Magyck

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
An unnamed plot setup scene, and a narrative explaining my personal head-canon.

Prologue

The boy sat about six feet away from his father. He was currently watching a TV show on his I-touch, and trying his best to ignore the frantic, frankly not too paternal presence near him, working on yet another crazy machine. Sometimes he was annoyed with the lack of attention his father paid him, and most of the time he was embarrassed by his geekiness, but occasionally he just felt sorry for him. His inventions, which he worked so hard on and poured his heart and soul into, never seemed to work. It was the saddest thing Brandon could imagine, though he tried not to dwell on it for too long, as it wouldn't do to get all mushy and lose his "cool" image.

His father wasn't the only thing threatening to plunge him to the bottom of the popularity charts. He had recently become addicted to a show called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". It was a completely girly show, at least in the eyes of anyone who hadn't watched it, and as much as Brandon loved it, it scared him to death that someone who wasn't very understanding would find out, and he would be socially doomed.

And as it turned out, that was the show he was watching as his father completed the finishing touches on his newest contraption. It was a machine that was supposed to allow you to view any location in the universe, in live time. Supposedly, this could not only render all current forms of communication obsolete, but could also work on a one-way basis, letting astronomers observe distant planets and other celestial bodies as if they were there themselves.

It sounded like science fiction to him, but despite the fact that his father sounded like a complete nutter, Brandon knew he was actually extremely intelligent and the teen believed he knew exactly what he was doing, even if no one else did. His father spent his entire life living in books, on the border between fantasy and reality, which in Brandon's opinion was where people needed to be if they were to be considered a genius. Unfortunately, a side effect of this was that his inventions tended to be outlandish and sometimes absolutely outrageous, and he never really spent any time with Brandon except when they worked on one of his projects together.

Suddenly there was a bright glow from his father's workspace, and a joyful cry of "It works! My God, it really works!". Brandon looked up from his show to see the screen of the machine flickering random colors. "Son, come over here! I've finally done it! I've finally succeeded!" his father shouted gleefully. Brandon warily approached the machine. He didn't know exactly how the thing worked, but he'd heard his dad talk about the immense amount of power it took, and something about tapping into wormholes. It all sounded fairly dangerous.

The screen started glowing brighter and stopped flickering random colors. It became a pure white light that exploded from the screen, blinding father and son alike. There was a grating whine that Brandon wished desperately would stop, as it felt as though his eardrums were about to explode. He heard his father's shout of terror, and then everything went black.

She inserted the final piece into her newest invention, and stood back to admire her work. It's perfect, she thought with a twinge of pride. And more importantly, it might even work! She excitedly stamped her hooves, then regained composure; she had yet to test it.

She flipped several switches, and the machine began to whine. So far, so good, she thought. Now all she had to do was provide it with a source of power; in other words, pour her own raw magic into it. Her horn glowed a pale purple as she provided the energy for her creation to do its job.

It was working perfectly! She couldn't help but feel excited. With access to this kind of knowledge, she would be able to find any cure, study any spell, discover any creature! Which reminded her of the task at hand: powering the machine. She returned her attention to the mechanized wonder, and saw that it was glowing just as it should. She couldn't believe it! Her invention had worked on its first test run!! She hadn't even needed to tweak it a little bit!

And naturally, this was when things started to get out of hand. For one, the glow on the machine's screen began to glow very brightly...a little too brightly. That's odd, thought the equine inventor. Perhaps I fed it too much magic? But she knew that wasn't the case, as she had designed the machine herself, and was positive that this was NOT supposed to happen.

She quickly attempted to cut off the flow of power to the machine. However, this had unexpected consequences: the screen flashed even brighter, searing the mare's eyes and forcing her to look away. There was a terrible, whining screech that assailed her ears for a few seconds, and then an enormous explosion. The last thing she remembered before passing out was another shadowy figure lying in the rubble.

Chapter 1

Well, that would be another of Twi's fancy contraptions, Applejack thought as smoke rose from the basement windows of the treehouse library that was her friend's home. Ah guess ah'd better go help 'er out. She began to walk towards the house when Spike burst out. "Help! Help! Someone heeelp! One of Twilight's inventions blew up...again!"

"Now calm down, I'm sure she's fine," said Applejack. "Somethin' like this happens, what, once a week? Has it ever ended with anypony gettin' hurt?"

"Well, there was that one--"

"Of course not. Now, let's go help Twi out of the rubble. Again."

Applejack and Spike made their way downstairs, coughing as the noxious fumes invaded their lungs and throats and made them burn. "Dang," coughed Applejack, "That explosion musta been something real fierce!"

"Yeah, -cough cough- it's even -cough- making it hard for me to breath!" said Spike with difficulty.

The door to the basement was either blown off it's hinges or totally incinerated, it was impossible to tell with visibility so low. In either case, they walked through the doorway and entered into an enormous pool of silky gray smoke. It was like fog, the kind of fog so thick that even grown ponies are afraid to go out, for fear of getting lost. You couldn't see a hoof in front of your face if you put it there.

Applejack cautiously entered the room, thinking that she wished there was some way to clear out the smoke. "Ah wish there was some way to clear out all this smoke..." she said aloud.

"Hello," said a voice from behind them in the murky smoke. "Looking for me?" Applejack and Spike yelped and ran right into each other. "Relax, guys," said Rainbow Dash. "It's just me, here to save your flanks...again." She flew into the room and created a tornado of rainbow that sucked all the smoke in the room toward it. The tornado funneled the smoke toward the lone open window, and it all exited the room.

