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There are No Ponies in Equestria

by TheDriderPony


Chapters


No Ponies in the Castle

Five of the six Bearers of the Elements of Harmony sat in their respective thrones within the Castle of Friendship, patiently awaiting the last of their number. Some, more patiently than others.

"Where is she?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, breaking the silence that had filled the room ever since they had run out of new things to talk about some minutes ago. "Twilight said to be here at lunch and it's nearly an hour past and I'm starving!"

"Ah'm sure she's on her way, sugarcube," Applejack drawled from across the room. "Probably just got herself all wrapped up in some new project or other."

Spike nodded. "She was starting something new this morning and looked pretty eager about it. " He stood up suddenly from his courtesy mini-throne. "How about I go make us some snacks to tide us over?"

"Oh that would be lovely Spike, thank you ever so much," said Rarity, taking a moment to look up from the embroidery work she'd brought to pass the time with.

With a quick scurry of claws on crystal, the little dragon was out the door and down the labyrinthine hallways toward the kitchens. Meanwhile, Applejack shot Rarity a look.

"Rares, don't you think it's a mite shameful to keep usin' him like that?"

"What?" she asked innocently, "He offered."

Just then, the doors were blown open by a stressed-looking alicorn flying at high speed. She came to a screeching halt mere inches from hitting the table before launching into a verbal waterfall. "I'm so sorry everyone! I had my hands full with a new project and just got so completely wrapped up in it that I completely lost track of time! And just when it was starting to go well I found some new and novel bugs in the system and had to... to... Why are you all staring at me like that?"

A strange and unreadable set of expressions had settled over the faces of her friends. As with most silences, Rainbow Dash was the one to break it. "What do you mean by you having your 'hands full'?"

Twilight's eyes went wide as the pupils shrank. Despite this, she put on a tense smile as though nothing was wrong. "Hands? No, I said hooves. I had my hooves full."

"No," AJ countered, "You definitely said hands."

"Oh, maybe I did then." She laughed nervously, "Just a little slip of the tongue. Hands is... ah... a foreign word for forward grasping appendages. Like hooves. It's something of a regional term."

Applejack's eyebrow ascended skeptically. "Ahuh. What region?"

"The... minotaur lands. Yes. There."

"Really?" Fluttershy cut in, "Because in all the time I spent with Iron Will, I don't think he ever referred to what he had as anything but claws or graspers."

Once more Twilight seemed to seize in panic. "It... I... You see... ah fiddlesticks." She hung her head in resignation. "Well, I suppose now is a good a time as any. I've been putting it off far too long as it is."

Raising her head, Twilight walked to her seat at the table and stood in front of it. Though she held her stiffly, a small tremble of fear still made her legs quiver beneath her. With an audible gulp she swallowed back her reservations.

"Girls. My friends. I have a confession to make. This is something that is... rather difficult to share, and I hope that you won't hold it against me for hiding it for so long."

"Silly Twilight," Pinkie smiled as she gave her a comforting pat. "You're our friend! And there's nothing you could tell us that's going to change that." The rest were quick to agree.

"Darn right."

"Indeed."

"We got your back Twi, whatever it is!"

"Mhm."

Some confidence restored, Twilight took a deep breath and let it go slowly, letting some of the tension leaving her body with it. "Alright. Here goes. I... am not Twilight Sparkle."

For a second, no one moved. "Also not a changeling!" She added before anyone could misinterpret. "I am me, the pony who came to Ponyville and met you all and helped stop Night mare Moon, I just... wasn't always."

Silence continued to be the dominate force in the room as Twilight studied the expressions of her friends. Applejack was stonefaced, completely unreadable. Rainbow Dash was similar, but her twitchy wings betrayed her discomfort. Fluttershy had pulled even more of her mane in front of her face than usual, leaving almost nothing visible. Rarity was somewhere between disbelief and suspicion. Pinkie was... smiling? A wide smile too, one of her knowing grins. Why would she be smiling? Then again, it was Pinkie. She'd probably somehow known from the start.

Eventually, Rarity restarted the conversation. "That's... certainly a claim Twi- ...er, should I call you Twilight?"

The alicorn who was not Twilight nodded. "It's fine, I've been Twilight for so long that I'm comfortable with it."

"Hold on, back up." Rainbow Dash interrupted. "So... you're not Twilight?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Well, what happened to the real Twilight?"

She cringed at the implied meaning of her being the not-real Twilight. "I... don't know. Maybe I replaced her, maybe she never existed? If it makes you feel any better, none of you ever met her. I became Twilight before I came to Ponyville."

"Maybe you should start at the beginning," Applejack suggested reasonably, her face still a mask.

"Yeah, at the very beginning." Pinkie added with a giggle and a smirk.

"I- Alright. From the beginning then. Here goes. A long time ago, I was not a pony. None of you will have heard of it but I was a creature called a 'human'."

Somepony gasped under her breath and Twilight looked up but there was no indication who it had been. She continued.

"I had a boring and normal life for most of it, until one particular day in my early twenties. I was walking home when I saw this truck heading down the road, way too fast and out of control. The light at the crosswalk turned green, but no one moved... except for this little girl with headphone on. She didn't see the truck. So I did what anyone would do. I jumped in and pushed her out of the way. Unfortunately, there was no one to save me."

There was another gasp, and Twilight spotted this one. It came from Fluttershy, whose one visible eye was already glistening with moisture.

"I floated in darkness for a long time, or at least... I think so. Time was... strange. Then a voice came to me. It thanked me for saving the girl and apologized. It hadn't been my time to die yet. The voice said it couldn't send me home, but instead, it could send me to a new world. A world of magic and monsters and adventure, like the kind in stories. Naturally, I agreed. As a final farewell, the voice said it would bless me with incredible magic so that I could live a comfortable or adventurous life as I chose to."

Twilight took her seat heavily, a weight gone from her chest. "When I came to, I was in my chambers at Celestia's school and a few weeks later I was sent to Ponyville. And the rest, as they say, is history."

She raised a hoof and rotated it in front of her face. "Mind you, I never expected to be a pony. I had thought I'd stay human when I got wherever I was going."

"Well what'd you expect?" Pinkie asked, "With great power comes great nerfing. Imagine if you had magic and hands. Magic hands! You'd be unstoppable!"

Twilight couldn't help but crack a smile at her antics. And the distraction had eased her mind from the tenseness of the situation.

"Still," Pinkie continued, "I'm so glad you finally told everypony cause now I don't have to keep my 'Twilight finally reveals herself' cake on hand anymore, which is good cause that thing was getting staaale!"

"Pinkie, you knew?" she gasped.

The party planner shrugged. "Eh, wasn't that hard to figure out when you know Twilight like I do."

"This has to be the craziest thing I've ever heard." Rainbow Dash shook her head in disbelief. "You could make a book out of this. I bet it'd fly off the shelves."

"Pfft. I dunno," Pinkie replied easily, "The isekai genre is pretty oversaturated as it is."

That caught Twilight's attention. There were a lot of... inconsistencies about Pinkie Pie, both the one she had watched and the one she called her friend, but this was something she could not let slip past. "Pinkie... how to you know that word?"

"Surprise!" She declared as streamers and confetti rained from the ceiling. "It's actually a double reveal party! I get to use both my Twilight Reveals Herself cake and my Pinkie Reveals Herself cake!"

Twilight's eyes boggled. "Wha... Pinkie... Don't tell me you're-"

"A human too? You betcha!"

Twilight reeled back in shock, as did several other of her friends. Another human? In Equestria? And of all possibly ponies it was Pinkie Pie? Which, actually, explained quite a lot.

"Did you also get hit by a truck and meet a god?" she asked.

"Ha, nope!" Pinkie gigglesnorted, "I just bought a Pinkie Pie hair clip off this kinda creepy merchant at a convention. Next thing I know, Bam! Pow! Straight to the moon! Or rather, straight to the rock farm."

"Well that does explain your regular pop culture references..."

Oblivious to the emotional rollercoaster she was sending Twilight on, Pinkie addressed the seat across the table. "How about you Rarity? You wanna make this double reveal party a triple?"

The fashionista stammered and sputtered for a moment before settling down and sighing. "Well phoo. Way to out a girl, Pinkie."

"Hehe. Sorry."

"Rarity... you too?" Twilight's voice cracked.

"Yes, yes. Me too. Though I can't imagine how Pinkie knew."

"It's cause you have no fashion sense."

"Pinkie!" Twilight scolded.

"No, no, she's quite right." Rarity admitted. "I have no idea how fashion works. I just... throw stuff together and ponies keep buying it. Sometimes I try to remake things I remember watching the original Rarity make, but mostly it's just whatever colors look nice together."

"But you're a premier designer! You own multiple boutiques!"

"And I'm also a former geologist who toughed it out through six muddy years of college on four shirts, two pairs of pants, and five bras," she countered "Fashion is fine and all but you can't forget practicality."

Rarity sat back and lazily twirled a lock of mane in her magic. "I suppose since Pinkie already outed me I might as well share my story too, though I'll be brief. For a time, I lived in a rather large city with a not insignificant homeless population. One day, a scruffy man accosted me for some change. It was early, I was tired, and I was... rather rude towards him and said some very unkind things. Little did I know, he was a wizard. As I walked away, he cursed at me in a foreign language and said that he'd 'teach me a lesson about generosity'. Then I tripped and hit my head. When I woke up, I was Rarity as a filly, forehead still bleeding from smacking it into the boulder that led to her cutie mark."

She stopped twirling her now slightly knotted mane and turned pensive. "I've always assumed that the original Rarity died when she hit her head and my spirit took up residence. But given the sudden influx of other former humans, I'm beginning to have my doubts."

Twilight's mouth opened and closed uselessly. Rarity being another former human was one thing. After Pinkie, she could just about wrap her head around that. But finding out that Rarity isn't into fashion? It was unbelievable.

"But... if you don't like fashion, why are you so invested in it?"

"Because I'm Rarity," she replied, "And Rarity is the fashion horse. Remember I thought I was the only human here. I didn't want to disturb future events, so I played my part and acted the prissy fashionista, even when I had to cringe at my own ham-fisted acting or act ignorant when I knew how things would turn out."

"So you're really not into fashion?"

"I'm afraid not, but I do like the gemstones. You should see my basement sometime. Between crystal lenses and unicorn magic I have quite the expansive mining operation."

With a thunk, Twilight collapsed onto the table like a deflating bounce house with a person still inside. "I can't believe it. All this time, I thought I was so alone. And yet not one, but two of my friends were in the exact same boat as me and I never knew."

"Actually..." Twilight glanced up at the apple farmer sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck. "Since everybody else seems to be feeling particularly honest today, you'd better adjust that number to three."

"Applejack," Fluttershy whispered, "...your accent."

"Yeah, I've been faking it," She said as clearly and crisply as a spring brook. "I had to fit in with the rest of the family didn't I? Wouldn't make sense if one pony sounded different."

"So what's your story then?" Pinkie asked as she dolloped more green icing into a piping bag which sat next to a half-iced orange cake that read 'Applejack Rev-'.

Applejack removed her stetson and sat forward in her throne, hooves as arched as her eyebrows. "Technically, this should count as a national secret, but given the circumstances it's probably fine for me to tell you. To make a long story short, I used to work for a secret government lab. The type that makes America's Area 51 look like a public museum. Some project, not mine, a few rooms down from where I was working went haywire and exploded. There was a terrible noise, a flash of colors, and the next think I knew I was crash landing through the roof and into the hayloft of the Sweet Apple Acres barn. The rest of the family seemed to know me, so I played along. Did chores, put on the accent, and ate apples like everyone seemed to expect me to. And everything was fine and simple until Nightmare Moon showed up a year or two later."

"Oh, oh!" Pinkie interrupted, practically hopping out of her throne. "Since you used to be a scientist, did you build a super secret science bunker beneath your house like Rarity did with her mine and filled it with all sorts of advanced scientific equipment and technology?"

Applejack gave her a level look. "No. How on earth was I supposed to do that? Just because I used the tools doesn't mean I can make them. Besides, there aren't any circuit boards in Equestria let alone the facilities to manufacture them."

Meanwhile, Twilight turned to stare at Dash, making the pegasus ruffle her feathers uncomfortably. "What?"

"Just get on with it already, I'm not even fazed at this point." Twilight deadpanned.

"Alright, fine." Rainbow Dash finally stopped hovering and took a seat. "You can count me and Flutters in the former human club too. We already knew about each other."

"And with that," Pinkie smiled, "We've got the whole set!"

"So what's your story then?" Applejack asked, "Died? Cursed? Science gone wrong?"

"None of those. I remember I had just bought the latest and greatest VR headset. Top of the line, not even on the market yet. My uncle knew a guy in the industry. I got home, plugged it in, turned on the demo. A big splash of color fills my face and suddenly I'm on top of a cloud about to race some bite-size bullies with rainbow hair in my eyes. No VR I'd done had ever managed to pull off flight before, but this one did it great! Responsive, so intuitive, and as realistic as you could ask for. Then Fluttershy fell and I went to catch her cause I figured it was a starting quest. Took me two days of flying and goofing off before I realized I couldn't log out." She shrugged, "And I've been here ever since."

"So... you thought this is a video game?"

"Eh, maybe? I could also be in a coma. Don't really care because either way I've been having a pretty great time."

"But... a video game?"

"I was on a nature hike... " Fluttershy murmured, "I got separated from the teacher and the rest of the group. It started to rain so I went into a cave. It was dark and I tripped and I fell and fell and fell. There was this bright light beneath me, and a few minutes late Fluttering Breeze gave birth to me.

"Ew," Pinkie declared as she began mixing a batch of yellow icing. "TMI, Fluttershy. TMI."

"You properly reincarnated," Rarity commented with a small noise of surprise. "You've actually been Fluttershy from the very beginning."

"Mhm. Also, when I was still human I used to have terrible equinophobia, so being Fluttershy has really helped with that. Sort of."

A loud smacking noise drew everyone away from the smaller conversations they had started to drift into. It was Twilight, smacking her head on the table over and over, using the staccato beat to punctuate each word.

"Literally. This. Whole. Time. Everyone. Was. A. Human."

She sat back up, an angry red welt already beginning to heal. "And here I am! Having run myself ragged trying to make sure we stick to show canon and I don't disrupt anything, when it literally didn't matter because literally everyone already knew what was going to happen!"

"You're not alone in this Twilight, " Rarity said comfortingly, "We've all been putting on personas to try and maintain the canon. Although," she laughed nervously, "Admittedly I only watched up to season five, so I've been winging it since then."

"Season seven," Fluttershy admitted.

"I only watched it with my daughter on occasion, so all I had was a scattering of episodes," Applejack added.

"I have no idea what you're all talking about now."

Five sets of eyes turned to Rainbow Dash. "The show?" Twilight prompted, "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Where all these characters and their adventures take place?"

"Never heard of it."

"Wait," said Applejack, "So you haven't been acting like a tough, sporty, flying-obsessed braggart just to stay in character?"

"Uh, no? I've just been me. And don't diss flying. Flying is awesome."

"Huh. Go figure."

"To be fair," Pinkie added, "I was basically a lot like best pony even before I became her. I just ham it up a bit for canon adventures."

"So now that we know we're all humans," Applejack asked, "What do we do with this information?"

Rarity shrugged. "I guess we can stop putting on airs? Start being true to ourselves and all that."

Applejack eased back down into her chair and reapplied her hat. "I guess. Though I've been in character for so long, I know some of it's melted into my actual personality by this point." Such as how wrong it felt to not have a hat on.

Pinkie was just about to comment when she noticed a curious expression on Twilight's face. "Twilight? Are you okay?"

The faraway look faded from her eyes as Pinkie Pie's comment brought her back down. "Huh? Oh, yes. I am. I just... now that I know I'm not the only human in Equestria, a lot of small inconsistencies I've noticed are starting to come together into a much bigger picture."

"How do you mean?"

But Twilight didn't respond as within her head, gears and cogs were meshing together like never before, connecting together memories of odd Freudian slips and unusual mannerisms. "I need Spike," she announced at last, "I need to send a letter to the Princesses."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Fluttershy ventured, "What if the princesses think we're crazy?"

