It was happening again. A visitor from another world was going to appear in Equestria. Twilight was no stranger to visitors from other worlds. On more than one occasion new ponies would appear and nopony would have any idea as to who they were or where they came from, often they would be confused and more than one had been panicking about "having hooves". Most of the time they managed to get back to their world by one way or another. Some managed to find the devices that had brought them there in the first place while others had to resort to finding some magical anomaly that was a result of their presence.
Some however had not wanted to go back at all. Some had said the world they were from was so horrible that they were much happier in the more peaceful Equestria. Others thought that they could do a lot of good things for Ponykind. For instance that strange "Doctor" fellow who had just shown up in this weird blue box, which now he and Derpy would frequently go into, then come back out with very satisfied looks. When Twilight had asked him about this he said something about time travel and she immediately dropped the matter, not wanting a repeat of her own time traveling mishap.
What interested Twilight the most however was that all of these other-worldly ponies seemed to all describe vastly different worlds. Once a stallion with goggles and a hard hat described a world where two companies had teams of mercenaries endlessly fighting over worthless land while another who wore strange robes and could do magic without a horn told of a massive empire across multiple planets and a fierce rebellion to overthrow it. All of these wildly varying accounts had lead to her making the beginnings of a theory of a large network of interconnected worlds with different cultures and civilizations in each one.
In any case the ones who chose to stay rarely talked about the worlds they were from, this was because the stories that they had told would be so traumatic for the peace loving ponies that they could cause horrible nightmares, not to mention that they were told by the Princesses to keep the fact that they were other-worldly beings a secret. One mare in particular had told stories of a world where her civilization had torn itself apart in a massive war that lasted two hours and left most of the planet dead and everything from the air to the majority of the food would slowly kill you if you were exposed to it. Just thinking about something like that happening in Equestria made Twilight shudder. As it was though, many of the Visitors, as the Princesses had dubbed them, who stayed had ended up starting very happy lives and some had even found their special somepony and gotten married.
As Twilight and her friends walked along towards the point in the Everfree where her detection spell predicted the arrival she grinned to herself as she remembered some of the more likable visitors such as the one who had the tales of a barren war-struck planet. She went by the name of Moira and seemed a bit crazy but was the nicest pony you would ever meet. She was one of the ones who had decided to stay in Equestria and had set up an odds and ends shop.
Each pony was having different thoughts about the possibility of a new arrival. "I hope the're a pegasus" Rainbow Dash thought, "it's always funny watching them try to use their wings for the first time
"I wonder if that spell Twi' came up with can really tell when someone is coming to our world again?”Applejack thought with no small amount of doubt.
"I do hope this one is a proper lady or gentlecolt," Rarity began. "That last one was simply a ruffian." She got no further as the conversation was stolen away from her.
"Iwonderwhattheirfavoritekindofcupcakeisohmygoshmaybetheydontknowwhatcupcakesarewheretheyarefromthatssosadillhavetoteachthemmycupcakesong!" (do I even have to say)Pinkie suddenly spouted out.
"Pinkie, I’m sure that he or she will know what a cupcake is." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
"BUT WHAT IF THEY DONT!" Pinkie wailed, the force of it making Dash roll over a few times in the air.
"Sugar cube, even if they don’t know what cupcakes are y'all can just teach them." Applejack grinned as she watched Pinkie's hair practically explode in a wave of excitement.
Twilight spoke up, "Girls whoever this new visitor is make sure that you remember to be gentle with them so they are less likely to panic, got it?"
"Yeah, yeah we got it" Rainbow muttered, then she perked up, "Remember when Moira showed up? I thought she was gonna freak out like the rest of them but she thought it was amazing!" They all began to laugh at the thought of the strange shop owner, Rarity however huffed. "I do wish she would make that little shop of hers less offending to the senses though, it looks shabby and always smells atrocious from whatever new experiment she is doing.
"Aw lighten up, Rar' at least she makes herself useful. Remember the time you got a bunch of that tree sap the crusaders brought in from the forest in yer tail? She had some chemical thing that made it come right out!" Applejack cheerfully said.
Rarity gave her a scathing glare. "Yes and you seem to forget it also turned my tail orange." At this Rainbow Dash began to guffaw at the memory of Rarity hiding herself under a elaborate disguise anytime she was in public for over a week.
"Ok girls we're here! remember, dont rush them with questions all at once." They waited for a few minutes and nothing happened. "Uhh, Twi you sure that fancy spell of yours can predict when new folks are gonna pop out of nowhere?"
