Tales From the Trash Bin 21. NOT A GARY SUE DISPLACED STORY!

It's Not "Gary-Stu," It's Combo-Man!

An unfinished story that anyone can take if they PM me.

Greetings True Believers, Tis I, Combo Man! After an unfortunate accident with a vender at Comic Con, I was whisked away to a world of complete turmoil! Being an avid fan of My Little Pony, I decided to make this world better! Follow me on my epic quest to save Equestria from the darkness that lurks under their muzzles!

If YoU DoN't liKe iT, DoN'T ReAD iT!... Pffft, Ha! How many of you actually thought this was serious? I can already imagine some people's faces seeing this cover art and thinking how crappy this is. Watch a guy struggle to leave some god forsaken forest for most of the story, and watch him cry.

Anyway, hope you enjoy. I suppose I could do the cliche thing of throwing in a disclaimer like, "I don't own Combo Man and blah, blah," but I'm pretty sure even Marvel doesn't want to claim this property.

I wanted to write a Gary Sue story eventually, and I finally remembered this gem of a dumpster fire.

---

Chapter 1: Are You Pulling My Leg? Because it’s on fire, and you really shouldn’t be doing that.

My story begins where every great story should.

It started with a big explosion!

I was just minding my own business, walking around Comic Con, looking around at the toys, t-shirts, and occasionally browsing the dozens of comic stands. Nothing too special, overall.

I always had this problem with needing to buy something from a store, even if nothing there really interested me. I guess part of me felt like any trip would be a waste if I didn’t actually get anything, so I'd but some cheap piece of junk and go home to my cluttered house. I never really understood how it started, and I was trying to not do it anymore since I was getting more money conscious with age.

I was twenty-one, going on twenty-two in two months, and undeniably an adult. My childhood and teenage years were gone, a fleeting memory as I tried to pretend to be an adult. One of the first steps I took, aside from fixing my bad habit of being a compulsive buyer, was dropping “childish” things like my favorite shows and my account on Fimfic.

What kind of adult watches cartoons or talks about their “favorite pony,” anyway? I know some people do, and I don't judge them, but I know people would judge me if they found out. So, it was finally time to grow up and learn how to adult good.

After staying a few more hours and resisting the urge to buy a cheap keepsake or souvenir, I finally walked out of the convention with a full wallet and an antsy feeling tickling my brain.

While I was talking outside, I bumped into one of the vendors who had dressed up like the Resident Evil Merchant. A faint memory of the fan fitions I read clicked in my head, before I swiftly swatted that away. Again, needed to adult, no dumb kid thoughts.

“Hey, can you give me a hand loading up my truck?” He called out to me, as he struggled with a large box.

Adulting meant helping others, I guess, and I didn’t see any problems with it, so I grabbed one end of the box as he tried to lead us to his pickup. A few big cardboard boxes had already been piled up, and there were a lot of cables securing most of them to the truck’s bed.

The box suddenly slipped from our grip, falling onto of me and spilling a dozen or so costume pieces and props as I lost my balance and fell onto the pavement.

“Crap. Hey, are you okay?” He asked, offering a hand as I hissed in pain at my sore ass.

“Yeah, fine. Just give me a—”

And then, everything suddenly exploded.

---

I remember how heavy my body felt as I pulled myself up from the dirt road under me.

My vision was swimming, and all I could see was the dark shapes of a rose-tinted forest swaying above me. I lethargically raised a hand to my face, feeling around for any injuries, only to find a metal mask that I couldn’t take off.

My hands flew around my face, searching for a way to take off the costume piece when I noticed something else about my body. All of my senses felt sharper, as if someone had suddenly dropped me in a cold shower and slapped me across the face.

"Great Googily-Moogily, what happened to me?!" I cried out, my voice sounding almost emotionless with the robotic voice changer.

The faint heartbeat in my chest grew louder as I began to slowly panic. Nothing around me was familiar, and even my own body felt eerily foreign to me, as if I had leapt into someone else’s skin entirely.

It was an apt comparison, seeing as how I was actually in several pieces of other people’s skin.

To make a long story short, after panicking and accidentally firing off an optic laser beam from my eyes, I eventually calmed down from my panic attack and took stock of everything.

First and foremost, I found out that I was wearing at least a dozen costume pieces that were patched together. Looking into a nearby lake, I saw that I had the Hulk’s hair and forehead, Cyclops’ visor, Iron Man’s jaw plate, Magneto’s shoulder-pads and cape, half of Punisher’s upper skull logo, with the lower half being Captain America’s star, Sabertooth’s abs and forearms, Carnage’s elbows, Daredevil’s forearms, and Spider-man’s hands.

