//------------------------------//
// What's With All the Humans? 
// Story: How a Man and His Friends Helped Save Equestria 
// by FinInfinite 
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Chapter 4


What’s With All the Humans?


The sight was like one you would see in a movie.  Or read in a book.  The sun was rising on the faces of four ponies with packs.  Four pegasi - Eagletone, Mitch, Soarin’ and Spitfire.  They were standing on a landing on an enormous building in the air, ready to fly.  You could almost hear the epic music.  They jumped and dove long, nearly hitting the hard cloud below, pulling up before they could crash.  They flew up and off, over the enormous, abandoned city of a cloud that was Cloudsdale.  They soon cleared that and continued lower at top speed, until Eagletone tired. They rested and continued at more travel-worthy speeds.  The four sped past grassy slope, plains, forest, lake until all became a blur.
No amount of weariness of the wing could deter Mitch.  He could only think about it.  The abomination.  The killer.  The evil.  Few words could describe it.  None were positive.  One was its name: Oblivion.  Mitch was urged onward by this thought - His only desire was to destroy Oblivion.
Eventually, other desires crept into the minds of all four ponies; mainly the fact that it was very late, and despite this evil thing, they still needed sleep.  Soarin’ was especially distracted by all the good places to make camp.  He kept pointing them out.  “Here’s a good one.  Oh, another one.  Hey, guys!  I found the best one yet!”
The other three finally succumbed to his insistence and decided to break out camp in a large cave that seemed to have been made just for that purpose.  When they arrived, though, they found that they were not alone.  In fact, not only was this cave already inhabited, it was inhabited by ponies!
Two ponies were currently in the cave, one with arc blue fur and brown hair, the other with turquoise fur and blond hair.  Both were male and seemed bored out of their minds.  Bored out of their minds, that is, until our group of pegasi showed up.
Spitfire and one of the ponies in the cave spoke in unision.  “Ponies?  Out here?”
Each group stared at the other, both equally dumbfounded that there was other fully sapient and intelligent life around them
Spitfire spoke, interrupting everypony’s wonderment.  “Friend or foe?”
“Wha-” the arc blue one began.
“Friend or foe,” she repeated solidly.
“Well, we could ask the same of you,” replied the turquoise unicorn.
Spitfire was unimpressed.
The turquoise one thought for a moment.  “Well, do you support the Royal Princesses?”
“We all do,” Soarin’ replied.  The others nodded in agreement.
“Well, we do too, I guess.  I never really asked the other guys.”
“Close enough,” Spitfire said, dropping her hostility.  “Wait, other guys?  You mean there’s more of you?”
“Yeah.  Two more,” said the arc blue Earth Pony.  “I’m Josh, by the way.” His mark was an assortment of differently sized gears, presumably moving in synergy.
“And I’m Cache,” said the turquoise unicorn.  His mark was a the number “101010” in simple green text.  Eagletone realized that it was 42 in binary.
“Great, more humans?” Spitfire asked rhetorically.
“How did you know?” Josh asked in surprize for obvious reasons.
“Nopony is named ‘Josh,’ though I do know of a pony named ‘Filthy Rich,’” Spitfire replied.
Cache drew his brow together in annoyance, seeing as his name obviously wasn’t that kind of ‘Cache.’
“Well,” Soarin’ cut in, “do you mind if we stay here?  I’m exhausted!”
Josh told Soarin’ happily, “Sure!  This place is definitely big enough for eight.
Eagletone looked around, seeing that the cave was, indeed, spacious enough to comfortably fit eight, or even some more.  There was also a hole above the fire inside that appeared to menander outside.
One side of each of the four pegasis’ saddlebags had sleeping gear in it - a bag and a pillow.  As they were getting these out, Eagletone remembered an occurrence before they had left Cloudsdale.  He had asked why he didn’t have his cutie mark on his saddle bag, to which Spitfire had responded, “Well, I don’t think we have a tailor anywhere close, do we?”
The sun set as they were going to sleep, beginning the time of gloam.  Eagle mused about how fitting that word was.  It sounded like gloom, which was exactly what the environment was at the moment.  “Good night, everypony,” he said sleepily.  “Sweet lucid dreams.”
Unfortunately, he himself was a light sleeper, so after everypony else had gone to sleep, we was still awake.  He got out of his bag and sat at the edge of the cave, staring at the stars, partly covered by clouds at the moment, and wondering.
How exactly did we get here?  If we came here in our dreams, is this just a big dream?  I don’t think it is.  What exactly is this monster Fluttershy talked about, and how can we defeat it?  I hope these humans are our allies.  His eyes started drooping.  This place really is gloomy, even though it isn’t a swamp, or anything.  It’s just so lonely.  Eagle’s eyes were fully closed, and he slid down into a sleeping position.  Who is the third pony?

