Worlds Awayby AngstCannonChaptersPrologueChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Prologue"Princess, as much as I hate to say it, you've shown both Gryphos and the world more than enough times that you are incapable of properly caring for this planet's fate any longer. " Morning light shone through the windows of the Canterlot throne room, bathing the room in a brilliant array of colors that seemed to speak to the beauty of the world outside of the castle. In Celestia's opinion, it was one of the few things she enjoyed about sitting on her throne, it had always brought a feeling of contentment over her, it was one of the few reminders that there was always a world outside of the castle she had called home for the past one thousand years. She would have liked nothing more to be out and enjoying the day with the rest of her subjects, mingling and interacting with her little ponies was one of her favorite things to do. Instead, she was stuck listening to the prattling of a self-absorbed Griffon ambassador. "And, Pray-tell Ambassador Kellatch, how have I done that?' She responded innocently, playing the fool to garner more information out of the overweight hybrid-creature that sat at a small desk before her. " You know good and well how you have done so," the griffon raised an eyebrow in irritation. "Though, the list begins with the return of your sister, not only did you outright neglect to face the lunar tyrant yourself, you sent a mere filly of all ponies to stop her!" Celestia sat forward on her throne, resting her head on her hand as her ear flicked in agitation, this had to be the hundredth time she has been brought under scrutiny for her choice to send Twilight to save her sister, to be honest, she had known about her sister's return even before the month had begun how could she have not? She was the one who had put her sister on the moon! The problem was, even if she had faced Luna herself that night, she would not have had the will nor the power to defeat her. Nightmare Moon had nearly killed her the first time Celestia and her sister's counterpart had faced each other, the only way she had won was with the Elements of Harmony's help, and after that night, the elements had scattered themselves across the Everfree, never to be seen again. That is, until Twilight and her friends had found them and sealed the shadow that had possessed Luna away. "Several fillies, if I remember correctly." The Solar Diarch smiled at the Ambassador, "and they seemed to have done an acceptable job with dealing with the problem." "That is beside the point, Princess." The Griffon pulled a series of scrolls from a bag at his talons and spread them all out for her to see. It took a moment for her to realize that they were reports, reports of the many attacks on her land by those seeking to use it for their own ends. "Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, Tirek, Starlight Glimmer, and most recently, The Storm King. All of these individuals have one thing in common, they all have bested you. Whether it be in direct combat or in stealth and subterfuge, both in the case of the changeling." "Ambassador, each of these Villains have long since been defeated or reformed. Discord has made it clear that he no longer seeks to rule Equestria or spread his chaos to any of her neighbors. Chrysalis has gone into hiding after King Thorax has taken the throne of the changelings, and they have sought nothing but peace with us ever since. I have been made aware of Miss Glimmer's attempts to rewrite history, she has repented of her wrongdoings and as far as I know no longer seeks anything but a peaceful life. Sombra was destroyed in the battle for the Crystal Empire, and Tirek remains locked in Tartarus to this day." "And what of the Storm King?" Celestia winced, it had been only a few months since the ape-like creature and his army had disappeared from Equestria, and she still bared the memories of those days trapped in her obsidian prison. She would've liked to believe he was dead. It would've made those days she spent as a statue a little more bearable. "Twilight Sparkle reported that he was encased in obsidian and shattered to pieces, he is most certainly-" "Did you recover his remains?" Celestia paused, when she had sent a detachment of guards to retrieve the King's fragments, none were found. "No," "This creature managed to steal the power to control the very Sun and Moon, your highness, and you say that he may still be alive?" "He is quite literally in pieces, Ambassador, I would be quite astounded if someone were to survive such a state." The Griffon huffed, "That does not change the fact that you and your fellow princesses have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to your nation's and our world's security. Your Guard, while numerous and admittedly well-trained, has failed to protect you or your country in a single significant crisis. You send foals with little to no training whatsoever to face threats that you should have handled yourself, and perhaps worst of all, you seem to think that those who participated in bringing ruin upon your land should not be punished simply because they said they're sorry." "Hate only breeds hate, Ambassador Kellatch," Said Celestia, narrowing her eyes, "I have sat here and listened to you berate me, my sister, and many of those I care deeply for, It is true that many a villain has bested me. But the Elements always succeed where I may fail." "Until they don't" Celestia recoiled slightly, slightly unnerved by the severity of the Ambassador's statement. "Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Elements have saved your country and this world many times, I will admit, but that does not change the fact that they are far too young to be in possession of such powerful artifacts. The Elements of Harmony were created with the intent to bring peace to all of Equss, when all the races of Equss agreed to create them. Equestria was given the responsibility to steward the selection process of the avatars of Harmony, not to dictate them yet for the last thousand years, you and your kind have hoarded these artifacts." "The Elements were not hoarded, they were lost!" Celestia replied, her voice gaining an edge. "Yet you never found it prudent to retrieve them until you found a use for them!" Celestia remained silent, his words carried some truth to them, after the Elements had scattered themselves, she had made no effort to find them. She had even resented the elements at one point, for they were the very items that separated her from her sister for a millennium. She had wanted no part of them for so long that she had nearly forgotten their purpose. "They have now been found, and are in safe hands," Said Celestia, her face changing back to a mask of contentment. "Yes, in your hands, no less." The Griffon rose from his seat, holding another scroll in his claws as he approached the throne and handed it to her. Celestia took the scroll, unfurling it and reading it over, her eyes widening further with every line she read, it was an agreement of alliance, its terms were-. "You mean to confiscate the Elements from Equestria?!" "Five of them, yes. Princess Twilight Sparkle will be allowed the Element of Magic out of respect for her 'heroic' actions." Celestia closed her eyes, breathing deeply from her nose before standing. "I will not allow this." The Griffon chuckled, "You do not have a choice in the matter, at this point in time, you should pray that you do not lose control over the sun and moon. The first Draft has been sent to the leaders of all nations across Equss, the King of Griffonstone has already agreed to its terms, the majority of the Diamond Dog clans have promised their allegiance to us as well." Celestia glared at Kellatch who began packing his things. "My task here is finished," The Griffon gave Celestia a small smile, "You have been informed of the terms, the Golden age of Equestria is at its end, your highness. In three months time, the nations of this world's answers will come, I suggest you separate the elements from their respective bearers and prepare to join the Alliance, Celestia, this will be the only chance you have." The Griffon Ambassador turned, leaving the throne room and passing the Lunar Diarch on the way out, who eyed him suspiciously as he strode out the open doors. The entryway to the throne room closed with an ominous squeak leaving the two sisters alone in the throne room. Luna approached her sister, concerned over Celestia's distraught expression. "What is the matter, sister? Have the Griffons declared war again?" Celestia shook her head, "We must contact the Elements of Harmony." "Why?" Celestia handed her sister the scroll, watching as her expression changed from concern to shock as she read. Celestia sighed, placing a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder before immediately turning and making her way to her chambers, she had a letter to write. "We feared the day when the world turned against us, I do believe that day has come sister," said Celestia. "I will rally the Night Guard!" The Lunar princess called after her sister. "You should do the same with the day guard, we must prepare them for what follows!" Celestia nodded to her sister, who disappeared in a flash of light, she glanced out one of the Throne room's windows once more as she left. Suddenly the Morning looked a little less inviting. Author's Note SOOOOOOOOOOOO I'm gonna go out on a limb here and give a disclaimer, I've only got a general knowledge of this series and I'm more into the fandom of this show than the series itself. I'm really just using this story for writing practice and to see how other people respond to my writing. That being said, if you are reading this, thanks for stopping by! Hopefully, this won't be a crappy mess of a fanfiction that melts your eyeballs as you read it, if you do happen have your eyeballs melt after reading this, please let me know, as this may or may not be an ability I have somehow gained and will use to take over the country. Any Criticism is welcome, just please don't go nuts with the hate. So once again, thankety thank you for reading and/or commenting! Yeah! Thankety thank thank thank thank you! Angsty's got some pretty high hopes for this story! Wait, what? *Appears behind me* "SURPRISE!" *Sounds of manly screaming* Chapter 1Eric had a good many times in his life where his sanity had been pushed to the brink of complete destruction, this instance, however, seemed to take the cake. "Are you legitimately telling me that you spilled your coffee on the laptop?" He groaned, slapping his forehead. "Yes." The nervous voice of his classmate Holland spoke through his phone. Holland had been his friend since Junior High, he had a bit of a wildcard attitude that had set him apart from a lot of the other people there, but, he had a good heart and was quite intelligent when you could finally get him to sit down and have a conversation with him. Eventually, he matured enough to the point where he actually became likable to other people, since then, he was a social butterfly. Always the party animal. "The very same laptop that had the entire paper and presentation script on it?" "Yes." "Which went to the assignment that is due four days from now?" "Yeah." "Were you hungover?" Holland didn't respond. "You went to a party and got drunk again, didn't you?" "..." "Unbelievable." Eric threw his hands up, letting go of the phone and allowing it to fly up in a lazy arc and fall screen-first onto his bed. "You're not even legal drinking age!" Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, frustration completely overtaking him, Holland wasn't even legal drinking age, he had to literally hold his breath to keep himself from throwing obscenities left and right in a fit of college-induced rage. That project had been their final for the English class they had together, it would be the thing that would make or break their grades. His friend was a great guy, but when it came to being clumsy, he would be described as the patron god of it. and when you mix clumsy and alcohol, you get a mixture that is likely to cause some sort of catastrophic event; such as a blackout, a fight, or the untimely death of a young college student due to the unbridled rage of his disgruntled classmate. "Eric? You there?" "Quiet, I'm trying to strangle you through the phone." "Oh, ok." The phone went silent for a few minutes as the young man paced around his apartment, trying desperately to come up with a solution to the problem. He bumped his head against the wall repeatedly, swearing slightly. He briefly considered drowning himself in the nearby bathroom's toilet, thought the better of it, and slowly lifted his head from the wall. "I don't think its working." Said Holland, his voice carrying a touch of mirth. "Didn't try hard enough." Replied Eric, his voice betraying the humor in his tone. He sighed, he couldn't change who Holland was, and despite the fact that he wanted to chain him to a log and send him over the nearest waterfall, Eric knew as well anyone that he had screwed up as royally as Holland had more than a few times, with a lot of them ending with Holland saving him. Besides, once you met him, it was hard to stay mad at a guy like Holland for long. "Get over here," Eric told Holland. "Bring the laptop, let's see if we can salvage the papers from it." "Got it, on my way." Eric hung up, Holland had woken him up with the call, not the best way to start a Saturday. He made his way to the bathroom and began to make something of himself, freshening up and combing the mess of brown hair on his head. Once his hygiene was taken care of he began to change clothes, putting on a pair of jeans and a pullover. Looking himself over in the mirror, he decided he looked acceptable. "God, I'm getting pale." He muttered to himself, "Note to self, study outside." Leaving his room, Eric found that his T.V had been left on, showing some kind of little girl's TV show. "Ugh, the power bill is gonna suck." He left the T.V on, changing the channel to a fantasy movie before going to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast. Digging through his fridge, he found a box of breakfast burritos and popped one into his microwave oven. He waited for a few minutes before the oven chimed and his meal was ready. He plopped down on his couch, eating his breakfast and watching the movie. Holland lived about an hour and a half away, so he had time to kill before his friend a arrived, he finished his food and returned to the kitchen, cleaning off the plate in the sink and putting it back in the cabinet. He then sat back on the couch, daydreaming. It had been six months since he had moved out of his old house to live on campus, his scholarship paid for most of his bills, and the on-campus job he worked covered anything else he wanted or needed, by his standards, he was doing pretty well for himself, his life was laid out before him, go to college, become a publicist, maybe write a novel. He had everything planned out. A knock at his door pulled him from his thoughts, it had barely been twenty minutes since Holland had called him, there was no possible way that he was here, so who was this? He went to the door, looking through the peephole to see who it was, he was met with an overwhelming amount of the color blue on the other side of the door. Figuring someone left a note on the door, he opened it and stepped outside to look at it and was greeted with a fierce gust of wind, enough to sending him stumbling back through the door. Except there wasn't a door, or a floor for that matter. Eric wasn't in his house, he wasn't exactly sure where he was. "The hell?!" He stood, looking around himself and found that he was surrounded on all sides by blue, in the distances he could see large cloudbanks floating lazily by, the sun was high in the sky. "The sky" He thought, "I'm in the sky. Ok, cool." He took a moment to re-evaluate what went through his head, and suddenly his eyes went wide as he began to panic. If he was in the sky, then what exactly was he standing on?! He slowly looked down, seeing a beautiful countryside that looked like something straight out of the movie he had been watching not even five minutes ago. Directly below him, a town stood, pretty big, from what he could see, near the north part of the town stood what looked like a castle. A particularly shiny castle. However, what he did not see was any kind of ground or platform under his feet. He was just floating there, kind of like a cartoon character did just before they- "Oh f-" As if a switch had been flipped, gravity suddenly took hold of him again and he was falling. He screamed, flailing around as ice-cold air roared around him and chilled him to the bone. He hurtled downwards, steadily gaining speed as the ground rushed up to meet him. "Well, at least I got to have breakfast before God decided to kill me." He thought, still screaming externally. "No real way out of this one, I should have stayed in bed. " He had lived a decently good life, kissed a girl once, had made a few friends, did some good things in his life, he had spent a few days as a volunteer, and a bit of his money had always gone to charities. Maybe he could have done more, how much time had he wasted? "Doesn't matter now." He mentally shrugged, watching as the earth rushed up to meet him, "at least it'll be quick." The ground wasn't far now, he would hit it in twenty seconds or so, the only thing between him and a quick and painless death were a few clouds, which drfited lazily in a semi-straight line under his flight path. He hit one and was immediately surprised, it wasn't like the clouds back home, this one felt like he had hit a mass of cotton, which he smashed into with an "Oof!" The cloud had slowed his fall but didn't stop it as he passed through and left a rather comedic human-shaped hole in it. He hit another one, still having enough momentum to go straight through it. Several clouds later he was falling cloud by cloud, unable to actually land on one. His fall had slowed to the point where he could not go straight through the clouds but began to bounce off them, each landing feeling like the young man had been hit by a bus made of pillows. Eventually, he ran out of clouds to land on, and after a short fall, he landed heavily and painfully on the roof of a building. "Owwww," He wheezed, groaning and writhing in pain. He was still alive, fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at the situation. "Christ," groaned Eric, swearing as he struggled to a sitting position. "Hey! You ok up there?" a voice called from below, "That was one heck of a fall!" One of the locals, they must have seen him. "Yeah," he called back, "not my most graceful landing," He heard a short laugh, "Can you get down? I'm pretty sure the ponies who own that house won't take kindly to you being on their roof!" Eric groaned again, "Yeah, gimme a sec-" he paused; "Wait, Ponies?" "Crack!" The roof below him shifted, its already weakened supports giving into the added weight Eric's put onto it. "Oh shit!" The roof caved, causing Eric to fall in. "AAAAAH!" He screamed for the second time today, this time hearing two voices joining him in screaming as he crashed down onto a table, breaking it and sending small fragments of wood flying everywhere. He lay there for a moment, almost certain he was dead before realizing he was still in pain. "Fuck. My. Life." He managed to growl, opening his eyes to see the hole he made, sunlight poured through the hole, shining down on the young man as he struggled into a sitting position for the second time today. Groaning again he shut his eyes tightly as the mother of all headaches started to roll in, causing him to groan even more. "What in Tartarus' name?" He opened his eyes and was confronted with what could be described as the weirdest experience of his life. Standing before him, were two anthropomorphic horses wearing t-shirts and jeans. Standing on two hooves with a similar body structure to a human's, but with fur, a tail, and the head sporting a small muzzle and huge eyes. The other one, to the left of him, carried a horrified expression on her face, her light blue eyes looking at him in shock. Her fur was cream-colored, with her mane and tail colored a mix of pink and dark blue. The one to the right, however, stared at him more with surprise than horror, her fir, and part of her otherwise white mane light green. Her golden eyes seemed to carry more of an 'error 404' look about them in contrast to the other one's eyes. What got Eric's attention was the horn sticking out of her head, an anthropromorphic unicorn. Suddenly Holland's mistake didn't seem so bad, compared to how the rest of Eric's day was going. He blinked, so did they. No one moved for what felt like an hour, both parties staring at the other in disbelief as the seconds ticked by. "Hey! You alright in there?!" The voice from the roof called through the hole. Then, the green one fainted. Author's Note O to the K. There's chapter one. Took a second to get out there, but I'm hoping that I didn't make it boring or cliche or whatever taboo a writer can do. Pretty balanced reviews so far, but I've been developing ideas for a while and I'm still hopeful about the future of the story. "I think its gonna do great!" Oh Christ, you're still here. "Of course I am Angsty! I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere! I was here before you even decided to write the story!" But, aren't I the one typing that? I don't know, aaaaarrreeee you?" Oh God, she's doing the fourth-wall-breaking thing again! "No, you are!" Stop it! "What?" That! Chapter 2Two hours previously to chapter one… The nation of Equestria was the envy of the planet Equss, its beauty had been coveted by philosophers and immortalized by poets and writers the world over. These masters of the arts differed in opinion as to exactly which part of the land’s nature was truly the most stunning. Some argued it lay within the heart of the country, which contained countless miles of lush forests, rolling hills, and fertile farmland. There was also the rugged glory of the southern deserts, which was home to several small frontier towns. The regal crystal mountains and the crystal empire that called the Frozen North its home, and the Everfree Forest, whose enigmatic behavior and untamed power earned it its name. Cloudsdale, with its beautiful architecture, and stunning aerial view of the land, or even Mount Canterbury, which the capital city of Canterlot sat upon. Over the millennia Equss had stood, no one could say for sure what part of Equestria was exactly the most beautiful. However, if you were to ask the ponies of the rather un-imaginatively named town Ponyville, you would find a single, universal answer. The sunrise. The morning settled over the town like a warm blanket, the sun peeking over Mount Canterbury and bathing the entirety of the plains that lay below it in a golden light. This light seemed to bring the very world to life as birds left their nests, chirping and squawking to one another as they began to fly about. The plants began to bloom that much brighter, the air began to feel that much warmer. Already many of the town's denizens were awake and going about their morning routines, making coffee, eating breakfast, and preparing for the day ahead. Proud parents sent their foals off to school, who happily chatted with one another as they made their way to the schoolhouse. Glancing occasionally with awe at the massive castle that sat on the border of the town before returning to the company of their friends, the castle had grown in size since the land’s latest crisis, becoming that much more impressive to behold as the branches of the crystal tree it sat upon shone brightly in the light. Much of the town’s weather team was hard at work, gathering clouds for the storm that was due later that day, meanwhile many ponies began making their way to the town market, eager to both buy and sell wares of all shapes and sizes for all manner of reasons. Truly today would be one of the most beautiful days beheld by Ponyville. Only one sound interrupted the near-impeccable beauty of that morning, a loud, nasal snore that erupted from the open window of a house not far from the town center, the snore drew the attention of many passersby, who gave the house no more than a raised eyebrow and a slight giggle before returning to their own devices. Through the window, there was a simple room consisting of no more than a dresser, a mirror, a bed, a bookcase, and a desk. The books on the bookcase shook with the dull roar of the snore, lightly bouncing in their places as the sound shook the room to its very foundations. On the bed lay a mint-green unicorn, in a position that most would compare to that of a cat shoving itself into a small area. Her face, despite her posture, was serene, blissfully snoring away as the room around her experienced a miniature earthquake with every exhaled breath. Without warning, the bedroom's door flew open, slamming against the wall and revealing an extremely disgruntled earth pony. "LYRA!" The unicorn in question gave a surprised yelp, flailing wildly and falling out of bed in a mess of blankets, sheets, and limbs. She struggled with the bed coverings a few moments before standing up and facing her friend. "What was that for?!" Said Lyra, groggy and irritated. "Ponies in Canterlot could hear you snoring!" Growled the mare in question, her bloodshot eyes twitching comically. Lyra's face turned red, "Oh, was I doing that again?" "Yes!" The mint-musician groaned, she had slept like that on occasion, with the problem only occurring once every few months or so. Still, for all the years she and Bon-Bon had been housemates it had been a constant and recurring issue. Bon-Bon folded her arms impatiently, "I couldn't sleep with all the noise you were making,so I went ahead and got ready for work." Lyra noticed the apron her friend was wearing. "What time is it?" "An hour until opening time, I'm headed to the shop, It'll only be open for a few hours, but I still need you to get the ingredients that I need from the market today." "Right," yawned Lyra, "Forgot that was today." She stretched and went to her dresser, absent-mindedly picking out a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of shorts before tossing them onto her desk, knocking down a few papers and books. Bon-Bon noticed these papers and gave her friend a disapproving look. "You stayed up all night again, didn't you?" Lyra looked from the desk to Bon-Bon, her eyes showing disinterest in where the conversation was leading. "Uh, yeah, I did." Groaning slightly, the cream-colored mare held a hand to her face, her interest in the study of humans had been a topic of debate between the two of them for a long time. Lyra had always had a passion for finding the creatures after she had found that book in the golden oaks library, with the library destroyed after the demon Tirek's attack on the town, the former librarian-turned-princess Twilight allowed her to have her sparse collection of human mythology. Bon-Bon had always considered her obsessed with the creatures, and thought it as nothing more than a distraction, but she knew the futility of arguing with her over the matter. The Earth pony turned and walked out of the doorway, her upset expression now replaced with a more mellow one, she had given Lyra a job running errands for her shop shortly after her stint as a street musician had left her nearly broke. As long as the whole human thing didn't get in the way of her work, she learned to live around her friend's quirk. The two of them had been friends for as long as she could remember, meeting in school as foals. Now? They were roommates, both of them taking turns paying the rent, though in reality it was more like Bon-Bon was paying it by herself, considering she was the source of Lyra's income. "Make sure you take the list!" She called behind her, the sound of hooves clopping down the stairs followed her voice. "Got it!" The Unicorn sighed as she heard the front door open and close, groaning internally before grabbing her clothes off her desk and heading to the bathroom to shower. A few minutes later, Lyra found herself ready to face the day, striding contently downstairs and digging through the refrigerator for the box of donuts she had bought from Sugarcube corner. Finding it, she opened the box and pulled one of the treats out. Biting into it and leaving it in her teeth as she replaced the box and closed the door, there she found Bon-Bon's grocery list taped onto it. The list directed her to a bag of bits sitting on the kitchen table, which she picked up and tied to the belt loop on her shorts. She took the list and began to leave, heading outside and squinting due to the overabundance of light from Celestia's sun. Once her eyes had adjusted, Lyra took a look at the first item on the list, ten pounds worth of apples from sweet apple acres. That would be on the other side of town, it would take a thirty-minute walk to get there. "Of course." Grumbled Lyra, " you had to make it a hard one, Bonnie." She would do that one last, it made more sense to pick up what she needed at the market anyway, the vast majority of goods that the store would need were there anyway. Forty minutes and about one hundred and five bits later Lyra was toting a big basket full of various foodstuffs and tools from the market in her magic's grip, Going down the list one after the other before getting to the final item, Vanilla extract. The stuff was hard to find in Equestria naturally, so it had to be imported from places like the Griffon kingdoms. She found her way to the correct vendor, a pale blue Pegasus by the name of Cloudbreak. He was the only pony in the town who dealt in imported ingredients like vanilla. "Morning Lyra." Greeted Cloudbreak as she approached his stall, not bothering to look up from his book. "Morning Cloud." She said "What can I do for you?" "Vanilla extract, three bottles." She replied, sliding the appropriate number of bits onto the table. Cloudbreak looked down and eyed the bits before grunting in displeasure. "That's not enough." He said, sitting his book down and running a hand through his green mane. "What do you mean?!" Exclaimed Lyra, picking the coins up and counting them, "That's thirty bits!" "Price went up, something about Griffons taxing exports to Equestria, Sugarcube corner already bought up most of my stock last week." Lyra raised an eyebrow, politics was never her strong suit or concern, but with Sweetie Drop's Candies in an everlasting state of competition with the bakery, she knew that when the candy store lacked something, Sugarcubes corner tended to make up for it with their own goods, she would have to get the extract no matter what the price. "Whatever," she sighed, "What's the new price?" "Forty-five." "FORTY-FIVE?!" Lyra looked at the Pegasus like he grew a horn and called himself a princess. "That's Horsefeathers!" "Is what it is," Cloudbreak said, not at all fazed by Lyra's reaction. Nothing ever seemed to get to him, Bonnie would kill her for using too many bits, but she would also kill her if she didn't show up with everything. Luckily for the unicorn, she had a few tricks up her sleeves. "I'm calling that favor in." She said, clearly unhappy with the situation. "You know the one." Cloudbreak eyed her, a twinge of annoyance present on his face, Lyra looked back at him unflinchingly, her eyes silently daring him to protest. The two held the glare for a total of two minutes before the pegasus relented, he shrugged and reached under the stall, producing three mid-sized bottles with a brownish liquid and sitting them on the table. "Take 'em, on the house, we're even now." He said, his voice deadpanning. Lyra nodded silently and grabbed them. "Thanks, Cloud." Lyra gave him a small wave. "Mmmhmm." Hummed the pegasus, returning to his book . Lyra checked off the second to last item on her list before beginning the trek to Sweet Apple Acres, dodging crowds and the occasional magic-gripped basket as she walked to the outskirts of the town. Eventually, she came within sight of the orchard, the rows of apple trees swaying in the wind. In front of the orchard was a small wooden stall manned by a red earth pony stallion, who was napping at his post. Lyra snickered at him as she walked up to the booth. "Good morning, Big Mac." The apple farmer snapped out of his slumber, dazedly looking around before realizing he had a customer. "Oh, Mornin' Ms. Heartstings." He drawled, his voice deep and heavily accented. "Not used to the Morning shift, huh?" Lyra raised an eyebrow in amusement. Usually, it was Mac's sister, Applejack that ran their booth early in the day, unfortunately for him, having a national hero for a sister meant she had to go off and do whatever heroes do when they need to go do hero stuff. "Nope." The stallion's calm demeanor slowly returning to him. Mac was a stallion of few words, with most questions being answered in a few words if not one. Lyra personally had found it hard to communicate with him at first but eventually learned to mostly just ask yes or no questions. "Yeah, me neither, A.J. off doing hero stuff?' "Eyup." That usually meant all six of the Elements of Harmony were gone, off saving Equestria from some crazy monster or evil despot. If only she could do something like that, the closest thing she had ever really gotten to adventure was that one day with Bon's 'secret agent' thing. But she was neither allowed to talk about it or come with her roommate on a mission. Instead, she was left caring for the store. "Well, down to business," Lyra smiled, not wanting to linger "Can I get Ten pounds worth of apples?" "Eyup." Mac turned around and produced a burlap sack filled to the brim with apples, "Fifteen bits." Lyra fished the coins out of the small bag at her hip and dropped them into Mac's waiting hand. "Thanks, Mac." Lyra gave him a smile and nodded her head. "Eyup." She placed the apples in the levitating basket and began to head back to town. With the list completed, Lyra made her way to the shop to drop off the ingredients, making her way back through the market. The market was always full of noise, countless ponies bartering and chatting split the air while the sound of carts being unloaded dwarfed the voices for only seconds before they engulfed the noise like the waves of an ocean would floating debris. Today, however, something seemed different, an air of irritation that seemed to hang over some of the vendors and even spread to some of the shoppers she noticed a few ponies arguing with vendors. Insults flying between them like invisible arrows. "Are you kidding me?!" One Unicorn stallion growled, "Taxes, my flank! You merchants just want more bits!" "You don't like it?" An Earth-pony vendor retorted; "Take it up with Saddle Arabia! At least then I wouldn't be able to hear your mouth!" The two continued to argue their yelling only growing louder, one of them slammed their fist down on the stall's table, drawing the attention of a guardspony standing nearby, who gave the group an annoyed look before snorting and setting off in their direction. Lyra passed him, noticing his hand moving to the baton strapped to his hip. Lyra quickened her pace, leaving the market before something went bad. After a few more minutes of walking, she had made it to the store and was surprised to see it closed, sitting the basket on the ground and approaching the front door, she found a note posted to the front door: Lyra. Something important has come up and I had to close the store early. Bring the ingredients in through the back and lock the door behind you, I'll explain more at home. Bon-Bon Lyra shook her head, Bon-Bon never closed early unless she was sick, all Tartarus had broken loose in the town, or herother job required it. Things were getting weird today. "What's going on?" She thought to herself Her horn flared and the basket was levitated off the ground following her around the store and behind it. She pushed open the back door, revealing the kitchen, she floated the basket inside, sitting it on the counter before reaching around the door and locking it. Her daily duties performed, she went back home to see what her friend had to say. "Bon? I'm home!" Lyra called, closing the front door of their home behind her. "Up here!" Bon-Bon replied, her voice carrying over the banister of the second floor, the sounds of something being zipped reached her ears as she climbed the stairs and saw her friend lugging a suitcase out of her room. "What's going on?" She asked Bon-Bon. "No idea Lyra." Bon sighed as she carried the object past the unicorn and down the stairs "All I know is that its a royal summons, and it's a major pain in my flank." Lyra's eyes widened, a royal summons?! "What is happening today?!" She muttered to herself, "First the market prices, then the elements being called to Canterlot, and now this." She sighed, brushing the thoughts off, probably some crazy villain off to conquer the country again. Maybe a monster since her friend was being brought in for it. But that didn't explain that business in the market, she shook her head and leaned on the banister as she watched her friend gather several things from around the house in silence. "I've left you enough bits to cover food for at