Disclaimer: This story is a crossover with the fanfiction Hands. I do not claim ownership of the character Andrew Shepherd. He and all associated storylines attached to the fanfiction Hands belong to creator Andrew Joshua Talon. You can find the original story here:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/14407/hands
Addendum: This is a slightly abridged version. Due to FimFiction.net’s guidelines, I was forced to remove several song lyrics from this story. It does not harm the understanding of the narrative in any way, it is merely to meet a site requirement. You can find the unabridged version here:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12626356/1/Mid-Pleasures-and-Palaces-Though-We-May-Roam

Melissa Foster yawned as her Tesla Model X soared down the darkened road, headlights barely making a dent in the thick fog.

Not too many drivers this time of night… she thought idly, noting her MP3 player as the only sound aside from the rushing air buffeting the car.

She reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed a handful of the remaining movie theater popcorn; Melissa wasn’t in the habit of throwing out perfectly good food, but grimaced at the cold taste.

Chewing on the salty snack, she scratched the back of her head, running a hand through thick wavy hair. Blonde with streaks of fire engine red, it was a shaggy pixie cut in a militaristic style, and shimmered in the light from the controls.

A near blinding light appeared on the road ahead, and Melissa looked aside, “Damn, dude! Turn down your brights!”

Mercifully, with a bit of a bump, she passed them, and sighed in relief...before the ride got really rough.

The car creaked and moaned, the wheel almost shaking itself out of her hands at the unexpected terrain.

“What the...Oh shit!”

She found herself driving through unflattened woodland area, the collision avoidance system shrieked with alerts telling her to stop. Melissa slammed hard on the brakes. True to her driver’s ed instructions, despite the skidding she kept turning in the direction she wanted to go.

Despite the reliability of the computer system, even it had to make a mistake once in awhile. She was going too fast, and the sensors were picking up far too many objects to avoid them all. The car hit the tree at an angle instead of dead on. momentum carried it forward with a squeal of scraping metal.
There was a bang, and she was hit square in the face. The smell of something burning filled her nose for several seconds.

“Ow...Frelling frak fuck my arm…”

“No blood, no broken bones…” She stayed seated, knowing that moving she might only hurt herself. Someone would come along soon, she hoped.

She realized that the airbag had gone off, and guessed she had been lucky enough not to hit her head. Her face did burn with pain though, and her nose hurt like hell. Working her jaw, she couldn’t tell if any of her teeth were loose.

She pulled out her cell phone. No bars. “Of course! Freaking Vermont…”

Melissa reached over to the passenger’s side, turning on the Fire Department radio attached to the side of the control column. “Bleakburn F-5 to Norton dispatch. Are you receiving me?”

There was no response. Only a lot of static.

She hit the channel control a few times, flipping through them and repeating, “Bleakburn F-5 to dispatch. Do you copy? I’ve been in an accident. Can someone come out here and help me?”

Static.

Melissa changed her tune, “Bleakburn F-5 to any transmitter in the area. Does anyone copy?”

Still static.

“Hello?” she demanded urgently, “Someone please respond! I’ve just been in a car wreck! I’m off of route 7. Don’t know where exactly. My phone isn’t working. Does anyone copy?”

White noise.

“I am a firefighter. Can anyone hear me?”
Her desperate calls echoed through the surrounding woods, with no reply whatsoever. Not even any pattern in the static, just...noise.

After a few more tries, she rolled her glimmering cyan eyes. How unusual. No signal in Vermont. Frelling dead spots...
Melissa angrily got out of the car, and strode around to the trunk. Opening the emergency kit, she pulled out a pair of road flares, along with a heavy-duty flashlight. She flicked the light on, and moved to inspect the damage to the car.

Her light played off the metallic white and silver paint to reveal only minor damage; a few dents, a serious paint scuff that ran the length of the car, but nothing serious...Though the right headlight flickered concerningly.
One bit of good news, Oscar’s not FUBAR, She thought, thanking the construction of the vehicle.

She stepped back, found a bare patch of ground, and popped one of the flares. Melissa tossed it down, and looked around to try and find the road.

Her SUV had left several furrows in the ground to follow. Eagerly, the young woman pursued them...until they abruptly stopped. A sweep with the flashlight proved there wasn’t a mistake. The tracks just suddenly disappeared.

Okay, calm down. This is probably a dream or something...You just stayed up too late reading Destroyermen or A Long Time Until Now...Any minute you’ll wake up.

Melissa waited for several minutes for it to end, taking slow deep breaths. She looked at her hands, to see if they could confirm her suspicions.

They looked normal. Shaking from adrenaline, but normal.

Nope. This seems real for now.

“Frell. I at least teleported.” Melissa grunted aloud, her vast knowledge of pop culture racing to explain what had occurred, and selecting the least crazy option.

Maybe the military’s testing out some new weapon, and got the coordinates wrong. Hopefully I won’t wake up with a park ranger pointing a rifle at me.

She turned back towards the car, and briskly trotted towards the driver’s seat.

Regretfully, she leaned in and pulled out the keys. No sense wasting electricity. The friendly headlights gently faded, allowing the darkness of the night to creep in on the lone woman and her glistening flare.

The weirdest thing about the forest however, was how...wrong it felt. She felt as though there were a hundred pairs of eyes watching her. In the moonlight, the trees created disturbing silhouettes. This was normal, she knew intellectually, but they were somehow more disturbing now than ever.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had to get out, as quickly as possible.

She turned away from the disturbing forest.

Priorities, Mel.

Melissa began to hum a tune and opened the trunk to try and make an inventory of what she had. The song was Japanese in origin, a marching tune of some sort.

Melissa counted a handful of mostly full water bottles, a variety of snacks, several flashlights of various types, batteries for same, the emergency kit, energy bars, a first-aid kit, and some MREs.

Being an active(albeit junior) member of the Fire Department, she had her turnout bag with her. It contained her helmet, turnout jacket, and some miscellaneous items. Not much use for now.

Still singing, she glanced at a dry-cleaning bag hanging from one of the ceiling handles in the back seat. Melissa shook her head to herself, and continued with her inventory.

Due to the unpredictable weather lately, she was currently clad in fall clothing; a winter hat, scarf, gloves, a windbreaker over a long sleeve shirt, t-shirt, cargo pants, average socks and tennis shoes.
Melissa trailed off in her song as she went over the contents of her backpack. Among the contents she had several books, her laptop and tablet, some add-on systems for the devices, and various odds and ends.

For once, she was glad that her car was messier than a landfill.

Melissa had a thought, and pulled up the floor of the trunk, removing the tire iron from the depths.
Now she was armed!
Oh, like that helped the Santa Catalina folks in Destroyermen, A part of her brain tormented as she made a few practice swings, They had freaking Thompson SMGs and they’re still missing!

She went back to singing her song, picking up from where she left off, as she placed the iron in a belt loop and moved for the passenger seat, intent on checking the glove box. A tire iron was useful, but a firearm would be even better.
The door was still stuck against the tree, forcing her to go around through the undergrowth.

A hissing filled her ears. She froze, primeval instincts kicking in at the sound. A snake’s tail stood out of the grass.

“Oh, good.” Soon it would be a stain. Wait a minute, it’s too cold for snakes!

Its head shot up and made eye contact with her. The creature was a very bizarre type of snake, with an olive-drab body, and what looked like wings extending from its back. It also had a chicken’s head. A no-kidding chicken's head.

She attempted to step forward, to at least scare the freaky thing off. Instead, she froze again. Not of her own will.

Melissa looked down to see her shoes turning grey. Her toes were completely unable to move.

Other body parts began to harden, the substance slowly but steadily creeping up her limbs.

Melissa thought helplessly, Record for shortest time universe hopping, and managed to get off a, “Fuuu--!” before turning completely to stone.

XXXXX

Rainbow Dash, the sky-blue Pegasus with the rainbow-colored mane, was having a tough time sleeping. Normally she was excellent at the art, but for some reason, tonight, she had incredible insomnia.
Dash had tried everything; milk, counting sheep, spinning up a tornado, making a bed of clouds, nothing was working!

She was reduced to flying around Ponyville’s countryside, and couldn’t even go very fast because everypony else was sleeping.

So there she was, just plodding around, trying to get tired enough to sleep.

As Dash flew over the edge of the Everfree Forest for the fifth time, she stopped in midair, having noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A red light. Bright red; not like fire or any animal she knew of.

Swiftly she banked around, rapidly making a pass over it but hesitant(not unwilling, hesitant!) to dive into the strange place herself.

It was an artificial light...But what was it doing out there?

Cautiously, Rainbow Dash forced herself to come in for a landing in a small clearing, where the red thingy sat.

As she approached, she noticed the light was attached to the end of a stick, with a series of numbers and letters on the side.
“30 minute red highway foo...fuse?”

After a moment, she realized what the device was.
What’s a pegasi directional flare doing out here? She wondered, There aren’t any airfields around for miles! Maybe a shipment got lost or something.

She chuckled aloud, I’d bet my wings Derpy accidentally dropped it. I wonder where the rest of the shipment went...

Rainbow glanced around at the shadows, picking up the flare as she did so. She noted the long furrows in the ground, left by…Aha! There was a large glistening shape hidden in the shadows under a tree.

What the--? As the shape came to light, she realized it wasn’t an air shipping container. It was some sort of silver and grey wagon.
It was built out of metal instead of wood, with glass and doors like a carriage.

There wasn’t a place for a pony to drag the thing, nor was there a connector for a wagon train.

The tracks made it look like it had bonked into the tree leaning against it, but how did it get out here in the first place? The tracks only started a few feet back, and if that wasn't weird enough, there weren’t any major shipping routes anywhere nearby, so she had no idea how it could've gotten out here if it were owned by ponies.
Well, maybe it's one of those new automated mobiles. And whoever was driving it probably just got lost looking for help.
“Hello?! Anyone out there? I found your cart!” She was hoping to guide them back to the road, maybe getting a reward in the process.

“Hello--Oof!”
Rainbow fell back, dropping the flare and extinguishing it. In the low light, she saw the silhouette of a pony standing above her, on their hind legs.

“There you are. By Celestia, what are you doing out here?”

The pony didn’t reply.

Rainbow Dash still couldn’t see much, and reached out to grab their outstretched hoof, which looked like it was clutching a pipe.

“Hey, you alright?”

The moon came out from behind the cloud, and shined down on the creature; Rainbow gasped when she realized it wasn’t a pony.

The creature had a height advantage over the Pegasus, and her first thought was that it could be a dragon, Oh, wait, no wings. It’s something else. The fingers were also much smoother than most things she had seen, further narrowing down the list.

Soon, she realized that there was no other possibility. It had to be a human, turned to stone. She couldn’t tell what gender, but Well, it’s not Andrew…I guess it’s a new one.

A deep hissing sound erupted from behind her.