"Thanks, Rainbow Dash!" said Spike.

"You're welcome," she said, clearly proud of herself. "I'd like to thank all the little pon--"

"No time fer heroic speeches, Rainbow," said Applejack. "We gotta find Twilight!"

"Oh...yeah. Right!" she said, and began to zip around the room in search of the purple-maned pony.

After searching for awhile, Spike shouted, "I found her, I found her!". Rainbow and Applejack quickly came to his side. Sure enough, a purple hoof was sticking out of the rubble that covered the floor, mostly composed of ruined books and machine parts. Applejack and Rainbow pulled her out and brought her upstairs, laying her on her bed.

"Whadda we do now?" asked Applejack. "I bet 'er lungs are full of that smoke that was down there."

"Maybe you have to give her mouth-to-mouth resusc...rescust...oh, whatever it's called."

Rainbow Dash leaned away from him. "No way! That's gross! She probably has all kinds of dust and..." Rainbow watched as Applejack blew air into Twilight's lungs, then pressed down on her stomach. Sure enough, the air that came out was filled with grey smoke of exactly the same kind that was downstairs. Applejack repeated this several times.

Twilight began to cough, and Applejack pulled away as more smoke came from her mouth. "Twilight! You're okay!" shouted Spike as he hugged her, getting a bunch of smoke to the face. "Eww, your breath smells terrible!"

"Ah can't imagine why that would be," said the orchard pony, rolling her eyes.

Twilight coughed and hacked some more until it seemed that most of the smoke was out of her lungs. "What...what happened? Did my machine work?"

Applejack looked at her with sympathy. "Eh, no, not exactly. It kinda blew up."

"And then we saved you!" Rainbow Dash interjected. "Well, it was mostly me. Applejack and Spike, they were all like, 'What will we do, we can't get anything done in all this smoke', and then I was like, 'Have no fear, Rainbow Dash is--'"

"But I know I saw something else down there! There was something in that room after the explosion!" blurted Twilight.

"Well, yeah, there were a heckuva a lot of books and fancy mechanical doohickeys, if that's what you mean." said Applejack helpfully.

"No, I mean...well, let's go down there and look."

"Whatever you say, Twi." said the orange-coated mare.

"Well, I'm done here. I'm not gonna waste time looking through some boring, book-filled basement! See ya!" A rainbow blur exited the room.

"Well, that's Dash for ya. One minute she's bein' helpful, next minute she's bailin' out on the job!" muttered Applejack.

"Come on guys, hurry up!" shouted Twilight from the main floor.

"Coming, Twilight!" responded Spike.

Pony and dragon raced down the stairs to catch up with the impatient unicorn. When they got to the basement, Twilight was already limping through the wreckage, books and parts flying all over the place, propelled by her powerful magic. "It was right over here! It might be some sort of proof that my invention worked!" she tossed aside a large switchboard and a dictionary. "It's got to be here some--" Twilight ceased moving abruptly. "What in the name of Celestia...?" she murmured.

For there, even though she didn't know it, lay a creature that had just been teleported over a formerly insurmountable distance by her machine. There lay a creature from another world, another universe, even. There lay a creature that was part of a species that had not known any other form of reasoning, intelligent life besides itself for eons.

There lay Brandon.

Chapter 2

"Oh, Celestia, what is that?" gasped Twilight. To be fair, Brandon wasn't looking his best at the moment. He had, after all, just been instantaneously transported across an untold distance. His hoodie no longer had a hood, and was in fact completely torn apart. Since he had been wearing the hood, his head had been minimally protected from the heat of the explosion, but unlike Twilight, he had been at the exact center of the blast. His pants weren't in much better condition, though as a testament to blue jeans they weren't totally destroyed like the hoodie.

"Ah don't have a clue!" stated Applejack in confusion. "Beats me how it got here, too; I take it you didn't have it down here before the explosion?"

"Would I be asking you if I had?" retorted Twilight. "I've got to go look in my library; I think I've seen this thing before in one of my books!"

'Course you have, thought Applejack. "Well Twilight, looks like you've got yerself a new project. Just try not to blow this one up, all right?"

Color rose to the unicorn's cheeks. "I'll try my hardest, Applejack." she said, smiling.

"Well, I'll be seein' ya'all 'round. Bye!" the apple farmer called, walking through the door.

"Bye Applejack!" shouted Spike before the door slammed shut.

"Well Spike, I guess it's time to get to work. Now, I'll need to make a checklist of all the books I have to find, and then triple check it after we sort it alphabetically and..."

Spike groaned. It looked like he was in for another night of obsessive-compulsive fun with his host, Twilight Sparkle.

Brandon realized as soon as he came to that there were parts of his body he had previously thought incapable of feeling pain that could, in fact, feel pain. He was pretty sure that every single inch of his skin was being scrubbed with steel wool at the same time, while his insides were cooked with high-frequency ultraviolet rays. This was probably the worst he'd felt in his life. Probably, because at the moment, most of his memories were returning to him like... uh... um... well, they weren't coming. He tried to remember how the heck he'd gotten this way, but pretty much the only thing that was coming to mind was a ridiculously bright flash, and then darkness.

