Chapters Prologue: Interdimensional Sneezing
I hate colds.
I mean, who doesn’t? When you have a cold, it’s as if a fifty pound weight jumped onto your shoulders and you have to carry it around with you for the rest of the day! Your throat swells, your sinuses get clogged and your chest feels like its inhaling dirty air or something. The day becomes much more exhausting when you’re trying to function with a cold. The worst part is that you can’t even do anything about it! There’s no instant solution to the problem! All you can do it sit there, wait for it to pass over and take multiple colours of tablets several times a day. And they last for a long time too! There hasn’t been one cold I’ve experience that hasn’t lasted less than two weeks!
It’s garbage.
And yet here I stand, looking out of the large front window of my house, waiting for my uncle to pick me up for school. I’ve got my red sweater on already, all I have to do now is put on my sneakers and run out the door as soon as his green minivan rolls up to the sidewalk. I was a bit unsatisfied that he was ten minutes late. I mean, I shouldn’t complain, because without him I would have a thirty minute walk to take in late winter weather with a cold. However, if we both agree that I would be ready by a specific time and he would pick me up by that specific time, then gosh darn it, he should stick to that time!
I had right hand jammed in my pants pocket and the other surfing Reddit on my phone. Jammin’ tunes sang into my ears through the headphones that I was wearing on my head. I was leaning my shoulder against the window, the chilling air of the outside world bleeding through the glass and cooling off my arm. I shifted in my position, flicking my thumb across the smooth surface of a touch screen. I didn’t know how much longer my uncle would be, but all I knew was that I wanted to get this day done and over with.
My nose was burning. You know that feeling that you get when you’re about to sneeze but it never comes and then there’s a backlash of energy that itches within your nostrils? Yeah. That’s what I felt. It’s like I tasted something spicy but instead of the sensation sticking to the top of my mouth it got lost and found its way into my olfactory senses. It was driving me nuts, and this is when I was actually on daytime medicine! Without the pills, I couldn’t breathe through my nose at all.
I looked out the window and narrowed my eyes, the morning light shining across the flat surface of snow that sat on my front lawn. Yeah, it’s supposed to be spring already, but there’s still snow on the ground. Thanks mother nature! You’re a real swell person.
Just then, I felt a familiar twitch in my nose. Oh boy, here we go, sore nose time. I started taking deep, gasping breaths of air as I backed up to behind my living room coffee table and grab a tissue off of a tissue box. Two more gasps and I feel the pressure building in between my eyes reaching a breaking point. One more inhale later and a shotgun blast come out of my face, snot particles shooting out at 120 kilometers per hour. I wasn’t sure how much the tissue I’d been holding in front of my face had blocked, but by the way how my hand was slightly wet I guessed it didn’t do much.
A suction sound abruptly breaks the silence of the room. Then a low hum with lots of bass rocked the room as I was thrown off my feet and onto my butt. Why the hell is there an earthquake all of the sudden in the middle of small prairie town? Suddenly, a large black sphere popped out of nowhere and consumed the center of my house window. The ball looked as if it emerged from within the glass and had a purple glow lingering around the edges of it. Coal coloured particles floated down to the floor from below it, burning holes in the wooden floor panels.
Aaaaaand it’s sucking me in. You know, I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that that might happen, but I was praying that it actually wouldn’t happen. I scramble away from the hole on all fours while my socks cause my feet to slide around and forcing me to dump off a lot of my forward momentum. The humming got louder, and the pull began to outrace me. Thinking quickly, I try to turn around and grab the nearby coffee table for purchase. Unfortunately, as I turned around to grab it I watched in horror as it got pulled into the black hold and turn into a bunch of swirling splinters within a matter of milliseconds.
My stomach dropped and I started redoubling my efforts to get away safely. But despite my will, I wasn’t even close. I got dragged closer and closer until the humming behind me got really loud and I couldn’t feel the tip of my toes anymore.
Boy, my parents were going to be really pissed that the coffee table was destroyed.
And then darkness overtook me.
I fell fast, and my ears sure knew it. The wind screamed, blasting out my eardrums and killing whatever sense of hearing I had at the moment. I’m pretty sure my headphones flew off somewhere, because as I was falling I couldn’t feel them on my head anymore. Before I could open my eyes, I had a heavy landing on something. I think I’m on the ground now, because rocks and dirt were pelting me in the face. I also think my back is broken, because I can’t feel my limbs. What I can do is inhale (although barely) through my nose and get a fistful of dust stuffed down my lungs.
I started coughing violently, and lifted up my arm to shield my head from incoming damage. Opening my eyes now would be a bad decision, as dirt plus eyes equals stinging. I roll to get off my back and take a peek at the world around me, trying to see where exactly I had ended up and why the black hold didn’t kill me. This couldn’t be heaven, could it?
The soil was clearing from the air now. From what I could see, I landed on top of a small hill with bright green grass stretching along it. The sky was a pure blue, not a cloud in sight. There was a tiny tree to my right, and to my left seemed to be a bunch of apple trees sprouting bright coloured ones all over the place. There was a certain lack of detail in my surroundings, and it was if the world lost its texture. It felt all kinds of wrong, any my pupils felt violated at the pure, unfiltered colours that my retinas were reading.
