A not quite Equestrian adventureby the Joyless1ChaptersChapter 1: taken to EquestriaChapter 2: A daring escapeChapter 3: A torn villageChapter 4: In LimboChapter 5: A small breakChapter 6: A good morning to you tooChapter 1: taken to EquestriaSee a Universe. Zoom in to the galaxy, The Milky Way. Zoom into the Sol system. Zoom into the planet locally known as Earth. Zoom into the landmass locally known as England. Zoom into the place locally called Chertsey. Zoom into a small pub on the edge of town. Zoom in… THUNK… WHUUMP, “AND DON’T BOTHER BRINGING YOUR DRUNKEN ASS HERE AGAIN.” I stare glumly at the man, who’d just recently been thrown through out of a window frame (things had gotten so poor the taverns couldn’t be bothered to replace them), stagger upright only to fall back down again moaning about the prices of alcohol, and most likely, a stupid bartender, there are lots of those people around. People who don’t want to remember or think about their day. People would rather just drink until they just stop thinking. Tomorrow… well, that’s just another day not to remember. I don’t like to see what used to be a once bustling city, turn to a ghost town right before my eyes. This is now just another wash-down area that attracts flies. I look up at the sky and see dark clouds looming overhead, rumbling, promising rain by the bucket load. It’s not that I don’t like it, I love the rain, it allows me to wash away my sorrow, there just isn’t much point getting soaked to the bone at the moment. So I get up off the bench at the side of the road and sluggishly make my way home. I always carry my seven inch combat knife down my sock and my trusty DEAGLE, which only has one clip, it helps me feel safe against the city which has more killers and such than a crime movie. I’ve never stabbed or shot someone before and I’d never want to do so but if it means that I’ll live another day then so be it. I’m not weak, in fact if forced to do so I can break three collar bones, several noses, four ribs, an arm, probably a leg and cause all kinds of hell to your internal organs without getting a scratch, it’s the fact that I hate violence. This is the reason why I watch MLP. I'm not a fully fledged brony or anything I just like the show. It takes me away from this world full of pain and suffering, and helps me think that there is a reason to live in this world albeit to watch the show again. I reach the wreck of an apartment I call home, with its missing bricks and boarded up windows, just before the first drops of rain, that come before the storm, start their unrelenting assault. I fumble for my keys and go inside. I take off my leather trench coat, It doesn’t do anything I think it just make me look cool, and my survival bag. It contains everything I would need in an emergency; a first aid kit, a few clothes, a towel, a lighter (you’ll never know when you might need one), a pen and pencil and some paper (for when I feel like drawing or writing something for me to remember), and some other less than essentials like water and food rations. I then enter the living room and turn on my laptop and start watching MLP. It was after the episode where rainbow dash creates a sonic rainboom to save rarity, Before I realised it was 9:37 so I decided to close my laptop and go to bed. I get to my bedroom and lie down on my bed, it's nothing much just four walls and a bed in the middle. i finally start to drift off to sleep. CRACK!! I’m instantly awake and look around and try and collect my thoughts to figure out, what on earth had made that noise? I think about downstairs and rush to find the intruder. I look around to find nothing gone and no sign of entry. A wave of relief sweeps through me and I make my way to head back upstairs. *click* THWOMF CLANG!! From outside came the loudest scream I ever heard, I never felt worse in all my life. It was the caltrops (smaller versions of a bear trap) I had set outside to prevent burglars from entering, it was only a deterrent, and I had changed the springs on the traps for some weaker ones, ones that wouldn’t cause too much damage to the person but would still cause a big problem for the person where it clamped down on. I never thought someone would step on them, they weren’t exactly concealed. I run to the hallway and grab my survival bag. A quick turn of my heels and I rush to my garden and open the door. I couldn’t believe what was before me. A small creature was struggling against the trap on its hind leg. Blood was already gushing out of the wound and it was already getting weaker. A twinge of guilt spread across my face. I didn’t notice the strange object behind the bush too my right. I gasp and rush over to comfort the creature. The moment it sees me, a look of renewed desperation rushes over its face. And it thrashes against the trap pouring yet more blood onto the garden. I pet it, and speak softly to it until it calms down so I can safely remove the trap. I put my fingers in-between the jagged teeth and pull. With some effort I manage to open it wide enough to remove the damaged creature which had passed out “probably because of shock” I thought to myself, “so I’d have to hurry” , I can’t recognise what it is the blood to makes it too difficult to make out. Plus the fact it was dark and the only light was the moon in the sky and it was also very cold. I pull out the small first aid kit which was a small see-through plastic container. Within it contained an array of medicinal equipment, of which contained two things I needed, a piece of material to stop the bleeding and a small knife. I start to patch up the creature wishing that it won’t die, as I finish and lower the knife to cut off the excess material, another creature bursts from the bush too my right and slams into my shoulder. My body was flung to the floor and my head hit a rock I was instantly unconscious. The creature that made me unconscious looked at me then looked at the other creature and looked at what I had done. A snarl, that could be counted as a smirk, was etched across its face as it dragged the other creature back through the bush , a few minutes later a few more emerge and drag me through it as well. Although with apparent difficulty. On the inside of the bush though would have freaked out anyone. It was a small tear, floating a few inches above the ground. When the sun rose however it had disappeared. All that remained of what had happened that night was some blood that had led to a bush and a small scalpel and a roll of material that had been used. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was walking to church. It was sunny and there were a few clouds, this was a rare occurrence where I live. There were usually black clouds of smoke and fire, or it was raining. Days like these were few and far between. The church was one of the few only places that hadn’t been affected much, by the cities cruel occupants. I enter the church with its the welcoming scent of lavender, it isn’t strong but it’s strong enough so that it’s still easily recognisable, and stroll up to the bell tower and start to climb. The bell tower isn’t the tallest thing in the city, as there are plenty of flats around, but it easily towers over some of the local occupant’s homes. It took me some time to reach the top. But before I got there I notice a faint glow towards the top of the tower as I reach the door where the bells are kept. I notice a faint white glow around the edge of the door. I open the door and the light almost blinds me. My eyes adjust to the increase of light and I step further into the room. I look around the room looking for the source of the light. I quickly find the source, and gasp in surprise, looking at the object that defies all laws of reality, “well, this is a dream” I think. The light is a small orb floating a few feet off the ground, the surface of the orb is multi-coloured and isn’t holding onto anything. I step towards it, and it seems to glow brighter, and fumble in my pocket and find a pencil, I poke the orb with the pencil and the pencil turns every colour of the rainbow, I pull it back out and it returns to normal. Seeing how nothing bad could possibly happen, I reach out and touch it with my hand. It feels like having a small electric shock, so I try and pull my hand away, but I can’t, panic grips me as I try and pull my hand off with my other hand, it won’t budge, I’m terrified now, It’s getting more and more exhausting, like its draining my energy, so pull my free arm back and punch it, my arm collides with it but instead of going through it, my arm stop suddenly, I don’t feel the collision, I can’t pull away, I can’t scream as no sound comes out. So with the last of my strength, I launch the rest of my body at it and curl into a ball. I stay levitated in the air as I watch the light as it goes through my chest and my hands and legs. I feel weightless for a few seconds as the light pulses throughout my body. I hear the words, no sense the words "you have been chosen". I don't have time to reflect on what has been said, as I stop glowing and gravity decides to work again. I tense and close my eyes as I brace for impact, but nothing comes. I open my eyes and look down there is nothing but a black pit. I flail in the air hoping to grab something, a muffled sound is made and I focus on trying to make out what it is. “... is it? ” “Get… weakling… fice to…” “What… meant to bleed… it…” "... No choice..." The rest was unclear and I couldn’t make out what was being said. Then everything went black. I must have been like this for ages. I couldn’t see anything, I hate not doing anything, plus it’s too boring. My body finally decides it’s time to wake up and I slowly open my eyes. Everything’s a blur and I can’t focus on anything. I try and move my arms but they’re tied behind my back… my eyes widen in fear. I finally start to take in my surroundings, they’re all greens and browns, and there're a number of bars, "I'm in a cage" I thought. "well at least there’re no wailing sirens or barking of animals in the distance, Thank god for that, stupid pests ruin my sleep every night. There’s just the sound of fire crackling over by that lion." I jerk upwards slamming my head against the roof, and I mutter some silent curses. My head is throbbing like mad now. This seems to have woken the lion as it stretches and turns to face me. “I’m dead” I tremble. note: ponies will be added in next chapter Chapter 2: A daring escapeI never felt so scared in my life, I almost wet myself, before it spoke up. “So what are they keepin’ you here for?” A look of shock sweeps over my face. This only makes the lion chuckle. “What never seen a cage before?” I look around, keeping the lion in sight at all times, 'doesn’t hurt to be cautious,' I think to myself as I scan the local area. I quickly conclude that I’m in some sort of settlement, as there is an abundance of tents and wooden equipment. And a cage. I focus back on the lion again which hasn’t moved an inch. “What’s wrong with you, are you a mute or somethin’?” “…” “Bah, the one time I get to talk to somethin’ in months. And all I get is a mute, hairless ape.” It grumbles. My anger rises quickly, but I control it, and I growl, “I’m not a hairless ape.” “Ahh, it speaks.” Mock sarcasm is evident in its voice. “Well, allow me to introduce myself, my name is Baltar. May I ask what your name is?” “Luke.” I retort. “And where the hell am I?” He (I assume) chuckles softly, before he speaks. “You’re in Equestria, well at least the jungle part of it.” He states before continuing, “And what are you? I haven’t seen anythin’ like you round here before.” He studies me quickly, like he has had many a chance to do so before. And I shuffle nervously under his piercing gaze. I look briefly at him, and the first thing I notice is his dark blue eyes that seem to look right through you, with a scar that runs down the middle of his right eye. He sees me stare at his scar and smiles, “this scar shows that I’m no longer part of this clan.” He said matter of factly. I look away unable to hold his gaze. And I take in what he said before. 'Wait did he just say Equestria?' I think, and I look at him with surprise. “Did you just say I’m in Equestria?” “Well yeah, course you are, where else would we be?” I stare at him eyes wide in disbelief. He notices my reaction and continues, “Well I knew you weren’t from round here. But what are you? And where did you come from?” He stares at me quizzically So I answer him. “Well I’m what’s called a human. A homo sapien if you want to get fancy.” I state, “And I come from a place called England. Although I doubt you’d have heard of it.” He smiles at this and then nods, “Well your right there, you must have come from somewhere really far away.” He then turns to go back to where he was, but turns back and says, “And also I think you should apologise to that pony over there. I think you really made her angry.” I flinch at this and turn to look at the pony he indicates to. She (I assume) is a yellowish/tan coloured pony, with hair of different shades of black, and large eyes with a magenta colour, and did not look too happy to see me. And her wings are folded in so I can't see them properly, she also has a poorly bandaged rear leg, and has a brown jacket with pockets, and is looking at me with an intensity that a fire would have wilted under. Steam was literally pouring out of her ears, and her teeth are barred. I swear, if she were any angrier, she would have burst into flames. she was also shaking, I'm not sure of the reason though it could be the loss of blood or it could be her rage. I mentally facepalm myself, 'Holy crap this is Daring Doo, shit she's pissed, she’s a legend quickly say something smart.' I think hurriedly. “Hey there miss Daring Doo.” This evidently shocks her. But she recoils and spits. “You stupid hairless ape, what the hay did you do to me? Look at my leg, what the hay did you do?” she was evidently unimpressed at how I know her, but another thing worries me she should be shouting but her voice is raspy. “Thanks too you, I got caught by the stupid Weya tribe. I’m gonna be set back weeks now. Do you know how long it took me to get this close to the temple of Raah? MONTHS!” I stare guiltily at the floor and think of a way to get me in her good books. “How bout I make it up to you by helping you escape then.” I say hoping that she’ll accept. I don’t know how I’ll do it but at least she won’t be as mad at me. “Hah fat chance, and if so, how the hay will you do that then?” still fuming at the fact that it was me that got her here in the first place. I think madly trying to think of a way to escape, when it strikes me that I’ve still got my knife in my sock. I look around and don’t see any guards. I raise my leg and start to shake it to try and dislodge the knife. The knife resists but finally falls out with a solid THUNK. I smirk at the now gobsmacked pony. “H-how did you… but…” she stammers, her voice barely above normal speaking tones. But she gives in and continues to stare angrily at me. “Never leave home without it.” I say as I shuffle over to put it behind me so I can cut the bonds that hold my hands. I cut the bonds that held my hands behind my back, looking quite smug, and try to massage some blood round them. To the annoyance of Daring Doo, who grunts and returns to looking at me impatiently. By now Baltar the lion had stood on all fours excitedly, and asked, “Well how are we gonna get out of here? The guards come round every few minutes or so, so we’ll have to be quick.” He continues to mumble about our escape whilst I nod in agreement and look at the cage around me. It’s a small cage, only a few feet high, so I have to crouch down low to avoid hitting my head. The bars were wooden with a thick rope holding the bars together. Pretty pointless if you ask me I could have broken the bars with ease, but I have to escape quietly, plus I want to get my gun back, as it would be too dangerous if they kept it. All in all this was a pretty good cage if I was any judge, but it’s still ridiculous. I warn Baltar to keep an eye out for guards, just in case they decide to check up on their prisoners. I make quick work of the ropes with my knife. And open the cage so Balter can go through. I step out and make my way over to Daring’s cage and slash at the ropes holding the door. The door, which by now was hanging only by a few ropes, sways eerily in the breeze. She tries to fly but with the amount of blood loss she must have gone through she is still to weak. So I lift the still weak pony onto my shoulder, she complains but I quieten her as I look for my survival bag. I find it a few moments later the contents strewn on the grass. I sigh and put the pony down and collect my gear and put it neatly back in the bag. I look around for my gun before I realise it’s not there. Anger burns my inside as I refrain from swearing, and I carry out a larger search, using my bag as a makeshift cradle to hold Daring Doo. I eavesdrop on some of the locals to get some sort of clue of where they put my gun. When I hear, next to a tent, “how long till the large one awakens sheff?” I assume this is their chief of some sorts. So this will probably be important. “Not long chief only a few minutes, I saw him stirring only a few minute ago.” ‘HA I knew it,’ I think triumphantly. “Good. We need him ready for the sacrifice to Raah.” ‘What?!’ I think, ‘to hell are they gonna sacrifice me.’ “Yes chief… And what do I do with this weird L shape thing” “Keep it. It is a sign of your courage to capture such a beast” “Yes chief, thank you chief.” “Damn.” I mutter quietly, so as not to reveal my presence. I think quickly and find a spot to put Daring Doo so that she won’t be seen. She panics for a second, thinking I’m going to leave her, until I tell her to stay quiet till I come back as I need to get something. She looks like she’s about to argue back, to say I’m crazy, so I turn away and rush to see the creature that has my gun. It is another lion just like Baltar except this one is larger and has plates of armour all over it, making it look like some sort of knight. I follow him as carefully as I can making sure as to not be seen, I can’t afford a confrontation, especially with Daring in her vulnerable condition. I follow the creature with my gun to the other side of the… camp? And watch it carefully as it enters its tent. It may not be a great plan, rush in, knock out the lion, grab the gun, and then run. But it is all I have. I stealthily follow behind it, making sure I won’t be seen when I enter. I open the flap as carefully as I can and enter the tent. The lion doesn’t notice me, as it was staring intently on the object in front of it. ‘Good’ I think ‘well this will probably turn out better than expected.’ Suddenly the flap bursts open, 'Me and my big mouth,' and a lion comes in spluttering. “SIR THE PRISIN-E-E-ER. WATCH OUT.” Without time to think I swing round with my fist and it comes in to contact with its face with a satisfying crunch, which sends it flying back out of the tent, unconscious. I turn round to face the lion with armour, only to be thrown outside the tent as well. Out of breath I get up and face my attacker, which had gone on all fours and is snarling. It charges again but I am ready this time, before it hits me I sidestep, his claws tearing through my jumper, and bring my knee into the side of its face where there is the least amount of armour. It howls in pain as my knee collides with it, sending it flying into my next would be attacker. I don’t stop to think as I run back into the tent and hastily look for my gun. I find it on the table at the far side and I dash to get it, as I grab it a bunch of lions burst through the tents door, ready for a fight. I don’t give them the opportunity as I run into the side of the tent and with my knife cut a hole through it, whilst placing my D-Eagle into its holster on the side of my hip. They instinctively take chase. I look behind me to see them catching up, so I skid to a halt and face them head on. I dodge the first one kicking it in the side as it lunges at me, which sends it flying into a nearby tent, but a second one jumps on me, and I land on my back and bring my legs up towards the lion about to land on me. As it lands on me, I push it off with my legs sending it flying far behind me, and roll backwards with the momentum of the push. This proves valuable as the lion with armour lands there moments after I move. I stand up to my full height bringing my leg up with me, and boot the lion hard in the face. With a horrible crack the lion falls to the floor dead, neck broken at a sickening angle and blood coming out of its mouth and nose. I had seen many dead things in my life but never actually killed something, especially in such a brutal way as I had just done. The other lions look in disbelief at what had just happened. And look at me with horror, and anger. I turn and scamper in the direction I had left daring and Baltar, foot throbbing from the collision. The lions were either planning a way of trapping me or they were actually scared of me, the fact that I could do something so vicious even scares me. The lions were following me at a distance, each one going at a pace that shows that they will catch me but only if someone else gets to me first. Seeing that I can’t out run them, I come to the conclusion that I have to defeat all of them to stop them from chasing me. I slide to a halt again and take up a defensive position. The lions spread out and surround me trying to confuse me and try to find a weakness to exploit. I give them no such chance as with my adrenaline now going into overdrive, my senses heighten to a point so that I could see a pin drop 40 meters away. They try and attack from behind but I pick up on their movement and swing round with my heel and slam it into the lion attacking me and send it bowling into another lion. ‘Two down five to go’ I think. And I wait for their next attack. They edge closer trying to get close enough so that I don’t have a chance to react if they attack. But they don’t have a chance as another lion comes crashing out of the trees and rams into two of the lions and the three start fighting. The two lions in front of me look around expecting an attack as well, seeing they’re no longer focusing on me I charge them catching them off balance and hurl them into two nearby trees knocking them unconscious. Baltar, who I now recognise as the one that joined the fight, finishes off the one remaining lion with a bite to the neck which brakes it in one swift movement. I wince as I see the lion drop to the floor, dead and bleeding. And I turn to Baltar who is beckoning me to follow him, I take off after him but I yell at him to wait. “We need to get Daring Doo.” I explain and run back to the camp, which is now swarming with lions in armour but they aren't as armoured as the one I killed, and quickly spot her and sprint over to her. “What the hay took you so long? This place is covered in guards now. How will we escape?” She exclaims as I lift her up on to my shoulder with ease as she is surprisingly really light. “I know a way out but it will be tricky.” Baltar says as he looks around nervously not wanting to be seen. “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” I whisper. We take off in the direction of a cave. “Oh great,” I mumble. as you can guess I really don't like caves. As we enter the cave I fumble for the lighter in my bag. We enter the depths of the caves, all the light from the entrance now gone, I finally find the lighter and flick it open and it bursts into flames and creates a little glow in the vast darkness of the cave. My eyes adjust to the surroundings using the little light I now have and spot Baltar eyes widening in fascination by my lighter. “How do you do that?” he asks his head cocking at a slight angle. “Well it’s simple,” I reply, knowing full well that he won’t understand anyway, “it is a mixture of compressed, highly combustible fluids with a flint and steel to produce the spark to light it. And a slow release system to make sure the right amount of gas escapes so that the flame can continue to burn.” After I finish the pony and lion give me a look which shows their confusion and I laugh. Daring speaks first “Wait, are you saying that you use water to make the flame?” I burst into hysterics laughing madly at their confusion and this confuses them even more. After I regain my composure I tell Baltar to move on unless we want to get caught. There isn’t a breeze in the cave and the walls are getting closer together as we make our way through the cave. We have to go in single file down the narrowing cave now and there is barely enough room for me to carry Daring Doo. we walk for what feels like hours the rumbling I heard earlier is now the roaring sound of water just ahead of us. I can hear Baltar shout over the roaring noise, “THIS IS THE FOREVER MOUNTAIN RAPIDS WE NEED TO BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL HERE, AS ONE SLIP COULD MEAN THE END OF YOU.” The moment we reach the end of the passage and step out into a wide area my lighter gets blown out and we can’t see. I curse as I can’t light it again as it keeps getting blown back out. I feel Baltar shuffling to my left as he feels for something. I carefully inch my way towards him so as to not fall into the rapids. A yell of triumph is heard and Baltar shouts, “I FOUND THE PATH ACROSS BUT YOU’LL NEED TO BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL AS WATER IS CONSTANTLY GOING TO TRY AND KILL YOU. THE PATH IS NARROW SO YOU’LL NEED TO MOVE YOUR FEET CAREFULLY SO AS TO KEEP ON THE PATH.” The extra emphasis on “carefully” makes me even more nervous. I shout back a confirmation and shuffle my way along the edge of the rapids to where the path across is. When I find it I hear faint yelling, over the roaring of rushing water, from the entrance and I resolve to move quicker across the path. It is hard work putting one foot in front of the other while water is trying its best to make sure my foot never reaches its destination, and the fact that I’m now blind doesn’t make my task any easier. Baltar yells and I freeze unable to think. After waiting for what feels like an eternity, Baltar then yells “I’M OK” relief sweeps over me and I continue to make my way across the sounds of the tribe getting closer. Baltar then yells “BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO JUMP.” Confused I carry on, and after my fourth step I bring my foot down only to meet nothing, I almost lose my balance Daring screaming in panic, her voice came out more like a squeak in her weak condition, but I manage to regain my footing and think about the situation. The lions are starting to file out into the opening spilling out light into the cavern from their torches. I look to Baltar and yell “CATCH” and I chuck Daring across the gap, in her panic she opens her wings and they give her the extra distance to make it, though weak she is she still has enough strength to glide. She falls back down into the hands… Paws of Baltar and she sighs in relief. It’s just me now and all the other lions are in the room yelling at us in fury, a few javelins falling short of where I am, and some of the lions are brave enough to try and cross to get me but they slip and scream to their deaths. I look over to Baltar and Daring and I think to myself as I take a leap of faith, ‘I hate my life.’ I reach out as far as I can, and manage to grasp the ledge with both my hands and slam into the wall. The rock which my left hand held onto slips and I flail my arm uselessly, and almost piss my pants, as I watch the rock fall down into the dark abyss which is the forever mountain rapids. I turn back to see Baltar reach out to me and I swing my arm round to grab it. I grab but slip and I slip down slightly as I recoil from the attempt, my right arm can’t take the strain much longer. Seeing that this is my last chance to grab Baltar’s arm I swing back, my arm screaming in agony as I struggle to keep my hand on the edge, and swing forwards, my left arm straining in its socket to reach his arm. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Family. It’s a wonderful thing to have but if lost it creates more sadness than you can imagine. I was 5 years old when I saw my father die in hospital, I was never told what it was that killed him, and I never knew my mother, she died giving birth to me. I was in school one day when the headmaster came into the middle of my English room, there was some snickering about me doing something wrong but I followed him out of the room. I wasn’t told where I was going only that I had to be there. It turned out that I had to go to hospital. I was taken to the emergency ward where I saw my father in bed with an array of tubes inserted into his body. I cringed at the sight but he beckoned me over. He whispered into my ear “take care of yourself, make the most of your life, stand tall, defend yourself and most importantly, don’t regret anything. Your magic son and don’t think otherwise, your mother was unique and she passed this on to you, live on for both of us. We will always watch over you.” Tears welled in my eyes as I hugged him, he lifted his free arm and wrapped it around me. I cried into his shoulder for a few minutes praying that he won’t go. A few doctors came in and fiddled with the tubing then left again. After I stopped crying we chatted for a while talking of the things we did together. After a while a doctor came in ordering me to leave, I shouted in defiance but then my father started to spasm uncontrollably. I froze looking in horror at what was happening, the doctor shouted at the people outside and a dozen or so people rushed into the room I was grabbed by two pairs of strong hands but they were unable to pull me away fast enough when his eyes opened. They were completely red and his mouth was choking up blood, his face a purplish green colour as if he had bruises all over his body. I was forced outside and taken to a nearby room where I sat in silence unable to move, unable to speak. A few moments later I was told that I would never see my father again. The words he told me I cannot remember as I had stopped working I couldn’t feel I couldn’t do anything. I knew it was over before he told me, but I still thought back to his face, it looked like a nightmare brought to life I couldn’t stop seeing it. I cried for a few weeks after he died and I lived in an orphanage until I was 16 where my great aunt gave me a flat all to myself and left me to my own devices. I made few friends and those that were I made sure were never bullied or harmed in any way as those that did were met with glacial fury. My friends were the only things I had, but they moved on and I stayed put and I ended up as I am now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I reach across and grab his paw and at the same time my left hand slips and Baltar slides forwards unable to hold my full weight. I look into his eyes and say “let go” Baltar yells at me to hang on. But I let go and he cannot hold on leaving long cuts where his claws dig into my skin. I look into his eyes tears are flowing down his cheeks, I start to cry as well but I don’t want him to go down with me. His claws tear into my flesh and then grasp nothing. I feet weightless ‘I have no regrets’ and I think of flying and my new friends. I feel strange, I don’t know what this is but it feels amazing. I cannot begin to describe what I feel, but I know that I cannot just that I give up on my friends. I am no longer falling so I look down . I see the raging torrent below as clear as day. Its illuminated by… me? I look to my right and I see a giant wing so majestic it puts eagles to shame, each feather is so pure they glow White, 'which explains the light,' I think. And wisps of light dance beautifully around and through the wing giving it an ethereal quality. To my left is an almost exact replica of my right wing except it has a light blue neon glow. They were almost touching the edges of the walls they are that wide. Baltar was watching this with awe he saw the wings unfold out of nowhere, they just appeared and unfolded. He rubbed his eyes just to check if he wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. He wasn’t. I feel light headed as I suddenly my strength starts to drain, so using my new wings I fly upwards. I only have to beat them hard once to reach the edge, I can feel the strength of my newfound wings they as they encompass everything with their magnificence, and I gingerly use my wings to move me far enough onto the side. I carefully lower myself onto the ground and collapse onto my knees and hands and breathing shallow breaths my strength almost completely gone, the wings I have fade away leaving a darker cavern, ‘who knew having wings can be so exhausting,’ I think. I now have a newfound respect for pegusi, ‘how they manage to fly for so long I have no idea.’ Everything is now gawking at me and I tell Baltar to get moving, he looks like he won’t move so I shakily get up on my feet to go to move him, he then shakes his head to snap out of it. Daring is laying there breathing heavily and I change course and walk over to her as if I was drunk and lazily pick her up. Baltar walks over to me and asks “What the fuck was that?” I give him a blank stare and shrug my shoulders. “Never mind, lets get out of here before they come to their senses.” I nod and tell him to lead the way. I THINK ABOUT A HALF HOUR LATER? I look back at the cave we have just left and think 'I never expected any of that to happen. What was that? why'd that happen to me? Why me? How'd I do that?' I left it at that and carried on walking too tired to think of anything else and all thinking would do is lead to more questions. I look at the sky, the sun is at a position to which I can only guess to the time to be 3 o'clock. I say to Baltar "today's gonna be a long day." Chapter 3: A torn villageA/N: WARNING:just a heads up in this chapter contains a scene of violence and can be a little gory not as gory as Rainbow factory and Cupcakes though but still gory. My shirt had fallen off a while ago due to the amount of damage it had taken whilst we were walking and it was too hot to put on another one. I also traded my combats for a knee length copy of the combats I was wearing. I am also sweating like mad as well but I didn’t mind. We walk for a while, when Baltar spots a cave in the distance and we decide to head there. I collapse the moment I gently lay Daring to the floor and make myself a pillow out of my bag, fatigue washing over me. Daring shows no sign of moving and is obviously worn out as well, the events of the day affect us all more than we think. I look around the cave and see Baltar go to leave. “Where are you going?” I ask. “Someone’s got to check if we we’re being followed.” I nod in reply and continue to rest. Sleep envelops me and I drift into the realm that dreams rule over. I dream of pegusi, lions and home, and also the weird pink party pony that always fires a confetti canon at me every time I see her, yelling “surprise!” A sharp jab reels me from my sleep and I wake up reluctantly. “Finally you’re awake. Come here what do you see?” I groggily sloth my way to where to where he stands, rubbing my eyes to get rid of the blurriness of sleep. It’s around midnight and the moon is rising to its peak, it’s a waxing moon so it doesn’t provide much light. But in the distance I see something moving around making the trees sway, I can’t make out what it is but instinct tells me that it’s not friendly. I tell Baltar to rest and I take up my position at the entrance. I look over the treetops for what feels like hours now, it’s relatively calming to listen to the swaying of the trees in the forest, and it would be a perfect moment were it not for the indescribable snoring behind me. It goes something like this, but I still cannot encompass how irritating it is: HUGHHHUGHHUUUGHUHG, the long wind up that sounds like a tractor on weed …………, the not so dramatic pause that only lasts for two second providing a moment of peace. Parfanargle SNUF SNUF SNUF mmmmaaahhhhh. I don’t know how he does it but he finally manages to be annoying than he was two seconds earlier. And the process repeats itself over and over and over and etc. with the occasional fart in between snores and I think to myself 'bloody hell can he do a whopper. It drives me mad, but he is the only one who is able to hold a conversation so that I won’t go even more insane than I already am. I look back at Daring Doo and worry for her sake, she is sweating now like she has a fever and I have no idea of how to stop it. Her leg has probably gotten infected and is probably the cause of most of her suffering. And I make a mental note to keep a closer eye on her, she’s the first pony I met and hopefully we can become friends but at her decreasing health I’ll be lucky to be a mutual acquaintance. I sigh and look back over the forest and think about the occurrences that happened earlier today and think, ‘Wow, shit this day couldn’t have been any weirder. First I’m fucking dragged into Equestria and I almost died and I have a dreadful feeling that I’ve got a dying pony on my hands as well. We need to move quickly today and get her looked at, I can’t lose another person… pony in my life.’ I sigh for a second time. ‘I wonder what happened earlier. When did I get wings? Was it magic... yeah it probably was magic considering I’m in Equestria. But what was that though? I wonder.’ A small grin makes its way across my face and I look for a small pebble to test it out on. I find one and set myself down near it and focus on trying to lift it up. I spend about 2 minutes on trying to lift it up using telekinesis. It doesn’t work. ‘Well at least I tried,’ I think, a little sad that I can’t lift thing up using magic. So I stroll over to the entrance again and inspect my gear. My bag was usable it has a few small tears but nothing major, everything inside it is still in there and in a useable condition. I have a few spare sets of clothes and my first aid kit no longer has all of its equipment. I sigh and reorganise my bag. After my bag was suitable organised I check my knife and gun. My knife was in near impeccable condition, so I turn my attention to my D-Eagle. I dismantle it and check the parts for damage and clean them properly with a rag from my bag. I then reassemble it and cock it and look down the sights, satisfied I place my gun back in the holster on my hip, not before I flip the safety on, I don’t want to shoot myself like I did last time. I reminisce at the thought of it. It was when I first got the gun, I was nineteen and I loved the thought of my own gun as I played COD4 allot and if I do say so myself I kick ass, and I had just finished cleaning the inside of it and I decide to do a western style spin the gun and holster it. Lets just say I did it a bit too enthusiastically and it fired into my foot. I then went to hospital where a few of my friends visited me, they laughed when I told them the story, and they brought me a few get well gifts. Looking back at it, it reminds me of how young and stupid I was, I’m 24 now but I consider myself way older as I am definitely more mature than all of my friends. I look around the cave, Baltar is snoring as usual, but Daring is now shaking uncontrollably. I peg it towards her fearing for the worst, I can’t let her go not like my father did. I unwind the bandage on her leg to see the extent of the damage done to it. I recoil in horror at what I see, her leg is a shade of dark blue and black, her veins are bulging as if they were about to explode, and the hair around the infected area had fallen off. I take my bag off my back and get out my first aid kit, I tear off the lid and rummage around for the antiseptic spray which I had bought recently, it stings like heck but it does the trick, and I spray it onto the leg coating it in a thin film of chemicals. I can visibly see it working as after a few minutes the awful colours had died down and the veins had reduced in size. I breathe a sigh of relief but I know that were not out of the woods yet. I wake up to see Daring resting her head on my stomach, I move her head off me carefully so as not to wake her and walk over to Baltar who had resumed hi guarding position after I had dosed off. “Ah, I did not see you wake Luke, and I thought I had best not disturb your snuggle with the pony.” He sniggers. And I shoot him a glare, wishing I had lasers in my eyes. Before I continue over to the pony I “snuggled” with and put her in a comfortable position in my bag knowing that she will be in a lot of pain when she wakes up. We make good progress through the forest and my legs are starting to ache from it. We surprisingly haven’t been attacked yet, either by luck or my daunting physique. I’m about six foot eight so my head hits every doorframe in existence, and my muscles stand proud. I’m no Saxon Hale but I go to gym so my arms and legs have a bit more muscle than the average Joe. I feel the movement of Daring waking up and I tell Baltar to slow down so as to not cause too much pain for her. He obliges and we slow down to a relaxing walk through the forest. As we walk we hear her gasp and yelp for every step and stumble we make. Eventually we come to a halt and I remove her from my back, and place her gently on the floor and say as soothingly as I could “You’ve got some real pain control back there I would have been screaming in pain by now.” She grimaces, what would be a smile were it not for the amount of pain she is in. and I behind to massage her neck and back trying to get her mind off her leg, this seems to work as she her mouth turns from a grimace to a genuine smile. I smile at this, ‘if she’s happy I’m happy,’ I think. The short break now over I pick Daring back up and we set off again. We manage to make a mile before we have to stop again. Baltar leads me away from Daring so we can speak. I start first, “We can’t leave her here, I’m not giving up on her.” I say with outright defiance before he says something he'll regret. “I know you won’t, but if you want to save her we have to get to a village and I don’t think we can find one fast enough,” He says looking around me at daring before he sighs. “If you want to save her we can’t keep stopping every time we get moving.” I nod in agreement. And look over my shoulder to look at Daring and sigh. I walk over to her and give her a quick massage before slinging her up onto my back and set off towards the sunset, ‘oh I’m such a romantic aren’t I walking into the sunset,’ I think cheerfully. I look at some trees and decide to count the ones I stumble over as I continue onwards to help prevent boredom from killing me. ‘Three hundred and forty three… three hundred and forty four… three hundred and forty five… who knew I could trip over so many darn trees. I mean it’s not like their moving. Besides I could always play spot the engraving….. Wait a second,’ I think, then yell, “Baltar come over here I think I found something.” “The last time you said that it was just a stupid plant that is hardly uncommon, now what is it.” He said obviously not happy when I spotted the weirdest looking plant I ever saw when he told me it is just an ordinary frizzle whip touch it and it goes frizzy and wraps itself around you locking you in place, I laughed when all it did was wrap itself around my finger when I poked it. He joined in but then added a warning, “That’s just a baby wait till you see the fully grown ones.” I have failed yet to spot a larger one. He studies it and concludes, “I have no clue what it is.” Then from my shoulder I hear Daring mutter, “it’s a navigational sign.” She’d managed to shift her head to see what we were on about that left us stumped. I would jump for joy but the weight on my back prevents me from doing so, so I settle for a triumphant yell with a fist pump. “Yes finally a sign, *chuckle*, Alright then, what does it say?” they could tell how exited I am enthusiasm was pouring out of my skin, it was also infectious as they also seem to brighten up as well. “Well it’s a little vague… But the best direction it gives is… That way.” She points a little way away from the sun and we march off, gently though as I don’t want to cause too much pain for her, in the general direction. We see a few more signs on the way and we pick up the pace eager to get some well-earned rest and food, I haven’t had proper food for a least a day or so now so I’m starving. And most importantly to get her leg seen to. I had to spray it again, which wasted the rest of the can so I chucked it away as it was no longer of use to us, and she whispered at me as it apparently burned, ‘I know the feeling’ was my thought for that, but she let me finish and replace the bandage. She is getting worse I know it but without the right equipment I can’t treat her properly all I can give her is some soothing words and empty smiles. The trees start to thin out as we make our way towards a field, and we refrain from running in our haste to leave the forest. It wasn’t particularly scary, it was just really unnerving like eyes were watching your every step, we leave the trees and its weird flora and fauna, and exit onto a vast field with luscious green grass, it’s not like grass on earth this grass is really green like pastel green the green kids use to show grass in their pictures. It’s stunning, I would have just lain down and basked in its glory were it not for the daring snapping me back to reality with a groan. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and look for a path that would lead us to a town. It’s not long before we find one and we quickly reach it and stride down it with an air of purpose. We chat about nothing in particular just enjoying the moment, laughing at how quickly we managed to leave the forest, how silly I look to him with all these clothes. We climb the small hill and, before we reach the top we, read the sign that says “welcome to Trottingam village” and I chuckle at the name. We continue up past the sign and glance over the hill. For the first time since my father died I regret doing so. All I see is complete and utter devastation, houses are black with burn marks, homes broken businesses destroyed everything broken and nothing stirs in this husk of a town. We walk in silence towards the town unable to encompass the gravity of the situation, the pure devastation of what caused this. But what really made this truly horrific are the carcasses of dead ponies laying down everywhere. Adults and foals alike were murdered here limbs were torn from the bodies of their former owners. Blood stains everything around us and each pony showing a look of either pain surprise or sorrow. Something dreadful, No… evil did this to these ponies. Everything is broken, from the town to the ponies even their babies are broken and twisted in unnatural positions. “What did this?” is all I can conjure up. “Well it could have been a hydra but there should be fewer bodies as they would have been eaten, and it also doesn’t explain the burned down houses, and whey isn’t there any pony search and rescue efforts. Something must have blocked the escape routes.” said Baltar, clearly not phased by the amount of bloodshed around him. “What do you mean by search and relief? It looks like their all dead.” I point out. “Look over there you see those drag marks there’s a large number of those leading into the forest.” He points over towards some groves in the ground and I admit they do lead into the forest. “Well we have to find out what did this?” I say, anger now rising in my voice, “and make them pay.” I don’t give him time to react before I run off towards the forest. And he catches up with ease, I am not running too fast I’m in fact running at the pace that I can keep up for hours upon end and not waste my breath. “You know they could be dead by now? Right. I mean it takes weeks for a house to burn down. Look at the facts there’s a very slim chance even one might have survived.” He tries to reason. I ignore him and continue to barrel my way through the forest, anger giving me the strength to move faster. Groans and weak complaints emanating from my bag. I reach a cave 'great another one' I think angrily, and I spot two guards standing to attention not doing anything and look like they weren’t going anywhere fast. They are short dog like things except they stand on two paws and have managed to gain opposable thumbs, with sharp nails that double as claws. “Diamond-dogs I should have known they were involved. But this is unlike them they wouldn’t usually kill the ponies they would force them to work for them. Something is wrong here very wrong I can smell it.” I forgot that he has a more sensitive sense of smell than me. “Come on we can take them,” I say, eager to relinquish my anger on the two unsuspecting dogs. “No,” he says with surprising authority, “we need to save the ponies, that was the plan, we can’t rush in there and expect them to crumple under us. We need to be sneaky and enter without them knowing of our presence and only when we find them, and let them escape, can you do what you see fit.” I put Daring down in some shrubbery nearby and I tell her to stay quiet while we save her friends. She groans and I take that as a signal that she heard me. I set off, with Baltar close behind, around the two guards, staying out of sight, and climb the wall to get the drop, quite literally, on the dogs. We reach the outcrop above the guards and we get ready to pounce on them when they tense as if they know we are about to drop on them and go inside the cave, only to be replaced by two guards looking more refreshed and alert. Wait a minute for the guards to stop moving. Before they realise we are above them, we drop simultaneously killing them with a heavy blow to each of their heads caving their skulls in, I don’t care I just want to make something pay for what happened to the village. We proceed into the cave which is dimly lit with torches and we spot four or five more dogs, which we silently take out with a quick turn of the head and a quiet snap, and drag them into the darkness of the cave the last one unfazed by the lack of comrades when Baltar hit him with a blow to the back of the head killing him as well. I feel like a fucking snake doing this, and I suppress a giggle at the thought but scold myself at the lack of seriousness of the situation. We continue silently making good progress down the corridors, ‘it would be a while before they change the guards’ I think hopefully. We don’t pass any dogs on the way through the maze that is their home which I find odd as it should probably be full of working class mutts. After a few minutes we hear a small shriek and we creep our way down the corridor it emanated from, curtsy of Baltars supreme hearing. We reach a wide opening that turns out to be where they are keeping prisoners. It’s a mess of blood and bodies as if they’ve been subjecting them to torture. Hatred consumes me as I see a creature making its way towards a bunch of terrified ponies, a look of mild pleasure in seeing the ponies squirm from behind their cage. I don’t see the pair of wings form behind me, but I don’t care, they are pure black and they act like a black hole consuming the light giving it more strength and fury, the only thing different between the wings is that if you look closely one wing has a faint fiery red glow to it. I move with surprising speed and collide with the beast and send it flying into a wall. It gets up sluggishly and stares at me with pure hate. It was hideous there was hardly any fur on it and its skin is a dark shade of grey, a demon was the only thing that I could think of except it is in the shape of a D-Dog. It charges at me and my wing slams it into the floor as anger takes control of my body, I leap forward and bring my foot down hard onto it, it moves out of my oncoming boot but in the process breaks its leg when my foot lands down hard on its thigh. It lets loose a blood curdling screech. Its un-dog like howl is cut off when my wing slams down onto its throat and it can’t breathe it tries in vein to breathe. But before it can recover I stand over it raising my leg before I bring it down sharply, its head gives a few moments of resistance before it cracks then shatters and gives way to burst open like a ripe tomato. The ponies shriek in terror as I turn towards them. My wings fade into nothing and my eyes, which were the colour of scarlet, return to the normal cool blue hue. Baltar, who had watched the spectacle from a distance, came out of the dark spot he was hiding in and said, “Well so much for being quiet.” 'he is probably saving the questions for later I think. “sorry.” I say, unable to think of anything else. More screeches come from the corridors and we quickly grab the keys and unlock the remaining ponies from their cages, it seems like a tenth of the village was here there was at least a hundred of them. They reluctantly come out wary of me but I assure them I won’t hurt them. They reluctantly come out of their cages but seeing as it will probably be better to go with us than stay here they follow us. We reach the entrance of the cave the wounded were being carried by the more healthy ponies, and the children following cautiously behind shooting quick glances in my direction in curiosity. I smile at them and they hide behind the nearest pony. The shouts and screams were almost upon us, and I hurry everyone out of the cave before telling Baltar to get Daring and get as far away from here as possible. His response was “are you mad? You’ll get yourself killed.” I chuckle before adding, “Well your right about one thing. And if I wasn’t this would probably never work. Now go before I change my mind, someone has to get these villagers to safety and it won’t be me.” I yell the last part to emphasise that he has to leave now. I see he is struggling with the concept of leaving me with these monstrosities so I push him away and he slowly yet reluctantly canters off in the direction of the scared and confused ponies and helps them by picking up my bag with Daring inside an picking up a few foals. I turn back to the cage as the first of the beasts come through. The cave entrance wasn’t wide enough to fit any more than three of them at once so I launch myself forward to prevent them from exiting the hell from which they came from. They gnash their teeth at me as I tackle them colliding with their soft underbellies, trying to throw me off of them. There were forty or so of them each more hideous than the next, and all of them were eager to get their savage claws on the ponies. Anger rising at their attempts to get the ponies my wings and scarlet red eyes reappear and flap my wings twice forcing the beasts back into the cavern. In my haste to push them back in they manage to tear away at the flesh on my back earning scours of blood to trickle down. In my frustration my wings act on their own accord and slam ferociously into the ranks of vermin. Sending them flying into their comrades, one of them avoids my attack and lunges at me my wing swoops back in a almost graceful motion sending it careering into a wall head first so fast it shatters its neck and spine and cracking its skull in several places. Remembering the town and its occupant’s, anger fills my soul and body and fire starts to course through my veins. My right wing bursts into a brilliant blue flame which would normally scare the crap out me but I’m too angry to think as the demons charge at me. I charge back at them and collide with their hideous faces, breaking noses and earning a few cuts and bruises myself. My fiery blue wing setting fire to one or two of the demons, they seem unfazed by their change of temperature only that they now start melting slowly as they try and attack me. I doge and weave their attacks when I spot one heading for the entrance, I yell in fury when I saw that my guard had been let down allowing me to be hit by one of the demons but I recover and counter and with a powerful beat of my wings I smash into the escaping demon crushing its head into the wall and it’s body crumples to the floor lifeless. There are still to many of them to keep back I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with the relentless assaults, there was still at least thirty of them and my wings are starting to fade as the energy required to keep them around is putting a strain on my body which now feels like I’m on fire. I yell at my weakness in such a crucial moment, and I burst into the fray once more breaking everything in my path be it limbs or necks. The fire within me is starting to burn my skin so I punch the nearest demon as hard as I could, it bursts into flames before slowly disintegrating into black dust, with a final screech. I spin and punch the next demon in the side as it circles around me turning it into ashes, with another screech. The two demons I set fire to had burned to death and they had set fire to numerous others making them bump into another spreading the fire throughout the demons. There were still at least twenty now, not on fire, as I gather up the strength for my final charge. There was a scream outside as a I begin my charge so I change course without hesitation to the entrance, which now has two more demons trying to escape, screaming in fury at the monster that would dare cause pain to any animal, I burst through the entrance and send the escaping demons into a few nearby trees killing them on contact with the bursting of skulls and the breaking of necks. I whip round to see a yellow Pegasus about to be attacked by the monstrosity, I yell a curse at it and with a mighty beat of my wings I fly to it and boot it so hard in its side it breaks through the bones and skin causing my leg to go straight through it spearing it onto my leg, it dies almost instantaneously. When I land I wrench myself away from it and turn to the trembling mare, “I thought I said for everyone to get out of here.” I yell causing the mare to whimper and respond with “I-I-I…” my eyes soften and change to their cool blue colour once again and say, “I will not let these beasts harm you and if you come here then it makes it all the harder to do so understand?” She nods and just before she leaves she yelps and I rush forwards avoiding the demons attack and scoop her into the air telling her to go and releasing her in one motion, she scrambles in the air for a second before she regains control and flies off. I look back down at the escaped Demons and dive bomb the first one I see, crushing it with the impact and send the others following it, back towards the cave entrance my wings are barely visible as I approach the next victim of my rage and send it into the wall killing it with a definite crack. There were five left and I quickly use the energy I have left to pummel them into the ground, killing them. I collapse onto the floor by the cave entrance out of energy, and out of luck as I hear more growling from inside the caves. I look up to see the cave full of the angry demons, and I lay there unable to lift a finger to stop them from getting out. My eyes close, too heavy to see them slowly pace towards their new prey. I think back at the friends I gained during my brief stay at Equestria, Baltar the ever faithful who I had to force to leave to save him and Daring who I see as my responsibility to keep her safe, it was all my fault all of it, if it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be here in so much pain. But I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world and the phrase I use all the time comes to mind, ‘I regret nothing’ this couldn’t be more true now than it ever has been. I feel a sensation of weightlessness and I open my eye to a slit and see them cower raising their claws as if being blinded. But I don’t care I just want my friends to be safe, I can’t stop thinking about them, I whisper “I’m so sorry” before I white out. A few hours later four creatures emerge from the forest with a makeshift platform and place me onto it with grim expressions. Chapter 4: In LimboA/N: sorry this took so long but I had soo much going on these past few days it made writing a near impossibility. I know that the grammar is crap but I’m trying to improve on it. I open my eyes and I see grey… Sand? And