"Or possessed?"

"Or changelings?"

"Or possessed by crazy changelings?"

The alicorn just shook her head. "If I'm right, and more than ever I think I am, they won't. Spike!" She hollered down the hallway.

"Coming!" Echoed back after a moment, soon followed by the familiar clicking of claws on crystal. He came around the corner with a huge tray of delicious-looking sandwiches, crusts pre-removed. "It's not much, but it should hold us over until- oh hey Twilight."

"Spike," she said, suddenly serious, "I have something very important to ask you."

He nodded. "Shoot."

"Did you used to be a human?"

The dragon froze. His eyes darted between the six sets watching him in a remarkably similar reaction to Twilight's own several minutes before.

"H-human? I, uh, don't know what you mean."

"It's alright Spike," Pinkie called, "Twilight used to be one herself."

"We all did," Rarity added.

His eyes focused on her. "Rarity? You... used to be a human?"

She nodded, and the dragon sank to the floor. A moment later, he jumped back up with a fist pump."Yahoo! Oh yes, finally!" He continued as he transitioned into his happy dance. "So long species barrier! Oh you have no idea how happy this makes me!"

"I think we've got some idea," Pinkie giggled.

Twilight merely rolled my eyes. "I take it that's a yes then?"

Remembering himself, Spike ceased his dance. "What? Oh, yeah. I used to be a human." He made a small bow. "Michael Smith, pleasure to finally meetcha."

She nodded in response. "Jack Kirby."

"Mary Brown," said Rarity.

"Cherie Clarke", Pinkie added, "Though 'Pinkie' is still fine."

"I don't remember," said Fluttershy.

"Johanna Schmidtt," said Applejack, "I'm also fine with my pony name."

"Chad Kaschak," Rainbow Dash declared as though she were announcing a prize winner.

"Oh, she was a guy." Pinkie muttered in realization, "That explains so much."

While the introductions had been going on, Twilight had scribbled out a quick scroll and wrapped it up. "Anyway, I need you to send a letter to the Princesses."

"Before that," Spike cut her off, "If we're doing secrets then I've got another one to tell, which I now feel a lot better about sharing since we're all people."

"What, are you a changeling?" Rainbow Dash snorted.

"Ha ha, yeah," he laughed as green fire consumed him, "I guess it was pretty obvious in hindsight."

The whole group fell back in panic, the less combat-savvy ponies hiding behind their thrones while the rest took up fighting stances. Twilight found herself stuck in the middle.

"Spike!" Twilight cried, "You're a changeling!"

"Uh, yeah?" the changeling said with Spike's voice, "I thought we just agreed that everypony knew that."

"I was joking!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"How long have you been a changeling?!" Twilight demanded, thoughts of humanity dashed as they were replaced with worry over the safety of her precious friend and assistant.

"Since ever?"

That brought her up short. "Ever?"

"Yeah, since always," he confirmed, "When I landed in Equestria, I was already disguised as a dragon egg in a storeroom. A couple hours later I was taken to a testing room and faked a hatching when you showed up. You're welcome, by the way. That light show was not easy to pull off."

"So you've always been a changeling?" she clarified, finding herself more open to believing the unbelievable today, "There never was a Spike the Dragon?"

"I've looked, but never found a trace of him." He chuckled to himself. "Man, and here I was thinking that the green fire was a dead giveaway."

"Wait, a second," Applejack cut in with a worried expression, "Do the other changelings know? That you're a human?"

"Oh yeah, totally. You know, hivemind and all. Also," he turned to Twilight, "Sorry about Cadence's wedding and everything I said and did there. I didn't like throwing you in the caves, but I had to stick to the script, you know."

"What?" Twilight asked in confusion, "But that was Chrysalis, not you."

"Didn't I make that clear? Hivemind. One consciousness, lots of bodies."

"You mean..."

He nodded. "I'm all the changelings. From Chrysalis to Thorax to Ocellus, they're all me."

"Wait, even-"

"Yes Pinkie, even him," he said with a slight blush that was quickly out-classed by Pinkie's beet-red full-face flush of embarrassment.

"Well that is... a lot to take in and process," Twilight said slowly, "But that also seems to be the theme of the day so moving on!" She held up a scroll. "Can you still send a letter to the Princesses?"

"Oh sure." With a flash, he was a dragon again, and one puff of fire later, the letter was on it's way.

"What did you send them?" Rarity asked.

"Well, you see, I remembered noticing some strange things in old equestrian law and and ancient diplomatic treaties. A lot of particular phrases that kept cropping up. I thought it was just cosmic coincidence before, but now I have my suspicions it may have been more than that."

"You think ones of the princesses might be, you know, like us as well?" Fluttershy asked hopefully.

Twilight nodded. "It's a possibility, though I don't know which princess it might be. So I sent them a very particular passage that, if I'm right, at least one of them will recognize immediately and let us know. And if not, I can claim it's some scribblings I didn't mean to send."

Rainbow Dash scoffed. "I don't buy it. What could you possibly have written that could out them so easily?"

Twilight gave a sly smile and began reciting.

"Space," she quoted, "The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship: Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore brave new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To-"

"TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE!" Luna finished at full royal Canterlot volume as she teleported into the room with a shimmer of rainbow sparkles. Rather than her usual regalia, she wore a fitted yet unmistakable uniform consisting of a yellow shirt with gold rimmed cuffs and black pants. She embraced the younger princess the moment she finished materializing.

"Oh, Twilight I'm so glad! I knew we'd find someone, somewhere who'd get our message and what providence it happened to be you!"

"Star Trek?" Applejack asked incredulously. "You got her to admit herself with Star Trek?"

Through her smooshed face, Twilight managed to reply, "You should read the early Equestrian diplomatic proclamations when you get a chance. They cribbed most of it from the Prime Directive, not a small amount verbatim."

"It's in the tax code too." Luna broke off her hug. "You'll find quite a bit of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition there." In an instant, Applejack found herself wrapped in royal blue magic and soon after, royal blue forelegs. "Dear Applejack, you as well? You get my reference?"

"I'm pretty sure most of us get it, Princess." Rainbow Dash confirmed with a smirk. "Though I would have gone with Star Wars."

"Or maybe Battlestar Galactica," Fluttershy voted softly.

"Farscape!" Pinkie contributed.

"You would say that," Rarity countered, "Though it's really just a reimagining of Buck Rogers."

Tears crested the edge of Luna's eyes. "You... all of you? You're all from Earth?"

"That's right. Humans every one." Spike said through bites of his sandwich.

She released Applejack from her death grip and spread her forelegs wide as if to encompass the whole group at once. "Oh how wonderful! After so long alone! If only my sister-"

"TO BOLDLY GO WHE- hang on... Luna! I told you to wait for me! I had to find my pips!"

Princess Celestia's outfit was much like her sister's, only it was one piece with red instead of yellow and six little metal pips on the collar.

"Celestia, you too?" Twilight asked.

"Yes Twilight." Luna said gravely," I'm sorry to have to tell you, but your beloved teacher," she dropped to a harsh whisper, "Is a total nerd!"

Celestia gave her a shove. "Like you're any better Miss 'Let's put fandom references in legal documents and treatsies!'"

"Well it worked, didn't it? Behold!" She spread her forelegs wide once more, "Finally more transformed humans!"

Celestia's eyes went wide. "The Elements? All of them?"

"And me." Spike added, "Or, you know, just forget Spike. That's how it works in canon after all." They ignored him.

Celestia walked to her student's side. "Twilight, why did you never tell me you used to be a human?"

"How would I possibly start that conversation?"

"I suppose that's fair."

"And what about you!" Twilight rebutted, "How long have you been Celestia?"

"About," her expression turned quizzical. "Five hundred years, give or take. Right, Luna?"

"I'd say closer to six, but thereabouts. And no, we don't know what happened to the Celestia and Luna who defeated Discord or existed for the four centuries after that."

"So how did you two get here?" Pinkie asked as she pulled yet another two color-coordinated reveal cakes from nowhere.

The two eldest alicorns shared a look. "Just like we rehearsed?"

"It's been decades since we've practiced, but of course."

"To begin with," Celestia started, "We are in fact sisters, even before all this."

"Indeed. Long before now, we both were-" she paused, "Given the circumstances, I think we can amend out the explanation about humans and earth and other dimensions."

"Good point." Celestia sighed dramatically, "So much for the routine we've been readying for centuries."

"Anyways, it all happened when my sister and I were going to a convention."

"I was taking a semester off college and it was her high school's Spring Break."

"One of the big things at the convention was a Star Trek event. Some decade anniversary, I forget which."

"Aside from countless actors and writers attending, they also had recovered a lot of the original sets and props."

"So my sister and I, being the hardcore nerds we were, wanted a photo standing on the bridge."

"But the line was too long, so we went to the transporters first."

"Just as we got into position and the photographer asked if we were ready, the convention center was struck by a bolt of lightning."

"All the lights went out, except for the prop ones on the transporter console, which only seemed to get brighter."

"There was a bright flash, and suddenly we were in the Canterlot Observatory tower, winged and horned and hooved."

"That was a couple centuries ago," Celestia concluded their dialogue, "And we've been living as the Princesses ever since."

"So does this mean I don't have to call you 'Princess" anymore?" Applejack asked, "Since, y'know, you're not? And because of how were all so much closer now?"

The Royals shrugged. "We could care less," Luna replied, "We tried to get Twilight to stop for nearly two seasons after she ascended, but years of hero worship and fangirlism is hard to break."

Silence fell in the room.

"So..." Celestia ventured, uncharacteristically short of words, "We never actually planned on what to do next after we found some more humans. Any ideas what we should do now that all this is out in the open?"

A contemplative silence filled the room. "Drink?" Pinkie offered as she pulled a long bottle out of her mane. "I have strawberry schnaaaaaaps~!"

"...Sure," Luna agreed easily, "I haven't gotten proper drunk in decades."

"I guess it's fine," Twilight relented, "It's not like we need to try and preserve a timeline anymore."

"Sounds like a party," Spike said, "I'll bring over some stuff from Berry's Tavern."

"Spike!" Twilight chastised reflexively, "You're not old enough to drink. Or... I guess... huh. Maybe you are."

"Y'know, I'm probably older than you Twilight."

"Enough talking!" Rainbow Dash complained, "Toss me that bottle Pinks! This is an awesome day and I just found out that all my best friends are as awesome as I secretly was! It's time to celebrate the human way: with booze!"

Caught up in her energy, the rest cheered along as she bit off the bottle cap and began to chug like the frat boy she had once been.


Author's Note

...I don't know what this is. I don't even know what genre to tag it as.
It's not a story, not really. It's just... a thing. A thing that exists.
A stream-of-consciousness idea that wouldn't leave me alone yesterday.
Probably be another chapter tomorrow, but I have no idea after that what this is or where it's going.
Also might go back and give this a thorough overhaul at some point, as it is very stream-of-consciousness.

No Ponies in the Town

Wow, this has gotten rather more attention than I expected. I'll have to see if I can do something about that.

Also, thanks to my goof of not rereading, in order to rectify a continuity error that several people have pointed out, Rarity's human name has been retconned from 'Matthew' to "Mary".


No Ponies in the Town

"So you really were never on the moon?" Spike asked as he refilled Luna's cup. The booze had flowed freely amidst no less than nine cakes, and after the first few rounds and toasts the recently united humans had broken into smaller groups for more personal conversations.

"No, but I knew I couldn't show my face. Timeline preservation and all that. So I studied transformation magic and spent a few centuries travelling the world and having adventures under various pseudonyms." She gave him a wink. "You should check out the journeys of the adventurer Undaunted Moon. Some of my best work."

"Another fandom reference?" he smirked.

"Of course." She took a long pull from her drink, a dark stout from Minos, and released a small sound of satisfaction. "Mm. Delicious."

"Thanks." Spike took a quaff of his own. "It's a real pain to import, but it helps when you have connections all over the country."

Luna shook her head in tipsy disbelief. "I still find it hard to believe that's you're actually a changeling. Sorry, all of the changelings."

"You think pretending to be one pony is hard?" he laughed, "Try pretending to be a thousand at once, then we'll talk. But I guess that's what I get for ignoring the 'Do Not Touch' signs in that museum."

"Do you think you could... ah..." the alicorn swirled her drink as she stalled, but Spike caught her drift.

"Sure. It's no problem. What pony do you want to see?"

Luna blushed, turning her cheeks purple. "C-Chrysalis..."

Spike raised an eyebrow, but complied. One swirling vortex of green flame later and Luna found herself muzzle to muzzle with a black predatory grin.

"This what you wanted?" the Queen asked in her multi-tonal voice.

"Haahoooh... that's hot," Luna shuddered, a tingling sparkler travelling down her spine.

Spike-Chrysalis blinked and gave herself a once over. "Really? This?"

"Hey, you try living for a few hundred years and see if your tastes don't turn exotic." She reached a hoof out as though to touch, but stopped an inch short. "Could I...?"

"Yes, I already said you cou- oof!" the changeling gasped as the air was suddenly and forcefully crushed from her lungs by a bear hug.

"Mm, you're so smooth and cool," Luna purred as she practically nuzzled the chitinous chest.

"I'm... glad you like it?" Spike replied, his voice slipping back to 'young dragon mode' in surprise.

"No, stay in character. Be cold to me."

Collecting himself, Spike looked away and forced a blush as he spoke again in the queen's voice. "F-fine. Hug me if you want. It's not like I l-like the taste of your love or anything, fool."

"Ohoho yes. That, more of that."

Across the room, Twilight and Celestia watched the pair over a couple of glasses of red wine. "They certainly seem to be getting along well."

"Indeed." Celestia took another sip from her glass, savoring the flavor. "It's too bad Cadence isn't here. She's just as much of a shipper as you'd expect a fangirl turned Princess of Love to be. Though she was always a proponent of Chrysentry, but Lunalis was a close second."

"Cadence too? Why am I not surprised." Twilight was beyond disbelief. At this point it would be harder to convince her that one of her friends wasn't a human.

"Yes, her and your brother. They came over as a pair." She lit her horn and cast a small hologram-like illusion as she spoke. "From what she told me, they were on a date at Coney Island. Just before they were going to go home, they decided to ride a slightly sketchy-looking Tunnel of Love. They entered the tunnel as humans in Coney Island, New York... and came out the other side as ponies in Poney Island, Manehattan."

"As least they still had each other's company," Twilight mused, her mind still easily drifting back to those countless sleepless nights spent wrestling with the crushing thought of never seeing or talking to another human again.

"Though they weren't very good at hiding it," Celestia commented, "I had them figured out in two weeks. Shining Armour had never seen the show, you see, and one of their pet names was a Disney reference."

"Celes- Cassandra," Twilight corrected herself as she interrupted.

"Celestia's fine," she said with a wave, "Or even just Celly. I've been that a lot longer than I was Cassie."

"...Celestia," Twilight settled, not quite ready to cross that bridge of familiarity yet, "What do we do now?"

"Get another bottle?"

"No, I mean in general. The odds of all us being secretly humans must be astronomical."

"We are main characters," Celestia pointed out.

"True, but hear me out. If there are this many of us, who's to say there might not be more.

That gave the Princess pause. She set down her glass. "That is a sobering thought. To think that there could still be others out there, living like we were. Alone and pretending to be some pony that they're not just to avoid rocking the boat."

Twilight nodded. "I can even think of few offhand that might be humans."

"Really? Who?"

"Flim and Flam for one, and Vinyl Scratch for another."

"What makes you suspect them?"

Twilight sat up a little straighter as she instinctively shifted into lecture mode. "Their technology mostly. You've seen the show. Don't you think their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy seemed a little too advanced for this pseudo-medieval world? It was powered by magic, sure, but aside from the train every other form of transportation is pony-powered. They not only built a car, but built a whole automated factory within it. And Vinyl Scratch is along the same lines. She not only invented techno music, but also all the equipment needed to make it exist? You don't make the jump from Victrola records to digital turntables with amps and electric speakers in one move. And who invents a microphone when voice charms are a beginner level spell?"

