Disclaimer: I do not own MLP: FIM, as it is property of Hasbro, INC. and Lauren Faust. This Fic was made for entertainment purposes and nothing else.
As always, please give constructive criticism, and praise, if any. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.
Announcement: View now changed to third-person limited, and point of view switch between the two main characters if they are separated for whatever reason. Tell us what you think, so that we can improve!
That is all, on to the story! Allons-y!
Thomas finally woke up from his drunken sleep, finding himself on a soft bed. Oh God, It feels like someone hit me in the head with a fucking baseball bat, Thomas thought as he forced himself in a sitting position. As he looked around, he noticed he was in a miniature house containing various pots and vials on the counters and shelves. A visible green smoke rose from a black cauldron in the center of the room.
Where the hell am I, and why do I feel so light...? Thomas thought as he began to rub his aching head with his hooves…wait, “HOOVES!?! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!!” Thomas screamed as he freaked out and fell to the dirt ground with a thump. “Ow…OK, Thomas, calm down, don’t panic, and don’t yell, you must have drank yourself in a coma and are now in a made up world of ponies…” Thomas looked at himself for a second. “… Aaaannnnnd you have a red coat of fur, great.” as he began to relax, he heard a familiar voice from the doorway.
“Well, I really hope you were in a coma, because your drunken flank spent five hundred bucks on a bucking party using my savings.”
Thomas turned around to see an azure pony walk towards him with a basket of various herbs on his back and a saddle bag at his side. As the mysterious unicorn put down his basket, he spoke again.
“Afternoon, sleeping beauty, how’s that hangover treating you?
Thomas gaped as the pony talked.
“…D-did you just…talk?”
“No, I whinnied! Of course I talked!” Thomas winced at the sudden increase in volume.
“But ponies aren’t supposed to talk! Who the fuck are you, how do you know about the party, and where the hell am I!?!...ow…on the second thought, don’t answer me yet, head’s still ringing.”
The mysterious arrival snickered as he began to walk towards Thomas.
“Wow you really don’t know who I am? Or where we are, do you?” The pony spoke with a laugh, “Since you’re still hung over, I’ll go easy on you. It’s me, Xiao, and you’re in a brony’s fantasy. Welcome to Equestria, Thomas. I would have thought you knew enough MLP to figure out why a blue pony would be talking to you.”
The sudden turn of events hit Thomas like a ton of bricks, and he began to feel faint.
I Can't believe this is happening...“OK, I can probably deal with this situation…But tell me this…How the hell did we-“
“Ahhh, glad to see you are awake, I feared a special potion I would have to make.”
The two friends turned to see a zebra walk through the door, sporting what looked to be various tribal accessories. Xiao, greeting the zebra with a smile as if they were longtime friends was about to introduce Thomas to her when the red pony said, “Oh…wait, you’re Zec-“earning him hoof to the mouth as Xiao quickly shut him up.
“Excuse me Zecora; I need to talk to my friend for a second, IN PRIVATE.” The last two words had an edge to them as Xiao leered at Thomas.
“Please, take your time, when the meal is done, I will ring the chime.”
As Xiao dragged Thomas outside, he made sure to look if Zecora was watching. Once they were a fair distance away from the hut Satisfied they were not observed; Xiao leaned Thomas against a tree and took out a small bottle from his bag and slid it to him.
“Drink this; it should help with the hangover. It’ll taste horrible, so down it and try to keep it in.”
Even though Thomas’ head still felt like a jackhammer going off, he still eyed the concoction with a nauseous feeling in his stomach.
“Seriously, drink it; it will help tremendously, unless you rather be a soresaddle all day.”
“Are you sure th- wait…soresaddle?” Thomas was puzzled at Xiao’s interesting use of words.
“Just trying to blend in with society, and also it sounds cool, which bring us to our current situation. Now drink the stupid potion and listen.”
“Alright, fine, don’t be such a dick about it.” Thomas braced himself as he chugged the potion, tasting…rotten cabbage, though the taste disappeared instantly.
“OK… that actually wasn’t so bad…wow, no headache, this stuff actually works. I’ll thank Zecora later.”
