Falling Into the Unknown

The sun shone through the small, barred window of the cell, slowing bringing me back into the real world. I opened my eyes, squinting at the sudden intrusion of daylight.

“Uhg… I hate mornings.” I mumbled. I had never functioned well in mornings, with the last few days as an exception to the rule. Then again, I had been getting much more sleep than usual lately, so maybe that was the reason behind it.

A mechanical sound from the door announced that it was opening. I looked out of the sleeping bag to see a pegasus guard standing there, apparently waiting for me.

“Wake up.” It said in a low voice, “Apparently, someone in the ranks thinks you need some time outside. So, we will lead you to the gardens, and you will NOT try to escape. Understood?”

“Yes, I get it… Dickhead.” I said, with several guards in the hallway snickering at the one in the doorway. I pulled myself out of the sleeping bag, grabbing my G-17C and putting it in my holster. It occurred to me I had been wearing the same clothes for around a week, yet I didn’t even see much dirt or wear on them. Another benefit, I suppose, of being in a place that defied physics.

I walked out of the room, leaving most of my stuff there. I assumed they wouldn’t touch it, since they didn’t know what half of it was, even if they were curious. And the guards were too professional to do so, anyway. I walked up to the guard, who promptly turned around and led me on another long journey through the halls.

I was sure that, if I ever tried to break out through my cell, I would get lost within five minutes. Seriously, who puts fifty fucking random turns and a large staircase between the outside and the dungeon? I instantly hated whoever designed this. Can’t they see that someone – or a pony, for that matter – might need to escape at some point?

Eventually we reached a large door guarded by two of those grey unicorn guards. Needless to say, they didn’t look happy to see me.

“Halt!” One of them shouted, point a spear at me – how, I do not know. “Why is this… Beast not back in its cell?”

I was at the end of my patience with them calling me ‘beast’ and ‘creature’. “First off, I have a name.” I snapped at the guard, leaving it stunned. “It’s Tyler Maddox. Learn to use it, or I’ll throw you around the goddamn castle all day. I’m sure your friends” I said, gesturing towards the other two guards. “would enjoy that. Second, someone apparently thinks I need some fresh air. So, if you’re quite through wasting my time, I would like to get a glimpse of the sky for once.”

All three guards stared at me, before the pegasus one finally broke the ice.

“Just let us through,” He said, “I got the orders from Shining, so I assume that he has a good reason for it.”

The two unicorns grudgingly moved aside and opened the door to reveal a large stretch of greenery. I took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air around me, before the guard spoke up again.

“Come this way. I don’t know why I am leading you here, but this is where I was told to go.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured it must be important if the guard was supposed to lead me there. I had no idea why I was being suddenly compliant, but the promise of fresh air and a garden must have had something to do with it. Turning towards the guard, I followed him on a small path through the garden.

Maybe it was because I was paranoid, but I was sure I spotted at least three guards behind us, following at a distance. I was definitely popular with the local guards; either that or they all had a thing for men. I couldn’t decide which one to crack a joke about, so I settled on just following the guard.

We eventually reached a small pond, surrounded by trees and bushes. And standing beside it were Luna, Celestia, and a white unicorn with blue hair. The guard seemed to stiffen up when he saw the unicorn, so I assumed that he was probably a general or something equivalent.

Luna was the first one to notice my arrival. “Ah, our guest has arrived,” She said, “Would you kindly answer for what happened two days ago? We have had much time to think over it, and We demand an answer from thee.”

I sighed. They must be truly lost if they could figure out why I had hid it.

“If you I had told you,” I explained, “Would you have believed me?”

The white unicorn was apparently getting impatient. “Just what is going on, Princess Celestia?” He asked.

Celestia sighed, apparently she hadn’t told anyone what she had seen. “We know why this creature-”

“I have a name, for Christ’s sake! It’s Tyler Maddox. Stop calling me ‘creature’, or ‘beast’, or ‘savage’, or whatever you come up with to sooth your mind over the fact that I am clearly intelligent enough to hold a conversation with you, and the obvious evidence that our kind is clearly more advanced that yours!” I was shouting at the end, causing Celestia and Luna to flinch, and the unicorn to glare at me.

The unicorn scoffed. “How can your kind possibly be more advanced than ours! You obviously have no magic, so how would you advance at all?”

I was shaking in anger at this point. “You just don’t get it, do you?” I said in a low voice, “My kind has done things that you have never dreamed of. We have gone into space and landed on our moon, and we have technology beyond your comprehension. My country has an army of six million men, all of whom are armed with weapons beyond your capacity to understand! We have bombs that can vaporize entire cities and all their surroundings, and we have managed to established a global communications network that allows everyone with a cell phone to communicate instantly with anyone else, anywhere. Don’t you dare try to pass yourselves off as more advanced simply because you have something that SHOULDN’T EVEN EXSIST!”

Celestia and Luna were shocked at my outburst, and with all of the knowledge that I had just given them. They probably knew from my face that I wasn’t lying, and the implications that held were huge.

The unicorn, again, was furious. “Guards, take this creature and put it back in its cell. We will discuss this later when it does not suggest such things!”