"Those are very valid points." Celestia sighed and filled her glass again, to the brim. "Points which would rule out my main character theory. The brothers are minor villains, but Vinyl is a confirmed background pony. If we include them, then any pony might be a human. The gates are open, as it were."

"An if there are more humans out there," Twilight stressed, "We can't just leave them alone and isolated like we were. Even if it's just one or two, we need to reach out, find a way to help them. Something like a support group, if nothing else."

"I agree, but how would we find them? You and your friends are as close as can be, yet not one of you picked up on the others' vestiges of humanity."

Twilight stood and began to pace. Partially because she could feel the wine muddling her thoughts slightly, and partially because she always found the ticking staccato beat of hooves on crystal to be an excellent metronome to getting her thoughts in order. "We need... a question. Something that would be obvious to any human, but that no pony would be able to answer."

Celestia tracked her with her eyes as she found the safest route between bottles and cake. "You mean like who was George Washington? Something like that?"

Twilight shook her head. "No, we can't assume that they're from America. Applejack is apparently a native German, after all."

"Hm. Something that not only would every human know, but that also only humans would know? Sounds like a zen riddle."

Twilight continued her pacing as her thoughts turned inward, saving precious time by not saying them aloud. Something that only humans would know. History? It would vary by region and spotty education systems. Language? The same problem. The universal language of memes? A possibility, but one which too was hampered by their short shelf life and patchy recognizability.

As she still struggled to come up with an idea, she found herself distract by noise. Across the room, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and two changelings in Spike form were arguing over the lyrics to a drinking song. In this case, 'arguing' meant that each of them were trying to sing what they thought was the correct verse louder than the others were, as if mere volume would prove their point.

And then Twilight got an idea. Something so universal, so well-known, that no human could resist it.


The populace of Ponyville did not know why they had been gathered to the center of town. But two of the Princesses were there, as well as all the Elements of Harmony, so it had to be important. Plus, several of their neighbors had seemed oddly insistent in making sure that absolutely everypony turned up for the meeting.

"And so," Celestia concluded, wrapping up her unnecessarily verbose introduction where she'd thanked everyone for coming out, "In light of some recent revelations, we have a question to ask you all, citizens of Ponyville. A question which we hope you will answer honestly."

The princess cleared her throat, doubled-checked her voice amplification spell, and took a deep breath.

"Is this the real life?" she asked, "Is it just fantasy?"

"Caught in a landslide," Luna added, "No escape from reality."

"Open your eyes," Twilight pleaded, "Look up to the sky and see..."

Suddenly, a voice rang out from the crowds. "I'm just a poor boy," sang Thunderlane in his rich tenor, "I need no sympathy."

Then another voice joined in. "Becauthe ith's eathy come," it was the filly, Twist, "Eathy go."

"A little high," contributed Bon Bon.

"Little low," finished Lyra with a wide grin and not-so-subtle rump bump.

"ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS, DOESN'T REALLY MATTER TO MEEE..." bellowed Bulk Biceps, "TO MEEEEEE...!"

By the time they'd gotten to Scaramouch, it seemed like the whole crowd was singing in chorus. Lightning flashed at the appropriate time as the crowd split into two groups for the call and response portion. But this was no Heartsong, no Moment of Harmony. No unseen instruments joined in their song save for a long guitar a stallion had already had with him. Everypony knew what to sing, not because the force of harmony whispered it in their ears, but because they already knew the lyrics.

In time, the song ended, as all songs must. Sweetie Belle beautifully soloed the final 'Anywhere the wind blows' and silence returned to the town square. Everyone certainly had some idea of what had just happened, but no one wanted to be the first to say anything just in case they were wrong.

"Right then," Luna declared as she stepped forward and took charge."Now that you all probably have some idea as to what's going on, will anybody who was not, in some way, shape, or form, previously a human being, please raise your hoof."

There was a pregnant pause as everypony waited, their eyes ever anxiously shifting to the ponies around them. One second. Two. Three. No hooves were going up.

Noticing Luna's jaw hanging uselessly, Twilight stepped up to the plate. "Alright, that's... more than we'd counted on. Okay, next question. Please raise your hoof if you are familiar with a television program called: My Little Pony. Specifically the rebooted Friendship is Magic version."

And suddenly there was a forest. Not all the hooves were raised but it was certainly no less than three quarters of the crowd. There was another momentary pause as everypony took acknowledged the sight... and then the mob descended into cacophonous chaos as the floodgates broke. Countless conversations flowed over top of each other like an avalanche of shock, surprise, and joyous relief.

"You're a human?"

"Yes! Well, I was."

"Me too!"

"You're not really Lotus?"

"No, my name is Charles, and I have no idea how to massage."

"Yeah, I could have told you that."

"I hate growing flowers! It's so boring!"

"Then why are you a flower vendor?"

"Cause look at me! I'm one of the flower trio! That's what they do."

"And I hate retail! In a world of magic and monsters, why am I still bagging produce?!"

"I'm so sorry. I know I've been pretending to be your husband, but I have no idea what your first name is."

"That's okay, I don;t know yours either."

"All of you were humans and you never told anyone?!"

"What would I say?"

"They'd think I was crazy."

"I thought it was a dream."

"A coma."

"A parallel timeline."

"An alternate dimension."

"So this isn't a holonovel?"

"And besides, I didn't want to break canon."

"...couldn't change the timeline."

"...didn't want to mess up the future."

"...ruin the show."

Some ponies, rather than react in mere surprise, had skipped ahead right to anger. The first was the piebald colt, Pipsqueak, who stepped forward and declared in a loud yet adorably squeaky voice, "I am a forty-five year old veteran and I demand a beer!"

He was quickly joined by a blue colt of similar age. "Yeah! And a release from the education system! I didn't go to college just to go back to elementary school!"

Elsewhere in the crowd, a maneless green stallion in a fine business suit with an questionable expression voiced his complaints as well. "You all knew! I've been a living, breathing meme for four years and you all knew and none of you said anything!"

"Stop making Dr. Who references at me!" Time Turner yelled at the group of ponies all trying to speak to him at once. "I know this character is a reference, but I never saw that show! Blast it, I'm a gym instructor, not the Doctor!"

"Quiet down, all of you!" Luna roared, easily overpowering the crowd into silence. "Yes, there are a lot of changes that are going to happen now. A lot of adjustment as ponies- no, people, stop playing a role and start living authentically. But we cannot give in to chaos. To do this we need to cooperate. So the important question is: what are we going to do now?"

"No Pinkie, we are not going to keep drinking." Pouting, the pink mare pushed back in the bottle she'd been pulling from her tail.

"Princess! Princess!" There was movement among the crowd which after a moment resolved itself into a pony pushing their way forward. After a long minute of struggling, she reached the front, falling on the ground as she did so.

"Yes, what is it?" Celestia addressed her. "Golden Harvest, isn't it?"

The mare nodded as she stood and dusted herself off. "Yes, though, I'd prefer Dennis now that everything's out in the open."

"Of course Dennis."

Dennis cleared her throat. "Princess, I know the pony I've been playing is a farmer, but really I'm an electrical engineer with over thirty years of practical experience in electronics manufacturing. If you give me a team and a budget, I think I can kick-start Equestria's Information age within five years."

"Done," Luna answered immediately."Come to Canterlot in a couple days and we'll get everything sorted."

As though the clouds had parted to reveal the sun, Celestia suddenly had a vision of the future as clear as day. Not a true prophetic vision, as she'd often faked to explain away her knowledge of future canon events, but a vision nonetheless. An idea of what could be done with the powerful union of human knowledge and Equestrian magic.

"Listen to me!" She yelled to gather the attention of those whose focus had begun to wander, "Our humanity may be gone, stripped away from us by force or chance, but that does not mean we are not still human. Each of us carries within ourselves a portion of humanity. Music and art, culture and technology! If we work together, if we combine the best of what made us human with the best of what we loved about ponies, then we can rebuild! If we can't return to our world, then we'll rebuild our world right here! Who's with me!"

The roaring cheer was deafening. Be they humans or ponies, everybody loves a powerful and dramatic speech.

Catching her sister's drift, Luna raised her voice so the crowd could hear her over their ongoing cheer. "If anyone else has a skill, talent, or life experience that they feel may be put to use in rebuilding a portion of our former human lives, please come to Canterlot in three days time to submit your proposals."

True to the nature of humans, they all ignored her instructions and began yelling out their ideas over top of one another.

"I was in Special Forces!" declared Mrs. Cake, "I can reform and modernize our military so we'll be prepared this time for that horrible event that happened in the final season!"

"Pencils!" another pony exclaimed, "I developed a spell that can convert raw wood and diamonds into pencils. Think about it! No more ink! No more quills! No more insufferable quill feathers that you can't pick off your tongue because you don't have fingers!"

"I know Python!" possibly the most unhelpful pony shouted, "If you make me a computer, then I can write some programs for... things!"

It was all too much. The crowd was on the fast track to evolving to a proper mob, and Celestia was just about to break out her Royal Canterlot Voice to shut the entire show down when she suddenly realized that there was a pony by her side. She had neither seen nor heard him arrive, and his deep crimson cloak did not look like it had just squeezed through a crowd. The cloak and its hood also served to effectively hide absolutely everything about his identity. Yet, even without speaking, he seemed to give off a foreboding aura that not just she, her sister, and the Elements could feel, but was strong enough to make even the closest edge of the crowd quiet down in apprehension.

"Princesses. Elements." His voice was as plain and featureless as a field of snow, giving nothing away, yet it seemed to easily cut through the noise of the crowd. "If I may speak with you. Privately."

The two primary princesses shared a look, one which passed the kind of meaning that could only be developed after many many years. Whatever their look had discussed, Luna apparently agreed with a quiet huff and a nod. In a flash of light, Celestia teleported all of them away, save Luna, leaving her sister behind to corral the enthusiastic crowd and, hopefully, convince them to return to some semblance of normal life, if only for the time being.

She would not be successful. There would be no going back to 'normal life'. Not after this.

No Ponies in the Land

With a flash of light, one princess, six elements, and one mysterious stranger teleported back into the throne room of the Palace of Friendship. The seven known ponies were quick to distance themselves from the stranger, though his aura had diminished greatly. If he cared about their trepidation, he did not show it.

"My apologies for the theatrics," he said with a small nod of a bow, "But I felt that this was a conversation better held away from prying ears.

Celestia took the lead. "Who are you then?"

"And what do you want?" Twilight supplemented.

"All reasonable questions, but first, I'm afraid I have one of my own." He paused. No one could see his eyes, but they generally assumed that he was fixing them with a level stare. "Were you all really humans? Really?

"Uh, doy?" Dash scoffed, "Did you not see that whole show out there? Though I still say Gangnam style would have been a better choice."

"Too niche." Twilight insisted, clearly not for the first time. "No one over thirty would have gotten it. Bohemian Rhapsody is known across a much wider sampling of ages and countries."

The stallion seemed hesitant for a moment, but then nodded. "Alright. I'll accept that as confirmation of humanity." He chuckled. "It feels a bit pointless to say this now, but tradition is tradition, so without further ado... Welcome to Eeeeeeeeequestria!"

With a dramatic disrobing worthy of Team Rocket, the stallion whipped off his cloak to reveal-

"Braeburn!?"

The yellow stallion laughed merrily. "Yes! It is I! Braeburn! Everyone's favorite secondary character! But not just Braeburn! Due to an unfortunate accident, I am also Jeremy Higgins, former human and official greeter for newly arrived humans in Equestria and its surrounding principalities!"

He glanced from his dramatic pose to the nonplussed expressions of his audience. "Hm. Usually that gets a bigger reaction."

"It might have if we hadn't revealed ourselves to each other already," Fluttershy said.

"Touché. I suppose this isn't your first rodeo after all. See what I did there? Rodeo? Cause I'm-"

"We get it."

Braeburn cleared his throat and recomposed himself. "Right. Sorry. Sometimes I get a bit too into character. I used to be a greeter at a theme park. Hard to shake old habits. Anyway, today I stand before you as an official representative of the secret society known as the Red Fist."

"The Tirek-worshiping cult?" Celestia asked, her voiced colored by both confusion and concern. "I thought they disbanded years ago."

"Oh they did, they did," he assured, "About the time it turned out Tirek was real and subsequently attacked everyone. No, we just co-opted their name and logo. Plus all these nice cloaks they left behind."

"We should probably actually check on him," Twilight mused absentmindedly, "Given the situation, he may have been as much of a victim of circumstance as anyone. Spike, could you-"

"Already on it." He said without moving from his chair. No doubt one of his other bodies was already en route to Tartarus. Such was the benefit of a hivemind.

"Origins of our current name aside," Braeburn said, "We are a clandestine society of ponies from all across Equestria who all share a common bond."

"And what would that be?" asked Applejack, though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer, given how the day had been going.

"That all of our members used-."

"That you were all humans?" Pinkie interrupted him eagerly. He gave her a look.

"Yes. Thanks."

"Called it!" Dash whispered to Rarity, who grumblingly handed over a small sack of bits.

"There's a whole secret society of former humans?" Dash continued after pocketing her winnings. "Are you like... the Illuminati of Ponies? Secretly controlling the government from the shadows and stuff?"

He cringed for some reason at her comment. "Actually-"

"Nah, I bet it's more of a support group." Pinkie interrupted once more, "Spotting new arrivals, helping them make the transition to pony life, getting them jobs or filling them in on upcoming canon events they need to be wary of. That sort of thing."

"Are you sure she's human?" Braeburn asked nopony in particular as he narrowed a suspicious gaze at the pink pony. "Because she's behaving an awful lot like Pinkie Pie."

"Yep! 100% all-natural home-grown human!" Pinkie assured, "Or maybe fifty percent. Or maybe ten? What percentage of you is your brain? Unless we're just counting the soul, in which case I have no clue how much of a percent the soul is."

"I'll vouch for her." Rarity stepped forward. "She's just... naturally very in tune with the character."

"Pinkie's a fun person to be," Pinkie agreed. "Given the choice, why would you choose not to be Pinkie?"

After considering it for a moment, Braeburn blew out in his lips in exasperation. "Fine. Whatever. Just stop cutting me off. Getting back on track, there's actually at least two secret societies that we know of, but it's been a long time since we've heard anything from-

"Princess!" A new voice burst in. Moments later it was followed by a grey coated pegasus bodily bursting in through the window. Derpy Hooves had arrived on the scene.

Like Braeburn with his red cloak, Derpy wore a uniform of her own consisting of a golden newsboy cap with a yellow triangle on the brim and a matching vest with a triangle-decorated hem. "Hello Princesses or whomever you actually are," she said cheerily, "I'm here to represent a secret society of ponies who used to be humans."

"Oh great," Braeburn grumbled, "They actually did have someone in the area."

Celestia's eyes slid sideways to meet with Twilight's. The situation was rapidly growing larger than either of them had anticipated. But at least for once all their problems and complications were announcing themselves. "And what is your group called?"

"We are-"

"Here it comes," Braeburn cringed.

Derpy rose up onto her hind hooves and struck a bipedal pose with her elbows akimbo and her hooves connected over her head. "The Illumi-not-a-pony!"

Braeburn smacked himself in the face, as did Twilight. "Really?" she asked, "Really?"

"Hey, I didn't name it." Derpy shrugged as she dropped back down on to all fours. "That's what our founder called it over a hundred years ago."

Braeburn sniffed disdainfully. "Which just goes to show that your group has never had the right attitude for a proper secret society, even from the beginning."

"Yeah, but it's a secret society in Equestria!" she insisted, "Live a little, why doncha? You're all so focused on 'maintaning the canon' that you're not even having fun."

"I take it your two groups don't get along?" Celestia, more than used to having to settle squabbles, cut in.

"They're all sticks-in-the-mud," Derpy confirmed.

"They lack respect and their name is terrible," Braeburn shot back.

Human or no, Twilight could sense the familiar steps of a friendship problem brewing. "But, you're all former humans. There should be plenty of common ground between you."

