Saphrim goes to Equestria

Two years. You had two years minimum before you could get home. It could have been longer for all you knew. Well at least you had a lot of spare time now.

And what you wanted to get done the most in that time was the studying of magic, because it was an anomaly and needed to be studied. Plus it was fun to move things with your mind, even if you could do that normally anyway.

Oh. Well, shit. You left all of the books in the library in your rush to get home. Minus the ones that were already here and the one that you had in your hand at the time of your departure.

You could always go back into town, it's not like you had anything to do out here anyway, although, you had been thinking of an experiment that you could perform in the future, as you had suddenly found a large amount of time to kill.

Before you began your run back into town you checked to make sure that the orb assembling your program was secured and wasn't going to fall out any time soon. Satisfied that it was not going to fall from your necklace, you turned towards the door and began the journey back to Ponyville.

You ran, as even though you had a vast amount of time before you could be able to leave, you still didn't want to waste any of it. Within seconds trees were whizzing past you as you sprinted towards the little village, narrowly avoiding trees and other obstacles by either jumping or swinging around it, the latter often resulting with broken trees.

One tree you had to do both in order to prevent yourself from smashing through it; jumping into the air grabbing the branch and back flipping down to the ground from the momentum you possessed. This caused you to have to stop for less than a second to regain your balance before taking off again.

It took you a total of four minutes going at a relatively slow speed - at least compared to what you were doing when you first came here - before you reached the edge of the forest, at which point you had to slow down.

You leant to the left slightly and put right leg forward, digging it into the floor to decelerate you and prevent you from falling over at the same time. As you slowed down to a near stop your kicked your other leg downwards bringing you upright as you walked the last few metres out of the forest. It was amazing what you were capable of when you put all of your attention into doing it.

The little town was full of activity; ponies in the markets selling goods, smaller ponies - which you assumed to be foals - running about, and ponies just generally enjoying the sunshine.

Before you ventured any further you checked to see how long you had been gone, just in case you needed to come up with a story as to why you were gone so long.

Well, you had been gone for a solid forty two hours, which was an entire week for these ponies. Programming your way out if this world took longer than you thought.

With this knowledge in mind you set off towards your first destination. You attracted a lot of attention, and all it took for you to figure out why was to look down at your clothes. Your clothes were still filthy. New destination then.

Instead of going straight to the library like you had planned, you instead go to Rarity’s boutique to see if she had done with you clothes yet. You didn't have any money though, so that could pose a bit of a problem.

Looking around you saw one of the ponies handing over some coins of some sort to another pony, just like the ones Celestia had described to you at the ruined castle. As quickly as you could you snatched one of the coins with your new-found magic skills and brought it to your outstretched arm. The action did not go unnoticed by the pony you took it from.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Do not worry sir, I only needed to look at it. Here, have it back.”

You tossed the coin back to the pony where he managed to catch it with his teeth, showing quite some skill and flexibility while doing it.

The pony wondered off, which surprised you as you thought he would have been a bit more upset than that. It didn't matter anyway, you got what you needed. In the split second it had been in your hand you had scanned it and stored the exact atomic structure of it, so that way you would be able to reproduce it in the future as you needed it.

Although, before you could make any you needed a place to store it. Seeing as leather probably wasn't going to be accepted here, you used a brown fabric produced by your Nanites to form a small bag which you tied to your belt right next to your weapon.

You didn't even bother making any now, as that would just add weight that you didn't feel like carrying around. Instead, you just programmed your Nanites to produce the coins in the bag at will. That way you would just be able to reach into your bag and pay whenever you needed to.

With this done you set off once more to Rarity’s.

You had attracted even more attention after your stunt with the Earth pony, and your sudden materialising bag probably hadn't helped at all. You ignored them and continued on your way to Rarity’s. Hopefully she had finished your clothes as you didn't want to keep attracting this much attention.

Within moments you found yourself out the front of the oddly designed building in which Rarity worked and may also live. You walked up to the door and knocked on it a few times to see if she was in or not.

“Come in!”

Well, she definitely was in. You opened the door into the building, seeing the inside for the first time.

“Welcome to the Carousel Boutique! How may I - oh! Hello darling, I take it you're here for your clothing?”

“Yes, that would be wonderful. Is it complete though?”

“Of course it is! you gave an entire week to finish it. Many of my other customers are never that generous with the deadline. In fact you didn't even give me a deadline and for that I thank you.”

“It's really no trouble at all.”

“Well then, do you wan to see it? I got that strange fabric you sent. I must say it was quite difficult working with it, recall difficult to cut you see.”

“This wasn't a problem was it?”

“Oh nonsense darling! I love a good challenge, it makes the job boring you see. Here we are, your new apparel. I hope it meets your standards.”

The clothes were...not on a mannequin like you had expected. Instead they were just floating there in midair with nothing supporting it - that you could see of anyway. You could probably blame that on magic.

The clothes themselves were to your exact specifications. The top consisted of two layers of clothing; the under shirt which was black in colour and long-sleeved, and the over shirt, which, technically, wasn't a shirt. It was more of a cloak than anything else. It had sleeves that were semi-baggy and that extended about halfway down your forearms, ending with folded over bits of fabric precisely stitched together. At the top it had a hood that had an inner fabric of a darker colour and an outer fabric which was the same fabric used to make most of the cloak. Down the waist the cloak split in two, leaving the front region more exposed than the back due to the bottoms on the cloak, meaning the back area had less of a gap in fabric. Where it had split in two was more fabrics of varying types, forming three separate layers; the middle layer which was the base of the cloak, the inner layer which was the same as the inner hooded area, and the outer layer which was slightly lighter in colour than the rest of the clothes. At the shoulder area, where the hood joined to the torso section, was six strips of fabric in two groups; the left and the right. Both were in perfect symmetry, with the middle layer of fabric being the base colour, the inner being the darker one, and the outer being the lighter one.

One last thing that you took note of was the similar strips of fabric extending from the front waist area, which extended down to just above the bottom of the cloak. And also the fact that the whole thing was lined with a pattern of blue lines - the same as your magic - which was not entirely for aesthetic purposes. Before-hand you had programmed your Nanites to form higher concentrations wherever there was blue pigment, not leaving the rest of the material without any machines but still with less than the blue dyed regions had.