Then my heart stopped. The colours. That’s what’s wrong here, the colours are all wrong! They look like they’d been taken out of a Flash cartoon or something! Everything was cel-shaded and too bright, it was awful! It even followed a certain art motif too! I took a quick glace down at myself to see that I had also been cartoon-ified. Did that stupid black hole seriously slap me down in the middle of a fucking cartoon? I think I would have rather died!
Now that I think about it, this place looks kinda familiar. The colours, the graphical style and the lighting all spoke to me somehow. I felt as if I’d seen this place before.
Oh, wait.
No.
No no no no no!
Could it be?
Aw, fuck no!
That’s impossible! That only happens in poorly written fan fictions! I can’t possibly be placed in that kind of situation! I don’t even like the show that much! Seriously fate? Why me?
“Stop where you are and don’t move!” Tara Strong said behind me.
I turn my head to see six vibrant ponies staring me down with various pieces of jewelry equipped.
Aw shit.
Author's Note
Unnecessary prologue as beginning chapter? Checkaroonie!
But in all seriousness, I will do my absolute best to try and post a chapter every week or so. Granted, these chapters will probably be less than 2000 words long and won't follow a cohesive storyline, but I write for fun, not for a fanbase.
Actually, fun is the reason why I wanted to write this in the first place. I wanted to start writing on a weekly basis again, but didn't want to write tens of thousands of words for my other story, so I settled with this simple idea of a character sneezing and then suddenly getting sucked into Equestria.
Hey, stranger things have happened, haven't they?
Also, a fair warning, I've planned out a few parts ahead in terms of plot, but I have no clear idea of where the end of the story's going to be, nor where it's going to end up in the late future, so please bear with me while I write stuff on the go.
Chapter 1: Rainbow Laser of Doom
"Don't move!" said Twilight.
The mane six were lined up in a perfectly standardized formation. Twilight was holding the front of course, bearing her tiara that shined a bright purple. To her left behind her was Rarity, standing with a straight back and her chin held high, proud and poised to go to battle. Or to show off. I couldn't tell. Behind the marshmallow was Applejack, her Stetson tilted slightly below her eyes before she flicked them up with the tip of her hoof, the orange apple necklace around her neck glowing brightly. To Twilight's right side stood Pinkie Pie, which I found to be a tough feat indeed, as I've never seen Pinkie Pie stand still for longer than two seconds before. Oh, I spoke too soon; she started bouncing on the spot again. Meanwhile, poor Fluttershy was trying to hide behind Pinkie Pie, but every time she jumped, she stared at me with wide, fearful eyes, not knowing what to do.
"You're not goin' anywhere, buster!" Rainbow Dash shouted from above Twilight, hovering in place with her element jingling around her neck.
Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap! Are they really? Do they really want to as soon as I appear?
"Ready girls?" Twilight asked, looking back at the others.
"Ready!" they all responded as the six of them started glowing with different colours of the rainbow.
"Oh, shit!" I exclaim, backing up out of the little crater that I had created from the impact of my landing. The energy that they radiated increased, and they started floating in mid-air. I could already feel the friendship coming off of them, and it scared the crap out of me. If the elements had the ability to rip apart pony and chaos god alike, then I had absolutely no chance surviving against their sheer power output. Desperate, I twisted around and leaped up the slope of the crater. I stumbled at the top because of the angle of ascent, but manage to not fall head over heels and face plant on Equestrian soil.
The glowing got brighter. I could see their eyes emanating a white light now, and a charge up sound was ringing with a shrill pang around the nearby air. I started running for my life, trying to get away from them as fast as possible. It may seem like a stupid choice to make, but there was no cover nearby for me to hide behind, so it was either run away and hope for the best of stand there and take it as if I was standing in front of a firing line. Oh, and there was also the option of charging right at them, but I wanted to MAKE distance from the glowing weapons of mass harmony, not close it. Besides, I wasn't even sure if I could disrupt the channeling of their spell or not.
The charge grew to a peak pitch then a wide, white light launched up into the air above the ponies. I kept running, but watched over my shoulder in horror that the energy turned from white to a rainbow in the sunlight, then curved downwards and aimed right at me. I tried to run faster, but my legs could carry me so far. The harmony blast painfully outpaced me, and there was no way I could beat it in a race. Not surprisingly, it caught up quickly, and I felt my life flash before my eyes right as it got a few feet away from me. Putting in a last resort, I dived for the ground, closed my eyes, and covered my head with my hands.
I heard it soar right over me, the call of a thousand volts of electricity shooting past my head. I looked up, and sure enough, it missed. My quick thinking and fast reaction got me out of it! I rolled to the side to get out of underneath it. I can't believe it! I didn't know they could miss like that! Sure, I guess the villains of the show never bothered to try and dodge the stupid thing, but I thought it was a sure-fire lock-on! I didn't think it could miss! But it did, and I prevented myself from getting obliterated by all that friendship. A moment of relief passed over me, and I let out a heavy breath.
But looking towards it, the laser kept going. Where was it going to end? Was it just going to dissipate and stop after a few more feet, or were the mane six going to end the spell and it would just disappear altogether?
None of those apparently, because the laser curved upwards and flipped back towards me.
