Chapter 1: A Barfight and travel.
In Glasgow, people all around barely turned their heads as a crash sounded from a seedy area of the town. It seemed as a bar fight had started.
“Sae… anybody ELSE feel loch makin’ a comment loch ‘at?” I grinned at every single man in the bar. The very few hardnuts here were not going to mess with a guy like me. I might be getting old, but I’m still one of the toughest bastards here.
“Come on man, this isn’t working.” I looked at my friend, Michael.
“Look here mate, jist coz yoo’re black dinnae mean ye cannae gang drinkin’ wi’ me.” I turned to the bar’s clients and cracked my knuckles. The sound echoed off the walls. Everybody blinked for a few moments. Then, somebody threw a beer mug at me.
That would have hit a man without my extensive training, but I wasn't your ordinary drunk old man. No, I was a drunk old soldier. Despite being fifty six and with a beer gut, I was still only slightly slowed down by old age. Most people who look at me think that I'm just a brawler with no skill, but that's an assumption of the wrong sort to make. My nose was crooked from an incident back when I was eighteen, and my gleaming blue eyes, though dimmed a bit with age, were still good enough.
Laughing, I ducked, and the glass smashed into the client behind me. He retaliated with downing what remained of his beer and throwing that one back. Soon, the bar erupted into a glorious brawl. While Michael watched from afar, I grabbed two bastards and slammed their heads together. I then leapt over them, crashing into a hard nut and tackling him to the floor. With a mighty clout, I dislocated his jaw and knocked him senseless. I got up, looking around me. All the clients of the bar around me unconsciously took a step back.
"Who wants some? I'll kick aw your asses!" Everybody in the bar looked at me shiftily. It seemed that nobody wanted the absolute shit smashed out of them.
"Ye think yoo're toogh? I’ll glass ye, ye bludy bastard!" As I turned around, the hard nut behind me stabbed at my eye with a beer bottle. Time slowed down as I didn’t move fast enough, his bottle piercing through my eye and driving itself into my skull. Only a second of pain, and it was over.
Marcus was shocked when George got stabbed in the eye like that. Over the years that he'd been a friend to the huge Glaswegian, he'd seen the cabby get shanked in the arm and nearly got given a Glasgow grin; but it never had been too serious. Somehow, the possibility of him dying was out of the question. He hurried over to the body, clubbing the offender over the head with a bar stool.
"Come on, George, get up you crazy bastard..." He grabbed his fallen friend’s head, cradling it.
"Come on, come on, you sonofabitch, you aren't dying here..." Michael almost expected his old friend to get up, but he was still dead with a broken bottle in his eye.
"Don't you dare die on me, you bastard. You can't." He bit his lip, trying to keep the tears back. He felt someone step behind him, and a shadow loomed over him.
"Unfortunately, Mr Marcus, he is dead." Before he could ask about this mysterious person, Marcus was clobbered from the side by another client. Snarling, he stood up, turned back and threw a haymaker that caused a grisly snap of a nose breaking.
"Och, whit happened?" I got up and rubbed my head, trying to alleviate the pounding headache. Just because I was a washed up Scottish soldier, didnt mean that hangovers got any less painful over the years. Running my fingers through my thick, red beard, I tried to remember. Oddly enough for a hangover, the pain wasn't really in my head; rather, it was in my left eye...
My remaining eye shot open as I remembered what had happened.
"That bloody bastard! Shankin' me in th' eye wi' a beer bottle! I'll kill 'at bastard!"
"I'm afraid that it will not be possible for you to do that. You're dead, and as such, unable to retaliate." The voice behind me was old, gruff and impatient.
I turned to the source, or as close as I could tell where the voice had come from.
Standing behind me was an old, muscular man, his right eye gone and behind an eyepatch. With his jeans and Metallica T-shirt stretched over a bit of a gut, he looked a lot like me. But his head was shaved, and his beard was longer as well as purely grey. The old man held a spear in his hand, and his grey eye regarded me with amusement. On his shoulders, two ravens sat were looking straight in my remaining eye. I regarded the old man warily.
"Who th' feckin' heel ur ye?"
In response to that, he chuckled. "Think of me as a prospective employer."