Lots of it. It’s like a desert, it’s flat no hills or anything. I shift myself and try to prop my head up to get a better view of the landscape, the sand attaches itself to my face as I lift myself up onto my hands and knees. The sky is pitch black. No stars. No moon, Just a black void. ‘Weird then how can’ I see I think. I push the thought aside as the grey desert I’m in grows in size. I stand up shakily and fall over and face-plant the floor. ‘Weird it doesn’t hurt,’ I think as I slowly get back up standing like a toddler. I feel a sound coming from next to me, HI. A chill travels up my spine as I try and figure out how I heard something if I felt it instead of using my ears. I turn and look for the cause of my fears and I feel the sound again, SO, ARE YOU GOING TO TALK OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO READ YOUR THOUGHTS. The figure standing behind me… Is DEATH. He wears a dark black cloak that covers his entire body, which is made of bones, only his skeletal hand sticks out as the one hand holds on to his giant scythe, which is almost an entire foot above him. He is about the same height as me and his eyes glow a bright blue that… flash? I assume that’s how he blinks I don’t see why he does that he doesn’t have eyes they’re orbs but I will dwell on that later. I gasp and say, rather dumbly, “Am I dead?” He sounds, NO. YOU ARE IN THE REALM BETWEEN WORLDS NOT DEAD NOR ALIVE YOU ARE IN THE DESERT OF LIMBO… BUT YOU… SURPRISE ME. “Oh how did I do that then? I thought you knew when everyone dies that is part of your… agreement or something right?” dumbstruck that I’m able to confront death and actually surprise him. YES YOU ARE CORRECT. BUT YOU SEE THAT IS WHERE WE REACH OUR DILEMA. YOU SHOULDN’T BE DEAD. With this he pulls out an hourglass which still has a large amount of sand in the top, but the weirdest thing about it is that it’s no longer flowing. He shakes the flask and the sand moves around in their separate compartments but none of them go into the other compartment. He sighs, well what would be a sigh if he could breathe. He has no lungs or organs. And sounds, SOMETIMES IT CAN BE SO FUSTRATING WHEN ONE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE RULES, BUT THIS TIME I CAN MAKE AN EXCEPTION… I WILL NOT PUNISH YOU, AS IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO WATCH YOUR JOURNEY, BUT I CAN’T JUST LET YOU GO BACK, OH NO THAT WOULD BE AGAINST THE RULES. YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND YOURSELF IN THIS DESERT, BUT I’M NOT CRUEL I CAN GIVE YOU ONE PIECE OF ADVIDE. He lifts up a skeletal arm and points into the distance. YOU ARE OVER THERE SOMEWHERE. It is impossible for death to smile, as his skull is set into a constant grin, but if he could he would be doing so. I look carefully into his orbs and say logically, “but you said you can’t let me go back” if death was smiling he is now positively beaming with delight, as if he has finally met a person almost as smart as himself. WELL PLAYED HUMAN WE WILL MEET ANOTHER TIME PERHAPS. A party hat appears on his hood and he sounds, WELL I HAVE TO GO NOW OR I’LL MISS MY OWN BIRHDAY PARTY. THEY WILL BE SHOOTING LIGHTNING BOLTS AT COWS TO SEE IF THEY WET THEMSELVES. I bink and he disappears. “Gee I wonder if all gods are as confusing as he is.” I say to myself. And I set off in the opposite direction he pointed at. In the land of the living. Baltar looks down at his friend and spoke, “you crazy bastard you just had to go and get yourself killed didn’t you.” A tear forms on his eye as he speaks, “Well at least you kept your promise, you saved us all from whatever those things were, so I kept mine. We found a nearby village that wasn’t raided and took shelter there, they didn’t take me in at first but they’re warming up to me. Daring is making a slow recovery, and her wound is healing. She’s finally up, the doctor says she shouldn’t but she’s too stubborn. So the doctor resorted to keeping her under supervision for a few more days, and that in a few weeks she’ll be fine. Whatever it was that you gave her had killed off most the infection and that it was just a matter of giving her some meds and time to heal.” He sat in silence for a few minutes thinking of something more to say but nothing came, so he left the building. The next day a mare with a tan colour coat trots in, rather slowly and with a noticeable limp, and sits down next to my lifeless body. She’s there for a few minutes as she is trying to hold back the tears before she speaks, “I’m sorry for being… You know…” it’s obvious that, even though I’m not living, she is struggling to confess, “selfish… I never got the chance to thank you for, well… never giving up on me I… I can’t… think of a better pony to be my friend… you’re the closest thing that I have to one and I was just so ungrateful that you’d be willing to help me.” tears are streaming down her fur and she is weeping openly. “I-I… I’m sorry for not giving you a chance.” After a few hours of weeping she leaves and my carcass is left on its own for the rest of the day. People from both villages gather round in a procession to mark the passing of a dear friend and hero to all. Baltar took to the stage to say a few words and Daring sat next to him both having trouble to calm their sorrow over the loss of their friend. Baltar was talking about his friend and how brave he was when. Thunk…. “Oww. Fuck what is this!” Baltar looked at the crowd then at Daring to check he wasn’t imagining things. “Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?” The crowd looks awkward and everyone looks at each other to see if anyone else was hearing this. Baltar and a few other ponies including Daring walk over to the coffin and unclip the clips holding it shut, when this happens the coffins lid shifts off to one side seemingly by itself, until a figure sits up and covering his eyes blinded by the light of day. It swore and lies back down again, then laughs, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.” His laughter stops when Daring grabs him by his hair shouting, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Sounding like a mother scolding a child whilst dragging him away, squirming. He mouths ‘help me.’ Back in the desert after the meeting with Death ‘FUUUUUUUUUUU I’m sooo bored’ I think as I trudge across the never ending desert. ‘Why do they have to make it so dull, it’s not like I’m some sort of unforgiven evil or something’ my mind is going numb from the lack of mental exercise. My head is starting to hurt from seeing the same thing over and over again I feel like I’ve been walking for hours and traversed a few miles but when I look back all I see is the grey desert, I leave no imprint on the surface it’s like the sand never moves. I stop walking as it’s no use going nowhere and start to think more carefully into what Death said. ‘He can’t help me get out so I have to figure this out on my own’ I conclude. ‘Well whatever he tells me, or shows me, should be false. But he knows the human psychology so he could trick me into thinking it’s a lie. But then would that count as letting me back and break the rule?’ I ponder. I think hard about this and come to a conclusion that everything he tells me I can and can’t trust, therefore he told me something that would be a lie but the truth at the same time. This makes me think even harder, my brain is now finally getting a challenge and it goes into overdrive to solve the dilemma. Finally something clicks in my brain and I summon Death in the most obvious way I could conjure up. “Death, I choose you!!” Death appears and sounds, YES, YES ALRIGHT I HEARD YOU, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT. He pouts, the party hat disappearing from his head in a puff of smoke along with some confetti and other party stuff. I grin and start with, “I figured out your little puzzle.” YES GO ON. Said Death a little enthusiasm that shows that he’s ready to say I’m wrong. I dive straight in with my explanation. “Well as you can’t just let me out and the advice would pretty much do that, so I can’t follow where you pointed to.” He nods. “Well you also said that you can give me some advice that says that I’m somewhere in that direction.” He nods again. “Well I can’t follow your arm yet I still need to go in that direction. So that’s the dilemma but what if there were two directions. Like up or around. The up means that I’m underground or something so that means I need to reach the surface. The around is like a sphere so I’m going to go in giant circles going nowhere.” Death looks at me with a blank expression, well as close as you can get with a permanent grin, and sounds, YOU ARE CORRECT SO FAR BUT YOU STILL HAVEN’T FOUND YOURSELF YET. I smile and say, “So for the past number of hours I’ve been going around. So I’ve been going in circles, which to conclude means that I’m no longer on this sphere.” Death sounds, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY. AND I MUST SAY YOU HAVE THOUGHT CUNNINGLY BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO FIND HIM BEFORE I CAN LET YOU GO. An idea, a weird one at that but still an idea, comes to mind. “Well how about I tell you I found him all I need you to do is to get me there.” I smirk at my stupid idea, “All I ask of you that is, is to put me back at the start and to remove the gravity so my course cannot be altered and to throw me in the direction you pointed at first. So I can reach the surface.” Death stares and snaps his fingers, I feel a pull and I close my eyes to prevent them from flying out of their sockets. When I stop I open my eyes and see Death holding me ready to throw me, I still feel heavy yet he’s holding me like I weigh nothing, and he sounds, YOU READY. It was a statement that didn’t require an answer as just after he said it he throws me with surprising speed. I left the desert and I now enter the pitch black darkness, ‘wow is everything as confusing as what happened there’ I think as I twirl in the darkness around me. The darkness goes on for a long time and I ponder on a way to pass the time to keep my mind off the constant darkness. I try whistling and I succeed on making a small melody out of it. I start to play jokes in my mind thinking back on the countless episodes of mock the week I watched at home. I got to season three episode five when. Thunk, “Aww fuck what is this.” Was the first thing that came to mind, my head hurts and I feel like I’m in a box. Feeling rather pissed I yell, “Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?” there obviously is as I hear mumbling and the clicking of locks, I don’t hesitate to lift the lid off me and I’m greeted by the blinding rays of light, I sit up and look around there’s a large crowd of ponies and crying ones at that. I look at the box I’m in and I realise it’s a coffin. “fuck.” I mumble and I lay back down. ‘I can’t believe they were about to bury me alive. Well at least I’m not a zombie.’ A large smile creeps onto my face as I realise why everyone’s looking shocked ‘they probably think I’m a zombie’ I think, I start to laugh at the thought thinking it hilarious as fuck, I don’t care I’m back and I’m alive that’s all that matters now. I say in a joking manner, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.” I was about to act like a zombie and start to scare the ponies when a furious pony, who I think must be able to read minds, yells, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a hoof to pick with you.” And with that a large set of teeth grab my hair and I get pulled out of my coffin and painfully get dragged away from the crowd. I see Baltar stare dumfounded at me and I mouth ‘help me’ at him but he just stares as I get dragged round a corner. After I get dragged into the house the door slams shut and the furious pony, which I recognise as Daring Doo, pins me to the floor and yells in my face, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT? EVERYPONY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD.” Her voice softens but only marginally. “How are you alive? it’s impossible you had no pulse.” I ask her, “Why’d you drag me here I could have told you and everyone else at the same time?” giving her a confused look. “Because friends have to know first, do they not” her face so close forcing me to stare into her furious eyes. “I… Well…*sigh* fine… but just to clarify I was in fact dead, for a while anyway.” I say momentarily shocking her, but gleeful that she admits we’re now friends. She recovers and states flatly, “It was four days.” “Wow was I dead for that long,” I think aloud, “Hmm… Limbo must affect time differently.” “Sorry am I interrupting something. And what’s limbo” Someone asks from the doorway I turn only to see Baltar now close and lock the door properly before shutting the blinds and lighting the candles. Daring blushes hard, and I think she must have burst an artery in her cheeks, as she jumps off of me and tries to explain what she was doing. Baltar waves off her rambling and says “its ok I was only kidding. Besides I think he likes it when you blush.” This causes her to blush harder which I think is a physical impossibility, and my cheeks begin to heat up as well, but before she can shout at Baltar he turns to me and asks, “Well you didn’t answer my question what’s this Limbo?” I tell them to take a seat before I tell them. I talk to them about how I went into limbo met Death, to which they bombard me with questions like who is he and what does he look like. When I finish the story and all their questions had been asked and answered in full, Baltar turns to Daring and tells her to tell the village that I am in fact alive and that I will talk to them in due time and will answer their questions. Daring reluctantly leaves, leaving me and Baltar alone. “Good to have you back you moron.” he said after she left. “Hay at least I’m better looking than you.” We both laugh at this the tension evaporating before Baltar turns to me with a quizzical look on his face. “What happened there back at the cave? Something clicked inside you I could see it as clear as day. It was different the first time your wings were white but back there they were dark, black even… I have to say even I was scared of you for a while,” Concern etched in his voice. I knew this was coming but it still doesn’t make it any easier to tell. I sigh and begin to tell him, “To be honest it was mostly anger, but a small part was fear.” I admit, “Fear that I couldn’t help, I was tired of being too weak to save the people I loved when they needed it the most, like my father.” Baltar says, with a comforting look, “I don’t know how that feels but there is one thing you should know.” I wipe the tear forming in my eye and ask, “What?” He says with complete honesty, “you are not weak, you never were. To be weak you must stop fighting” he pauses to allow me to let this sink in, “now tell me did you ever stop fighting for them.” I shake my head, he knows that I would never stop fighting for my friends. “Now come on cheer up, beside I’m sure you’re hungry as I know I am.” I go to say I’m not hungry but my belly says otherwise letting out a loud rumble, I give an embarrassed look and I get up and tell him “what’s there to eat?” “Well I don’t know what you eat so you tell me.” He said giving his signature quizzical smile. “I’m an omnivore enough said. I eat everything, well actually that’s a lie I don’t like tomatoes can’t stand em.” “Humph, well whatever Luke, well I need to try that new griffin bar in town. They say they have cooks to serve every culinary need.” If I had a drink I would have sprayed it everywhere before I say, “you guys have griffins?” “Well yeah, why somethin’ wrong with em we could go to another restaurant. Well you can I can’t” he chuckles, but frowns probably thinking that he won’t be able to study my eating habits. “No, no it’s great really I’d love to go there.” This perks him up a bit. “Well that’s great then I’d love to know how you can stomach grass as well as meat.” At grass I burst into hysterics and fall on the floor clutching my sides which I’m sure I’d just split. “What’s so funny? I didn’t say anything amusing.” I try and say between fits off laughter “I… I don’t eat grass, or trees for that matter… or anything that would require the expert belly of a pony… I only eat fruits and veg mostly, but not flowers and stuff… Aahhhh my sides you’ve broken them.” I say in mock pain. Baltar realising the mistake he made gave a little chuckle before kicking me and motioning for me to move on. Still in hysterics, I move outside into a large crowd of ponies eager to hear what I was talking about with Baltar and now also want to find out what was so funny. We make it to the restaurant, proudly, feeling like we’ve earned a meal fit for a king. We sit down and a large group of ponies with notepads and quills surround us, I sigh and turn to one of the ponies and ask “what do you want?” this makes one or two squee for unknown reasons to me. The lead pony asks politely, “what’s your full name, we kinda gathered that Luke was not your full name, and how do you spell it? And are you a mare or a stallion?” I turn to Baltar who also looks intrigued by this conversation. I give an audible sigh and say, “if I tell you would you and the rest of the village stop following my every move.” The pony nods rapidly and pulls out a quill and paper using her magic. Me never seeing magic before allow my eyes glass over and reach out and try and grasp the floating feather in awe but it gets moved out of my reach as the pony hastily writes down something with a “hey girls you seeing this it likes feathers.” This makes a lot of the pegusi blush and fight for control of their wings some were unsuccessful and knocked over a few other mares as their wings flew open. I shake my head trying not to get entranced by the magic, and think of the oncoming onslaught of gossip and rumours and such, “hang on a sec I never said that, oh never mind it’s probably too late for that now. Anyway back to what I was supposed to say. Now I’m what’s called a man.” I look at their faces, “that’s human for Stallion.” A large number of the girls start to squee again and I mentally facepalm. “And my full name is…” I take in a deep breath for dramatic effect, “Luke Peterson Charles Granger.” I see the confused looks on their faces and I fight to keep my laughter under control and I say. “Pass it here I’ll write it down for you to see how I write as an example.” I take the floating pen and paper as they watch in awe of my extremely flexible digits, some look at their hoofs and wish they had digits like mine. I pass the paper back and almost two dozen ponies crane over each other to see my writing. Baltar then, being the good friend, starts to herd them out the door. The mare with the paper I wrote on looking in admiration and rambling to anyo…pony about how neat yet flowing and other things I couldn’t hear before they finally left. Though a large number of ponies remain some left to spread gossip and such, and a few unsuccessful attempts to keep wings under control. I tell the griffin waiter to give me a large amount of steak and other delights on the menu. I wait for a few hours and eventually the griffin brings up the food, I also told the waiter to bring the meat covered as I want to scare the crap out of the ponies. The dishes were served and the courses kept on coming, and I left the special dish where it was building up tension as to what’s underneath it. I ravage through the vegetarian meals like there was no tomorrow, and they are exquisite I have never tasted so much flavour like this in my whole life. The tension built up too much for one pony who yells “will you lift up the dish already.” He is quickly silenced by the surrounding ponies, but they think the same thing, I tentatively grab the dish and lift off the cover, revealing the finely cut steak. Ponies gasp in horror and whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire and the ponies on the edge began to flee, I don’t care as I am now engorging myself, tearing into the meat without a care in the world, I got half way through eating it, when a pony burst in shouting “for Celestias sake what are you doing. You can’t seriously be eating that?” I laugh and laugh and laugh, before I come to my senses I reply “Yes. I am and I’m what’s called an omnivore so I eat what I want, well not everything I can’t eat hay or grass or tomatoes and things like that.” I see the scared face on the pony and I realise what I have done, ‘Oh balls they think I will probably eat them now.’ So I hasten to add, “well I also don’t eat ponies or any other sentient species like dolphins and octopuses and fish, I can’t stand fish they don’t look appetising at all.” I give him the most reassuring smile I could possibly give, without showing my teeth as this would probably scare them even more. The pony now relaxes a little before another pony bursts in shouting “I can’t leave you two for two seconds before you do something stupid.” And with that the pony drags me out of the room with Baltar finishing both our plates in one gulp, ‘greedy pig I was gonna eat that’ I think, before he follows sniggering at me, I realised at her voice that It was daring and I think ‘we are probably seen as children in her eyes. Thankfully I had put on my shirt before I left to go to the pub or she’d have to drag me by the hair again’ as I get a tow down the street. She opens a door with a solid buck and throws me inside, with a force I did not expect from such a small mare. I fall to the floor with a thud and Baltar follows suit, landing on his face. The mare closes the door and she turns to yell at us at the top of her voice, which she has unfortunately made a remarkable recovery from, “You colts are so immature. Scaring the entire town like that. I have the right mind to beat the crap outta your flanks. Do you have any idea what this is doing to my image?” me and Baltar both stare at the floor guiltily, this is probably the universal look anything would give if she/he was caught doing something wrong. “That’s what I thought. You don’t care do you? How would you feel if your friends were being complete jerks and you’d have to go and apologise to the entire town for their stupidity?” I open and shut my mouth a few times, but everything I go to say gets frozen in my throat before I can say it, so I close my mouth and go back to staring at the floor. Baltar, the more confident one who doesn’t really have anything to fear from a pony, says “well we had to stop most the town from following Luke everywhere he goes somehow.” “So you planned this then. And this was the best plan you could come up with? I can’t believe I had made two friends that are the greatest yet the most stupid ponies around.” She sighs and says, “Right sorry for shouting like that but I had to, cause I have to admit I’m a little stressed out right now as a convoy of royal guards are going to be here tomorrow to pick us up and take us to canterlot where we will meet the two princesses.” She starts to speak a dozen words per second as she tries to sort us out to get us ready for the meeting with royalty, it’s obvious to me that this means a lot more than the little display we did a few moments ago. “Now I want you two too look your best for when we get there. I can’t have you making it any worse than it already is, You go have a shower get yourself cleaned up you stink,” she says whilst pointing at me. I almost squeal with glee when I found out that I will meet the two most famous ponies in all of Equestria, but not wanting to get in her way I go and have a shower. Chapter 5: A small break‘that was the most stupidest showers I’ve ever had to use,’ I think to myself as I step out of the shower that is way too small for me, I had to make myself as small as possible whilst I tried to grab the slippiest soap ever and fell over in the process and hit my head on the wall then the floor giving me a nice welt on my head. I wasn't the cleanest I could get but considering the alternative, the little tub in the corner, it was the better choice at the time. I grab the towel on the rack on the wall and I look for my clothes which seems to have strangely disappeared from where I left them. I proceed to dry myself off and wrap the damp towel around my private area and walk into a room filled with the journalist ponies. I turn around and walk back into the bathroom and close the door my face burning, I feel so embarrassed. I yell, “Daring is this some kind of joke cause this isn’t funny.” I hear a small amount of laughter from behind the door which I assume is daring and shout at her, “OH, so you think this is funny huh well it looks like I won’t be able to go and meet royalty then I’ll have to stay in here then.” The laughter drops and Daring steps in, red in the cheeks at the same time. “Why do you need clothes anyway?” She asks. “I mean it’s not like you need them, we don’t need them so why do you?” I look at her like she’s mad and I realise that they don’t need clothes as they have all that fur, so I answer in the simplest way I can, “because I need them.” She gives me a blank look before giggling at my pouting, and turning away to (I assume) get my clothes, I never thought she could have a childish side. I smile at this new side of Daring and hope that she'll stay a little like this more often. although not embarrassing me as much. A few minutes of waiting there’s a knock at the door, I’m completely dry and I can’t wait to put my clothes on, but instead of Daring entering a white unicorn with a coiled Dark blue mane, with a needle and a coil of string for a cutie mark, walks in with a bunch of materials walks in and introduces herself before I can object. “Hello my name is fancy thread, oooh and I’m just soo excited about making you some clothes and my what an superb physic if I do say so myself oohhhh this will be so much fun getting to make you some clothes he he.” All this having been said in one sentence made my head spin so I accept I order to make things easier for my brain. She grabs a measuring tape from behind her, which I’ll never understand how they do it without pockets, and measures my body. After a few moments of awkward silence she asks, “well what would you like to wear dear I can’t make you anything if you don’t tell me.” I think for a second thinking of what I should wear for the princesses, and say “a suit would do well for my trip to Canterlot but for normal clothes I would like two pair of jeans and four shirts of various colours. Oh and pants.” I hasten to add that last part making sure those are the things I probably need the most. At pants she looks at me confused, “you know things to put on under my trousers.” She looks as if I were telling her a big pile of phooey before she shrugs and starts to create a bunch of clothing right before my eyes. I sit patiently watching in fascination at how she creates such things, with a floating sewing machine here and a pin cushion there. She finishes the jeans and shirts first and I wait for her to finish making the rest. She starts to sweat as she makes the suit making sure the threads are in the right spot and the right length. As she finishes the suit I ask her about the pants. She gives in and starts to wail. I look at her with surprise and guilt and confusion so I apologise rapidly trying in vain to calm her down. She summons a couch out of thin air and lays down on it, dramatically, before saying through sobs, “I don’t know *sob… sob* I’m supposed to be a fashionista but I just don’t know *sob* what is this fashion of pants you speak of?” I almost burst out in laughter at the reason why she’s crying. But I restrain myself and scold myself for almost hurting someponys feelings. “Don’t worry about it. Tell you what, I'll tell you what they are and how people like me make them.” She stops wailing and sits bolt upright as if there was no crying in the first place. I tell her about what they are and what they do, with the exception of a lot of embarrassing moments mostly of me shuffling around and ahem-ing and them blushing, and I then tell her how to make them and she hastily creates a few for me to use. After a few moments of them staring at me impatiently I ask, “Why are you still here I need to get changed.” They look at each other and shrug and a large panel of cloth flies out of nowhere and acts as a shield between me and them. I grab the pants closest to me and shove them on, I then grab the first set of clothes and put them on. I step around the cloth and show them what I’m wearing, the white mare pulls a face of disgust and Daring nods her head rapidly. I am wearing the jeans and a dark blue shirt I shrug and walk back behind the makeshift dresser. I put on a another pair of jeans and a blood red shirt, and step back out, both mares give a look of approval as their mouths are literally on the floor I chuckle and step back behind the cloth and try out a few more outfits of varying results, I refuse to wear the pink ones much to the disappointment of the Fancy. I finally put on the suit, it feels like air the trousers are black and completely straight and I have a bright white shirt with a red tie with golden spirals going down the tie, to enhance the blueness of my eyes, and a jet black blazer with golden buttons. And black shoes that shone with the amount of polish that is on it and also one or two gems I step around the veil and the white unicorns’ horn gives off a small spark and Darings’ wings snap open knocking over the unicorn in the process. I giggle my ass off when I see the state the two ponies are in which are both blushing profusely, and trying to avoid eye contact. When Daring regains control of her wings and I stop giggling my ass off like a little girl, I stand up and say, “well I guess you two like this then.” As I look at my reflection that Fancy has produced and I have to say I look damn good in the suit I am wearing. After conversing about the cost of the clothes, I change into more casual set of clothes and step out into the living room and find Baltar sprint through the front door into the street trying to escape the two ponies with hair styling contraptions, which ran through the room and took chase after the speck in the distance that is Baltar. ‘Wait was that a red bow in his hair’ I think. ‘Nah that wouldn’t happen he’s to manly… liony?’ I chuckle at what would happen to him if he stayed in there with those girls that are currently chasing him and chuckle and step out into the cool afternoon air. For once the streets are clear of ponies watching me so I am free to wander the streets in peace. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile in ponyville -BUUURRRP- A green flame bursts out of a small purple dragon and materialises into a small roll of parchment which is taken in a purple aura. It unrolls itself and a lavender coloured mare reads out “Dear Twilight Sparkle It is with regret that I have to send you and your friends on a mission of national importance. Not just a few hours ago a mythological creature also known as a human made an appearance in Equestria in the town of hoofington. I need you and your friends to study the human and assess the threat of it. If it is a threat then it is with regret that you will have to stop it if it is harmless then bring it to the palace for further questioning. I have sent you a small batch of my royal guards to fly you there which will arrive in due time. They will also act as a mean to protect you from the human and the everfree forest should the need arise. I’m sorry I can’t deal with this currently but strange occurrences have been happening at Canterlot that require my attention. Stay safe my faithful student. Yours faithfully Princess Celestia PS: Luna sends her love and hopes you will join her for her party when you come back some time.” Twilight stares into the distance a look between fear and excitement on her face. As quick as it came it left and the usual fretting and panicked version of twilight returns and shouts orders like a minigun at spike. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Back in the town of hoofington ‘AHHH FUUUUCCK’ I think as I round the corner narrowly escaping the large mob of ponies, that appeared out of nowhere and I don’t want to stick around to be trampled to death. I sprint in the direction of the house I’d be staying in for the night. I make it inside the house, with a small army colliding with the door making it bulge, and close and lock the door along with all the shutters and curtains, wishing that I had my wings so that I could get away faster, and I make a mad dash upstairs only to remember that I don’t know which room I’m meant to sleep in. I groan and open each door looking for something to show which room I’d be sleeping in, much to the disapproval to the current residents. Eventually I meet daring in one of the rooms and find out that all three of us will be sleeping in the same floor I was across from her and Baltar will be in the room next to me. I open the door to my room and against all reasonable judgement it is exactly like the other rooms. So I walk in and try to lie down on the pony bed. The moment I try is the moment I fail as the second I lay on it my head hits the wooden head rest and my but lands on the other end of the bed, my legs dangling off the end uselessly. I get back up and massage the back of my head, thinking of many ways to torture the person who invented beds that had headrests at both ends of the bed, and open my bag and get out my towel which also surprisingly doubles as a makeshift blanket. And undress, taking off my jacket, my shirt and my trousers that Glitter made for me. And slowly drift off into the delusion that is the happy dream land. I dream again of the annoying pink pony that has a canon that appears out of nowhere yelling “SURPRISE” and blasting confetti in my face launching me into other dreams as I dream them up most I will never remember when I wake up thankfully. I slowly open my groggy eyes and see a large lavender colour in front of me, I’m mostly naked at the moment and have sprawled out in “I JUST DON’T GIVE A DAMN” position or ‘QWOP’ for short. Gradually the lavender blob turns into a unicorn mare, smiling evilly, holding a strange object. AN- this chapter was a pain to write as I had a cold and so many things keep happening like PROM and shiz like that so I've been busy. well this isn't one of my longer chapters but it should provide a bit of comedy to the story to lighten it up a bit. Well what will happen next time what who is this lavender mare (YEAH I KNOW YOU KNOW ITS TWILIGHT SO DON't RAGE QUIT AT MY BABY ANTICS IDGAS) and what is she holding? (yeah a crappy cliff hanger I know sue me) wokin on my shitty grammar will it improv? PROBY KNOT (lol) Chapter 6: A good morning to you tooAN: Lukes thoughts will be in light blue On the floor in my room The lavender blob turns into a unicorn mare, smiling holding an object I'm too tired to recognise I mumble, “Meh, morning Twilight.” And close my eyes and roll over to try and sleep. … … Processing… Error… Malfunction… Reboot from start. … … Reboot complete... run SHITABRICK.exe “WHAT THE FUCK” I jump out of my towel bed and do a running jump to behind the pony bed, it being so low I have to lie down to hide but it is to short so my legs stick out at the end. The moment I lift my head back up a blue blur pins me back to the floor and yells in my face “How do you know Twilight? Are you a SPY?” I couldn’t help myself but squee at her. This only made matters even more awkward, for me anyway excluding the fact that I am half nude. I lift Rainbow Dash up, to which she struggles and protests, then huffs in frustration when I place her on the pony bed, and I notice that she has a faint blush, I would hug her right now if it weren't that I'm in the most awkward of positions. In my embarrassment, about being half nude, I blush really hard and try to cover up as best as I can and look for my clothes. To their confusion. I find them quickly enough and I rush into the bathroom, which thankfully is part of my room suite, and I hastily put my clothes on and brush my teeth and hair and wash the blush out of my face. When I am considerably decent enough I go back into the room to a bunch of near angry ponies, except Pinkie and Fluttershy but that was to be expected. they must have waited for at least twenty minutes. “Okay first things first… How the hell did you get in MY room?” I say before they bombard me with questions. “You didn’t lock the door silly.” exclaims pinkie, I facepalm and think ‘why didn't I think of that?' “Because you didn’t think we’d be here.” I look at her and think ‘can she read my mind?’ “Nope that’s just silly filly, I’m just reading the what he's writing.” she points into the sky. On Earth. in England. *the Author* "holy fucking shit she's fucking pointing at me." *punches the computer and cries* Back in Equestria I give her a deadpan look, then just shrug knowing it’s just Pinkie. “Okay now we need to change the subject, any volunteers?” I say, knowing that it’ll be Twilight. “Yes.” ‘KNEW IT’ “How do you know who I am?” Twilight asks. “TV,” I deadpan, “Any other questions?” “Yeah ah do, what’s this TeeVee mahwhatsit?” in the unmistakable accent of a southern American farmer that is Applejack. I tell them what a TV's are and describe to them how they work to the best of my ability, until twilight asks again, “you haven’t told us how you know who I am.” I panic and start to sweat nervously cause I don’t know how they’d react to the information I am about to part with them. Then all of a sudden the rarest thing happens, Fluttershy speaks! “Umm… I like to know how you know who we are as well… that is if… well if you… never mind.” She gets quieter and quieter after each word until the last word was barely audible. My heart sinks and melts then evaporates when I see her do this and I almost cry from the amount of cute and adorableness emanating from her. I suddenly have a strange impulse to go onto my knees and beg for forgiveness but I fight it off and wipe the moisture forming on my eye and I sit down on the centre of the bed to tell them everything, and it breaks. After a few minutes of Fluttershy asking if I'm ok and me panicking about the broken bed and trying to fix it, 'knew it'd bloody break,' I settle back down again along with the others, this time not breaking anything. I carefully explain to them about MLP:FIM and what I know and don’t know and answer most of their questions, being careful not to go into more personal matters like the pinkie promises and that i have all their characters in my appartment. Upon telling them about how famous they are in their world rarity lights up like a light bulb and RD just beams, whereas Fluttershy looks around to see this invisible onlooker, to which I tell her that they won’t be watching your every move cause that’s just creepy. I then tell them about the fan fiction sites and some of the stories that are on there, and when I talk about twilight somehow inheriting alicorn powers, to which we all laugh and, Twilight gives a nervous laugh like you do when you’re in an area you don’t particularly like, I keep this to myself and decide to bring it up at a later date. Fluttershy then asks “Umm… what’s your name sir? And… well… umm… And, how did you get here? That is… if you don’t mind…umm… please.” “The name’s Luke your highness and it’s an honour to be in your presence.” I say bowing when I pronounced ‘your highness’ and smile when she tries to explain that she’s not a princess and tries to hide. I then sigh and tell them “that’s it. You've reached the limit I’m afraid. Cause I don’t know how I got here.” I sigh again and take a deep breath and say, “all I know is that one minute I’m helping an injured animal on earth, the next I’m rugby tackled and I’m knocked out and lo and behold I wake up in Equestria with an angry Daring Doo and Baltar the lion thing.” This time it’s rarity who speaks, “Wait a second darling, where’s this Earth you speak of? I’ve never heard of that place before.” “That’s because there is no place in Equestria called earth.” I watch the realisation dawn on her, “you can’t possibly be suggesting that you have come from beyond Equestria.” I nod and she pulls out a red couch and faints onto it. 'how the hell can she do that. fucking drama queen magic. I want some.' “So what. your no from Equestria big deal ” "well the 'big deal' is that I'm not even from the surrounding regions. or to put it simply I'm not even from this planet." there is a collective gasp and rarity proceeds to faint on the couch whilst lying down, so didn't produce that much of an effect. Rainbow Dash just looks sceptical. Pinkie bounce around talking about the party's she'll create.Fluttershy hides behind Applejack. Twilight looks like she's about to take a dump. and Applejack just says nonchalantly, as if she deals with this thing every day, "so your an alien" I gaze into the distance and say “well if you put it that way I am in fact an alien, hey on the topic of aliens, what did you guys think an alien would look like?” “Ooh ooh oh oh ooh, they could be giant lizard thingies with tentacle all over it, and with a face like BLEAAAGGHHH, and it could be all RAAARRGGHHH, and, MMGHH MGHGGH MGH MMMGHHHGHH.” Pinkie acts out the weird actions to show that it’s an alien until Applejack shoves her hoof in her mouth. “Ah think he gets it pinks. Besides you don't want to ruin any alien party ya'll throw in the future do ya now.” I and everyone else laugh at this, until Daring knocks on the door and says “are you decent?” I call out “no give me a sec” I look at Rainbow dash and whisper to her “would you like to meet Miss Doo.” And I Watch her face as it turns from puzzlement to pure excitement. I watch as Rainbow opens the door and I laugh when I see Rainbow squeal with glee and ask for an autograph whilst rambling on about how much she likes her books. “Sure what do you want me to sign and do you have a pen.” I laugh even harder when I see Dash’s face when she realises she doesn’t have anything for Daring to sign or sign with. Daring looks around the room and sees the mares currently occupying the room. The two faces turn to see me laughing ‘like a boss’ and I don’t look to see their faces turn from their previous expression to anger, but I don’t care as it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. -Ten minutes later- “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKK” I scream as I run around the corner of another alleyway that just happens to be there just like any other chase scene in any action movie. I now have four rather large bruises from being bucked by two mares out of the third story building out onto a passing cart, thankfully it broke my fall so that I now have hundreds of splinters in my spine to match the glass in my spine when I crashed through the window to get there. I currently have two very angry mares with wings chasing me, one probably thinking that I’m sleeping with other mares, the other for embarrassing her in front of her hero. I skid round another corner, narrowly missing Daring from bucking me to the heavens, and jump over a cart passing the road like a hurdle, “ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit.” I jump behind a cart to dodge an incoming missile, aka Rainbow Dash, and lurch into another side street. “HELP MEE-HE-HEEEEE” I yell. I tried to get my wings like I did back when I was in those caves but it doesn’t seem to work so I’m reduced to just plain running. “GET BACK HERE SO I CAN BUCK YOU INTO TATARUS YOU FILTHY APE!” in a voice that puts Luna's royal canterlot voice to shame. “HECK NO I DON’T WANNA DIE” I scream back. I jump onto a cart and launch myself to vault over the roof, but lady luck has other plans. Just as I reach the pinnacle of my flight ‘the missile’ rockets into my side and I’m thrown onto the ground, coughing up a little blood as my back makes contact with the ground, forcing the splinters and glass shards deeper into my back. I roll onto my front to relieve the pain in my back, if only mildly, and try to get back up. But all my adrenaline is wasted, from what feels like hours of flat out sprinting, and the pain in my back is becoming unbearable, and breathing is so difficult it’s as if I’m breathing through a plastic bag. I slump back down to the ground my energy completely wasted and I can't hold my eyes open no matter how hard I try, the last thing I hear is “oh buck.” … In the Depths of the weird place that is my mind, ‘I HEARD THAT’ It’s almost pitch black yet I can see everything around me as clear as day. I see my selves running round doing weird shit like singing the banana phone song and playing twister and… smoking weed? ‘duuude I think I’m seeing poniiees’ …… My mind is a fucked up place, they all look at me, “what its true” I say. They shrug and I continue to think over what I know and don’t know. ‘Well I know that I can’t bring my wings up when I want but when they are needed,’ I think, ignoring the bored looks from the other ME’s. ‘But they don’t come out when I need them either. Gah this is so frustrating, it just doesn’t make any sense!’ I punch the nearest ME in the face sending him sprawling on the floor and try to resume my thinking. ‘Okay so what did I think about when I was in those caves well one was anger the other was… FUUCCK the one time I want to remember something and I can’t. It’s just another coincidence… bloody hate coincidences… Whelp guess I’m gonna have to mingle with me.’ “Who wants to play Halo 3” as I summon some consoles and a large number of controllers, and a lot of TVs… it’s my mind I can do whatever the fuck I want. -15 games later- “Yeah! Screw you luck, I got me.” I say after I win the last game which is my only win so far, anger won twice and luck won the rest. I do a triumphant dance, when I suddenly feel a sharp jab in my rib and all the ME’s disappear. I fall to the floor in a blinding amount of pain until it subsides to mild agony, when another jabs strikes me like a harpoon. I raise my arm to protect me from any other jabs from the unknown assailant. it is painful but I still manage to pull against the hundred tonne mountain that is my arm. “Hey he’s stirring… How’re you doing Luke?” I recognise as Twilight. “like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I open my eyes to a bright white room and Twilight, a nurse and a very concerned Fluttershy looking at me. “What’s a truck?” Twilight asks. I think ‘eugh I don’t care, I hurt too much’ “Never mind.” I say still groggy, probably from the drugs hooked up in my arm keeping the pain away. “Well we’re glad you’re ok, and I think two certain someponies have something to say.” Twilight says pointing behind me. I look to my right to see two very worn out ponies, both with puffy red eyes and very sad expression on their faces. Daring looks like she would jump into my arms but she hesitates, and she says “I’m so sorry Luke, I didn’t mean any of what I said, twilight told me everything and now that I know it’s a big misunderstanding, I feel all the worse about It.” She looks like she’s about to start crying again and her head droops down. I find it funny that I don’t feel angry in the slightest towards her, or rainbow dash, but in fact seeing how sad they are makes me want to cry they are too adorable, ‘God damn ponies nearly kill me and I feel sorry for them’ my logic says. I push that thought out of my mind as I reach out. Everyone flinches, Daring even more so as I touch her. I slowly begin to massage behind her ear and her expression turns into a face of pure bliss. She gives out a small moan oblivious to the other mares in the room and she relaxes into the nice massage that I’m giving her. Everyone just gawks at her and I laugh at the expressions they’re making and I say to Daring “you are forgiven.” And I turn to Rainbow Dash and say “no need to apologise Rainbow Dash, I forgive you too” and with that I draw them into the biggest hug I could give them, giving Dash the same treatment as Daring, she too flinches when I touch her but it quickly turns into ecstasy when I massage her behind her ears where the neck joins the head. Everyone in the room smiles and joins in the hug oblivious to the pain there’re causing me, mostly pinkie though whose arms manage to extend around everyone and hug us all simultaneously. 'just don't even try to think about it, I'll only get a headache... speaking of headaches, I've just managed to get one... Fucking pinkie and her devil worshipping powers of anti-physics.' Thankfully the nurse notices my discomfort and tells everyone to back off, and drags pinkie away to prevent her from jumping onto me. I ask “so what happened after I went unconscious?” Twilight eager to help as always says “Well Rainbow Dash and Miss Doo-“ “Daring is just fine twilight” the said pony interrupts. “Yes, well Rainbow Dash and Daring saw your body and realised their mistake of how much stress your body could take, plus the fact that you were bleeding out.” She shudders, “when the rest of us caught up with them two and saw you, Fluttershy here, “she points to the hiding figure of Fluttershy. “made sure you were okay until you reached the hospital. From here I think it would be best to let nurse Blue Heart here to tell you your condition.” “thank you twilight. Now then, when you got here some of us were getting ready to leave after the night shift and a few of the early shifts were walking in. you came in just before our very own Dr. Hoofbeat, who thankfully mastered the operation we had to do on you which saved your life.” I give her a quizzical look as if to say ‘what do you mean save me?’ She goes over the operation that took place, answering any questions that I threw at her like the injuries I got. Turns out that they only punctured my lungs in five places chipped my spine in three places and dislocated my left shoulder. She checks on my condition on the heart monitor for the final time and tells me “the doctor will arrive shortly to talk to you.” And with a quick farewell she leaves me and the rest of the group to chat. I talk with them about lots of little things like books in my world and fashion and the types of apples there. by now the sun is about its own width away from the horizon. Out of the blue Rainbow Dash asks “so what about your family? aren’t you gonna miss them?” I felt cold. Rarity notices my reaction and scolds Rainbow Dash for bringing up such a hard thing to talk about, I ignore them I just stare into the distance. I remember the violent death my father had, the memory haunts every one of my dreams and rules over my nightmares. I ignore the worried looks I’m getting and think ‘this is not a good idea this isn’t ground your familiar with, you could lose your friends.’ I look at the ponies, ‘could I call them friends?’ I think for a few moments before I shake myself mentally ‘of course they are my friends and they do care for me plus they deserve to know’ I swivel myself off the bed and sit up straight pain stampeding down my back. The ponies move to help me but I ward them off, ‘I have to do this’ I think to myself. I stare at Rainbow Dash and a small tear escapes my eye before I could stop it. “I have no family” every pony gasps at this, except Rainbow Dash who merely nods sadly. “my mother died when I was born, I never knew her. My father was with me for the best seven years of my whole life. We did everything together camping fire making you name it we did it.” A smile crept up on twilights face, a creepy one. I notice this and glare at her, “not Everything, everything twilight.” Despite the sad atmosphere everypony laughs and she blushes, a little embarrassed about being caught being dirty minded, and I smile a little too mumbling “dirty girl.” I continue with the story, “when I was nearly eight a police officer and the principal came into my maths class, I was mocked a little by a pupil there saying that my daddy was in trouble. In a sense he was absolutely correct, he was in more trouble than I would expect. I was taken to the hospital out of the request of my father, and I entered the ward he was in. now I’ll spare you the details but his death was not a pleasant one, and I saw him lose to… it.” I shudder remembering the painful memories, “I didn't see him die exactly but I knew he was in a lot of pain. I was taken in by a man who said he knew my father and gave me a flat to use. I didn't see much of him after that and I never got close to many people since. I only had few friends only four or five at most. But there were never any true friends, just people in my life. I just couldn't lose anyone else so I push them away if only to protect myself.” Everyone was sad in the room even the unnaturally happy pinkies hair has drooped down and was straight, but poofs back up again as she says, “but we’re your friends now right and we’ll make you the bestest party ever to stop you from feeling all alone ever again right guys” the room fills instantly with a chorus of yeses and smiles at the thought of a party and a new friend. But no-one in the room could be happier than me. I cry manly tears and hug pinkie, thanking her for being so kind and for being so welcoming and she returns the hug. Fluttershy asks me “why are you crying?” I look to them and say “these aren’t tears of sadness these are tears of happiness” I put every bit of emotion I could into my voice. Before she could hide I grab her and pull her into a hug as well and she ‘eeps.’ I massage her behind her ear to make her relax. she flinches but she then lets out a long “ahhhhhhhhh. I see why they enjoy this so much this is wonderful.” She leans into my embrace and nuzzles my neck. I smile and continue to hug her. She’s really soft it’s just like a cloud or like a really soft cushion with fur. She smells like freshly cut grass and budding flowers I am almost in bliss just sitting there hugging her. I reluctantly let go of the relaxing pony and move back to my bed, or beds they put four of them side to side to give me enough room, and lay down, rather painfully. Twilight helps by lifting me up and placing me down slowly, it helps but it is still painful to lie there. I yawn at the same time as twilight and smile, “I wonder what happened to that doctor the nurse sent here.” I am answered by the stallion that materialises to the right of my bedside “my you still haven’t noticed me enter yet.” I give a yelp of surprise and swear “may you burn in the pits of… oh... umm sorry.” I frown at the pony standing next to my bed and put on my best stereotypical black man voice “Man what the hell is wrong witchu? you almost gave me a heart attack.” He laughs and responds with “there is nothing wrong with me I assure you. In fact I was here for the past two minutes. But I see you are doing perfectly well I am surprised to see you awake yet alone up and about this soon the damage your body took was staggering to say the least. You are also the first non-pony I treated if it weren't for Fluttershy here pointing out you were an omnivore you may not have had enough liquid in your system to survive. and what is a man may I ask?.” Everyone, except Daring and the doctor, stares at Fluttershy, now out of the trance she fell in when I massaged her, in disbelief and they take a step back away from me. I stammer, unable to think of how she knew my eating habits, “h-how did you… I mean… j-just how?” She squeak’s “well um… it was easy you see… well your teeth gave you away, as I work with all creatures, I just know what they eat.” I shrug and turn to the ponies who look like they saw a ghost “don’t worry I pinkie promise I will not eat anypony unless provoked to the extreme.” I perform the ritual and the moves to go with it and the tension in the air visibly relaxes. I respond to the doctors question "technically my race is a human. Hence the 'man' for the male. And woman for the female counter part of our race. I am a man or stallion if you still don't understand." I hear hoofsteps behind the double doors leading out of the room and watch as the nurse enters. “alright visiting time’s over he needs to rest now if you want him to recover.” She then waits for everypony to leave making sure that they all leave me alone so that I can go to sleep including the doctor. The last pony to leave is Daring, she looks at me again and sighs “well I’ll see you in the morning Luke.” “yeah… see ya” the tension in the air builds and I rub my shoulder in nervousness. This is broken however when the nurse gives a frustrated humph. I look back at Daring who lurches into my face and kisses me. ... … Brain meltdown complete. She removes her lips from mine and blushes a deep shade of scarlet “hub puuhh” 'smooth move jackass.' Before I could come up with a more appropriate sentence Daring zooms out the door and the nurse gives a suppressed giggle. And leaves, closing the door quietly, so I am left alone to my own thoughts. Which is now a pile of goo in a bucket. I look to the wall for five minute seeing if will tell me this is all a dream and I now have to repeatedly hit my head against it so I can wake up. It doesn’t. My brain slowly brings its lazy ass into gear and I look towards the entrance, and I think whether I should sleep or not. My body aches and my eyes are heavy, ‘yep a sign that means I should sleep now’ I think to myself as I bring the sheets over body, closing my eyes, and begin the slow process of falling asleep. The door opens and I shoot up and stare at the timid, butter yellow, mare entering. "oh I didn't think you were awake. I can leave if you want, I don't want to be a bother." Grateful of the company I say "oh it's all-right, come in, I'm sure the nurse wont mind." "Umm okay, if you really want me to." she says as she slowly steps further into the room, her hoofs barely makeing a sound on the floor, "I just thought I'd come here as I'd hate for you to be all alone here in this dark and lonely place." "Wow um sure sit wherever you like. And thanks for being so kind to me today it really means a lot to me." "Oh it's no problem I like to help animals in need... oh I'm not saying that you're an animal or anything... what I meant was.. that I umm." she stutters "Its okay Fluttershy I understand. you like to look after creatures big or small as they make you happy to see them well." I say in a comforting tone The door opens again and Fluttershy hides behind me, she moves so fast I saw the edges of where she stood for a few seconds before it disappeared. Rainbow Dash enters the room looking nervous. "umm hey... you don't mind if I stay with you a while do ya?" Confused I agree anyway "sure there's plenty of room" She sits down near the bed and says "it's okay Fluttershy you can come out now it's only me." She comes out slowly saying "ohh hey there Rainbow Dash I didn't know it was you" "Its okay Shy" she says dejectedly, "besides what are you doing here anyway" "Well I umm... I'm just........." I can't make out any of what she said and I'm laying right next to her. She scrapes her hoof against the floor indicating her shyness, 'vegeta what does the scouter say about her cuteness levels... its over nine thousaaand' I just couldn't help myself I grab her and hug her and say "isn't she just adorable. She's just so huggable..." I rant on about her being so adorable for a while. Rainbow Dash just bursts out laughing, seeing Fluttershy blush like a tomato. During my rant I don't notice the rest mane 6 enter, along with Daring and Baltar. To which when they notice what I'm doing to Fluttershy burst out laughing as well. Thankfully the nurse on my watch is a heavy sleeper or we'd be in trouble. Pinkie joins in my rant about how adorable she is when she blushes making her blush even more. I fall asleep with Fluttershy still in my arms. When the rest of the group stops laughing and sees me asleep they opt to get Fluttershy out, but she says. "oh no I like it here he's just so warm and peaceful." and she nuzzles my neck causing Daring to to go red with envy and jealousy. They all decide to sleep here until morning so as to keep an eye on me. _________________________________________________________________________ Elsewhere “Do you think he’s ready” “no” “When will he be ready sister” “I’m not sure, but we’ll know when he will be” AN: sorry about the long wait but this was a pain to write as *insert excuse you wont listen to anyway* so yeah. any grammer errors point out plz as I am too thick to find one or two of them