"Well, not one hundred percent sure, maybe seventy-three point four percent."
Suddenly a large crackling ball of blue energy began to grow out of nowhere and Pinkie Pie began to shake like a leaf in a gale. "Oh my gosh this is the biggest doozy Ive ever felt!" She yelled as she shook.
Fluttershy, who had been quiet up to this point, began to worry more than normal, "What if its another one of the mean ones?" Although it had only happened once the arrival of a not just unpleasant or rude but genuinely evil pony had nearly destroyed Equestria. Fortunately however the incident had been contained with the general public none the wiser. Twilight was about to comment when the energy ball exploded in a flash of light and blinded them all. After they could see again they noticed that their was a seventh pony among them. A light brownish grayish pegasis stallion with a darker brown mane and tail was splayed out on the ground. He didnt look very old maybe just a few years younger than Rainbow Dash. He had a strange metal band on his left foreleg that had a green screen and a few buttons and knobs. he also had a blue golf bag slung over his shoulder. His most startling feature however was the fact that his eyes were a pale grey as though the color had been sucked out of them. He groggily sat up and looked around at the gathered ponies. "Huh... im surronded by a bunch of colorful ponies, either I hit my head really hard on entry or its happening again." He tried to stand up but staggered and almost fell over but Fluttershy caught him. She tried shaking him but found that he had passed out. The girls looked at each other for a minute and then Rarity spoke up, "He said 'again' what do you suppose that means?"
"Yeah and he didn't even seem to notice that he was a pony" Rainbow added. They all looked at the unconcious stallion with their own questions. Who was he? What was his world like? Was he violent? What did that thing on his arm do? What did he mean by again? And most importantly: DID HE KNOW WHAT CUPCAKES WERE?!?!?!?!?!?
Explanations and Introductions
The new stallion opened his eyes. He appeared to be in some sort of bed so his first thought was that he was in a hospital. He looked around and took in his surroundings. There was nothing to note except for the open door through which he could see a thin yellow pegasus that appeared to be asleep on a couch. The lack of any kind of equipment ruled out any kind of hospital or lab (thank God) so he was left curious as to his whereabouts.
He felt an absence of his blue golf bag on his back and looked worried for a moment before looking down and seeing that the metal band on what had been his left arm was still intact. He tapped it a few times but was unable to garner any results. He looked down at his hands and for the first time noticed that they were hooves. He raised an eyebrow and thought to himself "Well this is certainly new, I hope that this is supposed to happen and its not just another experiment by some nut" He failed to notice the yellow pegasus had woken up and was watching him nervously.
Fluttershy decided she should speak up, "Ummm mister, I-"the newcomer cut her off with a wave of his hoof.
"My name is Jared, I feel really weird being called mister so lets just get the names out of the way, what's yours?"
Fluttershy was startled by his sudden interruption but considering how ponies normally treated her it was nothing new. "Oh well, I'm Fluttershy and, um, its nice to meet you," she said while looking down at her hooves.
"Well, Fluttershy would you care to tell me where I am exactly? Because I appear to be in a lovely little cottage in a very comfortable bed and generally I don't get welcomes quite this nice."
A new voice suddenly spoke up, "You're in Fluttershy's cottage at the edge of the Everfree forest." Jared looked for the source of the voice and saw that a group of ponies had just walked in the door. They had an incredible variety in color, there was a purple unicorn and white unicorn with a purple mane, a light blue Pegasus that had a rainbow colored mane that could not be natural who was constantly hovering, and orange pony and pink pony that appeared to lack any kind of "extras", the orange one had a large Stetson hat on and the pink one's mane was so unkempt it looked as though it had never been brushed, she also appeared to be bouncing up and down. The purple unicorn spoke up, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, we brought you here after you passed out, how much do you remember?"
Jared thoughtfully rubbed his chin, "Well I was just looking over a job I had finished but before I could I got sucked into that blue energy ball and found myself here," he looked back at her, "I don't suppose you could tell me where here is could you?"
Twilight gave a slight smile, this along with "OH GOD, WHY AM I A PONY?!" were by far the two most common questions that new arrivals asked, "You are in Equestria, it is a land that is mostly inhabited by ponies like us but there are some other species like buffalo or zebras. A lot of things have changed from whatever world you came from, starting with you." At this she handed him a small hoof mirror, being sure not to use magic until its existence was explained, she had found out the hard way that most of the visitors did not know what magic was.