***

When they woke, it was day, and it was raining, though not heavily.  The other two ponies mentioned by Josh weren’t back yet.  Cache had explained that they were wandering, and hopefully getting food and that they should be back sometime that day.  By Eagletone’s reckoning, it was Sunday.  It was still gloomy.
Spitfire walked up to where Eagle was, which was still at the cave’s mouth.  “Well, whadda’ ya’ know?  A natural rain.  You don’t see that every day, Eagle.”
“Yeah,” he half-mindedly replied.  He seemed distracted, not looking at the orange pegasus.  His mind was on other things.  Namely, the third pony.  That thought had reverberated throughout his brain the entire night.  He even faintly remembered a dream about it.
The four had decided to wait for the other two ponies to return and see if the other four could help our band, or vice-versa.  As such, they had little to do, seeing as they had packed food in their other saddlebag, so they had no need to collect any. (the one was for sleeping gear, if you recall from further up the page.)
As a result of their boredom, of which they seemed to have caught from Cache and Josh like a cold, they decided to talk, asking each other questions.
“So,” began Cache, “You said ‘more humans,’ implying there was others you had met.  Who are they?”
“You’re looking at them,” Soarin’ had said, motioning to Eagle and Mitch, the former of which had stayed silent, preferring to focus on the monster that had destroyed Cloudsdale.
Josh and Cache looked at them in surprise - they looked so much like ponies!  Then again, if you knew what you were looking for, you could see more human features in their face, less extravagant colors in their eyes and manes.
“I’m Eagletone, and this is Mitch,” he introduced.  Mitch nodded.  Eagletone commented on his behavior.  “He’s usually not like this, but there was sort of a horrible monster that destroyed a major city and probably killed most of its inhabitants, and we need to stop it.  So, where are you guys from?”
The other two stared wide-eyed for a moment, then recovered.  “It’s kind of weird, but we’re all from the western part of the US.  How come you have a pony name and Mitch doesn’t, even though you’re supposedly a human?”
It was Eagle’s turn to widen his eyes.  “Whoa!  That’s where we’re from, too!  Wait a second, does the name Carson ring a bell, Cache?”
“Carson Howe?”
Eagletone simply stared now.  He was a happy man- err, pony.  Two of his friends were here, and he suspected that he knew Josh as well.
“Wait, Carson, is that you?” asked Josh.
Eagle’s expression became that of a stupid grin.  “Of course it is!  Cache you already know Mitch, but Josh, this is one of my best friends!”
In his introduction to the other two, he had payed more close attention.  “Cache?” he asked, waiting for a confirmation.  It came.  “Cache!” he yelled, giving him a brohoof.  He also walked over and brohoofed Josh, saying, “Nice to meet you, man.”
Eagletone suddenly had an idea.  “Guys, who are the two others?”
Josh responded, “Aaron and Jed.”
Eagle jumped into the air and pumped both hooves multiple times.  “I knew it!  And this is awesome - King Aaronius and his brother Jed are here!”
And they were there, for at that moment, they had returned, laden with much fruit and other foodstuffs.  They were of large stature and very muscular build.  The blond hair of both was long.  Both had an outline of a moose as their mark.  Their current expression was similar to that of when the other six had originally met in the same cave.
The longer-haired one inquired, “Josh, why are there ponies way out here, and why are they in our cave?”
Josh had his answer ready.  “Those two,” he motioned to Eagle and Mitch, “Are more humans, and are Cache’s friends, and the other two are professional flyers,” he explained.
“So, there’s more of us here?” asked the shorter-haired pony.
Eagletone then responded, “Yeah, and we need to save the world.  And by the world I mean Earth and Equestria.”  He sat down, then added, “And by the way, if you remember the name, I’m Carson.  But I changed my name to Eagletone because that’s a normal pony name.”
“Oh, hey.  Fancy that - we’re all from the same place!” the longer-haired one noted.
Cache walked around the two large ponies, saying, “And the little pegasus over there is Mitch, me and Eagletone’s friend.  Now that our introductions are over, let’s eat, because I’m starving!”
He helped remove their saddlebags laden with victuals, took something out, and began devouring it.  Josh did likewise, then the two brothers.  The four pegasi had already ate from their own stocks.
Eagle noticed that it had stopped raining and decided to point it out.  Aaron responded. “Great!  Now we can finish the train!”
Eagletone and Mitch stopped whatever they were doing.  “Say what now?” Mitch said.
Jed replied saying, “Our little ferroequ- ferrah- “
Josh sighed. “Ferroequinearchaeologist.”
“-That.  Anyways, there just so happened to be an abandoned train just a little outside of where we are.  Trust me, I have no idea how it got there.  So, we decided to fix it up, and she’s almost done.  It seems as if it was built to be pulled.”
“Fortunately for us,” Aaron added with a grin, “The two of us are strong enough to pull it.”
“Awesome!” Eagle exclaimed.