Speaking of which, it was pretty dark, wherever he was. He got up and looked around to find himself in a room that didn't look like it got much use. There were bookshelves full of dusty books, and tables piled high with dusty books. Even the floor had encyclopedias and reference material covered in a thick layer of dust. If he had to label this room, he would label it the "dusty book" room. Pretty much the only thing in the room that wasn't full of books (it still had plenty of dust, though) was the bed he was lying on, and from the fact that the books around the bed were slightly less dusty and piled slightly higher than the ones in the rest of the room told him that it, too, had probably been used as dusty book storage. Well, time to look for some clue as to how he'd gotten here.

About five sneezes later he realized that there would probably be footprints from whoever brought him in here in all this dust. After looking about for a while, he found some that hadn't been obliterated by his sneezing fit. They weren't what he'd expected, though; they were circular instead of oblong. Either this person was a dual peg-leg, or something very weird was going on, and Brandon intended to get to the bottom of it. He climbed out of bed and, trying to ignore the burns covering his hands and feet and the aches all over his body, limped over to the door.

Chapter 3

Two pairs of yellow hooves touched down outside Twilight's brightly lit library home. A soft, almost inaudible tap at the door. A pause. A defeated sigh. Then Spike opened the door. "...Fluttershy?" he mumbled. He looked like he'd been to the moon and back, with scaly bags under his eyes that he could barely keep open.

"Oh...I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to wake you..."

"Wake anypony with that kind of knock? I wouldn't worry too much about that, Fluttershy," said Spike. "Anyways, there's no way you could have woken anyone in this house up, because apparently we never sleep." He directed the last two words at an exceptionally large mound of books with a purple tail sticking out from behind.

Twilight's head poked around the mountain of reading material. "Oh Spike, you're such a drama dragon. But...I guess you've worked long enough tonight...you can go to sleep if you want."

"Finally!" Spike yawned. Halfway up the stairs, he almost fell asleep where he was standing, but he managed to drag himself the rest of the way to bed.

"So," began Twilight, putting down her book, "What brings you here at this hour, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, it's nothing...I mean, well, it's not, but your work is much more important..."

"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Twilight. "Anything that brought you here in the middle of the night had to have been important. Just tell me what you need. Is it a book? 'Cause we got plenty of those, being a library and all."

"Well, um...actually, I forgot how to mix up that new cure-all potion you found, and I was just wondering..."

"Sure thing! I know just where I put that book. Come on, I'll get it for you!"

Twilight got up off her haunches and trotted up the stairs, with Fluttershy following close behind. "It's right over here..." They were just about there when the door to the room Twilight had hastily stashed the odd creature in opened, and they found themselves staring right into his blue eyes.

Brandon opened the door, but where he expected to find more musty library shelves, he found a horse! He was slightly taken aback by the fact that a horse--wait, there were two, and they were...a unicorn and a pegasus? The pegasus scrambled over the edge of the balcony with a terrified whinny and thudded into a stack of books below, while the unicorn took several steps back, looking slightly nervous but confident. He was still busy wondering 'are these supposed to exist, and if they are, how did they get in a library?' when he was hit with another zinger.

"Um...nice...creature?" said the unicorn.

Brandon stared. He was sure horses didn't talk. He couldn't remember much, but he knew for sure that only humans were supposed to talk. He plopped down on the floor, suddenly overwhelmed by dizziness. Here he was, in a place he was pretty sure he didn't recognize, with creatures that he was pretty sure didn't exist, and he was pretty sure -- no, very certain that one of them had just talked, which he was pretty sure wasn't supposed to happen.

All in all, he was thinking he was in big trouble. All he could remember was his name, and lots of facts, like the fact that horses don't talk. He sure hoped this memory loss was temporary, because it wasn't exactly a confidence booster when you had no past experiences to go off.

"I'm not going to hurt you, so don't be afraid..." said the purple unicorn, approaching him carefully. Come to think of it, he didn't think horses were supposed to be purple, either. Suddenly its horn started to glow and he found himself floating back into the "dusty book" room. He flailed and tried to shout, but nothing came out. Huh?

He was placed back on the bed and the door was shut and, this time, locked. He sighed. Well, he supposed he'd just have to wait until they felt like letting him out now. But why couldn't he talk? He tried again, but the only thing that came out was a raspy whisper. Huh. He could tack this to his ever-growing board of mysteries that needed solving. He meandered over to the slightly-less-dusty-than-the-rest-of-the-room bed and lay down on it. Oh, well; he was really, really tired anyways. Maybe it would all come back to him when he woke up. He closed his eyes and fell asleep, not realizing that this was only the beginning of his adventure.

Chapter 4

"I-i-is it g-gone?" whispered Fluttershy from under a mountain of books.

"It's OK, Fluttershy," said Twilight, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. "I locked the door this time."

Fluttershy daintily made her way out of her not-too-soft landing spot, wings flapping anxiously. "What was it? I've never seen a creature like that before in my whole life!"

"That's what I've been staying up so late to find out. I thought I'd seen a picture of it before in a book, so I was trying to find that book again. I can't for the love of Celestia remember what it was called, though..."

"Is it this one?" Fluttershy walked over to a book that had been flipped open by her tumble from the walkway above. The picture on the page showed a creature exactly like the one that had just scared their manes off.

"...Um...yeah, it is..." said Twilight, half surprised, half annoyed. How did other ponies always find in one minute what she had been looking for for hours? It was beyond her. She lived here, for Celestia's sake!