Below my new and, admittedly worrying, six pack abs, I had someone else’s thighs, the Human Torch’s knees, Silver Surfer’s calves, and Gambit’s boots.

It was a mess of patchwork heroes and villains, each one giving me that individual’s powers. I’m not sure whose thighs I have, but apparently, they gave me the power of the cosmos itself. I also had the powers of Galactus’ herald thanks to Silver Surfer’s shins, so the two titanic powers merged into a single entity inside my very soul.

I felt it flowing inside me, from my thighs to my hands and feet, coursing through every molecule of my body as I floated above the lake to stare into my reflection.

I hadn’t even noticed that I was levitating over the lake. My body had simply acted on its own accord to let me see myself more clearly. It was just pure instinct, an unnatural sensation that felt alien and familiar at the same time.

My first thought was, of course, that I was in an oddly lucid dream. I was never fortunate enough to have command over my own dreams back home, and I never understood how “lucid” people could be in a dream. The few times where I had achieved it, I would immediately wake up after throwing up an arm in reality or moving some other limb. So, to me, everything I saw felt like it would belong in a lucid dream.

Fearing that I could lose the opportunity to have fun in my dream, I carefully moved myself away from the lake, taking great caution not to stir myself too much in the waking world.

The prior panic attack had been momentarily forgotten, along with the many real tears that should have clued me into my strange new reality.

Floating back to the edge of the lake, I decided to walk away and wander through the forest. The world around me felt far too real to be a fantasy, but I was still in a momentary state of denial as I used my abilities to fly above the tree tops.

The forest stretched on for miles in every direction, a seemingly endless sea of leaves and branches. It was, to put it bluntly, breathtaking.

It felt wrong to describe it as anything other than that. It wasn’t as beautiful as a garden, or as amazing as a rainbow, and it certainly couldn’t hold a candle to any of the wonders on my world. But the calm breeze, gently swaying branches, and serenade of birds left me without a single breath.

Of course, it didn’t last long, and the sensation was lost after a good five or so minutes of floating too close to one tree that caught on fire when it brushed against my knees.

Iron Man’s lower face plate had an air filtration system installed, so I didn’t notice the rising smoke until the wind carried a pillar of ash downwind of me.

On a related note, it turns out that only my knees and the area closest to them can’t be hurt by fire.

My symbiotic elbows didn’t appreciate the wave of fire that was rapidly spreading, and alerted me to the danger before my Spider Sense decided to attack me with a thousand warnings to get away.

"Gah! Holy Headache! What's Going on?!" I shouted as my hands flew to my ears.

My body reflexively shied away from the fire, with Carnages tendrils latching onto the trees ahead of me to pull me farther away from the horrible flames.

I don’t know if the forest was just really old and dry, or if the Human Torch’s knees were hotter than an average fire. Either way, around a dozen trees had been engulfed in flames and my new sixth sense was literally screaming at me to get away.

Reacting only by instinct, I used Magneto’s powers to fly away from the rising flames and found myself back at the lake when a thought suddenly struck me. I was only acting on impulse, using whatever rapid thoughts I had to make the fire stop.

It was a simple plan in my head, and I used Carnage’s abilities to make a large bucket to scoop up water from the nearby lake and douse the raging inferno. However, I had run into another immediate issue. While the symbiotic could use blood to make more of itself, the human body has a very limited quantity of it.

I had only made about two toddler sized pail buckets before my body had a violent reaction to losing that much blood so quickly. I feel to the ground like a stone, slamming into the grassy clear plain around the lake as the fires continued to grow.

I’m grateful for Captain America, Spider-Man, and Sabertooth’s collective healing factors working in tandem to save me from my sudden blood loss. The three worked overtime to get back what I had lost, desperately pulling in nutrients from the sun and the cosmos to take what they needed as my mind slipped into unconsciousness.

---

Elsewhere, in a candy themed shop made out of ginger bread, a fuzzy pink ear suddenly went ramrod stiff as an equally pink nose wiggled and a baby blue eye twitched erratically.

Pinkie Pie’s mouth fell open, gaping like a fish as she took slow breaths. With a flash of motion, her head suddenly jerked forward, letting her release an irritating and loud sneeze.

“Ew! Pinkie Pie, grab a tissue, next time,” Rainbow Dash complained as a purple aura summoned a box of daisy themed tissue paper and landed on the table.

“Sorry Dashie, just had to sneeze really badly,” the pink mare apologized, before plucking a tissue from the box and blowing her nose.

“Are you feeling alright, darling? You seem to be a tad under the weather, lately,” Rarity asked worryingly.

“Don’t worry, Rarity, I’m fah… Fi… F-Achoo!” She sneezed again, thankfully using her snot covered rag to catch it.

