight said that the show was exactly what had happened. It was just a little more detailed in the actual happenings of the events. Rarity asked “But… How?” I said I didn’t know. I told them a woman named Lauren Faust had come up with the idea to do it. By that time, it was 7:30. I told them that I would explain more tomorrow. Even Pinkie looked a little overwhelmed when she left. I wondered what I would do, in this new world. I had a huge amount of food, since my family was big. We had prepared for a disaster, so I had even more food in a cold storage area downstairs. This was meant to last around a month for our entire family of 7. Then I wondered. If the house disappeared on Earth, what were they gonna do? I realized, they probably thought I was dead. I got my phone back out quickly and saw that I somehow had service. Guess it was like the satellite signal. I called my mom’s cell phone. It rang. Someone picked up. I heard a sniffling voice that said “Hello?” I said “Mom, it’s me.” She screamed “HE’S ALIVE, OH MY GOD HONEY, HE’S ALIVE!!! WHERE ARE YOU ROBERT?!?!” I asked her to please be quieter. I then said “Mom, I’m in Equestria. I’m fine, the house is fine, and the dogs are fine. We’re safe.” She gave a sigh of relief, then asked in a confused voice “Wait, where’s Equestria?” I thought she might ask that. “Mom, Equestria is a country…” Before I was finished she said “Oh, we’ll figure out how to get you back, the police are figuring it out. They’re listening right now.” I then finished with “on another planet. I think. It might be another universe. I dunno really.” I think she fainted. After some questioning with the police, and telling them about the ponies, they of course didn't believe me. I said I could prove it, and sent the video of them all saying hi. I explained to them that I was explaining to the ponies what a video was. They had an expert examine it and he told them it was one of the most obviously fake videos he had ever seen. Not very helpful. I don't know what they thought was going on, but I told my mom I would use my computer and get on Skype, since I have a webcam. After another 5 minutes, we were talking to each other on Skype. She was overwhelmed with joy, from me being alive and all. I realized at that moment, that I would have to go back. Somehow. I just couldn’t abandon my family and the rest of the world to frolic with a bunch of cartoon ponies. While it definitely sounded nice, I knew my family would have a tough time without me. And the house and dogs too. Plus, the ponies were technically aliens to us, and I was quite sure they wouldn’t start a war with us, as all the horror films depicted. So that would be interesting, Earth finally contacting another life form from another world. Especially friendly ones. That reminded me of what else I had to tell the ponies. I really, REALLY hate being the bringer of bad news, but I wouldn't dare leave them uninformed. I sighed, knowing that if they were gonna see my world for real, I should probably tell them everything about it. So, after I finished assuring and reassuring my family and close friends that I was perfectly safe and fine, I was talking to the police again. They had contacted some officials. Apparently some other people doubted the expert and they were researching the show. To help them out, I went outside, taking my mom’s Canon camera. I took a few photos of the land, since it was all animated. Then I took a picture of the house against the land. Another one of the grass in-between the “real” grass and the animated grass. I decided I would go to Ponyville again tomorrow and take a few pictures of the town. I took a video of me walking outside, just so they could see it from my perspective, and then went inside. It had been a really odd day, so I thought I was going to go to bed, but before I did, I checked what was going on in the world. I checked on the news, and apparently they let the story go. My picture was everywhere. Apparently my mom told them that I did watch the show and occasionally called myself a “brony” when she wasn’t looking. She also gave away my YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and various other account names away. I now went from a few subs on YouTube, to a few thousand. On Facebook, I had a huge amount of friend requests, and on Twitter there were thousands of people following me. I sighed, knowing I should probably say something. After all, the police didn’t say anything about putting those pictures up early… So, I did. Instantly, after I refreshed my page a minute after the 20 second video of me walking outside was uploaded, it already had 300 likes. I sighed, sent an email asking my mom why she had to do that and told her to look at my accounts. I went to bed. I woke up the next morning at 8:30, to hear someone pounding at my door. I opened it, to find Rainbow Dash. I asked her what she was doing here. She said in a doubting voice, “I still don’t trust you. If you hurt any of my friends in any way, you will regret it.” I sighed once more, and told her to follow me. I showed her the pages of people who had been begging for something from me. She looked at them, but didn’t seem convinced. I went to the YouTube video of me walking outside, and showed her it, and then showed her all the comments and likes on it so far. I decided to do one last thing to convince her. I got my recording software up, and the camera, and started recording on both. I typed in “Hey guys, Rainbow Dash is sitting right next to me. She doesn’t seem convinced that I’m not gonna hurt her or any of her friends. So I need you all to say something convincing. I’ll post a video of her reaction soon. GO!” I commented, and then turned on “Update Automatically” on the comments, and about 20 seconds later, they started showing up. I picked up the camera, looking back and forth from her to the comments, and after about a minute and about 400 comments later, I asked for people to keep checking in. I stopped recording. She seemed flabbergasted. She kept watching it, and after 600 comments, she was convinced. So, I plugged the camera's SD card into the computer, and edited them both into 1 video. I uploaded it, and about 15 minutes later, after the video uploaded, I looked at Yahoo, and pretty much half the stories were about me. I realized that I was a celebrity now. I looked on Twitter, and Tara Strong, Notch, The Discovery Channel, Mythbusters crew, (Horrifyingly) Justin Bieber, and a whole bunch of other famous people were following me. I couldn’t believe it. I answered some of their questions. The first one was from Tara. She asked “I’m assuming you’ve met them, so did Twilight sound just like my voice for her?!?!” I answered with a simple yes. Discovery Channel asked how I got there. I answered with “Dunno. I felt like I was sick, so I sat down and fell asleep. Next thing I knew, I was here.” The rest of them were like that. So after another half hour of doing this, with Dash watching and listening as I was explaining who they were. I said I had to go, and left. I took the camera, my mom’s laptop, and my tablet in my backpack. I started walking with Dash, answering a few more questions about my world. She seemed much more comfortable around me now, seeing that I wasn't out to harm them. I asked in a nervous voice “Have there been any disappearings here recently? Any mysterious murders?” She said “What? No! Why do YOU want to know?” in a tense voice once again. Thank God. No Cupcakes here. So, nothing other than canon. I started to once again wonder how the producers did it. You know, finding out about this world. Or, at least, copying it down to the last detail. It was exactly like the show. “That’s mostly good.” I thought to myself. I also asked if she knew a stallion with a light brown coat, dark brown sort of messed up mane, with an hourglass as a cutie mark. She said “Yep. He called himself 'The Doctor' when he first came here, then started calling himself 'Doctor Whooves'." “HA!” I yelled. So he was real. Running back to my house, I got the 10th Doctors Sonic Screwdriver model I had gotten for Christmas, put it in my backpack, and ran to meet up with Dash. "Now I get to meet The Doctor too? Sweet. So, if the show is his universe, then are mine and this one alternate? Is there a main universe? How will he react when I tell him?" I questioned myself, until Rainbow interrupted. "Come on!" "Wha... What? Oh... Sorry Dash, just thinking." I responded in confusion. "Well, you've been 'thinking' for forever! She sighed, and then said "Come on, let's get going again." We went towards Fluttershy’s cottage on the way. Dash talked to her and explained that I needed pictures for the leader of my country to show the rest of my world. And since it showed Fluttershy’s house in later episodes, they could compare it. So I took around 10 pictures, took a picture of all 3 of us, and recorded a video of them actually talking. I sat down behind them just so they could have a comparison. I asked Fluttershy if she would come, and thankfully she said yes. So we got to Ponyville, and they distracted everyone while I snuck off to Pinkie’s house. Well, she seemed back to normal after yesterday. “*GASP* OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH ROBBIE I JUST REALIZED YOU’RE NEW AND I NEED TO DO SOMETHING AND I’LL BE RIGHT BA-“ I caught her by the tail right as she was about to run back in and asked her before she goes and does this 'something' (Which I had a pretty good suspicion of what it was) that I needed her to come with me. She said “Oh, alright, anything for a friend.” I smiled. One of them had called me their friend. I was just overwhelmed again. This was all real. All of it.
