Isaiah lay on the couch watching the newest episode of the Walking Dead, and wondering if perhaps the pizza guy had gotten lost again. He sighed as he continued to watch the show with little interest. Lately he felt as if he was in a rut that he couldn't escape from, he supposed that this sort of thing happened to even the best of people and he was hardly the best. As he sat there in a daze his phone suddenly started to vibrate. He paused the show and pulled out his phone. It was another call from Austin, he probably just wanted to chat like always. Isaiah decided to answer the call since there was not much else going on.
"Hello," he said.
"Hey Isaiah, what's up?" asked Austin.
"Not really anything, just watching the Walking Dead while I wait for my pizza to get here,"
"The Walking Dead huh? Is it the one where-"
"Shhhhh shut up! No spoilers I don't want you to ruin any more episodes you jerk," he shouted "I know you do it on purpose."
Austin laughed "Alright, alright I won't spoil anything for ya. What about My Little Pony? Can I talk about the season three finale, you've seen that haven't you?"
"Yeah I've seen it, what's there to talk about?" he asked.
"Well for starters we could talk about the fact that Twilight has wings now! That's pretty exciting," he said.
"If you say so," Isaiah said.
"What's the matter? Not a fan of Princess Twilight Sparkle?" he taunted.
"No, I'm fine with it now, when they first announced it I was pretty mad, but now I'm okay with it,"
"Yeah I understand, I was basically the same way," he said.
"So how are you doing Austin?" he asked.
"I'm fine, not really doing much right now. I'm still trying to find someone who will publish my damn book," he said angrily.
Austin had been trying to publish a fantasy novel for sometime now. Isaiah had read his friend's book and it was pretty good, but so far nobody was willing to give his book a chance.
"That sucks man, I'm sure you'll get it eventually," he said "You just need to keep trying."
"I don't know, lately things have just seemed... unbearable," he said "I just wish something would change around here,"
"What do you mean?," Isaiah asked.
"I don't know if it's this place or if it's just me, but everything just seems dull and unimportant. Maybe I need a change of scenery, or a girlfriend or something," he said.
"I know what you mean, I sort of feel the same way. I mean I have no job, no money, and almost no friends! I just feel like I don't have a purpose," Isaiah said.
"Amen to that brother. You know, we should really hang out more," Austin said.
Isaiah smiled, "Yeah we should."
Isaiah's conversation was interrupted by the ringing of his doorbell, "Oh, sounds like the pizza is here, I gotta go, I'll talk to you later."
"Alright, bye Isaiah."
"Bye Austin."
Isaiah hung up the phone and set it down on the table before getting up and walking to the door. He opened the door to find an awkward, gangly looking teenager holding his pizza.
"That'll be twelve dollars," he said handing Isaiah the pizza.
Isaiah reached into his pocket and gave him fifteen dollars.
"Keep the change."
The delivery boy said nothing and went back to his car and drove away unnecessarily fast.
"Jerk," Isaiah huffed angrily.
He went back into the living room and started up the show again. He opened the pizza box, grabbed a slice, and began to eat as he watched. After finishing the episode and his pizza, Isaiah crawled off of the couch and headed into the bedroom. It was a modest bedroom, but it was his bedroom. He lay down on his bed and opened up his laptop. His homepage was cluttered with more news stories about wars and kidnappings and other generally despicable things.
Isaiah opened up a new tab and went to Equestria Daily to see if there was any new information about season four. When he saw there wasn't any he closed the tab and visited his favorite pony tumblrs to see if anything worthwhile had been posted lately. There wasn't anything worthwhile, he hated this break between seasons, but at least it would be over in a few weeks. He sighed, and closed his laptop and placed it on his nightstand. He lay there on his bed thinking about life. What kind of life was this? He had a decent upbringing, parents that loved him, and had gone through college and earned a degree in business, and yet he had nothing to show for it. He had no money, no girlfriend, and even the house wasn't his, it was his parents rental property. Sometimes he wished he could just do it all over again.
