It was an average day for Maximus Garrison as he returned home from college, that is... until a strange old man showed up on his front porch. and it didnt take long after that for his entire world to be turned on his head!
It was an average day for Maximus Garrison as he returned home from college, that is... until a strange old man showed up on his front porch. and it didn't take long after that for his entire world to be turned on his head as he now finds himself in a strange world filled with talking ponies, angry shapeshifting insects, as well as... Digimon and Bionicles!? now things are really going crazy, and it doesnt help that a orphan pair of the talking ponies have become attached to him... and his new 'Brothers".
A displaced story inspired by part of my childhood.
Chapter 0 - From thy past is thine future borne...
“Finally!” grumbled a young man in his early twenties as he arrived home from college, tossing his backpack which contained his laptop and textbooks onto his couch before making his way towards the kitchen. “You know, college isn’t as easy as I thought it would be…” He thought to himself as he opened the refrigerator to fix himself a snack, only to find it empty. “… Especially when you have to buy your own groceries.” He then sighed before closing the refrigerator and going back to the Living Room where he had tossed his backpack from which he retrieved his keys and wallet. And once he retrieved said objects he left his house for the second time that day, his destination: the local supermarket. Mostly because there weren’t any grocery stores within walking or biking distance and he didn’t own a car.
After about an hour’s walk the young man arrived at the town supermarket, where upon he entered the throng of fellow shoppers to go buy what he needed. It didn’t take long to find what he needed, eggs, flour, noodles, milk, etcetera… but after he had finished buying all the groceries he thought that he would supposedly need for the next month or so he left the market and started on his way back home. But when he arrived there he came to find himself an unexpected visitor.
“Excuse me, but can I help you?” He asked the stranger standing on his front porch.
The person on the front porch slowly turned to face the young man, seemingly surprised for some reason. “Oh, why hello there… Um, is this your house by any chance?” the stranger asked, his voice distinctly sounding both male and elderly, though it was hard to be certain due to the cloak that the stranger was wearing completely covering him from head to toe.
“It is… May I ask who you are?” The young man asked cautiously, feeling very suspicious.
“I’m… A friend… May I come in and sit? I have come a long way and wish to rest myself.” The stranger replied.
“A friend you say… Yet I don’t know you, so-“ The young man started to say before the stranger cut him off.
“Ah, but I know who you are, Maximus Garrison.” The stranger said, sounding quite smug now. “And I can prove it if simply knowing your full name isn’t enough…”
“Ok, then prove it. And while you’re at it explain to me why you're here and why I shouldn’t call the police on you.” Max said, getting tense due to the stranger knowing who he was but him not having a clue who the stranger was.
“Fine then,” The stranger said before recounting events from max’s past that he had told almost no one except for a few close friends and relatives as if he had been there himself. “And as for why I am here, can’t a relative pay you a visit?”
Max just stared at the stranger, absolutely dumbfounded causing the stranger to snicker as he pulled down the hood to his cloak, revealing the face of a well-aged old man. “Are you just going to stand there or are we going to go inside and relax?” He asked, causing max to snap back to his senses.
“Oh, um sure…” Max said before walking up to his front door and unlocking it as the old man stepped aside momentarily. He then opened the door and showed the old man inside before going to the kitchen and putting up his groceries. “So… you never did introduce yourself?” Max called out to the elderly man now currently sitting in the living room.
“I’m a relative, that’s all you need to know. And I won’t be here long so don’t worry, though I would like to leave some things with you.” The old man called back, making max both curious and more confused by the strange old man.
“Something you want to leave with me? Like what?” Max asked the old man as he walked back into the living room after putting up the groceries and fixing himself a sandwich which he was currently eating.
The old man merely chuckled as he pulled three items from his robes, a sword with a pair of yellow bull horns for the handguards as well as a large green gem set between them, a statuette of a knight and an almost circular chrome mask with a piece resembling an airplane fin on the top. “These… after all, they belong to you.” The old man said after presenting the items.
Max at first looked at the old man strangely as if he was speaking in riddles before simply shrugging it off and sitting down next to the old man on the couch. “So what are they? Some kind of fancy old collectables?” Max asked, vaguely recognizing the items as something from when he was little but he couldn’t quite remember what they were.
“Oh, there much more than that… go ahead and touch them.” The old man said.
Almost as If he was bewitched Max reached out and picked up the objects, and as he held them they suddenly began to glow. “What!?” Max shouted as the glow then gradually got brighter and brighter until it consumed his entire body.
“Good luck kiddo!” The old man said as Max vanished along with the strange light.
Max felt strange, almost as if his very being was being erased and then remade at the same time while he floated in an endless void made of pure light. But the feeling didn’t last for long, because almost moments later the light around him began to fade as he felt gravity seem to exert itself upon him from somewhere… and before he could find out where he passed out.
