Chapter 03 – Make yourselves at home

"Why are you here, human?" Celestia interrogated one of the three captured pegasi that were dressed in FBI suits. She managed to capture them after they came out of the portal.

The interrogated pegasus remained silent.

"SPEAK, NOW!" The Goddess of Sun blasted her royal Canterlot voice at the FBI pegasus.

The pegasus was spitefully returning the glare.

Celestia gave up "Throw him back in the dungeon!"

Two guard ponies took the FBI pegasus. One of them asked "What are you going to do about them, your highness?"

"I will get the Scroll of holy light. What they try to hide from me, cannot be hidden from the Scroll." Celestia said, as she trotted towards the Canterlot library.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Darko was quite a strange man. The whole set of circumstances made it so. He was rebellious ever since the elementary school. His brother has a severe case of autism, where he couldn't speak and resonate as a normal person. Darko helped his parents to raise his brother as much as school duty let him. Once he has gotten a job, after finishing the college, his family moved to Norway, and left their house to him. Darko wanted to move out from Serbia as well, and he had chance to do it, too. But he decided to stay in Serbia. His mother thought he would, also get married in Serbia, but that didn't happen. Darko, unlike his two friends, hated everything about marriage. He didn't want kids, because he thought he wouldn't be able to raise them, despite the fact that he did a fine job raising his autistic brother. He, also, didn't want to commit to someone. He didn't trust the women at all. Ever since he got dumped by one girl when he was in high school, after the year and a half of relationship, he totally lost his trust in women. His friends thought he was lonely, but he was always saying that it's fine and that he doesn't need anybody. He liked to be alone, and take care of himself.

Of course, he didn't expect that one day, he will have to take care of, not one or two, but six girls.

Now, he was standing there in his kitchen staring at his oven. The six girls from the other dimension were in dining room, sitting at the table and looked at him.

"Why is he just standing there?" Rainbow Dash whispered "He didn't make a single move for 5 minutes."

"I don't know." Pinkie Pie answered "should we check him out?"

"I don't know… hey where are you going?" Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie as she got up from the chair and headed towards the kitchen.

"Hi, there!" Pinkie Pie jumped in front of Darko. Darko flinched.

"Woah! What the…" Darko finally snapped out from his trance.

"Hi, Darko! Why do you have such a dark name?" Pinkie giggled.

"Oh, that… Well in my language 'Dar' means 'gift', and '-ko' is a suffix. So the name means that I am a gift to my parents… I guess." Darko replied.

"Why are you just standing here, come over there with us, we have so much to talk about." Pinkie said excitedly.

"I was trying to remember how to cook." Darko replied, cursing his laziness as he pretty much relied on fast food after his parents moved. But amazingly, he remained skinny. "Which reminds me, what do you even eat in your world?"

"Hay fries." Twilight answered from the other room. "Do you have hay fries?"

"Hay fries?" Darko repeated, obviously confused.

"What about salt licks?" Rarity asked.

"And dandelion sandwiches… if you don't mind." Fluttershy said.

Darko starred at them for a couple of moments and laughed "Hahahaha, of course, you were ponies in your world. I'm sorry, but humans don't eat flowers, dry grass or… salt licks? Umm… yeah, human guts aren't long enough to successfully digest plants, although we eat some kind of plants… and I don't think you eat meat."

"Humans eat meat? That's horrible!" Fluttershy gasped, having a frightened look on her face, other girls had a look of disgust on their faces.

"Ah, don't worry. There are humans that avoid eating meat. They are called vegetarians. Lucky for you, my parents left me a vegetarian cook book… umm… I never used it… but first time for everything, eh?" Darko chuckled nervously. Then he looked at his oven, the one that he used only for cooking frankfurters and some coffee in case he had guests. Because of how rarely it was used, his oven was always clean.

"Well I better get that cook book." Darko left, and climbed upstairs to his study.

When he was out of sight, Applejack said "A'ight, girls. He obviously doesn't have any cooking experience. So we're gonna help 'em."

"Let's see what ingredients he has." Rainbow Dash opened the fridge. "Huh?"

