Yeah, got ran over by a bus. A fucking bus. Just goes to show you kids, when you’re outer layer of skeleton is all black and stuff, don’t stand in the middle of the road reading signs. Cause it’ll get you run over...by a bus.

Okay, so…after getting my ass blown halfway across a continent and beaten on by a psycho bitch bug queen, getting hit by a bus wasn’t that big a deal. It was more like I got spun around real fast for a real long time, then tried to stand up. Especially considering that after I was crushed by its first set of tires, my horn got caught on the undercarriage and dragged me about…well, I dunno…it wasn’t very long before the dragging stopped and my entire world was flung around. Then I was dropped from the bus and onto the ground from a height that was way too high for it to make any sense…but, it didn’t actually hurt all that much. Made me want to throw up, but didn’t hurt.

When the world decided to stop moving, I looked around to see I wasn’t laying on the road and was actually behind a swath of trees. You know, the kind they have to keep up next to roads to make everything look pretty when in reality a few feet behind the first two rows of trunks there’s usually nothing but grass…and that’s in the lucky areas. That’s where I saw I landed after a quick look around. I could even hear the nearby road as another car passed by.

Then I looked up to see the bus that had hit me on its side…and floating in the air with a nice healthy golden glow around it. It went pretty well with the yellowish color of the paint, and the words Canterlot High School in big black letters on the side that was facing towards me.

It’s presence left me a little confused. It was the tail end of Summer back in Equestria. So why in the hell were things different here? I mean, school busses weren’t supposed to be running yet, right?

Oh, and there were terrified girls inside the bus dressed in some kind of blue uniforms too. Their fear probably had something to do with the fact that an alien sun goddess had their bus in her telekinetic clutches for running me over. Of course, it didn’t help that they couldn’t stop from looking out the windows since it was now pretty much impossible not to thanks to gravity pulling them all towards the glass; and I’m pretty sure the big unicorn with wings was also a major draw.

I just looked up at the bus with its letters and sighed. Really? Was there really enough of Equestria’s coincidental laws in this universe as well that I just had to land in this particular town and get hit by a bus from that particular school despite the odd hour of the night?

Which was… Okay, well, I didn’t know the exact time, but I was pretty sure school buses shouldn’t have been driving around at night.

Just what the hell was going on anyway?

Then some hooves touched down beside me and Celestia took a quick check on me before diverting her attention to the bus. “What is that thing?”

Well, besides evidence in for our kidnapping charges… I sighed as I tried to think of the fastest and easiest way to explain automotives to a being whose highest level of such technology was a locomotive. I didn’t count the Flintstone-style helicopters that some ponies could use of course.

“It’s like a train, just without the tracks and uh…can you put it back Tia?” I asked her. The kids were probably frightened out of their minds. “It’s full of scared…foals.” Keeping my ponyisms straight while talking about humans was going to get strange fast. But it was better than trying to make up words. Me and Twilight had managed to make up a word for human thanks to the few explanations I had to give her every now and then, but we were still missing a complete list of all the related words like woman.

It wasn’t that I had much of a choice though. Every time I tried to speak English as a pony, things came out a little garbled thanks to the fact I just didn’t have the vocal cords to pull it off. Some words were at least somewhat recognizable thanks to some effort on my part and a need to curse correctly, like you know, fuck. Others…not so much.

And don’t even get me started on the pony version of human words that had been invented by Twilight. That was just so fucking complicated on how it all linked together…well, the word human in pony sounded kind of like that but…like I said, it’s complicated.

Celestia nodded in response to my question, and the bus moved in the air. It only got a few inches before she looked back to me. “Twilight mentioned that humans do not possess magic. Such an unexplainable event for them…should we not…take steps to insure it does not cause them damage down the line?”

I sighed at the suggestion. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what she was tip-toeing around. “You mean wipe their memories?” The idea did unsettle me, but…she had a point. Two freakishly unexplainable events happening to girls from the same school was better left forgotten. “Okay, put the bus down and we’ll get started. But um, don’t let the rear door or the emergency hatch on the top open, or let the rear tires spin.”

