Side Step

by Vocbox

Awaken, Pawns

Collaboration effort of Vocbox and Renegade. MLP FiM is copyright of Hasbro and the Hub Network, I think. All references hitherto of characters or people, alive or dead in this story are purely for hilarious results.

Just outside the audience chamber, the six ponies conversed, planning their strategy to handle Equestria’s newest threat. “Alright, girls…” Twilight Sparkle began, “we’ve got six areas to see, so either we make a circuit between them, or we split up and risk being separated. Now, we can’t actually use the elements of harmony’s full power if we split up, but gathered that the enemy has split his attempts, we shouldn’t have too much to worry about.” Twilight was unsure how her friends would react, but both plans were good. She secretly hoped they wouldn’t split up though, and had left out the obvious side effect of plan number one, that they would inevitably take longer. She put up a great smile, an obvious tell that she had left something out. Applejack looked at her with her usual no-nonsense straight face. With a resigned sigh, she spoke again, “Well, and it’ll take a bit longer if we travel as a group, whoever or whatever is at each of the sites could have left before we get there as a group, and so our best chance is still to split up.”

“I could just fly over them all and make sure they’re there, if it makes ya feel any better, Twi.” Rainbow Dash offered.

“Thank you, but your time is best spent going after the farthest section, over past Ponyville, it appears to be in the clouds, and it’s much farther than any of the others.”Twilight appreciated her friend’s gesture, but they did have to split up to get this job done. Sure, if Rainbow Dash saw the things at the specified areas, she could come back and tell the others, but it’s still be splitting the group, and there was no assurance they would get to each area before the enemy left anyway. “Rarity, I need you and Fluttershy to go to these two areas closest to Ponyville.” Pointing to two circles on the map, an area was circled next to the Southern side and Eastern sides of Ponyville. She then continued: “If the worst is to occur, I need you two to go back to Ponyville to have the townsponies evacuate.”

“The…worst? Oh…alright, we’ll do our best, Twilight.”Fluttershy said, exchanging glances with Rarity.

“Alright, well for the last few; Pinkie, you’re needed here,” Twilight said, again pointing at the map, this time North of Canterlot where a city labeled Trottingham was.“…Applejack, I need you at this point here,” She pointed to a section along the railroad, to the West of Ponyville, the desert. “…finally, I will go here.” Pointing to an area smack-dab in the middle of the Everfree forest, it was an area the six had familiarity with—the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. “We’ve been there before, so I can teleport there and back.” With a nod and a shared sense of solemnity, the six mares headed off to their respective locations. Before Twilight teleported away, she shouted a reminder back: “And we’ll meet up again as soon as we can here in Canterlot! Good luck, girls!” The castle halls fell silent and empty once more.

Waking from what felt like a long rest, Xena struggled to her feet. She found it far too easy to push herself up, but couldn’t get upright. Opening her eyes to see what the issue was, she found that bright white appendages had replaced her arms. She craned her neck down to look under herself, and saw more white equine legs and a black tail behind her. Slowly backing her neck up to its correct position, her eyes widened as she tried not to believe what possibly could have happened.
“What the hay is going on!?” Xena was incredulous. For a long time now, she was used to surprises and nightmares, and even surprising nightmares. This was… mares? She decided to roll with it. Taking an uneasy step forward, she splayed her wings to the sides for balance. Hold on, wings? “Did I just…” No, it wasn’t going to distract her, not this time. She took a few more steps, testing her balance. It was kind of easy, she thought. “Hey, I may as well test the wings too.”