“Cockatrice!” she grunted in alarm, and covered her eyes with one hoof. Rainbow reached out, feeling for the human’s midsection blindly.
Gotta get them out of here…

“Are all humans this heavy?!” she demanded of no one in particular, as her wings blurred to hummingbird speeds, trying to gain altitude, the hissing coming closer and closer.
Lucky for both of them, she didn’t call herself the fastest in Equestria for nothing.

She flew high above the treetops, several times barely keeping a hold on the delicate package.

“Twilight will know what to do. Andrew will be happy to see another human at any rate.” Rainbow Dash uttered aloud, and accelerated to high speed, not caring about everyone else’s sleep anymore.

After only a few seconds of sustained flight, Dash found that she couldn’t carry the load for too long; her altiude had dropped by a few dozen feet already.

By the time the idea had processed, she was already descending into Sweet Apple Acres. Rainbow propped the human up against a tree, and climbed in altitude. She took off at high speed, headed for the large red barn.

The Pegasus skidded to a halt in mid-air, spotting something else out of the corner of her eye; an apple tree shaking in the distance, and the fruit disappearing below.

“Bucking weirdo farmers…” she grumbled, but for once was glad for Applejack’s early hours.

Dash raced towards the tree, pulling a rapid dive that shattered the canopy, just as she realized she hadn’t given herself enough room.

She sat up from the small furrow she made in the shape of her face, spitting out branches.

“Hey there, R.D,” greeted Applejack in her pleasant twang, as she bucked another tree, “What are you doing up so late?”

Dash scrambled to her feet. “Applejack! I need your help! Medical emergency!”

The blond earth pony immediately threw off her pack, and rushed to help up the pegasus. “What is it? Who’s hurt?”

Rainbow Dash flexed her wings experimentally, and pointed in the direction of the human statue. Taking several bounds, she leapt into the air; Applejack rushed along beside her, her loose ponytail bobbing up and down in the wind.

“I found another human! She was in the Everfree Forest!”

“Bound to happen at some point…” Applejack drawled. If one had come through, there had to be more. Hopefully it wouldn’t become a tidal wave. “How’d she get hurt? Manticore?”

“Worse--Cockatrice!”

Applejack relaxed slightly. They might be able to help. If the human had been bleeding badly, or lost a limb, well...that would have been a much different story.

They reached the spot where Dash had left the human. Applejack took a moment to examine the creature. Her shocked features revealed she was only a recent arrival, and her brandished weapon added to that. Many cockatrice victims usually knew of the monster, and tended to be found frozen with limbs raised to cover their eyes.

She also noted the human wore cold weather clothing, despite the warm evening; a scarf, jacket, hat, and long pants.

“C’mon, we need to get her unfrozen ASAP!” Dash urged, snapping Applejack out of her thoughts.

She took the human by the head, while Dash got the feet, and together they moved out of the orchard towards town.

Encountering little on their route, they galloped as fast as they could towards the large library in the center of Ponyville.

Applejack set the human’s head down on the cobblestone. Muttering an apology, she raised a hoof, and pounded hard on the door.
Several floors above, a silhouette sat up on a bed. The owner reached over with a five-fingered hand and held the clock up to the moonlight.

“Someone had better have died…” Andrew Shepherd grumbled, as the pounding increased.

The silhouette of a magenta pony appeared on the same bed. Her horn twinkled gently underneath her purple and pink mane, as a small energy field appeared at the box of matches near the gas lantern. The box opened, a match being lit as the knob on the lamp turned. The light quickly lit up the room, driving away the shadows.

“Ngh...Probably Pinkie to give us a party telegram.” Twilight Sparkle mumbled, as she slid out of the bed and trotted after her boyfriend. Coltfriend. Whatever.

Andrew stomped down the stairs, making an effort to make as much noise as possible; whoever was trying to break down the door was doing the same thing, apparently.

Spike continued snoring in the corner of the library, undisturbed by the pounding.

“Fine, don’t get the door…” Andrew grumbled, as he threw the door open, and looked down at the two ponies standing on the front porch.

The human stood a full two feet above the tallest pony in Ponyville, so even standing there in his underwear, he was pretty intimidating.

“UPS? I thought you guys didn’t deliver until…” his snarky comment trailed off as he saw the concerned looks on their faces.

“What?” he immediately suspected the worst, “I didn’t do it! It wasn’t my fault! You don’t have any witnesses! I have those magazines just for the articles, I swear!”

Both ponies stared for a moment, before Rainbow Dash bounded across their package, and knocked him to the ground. “Andrew! Shut up and look!” She shouted, pointing at the end of the cargo.

“Owch! Get off me!”

“You don’t need a spleen, just look!”

Andrew shoved Dash off, and got to his feet. “Holy...Where did she come from?”

“Don’t know. Probably the same place you did.”

“With more stuff at least,” Andrew observed, pointing to the tire iron in the frozen human’s hand, “Wonder why she’s carrying that.”

His first note was the short hair that stuck out from under the woman’s hat. From what he could tell, it looked a bit like the hairstyle Samantha Carter wore in Stargate: SG-1. At first, his heart soared, perhaps she would know some good skills, but he noted the style of hoodie, and her cargo pants too. With a sinking feeling, he moaned, “Oh dear god, first human female to come to Equestria and she’s a thug, mugger, or gang member.”

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked, trotting up behind him, “What’s--Oh! Looks like my theory was correct!”

“Wha’ theory?” Applejack wondered.

Twilight moved around the frozen form, examining every detail. The body appeared female, judging by Andrew’s descriptions of human anatomy, though her outfit was formfitting, similar to those of human males instead of the stereotypical female outfits. However unusual that was in Equestria though, clothing might be less gendered on Earth.Most of the fibers, judging by look alone, did not appear to be hand-made, and those few materials Twilight could recognize were woven with more precision than any Equestrian manufacturing plant could even dream of achieving.
A scarf was wrapped loosely around the neck, and looked as though it had been knitted...but again, it had been woven with too much care, too much finesse to be hand-made.
Impossible to be sure if she is a citizen of the United States of America, but she is at least from a culture of a similar technological level, perhaps a European country. Andrew had mentioned little about other countries on Earth outside of his own, but he did say Europe held many of the “superpowers”, and that they were alongside the United States of America in technological development.

“I know it would be impossible for Andrew’s appearance to be a single event, one that would never have repeated.” Twilight finally explained as she poked at one of the frozen boots, “Scientifically impossible. This human proves it. What I don’t know is why there aren’t any other records of previous contact. Creatures and wars may be responsible, they may have destroyed some records.”
She prodded the tire iron, randomly muttering to herself, “Most likely coincidence that it’s female…Yes. Definitely coincidence.”

“Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s get her unfrozen!” Rainbow Dash cried, lifting up her end of the human.

“Now, hold on. The way she’s dressed….”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “Honestly, Andrew, you don’t judge a book by its cover!”

“Yeah, half of Ponyville went into hiding when you first came into town,” Applejack added, “And you were covered in dirt and junk! Maybe it was jus’ cold back on Earp.”

“Earth.”

“Whatever.”

XXXXX

“--uuck...!” Melissa’s legs finally responded to commands, and she stumbled forward, raising the tire iron for a strike.

She slammed into a bookcase, becoming buried underneath its contents. The bookcase itself, luckily enough, did not follow its cargo, being built into the structure of the building. Melissa painfully stood up from the mess, and after a momentary delay, clutched her tire iron at the ready in one hand, and clenched the other into a fist.
“What? Where? Keep back!” Melissa shouted to no one in particular.

She was no longer in the forest. It was daylight now, inside some sort of old library.

The entire chamber was rounded, with several bookshelves lining the walls. A doorway had been set into the wall, with an oak door that looked like it had come straight out of Lord of the Rings. On the opposite side stood a wavy staircase, leading up to another medieval doorway. A pedestal had been placed in the center of the room, with several books neatly arranged on it.
Looks like someone was really going for the nature look, she thought, noticing that the pedestal’s wooden construction. Aesthetically pleasing art designs had been drawn all over the walls, the staircase, the door, even an image of the sun had been placed on the ceiling above.

“Uh...hello?” a voice hesitantly questioned.

Standing in the center of the library before her was a young caucasian-looking man. He was about six feet tall, and stocky, but he seemed a bit thin for his size. His round face was a bit gaunt as well, his battered glasses sagged across his face under messy short and poorly-cut brown hair that seemed to be going silver prematurely, given that he looked about her age.

His clothes didn’t quite hang off his frame, but they still betrayed the possible lack of nutrition. The guy’s shoulders were visible through his long coat, the scarf that hung loosely around his neck was barely holding on, and his jeans seemed about half a size too big. His boots were just about the only thing that fit properly. His clothes put her in the mind of Nathan Fillion’s character in Firefly, the Confederate guy, whatever his name was.
“Hello?” the guy repeated in an american accent with a concerned look on his face, “You feeling alright?”

“Who the hell are you?” Melissa demanded, brandishing her tire iron, “Where have you taken me? Did you run me off the road, kidnap me?!”

He furrowed his brow in confusion, opening his mouth to reply, but eyed her tire iron fearfully. Despite his height advantage, nearly a foot taller than her, he seemed to know not to piss her off.
“Okay, no, you haven’t been kidnapped. You’ve been...The...I…” The kidnapper sighed, clearly hesitant to tell her anything, “My name’s Andrew Shepherd, and as for where you are...You may want to sit down for this.”

“Oh, I haven’t been kidnapped?” Melissa asked sarcastically, “You mean I didn’t wake up in a strange place, with a stranger who won’t give me a straight answer? Considering how I can’t remember how the hell I got here, kidnapping is sounding more and more likely, you skinny grandpa-looking motherfucker!”

He rolled his eyes, “You don’t remember how you got here because you weren’t conscious!” Andrew, or whatever his real name was, stopped halfway through the last word, “Okay that sounds really bad.”

“Ya think?”

He sighed, “I really should’ve made notecards...Okay, uh, what’s your name?”

“Captain Kathryn Janeway.” she uttered with a nasally tone.

Andrew facepalmed again, “No way I’m calling you that...N7, this is going to sound completely insane. I mean, really insane.” The nickname apparently referred to Melissa’s Mass Effect hoodie, patterned after the armor Commander Shepard wore.

When she didn’t object immediately to the nickname, or hit him with the tire iron, Andrew took a deep breath. “You’re not on Earth anymore. You’re in a magical land filled with anthropomorphic ponies, mythological monsters, and I-don’t-know-what else. You and I are the only humans on this planet.”

He spoke with an incredibly deadpan tone, and had an embarrassed expression as well.

“So...We’re in Equestria?” Melissa scoffed, “Dude, that’s the worst pickup line outside of ‘get in the van’.”

