There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

Chapters

Ch1: A Brave New World
Ch 2: A Rude Awakening
Ch 3: Command Decision
Ch 4: Caving Under Pressure
CH 5: Point of Crisis
Ch 6: Sticks and Stones
Ch 7: Technical Difficulties
Ch 8: Sweet Dreams Are Made of These
Ch 9: Like a Rainbow in the Dark
Intermission 1: A Tale of Heroes and Fair Maidens
(Intro) Nothing Ever Changes

Ch1: A Brave New World

Chapter 1
A Brave New World

After passing out, I slide back into consciousness. I try to open my eyes, but all I see darkness. Oh wait, thats just the ground. Never mind. Using my knowledge of wilderness medicine, I stop and see if I am in pain anywhere. Strangely enough, i don’t feel any pain. My first thought is that it would really suck to have been hit and be paralyzed from the neck down in the middle of the wilderness.

At the thought of being stranded alone in the wilderness and having to watch myself get eaten by animals as i watch sent a shudder down my spine.

Wait, I can shudder? Well that was embarrassing. Silly me, I can still feel, I was just freaking out at the lack of pain after that soul wrenching agony that i was wracked with what seemed like seconds ago. I slowly flex my hands and wiggle my feet in my boots. Then move my arms and use them to feel my torso and neck for blood or injury being careful not to move my head. ‘ok, no blood or broken bones. that’s a good sign’. I can feel my backpack pressing down on my back, so I still seem to have my gear.

Feeling better now that I wasn’t going to die right away, I rolled over onto my side so i could take off my backpack. Getting the 50lb ruck off felt amazing. There is nothing like the feeling of moving around with a heavy backpack, and then taking it off. It feels almost as if you are going to float away.

Now that my bag was off I went ahead and took stock of what i had with me. I was obviously not in Colorado anymore. Actually, the more i looked around the more confused I became. The flora did not match anything that grew in the mountains. This looked more like a jungle than a mountain forest. Deciding to figure that out later,I looked at what assets i have.

Knives, pistol, 2 magazines, 50 rounds of 9mm ammunition, 20 matches, firesteel, clothes, 2 days food left, stove, ebook reader, solar panel, cell phone, flashlight/headlamp, stove, hammock, sleeping bag, 1 canteen, canteen cup, hydration bladder, water filter, pen, pencil, notepad, compass and (now useless) map. Pretty standard backpacking loadout really.

Gear: Check

now to make a priority list:

Shelter: I will just sleep as i can while i find water.

Water: need to find water, I have 3 litres of water, so I can last a day or two if i must.

Food: I can stretch out the food to make it last about 4 days if i eat everyday and i can last up to a week spacing it out. and 3 weeks before I die of starvation.

Communication: No cell service. even pinging the emergency cell on my cell phone gave me nothing.

Well, seems like water is my first priority.

Just in case there was a search party looking for me (not likely judging that i was nowhere near where I left) I arranged some stones and sticks into an arrow pointing in my direction of travel. I made it about ten meters long since any searchers would be using aircraft to look for me.

And off I trekked in search of survival and maybe some answers.

The Base of Operations

As the Royal Guard and the Royal Army began to Mobilize, Shining Armor and a hooffull of scouts went ahead to Ponyville to get an area cleared for the troops arrival.

Landing in the town square, Shining Armor immediately took his scouts in and gave them their orders.

“All right, we only have a couple hours before the rest of the forces arrive. So here are your orders: Shock and Awe, you two are go and get the Elements of Harmony that live in town. I believe Rarity should be in her boutique, Pinkie Pie should still be at work at the Sugarcube corner, and get the Mayor. Return here in twenty Minutes, I don't care what they are doing this is more important.” Shining ordered. As the two guards trotted off towards the center of town, he turned to the three remaining scouts. “Stalker and Shadow, both of you fly out to get Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Dash lives in a cloud house above the town and Fluttershy lives near the Everfree forest.”. Once the left, he turned to his last scout. “Stalwart, you go and get Applejack. She should be down at her farm south of town. I will go get Twilight”.

As the scouts departed he trotted over to the Ponyville library. He knocked on the door and as he expected, Twilight was stunned that he showed up.

“Hello ,welcome to the ponyvil-What are you doing here?!” Twilight shouted in surprise “I thought you were supposed to be guarding the castle? is something wrong?”

“Well this is actually business im afraid. Princess Celestia believes that something dangerous just appeared in the Everfree Forest and she has mobilized both the Royal Guard and the Royal Army to contain the situation”

“Wait, Princess Celestia is MOBILIZING THE ARMY!?”

“Yes she is, and I want the Elements of Harmony on hand just in case things go... wrong.”

“Wow. This must be serious if she is marshaling the armed forces and the Elements. In fact, the last time anything like this happened, was back in 450 when the Griffon invasion forced Celestia to call the army out to protect-”

“Look Twily, we really don’t have time for this. I need to get all of you and the Mayor informed of what is going on so that we can work together and prepare for the arrival of the army and plan how we are going to handle this.”

“Ok, well let me tell Spike i am going out and then we can head out.”

Hopeful Springs Eternal

After hiking west for a couple of hours, I finally came across a small stream around mid-afternoon. The water was clear, but i still passed it through the filter just to be sure. Nothing can ruin a hike like a bad case of the runs. Resting against a tree I contemplated my situation.

Firstly; I have no idea where the hell I am. My compass works, and points consistently to one direction (assumed to be north), I have not gotten any sort of cell or GPS signal, and the terrain here looks like a temperate jungle. Many animals and insects seem like what I would find in the US, so I am not anywhere too exotic or strange. As it is, my family won’t worry about me for another 4 days. I told my wife that if I didn’t contact her when I was done (7 days from departure) to wait 48 hours for me to call or arrive home and then to call for search and rescue.

So I have 4 days to figure out how to get some sort of message home to my wife. I still have food and now I have water, so those are taken care of. So now to find some sort of civilization and get in contact with someone who can get me a line of communication home.

After running through my plans, I realized that it was starting to get dark. Finding a couple trees, I set up my hammock, hung my bag, and crawled into bag and went to sleep.

Spaced Out

Once Luna woke up to raise the moon, she saw that Celestia had left her a note by her bed.

“When you wake up, I need to talk with you. I will be in the Library”
-Tia

‘well that’s odd’ thought Luna. “She usually just comes and gets me if she needs me for anything.’

The goddess of the night went to her porch, raised the moon, made sure that it would behave this night, and walked towards the library.

As she was walking through the halls, she ordered a servant to bring her her breakfast in the library and to bring something extra for a snack later.

Once she entered the library, she immediately noticed that the librarian and her assistants were nowhere to be seen. This was highly irregular as the librarian was usually never seen out in the book stacks.

Luna decided that this would be a good time to try out the little bell on the desk that was supposed to call for the librarian in case she or one of her helpers was away.

As she was reaching over to ring the bell, the librarian walked across the hallway loaded down with books.

Though she could have easily called out to the mare, Luna decided to ring the bell anyways. It was so small and cute that she just had to. As soon as her hood brushed the ringer, a sudden peal of pure crystal sound rung forth and echoed through the entire room. Startled, the librarian dropped all the books she was carrying and turned to give the offending pony a glare that could wilt flowers. Once realizing it was the Princess of the Moon, her glare turned to surprise.

“Oh my your majesty, I am so sorry about not being at the front. It’s just that Princess Celestia has had us running around grabbing obscure tomes from all over Canterlot today.”

“Well, I am actually looking for Celestia, if you would be so kind as to point me in her direction”

“She is over in the reading section surrounded by books and scrolls. Follow the sounds of frustration and arcane mumbling”

“Thank you very much, don’t let me delay you any longer then” said Luna as she walked off towards the reading area.

After navigating a veritable maze of shelves Luna was able to hear the mutterings the librarian told her about. Only able to pick up a couple of words she was intrigued as to what the words timespace, galaxy and flowers had to do with Celestia's summons.

Luna was able to walk up behind Celestia and was busy reading over her sister’s shoulder when she leaned close and whispered “Boo.”

Suddenly Celestia screeched and almost fired a beam of pure laser at the sneaking assassin when she realized it was just Luna laughing at her.

“You should have seen the look on your face dear sister, I thought you were about to die of fright” luna gasped between fits of laughter.

“That was not funny Luna, I was about to fire my laser into your face.”

“Oh come on Tia, you know that you can’t laser an alicorn. Any fatal damage would simply be shunted off into the moon.”

“That wouldn’t stop you from being in massive amounts of pain though”

Eager to change the subject, Luna wanted to ask about Celestia’s note“Well in any case, what did you want me down here for?”

“While you were sleeping, did you feel anything odd?”

“Well now that you mentioned it, I felt the dream realm tear for just a second. I assumed that it was just another cosmic lance, so I fixed it up and went back into supervising the rest of the realm” Luna replied perplexedly. “Was there something else that happened in the material plane?”

“I think something may have been ripped into Equestria. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it in the Everfree forest. I dispatched a company of the guard and mustered a division of the Army just in case. I don’t know what came through that rift, but if it’s dangerous I don’t want any of our subjects to be at risk.” Sighing, a very worried looking princess looked at the books surrounding her. “These books haven't been much help either.

“What do you think caused it?

“Well So far I think that there was a rip in the spacetime continuum and that it somehow must have connected two points in the universe and brought something across. Also, all i have eaten today was a a bowl of flower flakes and milk. But other than that, I have nothing.”

“Well at least you have done something. Now we just need to sit and wait for Shining Armor to send a Situation Report.”

“I just hope that nothing too dangerous appeared. The Everfree Forest is dangerous enough as it is.”

/ch 2

A/N: This chapter took a bit more thinking through to write. If anyone wants to volunteer to preread for me, please PM me.

-Chase

Ch 2: A Rude Awakening

A Rude Awakening

Normally when I wake up, I sit in my bed and go through a whole routine of comparing the benefits of getting out of bed and trying to drift off into blissful sleep once more. When you are sleeping in the wilderness, you are more sensitive in your sleep as the danger of the wild awakens a primal instinct of self protection. As a result, if you are awakened by a stressor in the wild your body immediately dumps a load of adrenaline into your system and you wake up fast.

This situation was one of the latter. I was dreaming blissfully of returning home to my family, and playing video games, when a sudden crash woke me up. Instantly wide awake, I immediately look for what caused the ruckus (or was it more of a fracas?). It didn’t take long to figure out that something strange was going on.

‘Hmm, is it just me or is there a giant glowing scorpion attacking that log? let me check if i’m dreaming” *pinch* ‘nope. definitely not dreaming’

‘OHHOLYSHITTHEREISAGIANTGLOWINGSCORPIONOVERTHERE!’

scrambling to get to the pistol in my bag, I manage to fall out of the hammock and fall (so glad I decided to hang it close to the ground) to the dirt. face first. Scrambling up, i cut the cord holding my bag up and catch it as it drops to the ground. I look over and the scorpion skittering this way.

Now that I am truly freaking out, I cannot seem to get my hands to cooperate with the zipper pulls to get into the pocket with my pistol. “GGAAAAAARRRRHHHHHHH!!" I scream in absolute frustration at the plastic many toothed fiend that is preventing me from getting to my salvation.

Finally, I get the pocket open and pull the pistol out. Suddenly my training takes over.Chamber a round , bring pistol up, look down the sights, breath deeply to calm the nerves, squeeze trigger, fire round. repeat as necessary.

three shots ring out as the pistol fires into the glowing insect from hell. The giant insect crumpled with three new holes in its head.

Scanning the clearing for more hostiles, I decide to pack up my small camp and leave in case there are more of them around.

Packing up quickly, I left the camp once again heading west in hopes of finding civilization.

Like a Shot in the Dark

Night watch is arguably one of the most boring duties that can be assigned in the Royal Guard. Consisting of standing in one place or patrolling in a short area for hours on end, nothing is more mind-numbing than looking for a hostile force in a land that has had all of 5 conflicts in the last millennia while all your friends are in town partying or sleeping in their bedrolls. In such a case, night watch is given to the newest (and usually lowest ranking) guard available.

