"Well, you see..." Gerard began, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "Well, we... I mean..." Finding no words to accompany his thoughts, he just stared with his mouth opening and closing repeatedly for several moments.

The pony in the hat and badge looked from the stunned Alchemist to the slightly perplexed Catherine with a look of confusion mixed with concern. When Gerard began to stammer and make otherwise unreadable noises, he pointed a hoof at him. "Uhh... Did we break him?"

Catherine started to shake her head, but stopped partway through. She prodded him in the side experimentally with a finger, garnering no response. Looking back at the pony, she just shrugged. "I hope not, he's the only guy I don't completely hate. I think he's just trying to deal with all this in his own way, but now that we're on the topic of things to deal with..."

The pony tilted his head, a soft smile on his face. "Yes?"

"Well, you're hors--" She was cut off by the awakening Gerard, who jumped forward, pointing accusingly at the pony

"You're talking!"

"So are you! Now, would you mind--"

"You're a horse."

"Earth Pony, yes. Now please--"

"You are a talking horse! How are you talking!?"

"With my mouth, same as you. Did you bump your head on the way here, mister?" The pony seemed to be taking the sight of the two humans fairly well, maybe there were other humans around? As the thought hit Gerard, another one struck him. Did I hit my head? He wasn't sure, but it was possible.

Gerard turned to Catherine. "Catherine."

"Yes?" She replied, smirking and looking at the ponies the Alchemist was trying very hard to believe didn't exist.

"Are there ponies and buffalo staring at us?"

"Yes."

"So you can see them too."

"Yes."

"Right! So, listen..." He started, turning to the herd across the tracks. "Can you take us to the nearest town and help us out while we get things settled?" Catherine shot him a curious look, but didn't have words to go with it.

The hat and badge wearing pony raised an eyebrow. "Now hold on just a minute, I can't just bring creatures into town where they could hurt other ponies, no matter how..." He paused, eyes looking over the two bipeds, "... friendly you might seem."

Gerard nodded, stepping on the railroad tracks that separated him from the hooved animals. "I understand I haven't given you much reason to believe me, but neither of us want to hurt you. There are three more of us, two of them will most likely try to hurt you if they see you, unless we have a chance to convince them of otherwise. The first step towards that is getting some water and food, so they aren't hungry, dehydrated and pissed off worse than a hippo." Hippos are fucking deadly, man.

The pony admired the Alchemist's determination and seemed ready to agree, a smirk on his face, when one of the buffalo stepped forward. "But... How can we trust him?" The other buffalo agreed, maybe he was a leader of sorts. "I mean, we hardly know this guy. He could be dangerous."

"Look, as long as I'm not behind bars again you have nothing to worry about from me." Gerard joked, raising his hands passively.

The buffalo obviously noticed his slip up and pressed forward. "Ha! You see, he was a criminal!" The pony with the badge shot him a concerned look.

"Are you alright? Maybe we should get somepony to check on you."

The buffalo shook his head, lowering his horns to the human. "No, I am fine. Nobody needs to check on me... Braeburn." He added the name as an afterthought.

"Why are you talkin' funny?" Braeburn asked, eyes squinting with suspicion

The buffalo looked from Gerard to Braeburn and back again, before glaring at the Alchemist and shouting at the top of his lungs, turning and charging the herd. "LEEEEEEROOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIINS!" He barreled through the assorted buffalo and ponies, knocking many of them aside before he was tackled by Braeburn, who was in turn picked up by Gerard, who had gone into survival mode upon realizing what was happening. Catherine ran to follow, not looking back she began to hear screams.

Gerard shouted a single word over his shoulder as he ran, "RUN!"

--- Meanwhile...

Fade watched wide eyed as the herd of hooved animals seemed to talk to the pair of perplexed people like equals. "Milton, get over here." He heard the man approach from behind and without waiting for a response continued. "Get in the head of one of those buffalo. We need to know what they're talking about."
“Talking? Shit, you don’t think that those things can talk, do you?” He looked down, watching as one of the horses, it seemed to be the leader, pointed a hoof at Gerard. “What could animals have to talk about? Fucking and eating?”

