Chapter 1:
Company

Snow and ice clung itself to the feathers of my face as I trudged through the snow. Though this mattered little to me at the moment as my eyes were fixed on the smoke rising from the woods a couple of miles away from me. I had nearly missed it if I hadn’t, by complete chance passed through a clearing that allowed me a good view into the distance.

My food had run out the previous day and the utter lack of wildlife I’d ran into was a severe bummer for my supplies, though there had to be at least some because I’d heard the howl of wolves, so running into whoever was out there was a blessing. But all of that said, I still needed to reach the plume of smoke first.

Navigating through the thick forest was a bit of a challenge but eventually, the trees thinned enough that I was able to pick out shapes and colors that had no right existing in the forest.

Oh yes! That’s an encampment!

My heart was beating quickly in my chest and adrenaline coursed through my veins as I was no less than a hundred meters from the camp that I’d been searching for. I could clearly identify the three separate tents standing around a central fire now, four-legged shapes moving between them and aroun-

Wait, four-legged?

I immediately dropped to my stomach into the snow, looking at the encampment in front of me. Why had I expected to find humans here in the first place? I lay in complete silence trying to identify the creatures in the camp. One of them was clear, it was a half-cat, half-eagle creature like I was. The notion that it was a human-like me briefly crossed my mind but quickly cast away as it was more likely that this was one of the locals. The other creatures though made my heart flutter.

I’m going to have to get used to the impossible real quickly, won’t I?

A purple coated and haired unicorn was pacing around the camp, fiddling with various pieces of equipment around the camp while a light blue pegasus with the most magnificent rainbow-colored hair was tending to the fire who’s smoke I’d followed to this location. These were creatures of myth, strange as they were, standing no less than seventy meters from my location.

“Twilight, we can’t stay here for much longer. We still have to make our way back to the outpost, our supplies won’t last forever.” I kept my body close to the snow as I listened in on the ongoing conversation the pegasus had with the unicorn, baffled at the fact that they were speaking English of all languages.

“But I haven’t gotten good readings, Dash! Something happened out here a couple of days ago that sent a magic pulse all the way to Ponyville!”

“And you’re going to starve and freeze yourself to figure out what it was then?”

I think I like this pegasus’ thinking.

“Well…”

“Exactly. You can’t unravel all mysteries like this in an afternoon Twi,” the rainbow maned pegasus, or ‘Dash’ as the unicorn had called her, told its friend.

The small part of the conversation I’d picked up though gave me an invaluable nugget of information: Whatever brought me here, it had apparently attracted lots of attention.

“Awhoooo~”

My muscles immediately tensed as I heard the howl of a wolf, not in the far distance but really closeby. The inhabitants of the camp had also stopped all of their activities to look out into the forest. Nothing moved and nothing cracked as I carefully looked around me in an attempt to find the pack predators. Picking up a glimpse of one of them, moving towards the encampment.

Hot damn, those are big… or am I just small?

“Form a circle!” the bird-lion barked to its two companions as the canines moved closer, the glint of metal revealing it had a short blade to defend itself. One of the wolves made a rush forward but was driven back with a slash. The predator pack proceeded to circle the three, looking for an opening.

They won’t last long with only that bird-lion has a weapon… I guess now is as good a time as any to help them out.

I slung the C7 from my back into my claws, getting out of the snow and standing up. Having figured out how to stably stand on my back legs over the previous days I lined up a shot on one of the wolves, flicking the safety to semi.

Crack!

The wolf hadn’t even the time to howl in pain as it dropped to the snowy ground, the others jumped and looked to where the loud sound had come from. My ears rang as firing the rifle without hearing protection wasn’t a very nice experience.

Crack!

The second of their number dropped to the ground as the bird-lion jumped forward and stabbed a third in their confusion.

The wolves quickly realized they were losing too quickly with two of their number falling in quick succession and a third wounded. The pack turned around and sprinted back into the trees.

The two ponies looked at the two dead wolves in sheer horror while the bird-lion had turned to face me, interposing itself between the two ponies and the new potential threat. We locked eyes as I closed the final dozens of meters to the camp, our expressions hard as I kept my rifle at the ready to respond quickly if it’d decided to charge.

“Who are you?” it asked, trying to keep its voice as confident as her expression but it was clear she was afraid as well. The question though did cause me to pause.

What do I tell them? ‘Oh, I’m some alien turned into a species like yours?’ That was going to inspire much confidence.

“Did you kill those wolves?” Dash asked, trying to sound tough but fear was evident in her voice.

“Yes I did,” I finally answered, pushing the rifle back out of the way before dropping down onto all fours. “Call me Jack.”

The bird-lion eyed me suspiciously for a couple more seconds before she carefully sheathed her own blade and relaxed a bit. The two ponies, on the other hand, did not look very comforted so the creature turned to them. “I would have done the same thing to protect you two,” she flat out told them to their horror.