Private 2nd Class Storm Front had been sitting on the Southeast corner of the camp for four hours. The first hour was spent creatively inventing new nicknames for his “buddies” that had decided to give him the watch for the third night straight. The next two hours were spent thinking about how comfortable his bedroll was and warm it was compared to the almost frigid air out that night. The last hour was spent wallowing in self misery at having to be up when everyone else was happily asleep and he was stuck staring at absolutely nothing for the past four hours and he was barely even halfway done. Despite what he has heard on the rumour mill in camp, Storm Front highly doubted that there was a giant pony-eating, flame spewing monster teleported from hell itself to end all life in Equestria in the Everfree forest. He was just as curious as the next pony as to why they had been called away to the Everfree forest, but supernatural beings from another dimension were probably about as likely as having Princess Luna ride a tricycle to his post and ask him on a date.

Suddenly he heard three loud booms crash through the Everfree forest in quick succession. Instantly alert, he called for a messenger and wrote down a SITREP (Situation Report)

“SITREP:

To: Sgt. Metal Polish:

From: 2nd Pvt Storm Front

Time: 0435

Event: Three large thundering booms emanated from an unknown source the Everfree forest. Said booms occurred in quick sequence with a distinct lack of lightning and occurred in an area kept clear of inclement weather by the local weather team. Best personal estimate is that the booms were caused by an explosion of unknown origin.”

Giving the report to the messenger, Storm front stood at his post worriedly watching the forest. Suddenly, the rumors of monsters did not seem so far-fetched now.

A Rude Awakening

A series of thunder awoke Shining Armor from his sleep. “Damn pegasi weather schedules” he grumbled in bed. Trying to return to sleep once more, he was rudely awoken again by his secretary Lieutenant Lost.

“Excuse me sir, but I have a report for you”.

“Ugh. Lieutenant Lost. Couldn’t you have at least waited untill morning to start giving me paperwork?” asked a rather grumpy unicorn.

“Well, it involves the noises heard earlier in the forest sir.”

“So that wasn’t thunder then?”

“No sir, Our night watch reported a series of supposed explosions coming from the Everfree forest about an hour ago. I went ahead an dispatched a trio of pegasus scouts to reconnoiter the area to try to determine the cause. Near the western edge of the forest they found some interesting materials.”

Suddenly awake at the thought that something was happening, Shining Armor got out of bed and moved over to his map table. “Come over here and tell me what happened and where it was”

“Sir, I have one of the pegasi outside to give you the same report i received. He may be better able to describe what happened.”

“Send him in Lieutenant”

Lt Lost moved to the door and motioned in a deep purple pegasus with several stars on her flank.

“Corporal Starlight reporting as ordered sir!”

“So you are the leader of the reconnaissance team that flew into the everfree forest earlier?”

“Yes sir, it was me, and Privates Shadow Chaser and Jet Stream”

“What did you see Corporal?”

“Well we were flying a search grid over the western part of the forest when Jet Stream called over that he had found something in a clearing about a mile and a half into the western border of the forest.” Starlight pointed at point on the map ”We formed up and flew to his position, and descended into the clearing where we found what was most likely some sort of battle or something. There was an extraordinarily large glow scorpion near the middle of the clearing with several punctures in its forward carapace between the claws. About ten hoofs away we found these.”

Starlight proceeded to reach into her saddlebags and pull out three tiny brass cylinders. they were open on one end, closed on the other with an interesting ridge around the bottom. “Using his magic to levitate them for closer inspection Shining Armor noticed that The closed off end had a smaller circle with a miniscule indention in the center and indecipherable script surrounding it. The whole thing smelled faintly of brimstone and fire.

“Is that all Corporal?”

“No sir, there were also some bizarre hoof prints leading away from the scene and a length of cord was found in a nearby tree.” She then proceeded to pull out the length of cord.

The cord was about about a eighth hoof wide as long as a foreleg and was knotted around as if to be secured to a branch. The long end was sliced clean through as if by a razor. It had an outer woven sheath with seven small cords inside of it. The materials resembled nothing that Shining had ever seen, much less handled in his life.

“Which way did the tracks head?”

“They were heading west sir. Without knowing the creature’s pace, it is possible that it will be exiting the forest in the next hour or so”

“Thank you for your report Corporal. I want you to go and scramble another flight of pegasi as well as two teams of earth pony trackers and a team of Unicorns. Lead them to the site and have the trackers follow the creature. Use the pegasi to scan the forest around the trackers to warn of hostiles and keep the unicorns nearby in case the trackers need additional protection or evac. Any questions?”

“No sir”

“The you are dismissed”

“Yes Sir!” Starlight saluted and trotted out of the room. Shining could hear her calling outside for messengers to assemble her team.

A momentarily forgotten Lieutenant coughed nervously “Is there anything you need me to do sir?”

“Go ahead and get some more pegasi flying the border of the forest. Focus on the western border, but I want to make sure that whatever is inside won’t slip out. Also contact the Army Engineers and tell them that i want a second base on the east end of the forest. That way we can relay our pegasi and patrol teams to reduce fatigue. I would also like you go to the town and call the Elements of Harmony to my room. They should be on standby in the Ponyville Library.”

“Yes Sir!” Lieutenant Lost saluted and left the room.

Now alone, Shining Armor hoped that this would end soon. Conflicts had a way of bringing out the worst in ponies, and he wanted to avoid any... unpleasantness with this mobilization.

The Hunted

After hiking for a while, I began to notice that the trees were thinning out a bit. That was good news, it meant that I was nearing the edge of the jungle. Close as I may be, I was feeling absolutely exhausted. I didn’t manage to get much sleep because of that... thing I found, and coming down off of the resulting adrenaline dump caused my energy levels to crash hard. After the encounter with whatever the hell kind of scorpion that was, I now kept my pistol handy at all times just in case of more freakish animals stalking the forest. Briefly stopping under a tree, I pulled my olive green poncho over myself and using my bag as a pillow fell asleep for the second time in the last 24 hours.

I awoke to some sort of noise. It sounded like some sort of talking, but i could not for the life of me recall what kind of language it was. It sounded like a rather breathy form of russian, chinese, esperanto and klingon all blended together with a sprinkle of random whinnies and neighs. Pulling my poncho off, I froze at what I saw. There were four horse looking things walking down the same path i was before i walked off to sleep. They were horses only in the vaguest sense of the word. They were pastel colored, came to about shoulder height at the tallest and had these weird pictograms on their flank (tattoos?). And the strange taking sound seemed to be coming from them.

Mentally I went into complete “WTF?!” mode. Thinking carefully over the past 24 hours trying to remember if i ever ate any funny mushrooms or inadvertently ate some LSD. I came the the conclusion that I must be going insane.

Deciding to watch this acid trip of a dream, i saw that two more horse-things approached. They were burgundy and orange respectively. The big difference being that they had FREAKING HORNS ON THEIR HEAD! Knowing that unicorns aren't real I decided that they must be more rhinoceros than horse. And just as I thought things couldn't get any weirder, one of their horns started glowing and it said something to the normalish other horses and pointed in my direction with a hoof.

Shit.

Seeing that they outnumbered me six to one, my odds of winning any sort of fight against these beasts were slim to dead.

as quietly as i could, I tried to stuff my poncho in a cargo pocket and put on my backpack at the same time. Being as awesome as I am I managed to bake slightly less noise than an enraged bull in a china shop filled with cymbals.

Needless to say, they spotted me. We all froze for a second, before I tossed my backpack on, and hauled ass out of there. Sprinting with a backpack on is hard. Trying to stuff a poncho in your pocket while sprinting requires an awesome about of coordination. Trying to do both while screaming like a little girl being chased by zombie clowns from hell is fiendishly difficult.

I could hear some communication behind me and then they started the pursuit.

I figured that if they were anything like the horses back in Texas, they can run a man into the ground and not even break a sweat. So, I did what any man would do when being chased by technicolor horses: I dove into the thickest, nastiest jungle I could find, and practically buried myself in brambles, dirt, and forest detritus in the hope that I could hide from the monsters.

Some Questions are Just Better Not Asked

Six ponies stood outside the nastiest, thickest jungle of brambles, briars and thorns they had ever seen. Nopony wanted to go into that mess, it was just asking for multiple lacerations and a bunch of bleeding wounds.

One of them broke the silence “Uhh, what the hay was that?”

“I can honestly say that I have never seen any like of creature like that before.”

“Did you see the tail it had coming out of its leg? and the giant brown hump on its back? It made it look kinda like a turtle crossed with a monkey crossed with a two legged pony, cros-”

“Shut up Sparkler”

The burgundy unicorn looked sad, but quickly perked up. “Well I can’t wait until we tell the guys back at camp, they won’t believe that all the rumors are right!”

“Well we need to report to Starlight and let her know what we saw. Sparkler, you stay here with Trekker and Apple Snack. I will take Spring and Tomjoy out to rendezvous with Starlight and the pegasi.”

“Oh boy! I get to stand guard with the best earth pony trackers in the whole guard! This will be soo cool!” Sparkler gushed. The two earth ponies shot looks of not-quite-pure-hatred-but-pretty-close at the lead Unicorn.

As the tio trotted to the edge of the forest, they could hear Sparkler’s voice trailing off into the distance.

/ch 3

A/N: Please comment on the story and let me know what you think.

Ch 3: Command Decision

Command Decision

Shining Armor’s Headquarters was in the Ponyville Hotel. He turned the back dining room into his “war room”, the front area into a mess of clerks and staff sorting reports and ensuring that the mustered forces could be fed and paid on time.

“Sir, we have a fresh report in from the scouting element you sent in after the beast”

“Thank you Lieutenant, assemble my staff and have them meet in the War Room please.”

“Yes Sir!”

As the assorted leadership from the Army and the Guard, Shining armor took Lt. Lost aside.

“Is the report on paper?”

“Yes sir. We also have the sub-leader of the tracking element who found the thing”

“Please have him enter and wait with me during the meeting”

a burgundy unicorn followed the lieutenant in, and moved over to Armor’s side.

“Corporal Radiant Dawn reporting sir!”

“At ease corporal. If you will just wait a minute, the combined staff is almost ready for your briefing”

“Yes sir”

Once the assorted mares and stallions that compromise the combined staff arranged themselves around the table, Shining Armor called them to order.

“Well ladies and gentlecolts, we now have a confirmed visual on the creature in the Everfree forest.”

At this announcement the assembly began muttering, but stopped when prompted by the Capitain.

“I went ahead and invited Cpl Radiant Dawn to give us a personal briefing of the situation”

With a gesture he turned the meeting over to the burgundy corporal.

“Well, we were tracking the creature from the initial track point. After a couple hours, we managed to follow the prints towards the edge of the forest.” She gestured at the map. “We were approximately here, when we lost track of the trail. Using my magic, we were able to use the materials found at the initial site to point us in the direction of the creature. As we approached, the creature stood up on its hind legs, put a shell on and dashed off. We tried to pursue, but it intentionally ran straight into the areas of the forest that are hardest for us to get into. From there, we lost visual of the creature, so we assembled the team and split into two halves. My element went back to rendezvous with Corporal Starlight and update her on the situation. The other element was put in the charge of Corporal Apple Snack who was to surround and patrol the area to ensure that the creature wouldn’t escape until reinforcements arrived. After rendezvousing with Cpl Starlight, she sent a messenger ahead to our Company Command for further orders and reinforcements. The rest of her flight flew to Apple Snack’s position to help with containment. Company command sent us another squad of Guard to help at the containment site and requested I return to HQ for further orders. That is all so far sir”

“So we have the creature continued in the forest?”

“yes sir. The position of the area is over here in the forest” Radiant Dawn pointed at an area labeled ‘impassable’ on the map.

“Can you please describe what the creature looked like?”

“The creature walked on its hind legs and was about half again as tall as I am. It had no fur with the exception of the top of its head, it seemed to be stuff a tail into its leg, but that seems a bit ridiculous. It also seemed to have some sort of carrying apparatus mounted on its back. We only saw it for a couple seconds. But while we were chasing it, it performed some quite amazing feats of acrobatics while weaving through the underbrush. Where we then lost it”

The table exploded with conversations about this strange intruder in the Everfree Forest, while Shining Armor just sat at the end thinking deeply.