The blue pattern followed most of the edges of the cloak, leaving about four centimetres before the material ended. The lines were also going down the strips of fabric that hung down the back and in the front. The area on the back that was only slightly hidden from view because of the fabric also had its own patterns, however in a similar pattern to what the edges of your shoulder bones would look like had you been wearing it - albeit much more angular. The last area that had any dye in it was the hood, which had it going straight up from the ‘spine’ of the cloak before parting and following the edge of the fabric down to the bottom where it ended.

“It is perfect Rarity! How much do I owe you?”

“Oh think nothing of it darling. You can have this one for free.”

“Free. Really?”

“Absolutely dear, generosity is my best trait after all.”

“Ok then. I thank you again.”

She would be getting an ‘anonymous’ donation later that day, you would have to make sure you didn't forget though.

“Well, try it on dear. I don't even know if it fits yet.”

“Do you have a changing room?”

“What? Oh yes! How silly of me, I forgot you humans were a bit funny about nudity. It's right down that hallway.”

She pointed her hoof down to the side of where you were standing, which was a hallway like she had said.

You smiled at her and thanked her again before she brought down the clothes with her magic and handed them to you. You walked down the hallway and found a single doorway, which you presumed to be the changing room, or at least a single changing room.

You walked into it and noticed little difference in the style of colour, as it had the exact same layout as the rest of the building did, at least from what little you had seen of it that was.

You didn't even bother with the little cubicles, as you were the only one in the room, instead opting to just get changed in the middle of the room.

You were about to just rip your current clothes of but failed to do so as they fell off before you got the chance, leaving you standing there in nothing but underwear. You didn't mind the clothes falling to pieces as they weren't very nice to begin with.

You put the black under layer of clothing on first, which were pretty much just a normal pair of pants and a shirt. They were a perfect fit, on the border of ‘hugging’ your skin but still just loose enough to allow you to be able to move without any restraint, even allowing you to move at speed as well.

You picked up your belt - which had fallen to the floor with your pants - and tightened it around you, even though you didn't actually need it to hold up your pants. You necklace was able to stay on your neck as your shirt sort of just split in half and allowed it to stay. Even so, it didn't exactly feel comfortable so you tucked it under the small collar on your new shirt.

You picked up the grey cloak, which you had placed carefully besides you. It too was a perfect fit, and buttoned up nicely. You only buttoned up three of the five buttons though as you wanted to be able to pull back the ‘skirt’ of the cloak if you needed to, plus you didn't like having the top button of your shirt done up anyway.

You tested the Nanites in the fabric just to make sure they were working. They connected to you just fine and still followed your instructions as you gave them. You could see many uses for the Namite infused material, besides the ones you had already designed and built into it and the obvious positive of never again having to worry about damaging your clothes. After all, if they did get cut or torn, your Nanites could just remake the exact design that had been recorded down.

You picked up the remains of your old clothes and headed back down the hallway to Rariy.

“It's a perfect fit! You did an excellent job!”

“Why thank you darling, and I must say, it looks spectacular on you!”

“Thank you. Hey, has anything interesting happened in the week that I've been gone?”

“Well, there was a little incident regarding some tickets - during which I am ashamed to admit I was acting very unladylike - but since then nothing of interest has really happened.”

“Wait, what was this incident all about?”

“Well, Princess Celestia sent Twilight and Spike some tickets to the grand galloping gala, and we all wanted to go. It ended with us trying to impress Twilight so that she would give us the tickets and I must say we were very unruly.”

“Wait, why didn't Celesita just give you the tickets when she was here in Ponyville. That would have prevented the whole thing as you could just ask for some more tickets.”

“Well, I - ...I don't know why she didn't. It doesn't matter anyway as the problem has been resolved.”

“Hmm, yes - well! Thank you again, and I will be on my way.”

“What are you going to do with those?”

She pointed a hoof towards your ruined clothed that were in your hand.

“I was gonna burn them. You can do it if you want.”

“Oh, no it's quite alright. Well, it's been a pleasure doing business with you Saphrim.”

“Likewise.”

You turn towards the door and reach for the handle, but before you can open it a flying pussy starts eating your face.

You go cross-eyed trying to get a look a the white cat chewing on your nose but all you can see is white fur which was all over your face. You peel the little thing off of your face and hold it with your thumb and index finger, as it was probably small enough to escape if you held it in your hand.

Rarity was standing there with her mouth agape, surprised by the sudden materialising cat.

“I take that as a yes then.”

You dropped the cat down to the ground and it ran away down the hall you just came out of. Rarity was still in a shocked stupor.

“Well, goodbye.”

And you left the building with Rarity looking like she was embarrassed for some reason. Oh well, it didn't matter. Now, onto the library.

The ponies were no longer paying any attention to you at all. In fact, it was almost as if you had become completely transparent to them. That was good for you as it meant less distractions in the future from these annoyingly bright ponies.

Within moments you found yourself outside the front of the tree you first sought answers in. It was weird; you knew it had been more than a week and for you it was a quarter of that. It was a really surreal feeling, living with two separate measures of time in the same place.

Upon opening the door you noticed Twilight and Pinkie Pie straight away, arguing over something.

“I'm telling you Twilight, she's a big meanie-head!”

“I'm sure your just jealous of her Pinkie, I really don't think she's that mean.”

“Hello?”

They turned to face you.

“Oh, hi there. Is there anything I can do for you?”

You shut the door without turning around to face it, keeping your attention on Twilight.

“I'm just here to pick up some books I accidentally left behind last week. Have you seen them? They were given to me by Luna.”

“Do you mean the pile of books that was just on the floor carelessly?”

She seemed a bit annoyed, if her tone of voice was any indication.

“They probably are. Can I have them please?”

She stared at you for a long time, a gaze that was somewhere between a scowl and a look of boredom. She had apparently been doing something to her interest before you - and possibly Pinkie - arrived.

“I'll be right back.”

And with that she walked upstairs to presumably retrieve the books you had left behind. You turned to the only pony left in the room, who was being surprisingly quiet.