“OK, now, you need to learn the rules I am about to say. Don’t you DARE forget these or we’re bucked, you got that?” the force behind Xiao’s voice would have made Nightmare Moon cringe. Thomas slowly nodded.
“Alright, let me give you some background as to what happened when we got here. Zecora was going through the woods locating herbs she needed for an unfortunate unicorn that got into the poison joke near her hut earlier. She found us in a still smothering crater near a clearing containing the poison joke remedy, and managed to drag us to her home. I have been unconscious for five hours, and for you, about eight. Before you woke up, I managed to convince Zecora we were research scientists from the Shanghay International Institution of Magic located in the Ib’ Xian Empire to the east of Equestria, telling her we got here through a failed long-distance teleportation spell. She ha-“
“Wait, Shanghay in the Ib’ Xian Empire? That fan made world map of Equestria is actually real?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Also, I gave us both pony names to reduce suspicion. Mine is Xiao Hu, and yours is-“
“I’m gonna go with my OC name, One Shot.”
“-Tom-tom.”
Thomas gave me a blank expression.
“…Are you kidding me?” he deadpanned. “Anyway, why didn’t you just tell Zecora the truth?”
That’s when Xiao burst out saying, “The truth? SHE CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! NOR CAN ANYPONY ELSE! If they knew who we are, we’d be captured, we sent back to Earth, heck; bananas may even come into the question!” Xiao’s eye was twitching uncontrollably as he yelled.
“Bananas? Don’t tell you’re talking about-“
“TO THE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN, BBEE-YYEETTCHH!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”Xiao yelled, laughed hysterically.
“OK then… aren’t you gonna tell me about the rules?” I am a bit concerned right now, Xiao… Thomas was creeped out by his friend’s sudden hysteria, which reminded him of Twilight Sparkle when she went crazy.
Quickly recovering, Xiao began. “Alright, 1st rule, do not reveal our true identities unless we are truly trusted by the Princess herself. 2nd, do not let anypony know you know their names, unless you have a reasonable, thought-out lie to back it up. 3rd and possibly the most important rule, BE CAREFUL OF PINKIE."
“That’s it, then? Alright, let’s head back.”
As Thomas stood back up, he began to walk forward…tripping over his own hooves and falling flat on his place.
“Ow. Yeah…can you teach me how to walk?” He said as the last bits of his dignity faded away.
Xiao laughed. “Sure, I taught myself how to walk while Zecora was away, so I guess I can teach you. Let’s begin with the basics…”
After a hour of teaching Thomas basic equine joints (Thank God for all those anatomy classes Xiao learned.) and analogies to make the walk cycle understandable, Thomas learned the basics of walking, though running was another question altogether. It was then decided that the journey back would be a crash course on the subject. Unsurprisingly, it did not end well.
As the two dirt-covered ponies neared Zecora’s hut, the chime Zecora promised she’d ring sounded throughout the forest, waking the nearby animals.
“Huh, thought we’d be late, guess that running actually worked a little,” Xiao said, “Let’s brush ourselves off first though, there was a stream a couple of yards that way when Zecora and I were gathering herbs before you woke up.” He was pointing towards their crash-site.
“Ok, we’ll clean first, since I do need to wash up after all the alcohol and mud pies I've had.” Thomas winced at the putrid emitting from himself.
The short walk to the stream was peaceful, as the two ponies occasionally stopped to listen to the birds’ songs, or admire the beams of sunlight that penetrated through the canopy of the Everfree forest. As the two neared the flowing water, Thomas jumped into the water, creating a splash that drenched Xiao. The now wet pony just stared at him, his eyes full of venom, hiding the fact he that wanted to kick him square in the face. “What? we're supposed to be cleaning right now.” Thomas said, rolling in the water. He dropped the look after a while and gave a sigh, taking off his saddlebag and also jumping into the water. Xiao was just about to create an attack toward his friend, when suddenly a snap of a twig was heard.
Xiao snapped to the direction of the sound. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Thomas said, quickly washing himself.
“That noise, you didn’t hear it?”
“No, should I?”
Xiao felt the presence of something…unfriendly watching them. Not wanting to get himself into a state of paranoia, he said, “…Know what, it was probably just a bunny. Let’s clean up.” I seriously have a bad feeling about this… All that Amnesia I played two days ago doesn’t help either… Xiao thought as he began to clean himself also.