“Did you say that it wasn’t running very quickly corporal?”

“No sir, it was running at a sprint, but we would easily be able to overtake it if it wasn’t for the dense forest getting in our way.”

For a moment, the captain of the guard sat thinking deeply.

“Ok, I have a plan” Shining finally announced with a smirk. “Since we are having trouble capturing it in the forest, why don’t we push it into the plains where we can catch it? What I want to do is to give it an avenue of escape so that it flees out into the grasslands to the west. Then when he is out in the open, we will use pegasi to swoop down onto his position and capture it. What Guard elements are in the forest right now Lieutenant?”

“Uhh, we have First and Second Platoon from Company ‘A’ out in the forest right now sir. In addition we have Corporal Starlight’s search element and Apple Snack’s Tracking group in there as well. That should make for a total of forty eight ponies on the scene.”

“Then tell them that they are to form a “U” shape line and begin to push in on the creature’s position. Right now the only authorized magic is regular use and brush clearing measures. No fire is to be used in this exercise. We want to capture the creature, not kill it in an inferno. Any questions?”

Nopony spoke up, so Shining dismissed them with a nod and turned to Lieutenant Lost. “Bring some paper and a pen to my room. I am going to send the princess’ a report.”

As everypony left, Shining was left to his own thoughts and worries.

Cornered and Dangerous

I have been sitting here in the brambles for the better part of the day. I managed to scarf down a quick granola bar, but I am afraid to try anything that would alert my pursuers to my location.

For the past hour they have been searching for me. Thankfully, clearing and navigating dense brush is more difficult for a species without hands, so they have progressed slowly. Ever since they cornered me here several more flew in to join the rest. Yeah, that’s right flew. There seems to be a third kind of horse, they are a bit slighter in stature than the other two but the main difference is that they have wings and can apparently fly.

I still can’t understand what they are saying, but I doubt it’s good.

I have been crawling around my hiding hole, looking for an escape. I managed to get into this spot without getting cut up too bad, but I don’t expect the same to happen if I try to exit through in a rush. Thankfully all those years of stalking deer during hunting season have been paying off. I keep slowly low crawling ahead in the hopes that I will be able to find a slightly clearer avenue of escape.

Moving slowly, I finally see a path. A tiny deer trail creates a hidden path through the thorns. I am able to stand (even if hunched over) and I can put my backpack on instead of dragging it behind me. Keeping my pistol at the ready, I begin to sneak forward to what I hope is a path to freedom.

Cutting Edge

“Mmmhffggrrfan!”

“Sorry I can’t understand you when your mouth full Storm”

Storm front spit out the machete he was using to clear brush and called to Pearl who was working on trying to clear another part of the thicket.

“Hey I think I found a path! It looks like it goes straight through the underbrush. We may be able to use it to get deeper into the thicket.” After spending the longer part of the day hacking away at brambles, Storm Front was glad to finally see that the path may lead him to capture the monster inside.

As Pearl turned to go check out the path Storm found, all hell broke loose.

two explosions happened in short time and Storm Front collapsed screaming in pain. Then the monster sprinted past the wounded pony and ran off deeper into the forest.

Torn between chasing down the monster that just maimed her friend or helping Storm Front, he eventually ran to his friend's side and tried to stop the bleeding. “MEEEDDIIIICC!” she screamed over the sounds of Storm’s agony. Using her uniform as a makeshift pressure bandage, she pushed down on the wounds in her friend’s side.

Her screaming was heard by a convenient pegasus patrol who immediately split into two groups. The first to go get a medic and fly the pony to the wounded Storm Front, and the second to begin the pursuit of the creature.

Flight of Fancy

After sprinting past the horse thing I shot, I slowed down to a jog momentarily in order to pace myself for what would probably be a lengthy chase. I felt a bit of remorse that I had to shoot the creature, but I figured that if they were organized enough that they are forming search parties, shooting one of the two would cause the second to be forced to choose between its partner and chasing me. If it was chasing me I probably would have shot it as well, but thankfully it looked like it was staying to try to save its partner.

Taking a sip from my hydration bladder, I realized that I had nowhere to go. Now that I had shot and maybe killed one of them, surrendering for capture was probably a bad idea. Fighting it out to the death ala Gladiator seemed pointless, as I really didn’t want to die. Nothing against dying valiantly in glorious combat, it’s just that there is a time and a place for it. This was definitely not the right time or place.

So back to running for my life I suppose.

Hiding Behind the Wall of Hair

Fluttershy was not happy.

She had been called away from her animals to give chase to some mythical being nopony was sure even existed and she had to leave her critters in the care of the local veterinarian Mane Goodall. Nothing against her, it’s just that she and Fluttershy did not exactly meet eye to eye when it came to dealing with animals. Where Fluttershy would use kindness, Mane would use strictness, and so on and so forth.

So, when the opprotunity presented itself for Fluttershy to make a quick trip to her house she seized it ferociously.

“Well, if you say so....”

Ok, so maybe not as ferociously as she had intended, but it works. Either way, she just got six hours leave to go take care of personal matters.

Happy to be away from the depressing aura the war camp gave off, Fluttershy began to trot happily to her home.

Upon arriving she noticed that there was another hole in the fence around her chicken coop.

“Ohnoohnohnononononono”

Looking in the coop she saw that most of her chicken friends were still there. Except for Henrietta. Again.

“Why can’t that hen be content with just staying in the henhouse with all the others?” Fluttershy mused out loud.

Noticing that the chicken’s tracks went into the Everfree Forest caused the yellow pegasus to freeze.

‘Not this again’ she thought to herself.

“Ok Fluttershy, be assertive. You have gone and rescued chickens from the forest once before, and you can do it again.”

Doing her best to feel confident and in charge, she began the long walk into the Everfree forest.

Ch 4: Caving Under Pressure

Caving Under Pressure

the Evening was approaching and I am beyond exhausted. I have been running from my pursuers for far too long. My legs are cramping up and i am beginning to feel the results of not eating anything more than a granola bar in the past eight hours. I drained the last of my water about three miles ago, and I am beyond tired.

Looking for a place to hide for the night, I keep trudging forwards. Each step blurs into the next and I eventually look around to find myself in a small ravine. Looking down the ravine, I can see a lake about a quarter mile away.

While walking down the ravine I notice an interesting grown over area in a bend of the trail.

Upon closer inspection i can tell that it is a hibernating spot for some large animal, behind the vegetative growth is a small cave. It is tall enough for me to sit upright in, and about five meters long and four meters wide. Looking around with my flashlight, I see that it is unoccupied for the moment as well. Deciding that this is as good as it’s going to get, I go ahead as set my stuff down inside along the back wall. I begin to think of ways to help reinforce this natural hiding spot against my pursuers. With this in mind, I go out to make sure that I had covered my tracks.

going back along my trail, I make sure to erase any of the little traces I left on my trip through the ravine. After clearing up my footprints, I return to the cave and sit down for a bit. After running all day, Just sitting still feels amazing. Another feeling soon pops up after it: thirst.

Awesome, I am out of water. Again. damning my unquenchable thirst, I gather my canteen, water bladder and filter. Might as well take advantage of the last rays of sunlight to go and fill up at the lake.

The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself

Between the fading sunlight and her raising fear, following Henrietta’s tacks was getting harder and harder for Fluttershy.

“Oh please don’t be much further away” whispered Fluttershy to herself. “It’s getting dark, and only Luna knows what may come out in the night.”

Fluttershy froze when she heard something move in the bushes nearby.
Suddenly, a chicken sprinted past her further off deeper into the woods.

Being so close to her quarry, Fluttershy snapped into action. Jumping into the air and flying forward the yellow pegasus dodged trees and branches in pursuit of her featherbrained pet.

Then something stroked along her back.

Her wings snapping to her side, Fluttershy dropped from the air with a high pitched “Eep!”

closing her eyes to avoid looking at the beast that touched her, she waited.

and waited.

Not feeling anything else, she slowly opened one of her eyes to see... nothing.

just more trees and bushes all around her.

“C’mon Fluttershy, you have been through scarier situations before. Remember that time you stood up to a dragon? Be confident and brave like that. You can do this.”

Standing up, she suddenly realized that she had no idea where her chicken had run off to now.

Suddenly a loud squawking noise pierced the air

“Henrietta! I am coming for you!”

Streaking through the air in the direction the sound came from, she didn't notice when she burst out into the lake shore. When she did notice, It was like something from her worst nightmares.

There was this two legged... monster holding Henrietta by the neck. Towering above everything else, it suddenly looked at her. Then it started walking towards her. Her muscles frozen in fright, she did the only thing she could do.

She fainted.

Putting Food on the Table

After filling up my water containers at the lake, I started to turn around to head back, when I saw something that looked familiar.

It was a chicken.

Before you could say dinner, I ran after that tasty beast and finally dove to the ground and caught it. It began to release i hideous squawking noise, so I did what farmers had done for centuries. I wrung it’s neck before it could escape.

Holding my dinner up with a happy grin i heard something burst through the bushes behind me.

Turning around, i saw a winged horse frozen in place staring at me. As I looked it in the eye, it suddenly fell over unconscious.

A little confused, I had no idea what to do in this situation.

On one hand, I could leave it here and not worry about what happened to it. However, when it regains consciousness, it could go and tell the other horse-creatures where I was.

I really didn’t feel like killing any more than I had to, so i did what any decent man would do.

I took her prisoner.

I figure that maybe I could learn about these equine creatures, and figure out if it is possible to communicate with them. And worst case scenario, I could kill and eat it for food.

After my little mental debate was over, I went to pick it up. The winged horse was surprisingly light, though I suppose they had to cut down weight to fly. Tossing it over my shoulders, I picked up my water gear and my dinner and I headed back to my cave.

Once I got there, I went ahead and bound and gagged her with some 550 cord. I tied it snugly around its wings and its legs so that it couldn’t move anything but its head. I also made a momentous discovery while tying it up.

It was a girl.

Well at least, It wasn’t male. Even with my admittedly limited knowledge of equine physiology, there was a definite lacking of any male genitalia. ergo, it’s female.

I guess that in reality, it wasn’t that important of a discovery, as both males and females can kill you if they put their mind to it. It was just that it added a bit of reality to the situation. It’s easy to generalize a bunch of enemies chasing you, probably planning to kill you, but it’s when they start to have faces and individuality that things start to change.

Well, now I have enough water to last me for a day or two if I am careful. Now to go take care of food.

After thinking about what to do with the chicken, I stick my head outside to look around for any signs of enemy presence.

nope, nothing. Holding the chicken in one hand, I slowly sneak down to the lake sticking to the edge of the ravine for concealment.

Arriving near the lake shore i go ahead and dig a hole in the ground. Above the hole i skin and breast the chicken. Taking any more than the breast and the legs is too much work, and I need to get this done quickly.

Ripping out the easy nits of meat, I bury the carcass and distribute some vegetation and stones around it to disguise the hole and the blood on the ground. I run down to the waters edge to wash my hands and the chicken meat, and then I begin to sneak my way back to the cave. While moving along, I also gather some dry wood in case I need to make a fire.

After sneaking back to my underground abode, I sit on the floor and pull out my flashlight.

Setting it on end, I turn it on so that it helps illuminate the cave.

Using my canteen cup and my propane stove, I quickly boil up some water. Adding the chunks of chicken breast I end up with a decent soup. taking the soup off, I roast the drumsticks directly over the gas burner. after everyhting has been cooked, I turn off the stove and lean against the wall to enjoy my first real meal since I awoke here.

What has Been Seen Cannot be Unseen

Slowly returning to consciousness, Fluttershy realized that she couldn’t move. Her hooves were tied and hre mouth was gagged. Startled, she opened her eyes to a scene taken straight from her worst nightmares.

The two legged monster from the Everfree forest was sitting across the cave from her. It was STARING AT HER.

too scared to even ‘meep’ Fluttershy just sat there staring at it from behind her mane, hoping that if she didn’t move a muscle it wouldn't notice her.

It didn’t work. The creature was staring at her quizzically, as if not sure what to make of the situation. Suddenly it moved over, closer to her.