I screamed and tried to get onto my feet again, but it was way too fast for me. I managed to keep my bladder tight as the beam of light hit my chest. I held my breath for the incoming pain...
...
...
...I opened my eyes.
It never came.
I stared at where the laser was hitting me. Sure it connected, but it just ended at my chest with small puffs of white clouds coming out where the contact was made and nothing else. I felt no change, I felt no soul-ripping-apart, and most importantly, I felt no 'super happy friendly mood change' coming along. Why wasn't the Elements of Harmony doing anything to me? Was I impervious to them because I was human or some bullshit reason like that? Did they only work on evil entities? That wouldn’t make sense, because the Elements as inanimate objects wouldn’t be able to tell what’s right and what’s wrong! That’d be just plain stupid!
My shoulders were shrugged and my hands hovered above the rainbow. Curious, I tried grabbing the streak of light. My fingers went right through it. I made a sound of surprise and tried to swat it away. No dice, and every time a body part appeared to touch the laser, it went right through it instead. I karate-chopped at it over and over again, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things in my already hallucinogenic state. I had to be seeing things. There was no way I was in Equestria, there was no way I fell through a portal in my living room, and there was absolutely positively no way in hell that the mane six shot the Elements of Harmony at me.
I felt light headed, and I started to lose balance. I don’t want to deal with all of this right now, god damn it! I turned to look the ponies firing at me. I’m surprised that they actually were still at it and didn’t end the spell yet. They were still floating about two feet in the air, eyes glowing and had neutral expressions on their faces, but now they weren’t looking at me anymore. Instead, they had this passive, far away expression on their faces that was a little bit creepy to examine.
This is ridicules. Haven’t they seen that the Elements aren’t working yet? Shouldn’t they shut it all down and try something else? Frowning, I walked the 30 feet that I had managed to make during my mad scramble to my escape and went up to Twilight. She was absentmindedly looking up into the sky, not paying attention to the otherworldly being standing inches away from her. I thought she would have at least panicked by now and reacted or something, but no, she was still miles and miles away from here. Go figure. I waved my hand in front of her vision slowly. No reaction. I wove both of my hands rapidly. Still nothing. Just for the heck of it, I did the monkey dance in front of her, humming Space Jam music loudly to the open air. Nadda.
“Ok, this is absurd.” I said to no one in particular while walking closer to Twilight. Daring to take a risk, I grabbed the top of her tiara and pulled it off her head.
There was an immediate chain reaction. First, the low humming noise that was coming from the channeling of their spell stopped. Then, the spell itself disappeared, and the rainbow stopped shooting into my being. Not too soon after, Twilight fell with a yell. So did the others. Rarity landed on top of applejack, Fluttershy slammed against Pinkie Pie and Rainbow did her own thing and kissed the dirt. They were all moaning in confusion and pain, rubbing their heads and looking dazed.
“Wha… What happened?” Applejack asked, trying to get a grasp of her surroundings.
“Where are we?” Rainbow inquired, getting her face off of the ground.
All the girls murmured incoherent answers. I folded my arms with Twilight’s tiara still in hand, tapping my foot and shaking my head. They still didn’t see me! Are you serious, fate?
Rarity slid off of Applejack’s stomach in a groan, while Fluttershy actually appeared to be out cold. It was only a few seconds later when one of them reacted. Twilight’s eyes grew wide when she saw me and a huge gasp escaped from her.
“Hey! Give me back my tiara!” she demanded, getting up to her hooves.
I gave her a serious look. “I’m not sure if I want to do that, seeing as you shot your laser at me with it and all. Why should I give it back when I know you’re just going to use it against me again?”
“I won't, Just give it back!” Twilight shouted, her horn glowing with a purple light.
For a second, I felt an extraneous force tug on the tiara for a split second, but it disappeared as fast as it came. Twilight’s head reeled back as if she’d been punched and cried out in shock. I could see a thin layer of something outlining my body while she cast her telekinesis.
“Wh-wha? Why can’t I use my spell on the tiara?” she asked, well, I was guessing me, but I had no idea. I shrugged my shoulder, indifferent. I had a sore feeling that I should be running away or something, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. These ponies were nice overall, so there must have been a good reason for them to be hitting me with the Elements in the first place. I wanted answers, and I didn’t think I’ll be getting any if I try and avoid them.
Twilight was not amused. She scrunched up her face in concentration and her horn lit up again. I swallowed. What was she doing now? Suddenly, there was a bright light all around me, and then metal bars formed around me from nowhere and the sun wasn’t on my head anymore. I tilted my head up to see a grey ceiling cover me from the sunlight. Panic setting in, I whipped my head around, just to see iron bars surrounding my location. I looked down. I was standing on a grey floor.
I don't believe this. She put me in a cage!
Author's Note
I apologize for the switch of tenses in this chapter. I wanted a sort of right here, right now experience while reading this, but my natural style of writing involves a lot of past tense storytelling, so there was an inner conflict brewing inside myself while writing this chapter. It will most likely smooth out as the series goes on once I have a good sense of what I really want out of this.
Also, most of this this is barely edited. I only checked for grammatical mistakes and typos, as well as tense changes, but nothing else. Editing is boring as all hell, and I don't want to do too much for this story. Besides, it will take up way too much of my time to do, and I aim to post chapters on a weekly basis. Editing will prevent this, so forget about it.