Chapter 1: taken to EquestriaSee a Universe. Zoom in to the galaxy, The Milky Way. Zoom into the Sol system. Zoom into the planet locally known as Earth. Zoom into the landmass locally known as England. Zoom into the place locally called Chertsey. Zoom into a small pub on the edge of town. Zoom in… THUNK… WHUUMP, “AND DON’T BOTHER BRINGING YOUR DRUNKEN ASS HERE AGAIN.” I stare glumly at the man, who’d just recently been thrown through out of a window frame (things had gotten so poor the taverns couldn’t be bothered to replace them), stagger upright only to fall back down again moaning about the prices of alcohol, and most likely, a stupid bartender, there are lots of those people around. People who don’t want to remember or think about their day. People would rather just drink until they just stop thinking. Tomorrow… well, that’s just another day not to remember. I don’t like to see what used to be a once bustling city, turn to a ghost town right before my eyes. This is now just another wash-down area that attracts flies. I look up at the sky and see dark clouds looming overhead, rumbling, promising rain by the bucket load. It’s not that I don’t like it, I love the rain, it allows me to wash away my sorrow, there just isn’t much point getting soaked to the bone at the moment. So I get up off the bench at the side of the road and sluggishly make my way home. I always carry my seven inch combat knife down my sock and my trusty DEAGLE, which only has one clip, it helps me feel safe against the city which has more killers and such than a crime movie. I’ve never stabbed or shot someone before and I’d never want to do so but if it means that I’ll live another day then so be it. I’m not weak, in fact if forced to do so I can break three collar bones, several noses, four ribs, an arm, probably a leg and cause all kinds of hell to your internal organs without getting a scratch, it’s the fact that I hate violence. This is the reason why I watch MLP. I'm not a fully fledged brony or anything I just like the show. It takes me away from this world full of pain and suffering, and helps me think that there is a reason to live in this world albeit to watch the show again. I reach the wreck of an apartment I call home, with its missing bricks and boarded up windows, just before the first drops of rain, that come before the storm, start their unrelenting assault. I fumble for my keys and go inside. I take off my leather trench coat, It doesn’t do anything I think it just make me look cool, and my survival bag. It contains everything I would need in an emergency; a first aid kit, a few clothes, a towel, a lighter (you’ll never know when you might need one), a pen and pencil and some paper (for when I feel like drawing or writing something for me to remember), and some other less than essentials like water and food rations. I then enter the living room and turn on my laptop and start watching MLP. It was after the episode where rainbow dash creates a sonic rainboom to save rarity, Before I realised it was 9:37 so I decided to close my laptop and go to bed. I get to my bedroom and lie down on my bed, it's nothing much just four walls and a bed in the middle. i finally start to drift off to sleep. CRACK!! I’m instantly awake and look around and try and collect my thoughts to figure out, what on earth had made that noise? I think about downstairs and rush to find the intruder. I look around to find nothing gone and no sign of entry. A wave of relief sweeps through me and I make my way to head back upstairs. *click* THWOMF CLANG!! From outside came the loudest scream I ever heard, I never felt worse in all my life. It was the caltrops (smaller versions of a bear trap) I had set outside to prevent burglars from entering, it was only a deterrent, and I had changed the springs on the traps for some weaker ones, ones that wouldn’t cause too much damage to the person but would still cause a big problem for the person where it clamped down on. I never thought someone would step on them, they weren’t exactly concealed. I run to the hallway and grab my survival bag. A quick turn of my heels and I rush to my garden and open the door. I couldn’t believe what was before me. A small creature was struggling against the trap on its hind leg. Blood was already gushing out of the wound and it was already getting weaker. A twinge of guilt spread across my face. I didn’t notice the strange object behind the bush too my right. I gasp and rush over to comfort the creature. The moment it sees me, a look of renewed desperation rushes over its face. And it thrashes against the trap pouring yet more blood onto the garden. I pet it, and speak softly to it until it calms down so I can safely remove the trap. I put my fingers in-between the jagged teeth and pull. With some effort I manage to open it wide enough to remove the damaged creature which had passed out “probably because of shock” I thought to myself, “so I’d have to hurry” , I can’t recognise what it is the blood to makes it too difficult to make out. Plus the fact it was dark and the only light was the moon in the sky and it was also very cold. I pull out the small first aid kit which was a small see-through plastic container. Within it contained an array of medicinal equipment, of which contained two things I needed, a piece of material to stop the bleeding and a small knife. I start to patch up the creature wishing that it won’t die, as I finish and lower the knife to cut off the excess material, another creature bursts from the bush too my right and slams into my shoulder. My body was flung to the floor and my head hit a rock I was instantly unconscious. The creature that made me unconscious looked at me then looked at the other creature and looked at what I had done. A snarl, that could be counted as a smirk, was etched across its face as it dragged the other creature back through the bush , a few minutes later a few more emerge and drag me through it as well. Although with apparent difficulty. On the inside of the bush though would have freaked out anyone. It was a small tear, floating a few inches above the ground. When the sun rose however it had disappeared. All that remained of what had happened that night was some blood that had led to a bush and a small scalpel and a roll of material that had been used. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was walking to church. It was sunny and there were a few clouds, this was a rare occurrence where I live. There were usually black clouds of smoke and fire, or it was raining. Days like these were few and far between. The church was one of the few only places that hadn’t been affected much, by the cities cruel occupants. I enter the church with its the welcoming scent of lavender, it isn’t strong but it’s strong enough so that it’s still easily recognisable, and stroll up to the bell tower and start to climb. The bell tower isn’t the tallest thing in the city, as there are plenty of flats around, but it easily towers over some of the local occupant’s homes. It took me some time to reach the top. But before I got there I notice a faint glow towards the top of the tower as I reach the door where the bells are kept. I notice a faint white glow around the edge of the door. I open the door and the light almost blinds me. My eyes adjust to the increase of light and I step further into the room. I look around the room looking for the source of the light. I quickly find the source, and gasp in surprise, looking at the object that defies all laws of reality, “well, this is a dream” I think. The light is a small orb floating a few feet off the ground, the surface of the orb is multi-coloured and isn’t holding onto anything. I step towards it, and it seems to glow brighter, and fumble in my pocket and find a pencil, I poke the orb with the pencil and the pencil turns every colour of the rainbow, I pull it back out and it returns to normal. Seeing how nothing bad could possibly happen, I reach out and touch it with my hand. It feels like having a small electric shock, so I try and pull my hand away, but I can’t, panic grips me as I try and pull my hand off with my other hand, it won’t budge, I’m terrified now, It’s getting more and more exhausting, like its draining my energy, so pull my free arm back and punch it, my arm collides with it but instead of going through it, my arm stop suddenly, I don’t feel the collision, I can’t pull away, I can’t scream as no sound comes out. So with the last of my strength, I launch the rest of my body at it and curl into a ball. I stay levitated in the air as I watch the light as it goes through my chest and my hands and legs. I feel weightless for a few seconds as the light pulses throughout my body. I hear the words, no sense the words "you have been chosen". I don't have time to reflect on what has been said, as I stop glowing and gravity decides to work again. I tense and close my eyes as I brace for impact, but nothing comes. I open my eyes and look down there is nothing but a black pit. I flail in the air hoping to grab something, a muffled sound is made and I focus on trying to make out what it is. “... is it? ” “Get… weakling… fice to…” “What… meant to bleed… it…” "... No choice..." The rest was unclear and I couldn’t make out what was being said. Then everything went black. I must have been like this for ages. I couldn’t see anything, I hate not doing anything, plus it’s too boring. My body finally decides it’s time to wake up and I slowly open my eyes. Everything’s a blur and I can’t focus on anything. I try and move my arms but they’re tied behind my back… my eyes widen in fear. I finally start to take in my surroundings, they’re all greens and browns, and there're a number of bars, "I'm in a cage" I thought. "well at least there’re no wailing sirens or barking of animals in the distance, Thank god for that, stupid pests ruin my sleep every night. There’s just the sound of fire crackling over by that lion." I jerk upwards slamming my head against the roof, and I mutter some silent curses. My head is throbbing like mad now. This seems to have woken the lion as it stretches and turns to face me. “I’m dead” I tremble. note: ponies will be added in next chapter
Chapter 2: A daring escapeI never felt so scared in my life, I almost wet myself, before it spoke up. “So what are they keepin’ you here for?” A look of shock sweeps over my face. This only makes the lion chuckle. “What never seen a cage before?” I look around, keeping the lion in sight at all times, 'doesn’t hurt to be cautious,' I think to myself as I scan the local area. I quickly conclude that I’m in some sort of settlement, as there is an abundance of tents and wooden equipment. And a cage. I focus back on the lion again which hasn’t moved an inch. “What’s wrong with you, are you a mute or somethin’?” “…” “Bah, the one time I get to talk to somethin’ in months. And all I get is a mute, hairless ape.” It grumbles. My anger rises quickly, but I control it, and I growl, “I’m not a hairless ape.” “Ahh, it speaks.” Mock sarcasm is evident in its voice. “Well, allow me to introduce myself, my name is Baltar. May I ask what your name is?” “Luke.” I retort. “And where the hell am I?” He (I assume) chuckles softly, before he speaks. “You’re in Equestria, well at least the jungle part of it.” He states before continuing, “And what are you? I haven’t seen anythin’ like you round here before.” He studies me quickly, like he has had many a chance to do so before. And I shuffle nervously under his piercing gaze. I look briefly at him, and the first thing I notice is his dark blue eyes that seem to look right through you, with a scar that runs down the middle of his right eye. He sees me stare at his scar and smiles, “this scar shows that I’m no longer part of this clan.” He said matter of factly. I look away unable to hold his gaze. And I take in what he said before. 'Wait did he just say Equestria?' I think, and I look at him with surprise. “Did you just say I’m in Equestria?” “Well yeah, course you are, where else would we be?” I stare at him eyes wide in disbelief. He notices my reaction and continues, “Well I knew you weren’t from round here. But what are you? And where did you come from?” He stares at me quizzically So I answer him. “Well I’m what’s called a human. A homo sapien if you want to get fancy.” I state, “And I come from a place called England. Although I doubt you’d have heard of it.” He smiles at this and then nods, “Well your right there, you must have come from somewhere really far away.” He then turns to go back to where he was, but turns back and says, “And also I think you should apologise to that pony over there. I think you really made her angry.” I flinch at this and turn to look at the pony he indicates to. She (I assume) is a yellowish/tan coloured pony, with hair of different shades of black, and large eyes with a magenta colour, and did not look too happy to see me. And her wings are folded in so I can't see them properly, she also has a poorly bandaged rear leg, and has a brown jacket with pockets, and is looking at me with an intensity that a fire would have wilted under. Steam was literally pouring out of her ears, and her teeth are barred. I swear, if she were any angrier, she would have burst into flames. she was also shaking, I'm not sure of the reason though it could be the loss of blood or it could be her rage. I mentally facepalm myself, 'Holy crap this is Daring Doo, shit she's pissed, she’s a legend quickly say something smart.' I think hurriedly. “Hey there miss Daring Doo.” This evidently shocks her. But she recoils and spits. “You stupid hairless ape, what the hay did you do to me? Look at my leg, what the hay did you do?” she was evidently unimpressed at how I know her, but another thing worries me she should be shouting but her voice is raspy. “Thanks too you, I got caught by the stupid Weya tribe. I’m gonna be set back weeks now. Do you know how long it took me to get this close to the temple of Raah? MONTHS!” I stare guiltily at the floor and think of a way to get me in her good books. “How bout I make it up to you by helping you escape then.” I say hoping that she’ll accept. I don’t know how I’ll do it but at least she won’t be as mad at me. “Hah fat chance, and if so, how the hay will you do that then?” still fuming at the fact that it was me that got her here in the first place. I think madly trying to think of a way to escape, when it strikes me that I’ve still got my knife in my sock. I look around and don’t see any guards. I raise my leg and start to shake it to try and dislodge the knife. The knife resists but finally falls out with a solid THUNK. I smirk at the now gobsmacked pony. “H-how did you… but…” she stammers, her voice barely above normal speaking tones. But she gives in and continues to stare angrily at me. “Never leave home without it.” I say as I shuffle over to put it behind me so I can cut the bonds that hold my hands. I cut the bonds that held my hands behind my back, looking quite smug, and try to massage some blood round them. To the annoyance of Daring Doo, who grunts and returns to looking at me impatiently. By now Baltar the lion had stood on all fours excitedly, and asked, “Well how are we gonna get out of here? The guards come round every few minutes or so, so we’ll have to be quick.” He continues to mumble about our escape whilst I nod in agreement and look at the cage around me. It’s a small cage, only a few feet high, so I have to crouch down low to avoid hitting my head. The bars were wooden with a thick rope holding the bars together. Pretty pointless if you ask me I could have broken the bars with ease, but I have to escape quietly, plus I want to get my gun back, as it would be too dangerous if they kept it. All in all this was a pretty good cage if I was any judge, but it’s still ridiculous. I warn Baltar to keep an eye out for guards, just in case they decide to check up on their prisoners. I make quick work of the ropes with my knife. And open the cage so Balter can go through. I step out and make my way over to Daring’s cage and slash at the ropes holding the door. The door, which by now was hanging only by a few ropes, sways eerily in the breeze. She tries to fly but with the amount of blood loss she must have gone through she is still to weak. So I lift the still weak pony onto my shoulder, she complains but I quieten her as I look for my survival bag. I find it a few moments later the contents strewn on the grass. I sigh and put the pony down and collect my gear and put it neatly back in the bag. I look around for my gun before I realise it’s not there. Anger burns my inside as I refrain from swearing, and I carry out a larger search, using my bag as a makeshift cradle to hold Daring Doo. I eavesdrop on some of the locals to get some sort of clue of where they put my gun. When I hear, next to a tent, “how long till the large one awakens sheff?” I assume this is their chief of some sorts. So this will probably be important. “Not long chief only a few minutes, I saw him stirring only a few minute ago.” ‘HA I knew it,’ I think triumphantly. “Good. We need him ready for the sacrifice to Raah.” ‘What?!’ I think, ‘to hell are they gonna sacrifice me.’ “Yes chief… And what do I do with this weird L shape thing” “Keep it. It is a sign of your courage to capture such a beast” “Yes chief, thank you chief.” “Damn.” I mutter quietly, so as not to reveal my presence. I think quickly and find a spot to put Daring Doo so that she won’t be seen. She panics for a second, thinking I’m going to leave her, until I tell her to stay quiet till I come back as I need to get something. She looks like she’s about to argue back, to say I’m crazy, so I turn away and rush to see the creature that has my gun. It is another lion just like Baltar except this one is larger and has plates of armour all over it, making it look like some sort of knight. I follow him as carefully as I can making sure as to not be seen, I can’t afford a confrontation, especially with Daring in her vulnerable condition. I follow the creature with my gun to the other side of the… camp? And watch it carefully as it enters its tent. It may not be a great plan, rush in, knock out the lion, grab the gun, and then run. But it is all I have. I stealthily follow behind it, making sure I won’t be seen when I enter. I open the flap as carefully as I can and enter the tent. The lion doesn’t notice me, as it was staring intently on the object in front of it. ‘Good’ I think ‘well this will probably turn out better than expected.’ Suddenly the flap bursts open, 'Me and my big mouth,' and a lion comes in spluttering. “SIR THE PRISIN-E-E-ER. WATCH OUT.” Without time to think I swing round with my fist and it comes in to contact with its face with a satisfying crunch, which sends it flying back out of the tent, unconscious. I turn round to face the lion with armour, only to be thrown outside the tent as well. Out of breath I get up and face my attacker, which had gone on all fours and is snarling. It charges again but I am ready this time, before it hits me I sidestep, his claws tearing through my jumper, and bring my knee into the side of its face where there is the least amount of armour. It howls in pain as my knee collides with it, sending it flying into my next would be attacker. I don’t stop to think as I run back into the tent and hastily look for my gun. I find it on the table at the far side and I dash to get it, as I grab it a bunch of lions burst through the tents door, ready for a fight. I don’t give them the opportunity as I run into the side of the tent and with my knife cut a hole through it, whilst placing my D-Eagle into its holster on the side of my hip. They instinctively take chase. I look behind me to see them catching up, so I skid to a halt and face them head on. I dodge the first one kicking it in the side as it lunges at me, which sends it flying into a nearby tent, but a second one jumps on me, and I land on my back and bring my legs up towards the lion about to land on me. As it lands on me, I push it off with my legs sending it flying far behind me, and roll backwards with the momentum of the push. This proves valuable as the lion with armour lands there moments after I move. I stand up to my full height bringing my leg up with me, and boot the lion hard in the face. With a horrible crack the lion falls to the floor dead, neck broken at a sickening angle and blood coming out of its mouth and nose. I had seen many dead things in my life but never actually killed something, especially in such a brutal way as I had just done. The other lions look in disbelief at what had just happened. And look at me with horror, and anger. I turn and scamper in the direction I had left daring and Baltar, foot throbbing from the collision. The lions were either planning a way of trapping me or they were actually scared of me, the fact that I could do something so vicious even scares me. The lions were following me at a distance, each one going at a pace that shows that they will catch me but only if someone else gets to me first. Seeing that I can’t out run them, I come to the conclusion that I have to defeat all of them to stop them from chasing me. I slide to a halt again and take up a defensive position. The lions spread out and surround me trying to confuse me and try to find a weakness to exploit. I give them no such chance as with my adrenaline now going into overdrive, my senses heighten to a point so that I could see a pin drop 40 meters away. They try and attack from behind but I pick up on their movement and swing round with my heel and slam it into the lion attacking me and send it bowling into another lion. ‘Two down five to go’ I think. And I wait for their next attack. They edge closer trying to get close enough so that I don’t have a chance to react if they attack. But they don’t have a chance as another lion comes crashing out of the trees and rams into two of the lions and the three start fighting. The two lions in front of me look around expecting an attack as well, seeing they’re no longer focusing on me I charge them catching them off balance and hurl them into two nearby trees knocking them unconscious. Baltar, who I now recognise as the one that joined the fight, finishes off the one remaining lion with a bite to the neck which brakes it in one swift movement. I wince as I see the lion drop to the floor, dead and bleeding. And I turn to Baltar who is beckoning me to follow him, I take off after him but I yell at him to wait. “We need to get Daring Doo.” I explain and run back to the camp, which is now swarming with lions in armour but they aren't as armoured as the one I killed, and quickly spot her and sprint over to her. “What the hay took you so long? This place is covered in guards now. How will we escape?” She exclaims as I lift her up on to my shoulder with ease as she is surprisingly really light. “I know a way out but it will be tricky.” Baltar says as he looks around nervously not wanting to be seen. “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” I whisper. We take off in the direction of a cave. “Oh great,” I mumble. as you can guess I really don't like caves. As we enter the cave I fumble for the lighter in my bag. We enter the depths of the caves, all the light from the entrance now gone, I finally find the lighter and flick it open and it bursts into flames and creates a little glow in the vast darkness of the cave. My eyes adjust to the surroundings using the little light I now have and spot Baltar eyes widening in fascination by my lighter. “How do you do that?” he asks his head cocking at a slight angle. “Well it’s simple,” I reply, knowing full well that he won’t understand anyway, “it is a mixture of compressed, highly combustible fluids with a flint and steel to produce the spark to light it. And a slow release system to make sure the right amount of gas escapes so that the flame can continue to burn.” After I finish the pony and lion give me a look which shows their confusion and I laugh. Daring speaks first “Wait, are you saying that you use water to make the flame?” I burst into hysterics laughing madly at their confusion and this confuses them even more. After I regain my composure I tell Baltar to move on unless we want to get caught. There isn’t a breeze in the cave and the walls are getting closer together as we make our way through the cave. We have to go in single file down the narrowing cave now and there is barely enough room for me to carry Daring Doo. we walk for what feels like hours the rumbling I heard earlier is now the roaring sound of water just ahead of us. I can hear Baltar shout over the roaring noise, “THIS IS THE FOREVER MOUNTAIN RAPIDS WE NEED TO BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL HERE, AS ONE SLIP COULD MEAN THE END OF YOU.” The moment we reach the end of the passage and step out into a wide area my lighter gets blown out and we can’t see. I curse as I can’t light it again as it keeps getting blown back out. I feel Baltar shuffling to my left as he feels for something. I carefully inch my way towards him so as to not fall into the rapids. A yell of triumph is heard and Baltar shouts, “I FOUND THE PATH ACROSS BUT YOU’LL NEED TO BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL AS WATER IS CONSTANTLY GOING TO TRY AND KILL YOU. THE PATH IS NARROW SO YOU’LL NEED TO MOVE YOUR FEET CAREFULLY SO AS TO KEEP ON THE PATH.” The extra emphasis on “carefully” makes me even more nervous. I shout back a confirmation and shuffle my way along the edge of the rapids to where the path across is. When I find it I hear faint yelling, over the roaring of rushing water, from the entrance and I resolve to move quicker across the path. It is hard work putting one foot in front of the other while water is trying its best to make sure my foot never reaches its destination, and the fact that I’m now blind doesn’t make my task any easier. Baltar yells and I freeze unable to think. After waiting for what feels like an eternity, Baltar then yells “I’M OK” relief sweeps over me and I continue to make my way across the sounds of the tribe getting closer. Baltar then yells “BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO JUMP.” Confused I carry on, and after my fourth step I bring my foot down only to meet nothing, I almost lose my balance Daring screaming in panic, her voice came out more like a squeak in her weak condition, but I manage to regain my footing and think about the situation. The lions are starting to file out into the opening spilling out light into the cavern from their torches. I look to Baltar and yell “CATCH” and I chuck Daring across the gap, in her panic she opens her wings and they give her the extra distance to make it, though weak she is she still has enough strength to glide. She falls back down into the hands… Paws of Baltar and she sighs in relief. It’s just me now and all the other lions are in the room yelling at us in fury, a few javelins falling short of where I am, and some of the lions are brave enough to try and cross to get me but they slip and scream to their deaths. I look over to Baltar and Daring and I think to myself as I take a leap of faith, ‘I hate my life.’ I reach out as far as I can, and manage to grasp the ledge with both my hands and slam into the wall. The rock which my left hand held onto slips and I flail my arm uselessly, and almost piss my pants, as I watch the rock fall down into the dark abyss which is the forever mountain rapids. I turn back to see Baltar reach out to me and I swing my arm round to grab it. I grab but slip and I slip down slightly as I recoil from the attempt, my right arm can’t take the strain much longer. Seeing that this is my last chance to grab Baltar’s arm I swing back, my arm screaming in agony as I struggle to keep my hand on the edge, and swing forwards, my left arm straining in its socket to reach his arm. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Family. It’s a wonderful thing to have but if lost it creates more sadness than you can imagine. I was 5 years old when I saw my father die in hospital, I was never told what it was that killed him, and I never knew my mother, she died giving birth to me. I was in school one day when the headmaster came into the middle of my English room, there was some snickering about me doing something wrong but I followed him out of the room. I wasn’t told where I was going only that I had to be there. It turned out that I had to go to hospital. I was taken to the emergency ward where I saw my father in bed with an array of tubes inserted into his body. I cringed at the sight but he beckoned me over. He whispered into my ear “take care of yourself, make the most of your life, stand tall, defend yourself and most importantly, don’t regret anything. Your magic son and don’t think otherwise, your mother was unique and she passed this on to you, live on for both of us. We will always watch over you.” Tears welled in my eyes as I hugged him, he lifted his free arm and wrapped it around me. I cried into his shoulder for a few minutes praying that he won’t go. A few doctors came in and fiddled with the tubing then left again. After I stopped crying we chatted for a while talking of the things we did together. After a while a doctor came in ordering me to leave, I shouted in defiance but then my father started to spasm uncontrollably. I froze looking in horror at what was happening, the doctor shouted at the people outside and a dozen or so people rushed into the room I was grabbed by two pairs of strong hands but they were unable to pull me away fast enough when his eyes opened. They were completely red and his mouth was choking up blood, his face a purplish green colour as if he had bruises all over his body. I was forced outside and taken to a nearby room where I sat in silence unable to move, unable to speak. A few moments later I was told that I would never see my father again. The words he told me I cannot remember as I had stopped working I couldn’t feel I couldn’t do anything. I knew it was over before he told me, but I still thought back to his face, it looked like a nightmare brought to life I couldn’t stop seeing it. I cried for a few weeks after he died and I lived in an orphanage until I was 16 where my great aunt gave me a flat all to myself and left me to my own devices. I made few friends and those that were I made sure were never bullied or harmed in any way as those that did were met with glacial fury. My friends were the only things I had, but they moved on and I stayed put and I ended up as I am now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I reach across and grab his paw and at the same time my left hand slips and Baltar slides forwards unable to hold my full weight. I look into his eyes and say “let go” Baltar yells at me to hang on. But I let go and he cannot hold on leaving long cuts where his claws dig into my skin. I look into his eyes tears are flowing down his cheeks, I start to cry as well but I don’t want him to go down with me. His claws tear into my flesh and then grasp nothing. I feet weightless ‘I have no regrets’ and I think of flying and my new friends. I feel strange, I don’t know what this is but it feels amazing. I cannot begin to describe what I feel, but I know that I cannot just that I give up on my friends. I am no longer falling so I look down . I see the raging torrent below as clear as day. Its illuminated by… me? I look to my right and I see a giant wing so majestic it puts eagles to shame, each feather is so pure they glow White, 'which explains the light,' I think. And wisps of light dance beautifully around and through the wing giving it an ethereal quality. To my left is an almost exact replica of my right wing except it has a light blue neon glow. They were almost touching the edges of the walls they are that wide. Baltar was watching this with awe he saw the wings unfold out of nowhere, they just appeared and unfolded. He rubbed his eyes just to check if he wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. He wasn’t. I feel light headed as I suddenly my strength starts to drain, so using my new wings I fly upwards. I only have to beat them hard once to reach the edge, I can feel the strength of my newfound wings they as they encompass everything with their magnificence, and I gingerly use my wings to move me far enough onto the side. I carefully lower myself onto the ground and collapse onto my knees and hands and breathing shallow breaths my strength almost completely gone, the wings I have fade away leaving a darker cavern, ‘who knew having wings can be so exhausting,’ I think. I now have a newfound respect for pegusi, ‘how they manage to fly for so long I have no idea.’ Everything is now gawking at me and I tell Baltar to get moving, he looks like he won’t move so I shakily get up on my feet to go to move him, he then shakes his head to snap out of it. Daring is laying there breathing heavily and I change course and walk over to her as if I was drunk and lazily pick her up. Baltar walks over to me and asks “What the fuck was that?” I give him a blank stare and shrug my shoulders. “Never mind, lets get out of here before they come to their senses.” I nod and tell him to lead the way. I THINK ABOUT A HALF HOUR LATER? I look back at the cave we have just left and think 'I never expected any of that to happen. What was that? why'd that happen to me? Why me? How'd I do that?' I left it at that and carried on walking too tired to think of anything else and all thinking would do is lead to more questions. I look at the sky, the sun is at a position to which I can only guess to the time to be 3 o'clock. I say to Baltar "today's gonna be a long day."
