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Ryan Miller was having a hell of a day.
After being dragged into a whirling multicolored vortex of destruction and pain brought by a mysterious stallion with a ‘magical’ blue box, it suddenly occurred to him that maybe – just maybe – that had been a bad idea.
He screamed wildly through the air, spinning haphazardly toward the earth as they picked up speed. Ryan’s own voice was lost in his ears as he fell alongside screaming ponies and draconequus alike.
“SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!” the words were torn from his lips the moment he spoke them, his beady black eyes nearly blinded by his greasy black hair. Ryan flailed uselessly, the earth drawing closer and closer.
“Everypony!” Twilight screamed over the sound of falling wind, desperately straining to gain the attention of Rarity, Applejack, and the flapping Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash was struggling through the air, but barely managed to stay aloft for long – and Fluttershy was curled up into a tiny little yellow ball. “Everypony, stay close!”
Twilight summoned as much magical energy as she could, funneling every last bit of it into a spell to simultaneously gather her friends and hopefully teleport them all to safety. A bright violet light burned atop her horn, and –
Nothing happened.
Twilight blanched in shock, the fear and panic rising in her in a way that it never had before.
So, not only was she stranded miles above an alien planet on her way down at an alarming rate, but for the first time since before magic kindergarten, Twilight was completely deprived of magic.
Twilight began swearing just as much as Ryan was.
Surprisingly, even Discord, who had apparently been dragged along with them, looked pretty freaked out. However, he was handling the situation with unnatural speed, winding through the air in a serpentine fashion as he fell.
“Grab onto me!” Discord shouted over the wind, the ground coming closer and faster. “Before the temporal rift closes completely!”
Which begged the question as to precisely why a living god with nearly limitless power would be panicking. Twilight’s suspicion grew, and he finally tore away from her in despair as he threw himself around a couple of the other ponies.
There was a flash of brilliant indigo light above them, and Twilight knew no more.
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A single lightly tanned hand burst out of the sand, scrabbling weakly into the air.
Ryan gasped for breath, pulling himself feebly from the dirt. He hacked and coughed into his dirty shirt, shaking sand from his pants and shoes as he struggled to free himself from the earth’s grasp. Ryan simply lay on the ground for a while, the hot sun bearing down on him and crisping him neatly.
He could worry about the intense heat later.
He was alive.
Which seemed rather bizarre, considering the fact that he had just been ludicrously high in the sky, along with –
“Twilight!” Ryan jerked up sorely, stumbling around the desert. The sun shined brightly off of the sand, stinging his eyes as he peered around for the unicorn. There was no sight of her whatsoever.
Panic stung the back of his tongue, and his heart pounded loudly in his ears. Feverishly, Ryan began digging through the sand with his bare hands, shouting madly the whole while.
“Twilight!” Ryan screamed, digging faster and harder. “Hang on, kid! I’ll dig ya out, I’m comin’, I’m comin’!”
“Ryan.”
“Don’t stop me now!” Ryan flung up a hand toward the staring unicorn, just long enough to end her protest before he continued violently digging. “Gimme a minute, kid, I gotta dig out – Twilight!”
Twilight grunted when Ryan threw his arms around her neck, cackling madly. He couldn’t quite tell why she looked a little off, but at this point, Ryan just didn’t care.
“You’re alive!” Ryan cheered, slowly peeled away by the disturbed unicorn. “Holy shitballs, kid! We’re alive! How did you do that?”
It was then that Ryan backed away a couple of paces, goofy overexcited grin still plastered on his face before it sunk in. Twilight didn’t quite look the same because his perception had altered, just as it had done when he first arrived in Equestria – and he saw her as he saw things before, like he was back in his own world.
Twilight seemed to have come to this conclusion herself long previously, as she was still throwing troubled glances at him and herself.
“I didn’t,” she answered quietly, looking around the burning desert with squinted eyes. “I-I think Discord just saved us.”
“The fucked up puzzle-piece dude?” Ryan straightened his back, pouring some more sand out of his shoe. Now that he was certain that he wasn’t about to be flattened like the world’s worst meat-pancake, Ryan could focus a little more on just what he was supposed to do now. “Why would he do that?”
“Ryan,” Twilight began slowly, again attempting to reach for power that wouldn’t answer. “Just what did you do.”
He stared hard at her for a minute, his old hostility replacing the thrill of being not-dead.
“The fuck d’you mean, what did I do?” he shrugged. “I just did what the Doctor guy said. I fucked up the time machine and saved the world.”
“I am almost positive that’s not what he said,” Twilight argued as they began walking, trudging through the heavy sand. The overbearing heat was so sweltering that Twilight desperately wished that she had a few ice cubes to hide beneath.
“Close enough,” Ryan shrugged, stumbling alongside her. “I stopped ‘im, didn’t I?”