EDIT 04/06/14: Changed the ending sentence to a different reaction as suggested by readers.
Twilight was staring at me with a certain glint in her eyes, the frown on her face saying many things. All of her friends were getting up behind her, still trying to recover from whatever backlash they took from the Elements failing. They didn't notice the alien stuck in the metal cage a few feet away from them, nor notice Twilight. The purple unicorn tilted her head at me, tapping the edge of her hoof on her chin. I had an urge to grab one of the bars of my prison, but I wasn't sure if there would be some sort of inverse reaction as a consequence. I kept whipping my head up once in a while, just to check and see if the roof was still there. It felt a little claustrophobic in here, and I could feel the air get stuffy as I waited to be freed. Twilight took a small trot around the trap, examining me from every angle while making a few hums here and there. I tried to keep my eye contact with her and was suddenly overly aware of the tiara I held in my hand. I pulled it closer to myself, just in case Twilight would try to take it again.
"What are you doing?" I asked her aloud. She ignored me, and instead closed her eyes and lowered her head to the ground. Her horn began to glow faintly, and I could feel... something move in the air. It was a very peculiar sensation; it was if there was an overlying air current over the actual air in the space around us, and the overlying air was being shuffled around and browsed by some kind of outer source. It made the tips of my ears and fingers tingle, as if the circulation to them was lost completely. What was even stranger was that I could feel where exactly the hidden air was moving, whether it was manipulated to my right, behind me, or inches in front of my nose. My earlobes were telling me everything and I put my and up to where I felt it. My hand touched nothing.
That... That was really weird. Did I just feel magic?
I wanted to repeat my question. "What are you doing?"
Twilight's eyes opened and her gaze met mine. There was a certain anger in her eyes that I had not seen in the show, a flare of fire that burned a bit short from what it could. I could see it within the extending reaches of those deep, lavender eyes. It disappeared as soon as she opened mouth to speak.
"I'm checking to see why I can't cast magic on you or around you." she simply said. Her pupils continued to scrutinize me with unending focus.
I was relieved that she was kind enough to give me a straight answer, but this was going nowhere. She obviously saw me as some kind of threat, and to be honest, I don't blame her. Granted, she WAS the one who attacked me first, and she WASN'T the one to get a huge laser fired at her, but looking back stealing one of the most powerful artifacts that her country uses for defense wasn't one of my hottest ideas. I too would be pissed if I held a grenade in my hand and then suddenly an alien from another universe took it away and then proceeded to threaten me with it. Ok, I wasn't threatening her with anything, but she didn't know that, and it didn't help that for somewhat reason she couldn't use magic around me. I was still stuck in a cage with the Element of Magic and she wouldn't let me out until I gave it back to her. I didn't want to become her enemy! That would be pretty shitty.
"Ok, look," I began, opening up my arms with the tiara dangling from my palm of my right hand. I had an idea that I based off of the shows mechanics and it might just work. "I think we got off on a bad start here. I landed here in the middle of nowhere, you shot a laser at me and we had a big misunderstanding."
She perked up and removed herself from her patented Twilight Sparkle brainstorm that she's famous among the Brony community for. Her ears flicked and a more innocent expression adorned her face as her eyebrows raised. I had her attention, and had a sinking feeling that I would only get one shot to fix all of this.
"I don't want to be a bad guy, I'm not here to hurt any of you," I explained, gesturing to the other girls who appeared to be slowly getting their acts together. "Here, you can take it."
I lifted up the tiara and held it out to her. Her horn glows again and the sound of a balloon popping rang through the air. Once again, I felt an invisible grasp take the object for a split second before disappearing. Twilight jumped back with a tiny gasp. She shook her head from side to side and backed up a bit. When she put her vision back onto me she did not look amused.
"Oh, yeah, right. Sorry about that." I said with a chuckle as I fit the tiara in between the bars of the cage and left it on the ground. Then, I kept my hands above my head, shrugged my shoulders and slowly backed away. One of her eyebrows raised in suspicion, but she still took the Element in her telekinesis. Twilight floated it a few feet in front of her and stared at it, twisting and turning it as if it was booby trapped. Then, without another thought, she gave a smile and put it on her head.
"I honestly don't know what's going on, and I don't know why I ended up here, or why you shot me with magic, but what I do know is that you mean no harm to me. As I mean no harm to you, well, I think we can work something out, can't we?"
Her smile grew. I managed to grin back.
"Yes, I agree." she affirmed, and her horn lit with magic for a few seconds while the cage around me turned white. Then, it dematerialized and I fell two inches down to where the metal cage floor was taking up space before.
"I'm sorry that we fired at you," Twilight said, her head tilted down. "I had no idea that you would be so friendly."
"That's ok." I lied slightly. I really didn't think it was ok to shoot a FREAKING LASER at someone as soon as they arrive at a new world, but they probably didn't know any better. I briefly wondered why she thought me to be hostile in the first place, seeing as she is very accepting to greet other races, unless the shows lore is wrong. I couldn't focus on that though because she lifted hoof off the ground with the tip pointed at me.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle."
I took a step forward and grasped it with a solid grip.
