Thoroughly shocked by my companion, I failed to reply to her for a couple seconds. Finally I caught my breath and my pupils returned to their normal size. “Let me guess… You’re now a full pony?”

A hoof came to her chin, “Well that is true but not exactly what I wanted you to guess.” She backed off, giving me a better view of her. “You’re also trapped in a sleeping bag… unable to escape.” She grinned evilly.

“Oh no. No. No. No!” Her hooves inched closer to my body. “No, bad Fireball, bad! Baaaaaaaaaaaaa….” The rest of what I was going to say was cut off by the insane feeling of being tickled. She had aimed and scored a lone spot on my neck that was particularly vulnerable to her experienced hooves.

I wriggled, unable to free myself from the constricting sleeping bag that I was trapped in. Curse these hooves for being unable to grasp things like hands. I started rolling away from her. Anything was better than being tortured by that mare. Unfortunately the back of the truck does not offer very much rolling space and I quickly found myself on the ground face up. Having watched my fall Fireball came to the side to check up on me. “You okay Shadow? That looks like it hurt.” In reality the bag that had trapped me before had actually saved me from pain this time around.

Now that I was on the ground I was able to gain more friction with the infernal contraption and was able to free myself.

I yawned deeply and stretched my wings. Wait, wings?!

I turned my head to look at my new appendages. Awesome! Looks I do get to be in the air force after all! Albeit I’m a pony now but that makes it even cooler! “Ooo. Cool you got wings! Hey watch this!” Her horn lit up and my eyes grew wide.

Before anything could happen I rolled under the truck, tucking my wings in to protect myself. A ball of fire splattered a foot from where I had been before. It wouldn’t have hit me but it still would have caused some burns. I popped my head out from under the truck and received a ball of water in the face, not unlike a water balloon. “That was not funny.”

She just fell back laughing. “Maybe not for you but to me it was hilarious!” I completely crawled out from under my car, her laughter still emanating from the bed.

I used my wings to flap up to the handle on the door and pulled it open with my teeth. Oh she’s going to love this.

I reached into my pocket to find my keys, only to realize I was no longer wearing pants. Buck! Where did I put my keys? I patted myself down for some reason, as if I would find my keys in my fur somewhere. By this time the laughter had died down to a giggle every now and then. There! In the center console!

I quickly grabbed them and slid them into the ignition, turning and then reaching down to stomp on the gas petal.

The engine revved loudly and I was rewarded by an orange shape flying upwards in the rear view mirror.

I leaned out the window and turned back to look at my now prone friend. I smiled as she glared daggers at me. "That wasn't funny."

I snickered again. "It was to me and that's all that matters."

"Well, you think your funny? How's this for funny? You just started a car with no fingers." She hopped down from the back and opened the passenger side door.

My smile faded and was replaced by a look of shock. I had just put the keys in the ignition and turned them without using fingers!

I felt myself levitate to the side to make room for my companion. I snapped out of my broken logic induced state and looked at her curiously. "Why can't I drive?"

She giggled, odd considering 'she' was a teenage boy only a few days ago. She wiggled her back legs playfully, drawing my attention to them. "I doubt you can reach the pedals. Probably had to get out of the seat to do it the first time."

I smiled sheepishly, truthfully I just wanted a turn driving my truck. It was almost brand new, well to me anyways. So I was pretty put off by the fact that I could no longer operate it. "Maybe…"

Her horn lights up and the stick switches into reverse. "That settles it then! You're probably a better navigator anyways." She turned to me and smiled, but my head was turned around backwards.

"WATCH IT!" I yelled.

She immediately put the brakes on. "You almost backed into a bucking tree!"

"Oops…" Oops!? She almost backed into a tree! I knew I should have pushed harder to drive. It's not that I think she's irresponsible, just a tad… eccentric.

Ah who am I kidding? I can't drive anyways.

After managing to get out of the clearing we parked in we were once again on the back road that I had turned off onto from the highway. Fireball looked left and right before turning to me. "So Shadow, which way, highway, or back roads?"

Before I could answer a police car roared past. My face took on a bemused look. "Back roads I guess."

She nodded and I grabbed the map to a plan a route. The fact that I’m able to grab the map with hooves and hold it still astounds me, but for the moment it isn't top priority. “So, do you know where you plan to go?”

My head peeks out over the map to look at Fireball. “No, I don't know quite yet. Nor am I sure where we are going to go is particularly high on my list of places to go.” She gives me an inquisitive look. “I guess now would be a good time to tell you what happened last night.” I sigh deeply before starting on my description.