As soon as the things were wrapped in an extra layer of magic and the bus was back on the ground, I walked up to the front of the bus and opened the door with my telekinesis before knocking out the driver and going inside.

Going inside the mobile human structure was…kind of disturbing.

The change in height, or perspective as I was a near-four-foot equine-bug-thing kind of threw everything off. Celestia may have been able to look people in the eye, if not down on them, but I was still just a head above Twilight Sparkle size in my changeling form; topping out at four and a half feet at most. Going into a place meant for creatures averaging out around six feet made me suddenly realize how much that had changed my view of things.

I got a bit of a surprise when I managed a real look at the thirty some odd girls from inside the bus with its proper lighting. They weren’t pastel colored people. Oh, the hair was certainly…pony, but the skin colors only fell within the usual human range. They all had on the same kind of clothes too, long socks and shorts, with bright blue shirts as they all stood towards the back with a few of them trying to get the door open rather unsuccessfully.

There was also the oddity of luggage in some of the seats. Not much compared to what girls usually carried, just a few duffle bags and other easily cartable containers. But there was a suitcase or two.

My surprise ended when some of them pulled out phones and took a picture of me. “Really? An alien walks in, and you take its picture.” I asked before realizing I was speaking pony. Then I groaned when I remembered that even if I could understand the things the girls were saying to each other just fine, which was mostly terrified mutters asking each other what were they supposed to do, there was no way I could talk to them. Even though I had some control over my vocal cords that allowed me to make a myriad of sounds, enabling both changeling and pony speech, human speech was just too alien for me to do.

Then Celestia had to stick her big fat head in and make everything worse. It wasn’t the fact that students saw her that did it. Hell, the presence of a magical unicorn with wings and a crown probably worked to calm the kids down after the horse bug monster walked in. No, she took one look around and focused her gaze on the soccer player with hair that ran every color of the spectrum, standing at the front of the crowd with a face somewhere between nervous and angry. Hell, she even had a lot of the same face structure as the pegasus I knew and loved.

“Is that…Rainbow Dash?”

I was just glad that Rainbow Dash in in pony sounded more like ‘rawbrog ggth’ to anyone who didn’t see the similarities in the language.

“Well, a human analogue version of Rainbow Dash that has the same hair style anyway,” I said. Pony Rainbow Dash wanted to join an elite squadron of the military that doubled as a stunt team, human Rainbow Dash played soccer. There was quite a bit of difference there. Oh, and human Rainbow Dash’s hair looked a bit more well-groomed. But then, she couldn’t fly at hundreds of miles an hour on a whim either. So that probably helped her keep everything straight.

The alicorn looked over to me with a frown. “So that would make this the world that Twilight came to during the princess summit?”

In truth, the possibility of that was actually pretty low. If you accounted for the fact that there really was an infinite variation of worlds, and that those worlds in turn influenced each other based upon their dimensional distance, then it was possible that we had simply landed next door to the Equestria Girls from the movie, and this was a completely different Rainbow Dash that never met Twilight Sparkle.

But I really didn’t believe in that infinite universe bullshit. I know, it was kind of weird since I was a talking pony-bug-thing at the moment, but… If an infinite number of universes existed, then the law of averages said there would be one where a being with enough power to destroy all of reality by snapping his fingers also existed and had the desire to do so, ergo nothing should exist at all because the possibility of an infinite variation in realities says this being has to exist somewhere and he would have already ended existence.

So…yeah, it was the same Rainbow Dash. “Probably.”

“The same world where Twilight Sparkle left Sunset Shimmer?” Celestia continued in a low tone that made her hard to read.

“Yeah?” I replied, unsure where this was going.

At least until I turned around and saw the alicorn’s expression turn to one of pained regret. “Would it be possible for you to locate her for me?”

