The Commander, The Keyblade Master, and the Psycho

Joel’s POV:

The walk back to Fluttershy’s cottage didn’t take too long since we had twilight with us who could fly up above the tree tops and find the right way back. Out of the three of us Jack seemed to have been the one who was the first to wake up in this world. He told us that he woke up while it was still night time here and took refuge in a cave until the sun came up before trying to find his way out of the forest. Selene said that she woke up sometime this morning she guessed and already had all of her equipment on her. She said she only ran into the timberwolves about ten minutes before me and Krieg showed up to save her. I asked her why she didn’t just use her gun but then she reminded me that if a grenade didn’t stop them that a few bullets to them wouldn’t do any significant damage. To be completely honest I didn’t believe her but I wasn’t going to question it right now.

Coming out of the forest we followed a small dirt road back to Fluttershy’s house where Selene punched me in the arm for destroying Fluttershy’s front yard. Jack, not really caring for MLP like me and Selene did just sat back and laughed at me getting hit. The rest of the mane six were waiting inside for our return, Dash seemed to be pacing back and forth. My guess was that she was debating whether or not to come after us out of her loyalty towards twilight who said she wanted to come with me alone. The ponies were shocked to see that we came back with two more people but they didn’t exactly seem surprised either. Like they knew we’d be bringing others but I guess they didn’t expect them to look so different from me. After introductions were out of the way and I explained to all of them that I knew them from my world they seemed to ease up around them. I then went on to explain to them what happened to all of us before we found ourselves in equastria.

“So let me try and get this straight. You and your friends were in a sky-call and playing these ‘video games’, and the next thing you all know is that you wake up here?” Rarity questioned and I nodded at her.

“It’s a called a Skype call and yes, we were all in a call together while playing video games before we ended up here as the characters we were playing from our video games.” I restated, feeling a little redundant but I didn’t let it bother me since I figured this was a hard concept to comprehend.

“So what were you playing when you got sent here?” Dash asked us and I honestly didn’t know how to answer right away for myself.

“I was playing a game called Mass Effect that takes place in the distance future where we find alien life and can travel through space.” Selene spoke up first and Twilight seemed to be intrigued by the concept of the game as if was a setting for a good book.

“I was playing a game called kingdom hearts where I travel between worlds and get rid of the darkness in them basically.” Jack followed up as best he could since the whole concept of kingdom hearts was long and we didn’t really have time to worry about explaining it.

“And I was playing Borderlands where I have to stop a cruel dictator from awakening an alien warrior so he can destroy the world of Pandora. But right now I’m more concerned with how we ended up here like this and if we can get back or not.” I said as I took a seat on the sofa against the wall of what I guessed was Fluttershy’s living room.

“I don’t blame you.” Twilight spoke up as she walked over to me. “Having to be pulled away from your home world must be hard for you.” She said trying to comfort me, but I started to wonder if this was really even a bad thing. Was it really so bad that I was in a magical world full of talking ponies from one of my favorite TV shows?

“Well so long as there’s a way back home for us I don’t mind being stuck here for a little while.” Selene said as she finally decided to take off her helmet and fixed her hair. “I’d rather be stuck here than the universe my character comes from.”

“Agreed.” I said chuckling softly, despite my love for borderlands it wasn’t exactly a place you wanted to live in. Sure meeting all the characters would be pretty awesome but the other, I’m guessing ninety percent of the time would be spent fighting bandits or Hyperion loaders.

“Are the places you guys come from really that bad?” Dash asked and I chuckled a bit at her.

“Let me put it to you this way Dash, the place I come from is called Pandora for a reason. Literally everyone and everything wants you dead and is crazy enough of a place to turn out people like Krieg on a regular basis. Does that sound like your dream vacation destination?” I asked with a slight smirk under my mask as Dash grew silent for a bit.

“In the Mass Effect universe we’re under attack by an alien race called the reapers. They’re like locust that move from galaxy to galaxy, once they devour everything they move on to the next one while turning any biological creature into one of their own along the way.” Selene explained and I saw twilight’s once interest in Selene’s character universe go away.

“That sounds, dark…” Rarity said and I chuckled a bit.

“Yeah, but to us they weren’t any different than the settings you’d find in a book so we didn’t feel much connection for the characters or their universes.” I explained and seemed to ease things over with them knowing these weren’t real places. I looked outside and saw that the sun was now setting over the horizon and the moon was now starting to come out.

“Oh my, is it that late already?” I heard Fluttershy mumble as she noticed the sky changing as well. “Um, I don’t have much room her, but I’m sure I can make accommodations for you three to sleep here.” She said as I could tell she was going to try to accommodate me and my two friends for the night.

