Equestrian Days of a Human Mage

I woke up clutching at my head, my body was a tangled mess as I shifted from my sleeping position. a blunt pain pushing into my forehead.

"Fuckkk...my head..." I moaned rubbing my head slowly.

"You know it's truly amazing that you can sleep through a bus trip, on a road full of potholes and speed bumps, while also in what is probably the most awkward sleeping position I've ever seen, but be woken up on the smoother part of the road," Mark explained, Not taking his eye off of his phone screen.

"Fuck off," I mumbled, still half-asleep.

"No, James, I can't do that-" He looked over the rows of empty seats "-there's nowhere else to sit."

"You're a riot, Marcus."

The bus trundled along the road, slowly ascending a hill, the road was now coloured gold and hazel by the bare autumn trees.

Me and Mark had known each other for a few years now, we had first talked at a party when we were seventeen, I had overheard him, talking about Discord and his resemblance to Q, and I quickly slipped into the conversation.

We became friends pretty quickly after that, occasionally talking about a new episode, girls, or video games... you know, general guy stuff, well at least the latter two were.

He looked out for me, I looked out for him. We insulted each other, embarassed each other, and annoyed the fuck out of each other constantly.

So yeah, pretty average friendship.

"How long was I asleep." I asked.

No reply.

"How long was I asleep." I asked jabbing a finger into Mark's side.

"Twenty minutes or so." Mark said angrily. The bus hit another bump.

"Why you acting like a little bitch?" I droned.

"You made me rabbit-tap the screen and die." The bitterness tangible in his voice.

"Oh that ain't so ba-" I began before he cut me off.

"-On Flappy Bird."

"You still mad that I beat your high score?" I quipped.

Another bump, the bus jerked more sharply.

"OI! You wanna slow down a bit?" Someone yelled from further back at the driver.

"So onto more relatable things, do you think MLP's gonna bring back the changelings, I mean there was that one in the hundredth episode and in the Tantabus episode?" I asked enthusiasticly.

"That's hardly enough to prompt a second changeling invasion." Mark replied.

"Yeah but why were they being added in when they could of used something else?"

"Good question, maybe they're just easy to animate, cuz they all look exactly the same besides Chrysalis?"

We continued talking about this for a fair while, engrossed in the conversation.

"You know i would of thought Chris would sit back here with us, rather than at the front." I remarked.

"You forget he's a closet Brony,  besides he doesn't really talk too much anyway."

"Matt told me that he's started being more open about his interest in the show."

"That's good, I guess."

I decided to mess with him. "So did you get off to Smile HD last night too?" Mark gagged, performing a successful spit-take from the water from the bottle held in his hand.

"What is actually wrong with you?" Mark asked,  muffled by the hand he applied to his face. I failed to contain my laughter, guffawing at his reaction.

"I'm joking, I'm joking." I chuckled, trying to get my mirth under control after a solid fifteen seconds of laughing my arse off.

"You know I hate Smile HD, it completely goes against the innocence of the show," he said, scowling at me.

"Lighten up man, it was just a joke." I replied, pressing my head up against the window, staring out at the countryside.

"Bet you a tenner, that Starlight Glimmer is the enemy of the finale of season five." I added trying to change the subject.

"Deal."

"But you have to give me double if I win."

"Challenge accepted."

"They already showed the previews for the finale, so you lose."

Mark went silent for a few seconds.

"You're a cheating asshole, you know that right?"

"You walked right into th-" my voice was drowned out by the excruciating noise of grinding metal. The bus seemed to smash into something in the road. An audible smash as it landed, there was fire, then a blur of distant colours, the sounds of a forest, then darkness.

=======《¤》=======

Pain.

Pain is in my legs, pain is in my head, pain is everywhere and it just... Owww.

"Nnnnngh..." I stirred, taking in bright sunshine, must of been out cold for at least a few hours, seeing as it was barely morning when we crashed, I tried moving but my right leg appeared to be preoccupied with a sizable lump of metal was crushing it. It hurt immeasurably.the leg was bent in as position no leg should be, seemed to respond to my acknowledgement, by suddenly flaring up with the pain.

I reached out to the wreckage covering it, I felt a heat build up gradually, burning up my arm, from my body to my arm into the hand of the outstretched appendage, and the metal was sent from me straight into a tree, snapping the trunk and rolling off into the forest.

I turned my hand around, eyeing my open palm "wh-what the..." I paused unable to process what just fucking happened. At this point I kinda freaked out, throwing obscenities, among other things at the sky.

Once I calmed down, I tried again with a small pebble, using much less force, the pebble lifted into the air swirling in an alabaster aura. "Telekinesis? But does that mean..." I did my best Darth Vader force choke motion with my hand, crushing the pebble into fine grains of sand. I let go of the grains dropping them to the floor, I began to chuckle which quickly grew hysterical "SO, I'm a Jedi, fucking brilliant," I shouted, "Now all I need is a Lightsaber." I was about to experiment further when an important question popped into my head.