I was feeling a little tired as Tia carried a magically gagged and struggling human Rainbow Dash further away from the road. But, after Celestia had knocked out all the non-Rainbow humans on the bus and I removed the last ten minutes of their memories before she put the vehicle back in place beside the road, my lack of love was the last several days was leaving me rather drained.

Not that laying around Canterlot for several days made me spend any magic, but I just don’t suck as much energy from Twilight as I used to when I was an undercover changeling surrounded by ponies who would pound my head in if they discovered the truth. There was just no real need to take more beyond daily necessities.

Although at that moment I was really wishing I had done some gorging on my purple pony girlfriend.

“So, how do you plan to find her?” Celestia asked me before setting the human’s things down, as well as a magically mute Rainbow. Who looked pretty frightened about the whole thing, not that I could blame her. I was probably horror movie material in her eyes, and Celestia had just neutralized a whole busload of kids. For all she knew, we were a pair of alines with plans for anal probing or...something.

I used my magic to dig through the non-pegasus’s bag, and groaned when I couldn’t find what I was hoping for. So I snagged her iPhone. It wasn’t as big as a pad, but I could still use it with the help of the end of a cleat’s shoestring I I found in the bag turned into a makeshift stylus.

With my first priority of business being the human in front of me, I typed out a quick message and held it up to Rainbow’s face.

{Do you remember Twilight Sparkle move your head for yes or no}

She just looked at the message with wide eyes, then looked over to me, and up to Celestia. Considering she was more pony than me, it didn’t take too much offense when she studied the alicorn for awhile before looking back at me and nodding.

{Going to let u talk now please no scream}

I motioned for Celestia that it was okay to remove the spells, and wait a few seconds to see what she would do. After about a minute of looking back and forth between us, Dash finally said something. “So um…Twilight, as in talking dog girl who made me grow wings?”

The human’s voice threw me off for a bit. Although the languages sounded nothing alike and they had a completely different everything when it came to bodies, both pony Rainbow and the one I was looking at sounded eerily similar. Hell, it probably would have been identical if the monkey spoke pony.

{Yes}

“How come you can’t talk?” she asked, which got an eye roll from me.

{Because I’m not human}

“The dog could talk.”

{He also ate dog stuff and got ears scratched look explanation is basically magic she not know English without special spell so no waste time with questions looking for sunset shimmer} I groaned as I finished spelling it out for the rainbow girl as fast as I could. I had always hated texting, and that was back when I had thumbs. Now it was ten times as worse.

Rainbow Dash took a moment to read the text, then looked up at Celestia for a few moments, and back to me with a frown. “Why? If you guys are here to mess with her or something…then I’m not telling you anything!”

I couldn’t help but smile at the bravado she showed, despite her situation and pretty obvious fear as I looked up at Celestia. “She wants to know why we’re here.” And well…so did I, for one. Celestia had kind of just written Sunset off after she disappeared as far as I could tell. Now she was being all concerned for her? It was a little strange to say the least.

“I just…” The alicorn paused and let out a sad sigh as she hung her head. “Do you remember when you were listing my…challenges to Twilight and her friends over the past few days? I’ll admit, it has had me…thinking to myself about several things. About how things could have happened differently. About wasted opportunities and possibilities. About my mistakes. And…after I learned where we landed, I…I just…she was on her own for so long, in this world without her magic…I just want to see her again. I want to make sure she’s alright.”

It took me a minute to translate that into a single sentence so I didn’t go insane trying to type that out.

{This is sunsets mom and shes worried about her}

“Seriously?” Rainbow Dash asked before she took a few more moments to stare at the alicorn, and then she sighed. “Sunset has forester parents, but they’re jerks, so…she kind of stays over at the houses of me and my friends when she can. If you guys are really here to help her…I’ll take you there.”