At that moment he noticed a shooting star pass by his window. Without even realizing it he began to wish.
'I wish I could start a new life in a new place, a place far away from the problems of the world. It would be a shame to have to leave this neighborhood behind, I mean the only friends I have are neighbors of mine.' he thought.
"Ah, who am I kidding? I'll never move somewhere better, this is probably the best I can get anyway." he muttered to himself.
He laid his head down on his pillow and closed his eyes. He drifted off to sleep quickly, already forgetting the shooting star and the wish.
* * *
Isaiah awoke to the noonday sun rays shining in his eyes. He raised his arms up and stumbled out of bed trying to shield himself from the offensive light. He shut his blinds, finally blocking out the light. Isaiah sighed in relief.
'That's better, I'm glad I at least got to sleep in Usually I would have to be at work by- wait.'
Isaiah ran to his alarm clock only to find it out of power. Now beginning to panic Isaiah pulled out his phone to find that it was 12:45.
"OH GOD! I'm late! I'm late for work!" Isaiah yelled in alarm.
He rushed into the bathroom, quickly undressed, stepped into the shower, turned the faucet, and a small stream of cold water gushed out before the flow stopped.
"What the hell is this?" he said.
Isaiah didn't know what was going on. First his alarm clock doesn't go off and now his shower wouldn't work. He wondered if the power might be out, but even if it was he should still have water. He flicked the light switch on and off a few times. When no light came forth he huffed angrily and ran back into his room to get ready as best he could for work.
After dressing he made his way into the kitchen to grab a quick meal to eat. Seeing a cluster of still fresh bananas, Isaiah grabbed one and began to eat. While he ate his banana he thought about the apparent power outage.
'Guess I'm going to have to call someone about that and maybe a plumber as well,' he thought.
He grabbed his keys and ran outside to his car. The car started up just fine, so he pulled out of his driveway and headed down the street to work. As Isaiah drove he noticed that there was an unusually large amount of his neighbors milling about. Some where in groups talking together, others where wandering about almost as if in a daze. He saw others going from door to door and talking to the residents of each home.
'I wonder if power for the whole neighborhood is out?,' he thought.
By now Isaiah was becoming a little concerned with what was going on. Earlier it had just been an annoyance, but maybe something terrible had happened that he didn't know about. Isaiah tried to push those thoughts out of his mind while he drove. There was no sense in being paranoid. It worked for a while, until he reached the entrance to the neighborhood.
"Okay, what the fuck."
Just outside of his neighborhood, where the road should have been, were rolling hills with a huge forest to the left. Just outside of the entrance of the neighborhood was a small group of cars and people all milling about talking to each other. Some looked scared, others looked angry, but most just looked confused. Isaiah parked his car next to the others and stepped outside. He didn't notice it earlier but the air was... cleaner. Isaiah saw Austin in the crowd. He waved and Austin waved back with a slightly forced smile on his face. He walked over to Austin.
"Good morning Austin," he said.
"Good morning Isaiah," he replied.
"So, umm any idea what the hell is going on?" Isiah asked.
"No, no one really has any idea, everyone just woke up to find that there's no power, no running water, and no internet. And if that weren't enough, the whole neighborhood seems to have been... moved," he said.
"Yeah but moved where, and how?" he asked.
"Nobody knows, there's no GPS signal and nobody can contact anybody over the phone or the web. It's almost like all the satellites are just gone, as for how we got here, that is even less clear."
"Some people are saying that it must have been an EMP of some kind," he said.
"What does that stand for?" Isaiah asked.
"Don't know but I heard Barry explain it. He said that a nuclear explosion could generate this massive energy wave that would cause all the electronics to fail or something."
"Woah, are you saying we got nuked? Is America under attack," Isaiah Asked with panic beginning to seep into his voice.
"I, I really don't know well enough to say. If you want to know more you should ask Barry about. He's the skinny black guy with the blue cap," Austin said pointing at Barry.