“Hey, what were you talking about when I walked in?”

“It's Gilda! She such a meanie pants!”

“Who is Gilda?”

Pinkie started waving her limbs around in the air as she frowned at the ceiling.

“She's Dashie’s griffon friend but I think she's a big meanie pants!”

Why was she a ‘meanie pants’?

“I think I'm gonna’ have to side with Twilight on this one. I think you are being a bit jealous. Do keep in mind though that I have no clue what you are talking about at all.”

“You - but - she - augh!”

Pinkie zipped past you opened the door slammed it shut and disappeared from view. All in the space of one second. You really needed to find out how she did that.

Twilight came down the stairs just as she disappeared, her hooves making small clacking sounds as they hit the floor, muffled from the wood.

“Where did Pinkie go?”

“You tell me, she quite literally just vanished.”

The little Unicorn just rolled her eyes before placing your books from before into your hands using her magic.

“Here's everything you left behind last week.”

Twilight seemed like she was going to leave but then stayed and asked another question.

“By the way, where did you run off to so quickly? And why did you go straight through my window?”

“Well, it was quicker. And I left so I could go home and...study.”

You didn't feel like explaining to her what you were actually doing, and it would probably take a very long time to do so anyway.

“Well, sure, but next time could you at least give us some warning before randomly smashing windows with your face.”

“Sure, I'll keep that in mind for the future.”

“Goodbye.”

“See ya’ later.”

You left the building and closed the door behind you, cutting off your line of sight to the waving Unicorn. Now, you had the books, but you wanted to make sure you had everything you needed before going back into the forest. It may not take long for you to get to your house and back but that was still for the time you were used to, for these equines it would be four times as long that you would be away just because you were going to your house.

You stepped down the street quietly, trying to not attract too much attention to yourself and doing a remarkable job of it. You may be a normal sight to these ponies but you were still a foreign entity that they knew nothing about, you didn't want to find out what would happen if you were found out. Celestia seemed pretty understanding, or at least you assumed she understood you were - at least on some level - from a different place.

In your thoughts you only just noticed you were approaching the markets.

Trade was another thing that you were uneducated in. In fact, most humans would probably be uneducated in it, as there was no need for trade. Why trade something with no value for something else of no value when you could just snap your fingers and make it appear. At least, if memory served you correctly. You had only been to a tier one galaxy on one occasion and you vaguely remember someone doing something along those lines. It almost made you jealous of the technology they had access to.

Not that you didn't have access to it, you just didn't know how it worked and you were too shy to ask. You didn't exactly like going up to people and asking them questions, especially when said people can use planets as play-things. Not that you couldn't do that if you wanted to - if you *really* wanted to put the time and effort in you could, but again, it was the ease at which they did it that was discouraging.

You were in the markets now, ponies scrambling about buying and selling goods, a few humans here and there although in far lesser number than the ponies. You might be able to find something of interest that you could purchase.

You hadn't noticed until now, but a large portion of the stalls in the market were owned by humans. One stall in particular stood out to you, and so, you walked over to inspect it closer. The man at the stall was short - but then again so were all the other humans here - only about Celestia’s height, and coming up to your ribs. He had brown hair and green eyes, with - quite the opposite of you - a dark complexion.

“Can I help you?”

“I'm just looking around, killing time mostly.”

“Oh, ok then.”

He looked down at a book he had in his hand.

“Although, could you tell me why there are so many stalls run by humans here?”

This brought his attention back to you, the book temporarily forgotten.

“This is the only place where we are allowed to sell things. Most other pony settlements won't allow us to set up stores. The other species are an entirely different matter though, you'd be much more likely to see human stores in other parts of The World.”

“Ok, thanks for that.”

He went back to his book and you had a quick look around his wares. He was selling various forms of weaponry, mostly antiques by the looks of it. You found that funny as you couldn't imagine these little ponies using weapons, it was just too ridiculous. He probably wouldn't make much profit from it either.

Your eyes landed on a decent sized bow, a weapon that you hadn't even physically seen in your lifespan due to how old it was.

“How much for the bow.”

“Thirty five bits.”

He didn't even bother looking up from his book when he answered you, apparently he had lost all interest in you.

You produced the correct amount of currency in your pouch and pulled it out.

“I'll take it.”

You placed the money on the wooden bench and picked up the bow. The human just picked up the money and placed it in a box, still not looking up from his book. It must have been a very fascinating book.

You left the markets and ventured onto a hill next to the forest in which your home resided. The day was progressing now, faster than you were expecting although probably not actually going any faster than what Luna had told you.

By the time you had reached the top of the hill you realised you didn't have any arrows for the bow and so you could use it. You groaned in frustration and headed back down the hill towards the little town.

By the time you had reached the markets again the stall from which you bought the bow had already closed up. That was annoying. You would have to make your own arrows then.

Before you could turn to leave the town again, a large weight slammed into you from behind, causing you to topple over into the dirt floor. Looking behind you as you scrapped the dust and grime from your brand new clothes you saw a creature which you assumed was a griffon. A female one from the looks of it.

She opened and closed her beak multiple time before releasing a gasp.

“I-I-I'm so sorry, I'm s-so terribly s-sorry!”

She then did something you weren't expecting; she bowed down to you, as if you were some kind of royalty. You really didn't know what to do in this situation.

“Hey it's fine. It was an accident, no harm done see.”

She still seemed a little upset, if her frazzled feathers and darting eyes were anything to go off of. It was almost like she feared you.

You then took note of how skinny she was; you could literally see her ribs from where you were standing, even though she was trying to hide it with her wings. She must have been starving.

“Why don't you come to my house, I'll make you something to eat.”

“O-oh, no I couldn't possibly accept that o-offer.”

You wondered what was up with her, she seemed almost as scared as Fluttershy was. Unless she was always like this.

“Please, I insist.”

She seemed even more worried now.

“...ok.”

She answered in a very Fluttershy-like way, in the fact that it was so quiet you almost couldn't hear her at all.

You began walking back up the hill with the griffon in tow behind you. You got about half way up the small incline when the griffon stopped suddenly.

“You live in the Everfree forest!?”

“Yep. By the way I still haven't gotten your name.”

