Pokemon Trainer In Equestria

Chapters

1. Arrival to a strange, new land
2. Time to hit the town
3. Plenty of interruptions and some new acquaintances.
4. Revelations On Both Sides
5. New Accomadations, And a New Friend
6. A Royal Visit
7. Time To Hit The Town, Round 2
8. The First Pokemon Battle Ever In Equestria
9. Back Home
10. A Wild Discord Appeared!
11. Corruption
12. A Bear-y Interesting Turn of Events
13. Rage Awakened
14. Recovery And Guilt Tripping
Bonus Chapter #1
Mending Scars
16. New Job And a Picnic

1. Arrival to a strange, new land

Chapter 1

I sighed, as I crawled out of bed to begin my next day as a Pokémon trainer. I never was too much of a morning person; always hated getting up early in the morning, whether it be for school or whatever. But anyway, back to the whole “Pokémon Trainer” thing.

Yeah, I guess you could say I train Pokémon. I've been at it ever since I was eight years old, when my parents decided to give me my very first Pokémon. Now I am 18 years old, and man have I had my share of adventures. Some of them had been good, and some have been absolutely terrible. I’ve had experiences full of strife and turmoil, and others full of grand enlightenment and fulfillment. And the only reason I have made it through all of that and lived to see today is because of the help of my Pokémon. But anyway, those stories are best saved for another time.

As I got up out of bed, I decided to get ready for the day. Today was the day I would go out on a small trip into the wilderness in order to do some decent training with my team. When I go out on trips like this, I usually run into plenty of trainers on the way, and since I don’t lose my battles often, I end up raking in a good amount of cash in order to sustain my financial needs, like my home, medicine, food, etc.

Don’t get me wrong; I am no thief. But it’s common practice around here that if you lose a battle with a trainer, you are obligated to give a certain percent of your cash to the victor. Of course the loser doesn’t HAVE to fork over any money, but if they want to retain their integrity and even the respect of their own Pokémon, then they damn well better pay up. Most people are happy to, as it is only a small percentage of their current wealth, but some people will be ass holes and just run off without paying anything. Oh well, it doesn’t upset me too much. The battles I get to have with my Pokémon are reward enough for me most of the time.

I walked into the bathroom, and the first thing I did was look into the mirror, to give myself a quick once-over, like I’d do every morning. In the reflection, stood an 18 year old guy, with brown, unkempt hair due to just waking up, standing at about 6 feet and 2 inches tall. He didn’t look like too bright of a person. Not like he used to be, anyway. If one were to glance into his dark green eyes, they could easily tell that he has had his own share of tough experiences.

The person in the reflection is obviously me. ‘Who else would it be?’ I scoffed at myself.

I took care of my morning bathroom activities, and got dressed in my clothing of choice. Some red pants, a dark blue shirt and a black jacket. I also remembered to grab my Pokeballs before I made my way downstairs.

I made my way down stairs and into the living room. My living room contained your usual living room items, like a couch, a chair, a flatscreen TV, some pictures on the walls, etc. But there was also something else. Something that was very rarely ever found in someone’s home: A pc storage system. When my parents were around, they had been around to a lot of places in their youth, and made some pretty important friends in those times. Since they are breeders, one of these things would be extremely useful, and since they had useful contacts, were able to pull some strings and get a storage PC into our home. It still remains here, even after they had passed away. I guess you could say it is something of sentimental value, which is why it has been kept in such pristine condition.

I look at the PC, and decided that I already have the team I wanted, so I left it alone. Before going into the kitchen, I let all of my Pokémon out of their balls, as the kitchen would be too small to harbor all of them at once. The first to be let out was the biggest Pokémon I had out, which was Dragonair. He was a long serpent-like Pokémon, colored blue and white, with a small horn on its head with wings on the sides. It was about 13 feet long, so he had to adjust himself so he would fit in the living room.

Next to come out was the little, purple blob known as Ditto. It didn’t sit in the living room, but chose to rest itself on one of the chairs. After Ditto, came Blastoise. With a quick nod of acknowledgement to me, he chose a spot next to Dragonair to sit.

I continued to let out the rest of my current team, which consisted of Ursaring, Espeon, and last but not least, Riolu. They all found their own spots to get comfortable in my living room, and I cleared my throat to gain their attention.

“Good morning to all of you. I trust that you all had a good sleep?” I calmly said to them. They all gave their own call to confirm my question. “Good to hear, guys. Now as you all know, we are going to be leaving home in order to get some good training done. But for now, just relax and hang out for a bit while I get some breakfast going, alright?”

Each Pokémon gave a quick nod, before getting to their own activities. In my kitchen was your normal items, like a table, a stove, cupboards and stuff, but I also had two refrigerators. One was for humans, and the other was for Pokémon. The fridge for the Pokémon was filled was all sorts of berries and other foods meant for Pokémon. I had enough in here to last quite a while, as I just went grocery shopping a few days ago.

I quickly filled up six bowls with food and brought them out and gave each Pokémon their specific bowls to eat out of. After getting many Pokémon versions of “Thank you”, I went back into the kitchen and cooked up some eggs and toast from the “People fridge”.

After eating my fill, I went out into the living room to a pretty entertaining site; Ditto decided to hide behind the couch, transform into Espeon, and start levitating the Pokémon’s food around, annoying a few of them, especially Blastoise.

Blastoise was then, by what I could tell, accusing Espeon of being annoying, and Espeon was just sitting there confused, and denying it. Blastoise didn’t believe her, and proceeded to drench poor Espeon in water. After this happened, Espeon used psychic to lift Blastoise into the air, upside down.

Then all attention was brought to Ditto, or rather, Espeon, who was sitting on the couch, laughing at the two who were just in a scuffle moments ago. Espeon proceeded to set Blastoise down, and, after a quick apology to the real Espeon, shot a jet of water at the fake.

Ditto was too distracted in with its own glee and laughter to notice the large amount of water coming straight for it before it was too late.

*Five minutes later*

“Well Ditto, I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Even though you do this all the time.” As I said this, I was tossing a towel down at the slightly dazed and soaked Ditto, who was, just moments ago, stuck to a wall from the force of the hydro pump. “Just be happy Blastoise didn’t use his full force, or else you’d probably have a hole through you right about now.”

All Ditto could do was look at me and shrug, still in a dazed state. Blastoise smirked gave an affirmative nod at him, as if to say “You’ve brought this upon yourself, ass hole.”

*Meanwhile, in Equestria*

It was a new day in Equestria, and a certain purple Unicorn was experimenting with some new spells, out in an empty field next to a lake, about five minutes away from Ponyville, down the road a bit. She came out here by herself, since what she was going to be doing could be very dangerous to anypony who may be nearby while this is going on.

“Alright… So according to this book, the spell should be fairly simple. All I need to do is conjure small storm and create a twister, and then follow up with…” she continued on. At the moment, she was trying to bring an object from a different dimension, no bigger than a rock. This object would come floating in through the tiny twister she would created.

As she finally got everything figured out, she started to charge up her magic, and make everything needed to be done come into place. So far, it was working perfectly, but as she was about to finish everything up, something happened.

Her magic started to go haywire, and the twister she created grew intensely big, but still maintained a slow pace. The ground shook, as if there were an earthquake happening at the moment. Twilight was starting to get very worried, as she was losing control.

Soon, however, everything calmed down, the earthquake had stopped, but the slow-moving twister was still at large. Seeing as her spell had obviously not worked correctly, she got up and huffed to herself. “Darn it, I was sure I had it right! All I managed to do was spawn a storm… Oh well. Since it seems to be moving slow, it would probably be okay if I just let it be. It’ll most likely die down in a few minutes anyway.” As she said this, she had made her way away from the field and back into town, convinced that the spell was a complete failure.

Little did she know that her actions today may just be a huge turning point in the coming future of Equestria.

*Meanwhile, back in the Kanto region*

“Alright, so it looks like we’re about ready to head out.” I said, as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and faced my Pokémon. Each one of them had an eager expression on their face, ready to get out of the house and deep into the mountains and forests for some good exploration.

I brought out each pokéball, but before I could do anything else, I felt a large quaking. Confused, I took a look outside. I didn’t see anything going on. No battling or anything. But the Earth was definitely shaking.

I turned back to my Pokémon, and quickly returned them to their balls, so they would not be harmed by the quake in case it got more extreme. Unfortunately though, it did.

I take another look outside, and see people on the street, looking with deep concern at my house and at me. Was my house the only one being affected by this?

I was about to run out of my house, when the unbelievable happened. As I was looking out my window, a huge twister came down right on my house, and pulled it out of the ground. My house was now air-born.

“What the fuck is going on?!” I yell as I am quickly knocked off balance, onto the floor. On my way down, I hit my head on the back of a chair, knocking me out cold as I hit the floor.

“Ow… My fucking head... Ugh…” I moan as I awoke to my partially destroyed living room. I stand up and look around, inspecting the damage done. Nothing too bad, just a few knocked over pieces of furniture, and of course all the power seems to be out. The lights aren’t on and the glow of light emanating off of my PC screen has gone out.

Luckily, the PC storage system was still pretty much intact. It should be, as it is one heavy piece of machinery, and it’s pretty much stuck welded onto the metal piece of flooring in that one spot of the living room. Hopefully I will still be able to trade Pokémon through it when I get this power situation all sorted out.

I then realize the gravity of my situation, and remember what happened before I passed out. I gasp, “Holy shit… I remember now. My house was in the air. How the hell could this happen to me, and nobody else? Just my luck…”

I decided that the best course of action would be to check outside, and see if I can possibly figure out just where I am, and maybe even figure out why my home isn’t smashed to pieces, as I imagined that if my house had fallen from the sky at a normal speed, It, along with me, should have been smashed.

As I check my Pokeballs and assorted items, making sure they were okay, I make my way outside. Before I do this, I allow Espeon out of her Pokéball. With a quick run-through of the current situation, and explaining that I may need some protection here before I go, and an understanding, yet wary nod from Espeon, we make our way outside.

As I walked outside to get a look at our surroundings, I only have one thing to say to my companion.

“Espeon,”

She nervously looked up at me, wondering what I was about to say.

“I don’t think we’re in Kanto anymore…”

2. Time to hit the town

Chapter 2

As Espeon and I gazed out upon the unknown, and colorful land, I noticed a rather gloomy looking forest nearby that probably didn’t contain the friendliest of creatures. I’ll most likely explore it later either way. I continued my search and found that my house was in a grassy plain, right next to a lake. Further inspection leads me to believe it doesn’t have any Pokémon in it at all, however. Not even a Magikarp to be found.

The thing that held most of my attention, however, was the nearby town. It was probably about a 5 to 10 minute walk from our current location, and it didn’t look all that conspicuous. I’ve been around and have seen plenty of towns; some quite a bit worse looking than this one, like Fortree City; That place was just awful.

At this point, I was just happy that there was civilization nearby. For all I knew, I could’ve been dropped into a volcano, but maybe I just lucked out with this location. Anyway, I can’t really just sit around here all day doing nothing, can I?

“Espeon, I think we should go check out that town over there, don’t you agree?” I asked. She gave me a bit of an unsure look, but quickly nodded in agreement after a few seconds of consideration.

“Oh, but first, I think I’ll go ahead and check out the house. All I really looked at was the living room before coming out here.” I tell her, making my way back into the house to see if there was any major damage done.

After I check the house, I make my way back outside. Miraculously, there was no major damage done. Just some furniture knocked over and a few broken dishes, along with a fallen picture or two that I immediately put back on the walls. It’s as if my house didn’t fall out of the sky after all, but I was gently placed here instead. It’s odd, but I’m not complaining.

Before I go, I make sure to grab my back pack, as I have potions and Pokeballs kept inside in case I need them. “Okay Espeon, it’s time to head out. I’ll let you walk with me for now just in case.”

-5 or so minutes of walking later-

When we arrived at the entrance of the village, I couldn’t help but notice a severe lack of human inhabitants. I also couldn’t help but notice an abundance of… Ponyta? I’m unsure of what I should be calling them, as they do not have fiery manes, and they are all of different colors, too. Some even had wings and were flying around, while others had horns sticking out of their heads.

‘ Are these the town folk? Where are all the people at?’ I thought to myself. All I could do was gawk at them, until Espeon decided to poke me on the leg with one of her paws, and usher me to continue.

Snapping out of my state of bewilderment, I started walking. I would expect a rookie trainer to be more than reluctant to do this, as these creatures – I say creatures, because I’m starting to doubt that they are Pokémon – could very well be hostile. But, if I can step into a cave full of angry Donphans, and hold my own against them, then I think I could take these creatures on if things get ugly.

As I walked, the creatures started to notice my presence, one by one. After about 20 seconds of walking, every single one of them was staring at, gawking, like I had been not moments ago. I immediately stopped at this realization, and just watched as they continued to stare. “Espeon,” I whispered, “Get ready to fight if they suddenly decide to attack, got it?” I didn’t look at her as I quietly said this, but I took her silence as a sign of agreement. I knew she wouldn't run off on me.

After about 20 more seconds of their nonstop staring, I just couldn't take it anymore. I took a step forward, and said the only thing I could think of at the moment.

“Hey.”

Before I could even think to say anything else, they all started screaming and running away, yelling things like “monster,” and “run away before it gets you!” I even heard one yell “The horror, the horror!”

“Oh, come on. I’m not THAT ugly, am I?” I say, as they clear out of the streets and into the houses. I couldn't help but feel annoyed about this. I turned to Espeon, and was about to comment on the situation to her, when all of a sudden I heard someone speaking:

“Oh, come on! Have you ponies learned NOTHING from Zecora?!” quickly after this, I hear a groan, and approaching footsteps, or actually, hoof steps. I turned to the source, and saw an irritated purple Ponyta-knockoff walking towards me.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting a creature like you to be able to speak. The only thing I’ve ever seen speak that wasn’t a human was a Slowking, and he was kind of a prick, so this is a nice change.” I said with mild surprise.

When she - I assume it’s a she because of the way its body looks – came close to me, she began talking again. “Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle; allow me to apologize on behalf of the town for this very rude welcoming. But, may I ask what, and who, are you?”

Espeon and I quickly glanced at each other before I responded. “Well that’s more like it, Thank you. My name is Jordan, and this is one of my companions, Espeon. I am what is called a human, and it is nice to meet you. By the way, what exactly are you?”

“I’m a pony. A unicorn to be exact, but you said you’re a human? I’ve never heard of that species before… And I would also like to know what the creature next to you is. Would you mind coming back to my library with me so I can find out more about you? I’m sure you don’t want to be standing around out here all day…”

I thought for a moment. ‘She seemed nice enough to be trustworthy, and again, I’m sure I can handle myself in bad situation… Well, I guess I wouldn’t have much else to do anyway, except walk around here and get treated like a damn pariah… Plus, this may be a golden opportunity to learn some more about my current predicament.’

As I finished my thoughts, I gave the unicorn a friendly smile. “Sure. I don’t really feel too comfortable out here anyway. I got some pretty bad vibes from those other ponies…”

She looked at with a bit of embarrassment. “Yeah, again, I’m really sorry about that. They are normally very friendly... to well-known creatures, that is. It’s pretty sad though; this has happened in the past before, I was kind of hoping they would’ve gotten better, but I guess that’s wishful thinking!” She shouted the last part, as she was glaring somewhere behind me. About a second later I heard what sounded like a door slamming shut. Shortly after this she perked right back up. “So anyway, let’s get going then, shall we?” she said, gesturing into a direction inside the town.

“Alright, after yo-“ I quickly stopped my sentence as I heard an audible whistling through the air. Twilight seemed confused at first, but then she seemed to hear it as well. We all began listened in, and suddenly, Espeon let out a cry. I looked down at her, and noticed her head pointing stiff, towards something in the sky. I diverted my eyes from her, and to where she was pointing.

High up in the sky, from what I could tell, was a pony. Coming straight towards me at what looked like a very high speed. And she was coming right at me. Quickly, I pulled Ursaring’s Pokéball. “Quick, I’m going to let you out, and I want you to catch this pony before it collides with me. Go.” I quickly whispered this to the Pokéball, knowing that Ursaring would hear my plea, and allowed him out in front of me, and not a moment too soon, either.

Just about half a second after I called out Ursaring, the pony instantly collided with him, instead of me. Thankfully, Ursaring has some impressive reflexes, so he was able to, albeit barely, catch it with his big, furry arms.

I couldn’t quite see what was happening, but could tell that Ursaring was struggling with something. And this ‘something’ was not happy at all. I knew this, because there was a bit of yelling, and a “let. Me. GO!”

Soon enough, the struggling stopped, and the burly Pokémon turned around to face me. Locked in his tough embrace, was a winged pony. What immediately caught my attention, however, was the rainbow mane she was sporting. First thing to pop into my mind was ‘there is no damn way that this is natural hair…’ but I shook those thoughts from my mind, as there were pressing matters to attend to.

Unfortunately, as soon as she caught site of me, she began struggling again. “Listen, there is no way you’re going to break Ursaring’s hold on you; I’ve seen this big guy hold down a crazed Kangaskhan before. Don’t think he can’t hold you down you.” I said to her, wearing an amused expression on my face.

“Grrr! I don’t care how tough that thing is that you just said! Don’t you dare hurt my friend or you WILL be sorry!” She was obviously pretty mad. ‘maybe I should calm her down before Ursaring decides to do it for me…’ I thought, as I watched her continued struggling to get free.

“Wow, what made you think that I was going to hurt anyone? All I did was come here looking for answers, and your friend Twilight here decided to help me out.” I explained, as I did my best to look calm.

She seemed to calm down at this almost immediately. She turned to her head to Twilight, whom I have not heard speak since the new arrival. “Twilight, is what this guy is saying true?”

However, Twilight didn’t respond. I turned back to look at her, only to find her staring right at me in astonishment. I grew a bit concerned, and decided to ask what her deal was. “Uhh… Is something wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?”

This seemed to strike her out of her unexplained shock. “H-h-how did you just do that?!”

“Do what?” I asked her.

“How did you make that bear thing appear like that! What else would I be talking about?!” She shouted at me in confusion. I began to suspect that these ponies have don’t have Pokémon in this land.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been doing this for years now and it just seems like second nature to me. Where I come from, I don’t think it’d be possible to meet a person who didn’t know what I just did. Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything just as soon as soon as we get into a more comfortable place for this, so I’m ready to get escorted to this library that you speak of now.” I said, standing patiently.

Twilight gave me a bit of a suspicious look, but quickly regained her composure. “Alright, we’ll go then. But you are going to be explaining what you just did as soon as we sit down. Got it?”

“Gotcha.” I said nonchalantly. As we were about to walk away, I heard someone clear their throat very loudly. ‘Oh yeah, I thought I forgot something…’

I turn around to see both Ursaring and the rainbow pony give me extreme looks of irritation. “Oh, sorry Ursaring. Hey, pony, If I let you go, will you promise to not assault me?”

She glared at me, but said “I promise, so long as you don’t do anything to hurt me or my friends! Got that?! You so much as put a claw on any of them, and I’ll buck you straight to the moon!” I thought for a second, ‘Buck? Heh. Kind of sounded like- Ugh, shut up, you dirty mind… You clearly know what she meant.’

“You got it, Rainbow. Ursaring, you can let her go now, and I’ll let you have a good rest.” Ursaring suddenly let go of the winged pony, and awaited my next action, with a look of impatience.

“Hey, how did you know that my name is Rainbow Dash? I know I didn’t tell you that! What are you, a sp-“ I cut her off.

“Now hold on a damn second! You mean your name is actually Rainbow? That… That’s awesome. I just guessed because of the hair, but damn! I haven’t seen such a fitting name since first hearing about the Pokémon, Seel…” I couldn't help but give a small chuckle afterwards. I even saw Ursaring stifle a laugh at this.

“Oh. I guess my hair would make that obvious… Well, anyway! Yeah, I’m Rainbow dash! Fastest flyer in Equestria and future wonderbolt!” I scoffed at that, and gave her a deadpanned look.

“Yeah, I could clearly tell with how fast you were flying at me from earlier.” Before she could retaliate with a comeback, Twilight cleared her throat.

Looking at Twilight, I could tell she was getting annoyed at us. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would really like to get back to the library before something else happens, okay?”

“Sure. Come on, let’s go then,” I say as I return both Espeon and Ursaring to their respective Pokeballs. Twilight and Rainbow both watched this with mild shock, but soon shook it off as we began making our way back to the library, eager to find out just what the hell was going on.

3. Plenty of interruptions and some new acquaintances.

Chapter 3

As the three of us made our way deeper into the town, I began to notice a bit more signs of life. ‘Huh, I guess word hasn’t reached this far into town about me. I’d better stick close to Twilight and Rainbow; maybe then I won’t be seen as such threat, to the point of fleeing…’ I thought to myself.

Once the other ponies took notice of me, all they did was stare at me like I was some kind of alien. Well, I suppose that COULD be true, but still. At least they weren’t running off this time. It was clear that sticking close to these two was the right decision in order to dispel some of the fear.

“So Twilight, what’s this town called, anyway? I didn’t catch site of a sign on my way in, so I don’t know it yet.” I asked as we walked along. I figured that some conversation might do well for me. ‘If I show that I can talk freely to them, maybe they won’t see me as such a monster.’

“The town’s name is Ponyville, sorry about that. A few of the foals who were attempting to get their cutie marks accidentally destroyed the sign in the process. I heard somepony was going to replace the sign later today.”

‘SomePONY? I’ll have to ask them about this later, but something else caught my attention’ I thought as I proceeded to ask another question.

“What’s a cutie mark? I’ve never heard of that before…” Hearing this, they both paused and looked at me weirdly.

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak up. “You mean you’ve NEVER heard of a cutie mark before?” I shook my head at this. “A cutie mark is a mark that everypony gets when they learn what their special talent is. See? This is a cutie mark.” She pointed at her flank, to the rainbow lightning bolt and cloud on it.

Twilight decided to pick up from there. “Yeah, and what the cutie mark is signifies what you’re good at.” She gestured to her own mark. “See, my special talent is magic, so you may be able to tell that by looking at my cutie mark.”

“Oh, so those appear naturally then? I just figured that you people had an obsession with getting tattoos in the same spot every time. Well, anyway, humans don’t really have anything like that. We have to figure out what our special talent without anything just telling us like that.” I said, wondering whether or not I’m lucky that humans don’t get cutie marks. ‘It seems kind of… Binding, to be told what you’re good at. I like to think that I’m good at a lot of things, not just one specific thing… Hey, wait a minute…’

Something she said earlier, however, kind of struck me as odd. “Magic? Ponies can use magic?” I asked.

“Yes. Actually, it’s only unicorns and alicorns that can use it, but the other races, like the pegasi and earth ponies have magic too; just a more innate kind of magic. They can’t harness it like us, but it still affects them.” She explained, as I soaked in all of this information. ‘I guess the unicorns would be classified as psychic types if they were Pokémon… And did she say pegasi? I’m guessing that is what the winged ones are called, and the ones with neither are the earth ponies.’

We continued on our walk, but before I could ask any more questions, we were approached by yet another pony. This one didn’t have either wings or a horn, and had an orange coat with a blonde mane, wearing a cowboy hat. As she walked closer to us, I noticed her cutie mark was a trio of apples.

“Howdy Twilight and Rainbow. Might I ask what in tarnation this fella is, and why is he followin’ ya?” I grew a bit annoyed at this comment. ‘Wow, at least I don’t go around acting like YOU are freaks of nature…’ I kept the comment to myself and shook it off; no use getting upset about it.

Twilight responded to her. “Hi Applejack. This is Jordan. He’s called a human. He’s friendly enough and I was just taking him over to the library so that I could learn more about him.”

Rainbow quickly cut in, “Careful AJ! He’s got these weird, freaky powers. Don’t worry, though. I told him if he acts up I’ll knock his lights out! Isn’t that right, Jordan?”

I gave her an annoyed look, but quickly went to reassure the orange pony. “Well, I wouldn’t call it magical powers, but you can definitely trust me. I’m not here to cause any trouble. Anyway, as you heard, my name’s Jordan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Applejack.” I put on a smile, and put out my hand for a shake, hoping she would take that as a friendly gesture.

She seemed to understand, since she quickly took my hand in both of her hooves and began shaking it rigorously. “Well howdy pardner! It’s a pleasure to meet ya! Ah don’t know what kinda magical powers you may or may not have, but ah think ya can be trusted if’n you promise not to bring harm to any of mah friends.” After saying this, she stopped her onslaught of shaking, and backed up a step.

“Don’t worry, I prom-“ Yet again I was interrupted by someone. ‘Seriously? This is getting kind of ridiculous. I mean, can’t you wait until I at least finish my sentence?’

“What the heck is that?!” came a childlike voice. We all looked over to see a purple lizard thing walking towards me with two other ponies in tow. One was a white unicorn with purple, styled hair and the other was a cream colored pegasus with a long, pink mane. After they got close enough, the latter proceeded to hide behind the white one.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked up in annoyance, and proceeded to explain what was just explained to Applejack, with confirmation from Twilight, although leaving out the part about ‘magical powers.’ After explaining, I thought I’d introduce myself.

“So my name is Jordan. What’s yours?” I asked the purple thing that I could only really relate to a Bagon at this point.

“I’m Spike, a baby dragon and also Twilight’s #1 assistant!” He proceeded to shake my hand with his claw. After that, I turned to the alabaster Unicorn.

“And who might you be, miss?” I asked. She approached me, giving me a once-over, seemingly inspecting what I was wearing.

“My name is Rarity, pleasure to meet you, Jordan. I would like to say that your outfit is very interesting looking, to say the least. Although, something in green to compliment your eyes a bit more couldn’t hurt…” She stated.

I decided to take that as a compliment. “Oh, thank you, Rarity. You seem to be very interested in clothing…” this caused a spark to appear in her eyes.

“But of course, dear. That is what I specialize in, after all.” She pointed to a nearby building that looked like a carousel. “Over there is my boutique, where I create many ensembles for many different ponies from all over, even Canterlot. If you ever need any new pieces of clothing, just meet me there during business hours and we’ll see what we can do.” She said, as I shifted my steps from standing around for so long.

“That’s very kind of you to offer Rarity. I’ll definitely have to take you up on your offer if I end up living here.” I said, smiling at her to show my gratitude. ‘It’s easy to tell she is one of those sophisticated high class people- err, ponies, but at least she isn’t one of those stuck up ass holes I’ve had the misfortune of meeting in the past.’

After my encounter with Rarity, I noticed that there was one more pony here that I had yet to meet. I looked over at her to see she was on the ground, hiding behind her hooves. It was kind of cute looking, but I don’t want any ponies being scared of me.

I slowly but surely approach the cowering pegasus, and, bending a knee, I quietly ask, “What’s your name?” It took a few seconds for her to respond.

“Fl-fluttershy..” she said. ‘Damn this is one shy pony. I could barely even hear that.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite make that out. Could you speak up a bit?” I asked, hoping she could raise the assertiveness a bit. This seemed to do the trick, as she raised her voice this time.

“I’m F-Fluttershy...” She said, with a bit more volume and feeling to it. This was more like it.

“Well, it’s great to meet you, Fluttershy. Hey, you’ve got a very pretty name, you know that?” This seemed to do the trick, as she blushed, but smiled nonetheless. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash decided to cut in with a groan.

“Hey, can we hurry up and get to Twilight’s already? I’m sick of just standing out here, and I really wanna get to the explaination of exactly what you’re doing here!” She said, impatiently. I kind of agreed with her, too. All of these staring ponies have been making a bit nervous.

“Rainbow’s right. Besides, It’ll be getting dark soon. Do you girls want to come with so we can all get a better understanding of Jordan?”

“Well, I was kinda going that way, anyway…” Spike said.

“Fluttershy, Spike and I just got back from the spa, and I’ve got no further obligations, so I wouldn’t mind at all.” Rarity said, taking a mild interest in me too. I imagine that she wants to learn more about my clothing habits or something.

“Oh, umm, I’d love to, that is if you don’t mind…” Fluttershy said, smiling and nodding in confirmation.

“Great! Let’s get going then, shall we?” Twilight said, starting a journey to the library once again, with four newcomers tagging along. I decided to bring my attention to the crowd of ponies who were still watching us. Most of them didn’t look very fearful anymore, and seemed to only be watching with curiosity as we made our way out of there. ‘Hopefully they will spread the word to the others so that I won’t be considered a nuisance around here.’ I thought to myself.

A couple of minutes later, we finally arrived at a giant, hollowed out tree, with a few over curious ponies following us still. I ignored them and decided to confirm this is the library.

“So, you live in a giant tree that also happens to be a library?” I asked. Twilight looked at me.

“Yes, I do. Is there a problem with living in a tree? Because I’ll have you know it’s a very cozy home.” She said, acting a bit defensive over it.

I remembered my visit to a place called Fortree City back when I was exploring the Hoenn region. All the houses were in the trees, if I recall. I stayed there for a few days when I was catching Pokémon in that area. I was even able to take down the gym leader that was there. But the houses were very nice and comfortable, even though I woke up to a damn Wurmple crawling up my stomach towards my face. Let’s just say I helped that Wurmple get very well acquainted with a nearby wall, and my fist. I’m not too fond of bug type Pokémon, Especially ones that decide to fuck with me when I’m sleeping.

“Not at all, I’ve been in trees before. I’ve even stayed in a village of tree houses once. Not bad at all.” I smiled reassuringly. Twilight lightly blushed at this embarrassingly.

“Sorry about that. I’ve just gotten a bit of flack in the past from me living in a tree. Anyway, let’s head inside.” As we all walk inside, I head to slightly bend my head so I wouldn’t bump it on the frame.

Inside the giant tree are, lo and behold, books. A lot of books, as to be expected of a library. We all pile into the place, and Twilight shuts the door behind us with her magic. I get a feeling of bewilderment after seeing this, but quickly remember what she told me about her species and magic.

“Welcome to my home, Jordan. Let’s go have a seat over there so that we may discuss a few things, shall we?” She gestured over to a couch and some chairs. We all go over and have a seat, a some of the ponies sitting on the floor, while I take a chair. Twilight decides to sit across from me on the couch, and begins to speak.

“Alright, Jordan, Thank you for comi-“ Before she can finish her sentence, the door of the library suddenly bursts open, and in comes a pink pony, with an even darker pink mane. ‘There sure is a lot of interruptions today…” I thought to myself.

The pink pony immediately runs up to Twilight. “Oh my gosh, Twilight, I've been hearing that there is a new creature in town and he was seen going in this direction! We HAVE to go find him so I can become his new bestest friend!” She said this without even noticing my presence in the room, which surprised me since I’ve been the complete center of attention this whole day, and now I’m apparently invisible.

“Pinkie Pie, the creature is right here, and he’s called a human. Just look right there.” As she gestured to me, the pink pony turned to face my direction, and got an impossibly wide grin on her face. I don’t even think half a second went by before the pony about an inch away from my face, staring right at me in the eyes. I heard the other girls snicker at this, and I couldn’t help but flinch when she started asking me hundreds of questions at an incomprehensible speed.

When she eventually stopped, I took this moment to introduce myself. Putting on an, albeit nervous smile due to the closeness of our faces, I spoke.

“It’s uhh… Nice to meet you. My name’s Jordan. Would you mind backing up just a bit?” Since she was in my face, she had taken a seat on my lap and it was pretty uncomfortable. I felt one of the Pokeballs on a side shiver in what I presume amusement. ‘Oh yeah, I bet you guys find this pretty damn hilarious, don’t you?’

“Sure thing Jordan!” she hopped off my lap and stood in front of me. “My name’s Pinkie Pie! It is so great to meet you! Hey, do you like parties?!” Parties? Where did that come from? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if this pony liked partying. Her cutie mark can pay tribute to that fact. Three balloons, go figure.

“Uhh, yeah, parties can be fun, I guess…” A memory of the SS Anne crossed my mind. That was one crazy party, heh. You’d think it’d be one of nobility, and it was intended to be, but when a drunken sailor breaks a beer bottle over another’s head, well… Shit is bound to go down.

At my response, she seemed to be completely ecstatic over it. “Oh my gosh! I love parties too! I’m going to throw you such an amazing party later! I pinkie promise!” she continued to do a motion with her hoof and stick it on her eye. ‘Whatever that means, I guess it holds higher grounds than a regular promise…’

“Sounds great Pinkie, I can’t wait. Thanks a lot.” I said, putting on a smile. ‘In truth, it’s been awhile since I’d last been to a party. Not since the SS anne incident which was a little over 2 years ago. I heard they are still doing repairs to it. I don’t think I was necessarily BLAMED for it, but I did contribute to the fun. It was just like a bar fight, only a lot bigger and with some dangerously tough Pokémon from the higher ups. The ship wasn’t sunk, but there was definitely a huge load of damage done. Hell, some of the roof collapsed inside and there was a huge hole in the deck due to some idiot having their Salamence use hyper beam on a damn Ratticate. Who would do that on a damn boat? Well, I thought it was fun, regardless. I bet Red would have gotten a kick out of it, wherever that silent bastard was at the time.

After some explanations as to what was going on to Pinkie Pie, she decided to join us for our little Q & A. Hopefully I could get some answers for this situation.

4. Revelations On Both Sides

Chapter 4

All of us sat there in the library, as Twilight was getting some note taking paper, a writing utensil and other things she may just need for this. In the mean time, I decided to ask one of the ponies something that’s been bothering me.

“Hey Rainbow, can I ask you something?” I asked her, just wanting to get this off my chest.

“Sure, what do you wanna know?” she said, awaiting the question that kept coming to mind every time I looked at her. I look at the other ponies and 1 dragon, and they seem to be wondering what was on my mind as well.

“Well… I was just kind of curious… Is your hair color natural, or did you dye it that color?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t be offended by it.

Everything went completely silent for a moment, aside from Twilight rummaging around in the other room. Suddenly, she stood up, walked over to me, and just gave me a glare that I thought could kill someone. She continued to stare daggers at me for a few moments. Everything was tense. I grew a bit of a worried expression on my face, and even started sweating a bit. She opened her mouth, looking like she was about to scream at me, and at that moment, all I could do was sit and wait for the barrage of pure rage.

At the last second, she dropped the look and just smirked at me. “Yeah, it’s completely natural. Jeez, you wouldn’t BELIEVE how much I get asked that, but I don’t mind. I’m just glad that it catches so many looks, even though the hair only contributes to SOME of my awesomeness.” After that, everyone started laughing at me as I released the breath I just realized I was holding, and put back Blastoise’ Pokéball that I just realized I pulled out on reflex.

“Wow, Rainbow. I thought you were about to let me have it there for a second! You got me good.” I said, with genuine relief in my voice. She seemed to be happy to hear that her attempt to frighten me was a success.

She laughed. “Yeah, well, I’ve had plenty of practice with scaring people. It can be a lot of fun!” she said with glee. ‘I think I just thought of a way on how I can get payback on her for this’ I thought and smirked, as I caressed Ditto’s Pokéball, which was resting on a clip with the rest of my Pokémon, which was inside the left flap of my coat.

All conversation ceased as soon as Twilight made her way back into the area. “Alright, I have all of my things ready. Time to get this Q & A started!” She said as she had put on a pair of reading glasses and shuffled a stack of blank sheets of paper together with her magic. With a quill to the paper, she asked her first question.