The book was engulfed in a soft purple glow and levitated so Twilight could better read it. The page opposite the picture read:

Humans

Humans are creatures supposedly from ancient times, that most credible research ponies now regard as extinct. According to legend, they were unique in many ways from the other creatures of Equestria. Most were not extraordinarily strong, but their strength lay in their combination of two grasping appendages called "hands", located where the two front hooves on a pony would be, and their amazing penchant for innovation and invention. Humans were rumored to have learned how to use tools before even Earth Ponies had, marking them as possibly more intelligent than Ponykind, and compensating for their utter lack of magical capabilities, though this opinion is not widely held among the researcher community.

Humans were said to tend toward violence as a species, though there are a few stories that tell of kind humans helping ponies by gifting them with their advanced machinery or helping them build buildings with their legendary knowledge of architecture. Most of these stories are considered to be fiction, as the tools and/or weapons used by the humans in these tales would be far more advanced that any historipony could give any race credit for.

Humans also, according to legend, lived in the Everfree Forest, marking them as dangerous, like most other creatures that make their home there even today. If they could survive in the Everfree Forest, they would have to have been formidable adversaries indeed.

There are many stories of Humans attacking villages and burning much of them to the ground, and carrying off everypony in the village. These villages were usually earth pony, as Pegasi lived in the clouds and Unicorns were magical, and Humans feared magic greatly. Thus, ponies learned to fear the Everfree forest and everything in it. However, today many brave expeditions into the feared forest have revealed that, even if humans had existed at one point in time, they do not reside in the Everfree forest any longer. There is much debate among researchers about the fate of the Humans; some believe that their bipedal structure (they only walked on two legs, allowing for greater use of their "hands") was not fit for survival, and thus they slowly died off in the harsh environment of the Forest. Other wilder theories, one being that Humans discovered a way to travel over great distances, similar to how unicorns travel over short distances using magic, and left Equestria, and another being that the humans eventually became so good at fighting that they began fighting each other and killed themselves off, also exist, but these are dismissed as fantastical without any basis in reality.

Whatever the reason for their disappearance, they are known to have existed because of the odd artifacts that have been found by archeoloponies in the everfree forest, the function of which could not be determined. These artifacts include two long, narrow, hollow tubes of metal that are stuck together with what appears to be a handle at one end, and several large plates of metal with handles on one side, which some researchers speculate took advantage of a human's second hand during battle by allowing them to deflect a blow with the metal plate. Neither of these artifacts offer anything of practical benefit to Ponykind, and as a result most studies still conducted on this ancient race are purely out of curiosity.

There were sub-chapters and references, which Twilight was dying to read, but first things first. She got Fluttershy her book and hurried her out the door, ignoring her questions about the creature; she didn't want anypony to know about this until the situation was under control. Her brain raced, forming theories about how her invention could have brought one into her house. Had she brought it forward in time? Or had she brought it from a distant land? The biggest question on her mind was why she had never heard of humans before if there was so much research done on them; this niggled at the back of her mind constantly. She had to put these questions out of her mind temporarily, however, knowing for now all that mattered was alerting the Princess to the possible danger this human posed.

Brandon woke from his slumber feeling better physically, but his memory was still fuzzy. He was now certain, after sleeping on it, that Unicorns and Pegasi were creatures of myth. Had he merely hallucinated them? He got up and tried the door. Locked. So that gave some validity to the events he recalled last night, but how could a horse talk? It went against everything he knew, and, he guessed, everything he didn't know as well.

And then there was the problem of his voice. Why didn't his vocal cords work? Perhaps the flash of light he remembered was an explosion?? That seemed like a good explanation, as his voice box may have been damaged enough to hinder his speaking. From what he knew, that could heal, but it would take time, and without being able to talk, there was no way for him to...talk...to the horses? He was already thinking of their powers of speech as a fact! It made no sense, and yet...he knew what he'd heard. He even remembered how it talked, as if it was trying to calm a potentially dangerous or upset creature: 'I'm not going to hurt you, so don't be afraid...'. Clearly it had no idea what he was.

But it spoke his language! The chances of that were astronomically low. How would it know English?! ...He forced himself to calm down. He just had to take things as they came and, at least for now, not over-think things too much. That could lead to mental instability; it would be best to just pretend that this was all possible, if not normal, and not question it until he'd learned more.

He lay back down on his bed. He needed his rest; his body still felt like he'd just fallen down 30 flights of stairs. As he drifted off, he couldn't help feeling annoyed at his helplessness. Despite all he knew, he still felt very unsure of everything. This wasn't right, he knew, but he couldn't remember any personal experiences whatsoever that might prove it to him. His irritation faded to apathy as sleep took a hold on him. That night, his dreams were full of talking unicorns and pegasi, and there, they didn't seem unusual at all.

Chapter 5

Unfortunately, the Princess didn't seem to know much about these creatures either.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I'm sorry, but I can't help you. I know what you're talking about, but the most I can tell you is that these creatures disappeared just before Luna and I took the throne from Discord. I am certainly no expert. However, you were right to come to me about this. It may be dangerous, so I'll send some guards to assist you until you discover its attitude toward us. Good luck, my student!

PS: I think I know somepony who might be able to help, but I'll have to remember how to contact him.

Princess Celestia

Twilight had immediately gone back to the book on Humans and read every word, and then found all the references in the book and researched them, too. Everything was very vague on what individual humans were really like; apparently humans didn't come into contact with ponies all that much, even when they did exist. As much as she hated to take risks, the only way to determine if this human was one of the "good" ones or one of the "bad" ones was to talk to it, and you couldn't pay her a million bits to do that by herself. So, she set out to find her friends, who she was sure would be happy to help.

Everyone stared. And then stared some more.