“It's Gilda.”

“Ok then Gilda, yes I do live in the forest. It's nice and quiet there you see.”

So this was the one Pinkie was talking about. She didn't seem very mean to you.

She went silent. Before soon you found yourself at the entrance to the forest. You walked in without hesitation but Gilda quickly glanced back towards Ponyville when she thought you couldn't see her.

She looked like she was almost dead from the lack of food so you would have to give her something she liked, it was the least you could do after all. You didn't exactly want her to die from a lack of sustenance, especially since you could just ‘magic’ up some food using your tech.

“You coming?”

You looked back at Gilda, who still looked unsure as to whether she should enter or not.

“Don't worry, nothing is going to eat you while you are with me, just stay close and you'll be fine.”

And with that but of encouragement she entered the forest behind you, still cautious but following you nonetheless.

Gilda was very jumpy; quite literally jumping at every sound be it from your feet snapping a twig in half or the call of some distant bird. You took the opportunity to think of what Griffons might eat. They’re supposed to be a hybrid of lion and eagle so she might eat meat. Then again, she could eat anything for all you knew, she could be feeding on your emotions right now. Perhaps she is hematophagous and drinks blood? You doubted she would photosynthesise as she probably wouldn't look so hungry if she did. You would just have to ask her.

“Hey, what do Griffons eat?”

“What?”

“Well, if I'm going to be making you food I need to know what you eat don't I?”

“I eat plants, just like everything else in the world. Shouldn't you know this?”

Like every other creature on the planet? You did not see that coming. Those wolves from earlier certainly didn't look like they wanted to eat plants. That manticore definitely got blood on him from plants, you're sure. Oh well, you could probably just force some plants to grow in order to feed the griffon.

You had been walking for about five minutes when you saw more eyes in the forest, similar to that of the wolves from earlier. You could tell there was going to be another confrontation, so you began channeling Nanites into your hands, in a such a quantity that they were powerful but not visible unless one was looking for them specifically.

All throughout that you kept walking normally, as to not hint the wolves in to the fact that you knew they were following you. When they jumped from the bushes they didn't know what hit them. Literally.

It happened so fast; you swung your arm around in a horizontal arc, releasing the Nanites as you went. The affect was so fast you doubt that Gilda would have been able to follow what happened, you being another story entirely as you had Nanites in your eyes. The wolves were hit by a shockwave of air, caused by the Nanites, that contained enough force to shatter half of them instantly. Those that didn't shatter from brute force alone collided into the sides of trees and other obstacles and met a similar demise.

You didn't even stop walking during the entire event. Gilda most definitely did though, and you had to stop, turn around, and gesture her to follow.

“Come on.”

She quite visibly gulped at the prospect of entering the clearly ‘dangerous’ forest, or it could be that your display of power intimidated her. You weren't exactly sure which cone it was. Regardless, she followed you still.

You managed to make it to your clearing without any other interferences from the residents of the forest. Gilda kept a close eye on the blood smear for some reason. Had she never even seen blood before? You found it increasingly strange that she wasn't a carnivore, or at the very least an omnivore. There was no use dwelling on it now though, you were already home after all.

You pushed open the door and held it open for Gilda to enter. She appeared to be tacked aback by the scale of your house, even more so when she entered it. You were a lot taller than even the tallest residents you had seen, so of coarse it would look large. At least for anything besides you or anything larger than you.

By the time you shut the door it was already getting dark; annoying time differences at its finest.

You walked down under the overhanging second floor towards the wooden table further down the tree. Gilda had already sat herself down at the table, looking both awkward and skittish at the same time.

“If you excuse me I'll just make something to eat. Would you like anything specifically?”

“Um...whatever y-you have i-is fine.”

What was with this planet and trauma. Seriously, she seemed like she was about to break down at any moment. Was this planet extremely dark or something? Or were all these sapients just that sensitive? You let out an I audible grumble, both from your internal pondering a and the fact that you would now have to come up with something to make.

You stepped into the kitchen. There wasn't really much in there, just a few benches made from the surrounding tree. You still had yet to furnish your house and you doubt you would ever get the opportunity to do so. It wasn't like you needed the furnishings anyway, they would be mostly for aesthetic purposes if you did install them.

Getting back to the problem at hand; you had to make some food for a near starving griffon who happened to be sitting at your dining table. Your own thoughts made it sound like you were in some tier two class human entertainment planet, they often liked to engineer animals for fun. They sometimes even went so far as to make entire planetary ecosystems just to watch them grow and develop from basic bacteria. Still nothing compared to what some tier one class humans often do for entertainment. It often revolved around making small-moon sized rockets and launching them into defenceless suns. And that wasn't even the most insane thing they did.

You shook your head and shuddered slightly at the distant memory, you were getting very distracted as of late, probably something to do with finding a new planet.

You turned your attention towards your current task, making some food, some ‘plants’, as Gilda described them. The only option you could see that would be viable would be to just scan her brain and see what she wanted to eat at the moment. So you did.

You scanned for tiny pulses of radiation coming from Gilda’s mind, then compiled that data into your Hives, which then began processing it into information which you could better understand.

You kept away from memories and other personal things as you didn't like intruding too much. Apparently she wanted some kind of plant which you didn't even know of, probably being native to this planet. Or ‘slab of rock’, would probably be a better term as it wasn't exactly planetoid in shape, more of a flat disk of unknown depth.

Making this food would actually take a bit of effort, as you would have to process more of Gilda’s mind in order to find out what she was tasting when she was eating the fruit, then use that to figure out what chemicals were being released onto her tongue. You would then use that to work backwards and figure out the plants DNA by reverse reconstruction of the same chemicals being made from its own DNA samples. You would have to figure out small segments of the DNA at a time, but it wouldn't matter when you had the processing power of your Hives.

Eventually you had an exact copy of the plant’s DNA and began synthesising the actual fruit plus some seeds for future use. You made some metal plates, as you didn't have any other material on you besides wood and blood and that would probably discourage Gilda’s appetite.

You brought the finished meal into the dining room to find Gilda looking in wonder at the machine producing cores on the table. She was just about to touch it with her left front claw.

“Don't do that.”