“Okay, my first question is this: what exactly did you do when you set that creature free? If it wasn’t magic, then how is it possible?” She asked. I somehow knew this was coming first. I can’t help but sigh, as this will be kind of tough to answer in a way that they will understand.

“Alright, let’s see… Where do I begin? This is a bit of a hard question to answer… Well, you see, where I come from, there are these creatures called Pokémon...” I continued, explaining how People and Pokémon all lived in the same world, how Pokémon have unbelievable powers, some more incredible that others, how people have befriended them or used them, and how we invented a tool that we could use to capture the Pokémon. My little audience was eating up pretty much every word I spoke, and I told no lies.

“So I’ll show you exactly what I did earlier. Don’t worry, they are my friends, and will not attack any of you. They’re actually pretty nice if you stay on their good side.” I said with a smirk. I proceeded to pull out Espeon’s pokéball to use for the demonstration. “Come on out, Espeon.”

I tossed the pokéball into the air, and soon, out came Espeon. I chose to use her because she’s friendly, adorable, and not scary looking in the least. Well, to me, anyway.

With an eager cry, Espeon came out of the ball, like I said. All the girls plus spike watched in shock and awe, some more than others, as Espeon came to have a seat next to me, and even nuzzle my leg, just to show how cute and loveable she is. ‘Heh, little show off. I don’t see you doing things like this when we don’t have an audience.’ Unfortunately, I had forgotten that Espeon knows the move Mind Reader, and gave me a quick swipe to my hand. ‘Ow! Sorry…’ I thought to her.

This seemed to have gone over the ponies’ heads as they hardly reacted to it, instead choosing to admire the majestic Pokémon in front of them; Especially Rarity.

“My, what a marvelous creature! Her fur coat is simply amazing!” She said, standing up and getting a closer look at the Pokémon. I think Fluttershy liked her, too, as she seemed to beat Rarity over to it.

“Oh wow! You are just the cutest little thing I have ever seen! Jordan said your name is Espeon? Such a fitting name for such a creature as gorgeous as you!” I couldn’t help but feel glad that I chose to let her evolve during the day rather than the night. Otherwise she would’ve evolved into an Umbreon, and my guess is these ponies wouldn’t have reacted in the same way. Plus, I really prefer psychic types over dark types anyway. ‘I bet you’re just loving all of this praise and attention, Espeon. Ah well, I know you deserve it.’

As Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie, unsurprisingly, began to play with Espeon, Twilight asked for me to continue my explanation of how it worked, so that’s exactly what I continued doing. I told them how people would capture these Pokémon in the pokeballs for various reasons, such as having them as pets, or having them battle other Pokémon, some for good, some for the sole sake of the sport, and some for more sinister reasons. As I explained this, all of them stopped what they were doing and looked upon me in shock. No one said anything for a few moments, before surprisingly, Fluttershy spoke up.

“S-so you… You and your people like to capture these creatures from the wild and… Force them to fight each other?! How could you? It just seems so cruel!” The others all agreed to this, and Rainbow Dash quickly got up from her position and pointed at me.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted! How could you and your people do something like that?!” she said accusingly. I just looked at her slightly irritated.

Twilight was quick to intervene however. “Hold on a second! Jordan, is seems like a decent person. I’m sure he’s got an explanation for this… Don’t you?” She asked, a little unsure of me. I put on a thoughtful expression, and nodded my head.

“Thanks Twilight. And yes, allow me to explain myself. First of all, most battling is non-lethal, except for a war sense. We team up with Pokémon and lead them to victory through battling and becoming stronger, and they let us do it, because they see nothing wrong with it most of the time. That’s right, and I think even Espeon can vouch for me, Pokémon like battling just as much as we humans do.”

With a nod and cry of confirmation from Espeon, I went back to what I was saying. “Unfortunately, some people would prefer to use Pokémon for their own selfish game, ignoring the sport. They will use them as tools, rather than partners, and commit crimes with them, like burglary, vandalism, and…” I sigh, as I am saddened to say this next part. It’s a bit of a touchy subject with me. “…Murder.” The group gasped at this, and Espeon just looked up at me in surprise for a moment, then quickly looked down in sadness. “I've seen it happen with my own eyes, and, before coming to this new land, I vowed to try and protect the innocent, and stop such horrible deeds from ever surfacing. I tried my best, and I’d like to believe I helped a lot of people out, but there were still many lives lost in the process…”

I managed to keep myself composed, and avoided going into another rant. Too many bad memories resurfacing as it is. I take a look at the girls, to see that they all have looks of sadness in their eyes, some even with tears welling up. I continue, however. “These sick people would use Pokémon for such sinister acts, and the good people out there needed to counter them somehow, so we befriended Pokémon to aid us for justice, and righteousness, trying to put a stop to these misguided criminals. Don’t even think that it was just a human thing, either. The Pokémon wanted to help take down these criminals too, as it was affecting them as well. I even heard stories of some Pokémon allowing themselves to be captured by kind hearted trainers for the sole purpose of stopping these threats. But anyway, that’s not all there is to battling, either.”

“As I said, battling is a sport. A sport that trainers and Pokémon both enjoy to do together equally. Where the trainer would teach and aid the Pokémon to become more powerful and talented, then use these talents to compete against others, to see who is the more competent team between person and Pokémon.

So you see, Pokémon training and battling is just a way of life for my people. I can let you talk to each one of my Pokémon and they will all agree with what I say.” As I finish, I can finally see varying degrees of understanding. Rainbow Dash had decided to back down a little bit ago, and Fluttershy seemed to have a look of regret on her face.

“I’m sorry for being so judgmental earlier, Jordan. I just really don’t like seeing any creature get hurt.”, she said with sadness and regret. ‘Aww, now I feel bad.’

“Hey, no worries. I would never let my friends get seriously injured, just like they wouldn’t for me. You should see how much medicine I have packed away here in my backpack just to be safe! So I understand how you would feel about it.” I said as I smile down at her.

After an apology from Rainbow, and a ‘I told you so’ speech from Twilight, I got back to telling them about the art of Pokémon battling. I told them the details of the sport, like gym leaders, Elite 4, etc. I even told them that people don’t only battle, but also, about the varying contests we enter the Pokémon in, like beauty. Rarity seemed to perk up at this with a smile, just as I expected she would. Also, I may or may not have… Participated in a contest or two… I’ll leave it at that.

“So how do these Pokeballs even work, anyway?” Twilight asked, as I pulled an empty Pokéball out of my bag, opened it, and handed it to her.

“You know, I’m not completely certain. It’s a very complicated piece of technology that took many years to develop. All I know is that it can somehow shrink in size for easier carrying, and grow large again at the press of a button. When it’s large, you toss it at the wild Pokémon after it’s been weakened, then… Catch it… It would be so much easier to demonstrate if you had Pokémon in this world…” I said, having a good bit of difficulty explaining it.

“Well, okay. I’d like to keep this ball and study it some more, if that’d be okay with you, Jordan?” Twilight asked, with a hopeful look in her eye.

“Well, okay. But you’ve got to promise me not to try using it on any ponies, got that? I don’t want to know what could possibly happen…” I don’t see any harm in letting her keep it. I mean, I’ve got plenty of spares, and as long as she heeds my warning, I’m sure she can learn quite a lot from the item. “Are you sure you would know where to even start with that thing? I mean, you seem like an intellectual type of perso- pony, but it’s still a very complicated tool. I don’t want you to end up capturing yourself, now.” I said, giving her a bit of a stern look.

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll just use my magic to scan it and learn the ins and outs of it later. Thanks again, Jordan! I bet I’ll be able to learn all sorts of things with this extraordinary item.” She said, as she walked away to put it in another room. ‘I hope I made the right decision there…’ I thought grimly to myself.

At this moment Rainbow Dash decided to speak up and ask a question. “So, do you have any family, like siblings or parents?” This question struck me. I got a look of shock on my face for just a mere second, but quickly let it dissipate into a look of sadness, which I couldn’t help. I also noticed that Espeon glared somewhat angrily at Dash, but didn’t let the look last long as she too looked down in sadness. Twilight had re entered the room just as Rainbow had asked this question, and was watching us from across the room.

Some terrible memories began to resurface from many tough times of suppression, but I quickly beat them back into the deepest depths of my mind. ‘There is no fucking way that I am going to deal with that again…’ I thought as I looked back up to Rainbow. “Look, I uhh… I’d rather not talk about my family right now. I hope you can understand.”

“Uhh… Okay then… Sorry for asking, I guess?” She said in confusion. I also noticed that Applejack was giving me a rather curious stare, as if she knew something was up. ‘I really hope she doesn’t bother me about this later…’

“It’s okay. You didn’t know; anyway, any other questions?” I said, putting on a reassuring smile, trying to get rid of the awkward situation. Thankfully, Twilight came to the rescue.

“I have a question. Do you know what it’s like inside a Pokéball?” She asked.

“I believe it’s kind of like, and Espeon stop me if I’m wrong, an artificial environment in there that caters to the specific Pokémon. And you saw that there are two halves to the Pokéball; well, I believe, to them, when they are inside the Pokéball, the top half of it is transparent, so they can see what is going on outside, At least when they aren’t resting inside. Did I get that right, Espeon?” She gave a cry in confirmation with a nod. “Well then there you have it.” I finished the explanation, hoping that the next question isn’t so science related.

“So, ya’ve got more of these critters, then? Mind if we see the rest of the lot?” the Orange cowpony asked.

“Heh, good question, Applejack. I thought none of you would ever ask; follow me.” I said, as I stood up and walked to a more open part of the room, with the rest in tow. Espeon knew what I was doing, and decided to sit right in front of me and wait.

“Okay, the second Pokémon I will show you is one that a couple of you have seen in already. Ursaring, you’re up.” I said, as I tossed his ball into the air and let him out. “This is Ursaring, the evolved form of Teddiursa. He is the strongest member of my team when it comes to raw strength. He may look scary at first, but really, he’s a teddy bear to the ones he cares about.” As I said this, Ursaring gave me a look that could turn a Mightyenna running. I just laughed, and patted him on the shoulder.

“Relax, Ursaring. I’m only joking around. I know you’re a tough guy.” Everyone present just showed a tiny bit of fear, except for Rainbow, who had a look of annoyance, most likely remembering the events from earlier, and Fluttershy, surprisingly, who just said ‘aww’.

“Next up is Riolu.” I say, as I release the little bipedal dog ninja from his ball for all to see. Rarity complimented his color scheme and posture, while Rainbow gave a very minimized look of approval, and Fluttershy just d’awwed like the last Pokémon. ‘She really has a thing for animals, doesn’t she?’ I thought, as I proceed to let out the next Pokémon.

“Your turn, Blastoise,” and out he came, with his ever-present smirk. I don’t think the ponies were expecting a Pokémon like this to come out, as they all gasped. “Probably my hardiest Pokémon, if you hadn’t been able to tell by the shell. See those guns coming out of his shell? Well, those can fire water at very high speeds. Perfect for if you want to get wet in the hot sun… Or punch a hole through solid steel…” I whispered the last part, so no one would catch it. Good thing, too. I don’t think I need anymore thoughts of me being a terrible person and whatnot…

“Wow, this one is So! Awesome!!” Rainbow said, admiring his beastly appearance and his constant, nonchalant attitude. The other Pokémon already currently out all gave varying looks of jealousy.

Pinkie Pie decided to try and break Blastoise’ uncaring attitude and went as far as to climb onto the back of his shell, hang upside down in front of his eyes and began making goofy faces. Even Rainbow decided to join in on the fun, and soon enough, Blastoise couldn’t take it anymore, and calmly closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.

“That wasn’t very entertaining! You’re supposed to laugh, you big turtle, you!” Pinkie Pie said as she gave a displeased look at Blastoise, who only went back to smirking.

“Heh, this guy would make for a decent royal guard, I know that much.” Said Rainbow, who had gone back to admiring the Pokémon.

“Alright, it’s surely going to be getting crowded in here soon, so I’ll send out a little guy, this time.” This time, Ditto came out, in his blobby goodness, to show just how much of a beast he is.

Ditto did his usual cry, but after that, everything seemed to go quiet. After a couple of moments, Rainbow Dash busted up laughing. “Oh man. You weren’t kidding! He’s puny! And he’s got no limbs! I doubt he could hurt a fly!” She continued to laugh, and Ditto didn’t seem to like this one bit. He proceeded to transform into a copy of the pegasus, getting every detail down to the last hair. ‘Huh, good job, Ditto. Looks like all that practice paid off. You even got her eyes right from a glance!’

As Rainbow finally stopped her laughing and rolling on the floor, she finally got up and looked to where Ditto was once standing. Only he wasn’t there anymore. “Hey, where did the blob go? Did I hurt his feelings?” She failed to notice the copy of herself flying near the ceiling.

“Ditto!” the transformer yelled, getting her attention.

“What the?! Why is there another me?!” She cried, and before she knew it, she was being flown around the room at a high speed by her tail, which was caught in the mouth of a snickering Ditto. All the Pokémon, except for Blastoise, who actually started snickering at this, just face palmed. I just stood there with a shit eating grin plastered on my face while all of this went down. The other ponies had worried expressions, though, but I reassured them that Ditto wasn’t going to do anything to actually hurt her.

Soon enough, Ditto placed Rainbow down on the floor, who then proceeded to wipe the slobber off of her tail. Everyone present, save the Pokémon, started to laugh. A moment later, even Rainbow started to giggle a bit. “Okay, okay. Maybe I deserved that for making fun of you, but… How did you even do that?!” She asked, expecting an answer from Ditto.

“Sorry Rainbow, but most Pokémon can’t speak, But I’ll tell you anyway. He was able to take your form because that is his ability. He can take the form of almost any creature, but not humans for some reason. I guess ponies are enough like Pokémon to be able to be copied. Not only that, though; he can also copy their abilities and techniques. I also heard that a highly skilled Ditto can copy deep memories temporarily as well, but I’ve yet to see it happen.” I explained. They all seemed to understand what I meant, but seemed also shocked to know the extent of this Pokémon.

“Alright, I have one other Pokémon to show you, as I’m not able to carry over six Pokémon at a time. This is my biggest Pokémon, so I’m going to have to return the rest of my Pokémon to their balls, sorry.” I say, as I recall all of my Pokémon, one by one. The ponies and dragon all had looks of fright on their faces, most likely wondering what could possibly be bigger than Blastoise or Ursaring.

“And last but certainly not least, Dragonair. Come on out.” And out comes the big guy, Dragonair, being so tall that he has to bend his head just to fit. A moment after he comes out, he coils himself up a bit, in order to take up less space.

I honestly didn’t know what these ponies were expecting; probably some gigantic, monstrous being with 6 legs or something, but not something as majestic as Dragonair. All everyone seemed to be able to do was gape at him, but he didn’t really seem to care too much. I continued to speak after a moment’s pass.

“Yep, This is Dragonair. He’s actually the very first Pokémon I got, given to me as a baby, from my parents when I was only eight years old. However, he wasn’t a Dragonair when he was a baby. He was actually a Dratini, which is the pre-evolved form of Dragonair. I’ll get to the evolutions of Pokémon later, when we’re done with show and tell.” This seemed to break Pinkie Pie out of her staring, and looked at me. “Oooh! I didn’t know it was show and tell! I should have brought something. Ooh, ooh! Can I bring something next time that will make up for both times?! I know JUST the thing to bring!” She said this, somehow getting up in my face again. ‘How is she doing that? These ponies are so short…’ I thought, and it was true. These ponies only stand up to around my belly. I figured I’d best keep my eye on this Pink bundle of mysteries.

“Pinkie, it isn’t actually show an- you know what? Never mind. I’d love to see what you have to show next time, Pinkie” I said with a smile after I cut myself off. Pinkie cheered, and went back to watching Dragonair, who was currently eyeing the little purple Dragon that seemed to be getting a bit self cautious.

“Hey uhh.. Mr. Dragonair guy… I can plainly tell you’re a dragon of some kind, so don’t worry about me. I won’t get territorial on you or anything… Heh…” Spike said. The large Pokémon seemed to accept this, as he went back to sitting there without much care.

“Oh my! What a magnificent creature this is! And those dashing blue orbs on his neck and tail are simply gorgeous! I’m getting quite a few new ideas for new ensembles just by looking at such a splendid creature!” Rarity said, as she seemed to be falling in love with the way Dragonair simply looks.

“I gotta admit, this one is WAY cool. I mean, just look at that horn! So awesome! It’s too bad he doesn’t have wings to fly with, though.” Rainbow said, as she shrugged.

“Actually Rainbow, Dragonair can fly. Not nearly as fast as you yet, but he still can.” I said to her as she perked up and began praising him again, but not without boasting about herself in-between. After they were all done admiring Dragonair, I returned him to his Pokéball. Rarity seemed disappointed, but I didn’t wish to spend the rest of our time talking about me and my Pokémon, as I needed my own questions answered.

“Okay, now that we’re done with that, can we go have a seat again? I would like a turn to start asking questions, if that’s cool.” I said. They all agreed and we sat back down in our original spots. I proceeded to ask them things like if they have any form of government, to which they explained to me about Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, how they raise both the sun and moon and how they rule the land. I was at first shocked, but then chalked it up to this being a different land. ‘Yeah, if what they say is the truth, I am definitely a VERY long way from home… Which actually reminds me of something.’

“I can’t believe I’d forgotten about this until now, but I need to find out how I even got here!” I shouted, getting a concerned look from Twilight.

“Yes, it is definitely strange that you would just appear out of nowhere like this… Can you tell me what you were doing and what happened before you had shown up here?” She asked, trying to deduce what could have happened.

“Well, let’s see… I was getting ready to go on a trip with my Pokémon, and I was about to head out the door of my house when I felt a big shaking, like an earthquake or something. I looked out the window and notice that no one else was being affected, and also saw that this... Giant, slow moving tornado had come from the cloudy sky, which had been sunny earlier by the way, and pulled my house out of the ground! I think I was knocked unconscious after this. When I awoke, I was still in my house, but when I walked outside, I was in an empty field next to your town and a lake.” I say, taking a breath afterwards.

Twilight had a very thoughtful expression on her face for a few moments. Then, slowly, her face turned from thoughtful to a more horror-like expression, with shock as she stared at me with a new found realization that had gone over my head. “Is something wrong Twilight? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost…” She then put on a look of huge regret and worry, as she began speaking.

“…I know how you got here. Yesterday, I was out in that same field practicing a new spell. They way it was supposed to go, was that I was to form a condensed, tiny twister, and with some extra steps and complications, it was supposed to summon an object from another universe. As I completed the spell, something went completely wrong. I experienced a huge magical power surge, and I lost control. The ground started shaking, and the twister grew to a gigantic size.

After this happened, the ground stopped shaking, but the Twister was still there, but moving an a very slow speed, so it couldn’t of harmed anypony who may of happened by. After waiting and waiting, I just gave up on the spell, thinking it was a total failure, and left, knowing the storm would calm down on its own since it was magically induced. Believe me, the spell was only supposed to summon an object about the size of a baseball, not an entire house!

I’m also afraid to say that there is absolutely no way to reverse the spell. I had already studied many books on this topic alone but it never said anything about a reversal… I'm so, so, SO sorry!” She then began to tear up and drop any composure so had left as she pointed her head to the floor. All I could do was stare in shock and disbelief.

‘I can’t believe it… She’s the reason that I’m here, and not back in Kanto… She did this. She ruined my fucking life and now I’m stuck in this place! Who knows if I will ever see another human being again? Or be able to capture any more Pokémon? I still had so much to do, and she ruined it…

…No. It may be her fault that I’m here, but it was a complete accident. She had no intention of doing this to me, and I can clearly see from her pitiful state before me that she is deeply sorry for what she did. I still can’t shake it though! I had so much to do! So much to learn about being a Pokémon trainer and eventually a breeder like my parents!

But there were plenty of bad things I had to live with, too, I suppose. I didn’t have very many close friends due to an incident in the past. Well, I had Red. He was one of my few friends that I would come across in my travels from time to time. He understood me. Other than him, though, it was a very select few. Aside from him, MAYBE, I don’t think I’ll be missed much. At least I still have my Pokémon with me, that’s something, but… Oh… Fuck. I had so many in the PC storage! I know I still have that PC in my home, but even if I do get power and essentials to run the house again, I highly doubt that I’ll be able to get it to connect to Bill’s network… Shit…

Damn it. Arceus damn it… I still can’t bring myself to blame Twilight for this. We all make mistakes, and clearly this was just a simple experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong… I suppose I’ll have to get used to living here then, with just the six Pokémon and my house on my back… I guess I could just look at this like a new chance to start fresh. I can have some all new experiences here in this whole new land, not once stepped into by a human before, and again, I won’t be alone in this. I have my best friends right here with me…

Alright, then. It’s time for me to brush off what COULD have been, and start looking forward to reality, and make something of myself here. It’s a shame I’ll never get to challenge Red again, or… See another human female ever again… But I just need to look on the bright side of things!’ As I finish my long, inner monologue, I couldn’t help but feel a small tear running down my cheek. ‘Pfft, how cliché is this shit’ I thought, as I quickly brushed it off and stood up to approach Twilight, who was still on the floor, sorrow and guilt shown all over her face with her eyes shut tight and tears coming out of them. Meanwhile the others were either watching me, or trying to comfort their guilt-ridden friend.

I kneel down in front of her, and put my finger under her chin, lifting her head up. This seemed to surprise her greatly, as she flinched and made an audible squeak in fright as she snapped her eyes open and gazed up into my eyes, wondering what I was going to say to her.

“I forgive you.”

5. New Accomadations, And a New Friend

Chapter 5

Twilight, and everyone else there for that matter, looked at me in shock. I could understand why, too. I was kind of close to flipping out earlier, if I hadn’t gone to thinking more on this situation first. Twilight was the first to speak up, as I continued to hold her head up.

“Y-you… Forgive me?” She asked, as she and the rest just looked at me in confusion. I nodded.

“It was an accident. I know you had no desire to do this to a living being, and I can clearly tell that you’re sorry for what you did anyway. You know, I knew a lot of people back where I came from who would’ve just treated this like it was nothing and be done with it. But not you, and that’s why I find it necessary to forgive you for this.” After saying this, she proceeded to stand up, as did I.

“But… Won’t you miss your home? Your friends, or family?” She asked.

“Well, I kind of brought my home with me, so no. I won’t be missing it. As for my friends, sure, I’m going to miss the few that I actually had, but I just need to look on the bright side here. Let’s see what I’ve got: A whole new land, not once stepped on by a human being until today, all new creatures that I get to discover for myself and even befriend, and fresh start. After you confessed what you did, I had some time to think a bit about my predicament. I’m not going to lie, I was angry at first, but I couldn’t hold this against you for long.” I told her, as I made my way back over to my seat and sat down. I simply chose to ignore the part of the question about family, hoping none of them caught on to that.

She wiped her eyes with her hoof and cleaned the tears off of her cheek. Everyone else also seemed joyous, and relieved, that things ended on a good note. “I can’t thank you enough for forgiving me, Jordan. If you ever need anything, just come and ask me, and I’ll try my best to help you, okay?” She generously offered. I thought for a moment for something that I needed, and I came up with just the thing.

“Well, since you offered, I DO have something you could help me do. My house, you see, is without power or water. If you could help me fix that situation l would be very grateful.” I said, with a hopeful look, hoping she could figure something out.

She thought for a moment, then looked at me. “You say your home is right next to the lake? I think I can pull some strings. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do it today, however. So if you’d like to stay here in the library in the meantime, you’re certainly welcome to.” She said with a smile, still visibly grateful from my forgiveness.

“I think that would be just fine. Thanks a lot for your hospitality. Now, if we could get this Q & A back on track, that’d be good.” I said, trying to learn a bit more about this place while I can. They all agreed, and soon enough, and we decided that we could trade questions, taking turns. During the back and forth questions, I learned that the Pegasi control the weather around here, and are able to walk on clouds while the other races are unable to unless a spell is casted. I also learned about some of the areas around here, like the Everfree Forest, other cities like Manehatten, Trottingham, and Canterlot, which I could see from here, resting off the side of a mountain. Another thing I learned about was some of the neighboring countries near Equestria, like the Gryphon Kingdom, and the Deadlands. Apparently no one ever goes to the Deadlands though, as it is extremely dangerous and is filled with some ungodly creatures.

On their end, I told them a bit about human anatomy, the awkward subject as to why we wear clothes, which caused a bit of blushing when I began talking about the fact that humans can’t hide their genitalia like Pokémon or Ponies can. There was also the discussion that humans are omnivorous, which caused most of them to freak out, and even get a comment from Rarity of how barbaric it was. Surprisingly, Fluttershy defended me, saying that there was nothing wrong with it, as she apparently takes care of many animals that need meat to survive, and that we can’t help the way we are. Still, I had to promise that I would not eat any ponies and that I would stick to eating fish instead. After this, they calmed down considerably.

After those awkward topics, I decided to tell them a little bit about how my world was. I told them about the many different regions that I’d explored, and how certain Pokémon can only be found exclusively to certain regions. Soon, however, it began to get late, and we had to stop for now. I took a look outside, and saw that the sun had gone down already. This surprised me, as it didn’t really feel like we’d been at this for a very long time, but just summed it up to all of us being so enthralled in the discussion.

“Well, it was nice meetin’ ya Jordan, but ah gotta get back to mah farm before mah family starts worryin’ about me. I’ll see ya later.” Applejack said.

“Yeah, I’m getting kind of tired, too. I gotta get up early for practice anyway, so I’ll catch ya later, J-man.” Rainbow said, apparently giving me a nickname in the process.

“I’m getting so sleepy, I’d better get back before I fall asleep! And that’d be bad because then Gummy will get lonely and start crying and Mr. and Mrs. Cake will blame me and not let me keep Gummy and I would be sooooo sad! I gotta go, bye bye, Jordy, Twilight, and everypony else!” Pinkie said before she zoomed out the door, leaving me confused at her antics, but quickly shook it off after a moment.

“Ahem, well, yes, I believe I must part ways with you for now as well. I’ve got plenty of orders I must complete early in the morning, and simply cannot put them off any longer. Farewell for now, Jordan.” Rarity explained, as she made her way to the door as well.

Fluttershy had joined them as well, saying she had to tuck in her animals for bed. I said goodbye to all of them, save Pinkie who was already gone, and told them that it was great meeting them, and hoped to see them all again soon. With that, they were all gone, leaving Twilight, me, and a sleepy looking Spike alone in the now quiet library.

“I don’t know about you, Jordan, but I’m really hungry! I haven’t had anything to eat today except for a small breakfast this morning. Would you care to join Spike and I for dinner?” She asked me, eager to get some food in her.

“That’s really tempting Twilight, but I’m going to have to decline. I forgot to lock my house up when I left it today, so I have to go back and do that. I’ve got food there, though, so I’ll just eat when I get to it.” I explained, as I began walking to the door.

“Oh, well, okay then. While you’re gone, I think I’ll write a letter to Princess Celestia, telling her about you. I’m certain that she would love to hear all about you and your Pokémon.” She said. I agreed, and was curious as to how long she’d get the letter.

“So, how long will it take for her to get your letter?” I asked. She then explained to me that Spike has magical fire that can send mail to the Princess almost immediately, at any time. It sounded pretty cool to me, but it also prompted me to ask her how she had direct contact with someone as high up as a princess. She then explained to me that she’s the princess’s star student and friend, so she has a pretty strong connection to royalty, it seems. After that, I quickly told her that I’d be back in awhile, and left out the door, while she went to writing her letter to the princess.

I made my way through the darkened town, noticing very few ponies still out. Even so, they didn’t seem to mind my presence as much, but still stared at me in curiosity. I didn’t really mind, though, and kept walking without interruption.

I finally make it outside of the town, and into the dark field. I just realized how dark it was exactly, noticing that the town was lit up by the occasional street lamp. But out here, all I have is a dim light of the moon gazing down upon me and this nearly empty field. I stop and look up at it for a moment, admiring its vast beauty, compared to my world’s moon. There just seemed to be something special about this one, along with the stars, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I shook out of my zoned out state, and before beginning my small walk to my house, I called out Riolu.

As he came out of his Pokéball, he stood and looked up at me, wondering what I could need of him. I looked down at him, noticing his slight confusion.

“Hey Riolu, I want you to walk with me. Since you’re ability is sensing emotions, I want you to make sure that nothing is watching or following us. Can you do this for me, please?” I ask him. He seemed more surprised that I would think to take such caution, but nodded, regardless. There was still a lot I didn’t know about this place, or what could be wondering around here at night, and figured it would never hurt to be cautious.

As we walked on, I received no notification from Riolu, and was beginning to think that I was being careful for no reason. But as I began getting closer to my house, he stopped. I stopped as well, looking at him with a raised brow. He didn’t do much except pointed a claw at my house, and then looked back at me, holding up one claw, to signify that he is receiving one signature, coming from inside my house. I was vastly surprised. ‘Fuck, man. I should have remembered to lock my house up before leaving! Now I bet there’s something in there ripping the place apart or looting…’

Riolu and I looked at each other briefly in surprise, but quickly nodded to each other, then both of us breaking out into a run towards the two story building. When we got there, I stopped again, asking Riolu if he could pinpoint where the being was exactly. He concentrated for a moment, then, without hesitation, pointed up at a window; the window of my bedroom.

I looked at it in slight anger, just imagining someone or something rummaging through my personal belongings. I quietly made my way to the door, opening it and entering my living room. Checking it out, I noticed that nothing was really out of place from how I left it, but this didn’t stop me from my current goal.

Riolu and I quietly made our ways down the hall and up the stairs, and approached my bedroom door. I then proceeded to open it as quietly as I could, and very gently Riolu and I stepped inside.

Immediately, I noticed a bright sphere of light. Further inspection showed that it was coming from the horn of a pony, which was also levitating a picture of me, my old dratini, and my… Parents. The picture was taken on my eighth birthday, right after I received my first Pokémon. This filled me with anger.

“HEY!” I yelled.

“WHA?!” Whoever it was, I startled them into dropping my picture onto my bed and doing a 180 turn to face me. As the pony did this, I could finally make out some more characteristics of it.

She had a dark blue coat and an ethereal starry blue mane, that seemed to continuously blow in a non-existent wind. I also noticed that she had some wings as well as a horn, and looked to stand a bit taller than the other ponies I've seen. I couldn’t see her cutie mark, however, as she was directly facing me, blocking it with the rest of her body.

“Just who do you think you are, going into someone’s house without even having the decency to meet them first?!” I said accusingly, taking a step towards the mystery mare. She took a step back, and seemed to snap out of her shocked state, and cleared her throat.

“This is your house? My apologies, I was just out on a nightly fly and noticed this house here. I fly by this lake every night, and I had not seen it the previous night, so I chose to investigate it. I sensed that there was no pony inside at this time, and there didn’t seem to be any power, so I assumed that it had just appeared here somehow without an owner. You have my apologies, and as for who I am, my name is Princess Luna. Who might you be?” She asked after her explanation.

‘She didn’t think anyone was living here, and she thought this place just appeared out of nowhere? I know she’s SORT OF right about this, but come on… I wouldn’t doubt it if she didn’t get out very ofte- Wait a fucking minute. Princess Luna? THE Princess Luna who has power over the whole moon?!’ I quickly forgot the fact that this pony pretty much infiltrated my house, but as I spoke, I didn’t let my shock seep into my voice.

“So you’re Princess Luna. I’ve heard about you. You raise and lower the moon. It’s great and all to meet you, but forgive me if I’m still a bit annoyed that someone just waltzed into my home without permission. My name is Jordan, by the way.” I told her, still with a bit of irritation in my voice.

“Look, I already said sorry, and how do you know about me?” She asked, as I pulled a flash light out of my bag, set it on my dresser and aimed it at us so we could get a better look at each other. It was here that I noticed the crescent moon cutie mark on her flank. ‘Makes sense, I guess.’ I thought to myself as I began speaking, and she began inspecting my appearance.

“My new friend, Twilight Sparkle told me about you and your sister today. She and her five friends explained a lot to me, and in turn, I told them a good bit about myself.” I explained as Riolu and I sat on my bed next to each other, still keeping an eye on her. I didn’t believe there was much of a reason for me to keep my guard up, seeing who I was talking to.

“Oh, so you’ve met the Elements of Harmony, then, I see.” She said. I didn’t see much, but I noticed a slight look of regret cross her face for less than a second.

“Wait, what are the elements of harmony?” I asked, quite puzzled. She looked at me in confusion.

“You mean they didn’t tell you? Odd, they must be trying to keep it a secret. That, or they just forgot to tell you. Anyway, as for what the elements are…” She continued on, explaining to me how they are great weapons of peace, even surpassing her and her sister’s power, but all six had to be together in harmony for them to work properly.

She went on to explaining how she was once evil, wishing to bring the world into an endless night after a thousand year banishment, and how the recently discovered elements were used to banish the evil that was inside her, giving her a chance at redemption.

“Wait, if that was you, do you mean to tell me that you’re over one thousand years old?!” I asked in astonishment. She nodded to me, explaining that she and her sister are indeed immune to the effects of age, and she and her sister have been alive for around 5,000 years.

“Wow… I had no idea. I can’t even begin to imagine how tough it must be for you and your sister.” I said, looking down in empathy. All she did was sigh in sadness, looking away, but after a few moments, her frown turned into a sad smile. “Yes, it is pretty saddening, but I’m just grateful that I have my sister Tia to spend my immortality with. Without her, I don’t know what I would have done. That is, until I got to experience the loneliness of 1,000 years on the moon…” She kicked her hoof on the floor in a gloomy state, but almost immediately perked back up.

“May I ask you a question, now?” I nodded to her. “What exactly are you, and what is that creature next to you?”

‘Oh boy’ I thought, ‘this again…’ I then explained to her what I told the girls earlier. She reacted the same as they did, but I just stuck with my earlier explanation, and she accepted my people’s way of life.

“Well, anyway, I’m certain that you’ve got things that need to be tended to, as do I. I’ll be off now, and I hope to see you again.” She said, making her way out of the house while Riolu and I followed suit. As we made our way outside, I decided to say something before she left.

“It was nice meeting you, Princess Luna, even though the location could have been better. I hope we will get the chance to speak again soon.” I said, walking next to her, as we watched the moon’s reflection on the beautiful glassy surface of the lake.

“You… Wish to speak to me again soon? Whatever for?” She asked, looking at me quizzically.

Without taking my eyes off the lake, I said, “Well, that’s what friends do, right? Talk to each other on a regular basis?” She looked surprised at this.

“You… Wish to be my friend?” she asked, making sure I wasn’t pulling some stupid prank or something.

It was then that I chose to look at her. “Well, yeah. You seem to be friendly, and I think you would make a great friend. Don’t you agree?” I asked. ‘man, she must not have very many friends, but I can understand that. Being an immortal princess along with being stuck completely alone for a thousand years would probably bring on the effect of not being very sociable.’

She looked down at the ground for a bit, as if pondering it, then looked at me with a happy smile. “I would be delighted to be your friend, Jordan!” She said happily. I smiled a friendly smile at her.

“That’s awesome. Can hardly wait until we will be able to hang out again, Princess.” I said, offering a hand shake to the night princess, which she accepted by putting her hoof into it, and shaking.