“I told you it was going to sound crazy…”

Despite the obvious lie, she looked around the chamber again. She noticed that all the books in the library were hardcover. Really thick hardcover too, with no dust jackets. On several shelves she could see what looked like authentic scrolls, too.
Stranger still, the shelves themselves were ovular, rather than rectangular. Glancing around, Melissa could find no seams in the floors, walls, or stairs, only in the doors. It looked like everything had been grown into these shapes, with the doors and windows added on later.
“You went all out, didn’t you?” she snorted, after doing a double-take at the pedestal. The central spire was a carved horse head, just like the one in the TV series. “How much money did you spend on this? Just to kidnap one girl?”

She waved her tire iron at him again, “You didn’t even do a very good job of it. I’m still armed, dumbass!”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to take someone’s stuff when they’re made of stone…” he muttered.

“What the fuck are you--Oh, drop the act,” Melissa advanced on the kidnapper rapidly and seizing him by the arm, “You’re coming with me. I am going to find a car, and we’re going straight to the cops, do you hear me?”

Andrew’s hand went for an odd-looking holster at his side. Instinctively she hit him in the shoulder with her weapon.

He cried out in pain, and she kicked him, forcing Andrew to his knees. Sweeping a foot into his gut, she knocked the wind out of him.
The kidnapper managed to rise, and rapidly turned his stumble into a dive at Melissa’s midsection.
Surprised, Melissa fell back onto her rear, her weapon clattering out of reach. Swiftly, she scuttled backwards, throwing a book at Andrew as he got to his feet.

“Hey, be careful, you jerk!” he coughed, dodging the missile as it flew over his head.

Melissa scrambled to her feet, putting the pedestal between her and her foe. Her tire iron in a corner, she decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and bolted for the door.

“Wait!” Andrew cried as she yanked it open, “Don’t--”

She rushed outside, expecting to see the outside of a barn in rural Vermont. Instead Melissa found herself on a street in the middle of a town.
This mild revelation brought to mind thoughts of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre...Which instantly fell into the background when she saw the faces staring back at her.

Faces that weren’t human.

“Uh...buh...huh?” she garbled, temporarily losing control over the English language.

Melissa whirled about, several times, and rubbed her eyes. They were ponies. Ponies!

She grabbed her head in frustration and confusion, taking swift shallow breaths. Ponies!

They were multi-colored ponies, actually. They only bore a passing resemblance to normal equines. The fact that they were a couple dozen centimeters or so shorter than her in height was a major difference.
Their heads were much more humanoid and expressive, and each had thick, unique manes, with no one style looking alike. All bore unique symbols on their flanks, further differentiating them from Terran equines.

In addition to the “standard” set of ponies, there were also unicorn, and pegasi types. Pegasi that were defying gravity, as they hovered impossibly in place, or flying overhead with wings that shouldn’t possibly be providing lift.

Melissa tensed up, her plan forgotten, as she swept her eyes across the square for the millionth time.
She heard footsteps behind her, and whirled about. The kidnapper stood on the front porch of the library, holding his stomach in pain. If it was possible, her jaw dropped even further. The library didn’t look like a tree, it literally was a tree!

“Andrew! Are you alright?” a female voice queried in a concerned tone, and Melissa saw a magenta-colored unicorn rush to his side from the corner of her vision. She had what resembled a compass for a flank mark, and a purple mane with a single pink stripe through it. She was also extremely familiar.
“Man, she hit me hard,” Andrew groaned, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was a pony holding him up. A four-foot tall, or 1.21 meter-tall, purple pony.

“But...What?” Melissa mumbled in confusion as realization struck, “You can’t be real! You just can’t!”
They shot me up full of drugs or something, she thought, How else am I seeing both humans and ponies? I’ve gotta get out of here, find the cops.

Another pony, one of the pegasi this time, appeared in front of Melissa before she could escape. The pegasus possessed a sky-blue coat, with a rainbow-colored mane, and a rainbow lightning bolt emerging from a cloud as a flank mark. She appeared to be furious.

“You’re gonna regret that!” she shouted confrontationally, and Melissa barely ducked as a hoof fist-like thing swung through the air.

Melissa jumped away, half-heartedly putting up her fists in defense. Her actions only made the pegasus flash a grin, and fly rapidly towards her.
“Oh shit!”

She barely managed to dodge the streaking missile. The Pegasus still managed contact in the arm. Her shoulder felt like she had just fired a shotgun wrong.
Realizing that she was still mobile, Melissa scrambled away, ignoring the cries following her.

The human rushed through confusing streets, leaping over crates and swinging around street corners. She passed by more of the ponies, who swiftly left the street with cries of alarm.
“Wait, dammit!” Andrew shouted, but Melissa wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

A wagon of goods appeared on the street, the vendor sprinting away the instant she had appeared. Stopping beside it, she grabbed one end, and gave an almighty heave. The cargo scattered across the pavement, hopefully making her pursuers hesitate. Not that she stayed long enough to find out.

“Where’s the fire?” the pegasus’ voice said from beside her. Mel turned her head to see the creature relaxing in midair, her wings flapping at a faster rate as she examined her hoof lazily.

With a yelp, Melissa attempted to dive to the side. Something grab ahold of her scarf. Hastily, she pulled it free, and left it in the hands of the attacker.
“Okay, that’s it.” the human heard the pony say in the distance, before a rainbow blur rushed by. Again. And again.
Strong winds began to billow around Melissa, and she immediately realized the pegasus was responsible. Thinking quickly, she watched the pattern of the blur, waiting for the right moment.

“Hey! Leggo!” the pegasus cried indignantly as Melissa tackled her, and dragged her down to the ground.
As the winds died, Melissa scrambled to her feet, shoving the pegasus back down again, and broke into another sprint.

“What was that supposed to do?” the voice of the pegasus taunted her, as the human saw the edge of town in the distance.

Her feet moved faster. Surprisingly, this time there were no obstacles, no further direct attempts to stop her.
She could still hear the feet behind her however, and the flapping of wings.

Melissa staggered onto the bridge, gasping for breath, pausing to look at her pursuers. Andrew, and the pegasus were lagging behind, abruptly moving at a more leisurely pace.
Gotta...keep...running.

She started to run, but her pace became a crawl, which devolved into a stagger. Had her adrenaline reserves run out?

There was a sudden flash of light before her, and she skidded to a halt, covering her eyes. An instant later, the magenta pony stood before her, looking a little angry, but more concerned than anything else.

“Stop running, and let us help you!” she cried, “We’re not trying to hurt you!”

Melissa’s eyes went wide again. “Stay...stay away!” she squeaked, gasping for breath. She backed away, back to the other end of the bridge.
Her pursuers were standing at the other end.

“You can’t be real!” she backed up against one of the barriers of the bridge, in its center. She took a defensive posture, fists at the ready.

“That’s what I said, my first time,” Andrew rolled his eyes, “This isn’t even the weirdest thing around here.”

The pegasus opened her mouth, presumably to say something snarky, but Andrew and the unicorn glared at her.

“No, this isn’t happening,” Melissa muttered, partly to herself, “I just got into a car accident, then you dragged me off to your fucked up little town, and shot me up full of drugs to try and convince me I’m in Equestria.”

The other three looked at each other in confusion, “How do you know that name?”

Melissa snorted in an ironic laugh, “Jesus, you’re absolutely committed to this, aren’t ya? I bet you’ve got four other friends dressed up as the Mane Six! Well, I’m not falling for it!”

Andrew shook his head, looking at the unicorn, “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

“Well, she’s obviously afraid of you!” the unicorn barked, and motioned for the other two to step back.

Calmly, without any sudden moves, the unicorn stepped a meter closer. “Let’s try this again. I know this must be rough for you. My name is Twilight--”

“Yeah, I know who you are, or who you’re supposed to be,” Melissa cut her off, “If what I’m seeing isn’t part of the hallucination, nice costume work. You certainly look the part.”

“She thinks we kidnapped her.” Andrew explained to the others, but the one supposed to be Twilight Sparkle held up a hoof.
“What do you recall before waking up in my library?”

Melissa stayed quiet, glaring daggers at the three foes.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Twilight pressed, “We just want to know what happened.”

“You know exactly what happened, you ran me off the road and kidnapped me, you weird memory-erasing assholes!”

“What do you mean, ‘ran you off the road’?” blurted the blue pegasus, the Rainbow Dash impersonator.

Melissa stayed silent again. Nothing. I’m not telling them anything.

Frustrated, the Rainbow Dash impersonator shot forward and grabbed Melissa by the collar, “Answer me, you monkey!”

Oddly enough, the other two kidnappers were the ones who pried Rainbow Dash off her. They proceeded to admonish her for it!

Good cop, bad cop. Greeeaaat.

Twilight tried again, “What could we do to convince you that you haven’t been kidnapped?”

“Nothing.” she growled.

“Maybe show her some magic, Twilight,” Andrew suggested, “Remember how I reacted?”

Rainbow Dash snorted with amusement.

“Uh...okay…” Twilight stuttered, and thought for a moment. “Oh!”

Without warning, there was a flash, a brief sound like wind chimes, a cloud of dust, and Twilight wasn’t there anymore.

Melissa did a double take. She stepped forward, and swept her hands through the spot Twilight had been.

“Over here!” she heard, and turned to see Twilight down the road, waving from underneath a tree.

There was no possible way she could have covered the distance on foot. Could it actually be teleportation?

Another purple flash. Twilight reappeared on the bridge.

Melissa stared for the longest time, and backed up against her wall again.

“Before anything weird started happening, what were you doing?” Andrew asked hesitantly, recognizing the look in her eyes.

For the moment, Melissa told herself that she would play along. The teleportation thing had to be a stage trick. Had to be. “I was driving home, and there was a flash...then…” she scratched her head, “Come to think of it, something’s missing...I know something happened after that, before I woke up in the library.”

“Short-term memory loss,” Twilight noted, “A typical symptom of flash mineralizing.”

“Mineralizing? As in stone?” Melissa squeaked, “I got turned to stone?”

“We think that’s what happened...” explained Twilight, “Is there anything else you remember?”

“Uh...My phone didn’t have any bars. That’s Vermont for ya, am I right?”

The Twilight impersonator looked at Andrew again, who shrugged. “...Maybe?”

Twilight sat down where she stood. “Tell me more.”

Melissa suddenly stopped talking, her paranoia returning, “You’re trying to manipulate me, trying to be my friend. What kind of sick game are you playing?

“No game!” Twilight protested, putting up her hooves defensively, “I’m just trying to find out what happened!”

“Hey, N7!” Andrew interrupted, frustrated, “You see any needle marks in your arm?”

Hastily, Melissa rolled up her sleeves, then her pant legs. “...No…”

“How did we get the drugs in you, then?”

Melissa threw her arms up in the air, “I don’t know all the various types of drugs! You could’ve put it in my eyes, my ear, my nose, made me swallow it while I was passed out!”