Trembling with fear at what kinds of horrors and tortures it was going to release upon her, she realized that it was talking.

Well, not really talking, but it was making some kinds of noise from its mouth and was holding some kind of tube in her face.

Realizing that she couldn’t understand it, it held the tube up to its mouth and bit on the end and swallowed. Then taking it out of its mouth, it pointed it at her snout and pinched the end.

If she could have screamed, she would have. Something terrible and icy was dripping down her snout. Awaiting some sort of pain from what was most assuredly poison, she sat there struggling against her bonds. Then, suddenly a drop of the vile substance ran into her mouth.

It was water!

Realizing that he was trying to give her water, she looked at it in hope that it might offer it again.

It just sat there watching her, when it pointed at her, then the tube, then his mouth.

‘He must be trying to ask if I want water’ she thought.

nodding a yes, the thing moved closer to her. it gestured around it’s head like as if undoing something tied around it and then put a talon to it’s lips and made a “shhhh” noise.

Thirsty for something to drink, she nodded yes.

Slowly putting down the tube, it approached and reached behind her head. Then it messed with the cordage around her snout and the gag came free. Before she could even think of yelling, it shoved the tube in her mouth. surprised, she bit down on the tube, and caused a trickle of water to come out. ‘It must be like a flexible straw’ she mused. Sucking a bit on the tube rewarded her with more water. However after a bit, the thing took the tube from her mouth and pointed at the now mostly empty clear pouch.

He placed it next to a bag in the back of the cave, and then walked over and pantomimed that it was going to put her gag back on. He did so gently (for which Fluttershy was ever grateful for) and then tied it securely behind her head. He then returned to his former spot against the wall and picked up something from the ground.

Fluttershy couldn’t see what it was, but suddenly a new smell came to her nose. It was the smell of... burnt flesh. Her beautiful eyes widened in shock as she realized that the thing was eating Henrietta. With that revelation, Fluttershy fainted once more into blissful darkness.

Food for Thought

‘Well, that was odd’ I thought to myself, after finishing my dinner.

My ‘guest’ had woken up, and did nothing but watch me like I was going to eat it’s soul. After giving it some water, it seemed to soften up a bit, but as soon as I resumed my meal, It’s eyes went wide in shock, and then it passed out again.

Since I had a free moment to myself, I went ahead and fed my one guilty pleasure. The one thing I can take with me wherever I am, and what i can do to help forget the stress of the day for a little while.

I pulled out my e-reader, and I read my book. I travel a lot, so I normally keep a full library of novels on my reader. Last time I checked, there were something like three thousand books on it. Most of them being glorious Science Fiction or Fantasy. Classics like Heinlein and Asimov, contemporaries like Elizabeth Moon or David Weber. Hard Sci-fi, Space Opera, High Fantasy and Cheap Humor, I have read them all. I also pepper in some biographies and non-fiction works, but Sci-fi and Fantasy are my bread and butter.

However, exhaustion soon overtook me and I turned my light off, curled up in my sleeping bag, and dropped off into heavenly sleep.

Back at the Camp

“Uhh, Has anyone seen Fluttershy lately?

CH 5: Point of Crisis

Point of Crisis

The entire leadership for the Army, The Royal Guard, The Ponyville Weather Patrol, The Elements of Harmony, And even Princess Luna were gathered in the already crowded Ponyville Inn.

A very haggard looking Shining Armor walked onto the makeshift stage and cleared his throat.

“I have come forward to give everypony an update on the situation in the Everfree Forest.” He began. “I will begin with the good news: 2nd Private Storm Front is expected to recover from the wounds he sustained in trying to contain the monster in the Everfree forest. As of now, he is being moved from critical condition to long term recovery.”

The looks of relief on some of the assembled ponies was refreshing from the constant looks of worry seen around camp.

Looking down, he mentally prepared himself for what he was about to say next.

“However, I also have some bad news. Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness has gone missing.”

Gasps could be heard throughout the assembled mass of ponies.

“What kind of monster would take poor Fluttershy?” gasped a swooning Rarity.

Shining Armor once again silenced the room.

“We were hoping to avoid drastic measures, but we are going ahead and calling all pegasi to assemble for search and rescue. We have also activated the Equestrian Reserve to help provide the horsepower we will need to begin our more thorough search of the forest. We do not know if Fluttershy was taken by the beast, or if she hasn’t returned of her own volition. Regardless, we are stepping up our patrols of the Forest. Lieutenant Lost here will provide all of you with your mission briefings. Except for the bare minimum needed to maintain border security around the forest and the base, all patrols and work groups are being called in for R&R. I expect all of you to brief your teams on your exact mission. If you have any questions, please direct them to Lieutenant Lost. Faust Speed everypony”

Walking off the stage, Shining armor went back to his room and just sat at his desk and stared at the ceiling.

‘how has all this fallen to pieces so quickly?’ he thought to himself. ‘Two days ago, I would have never believed that we would already have casualties and missing ponies. And one of them is Fluttershy no less”

Alternating between sorrow and anger, he didn’t notice a lavender unicorn walk over to his side.

“Shining?”

“Leave me alone Twilight. I’m trying to figure out how to solve this massive mess”

“Well maybe you could use some help. You are trying to coordinate the largest military operation since the griffons invaded five hundred and fifty years ago. Nopony can handle that all on their own, and you are no exception.”

“Then what would you have me do sister?”

“Well for starters, why don’t you use your subordinates? You have at least five or six lieutenants who are more than able to draft orders and manage the supply aspect of the camp. Trying to do everything on your own will not work. You owe it to your troops to be ready to lead. You can’t do that when you are up every night trying to frantically coordinate movements and figure out where you will get the food to feed your troops. Give your commanders some leeway with their orders and let them take the lead. Let them know what you want them to do, and let them figure out how to do it.”

“Twilight, since when did you become a military genius?”

“One of my research papers was over the military history of Equestria and how we became a global superpower.”

“So, you read it in a book.” Shining deadpanned.

“Yes, but that is irrelevant. Book knowledge is secondary compared to being the student of the greatest military strategist in Equestrian history. How else do you think Celestia managed to overthrow discord? She didn’t do it by herself, she worked through multiple commanders she trusted to be able to distract the dragonequus so that she could sneak up on him and turn him to stone with princess Luna. She put you in this position because she believes that you are able to successfully lead her armies to victory. That is why she picked you herself from the hundreds of other aspiring guards. Trust me Shining, You can do this. Just let everypony do their job, and make sure you do yours”

Feeling a bit better after her pep talk, Shining reached over and gave his sister a hug. “Thanks Twily, I really appreciate you talking to me. I can’t guarantee that everything will be better, but... thank you” he finished with a weak smile.

Knowing that that was about as good as she was going to get from him, Twilight hugged him back and with a smile left him to his own thoughts.

The Great Awakening

The darkness surrounded her. She didn’t know where she was. She couldn’t move. She couldn't scream. All she could do is lie still and freak out. Consciousness and unconsciousness blended together in endless repetition.

Suddenly, there was light. Her pupils shrinking down to mere pinpoints. Still in pain from the light, she saw a shadowed beast get up. It seemed to molt off an outer shell until a two legged beast emerged form with in.

Then, in a moment of clarity her memories of the night before rushed back to her. Her only thought: ‘he ate Henrietta!’ the thoughts of this monster eating her pet caused her to once again faint.

Dazed and Confused

After rolling out of my sleeping bag, I realized one thing: I REALLY had to pee. Seeing that the horse thing on the other side of the cave was still passed out, I peeked outside. Not seeing anything, I walked out and relieved myself on the opposing wall of the ravine.

Returning to the cave, I suddenly realized that my prisoner had been tied up for over eight hours (by my watch). Deciding that the cordage was probably cutting off some of the circulation to her legs, i crawled over, and loosened the bonds on one of her legs. Standing behind her so she couldn’t kick me, I looked over the tied leg, and noticed that there were shallow indention in the skin where the cordage had been.

cutting circulation to an extremity is a Very Bad Thing. After a number of hours, if the bonds are loosened, septic shock can kill the creature. At some point while I was thinking about how to loosen my prisoner's bonds without risking myself she awoke again.

Not seeing me at first, she jumped in fright when she noticed that I was kneeling behind her. moving to where she could see me, I decided to try and communicate.

What the hell, might as well see if it can learn my name. Signing that i was going to remove her gag, she let me take it off her face. scooting back, I pointed at myself. “Jack” I said simply. Then I pointed at her. Se3eming to understand, she mumbled something indiscernible.

Motioning to my ear, I pointed at her again. This time it was louder, and sounded something like fluffershe. Just to make sure i heard correctly, I motioned one last time. Finally she responded with a somewhat intelligable “Fluttershy”.

So to make sure, I pointed at myself and said “Jack”. Then I pointed at her and said “Fluttershy”.

She nodded, and was about to say something when I noticed three small heads poking through the brush staring intently at me, mouths agape.

Then the screaming started.

Cutie Mark Cruasaders Cave Explorers!

Two Hours Ago:

Three young fillies were sitting in their super secret clubhouse on Sweet Apple Acres.

“Why can’t the grownups let us play again” Asked a bored looking Sweetie Belle.

“Apparently ther’s a fearsome two-legged monster eating ponies in the Everfree Forest!” replied Applebloom.

“Yeah, but remember how the Cutie Mark Crusader Monster Hunters turned out?”.

After some grumbling at the memory of how that turned out, the three fillies sat and were thinking hard about new ways to find their special talents.

Suddenly a small orange pegasus stood up “Ooh! ooh! I know! How about the Cutie Mark Crusader Cave Explorers!”

The other two fillies stood up, their faces filled with excitement.

“Yes! CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CAVE EXPLORERS! YAY!” They screamed in unison.

Running around they grabbed the necessary materials for their new adventure.

Cutie Mark Crusaders Capes: Check

Super awesome bagged lunch in case they were out long: Check

Saddlebags of Carrying: Check

Scooter: Check

Telescope:

“Uhh, hey guys, why exactly are we takin the telescope with us? I thought after we hauled it to the top of Mt. Ponyville for the Cutie Mark Crusaders Stargazers, we agreed never to take it anywhere ever again.” Asked a nervous Apple Bloom.

“Uh, i dunno. Maybe because it’s pretty and shiny?” Replied an innocent looking Sweetie Belle.

Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom facehoofed.

“Sorry Sweetie Belle, I don't think we are going to take it this time”

A very sad looking Sweetie Belle pouted for a while, then suddenly brightened up.

“OOOH, can I take the awesome animal catching net I made for the Cutie Mark Crusader Animal Tamers?”

Knowing that this would continue to go on until Sweetie Belle got to choose something, they agreed. But only if she carried it herself.

“My back still hurts from the last time you made me carry that stupid sack of lead weights” groaned Scootaloo.

“Oh come on, once we were able to melt them all down into a statue for the Cutie Mark Crusaders Statue Makers even you thought that it was pretty awesome.”

“Yeah it was, until we accidentally poured molten lead all over Mr. Tinsmithy’s carriage.”

“Whatever, let’s go cave exploring!”

gathering their gear, the three fillies ran off in search of some unexplored caverns near Ponyville.

Two Hours Later:

“Why can’t Ponyville be more geologically interesting” sighed Scootaloo.

“I dunno, but we looked all over town and we didn’t find anything more interesting than the cellar they turned into a jail underneath the Ponyville in.”

“Yeah, and then the guards caught us, threw us out and told us not to go snoopin around a war camp” replied Applebloom.

“Ooh! let’s go look in the Everfree Forest! They have all sorts of cool places to look for caves!” Exclaimed Scootaloo.

“But isn’t that the one place the grownups told us not to go?”

Scootaloo thought for a second.

“So? I don’t believe in monsters. Sure, there have been a few weird creatures like Discord and that chicken-snake thing, but I bet they are just trying to keep us from having fun. We can even stay near the lake at the edge of the forest. That way we can just say we wanted to go swimming.”

“Are you sure about this Scoots?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be eaten by another monster. Havin almost been eaten once, I dont wanna repeat the experience”.