With a triumphant leap, she took to the air… but sadly, did not keep there. She managed to land on all four…hooves, she guessed. Flapping her wings was considerably more difficult than she thought. After a few minutes of effort, she managed to flap her way off the ground. Before she could rejoice at her newest success, a loud pop noise came from above her, and the clothes she had left at her bedside fell on her, knocking her to the ground. Obviously whatever brought her here had a sense of humor, as all of her clothes were made for humans, of which she didn’t think applied to her anymore. Which reminded her… what was the thing that invaded her bedroom, and why was she here anyway? She remembered it said something like: her being a warrior, or a princess, a game was involved… and it called her WEAK. Anger surged; she wasn’t weak, and anyone who said so paid for it! Stamping her left rear hoof into the dirt, she noticed it gave a visible indentation. She supposed that this leg strength was attributed to her horse-like form, but was proud of it all the same—she specialized in kicks in her fighting style.

A snap in the trees nearby caught her attention. Her focus was intensified, as she didn’t make a move while trying to discern what exactly made the noise. In her lifetime, sudden noises meant traps, ambushes and the like. She had to be wary not to fall for anything ever again. Suddenly, something fell from the tree--or rather, somepony.

”Ow… uhhh. Hi!” the voice was feminine, belonging to a light brown pegasus with blonde hair. There was a mark on her flank, a Lute in front of a Sais. “Umm, I’m sorry I was sorta spying on you, but it was because you kinda popped out of nowhere, and then that cloth landed on you, also from nowhere, and I was so startled I fell from this tree here, see?”
Spying on her? Again with others, it was always the same, spying on you to learn your weakness and then use it to get your trust so they can take advantage of you. Miss Darrow was fed up with this rubbish. Spies and scoundrels she dealt with almost every day, and she’d deal with this one all the same… or she would, if she could figure out how to kick as a horse. Readying a stance, Xena instead tried intimidation. Just because this girl-horse had come right out and SAID she’s spying doesn’t make her trustworthy!

“Just back off! Leave me be!” she practically yelled at the poor filly, “I don’t care WHO you are, just stay away, SPY!” Seeing the girl fall to a sitting position, Xena assumed her words had successfully made that blonde girl back down. Quickly, Darrow scooped up her clothes and boots, and flung them over her back. She hadn’t tried running yet, but it couldn’t be that hard. She was right, and made her escape before the tan pegasus even got over the shock of what had happened. Looking over her shoulder for a second, Xena saw tears well up in the girl’s eyes before she was out of view. “Who cares, tears won’t help you--I won’t fall for it.” Xena said it to keep her resolve, not that she said it loudly, but she felt she might have backed up and apologized if it wasn’t spoken out loud.

Alone once again, Jason King looked at himself just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He was now a unicorn of some kind; he knew that much from what he had seen in a nearby lake’s reflection. His hair on his head had remained the same, but his…skin color… was definitely weird. It reminded him far too much of My Little Pony for comfort, being a dark blue hue in the middle of a brightly colored clearing in what appeared to be a forest of rather tall trees. Perhaps he had changed size as well as shape. Checking around for something that he knew the height of, he found a pinecone. It measured up to around where it felt like his wrist. That meant that he probably was still a relative height to before, although shorter to the ground. His clothing had fallen after he had, comically landing on his face to dunk him into the lake when he saw himself the first time. They were now drying on a low lying branch—his necktie, khakis and ruined jacket. It occurred to him he was the same color as the jacket, as he looked that way before trying to figure out why any of this had happened.

Some creature, a terrifying bug-winged behemoth with a leech’s head and a volcano’s colors had sent him here, to what he assumed was Equestria. Now he could fit in, or something along those lines. The more he thought about it, the more he doubted such a thing could be true. As his emotions compelled him, he dragged himself through his older memories. How he couldn’t do anything when the war started, how he was essentially at the enemies’ mercies. He was spared, but he was always just left as he was. Even once he was freed after the war, all he could do was go to the hotel he had originally planned on staying in and mope about for weeks at a time. His mind played him throwing everything off a table with rage, and outside his mind, his magic activated. He telekinetically flung all the clothes he had set up to the ground. Realizing he had actually used magic, he stopped.