“Why in Equestria would anyone do that?” Rainbow Dash demanded, “That’s disgusting!”

“Wow, that voice sounds right,” Melissa smiled slightly, “You’ve got to be the best Rainbow Dash impersonator I’ve ever seen! How’d you get the wings to work?”

Fake-Rainbow glared, and took a step before Andrew pushed her back.

“I really must compliment your work here, actually.” Melissa said, glancing around, “I wonder how the feds never found it.”

She slumped, “Aw, Cthulhu...Did I sign up for some military experiment or something? Did the CIA pick me up? Did I get roofied? This is some serious Fox Mulder shit going on around here.”

“CIA?” Twilight asked, bewildered, “Roofied? Who’s Mulder?”

“You know who they are.”

“No, they don’t!” Andrew grumbled, annoyed, “Because they’re alien ponies!”

Melissa ignored him, and looked out across the landscape. “Wow, you’ve got the Everfree Forest out there too! Oh look! I think that’s...Canterlot…No, too far away, but...”

Her arms fell to her sides, and her eyes went wide. “Holy shit.” she whispered eventually.

“What happened when you found you couldn’t call anyone?” Twilight questioned, noting the body language.

“I tried my radio,” Melissa spoke rapidly, sliding down the wall to a seated position. Memory began to return in a landslide, “That didn’t work. I made an inventory of my stuff...Then...I got my tire iron, and…then, that thing...”

“You ran into the cockatrice?” Twilight confirmed quietly.

“Yeah...I think I did.” she pulled off her blue winter hat. She looked at the white letters of “Caboose”, on the front, and the “-1” on the back.
She just teleported. She honestly teleported. A voice in her head whispered, you know the characters too. That’s how Rainbow Dash would work. Everything is spot on. What else could it be?

“Does anyone know where my scarf got off to?” Melissa finally whispered in a defeated voice. She gave in. Either she was hallucinating, or this was real.

“Rainbow?” Twilight asked, and the sound of wings flapping came to life.

Melissa got to her feet, shaking a little bit. Stay calm. Stay calm. Ginga suihei namima-wo koete mezasu kousei ‘centauri’...

“Uh…” Andrew hesitantly spoke, and Melissa looked at him. He offered out her tire iron fearfully.
“Thanks.” she muttered, and stuck it back on her belt.

“What’s your name?” Twilight said inquisitively.

“Melissa. Melissa Foster.” She looked up at the unicorn, and smiled a little. “So...You really are the real Twilight Sparkle.”

“Yes...How did you know my name?”

“He might know.” She stuck a thumb at Andrew, ”Have you told them yet?”

Andrew furrowed his brow, “Told them what?”

“About...Y’know…” she gestured all around.

“No...no, I don’t know.”

She growled, and pointed at Twilight, “MLP?”

“‘MLP’?”

“Uh...Bronies? Lauren Faust?”

He stared at her blankly.

“‘Friendship is Magic’?”

Andrew shrugged, “Around here it literally is. And magic exists too. Look!”

He pointed to Twilight, who had been writing down their conversation on a pad of notepaper. The notepad hovering above the ground.

“Wow...Uh, okay…” she took a breath, “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?”

Now there was a spark of recognition. “I know My Little Pony in passing,” he admitted, “They do look the part. I chalked that up to coincidence.”

“They look exactly the part! How come you haven’t heard of the new series?”

“I’ve been stuck here for a couple months!” he said, angrily.

“Dude, they’ve got like five seasons or something now. Cthulhu’s tentacles, how have you never heard the word ‘brony’ before?”

“Again, at least six months without the web!” he barked.

“Okay then!” She roared back.

Rainbow Dash returned, bearing the red and black scarf in her mouth.

“Oh...Thank you.”

“What?” the pegasus demanded, seeing Melissa’s odd expression, “What’s wrong with it?”

Andrew realized what she was worried about, “Don’t worry, it’s fine. No spit at all, actually. Their mouths are surprisingly clean.”

“Hey!” Twilight and Dash objected together.

Sure enough, the scarf was completely dry. Even so, Melissa rubbed at it with her sleeve, before putting it around her neck.

Andrew looked at the text on the red and black scarf, puzzled. “What’s Rooster Teeth?”

“Red vs Blue?” Melissa prodded, “Achievement Hunter?”

“Oh...Oh! Those guys? They’re hilarious!”

“Yeah, Roosterteeth is their company. They’ve even got a movie going.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

“You know the ‘Wow!’ Signal from the ‘70s?”

“No…”

“Big powerful signal received from deep space, no one knows exactly what it was?”

“Okay…”

“Well, they’re having it that the signal came from aliens who were warning us about an invasion, and are sending us a battle suit to deal with the threat. Instead of the hero getting it though, the thing is in four pieces picked up by some idiots who found the crash site. The suit’s locked to them, so now the idiots have to fight the aliens.”

Her excitement suddenly evaporated, as she looked off into the distance.

“How long have you been here?” she croaked.

Andrew scratched the back of his head, “Little fuzzy on the exact numbers...I’ve been knocked out a few times…Couple months, minimum.”

“Any others with you?” she asked a little louder.

“No. Just me.”

“Aw, fucking shit!” Melissa yelled, kicking the side of the bridge as anger flooded into her, “Shit, shit, shit!”

The ponies backed up, a little surprised at the rage.

“Goddammit! The Dragon and the George! Aagh! Billions of blue-blistering barnacles, that’s all I need! Tanj, tanj, tangit!”

Andrew’s expression was a mixture of shock and utter confusion at the curses.

Turning to look at him, she demanded, “...You the protagonist or am I? Cuz clearly I’m in one of those spatial/dimensional displacement stories!” She spared a glance at the ponies, “Granted, better company than most of those. And two humans means The Human Memoirs...that’s not necessarily good…Just who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I already said, I'm Andrew--”

“Yeah, I got that, dumbass. What do you do?”

“Liberal arts major.”

Melissa kicked the wall again, “God dammit! You’re not even Jim Eckert! Wait, how did you get here? Maybe this is a kind of Sam Beckett kinda thing!”

He shrugged, “I don’t know what you're talking about. I was just walking around, when there was a flash--”

Melissa nearly deafened the other three with a shriek of rage and pain to the sky. She followed it with a long line of expletives. Then kicked the same piece of bridge wall extremely hard, and with surprising strength, forcing an entire block to break off and fall into the water with a heavy splash.

Finally, she collapsed from exhaustion over the edge of the bridge, gasping for breath.

“Feel better?” Andrew inquired.

“Maybe. Where the hell’s Osc--my car?” panic rose in her voice, images of precious equipment destroyed by stupid fearful aliens and primitives filling her mind, “Where the flying fuck is it?”

Andrew facepalmed, “I ended up here with nothing but my cell phone and the clothes on my back. I think your car…”

“Wait, that was a car?” Rainbow wondered, cutting off Andrew, “That metal wagon?”

“Yeah, you’ve seen him--it?!” Melissa demanded excitedly.

“I found it in the clearing where you were!”

“The one in the Everfree Forest?” Andrew asked, looking fearful, “Rainbow, are you sure you saw a car? Maybe it really just a metal wagon. There’s no way to know for sure.”

“Hold on,” Melissa muttered, pulling out her jingling car keys. She clicked the fob once, twice, three times. Nothing. “Huh.”

“I told you,” Andrew said with slightly forced regret, “The forest is full of creatures anyway, I--”

“Hold on!” Melissa repeated, “I wonder…”

She put the fob under her chin, and opened her mouth. With a couple clicks, they all began to hear a distant alarm go off.

“Wow. I didn’t know that really worked!” She laughed, her mood swapping, “C’mon! Let’s go find it!”

“Hold on,” Andrew interrupted, “What was with that mouth thing?”

Melissa rolled her eyes with a smirk, “It’s a body-hack. Doing that extends the range of your key fob, makes your head into a giant transmitter through your bones or something. Go and read Cracked dot com next time you…” she winced, “dammit…Let’s go.” and stalked off.

Andrew sighed heavily as he trudged after her. I’m gonna be manticore chow...Or cockatrice food.

XXXXX

There was no sign of the cockatrice in the clearing. In fact, there was no sign of any creature investigating, despite the smell of food in the open car.
Stranger still, the walk to the area had actually gone without any encounters of any type
Not even any feelings of being watched.
“It could be something about your vehicle,” Twilight had suggested, “Maybe it’s arrival has put them off balance.”

The clearing was easier to see in the daylight. Healthy green grass occupied most of it, excluding a pair of lines left by the Tesla.
The shape of the clearing seemed a bit odd as well, and looked perfectly circular. The ponies didn’t think much of it; the forest was full of mysteries like that.

Along one edge of the clearing, still pinned to the tree it had bumped against, lay the Tesla. It shone in the daylight, and looked as perfect as the day Melissa had gotten it.
She also noted how strange the grass was, appearing almost as though it were reaching for the wheels. They had to get it out of there soon.

“That doesn’t look too heavy,” Rainbow Dash commented, “I bet I could carry it with one hoof!”

“It’s nearly two tons, Dashie. You’d probably break something.” Melissa replied, distractedly, her eyes fixed on her car.

“Excuse me?” Dash challenged, stepping in front of the taller human.

Melissa took a few steps away, standing behind Andrew, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Andrew, get out of the way!” Rainbow barked, trying to get at Melissa.

“I don’t think she was trying to be rude, Dash!” Andrew responded, “Were you, Melissa?”

“No! I wasn’t! Jeez, I just trying to stop you from hurting yourself!"

“Well...uh, next time be more polite.” Andrew grumbled, still standing between the two.

“Jesus, how much did that thing cost?” he wondered, changing the subject as he looked at the car.

“You don’t want to know.”

Melissa went over to her pile of equipment, still sitting in the trunk. Rapidly packing it away, she requested, “Twilight, Rainbow, can you move it away from the tree? Carefully?”

A purple field of energy appeared around the vehicle. As Dash provided direction, Twilight lifted the vehicle slowly up and to the side. With a creek and a pop, several panels were relieved of their torment, and sprang back into place.

Once the Tesla had been moved to the center of the clearing, Melissa moved to the driver’s seat, and inserted the keys. Several displays lit up, reading roughly 95% power remaining.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and went around to the right side, opening the gull-wing back door, and then the passenger side door. Both functioned correctly, despite the damage.

“Okay...Now, Twilight, I need you to--”

Ssss…

Andrew, Rainbow, and Twilight froze at once, upon hearing the call of the cockatrice. All quickly covered their eyes, and Andrew pulled out his flintlock.

The hissing grew closer. Closer. For several nail-biting minutes, they stood still, unable to do anything.

The loud hissing was abruptly cut off by a deafening boom. The hissing transformed into a squeal of pain, that slowly trailed off.

Andrew risked putting his arm down and aimed his pistol in the direction of the hissing.