They nodded at that. "Oh for sure," Derpy began as she sat down, "We both work to find newly arrived humans, help them settle in-"

"Basically everything Pinkie guessed earlier," Braeburn interrupted, "Though we urge our members to stick to canon events as closely as possible to avoid influencing the development of the characters we know and love, and we are also the much larger group.

Though her demeanor was clam, one of Derpy's wings twitched in agitation, and half of her eyes were squarely locked in on her rival society member. "While we encourage people to think of their new lives as a fresh start and to go and explore things they could never do back on Earth. Also, we're definitely bigger."

"Oh please. We have twelve-point verification system for identifying transformed humans with an exceptionally high success rate."

The gold and silver pegasus smirked. "So exceptionally successful that you missed all of Ponyville?"

The cocky smile froze on his face. He quickly wiped it away with some recontextualization. "I'm sure there were really only a few humans in the crowd. Everyone else just got caught up in the Heartsong."

"There was no Heartsong," Celestia confirmed, "I had a suppression spell active."

His eyes darted about the room, searching for further excuses. No one wanted to meet his gaze, especially Dash and Pinkie who had gotten bored apparently and were trying to play blackjack using what remained of the booze as betting chips. Finding no excuses, he settled for a redirection.

"Putting all that aside, as a Level 2 member of our organization, I have the authority to negotiate in the event of a XZ-Class scenario."

"A what now?" Applejack asked.

"An 'End of the Line' situation," he clarified, "When, for whatever reason, we can no longer remain in the shadows and need to go public. And with the secret as out as it is now, there's no going back."

"Out? How's it out?" Rainbow Dash added her two bits, "It's just Ponyville that knows."

"Ponyville, yes. And also a number of Canterlotites taking a day off from the capitol's hustle and bustle. Families visiting relatives in the town. Not to mention who knows how many tourists from across the nation. And yet all of them turned out to be humans. No, there's no stopping it now. One way or another, knowledge of humans in Equestria will out."

"Oh!" Derpy suddenly cried, "That reminds me. I also have instructions on what to do if this happens."

"As a gesture of goodwill between our society and the crown, we offer this." She pulled a bound scroll from beneath her hat and handed it to the princess. "This contains a collection of half-spell, half-recipes that can create iconic foods from Earth that are both digestible by ponies and don't harm thinking creatures in their production. This particular scroll covers hamburgers, real potato french fries, pepperoni pizza, and chicken tenders." She shot the stallion a smug glare, almost as if to say 'Top that, fist boy'.

Not to be outdone, Braeburn cut in. "We also have a gift for the crown." He produced a sapphire the size of an egg, etched with ribbons of gold and silver. "This engram crystal contains a collection of over one hundred pieces of humanity's best music. From Bach to The Beatles, and Jackson 5 to John Williams."

"Ooh, gimme." Pinkie snatched it from his grasp. "Does it have Nickleback?"

"Er... no. But we do have-"

"How about Smashmouth?"

"No."

"Tell me you've at least got the iconic prog rock band Ayreon?"

"I've... never even heard of them actually."

Pinkie tossed the crystal back, making the stallion scramble over himself to catch it. "Eh, not a very good playlist then is it?"

"That sounds right on-brand for the Red Fist," Derpy commented as she held her scroll open as Rarity perused it, "You got the classics but forgot the hits. I bet you don't even have ABBA."

"We do, actually. And you can thank Sapphire Shores for that. She's one of ours."

"Oh yeah? Well we have Photo Finish."

"Just how many members are in your societies?" Celestia asked, hoping to derive some new nugget of actual information form their relentless bickering and constant one-up-manship.

"Across all our branches, maybe... a few hundred?"

Derpy scoffed. "Wow you guys have gotten small. We're closer to a few thousand."

Both Celestia's and Twilight eyes widened in disbelief. All of Ponyville was one thing, but thousands more across the nation? How had no one figured it out before? Then again, apparently some ponies did realize it, and had subsequently formed secret societies to make sure no one else did.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Twilight asked as she physically placed herself between the two quarreling ponies, “How did you each end up in Equestria? We were talking about it earlier and we all seemed to have arrived via different methods.” On one part, she was genuinely curious, though she was also keen to take advantage of the question to break their stalemate of an argument. It wasn’t the cleanest segue, but it did the job.

"It's fine," Derpy replied, "It happened a while ago so I've made my peace with it. My family and I made the mistake of going to sleep in a haunted house. We woke up in the Castle of the Two Sisters as a trio of ponies, though, thankfully, we maintained our correct ages and parent-child relationships."

Derpy's story done, they turned their gaze to Braeburn, whose expression had tightened significantly. "Youtube stunt gone wrong," he stated bluntly, "I'd rather not talk about it."

The room was silent for a moment before they noticed someone muttering under their breath. "Oh geez, oh geez, oh holy-"

"What's wrong, Spike?"

"Checking in on Tirek," he replied as he winced, "Definitely human. Also, massive jerk. Was more than happy to do everything he did and would do it again." He cringed again. "And a mouth on him like a sailor turned gaming livestreamer. I need- Is there something stronger than mind bleach? Can you invent that with magic? Cause that's the level of mind-wipe I need right now."

With that awkward sour note lingering in the air, Celestia took the opportunity to re-seize control of the conversation.

“Derpy, Braeburn, how quickly can you mobilize your organizations?”

“Pretty fast,” Derpy replied proudly, “We staff most of the postal system. It’s a good job for ponies with no documentation who’ve appeared out of thin air.”

“Er, us also rather quickly.” Braeburn was not to be outdone. “We have a very efficient private communication system.”

“Good. Spike, if you’ll help as well?”

He shook himself out of his funk and nodded. “Sure thing P-Cel, whatever you need.”

“Ooh, catchy. I like it. I’m glad you’re all onboard, because I think it’s high time we figured out just how deep this vein runs.”


It had been three days since Ponyville had had its ‘Moment of Revelation’, as some had taken to calling it, and already things had begun to change.

With the help of the Red Fist, the Illumi-not-a-pony, and Spike (all several thousand of him), Celestia initiated an impromptu census of the Equestrian citizenry. Standard questions for the most part, followed by a few rather poignant ones asked during private interviews. Luckily, the Red Fist already had a multitude of questions and methods derived to help coax out a former human, so all Celestia had to do was implement the questioning on a larger scale. She was sitting in her office, fiddling with something when the first results of her questioning began to bear fruit.

A light rapping at the door was quickly followed by the entrance of Raven Inkwell, a sheaf of papers clutched under her foreleg. “Princess? Is now a good time to deliver a report?”

“Ah Raven, perfect, come here.” The princess beckoned and Raven complied, stopping just before the ancient mahogany desk. Celestia held up a crystal so they both could see it. “I just received this from Dennis in the Technology and Engineering department.”

It was a quartz, or something in family, about the size of a domino. As the light caught it, Raven almost thought she could make out hair-like strands of something silver crisscrossing deep within it, like a spiderweb frozen in milky-white amber.

“It’s beautiful,” she acknowledged, “But what is it?”

“Watch.” Celestia set the crystal down and loosed a small pulse of golden magic from her horn. The crystal glowed for a second before, with a magical sparkle and soft chime, a rectangular plane of magic the size of a sheet of paper appeared in the air above it. On the hologram-like projection were three shapes: two long thin rectangles and one much smaller square. With another minute flash of magic from Celestia, the smallest of the shapes began to move.

“It’s… It’s…” Raven fumbled for words.

It’s Pong!” The princess cried, nearly squee-ing herself, “They invented Pong in less than a week!”

“Astounding…” Raven reached up to touch the display and saw the paddle on the left move in vertical sync with her hoof. “Motion controls as well?”

“They had to work around not having hands.” Celestia clarified, “But can you imagine? At this rate we’ll claw our way back to and even surpass modern games in only a few years!

Celestia’s secretary shook her head in astonishment. She was not as much as a gamer as some others, but even still she could see an obvious truth in front of her. “How is this possible? They only just started.”

"I'm no expert, but this is how Dennis explained it to me." Celestia turned off the device and adopted a posture better suited to lecturing. “Unfortunately, we are a long ways away from the infrastructure needed to build even the simplest of circuit boards. However, the digital logic that circuits use to compute and operate is outstandingly compatible with magic. It seems magic is basically just coding in a strange syntax. If-then statements, while loops, reference this, transform that; it’s all there, though most ‘spells’ as we learned them are wildly inefficient from a programming perspective. In addition to that, the atomic-scale matrices of gemstones makes them just as excellent at storing this logic as they are at storing traditional spells." She grinned. "Basically, we never knew it but the whole school of Enchanting was effectively a school of computer science.”

She deactivated the gem and slipped it into a drawer. "But enough of that for now. You said you had a report?"

“Yes.” Raven adjusted her glasses and resumed her professional demeanor. She sifted through a few pages before she found the one she was looking for. “Thanks to the additional manpower provided by the secret organizations, census data is being accumulated much faster than anticipated. Most of the major cities have between seventy and eighty percent reporting in, with varying amount from the smaller cities and frontier towns. Though the statisticians are still analyzing the bulk of the data, I have the preliminary reports here. It-“

“Raven. Drop the formalities and just give it to me straight. What are we looking at here? What’s our human to pony ratio?“

Even though Raven knew now that the Princess had once been a normal human (just as she had), it was still hard to forget twenty years of formalities and protocol. With some effort, she let her stiff posture loosen into something more conversational. “Out of every pony that’s been interviewed, so far every single one has been a human. The ratio, such as it were, is one to nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a one.”

“But that’s impossible!” Celestia exclaimed, all pretenses abandoned, “They can’t all be human! Could they be lying? Just trying to fit in with the growing majority?”

Raven shook her head. “Unlikely. Following Princess Twilight’s recommendations, each questionnaire was administrated on a one-by-one basis with either a changeling or verified-human member of one of the secret societies. After convincing them to identify themselves, each pony was asked to provide a piece of human specific knowledge or answer a series of culture-based questions taken from the Red Fist’s handbook and derived from their provided age and country. According to the data, no one has yet to answer ‘no’ to being a human.”

Raven flipped to another sheet. “We collected other information about their former selves as well once their humanity was confirmed. Name, gender, age at time of egress, nationality, and a few others of note.”

“And?” Celestia asked expectantly, knowing that she wouldn’t have brought it up if there wasn’t something particularly important about the information.

“Again, the data set is incomplete, but according to the current data, approximately seventy-some percent of all Equestrian ponies used to be a male in their late teens to mid-twenties. In addition, over eighty percent of ponies were aware of the My Little Pony television show and professed to be a fan of some degree.” She shifted to another page in her portfolio. “The most common former career is ‘student’ followed by jobs related to computers and then artistic careers.”

She shuffled away her pages into the correct order and straightened up. “Of course, these are just statistical averages. The interviewers have encountered humans from all walks of life and nearly every age and profession. ”

Celestia did not respond. Raven looked up and saw her sovereign's eyes had gone wide and her motions had stilled. "Is something the matter?"

"Raven… dear, friend Raven. Do you have any idea what this means?"

She racked her brain for a moment, mentally shuffling through her portfolio for anything so noteworthy as to cause such a reaction. “There are many implications, though I’m at a loss as to which you are referring.”

"We have a citizenry of magic-wielding computer programmers and one of our most abundant natural resources is crystallized programmable logic boards."

Raven’s eyes widened as the dots connected. “Oh.”

“ ’Oh’ indeed.” Celestia steepled her hooves together, deep in thought. Though she may have been a normal girl at one point, several hundred years at playing princess had been ample time to become genuinely skilled in the art of statecraft and nation management. This was going to take a careful hand, and possibly a little deception, but in the end it would be up to her to do what needed to be done.

"Get me one of the changelings," she ordered, “I think it’s time I brought everyone else up to speed.”

“Who do you mean?”

“Did I stutter? I said everyone else.”


Across the nation of Equestria, in small towns and big cities alike, ponies began to gather. Groups of three to four came together in town squares and city parks. At a glance, there was little that seemed to connect them. Politicians and gardeners, homemakers and soldiers, and yet they gathered. Some were earth ponies or pegasi as they approached, but by the time they met they were all unicorns. If any passerby had noticed the small wisps of green flame, they merely shrugged it off as a strange trick of the light.

When all were gathered in their respective cities, as if by some unseen signal, every one of them across Equestria lit their horns and shot a stream of magic into the sky.

Now ponies took notice. Ponies stopped whatever they were doing to witness the strange light show as each set of beams of light merged, widened, and flattened into an enormous rectangle of light in the sky. The screen soon filled with a black and white mess like a sandstorm of salt and pepper. After a moment, it cleared to reveal the visage of Princess Celestia, their beloved monarch.

"Greetings, my little ponies," she smiled down towards the nation, her voice booming across the countryside, "Please, gather around your nearest broadcast, for I have an important announcement which will impact all of you."

Even if they hadn't been asked, ponies were more than willing to stop and pay attention to such a strange new event. Taxi carriages in Manehattan stopped where they stood in the street and even the trains abandoned their schedules to stop and wait for the message. After allowing a few minutes for ponies to gather properly, Celestia continued.

"First of all, let me welcome you to the inaugural airing of the Equestrian Emergency Broadcast System, brought to you by the Changeling National Network."

She cleared her throat. "To clarify that, and bring up the first announcement, an official peace has been struck with the Changeling Empire and all members have sworn fealty to Equestria."

The eyes of the populace dropped as one to the few handfuls of ponies powering the providing the images. They smiled back, if a little uneasily, and made their eyes flash green for effect.

"Before anyone panics, although you may recognize some members of your local communities aiding this broadcast, please be aware that your loved ones have not been replaced. The changelings have proven to my satisfaction that all ponies they are currently posing as are original characters and that no currently missing ponies are as such due to their actions. In short, if a changeling is someone you know, then you've never known them when they were not a changeling."

To the changelings operating the broadcast (as well as those still disguised in the crowds), they felt as though they were in a stormy sea. Waves of tension, fear, and curiosity rose and fell throughout the message, some practically strong enough to physically push them back. Some ponies seemed happy at the news, other felt more distrustful than ever. But all those emotions were blown out of the water by the Princess's next statement.

"Also, all of the changelings are humans. In fact," she paused to don a pair of glasses with lenses nearly an inch thick, "Good news everyone! Everyone is a human!"

"What!?" someone yelled from off-screen, making the nation cover its collective ears, "Stop! Stop, stop, stop the broadcast. Spike go to commercial or something!"

"Uh, Princess, I can't-"

The 'camera' shook as though someone were trying to shake their head 'no', but it was ignored and the broadcast continued as an irate Princess Luna walked into the world's view.

"What do you think you're doing?!" She yelled at her co-princess, spittle flying in high definition. "You can't just drop it on them like that!"

"Why not?" Celestia replied with a mischievous grin. "It was fun." She toggled the back of her glasses with her magic, making the lenses bob up and down on her face before Luna snatched them off. "Besides, it's the truth of the matter."

"Truth of-! Well you could still give it some build up! Talk about how there's a creature called humans, then lead into how sometimes humans stumble from their world into this one, maybe tease it a little about how some ponies may already be aware of this, and then-"

"Luna," Celestia interrupted, "What's the point in beating around the bush? We finished the census. With 99% reporting in, we can safely say that there's not a single pony in Equestria who doesn't know what a human is because every last one of them used to be one."

"Still!" she insisted, "Have some tact when you drop something like that!"

All of Equestria watched, mouths agape, as the two royal and dignified princesses, icons of poise and civility, bickered like a pair of teenagers who couldn't agree on who owned a particular dress.

Eventually, the argument ended with Luna giving up, sighing in exasperation as she rolled her eyes. "Well it's too late now anyway. Any other bombshells you plan to drop on the populace when we restart the broadcast that I should know about? Going to tell them how statistically a majority of them were fans of the tv show this world is based on? Or the fact that I don't know how to dreamwalk?"

"Actually I'd been planning on letting them figure out the first for themselves, and keep the other one a national secret."