“Ah!”

She quickly brought her claw to the ground and began stuttering, trying to formulate an apology. She seemed almost ashamed that she almost touched your machine, even though you couldn't really care less, as you could just build another if it was damaged. The amount she was stuttering though made it look like she had just defiled a sacred object.

“It's no problem, just don't touch it in the future.”

She opened her beak to speak some more but shut it again and going quiet. You placed the food on the table. It was just a bunch of sliced up fruit arranged to look somewhat nice, nothing special though. Gilda looked like she was going to kill something to get at it. You may have underestimated just how hungry she was.

You sat down on the opposite side of the table and put your plate down as well. You had to commend Gilda; she was still being polite despite her ravenous hunger. Once you sat down Gilda began eating, though not inhaling like you thought she would, instead just eating by pecking at it with her beak.

You still found it strange that she wasn't a carnivore, she certainly looked equipped to be a predator. She had the claws after all, and you assumed she had at least a fairly good eyesight to go with those wings. It didn't look like her beak was overly good at breaking plant matter either.

By now she had eaten most of the fruit with her beak and you realised that you hadn't eaten any of yours. You pushed your plate to Gilda, as you didn't feel like eating the fruit, or anything for that matter. It wasn't like you were going to starve either.

She looked up from her food.

“Thanks.”

“It's really no problem.”

She pulled the plate closer to her and began eating that, as she had already finished with the other one and still looked very hungry. You sat in silence, with the only sound being the quiet pecking of Gilda. You thought of your situation again, you had been doing that a lot lately. Ok, so you were stranded in a land populated by multiple sapient creatures of varying degrees of biological weirdness. Fair enough. You were in a land were everything was thought to be run by some ‘mystical’ means. Ok, you'd seen weirder. You were in a land that followed virtually no laws of continuity at all, again not all that surprising; you'd seem it all before. However, add it all together and you get a big pile of mindfuck. Plus the bright colours were making your eyes sore. That was another downside.

At least you may have found a possible way out of this place, which you hoped would take you straight home. Back to the solitude of space in the comforts of your spaceship, which you just now realised you would have either rebuild or replace with another. That could be done though, for now you may as well get what you could from this ‘vacation’ to this weird land.

“So, Gilda. Mind telling me why you looked like you were anorexic? Or what you were even doing in Ponyville?”

She froze. She had finished with her food now and was just stacking the plates on top of each other.

She sighed.

“It's a long story,”

“I've got a lot of time on my hands as of late, so don't worry about time.”

She looked down at the table in front of her.

“Things aren't exactly nice were I'm from, heck, anywhere outside of Equestria is in bad conditions. Low resources, wild animals, predators, bandits, not to mention...Him.”

“Who's ‘Him’?”

“I...I don't want to say. It is considered an omen of death to even mention His name.”

Wow, you did not see that coming. You would have to further investigate this in the future.

“I came to Equestria because I've been here before, when I was little. I made a few friends, although it wasn't easy seeing as Equestrian citizens seem to treat other species like dirt. I realised very quickly that Equestria was a much nicer place than where I lived.”

“I see. Well I hope you enjoy your stay here in Equestria.”

“Oh no, you see I have to leave soon. I'm only here for a month at the very least.”

An idea came to your head. You could be able to learn more about Gilda’s home country and the Equestrians at the same time. Although you already liked Griffons more than Ponies, if Gilda was anything to go by then they were much nicer and less...fucked up was the only analogy you could think of. Perhaps you could go there with her when she leaves.

“You can stay here if you want. I have lots of spare rooms that have no use at the moment. The only problem is that they aren't furnished but I'm sure you could handle that, if you choose to stay that is.”

She looked surprised at your offer.

“Of course I would like to stay, I would be very grateful.”

“Sure you can stay, I don't really have anything in this building though. Only just moving in, in a sense.”

“That's fine, I'm just so grateful you allowed me to stay - a human allowing me to stay in their home!”

“What's surprising about that?”

“Oh nothing, it's just a great honour that's all.”

“Yeah, but why is it a great honour?”

“Well...everypony has different opinions about your kind, but most species adore you.”

The ponies don't seem to follow that line of thinking.

“Some even consider you Gods for crying out loud!”

Wait, what! You...your kind...or at least these humans...were treated as Gods? To some on this planet you were a God. They thought you were a God...

...

...The irony of the situation was not lost on you.

“...ok.”

Your voice had no emotion in it, you were pretty sure you were still in shock. You shook it off quickly though and spoke in a normal tone of voice.

“So I will just leave you to get settled in, the bedrooms are down that way. Call me if you need anything.”

You pointed down the hallway which had the most spare rooms down it. Gilda walked off, gaping at the sheer scale of your tree house. She hadn't seen that part of the building yet so she was probably feeling a little small right now.

As she disappeared from sight you turned towards the machine on the table, still spinning around doing its job. According to the readings you were getting this thing still had quite a while to go before the fusion cores are completed. It wouldn't matter though, as you had an even longer wait for the focus.

Oh. You just realised the bow from the market had fallen off of you, probably when Gilda flew into you. You didn't want to go back into town just yet and it was already dark outside. Perhaps there was a spell you could find that could bring it to you. It wasn't that much of a stretch, as apparently Unicorns could teleport.

You walked over to the books, which had somehow ended up on the floor, and began skimming the pages for something that you could use to bring you your bow. Eventually you found a ‘conjuration’ spell. It could supposedly make a portal and bring objects from point A to point B. You still didn't know what to call these portals, as they weren't quite Rifts. If they were getting home would be simple. For now they would be referred to as sub-rifts, as that was something that actually made sense to you. Rifts within Rifts.

The spell was incredibly complex, having hundreds of symbols all interwoven together to form a complex pattern. You decided that you would cheat. Just a little. You used the recordings from the Nanites - which were still archiving everything that happened - to form an overlay that lapsed over the real world. It was a holographic image, only not. It wasn't actually physical, instead it was a mental image produced by the Nanites from within your mind and your eyes.

Still, it did the job, and everywhere you looked an exact copy of the spell was floating, looking semi transparent meaning that you could still see objects behind it. This would be so useful in the future, you could tell. Instead of having to memorise each symbols and go from memory, you could just place an exact duplicate of the image over your eyes and build from that.