Fade chuckled, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I expected something like this when Gerard whisked us away to some magical fucking land of whatever this is. Talking to him, he made it pretty clear that wherever we ended up, things might not be the same.”

“Still. How? Why horses and buffalo?”

“So you can’t do it, is what you’re saying?” Fade chuckled, looking down at the display before them. “Shame, I had expected you to be more useful. If you can’t get in the head of some retard animal, then why should I keep you around?”

Milton growled, dropping to his knees. “Are you not confident that you can take ‘em without me?”

“If I did this alone, there would be a greater number of still bodies and fewer moving ones to play with. Now, hurry along. See if we can attain some intel.”
"Whatever you say, Ferdinand." He replied coldly, dropping to his knees and focusing his attention on the buffalo, slipping into a trance as he began his assault.

It was a simple matter, getting into the mind. The "rehabilitation process" they were put through was designed to "curb the urges" to use the ability for criminal activities...

Of course, all they did was give Milton the keys to a mind. Getting into the mind of the buffalo was child's play compared to most humans, to Milton's surprise. However, he quickly realized where the true challenge was: The final barrier. In all minds, there are three basic barriers: Physical, Mental and Emotional. The physical barrier was generally the easiest to pass through, because it simply required a focus on their physical bodies. Mental was harder, as it required establishing a mental link to the target. The final was emotional. For humans, it was one of the easier to pass through, especially when someone was in anger.

But for the buffalo, it was almost impossible. Milton stared down the barrier in anger, feeling for any signs of weakness in the door between himself and total control. For what felt like several hours, Milton stared at the wall. It was a simple wall of dirt, but the force behind it...

Fuck it. Milton took all the force he could and forced control over the animal's mind, gaining absolute power over the beast. Suddenly, he saw the scene with the clarity attributed to being in front of the humans.

"...help us out while we get things settled?" Milton heard Gerard ask hopefully, shooting a look to his left, and when he looked he saw a pony wearing a funny hat and a badge, maybe a sheriff or a deputy of some kind.

The hat and badge wearing pony raised an eyebrow. "Now hold on just a minute, I can't just bring creatures into town where they could hurt other ponies, no matter how... friendly you might seem."

Gerard took a few steps forward, nodding at him. "I understand I haven't given you much reason to believe me, but neither of us want to hurt you. There are three more of us, two of them will most likely try to hurt you if they see you, unless we have a chance to convince them of otherwise. The first step towards that is getting some water and food, so they aren't hungry, dehydrated and pissed off worse than a hippo." Traitorous cunt.

"But... How can we trust him?" He heard behind him the mutterings of agreement behind him and after rifling through some of his distant memories he realized he was the leader of the group behind him. Nice, let's do this. "I mean, we hardly know this guy. He could be dangerous"

Suddenly, a wave of power slammed against him like a river against a damn, knocking him backwards and fighting for control of the body.

"... behind bars..."

"Ha...!"

"... you alright?"

"... Braeburn..."

The fight was hard, his control was slipping, Milton had one last shot to deal some sort of blow. He did the only thing he could think of.

"LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOY!!!" He spun on his hind legs and charged as the last of his control slipped.

Milton opened his eyes, staring down at the scene and quickly realizing three things.

1.) Fade was gone

2.) Gerard and Catherine were gone, having betrayed them

3.) That one chick nobody can fucking remember left at some point

He took a stock of his mind and found everything was as he left it, although his madness had gone slightly out of alignment, and now he wanted to fuck a horse for whatever ungodly reason. Fucking hell, the damn buffalo... He decided to find out how inter species relationships were looked upon here. Not that it would matter, because he was horny for some damn horses, but so he could kick the buffalo's ass if it was weird.

Earlier...

Fade slipped away as Milton dropped to his knees, deciding in that moment that he really could care less what they were talking about, following the tracks in the reddish orange sand down towards the tracks, until he was just out of view of the others. Then, he grinned and focused all of his thoughts into a pool of nothingness within his mind, his skin growing pale, his features receding into his face. He grew taller, his arms extended till they were just shy of the ground. His prison jumpsuit was replaced with a black suit, and the transformation was complete.