***

Josh was supervising the work being done on his baby.  Train.  He had long since given up on using the actual names of the pieces, simply referring to them as ‘this’ or ‘that’.  “Okay, now just put that piece riiiiight there.  No, not there!  Perfect!”
The others were, of course following Josh’s orders, albeit, with difficulty, except for the two Wonderbolts, seeing as they had been using their mouths to pick things up for their whole lives and all the others had recently come here.
Despite the fact that Cache had no formal training (or any training at all,) he still had managed to figure out how to use his horn in some small ways.  He had actually figured out how to make an enormous charge at the end of his horn, and they had attached thin pieces of metal to it to work as welding rods.  Unfortunately, they had no masks, so he had to do the whole thing with his eyes closed.  Eventually, and with a lot of practice, he had figured out how to do it, and by the end of this project, he was able to perform this task quite well.  He was currently not doing anything besides looking silly with a thin piece of metal sticking out from his horn.  Josh decided to remedy both things - his inactivity and the piece of metal.
“Cache, weld this onto there.  See where it broke off?”
“Sure thing,” Cache replied, heading over to do his job.
About half an hour of this whole thing, and Josh suddenly had a different facial expression.  He looked shocked.  And then he started smiling.  That smile turned into a full-on Pinkie Pie smile.  “Do you know what this means?” he asked to nopony in particular.
“That I don’t have to wear this silly thing on my horn?” Cache asked to somepony in particular.
“That... and so much more!”  Suddenly he ran to the engine, climbing in and looking around like a child in a candy store.  “So much more!  So many things!  We could go anywhere the tracks take us!”  He laughed in exuberation, spinning around in circles.
Eagletone said to the rest of the group, “I haven’t seen him this excited since... ever.”
Soarin’ leaned close to Spitfire’s ear and whispered to her.
Spitfire nodded in agreement and spoke to the group.  “This track is sure to lead to Equestria’s main railroad, the Trans-Equestrian Railroad. That will lead to Appleoosa.  I suggest we get in and start getting there.  She and Soarin’ flew into one of the cars on the train.  The others followed suit, while the two brothers went up front to pull.
Josh had since settled down enough to get in the car with the others, and they all set off.
“This is going to be one awesome ride,” Mitch said to his friends.
“It sure is,” Eagletone agreed.

***

Spry canyon raised his head to the skies.  “Why, Fin?  Why is your writing taking so long?  Just get the third member already - I mean, I have to sit here, waiting for the Three to-”  Suddenly he was cut off to avoid excessive spoilers.  “I hate you,” he said.