You began pulling strands of magic into your palm, not going into your Vision as you wanted to test if it would still work whether you had it engaged or not. Within moments you had the spell completed and you released it from your mental grip, allowing the photons and other particles to do their thing.

Directly above your outstretched palm a ball of blackness appeared, although calling it black would be incorrect as it was completed void of all light. Not even the absence of light could escape the nothingness. It was a familiar sight, the sight of a Rift. You had barely any time to think about it further though, as the familiar form took the shape of your bow and fell to the ground.

The whole ordeal was a quiet one, not even a single sound escaped the Rift, which had disappeared quickly after delivering its cargo. At least you knew the spell worked now, which meant that you could use it in the future without worry of backfire. And you also managed to summon your bow as well, a win - win situation.

You picked up the bow and inspected it, looking to see if the summoning had done anything to damage it in any way. It didn't look damaged but it could still be damaged internally. You gave the string a few test pulls, only pulling it back to half your full arm length before lowering it back down. Satisfied that the string was not going to snap, you twisted side on and pulled the string all the way to your chin. It promptly snapped and whipped you in the neck, the bow flinging out of your grasp in the process.

Your arms were still in position, as you hadn't quite processed what just happened. Blinking, you walk towards the broken bow and pick it back up, the string falling to the ground as you did so. You suspect that the thing broke because of your strength. You put the thing on the table for now as you see that it was becoming day again, losing track of time was becoming something you were good at.

You decided to make some breakfast, as Gilda was probably going to get up soon. Your choice was some simple pancakes, as those would be easy to make and were always good for breakfast. While manipulating your Nanites your mind wandered to other places. You only just now realised that despite your love of it, you had yet to get any actual sleep besides your traumatically induced unconsciousness during your first day here. Or was it your first week? You couldn't be sure, tracking time was so difficult here.

You had managed to lose track of time whilst thinking about losing track of time, as a metre high pile of pancakes had been produced in the time it took you to realise you had lost track of time. Again.

The tower of food began to lean to one side, leaning in the direction of you. You acted quickly, using your body as a barrier to prevent the pancakes from toppling over onto the floor. You were met with some success, as only several out the hundreds of pancakes fell to the ground.

You quickly brought forth some Nanites to carry away the monstrous amount of food, food that you didn't know what to do with. With a mental flick you sent some of the pancakes down the hall, out of sight and out of mind. At least until you heard a panicked scream and the sounds of flailing limbs from down the same hall.

Rushing into the hallway you took notice of the massive pile of food and also the limbs sticking out from under it. A head poked itself out from the mound; it was Gilda. She looked dazed and her huge eyes were spinning around, showing that she either had very flexible optical cords or none at all.

She shook her head and looked towards you, lifting her claw to steady her head which caused multiple pancakes to flop onto her beak. She went cross-eyed trying to look at them as she opened her beak to speak.

“Wha-”

“Good morning. Here's breakfast. Goodbye.”

You returned down the hall trying to ignore her as best as possible. The moment you were out of sight you ran to the wall and listened to her, seeing if she would make any comments on...what just occurred. Your poor social skills seemed to be random, one minute your talking to strangers without a care the next you were running away from house guests that are covered in pancakes. What should you do? She may be hurt. Why the fuck were you suddenly acting like this? Perhaps Luna wasn't the only nut in town. Or it could be the stress of the past few days crushing your inexperienced, solitarily confined social personality.

“Um...Gilda are you alright?”

“...”

Oh no. What if she choked to death on pancakes! What then! Where would you hide the body!

“Gilda!?”

Your heart rate increased significantly. You looked around the corner slowly. You didn't see any trace of Gilda or the massive pile of food.

“...Gilda?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!”

You tripped over suddenly and hit your head on the wooden floor. Gilda had somehow managed to sneak up behind you. The hit to the head must have fixed something though, as you were no longer having a panic attack. Gee, you knew you were prone to social anxiety but that seemed a bit extreme, even for you. That was definitely out of your personality. Were you being affected by the planet you found yourself on? You certainly hoped not.

You mentally pushed all those thoughts aside and looked up to Gilda. From your position on the floor she was taller, still only just though.

“What was that?”

“Um...”

“Is this how you normally treat guests? Good morning, here's breakfast. Catch!”

“I - um...no.”

She gave you a funny look. You tried to salvage the situation.

“Um...good morning...?”

“Good morning. Thanks for breakfast by the way.”

She smiled at you. You don't know how she did it with a beak though. It must be some kind of flexible keratin-based molecule. Possibly with inner muscles that were used to communicate and eat. That made the most sense to you. At least more sense than using magic as an excuse to explain something that happens.

“I'll be staying here for a while if that's ok with you.”

“...sure.”

You didn't know what was up with her, or you for that matter. She seemed a lot less nervous, and definitely a lot more cheerful compared to yesterday. Was that normal here? To have spontaneous shifts in mood - no - entire personalities? Was that in some way affecting your own neuro-chemistry? You certainly hoped not!

“I'll be in my room. See ya!”

And she skipped back down the hall she had come from in the first place. Well that was weird. What had she done with the pancakes anyway? Not even the ones that you hadn't thrown at her remained.

You had a sudden urge to go outside for a walk in the strange forest you found yourself in. Although, it was more of an urge to study your surroundings as best as you could, than an urge to actually go walking.

You threw the front door open and hit the ground running. You didn't have a specific direction in mind, just jumping over the tops of the trees that made up your clearing and smashing through the other ones that were between you and the ground. You took off, gaining speeds close to that of which you had achieved your first day here.

You ducked, weaved and jumped around any obstacle in your path, having to completely focus all your attention on what you were doing lest you miss a jump and come crashing down to the ground at speeds of two hundred plus kilometres per hour.

You didn't need to map out the area as you were still recording the entirety of your experiences from within, out into raw data that could be converted into something understandable at a later date.

You were so focused on not falling over during your run that you only just managed to notice the fact that there was significantly less light than when you started your little trip. When had it gotten so dark?

