CHAPTER THREE

Corey woke up with a pounding headache and a strange non-feeling in his limbs. He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't comply. "Ugh," he muttered, trying to remember what had just happened. Kon…no, Kin? Kin had pressed the button on the teleportation thing, and everyone had disappeared into thin air. The teenager opened his eyes and found himself staring straight into a pair of purple eyes.

The eyes belonged to an odd-looking violet creature that seemed to be examining him. It was vaguely cartoonish, with a horn sticking out of its forehead. A feather pen and a scroll of paper floated in the air next to it, scribbling notes all on their own. Corey looked at the creature again and blinked. Hard. "Am I seeing things?" he asked? "Or are you really there?"

The creature snapped to attention, realizing that Corey had said something. "Oh!" it gasped in an obviously feminine voice. "Yeah, I'm really here. Are you?"

Corey had to think of a moment. He looked down at the thin, soft grass that lay beneath him. He could feel it tickling the skin beneath his fur.

Wait…fur?

Corey tried to propel himself forward, but his body and arms still wouldn't work. He tried to look down, but he was having a hard time maneuvering his neck. "Am I tied down or something? 'Cause I can't move," he said awkwardly. This weird creature staring at him was making him uncomfortable, just like the look he and Laney shared earlier had. Suddenly, the world came crashing down on him. Lanes! The band! Where were they? He struggled to move again, but only managed to twitch a leg. "Where are the others? My friends - have you seen them?"

The creature's quill stopped writing and she turned to Corey again. "The ones who were with you? They're over there," she said, gesturing vaguely with her head. "They're all asleep, though. I'd let them rest. First teleport spell can do that to a pony." She focused on the parchment again, leaving Corey on his own to figure out how to move.

He twisted his left leg until it stretched out from under him. He was laying on his stomach, which was usually uncomfortable, but didn't feel as weird right now. He closed his eyes, strained, and managed to push up with his elbows. Or what had once been elbows.

When he glanced downward, Corey couldn't see the human body he was so very used to. It took him a moment to process that what he was looking at was even his. Four gangly legs, rather than the usual two, covered in a pale orange coat of fur. A long, bushy blue tail. A small circular mark on his thigh that looked sort of like the skull on his beanie. Corey blinked again, almost not believing his eyes. Something had happened, all right.

The violet creature – a unicorn pony, he realized – had sat down on the ground near a good-sized cottage. She wasn't focused on Corey, so he tried taking a step. He'd expected it to be like walking on hands and knees at home, but it was totally different. He took another step, and another. I'm starting to get the hang of this, he thought.

To the side of where he had been laying, there were three other ponies. Two, he suspected, were Kin and Kon – they were both grey and had spiky black hair. The other was emerald green and had a soft-looking red mane with a horn of her own poking up through it. If Corey looked closely at it, he could totally see the resemblance to Laney.

The little green unicorn stirred, a breath of air pushing her bangs away from her eyes. Corey leaned in closely, his face over hers, an excited smile spreading across his face. He was tempted to give her a noogie, but after inspecting his new hooves, Corey decided that that might hurt a little too much. Instead, he nudged her side with his foreleg. "Lanes, get up," he said, snickering. "Wait'll you see what happened."

Her eyes fluttering open, Laney peered up at Corey's happy face. She tried to reach up and rub her eyes, but her brand-new hooves wouldn't move. "Wha – what's going on?" she mumbled dazedly. "Did Kin's teleportation gizmo work?"

Corey beamed wider. "It did indeed, Lanes! Take a look around."

The unicorn managed to focus on Corey's head, and immediately her eyes widened in fear. "Whoa! Get back!" she yelled, suddenly alert, all four of her hooves pedaling in the air.

Corey laughed like crazy as Laney tried to scoot away from him on her back. She was failing pretty badly, and her wide movements alerted the violet pony who still sat against the house. She got to her hooves with no trouble at all and rushed to the screaming Laney. "Hey, hey!" she said, soothingly. "It's all right. There's no need to be afraid."

Laney grew quieter as the other pony tried to calm her down. Having another girl nearby seemed to be helping her nerves, but her eyes were still wild and confused. "What happened? Where am I? Where are my friends?" she spluttered.

Corey's face was hurting from all the smiling. "The whole band is here, Lanes," he said. "Look at us! Don't we look awesome?"

Laney looked confused. "Core? Is that you?" She tried to sit up again, but only managed to faceplant into the grass. "What happened to your face?"

"The same thing that happened to yours, fella," Corey said. "We're ponies! And extremely good-looking ones, I might add." He swished his short blue tail, letting it catch the light. "I've already got the hang of it. It doesn't take long."

Laney yelped, glancing down at her pony body. Corey suddenly realized that they weren't wearing any clothes. He panicked for a moment, reaching a hoof up to the top of his head, but his trademark orange beanie was still there, with a hole in its forehead for his horn to poke out. I have a horn! This is the coolest thing ever!