"Uh, Twilight? It...doesn't really look that dangerous..." said Rainbow Dash, a little put out. She had been looking forward to a good beat-down with a monster, but this thing didn't look like it could stand on four hooves, much less two.

"Well, the book said they could once destroy entire towns, so they must be at least a little dangerous..." said Twilight doubtfully.

Brandon was passed out on the too-small, pony-sized bed, with his legs hanging off the end and his arms draped over the sides. He was snoring like a dragon, and he was still in the clothes from the explosion, so the room smelled of smoke and sweat. Dust whirled and twisted in the small eddies created by the movements of the six friends. The guards Celestia had sent stood stoically outside the room, silent but alert.

"Well, he certainly needs some beauty sleep...just look at him!" exclaimed Rarity, a white unicorn, wrinkling her nose.

After everyone had stood there waiting for a little longer, Rainbow Dash ran out of patience - not an uncommon occurrence. "All right, that's it! This dude's waking up, 'cause he's got some questions to answer!"

"No, wait!" cried Twilight. "If you wake it up, it might get angry! It's best to let it wake up itself!"

Ignoring her, the impatient pegasus flew over and landed squarely on Brandon's chest with a thud.

Stars danced before Brandon's eyes. He gasped and tried to get air in his lungs, but something very heavy on his chest refused to let him breathe. Had something fallen on him?

He managed to concentrate enoigh to actually get a look and almost jumped out of his skin; a pegasus was standing on his stomach, looking at him with not a little annoyance. Panicking, he shoved it off the bed. Thud. It exhibited a look of surprise for an instant, then glared at him. He tried to talk, but all that came out was that raspy whisper again.

His attention was brought back to the pegasus when it grabbed his pant leg with it's teeth and shot out the door, dragging him along for the ride. There was a blur of color and some shouting, and then they were clear of the building. Brandon was thankful for this. Unfortunately, the ground seemed to be traveling away from him at ridiculous speed, and as he lacked the ability to fly, he was slightly worried about this fact. None of this actually registered, as his sleepy brain was still attempting to catch up with its overloaded ocular receptors.

............Oh, crap. The penny dropped, and Brandon suddenly realized that he was a few hundred feet above the ground with no (safe) way down besides the pegasus holding him there.

"Ah righ, wahth oor deal? Wa're ooh e'en oing ere?" she inquired testily around his pant leg, landing on a cloud.

Brandon tried to form words, but even if he could have talked, he probably couldn't have thought of anything to say. His head was light and he felt dizzy from the height.

The ever-impatient mare snorted and shook him around a bit. "Ah thed, wha're ooh oing ere?" she growled.

"Rainbow! Stop!" came a voice from far below.

"But he--"

"Bring it down here now! That is not the proper way to ask questions!" Twilight fumed.

Rainbow Dash glared at the disoriented human as best she could without letting go of his pant leg as she brought him back to earth none too carefully.

"What were you thinkin', girl?!" Applejack ranted. "Ya coulda hurt it, and ya prob'ly scared it half to death! After all, the thing can't fly!"

"It's not my fault! I couldn't help it!" Rainbow protested. "He was just lying there, being boring!"

"Um, actually, he was sleeping...I think...?" suggested Fluttershy.

"Are you okay?!" asked a bright pink pony who, similar to Applejack, had no wings or horn. She stuck her face right into his. "...Omigosh, I just realized! I should throw a party for you! I mean, I know you're not a pony, but everypony- oops, I mean everyone loves a good party! Ooh, I can't wait for you to meet everyone! There's my pet alligator, Gummy, and...wait, are there alligators where you come from? 'Cause we have them here! He's so cute and green and--"

"Pinkie, he's confused enough without you helping!" chided Rarity.

Twilight growled in frustration and, levitating him along with her, dragged Brandon away as the other ponies argued. Once they were back in the library, she plopped down on the floor and sighed in relief. Only Celestia's guards remained besides them, having been ordered to follow Brandon everywhere until it was determined that he posed no threat. Twilight levitated a quill, some ink, and a scroll in front of her from the other side of the room. "All right, now that we have a quiet, commotion-free environment, I would like to ask you a few questions."

Brandon's perspective:

FlashingColorsTalkingAngryPegasusHighintheSkyYellingBlurThudScaredhalftoDeathMockSleepPartyGummyAlligatorConfusedFloatingthroughtheairDoorSlam--

"--ask you a few questions." Twilight grinned at him.

Brandon blinked.

Chapter 6

Twilight's grin faded. "What am I doing? Of course he doesn't speak our language..." she chided herself.

Brandon nodded that yes, he could understand her.

The unicorn's eyes widened. "Wait...you can understand me?"

Brandon's head bobbed in a 'yes'.

"...Wow! This is AMAZING! How can you understand what I'm saying? Could humans have known our language? Maybe we even spoke the same native language! I've got to make sure I take notes on everything!!"

The excited equine rushed off to get more paper and ink, giving Brandon a few seconds to ponder a few of the million questions flying through his head, like how she knew he was a human, or how she even knew what humans were, or how they all spoke english, or why it seemed so unsurprising to him that this unicorn would be obsessed with taking notes.

Twilight came back, an absurdly large pile of paper and inkwells levitating behind her. She can't possibly expect to use all that, he reasoned.

"Now, do you know how you got here?"

Brandon's head shook. Twilight's pen scribbled.

"Do you know where you are?"

Head shake. Pen scribble.

"Can you give me a verbal response?"

Shake. Scribble.

"...Wait, you mean you can't talk?"