“Don’t worry girls, I don;t think there is anything out there to get us. And anyways ‘Bloom, that hydra only lives in the Froggy Bottom Bog and we won’t be going anywhere near there again.”

“If you say so”.

“Ok then Cutie Mark Crusaders, Let’s go find a cave!”

after sneaking past all the guard patrols, the three fillies manage to sneak their way to the Everfree Lake.

“Oh wow! This lake is bigger than I thought!”

“Oh come on, Apple Bloom. Everyone knows that the lake under Canterlot is bigger than the one here.”

“is not”

“is too”

“IS NOT!”

“IS TOO!”

“uh, girls. I think I may have found a place with some caves” interjected Sweetie Belle.

Pausing in their argument, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both answered at the same time

“Where?”

“Over there in that ravine. I bet there are all sorts of cool caves in there!”

Running off towards the ravine the three girls soon found themselves surrounded by all sorts of neat washouts in the sides of the washout.

“Wow, these are cool, but I wish we could find a real cave!”

“Wait, look over there! see those vines and plants on the bend in the path? I bet they are covering a secret entrance, just like in the Daring Doo books!” said a hopeful Scootaloo.

Pretending to be a group of hardened adventurers, the triad slowly made their way over to the entrance to the dungeon.

once next to it they stuck their heads inside, only seeing darkness.

Then their eyes adjusted, and their jaws dropped.

Inside the cave was the ugliest monster they had ever seen. It was walking hunched over on two legs, and was making awful noises and hand gestures. But the worst part was that it had Fluttershy tied up in the corner.

The trapped pegasus saw them and her eyes begged the three fillies to run away quickly.

So, the Cutie Mark Crusaders did the only think they could think of in the situation:

First, Scootaloo started Screaming

Then, Sweetie Belle Threw her net at the beast and screamed.

Finally Apple Bloom ran in circles screaming “OHCELESTIA,ITSGOINGTOEATFLUTTERSHY!” over and over.

This had the combined effect at stunning the creature long enough for it to get trapped in Sweeite’s net.

Then Fluttershy found her voice and yelled over the screaming girls “Run! Go find the Guards! They should be nearby!”

Finally given some sort of direction, the three fillies ran screaming outside.

Straight into the arms of several armored pegasi.

“What is going on here? We heard some screaming.” Asked the lead pegasus.

“thereisamonsterinthatcaveandit’sholdingFluttershyprisonerandit’sgoingtogobbleherupfordinner”

Once they puzzled out what the fillies said, they dove into the cave. Sounds of fighting could be heard, and eventually a very bruised and tired Fluttershy limped out of the opening. Following her were the three pegasi and the monster all tied up in it’s rope.

“Oh thank goodness you found me girls, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t saved me” Said Fluttershy as she gave the three shocked fillies a massive hug. “Now let’s get you back to Ponyville, where I am sure your sisters are worried sick about you.”

With the pegasus guards leading the way with the monster, Fluttershy and the Cutie Mark Crusaders walked slowly back to town.

Ch 6: Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones

Having the crap beaten out of you sucks. It especially sucks when they tie you up afterwards. And being dragged for what seems like miles across a dry riverbed sucks more. Then having them bring you into a war camp and having strange ponies poke you with pointy instruments to figure out what the hell you are is just about pinning the Suck-meter. Knowing that the likelihood of being able to go home and see my family again is the worst feeling. Ever.

I am not normally easy to catch by surprise, but when I was trying to understand the pony I held hostage I had let my guard down. Call it awe that I could learn to communicate with them, or just excitement over this new development, but whatever it was, they got me good.

When the screaming started, my first reaction was to stand up. Which was pretty impossible since the cave’s ceiling was only about a meter high. After bashing my head on the ceiling, I looked over to see my prisoner shouting something at the door.

Then, I decided to try and escape. Shambling over to my bag, I frantically started grabbing my gear when three more winged horses jumped me and beat the crap out of me.

So, here I am, tied up, fuming, and naked in the bottom of what looks like a former apple storage cellar.

Yes, they took all my clothes too. Don’t want me to be hiding any sort of “surprise” I guess.

Several times a purple rhinorse (what I call the horses with horns) and several armed guards came in and tried to talk to me. I didn’t understand any of it. They also tried to make me talk by pantomiming what they wanted me to do.

Still angry about my capture, I refused. I just sat there trying to shoot anger powered lasers out of my eyes in the hopes that I would actually manage to incinerate them with hate alone.

To nobody’s surprise, it didn’t work.

Eventually, they just pushed some food and water in the door and left me alone.

It would work, if it wasn’t for the fact that they provided no utensils and I couldn’t use my hands.

Eventually my hunger and thirst won out, and I ate and drank by sticking my face in the bowl and trying to eat from there.
After eating, I just sat in the semi-darkness and just wished I had my book. At least then I could lose myself in a story and get away from all the suck that was the past couple days.

Lost in Translation

“Grr, why won’t this stupid monster cooperate with my interrogations!” shouted a very sleep-deprived Twilight Sparkle. “All I need to do is to get him to talk, even a little, and I could use those words as the basis for my trans-language communication spell!”

At a loss for words, Spike just settled for cleaning up the Library and hoping that Twilight would get over her little manic-obsessive phase quickly. Just as he was about to reshelf a pile of books, a shouted epiphany caused him to drop them all and fall to the ground.

“Aha! Maybe if we get Fluttershy in the room with him, we can try to get it to talk. ‘Shy said that they actually managed to communicate, so maybe recreating the same situation will encourage it to talk!”

“Uh, Twilight? How exactly are we going to do that right now? Its 3am and most likely, everypony is asleep.”

Twilight looked a bit crestfallen that her plan couldn't be enacted immediately (because genius doesn’t wait for anything!), but decided that he was right in the end. After having had an extremely traumatic couple days, the timid pegasus would probably need the rest to be able to gather her courage to try and speak with the creature.

Putting up her books, Twilight brushed her teeth, tucked spike into his basket and went to bed.

Once Caught, Twice Shy

When I got thrown into here, they took all my stuff. Clothes, watch, everything. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, except that it’s cold in here. Not having a watch sucks as well. Not having any real way to determine the time really messes up my internal clock.

So far I have been fed and watered three times. Each time the guards come in and place the meal and water by the door and leave it there for me to “enjoy”.

Other than eating and any other necessary bodily functions, I have been sitting here thinking. Thinking about home mostly, but also about things like bacon, books, and counting my fingers to pass the time. For a while I tried to draw in the dirt, but it is hard to draw with your hands tied behind your back.

After lying down and drifting in and out of unconsciousness for a while, the door opened again. This time there were four horses that came in; two guards, the purple horned horse and Fluttershy. I brightened up at the sight of Fluttershy hoping that somehow she convinced the others that I wouldn’t kill them.

But she stayed almost hidden behind the guards while the purple one approached. Talking in their weird horsey language it rambled on and on and on. Even the guard’s eyes looked a little glazed over at the barrage of words.

Finally it turned to face me and it gestured for me to talk.

My throat dry an cracking due to long silence I managed to croak out one word.

“Fluttershy?”

At her name, she seemed torn between coming over to me and trying to curl up even more and hide. Eventually she settled for sticking out her head and waying my name.

“Jake?” ecstatic that we were actually communicating, I hoped that maybe she could help me get out of this predicament.

“Help me Fluttershy...”

When I started talking the purple one perked up and began to focus on my words. As I tried to make Fluttershy understand what was going on, I noticed that the purple horse’s horn began to glow.

Spellbound

As soon as the beast began making its guttural noises (which Fluttershy had assured her was its speech) Twilight began to prepare her translation spell. Focusing on the words it was speaking, she began to weave the magic necessary to turn those words into equestrian. As she was casting her spell she noticed that the creature was beginning to look at her. First with curiosity, then with apprehension and fear as the overglow on her horn continued growing.

Finally, the spell was ready.

“Look away everypony, this may damage your vision for a while!” she cried out.

Once the guards and Fluttershy had averted their eyes, Twilight released the spell onto the beast.

Then something strange happened.

Instead of the spell carefully laying itself over the creature and binding itself to it, it seemed to suddenly destabilize and then it disappeared altogether. Looking frantically, she couldn’t even sense any lingering traces of magic that would accompany a spell failure or even a successful cast.

It was as if the spell had never existed at all.

Becoming frantic, she began to try to recast it with what she could remember of the sounds the beast made. Just as she was building her power again, a new voice was heard in the room.

“Well, that was unexpected”

Translation is Magic

When the purple horse’s glow covered me, I expected it to hurt. A lot.

But, instead of it hurting, tingling or otherwise being uncomfortable I just felt something funny.

It was like when you change altitudes and you “pop” your ears to equalize the pressure in your inner ear. Similar to that, but it just felt different.

Either way, I did what anyone would do when they need to pop their ears (or whatever it was).

I popped it.

As soon as I did several things happened:

First: the glow surrounding me disappeared.

Second: I felt as if some part of me I never knew I had was being filled

Lastly: I really had to pee.

This took me completely by surprise.

“Well that was unexpected” I mused aloud.

It was then that I noticed that the ponies in the room were staring at me.

“What? Did I grow another head or something?”

Then I heard some muttering to the left of me. The purple one was mumbling under its breath

“How is that possible? There wasn’t even any residual magic left over from the spell. It wasn’t spell failure, power loss, or spontaneous interdimensional magic leakage. mumblemumblemubmle”

“Uh, Excuse me, but can you please untie me? I am losing circulation in some of my extremities.” I asked as nice as I possibly could.

That caused the shocked pony to look at me like I had grown a second head.

“Seriously, I am getting some really bad cramps in my biceps and hammies right now. I promise to be good.” This time I tried adding a reassuring smile to it.

Everyone was still staring at me. This was getting weird. Time to change tactics.

“Fluttershy?”

A muffled meep was heard from a yellow and pink ball hiding under one of the guards
“I just wanted to let you know that I am sorry for capturing you. Nothing personal, I just didn’t want to be found out and caught” Looking around at where I was I added “Not that it helped in the end.”

She then peeked out from under her bangs and kept staring at me. I was getting nothing from Fluttershy. Time to change again.

“You, Purple horse thing with the glowing horn. Can you please untie me? I really have to pee.”

That seemed to knock it out of its shock.

“Well, for one, I am Twilight Sparkle and a she. Not ‘purple horse thing with a horn’ or ‘it’. And we are ponies. Not ‘horse things’. I am more interested in what exactly you are.”

“Well the short version is this: My name is Jake. I am a human (Homo sapiens) who got sucked away from my nice relaxing hiking trip and got dumped into an unfamiliar place with strange talking horses who seem to want to capture me and I miss my family. Now can you please untie me, I REALLY have to pee.”

“Ok ‘Jake’, but if you so much as make a wrong move, I am going to restrain you with my magic again.”

Then her horn glowed again and my ropes began to loosen. That is, until I felt the magic brush my bare hands. Suddenly I felt that pressure again. So I ‘popped’, and the magic disappeared again. But at least the ropes were loose enough that I could shake them off.

Twilight got that puzzled/shocked look again and the mumbling started anew. Shrugging off the rest of the ropes I stooped over and hobbled over to a corner of the cellar and relieved myself.

Just a note: having people watch you pee is never fun. Especially if they have never seen a two legged beast do it.

By the time I had finished, Twilight had shaken herself out of her mumblefest and apparently decided what to do about all this.

“Excuse me... Jake. If you don’t mind, I will need to leave you in here for a bit while I go get in contact with my superiors. We will return with food in a little while.”

With that she turned to go away, but I quickly shouted out and stopped her before she left the area.

“Wait! Can you do me a huge favor please?”

“What is it?”

“Can you bring my some of my clothes, a light and my e-reader?”

“What is an e-reader?”

“It’s a small grey slate looking device in my backpack. It is in a black case and it should be in the side pocket”

“Uh, I will ask if that is ok. What exactly does it do?”

“It electronically stores thousands of books for me to peruse while I travel”

At the mention of books her eyes widened a little and a small smile appeared on her face.

“Did you say thousands of books?”

“Uh, yes. It stores them electronically as data and displays them on the screen. My model is a bit on the old side, but I should have somewhere on the order of one or two thousand books on it.”

