All is not yet lost.
Chapter 1
Yet another story by: N30N-THUND3R
The inside of my wrist was adorned with a silver band that showed me a string of numbers on the inside of my wrist. Always counting down. It had been given to me several months ago when Ferris and I, Nox Nightwatcher, went and visited one of our old friends who saw that I was perfect for it.
00:000:10:51:22
That was what the silver band read at the moment I looked down at it. The numbers always glowed a steady, bright blue no matter what. Even water would not dim the light.
The fog of the surrounding forest all but obscured all of my vision as I looked up and away from my wrist. Not five feet away from me was my sword partner and renowned blacksmith Ferris Stronghammer. He was the only one who was just as crazy as I was to come back to this blasted forest. Then the ground shifted.
It wasn't a subtle shift either. The entire forest seemed to shake about as a bright, thin line appeared a yard in front of Ferris. The line got wider and wider and soon started to breathe in the fog surrounding it. Then the ground shifted.
My feet were dragged out from underneath me as I was pulled towards the now gaping hole of white. I saw a flash of steel as Ferris' sword was thrown to the ground along with his other weaponry. The platemail he wore seemed to dissolve off of his body, leaving only his clothes intact. Soon enough, I passed through the white barrier, feeling all but my clothes and, strangely enough, the destiny clock, intact. Then it all shifted.
I started to feel the odd shifting in my feet and hands. Then it became painful. Bones were smashed and rearranged and then painfully reformed. Then my skin started to tear and reform in much the same manner. I started to scream at the smashing of bones. And from the sound of it, Ferris started screaming at the same time. I could still feel my joints move around and organs shift around inside me, and it scared me. My hands and feet flattened and my muscles in my arms and legs rounded out more. My face elongated and became flatter.
I felt weird protrusions sprout from around the middle of my back. and spread out what felt like five feet. It made me even more scared. This white light sucked us in and is now rearranging us into whatever it is we're morphing into. I tried, rather successfully, to focus on the events that led us to coming to the blasted forest as the sound of horse hooves overcame us.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this Nox?" Ferris asked from his bed in his room in the Red Dragon tavern.
"Of course I am. I've got this...this urge to go back there. I don't know. Just trust me on this." I replied, standing in the doorway to the room. Ferris packed up his equipment and promptly followed me out of the room.
We walked out of town for what felt like a few hours before we reached the edge of the forest.
I was brought back to reality by the sudden sense of falling. My eyes immediately snapped open and were greeted with the sight of what seemed to be a several hundred foot fall. My eyes immediately went to the silver band.
00:000:01:03:11
Suddenly, a bright indigo glow enveloped me and Ferris when we were 100 feet from the ground. Suddenly, my sight went black, and the world around me shifted.
"Hello again Nox. Hello Ferris. It has been a long time." A young-looking blonde woman said from behind a counter.
"Hello Naya. It sure has. So you contacted us a time ago about something special." Ferris spoke on our behalf. Naya reached behind the counter and pulled a large, wide, silver band from underneath the counter.
"I did. Nox, stick out your arm." Naya directed towards me. I did as she told me to and stuck my arm out. She immediately slid the band over my arm, were it immediately clamped itself on my wrist, not moving in the slightest despite my attempts.
"What is it?" I asked while frantically trying to take it off.
"It is a destiny clock, Nox. Once it attaches its self to someone, it will immediately start counting down to the moment when the most important event of anyones life occurs. The meeting of their soul mates. Go ahead, take a look." Naya prompted. So I looked.
00:113:12:45:09
All I could see when I came to was black, so I opened my eyes. All I could see were blurred, colorful shapes that seemed to resemble horses, but were too small. Ponies they were in the shape of. My eyes darted once again to the silver band on what was my wrist, which was now a white, cylindrical thing.
00:000:00:00:00
The clock had finally counted down, and my vision's blurriness was gone. And standing at the foot of my bed were six, brightly-colored ponies. Two of which were adorned with horns atop their heads. Two more being winged. All six, for some odd reason, being oddly feminine in build. My head darted to my left and I noticed yet another pony laying in the bed next to me. He, for his body type was significantly contrasting from the females standing nearby, was a iron-grey pony with no special marks except for what appeared to be a hammer and anvil adorning his flank.
The more I looked, the better I saw, for I then noticed similar marks on each of the mares still standing at the foot of my bed. The lavender one, which was a unicorn and wore a mane of deep purple with a stripe of a lighter magenta with a matching tail, had a purple star surrounded by five, smaller, white stars. The white one, which was also a unicorn and had an indigo mane and tail, had a trio of sky-blue diamonds.
The butter-yellow pegasus was adorned with a soft pink mane and tail and had yet another trio, this one being of pink butterflies. The cyan pegasus had a plethora of colors in her mane and tail, the colors being organized in the pattern of a rainbow. Even the mark on her flank incorporated the rainbow, which was a puffy, white cloud with a rainbow-colored bolt of lightning coming down from it.
The last two had neither wings nor horns just like the stallion on the bed next to him. The bright orange one was very blonde and had her mane and tail tied at the end. On her flank was a trio of bright red apples. The sixth and final pony standing held my attention due to only one fact.
Pink. Tons and tons of pink covered the pony from head to tail. Her mane and tail were only a few shades darker than her coat, which was still very bright. She was adorned with a trio of balloons, two of which were blue, the middle being yellow.