“Idiot!” Twilight snapped, stamping the sandy ground. “You – you moron!” she shouted, actually surprising him a little. “Ryan, we might as well all be doomed now!”
“Uh, kid –”
“You blithering oaf! Do you have any idea what kind of disasters you might have caused, tearing apart a paradox device? Trapped in an alien dimension with no idea where we are –”
“Kid.”
“- with no idea where Discord took my friends –”
“Kid.”
“- and no magic to do anything at all! That’s like losing an appendage, you blundering, stupid, INSUFFERABLE –!”
“Twilight!” Ryan bellowed, causing her to lurch back. She breathed heavily, her left eye twitching hard.
Ryan silently pointed toward a dirty cement road, the highway winding far into the distance as a single tumbleweed blew across it.
“… Oh,” Twilight said simply. “… Well. That is most certainly… convenient.”
Ryan snorted, stumbling to the road and looking around hopefully for the nonexistent vehicle that would spare them a lot of walking.
“You know what would be more convenient? Not bein’ in fucking Arizona.”
Twilight gawked at the roadsign, the strange symbols on it swimming before her eyes in the heat.
“Er… what’s an ‘Arizona’?”
“The devil’s anus, that’s what,” Ryan grumbled bitterly as he started down the long highway, the uncomfortable sweat making him regret not digging deeper into the sand and waiting until nighttime.
“So… now what?” she asked in confusion, honestly out of answers. Twilight had no idea where she was, and could only follow the same ‘idiot’ that had gotten her into this mess. The ‘Doctor’ stallion and future Discord were nowhere to be seen, along with their mysterious blue box – and the younger Discord had snatched her friends away before she could manage to even save herself.
‘Now what’ was a damned good question.
“Now?” Ryan seethed, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Now we get dirty and tear it the fuck up.”
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Fluttershy freefell through the air, Rainbow Dash’s hooves jerked roughly away from her as a violet light overtook her.
For what felt like the longest time, Fluttershy only felt as if she were falling forever.
Without warning, Fluttershy burst through a tiny sliver, jittering and skidding across hard, cruel pavement.
She cried out as one of her wings snapped, and she tried to roll with the landing. Curling herself into the tightest ball that she could, Fluttershy rolled over the asphalt in confusion and pain, finally coming to a whimpering halt at the base of an old iron fence.
Unsure of whether or not she had passed out at some point, Fluttershy pried open her aching eyes and blearily tried to drag herself to her hooves. She winced in agony, her stiff left hind leg bleeding badly. Fluttershy wasn’t certain of how badly the other landing injuries had been, but it felt as if she had busted her lip as well. Her right wing didn’t respond to her commands anymore, and it took all of her strength just to keep standing.
Fluttershy steeled herself, forcing her breathing down and tried to remain calm as spots danced before her eyes. It was extremely difficult to see, but that may have been because of the dark.
Strange. She could have sworn that it was daytime just a couple of minutes ago.
Wearily stumbling forward on shaking hooves, Fluttershy involuntarily dragged herself forward, no matter where forward may have been. It was difficult for her eyes to focus, and she feared that she may have been partially blinded – however, her eyes adjusted eventually, and it threw her off even further to discover that her perception had… shifted.
It was as if she were looking through a pair of tinted shades.
This whole world seemed darker, more finely detailed. Fluttershy stared in awe at a single tree trunk behind the iron fence for far too long, fascinated by the incredibly minute detail of every grain and whorl. It was as if just a single piece of the world had been touched by an artistic god’s hand, every last aspect masterfully crafted in such a hypnotic way.
Fluttershy didn’t know how much longer she would have spent, completely satisfied staring at a piece of wood were it not for the intense pain. She almost fainted again, but tiredly managed to drag herself a little further through the wooded area, which seemed to be some kind of park.
For hours on end, Fluttershy wandered.
Had it really been hours?
Was she simply dragging herself in circles?
Perhaps she had hit her head harder than she thought, as Fluttershy finally stumbled toward the sound of running water. Spotting a glinting metal shelter in the dark, Fluttershy frailly flopped beneath it, her heavy breathing the last sound in her ears before passing out on the gravel.
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The splash of water was dulled by the sound of the wind, and a single trail of cigarette smoke wandered lazily into the air, only to be blown apart moments later.
Were one to notice the shadow of the mountainous man that dusted his hands silently, one might notice that the intimidating shadow was the least frightening thing about him. Standing several heads above the average man, the musclebound hulk cracked his neck, rolling his bald head around his shoulders with a practiced grace that years of training provided him.
He exhaled through his nose silently, the shorter – albeit, possibly even more dangerous – man behind him flicking the butt of his cigarette into the river.
He wouldn’t even still be doing these kinds of jobs if they could solve their current ‘financial issues’.