“Please, just call me Luna. There is no reason for formalities if you are my friend, Jordan.” She said, putting her hoof down on the ground and turning around to face Canterlot.

“Okay then, Luna. I guess you’re going now?” I asked.

“Yes. I have my duties as princess that need to be tended to back at the castle, so I must bid thee farewell.” She explained.

“When will we meet again, then?” I asked as Riolu and I sat down next to the lake, with my head still facing her.

“In a few weeks will come the holiday ‘Nightmare Night’. I’ll be visiting Ponyville at that time.” And with that, she took off into the air, wings flapping into the night as she journeyed back towards Canterlot.

Once she was gone, I let out a rather bitter-sweet sigh. Being stuck in this land… It’s a lot to take in, still. Without standing up, I threw up all of my Pokeballs, releasing the Pokémon from their confines. All of them looked at me with sympathy, not only for themselves, but for me as well. One by one, they all came to my side and watched the lake as I was, waiting for me to say something. After a few moments of thinking, I did just that.

“I don’t know how you guys are taking this change, but… I just want you to know that this new land may not be the end of the line for you. I've been thinking… If I can somehow, in some way, get the PC storage box up and running again, I will be able to release any of you back into Kanto, where you will be with your own kind again, if you wish.” As I said this, I went and place all of their respective Pokeballs in front of them. “There. Here’s how we’ll do this. If you wish to stick around and keep me as your trainer, just give me the ball back, and I’ll return you to it. If not, just keep the ball. I’ll take the message. This is YOUR choice, and I won’t blame you if you choose to return, back to the other world.”

All of us sat there for a while. Me, just watching the lake, waiting. The others, staring down at the Pokeballs. However, one by one, I received my Pokeballs, returning the Pokémon to the pokéball that they gave me… All, but one.

I looked over at Dragonair, who was no longer looking at his Pokéball, but out at the lake. I can clearly see that he’s made up his mind. I sighed, and just looked at the lake in sadness. ‘I can understand that you want to return to your world, Dragonair. I’m going to miss you a lot though, buddy…’ I felt tears welling up in my eyes. ‘I was really hoping that you would stay with me so I could see you one day evolve into your final form… Fuck… This is hard.’

I felt a tear running down my cheek. We’d been through so, so much together, and to see him backing out on me was just killing me, but it was the ethical thing to do.

Suddenly, I felt something hard smash into the side of my head, which knocked me to my side and on my back. I look to what just hit me, to see that it was… The Pokéball. I looked at Dragonair, who gave me a look over irritation, as if I should be ashamed of myself for even expecting him to do such a thing and leave.

“Ow… Damn it… That fucking hurt!” I said, as I began rubbing the side of my head. I then smiled at him. “I knew you’d stick around, buddy. You could have done it in a less painful way, but you've always been there for me. All of you, as a matter of fact,” I said to my Pokémon, who were in their Pokeballs. “…Thank you.”

Just then, Dragonair coiled around me, tightening slightly, and putting his head next to mine, as if to give me a hug. I wiggled my arms loose and wrapped them around his neck, returning the serpentine-hug. “I think we should return to Twilight’s now. It’s been kind of a long time, and she’s probably getting worried.” I said this as Dragonair uncoiled himself from my body. He nodded in agreement, and so I returned him to his Pokéball, and made my way back into town and to the door of the library.

As I reached for the handle of the library door after a 10 to 15 minute walk, I stopped, realizing I had just forgotten something, as my stomach growled.

“FUCK! I can’t believe I forgot to lock the damn door again!”

6. A Royal Visit

Chapter 6

After a few minutes of running, I made it back to my house, I ran into the kitchen. grabbing some food for my Pokémon and cramming a sloppily made sandwich into my mouth for dinner, I quickly made my way back to Twilight’s place, but not before locking my place up as to avoid further intrusion, obviously.

I opened the door and walked in to see Twilight sitting on the couch, reading a book. When she took notice of me, she slapped the book shut and gave me an annoyed glare.

“What took you so long?! I was getting worried that something happened to you!” She asked with mild anger. I then walked over to her and sat down, explaining what happened, leaving out how I walked all the way back here without fulfilling my prior task.

“Oh, so you met Princess Luna, and in your house no less? I bet you didn't see THAT coming…” She commented.

“Heh, tell me about it. I was pretty close to attacking her before I realized that she was an immortal alicorn princess, possibly with godlike powers the likes I haven’t seen before. Anyway, what happened while I was gone?” I asked. Surely she hadn't been waiting on me the whole time; then I’d just feel bad.

“Oh! I’ve actually got some news! I wrote to the princess like I said I was going to, describing everything that has happened so far, and about you. I then received a reply from her, and she’ll be here some time tomorrow to meet you! She must not have a very busy day tomorrow. Oh, and that reminds me…” She said, hopping out of her seat, “We’ve got to get this place cleaned up, pronto! This IS a visit from THE Princess Celestia, after all.” I looked around the room, noticing that the place actually did look fine as it was. It even looked like it had been freshly dusted and everything.

“The place already looks fine to me. What else could be done?” I asked quizzically, getting up as well.

“Oh, lots of stuff. These books need reorganizing, the basement needs to be swept… There’s a lot of things to be done, and since Spike is already asleep, I’m gonna need your help with this.” She said, looking back at me with a hopeful, yet still somehow stern look in her eyes.

‘She must really think highly of the Princess to go through so much effort for her; I can respect that. Well, I guess I could expect this from her if she is her number one student, after all.’ I shook myself out of my thoughts. I looked at my watch to see that it was 9:30 PM, and double checked the clock on the wall to check if the times were the same, and they were. “Sure, I’m not even tired yet anyway. Let’s get to work.”

“Thank you, Jordan. I’m glad to see that at least YOU’RE taking the Princess seriously!” She said, glaring at Spike, who was currently sleeping on a chair.

After putting Spike to in his room, and feeding my Pokémon with the food I brought, we got to cleaning. I had returned the Pokémon to their balls, but left Espeon out, since she has telekinetic powers which helped us get the books reorganized, with guidance from Twilight of course. Meanwhile, I swept the basement. I couldn’t quite understand why it needed to be done. ‘Is she even going to be coming down here? Maybe Twilight is taking this a bit too seriously… I’d better not voice this to her; don’t want her getting displeased with me if I’m going to be staying for a bit.’ I thought to myself, while I thoroughly swept the basement, then swept the main room. After sweeping, Twilight had me and Espeon doing other things, like re-dusting the furniture and stuff.

We were at it for a few hours, until we finally stopped at around 1:00 AM. At this point, I was beyond drowsy, and Espeon had already fallen asleep on the couch. She should be, she’s definitely not the nocturnal kind of Pokémon. She seemed happy to help us either way, however.

“Alright, *yawn* Jordan. I think we can call it a night and get some sleep… Let me show you to your room real quick.” She said, as she made her way up the stairs while I followed. ‘Heh, yeah, you mean let’s call it a morning…’ I thought. I can have a bit of an attitude when I’m tired.

I didn’t really feel like returning Espeon to her Pokéball, so I just picked her up carefully in my arms before going up the stairs with Twilight. She led me to a door up there and opened it, leading me into it, showing that there was your common bedroom stuff, most noticeably a bed, nightstand and dresser, which made me realize that I forgot to bring some spare clothes from my house. I disregarded the thought, figuring that I’d just change my clothes some other time besides when I wake up.

“This is where you’ll be sleeping for now. Have a good night… *Yawn*” She said as she left the room and presumably to her own room. I shut the door after this and turned towards bed. I walked up to it and set Espeon, who was happily asleep, at the foot of it. I then proceeded to set my bag down next to the night stand, strip down to my boxers and get into the bed. I then realized that this bed is very short, and my feet stuck out of bed, with Espeon between my legs, above the covers. ‘Figures that the beds would be so small; why would they need beds my size?’ I thought, before drifting off to sleep.

I awoke from my dreamless sleep on my own. Espeon was nowhere to be seen and the bedroom door was open. I took a glance at my watch, reading that it was 11:55 AM. ‘I should have expected that I would sleep in, since I stayed up so damn late…’ It was late for me since I usually prefer to get to sleep at 10:30 PM to 11:00 PM at night.

With clothes in hand, I stepped out of my room. There was another room right next to mine, which I opened straight away. Seeing the contents inside, I realized that I had found exactly what I was looking for: the bathroom. Surprisingly, everything looked exactly the same, except for a smaller-than-normal toilet and shower. It may call for a slight adjustment, but I figured that I could easily work with these conditions.

After doing my normal bathroom business, like taking a shower, drying off, getting dressed, brushing my hair out, and brushing my teeth with a tooth brush I retrieved from my bag before coming in here, I left the bathroom, and made my way down stairs, but not before retrieving my Pokémon, which I had left on my night stand.

When I got downstairs, I saw that Twilight was reading a book at a table, and taking notes as she did this. I also noticed Spike sitting on the other side of the room, playing with Espeon. I soon, of course, had to make my presence known to all by letting loose a yawn.

Twilight looked up from her book and notes. “Oh, morning sleepy head; you sure did sleep for a long time!” she said, looking as cheery as ever. I turned to face her.

“And how long have you been awake?” I asked, wondering how she isn’t in the same state that I am anymore. ‘Maybe she just loves the morning or something; Makes sense, being the student of someone who raises the sun.’ I thought to myself.

“I’ve been up since 8:00,” she began. ‘Okay, how the f- you know what? Never mind.’ I thought.

“I usually get up earlier than that, but as you know, we had a bit of a wild night last night.” She said.

‘Staying up for hours doing chores is what you consider to be a wild night? Damn…’ I thought, amused. “Well, anyway, do you know when the Princess is supposed to be here?” I asked. To tell the truth, I was pretty eager to meet Luna’s sister and ruler of the entire land.

“She didn’t specify in the letter she sent last night. All she wrote was that it would be sometime today. But before then, I’d like to ask that you stay here, so that she won’t have to wait for too long.” She said.

I found that disappointing. I didn’t really want to sit around doing nothing. More than anything, I wanted to get my house situation taken care of. “Oh… Y-yeah, I hear what you’re saying. Sure, I can wait here…” She could easily catch onto my disappointment.

“Oh, don’t be so down! There’s plenty of books you can read in the meantime, and since you slept through the whole morning already, I’m certain you won’t have to wait TOO long.” She said, smirking.

I took a quick glance around the room, then face palmed. How could I not have thought of that? “You’re right. I guess I’ll just read something to pass the time…” She giggled at this, and went back to what she was doing. Before getting to my own thing, I looked over at Espeon and Spike. Espeon had levitated Spike into the air, and was whooshing him around as if he were an air plane. He sure seemed to be having one hell of a time, but as soon as he caught me watching, he started acting like he hated it. I then remembered that my Pokémon needed feeding, so I called out to Espeon.

Getting her attention, she quickly snapped her head to me, breaking concentration, which prompted Spike to fall on his face. I had to stifle a laugh as he sat there with a grumpy expression, arms crossed.

After feeding my Pokémon the rest of the food I brought with me, and returning them to their balls, I asked Twilight if she had any fruit or something here. She directed me to the kitchen, and sure enough, there was a bowl of apples sitting on the counter. I ate a couple of them, and went to looking for a book to read.

During my reading session, I was able to learn a few things about the history of Equestria. Apparently Equestria hasn’t been seeing eye to eye with the Gryphon Kingdom for years, but have not yet gone to war with Equestria, but judging my some of the clues I’ve seen, it could very well happen soon, in comparison to how the great Pokémon war happened. I’m hoping that day doesn’t come any time soon…

I learned this, among a few other things during my long reading session. But after what felt like hours, Spike, who had gone to Rarity’s place about an hour back, came running in with a note in his hand.

“Twilight, you’ve got another letter from the Princess!” He yelled, as he ran up to her. I looked up from the book I was reading in curiosity.

“Thank you Spike, here, let me see it!” She said, yanking the rolled up parchment from the little dragon’s grasp with her magic. After reading it over twice, she looked at me in excitement. “The Princess is going to be here very soon!”

Just as she said that, a loud knocking came to the door. “Oh! That must be her, I’ll get it!” She pronounced, as she zoomed over to the door and opened it, as I closed my book and put it back where I found it. I then decided to lean against the wall right next to the kitchen while I waited.

When Twilight opened the door, she didn’t see the princess, but a big, white male pony with gold armor on, and a helmet to match. ‘Huh, I didn’t notice before, but before this point I don’t think I’ve seen a single male pony. Or maybe I did, when I was first walking through town, but there were so many ponies around that I failed to take notice. Either way, for some reason it seems that there may be a shortage of males in this society.’

As Twilight led what I presumed to be a guard or soldier of some kind, another pony followed. This pony… Was definitely something special. First off, she was tall; taller than any other pony that I’ve seen in the past, even Luna. Her coat was a pure white color. Her mane was, like Luna’s, blowing in some non-existent wind. It had three noticeable colors in it though, which were pink, blue and green, and to top it all off, were the horn and wings. I could tell immediately that this was the princess, if the gold crown and regalia weren’t already dead giveaway.

She and the two guards, who were both Pegasi, that were accompanying her stood in front of Twilight in the center of the room. “Princess Celestia! It is so nice to see you again!” She said as she took a quick, but deep bow, as Spike did the same. I didn’t really want my presence to be known yet so I stayed put. ‘Time to see just how this Princess is…’ I thought to myself. I’ve had my fair share of experience with the high class, and a lot of it was definitely not on good accounts. I know that not all are bad, as my parents were friends with a few of them, and I had even gotten my ticket to the SS Anne from one of them.

“Twilight, my faithful student! It is wonderful to see you again!” She said as she bowed her head down to Twilight’s and nuzzled her affectionately. When she was done, she brought her head back up and looked around. Finally noticing me, she turned in my direction. “And you must be Jordan. I’ve heard so much about you, and I just thought that it would be a grand idea to meet you face to face. It’s not every day I get wind of a new species in our land, after all.” She said in a motherly tone, with a smile gracing her face. It was at this point that I decided to get off my spot on the wall and walk up to her.

“Hey, as you know, I am Jordan, and It’s a pleasure to finally meet yo-“ I was saying, before being interrupted by one of the guards stomping his hoof, making a very loud sound.

“You will not speak to the princess in that way, beast! You will address the princess with utmost respect, and bow before her!” He shouted at me, acting as if I’d just spit in her face or something. I didn’t budge a single muscle, except now my happy smile was now a slight frown. Everything was quiet. The other guard had joined him, and was now glaring daggers at me as well.

“At ease this instant, guards!” Almost immediately, the guard’s facial expressions become completely passive and the guards stood completely still, at attention. “I am completely appalled at the both of you! We came here for a social meeting, and this is how you act when somepony tries to act friendly?” She scolded. ‘I think I’m starting to like this pony…’ I thought, but didn’t really change my current stance.

“I want the both of you to go guard the door until this meeting has finished; that’s an order.” At this, and with no hesitation, they both ran over to the door, assuming a completely still position. After this, she reclaimed her previously calm expression. “I apologize for my guards’ actions towards you. I believe that the fact that there is a completely new creature in Equestria has put them on edge.” She explained apologetically.

It was at this point that I chose to relax. “Woo, thanks for calling off the guards…” I looked to where the guards were. I saw one of them blink, but other than that, they were completely unresponsive to anything. “Anyway, yes. My name’s Jordan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess.” I said with confidence as I stuck my hand out for a hand/hoof shake. This action seemed to surprise her, and I could clearly see the guards tense up at my action. Twilight and Spike had worrisome expressions on their faces.

“I am so deeply sorry for this, Prin-“ Twilight stopped herself as she saw the Princess put on a happy smile, and put her hoof in my hand, in which I firmly grasped, and shook. Not roughly, but in a manner that showed that I was eager to make her acquaintance. As we finished, she put her hoof down on the floor. ‘Judging by the surprise she got from earlier, I doubt that she gets treated like that often. Not as a genuine friend, at least. Comes with the whole princess thing, I suppose.’ I thought.

“The pleasure is all mine, Jordan. I must say, you are the first to greet me in such a friendly manner in a long time.” She said.

‘Called it.’ I thought, but quickly shook it away. “Well, I imagined so with you being a Princess and all. I just thought it’d be a nice change for you if I wasn’t formal. Anyway, I was expecting things to go worse than the way they did, and I’ll be honest. If your guards had chosen to attack me, they would have been hurled into a wall by my little friend over there.” I said, gesturing to the entrance of the kitchen where I had just been standing. Sitting there, watching us, was the Espeon.

The Princess looked at the cat-like creature in shock. “So that creature there is capable of doing such a thing?” Twilight seemed just as shocked as this, but Spike had a knowing look on his face. His time spent playing air plane was enough for him to understand, I guessed.

“Yep, she would have had those guards away from me in about a second if they had actually tried to attack me.” I explained, as Espeon came up to the Princess, and began inspecting her. While this happened, however, I heard one of the guards mumble something irritably, but after a look from the princess, they went back to their normal, stone-like stances.

After a few moments of Espeon’s inspecting of the princess, which was quite amusing to her by the way, she suddenly purred, and began cuddling up to her. This surprised even me, as she normally almost never does this.

Princess Celestia then giggled. “I think your friend has taken a liking to me!” She said, as Espeon kept rubbing up to her with a huge amount of affection, while Spike and Twilight looked on with happy expressions. ‘What is up with her… Oh, of course. Espeon is the “Sun Pokémon” after all. No wonder she likes Celestia so much. Something tells me an Umbreon would have the same reaction towards Luna.’

I chuckled at the site. “Allow me to explain. Espeon is called the Sun Pokémon. And since the sun is kind of your thing, it seems that she can relate to you in a special way.” I said, watching as Espeon decided to make a bold move and hop up onto Celestia’s back, then curl up into a relaxed position, enjoying some invisible aura that the princess might have been giving off. This just prompted the princess to giggle even more, and look at the pink Pokémon in delight.

“I thought something seemed special about this creature, but I just couldn’t put my hoof on it. Would you mind showing me more of these creatures? Twilight told me quite a lot about you, and that you somehow retain all sorts of creatures inside of small metallic balls.” She said.

“Sure thing Princess, if you’ve got the time, then I do.” I explain, before showing her each and every one of the Pokémon that I had in my current possession. She seemed to be more pleased with some rather than others. She seemed to be quite fond of Dragonair and quite shocked when Ditto decided to transform into one of her royal guards, comparing the blob to something called a ‘changeling’ or something along those lines, but didn’t explain more on the subject.

After a bit of showing off, I returned the Pokémon to their balls, and we continued our conversation.

“So you’re saying that all of them have their own unique abilities and powers?” She asked, genuinely interested in the Pokémon.

“Yeah, for example, Espeon is capable of powerful psychic abilities, and has been seen being able to levitate very large items, and toss them around like they were nothing. And then there’s Ursaring, who can cause powerful earthquakes with ease. My Pokémon are able to do much more than that, but I do like to keep SOME mystery about me…” I said, giving a smirk.

She then gave me a knowing, yet slightly mischievous look, before replacing it with her old, peaceful expression. “So, do you have any more of these Pokémon?” She asked, betraying no look of a possible sinister or selfish plot involving my Pokémon or I.

At this point, Twilight decided to cut into the conversation. “Yes he does, Princess, but he currently can’t access them. We were hoping that you could help with this situation, actually.” She said. She then went on to explain that my house had come with me in my arrival, and about my power and water issue. “…So we were just curious if it were at all possible for you to set something up with a construction team to get that situation all under control?” She finished, taking a seat on the floor with a hopeful look in her eyes.

The Princess put on a thoughtful expression at this. “You said that it’s by the lake?” Twilight nodded. “Well then, I see no problem with setting something up.” She then went to speak with one of her guards about what I presume to be the issue. After a moment, the guard saluted, and left, leaving just one of them at the door. After that, she returned to her spot next to me, with Espeon still resting on her back.

“I just sent one of my guards to make the preparations. He should return soon with news on how long it will take.” She said to me with that motherly smile of hers, while Twilight adorned a cheerful smile on her face.

“Wow, I didn’t think it would be that simple. Thanks a lot, Princess!” I said, happiness clearly written on my face.

“Well it was my pleasure. But I still don’t know what this has to do with retrieving more of your Pokémon.” She said, looking at me expectantly.

I face palmed, then explained to her about my PC, and even having the slimmest possibility of accessing the Pokémon in it is all I need to at least try, and if all else fails, well, at least I still get a functioning house.

“Well, I certainly hope that whatever this ‘PC’ object is, it will be able to function the way you want it to. I would be simply delighted to see more of these creatures that you might have.” She said.

“If things go the way I want, I’d be happy to show you some more.” I said to her. We continued chatting for a while, moving over to the sitting area. A lot of the discussion was me telling her things I’d already told Twilight and the others at some point. After a while of this, the guard soon returned to give us the news.

Silently, the guard approached the Princess. “I have news on the house situation, your highness.” He stated, acting nothing like he had been before.

The Princess responded. “Oh? And what is there to be said?” She asked the guard.

“The owner of the construction company here claimed that, assuming it is a standard two story house, and with the current distance from town, construction can be finished within three days.” This statement struck me as odd.

“Just three days? That seems awfully quick.” I said, handing the guard my keys anyway. And it was true, for me anyway. I remember back on my world, in Vermillion City, there was this guy and his Machop who were constructing a house. It took the two of them around three years just to stomp in the damn plot to get ready for building. And these guys doing, what I assume to be a tough job, are supposed to have it all done in less than a week.

Twilight chose to answer my inquiry. “Well, yes. I remember you telling me that humans can’t use magic, correct?” I simply nodded, looking at her. “Well, with the kind of spells the unicorns on the construction team have, such as x-ray spells and the likes, it tends to be a speedy process. Normally, a job like this could be done in about a day’s time, but since your house undoubtedly has different technology and different constructs, it’ll most likely take a bit of extra time to work out some of the differences. But I have no doubt in mind that it will be a successful effort.” She explained to me, and giving me a moment to just nod, dumbfounded. ‘Why didn’t that guy with the Machop just catch an Abra or Kadabra to do the job… Well, he probably had some kind of mental issue if it took him three damn years to stomp in some dirt. He probably didn’t even consider it.’ I shook the thought away.

“Huh. Well, I hope you don’t mind me crashing here for another few days then, Twilight.” I said, giving her a hopeful look.

“Of course I don’t mind! The longer you stay here, the more I learn about you and Pokémon, so it’s a win for both of us.” She said, cheerfully.

“I am thrilled to hear this, and I would love to stay and chat some more, but I’m afraid that I have my duties to take care of at the royal palace.” The princess said, as she was about to leave with her guards.

“Wait!” I said, stopping her. “What about the construction charges? Surely it wouldn’t be cheap…” I said, looking at her curiously.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll have it taken care of as a favor to the first human in Equestria!” She said, but not before whispering something in my ear. “Of course, I will be expecting a favor out of you, when the time comes that I need it.”

I just looked at her, confused at what she meant. ‘Wonder what she could possibly want out of me…’ as I thought this, I noticed Espeon hopping off of Celestia’s back. She seemed to know that the princess was leaving, and was visibly disappointed at this. I quickly returned her to her Pokéball.

“W-well it was great meeting you Princess. Thanks again for taking care of my issue!” I said, wiping off my un-sure look and replacing it with a smile.

She giggled. “It was my pleasure, Jordan! I look forward to when our paths cross again!” And with a quick but loving goodbye from Twilight and Spike, she and her guards left.

“Well, she’s a lot nicer than I expected…” I said, as Twilight got a bit of an annoyed look on her face.

“You know, if you’d have tried being that casual with royalty in the Gryphon Kingdom, you would have had your head removed.” She said, glaring at me.

I looked at her for a moment, then just waved it off with my hand. “Oh, please. I wouldn’t let them touch me. That wouldn’t have been the first time someone would try to kill me.” I said, giving her a confident smirk.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “When did somepony try to kill you?” She asked, not really wanting to believe me.

“Let’s just say that I decided to mess around with a certain criminal organization one too many times… And made some enemies.” I said, dropping the hint that I wouldn’t go into any more detail on the current subject.

“O…kay then. Well anyway, something has been bothering me. Why do you say ‘one’ instead of ‘pony’?” She asked, changing the subject.

“Well, it’s just what my people say. But if it bothers you ponies that much then I guess I can try to adjust to it.” I said, not really caring either way.

“It doesn’t bother me, it just throws me off a bit since I’m not used to hearing it.” She said. I still didn’t care either way, so I decided I’d try using pony instead.

“Well, whatever, there’s still plenty of daylight left. I’ma go explore the town! Seeya Twilight and Spike! If anyPONY comes looking for me, just tell them I’m out!” I said as I ran out the door, not listening to any objections she may or may not have.

7. Time To Hit The Town, Round 2

Chapter 7

After about 30 seconds of quick jogging, I looked back at the direction I came from, to make sure I didn’t have Twilight on my tail. Seeing that I was not being followed, I took notice of my immediate surroundings. As I should have expected, there was no shortage of onlookers, quietly whispering about my presence here.

I stood there awkwardly for a moment, before giving the curious gawkers a wave, then proceeding with my aimless walk around the town. The ponies didn’t run away in fear, but they did keep a good distance from me as I toured myself around, with my hands in my sweatshirt pockets. I even had a few of them following after me from a distance, watching me make my every move, as if I were some circus freak or something, which to their credit, I could understand, being other-worldly and all. Still, it did make me uncomfortable at first, but I quickly got used to it after a couple of minutes.

About 10-15 minutes into my walk, I had seen a building, looking to be comprised of sweets, but with a closer inspection, they turned out to be fake. I tried looking more into the building, but it appeared to be closed, as curtains were drawn and the door was locked. Losing interest quickly, I left the building, to continue my exploration. Before I could get far, however, three young looking ponies, presumably children, approached me nervously. I stopped walking and turned to them, with my own look of curiosity for once.

As they got close to me, I noticed the others in my travelling audience look at the kids in worry, probably hoping that I don’t do anything to them. As I continued inspecting each of them, they came to a stop a couple of yards away from me, and stood there for a moment, looking away awkwardly. Soon enough, two of them, which were standing on both sides of the one in the middle, suddenly shoved the middle one forward.

The one that was shoved turned around angrily, glaring at her two companions, but I was getting impatient, so I cleared my throat a bit loudly, prompting them all to look back at me. The middle one then stammered out some words, incomprehensible at first, but quickly getting a hold of herself to talk to me.

“H-howdy Mister… M-mah name is A-applebloom.” Said the apparent earth pony, nervous. Judging by her accent and name, I could quickly tell that she at least KNEW who Applejack was.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but smiled. “Well, hey Applebloom. My name’s Jordan. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know Applejack, would you?” By saying this, she quickly stopped with the nervous behavior.

“Yeah, that’s mah sister! Ah guess she was tellin’ the truth about ya.” She said, putting on a smile.

“Oh? She talked about me, huh?” I said, questioningly.

“Yep! She told us about a new creature and town, and him bein’ able to make creatures appear or somethin like that.” She explained, but before she or I could saying anything else, another one of the kids, this one being an orange one pegasus with purple hair, cut in to the conversation. This one wasn’t nervous anymore, either.

“Yeah! We thought that it would be cool if you could show us real quick?!” She said, turning the statement into a question at the end. Then, the third one of the small group hopped in.

“Please! We REEAALLY want to see you do it! None of us have ever seen somepony do that before!” Said the unicorn of the group, who had white coat with a half-purple, half-pink mane.

They all started looking at me with large, sad eyes and quivering lips. Normally this wouldn’t rend anything from me, but I would never like to turn down an opportunity to show off a Pokémon.

“Well… Alright; if you want to see me do it that badly, I suppose I could show you.” I said, gaining happy cheers from the three children. They quickly settled down and began watching me, just the same as the crowd around me.

Before I could do much, however, a fourth pony approached me, this one flying up to me at a pretty high speed. As soon as it became apparent, I realized that it was my rainbow-maned acquaintance from yesterday.

“Hey Jordan, what’s going on here?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking around at the ponies, who were still watching us.

“Hey Rainbow; I was just about to show these three here,” I gestured towards the kids, “my ability with making Pokémon appear.” I explained to her.

“Rainbow Dash, you know Jordan already?!” The orange pegasus asked in surprise. Rainbow looked at her.

“That’s right squirt, I do. I met him yesterday. I made sure to show him what I’m made of though, so you don’t have to worry about him ever hurting you.” She said, as I gave her a look of annoyance.

“…Right. Yeah, I already met her, and a few other ponies too. She’s also already seen what I can do, as well, and even experienced it first-hand. Right, Rainbow?” I asked, smirking at her.

She gave a nervous chuckle. “Heheh, umm, yeah. Anyway, are you gonna get on with the show or what?” She asked, changing the subject.

“Sure thing.” I said, as I pulled out a pokéball and tossed it, releasing Ursaring from it. He stood and made his cry, vastly surprising everypony present except for Rainbow Dash and me. After a few moments, the orange pegasus cheered.

“Oh my gosh, that was so cool! Is he friendly?!” She said, turning to me.

“He sure is, as long as you’re nice to him, that is. Why don’t you go introduce yourselves to him?” I said, as Ursaring decided to sit on the ground and look at them with a friendly smile.

Nervous at first, the three approached Ursaring, but soon enough, they warmed up to him and began playing with him, either petting him, climbing him up to his head, or getting petted themselves from his big soft paws. He didn’t seem to mind this either, seemingly enjoying the playtime. ‘He’s a Teddiursa at heart, really; people are often scared of Ursarings, but they don’t often remember what they used to be before they evolved.’ I thought to myself, as I watched the adorable site in front of me.

After about five minutes of this, ponies from the crowd began approaching him, one by one. They weren’t exactly playing with him like the children were, but they felt comfortable enough to get within a few yards of him and, either inspect him or watch the kids in amusement.

After a while of this, I began to grow restless and bored. “Alright, I think Ursaring has had enough for now, and I’d like to get going. Say goodbye!” I said. The three children heard this and stepped back from their new furry friend, who waved at them happily before I returned him to his ball.

“Aww, I wanted to play with him some more! He was really nice and fun!” said the little unicorn.

“I’m sure he’ll love to play with you again sometime, but I kinda want to get back to looking around the town.” I said, giving a reassuring smile to her. “By the way, I never got your names, except for Applebloom’s.” All three of them got a look of shock on their faces, but soon turned to smirks. As the rest of the crowd noticed this, they began to backpedal away from them from some reason.

“I’m Applebloom!” Applebloom said, again.

“I’m Scootaloo!” The orange pegasus said.

“And I’m Sweetie Bell!” Said the unicorn

“And we are…” I think I know why the others left…

“THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!!!!!!” They all shouted at once. As they all screamed this, a pegasus, who was flying above, got distracted by this and accidently grazed herself on a rooftop, promptly tumbling to the ground nearby soon after.

We all looked at her worriedly, and when I got a closer look, I noticed that she had a grey coat and blonde mane, with bubbles as a cutie mark. Also, one of her hooves got scraped up, and didn’t look too good. She soon realized what had had happened, and held her hoof in pain.

“Oww! This hurts! Ow…” She said, tears welling up in her eyes, and looking down at her hoof, which had a bit of blood leaking out of it. As I saw this, I snapped out of my bewilderment, and ran up next to her.

“That doesn’t look too good, miss. I’ll fix you up in a bit!” I said as I retrieved my bag from my shoulders and began digging through it. Suddenly, I found what I was looking for, which was a super potion. I thought that if this stuff works on Pokémon, why not ponies?

I took the potion and quickly sprayed her scrape with it, and rubbed it in. “There, now give it a bit and you’ll be as good as new.” I said, putting the now empty potion bottle in my bag to dispose of later.

“Wow… Thanks Mister. That feels better already!” She said, looking up at me with a grateful smile, to which I returned, seeing that her hoof had already almost completely healed. I was surprised it worked that well on a pony.

“No problem. I didn’t like seeing you hurt like that, so I couldn’t just leave you.” I said, giving her a toothy grin. After that, Rainbow and the cutie mark crusaders, approached us.

“Hey Jordan! I didn’t know that you had stuff like that! You just healed that cut that she had as if it was nothing!” Rainbow said, looking at the mare’s now completely healed hoof in amazement.

“Oh yeah, this stuff works wonders, and that wasn’t even my strongest type of potion, either. Although I was surprised to see it work on a pony; this stuff doesn’t do a thing for humans.” I explained. “So anyway, what’s your name?” I said, looking to the bubble-marked pony whom I just helped.

“My name is Ditzy Doo, It’s nice to meet you!” She said, unintentionally rhyming. “And what are you?” She asked, which was to be expected. I gave her a quick, condensed explanation as to whom, and what I am, and what I do. It was at this point that I noticed the crossed, golden eyes of hers, but I chose not to comment on them.

Just then, Rainbow had decided to speak up. “Ditzy, you need to be more careful! Jordan won’t always be here to help you, ya know!” She said, trying to look out for her apparent friend.

“Sorry Rainbow, but that noise was just so loud that I just had to look!” Ditzy explained, to which the three fillies got a look of guilt on their faces.

All at once, they said, “We’re sorry…”

“Oh, that’s okay. Hey, I gotta go! I was just on my way to get a muffin! Bye!” And with that, she took to the sky and nearly missed hitting yet another roof.

“Well, she was an interesting character.” I said, watching her fly off to get that muffin she was talking about. “I think I’ll continue my look around town. Hey Rainbow, wanna be a tour guide for me?” I asked, beginning to walk away but looking back at her, just noticing that those fillies from earlier had already run off to do Arceus-knows-what.

“Eh, sure; I’ve got nothing else to do anyway.” And with that, we set off. As we were out and about, I learned where some of the ponies from yesterday lived, like Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow, and the path that leads to Fluttershy’s house. I thought it was kind of amusing that Pinkie lived in that tasty looking shop that I saw not long ago, thinking it suited her just right.

I also learned of a few other places locations, like the Spa, Quills & Sofas, the market place, the mayor’s office, and other various important things. Rainbow also made it clear that I should never go into the Everfree Forest, due to various beasts and such making it dangerous, but that just tempted me to go look around in there anyway, curiosity making me want to see if these creatures are catchable. I didn’t voice this reasoning, however.

After she showed me the path to Sweet Apple Acres, home of Applejack and her family, we stopped. “Well, I think that just about raps up our tour, J-Man! Why don’t we head down to Sugar Cube Corner and get something to eat?” She offered, landing on the ground next to me. I checked my watch, looked at the sun, which was setting, and felt my stomach, which felt empty. I shrugged.

“Yeah, I don’t see why not. Although, when I went passed it earlier, it was closed…” I said, thinking for a moment.

“Oh, well it should be open now, so let’s go before they close up again! I think Pinkie wants to see you anyway.” She said, getting a bit impatient. I nodded, and we were off to the bakery, eager to get a bite to eat.

When we were getting close to Sugar Cube Corner, Rainbow suddenly dashed away from my side and into the store, before I could even say anything. As I paused and looked at the door, I began to wonder what her deal was. ‘What could be in there that she just HAD to get to, without saying anything and just zooming to it immediately… Oh hold on… There could be only ONE explanation to this… But I have no idea what it is yet.’ I shrugged, and started walking to the door again.

