My Little Pony: Friendship is a Miracle

Celestia looked at the man and changeling in a mix of shock, horror, and a hint of disgust. She thought over any possible reason that Graham would ever bring over a changeling. Why didn’t a single guard in her castle even try to stop him? Were they stupid? Asleep on the job? Or was Graham that skilled at hiding even the most villainous of creatures in the open?

She tried to relay her disbelief. “W-wha...ho--”

“All I did was walk in. Nothing that hard.”

Celestia almost wanted to blast the thing in front of her into bits. It would be simple, efficient, and even better, for the good of Equestria! All she would have to do was blast it with a spell from her horn. In fact, what was stopping her...

Suddenly, the changeling lept from Graham’s arms and landed just short of her throne, bowing deeply as soon as it hit the ground. Celestia recoiled slightly in shock, wondering what trick the creature was trying to pull. Her shock only increased further as it began to speak.

“Celestia, ruler of Equestria, the Keeper of Harmony, Guardian of the Sun. I am honored to meet you in person at last.”

“Who...who’re--”

Graham stepped towards her, standing next to his friend, and chuckled, “Didn’t I just say he’s one of my friends? His name’s Jack, like I said earlier, and you brought him here through your portal.”

Celestia gaped at him and rapidly shifted her attention to the changeling, then back to Graham, then back again, “But...Jack is a human, isn’t he?”

“I can explain, princess,” the changeling said, still bowing. “Discord meant to play a practical joke on us, and it seems the effects are irreversible.” Then it chuckled, “Though I can’t say I’m adverse to the side-effects.”

“I’ll have to do something about Discord later... But for now, I ask of you to bring Aramis here, so that I may speak to all three—”

“Four.”

“...What?”

Graham scratched the back of his head and thought it over. “Well, remember when you, Luna and Discord thought your spell didn’t work the first time? Well, turned out someone did pop up from that.”

Celestia felt so stupid. How could she not see that her spell worked the first time? She summoned two men and a dog before, how could she believe it didn’t work under the power of three entities?

“I cannot believe I didn’t see that it worked.” She put a hoof to her face as she shook her head. Graham chuckled.

“It can happen to just about anyone--pony! Jeez. Anyway, you didn’t know, so what? Now you do.”

Celestia could understand that. She wasn’t all-knowing, like so many of her subjects believed. She was one of few remaining Alicorns, yes. But that didn’t say anything about her supposed “all knowing wit” that the ponies of Equestria, for one reason or another, deemed her to have.

“I suppose you’re right Graham”, the princess conceded, “But as I was saying, I would like you to go back to Ponyville and gather up all of your friends, human and pony.”

“But wait, why can’t you just get a guard or two, and rush ‘em over here by chariot or something? Isn’t that just a tiny bit easier than just sending me and a bug to go get them?”

Jack’s head came up from his bow and he glared at Graham, “Well, fuck you too, my good sir.”

“You’re welcome.” Graham grinned back.

Celestia thought it out in her head. Sending two guards would be much easier than sending a changeling out with Graham. If anypony were to see Jack the way he was, especially since the ponies were just getting over the incident during the royal wedding, they would have a panic attack. They’d gather pitchforks and torches just to kill the poor thing. And sending Graham out on his own, would probably take a while to do, since he wasn’t going to pull them all together under a few hours. He didn’t have the speed of a pegasus. Sending professionals would be good enough, and quicker too.

“Graham, you’re absolutely right. I’ll send two of my quickest guards immediately.”

With this in mind, Celestia took the orders on parchment, and sent them to her chosen help via magic. Outside, both were preparing the chariot to take off. As soon as they were ready, they flew into the air, towards Ponyville. There, they would gather Bromley and Aramis, as well as the element bearers...

The only one that they wouldn’t find there was Twilight. After Graham had run off after Jack, she went towards her old study hall, which was located on the east side of the palace.

Graham, remembering that Twilight didn’t return to Ponyville after that event, decided it was a good idea to get her himself. Discovering her location through Celestia, he went off with Jack at his side to guide her back into the throne room for this ‘special meeting’.

Graham, with Jack on his back once more, took to the halls to locate the study hall Twilight cooped herself in.

“I wish they had directories or something. This place is a nightmare.” Graham muttered as they traveled the halls, finding themselves to be lost.

Jack chuckled, “Tell me about it. You think I knew where I was going when I ran off? It was dumb luck...well, dumb or horrible, depending on how you look at it...that I wound up in the gardens.”

