Beyond my World

A cool breeze permeated the air. The setting sun shone down brightly above the canopy of trees, eliciting a calming orange ambiance over the area. It was at a rather cool temperature also, but luckily I was wearing a jumper and trousers. All things considered, It actually seemed like a nice day.

And it would have continued being a nice day if I wasn't being chased by an angry, homicidal alien who was hell bent on ripping my face off.

I sprinted through the woods as fast as my legs could carry me. My muscles ached and protested every step I took with a spike of agony. The trees, sticks, bushes, and the undulating path served to hinder my progress. Hell, even the bloody wind was conveniently blowing against me. It appeared nature did not want me to live, but I was resolute in my resolve. I needed to get away from the bastard who was chasing me.

I was completely out of breath, and my muscles continued to ache profusely, but I refused to slow my pace. I felt lightheaded with fatigue. That thing was catching up fast, and it seemed to never get tired! I was decently in shape, and in the beginning of the chase I thought I would be able to outrun it. Unfortunately, that did not seem to be the case.

My thoughts were interrupted by a bloodcurdling roar. I looked back quickly, but in doing so I lost my footing and came crashing down to the ground with a thud. The air was knocked completely out of my lungs and I choked, desperately trying to regain my breathing ability. My vision was going blurry and I shook my head to steady my perception. After a moment I regained enough sense to analyze the situation when from behind the trees an enormous black figure emerged. I rolled onto my back and looked towards the disturbance in the foliage. Then, as the light of the setting sun illuminated the silhouette, I saw my assailant clearly for the first time.

It was big. Very big. Inhumanly big. It stood at about nine feet, bipedal, with a long, thick tail that reached the ground at its tip. It was well built with a thick, muscular chest and arms like tree trunks. The creature's skin was a dark brown; almost black. Its face appeared somewhat reptilian, albeit it was flatter and more closely resembled a muzzle. One its hands and feet it had four long, sharp fingers. It looked at me menacingly as it sized me up.

The beast approached me patiently, walking at this point. It knew I had nowhere to run, and neither did I have the energy to do so now. I accepted my fate.

It hesitated, seemingly unsure of which course of action to take. No doubt it was debating whether to cook me or eat me raw. Personally I would rather have it over with. Maybe it was a nice alien and would spare me the pain; or maybe that was too much to hope for. Hollywood didn't depict these creatures as overly friendly and I had no firsthand experience to go by. I had to expect the worst.

"Now. I would appreciate it. If you returned what you stole from me," It said between drawn out breaths, in a deep accented voice that was obviously masculine. The voice was unlike any I had ever heard before. It had a commanding tone while being somewhat smooth at the same time. The sheer imposingness of his body and the tone of his speech left me awestruck. Wait, was he panting? Ha! So he did get tired! I couldn't help but to smirk at the thought. He is twice my size and I almost outran him! Wait. Did he just speak English?

"You spoke English..." I began, as I collected my thoughts. "All this time, you spoke English." My anger was rising and I felt an uncontrollable fit of rage coming on. He looked at me quizzically.

"Well, you could have bloody said so! Why did you spend the past hour chasing me when you could have just talked to me!" I snarled. Even in the face of almost certain death. My biggest concern was that he had wasted an hour of my time and caused me to tire myself to exhaustion. I began to reconsider my priorities and the intelligence of what I had just said. Those might have been my last words.

Contrary to what I expected. He did not pull out an extremely technologically advanced gun that shot green bullets. I had been playing way to much Halo recently... Come to think of it, he kind of looked like an Elite...

"Look!" He bellowed in his deep, angry voice. "You came to MY ship and stole from ME, yet you have the nerve to blame me for chasing you?" his face contorted into a frown as he came closer to me. From his fingertips extended some enormous ten inch claws. Retractable claws? Was he some sort of mutated cat? He appeared to notice my confusion, and spoke. "No, I am not some sort of mutated cat." Wait. What? He can read minds!

"Did you just read my mind?" I asked with growing fear of this thing's capabilities

"Oh, were you thinking that? Lucky guess." He replied with a smirk and I detected a hint of sarcasm. Great, of all the things that this planet had to offer to the universe, he picked up sarcasm...

"Now don't use that tone with me!" I chastised. I was hurt that he employed such sarcasm with me. How was I to possibly know of his ability or inability to read minds? He was a god damn alien.

"Let me put things into perspective for you," he began pacing in front of me, probably deciding what horrible tortures to subject me to. "I am twice your size. I am armed. I have longer claws than you," He looked at my fingernails with an amused expression. I shifted my hands uncomfortably as he continued. "I can easily outrun you, and..." He paused, seeming to consider something else to help state his superiority over me. Some time past, and I decided to break the awkward silence.