As I approached the door, and turned the wooden knob with my soft hands, feeling the smooth surface of it warm my touch, I began to slowly, almost agonizingly so, turning it, just then noticing that the curtains were still drawn and there was no light coming from them… I began to have second thoughts about this… But it was too late, I had already thrown the door open and stepped inside.

Standing in the doorway, I just began taking in the site of Darkness. ‘Where the hell did Rainbow go, and why was there no ponies outside in the later parts of the tour? No… This definitely doesn’t feel right at all…’

“What the fu-“ Before I could finish that, the lights flicked on as a bunch of ponies stood in front of me, shouting, ‘SURPRISE!!!!!!!’, which was led off by Pinkie Pie. She then approached me with a big grin that should not have even been physically possible.

“So?! Were you surprised? You sure looked surprised!” She asked me with her bubbly demeanor. I paused to take a look around the room. All around, there were ponies, some with big grins, and some with some un-certainty, but still smiling nonetheless. There was a snack table with punch and cupcakes, along with other things, and I even noticed Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow standing together with the rest of the crowd, smiling, although still not holding a candle to Pinkie’s smile. Looking back to Pinkie, I responded.

“Heh, you sure did get me Pinkie. I just realized that you DID indeed promise me a party.” I said to her. “Thanks a lot, this really means a lot to me.” I said with a smile. Just then, she decided to give me a big ass, nearly bone crushing hug. How that was even possible, I don’t know, but I definitely felt that she meant well.

“Well of course Jordy! I throw a party for all of my new friends! I’ll do anything to make a pony- er, person smile!” She said, as she released me, allowing me to breathe again. “And now, it’s time to PARTAAAY!”

And so that’s exactly what we did.

8. The First Pokemon Battle Ever In Equestria

Chapter Eight

“…And THAT is how the battle with Red went!” I said to the small group of ponies who were now surrounding me. The party had been going well, and we all had our fun things to do. While Pinkie and the others were all dancing around and going wild, I chose to stick near the snack table or whatever and chill with other ponies doing the same. After awhile, our conversations escalated into me telling them about a few stories from my other world. Soon, Pinkie and the other five ponies in the main group, along with a good amount of others, decided to join in and listen to me intently, all sitting on the floor or other chairs around me while I sat at in a corner with varying foods around me, like cupcakes, apple fritters, and… Birthday cake, for some reason. Seriously, it said happy birthday Jordan on the whole cake before I took a slice.

“Wow… That was one awesome story! Both of you guys must have been top tier awesome to have a fight like that!” Said the Rainbow mane’d pegasus who was also listening.

“Oh dear, I hope none of the Pokémon got badly hurt…” Said Fluttershy with a worried expression. This caused some of the others to murmur with mirrored concern written on their faces.

I chuckled. “Don’t worry. That may have been one of my most destructive, catastrophic, and slightly apocalyptic battles, but they all came out okay; actually, better than okay. That battle was really something else, and my Pokémon and I loved every minute of it, even the parts where Red was getting an edge on us.” I said this, having a small moment of nostalgia. It was truly a battle of epic proportions, not to be forgotten for quite a while.

“That’s good, as long as they were having as much fun as you were.” She said in reassurance. At this point, I could tell without a doubt that this pony cares deeply about creatures, possibly even holding their regard over her own. ‘Whatever creatures she takes care of are very lucky to have somepony so caring.’ I thought to myself as I regarded her with a quick curious, but impressed look.

“Hey Jordan, do you think we can see an actual Pokémon battle?” Twilight asked, who was sitting directly across from me. I thought about it for a moment, but figured I might as well give my Pokémon some exercise. As I thought, the ponies who were listening in all chattered in agreement.

“Yeah, I guess I can do that, although I won’t be able to lead both Pokémon at the same time… I guess I can just play judge... Well, they should know what to do without my guidance for the most part.” I said, getting up. “Alright then. Everypony who wants to see this, follow me.” I said as I walked out the door with numerous ponies in tow.

As I made my way out into the empty street, I took note that the sun had just about set, leaving a beautiful orange glow over the horizon, making way for the night. I guessed that we would have enough time to watch a single battle.

I walked into the very middle of the road, stopped, and turned around to face the ponies. “Rainbow and Rarity, could both of you help me out for a moment?” I asked with a smile.

Both of them looked at each other for a moment, then approached me. “Whatever could you need my assistance for, darling? Not that I mind, of course.” Rarity said, stopping next to me.

“Yeah, what do you want us to do?” Rainbow said, standing next to Rarity.

“Hold on just a sec.” I said, getting out all of my Pokeballs and placing them all next to each other on the ground in a fashion that would make them all look exactly the same, for a bit of a randomized effect. “I would like each of you to pick a ball at random to choose who will be battling who. That’s pretty much it.” I explained, waiting patiently for their decisions.

Rainbow immediately chose the one that was second from the left, by somehow picking it up in her hoof and placing it in my hand that I had outstretched. However, Rarity was taking a bit longer to make her choice, by analyzing each one thoroughly.

“Come on, Rarity! Just choose one before it gets dark!” Rainbow said impatiently, turning to her in annoyance.

“Now just a moment Rainbow Dash. I want to make sure that I choose the correct one for the battle, after all.” She said, quickly turning to look at Rainbow, but going back to her inspecting soon enough.

“Well, there is no right or wrong answer. It’s supposed to be completely random.” I explained, hoping as well that she will hurry up. As I had said this, I took a moment to look at the crowd of spectators. I estimated a quick forty or fifty, noticing that some of them weren’t from the party, but had no less amount of interest.

“Very well then, I will choose this one, then.” She said, picking the one that was middle-right. I nodded, picking that one up and the rest and putting them away, holding out the two chosen balls.

“Alright! Let’s see who we got then!” I said, eager to get the show on the road. Throwing up both pokeballs simultaneously, the chosen Pokémon withdrew from them. Standing before us was one nonchalant Blastoise and a noticeably eager looking Ursaring, the latter being chosen by Rainbow and the former being chosen by Rarity.

I smiled at the choices. “Looks like we’ve got our selections; now I’ve got some rules for the two of you in this battle:” I said to the Pokémon, as both turned to face me.

“As you both may or may not have heard, I won’t be leading either of you here. I have full confidence that each of you will know how to battle on your own to some extent. I just need some conditions, so we don’t cause too much damage. There will be no use of the move earthquake in this battle, and Blastoise, I’m going to need you only use, at most, half power on you hydro pump if you choose to use it. Other than that, just try to stay away from the buildings.” I said, eliciting a nod from both of them as they stared into each other’s eyes.

With a quick nod to each other, both Pokémon got a good distance of about 30-40 feet away from each other, to give the idea of your average sized battle field. They stared with determination at each other, in some form of rivalry, ready to get the battle started to test their own might against each other, and even put on a show for the ponies.

“Looks like you’re both ready. Three… Two… One; let’s get this battle going now!” I yell, prompting both of them to jump into action. I had decided that during the battle I would announce the important events in the battle, like moves, knockouts, etc.

Blastoise was the first to move. Starting with what I decided is his signature move, hydro pump, he shot an extremely fast and powerful jet of water straight at Ursaring. Predicting this, Ursaring was quick to jump out of the way and start sprinting at Blastoise, claws out and arms spread. Blastoise continued his Hydro Pumps about four more times, all dodged, except for the last one which grazed Ursaring painfully on the side. This happened about five feet from his target, but he didn’t falter.

Taking a sprinting jump, Ursaring brought his right arm in for a slash on Blastoise. Before Blastoise could counter it or block it, he took a hit straight to the face, causing him to stumble backwards. Ursaring didn’t stop here, continuing his attack with Fury Swipes.

After about five seconds of Ursaring’s onslaught, Blastoise had already had enough, and with rage, caught Ursaring’s arm in mid-swipe, along with the other arm, and prepared the move Skull Bash. Since Ursaring was locked into place, and with his limited amount of time, he couldn’t do much except watch as Blastoise lowered his head, and after a moment, slammed it hard into Ursaring’s mid-section, causing him to fly back. As this happened, the crowd behind me all let out a “Oooh…” feeling Ursaring’s pain, just by seeing it happen. I however just smiled at it, knowing full well that Ursaring had a lot more than that in him.

Landing on his back, Ursaring laid there a bit dazed as Blastoise just stood there with a cocky grin and glare on his face. Looking up and seeing this, Ursaring let out a huff and jumped back to his feet. As this happened, Blastoise readied another Hydro Pump, taking aim once more. Being this close, Ursaring would not be able to dodge it by conventional means, and, without Earthquake at his disposal, he chose the next best thing; he used Dig. A split second after speedily digging into the ground, a fast horizontal geyser of water came shooting by.

Blastoise, getting a bit of an unsure look in on his face, began looking around, trying to spot where Ursaring might pop up. What he didn’t count for was the ground just beneath him. As he felt the ground below him begin to shift, he barely had a chance to look downward before having Ursaring pop up right from under him, sending the giant tortoise onto his back.

Before Blastoise could get up, Ursaring approached with haste. Wrapping his big and burly arms around his shell, he lifted him up into the air with a bit of hardship, but surely did it with his immense strength. He was about to slam Blastoise into the ground, but what Ursaring didn’t count on was Blastoise’s next plan of action.

Withdrawing his limbs into his shell, Blastoise speedily began rotating his shell, using the move known as Rapid Spin. Not being able to hold onto the shell, even with his strength, he lost control and was forced into letting go. With Blastoise’s fairly heavy body, and his great speed in spinning, even a Machamp would have difficulties subduing it.

Still spinning , Blastoise dropped to the ground and continued using Rapid Spin, making a bit of distance from Ursaring to build speed, then aiming himself right back towards Ursaring. Without much time to react to the incoming attack, Ursaring took the attack without being able dodge. This sent him into the air a bit, and onto the ground with a painful sounding THUD. Standing up, he immediately took another head on collision from Blastoise, and then a third hit. He was definitely taking a good beating here, and it didn’t look like he would be able to withstand much more of this treatment.

Getting angry, Ursaring jumped up on his feet quickly, and before he took another hit, he leapt into the air with a precise, calculated look in his eyes. As Blastoise got close, Ursaring stuck a knee out below him.

Right as Blastoise was passing underneath him, Ursaring landing, knee first, onto the hard shell, smashing the big tortoise into the ground, leaving a small crater around him. Taking a decent amount of recoil from this, Ursaring hopped off the shell and landed on his knee, not wishing to stand up on it any longer.

For a moment, everything was quiet, but soon enough, Blastoise came out of his shell with a pained look on his face, but angry no less. He shakily stood up on his feet, and glared at the slightly downed Ursaring.

Slowly but surely, Blastoise approached Ursaring, and stood before him. Without hesitation, he aimed his right cannon at the other Pokémon, and getting ready to deliver a devastating, point blank Hydro Pump straight to Ursaring’s face.

Right as Blastoise was about to open fire, Ursaring smirked. Pushing with his uninjured leg, he did a head on collision to Blastoise’s face with a Mega Punch. Caught by complete surprise, Blastoise couldn’t even hope to a thing as he was sent airborne by the powerful attack. After doing this, Ursaring was pretty spent, but hung in there, determined to be the victor. This determination still didn’t stop him from landing back down in a bowed position, though. That slam from his knee onto that hard-as-steel shell really hurt. Which Pokémon took the most damage from that brutal attack, I would never know.

Landing on the ground with a crash, Blastoise looked to be down for the count, but to every pony’s shock, he stood back up, albeit with a huge amount of difficulty. Both of the Pokémon glared fiercely at each other, each at a bit of a stalemate. After a few seconds, however, it was Blastoise who collapsed forward, onto the ground.

“Blastoise is unable to continue, Ursaring is the winner!” I said, jogging over to him and raising one of his heavy arms with slight difficulty.

It was silent for a moment, but soon I heard cheering. I looked to the crowd, seeing a good number of them cheering, some of them still in shock, while others were looking at the Pokémon in concern.

“Hah! I knew I made the right choice! Great job Ursaring, you did awesome!!” Rainbow shouted, giving a smirk over to Rarity who just looked at Blastoise in slight pity and disappointment.

Dropping Ursaring’s arm, I walked over to Blastoise. Hearing my footsteps, Blastoise snapped an eye open and looked up at me. “You did awesome, Blastoise. Thanks a lot for the demonstration. You looked like you were having fun out there.” I chuckled, taking a knee and smiling at him.

Blastoise just grumbled, but gave a shrug to his best capabilities. “Hey, let me take care of those nasty scratches and bruises.” After saying this, I un-shouldered my backpack, pulled out a hyper potion, and sprayed it over his body, making sure to coat a bit more onto his shell, specifically where the impact was. After a few moments, Blastoise stood up as if nothing happened. ‘The magic of these potions will never cease to amaze me…” I thought, amused. Nodding to Blastoise, we both made our way back to Ursaring, who was still in his crouched position, waiting patiently for his healing. Quickly applying another potion to the friendly grizzly, I back up a bit to give the Pokémon some room. The crowd had since stopped cheering or staring in shock, and were just watching in curiosity, wondering what would happen next.

Blastoise stood before Ursaring, looking into his eyes with an expressionless face. He then put on a, surprisingly friendly, smirk and stuck out a fist. Looking down at the gesture, Ursaring closed his eyes and smirked, bringing his fist up and lightly bopping Blastoise’s fist, initiating a bro-fist.

“That was a brilliant battle, you two. I’m proud that you both could put on a show like that without my guidance through it.” I congratulated the two of them with a proud, toothy grin. They both returned my smile, and before we could do anything else, the crowd of ponies came in and started admiring and inspecting the Pokémon before them.

As they all did this, I took notice that the sun was long gone, and it was pretty dark out. I also noticed the condition of the road, seeing two holes and a crater. Thinking for a moment, I called Espeon out of her ball and had her fill the holes with her telekinetic powers. In about a minute, the street looked almost as if there wasn’t any damage. Key word, almost; it was pretty easy to tell where the holes had been, with misshaped rocks filling them. I chose not to mind this, and turned back to the group, but not before returning Espeon to her ball.

After the crowd had calmed down, I returned the Pokémon back to their respective balls. “And that, was a Pokémon battle. Looks like we ended just in time, too, because it’s pretty dark out.” I said, stretching out.

“It looked pretty bad at first, but I could tell that both of them were having a lot of fun in their, umm… Battle, if you don’t mind me saying.” Fluttershy commented.

“Not at all, Fluttershy. And yes, they absolutely love battling. However, I’m surprised you could tell that they were loving it so much. You must have some close connection to creatures, or something like that.” I responded to her.

We all chatted for a bit, and even got to watch an amusing show between Rainbow and Rarity, arguing over the battle. Rainbow was dead-set on her choice being tougher, but Rarity summed it up to being luck. After a few ponies started to depart to their homes, I decided that I wanted to do the same.

“Well, I’m ready to get back to the library; I’m getting pretty tired. Thanks a lot for the party, Pinkie! It was a lot of fun!” I explained, turning away from the remaining group of ponies.

“Aww, you’re leaving already? Oh well, plenty more parties where that came from!” Pinkie shouted, hopping back into the sweetshop.

“*Yawn!* Yeah, I think I’ll join you, Jordan.” Twilight said, joining walking up to my side. After delivering fair wells to the rest of the ponies, we made our way back to the library, with Spike resting on Twilight’s back. During the quiet walk back, Twilight decided to speak up.

“You seemed to have raised your Pokémon well. The way they fought was really amazing, and they were very clever, too.” She commented, looking up at me while we walked. I was just looking up at the night sky as we made our way through town, admiring it.

“Yeah, those two have battled beside me for some time now. I would be surprised if they haven’t hit their peek on battling capabilities yet; although, there is always more to learn when it comes to the art of battling.” I said, not taking my eyes off the sky, with my hinds behind my head, letting it relax a bit.

She nodded in agreement. “That’s for certain. You always have things to learn, no matter how experienced you might be.” She responded, taking her eyes off of me as I nodded, and returned to our peaceful walk back to the library, both of us eager to get some shut eye.

9. Back Home

Chapter 9

It had been three days since I had met the princess, along with my welcome party. Not a lot had happened in that time, except some morning exercising my Pokémon and I decided to do on a daily basis, and a few other things. I had spent my spare time reading and learning quite a bit about how Equestria works, and picking up a bit more on the history of this place.

Ponies had also come at odd times to visit me, mainly the ones that I first met, but I had received visits from others, like Ditzy, and a few others I had met at the party or saw during the battle. It was a nice change to see that they didn’t seem to fear me so much anymore, and that I was finally able to walk around outside without making the damn front page of the newspaper, assuming they even had any around here.

Being around Twilight and Spike a lot of the time, I learned a bit about them and how they work, like how Spike can eat gems and that Twilight is about as socially awkward as a Bidoof in a room full of Lucarios. She didn’t seem to know what was considered inappropriate, at least for humans, since she tried to strip me nude during the second day, trying to learn what I looked like under the clothes. This was not a pleasant time for me, as she had taken most of my clothes before I could even realize what was happening, but managed to get her to piss off before she saw anything. At the end of the day, I couldn’t so much as look at her, as I was pretty angry with her, and she barely realized what she had done wrong. The awkward tension soon died down, as I explained to her some of the social norm between humans, and what replaced awkwardness, was an hour long Q & A, on various human and Pokémon subjects… Replaced awkwardness for her, anyway.

Not much had happened within those three days besides reading, getting molested by Twilight, and getting various visitors to the library. It was pretty uneventful and boring, those things aside.

On the fourth morning, at 8:00 AM sharp, I jumped down the stairs in the main room of the library, eager to get my day going, since it was the day I got access to my house.

Landing with an audible thud, Twilight stepped out of the kitchen and smirked at me. “Eager to get back to your home today, huh? I didn’t think you disliked living with me so much.” She said looking at me, putting on a look of disappointment.

I felt a bit guilty about how I was acting at this. “Sorry Twi, It’s not that you’re a bad host or anything, it’s just that I feel homesick, I suppose. Actually, you and Spike have been great to me, and I’ve really liked staying here.” I said, hoping she would not take my excitement the wrong way anymore.

“Don’t worry, I’m just kidding; I know you mean well. So, are you going to be leaving right now, or would you like some breakfast first?” She asked, putting the smile back on her face and looking at me expectantly as she turned back towards the kitchen. At her mention of breakfast, my stomach growled fiercely. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away in embarrassment.

“Eheheh, I guess I wouldn’t mind getting a bite before heading off to my place.” I said, following her to the kitchen. After eating an apple and a peanut butter sandwich, along with Twilight and Spike who ate with me, I stood up from the kitchen table.

“Okay! I think I’d like to go to my house now! You guys wanna come with me to check it out?” I asked them, making my way to the doorway of the kitchen, geared up and ready to go running out the door, whether they wanted to go or not. After a glance to each other, they both shrugged.

“Sure, I didn’t have much planned for today anyway. I’d love to see what a human home looks like.” Twilight said, standing up and joining me, along with Spike after a moment.

“Yeah, I don’t have to do anything today either, other than nap later; I’m in.” Spike explained as he followed me as I stepped out the door and started a fast-paced walk in the direction of the exit of town, with a not-as-excited unicorn and dragon in tow.

As I walked passed many of the residents of the town, I received a few nods and waves of acknowledgement, to which I returned. There was still the odd pony or two that would be wary of my presence and stand clear of me. Normally, this might slightly irritate me, but I had other things on my mind.

Making our way out of town and in the direction of my home, I could barely keep myself from busting out into an all-out sprint, but managed to do so out of courtesy for the company with me.

As I approached my home, I noticed a group of stallions standing out front, seemingly packing up their various pieces of equipment and getting ready to head off. As I approached, a slightly burly unicorn noticed me. He had a dark orange coat and a ginger mane. On his flank, he sported a mark consisting of a hammer crossed with a saw, behind what looked like a blueprint of some kind.

He approached me and spoke in a gruff voice. “You must be the owner of this place. How you got the Princess to pay for your power, I’ll never know. Anyway, we got your power hooked up. Thankfully this place wasn’t too different from what we’re used to dealing with, and it was JUST close enough to town that we were able to work it out. We actually just finished up a while ago; you caught us at a good time.” He said, not without giving a raised brow, and giving me a onceover and returning to a stoic look.

“Hey, thanks a lot for taking care of that, but I’m curious; how come you don’t seem shocked at my appearance?” I asked him, confused.

“We got a good look at you from the pictures in the house. At first we were a bit curious about you, but we didn’t let it get in the way of our work. We had plenty of time to let your body image soak in and we got used to it.” He explained, putting on a small smile “Oh, and here’s your key, by the way.” He said, reaching into a pocket in his uniform, which was actually just a vest with pockets, and pulling out my key, and handing it to me.

“Thanks. And is there anything I should know beforehand?” I asked him, not wanting to screw anything up with it on accident due to lack of knowledge of their ways.

“Assuming you’ve got the general idea of how a power works, not really. Just don’t go digging around in walls or in the ground around here too much and you should be fine.” He said as him and his crew began to take their leave.

Watching the crew leave for a moment, Twilight, Spike and I turned back to the house and approached it once more. Unlocking the door and stepping inside, the pony and dragon began looking around a bit. Meanwhile, I reached for the light and flicked it upward. In an instant, the lights from the ceiling turned bright, illuminating the room in light, as I expected it should have.

“That’s better. Now, you two can look around if you like. I meanwhile, have to check something.” I said to them, turning to the object that had my attention.

“Oh? And what could that be?” Twilight asked, curiously watching me as I made my way to the other end of the room.

“That thing, over there.” I said, pointing to the PC storage system. “That thing holds all of my Pokémon, and I need to see if I can retrieve them.” I said, approaching the bulky device.

She gave me a bit of a sad look. “Jordan, I don’t think that’s possible. We’re most likely in a whole new dimension. Transferring something like that without complicated magic involved is most likely impossible.” She said, expecting me to stop.

I paused for a moment and looked at her. “Well, you may be right, but it can never hurt the try.” I said, turning back to the PC once again.

She and Spike kept a look of skepticism and slight pity for me, but watched me nonetheless. I stood at the contraption. I was aware that it could most likely turn on, but transferring would be the big issue here.

Pushing the power button, I booted up the PC. The screen flashed on, surprising the spectators. Ignoring this, I scanned through the options. There was Bill’s PC, and Jordan’s PC. I quickly selected the former, input my password, and a new screen had popped up. Withdraw, Deposit, Move, and Move Items were my new options.

Gulping, I motioned for my company to come over and look, to which they did. “Alright… It’s time for the moment of truth. Normally, a screen showing what Pokémon I have in there should pop up, but who knows what will happen here…” I was pretty nervous, and even felt a bead of sweat roll down my face as I slowly scrolled down to “Move”.

Covering my eyes with one hand, I hit the key. Hearing nothing for a second, I began to give up hope, but soon enough, I heard the normal beeping and the little shifting noise it makes when the screen pops up. Clapping my hand back to my side, I looked at it shocked.

My PC didn’t explode, or implode, or even give me some error message of some kind. It did exactly what it normally does. Displaying Box No. 1, it showed a number of varying Pokémon.

“What?! B-but that’s not possible! Your world has no magic like ours does!” Twilight cried out in bewilderment.

“Relax, Twilight. I still need to see if I can withdraw or deposit Pokémon. We’re not done yet.” I said, getting slightly nervous again.

Taking Riolu’s Pokéball, I placed it into the console, and the ball soon vanished inside. In a small moment, he appeared on the screen, in a digitized form.

“Wow… Holy shit, it works… It fucking works! Yeah!!” I was ecstatic at this revelation, and shocked as well. Twilight had dropped her jaw and looked as if she was about to explode, and Spike just looked at us in confusion. I bet that Twilight would have yelled at me for my language if she didn’t look like she was about to start cussing, herself. Turning back to the screen, I put Riolu into the box, and decided to withdraw another Pokémon. Making the decision on who I want, did so.

Instantly, a Pokéball appeared in a round cove right next to the deposit one. I quickly grabbed the Pokéball and held it up in triumph, with a gleaming smile plastered on my face.

“Hahahahahaha! And you thought I should've given up hope! Well look at what I have here!!” I yelled, sticking the ball next to her face. I lightly bopped the button on her nose, and faced it in a different direction before the Pokémon would appear on top of her.

Out of the Pokéball came a red and white Pokémon with large ears, and sharp claws. It was known as Zangoose. I pointed a finger proudly at the Pokémon. “How do you like that!” I yelled, still extremely happy, yet not caring how this was even possible.

This seemed to snap Twilight out of her stupefied state. “This should NOT be possible, Jordan! I had to cast a very complex spell to bring YOU here, so how can you bring that THING here with the push of a button?!” She asked, pointing a hoof at the Pokémon, which lightly growled in irritation at being called a thing.

“Zangoose is not a ‘thing’, twilight. She’s a living Pokémon, and she would appreciate being addressed as such, and I don't know or care about how it's possible. Now I think you should apologize.” I said, taking a knee and putting a hand on Zangoose’s shoulder, to which she gave a nod to.

“I-bu-we- Ugh! Forget it! Logic is obviously non-existent when it comes to you!” She said, but quickly composed herself and looked at Zangoose. “I’m sorry for calling you a thing. I was just frustrated, and meant in no way, shape, or form to insult you.” She said, putting on an apologetic smile. The Pokémon nodded and smiled herself, before I returned her to the Pokéball.

“Anyway, regardless of it making completely no sense, I’m very happy for you, Jordan. Now, at least, I can get a look at some of your other kinds of Pokémon.” She said as she stood next to me. Meanwhile, Spike was just watching the whole thing with mild interest, and was nowhere near as bewildered as Twilight was at the whole thing.

“Thanks a lot, Twi. And I stopped believing in things making too much sense when I started learning about some of the things in this world. Since I did this, try not to get too surprised when you see me do something abnormal or crazy.” I said, giving her a quick smile before returning to the PC. “Now then, want to see some other types of Pokémon?” I asked her, and with an unsurprising agreement from her, we quickly went to it.

I went through all the different types of Pokémon. Luckily, I had at least one of each type stored away, so I could properly demonstrate each type. I ended up showing Her and Spike Pokémon, Varying from a ghost-type like Haunter, which just about scared the piss out of both of them when I showed him to them, which amused me to no end, to a fighting type like Primeape, which was about ready to attack Spike after he made a witty comment about his funny looking nose. I also showed them a Tailow, an Abra, a Poliwag, a growlithe, and others, ending with a Pikachu. They really seemed to love the Pikachu for some reason, and almost pleaded with me not to put the Pokémon back into the PC, but I did anyway. I wasn’t too fond of Electric types, after being zapped a bit too much by them. Paralyses is my least favorite status effect out of them all, too, so I prefer other types over electric.

Re-withdrawing Riolu and finishing up box operations, I shut the PC off and turned back to the slightly disappointed duo. “So, would you like a tour of the place?” I asked the two of them. Receiving a confirmation from each of them, I began showing them around, turning lights on as we went on.

The first floor of the house consisted of the living room, the kitchen, a closet, a laundry room, a downstairs bathroom, and a sliding glass door leading out from the kitchen, which somehow didn’t shatter on the landing.

Upstairs was three bedrooms, two of them being guest rooms since I obviously lived alone, while the other was my bed room. There was also another bathroom in my room.

I showed them around the place, going over a very basic description of each room, and ending with my room. Opening the door, I led them inside. “This is my room. It is made to my liking and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I said with a prideful smile, allowing them to look around, at the various posters and pictures I had around. I chosen to look around at my stuff as well. The walls were white and I had grey carpeting. I also had a poster of Kanto’s Elite Four, all standing together in a very awesome fashion, making any average trainer think twice before even attempting to attempt becoming champion. I also had a poster of a Dragonite and a Salamence about to face off in some epic battle, with a small Dratini next to the Dragonite’s leg and a Bagon next to the Salamence. I also had a couple pictures, one of the SS Anne, one of Pokémon Tower, and one of my parents and I, taken when I was younger, on my nightstand. I had others, but these were highlights. I had also noticed that I forgot to get my flashlight back from when I met Luna. Sadly, I took the small tool and stuck it back into the back, opting to replace the batteries later.

“Wow, there is so much to learn from just looking at some of the things in here!” Twilight said, looking at specific objects I had lying around fairly clean bedroom, having only a small amount of things out of place here and there.

“Oh I wouldn’t doubt it. Just, don’t go tearing things apart like you did with my clothes the other day, okay?” I said, giving her a bemused, look, to which she returned.

“Hey, I already said I was sorry! I know, I was out of line to do that, but do you have to keep bringing it up?” She asked, getting frustrated and looking off in embarrassment, while Spike was silently giggling as he remembered the situation.

I laughed at her. “No, I suppose not, but I can never be too careful.” I responded with a shrug. She just huffed as we continued on with the looking around. Twilight and Spike asked me a few questions about the items and posters I had around, before we made our way back to the living room, where we all sat down to continue talking.

“So, got any questions about my home?” I asked them, putting my right leg over my left knee to get in a more relaxed position as I listened courteously. Twilight instantly shot up her hoof, and, immediately realizing what she did, she put it down and blushed as I chuckled.

“Yes Twilight?” I mocked, treating her like a student or something. She chose to let it slide and just get on with her question.

“I was just wondering what that thing is over there?” She said, pointing a hoof at the flat, black object that the furniture was facing.

“Oh, that’s just my TV. I still haven’t checked to see if it works or not.” I said as I picked up the remote from the small table in the center of the room. With it, I pressed the power button, and turned it on. This surprised the two as they apparently haven’t seen anything like this before.

Once it turned on, all we received was static and a loud “SHHHH” noise, which really seemed to bother Twilight. I could understand this since she probably has more sensitive ears than I do. I quickly turned it off and shrugged.

“Well, I don’t understand how the PC will work but the TV won’t, but at least I still have some movies we can watch later.” I said, a bit disappointed, but quickly getting over it. Saying this seemed to spark some realization in her, or at least caused her to remember something.

“So, you have your house back in working order, and you’ve got access to all of your Pokémon. What will you do now?” Twilight asked. This question really got me to thinking. I knew that I would be starting a new life here, but what would I be doing in said life, exactly? I looked up in thought for a few moments, but then looked back to her.

“I guess I’m not certain yet. I could just stay here in Ponyville, training and breeding Pokémon, or I go on a journey around this world, to see what it has to offer like my last one. It may be awhile before I decide, but I’ll get back to you when I do.” I said, making a mental note to put some depth to this thought some other time.

My answer seemed to disappoint her a bit. “Well, I can understand that you would want to go out on a journey, but I would hope that you keep in touch with your friends here. Then again, maybe some of us would join you on that journey. I guess we would never know until the day comes, but I still hope you’ll stay here for a while.” She said, happily smiling at me while Spike was giving me a thoughtful look, mulling over what Twilight and I had just said for some reason.

“Hey, don’t get too far ahead of yourself here. I still haven’t decided on what I’ll do yet. I’d like to get to know the ponies around here a lot better before I make a decision like that anyway, so I’ll be sticking around for a decent amount of time before I even think about taking off.” I said to her, which seemed to relieve her a bit.

“That’s good. I wouldn’t want to see you leave after JUST meeting you not even a week ago.” She said.

“Yeah, neither would I. I wouldn’t even know where to start on a journey this early on… And I haven’t even decided if I want to yet, so leaving now wouldn’t make too much sense.” I said, closing this part of the discussion.

Our conversing went on for a little while longer, before Twilight and Spike decided to leave, letting me know that they would let the rest of the girls know about my home being powered again. After they had gone, I decided to prepare for a small project that I was meaning to get started with back in Vermillion, but never got the chance to.

10. A Wild Discord Appeared!

Chapter 10

“Okay Espeon, I want you to lift that boulder over there with your telekinesis, and hold it for a solid minute.” I said, pointing at the biggest rock I could see, which had a height of about seven feet, a width of five, and a length of about six. My Pokémon and I were out in a rocky field on the outskirts of Ponyville, opposite side of which my home is. It was currently Espeon’s turn to train.

It had been about a week since we moved back into the house, and we’ve all been hard at work training almost every day since. I would’ve been out battling with other wildlife, but I’m unsure of how the ponies would react to my Pokémon beating up their animals. For the time being, I’ve kept to training without much fighting, except for the occasional spar.

During the week I had also decided to set up a garden outside of my home, in order to grow berries for the Pokémon to eat. It took about half a day’s work, but I did it with the help of my Pokémon. Luckily I still had some gardening tools that I had gotten from my parents years ago, and acquiring mulch wasn’t difficult either, so now I’ve got a few berry trees growing outside of my home. Luckily, berry trees grow extremely quick compared to other plants, so I should not have a shortage on food any time soon.

I had also received visits from various ponies throughout this time, mainly from Twilight, who was interested in learning more about me, but I also got a couple visits from Applejack an Fluttershy, as well. Fluttershy was very interested in meeting some more of my Pokémon, and Applejack was interested in my crops. I only showed a couple of them to Fluttershy, letting her know that I’d prefer showing a bigger variety of them when more ponies are present. For Applejack, I just went over what I knew about our common berries, and even offered to give her some samples, to which she accepted. She first tried a leppa berry, which she loved, and also seemed to get a slight energy boost from it. When she left, she took a couple of oran berries, along with the leppa, to try growing some herself as a small side project.

Getting back to the task at hand, Espeon and I continued our training. She proceeded to rip the boulder out of the ground and held it high in the air, causing the orb on her head to glow in the process. I looked down at her to see her with a strained expression on her face, with her eyes clenched shut. After a minute had passed, I still had failed to see her falter in her effort to keep the very heavy object in the air.

“Okay, since you seem to be holding your ground steadily, I want you to try and snap the boulder clean in half.” As I said this, she opened her eyes briefly, but shut them tight again, trying to fulfill this new task.

She began straining herself ever so hard, keeping the boulder up and having it shake just a tad, from what I could tell. This went on for another three minutes, and she had still not gotten any progress done on it from the looks of it. Another moment passed, and she cried out in release as the glowing had stopped and the boulder fell from the sky. Espeon then proceeded to collapse on the ground in exhaustion, along with the boulder, which was receiving no more support. It fell to the ground with earth-shaking power, which caused me to stumble just a bit.

Looking down at the panting Pokémon next to me, I kneeled down and gave her a gently pat on the back. “Hey, don’t worry. You did a great job! You’ll sure be able to do it next time. Just remember, you’ve already come a very long way from when you were just an Eevee. You’ve done good today, and you’ll only do better tomorrow; for now, you deserve a good rest.” At this she gave me a small smile before closing her eyes and letting her head rest on the ground. Without stalling, I reached for the Pokéball on my side and returned her to it. Putting the ball back, I pulled out another one.

"Come on out, Growlithe! It’s your turn!” I called as I tossed out the Pokéball, releasing a small puppy, with a red coat with black stripes, along with a small white mane and tail.

I had decided to store Ursaring in the PC and let some other Pokémon get some time in Equestria. I was never one to limit myself to the same six Pokémon, and figured I would keep some variety going. I had chosen only to change out one Pokémon this time however, to sort of ease my way into it, so my team is exactly the same except Ursaring is gone and Growlithe is here.

Growlithe let out a proud howl of delight as he came out, and landed in front of me, awaiting my command. “Alright, Growlithe; I think that today we should work on speed, so this is what we’ll do…” we continued to train together in numerous ways, such as me throwing rocks as hard as I could at him, seeing if he is evasive enough to dodge them. I also had him race a copy of himself, courtesy of Ditto, which also helped knock out some of the little blob’s training as well.

