"What. The. Fuck."

This simple phrase, this short sentence perfectly summarized the young man's inner emotions. It capsulated his confusion and growing panic, along with his small curiosity.

'What is this.... thing? Is it a female? It's got breasts, so I guess it's female. What species is she though? Would she even understand if I asked her?'

Ryan studied the woman sitting in front of him. Now with a better look, he could easily notice the lean muscles on her body. Even with them resting from the strain of her previous ordeal, he could tell she was built for speed. Her large cerise eyes were focused on him, like she was scrutinizing him, trying to take in his every detail.

The woman attempted to stand, only to wince in pain as her body rebelled at the movement. Ryan quickly moved closer and lightly grabbed her arm. The woman attempted to flinch back at the sudden contact, but groaned in pain as her body again made it's plight known. Her eyes quickly moved up to meet his, a pair of fearful cerise orbs meeting two calming chocolate lakes.

Ryan looked down at the woman and calmly said "Hey, it's alright. Calm down, your body is pretty wrecked after that whole gray skin thing. You might want to rest a bit, regain your strength." The man was not lying. The woman was sweating profusely just from the simple act of moving and she looked extremely short of breath.

Calming down a bit, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the bark of the tree behind her. She sat there like that for several minutes before Ryan decided to sit down in front of her, crushing the stone covered grass underneath him.

'Alright, time to take stock.' He began to sort the events of the day in his mind, bewildered at his situation, 'I managed to kill Sylus and avenge Malcolm, Maria, and...' The young man had to stop and choke back his tears as a flood of memories assailed him. 'I... I managed to avenge Samantha. I got blasted out of Sylus' manor and died.' A memory of his heart sitting atop a stalagmite surfaced in his mind. 'I woke up in this forest and found this... female being... who looks like she met Medusa and lived.' The man could only groan in defeat at his circumstances.

Slowly, after what felt like a half an hour to Ryan, the woman's eyes began to open. Her eyes were bleary and unfocused as she took in her surroundings. With a start, the man realized that she had managed to fall asleep and was just now waking up. He would have laughed at the absurdity of everything, but the laughter had long since died within him.

Her eyes eventually landed on Ryan and promptly widened in shock. With a groan, the woman spoke. "Seriously! It wasn't a dream? Are you kidding me?" Her voice was rough, constantly scratching, and held a deep fatigue, eluding to her previous predicament.

With wide eyes and a fallen jaw, Ryan worked to gather his thoughts, as hearing the woman speak had caused him to lose them. 'Holy shit! She speaks English? This is either extremely weird, or extremely coincidental. Probably both.'

Clearing his throat, he asked the woman, "You okay, ma'am? You were pretty exhausted from... whatever... that was." He had to pause to find a way to describe her ailment. Giving up, he just went with the obvious 'something' approach.

'Woah, this guy is so weird looking' That was the first thing to enter Dash's mind when he spoke. Aside from his appearance, he had a deep voice, and an accent that she could only pin down as Manehatten sounding.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Dash replied "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. I'm just tired." Staring into his small eyes, she could only wonder what he was. She weakly lifted her arm, her hand reached out towards the strange stallion. "Names Rainbow Dash, what's yours?"

The stallion in front of her slowly reached his arm out and grasped it, shaking it slowly. He looked shocked, like he couldn't believe what was happening to him. Eventually he managed to push out an appropriate response.

"Ryan. My names Ryan." Shaking his head he seemed to finally refocus. His caramel eyes zeroed in on her, taking in her every detail. Rainbow shifted slightly under his scrutinizing gaze, feeling his eyes bore into her very being.

'Jeez, what's with this guy? It's like he's never seen a pegasus before.'

Dropping his arm Ryan looked away from her into the forest, allowing Rainbow to breath a sigh of relief. Taking a deep breath, he once again initiated eye contact and began to speak.

Looking over through the trees of the forest, a silent sigh escaped Ryan.

'This is by far the weirdest thing to ever happen to me. I have to know what's going on, and it looks like this blue chick is my only source of info.' Ryan looked back over towards Dash, attempting to adopt a calm expression.

With a small plan in mind, he began speaking. "Rainbow, I have to ask. Where am I and what are you?"

The question seemed to offend the woman, as evidenced by the cross look that she had adopted. She huffed slightly before responding, the feathers on her wings ruffling behind her all the while.

"What? You saying you never seen a pony?" Her chest puffed out, causing her admittedly small breasts to become more prominent. "I am THE Rainbow Dash! Fastest flyer in all of Equestria! The best pegasus around!" She pointed an accusatory finger at the man, confusing him more than he already was. "The real question is, what are you? Some sort of spy? Huh, huh?"

Ryan's eyebrows rose considerably at this flood of new information. 'She's... a small horse? And a pegasus? In a place called Equestria? What kinda drugs am I on?'

His hand became very acquainted with his face as he processed what he had just learned. Dropping his face-palm, he once again focused on the woman, 'No, wait. I think a female horse is a mare or something.' He once again focused on the mare, and said "I'm a human, not a spy. I don't even know where I am or what Equestria is."