Luna paused at that. "Oh. Well. I guess you are thinking these through after all. Now that we've cleared that up, I suppose we've left the nation in the lurch long enough." The lunar princess turned to face the 'camera'. "Spike, let me get out of the shot then you can start rebroadcasting again."

"Yeah... About that..." The camera listed slightly. "We've actually been live this whole time."

In a heartbeat, one mare went pink, one went purple. In the following hours, many arguments would be had regarding which was more adorable.

"We what?"

"If I turned it off, it'd take nearly an hour to build up enough magic to start it again."

With a high-pitched cry of alarm, Luna threw herself bodily out of the frame of view. The sound of something crashing came from offscreen followed by a shaky 'I'm alright!'.

Celestia shook out her surprise, swallowed her nerves, and re-adopted the motherly smile she'd spent decades perfecting in the mirror. "Unplanned though that was, I suppose it saves me a lot of trouble. But just to clarify: Yes, every single pony in Equestria was once a human. Yes, many of you are fans of the My Little Pony show. And yes, your pony waifu is also a human and the odds are not in your favor of her being mentally female."

It was then that three noises swept across Equestria like a tidal wave. The first was a sigh of relief as ponies realized they didn't have to hide or pretend anymore. The second was a gasp in surprise as some realized the implications of this revelation. And finally, an 'awww' of disappointment as countless superfans realized that it was pointless to go and meet their favorite characters, when said characters were effectively just another fan in perfect cosplay rather than the real deal.

Celestia continued to speak after allowing a moment for everyone to react. She was well aware that she had precious seconds to speak before every city and congregation of viewers fell into a raucous discussion and cultural celebration, much as Ponyville had when they found out. Though it didn't matter terribly if they listened or not from this point on as it would all be repeated in tomorrow's papers anyway.

"That being said, any ponies- no, any people who have been living until now under the impression that they were trapped inside a book, film, video game, television show, holonovel, or dream, please do not use this as an excuse to descend into hedonism. For all intents and purposes, this is reality now and letting society collapse into wanton debauchery isn't going to do anyone any good."

One of the changelings in Fillydelphia sent a signal and Spike relayed it via a hand gesture. They'd lost the city to excited chaos already. Celestia nodded and picked up the pace.

"If you are discontent with your current name or assigned pony identity, please ask for form 8675309-J at your local government office to apply for an official legal change of name. It is our hope that this will help ease the transition from a strictly pony society to one that recognizes and embraces our shared human history."

Spike sent another gesture, followed quickly by two more. They'd lost Whinnyapolis as well as Sire's Hollow and Rainbow Falls.

"In addition-" Celestia's next point was cut off by a piece of paper suddenly shoved in her face by a blue foreleg. She took it with only a flicker of a frown and read it aloud. "Any ponies who have been 'isekai-ed' and would like to put their talents to better use are invited to visit the recently established 'Luna's Academy for OP Ponies', rename pending. If you don't know what that term means, then it probably doesn't apply to you."

Spike sent a flurry of gestures, so quick that the princess could no longer distinguish them. Viewership was falling like fruit flies in winter as city after city stopped listening in favor of joyously confirming the humanity of their friends and neighbors. Time to wrap it up.

"Seeing as how only a fraction of you are still listening, I will end this broadcast with two final messages. One: As Royal Princess of Equestria, and with the support of my fellow princesses, I hereby abolish the canon. No longer should anyone feel bound to perform certain acts in order to preserve a timeline or follow a script. The future is ours now, and we will do with it whatever we want! Secondly, I declare the next week a public holiday to let everyone adjust to this revelation, and for today in particular to be made an official annual holiday to celebrate the end of our hiding and secrecy."

Princess Celestia stepped back and spread her wings to their fullest extent as across the nation, hundred-foot tall magical replicas mimicked her actions. "I welcome you, every human, one and all, to the dawn of the Humanity in Equestria!"


Author's Note

Took a bit longer than expected, but that's the set up out of the way.

At this point, I am very open to ideas as to where to go from here. I have some plans, but I need more flesh on these bones. So feel free to suggest things in the comments be it anything from magic technology to how certain people/ponies react to the news and how they arrived. I will do my best to give credit to suggestions that are implemented.

No Ponies Acting and Reacting

Ponyville
Approximately 30 minutes post-Rhapsody

Three ponies sat quietly in a cozy, private booth in the otherwise loud and raucous Sugar Cube Corner. All around them ponies danced, drank, and partied as their true selves, but this little corner was quiet.

“So.” One of them eventually ventured.

“So…” Replied the second, just as enthusiastically.

“Okay, you know what? какого черта.” The third member of the group stood up on her chair. “We’re all thinking it and one of us is going to have to say it so it might as well be me.” She raised a hoof with all the portent of an executioner's sword and pointed it at the first speaker. “Human?”

The accused hesitated a moment, but quickly sighed, shrugged, and relented. “Human,” Applebloom acknowledged.

The hoof moved to the next in line. “Human?”

There was even less hesitation. “Yeah, human,” Scootaloo confirmed.

Finally, the hoof rounded on its owner. “And me makes three,” said Sweetie Belle as she sat back down.

"And just to be clear," Apple Bloom continued, "We all knew about the show, and we all knew that all the crusades we did were going to fail?"

"Yeah, but I still wanted to do them." Thus far, Scootaloo had been taking the news the best of the group. "Far as I knew, I was getting to hang out with some of my favorite characters."

"That's... fair." The farmer relented.

"Still," Sweetie Belle chuckled, "This is a pretty crazy situation, amirite?"

The wall of tension that had been building finally broke down as the other two laughed as well. With a situation this absurd, what else could you do?

"Y'know, Ah don't know about you two," Applebloom said, "But Ah came to Equestria completely by accident."

"Really? Me too."

"Me three."

"Ooh, fun! Storytime!" Scootaloo cleared away some crumbs and propped her head up on the table in a more comfortable listening position. "Let's all say how we ended up here. Sweetie Belle, you go first."

"Oh, um, ok. It's a bit of a long story." The others gestured for her to continue anyway and she relented. "Alright then."

Sweetie Belle leaned back in her chair and took a sip from a glass she'd acquired from somewhere. She grimaced, as though displeased with the taste, but took another long draw anyway before starting. “I was part of a group of hobbyist roboticists who all happened to be pony fans. So, naturally, we tried to construct a functional pony-shaped robot. A Sweetie Belle shaped one. Things went well for a few years; we were making good progress in both design and functionality, and our patreon was doing better than ever. I remember there was a convention coming up, I forget which, and we wanted to load our little bot with some new walk cycles and gestures to show off the redesigned joint systems. But time was short, so we decided to take a few... shortcuts." She sighed and took another sip.

"We were... cocky. A we hadn't had a significant setback in months, and everything we tried seemed to just work. Then Dimitri found us this new, unlicensed motion capture software. Top of the line. Body sensors, EEG cap, the works. It'd shave weeks off our schedule. I volunteered to get into the rig. Everything was going well; the signals were clear and we were getting good data... and then some Сволочь tripped over a cable, caused a short or something, and next thing I know, I am Sweetie Belle."

She took another pull from her glass and noticed the other's expectant expressions. "That's it. That's my story."

"That's it?" Scootaloo questioned, "Just... pull out the wrong cable and poof! you're a pony?"

"Pretty much."

"That's... weirdly close to what happened to me," Applebloom mused, "Though Ah don't have the luxury of having someone else to blame."

"Oh?" Were you also making a robot?"

Apple Bloom shook her head. "No, Ah was programming an Applebloom AI."

“Ah used to work fer a company that made AIs, you know, fer video games and data analysis centers and interactive toys and stuff. Simple ones, no true AIs. Anyway, Ah had a side project that Ah tinkered with when my workload was light. Ah called it 'AI-pplebloom'."

“Seems there’s an awful lot of people trying to bring ponies to the human world, aren’t there?” Scootaloo commented.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Though that is a terrible name."

That earned her a glare from the programmer turned farmer. "Let me hear you come up with a better one then." When her friend failed to respond, she continued, "Anyway, Ah’d made this training algorithm for it based on the Apple Bloom-centric episodes. The closer the AI behaved to how Apple Bloom acted in a canon episode, the higher score it got, and the more likely it survived to the next iteration.” She sighed, almost wistfully, “I was nearly a million generations deep before things went wrong.”

“Let me guess:” Scootaloo interrupted, “Something went wrong?”

"No, something went right. Too right. The program did so well, grew so complex, it started taking up too much space on the company servers, more than it rightly should've been able to access. People were starting to notice the lack of resources as it siphoned off more and more processing power. Then the men in suits turned up. Turns out, we had a secret department making AIs for the military, and they thought there was something espionage-y going down. Ah tried to shut it down, tried to delete her... but Ah couldn't. When Ah tried to wipe the hard drive there was this rush of color and sound like a rainbow exploding in my face."

Her breaths came in short pants and gasps as the memory triggered buried anxieties. Almost instinctively, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle scooched closer and laid a comforting pair of hooves over their friend's withers. Actual pony or not, they were still her friends. She took a few deep breaths and regained control. "Thanks girls. It's not a pleasant memory."

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to," Scootaloo offered.

"да, we get the gist."

Apple Bloom shook her head. “No, Ah'm alright now. Ah need to talk about it. Anyhow, next thing Ah knew, Ah was on the Apple Ranch. And from that point right up to the song earlier, Ah always thought that Ah was trapped inside my own simulation. That if Ah didn’t act perfectly like Applebloom, exactly like her in every scene, then Ah’d fail the test and be deleted like the countless other AIs that hadn’t passed." She raised her head. Tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes, but her voice was strong. “You have no idea how happy Ah am, knowing that Ah’m not in the computer. That Ah can do anything Ah want now without risk of being deleted." She laid a hoof on both of her friends. "That you're both real, thinking, living, people."

She sniffed a little and tried to wipe away the pre-tears. "Look at me, getting all sappy on you."

Sweetie Belle offered her some of her drink. "Hey, don't be like that. You've had it really hard but now the bad times are over."

Applebloom smiled and took a sip of the drink. Immediately she spit it back out all over the table, making the other two fillies rapidly throw themselves back to escape the splash zone.

"какого черта! What was that for?!"

"That was beer!" Applebloom shot back, "Ah thought you were giving me water. Who even gave you a beer, you're like ten!"

"It was a lager, and a good one too! And she did." Sweetie Belle pointed across the room where Berry Punch, who was now a unicorn apparently, was eagerly refilling any glass that was raised into the air with frothy liquid from one of a pyramid of six barrel she sat atop of. "And if you count human years then I'm at least twice old enough for a drink."

"Alright, just... Ah'm sorry." Applebloom apologized, "You were trying to help and you caught me off guard." Hoping to change the subject, she turned to their mutual pegasus friend. "Alright Scoots, you're next then."

Scootaloo tensed up. “Yeah…” she rubbed the back of her head, “I gotta say, after hearing you guys' experiences, my story’s a little less… I don't know..."

Applebloom looped a foreleg across her shoulders. "Hey, it's fine. None of us had any control over how we got here."

“Alright, well, you know the movie Weird Science?”

Applebloom scratched her head thoughtfully. “I think so. Is that the one where two guys get high and hook up a bunch of wires to a barbie doll and turn her into a living breathing woman?”

“That’s the one.” A slight blush grew on Scootaloo's cheeks as she continued. “I… had a bit too much to drink one night and tried to do that to a Scootaloo plush. Clearly, it did not work out.”

Wait,” Sweetie Belle interjected with a concerned expression, “In the movie, they brought the doll to life because they couldn’t get girlfriends. Are you saying you were attracted to-“

“No!” Scootaloo yelled, garnering the attention of a few ponies who just as quickly returned to their own things. “Holy-No! I was just depressed! And alone. And also really drunk cause I’d just flunked my midterms and probably ruined all my chances at graduating. And I thought, you know, having a cuddly pony companion might makes things a little better."

“But instead of getting a cuddly pony…"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I became one instead. Explain to me how that works out."

Sweetie Belle had another sip of her lager, which had been refilled during Scootaloo's story. "So we all ended up here from science mishaps. What are the chances of that?"

"Low, Ah'd bet." Applebloom agreed, "Then again, if you asked me yesterday about the chances of there being a second pony in Equestria...

"It’s almost funny," Scootaloo commented idly, "It’s too bad we never met each other back home. Between the three of us, we could probably actually succeed at making a pony."

The trio chuckled at that, but the laughter died away quickly as realization set in. Sure, they had not met back home, but they had met here and were together now. Not to mention they now had magic and an ample amount of free time.

“To the clubhouse!” They cried as one and scampered out of the eatery, eager to take another stab at their old passions.


Outside Ponyville
Several hours post-Rhapsody

"In the beautiful nation of Equestria, there was a town called Ponyville. A road led to this town that wandered and meandered through the countryside like a river flowing to parts unknown. Along that path there was a cart, a most magnificent cart, surely an expert piece of craftsponyship. Even the dust of the road built up on its sides could do little to mar its color and brilliance. And yet, even then, the cart found itself outshone by the pony pulling it. A most epic pony, whose power and might was matched only by her beauty and grace. With lithe muscles taut under an azure coat, she trotted as though the wagon weighed nothing at all. Her stellar mane, coiffed and without flaw, showed not a trace of the dusty roads it had seen, yet another testament to her awe-inspiring skills. She-"

"Trixie, what are you doing?"

"A pony leaned out the front window of the cart, her voice disturbing the peaceful tranquility of the countryside. Who could it be? A stowaway? A brigand? Nay! It was merely Starlight, loyal friend and assistant of the one who pulled the cart."

"Merely?"

"Normally, such a devoted friend would walk alongside her great and talented comrade, but today, she had decided to ride inside the wagon, not only leaving her most magical companion with nothing to do to pass the time other than narrate her life, but also increasing the heft of the wagon's weight by a noticeable margin."

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "A noticeable margin? I was making you a snack in here, but now I'm starting to reconsider that offer."

"Trixie is done with her narration now," Trixie said quickly and with only the smallest hint of embarrassed blush at how easily she'd caved. "Trixie would also like to thank her most fit and athletic assis- friend for taking the time to think of Trixie's hunger." She paused, then figured a little extra butter wouldn't go amiss. "And for coming along with Trixie on this long and arduous journey."

Starlight laughed lightly and hopped out of the door to walk alongside Trixie. "All is forgiven. Although, I wouldn't really call a four-day trip to some shantytown in the southern wastes to get a custom order of smoke bombs a 'long and arduous journey'."

"Well we had to fight that spiny monster didn't we?"

"You mean that guard you tried to haggle the entry fee with at the front gates?" Starlight replied plainly, "And then immediately caved when the he motioned to call his buddies over?"

"Still!" Trixie raised her head proudly, "We emerged victorious!"

"If you call paying full price and an extra fee for the disturbance a victory," Starlight murmured under her breath before changing the subject. "Say, Trixie? How far out would you say we are from Ponyville?"

The showmare consulted the topography, the position of the sun, and her own memories of prior travel. "About an hour and change. Maybe closer to two. Why?"

She pointed ahead. "Because there's something strange headed our way."

As the mysterious figure grew closer to the pair of magic mares, it became that much clearer just what what stumbling back and forth across the road. Though it was clearer to Starlight, who had spent much more time living day-to-day in Ponyville and getting to know it's eccentric residents that Trixie had.

"Pokey Pierce?" she asked in surprise, "What's he doing way out here?"

The unicorn in question stumbled down the road with a giddy grin on his face as he belted out out the lyrics to some strange song. Even at a distance the pungence of alcohol saturating his body and breath alike made both mares gag.

"We shan't discriminate great from small. No we'll serve anyone, meaning anyone, and to anyone at aaaaaaaaaall!"

"Hey!" Trixie snapped when he was finally close enough to speak to, but still far enough away that they could breath. "What's your deal? What's with the singing?"

"And why are you so far from town?" Starlight added, hoping to cover for some of Trixie's brusqueness. But if Pokey was offended, he didn't show it. He just grinned loopily at the pair.