As she started to get up, I held up a hoof to forestall her. {we cant just walk over and whats up with ur clothes}

The soccer player took a moment to glare at me. “Look, the stupid washroom at training camp kind of blew a fuse, and we couldn’t do any laundry last day of practice okay? All we had for clean clothes was our spare uniforms,” she grumbled. “And it’ll be fine. Rarity’s parents are always off on business trips and junk. I swear, she raises her sister more than her mom and dad do.”

When the conversation came to an end, Rainbow Dash stood up to cross her arms before demanding her iphone back with a lot more 'I'm a tough girl' attitude now that she knew the god-like beings in front of her weren't going to devour her soul or something, I took a look at Celestia, then moved my attention back to the soccer player for one last text. {well follow bus from sky to where u goin then take us to rarity}

A nod from the human got me explaining things to the alicorn, and we were flying around after the bus a few minutes later. It took them a bit longer to get started again then I would have liked, but I guess when you pass out in the middle of driving and then wake up still in one piece just pulled off to the side of the road, the question of wtf? tends to make you confused as hell.

Thankfully, Rainbow had the foresight to go through everyone’s phones when they had still been out of it and deleted the pictures of me and Tia that had been snapped. What can I say? Two months without human tech had me slipping when it came to considering how it was used.

“Not that I don’t trust you my friend,” Celestia said as we followed the yellow brick on the road at a height we should appear as little more than birds. “But…what are we doing?”

Oh…right, I thought to myself. Being the boss of my race, I wasn’t all that used to having to defer to other ponies. Even my time with Twilight and her friends was more of an equals thing where we let others lead based on their skill set. With Celestia…I doubted that was going to work very well.

“Well, Rainbow is coming back from a school thing, and she’s supposed to meet her parents at Canterlot High to take her home,” I began, hoping Twilight had told me the same story she told Celestia way back in the day when I went by the horrendous name of (ugh) Flash Sentry. “But, she’s going to tell her parents that she promised to spend the night over at a friend’s house while setting things up with Rarity on the way over.”

“And Rarity’s parents?”

“Out of town.”

Celestia shook her head as she let out a sigh. “Seeing my ponies like this, it’s a…disturbing experience.”

The comment made me snort. “You mean seeing them as humans? Or the age thing?”

“Age…thing?” Celestia asked.

I felt like smacking myself. Of course Celestia wouldn’t know anything about how the human counterparts to the Mane Six were younger than the girls in Equestria. Then there was her human counterpart…I didn’t even want to know how that worked. Unless it was like some weird thing where every human Celestia had been naming their child Celestia for the past thousand-plus years.

“Never mind,” I told her before quickly thinking up something I could use to distract her with. It didn’t take long to come up with something, especially since it was kind of a problem that was on my mind. “By the way, I’m running pretty low on energy here. I know we’re just friends and all, but…I may need to feed off of you if there’s a lot of flying to do.”

Celestia’s expression changed until she actually looked a little uncomfortable at the prospect. “Yes well…I am certain we should be able to finish our business and then you can return to Twilight for…nourishment.”

I frowned at the alicorn. Well it’s not like I can help it with the whole vampire thing Tia.

We spent the rest of the fifteen minute trip in an uncomfortable silence. Celestia did her best not to look at me, and I kept my mouth shut around her. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, she was my ride home after all.

As I slowly made our way through the skies of human Canterlot I noticed there was an odd smell to the place that wasn’t there in the Equestria that the ponies lived in. The presence of people was also giving me a strange sensation, and I found myself wondering if we could use the spell that Celestia had to disguise ourselves as humans to take a real look around the town instead of just buzzing above it in the sky while the dozens of cars that were inside the town's limits drove by underneath.

But, then there was the possibility that we wouldn't have our magic and be stuck in human land until the moon drifted by enough times. Or we’d turn into humans with pony features like horns and Celestia would keep her cutie mark. Or worse, we’d just go anthro. Plus, we really didn’t have any clothes so…

Okay, getting to see a naked human Tia wouldn’t have been that bad. Considering the pony no need for clothes, I doubted she would even mind.

So, with three bad possible outcomes and only one benefit, I didn’t bother voicing my thoughts to Celestia as we finally came to the school.