“Well do you know where we are right now? It’d probably be nice to have some form of idea how close we are to Twilight’s old study hall.”

Jack flew off from Graham’s back and looked around, grinning when he saw a window a little further down the hall. His wings suddenly buzzed to life and lifted him up in the air, bringing him up to Graham’s eye level, “Wait here,” he said, before flying out the window he had spotted.

Graham, being impatient as always, leaned up on a wall and sat there, toying with his fingers. A few moments later, Jack zoomed back into the hallway to meet up with his big friend.

“We just need to head upstairs a couple flights, nothing too bad.” Jack smiled widely and patted Graham on the shoulder, “Have fun with that.” He promptly flew back out the window, cackling as he went.

“Stupid bug.” He said under his breath as he walked up the stairs. About ten minutes passed by until he finally reached his destination. Jack was nowhere to be found once Graham finally arrived at Twilight’s study hall, so the man headed in by himself.

Opening the door, he noticed Twilight caught in a book. She didn’t turn around, nor did she hear him come in as he snuck over. He was right behind her, with his arms hanging high...

“Now I just need that quill, and--” She was interrupted by a roar from behind, startling her and making her jump straight up into the air, where a pair of arms grabbed hold of her.

Twilight managed to turn herself enough to see it was Graham who had grabbed her, and who was now laughing his head off. The unicorn gave a small buck to the man’s gut, just hard enough to get him to let go, which he did with a small grunt.

Twilight gave an indignant huff as she landed, immediately turning around fully to berate Graham for his immature behavior, “Graham, what was that for!?” She yelled, “I’m in the middle of some very important research, and the last thing I need is playful interruptions!”

The man merely laughed at Twilight’s outburst and continued well after she was finished scolding him. The mare rolled her eyes and moved to get back into her seat...

“Hello? Twilight?”

Said unicorn immediately perked up at the voice, an immensely wide smile replacing her frown as she spun around to see the best foal-sitter ever standing in the doorway.

“Cadence!” She cried, bolting to the alicorn and wrapping her hooves around Cadence’s neck in a tight hug. The cupid winced at the immediate constriction of her airway, but returned the hug with only slightly less force.

“Twilight!” she said once said mare had let her go, “It’s so good to see you again.”

“What are you doing here?” Twilight asked, “I thought you were coming back next week from your honeymoon!”

Cadence laughed good-naturedly, “Your brother forgot to hand off some orders to the next-in-command, so I just made a quick stop to drop them off.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? You let some silly orders interrupt your honeymoon?”

“Well, normally I wouldn't've, but Shiny was just so worried that something would go wrong. I couldn’t bear to see him so stressed, so I told him I’d drop them off super quick.” Cadence rolled her eyes, smiling, “Believe me, your brother puts up just as much of a fuss as you are right now.”

The alicorn looked behind Twilight to see a still giggling Graham. She looked back to the younger Sparkle, taker her turn to raise an eyebrow, “Who, or what, is that?”

“Oh, sorry,” Twilight apologized. She gestured to Graham, who by now had finally stopped laughing and came over to greet Cadence.

“This is my friend Graham,” Twilight started, “He’s what’s called a human. Graham, Cadence. Cadence, Graham.”

Cadence bowed slightly, “It’s a pleasure.”

Not really having another option, Graham returned the bow, “Same here.”

Cadence stood up and turned to Twilight, “Well, it’s about time I got going. Shiny’s not going to be happy if I take too long.” She giggled. “He’s probably stressed out as it is.”

        Twilight smiled in understanding, “You’re probably right about that. I’ll see you next week!”

        Cadence turned to leave, but paused and bit her lip before smiling and turning back to Twilight, “For old times’ sake?” she asked with a wink. The unicorn giggled and crouched in preparation.

Graham watched the two mares as they began their age-old nursery rhyme.

“Sunshine, sunshine,” they sang, alternating left and right pairs of hooves as they bounced in place.

“Ladybugs awake!” The pair dropped down to the ground, covering their eyes for a split second before lifting their hooves and looking at each other.

“Clap your hooves,” they sat on their haunches and did just that: clapping their hooves with each other.

“And do a little-“

“-shake!”

“-SHAPESHIFT!”

With a yell and a burst of green flames, ‘Cadence’ withered away to reveal a hugely grinning, red-eyed, but otherwise normal, changeling.