As we continued our hard training, something odd happened in the middle of it. Pink clouds started coming out of nowhere from above, halting our training. We all looked up in confusion at the sky, both Growlithes tilting their heads in confusion at the sight.

“Err… Those don’t look like normal clouds…” As I stated this obvious news, one of the Growlithes whimpered, and transformed back into blob form. Just then, I noticed that something came raining down. Immediately, we all became soaked in brown liquid.

Accidentally tasting it, I grew confused. “Why is it raining chocolate?” I asked myself, as I looked to the Pokémon to see how they were reacting to this. They didn’t seem to have the same reaction as I, as Growlithe was on his back with his mouth open and Ditto was sitting there with his mouth the same way, each of them with dream-like expressions.

“Ugh, guys this is too weird; back in your Pokeballs. I need to find out what the hell is going on.” I said, taking out two balls and returning two very disappointed Pokémon.

After doing this, I began running back to Ponyville, noticing that everything was getting worse the closer I got. Now walking through town, I noticed Twilight and the rest of the girls rushing towards the train station.

“Hey! Wait up!” I called out, gaining everypony’s attention. They stopped and looked at me.

“Oh thank goodness, it’s you Jordan. Have you noticed all of this strange weather too?” Twilight asked me. I didn’t say anything, just looking around at the apparent havoc going on, then looking down at my soaked clothes. After doing this, I looked at her with an un-amused look on my face.

“Err… Never mind. Look, Princess Celestia just summoned us to Canterlot. Do you want to come so we might be able to get to the bottom of this?” She hurriedly asked, apparently not wanting to waste any more time.

“Yeah, I’d like that. This stuff interrupted our training. I want to find out just what is going on as well.” I said, joining them.

“Glad to hear it. Let’s get going then!” She said, and with that, we all rushed to the train station and boarded the train, heading to Canterlot. By the time we got there, I was already completely dry, and clean due to the courtesy of the attendants giving me a towel. I also used this time to clean up the Pokémon that were caught in the chocolate milk rain.

After arriving at Canterlot in a couple of hours time, we all quickly made our ways to the castle, all the while I was receiving many stares, glares, and horrified looks. ‘I guess that the news of my existence hasn’t reached this far yet; oh well.’

Shaking off the thought, we all continued our small journey to the castle, with little to no interruption. Once we reached the entrance, a couple of guards who were guarding the entrance stopped us briefly. Realizing who the Elements of Harmony were, they quickly stepped aside and allowed us entry, although not without sending me a wary glare, basically telling me if I do anything out of place, they’ll come and take me down.

After about five minutes of quick walking through seemingly endless corridors, we eventually made it to a set of large, golden double doors. Twilight opened them quickly with her magic and we all ran in. As we were running in, Twilight decided to greet the Princess, who was pacing back and forth, looking worried.

“Princess Celestia, we came as fast as we could!” She said, coming to a stop in front of a set of stairs, which Celestia stood at the top of.

“Thank you Twilight; thank you all.” Celestia said, looking slightly relieved at our, or at least Twilight’s, presence.

“Is this about the weather, And the animals’ weird behavior? What’s happening out there? Why isn’t my magic working?! Is there-” She continued, growing more and more panicked. Before she could continue her onslaught of questions, Celestia raised a hoof calmly to silence her.

“Follow me.” She said. We all looked at each other briefly, but did as she said. She led us down another corridor, and while doing this, she spoke to us.

“I’ve called you here for a matter of great importance. Although I didn’t call for you, Jordan, I thank you for making your way here anyway. It seems an old foe of mine, someone who I thought I had defeated long ago has returned… His name is Discord.” I noticed Fluttershy looking at one of the artistic glass windows, and yelping in fright, quickly making her way back to the group. I looked to what she was looking at, to see a very odd looking creature. It seemed to be comprised of many different animal body parts, including what could only be related to as a Gogoat’s head, and what looked similar to a Pyroar’s paw, along with a lot of other abnormal body parts. During my examination, Celestia continued her explanation.

“Discord is the mischievous spirit of disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest, and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns alike! So after discovering the elements of harmony, we combined our powers, and rose up against him, turning him to stone.” Hearing this, Rainbow Dash made a quick cheer for the Princess. After that, we all continued to walk down the hall, passed more art.

“I thought the spell we cast would keep him contained forever, but since Luna and I are no longer connected to the elements, the spell has been broken.” She stated distraughtly.

“No longer connected?” Twilight asked, but went unanswered as Celestia continued on, showing us a tower of some sort, with a large door on it.

“This is Canterlot tower, where the Elements of Harmony are kept inside. Since all of you recovered them, I need you to wield the Elements of Harmony once again, and stop Discord, before he thrusts Equestria into eternal chaos.” She explained. This was all sounding very important, but I chose to keep quiet for the time being to see what would happen, and to see if I could help somehow.

“But why us? Why don’t you-“ Twilight began, but was quickly interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

“Hey look! We’re famous!” Pinkie said, pointing a hoof at one of the pieces of art. On it, it showed all six of them emitting some kind of magic that all came together to form a globe, which looked to encase Celestia in the middle.

“You six showed the full potential of the elements, by harnessing the magic of your friendship, to beat a mighty foe. Although Luna and I once wielded the elements, it is you who now control their power, and it is you who must defeat Discord!” She said boldly, showing off her wingspan, expecting us to show the same boldness.

Twilight looked down in thought for a moment, but then gave a look of determination. “Princess Celestia, you can count on us!” Just then, Pinkie decided to cut in.

“Hold on a second! Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! CHOCOLATE. RAIN!” As she said this, she was up in Twilight’s face, giving her a completely serious look, with her eyes wide. I briefly face palmed at this idiotic thought.

Twilight quickly turned away from her. “Don’t listen to her, Princess. We’d be honored to use the Elements of Harmony again.” I looked to Pinkie, who was giving a bit of a death glare to Twilight, but soon enough went back to her happy self. Meanwhile, Celestia had gone to the doors, and where a hole was on it, she stuck her horn into it and sent magic inside. With a small light show, the door had opened, and inside on a pedestal was a gem encrusted box, shining in all its glory, causing Rarity to gush over it and comment about it.

“Have no fear, everyone. I have total confidence that you will be able to defeat discord… With these.” With that, she levitated the box in front of us and opened it, only to reveal nothing inside, which caused everypony to gasp, and for me to raise an eyebrow. ‘awkward, much?’ I thought, amused, but also kind of worried.

Even the princess was surprised, as she dropped the case in panic.

“The elements… They’re gone!” Twilight said, looking inside the expensive looking box.

The elements are supposed to be protected by a powerful spell that only I can break… This doesn’t make sense...” Celestia said, pacing in worry. As she explained this, we all began to hear laughter echoing throughout the corridor. My stomach fell slightly as the voice began speaking.

“Make sense, oh what fun is there in making sense…” the voice said.

“Discord!” Celestia said, confirming that it was indeed him. “Show yourself!”

With a bit more laughter, Discord continued. “Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you.” Looking around, I noticed one of the art pieces moving around, and saw the creature from before moving on it, and shifting over to another art piece. “It’s quite lonely being encased in stone, but YOU wouldn’t know that, would you? Because I don’t turn ponies into stone!” He said.

“Enough! What have you done with the elements of harmony?!” Celestia shouted in frustration. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but stand there shocked, barely comprehending just what in the fuck was going on.

“Oh I just borrowed them for a teensy little while…” He snapped his flat fingers, causing the elements in the art to disappear as well.

“You’ll never get away with this, Discord.” Celestia said, scuffing her hoof against the floor to heighten her point.

“Oh, I've forgotten how grim you can be sometimes, Celestia. It’s really quite… Boring…” He said, mocking the Princess. It was at this time that I regained my composure, and I was about to say something, but Rainbow had cut me off before I could.

“Hey! Nopony insults the princess!” She yelled, flying quickly at the glass, and promptly crashing into it. Discord chose to disappear before he could be touched, but reappeared much larger only a second later.

“Oh, you must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty, the element of harmony you represent.” Discord said.

“That’s right! I’ll always be loyal to the princess!” She said in confirmation.

“We’ll see about that…” Discord said grimly.

“I can’t believe we’re wasting our time talking to a tacky window…” Rarity said, dismissing the creature, prompting him to move onto her next.

“The beautiful Rarity! Representing the element of generosity if I’m not mistaken~” He said.

“So ya know who we are; big deal!” Applejack said.

“Oh, I know about you much more than that, Honest Applejack.” He said, growing to a much larger size. I would have been questioning how he was doing this, but he was really starting to get on my nerves, so I wasn’t caring much.

“You seem to know our strengths, too.” Twilight commented at him.

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle, and yours is the most powerful and elusive element; Magic!” He said, putting on a slightly displeased expression. “Fluttershy’s is kindness and Pinkie Pie’s is a personal favorite of mine, laughter.” He was about to continue on, but he seemed to notice me finally.

“And what do we have here? If it isn’t the… Oh… What was it? Pokoman Trainer?” He said, looking at me in amusement, but also wonder as well.

“That’s Pokémon! And yeah, what of it?” I asked, getting defensive.

“Ah, that’s right. I’ve heard a bit about you. You control creatures and use them to fight. I would commend you if it weren’t so cowardly.” He said in a mocking tone.

“They are NOT under my control, and I don’t USE them! They’re my friends, and we have a completely mutual relationship!” I said, anger rising inside.

He ignored me, choosing to get a closer look at me through yet another art piece closer to me, then, disappearing altogether. A moment later, I felt some sort of odd feeling inside my head, as if there were some sort of presence inside. All of a sudden, I began hearing a voice inside.

“Oooh… Yes, this is interesting in deed…” I heard inside. As I heard this, I grasped my head and fell to my knees, causing everypony present to gasp and come up to me.

“Get the hell out of my head you freak!” I said, tightening my hands against it, even knowing full well that it wouldn’t do any good. Yet again, I was ignored as he was, presumably, rooting around in my mind.

“My, you’ve got some very interesting memories here…” As he said this, I saw memories of my past flashing in my mind, even some bad ones. “Oh… Oh dear, it looks like you’ve been through quite a lot? Such a shame about what happened to your parents, such a shame…” As he said this, I witnessed a flash of blood splashed onto a wall, and two bodies lying on the floor at my feet. That tore it. I stood up quickly and shouted at him.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD! MY MEMORIES ARE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!” I yelled in a rage, with a tear streaming down my face, being forced to relive such a terrible memory. The ponies flinched back at what I said, but still stood their ground.

“Discord, stop this at once! You have no right doing such a thing!

“Aww, but I was just getting to the good part! You’re no fun at all!” He said, appearing inside of the glass and out of my head, much to my relief. I quickly calmed myself down, but this didn’t mean I wasn’t still pissed off. I mean, how dare this thing intrude on my mind like that, and force this buried memory to resurface again?

“You truly are a chaotic one, Jordan, but with a past like that, how can I possibly think otherwise?” He commented, pissing me off even more.

“You shut your fucking mouth, you piece of shit. I swear, I will-“ I was cut off.

“Such language! Someone give the little one a spanking and wash his mouth out with some soap! I am so appalled!” He yelled in mock distress.

“Stop stalling, Discord! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?!” Celestia said, causing the prick to turn his attention to her.

“Oh, so BORING Celestia, really! Fine, I’ll tell you, but I’ll only tell you MY way.” He continued. “To retrieve your missing elements, just make sense of this change of events! Twists and turns are my master plan, then find the elements back where you began.” He finished with a laugh.

“Can we go home now?..” Fluttershy asked, frightened.

“What do you reckon he meant? Twists and turns and then we endin back where we started?” Applejack asked.

Twilight looked down in thought for a moment. She walked to a window as she thought, and looked out, noticing a hedge maze. “Twists and turns, that’s it! I think Discord hid the elements in the palace labyrinth!”

Celestia nodded. “Good luck my little ponies! The fate of Equestria is in your hooves.” She said, doing a kind of knighting gesture to Twilight.

“Thanks, Princess. We won’t let you down!” Twilight said. Before she could leave, I had to ask something.

“But what can I do to help? You can’t just go fight him on your own, can you?” I asked, worried about them, and, at the same time, wanting to kick this thing’s ass.

Celestia shook her head at me. “I’m afraid there is nothing you can do. Discord is simply too powerful, and we must leave this up to the elements of harmony.” She explained. I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t, seeing no way around this at the moment.

“Fine… Good luck, every pony, we’ll be rooting for you.” I said, giving them a sad wave as Twilight nodded and lead the others outside.

After they left, Celestia turned to me. “It is certainly brave of you to want to fight Discord, but I’m afraid this is a job that only the elements can handle. I believe that you would just be getting in their way.”

“Y-yeah.. I understand. So what do we do now?” I asked, downtrodden.

“For now, we wait. Would you like to join me for a cup of tea in the meantime?” She asked, putting on a well hidden fake smile, which I chose to ignore.

“I guess I’d might as well, if we’re sitting ducks.” After I said this, Celestia led me to a room with two comfortable looking chairs and a table. As I sat down, Celestia told a servant to prepare some tea for us as we wait.

We sat in silence for a moment, before Celestia decided to break it. “It sounded like Discord brought up some unpleasant thoughts earlier. I heard that comment about your parents, and I will not push you to talk about it, but I would just like to let you know that you have my condolences, and if you ever need to talk about it with somepony, I am an option.” She said in that caring, motherly tone. I looked down in sorrow, and slight irritation, for a moment, before speaking.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it, but I feel that talking about it would do more harm than good. It would be best for me to just forget about it… I’ve been down this path, and no amount of caring or consolation from anyone ever did me any good.” I said to her.

She nodded sadly. “Well, here you’ve got ponies who care about you, myself included, and my offer still stands” She said, seemingly able to understand what I may have been through. I wanted to scoff, but chose not to, only nodding in response.

The rest of the time we spent waiting for the tea, was in silence. Soon it arrived however, and the servant who delivered it looked at me in fright briefly, but took her leave. I took a sip of my tea, and, soon enough, we were able to get a bit of small talk going.

During this time, my worry for Twilight and the others was intensifying, to the point that I was about to start pacing around the small room. I didn’t have to, though, as we suddenly felt the ground shaking beneath us briefly. I ran to a nearby window that overlooked the place that Twilight was in, only to see a very large crater where the labyrinth once was.

“What just happened?!” I asked Celestia, to which I only got a worried look from her, as she joined my by the window. I looked back out there, to find Twilight and the others, save one, in the crater with Discord. They seemed to go back and forth with each other for a moment before Discord disappeared, causing more pink clouds to appear above. One of them was carrying a rock for some reason, but I couldn’t tell who. After a bit of talking, they all departed in the direction of Ponyville, with Twilight leading.

“I know this may look bad, but we must have faith in them.” Celestia said to me as I grew more and more anxious. We went a took our seats, but after five more minutes of sitting on our asses doing nothing, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I jumped up and faced the princess. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I can’t take it anymore! I can’t sit here and watch that thing beat my friends!” I didn’t allow her a chance to respond as I began to think about how I was going to get back to Ponyville.

“Listen, I will say it again! We must have faith in them!” She said, standing up and visibly getting frustrated with me. I chose to ignore her, however.

“Ugh, I didn’t want to have to do this so soon, but I can’t think of another way to get back to Ponyville fast enough…” I pulled out a Pokéball and tossed it into the air, releasing Growlithe, who seemed confused at my actions, along with the princess. I unshouldered my backpack and dug around in one of the pockets, soon finding exactly what I was looking for.

I held a fiery red stone in my hand, and gazed at it for a brief moment, taking in it’s shine.

“What is this stone?” Celestia asked me, approaching me and looking at it.

“It’s called a fire stone. You’ll see what it does in a moment.” As I said this, Growlithe looked increasingly more confused for a moment, but then got a determined look on his face, and barked with confidence.

I kneeled down to his level for a moment, and asked him if he was ready for what I was about to do, which got me a bark in a confident way, which worried Celestia greatly, wondering just what I could be talking about. I took the stone and pressed it gently onto Growlithe’s back, causing him to glow all over. Celestia asked me what I had just done, but I ignored her, watching as Growlithe slowly grew to about five times his original size. Soon, the glowing faded, and there stood an extremely large dog, now known as Arcanine.

I looked at Celestia. “That was an evolution. This is no longer Growlithe. His new name is Arcanine. Don’t worry, he’s got the same mind and feelings and everything, but he is now far more powerful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mutant freak that needs to be taken down.” I said as I hopped onto Arcanine’s back.

Celestia was unable to argue as I quickly yelled for the Pokémon to take off towards the exit of the castle. She tried to slam the door in our faces with her magic while we were leaving, but we were too fast for her. At an extreme speed, we rushed through several corridors and eventually made our way outside into the streets, passing by two very confused guards. We made our way out of Canterlot in absolutely amazing speeds, as I was barely able to hold on to the mighty dog’s now lengthy hair as we passed through the city within less than a minute.

Now that Ponyville was in view, I decided to talk to Arcanine. “Listen Grow- I mean, Arcanine, I’m really sorry for evolving you like this with such short notice. It was supposed to be a surprise for later, but this was the quickest method to Ponyville I could think of.” I said, rubbing his now thickened neck with one hand, while I held onto him with the other as we were making our way down the chaotic road leading to the town.

Arcanine gave a bark of happiness, telling me that he had no problem with it, barely slowing down. Looking at the distance between us and Ponyville, I could guess we were about three miles away from it.

“Hey, let’s see how fast this new body of yours is; full speed to town!” I said, and almost immediately, our speed nearly tripled, causing me to nearly lose my balance and fall off. Before letting that happen, I got my balance back and held on tightly. ‘Damn, this is one fast Pokémon!’ I thought to myself as I watched Ponyville getting closer and closer by the second, but also noticing how much more chaotic everything seemed. And by chaotic, I mean downright fucked up completely.

Buildings were floating upside down, there were bunnies running around with abnormally long limbs, things seemed to be discolored, the grass seemed to be turned into a big tiled floor, and what surprised me the most was a very sudden transition between day and night. The sun was sucked down below the horizon within seconds, being replaced by the moon, and vice versa at seemingly random times.

Arcanine and I were just about into the town, when all of a sudden something caused us to stumble and crash off our course. Sitting at the side of the road, getting over a slight daze, I realized what caused us to slip up; the road had turned into soap!

‘If Discord is capable of causing all of this chaos, maybe I shouldn’t be meddling with… You know what? No. Fuck it, I came here to help, and this bastard made things personal. I won’t quit now!’ I thought, as Arcanine and I got up and continued our venture off-road.

Once we got near the library throughout all the chaos, I finally caught site of Twilight, but something seemed wrong with her. Once we got close enough to her, I jumped off Arcanine’s back. Giving him my thanks and a pat on the head, I returned him to his Pokéball and turned to Twilight.

“Hey Twilight, I’m glad to see you. Where is Discord? And… What happened to the color of your fur?” I asked her, taking in her appearance. When I asked her this, she was heading into the library for some reason.

“He’s around here somewhere… And our coloring is the result of his corruption. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack my bags so we can leave this place.” She said in a monotone, yet slightly defeated, voice. Seeing her acting like this kind of stung. She was usually so full of life, happy and confident, but now she just seemed so… Hopeless.

“Wait, what? You’re leaving?” I said, stopping her from entering the library.

She looked at me with a half-assed glare. “Yes. Spike and I are leaving. Discord has won, and everything is lost.”

I almost flinched from how much of a polar opposite she was being of herself. “You’re just giving up? What the hell, Twiligh- wait, Discord did this to everypony?” I asked.

Twilight was beginning to grow frustrated. “Yes! He ruined our lifes and… Turned all of the girls into jerks. He corrupted them, and he won. End of story. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” With that, she entered the library and slammed the door. All I could do was stare for a moment, but then, without a word, turned around.

I wandered around a bit before I finally found the freak known as Discord. I passed an oversized card house, and many corrupted creatures before finding him, sitting atop a red throne. As I walked up to him, he almost immediately took notice of me.

“Oh, look, it’s the little human! What can your big pal Discord do for you, little thing!?” He asked, looking down at me with a manic grin and unmatched eyes.

“You’re not my pal, Discord! And I’m here to take you down for what you’ve done!” I called out, readying a Pokéball in hand.

“Oh, please. I’m THE God of Chaos. Do you REALLY think you can do anything?! Give it up, kid. You can’t win.” He taunted, hopping off his throne and standing nonchalantly about 20 feet away from me.

“We’ll see about that! Go, Blastoise!” I threw the ball into the air and materialized him in front of me. He made his signature growl of challenge and readied himself in a stance.

Discord laughed out loud at us. “Y-you sure talk big, and all you can show me is a… A turtle?! Hahaha, that is rich!” He continued to laugh, angering the two of us even more.

“Blastoise, Hydro Pump, full power. Wipe that stupid smile off his ugly face.” I told him calmly, still glaring at the monster before me. Blastoise quickly readied one of his cannons and built a bit of pressure inside, before releasing the water and sending it at Discord, who was still laughing. The large jet of water hit him right in the face, knocking it back and stopping his laughter. His body was still standing, but his head was completely forced back, as if broken.

Before I could even consider how easy that was, his head snapped back, and where there once was a laughing face, was now a soaked, and pissed off one. “Oh hoh hoh… Interrupting me when I’m in the middle of a good laugh… You’ll regret that one.” He said.

Quicker than both of us could realize, he slithered up to Blastoise and looked his dead in the eyes. Before I could tell him what to do next, Discord quickly slashed at him with his furry claw, and with his talon, he gave an extremely hard punch to Blastoise’s face, toppling him over onto his back.

“Quick, Blastoise; use Rapid Spin and flatten his sorry ass!” A bit stunned at first, but regaining his senses quickly, Blastoise retracted his limbs and began spinning at a high speed. Heading straight towards Discord, I thought for sure that Discord would at least be panicking, but he just stood there looking unamused.

As Blastoise was about strike, Discord quickly hopped up onto his shell mid-spin, and was somehow landing surfing atop of him with only one foot to balance, sticking the other one up in the air forming a ballerina dance pose.

“G-get him off of you, Blastoise! Top speed!” I called, but instead of what I was hoping to happen, Blastoise just crashed into the throne, tossing himself in confusion, while Discord gracefully landed, still in his pose.

I looked at Blastoise to see that he was pretty much done for the count. He was on his back again, and his eyes were closed. ‘That must’ve been a hard hit on the throne…’ I thought.

“Blastoise, return…” I called him back giving him a bit of praise for his efforts. “Go, Espeon!” I called, sending her out afterward. She landed to come to face off with Discord, who didn’t seem to annoyed as before.

“Really, first it’s an oversized tortoise, and now it’s a cat! Honestly, what else could you possibly have up your sleeve?” He asked in mock interest.

“Espeon, use Psychic!” I yelled, trying to get some sort of jump on the guy. Espeon’s orb glowed as normal, and a glow immediately formed around Discord. He seemed to know what was coming immediately, and quickly snapped his fingers, making the aura disappear from him, but instead reappear on Espeon. This action was so quick, that Espeon couldn’t cancel her move, and ended up quickly lifting herself off the ground, then slamming herself down hard.

She looked a bit dazed, but quickly stood up and faced him once more.

“Use Shadow Ball!” I called to her, to which she obeyed. Orb glowing, she quickly spawned a ball of shadowy mass and sent it flying at Discord. He immediately acted by opening his mouth wider than I thought possible and eating it whole.

Both Espeon and I were greatly disturbed by this. “What the fuck?..” I said quietly. I truly had never seen a creature eat something so lethal and deadly… I shook off my confusion, but before I could give Espeon another move to use, Discord slithered his way directly above Espeon, and proceeded to stomp on her back, instantly flooring her. Afterward, Discord hopped away and put on a smirk.

Noticing the sky, I got an idea that could keep us battling for a bit longer. “Espeon, use Morning Sun!” At my command, her eyes creaked open and her orb began to glow and absorb sunlight, but before being able to make the move go into full affect, the sun instantly shot out of the sky and the moon took its place, effectively ruining the move. Discord seemed to notice this, and appeared right next to the still grounded Espeon, and delivered a punch to the poor Pokémon’s head, straight to the floor, instantly knocking her out. I flinched at this and instantly felt pity for Espeon.

“…Espeon, return.” Doing the same as I did with Blastoise, I put her ball back in its place and pulled out my third one.

I sent Arcanine out next, and the same thing pretty much happened to him as what happened to Espeon. I tried Flamethrower, and then Bite, but without as much training as the rest of my Pokémon, he quickly fell in the fight, despite his speed. Discord was toying with me at this point, which pissed me off even more.

Next to come was Riolu, the little black and blue bipedal dog. I had him get up close using quick attack, then immediately told him to use the move Force Palm, which seemed to actually cause a bit of pain to Discord, but not much, as he proceeded to bitch-slap Riolu away with ease. After this, Discord was immediately approaching him to dish out a finishing blow. I knew this wasn’t going to be avoidable due to Riolu’s currently injured state and Discord’s incredible speed, so I had Riolu use the move “Endure”.

The Pokémon took the hit, and using all of his might, remained standing, which slightly surprised Discord, but didn’t stop him from going in for another attack. Quickly thinking, I told Riolu to use a last second quick attack and another force palm. Discord saw this coming and instantly countered, incapacitating yet another Pokémon.

I called out Ditto next. If Discord wasn’t in hysterics before, he sure as hell was now. If there was one thing that pissed Ditto off, it was getting made fun of because of his odd appearance. As Discord was laughing, the blobby little Pokémon transformed without even having me tell him to do it. He seemed to have a bit of trouble maintaining such a weird appearance at first, but quickly got used to it. Slithering up to Discord, who was just then recovering from his fit of laughter, he noticed a second him standing there, which seemed to catch him off guard.

I told Ditto to use Slash, to which he did, catching Discord off guard even more, then I had him follow up with a Mega Punch, which I thought was similar enough to a move Discord used earlier. He ended up actually getting a decent hit on Discord, winding him, but effectively pissing him off. What followed next was what I could only compare a fist fight in the air to. Discord easily had the upper hand since Ditto was still not adjusted to this form 100%. Eventually sending Ditto to the ground with a Take Down, he was completely out of it.

As I returned Ditto to his ball, Discord took this time to speak. “Are we almost finished now? Playing around with you and your little friends is becoming more trouble than it’s worth; although I must say the transforming blob was pretty entertaining.” He said, making a fake yawn.

“I’ve still got one trick left up my sleeve. Just you wait!” I yelled, causing him to roll his eyes impatiently. I pulled out my final Pokéball, and whispered to it. “Alright, Dragonair, it’s up to you now. I’ve got complete confidence that you can pull this off.”

With that, I sent out the majestic serpent onto our chaotic battle field. Standing with pride, he gave off a loud, angry cry towards Discord, presumably for hurting our friends.

“Use Dragon Dance.” I called to him. He did his quick dance which entertained Discord enough not to attack, but unbeknownst to him, Dragon Dance powers up attack and speed, so he’ll be in for a tougher fight than he thought.

“Meh, I’ve seen better; 4 out of 10.” Discord said, mocking us once more. I smirked while Dragonair narrowed his eyes.

“Dragon Tail.” I said calmly. With great speed, Dragonair launched himself into the air at Discord, and before he could react took a glowing tail to the midsection and was sent flying straight into his throne, crushing it. I knew this wouldn’t have done the job, so immediately I told Dragonair, who was still in the air, to use thunderbolt on the rubble covered Discord.

*BAM* A strong bolt came from Dragonair and impacted Discord, who was trying to get up.

“Alright, finish that bastard off with a Hyper Beam!” I yelled. With haste, a beam of pure energy shot out of Dragonair’s mouth and hit Discord dead-on, creating a small crater under Discord. After doing this, Dragonair landed by my side, trying to recharge after such a devastating line of attacks.

After a few moments of silence, an explosion appeared above the crater, and out came an extremely pissed off Discord. “THAT… ACTUALLY… HURT! You’re going to regret that, you oversized worm!” He shouted in anger getting ready for some sort of attack. Immediately, a large sphere of what looked like brown liquid formed in his hand, and he quickly lobbed it at the Dragonair.

“Dragonair, counter that thing with another hyper beam!” I yelled, not knowing how devastating of an attack Discord just used was, but judging by how pissed off he was, I could tell it was going to hurt.

Dragonair leapt into the air once more and shot another hyper beam, this time aimed by what I presumed to be a condensed ball of chocolate milk… A chocolate milk ball… The ball was about 1/3rd bigger than a full-powered shadow ball.

Both forces collided, creating an intense explosion that enveloped both Discord and Dragonair in a huge vortex of purple, white and brown. The blast was so intense that I recoiled back from the intensity of it, along with covered my eyes.

Once the explosion had ended, and the dust cleared, what I saw had horrified me. Dragonair was being held by the neck in Discord’s talon, and he was squeezing hard, and giving me an evil smirk. “What did I tell you, boy?! You do NOT mess around with the God of Chaos!” with that, he hurled Dragonair at me with a lot of strength.

He came flying at me too quickly, and ended up crashing into me, sending me flying back a few feet while Dragonair did a bit of a recoil off of the ground and landed several feet to my right.

Discord approached me and grabbed a hold of me by the hair, raising me up to look at me in the eyes. “How do ya like me now, PEST…” He said in gleeful hatred towards me. “Your beasts couldn’t handle my might, so I dealt with them with EASE! And now it’s your turn to finally stop hiding behind them, and feel their pain…” I couldn’t help but think that this was sort of out of character for him. Everything seemed to be a joke to him earlier, but I guess if you piss him off good enough, even he has a serious, albeit maniacal side to him.

His claws, which were digging into my scalp were causing a bit of pain, so I just gave him a bit of a scrunched glare, to which he seemed to enjoy. He then grabbed me by the torso with his other hand, and slammed me to the ground, winding me. Standing above me, he rose one of his feet above my head, and prepared to stomp me into the ground. Before he could do this, however, something smashed him away from me.

Looking up, I was astonished to see the still beaten up Dragonair, in a defensive stance, in front of me. I shakily stood up next to him and gave him a pat. “Heheh… Thanks pal… I really thought I was a goner there for a second. But we’re going to have to think of something fast…” I said wearily.

We didn’t have much time, as Discord stood up with a crazed look on his face, with an eye twitching as well, to add icing to the cake. He was about to approach us yet again, when all of a sudden Dragonair started to glow white. I couldn’t believe my eyes at what was happening, and neither could Discord apparently, as he was stopped in his tracks, watching the show.

As Dragonair’s form slowly took an entirely different shape, the glowing soon stopped, and there stood not Dragonair, but his new persona, Dragonite.

With newfound confidence, I uttered one sentence, as Dragonite roared loudly as I finished it.

“It’s on now, Discord!”

11. Corruption

Chapter 11

Discord stood quietly for a moment, taking the scene before him in, before making an inevitable comment. “That is one FAT dragon!” He yelled in amusement. Dragonite just held a glare and blew a bit of smoke out of his nostrils.

“It matters not. I am done playing games with you. I think it’s time to end this.” Discord said, before instantly teleporting above me and sticking a claw on my head and held it there. It was too quick for me to react to it, and once he’d done it, I just got confused at his actions. After a few seconds passed, he withdrew the claw and looked at it in confusion.

“That is an odd phenomenon. My chaotic powers don’t seem to work on you…” He put on a thoughtful face for a moment, and looked like he was about to get an idea, but before he could act on anything, Dragonite acted.

Taking to the air, Dragonite slammed his large tail into Discord, sending him flying once more. Discord didn’t allow himself to hit the ground this time, however, and rebalanced himself in the air. “Hey! I said I was done playi-“

“Dragonite, use Dragon Tail again!” I yelled to the dragon type Pokémon beside me. Quickly, Dragonite sped off at an extreme speed at Discord, which seriously surprised me considering his build. He was a heavy-set dragon with smaller than average wings, and he is flying faster than I would have thought possible.

Meeting his still airborn target within seconds, he quickly did a smack down with a Dragon Tail, sending Discord into the ground below. As I looked at Discord for a moment, I thought that I saw his eyes spinning around in his head, and decided to take advantage of the apparent confusion.

“Looks like he is stuck there for a moment; use Dragon Rush!” I called to him. Immediately, Dragonite went into a full on nose dive straight towards Discord, building a draconic aura as he was descending. Right before hitting him, Discord snapped out of it and teleported himself out of the way and above the Pokémon.

Dragonite immediately stopped right before slamming into the ground. Doing a 180° turn from the ground, he came face to face with Discord’s foot as he got a straight up counter attack into the ground.

After Dragonite got smashed to the ground, it looked as if Discord was about to drop on top of him and go into a fury, but Dragonite quickly flared his wings and kicked off of it diagonally, dodging and countering Discord with a Body Slam. This had caused Discord to stumble back a bit, and pause for a moment.

“So you’ve grown considerably stronger and faster than before… It’s a shame my magic doesn’t seem to entirely work on you… At least, not 100%...” Discord said to Dragonite, who just looked to me expectantly.

“Dragonite, hit him with a thunderbolt!” I ordered. Dragonite then tried to do just that, but Discord only smiled a bit deeper.

A thunderbolt quickly went at Discord, but all he did was stick up a finger and absorb the heavy bolt into the tip, then released it back at Dragonite, to which he barely dodged by taking into the air, followed quickly by Discord.

“Turn around on him quick and hit him hard with a wing attack!” I called up to him.

Turning around with ease, Dragonite flared his wings out and slammed the left one into Discord, halting him in his tracks. The Dragon didn’t falter in speed however.

“Keep hitting him with wing attack! Don’t let him get the upper hand!” As I gave him this next strategy to use, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic, thinking back to when I was first training him, back when he was a tiny Dratini. At first, the only thing he was really good at was using wrap, and maybe a really minimized version of Ice Beam, but we never quit. I’ll admit, I had times of doubt, but we never once gave up on making him great.

Now I see him as the newly formed Dragonite, pulling off massive attacks with ease and being able to face off with a god, while all of my other Pokémon couldn’t even hold a candle to him. Realizing this, I had just realized that I may have been playing favorites, which is a really shitty thing for a Pokémon Trainer to do. I figured that I would really have to crack down and be more equal with my team if I ever plan on getting any better as a trainer and/or breeder.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I focused back onto the battle. What I saw was Dragonite cutting Discord up badly. He just kept going back and forth at amazing speeds, cutting the god of chaos a new one every two seconds or so. This went on for about ten more seconds before Discord finally broke out of the onslaught and caught Dragonite by the wing in one of his claws, and throwing a bunch to the gut. Dragonite responded with a punch of his own to Discord and Discord in kind. Punching, kicking, slashing, tail whipping, you name it. They had been going back and forth with fast pace, each delivering hits to one another that could probably knock me unconscious if only one hit me, but both of them were holding up just fine.

This kept going on for a few moments, when Discord finally got the upperhand and slammed Dragonite in the head with an elbow, sending him flying to the ground.

Dragonite was about to recover from the fall, when all of a sudden Discord appeared under him and gave him an uppercut right in the jaw, causing the Dragon to flinch. The god wasn’t done there, however, as he teleported again at a different angle and delivered a devastating kick into the his back, sending him hurdling to the ground.