Chapter 3: A torn villageA/N: WARNING:just a heads up in this chapter contains a scene of violence and can be a little gory not as gory as Rainbow factory and Cupcakes though but still gory. My shirt had fallen off a while ago due to the amount of damage it had taken whilst we were walking and it was too hot to put on another one. I also traded my combats for a knee length copy of the combats I was wearing. I am also sweating like mad as well but I didn’t mind. We walk for a while, when Baltar spots a cave in the distance and we decide to head there. I collapse the moment I gently lay Daring to the floor and make myself a pillow out of my bag, fatigue washing over me. Daring shows no sign of moving and is obviously worn out as well, the events of the day affect us all more than we think. I look around the cave and see Baltar go to leave. “Where are you going?” I ask. “Someone’s got to check if we we’re being followed.” I nod in reply and continue to rest. Sleep envelops me and I drift into the realm that dreams rule over. I dream of pegusi, lions and home, and also the weird pink party pony that always fires a confetti canon at me every time I see her, yelling “surprise!” A sharp jab reels me from my sleep and I wake up reluctantly. “Finally you’re awake. Come here what do you see?” I groggily sloth my way to where to where he stands, rubbing my eyes to get rid of the blurriness of sleep. It’s around midnight and the moon is rising to its peak, it’s a waxing moon so it doesn’t provide much light. But in the distance I see something moving around making the trees sway, I can’t make out what it is but instinct tells me that it’s not friendly. I tell Baltar to rest and I take up my position at the entrance. I look over the treetops for what feels like hours now, it’s relatively calming to listen to the swaying of the trees in the forest, and it would be a perfect moment were it not for the indescribable snoring behind me. It goes something like this, but I still cannot encompass how irritating it is: HUGHHHUGHHUUUGHUHG, the long wind up that sounds like a tractor on weed …………, the not so dramatic pause that only lasts for two second providing a moment of peace. Parfanargle SNUF SNUF SNUF mmmmaaahhhhh. I don’t know how he does it but he finally manages to be annoying than he was two seconds earlier. And the process repeats itself over and over and over and etc. with the occasional fart in between snores and I think to myself 'bloody hell can he do a whopper. It drives me mad, but he is the only one who is able to hold a conversation so that I won’t go even more insane than I already am. I look back at Daring Doo and worry for her sake, she is sweating now like she has a fever and I have no idea of how to stop it. Her leg has probably gotten infected and is probably the cause of most of her suffering. And I make a mental note to keep a closer eye on her, she’s the first pony I met and hopefully we can become friends but at her decreasing health I’ll be lucky to be a mutual acquaintance. I sigh and look back over the forest and think about the occurrences that happened earlier today and think, ‘Wow, shit this day couldn’t have been any weirder. First I’m fucking dragged into Equestria and I almost died and I have a dreadful feeling that I’ve got a dying pony on my hands as well. We need to move quickly today and get her looked at, I can’t lose another person… pony in my life.’ I sigh for a second time. ‘I wonder what happened earlier. When did I get wings? Was it magic... yeah it probably was magic considering I’m in Equestria. But what was that though? I wonder.’ A small grin makes its way across my face and I look for a small pebble to test it out on. I find one and set myself down near it and focus on trying to lift it up. I spend about 2 minutes on trying to lift it up using telekinesis. It doesn’t work. ‘Well at least I tried,’ I think, a little sad that I can’t lift thing up using magic. So I stroll over to the entrance again and inspect my gear. My bag was usable it has a few small tears but nothing major, everything inside it is still in there and in a useable condition. I have a few spare sets of clothes and my first aid kit no longer has all of its equipment. I sigh and reorganise my bag. After my bag was suitable organised I check my knife and gun. My knife was in near impeccable condition, so I turn my attention to my D-Eagle. I dismantle it and check the parts for damage and clean them properly with a rag from my bag. I then reassemble it and cock it and look down the sights, satisfied I place my gun back in the holster on my hip, not before I flip the safety on, I don’t want to shoot myself like I did last time. I reminisce at the thought of it. It was when I first got the gun, I was nineteen and I loved the thought of my own gun as I played COD4 allot and if I do say so myself I kick ass, and I had just finished cleaning the inside of it and I decide to do a western style spin the gun and holster it. Lets just say I did it a bit too enthusiastically and it fired into my foot. I then went to hospital where a few of my friends visited me, they laughed when I told them the story, and they brought me a few get well gifts. Looking back at it, it reminds me of how young and stupid I was, I’m 24 now but I consider myself way older as I am definitely more mature than all of my friends. I look around the cave, Baltar is snoring as usual, but Daring is now shaking uncontrollably. I peg it towards her fearing for the worst, I can’t let her go not like my father did. I unwind the bandage on her leg to see the extent of the damage done to it. I recoil in horror at what I see, her leg is a shade of dark blue and black, her veins are bulging as if they were about to explode, and the hair around the infected area had fallen off. I take my bag off my back and get out my first aid kit, I tear off the lid and rummage around for the antiseptic spray which I had bought recently, it stings like heck but it does the trick, and I spray it onto the leg coating it in a thin film of chemicals. I can visibly see it working as after a few minutes the awful colours had died down and the veins had reduced in size. I breathe a sigh of relief but I know that were not out of the woods yet. I wake up to see Daring resting her head on my stomach, I move her head off me carefully so as not to wake her and walk over to Baltar who had resumed hi guarding position after I had dosed off. “Ah, I did not see you wake Luke, and I thought I had best not disturb your snuggle with the pony.” He sniggers. And I shoot him a glare, wishing I had lasers in my eyes. Before I continue over to the pony I “snuggled” with and put her in a comfortable position in my bag knowing that she will be in a lot of pain when she wakes up. We make good progress through the forest and my legs are starting to ache from it. We surprisingly haven’t been attacked yet, either by luck or my daunting physique. I’m about six foot eight so my head hits every doorframe in existence, and my muscles stand proud. I’m no Saxon Hale but I go to gym so my arms and legs have a bit more muscle than the average Joe. I feel the movement of Daring waking up and I tell Baltar to slow down so as to not cause too much pain for her. He obliges and we slow down to a relaxing walk through the forest. As we walk we hear her gasp and yelp for every step and stumble we make. Eventually we come to a halt and I remove her from my back, and place her gently on the floor and say as soothingly as I could “You’ve got some real pain control back there I would have been screaming in pain by now.” She grimaces, what would be a smile were it not for the amount of pain she is in. and I behind to massage her neck and back trying to get her mind off her leg, this seems to work as she her mouth turns from a grimace to a genuine smile. I smile at this, ‘if she’s happy I’m happy,’ I think. The short break now over I pick Daring back up and we set off again. We manage to make a mile before we have to stop again. Baltar leads me away from Daring so we can speak. I start first, “We can’t leave her here, I’m not giving up on her.” I say with outright defiance before he says something he'll regret. “I know you won’t, but if you want to save her we have to get to a village and I don’t think we can find one fast enough,” He says looking around me at daring before he sighs. “If you want to save her we can’t keep stopping every time we get moving.” I nod in agreement. And look over my shoulder to look at Daring and sigh. I walk over to her and give her a quick massage before slinging her up onto my back and set off towards the sunset, ‘oh I’m such a romantic aren’t I walking into the sunset,’ I think cheerfully. I look at some trees and decide to count the ones I stumble over as I continue onwards to help prevent boredom from killing me. ‘Three hundred and forty three… three hundred and forty four… three hundred and forty five… who knew I could trip over so many darn trees. I mean it’s not like their moving. Besides I could always play spot the engraving….. Wait a second,’ I think, then yell, “Baltar come over here I think I found something.” “The last time you said that it was just a stupid plant that is hardly uncommon, now what is it.” He said obviously not happy when I spotted the weirdest looking plant I ever saw when he told me it is just an ordinary frizzle whip touch it and it goes frizzy and wraps itself around you locking you in place, I laughed when all it did was wrap itself around my finger when I poked it. He joined in but then added a warning, “That’s just a baby wait till you see the fully grown ones.” I have failed yet to spot a larger one. He studies it and concludes, “I have no clue what it is.” Then from my shoulder I hear Daring mutter, “it’s a navigational sign.” She’d managed to shift her head to see what we were on about that left us stumped. I would jump for joy but the weight on my back prevents me from doing so, so I settle for a triumphant yell with a fist pump. “Yes finally a sign, *chuckle*, Alright then, what does it say?” they could tell how exited I am enthusiasm was pouring out of my skin, it was also infectious as they also seem to brighten up as well. “Well it’s a little vague… But the best direction it gives is… That way.” She points a little way away from the sun and we march off, gently though as I don’t want to cause too much pain for her, in the general direction. We see a few more signs on the way and we pick up the pace eager to get some well-earned rest and food, I haven’t had proper food for a least a day or so now so I’m starving. And most importantly to get her leg seen to. I had to spray it again, which wasted the rest of the can so I chucked it away as it was no longer of use to us, and she whispered at me as it apparently burned, ‘I know the feeling’ was my thought for that, but she let me finish and replace the bandage. She is getting worse I know it but without the right equipment I can’t treat her properly all I can give her is some soothing words and empty smiles. The trees start to thin out as we make our way towards a field, and we refrain from running in our haste to leave the forest. It wasn’t particularly scary, it was just really unnerving like eyes were watching your every step, we leave the trees and its weird flora and fauna, and exit onto a vast field with luscious green grass, it’s not like grass on earth this grass is really green like pastel green the green kids use to show grass in their pictures. It’s stunning, I would have just lain down and basked in its glory were it not for the daring snapping me back to reality with a groan. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and look for a path that would lead us to a town. It’s not long before we find one and we quickly reach it and stride down it with an air of purpose. We chat about nothing in particular just enjoying the moment, laughing at how quickly we managed to leave the forest, how silly I look to him with all these clothes. We climb the small hill and, before we reach the top we, read the sign that says “welcome to Trottingam village” and I chuckle at the name. We continue up past the sign and glance over the hill. For the first time since my father died I regret doing so. All I see is complete and utter devastation, houses are black with burn marks, homes broken businesses destroyed everything broken and nothing stirs in this husk of a town. We walk in silence towards the town unable to encompass the gravity of the situation, the pure devastation of what caused this. But what really made this truly horrific are the carcasses of dead ponies laying down everywhere. Adults and foals alike were murdered here limbs were torn from the bodies of their former owners. Blood stains everything around us and each pony showing a look of either pain surprise or sorrow. Something dreadful, No… evil did this to these ponies. Everything is broken, from the town to the ponies even their babies are broken and twisted in unnatural positions. “What did this?” is all I can conjure up. “Well it could have been a hydra but there should be fewer bodies as they would have been eaten, and it also doesn’t explain the burned down houses, and whey isn’t there any pony search and rescue efforts. Something must have blocked the escape routes.” said Baltar, clearly not phased by the amount of bloodshed around him. “What do you mean by search and relief? It looks like their all dead.” I point out. “Look over there you see those drag marks there’s a large number of those leading into the forest.” He points over towards some groves in the ground and I admit they do lead into the forest. “Well we have to find out what did this?” I say, anger now rising in my voice, “and make them pay.” I don’t give him time to react before I run off towards the forest. And he catches up with ease, I am not running too fast I’m in fact running at the pace that I can keep up for hours upon end and not waste my breath. “You know they could be dead by now? Right. I mean it takes weeks for a house to burn down. Look at the facts there’s a very slim chance even one might have survived.” He tries to reason. I ignore him and continue to barrel my way through the forest, anger giving me the strength to move faster. Groans and weak complaints emanating from my bag. I reach a cave 'great another one' I think angrily, and I spot two guards standing to attention not doing anything and look like they weren’t going anywhere fast. They are short dog like things except they stand on two paws and have managed to gain opposable thumbs, with sharp nails that double as claws. “Diamond-dogs I should have known they were involved. But this is unlike them they wouldn’t usually kill the ponies they would force them to work for them. Something is wrong here very wrong I can smell it.” I forgot that he has a more sensitive sense of smell than me. “Come on we can take them,” I say, eager to relinquish my anger on the two unsuspecting dogs. “No,” he says with surprising authority, “we need to save the ponies, that was the plan, we can’t rush in there and expect them to crumple under us. We need to be sneaky and enter without them knowing of our presence and only when we find them, and let them escape, can you do what you see fit.” I put Daring down in some shrubbery nearby and I tell her to stay quiet while we save her friends. She groans and I take that as a signal that she heard me. I set off, with Baltar close behind, around the two guards, staying out of sight, and climb the wall to get the drop, quite literally, on the dogs. We reach the outcrop above the guards and we get ready to pounce on them when they tense as if they know we are about to drop on them and go inside the cave, only to be replaced by two guards looking more refreshed and alert. Wait a minute for the guards to stop moving. Before they realise we are above them, we drop simultaneously killing them with a heavy blow to each of their heads caving their skulls in, I don’t care I just want to make something pay for what happened to the village. We proceed into the cave which is dimly lit with torches and we spot four or five more dogs, which we silently take out with a quick turn of the head and a quiet snap, and drag them into the darkness of the cave the last one unfazed by the lack of comrades when Baltar hit him with a blow to the back of the head killing him as well. I feel like a fucking snake doing this, and I suppress a giggle at the thought but scold myself at the lack of seriousness of the situation. We continue silently making good progress down the corridors, ‘it would be a while before they change the guards’ I think hopefully. We don’t pass any dogs on the way through the maze that is their home which I find odd as it should probably be full of working class mutts. After a few minutes we hear a small shriek and we creep our way down the corridor it emanated from, curtsy of Baltars supreme hearing. We reach a wide opening that turns out to be where they are keeping prisoners. It’s a mess of blood and bodies as if they’ve been subjecting them to torture. Hatred consumes me as I see a creature making its way towards a bunch of terrified ponies, a look of mild pleasure in seeing the ponies squirm from behind their cage. I don’t see the pair of wings form behind me, but I don’t care, they are pure black and they act like a black hole consuming the light giving it more strength and fury, the only thing different between the wings is that if you look closely one wing has a faint fiery red glow to it. I move with surprising speed and collide with the beast and send it flying into a wall. It gets up sluggishly and stares at me with pure hate. It was hideous there was hardly any fur on it and its skin is a dark shade of grey, a demon was the only thing that I could think of except it is in the shape of a D-Dog. It charges at me and my wing slams it into the floor as anger takes control of my body, I leap forward and bring my foot down hard onto it, it moves out of my oncoming boot but in the process breaks its leg when my foot lands down hard on its thigh. It lets loose a blood curdling screech. Its un-dog like howl is cut off when my wing slams down onto its throat and it can’t breathe it tries in vein to breathe. But before it can recover I stand over it raising my leg before I bring it down sharply, its head gives a few moments of resistance before it cracks then shatters and gives way to burst open like a ripe tomato. The ponies shriek in terror as I turn towards them. My wings fade into nothing and my eyes, which were the colour of scarlet, return to the normal cool blue hue. Baltar, who had watched the spectacle from a distance, came out of the dark spot he was hiding in and said, “Well so much for being quiet.” 'he is probably saving the questions for later I think. “sorry.” I say, unable to think of anything else. More screeches come from the corridors and we quickly grab the keys and unlock the remaining ponies from their cages, it seems like a tenth of the village was here there was at least a hundred of them. They reluctantly come out wary of me but I assure them I won’t hurt them. They reluctantly come out of their cages but seeing as it will probably be better to go with us than stay here they follow us. We reach the entrance of the cave the wounded were being carried by the more healthy ponies, and the children following cautiously behind shooting quick glances in my direction in curiosity. I smile at them and they hide behind the nearest pony. The shouts and screams were almost upon us, and I hurry everyone out of the cave before telling Baltar to get Daring and get as far away from here as possible. His response was “are you mad? You’ll get yourself killed.” I chuckle before adding, “Well your right about one thing. And if I wasn’t this would probably never work. Now go before I change my mind, someone has to get these villagers to safety and it won’t be me.” I yell the last part to emphasise that he has to leave now. I see he is struggling with the concept of leaving me with these monstrosities so I push him away and he slowly yet reluctantly canters off in the direction of the scared and confused ponies and helps them by picking up my bag with Daring inside an picking up a few foals. I turn back to the cage as the first of the beasts come through. The cave entrance wasn’t wide enough to fit any more than three of them at once so I launch myself forward to prevent them from exiting the hell from which they came from. They gnash their teeth at me as I tackle them colliding with their soft underbellies, trying to throw me off of them. There were forty or so of them each more hideous than the next, and all of them were eager to get their savage claws on the ponies. Anger rising at their attempts to get the ponies my wings and scarlet red eyes reappear and flap my wings twice forcing the beasts back into the cavern. In my haste to push them back in they manage to tear away at the flesh on my back earning scours of blood to trickle down. In my frustration my wings act on their own accord and slam ferociously into the ranks of vermin. Sending them flying into their comrades, one of them avoids my attack and lunges at me my wing swoops back in a almost graceful motion sending it careering into a wall head first so fast it shatters its neck and spine and cracking its skull in several places. Remembering the town and its occupant’s, anger fills my soul and body and fire starts to course through my veins. My right wing bursts into a brilliant blue flame which would normally scare the crap out me but I’m too angry to think as the demons charge at me. I charge back at them and collide with their hideous faces, breaking noses and earning a few cuts and bruises myself. My fiery blue wing setting fire to one or two of the demons, they seem unfazed by their change of temperature only that they now start melting slowly as they try and attack me. I doge and weave their attacks when I spot one heading for the entrance, I yell in fury when I saw that my guard had been let down allowing me to be hit by one of the demons but I recover and counter and with a powerful beat of my wings I smash into the escaping demon crushing its head into the wall and it’s body crumples to the floor lifeless. There are still to many of them to keep back I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with the relentless assaults, there was still at least thirty of them and my wings are starting to fade as the energy required to keep them around is putting a strain on my body which now feels like I’m on fire. I yell at my weakness in such a crucial moment, and I burst into the fray once more breaking everything in my path be it limbs or necks. The fire within me is starting to burn my skin so I punch the nearest demon as hard as I could, it bursts into flames before slowly disintegrating into black dust, with a final screech. I spin and punch the next demon in the side as it circles around me turning it into ashes, with another screech. The two demons I set fire to had burned to death and they had set fire to numerous others making them bump into another spreading the fire throughout the demons. There were still at least twenty now, not on fire, as I gather up the strength for my final charge. There was a scream outside as a I begin my charge so I change course without hesitation to the entrance, which now has two more demons trying to escape, screaming in fury at the monster that would dare cause pain to any animal, I burst through the entrance and send the escaping demons into a few nearby trees killing them on contact with the bursting of skulls and the breaking of necks. I whip round to see a yellow Pegasus about to be attacked by the monstrosity, I yell a curse at it and with a mighty beat of my wings I fly to it and boot it so hard in its side it breaks through the bones and skin causing my leg to go straight through it spearing it onto my leg, it dies almost instantaneously. When I land I wrench myself away from it and turn to the trembling mare, “I thought I said for everyone to get out of here.” I yell causing the mare to whimper and respond with “I-I-I…” my eyes soften and change to their cool blue colour once again and say, “I will not let these beasts harm you and if you come here then it makes it all the harder to do so understand?” She nods and just before she leaves she yelps and I rush forwards avoiding the demons attack and scoop her into the air telling her to go and releasing her in one motion, she scrambles in the air for a second before she regains control and flies off. I look back down at the escaped Demons and dive bomb the first one I see, crushing it with the impact and send the others following it, back towards the cave entrance my wings are barely visible as I approach the next victim of my rage and send it into the wall killing it with a definite crack. There were five left and I quickly use the energy I have left to pummel them into the ground, killing them. I collapse onto the floor by the cave entrance out of energy, and out of luck as I hear more growling from inside the caves. I look up to see the cave full of the angry demons, and I lay there unable to lift a finger to stop them from getting out. My eyes close, too heavy to see them slowly pace towards their new prey. I think back at the friends I gained during my brief stay at Equestria, Baltar the ever faithful who I had to force to leave to save him and Daring who I see as my responsibility to keep her safe, it was all my fault all of it, if it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be here in so much pain. But I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world and the phrase I use all the time comes to mind, ‘I regret nothing’ this couldn’t be more true now than it ever has been. I feel a sensation of weightlessness and I open my eye to a slit and see them cower raising their claws as if being blinded. But I don’t care I just want my friends to be safe, I can’t stop thinking about them, I whisper “I’m so sorry” before I white out. A few hours later four creatures emerge from the forest with a makeshift platform and place me onto it with grim expressions.