The cockatrice lay there, a chunk of its head missing, blood dribbling out of the wound.

He turned around to see Melissa leaning against her car, passenger door and glove box open. She held aloft a Glock 17 9mm pistol, with the word “Glamdring” written on the side. She blew the smoke away from the barrel, and clicked the safety on.

“Payback’s a bitch,” She grinned.

“Where did you get that thing?” Andrew demanded, as the ponies gaped at the corpse.

“I had it in my glove box.” Melissa reached into the car, and pulled out an underarm holster. She placed the pistol inside, and took off her jacket, putting her head through the loop of the holster. Once settled, she put her coat back on.
“Why didn’t you get that instead of your tire iron?” Andrew asked in confusion.

“Because I still thought I was in Vermont. Didn’t want to accidentally shoot someone. Where’d you get the flintlock?” as she spoke, Melissa crouched down to peer at the spent 9mm cartridge lying in the grass.

“A few ponies make them for me,” he replied with a shrug, “Adapted some of their own for me.

“Which ponies?” Melissa inquired, tilting her head at the spent cartridge. It’s pretty hot, so a plastic bag won’t hold it…What do I do with it?

He hesitated in response, “Some ponies around town.” he finally said somewhat-truthfully.

“What kind of firearm is that?” Twilight interrupted, noticing the smoke(or lack thereof) produced by the weapon. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, she noted that compared to a musket, there was much less soot and grime from the powder.

“Glock 17,” she explained distractedly, looking at Andrew “Hey, how much have you boosted the industrial base?”

“What do you mean?” said Andrew.

“You’re a 21st century human in a 19th century industrial base. You’re gonna be boosting their tech within ten minutes. Haven’t you ever read Destroyermen?”

Andrew shook his head, “Nope. Besides, I can’t remember much stuff to make too big of a difference. I think the only way we’ve been building anything has been ‘cause the CMC are trying to earn cutie marks by building some of the stuff I’ve been describing.”

He suddenly froze, “...Did I say that out loud?”

Melissa laughed, “Of course those three are doing that...Anyway, it’s actually going to be a bit easier now that you’ve got advanced firearms going, and the ponies already have a fair supply of metals, as well as steam engines.”

“What’s going to be easier?” Andrew questioned, his hand unknowingly straying to his belt. Usually anyone being that ominous around here meant something bad was going to happen.

“Jump starting a Second Industrial Revolution, what do you think?”

“A what?” asked Twilight, still jotting down everything Melissa said.

“Second Industrial Revolution. An event back home that got us into internal combustion, planes, automatic weapons, tanks, and cars.”

“You’re gonna get us tanks and stuff?! Awesome!” Rainbow Dash shouted, joining in the conversation.

“How are we going to do that?” Andrew asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “You can’t have enough memorized to do it very quickly.”

Melissa smiled, “I was hoping you’d say that. You see, I have a laptop, a phone, a tablet, and a couple books in my car. My nearly-fully charged car. My kindle is on my laptop as well; it contains every destroyermen novel up to Rising Tides, and the writer’s a gunsmith who puts a whole lot of detail into his work. That’s not even counting the ‘So you’ve gone back in time’ poster on my desktop.”

She continued, “Also, I have memorized a lot of stuff. That's what happens when you go through high school with severe ADD. These concepts are pretty simple when you stop to think about them. I think between you, me, Twilight, and Equestria’s best, we can get something together. Really, the biggest obstacle is going to be getting the internal combustion engines going, but it’s not too hard.”

Melissa noticed the other three were staring at her. “...What?”

“You just got here...And now you’re planning an industrial revolution?” Andrew demanded in disbelief.

Melissa shrugged, “Knowing Equestria, there’s probably gonna be some way to send us home. But in the meantime, I’m not just gonna sit around.”

She looked at the unicorn beside him, “Twilight, how would Equestria’s economy improve with long-distance communication? Messages sent over a long distance and received in a couple seconds?”

“We already have that,” Twilight replied, “Magic.”

“Aha, but it’s only accessible to a select few! Extremely strong unicorns, or dragon fire. What if every town had access to that? A system anyone could access?”

“We have semaphore, and several other types of optical telegraphy…”

“And, a system that’s accessible at any time of day, in virtually any climate?”

“That…” Twilight thought for a moment, before her eyes lit up, “That would be fantastic! Is this a form of wired telegraphy? Tell me, how would we build it?”

Melissa excitement faded, “Uh...Hmm.”

“Suddenly not so easy, is it?” Andrew declared snarkily.

“Hey, just because I can’t think of it right this instant doesn’t mean it’s not in there,” she tapped her head for emphasis, “shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Wired telegraphy is freaking high school physics! Just electrical signal on or off for a period of time. I’ve got severe ADD too, so I know some odds and ends about some things. Spent most of high school just googling things. And for other stuff, they’re already pretty far along! they’ve got pretty good metallurgy tech! Steam engines! And some pretty complicated gadgets! Twilight, didn’t you use a brain scanner thingy on Pinkie Pie when you were trying to figure out if she actually had Pinkie Sense?”

“Huh?” Twilight was too busy writing something else down.

“Never mind. Rainbow, uh...Does your navy have aircraft carriers?”

“‘Aircraft carrier--’ Oh! You mean flattops! Yeah, we’ve got a few.” The pegasus replied, “Never got the chance to serve on one.”

“They steam powered?” asked the female human, and Rainbow nodded with a grin.

“See? Their tech isn’t primitive, magic just has them stunted in a few areas.”

“They’ve still got muzzle-loaders!” Andrew pointed out, “How are we going to get them into gas power?”

“Hey!” Rainbow objected, “Don’t judge someone on their firearm tech alone! And it’s hard to get our weapons to fit you, so don’t judge!...Though they’re not as good as that thing,” she gestured to the Glock.

Melissa nodded, “Wow, thank you. Anyway, they have hydroelectric dams too, they’re ready to go on the Second Industrial Revolution any day now. Why not hurry things along?”

“Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, Melissa,” Twilight elbowed her way into the conversation, preventing the argument from getting any further, “But perhaps it would be best to get back home before we discuss this further?”

XXXXX

The Tesla crept along Ponyville’s streets, slow-moving carts and pedestrians scrambling to get out of the way of the vehicle. Rainbow Dash’s “encouragement” wasn’t much help. Her method consisted mainly of “scare the crap out of them until they move”.

No one could avoid staring. Without any ponies pulling it, and no blasting, hissing steam, the vehicle moved. Melissa couldn’t help but smirk as she flipped the left turn signal, and those behind her all squinted at the blinking light.

The passenger seat window kept moving up and down on it’s own, as well. At least until Melissa turned it off.
“What’s this control for?” Twilight sighed disappointedly, releasing the window switch. She sat awkwardly perched in the passenger’s seat, and pointed at one on the central dashboard.

“Temperature control,” Andrew explained distractedly, from behind her, “And the wipers. Hey, Mel, when’s the last time you cleaned back here?”

“Why?” Melissa asked, dodging the question.

“I can’t move my feet! How much stuff do you throw back here? And is this a dry cleaning bag?!”

“Don’t open that. Mostly I put stuff back there...and then I don’t get it. So none of it’s trash, at least.”

Andrew picked up the popcorn bucket gingerly, before squeamishly throwing it in back. “Right...”

“So, this isn’t powered by gasoline?” Twilight asked, browsing through the menu on the dashboard.

“No, this is one of our attempts at getting rid of the gas-powered cars. Has Andrew told you about Climate Change?”

“Vaguely. Speaking of which, Why were you so agitated, when I asked?” Twilight wondered, turning to raise an eyebrow at him.

“‘Cause it’s a pretty touchy subject.” Andrew said, darkly. Twilight realized he didn’t want to discuss it further.

“What is it powered by, then?”

“Lithium-ion batteries. We charge the thing up at the house, or anywhere with an outlet, and it gets about as much range as a regular car of the same type.”

“Interesting. I’ve heard about experiments in Manehattan and Detrot about motor vehicles, but none have been this advanced.”

Melissa snorted, “Actually, while a lot of this stuff,” she gestured to the dashboard, “Got invented in only the last ten years, the engine itself is pretty old. It’s just that assholes like Edison--”

Andrew nodded and smiled nervously as Melissa went on a long rant about what went wrong, historically, with the various inventors and corporations. Twilight did the same, but wrote down every single thing the human said.

Finally… “--and that’s why we should have colonized the moon!” Melissa let out a breath.

Falling silent, she turned another corner. After a moment she glanced at Twilight, before locking her eyes on the road again. “So what’s been going on here in Ponyville lately?”

Twilight looked up, “Oh, nothing much. Some unicorns tried to take Sweet Apple Acres, we had an incident with time travel…”

“Actually, that whole week was pretty weird.” Andrew muttered, and Melissa noticed the other two were averting eye contact with one another.

“...Do you want to talk about it?” she inquired, “I know Twilight went into a time paradox, going back to tell herself that she shouldn’t get so stressed out.”

“Wait a second, how do you know that?”.

Melissa glanced at Twilight with an odd expression, staring for a long moment. Finally, with a sigh, she explained, “...Because that was the plot of the episode.”

“Episode of what? Your weird My Little Pony thing?”

“Yeah.”

Andrew suddenly connected the dots. “Are you saying...that we’re in a TV series from back home?”

Melissa’s hands tightened on the wheel. Caught on fast, didn’t you? “Eeyup.” She hoped she wasn’t looking into a camera.

“Is that an impression of Big Mac?” Twilight asked hesitantly.

“uh huh.”

“A TV series. You’re saying we’re in a TV series.” Andrew repeated.

“Yes. A cartoon. Twilight, did he explain what that is?”

Twilight appeared confused, “Yeah, he did...But how is this possible?”

“No clue.”

“Well, we know we’re real at the moment.” Twilight said, speaking slowly, “So it’s not just fiction.”

“Yeah, but--”

“Clearly, the creators of the TV series must have had some sort of psychic connection to us,” Twilight explained, brightly and matter-of-factly, “They’re fairly common. Tell me, Melissa, are events and details in the series completely identical to what you have seen here?”

“Not exactly. A lot of the character details are right, you and Dash are spot on...Though, I expected more horror when I shot the cockatrice.”

Twilight nodded, “Even Fluttershy would understand. We try not to kill animals, but sometimes we have no choice. Cockatrices are extremely dangerous.”

“I could see that. Andrew wasn’t in the show either. I think your explanation might be right.”

“Yes,” agreed Twilight, “It appears to just be giving the creators general concepts, and some, but not all the details.”

“That would explain why bullets actually worked on the Cockatrice. MLP is targeted at kids, despite the wide age variety, so they can’t show blood. If we were actually in the show, the pistol would misfire, or it would just collapse without the brains.”

Andrew shrugged, “Better than anything else I have. It’s at least less depressing.”