Just as Dragonite was about to hit the ground, Discord appeared underneath him and stuck his hand up straight in the air stiffly, having the Pokémon land directly on top of it. Discord was powerful enough to keep his arm stiff, therefore causing horrible pain on a concentrated area on his stomach. Dragonite howled in pain, causing me to flinch a bit in worry and pity, while Discord laughed.

“Hang in there, Dragonite! Pull it together and grab him tight!” Dragonite’s eyes shot open and immediately slid himself off of the hand, and wrapped his arms and tail around Discord tightly. Discord yelled at him in annoyance for this, and to let him go, but obviously to no avail.

“Okay, now fly him up into the air and bring him back down to the ground full speed!” I yelled. Dragonite immediately did this, without too much difficulty due to his large amount of strength in both arms and wings.

Discord once again made a hard collision to the ground, and got up in anger immediately. This was starting to worry me a bit; after all that we had put Discord through so far, he still doesn’t seem to be all that warn out. He wasn’t using any more of his chaotic tricks though, so I guess that meant SOMETHING. I was going to have to take Discord down quicker than this, and I didn’t have a lot of time to think.

“Dragonite! High up in the air, quick!” Dragonite obeyed my words immediately, and rightfully so because Discord was flying at him very quickly. “Okay, now I want you to get back on the ground as fast as possible!” I called to him as he had reached close to 500 feet in the air with Discord still on his tail, still in a fit of rage.

It was hard to make out from how high he was, but he seemed to get the message as he was back to the ground in about five seconds, with Discord coming in hot.

“Now shoot back upward and hit him with a Mega Punch!” I saw a brief smirk of realization on Dragonite’s face, and hastily readied his fist and flew right up and hit Discord square in the face with it; even I couldn’t help but cringe at this, wondering how his head is still attached to his body, but I didn’t falter.

The chaos god was definitely out of it up there. He began to fall to the ground, and Dragonite was giving him chase.

“Dragonite, catch him in your arms once more, then land on the ground without letting go!” Dragonite seemed confused again, but did as I asked. Once they were on the ground, I looked at Discord, who was starting to come back to his senses. We had to do this fast, or we’d lose our chance.

“Quickly, hold him above your head and aim your mouth at him; we’re going to use the move we’ve been using to finish him off!” As Dragonite did this, he couldn’t help but put on an evil looking smile, obviously eager to try out the move we’d recently been training on for several weeks before coming to this place.

With Discord locked in Dragonite’s powerful and sharp claws above his head, Dragonite opened his mouth up as wide as possible. My own excitement was getting the better of me, so I couldn’t help but yell out the move, despite Dragonite already knowing what it was.

“DRACO METEOR!” I hollered, and in that moment, Discord was engulfed in a gigantic sphere of energy, and was immediately shot up into the sky, still trapped inside. As this happened, Discord let out a blood-curdling screen that could probably be heard from Canterlot.

Once he was at a certain height, the blast exploded into dozens of smaller orbs of energy that rained down upon the land, scarring it in disrespect to the chaos that Discord had caused.

Moments later, Discord limply landed back on the ground, where he laid, beaten.

We waited a moment in silence, before I cheered! “YES! Dragonite, you did it! I can’t believe it! All that training REALLY paid off, didn’t it?!” I said, jogging up to the dragon, who had taken a knee and was panting hard with his eyes clenched shut. I looked at Discord, who made no sign of getting up any time soon, and put my full attention to Dragonite.

Dragonite opened an eye and stuck a paw up, then sticking up one of his claws to signify a thumbs up. “Heheh, I bet you’ve always wanted to do that, and now that you have arms and claws, you can!” I laughed at this while he gave a weary chuckle of his own.

“Jordan!” Somepony said behind me. I quickly looked up to see Twilight and the other element bearers running up to me. I realized that it was a fully colored Twilight who had called out to me. As they all came to a stop, Twilight began speaking to me.

“I’m so sorry for how I treated you earlier! We’re all back to normal now, though. Princess Celestia sent me some of my friendship reports, which helped get me back to normal. After that, I tracked down the rest of the girls and used a memory spell on them, so now we’re back to normal! Now there’s just one question. WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!” She finished with a shout of confusion.

“I saw what Discord did to you guys, so I tracked the bastard down and took him down with the help of my Pokémon. And look, Dragonair evolved during the fight!” I said, first gesturing to Discord’s unconscious body, then to Dragonite.

“Wow, THAT is what Dragonair turned into? I sure as hay wasn’t expecting that!” Rainbow Dash said, eyeing him. He didn’t seem to take the comment as an insult as he just sat down and curiously eyed the ponies while resting a bruise he received in the battle.

“Yeah, well, now that he’s got arms, legs, and wings, he is a lot more efficient and tough in battle.” I said, giving the dragon a pat on the shoulder, to which he happily shut his eyes and accepted.

“Hey, we can all talk about this later. Right now we need to use the elements on Discord!” As Twilight said this, I felt something quickly latch onto me and bring me into the air, causing everypony present to gasp in horror, as I felt myself being suspended by the arm about thirty feet up in the air. I looked up only to see an extremely crazed Discord looking down at me with complete hatred, and a twisted smile.

“Haha! Guess what Jordan, I just remembered a method to making chaos magic work on beings seemingly immune to it, like YOURSELF!” As he was saying this, the girls seemed to be getting into some sort of formation as Dragonite was getting ready to take off after Discord.

Suddenly, Discord used his claw to carve a chunk of skin, in the shape of a square, out of my wrist, which caused me to yell out in agony. Quickly tearing the seemingly perfect square off and tossing it aside, he pulled a purple gem out of his beard that looked to be the same size of the new hole that was torn into my lower arm. At this point, Dragonite was rushing quickly towards us, aiming a Body Slam for Discord.

Before Dragonite could reach us in time, Discord had already rammed the gem into the hole, causing more pain than ever to shoot through it. As soon as it was inside, it felt as if it had latched onto the bone and pulled the skin tight against it somehow. Right as that happened, Dragonite had reached as and tackled Discord off of me, which led to me going into a free fall.

Before hitting the ground, Dragonite caught me gently and safely laid me on the ground. This whole event felt like an eternity as my whole body was pulsating with excruciating pain. I painfully looked at my new, unwanted accessory to see it was emitting some sort of purple electricity.

The girls were about to surround me to see if they could do anything to help, but I managed to stop them. “T-take care of Discord first! This might be our only chance!” I said, fighting the pain.

Reluctantly, they all obeyed and got into their position once more. Meanwhile, Discord was busy laughing maniacally at what he had just done. I was feeling myself fade in and out of consciousness as I noticed the girls hovering in place, with glowing eyes.

Suddenly, a rainbow beam shot out of each of them and directly impacted Discord, who had been laughing moments ago only to began screaming in agony as his whole body was turned to stone. As this all finished, the statue of Discord fell out of the sky and landed on the ground. After that, a giant sphere appeard around all of us and somehow cleansed the chaos around.

But for some reason, this gem was still stuck in my arm, still flooding my body with pain as it continued to pulsate some sort of magic into it. The girls all finished up and came to me looking worried, along with Dragonite who was already there by my side.

“J-jordan?! How is that gem still there if Discord created it?! It should have gone like all of his other changes!” Twilight asked in deep concern and confusion.

As this horrible pain was still going through me, all I could do was respond with a scream.

Twilight immediately grabbed my arm and prodded at the gem stuck inside, which caused me to recoil back as that made it a lot worse. Right after doing this, I completely blacked out.

*POV CHANGE – THIRD PERSON*

As Jordan laid there, now completely passed out from the pain he was in, Twilight and the others were considering their next course of action, while Dragonite sat down and wined in worry for his human friend.

As everyone was watching Jordan, Twilight finally began to notice something about him changing. His skin, clothes, hair… Even the Pokeballs on his side… Were losing their color, and turning into a very dark grey the more the purple gem pulsated in his skin.

“Everypony, Look! What happened to us is happening to him!” Twilight yelled, causing everypony present to gasp in shock as they couldn’t do a thing but watch, except Rainbow Dash.

“Well, we need to get that thing out of his arm!!” Rainbow yelled as she flew over to Jordan and grabbed the gem with her hoof. As she did this, she received a horrible shock and was quickly shot away from Jordan. She got up shortly after and rubbed her now sore hoof.

After a few long moments, the electricity stopped, along with the pulsating. He was now a very dark grey, even his accessories and clothing. The only thing left with color about him was the gem.

After one more quick moment, Jordan began to regain consciousness once more.

*POV CHANGE – JORDAN*

I cracked my eyes open once more, immediately relieved that the painful experience was over. Now, I wasn’t in pain at all. I actually felt… A LOT better. I quickly stood up onto my feet without caring about the ponies around me, who were all looking at me in either shock or worry.

I looked down at myself, taking note of my color change, then took a look at the Dragonite beside me, who was still in full color. ‘Time to fix that.’ I thought to myself. I nonchalantly pulled Dragonite’s now grey pokéball from my side and quickly returned the Pokemon to its ball. It seemed rather confused about my actions as it was getting sucked into the ball.

“S-so, uhh… Jordan, how are you feeling right now?” As Twilight said this to me, it was apparent that she was frightened of me, just by the tone of her voice.

I put the Pokéball back where it was supposed to be and finally decided to acknowledge the beings who seemed concerned about me. I looked down at them and gave them a wide and twisted smile.

“You know what... I've never felt better.”

12. A Bear-y Interesting Turn of Events

Chapter 12

Warning - This chapter has some slightly dark stuff in it, and I feel like it's prompting me to add a gore tag (teen). If that doesn't bother you, then enjoy!

The ponies seemed pretty unnerved by the way I had said my previous sentence. Perhaps I’d said it a bit darkly, but that’s exactly what I was going for. Looking over all of them individually with disinterest, I never dropped the haunting smirk and glare that adorned my face.

“Y-you sure about that, Jordan? You sure don’t look all that good to me…” Rainbow said, uncertain of me. Her current behavior was amusing to me. Usually, I see her as boastful and seeping with over confidence, but when she looks at me she looks like she’s about to flee from me in fright.

Lessening my grin a bit, I looked down at my colorless, blackening body and clothes. Checking myself out, I ended with the purple gem that had been crammed into the wound that Discord carved into me. Studying it a bit, I saw it was pulling my skin tight to it, closing off any opening to my body. On closer inspection, I also noticed purple veins inside my skin, seemingly coming from the gem. I didn’t care too much about it anymore, as long as it wasn’t causing any blasted pain.

Losing interest in the jewel, I placed my gaze onto the ponies around me once again. “Go fuck yourself Rainbow. I actually like this look now. I think it shows my distaste for everything, especially you.” I said, looking sharply into her eyes.

What I said seemed to unnerve the lot of them even more, even driving them to step back a bit, except for Rainbow, who had lost her nervous look, replacing it with an angry one. Then she decided to fly up to my face.

“Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?! I’ll kick yo-“ She didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Getting tired of her bullshit already, I backhanded her in the face, sending her down instantly, sprawled onto the ground. Seeing the idiot in this pitiful state caused me to laugh, while the others gasped in shock.

No one seemed to be moving or doing anything, seemingly too shocked at what I did. Without so much as I shrug, I turned to leave, but stopped as soon as I heard someone shouting at me.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” I heard. Turning around to see who said it, I realized it was Fluttershy, surprisingly enough. “HOW DARE YOU HURT ONE OF MY FRIENDS! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DO THAT, YOU BEAST! YOU GO APPOLOGIZE TO HER THIS INSTANT!” She finished, standing right in front of me in no time.

I would’ve probably kicked her head in for talking to me like that, but something made me pause as I looked into the mare’s eyes, who’s were staring directly into mine. I opened my eyes wide, for what I saw in those eyes... Was indescribable. For a moment, all I had wanted to do was curl up into a ball at the bottom of the ocean and just lay there forever.

However, I quickly snapped out of the trance that her stare seemed to put me in, and glared fiercely right back at her in anger. Opening my hand, I quickly bent down and clasped it around the pathetic pony’s neck, and lifted her into the air in order to look her eye to eye. As I did this, she lost her glare and looked at me in shock.

“You… Are going to regret doing that, bitch.” I said, tightening my grip on her throat in order to choke the whore out of breath.

“Put her down right now, Jordan!” Twilight said, using her magic to try and pull Fluttershy out of my grip, to no avail. I smiled maniacally, pulling out a grey Pokéball and tossing it.

Out came Espeon, who’s once pink fur, was now a dark grey. Her calm eyes turned into a laid back glare. “Espeon, use psychic and keep each of them suspended in the air while I kill this one. Keep an extra hard grip on their horns.” I said, seeing Fluttershy’s face puff up and change color.

All of the ponies were about to act. Twilight’s horn was glowing, along with Rarity’s. Rainbow was about to get up and charge me while Applejack was holding a lasso in her mouth. Pinkie was just looking at us with shock and tears in her eyes, not seeming to be able to comprehend the situation. It all stopped however when immediately they were all being levitated in the air in a harsh magical grip.

Seeing this and smirking, I turned my gaze back to Fluttershy, who was beginning to turn purple, and eyes were beginning to look distant, which pleased me. Her struggling was also growing slim as she was losing consciousness.

“Jordan! Something is wrong with you; This isn’t like you! Let go of Fluttershy, please!” Twilight said. I didn’t give a fuck about her concerns, however. I simply ordered Espeon to enforce extra power into keeping their mouths shut, to which she obeyed without a second though like a tool should. I didn’t lose my gaze on my prey through all of this, keeping my twisted gaze on her. Something inside me felt as if it were changing, however, which caused me to loosen my grip on her throat only slightly.

Staring into her dying eyes, I couldn’t help but feel something… Deep down, I felt what I used to know as… Regret, sorrow, woe, and all around hate towards myself. I couldn’t understand what this feeling was coming from. I didn’t give two shits about this disgusting mare in my clutches, but I couldn’t help but start growing a bit of concern from her, and thinking of how wrong all of this was.

My eyes widened as my hand refused to grasp her neck any longer. Dropping her to the ground and into a coughing fit, I noticed all of the ponies looking relieved. I looked down at my feet as Espeon looked up at me questioningly, yet still bored.

‘What is going on? Why couldn’t I fulfill this simple task? She was right there in my hand, and all of these emotions started bursting into me out of nowhere. Fuck, I can still feel them!’ I was thinking as a tear fell from my face, which surprised me greatly, causing me to even flinch in confusion. All of a sudden, my mouth felt as if it were moving on it’s own.

“I-I… I’m…” I choked out a bit, but before I could continue, my stomach growled loudly, causing me to come upon a sudden realization. “I’m fucking starving right now.” I finished, looking up and giving the still airborne group a bored expression.

I took out a second Pokéball and released the new and improved Dragonite, who somehow already knew what I wanted him to do as he bent over on all fours.

“Consider yourselves lucky that your friend isn’t dead. I’m going to find something to eat, so unfortunately I have to let you go.” I said to them, ignoring the annoying gasps for air coming from the shivering mess of a pony at my feet. Jumping onto the now dark dragon’s back, I recalled Espeon and watched in slight amusement as all of the ponies tumbled to the ground.

Before taking off, I heard Twilight yell something about contacting Princess Celestia about this. I also saw Rainbow about to take off again after me, but Applejack grabbed her tail before she could, stopping her. It was a good thing, too, because I would’ve fucked her up pretty badly if she did come over here.

“Let’s fly, Dragonite; we’re leaving.” I said, wrapping an arm around the thing’s neck to stable myself. Instantly, we took to the sky at a high speed. As I looked down at the group of ponies, I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t use the elements on me.

*POV CHANGE – THIRD PERSON*

As Jordan flew from the scene, and Twilight ran off to write a letter at the library, which was back to normal, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity went to help out their fallen friend. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie just sat there, watching the Discorded Jordan fly off. She didn’t rush to help Fluttershy, as she knew she couldn’t do anything for her anyway, and she was just too sad to concentrate on anything else. For some reason, even her hair had deflated.

‘How could he do such a thing?’ Pinkie thought. ‘That was just, s-so mean! I mean, all Fluttershy did was tell him to say sorry! And hitting Rainbow Dash?! Doing this seems so evil… Even if it IS Discord’s magic making him so mean!’ She continued to sit there with tears in her eyes as she watched Jordan disappear.

Meanwhile, as Fluttershy was coming back to full health, Rainbow couldn’t help but start up a conversation.

“Man! Why is Jordan acting like this? He was acting so evil! He’s never acted like that before!” Rainbow said, puzzled as she sat next to Fluttershy and patted her on the back.

“Ah reckon this is Discord’s doing. Ah mean, Jordan is all grey now, just like we were when Discord’s influence was through us, but what ah don’t understand is why he is like this even though everything else is back to normal.” Applejack responded, also patting the mare on the back while Rarity was standing in front of them.

“Did neither of you notice that gem he had stuck in his arm? Clearly it is infused with chaotic magic that is infecting him or something, and it doesn’t require Discord’s presence to be active.” She said in certainty, but was still frightened of the whole situation. All of the others seemed to come to a realization, remembering back to when Discord had Jordan up in the air.

“So we just need to remove that gem, and he’ll be back to normal, right?!” Rainbow asked, to which Rarity nodded to. Just then, they noticed Twilight rushing back to them with Spike in tow, as she had just sent word to Celestia about the current events.

*POV CHANGE – JORDAN*

As we soared through the sky, I noticed my house coming into view. Gaining a look of distaste, I went to give Dragonite a new order. “Dragonite, I’m sick of not eating meat. Head over to the forest near Fluttershy’s house.”

Quickly changing direction and picking up speed, we flew there in about half a minute. Dropping into the dark forest, I returned Dragonite to his ball without a word. Taking out yet another ball, I called out Arcanine, also a shade of dark grey.

“Arcanine, locate the scent of any animal in this forest. We’re going to get some meat to eat. I’m sick of eating fucking fruit and vegetables all the damn time…” I said. Immediately, the dog began sniffing about, and soon enough, he found a scent and took off deeper into the forest, to which I followed with an evil look.

About five minutes later, we came upon a bear, who was sleeping against a tree. Smiling darkly, I whispered to Arcanine. “Rip the thing’s face off. Make it quick, and don’t make too much noise.” I told him.

He immediately pounced upon the snoozing animal and rapped went to work with ease. With the incredible power of the Pokémon, the fully grown bear didn’t stand much of a chance, and was only able to thrash about for a short amount of time.

Once the beautifully gruesome job was done, I recalled Arcanine and once again brought out Dragonite and Espeon. I ordered Espeon to carry the corpse with her telekinesis as we all flew with it on Dragonite’s back. Once we were high up in the sky, I noticed a ruined castle deeper into the forest. Licking my lips, I ordered that we go there in order to cook the grizzly in peace. It wouldn’t be a very conventional meal, but hell, meat is meat, and I’ve been craving any of the stuff ever since I ran out of the stuff in my fridge a couple of days back.

13. Rage Awakened

Chapter 13

The three of us flew to the ruined castle with haste, still levitating the bear’s corpse. At one point in the flight, Espeon levitated the thing above my head on accident and allowed some blood to drip onto my head. This annoyed me greatly, and I gave a swift smack upside Espeon’s head in order to show my displeasure. She almost dropped our prize but immediately recovered it. It was a good thing, too, because I would have had to smack her around some more for her mistakes.

We eventually made it to inside castle. I quite enjoyed the look of the place. Dank, dark, and a holder of many mysteries; the fact that it was all falling apart was of no concern to me. I settled my group inside the entry hall, and proceeded to gut and skin the animal and create a spit roast. The materials weren’t hard to find in the forest and it went a lot quicker since I had a full team of able Pokémon at my disposal.

Once we tied the corpse up to the spit, I had Arcanine quickly start the fire with a Flamethrower. Since the Pokémon’s fire is a lot hotter than your average fire at full power, the meat, although a bit overcooked, was done in close to a half an hour. The carnivorous Pokémon and I then proceeded to gorge ourselves in a violent feast, since we’ve been without meat in so long. It didn’t matter that the meat was overcooked and slightly hardened; meat was meat, and there was no way in hell that I was going to wait any longer.

After we had all finished stuffing ourselves, I sat back against a wall and patted my belly in delight. I then opened my eyes and looked around. Arcanine, Blastoise, Dragonite and even Espeon were in a similar state as I, relaxing after our rather savage feasting. Meanwhile, Riolu and Ditto, who refused to eat at this time, were sitting rather bored on the other side of the room.

My eyes then rested on the mess that we were all so obsessed with not too long ago. Skin, bones, some blood splatters here and there, the pile of organs and such were all there around the spit. I sighed as I stood up and approached the mess, while the others watched what I was doing.

“This is going to start smelling real bad soon. Espeon, come here.” I ordered. She calmly stood up and approached me. I cast a glare down to her and ordered her to use her telekinetic abilities to clean up the gore strewn about and toss it all into the ravine located outside of the castle. Within minutes, the entire mess was cleaned up. Watching Espeon toss several body parts and stuff down the ravine was pretty funny to watch for some odd reason, and once all of that was done we returned to our positions inside the castle, where I would think about what I would do next.

“Hmm… Well, we could go rob some place and do some pillaging…” I voiced to the group that was now sitting around me as I sat with my back to the wall and my arms over my knees. “But… I’m not so certain we should. I mean, we are obviously powerful enough to strike bigger than that. Maybe we should just head straight for the throne, by taking down Celestia and Luna…” I said, smirking at the thought of me ruling over a bunch of disgustingly colorful ponies. Before I could continue on that thought, I heard a voice.

“So, you think you can defeat me and my sister in battle?” A voice said to the side of my. I simply turned my head with a cold smirk on my face, already knowing who it was.

“As a matter of fact, ‘princess’, I think I could easily take you down. I said as I took in the sight of Celestia, and the 6 ponies from before, all glaring at me, except for Fluttershy, who was visibly shaking by the mere sight of me. I quickly stood up on my feet and ran to the center of the room, with my Pokémon following close behind. It was there that I turned around and stared at the group before me.

“It seems that Discord really did a number on you, Jordan. I’m quite surprised that he was even able to turn your Pokémon over. Tell me, how is it that they still listen to what you say to them?” She said with no emotion in her voice.

“Well, Celestia, I think it’s because of Discord’s magic taking away their free will or some shit, but enough about that. How did you know I would be here?” I asked her in irritation. I heard her snort in bemusement at my somewhat vulgar language, which prompted me to try and cuss a bit more around her.

“It’s very simple. I can feel that wretched chaotic energy that the gem on your arm is emitting. Now let me ask you something; do you really feel nothing for the pain you’ve caused others? Goodness, you nearly murdered poor Fluttershy, just for standing up for her friend! How can you even consider yourself anything but a monster?” She asked me with a shake of her head, as Fluttershy ducked behind her friends in shame.

I spat on the floor in discontent at her wording. “I’m a monster, then? Gee, I’m hurt, Celestia; here I thought we were friends. I guess I was wrong to think that a bitch like you could-“ I was silenced as a hoof slammed to the floor, cracking it. I looked back to see that it was obviously Celestia who did it.

“While you are under the effects of Discord, you will not refer to me as a ‘friend’! You will bow down and show your respect and pray that I will show mercy to you, tainted human!” She hollered at a deafening level of loudness. I put a scowl on my face as I stuck a finger in my ear in false hopes of ceasing the ringing.

After I did that, I put on a manic smile and beckoned her with both arms. “Well then, if you think you can rule me, ‘Princess’, go ahead and try to make me bow for you!” I then gestured to the Pokémon. “Ditto, transform into the Princess, and relay her important genetic information to the others.” I said, causing the Princess’s eyes to widen in shock.

In no time at all, there was a complete copy of Celestia, flowing mane and all, standing beside me. The only difference was that the colors of her body were dark grey. Reflecting my attitude, Ditto grinned evilly and turned to its fellow Pokémon and began using Celestia’s telepathic abilities to speak to the Pokémon’s minds. While this was happening, all of the ponies, save Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie, began to make their move. Applejack charged from the ground while Celestia and Rainbow took to the sky. Several beams began firing from the unicorn and Celestia seemed to cast some sort of spell over the ponies, in which I didn’t know the effects of.

“Espeon, catch the winged ones in your telekinetic grasp!” I ordered. Espeon’s orb glowed a soft grey aura and attempted to do as I asked, however something had gone wrong. It was then that I realized that Celestia foresaw this action and the spell she casted was a counter-measure. “Oh, fuck me…” I said in irritation. Right before the charging ponies reached me, Arcanine quickly jumped in the way and took the bombardment of attacks for me. I stood there in surprise for a moment, before grinning. “Haha, good job, slave!” I called.

The ponies realized that they had the wrong target and relented, taking a stance. “Tsk! Such disrespect for them… Indeed, Discord truly has changed you.” Celestia said sadly before charging up another spell. The beams that Twilight sent all were blocked by Arcanine as well, and he seemed about ready to collapse to the ground.

“Arcanine, Extreme Speed on Twilight! Ditto, copy Celestia’s spell from earlier! Blastoise, Hydro Pump on everyone that is close up! Dragonite, let me ride you in the air to avoid ground attacks! And the rest of you, just do what you feel is best, I don’t care!”

At once, shit had hit the fan. Twilight was smacked into a wall by Arcanine and rendered dazed. Several ponies, including the Princess, were all floored by the intense jets of water from Blastoise. I felt a strange presence for a moment that dissipated as quickly as it appeared. I had figured that this was Ditto, or preferably, my pet Celestia clone doing what I ordered it to. Dragonite bent down and allowed me to hop onto his back, and quickly took to the sky, where I could get a better view at the chaos going on below. Riolu had gone straight for Applejack after she’d gotten blown away from the water, and Espeon, ironically, went for Celestia. Since her telekinesis wouldn’t work, she opted to hit the princess with an iron tail, which skidded her on the floor a bit, but recovered and stood up in anger.

She quickly charged up her horn and sent a golden beam straight at me. Before it could hit Dragonite and I, I quickly thought of something. “Ditto, use the same move to counter it!” I called. The dark grey alicorn clone took flight in front of us and did so, allowing the two beams to clash in the middle. Unfortunately, Ditto was not quite at Celestia’s level in power, so it was quickly losing the struggle.

“Dragonite, move over a bit and use Hyper Beam on Celestia!” I yelled. Once Dragonite had done this, Ditto’s struggling had ended and Celestia was sent flying into a wall by the two beams colliding and exploding right in her face. I was starting to get really excited over this mayhem. So much power at my hands, so much I can do to make lives miserable. I decided to check the rest of the fighting, as I had nothing better to do as Dragonite needed time to recharge.

Twilight was being double teamed by Espeon and Arcanine. Espeon was continuously using iron tail, and Arcanine was using flamethrower on her. With her skills in teleporting, however, she was easily dodging all of these attacks, and even occasionally countering with a magical beam. She did this once more to Arcanine, who just couldn’t seem to take any more of this treatment and fainted on the spot. I was angered by him, but not surprised, as he took quite a beating from earlier.

Riolu was holding up easy as he was facing off against Applejack. Force Palming, Quick Attacking, and clever use of the counter attack move, it was apparent that the pony’s simple bucking and kicking were not very effective. It seemed obvious that Riolu had this battle in the bag, until the cowpony somehow rapped a lasso around him and whirled him into a wall. I supposed that the mare wasn’t as dumb as I’d thought.

Rainbow seemed to be flying circles around Blastoise. He would aim a Hydro Pump at her, and she’d easily just dodge the attack. This seemed to be a stalemate however, as whenever she would attack with a flying buck or something; the large turtle would be unaffected due to his tough exterior. Soon enough, however, Rainbow got distracted by something and that gave Blastoise the perfect edge on her. With a blast of water, Rainbow was knocked down and out.

After witnessing what happened to Rainbow, I saw that Celestia had recovered, and she was NOT happy. In an instant, she teleported in front of us, turned around, and bucked Dragonite in the chest, slightly winding him. I scowled. “Hey, Dragonite! I just realized! She’s got wings, so she’s a flying type; use Thunder on this bitch!” I yelled with a large, hopefully sadistic grin.

Dragonite quickly recovered and complied, causing Celestia’s eyes to widen in shock and worry. Most of the roof had been missing on this castle, so this was pulled off without a hitch. Sending a large thunderbolt to the heavens above, it quickly came back down and struck her with enormous power. I felt rather lucky that this move hit her. The move usually has very low accuracy, so you can never tell if it will be successful or not, but I digress.

Celestia had taken the hit and was sent hurdling to the ground. With a crash and a shower of dust flying up, it was easy to tell that the Princess, Goddess and immortal ruler, was taken down. ‘Heh, those flying types… They just never seem to catch a break from electricity… Except Emolga. Fuck that little shit.’

All the ponies present stopped and looked in horror at what happened to the Princess.

“NO!” Twilight shouted in horror. All the fighting had ceased for the time being, much to my displeasure. Twilight galloped over to the Princess in worry. She stood next to the Princess, about to check vitals I would assume.

“What the hell are you all doing?! Get back to fighti-“ I shouted, but was interrupted.

“S-Stop! Just stop it!” I looked over to who had said that, only to find Pinkie galloping towards me. She soon came to a stop right below me and continued. “Why are you doing this, Jordan?! We’re your friends! F-friends just don’t do these things to each other…” She said. I felt like toying with the pathetic pony, and quietly told Dragonite to descend back to the ground so I could meet her face to face.

“Pinkie, that’s not our Jordan, remember? Discord did somethin’ to him and now he just isn’t himself anymore.” Applejack said from across the room. At this point, everypony had stopped what they were doing and watched Pinkie Pie in wonder, except for Celestia, who was still on the ground with her head in the dust.

“Sh-she’s right, darling. Right now, it is that gem on him that is acting, not him.” Rarity said, still standing next to Fluttershy, who was still a cowering mess.

‘I honestly don’t know why these ponies even bother with their ‘feelings’ and whatnot. Treating each other with kindness, depending on friendship, being honest… It makes me fucking sick for how pointless it all is. I mean, look at Celestia here. She has so much power over these ponies apparently, and what does she do? She treats them all with kindness, patience, and love, when she could easily be ruling them with an iron fist to get whatever she wants. Who needs those positive feelings, anyway? All I need is the balls to keep pushing until I get what I want. Looking at their ruler eating shit on the ground in front of me, I’m not surprised that it was so easy to take her down. Her methods of ruling are just one big joke.’

As I was thinking about the pathetic site before me, I came to a landing in front of Pinkie Pie. With a false look of regret on my face, I knelt in front of her and spoke in a soft, seemingly caring voice. “Pinkie… I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry…” I said as I threw my arms around her in a hug, which shocked everyone in the room.

“A-are you really?” Pinkie said with hope as she wrapped her hooves gently around me. Feeling her soft hooves and her sobbing into my chest almost made me think twice for what I was about to do. Almost.

*POV CHANGE – THIRD PERSON*

“I am, Pinkie; I’m sorry… That you’re such a damn idiot.” Pinkie was shocked and mortified before anything had even happened. Immediately, Jordan released his hug and slammed his knee into Pinkie’s stomach, causing her to fall into a coughing fit. Before long, Jordan grasped Pinkie by the mane and held her high in the air by it.

“Pff-Hahahaha! I can’t believe you fell for that, you stupid cunt! Now look at you… This is exactly why friendship is a fucking joke!” Jordan hollered in ecstasy.

Most of the ponies that were still capable immediately tried to intervene and save Pinkie, but were cut off by the still up-and-well Pokémon, engaging into a fight once again. Jordan continued to laugh and mock their ways as Blastoise, Dragonite, Ditto-turned-Celestia, and Espeon worked together to wear down the ponies, to which actually did happen in not too much time. However, even though the ponies were worn down, the Pokémon weren’t holding up too well either. By the time Jordan was getting slightly bored, most of his Pokémon were taking knees and such to catch a breather, and the ponies were all beaten down, but still conscious – except for Celestia and Rainbow Dash.

There were only two ponies left standing; one of them not knowing at all what to do, and one that was seething in rage and hatred for the horrid creature that was harming her friends.

As Jordan opened his eyes and was about to cast the crying pink pony down, he didn’t see the pink and yellow blur flying at an incredible speed right at him.

*POV CHANGE – JORDAN*

I opened my eyes once I was done with my hysterics, ready to teach this pony a lesson for being such a retard. Before I could act, however, I was immediately slammed off of my feet by something. Floored, I looked up to see who was stupid enough to do such a thing to me, and to my surprise, it was the pony I strangled before; Fluttershy.

I hopped back up to my feet. “You’re going to regret tha-“ I couldn’t finish my sentence as Fluttershy zoomed up to me with complete rage in her eyes and began slamming her hooves into me mercilessly. I was forced to back up as this torrent of blows would not cease. Soon enough I was backed into a wall. I opened my eyes in fury to see nothing but a hoof in my face.

*SLAM!* My head was smacked into a wall and I held it in my arms, dazed. Before I could do much else, I received a another hoof to my side, which sent me sprawled onto the floor. I tried to call out to my Pokémon for assistance, but with this flurry of punches and kicks, I couldn’t so much as breathe.

Fluttershy stood atop me, looking down at me with nothing but hatred. I scowled in anger. “See? You… *Cough* were completely useless… Until someone pushed you over the edge… Now look at yourself and tell me that you aren’t a bit tougher. Friendship is a-“ I was, yet again, interrupted by a hoof smacking into my face; then another, and another, and another. I felt myself beginning to lose consciousness as Fluttershy’s onslaught continued.

I cracked an eye open to see Fluttershy reeling her hoof back, about to deliver a final blow. “FLUTTERSHY, STOP IT!” Pinkie yelled out in fear. I was too out of it to wonder why she was standing up for me, so I just laid there staring up at the pink haired menace, who was now looking innocently over at Pinkie Pie.

“You’re going to hurt him too badly! We need to get that gem out of his arm before we lose our chance to get our friend back!” Pinkie shouted to her.

“Oh… Umm… Okay.” She said, looking to the jewel on my arm. She poked it tenderly, seemingly over her tantrum. She didn’t seem to know that I was still awake though, and as I was getting my senses back, I chose to take advantage of this. I slowly raised an arm for Fluttershy’s neck. I wasn’t back 100%, so I couldn’t concentrate. Right as I was about to get my hand close enough, Fluttershy instantly looked back at me with her fury-filled eyes from before, and slammed her back hoof down onto my arm, and then a front hoof to my face again. I mumbled in pain from this.

“Move again and I’ll really make you sorry.” She spoke to me coldly. ‘Damn this pony is pissed… I need to… Ugh… Get her off of me... Before she…’ I really couldn’t finish my thought further.

She turned back to the gem and was about to poke it again, before Twilight stumbled over to us. “H-hold on Fluttershy. Let me try…” Fluttershy glared at me once more, but got off of me. Meanwhile, Twilight’s horn flared up and an aura surrounded Discord’s gift. All of a sudden, I began to feel a horrible, shocking pain rush throughout my body, just like last time.

I figured Twilight was trying to yank the thing out of my body. This was excruciatingly painful, as the gem seemed to have a mind of its own and was fighting to hold on. Even in my dazed and confused state, I couldn’t help but yell out in pain.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!” I yelled, gaining the attention from the others in the room. Even Celestia seemed to be coming back to reality and was seeing what was happening.

I began struggling and flailing to move, but was stopped as Celestia quickly teleported over and held me down with her own magic. So I was just stuck there, with nothing to do but to endure the horrid pain that this purple bitch was putting me through.