President and PoniesChapter Four: President and Ponies After getting Pinkie to come along with us, we all went to Twilight’s tree house (Or is it a house in a tree?). She had already sent a letter to the Princesses, and said that they should respond later today. I sighed, just hoping this madness would just stop for a second so I actually get to know the ponies better. But that was for later, and I would enjoy it when it came. Twilight let me take a couple more pictures, and then we went over to Rarity’s, then to AJ’s. Finally, I was able to take a picture of them all together. As we walked back to Ponyville, I was finally able to take a picture of the small town. My *ahem* “mission” was accomplished. So, I offered to have them come over to my house and look at some of my stuff. After the 15 minute walk to my house, they started marveling over all my stuff. I was going back and forth between them explaining things, occasionally yelling “WAIT, DON’T!” at them. That included one incident where Fluttershy almost looked into the freezer, which I knew had frozen fish in it. After another 10 minutes of that, I offered them something to eat and drink, since it was 11:30. They accepted, so I asked them what they would like. They all blurted out different things at once. So I offered to just make something from my world. They looked uneasy, so I again had to reassure them that I wouldn’t feed them any meat. I started up the stove, with Twilight saying “Whoa, what do you use that for?” I answered with “Well, we use it for cooking, and that’s what I’m doing. Making some called mashed potatoes. Do you guys have potatoes here?” She nodded but then said “Yes, but we don't eat them all that much..." "Oh, do you want me to make something else?" "Oh, no it's fine." "Have you ever had them with butter and pepper?" "Nope!" "Well then I'll just make a little bit so you can all try it." I also got out a steamer, and this really big plastic box of white rice. Our family always loved white rice. It’s so simple. I asked her if they had rice. She said no. “Oh well,” I thought once again. They were all just staring, watching in awe while I cooked up what seemed like a regular lunch or dinner. I also got out some Mac and cheese. While that was all cooking, I asked them what they usually drank. They all said either water or tea would be fine. I knew I was gonna regret asking this, but I asked if they had ever tried soda. It was only 11:45, and I had gotten Pinkie Pie hooked on soda. Warning to everyone/pony: Do not give Pinkamena Diane Pie soda of any kind. She had tried Coke, Sprite, Cherry Pepsi, and some sort of fruit soda. She said she liked the Sprite the best. Twilight and Applejack both tried the Cherry Pepsi. Fluttershy liked the Grape soda. Rarity didn’t like any of them. She stuck her tougue out dramatically and said “Bleh! What is this horrid stuff?” to the can of Coke. I guess she didn’t like the fizziniss. Knowing her, I sorta expected that. But Dash definitely liked the Coke. After they seemed satisfied with finding out about all the stuff in my home, I introduced them to my computer. I tried explaining it to them, but just failed. So, I thought it better to show them. I turned it on, and the blue light came on inside the transparent case. I loved my computer. I went and showed them around. Twilight was very interested in how I could store and organize any document I wanted to, and that I could make a presentation very quickly. Then, I started explaining the Internet to them. I explained how their show had gotten so popular through the Internet, and that almost every piece of info on my world was accessible through the Internet. I said that you could talk with someone across the world easily. Twilight definitely seemed to like it. I opened up my email, and explained I was sending all those pictures so they could show them to analysts. Rainbow asked “What do you do for entertainment?”, and I answered “What do you think I’m showing you?” I sighed, and then listed off from my mind “TV, movies, comedy, theatre, animation, comics, dance, exercise… sort of, music, and my favorite, video games.” So, naturally I showed them a video game. I went over to the Xbox 360 and got out a racing game, thinking that I should show them the violent games like Fallout, Modern Warfare, Assassin’s Creed, and other games like that later. I put it in, and thankfully, they didn’t react as badly this time as last time I showed an electronic. I selected “Time trial” and just drove around and showed them a few races. Now this is where Dash got interested. “Hey, Robert, what kind of sports do you have on your world?” She said in her tomboyish voice. “Well, there are tons of sports in my world, but the big ones in my country are football, baseball, soccer, track and field, bowling, golf, tennis, boxing, racing of all kinds, and ping pong. But that’s not nearly all of them. There’s a ton more! Maybe I’ll show you later.” I said. “Oh, ok…” She said, while looking confused. I guess she didn’t know what most of those were. This made sense, considering ponies didn’t have hands. Then, pretty much everything started beeping. The Mac and cheese was done, the mashed potatoes needed stirring, the rice needed to come out. It was complete and utter chaos. Thankfully, since Pinkie had knowledge of baking some things correctly, and Twilight using her magic, we were able to get it all finished. After 5 more minutes of getting it all prepared, it was ready. I never really cooked this much of a meal. Honestly, I really only cooked for myself and my brother during the summer. So, with that, I put everything on the table, and got plates out for everyone. I got some soy sauce, salt and pepper, and butter in case anyone wanted it. I got out a set of spoons and forks, and then I realized once again, that they had no hands and fingers. So, I only took out a pair for me, Rarity, and Twilight. Then Rarity asked “Dearie, why are you putting the forks and spoons away?” I said in my defense “But… You don’t have hands… And only you and Twilight have magic…” “So?” Rarity said. “So, how are they going to hold them? They don’t have hands.” “HEY!” Dash yelled. “Everypony has a little bit of magic in them! Just watch.” I gazed in awe while she held my fork in her hoof, like there were some invisible fingers around it. I shook my head, and then shivered. “What’s wrong?” She asked. “But… But… HOW?” I said, in an annoyed state. I then said before she could answer “Oh, never mind.” I then proceeded to whisper myself “It’s just like Pinkie Sense… It’s just like Pinkie Sense…” “But why haven’t they invented any sports like I have in my world?” I argued to my conscious. “Or maybe they have.” I then noticed that they were all staring at me, while I was mumbling. “Uh, why were ya talking to yerself there sugahcube?” AJ asked “Oh. I just don’t like things I don’t understand.” “Really?” Twilight asked, “I hate that feeling! I’m glad somepony else feels like that too.” She also said while beaming her smile at me. After finally accepting the fact that ponies could hold things without hands, I handed out forks and spoons. “Wow, this is great!” they all said in unison. They were munching it down faster than I could eat a hamburger. “Well, thanks guys… Er, I mean girls. It’s really not much. I could make a REAL feast if I wanted to. This isn't really much. I’ll just have to remember not to make it so it finishes all at once,” I said in an embarrassed voice. After we finished my apparently “superb” meal, I invited them to take a look at a part of my culture that wasn’t My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I wanted to make sure that they knew that there was still good in my world, even if there wasn’t a lot of it. I got up, and put the DVD in. While waiting