Isaiah turned to look where Austin was pointing. Now that he saw Barry, he remembered seeing him before, probably just around the neighborhood, but Isaiah seemed to remember that he was nice and very smart.
"Oi! You two over there, come here."
Isaiah and Austin turned to see who had shouted at them. It was a tall man wearing jeans and a hunting jacket. Isaiah could see a hunting rifle slung across his back.
"Are you talking to us?" Austin asked.
"Yes I'm talking to you, get over here. We're having a discussion about what our next course of action should be," he said.
Austin looked at Isaiah and he just shrugged. He supposed that they might as well since they didn't have any idea what to do. Of those in the group, Isaiah recognized only two of them. The first was Barry, the second person he recognized as well. Her name was Jasmine and she lived right across the street from him and was infamously known for her massive parties that occasionally led to certain "incidents". The other two, including the man with rifle, were totally unknown to Isaiah. The other man was short and bald. He was wearing an expensive looking suit and sweating dearly for his choice of clothing. They walked over to the group of four and listened to what was being discussed.
"We need to try and find civilization. There is surely other people out there, we just have to find them," said Barry.
"What we need, is to find out what's going on," said Jasmine.
"How do you plan on doing that? We don't even know what's happened," said the neighbor that Isaiah didn't know.
"Maybe we could send some people out to look around?" Isaiah said somewhat shocked that he even said anything.
"Who are you?" asked the man in the suit.
"I'm Isaiah, I live here too," he replied.
"Well, what qualifies you to make those kinds of suggestions?" he asked
"What? Since when does somebody need to be qualified to make a suggestion?" Isaiah asked.
"You think you're cute? You think this is all some big joke?" he began advancing towards Isaiah with anger clearly displayed on his face.
Barry stopped him by placing his hand on the short man's chest. "You need to calm down, I know that everyone is a bit on edge, but this is not the time to start turning on each other," The man looked like he wanted to slug Barry in the face and probably would have to if not for the mountain of a man watching him with a hand near the rifle slung across his back.
"You better know what you're doing Barry, for your own sake and everyone else's, especially my family" The man walked back to his car and drove back into the neighborhood. The rest of the group split up and went back to their respective cars, except for Barry who stayed with Isaiah and Austin.
"Don't worry to be much about him, he's just confused and scared. Hell I certainly don't blame him." said Barry.
"Thanks for that, I'm Isaiah, I don't know if you know me," he said.
"I've seen you around before, but I've never personally met you, it's a pleasure," he reached out and grabbed Isaiah's hand and gave it a firm shake.
"Your idea is not a bad one, despite Mr. Cooper's response. If you can get some others to go along with it, I'll come with you," he said.
Now Isaiah was beginning to regret saying anything.
"Oh, I'm not really sure that I would be much help," Isaiah said
"Nonsense, you were the one who came up with best idea while everyone else just panicked. Wether you realize it or not you helped calm these people," said Barry.
Isaiah opened his mouth to say something, but closed it not really knowing how to respond to Barry's assertion that he was some sort of leader.
"Why don't you go talk to Forrest, I'm sure he'd be willing to take you and some others to scout around in his truck," said Barry.
"Who?"
"The Australian with the rifle, he's a nice guy just a little... eccentric at times," he said.
Isaiah looked at Forrest he was leaning up against his pickup truck talking with Jasmine.
"Can I come too?" asked Austin.
"Sure, but why do you want to come?" Isaiah asked.
"Are you kidding, this is the sort of adventure I've been looking for. I've been trying to find something fresh to write about and this seems like a good start to me!" he said enthusiastically.
Isaiah nodded and began walking over to Forrest with Austin and Barry in tow. When Forrest saw them approaching he stopped his conversation to address the group approaching him.
"Hello," said Isaiah friendly.
"What do you all want?" he asked.
"Well we were wondering if you would mind taking us in your truck to explore our surroundings in hopes of finding civilization," said Isaiah.
"Why don't you just take your own car?" he asked.