“For the past few nights I’ve been having... nightmares. These nightmares were created by discord to break my will and turn. However I’m happy to say that he did not succeed in his plan to 'recruit' me. But it did not come without cost. Last night I was subjected to horrid murders of you, the princesses and the Elements of Harmony. Each was brutally murdered, and I was forced to watch. The scenes tore at my sanity until it was time for him to kill Princess Luna."

"She screamed and pleaded for me to help her, but I was chained to the floor, unable to move.” My head finds it's way onto the seat when I remember that sad moment. “Right when she was about to literally be cut in half though she snapped out of her scared mentality and looked surprised by her surroundings."

"After I was freed and managed to fake a slight recovery enough to put off any suspicion that I might be compromised we fought discord. Although we won I feel as though it was too easy for us. I mean I managed to slam my consciousness into the mental growth that he had managed to get into my head, forcing it out. But I feel like he gave up too fast.”

“Hmm...” She brought a hoof to her chin. “Well that seems a bit worse than mine I guess but mine wins with the crazy factor!” She beamed and I felt the truck slow down and drift.

“FIREBALL!” I lept for the wheel in order to keep us from drifting too far. I managed to grab it and awkwardly nudge the vehicle back into position.

Her magic enveloped the wheel again and our speed increased. “Sorry.” She smiled sheepishly. “I guess I got caught away with my excitement and lost focus. Heh”

Face, meet hoof. You two are going to get to know each other real well in the next couple days. “Well moving on. Somepony else was like inhabiting Luna’s body and he or she gave me an account or address to message him/her at. Should we?” I watched her ponder this a bit before seeing the aura fade from the wheel. “On second thought, focus on the road until we can stop.”

“Oh well we can pull off right here!” She exclaimed. “No, No Wait!” She ignored me and slammed on the breaks, swerving off the road into a patch of grass. Turning to me she gave another authentic smile. “So... what did you wanna talk about?”

“The dream encounter with ‘Jona’ I think he/she said her name was john. She wanted to get in contact with us to arrange a meet up." I watch with a smile as Fireball starts to crack up at the name 'Jona'.

She snickered. ”So you think we should contact him?" Another snicker; I think she is borderline breaking down laughing right now. "Sorry, I mean her."

"Yes I do believe it would be in our best interest to contact her. Problem is she told me to send her a message on this site called FimFiction." Fireball's smile grew much larger. "Yes?"

"Well shadow, that happens to be a site humans go to to read/write fan fiction about MLP" What the hay, did she just say 'humans'?

I cleared my throat. "Um, fireball, we're humans."

"Nuh uh, we are ponies." She retorts.

I look down at my furry body. "Touché… but we were humans and still are inside."

She gives a long sigh and looks away. "I'm not much of a sciency pony but I do understand some things. We were ponies before we were human. Discord used some off his magic to curse us and hide us away for 25 years, well maybe more than that. But it wore off when we turned 25 as humans."

I tried desperately to retain my more human side of myself, but it was slowly slipping away. Sure some things didn't change but it felt like I was slowly being assimilated by something. However I must put on a pretense of being fine lest I become a nuisance.

'Dear Princess Luna,

We are currently in Spearville, Kansas but are making good time northwards (if nothing goes wrong). So where are you? You mentioned that you wanted to meetup to discuss some things and, well I'm still shaken up by the turn of events of the past few days. Also, I think Fireball has a Skype account, it would be much easier if we communicated through that.'

"O, and can you ask Luna," I glare at her. "Sorry, Princess Luna if she can say hi to Princess Celestia for me. Oh and, um, my apologies for the exploding cake the other day, it was too good of an offer to pass up!"

P.S Fireball says to tell Celestia 'Hi' if you meet her. Also that she is sorry for the exploding cake the other day. Apparently it was too tempting an opportunity.

Awaiting your reply,

Shadow

“Think she’ll reply soon?” Fireball asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

It took a few minutes but a Notification on Skype popped up saying I had a new contact request. I clicked it; it was from someone named ‘Sarikano’ with the message ‘Cakes are serious business.’

My first instinct is to ignore the request and wait for Luna but my curiosity won out.

‘Who is this? it sounds like you got my message but…’

A reply popped up.

‘The princess you are looking for is in another castle.’

‘Actually, I saw your message on my sister’s computer and I thought I could get in touch with you while she is busy.’

“You sure you got the username right?” Fireball says from over my shoulder.

“I’m sure, Luna wouldn’t joke about something as serious as this and I typed in the username correctly on that pony site.”

“Hmm...” The hoof goes to her muzzle again. She gasps, “Maybe it’s Princess Celestia!”

My eyes bug out. ‘Oops...’

I typed out another message to send her.

‘Princess Celestia?’

‘There is no need to be so formal my little pony. It feels a little too weird at the moment to be called Princess...’ That’s a bit odd, but considering that I’m not quite in the best of states I can’t blame her.