"And?"

"And there doesn't need to be any more ands! I have already listed plenty of things that I have over you, and if you don't accept that I am clearly dominant then I am going to have to kill you," he retorted hurriedly with disdain, kicking at the ground. He stared me down, as if anticipating me to agree with his accusations.

"So, what you're saying is... I have to accept the fact that you are superior to me in every way, before you use said superior traits to end my life, right?"

"Yes, that seems about right," he agreed

"Um, no thanks."

"Excuse me?"

"I said no. If you are going to kill me then the very least I can do is resist with all my might and struggle for survival to the very end. Or else I would die dishonorably," I huffed. Suddenly it dawned on me just how ridiculous and stupid this situation was. He could have just killed me without saying anything, but he seemed very prone to argument. Maybe if I kept this up it would give me a chance to escape...

The daunting figure stepped forwards and said in his sonorous voice, "I'm going to ask you again, return what you stole from me, and I might consider letting you go." He glared at me intensely, as if expecting me to suddenly jump up and make a run for it.

"Mate, I didn't steal anything, I was just looking around!" I replied honestly.

"You lie!" he spat.

I looked him in the eye and smiled, "Search me." I instantly regretted that statement as he roughly picked me up and shook me like a baby would a rattle. He took off my jumper and searched all my pockets to no avail. Looking visibly irritated, he dropped me with little care and I fell to my hands and knees to absorb the fall. He retreated a few steps back and glared at me. "You really need some deodorant, you smell horrible!" I informed him.

"Now that's just untrue," he reprimanded. "I picked you up, and you smell of sweat and dirt. How often do you shower? Once a month?" He sneered, this time he seemed more amused that angered.

"For your information! I was just coming home from playing football, and forced into running a 5K race by you," I said, taking on more of a chastising tone. "What's your excuse?"

"Diet differences," he shrugged.

"That's hardly an excuse!"

"Never mind that, where were we?" He replied, dismissing the previous subject. We were deviating from the main argument pretty far, so I graciously complied to his wish and answered the question.

"Oh, you were just telling me how little of a chance I stand against you in a fight, and how superior your abilities are by comparison to mine. You also asked me to accept this and allow you to kill me without struggle by accepting your complete dominance over the situation. And I refused to acknowledge your points on the grounds that you do not have a cogent argument backed by solid, cited evidence," I grinned at the end, anticipating his reply to my defiance. This was actually pretty fun. Well, fun in a life-threatening sort of way.

"Oh yes, don't think I don't know what that is, kid. You are being sarcastic. You truly believe that you stand a chance in a fight? You can't even touch me," he leered evilly, and assumed a fighting position with his claws fully extended.

He wanted a fight? I thought uneasily. I was somewhat built, and I lifted a bit. But honestly, pretty much all he said was true. I didn't stand a chance against him. He could pick me up with one finger. Hell, even a single one of his claws was almost as big as my forearm!

Knowing it was hopeless I stood up slowly. I took as much time as possible to dust myself off, praying, hoping for something to happen. Maybe there could be a freak lightning bolt come out of the... sun. Damn, the weather was nice, there is no way a storm can just come randomly out of nowhere. Honestly, of all the days for England to actually have some nice weather this was the worst! Maybe a plane could crash into him and conveniently miss me? That seemed like a reasonable way to escape. I looked around for planes. Much to my dismay, none could be found. I looked up and saw him smiling. The bastard was loving my helplessness.

"Here we go..." I whimpered quietly to myself, as I approached him and assumed a fighting position. For the first time I actually considered the possibility that I could die here. I can't die... I'm not supposed to die. Not like this! I almost began to have a mental breakdown, but realized I needed to keep a brave expression, lest he think I'm a coward.

The time had come. "You think you're so smart with words, don't you kid. I bet your friends think you're such a smartass. Yes. you love the taste of words in your mouth. Tell me, how do you like the taste of your own blood?" He came upon me with the wrath of an exploding sun, raised his arm menacingly, and slashed at me with all his might. I closed my eyes, hoping it would be painless.

Suddenly, a blinding white light flashed between us, and I heard a loud clang as his claws were parried by something. I opened my eyes and faintly saw a long white object holding the claws at bay. Another alien's claws? No, It was slimmer and white. A horn? Before I had time to analyze any further I was consumed by a white light, and I felt myself losing consciousness... floating... away...

* * * * *

My mind suddenly awoke from stasis. I felt an ember of consciousness, and sought to kindle the flame. As I slowly gained awareness of myself, and what happened; I began to feel uncomfortable, as if something wasn't right. I revised the events earlier in my mind in order to ascertain where on earth I was.