“I overheard you two speaking,” I looked at the ponies, “mind if I tag along back to whatever outpost you’re heading back to? I’m lost and ran out of food yesterday.”

“O-Of course, we can r-ration out our food until we g-get back,” Twi stammered as I now closed the distance to the little encampment. “We should b-break up camp quickly then, while we still have light to head back.”

The bird-lion nodded, moving to what was her tent and started breaking it down. Twi did the same with hers but Dash stuck around looking up at me. “I’ve never seen any griffin in clothes and with gear like that,” she said, her voice much steadier than it had been moments prior.

“I’m… different from other griffins.”

Of course! Griffin! That shouldn’t have taken me that long to get into my head… At least I know what to call myself now.

“I guess so…” Dash said, awkwardly looking up at me as she didn’t know what to say further.

“Need help with your tent?” I asked in an attempt to break the silence. She looked back at her tent and nodded.

“That’d be awesome, yeah.”

Taking down the tent was a job swiftly done as the ponies loaded up their equipment to get ready to move. They shared some of their food with me, which I gratefully took before we headed out into the white of the forest. The griffin I’d yet to get a name for lead the group followed by Twi, me, and lastly Dash.

“So what do I call you?” I asked of the pegasus, it took her a moment to register the question.

“Oh! I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!” She exclaimed, full of pride. “That over there is Twilight Sparkle, and the griffin in front is Griselda, our guide.” I chuckled at the demeanor of the pegasus as she introduced me to the others. “You said your name was Jack?”

I nodded. “Jack Grey. Pleased to meet you, Rainbow Dash.” I held out my claw which she shook with her hoof. “So tell me, why were the three of you out here in the first place?”

This got Twilight’s attention as she slowed down ever so slightly to match Rainbow and me. “That’s a question I can answer for you. A couple of days ago there was an event somewhere within these mountains that sent a pulse of magic all over the world, creating this beautiful aurora. Since this was something unprecedented in Equestria’s history, the princess asked me to go check it out.”

There it is again, this ‘Equestria’. I guess that’s their kingdom if they have a princess.

“Do you have any idea what it might have been?” I asked knowing full well that this most likely was me being deposited in this strange world.

“Well, to be honest, not really. The event was so energetic that I haven’t got a clue about what might have caused it,” Twilight admitted.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out at some point, miss Sparkle,” I assured her, no point in letting them know about myself yet… not that they would believe me anyway…

Though she did say a fuckin’ magic pulse…

“So what’s your story, Jack?” Rainbow asked, “You said you were out here for days and got lost?”

“I was wondering that as well, there’s nothing out here but snow, trees, and ice… the only thing of note here is the thing the ponies are after,” Griselda asked cynically, stopping in her path to face me while one of her claws rested on the shortsword strapped to her side. I mirrored her and rested a claw on the Glock that was strapped to my chest, glaring her down.

“That’s what lost means, doesn’t it?” I argued but the griffin just huffed.

“You don’t just wander up in these forests if you don’t know what you’re doing or where you’re going,” she argued, pulling the shortsword slightly out of her scabbard. Following the rules of escalation, I tightened my claw around the grip of the pistol and pulled it halfway out. The two ponies backed off as tension building up between the two of us was getting so thick it could be cut with a knife.

I can’t tell them about this, right? But then again, if I don’t tell something to that griffin this is going to be a very ugly fight… Aaagh, what the fuck am I doing anyway? I’m talking to a bunch of mythological creatures what the fuck do I care about what they think about my sanity?!

“You want to know the truth then? Fine. That magic pulse event thing? You’re looking at it,” I growled, the jaws of the two ponies dropped in awe. “I’ve been turned into a completely different species, spent the last three days wandering alone through these damned forests trying to find civilization while my food was running out, and then to top it off had to engage wolves to save your asses!
I’m cold, tired and my nerves are fried! So if you pull that sword, I swear to god, you’ll be dead before you’ve hit the ground!” With that, I pulled the pistol and kept it squarely aimed squarely at the other griffin’s head.

Griselda froze as her eyes widened. Although she couldn't know what the device in my claws exactly was, she’d seen what had happened to the wolves and could most likely imagine what would happen to her. She decided to pick the only option I’d left her and released the sword, letting it slide back into its scabbard.

“J-Jack, calm down,” Dash stuttered as she stepped forward and reached out and placed a hoof on my arm, I turned my head slightly to look at her in the corner of my eye. Lowering the pistol, I slowly re-holstered the gun.

“Just get me out of this damn tundra.”

Author's Note

For at least the first 10 weeks I'll be uploading a chapter of this weekly. The next one you can expect the 18th at 21-22:00 hours GMT+1

Edit: art for this chapter!

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