"Well, our cars aren't exactly built for off-road, and yours certainly is," Isaiah said fully appreciating the hulking beast of steel. It looked like it had been heavily modded and could probably drive through a small forest end come out unscathed.
"Please, you'd be helping everyone if we can find someone to help us," said Barry.
Forrest considered this before saying "Sure why not, I'll take you around if you think it will help, come on climb in,"
"I'm coming too!" said Jasmine.
Forrest looked at her strangely "You sure?"
She shrugged "It's better than staying here."
"Fine, everyone get in. Let's go!" Forrest shouted.
They all climbed into Forrest's truck as he started up the ignition. Isaiah looked out the window. He had never seen this area before, but it somehow looked familiar. He shrugged off the feeling as the truck started rolling and journeyed out into the unknown and away from their neighborhood.
* * *
Twilight was sleeping peacefully after a long night of studying up on here new duties as a princess. It had been exciting but utterly exhausting and she was content to sleep in just a little later than usual. She was a princess now, after all. That's why she didn't much appreciate being roused from her slumber by a magical tidal wave that crashed through the library. Her eyes shot open and her horn started to glow from the ridiculous amount of magic released by something. The magical wave was followed by a physical blast of energy that knocked over several stacks of books and sent Twilight tumbling to the floor.
"Oof! Ow, my wing!" Twilight cried out.
"Twilight! Are you all right? What was that?" Spike said helping her to her hooves.
"I have no idea, but I think it's going to be one of those days," sighed Twilight.
Suddenly a rainbow blur came crashing through Twilight's bedroom.
"Twilight! What was that, it knocked me off my cloud I was napping on!" said a disgruntled Rainbow Dash.
"You're not the only one, and I have no idea what caused it," said Twilight.
"So, you didn't have anything to do with it? You're not practicing any weird spells that can destroy Ponyville are you?" Rainbow asked bluntly.
"Rainbow Dash, have a little faith, I would only practice those sort of spells with the utmost regard for safety," Twilight said.
"That's... comforting, so if you didn't cause it then do you think it could have anything to do with the thing that appeared near the Everfree Forest?" Rainbow asked.
"The what?" asked Twilight.
"I don't know it was kind of hard to see what it was from wear I was flying, but it looked like a collection of houses or something," she said.
"Oh well maybe, that blast did sort of feel similar to an aftershock of a teleportation spell, but on a much larger scale, I don't know how that could happen though, nopony, besides maybe Celestia, could pull off a spell with that much energy involved. I don't know who or what is responsible, but we definitely need to find out. Dash can you go investigate these 'houses', when you do come back and tell me what you saw, just make sure you don't get to close." said Twilight.
"You got it!" Rainbow said taking off in a blur of color.
"Spike, take a note," Twilight said.
Spike grabbed a quill and parchment from the nightstand.
"Ready?" Twilight asked.
"Ready!"
Twilight cleared her throat "Dear Princess Celestia..."
Author's Note
Wow hey! I'm not dead!
I wrote a new story, sorry If you were hoping for an update to Cultural Exchange I'm sorry and I promise It's coming.
I hope you like this just as much (or more) as CE
If you were wondering where I have been, apart from work and school starting back up, I also received The complete series of House M.D. as well as Fallout New Vegas.
There really is no excuse, but I procrastinate. Sorry.
But I have started to get back into the whole writing thing so hopeful there will be new chapters of Cultural Exchange soon as well as more of this if you like it!
Chapter 2: A Fine Welcome to You
Rainbow Dash flew swiftly towards the Everfree Forest. Long before she arrived at the forest's border she noticed the large group of structures all along the edge.
"There's gotta be hundreds of them! Where did they even come from?"
As she reached the first of the structures she was able to see bipedal creatures of various sizes. They didn't have any hair on their bodies except for their manes and they seemed to be agitated about something. A few of them took notice of her and began pointing up at her. Not wanting to disturb the... whatever they were, Rainbow Dash quickly descended to one of the random patches of grass that seemed to be behind all of the cottages.