for it to get started from going through those annoying unskippable previews, I made some popcorn, explaining while it was going what the microwave was. The popcorn beeped, and I took it out. Pinkie Pie ate it all in one gulp. “Predictable,” I thought. *dun dun dun duuunnn, dun dun dun duuuun,dun dun dun dun dun…* I won’t really describe the next hour, since you all should know the fourth episode of Star Wars. After watching for an hour, I got up to check the news to see if my pictures had shown up anywhere. They all looked at me in confusion. I explained to them that I was just checking the news. As I logged on and saw the Yahoo homepage, my heart just about stopped. PRESIDENT TO SPEAK ABOUT PONY ALIENS I ran out of the office and changed the input to the TV. I switched it to a news channel with the other ponies all yelling at me in confusion from behind. There he was. The President of the U.S.A... And he was going to talk about... me. I realized once again how significant this was. I was here, with aliens, and ones that we’ve unknowingly known about since the October of 2010. “I’m freaking famous!” I thought. I smiled as they said I was a fairly close follower of the show. “Hah. I never told my mom I was a brony,” I thought. But she obviously knew now. I heard a ringing come from my pocket, making everyone jump. It was my mom once again, just happening to call right when I was thinking about her. I swear, this cartoon world made everything like… well… Cartoons. I told them that it was only my mom, I sighed, and then answered, after telling them it was another way to talk to other people when you weren't with them. “Hello?” I said. “Oh good sweetie, you’re there. I was just checking up on you. None of them are hurting you, right?” She asked in a very concerned voice. “I already told you mom, they’re completely harmless, and they wouldn’t hurt a fly!” AJ then proceeded to slap a rather annoying looking fly with her tail, and I resisted the urge to face palm from the cartoonish irony. “Oh good, now what have you been doing during all of this?” She asked. “Have you even glanced at my Twitter account lately?” I asked. “Well… No… I haven’t. But I heard you sent in those pictures of the place you’re stuck in to The President! What did you call it again? Equtree?” I sighed (For what I hoped would be the last time for at least a FEW minutes.). I then said “Mom, just look at my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. Now. And it’s called “Equestria”, not whatever you called it. “Oh, so you’re friends with them now, are you? I will look at your accounts, sweetie.” She said in an annoyed voice. “Yes, mom, they’re cute, adorable ponies (a few of the ponies looked over when I said that) that I’ve known about since what? Early this year, I think.” I answered to her first question. I then said “Well, did you want to talk to my “friend’s” mom?” “Oh, yes please!” she said in a now overly enthusiastic/sarcastic voice. So, I whispered to the rest of them (Who all looked very confused, except Dash.) that my mom wanted to talk to them. Hoping that it wouldn’t go too bad, I turned it on speaker, and sat back and watched the fun. “Hello, I understand you’re the ponies that my son has been associating with.” My (slighty) over-protective mother said. “Yes,” or variations of that was what the ponies answered back. “Well, I just want to let you know, that if you hurt him in ANY way, at ALL. You will be dead.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Understand?” She said in a very serious and obviously annoyed voice. “Ah… Yes ma’am…” Applejack, who was the only one to respond, said. “Good. Now, who are you? If you’re going to be with my Robby pumpkins (You could hear a very loud slap on the forehead in the background) for most of the time, I’d like to know who you all are.” She said in a much nicer voice. So, they introduced themselves, surprised at my mother's sudden turn of heart. Pinkie actually got Fluttershy to too. And they talked. And talked. And talked. Just like… Ugh. I’m not going into it. After another 5 minutes, I finally was able to get their attention. “WHAT!?!?” Everyone else said at once. “Well, I thought you’d wanna see the speech where the FRICKIN’ PRESIDENT IS TALKING ABOUT YOU!” They all looked hurt. “Look, I’m sorry. But I think you should really, REALLY see this speech. You guys and I are what everyone is talking about right now on my planet. You, my friends, are famous. Quick question Twilight, what is the population of ponies on this planet?” “Uhmmm… I’d say about 30 million ponies.” “Ha. You aren’t gonna believe this. Wanna guess how many humans there are on Earth?” “Uh… 100 million?” She guessed. “Nowhere NEAR close. One more time.” “How about 500 million?” “Nope. 7 billion. 7 billion things like me inhabit my world. Whoa, you guys OK?” “Now it’s my turn. HOW!?!?” She screamed at me. “Uh… I dunno. We've existed for a long time? But that's the amount of people... Maybe take away 2 billion for those in lower tech areas... that now know about you. “Wait… I’M A EVEN BIGGER CELEBRITY!?!?” Rarity said. And then she made that squeeing sound effect… Geez. How much of this was real? I shook my head in disbelief once again, and then answered “Yes Rarity, you are.” “Oh, mom. We should all be watching the speech! Here, I’ll hang up. Bye mom!” “Bye sweetie, stay safe, would you?” “I will mom. Bye!” I hung up. “She wasn’t that bad!” Pinkie Pie said. “Well, she was kinda overprotective of you, Robert.” Dash said while snickering. “Hey, I thought that was kinda sweet, if not a little rude.” Rarity said. By this point I was blushing pretty badly. “Uh, don’t you girls think we should start watching the speech now?” I asked. “Ooo! Yes! I want to see your leader! This is gonna be great!” Twilight said as she (somehow) pulled a quill and a piece of paper from seemingly nowhere. I turned up the volume on the TV, and we started watching. They had already gone through most of the intro, it looked like. But I think I’ll just describe the entire thing like this. You haven’t lived, until you hear President Barack Obama present a speech about cartoon ponies. Seriously. Funniest. Thing. EVER. So, yeah. It was pretty funny, but it was a great intro to people who weren't bronies, and probably had never heard of the show before. I’m glad he didn’t give the show a bad name. It looked like our government’s researchers had actually done something right for once. “Huh.” Twilight exclaimed as they concluded it with our nation’s national anthem. “Well, what’d you guys think? I thought it was actua-“ There was a crunching noise outside. I ran up to the window, and found to be looking at me, the Princess!?!? “AH!” I exclaimed, jumping back, the Princess looked slightly dazed, I opened the door quickly, and before I could say anything, I was interrupted by Twilight. “Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?” “Why, answering to your letter, of course!”
A Not So Happy PartyChapter 5: A Not So Happy Party “Princess, why are you here so soon?” Twilight asked the Princess. “To see to it that this… MONSTER, leaves here, and goes back to the Everfree, or from wherever he came from. Are you alright, my dear Twilight?” Princess Celestia said worryingly. “Uh, Princess, I don’t think you understand.” “I think I completely understand you humans with your lies and deceiving ways.” “With all due respect, Princess Celestia, I think my friends here would vouch for me. Also, I’d like to know, when was the last time you saw one of us humans?” I said, kneeling down slowly. The rest saw what I was doing, and with embarrassment, also started to go down. “What? A human… Kneeling to me? I thought that you humans said we were “scum”. Why are you doing such a thing, shouldn’t you be trying to capture me? Or is this another one of your tricks?” She said. Because of that, the guards around her tensed up even more and they pointed their spears at me. I guess they weren’t aware of how apparently dangerous I was. I sighed, and then asked “Okay, so you’ve obviously seen humans before, so please tell me, how long ago was the last time you met one of us?” “I’d say one-thousand two hundred years.” “So… You think we haven’t changed in one THOUSAND two HUNDRED years?” She sighed. “I’m not taking any chances. Not with the way I saw you creatures behaving back then. You were a violent race. I have no idea where your kind went after the disturbance, but I was in no hurry to find out. You even killed some of my little ponies. I’m afraid I cannot forgive you for your crimes.” I explained my story. I showed her the first few minutes of the first episode. She was amazed that our race didn’t remember it, when we apparently came there. That we only thought of her kingdom as a figment of our imagination. By this point, the other ponies were backing me up. It helped. “Hmmm… So, you looked up to us? We… entertained you, so to speak? You DON’T want to kill us for sport anymore?” “Yes. You made quite a few of our people happy. And NO! No way. I mean… We’re still omnivores, but I’ll survive without… meat. We don’t even eat anything equine.” “Well then Robert, I grant you residence to Equestria! You’ll have to come to Canterlot to fill out some paperwork of course, but that won’t be too much of a problem, will it?” I was silent for a few seconds, and then answered her. “I… I thought I made it clear. I need to go back.” The other ponies gasped. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to mention this. I did mention SOMEWHERE along the line, right? I really didn't? How? Wouldn’t they ASSUME I would try to go back? Why wouldn’t they? I wanted both. But despite my dreams and wishes, I couldn’t stay. Not with my family knowing I was alive and safe. “I… I wish… I wish I could do both. Stay with my family and be with you. But I can’t just abandon them! Their house, money, transportation, and pretty much everything else is here! They need me; I’m a part of their family. You’ve got to understand. Would any of you abandon Equestria just to go live in some fantasy land in a book?” Silence was there still. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know if I’m in the same universe, or dimension or ANYTHING! I-it’s probably not even possible…” “I’m sure there is a way.” Celestia said, failing to convince me. I wasn’t as sure. I still sometimes wish she was wrong. I still should’ve seen it coming. Yet another one of my favorite things would ruin me. They didn’t mean to, of course. It’s just how things happen around them. 30 minutes later “Rob, you should really come out. Come on! We’re gonna be leaving soon!” Twilight yelled at my bedroom door. I still can’t believe how fast they recover. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock of it all. Celestia had left, and promised to put some of her best to work on this problem. “Please… Just go away.” I said “Come on! Stupid door! OK, I’m coming in there, whether you like it or not!” She said, while my door’s lock was surrounded by a purple glow. “Fine, fine. Come in. I don’t like it, but you obviously won’t be giving up anytime soon. I don't want a broken door.” I said while sighing, getting up to get the door. “Thank you!” I had opened the door, while Twilight and the other five came in. Pinkie, always being cheerful, hummed a bright little tune, made me a bit happier. They came in. “Sugarcube, are you ahright?” Applejack asked. “Yes, I-I’m fine.” “If ya’ll watch that show so much, then you should know that Ah’m the best lie detector from Las Pegasus to Manehattan. Plus, you ain't the convincin' type,” She said while grinning. “I know… Look, I’m sorry for lying, but could you just please leave me alone for a little longer?” They thankfully all left, but I held Twilight back. “Twi, I know that Pinkie Pie’s gonna throw a surprise party for me, but could you make sure it’s here, and also make sure she invites everypony. She does that regularly, right? And, make sure she sets it up out in the living area, alright?” I said while pointing to the living room, right below us. “Oh, you really do know… Okay. I will. But one last thing, I know you’re upset about something, and I’m sorry for whatever it is, but are you ever gonna tell us?” “Yes, thanks for your concern. I will, soon. But could you just leave now? Thanks.” I said calmly. They all left. I was planning something to tell them almost everything about my world. It was getting late, so I turned in. Sleep wasn’t easy, because of how nervous I was. I questioned myself. I had just been transported… Is it teleported? I don’t really know anymore. I had just been teleported to the land of my favorite TV show and I had just… Not really questioned it. Why? Why me? Am I special in some sort of way? How, even? What is it that caused this all? I was so confused then. So very confused. The next day… “There we are.” I had said to myself, as I finished cleaning up so Pinkie and whoever else helped set it up wouldn’t have as much of a hassle. I hadn’t done much, really. Just went to sleep, got up, and started cleaning. There was a knock on my door. Good timing. I think that happens a lot in that world. It’s just the way it works, I think. I opened it to find none other than Twilight. “I’m supposed to distract you, while everypony else sets it up. So I thought you’d might want to take a walk.” Twilight said. “Sure! Here, I’ll bring some stuff, so I can explain it better.” I said while running to take my mom’s laptop. “Oh good, I hoped you might do something like that.” A few minutes later, I was explaining how to create presentations, documents, images, you get it. I won’t go into detail. My phone rang once again, startling us both. It was once again, my mother. I put it on speaker for us both to be able to talk and hear. She greeted me in a sad and sort of annoyed voice “Hello, Rob.” “Uh, hi? What’s going on? What happened?” “Grandma Marylyn died a few hours ago, and I have to go to Illinois for her funeral.” “What? I thought… I thought… But…” I said in a confused and sad voice. Twilight just stood there looking dumbfounded. I wasn’t anywhere near close with that grandmother in particular. She was my mom’s dad’s wife. We hadn’t talked much. Just, you know, gave each other a hug and said goodbye when we left from visiting. But still, it isn’t easy losing someone you’ve known you’re entire life. “Sweetie, I have to go now. We’re busy setting things up. Goodbye.” I just closed the phone, and sat down under the nearest tree. “Twilight, come here. You need an explanation, now.” She had just walked clumsily towards me. “OK, now I know that came as a big shock to you, but I need you to understand. She probably had a heart attack, or a stroke. It may seem heartless that I’m acting like this, but I wasn’t that close to her. She wasn’t very social and I don’t think she wanted to be. She had a lot of problems with herself and from what I’ve seen, was in pain. I’m sort of happy in a way that she passed on, because now she doesn't have to live with that pain anymore.” “But… But… She died… Why? Why did she just die?” Twilight asked senselessly. “Twilight, listen to me!” I said, taking her head and making her look into my eyes. “I’m going to tell you everything, now. Don’t try to explain it to everyone else. My favorite grandpa, Grandpa Bob, died last summer, and I cried. A lot. I went to his funeral, and helped carry his coffin to his grave. By now, I’ve gotten over it, but I know he is in a better place, running along golden streets. He was a war veteran. He had been awarded a Purple Heart. You don’t even know what that is, but all you need to know is that it is very important. He was in pain too. My world isn't a happy place. It’s a place of war, pain, torture, and discomfort to most people. There are wars going on right now. Many wars. But there have been worse. A lot worse. Death is common. But you know what? Your show, your wonderful show Twilight, is one of the few happy things that kept people going. That willed them, and me, to live life. I’m not saying that I would've committed suicide or been utterly depressed or anything like that, no. Not anything close to that. But my life would’ve been a lot more sad and boring without you guys. I’m serious right now; I’ve seen so many deaths, so much carnage… It seems like we humans don’t even care about anything but fighting. And I’m actually very lucky. I’ve got it made in my world. My parents are fairly rich, not millionaires or anything, but we’ve got it pretty easy. They both work, and that’s the one of the few downsides… But even despite that, I’ve seen a lot. Now, of course, two of my grandparents dead. My brother losing half his pinkie finger from a lawn mower, my mom suffering from Lyme Disease, pets dying, all that violence from media, war, Twilight. Real, present, war. The 9/11 attacks… I… I could go on for a long time…” At that point, I was just randomly spitting out everything I had. I was tearing up. I really was lucky. The worst thing that ever happened to me were accidentally cutting my chin open badly enough that it needed stitches when I was four, and I guess having to witness all those other things happen. “Twilight, I’m sorry you had to see me like… like this.” I stuttered. “Ro-Robert… I didn’t know… But… I think… I…” She said, and then just hugged me. I didn’t know what to do… So I just let her hug me. I’m really not much of a hugger, but you don’t deny Twilight Sparkle. Heh. It was enjoyable, to say the least. It cheered me up, but I was still crying. “Let’s… Just go. OK?” Twilight said. We walked along in silence, as I kicked a rock every once in a while. “Look, I’m sorry I had to tell you all that, and even now, I still haven’t showed you everything. But now, I want to show you some happy stuff. I also want you to realize something. You think I’ve got it bad, don’t you?” “Yeah…” She said, obviously despaired. “My family is in the top 15 million richest people in the world. Remember? 