Then, we waited another ten minutes on the roof of Canterlot High for human RD to convince her parents that she was going home with a friend whose parents ‘must’ have been running late. Thankfully, human RD’s parents seemed to be about as good parental figure’s as pony RD’s since they left their daughter alone before even checking to see if said parents even showed up.

As the minutes ticked by, Celestia finally broke the silence. “So…these beings certainly have several designs for their…trackless trains. She tripped over the last words for some reason. It was like she was just the tiniest bit unnerved about something.

“It’s sort of a combination of necessity and a status symbol thing…like pony clothes,” I tried to explain as evenly as possible. “Some of the larger…trains are meant to transport families and items like a cart can, but the smaller ones that go faster have been designed to look cooler and cost more as if to say 'I have money'. Like how a lot of ponies in Canterlot wear clothes, but ponies only need them in the coldest of months.”

Then she asked about a few other things, including human fashion, the oddity of all the humans wearing cutie marks, and why they just didn’t go naked since the air was certainly warm enough. I just told her that I knew nothing about fashion as I had been a male human, the cutie marks were probably part of that whole cross dimensional influence thing, and explained that when humans got naked, it meant they wanted to have sex.

“I’d best keep my regalia on while I’m here then,” Celestia said with an odd smirk at that last one, getting an eye roll from me.

As the last car departed, we headed down to meet up with the human. Once we touched down in the parking lot, Rainbow looked around with an uneasy expression. “So um…how exactly are we going to do this?”

“Now, how do you propose we transport her to Rar-why are you smiling at me like that?” Celestia asked as a gave her a cheshire grin.

If I ever needed any proof that Rainbow human and Rainbow pegasus were two very different people/ponies, the ten minute flight from the school to Rarity’s house gave it to me. After all, pegasus Dash was an awesome flier and future member of the Wonderbolts. Human Dash was afraid of heights.

At least that’s what I gathered from the way she grabbed into Celesta after we left the ground and dug her fingers into the alicorn’s neck while screaming at the top of her lungs so long Celestia had to put a silencing spell on her of risk going deaf. It was kind of sad really. We weren’t even going all that fast for crying out loud! Just a cruising speed of about eighty.

Thankfully, the magic of iPhone saved us once again with its ability to give directions to Rarity’s house.

Rainbow managed to avoid wetting herself during the trip, and we teleported down into in Rarity’s back yard with its high fence to avoid attracting too much attention. As soon as we landed, Celestia crouched down below the fence line and looked over to me since we were on eye level. “Please tell the biped to remove her claws from my jugular.”

I stumbled around for a minute, pretty weak from hunger by that point, but managed to get Rainbow off of Celestia before she fell onto the grass and let out a tiny whine before finally speaking. “That…was the scariest thing in my entire life.”

I had to tap her on the shoulder a few times to get her attention, then pointed to the door. As Dash very slowly got to her feet, I took a look around at our surroundings.

Human Rarity apparently lived in the richer part of Canterlot Town, as each one of the houses seemed to be made of the same basic design but were all of the two story, four bedroom, four bathroom, two car garage with pool in the backyard types that told everyone one of the people living their was either a doctor, lawyer, or stock broker.

It kind of made me wonder what the hell pony Rarity’s parents did for a living.

A knock at the door from Dash drew my attention back to the yard, and we quadrupeds waited for someone to answer the door. As the thing started to open, all I could think was, ah crap! I forgot about Sweetie Belle!

But since a teenage girl with purple hair in a telltale style was the one to answer the door, that bit of panicking was put off for the moment. As she didn’t immediately freak out at the mythological creature and the alien in her backyard, I’m guessing Rainbow either told her what was going on while on the bus, or she just didn’t see us for the athlete filling the door.

“Rainbow…why’re you in my backyard?” she asked. Like Rainbow, her voice did sound a hell of a lot like her pony counterpart’s, despite the huge difference in languages. Hell, she even had a posh accent.