"Wait. Where am I?" For the first time in the last five or so minutes I was thinking straight. I noticed the worn yet stable cobble floor I was resting on, I looked up to scare the shit out of myself see the face of the (worst) princess of Equestria, Celestia, in marble form looking out on the forest entrance in front of me. I peered over the statue to a cobble bridge, which in turn linked up to a familiar castle, one I remembered from MLP' "The Everfree Castle..."

I looked to my side to see Mark, unconscious next to a statue of a certain Moon princess. I used my power to throw a rock at his groin. Following that bit of gentle persuasion he woke up immediately, my friend looked over to me, dazed and slightly pissed, as I held a few more pebbles that began orbiting my hand, cloaked in the same white glow.

"How are you doing that?" He asked, his voice ripe with curiosity but still slightly slurred.

"Not a clue" I said absent mindedly trying to get the rocks to connect and come round my arm like a snake. I got up, trying to walk into the cas- Nope no, fuck , that is utter agony, I looked down at my  broken leg seeing the damage,"Human legs REALLY shouldn't bend that way..." I turned to Mark, "hey, you had some medical training in scouts or whatever, right?" He nodded. "Well can you fix me up?"

Mark got up, and knelt down by me, checking the damage himself, he visibly winced before saying "Now this might, hurt a little, but it'll be better in the long run."

Mentally preparing myself for the pain I clenched my fists.

*SNAP*

After a moment of unbridled agony, the pain seemed to slowly slip away."Right, now that the hard part is over I'm going to get you something, to keep it straight, I'll be back in a sec."

Now that Mark had left me I was alone with my thoughts so I did the logical thing and checked my priorities, "Right, so postpone the continuation of the freak out until further notice," I joked to myself "Find a hospital for a more permanent fixture for my leg, figure out my... ugh MAGICAL potential," I groaned, throwing normal science into my mental recycle bin. "Get to work on a way back home, and last but not least, kill Flash Sentry if he's canon."

Mark didn't take much longer, having found a piece of wood solid enough to keep my leg straight, as well as a straighter and thinner log to use as a walking stick.

"So, you got any idea where we are?" He asked as I got to my feet.

"Equestria." I said as we began walking inside, through long snaking corridors, filled with suits of armour, cracked marble statues and ancient banners that were draped across the walls.

Looks like the architect found a copy of Skyrim laying around.

Mark chuckled, then asked again. "No seriously, where are we?" I gave him a serious look which he seemed to understand. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that."

"If we aren't then why is there grey Royal Guard armour IN EQUINE FORM on these racks, what about the Celestia and Luna statues we woke up on? And what about these powers?" I ranted, proceeding to tear a statue apart leaving a pile of rubble.

"Can you do anything else? That aura looks like unicorn magic from the show."

I deadpanned "Right, I'm gonna run through why that's a dumbass idea: if I can shatter stone with telekinesis, I don't want to be using fire or some shit like that do I?"

"Calm your tits."

"Oh, I should be CALM!?" I yelled frantically, "It's not like we might be stuck here, we might have lost everyone and everything we ever had, or families and our friends!?"

"Look," Mark spoke reassuringly, as he put a hand on my shoulder, "let's just say we have lost everyone, would they want us to be like this, yelling and screaming at each other?" He paused, continuing to walk, slowing his pace so we were side by side.

"No. No they wouldn't, they'd want us to figure it out and keep going. So I'll keep going and if you want to honour their memory, then you should too."

The anger and the fear which had taken hold of me a second ago had died down.

"..."

"And besides, they might not even be gone anyway. They'll look for us, and we'll make it back, one way or another." He assured me, a confident expression on his face.

"Thanks, I-I needed that."

"No need to thank me, you would've done the same for me." I put up a hand, motioning to stop, and turned to see an empty corridor, where the fuck did he go?

"Hello?"

A groan could be heard down the hall, around a corner. I quickly tore one of the blades from a suit of armour with my powers, levitating it in front of me.

What I found was one of the girls from the bus, she had long black hair, slightly tanned skin, crying next to another girl who was drained thoroughly, completely unresponsive.

And when I say drained thoroughly, I literally mean drained, she was a husk, shriveled and lifeless like a fleshy raisin. Behind them was some sort of throne room, that seemed to double as a feast hall. Two thrones were present the left practically destroyed each holding their own faded banner, the left held a crescent moon inside of a black blotch with a midnight blue background, while on the other was a depiction of the Sun, on a pure white sheet, that was In far better shape than, the one on the left.

She jumped backwards as as she noticed me with the sword, I could see her face more clearly and remembered her name.

"You alright, Nancy?" I asked lowering the sword.

"Do I look alright Jackass? No I'm not 'alright' I've been sat next to a dead body for the last twenty minutes, in a dark hall" She wiped the tears from her eyes, Alf came round the corner holding a huge ass hammer in one hand

"Sup, Nancy." He said, oblivious to the dead body. "Oh, I found out my power, by the way." He tossed the hammer up in the air, catching it with one hand again. " I have some sort of super strength."