"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Drake McMillan."
We shook appendages, and the first human-to-pony contact in history was made.
"What the hay is going on here?"
Twilight and I both looked to my left. The other five mares who were left out of the conversation were staring at us in confusion, as if we had something on our faces.
Hoo boy, this may be hard to explain.
Author's Note
So, I got someone asking to be a pre-reader for this story. I said yes.
Now I'm here to give you all a message saying that if you too, wish to become a pre-reader, PM me and we'll talk. If you do ask, I'll most likely say yes unless I already have, like, six other pre-readers or something. I don't want to have too many.
Also, sorry for the short chapter. I found myself typing too many details in the interaction between Drake and Twilight and didn't want to go too far into what happens after in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Equestrian Diplomacy
It took Twilight and I some work, but we managed to calm down the others mares before they did anything hasty. There were a few close calls, one of which involved Applejack holding Rainbow by the tail, pinning her down as the pegasus tried to launch herself at me. Now that scared the piss out of me because of how violent Rainbow seemed to get on the show, but I was glad that there was someone of equal strength to keep her in control. And even if Applejack somehow failed to stop here, I guess Twilight was there to pull Rainbow off of me too.
So an honest five minutes after my hand-hoof-whatevershake with Twilight, we were all sitting down in more or less a circle, trying to figure things out between one another. Twilight had already 'introduced me' to everyone, and I of course acted like it was my first time meeting them. I couldn't tell them about the show, not yet. I'm trying to establish inter-dimensional relations here, and I really don't think that the greatest way to do that is to complete a pact of peace then say "Oh, by the way, our world spies on your everyday lives, chronicles them and releases them to the public for our greater enjoyment!" No, that wouldn't be smart. I felt kinda bad for not telling them though, and it ultimately meant two things for me: One, I had to keep on top of my game to keep the lie alive and not slip up in any sort of way. That would be crappy. Two, I will need to tell them eventually, because I know from personal experience that the longer you hold a lie the harder it is to hold. The kind of focus you need to do something like that for more than two months if astounding, and unless I can find a way within myself to not tell them, I will have to tell them someday. And that day will suck.
I sat in the soft grass, cross-legged with my arms posted behind be for balance. I really, really wanted to stand up but I didn't want to intimidate them or anything. After standing side-to-side with Twilight, I realized that I was a whole foot and a half taller than them. Granted, I am six foot five, but that's still and incredible margin considering they're fully grown adult ponies. Well, at least I think they're adults. I mean, most of them have jobs and own their own homes, so I can't imagine why anyone would believe that they're less than 21 years old. I mean sheesh, how dense could you get?
Anyways, we were all in a circle, and the order of ponies clockwise from me was Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight. Applejack kept a weary eye on Rainbow, but otherwise had her attention to me. Rarity still seemed a bit scared-if not disgusted-of my presence within the group. There was nothing I could do about that for now, she was just going to have to get used to me and deal with it. Rainbow Dash was grumbling to herself, holding her tail in her two forehooves and shooting dirty looks at Applejack once in a while. Pinkie Pie looked as if she was having trouble staying still, shuffling her butt and bouncing in place every once in a while. Fluttershy was of course, still scared of me and constantly hid her expression behind her mane every time I ever so glanced at her. However, I did see her peek out and lift her head up from the corner of my eye every time I wasn't looking directly at her.
Twilight was quick to describe initial friendliness once we all sat down. That had managed to calm them down a little bit more at least, but I could still feel the mistrust in the air. I managed to stay quiet through the entire explanation and leave it to a professional. The others obviously trust Twilight a lot more than they trust me, so I figured that it was better to leave as much talking to the unicorn as possible. I only chirped in when Twilight was unsure how I got her exactly.
"Ugh, so let me get this straight," Rainbow Dash said, peeved by something I probably said. "You were at your home, waiting to go to school, then SNEEZED, got sucked into a portal out of nowhere, then fell from the sky and hit the ground UNHARMED in the outskirts of Ponyville?"
I nodded.
"That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of! How the hay does that even work? You sneezed and then a portal appeared! That doesn't even make any sense!"
Meanwhile, in a dimension far far away, a handsome, perfectly toned writer sneezed all over his monitor while typing the next chapter of his work.
"It really doesn't make too much sense to me either." I said, bemused.
"All of this sounds like a load of baloney to me!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, folding her forelegs and giving me a glare.
"Now hold on a moment Rainbow," Twilight began to explain. "We can't put his word out of the question. He's just as honest as all of us here in this circle, right Applejack?"
Applejack looked at Twilight, then turned her gaze to me. She squinted, then nodded her head. "He's tellin' the truth. Ah can feel it."
I was thankful that I now had two ponies on my side to vouch for me that weren't complete nutcases.
"It has been a little bit crazy as of late," Rarity pointed out. "All these portals and monsters that come climbing out of them, well, I think I'm willing to believe anything at this point."
That left me confused. "Monsters? Wait, you haven't told me why exactly you were all posed and ready to shoot at me as soon as I arrived. What's up with that? How did you know I would be here?"