Melissa nodded in agreement, “Yeah, psychic link! Cool. Different topic, anyone?”

They pulled up to the Golden Oak Library, and Melissa turned the key to the “off” position.

Without warning... “Hi!”

“Christ on crutches!” Melissa screamed in surprise, as a pink pony leaned in the open window. Twilight rolled her eyes, groaning “Pinkie!”

“I’ve never seen you before! What’s your name? I’m Pinkie Pie!” the pony said, ignoring Twilight.

“Melissa Foster.” Melissa replied, doing her best to stay calm.

“Nice to meet you!” Pinkie cried joyfully, seizing Melissa’s hand and shaking it vigorously.

She inhaled deeply, and began to sing, “You’re Melissa, first human mare to Equestria, consider me your first guide to this strange land...ia!”

Melissa blinked, as the pony stopped, gasping for breath. “Uh...Huh. Didn’t have much time to prepare that, did you?”

Pinkie shrugged, “Well, I can’t use the space in my head I’m using to plan your party--” she gasped suddenly, and rocketed off, leaving a cloud of dust vaguely shaped like her.

The human slowly moved her hand down to the window control…

Pinkie Pie abruptly returned, “Party at four minutes past 7:00. Don’t be late!” And zoomed off again.

Melissa blinked again, and slowly rolled up the window. “Anyone know what just happened?”

“Not a clue.” Andrew said.

“Party at 7:00.” Twilight shrugged.

XXXXX

Pinkie Pie had been true to her word. Exactly four minutes past 7:00 PM, according to Melissa’s watch, as darkness began to creep in, a party erupted into existence..

Based only on first impressions, Melissa found that there were no individual words to describe Pinkie’s personality, her insatiable curiosity and her...her...would the kindest word be insanity?

As the greeting party raged around her, Melissa was introduced to the remaining members of the Mane Six.

“Hmm…” a thoughtful expression crossed the face of the unicorn with the white coat and purple mane known as Rarity, as she looked at Melissa’s outfit.

Panic filled the young human’s mind, images of corsets flashing before her. She cringed, and grabbed a random passerby, holding them between her and Rarity and bracing for impact.
“Yes?” Melissa encouraged, as if nothing had happened.

“Whoever is your tailor, my dear? That outfit is simply inspired!”

Melissa opened one eye. “What?”

“Such simplicity...Yet charming!”

Melissa opened the other eye and glanced at the unicorn. “What? This doesn’t go against your fashion sense?”

“Of course it doesn’t!” Rarity replied, stepping around the random blue pony held as a shield, to repeat, “That jacket is very endearing! And the camouflage pattern on the leggings...Oh, for once it is not so drab, and so eye-catching! So much storage as well! Functional! And what amazing materials, by far the best part! Oh, you simply must tell me the name of your tailor!”

“Can I go now?” The pony shield whimpered.

“Oh! Sorry!” the human released the unfortunate bystander.

The pony sprinted off as Melissa turned to Rarity, “I don’t have a tailor, I bought this online.”
“On line you say? From a store?”

“No,” Melissa laughed, “I bought it from a website. Has Andrew mentioned the internet at all?”

Rarity contemplated for a moment, “He has mentioned something like that in his frequent cultural references...Though we never understood those.”

“Forget about it,” Melissa replied, and unzipped her jacket to gain access to the collar tag. As she pulled it off, she revealed a long-sleeve shirt with the words “Cool. Nerd stuff.” across it. Around this caption lay a dozen nonsensical equations, with a car, a pistol, a sword, and some strange dish on a stick scattered across the shirt.

Rarity appeared thoughtful, considering the shirt from all angles, but didn’t know exactly what to make of it. The materials are extremely excellent at least...

Melissa looked at the collar of her jacket, “Humans will put tags in our clothing, identifies the manufacturer. I guess for this exact reason.”

Rarity stared at the smooth silver tag in wonder. On one side the strange “N7” symbol appeared again, with an “S” in brackets underneath. Below was a completely apocryphal word, “Bioware”.
The spurious word was followed by a little pair of capital letters, “T.M.”, drawn as one might draw an exponent symbol in mathematics.
Under that were the words “Mass Effect”, followed by two forms of the T-M symbol, the exponent again, as well as regular text; these were followed by the letters “EA” and the abbreviation for “incorporated”.
On the opposite side were the materials used in construction, a variety of incomprehensible symbols, and washing methods.

“There we go, Bioware.”

“Interesting, I’ve never thought of that before! Putting all this information onto the clothing itself! Though I have to ask...”

“Why we would put someone else’s name on our clothing instead of our own names?” Melissa finished, the words Calvin Klein appearing in her head, “It’s the manufacturers, they do it themselves, so they have control over it.”

Rarity noted the human’s collar, realizing that there were two layers. “May I see the final layer? It could hardly be in bad taste, you’ve shown me so much good already!”

Obediently, Melissa pulled up her outer layer to reveal a black t-shirt underneath.

Rarity took in the sight, a bust of a human figure was printed on the front, a gentle smile visible within the large bulbous helmet he(she assumed) wore on his head. The letters “C”, “C”, “C”, and “P” could be seen on the forehead of the helmet. The stallion’s helmet looked strange, and it was hard to see what material it was made out of due to the colors of the image. She grinned at the colors she could see, the image was merely a silhouette, its outline lit up by a canvas of stars!

“Marvelous…” she breathed, shocked once again at human technology.

“Really?” Melissa looked down at the image, “I’ll admit, Yuri Gagarin was awesome, but the image itself is pretty basic…”

“‘Basic’?!” Rarity demanded, “While it does not shimmer in the light, it’s certainly far better than anything similar I can turn out at my boutique! That shape is flawless! No error at all! The amount of detail on the face! The stars look as though you had plucked them from the sky! How can you call this basic?!”

“...having a century’s worth of an advantage?”

“Irrelevant. Would you mind if I took some measurements at some point? And could examine this outfit of yours?” Rarity asked politely, “I would love to have more examples of human clothing for ideas.”

Most of Melissa’s earlier fears melted away as she nodded, “That would be nice. Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps? Tonight I’m going to be occupied.”

The unicorn nodded brightly, and bid farewell, as Melissa saw a familiar-looking Earth pony near a refreshment table.

“Uh...Excuse me, Applejack, I presume?”
The bright orange pony turned to look at her, her blond mane whipping around, as she had a friendly smile on her face. “Ya must be Melissa! A pleasure to meet you. I woulda met ya when ya first woke up, but ah had to get back home. Work, you know.”

They shook appendages, and Melissa gave her full name. “Well, if Pinkie hasn’t already done so, welcome to Ponyville!” Applejack delivered in a dramatic fashion.

“Thanks,” Melissa replied, “How is Sweet Apple Acres doing? In the black, I presume?”

“Would we be anywhere else?” Applejack said with confidence, “We’re the best apple-makers in the business! Ah reckon all of Equestria would be rioting’ if we quit.”

“I’ll bet!” Melissa smiled, “But uh...I do have something important to ask of you.”

“Anythang. A friend of Andrew’s is a friend of mine.”

“Are there any allergies that you have run into? Anything that limits the foods one can eat?”

Applejack put a hoof on her chin thoughtfully, “Hmm...There are the usual peanut allergies, allergies to certain types of hay…”

“Anything that prevents one from eating wheat?”

Applejack slowly nodded, with a concerned look on her face. “I thought that only occurred in foals…”

This puzzled Melissa. She thought the ponies had technology roughly equal to the 1850s, with magic augmenting it a bit. Celiac disease wasn’t properly observed until 1887...Albeit to the absolute worst possible extent of medical science. Strange that they would know about it to this level.
Maybe Equestria was more advanced than she had thought...

“Well, at least in humans, that’s what we thought too. It started turning up in older people, and, well…” She gestured to herself.
Applejack’s tone turned to one of concern, “Sugarcube, do you have that disease...uh, celiac? The one Steel Guise discovered?”

“Well, if that’s the pony version of Samuel Gee, then…”

“Well, why dinna ya just say so? I can have ya fixed up in a jiff! We’ve got a ton of grass products...”

“Humans can’t digest grass. It doesn’t give us any nutrients.”

Applejack hit herself lightly on the head, “Right, of course. Why is that anyway? Everypony can eat grass…”

“Humans are descended from apes, not equines. Most of our diet is fruit, vegetables, and…”

She coughed, “...Meat.”

“Ah though Andrew was joking about that…” Applejack mumbled, wide-eyed.

“We can eat apples though,” Melissa added quickly, “Lot and lots of apples.”

Within seconds, another refreshment table appeared, with a variety of apple products on it. Mostly plain old apples, but there were some creative designs as well.
“We get requests on occasion to deal with this type of thing,” Applejack explained, “I can wrangle up some of our better recipes later. For now, ah hope these will work out.”

“Thanks, Applejack!” the human replied, and reached for a bright red apple, “Usually people don’t understand this kinda thing.”

“Oh, don’t fret none. Happens all the time!”

With that, they separated. Melissa walked off through the mass of partying ponies, chomping on the best apple she’d ever tasted. She glanced around to find the final pony she was looking for.

There she was. In one corner of the square, sitting on the pony equivalent of a metal folding chair.
Fluttershy. The butter-yellow pegasus with a light pink mane.

Quietly and calmly, Melissa moved over to her. She didn’t speak, just went and sat down, chomping at the apple.
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t encountered many people who were willing to simply sit quietly, and not start up conversations immediately.
Hesitantly, she opened her mouth, “H-hello. Are you Melissa?”

The human smiled, and nodded. Another bite from the apple.
“Did you know Andrew back on Earth?” she blurted. Fluttershy was no good at small talk, and a mild jealousy circuit kicked into the timid pony’s mind.
“Nope,” came Melissa’s best impression of Big Mcintosh, “Big planet, Earth. Seven billion and counting, 200 million in the US alone...I think.”

Fluttershy nodded in reply. Melissa’s turn to ask a question. “What do you think of him?”

She blushed in reply, and Melissa grinned a little, trying to make her feel more at ease.

“He’s kind, and sweet, and while he can be a bit…” Fluttershy took a deep breath, as if about to reveal a state secret, and whispered, “...Rude, he hasn’t bothered anyone in town. He’s…” she caught herself, “...A friend. He’s a very good friend.”

Melissa nodded, and they went back to silent. She had experience with timid people.

Eventually, she got up, and walked away. Where was she going? Even she didn’t know, as all thoughts were banished by the appearance of Pinkie Pie.

“I’ve prepared a much better welcome song!” she cried in a sing-song tone, “Hopefully, it should ease the pain of culture shock!”

“Wait, what--oh no no wait wait wait wait, stop!”

Pinkie had brought out the big cart she had used to greet Cranky Doodle Donkey, and at present held her mouth open comically, completely frozen.

“You already have welcomed me!” Melissa explained, smiling nervously, “you don’t need to do it anymore!”