Chapter 4: In LimboA/N: sorry this took so long but I had soo much going on these past few days it made writing a near impossibility. I know that the grammar is crap but I’m trying to improve on it. I open my eyes and I see grey… Sand? And Lots of it. It’s like a desert, it’s flat no hills or anything. I shift myself and try to prop my head up to get a better view of the landscape, the sand attaches itself to my face as I lift myself up onto my hands and knees. The sky is pitch black. No stars. No moon, Just a black void. ‘Weird then how can’ I see I think. I push the thought aside as the grey desert I’m in grows in size. I stand up shakily and fall over and face-plant the floor. ‘Weird it doesn’t hurt,’ I think as I slowly get back up standing like a toddler. I feel a sound coming from next to me, HI. A chill travels up my spine as I try and figure out how I heard something if I felt it instead of using my ears. I turn and look for the cause of my fears and I feel the sound again, SO, ARE YOU GOING TO TALK OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO READ YOUR THOUGHTS. The figure standing behind me… Is DEATH. He wears a dark black cloak that covers his entire body, which is made of bones, only his skeletal hand sticks out as the one hand holds on to his giant scythe, which is almost an entire foot above him. He is about the same height as me and his eyes glow a bright blue that… flash? I assume that’s how he blinks I don’t see why he does that he doesn’t have eyes they’re orbs but I will dwell on that later. I gasp and say, rather dumbly, “Am I dead?” He sounds, NO. YOU ARE IN THE REALM BETWEEN WORLDS NOT DEAD NOR ALIVE YOU ARE IN THE DESERT OF LIMBO… BUT YOU… SURPRISE ME. “Oh how did I do that then? I thought you knew when everyone dies that is part of your… agreement or something right?” dumbstruck that I’m able to confront death and actually surprise him. YES YOU ARE CORRECT. BUT YOU SEE THAT IS WHERE WE REACH OUR DILEMA. YOU SHOULDN’T BE DEAD. With this he pulls out an hourglass which still has a large amount of sand in the top, but the weirdest thing about it is that it’s no longer flowing. He shakes the flask and the sand moves around in their separate compartments but none of them go into the other compartment. He sighs, well what would be a sigh if he could breathe. He has no lungs or organs. And sounds, SOMETIMES IT CAN BE SO FUSTRATING WHEN ONE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE RULES, BUT THIS TIME I CAN MAKE AN EXCEPTION… I WILL NOT PUNISH YOU, AS IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO WATCH YOUR JOURNEY, BUT I CAN’T JUST LET YOU GO BACK, OH NO THAT WOULD BE AGAINST THE RULES. YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND YOURSELF IN THIS DESERT, BUT I’M NOT CRUEL I CAN GIVE YOU ONE PIECE OF ADVIDE. He lifts up a skeletal arm and points into the distance. YOU ARE OVER THERE SOMEWHERE. It is impossible for death to smile, as his skull is set into a constant grin, but if he could he would be doing so. I look carefully into his orbs and say logically, “but you said you can’t let me go back” if death was smiling he is now positively beaming with delight, as if he has finally met a person almost as smart as himself. WELL PLAYED HUMAN WE WILL MEET ANOTHER TIME PERHAPS. A party hat appears on his hood and he sounds, WELL I HAVE TO GO NOW OR I’LL MISS MY OWN BIRHDAY PARTY. THEY WILL BE SHOOTING LIGHTNING BOLTS AT COWS TO SEE IF THEY WET THEMSELVES. I bink and he disappears. “Gee I wonder if all gods are as confusing as he is.” I say to myself. And I set off in the opposite direction he pointed at. In the land of the living. Baltar looks down at his friend and spoke, “you crazy bastard you just had to go and get yourself killed didn’t you.” A tear forms on his eye as he speaks, “Well at least you kept your promise, you saved us all from whatever those things were, so I kept mine. We found a nearby village that wasn’t raided and took shelter there, they didn’t take me in at first but they’re warming up to me. Daring is making a slow recovery, and her wound is healing. She’s finally up, the doctor says she shouldn’t but she’s too stubborn. So the doctor resorted to keeping her under supervision for a few more days, and that in a few weeks she’ll be fine. Whatever it was that you gave her had killed off most the infection and that it was just a matter of giving her some meds and time to heal.” He sat in silence for a few minutes thinking of something more to say but nothing came, so he left the building. The next day a mare with a tan colour coat trots in, rather slowly and with a noticeable limp, and sits down next to my lifeless body. She’s there for a few minutes as she is trying to hold back the tears before she speaks, “I’m sorry for being… You know…” it’s obvious that, even though I’m not living, she is struggling to confess, “selfish… I never got the chance to thank you for, well… never giving up on me I… I can’t… think of a better pony to be my friend… you’re the closest thing that I have to one and I was just so ungrateful that you’d be willing to help me.” tears are streaming down her fur and she is weeping openly. “I-I… I’m sorry for not giving you a chance.” After a few hours of weeping she leaves and my carcass is left on its own for the rest of the day. People from both villages gather round in a procession to mark the passing of a dear friend and hero to all. Baltar took to the stage to say a few words and Daring sat next to him both having trouble to calm their sorrow over the loss of their friend. Baltar was talking about his friend and how brave he was when. Thunk…. “Oww. Fuck what is this!” Baltar looked at the crowd then at Daring to check he wasn’t imagining things. “Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?” The crowd looks awkward and everyone looks at each other to see if anyone else was hearing this. Baltar and a few other ponies including Daring walk over to the coffin and unclip the clips holding it shut, when this happens the coffins lid shifts off to one side seemingly by itself, until a figure sits up and covering his eyes blinded by the light of day. It swore and lies back down again, then laughs, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.” His laughter stops when Daring grabs him by his hair shouting, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Sounding like a mother scolding a child whilst dragging him away, squirming. He mouths ‘help me.’ Back in the desert after the meeting with Death ‘FUUUUUUUUUUU I’m sooo bored’ I think as I trudge across the never ending desert. ‘Why do they have to make it so dull, it’s not like I’m some sort of unforgiven evil or something’ my mind is going numb from the lack of mental exercise. My head is starting to hurt from seeing the same thing over and over again I feel like I’ve been walking for hours and traversed a few miles but when I look back all I see is the grey desert, I leave no imprint on the surface it’s like the sand never moves. I stop walking as it’s no use going nowhere and start to think more carefully into what Death said. ‘He can’t help me get out so I have to figure this out on my own’ I conclude. ‘Well whatever he tells me, or shows me, should be false. But he knows the human psychology so he could trick me into thinking it’s a lie. But then would that count as letting me back and break the rule?’ I ponder. I think hard about this and come to a conclusion that everything he tells me I can and can’t trust, therefore he told me something that would be a lie but the truth at the same time. This makes me think even harder, my brain is now finally getting a challenge and it goes into overdrive to solve the dilemma. Finally something clicks in my brain and I summon Death in the most obvious way I could conjure up. “Death, I choose you!!” Death appears and sounds, YES, YES ALRIGHT I HEARD YOU, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT. He pouts, the party hat disappearing from his head in a puff of smoke along with some confetti and other party stuff. I grin and start with, “I figured out your little puzzle.” YES GO ON. Said Death a little enthusiasm that shows that he’s ready to say I’m wrong. I dive straight in with my explanation. “Well as you can’t just let me out and the advice would pretty much do that, so I can’t follow where you pointed to.” He nods. “Well you also said that you can give me some advice that says that I’m somewhere in that direction.” He nods again. “Well I can’t follow your arm yet I still need to go in that direction. So that’s the dilemma but what if there were two directions. Like up or around. The up means that I’m underground or something so that means I need to reach the surface. The around is like a sphere so I’m going to go in giant circles going nowhere.” Death looks at me with a blank expression, well as close as you can get with a permanent grin, and sounds, YOU ARE CORRECT SO FAR BUT YOU STILL HAVEN’T FOUND YOURSELF YET. I smile and say, “So for the past number of hours I’ve been going around. So I’ve been going in circles, which to conclude means that I’m no longer on this sphere.” Death sounds, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY. AND I MUST SAY YOU HAVE THOUGHT CUNNINGLY BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO FIND HIM BEFORE I CAN LET YOU GO. An idea, a weird one at that but still an idea, comes to mind. “Well how about I tell you I found him all I need you to do is to get me there.” I smirk at my stupid idea, “All I ask of you that is, is to put me back at the start and to remove the gravity so my course cannot be altered and to throw me in the direction you pointed at first. So I can reach the surface.” Death stares and snaps his fingers, I feel a pull and I close my eyes to prevent them from flying out of their sockets. When I stop I open my eyes and see Death holding me ready to throw me, I still feel heavy yet he’s holding me like I weigh nothing, and he sounds, YOU READY. It was a statement that didn’t require an answer as just after he said it he throws me with surprising speed. I left the desert and I now enter the pitch black darkness, ‘wow is everything as confusing as what happened there’ I think as I twirl in the darkness around me. The darkness goes on for a long time and I ponder on a way to pass the time to keep my mind off the constant darkness. I try whistling and I succeed on making a small melody out of it. I start to play jokes in my mind thinking back on the countless episodes of mock the week I watched at home. I got to season three episode five when. Thunk, “Aww fuck what is this.” Was the first thing that came to mind, my head hurts and I feel like I’m in a box. Feeling rather pissed I yell, “Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?” there obviously is as I hear mumbling and the clicking of locks, I don’t hesitate to lift the lid off me and I’m greeted by the blinding rays of light, I sit up and look around there’s a large crowd of ponies and crying ones at that. I look at the box I’m in and I realise it’s a coffin. “fuck.” I mumble and I lay back down. ‘I can’t believe they were about to bury me alive. Well at least I’m not a zombie.’ A large smile creeps onto my face as I realise why everyone’s looking shocked ‘they probably think I’m a zombie’ I think, I start to laugh at the thought thinking it hilarious as fuck, I don’t care I’m back and I’m alive that’s all that matters now. I say in a joking manner, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.” I was about to act like a zombie and start to scare the ponies when a furious pony, who I think must be able to read minds, yells, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a hoof to pick with you.” And with that a large set of teeth grab my hair and I get pulled out of my coffin and painfully get dragged away from the crowd. I see Baltar stare dumfounded at me and I mouth ‘help me’ at him but he just stares as I get dragged round a corner. After I get dragged into the house the door slams shut and the furious pony, which I recognise as Daring Doo, pins me to the floor and yells in my face, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT? EVERYPONY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD.” Her voice softens but only marginally. “How are you alive? it’s impossible you had no pulse.” I ask her, “Why’d you drag me here I could have told you and everyone else at the same time?” giving her a confused look. “Because friends have to know first, do they not” her face so close forcing me to stare into her furious eyes. “I… Well…*sigh* fine… but just to clarify I was in fact dead, for a while anyway.” I say momentarily shocking her, but gleeful that she admits we’re now friends. She recovers and states flatly, “It was four days.” “Wow was I dead for that long,” I think aloud, “Hmm… Limbo must affect time differently.” “Sorry am I interrupting something. And what’s limbo” Someone asks from the doorway I turn only to see Baltar now close and lock the door properly before shutting the blinds and lighting the candles. Daring blushes hard, and I think she must have burst an artery in her cheeks, as she jumps off of me and tries to explain what she was doing. Baltar waves off her rambling and says “its ok I was only kidding. Besides I think he likes it when you blush.” This causes her to blush harder which I think is a physical impossibility, and my cheeks begin to heat up as well, but before she can shout at Baltar he turns to me and asks, “Well you didn’t answer my question what’s this Limbo?” I tell them to take a seat before I tell them. I talk to them about how I went into limbo met Death, to which they bombard me with questions like who is he and what does he look like. When I finish the story and all their questions had been asked and answered in full, Baltar turns to Daring and tells her to tell the village that I am in fact alive and that I will talk to them in due time and will answer their questions. Daring reluctantly leaves, leaving me and Baltar alone. “Good to have you back you moron.” he said after she left. “Hay at least I’m better looking than you.” We both laugh at this the tension evaporating before Baltar turns to me with a quizzical look on his face. “What happened there back at the cave? Something clicked inside you I could see it as clear as day. It was different the first time your wings were white but back there they were dark, black even… I have to say even I was scared of you for a while,” Concern etched in his voice. I knew this was coming but it still doesn’t make it any easier to tell. I sigh and begin to tell him, “To be honest it was mostly anger, but a small part was fear.” I admit, “Fear that I couldn’t help, I was tired of being too weak to save the people I loved when they needed it the most, like my father.” Baltar says, with a comforting look, “I don’t know how that feels but there is one thing you should know.” I wipe the tear forming in my eye and ask, “What?” He says with complete honesty, “you are not weak, you never were. To be weak you must stop fighting” he pauses to allow me to let this sink in, “now tell me did you ever stop fighting for them.” I shake my head, he knows that I would never stop fighting for my friends. “Now come on cheer up, beside I’m sure you’re hungry as I know I am.” I go to say I’m not hungry but my belly says otherwise letting out a loud rumble, I give an embarrassed look and I get up and tell him “what’s there to eat?” “Well I don’t know what you eat so you tell me.” He said giving his signature quizzical smile. “I’m an omnivore enough said. I eat everything, well actually that’s a lie I don’t like tomatoes can’t stand em.” “Humph, well whatever Luke, well I need to try that new griffin bar in town. They say they have cooks to serve every culinary need.” If I had a drink I would have sprayed it everywhere before I say, “you guys have griffins?” “Well yeah, why somethin’ wrong with em we could go to another restaurant. Well you can I can’t” he chuckles, but frowns probably thinking that he won’t be able to study my eating habits. “No, no it’s great really I’d love to go there.” This perks him up a bit. “Well that’s great then I’d love to know how you can stomach grass as well as meat.” At grass I burst into hysterics and fall on the floor clutching my sides which I’m sure I’d just split. “What’s so funny? I didn’t say anything amusing.” I try and say between fits off laughter “I… I don’t eat grass, or trees for that matter… or anything that would require the expert belly of a pony… I only eat fruits and veg mostly, but not flowers and stuff… Aahhhh my sides you’ve broken them.” I say in mock pain. Baltar realising the mistake he made gave a little chuckle before kicking me and motioning for me to move on. Still in hysterics, I move outside into a large crowd of ponies eager to hear what I was talking about with Baltar and now also want to find out what was so funny. We make it to the restaurant, proudly, feeling like we’ve earned a meal fit for a king. We sit down and a large group of ponies with notepads and quills surround us, I sigh and turn to one of the ponies and ask “what do you want?” this makes one or two squee for unknown reasons to me. The lead pony asks politely, “what’s your full name, we kinda gathered that Luke was not your full name, and how do you spell it? And are you a mare or a stallion?” I turn to Baltar who also looks intrigued by this conversation. I give an audible sigh and say, “if I tell you would you and the rest of the village stop following my every move.” The pony nods rapidly and pulls out a quill and paper using her magic. Me never seeing magic before allow my eyes glass over and reach out and try and grasp the floating feather in awe but it gets moved out of my reach as the pony hastily writes down something with a “hey girls you seeing this it likes feathers.” This makes a lot of the pegusi blush and fight for control of their wings some were unsuccessful and knocked over a few other mares as their wings flew open. I shake my head trying not to get entranced by the magic, and think of the oncoming onslaught of gossip and rumours and such, “hang on a sec I never said that, oh never mind it’s probably too late for that now. Anyway back to what I was supposed to say. Now I’m what’s called a man.” I look at their faces, “that’s human for Stallion.” A large number of the girls start to squee again and I mentally facepalm. “And my full name is…” I take in a deep breath for dramatic effect, “Luke Peterson Charles Granger.” I see the confused looks on their faces and I fight to keep my laughter under control and I say. “Pass it here I’ll write it down for you to see how I write as an example.” I take the floating pen and paper as they watch in awe of my extremely flexible digits, some look at their hoofs and wish they had digits like mine. I pass the paper back and almost two dozen ponies crane over each other to see my writing. Baltar then, being the good friend, starts to herd them out the door. The mare with the paper I wrote on looking in admiration and rambling to anyo…pony about how neat yet flowing and other things I couldn’t hear before they finally left. Though a large number of ponies remain some left to spread gossip and such, and a few unsuccessful attempts to keep wings under control. I tell the griffin waiter to give me a large amount of steak and other delights on the menu. I wait for a few hours and eventually the griffin brings up the food, I also told the waiter to bring the meat covered as I want to scare the crap out of the ponies. The dishes were served and the courses kept on coming, and I left the special dish where it was building up tension as to what’s underneath it. I ravage through the vegetarian meals like there was no tomorrow, and they are exquisite I have never tasted so much flavour like this in my whole life. The tension built up too much for one pony who yells “will you lift up the dish already.” He is quickly silenced by the surrounding ponies, but they think the same thing, I tentatively grab the dish and lift off the cover, revealing the finely cut steak. Ponies gasp in horror and whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire and the ponies on the edge began to flee, I don’t care as I am now engorging myself, tearing into the meat without a care in the world, I got half way through eating it, when a pony burst in shouting “for Celestias sake what are you doing. You can’t seriously be eating that?” I laugh and laugh and laugh, before I come to my senses I reply “Yes. I am and I’m what’s called an omnivore so I eat what I want, well not everything I can’t eat hay or grass or tomatoes and things like that.” I see the scared face on the pony and I realise what I have done, ‘Oh balls they think I will probably eat them now.’ So I hasten to add, “well I also don’t eat ponies or any other sentient species like dolphins and octopuses and fish, I can’t stand fish they don’t look appetising at all.” I give him the most reassuring smile I could possibly give, without showing my teeth as this would probably scare them even more. The pony now relaxes a little before another pony bursts in shouting “I can’t leave you two for two seconds before you do something stupid.” And with that the pony drags me out of the room with Baltar finishing both our plates in one gulp, ‘greedy pig I was gonna eat that’ I think, before he follows sniggering at me, I realised at her voice that It was daring and I think ‘we are probably seen as children in her eyes. Thankfully I had put on my shirt before I left to go to the pub or she’d have to drag me by the hair again’ as I get a tow down the street. She opens a door with a solid buck and throws me inside, with a force I did not expect from such a small mare. I fall to the floor with a thud and Baltar follows suit, landing on his face. The mare closes the door and she turns to yell at us at the top of her voice, which she has unfortunately made a remarkable recovery from, “You colts are so immature. Scaring the entire town like that. I have the right mind to beat the crap outta your flanks. Do you have any idea what this is doing to my image?” me and Baltar both stare at the floor guiltily, this is probably the universal look anything would give if she/he was caught doing something wrong. “That’s what I thought. You don’t care do you? How would you feel if your friends were being complete jerks and you’d have to go and apologise to the entire town for their stupidity?” I open and shut my mouth a few times, but everything I go to say gets frozen in my throat before I can say it, so I close my mouth and go back to staring at the floor. Baltar, the more confident one who doesn’t really have anything to fear from a pony, says “well we had to stop most the town from following Luke everywhere he goes somehow.” “So you planned this then. And this was the best plan you could come up with? I can’t believe I had made two friends that are the greatest yet the most stupid ponies around.” She sighs and says, “Right sorry for shouting like that but I had to, cause I have to admit I’m a little stressed out right now as a convoy of royal guards are going to be here tomorrow to pick us up and take us to canterlot where we will meet the two princesses.” She starts to speak a dozen words per second as she tries to sort us out to get us ready for the meeting with royalty, it’s obvious to me that this means a lot more than the little display we did a few moments ago. “Now I want you two too look your best for when we get there. I can’t have you making it any worse than it already is, You go have a shower get yourself cleaned up you stink,” she says whilst pointing at me. I almost squeal with glee when I found out that I will meet the two most famous ponies in all of Equestria, but not wanting to get in her way I go and have a shower.
Chapter 5: A small break‘that was the most stupidest showers I’ve ever had to use,’ I think to myself as I step out of the shower that is way too small for me, I had to make myself as small as possible whilst I tried to grab the slippiest soap ever and fell over in the process and hit my head on the wall then the floor giving me a nice welt on my head. I wasn't the cleanest I could get but considering the alternative, the little tub in the corner, it was the better choice at the time. I grab the towel on the rack on the wall and I look for my clothes which seems to have strangely disappeared from where I left them. I proceed to dry myself off and wrap the damp towel around my private area and walk into a room filled with the journalist ponies. I turn around and walk back into the bathroom and close the door my face burning, I feel so embarrassed. I yell, “Daring is this some kind of joke cause this isn’t funny.” I hear a small amount of laughter from behind the door which I assume is daring and shout at her, “OH, so you think this is funny huh well it looks like I won’t be able to go and meet royalty then I’ll have to stay in here then.” The laughter drops and Daring steps in, red in the cheeks at the same time. “Why do you need clothes anyway?” She asks. “I mean it’s not like you need them, we don’t need them so why do you?” I look at her like she’s mad and I realise that they don’t need clothes as they have all that fur, so I answer in the simplest way I can, “because I need them.” She gives me a blank look before giggling at my pouting, and turning away to (I assume) get my clothes, I never thought she could have a childish side. I smile at this new side of Daring and hope that she'll stay a little like this more often. although not embarrassing me as much. A few minutes of waiting there’s a knock at the door, I’m completely dry and I can’t wait to put my clothes on, but instead of Daring entering a white unicorn with a coiled Dark blue mane, with a needle and a coil of string for a cutie mark, walks in with a bunch of materials walks in and introduces herself before I can object. “Hello my name is fancy thread, oooh and I’m just soo excited about making you some clothes and my what an superb physic if I do say so myself oohhhh this will be so much fun getting to make you some clothes he he.” All this having been said in one sentence made my head spin so I accept I order to make things easier for my brain. She grabs a measuring tape from behind her, which I’ll never understand how they do it without pockets, and measures my body. After a few moments of awkward silence she asks, “well what would you like to wear dear I can’t make you anything if you don’t tell me.” I think for a second thinking of what I should wear for the princesses, and say “a suit would do well for my trip to Canterlot but for normal clothes I would like two pair of jeans and four shirts of various colours. Oh and pants.” I hasten to add that last part making sure those are the things I probably need the most. At pants she looks at me confused, “you know things to put on under my trousers.” She looks as if I were telling her a big pile of phooey before she shrugs and starts to create a bunch of clothing right before my eyes. I sit patiently watching in fascination at how she creates such things, with a floating sewing machine here and a pin cushion there. She finishes the jeans and shirts first and I wait for her to finish making the rest. She starts to sweat as she makes the suit making sure the threads are in the right spot and the right length. As she finishes the suit I ask her about the pants. She gives in and starts to wail. I look at her with surprise and guilt and confusion so I apologise rapidly trying in vain to calm her down. She summons a couch out of thin air and lays down on it, dramatically, before saying through sobs, “I don’t know *sob… sob* I’m supposed to be a fashionista but I just don’t know *sob* what is this fashion of pants you speak of?” I almost burst out in laughter at the reason why she’s crying. But I restrain myself and scold myself for almost hurting someponys feelings. “Don’t worry about it. Tell you what, I'll tell you what they are and how people like me make them.” She stops wailing and sits bolt upright as if there was no crying in the first place. I tell her about what they are and what they do, with the exception of a lot of embarrassing moments mostly of me shuffling around and ahem-ing and them blushing, and I then tell her how to make them and she hastily creates a few for me to use. After a few moments of them staring at me impatiently I ask, “Why are you still here I need to get changed.” They look at each other and shrug and a large panel of cloth flies out of nowhere and acts as a shield between me and them. I grab the pants closest to me and shove them on, I then grab the first set of clothes and put them on. I step around the cloth and show them what I’m wearing, the white mare pulls a face of disgust and Daring nods her head rapidly. I am wearing the jeans and a dark blue shirt I shrug and walk back behind the makeshift dresser. I put on a another pair of jeans and a blood red shirt, and step back out, both mares give a look of approval as their mouths are literally on the floor I chuckle and step back behind the cloth and try out a few more outfits of varying results, I refuse to wear the pink ones much to the disappointment of the Fancy. I finally put on the suit, it feels like air the trousers are black and completely straight and I have a bright white shirt with a red tie with golden spirals going down the tie, to enhance the blueness of my eyes, and a jet black blazer with golden buttons. And black shoes that shone with the amount of polish that is on it and also one or two gems I step around the veil and the white unicorns’ horn gives off a small spark and Darings’ wings snap open knocking over the unicorn in the process. I giggle my ass off when I see the state the two ponies are in which are both blushing profusely, and trying to avoid eye contact. When Daring regains control of her wings and I stop giggling my ass off like a little girl, I stand up and say, “well I guess you two like this then.” As I look at my reflection that Fancy has produced and I have to say I look damn good in the suit I am wearing. After conversing about the cost of the clothes, I change into more casual set of clothes and step out into the living room and find Baltar sprint through the front door into the street trying to escape the two ponies with hair styling contraptions, which ran through the room and took chase after the speck in the distance that is Baltar. ‘Wait was that a red bow in his hair’ I think. ‘Nah that wouldn’t happen he’s to manly… liony?’ I chuckle at what would happen to him if he stayed in there with those girls that are currently chasing him and chuckle and step out into the cool afternoon air. For once the streets are clear of ponies watching me so I am free to wander the streets in peace. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile in ponyville -BUUURRRP- A green flame bursts out of a small purple dragon and materialises into a small roll of parchment which is taken in a purple aura. It unrolls itself and a lavender coloured mare reads out “Dear Twilight Sparkle It is with regret that I have to send you and your friends on a mission of national importance. Not just a few hours ago a mythological creature also known as a human made an appearance in Equestria in the town of hoofington. I need you and your friends to study the human and assess the threat of it. If it is a threat then it is with regret that you will have to stop it if it is harmless then bring it to the palace for further questioning. I have sent you a small batch of my royal guards to fly you there which will arrive in due time. They will also act as a mean to protect you from the human and the everfree forest should the need arise. I’m sorry I can’t deal with this currently but strange occurrences have been happening at Canterlot that require my attention. Stay safe my faithful student. Yours faithfully Princess Celestia PS: Luna sends her love and hopes you will join her for her party when you come back some time.” Twilight stares into the distance a look between fear and excitement on her face. As quick as it came it left and the usual fretting and panicked version of twilight returns and shouts orders like a minigun at spike. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Back in the town of hoofington ‘AHHH FUUUUCCK’ I think as I round the corner narrowly escaping the large mob of ponies, that appeared out of nowhere and I don’t want to stick around to be trampled to death. I sprint in the direction of the house I’d be staying in for the night. I make it inside the house, with a small army colliding with the door making it bulge, and close and lock the door along with all the shutters and curtains, wishing that I had my wings so that I could get away faster, and I make a mad dash upstairs only to remember that I don’t know which room I’m meant to sleep in. I groan and open each door looking for something to show which room I’d be sleeping in, much to the disapproval to the current residents. Eventually I meet daring in one of the rooms and find out that all three of us will be sleeping in the same floor I was across from her and Baltar will be in the room next to me. I open the door to my room and against all reasonable judgement it is exactly like the other rooms. So I walk in and try to lie down on the pony bed. The moment I try is the moment I fail as the second I lay on it my head hits the wooden head rest and my but lands on the other end of the bed, my legs dangling off the end uselessly. I get back up and massage the back of my head, thinking of many ways to torture the person who invented beds that had headrests at both ends of the bed, and open my bag and get out my towel which also surprisingly doubles as a makeshift blanket. And undress, taking off my jacket, my shirt and my trousers that Glitter made for me. And slowly drift off into the delusion that is the happy dream land. I dream again of the annoying pink pony that has a canon that appears out of nowhere yelling “SURPRISE” and blasting confetti in my face launching me into other dreams as I dream them up most I will never remember when I wake up thankfully. I slowly open my groggy eyes and see a large lavender colour in front of me, I’m mostly naked at the moment and have sprawled out in “I JUST DON’T GIVE A DAMN” position or ‘QWOP’ for short. Gradually the lavender blob turns into a unicorn mare, smiling evilly, holding a strange object. AN- this chapter was a pain to write as I had a cold and so many things keep happening like PROM and shiz like that so I've been busy. well this isn't one of my longer chapters but it should provide a bit of comedy to the story to lighten it up a bit. Well what will happen next time what who is this lavender mare (YEAH I KNOW YOU KNOW ITS TWILIGHT SO DON't RAGE QUIT AT MY BABY ANTICS IDGAS) and what is she holding? (yeah a crappy cliff hanger I know sue me) wokin on my shitty grammar will it improv? PROBY KNOT (lol)