least a week," Bon looked up at her from the sitting room, "Consider it an advance payment for watching the store while I'm away." Lyra raised an eyebrow, "Watching the store?" "Yeah, I need you to run the shop while I'm gone-" "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Lyra held her hands up "This was supposed to be my week off!" Lyra had planned this week off for the past month, she was supposed to be able to visit the princess' castle library and continue her research. Bon-Bon gave her an annoyed look, "Lyra, this isn't the time to be immature, your monkeys can wait until this is done." She turned her back to continue packing. Lyra returned the look. "They're called humans Bonnie, and they are a legitimate area of research. I understand you don't like my studies into them, but they are-" "They're a myth Lyra!" Bon-Bon whirled around, a tired and livid look on her face. "That is all they are! That is all they'll ever be! You've wasted three years of your life on your little hobby, and you've got nothing to show for it! You barely work enough at the shop to make enough bits to get by, you sleep in, forget half of your responsibilities around here, all over some stupid stories you read in a book! I feel like your Mom for Faust's sake! When are you going to grow up and accept the fact that you are never going to find them?!" Lyra remained silent, slowly walking down the stairs as her white hair covered her eyes, the angry frown on her face was clear. "What do you know?" She said to her friend, looking up at her with hurt in her eyes. "You wanna talk about dodging responsibility? Let's talk about the fact that you hid this" she gestured to the suitcase in Bon's hand "From me ever since Canterlot!" "You've lied to me and now you expect me to just shut up about it for the rest of our lives all for the sake of what? Government secrets? Keeping me safe?! From what? Monsters aren't some evil enemy in the shadows, they're just a bunch of animals! All you are is a glorified animal control pony!" "What I do is to keep this town safe Lyra!" Bon yelled back, "I fight against a real threat to this country, I do something important, what do you do? Play an instrument for barely any bits at a time? Study old myths in your room like some sort of cultist? The only way you get by is through the odd jobs you work around town, if it weren't for me you'd be on the streets!" The two of them glared angrily into each other's eyes. "You need to start living in the real world Lyres, a human isn't just going to fall out of the sky!" CRACK! Like clockwork, a large bulge appeared in the ceiling with an audible crashing noise, making both of them look up in shock. "No..." Bon-Bon said in disbelief. "You can't just...no, no, it's fine, probably just Rainbow Dash trying another trick." "Bon, Dash is in Canterlot." Lyra said, her eyes not moving from the bulge as cracks spread across the roof. "Lyra, just....... don't, that's not a human, Faust doesn't hate me that much." The roof then collapsed, sending a vaguely pony-shaped creature screaming through the hole and into the room's table. Reducing it to boards and toothpicks. Evidently, Faust did hate Bon that much. Author's Note Well, that was a long gap between posts. I'll try not to do that anymore, but college is college, and I kind of need money to live so work is also important. But in any case, I'll try to post more often than I have. Hopefully, I didn't butcher Lyra's POV too badly, as I said, I'm still new to this whole thing, but I'm leaning on the hope that I'll get better. Chapter 3Eric and Bon-Bon stared at Lyra's prone form, The young man blinked at the sudden and strange sequence of events, briefly taking stock of his surroundings as he sat there in the remains of a table. He understood the fact that he fell out of the sky, he understood that he fell through a roof, but overall? He was completely stumped as to exactly where the hell he was, why he was there, or why there were horse people. "Why exactly is there a need for horse people?" his thoughts seemed to say; "hasn't enough weird crap happened to me today? " The thought, however, was drowned out by the sheer amount of bluescreen the young man's mind was experiencing at that point in time. Bon-Bon was having a similar moment, seemingly unable to comprehend the events of the last thirty seconds. She looked from the creature that sat in the broken remains of her favorite coffee table back to her best friend, a stupified expression on her face. The two remained there in silence for the entirety of forty seconds before a voice came through the hole the human had made. Eric recognized it as the same one that had talked to him on the roof, high-pitched, female, kind of had a New-york style of accent to it. "Lyra? Sweetie Drops? Is everything ok? You're being kinda quiet and it's kinda hard to see in there... is that stallion ok?" The voice served to snap the two of them out of their stupor, with Bon-Bon giving a short shriek as Eric scrambled to his feet. The human quickly felt his back where he had smashed into the table and was relieved to find that he wasn't wounded in any way. He gave a relieved sigh, laughing slightly at the fact he was somehow unharmed and looked up just in time to see a beige-colored fist coming straight for his face. Eric gave a pained shout as tears came to his eyes, his nose feeling as if someone had taken a hammer to it. Before suddenly he was grabbed by the arm and shoulder-thrown back onto the ground, his face smashing into the ground "Hey! What's going on in there?!" The voice quickly gained an owner as a blond-maned, grey pegasus with what appeared to be an eye-problem appeared over the hole, concerned by the ruckus coming from inside the house. She squinted and saw Bon-Bon standing on top of some sort of... Hairless earth-pony? "What the hay is that thing?!" She gasped, her eyes suddenly fixing themselves as she looked in on the two. Eric yelped as he felt the hoof dig into his back, then shouted in pain as his arm was wrenched up and behind his back, the pain lancing all the way up to his arm and into his shoulder. "Derpy! Get help!" Commanded Bon-Bon, her voice carrying an authority uncharacteristic of the town candymare. Derpy stared at the two of them with wide eyes, hesitation clear on her face; "I...." "NOW!" Snarled the Earth pony, and the pegasus disappeared, off to find help. Eric struggled on the floor, the pain growing worse with every passing second. "Get off me!" he yelled, flopping around rather ungracefully. "Shut up!" His attacker snarled, placing her hoof on his face, "Now, I'm going to ask you three questions, creature and you are going to answer them! And if I don't like what I hear..." Eric's arm was twisted further, causing him to groan in agony as the horse-woman applied pressure, nearly breaking his arm before relenting. "What are you doing here, why did you attack our home, and what did you do to her!" She gestured to the prone form of her friend, who was snoring slightly on the floor. "Oi dof new!" Was the muffled reply, Eric's face being too squished to allow him to say anything comprehensible. "What?" The mare lightened the weight on the human's face. "I don't know!" Gasped Eric, his eyes screwed shut in pain, "Horseapples!" Snarled the mare, pressing down even harder, if this kept up he wouldn't have an arm for much longer. Getting desperate for a way to stop the pain, he felt around in front of him until he felt his fingers close around something. "What the hell does that even mean?!" Roared Eric, grabbing the broken table-leg with his free hand and slinging it blindly behind him, hitting his attacker in the shoulder, she gave a pained yelp and stumbled off him. Eric got to his feet and tried to put distance between him and his strange adversary by putting his back to the wall. But she had already recovered and threw a punch that human barely got his arms up in time to block. Whatever this thing was, it knew how to fight, and it didn't seem to have any qualms about beating him within an inch of his life. He himself had been in a few fights, mainly thanks to a few bullies in high school thinking he was an easy target, several self-defense classes may have remedied those problems then, but this was something else entirely. This... horse-person, seemed intelligent and spoke English, and also had a concept of friends and camaraderie, which meant there was definitely a way to reason with them. But right now one of these creatures was attacking him, his survival came before trying to establish any form of peaceful first contact. He brought his foot up and leaned against the wall to brace himself before kicking out at her, his foot catching her square in the chest and sending her reeling back. He followed up his attack with a punch of his own, following the same method as the self-defense classes he had taken years ago had taught him, he twisted his hips and shot his fist forward at the same time, catching the mare in the face and sending her back even further. She stumbled back into the side of the staircase and used it to steady herself, she looked up at Eric and growled angrily, fire burning behind her eyes. The young gulped nervously, gritting his teeth and steeling himself as the mare pushed off the wall and charged him. Bon-Bon was an agent of an organization dedicated to the protection of the nation from dangerous creatures, this organization was known as S.M.I.L.E. They had trained her to track and subdue 'monsters' of every kind when they wandered near or, Celestia forbid, into, populated areas. However, due to a large-scale monster's escape from the underground prison known as Tartarus, which had nearly consumed all of the magic within Equestria, the entire agency was supposedly dissolved for its incompetence. At least, that was what the public was told. Before their dissolution, the public had eventually caught wind of S.M.I.L.E's existence thanks to a particularly nosey pegasus and her journalist friend. So the agency made do with what it could, and told a partial truth to the public. Usually, ponies thought the term 'monster' only applied to the occasional denizen of the Everfree forest or a fugitive from Tartarus. Creatures that were commonly thought by the ponies of Equestria to be little more than animals or beings of pure malice. That belief was what the agency preyed on, using it to make those that didn't know the true nature of the agency assume that they were nothing more than a glorified pest control company in fancy suits and sunglasses. That was only partially true, while they did handle particularly dangerous monsters, the true purpose of the agency was much more clandestine, they allowed the illusion to continue on in order to mask the more 'controversial' part of their responsibilities. The term 'Monsters' applies to more than a bunch of killer animals, at least, to the agency it did. To S.M.I.L.E, a monster was any creature dedicated to the pursuit of evil or subjugation of Equestria and her people. That meant the bands of diamond-dog slavers that roamed the badlands and Everfree, the stubborn griffon ultra-nationalists who refused to see the Equestrian people as anything more than prey, and even some of Equestria's own ponies. The agency had handled many matters in secret, through espionage, sabotage, and sometimes outright assassination. Bon-Bon had usually handled monster cases as part of the undercover branch of the agency, investigating, observing and reporting events in Ponyville, as the normally sleepy town had become a hot-zone for trouble ever since a certain lavender-colored unicorn moved in. Thanks to the elements of harmony's intervention she rarely ever had to fight monsters, let alone sapient creatures, but she had gone through the combat courses just like everyone else in S.M.I.L.E. This creature, human or no human, was an unknown being that had broken into her home and disabled her best friend. Maybe it hadn't done that to Lyra, maybe it had, all the mare could see at this point was a sapient entity that posed a possible threat to her and Lyra, and so, it had to be taken down. She charged the thing as it leaned forward, squared its feet, and braced itself, preparing to take her head-on. In terms of strength, she assumed that she and the 'human' were about even, normally that wouldn't be a problem, but it had shown skill in hand-to-hand combat, and she hadn't trained in combat for months. While she was certain she would eventually overpower the creature, she couldn't risk drawing out the fight and giving the thing a chance to escape, so she opted for something more... creative. She dropped to the floor just before reaching the creature, praying to Faust the thing was male as her momentum carried her forward and directly between 'his' legs. She kicked up and hit directly between the legs, the hardened cartilage of her hoof meeting a particularly soft point of his body. Eric's voice raised an octave as he lurched forward, groaning and holding his manhood. He struggled to remain standing, he was going to have a hard time walking after that, any guy would after getting hit there that hard. Astonishingly, he remained both conscious and on his feet, though he felt like his stomach was crawling into his throat. Bon-Bon smirked victoriously at the expression on the creature's face contorted into pure agony, that had worked like a charm when a complete idiot of a stallion decided to get 'handsy' a few weeks back. She was glad to see that some things never changed, even across species. She attempted to kick out at the human again, but it was too fast, stumbling away from her and causing her hoof to hit nothing but air. The human had pressed his back against the far wall once again and sucked in a sharp breath, briefly occupied with nursing its wounded stallionhood. She took this opportunity to get to her hooves once more and advance on the human when all of a sudden he shot forward, throwing another wild punch. She parried it with her forearm and responded with a strike to the face with the palm of her hand, his head snapped back, but he somehow remained standing as he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her forward before driving his knee into her stomach. Bon gasped, all of the air leaving her lungs at once, as she tried and failed to take in oxygen once again. She hadn't expected such an immediate response from him, she had underestimated the human, and now she was paying the price. Bon grit her teeth and grabbed onto the human's shoulders, ramming another fist into his face, and with a short, breathless yell, she swung him around and into the sofa, which he crashed into, tipping the piece of furniture over and sending several decorative throw pillows flying. The human disappeared behind the tipped sofa, with a startled shout, Silence reigned in the room, with the human remaining unmoving behind the piece of furniture. "Maybe I knocked it out?" The Mare thought, she had hit him pretty hard before she had thrown him, maybe it had been enough to end it. Her eyes wandered over to the prone form of Lyra, who was snoring loudly from her place on the ground, slowly, she began to stir, and it looked like her eyes were slowly beginning to open. Bon allowed herself a sigh of relief, at least she wasn't hurt. The mare slowly approached the couch, cautious of any sign of movement on the part of the human, she slowly peered over the edge of it, only to receive a throw pillow to the face. Whumph! The Earth pony gave a rather embarrassing squawk of surprise as the pillow briefly obscured the entirety of her vision, causing her to stumble back and fall on her back, immediately the human scrambled to his feet from behind the couch and charged up the staircase in a blind panic. The enraged mare recovered and caught sight of the fleeing human, a malignant growl rose out of the mare as she rounded the handrail and stormed up after him, hot on his heels. "Oh no you don't!" She lunged forward, grabbing the human by the ankle and causing him to trip, catching a face-full of stairs in the process. Bon-Bon took advantage of the situation and yanked down on his leg, pulling him down the stairs and hitting his head on every single step. Once he was on the floor the Mare mounted him and began raining punches down on his head. Eric raised his arms, doing his best to defend himself on the floor as blow after blow hammered his arms, leaving them feeling like lead weights as he looked for an opening, desperately rifling through his memories for what to do when he was pinned. One of the pony's punches broke through his defense, catching him in the eye and causing stars to explode in his vision, he couldn't take very many more of those. Somehow his mind finally decided to work and an idea clawed its way into his mind. He pivoted, twisting his hips before bringing one leg up and pushing one of hers down, he looped his right leg around the outside of her left leg, then scissored his legs, kicking them in opposite directions, the mare fell off of him, landing on her back with an "oof!" He took the opportunity to turn the tables on her, mounting her and beginning his own assault on her face, throwing punches that would have made a professional fighter proud. The Mare held her guard with the skill of an experienced fighter, it was only seconds before she had swept him off of her and left him back on the ground, but before she could get on top of him once again, he kicked out at her legs, causing her to collapse on top of him. The two struggled on the floor, wrestling for the advantage over each other, punching and kicking in a frenzy. Eric fought desperately, trying to find an escape more than he was trying to disable the horse-person. Bon-Bon gave it her all, seven months' worth of training coming back to her, she didn't need to kill the human, just disable it. The mare pulled Eric into a headbutt, slamming her forehead into his nose and causing him to recoil, blood spurting from his nose and splattering her. Eric landed with his back to the floor, and once again the mare pinned him and began pounding away at him. "Sweetie Drops? Lyra? Can you hear me?" A voice from outside called, followed shortly by a knocking on the door. "Help!" Bon-Bon called, holding Eric down with all of her strength. "Looks like Derpy came through," she thought, relieved. Eric, on the other hand, heard the voices like someone might hear church bells at a funeral, and began to panic, he thrashed against the mare on top of him with all the strength he had left as the door flew open. "Bon-Bon! What are you-" Eric grabbed the mare's wrists, placed both of his feet in her hips, and lifted her up and off of him. "Wha-!" she flailed slightly as the human lifted her up, and rolled backward, sending the earth-pony flying in the direction of the newcomers, who received her with shouts of surprise. Rolling to his stomach, Eric paid no mind to the new arrivals. Instead, he spent a frantic three seconds looking for something to use as a weapon, his hand closed around the smooth wooden surface of a table leg, he snatched it up holding it like a baseball bat as he stood and got a good look at the other two horse-people. One was male, with light brown fur and a dark brown mane that was messily styled into a fauxhawk, it wore a long trenchcoat with what seemed to be a vest underneath, complete with a bright green bowtie. The other one seemed to be a pegasus, female, with light grey fur and a blonde mane, most notably, her yellow eyes seemed to point different directions. The two were helping the one that had attacked him to her feet, or... hooves. The brown one looked at him with a mixture of shock, curiosity, and recognition? The grey one looked between the three of them with concern, seeming somewhat unsure of what came next. "Back off!" Eric gave the table leg a good swing before holding it behind his head like a baseball bat, ready to knock some heads if any of them came too close. " Give it up freak!" Bon-Bon glared at him, "even if you manage to escape, there's nowhere to run, we've called the guards, and they're on their way now!" "Uhhh, Bon-Bon?" Said Derpy, "I didn't call the guards." Bon-Bon sighed, glancing over to the pegasus with frustration. "That was supposed to be a bluff, thank you for ruining it." She looked back to Eric, narrowing her eyes and scowling. "Regardless of that, if you run, you'll be hunted down." "Better than getting strapped to a dissection table!" Eric retorted. "If I go down, I go down fighting!" The one in the trench coat stepped between the two of them, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Now, now, this doesn't need to get any more violent than it already has, no one is getting dissected." Eric raised an eyebrow, but held his stance, distrustful of anything with a muzzle at this point. "Tell that to that one." He pointed at Bon-Bon with the table leg, "She's the one who jumped me!" The stallion looked to Bon-Bon, who looked back at him indignantly, "He crashed through the roof and knocked Lyra out!" She gestured to the prone form of the unicorn. "What was I supposed to do?!" "Perhaps, negotiate with the human before trying to beat him to a pulp? Practice that whole 'love and tolerance thing the princess is always promoting?" Replied the stallion, giving the mare a moderately annoyed look before looking back to Eric. Bon-Bon looked at the stallion with surprise, "How do you know what a human is?" "It's a rather long story, miss Drops, I'd be happy to tell you after we solve our current conundrum." The stallion nodded to Eric, his voice softening. "That is what you are, correct? A human?" His voice was calm, his hands held up as he gingerly took a step forward, Eric, in return, took a step back, wary of almost everything at this point. Hesitantly, he gave a slow nod, hoping that humans weren't considered a delicacy or monsters or something worse wherever he was. The stallion nodded in return and reached into his coat, producing a small, tube-like object, which he aimed at the human. The young man tensed, muscles tightening as he retreated even further back, his heel brushing the hand of the mint-colored one. "Hey!" Eric raised the table leg in a threatening gesture, thinking he'd been lied to. "Easy now, it's just scanning you." Time Turner reassured him. The device extended, emitting a small light at its tip and making a small, buzzing, very familiar noise. If Eric wasn't in as much pain as he was, that noise alone would have convinced him that he was dreaming. "Wait," Eric lowered the table leg, "Is that a sonic screwdriver?" Both Time Turner's and Derpy's eyes flew wide open, clearly, they weren't expecting him to know what that was, but he had watched enough Doctor Who to know that sound anywhere. "How..." Time Turner looked at a small screen on the side of the screwdriver, then back to Eric with an even more confused expression. "How do you know what this is?" If this horse-person was carrying a sonic screwdriver, then... The bowtie, the trenchcoat, the aversion to violence? Dear God, where was he?! "Doctor?" Eric said hesitantly. The Stallion looked like he had been slapped, he turned back to look at his pegasus companion, who now looked at Eric with no small amount of concern in her crossed- eyes. "W-well," the stallion stammered, looking between the human and the two mares. "It appears we have a great deal to talk about." Eric took a deep breath and lowered the table leg once again, "I-I guess we do." He dropped the wooden weapon and put his hands behind his head, exhaling loudly, before raising his hands, if this was the very the same doctor he knew from the series, then he could be trusted. Of course, this could all be some sort of elaborate trick to get him to lower his guard, but something about the Stallion almost radiated a feeling of authenticity. "All right, I surrender." The doctor gave a sigh of relief as the table leg clattered to the ground. "Alright then, Miss Doo, if you would please contact our resident Princess..." The Stallion suddenly grew wide-eyed once again, reaching his hand out and lunging at Eric. "Lyra, wait! Do-" Something cracked against Eric's skull from behind, and instantly he faceplanted, falling into unconsciousness as a mess of obscure voices exploded around him. Author's Note Well, that was an experience that presented various problems I do not feel like disclosing. You mean when you accidentally deleted half the chapter and had to write the whole thing over again by memory after 3 months? You really do pay attention, don't you? I AM you Angsty! I know what you think before you think about it! Right... and on that note, I wish whoever had stumbled upon this story a good day, and as always, criticism is accepted vehemently. And then you started an entirely different story that made us villains... Ok, I get it. Then you got super lazy and stopped writing anything, Stop- Now you're abandoning the other story and coming back to this one! We've come full circle Angsty!" Yes! Alright! I'm working on Worlds away for a while, I wanted to give my first story some love while I think up some ideas for Inhuman Nature, I refuse to abandon either story and it will probably be years before either story is even halfway done... BUT. I. WILL. KEEP. WRITING!!! *Whispers* He always like this Pinkie? Just smile and nod A.J., don't provoke him. Chapter 4"Well, I can honestly say with confidence that this was the worst first-contact I have attended that didn't end with one party getting disintegrated, maimed, burned, sent backward through time, smashed, assimilated, or generally un-alived." Lyra sat next to the Doctor as he made idle chat with her in front of Bonnie's house while they watched as pair of guards hesitantly assisted Bon-Bon in carrying the human into a cage that sat on a nearby cart. From there they exchanged a few words before nodding the guards nodded and began securing the human's cage. Lyra watched them sullenly as her prize was prepared to be carted off to be studied by the princess. Exactly the opposite of what she was hoping would happen when she finally met a human, even worse, Bonnie had not only made first contact before she did, she attacked the human! Just like she had. The mare made a noise somewhere in between a groan, a sigh, and a wail of self-pity. The memory of what she had done was something that would stay with her for the rest of her life, she just knew it. She had woken up and saw the human swinging around a table leg, and in a moment of panic, she let her worst fears about humans get the better of her, and she had just, reacted. Time turner had scolded her, Bonnie had praised her, and now? Derpy was comforting her. The pegasus crouched down to put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure the dejected unicorn as the earth-pony approached them. "Come on Lyra, it was one little mistake!" She reassured the unicorn. "I can't even count the number of times I've made a slip-up like that." "Trust me," Muttered the doctor as he leaned against the stone wall of the house. " I know better than anypony that she's telling the truth." "I could have started an interspecies war!" Lyra groaned, "I could have given him brain damage!" "True." The Doctor tilted his head from side to side, earning him a smack on the back of the head from Derpy. "OW!" The stallion growled. "Don't hit me! She's the one who hit the human!" Lyra groaned again. "There's no need to worry Ms. Heartstrings," Said the Doctor somewhat begrudgingly. "I examined him personally, and other than a bump on the head he'll be perfectly fine." That did make her feel a little better. "Though, he will have quite the headache when he wakes up." The stallion added. And now the guilt had instantly returned. Bon-Bon elbowed the Doctor in the ribs as she passed by. "What the doctor was trying to say was that your actions today defused a tense situation, Lyra. You should be proud and I'll make sure you receive a proper commendation when I arrive in Canterlot with the human." Time turner grumbled and moved away from the two, muttering to himself about "Mares." Lyra glared at her friend wordlessly and crossed her arms, Bon returned the stare cooly, making a point of looking unashamed of her actions. Which only served to irritate her further, Bon-Bon now knew Lyra was right, and immediately after Lyra had become the luckiest mare in Equestria, she made it her mission to put as much distance as possible between her and the human. "Fine," Lyra thought. You want to do this the hard way? Let's do it the hard way." Lyra held her friend's eyes for a few moments longer before she sighed angrily and got to her hooves, brushing past her friend and grabbing the doctor by the coat as she dragged him over to the cart. "Wh- excuse me!" The stallion stammered. "Shut up, you're coming with me." The unicorn growled, not even looking in his direction. "What do you think you're doing?" Bon-Bon watched her as she dragged the stallion away. "Something I really will be proud of," Lyra replied over her shoulder. "You're not coming with us!" "Kinda funny how you think you can stop me." Lyra replied nonchalantly. "This is a matter of national security!" Bon-Bon fumed, "I can't have you messing anything up!" "And how, exactly do I fit into this?" Time turner grunted. Lyra cocked an eyebrow, "don't act like you weren't already planning on going with them." Both Derpy and Bon-Bon turned their eyes to the stallion as he laughed nervously, tugging at the collar of his undershirt. "Well, he did seem to know me, it's only natural I find out why." Derpy sighed, crossing her arms and following behind Lyra. "Well, I guess that means I'm coming too." "Don't you have mail to deliver?" Bon-Bon eyed the pegasus. "Don't you have a candy store to run?" The cross-eyed mare smiled smugly back at her. BonBon briefly narrowed her eyes at Derpy before massaging her temples briefly with her hands. "None of you have the clearance for this!" She shook her head, wondering how an almost normal morning devolved into this so quickly. "Actually, Ms Drops," the Doctor piped up, still being pulled along by Lyra. "You'll find that Ms. Doo and I will have the clearance, the only pony present who does not, happens to be our resident anthropologist." "Of course." Lyra said, "Why would I? It's not like I've kept Special agent Drops' secret safe for two years. Not like I've earned even a hair's worth of trust, I'm just a civilian, an incompetent, untrained, and foolhardy civilian." "Glad we're on the same page." Bon-bon said icily, earning another scowl from her friend. "Yes, well." The doctor said hesitantly. "I may or may not be able to pull some strings to help you in the clearance departtment, Ms. Heartstrings." "You can?!" The Unicorn spun around, releasing the doctor as she did so with an excited glint in her eye. "Nope! No, he can't!" Bon-Bon interrupted, "not if I have anything to say about it!" Lyra glared in her roommate's direction once again and was about to say something when the Doctor suddenly spoke up once again. "Unfortunately, Miss Drops, I'm going to have to insist that Lyra tags along, her expertise may be of some use to us." Bon-Bon's eyes widened, she hadn't expected this from Time Turner, she had heard of his involvement with several lesser known threats to Equestria, and she knew all about his time-travel adventuring thing, but to think he was trying to strongarm his way past her, who did he think he was? Her hooves ground into the dirt as her face grew as red as the cinnamon candies she sold. "I, said, NO!" The last word was shouted much louder than the mare had intended it to be, and a look in Lyra's direction confirmed that their friendship would suffer from it. Still, she remained resolute in her conviction, Lyra couldn't be drawn into the agency, there was too much at stake, and she knew she would never forgive herself if Lyra ended up like so many other civilians drawn into S.M.I.L.E affairs. The Doctor's face fell into an expression that the agent placed somewhere between boredom and frustration, with a gentle but firm hand, he pried Lyra's grip off his coat, and approached the candymare, speaking softly as he did so. "Ms. Drops, I must ask you to set aside your personal feelings in this endeavor." "For me to set aside my-?!" She stammered, at a loss as to why she was being considered the emotional one. The Doctor looked back to his partner-in-crime and waved a hand. "Ms. Doo, if you would please assist Lyra in convincing the guards, Ms. Drops and I need to speak for a moment." "Right." Derpy smiled at Lyra. "Come on, just follow my lead Lyres." "Oh! Uh, ok..." Lyra looked between Derpy and the two earth ponies before lightly jogging after the pegasus, who had already begun speaking with the guards. The Doctor then turned to face Bon once again, the same look on his face as he spoke to her. "Yes, Ms. Doo, your personal feelings." The Doctor said to her in a hushed tone. "I don't know if you have realized, but anthropology is not a commonly studied subject in Equestria, I have only ever known four other ponies in all of known history to be as well-versed in it as Ms. Heartstrings, do you know who those four were?" "No." "Starswirl the Bearded, Princess Luna, myself, and King Sombra." Bon-Bon was silent, quietly processing the information as the Doctor stared her directly in the eyes. "So, if three of Equestria's most important historical figures were as knowledgeable on the topic of humans as Ms. Heartstrings, what does that tell you?" Starswirl and the Princess were a surprise to Bon-Bon, the Doctor, not so much, but King Sombra of all ponies? The concept of the former dark king of the Crystal Empire taking an interest in humans made her stomach twist in knots. "I'm not one for working with S.M.I.L.E, Ms. Drops, you're all too a little clandestine and ruthless for my liking, makes the acronym seem a bit too ironic, but even I can't ignore the indisputable nature of the signs that surround us. Nor can I ignore your roles in history, I know what's coming, I've known ever since my first and only trip into Equestria's distant future." "Didn't the princesses ban you from doing that?" The Doctor looked to the side, "No." Bon-Bon smirked despite her frustration, "Under threat of having the TARDIS confiscated, if I remember correctly." "How do you even know about that?" The Doctor eyed her suspiciously, "aren't you just a field agent?" "I operate in the same town as you Time Turner, it would have been stupid of the agency not to warn me about you, they used to draw up all sorts of plans to get the T.A.R.D.I.S from you." The doctor snorted, "They've certainly tried to, can you believe they tried sending royal guards to just cart it off at first? It took me leaving a 200-year-old pickled herring in Celestia's pillow seconds before she went to sleep for the night to get her to stop trying." "Sounds like something Discord would do." The mare remarked with a small laugh. "He's the one who suggested I do it." "You went to Discord for help with that?" "No... he sort of... invited himself into the TARDIS and mentioned it in passing." Discord in the TARDIS? The mare felt a shiver crawl down her spine. "And that's a can of worms I will not be trying to open, but anyway, what did you mean by 'what's coming?' " "When I first tried entering your future, I was unable to materialize anywhere within Equss's atmosphere, it was magical interference, the same thing happened when I tried traveling more than 200 years into the past." "What does that mean?" "It means, either Celestia is still kicking 2000 years into the future and predicted that I was going to be, well... me, and try breaking the rules, or there was someone actively preventing me from entering the distant future and past. Though my trip into the past was fruitless, during my breif visit to the future the TARDIS received a file with several extremely vague details about the events of the next few years." "And yet you didn't think to tell us about this...why?" "Because if I did, I risked changing history, the events of this morning were a fixed point in time, Bon-Bon, trust me when I say that you do not want to alter those." The agent shook her head, "Time-travel mumbo-jumbo." The stallion smiled wryly, almost as if reminiscing over something "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey," he muttered, looking over to his companion. "What was that?" "Nothing, nothing." The Doctor waved a hand, his smile disappearing. "Anyways, I couldn't afford to change history so drastically, and without knowing any exact dates, I had no way to prepare for our simian friend's arrival, and could do nothing but wait. "So, what? Is the human special?" "Everyone is special Ms. Drops," the doctor smirked mischievously, "but if you're asking if he is any kind of 'chosen one' or 'messiah, ' then, no, I don't believe he is. He is essentially just as normal as Ms. Heartstrings, minus the ability to use magic." "So, then why is he so important?" "I can't necessarily say for sure, between what I can't say and what I don't know there isn't very much information that details his role in the future." The Mare threw her hands up, "so, the monkey's important, but you can't say why or how, then what can you tell me?" "There are a lot of important people he's connected to, and a good few of them die." The mare flinched. "That's... morbid." "Glimpses