Nod.

"So humans can't talk?"

Shake.

"Uh, no they can't, or no they can?"

Brandon rolled his eyes and held up two fingers.

"Oh, ok." Her pen scratched furiously. "So why can't you talk? Could you talk before you came here? Is it an injury from the explosion?"

Aha! So there was an explosion! thought Brandon. He nodded and pointed to his throat.

"Oh, your vocal cords? I guess that would make sense. Being that close to the explosion and all, you're lucky you didn't suffer worse! But don't worry," she said, seeing the look of dread on the boy's face, "I'll fix it right away! Now, where was that book...?" Her horn glowed and books began to fly off the shelves, spewing out the occasional dust cloud when she looked at one that had lain unused for a while.

"Hmm...V...vocabulary...vocal arts...vocal spells!" she levitated a book over to the table triumphantly. After reading for several minutes and mumbling to herself about doing things by the book, she turned to Brandon and closed her eyes in concentration. Her horn sparked and glowed, and a beam of purple leapt from it to Brandon's throat. There was an intense tickling sensation, and as soon as she was finished, he started coughing violently and fell to the floor. Twilight backed away. Oh, no! she thought. Did I do something wrong?! What if he can't breath?!?

To the purple pony's relief, he finished coughing and sat up. He felt his throat. And then he spoke.

"Thanks."

Twilight stared. And then she started cracking up.

Brandon sounded like he had just inhaled a ton of helium. It did sound pretty ridiculous. However, he did not find it as amusing as Twilight. "Hey, it's not my fault! You did the magic!"

Unfortunately, his second instance of speech was no less funny than his first; Twilight was now incapable of talking, much less casting magic. She was laughing so hard that she was now having trouble breathing. Brandon sighed, and decided it would be better to refrain from speaking until Twilight had regained her composure.

Twilight snorted a few times, let out some final giggles, and then took a deep breath. "Well, it would appear that I-". She giggled a bit more. "...It...it would appear that I miscalculated the thickness of your vocal chords. I'll...I'll fix that..." she said, barely able to suppress her laughter. She cast the spell once more.

"Whew...that's much better," said Brandon, grateful to have his regular voice once more.

"No problem," said the mare. She snickered. "And don't worry, I'll keep quiet about this little incident if you will. I would be kinda embarrassed if everypony heard that I messed up a spell that was that basic, and...well...I doubt you would ever live that kind of thing down."

"Don't worry, I have no intention of telling anyone about this." he smiled. "So...your name is Twilight? I'm Brandon." Which was pretty much the only thing he could remember...

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance! Twilight Sparkle, element of Magic, at your service!". She curtsied -- well, as well as a pony can manage.

"Element of...Magic?"

Twilight remembered that this human didn't know anything about her world. "Oh, right...My friends and I, we represent the six elements--"

Her lecture was interrupted by a sharp rapping on the door. They looked at each other, eyes wide. The new friends were suddenly reminded that they had left everypony else outside arguing.

Chapter 7

"Twilight? You in there?" Applejack's muffled but distinctively accented voice could be heard through the door. "We're mighty sorry 'bout all that arguin' back there...Did we upset ya'all? Are ya all right?"

"We're fine, Applejack. Come in," said Twilight in a friendly tone. Applejack opened the door and walked in, her hooves clip-clopping on the wood floor. The rest of the Mane Six followed, rather abashed.

The farm pony led the group of friends over to Twilight. "We all wanted to apologize for all the trouble we've caused. We're awful sorry, Twi."

Rarity shouldered Rainbow Dash forward. The colorful pegasus glared back for a moment, then turned to Twilight apologetically. "Sorry, Twilight. I shouldn't have dragged your human out of your library without asking...next time-"

"I'm not her human!" spluttered Brandon indignantly. Everypony looked at him, shocked, except Twilight. Fluttershy squeaked and quickly hid behind Applejack and Rarity.

"Uh...you mean you...can talk?" stuttered Applejack. She stared for a moment, blinked, then shook her head. "Uh...sorry 'bout that...uh..." she stopped.

"Everypony, I think a formal introduction is in order. This is Brandon," Twilight began. "Brandon, this is Applejack," she said, directing his attention to the pony with the western accent, "Rarity," she pointed her hoof at a beautiful pony with a white coat, who was busy trying to get a yellow pegasus – Fluttershy, as Twilight called her – out from behind her. "That's Pinkie Pie..." said Twilight, frowning a little as the pony she motioned to began to dance about and repeat the word 'bibliophile' over and over. "She's...well, she's Pinky Pie, I guess." She looked suspiciously at the prancing pink pony.

Applejack came over. "Looks like Pink's got a new favorite word," she said. "Twilight, you're the eggh- Uh, I mean, you're smart; what's it mean?"

Twilight rolled her eyes, deciding that she wasn't being made fun of. "Uh...nothing important."

"Well, it certainly sounds interesting," said Rarity, who had succeeded in dragging Fluttershy over to Brandon. "Say hello, Fluttershy, dear," she said.

"Oh...um...hi." whispered the overly shy pegasus.

"Hi. So, you're Fluttershy?" he said, even though Twilight and Rarity had both already said her name.

"...um...yes..." she mumbled, trying to hide behind her hooves and then, as that proved ineffective, drawing out her wings and covering herself with them. "...eep!..."

Brandon frowned. Was he that scary? Twilight saw his expression.

"Don't worry, it's not you, it's just...well, meeting new people isn't Fluttershy's strong suit." A smiling nod from the rest of the group confirmed this.

