Three Friends and a New World

Cameron and Kendra argued about the complexities of the human form and whether or not it was capable of not only being able to live but being ready to fight after being stabbed multiple times in various places. Cameron glared at the girl turned around in her chair in front of his desk. The argument had gotten to a point where Cameron had to look for confirmation on his view.

"Arin, can a person fight after being stabbed twenty-seven times?"

Arin, who was next to Kendra on his laptop listening to music, didn't even look back to Cameron when he said, "I'm not apart of this." Cameron cursed under his breath and looked to a person a seat ahead of Kendra and Arin.

"Nate. Nate," he said, getting Nate's attention. Nate turned around and took off his headphones. "Is it possible for a person to get up and fight after being stabbed twenty-seven times?" Cameron asked again. Nate thought about it for a second.

"It depends on where they got stabbed," He said.

"See? I told you," Kendra yelled out at Cameron, "If a person is stabbed in the arm twenty-seven times, they could totally keep fighting." Kendra could see the anger rising in Cameron's face.

"No, goddammit," Cameron blurted out. "If you were stabbed that many times the person stabbing, you would have hit a major artery, and you would have bled out! If you got stabbed that many times in multiple places, and managed to miss vital organs, that is still too much damaged muscle to move! Jeepers Christmas!" Cameron had restated his case, rather loudly. Kendra came back at him with her viewpoint.

"Well, maybe if you just believed very hard," Kendra said, beginning to laugh. Cameron got even more mad at that. He threw his hands in the air in exasperation and fell back. He got back up and tried to keep his calm.

"If I just believed hard enough, huh," he started, "well, I want to believe that Ponyland exists, but that's never going to happen, is it?"

Cameron was a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and he liked to refer to the land of Equestria as Ponyland now and again. Nate and Kendra didn't watch the show but were dragged along with Cameron's insistence on reading terrible fanfiction to them on the bus, the fanfiction usually being crossovers. Nate, who was also laughing, decided to jump in again.

"Well, maybe, just maybe, she's on to something for once in her miserable life."

"Jeepers, not you too," Cameron sighed and looked out the window. Just then, something caught his eye. The sky seemed to become brighter every second. "Hey guys, is it just me, or is the sky getting brighter?"

"Isn't that what the sun does?" Kendra joked.

"I mean, the sky's getting brighter faster than normal," Cameron replied.

The sky shone white and got more and more blinding. It soon reached the point where the three had to cover their eyes and turn away to keep from being blinded. It didn't work for long as their whole field of view became a blinding white. They began to panic.

"What the FUCK is going on!" Nate yelled as he looked around in vain.

"Maybe the world is ending!" Kendra yelled, not being able to feel Arin next to her.

"Thanks, Trump! We knew you could do it!" Cameron joked to the white void. The three laughed as the world they knew turned from a blinding white to black.

…

Nate was the first to awaken. He sat up and looked around to see that he was in the middle of a grassy field next to a forest; his bookbag and laptop bag were next to him. A few yards to his right, Cameron laid in the grass with his bookbag next to him as well. Nate stood up and walked over to Cameron, who had just started regaining consciousness. Nate nudged him a little and asked, "Hey, Cameron, you awake?"

"Nate?" Cameron slowly opened his eyes and sat up. He immediately got dizzy and held his head, worrying Nate.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah. Just a little dizzy," Cameron replied. He slowly got his wits about him and looked around at the field and the nearby forest, the forest feeling oddly familiar.

"Where are we?" Cameron asked. Nate didn't get to answer as he had found Kendra beginning to sit up behind them.

"Hey, Kendra is here too," Nate said, pointing to her.

"Oh, great. Ken's also here," Cameron said sarcastically. They grabbed their things and walked over to Kendra, who was looking around.

"Where are we?" she asked when the two boys got to her.

"We don't know," Nate answered.

"Well, where's everybody else?" she asked. The two looked around and couldn't see anybody else that was in class.