On my way home from school I had discovered a spaceship. I bravely went to investigate the aforementioned spaceship and cleverly started touching all the cool stuff I found in there. Unfortunately, the inhabitant of the vessel was not too thrilled with my presence, and I bolted as soon as he noticed me. I spent the next hour running from the alien until I was cornered in the woods. We had an argument, and he was just about to slash my head clean off my shoulders, when a white flash appeared and blocked the attack. The blinding light persisted, and I lost consciousness. All things considered, a pretty decent day. Possibly in the top ten percent of days if you ask me.

I shrugged internally as I recounted the events of the past two hours. At least, I thought it had been two hours. Due to my extensive knowledge of the universe and how it works. It was blatantly obvious where I was.

I had clearly been saved by none other than the Doctor, and was currently asleep in the Tardis as it was parked somewhere in the streets of London.

Next came the biggest struggle so far, opening my eyes. I groaned as I tried to open my sore eyelids, but they wouldn't budge. Every fiber of my being told them to move, but they disobeyed. I came to the logical conclusion that I should use my hands to forcefully pull up my eyelid to allow sight.

I tried this moments later, then realized that using my arms would take exponentially more effort than simply opening my eyelids.

So I sat there for god knows how long, daydreaming. Until I felt something slap me in the face. The external stimulus caused me to reflexively shoot up immediately and I opened my eyes, readied my arms, and prepared for a fight or flight response. Much to my confusion, I was not surrounded by cool machinery, neither was I in London. Rather, I was in some sort of forest, and in front of me was some sort of strange cartoon equine. Wait. What?

"What the hell are you looking at?" It snarled at me. Wow, what an aggressive little pony. Wait a second, I know that voice. I'd know that damn voice anywhere. It was. It was, IT! The thing! The alien who nearly chopped my head off. I grinned, loving his new found form. He never ceased to procure ways that I could make fun of him!

"Y-You're a horse!" I laughed uncontrollably at the 'big scary alien' who now resembled a cartoon pony. "You didn't tell me you could change form! Can you become a magical fairy too?" I resumed my uncontrollable laughter, reveling at the ridiculousness of his new-found form.

"Laugh all you want, kid," he walked, or trotted rather, to a stream. Unfortunately for him he was not a particularly graceful equine and stumbled many times on his short journey. Possibly pony muscles were different to alien muscles and he was just getting used to it. As he reached his destination he beckoned me to come over with his hand. Err, hoof? I guess that would be the correct terminology I mused to myself.

I crawled over to where he was. My stomach was feeling uneasy and my legs were also feeling strange. The ground was suspiciously close to me despite the fact that I was walking upright, or so I thought. "What do you want me to see? A magical, rainbow-colored fish?" I inquired sarcastically as I gazed at my reflection.

Wait... My reflection.

Oh my god, no. Just, no. This is sick and wrong.

I was a pony.

"What the hell have you done to me?" I came upon him angrily, shoving him back with my equine hoofs. "Is this some sort of sick joke? You turn your victims into ponies before subjecting them to unspeakable tortures and experimenting on them?" I ranted, venting my thoughts. Maybe I said too much? I don't want to give him any ideas...

"Why do you suddenly assume it was me? I just as little of an idea about what's going on as you do!" he responded, sounding somewhat hurt. He stared me down as he crossed his arms. I looked at him for a while. His eyes betrayed no signs of deceit. He was telling the truth.

Alright, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too fast... I think we just got off on the wrong foot. We are both ponies now and dumped in some forest in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. From his perspective, this situation was probably just as strange as it was to me. I hate to admit it, but I'm kind of glad I'm not alone in this situation. If I was going to find out what was going on, it might be best to have his help. Plus, the fact we were relatively the same size now significantly reduced the 'get me the hell out of here' feeling I've been having every time I was near him.

"I'm sorry, I guess I just assumed to quickly," apologizing to this bastard tasted like acid in my mouth, but I needed to keep him content. "My name's Jack, by the way."

He turned his head and, after a while, nodded in approval. I guess he came to the same conclusion as me. "Rozen." He spoke. "Charmed to make your acquaintance" He said, with detectable scorn. Ha! I bet he hated me as much as I hated him. Good.

"Alright, I can't pronounce that, so how about I call you Ross?" I suggested with a grin. I believe it would be very important for me to be able to call him something easy on the tongue. In the case of me being attacked by some vicious pony vampires or a killer rabbit I might need to call out to him for help, and that would be difficult with a weird ass name like that.