The contents of Darko's fridge: box of outdated milk, yogurt, two probably rotten eggs, the jar of jam (surprisingly, didn't grow mold on it), and a six pack of beer placed in middle of the fridge as it is the most important thing to have in the fridge.

"Gosh… does this guy even eat?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Maybe that's why's he as skinny as a branch." Applejack commented.

"How are we going to help him, when we don't even have what it takes to help him?" Pinkie Pie asked as Darko appeared on the top of the stairs.

"Umm… girls?" He said "I, kinda, need to go to the grocery store."

"Oh, really." Rarity muttered quietly, Twilight heard her and chuckled.

Darko took his car keys of his Opel Tigra. And as he touched the door knob he turned to girls. "Umm…"

"Doncha worry, sugarcube." Applejack spoke before him "We'll keep this place safe, ah promise."

Other girls nodded. Darko smiled and left.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Later that day

After the whole adventure of making a decent lunch for 7 people, after which the oven looked like that one from the army camp, the girls helped Darko clean up.

"Gee, thanks for the help girls, I really appreciate it." Darko said.

"Don't you worry, it's the least we can do after you let us in your home." Twilight said.

"Yeah! Did you think that we will sit around, while you do all the work?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Well I kinda did." Darko said remembering his experience with girls.

"Wha on Equestria, would ya think that?" Applejack was confused.

"Long story…" Darko replied.

Suddenly, Darko's phone rang.

"Wha is that sound?" Applejack jumped at the sound of dubstep played from the little electronic device used for communication.

"Oh, that's my phone." Darko answered, leaving the girls dumbfounded. He answered the phone. "'Sup, Sloba?"

"Nothing… could you open the gate of your house, we need to park the 'Rabbit' in." Slobodan said. "Oh, and Miljan wants to know if you changed that dubstep ringtone. You might frighten the newcomers."

"What?" Darko whimpered ignoring the witty comment, "I haven't cleaned up yet."

"Clean up?" Slobodan repeated. "Dude, we already saw your mess million times, when do you decided to clean up?"

"I'm in the middle of cleaning up, man." Darko sighed. "Fine, I'll let you in…"

Darko left the phone on the table. "My mates are here. I'm just going to open the gate for them, be right back." And then he left.

Girls looked at him as he left, and then looked at the phone.

"Did he just, totally talked to that plastic thingy?" Rainbow Dash said as she picked it up.

"That's a phone, I've seen things like this in Canterlot." Twilight said. "Of course, that's an assumption based on the way he used it, this thing is so small."

"Phones are used for communication, alright." Twilight continued. "Just, us unicorn ponies rely on magic to communicate, so we don't need phones."

"Well, ah never seen any of these thing-ma-jigs, big or small." Applejack commented "Mighty fascinatin'."

Rarity decided to change the subject "Do you think those three are a bit… you know…." She said and then made a swirling motion with her finger close to her head.

Twilight understood the implication. "Well, we ARE in the different world, so maybe thing work around here differently."

At that moment, the trio of forester's with two females entered the house.

Darko noticed that Rainbow Dash is holding her phone.

"Yo, be careful with that… actually nevermind, I've dropped that thing more times that Miljan dropped his uber in crucial moments." Darko turned to Miljan with a smug on his face.

"Hey, now" Miljan defended himself "I had an unlucky streak with those recently, but usually I pop it before I eat a crocket."

"Again you two with that stupid game." Slobodan protested "What's so great about it anyway, it doesn't even look realistic, it looks cartoonish."

"Hey, just because it doesn't look like Battlefield or Call of Duty, doesn't mean that it's a bad game." Miljan replied.

Darko backed him up "Yeah, and besides, name some other game where you can throw jars of piss at people, or hit them with a fish wrapped in newspapers."

The two females that entered, avoided them, and approached to mane six, that listened to the arguing of three foresters trying to make sense of what are they talking about.

"Ignore them." The chubbier of the two females said. "They often enter arguments like this, no matter what the topic is. My name is Danica, by the way. I'm Slobodan's wife."

Danica stretched out her hand to Twilight. Twilight looked at her hand, and accepted the handshake.