7 billion people? There are orphans, diseased, and starving all around my world. America, the country I live in, has it good. We’re in a depression right now, but we’re much better off than those people in those situations. It happens all over the world, but much more in continents like Africa, Asia, South America… You don’t know what those are… Oh well. I think I still have a few pictures. I want you to see my family. You've seen pictures of them around my house, but I want to introduce you to them.” I opened up my mom’s laptop, and looked for the pictures. I found them eventually. “Look, here’s me and my family.” I said, pulling up the picture we took of our immediate family just last fall. She smiled a sad smile. “You guys make it look like there’s nothing wrong.” “Well, we want to make it look happy." She sighed and looked a bit nervous. "What’s wrong?” I asked. “Could I see a picture of your… Um… Deceased grandfather and grandmother?” “Twilight. You can just say they’re dead. Like I said, I’m over it now.” I pulled up a recent picture of him. He said he had been growing his hair back. There was just a little bit on the top. A few years ago there was none. He was determined to get some though. She again, smiled a very sad smile. “He looks nice.” She said. “He was nice, I consider him the best grandpa anyone could ever have. He knew how to tell a good joke. Whenever there was someone who needed a ride home, he gave it, even if it was completely out of his way. Almost no one else would even take a second glance at someone like that. We need more people like him in my world.” “Wow.” “Yeah… The scary thing is, he could become a protector in a moment that would do anything to make sure that the people he was protecting were safe. He got that Purple Heart I was talking about earlier, in the Korean War, for jumping out of an exploding jeep.” “Oh my, was he OK?” She said in awe. “He was after a while. And I like to think he still is.” I said, looking up to the sky. “How did he die?” “Old age. He had a heart attack.” “Wait… Robert, how old are you anyway?” My eyes opened wide. How could I have not thought of this? Not telling them that I wanted to go back, and now this? Really, me? Stupid, stupid, stupid. What if they didn’t live as long? What if they only lived to be about 25 years old, like horses did back on Earth? “Uh… 13. How… How long do ponies live, Twilight?” “You’re… You’re already 13… But Celestia said you looked young… Are you a kid, or an adult? Or are you in-between?” “Wait… How… How old are you? You never mentioned it… And you’re a mare, not a filly, right? You’re an adult? I would assume so, since you’re living on your own with a baby dragon and a few pets. Oh… To answer your questions, I’m pretty much just starting the *ahem* transformation to adulthood, so in-between, if you want to put it in a nice way.” “I’m 13… Almost 14… And yes, I am a mare. But that would mean…” “Humans live longer. A lot longer.” I finished. “How long do you live?” “If you die of age, like most ponies do, then you live to be 80 to 85 years old, sometimes longer.” “Wait… What? How does that work?” I questioned my logic. “But… But humans live to be about the same age as you mentioned… How does that work? I’m still technically a kid, and we’re close in age, so how do you and all the others know so much more? How did you cram that all into school? Do the foals freaking stay in school until dark or something?” “I don’t really know. Well, the foals will still usually stay until 3:00 in the afternoon. How long do you stay?” “Okay then. That is odd. I stay until about 3:00 too. Do ponies just adapt to new concepts better or something? Oh, when are we supposed to be going anyway?” “Oh my! Look at the time, we’re already almost late, can you gal- I mean run fast?” She asked. “Er, sort of. I’m not overweight or anything, I’m just not athletic. We'll talk about that later! Here, just let me just pack this up.” I said while putting the laptop back in my backpack. “Hehe, don’t worry. I’m not really into exercising much either.” She said We were running, and in about 5 minutes, we were there. “We’re… Here…” She said while huffing. “Alright, here’s the plan *huh*, I’ll go in, and tell everyone you’re outside, and not to be freaked out. *huff* You ready?” “*huff* Not really.” I said. “Well, you’ll have to be. Come in about a minute after I go in.” I readied myself, remembering to be "surprised". I sighed, and got ready to tell the ponies about my world. I walked in after a bit, and purposely stumbled when they all said “SURPRISE!” And it went downhill from there. After I noticed that, I started talking. “Hello, uh… My name is Robert Pickard, but just call me Rob. I’m a human, not a pony, as you can all see.” Geez. I can really make a bad introduction when I’m nervous. There were a few certain ponies staring at me particularly with their jaws down. One mint green, one brown with a hour glass cutie mark, and the other cream-colored with a blue and pink mane. “Oh boy. Here we go. Doctor, I presume that the fanon was right, and you’re the space and time-traveling Timelord I know. Can you just wait for me to finish this little speech I’m about to give, then I’ll come talk to you afterwards." He shook his head attempting to clear the disbelief from his head and gave me a little nod. With that out of the way, I ran and got a short stool, just so everypony could see me. “I’m from a different planet that is called Earth. I’m actually probably from another universe… Or dimension? I don’t really know. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve been here for the past 2 days, and I’ve been talking to these six right here. Now, I want no questions for a while, because I’m going to show you all something.” I promised to explain what I was doing with all the lights and buttons later, and turned on my TV and Xbox 360, going straight to YouTube. I knew that Twilight and the rest would be bored if they watched the episode I just showed them. So, for a bit of a laugh, I selected the first 2 episodes of the second season. I clicked it, and told everypony to just watch. You wouldn’t believe how much they enjoyed that. Then I played the second episode. I saw Fluttershy cringe as she saw herself say “YOUR FACE! *CRASH*” While everypony else just laughed. So, I walked over to her. “Hey, you were the only one that wasn’t convinced. He forced it on you, ya know. You couldn’t do anything about it.” I said, trying to comfort her. “HERE COMES TOM!” Twilight repeated, looking like she was dying from laughter. I saw Fluttershy trying to hold back a laugh. “Hey, come on, laugh. If you think something’s funny, then take some advice from Pinkie Pie over there and start laughing!” I said while pointing at the pink pony that was on the floor laughing. Fluttershy chuckled, then laughed, and then couldn’t stop. “See? I told you.” I said while I walked away. I waited near the back, for the show to finish. Once it finished after about another 10 minutes, I asked “Okay, did you all like that?” “Yeah!” They all said in unison. How’d they do that again? “Alrighty then, here it goes, now you’re probably wondering why you ponies show up on my nice thin magic box here (referring to the TV), right?” They nodded. Nodding in unison too? How wonderful. “Well then, here I go.” I said. I started explaining and did lots of it. "Alrighty then, let me show you a few things. Anything in particular that you might to see first? I saw two certain ponies sitting together in the back smile. Especially the one with a crazy blue mane. "How about some music?" said the pony with the shades. “Hm, alright. Oi, Octavia, I think you’ll enjoy these first two pieces I have right here!” She, of course, gasped when I said her name. “Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet, have I? Well, that magic box has a lot more moving pictures. By a lot, I mean a lot. More than you could imagine. More than you could ever watch. Not just of you guys, though. Actually, most of it isn't of this world, but of other things from my world. Oh, and what it does show of you, it definitely shows more than just the Princesses and the bearers. You all saw Cheerilee and the class at the beginning. You all saw Discord. You saw Spike. It shows a lot of