"No, you should call me Rozen, that's already contracted down as far as I can. I even tried to make it easy for you to pronounce." He responded, sounding somewhat angry. His brow furrowed into a frown and he crossed his arms, or whatever pony arms are called. Forelegs? Whatever.

"Well friends give each other nicknames all the time, and Ross sounds cool, wouldn't you agree?" I smiled smugly.

"No"

"Well, we need to get off on a good foot, and I think the best way to do that is to get to know each other better, Ross."

"It's Rozen! For goodness sake, get it right. Unless you want to use my full name Rozenvanzxor Traxtalovioria nal Tha'remar von Sievax, then I suggest that you just call me Rozen to save us both the difficulty," He spoke, his navy blue eyes staring me down with renewed intensity. Cool, he just spoke in an alien language. Wow. Such language. Very confuse. Seriously, doge memes are ruining my life.

A long silence ensued. It was a rather uncomfortable silence and I fidgeted with my hooves, trying to get comfortable with my new body. I felt like I was zoning out for a second, even though I was staring straight at him it seemed as if he wasn't there. Was I just hallucinating all of this?

I took this time to assess our new-found appearances more carefully. He was a bit bigger and more muscular than I was, which made sense considering our previous forms. His coat color was a dark brown, contrasting well with his navy blue and black mane and tail. He was relatively tall and well built. Well so I assume, as the only thing I had to compare to him to was myself. His mane and tail were medium length and spiky, giving him an brash and intimidating appearance. But the most interesting aspect about him, however, was the folded wings by his side. He hadn't seemed to have noticed them yet, but I felt extremely upset about this. He got wings? How is that fair! What cool magical features did I get? Nothing.

I turned my head downwards and sideways as I analyzed my new body, hoping it would be somewhat similar to my old one. I was elated to find that I did look somewhat recognizable. My mane and tail were short, shaggy, and black, and my coat was white. To my knowledge I did not have wings or any other prominent features, but I was awkwardly aware that I was completely naked.

Perhaps normal ponies walk around like this as well. I mean, you don't see ponies on earth walking around in clothes, do you? It would look pretty silly. None of my male parts were visible externally as far as I can tell. I could feel their presence on my body, however. I sated my mental crisis by making a mental note to get clothes as soon as possible.

After what seemed to be an eternity of deafening quietness, I decided to break the silence and grace the area with my blissful voice. I blinked; he blinked back at me.

"So, Ross, better get going! Much to see and so little time!" I stated gleefully as I pranced off, inviting him to come with a waving motion of my forehoof. I'd been here for how long? And I was already using pony terminology. Ha! Anyways, I digress. He huffed, notably irritated by my nickname for him, but kept quiet this time and followed me. I wouldn't have it any other way. After some looking around, I found a path and decided our best bet was to follow it, and thus we began our journey.

The walk was done mostly in silence. It appears he found no reason to talk to me, and I certainly didn't really want to talk to him. We had nothing in common. I was a typical normal guy, and he was a bloody alien for gods sake. What could be possibly talk about? The weather? Either way, deep down I was somewhat glad for his company. If I was alone in this situation it would be about twenty percent more overwhelming. Even so, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I didn't even know if there was any sentient species in this godforsaken alternate reality we were dumped in. As we reached the end of the forest, I braced myself for what horrifying evil creatures we would find. Much to my surprise, there was some sort of cottage ahead. I held my hoof up signaling for Rozen to stop, and I ducked behind a bush to observe the building ahead.

It looked like a tree with doors, windows, and other house-like objects protruding from it. On the outside there was many bird houses, animal shelters, and obviously an abundance of wildlife. The inhabitant of this house clearly loved animals. Speaking of inhabitants, I saw someone, or somepony rather, walking towards us from a path on the right. I grabbed my oblivious companion by the back of his mane, and dragged him down to my position to avoid him being spotted. He glared at me and huffed irritably. The newcomer was obviously a creature of the same species, albeit somewhat smaller. I immediately categorized her as female, due to the fact she looked extremely feminine by comparison to us. She had a butter yellow coat and a long pink mane that curled upwards at the end. Her elongated tail was the same color as her mane and dragged along the floor at its tip. She also had, much to my dismay, wings. Did everypony here have wings? Was I the only one without them?

I panicked briefly as I realized she was headed straight for us, but those feelings faded away when I saw her turn right towards the cottage. I wiped the sweat off my brow in relief, and took a gander at Rozen. He was staring intently at the yellow mare. He quickly turned away as I noticed, and I playfully nudged him in the side and smirked. He obviously did not understand what the gesture meant, as he punched me forcefully in the shoulder causing me to stumble out into the clearing with the elegance of a tightrope-walking bear.