However, the escalating pain was soon becoming too much for me to handle, and I soon passed out from it. Right before I passed out, however, I noticed that the purple gem that was once in me, was now floating above me, coated in my blood. Another thing I noticed was the jagged spikes coming off of it, coursing with electricity. As my color seemed to be returning to me, I realized that the thing was growing inside of me, trying to take over. This was the last thing running through my jarred mind before I fell unconscious.

14. Recovery And Guilt Tripping

Chapter 14

I awoke from unconsciousness in slight pain. At first, when I opened my eyes, everything was completely blurry. I could only make out the whiteness of a wall of some sort. Something else that I’d noticed was a constant, rhythmic beeping that was already starting to annoy me, even in my half conscious state. Trying to clear my vision, I blinked my eyes a few times. I would have rubbed them with my arms, but they seemed to be restrained at the current time.

As my vision became clearer through each blink, I was finally able to take in my surroundings. The walls and ceiling were completely white, with little on them, save a clock, which read 2:18 PM. Next to me was another bed, neatly made, but completely empty, with white sheets and pillow. Other than a couple of chairs here and there, this room was completely empty, and very boring. It slowly became apparent to me that I was in a hospital.

My head felt like shit; inside and out. I would be feeling it for inspection if my arms hadn’t been strapped to the side of the bed. As a small amount of time passed, I began to remember what happened before waking up in here.

‘Let’s see… I ditched Celestia in the castle in order to go help my friends, I fought Discord, defeated him, and…’ my eyes widened slightly as I remembered what had happened next. ‘Discord had literally cut a hole in my arm and put some kind of gem in it, then…’ as I remembered the horrible pain I was put through, I cringed, hoping to never have to go through that ordeal again.

I then began remembering what had happened after that. Strangling Fluttershy, killing a defenseless creature for my own selfish desire, beating up my… Friends, almost killing them… The more I remembered, the more I felt like a total bastard. ‘How could I do that to my friends, and say those things? Oh wait, that’s right; Discord did something to me. I remember I looked even worse than Twilight did in terms of color, and... Oh wait, my Pokémon! What happened to them?!’

I quickly scanned the room again with my eyes, desperately trying to spot my Pokéballs laying somewhere. To my disdain, they were nowhere to be found. I slammed my head down into my pillow, angry at my Pokémon being missing from me, and angry at Discord for doing those things to me. After laying for a bit, listening to the unrelenting beeping and inspecting the hospital machinery around my bed, a mare wearing a nurse’s hat walked in.

As soon as she looked at me, noticing my inspecting gaze upon her, she hopped up in fright, startled at me suddenly being awake apparently. “O-oh, you’re awake! That is wonderful news, Mr. Jordan.” She said smiling happily at me. I returned a smile of my own and nodded my head.

“Yeah, I’m awake. Say, have you seen any odd looking balls around? They are half red, and half white with a small button in the middle?” I asked, hoping she could tell me something.

She put a hoof to her chin for a moment. “Hmm… Oh, I remember seeing something odd like that. A unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, carried them out of the hospital a few days ago. She was walking with Princess Celestia, saying something about taking care of your Pokémans while you were hospitalized… Well, something along those lines. I wasn’t really paying attention since I was so shocked that Princess Celestia was here, heheh…”

I put my head back down on the pillow, sighing in relief. “As long as nothing bad happened to them... Wait, did you say a couple of days ago? Man, Fluttershy really gave me a beating if I went into comatose…” I immediately regretted saying that in front of her, as she dropped the clipboard she was holding in shock.

“E-excuse me? You’re saying that FLUTTERSHY did this to you?!” She asked in shock and disbelief; I needed to think of something fast. If none of the girls had notified the hospital staff of what really happened, they’d probably want to keep it a secret.

“Oh- uhh, Hahah, it was a joke. I mean really; could you ever see a mare like that harming anything?” I lied, hoping that she would buy it. She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment as I avoided her gaze, looking at a non-existent spot on the ceiling.

Suddenly, her eyes went back to their happy state and she laughed. “That was a good one. I doubt Fluttershy would have the heart, or the muscle to do such a thing to somepony!” I smiled in relief, dropping my gaze from her once more. Suddenly she seemed to realize something.

“Oh, I apologize sir, allow me to introduce myself; my name is Nurse Redheart, and it’s been my duty to take care of you! I might add, that it is a pleasure to meet such a new and interesting species like you!” She said cheerfully. This slightly unnerved me.

“Hey, you haven’t been experimenting on me, or studying me, while I’ve been out, have you?” I said accusingly. Her ears lowered a bit and she got a look of surprise.

“Of course not, sir! We would only do that with your consent, and even then we wouldn’t do anything dangerous or harmful to you. Although, some of the doctors really wanted to do just that without your consent, but the princess set them straight. The only thing we’ve done is use healing spells on you, and made sure you got the proper nutrition needed.” She added as she finally approached the bed and began writing things down on the clipboard she had.

“Another thing I’d like to know, if you wouldn’t mind telling me, is why am I restrained?” Truthfully, I knew damn well why I was restrained, but I wanted to know what she’d been told.

“Oh, right; the princess informed us of your aggressive sleep walking, sir, and she advised us to tie you down at all times just in case. Fortunately, you’ve been sleeping like a baby throughout your whole stay!” She told me. ‘aggressive sleep walking? Come on Celestia, I could’ve thought of something better than that…’ I nodded in fake understanding.

“Y-yeah, I’ve been getting a hold of that recently; but, better safe than sorry, right?” I said with a chuckle, to which she returned. I then put on a more serious expression.

“So, what’s the damage on me, then?” I asked her. She put on a thoughtful look and checked a few pages back on her clipboard.

“Well, you had a broken nose, a crack in your skull, a sprained wrist, two cracked ribs and a concussion. Luckily we’ve been able to take care of most of your injuries with healing magic, but honestly; why would you think it would be a good idea to get into a fight with a minotaur?” She asked me, looking at me like I was a moron.

Thinking of a lie quickly, I responded. “Well, he decided to call my muscles puny and my form fragile. I had been drinking alcohol at the time, and wasn’t going to take that sitting down.” I felt proud of how quickly I was able to come up with that, given that I had a Fluttershy-induced-concussion earlier.

“But according to the blood sample we took the same day, you have been completely clean of alcohol.” She was looking at me suspiciously at this point.

“Well, maybe if you guys did any research on my kind, you’d know that alcohol isn’t detectable in our blood after an hour!” I beamed a grin at her. She glared in suspicion at me for a second, but then shrugged a moment later, seeing no point in arguing with me for the moment.

“Well anyway, I’m supposed to send word to Twilight Sparkle that you’re awake, so if you’ll excuse me sir, I’ll get to that!” She said happily. Before she could leave, however, I stopped her with a request.

“Before you leave, do you think that you could get these retraints off of me? They kind of hurt… I promise I won’t attack you or anything.” I said, giving her a slightly pained look.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir. I’ll do that right away.” She said. Soon enough, I was free to move again, and she took her leave. I decided to just relax in the bed for the time being, assuming that Twilight would bring me my Pokémon.

As I relaxed in the bed, I couldn’t help but worry about my friends. ‘I hope they won’t be angry at me; my mind was altered! I couldn’t help but feel that all of those misdeeds were the right things to do. I wonder how Discord even pulled that stunt? I mean, everything went back to normal once he was imprisoned again… Everything but me. Maybe he didn’t spawn the thing out of thin air like all that other stuff, but instead he took a normal gem and somehow stored his chaotic energy inside? I don’t know…’ I continued to let my mind wander for a while, and right as I was about to get bored, in rushed five visitors. However, it wasn’t too easy to tell how many as right as that door opened a pink blur zoomed into the room and jumped on top of me. It shouldn’t be too hard for anypony to guess what that pink blur was…

“Oh my gosh! I’m so glad you’re awake! We were all so worried about you and-“ Pinkie was cut off by Twilight.

“Pinkie, get off of him! We don’t know if he’s back into his correct mindset yet!” She yelled in caution.

“Oh Twilight, it should be obvious that he is! He isn’t that mopey dopey grey color anymore! See?!” She argued back at the purple mare as she leaned over so I could get a clear look at the group. Everypony from before was here, except for the princess and Fluttershy.

“Yeah Twilight, you don’t need to worry about me. Now that that cursed gem has been taken out, albeit very painfully, I’m back to my old self… You guys weren’t hurt too bad, were you?” I said, taking my gaze off of her and checking out the jagged scar that was adorning my arm. It retained its square shape, and had many root-like lines going off in different directions. Whatever my arm looked like after the thing was taken out must’ve been one hell of a mess; no wonder it hurt so bad.

She seemed to believe me, as her features relaxed. “Well, some of us were pretty sore, but there were no broken bones… Although the Princess was in pretty bad shape, we’re all fine now.” She said, which relieved me some.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all okay. Listen, I’m really sorry I did those things. I was just trying to help, but then Discord got the jump on me and made ME the enemy.” I said feeling guilty.

“Aw, shucks. We know ya didn’t mean to be a bother. If we should be blaming anypony, it should be that rotten Discord!” Applejack said, trying to cheer me up.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Applejack.” We were all surprised to hear this. Turning to the door, we saw Princess Celestia herself standing there, with a disappointed look on her face.

“C-Celestia?!” I said in surprise. She simply nodded with a frown and stepped into the room, shutting the door with her magic behind her. After doing this, she joined the others by my bed.

“I’m happy to see you are well again Jordan, but I’m sorry to say that nopony can be blamed for what occurred but yourself.” She stated grimly, which confused me.

“What do you mean?” I asked her curiously. The other ponies were watching her in wonder as well.

“What I mean is that if you had just stayed with me like we originally planned, then the whole ordeal could have been avoided. Instead, you chose to go against what I said and act in a foolish manner. You endangered all of us by attacking Discord head on, and I must say, I expected better from you, Jordan.” She said with a frown. This accusation annoyed me, but we both knew that she was right. I looked down in shame.

“You’re right, but I was just worried for my friends. When I looked out that window and saw that crater, I felt nothing but concern for them. It was eating me on the inside, and I just couldn’t sit and watch as they took on that beast alone.” I calmly told her as I lifted my head and looked her in the eyes. She stared right back into mine, without any visible expression.

“Yeah, and he totally kicked Discord’s flank, too! You should have been there, Princess! He had that guy laying on the ground!” Rainbow said, backing me up.

“And he was soooo brave, too! When we got there Jordan and his dragon looked so super incredibly cool!” Pinkie said, also defending me.

“Listen, it doesn’t even matter guys. Discord still beat me in the end and I became his new pawn of chaos. Although I stand by what I did and am not ashamed of trying to help, I need to be more careful around enemies like that.” I said to them solemnly.

“I suppose that’s all I’ll be getting out of you Jordan, but I believe there may be some sort of punishment in order…” She said with a smirk. She really has a knack for unnerving people, I’ll give her that. I gulped at her words, not liking the sound of this one bit. Some of the ponies opened their mouths slightly, and it looked like Rainbow was about to protest, but stopped herself.

I had a worried look in my eyes as I looked at her stoic, yet still soft, face. “W-what did you have in mind?” I asked with a slight shiver in my voice.

“Well, as you may or may not know, the hospital bills for yourself and all that you were responsible for, were quite steep. I think we would all agree that you should be the one who paid them off, seeing as how YOU caused them.” She said, still smirking. My eyes widened, then lidded in annoyance and uncertainty.

“I… Guess that’s the least I could do, but I don’t have any Equestrian money” I told them, to which she nodded and giggled at.

“That’s quite alright, you can pay it off in due time; in the mean time, why don’t you find a job to earn some bits? You’ll need 1,250 of them, so at least now you’ll have something to do!” She said with cheer. I just sighed in frustration.

“Fine, I’ll do it. I was going to start looking into breeding Pokémon, but I suppose that can wait…” I replied to her. The amount of bits really put me off. During my stay at Twilight’s, I had plenty of time to research the currency here. One bit was, coincidentally, the equivalent to around P100-P200 from my world, so I would need to collect close to P150,000 back there, which wasn’t TOO bad, but also wasn’t exactly as easy as doing a couple of odd jobs.

“Good! I’m glad to see that you’re being cooperative about this! As soon as you’ve got enough money, and I will be expecting it within at most five months, just send it to me via Spike. Now that that is out of the way, I’m sorry to say that I must take my leave. It was good to see you all again.” She said, turning to the door.

“Y-yeah, likewise Princess. Oh, and one more thing?” She turned and looked at me quizzically. “I remember everything that happened in that ruined castle, and I must say; you really ate it back there.” She put on a brief un-amused expression before rolling her eyes, as I gave her a happy grin.

“That may be so, but not nearly as bad as YOU did after Fluttershy got through with you.” She said with a victorious grin before making an exit. I just snapped my fingers and shook my head in frustration. ‘I’ll get you next time, Princess.’ I thought. What she had said caused a few of the ponies to snicker, hiding their mouths with their hooves.

I looked back to the others with a straight face. “So, Twilight, do you think I can have my Pokémon back now?” I asked her.

“Oh! Of course; and don’t worry about what they ate, either. Fluttershy was more than happy to feed them and such while you couldn’t.” She reassured me. After that, she opened the saddle bag she came in with, and levitated the balls out of it. She then rested them on my lap as I looked down at them.

“Hey guys… Sorry I kind of got us into that situation. Especially you, Espeon; I feel really bad about punching you earlier. I hope you guys can forgive me.” I said apologetically to the objects. I got a small wiggle from each of them, and that’s all I needed to feel better.

“So Jordan, earlier you said that you could remember everything that was going on? What can you tell me about it?” Twilight asked, with that ever present glimmer of wonder in her eye whenever she feels like she’s about to learn something new. I looked up to the ceiling in thought, while I stroked Pinkie’s mane, who was sitting next to me on the bed.

“Well, I know now that everything I was doing was completely wrong, but I also remember the way I felt about it when I was doing; the way I felt was that nothing else mattered except for my own satisfaction. I would have been willing to sacrifice any of you, and any of my Pokémon, if it meant me getting what I wanted.” I twisted my thoughtful look into a slight scowl. “Before any of you showed up there… I actually considered murdering both of the princesses and taking over Equestria on my own.” They all gasped in worry at that.

“W-wow Jordan, that is REALLY bad! None of us were turned that badly under Discord’s effects…” Rainbow said.

“Ah gotta agree with Dash; that little stone ya’ll had stuck in ya must’ve really been somethin’ else.” Applejack said, shaking her head.

“That reminds me, what did you guys do with that thing, anyway?” I asked, turning to Twilight for answers.

“Princess Celestia took it and locked it up somewhere in Canterlot Castle. That… Isn’t a problem, is it?” She asked me, raising a brow.

“Hell no it’s not a problem. I’m glad to be rid of that thing! Just look at this scar!” I said, gesturing to it, which she cringed to. “The pain was excruciating when you were pulling it out. I wish I HADN’T remembered that part…” I shuddered at the memory. As if having my face beaten to a pulp wasn’t bad enough…

“I’m sorry Jordan, but I couldn’t think of any other way to do it! I’d never dealt with something like that before and just did it the most obvious way. And it was… Well, anyway, you lost a lot of blood; I’ll leave it at that.” She said shyly, not wanting to go into detail, which I understood.

“Well, whatever. It’s in the past now, and there’s nothing that needs to be done about it now… And now I’ve got this wicked scar on my arm, so that’s something.” I said, rubbing the mark tenderly with my fingers. I gained myself a nod from Rainbow, and a disturbed look from Rarity. I only shrugged.

“Well, that’s a way of staying positive...” Twilight said, tilting her head as she looked at my scar, probably wondering how I could possibly think it was cool looking. I suddenly remembered that there was one pony missing in this usual group of six.

“Hey, where is Fluttershy at? I really want to tell her that I’m sorry as well.” I asked, causing several of them to look away from me. Twilight developed a sullen look on her face.

“She’s… Terrified of you now, Jordan; we all tried to convince her that you were back to normal, but she just won’t listen to us.” She said.

“Y-yeah… I just talked to her this morning, and it sounds like she completely despises you now.” Rainbow said, slightly depressed about it. ‘What. She hates me now? Well, I suppose I can’t blame her, but come on! I’m back to normal now! I couldn’t help what I was doing!’ I looked up at them questioningly.

“Indeed, she really isn’t too fond of you anymore, darling.” Rarity told me. I sunk slightly under my covers in slightly depressed thoughts for a moment.

“I’ll be sure to talk to her as soon as I can about it. I mean, It wasn’t even me who did those things. I mean, it was technically, but Discord’s magic was in effect.” I said in a serious tone, but lightening up nonetheless.

“You sure about that, J-man? I mean, it’s so soon and all…” I gave her a confirmative look, to which she understood. “Well, it’s your funeral…” I rolled my eyes at her, doubting that Fluttershy would attack me AGAIN. I mean, if all of her friends were able to forgive me, why not her?

We all continued to chatted for a while longer, until the nurse from earlier and a doctor came in and told me that I needed to sign some papers, then I was free to go. They told me that Princess Celestia was going to cover the bill, but I knew damn well that that wasn’t true at all.

As soon as I got that business out of the way, the girls and I left the hospital together.

Bonus Chapter #1

*BONUS CHAPTER 1*

~Notice – This chapter is simply an event from Jordan’s past. It serves just about no purpose to the main story unless Jordan were to share it as a random story or something, so therefore it is still canon. This takes place when Jordan was only thirteen, and reading this chapter is not required for the rest of the story, although it does have quite a bit of foreshadowing in it.~

“Eevee, use bite!” I called out to my Pokémon, as she faced off against another trainer’s Farfetch’d. I was currently on the outskirts of Viridian Forest, north side. I had decided not long ago that I wanted to go on a journey away from home across Kanto, and I just passed through Pewter City, where I decided to defeat the gym leader, Brock. It was not an easy task, but my Pokémon and I managed to pull through.

I was just on my way to Viridian Forest, when some random youngster decided to challenge me to a battle.

“Farfetch’d, dodge it and use fury attack now!” The youngster yelled frantically, to which Farfetch’d began to obey.

“Eevee, stop and use Iron Tail on the spot that Farfetch’d will be!” I said quickly. Eevee was slightly unbalanced for a second, but obeyed as quickly as it could. Predicting where the Pokémon would land, her tail began to shine. She took to the air and aimed at said predicted spot.

*BAM* It had hit directly, causing the flying/normal Pokémon to fall back in surprise.

“No! Err, do something, Farfetch’d!!” The kid said in desperation.

“Now finish it off with a tackle attack!” I hollered in glee. Eevee understood and was visible confident as she charged at full speed towards her target. With a quick tackle on the already dazed Pokémon, Farfetch’d had fainted.

“No, Farfetch’d!” The kid yelled in worry as he ran over to his Pokémon and held it in his arms.

“Good job, Eevee! You did great!” I praised my Pokémon before returning her to her Pokéball. With a satisfied smile, I approached the kid and held out a hand. “Great battle man. With a bit more training, you and Farfetch’d will get to be an awesome team.” I told the kid, who couldn’t have been older than ten years old.

With a sniffle, he smiled and returned his Pokémon to its ball, and took my hand. “T-thanks, kid. You’re a really good battler… I hope I can be as good as you some day.” He said as I pulled him to his feet. He handed me about P20 once he was on his feet. With a great confidence boost and admittedly some arrogance, I responded.

“Yeah, well, if you train hard you might be able to reach my level of skill some day, kid!” I said, giving him a pat on the shoulder as I walked away. “Seeya later!” I called to him without turning around.

“Yeah, umm, bye!” He called as he whited out, into the direction of Pewter City. With a confident smirk and a bounce in my step, I proceeded to the entrance of the forest, with my backpack on and Pokeballs at the ready.

Once I was inside the forest, I paused to take in the rather darkened atmosphere. Caterpies and Weedles could be seen climbing some of the trees throughout the dense forest, and I even spotted a couple of Metapods hanging from the trees.

The forest was very dark and creepy. I would really hate to see how this place is at night, but thankfully that wouldn’t be arriving for about another five hours. As sunlight seeped through the trees and onto the path before me, I began my trek, occasionally checking behind me to make sure no one was watching me.

I was about five minutes into the forest when I was attacked by a wild Pokémon; a Pikachu. The thing startled me at first as it jumped out of a random tree and started growling at me threateningly, but my confidence immediately made a comeback and I smirked at the little pest.

“Alright, you wanna go, you little rat?! Come on out, Dratini!” I yelled as I released Dratini from the confines of his ball to stand before the little yellow creature.

At once, the Pikachu’s little red sack things started to release some static. “Dratini, hit it with a thunder wave!” I told him. He did this by releasing a small wave of electricity from his horn, hitting the Pikachu lightly, effectively paralyzing it. That didn’t stop the little bastard from using a Thundershock, however. I told Dratini to dodge it, but he was hit by it. Luckily, dragon types are resistant to electric, so there wasn’t much damage done. The Pikachu was looking a bit annoyed at this point, but I was about to make it downright miserable in a bit.

“Okay Dratini, hit it with your most powerful Ice Beam!” With a bit of time for a charge up, Dratini released the beam of ice directly at the angry little Pokémon. It tried to dodge out of the way, but paralysis can be a real pain sometimes. Sitting there helpless, the Pikachu took the blast head on, being covered in a blanket of icy shards.

I grinned and grabbed an empty Pokéball. “Get ready to join the team, Pikachu!” and with that, I chucked the ball at the electric mouse. Once inside, I began to needlessly count shakes.

One… Two… Three… Tick.

I calmly strode over and picked up the ball and looked at it for a moment before releasing the Pokémon immediately after. With a soft, weakened cry, the Pokémon came out. He stood for a brief moment, then sat down in exhaustion. I bent down to its level to talk to it.

“Hey there Pikachu, I’m Jordan; welcome to the team!” I said to him. I knew it was a dude because of the formation of the tail. “Here, little heal you up, buddy.” I took out a cheap potion and sprayed him down with it. In a few moments, the Pokémon stood up in top shape and looked at me with a neutral smile. Dratini decided to slither over to us and introduce himself to the new addition. The Pikachu was wary at first, but the two became quick friends.

After our introduction, I returned Dratini to its ball and allowed the Pikachu to walk with me as we traversed the forest a bit more. While we did that, I told him a bit about me and what my main goal was in this quest. He quickly took a shine to the idea and was all for it.

As we came to a bend in the path, I heard something odd, like a yell or something. Pikachu and I stopped behind a tree and I peeked around it. What I saw horrified me and made me grasp the bark of the tree in anger.

On the road was a man in a black uniform, standing over a kid, presumably a bug catcher by the looks of his outfit. The man had some sort of rod in his hand.

“I said hand over your damn Pokémon, kid!” *Smack*, *Zap* the jerk smacked the poor kid in the face with that stick thing, knocking the kid down with a bruised face.

“Pika Pika…” Pikachu growled with electricity pulsing through his cheeks. I was in no better shape as I was fuming about this situation. I continued to watch as the man bent down and stole two pokeballs from the downed kid. It was at this moment that I decided to come out of hiding.

“Hey, you jerk! Give those Pokémon back!” I yelled as Pikachu and I sprinted towards him. He looked up in surprise but smirked evilly once he realized that I was just a kid.

“Hey kid, you’re just on time… Unless you wanna end up like that runt, you’d best hand over the Pokémon right now.” He said as he began eyeing Pikachu.

“Not a chance! Prepare for battle, now!” I challenged, to which he gladly accepted. The battle wasn’t too exciting. All he had was two Koffings and a Ratticate, which I easily knocked out with Pikachu and Dratini. The man was very frustrated about this turn of events, and chucked his electric stick thing at me and ran off. I dodged the thing and took off in the direction, until I remembered the bug catcher who was beaten up.

I quickly jogged over to the downed kid to find him crying and holding himself. I knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay here, I’m going after him to get your Pokémon back.” He opened his eyes and nodded. I quickly stood up and took off at a full sprint along with Pikachu in the direction that the man ran off to.

Dodging trees, accidentally stomping on a Weedle who tried to challenge me as I was running, and tripping, I didn’t give up until I caught view of the guy I was chasing after. Suddenly, he ran into a clearing that seemed to have a building in it, of all places. Instead of rushing out after him, I stopped at the tree line and hid in a bush. Peeking through, I saw a few things. The building had a large “R” plastered on it, and there were two people in identical outfits guarding the entrance. The man checked behind him, and, sighing in relief, jogged up to the guards coolly. They all exchanged some words, and the man, with a chuckle, walked into through the steel door. The whole building was un-decorated, aside from that logo, and was all a bright silver.

“We’ve gotta find a way in there, Pikachu…” He growled in agreement. I circled around the area, scouting it. In the back, there was one guard patrolling. I returned Pikachu to his Pokéball and called out Eevee. As we hid in the bush, I quietly whispered a plan to her, to which she nodded with confidence.

The guard walked rather close to us, and turned without seeing either of us. As quietly but quickly as she could, Eevee exited the tree line and stealthily hopped up and struck the guard over the head with an iron tail, knocking him out cold. Eevee quickly ran back to me, as to avoid being spotted by anyone who might have heard it.

Seeing that the coast was clear, we both left the tree line. Scanning the back of the building, I noticed exactly what I was looking for; a vent… Conveniently location above a dumpster. Not before giving the guard a swift kick to the head to make sure he was out, and definitely not because of a grudge against these people, Eevee and I climbed the dumbster and pulled the cover off of the ventilation shaft. There, Eevee and I climbed in and entered the building.

Making our way through the small maze, I came upon a cover in the floor of the shaft. Looking down through it, I found four very large cages, full of Pokémon. I expected no less, seeing as how I saw the man steal those Pokémon, but I wasn’t any less angry about it. Keeping my calm, I made sure that no guards were around before I had Eevee hit the grate with an Iron Tail. Hopping down into the room, and cringing in slight pain as I landed hard on my feet from about an eight foot drop, I looked around.

First off, this place smelled like crap. I looked around and saw a variety of Pokémon native to the forest, like Pikachus, Weedles, Caterpies, etc. But I also saw other Pokémon that were obviously stolen from trainers in the area. I noticed a sickly Nidorino, a very pissed off looking Wartortle, a hopeless looking Wigglytuff, too tired from crying by the looks of it, and many more. The list went on and on, and the more I looked at them, the more heart broken I became. ‘How could these sick freaks do this to Pokémon…’ I thought, but shook my head.

Eevee and I walked over to one of the cages, and I knelt down in front of it, looking at the all of Pokémon. As I did this, the Wartortle instantly noticed me and got into a defensive stance in front of the other weak Pokémon, but it was easy to tell that this Pokémon itself wasn’t in any condition to fight.

I gave the Pokémon a determined look. “Don’t you guys worry, I’m not one of these monsters… I’m going to bust you all out of here.” I told the Pokémon reassuringly, but before I could do anything, I heard a voice.

“Monsters? You’d better shut your trap, you little shit.” I immediately stood up and turned around to find a large man standing at the entrance to the room. “W-who are you?!” I asked, shocked.

“I’m the admin of this lovely building, and I’d like to thank you for your generous donation of Pokémon to Team Rocket… Now hand them over like a good little kid, then get the hell out of here.” He said menacingly.

“Admin? Donation? I don’t care what your title is, I am NOT giving you my Pokémon you… You big jerk!” I said as Eevee and I got into defensive stances.

He chuckled. “Very well then, looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way…” He said, taking his own Pokéball and tossing it, releasing a Muk from it. I took a step back in disgust, but quickly recovered as I recalled Eevee and sent out Dratini, for a better advantage. As I was in the middle of doing this, however, the Rocket Admin took this opportunity to strike.

“Muk, use sludge bomb!” The Pokémon opened its mouth wide and out came a nasty ball of sludge, aimed directly at me. Immediately, Dratini came out and blocked the attack with his body, and just happened to become poisoned from it.

“Ooh, A Dratini?! What a lovely addition that will be to our cause! This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen one in person. I’m certain that you feel honored, kid.” He said, trying to be suave but failing miserably.

“You’re kidding, right? The idea that I made you happy at all makes me sick to my stomach. Or it would have, if your disgusting Muk hadn’t already. Dratini, use Ice Beam!” What I’d said caused the man to shrug, as Dratini attacked Muk.

“Muk, use Minimize and dodge it.” The admin calmly said. The Muk immediately shrunk in size and evaded my attack. The Ice beam collided with the wall, causing crystal-like ice to jut out of it.

I growled as the Admin confidently smirked. Dratini visibly recoiled as the poison damaged him. “Dratini, try again, but get closer this time!” I yelled, not even close to giving up on what I came here to do.

Dratini slithered at a fast pace and tried again, and actually successfully hitting it before the Admin could tell it what to do. I was about to gain a boost in confidence, but noticed that the Ice Beam hardly did anything to the Muk. The Admin laughed at me and told me that it was hopeless for me, but I didn’t want to give up.

Unfortunately, that Muk was still too tough for me and Dratini soon fainted, after receiving a few more Sludge Bombs. Disheartened, I returned Dratini to his ball and proceeded to call out my Pidgeotto. I thought that since it was a flying type, it would have an advantage over the Muk, but I was completely mistaken. Another minimize, a Disable, and a Sludge Bomb or two later, and Pidgeotto was down, only being able to pull off an Aerial Ace and a Wing Attack.

After that, I called out my Teddiursa, but I was starting to lose hope. This Muk was simply too strong for my current level, and the Admin knew it. I glanced back at the Pokémon who were trapped in the cages, and to my surprise, they were all lined up against the bars, looking at me with undying hope. I look at the Wartortle, who was looking at me with determined glare, and slowly nodded at me. “Don’t worry guys, I’m not about to give up on you…” I said quietly. ‘Crap, I need to think of something fast or my goose will be cooked!’ I thought.

I had told Teddiursa to attack with Fury Swipes while I looked around, hoping to come up with something. My eyes fell onto the cage door, more specifically, the lock. It them clicked in my mind, and just in time too, as more Rocket members had come upon our battle and were getting ready to take us down all at once.

I called Eevee back out. “Eevee, quick; Use Iron Tail on that lock!” I hastily ordered her. She got the message and complied. As this happened, I heard Teddiursa cry out in pain. I turned around to find that Muk had tackled it and was now suffocating it.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” The Rocket Admin shouted as he finally realized what I was doing. I glared angrily at him.

“I’m obviously setting these poor Pokémon free, idiot.” I answered him, but not forgetting about Teddiursa. I quickly took his Pokéball and returned him to it, and out of the Muk’s clutches.

Suddenly, the cell door slammed open as dozens of crazed Pokémon came pouring out. I quickly repeated what I did with the other cage doors, and soon, what looked like hundreds of Pokémon were quickly attacking the Rocket members in rage.

For the next five minutes, there was nothing but carnage. Pokémon were biting and scratching the people, and even I felt myself cringing at the site of it. Soon enough, every Pokémon cleared out, save Eevee and the now fainted Muk. During the Pokémon Breakout, every person in the vicinity of this building came pouring into the room. I counted about twenty five men and women, most knocked out or in too much pain to move due to some serious looking injuries.

I approached the Admin and watched as he was curled over in pain. I took this opportunity to spit in his face. “You deserved this, you know? The way you treat Pokémon… It makes me sick.” I noticed the large “R” on his uniform. “And your group is called Team Rocket, huh. Well, I just added a new goal for my journey; stop any members of Team Rocket I happen to come by. I hope you’re happy.” I said as I picked up an empty sack that I found laying against a wall. With that, I took every single Pokéball that these crooks had on them and stuffed them inside of it, in order to turn them into the police once I reached town. Some of the members weakly fought back, but with a bite from Eevee, they quickly learned that that was a bad idea.

As I collected the last of the balls, I made my way for the exit. “W-wait…” I turned around to find the Admin, stood up on one knee, looking at me with hatred. “What’s your name, kid?...” With a confident smile, I answered him.

“My name is Jordan, of Vermillion City! And if I ever see you again, you’ll be sorry!” I gloated arrogantly. The man chuckled weakly.

“Vermillion, huh… Good to know. Heheh..Hahahaha…” With that, he collapsed to the ground. I pondered for a moment, thinking that telling him my identity was probably a bad idea, but I shook it off. There was no possible way that this guy or his goons would mess with me again.

Eevee and I hastily made our way out of the building, heavy sack of Pokeballs in hand. As I stepped out of front of the building, I noticed that the guards were not out here any longer. But what WAS out here, was that Wartortle. I looked down at him.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out trying to find your trainer?” I asked quizzically. The Pokémon quickly shook his head and looked away in sadness. He then looked up at me with determination and pointed at me.

“Y-you want to come with me? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” I asked, trying to make certain of his intentions. The tortoise looked to the ground for a second, thinking, and looked back up to me with a serious look, and nodded. I didn’t know what might have happened to his original trainer, or why he found me worthy, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to say no.

I kneeled down and put a hand on his should, and nodded to him. “I would love to have you join my team, Wartortle.” The Pokémon then smirked happily at me and growled slightly in delight. I quickly took out a Pokéball and touched his shell with it. Wartortle was sucked into it, and the ball fell to the ground and shook for a bit, before clicking, indicating that the Pokémon was caught. I picked the ball up and looked at it.

“Welcome to the team, Wartortle.” I put the Pokéball away and and made my way through the forest, with little to no wild Pokémon getting in my way… Except a very, VERY pissed off Weedle that jumped out of a tree and attacked me. I had Eevee quickly take care of the weak little thing, then caught it. I wondered if it was the same Weedle I accidently squashed from before, but I shook it off, never to know for certain.

I eventually found my way back to the path that the bug catcher was on, and sure enough, the kid was there, and he even had his Pokémon back, which consisted of a Butterfree and a Beedrill. They were all hugging each other in relief. I walked up to the kid, who flinched once he saw me, but quickly calmed down.

“Told ya I would get your Pokémon back.” I said with a smirk. He immediately stood up from his sitting position and gave me a hug, thanking me dearly for getting his Pokémon back for him. I broke the hug after a moment, and noticed a special feeling inside me... I realized then how good it felt helping people in these kinds of situations, and vowed to help as many victims of Team Rocket as possible.

“Yeah, it was no biggy; anyone who steals Pokémon and treats them… Like that… Needs to be taught a lesson.” I said, playing it off as a tough guy. The kid and I continued chatting as we hastily made our way out of the forest, with little to no trouble. Once I made it to Viridian City, he and I parted ways and I made my way to the police station, to turn in the Pokémon I confiscated from team rocket.

It turned out that every single Pokémon that they had was stolen. Not one was taken fairly. I’m unsure how the police could tell, but I chose not to question it. After I gave told them the general area of where the Rocket’s building was, I received A LOT of praise from them. And it also turns out that turning in stolen Pokémon is treated with payment… And quite a bit, I might add.

Let’s just say I replaced the Pokeballs inside the bag with money… And a lot of it. The first thing I did after leaving the police station, was make my way over to the Pokémon Center, where I could tell my parents everything that happened today over video phone, and deposit some of this money that I earned.

Mending Scars

Chapter 15

Once the six of us had left the hospital, I decided to part ways with the group, telling them that I would prefer to speak with Fluttershy on my own. Reluctantly, they all agreed, and I headed straight in the direction of her cottage.