into the future usually are, you get used to it." "I don't think I want to." "You don't. But as I was saying, there wasn't much to go on, but it would have taken a blind pony to not recognize what I was reading, and given what's happening around us, I think you already know what's about to happen." Bon-Bon wasn't a fool, and she had been paying close attention to the events of the past few weeks. A sudden meeting of the elements of harmony, her being called in with barely any explanation, the Saddle Arabian embargoes, the silence of the Griffons and the near-manic eagerness of Diamond-dog slaving parties to encroach on Equestrian soil. "So," She said with a slightly wavering voice, "it's war?" The Doctor chuckled grimly, "The first in a millennium, every society faces it at least once in its lifespan, and unfortunately, the time is approaching quickly." "But, what does Lyra have to do with this? What does the human?" The Doctor wiped a hand over his snout, as he looked over to his companion and the unicorn, the pegasus was talking in a rather threatening manner, one of the guards could barely hold her cross-eyed gaze, instead, he stared vacantly forward, the other guard seemed to be... crying. "He could be the key to our survival, could be the key to a lot of things, as I said before, the information I have on him is, inconclusive, but I do know that both he and Lyra survive at the very least a few more years, but If they hadn't met today, I couldn't have guaranteed her survival. " The Doctor bit his lip, sighing. "All you need to know is that Lyra and the Human are fated to meet, the roles the two of them play are ones whose importance cannot be overstated. I understand that you worry for your friend but when it comes to the survival of a people, I cannot take a risk when it comes to something as inconsequential as sentimentality." "You're starting to sound like the Director of S.M.I.L.E." Bon tilted her head. "One, never say that again, two, she has to go, and we need to convince the princesses to let the human go free, which means you have to drop charges." Bon-Bon sighed, "yeah, I saw that one coming." She rubbed her jaw where the human had hit her, as much as she hated to say it, the human packed one heck of a punch. "You realize you're going to have to literally pry Princess Twilight off of the human to prevent her from trying to study it." "Him, Miss Drops, him, he is a sentient, and deserves at the very least to be referred to as one." She sighed, "fine, him." The Doctor allowed himself to smile once again. "Wonderful! I'm so glad we could come to an agreement on the matter, now, shall we relieve the poor stallions on that wagon before Derpy causes any lasting mental trauma?" The cage was covered with a brown tarp that Bon-Bon had pulled from a shed near their home, once they were sure the wagon would attract as little attention as it could possibly attract. The propulsion spell was started once again and the wagon began to wheel itself through the streets of ponyville. With the cage taking up a substantial portion of the wagon's bed, two of the wagon's four passengers were forced to sit on the floor of the bed, with the two that remained allowed to take the two remaining seats on either side of the wagon. Lyra had opted to sit on the floor, with her back pressed up against the bars of the cage, the Doctor had joined her sitting parallel to her as Derpy and Bonnie took their own seats. Bonnie had offered her the seat, Lyra guessed it was a sort of apology, she didn't take it, and refused to make eye contact with her as she made small talk with the doctor. It wasn't long before the wagon drew the eyes of the town's ponies. Conversations were stopped and then continued with new topics in hushed tones as everyone in the town strained to get a look at the wagon and who was riding in it. Lyra instinctively flinched back from the attention, unused to so many eyes on her, she suddenly flicked her gaze to the wooden boards of the wagon's bed as her name was whispered and the very same rumors that she had heard whispered in the halls of every orphanage and boarding school she had ever attended returned to plague her. There were the ones about her, how she had cheated at the entrance exams at the home for the magically gifted, or how she was obsessed with make-believe monsters. She had heard it all before and had grown numb to the judgment of strangers, after all, she knew herself, and that was enough for her. But the worst rumors were about the people she hadn't known, the rumors about how they had abandoned her at the foot of an orphanage in Fillydelphia at the first chance they had. She had never known her parents, her last name was made by one of the caretakers at the orphanage when she had discovered her special talent. She had left Fillydelphia as soon as she had scraped together enough bits to get a train ticket to Canterlot, but those rumors seemed to chase after her, no matter how far she ran. The rumors were not limited to her, however, Time Turner's, Derpy's, and even Bon-Bon's name were whispered in the crowd, and soon Lyra found that the Doctor's and Derpy's name soon overshadowed her own, a fact that she took comfort in as they passed through the town proper and rolled slowly up to the large ramp that led to Princess Twilight's castle. Right in front of the entire company of royal guards that stood watch, three guards broke ranks and began to approach the wagon. "Oh, when did they get there?" The Doctor asked nonchalantly. "This morning," Bon-Bon replied, "they were sent from Canterlot for the protection of the elements of harmony during their-" Without warning, the great wooden doors of the crystal castle slammed open with a massive, resounding "BANG! " and from within the castle, a pink-colored rocket hurtled down the ramp faster than anypony could or should be able to run. If the ponies at the bottom of the ramp were not denizens of Ponyville, perhaps they would have been shocked, maybe even a little scared. However, they were, and every pony on the wagon, including the guards, who had been stationed in the town for two years, knew what was coming. The guards at the ramp, however, did not. "Halt!" "Oh dear," The Doctor muttered in slight amusement, "here we go again." A sergeant stepped out of the ranks of soldiers and placed himself in the path of the pink blur, holding out a hand in an attempt to stop the blur. He might as well been attempting to stop the blowing of the wind. "Halt!" The sergeant commanded once again, his voice beginning to waver as the pink blur took shape. It was less than fifty yards from the bottom of the ramp when the guardspony began stumbling backward, his voice cracking as the earth pony lost no speed whatsoever and showed no intention of changing direction. As the pink blur finally reached him, the stallion caught of brief view of blue eyes, a huge pink mane, and a smile so big it could have been mistaken for the moon if wasn't for the mare it was attached to. Then the blur was past him, heading straight for the wagon as the sound of a party horn sounded through the air, finally the blur came to an immediate stop in front of the wagon. Allowing the occupants to see the pink mare garbed in a short skirt and light blue T-shirt as the sound of a part blower split the air. "WELCOME TO-!" The mare cut her cry short as she realized that she recognized everyone within the wagon, and while her comically large smile remained, the confusion in her eyes was evident. "Hi, Pinkie," Lyra said, giving her friend a small wave, one that the pink mare briefly and enthusiastically returned. "Hiya Lyres!" The doctor gave the party mare a polite nod, "Good morning, Ms. Pie, forgive my abruptness, but aren't you supposed to be in a meeting?" "Uh-huh!" Pinkie nodded fervently. "Princess Celestia called us all together for something, I don't remember what it was about because when she was talking I got the feeling somepony new came to Ponyville!" The mare bounced in place excitedly for a moment as her eyes scanned her surroundings for the somepony in question. "I didn't know anypony was coming, but I always have my emergency welcome-to-ponyville-party-supplies on hand!" The mare gestured back to the entrance of the castle, where a large banner reading "welcome to ponyville!" in big yellow letters. The Doctor raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, but gave no other indication of shock at the display, no one would have been surprised even if Pinkie had pulled an entire cake out of her mane for this exact occasion. "I really, really REALLY wanted to go and plan a bigger party, but Twilight wouldn't let me go, but then I felt the new pony coming closer and closer and I just couldn't sit still and it felt like I was gonna explode!" Pinkie threw her arms out and mimicked the sound of an explosion. "Pinkie!" A distant and incredibly irate voice called from within the castle. A small, purple-tinged flash appeared at the entrance of the castle, and a very upset alicorn appeared, looked up to see the banner strung up in the entrance to her castle, pinched the bridge of her muzzle, and then disappeared in another purple flash before appearing closer. Despite the tiara on her head, the princess wore little else to signify her presence as royalty, she wore a set of simple yet formal clothes that likely had been made by Rarity. "Pinkie! You can't just run off during a meeting concerning the security of the entire country just to, oh, who am I kidding, of course you were going to do that." At the sight of the youngest princess, the entirety of those present with the exception of the Doctor and Pinkie either kneeled or bowed their heads in respect. Twilight blushed slightly in embarrassment before hastily gesturing everyone present to their hooves before she took notice of the wagon and blinked in surprise. "Doctor?" "Good morning your highness!" The Doctor waved. "Quite a nice day for a meeting, isn't it?" Twilight approached the wagon and saw the other three ponies. "Lyra? Bon-Bon? I expected Derpy to be with Time Turner, but what are you doing here?" Twilight looked at the covered cage, "and what is that?" "Good morning, your highness." Bon-Bon said curtly, "we have something we need to show you and the other princesses," she nodded to the cage. "This is it." Pinkie also took notice of the massive object and within a second was behind the wagon. "What is it?" She asked reaching for the tarp. "Ap! Ap! Ap!" The Doctor swatted her hand away. "This is an important.... um...." "Object?" Bon-Bon offered. "Object! Yes, yes, an important and very, very secret object that must be brought to the princesses at once!" Pinkie squinted at the doctor, and looked back at the covered cage, she stared at it for a moment in silence before her pupils shrunk comically and she gasped so deeply it felt as if she was trying to inhale the cage. "The new pony's in there!" Pinkie shouted. "What?!" Twilight leaned over to see, eyes wide. The pink pony lunged for the tarp as the Doctor and Bon-Bon attempted to block her from getting it off, meanwhile Twilight demanded an explanation from Lyra, who tried to stammer out a reply as the two guards who were driving the wagon quickly made themselves scarce, not wanting to get in the way of the scuffle. "Hey! What the hay is going on?!" Everypony present looked up to see two pegasi flying over to the scene, neither needed introduction. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy landed and took in the scene for a moment before Pinkie opened her mouth again. "The Doctor kidnapped the new pony!" "What?!" "Oh my!" Fluttershy clamped her hands over her mouth. "Why?" "I did not- ah!" The Doctor shouted as he was shoved out of the way and off the wagon by Rainbow Dash as she grabbed the tarp and prepared to pull it off, but was stopped by Bon-Bon and Derpy as they now struggled with two opponents. Bon-bon quickly and respectfully placed herself between the cage and the cyan pegasi, who looked at Bon-Bon in shock and confusion before glaring at her. "Move!" The pegasi attempted to shove her way past the earth pony, who returned the shove with equal force. "Ms. Dash, I know this looks bad, but you need to-" "Buck that! I'm saving that pony, kidnapper!" The two began to struggle, and soon they toppled over the end of the wagon and on top of the Doctor, who wheezed in pain. Derpy struggled to hold Pinkie back from jumping onto the wagon as Twilight continued to demand answers from Lyra, who could barely compose a sentence through her panic and confusion. Finally, a voice cut through the chaos. "STOP!" Everybody froze before instinctively gaining their hoot and looking around for a moment, that volume and commanding tone could have only belonged to Princess Luna, and as everyone turned, two alicorns and an earth-pony stood behind them. The Diarchs stood at least a foot over everyone present, garbed in robes befitting royalty. Princess Celestia strode forward, her face calm and the small, mischievous, and benevolent smirk on her face as present as ever on her face. "Doctor, up to some manner of trouble as ever I see." "Yes, well, your highness, it has been an...'interesting' morning." The Doctor replied, picking himself off the ground. "So it would seem, am I to believe Pinkie in that you have kidnapped a pony, and then brought them here to show to us?" "We did not kidnap anypony, your highness!" Derpy spoke up. "Then you wouldn't have any problem removing that there tarp, now would ya?" Applejack strode forward, pointing at the cage with suspicion in her green eyes. "A.J! Where's Rarity?" Dash called from beside the Wagon. The mare rolled her eyes "You know her, so set on making sure she didn't ruin that fancy dress of hers, she thought this was a Pinkie problem and wanted 't wait it out in the castle. Princess Luna, her face one of slight annoyance, spoke up, "I agree with the element of Honesty's proposal, if there is nothing to hide, then there is no reason to hide whatever it is you have behind the covering." Twilight gave a relieved sigh before her horn lit up purple and the tarp around the cage glowed the same color. "Princess!" The Doctor cautioned, "I would not do that!" "Why not, Doctor?" Twilight stared at the stallion accusatorily. "What is under that tarp should not be revealed until we are in a more secure environment, I am dearly sorry for interrupting your meeting, but unfortunately what is under that tarp is a matter of national security and should not be unveiled in a public setting such as this!" "So," Princess Luna, "there is not a pony in a cage under that veil." She said with narrowed eyes. "No, your Highness," the Doctor said relieved to be in control of the situation again. "There is not." Celestia stared at the doctor for a few moments before addressing Applejack. "Is he lying, Applejack?" The mare brushed the front of her stetson away from her eyes and set her hands on her hips, staring at the stallion intently before giving a short sigh. "Not as far as I can tell, princess." Celestia, satisfied with the element of Honesty's answer, nodded. "Very well, Doctor, you may bring the cart into the-" "Ah, Christ, my friggin' head." All eyes turned to look at the back of the wagon where the voice had come from, and everypony knew it had come from within the cage. Both Diarchs stared at the Doctor, who laughed nervously. "Twilight." Celestia said, "Please remove the tarp." "Bollocks." The Doctor sighed. Twilight gripped the tarp in her magic once more and lifted the tarp up so that anyone present could get a good look at it, Pinkie, now unhindered by Derpy, hopped onto the wagon, the party blower still in her mouth as she locked eyes with the creature in the cage, the party blower sagged in her mouth before falling out entirely as her jaw dropped and Dash appeared behind her. "What, is, that?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Author's Note 12/7/20: Minor Plot and Gramatical tweaks. Chapter 5Eric rolled over onto his back as the blurred soup of words and sounds that had plagued him ever since he returned to consciousness a few minutes ago slowly grew more cohesive. He had put together the feeling of movement and several voices, then more voices a few minutes later, one of them was this high-pitched, shrill voice that made it feel like a mixture between a xenomorph and icepick was trying to burrow its way out of his skull. Suddenly things were shaking, and it sounded like a scuffle was happening outside the dark realm of his consciousness. Finally, he scraped together enough sense to get his eyes open and took stock of his surroundings as the shaking finally came to a stop, finally, the full measure of the pain in his head hit him, and as he came to his senses he let out a groan. "Christ, my friggin' head." Wherever he was it was dark, and the cold, metal floor indicated that he likely hadn't dreamed the last hour or so of his suddenly very strange life. He finally managed to force himself into a sitting position and reached out for something to steady himself on as he stood. His hand wrapped around a cool metal bar. He frowned as he reached out his other arm hoping not to find another bar, he did, he found another, and another, and by then he knew his worst fears had been true. He was in a cage, being carted off to God knows where to be sliced open and studied by those horse-people. His mind trembled as he thought of the dark things that would be happening to him. Suddenly without warning the darkness was stolen and replaced by light, blasting his eyeballs and temporarily blinding him as he felt himself suddenly jolted forward by a sudden shift in weight. For a few more moments there was silence, and then; "What, is, that?" The voice wasn't one of the ones he remembered, it was gravely, tomboyish, and carried a less cautious tone to it. He managed to open his eyes and was greeted by the pinkest creature that he had ever laid eyes on in his life, the only think that was distinctly not pink about the creature was the blue T-shirt she wore and the pair of bright blue eyes that stared at him in a mixture of confusion, curiosity, and wonder. Behind the pink one was another horse-person, a pegasus dressed in a long blue varsity jacket with a white t-shirt underneath and a pair of faded, ripped jeans. His eyes, however, were drawn to the short rainbow-colored hair that sat on top of it's head. It's magenta eyes stared at him with curiosity as well as suspicion. "What, what is it?" Another horned head poked around the back of the wagon he realized he was in and he took stock of another kind of horse-person, one with both a horn and wings. Purple seemed to be the main color of this one, the only color differentiation with this one was the streak of pink that ran through it's mane. It wore a bit more formal clothing, a dress shirt and jacket paired with dress pants. But what drew his eyes was the crown on it's head. As soon as their eyes made contact, something flared in its eyes, some kind of excitement. "You tell me, Twi, you're the egghead." The pegasus replied with an arched eyebrow. "I-I don't know!" The words were said like a child receiving a Christmas gift, one that they couldn't wait to open. "I do." Another, vaguely familiar voice said, hesitant, but confident in what she was speaking about. Another Unicorn joined the group staring at him, and Eric recognized it as the Unicorn who had fainted when he had fell through the roof of the home. It seemed to look at him in the very same way the pink one did, but with less curiosity and more excitement, and a little bit of relief. "He's a human." "A human?" The Cyan one looked to the fainter, "Those are the things you were always on about, right, Lyra?" "Yeah." "It kinda looks like we do." The pink one finally spoke "Except it doesn't have any fur, and it's hooves are funny looking. "They're called feet, Pinkie." The one called Lyra said, "and 'it' is a he, and 'he' can understand every word you're saying." "Really?!" The purple one, Twi, suddenly climbed up onto the wagon and crouched in front of the cage in front of him, if he could have scooted back further he would have, but his back was already to the bars. "Can you understand me?" The purple 'pegacorn' said to him, he didn't answer. "Caaaan yooou" the pink one appeared next to the purple one saying the words slowly "Unnnndeeeerrstaaaaaand heeeeeerrrrr?" 'Twi' giggled slightly at the pink one's antics, and Eric couldn't help but smile slightly at the goofy display, the pink one seemed to lock on to his smile, and produced one of her own that was three times the size of his. The pink one, if Eric remembered was called Pinkie, pretty derivative, but fitting to say the least. She had an infectous smile that left the small mirthful smirk on his face for a few seconds even after Twi pushed pinkie away. "What're ya'll doing' back there?" Eric actually blinked in surprise at the next figure he saw, a bright orange mare dressed in a red and black flannel shirt and jeans, coupled with a large blond mane a large-brimmed cowboy hat that gave her an overall southwestern America feel about her. Her green eyes finally settled on him, "now that, is a weird-lookin' critter!" "Can....can I see?" a small, timid voice came. "What am I, a zoo exhibit?" Eric thought to himself. The mare that came next peeked at him through a large pink mane,her green eyes interested but fearful until she got a good look at him. "Oh, my, he's....he's......" "Weird?" The cyan one offered. "Scared." The yellow pegasus said, nervously toying with a strand of her mane. "I've never seen any animals like him before." "Probably because he's not an animal." Lyra remarked irritably, "and I'm sure he doesn't like being stared at like an exhibit in a zoo!" "Quite right you are, Ms. Heartstrings!" A familiar voice replied, the Doctor came into view, ushering the group away from the wagon and nearly dragging Twilight away from the cage. "Our dear friend here is just sapient as you or I, and understands every last word you say to him. " "Can he talk?" The cyan pegasus said skeptically "Like... a parrot would?" "Just like you or me Ms.Dash, he is completely capable of independent speech." "Oh yeah?" 'Dash' looked over to Eric, a smirk on her face "then why hasn't he said anything?" "He did, Dash." Twilight replied, "he complained about his head?" The pegasus blushed slightly, and she absent-mindedly scratched the back of her head. "Oh, yeah, forgot about that." "No reason to feel ashamed, Miss Dash," The Doctor came into view. "I'm sure we are all a bit confused, and maybe even a bit afraid." The Doctor made eye contact with Celestia, she shook her head, letting him know that the news hadn't been broken to the elements yet. The Doctor was about to turn back but noticed something, both Diarchs seemed, anxious, he would have chalked it up to the prospect of war looming on the horizon, but neither of them had looked anything close to nervous when they first appeared, but now, after the word "human" was being thrown around... "The answer to your question Ms. Dash, is as Ms. Fluttershy suggested," the doctor said, filing away the question for later "he is scared by the numerous strange and unfamiliar creatures surrounding him, and he does not know whether to speak and risk angering creatures he understands very little of or to stay silent and hope that we do not cut him apart to study him." Fluttershy gasped, "That would be horrible! Who would do something like that?!" The Doctor frowned, "The world is not so nice as we perceive it to be, my dear mare, let's just say that our friend here was lucky that he landed here and not a place like the Griffon Kingdom. " A long silence followed. "But, enough about that, I do believe, It's time for some introductions!" The Doctor then turned to Eric, who flinched as the rest of those present turned their eyes upon him as well. "Now, I understand that you are likely very afraid and confused, but I'm going to ask you to trust me, and if you didn't realize, trust goes both ways, so if you trust me, then there might come a time where you might need me to trust you, and I'll think back to this time and I'll think; "ok, he trusted me, so I'll trust him." Eric was a bit confused, but he believed he got the point of the Doctor's words. "So, will you trust me, and answer a couple of questions? If you do, we'll let you out." "We will?!" An annoyed and very familiar voice said indignantly. "Doctor, he is a-" Eric bristled at the sound of his attacker's voice, and his tension was noticed by everyone present. "Miss Drops, while I appreciate your concern, I believe I will trust the Doctor in this matter, the 'human' is he called?" The doctor looked to the speaker and nodded, to Eric it was like the voice he heard was designed to convey a feeling of calm and kindness. For one reason or another, the voice calmed him enough to offer a nod. The gathered mares seemed to bristle at the confirmation of his sapience, with Twilight looking as if she was about to jump for joy. "Wonderful, now, may we know your name?" Eric hesitated for a moment before answering. "Eric." There was a moment of shocked and excited silence between the given answer and the next question, "Eric, that's a fair name." The Doctor smiled. "Ok, Eric, do you know where you are?" He shook his head. "Do you know how you got here?" Another shake of the head. "WAIT, wait, wait, wait!" Twilight suddenly held her hands out, much to the chagrin of both the Doctor and Eric, who flinched at the sudden outburst. "I need something to write on!" Without warning, the alicorn disappeared in a flash of bright purple light, causing Eric to leap to his feet, pressing his back once again as his breathing reached a panicked crescendo and for a moment Lyra feared the human was going to try to run. "Easy now!" The doctor held his hands up in a calming manner, "It's fine, everything's fine!" "W-what, was t-that?" Eric stammered, stunned by the clear violation of the laws of physics. "That.... is a rather complicated kind of power that would take more time than we have to explain, so bear with me here, we're going to call it magic for now." The Doctor sighed, and Lyra noticed a slight twinge of irritation in the stallion's voice as he spoke. "Magic?" Eric stared at the doctor, "Right," "Doctor?" Celestia's voice rang out from beyond the human's range of sight, and the human became even more curious as to who the voice belonged to. "Perhaps we should allow the human to leave the cage?" Luna's voice finished her sister's thought, "perhaps it would be better to continue such conversations within the castle walls." The Doctor nodded. "Indeed." Looking to Bon-Bon, the Doctor held his hand out for the key to the door, which she reluctantly relinquished, the doctor then inserted the key into the lock with one hand and flung the door open with the other. "Terribly sorry about all of this," the doctor said to him. "I'm afraid the people here are a little wary of outsiders, though not without good reason. Tentatively, Eric got to his feet, slowly peeking his head out to look at his surroundings, as the tarp that had covered the cage had only been lifted so he could see out of the front. He took in his surroundings, he appeared to be in the town he had seen when he had made his involuntary base-jump into this acid-trip of a world. The mares and stallion stepped back as the human nervously stepped out of the cage, and hopped off of the bed of the wagon. "Now, I think-" The Doctor was pushed aside as Eric's hand was grasped tightly. "HIERICMYNAMESPINKIEPIEITSOSSUPERDUPERGREATTOMEETYOUWELCOMETOPONYVILLE!!!!!!" Eric felt his hand nearly torn off as the pink mare shook his hand enthusiastically, smiling so brightly he thought her teeth might reflect the sunlight and blind him. "ERICDOYOULIKEPARTIESILOVETHEMIHOPEYOUDON'TMINDIFITHROWONEFORYOU!" "Uh..." The mare gasped comically. "INEEDTOGOMAKETHECAKE!" The mare shot off in the direction of the town but was stopped by the southern-looking mare, who caught Pinkie, who was still running in place even as she was held back by her friend, her feet kicked up dust in a cloud around her legs as the mare realized she wasn't going anywhere. "Now hold on there sugarcube," the mare said, "we still have a meeting to attend." The party mare hung her head in disappointment and much to Eric's surprise, Pinkie's mane went from poofy and disorganized to straight in a matter of seconds. "Awwww!" "Don't you fret now Pinkie," the orange one chuckled, "ya can always do it after the meeting." The mane suddenly regained its poofy nature and Pinkie's head shot up excitedly. "OKAY!" The mare flew from her friend's grip and suddenly wrapped Eric in a hug, then disappeared, shooting back off to the direction of the castle. Eric blinked, and suddenly took notice of the cupcake that had been pressed into his hands without him even realizing. "How...." "Ah wouldn't think about it too much sugar cube." The orange mare gave another chuckle, as she approached the human, he meekly offered a hand, which the mare took in surprisingly strong grip and shook gently and firmly. "Mah name's AppleJack, but mah friends call me A.J." "Eric." he replied, noting how he felt more at ease around the country mare, probably because she reminded him of home. "Pleasure to meet ya Eric." "Eric....." The name was spoken by the same mares he hadn't been able to see before, as he turned to see who said voices belonged to, he was struck with awe, the two mares that stood almost inscrutably before him towered almost a foot and a half over almost everyone present, one of the two's coat gleamed snow-white, and her mane seemed to be made purely of liquid color, flowing ethereally in the non-existent wind, her pinkish eyes shone with a benevolent curiosity that set him at even more ease than Applejack had. The other mare's coat was an impossibly deep shade of dark blue, and her mane flowed in a similar manner to her counterpart, but instead of a myriad of colors this one's mane seemed to be made of the night sky itself, complete with stars that twinkled within. Her cerulean eyes seemed to twinkle with excitement, but that was the only sign of emotion on her otherwise expressionless face. The awestruck human stared for a few moments, then took notice of the crowns both mares wore, it took two seconds before he put two and two together and decided to make a good first impression. He kneeled, bowing his head, and spoke with as much respect, eloquence, and dignity as he could manage. "Your majesties, it is an honor and a privilege to make your acquaintance." He remained there for a moment, silence overtaking the group until he heard the Doctor's barely audible scoff, and the equally quiet "oof!" as Derpy elbowed him in the ribs. The Doctor glared at his companion for a moment before taking notice of the diarchs' responses, they seemed....confused, unsure of themselves, not openly, they were far too experienced rulers for any uncontrolled displays of emotion, but the Doctor had known both mares long enough to notice the chinks in their proverbial armor. Celestia seemed predominantly stressed, confused, but there was a bit of happiness there as well, and was that nostalgia he detected? Last he checked, it was Luna who had been the more interested in humanity. The lunar princess was nearly as stressed as her sister, but it was buried under excitement and expectation mixed with confusion, no wonder she was trying so hard to look expressionless, it looked to the Doctor as if Luna was about to explode in a mess of emotions at any second. "The honor is ours, dear human, it has been many an age since I last laid eyes on your kind." Celestia intoned, her smile widening as she spoke "You may rise," Luna added, a small smile of her own forming one her muzzle. Eric did so, standing and clasping his hands behind his back. "Thank you, your highnesses." The Doctor took notice of the laugh Luna suppressed rather well, but he couldn't for the life of him understand why the Lunar diarch would be laughing. "Curioser and curioser." The stallion thought to himself. "I apologize for the disruption, your highnesses," Eric continued, "I understand my arrival has interrupted a meeting between you and your....advisors." "Advisors...." Celestia smiled. "It is no trouble, my friend, we had barely even begun before Pinkie decided to disappear, she is a rather, unique individual, but there are seldom friendlier ponies in this town than her." Eric simply nodded in response. "But it is we who should be apologizing." Luna cut in. "It is not our custom for a visitor in our lands to be caged as you have been." "It is.....understandable why I was, your highnesses, I happened to crash through the roof of one of your subjects." Eric absent-mindedly rubbed the back of his head. "A well-trained one at that, if I were in Miss...?" He looked over to where his former attacker stood leaning against the wagon, watching him. The mare nodded in an apathetic manner. "Bon-Bon." "If I were in miss...Bon-Bon's position, I would have likely perceived my arrival as an attack of sorts as well, I am willing to forgive the misunderstanding." Both Diarchs seemed to pause at his words, and seemed to suddenly become aware of the bruises and cuts he had sustained. "You...were attacked?" Celestia whispered. Luna turned her eyes to Bon-Bon who whithered under the suddenly wrathful gaze of the lunar princess. "By her?!" Luna said, her voice containing a well-hidden venom. The princess began moving in the mare's direction but was stopped by Celestia, who shook her head. Luna offered Bon-Bon another glare, leaving the earth-pony scared and confused. "It is fine, your highnesses," Eric said respectfully, confused as to why one of a nation's leaders would get so mad at one of their subjects on a stranger's behalf. "We happened to trade blows, so I consider us on even ground." "That is very decent of you, good sir," Luna smiled at him. "I am L- PrincessLuna, diarch of the moon." "And I am Princess Celestia, diarch of the sun." The white mare introduced herself, clasping one hand over the other and offering a small, respectful bow. " We are delighted to make your acquaintance." Eric nodded respectfully once again. "Sir Eric, as you have discerned, we were about to begin a meeting discussing important affairs regarding our nation," Luna explained, "We must return to these affairs, however, I believe that princess Twilight would be more than happy to allow you to wait within her castle until said meeting has concluded. If you would not mind, my sister and I would like to speak with you in earnest about your plans for the future after our business has come to an end." "It would be a pleasure, your highness." "Wonderful," Celestia smiled and turned behind her. "Sergeant!" She called gently. "Your Highness?" The sergeant who had stood in Pinkie's way walked forward and stood at attention. "Please take care of the wagon Mr. Turner had brought with him." "It will be done, your excellency." The princess gave the Sergeant a respectful nod, and the Stallion turned, giving orders to several royal guards, who broke ranks, mounted the wagon, and began driving it off to some unknown location. "Very good. It was once again a pleasure to meet you Mr?" "Carter, your highness." "Eric Carter." Celestia said, smiling "I believe I speak for my sister as well as myself when I say that we eagerly await our next meeting." "I look forward to it, your highness." "Celestia! If you would please wait a moment!" The Doctor strode forward. "Yes, Doctor?" Celestia's smile grew more mirthful as the stallion approached. "I hope It would not be too much to ask a favor of you?" Celestia raised an eyebrow, "what would that favor be?" "My companions and I wish to join Mr. Carter in Twilight's castle, I have a few more questions I would like to ask him, and Ms. Heartstrings has been something of an independent anthropologist for several years." Luna's eyes flashed, and she looked over to the unicorn, who gulped nervously. "Is this true?" "Yes, your highness," Lyra replied meekly. "Then I see no problem with allowing you to join him, unless you have any objections, Mr. Carter?" Celestia looked to the human. Eric blinked, caught off guard by the question, he looked over to the Doctor who nodded back to him, Derpy waved in a friendly manner, as did Lyra, who seemed to beg him to say yes with her eyes. Bon-Bon seemed indifferent but nodded to him once again. With a bit of an inward sigh, Eric turned back to Celestia; "I see no problem with it, your highness." "Very well, AppleJack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, we must continue with our meeting, Sergeant, please have some of your guards accompany Mr. Carter, the doctor, and his companions to Princess Twilight's library, please. "Yes, your highness." The three mares that were called strode forward, Applejack looked to Eric, smiling to him and tipping her stetson to him as they stood nearby the princesses, Celestia's horn glowed for a moment, and in a brilliant flash of light, the five of them disappeared. The sergeant called out four names. "Privates Sundance, Wintersong, Tango, and Corporal Obsidia," Two stallions and two mares stepped forward, spears presented. "Sir!" They stood to attention. "Escort the princesses' guests to the castle library and stand guard!" "Yes sir!" A black mare garbed in golden armor strode over to Eric, appraising him silently but not letting any sign of personal opinion show. "This way please, sir." The other three guards took up a position around the group as the corporal began to lead them up the ramp. But before they could make any real progress, a purple flash came from behind them. "Finally! Sorry, it took me so long, it took forever to find a pen that would still wri-" Behind them, princess Twilight stood, a pen behind her ear and a large stack of papers in her arm as she looked around. "Oh come on!" She stamped a hoof, not even noticing the group on the ramp, "where could they have-" The purple alicorn gasped, "The meeting!" In a flash of purple light and blank paper, the alicorn was gone once again, her departure sending the papers in her arms flying everywhere. Eric turned around taking a deep breath and letting it out in a prolonged "Phheeeeew!" He flinched as he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked to his left to see the Doctor. "Welcome to Equestria my friend, hold tight onto your sanity, and don't try too terribly hard to explain everything you see." Author's Note This is probably the most consistent I have ever been with posts so far, I doubt the trend will last but here's to hoping. "Slam!" "ANGSTY!" Oh god, what now! "Do you have any fat free milk!?" What? "Do. You. Have. Any. Fat. Free. MILK?! I need it for Eric's welcome to ponyville cake!!!! What, but you're...... that's not even......ugh, it's in the fridge. "What drawer!?" Second on the left!" There it is! Thanks Angsty! Slam! ........ I'm not sure what's gonna give out first, my will or my sanity. Chapter 6Chapter 6 Eric had kept his distance from the others ever since they had entered the castle, which, much to his amazement, was a grand labyrinth of a building, it's halls seeming to branch into smaller halls like the entire building was some sort of enormous crystal tree. Other guards patrolled the halls in threes, and seldom did their eyes not fall and remain on him as the group walked through halls and ascended several sets of stairs. He fell behind the group proper, hoping to stay outside of anyone's range of sight. The human was unnerved, to say the least, he assumed that most human beings would be after experiencing what he had, still, he was patting himself on the back for the way he managed to pull himself together in front of the diarchs. He had gotten a "benevolent ruler" kind of feel from both of them, and that had set some of his anxiety at ease, though by no means did that mean his anxiety had disappeared. He was on a different planet, populated by creatures capable of magic and building massive crystal castles, and met one of the most powerful fictional characters he had ever known of only to make the discovery that he was now a horse-person. He had no way of telling what the future held for him, and that worm of discontent and paranoia was making its way deeper into his mind, whispering worst-case scenarios to him as his eyes explored the castle's interior. The guards leading the group had said little, likely maintaining the discipline pounded into them by whatever training they underwent, but Eric knew when he was being watched, the guards' ears swiveled his way every so often, and he would just barely catch the movement of their eyes flicking away from him as he turned his head their way. He might have been welcome here, but he was far from comfortable. The Doctor, his companion, and the other two mares spoke in a lively manner, with the doctor even trading a few words with the corporal leading them. Both would cast looks his way from time to time, he avoided meeting their eyes. His thoughts wandered to Princess Celestia's words, his 'plans for the future,' the gravity of the words hadn't dawned on him until then. As far as he knew, some random cosmic coin-toss had ended up throwing him into some kind of tear in reality, one where the doctor existed, horse people used magic to teleport, and castles could be built out of crystal. It stood to reason that no one on this planet knew how to put him back on Earth, and he could very well be stuck here for the rest of his life. The human clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a noise that caused the ears of all the ponies to swivel towards the noise, the Doctor turned his head to look at the human, giving him a reassuring nod and a small smile, as he continued to trade words with the unicorn who walked next to him. Soon her gaze had fallen on him as well, Eric returned the Doctor's nod, but his expression remained the same, his mouth formed a grim line as his eyes returned to the floor, he retreated into his own mind, and pondered the struggles of finding some sort of normal life here, this place, this world was clearly operating under a different set of rules than Earth was, not an entirely different set, but different enough to seem extraordinary to someone like him. He vaguely noticed one member of the group fall behind the others to walk beside him as the group ascended a long, winding staircase that brought them several stories up. He tried not to pay the pony any mind, hoping that whoever it was didn't try to speak with him. His mind raced to think about how he could go about making a life for himself here, this place seemed to be on a medieval level of technology, supplemented by magic, he could likely make a good deal of money selling human concepts of technology, but that was a steep slope, one that he might not want to go down. Manual labor was always an option, he wasn't a stranger to it, but he wondered if any of the ponies would even want to hire an alien, probably not. Then there was the problem of xenophobia, he was likely to be seen as a bit of a freak to the Denizens of the planet. "Or maybe not...." he thought, remembering that the princess had said something about seeing his kind before, and the mint-colored one had known he was a human. Maybe humans existed somewhere on the planet? His thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on his shoulder, he jumped, suddenly looking to his left to see the mint-colored unicorn looking at him sheepishly. "Um, sorry, but we're here." The group had arrived at a set of doors more eloquently designed than the others, which was saying something considering the ornate patterns on most of the doors. The three other ponies entered, talking amongst themselves as the corporal led the way. The two guards flanking them strode forward and opened the doors for them to enter. Little was needed to be said, he looked to the unicorn, trying to think of a way to separate himself from the pony as quickly as possible. He stepped back and politely gestured for the pony to enter. "Ladies first." He muttered. The unicorn stood unmoving for a moment, staring at him blankly just long enough to make it awkward before she snapped out of her stupor and she turned somewhat red in embarrassment. "Oh, thanks!" She finally replied, scratching the back of her head for a moment before nodding a thank you and entering ahead of him. He hesitated as he glanced at the two guards by the door, who blankly stared back at him, he became vaguely aware of the guardspony standing behind him, waiting for him to enter to ensure the guard would be the last to enter, he strode forward with a silent sigh. Hearing the clopping of the guard as he entered the room behind the human. The remaining two guards closed the door behind him, and the sound of the doors closing reverberated around the somewhat large room, making him feel somewhat small, as the guard took a position by the entrance. The library was a big one, with the first floor lined with close to twelve large shelves of assorted books, ending in a large sitting area to his left. Directly ahead of him a staircase that led up to a balcony, which overlooked the room and held a few dozen more rows of bookshelves, light poured in from six windows evenly spaced across the north wall of the room, evenly split between the first and second floors. The light from the windows was supplemented by a large chandelier that held several glowing crystals instead of candles and seemed to be more than capable of adequately lighting the room by itself. The room stoked Eric's sense of wonder, he had enjoyed reading, though during his time in college, he mostly listened to audiobooks in order to multitask. The library was big enough to distance himself from the rest of the group and maybe gain some general knowledge of his new environment. He hazarded a look over to the others, the doctor and the other four females seemed to be in a conversation with the corporal, drawing the full attention of the three mares as he spoke. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the human quietly ascended the stairs, hoping and praying that the books were in some kind of English so he could perhaps gain some useful knowledge while he waited for his audience with the rulers of the nation. He knew it was a long shot, but if the ponies spoke English, hopefully they would write in it as well Once he reached the top of the stairs Eric got a good look at the second floor, noticing several tables where one could sit down as they read. He approached the shelves and selected a random book, grabbing it, he moved to the nearest table, one that sat near a window overlooking the countryside. Opening his chosen book, his eyes scanned over the first sentence, and his eyes went wide. English lettering, plain as day. While it was obvious that the ponies could understand him and he could understand them, the fact that the ponies shared a written language with humans seemed to be too unlikely to be possible. Continuing to read, he didn't make it two more pages before he made another discovery that boggled his mind. The books actually weren't written in English. If he concentrated on the familiar script hard enough, certain letters would shift into a completely alien script, likely incomprehensible to any native to Earth. Suddenly the question as to how there was no language barrier was answered, the ponies words were being translated to English for him, and most likely his words were being translated into their native language. The answer, however, only led to more questions for him, such as exactly why and how this was happening, he brushed them away and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth for now. He looked over at the staircase, none of his 'entourage' seemed to have noticed that he was gone yet. Or maybe they were keeping their distance, either way, it worked to his benefit, he replaced the book and decided to put studying up on his surroundings on hold until he knew for sure there was no way home. With an exaggerated sigh, he fell back into his chair and shook his head, as much as he wished he could distract himself with reading, his mind was going a mile a minute. " Home? " His mind seemed to say; "All that's back there for you is an empty house and an inheritance." The conversation at the table had quickly died out, considering the elephant in the room, nopony seemed to want to talk about anything except the thing nopony knew how to start talking about. Bon-Bon drummed her fingers against the table she was sitting at in an agitated manner "The human is gone," Bon-Bon said finally, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Corporal Obsidia shot up from the table they had all been sitting at, looking around her in a frantic search for the missing alien. "Buck, Sundance!" The Corporal called, causing the orange pegasus to come jogging over. "Ma'am?" The private stood at attention. "Did the human enter the library?" "Yes ma'am." "Where is he now?" "He took one look at you all and disappeared upstairs." The private gestured with his spear to the balcony; "You want me to bring him down, ma'am?" The doctor waved a hand, "if it's all the same to you, corporal, I say we should leave him be for a moment, let him come to terms with his current reality." The corporal looked over to the doctor, "Sir, with all due respect..." The Doctor winced, "'Doctor,' or 'Time-Turner' is fine, corporal, save the 'sirs' for your actual superiors." "Doctor, with all due respect, the 'human' needs to be kept under constant supervision." Bon-Bon nodded, "This is Twilights' castle, Doctor... he needs to be kept on a leash." The doctor rolled his eyes, "He's a person, not a bloody dog, he's not going to take a wee on the carpet if that's what you are worried about." Obsidia gave a short bark of a laugh, "Oh, he's house-trained?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow at the corporal. "Hilarious." "The Doctor is right," added Lyra, "Humans are just as civilized as any of the sapient peoples of Equss." " How do you know so much about that thing anyway?" Obsidia asked the two, who frowned back at the corporal. The black mare looked confused at the two's reaction. "What?" "'It' is a 'he,' Corporal," the doctor said neutrally, before turning to Lyra " Miss Heartstrings, care to explain the source of your knowledge?" The unicorn winced, "I, uh, heard about them once in a storybook when I was a foal, they interested me, so I tried to find more about them. It took years to find out what I know today, and most of it is just myths and rumors. That storybook is one of the only books I have that even mentions humans directly. But there's a lot of evidence that supports their existence even without them being mentioned." Bon-Bon rolled her eyes. "Ok," Obsidia looked to the stallion. "And you, Doctor?" "Yeah," Lyra looked to the clockmaker, "How do you know so much about humans?" The Doctor smiled back, "Simple, I've been to their planet." All of the mares with the exception of Derpy stared at the doctor. Lyra was slack-jawed, "to their planet?" she whispered. "Yes, or at least, one version of it." Lyra rested her head in her hands, looking down at the table with a troubled expression. "One version?" Bon-Bon looked puzzled. "Yes, though from what my scan of Mr. Carter told me, he appears to hail from a different version of Terra Firma than I am used to." "So, you're saying there are different versions of his planet?" "There are different versions of every planet, Corporal, even this one." "What do you mean by different versions?" The doctor held a hand to his chin in thought. "Well, take the concept of our world, Equss, we all know a fair amount of its history, correct?" A series of nods was his answer. "Well, imagine if something was different about it, something small, or perhaps something big, maybe only one thing is different, or perhaps everything about it." "I thought something like that couldn't happen?" Derpy added, "That's what you told me, that altering history like that can cause serious damage to the universe or something." "Indeed it can Miss Doo, I've seen the consequences for actions such as that firsthand, fortunately for us, alternate universes such as those are the very reason that history cannot be seriously altered. There are a potentially unlimited amount of these alternate universes, and that simply pertains to our reality. There are infinite alternate universes involving planet Earth as well, ones where our planet exists and ones where it does not. I came from a universe where it did not." "Wait, wait, wait." Sundance suddenly cut in. "Did you say 'the one you came from?'" "Yes." "So that would mean..." "Yep." Derpy answered for her companion. Obsidia, Bon-Bon , and Sundance all stared at the Doctor, the only ones who didn't were Derpy, who had already known this information, and Lyra, who didn't seem to be paying attention, and was still staring at the table, muttering to herself. "But... you.." Obsidia looked the Doctor up and down, "Look like one of you?" The Doctor smirked, "At one point I looked like a human, but I am in fact neither a pony nor a human, I..." The doctor paused for dramatic effect. "Am a time-lord." "A...time lord?" Bon-Bon repeated. "Or Gallifreyan, if that is easier for you." "So, aliens exist, the stallion that saved Equss several times is an alien, and there are infinite parallel universes." Bon-Bon said, staring off into space. The two soldiers remained quiet, coming to terms with the sudden truths in stunned silence. "You seem to be taking this quite well." The Doctor commented. "You have a time-machine, aliens aren't that far-fetched when you take that into consideration." "Bon-Bon replied. Doctor shrugged, "fair point." "Why are you telling us this?" Obsidia asked the Doctor. "Because I have a feeling that all of us will be working rather closely together in the near future." "Why?"Sundance asked, then pointed at the second floor, "because of him?" "Him, and... other reasons." The Doctor replied, glancing at Bon-Bon. "The human will need individuals he can feel safe around, as he is the first human to set foot on Equss in potentially a very long time. If I know the princesses, they will take the human with them to canterlot, they will assign guards to protect him in the event that this information carries beyond Equss' border. I am going to recommend you and your squad, corporal, as that guard detail. The corporal visibly paled, which was impressive, considering the black coat. "Why?" "Because the sergeant chose you, maybe he had a reason, maybe it came down to random chance, but I need individuals I can trust. So, can I trust you and your squad Corporal?" Sundance shifted from hoof to hoof nervously, "Ma'am?" Obsidia put her hands behind her head, letting out a deep breath, before resting her hands on the table. "Yeah, yeah, we can do it, I'll need to brief Tango and Winter, but we can protect the human." "Good Mare!" The doctor slapped the table with his palms. "Don't worry, we'll be going as well, Mr. Carter will need friends and ponies he can trust, especially since he's the only one from his universe." "Doctor," Derpy spoke up, "something's been bothering me." The Doctor looked to his companion, "what is it?" " If the universe you came from wasn't the one Eric did, how did he recognize you? He even called you Doctor." The doctor reached into his coat and withdrew his sonic screwdriver, holding it with his thumb and index finger. "He recognized this." He pointed to his own muzzle, "not this" "But still..." the mare continued, "He associated it with you, so he has to of at least heard of you before, but how could he know you if you've never been to 'his version' of the human world." "An excellent question, Ms. Doo." The Doctor's smile faded somewhat, "One I intend on discovering the answer to relatively soon." "I thought you said to leave him alone, for now" Obsidia replied, looking suspiciously at the doctor. "I told you to leave him alone." The Doctor replied, " while you are going to be protecting him, Mr. Carter is alone, frightened, unlearned in the ways of this world, and in dire need of not only a guide, but some friends as well." "And you should be his first one?" Asked Sundance. "I believe that all of us should begin taking steps to get to know Mr. Carter, as something tells me he will be sticking around." The Doctored gestured at the group around him. "Miss Pie will inevitably try to make Mr. Carter feel welcome, or die trying, but for someone in his situation, her approach may end up doing more harm than good if that is his first impression of ponykind. Out of all of us, I believe I am the most experienced at dealing with individuals outside of their element in addition to being the only one who has any actual experience with humans, and I've built a somewhat sparse foundation of trust with him. I would be the best candidate to start talking to Mr. Carter, and should I fail, Ms. Heartstings would be my next choice." All heads swiveled to look at the Unicorn, but she seemed to be deep in thought, her eyes moving across the table as if reading over a notepad. "She looks like princess Twilight," Derpy whispered to the Doctor, the Stallion responded with a silent chuckle. "No, that can't be right." The mare finally said. "What?" Derpy's eyes suddenly aligned on Lyra. "Humans aren't aliens." "What do you mean?" Obsidia raised an eyebrow, "The Doctor just said..." "I know what he said! But it doesn't make sense, there are ruins, ancient documents, even cave paintings that suggest that humans existed on Equss for as long as any other known race! They can't be aliens!" "I'm not exactly certain that they are, Ms. Heartstrings."The doctor held up his hands. "I've taken a look at what many of Equss' countries have on Humans, you'd be surprised on how little there is across the board, and yet, almost every race seems to have an idea of what a human is. " "Exactly!" Lyra nodded. "If they have existed for so long, why is there so little information on them?" "Perhaps, because someone wanted to discourage the study of humans." The Doctor said. Lyra looked up at the Doctor, "do you know something?" The Doctor waved his hand. "We can talk conspiracy theories later, Ms. Heartstrings, we need to focus on getting you and Mr. Carter to become friends. "Wh-why me?" Lyra's eyes opened wide. "You know more about them than most ponies." The doctor shrugged, "And you also happened to be the only pony beside myself and Derpy to not refer to our new friend as 'it.'" Lyra froze as all eyes present looked to her, the mare shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but nodded, as her want to speak with the human overcame her apprehension. The Doctor had suggested she try to talk to 'Eric' in the hallway, she had managed to get close enough to start a conversation but couldn't find any words. How do you talk to something you 'wasted' half your life looking for? She had tried to come up with an apology, a joke, something to break the ice and get the human into a conversation with her, there was so much she wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to do. She dreamed of befriending a human for years, so why couldn't she say anything? The human had looked nervous, afraid, and she wanted to tell him that there wasn't any reason to be afraid, that he was among friends, but after the events of the morning, she couldn't help but wonder, was he? Her eyes fell on Bon-Bon, and as Lyra looked at her, she found that she couldn't forgive the mare for what had happened, she had called her life's work worthless, attacked the human, and then tried her best to make sure she didn't come anywhere near the human. What was her problem? It was like she didn't want this to be real, Bon-Bon should have been happy for her! Should have patted her on the back and congratulated her for all of her hard work finally bearing fruit. Though it had just been luck that literally dropped the human in her lap, it still proved that she had been right! That they not only existed, but from what she had overheard from the princess, they had been on Equss before! Instead, her roommate tried to sabotage her! If that was the her best friend, treated her then perhaps it was time to start looking for a new one. She cast a look to the second floor, a small smile forming on her face, the human wasn't the ideal choice, but he was a start, and it had always been a foal hood dream of hers to be friends with a human. "Yeah, yeah, its a foalhood dream of mine to be friends with a human." Lyra straightened in her seat, newfound confidence entering her voice as she met the doctors' eyes. "I think it would be better if both of us tried to." The Doctor smiled back, "I would prefer to lead, and then introduce you a bit later, sound like a plan?" Lyra nodded, excitement causing her to tap her hooves on the ground in anticipation, she would be friends with Eric, no matter what. "Alright then," The Doctor stood, brushing the arms of his coat off and adjusting both it and his bowtie, "Ms. Doo, Ms. Heartstrings... Let's go befriend a human." Eric looked up from the table as the sound of hooves on the stairs reached his ears. Someone was coming to find him, his first instinct was to hide, if he put his back to the nearest bookshelf he wouldn't have been seen from the staircase, though that may end up with them thinking he had escaped and might end up searching the castle for him. Still...he dreaded social interaction, it was... draining, social interaction with an alien species and a supposedly fictional alien supergenius would likely be worse. "Well, there's always the window," he thought "throwing myself to my death may be preferable." He looked out the window, halfheartedly smiling at the macabre bit of humor, the landscape was beautiful, he judged that it was likely around ten A.M and the rolling plains that surrounded the town reminded him of the overworld of the many fantasy games he played. He had taken the time to calm himself in the twenty minutes since he had entered the library, he had figured at the very least the Doctor would come to speak with him, probably to ask how the human knew who the doctor even was, and why he knew as much as he did. "Tell him the truth." He said to himself, "the Doctor is one of the good guys, just explain yourself, and everything will be fine." He picked the book back up, glossing over it for another five minutes before the sound of hooves on the stairs drew his attention. The Doctor, followed by the gray Pegasus and mint unicorn reached the top of the stairs, and immediately they saw and began approaching him. The human watched them grow closer in his peripheral vision, pretending to be engrossed in the book in his hands and rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the tabletop. Finally they stood less than three feet from his table, the Doctor, with his hands behind his back, cleared his throat. Knowing that was his cue to acknowledge them, he lowered the book and looked at the three. "Nothing good to read?" The Doctor asked him. "Not really." Eric replied neutrally, "Kinda hard to identify with most of the characters." "I'd imagine." Lyra shifted on her hooves, obviously wanting to say something, but remaining silent like she was told to. "Can I help you?" Eric asked politely. "You were alone up here, Mr. Carter, on a different world, and you were attacked less than three hours ago, I assumed you would appreciate some company." Eric smiled politely, "I'm fine, really, but if you want to stay I won't stop you." "Wonderful." The Doctor smiled. In less than thirty seconds the three had pulled up chairs and were sitting down, like it or not, social interaction was inevitable now. With a mental sigh, he sat the book down, what the hell, he needed the practice anyway. "Introductions are in order." The Doctor said, smiling. "Mr. Carter, this is my companion Ms. Doo." The stallion gestured to the diplopic pegasus, who offered him a smile and a hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you Eric." Eric took the hand and returned the smile. "Likewise, Ms. Doo." "Call me Derpy." That statement was so unexpected it caused the human to flinch as he tried to stammer out a reply. "Oh, I-uh, ok." The mare gave a slight giggle, and pointed to her eyes. "Don't worry, if I wasted time getting offended at something like that I wouldn't have any hours left in the day, if you can't laugh at yourself you can't laugh at anything, right?" Eric, somewhat stunned at the aloof and easygoing nature of the mare, simply nodded. "Yeah, I guess so." "So good to have you two acquainted, " the Doctor cut in, "Mr. Carter, this is Lyra Heartstrings, she the closest thing this town has to an expert on humans, she is fascinated by your race and has wanted to meet one of you for most of her life." Slightly taken aback by the statement, "Lyra" looked as if she was going to faint again, she shifted in her seat anxiously and avoided meeting his eyes. Slowly, he reached his hand out for her to shake. The mint green unicorn stared at Eric's offered hand, he hesitated as she showed no sign of acknowledging it, she seemed starstruck, her eyes filled with awe. The Doctor gave an apologetic laugh and kicked Lyra's hoof, which served to snap the unicorn out of her stupor. "Right, right!" The mare stammered, taking Erics hand and shaking it enthusiastically. "I'm Lyra, it's really, really great to meet you Mr. Eric." "Uh, just Eric is fine." "Ok, you can just call me Lyra." "Alrighty then." "And of course, we seem to have already been introduced." The doctor nodded, "so if you don't mind, we'd like to ask you a few questio-" "I know you from a T.V. show." Eric blurted. The Doctor paused, obviously just as surprised as Lyra and Derpy at the human's claim. "Well, I suppose that answers that, what exactly is-" "Its about you, your adventures," "Back from when I Iooked like a human?" "Yeah." The Doctor looked disturbed, "how much..." "Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, Martha Jones,Amy and Rory Pond, and Clara Oswald, that's where my knowledge stops." The Doctors smile had disappeared when Eric spoke the first name, now, the smile had returned, and the guilt behind it made Eric feel like the biggest ass ever. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I should have known better." "No, it's quite alright." The Doctor said quietly, "just a bit jarring, though it makes sense there would be a universe where my life is little more than entertainment." "Universe?" The Doctor nodded, " as far I know, you have crossed over to a universe where Earth does not exist, and whether it be through either fortune or misfortune, you have ended up on this planet, we call it Equss." Eric bit the inside of his cheek, taking a moment to process that fact, "ok, ok cool." "Are you alright?" Derpy asked. "Yeah, I'm fine." "That's uh, pretty crazy news, " Lyra added. "Tell me about it." Eric gave a short laugh Lyra, not knowing what else to say, simply smiled and gave a small laugh as well. "Indeed," The doctor said, looking sympathetic, "I'm going to be forward with you Eric, there is very little chance of you returning home, when I initially arrived on this planet I attempted to use the TARDIS to return to Earth, or anywhere in the universe that I recognize, while I did find some rather interesting things, I recognized none of it. We both seem to have crossed a barrier between dimensions, and unless you came here intentionally, which I doubt very much, neither of us seem to possess a means to reopen another hole in between dimensions. Which leaves us effectively stranded." Eric clicked his tongue, "Well, that sucks." The Doctor's eyebrows raised, "That....sucks? That's all you have to say on the matter?" The human shrugged, "not much left for me back there." Derpy and Lyra's expressions turned sympathetic. "That's.... so sad." Derpy reached out to put a hand on Eric's shoulder. Eric shrugged again and leaned back in his chair and out of the mare's reach. Derpy withdrew her hand, but the look of sympathy remained, reminding him of a time not too long ago when people back home looked at him in very much the same way. "Eh, you get used to it." He replied, his eyes turning downcast. The three ponies looked at the human with muted concern, but didn't seem to push the subject, much to Eric's relief. "Ok, so...." Eric shuffled uncomfortably "Thank you, for that information Doctor, is there anything else?" "Yes," the Doctor said, "It could be said that the two of us are in a rather similar situation, could it not?" Eric cocked his head, unsure of what the Time-Lord was playing at, "I...suppose?" "We both are aliens in this world," the stallion explained, "though only one of us truly look the part, no offense." "None taken," deadpanned the human. "We are both from another dimension, with no way to get back, so...us aliens should stick together, right?" Was the Doctor seriously asking what he was thinking he was asking? "Yeah, uh, sure." Eric replied, doing his best to maintain a netural disposition despite the Doctor of all people actually suggesting they keep in contact. "I'm glad you agree." The Doctor smiled, "Now, my friend, you have a choice ahead of you, as when you meet with the princesses they will likely wish for you to return to Canterlot with them." "Canterlot?" "It's the capital of Equestria." Lyra finally spoke up, "Its on that big mountain, Mount Canterbury, and its where the princesses live." Eric nodded, it made sense, bring the alien to your finest city, show him what wonders you've created, impress him, so when he goes back to his friends, all he has to say are nice things. "I need you to stay here." Eric cocked his head at the strange request, wondering what exactly the Doctor had planned, but the Doctor was the Doctor, he usually knew what he was doing in most cases, hopefully, he knew what he was doing now. "Alright, but one question." "Shoot." "Why?" The Doctor smiled, "I intend to follow you to Canterlot, Mr. Carter, but before I can make the trip I need to make some preparations. Eric smirked. "The T.A.R.D.I.S?" The Doctor returned the smile and nodded, "The T.A.R.D.I.S." "Alright, I'll see what I can do." Eric leaned back in his chair. "Thank you, Mr. Carter," The Doctor nodded, before standing and pushing his chair back in. "Well, that's about all I needed to speak with you about, thank you for your time, Mr. Carter, it was a pleasure meeting you." Derpy stood as well, stretching her wings as she did so before giving Eric a polite nod and a smile. "It was great to meet you Eric, I hope we can get to know each other a lot more soon." Lyra however, remained sitting, absently picking at her cuticles. "Ms. Heartstrings? " The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the mare. The unicorn suddenly looked up and around her, "Oh, uh, go ahead Doctor, I just wanna talk with Eric for a sec." The stallion offered a nod in response and proceeded back towards the stairs with Derpy in tow. Eric looked over to the nervous unicorn, "Need something, Ms Lyra?" "Uh, I said to just call me Lyra." "Right." The unicorn shut her eyes and shook her head. "No! Wait, wait, that sounded really rude, you can call me whatever you want, I just prefer Lyra, or Lyres, or you can stick with-" "Lyra." Lyra cut her rant short, at the sound of her name. "I'll call you Lyra." The human said, his hands raised plantifly. "Sound good?" She offered only a nod in response and an awkward thirty seconds of silence passed by. The Unicorn opened her mouth, but no words came out, she continued to pick at her cuticles and her eyes wandered about the room. It reminded Eric a little bit of himself when he couldn't find the right words for a situation. "I'm... sorry?" She finally said, looking at him with a mixture of guilt and hope in her eyes. "For?" Eric raised an eyebrow, until he remembered what had happened back at the Mare's home, she had hit him in the back of the head with something. As if the thought had conjured it, a dull ache returned to the spot where he had been hit, causing Eric to wince. "You know, the...." Lyra pointed to the back of her own head. "Oh!" Eric said, pretending to only just remember. "That?" Eric waved his hand dismissively, "don't worry about it, not the worst bump on the head I've had." "You've had worst than someone hitting you in the head with a table leg?" Lyra said, surpised. Eric flinched, "Uh, yeah... bit of a long story." "Well, still, I'm really, really sorry, I was really groggy saw you holding the table leg and I thought you were trying to..." "Yeah,I guess I can see how that would look." "I swear I'll make it up to you." Lyra said, looking at him apologetically. Eric held his hands up, "No, really, its fine, Lyra...." "Please?" Lyra insisted, "Between me and you, I've been studying humans my entire life and the first one I see I smacked over the head with a piece of wood! You've gotta let me do something to make it up to you!" "Tell you what." Eric said, eager to end the conversation. "Let me talk with the princesses and get everything settled, and we'll talk about it later, alright?" Lyra looked a bit dour, but nodded all the same, she stood and turned to leave, but before she did she suddenly spun around and offered her hand to the human. "Hey, uh, I know that something like this can be kind of... hard to wrap your head around, being on a different planet, the whole, 'meeting a new species' thing, I just want to let you know if you need some one to talk to... I guess." Eric blinked, in surprise, but shook the offered hand once again. "I'll... think about it, thank you, Lyra." The mare gave an embarrassed smile and turned, walking briskly back towards the stairs, nearly tripping over own hooves on the way there. Eric watched her as she went, while that encounter hadn't done much to reassure him, he couldn't shake the feeling of calm that had settled over him, maybe it was because he knew the Doctor now, maybe it was because the conversation was finally over. He shrugged and took a look out of the window, watching the clouds go by. There wasn't any way back, but maybe that was a good thing, there wasn't much of anyone there to miss him but a few acquaintances, maybe a fresh start could do him some good. Eric shook his head and sighed, questions till blasting through his mind at warp speed, if he was going to find some sort of normality in this crazy fantasy land, he was going have to accept the fact that some things were going to be unexplainable. As much as he hated no knowing, he'd have to let the why's and how's of how he got here go for now. "Well, he thought at least I don't have to deal with that friggin' project anymore.
