Top Hats & Metal Wings

Chapter 1: Damn portals…

“It’s all fun and games until somepony gets blasted to another dimension!” –Twilight Sparkle

Michael, Bryan and something else were sailing through the air after they were all ejected from the short portal ride to… wherever this was! There wasn’t really any time at the moment to ask questions about that sort of thing, but there was plenty of time for the two conscious projectiles to scream at the top of their lungs while flying in a wide arc. By some kind of miracle, they crashed into a bouncy castle on the top of a brick and brass-plated rooftop. The third object wasn’t as lucky; it hit the oddly placed bouncy castle, but bounced off and fell to the floor with a loud clang, as if it were struck by some big, heavy object .

“What the hell is this thing doing here?” Bryan shouted over the hiss of the escaping air coming from the rupturedcastle as he attempted to stand up .

“Out of the hundreds of questions to ask, THAT’S the one you picked?” Michael asked angrily while grabbing an extended hand to assist him up.

The two scrambled off the bouncy castle, and got a look of their surroundings. They looked out with amazement as they saw the night scene of a magnificent city. Gas lamps illuminated the undersides of massive docked airships in a bay that the city wrapped around. Buildings not unlike the one they had landed upon were everywhere, farther off, there was massive towers that looked like skyscrapers near the center of the city. Most of the ‘skyscrapers’ were bizzarely shaped, one went straight up until what seemed to be the 40th-ish floor then curved diagonally and tapered to a point. There were massive curved plates of brassy metal covering most of the structure, making the whole thing look vaguely like a giant wing.

Other, equally impressive towers littered the area surrounding the wing building. While Michael just gawked at the city, Bryan looked at the more local surroundings and saw the third projectile that flew with them on the floor, “Oh my god is that some guy!?”

Michael turned around, and his eyes lit up in terror, “I do believe it is! C’mon!”

The boys started to run over to the person, but before they could reach him, the rooftop access door burst open, and a green unicorn, yes you heard right, a freaking unicorn said with a dapper tone,” Now, what’s this, then? My invention! Hold it… whatever you two are.  You have some explaining to do!” The unicorn used magic to levitate the boys, who started to scream and shout again. Still screaming, they both slapped each other in the face to snap their selves out of their fit, making them spin in a circle. All Michael could do was point at the unconscious body, which he could see now from the light coming from inside the building that it was another pony, and quickly shout, “Him!!”

“Hmm? Oh!” The unicorn dropped the two boys onto the hard, metal floor and walked over towards the catatonic earth pegasus. Bryan just sat there dumbstruck, while Michael was more in awe of the unicorn than anything. Because unicorns mean magic or mushrooms, but green, big-eyed unicorns wearing brassy, riveted goggles and a big brown coat meant that there was a strong possibility that they could be in… no it looked to different. But there was unicorn right in front of him looking over a lavender pony with a white mane! Wait a second… could it be? No… it can’t be Tellis, this place looked nothing like New Ponyville City. Not that Michael has ever actually seen New Ponyville, but still.

“Oh, I hope I’m not in shock… I’m not in shock, am I, Bryan? Bryan!? Bryyaannnn…” Michael waved a hand in front of his friend’s face, no response. He grabbed Bryan by his Cookie Monster shirt, lifted him up to his feet, then shook him a bit while shouting his name.

“Yeah, we should probably go help or something…” Michael said as he motioned for his friend to follow him. They stepped into the rather fancy bronze metal stairwell, complete with blue carpet floors, elaborate blue on white wallpaper, and lots of paintings and pictures of ponies looking elegant, others had ponies partying in a pub.

Examining the lavender pony, Michael saw that he fit the description of Tellis, long white messy mane, and metal hoof/hand thing. Call Michael a prude, but he really didn’t need to look in the general area of where hiw cutie mark was. Tellis was lying on his back and really needed to wear some pants or something, which Michael pointed out to his best friend, who only chuckled at his prudence.

Michael picked up a table cloth that was on the floor and draped it over Tellis’s lower half, giving him a bit of decency as the green unicorn gave a victory yell after he finally found what he was looking for. he was still behind some shelves, so it was hard to see what exactly it was. It seemed to be some kind of large monitor on a stand with wheels and a small flashlight thing attached to it by a cable that wrapped around the thing for storage purposes. The device seemed to be made out of the bronze-like metal most everything else was made out of, and it gleamed in the white light from the monitors in front of the table Tellis was laying on.

The unicorn pushed Michael and Bryan out of the way with the machine, started plugging a patched up power cable into a nearby socket that shot out several sparks when he did so, and started up a conversation with the two strange creatures in his home, “So, uh, whatever you fellows are… wait, ARE you male?”

“What? Oh, yeah yeah yeah, we are definitely males.”

“I have so many questions!”

“Hey, Michael, I don’t wanna answer a lot of questions, and I’m scared.”

“Bryan, you may have a point. Hey, let’s just tell him some basic stuff right now so we can help this guy with his thing! So, what do you say, mister…”

“It’s Darius Ellistar.” He said proudly as he began to levitate the attachment for the device over Tellis, which seemed to be a scanner thing now that they could see it better, he activated it, emitting a flat beam of green light on Tellis, he pulled the decency sheet Michael put on him with his teeth and then said back to the boys, “Sounds fair enough, continue.”