Then a thought hit him: This place might not know about Slendy, and suits are sort of a old thing... The simple black suit became an extravagant silk suit with a marvelous red tie, completed with a brand new fedora and cane. The length of his arms shortened enough to warrant a cane, though still unnaturally long, and to balance out the hat he created a black mist that was expelled from his pant legs. His familiar black tendrils wormed themselves out of the area around his back, extending outward in the fashion of a spider, but free flowing.

Well now, time to shine. He stepped out into the open, focusing his energy into creating a black fog around the area of the train tracks and found things were already happening. The two other humans were running, and a group of the ponies and buffalo were in a dog pile (pony pile?). One of them noticed Fade and screamed, pointing a hoof at him in horror. Another did the same, crying out something that sounded like Slendermane or something. So he does exist here. Good, play off their fears. He stared into the pony's eyes without a pair of his own, creating the mental image of static in any watching as he blinked forward, moving closer and closer to the animals, who dispersed and tried to flee in a futile attempt of survival.

One of them made the mistake of charging Fade, and paid for it quickly as four tendrils grabbed each of his hooves and yanked him into the air, each one pulling in different directions, eliciting a scream of pain. The biped pulled harder, relishing the sounds of hurt and agony. He jerked hard, breaking all four of the animal's legs and causing even more screams to his absolute delight. The others watched on in silent fear, unable to flee as they watched a friend die. After a few more moments, however, Fade grew bored and, with a final, swift motion pulled it apart, tearing apart the equine from the joints before tossing it and its parts aside, blood painting the observers as a sign of death.

Without missing a beat, he laughed hollowly, a static twinge to his voice.

Fade and Milton approached the town, nearing the end of the path leaving the apple orchard that bordered the small city. After the slaughter they had caused, they were in high spirits.

"It's nice to be free, eh Ferdinand?" Milton laughed, hopping ahead and doing a front flip.

Fade shot the mind reader a glare at the use of his full name, but couldn't hold it and chuckled himself. "Sure is! Would be nice to know where we are, but I can make do." He looked around and noticed that the light breeze that had been around, had stopped. The clouds that had been moving were no longer doing so, and the one sound he didn't expect to hear after the slaughter: silence.

If not for the metal man landing hard on the ground a few feet in front of him, he would have thought it was strange. He stepped back and smirked, nodding in realization. "A golem, this asshole made a goddamned golem."

“So... why are we doin’ this again?” asked Applejack as she pulled a cart full of barrels over to another cart, full of various farming tools. Catherine stood beside that cart, rifling through them and removing seemingly random tools.

She looked over at Gerard, who was hard at work with a wooden pole, drawing a large circle in the dirt. “I think he has a plan. He isn’t one to tell others what he’s thinking, though.”

Applejack looked surprised by that, “From what I’ve seen, y’all seem like decent folk... but Braeburn seems to think ya could be involved with whatever that was y’all was runnin’ from. Is he right?”

Catherine stopped what she had been doing and turned to reply, but Gerard took the opportunity from her. “In a way, yes. A business agreement, I suppose. One I would like to end. You have nothing to fear from her, however, so any other questions should wait until after we’ve dealt with the situation at hand. This what I need?” He poked one of the barrels, and Applejack nodded. “Good. I’ll be fine from here.”

“Wait!” Applejack called out to him, and he turned towards her. “Ya said I shouldn’t fear her? What about you?” He thought it over for a second... and shrugged, before focusing on the task ahead of him. “Okay then... What do ya need with all that milk?”

He set the barrel down next to the circle and pulled the top off, looking down at the deep lines he had drawn in the dirt. “Milk’s good for ya!” He tipped the barrel over, letting the white fluid cascade from its wooden protection into the ridges, filling them like water in a canyon. “High in calcium. Good for your bones.”

Author's Note

Thanks to Skeeter for the assistance with this one, and the future chapters of this crap! Commend him for going through this.