The first thing she noticed was that the grass wasn't as soft as she was used to. It was also a lot darker in color. She lowered her muzzle to the ground and gave it an experimental taste.
Immediately upon tasting the grass Rainbow spit it out gagging violently.
"Ugh, I know grass isn't the tastiest thing ever, but this isn't even edible!"
All of a sudden she heard the sound of a door opening somewhere. She turned her head and saw that one of the smaller creatures with a short blonde mane and wearing a light pink dress had just come out of the cottage. Upon seeing Dash the little creature froze.
Rainbow Dash tensed herself trying to anticipate anything that might happen. The small creature smiled so wide that even Pinkie Pie would have been impressed and started to jump up and down in obvious excitement.
~"It's Rainbow Dash! It's Rainbow Dash! Mommy come quick Rainbow Dash is outside!"~
Rainbow Dash had not anticipated this. She thought that the small creature would be afraid or angry, but not excited. She supposed that perhaps her awesomeness transcended even words. Her musings were interrupted by the appearance of a larger creature who seemed similar in appearance to that of the small creature in every way except for stature.
~"Honey, I told you not to bother mommy right now, she is very- what is that thing!?"~
~"I told you mommy, it's Rainbow Dash!"~
~"Emily, go back inside"~
~"But mommy! It's the real Rainbow Dash."~
~"Now young lady or no desert for a week."~
She made a harrumph and returned inside ~"Don't mess with Rainbow Dash mommy, she isn't afraid of anything!"~
~"Thank you sweetie I'll remember that"~
The smaller of the creatures went back into it's cottage and the larger one slid the door closed.
She definitely did not have the same aura of excitement about her as the little one, in fact Rainbow Dash thought she seemed rather frightened.
~"Go away! Shoo!"~ it said while waving her arms towards Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow leapt into the air and hovered back a few feet away from the creature.
"Hey, what's your problem?" Dash asked annoyed and confused by the creature's sudden anger.
~"I mean it you better get out of here!"~ it yelled at her.
"What is wrong with you? I'm not here to hurt you I'm just here to investigate for a friend of mine, that's all I swear"
The creature began looking around until it picked up what Rainbow assumed was a rake which it then began to hold in a defensive posture.
~"Mommy don't hurt Rainbow Dash!"~
~"Sweetie you need to stay inside this is a strange animal and it might be dangerous"~
Rainbow reached out with her front hoof in a gesture of friendship "Hey come on take it easy, there's no need for this can't we all just relax and-" but before Rainbow could even finish talking the creature turned back towards Rainbow Dash and jabbed the rake towards her.
She nimbly dodged out of the way of the creature's strike. "Fine if you don't want to act civil then I'm outta here." Rainbow Dash took off and flew back towards Ponyville. 'Jeez what was that all about' Dash thought
* * *
As Sharon watched the brightly colored horse thing fly away she lowered the rake to the ground and let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.
"What was that thing?"
"I told you mommy, it was Rainbow Dash!"
"Sure it was sweetie, I'm just glad that you're alright" She said with a sigh while reaching down to give her daughter a hug.
"Of course I'm fine mommy, why wouldn't I be?" she asked innocently.
For her daughter's sake Sharon hoped that she was right. She wondered if this day could get any stranger.
* * *
"This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger," said Jasmine as she stared out the window of Forrest's truck.
"It is rather strange to say the least, no power, no satellite signal, and no utilities like plumbing or heating," said Barry.
"It's not even all that which concerns me most, it's where are we and how did we get here?"
"Well that's what we're trying to find out by going on this little adventure isn't it?" Asked Forrest without taking his eyes off of the landscape in front of him.
"You got to admit that it is rather beautiful," said Barry.
Forrest only grunted in response. As Isiah stared out the window at the passing scenery he began to get the strangest feeling about the area. It seemed oddly familair to him and he had no idea why. He decided to voice his feelings.
"Does anyone else feel like they've seen this place before?"