you. There’s Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, Lyra, Carrot Top, as I think you know him, Doctor Whooves," I said staring at him, “and Bon-Bon and Derpy too… Derpy, your name still is Derpy, right? Please tell me it is? You want a blueberry muffin? I think I have one…” Her face lit up with joy. And in that wonderful, old voice, said “With butter, please?” My face. It was probably too happy. “Ha, you haven’t changed!” I said, moving toward her. “But... why are you so concerned about me?” She asked, still looking at me with happiness that someone loved hearing her talk. “Here, let’s go get you that muffin and I’ll explain then. Oh, sorry everyone. I’ll give you a little break.” I walked over to my computer, with Derpy following, and then she asked “There doesn't seem to be any muffins around here…” “Nope. I’m gonna turn the music on real quick. Octavia, I’m turning the music on! This one’s called “Ode to Joy”, by Beethoven, a really famous composer from a long time ago! I put on a shortened version of “Ode to Joy” by Beethoven (The real version is over an hour long), watching Octavia slowly close her eyes and smile. “Let’s go get you that muffin now.” “Yay!” “Ok, about why I was concerned. Derpy, a lot of people absolutely loved you back on my world. Then one day, about a couple of months ago, you talked. For the first time we ever heard. But then, and I’m really sorry to say this, Derpy, but then, people were offended. They thought your character insulted the disabled, with your name, and eyes, and your voice. I really thought it was quite cute, but there’s always gonna be the negative people, especially with humans. I need you to understand that.” “That’s alright. I’m used to being called names.” “You… You are? I’m really sorry to hear that. You sound like an amazing mare. Do you have a daughter? Her name is Dinky, right?” “Yes, I do. She’s sometimes teased, but we get through it all fine.” Now, I was searching through the pantry, trying to keep the meat out of sight. I eventually found the muffin I was thinking of, pulled it out, and got the butter out. She insisted that she should spread the butter and that I got back to the crowd. Ode to Joy was almost done, so I turned to the office, and selected the next song. A combination of all the My Little Pony songs orchestrated. 20 minutes long. Perfect stuff to explain with. “Alright, ya’ll might be able to recognize this. And I’ll explain why. We humans don’t have magic. At all. None. It’s all a legend. So are Unicorns and Pegasi and Alicorns. So, instead of magic, we focus on technology.” Winter Wrap Up started playing. Perfect. “You probably recognize this, I hope.” Some of their faces lit up with realization, and they started humming. They all eventually realized what was playing. “And, as a part of that technology, we have electricity. Electricity is basically our magic. It powers everything. These lights are all using electricity, the magic box, which is called a television or TV for short. The heating, cooking, and pretty much anything else that requires energy also uses electricity. It’s cool stuff. That music is being heard with it. No magic whatsoever. I’m just gonna shut down a little early on the classical, sorry Octavia. I’m gonna turn on something a little more appropriate for a party.” And then pony music. TheLivingTombstone, The Aviators, Bronyfied, JackleApp, Glaze, MicTheMicrophone, you name it, I probably had it. Even ones that weren't obviously related to ponies, they got pretty quickly. “Do you all hear this? This was all made because of you guys. I know, you’re probably wondering why the heck I’m going so all out on this, but you’ll know soon enough.” Of course, Vinyl was rocking out. Most of the songs I had had them listen to were just things generally based on ponies. So, I started playing a few based on the individuals. I started playing more and more songs. Everypony was having a great time. But I had almost spent an hour over on this. So, I explained more and more, showing them bits and pieces of video games, TV shows, movies, etc… And when that was done, there were only a few things left that I wanted to show them in particular. “Alright, there’s one last thing I want to show you, then I’ll get into some more… Em… sad stuff.” I went to my computer (I had already explained it to them.) and plugged in my joystick. I put in Flight Simulator X. “I explained cars already, right?” A few of them nodded. “Well, we also have boats, trains, bicycles, and one other thing. Airplanes. Anyon- Geez, I got to get into the hang of things. AnyPONY wanna take a guess on what that is?” None of them really did anything, and just waited for me to move on. So, I went on. “Well then. An airplane is a way of transportation, just like cars, except they don’t go on the ground. Heh. They FLY. And fast, too.” Rainbow started not to look bored anymore. “Knew you were gonna start paying a bit of attention there Rainbow. Oh don’t worry; you’re actually REALLY fast compared to the average plane.” “Average?” She questioned. “Average. We can beat you, just not in any easy way.?” “I wanna see this.” “How do you suppose I do that?” “I dunno, one of those camera thingies?” “Good idea. Alright, space shuttle news video, here we come.” I exited out of the simulator, and just looked up a space shuttle take off video. They’re pretty easy to find. “Here’s one.” I played it. Kaboom. The video of the shuttle showed it going faster and faster. By the time the video was finishing, the spaceship was going over three miles a second. “Need any more proof?” I said, noticing her jaw had dropped. “But… But… I’m…” “Heh. Don't worry. You do realize those are rockets, right? Huge amounts of artificial man-made fuel? You’re NATURAL. You don’t need any rocket fuel to go over the speed of sound.” I said, trying to reassure her. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” “Alright, let’s move on then. Here’s what we would usually fly.” I started the simulator again. I set it up to go from an airport near my town, and selected the Cessna 172. “This is a basic airplane, it’s still very expensive and complicated, but still one of the most basic. This game is called ‘Flight Simulator X’. It’s the newest and one of the best flying simulators. Ah, it’s loading. This game simulates my ENTIRE world. ALL OF IT. I can go anywhere, if I take the time. So, I’m gonna show you guys where I live. This is the northern area of Utah, where I come from. Here it is…” I said. They all gaped at how complicated it was. “Alright, now this probably looks complicated to most of you. First I have to ask permission to taxi to the runway.” “Why?” A random unicorn asked. “So I don’t crash into anyone else, of course! If you crash one of these, then it’s gone, and you won’t be flying it for either a long time, or never again. Of course, it doesn't matter in a simulator. But I follow the rules anyway.” I said, while I taxied to the runway. “OK, I’m asking permission to takeoff, and it’s granted. Here I go.” Just trying to keep them informed. I turned onto the runway, and put on full throttle. Once I hit 60 knots, I slowly lifted the nose, and flew. “Wow…” was what the crowd said. “It doesn’t look THAT fast.” Dash said. “Ha. You wanna see fast? Okay then.” I exited out of the flight, with a few disappointed groans. “Oh, you won’t be disappointed with this.” I said. I selected the F/A 18, selected Salt Lake International, since I needed a big runway, and made it so it was on the runway already. “I just made it to be on the runway, instead of putting me in a place where I have to taxi.” I told everypony. “Just how fast is this one?” She started looking nervous. “It can go almost twelve hundred miles per hour. Oi, you’re gonna wanna see this. Afterburners, here we go.” I turned on the fiery form of thrust, and off it went, faster and faster. I got closer and closer… 500, 600, and then BOOM! I hit the sound barrier, and kept speeding on, going up to around a 1000. “There we go, my friend. How’s that for ya?” “Awesome!” “Well, I guess that doesn’t really help my explanation, but, I’ll go through with it anyway. I didn’t think you guys were real. You were a form of entertainment on my world. This is a… Fantasy land, so to speak for me. For everyone back on my world. It was really good, too! I won’t go into details, but you sorta get it, right?” Nodding in unison, again. So, after that little bit of excitement, I moved onto the tough part. Talking about death, war, hatred, other things like that. You get the gist of it. “Alright, everypony (I was seriously trying to keep myself from laughing every time I said that), there’s one last thing I need to show you, then we can get this party started. I hope.” I said. “I’ve probably made my world