"That's a good question," Cameron started, "Maybe we're the only ones here."

"That would suck," Nate said, looking down.

"Yeah, but maybe they just got up before us," Cameron said, as he tried to be optimistic, "I think there's a path to our left. Let's go and see if we can find them." Kendra grabbed her book bag and stood up, nodding. Nate was already ready to go.

They found a small dirt path on a hill and decided to walk up and away from the nearby forest. They walked for a few minutes until seven small figures appeared moving toward the three from up the path.

"Oh, hell no, there's more Kendras!" cried Nate as he threw rocks at the figures. A distant "Ouch!" was heard. The characters stopped and looked at each other. Cameron stopped Nate before he could do anything else.

"Nate, stop. Calm down. You're freaking out. Those might be people that can help."

"Yeah, maybe you're right."

They stood there for a second so Nate could take some deep breaths. As the figures grew closer, the group realized the characters were animals on all fours, but the group could faintly hear voices coming from the same direction. From what they could listen to, the ones talking were female. As the animals and voices got closer, the people speaking could still not be seen. Then, Cameron stopped altogether and concentrated on his ears.

"What's wrong?" Kendra asked.

"It's just...those voices sound familiar."

Just then, a high pitched scream came from the group of figures and a flash of light blinded Cameron, Nate, and Kendra. Suddenly, a purple unicorn with wings and a standard, light-pink unicorn were right next to them, with a blue pegasus and a pink pony appearing a split second later. Cameron's sudden confusion turned to sheer excitement as he didn't have to take too long to look at the four to realize who they were, his mouth contorting into a smile. A glance at the other three ponies and one small dragon only made him happier. Kendra and Nate looked at the four unique miniature horses in confusion, but after the pink one with the poofy mane started to speak and a quick look to Cameron, their bewilderment turned into understanding, followed by grief shortly after.

The pink pony was rambling at a breakneck pace. "Oh my Celestia, what are you? I've never seen anything like you before. Where did you come from? Are you the reason there was a flux in magical energy? Can you even understand me, because if not, this would look and sound weird to you? Just a pink pony jumping around in your face making strange noises like 'Bingbing boop' and 'floople dings.' And how can we be sure that you are good guys and not baddies that we need to zap with the power of friendship..."

"Oh, no." Nate and Kendra sighed in unison. Cameron responded with an even more full smile.

"Oh-ho, yes!"

A loud gasp was heard, and everybody turned as the pink pony put two and two together. "Were you the ones that hit Rarity?" She practically yelled in Cameron's face. He stopped smiling, a look of worry starting to form. He slowly turned around to look at Nate, who had a similar look, then to Kendra, who looked confused and shrugged. Looking disappointed and sighing, he regained his composure and turned back to face the pink pony.

"Yes, but it was an accident," Cameron said. The ponies squinted. "Honest. My friend was hallucinating and threw the rocks out of fear of the hallucinations." The pink pony backed up as the purple, unicorn-pegasus hybrid started to pace around the three humans. She scrutinized the three of them, in slight confusion.

"You are human?" The way she said it made it seem like a statement, but her questioning glance at the humans let them know she wanted an answer.

"Yeah," Nate said, speaking up this time, although sounding disappointed. The purple pony examined the three humans once more.

"You all have the same brown skin tone, with variation in shades, and your body structures are drastically different from what I've experienced," she mumbled aloud.

Cameron, Nate, and Kendra each had to stop themselves from exclaiming, "That's racist." They squirmed a little under the interesting pony's unrelenting gaze.

"How did you get here? Are you the reason for the sudden magical anomaly the Princesses were talking about?" The first question was natural, but the second left them with uncertainty.

Kendra spoke up to answer. "We don't know how we got here. We were waiting for school to start when a big flash of light blinded us. Next thing we know, we woke up here. As for the magical anomaly, thing, I don't know."

