Fred Walsh: Diverted
By Baguettedood
Chapter 1: Ejected
The Everfree Forest, as always, lived free of civilisation, save the occasional pony passing through. On this day, only the fauna and a few birds happened to be present. The various birds chirped in an unknown musical conversation. The sun shone brightly, its light having formed an intricate shadow on the forest floor. The day was calm...
...Until a growing rumble fractured the peace. The birds flapped their wings to escape the source as soon as possible. Strangely, the rumbling didn't seem to originate from anything. It came from a random point a few metres above the forest.
The rumbling grew. A small glow formed in the focus, right before an ear-splitting crack sounded throughout the forest. The crack brought the company of a red, swirling, spatial anomaly. The exit point of a wormhole. Lightning shot out of the hole in space-time; its stability lost before it even opened.
Something shot out of the deteriorating singularity before it collapsed into nothingness. The blur was made up of a head, torso, two arms and two legs. It flew, very quickly, straight down into the forest. The human somehow managed to avoid being impaled on any unfortunately pointed tree branches and hit the ground on a downward slope. The body rolled down the hill. At the bottom, it continued to roll for a few seconds before it impacted a tree trunk.
The human was a 22-year-old male. He has blue eyes and dark brown fairly short hair. At the front to the left slightly, it curves in the rough shape of a tornado. His clothes are a plain blue T-shirt and pants.
He groans from the impact, before he managed to work himself into an approximate sitting position. Painfully, he put his left arm on his lap so he could use his right hand to interact with a device on his wrist.
*Video footage from a wrist-mounted computer*
“You have got to be kidding me. Not only did the scientists say they'd bring me home with that wormhole, they said it'd be safer. Instead, I get hit with some kind of wall, bounced back into ominous red, and ejected out to wherever I am.
“To recap what's happened lately: My name is Frederick Brian Walsh. I came home from a LAN party on new year's day 2012 and then was sucked through a blue wormhole to Equestria. Odd, considering I thought it was a fictional TV show. After some misunderstandings and careful treading around words with Princess Celestia to prevent an existential crisis, I lived in the castle for a few days before some cult tried to kill her. I helped defend and we discovered they were summoning a demon to destroy the country. We stopped it. Then a yellow wormhole from Midgård – Earth, but to prevent confusion as Equestria is also situated on Earth - showed up and the scientists were bringing me home. Instead, this happened. I have no clue where I am and this really hurts.
“Better orient myself and get somewhere safer than this tree I hit. I don't like forests. Too empty, along with almost killing me.”
Fred Walsh stopped recording video on the device – which, from his last adventure, he had named the Scavenger Watch due to its construction from spare parts – and slowly rose. Holding onto the tree, he balanced himself as he stood upright.
No longer on the ground, Fred checked himself for injuries. He slammed into the tree on his left side, leaving a painful souvenir on his torso, though he wasn't aware of the extent of the damage. The impact left the watch's screen cracked, though that was trivial compared to everything else.
Having recovered enough to stand without support, Fred set off without a sense of direction – that hadn't returned yet - hoping he could find a reference point of sorts. He only knew he was in a forest, making distance between him and a tree that almost killed him.
'Am I still in Equestria?' he thought as he observed the surroundings while walking. 'It'd make sense to be in Everfree; nopony goes through unless they have to, but I won't know until I find something familiar.'
Fred didn't really have much faith in being rescued, otherwise he may have stayed in one place. Wormholes aren't particularly common anywhere as far as he knew and it was doubtful that somebody/pony would be looking for him anyway.
Some time later, after finding some edible raspberries, the sun began to set. Fred took notice of its position – The sun rises in the East and sets in the West, approximately. He'd been travelling East. Fred stopped to think when he noticed a chasm nearby. He looked across its length and spotted a rope bridge. On the other side was a dilapidated castle that hadn't been maintained for centuries. He would recognise that castle anywhere: It was the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, formerly known as Everfree Castle. 'Guess that answers my question. Also, that'd be decent shelter. Might as well chill in there for the night.' The human crossed the bridge carefully and went inside the main chamber
'So I know where I am, but when am I? The bridge is intact, that gives a clue.' Everfree Castle sat in a clearing, which gave Fred Walsh decent line of sight upward. He peeked out of what was once a window. Unlike the last time he looked upon the moon, no image of the Mare in the Moon happened to be present. In the main chamber, the pedestal which held the Elements of Harmony for one thousand years had no orbs attached. With the state of the castle, the forest and the moon, he began piecing together a temporal reference point.
Needing time to recover from his injuries, Fred searched the old castle ruins for somewhere to sleep. The stone ground was available, but obviously preferred to not be even considered – it's a cold floor, why would you want to sleep on it?
The night progressively became darker, to the point where Fred could no longer see ahead of him. To rectify this, he activated the backlight of the Scavenger Watch, awkwardly using that as a torch. Being a device on his wrist, the injured human found it difficult to find a decent location to rest it and provide light simultaneously. Eventually, he settled on resting his arm in an L shape, his left hand sitting under his right forearm.
After some searching, Fred found himself inside a crumbled tower with a barely visible sun insignia on the remains of the door, lying at his feet. The room was circular, same as the tower, and empty, apart from some overgrowth. Giving up, Fred dragged some of the flora into the centre of the room to create some makeshift insulation against the ice-cold stone, allowing him rest. The biped lowered himself to the impromptu bed.