Suddenly awed at the prospect of so much concentrated knowledge, Twilight almost sped out the door and paused at the entrance.

“I will be able to get you your clothes back Jake. Just hold on a bit”

And with that they all left and once again I was left to the darkness and my thoughts.

A/N: Please comment and let me know what you think of the story so far. Your feedback helps me improve my writing and the plot. Thanks!

Ch 7: Technical Difficulties

Technical Issues

Twilight Sparkle was frustrated.

She was the most powerful unicorn to walk Equestria since Starswirl the Bearded, the personal protégé of Princess Celestia, the Bearer of the Elements of Harmony, Three-time savior of the world, and she couldn’t figure out what in Luna's name was in front of her.

It looked like an absurdly thin book, with a black leather cover. It was only about a hoof wide and a hoof-and-a-half long. Opening it up revealed an even smaller grey tablet with what looked like a screen. The tablet was made of some sort of grey material unlike anything she had ever seen. It was somewhat strong, but was extremely lightweight. Inset on the front was a simple black design in a recessed area. There were unfamiliar buttons along the sides and bottom, but she couldn’t recognize the characters on them. The symbols were miniscule, and the look like they were printed onto the buttons.

Not that Twilight had ever seen anything that was capable of printing symbols that small. They were printed uniformly and with absolute precision. Even the best scribes in Canterlot couldn’t hope to match the impeccably marked symbols.

There were an additional four buttons, two on each long side. They were simply marked with chevrons. Each side having one that pointed left and one that pointed right.

The ‘human’ had said that there were thousands of books in this impossibly tiny device. He promised knowledge untold and endless possibilities.

But she couldn’t make the darn thing work.

Grunting in frustration, she set it aside for the next wonder.

It was also made of the intriguing material found on the ‘e-reader’, except that this one was black on the outside. Opening it up revealed several series of blue and white inlays. The only other features on it was that there was some kind of slot in the side, and when it was exposed to light, a small green light appeared next to the slot.

Twilight had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to do. She was afraid of using magic or taking it apart in fear that it may never work again.

Looking at the pile of things that ‘Jake’ had had with him left Twilight mystified. Everything in there seemed so... alien. The fabrics were unlike anything Twilight had ever seen, or were using cloth in ways unknown to ponykind. The clothes were obviously cut for the human, who only walked on two legs like Spike, and used their forelegs for manipulating items.

A lot of the items were made from the strange hard material found on the ‘e-reader’, but there were some familiar items in the pile as well.

There was a large knife, though the design and handle material was alien, the basic concept was the same.

There was his saddlebag, which looked like it was carried on its back and strapped across the shoulders and its belly.

Looking over the pile of items, Twilight decided that the best way to see what some of these things was to let Jake use them.

Hopefully his ‘e-reader’ wasn’t actually a weapon.

Dress for Success

After waiting another long while (damn their eyes for taking my watch!) Twilight returned to my prison levitating behind her several items.

“I have the items you asked for Jake.” She announced while she dropped the pile in front of me.

Not wasting any time, I tossed my clothes on as only a cold naked man can. Also in the bundle was my E-reader. Looking it over, I could tell that it had been examined, though thankfully nothing was damaged beyond a few scratches and nicks in the plastic.

Flipping the on switch I saw that the book was on the last page I had read. The light was barely enough to see by, but the pony had thankfully included a candle. Unfortunately, they did not include anything to light it with.

Just as I was about to turn and ask for a light, I was Interrupted by the unicorn.

“So what exactly is your ‘e-reader’? You told me that it stores books, but how does it work?”

Hmm, I just supposed that they were familiar with electronics. Though, maybe in a world with magic, the development of electrical power distribution wasn’t as significant. So I figured I would start at the bases.

“Well, do y’all have electricity?”

“Well, yes. Though it’s mostly used for lighting homes and for public transportation at this point. Other than that, we haven’t really developed it too much. Magically enchanted items, when created properly last much longer than their electrical counterparts. Plus, electric appliances and products are much more expensive than machines powered by enchanted gemstones. Why do you ask?”

“Well, where I come from we don’t have ‘magic’” this elicited a gasp from Twilight. Before she could interrupt again, I shushed her and continued. “Instead, we developed electrical conveniences to improve our collective lives and make tasks easier.”

I reached over and grabbed my e-reader

“For example, this is nothing but a collection of silicon circuitry and plastics, but it can hold approximately 8 gigabytes of data which equates out to somewhere around...” did a little mental math “maybe eight thousand books, give or take maybe several hundred books or so.”

Twilight's eyes got bigger than some dinner platters I have seem.

“T... Twe... twenty THOUSAND books?!” she gasped after stuttering for a minute. She looked like she was about to have a total nerdgasm.

“Well, that is assuming that the books are only an average size of 1000 kilobytes and that there are about 1.05 million kilobytes in one gigabyte. Just some rough estimates, but you get the Idea.”

She was just staring at the e-reader with the hungry passion that only a true learnaholic could. She then looked at me and asked me:

“So how do you turn it on? I looked it over and I couldn’t figure it out.”

Bringing it close so she could see I went to the bottom of the ‘reader and flicked the tiny switch that released the screensaver and brought back the text.

“All you have to do is lightly flick this switch.”

As she watched the screen change to text, she got a puzzled expression on her face.

“Wait, so this is your language? How does it project the words on there?”

I was beginning to think that she wouldn’t leave me alone for a while until she had figured out how everything worked.

“So first you use a separate computer to download the data onto the e-reader....”

Correspondence

Princess Celestia relaxed in her bed, reading the latest reports from Ponyville.

At first, she was worried about the creature. It had attacked one of her guards, and captured one of her subjects. When she had first heard the news, she got angry.

Normally the Princess of the Sun would get annoyed, or even snappy. But not in the past 246 years had she gotten truly angry.

Like the star she embodied, small flares of emotion were fairly common, but were controllable and directed.

This time, she nearly exploded with the full power that only a deity linked with a burning sphere of fusion energy could focus.

Needless to say, she was still surprised that she had managed to cause a volcano to erupt nearby. Thankfully, it was in an uninhabited portion of the Canterlot mountains, but it was still worrisome to the villagers.

After she had reigned in her temper, she almost issued a kill-on-sight order to her troops, but wisely decided against it. They were civilized ponies, and so far it was only one of her little ponies that had been wounded.

Then she received news that the creature had been captured. After the report of capture, Celestia had decided to change some things.

First: She withdrew the Royal Army. They needed to get back to their normal lives, and now that they had the creature contained, they did not need the extra ponypower on hoof.

Second: She transferred the interrogation and analysis of the prisoner to her student Twilight Sparkle. Celestia needed somepony who could be trusted to take an unbiased analysis of what they had found.

Regardless of the past, Celestia had just received the latest report from Twilight and Shining Armor.

Reading Shining Armor’s first, it was just a standard brief on camp conditions, any discipline issues worth noting and a report on troop morale and training.

Then she got to the report she was looking forward to the most.

In all her years as diarch of Equestria (and the thousand years as monarch) Celestia had never found a pupil with as much potential as Twilight Sparkle. Starswirl the Bearded even lacked the raw power Twilight had available to use. Truthfully, Starswirl lacked the power most unicorns had. His special talent was in magical theory, and maximizing use of low-power spells to solve large scale problems.

Snapping out of her memories, she returned to the document:

Orders and Regulations

Dear Princess Celestia,

After the capture of the creature found in the Everfree Forest three days ago, several events of note have happened.

To begin, the creature was captured by a flight of pegasi guard on patrol after its hiding place was discovered by several local fillies. Inside they found a bound and gagged Fluttershy, the creature, and many strange artifacts.

Fluttershy will recover just fine; she just suffered a bit of dehydration, several contusions and a few minor lacerations.

The Creature was unable to communicate for the first day or so, despite attempts to engage it in conversation. While we debated what to do with it, we simply provided it with water and gruel per Guard Prisoner Regulation 12.51-7. It consumed the meal while suffering no obvious ill effects. It seemed distressed at its bound state, though that is unsurprising as few creatures care to be bound.

After much consideration, I brought Fluttershy back with me to see the captive under the hope that they had established contact when the situations were reversed.

Upon seeing Fluttershy, the creature immediately looked both shamed and slightly in awe. It actually knew Fluttershy’s name and though it lacked any other knowledge of our language, it spoke in its own language long enough for me to be able to construct a translation enchantment.

After building the enchantment, I encountered what is probably considered to be absolutely impossible.

When I laid the enchantment upon the creature, there was a sudden surge in magical power and the entire spell disappeared.

It is like the enchantment was completely and utterly annihilated.

When the room was analyzed immediately afterwards, there was no residual magic energy anywhere in the room that was beyond normal background levels. There was nothing to even suggest that the spell was even cast beyond my memory.

Then, in another turn of the impossible, the creature started talking in Equestrian. Much to both its and our surprise, we began to communicate.

After our initial confusion, I began the questioning.

The creature is named ‘Jake’ and calls itself a ‘Human’. I have never heard of these ‘humans’ before, but they are anatomically similar to nothing I have seen before. Initial observation supports that ‘humans’ are mammals, though anatomically extremely different than ponies.

They have four limbs; two are apparently for walking while the other two have claws? on the end and are used for manipulating object similarly to a griffon’s talons or a dragon’s claws. They are extremely dexterous, capable of manipulating objects far smaller than anything a pony could ever hope to grasp without magic.

Their bodies also lack any significant fur beyond the top of their head, chest, and pubic area. As a result, they rely on clothing to provide protection from the environment. There is no evidence of any sort of tail, or hooves.

Also of note are the artifacts found with the human.

At least one of the items is a weapon, though it is was not initially identifiable. Therefore we treated every unknown item as a weapon to prevent accidental injury.

There are many recognizable items, though the construction is utterly alien and are obviously designed to be held by the creature's claws. I found several eating implements, and containers along with some sort of sealed packages. Opening one revealed it to be some sort of food, preserved by unknown means. There were several sets of clothing, almost all of which were alien in cut and made of some unknown material. My current hypothesis is that it is some sort of synthetic material, but other than that I am unable to ascertain its origins. The human’s saddlebag consists of two straps that go over its shoulders and runs along its back.

However, there were a large number of unidentifiable items. Any real looking through them has left us stumped as to their purpose. We eventually found the weapon then comparing the small brass cylinders found at the scene of the dead glow scorpion. When picking the weapon up, something must have triggered it, as there was a large bag (think next to lightning strike loud) and something discharged into a nearby wall. We were able to recover it, and it looked like a severely deformed lump of lead and copper. Any further attempts to analyze the weapon will be put on hold until further safety precautions are in effect.

An item of interest was initially pointed out and described by ‘Jake’ during our initial conversation. He described some device he called an ‘e-reader’ which is some sort of electronic form of book. He claimed that it could store thousands of books in a tablet no larger than a writing tablet. After unsuccessfully trying to use the ‘e-reader’, I finally took it to Jake for demonstration. He showed me how to open it (his term: turn off the screensaver) and get to the books within. However, the books are all unsurprisingly in his native language called ‘English’. Eventually I will decipher the language for further analysis, but right now I had to take him at his word.

The list of other unknown items can be found in the addendum to this report “Known and Unknown Artifacts Found on Human”
Otherwise we discussed Equestira, and he seemed very keen on our development of electricity and it’s prevalence throughout our nation. He described his home as having developed without magic and instead developing electricity to use as a power source. I will try to find out more about this in further interviews.

That should wrap up any news on the ‘Human’ and any additional information we have about it. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle

Ch 8: Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

There is Nothing New Under the Sun

Ch 8

Sweet Dreams are Made of These...

I am in a middle of a coliseum.

A large moon hovers over the stadium.

Immediately surrounding me are thousands upon thousands of empty seats.

I don’t know why, but I feel like I am supposed to be here.

Almost like... It’s my destiny.

A voice whispers...

“You are the next of the conquerors...”

Then everything collapses into icy darkness and I feel my soul being ripped in twain.

Screaming, I sit straight up in bed frantically gasping for breath.

I am still in the cellar, though after conversing with Twilight, I convinced them to let me have a bed brought in and the rest of my bindings removed.