Prologue"Princess, as much as I hate to say it, you've shown both Gryphos and the world more than enough times that you are incapable of properly caring for this planet's fate any longer. " Morning light shone through the windows of the Canterlot throne room, bathing the room in a brilliant array of colors that seemed to speak to the beauty of the world outside of the castle. In Celestia's opinion, it was one of the few things she enjoyed about sitting on her throne, it had always brought a feeling of contentment over her, it was one of the few reminders that there was always a world outside of the castle she had called home for the past one thousand years. She would have liked nothing more to be out and enjoying the day with the rest of her subjects, mingling and interacting with her little ponies was one of her favorite things to do. Instead, she was stuck listening to the prattling of a self-absorbed Griffon ambassador. "And, Pray-tell Ambassador Kellatch, how have I done that?' She responded innocently, playing the fool to garner more information out of the overweight hybrid-creature that sat at a small desk before her. " You know good and well how you have done so," the griffon raised an eyebrow in irritation. "Though, the list begins with the return of your sister, not only did you outright neglect to face the lunar tyrant yourself, you sent a mere filly of all ponies to stop her!" Celestia sat forward on her throne, resting her head on her hand as her ear flicked in agitation, this had to be the hundredth time she has been brought under scrutiny for her choice to send Twilight to save her sister, to be honest, she had known about her sister's return even before the month had begun how could she have not? She was the one who had put her sister on the moon! The problem was, even if she had faced Luna herself that night, she would not have had the will nor the power to defeat her. Nightmare Moon had nearly killed her the first time Celestia and her sister's counterpart had faced each other, the only way she had won was with the Elements of Harmony's help, and after that night, the elements had scattered themselves across the Everfree, never to be seen again. That is, until Twilight and her friends had found them and sealed the shadow that had possessed Luna away. "Several fillies, if I remember correctly." The Solar Diarch smiled at the Ambassador, "and they seemed to have done an acceptable job with dealing with the problem." "That is beside the point, Princess." The Griffon pulled a series of scrolls from a bag at his talons and spread them all out for her to see. It took a moment for her to realize that they were reports, reports of the many attacks on her land by those seeking to use it for their own ends. "Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, Tirek, Starlight Glimmer, and most recently, The Storm King. All of these individuals have one thing in common, they all have bested you. Whether it be in direct combat or in stealth and subterfuge, both in the case of the changeling." "Ambassador, each of these Villains have long since been defeated or reformed. Discord has made it clear that he no longer seeks to rule Equestria or spread his chaos to any of her neighbors. Chrysalis has gone into hiding after King Thorax has taken the throne of the changelings, and they have sought nothing but peace with us ever since. I have been made aware of Miss Glimmer's attempts to rewrite history, she has repented of her wrongdoings and as far as I know no longer seeks anything but a peaceful life. Sombra was destroyed in the battle for the Crystal Empire, and Tirek remains locked in Tartarus to this day." "And what of the Storm King?" Celestia winced, it had been only a few months since the ape-like creature and his army had disappeared from Equestria, and she still bared the memories of those days trapped in her obsidian prison. She would've liked to believe he was dead. It would've made those days she spent as a statue a little more bearable. "Twilight Sparkle reported that he was encased in obsidian and shattered to pieces, he is most certainly-" "Did you recover his remains?" Celestia paused, when she had sent a detachment of guards to retrieve the King's fragments, none were found. "No," "This creature managed to steal the power to control the very Sun and Moon, your highness, and you say that he may still be alive?" "He is quite literally in pieces, Ambassador, I would be quite astounded if someone were to survive such a state." The Griffon huffed, "That does not change the fact that you and your fellow princesses have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to your nation's and our world's security. Your Guard, while numerous and admittedly well-trained, has failed to protect you or your country in a single significant crisis. You send foals with little to no training whatsoever to face threats that you should have handled yourself, and perhaps worst of all, you seem to think that those who participated in bringing ruin upon your land should not be punished simply because they said they're sorry." "Hate only breeds hate, Ambassador Kellatch," Said Celestia, narrowing her eyes, "I have sat here and listened to you berate me, my sister, and many of those I care deeply for, It is true that many a villain has bested me. But the Elements always succeed where I may fail." "Until they don't" Celestia recoiled slightly, slightly unnerved by the severity of the Ambassador's statement. "Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Elements have saved your country and this world many times, I will admit, but that does not change the fact that they are far too young to be in possession of such powerful artifacts. The Elements of Harmony were created with the intent to bring peace to all of Equss, when all the races of Equss agreed to create them. Equestria was given the responsibility to steward the selection process of the avatars of Harmony, not to dictate them yet for the last thousand years, you and your kind have hoarded these artifacts." "The Elements were not hoarded, they were lost!" Celestia replied, her voice gaining an edge. "Yet you never found it prudent to retrieve them until you found a use for them!" Celestia remained silent, his words carried some truth to them, after the Elements had scattered themselves, she had made no effort to find them. She had even resented the elements at one point, for they were the very items that separated her from her sister for a millennium. She had wanted no part of them for so long that she had nearly forgotten their purpose. "They have now been found, and are in safe hands," Said Celestia, her face changing back to a mask of contentment. "Yes, in your hands, no less." The Griffon rose from his seat, holding another scroll in his claws as he approached the throne and handed it to her. Celestia took the scroll, unfurling it and reading it over, her eyes widening further with every line she read, it was an agreement of alliance, its terms were-. "You mean to confiscate the Elements from Equestria?!" "Five of them, yes. Princess Twilight Sparkle will be allowed the Element of Magic out of respect for her 'heroic' actions." Celestia closed her eyes, breathing deeply from her nose before standing. "I will not allow this." The Griffon chuckled, "You do not have a choice in the matter, at this point in time, you should pray that you do not lose control over the sun and moon. The first Draft has been sent to the leaders of all nations across Equss, the King of Griffonstone has already agreed to its terms, the majority of the Diamond Dog clans have promised their allegiance to us as well." Celestia glared at Kellatch who began packing his things. "My task here is finished," The Griffon gave Celestia a small smile, "You have been informed of the terms, the Golden age of Equestria is at its end, your highness. In three months time, the nations of this world's answers will come, I suggest you separate the elements from their respective bearers and prepare to join the Alliance, Celestia, this will be the only chance you have." The Griffon Ambassador turned, leaving the throne room and passing the Lunar Diarch on the way out, who eyed him suspiciously as he strode out the open doors. The entryway to the throne room closed with an ominous squeak leaving the two sisters alone in the throne room. Luna approached her sister, concerned over Celestia's distraught expression. "What is the matter, sister? Have the Griffons declared war again?" Celestia shook her head, "We must contact the Elements of Harmony." "Why?" Celestia handed her sister the scroll, watching as her expression changed from concern to shock as she read. Celestia sighed, placing a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder before immediately turning and making her way to her chambers, she had a letter to write. "We feared the day when the world turned against us, I do believe that day has come sister," said Celestia. "I will rally the Night Guard!" The Lunar princess called after her sister. "You should do the same with the day guard, we must prepare them for what follows!" Celestia nodded to her sister, who disappeared in a flash of light, she glanced out one of the Throne room's windows once more as she left. Suddenly the Morning looked a little less inviting. Author's Note SOOOOOOOOOOOO I'm gonna go out on a limb here and give a disclaimer, I've only got a general knowledge of this series and I'm more into the fandom of this show than the series itself. I'm really just using this story for writing practice and to see how other people respond to my writing. That being said, if you are reading this, thanks for stopping by! Hopefully, this won't be a crappy mess of a fanfiction that melts your eyeballs as you read it, if you do happen have your eyeballs melt after reading this, please let me know, as this may or may not be an ability I have somehow gained and will use to take over the country. Any Criticism is welcome, just please don't go nuts with the hate. So once again, thankety thank you for reading and/or commenting! Yeah! Thankety thank thank thank thank you! Angsty's got some pretty high hopes for this story! Wait, what? *Appears behind me* "SURPRISE!" *Sounds of manly screaming*
Chapter 1Eric had a good many times in his life where his sanity had been pushed to the brink of complete destruction, this instance, however, seemed to take the cake. "Are you legitimately telling me that you spilled your coffee on the laptop?" He groaned, slapping his forehead. "Yes." The nervous voice of his classmate Holland spoke through his phone. Holland had been his friend since Junior High, he had a bit of a wildcard attitude that had set him apart from a lot of the other people there, but, he had a good heart and was quite intelligent when you could finally get him to sit down and have a conversation with him. Eventually, he matured enough to the point where he actually became likable to other people, since then, he was a social butterfly. Always the party animal. "The very same laptop that had the entire paper and presentation script on it?" "Yes." "Which went to the assignment that is due four days from now?" "Yeah." "Were you hungover?" Holland didn't respond. "You went to a party and got drunk again, didn't you?" "..." "Unbelievable." Eric threw his hands up, letting go of the phone and allowing it to fly up in a lazy arc and fall screen-first onto his bed. "You're not even legal drinking age!" Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, frustration completely overtaking him, Holland wasn't even legal drinking age, he had to literally hold his breath to keep himself from throwing obscenities left and right in a fit of college-induced rage. That project had been their final for the English class they had together, it would be the thing that would make or break their grades. His friend was a great guy, but when it came to being clumsy, he would be described as the patron god of it. and when you mix clumsy and alcohol, you get a mixture that is likely to cause some sort of catastrophic event; such as a blackout, a fight, or the untimely death of a young college student due to the unbridled rage of his disgruntled classmate. "Eric? You there?" "Quiet, I'm trying to strangle you through the phone." "Oh, ok." The phone went silent for a few minutes as the young man paced around his apartment, trying desperately to come up with a solution to the problem. He bumped his head against the wall repeatedly, swearing slightly. He briefly considered drowning himself in the nearby bathroom's toilet, thought the better of it, and slowly lifted his head from the wall. "I don't think its working." Said Holland, his voice carrying a touch of mirth. "Didn't try hard enough." Replied Eric, his voice betraying the humor in his tone. He sighed, he couldn't change who Holland was, and despite the fact that he wanted to chain him to a log and send him over the nearest waterfall, Eric knew as well anyone that he had screwed up as royally as Holland had more than a few times, with a lot of them ending with Holland saving him. Besides, once you met him, it was hard to stay mad at a guy like Holland for long. "Get over here," Eric told Holland. "Bring the laptop, let's see if we can salvage the papers from it." "Got it, on my way." Eric hung up, Holland had woken him up with the call, not the best way to start a Saturday. He made his way to the bathroom and began to make something of himself, freshening up and combing the mess of brown hair on his head. Once his hygiene was taken care of he began to change clothes, putting on a pair of jeans and a pullover. Looking himself over in the mirror, he decided he looked acceptable. "God, I'm getting pale." He muttered to himself, "Note to self, study outside." Leaving his room, Eric found that his T.V had been left on, showing some kind of little girl's TV show. "Ugh, the power bill is gonna suck." He left the T.V on, changing the channel to a fantasy movie before going to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast. Digging through his fridge, he found a box of breakfast burritos and popped one into his microwave oven. He waited for a few minutes before the oven chimed and his meal was ready. He plopped down on his couch, eating his breakfast and watching the movie. Holland lived about an hour and a half away, so he had time to kill before his friend a arrived, he finished his food and returned to the kitchen, cleaning off the plate in the sink and putting it back in the cabinet. He then sat back on the couch, daydreaming. It had been six months since he had moved out of his old house to live on campus, his scholarship paid for most of his bills, and the on-campus job he worked covered anything else he wanted or needed, by his standards, he was doing pretty well for himself, his life was laid out before him, go to college, become a publicist, maybe write a novel. He had everything planned out. A knock at his door pulled him from his thoughts, it had barely been twenty minutes since Holland had called him, there was no possible way that he was here, so who was this? He went to the door, looking through the peephole to see who it was, he was met with an overwhelming amount of the color blue on the other side of the door. Figuring someone left a note on the door, he opened it and stepped outside to look at it and was greeted with a fierce gust of wind, enough to sending him stumbling back through the door. Except there wasn't a door, or a floor for that matter. Eric wasn't in his house, he wasn't exactly sure where he was. "The hell?!" He stood, looking around himself and found that he was surrounded on all sides by blue, in the distances he could see large cloudbanks floating lazily by, the sun was high in the sky. "The sky" He thought, "I'm in the sky. Ok, cool." He took a moment to re-evaluate what went through his head, and suddenly his eyes went wide as he began to panic. If he was in the sky, then what exactly was he standing on?! He slowly looked down, seeing a beautiful countryside that looked like something straight out of the movie he had been watching not even five minutes ago. Directly below him, a town stood, pretty big, from what he could see, near the north part of the town stood what looked like a castle. A particularly shiny castle. However, what he did not see was any kind of ground or platform under his feet. He was just floating there, kind of like a cartoon character did just before they- "Oh f-" As if a switch had been flipped, gravity suddenly took hold of him again and he was falling. He screamed, flailing around as ice-cold air roared around him and chilled him to the bone. He hurtled downwards, steadily gaining speed as the ground rushed up to meet him. "Well, at least I got to have breakfast before God decided to kill me." He thought, still screaming externally. "No real way out of this one, I should have stayed in bed. " He had lived a decently good life, kissed a girl once, had made a few friends, did some good things in his life, he had spent a few days as a volunteer, and a bit of his money had always gone to charities. Maybe he could have done more, how much time had he wasted? "Doesn't matter now." He mentally shrugged, watching as the earth rushed up to meet him, "at least it'll be quick." The ground wasn't far now, he would hit it in twenty seconds or so, the only thing between him and a quick and painless death were a few clouds, which drfited lazily in a semi-straight line under his flight path. He hit one and was immediately surprised, it wasn't like the clouds back home, this one felt like he had hit a mass of cotton, which he smashed into with an "Oof!" The cloud had slowed his fall but didn't stop it as he passed through and left a rather comedic human-shaped hole in it. He hit another one, still having enough momentum to go straight through it. Several clouds later he was falling cloud by cloud, unable to actually land on one. His fall had slowed to the point where he could not go straight through the clouds but began to bounce off them, each landing feeling like the young man had been hit by a bus made of pillows. Eventually, he ran out of clouds to land on, and after a short fall, he landed heavily and painfully on the roof of a building. "Owwww," He wheezed, groaning and writhing in pain. He was still alive, fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at the situation. "Christ," groaned Eric, swearing as he struggled to a sitting position. "Hey! You ok up there?" a voice called from below, "That was one heck of a fall!" One of the locals, they must have seen him. "Yeah," he called back, "not my most graceful landing," He heard a short laugh, "Can you get down? I'm pretty sure the ponies who own that house won't take kindly to you being on their roof!" Eric groaned again, "Yeah, gimme a sec-" he paused; "Wait, Ponies?" "Crack!" The roof below him shifted, its already weakened supports giving into the added weight Eric's put onto it. "Oh shit!" The roof caved, causing Eric to fall in. "AAAAAH!" He screamed for the second time today, this time hearing two voices joining him in screaming as he crashed down onto a table, breaking it and sending small fragments of wood flying everywhere. He lay there for a moment, almost certain he was dead before realizing he was still in pain. "Fuck. My. Life." He managed to growl, opening his eyes to see the hole he made, sunlight poured through the hole, shining down on the young man as he struggled into a sitting position for the second time today. Groaning again he shut his eyes tightly as the mother of all headaches started to roll in, causing him to groan even more. "What in Tartarus' name?" He opened his eyes and was confronted with what could be described as the weirdest experience of his life. Standing before him, were two anthropomorphic horses wearing t-shirts and jeans. Standing on two hooves with a similar body structure to a human's, but with fur, a tail, and the head sporting a small muzzle and huge eyes. The other one, to the left of him, carried a horrified expression on her face, her light blue eyes looking at him in shock. Her fur was cream-colored, with her mane and tail colored a mix of pink and dark blue. The one to the right, however, stared at him more with surprise than horror, her fir, and part of her otherwise white mane light green. Her golden eyes seemed to carry more of an 'error 404' look about them in contrast to the other one's eyes. What got Eric's attention was the horn sticking out of her head, an anthropromorphic unicorn. Suddenly Holland's mistake didn't seem so bad, compared to how the rest of Eric's day was going. He blinked, so did they. No one moved for what felt like an hour, both parties staring at the other in disbelief as the seconds ticked by. "Hey! You alright in there?!" The voice from the roof called through the hole. Then, the green one fainted. Author's Note O to the K. There's chapter one. Took a second to get out there, but I'm hoping that I didn't make it boring or cliche or whatever taboo a writer can do. Pretty balanced reviews so far, but I've been developing ideas for a while and I'm still hopeful about the future of the story. "I think its gonna do great!" Oh Christ, you're still here. "Of course I am Angsty! I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere! I was here before you even decided to write the story!" But, aren't I the one typing that? I don't know, aaaaarrreeee you?" Oh God, she's doing the fourth-wall-breaking thing again! "No, you are!" Stop it! "What?" That!
Chapter 2Two hours previously to chapter one… The nation of Equestria was the envy of the planet Equss, its beauty had been coveted by philosophers and immortalized by poets and writers the world over. These masters of the arts differed in opinion as to exactly which part of the land’s nature was truly the most stunning. Some argued it lay within the heart of the country, which contained countless miles of lush forests, rolling hills, and fertile farmland. There was also the rugged glory of the southern deserts, which was home to several small frontier towns. The regal crystal mountains and the crystal empire that called the Frozen North its home, and the Everfree Forest, whose enigmatic behavior and untamed power earned it its name. Cloudsdale, with its beautiful architecture, and stunning aerial view of the land, or even Mount Canterbury, which the capital city of Canterlot sat upon. Over the millennia Equss had stood, no one could say for sure what part of Equestria was exactly the most beautiful. However, if you were to ask the ponies of the rather un-imaginatively named town Ponyville, you would find a single, universal answer. The sunrise. The morning settled over the town like a warm blanket, the sun peeking over Mount Canterbury and bathing the entirety of the plains that lay below it in a golden light. This light seemed to bring the very world to life as birds left their nests, chirping and squawking to one another as they began to fly about. The plants began to bloom that much brighter, the air began to feel that much warmer. Already many of the town's denizens were awake and going about their morning routines, making coffee, eating breakfast, and preparing for the day ahead. Proud parents sent their foals off to school, who happily chatted with one another as they made their way to the schoolhouse. Glancing occasionally with awe at the massive castle that sat on the border of the town before returning to the company of their friends, the castle had grown in size since the land’s latest crisis, becoming that much more impressive to behold as the branches of the crystal tree it sat upon shone brightly in the light. Much of the town’s weather team was hard at work, gathering clouds for the storm that was due later that day, meanwhile many ponies began making their way to the town market, eager to both buy and sell wares of all shapes and sizes for all manner of reasons. Truly today would be one of the most beautiful days beheld by Ponyville. Only one sound interrupted the near-impeccable beauty of that morning, a loud, nasal snore that erupted from the open window of a house not far from the town center, the snore drew the attention of many passersby, who gave the house no more than a raised eyebrow and a slight giggle before returning to their own devices. Through the window, there was a simple room consisting of no more than a dresser, a mirror, a bed, a bookcase, and a desk. The books on the bookcase shook with the dull roar of the snore, lightly bouncing in their places as the sound shook the room to its very foundations. On the bed lay a mint-green unicorn, in a position that most would compare to that of a cat shoving itself into a small area. Her face, despite her posture, was serene, blissfully snoring away as the room around her experienced a miniature earthquake with every exhaled breath. Without warning, the bedroom's door flew open, slamming against the wall and revealing an extremely disgruntled earth pony. "LYRA!" The unicorn in question gave a surprised yelp, flailing wildly and falling out of bed in a mess of blankets, sheets, and limbs. She struggled with the bed coverings a few moments before standing up and facing her friend. "What was that for?!" Said Lyra, groggy and irritated. "Ponies in Canterlot could hear you snoring!" Growled the mare in question, her bloodshot eyes twitching comically. Lyra's face turned red, "Oh, was I doing that again?" "Yes!" The mint-musician groaned, she had slept like that on occasion, with the problem only occurring once every few months or so. Still, for all the years she and Bon-Bon had been housemates it had been a constant and recurring issue. Bon-Bon folded her arms impatiently, "I couldn't sleep with all the noise you were making,so I went ahead and got ready for work." Lyra noticed the apron her friend was wearing. "What time is it?" "An hour until opening time, I'm headed to the shop, It'll only be open for a few hours, but I still need you to get the ingredients that I need from the market today." "Right," yawned Lyra, "Forgot that was today." She stretched and went to her dresser, absent-mindedly picking out a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of shorts before tossing them onto her desk, knocking down a few papers and books. Bon-Bon noticed these papers and gave her friend a disapproving look. "You stayed up all night again, didn't you?" Lyra looked from the desk to Bon-Bon, her eyes showing disinterest in where the conversation was leading. "Uh, yeah, I did." Groaning slightly, the cream-colored mare held a hand to her face, her interest in the study of humans had been a topic of debate between the two of them for a long time. Lyra had always had a passion for finding the creatures after she had found that book in the golden oaks library, with the library destroyed after the demon Tirek's attack on the town, the former librarian-turned-princess Twilight allowed her to have her sparse collection of human mythology. Bon-Bon had always considered her obsessed with the creatures, and thought it as nothing more than a distraction, but she knew the futility of arguing with her over the matter. The Earth pony turned and walked out of the doorway, her upset expression now replaced with a more mellow one, she had given Lyra a job running errands for her shop shortly after her stint as a street musician had left her nearly broke. As long as the whole human thing didn't get in the way of her work, she learned to live around her friend's quirk. The two of them had been friends for as long as she could remember, meeting in school as foals. Now? They were roommates, both of them taking turns paying the rent, though in reality it was more like Bon-Bon was paying it by herself, considering she was the source of Lyra's income. "Make sure you take the list!" She called behind her, the sound of hooves clopping down the stairs followed her voice. "Got it!" The Unicorn sighed as she heard the front door open and close, groaning internally before grabbing her clothes off her desk and heading to the bathroom to shower. A few minutes later, Lyra found herself ready to face the day, striding contently downstairs and digging through the refrigerator for the box of donuts she had bought from Sugarcube corner. Finding it, she opened the box and pulled one of the treats out. Biting into it and leaving it in her teeth as she replaced the box and closed the door, there she found Bon-Bon's grocery list taped onto it. The list directed her to a bag of bits sitting on the kitchen table, which she picked up and tied to the belt loop on her shorts. She took the list and began to leave, heading outside and squinting due to the overabundance of light from Celestia's sun. Once her eyes had adjusted, Lyra took a look at the first item on the list, ten pounds worth of apples from sweet apple acres. That would be on the other side of town, it would take a thirty-minute walk to get there. "Of course." Grumbled Lyra, " you had to make it a hard one, Bonnie." She would do that one last, it made more sense to pick up what she needed at the market anyway, the vast majority of goods that the store would need were there anyway. Forty minutes and about one hundred and five bits later Lyra was toting a big basket full of various foodstuffs and tools from the market in her magic's grip, Going down the list one after the other before getting to the final item, Vanilla extract. The stuff was hard to find in Equestria naturally, so it had to be imported from places like the Griffon kingdoms. She found her way to the correct vendor, a pale blue Pegasus by the name of Cloudbreak. He was the only pony in the town who dealt in imported ingredients like vanilla. "Morning Lyra." Greeted Cloudbreak as she approached his stall, not bothering to look up from his book. "Morning Cloud." She said "What can I do for you?" "Vanilla extract, three bottles." She replied, sliding the appropriate number of bits onto the table. Cloudbreak looked down and eyed the bits before grunting in displeasure. "That's not enough." He said, sitting his book down and running a hand through his green mane. "What do you mean?!" Exclaimed Lyra, picking the coins up and counting them, "That's thirty bits!" "Price went up, something about Griffons taxing exports to Equestria, Sugarcube corner already bought up most of my stock last week." Lyra raised an eyebrow, politics was never her strong suit or concern, but with Sweetie Drop's Candies in an everlasting state of competition with the bakery, she knew that when the candy store lacked something, Sugarcubes corner tended to make up for it with their own goods, she would have to get the extract no matter what the price. "Whatever," she sighed, "What's the new price?" "Forty-five." "FORTY-FIVE?!" Lyra looked at the Pegasus like he grew a horn and called himself a princess. "That's Horsefeathers!" "Is what it is," Cloudbreak said, not at all fazed by Lyra's reaction. Nothing ever seemed to get to him, Bonnie would kill her for using too many bits, but she would also kill her if she didn't show up with everything. Luckily for the unicorn, she had a few tricks up her sleeves. "I'm calling that favor in." She said, clearly unhappy with the situation. "You know the one." Cloudbreak eyed her, a twinge of annoyance present on his face, Lyra looked back at him unflinchingly, her eyes silently daring him to protest. The two held the glare for a total of two minutes before the pegasus relented, he shrugged and reached under the stall, producing three mid-sized bottles with a brownish liquid and sitting them on the table. "Take 'em, on the house, we're even now." He said, his voice deadpanning. Lyra nodded silently and grabbed them. "Thanks, Cloud." Lyra gave him a small wave. "Mmmhmm." Hummed the pegasus, returning to his book . Lyra checked off the second to last item on her list before beginning the trek to Sweet Apple Acres, dodging crowds and the occasional magic-gripped basket as she walked to the outskirts of the town. Eventually, she came within sight of the orchard, the rows of apple trees swaying in the wind. In front of the orchard was a small wooden stall manned by a red earth pony stallion, who was napping at his post. Lyra snickered at him as she walked up to the booth. "Good morning, Big Mac." The apple farmer snapped out of his slumber, dazedly looking around before realizing he had a customer. "Oh, Mornin' Ms. Heartstings." He drawled, his voice deep and heavily accented. "Not used to the Morning shift, huh?" Lyra raised an eyebrow in amusement. Usually, it was Mac's sister, Applejack that ran their booth early in the day, unfortunately for him, having a national hero for a sister meant she had to go off and do whatever heroes do when they need to go do hero stuff. "Nope." The stallion's calm demeanor slowly returning to him. Mac was a stallion of few words, with most questions being answered in a few words if not one. Lyra personally had found it hard to communicate with him at first but eventually learned to mostly just ask yes or no questions. "Yeah, me neither, A.J. off doing hero stuff?' "Eyup." That usually meant all six of the Elements of Harmony were gone, off saving Equestria from some crazy monster or evil despot. If only she could do something like that, the closest thing she had ever really gotten to adventure was that one day with Bon's 'secret agent' thing. But she was neither allowed to talk about it or come with her roommate on a mission. Instead, she was left caring for the store. "Well, down to business," Lyra smiled, not wanting to linger "Can I get Ten pounds worth of apples?" "Eyup." Mac turned around and produced a burlap sack filled to the brim with apples, "Fifteen bits." Lyra fished the coins out of the small bag at her hip and dropped them into Mac's waiting hand. "Thanks, Mac." Lyra gave him a smile and nodded her head. "Eyup." She placed the apples in the levitating basket and began to head back to town. With the list completed, Lyra made her way to the shop to drop off the ingredients, making her way back through the market. The market was always full of noise, countless ponies bartering and chatting split the air while the sound of carts being unloaded dwarfed the voices for only seconds before they engulfed the noise like the waves of an ocean would floating debris. Today, however, something seemed different, an air of irritation that seemed to hang over some of the vendors and even spread to some of the shoppers she noticed a few ponies arguing with vendors. Insults flying between them like invisible arrows. "Are you kidding me?!" One Unicorn stallion growled, "Taxes, my flank! You merchants just want more bits!" "You don't like it?" An Earth-pony vendor retorted; "Take it up with Saddle Arabia! At least then I wouldn't be able to hear your mouth!" The two continued to argue their yelling only growing louder, one of them slammed their fist down on the stall's table, drawing the attention of a guardspony standing nearby, who gave the group an annoyed look before snorting and setting off in their direction. Lyra passed him, noticing his hand moving to the baton strapped to his hip. Lyra quickened her pace, leaving the market before something went bad. After a few more minutes of walking, she had made it to the store and was surprised to see it closed, sitting the basket on the ground and approaching the front door, she found a note posted to the front door: Lyra. Something important has come up and I had to close the store early. Bring the ingredients in through the back and lock the door behind you, I'll explain more at home. Bon-Bon Lyra shook her head, Bon-Bon never closed early unless she was sick, all Tartarus had broken loose in the town, or herother job required it. Things were getting weird today. "What's going on?" She thought to herself Her horn flared and the basket was levitated off the ground following her around the store and behind it. She pushed open the back door, revealing the kitchen, she floated the basket inside, sitting it on the counter before reaching around the door and locking it. Her daily duties performed, she went back home to see what her friend had to say. "Bon? I'm home!" Lyra called, closing the front door of their home behind her. "Up here!" Bon-Bon replied, her voice carrying over the banister of the second floor, the sounds of something being zipped reached her ears as she climbed the stairs and saw her friend lugging a suitcase out of her room. "What's going on?" She asked Bon-Bon. "No idea Lyra." Bon sighed as she carried the object past the unicorn and down the stairs "All I know is that its a royal summons, and it's a major pain in my flank." Lyra's eyes widened, a royal summons?! "What is happening today?!" She muttered to herself, "First the market prices, then the elements being called to Canterlot, and now this." She sighed, brushing the thoughts off, probably some crazy villain off to conquer the country again. Maybe a monster since her friend was being brought in for it. But that didn't explain that business in the market, she shook her head and leaned on the banister as she watched her friend gather several things from around the house in silence. "I've left you enough bits to cover food for at least a week," Bon looked up at her from the sitting room, "Consider it an advance payment for watching the store while I'm away." Lyra raised an eyebrow, "Watching the store?" "Yeah, I need you to run the shop while I'm gone-" "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Lyra held her hands up "This was supposed to be my week off!" Lyra had planned this week off for the past month, she was supposed to be able to visit the princess' castle library and continue her research. Bon-Bon gave her an annoyed look, "Lyra, this isn't the time to be immature, your monkeys can wait until this is done." She turned her back to continue packing. Lyra returned the look. "They're called humans Bonnie, and they are a legitimate area of research. I understand you don't like my studies into them, but they are-" "They're a myth Lyra!" Bon-Bon whirled around, a tired and livid look on her face. "That is all they are! That is all they'll ever be! You've wasted three years of your life on your little hobby, and you've got nothing to show for it! You barely work enough at the shop to make enough bits to get by, you sleep in, forget half of your responsibilities around here, all over some stupid stories you read in a book! I feel like your Mom for Faust's sake! When are you going to grow up and accept the fact that you are never going to find them?!" Lyra remained silent, slowly walking down the stairs as her white hair covered her eyes, the angry frown on her face was clear. "What do you know?" She said to her friend, looking up at her with hurt in her eyes. "You wanna talk about dodging responsibility? Let's talk about the fact that you hid this" she gestured to the suitcase in Bon's hand "From me ever since Canterlot!" "You've lied to me and now you expect me to just shut up about it for the rest of our lives all for the sake of what? Government secrets? Keeping me safe?! From what? Monsters aren't some evil enemy in the shadows, they're just a bunch of animals! All you are is a glorified animal control pony!" "What I do is to keep this town safe Lyra!" Bon yelled back, "I fight against a real threat to this country, I do something important, what do you do? Play an instrument for barely any bits at a time? Study old myths in your room like some sort of cultist? The only way you get by is through the odd jobs you work around town, if it weren't for me you'd be on the streets!" The two of them glared angrily into each other's eyes. "You need to start living in the real world Lyres, a human isn't just going to fall out of the sky!" CRACK! Like clockwork, a large bulge appeared in the ceiling with an audible crashing noise, making both of them look up in shock. "No..." Bon-Bon said in disbelief. "You can't just...no, no, it's fine, probably just Rainbow Dash trying another trick." "Bon, Dash is in Canterlot." Lyra said, her eyes not moving from the bulge as cracks spread across the roof. "Lyra, just....... don't, that's not a human, Faust doesn't hate me that much." The roof then collapsed, sending a vaguely pony-shaped creature screaming through the hole and into the room's table. Reducing it to boards and toothpicks. Evidently, Faust did hate Bon that much. Author's Note Well, that was a long gap between posts. I'll try not to do that anymore, but college is college, and I kind of need money to live so work is also important. But in any case, I'll try to post more often than I have. Hopefully, I didn't butcher Lyra's POV too badly, as I said, I'm still new to this whole thing, but I'm leaning on the hope that I'll get better.