"And I am Dragana" The other female that was a little thiner replied "I'm Miljan's wife. He told me everything about you."

As the girls introduced themselves to Dragana and Danica, the three forest rangers continued on arguing.

"Well I like lemon-flavored beer, it's refreshing and tasty." Darko glared at his two friends.

"Aw, c'mon" Miljan was annoyed. "Those kinds of beers are for girls!"

"Will you three quit it!" Dragana interrupted them. "We have some work to do, as I remember. You didn't even introduce us to these girls here properly."

"Sorry darling." Miljan said. "Let's go guys."

"Pfff… slipper." Darko whispered. (Note: slipper is the slang term used in Serbia for men that obey most of his spouse's commands).

"Shut it, loner boy." Miljan whispered back.

Rarity whispered to Twilight "Well, it seems that these three 'boys' are what I think they were after all, seeing how mature their spouses are."

Twilight chuckled "Yeah, these humans have the same mentality as we ponies do, but those three remind me of Cutie Mark Crusaders."

They all gathered up in Darko's living room. Darko, Slobodan and Miljan brought additional chairs, and they were talking about something, all in Serbian.

Which made Pinkie say: "I wish I understood their language. Oh… I know."

There was a jaw drop coming from Twilight when Pinkie pulled out a book out of her bag. "'Learn Sermareian quickly and efficiently'?" Twilight read the cover of the book.

"Yup." Pinkie said cheerfully.

"But where… how did you…" Twilight stuttered.

"I decided to learn a foreign language, so I picked up this book from your library, and brought it on our trip to Coltfield meadows." Pinkie explained "Learning more words is fun. When you learn more words, you have more to talk about."

Twilight decided not to question Pinkie's logic any further. It was time to talk about the main issue, anyway.

"Okay?" Dragana started "We're pretty much informed about your problem. So I will get directly to the main thing. Do you have any idea how to get back to your world?"

They all looked at Twilight. Twilight shrugged with a nervous grin on her face. "Currently? No… That portal is, kinda the only thing that connects our two worlds, but it can be anywhere, now."

"Do you have any way of sensing where this portal could be?" Danica asked and she was also translating to Slobodan, as he was only one who was not good with English. "Slobodan mentioned something about you using magic… although it was hard to believe."

"Rarity here and I were able to use magic in our world, since we were unicorn ponies." Twilight answered "But we are unable to make contact with magical aura of Equestria from here. Only alicorns can generate their own magic."

"So how are you going to get back?" Miljan asked.

Twilight's head dropped. "I don't know… We can only rely on Princess Celestia to find us, and if this world is as big as ours, then that's going to be very hard. Not to mention that we also lost our elements of harmony in process of shutting down that portal."

Tears started to form in Twilight's eyes, other five girls also had sad looks on their faces… well… except for Pinkie who was with her nose in the book she brought. "Wow, well that's weird, you guys basically use the same word for a 'cookie' and a 'cupcake'… wait… what are we talking about, again?"

"She reminds me of you." Miljan whispered to Darko.

"Aw… I'm not like that… am I?" Darko whispered back. Miljan only nodded his head.

"Alright… I believe you." Dragana said to Miljan.

"Believe in what?" Darko asked.

"She didn't believe that there are six girls that came from another universe to our world. She thought that it was another prank of ours." Miljan said, smiling.

"It was hard to believe, but these girls are obviously upset, and look frightened. And my God, what's up with those hair colors?" Dragana said.

"Yeah, I would be frightened, too if I had to share the house with Darko." Miljan teased, and Darko flipped him the bird.

"What does that mean?" Rarity asked, noticing the 'symbol' that Darko made.

"Umm… nothing. Just the sign language I often use when talking with Miljan here." Darko looked at Miljan with a smug on his face.

"Dude, you will corrupt them. They have, maybe, come from the innocent world." Miljan laughed.

Darko flipped him the bird again. "See? He likes it." He said to Rarity.

"Uhh… o-kay?" Rarity decided not to question the 'symbol' anymore as she started to suspect that it means something dirty.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Later on, they all talked about the life on Earth. The mane six were particularly shocked about wars and crime.