Soaking wet with sweat, I begin to chill. Pulling my sheets around me, I light the candle near my head.

I don’t want to go back to sleep.

Though I am quickly forgetting what exactly woke me up, the words echo in the back of my mind.

“The next of the conquerors...”

Just the memory of that phrase sends chills down my spine.

Picking up my book, I try to drown out the nightmare with stories from home.

Teacher’s Pet

Like every other morning, Twilight Sparkle started off her day with some coffee, cereal and some light reading.

Currently she was perusing through “Quantum Magic Theory Vol. III” and eating wheat flakes (now with extra fiber!).

She was puzzled by the way magic reacted around Jake. Nothing she had ever read or heard of could possibly have caused anything cast at it to simply disappear. That just doesn’t happen. Magical Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, so it had to be instantaneously transferred... somewhere.

Part of Twilight was in awe of the new discovery in front of her. Nopony had ever seen anything like what she was working with right now.

The other part of her was about ready to start tearing out her mane in sheer frustration.

Anything she would cast on the human would simply be annihilated. Analyzing spells, Scurrying spells, healing spells, they all got absorbed into the alien.

The only reason she knew that it was being absorbed was because the human could start using the magic himself. For example, the translation spell should have failed. Instead, it disappeared, but the human began speaking in equestrian as if it was his first language. So far, only passive spells like the translation enchantment became immediately in effect. Any of the active spells she cast on it simply disappeared without any trace of being useable by the human.

Not understanding things like this made Twilight grumpy. Even Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Sense made more sense than this.

After letting out a big sigh, Twilight closed her book and called for her number one assistant.

“Spike! I am heading out to talk with Shining at his Headquarters. Don’t worry about making lunch for me; I doubt I will be back until later this afternoon.”

“You’re doing WHAT to his hindquarters?!”

“No, I am going to his Headquarters”

“So... his butt?”

“No Spike! Ew, Gross! Ugh, just... don’t worry about it ok? Just plan on me being out for the day.”

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?”

After facehoofing and a sigh of exasperation, Twilight grabbed her bags and left before her assistant could misinterpret anything else she said.

Family Time

Shining was not very happy at the moment.

Ever since he had been sent on to Ponyville on his first real deployment, he had been up to his ears in paperwork. Apparently, when in a time of war, everypony thought that everything was a crisis and needed his attention.

He had 3 different stacks of papers on his desk: Scouting/combat reports (thankfully few now that the alien was in custody), Support and Logistics (second largest), Things to Delegate to Subordinates (a towering stack of papers that probably broke some sort of record for its sheer height), and the Trash Can (mostly full of fan mail and the invariable spam that always wound up ended up in the mail).

While drudging through another report on the status on camp food-stores and provisioning requests, he was interrupted by his favorite little sister.

“Hey there Shiny!”

“Hey sis, what’s up?”

“Well, I have several things. First, I have a preliminary report on the captive human and several related recommendations and precautions. Second, I wanted to see if you had time to go get lunch.”

Failing to find an open space on the desk for her report, Twilight instead stuck it in the Scouting/Combat Reports pile.

“Ready to go?”

“Sure, did you have anyplace specific in mind for lunch?”

“Yes actually. Follow me; it’s going to be a surprise.”

Lunch Date

Walking together, Twilight and Shining armor walked through Ponyville to a small cafe near the middle of town.

After ordering their food, Twilight went ahead and pulled out her notebook and placed it on the table between them.

“Shining, I think you need to be brought in on the prisoner’s interviews.”

“Huh? I thought you had those well in hoof Twily.”

“I do, but I think that you should at least sit in on some of the questionings. I think that you could benefit from learning about Jake and his purposes.”

“No. Honestly, I don’t feel comfortable with you in there with it. It has already nearly killed a pony and I don’t want you to be in danger.”

Twilight was a little shocked at her brother's disagreement.

“Wait, what? I thought you were behind me in this.”

“Nope. That creature is nothing but trouble. I think we should just banish it to Tartarus like the rest of the monsters and be done with it.”

“Shining, Jake is not a monster! He is a rational being who just happened to end up in Equestria. Banishing him among the monsters would be absolutely awful!”

Sadly shaking his head, he simply replied “Anypony who attacks on first sight is a danger to society. I doubt that any ‘civilized’ pony would do such a thing. “
Twilight was at a loss for words.

“Brother, you do realize that I am also the most powerful unicorn in Equestria right now right? I think I can handle one creature.”

Giving her a look that said ‘you-may-be-powerful-but-you’re-my-sister-so-you-really-shouldn’t-be in-danger’ he acquiesced the point to her for the time being.

“Well, I just hope you know what you are doing. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting injured. Other than the fact that i don’t think I could live with myself if you were hurt, I think Princess Celestia would probably relieve me of command for it at the least. At the worst, she would probably blame it all on me and banish me to the sun or something.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I promise you that I will be careful. Don’t worry Shiny, I can handle this.”

“I really hope so Twily, I really do...”

And with that they ate the rest of their meal in contemplative silence.

Homesick

All this time away from home was making me depressed.

Normally I can work my way out of a funk if I have something to do, but just sitting in a dank basement/prison gives me too much time to waste just thinking.

And naturally, my thought turns to Earth and my family.

It had been almost a week since I was transported here, and assuming that a similar amount of time had passed back home; I was really running out of time to get back.

I had told my wife to expect a call or some form of contact a day or two past my scheduled return date, and if I missed it, to go ahead and call for a missing person. Then she was to give them a copy of my route and expected camping areas.

That point was probably 2-3 days ago.

Now, the rescue teams were probably combing along the trail I took, looking for any sign of me.

The worst part is that I know that they wouldn’t find anything. Maybe some weathered tracks if they look carefully, but even those would just end suddenly.

I usually forced myself to stop thinking at that point, if no other reason than because I start crying all over again.

I miss my family dammit.

So when two ponies loudly burst into my room, I was not happy.

Looking up at the figures in the doorway, I just whisper.

“What do you want?”

Twilight walks down towards me. She sees my tears and stops for a second, unsure of what to do.

She then settles with sitting down in front of me, and just trying not to be in the way.

After a couple minutes pass, I gather my thoughts and prepare to face her once more.

“What do you want from me?” I ask hoarsely, my voice a bit raw from the sobbing.

“Well Jake, I actually came to ask you a couple questions.”

“So you are interrogating me?”

“Only if calling it that makes you feel better. I just want to know a few things about you.”

Pulling out a notebook and pen she began to prepare to take some notes. I glared at her in silence

“To begin, why are you here in Equestria?”

“I don’t know. One minute I was out backpacking, and then I appeared in the forest over here. I definitely didn’t come here by choice if that is what you are asking.”

“So how did you end up in the Everfree Forest?”

“Well, I had just broken camp and was hiking when suddenly everything went white. There was a searing pain that filled me completely. Then I woke up in Equestria.”

After furiously jotting down some notes, Twilight moved to the next question.

“Why did you feel the need to attack Second Pvt Storm Front in the forest?”

Balls. I did not like where these questions were heading.

After pondering the question a bit, I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t really a tactful way to say that you shot him because he was in the way.

However, I was in a bit of a nasty mood at the moment, so I just told her exactly that.

“He was in my way.”

Twilight dropped her pencil in shock.

“That's it? He was just in your way?!” Her voice was getting a little hysterical.

“What? Would you rather me lie to you and tell you it was all a misunderstanding? Don’t get me wrong, I am glad he is apparently ok, but I was under a bit of pressure at the moment, and quite frankly, he was the path of least resistance.”

“Is... this normal for humans?”

“To attack on sight or to take the easy path?”

“Uh, both?”

“Well, about the first, the answer is a definite maybe. It depends on the individual and on the circumstances. As for the latter, as a whole, yes. Humanity historically tends to take the path of least resistance when offered several choices.”

Then with a shrug I sit back down and let her think for a bit.

She closes her notebook and sets it down next to her. A slight frown crosses her face as she looks me in the eyes.

Quietly she begins again.

“Why were you crying earlier?”

“Well, probably because, I have been abducted into an alien world, I am pretty sure my family back home thinks I am dead, I have a massive headache, I haven’t been outside in what I can only guess is several days, and I haven’t gotten more than a couple hours of sleep per night since I was thrown down into this basement. Now can you please just leave me alone? I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

With that, I walked over to my bed, lay down and turned over.

“I just want to go home...”

Ch 9: Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Dream on

The power coursing through my veins filled me with a destructive euphoria.

I created mountains, cities, civilizations.

And then I crushed them.

The cries of hundreds of thousands of petty mortals were music to my ears.

Armies were raised against me and I crushed them with mere thought. Their bones littered the ground I tread upon.

Some worshiped me and I let them follow in my footsteps, creating my army of chaos.

A light voice echoes through the back of my mind.

“We could be powerful...”

As I walked through my domain I came upon my house. My wife and children came out, but their faces quickly turned from joy to horror at what I had become.

Facing them, I raise my hand and summon my power....

This time when I wake up I can’t even scream.

The afterimages of my dream haunt my consciousness, and tears begin to form.

Curled into a fetal position I don’t notice the passing of time.

Eventually the door opens and I hear a pony enter the room. I stay in the bed just wanting to be left alone in my misery.

A quiet voice fills the room.

“Umm... Jake? I have something for you...”

Why is Fluttershy here? Deciding to peek over, I see that she has a small tray balanced on her back.

“I uhh, thought you might like some fresh food" she whispered timidly.

Looking at the ground, she slowly edges towards me as if I am about to bite her.

I slowly face her and sit up on my bed. When she sees me move, she freezes in place. I just sit there watching her. After what I did to her, I am honestly surprised she is willing to face me at all.

I am also really curious as to what she was bringing me. Looking at the tray I see that it has a bunch of fresh looking vegetables and fruits on it.

My stomach growls impatiently.

I stand up and walk over to the yellow pegasus.

She stares at me, frozen in sudden fear. She watches as I move over to her, unable to move other than to track me with her eyes.

Reaching over, I grab an apple and a carrot.

Sitting back down on my bed, I eat the apple first.

Normally, everyday things like food fail to leave a lasting impression on me, but as soon as I took a bite of this apple I had a bit of a spiritual moment.

This apple is the perfection of everything an apple could be. Slightly dry and crisp like a Winesap, it also had a good undertone of sweetness similar to a Fugi. Then the flavors fade into a slight pleasantly sour aftertaste reminiscent of a Granny Smith.

I sit there dumbstruck at the mixture of flavors racing across my tongue with every chew.
Finishing the apple, I start on the carrot next. To my surprise, it’s just as good as the apple.

Closing my eyes I just savored the first real food in several days. After several days, oatmeal and water gets really bland.

After finishing the food, I opened my eyes and the timid Pegasus was gone.

Staring at the door I just whispered "thank you."

Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Rainbow dash was in her house preparing for war.

She was wearing a black skintight suit, and had her face and wings smudged black with soot.

Tossing a loop of rope around her neck, she looked at herself in the mirror, made sure she was ready and leaped out the window into the night sky.

If anyone were to know where to look in the sky, all they would have seen is a quickly moving black dot hugging the contours of the ground stealthily fleeting over the trees towards Sweet Apple Acres.

Coming over a hilltop, Rainbow saw the (now smaller) military encampment on the emptily land between Sweet Apple Acres and Ponyville.

Giving the camp a relatively wide birth, she landed in a grove of trees within sight of the Apple family barn.

Just downhill from the structure was a small trapdoor with two guards in front of it. She also took note of the sentries on the roof of the barn and the pairs of guards patrolling the area.

Waiting until just the right moment, Rainbow Dash launched herself into the air and flew straight into a small skylight near the roof of the barn. Her eyes rapidly adjusting to the dark, she looked around to see if anypony had noticed her.

The Cows were resting in their sleeping quarters on the south end of the barn, and there were two guards playing cards on a table by north entrance.

Silently, she moved across the rafters until she was situated right over a seemingly random haystack in the middle of the western wall.

Waiting until the guards had started their next hoof of cards, she dove straight into the haystack.

“Hey Starlight, you hear that?”

“Hmm?”

“I think I just heard something move over by the cows”

“Well, it was probably the cows then. Are you going to raise me now or just fold like a foal?”