"What am I singing? I'm singing anything I want! I've unlocked Equestria+! There's no restrictions now!" He stumbled towards them, blinking rapidly as if only just recognizing them.

"Well hellooooo there Comrade Glimmer." He slurred. The unicorn tried to strike a salute, missed, and whacked himself in the head. "Ow! How's- how's that manifesto coming along? Shall we be seizing the means of production today, or do we wait till next season finale? Whoops!" His hooves slid out from under him and he collapsed heavily into Starlight's side, much to her disgust and confusion. "You know, you were always my favorite. Much better than Chrysalis."

Starlight looked to Trixie, a silent cry for help screaming from her eyes. But Trixie barely registered it. There were far more important things that had just been said that needed further clarification. Now.

"What was that about a season finale?" she pressed as Starlight shoved the stallion back onto his own four hooves.

"You know," he said unhelpfully, not a trace of a thought behind his glazed eyes. "The My Little Pony show. 'S a good show wasn't it? Everybody's talking about it."

"Everybody?" Starlight pulled in close, his smell long forgotten. "What do you mean everybody?"

He squinted at her. "Where've you been? Haven't you heard? Ponyville's got more people in it than ponies. It's all anybody's talking abou- abou..." His sentence dissolved away from him into a noxious yawn. "Man I'm tired. Where's my bed? I should have reached it by now."

Starlight, too confused for complicated thought, answered him. "Pokey, you live on the West side of town. This is several miles South."

He yawned again. "So it didn't wander off then." His eyes began to droop even as he stood. "Ooh, I think I may have had a teensy bit too much to drink. Look, it's already getting dark."

"No! Pokey stay awake! I need answers!" Trixie grabbed him in her magic and shook the poor stallion like a ragdoll. But whatever he'd been drinking must have been top shelf stuff, as he did nothing but snore. With a frustrated grunt Trixie tossed him into a bush on the side of the road.

"Trixie!"

"He'll be fine, let him sleep it off!" the magician snapped before rounding on her friend, "More importantly, we need to get to Ponyville now. Can you teleport us both?"

"I-" Starlight's confused gaze wavered against Trixie's piercing determination. "I could. But just us. The cart is too big."

"Leave it then," she answered immediately.

Starlight gasped. "But... it's your precious-"

"There's no time!" Though Trixie's voice was angry, there was an almost pleading look to her eyes. Starlight hesitated a moment and then gave a grim nod.

"Alright. I don;t understand what's going on, but if it's that important-" She lit her horn and bathed the area in azure light. "-then there's no time to waste."

And in a flash of magic they were gone.

They reappeared in the middle of a state of chaos. This was not unusual for Ponyville, but somehow this chaos was distinctly different. It had all the flavor of a Ponyville party, but with a lot of elements Starlight didn't recognize. The platters of food and tables of drinks were par for the course, but there were many she didn't recognize. For once the culinary theme of the buffet seemed to be savory rather than sweet, with pastries being in surprisingly short supply.

But it was not just the food, the ponies themselves were acting odd. In the far side of the town plaza, two teams of ponies were repeated tackling one another. It looked violent, yet no one seemed to be getting particularly injured. Every few moments the broke apart, stepped back into a formation, then tackled again. Zecora stood nearby and occasionally called out odd phrases like 'That's a first down for Team Woona' and 'Foul on Team Molestia'.

In another corner, a group of ponies, some of them foals, crashed foaming mugs together and sang an upbeat tune that seemed to describe in details the ways all their family members had died. Elsewhere she overheard a couple arguing over whether Tirek or Grogar would be the queen bee if they were highschool mares and which they'd rather see in a swimsuit of all things. Strange statues of odd bipedal creatures dotted the pavilion as earth ponies carted in fresh blocks of stone or wood to ponies apparently gripped by mad artistic fervor.

And all around her, on every side and from every angle, ponies spoke gibberish. Strange haikus of short phrases and nonsense context-less dialogue that somehow everyone else seemed to not only understand, but find great joy in.

All of this Starlight took in within the first few seconds post-teleport. It usually paid to have stellar observation skills, but now it left her more confused than ever. It was a sensory overload of the worst kind; the kind where no matter how hard she tried, she could not decipher a structure or meaning.

Meanwhile, Trixie had also regained her bearings. And in response to all the chaos around her, the first thing she said was:

"Why is there a statue of Rick Astley in Ponyville?"

“Practice.” A stallion covered in flakes of chipped stone and dust said as he came up from behind her. “A couple of the guys from the construction team wanted to show off what they could do. Someone just ran off to the library to look for any spells about golems so we can make it sing. I hear they’re going to try and make a Gundam later.”

Trixie nodded slowly, caution apparent in her every motion. “And we suddenly know about all these things because…”

He gave her a skeptic look before his eyebrows raised in realization. “Oh! You weren’t here earlier were you? That explains it. Yeah, the Princesses did an announcement. Turns out basically everyone in Ponyville used to be a human.”

“They what?”

"Oh yeah. We sang some Queen, it was real nice. You should’ve been there.” He offered a friendly hoof. “I’m Roger, by the way. Nice to finally meet you honestly.”

“Everyone is a human?” Trixie repeated, still stunned.

“That’s right,” Roger confirmed, lowering his hoof since it was obvious she wasn’t going to take it. “One way or another, somehow we all ended up here.”

Trixie practically flipped around as a wide grin split her face. “Starlight ! Isn’t this great!”

The mare in question gave an awkward chuckle. "Yeah... I guess? I mean, I really don;t understand, but you seem to be happy about... whatever this is."

Trixie cocked her head. There was something off about Starlight. For some reason she didn't seem nearly as over-joyed at the prospect of more humans as Trixie felt. "What do you mean? Everyone is a human, just like us. What's not to be excited about?"

"Trixie…" Starlight hesitated for a moment before finally letting the bomb drop, "What in the wide world is Equestria is a human?"

The showmare's ears drooped as some of the sparkle left her eyes. “Wait... you aren’t one? But… but you got all my references! You laughed alongside me."

"Trixie, I laugh at all your jokes cause I know how it makes you happy. Even the ones I don’t get, which was, admittedly, a lot of them."

“…No. No! You have to understand!” Trixie gripped Starlight by her shoulders, forcing the mare to meet her desperate gaze. “I wasn’t always Trixie! I didn’t even used to be a pony! I was someone else, something else; a human called Miami Sodelle! You can’t- please don’t stand there and tell me… that when suddenly every pony is a human, my one friend, my truest most deepest friend, is the only pony who isn’t?!”

"No!" Starlight exclaimed fearfully, "I- I don't- I'm not- I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You can drop the act Glimglam." Starlight turned to find herself face to face with a filly from the Friendship School. A sweet little pegasus who had never once referred to her as anything less respectful than 'Miss Guidance Councillor Ma'am'. "It's all out now. Everyone's a human. Everyone's from Earth. Here, have a beer."

Starlight looked at the offered drink in horror before instinctively knocking both mugs to the floor.

"Hey!" The sweet little filly scowled. "Well screw you too!" She buzzed off in an angry huff.

Starlight's mind reeled. What new madness was this? Trixie suddenly claiming she was somepony else? Sweet fillies suddenly turned foul-mouthed drinkers? Ponies speaking in tongues and behaving erratically? Day-drinking?! It was nearly too much to bear.

No, she resolved herself. She couldn't falter here. Somepony had to save the town from... whatever this was, and it might as well start with her! She'd held her own on several adventures; she could handle some Ponyville chaos. Right?

Shifting mental gears, Starlight looked again at the chaos before her with a new analytical lens. Yes, chaos. That was a word for it. Yet it lacked Discord's distinctive touch. Behavior aside, nothing had been transformed. No crazy colors, no inversion of physics, no Discord himself present to watch his work unfold. He always liked to watch. That ruled him out. But what else could make this many ponies behave so oddly? A revival of evil changelings? Magical illness? An evil artifact? She quickly realized that, a few successful adventures aside, she might be out of her depth.

"Hello? Earth to Starlight? You in there Glimmy Glamorama?"

She blinked. At some point Trixie had apparently moved in front of her, her face creased in worry. "Are you okay? I was starting to get concerned. You completely zoned out there."

That did it. Finally, it clicked into place what had unsettled her so much about Trixie's earlier speech, and at once Starlight knew she was completely out of her depth. Anything that could cure Trixie of her illeisms was way above the pay grade of a part-time hero, part-time counselor. Time to bring out the big guns.

She laid a hoof on her friend's shoulder and spoke softly. "Don't worry Trixie. I'm going to fix this."

Trixie blinked and cocked her head. "Fix what? I-"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh." Starlight smothered her words. "It's okay. I'm going to go get Twilight and she's going to fix this. Then you, and everypony else will be back to your old selves in no time."

"Starlight, I am-"

"No words." Starlight removed her hoof and gave her friend one last lingering look, laden with worry yet tinged with hopefulness, before she turned tail and took off in a full gallop towards the Castle of Friendship.

Gotta hurry, a voice in her head urged her, Gotta find Twilight. She has to be able to fix all this. She has to!


Canterlot
Three days post-Nationwide-Revelation

It was just after lunch on the third day after the announcement that Celestia met with her small council. Though she had given most of Equestria a vacation, unfortunately, the government still needed to run. A sentiment that was thankfully shared by most of the important ponies in her government.

Unlike the rest of the city, and the palace specifically, this meeting room was small and practical. A week ago, a passing observer might have said it reminded them of a Manehattan office. Now, they would say it reminded them of Earth; an almost stock-photo-ready meeting room from its long angular table to its wall of plate-glass windows. Of course, there were some differences: the leather stools and chairs were artificial, and the windows were one-way enchanted brickwork, but the feeling the room gave off was still familiar to any former white collar worker.

With her everyone having made themselves comfortable and the complementary waters and teas distributed, Celestia brought their meeting to order.

"First off," she began, "I'm letting you know now that you can drop most of the royal formalities of you want. We're all on equal footing now and you shouldn't feel you have to continue to treat me special just because of a quirk of luck."

The gathered ponies shared uncomfortable glances at that, each daring another to go first. "If you don't mind my saying so Princess," the Minister of Agriculture said, "In these turbulent times, I for one would appreciate some element of stability, even if it is just an obviated title or two." A few others nodded in agreement. "Regardless of who you were before, you're Princess Celestia now. And that title carries weight."

The princess nodded. So much then for her plans for some less formal relationships. She'd figured the odds were a toss-up at best anyway. "As you wish. Let's begin this properly then, shall we?" she with segued with her usual skill. She turned to the first pony on her left." Minister Holiday, were you able to look into those things I asked you about?"

Minister Holiday, a middle-aged pegasus mare with a bob cut mane, rose to reply. "Indeed I have. As you predicted, we've seen a skyrocket in orders for both mane and fur dyeing tonics as well as gender-swapping potions. Thanks to your forewarning, the Guild of Alchemists and Potion Makers was able to stockpile the necessary ingredients before the buying surge hit." She coughed. "And, since demand for these particular products was rather low to begin with, no one seems to have noticed the sudden hike in their price."

Celestia nodded in thanks as the mare sat back down. That was excellent news. With all the changes that would doubtless be coming soon, they would do well to have a larger-than-usual surplus in the discretionary budget. There were new industries to subsidize, infrastructure to bring up to modern standards, countless hundreds of man-hours of overtime to process the inevitable storm of upcoming paperwork that loomed at the edge of the future like some subterranean behemoth. Just thinking about it gave her a headache, one which the money did at least a little to alleviate.

She addressed another pony, a well-groomed noble from a prestigious bloodline, one who she was sure had no quarrel with the lot he'd been cast in Equestria. "Doctor Syringe? How goes your project?"

The green stallion sighed. "It's been... slow, your highness. I've put together a committee to try and fine tune a method to determine which medial professionals actually earned their degrees and which merely 'inherited' them, as we've been calling it, but it has proven more difficult than expected. Most of the frauds who managed to stay in the profession have passed thus far because they're good at bluffing. We've had greater success in small town hospitals where smaller staffs meant less ponies to push their work onto, but the larger hospitals are still giving us trouble; Manehattan and Canterlot General most of all. Especially since so many people are still out celebrating."

"That reminds me," the Minister of Agriculture who had broken the ice earlier spoke up, drawing the group's attention. "As you've probably noticed, my sister, Minister Flask, is absent from our meeting. However she asked me to pass along a message that she has her people taking similar steps within the scientific community."

"Oh dear," the Minister of the Treasury murmured, "It's not like her to miss a meeting. Is she alright?"

Syringe replied with a small smile. "He, is doing fine. Just recovering from the side effects of a gender potion."

Celestia hid a wince. She owed Luna twenty bits now. And she'd been so sure that out of the twin ministers Cornmeal was going to be the one to make the change. Apparently five hundred years of learning to read ponies still wasn't enough when it came to human-ponies. "Make sure to send him my best wishes for a speedy recovery."

She turned to the Minister of the Interior. "I've been keeping an eye out but you're closer to the common pony than I am. How is the general population taking the news?"

"Wheeeee!"

The council looked up at the sudden interruption. Outside their window, a blue unicorn was flying. That is to say, he was clutching a broomstick for dear life as it bobbed and dipped erratically. Despite this, he seemed to be having a splendid time.

"Whoo!" he yelled, darting around violently as he made overcompensating adjustments to his anti-gravity spell. "Watch out! I'm Harry Potter, ya'll!"

And once more he zipped out of their field of view.

"...Well." the Minister of the Interior replied with an amused smile. "They seem to be taking it well."

After the discussion of a few more minor topics, future planning mostly and a bit of old business, the meeting broke up. As soon as the ministers filed out, Luna entered in from the other side of the room. "Oh no," she said in mock anguish, "Did I miss the meeting? How ghastly."

Celestia rolled her eyes. "You know you weren't required to come. You have your own duties and you'd get the minutes either way." The taller mare flopped down onto her extra-large half-couch half-chair without a trace of poise or grace. "Speaking of which, how's that going? Pick up anything useful from the dream realm?"

Luna shook her head as she took an adjacent seat. "No dice, it's as much of a mess as ever. I'd hoped people might drop their guard if they thought I couldn't see their dreams, but as far as I can tell it's had no effect. I can still visit and influence just fine, but the dreams themselves are still random nonsense. Not to mention how hard it is to track down a specific person without a dream beacon."

"A pity, that," Celestia commented as she poured them both a fresh cup of tea. "We'll have to stick with more traditional informant networks then."

Luna nodded in agreement and transmuted her tea into coffee. She took a sip and grimaced. "Remind me to invent an espresso machine at some point. I'd kill for a good latte."

The offhand comment reminded Celestia of another of her sister's recent ventures, one which had caught her completely by surprise and which she'd been meaning to ask her about. "How's that new school of yours coming along, by the way?"

"Quite well, actually," Luna grinned, happy for the change in topic, "We've had a few early applicants who've shown some promise. Ones with unique magic or abilities. Not to mention a rare handful who seem to have to become ponifications of characters from other franchises, complete with watered-down versions of their abilities." Her expression tightened. "But nothing game-breaking yet. Whoever or whatever brought them all here did a remarkable job power-balancing their abilities."

Celestia's hooves crossed and began to tap in frustration. "Which is another point towards it being some kind of intelligence rather than a cosmic coincidence." She shook her head in an effort to shake out the worrying thought and get the conversation back on a more pleasant path. "Are you having much trouble finding a campus? I know space is tight in Canterlot."

"Actually, no. It's been super easy, barely an inconvenience," she replied easily, the smallest hint of a grin tugging at her features. "I was planning on opening a school of my own anyway once we outlived the canon, so most of the groundwork was already in place."

"Hm. Well that's certainly a stroke of convenience." Celestia stroked her chin. "More interference from whatever force brought us here?"

Luna gave her sister a curious look for a moment, before she rolled her eyes and gave her a slight whap to the back of the head.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Don't give me that. I saw that look in your eye. You were starting down another paranoid conspiracy spiral. Had to knock you out of it before you started trying to micromanage the entire nation. Again."

Celestia took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the frizzling ends of her mane to settle back down. "Thanks. It's just... There's just so much that we still don't know about how or why we're here. Were we kidnapped or rescued? Banished or evacuated? Hand-picked or chosen at random? I can't help but worry."

