Equilibrium, Book 1: The First Human.

July 21, 1000.
Ponyville, Equestria.
6:02 A.M.

"Come on everypony! This way!" Gadget shouted as he waved a hoof away from the town hall. It was mostly a smoldering wreck after Nightmare Moon was through with it so its position as a defensible position was shot to Tartarus.

"Come on now, I got to think." His mind raced as he looked around for any place that would serve as even halfway decent cover. His mind was drawing a blank.

"Faust above, this town doesn't have any place good enough to shelter all these ponies," he mumbled. Just then he caught sight of that new mare Twilight running off down the road in the opposite direction of everypony else.

"Hey wait!" He called out to her but she was already gone. Frantically Gadget looked around and spotted Thunder Lane a few feet away.

"Hey, Thunder!" He called out getting the pegasus’ attention. Thunder swooped down and gave him a swift nod.

"What's up?" He asked trying to shake off the lightning strike from the town hall. Gadget gave him a nod.

"Can you handle funneling all these ponies for a bit?" He asked giving Thunder a pleading look. Thunder nodded.

"Yeah sure." He flashed him a smile. As Gadget was about to gallop off a hoof touched his flank.

"Hey don't go off being a hero without me ok?" He smirked.

"Can't make any promises." Gadget grimaced as another explosion rocked Ponyville. Gadget managed to keep his footing and looked to the south, where a thick column of smoke was rising.

"I'll be back." He shouted to Thunder who gave him a nod.

Everfree Forest
8:27 A.M.

"Oh, my head." It felt like someone was tap-dancing on my skull. I opened my eyes to see, "Darkness?" I was confused. As my eyes began to adjust I slowly took stock of my surroundings.

"Ok, nothing feels broken. In fact, I fell fine for just having had a car accident." As I feel around I notice that I'm on the ground.

"Outside of the vehicle. Not the best case scenario but I'll bite that bullet when it flies by." Suddenly my hand grasps something made of wood.

"No way! This survived the crash?" My eyesight having fully adjusted to the ambient moonlight cascading down upon me, I look to my right to see one of my most prized possessions had survived the car crash.

"Thank God," I say as I hold up my sword to inspect it closer. I see that the scabbard has a few more nicks and some of the black lacquer is scraped off, but it's none the worse for wear.

"Let's see how well the blade fared." I grip the ray skin handle and the Hanwei blade from its sheath.

"A few scratches here and there, but nothing too serious." Sliding the blade back into its sheath I look around at my surroundings once more.

"God bless AZ knife laws." As I looked around this time actually looking at my surrounding I came to one conclusion.

"Where the hell am I?" Looking up I saw the moon was high in the sky and full. Then I sighed deeply.

"No use in panicking. Hopefully, I can get a signal." Reaching into my jeans I pulled out my phone and flipped it open, only to sigh.

"Great, no bars." Putting the phone back I decided to take a wild guess as to what direction north was. Looking up, I saw no stars to point in the right direction. So I just shrugged my shoulders, steeled my nerves, and headed hopefully in a direction out of this mess,

"What is this? A wood? A Forest?" I just didn't know. Neither did I care

"How did I even get here?" He looked around.

"One minute I'm traveling down the highway the next I'm lost in a forest." He shivered at the thought of being stuck here for the night.

"Please let there be somebody out here who can help me."

9:00 A.M.

Everfree Forest.

"Ok, so this must not be the right direction." I sighed as I walked along through the forest. Looking up at the sky, the moon was still full. I huffed again.

"HELLO!" I shouted out of the blue. "If anyone was out there they should have heard that." I sighed as I continued to stroll through the dark woods.

"Ok, let's not get too carried away." I looked around, noting the lack of noise all around.

"No need to panic." I tried to reassure myself. Just then I head something.

"Hello?" I called out as a rustle came to my ears.

"Oh thank god I-" My response to would-be rescuer died in my throat.

"That-that's not possible." My mind went numb at the sight before me. A pair of green eyes stared back my own hazel ones.

"That's not possible." My brain repeated. The eyes I could handle. The creepy forest? Sure, why not? Standing there right in front of me was what had me doubting my sanity.

"Timberwolf," I whispered. My hand was on my blade but I was too afraid to draw it.

"That thing is too thick for this." My brain screamed at me to run. My adrenaline had kicked in but my body was not trying to comply. Instead, the wolf looked at me, and I at it. We stood there as still as statues. Finally, the wolf had had enough. Slowly it backed away from me, blending into the bushes like a damn chameleon. Slowly very slowly my mind and body came down out its fight or flight mode. My grip on the sword lessened until the quietness of the forest was once again replaced with the rustling the night critters.

"Ok... stared death in the face and lived." I chuckled as I tried to make light of my second brush with death. I turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction.

"Guess I can cross that off my bucket list." I took a step but soon found my legs weren't cooperating. So I just collapsed onto the ground.

"Great so I'm In Equestria. Apparently in the Everfree forest, with no real way to defend myself. And it's night time." Not able to hold back the panic anymore I began to laugh.

"That's just great!" I shouted through a few measly chuckles while I tried to regain what little sanity I had left.

9:27 A.M.

"There it is again!" Twilight's ears swiveled as she and the rest of the girls made their way back to Ponyville. She turned to the others.

"Are you sure that none of you can hear that?" The rest of the group all stopped and listened. Sure enough there it was again. Now that they were actively listening for it they could hear the sounds of a pony shouting. They all looked at one another.

"That can't be good." Pinkie said as she put a hoof to her muzzle. Twilight took the lead and looked back to her friends.

"Well, let's go see who needs help." They all nodded as they set out back into the Everfree once more.