You slid to a halt under the shade of a very large tree. It wasn't really shaded though, as the sun wasn't even up any more. It was dark, and you had somehow failed to notice it. It seemed you could lose track of things without the use of Nanites.

You turned around to head back home but noticed something troubling. You were lost. The forest looked completely different to where you had set up residence. It wasn't just the lack of light that made the forest seem dark, the very trees themselves were darker; darker leaves and darker wood.

No problem, you could just jump above the tree canopy and figure out where you were.

You crouched down and leapt as high into the air as you could, getting about one hundred and fifty metres above the forest canopy, which itself was about twenty metres above the ground. You noticed something very troubling. You couldn't recognise anything.

You fell back to the ground with a heavy thud, not sure exactly what to do. You could always decider the data in your Hives but that would take a while. It was still a better option than just walking, or running, around with no direction. Your annoyed that you did that in the first place as you wouldn't be in this situation had you not decided to just go for a supposedly short run.

You may as well get comfortable as you were probably going to be here for quite a while. You noticed an overhanging cave entrance not to far away, hidden behind some of the surrounding flora.

It seemed like a good place to wait for your Hives to do their thing, especially since it - wait, when did it start raining? Well, that settles that, you were going into the cave.

It wasn't as dark inside as you thought it would be, although still a lot darker than outside. That was to be expected, you were in a cave after all. Strangely enough though, the further you went in the brighter it got, which was weird as it should have been the opposite.

Not only was it getting brighter the deeper you went, but the further you went in the less natural it looked and the more smoother the rocks walls became. Eventually it got to the point where the walls were completely smooth and looked like it had been built by someone. Or something.

You didn't like the idea of ‘or something’.

As you continued in deeper you realised that the walls had scratches in them, made by large claws owned by some unknown creature. Probably a large creature if the claw marks were anything to go by. Another thing you took note of was a distant rumbling, which was also increasing in volume as you went further down the tunnel.

By now you couldn't see the outside world anymore because you were so far away from the cave entrance. You continued on regardless of this fact as you were curious as to the source the rumbling. Your first guess would be some sort of machine, possibly manufactured by one of the clawed creatures that left behind the scratches on the wall.

You could see more light at the end of the tunnel and the rumbling now sounding more like manual labour and less like machinery like you had expected. Then you walked out of the end of the tunnel.

You were a little surprised to be honest, though not as much as you would have been had you come here a few days earlier. Or weeks? Fuck it, you didn't care anymore. More interestingly though, it was the people that were making the noise that had your interest. People was becoming a very loose term for you.

The people, or rather dogs, had oddly proportioned bodies, with very large upper bodies supported by relatively small legs. In particular their arms were huge, with some even making up three quarters of their total height. That was another thing, there was more than one species of dog in this cavern. You didn't even need to scan their DNA to find out either, as some of them differed so much that you could almost call them a separate species entirely.

They were all gathered in the centre of the cavern, which had a very large amount of open space for them to occupy, with stalagmites dotting the areas in between the dogs. The roof of the cavern was also covered in stalactites, or at least it was before, as the dogs seemed to had ripped them from the ceiling, probably in order to prevent any accidents.

The dogs before you were all entering from multiple entrances around the cavern, before converging into the centre, leaving a gap in the cavern opposite to where you were standing. If you had to guess you would probably say they were assembling for some sort of important meeting. Perhaps you could listen in on their conversation if you were careful enough to not be seen.

You quickly ran from the tunnel you were hiding in and hid behind a convenient boulder about twenty metres away, carefully avoiding all attention. It was probably helpful that the tunnel you had come out of was higher than that of the other surrounding surfaces, with the majority of the cavern floor being below every other level.

You peaked out of your hiding spot to see a dog walk out onto a slightly raised rock platform in the area where the dogs had been leaving an empty space. He was followed by two other dogs that were slightly shorter than him, though it didn't really matter as all three of them were at least a head taller than even the tallest of the other dogs in the room.

He - along with the other two dogs - were well dressed compared to the other dogs, wearing some kind of ceremonial robes. The larger dog had silver coloured robes while the two others had bronze coloured ones, which you assumed to mean that he was a higher ranking individual than those other dogs. You paid attention as the larger dog began to speak to the assembled crowd.

“Alright! Settle down! You all know why we have gathered here, so let's get straight into it. We cannot keep this up for much longer; our efforts aren't stopping Him and he gets closer to the Equestrian safe zone everyday. Now-”

“What of the others? Are they giving up hope as well!?”

More voices joined the one that shouted out, also voicing their concerns on the matter.

“Quiet! We are not giving up hope and neither are the others. We are simply...falling back.”

He didn't sound all that convinced himself, and the his speech only served to make the crowd even more loud in their outcries, which in turn made the room even louder as their voices echoed across the cavern. It got louder and louder, the shouts if protest and fear becoming the only thing you could hear from your hiding spot.

“SILENCE!”

Not anymore, it seemed. Your eardrums payed the price for the silence though. You felt something wet dripping from your ears, which after a quick feel, you confirmed to be blood. At least it got the crowd to shut up though.

You looked back over the rock to see the source of the voice, a Minatuar if you had to guess. He stood even taller than the dogs but still shorter than you, surprisingly. He made good use of the silence it seemed.

“The other nations are doing their best to aid us during this time, I have been informed myself that the Griffons have sent someone just recently to request help from the ponies of Equestria. Now-”

“What do you mean they sent to get help, from ponies!?”

It wasn't a dog from the crowd speaking out his time, instead it was one of the shorter dogs on the stage, speaking in harsh whispers to the taller Minatuar. Said Minatuar promptly turned to the dogs in the crowd.

“Excuse us for a moment.”

The creatures on stage, Dog and Minatuar, huddled together and began speaking in hushed tones. You could barely make out what they were saying over the sounds of the murmuring crowd.

“...are they insane!”

“...have no choice...low on...as it is...”

“...but surely...crazy enough to...be serious about this...”

“...they should know that...have no honesty...could end up...fools who had...failed before...”

“...told you no...out of options...we are going to...if something...help us...”

“...fine!...you will...when it backfires in...faces...”

“Hello, it's good to see you have done squabbling with each other.”