I didn’t resist at all as I was led out of the garden, all my thoughts of enjoying the day gone. The pegasus who led me here looked kind of shell-shocked, as did the other guards who took me back. Given all that I had just spat out, I wasn’t surprised. When we got to the cell, there were no words exchanged, just a simple lock of the door. It wasn’t even noon yet, and I was already back here.

“Damn it…” I said in a low voice, “I shouldn’t lose my temper like that, but that ignorant asshole set me off. I really need to work on that…”

“Yeah,” I heard a voice to my right say, “You should work on that.”

Turning, I saw that the pegasus guard that had escorted me to the park was back. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, what with the disguise thing that made them all look alike, but each one had small, individual differences. His voice helped me identify him, that and the fact that his golden armor had a single iron mark on the side, in the shape of a wing.

“We have another questioning for you. I know it’s been around ten minutes since you blew up on Shining and the Princesses, but, as two days ago, we got somepony else to do it.” He explained, motioning to the door with his wing.

I quickly grabbed my stuff, slinging my Sa-58 over my back. My pistol was already in its holster, so that was marked off mentally. I quickly put my backpack on, putting it over the Sa-58. Finally, after a minute of packing, I was ready.

For the second time in an hour, I followed the same guard, through the same goddamn series of halls, and down a different path through the building. Once again, we turned down a hall, stopping halfway through in front of a door. Opening it, he gestured inside. I walked in, and the door quickly shut, leaving me trapped inside. With nothing else to do, I noticed the same two cushions on the ground. I sat down on one, waiting for the questioner to arrive.

After two minutes of waiting, the door finally opened. In walked the same, familiar dark blue pegasus. She sat down on the cushion across from me, staring across the distance that separated us.

Finally, I decided to break out the main question. “I assume you are here to ask me things, because whoever that white unicorn was failed horribly this morning?” I asked.

“Yes.” She responded. “Shining Armor usually doesn’t make a huge deal out of things like this, but today he seems a bit... Off. It’s probably nothing. His wedding is tomorrow, and the Captain’s probably just stressed out. Anyway, on to the questions that I have for you.”

“Ok.” I simply stated, ignoring most of the information except for the ‘wedding’ part. It might be a good opportunity to get out of here.

She pulled a checklist out using her hooves; how they do things like that I still haven’t figured out. “First, off, we are going to go through much of what you said today. For example, you said that your supposed ‘army of six million’ – an absolutely unbelievable figure. A professional guard should be under two thousand – was armed with ‘weapons beyond your understanding’. What did you mean?”

I sighed. This was the part where I would have to explain what my gun was. Pulling it off of my back, I held it out in front of us.

“This is what I meant.” She cocked her head, waiting for the follow-up. “This is a gun.”

“What does that club-thing do, anyway?” She asked, with obvious amusement on her voice.

I unclipped the magazine from the receiver, pulling a bullet out of it. “It fires this out of the barrel. It’s called a bullet – a metal object that can be differing diameters depending on the type of gun. When the trigger – I gestured towards it – is pulled, a pin inside of it strikes the back of the bullet, igniting an explosive powder that shoots the metal slug out of the barrel at velocities that can exceed the speed of sound. For this one, it’s around 2,000 feet per second.

“Once out of the barrel, it goes downrange until it strikes a target, dealing kinetic impact damage as it rips through the target. Does that answer your question?”

Her reaction was priceless. Her face froze up as I finished as she soaked in all of what I said. In a voice that trembled slightly, she finally spoke up.

“How!?!? That doesn’t even sound physically possible! There must be something else!”

I grinned. “Oh, it’s perfectly possible. Just simple physics.  The question is, are you going to try and take them away? Do you even want to attempt it?”

She shook her head slowly. I could see her turning it around in her head, considering the nonexistent ways she could avoid having anybody killed while trying to take my guns away. I suppose she threw the idea away, because she jumped on to the next question quicker than I expected.

“What did you mean by an ‘army of six million’, though? Anypony could see that what you said was a ridiculous number.”

I slowly shook my head. “My country, the United States of America, has a population of 300 million people. We have a small standing army of around six million to defend our country from any threats. You see, our planet has a population of around 7 billion people. There are several dozen large nations on our planet what contain a large percentage of the population. At any time, several of them might get the bad idea to attack us, even though we are the most powerful country on the planet. Therefore, our country has a fairly small army to deal with any threats.”

Her jaw hung open. “SMALL? You call that army SMALL? That’s more than the entire population of Equestria! And seven billion is an insanely large number! How do they all fit?”

“They just do.” I said, not wanting to elaborate. “Next question.”

“What’s that bomb you talked about? You said they being capable of vaporizing entire cities. It’s definitely magical in nature, no doubt about it, but what type?” She said.

I grimaced. They had to learn about it eventually. “It’s not magical at all. Magic, to us, is simply a myth. We don’t have any, nor do we have any examples of it.” She gaped at me, probably stunned for the fifth time today. “A nuclear bomb, nicknamed a nuke, is an incredibly powerful explosive device. When detonated, it splits an atom, the fundamental building block of nature, releasing an insane amount of energy. This causes more to split into neutrons, along with several other types of radioactive materials. You do know what an atom and radiation is, right?”