Rainbow Dash landed between Brandon and Fluttershy, distracting Rarity and allowing Fluttershy to make her escape. Rarity sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Hey! Sorry about that whole, you know, dragging you into the sky thing, but I thought you were one of the bad guys!" Rainbow said. "Anyways, I'm Rainbow Dash, the coolest pony around, and the fastest flier in all Equestria!" She extended her wings proudly.

Well, how modest, thought Brandon. "Nice to meet you, Rainbow Dash."

Throughout this entire meet-and-greet, Rarity had been eyeing Brandon with distaste. Now that everyone had finished, she stepped forward. "Oh, finally, I thought it would never end! Now, come with me, darling, and I'll get you sized for something much less..." she mulled over her word choice before deciding that his current wardrobe was 'filthy', which, as Brandon looked down, he realized was putting it nicely. He followed Rarity out the door, leaving his inquisition by the curious friends for a later date.

When they arrived at the boutique, Rarity immediately found a measuring tape and began to find his dimensions. As soon as this was finished, she started on making the clothes. After a while, Brandon became bored and began to explore the house. He found nothing of interest until somepony screamed behind him, scaring him out of his wits.

"MONSTER!" screamed Sweetie Belle, rocketing away from him. "MONSTER!" She ran into the room Rarity occupied, crashing into her and causing the fashionista to drop Brandon's unfinished clothing.

"Sweetie Belle! What on earth has got you so worked up?" she exclaimed, levitating her work in front of her and quickly smoothing any wrinkles that its fall may have caused it to develop.

"Rarity, there's a giant MONKEY monster in the house!" shouted the excitable filly, her voice cracking from the emphasis on the word 'monkey'.

Brandon walked in, looking a little embarrassed and insulted. He knew that any child would react this way if an weird creature was discovered in their house, but still...

Rarity was a little less understanding. "Sweetie Belle, that is no monster! That is my good friend Brandon, and he is not a monkey, he is a human! In fact, as I am in the process of making him some new clothes, I would expect you to treat him like a guest and a customer! And-"

"Yeah, yeah, we always treat the customer with the highest respect," she said, clearly having heard this phrase many times over. She looked at Brandon for a few seconds, then a lightbulb practically appeared above her head. She gasped excitedly and rushed out of the room, now extremely interested in the prospect of getting some kind of human-related cutie mark. She had to find her friends; she was positive this would be the end of at least one of their blank flanks!

After she went outdoors, there was a knock and Twilight entered. "Hi, Brandon! I didn't get to question you earlier, so I thought maybe we could run through it now..." Her eyes shone with curiosity.

Brandon sighed. "Let's get this over with," he said.

Giving him a surprised, somewhat confused glance, she got out her checklist as she mumbled, "Well, I certainly enjoy it..."

Brandon sat and answered the barrage of questions to the best of his ability, but thanks to his missing memories, he couldn't really answer any of the personal questions. Twilight was still thrilled that she had gotten so much more information on humans, though. After the last question, she rolled up the scroll and said, "This is amazing! You're from a totally different world, where humans are the dominant species! Who would have guessed? William Manes was right all along! The multiverse exists!" She flopped onto a nearby sofa and took a minute to absorb this fact. "Absolutely incredible..."

Brandon took this chance to try to sneak away, but just as he reached the door, Pinkie Pie burst into the room, knocking Brandon back onto his rump. "Hello? Oh, hi Brandon? How are you? I was just coming to ask Rarity about your-" She suddenly clapped both hooves onto her muzzle. "Uh...your clothes! Yeah, how are they coming?" she said, talking around her hooves.

"Perfect timing, Pinkie dear!" said Rarity, appearing from the hallway. "Brandon, your outfit is finished!"

Huh? That's not possible! ...She probably just means she's finished designing it, he thought. He followed the jewel-flanked pony into the design room, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

The suit was white, with jewels forming designs all the way from the collar to the cuffs of the pant legs. It was easily worth more than the average sports car.

Rarity looked at him expectantly. "What do you think? Oh, and do close your mouth, dear."

Brandon realized his jaw had dropped from sheer astonishment. "Are...is...you...that's for ME?" he stuttered.

"Of course, silly filly! She just said it that it was a second ago!" Pinky laughed.

"If you don't like it, I made a few others with a few more jewels..." said Rarity, a little anxiety creeping into her voice.

"Um...actually, I'd like those others," he said, "Just because...uh...well, I wouldn't want to get that kind of suit messy," he stated. Then his brain processed what she had just said. "Wait...you made MORE clothes?!"

"Well of course," she said, surprised. "I wouldn't want to run the risk of making a wardrobe without anything you liked, and I forgot to ask you about your preferences."

He shook his head, and decided this was a conversation for another time. "So...how much do I owe you? ...Come to think of it, I don't think I have any money. In fact, I don't even know what you use for money!"

"Oh, don't worry yourself, darling. You can have them all for free. After all, you can't possibly pay me without any bits, and I shudder to think of you wearing those," she gestured to his current attire, "out in public! Oh, I feel faint already!"

Brandon blinked. Free...? She's just giving those gems away...for free?

The clothes were shoved into his arms. "Well, there you are! The dressing room is off to the left, and you know where the exit is! Enjoy! Now, to get started on my next order..."