"Shit," he cursed, as he rushed out and stood over me with a hint of concern. I stared up at him, in no small amount of pain. My shoulder throbbed mercilessly, and I honestly had no idea if it was dislocated. "Sorry, I actually didn't mean to do that. I thought you would be less fragile," he extended his forearm, wrapping it around my body and pulling me up rather forcefully. I winced in pain, as the aforementioned shoulder antagonized my attempts to stand.

"It's cool, I'm fine," I lied as I limped casually around, trying to make it look as if I was fine. I really wasn't, but I didn't want to tell him that. He would probably start with my right shoulder when he began his torture anyways, and I didn't want to show him any more weakness than I already had. Even in this pony form, I guess much of his physical prowess carried over from our old world.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a rainbow colored blur. As I turned to get a better look, I could see it was headed straight at us at an extremely rapid speed! Looking around for cover, I saw a tree, but it appeared too far away for me to quickly maneuver to in this crippled state. Regardless, I thought it would be best to at least give it a shot. I made an attempt to run, but collapsed the second my injured limb touched the ground. The second I stumbled I felt the hair on my back disturbed by a lightening fast whoosh of air and rainbows.

Rozen wasn't so lucky. The multi-colored comet stuck him with an unprecedented force, sending him flying far off the ground and collapsing into a crumpled heap several meters away. I smiled, as I realized I was saved by my injury. My revelation didn't last long however, as I began once again to become painfully aware of the burning sensation in my shoulder. I gritted my teeth, and hoped it would all be over soon.

Our effulgent assailant proceeded to spiral out of control and eventually crash landed in the ground not too far from us. From my sideways perspective on the ground, I detected that it was also a pony, another female. She had a cyan blue coat, and a rainbow colored mane and tail. Was that natural or did she just put them to wash in the wrong color basket? I dismissed this thought, as I was aware that ponies' manes are not detachable items of clothing. She also had, god damn it, wings...

I took a moment to assess our debacle. I lay on the ground in front of the cottage, unable to stand by myself at this point. Rozen is laying motionless a few meters to my left, and the blue pony lay on the bridge separating the forest from the abode. After my thorough analysis of the situation, I came to the educated conclusion that it would be almost impossible for it to be any worse. I was stranded and alone, at the mercy of whatever creatures of unspeakable evil stirred in the abyss of the forest before me. I gulped, and mentally prepared to be gruesomely torn limb from limb.

Seconds later, however, the cottage door opened, and the yellow pony rushed out with a significant amount of medical supplies, looking extremely concerned. She first went to the pony on the bridge, who stirred at the detection of her presence.

"Oh my goodness! Rainbow Dash, you really ought to be more careful! One of these days you could get seriously injured!" her sweet voice graced the air as she fluttered to her friend's location.

"I'm fine, Fluttershy," she stood up slowly, dusted herself off, and spread her wings before casting a glance towards us, "I'm way to awesome to get seriously injured." She gestured towards us with her hoof. "I'm not too sure about them, however. I bulldozed that pegasus pretty hard, and that one looks like he's already hurt himself." She pointed to Rozen and myself, respectively. The rainbow pony flew over to me, detecting that I was the only one still conscious, and landed in front of me. "Dude, are you alright?" She inquired, in a tomboyish voice.

"Not particularly," I admitted, gently rubbing my right shoulder with my left hoof. "I, um, kind of got hit in the shoulder pretty hard," I said, not wanting to give specific details regarding my plight. "I honestly think it's dislocated or something, I can't stand on it, and it hurts like hell," I admitted. I had so many questions to ask, but I decided that this would not be the time to inform them that myself and an alien were transported here from an alternate reality, and genetically altered to reflect the body form of the natives. She'd think I was bloody nuts, especially in this injured state. So I kept quiet, and tried to get my mind off the pain in my shoulder.

"Hmm, Twilight said something about recently being able to mend broken bones with magic. She seemed pretty proud of it," she said, more to herself than to me. She turned and grinned at me, cracked her neck, and spread her wings. Uh oh, she is going to do something that will definitely result in a lot of unnecessary pain on my end. "I can help you with that. Uh, I have a friend who can help you with that," she corrected. She wrapped her forearms around my chest, and took off before I could say anything. I whined in pain at my displacement. It was a manly whine, of course. Suddenly, the ground was moving away, and it kept moving away, and it just... wouldn't... stop. Ugh, I began to felt dizzy. My vision quickly failed me, and I fell into unconsciousness with one last thought. I hate planes.