In a field just behind a rickety old orphanage a pair of young fillies watched as something fell from the sky while they were playing. Urged on by both their curiosity and something else which they couldn’t explain, the two fillies snuck off to find the strange object which fell from the sky.
Late in the afternoon a few days after the fillies observed the strange object fall from the sky they finally found it, but what they found wasn’t what they were expecting. There, in the middle of a small crater, were three unconscious beings of which the fillies had never seen before. And almost as if timed specifically to the fillies’ arrival the three beings began to awake...
Max groaned as he awoke, his entire body as sore as that of a person who had decided to do a belly flop into a pool from a three story tall diving board and was still feeling it the next day. Though his discomfort immediately became the last thing in his mind as he looked up to find himself in the center of a small crater surrounded on all sides by forest. “What in the world…” He said in almost perfect unison with two other voices, causing him to swiftly get to his feet and see who was behind him. What he saw though shocked him even more than the fact that he had somehow been transported from his Livingroom and into the middle of a forest, for standing right in front of him was two of the three beings that the three items the old man had given him had represented, his memory of them now suddenly returning. “Holy maceral…” They all gasped in unison. Following that was an awkward silence as the three of them stared at one another, until a sneeze got their attention and they looked twards where it came from in unison. And as if the action scared them, a pair of fillies made a run for it, one of them being who sneezed.
“Ok, I would love to figure out why two beings from my childhood are here but first we should figure out what that was about.” Max said, though at this point he was starting to get annoyed because the two in front of him said the exact same thing in unison with him as if they were reading his mind. “Scratch that, how are you doing that!?” The three of them then shouted in unison. All grumbling in frustration, the three of them face palm… Only to go ridged once they see their hands. “Aw heck no…”
“Tell me I’m imagining this?” The three say, speaking in unison again and only confirming that this wasn’t a dream. “Well, this is unexpected.” Max says, the other two merely nodding in agreement this time. “Just to be sure, let’s introduce ourselves.” He then managed to add with ought the others speaking at the same time as him. “My name is Maximus Garrison-“ He said before one of the two beings in front of him shouted in disbelief, claiming that wasn’t possible because HE was Max. That’s when something unexpected happened…
“It seems that we were all Maximus Garrison before winding up here…” The tallest of the three said, the strange mask that the old man had given Max fused to his face.
“That’s not possible though!”
“But my name is Maximus Garrison, and for some reason I can tell that the two of you are telling the truth as well… So we either are the same person, or three people with the same name. And since we can predict one another quite well, it seems more logical that we are technically the same person.” He then deduced.
The two others merely gawked at the third before face palming as they remembered what the powers of the character he looked like were. “This is going to get confusing…” they all sighed in agreement.
“We should probably come up with name’s to tell ourselves apart, but we should probably investigate what it was that ran away first.” One of them finally said, getting nods of agreement from the other two before they started walking in the direction that the fillies ran off to.
“Why don’t we use the names of the beings we look like?” One of them suggested after they had been walking for a while.
“Hmm, that sounds like it would probably be for the best.” The other two agreed in unison, causing them to smirk as they began to get used to being in synch. “Ok then, let’s find whoever sneezed and see if they know what’s going on!”
The two fillies panted as they hid behind a tree, having decided to stop running out of exhaustion. Not a moment later, their bellies began to growl, having not eaten anything in the past day and a half since the food they brought with them when they snuck away from the orphanage ran out.
“I’m hungwy…” The younger of the two fillies pouted, letting her wings hang limp by her sides as she pouted at her companion.
“I know, I’m hungry too… But we don’t have any food left.” The older one said as she nuzzled the younger filly, causing her to pout even more. Sighing the older filly ignited her horn as she lifted the younger one onto her back. “Ok, ok! We can see if we can find anything-” The older filly sighed to the younger one before stepping out from behind the tree they were hiding… only to stop mid centence as she bumped into something, causing her to fall onto her rump and for the younger filly to fall off her back.
“Well what do we have here~” Hissed an almost reptilian sounding mechanical voice.
Screams of terror suddenly split through the forest, causing the three beings to look up from the tracks they had found. “What was that?” One of them asked, to which the other two responded “A child… And it seems she’s in danger.” In urgent unison. It didn’t take them much longer to forget the strange tracks left behind by whatever they heard sneeze and instead make a b-line for the source of the screaming, and if the day hadn’t gotten crazy enough for them yet, what they saw nearly made them loose it.
“Can’t you get them to shut up already!? They’re going to get something’s attention and lead it strait to us!” Growled a white biomechanical lizard man looking creature in the middle of a clearing next to a large pot of boiling water to another who was standing over the crying forms of two dirt and grime covered fillies.