“Ye- Yes, we do.” She said, stuttering through the phrase.

I continued, “We measure the power of them via TNT. A ton of TNT is enough to level a good-sized area, say a block or two. Nuclear weapons range in explosive power from around a thousand tons of TNT, to well over ten million. The largest ever detonated was about 50 million tons of TNT equivalent. The fireball alone was two miles in diameter, and the effects, including the massive radiation, covered an area three hundred miles in diameter. Do you get all that? Now you know why I don’t talk much about my world, or what we have. Nuclear weapons have only been used twice in a war, but each time they caused around a hundred thousand deaths, and destroyed most of a major city. And that’s only for a bomb around sixteen thousand tons of TNT equivalent.”

She simply stared at me in sheer disbelief.

Two minutes later, I decided to ask the main question. “Do you have your questions answered?” She nodded. “In that case, should I leave?” Another nod. “Don’t forget, everything that I have said is the truth. I don’t expect you to believe me, or to understand, but try.”

I got up and opened the door. As I expected, the guards had been listening in. They simply stared at me. Finally, the white pegasus I had seen much too often today broke the thin ice that kept me standing here.

“Is what you said true?” He simply asked.

I nodded. “Every word of it. And don’t try to take away either of my guns, or whoever she is” I pointed back at the room, “Will have plenty of notes to take on how dangerous they are. Understood?”

The pegasus nodded. “Oh, and by the way, her name is Amber Star. Please refer to my friend as such, or I’ll have your flank, weapon or no weapon. As another note, my name is Azure Star, and yes, we are related.” He finished off with a grin, daring me to say something.

“Ok then,” I said, wanting to get back to my cell, where nobody was there to bombard me with awkward questions. “Let’s get back to my ‘room’.”

With that, I was led back to my cell. For the second time today. I seemed to be getting into a habit, it seemed: Piss off the locals, get led back into cell, repeat. I was sure, though, that today I would just be getting the rest of the day off. I’d given them too much to digest, and they needed to regroup. Probably two days from now, I thought, what with the wedding I had heard about happening tomorrow.

Lying down on my sleeping bag, I pulled out my laptop and started up Battlefield 3. If nothing else, I could simply lose myself in some mindless gaming.

Two hours later, I was in the middle of the second mission when I heard the sound of the cell door unlocking. Looking up, I saw the guard that I usually had – Azure, I corrected myself – standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing to make that sound?” He asked. I facepalmed, unaware that I had the volume turned up the entire time. Everyone for twenty feet around would have heard the sound of shooting and yelling.

“I’m playing a game.” I stated.

“A game? What type of game, and what is it called? And how are you doing a game on that glowing thing?” He asked. I prepared myself for a long explanation.

“The game is a shooting game. It has warfare in it, and it’s called Battlefield 3. As for how I am playing it, this is a computer. It’s an electronic device that allows me to do a variety of things, and I have quite a few games of it.” I finished off, waiting for his reaction.

“Can I watch?” He asked.

I blinked. That was one of the last responses I had expected. Although, I wasn’t about to deny him that. It might actually make me a friend, one of the first things that I needed here, and one of the main things I lacked.

“Sure, although I don’t know if you will understand half of what you see, so feel free to ask if you need to.”

He walked over to the cot I was on and sat down, still in armor. I turned my laptop slightly so he could see it, and unpaused the game.

“Is that a gun?” He asked upon seeing the object that the screen showed me holding.

I nodded. “It’s a gun. The name of it is the M16A2. It’s like the gun that I have, only a different type of bullet is fired – or shot, if you prefer that term – from it.”

I moved forward in the game, running into a parking lot with several insurgents. They all started firing, and bullets flew. Azure stared at the screen, fascinated.

“Is that how warfare on your world really is?” He asked.

I nodded again, feeling like a bobble-head from the many times I had done it today. “It’s pretty close. This is a game, and has inaccuracies that the real world wouldn’t have. For example, on here your character has a health meter that tells you how much life you have left. In the real world, you would simply die, or be severely hurt. However, in a game, some realism is sacrificed for a better experience.”

Apparently whatever Luna had done to translate my speech into theirs and visa versa, also applied to the computer. Azure could read what was on the screen, and also understand what was said, even the Arabic (although he admitted that was because had gone on a tour in Saddle Arabia, wherever that was).

After a half-hour, another guard stood in the doorway.

“Azure! Enough socializing, your break is up, and you’re needed on-duty for the wedding.”

Azure turned and looked at me. Taking a small breath, he got to his hooves and walked to the doorway. “It was… interesting being around you. Although I don’t understand half of what I have seen and heard today, I think I know better than to try and understand it all.”

The door locked again. It was around five here, and I needed something to eat. I went to my backpack, grabbing two apples and my remaining water bottle. Eating the two apples and gulping down the water, I figured I was done for the day, and needed some sleep if I wanted to keep up my strength. Lying down on the bed, I crawled into my sleeping bag and started to drift off. Somewhere, inside of my head, I felt I would need all the sleep I could get for tomorrow.