My head snapped back a bit and a lock of light blue hair fell in front of my face. I brought my hands up to my face before realizing that they were gone. I immediately got even more scared than before and felt a fluttering on my back and part of my sides. I looked for the source, only to see a pair of white wings that matched the color of my new coat. I spied a mirror fragment on the floor next to my bed and leaned over to look into it.
What looked back at me was not the face I was used to.
My face had elongated into the face of a pony. My eyes had grown larger in size and had taken on a bright, golden-yellow color, contrary to my previously green eyes. These features were set into a white-coated face framed by a blue mane that happened to by styled like hair. Immediately, I looked to my flank and noticed a faint, grey swirl of mist filled with what appeared to be black lightning bolts. Surrounding it all was a thin black target with the mist at its center.
Then it all clicked for me. All that I needed to know hit me dead in the face. The mark represented the one thing I had come to repress ever since I was a child. It represented my magic. More specifically, my repressed magic that could control the weather. The pony laying beside me was Ferris. He had turned into a pony just like me and had a mark that represented his strongest talent, blacksmithing. The knowledge overflowed in my mind. So I did the only thing that I could in this situation.
I screamed.
And then the ponies began to scream.
And then Ferris began to scream.
And soon the screaming ended.
My voice gave out and I was immediately bombarded with statements that bordered on inquisition.
"Good thing you both are finally awake at the same time." The lavender pony said exasperatedly.
"I agree. It's good to see you awake now." Ferris spoke up from his bed beside me. It seemed, at least outwardly, that he had taken his transformation in stride and had pieced what had happened together much earlier.
"I am of the same opinion. I'm just not able to fathom how we got here." I said, putting a special form emphasis on here that Ferris would pick up on immediately.
And pick up on it he did.
"I believe that the girls here can explain all they can. Once we're out of the hospital, I will try to detail the information some more." Ferris said, keeping his language as vague as he possibly could. But I still got the message he was putting across.
"Alright then. Girls, would you care to elaborate?" I spoke, directing the conversation back towards the six ponies still standing at the foot of my hospital bed, overcoming the little bout of fright I instilled upon them with my abrupt scream.
"Well, I guess I have a little bit of involvement in your current situation," The white unicorn spoke in a refined and well toned voice. "I was out looking for gems with the help of Spike when I heard a loud crashing sound above me. I looked up and noticed the both of you falling from the sky at an alarming rate. I sent Spike to get Twilight here,"- She pointed a hoof at the other unicorn-"To help me once I had done something. I cast a spell to try and catch you before you hit the ground and it worked. After the spell caught hold of you two, I brought you down to the ground. The both of you were unconscious so I simply waited." The white unicorn finished.
"That's where I come in," The unicorn known as Twilight said. "Spike had soon brought me to where Rarity was waiting with you two. From what she told me, the both of you would have died if you had hit the ground. Soon, we got you to hospital, which was around an hour ago." Twilight went silent.
"Thanks for the explanation girls." Ferris said before getting up out of the bed. I did likewise and soon followed out of the hospital and onto the street.
We were interrupted once on the street by the pink pony who, now outside, seemed to be bristling with an overabundance of energy and kept bouncing around.
"You two should definitely show up at the library at 8:00." She said before hopping off. I shot Ferris a confused look that said 'Should we?'
He shrugged his shoulders in response.
I took that as an affirmative.
Several hours later, and after much exploration of the town, we had learned what we could that day. The we had encountered Twilight again after only an hour of exploring, only to learn the names of the aforementioned six who were in the hospital room. Fluttershy was the yellow pegasus; Rainbow Dash, was the cyan pegasus; the white unicorn being Rarity; Twilight, being as inferred by us, was the lavender unicorn who was talking to the pair of us at that instance; Applejack being the name of the orange pony, which we had later learned were called earth-ponies through careful observation; Pinkie Pie was indeed the hyper pink pony that told us to be at the library at eight.
We had also discovered that the nation the ponies lived in, known as Equestria, was under a diarchy of the two most powerful ponies in the land: Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
In that time we had also come up with aliases that seemed suitable for our current situation.
I was to be Thunder Mist. Ferris decided on Shattered Hammer. We spent the better part of two hours practicing using our aliases, incorporating them with the other info we learned. If there was one thing that was not going to happen, it was revealing who we really are through stupid bits of omission. The first rule of integration is learning to conform without revealing anything about your past.
And we were determined to integrate smoothly, seeing as there was no chance at all for us to make it back to our home.
A clock somewhere in town signaled the beginning of the twenty-first hour of the day. We had made our way to the library we were invited to. Once we opened the door, lights turned on, and twenty-something ponies jumped out of random spots all shouting the same thing.
"Surprise!" Was shouted and echoed throughout the library literally built into a tree. Hanging from one wall to the other was a banner that said 'Welcome to Ponyville!'
"Before we get the party started, why don't you two tell us your names? Because I need to know your names before I can become friends with you." Pinkie Pie stated from behind.
"So sorry about that. I'm Thunder Mist." I stated, using the alias created only hours ago.
"And I am Shattered Hammer." Ferris replied quickly after. Soon we walked away from the other ponies before I realized one crucial bit of evidence.
"Dude, we have no money. And no money means no place to stay. What do we do?" I suddenly asked nervously.
"There's a forest nearby. I'm sure that we can just live in there until we find jobs and can afford a place." 'Shattered Hammer' responded after a moment of thinking and deliberation.
"Okay then, after the party, it's off to the forest." I said before the both of us returned to our welcoming party.
