Ponyville looked like an okay place. The sun was shining bright as it rose into the sky, bathing the small town in a golden glow. The town was situated in a flat landscape surrounded by hills and forests, the hills moving towards a large mountain and the forests covering two sides of the town's borders. The field was a sea of green as all the grass swayed in the wind, occasionally broken up by a stray tree or a road of packed dirt.

Said roads moved straight into the heart of Ponyville, which stood proudly in the idealistic landscape. A multitude of buildings spread out throughout the town, each of their own distinct shape and color. It seemed as though every building was made to be unique, fit to the design of whoever built it. A pattern was clear however in that most buildings had thatch roofs, all the colors were bright, and most were two stories at most.

The only two things Ryan could see at the position at the edge of the forest that didn't follow that pattern was a large marble dome-like building that resembled Roman architecture and a large tree that had a door and a balcony seemingly grown out of it. Everything had a cheerful and somewhat feminine feel about it which would have set Ryan on edge, had he noticed.

As it were, all of the man's attention was focused on the denizens of the village. Many people were going about their day, walking from building to building, going to stalls set around the center of Ponyville,or just hanging around and interacting with each other. They all walked on two legs and wore clothes similar to ones Ryan was familiar with, but that is where the similarities ended.

Everyone looked just as unique as their houses and businesses. Each pony had their own coat color, usually something bright and cheerful, and a different colored set of hair that matched their tails. Hairstyles and eye colors were just as unique, giving each and every pony a sense of being their own person.

Ryan's breath caught in his throat as he looked up and saw some of the people flying through the sky. His hands began to shake as he took in everything and noticed how many of the ponies had wings, while some had some sort of horn sprouting from their foreheads. He could barely believe his eyes as he tried to scan the area, but was more shocked when a set of words splayed themselves over his eyes.

'Scan failed. Hardware missing. Upgrade required.’

This worked to shock Ryan out of his stupor as he focused on the message. He grew more perplexed as he tried and once again failed to perform his scan, something that was standard issue for him to do. Reaching a hand up, he tapped at his left eye, sighing as he felt the glass contact against his finger.

Before he could put much thought into his new problem, the sound of his companion shouting his name shook him back to reality. Stealing his features, he glanced over at Rainbow.

With a cross look and her arms crossed below her breasts, Rainbow huffed and said. “It's about time! I've been trying to get your attention for like two minutes now! Jeez, next time I'm leaving you here.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow and decided to ignore her triade as he looked out over the town again and said. “Your going to have to help me out here.” He waved his hand out in the general direction Ponyville. “I have no clue what I'm looking at. Those people over there are the same species as you?”

His companion still looked irate as she said. “Ponies. We are called ponies. I don't even know what a 'people’ is.” She shook her head and smiled as she continued. “There are three types of ponies. Pegasi, like me…” Rainbow puffed out her chest and flared her wings, before hissing in pain and folding them back down.

Frowning, she looked back at her feathery appendages and rubbed at her shoulder as she continued in a calmer tone. “Then there are Unicorns, who have horns. They can do magic and stuff.” Ryan raised an eyebrow and was about to talk before Rainbow interrupted him. “Then there are Earth Ponies, who are really strong and are really good with plants and farming.”

Ryan, with his arms crossed over his chest, waited patiently for Rainbow to finish talking. After a few seconds of silence, he cleared his throat and said. “Okay, magic? 'plants and stuff’? What does that even mean? Magic isn't real.”

To her credit, Rainbow only looked a little confused as she thought on what he had said. Frowning slightly, she said. “No, magic is real. It's what helps me fly. It let's Unicorns do all of their spells and stuff and it's how Earth Ponies are so strong.” She shrugged and said. “You should ask my friend Twilight. She knows more about this egghead stuff than me.”

Ryan decided against asking further as he stole a glance at the forest behind the two, the one he had just woken up in the night before.

'What the Hell did I get myself into? I should be dead. I should be gone. Why? Why am I here? What is here?’ He barely noticed the stray tear of frustration sliding down his cheek as his thoughts quickly went south. 'This is too much. Too fucking much.’