Chapter 6: A good morning to you tooAN: Lukes thoughts will be in light blue On the floor in my room The lavender blob turns into a unicorn mare, smiling holding an object I'm too tired to recognise I mumble, “Meh, morning Twilight.” And close my eyes and roll over to try and sleep. … … Processing… Error… Malfunction… Reboot from start. … … Reboot complete... run SHITABRICK.exe “WHAT THE FUCK” I jump out of my towel bed and do a running jump to behind the pony bed, it being so low I have to lie down to hide but it is to short so my legs stick out at the end. The moment I lift my head back up a blue blur pins me back to the floor and yells in my face “How do you know Twilight? Are you a SPY?” I couldn’t help myself but squee at her. This only made matters even more awkward, for me anyway excluding the fact that I am half nude. I lift Rainbow Dash up, to which she struggles and protests, then huffs in frustration when I place her on the pony bed, and I notice that she has a faint blush, I would hug her right now if it weren't that I'm in the most awkward of positions. In my embarrassment, about being half nude, I blush really hard and try to cover up as best as I can and look for my clothes. To their confusion. I find them quickly enough and I rush into the bathroom, which thankfully is part of my room suite, and I hastily put my clothes on and brush my teeth and hair and wash the blush out of my face. When I am considerably decent enough I go back into the room to a bunch of near angry ponies, except Pinkie and Fluttershy but that was to be expected. they must have waited for at least twenty minutes. “Okay first things first… How the hell did you get in MY room?” I say before they bombard me with questions. “You didn’t lock the door silly.” exclaims pinkie, I facepalm and think ‘why didn't I think of that?' “Because you didn’t think we’d be here.” I look at her and think ‘can she read my mind?’ “Nope that’s just silly filly, I’m just reading the what he's writing.” she points into the sky. On Earth. in England. *the Author* "holy fucking shit she's fucking pointing at me." *punches the computer and cries* Back in Equestria I give her a deadpan look, then just shrug knowing it’s just Pinkie. “Okay now we need to change the subject, any volunteers?” I say, knowing that it’ll be Twilight. “Yes.” ‘KNEW IT’ “How do you know who I am?” Twilight asks. “TV,” I deadpan, “Any other questions?” “Yeah ah do, what’s this TeeVee mahwhatsit?” in the unmistakable accent of a southern American farmer that is Applejack. I tell them what a TV's are and describe to them how they work to the best of my ability, until twilight asks again, “you haven’t told us how you know who I am.” I panic and start to sweat nervously cause I don’t know how they’d react to the information I am about to part with them. Then all of a sudden the rarest thing happens, Fluttershy speaks! “Umm… I like to know how you know who we are as well… that is if… well if you… never mind.” She gets quieter and quieter after each word until the last word was barely audible. My heart sinks and melts then evaporates when I see her do this and I almost cry from the amount of cute and adorableness emanating from her. I suddenly have a strange impulse to go onto my knees and beg for forgiveness but I fight it off and wipe the moisture forming on my eye and I sit down on the centre of the bed to tell them everything, and it breaks. After a few minutes of Fluttershy asking if I'm ok and me panicking about the broken bed and trying to fix it, 'knew it'd bloody break,' I settle back down again along with the others, this time not breaking anything. I carefully explain to them about MLP:FIM and what I know and don’t know and answer most of their questions, being careful not to go into more personal matters like the pinkie promises and that i have all their characters in my appartment. Upon telling them about how famous they are in their world rarity lights up like a light bulb and RD just beams, whereas Fluttershy looks around to see this invisible onlooker, to which I tell her that they won’t be watching your every move cause that’s just creepy. I then tell them about the fan fiction sites and some of the stories that are on there, and when I talk about twilight somehow inheriting alicorn powers, to which we all laugh and, Twilight gives a nervous laugh like you do when you’re in an area you don’t particularly like, I keep this to myself and decide to bring it up at a later date. Fluttershy then asks “Umm… what’s your name sir? And… well… umm… And, how did you get here? That is… if you don’t mind…umm… please.” “The name’s Luke your highness and it’s an honour to be in your presence.” I say bowing when I pronounced ‘your highness’ and smile when she tries to explain that she’s not a princess and tries to hide. I then sigh and tell them “that’s it. You've reached the limit I’m afraid. Cause I don’t know how I got here.” I sigh again and take a deep breath and say, “all I know is that one minute I’m helping an injured animal on earth, the next I’m rugby tackled and I’m knocked out and lo and behold I wake up in Equestria with an angry Daring Doo and Baltar the lion thing.” This time it’s rarity who speaks, “Wait a second darling, where’s this Earth you speak of? I’ve never heard of that place before.” “That’s because there is no place in Equestria called earth.” I watch the realisation dawn on her, “you can’t possibly be suggesting that you have come from beyond Equestria.” I nod and she pulls out a red couch and faints onto it. 'how the hell can she do that. fucking drama queen magic. I want some.' “So what. your no from Equestria big deal ” "well the 'big deal' is that I'm not even from the surrounding regions. or to put it simply I'm not even from this planet." there is a collective gasp and rarity proceeds to faint on the couch whilst lying down, so didn't produce that much of an effect. Rainbow Dash just looks sceptical. Pinkie bounce around talking about the party's she'll create.Fluttershy hides behind Applejack. Twilight looks like she's about to take a dump. and Applejack just says nonchalantly, as if she deals with this thing every day, "so your an alien" I gaze into the distance and say “well if you put it that way I am in fact an alien, hey on the topic of aliens, what did you guys think an alien would look like?” “Ooh ooh oh oh ooh, they could be giant lizard thingies with tentacle all over it, and with a face like BLEAAAGGHHH, and it could be all RAAARRGGHHH, and, MMGHH MGHGGH MGH MMMGHHHGHH.” Pinkie acts out the weird actions to show that it’s an alien until Applejack shoves her hoof in her mouth. “Ah think he gets it pinks. Besides you don't want to ruin any alien party ya'll throw in the future do ya now.” I and everyone else laugh at this, until Daring knocks on the door and says “are you decent?” I call out “no give me a sec” I look at Rainbow dash and whisper to her “would you like to meet Miss Doo.” And I Watch her face as it turns from puzzlement to pure excitement. I watch as Rainbow opens the door and I laugh when I see Rainbow squeal with glee and ask for an autograph whilst rambling on about how much she likes her books. “Sure what do you want me to sign and do you have a pen.” I laugh even harder when I see Dash’s face when she realises she doesn’t have anything for Daring to sign or sign with. Daring looks around the room and sees the mares currently occupying the room. The two faces turn to see me laughing ‘like a boss’ and I don’t look to see their faces turn from their previous expression to anger, but I don’t care as it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. -Ten minutes later- “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKK” I scream as I run around the corner of another alleyway that just happens to be there just like any other chase scene in any action movie. I now have four rather large bruises from being bucked by two mares out of the third story building out onto a passing cart, thankfully it broke my fall so that I now have hundreds of splinters in my spine to match the glass in my spine when I crashed through the window to get there. I currently have two very angry mares with wings chasing me, one probably thinking that I’m sleeping with other mares, the other for embarrassing her in front of her hero. I skid round another corner, narrowly missing Daring from bucking me to the heavens, and jump over a cart passing the road like a hurdle, “ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit.” I jump behind a cart to dodge an incoming missile, aka Rainbow Dash, and lurch into another side street. “HELP MEE-HE-HEEEEE” I yell. I tried to get my wings like I did back when I was in those caves but it doesn’t seem to work so I’m reduced to just plain running. “GET BACK HERE SO I CAN BUCK YOU INTO TATARUS YOU FILTHY APE!” in a voice that puts Luna's royal canterlot voice to shame. “HECK NO I DON’T WANNA DIE” I scream back. I jump onto a cart and launch myself to vault over the roof, but lady luck has other plans. Just as I reach the pinnacle of my flight ‘the missile’ rockets into my side and I’m thrown onto the ground, coughing up a little blood as my back makes contact with the ground, forcing the splinters and glass shards deeper into my back. I roll onto my front to relieve the pain in my back, if only mildly, and try to get back up. But all my adrenaline is wasted, from what feels like hours of flat out sprinting, and the pain in my back is becoming unbearable, and breathing is so difficult it’s as if I’m breathing through a plastic bag. I slump back down to the ground my energy completely wasted and I can't hold my eyes open no matter how hard I try, the last thing I hear is “oh buck.” … In the Depths of the weird place that is my mind, ‘I HEARD THAT’ It’s almost pitch black yet I can see everything around me as clear as day. I see my selves running round doing weird shit like singing the banana phone song and playing twister and… smoking weed? ‘duuude I think I’m seeing poniiees’ …… My mind is a fucked up place, they all look at me, “what its true” I say. They shrug and I continue to think over what I know and don’t know. ‘Well I know that I can’t bring my wings up when I want but when they are needed,’ I think, ignoring the bored looks from the other ME’s. ‘But they don’t come out when I need them either. Gah this is so frustrating, it just doesn’t make any sense!’ I punch the nearest ME in the face sending him sprawling on the floor and try to resume my thinking. ‘Okay so what did I think about when I was in those caves well one was anger the other was… FUUCCK the one time I want to remember something and I can’t. It’s just another coincidence… bloody hate coincidences… Whelp guess I’m gonna have to mingle with me.’ “Who wants to play Halo 3” as I summon some consoles and a large number of controllers, and a lot of TVs… it’s my mind I can do whatever the fuck I want. -15 games later- “Yeah! Screw you luck, I got me.” I say after I win the last game which is my only win so far, anger won twice and luck won the rest. I do a triumphant dance, when I suddenly feel a sharp jab in my rib and all the ME’s disappear. I fall to the floor in a blinding amount of pain until it subsides to mild agony, when another jabs strikes me like a harpoon. I raise my arm to protect me from any other jabs from the unknown assailant. it is painful but I still manage to pull against the hundred tonne mountain that is my arm. “Hey he’s stirring… How’re you doing Luke?” I recognise as Twilight. “like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I open my eyes to a bright white room and Twilight, a nurse and a very concerned Fluttershy looking at me. “What’s a truck?” Twilight asks. I think ‘eugh I don’t care, I hurt too much’ “Never mind.” I say still groggy, probably from the drugs hooked up in my arm keeping the pain away. “Well we’re glad you’re ok, and I think two certain someponies have something to say.” Twilight says pointing behind me. I look to my right to see two very worn out ponies, both with puffy red eyes and very sad expression on their faces. Daring looks like she would jump into my arms but she hesitates, and she says “I’m so sorry Luke, I didn’t mean any of what I said, twilight told me everything and now that I know it’s a big misunderstanding, I feel all the worse about It.” She looks like she’s about to start crying again and her head droops down. I find it funny that I don’t feel angry in the slightest towards her, or rainbow dash, but in fact seeing how sad they are makes me want to cry they are too adorable, ‘God damn ponies nearly kill me and I feel sorry for them’ my logic says. I push that thought out of my mind as I reach out. Everyone flinches, Daring even more so as I touch her. I slowly begin to massage behind her ear and her expression turns into a face of pure bliss. She gives out a small moan oblivious to the other mares in the room and she relaxes into the nice massage that I’m giving her. Everyone just gawks at her and I laugh at the expressions they’re making and I say to Daring “you are forgiven.” And I turn to Rainbow Dash and say “no need to apologise Rainbow Dash, I forgive you too” and with that I draw them into the biggest hug I could give them, giving Dash the same treatment as Daring, she too flinches when I touch her but it quickly turns into ecstasy when I massage her behind her ears where the neck joins the head. Everyone in the room smiles and joins in the hug oblivious to the pain there’re causing me, mostly pinkie though whose arms manage to extend around everyone and hug us all simultaneously. 'just don't even try to think about it, I'll only get a headache... speaking of headaches, I've just managed to get one... Fucking pinkie and her devil worshipping powers of anti-physics.' Thankfully the nurse notices my discomfort and tells everyone to back off, and drags pinkie away to prevent her from jumping onto me. I ask “so what happened after I went unconscious?” Twilight eager to help as always says “Well Rainbow Dash and Miss Doo-“ “Daring is just fine twilight” the said pony interrupts. “Yes, well Rainbow Dash and Daring saw your body and realised their mistake of how much stress your body could take, plus the fact that you were bleeding out.” She shudders, “when the rest of us caught up with them two and saw you, Fluttershy here, “she points to the hiding figure of Fluttershy. “made sure you were okay until you reached the hospital. From here I think it would be best to let nurse Blue Heart here to tell you your condition.” “thank you twilight. Now then, when you got here some of us were getting ready to leave after the night shift and a few of the early shifts were walking in. you came in just before our very own Dr. Hoofbeat, who thankfully mastered the operation we had to do on you which saved your life.” I give her a quizzical look as if to say ‘what do you mean save me?’ She goes over the operation that took place, answering any questions that I threw at her like the injuries I got. Turns out that they only punctured my lungs in five places chipped my spine in three places and dislocated my left shoulder. She checks on my condition on the heart monitor for the final time and tells me “the doctor will arrive shortly to talk to you.” And with a quick farewell she leaves me and the rest of the group to chat. I talk with them about lots of little things like books in my world and fashion and the types of apples there. by now the sun is about its own width away from the horizon. Out of the blue Rainbow Dash asks “so what about your family? aren’t you gonna miss them?” I felt cold. Rarity notices my reaction and scolds Rainbow Dash for bringing up such a hard thing to talk about, I ignore them I just stare into the distance. I remember the violent death my father had, the memory haunts every one of my dreams and rules over my nightmares. I ignore the worried looks I’m getting and think ‘this is not a good idea this isn’t ground your familiar with, you could lose your friends.’ I look at the ponies, ‘could I call them friends?’ I think for a few moments before I shake myself mentally ‘of course they are my friends and they do care for me plus they deserve to know’ I swivel myself off the bed and sit up straight pain stampeding down my back. The ponies move to help me but I ward them off, ‘I have to do this’ I think to myself. I stare at Rainbow Dash and a small tear escapes my eye before I could stop it. “I have no family” every pony gasps at this, except Rainbow Dash who merely nods sadly. “my mother died when I was born, I never knew her. My father was with me for the best seven years of my whole life. We did everything together camping fire making you name it we did it.” A smile crept up on twilights face, a creepy one. I notice this and glare at her, “not Everything, everything twilight.” Despite the sad atmosphere everypony laughs and she blushes, a little embarrassed about being caught being dirty minded, and I smile a little too mumbling “dirty girl.” I continue with the story, “when I was nearly eight a police officer and the principal came into my maths class, I was mocked a little by a pupil there saying that my daddy was in trouble. In a sense he was absolutely correct, he was in more trouble than I would expect. I was taken to the hospital out of the request of my father, and I entered the ward he was in. now I’ll spare you the details but his death was not a pleasant one, and I saw him lose to… it.” I shudder remembering the painful memories, “I didn't see him die exactly but I knew he was in a lot of pain. I was taken in by a man who said he knew my father and gave me a flat to use. I didn't see much of him after that and I never got close to many people since. I only had few friends only four or five at most. But there were never any true friends, just people in my life. I just couldn't lose anyone else so I push them away if only to protect myself.” Everyone was sad in the room even the unnaturally happy pinkies hair has drooped down and was straight, but poofs back up again as she says, “but we’re your friends now right and we’ll make you the bestest party ever to stop you from feeling all alone ever again right guys” the room fills instantly with a chorus of yeses and smiles at the thought of a party and a new friend. But no-one in the room could be happier than me. I cry manly tears and hug pinkie, thanking her for being so kind and for being so welcoming and she returns the hug. Fluttershy asks me “why are you crying?” I look to them and say “these aren’t tears of sadness these are tears of happiness” I put every bit of emotion I could into my voice. Before she could hide I grab her and pull her into a hug as well and she ‘eeps.’ I massage her behind her ear to make her relax. she flinches but she then lets out a long “ahhhhhhhhh. I see why they enjoy this so much this is wonderful.” She leans into my embrace and nuzzles my neck. I smile and continue to hug her. She’s really soft it’s just like a cloud or like a really soft cushion with fur. She smells like freshly cut grass and budding flowers I am almost in bliss just sitting there hugging her. I reluctantly let go of the relaxing pony and move back to my bed, or beds they put four of them side to side to give me enough room, and lay down, rather painfully. Twilight helps by lifting me up and placing me down slowly, it helps but it is still painful to lie there. I yawn at the same time as twilight and smile, “I wonder what happened to that doctor the nurse sent here.” I am answered by the stallion that materialises to the right of my bedside “my you still haven’t noticed me enter yet.” I give a yelp of surprise and swear “may you burn in the pits of… oh... umm sorry.” I frown at the pony standing next to my bed and put on my best stereotypical black man voice “Man what the hell is wrong witchu? you almost gave me a heart attack.” He laughs and responds with “there is nothing wrong with me I assure you. In fact I was here for the past two minutes. But I see you are doing perfectly well I am surprised to see you awake yet alone up and about this soon the damage your body took was staggering to say the least. You are also the first non-pony I treated if it weren't for Fluttershy here pointing out you were an omnivore you may not have had enough liquid in your system to survive. and what is a man may I ask?.” Everyone, except Daring and the doctor, stares at Fluttershy, now out of the trance she fell in when I massaged her, in disbelief and they take a step back away from me. I stammer, unable to think of how she knew my eating habits, “h-how did you… I mean… j-just how?” She squeak’s “well um… it was easy you see… well your teeth gave you away, as I work with all creatures, I just know what they eat.” I shrug and turn to the ponies who look like they saw a ghost “don’t worry I pinkie promise I will not eat anypony unless provoked to the extreme.” I perform the ritual and the moves to go with it and the tension in the air visibly relaxes. I respond to the doctors question "technically my race is a human. Hence the 'man' for the male. And woman for the female counter part of our race. I am a man or stallion if you still don't understand." I hear hoofsteps behind the double doors leading out of the room and watch as the nurse enters. “alright visiting time’s over he needs to rest now if you want him to recover.” She then waits for everypony to leave making sure that they all leave me alone so that I can go to sleep including the doctor. The last pony to leave is Daring, she looks at me again and sighs “well I’ll see you in the morning Luke.” “yeah… see ya” the tension in the air builds and I rub my shoulder in nervousness. This is broken however when the nurse gives a frustrated humph. I look back at Daring who lurches into my face and kisses me. ... … Brain meltdown complete. She removes her lips from mine and blushes a deep shade of scarlet “hub puuhh” 'smooth move jackass.' Before I could come up with a more appropriate sentence Daring zooms out the door and the nurse gives a suppressed giggle. And leaves, closing the door quietly, so I am left alone to my own thoughts. Which is now a pile of goo in a bucket. I look to the wall for five minute seeing if will tell me this is all a dream and I now have to repeatedly hit my head against it so I can wake up. It doesn’t. My brain slowly brings its lazy ass into gear and I look towards the entrance, and I think whether I should sleep or not. My body aches and my eyes are heavy, ‘yep a sign that means I should sleep now’ I think to myself as I bring the sheets over body, closing my eyes, and begin the slow process of falling asleep. The door opens and I shoot up and stare at the timid, butter yellow, mare entering. "oh I didn't think you were awake. I can leave if you want, I don't want to be a bother." Grateful of the company I say "oh it's all-right, come in, I'm sure the nurse wont mind." "Umm okay, if you really want me to." she says as she slowly steps further into the room, her hoofs barely makeing a sound on the floor, "I just thought I'd come here as I'd hate for you to be all alone here in this dark and lonely place." "Wow um sure sit wherever you like. And thanks for being so kind to me today it really means a lot to me." "Oh it's no problem I like to help animals in need... oh I'm not saying that you're an animal or anything... what I meant was.. that I umm." she stutters "Its okay Fluttershy I understand. you like to look after creatures big or small as they make you happy to see them well." I say in a comforting tone The door opens again and Fluttershy hides behind me, she moves so fast I saw the edges of where she stood for a few seconds before it disappeared. Rainbow Dash enters the room looking nervous. "umm hey... you don't mind if I stay with you a while do ya?" Confused I agree anyway "sure there's plenty of room" She sits down near the bed and says "it's okay Fluttershy you can come out now it's only me." She comes out slowly saying "ohh hey there Rainbow Dash I didn't know it was you" "Its okay Shy" she says dejectedly, "besides what are you doing here anyway" "Well I umm... I'm just........." I can't make out any of what she said and I'm laying right next to her. She scrapes her hoof against the floor indicating her shyness, 'vegeta what does the scouter say about her cuteness levels... its over nine thousaaand' I just couldn't help myself I grab her and hug her and say "isn't she just adorable. She's just so huggable..." I rant on about her being so adorable for a while. Rainbow Dash just bursts out laughing, seeing Fluttershy blush like a tomato. During my rant I don't notice the rest mane 6 enter, along with Daring and Baltar. To which when they notice what I'm doing to Fluttershy burst out laughing as well. Thankfully the nurse on my watch is a heavy sleeper or we'd be in trouble. Pinkie joins in my rant about how adorable she is when she blushes making her blush even more. I fall asleep with Fluttershy still in my arms. When the rest of the group stops laughing and sees me asleep they opt to get Fluttershy out, but she says. "oh no I like it here he's just so warm and peaceful." and she nuzzles my neck causing Daring to to go red with envy and jealousy. They all decide to sleep here until morning so as to keep an eye on me. _________________________________________________________________________ Elsewhere “Do you think he’s ready” “no” “When will he be ready sister” “I’m not sure, but we’ll know when he will be” AN: sorry about the long wait but this was a pain to write as *insert excuse you wont listen to anyway* so yeah. any grammer errors point out plz as I am too thick to find one or two of them