“No, seriously. I think I heard something.”

“Fine. If it makes you feel better about yourself, we can go look for your mystery sound. But if I catch you even thinking about looking at my cards, I will end you.”

Rainbow watched the two get up and start walking over by her haystack.

Holding perfectly still, she waited as they walked past her, looked behind her haystack and then made a big loop around the barn and returned to their table.

“See, told you so!”

“Shaddup....”

The moment of crisis over, rainbow began to wiggle her way to the bottom of the stack.

Back when everyone had been setting up Pinkie Pie’s surprise birthday party in the barn, Rainbow had gotten bored and had been snooping around looking for anything interesting. While searching, she had found an old trap door that led to an old root cellar under the floor.

Never one to give away the location of a perfect napping spot, she had kept its location a secret (though Applejack probably knew about it anyways).

Opening the trapdoor, the black pegasus dropped into the darkness.

After moving to the back of the area, she began to dig a small hole down into the ground.

Like a Churchmouse

I was on the floor doing a small workout when I heard a light scratching sound coming from above me.

Pausing for a second, I listened intently. Hearing nothing for a couple seconds I began to continue my pushups.

Then the sounds came again, though louder this time.

Flipping around onto my back for situps, I was wondering what could have possibly been making that noise when the ceiling above me opened up and a black shape fell onto my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

Gasping for breath, I watched as the thing rolled off of me and reached over its shoulder for something.

Before I could say ‘not the ropes!’ I felt a coarse cord bind me ankles and wrists. However, after a while I felt something next to me struggling.

Getting my breath back I looked over to see that the shape had accidentally tied itself to me.

“Darn it, I should have taken those knot classes from AJ while I still had the chance.”

Well it looks like my would-be-capturer was stuck with me for the time being.

Clearing my throat, I break the short silence “Uh, who are you and why exactly are you falling out of my ceiling?”

Feeling the pony take a deep intake of breath, I could feel it struggling like it was trying to achieve some sort of pose.

“I am Rainbow Dash, the best flyer in Equestria!”

“Apparently not the best wrangler though...” I mutter under my breath.

Then a hoof came out of nowhere and knocked me on the head.

“Hey! That was uncalled for!” I cried out.

Laughing, the pony behind me told me in no uncertain terms that it was what I deserved.

“Nopony mocks The Rainbow Dash! Nopony!” Maniacal laughter filled the room for a minute.

“Seriously though, don’t insult strangers. It’s not nice.”

“So ‘Rainbow Dash’, why pray tell did you jump on me from the ceiling for?”

“Weeeell, I was going to tie you up and make you confess your sins against Nature and Fluttershy; but I think that plan isn’t going to happen now.”

“Seriously? You were going to torture me?” I asked unamusedly.

“Not really... Ok, maybe just a little... All right, I just wanted to try and reenact a scene from a book I read once. But I really did want to find out what you really did to Fluttershy.”

“You really want to know?”

“Well I didn’t sneak all the way in here for nothing”

“Hmm... how about you tell me what you think happened, and then I tell you what really happened.”

A large intake of breath, and she began to spout one of the most ridiculous tales I have ever heard....

Intermission 1: A Tale of Heroes and Fair Maidens

Intermission 1

As told by Rainbow Dash....

A Tale of Heroes and Fair Maidens

It all started one week ago...

The day was like any other day in the small town of Ponyville. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Fluttershy's pet bunny Angel was being anything but.

However, even though everything looked peaceful on the outside, Fluttershy was already afraid.

Yesterday, she had received a terrifying note from Princess Celestia herself. It had warned of a terrible presence appearing in the Everfree Forest. The note also mentioned the mobilizing of the guard and the Elements of Harmony to try to capture the beast.

She was sorely afraid, but she knew that she had to join the other Elements of Harmony to protect Equestria from the horror within the Everfree Forest.

As she went home that afternoon, she noticed that her chicken coop was left open again and her precious friend Henrietta was missing.

"Oh no! Henrietta, I'm coming for you!" She called out into the dark forest.

Trotting to the edge of the woods, a sudden case of the willies overtook her. Looking around, she felt eyes looking upon her quivering form.

Gathering her courage, the sweet yellow mare began her slow trek into the woods.

Fluttershy followed the chicken's tracks for hours as they led through the damp underbrush.

The woods were unnaturally quiet, almost as if something had scared away even the most brave of the forest's denizens.

Suddenly, Fluttershy came upon a clearing and saw that her friend's clawprints had disappeared. However, there was a set of other, mysterious tracks right where the chicken's ended.

Looking at the tracks, she couldn't figure out what kind of outlandish beast could create such unusual markings in the loamy soil.

A rustle of movement behind her caused the pegasus to freeze. Listening intently, she strained her ears to try to detect the cause of the noise.

Another rustle came from behind her. She turned around to see a blur of a creature leap out of the brush at her, and tackle her to the ground. Before she could even resist, the beast had her tied up and set across it's shoulders like a sack of flour.

Gagged and unable to scream, Fluttershy could do nothing but watch as the creature carried her off through the woods once more. An unknown amount of time passed with the helpless mare forcing herself to not panic.

Finally, the monster arrived at it's lair; a small cave hidden in the side of an embankment. Dragging her behind it, he set her against the back wall and began to use strange incantations to summon fire from a small pile of sticks.

This being too much for poor Fluttershy, she passed out into blissful darkness.

The smell of charred flesh roused the drowsy mare. Looking frantically for the source of the sickening smell, she discovered the monster bent over the fire holding some sort of object over it.

Looking closely, she could see a small pile of white feathers on one end of the room.

Eyes widening in sudden understanding, Fluttershy once again blacked out from the shock of her discovery.

Time passed without reference. The monster had given the poor pegasus some water, but Fluttershy couldn't help but think that it just wanted her to be fresh for when it ate her next.

Turning to face her, the creature began to approach her. Each step echoed in her mind as the last thing she would witness.

Just as he was about to reach her, the coverings hiding the beast's cave were thrown apart, and a group of Royal Guards jumped into the lair weapons ready.

Not going down without a fight, the creature turned to face them. Releasing a fearsome howl that struck fear into the hearts of the ponies, it leaped into the waiting guards. Fluttershy watched as the fracas progressed. Though the monster was outnumbered, it's overbearing height and immense strength granted it an edge over her rescuers.

The sounds of combat had attracted even more guards however, and after a fierce battle managed to subdue the beast.

freeing Fluttershy, the guards took her ahead for medical treatment, while the beast was dragged to Ponyville for it's judgement....

"Seriously? That is how you think it went down?" I ask.

"Well... I may have added to it just a teensy bit. But the good parts were still there. I just made it about.... 14 percent more awesome."

Facepalming, I honestly had no idea what to do with her story. As I was about to open my mouth with some sort of witty retort, the sound of approaching guards could be heard from beyond the door to my prison.

"Oops, here come the guards. Seeya!" And with a prismatic dash, she jumped back into her hole in the roof and blocked up the entrance to her little tunnel.

"Well I'll be damned. That was strange" I muttered to myself.

(Intro) Nothing Ever Changes

Nothing is New Under the Sun.
By: Chase The Brony

My Little Pony is a product of Hasbro. I just enjoy writing and reading stories about it.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nothing is New Under the Sun.

As Celestia gazed over her domain from her castle in Canterlot, she came to a realizaton. An epiphany that could forever change the face of Equestria and the world.

She was bored.

When you are an immortal goddess who controls the heavens, you have pretty much seen everything. Some immortals try to seek new experiences in drugs, drink or sex. Some, like her newly regained sister Luna, go insane and try to become a catalyst for change in order to force something new to happen around them.

Celestia found her release through living amongst the commoners. The lives of the mortals are constantly changing. The daily life of an Equestrian citizen was constantly in flux. It was rarely dangerous or fatal, thankfully the Sun Goddess helped reduce that part of her subjects lives. However, it had a freshness to it that Celestia could only envy.

Unlike the lives of her subjects, daily life as a princess was pretty much the same everyday. She would eat breakfast, raise the sun, listen to the commoners and nobles' petitions to the throne, eat lunch, deal with any foreign visitors or ambassadors, eat supper, lower the sun and pass the night off to Luna. Very occasionally (occasionally being measured in decades) she would take a couple weeks off to go live incognito amongst the commoners.

It goes without saying that with the exception of several events, her time between vacations was dull.

She helped pass time by personally tutoring some of the most powerful and talented ponies she could find. However, though powerful they may be, they were but mortals and as all mortals do, they eventually die.

Every time she lost a student her heart would break. she would swear to not take another student, but as passed, she would discover another potential student who would take her heart and she would tutor them.

However even this cycle repeats over and over for time immaterial.

Enter the Change

The universe is a vast place. It is both further and longer than can be measured but is also so close and dense that cross-universal interaction is more than possible, though not probable. Some connections are fickle, wormholes lasting mere femtoseconds streak across incomprehensible distances. Others are slightly more permanent; black holes collect and compress the reality around them and transport it across vast distances to begin the creation of a new system.

For such a inconceivably large area, there are surprisingly few species so blessed to be able to comprehend the universe around them, and even fewer who are willing to study it and eventually travel it.

In a series of odds that are beyond infinitesimal, one of the cross galactic transports that is a wormhole just happened to connect two worlds for an instant, but this single instant is all it would take to transform Equestria forever.

The Second Race

I never thought that one day I would hold the fate of worlds in my hands. I always knew that I could succeed in a given task if I put my mind to a job and worked for it, but I never thought it would end like this.

Despite my job as an IT Technician, I spend a disproportionate amount of time in the outdoors. Back when I was in college, I used to volunteer with my state parks and would give lectures about nature and the wilderness to tourists and other students. An avid sportsman, I considered the opening weekends of the Deer and Dove seasons to be veritable holidays. In order to relax and keep my skills honed, I embark upon a multi-day backpacking trip into whats left of the untamed wilderness every year. When I backpack its just me, my gear (food, water, clothes etc), my pistol (in case of bears, or other unfriendly critters) and the peace of nature.

After I had been out a couple days I loaded my bag when I suddenly felt a slight tingle which suddenly turned into a pull, then my vision blacked out and I felt as if I were being ripped apart, cell by cell. Needless to say, it was rather excruciating. Thankfully, I lost all sense of pain and then nothing.

I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't see.

This was unnerving to say the least. To put it succinctly, I was mentally flipping a shit.

Before I could even begin to question my sanity or try to reason where I was, I felt the pain returning. The last thing I remember was a flash of light, and seeing a glimpse of trees. Then I passed out cold.

Resisting Change

Celestia was in the middle of her lunch. Suddenly she felt what could only be described as a disturbance in the force. Being the deity of the planet, she was able to "feel" her earth, and right now she felt like something wrong was just ripped into her world. It lasted barely seconds, and the feeling started to fade.

Before the feeling completely faded away, she used her magic to try and find where the feeling came from. As she searched, her magic pulled her towards the Everfree Forest. One of the fewl untamed wilderness in Equestria left, it had constantly resisted any and all attempts to civilize the woods.

Drawing her magic and consciousness back in, she summoned her captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armour.

"Sir Armour, I need you to send a company of Guards to the Everfree forest. Something just appeared there and I fear for what may appear. Gather your men and supplies and leave before nightfall. You have my authority to
draw weapons from the royal armory, but you are not authorized to begin hostilities. Act only in self defense, and capture rather than kill. I trust in your judgement in this regard. Do not fail me in this, Shining Armour, I fear what this may bode" ordered the diarch.

"Yes ma'am!" Replied the captain. "Should I mobilize the army as well, your Highness?"

"Go ahead and tell General Coldheart to mobilize a short division of troops and to stay on standby in Ponyville. Organize your operations from there. I will send my student Twilight a message on what to expect and to aid you however she can. Also, please inform your wife Cadence that I would be pleased to entertain her in the castle with me while you are out. Anything else?"

"No your highness, with your permission I will go and get the guard ready to deploy."

"Permission granted Shining; Good luck."

"Thank you Princess"

As Shining left the chamber, Celestia just looked out her window and hoped that history wouldn't repeat itself once more.