Twilight bit her lip, her eyes locked on the lower left of her vision as I waited for her answer. "We've been having a bit of a portal problem lately. About two months ago, a portal appeared over Ponyville, and with it a horrible, two-legged monster came. It stepped into Ponyville and began destroying everything. The girls and I had to use the elements to subdue it, and then it seemed to melt and get washed away by the Elements. When we were done, there was nothing left of it, and the only proof of it actually being there in the first place was all the destruction it left behind."
All the girls around me appeared to be a bit nervous, not looking at anyone in particular and settled with staring at the ground.
"After that, portals began appearing every two weeks or so, and every time they did another monster would appear from it, and we would have to use the Elements against it to keep it from destroying everything. The monarch of our land, Princess Celestia, sent the royal guard to all corners of the land and sent them on high alert, trying to catch where the portal would appear before the monster that came from them did too much harm. Every time a portal did appear, the Princess would send all of us to deal with it, and we would use the Elements against it."
Twilight stared at the ground, not caring to keep eye contact anymore. "They keep coming, and we don't know what's causing it. Princess Celestia has her top magic scientists working at it, and I personally took a look, but so far we can't tell why they're appearing, or what's causing it. There's no distinguishable patterns, or any correlation between location and date. The only pattern we've noticed so far is that they occur about every two weeks or so. Every time they do, they cause more and more destruction in their wake because we don't know it ahead of time and it takes us time to get to where the monster is at."
Twilight looked a tab bit depressed. In fact, all the others looked depressed too. I scratched the back of my head. This was pretty shitty. Everything got really damn dark, really fast. I knew that the show could get a bit misguided at times, but I don't think it ever got this bad! The darkest it's ever gotten was when Queen Chrysalis trapped Twilight in the Canterlot Mines through a ring of green fire, and even that wasn't that bad.
What the heck is going on?
"You keep saying monsters," I comment, making Twilight look back up at me. "That's not too specific. What do they look like?"
"Well, they vary from appearance to appearance," Twilight answered. "One was tall, green and bulging with muscles. Another was wearing black robes and threw powerful kinds of magic everywhere it could see. Another one had a full set of metal armor on it, and it covered it's face with a creepy helmet. It had some sort of advanced crossbow that could shoot lightning fast bolts from it and it kept throwing bombs everywhere that set everything on fire."
Oh Jesus. This is crossover syndrome. I've landed myself in some kind of sick crossover fanfic.
"We never know what's coming out of the portals, or what they'll do when they get there, but two things are for certain: They all stand upright on two legs, and they all have claws." Twilight continued, running her hoof along the dirt in the ground.
Oh crap. That meant me.
"Ya'll don't have anythang to do with them monsturs comin' out of them portals, do ya?" Applejack questioned, leaning towards me with squinted eyes.
I gulped. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't, not with the living lie detector staring me down like this. "No, I don't, but the 'monsters' you've been describing suspiciously sound like things that come out of fiction on my world." All the girls had their attentions right on me, putting me on the spot. I really didn't know how to continue. "I, uhh, I mean, we don't have magic in our world, so a dark wizard shooting spells out of his hands sounds like something from a novel, and no one I know has green skin, so I don't really know what's going through those portals."
Every pony in the circle waited expectantly for an answer from Applejack. Her green eyes pierced mine for a couple of seconds before she nodded her head. Everyone relaxed, including me. What I did fail to mention to them however, was the gun-toting one-man army that came out of one of those portals. That literally sound like something from Halo or something. Good think that honesty doesn't mean details, just the truth.
"But how did you guys know when I was going to appear?" I asked, glancing up at the sky to see if the portal was still there.
"Applejack actually saw the portal come out of the sky." Twilight replied, gesturing to the farmer.
"Ah was at mah farm, gatherin' apples when th' sky darken'd fer a could of seconds," Applejack recalled, flicking her hat up so she could see me better. "Ah looked up, wonderin' where th' sun went. Then off in th' distance, ah saw it. Ther' was a black hole, stuck up ther' in th' sky. Ah, er, hate to say it, but ah panicked and ran for Twi' before anythin' appeared."
Twilight nodded. "I found Applejack banging against my door early in the middle of my lunch. After she explained to me what happened, I gathered the rest of the girls and let Applejack lead us to where she saw it. You came down from the sky as soon as we got there."
"Mmm. Ok." I acknowledged. That explained things. That meant that I landed not too far from Sweet Apple Acres. That's why I was seeing a whole bunch of apple trees earlier. I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see a forest of apples, wood and leaves scarred along a large plot of land off in the distance, with a big red barn sitting in the back.
My gaze turned back towards them. I needed to ask a question that I've actually wanted to ask for a long time. "So what now? What's the next step here?"
I purposefully avoided asking 'What are you planning to do with me?', even though the snarky part of me wanted to. That would be low, even for me.
"Umm, that's a good question," Twilight said slowly, mulling over her next words. "I really don't know. I haven't thought that far. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened before."
She looked at her friends, one by one. All of them gave some kind of answer that was related to 'I have no idea', with Rainbow Dash shrugging, Applejack shaking her head, Rarity looking confused, Fluttershy hiding behind her mane and Pinkie Pie swatting at something flying in the air. Twilight sighed, then turned towards me.
"I guess we'll head back to my library, I can send a letter to Princess Celestia and we'll sort it out from here." She concluded, although with a little bit of uncertainty.