The not-pegasus Rainbow scratched the back of her head. “Yeah, um…about that. Sunset’s mom wants to see her.”

I couldn’t see Rarity’s expression, but the rest of her body took a kind of ‘what you talkin’ about?’ stance, as she replied. “Why would you be delivering messages for Mrs.-”

Than Rainbow stepped aside. “Her real mom.”

Rarity’s jaw just seemed to unhinge mid-word and it froze on the last syllable it was going on. “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Celestia rolled her eyes and looked over to me. “Is she alright?”

“All in all, I’d say they’re taking your appearance rather well,” I said before walking forward to nudge Rainbow as she just smirked at her shocked friend.

When she looked down at me and frowned, I rolled my eyes and motioned inside the house, then towards Celestia, then back in the house. It took her about three tries to get it, but…humans were stupid.

“Oh! Right, uh…Rarity, can you let us in now?” Rainbow asked the stunned teenager. “Unless you want to explain to your neighbors why there’s a pega-corn in your back yard.”

That’s royal pegacorn to you peasant, I thought to myself.

The girl with the purple hair practically leapt aside at that, and Celestia crept through the door after me to have Rarity close it behind us.

The house’s interior looked about as swank as its exterior, with its hardwood kitchen floor and the latest appliances. Although as soon as we tried to go from the foyer and into the main house, Rarity cleared her throat to get our attention, and pointed towards Celestia’s golden, stylized horseshoes. The fact that Celestia actually took the things off for the human just had me standing there speechless.

Then she glared at me for a few seconds. So I bowed to the will of a weak and pathetic human by wiping my hooves on the entry room’s rug before heading into the kitchen. If the sun goddess was going to do it, then…what the hell, why not?

“Um…Sunset?” Rarity called out over the sound of a television blaring from what sounded like the next room over. “Could you come here a minute? There’s…well…just come here!”

As Rarity’s last words finished in a rush, the sound coming from the nearby room stopped as the television was turned off, or was paused, it looked like Rarity’s folks could afford the DVR option after all. Then, a redhead walked into the room. “What’s,” was all she managed to get out before the drink she was holding lightly in one hand fell and hit the floor. The plastic cup didn’t break, but it didn’t stop the punch she was drinking from going everywhere.

I blinked at seeing Sunset Shimmer in the flesh for the first time. She looked about average height for a girl her age, with light tan skin and the telltale hairstyle that told me who she was. I also noticed she had a little better figure than human Rarity, but not all by that much. She was also dressed in the usual girls sleepover attire with a shirt that seemed two sizes too big and pajama pants.

A strange, inhuman grunt came from the back of her throat and I suppose to the human’s it sounded like the cat had gotten her tongue or something. But I knew the sound of a species trying to pronounce something when they didn’t have the vocal cords for it.

“Sunset?” Celestia spoke in a whisper as she took a step forward that knocked the two human girls out of the way. I didn’t even need to turn on my empathy to see the desperation, surprise, hope and fear that the alicorn was radiating. “It…it is you, right? I…I’m here. I wanted to come and see how you were doing. And…I…”

As Celestia advanced, Sunset took a step back, and fell to the floor on her spilled drink, making the white horse freeze when Sunset’s butt smacked into the hard wooden floor of the kitchen. “There is no need to be afraid!” Celestia insisted, as close to a panic as I had ever seen her in. “I…can you still understand me?”

She looked back at me. “You still speak human so…wouldn’t she still speak Equestrian?”

“I understand you…Princess,” Sunset said in an absent tone. As if her mouth was working on auto-pilot. “But, what are you doing here?”

When I translated the words for Celestia, she looked back at the confused and frightened girl. “I…I just wanted…at first I wanted to make sure you were alright, but,” she paused and shook her head. “This place, it’s dark and strange. The air feels thick with muck and the moon is…odd. The creatures may have some semblance to ponies, but they reek of odd smells and scream their words, and…I want to take you home!”