Twilight, mid-hind-shaking, stayed exactly as she was, unmoving aside from her jaw dropping to, quite literally, hit the floor. Graham had a similar reaction, slouching slightly forward out of disbelief.

The changeling patted a still-immobile Twilight on the head, “You, my dear, fell for that like a metric ton of bricks dropped out of a space shuttle on reentry.”

It then buzzed up to Graham and did the same to him, “And you, mein freund, bought that like a Team Fortress 3 Special Edition.”

“Stop making me dream of things that’ll never happen, you asshole!” Graham shouted towards the buzzing creature.

***

Meanwhile at Sweet Apple Acres, work was going fairly smoothly. Except that the barn apparently needed to be rebuilt. Applejack saw absolutely no reason for doing so.

“Why do we need to tear it down Big Mac?” Applejack was currently in her brother’s face, glaring irritably while her brother stared her down.

“Because sis, you let your stupid dog piss all over the place in there, and the walls lit on fire when you didn’t stir the hay. Go look in there. Its nasty. Y’all got no one to blame cept’ yourself. And so y'all are gonna take care of this.” Big Macintosh trotted away from his sister, satisfied with his explanation. Applejack heaved a sigh, turning to face Bromley who was standing next to a tree outside of the house.

“Hey. Ya feel like doin’ me a favor?” Bromley raised an eyebrow in response.

***

It was surprisingly quiet in the streets of Ponyville, almost as if Zecora had decided to pay a visit. Almost no ponies were out in the open, and the few that did looked in the opposite direction as the human meandered his way into town. Bromley took in the sights of the colorful buildings and decorative flowers, ignoring the tense atmosphere around him. Applejack had told him to go get a pegasus (apparently those things also existed) named Rainbow Dash to help her demolish the barn. Thus far, Bromley had to see any pegasus in the area.

Aramis had just left the market area with bags of groceries he was going to drop off at the library for Rainbow Dash to pick up later. As he walked, he took notice of how empty the streets were. He was a bit concerned, remembering that they had been crowded with ponies a mere half hour ago.

“Well that’s a bit strange...” he commented quietly.

He marched forwards regardless until he saw a vague shape of a bipedal creature in the distance, “The fuck... No way, another human? When the hell did this happen and who forgot to give me a goddamn memo!?” he muttered, annoyed to no end. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself as he closed the gap between them. The human had stopped walking at this point, turning slightly to stare blankly at Aramis as he approached.

“Didn’t know Celestia brought another human here.” Aramis said nonchalantly.

“I was not informed Graham has human companions.” Bromley replied evenly.

Aramis brushed a strand of brown hair behind his air, “Been here since the start, what else can I say?”

“Aren’t you cool?” Bromley said apathetically, blinking in response.

“If you say so.” he said with a small grin.

“Apparently you have more brains then the fat one.” Bromley said, letting a smirk crossed his face.

Aramis laughed loudly, “Someone had to be the smarter of the two. Otherwise, we’d be dead with his lack of luck.”

Bromley’s smirk faded as he talked again, “Who are you anyway?”

Aramis extended a hand forward in greeting, “Aramis.”

Bromley shook it firmly, while Aramis’ eyes widened as he felt how cold and solid his gloved hand was, “A pleasure to meet you. What brings you around these parts of town?”

“‘These parts’? So far there isn’t any shad—”

A chariot descended from the sky and landed in front of them. One of the guards who flew it addressed them, “Are you two the humans who go by the name of Aramis and Bromley?”

“We are.” Aramis answered for them.

“Please board the chariot as we have express orders from the Princesses to bring the humans and bearers of the Element of Harmony.

Aramis looked at them puzzled, “But what about Rainbow Da—”

“She’ll most likely be on her way if you have yet to see her.”

The two humans boarded the chariot, but not without Aramis’ complaining, “God damn, can someone just give me a fuckin’ memo.” he said as he sat across from Bromley who rolled his eyes and stared out the window.

***

BONK!

A loud thud was heard throughout the halls as Twilight used her hoof to land a good buck to Jack’s head. His vision spun as he laughed in a deranged manner, recuperating from the blow.

Twilight calmly walked towards Jack, her horn lighting up, “I’m going to do bad things to you, Changeling. Right now.”

Jack’s giggling continued as he stumbled out the door, slowly going from a unsteady to a walk, then a full-on gallop as he sped away from the pissed-off unicorn, now hot on his heels. His laughter echoed through the halls as he sped away, clearly not caring he had angered the Element of Magic, of all ponies.