“I would but I have nothing to shut them up with! And I can’t kill them just yet, after all, you should know better than anyone how the boss prefers his pony to be cooked!” Snapped the creature standing guard over the crying fillies, causing them to cry louder as they begged for their lives.
Infuriated, the three beings looked to each other and nodded before slowly walking into the clearing side by side. “Well now, what do we have here?” “Tell us, what are you Skaddi-” “Planning on doing with those children?” The three of them said dangerously to the cybernetic lizard men.
“What, who dares-” The Skaddi by the boiling pot of water began to say grumpily until he saw the three beings, causing him to immediately shut up and break into a cold sweat. “T-this isn’t p-p-possible!” He stuttered as he began to immediately back away, causing his companion to turn to see what he was looking at… Almost moments later all that was left in the clearing was the two terrified fillies, the three beings, and the tracks and equipment of the Skaddi who had just fled.
“That was easier than expected.” One of the three beings commented as the others walked over to the two fillies and began to untie and console them. “Though we shouldn’t stay here long, just in case…”
“Agreed. Now tell us young ones, who are you?” Another said as the final member of their group scooped up the poor fillies into his arms.
“I-I’m Celestia… And this is L-Luna…” The unicorn stuttered, still a little frightened from the ordeal she and the other filly had suffered through.
“A pleasure to meet you. You may call me Axon” Said the one of the beings who picked the fillies up in his large mechanical arms.
“You may call me Knightmon.” Said the second of the beings, his silver armor, giant shield and great sword glinting in the afternoon sun.
“And you may call me the Magna Defender, or Magna for short.” Stated the last of the three beings, his black armor and golden horns standing in stark contrast to his two counterparts.
“W-what are you three?” Celestia asked nervously as Axonn carried her and Luna through the forest, his two counterparts on either side of him.
“That, is a long and complicated story.” Axonn said as he smiled gently down at Celestia and Luna, the latter of which was currently fast asleep.
“And from what we can tell you girls are probably hungry…” Magna stated, his point only being proven by the fillies’ growling stomachs which caused Celestia to blush. “And you two most certainly need a bath.”
“WHAT!?” Celestia shouted, her face now as red as a tomato from a mixture of embarrassment and fury. If she thought it would have done any good she would have blasted Magna in the face with her magic, but suspecting that it would only glance off his armor decided to merely pout in defiance.
Knightmon snickered at Magna and Celestia’s antics as he kept an eye on their surroundings, both watching for any possible danger and anything that would be suitable to feed the two strange fillies. Letting his curiosity get the better of him though, he decided to ask a question… “By the way, what prey tell are the two of you?”
“Were Ponies, or to be more specific… I’m a unicorn and Luna here’s a thestral.” Celestia told Knightmon as she started to ignore Magna in childish defiance. Though the reaction from the three she got wasn’t exactly what Celestia expected.
“Ok, this situation was already impossible as it was, but now… I’m not even going to bother.” Magna sighed as Knightmon and Axonn grumbled in agreement.
“What are you talking about?” Celestia asked curiously.
“Its… even more complicated than the story about what we are, and we don’t want you to suffer an existential crisis.” Axonn explained as they finally reached the edge of the forest… only to find a large river and even more forest on the other side of it.
“Well, at least we have someplace to bathe the two of them for now.” Magna snickered, causing Celestia to struggle in Axonn’s grasp in an attempt to get free and buck Magna in the leg.
“You do remember that that is no way to speak to a lady right?” Knightmon asked.
“I hate to contradict myself, but she’s a little girl, not a lady.” Axonn interjected as he handed Luna to Magna. “Be careful with the pony toddler ok?”
“Did you really need to ask?” Magna quipped, causing Axonn to merely smirk as he handed the struggling Celestia to Knightmon.
“I believe he did it for the sake of making Celestia not worry.” Knightmon interjected as he carried Celestia over towards the river.
“That, and I’m too large to wash them properly so I’m leaving it to you two to get it done.” Axonn added. Magna shrugged in response, seeing the logic in what his two counterparts had said before gently waking the sleeping filly so that he could bathe her.
“I can bathe myself!” Celestia whined, not letting Knightmon bathe her.
“Well how else are you going to get all that dirt and grime out of your fur then?” Knightmon asked her.
“I’ll just use my magic to scrub myself with a brush!” Celestia said defiantly.
“And you have a brush with you?”
“…”
“Exactly, now let me help you unless you want to walk around covered in mud.”