“Huh.” That was all he said. Trying to tap into his anger again, he attempted to will his clothes to be grabbed. The result was his clothes flying in different directions. “Maybe…anger isn’t the best emotion to use for something like holding things.” He tried to just will his tie to be picked up with no success. Logically, if emotions weren’t the catalyst for magic, it was memories, or perhaps envisioning the action to take place. He then tried to remember picking his tie up the first time, surrounded by his friends for his birthday, then unwrapping the box and holding aloft that two sided tie. The tie responded by being covered in an aura similar to his body color, and lifting off the ground. He envisioned it floating closer and retying it to his neck. It did as he envisioned with only a little difficulty going around his horn, he would have to get used to that. When he finished, King noticed he was sweating pretty heavily; magic took more out of him than it looked like on the show. Without much else to do, he decided to ditch the rest of his old clothes. Ponies didn’t often wear clothes, so his tie was more than enough, he figured. He looked once more to ensure the figurines he had weren’t with him in this world—it would be too much of a hassle to explain besides not having a cutie mark at his apparent age.

With that decided, he walked towards mountaintops that were visible with the clearing as wide as it is. If he was really in Equestria, and if he was really in the Everfree Forest, the only named forest with such large trees, he was best suited leaving the forest as soon as possible, and he remembered that Canterlot was on the side of a tall mountain in the show. He didn’t ever think to check the lake as he trotted away, where his human shoes and a small toy lay at the very bottom.

Captain Barracuda, now a copper stallion with a short silver mane, had been testing his wings for a little over an hour now. He found that the principles of flight were the same, wherever he was; the only difference being that he was the one flying, instead of being the pilot. His hat had followed him, along with his coat and weapons, but as Barracuda quickly discovered, he can stand on clouds, but that didn’t make them solid to other things, too. It was time to get his stuff back. This form was comfortable enough; he would wear his jacket even if he had to cut holes in it for his new wings. Diving off the cloud, he pulled his forelegs together and sped straight down towards the ocean below. Nearing the water’s surface, he opened his wings and tilted up, then balanced himself to a hovering position just above his fallen articles.

Using his forelegs, he lifted his hat and replaced it upon his head. It was only a little wet, anyway. Luckily, his sword and its scabbard were held aloft by his coat a short distance away. He wasn’t keen on trying to swim with wings, so his gun was likely long gone beneath the waves. Getting his scabbard to clip around himself was simpler than one would assume, for a horse. In this world, pegasi appeared to be able to bend around and move more closely to humans than horses ever could. After that, he grabbed his coat and wrung it out, holding it with his hooves instead of his teeth. He then flew back up to his original cloud and scouted for nearby land or any of the inhabitants. In the distance he saw what appeared to be a blue dot with a rainbow behind it, but disregarded it immediately.

“Rainbows, peh. Where’s my army I was promised by Strife? I wanted to fight and have the United States finally achieve world conquest; not sit on a cloud in the middle of nowhere! If I’m a ‘local’ shaped creature, I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about the enemy having guns, at the very least.” He reached for his sword, and pulled it out. “Physics here don’t seem to matter; I’m holding a sword without any freaking fingers.”

Right after he said that, Barracuda realized that his language had subconsciously been toned down. He had meant, in all honesty, to swear at least three times with his last sentence; damn and fucking being the words of choice. Freaking had been the closest thing to a cuss word he’s managed to utter. Putting a conscious effort into it this time, he forced the words out.

“F…fffuuuu…gkk!“ It was as if his own words were choking him. ”Piece of sh-chhhhit.” Well, if he wanted to swear, he’d have to keep it in his head, or alter it. Sheathing his sword, he gave up. Swearing wasn’t too terribly important anyway. What was important was a blue dot trailing a rainbow, because it was headed his way, and it was coming in fast.

Richard Dixon was quite confused—no two ways about it. He awoke to his belongings falling on his head, but once they were out of his eyes, a sight best left described as cartoonish lay in front of him. There was a lush green forest, a rare sight since the war, colorful patches of flowers, and the whole place just seemed so peaceful. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a live tree; a whole forest was undeniably out of place.