"Whit dae ye mean?"
The older man turned around, still speaking. “There is a game that is happening; I have felt it. A game unlike anything else, except maybe for my own hall. A contest of divine might, through which we point our pawns to curry favour. Originally, it only was a battle between two Gods, with many pawns; but now, the rules have changed." He turned back to me, and I saw that his eye glowed with a dull, grey light. "I have chosen you, George MacDonald."
I glared at him. "An' wa did ye choose me, ye bludy bastard?"
He didn't answer at first, just stared at me with his icy grey eye. Then, he spoke, in a calm, matter of fact voice. "George MacDonald, you are an honourably discharged member of the Scottish Guard, who fought in the Second World War when sixteen. Later, you were given a desk job in Vietnam, where, in an attack on the British headquarters, you took out three assault groups of the Vietcong personally. After that, you taught yourself the Runic alphabet and got into a lot of bar fights. Need I say more?"
I blinked, then chuckled. "Ye hae' me number, alright. But I got things I want tae do meself, mate. And I don’t tink thadda want to work for ye."
He stared at me in shock for a second, before laughing. "Oh, you are amusing. You'll do perfectly. Now, we are running out of time." The old guy stared around him, and for a second, I saw fear in his eye. Then it was gone, so quickly I thought I had only imagined his fear.
"Due to Tirek's additional rule, it seems that I must not make you too powerful. So I only give you what I can- clothes, weapons and a boon."
"A boon?"
He rolled his eye. "Yes, a boon. In this case, I have granted you the ability to use runic magic. I would explain more, but time is fleeting. Farewell. Oh, and welcome to Equestria."
Before I could object, he stabbed me in the gut with his spear and I passed out.
When I came to consciousness, there were birds chirping. I pushed myself up off of the grass, grumbling. "Mad auld man, dumpin' me oot in th' middle of nowhaur..."
As I looked around, I froze. Wherever I was, I knew that there was no chance of me being in Scotland at all. Hell, I wasn’t even on Britain!
For starters, I seemed to be in a thick forest, surrounded on pretty much all sides. I breathed in the air, inhaling the heady smell of the trees. Some of them looked ancient, huge hulks that would have been cut down practically immediately back home. Looking down at the ground, I could see that the earth around me was covered in dead leaves, forming a bit of a mulch. Animal tracks through the undergrowth were all around me. It was as if I had simply been moved back into the past of ancient Germany or something. This had to be a dream or something. I decided to wake myself up from the dream in the simplest way possible; punch myself in the arm.
I balled up a fist, and without hesitation slammed it into my left arm. Unfortunately, I was apparently wearing armour on my forearm, and all I did was almost break my knuckles on my arm. I grimaced in pain, before becoming confused. Armour…?
Looking down at my arms revealed that I was covered in chain mail, dull grey links gleaming brightly in the rising sun. My hands were encased in brown leather gloves; and from what I could tell, my feet were encased in thick, steel capped, hob nailed boots. I turned around, feeling very confused. This seemed to be some sort of waking dream... Or a nightmare. I shook my head. Focus on the situation first, then panic. I looked around, examined my surroundings, listening for any sound.
"What in the name of the King are you?"
Curious about the voice, coming from behind me, I turned around to see my salvation.
Standing there, was some sort of mutant winged horse. It stood at only four feet to the shoulder, and it looked up at me in curiosity with large, golden eyes. Those almost were hidden behind a long mint green and white mane, almost like a quiff of sorts. A horn broke the wave of hair like a rock in the water on its head, and it had small wings on its sides, for some reason. The whole thing was practically mint green, except for some bags on its back and a yoke around its neck. I stared at it for a few moments, then sighed. Obviously, the owner or something was nearby, throwing his voice like a ventriloquist.
"Alrecht, whaur ur ye, ye practical joker?"
In response, the winged unicorn in front of me let out an audible gasp, bouncing in the air. "Y-you can talk? That's great to hear!"
I stared at the horse, which was, from the sound of its voice, undeniably male. It freaking talked to me.
"Whit?" was all I got out before the thing somehow hugged me.
"Tell me everything about you. Please!"
I stared at it for a few moments before responding. "...Whit?"