A blue foreleg moved around her, and Celestia leaned into the embrace. The sound of Luna's heartbeat pulsing through her leg eased her mind and helped her pace her thoughts. She soon felt a second hoof running across her mane soothingly.

"It's alright." Luna spoke, softly and tenderly, "We'll figure it out. And it's not just us now. We have a whole nation of people who want answers and will be willing to do whatever it takes to get them. The weight is not solely on our shoulders anymore."

The touching scene of tender sisterly bonding would have probably continued until both were satisfied if it weren't for a sudden and insistent knocking at the door. Work would never wait. With a sigh, both alicorns sat back up and one opened the door with her magic.

A messenger pegasus dashed in, panting and out of breath. "Princesses!" he gasped, desperately sucking in lungfuls of air as fast as he could. "I'm so glad I... I found you!"

"What is it?" Celestia tried to remain calm despite the surge of fear and adrenaline that suddenly swamped her system. Was the unwritten Law of Equestria finally going to kick in? Just when things were looking too good, had something big and evil come in and spoil it?

"There's-" the stallion sucked in one final gasp of air as though he were trying to plunge the room into a vacuum, "There's guests in the castle. A diplomatic envoy. Nothing on the books, completely unexpected."

"Who is it?" Celestia pressed. Of all the possible times for someone to make a surprise visit, it had to be now. With the nation is chaos and half the staff taking their days off. Political damage could still be mitigated though, but how much would depend on just who had come knocking. "The Griffons? The Yaks? The Buffalo?"

The messenger shook his head. "None of those. It's the seaponies."

"You mean... the hippogriffs?" Luna asked hesitantly. "They have multiple forms, both-"

"No," he interrupted insistently, "Seaponies classic edition. Proper shoobedooers."

Luna's eyes lit up in glittering sparkles. Seaponies. Proper seaponies. At long last, and after so long.

For many years after their her and her sister's arrival (having little else to do while pretending to be on the moon) Luna had traveled the world and made it a point to meet as many species as possible. She'd studied with Zebra shamans and danced at a kirin bonfire ceremony. She'd flown with the wild dragons and fought in the gladiator ring of the Abyssinians. But in all her travels, despite decades spent chasing rumors and old fish tales she had never been able to track down a single member of the elusive and isolationist creatures known as the seaponies.

Until now.

"Where are they?" she demanded as she practically launched herself at the messenger. "I have to to be the one to meet them!"

"T-t-the majordomo moved them to the parlor in the east tower!" he stammered out. "B-but there's something really strange about them-"

Alas, his warning went unheeded. Luna was already out the door and down the hall, her sister not far behind.


Author's Note

Yes, yes, I know. Trixie does speak in the first person every now and again. But, counterpoint: This isn't actually Trixie, it's someone who has been pretending to be her.

Also, not 100% edited. Wanted to push the chapter out before leaving for an hours long event.

No Ponies Slowly Adjusting

Smoky Quartz took the long route to the parlor. He didn't want to arrive too early, after all. All of his skill at planning had gone in to making sure this meeting went absolutely perfectly. A day with a light workload, few royal petitioners, no pestering nobles, and his announcement timed for the Princess's most peaceful part of the day; her mid-afternoon teatime. There was no need to hope for good luck; his sheer extend of planning made it unnecessary.

His crystal hooves tapped out a quiet staccato beat in the otherwise silent hallway. Long before he reached the door, however, he found his ears assaulted by the sound of raised voices.

"It's a good idea!"

"It's a bad idea, and possibly dangerous."

"It's good in theory, but we need to make some big changes for it to work."

He sighed and loosed a small grumble under his breath. Already things were not going to plan. This was supposed to be when their royal highnesses would be the most relaxed and in the best mood. This was supposed to be the optimal circumstances to reveal his secret.

And they were arguing.

Should he back off? Wait for a better time? No. With the massive human revelation only a day or two ago, there would be no better opportunity than this.

With that thought steeling his shaking confidence, he opened the door.

"And for another thing I- Oh, Smoky Quartz." Princess Cadence cut herself off mid-tirade to address her surprise guest. "I'm sorry, did we have something scheduled? I thought I'd given you and the other advisers the day off."

"You did," he replied with a nod, "But I came in anyway to tell you-"

"Actually, you know what?" the crystal princess interrupted, "This is perfect. You can help us settle a little... disagreement we've been having."

With an easy flick of her magic, Smoky Quartz found himself yanked forward into the center of the room, surrounded on two sides by royalty, on a third by their ranking court wizard, and on the last by a forgotten table of light snacks and tea. Particularly expensive tea that he'd acquired at great cost to ensure all ponies involved were calm and relaxed. He didn't even need to check the pot to tell it was still full.

Recovering quickly, he bowed and asked, "How may I be of service then, your majesty?"

"We're deciding what music to play at the concert."

Smoky Quartz blinked in surprise. A concert? There was nothing like that in the schedule. He would know, since he was in charge of drafting it. "We're having a concert?"

"No, we're not." Sunburst insisted, showing a surprising amount of backbone as he countered his sovereign. "I'm telling you, Princess, having a concert is a bad idea. It can only lead us to ruin."

"And who would play at such an event?" Smoky Quartz added, "I'm not sure I could book anyone on such short notice."

"Why, me of course." Cadence said with a grin that spoke of more confidence than Smoky felt was warranted, "With Shining on guitar and whoever else we can find to play bass and drums. I can pull double duty on lead vocals and keyboard if need be."

"You play?" he asked, dropping decorum in surprise. He'd heard her sing, lullabies and Heartsongs mostly, but the keyboard was a twist.

"Not since becoming a pony," she admitted, "But since Flurry Heart can basically take care of herself now I've been meaning to pick it back up."

"I still say this is a bad idea." Sunburst cut in grumpily, redirecting the conversation back where it was supposed to go.

Cadence shot him a glare. "Do you want me to explain it again?"

The wizard and the husband groaned. Clearly, this would not be her first repetition. But before anyone could dissuade her, her focus snapped back to Smoky Quartz. "Alright then. Smoky, where are we right now?"

"...the Crystal Empire?" he ventured, cautious of such a simple-seeming question.

Cadence nodded. "Right. Which is protected by...?"

"The Crystal Heart."

"And the Crystal Heart is powered by what?"

Now he understood. "The emotions of the citizens."

"Which, as of the recent revelation, is a bubbling hotpot of everything in the emotional spectrum." Cadence began to pace as she got into what was clearly the most impassioned part of her spiel. "True, there is positivity in abundance; joy, relief, and thankfulness are overflowing. But it is at our peril that we dismiss all the negative emotions that are swirling about as well. There's a king's ransom in shock and confusion, not to mention all the fear for the future and existential dread. I've even sensed a bit of hate flaring up here and there as old divisions start to come to light."

She whipped around and preempted Sunburst's interruption with a pointed hoof. "And don't tell me I'm exaggerating the situation. I'm connected to the Crystal Heart. I can literally feel all this in real time."

Smoky Quartz moved quickly between them, hoping to redirect a little of the princess's anger. "And I take it your plan was to use music to sway everyone's emotions into a more positive direction?"

"Exactly!" Cadence exclaimed. "See, now he gets it."

Smoky Quartz nodded. It was a reasonable idea. Music was often used to rally support or even just to raise morale. That is, so long as the correct music was selected. "What songs were you considering?"

She smiled, apparently assured that she had already won him over to her side of the argument. "I think some good, classic love songs will do the trick to raise everyone's spirits."

"And there it is." Shining Armor said with an exasperated sigh. "Honey, I love you, and I know you want to stay on-brand as the Princess of Love, but love songs just aren't going to cut it. All that those are going to do is remind everyone of the countless friends and family that they will never see again. Do that and we could lose the dome entirely."

Smoky Quartz turned to him. "And what would you suggest?"

Shining smiled, glad that someone had finally asked. "Old cartoon and TV themes. Ones that everybody knows. Get people talking, get them to share memories. We play our cards right and we can leverage the power of fandom in our favor. We'll hit 'em in the feels and make bank off the nostalgia."

"It doesn't matter what you sing!" Sunburst insisted with a stomp of his hoof. "Any song from back home is just going to heap on the nostalgia which, despite your claims to the contrary, is not a positive emotion. Nostalgia is a subspecies of homesickness which is itself a specific type of longing. And longing, as we all know, is a flavor of Loss. And no one wants to be reminded of loss at a time like this. If you want to raise morale, that's fine. Just no concert. Throw a Crystal Fair, like we always do."

"Sure, and that might work," Cadence shot back with a glare, "If anyone out there was actually a crystal pony!"

Without room for a saving interjection from the errant advisor, Smoky found the room thrown back into the midst of argument. Not one cohesive point could be heard due to the noise and the rapidly fraying tempers.

Smoky Quartz's eyebrow twitched in concealed irritation, but he held it in. After nearly a full minute of bickering with no sign of slowing down, he broke.

"You're making too much noise!" he declared with a sweep of his hoof. "Quiet down!"

Stunned, they all actually obeyed. Smoky Quartz gave them all the evil eye in turn, each wincing under his gaze like a naughty student caught by a teacher. "What are you, children? Can you not hold a discussion civilly?" He shifted and gave Cadence his full attention.

"Princess, while your idea holds merit, I agree with Prince Shining that traditional love songs may not be appropriate. His reasoning on that is sound. However," he turned to Shining, "neither are old cartoon songs the answer. Even pony ones. I've been keeping my ear to the ground. There's a not insignificant portion of our populace who weren't even aware that this is the world of a show. With your plan, if we choose the wrong fandom to support, we risk alienating some of them even further. They could become desperate. And while a desperate pony is at most an inconvenience, a desperate human is another thing entirely."

He turned slowly on his heel, not breaking eye contact until he could immediately entrap someone else in his gaze. "Sunburst, I feel you may be underestimating our citizens. Remember, these are not scared and weak ponies; eager to run from their own shadows. These are people. Humans who've lived through trials and struggles and overcome them. I think, if you give them a chance, they will surprise you. So long as we do not divide them further. Now, can we all calm down and hammer out a plan peacefully like sensible adults?"

As the fires fueling Cadence's anger waned, she exchanged her glare for a self-deprecating smile. "Thank you Smoky Quartz. As always, you prove yourself one of my most helpful and straightforward advisers. And often the only one willing to speak frankly." She sank down into a chair, the tension gone from her body, and tittered slightly. "You're almost too perfect sometimes. I don't suppose you also happen to play bass guitar do you?"

They all broke into chuckles at that. So much so that they almost missed his response.

"Actually, I can."

Cadence's eyes went wide in surprise. Her horn immediately flared to life and fabricated a pink guitar out of raw magic, modified for hoofplay. "Show me."

The stallion took the guitar gingerly, feeling out the weight of it in his hooves. He started slowly, it had been years since he'd last played, but it quickly came back to him. A few stray notes at first, then actual chords. Soon he transitioned to riffs and then finally he hit his stride with a cascading waterfall of music. Not a song or melody in particular, but a showcase of talent. Chords and combinations that would have stretched human fingers to their limit landed perfectly before the might of magical playing. And it felt good to play after so long.

Smoky Quartz became so lost in his music that he forgot to keep up his concentration on something else. As he played, wisps of smoke began to leech off his form, first from his hooves and then the rest of his body. The silvery ash of his crystal coat grew dark and thicker as it began to resemble proper fur. His musculature swelled as he grew taller alongside a rising crescendo of notes. He finished his solo off with a long-held note, flanged by his magic, and only then did he notice the gobsmacked expressions on everyone else in the room.

"Too much?" He asked before glancing down and noticing his much less crystalline appearance. "Oh. I can explain."

"Sombra!" someone cried. Shining Armour and Cadence adopted offensive postures with their horns lit and ready while Sunburst jumped behind a couch.

"Whoa!" Smoky Quartz, or rather, Sombra, cried out, grabbing the tray out from beneath the pile of snacks and holding it up defensively like a shield. "Human! Don't forget! Human! Not evil!"

"And how are we supposed to believe that?" Shining growled, "Sombra's a known master liar and deceiver. It makes perfect sense that you'd try and take advantage of the human confusion."

"Look at my eyes," he insisted. "Do you see any glowing trails of evil?" They did not. They were quite nice eyes, truth be told. "Look at my horn. See? Perfectly normal. No evil or corruption."

Shining and Cadence shared a look, the kind shared by couples where whole conversations can be held in an instant. As one, they powered down their horns. "Alright, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're human. But don't think that that excuses any crimes you may have committed as Sombra."

"But I haven't done any crimes!" Sombra persisted, though he set down the tray. "Well, aside from identity fraud and lying on government documents. It was only after you... I don't know, evaporated or exorcised or whatever you did to Sombra's astral form that left his body empty when I came into the picture."

Sunburst chose this time to pop out from behind the couch and rejoin the conversation. "But what about Smoky Quartz? What have you done with him?! He's one of my closest friends in the palace. If you've done anything-"

Sombra scoffed. "I've done nothing. I am Smoky Quartz, you numbskull. It's a persona I created. Did you think Sombra, King of Shadows, could just waltz into the Crystal Empire and apply for a job? I'd have been outrunning a mob in under a minute. That or a friendship laser. So I made a disguise. I still wanted to be a part of things after all. And this body came with a copy of Sombra's memories, so that's a few decades of free political experience I had to offer. I applied for a low-level administrative position and somehow, just kept getting promoted. And here we are. Also," his gaze softened for a moment, "Thank you. For calling me one of your closest friends. That genuinely means a lot to me."

"You have been a rather invaluable employee," Cadence admitted, finally dropping her stance and retaking her seat.

"Cady..." Shining, who still stood battle-ready, said warningly.