The blue pegasus and white coated unicorn gave each other a questioning look before looking back at Pinkie Pie. “Uh, are ya sure? You really don’t look too good, Pinkie.”

“Rainbow is right, dear. Why don’t you go rest up for a while? I’m sure it could do you some good.”

“Psssh. I’m tooootally fine, guys. I just… I just feel like I need to make an obligatory reference to save us all,” she said, suddenly gaining a far-off look as she gazed out the window.

Rainbow Dash quirked a brow at her friend’s odder than usual behavior, sharing an equally befuddled look with Rarity as she cleared her throat. “Uh… Could you elaborate on that, dear?”

“Huh? Oh, I dunno. I just end up saying things sometimes, ike yesterday when I went off on a tangent to Mr. Cake about how door hinge and orange only rhyme if you force them too, so they don’t really rhyme and that made me think of Zecorra and her rhymes and how she could probably find a word that rhymes with orange since Orange’s birthday party is tomorrow and I wanna write her a fun card but I can’t rhyme her name with anything because nothing rhymes with orange except orange, and I thought about something like, 'Orange you glad I got you a card?' But I already did that last year and now I really need to make a good card!” she answered.

Her two friends elected to remain silent for a few brief moments, letting the casual chatter of the bakery fill the air as Rarity fiddled around with her tea. “Well, I can… I can only guess that you might be a little stressed then. Perhaps you haven’t been sleeping enough? In any case, darling, I’m certain that you need some beauty sleep.”

“Oh, don’t worry, rarity. Like I said, I’m fit as a fiddle, ripe as an apple, top of my game, higher than life, I’m…” Her words suddenly trailed off as her tail began to twitch, her back legs quivered, and her ears became limp. “Oh no… Oh no, oh no, oh no. Guys, this is super-duper bad!” She exclaimed, rising to her front hooves as she rose above her friends. “This can only mean one thing!”

Before either of her friends could ask what was happening, a smoke alarm suddenly went off in the kitchen.

“My cookies are burning!” She screamed, leaping out of her seat to gallop into the back of the shop.

The alarm soon stopped blaring as Pinkie Pie desperately tried to salvage her lost baked goods.

“Pinkie’s being weirder than normal, right?” Rainbow Dash asked, earning a nod of the head nod from Rarity.

“Quite right. I wonder what’s going on for her to be acting this way. I’m sure she would be fine if she got more sleep.”

“Oh, don’t worry too much about her, dearie,” Mrs. Cake said as she trotted to their table with another tea for Rarity. “She’s just a little antsy about the circus that’s comin’ inta town, don’t cha know? You know how Pinkie gets with her parties.”

“So she’s just excited for the carnival, then?” Rainbow asked.

“Darn tootin’. Don’t rightly know what’s so special about this one, but she hasn’t stopped workin’ after hearing about the new attraction. I’m sure she’ll be right as rain when it’s over and finally hit the hay.”

“It’s still pretty weird, even for her,” Rainbow said, earring a shrug from Mrs. Cake.

“Meh. It’s Pinkie Pie, dearie. ya learn ta stop askin’ questions after a while,” she said, trotting off to another table as Rarity enjoyed her tea.

“Hmmm. I do wonder what’s so special about this circus. I’ve never seen her forego sleep before a party before.”

“We could try and ask, I guess,” Rainbow suggested.

“We could, buuuut,” she trailed off, rolling a hoof as Rainbow sighed.

“It’s Pinkie Pie, yeah. She’d probably talk our ears off with saying anything again.”

“I suppose all we can do now is wait and see what’s so special about this carnival, in particular.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she conceded.

They could have never imagined what would happen when the carnival finally came to town.

Chapter 2: Break a Leg? But I need that to walk!

I had learned a lot about myself after I woke up after the fire started to ravage most of the forest.

Firstly, I found out that the symbiote elbows worked independently of my mind since they dragged my uncurious body far away from the burning area of the forest. Secondly, I realized that I wasn’t in a dream, much to my sudden panic when I woke up in a damp cave.

I had certainly never heard of anyone who woke up inside of a dream before, and the memories of the fire were still too fresh to be a simple dream. But I was a bit too focused on screaming when I found the corpses of several bears nearby.

Speaking of them, it turned out that my elbows had a psychotic mind of their own… … So that’s a thing now.

It wasn’t like the cliche evil whispers that would tell people to kill all the non-believers or anything like that, it was more like a pair of evil jellyfish that just react to stimuli. Whatever it was, it worked in tandem with my newly acquired spider sense and gained it’s own technical sentience. At least that’s what I think happened.

Honestly, I learned to stop questioning things after a few breakdowns and panic attacks. My body just gave up at some point while I was bawling my eyes out.