The purple anomaly of a pony looked at the three humans in front of her. Then she turned to the six ponies and dragon behind her. They each gave her a nod, and the purple unicorn with wings turned back to the otherworldly visitors and sighed. She smiled at them for the first time of their encounter.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. These are my friends." She turned and swept a hoof toward the other ponies and dragon, who introduced themselves, the pink pony going second.

"I'm Pinkie Pie," she yelled as confetti rained from nowhere. Before she could continue, however, the orange pony in a stetson spoke up.

"Howdy, I'm AppleJack. Y'all can call me AJ," she said, tipping her hat, her words laced with a southern drawl.

"I am Rarity. It is a pleasure to meet you, darlings," the white unicorn said. Her voice a stark contrast with the broader, southern accent of the pony before her. Rarity talked like she was a part of high society, a posh, high-pitched voice that somehow didn't come off as condescending.

"The name's Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria." The blue pegasus exclaimed, her voice feminine, but gruff. To prove her point, she zipped into the air doing several tricks and landing before the minute was up. Pinkie Pie cheered as loud as she could for her friend, while Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, the pink unicorn, and the small dragon rolled their eyes. The yellow pegasus smiled slightly. It was the pink unicorn's turn to introduce herself.

"My name is Starlight Glimmer. It's nice to meet you." Her voice was nothing special. She sounded like a regular person. Twilight intervened at this point, giving her own two cents about Starlight.

"She's my student. I'm teaching her the magic of friendship," she said. She then decided to introduce the dragon herself, "and this is my number one assistant, Spike." The small dragon waved, and the humans waved back.

The yellow pegasus had been slowly hiding more and more with each glance of either Nate, Cameron, or Kendra. Kendra got curious.

"What's with that one?" She pointed to the yellow pegasus, getting a small "eep" out of her as she quickly hid behind what she could, which happened to Pinkie Pie. Cameron stopped himself from explaining it himself. He looked at Kendra and glared, keeping his mouth shut. She smirked. Cameron turned back around when Twilight began to talk.

"That's Fluttershy. She's timid around new ponies, and scared of most things," she said.

Cameron sighed in relief, able to keep quiet. He looked over the crowd and began to introduce himself and his friends. "I'm Cameron, the person to my right is Nate, and the other one to my left is Ken."

"Kendra," she corrected. "My name is Kendra."

"Not to me," Cameron said. "To me, you are Ken, forever, and always. Even after your inevitable, horrible, and satisfying death." Kendra glared at Cameron, and he stared back with his unrelenting gaze.

"You wanna fight?"

"You know I do and will."

"Well, don't because I don't want to."

Cameron clicked his tongue and muttered an expletive under his breath just loud enough for Kendra and Nate to hear. Nate snickered as Kendra put a hand on her chest in mock insecurity.

"You wound me. You know that?" Kendra asked.

"I'm not wounding you enough," Cameron replied. He then fake rushed at Kendra, trying to provoke her. She put up her defenses and backed up behind Nate. Cameron stopped and stuck up his middle finger and mouthed the words "I hate you" before turning around to the ponies, but still looking back at Kendra and Nate.

"At least Nate is my friend!" Kendra yelled back.

"No, I'm not," Nate said, chuckling.

The line made Cameron chuckle as he turned his head to look at the ponies and dragon, all giving them a strange look. Cameron's laughter died down, and he cleared his throat and stared back. It was an awkward ten seconds before Kendra spoke up from behind Nate, garnering everyone's attention.

"So, what now? Where do we go since we're, y'know?"

The humans look back to the ponies as they looked back at each other. They have a small, quiet conference and turn back to face the lost humans.

"We need to take you to our princesses to see what they think about this," Twilight said. Nate and Kendra looked confused.

"Didn't you say that you were a princess?" Nate asked.

Twilight nodded and added, "I am, but I recently became a princess. I don't know how to handle this situation. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have ruled over Equestria for multiple millennia. I want their opinion on what to do with you three. They'll know what to do."