Laney managed to sit up. Corey sat next to her, even more pleased than before. "I hope you're all right," the violet unicorn said sympathetically. "It's hard to teleport for the first time." She smiled and trotted back over to her scroll.

Corey nodded. "It's cool, dude. Shouldn't we wake up Kin and Kon?"

It took a while to get the twins out of their stupor, much more than it did to help Laney stand up. Kin and Kon were both heavy sleepers, and were extremely drowsy when awoken. "Must…have…cheese…" Kon groaned, trying to sit up, while Kin wheezed his guts out onto the grass. As sick as they sounded, though, it didn't take long for the brothers to recover.

"So they device worked! Awesome!" Kin said, shaking his head and sitting up. He checked himself out, noting the small set of musical notes that adorned his flanks. "I wonder why it took us here, though…we were just supposed to travel outside of the garage for the test run."

On the other side of Kin, Kon rolled over onto his stomach. "Maybe our future selves had something to do with it?" he mused, bouncing himself up with his chubby stomach. He was getting used to the pony body much more quickly than the others had, but then Kon had his quirks. "Whoa. I feel, like, really strong."

Kin wobbled as he stood up to give his brother a high-hoof. "No kidding! I could run a marathon." He trotted in place, spiky mane flopping all over. "So, any ideas about what happened or where we are?"

Corey racked his brain for a second, but nothing came to him. Who am I kidding? I never pick up on small details, he thought. "We should ask her," he said importantly, flinging a foreleg toward the purple unicorn, who was sitting and writing once again. She looked busy, but hey, the band needed information, and they needed it now.

Corey and the twins walked over to the unicorn, who looked up as they approached. "Good! You're all awake," she said. "I have some questions for you."

"Um, we've got some for you too," Corey said.

"Like, a lot," Kin added.

The unicorn looked dubious, but she stood. "What do you want to know?"

Corey thought. "Okay, first things first. Where are we?"

"We're just outside of Ponyville. Have you been here before?" the purple pony asked. When the boys shook their heads no, she smiled. "Not many have. It's a nice place though, worth a few visits. Anything else?"

"How far from Peaceville are we?" Kon asked, jumping up and down.

The unicorn tilted her head to the left. "Huh? Peaceville? I've never heard of it. Is it in Equestria?"

"Well…no," Corey said. "Probably not even close. So who are you, exactly?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm Princess Celestia's student. Who are all of you? And how did you appear in my friend Fluttershy's backyard?"

Corey was getting more confused by the minute. The pony – Twilight – was looking at him expectantly, so he took a deep breath

"This is Kin, Kon, and over there is Laney. My name is Corey Riffin, and I'm the leader of Grojband." He stuck his chest out with pride, but deflated when he saw the quizzical look on Twilight's face.

"Grojband? Is that even a word?"

Corey paused. "Uh, well, we made it up."

"You should try to be a little more grammatically accurate," Twilight said, scribbling something on her airborne scroll.

Kin grinned. "She may be dissing our band's name, but I like this pony already!"

Laney appeared next to Corey. She was smaller than Corey expected; while he stood eye to eye with Twilight, the green unicorn was at least half a head shorter. "What's this I hear about dissing the band?"

"Oh, it's no big, Lanes. Twilight here is just getting us up to speed on the lay of the land," Corey said. He turned back to Twilight. "You said you had some other questions?"

"Yes!" the purple unicorn said. She consulted her scroll for a moment, than looked up at Corey. "Obviously, you teleported here, but –"

"That was my handiwork," said Kin, holding his hoof out to the sunlight. "My machine must have malfunctioned though, because we were only trying to go to the front yard."

Twilight frowned. "Machine? What are you talking about? That was a magical teleportation. The energy needed to transport four ponies…the energy I felt just now…how could that not be magical energy? Am I out of practice? Oh, what will Princess Celestia say?" She started pacing back and forth. "I'm sorry, I need a minute."

As Twilight muttered to herself, Laney glanced at Kin. "It was your machine that brought us here, right?"

Kin nodded, holding his hoof out again. "And I made sure to set it to take us to Corey's front yard, so I'm not sure why we ended up here."

Corey stared at the hoof. "What are we looking at, exactly?" Kin's hoof was a little dirty, but there was nothing especially interesting to look at on it.

Kon slapped Kin's outstretched foreleg with his own. "High-hoof!"

Laney sighed, a spark of anger in her eyes. "I suppose I have to say it, don't I? Kin, you're overlooking something. The device is gone."

Welcome back to the interesting adventures in Magic Song!

Lanes and I have an interesting announcement: We are now on DeviantART, also as TwiLanes! You can visit us there for Magic Song, our future fanfictions, and maybe some art in the future! (Nothing really professional though...we're not THAT good.)

As I'm sure you've already guessed, Chapter Four will be up next Sunday! We'll also be posting some Halloween/Nightmare Night oneshots on the 31st.

They won't be Grimdarks or horror stories...that might disappoint some of you, but it's not a genre we're too fond of.

Don't forget to review...we really want to hear your thoughts about this story.

We hope to see you on Sunday for business as usual! Arrivederci!