“Twilight! Wait up! God, why is everyone so freaking fast!” Graham hollered as he struggled to catch up to his friends.

Jack was speeding away from Twilight as he dodged a bolt or two of magic. Practically calling this a game, he flew through a hallway and around a corner, making sure that she was still following him. Everything was going smoothly...

Twilight rounded the same corner and quickly ground to a halt when Jack was nowhere in sight. Her eye twitched involuntarily as she searched the hallway, looking for any trace of the changeling.

Her ear twitched as she heard a familiar voice “Twilight! Warten Sie!”

She looked over and braced for a collision with the man, but found that it didn’t come. Instead he was a foot away from her, breaking a sweat and catching his breath.

“He’s not—”

“Not now, Graham, don’t you see that a changeling was trying to get a hold of me!? Why, if that thing got any closer, it would’ve tried to subdue me with that green goo!”

Graham tried reasoning with her, but she would have none of it. As soon as she heard a slight buzzing sound in the furthest part of the hallway, she bolted towards the source, ignoring Graham’s calls after her.

The human let out a groan and took a step forward when a movement to his right caught his attention. Looking next to him, he saw a rather well-carved gargoyle statue snarling at him.

“Huh, didn’t know ponies liked gargoyles...” he muttered. A sudden purple flash startled him, and he looked down to see a somewhat disheveled Twilight, her eyes purple dots on white orbs.

“Twi! Mother of fuck, don’t do that!” He wheezed as he tried to catch what breath he could, as all of it was taken as he screamed from the scare.

“Not now Graham,” the mare said in a voice that was panicked, yet creepily calm, “We’ve got a changeling on the loose, and if it can do a Cadence impersonation that well, it’s going to be just a tiny bit of a problem if we don’t CATCH IT!”

Graham sighed, “Twilight, I’ve been trying to—”

“None of that!” she interrupted, turning around and walking off, “We’ve got a bug to find!”

“Hey!”

Graham and Twilight jumped and looked at the source of the yell: the gargoyle.

“I resent that comment.” It said calmly.

“There’s our little bundle of joy.” The man joked as he snatched Jack from the pedestal, “See? Harmless as a cricket. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Fuck you and your ‘bug’ comments.” Jack snapped, reverting to his changeling self with a flash of green flames.

“Oh come on, Jack, stop being a big old girl and just focus on what we gotta do now.” Graham ordered as he put the creature over his shoulder and headed back towards the throne room.

Jack furrowed his brow, suddenly deep in thought. “You know...I’m not sure changelings even have genders...though considering there’s a ‘queen’, there must be some higher-level differentiation between important members of a hive...of course, there’s always the possibility that...” His ramblings continued, nopony really paying attention to his in-depth observations of changeling society and physiology.

“Blahblahblah...” Graham muttered as they opened the door to the throne room. Inside, Celestia sat in the same spot she always did.

“Good to see you again, my friends.” She said in her sweet and regal voice.

“Nice to see you too, Celestia. We brought Twilight here, like you asked.” Graham said.

“Much trolling was involved!” Jack added with a grin.

“Yeah, pipe down, you weeping willow cricket hybrid.” Graham said toward him.

“I will eviscerate you if you keep that up.” Jack warned, subtly showing off his fangs.

He felt no intimidation, and ignored him as he looked back up to the princess.

“So what exactly did you need us for?” Graham asked Celestia as the doors slowly opened. Bromley and Aramis, guided by two guards walked to the four in the room.

“My lady, we have retrieved the humans you wished to see.” One pegasus bowed his head to honor the solar ruler.

“Very good, you are dismissed.” She waved a hoof, and the two were gone.

“Thanks for the memo, Princess.” Aramis said sarcastically as he walked up to the group.

Jack buzzed off of Graham’s shoulder to look at the new arrivals. His jaw dropped the moment he laid eyes on Aramis.

“A...Aramis?” He asked, then paused for a moment, “I think I’ve officially established I’m about as high as the I.S.S.”

Aramis gazed at the changeling, “What’s it to ya?”

“Giygas in a box, ya trollish asshole.”

“Jack?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.

“No, your mother,” the changeling said sarcastically.

“Well, I be damned; if it isn’t Jack the Ripper.” he replied nonchalantly, “Who’s your latest slaughter, Palin? Spears? Simpson?”

Jack laughed loudly, “Generosity, if I can help it.”