They all turned to face someone you didn't expect it see here. Gilda flew in from the entrance directly opposite to you and landed besides the arguing sapients on the stage, lifting up minute amounts of dust in the process.

“Gilda, what are you doing here?I thought you were supposed to be requesting help from the Princesses.”

“Well let's just say my journey here was...more eventful than I first thought. I could never have made it all the way to Canterlot in time for the deadline so I came here instead. I've found some interesting intel on the ponies that love here.”

“And? What is it?”

“...they...haven't changed. Some are willing to be nice but the majority are still the same as they were during The Purge.”

“I...see. This is bad news then.”

“Yes, I don't think they will be willing to help us, not to mention the fact that they somehow don't recall history at all and have seemingly lost the way of warcraft. And to top it all of I'm currently living with a freakishly tall human who has the intelligence of a rock.”

What...

Seriously, what...

She thought you had the mental capabilities of a stone...

How nice of her.

You decided now would be a very good time to leave. You don't think that you could survive another insult to your intellect. Somebody insults you? Sure, you didn't care, but your intellect was special to you. Probably the only thing you could actually pride yourself in. That comment really hit deep for you. The funny thing was you probably wouldn't care anymore by the time you got outside the cave system.

You quietly crept around towards the entrance now being used as an exit, being even more careful now not to be seen. You made it back into the tunnel and - believing that you were in the clear - you took off into a sprint. Luckily for you that was true; no one was within earshot or eyesight.

Once outside you came back to your original problem once more. You had no way of knowing how to get back home and it was still raining. The little expedition you had just undertaken hadn't exactly helped your situation in any way either, so that was just adding to your level annoyance.

Well, you couldn't just sit around all day and - night...and do nothing. Stupid planetary rotation bullshit. Oh yes, you forgot to give a fuck about that comment. Oh well, you couldn't care less anymore. Also, you totally called it. Well now it seemed like the only option was brute forcing your way through countless yottabytes of data and deciphering it, as it would take longer for your internal computers to do it. What fun!

You sat down on the ground, as past experiences doing this told you that this wasn't something you wanted to do standing up. You tried to focus out the sound of the rain, tried to ignore everything around you. You would need as much mental capacity as you could muster. You were ready, now all you needed to do was sent the message and begin the flow of raw data directly into your mind. This should be interesting; it had been a while since you had done this.

The flow began and you instantly and instinctively grabbed your head despite there being no traditional pain. It still ‘ached’ though. The flow was smaller than you had expected, and you were easily able to keep up with it. Until it increased, that was. It was still tolerable to you, so you began the hard part; processing and translating it. It almost became to much for you to handle, all the data being shoved into your cranium from...within your cranium. It wasn't even ‘normal’ data either, just masses of formless...stuff, that held no sense or...meaning. You had to actually make...sense of this completely shapeless data, certainly a...daunting task.

Time was meaningless to...you here in your own...mind. Things were...difficult, as you were...losing your sense of...self. It...-done.

Thank Universe that was over! You opened your eyes to get in some light. It was a weird experience having to adjust to a different medium of data and at first everyone of your senses felt strange to you, alien even. You also didn't like how forcing data through your mind made you lose some cognitive ability, which was a slight frustration when doing it because you had to focus on staying sane lest you lose all sense of self and become a purely logical machine, certainly something you didn't want to experience again. Being nothing but data was a very...different experience in your list of memories to say the least.

Oh, it had stopped raining, that's nice and convenient. And your Nanites had also translated the pre-translated data into a holographic trail of light barely above the dirt ground. Now all you needed to do was follow it straight home.

Standing up was a bit of a struggle though, as you had to essentially re-learn how to use your muscles, as if they were completely foreign to you, and in a sense, they were. Only unlike when you were younger in your foreign body you were born into, this time you had muscle memory within your brain so you weren't completely hopeless at standing up. Still another annoyance you had to deal with though.

At first you started limping forward, still not quite comfortable with your stability. You had, technically, been separated from your body for however long you had been deciphering data. Still though, you were making progress and you could now somewhat walk again, albeit shakily. You would probably be back to normal in a days time so that was a plus. Or four days as it were. Still no running for you, or any movement requiring more than just simple motions of your legs.

You had a very long journey ahead of you, it seemed.

It took a while, and an entire Equestrian day had passed, but you eventually made it back to your wooden abode. You basically flopped onto the door and pushed it open with your own weight, unfortunately landing on the floor in the process. Your chin would probably be bruised if it weren't for your Nanites.

“...my...legs...why...burn...uhh...”

You attempted to lift yourself up again. Emphasis on attempted. You could hardly feel anything anymore, just numb stubs that should feel like arms and legs. It would be a long time before you did anything that required you to fuck up your nervous system. You had also procured a headache during the trip back home, so that was a pain.

“Hi there.”

You looked to Gilda, who had a happy, weird smile on her beak, looking like an innocent child. If you didn't know any better you would say that she knew you were listening in on her little speech. Luckily you knew better.

“Fuck off...please.”

She seemed shocked at your request, judging by the way she jumped back and gasped at your prone form.

“Well! How rude, but since you said please.”

She seemed to be wanting to annoy you further, as - wait...that actually worked? Yes, something you did actually worked for once instead of blowing up in your face. This was cause for celebration!

The wall in front of you suddenly exploded and showered you with bits of wooden debris and other forms of shrapnel, some even impaling your arms and firmly nailing them in place.

“Huh................ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! My freakin’ leg! What the fuck!”

“Have you seen my explosives by any chance”

Gilda’s head poked out from the new hole in the building, still looking like a childish...whatever she was called, you couldn't recall at this time as you had other pressing matters at hand, like the three metre long piece of wood impaled through your neck. Seeing as you couldn't use your vocal cords to do anything but scream and gurgle, you did the next best thing.

You took your middle finger and showed it to her. Thankfully she got the message and she disappeared, probably off to blow up more of your stuff. That didn't matter at least she was gone.

You really couldn't be bothered to pull the bits of debris lodged into your numb body, so instead you just sat there, trying to move as little as possible to not disturb the wounds anymore as the slightest movements sent bursts of pain throughout your entire body.

Oh shit. You had a sudden urge to sneeze.