"Oh, come off it Ricky," Cadence said with a roll of her eyes, "If he really was evil, then he's inept enough to be a non-threat. I can think of a dozen times off the top of my head where he could have easily incapacitated or even killed me in the last couple months alone." She snagged a cookie off the floor, dusted it off, and inspected it. "Besides, regardless of alignment, the Empire wouldn't be running half as well as it is if it weren't for all the help he's given. If he's telling the truth, that's great. If not..." She delicately placed the cookie between her teeth and snapped it in half. "I'll have Flurry Heart blast him so hard he'll wind up in another franchise."

~~~

The atmosphere of the Crystal Empire was electric. Celestia's sun had long since set but the central plaza was still as bright as day. Enormous pillars of magically attuned crystal shook the air with the sound of amplified instruments that flooded the empire with music. Bleeding out from the palace and down every main road was a sea rainbow stars that pulsed and shook in time with the beat.

Somepony was making a fortune tonight with the invention of magic glowsticks.

In the center of it all, atop raised platforms of varying heights, the hastily assembled band played like they'd been practicing together for years, helped in part by the magic of Harmony.

Towards the back, Sunburst manned a drum kit. With a drumstick clutched in each foreleg and two in his magic, he bashed the tubs and pies as though they were the heads of every indifferent boss and incompetent manager he'd ever worked for. On another pedestal, Shining Armor and Sombra stood back to back, shredding away on a pair of palette-swapped guitars as their chords intertwined into a soul-shaking melody. Mares in the crowd (and a few stallions too) practically swooned at the nearly palpable chemistry between them as each tried to outplay the other. They would have actually swooned, but the crowd was too dense to let them fall over.

Front and center was Princess Cadence, her pedestal low and closest to the crowd. Her mane wild and drenched with sweat, she sang her heart out to the crowd of crystal citizens who, for their part, ate up her energy like ravenous changelings.

Much as Sombra had expected, the concert was going spectacularly. The selection of songs they'd eventually hammered out was eclectic, to say the least, but contained enough hits of every genre to hopefully reach each and every listener. With the power of Harmony on their side, their music reached down deep into the people's hearts and pulled them together, reminding them of the shared roots they all could rely on. The Crystal Heart was a veritable beacon of positively charged energy, bleeding off the excess as a Borealis that could be seen as far away as Manehattan.

A few hours into the event, at a point just after a slower song had finished and the band was starting to rile the audience up again, there was a small flash of lavender light. It happened in the farthest edges of the crowd, past even where quieter and more introverted ponies had slipped away to try and steal an early bit of shut-eye. From around the corner, a lavender mare poked her head suspiciously. Past failures had made her wary, so she was more reluctant to immediately show herself. No, a bit of discretion would be best, at least at first.

Despite her initial trepidation, she was hopeful. Surely the Crystal Empire, with its impassive barrier and the unique biology of its citizens, would be spared, right? But her hopes were quickly dashed as she heard Princess Cadence belting out to hundreds of cheering fans.

"The time has come, at last~!"

"Secret, secret. We've got a secret~!" Shining Armour and a huskier voice she didn't recognize provided backup.

"To re-embrace our past~!"

"Secret, secret. We've got a secret!"

"Now everyone can see," the mare could see her now, the bright lights reflecting off the many buckles of the Princess' jacket as passion flooded her voice even more, "Our true identities!"

The whole crowd joined in on the final line, and though obviously guided by Heartsong, it was clear they meant what they sang wholeheartedly.

"We're humans! Humans... humans... humans..."

The mare cringed as she ducked back into the shadows. Another failure. And with a flash of light, she was gone.


Canterlot was not known as a party city. It tried to rival cities like Manehattan and Las Pegasus, but the general stuffiness of the nobles tended to put the brakes on anything too... frivolous. It excelled at state holidays and ceremonial events, but new and impromptu celebrations... not so much.

What it did excel at was the day after. No city was more skilled than Canterlot at cleaning up and getting back to work. An odd claim to fame, to be sure, but it wasn't like the city was lacking in other titles to compensate. Canterlot was, at its core, a city built on bureaucracy. And bureaucracy doesn't care if you're a human or a pony; just get back to work if you don't want it to collapse.

Thankfully, much like an army, a bureaucracy marches on its stomach, so some breaks had to be allowed.

And so, when the twelve o'clock bell rang out in Canterlot the day after the official week-long 'Humanity Revelation' celebration ended, civil servants and office drones alike poured forth from Canterlot municipal buildings like a tide of starving termites.

Among them was a young unicorn with a mane the color of faded strawberries and a coat like Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil lead. She stopped outside her building and allowed the crowd to flow past as her eyes scanned faces and cutie marks. After a moment she smiled and waved. Across the plaza, a pegasus gave a halfhearted wave back. Together they swam through the crowd and met on its outskirt.

"Hiya Legal!" the unicorn beamed, "What kept you so long?"

The pegasus groaned and used his wings to push back the stray mint hairs that had fallen over his glasses. "Work has been a nightmare today, Penny. It's been nonstop since the second I clocked in. It's a madhouse in there."

The pair began walking, the act much easier now that the initial rush had died down. "Totes same for me. Though it sounds like you had it worse."

"It's these insufferable name change forms," he grumbled, "I swear every pony and their mother wants to change their name. Seriously, just go by a nickname or something! You don't have to legally change it! You can call yourself whatever you want!"

Penny gave his withers a soft pat. A small gesture, but one of unspoken camaraderie. "We all get days like that. I'm sure things'll settle down after a while. Tell you what? Why don't we go to Allspice's Cafe, huh? My treat."

"Allspice's is gone," he muttered.

Penny stopped in her tracks. Every muscle in her body tightened at once as her naturally over-enthusiastic Equestrian flight-or-fight response kicked in. "What?! Gone? Allspice's can't be gone. It's the best cheap place in Canterlot! What do you mean gone?!"

"Calm down Penny," a new voice, soft and soothing cut in. "Mr. Grumpy-pants here," Legal grunted as a feathery body lightly hip-checked him, "Is just spreading his misery. Allspice's Cafe is still around, they just rebranded as Alice's."

All the tension left Penny's body as she sighed in relief. The newcomer was also a pegasus, though almost a head shorter than Legal. "Oh, thank Admin. I don't know what I'd do without that cafe."

"Starve, probably."

Penny grinned at her friend's dark humor, a much-needed salve to Legal's grumps. "Things going good for you, Updraft?"

Updraft shrugged. "Eh, same old, same old. The big reveal hasn't affected my workload any. Just cause everyone's a human doesn't mean they suddenly need to update their property titles and deeds. I spent most of the morning working on my novel."

Legal grumbled something under his breath about ponies getting paid too much to do nothing, but was ignored. The three continued to chat amicably (or in Legal's case, grumble intermittently) as they navigated the streets of Canterlot towards Alice's.

When they arrived, the restaurant was bustling. Ponies filled the establishment's three levels as the smell of foods both fried and fresh wafted out windows and off balconies. The signboard out front proclaiming its new name was an obvious change (including a smaller notice warning of wet paint), but that aside it still seemed the same place the trio had been patronizing for months.

"Table for three please," Penny told the host as they entered, "And this meal's on the Pencil Pusher tab."

The stallion nodded in acknowledgment and guided them to a cozy table on the veranda, perfect for pony-watching while they ate. He poured their complimentary waters, reminded them of the strict no-littering policy for the veranda, and let them know that their waiter would be arriving shortly. As the group settled in, Updraft decided it was high time to break the funk.

"Alright Legal. Spill." She ordered, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Legal moved as if to say something snarky, but seeing her expression, thought better of it. He sighed and finally opened up to vent. "It's just been a classic case of bureaucracy run amuck. The minute we opened up this morning the post office started dropping off bags of mail like it was the end of Miracle of 34th Street. Everyone wants a name change. Boss called in all the temp workers and even some from second shift to help process the load. It wasn't so bad at first; tedious, but not hard. But then they started making all these new rules about what names were allowed. First it was just no profanity. Then no famous pony names. Then no famous human names. Then no names that required nonstandard characters. Then some genius, no doubt with a private office, decided that names which were a pun or references needed to be marked and sent back for an additional form." He grabbed his glass and drained it, rewetting his throat to continue. "Not to mention, every time they added a new rule, one of the managers took a portion of the staff off the front end to reprocess all the forms we'd just finished to make sure they complied with the new rules! And the changelings! Don't even get me started on them! I swear every single one them has the exact same hoofwriting and not one of them can write an H, a U, an N, or an M without it looking like all four at once! It's melting my brain out my ears!"

It was about this time that a pony approached their table on near-silent hooves. He was a completely ordinary and boring stallion except for his wings, horn, black fur, blood red mane, and a pale jagged scar that ran across his eye.

"Good afternoon," he said with a voice like chocolate being poured over a gold brick, "I am Lord Edgelord. Lord of Edges and Edgiest of Lords, and I will be your server this afternoon. Does everypony know what they'd like to drink?"

Silence reigned at the table as the three diners stared, jaws slack and open, at their waiter. After a moment, he chuckled and his red eyes (which, oddly, had three smaller pupils orbiting the central one) briefly flashed with green fire. A quick burst of flames after that reduced the crime against character design to a much more visually-palatable reformed changeling.

"Sorry," he apologized, "You looked like you needed a laugh. I can do impressions if you don't like OCs. I do a killer OG Luna."

Like a lingering stench, the silence continued. And then, Legal snorted. He tried to hold it back but he was quickly overpowered by the need to laugh. Soon the others joined in as well, hearty laughter from Penny and light giggling titters from Updraft.

"Oh, oh... ha ha haaa. Oh yeah, I needed that." Legal said through his diminishing chuckles. "Thanks, uh..."

"Micheal." The changeling provided, "But I'm not really to tied to any particular name. I'll go by anything." He shifted into a tan stallion with a blue mane, still with his work apron on. "I call this guy 'Swift Service' when I'm working."

"Well then, Swift, thanks for lifting my mood. I guess it's not all that bad." Legal let out a final sigh and even his stressed posture seemed to slacken into something comfortable. "And I'll take a water. No, I need a pick-me-up. Make it a root beer float."

"Ooh, seconded!" Penny chimed in.

"Eh, make it three. And make it malted if you can."

Swift Service nodded. "Three root beer floats it is then, one malted. Also, we're having a 'no menu' special today. To celebrate the revival of humanity, order anything you can think of and our chefs will try their hardest to make your most nostalgic flavors a reality. It just costs a flat charge up front."

"Pen... Pe... Pencil Pusher!"

Penny turned at the sound of her name being called. Coming up the street was an older stallion, his hair streaked with silver, running like Tirek himself was hot on his hooves. He came to a skidding stop just outside their table.

"Ticker Tape?" Penny asked, immediately recognizing her coworker, "What is it? What's going on?"

The stallion panted, wheezing for a moment before finally collecting enough air to speak. "We- we need you back at the patent office right away! It's an emergency!"

The mare rose from her seat in alarm, ready to leap the fence between them if necessary. "What's wrong?"

"A couple of unicorn brothers just came in with over two hundred patent applications!"

Penny frowned and sat back down. "Ticker, that's not an emergency. Ponies have been doing that all week, trying to claim any and every piece of human tech they can think of for their own. That's why the Princess made an edict that they have to have a working prototype to stake a claim."

"But they do!" Ticker Tape insisted, his eyes wild and panicked, "They brought some kind of magic car filled with gizmos and contraptions! And all their paperwork is properly filled out!"

Penny's breath hitched in her throat. Impossible! No one ever filled out all the paperwork, let alone correctly, before coming into the patent office!

"They said they'd been waiting for this for a long time," Ticker continued, "Ever since the first season. Penny... they have Class A priority forms, pre-notarized in triplicate. We don't even offer those anymore!"

That was the final straw. Penny leaped from her seat and jumped over the decorative railing that separated the dining area from the street. "Then there's no time to waste!" She turned back to her friends with a rueful expression. "Sorry, but I gotta take care of this. I'm the only ranking manager on duty today. They need my clearance to access the records."

"Go, go." Updraft shooed her off with small motions. "Do what you need to do. We understand." Legal nodded in agreement.

"Thanks!" Penny started to run, Ticker hot on her heels. "Order whatever you want! It's on my tab!"

In seconds they were out of sight, lost in the crowds and twisting streets. Legal turned back to Swift, his expression emotionless. "So I'm thinking I'll have the lobster... and does that come deep-fried?"

Several tables away, a newspaper fell over, the pony previously holding it vanishing in an unnoticed flash of light.


In a flash of lavender light, Starlight Glimmer appeared in a narrow alley between two houses. It was far from the first alley she had been in over the last few days, but it was thankfully the cleanest. She breathed deeply, but quietly, as the aching in her horn flared again with magic burnout. Powerful spellcaster though she was, chain-teleporting still took a lot of energy and concentration; something which was not helped by a lack of sleep, not giving her mana time to recharge, and the growing panic that clouded her thoughts.

Nowhere was safe. For the past several days she'd scoured Equestria for any sort of ally or comrade. Any pony she might be able to turn to for help. Yet, everywhere she went, there were no ponies. Or rather, there were a great many somethings wearing pony skin. They spoke strangely, using many words she didn't understand, but above all it was abundantly clear that these "humans" were not ponies, despite their appearances. She had heard them admit as much many times.

She'd heard it in the Crystal Empire, where she'd seen her childhood friend playing a strange instrument and singing songs that made no sense.

She'd heard it in Ponyville, where her friend and mentor lounged in her castle binging on thin slices of potato (somehow ignoring its potent toxins) as fast as her apparently not actually a dragon assistant could fry them.

She'd heard it in Canterlot and Manehattan. In Fillydelphia and Las Pegasus. In rural villages and bustling metropolises.

She'd even heard it in Sire's Hollow where her own father griped and bemoaned over the inconvenience of his own hooves.

And what was this 'cannon' that they all spoke of? Some kind of weapon? But she'd seen no destruction. As far as nationwide takeovers went, this one had been alarmingly bloodless. Was this cannon so terrible a weapon that every single pony from Princess to farmer bowed at the mere threat of its use? And why was she the only one unaffected?

She'd run to the farthest reaches of Equestria: to her last vestige of hope. A place so far away from civilization that it was practically unknown save by its residents and the hoofful of rare visitors. A place she'd once called home.

Cautiously (and invisibly, just in case) Starlight stepped out from the alley onto the main road of Our Town.

Our Town looked much as she had last seen it, though the road was a little longer and there were a couple of new houses. Familiar faces trotted by without noticing her, acting for all the world as though there was nothing wrong. Starlight felt a surge of hope in her heart. Could she finally have found a place spared from the human invasion?

Spotting Party Favor and Double Diamond across the road, she stepped closer to listen to their conversation.

"...and that was the last I saw of him," Party Favor said as he wrapped up some story.

Double Diamond nodded. "I get his reasons, but I still don't like it."

"Yeah, not everyone was a big fan of Starlight, so it makes sense why he left, but at least most of us stuck around."

Another surge of hope filled Starlight's chest. Not only did they seem to be ponies, but they still liked her. They were allies to her cause. She prepared the magic to release her invisibility spell and-

"The forum was never the same without him."

-she stopped. Our Town didn't have a forum. Or any other sort of amphitheater-like place for meetings and discussions. Within the warm glow of hope, a small black worm of worry began gnawing away.

Unaware of Starlight's growing dismay, the conversation continued on without her. "Yeah, Starlight can be pretty divisive, whether she's pre- or post- reformation. Still, I'd say we were pretty lucky that we got to meet her in person and have front row seats to the whole thing."

Party Favor nodded sagely in agreement. "Too true. Hey, you think she was aware of everything and playing along, or did we actually get to meet the genuine article?"

"Who knows," Diamond replied with a noncommittal shrug. "No way to tell unless she comes back and we ask her."

"I do wish she'd come back." Party Favor shifted on his hooves. "Be nice to meet her properly and talk about everything.

"Yeah..."

Once again, Starlight felt a surge of that same mercurial hope. The forum comment was concerning, but that aside they still sounded like the Party Favor and Double Diamond she knew. The same voices, the same mannerisms, the same everything. But any chance that hope took to grow, the worm of worry also took to gnaw at its foundations before harsh reality toppled it fully.

"But then again," Double Diamond spoke as his words swung like a wrecking ball towards Starlight teetering tower of hope, "Where would she stay since we tore her house down?"

What.

Starlight's brain froze. Slowly, almost against her will, she rotated in place to face down the street. True to their word and much to her shock, at the end of the road her house (the house she had built herself) was no more. In its place was a tree. A tall evergreen. Tall enough that it must have been plated quite a while ago, even taking earth pony magic into account.

"Yeah, shame about that." Party Favor's words trickled into her ears like grease down an oubliette. "But, you know, canon said we had to do it, so we did it. Maybe we can turn the tree into a library or something, like Twilight had back in the early seasons. I wonder who you go to for that, an architect or a gardener?"

Starlight heard the words but didn't hear them. There it was again. Cannon. Blasted cannon. A weapon? An entity? Whatever it was had led these humans to replace her friends and family and assume their lives, but now it had made them tear down her house? The house she'd built with her own two hooves?! Both hope and worry shriveled then burned in the fires of anger. This fight had just become personal.

Not bothering to remove the invisibility, Starlight charged her horn with another teleport. A teleport this far was going to hurt, she knew all too well, but there was nothing for it. If there was no help to be found in Equestria, then she was going to have to go outside to get some. Luckily, she knew of at least four groups she could turn to, and ones that she already had friends in as well. Or, at least, she hoped they were still her friends.

With little disturbance save for a rush of air filling a void, Starlight left the village and Equestria.


Author's Note

Sorry about the wait, this one really fought me and had to go through several major revisions and rewrites. But now with some establishing shots out of the way, I can finally plot a trajectory for this story.

Also, something from this chapter is surprisingly enough canonically true. I almost wrote a oneshot about it on its own, but decided to merge it in here.

Also! Important thing!
Though I'm regrettably late in mentioning it, the incredibly talented GMBlackjack has included this story/universe in one of their massive crossover projects. My chapter can be found here, but I'd suggest reading the whole thing as it is well worth your time and one of the best things I've read on here in ages. If you want to see what happens when a team of interdimensional (that is, inter-fanfictional) pony explorers react to finding an Equestria With No Ponies, go check that out!

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