Chapter 3Eric and Bon-Bon stared at Lyra's prone form, The young man blinked at the sudden and strange sequence of events, briefly taking stock of his surroundings as he sat there in the remains of a table. He understood the fact that he fell out of the sky, he understood that he fell through a roof, but overall? He was completely stumped as to exactly where the hell he was, why he was there, or why there were horse people. "Why exactly is there a need for horse people?" his thoughts seemed to say; "hasn't enough weird crap happened to me today? " The thought, however, was drowned out by the sheer amount of bluescreen the young man's mind was experiencing at that point in time. Bon-Bon was having a similar moment, seemingly unable to comprehend the events of the last thirty seconds. She looked from the creature that sat in the broken remains of her favorite coffee table back to her best friend, a stupified expression on her face. The two remained there in silence for the entirety of forty seconds before a voice came through the hole the human had made. Eric recognized it as the same one that had talked to him on the roof, high-pitched, female, kind of had a New-york style of accent to it. "Lyra? Sweetie Drops? Is everything ok? You're being kinda quiet and it's kinda hard to see in there... is that stallion ok?" The voice served to snap the two of them out of their stupor, with Bon-Bon giving a short shriek as Eric scrambled to his feet. The human quickly felt his back where he had smashed into the table and was relieved to find that he wasn't wounded in any way. He gave a relieved sigh, laughing slightly at the fact he was somehow unharmed and looked up just in time to see a beige-colored fist coming straight for his face. Eric gave a pained shout as tears came to his eyes, his nose feeling as if someone had taken a hammer to it. Before suddenly he was grabbed by the arm and shoulder-thrown back onto the ground, his face smashing into the ground "Hey! What's going on in there?!" The voice quickly gained an owner as a blond-maned, grey pegasus with what appeared to be an eye-problem appeared over the hole, concerned by the ruckus coming from inside the house. She squinted and saw Bon-Bon standing on top of some sort of... Hairless earth-pony? "What the hay is that thing?!" She gasped, her eyes suddenly fixing themselves as she looked in on the two. Eric yelped as he felt the hoof dig into his back, then shouted in pain as his arm was wrenched up and behind his back, the pain lancing all the way up to his arm and into his shoulder. "Derpy! Get help!" Commanded Bon-Bon, her voice carrying an authority uncharacteristic of the town candymare. Derpy stared at the two of them with wide eyes, hesitation clear on her face; "I...." "NOW!" Snarled the Earth pony, and the pegasus disappeared, off to find help. Eric struggled on the floor, the pain growing worse with every passing second. "Get off me!" he yelled, flopping around rather ungracefully. "Shut up!" His attacker snarled, placing her hoof on his face, "Now, I'm going to ask you three questions, creature and you are going to answer them! And if I don't like what I hear..." Eric's arm was twisted further, causing him to groan in agony as the horse-woman applied pressure, nearly breaking his arm before relenting. "What are you doing here, why did you attack our home, and what did you do to her!" She gestured to the prone form of her friend, who was snoring slightly on the floor. "Oi dof new!" Was the muffled reply, Eric's face being too squished to allow him to say anything comprehensible. "What?" The mare lightened the weight on the human's face. "I don't know!" Gasped Eric, his eyes screwed shut in pain, "Horseapples!" Snarled the mare, pressing down even harder, if this kept up he wouldn't have an arm for much longer. Getting desperate for a way to stop the pain, he felt around in front of him until he felt his fingers close around something. "What the hell does that even mean?!" Roared Eric, grabbing the broken table-leg with his free hand and slinging it blindly behind him, hitting his attacker in the shoulder, she gave a pained yelp and stumbled off him. Eric got to his feet and tried to put distance between him and his strange adversary by putting his back to the wall. But she had already recovered and threw a punch that human barely got his arms up in time to block. Whatever this thing was, it knew how to fight, and it didn't seem to have any qualms about beating him within an inch of his life. He himself had been in a few fights, mainly thanks to a few bullies in high school thinking he was an easy target, several self-defense classes may have remedied those problems then, but this was something else entirely. This... horse-person, seemed intelligent and spoke English, and also had a concept of friends and camaraderie, which meant there was definitely a way to reason with them. But right now one of these creatures was attacking him, his survival came before trying to establish any form of peaceful first contact. He brought his foot up and leaned against the wall to brace himself before kicking out at her, his foot catching her square in the chest and sending her reeling back. He followed up his attack with a punch of his own, following the same method as the self-defense classes he had taken years ago had taught him, he twisted his hips and shot his fist forward at the same time, catching the mare in the face and sending her back even further. She stumbled back into the side of the staircase and used it to steady herself, she looked up at Eric and growled angrily, fire burning behind her eyes. The young gulped nervously, gritting his teeth and steeling himself as the mare pushed off the wall and charged him. Bon-Bon was an agent of an organization dedicated to the protection of the nation from dangerous creatures, this organization was known as S.M.I.L.E. They had trained her to track and subdue 'monsters' of every kind when they wandered near or, Celestia forbid, into, populated areas. However, due to a large-scale monster's escape from the underground prison known as Tartarus, which had nearly consumed all of the magic within Equestria, the entire agency was supposedly dissolved for its incompetence. At least, that was what the public was told. Before their dissolution, the public had eventually caught wind of S.M.I.L.E's existence thanks to a particularly nosey pegasus and her journalist friend. So the agency made do with what it could, and told a partial truth to the public. Usually, ponies thought the term 'monster' only applied to the occasional denizen of the Everfree forest or a fugitive from Tartarus. Creatures that were commonly thought by the ponies of Equestria to be little more than animals or beings of pure malice. That belief was what the agency preyed on, using it to make those that didn't know the true nature of the agency assume that they were nothing more than a glorified pest control company in fancy suits and sunglasses. That was only partially true, while they did handle particularly dangerous monsters, the true purpose of the agency was much more clandestine, they allowed the illusion to continue on in order to mask the more 'controversial' part of their responsibilities. The term 'Monsters' applies to more than a bunch of killer animals, at least, to the agency it did. To S.M.I.L.E, a monster was any creature dedicated to the pursuit of evil or subjugation of Equestria and her people. That meant the bands of diamond-dog slavers that roamed the badlands and Everfree, the stubborn griffon ultra-nationalists who refused to see the Equestrian people as anything more than prey, and even some of Equestria's own ponies. The agency had handled many matters in secret, through espionage, sabotage, and sometimes outright assassination. Bon-Bon had usually handled monster cases as part of the undercover branch of the agency, investigating, observing and reporting events in Ponyville, as the normally sleepy town had become a hot-zone for trouble ever since a certain lavender-colored unicorn moved in. Thanks to the elements of harmony's intervention she rarely ever had to fight monsters, let alone sapient creatures, but she had gone through the combat courses just like everyone else in S.M.I.L.E. This creature, human or no human, was an unknown being that had broken into her home and disabled her best friend. Maybe it hadn't done that to Lyra, maybe it had, all the mare could see at this point was a sapient entity that posed a possible threat to her and Lyra, and so, it had to be taken down. She charged the thing as it leaned forward, squared its feet, and braced itself, preparing to take her head-on. In terms of strength, she assumed that she and the 'human' were about even, normally that wouldn't be a problem, but it had shown skill in hand-to-hand combat, and she hadn't trained in combat for months. While she was certain she would eventually overpower the creature, she couldn't risk drawing out the fight and giving the thing a chance to escape, so she opted for something more... creative. She dropped to the floor just before reaching the creature, praying to Faust the thing was male as her momentum carried her forward and directly between 'his' legs. She kicked up and hit directly between the legs, the hardened cartilage of her hoof meeting a particularly soft point of his body. Eric's voice raised an octave as he lurched forward, groaning and holding his manhood. He struggled to remain standing, he was going to have a hard time walking after that, any guy would after getting hit there that hard. Astonishingly, he remained both conscious and on his feet, though he felt like his stomach was crawling into his throat. Bon-Bon smirked victoriously at the expression on the creature's face contorted into pure agony, that had worked like a charm when a complete idiot of a stallion decided to get 'handsy' a few weeks back. She was glad to see that some things never changed, even across species. She attempted to kick out at the human again, but it was too fast, stumbling away from her and causing her hoof to hit nothing but air. The human had pressed his back against the far wall once again and sucked in a sharp breath, briefly occupied with nursing its wounded stallionhood. She took this opportunity to get to her hooves once more and advance on the human when all of a sudden he shot forward, throwing another wild punch. She parried it with her forearm and responded with a strike to the face with the palm of her hand, his head snapped back, but he somehow remained standing as he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her forward before driving his knee into her stomach. Bon gasped, all of the air leaving her lungs at once, as she tried and failed to take in oxygen once again. She hadn't expected such an immediate response from him, she had underestimated the human, and now she was paying the price. Bon grit her teeth and grabbed onto the human's shoulders, ramming another fist into his face, and with a short, breathless yell, she swung him around and into the sofa, which he crashed into, tipping the piece of furniture over and sending several decorative throw pillows flying. The human disappeared behind the tipped sofa, with a startled shout, Silence reigned in the room, with the human remaining unmoving behind the piece of furniture. "Maybe I knocked it out?" The Mare thought, she had hit him pretty hard before she had thrown him, maybe it had been enough to end it. Her eyes wandered over to the prone form of Lyra, who was snoring loudly from her place on the ground, slowly, she began to stir, and it looked like her eyes were slowly beginning to open. Bon allowed herself a sigh of relief, at least she wasn't hurt. The mare slowly approached the couch, cautious of any sign of movement on the part of the human, she slowly peered over the edge of it, only to receive a throw pillow to the face. Whumph! The Earth pony gave a rather embarrassing squawk of surprise as the pillow briefly obscured the entirety of her vision, causing her to stumble back and fall on her back, immediately the human scrambled to his feet from behind the couch and charged up the staircase in a blind panic. The enraged mare recovered and caught sight of the fleeing human, a malignant growl rose out of the mare as she rounded the handrail and stormed up after him, hot on his heels. "Oh no you don't!" She lunged forward, grabbing the human by the ankle and causing him to trip, catching a face-full of stairs in the process. Bon-Bon took advantage of the situation and yanked down on his leg, pulling him down the stairs and hitting his head on every single step. Once he was on the floor the Mare mounted him and began raining punches down on his head. Eric raised his arms, doing his best to defend himself on the floor as blow after blow hammered his arms, leaving them feeling like lead weights as he looked for an opening, desperately rifling through his memories for what to do when he was pinned. One of the pony's punches broke through his defense, catching him in the eye and causing stars to explode in his vision, he couldn't take very many more of those. Somehow his mind finally decided to work and an idea clawed its way into his mind. He pivoted, twisting his hips before bringing one leg up and pushing one of hers down, he looped his right leg around the outside of her left leg, then scissored his legs, kicking them in opposite directions, the mare fell off of him, landing on her back with an "oof!" He took the opportunity to turn the tables on her, mounting her and beginning his own assault on her face, throwing punches that would have made a professional fighter proud. The Mare held her guard with the skill of an experienced fighter, it was only seconds before she had swept him off of her and left him back on the ground, but before she could get on top of him once again, he kicked out at her legs, causing her to collapse on top of him. The two struggled on the floor, wrestling for the advantage over each other, punching and kicking in a frenzy. Eric fought desperately, trying to find an escape more than he was trying to disable the horse-person. Bon-Bon gave it her all, seven months' worth of training coming back to her, she didn't need to kill the human, just disable it. The mare pulled Eric into a headbutt, slamming her forehead into his nose and causing him to recoil, blood spurting from his nose and splattering her. Eric landed with his back to the floor, and once again the mare pinned him and began pounding away at him. "Sweetie Drops? Lyra? Can you hear me?" A voice from outside called, followed shortly by a knocking on the door. "Help!" Bon-Bon called, holding Eric down with all of her strength. "Looks like Derpy came through," she thought, relieved. Eric, on the other hand, heard the voices like someone might hear church bells at a funeral, and began to panic, he thrashed against the mare on top of him with all the strength he had left as the door flew open. "Bon-Bon! What are you-" Eric grabbed the mare's wrists, placed both of his feet in her hips, and lifted her up and off of him. "Wha-!" she flailed slightly as the human lifted her up, and rolled backward, sending the earth-pony flying in the direction of the newcomers, who received her with shouts of surprise. Rolling to his stomach, Eric paid no mind to the new arrivals. Instead, he spent a frantic three seconds looking for something to use as a weapon, his hand closed around the smooth wooden surface of a table leg, he snatched it up holding it like a baseball bat as he stood and got a good look at the other two horse-people. One was male, with light brown fur and a dark brown mane that was messily styled into a fauxhawk, it wore a long trenchcoat with what seemed to be a vest underneath, complete with a bright green bowtie. The other one seemed to be a pegasus, female, with light grey fur and a blonde mane, most notably, her yellow eyes seemed to point different directions. The two were helping the one that had attacked him to her feet, or... hooves. The brown one looked at him with a mixture of shock, curiosity, and recognition? The grey one looked between the three of them with concern, seeming somewhat unsure of what came next. "Back off!" Eric gave the table leg a good swing before holding it behind his head like a baseball bat, ready to knock some heads if any of them came too close. " Give it up freak!" Bon-Bon glared at him, "even if you manage to escape, there's nowhere to run, we've called the guards, and they're on their way now!" "Uhhh, Bon-Bon?" Said Derpy, "I didn't call the guards." Bon-Bon sighed, glancing over to the pegasus with frustration. "That was supposed to be a bluff, thank you for ruining it." She looked back to Eric, narrowing her eyes and scowling. "Regardless of that, if you run, you'll be hunted down." "Better than getting strapped to a dissection table!" Eric retorted. "If I go down, I go down fighting!" The one in the trench coat stepped between the two of them, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Now, now, this doesn't need to get any more violent than it already has, no one is getting dissected." Eric raised an eyebrow, but held his stance, distrustful of anything with a muzzle at this point. "Tell that to that one." He pointed at Bon-Bon with the table leg, "She's the one who jumped me!" The stallion looked to Bon-Bon, who looked back at him indignantly, "He crashed through the roof and knocked Lyra out!" She gestured to the prone form of the unicorn. "What was I supposed to do?!" "Perhaps, negotiate with the human before trying to beat him to a pulp? Practice that whole 'love and tolerance thing the princess is always promoting?" Replied the stallion, giving the mare a moderately annoyed look before looking back to Eric. Bon-Bon looked at the stallion with surprise, "How do you know what a human is?" "It's a rather long story, miss Drops, I'd be happy to tell you after we solve our current conundrum." The stallion nodded to Eric, his voice softening. "That is what you are, correct? A human?" His voice was calm, his hands held up as he gingerly took a step forward, Eric, in return, took a step back, wary of almost everything at this point. Hesitantly, he gave a slow nod, hoping that humans weren't considered a delicacy or monsters or something worse wherever he was. The stallion nodded in return and reached into his coat, producing a small, tube-like object, which he aimed at the human. The young man tensed, muscles tightening as he retreated even further back, his heel brushing the hand of the mint-colored one. "Hey!" Eric raised the table leg in a threatening gesture, thinking he'd been lied to. "Easy now, it's just scanning you." Time Turner reassured him. The device extended, emitting a small light at its tip and making a small, buzzing, very familiar noise. If Eric wasn't in as much pain as he was, that noise alone would have convinced him that he was dreaming. "Wait," Eric lowered the table leg, "Is that a sonic screwdriver?" Both Time Turner's and Derpy's eyes flew wide open, clearly, they weren't expecting him to know what that was, but he had watched enough Doctor Who to know that sound anywhere. "How..." Time Turner looked at a small screen on the side of the screwdriver, then back to Eric with an even more confused expression. "How do you know what this is?" If this horse-person was carrying a sonic screwdriver, then... The bowtie, the trenchcoat, the aversion to violence? Dear God, where was he?! "Doctor?" Eric said hesitantly. The Stallion looked like he had been slapped, he turned back to look at his pegasus companion, who now looked at Eric with no small amount of concern in her crossed- eyes. "W-well," the stallion stammered, looking between the human and the two mares. "It appears we have a great deal to talk about." Eric took a deep breath and lowered the table leg once again, "I-I guess we do." He dropped the wooden weapon and put his hands behind his head, exhaling loudly, before raising his hands, if this was the very the same doctor he knew from the series, then he could be trusted. Of course, this could all be some sort of elaborate trick to get him to lower his guard, but something about the Stallion almost radiated a feeling of authenticity. "All right, I surrender." The doctor gave a sigh of relief as the table leg clattered to the ground. "Alright then, Miss Doo, if you would please contact our resident Princess..." The Stallion suddenly grew wide-eyed once again, reaching his hand out and lunging at Eric. "Lyra, wait! Do-" Something cracked against Eric's skull from behind, and instantly he faceplanted, falling into unconsciousness as a mess of obscure voices exploded around him. Author's Note Well, that was an experience that presented various problems I do not feel like disclosing. You mean when you accidentally deleted half the chapter and had to write the whole thing over again by memory after 3 months? You really do pay attention, don't you? I AM you Angsty! I know what you think before you think about it! Right... and on that note, I wish whoever had stumbled upon this story a good day, and as always, criticism is accepted vehemently. And then you started an entirely different story that made us villains... Ok, I get it. Then you got super lazy and stopped writing anything, Stop- Now you're abandoning the other story and coming back to this one! We've come full circle Angsty!" Yes! Alright! I'm working on Worlds away for a while, I wanted to give my first story some love while I think up some ideas for Inhuman Nature, I refuse to abandon either story and it will probably be years before either story is even halfway done... BUT. I. WILL. KEEP. WRITING!!! *Whispers* He always like this Pinkie? Just smile and nod A.J., don't provoke him.
Chapter 4"Well, I can honestly say with confidence that this was the worst first-contact I have attended that didn't end with one party getting disintegrated, maimed, burned, sent backward through time, smashed, assimilated, or generally un-alived." Lyra sat next to the Doctor as he made idle chat with her in front of Bonnie's house while they watched as pair of guards hesitantly assisted Bon-Bon in carrying the human into a cage that sat on a nearby cart. From there they exchanged a few words before nodding the guards nodded and began securing the human's cage. Lyra watched them sullenly as her prize was prepared to be carted off to be studied by the princess. Exactly the opposite of what she was hoping would happen when she finally met a human, even worse, Bonnie had not only made first contact before she did, she attacked the human! Just like she had. The mare made a noise somewhere in between a groan, a sigh, and a wail of self-pity. The memory of what she had done was something that would stay with her for the rest of her life, she just knew it. She had woken up and saw the human swinging around a table leg, and in a moment of panic, she let her worst fears about humans get the better of her, and she had just, reacted. Time turner had scolded her, Bonnie had praised her, and now? Derpy was comforting her. The pegasus crouched down to put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure the dejected unicorn as the earth-pony approached them. "Come on Lyra, it was one little mistake!" She reassured the unicorn. "I can't even count the number of times I've made a slip-up like that." "Trust me," Muttered the doctor as he leaned against the stone wall of the house. " I know better than anypony that she's telling the truth." "I could have started an interspecies war!" Lyra groaned, "I could have given him brain damage!" "True." The Doctor tilted his head from side to side, earning him a smack on the back of the head from Derpy. "OW!" The stallion growled. "Don't hit me! She's the one who hit the human!" Lyra groaned again. "There's no need to worry Ms. Heartstrings," Said the Doctor somewhat begrudgingly. "I examined him personally, and other than a bump on the head he'll be perfectly fine." That did make her feel a little better. "Though, he will have quite the headache when he wakes up." The stallion added. And now the guilt had instantly returned. Bon-Bon elbowed the Doctor in the ribs as she passed by. "What the doctor was trying to say was that your actions today defused a tense situation, Lyra. You should be proud and I'll make sure you receive a proper commendation when I arrive in Canterlot with the human." Time turner grumbled and moved away from the two, muttering to himself about "Mares." Lyra glared at her friend wordlessly and crossed her arms, Bon returned the stare cooly, making a point of looking unashamed of her actions. Which only served to irritate her further, Bon-Bon now knew Lyra was right, and immediately after Lyra had become the luckiest mare in Equestria, she made it her mission to put as much distance as possible between her and the human. "Fine," Lyra thought. You want to do this the hard way? Let's do it the hard way." Lyra held her friend's eyes for a few moments longer before she sighed angrily and got to her hooves, brushing past her friend and grabbing the doctor by the coat as she dragged him over to the cart. "Wh- excuse me!" The stallion stammered. "Shut up, you're coming with me." The unicorn growled, not even looking in his direction. "What do you think you're doing?" Bon-Bon watched her as she dragged the stallion away. "Something I really will be proud of," Lyra replied over her shoulder. "You're not coming with us!" "Kinda funny how you think you can stop me." Lyra replied nonchalantly. "This is a matter of national security!" Bon-Bon fumed, "I can't have you messing anything up!" "And how, exactly do I fit into this?" Time turner grunted. Lyra cocked an eyebrow, "don't act like you weren't already planning on going with them." Both Derpy and Bon-Bon turned their eyes to the stallion as he laughed nervously, tugging at the collar of his undershirt. "Well, he did seem to know me, it's only natural I find out why." Derpy sighed, crossing her arms and following behind Lyra. "Well, I guess that means I'm coming too." "Don't you have mail to deliver?" Bon-Bon eyed the pegasus. "Don't you have a candy store to run?" The cross-eyed mare smiled smugly back at her. BonBon briefly narrowed her eyes at Derpy before massaging her temples briefly with her hands. "None of you have the clearance for this!" She shook her head, wondering how an almost normal morning devolved into this so quickly. "Actually, Ms Drops," the Doctor piped up, still being pulled along by Lyra. "You'll find that Ms. Doo and I will have the clearance, the only pony present who does not, happens to be our resident anthropologist." "Of course." Lyra said, "Why would I? It's not like I've kept Special agent Drops' secret safe for two years. Not like I've earned even a hair's worth of trust, I'm just a civilian, an incompetent, untrained, and foolhardy civilian." "Glad we're on the same page." Bon-bon said icily, earning another scowl from her friend. "Yes, well." The doctor said hesitantly. "I may or may not be able to pull some strings to help you in the clearance departtment, Ms. Heartstrings." "You can?!" The Unicorn spun around, releasing the doctor as she did so with an excited glint in her eye. "Nope! No, he can't!" Bon-Bon interrupted, "not if I have anything to say about it!" Lyra glared in her roommate's direction once again and was about to say something when the Doctor suddenly spoke up once again. "Unfortunately, Miss Drops, I'm going to have to insist that Lyra tags along, her expertise may be of some use to us." Bon-Bon's eyes widened, she hadn't expected this from Time Turner, she had heard of his involvement with several lesser known threats to Equestria, and she knew all about his time-travel adventuring thing, but to think he was trying to strongarm his way past her, who did he think he was? Her hooves ground into the dirt as her face grew as red as the cinnamon candies she sold. "I, said, NO!" The last word was shouted much louder than the mare had intended it to be, and a look in Lyra's direction confirmed that their friendship would suffer from it. Still, she remained resolute in her conviction, Lyra couldn't be drawn into the agency, there was too much at stake, and she knew she would never forgive herself if Lyra ended up like so many other civilians drawn into S.M.I.L.E affairs. The Doctor's face fell into an expression that the agent placed somewhere between boredom and frustration, with a gentle but firm hand, he pried Lyra's grip off his coat, and approached the candymare, speaking softly as he did so. "Ms. Drops, I must ask you to set aside your personal feelings in this endeavor." "For me to set aside my-?!" She stammered, at a loss as to why she was being considered the emotional one. The Doctor looked back to his partner-in-crime and waved a hand. "Ms. Doo, if you would please assist Lyra in convincing the guards, Ms. Drops and I need to speak for a moment." "Right." Derpy smiled at Lyra. "Come on, just follow my lead Lyres." "Oh! Uh, ok..." Lyra looked between Derpy and the two earth ponies before lightly jogging after the pegasus, who had already begun speaking with the guards. The Doctor then turned to face Bon once again, the same look on his face as he spoke to her. "Yes, Ms. Doo, your personal feelings." The Doctor said to her in a hushed tone. "I don't know if you have realized, but anthropology is not a commonly studied subject in Equestria, I have only ever known four other ponies in all of known history to be as well-versed in it as Ms. Heartstrings, do you know who those four were?" "No." "Starswirl the Bearded, Princess Luna, myself, and King Sombra." Bon-Bon was silent, quietly processing the information as the Doctor stared her directly in the eyes. "So, if three of Equestria's most important historical figures were as knowledgeable on the topic of humans as Ms. Heartstrings, what does that tell you?" Starswirl and the Princess were a surprise to Bon-Bon, the Doctor, not so much, but King Sombra of all ponies? The concept of the former dark king of the Crystal Empire taking an interest in humans made her stomach twist in knots. "I'm not one for working with S.M.I.L.E, Ms. Drops, you're all too a little clandestine and ruthless for my liking, makes the acronym seem a bit too ironic, but even I can't ignore the indisputable nature of the signs that surround us. Nor can I ignore your roles in history, I know what's coming, I've known ever since my first and only trip into Equestria's distant future." "Didn't the princesses ban you from doing that?" The Doctor looked to the side, "No." Bon-Bon smirked despite her frustration, "Under threat of having the TARDIS confiscated, if I remember correctly." "How do you even know about that?" The Doctor eyed her suspiciously, "aren't you just a field agent?" "I operate in the same town as you Time Turner, it would have been stupid of the agency not to warn me about you, they used to draw up all sorts of plans to get the T.A.R.D.I.S from you." The doctor snorted, "They've certainly tried to, can you believe they tried sending royal guards to just cart it off at first? It took me leaving a 200-year-old pickled herring in Celestia's pillow seconds before she went to sleep for the night to get her to stop trying." "Sounds like something Discord would do." The mare remarked with a small laugh. "He's the one who suggested I do it." "You went to Discord for help with that?" "No... he sort of... invited himself into the TARDIS and mentioned it in passing." Discord in the TARDIS? The mare felt a shiver crawl down her spine. "And that's a can of worms I will not be trying to open, but anyway, what did you mean by 'what's coming?' " "When I first tried entering your future, I was unable to materialize anywhere within Equss's atmosphere, it was magical interference, the same thing happened when I tried traveling more than 200 years into the past." "What does that mean?" "It means, either Celestia is still kicking 2000 years into the future and predicted that I was going to be, well... me, and try breaking the rules, or there was someone actively preventing me from entering the distant future and past. Though my trip into the past was fruitless, during my breif visit to the future the TARDIS received a file with several extremely vague details about the events of the next few years." "And yet you didn't think to tell us about this...why?" "Because if I did, I risked changing history, the events of this morning were a fixed point in time, Bon-Bon, trust me when I say that you do not want to alter those." The agent shook her head, "Time-travel mumbo-jumbo." The stallion smiled wryly, almost as if reminiscing over something "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey," he muttered, looking over to his companion. "What was that?" "Nothing, nothing." The Doctor waved a hand, his smile disappearing. "Anyways, I couldn't afford to change history so drastically, and without knowing any exact dates, I had no way to prepare for our simian friend's arrival, and could do nothing but wait. "So, what? Is the human special?" "Everyone is special Ms. Drops," the doctor smirked mischievously, "but if you're asking if he is any kind of 'chosen one' or 'messiah, ' then, no, I don't believe he is. He is essentially just as normal as Ms. Heartstrings, minus the ability to use magic." "So, then why is he so important?" "I can't necessarily say for sure, between what I can't say and what I don't know there isn't very much information that details his role in the future." The Mare threw her hands up, "so, the monkey's important, but you can't say why or how, then what can you tell me?" "There are a lot of important people he's connected to, and a good few of them die." The mare flinched. "That's... morbid." "Glimpses into the future usually are, you get used to it." "I don't think I want to." "You don't. But as I was saying, there wasn't much to go on, but it would have taken a blind pony to not recognize what I was reading, and given what's happening around us, I think you already know what's about to happen." Bon-Bon wasn't a fool, and she had been paying close attention to the events of the past few weeks. A sudden meeting of the elements of harmony, her being called in with barely any explanation, the Saddle Arabian embargoes, the silence of the Griffons and the near-manic eagerness of Diamond-dog slaving parties to encroach on Equestrian soil. "So," She said with a slightly wavering voice, "it's war?" The Doctor chuckled grimly, "The first in a millennium, every society faces it at least once in its lifespan, and unfortunately, the time is approaching quickly." "But, what does Lyra have to do with this? What does the human?" The Doctor wiped a hand over his snout, as he looked over to his companion and the unicorn, the pegasus was talking in a rather threatening manner, one of the guards could barely hold her cross-eyed gaze, instead, he stared vacantly forward, the other guard seemed to be... crying. "He could be the key to our survival, could be the key to a lot of things, as I said before, the information I have on him is, inconclusive, but I do know that both he and Lyra survive at the very least a few more years, but If they hadn't met today, I couldn't have guaranteed her survival. " The Doctor bit his lip, sighing. "All you need to know is that Lyra and the Human are fated to meet, the roles the two of them play are ones whose importance cannot be overstated. I understand that you worry for your friend but when it comes to the survival of a people, I cannot take a risk when it comes to something as inconsequential as sentimentality." "You're starting to sound like the Director of S.M.I.L.E." Bon tilted her head. "One, never say that again, two, she has to go, and we need to convince the princesses to let the human go free, which means you have to drop charges." Bon-Bon sighed, "yeah, I saw that one coming." She rubbed her jaw where the human had hit her, as much as she hated to say it, the human packed one heck of a punch. "You realize you're going to have to literally pry Princess Twilight off of the human to prevent her from trying to study it." "Him, Miss Drops, him, he is a sentient, and deserves at the very least to be referred to as one." She sighed, "fine, him." The Doctor allowed himself to smile once again. "Wonderful! I'm so glad we could come to an agreement