“Ah got an extra room at the barn if one of ya’ll wouldn’t mind coming with me. Might help ease some pressure off of Shy.” Applejack chimed in and I could see Selene’s face brighten up a bit, AJ was her favorite pony from the show so I figured she would…

“Sure I wouldn’t mind going with you.” Selene said smiling, trying to hold back her excitement.

“Called it…” I thought with a smirk under my mask and held back a chuckle as she and AJ made their way out after saying their goodbyes.

“I have an extra room at Sugarcube corner that one of you guys can stay in and while we’re at it we can plan you ‘welcome to equastria’ party!” Pinkie Pie jumped in and I smiled a bit and looked over at Jack.

“Well I do like a good party…” Jack said softly and was instantly being hugged to death by Pinkie.

“Oh this is going to be so much fun! I can introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Cake and their two little foals, oh and Gummy too!” She said as she practically dragged Jack out as she rambled on and on.

“Alas poor Jack, I knew him well.” I joked and earned a soft giggle coming from the four remaining ponies in the room.

“Well I best be off too, Sweetie Belle is probably wondering where I am right about now.” Rarity said before giving her goodbyes and making her way out the door.

"Same here, i promised Scootaloo that we'd camp out in the CMC's club house tonight. Later." Dash said before she left after Rarity and took off to the sky.

“Alright Joel you should probably come stay at the Library with me and Spike, the princess did ask you to write out everything Krieg is capable of so I can send it to her, but I’m sure we can do that in the morning.” Twilight said and frowned a little, honestly I wanted to stay with Fluttershy since she was my favorite out of the six. However I nodded softly and got up to follow Twilight out the door, but I stopped when I noticed that her front yard was still torn up.

“Oh um, yeah, sorry about the front yard Fluttershy. I’ll come back tomorrow if I can and try and fix it, if I can…” I mumbled as I looked back over to the timid little pegasus who was now straightening things up.

“Oh it’s not that big of a deal, I mean, you can come back and help if you want to. But I certainly don’t hold it against you, you couldn’t help it after all.” She said softly and gave me a warm smile that seemed to ease my guilt away and replace it with good feeling.

“Oh no I insist that you let me help, I caused the problem so I will fix the problem.” I said firmly with a smile behind my mask.

“Well okay if you’re sure then. I’ll get the things we’ll need to fix it up tomorrow then. Goodnight.” She said happily as she waved me and Twilight goodbye as we made our way out the door.

“You too Fluttershy.” I said as I waved back before Twilight closed the door behind me with her magic and I walked up next to her. We walked maybe about ten feet down the road from Fluttershy’s cottage before Twilight broke the silence.

“So Joel, what’s your home world like? You said that you guys had this advanced technology like your video games and skype calls, but what else is there?” She asked curiously as we kept on walking and I chuckled. I spent the whole walk to the library explaining just about everything I could from my world to her. I told her about TV, the radio, telephones, computers, cars, and just about everything really, while I wasn’t sure how most of this stuff was made or worked I knew enough to explain what things did what. By the time we got to the library the moon was now hanging in the night sky and the sun had disappeared under the horizon as I explained what movies were to Twilight.

“…and that’s why they charge you so much money for popcorn at the movie theaters.” I said as I opened the front door to the library and we went inside. Twilight was practically beaming with excitement from everything I had told her.

“Wow, for a place that doesn’t have magic you ponies sure know how to live!” She said smiling brightly and I chuckled at her.

“People Twilight, we call ourselves people, not ponies.” I corrected her.

“Right sorry. It’ll take me a while to address you guys like that.” She said rubbing the back of her head with her hoof.

“Oh don’t worry about it that much, we don’t take any offense by it if you just want to keep addressing us that way.” I said smiling.

“Well okay if you’re sure. Anyways I have an extra bed upstairs that you can use. Um, just try not to tear up the sheets with that if you can help it.” She said pointing to my forehead and I mentally groaned as I remembered that I had a buzz saw still lodged in my forehead.

“I’ll try but I can’t make any promises.” I said and she gave a worried nod before we made our way upstairs. For the most part everything was like the show with the exception of the extra bed in twilight’s room. Spike was asleep in his basket bed right next to Twilight's bed while what was to be my bed was right across from hers. I didn’t realize how tired I actually was until I saw the nice comfy bed and felt my muscles ache from walking all the way here and from fighting the timberwolf earlier. I gently set my equipment to one side of the bed before crawling in and laying on my back before covering up. I gave out one long and drawn out yawn before closing my eyes. I still had so many questions swirling around in my head, but for right now, I set it all aside as I let the darkness of sleep take me.