“This can’t be real.” He told himself. “Is this a dream?”

He got up, and realized he had achieved his full height on all fours. After looking himself over, he was a unicorn with dingy yellow fur, had a horn on his head, and still had his rocker hairdo, but instead of the blonde he had bleached it to, his hair had returned to its original light brown, with only a streak of his favorite color remaining. Well, so much for sleight-of-hand tricks and throwing knives—no fingers.

“Alright then, I’ll just get my bearings, here…” he began, but as he took his first step, he stumbled to the ground. “…Right, well; that could have gone better, I suppose. And it could have been worse, I at least have some of my stuff, even if I can’t use it.” He kicked at his Kevlar-lined tunic and knife belts. “I’d better stash these somewhere, then.”

He began to dig at the ground with one hoof until there was a sizeable hole deep enough to fit his things into. It took some more time, as clumsy as he was in his new body, to shove everything in the hole, cover it up, and place some rocks on top of it. It was all worth it, he told himself; in due time, he could probably get his clothes retrofitted for his new body, or just sell them if he needed to. First though, he needed to find civilization, or at least water. Digging was thirsty business.

Walking to the top of a nearby hill, he was surprised to see a town so close. It wasn’t very late; around 4:45 he judged. He could make it there before nightfall, no problem. He remembered that the monster he saw had promised that this new land’s base currency was gold. If such a thing was true, he could easily make it big. It would be easier if he could perform some kind of acrobatic feats, but in his current state, his best bet was to outwit whoever or whatever had some cash. Without further ado, Richard left the mound behind, taking care to remember how to return to it, should the need arise.

Adam Forrest hadn’t any clue how long he’d been walking in the desert heat. He had been following train tracks shortly after waking up, his bandana and cloak covering him. He was glad he had them, as he suspected he might have had a heatstroke by now, being uncovered; whether he was a green pony now or not. Weirdest part is how his bright blonde hair had grown to a length down his neck, like a horse’s mane. He had kept short hair almost all his life. While he was on the subject of weirdness, his mind brought him to remembering why he had agreed: to see new exotic plants. Well, so far he had seen a thousand cacti, each one same as the last…or were there a thousand of the same one cactus?
“Man, this heat is… brutal…” He had to keep going. Water wasn’t an issue, there were cacti, and he knew there was water inside them, but it was just so hot and bright! ”That…liar… thinks he’s soooooooo funny… dropping me in a desert.” He stopped walking, and sat down. “Man… I shouldn’t have done this; I could have just left, maybe. Everyone back home has no idea what to do when it comes to medicine, or how to take care of the plants… I hope they come out of it alright.”

Just then, in the middle of the desert, he saw the most wondrous flower. It was beautiful, it was big, it was orange …it was talking to him? It was wearing a hat… yup, that was a mirage, he managed to tell himself.

“Now what in tarnation are ya doin’ out here in the middle of the desert?” the flower demanded.

“I’m looking for plants…” Adam managed to reply. He was certain at this point that he wasn’t going to make it.
The flower sighed, and then began to talk again. “Well, ya ain’t gonna find much out here asides from tumbleweeds and cactus. Lemme help ya back up. Let’s get you back to town.” The cowboy hat wearing plant picked Adam up and placed him over its stem, then began to walk the same direction Adam had been going. “You got a name, there?”

Mumbling, the only audible words Adam managed before passing out were “It’s…Forrest.”

Not that Adam could hear anymore, his mirage spoke. “Great, now I gotta tell Twi I didn’t make it to the site. But I could NOT in good conscience leave a pony out in the middle o nowhere to die from the heat! Huh, this savin Equestria business isn’t as easy as it felt like it was before.”