on the matter, now, shall we relieve the poor stallions on that wagon before Derpy causes any lasting mental trauma?" The cage was covered with a brown tarp that Bon-Bon had pulled from a shed near their home, once they were sure the wagon would attract as little attention as it could possibly attract. The propulsion spell was started once again and the wagon began to wheel itself through the streets of ponyville. With the cage taking up a substantial portion of the wagon's bed, two of the wagon's four passengers were forced to sit on the floor of the bed, with the two that remained allowed to take the two remaining seats on either side of the wagon. Lyra had opted to sit on the floor, with her back pressed up against the bars of the cage, the Doctor had joined her sitting parallel to her as Derpy and Bonnie took their own seats. Bonnie had offered her the seat, Lyra guessed it was a sort of apology, she didn't take it, and refused to make eye contact with her as she made small talk with the doctor. It wasn't long before the wagon drew the eyes of the town's ponies. Conversations were stopped and then continued with new topics in hushed tones as everyone in the town strained to get a look at the wagon and who was riding in it. Lyra instinctively flinched back from the attention, unused to so many eyes on her, she suddenly flicked her gaze to the wooden boards of the wagon's bed as her name was whispered and the very same rumors that she had heard whispered in the halls of every orphanage and boarding school she had ever attended returned to plague her. There were the ones about her, how she had cheated at the entrance exams at the home for the magically gifted, or how she was obsessed with make-believe monsters. She had heard it all before and had grown numb to the judgment of strangers, after all, she knew herself, and that was enough for her. But the worst rumors were about the people she hadn't known, the rumors about how they had abandoned her at the foot of an orphanage in Fillydelphia at the first chance they had. She had never known her parents, her last name was made by one of the caretakers at the orphanage when she had discovered her special talent. She had left Fillydelphia as soon as she had scraped together enough bits to get a train ticket to Canterlot, but those rumors seemed to chase after her, no matter how far she ran. The rumors were not limited to her, however, Time Turner's, Derpy's, and even Bon-Bon's name were whispered in the crowd, and soon Lyra found that the Doctor's and Derpy's name soon overshadowed her own, a fact that she took comfort in as they passed through the town proper and rolled slowly up to the large ramp that led to Princess Twilight's castle. Right in front of the entire company of royal guards that stood watch, three guards broke ranks and began to approach the wagon. "Oh, when did they get there?" The Doctor asked nonchalantly. "This morning," Bon-Bon replied, "they were sent from Canterlot for the protection of the elements of harmony during their-" Without warning, the great wooden doors of the crystal castle slammed open with a massive, resounding "BANG! " and from within the castle, a pink-colored rocket hurtled down the ramp faster than anypony could or should be able to run. If the ponies at the bottom of the ramp were not denizens of Ponyville, perhaps they would have been shocked, maybe even a little scared. However, they were, and every pony on the wagon, including the guards, who had been stationed in the town for two years, knew what was coming. The guards at the ramp, however, did not. "Halt!" "Oh dear," The Doctor muttered in slight amusement, "here we go again." A sergeant stepped out of the ranks of soldiers and placed himself in the path of the pink blur, holding out a hand in an attempt to stop the blur. He might as well been attempting to stop the blowing of the wind. "Halt!" The sergeant commanded once again, his voice beginning to waver as the pink blur took shape. It was less than fifty yards from the bottom of the ramp when the guardspony began stumbling backward, his voice cracking as the earth pony lost no speed whatsoever and showed no intention of changing direction. As the pink blur finally reached him, the stallion caught of brief view of blue eyes, a huge pink mane, and a smile so big it could have been mistaken for the moon if wasn't for the mare it was attached to. Then the blur was past him, heading straight for the wagon as the sound of a party horn sounded through the air, finally the blur came to an immediate stop in front of the wagon. Allowing the occupants to see the pink mare garbed in a short skirt and light blue T-shirt as the sound of a part blower split the air. "WELCOME TO-!" The mare cut her cry short as she realized that she recognized everyone within the wagon, and while her comically large smile remained, the confusion in her eyes was evident. "Hi, Pinkie," Lyra said, giving her friend a small wave, one that the pink mare briefly and enthusiastically returned. "Hiya Lyres!" The doctor gave the party mare a polite nod, "Good morning, Ms. Pie, forgive my abruptness, but aren't you supposed to be in a meeting?" "Uh-huh!" Pinkie nodded fervently. "Princess Celestia called us all together for something, I don't remember what it was about because when she was talking I got the feeling somepony new came to Ponyville!" The mare bounced in place excitedly for a moment as her eyes scanned her surroundings for the somepony in question. "I didn't know anypony was coming, but I always have my emergency welcome-to-ponyville-party-supplies on hand!" The mare gestured back to the entrance of the castle, where a large banner reading "welcome to ponyville!" in big yellow letters. The Doctor raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, but gave no other indication of shock at the display, no one would have been surprised even if Pinkie had pulled an entire cake out of her mane for this exact occasion. "I really, really REALLY wanted to go and plan a bigger party, but Twilight wouldn't let me go, but then I felt the new pony coming closer and closer and I just couldn't sit still and it felt like I was gonna explode!" Pinkie threw her arms out and mimicked the sound of an explosion. "Pinkie!" A distant and incredibly irate voice called from within the castle. A small, purple-tinged flash appeared at the entrance of the castle, and a very upset alicorn appeared, looked up to see the banner strung up in the entrance to her castle, pinched the bridge of her muzzle, and then disappeared in another purple flash before appearing closer. Despite the tiara on her head, the princess wore little else to signify her presence as royalty, she wore a set of simple yet formal clothes that likely had been made by Rarity. "Pinkie! You can't just run off during a meeting concerning the security of the entire country just to, oh, who am I kidding, of course you were going to do that." At the sight of the youngest princess, the entirety of those present with the exception of the Doctor and Pinkie either kneeled or bowed their heads in respect. Twilight blushed slightly in embarrassment before hastily gesturing everyone present to their hooves before she took notice of the wagon and blinked in surprise. "Doctor?" "Good morning your highness!" The Doctor waved. "Quite a nice day for a meeting, isn't it?" Twilight approached the wagon and saw the other three ponies. "Lyra? Bon-Bon? I expected Derpy to be with Time Turner, but what are you doing here?" Twilight looked at the covered cage, "and what is that?" "Good morning, your highness." Bon-Bon said curtly, "we have something we need to show you and the other princesses," she nodded to the cage. "This is it." Pinkie also took notice of the massive object and within a second was behind the wagon. "What is it?" She asked reaching for the tarp. "Ap! Ap! Ap!" The Doctor swatted her hand away. "This is an important.... um...." "Object?" Bon-Bon offered. "Object! Yes, yes, an important and very, very secret object that must be brought to the princesses at once!" Pinkie squinted at the doctor, and looked back at the covered cage, she stared at it for a moment in silence before her pupils shrunk comically and she gasped so deeply it felt as if she was trying to inhale the cage. "The new pony's in there!" Pinkie shouted. "What?!" Twilight leaned over to see, eyes wide. The pink pony lunged for the tarp as the Doctor and Bon-Bon attempted to block her from getting it off, meanwhile Twilight demanded an explanation from Lyra, who tried to stammer out a reply as the two guards who were driving the wagon quickly made themselves scarce, not wanting to get in the way of the scuffle. "Hey! What the hay is going on?!" Everypony present looked up to see two pegasi flying over to the scene, neither needed introduction. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy landed and took in the scene for a moment before Pinkie opened her mouth again. "The Doctor kidnapped the new pony!" "What?!" "Oh my!" Fluttershy clamped her hands over her mouth. "Why?" "I did not- ah!" The Doctor shouted as he was shoved out of the way and off the wagon by Rainbow Dash as she grabbed the tarp and prepared to pull it off, but was stopped by Bon-Bon and Derpy as they now struggled with two opponents. Bon-bon quickly and respectfully placed herself between the cage and the cyan pegasi, who looked at Bon-Bon in shock and confusion before glaring at her. "Move!" The pegasi attempted to shove her way past the earth pony, who returned the shove with equal force. "Ms. Dash, I know this looks bad, but you need to-" "Buck that! I'm saving that pony, kidnapper!" The two began to struggle, and soon they toppled over the end of the wagon and on top of the Doctor, who wheezed in pain. Derpy struggled to hold Pinkie back from jumping onto the wagon as Twilight continued to demand answers from Lyra, who could barely compose a sentence through her panic and confusion. Finally, a voice cut through the chaos. "STOP!" Everybody froze before instinctively gaining their hoot and looking around for a moment, that volume and commanding tone could have only belonged to Princess Luna, and as everyone turned, two alicorns and an earth-pony stood behind them. The Diarchs stood at least a foot over everyone present, garbed in robes befitting royalty. Princess Celestia strode forward, her face calm and the small, mischievous, and benevolent smirk on her face as present as ever on her face. "Doctor, up to some manner of trouble as ever I see." "Yes, well, your highness, it has been an...'interesting' morning." The Doctor replied, picking himself off the ground. "So it would seem, am I to believe Pinkie in that you have kidnapped a pony, and then brought them here to show to us?" "We did not kidnap anypony, your highness!" Derpy spoke up. "Then you wouldn't have any problem removing that there tarp, now would ya?" Applejack strode forward, pointing at the cage with suspicion in her green eyes. "A.J! Where's Rarity?" Dash called from beside the Wagon. The mare rolled her eyes "You know her, so set on making sure she didn't ruin that fancy dress of hers, she thought this was a Pinkie problem and wanted 't wait it out in the castle. Princess Luna, her face one of slight annoyance, spoke up, "I agree with the element of Honesty's proposal, if there is nothing to hide, then there is no reason to hide whatever it is you have behind the covering." Twilight gave a relieved sigh before her horn lit up purple and the tarp around the cage glowed the same color. "Princess!" The Doctor cautioned, "I would not do that!" "Why not, Doctor?" Twilight stared at the stallion accusatorily. "What is under that tarp should not be revealed until we are in a more secure environment, I am dearly sorry for interrupting your meeting, but unfortunately what is under that tarp is a matter of national security and should not be unveiled in a public setting such as this!" "So," Princess Luna, "there is not a pony in a cage under that veil." She said with narrowed eyes. "No, your Highness," the Doctor said relieved to be in control of the situation again. "There is not." Celestia stared at the doctor for a few moments before addressing Applejack. "Is he lying, Applejack?" The mare brushed the front of her stetson away from her eyes and set her hands on her hips, staring at the stallion intently before giving a short sigh. "Not as far as I can tell, princess." Celestia, satisfied with the element of Honesty's answer, nodded. "Very well, Doctor, you may bring the cart into the-" "Ah, Christ, my friggin' head." All eyes turned to look at the back of the wagon where the voice had come from, and everypony knew it had come from within the cage. Both Diarchs stared at the Doctor, who laughed nervously. "Twilight." Celestia said, "Please remove the tarp." "Bollocks." The Doctor sighed. Twilight gripped the tarp in her magic once more and lifted the tarp up so that anyone present could get a good look at it, Pinkie, now unhindered by Derpy, hopped onto the wagon, the party blower still in her mouth as she locked eyes with the creature in the cage, the party blower sagged in her mouth before falling out entirely as her jaw dropped and Dash appeared behind her. "What, is, that?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Author's Note 12/7/20: Minor Plot and Gramatical tweaks.
Chapter 5Eric rolled over onto his back as the blurred soup of words and sounds that had plagued him ever since he returned to consciousness a few minutes ago slowly grew more cohesive. He had put together the feeling of movement and several voices, then more voices a few minutes later, one of them was this high-pitched, shrill voice that made it feel like a mixture between a xenomorph and icepick was trying to burrow its way out of his skull. Suddenly things were shaking, and it sounded like a scuffle was happening outside the dark realm of his consciousness. Finally, he scraped together enough sense to get his eyes open and took stock of his surroundings as the shaking finally came to a stop, finally, the full measure of the pain in his head hit him, and as he came to his senses he let out a groan. "Christ, my friggin' head." Wherever he was it was dark, and the cold, metal floor indicated that he likely hadn't dreamed the last hour or so of his suddenly very strange life. He finally managed to force himself into a sitting position and reached out for something to steady himself on as he stood. His hand wrapped around a cool metal bar. He frowned as he reached out his other arm hoping not to find another bar, he did, he found another, and another, and by then he knew his worst fears had been true. He was in a cage, being carted off to God knows where to be sliced open and studied by those horse-people. His mind trembled as he thought of the dark things that would be happening to him. Suddenly without warning the darkness was stolen and replaced by light, blasting his eyeballs and temporarily blinding him as he felt himself suddenly jolted forward by a sudden shift in weight. For a few more moments there was silence, and then; "What, is, that?" The voice wasn't one of the ones he remembered, it was gravely, tomboyish, and carried a less cautious tone to it. He managed to open his eyes and was greeted by the pinkest creature that he had ever laid eyes on in his life, the only think that was distinctly not pink about the creature was the blue T-shirt she wore and the pair of bright blue eyes that stared at him in a mixture of confusion, curiosity, and wonder. Behind the pink one was another horse-person, a pegasus dressed in a long blue varsity jacket with a white t-shirt underneath and a pair of faded, ripped jeans. His eyes, however, were drawn to the short rainbow-colored hair that sat on top of it's head. It's magenta eyes stared at him with curiosity as well as suspicion. "What, what is it?" Another horned head poked around the back of the wagon he realized he was in and he took stock of another kind of horse-person, one with both a horn and wings. Purple seemed to be the main color of this one, the only color differentiation with this one was the streak of pink that ran through it's mane. It wore a bit more formal clothing, a dress shirt and jacket paired with dress pants. But what drew his eyes was the crown on it's head. As soon as their eyes made contact, something flared in its eyes, some kind of excitement. "You tell me, Twi, you're the egghead." The pegasus replied with an arched eyebrow. "I-I don't know!" The words were said like a child receiving a Christmas gift, one that they couldn't wait to open. "I do." Another, vaguely familiar voice said, hesitant, but confident in what she was speaking about. Another Unicorn joined the group staring at him, and Eric recognized it as the Unicorn who had fainted when he had fell through the roof of the home. It seemed to look at him in the very same way the pink one did, but with less curiosity and more excitement, and a little bit of relief. "He's a human." "A human?" The Cyan one looked to the fainter, "Those are the things you were always on about, right, Lyra?" "Yeah." "It kinda looks like we do." The pink one finally spoke "Except it doesn't have any fur, and it's hooves are funny looking. "They're called feet, Pinkie." The one called Lyra said, "and 'it' is a he, and 'he' can understand every word you're saying." "Really?!" The purple one, Twi, suddenly climbed up onto the wagon and crouched in front of the cage in front of him, if he could have scooted back further he would have, but his back was already to the bars. "Can you understand me?" The purple 'pegacorn' said to him, he didn't answer. "Caaaan yooou" the pink one appeared next to the purple one saying the words slowly "Unnnndeeeerrstaaaaaand heeeeeerrrrr?" 'Twi' giggled slightly at the pink one's antics, and Eric couldn't help but smile slightly at the goofy display, the pink one seemed to lock on to his smile, and produced one of her own that was three times the size of his. The pink one, if Eric remembered was called Pinkie, pretty derivative, but fitting to say the least. She had an infectous smile that left the small mirthful smirk on his face for a few seconds even after Twi pushed pinkie away. "What're ya'll doing' back there?" Eric actually blinked in surprise at the next figure he saw, a bright orange mare dressed in a red and black flannel shirt and jeans, coupled with a large blond mane a large-brimmed cowboy hat that gave her an overall southwestern America feel about her. Her green eyes finally settled on him, "now that, is a weird-lookin' critter!" "Can....can I see?" a small, timid voice came. "What am I, a zoo exhibit?" Eric thought to himself. The mare that came next peeked at him through a large pink mane,her green eyes interested but fearful until she got a good look at him. "Oh, my, he's....he's......" "Weird?" The cyan one offered. "Scared." The yellow pegasus said, nervously toying with a strand of her mane. "I've never seen any animals like him before." "Probably because he's not an animal." Lyra remarked irritably, "and I'm sure he doesn't like being stared at like an exhibit in a zoo!" "Quite right you are, Ms. Heartstrings!" A familiar voice replied, the Doctor came into view, ushering the group away from the wagon and nearly dragging Twilight away from the cage. "Our dear friend here is just sapient as you or I, and understands every last word you say to him. " "Can he talk?" The cyan pegasus said skeptically "Like... a parrot would?" "Just like you or me Ms.Dash, he is completely capable of independent speech." "Oh yeah?" 'Dash' looked over to Eric, a smirk on her face "then why hasn't he said anything?" "He did, Dash." Twilight replied, "he complained about his head?" The pegasus blushed slightly, and she absent-mindedly scratched the back of her head. "Oh, yeah, forgot about that." "No reason to feel ashamed, Miss Dash," The Doctor came into view. "I'm sure we are all a bit confused, and maybe even a bit afraid." The Doctor made eye contact with Celestia, she shook her head, letting him know that the news hadn't been broken to the elements yet. The Doctor was about to turn back but noticed something, both Diarchs seemed, anxious, he would have chalked it up to the prospect of war looming on the horizon, but neither of them had looked anything close to nervous when they first appeared, but now, after the word "human" was being thrown around... "The answer to your question Ms. Dash, is as Ms. Fluttershy suggested," the doctor said, filing away the question for later "he is scared by the numerous strange and unfamiliar creatures surrounding him, and he does not know whether to speak and risk angering creatures he understands very little of or to stay silent and hope that we do not cut him apart to study him." Fluttershy gasped, "That would be horrible! Who would do something like that?!" The Doctor frowned, "The world is not so nice as we perceive it to be, my dear mare, let's just say that our friend here was lucky that he landed here and not a place like the Griffon Kingdom. " A long silence followed. "But, enough about that, I do believe, It's time for some introductions!" The Doctor then turned to Eric, who flinched as the rest of those present turned their eyes upon him as well. "Now, I understand that you are likely very afraid and confused, but I'm going to ask you to trust me, and if you didn't realize, trust goes both ways, so if you trust me, then there might come a time where you might need me to trust you, and I'll think back to this time and I'll think; "ok, he trusted me, so I'll trust him." Eric was a bit confused, but he believed he got the point of the Doctor's words. "So, will you trust me, and answer a couple of questions? If you do, we'll let you out." "We will?!" An annoyed and very familiar voice said indignantly. "Doctor, he is a-" Eric bristled at the sound of his attacker's voice, and his tension was noticed by everyone present. "Miss Drops, while I appreciate your concern, I believe I will trust the Doctor in this matter, the 'human' is he called?" The doctor looked to the speaker and nodded, to Eric it was like the voice he heard was designed to convey a feeling of calm and kindness. For one reason or another, the voice calmed him enough to offer a nod. The gathered mares seemed to bristle at the confirmation of his sapience, with Twilight looking as if she was about to jump for joy. "Wonderful, now, may we know your name?" Eric hesitated for a moment before answering. "Eric." There was a moment of shocked and excited silence between the given answer and the next question, "Eric, that's a fair name." The Doctor smiled. "Ok, Eric, do you know where you are?" He shook his head. "Do you know how you got here?" Another shake of the head. "WAIT, wait, wait, wait!" Twilight suddenly held her hands out, much to the chagrin of both the Doctor and Eric, who flinched at the sudden outburst. "I need something to write on!" Without warning, the alicorn disappeared in a flash of bright purple light, causing Eric to leap to his feet, pressing his back once again as his breathing reached a panicked crescendo and for a moment Lyra feared the human was going to try to run. "Easy now!" The doctor held his hands up in a calming manner, "It's fine, everything's fine!" "W-what, was t-that?" Eric stammered, stunned by the clear violation of the laws of physics. "That.... is a rather complicated kind of power that would take more time than we have to explain, so bear with me here, we're going to call it magic for now." The Doctor sighed, and Lyra noticed a slight twinge of irritation in the stallion's voice as he spoke. "Magic?" Eric stared at the doctor, "Right," "Doctor?" Celestia's voice rang out from beyond the human's range of sight, and the human became even more curious as to who the voice belonged to. "Perhaps we should allow the human to leave the cage?" Luna's voice finished her sister's thought, "perhaps it would be better to continue such conversations within the castle walls." The Doctor nodded. "Indeed." Looking to Bon-Bon, the Doctor held his hand out for the key to the door, which she reluctantly relinquished, the doctor then inserted the key into the lock with one hand and flung the door open with the other. "Terribly sorry about all of this," the doctor said to him. "I'm afraid the people here are a little wary of outsiders, though not without good reason. Tentatively, Eric got to his feet, slowly peeking his head out to look at his surroundings, as the tarp that had covered the cage had only been lifted so he could see out of the front. He took in his surroundings, he appeared to be in the town he had seen when he had made his involuntary base-jump into this acid-trip of a world. The mares and stallion stepped back as the human nervously stepped out of the cage, and hopped off of the bed of the wagon. "Now, I think-" The Doctor was pushed aside as Eric's hand was grasped tightly. "HIERICMYNAMESPINKIEPIEITSOSSUPERDUPERGREATTOMEETYOUWELCOMETOPONYVILLE!!!!!!" Eric felt his hand nearly torn off as the pink mare shook his hand enthusiastically, smiling so brightly he thought her teeth might reflect the sunlight and blind him. "ERICDOYOULIKEPARTIESILOVETHEMIHOPEYOUDON'TMINDIFITHROWONEFORYOU!" "Uh..." The mare gasped comically. "INEEDTOGOMAKETHECAKE!" The mare shot off in the direction of the town but was stopped by the southern-looking mare, who caught Pinkie, who was still running in place even as she was held back by her friend, her feet kicked up dust in a cloud around her legs as the mare realized she wasn't going anywhere. "Now hold on there sugarcube," the mare said, "we still have a meeting to attend." The party mare hung her head in disappointment and much to Eric's surprise, Pinkie's mane went from poofy and disorganized to straight in a matter of seconds. "Awwww!" "Don't you fret now Pinkie," the orange one chuckled, "ya can always do it after the meeting." The mane suddenly regained its poofy nature and Pinkie's head shot up excitedly. "OKAY!" The mare flew from her friend's grip and suddenly wrapped Eric in a hug, then disappeared, shooting back off to the direction of the castle. Eric blinked, and suddenly took notice of the cupcake that had been pressed into his hands without him even realizing. "How...." "Ah wouldn't think about it too much sugar cube." The orange mare gave another chuckle, as she approached the human, he meekly offered a hand, which the mare took in surprisingly strong grip and shook gently and firmly. "Mah name's AppleJack, but mah friends call me A.J." "Eric." he replied, noting how he felt more at ease around the country mare, probably because she reminded him of home. "Pleasure to meet ya Eric." "Eric....." The name was spoken by the same mares he hadn't been able to see before, as he turned to see who said voices belonged to, he was struck with awe, the two mares that stood almost inscrutably before him towered almost a foot and a half over almost everyone present, one of the two's coat gleamed snow-white, and her mane seemed to be made purely of liquid color, flowing ethereally in the non-existent wind, her pinkish eyes shone with a benevolent curiosity that set him at even more ease than Applejack had. The other mare's coat was an impossibly deep shade of dark blue, and her mane flowed in a similar manner to her counterpart, but instead of a myriad of colors this one's mane seemed to be made of the night sky itself, complete with stars that twinkled within. Her cerulean eyes seemed to twinkle with excitement, but that was the only sign of emotion on her otherwise expressionless face. The awestruck human stared for a few moments, then took notice of the crowns both mares wore, it took two seconds before he put two and two together and decided to make a good first impression. He kneeled, bowing his head, and spoke with as much respect, eloquence, and dignity as he could manage. "Your majesties, it is an honor and a privilege to make your acquaintance." He remained there for a moment, silence overtaking the group until he heard the Doctor's barely audible scoff, and the equally quiet "oof!" as Derpy elbowed him in the ribs. The Doctor glared at his companion for a moment before taking notice of the diarchs' responses, they seemed....confused, unsure of themselves, not openly, they were far too experienced rulers for any uncontrolled displays of emotion, but the Doctor had known both mares long enough to notice the chinks in their proverbial armor. Celestia seemed predominantly stressed, confused, but there was a bit of happiness there as well, and was that nostalgia he detected? Last he checked, it was Luna who had been the more interested in humanity. The lunar princess was nearly as stressed as her sister, but it was buried under excitement and expectation mixed with confusion, no wonder she was trying so hard to look expressionless, it looked to the Doctor as if Luna was about to explode in a mess of emotions at any second. "The honor is ours, dear human, it has been many an age since I last laid eyes on your kind." Celestia intoned, her smile widening as she spoke "You may rise," Luna added, a small smile of her own forming one her muzzle. Eric did so, standing and clasping his hands behind his back. "Thank you, your highnesses." The Doctor took notice of the laugh Luna suppressed rather well, but he couldn't for the life of him understand why the Lunar diarch would be laughing. "Curioser and curioser." The stallion thought to himself. "I apologize for the disruption, your highnesses," Eric continued, "I understand my arrival has interrupted a meeting between you and your....advisors." "Advisors...." Celestia smiled. "It is no trouble, my friend, we had barely even begun before Pinkie decided to disappear, she is a rather, unique individual, but there are seldom friendlier ponies in this town than her." Eric simply nodded in response. "But it is we who should be apologizing." Luna cut in. "It is not our custom for a visitor in our lands to be caged as you have been." "It is.....understandable why I was, your highnesses, I happened to crash through the roof of one of your subjects." Eric absent-mindedly rubbed the back of his head. "A well-trained one at that, if I were in Miss...?" He looked over to where his former attacker stood leaning against the wagon, watching him. The mare nodded in an apathetic manner. "Bon-Bon." "If I were in miss...Bon-Bon's position, I would have likely perceived my arrival as an attack of sorts as well, I am willing to forgive the misunderstanding." Both Diarchs seemed to pause at his words, and seemed to suddenly become aware of the bruises and cuts he had sustained. "You...were attacked?" Celestia whispered. Luna turned her eyes to Bon-Bon who whithered under the suddenly wrathful gaze of the lunar princess. "By her?!" Luna said, her voice containing a well-hidden venom. The princess began moving in the mare's direction but was stopped by Celestia, who shook her head. Luna offered Bon-Bon another glare, leaving the earth-pony scared and confused. "It is fine, your highnesses," Eric said respectfully, confused as to why one of a nation's leaders would get so mad at one of their subjects on a stranger's behalf. "We happened to trade blows, so I consider us on even ground." "That is very decent of you, good sir," Luna smiled at him. "I am L- PrincessLuna, diarch of the moon." "And I am Princess Celestia, diarch of the sun." The white mare introduced herself, clasping one hand over the other and offering a small, respectful bow. " We are delighted to make your acquaintance." Eric nodded respectfully once again. "Sir Eric, as you have discerned, we were about to begin a meeting discussing important affairs regarding our nation," Luna explained, "We must return to these affairs, however, I believe that princess Twilight would be more than happy to allow you to wait within her castle until said meeting has concluded. If you would not mind, my sister and I would like to speak with you in earnest about your plans for the future after our business has come to an end." "It would be a pleasure, your highness." "Wonderful," Celestia smiled and turned behind her. "Sergeant!" She called gently. "Your Highness?" The sergeant who had stood in Pinkie's way walked forward and stood at attention. "Please take care of the wagon Mr. Turner had brought with him." "It will be done, your excellency." The princess gave the Sergeant a respectful nod, and the Stallion turned, giving orders to several royal guards, who broke ranks, mounted the wagon, and began driving it off to some unknown location. "Very good. It was once again a pleasure to meet you Mr?" "Carter, your highness." "Eric Carter." Celestia said, smiling "I believe I speak for my sister as well as myself when I say that we eagerly await our next meeting." "I look forward to it, your highness." "Celestia! If you would please wait a moment!" The Doctor strode forward. "Yes, Doctor?" Celestia's smile grew more mirthful as the stallion approached. "I hope It would not be too much to ask a favor of you?" Celestia raised an eyebrow, "what would that favor be?" "My companions and I wish to join Mr. Carter in Twilight's castle, I have a few more questions I would like to ask him, and Ms. Heartstrings has been something of an independent anthropologist for several years." Luna's eyes flashed, and she looked over to the unicorn, who gulped nervously. "Is this true?" "Yes, your highness," Lyra replied meekly. "Then I see no problem with allowing you to join him, unless you have any objections, Mr. Carter?" Celestia looked to the human. Eric blinked, caught off guard by the question, he looked over to the Doctor who nodded back to him, Derpy waved in a friendly manner, as did Lyra, who seemed to beg him to say yes with her eyes. Bon-Bon seemed indifferent but nodded to him once again. With a bit of an inward sigh, Eric turned back to Celestia; "I see no problem with it, your highness." "Very well, AppleJack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, we must continue with our meeting, Sergeant, please have some of your guards accompany Mr. Carter, the doctor, and his companions to Princess Twilight's library, please. "Yes, your highness." The three mares that were called strode forward, Applejack looked to Eric, smiling to him and tipping her stetson to him as they stood nearby the princesses, Celestia's horn glowed for a moment, and in a brilliant flash of light, the five of them disappeared. The sergeant called out four names. "Privates Sundance, Wintersong, Tango, and Corporal Obsidia," Two stallions and two mares stepped forward, spears presented. "Sir!" They stood to attention. "Escort the princesses' guests to the castle library and stand guard!" "Yes sir!" A black mare garbed in golden armor strode over to Eric, appraising him silently but not letting any sign of personal opinion show. "This way please, sir." The other three guards took up a position around the group as the corporal began to lead them up the ramp. But before they could make any real progress, a purple flash came from behind them. "Finally! Sorry, it took me so long, it took forever to find a pen that would still wri-" Behind them, princess Twilight stood, a pen behind her ear and a large stack of papers in her arm as she looked around. "Oh come on!" She stamped a hoof, not even noticing the group on the ramp, "where could they have-" The purple alicorn gasped, "The meeting!" In a flash of purple light and blank paper, the alicorn was gone once again, her departure sending the papers in her arms flying everywhere. Eric turned around taking a deep breath and letting it out in a prolonged "Phheeeeew!" He flinched as he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked to his left to see the Doctor. "Welcome to Equestria my friend, hold tight onto your sanity, and don't try too terribly hard to explain everything you see." Author's Note This is probably the most consistent I have ever been with posts so far, I doubt the trend will last but here's to hoping. "Slam!" "ANGSTY!" Oh god, what now! "Do you have any fat free milk!?" What? "Do. You. Have. Any. Fat. Free. MILK?! I need it for Eric's welcome to ponyville cake!!!! What, but you're...... that's not even......ugh, it's in the fridge. "What drawer!?" Second on the left!" There it is! Thanks Angsty! Slam! ........ I'm not sure what's gonna give out first, my will or my sanity.