“Ain’t got all night, Bruno.”
“Yes, sir,” the gargantuan beast of a man rumbled with a voice like pebbles on sandpaper. To any unfortunate passersby, it might have seemed rather strange that such an enormous man bowed so readily to the commands of the shorter, stubbly one with an eye patch. However, the eye patch only complemented the curved scar just along his cheek; both parting gifts that he easily could have lived without.
Bruno slipped the keys into the Hummer, the specifically modified ignition rumbling quietly to life as the bulletproof armored vehicle roared with the force of a caged tiger. Bruno loved the sound of starting engines; they reminded him of his time as a marine. It almost brought a rare smile to his thick, stony face.
Almost.
Bruno waited in the vehicle for a couple of moments, before realizing that his employer hadn’t actually gotten inside.
“Sir?” Bruno asked, tingling of paranoia rising.
“Hol-ee shit, Bruno,” his boss whispered, kneeling just beside the vehicle. The demonic grin spreading over his features made a creeping shiver crawl up Bruno’s spine, and as he turned to him, Bruno saw just why the malicious smile spread even wider.
The battered yellow pegasus lying limply in his arms answered a great number of his questions, and gave him many, many more questions with no answers at all.
“Bruno,” Carlos Caesar grinned. “I think I just solved our financial issues.”
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Author's Note
And...
Here-
We-
GO.
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“Hold – Ryan, hold up!”
“I heard ya the first time,” he waved her off flippantly, wiping the burning sweat from his brow and trudging down the endless road in misery. “Maybe you should pick up the fucking pace.”
“Ryan, this is ridiculous,” Twilight seethed, tramping after him as the sun beat down on their backs. “We have no idea where we are, and if we don’t find some kind of shelter and water soon, we’re both going to die of the heat!”
“Well?” Ryan whirled on the spot, glaring angrily down at her. “Why don’t you use your precious fuckin’ magic to whip some water out of the air?”
“One,” Twilight glowered back at him. “That’s not how magic works. And two, I already told you, I don’t even have access to magic. It must have been because of something that Discord did. Why won’t you listen to me for once?”
But he was already back to stomping further down the road, muttering foul curses under his breath. Twilight sighed heavily, the pressure headache growing from the stress. Why couldn’t she have been stranded with Rainbow Dash, or Applejack? To be honest, Twilight almost would have preferred the mad draconequus’s company compared to the foul mouthed human’s, but these were the cards she was dealt.
But it wasn’t as if something like that had ever stopped her before. Twilight wasn’t some pony to just roll over for the effects of chance, she was going to do something about it. Or at least, she swore as much as she bitterly tramped after Ryan over the cracked desert highway. She hated being deprived of magic; it was like missing one of her most important appendages, and it left her feeling horribly helpless and exposed to the elements.
They must have traveled for what felt like hours, occasionally stopping to catch their breath. It wasn’t until Ryan suddenly picked up the pace that Twilight was groggily drawn back to reality, and she gradually realized that she really might die out here.
“H-hang on,” she croaked through her parched throat, stumbling after him. “Slow down!”
“Kid!” Ryan pointed out gleefully at something in the distance, just off to the left of the road. “Look; gas station!”
“What?”
“Shelter!” Ryan huffed gleefully, his eyes bloodshot. “Meaning that there’s water – probably food and air conditioning, too!”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” she snagged at the ripped hem of his shirt, only for him to jerk excitedly away from her and power on faster. “Ryan – Ryan, stop. It’s probably just a mirage, you’re going – hey, I see it, too!”
“Fucking told you!” he cheered, cackling maniacally as they drew closer. And it proved that he was right; there was a dirty red brick building not too far ahead with bizarre containers outside it and beneath a large overhanging wooden structure that cast a short patch of shade. A couple of tumbleweeds bounced across the road, and Ryan kicked one of them halfheartedly as they finally drew closer.
His manic grin slowly began to fade, and he thought quickly.
“… What?” Twilight suddenly grew wary, looking around nervously as he was. “What is it?”
“Shit,” he breathed heavily, running a hand through his sweat drenched black hair. “I just thought – kid, you’re gonna have to stay here for a second.”
“What?” Twilight blinked, offended. “And stay out in the heat when there might be water nearby?”
Ryan cringed, and said “Think about it, kid,” he peered around to see through the gas station’s dirty windows. “You remember what happened when I first saw ya?”
The unicorn nodded thoughtfully, and shrugged. “I don’t suppose that causing a panic would be anything good. Please just be quick, I think I’m going to die out here.”
He pointed out a spot beside the wall to the side of the building where a small blue worn down pickup truck sat. Twilight ogled it for a few seconds as he pointed where she could stake out, and within moments Ryan was inside the shop.