“Oh! Did I offend you?” Pinkie bounded up into the human’s personal space, “I’m so sorry! I--”

“No,” Melissa said firmly, “You didn’t offend me. It’s just...I’ve heard you can be overwhelming at times and I don’t want my anxiety issues to start kicking in…”

“Who’d you hear it from?” Pinkie inquired in a strange manner.

“Uh...Andrew! Yes, Andrew told me!”

All the tension suddenly disappeared, “Oh, okay! I’ll be back later for your MP3 player, go finish establishing your relationships with the other characters!”

The pink pony bounded off, leaving Melissa very confused.

My MP3 player? Establishing relationships?

After a moment, she shrugged and moved on. Pinkie Pie was just being Pinkie Pie.

A flap of wings and a streak of rainbow light. Then, like that, there was a pegasus hovering in front of her, scrutinizing Melissa with great interest.
“So...what’s your story?”

“Uh...what?”

“Y’know, how’d you end up here? What’s your job back on Earth?”

“Wormhole, and I’m...I’m…” Melissa hesitated, and coughed, “...A firefighter.”

“Aw…” Dash looked a little disappointed, “No one ever interesting comes...what else can you do?”

“Well for one, don’t knock firefighters if you know what’s good for you. Second of all I’m a good shot, I can blow shit up, and my brain’s packed with technical data and information, as well as a basic understanding of world history. I guess I’m kinda like Sam Carter in Stargate--”

She grimaced and kicked at the dirt, “Shit, you don’t get that reference. One more thing to get used to...”

“You’re a firefighter, how do you know about blowing stuff up? And why do you swear in every other sentence?”

“Well, preventing something means understanding how it works in the first place. Second of all, a fucking potty-mouth is the least of my frakking problems. I’m a...firefighter, and that sort of attitude comes with the freaking job, so no one can complain!”

“I beg to differ…” Rainbow scoffed a little.

“You wanna die, little-miss...something something witty insult involving the word slow?”

They glared at each other for a moment...when Rainbow Dash suddenly snorted, amused.

“Were you planning on going somewhere with that one?” she asked.

“Give me a day, I might have something for ya.” Melissa admitted, “I’ve got quotes and references up the wazoo, but improv’s not my forte.”

“Heh, me neither. What the hay’s a wazoo?”

Rainbow Dash watched as, with well-practiced movements, the human pulled out the small device known as a cellular telephone.
Melissa swiped from bottom left to top right, and spoke into it, “Hey Cortana, what’s a wazoo?”

After a moment, the screen set a white glow against Melissa’s face, and her eyes bugged out. Dash laughed as the human turned a bright shade of red and facepalm.

“Well?” Dash asked, chuckling even more, and relishing in the torment being inflicted, “What is it?”

“It’s...it’s…oh, Cthulhu...” Melissa whimpered a little, embarrassed.

“Oh, give it here!” Dash snatched the device out of Melissa’s hands, and stared for a moment, then roared with laughter.

Snatching the device back, Melissa grumbled, “Yeah, yeah, rub it in. Safe search can’t stop everything! And I’m offline, so I don’t know if that setting even works! ! Besides, you asked!”

“Huh? Safe search?”

“Nothing...I’m gonna go...over that way.” she pointed randomly and stepped away.

“Oh, uh... okay!” Dash watched her go. Huh, that went better than expected. I guess Humans are all weirdos, though.

As Melissa walked nowhere in particular, she felt her leg hit something and was flipped forward onto her back.
“Jeez, who leaves a stump in the middle of a plaza…?” she groaned, rubbing her skull.

“Ow...who goes around not looking where they’re going…?” another voice grunted in reply, “Or was that a train that hit me?”

Sitting bolt-upright, Melissa turned to see she had accidentally bowled over a small purple and green creature. He lay on his back, struggling to get back up, with dirt marks in the shape of her sneakers across half his face.
The figure was a little less than a meter tall, covered in scales, with neon-green fins that stuck out from the the top of his head and ran down the length of his spine and tail. One of his two claws held a wooden cup, the contents of which were now spilled across the cobblestone. She knew him immediately, by voice alone.

“Frak me, I’m sorry, Spike!” Melissa cried, jumping to her feet and moving over. Lifting Twilight Sparkle’s assistant(oof, heavier than he looks!), she placed him back on his feet and dusted him off anxiously, “You alright?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine…” he grumbled, pushing her hand away and mournfully looking at his mug.

“You sure? I know jack diddly about dragon physiology? Well, unless you count dinosaurs, in which case...no wait, shit, you’re more evolved than them, your skull’s gonna be pretty thin, are you sure you’re alright!?”

“Yes, I’m fine! Stop worrying!” He barked indignantly, and seemed unfazed by the creature he spoke to. “Watch where you’re going next time!”

“Again, I’m sorry, Spike. I’m still new to this thing...did I kick you that hard? I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t see you...”

He stared at her for several long seconds. “You like to talk a lot, don't you?“

“Depends on the day...By the way, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the attitude? Aside from me kicking you in the head.”

“What attitude?” he demanded rudely.

“Y’know, you’re usually a bit calmer.”

He opened his mouth to deliver a rude reply, then tilted his head, “Excuse me? ‘Usually’?”

Wincing, Melissa garbled, “I--eh--uh…Well, you see, back on Earth--”

“Yes, yes, Melissa, cultural reference we will never get!” Twilight interrupted, thankfully appearing out of nowhere alongside Andrew. The unicorn grinned nervously, and her eyes told Melissa it might be a good idea to stay quiet.

“You trampled him too?” Andrew asked, “Me too, the way I found out about him in fact.”

“Yeah, he screamed like a little filly!” Spike laughed, then winced and held the side of his head.

“I did not!” Andrew rolled his eyes, “Spike, beat it. Human stuff to talk about.”

Melissa slugged him in the arm, “Dick! Don’t be so rude!”

“He threatens to kill me on a regular basis!”

“Oh, who doesn’t? Threaten anyone, I mean. That can be friendly! In the fire service at least.” Melissa crouched down to Spike’s level, “Sorry again. We do have something private to discuss, though,” grinning, she had an idea, “Maybe you could tell Rarity something about my shoes. Sneakers might leave impressive scars.”

Spike smiled a little, “Okay, I get it. I’ll go.”

Melissa stood back up, turning to the other two, “Great Old Ones, Shepherd, are you trying to play renegade? Twilight, am I going nuts here, or is he really being rude?”

Twilight grimaced, “Well, by our standards...yes. Yes he can be. That’s totally understandable given his unfamiliarity with our culture and ways. Though with some things I’d expect him to have adapted to.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry about it dude,” Melissa said, waving it off, “In this type of story, you’re the first guy who has the second person to comment on your behavior, usually offering some improvements. Though I have no intention of being your sidekick, so I might do a bit more. I do have the modern firearm, all you have is a flintlock that isn’t even built right.”

“Hey!” Andrew barked again, a little indignantly, “Why are we talking about my issues and not what we came over here to talk about?”

“I thought that was why you came over here.” Melissa giggled.

He glared at her, then Twilight, who was giggling too, “Oh, don’t you start..No. We didn’t.”

“Well, quit dragging us off topic then!”

“I didn’t!”

“I don’t know. Melissa, analyzing his flaws would prove to be a very interesting conversation. I’ve had numerous theories on why he’s created a facade of cowardice, rude behavior, and indecisiveness to hide behind, despite his clear bravery and moral code.”

“Now that is interesting. Tell me Andrew, did you have issues with the rest of your family--”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Andrew said loudly, rubbing his face, “Neither of you are a psychologist, and you just got here!”

“That doesn’t matter. Being able to analyze character depends on the mind, not just time.”

“Remind me again why we unfroze you?”

“Too late to go back now. And I got the best gun on the planet in my jacket. So you can just suck it.”

He glared at her smirking face, half-willing to try and deck her right there.

“What’d you guys want to talk about?” Melissa asked, suddenly about business.

“Well,” Twilight began, “We did want to check on how you were settling in. And we wanted to discuss the psychic link.”

Melissa held up a hand, “Okay, let me stop you right there. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that we are hiding this, at least completely. That will only lead to an extremely awkward situation, and probably with one of us dying, or me getting beaten up, or something else horrible. Therefore, I suggest, Twilight, that you compile a briefing for the rest of the Mane Six and Spike. Anyone else would lead to trouble, probably involving kidnapping to get my brain, and we can simply explain my advanced knowledge as being a fast learner.”

“What about me?” Andrew asked.

“What about you? You’ve already adjusted, and never heard of the show before I showed up. I know of everything that’s happened over the past two years here in Equestria, private and public, though my brother could probably remember in better detail. Since I'm guessing you know less, you’re way less valuable to any agents from foreign countries”

“Really?” Andrew said doubtfully, “Everything?”

Melissa nodded, “Twilight, you were going to attend Moondancer’s party before you left Canterlot, but the whole Nightmare Moon situation distracted you.” she paused, as though she were about to add something, but shook her head and continued, “Entering the library looking for information on the Elements of Harmony(it was under ‘E’), you knocked Spike across the room, causing him to fall on the present and stab it. While you were--”

“Okay, okay!” Andrew interrupted, “I understand. But jeez, why are you so paranoid about that?”

“Because I’m realistic! In The Human Memoirs, the protagonist gets kidnapped by a bunch of foreign agents working for a government who wanted to exploit advanced human technical knowledge. The locals(big sentient cats), treated him like an animal, inflicting torture both intentional and not, he nearly died of exposure, and was picked up by some weird carnival people who wanted to sell him. He would have died if it hadn’t been for his real good friend in charge of the good cat people who sent out parties like crazy searching for him. I don’t want that to happen, do you?!”

He squinted at her, “My life is now magic and talking ponies, but I think right now you are by far the strangest person I have ever met.”
To punctuate his statement, he raised the cup he held to his lips.

“Hey, what’s in that?” Melissa asked.

“Soda…?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Dude!” she slapped it out of his hands, scattering the contents and cup to the floor.

“What the hey was that for?” he demanded, lamenting his drink.

“It’s 19th century soda, you idiot! Don’t you know what’s in this stuff?!”

“Of course I do, Same as ours. Teeth-rotting high-fructose corn syrup. It’s just one area where they’re a bit more advanced than others.”

Melissa facepalmed, “Okay, haven’t you seen any coke bottle? ‘Since 1898’ or something? Coke was originally sold as a tonic, and you know what the high-fructose corn syrup replaced? Cocaine! That’s freaking liquid cocaine!”

The tone of their conversation changed so sharply it could cut someone.

His eyes widened, but his brow was furrowed in concentration for a moment, “Well, that explains a whole lotta things...”

“Is there a problem?” Twilight inquired in confusion, “Of course it has cocaine.”

“Wait, you knew?!”

“Of course I did! Everypony knows!”