sound like a pretty good place, right?” I asked. I heard an “Eeyup” in there somewhere. “It’s not. Before I say anything else, I think you guys should be really grateful that there’s almost no war, hatred, poverty, or anything else like that here. My world is full of it. There have been too many wars to name. Hundreds of MILLIONS of people have died in war. There are many wars going on right now. I need you to understand this. I come from a cruel place, and when you’re in a place like that, it rubs off on you, so I’m sorry if I seem a little cruel. People are dying as I speak. And I’m gonna show you it. This may seem heartless, but it’s for the best. The one my country is mainly involved in now started just over 10 years ago. Airplanes like the ones I just showed you, but bigger, and they carry more people, were hijacked by groups of people called “Terrorists”. Then, they killed themselves, plus thousands of people, by crashing into the World Trade Center towers, The Pentagon, and one that failed that crashed into a field. All the people on board every plane died, probably instantaneously.” I said. I didn’t know I even remembered all this stuff. I then searched on YouTube, “2nd tower hit” and clicked on a shorter one. I watched, in despair, as the ponies looked in horror at the video. There was a little black dot falling at the very start, and I pointed it out and rewound it. As those emotion thick seconds ended, I searched “saving private ryan”, just to… Just to prove to them what a horrible world mine was. They watched, just like their eyes were glued to the screen. And then the doors opened. They looked in horror, just complete and utter horror, as the bombs went off, and dead bodies appeared everywhere. They all gasped when it showed the now legless soldier, and once again gasped when they burst on fire. When they saw the man without the arm, some of them started crying. I let it play the few more seconds, and it ended. “They can’t look at me anymore.” I thought. “There’s one last thing. My world basically tried to make this appear fun, and make some of those video games out of it. And I’m gonna show you it.” I took out Modern Warfare and put it in the Xbox. I clicked on multiplayer, and started. People were of course going crazy over the fact I was on. I just tried to play. I’m not the best, and I didn’t do too well, but our team won. “Do you see? A game. That’s what this is viewed as. But no. I have it easy. Our family is fairly rich. Richer than others in third world countries. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. There are 7 billion humans on my planet. Sure, I’ve seen a lot. But not as much as others.” I said while quitting the game. “You know what? You've seen more enough. I don’t know how, but we’re gonna do something to lighten up the mood.” They breathed a sigh of relief. Seriously, how do they do that in unison? None of them left, at least. So, I turned the music back on, and set up something a bit nicer. A nice little video game. Since I didn’t really have anything other than racing and shooting games, I just chose Forza Motorsports. My brother's PS3 was downstairs, so I went down there and tried to clean up a bit. The reason I didn’t want them to go down there was because of a deer head from a buck that my dad shot in Wyoming. Wouldn’t be the best thing for them to see. After just clearing it out, I turned on his PS3 and put in Little Big Planet. “You can come downstairs, everypony!” So, when about half of them arrived, I explained the PS3, and just told them to have fun with it. After doing the same with the Xbox upstairs, I took the six, The Doctor, Lyra, and Bon-Bon aside. “Upstairs, right now. I’ll explain everything.” So, after going into my bedroom, I went to go get a few things. Pretty much all the Doctor Who merchandise I had. The 10th and 11th Doctor’s screwdrivers and my Doctor Whooves T-shirt. I went back. "You are going to tell me what's going on ri-" I stopped him. “Actually, I think you might be interested in these!” I said, taking out the models and activating them. That was a really bad choice. “He... You… My sonicsc… You… OK, THAT IS IT. YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE RIGHT NOW!” Yeah. Wasn't expecting that. He knocked the screwdrivers from my hands, and stood up to my face, knocking me over. “Eh, heheh, uh. Sorry for being a bit sudden, but you’re basically a TV show from BBC in what I guess is my universe.” “I’m a WHAT?” “Yeah. Really good show, too. One of my favorites. These are just toys. They aren't real. Just plastic.” “Well then… That’s not what I was really expecting.” He said, taking out the REAL Sonic Screwdriver. The Sonic Screwdriver. My mind's panic mode went crazy. He started to scan me. "Ooo, oh now, that's interesting. No... That's not possible. There is no way that is possible." He said, obviously scaring me a bit." “What do you mean, 'not possible'?”
BalancingChapter Six: Balancing “You’re from another universe,” said the Doctor, very surprised. “Yeah, I thought I mentioned that,” I said, much relieved. “But how, HOW did you get here? The only species that ever had a way to travel to different universes in this section were the Timelords before the war... Unless. No. NO. That hasn't ever been OBSERVED by ANYONE EVER. You can’t be...” Again, he raised my anxiety to a whole new level, “I... I couldn’t be what?” “The balancer. You’re a balancer. An ALIVE balancer. The first to be ever seen.” “May I ask what a balancer is, Dr. Whooves?” Rarity asked politely. “It’s the Doctor. Just... the Doctor. And it is what it is. It balances. However, it’s what the balancers balance that matters. Balancers balance the Universes.” “What... Why balance universes? HOW do you balance universes? I just appeared here with my house...” I said. “OK, let me explain. Inside each and every metaverse there are basically an infinity of universes. Sections of these universes are... connected. Balanced. Yours and this universe are an example. When these universes become unbalanced, the universes naturally “corrects” themselves. That’s where the balancers come in. They are the perfect objects with the perfect mass and energy to set the differential factor of the universes to exactly zero. It exchanges the objects, and poof, everything is back to normal!” “That... that’s kind of brilliant actually,” I stated. “Now think. Compare the amount of intelligent organic mass there is to other mass. It is an absolutely tiny amount. You are the first living intelligent balancer. Now here’s the problem. The universes don’t care what they send over, as long as it’s perfect. It could be an asteroid, a flower, or anything else. Since the chances of it being intelligent are so low, the universes don’t take that into account-” “But what about you? Why are you here? Is this your universe too?” I asked before he went any further. “Ha! Don’t be silly, I’m just taking a bit of a break. Everyone needs one of those every once in a while, don’tcha think? Oh, don’t worry about me disrupting the balance, I’ve made sure all my things are hidden, and really I just try to fit in. Well, I guess these six will know now, but my existence here is nothing compared to yours.” “I suppose so, yeah.” “Anyways, intelligent life is... well... Intelligent. Its atoms are aligned so perfectly that it actually collectively responds to its environments. So, instead of doing its job of balancing everything out by just existing in a different universe, it interacts. Of course, this is more than likely going to put the universe more out of whack than what it started with.” “So how do you know about all of this, if it’s never been seen?” “Rumors, stories, legends, all from Gallifrey.” “Huh. So, am I dangerous? Do we need to do something?” “I... don’t really know. This has never happened before where it wasn’t fixed almost immediately. So no one really knows what happens when the universes become unbalanced, not even the Timelords.” “Well, guess we’ll just have to found out. It... Won’t be Torchwood and the ghosts again... will it?” “Oh, no no no. The crack you’ve made is quite tiny. For it to cause what almost happened to the Earths in those universes would take millions of years.” “OK, that’s good.” “I-I’m sorry Doctor, but I’m not really sure what’s going on still...” Fluttershy said, looking quite confused, just like all the others in the room. “Ah, don’t worry. There aren’t any Daleks around for thousands of universes, I don’t think they’ll be able to detect this tiny event,” The Doctor replied. “Oh... Ok.” She said, still quite confused. “Well then, I’ll be off,” the Doctor said. “Wait! Where are you going?” “To scan. I’ve got to make sure you’re not making the crack too much bigger, and I’m going to