“… Fine…”
Axonn chuckled as he watched the little fight between the unicorn and his counterpart, glad that the fillies were recuperating after nearly being turned into someone’s lunch. Though he knew that both he and his two counterparts were going to need some time to get accustomed to their situation…
“So where’s your parents? We should probably get you back home to them.” Magna said offhandedly as he cleaned Luna’s mane for her.
“Our pawents?” Luna asked, tilting her head a bit as she looked up at magna with a confused expression.
“Yeah, you know, your mommy and daddy?” Magna said, a bad feeling building in his gut.
“Were orphans.” Celestia explained sadly, having overheard Magna’s question.
“O-oh…” magna stuttered, feeling bad for the two fillies.
“Well, that was, unexpected…” Knightmon commented, staring down at Celestia sadly.
“Is there anything we could do for you? We can’t just leave you to fend for yourselves out here after all.” Axonn said to them, not knowing what to do.
“Umm, w-well, you c-could probably take us b-back to the orphanage?” Celestia said, though there was a definite edge of sadness and bitterness in her tone of voice.
“Sounds like you don’t like the place, any reason why?”
“The ponies there are mean!” Luna replied for Celestia, causing everyone to look at her in surprise as Celestia merely groaned.
“I see, so you would rather be anywhere else other than that orphanage then?” Knightmon asked politely, and getting a nod in response from the two fillies. “Well, what if someone adopted you then?”
“What’s adoption?” The fillies asked in surprising unison.
“Well, it’s where someone takes someone who doesn’t have a family and makes them part of their own?” magna replied, giving his best explanation of what he thought adoption was.
Having finished getting cleaned By Magna and Knightmon, Celestia and Luna got into a huddle and silently started discussing something between themselves, peeking over their shoulders at the three beings on occasion as they talked before coming to some sort of decision. “Um, would you adopt us?” The fillies asked, pulling out the puppy dog eyes out in full force as they cuddled up to one another and pouted while shivering from the cold river water evaporating from their fur… it didn’t help that the way they were sitting also made them look like a pair of abandoned kittens that were left in a box on the side of the road.
“Gah! The cuteness levels! There too strong!” Magna said dramatically, holding a hand to his chest and reaching for the sky with the other as he fell to his knees.
“9999” Knightmon said in agreement as he clutched both his hands to his chest and fell backwards, pretending that he was a videogame boss who had just been hit with an instant KO attack.
“… Looks like the answer to your question will be a yes then.” Axonn groaned, covering his mask with one hand in an attempt to stave off giving a reaction similar to his counterparts.
“Yay!” The fillies cheered as the instantly dropped the cute act and jumped on Axonn, resulting in them merely clinging to his legs due to how large he was.
“The coincidences just keep piling up don’t they?” Magna chuckled as he and Knightmon got back up, having finished overreacting to the weaponized cuteness.
“Indeed, Not only are our bodies those of guardian class characters, but were also now the guardians of these two children.” Axonn said, chuckling as well as he peeled the two fillies off his legs and set them back on the ground.
“Guys, I think we need to have a quick chat about how were going to handle this.” Knightmon said, causing Axonn and Magna to nod before the three of them got into a huddle, causing Celestia and Lina to look at them curiously. “How should we have them refer to us since we technically just agreed to be their legal guardians so to speak?”
“Well, first of all, lets not have them refer to us as their fathers… Being married to yourself would get very awkward very fast, especially since were all guys.” Magna pointed out, Axonn and Knightmon nodded in agreement.
“Then let’s have them refer to us as their uncles?” Axonn suggested, causing the other two to look at each other before shrugging.
“Ok, now that that is settled, we should probably find that orphanage to make this official shouldn’t we?”
“Indeed we should, and then we can figure out what to do from there.” Knightmon stated, bringing the huddle to a close.
“Ok! Celestia, do you remember where the orphanage you left is, no were not taking you back so don’t worry we just want to see if there are any papers or anything we have to fill out for adopting you.” Axonn said with the most comforting smile he could manage between his mask and robotic face which the mask was part of.
“Umm… I don’t remember?” Celestia said sheepishly.
“Whelp, there goes that part of the plan. So shall we simply try and find our way out of this forest for now then?” Magna said.
“Might as well.” Knightmon responded with a shrug. He then walked over and lifted Celestia onto his shoulder causing her to squeak in surprise. Magna then walked over to Luna and scooped her up into his arms as Axonn reached behind him and pulled out his character’s signature Ax and hefted it over his shoulder.
“Then were off.” Axon stated, taking the lead so that should any trouble arise he could act as the first line of defense as Knightmon and Magna followed while carrying the fillies… Though it wasn’t long until they were reminded of how hungry their charges were causing them to chuckle and keep an eye out for an apple tree or anything edible for ponies while they walked, following the river next to them downstream as they searched for a way out of the forest.