The others murmured in agreement. I said sure, then we all got up. I brushed off the back of my pant leggings just to have a cloud of dirt get flung in my face from Rainbow Dash taking off. I ended up inhaling a bunch of it in my mouth and could taste Equestrian soil on my tongue. Coughing and wheezing, I stumbled back while sputtering until I managed to wave out the dirty air away from my breathing area. I could feel the particles of earth on my eyelashes. I shot a glare at Rainbow Dash, who could only give me a nervous smile and a shrug for my suffering.
"Heh, sorry" she apologized, slowly flying away from me.
"Yeah, whatever," I replied, dusting off my sweater sleeves. "I just want to get back home as fast as possible."
Twilight froze. She turned around, a chilled expression on her face. "I'm not sure how possible that is."
I fucking knew it.
Author's Note
Disclaimer: I am not perfectly toned.
Also, I'm adding "Comedy" as a tag. When I created this story, it was originally a tag, but I wasn't sure how funny my writing is, nor was I sure how much funnies I wanted to fit into the main story. I'm still not sure. I may change it at a later date.
Chapter 4: Pissed off in Ponyville
The walk to Ponyville was silent. Twilight had nothing else to say to me, and I had nothing else to say to her. The top of my mouth was tasting sour, my dehydration causing me to smack my lips together once in a while. I knew the other girls felt nervous around me now that I was pissed, but I didn't care. They could think whatever they wanted about me. I was the invader here, after all. I was the 'monster' that they were so prepped for to tackle and take down as soon as I arrived, no matter if I wanted to arrive there in the first place or not.
I couldn't blame Twilight for her answer; it really wasn't her fault that I was here in the first place, and the poor girl clearly felt bad about my plight. But fuck, if I was going to be stuck here for the rest of my life, then god damn it, I have the right to complain! No portal, no going back. Twilight had told me that she had no idea how the portal was created, ergo, she had no idea how to produce another one, let alone have it transport me in the right direction, because even if she DID know, it might end up sending me to some random-ass planet where butts that have cars with square wheels dominate the place!
I yelled at her. I fucking yelled at her. Hell, I screamed murder at her, and the others didn't like it one bit. They were on my case in an instant, saying that it wasn't in her control that I got here and that I was being mean to her and yadda yadda yadda. Applejack's scowl was pretty killer, Pinkie got up right in my face and I swear to god, if Rarity had the ability to shoot daggers out of her eyes she would have. Rainbow Dash wanted to knock me out right then and there, with her hooves held up and everything. I taunted her, telling her that she didn't have the balls to punch me. I wanted her to take a swing. I wanted a reason to fucking light her face up. But then Twilight stopped everything. She said that it was alright, and that I had the right to be mad, and that I didn't really do anything bad to her. That's when I started walking towards Ponyville. I had enough of their shit.
"Umm…" Pinkie said, making all of us stop and turn around to face her. "Where are we going?"
They all looked at me. I was so deep in my thoughts that I was actually the one in the front leading the pack through Ponyville even though I was wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I took a deep breath and exhaled, putting my fists to my hips and glanced around.
We were literally in the middle of the town. Hay-thatched houses surrounded us in the dozens, each one looking fairly identical to each other. The streets weren't organized in a normal fashion, and in fact some of them appeared to not be wide enough for two carts to pass through. Then again, Ponyville is a town, not a city, and was not developed as one. The cobblestone tiles that made up the roads were light-blue under the sun, and I could see the dirt pile up in-between their cracks. The sky was still clear as the eye could see, except for the stray cloud here and there that kept the atmosphere from appearing boring.
Suddenly, something bumped into my shin. I looked down to see tumbleweed caught on the top of my feet. I mumbled "What the heck?" and kicked it away. I could hear the wind whistle in my ear. Then, I realized something. The place was completely empty! Yes, there was not a pony in sight, save for the six mares behind me, following me as if I had a lick of sense where the Ponyville library was. I should have expected it. Of course all the citizens of this place would be wetting themselves in fright after they saw me. They had exactly the same reaction to Zecora, and even though they seem to know better now, I looked nothing like Zecora. I looked like all those monsters that have been invading their kingdom for the past month or so, tall, lanky and standing on two legs.
I shrugged. "I have no idea. Twilight, why aren't you leading us?"
"Oh," Twilight said, getting surprised by her name said out loud. Her ears were folded down and she refused to look at me directly in the eyes. "Of course. I'm sorry. Follow me."
And then Twilight started walking exactly the opposite direction we were heading. A part of me felt stupid for going in the completely wrong direction even though I knew I had no idea where to go. Because Twilight was right behind me in terms of order, she had to walk past all of the girls. I followed right behind her, and none of the other mares wished to look at me.
They were scared of me. Afraid. I wonder what the other monsters that came out of the portals actually did to them. How much damage did they deal?
Once we began following Twilight, we got to the library in no time. The grand oak was standing tall, its grand splendor shading over the nearby area. It looked exactly like it did in the show, from the circular windows to the bee's nest that hung on the branches to the left of the front door. I've always wondered why the bees never seemed to bother Twilight, and why she never removed them in the first place. I guess it's simply a case of cartoon friendliness, where everything is nice and peaceful and gets along with one another.