The later part of his sentence was true, he was completely lost on his whereabouts. The former, not so much. He was much more than a human now, had been for a long time. 'No use telling her I'm a Titan. If she doesn't know what that is, then I don't feel like telling her. If she does know, then... then I'm not dealing with another person that thinks I'm a monster.'

Rainbow's eyes bore into his for a good ten seconds before she relaxed slightly, slumping down but not breaking eye contact. Letting out a breath, the mare deflated somewhat, as if holding her aggressive stance had tired her out.

With a sigh, she began speaking again. "Alright, so your not a spy. I don't know what the hay a human is though." Rainbow took a glance at her surroundings and gasped when she stole a glace behind Ryan. "Ah, jeez! It's morning already? I gotta get home. Everypony is gonna be worried."

Ryan looked behind him to see the sun peeking over the trees in the distance, it's golden rays beginning to light up the world around him.

'How did I not notice the fact that it's morning? Something is wrong, I'm a lot less perceptive than usual.'

Ryan continued to watch the sunrise in confusion, until he was pulled from his thoughts when a gravely yelp sounded behind him. Whipping his head around, he noticed that Rainbow was now laying on the ground and holding her right knee in pain.

Walking over, Ryan slowly crouched down in front of the mare. She looked up at him and flinched away from his close proximity to her. With a quiet sigh, Ryan reached out and gently pulled Rainbow's hand from her kneecap.

Ryan noticed immediately that the fur and skin on Dash's knee had been scraped off, leaving behind an angry red sore. It was bleeding slightly, a small trail of crimson was beginning to run down her leg and into her shoe.

Looking back up he locked eyes with Rainbow, who flinched at the sudden attention. Not paying her reaction any mind, Ryan gestured to the mare's newest injury.

"This isn't a bad scrape. Your knee should stop bleeding in a bit, don't worry. What happened to you in the minute that I looked away? How did you get this wound?"

Ryan only realized later that he said these words in such a quick succession that it was almost impossible to understand him. That coupled with his awkward way of phrasing his previous statement, left the man wondering just what was wrong with him.

Rainbow, for her sake, didn't seem to notice Ryan's internal conflict. Looking towards the ground, Rainbow muttered quietly to herself. Her voice was a whisper, one quiet enough that Ryan didn't hear what was being said.

With an annoyed huff, Ryan waved his hand around in a circle. At this point, he was finally losing his confused state and reaffirming his annoyed attitude. "Could you repeat that? I can't hear you."

Rainbow's cheeks turned a light shade of pink as the mare looked towards the ground, refusing eye contact. With a heavy sigh, Rainbow attempted speaking again. This ended up being only slightly louder than before.

"I… I tried to stand up and I fell over. My legs are still trashed from earlier. When I fell I may have scraped my knee." Her voice grew a little shakier as her blush deepened. "I was just trying to get back home. My friends will probably be worried about me."

Sighing, Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. 'Honestly, this is getting to be too much. I don't know how much more of this crazy I can take.' The man grumbled as he attempted to reign in his growing frustration.

Getting closer, Ryan slowly picked Rainbow up in his arms. Standing, he held the mare bridal style and focused on the sun rising over the treeline. Ryan chose to ignore her weak protests of 'not being awesome' and it being 'totally not cool.'

Clearing his throat, he waited until he received the embarrassed mare's attention before speaking.

"You're in absolutely no shape to walk at the moment, Rainbow Dash. Also by the looks of it your too exhausted to even LIFT your wings, let alone fly. I recommended that you tell me where your town is so I can take you there, otherwise I'll leave and you can wait for your friends to come find you."

'Who does this guy think he is? I don't need to be carried like some weak filly! I am THE Rainbow Dash! I can do this on my own!'

With her resolve steeled, Rainbow began struggling in his hold. "Hey! Let me go you big bucker! I can walk! This is so not cool!"

Instead of being put down, Rainbow let out a squeak when she felt the human's grip tighten. She stilled her movements when she heard Ryan loudly clear his throat. Cautiously, Rainbow glanced up at her new companion.

"You're in absolutely no shape to walk at the moment, Rainbow Dash. Also by the looks of it your too exhausted to even LIFT your wings, let alone fly. I recommended that you tell me where your town is so I can take you there, otherwise I'll leave and you can wait for your friends to come find you."

Dash didn't know if it was his accent or the way he threatened her with no emotion to his voice, but something about him scared her. Something about this stallion set off a deep, primal instinct in her. An instinct that said, 'If you don't want to die here, then do what he says.' Meekly calming down, Dash pointed to the left of the sunrise, towards where she knew Ponyville resided.

With a grunt, Ryan nodded and began walking the way Dash pointed. Rainbow sighed and shifted into a more comfortable position for the long trek that was to come.

'This is going to be a long day.'

Author's Note

Well, chapter three is finally out. I want to apologize to the one person actually interested in this story for the long wait. School sucks and all that jazz.

Also, I have recently discovered Amino, so that's fun. If you wanna chat, I'm a part of the Equestria community under the username Epicocity1527.

Hope you guys like this chapter, I plan on making more like it. As always, inform me of spelling errors.

-Epic