Bromley didn’t pay much attention to the conversation going on between the two, but he had enough, “If both of you are done talking, I think the big white horse wants to talk.”

“And who are you?” The changeling buzzed up to Bromley and narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Bromley. That’s all you need to know.” He replied calmly, not intimidated by his gaze.

“If all three of you are finished?” Graham asked with annoyance clear in his voice. He watched as all three of them stopped talking.

“Thank you.” Twilight said as she looked back at Celestia.

“I have called all of you here to ask each of you, how are you enjoying our way of life? Are you comfortable here?”

Graham stepped up to the princess with a smile on his face, “It’s going great! I love being here. Twilight and Spike are practically family to me now. Taking care of me the way they do, I feel like I’m being spoiled!” He ended his part with a laugh, and stepped down, letting Aramis through.

Aramis approached the princess, and offered a friendly wave that Princess Celestia returned. “Uh...I admit, I wasn’t too adverse to the idea of being here. In fact, I was flat out terrified and annoyed. Terrified that I was separated from what few people I had in my life, annoyed that everypony here expected me to simply accept the facts and move on. I didn’t really care for the ponies here until Rainbow Dash made it her mission to get me to open up a little...” he smiled at her, a genuine smile on his face, causing her to blush abashedly, “And then I came to love a lot of things about this place. The food, the locales, and the ponies.” He bowed before politely stepping back and allowing whoever wished to speak next to do so.

Bromley was the next to come forth, “I may have not been here for very long, but I appreciate the hospitality I’ve been shown. I certainly didn’t expect it. I think you should know I’ve made it a personal mission to protect the Apple family for...a variety of reasons.” He bowed swiftly, “That is all.”

Bromley stepped back and allowed Jack to walk up and bow respectfully, “Many thanks for your concern, princess. I confess, I did not expect to be in Equestria at any point in my life, nor did I expect such a drastic...change in appearance. However, I am appreciative of Discord’s ‘prank’, no matter the intent. I promise to keep any disruptions to a minimum.” With that, the changeling stood up and walked back to the humans.

“So it sounds like all of you are enjoying yourselves. I’m glad that, even with some unexpected events, that everypony is alright.” Celestia said with a smile, “I also realized that each of you have found somepony that you enjoy being around, such as Bromley and Applejack. And I also realize that each of you, except Jack, has also taken a home with each pony.” She turned to Jack. “We will have to find you a home, Jack.”

Jack laughed, “With all due respect, princess, good fuckin’ luck!” He gestured to himself. “I’m a frickin’ changeling! Noling likes changelings!”

“Already saying stuff with ‘ling’ in it?” Graham asked, but stopped himself from thinking any further, “Nevermind, anyway, why not Fluttershy’s house? He could bunk with her! She’s his favorite pony back at home, and I’m sure the both of them can get along just fine. Besides, this gives me a reason to go get Gypsy from her. She’s been taking care of her since we got here.”

Jack chuckled, “And how exactly do you plan to get her to take me in? Regardless of how kind she is, you still fail to see the point: I’m a motherfuckin’ changeling.”

“Oh, I know a way, and it’s my favorite way.” He said with a smirk across his features, “If there’s one thing she’ll do for just about any living creature, it’s take care of the sick, and/or dying...”

“Well then, I hope she’s well versed in human physiology.”

Celestia stopped them with a raised hoof, “We are not to have anything like that.” Graham upon hearing this, replied with an ‘aww’.

“No, instead, I will send a letter to Fluttershy, and explain to her your situation. She will understand, and take you in.”

“I hope so princess,” Jack sighed. “If not, I can always go conquer the rest of my race...”

“You’re not doin’ that, besides you’d have to be a girl first. Clearly you’re not.” Graham retorted, “Anyways, so we’re all set to go?”

Celestia could see the excitement in the man’s eyes, and gave him a nod.

“Whoo-hoo! Oktoberfest!” He shouted in the air, and bolted out the door with Twilight, while the others took their sweet time leaving.

“You know...” Aramis begun as they walked out of the Canterlot Castle towards the chariots, “I guess you could say things ended up being a...” he pulled out a pair of aviators, “Happily ever after.”

Three groans sounded in unison.

***

As the humans left the throne room, the doors closed behind them, leaving Celestia alone.

ALMOST alone.

Unnoticed by anypony, the shadows behind the throne shone with two red orbs, soon followed by a spreading array of razor-sharp white teeth. With a low, quiet chuckle, the demonic features faded away into the shadows...