We walked into the tree one by one. I had to duck underneath the door, as the top was about at my forehead height. I should have figured that my size would be a problem in a world that is based off of a series called 'My Little Pony'. Once I was inside, I was a bit disappointed. For a library, it wasn't filled with that many books. Sure, they only had so much space to fit into a tree, but from what I could tell the main room led to another room in the back, a kitchen and a door which I presumed to lead into Twilight's room. I wanted to explore, but before I could, we were greeted by a certain green reptilian midget.
"Hi Twilight!" Spike said as he stood on a ladder, putting books back in their respective spots on the bookcase. He didn't see that I had come in. "Did you get the monster that appeared over Sweet Apple Acres?"
I could see the girls giving nervous looks to one another, sometimes stealing a glance at me to see my reaction. Me? I frowned, lowering my eyelids and folding my arms.
"Spike, we need to write a letter to Princess Celestia." Twilight stated, already searching a nearby desk for a spare quill and some parchment.
Spike turned around on the ladder. "Why's that?"
Then, he saw me.
With a shout, he let go of the books he was holding and fell off, landing on the ground with a hard thud . Most of the books that were loose above him slipped off of their perches and fell on top of him in a clutter. I winced. Although that was supposed to be comedic, seeing it in first person did not make it funny. His head rose from the stack, his eyes wide as dinner plates.
"Twilight! Why is there a monster in the library?" Spike questioned as he pushed through the pile of books on top of him and backed away from me.
"He's not a monster Spike," Twilight said, writing supplies in her possession. "He's, uh..."
Twilight looked at me. "What are you?"
"Human. I'm human." I deadpanned.
"He's Human, Spike, and he's not going to hurt us."
I could see Pinkie Pie quickly check me to see if I was, in any way, shape or form, going to hurt them. God damn it, is there any trust in this world?
"If you say so..." the young dragon replied with his back against the wall, still edging away from me.
I rolled my eyes, "Ugh, look, Spike, I dunno what kinds of things the 'monsters' did when they appeared whenever they appeared, but rest assured that I'm not going to do any of that kind of stuff at all. That's not my thing."
Even though my word let him relax a bit, he still regarded me with a wary eye. I was about to ask Applejack to help me out, but then I considered the fact that I yelled at Twilight before, and well, I'm not so sure if she'd be so willing to assist me.
"What would make me convince you that I'm not evil?" I inquire.
He put a claw to his chin, mulling it over. "You need to Pinkie Pie swear it."
I inhaled to groan, but then stopped. I was so ready to actually do it that I almost forgot I need to play stupid because they don't know that I know about them. I exhaled through my nose, clearing my mind of a lot of the shit that had piled up there over the past half hour. Applejack was giving me a look. That made me nervous. She could smell the lie without me even saying anything! That's really unfair.
I held up my pinky finger. "What, you mean like this?"
"No, silly," Pinkie chirped, bouncing to the front of me. "You need to do a Pinkie Pie swear, not a pinky swear. See, like this!"
She went through the motions. I willed myself to not even consider the fact that she knew about pinky swearing.
"Uhh," I said intelligently. "Ok."
And then I did it. And felt really stupid the entire time. I also wanted to blurt out "I solemnly swear I am up to no good!" instead of actually doing the thing, but with all the willpower I could muster out of my entire being, I resisted.
I am a god.
"Phew! Well that certainly makes me feel better." Spike admitted, wiping off the sweat of his brow.
Twilight floated her quill and parchment over to the boy. He quickly noticed the objects within his vicinity and grabbed them out of mid-air.
"So, what do you need to write about?" Spike asked, his writing hand poised over the paper.
"Drake here is the first being that has come out of one of the portals that is willing to cooperate with us, communicate openly to us and not react violently to his surroundings. We need to inform Princess Celestia about this, as this turns up the possibility that future encounters of creatures that come out of inter-dimensional portals may be peaceful instead of chaotic.."
I briefly had an urge to ask what Discord’s take on all of this was. Instead, I took a step forward, putting my index finger in the air. "Uh, also, could you inquire if she could possibly help me find a way to get back home?"
Twilight's mouth twitched downward, I saw it. She was staring right at me, and I could see her thoughts go through her mind underneath the pools of lavender eyes. I could feel the hesitation in the air, and she looked at me as if she wanted to say something, but it got lost in translation in her throat. She honestly believed it was not possible. She was trying to convince herself that there was a way, somehow, but her strong mental self kept telling her that there was just no way. There was not enough knowledge in the field to carry on such a task, and that opening up a stable dimensional portal was out of the question.
Well, that's was I got from her expression anyways.
"So, uh, what exactly do you want me to say?" Spike asked, shrugging his shoulders.
Twilight smiled. "Spike, Write down this: Dear Princess Celestia..."
Author's Note
Quick notice:
As of this week I am writing a one-off along side this series. It probably won't hinder the regular schedule that I have set up for this story-one chapter every week-but nevertheless, if I do miss a week and don't post a chapter, it's probably because I'm working on the one-off. What's the one-off about? It's a slice of life story involving Lyra and lies in which I'm putting a lot of thought into. That's all I'm saying.
Next chapter: The one which the mane 6 ask a buttload of questions.