On the way through town, I was pleasantly greeted with a few friendly waves and greetings from random town’s ponies. I made sure to be friendly and return the kind gestures. I knew that I had a good bit of wait thrown on my shoulders with the whole medical bill thing, but at least I was being accepted.

While walking through town, I decided to let Dragonite out of his Pokéball so I could talk to him face to face for a bit. As I released him from his ball, I got several strange looks, but most of them quickly turned into looks of wonder, or understanding. It seemed that they were starting to get used to me, more so than I thought.

Dragonite popped out with a happy cry, and began calmly walking next to me, which won us quite a bit more stares. I turned my head to him as we walked.

“So, I know we haven’t had much time to talk about this, but I figured that this would be a good time. Good job on evolving, man. It took a LONG time, but you’ve finally made it to your final evolution.” I said to him with a genuinely proud smile, as we continued our walk.

He released a relaxed sigh of contentment and just looked up at the sky. “I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you. And also, you couldn’t have picked a better time to do it, either! We would have been in some trouble there otherwise.” I said with a chuckle, and quickly whispered to him. “Also, I know you and I weren’t ourselves at the time… But man you really let Celestia have it, not to mention Discord. Let’s count ourselves lucky that I didn’t think of using Draco Meteor on the ponies, though.” I said to him, careful not to be overheard. He wiped his forehead of nonexistent sweat as a sign of agreement.

We continued our walk mostly in silence. We exited the town and got on the road of Fluttershy’s place. Looking at Dragonite, I saw that he was simply enjoying the scenery of the area. That was one thing about this Pokémon; his mostly easygoing nature and his appreciation for things like the beauty of nature. If he wasn’t battling or doing something important, he would always find himself getting distracted by stuff like this. I had no problem with it though, as taking in nature and the little things in life has just been something he’s always appreciated doing.

As we came to the bridge of Fluttershy’s house, I paused, as did Dragonite as soon as he saw me doing it. “Hey Dragonite? Twilight said that Fluttershy helped take care you guys while I was out… Did she seem any different to you?” I asked him, slightly worried.

He looked up for a moment, then looked back to me and shrugged. ‘Huh, a lot of good THAT did. I guess I’ll just have to see for myself… OH wait!’ I suddenly got an idea, even if it felt a bit intrusive.

I tossed a Pokéball and let Riolu out. “Hey Riolu, it’s great to see you!” He let out a happy bark in reply. “Listen, I need you to check for any negative emotions coming from that cottage, and let me know if you find any. Can you do that for me?” I asked him. He nodded excitably and closed his eyes in concentration. A moment, he opened them again and looked back to me.

“So, anypony feeling sad or angry in there?” I asked him. He shook his head, then gave a happy cry. ‘Huh. Either she’s really doing well to suppress how she’s feeling, she isn’t thinking about me, or she is completely over it.’

“Well, that’s odd… Let’s go see her anyway.” I said, turning to look at the cozy looking cottage. I proceeded to cross over the bridge and approach the door quietly, and then gave a brisk, yet gentle knock.

I heard some shuffling around inside, and in a moment, the door creaked open ever so slowly. After it opened slightly, a yellow head with a pink mane popped out. “Hi Flutter-“ *SLAM* “…Shy.” I looked at the door quizzically for a moment, then furrowed my brow and knocked again.

“G-g-go away Jordan!” She shouted quietly, yet firmly.

“Fluttershy, I’m just here to say that I’m sorry! What happened wasn’t in my control!” I shouted back to her. She went silent for a moment before responding.

“Y-you hurt me… You tried to… kill… me.” She said quietly. I could barely hear it, but I had my ear up to the door and just barely made it out. I was starting to grow slightly annoyed, but kept patient.

“Fluttershy, that wasn’t me! I would never even think of doing that to you! All… All I wanted to do was help you out because I thought you were in danger. I attacked Discord out of anger at the thought that he may have harmed you guys.” Everything went quiet after that. I peeked behind me to see both Riolu and Dragonite standing awkwardly, avoiding my gaze.

I sighed. “Fine, Fluttershy. I’ll just leave, then.” As I turned to walk away, I heard a creaking noise. Turning around, I noticed the door had opened, and was now slightly ajar. I was surprised by this, but I took the hint anyway. Returning both Pokémon to their balls, I walked into the cottage.

As I stepped inside, I was instantly able to smell the presence of animals, and even the smell of feces, even if it’s faint. Thankfully, the smell of tea was there too, and was able to help contest the other odors. Looking around the room, I noticed Fluttershy in the middle, with her head pointed to the floor.

I shut the door behind me gently, then approached her calmly. As I stood before her, she spoke. “I-I’m sorry, Jordan. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I… I was just scared that you would be mad at me for what I did to you.” She said, looking up at me with her sad, blue eyes. I felt a pinch to my heart at this.

“Fluttershy, I could never be mad at you for what you did. I may have been put through a lot of pain, which was mostly a courtesy of Discord, but you saved our friends because of it. I’m more proud than anything, really. I had never seen you act so brave before.” I said as I knelt by her and gently put a hand on her shoulder. At first she flinched at the sudden contact, but soon leaned into it a bit. She also blushed slightly at what I said.

“There… Is something else, though...” She said, causing me to raise an eyebrow. “I-I’ve been having nightmares about it… About how you- I mean, the other you, s-strangled me.” She said, avoiding my eyes as she turned away with new-found shyness.

Hearing this made me feel pretty bad. Celestia was right, my reckless actions really did backfire, and I’d ended up hurting the ones I care about more than anything. I gently wrapped the pony into a hug, catching her off guard. She didn’t resist, however, as she seemed to understand that both of us probably needed this.

I then whispered to her. “You don’t need to have any worry about me, Fluttershy. I promise, that I will never do anything to hurt you ever again. In fact, I’ll do my best to protect you and everypony from harm; you can count on it.” We sat there in silence for a moment before she slowly decided to return the hug. With that, she sighed. After a moment, we broke the hug and I stood up, as did she. We both had smiles on our faces.

“So, Fluttershy” I stuck my hand out “are you willing to give our friendship another try?” I asked her, putting on a calm smile. She calmly put her hoof in my hand, and we both shook.

“I’d love to, Jordan. I’m sorry for being so difficult.” She said, putting her hoof back to the floor.

“Don’t apologize, I probably deserved it anyway.” I said with a chuckle. I decided to hang out with Fluttershy for a few more hours, drinking tea and chatting about things. I had let her animals get acquainted with my Pokémon, and I even helped her with her daily chores of feeding the animals and stuff, which she appreciated.

Soon, though, I finally decided to leave. Before going however, I turned back to Fluttershy. “Hey Fluttershy?” I asked, slightly nervous.

“What is it, Jordan?” She asked, wondering what I wanted.

“W-well, you see, as I may have mentioned earlier, I would like to start breeding Pokémon sooner or later, and I was just wondering if you would… I don’t know… Like to have your own baby Pokémon when I do?” I asked her while unconsciously rubbing the back of my neck.

She just sat there wide eyed for a moment, before exploding into excitement. She instantly flew up to me. “Oh my gosh, I would LOVE to take care of my very own Pokémon! Thank you so much for offering, Jordan!” She yelled… That’s right, yelled. She also wrapped me into a very tight hug. ‘Jeez, she’s really been wanting one for a while now, hasn’t she?’

Quickly getting over my surprise, I patted her on the back. “I-it’s no problem, Fluttershy, but if you could kindly ease up a bit?...” I said with difficulty. She looked surprised, then blushed as she let go of me and stood once more. “S-sorry, It’s just that I’ve always wondered what raising a one of those Pokémon would be like, ever since I’d met you, and now I can have the chance to!” She said, still excited, however recovering the calm voice she had left behind a moment ago.

“Yeah, raising them is truly an experience like no other. Hey, if you’d like, you can help me out when I decide to start breeding them.” I offered, to which her eyes widened once again, having a spark of happiness in them.

“I-I’d love to! I’m sure it will be very fun.” She said as she calmed down once more. I then gave her my good bye and took my leave, heading back to my place as the sun began to drop over the horizon and the moon took its place in the sky. As I was walking, noticing the moonlight hitting the water of the nearby lake, I began to think to myself.

‘I had my doubts about it before, but this whole friendship thing probably won’t be as bad as I originally thought.’ I thought as my house came into closer view. Looking towards the back of my home, I noticed that several berry trees were ready to be picked. I yawned slightly, but knew that if I waited too long to pick the fruits, they would go bad; and with the very fast growth of these, was a very fast spoil rate.

I made my way to the small garden area and quickly harvested all of the berries that were fully grown. In a matter of moments, the now empty tree shriveled up and died right there on the spot. I then proceeded to yank out the dead trees and threw them into the compost bin my Pokémon and I built along with the garden. I then replanted some of the berries and made my way back to the house, where I proceeded to eat dinner with my Pokémon, and get ready to go to sleep so I could figure something out about the money in the morning.

16. New Job And a Picnic

Chapter 16 (This chapter takes place during the episode "Lesson Zero".)

*POV – THIRD PERSON*

*Time – The night of Jordan’s release from the hospital*

As Jordan finished aiding Fluttershy and spending time with her, he took his leave, as it was getting late. Little did he know that two alicorn princesses were watching him from afar.

As both the sun princess and the moon princess sat in Celestia’s room, they had casted a one way viewing spell, in order to watch the human for a while. They had wanted to make sure that the young man was completely back to normal; that, and they were both pretty bored.

Celestia had already finished her duties for the day, and Luna had just recently woken up from her slumber. This was a good time for the two sisters to spend together, and they had chosen to see what Jordan was fairing since leaving the hospital.

“Well sister, it seems as though he is completely back to normal. You know, I think he really is a decent stal- person. I was uncertain at first, but judging by the way he made up with poor little Fluttershy, I can tell that his heart is in the right place.” Luna said with a smile, as she watched as Jordan was calmly walking back to his home, watching the sunset, seemingly in deep thought.

Without taking her eyes off of the man, Celestia just said, “Indeed…” She stared at his face and into his eyes. It was apparent that something about him had put her off. Luna was quick to catch this and looked to her quizzically, putting down a mug of hot chocolate that she had been sipping.

“Is there something wrong, Tia?” Luna asked her elder sister in curiosity with a raised brow. Celestia took her eyes off of Jordan and looked towards Luna briefly, before looking back into the portal, which the Pokémon Trainer had no idea about.

“I can’t put my hoof on it… But I believe there is more to him than what he is letting on.” Celestia responded as her brow furrowed, trying to pinpoint what she saw in him. It was something she had noticed about him since meeting him, but she hadn’t really put much thought into it until recently.

“What do you mean, Tia?” Luna asked as she inspected him for herself.

“Take a good look into his eyes.” Celestia said, and Luna did as she was instructed. “Doesn’t it seem like there is something off about them to you?” She asked her younger sibling, her moved her head slightly closer to the portal, trying to understand just what Celestia was talking about.

After a moment, Luna tapped a hoof to the floor. “Ah! I see what you mean now…” She put a hoof to her chin. “It seems like a look of… Despair? Or maybe loathing?” She inquired, keeping an eye on him.

Celestia nodded in agreement. “I do believe he may be hiding something from us… Something that I believe should be looked into.” She told her sister as her horn lit up and the portal closed without a trace. She then turned her full attention to her, waiting for a response.

After a moment, Luna asked, “Do you truly believe that it is necessary to delve into this? And how do you propose that we go about it?” She asked, looking up at Celestia with uncertainty.

“I have seen first hoof that Jordan is a power person; he was even capable of raising a creature with such power to defeat Discord, and even I. If there is any uncertainty in his disposition towards us, I would like to do everything in my power to get to the bottom of it. As for how I propose that we, I believe it can be as simple as viewing his dreams.” She said, looking to Luna with a hint of a smile.

Luna understood immediately what Celestia had meant, but only sighed in slight annoyance. “Sister, you know as well as I that my power has not fully healed yet. I am unable to delve into a being’s dreamscape yet.” She kicked the floor a bit with a pout, wishing for her power to return to her now.

Celestia giggled and looked down at Luna with care and amusement. “I know, Lulu; but when the time comes I’d like to ask you to do this once you are capable.” She said to her younger sister, who looked back up and shrugged.

“That will be my duty anyways, will it not? I see no problem with doing this.” She said as she finished her chocolaty drink off with one more gulp.

After a spending a bit more time with each other, and going into more detail about the plan with each other, Luna had decided to go out for her nightly fly, while Celestia had finished her evening up and went to sleep.

*POV – JORDAN, 1st person, the next day*

I started my day out just like any other day before the whole Discord incident. Bathroom stuff, dressing, breakfast for my Pokémon and I, garden check, etc. I had decided to think hard on what I could do to make some cash, which I didn’t need to worry about before as I would either win it off of other trainers in my travels, or just dig into the rocket-thwarting funds ([see bonus chapter for more info on that]). But now that there are no more Pokémon Trainers to battle, and every bit of money I have is now completely worthless. I really didn’t have a whole lot of work experience, aside from breeding and gardening… ‘Wait a minute… Gardening… Farming! I think I’ll pay a visit to Applejack.’ I thought as I left my home and made

I jogged through the town at a medium pace, waving to various ponies passing by and making sure to avoid tripping. I soon found myself right outside of Sweet Apple Acres. Putting on a smile, I walked through the gate and made my way up the road. I looked around as I walked, throughout the huge amount of trees and to the barn and house. As I approached said farm house, I heard somepony call out to me.

“Hey Jordan!” A high pitched voice called out to me. I turned towards it and saw that it was Applebloom who spoke. She was at the side of the farm house, and was now running towards me. Once she came to a stop at my feet, I looked down at her.

“Oh, hey Applebloom, how are you doing?” I asked her with a friendly smile.

“I’m doin great! The other crusaders and ah are about ta meet up at the park to play and stuff!” she said with joy.

“Oh, that’s cool. Hey, have you seen your sister around? I need to talk to her about something.” I asked her.

She put a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment. “Ah think she’s buckin’ trees in the north east field right now... Yeah, I’d start lookin’ for her there. Anyway, ah gotta go. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo should be waiting for me right about now.” She said.

We both said our goodbyes, and as she went running into the orchard, I made my way through the trees in the direction I should be expecting to see Applejack in. After a few minutes of walking, I began hearing a repetitive thud-like noise. As I continued walking, it got continuously louder.

*Thud*

I finally came upon the orange mare that I was searching for. She was clearly doing what she always does; bucking apple trees. I made sure to wait until she was finished bucking the tree before I called to her.

“Hey Applejack.” I said as I approached her. She seemed a little startled, but once she saw me she relaxed.

“Well howdy there, Sugarcube.” She said in a friendly tone. I came up to her and scratched the back of my head.

“Uh, hey Applejack. How are you today?” I asked the cowpony.

“Well ah’m doin’ just dandy, how about yourself, Jordan?” She asked as she sat down on the grass and wiped some sweat off of her head.

“I’m good. Listen, as you know, I’m in a bit of debt and I’m strapped for cash. I was wondering if you might have a job opening or something that I could do around here for some… Er, bits? Yeah, bits.” I said to her with a hopeful look.

She looked up in thought for a moment, before returning her gaze to me. “Ah suppose that I could use some help harvestin’ apples. How could are ya’ll at buckin?” She asked me.

I looked down for a moment, before looking back up and sticking a finger up to tell her to wait a moment. I approached a tree that had yet to be bucked. Eyeing it for a moment, I rubbed my hands together, reared back… And sent Espeon out of her Pokéball. “Espeon, use psychic on those apples, and make them go into the bucket, please.” I said. She obeyed, and all at once, the apples gently floated into the buckets.

Applejack approached from behind, chuckling. “Ah’m afraid ah don’t approve of ya’ll usin’ yer friends to do the work. You’re gonna have to do this without their aid.” She said with a somewhat knowing smirk, as if she expected me to use a Pokémon.

I returned the Pokémon to her ball, and looked at it with unease. “Aww, are you sure? I mean, I wouldn’t consider it to be ‘using’ them. I do ask to do it. They can refuse to if they want. Plus this could be great training for them if they choose to help out.”

Applejack thought for a moment. “Well… Alright; But only if you are working alongside em the entire time.” She said.

“That’s fair in my book; thanks, Applejack. Now let’s see if I can do this ‘bucking’ thing.” I said as I put my Pokéball away and took position near yet another tree. With a bit of determination, I glared as I kicked the tree as hard as I could. A total of three apples fell out. I looked back up to the tree and huffed in slight frustration, seeing as there were still dozens of them still up there. My foot wasn’t exactly feeling too great either.

I turned back to AJ, who was stifling a laugh. Furrowing my brow, I turned back to the tree and thought for a moment. ‘Well, let’s see… Kicking is out of the question. I guess I’ll just have to try something different.’ I thought of a few methods for a moment before deciding on one.

Backing up a bit, I got into a charging position as Applejack stopped chuckling and began watching me curiously. After a moment of anticipation, I charged full force, slamming my shoulder into the tree as hard as I could. The tree rocked, and about half the apples inside of it came falling out and into the buckets underneath. I smiled in success as I clutched my now bruised shoulder. I turned to Applejack who grinned at me.

“Well shucks, partner. That was a mighty fine job, seeing as how it was only your second try… But can ya keep that up? I see ya holdin’ yer shoulder there.” She asked, unsure if my method was entirely safe for my body to handle.

“Yeah, I just need to get a sturdy shoulder guard and I should be good to go.” I said as I removed my hand from my aching shoulder.

“If you say so, Sugarcube. Now then, let’s see how well your friends perform.” She said. I then proceeded to ask who would be willing to help me out and who wouldn’t. It turns out that only some of them, except for Blastoise, Ditto, and Riolu were happy to work on the farm with me.

Dragonite, being the powerful dragon that he is, was capable of knocking every apple out of trees with a light smack with his tail. However, he didn’t have much room to fly around with all of the trees in the way, so he had to stay grounded, which caused him much slower movement speed. He would simply walk from tree to tree at a slow rate.

Espeon chose to just use her telekinetic powers, which seemed to displease AJ for some odd reason, but she didn’t voice any complaints. For any untrained Pokémon, it could be considered a difficult task to levitate so many apples at one time, but with the training that we’ve been through, she was able to pull it off with only a bit of effort and concentration.

Ursaring, who I decided to withdraw in exchange for Arcanine once more, was able to shake the apples out of the tree with his powerful arms. He did this with ease, and could get a tree cleared within seconds. I had to warn him to be careful not to accidentally rip the tree out of the ground. He’s much more powerful than he may appear.

After showing what my willing Pokémon could do with the trees, Applejack seemed pleased with the idea of us working here. She decided to start me out at 13 bits an hour, and with time, my wages would increase. I did the math in my head, and figured that if we were to work five to six hours a day, I would have more than enough money to pay off those medical bills in time. After we had taken care of that business, AJ and I remained standing in the orchard.

“So, I know the job consists of mainly getting apples out of trees and into buckets, but is there anything else to it?” I asked the farm pony.

“Well, other than loadin’ the apples into the barn usin’ the wagon, no. Unless ya’ll would like ta’ help with repairs and such when they’re needed. I’d be glad to pay ya a little extra if ya’ll would do that.” She said to me.

I thought for a moment, and then answered her with a hint of disappointment. “Well, I don’t know a whole lot about repairing stuff, or construction in general. One thing about dedicating yourself to Pokémon Training and/or breeding, is that you don’t have much reason, and usually no desire, to learn things like that. My expertise are in battling and the training of Pokémon. However, I’d be happy to be an assistant in that regard.” I told her with a shrug of my shoulders, which caused me to restrain myself from subconciously grabbing the still sore limb.

“That’d be mighty fine; maybe you can learn a thing or two about it from watching Big Macintosh and I.” She said.

I gave her a confused look. “Big Macintosh? Who’s that?” I asked.

“Ya’ll haven’t met Big Mac yet? Well, he’s mah older brother, o’ course!” She said with a bit of surprise. “I’m just about done here, so I wont have ya start today. Just let me get these apples to the barn and ah’ll introduce ya to Big Mac and Granny Smith.” I agreed with her. I really didn’t have much else to do, so I figured that I could just hang out with Applejack for a while.

I decided to help her with loading all of the apples. She seemed surprised at first, and even tried to talk me down on account that I don’t start work until tomorrow, but I told her, as a friendly gesture, that I would do it free of charge. She reluctantly accepted, and with much time to spare, we finished up in about fifteen minutes.

After doing this, she decided to take me out to where Big Mac was apparently plowing dirt. As we approached the fenced area, I took in what I saw before me. It was a very large patch of dirt in the process of being plowed, obviously. On the far end of the field, I saw a large stallion with a red coat and orange mane. He had a cutie mark similar to AJ’s, only this one was just a single green apple.

The large pony seemed to be pulling on a, big shocker, plow. Coincidentally, he seemed to be finishing up right as we arrived. “Hey, Big Macintosh!” AJ called, getting the dark red pony’s attention right as he unhooked the plow. He looked up at us as we approached. As he took my appearance in, I barely even saw his eye twitch. I was expecting him to have SOME kind of reaction to me, just like the others, but no such thing was granted. I opted to just look at him weirdly due to this fact.

“Big Mac, this is Jordan, the human I was tellin’ ya about. Jordan, meet Big Mac.” Applejack said, and with that, I approached the large stallion and held my hand out for a shake.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, uhh… Big Mac…” Something about this stallion put me off, but I couldn’t put a finger on just what. He looked into my eyes with little to no emotion before sticking his hoof in my hand. I firmly shook his hoof and gave him a friendly smile, but on the inside, I was just trying to figure out what this guy’s deal is. ‘What is he thinking? How am I supposed to know if he has taken a liking to me or not? Judging by his characteristics that I’ve seen so far, he looks to fit the bill of one of those quiet psycopath farmers who would be into incest and take no greater pleasure than to gut me for no reaso- No… Don’t think like that, Jordan… You’re a grown man now. Petty stereotypes like that don’t deserve any thought… But I’ll be damned if this guy doesn’t freak me out a bit’ I thought to myself as I kept up a genuine smile.

“Eeyup!” He spoke with a small smile on his face. With that simple, yet effective word, my worries, for the most part, washed away. He sounded friendly enough. ‘How stupid of me; I mean, he’s a damn pony for Arceus’ sake! I doubt they are even able to comprehend some of the darker things that humans do.’ I thought with a hidden chuckle.

After we exchanged pleasantries, we made our way back to the house where I was able to meet Granny Smith. Meeting her wasn’t too bad. Her eye sight was apparently not too great, so she wasn’t really able to tell right away that I wasn’t a pony. She said something about Applejack finding a new coltfriend, but AJ quickly shot that down in embarrassment, while I blinked in surprise. Big Mac, the silent stallion that he is, just smirked lightly in amusement.

After doing this, Applejack explained that she had to take care of something, so she and I made our way out of the farm house and onto the porch to wait for something.

“So who are we waiting for, exactly?” I asked her.

“Rainbow Dash; she’s supposed ta help me with demolishing our old barn soon.” Right as she said that, right out of the sky, appeared Rainbow at top speeds.

“Oh, there she is. Right on time, RD.” Applejack said with a smile.

“Hey AJ, hey Jordan. I’m here to help with that demolition thing now.” She said as she took to floating in the air as she normally does. After our greetings, Applejack gave Rainbow a pair of goggles. I thought it was odd that she wasn’t getting any other protective gear, like a helmet for instance. I was even more confused when Applejack gave me and herself a helmet to put on, but they seemed to know what they were doing so I disregarded it.

A few moments later, Applejack and I were both sitting in a very convenient trench as Rainbow Dash was smashing and tearing apart the old barn. I watched in interest as Rainbow went to work while Applejack took cover in the dirt.

Rainbow would slam as hard as she could into the barn, buck walls, and even went as far as to tear pieces of wood out with her mouth. I was astounded at this pony’s brute strength, and was curious as to how she wasn’t getting cut or splintered to hell by what she was doing.

As the show continued on, I noticed Twilight walking up the road, just narrowly missing being hit by a piece of wood that Rainbow had tossed her way accidentally. I took that she had gotten the wrong impression, as she said something about Rainbow most likely hating Applejack… And what bothered me even more, was that she seemed pleased by it.

Twilight rushed over as Rainbow was about to fly into the barn once again. “Rainbow Dash, Stop!” She said as she grabbed the pegasus’ tail with her magic, effectively halting her progress.

“Listen Rainbow, I know you’re upset with Applejack, but don’t worry! Whatever it is that has come between you two, I’m sure that I, as a good friend, can help you resolve your problem!” She said as she released her magic and let Rainbow fall to the ground.

Applejack and I were just watching this go on with curiosity and amusement at this point. Twilight was acting kind of weird, and I’d have liked to get to the bottom of it, but I wanted to see what was going on.

“Uhh, what are you talking about?” Rainbow asked in confusion as she stood up.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash! You don’t have to hide your feelings from me! I can tell you two must have had a terrible fight!” The delusional Twilight said as she looked Rainbow in the eyes. Without letting Rainbow say anything else, she somehow got a park bench and laid Rainbow down on it and set next to it, like a therapist would for a patient.

“Now; why don’t you tell me ALL about your issues with Applejack.” Twilight explained, ready to take some notes. Rainbow then explained that she had no issues with Applejack at all, which confused Twilight.

“Well then, why are you destroying her property?” Twilight asked.

“Because… She asked me to… Right Applejack?” Rainbow responded. It was at this point that Applejack decided to speak up.

AJ took her helmet off. “Yes ma’m” She then explained why she was doing this, saying that she wanted to put up a new barn and needed this one torn down. She then put her helmet on and told Rainbow to get back to work. Not paying attention, and curious about Twilight, I decided to climb out of the trench to talk to her.

“Hey Twilight” I said as I walked up to her. “Why did you seem so happy about Rainbow having conflict with Applejack?” I asked her as Applejack hopped into the trench for cover.

Twilight was about to answer me, but she seemed to notice something in the sky. Whatever she saw seemed to freak her out as she immediately proceeded to jump down into the trench, which prompted me to turn around and look at what she was looking at a moment ago.

What I saw was Rainbow slamming into the barn with more force than I would think possible. The impact caused a huge amount of dust to come flying up and have the barn explode into a bunch of mixed pieces of wood and dirt… And a good portion of it was coming right at me.

“Oh sweet mother of Arceus…” I said in shock as a large amount of the debris slammed into me, burying me whole in the process. I laid in the mess dazed for a few moments before the garbage was taken off of me by a purple aura. My vision was slightly blurred and I was pretty confused, but I managed to speak at least.

“…Thank Arceus for hard hats…” I said, rubbing my face with a hand as I stood up.

“Ya’ll okay, Jordan? That looked like it hurt!” Applejack said as she walked up to me. I checked myself over, amazed that I took little to no damage, aside from a scratch or two and a slightly dirtied pair of pants and shirt.

“I’ll be fine… Hey, where’d Twi go?” I asked, looking for the purple unicorn. Applejack looked around as well, before shrugging.

“Ah guess she decided to take off after helpin’ ya out of that mess” She said, kicking a piece of wood with a chuckle. I just shook my head and sighed as I stood up.

It was then that Rainbow came flying towards us. “Hey, I gotta go get ready for the picnic, so I’ll see you guys later.” She said. We both waved as I asked Applejack about it.

“What’s this about a picnic?” I asked Applejack.

“We’re all gettin’ together at the park in a little while to have a picnic. Did ya want to come?” She asked as we started walking back to the farm. I figured that my Pokémon would enjoy some time at the park, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I didn’t have any objections to the idea.

“Sure, I’d be happy to come.” I responded. She then told me exactly where to meet at the park and that she was going to get ready to go in a bit. I figured I’d pack my own basket of berries, so I headed home to prepare.

I had made my way over to the spot about an hour later. It was in your typical flowery meadow, underneath a tree. The rest of the Elements were there, save Twilight, and I was helping set things up with AJ as Pinkie, for some reason, packed a basket full of balloons and let it fly away. Rainbow and Fluttershy were both chilling out, and Rarity was complaining and being overdramatic over plates or something. While that was going on, I decided to release my Pokémon from their spherical confines.

Once they all came out, they all went to do their own things, like sitting on the grass or messing with each other. I watched them all and smiled. Turning back to the ponies, I noticed Twilight approach and drop a box on the ground next to Rainbows head.

Getting a closer look at her… She didn’t seem to look too good. She had a wide, toothy grin on her face and her mane was a complete mess. Everypony else seemed to be a bit disturbed by her behavior and appearance as well. She just stood there staring at us for a moment before Applejack decided to speak up.

“You alright, hun?” Applejack asked in concern.

“No! I am NOT alright!” Twilight said with a pitiful expression. She was beginning to even get the attention of my Pokémon, as some had stopped what they were doing and watched her in either annoyance or curiosity.

The ponies began muttering in concern. Twilight then explained, with dramatic pauses, that her letter to the princess was just about overdo and that she had yet to learn about anything to send her. The others seemed to take this with a grain of salt however, as they each sighed in relief. I raised an eyebrow at her, as I too was wondering what the big deal was.

“Oh thank goodness; for a second there I thought something awful had happened…” Fluttershy said, relieved.

Twilight then teleported in front of the dispersing ponies to emphasize her frustrations. “Something awful HAS happened! If I don’t turn in the letter on time, I’ll be tardy!!” She shouted in despair. Everypony then started giggling at the mess of a mare. Even I found it to be slightly amusing, but I was still a bit concerned for her.

“Twilight, is this really that big of a deal? I think you might be overreacting just a bit…” I said with a small smirk.

Twilight began fuming with anger, and her face was even starting to turn red. “Overreacting? OVERREACTING?!” She stomped her way over to me. “My reacting is perfectly reasonable! I need to find somepony with a problem before sundown! MY WHOLE LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!” She shouted at me.

She had gotten uncomfortably close to me as she said this, and I stuck a finger to her chest and firmly, yet gently, shoved her away from me. “Why don’t you just chill out, Twilight. I doubt it’s THAT severe. Princess Celestia seems to be a very kind pony to me; I’m sure she’d be fine with you being a bit late on your deadline.” I attempted to reassure her, but not without a slightly unamused look on my face.

“He’s right sugarcube, why don’t ya just have a seat and stop sweatin’ small stuff.” Applejack said with disregard for Twilight’s reactions. Twilight didn’t respond. Instead, she opted to just growl in anger as she trotted away a bit, then teleported to somewhere unknown.

“That was weird… I hope she comes to her senses soon.” I said, slightly worried.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen Twilight so upset before.” Fluttershy agreed.

“Ugh! What a drama queen!” Rarity said. We all just looked at her with deadpanned expressions. She noticed, then added, “relatively speaking…” After that, we all went back to having a good time as the tension that Twilight had caused quickly dissipated.

I soon decided to lay down on the picnic blanket, eyes closed, while munching on a sitrus berry. After relaxing for a good amount of time, tuning out the conversations and activities that the ponies were participating in, I started to feel the ground shake a bit.

Opening my eyes and sitting up from the disturbance, I looked around, trying to figure out just what the commotion was. Suddenly, a large crowd of ponies ran by us, chasing after a mare who was carrying something in her mouth. It happened so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to make out what it was. “What the hell…” I said, taking in the spectacle. All the ponies seemed to by fighting over something. As two pegasi fought for it, they accidentally knocked it nearby, right as Twilight came running over.

She began telling us something as we began looking at it, however, I wasn’t able to make out much as I, and my Pokémon, focused on what it was…

On the ground a few feet from me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. A pony doll, with the most intricate design and noticeable softness I had ever witnessed. I especially liked the thing’s mane. Twilight said something to me and tried to get me to look away from the doll, but I shoved her out of the way and stood up.

“That doll is mine!” I shouted as I noticed many ponies rushing for it. I pointed at it with determination, and looked to the closest Pokémon to it.

“Riolu! Get that doll before anypony else can!” I yelled, wanting the magnificent piece of craftsmanship more and more by the second. Riolu rushed at it as fast as he could and snatched it just in the knick of time. A pony was about to collide with him, but he easily used his agility to dodge out of the way.

“Good job, now give me it!” I shouted to him, but he just shook his head and took off as every Pokémon, pony, and myself began running after it. I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t sad, and I wasn’t dissapointed… All I was feeling was a need to get that masterpiece of a doll into my possession, so I ran after the bipedal dog Pokémon.

A large brawl between pony and Pokémon ensued. Blastoise used his rapid spin to tackle Riolu and steal the doll, but he didn’t have it for long as Dragonite quickly swooped in and grabbed it… Only to have Espeon yank it away from him with her magic. Ditto decided to transform into a second Dragonite and tear it from her magical grasp in attempt to steal it. He was about to fly away with it, but not before I latched onto his tail and climb up his scales, in mid air, reaching for the doll. Ditto attempted to shake me off of him but I was not going to give up. As this was going on, several pegasi and an obsessed looking Dragonite was coming straight at us. Dragonite bowled over the pegasi and went to tackle Ditto, who held up and shoved Dragonite back. The two began shoving each other and I was, with a huge amount of difficulty, inching my way towards the object that I craved so much.

Suddenly, a jet of water came at us and narrowly missed us. Sparing a glance, I noticed Blastoise desperately trying to shoot us down with his Hydro Pump. This only motivated me to try harder. Digging my fingers between Ditto’s scales, I climbed onto his flailing arm in order to get a bit closer to my prize.

Determined, I inched my fingers to it ever so slowly. I narrowed my eyes and felt the world around me slip away. All that I could see now was my arm, the doll just inches away, and could only hear my heartbeat.

…Closer...

*Thump*

…Closer…

*Thump*

Yes! I finally got it! I felt my fingers rap around the doll… But right as I got it, I heard a yell pierce my ears.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!” Everything came into focus again, and I looked around and saw the princess there with her horn glowing brightly. I didn’t care though; I had finally done my greatest achievement by getting the thing I wanted, and needed, the most out of anything else… And then my senses got overwhelmed by magic rushing through me.

I felt dazed for a moment, and was able to realize that I had let go of Ditto and was falling to the ground. Luckily, I landed on top of Blastoise as we both collapsed to the ground.

I heard two thuds, and figured that it was both Dragonites hitting the ground. A moment passed, and I regained my full senses and sat up. I noticed the doll sitting on the ground in front of me… The ugly, ragged old thing that I just realized had consumed my whole desire and ambition. Embarrassed, I kicked the thing with my foot in disregard.

As I did this, I noticed all the ponies dispersing and my Pokémon looking at each other in bewilderment. I looked towards where I saw Princess Celestia from earlier only to find her flying off into the direction of the library. Shrugging, and deciding that she was just here to take care of whatever the hell was going on with the doll, I disregarded it and turned back to the doll, only to find it gone.

I looked to my Pokémon, who all shrugged, and noticed Big Mac, with a heartbroken look on his face, making his way out of the scene. I shrugged, and decided that it was time to leave as the sun had gone down already.

*POV Change – Third Person*

Jordan had decided to head back home, and allow his Pokémon to walk with him. Everyone had forgotten about the mysterious doll that had plagued them not too long ago… All but one certain Pokémon.

As the group of one human plus six Pokémon walked together, one decided to lag behind a bit in precaution. As he did this, he decided to take a certain doll out of his shell and give it a loving hug, before cautiously glancing around. Making sure no one saw the him do it, he stuck the doll back into his shell, out of sight, and continued his walk back home.

A water type Pokémon had gained a new held item that day, and he was going to cherish his new friend for as long as he drew breath.