Jared took the mirror awkwardly and looked at it. He turned to Twilight with a grin on his face, "Well I never was that good-looking but I'm not that ugly am I?" he began to chuckle, "Come on, if you were expecting me to panic from being a pony don't you think I would have by now?" He turned back to the mirror and began to examine his new face.
Twilight was about concede the point when the pink pony suddenly let loose a torrent of noise, "Where did you come from? What's it like there? Did anyone else there come here too? Is that why you are not panicking like most of the others did?" Jared suddenly snapped his head away from the mirror at this, "Oh I'm Pin-"she got no further than that as the brown hoof in her mouth prevented her from talking.
Jared turned to Twilight and snapped out, "What did she mean others?!"
Taken aback by his sudden outburst Twilight answered without thinking, "T-there have been several ponies that claimed to be from other worlds and most of them were extremely disoriented upon first appearing which leads me to question: why weren't you?"
Jared seemed to consider something for a few moments then sighed, "This isn't the first time that I have woken up in a strange place with inhabitants of a different species or at least different cultures than me," he smirked, "Although I guess this time you aren't. Anyway I seem to have a knack for getting myself pulled into other worlds and I always manage to get wrapped up in whatever events are going on at the time. I decided a few years ago that as long as my life is completely screwed up I may as well help prevent it from happening to other people, so whenever I find someone or thing that is out of place in a world I do my best to help them get back where they came from or if they can't I try to help them make a new life."
Twilight smiled, "In that case you will be a big help to us if you already have experience with it, that is pretty much what we do with any of our visitors, I'm sure the Princesses will be happy to let you help us."
Jared looked a bit hesitant, "I don't know, In the past I haven't had the best of luck working with the local rulers, they usually try to use the tools at my disposal for their own purposes. Then people get hurt and I cause a lot of suffering that I don't want or need on my conscious."
The orange hatted pony came forward then with a bit of a glare on her face, she looked down at Jared (who was still laying in Fluttershy's bed) and said, "Hang on there, what kind of tools? And why do people get hurt if somepony tries to use them?"
Jared looked sheepish and rubbed his hoof on the back of his head, "Well, a good amount of them really are just tools although some are rather fancy, but after a series of painful and scarring events early on in my little 'journey,'" he said the word "journey" with a short and bitter laugh, "I decided that I needed a way to defend myself. I would rather just leave it at that for now though, I can tell you my whole life story whenever we go see these Princesses of yours, I assume that you are going to take me there?"
Twilight smiled , "Yep! she always wants to meet you ponies, she calls you 'Visitors', in fact, I already sent her a letter telling her you are here so I'm sure that the royal guard will be here soon to escort you to her."
Two things about that rubbed Jared the wrong way, the first was "royal guard escort" which did not sound good at all, the second was that Twilight had said letter which implied paper mail but she had said they would be here soon, so depending on the distance to said Princesses could mean that he had been unconscious for a number of days. He voiced his concerns, "Ummm, if you already had time for a letter to get there and get one back that means they either live really close to you or I have been out for a couple of days at least, which is it?" he wasn't quite sure why this bothered him but it did.
Twilight mentally scolded herself, she shouldn't have expected him to overlook the speed at which they communicated with the Princesses given the level of intelligence he displayed in their conversation, "Well, they do live about a day away by train but you have only been unconscious for about an hour and a half. The reason I was able to communicate with them so easily is that in Equestria unicorns such as myself are able to manipulate an energy known as magic." She remained silent for a moment to let it sink in.
"Magic," Jared said with a blank look on his face. He looked back at her and said with a bit of a glare, "I swear Twilight if I find out you are making this up I'm going to-"
"No no no its the truth look." Twilight frantically spluttered and with those words she levitated the mirror he was still trying to hold correctly out of his hooves and into the air.
Jared looked at the mirror and then waved his hoof around it searching for wires, he glanced down at the metal band on his arm and raised his eyebrows. "Magic," he repeated, "honest to God magic." He began to wriggle his way out from under the blankets on the bed and said, "We have a lot to discuss when I meet your Princesses Twilight," he managed to extricate himself from the sheets and promptly fell flat on his face. When he staggered to his hooves he noticed an odd feeling of weight on his back. He looked back and saw a pair of large feathered wings sticking from his back. "I have wings?!" was all he managed to get out.