'Um, alright…' I clicked the ‘Add to contacts’ Button and continued.

'So Princess Luna is busy?’ “Oh! Oh! Tell her I say hi!”

I turn to look at my companion, then shake my head.

‘And Fireball says 'hi'.'

‘Yes, she is taking a shower at the moment. It could take a while.’ Wow do I have the best of timing...

‘And hi Fireball’ That was it, after reading that Fireball Squeed. Not some normal semi quiet squee, but a full blown ‘Hey guess what? You can’t hear anymore!’ squee.

‘By the way, I had forgotten about the exploding cake until she reminded me (devil)’ At this, however, her eyes grew wide and her laughter ceased. “Think she holds a grudge against me for that?” She asked sheepishly.

“Knowing the Princess I’m sure she probably enjoyed the joke.” I laughed as I remembered the time I heard about that. No, wait, this is the first time though. ERG! Stupid memories.

‘Ah, okay… well I guess you might be able to help. Princess Luna talked about meeting up with you two. Could you help us with location?’ I thought a bit then added.

‘Also, that emoticon is very strange coming from you’

‘We are currently in Luna’s apartment in Muscatine, Iowa but I don't know the exact address. I need to talk to a friend who lives on the fringe of the town later on though.’

‘As for the smiley, how would you qualify setting up a certain orange unicorn to guard the throne room when the Solar Court is open?’

That stumped me. “What does she mean by that last part. I thought everypony loved talking to me when I stood outside solar court...” Fireball pouted.

'Oh alright, I guess I will have to find that on the map.'

"You do know there is this cool thing called Google maps right? I didn't know paper maps still existed…"

I sighed then added, 'or I could look it up on Google.'

'I think I'll just let Fireball handle that second question while I plot a route.'

And with that I hoofed the computer to her and left her to her own devices while I checked out a drive plan.

After looking at the phone in my hooves I poked it. Of course I can't use a touch screen with freakin hooves! I can type on a damn keyboard but I can't use a touch screen… fantastic.

I look at Fireball pleadingly which is received with a dramatic sigh. “If you didn’t lose it, there is a stylus on the side.”

I found the tool that she mentioned and set to work on how I would hold it. Figuring it would work the same as the keys I simply reached with my hoof to grab it. As soon as my hoof touched it however, it fell out of it’s cradle and I was forced once again to look pleadingly at my friend for help.

Once again she gave me a 'are you kidding me?' look. Her horn lit up and the stylus floated back up to my hoof.

I was baffled by the simple device I held. How had it eluded me when the keyboard and keys didn't? Then I realized that I hadn't really thought about using both of those things, I had just… done it.

I looked on at the stylus with a more determined expression. Picturing a hand with its fingers clenched around the offending black cylinder, I moved my hoof slowly towards the device.y appendage slowly tilted to test my grip, moving only in tiny increments. Finding nothing amiss I smiled and moved it over the phone, excited that I had mastered hoof-field manipulation.

A few taps later I managed to open Google maps. Using the little electronic on screen keyboard was a pain in the flank, but somehow I managed to type in Muscatine Iowa and our current position. I groaned audibly at the sight of a nearly 11 hour drive. The phone then took up residence on the dash, spitting out electronic instructions.

Satisfied, I turned to fireball and watched as her face turned into a somewhat frightening smile. "Hey, fireball? Can I talk to Celestia now?"

She looked up and shot me a innocent smile. "Oh sure shadow!" I a few key clicks later she ha-hoofed it over to me.

The Skype chat was still up and I read her latest message.

'heh, challenge accepted… oh here is shadow again (don't mention any logical impossibilities around him, he doesn't react well)'

I turned towards her and just sighed. She smiled again, earning a confused shake of the head from me.

'…'

'anyways ive plotted a route, thankfully around any cities and such. If we don't run into any more trouble google maps says we should be there in 11 hours.'

'I'm sorry you're stuck with the perfect guard for the Element of Laughter.'

':) No worries, I love the mare and she helps keep me on my toes'

'Toes? What are those toes you are talking about? (cool)'

A faint roaring comes from the direction of the highway, followed shortly by sirens. Perfect timing bucking police!

'speak of trouble, the police are here, sorry to cut our conversation so short but we have to go. Bye.'

The truck was already started and in gear. A faint glow surrounded the wheel. I shut the computer down and turned to my lifelong friend. "Think you can outrun them?" I asked with a smirk.

She scoffed. "I am insulted! You're looking at the champion of the Need For Speed gaming franchise. It would be foals play to outrun them." Granted she used pony terms, but I smiled at her antics. This is the fireball I know and love.

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