She looked between us and asked "Do you know where we are?"

"Castle of the Two Pony Sisters, Equestria, we'll explain later, no I'm not crazy, this place is a thousand years old(give or take),  those two pony sisters are goddesses of the Moon and Sun, yes James is levitating this sword right now, magic, does that answer all your questions?" After he finished, it was completely silent I swear i heard Nancy's eye twitch behind me.

"Mark did you just pull a Pinkie Pie on me?"

"Maybe..." He chuckled.

Nancy didn't speak.

"So-" I said turning around to face Nancy "-You see any others?" My voice tearing her from her  thoughts.

She stood up, faltering slightly and using the wall to prop herself up. She got herself stable on her feet and then shook her head, I resumed.  "We should try to find everyone we can, and get out of here quick, the show made this place out to be like an Indiana Jones movie set, traps and shit everywhere." The two of them nodes and we all went our separate ways.

After about an hour search, we had found three living people, and at 20 corpses, 18 students, a driver and a teacher, I nearly ended up emptying my stomach over the state of one of them.

I told Nancy our full situation, and I was promptly called mentally unsound by her, so I told her to actually look at the paintings on the walls, the armour on the racks, The statues and that everything looked far more colourful than usual.

We checked to see if we had anything useful on us, Nancy and Mark's phones were fried, we only had my Android phone which was dead at the time, therefore solidifying the fact that Samsung was capable of dimensional travel and just didn't tell anyone.

The Everfree was... terrifying, the show really doesn't do it justice. The trees visually shift like a mirage, the innate darkness of the forest causes hallucinations, Mark said he saw his little sister across some trees which led him to some sort of carnivorous plant, that thoroughly tore from the ground taking it's roots and some pony skeletons with it. I kept hearing whispers,"die... die.. I know you want to..." in a wretched, haunting voice that came from nowhere. Dark figures hid a the edge of my vision forcing me to turn every so often. The earth smelt of decay and rot as the twisting path, snaked it's way around the gaunt jagged trees. It was impossible to tell time as the canopy was completely blotting out the sky with not a single ray of light piercing it

I think I genuinely saw a note on one of those trees.

The Mark started showing more of his power while we were in the Everfree, after we got our stuff. It started with causing the ground to crack with heavy footfalls, and ended with him kicking a head sized stone so hard it went through a tree like a bullet.

"We're at least past season 4, I can see Twilight's Castle up ahead." Nancy looked at me, thoroughly confused.

"Who or what is 'twilight' besides the time of day?" Woah. I'm surprised she didn't take a Jab at the book series.

"One of the four rulers of the realm." I answered, completely matter-of-fact.

"Who are the other three?"

"Celestia, Luna, Cadance, stop asking me shit, you can ask when we get to Ponyville."

After what could've been hours we finally made it to the edge. Seriously, FUCK the Everfree, I am not going back into that again.

The feelings broke away into clear fields as I took my first real look at Ponyville. The show was rarely accurate in the fact that town hall was positioned in the middle, splitting off into several streets, each retreating from the centre.

"Let's just fucking walk in with no tact at all and politely ask for an audience with Twilight Sparkle." I suggested,"no point beating around the bush."

"Agreed, Fanfics always do that so real life dictates we do the opposite."

Nancy shrugged in agreement.

And so we walked in as a group, a few ponies stopping to ogle 'the freaks' as it were.

One brown Earth Pony was watering his garden, dropping the hose to gape at us as it was running.

"'Afternoon." I said calmly.

"Uuuuuuuhh...Hi?" the earth pony blurted as we walked past.

Things were going quite well until I was knocked out.

=======《¤》=======

I awoke in a pile of unconscious bodies I recognised as Nancy and Mark, my vision clearing, to behold the Mane Six and Spike arguing about something, as a crowd of ponies gathered round us, whispering about the 'Hairless Monkeys' and prodding us about.

"You know I would expect you to get to know me before you start hitting on me like that," I chuckled.

The Six turned to me in shock while Fluttershy, leapt behind Rainbow Dash. Applejack was closing in and turning around, lifting her hind legs up to...

*THUNK* Two guesses what happened there...

=======《¤》=======

"I application this time in a soft and comfortable chair, at a large table. It seemed to be Twilight's castle, the slightly crystalline walls giving it away. What I noticed in a few seconds though was far more interesting.

These was a... pressure in the air which I hadn't felt earlier, it was odd to say the least, like there was an overbearing presence in the room.

"Please don't hit me in the face again." I groaned. Rubbing my nose, feeling it's unnatural position, great it's broken.

"I am terribly sorry about that, my student and her friends do get rather carried away sometimes," A rather feminine, yet powerful voice spoke somewhere to my right. I also healed the wounds you sustained to your leg, although it was rather difficult without knowing your anatomy."

The snowy white form at the end of the table levitated a goblet to her mouth, taking a short sip from it.

"Now, I have a few questions for you," Celestia smiled brightly, then stood up from her throne like seat and started trotting to a chair closer to me,

"Shall we begin?"