Chapter 6Chapter 6 Eric had kept his distance from the others ever since they had entered the castle, which, much to his amazement, was a grand labyrinth of a building, it's halls seeming to branch into smaller halls like the entire building was some sort of enormous crystal tree. Other guards patrolled the halls in threes, and seldom did their eyes not fall and remain on him as the group walked through halls and ascended several sets of stairs. He fell behind the group proper, hoping to stay outside of anyone's range of sight. The human was unnerved, to say the least, he assumed that most human beings would be after experiencing what he had, still, he was patting himself on the back for the way he managed to pull himself together in front of the diarchs. He had gotten a "benevolent ruler" kind of feel from both of them, and that had set some of his anxiety at ease, though by no means did that mean his anxiety had disappeared. He was on a different planet, populated by creatures capable of magic and building massive crystal castles, and met one of the most powerful fictional characters he had ever known of only to make the discovery that he was now a horse-person. He had no way of telling what the future held for him, and that worm of discontent and paranoia was making its way deeper into his mind, whispering worst-case scenarios to him as his eyes explored the castle's interior. The guards leading the group had said little, likely maintaining the discipline pounded into them by whatever training they underwent, but Eric knew when he was being watched, the guards' ears swiveled his way every so often, and he would just barely catch the movement of their eyes flicking away from him as he turned his head their way. He might have been welcome here, but he was far from comfortable. The Doctor, his companion, and the other two mares spoke in a lively manner, with the doctor even trading a few words with the corporal leading them. Both would cast looks his way from time to time, he avoided meeting their eyes. His thoughts wandered to Princess Celestia's words, his 'plans for the future,' the gravity of the words hadn't dawned on him until then. As far as he knew, some random cosmic coin-toss had ended up throwing him into some kind of tear in reality, one where the doctor existed, horse people used magic to teleport, and castles could be built out of crystal. It stood to reason that no one on this planet knew how to put him back on Earth, and he could very well be stuck here for the rest of his life. The human clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a noise that caused the ears of all the ponies to swivel towards the noise, the Doctor turned his head to look at the human, giving him a reassuring nod and a small smile, as he continued to trade words with the unicorn who walked next to him. Soon her gaze had fallen on him as well, Eric returned the Doctor's nod, but his expression remained the same, his mouth formed a grim line as his eyes returned to the floor, he retreated into his own mind, and pondered the struggles of finding some sort of normal life here, this place, this world was clearly operating under a different set of rules than Earth was, not an entirely different set, but different enough to seem extraordinary to someone like him. He vaguely noticed one member of the group fall behind the others to walk beside him as the group ascended a long, winding staircase that brought them several stories up. He tried not to pay the pony any mind, hoping that whoever it was didn't try to speak with him. His mind raced to think about how he could go about making a life for himself here, this place seemed to be on a medieval level of technology, supplemented by magic, he could likely make a good deal of money selling human concepts of technology, but that was a steep slope, one that he might not want to go down. Manual labor was always an option, he wasn't a stranger to it, but he wondered if any of the ponies would even want to hire an alien, probably not. Then there was the problem of xenophobia, he was likely to be seen as a bit of a freak to the Denizens of the planet. "Or maybe not...." he thought, remembering that the princess had said something about seeing his kind before, and the mint-colored one had known he was a human. Maybe humans existed somewhere on the planet? His thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on his shoulder, he jumped, suddenly looking to his left to see the mint-colored unicorn looking at him sheepishly. "Um, sorry, but we're here." The group had arrived at a set of doors more eloquently designed than the others, which was saying something considering the ornate patterns on most of the doors. The three other ponies entered, talking amongst themselves as the corporal led the way. The two guards flanking them strode forward and opened the doors for them to enter. Little was needed to be said, he looked to the unicorn, trying to think of a way to separate himself from the pony as quickly as possible. He stepped back and politely gestured for the pony to enter. "Ladies first." He muttered. The unicorn stood unmoving for a moment, staring at him blankly just long enough to make it awkward before she snapped out of her stupor and she turned somewhat red in embarrassment. "Oh, thanks!" She finally replied, scratching the back of her head for a moment before nodding a thank you and entering ahead of him. He hesitated as he glanced at the two guards by the door, who blankly stared back at him, he became vaguely aware of the guardspony standing behind him, waiting for him to enter to ensure the guard would be the last to enter, he strode forward with a silent sigh. Hearing the clopping of the guard as he entered the room behind the human. The remaining two guards closed the door behind him, and the sound of the doors closing reverberated around the somewhat large room, making him feel somewhat small, as the guard took a position by the entrance. The library was a big one, with the first floor lined with close to twelve large shelves of assorted books, ending in a large sitting area to his left. Directly ahead of him a staircase that led up to a balcony, which overlooked the room and held a few dozen more rows of bookshelves, light poured in from six windows evenly spaced across the north wall of the room, evenly split between the first and second floors. The light from the windows was supplemented by a large chandelier that held several glowing crystals instead of candles and seemed to be more than capable of adequately lighting the room by itself. The room stoked Eric's sense of wonder, he had enjoyed reading, though during his time in college, he mostly listened to audiobooks in order to multitask. The library was big enough to distance himself from the rest of the group and maybe gain some general knowledge of his new environment. He hazarded a look over to the others, the doctor and the other four females seemed to be in a conversation with the corporal, drawing the full attention of the three mares as he spoke. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the human quietly ascended the stairs, hoping and praying that the books were in some kind of English so he could perhaps gain some useful knowledge while he waited for his audience with the rulers of the nation. He knew it was a long shot, but if the ponies spoke English, hopefully they would write in it as well Once he reached the top of the stairs Eric got a good look at the second floor, noticing several tables where one could sit down as they read. He approached the shelves and selected a random book, grabbing it, he moved to the nearest table, one that sat near a window overlooking the countryside. Opening his chosen book, his eyes scanned over the first sentence, and his eyes went wide. English lettering, plain as day. While it was obvious that the ponies could understand him and he could understand them, the fact that the ponies shared a written language with humans seemed to be too unlikely to be possible. Continuing to read, he didn't make it two more pages before he made another discovery that boggled his mind. The books actually weren't written in English. If he concentrated on the familiar script hard enough, certain letters would shift into a completely alien script, likely incomprehensible to any native to Earth. Suddenly the question as to how there was no language barrier was answered, the ponies words were being translated to English for him, and most likely his words were being translated into their native language. The answer, however, only led to more questions for him, such as exactly why and how this was happening, he brushed them away and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth for now. He looked over at the staircase, none of his 'entourage' seemed to have noticed that he was gone yet. Or maybe they were keeping their distance, either way, it worked to his benefit, he replaced the book and decided to put studying up on his surroundings on hold until he knew for sure there was no way home. With an exaggerated sigh, he fell back into his chair and shook his head, as much as he wished he could distract himself with reading, his mind was going a mile a minute. " Home? " His mind seemed to say; "All that's back there for you is an empty house and an inheritance." The conversation at the table had quickly died out, considering the elephant in the room, nopony seemed to want to talk about anything except the thing nopony knew how to start talking about. Bon-Bon drummed her fingers against the table she was sitting at in an agitated manner "The human is gone," Bon-Bon said finally, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Corporal Obsidia shot up from the table they had all been sitting at, looking around her in a frantic search for the missing alien. "Buck, Sundance!" The Corporal called, causing the orange pegasus to come jogging over. "Ma'am?" The private stood at attention. "Did the human enter the library?" "Yes ma'am." "Where is he now?" "He took one look at you all and disappeared upstairs." The private gestured with his spear to the balcony; "You want me to bring him down, ma'am?" The doctor waved a hand, "if it's all the same to you, corporal, I say we should leave him be for a moment, let him come to terms with his current reality." The corporal looked over to the doctor, "Sir, with all due respect..." The Doctor winced, "'Doctor,' or 'Time-Turner' is fine, corporal, save the 'sirs' for your actual superiors." "Doctor, with all due respect, the 'human' needs to be kept under constant supervision." Bon-Bon nodded, "This is Twilights' castle, Doctor... he needs to be kept on a leash." The doctor rolled his eyes, "He's a person, not a bloody dog, he's not going to take a wee on the carpet if that's what you are worried about." Obsidia gave a short bark of a laugh, "Oh, he's house-trained?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow at the corporal. "Hilarious." "The Doctor is right," added Lyra, "Humans are just as civilized as any of the sapient peoples of Equss." " How do you know so much about that thing anyway?" Obsidia asked the two, who frowned back at the corporal. The black mare looked confused at the two's reaction. "What?" "'It' is a 'he,' Corporal," the doctor said neutrally, before turning to Lyra " Miss Heartstrings, care to explain the source of your knowledge?" The unicorn winced, "I, uh, heard about them once in a storybook when I was a foal, they interested me, so I tried to find more about them. It took years to find out what I know today, and most of it is just myths and rumors. That storybook is one of the only books I have that even mentions humans directly. But there's a lot of evidence that supports their existence even without them being mentioned." Bon-Bon rolled her eyes. "Ok," Obsidia looked to the stallion. "And you, Doctor?" "Yeah," Lyra looked to the clockmaker, "How do you know so much about humans?" The Doctor smiled back, "Simple, I've been to their planet." All of the mares with the exception of Derpy stared at the doctor. Lyra was slack-jawed, "to their planet?" she whispered. "Yes, or at least, one version of it." Lyra rested her head in her hands, looking down at the table with a troubled expression. "One version?" Bon-Bon looked puzzled. "Yes, though from what my scan of Mr. Carter told me, he appears to hail from a different version of Terra Firma than I am used to." "So, you're saying there are different versions of his planet?" "There are different versions of every planet, Corporal, even this one." "What do you mean by different versions?" The doctor held a hand to his chin in thought. "Well, take the concept of our world, Equss, we all know a fair amount of its history, correct?" A series of nods was his answer. "Well, imagine if something was different about it, something small, or perhaps something big, maybe only one thing is different, or perhaps everything about it." "I thought something like that couldn't happen?" Derpy added, "That's what you told me, that altering history like that can cause serious damage to the universe or something." "Indeed it can Miss Doo, I've seen the consequences for actions such as that firsthand, fortunately for us, alternate universes such as those are the very reason that history cannot be seriously altered. There are a potentially unlimited amount of these alternate universes, and that simply pertains to our reality. There are infinite alternate universes involving planet Earth as well, ones where our planet exists and ones where it does not. I came from a universe where it did not." "Wait, wait, wait." Sundance suddenly cut in. "Did you say 'the one you came from?'" "Yes." "So that would mean..." "Yep." Derpy answered for her companion. Obsidia, Bon-Bon , and Sundance all stared at the Doctor, the only ones who didn't were Derpy, who had already known this information, and Lyra, who didn't seem to be paying attention, and was still staring at the table, muttering to herself. "But... you.." Obsidia looked the Doctor up and down, "Look like one of you?" The Doctor smirked, "At one point I looked like a human, but I am in fact neither a pony nor a human, I..." The doctor paused for dramatic effect. "Am a time-lord." "A...time lord?" Bon-Bon repeated. "Or Gallifreyan, if that is easier for you." "So, aliens exist, the stallion that saved Equss several times is an alien, and there are infinite parallel universes." Bon-Bon said, staring off into space. The two soldiers remained quiet, coming to terms with the sudden truths in stunned silence. "You seem to be taking this quite well." The Doctor commented. "You have a time-machine, aliens aren't that far-fetched when you take that into consideration." "Bon-Bon replied. Doctor shrugged, "fair point." "Why are you telling us this?" Obsidia asked the Doctor. "Because I have a feeling that all of us will be working rather closely together in the near future." "Why?"Sundance asked, then pointed at the second floor, "because of him?" "Him, and... other reasons." The Doctor replied, glancing at Bon-Bon. "The human will need individuals he can feel safe around, as he is the first human to set foot on Equss in potentially a very long time. If I know the princesses, they will take the human with them to canterlot, they will assign guards to protect him in the event that this information carries beyond Equss' border. I am going to recommend you and your squad, corporal, as that guard detail. The corporal visibly paled, which was impressive, considering the black coat. "Why?" "Because the sergeant chose you, maybe he had a reason, maybe it came down to random chance, but I need individuals I can trust. So, can I trust you and your squad Corporal?" Sundance shifted from hoof to hoof nervously, "Ma'am?" Obsidia put her hands behind her head, letting out a deep breath, before resting her hands on the table. "Yeah, yeah, we can do it, I'll need to brief Tango and Winter, but we can protect the human." "Good Mare!" The doctor slapped the table with his palms. "Don't worry, we'll be going as well, Mr. Carter will need friends and ponies he can trust, especially since he's the only one from his universe." "Doctor," Derpy spoke up, "something's been bothering me." The Doctor looked to his companion, "what is it?" " If the universe you came from wasn't the one Eric did, how did he recognize you? He even called you Doctor." The doctor reached into his coat and withdrew his sonic screwdriver, holding it with his thumb and index finger. "He recognized this." He pointed to his own muzzle, "not this" "But still..." the mare continued, "He associated it with you, so he has to of at least heard of you before, but how could he know you if you've never been to 'his version' of the human world." "An excellent question, Ms. Doo." The Doctor's smile faded somewhat, "One I intend on discovering the answer to relatively soon." "I thought you said to leave him alone, for now" Obsidia replied, looking suspiciously at the doctor. "I told you to leave him alone." The Doctor replied, " while you are going to be protecting him, Mr. Carter is alone, frightened, unlearned in the ways of this world, and in dire need of not only a guide, but some friends as well." "And you should be his first one?" Asked Sundance. "I believe that all of us should begin taking steps to get to know Mr. Carter, as something tells me he will be sticking around." The Doctored gestured at the group around him. "Miss Pie will inevitably try to make Mr. Carter feel welcome, or die trying, but for someone in his situation, her approach may end up doing more harm than good if that is his first impression of ponykind. Out of all of us, I believe I am the most experienced at dealing with individuals outside of their element in addition to being the only one who has any actual experience with humans, and I've built a somewhat sparse foundation of trust with him. I would be the best candidate to start talking to Mr. Carter, and should I fail, Ms. Heartstings would be my next choice." All heads swiveled to look at the Unicorn, but she seemed to be deep in thought, her eyes moving across the table as if reading over a notepad. "She looks like princess Twilight," Derpy whispered to the Doctor, the Stallion responded with a silent chuckle. "No, that can't be right." The mare finally said. "What?" Derpy's eyes suddenly aligned on Lyra. "Humans aren't aliens." "What do you mean?" Obsidia raised an eyebrow, "The Doctor just said..." "I know what he said! But it doesn't make sense, there are ruins, ancient documents, even cave paintings that suggest that humans existed on Equss for as long as any other known race! They can't be aliens!" "I'm not exactly certain that they are, Ms. Heartstrings."The doctor held up his hands. "I've taken a look at what many of Equss' countries have on Humans, you'd be surprised on how little there is across the board, and yet, almost every race seems to have an idea of what a human is. " "Exactly!" Lyra nodded. "If they have existed for so long, why is there so little information on them?" "Perhaps, because someone wanted to discourage the study of humans." The Doctor said. Lyra looked up at the Doctor, "do you know something?" The Doctor waved his hand. "We can talk conspiracy theories later, Ms. Heartstrings, we need to focus on getting you and Mr. Carter to become friends. "Wh-why me?" Lyra's eyes opened wide. "You know more about them than most ponies." The doctor shrugged, "And you also happened to be the only pony beside myself and Derpy to not refer to our new friend as 'it.'" Lyra froze as all eyes present looked to her, the mare shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but nodded, as her want to speak with the human overcame her apprehension. The Doctor had suggested she try to talk to 'Eric' in the hallway, she had managed to get close enough to start a conversation but couldn't find any words. How do you talk to something you 'wasted' half your life looking for? She had tried to come up with an apology, a joke, something to break the ice and get the human into a conversation with her, there was so much she wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to do. She dreamed of befriending a human for years, so why couldn't she say anything? The human had looked nervous, afraid, and she wanted to tell him that there wasn't any reason to be afraid, that he was among friends, but after the events of the morning, she couldn't help but wonder, was he? Her eyes fell on Bon-Bon, and as Lyra looked at her, she found that she couldn't forgive the mare for what had happened, she had called her life's work worthless, attacked the human, and then tried her best to make sure she didn't come anywhere near the human. What was her problem? It was like she didn't want this to be real, Bon-Bon should have been happy for her! Should have patted her on the back and congratulated her for all of her hard work finally bearing fruit. Though it had just been luck that literally dropped the human in her lap, it still proved that she had been right! That they not only existed, but from what she had overheard from the princess, they had been on Equss before! Instead, her roommate tried to sabotage her! If that was the her best friend, treated her then perhaps it was time to start looking for a new one. She cast a look to the second floor, a small smile forming on her face, the human wasn't the ideal choice, but he was a start, and it had always been a foal hood dream of hers to be friends with a human. "Yeah, yeah, its a foalhood dream of mine to be friends with a human." Lyra straightened in her seat, newfound confidence entering her voice as she met the doctors' eyes. "I think it would be better if both of us tried to." The Doctor smiled back, "I would prefer to lead, and then introduce you a bit later, sound like a plan?" Lyra nodded, excitement causing her to tap her hooves on the ground in anticipation, she would be friends with Eric, no matter what. "Alright then," The Doctor stood, brushing the arms of his coat off and adjusting both it and his bowtie, "Ms. Doo, Ms. Heartstrings... Let's go befriend a human." Eric looked up from the table as the sound of hooves on the stairs reached his ears. Someone was coming to find him, his first instinct was to hide, if he put his back to the nearest bookshelf he wouldn't have been seen from the staircase, though that may end up with them thinking he had escaped and might end up searching the castle for him. Still...he dreaded social interaction, it was... draining, social interaction with an alien species and a supposedly fictional alien supergenius would likely be worse. "Well, there's always the window," he thought "throwing myself to my death may be preferable." He looked out the window, halfheartedly smiling at the macabre bit of humor, the landscape was beautiful, he judged that it was likely around ten A.M and the rolling plains that surrounded the town reminded him of the overworld of the many fantasy games he played. He had taken the time to calm himself in the twenty minutes since he had entered the library, he had figured at the very least the Doctor would come to speak with him, probably to ask how the human knew who the doctor even was, and why he knew as much as he did. "Tell him the truth." He said to himself, "the Doctor is one of the good guys, just explain yourself, and everything will be fine." He picked the book back up, glossing over it for another five minutes before the sound of hooves on the stairs drew his attention. The Doctor, followed by the gray Pegasus and mint unicorn reached the top of the stairs, and immediately they saw and began approaching him. The human watched them grow closer in his peripheral vision, pretending to be engrossed in the book in his hands and rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the tabletop. Finally they stood less than three feet from his table, the Doctor, with his hands behind his back, cleared his throat. Knowing that was his cue to acknowledge them, he lowered the book and looked at the three. "Nothing good to read?" The Doctor asked him. "Not really." Eric replied neutrally, "Kinda hard to identify with most of the characters." "I'd imagine." Lyra shifted on her hooves, obviously wanting to say something, but remaining silent like she was told to. "Can I help you?" Eric asked politely. "You were alone up here, Mr. Carter, on a different world, and you were attacked less than three hours ago, I assumed you would appreciate some company." Eric smiled politely, "I'm fine, really, but if you want to stay I won't stop you." "Wonderful." The Doctor smiled. In less than thirty seconds the three had pulled up chairs and were sitting down, like it or not, social interaction was inevitable now. With a mental sigh, he sat the book down, what the hell, he needed the practice anyway. "Introductions are in order." The Doctor said, smiling. "Mr. Carter, this is my companion Ms. Doo." The stallion gestured to the diplopic pegasus, who offered him a smile and a hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you Eric." Eric took the hand and returned the smile. "Likewise, Ms. Doo." "Call me Derpy." That statement was so unexpected it caused the human to flinch as he tried to stammer out a reply. "Oh, I-uh, ok." The mare gave a slight giggle, and pointed to her eyes. "Don't worry, if I wasted time getting offended at something like that I wouldn't have any hours left in the day, if you can't laugh at yourself you can't laugh at anything, right?" Eric, somewhat stunned at the aloof and easygoing nature of the mare, simply nodded. "Yeah, I guess so." "So good to have you two acquainted, " the Doctor cut in, "Mr. Carter, this is Lyra Heartstrings, she the closest thing this town has to an expert on humans, she is fascinated by your race and has wanted to meet one of you for most of her life." Slightly taken aback by the statement, "Lyra" looked as if she was going to faint again, she shifted in her seat anxiously and avoided meeting his eyes. Slowly, he reached his hand out for her to shake. The mint green unicorn stared at Eric's offered hand, he hesitated as she showed no sign of acknowledging it, she seemed starstruck, her eyes filled with awe. The Doctor gave an apologetic laugh and kicked Lyra's hoof, which served to snap the unicorn out of her stupor. "Right, right!" The mare stammered, taking Erics hand and shaking it enthusiastically. "I'm Lyra, it's really, really great to meet you Mr. Eric." "Uh, just Eric is fine." "Ok, you can just call me Lyra." "Alrighty then." "And of course, we seem to have already been introduced." The doctor nodded, "so if you don't mind, we'd like to ask you a few questio-" "I know you from a T.V. show." Eric blurted. The Doctor paused, obviously just as surprised as Lyra and Derpy at the human's claim. "Well, I suppose that answers that, what exactly is-" "Its about you, your adventures," "Back from when I Iooked like a human?" "Yeah." The Doctor looked disturbed, "how much..." "Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, Martha Jones,Amy and Rory Pond, and Clara Oswald, that's where my knowledge stops." The Doctors smile had disappeared when Eric spoke the first name, now, the smile had returned, and the guilt behind it made Eric feel like the biggest ass ever. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I should have known better." "No, it's quite alright." The Doctor said quietly, "just a bit jarring, though it makes sense there would be a universe where my life is little more than entertainment." "Universe?" The Doctor nodded, " as far I know, you have crossed over to a universe where Earth does not exist, and whether it be through either fortune or misfortune, you have ended up on this planet, we call it Equss." Eric bit the inside of his cheek, taking a moment to process that fact, "ok, ok cool." "Are you alright?" Derpy asked. "Yeah, I'm fine." "That's uh, pretty crazy news, " Lyra added. "Tell me about it." Eric gave a short laugh Lyra, not knowing what else to say, simply smiled and gave a small laugh as well. "Indeed," The doctor said, looking sympathetic, "I'm going to be forward with you Eric, there is very little chance of you returning home, when I initially arrived on this planet I attempted to use the TARDIS to return to Earth, or anywhere in the universe that I recognize, while I did find some rather interesting things, I recognized none of it. We both seem to have crossed a barrier between dimensions, and unless you came here intentionally, which I doubt very much, neither of us seem to possess a means to reopen another hole in between dimensions. Which leaves us effectively stranded." Eric clicked his tongue, "Well, that sucks." The Doctor's eyebrows raised, "That....sucks? That's all you have to say on the matter?" The human shrugged, "not much left for me back there." Derpy and Lyra's expressions turned sympathetic. "That's.... so sad." Derpy reached out to put a hand on Eric's shoulder. Eric shrugged again and leaned back in his chair and out of the mare's reach. Derpy withdrew her hand, but the look of sympathy remained, reminding him of a time not too long ago when people back home looked at him in very much the same way. "Eh, you get used to it." He replied, his eyes turning downcast. The three ponies looked at the human with muted concern, but didn't seem to push the subject, much to Eric's relief. "Ok, so...." Eric shuffled uncomfortably "Thank you, for that information Doctor, is there anything else?" "Yes," the Doctor said, "It could be said that the two of us are in a rather similar situation, could it not?" Eric cocked his head, unsure of what the Time-Lord was playing at, "I...suppose?" "We both are aliens in this world," the stallion explained, "though only one of us truly look the part, no offense." "None taken," deadpanned the human. "We are both from another dimension, with no way to get back, so...us aliens should stick together, right?" Was the Doctor seriously asking what he was thinking he was asking? "Yeah, uh, sure." Eric replied, doing his best to maintain a netural disposition despite the Doctor of all people actually suggesting they keep in contact. "I'm glad you agree." The Doctor smiled, "Now, my friend, you have a choice ahead of you, as when you meet with the princesses they will likely wish for you to return to Canterlot with them." "Canterlot?" "It's the capital of Equestria." Lyra finally spoke up, "Its on that big mountain, Mount Canterbury, and its where the princesses live." Eric nodded, it made sense, bring the alien to your finest city, show him what wonders you've created, impress him, so when he goes back to his friends, all he has to say are nice things. "I need you to stay here." Eric cocked his head at the strange request, wondering what exactly the Doctor had planned, but the Doctor was the Doctor, he usually knew what he was doing in most cases, hopefully, he knew what he was doing now. "Alright, but one question." "Shoot." "Why?" The Doctor smiled, "I intend to follow you to Canterlot, Mr. Carter, but before I can make the trip I need to make some preparations. Eric smirked. "The T.A.R.D.I.S?" The Doctor returned the smile and nodded, "The T.A.R.D.I.S." "Alright, I'll see what I can do." Eric leaned back in his chair. "Thank you, Mr. Carter," The Doctor nodded, before standing and pushing his chair back in. "Well, that's about all I needed to speak with you about, thank you for your time, Mr. Carter, it was a pleasure meeting you." Derpy stood as well, stretching her wings as she did so before giving Eric a polite nod and a smile. "It was great to meet you Eric, I hope we can get to know each other a lot more soon." Lyra however, remained sitting, absently picking at her cuticles. "Ms. Heartstrings? " The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the mare. The unicorn suddenly looked up and around her, "Oh, uh, go ahead Doctor, I just wanna talk with Eric for a sec." The stallion offered a nod in response and proceeded back towards the stairs with Derpy in tow. Eric looked over to the nervous unicorn, "Need something, Ms Lyra?" "Uh, I said to just call me Lyra." "Right." The unicorn shut her eyes and shook her head. "No! Wait, wait, that sounded really rude, you can call me whatever you want, I just prefer Lyra, or Lyres, or you can stick with-" "Lyra." Lyra cut her rant short, at the sound of her name. "I'll call you Lyra." The human said, his hands raised plantifly. "Sound good?" She offered only a nod in response and an awkward thirty seconds of silence passed by. The Unicorn opened her mouth, but no words came out, she continued to pick at her cuticles and her eyes wandered about the room. It reminded Eric a little bit of himself when he couldn't find the right words for a situation. "I'm... sorry?" She finally said, looking at him with a mixture of guilt and hope in her eyes. "For?" Eric raised an eyebrow, until he remembered what had happened back at the Mare's home, she had hit him in the back of the head with something. As if the thought had conjured it, a dull ache returned to the spot where he had been hit, causing Eric to wince. "You know, the...." Lyra pointed to the back of her own head. "Oh!" Eric said, pretending to only just remember. "That?" Eric waved his hand dismissively, "don't worry about it, not the worst bump on the head I've had." "You've had worst than someone hitting you in the head with a table leg?" Lyra said, surpised. Eric flinched, "Uh, yeah... bit of a long story." "Well, still, I'm really, really sorry, I was really groggy saw you holding the table leg and I thought you were trying to..." "Yeah,I guess I can see how that would look." "I swear I'll make it up to you." Lyra said, looking at him apologetically. Eric held his hands up, "No, really, its fine, Lyra...." "Please?" Lyra insisted, "Between me and you, I've been studying humans my entire life and the first one I see I smacked over the head with a piece of wood! You've gotta let me do something to make it up to you!" "Tell you what." Eric said, eager to end the conversation. "Let me talk with the princesses and get everything settled, and we'll talk about it later, alright?" Lyra looked a bit dour, but nodded all the same, she stood and turned to leave, but before she did she suddenly spun around and offered her hand to the human. "Hey, uh, I know that something like this can be kind of... hard to wrap your head around, being on a different planet, the whole, 'meeting a new species' thing, I just want to let you know if you need some one to talk to... I guess." Eric blinked, in surprise, but shook the offered hand once again. "I'll... think about it, thank you, Lyra." The mare gave an embarrassed smile and turned, walking briskly back towards the stairs, nearly tripping over own hooves on the way there. Eric watched her as she went, while that encounter hadn't done much to reassure him, he couldn't shake the feeling of calm that had settled over him, maybe it was because he knew the Doctor now, maybe it was because the conversation was finally over. He shrugged and took a look out of the window, watching the clouds go by. There wasn't any way back, but maybe that was a good thing, there wasn't much of anyone there to miss him but a few acquaintances, maybe a fresh start could do him some good. Eric shook his head and sighed, questions till blasting through his mind at warp speed, if he was going to find some sort of normality in this crazy fantasy land, he was going have to accept the fact that some things were going to be unexplainable. As much as he hated no knowing, he'd have to let the why's and how's of how he got here go for now. "Well, he thought at least I don't have to deal with that friggin' project anymore.