Centered in the middle of the most dangerous forest in all of Equestria, a lone human stood. He was sure that just seconds ago he was in a wasteland, and that he had blocked that monster’s attack with his thick shield-blade (copyright pending, according to the human.) It was Blake Eckson Stillwater, Earth’s last great action “hero”. He put his shield-blade back under his cloak on his back, and looked around. He could see a ruin in one direction, a rope bridge in the other, and a forest all around him.

Whistling, Blake began to talk to himself. “Now if that isn’t the biggest invitation to a boss fight I’ve EVER had the pleasure of seeing! Our brave hero ventures forth, into the depths of the unknown castle… for justice!” He started walking towards the ruins, taking in the broken pillars’ shapes and size, enraptured with the videogame-like experience of the place he had been transported to.

Reaching the door, he gave a hearty “HYAH!” and shoved it wide open. Inside, its courtyard was full of lichen covered pillars, most broken, and one humongous statue that looked like a model of a solar system, only with all the planets removed. Besides that, there were only six spaces where planets could go aside from the central orb of stone, which was obviously the sun. Some of the walls were missing in the room, and many of the windows had lost their panes. From the windows, he could see a spire on the other side of the castle, and a couple of other structures that had become broken down. For him, though, the spire would be for last.

“I’ve a whole castle to explore first, I don’t think the boss would mind if I went after map completion.” With that remark, Blake began to wander around, checking every nook and cranny, finding no monsters, traps, decorations or any perfectly preserved rooms at all. All that was left, disappointingly, was the spire.

“I can’t believe I just wasted all that time.”Blake wasn’t tired; he was used to having to carry a lot of things and travel for a long time. However, he was definitely annoyed, having walked around for an hour and a half without seeing or hearing a single thing that could be considered a monster. Well, not much left to do but head for the tower, he supposed.

The steps up to the spire were surprisingly solid, and there was minimal debris, compared to all the other rooms in the castle, and Blake would know, having walked through the whole place. Once he reached the top of the stairs, 400 exactly he noted dryly, he reached a room with a raised dais. The whole room was rather complete, with just a few broken windows and hanging vines being the extent of disuse. He noticed as well that while the rest of the castle was covered in dust, this room had its dust pushed around, like a struggle had taken place a while before. Skid and scorch marks covered the areas in front of and on the dais, respectively.

“Man, it looks like I already missed the big fight! What the hell happened here?” Blake leaned in close to the skid mark and rubbed a finger against it, then rubbed a finger on his other hand against the ground nearby. There was dust on both fingers, although there was a lot more dust where the skid wasn’t. “Phew, at least it didn’t just happen as I looked around. Man, I’d have been so mad!”

Behind him, a loud noise and a bright light filled the room. When he heard a voice from the same place, it caught Stillwater off-guard. “Hold it right there, Strife!”

“Strife?” Blake had no idea why a girl's voice had called him Strife, but he turned to face them, putting his hand on his shotgun’s handle. For the second time, he had been surprised by something weird behind him. A purple unicorn now stood in front of him, horn glowing, with a face that was extremely easy to read: angry. “What ARE you?” he asked the question before realizing he had said it.

“That’s what I’m supposed to say!” Twilight responded, her magic aura fading. “You aren’t Strife! Ohhhhhh, Strife must have made these disturbances so we would split up!” with a gasp, she added “My friends are in danger!”

“Hold on, who is Strife? What are you, where am I?” Blake was confused, but he didn’t want to be ditched; it sounded like there was a monster or some kind of dastardly evil to beat. Speaking of, that train of thought reminded him of the monster that sent him here in the first place—that leech-like magma-colored chimera. “Is Strife an insectoid monster capable of teleporting things and people?”

Twilight paused; this thing knew what Strife was! Thinking quickly, she ordered the being to come close. “You’re coming with me, let’s go!” Blake complied without another word. She teleported the both of them away, leaving the ruins to fall silent once again.

Comments

[uTTerAbsurdity]

And the plot thickens. Ooh, exciting.

[The_Deceiver]

i am amused you may live to wrote another fiction