Thomas shrugged. “Whatever you say, captain.”
As both ponies rid themselves of the last patches of mud on their backs, Thomas suddenly gasped.
“SH- I mean horseapples! Don’t scare me like that! What’s wrong, are we being watched?”
“No, I just realized, we’re naked! I feel really awkward right now…”
Wow, he would care... “Really, all you care right now is that we’re technically naked and you feel kinda gay washing right now? I don’t even…” Suddenly another snap came, much louder than the last.
“Now I heard it.” Thomas said as he quickly shook himself dry and got into a battle stance. The snapping of twigs started to turn into snaps of trees as something barreled through the forest, heading closer toward where Xiao and Thomas were. “OK, something’s out there. Run Thomas, we don’t have enough experience to fight whatever’s out there.” Is it a manticore? Xiao thought as his paranoia returned. But we didn’t do anythi-Oh. Dear. God. This must be…
*Flashback*
Xiao and Zecora walked towards the smoldering crater, trying to scavenge ‘supplies’ he might have ‘teleported’ with them when he ‘messed up the teleportation spell’.
As Zecora went ahead to gather up some herbs near the crater, Xiao noticed two things. One, there was a black guitar case at the center…in perfect condition. How is that even possible, it should at least be covering in ash… Xiao pondered as he slung the case across his back. Wow, this is heavier than I expected, wonder what’s inside? Maybe Thomas knows something about it… The second thing Xiao noticed were small skulls along with charred bones all around the crash site. Interesting, there’s an assortment of herbivore and carnivore bones at this place, but some of these herbivores are as big as the carnivores…why though…? Pondering the question, he did not notice Zecora had returned and had been watching him for a while.
“It seems you know much about bones, as all I see are lives lost to a creature unknown.”
“Hubba-dubba-wah-?” Xiao stammered as he turned to see her leaning over his shoulder.
“My apologies dear friend, startling you was something I did not intend.”
“Oh, it’s fine Zecora, It just seems weird that these bones belong to plant-eaters, but are too big to be prey.”
Zecora eyed the bones suspiciously. “Strange indeed, it’s as if these animals are not meant to be feed.”
“Hmmm, yeah it does…oh well, I guess we should head back, my friend should be awake by now…” Xiao said as he got back up on his feet.
“Let’s us depart, as remaining here is not exactly smart.”
“Lead the way friend.”
*Flashback end
“Run Thomas, we can’t face whatever is out there like this!”
Thomas had no choice but to listen to Xiao since he was still learning to use this new ‘body’ of his. “Then let’s make like a tree…GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” Thomas yelled, already galloping towards Zecora’s home. Xiao took one last glance at the direction of the snapping and followed Thomas back to the hut. The two friends galloped through forest, occasionally looking back for signs of the mysterious stalker. Nothing was seen, though the sound of snapping branches and crashing by something big was still evident.
“Crap, we can’t outrun this thing!” Xiao yelled as they got closer and closer to Zecora’s.
“Naw, really, we’ve only been here for a day, and we run like pros? SEEMS LEGIT, BRO!”
As the two doubled their efforts to outrun their chaser, the noise began to fade, until it stopped completely. Both ponies began to slow down, and stopping as they arrived at the door. Xiao and Thomas were out of breath, but not exhausted due to their stronger pony bodies.
“*huff* what was that?” Thomas panted, wincing as his head started ringing again.
“I don’t know, man, *huff* but I have a feeling it’s related to our landing.” I have a feeling we’ll meet that thing again…
“Well, *huff* it doesn’t seem to be interested in us anymore…”
“Yeah, or else we coulda dragged Zecora into this.”
“Ha-ha, sounds like a certain ‘somepony’ has feelings for a zebra, ohhh…” Thomas cooed.
“Thomas, who did I tell you was my favorite pony?”
“Fluttershy, I think…why?” I think he mentioned Pinkie Pie sometimes, too…
“Exactly, so shut the buck up.” Xiao said as he pulled a Yao Ming face on him.
“Pfft, and you call me a soresaddle. Come on, let’s head inside.”
With that, Xiao and Thomas walked into the hut, failing to notice the inedible-looking dishes that Zecora had placed on the table.