'Oh jeez, what's wrong with him?’ Rainbow looked on at Ryan in concern as she noticed his attention drawn back to the Whitetail. She followed his eyes for a bit, before waving her hands in his face.

Huffing, she frowned and said. “Hey come on. Don't space out on me again. It's starting to get super annoying when you do that.” Ryan blinked quickly and shook his head as Rainbow waved her hands.

Seemingly getting his wits together again, he shook his head and closed his eyes with a sigh. Rainbow watched as her companion's features smoothed over and his body went rigid as he stood to his full height.

Rainbow felt a chill down her spine as she looked up at Ryan's imposing figure. The height difference between the two was obvious, Rainbow barely reaching his shoulders. His muscular frame only intensified the affect as it made him all the more intimidating.

Ryan opened his eyes and sighed again before saying in an eerily calm tone. “Sorry about that. I’m getting very distracted lately. It’s all a little jarring, being somewhere I’ve never been. I can’t seem to focus.”

Rainbow didn't need to be the Element of Honesty to tell that he was hiding something. With anypony else, she would have flown up to their face and asked about what they were hiding. Past events stopped the prismatic mare from trying her rather abrasive approach.

’I really don’t want to set him off. This guy is scary when he’s mad.’ Rainbow grimaced as the still fresh memory of Ryan’s outburst in the woods flashed through her mind. Against her better judgement, the mare decided to trust fear over curiosity and let the man be.

Shaking her head, she shrugged lightly, her wings bobbing a bit with the action, and said. “It's all good dude. C'mon let's go find my friends, maybe we can get you some answers at Twi’s place.”

The walk through Ponyville was... something, to say the least. Ryan barely batted an eye as he noticed many of the denizens of the small town eyeing him and whispering to each other. The same people would flinch and turn away whenever the man would look their way. His eyes tracked each and every one as he passed by them, trying to find some pattern in their colorizations.

Though there was very little rhyme or reason to any of the ponies styles, he did see some similarities to each other. 'They all look like a little girl ate a box of crayons and threw up on them.’ Ryan stole a glance at Rainbow as she trudged along ahead of him, her earlier exhaustion still creeping up with her slightly labored breathing. 'Especially her, Dash got the special treatment.’

His eyes roamed again and noticed another thing about the gathered ponies, other than their skittishness. 'They all have some weird tattoo on their hands.’ Each and every person he passed had a tattoo on their hands, sitting on the back of it, in the middle of the appendage.

One yellow furred woman with bright orange, curly hair had a bundle of carrots on her hand, while a light brown pony with darker brown, windswept hair had an hourglass on his hand. Looking over at his companion, Ryan noticed that Rainbow had a cloud with a multicolored lightning bolt shooting out of it.

Said pony looked back and raised an eyebrow at him as she caught him staring. Raising her hand, she looked at the tattoo and said in a sarcastic tone. “What? Never seen a Cutie Mark before?” Rainbow chuckled a bit and continued. “At least not one as awesome as mine at least.”

Ryan blinked slowly and gave a deadpan stare at Rainbow as he processed this new information. He managed to let out a grunt of confusion, causing his rainbow maned companion to smile and chuckle again before looking forward and resuming her walking. Accepting his weird fate, Ryan sighed in defeat slouched his posture and followed behind the woman at a sedate pace.

Though he was used to the occasional odd situation, as his job warranted that he do some insane things, Ryan found himself far out of his comfort zone ever since his sudden wake up call in the forest. Nothing was familiar to him in this place. The people were completely different from what he knew and all of the buildings looked to be hundreds of years out of date.

Eventually the pair found themselves in front of the large tree that Ryan had spotted earlier. Raising an eyebrow in confusion, he looked over at Rainbow. Said Pegasus was busy as she slouched a bit and sighed in exhaustion.

Wiping her arm across her face, she said in a tired voice. “Well, this is Twilight's place. She's a pretty big egghead so I'm sure she can answer your questions.” Sighing again, the rainbow maned woman opened the door and walked into the building.