“Andrew, they’re at a Victorian-era technological level,” Melissa explained, “Why wouldn’t they? People toted it as being able to cure dandruff, toothaches, and probably ‘female hysteria’, AKA ‘please let me out of the kitchen’. I recommend you start carrying around your own water bottle, by the way, with water from verified sources, and not trying any prepared foods that haven’t been fried. You think Flint’s water is bad, there might be some flesh-eating disease, or--”
She suddenly laughed, “Sorry, just remembered a funny Red vs Blue joke on this type of thing. ‘I’m gonna have to hold Caboose’s hand while he screams himself to death’. Ah, Rooster Teeth...”

He stuttered, mumbling disjointed words, “Are you insane?! What on earth is wrong with you?!”

“Obviously, something. My job is to go into burning buildings, how is that not insane?”

“Alright, ask a stupid question,” then he looked at Twilight, “Okay, give me a list of what has cocaine in it around the house so we can burn it all.”

“That’s not what you do with drugs--” Melissa tried to explain, but Twilight interrupted, “Excuse me, but what’s the problem? It’s a harmless drug, with many uses.”

“Twilight, I love you, but sometimes you’re just plain wrong.” Andrew grumbled, “Cocaine is extremely dangerous, outlawed all over Earth. There are massive statistics on how many people die from overdosing, and the horrid effects. People die over this, small wars and massive destruction. Some countries don’t have any exports other than the stuff, trading it to the CIA for weapons to keep their banana republics going.”

The unicorn gasped, “But--but--maybe it just affects humans adversely.”

Melissa shook her head, “That’s not how it works. Our ecosystems are extremely similar, and we’ve had centuries to study these effects. In the wrong dosages, it screws up transmission in the brain, over-stimulating neurotransmitters and basically rotting everything away...I can’t remember my health class too well. Since the 80s there’ve been PSAs on the ‘soul-destroying’ drugs. The true effects are extremely debatable, partly because of the war on drugs screwing everything up, but without proper regulations or understanding of these things, it’s not a good idea to risk it.”

She halted for a moment, staring at Andrew, “Did you say…’love’?”

Andrew’s eye twitched. “Oh crap.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “Andrew...fine, I’ll do it.”

“No no no no--!”

“We are in a romantic relationship together, with some additional tension between us and Fluttershy. Andrew has some feelings for her, and has been extremely indecisive about the whole situation.” Twilight explained carefully. “Is there a problem with this?”

Andrew groaned, and buried his face.

“Huh.” Melissa grunted. “Well, I imagine several bronies just felt a ripple in the universe. Two ponies vying for your love? Cthulhu, why is that always the cliche? That is so stupid I wanna puke! There are so many fanfictions with this plot, and why are all the dimension hopping stories with that one too? All of them are like that. How is it that every single person involved in these situations.just happens to be a furry? Silva in Destroyermen made sense, one in nearly two-hundred guys, sure, but jeez, every single one? That’s so freaking weird, and so freaking cliched.”

Andrew looked up at her, scrunching up his face, “Really? That’s it?”

“I’m not a xenophobe. I have a crush on Garrus Vakarian, who am I to judge? My only problem is you dating one of my personal heroes.”

“Personal heroes?” Twilight asked, “What?”

“Forget about it.” she furrowed her brow and looked down at an interesting pebble on the ground. Strange, she wasn’t reacting more strongly. Something was wrong, something had changed in her gut.
“See you guys later…” she mumbled, stepping away.

Andrew made to follow her, concerned, but Twilight held him back.

Pinkie Pie noted the strange departure, watching the human move back to her carriage and collapse against it.
Is that normal? Humans always look like they’re going to fall over, I can never tell.

She watched in curiosity as the human slid down to the ground, putting her head between her knees. A clear case of some sort of sadness.
Immediately Pinkie was across the plaza, next to Melissa, and wondering why the human seemed to always jump out of her skin whenever she showed up.

“Quit freaking scaring me you pink pain in my goddamn ass!” she cursed, getting back up off the ground, “How do you even do that?!”

Pinkie replied, “Well, I won’t tell you if you’re rude! All I wanted to do was cheer you up, you seemed upset somehow.”

“And your response is to try and tele-frag me?”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow, “What’s that?”

“Ugh...never mind, what’d you want?”

“We haven’t heard human music before. How do you feel about dancing?”

Melissa thought for a moment, then shrugged, knowing better than to argue with the physics-defying creature, “Eh, I’m not doing anything else.”

Her brief depression gone, she rushed over to her car and pulled out her MP3 player and a speaker. She connected the two, and moved over to the DJ pony.

She reached up, tugged on the pony's headphones to get her attention.

After a quick conversation, DJ nodded, and turned off her own music. Melissa arranged her speaker near a bullhorn, and pressed the “play” button.

The speakers crackled, and unfamiliar instruments began to play. Melissa vaulted over the DJ platform, into a spot before it.
Lyrics of a song recorded thirty years previously on another world rang out across the plaza.
Grinning like a maniac, Melissa began to dance, bobbing back and forth as the drums battered away. She strung an air guitar as the real instrument began to squeal across the plaza. Several ponies, taken in by the music, quit staring and began to dance as well.

More ponies joined in. Several got up on their hind legs to try and imitate Melissa’s air guitar. Pinkie Pie leaped in next to Melissa, dancing in coordination with the human’s random motions.

A man named Stan Bush, thirty years younger, sang with clarity pony technology could not hope to match.

Melissa and Pinkie Pie began to sing along with the lyrics, breaking the air guitar and going into general dance.

Stan Bush was strumming an instrument that could not be built by Equestrian hooves for another ten years(without interference) at best.

Nearly the entire group of ponies attending broke their stares, and were dancing in similar fashion. Applejack and Rarity quickly made their way over, happy as could be dancing to the strange music. Pinkie and Melissa moved towards them as well.

It was The Touch, a song recorded for the 1986 Transformers film.

All four met in the center, dancing in coordination, rolling shoulders and bobbing their heads. Across the way, Andrew exited Twilight’s treehouse, searching for the source of the 80s music. His jaw dropped as he took in what was occurring before him.

“What...I don’t...How...What?” Andrew opened and closed his mouth, shaking his head in confusion.
He could not even begin to describe the spectacle before him. He had no idea where the music was coming from, where the fireworks were coming from, or why a musical was happening right befre his eyes.

Twilight Sparkle appeared next to Andrew. The biggest grin spread across her face as she jotted down notes.

She was just in time to see Rainbow Dash spiral around the other four, forming a rainbow-tornado.

When the drums began to slam in full, and Melissa mimed pounding away at them, as the rest of the group did so with their own instruments.

Andrew felt a strange tugging sensation. Almost as if he had to join in. He resisted as best he could.

The music slowed to the simple tones it had been at the beginning for a moment, and so did the dances...

...Until the electric guitar kicked back in, and then came the chorus.

They ended with a big finish, Pinkie and Rainbow leaning against each other to form a bridge, underneath which lay Melissa. Rarity and Applejack were on their knees in similar dramatic poses, and the rest of the population matched each pose exactly.

“...Power!” Melissa trailed off, and finally, the singing ceased.

“Nice music choice, Melissa!” Rainbow Dash complemented, giving her a friendly nudge, “I didn’t think anyone else liked that sort of thing!”

“Ah haven’t danced like that in forever,” Applejack commented, out of breath, “I haven’t even heard anything like that.”

“Whoo!” Melissa cried, still on the floor on her back, “Pony parties!”
Andrew strode up to the group as they continued to congratulate each other. “Uh oh, it’s the killjoy, girls!” Melissa giggled strangely as she attempted to get up.

“Melissa? Tell me what just happened.” Andrew calmly asked.

“Um...We were dancing?” Melissa raised an eyebrow at him, her words sticking together and clunky.

“...Awesomely!” Rainbow added, and they shared a bro-hoofed. Sloppily.

“In extremely coordinated dance moves. Almost as if you had been practicing.” Andrew pointed out.

“No, those were all spontaneous…” Melissa trailed off, and hiccuped, “Did we just have a spontaneous musical number?”

“Alien dances! Alien music!” Twilight made a squee sound as she continued to write, “So much data! I’m going to be analyzing this for weeks!”

“Melissa, Why aren’t you more worried about this?” Andrew demanded, “Spontaneous dancing!”

“Eh I’ll figure it out later…” She tried to pick herself up again, and staggered a little, leaning against Dash for support.

“Dashie, you have the cutest wings!” Melissa muttered. She stopped trying to get up, and leaned against Rainbow Dash, a goofy smile on her face as she stroked the blue pegasus’ wings, “So fluffy!”

“Um...Thanks?” Dash replied, confused.

“I love them...So much...And they smell nice too…” she fell to the ground again, hiccuping a bit.

“Mel, are you okay?” Dash asked, trying to get the human back to her feet.

“I feel great...You’ve always been important to me, Ms. X-15…” She ran a hand through Rainbow’s mane, “So tough...So pretty…Human or pegasus...”

“...Andrew?! Help!” Dash squeaked. Melissa was acting stranger by the second.

Andrew began to laugh, actually. “Oh my god, I think she’s drunk!”

“I love ya, Dashie...I love ya…”

“Definitely drunk.”

“Guys!?”

“But how?” Twilight wondered, a magical field dragging Melissa off Rainbow Dash, “She didn’t drink any cider, and isn’t acting like you did when you drank some, Andrew...”

Andrew scratched the back of his head as the Mane Six giggled. That incident was never to be mentioned again. “I think it was the dancing. I haven’t joined in any of your dances, so I wouldn’t know. But how was she acting before she started dancing?”

“Very polite.” Rarity reported, as Melissa mumbled words not to be repeated in present company.
“Coherent.” Applejack added, as the human garbled and snorted.

“...Quiet.” Fluttershy finished, as Melissa’s head went limp and she began to snore.

“So she wasn’t intoxicated before dancing...Then, that’s what did it? Dancing?” Twilight raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“It’s magic, so I guess anything’s possible.”

“Um...Excuse me…” Fluttershy interrupted, before the analysis could get much further, “What are we going to do about her?”

They settled for going to her Tesla, and putting her to sleep. Andrew figured she would rest better in a familiar place anyway. He fished out her keys, and unlocked the vehicle.

He rolled down the windows, and put the back seats down as Twilight carefully deposited Melissa on the makeshift bed. They located an emergency blanket, and placed it over her.
Pinkie found a NASA pillow in the front trunk, and pushed it under Melissa’s head.

“What are you staring at, Larry?” she muttered in her sleep as most of the gang walked away.

Thus ended Melissa Foster’s first 36 hours in Equestria. Collapsed in the back of her Tesla after a spontaneous dance number, mumbling references to an obscure 80s comic, while a magical butter-yellow pegasus keeps an eye on her.

No one noticed a tear trickling down the human's face.