Michael leaned over to Bryan and quietly said to his comrade, “Holy turtle penis, Bryan, It IS our OCs! This is so awesome!”

“What was that?”

“Oh, it was nothing… were to begin? Uhh, me and my friend are a species of mammals known as ‘humans’. We uh… um… oh. I can’t believe this, I’ve practiced like eight times on what to say if I ever encountered this kind of situation, and now I’m just drawing a blank! Help me out, will ya Bryan?”

“ Really, eight times?”

“Yeah, man, why not? I mean look at where we are, right now.”

“I thought that this was just going to be ‘some basic stuff’, you have barely told me anything! “

"Oh, well I guess I should say some stuff then… how about our names! Yeah! My name is Bryan Foster, and he’s Michael McIntosh.”

“Wait, shut up Bryan, I remember what I was saying now, and if you keep saying things, ill forget again, and we’ll never get anywhere!”

“Fine by me,” Bryan said as he pulled his smart phone out and took a picture of a confused-looking Darius.

“It’s a little camera, you do have cameras here?”

“Why, of course, but a camera can’t be that small.”

“Sure it can,” Bryan said as he took another picture.

“Bryan! You’re taking pictures? Great idea! The guys’ll be so jealous! You know, AFTER we figure out how to get back home… not that I want to anytime soon.”

“I know, right?” Bryan said as he took yet another picture.

“You two idiots have said next to nothing except for your names and your race! Are all hugh-mins as stupid as you?”

“Hey… we aren’t stupid! We are tired, scared, nervous because I’m actually not that confident in my speaking abilities, quite recently got shot out of this giant portal thing like it was a huge cannon along with this guy here, who will probably freak out as soon as he wakes up. More than we did when we first saw you, Darius. I’m serious, just look at him, he looks pretty dangerous, and he’s already moving around. Jeez, this guy’s head must be made out of steel or something! ”

“Or he’s a pegasus! This can’t be… but look here, on the x-ray, his bones seem to be hollow, and see those little nubs near the middle of his back? That’s where his wings should be! This day just keeps getting better and better! I’ve discovered not only a wingless pegasus with bizarre arcane technology on him, but a completely different race with even more technology as well! If this keeps up, I’ll finally beat Twilight Sparkle at her own game!

“Wait, should you be x-raying him, without any protection, and with two others RIGHT NEXT TO HIM!” Bryan raised his voice towards Darius as he stood up from his chair and pointed a finger accusingly at the unicorn.

“Calm down, calm down, we’re perfectly safe. Trust me, I’m a scientist!”

Michael looked at Bryan and smiled, turned back to Darius, and asked with with his best Clint Eastwood voice knowing full well what the answer would be, “What kind of scientist are ya?”

“The best kind! The kind that is better than Twilight Sparkle!” Darius shouted as he turned back around to pour over his data once ds one again and Bryan brohoofed Michael for fulfilling their little inside joke, but they weren’t expecting him to say the second sentence. This guy seemed really obsessed with Twilight, which may cause some problems later on, or an absolutely hilarious situation, only time will tell.  It was time to play the ignorance card again, and Michael asked innocently, “Who’s Twilight Sparkle?”

“Why she’s supposed to be my colleague at the Academy of Arcane Sciences, but she is more the like the mare that always overshadows me in everything I do! I build a robot to sweep floors; she builds one that sweeps, mops, buffs, waxes and protects! I enchant a telescope to be able to see a far off star a bit better, she just magics up a holographic model of the star in her back yard! I go to work with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she brings a huge carrot, lettuce, and tomato one!” Darius vented his frustrations as he put the scanner back onto the monitor as he pushed it out of the way.

“She sounds awful!” Michael said to Darius, acting sympathetic to the green unicorn.

“Oh, she’s actually very nice, I don’t think she even realizes that she’s even doing it.”

Suddenly, Tellis bolts up from and screams, “COMET!!!!”

“Whoa!”

“Holy-“

“By the princesses!”

Tellis flailed around, and almost punched Darius in the face while shouting, “Where am I? What are those!? Who are you!? Where’s Comet!? Tell me where she is!!”

“Calm the hell down! We don’t know where she is! Now if we could all stop screaming at all of us and trying to kill me…(clears throat) we can tell you what’s going on.”

A/N Okay, this is a short chapter for me, usually I like to make them 4k or so words, but I want to get the content out there before my slacker tendencies destroy this story, and ive also been really busy, I tried to finish the chapter like three days ago, but I couldnt!  I can just make a whole bunch of chapters, I guess. Some terms may sound similar to other universes, but that doesn’t mean I’m stealing anything, because the Ministry of Arcane Science (FoE universe) is completely different from the Academy of Arcane Science, one was for a war effort, the other is for the advancement of technology that improves the lives of all ponykind. Im looking for editors and pre-readers, mainly just editors, because we all know it’s hard to correct your own writing. Please leave a comment