Ryan straightened his body and shook his head as he walked into the tree house. Once again, the man was assaulted on all sides by pure confusion. By all accounts, he was now standing in a library. A table was nestled in the corner with a few chairs and a writing desk stood some feet away, equipped with all sorts of writing materials. There was an arch that led to another room, but Ryan couldn't get a good view at what lay inside it.

Instead, he focused on the walls of the tree. Shelves had been carved out of the wood everywhere he looked and books upon books were neatly stacked in each one. Walking up to a shelf, he barely paid attention as he heard his rainbow haired companion yelling for someone. Pulling out a random book, he opened to an even more random page and tried to read the text.

Emphasis on tried, however. A scowl formed on his face as he looked at the unintelligible scribbles on the page. 'Great. So we speak the same God damned language, but the writing is different? That's so fucking convenient, isn't it?’ His inner musings were stopped however as he heard a feminine shriek behind him.

Quickly closing the book, he turned and shot a questioning glance at Rainbow and a new pony standing next to her. This pony was a Unicorn, with a purple coat and a similarly colored mane. A pink streak cut through the Unicorn’s mane, the only change other than that being her horn poking through and parting her mane. Her tail had the same coloration and matched the smooth style of her mane.

The pony looked to be a woman, as she was wearing a grey vest over a white button down shirt with a grey knee length skirt. A pair of white socks were on her feet, finishing off the nerdy look the woman was currently sporting. She had her hands over her mouth and her large purple eyes were wide with shock as she looked on at Ryan. Her 'Cutie Mark', as Rainbow called it earlier, was what looked like a large starburst surrounded by five smaller starsbursts. The large one had a pink outline with purple color filling that matched her coloration well, while the smaller five were all white.

Crossing his arms, the man cleared his throat and said. “Can I help you, ma'am? I know I'm not exactly pretty, but still.”

This caused her to blush lightly, turning her purple fur into a light shade of pink, before she dropped her hand and shook her head. Chuckling awkwardly, she walked up to him and thrust out a hand. “He, he. Sorry about that. When Rainbow said she met a new friend, I didn't expect them to look like this.”

Ryan could hear Dash choke back a laugh as the new woman's eyes bugged out. Giving off a little squeak, she very quickly said. “Oh, my gosh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound so rude! Please forgive me!”

The man remained unfazed as he slowly reached out and shook her hand. Quirking an eyebrow, he said in a calm tone. “None taken, honestly I'm still trying to get used to all of the variation you all seem to have.” He waved a hand around and snorted. “My name is Ryan. Ryan Mathews. I’m not from around here and this is all a bit overwhelming.”

While he dropped his hand back to his side, Rainbow huffed and leaned against a bookshelf. Smirking, she chuckled and said. “You can say that again. Hey Twi!” She pointed to Ryan and continued in an incredulous tone. “He didn't even know what a Pegasus was!”

The purple woman grew quizzical as she pondered her friend's words. Looking to Ryan, she smiled and said. “Well maybe I can help. I know my fair share of things.” Looking over at Rainbow, she said. “Can you get the others Dash? Maybe we can all help him out.”

Rainbow shrugged and smiled as she waved a hand and moved to the door. Yawning slightly, she said. “Yeah sure, I'll see who's available. I'm gonna ask him some stuff when I get back, so don't break him until then.” With that, she left the library and walked off.

Turning back to Ryan, the Unicorn woman smiled and gestured over to the table off to the side of the room. The man shrugged and took a seat at the end, across from the new person. Shy curiosity met calm stoicism as she cleared her throat. “Well, my name is Twilight Sparkle. It's nice to meet you Mr. Mathews.” Crossing her hands on the table top, she continued with what Ryan assumed was going to be the story of his new life for a long time coming.

“Let's talk.”

Author's Note

Hello all yee who read my work. I'd like to apologise for the wait on these chapters. I'm going through school and thus don't have as much free time as I'd like.

Anyway, I have a request for all of you. If you could put up some examples of questions for Ryan from Twi or the others in the Mane Six, that would be appreciated. I'll be sure to credit those that help.

Again, any spelling or grammar errors, please point them out.

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