"My gosh!" Applejack said "there ain't that much crime in our world. Ah mean, there was this griffin, and she did still some apples when passin' through town, but that ain't nothin' compared to what ya'll just said to us."

"Yeah. If someone did something like that in our world, Princess Celestia would banish them, and throw them in the dungeon in the place she banished them into." Twilight said.

"That Princess Celestia of yours sure sound like a powerful persona." Danica noticed.

"She is powerful, alright." Rainbow Dash said. "And we hope that she is going to get us. I really don't want to be overdue on my job. I need to help other pegasi to manage the weather. Not to mention that I need my wings to practice to enter the Wonderbolts."

"Wait, you manage weather in your world?" Darko said. "That's so awesome! If we humans could manage the weather we would never worry about drought killing our crops."

"That just ain't right." Applejack said. "Poor lil' plants."

"Yes, we have to deal with that." Darko shrugged. "And what are these Wonderbolts?"

"Only the most coolest ponies in Equestria." Rainbow Dash said with a fangirl squeak in her voice. "They are ace flyers that perform stunts, only the best flyers can enter their squad, and one day I will join them."

Rainbow Dash had sparks in her eyes as she spoke those words, and then she snapped out. "I just hope we won't be stuck here forever." She looked towards Twilight.

"Don't worry Dash. Princess Celestia will get to us." Fluttershy said as she hugged Rainbow Dash. Although she was a bit doubtful about her own words."

"We should go now." Danica said. "It's getting late."

"Yeah we should go, too." Dragana said turning to Miljan.

"Umm… that reminds me." Rarity interrupted. "Where are we going to sleep?"

Everyone turned to Darko. Darko looked at them, and sighed. "Okay… I have to spare rooms for two people. One is a guest room, and the other is a former room of my parents. And the rest can use my room. I will sleep here on the couch."

"That's quite generous of ya." Applejack said. "Thanks!"

"Problem solved." Miljan said cheerfully. "Me and Slobodan will come here tomorrow morning to bring some more clothes for you."

"Oh, yes." Danica said "Those bags we brought have some clothes in it. We thought you might need some fresh clothes."

"Speaking of clothes, what are these for?" Rainbow Dash asked showing the bra she pulled out from her bag.

"Yeah, Danica. Explain them." Darko said as he went upstairs.

"Where are you going?" Slobodan and Danica asked in unison.

"To prepare beds for girls." He said, not turning to them. "See ya tomorrow."

"Yeah, bye." Danica waved.

The two married couples said their goodbyes to girls.

"Hee hee, 'kobila' is a really funny way to say 'mare' in Sermareian." Pinkie Pie said, and lifted her head from the book. "Hey… where did everypony go?"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Midnight

Darko was already sound asleep on his couch. The six girls were all gathered in Darko's room upstairs.

"Can we be sure that Princess will get us?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight.

"We can't be sure one hundred percent. But I'm sure that Princess will do everything in her power to get us out of here." Twilight answered.

"Those people seem nice enough." Rarity said. "But that Darko persona is a little… off. The irony of being stuck with a crazyest one from the bunch."

"I think he's funny." Pinkie Pie said lifting her head from the book. "Meni se spava."

"Umm… what did ya say?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, that means 'I'm sleepy' in Sermareian… or Serbian as they call it here." Pinkie said rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, we should hit the hay." Twilight yawned. "Maybe tomorrow we will get more answers."

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash stayed in Darko's room. Applejack and Fluttershy went to the guest room, and Twilight Sparkle and Rarity went to room of Darko's parents.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Canterlot dungeon

Celestia was reading from the scroll that seemed to absorb information from FBI pegasus' head.

"Did you get anything, sister?" Luna asked.

"Yes I did." Celestia said cheerfully "Come my dear sister, we need to contact Twilight Sparkle. We will use your dream walking spell."

A/N: And... cut. Okay, that shall do.

Sorry for the slow update. Had some obligations at college which produced kind of a small writers block on me. But since it's the summer I will try to update every Wednesday as I did with my first two chapters.

Please read and review. Wish you all the best:

~HCN