After changing into the least flashy outfit (which still had an enormous sapphire right under the neck), he and Twilight returned to the library, and he watched the reactions of the ponies on their way there. Thankfully it was a short trip, but there was still a lot of commotion generated. He heard several ponies whisper "What in Equestria is that?" and a few less discreet shouts of alarm as ponies scrambled our of his way. He blushed profusely, but Twilight smiled at him.

"Don't worry, they'll get used to you," she said encouragingly. "Trust me, I've seen this kind of thing before."

He would just have to take her word for it.

An unnamed plot setup scene, and a narrative explaining my personal head-canon.

Europe, Late 15th Century

"Kill the witches!"

"Burn them! Burn them!"

"Make them pay for their sins!"

"Kill the magicians! Kill the witches!"

The group of mages was tied around a stake; there were about 10 of them, an unusually high amount to be found at the same time. The mages looked at the crowd, who shouted more hate, spit upon them, threw rotten food and rocks, and did other unspeakable things.

The worst part is, thought the lead mage, they aren't even infected by Darke. This is them, all on their own. She shook her head in despair, and shed a tear as the smoke started to rise.

"You know what to do," she whispered to her neighbor. "I regret that it had to come to this." Her neighbor nodded, and passed on the word.

As the flames gained strength, the lead mage shouted, "Now!"

All the mages raised their hands. Conveniently, they had been placed in a ring, which enhanced the strength of their magic. They began to chant, and as the flames reached their torsos, they uttered one final word in Latin that reverberated through the small village they were in. The villagers flinched and dove for cover, but nothing seemed to happen except a slight breeze that rustled the leaves of the trees. The villagers exhaled; the spell had failed. At least, they thought it had.

"It is done," said the lead mage, but she did not look happy. "The Barrier is in place. Ambrosius will be most pleased." She began to lose her vision; this was a side effect of using such major magic when her Ring did not wish it. Her sight blurred, and she began to lose consciousness as the flames and smoke overcame her.

Long live Equestria. Long live...Magyck.

You may be thinking: What the heck? What happened to Brandon? What about the Ponies? Did you accidentally put a chapter of some other weird fantasy story in here? And why did you misspell 'magic' in that last sentence? You need an editor! Well, just wait. All will be explained.

First things first: Magyck. It is very different from magic. In fact, it is often the source of magic. Magic is, as has been theorized, a form of energy. However, Magyck is not just energy. It is living energy, capable of thought and, more importantly, capable of reversing the role of magic and magician. Often, a wizard with Magyck is not in control of themselves. The Magyck is in control, so much so that the magician does not even realize it. Magicians are rarely able to weild Magyck for this reason.

It may seem that this explains nothing, but be patient. Magyck is extremely prominent in Equestria, a prime example being the Darke Magyck that inhabited Luna. This is a characteristic of Darke that is fairly disturbing; unlike most other Magyck, it tends to inhabit a living being almost permanently, altering their personality and causing them to slowly become more selfish, violent, and power-hungry the longer the Darke remains in them. The Darke then feeds off the negative, or dark, energy that is given off by these actions.

Lighte Magyck typically works in a very different way. It inhabits an object, such as a weapon, article of jewelry or clothing, etc. This object will give immense power to any being that wields it, but only if the bearer contains sufficient positive, or "light", energy within them. Take the Elements of Harmony, for example; they contain an ancient Lighte that has unimaginable power, but it only allows one to use it for something good. Another thing about the Lighte: It destroys the Darke on contact without any resistance, similar to the way actual light will brush away the darkness effortlessly.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. Darke can sometimes inhabit objects, which are often regarded as being cursed. Terrible misfortune befalls the owner of such items, and this negativity is what the Darke feeds off of. Likewise, Lighte can inhabit living creatures. Princess Celestia is often regarded as an Alicorn that has been possessed by Lighte. In fact, some Magyck does not even need a physical object to inhabit. Take fire elementals, for example; they are pure, sentient fire Magyck.

Now we get to the point of all this explaining. Something that would be helpful to know first, however, is that Equestria and Earth were once the same world. There was an abundance of Magyck, and it existed in a mostly unchanging state. Occasionally an Equestrian would stumble into a human village, or a band of nomadic humans would wander into Equestria. This usually did not end well for the Equestrians; they were usually forced to work for the humans or kept as entertainment or pets. They were rarely killed, however; at that point, humans could still recognize sentience when they saw it.
Magyck, and thus magic, are very rare on Earth in modern times, because, starting during the days of the Roman Empire, humans began a war of sorts against Magyck. This is because humans fear what they do not understand. Inquisitors burned witches at the stake, magicians were killed out of fear, and technology gave humanity the tools to continue their crusade.

Ironically, magic is what caused science to advance. Humans are inherently magic-absorbent; therefore, once humans abandoned the use of magic, the absorbed energy had to be used for something, as the population was becoming massively saturated with magic but were using none of it. So, adaptive as ever, the human body used the excess to increase the learning capacity of the mind. For this reason, humans are highly intelligent, with knowledge of magic being the exception by their own choice, while Equestrians are highly magical, but still live with fairly rudimentary technology.

As Magyck was persecuted, it began to retreat into Equestria. A few mages, the only ones who understood the true nature of Magyck, could do nothing but erect a powerful World Barrier, separating Equestria from Earth, before humanity destroyed the beauty and innocence of the planet's magical denizens.

They have remained separate ever since, but similarities remain: The same languages, written and spoken, exist in Equestria and Earth, with English being the dominant language. This is a result of the Equestrians having contact with the humans, and absorbing a bit of their culture.

However, quite recently, the barrier was disrupted. The repercussions of this are still to be seen...