He was awash with a breath of cool air the second he trundled inside, and he embraced it with a short lived grin. It looked more like a small tourist shop than anything, but with a handful of expensive concessions. The tiny bell that tinkled surprisingly loudly whenever he entered drew the attention of a wizened old clerk from the back, who beamed friendlily at him as he entered.
“Mornin’!” he nodded to the sweat drenched Ryan. “Didn’t even hear you pull up. New to the local climate, aren’t you?” the old man gave him a toothy smirk, hobbling over to the cash register.
“Y-yeah,” Ryan nodded absentmindedly, thinking quickly. It had been so long since he’d had actual human companionship that for a split second, he wasn’t quite certain of how to respond. However, it did suddenly occur to him that he had absolutely no money, because his wallet was probably somewhere back in Equestria. Not like he had much money in it, anyway.
“Uh,” Ryan blurted. “You got a phone? Mine’s...”
Dead from being in another world for too long?
“Oh, sure, sure!” the geezer nodded amicably, tottering off behind the counter to a back room.
Ryan was careful to watch him go, taking careful inventory of the place. The moment the wooden door snapped shut behind the old man as he went for a phone, Ryan’s first move was to disable the security camera in the corner. He made a quick grab for one of the paper bags, swiftly and carefully jamming it over the plastic device and slipping away from it. Without stopping, Ryan began rifling behind the counter for something, anything he could find; money, keys, something. He thought that he bumped something cool and hard, but couldn't get a proper grip on it in time. He scowled when he found nothing of use, jerking away fast when he heard the old man returning.
“Here you go!” he happily handed Ryan the worn corded telephone. “Go right ahead, sonny.”
Ryan nodded wordlessly, jabbing the dials with slightly shaking hands. So long as he could manage to find some way to distract the aging man again, he could-
The old man’s eyes flickered over to the security camera in the corner, and Ryan froze just as the phone began ringing.
… Shit.
“Ryan?”
The back of his neck prickled when he heard Twilight’s voice, and he dropped the phone immediately.
“What in the hell…?” the shopkeeper balked at the uncertain unicorn, and Ryan swore angrily.
“Dammit, I said stay outside!” he shouted, but froze again when he heard the familiar click.
“Now, you jus’ stay right where you are,” the old man breathed heavily, the shotgun bumping lightly against the back of Ryan’s head. “No funny business, nobody makes no moves here-”
Ryan dropped and kicked back hard at the same time, the deafening blast of the shotgun roaring. Twilight screamed, but it was lost in the roar of the weapon. In the same swift motion, Ryan grappled for the sawed off shotgun, twisting it around and ignoring the incomprehensible shouting coming from the assailant. He yanked and twisted again, heart pounding loudly in his ears as he forcefully jammed the barrel away from himself and up toward the shopkeeper –
Another loud bang filled the air as the second shot was released, and the whole place fell silent.
Twilight stood in stunned silence as Ryan finally stood, wiping the blood off of himself.
“… Oh, Celestia,” she breathed finally, staring in shock and outright horror.
“Check the register.”
Twilight gaped at him, the sudden urge to vomit rising as she tried not to look at the mess of the unmoving shopkeeper.
“I – I don’t – what? Just, what? Oh my Celestia, Ryan, what the buck?!”
“Self-defense,” he shrugged remorselessly, smearing some of the blood from his face with his elbow. “Get what you can from the register. I’ll see if he has some keys on him, we’ll take his truck and get out while we can. We need to make sure that we get th’ security tape, too.”
Ryan moved with a practiced stride, but Twilight simply stood there in revulsion.
“Today, kid,” Ryan rolled a bloodied hand through the air, as if he were discussing the weather. She noticed that his hands were shaking, but not nearly as badly as she was.
“You killed him!” she cringed, desperately trying not to look at the body. “You – oh, Celestia, oh Celestia you killed him!”
“Yeah, I got that part,” Ryan nodded, and swallowed. He carefully picked the man’s pockets clean, taking a wallet and the keys he was looking for. “Grab some food an’ shit, we gotta go.”
Ryan wasted no time in digging around the store for a box of matches, and Twilight watched him take off for the back room again. He returned within the minute, finding the unicorn still unmoving.
“Kid!” he barked. “Quit standin’ around, I said we gotta go!”
She was yanked back to the situation, forcefully shaking herself. The stench of sulfur was beginning to tickle her nose, and she followed Ryan outside with one last glance backward.
Twilight wanted desperately to go back in time, now more than ever.
It was her fault.
It was all her fault that the old man had died, her fault that the slowly billowing smoke behind them was filling the air.
There might as well have been blood on her hooves. She trudged along behind Ryan in a stupor, as if it were happening to somepony else, or it were just a dream. The rumble of the odd vehicle and the growl of its engine distracted her, although she barely registered it as they peeled away.
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