Everyone looked at him and shook their heads. "No I can't say that I do. Why does this place seem familiar to you?" asked Barry.
"I'm not sure, I don't remember where or why this place feels familiar, but I'm getting a vague sense of Déjà vu."
Austin looked outside once more and slowly said "I'm starting to feel it too, it's like the feeling you get right after waking up from a dream and you try to remember it and all you get are like really fuzzy images and not a whole lot of details, man that's kinda spooky."
"So do you know where we are or not?" asked Jasmine.
"I can't really say I do either, sorry."
Jasmine stared at him blankly clearly not impressed by his uncertainty. Austin just shrugged and returned to staring out the window.
"What's that up there?" asked Forrest.
"What where? I don't see anything."
Barry looked out the window "I can just make something out right over that hill, it looks like a town."
"What? Where? Let me see!" Jasmine said unbuckling her seat belt and moving up into the front of the truck.
"See right over there just over that hill," Barry said pointing.
"I see it! I see it! Yes, civilization, finally we can get some answers about what the hell is going on."
Isaiah squinted and was just able to make out the beginnings of a town over the hill.
Everyone began to stare ahead in silent excitement over the prospect of getting help and answers from other people. Forrest sped up a little an the steadily got closer and closer to the town. When they were about halfway to the town Austin suddenly gasped.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.
"What, what is it? Is everything alright?" Jasmine asked.
Austin ignored her and turned to Isaiah and grabbed his shoulders "Dude, look do you see it, do you see where we fucking are!" He practically screamed his voice sounding very cheerful.
Isaiah looked at the town. It did appear rather strange for an american town. Most of the houses seemed to have thatched roofs and the streets seemed to be made of cobblestone, there was even a giant oak tree that seemed-
"Oh my god. No way." Isaiah said in disbelief finally recognizing the town and why this place felt so familiar.
"Aw yeah he sees it now!" Austin squealed in delight practically jumping up and down in excitement.
"Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?" Forrest asked.
But Isaiah could do nothing but sit in dumbfounded amazement, for just over the hill was Ponyville.
* * *
Twilight Sparkle was pacing around her library anxiously. Where was Rainbow Dash? She should have been back by now. her pacing was interrupted by a knock at the door.
She raced to the door, eager to hear what rainbow dash had discovered from her fly over the area outside of the everfree. However, when she opened the door she was greeted by Fluttershy, not Rainbow Dash.
"Oh, hey Fluttershy, have you seen Rainbow Dash?"
"Oh, um no I haven't but, um Twilight I think you may need to come see this,"
"See what?"
"Well, there seems to be a large creature, that has wandered into ponyville. It was making a very loud roar and belching out some nasty smoke. I tried to calm it down, but it didn't seem to listen so I came to get you. It stopped just outside of town,"
"Alright let's go, Spike!"
"Yes?" Spike asked.
"Stay here in case Rainbow Dash comes back while I'm gone."
"You got it Twilight," Spike said giving a little salute.
And with that Twilight and Fluttershy took off down the street towards the edge of Ponyville. Twilight wondered if this day could get any stranger. When they reached the edge of town Twilight saw the creature that Fluttershy had been talking about. It was about as tall as Princess Celestia and about as wide across as three or maybe even four full grown stallions. It was a dark green in color and had a a semi transparent front. Twilight thought she saw movement from inside. Without warning four panels along the side of the 'creature' opened outward and five new creatures climbed out.
They were of varying heights but they were all taller than herself, and they were mostly hairless except for their manes which had varying lengths and colors. Their skin seemed to be various shades of white to tan, with the exception of the long haired creature whose skin was darker than the rest. They had long spindly legs and arms, the arms seemed to end in claw like appendages similar to spike's only not as sharp looking. Needless to say Twilight had never seen anything like them. not knowing what else to do Twilight cleared her throat and stepped forward with a smile and an air of confidence.
"Hello my name is Twilight Sparkle and on behalf of everpony here in Ponyville I would like to welcome you to Equestria!"