make sure no Genesis Arc ships are here. None of you have happened to see any ghost’s that look like Robert here have you?” Thankfully they all said no. “Good, then like I said, I’ll be off,” he said running out of the door. As soon as he was gone and out of hearing range Applejack quite loudly stated, “Do any of you understand what he just said?” “I’m trying to, but not really...” Twilight said back. The rest of them just stayed silent. “Well, I think I do.” “So, what did he mean? Why do you even trust him?” Rainbow asked. “Well, he’s the Doctor. Like I said earlier, there’s a TV show about him, just like you guys.” “But... how does he know so much? What is he?” Twilight asked. “He’s a Timelord. He’s not a pony. I don’t know how he looks light a pony, usually he looks human... Well, technically humans look like Timelords but that doesn’t matter. Timelords are basically the ultimate overseers of the universe. They do not fight unless fought against. Unfortunately that’s what happened to him. He is pretty much the last Timelord in his universe... well... Let me think. He’s the 10th incarnation of the Doctor, so River has still existed in his future, he will have his half human half timelord self in the other parallel universe, and his sort of daughter is still alive or will be still alive, even though he doesn’t kno- Oh my God. He doesn’t know his daughter is alive. Uh... What do I do? I... I can’t tell him. That’s got to mess something up, cause it never mentioned in the show him knowing about that. ” “Uh, Rob? What are you going on about?” Twilight asked. “The Doctor. He has a sort of daughter, but he thinks she’s dead. She... She was shot. But then she regenerated, and the Doctor thought she couldn’t... because she’s only half-timelord. Twilight... what do I do? Should I tell him? I CAN’T! This isn’t right...” “But... why can’t you tell him?” She said. “Ok, Ok. In the show, the 10th doctor is already gone. From the time his daughter was shot ‘till the end of his life, he never mentioned her again. This doctor is the 10th for sure, so he hasn’t changed yet. So he doesn’t know. If I tell him, it could change everything, because I already know that he doesn’t know. And if I change things it could be very bad.” “So... you can’t tell him...” she said. “And none of you can either. Oh God. Why did I ever say any of that out loud? OK, OK. All of you. You cannot say ANYTHING I just said to the Doctor. Lyra, Bon-Bon, you can’t either. I know that I haven’t said anything to you guys, but have you ever heard of humans before?” “Yes! Of course! I can’t believe you’re actually here!” Lyra said. “Yeah, did you really have to come here? Lyra was obsessed going through books trying to find out more about you humans. I thought I got rid of her rants about my “disbeliefs” after she got bored of you months ago.” Bon-Bon said. “And look who was right Bon!” “Yeah yeah... Now I’m never gonna hear the end of this...” “OK, OK, I’m sorry for coming,” I said while chuckling, “Just, can you promise not to tell him? This is really important not only to me, but to him.” “Alright, alright. I wasn’t going to anyway,” Lyra said “I didn’t plan on it either,” Bon-Bon said agreeing. “And I hope I can trust you six, right? Pinkie, you haven’t said anything this entire time, you’re not gonna do it, right?” “Hehe! Don’t worry Robbie, I wouldn’t ever! I cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie said. “Well, now I know for sure that you won’t. What about the rest of you?” They all reassured me that they wouldn’t in their own words. “Well, I’ll be keeping my eye on you anyway.” And with that, we all went back downstairs. “OK, I think we could end this party now, don’tcha think?” I said, going back to the Xbox room, “How about you guys go and get everypony downstairs to stop?” “I think we could manage that.” AJ said. The others nodded in agreement. “Well, we have a plan then. See you in a second then.” We separated, them going down the other flight of stairs. “Alright everypony, time to wrap it up. It’s getting a little late, and I need to clean this up.” There was a collective “Aw...”, as they seemed like they were having quite a bit of fun. There wasn’t any disagreement however, because it was getting dark outside. As I got them to take their things, the others started filing up the stairs, and started to take their things as well. I stood by the door as they left saying goodbye. The last few went out the front door, and then it was just Lyra and Bon-Bon and the six. “Well, are you two gonna be leaving?” I asked. “Yes, I think so.” Bon-Bon said. “Alright then, don’t worry though Lyra. I’ll be sure to come and talk sometime.” I said. “Oh thank you! I was going to ask you to, but I guess I don’t have to anymore.” Lyra said. “We’ll be on our way then, Rob. We’ll see you sometime then.” Bon-Bon mentioned. “Yep, see you guys sometime. Bye!” I said as they started to walk out the door. “Goodbye!” they both responded. “Wow, it’s quiet in here without everyone” I remarked after I closed the door, “Would you guys help me clean up this mess before you leave? It’d be kind of hard to do it by my lonesome.” “Of course!” was their general answer. With seven, the cleaning was fairly quick, and before we knew it, it was time for them to go. “Seems like we’ve finished! Thank you guys, I would’ve been up all night trying to clear this up!” I reported after about a half hour. “We couldn’t have just left you to tidy up your own surprise party!” Pinkie responded. “Oh yes, thank you for throwing this for me Pinkie, it was very fun for the most part!” “Yeah, you gotta stop being so sad all the time! You made me sad when you talked about all that sad stuff!” She said as she jumped onto my chest squeezing me. “Whoa! Uh, heh, sorry about that again. I think I got it all out of me though.” “I sure hope so. You seriously got some ponies stressed from that speech of yours.” “OK, OK Rainbow, I promise I won’t do that again. I wasn’t considering to anyway.” “Darling, if you wouldn’t mind, could you come over to the boutique sometime and maybe tell me about the fashion from your world? Rarity added. “Oh yeah, sure! I’d love to come over.” “A-and do you think you could come to my cottage and tell me about the animals and plants from your world? Fluttershy said slowly. “Yep! I’d love to meet your animals as well!” “Sugarcube, could you come over and maybe teach me a few things from your world?” asked Applejack “I could definitely try, but the way you ponies seem to farm is a lot better than our ways.” And with that, the ponies started leaving. I said goodbye as each went out the door. Twilight was last. “Rob, you wouldn’t mind if I came back sometime right? I think the princess would definitely want me to report what I’ve learned about you,” Twilight asked “Of course not Twi. You’re welcome anytime, but I’ll probably be visiting the others tomorrow, so don’t count on me being here then.” “Oh, that’s fine. I’m sure I can wait a little while.” “Alright, I’ll see you when I see you then. Bye!” “Goodbye Robert!” I watched as Twilight ran to catch up to the others, and then walked along with them. I couldn’t believe it again. They were there. I was just a few yards away from them somehow. Everytime I wasn’t distracted I thought about myself being there in Equestria. That was such an amazing time when I was still there. I only wish I could go back, have just one more day to say goodbye.
Day OneChapter Seven: Day One Today is the second day of me being “normal” once again. I figured I might as well keep a little journal to myself of what happened after it all ended. One day maybe I’ll look back on this, though I kinda doubt it considering the quality of this paper. Found an old notebook from a school year long gone under my bed. I don’t really have anything else to use, so I guess I’ll just rip the pages out of this and file them somewhere. So I just finished the beginnings of that book. I worked on that all day, all 18,000 words of it. At least that’s what Word told me. The reporters and press and media and interviewers all stopped knocking on the door after a few hours. My family has barely talked to me since I came back. I don’t really blame them, considering how much I’ve changed in what? The few weeks I’ve been gone? Back to the book, I’m not really concerned about the writing quality, I just wanna give the world a guide that tells them exactly what happened. I think that 18,000 words in one day is pretty good, but then again, it’s pretty easy describing what happened to yourself. Before I write anymore of these, I wanna set a rule. I’m just going to write these journals once a day, and I’m limiting myself to one page. That doesn’t leave me with much room for today, so good night.