Something else I discovered was that laser tears are apparently a thing too, and they hurt a lot.

A full day hadn’t even passed and I was already a broken man. The melting flesh of my cheeks was the straw that broke everything, and I just stewed in my own thoughts as my skin regrew in my mask.

The crackling flames of my knees were the only light I had, and the evil alien sludge on my elbows was the only company I would find. I think I ended up naming one of them Billy while I was in a daze, but that's not important.

I’ll admit, I had lost a lot of blood and was still regrowing it a few hours later, so I wasn’t in a great headspace to begin with, and waking up to a mental breakdown didn’t make things and easier. Even with three separate healing factors, it would take a long time to get my blood back since I only possessed a fraction of each of my bodies abilities.

Three fourteenths of my body had healing factors, and one seventh of me had the powers of the cosmos. It was certainly better than no healing powers outright, but they barely carried a candle next to any hero’s abilities.

Fortunately, one seventh of the power of the cosmos is still a lot of power, so even a fraction of Galactus’ gift to Silver Surfer went a long way in my recovery.

It still took me over an hour to get used to the smell of molten flesh, and another hour or so to find the strength to pick myself up and walk to the mouth of the cave, using the cosmic power as a crutch to will my limbs and carry me out. But, I eventually managed it, and used Magneto's power to fly away.

The forest fire was still raging on unfortunately, and I couldn't do much aside from awkwardly fly in the opposite direction as I silently prayed for it to eventually die down on its own while I searched for any signs of civilization.

At the time, I was still hopeful that I was on Earth, and absolutely desperate to find a way back home despite the few idle thoughts that made me think otherwise. I kept thinking about the man with the truck, how he had been dressed up as the Merchant and how prevalent that character was in certain fanfics.

I kept swatting away any ideas of being stuck in Equestria. I didn’t want to humor the thought of being inside a children’s cartoon, even if I was suddenly stuck as an amalgam of characters after meeting a character who was infamous for doing that very thing.

I liked living in denial back then, it was comfortable.

Anyway, I flew over the forest hoping to find any signs of intelligent life. While I was flying above the trees, gradually going higher every few minutes to toy with my abilities, I was struck with a thought in regards to my in-flame-matory knees.

For four hours, the idea to simply say “Flame Off,” had completely alluded me, and when I finally remembered the Human Torch’s catchphrase, I decided to see if it could dispel the fire on my knees.

“Flame off!”

To my momentary joy, the flames hugging my knees faded away after I repeated the phrase with a bit more focus. Whatever fleeting happiness I felt instantly vanished when I started plummeting to the ground.

Apparently, one power turning off meant all of them shutting down as well. So, in sheer desperation, I immediately shouted again in the vain hope of not being skewered by a tree.

“Flame on! Flame on! Flameonflameon! Sweet Sarsaparilla, Flame on!” I yelled out in a terrified panic.

All of my abilities returned with a flash, saving me from a horrible fate as I suddenly shot into the air like a rocket.

My heart was pounding like a drum, and because of my enhanced hearing, it felt like every heartbeat was an explosion. The synthesizer on Iron Man’s mask also stabbed my ears with the sound of my heavy and static laced breath. I eventually had to float back down to the ground and turn off my powers as I braced myself against a tree.

“Flame off,” I commanded, regaining my normal hearing and senses as my heart continued to roar inside my chest.

It was easier to calm myself down without all of the noise, simply letting myself focus on the sounds of nature to take my mind away from everything else that was racing through my head.

My hands wandered around the back of my head, searching for a latch or lock that I could remove. Soon enough, the iron mask and visor clattered to the ground, and my lungs desperately filled themselves with oxygen as I drank in the fresh air.

I sat at the base of the tree, resting in the shade as my heart rate and breathing gradually slowed down. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, and still felt like all of my senses were working in overtime, but it was much more manageable compared to Daredevil’s heightened senses.

As I was laying against the tree, staring at the unique foliage around me, something strange happened.

I started laughing without a care in the world. It was manic, bordering on deranged as my laughter grew louder. Even now, a strangely broken smile always comes to my face when I think back on it.

I could have nearly died. I never tested if my healing factor would work while I was “de-powered,” and I could have actually died if I didn’t manage to turn them back on. I would have been dead in some god-forsaken forest in the middle of nowhere, just an ugly stain that someone else would have to clean up.

It was funny in a twisted way, though I can’t even remember what I found funny about it. Maybe it was the relief in knowing that I was still alive, or maybe I had just lost my mind altogether.

In any case, I didn’t die. I was still breathing, laughing, crying, I was doing everything I could as a living person.

I remember that I was hugging my stomach when I keeled over in a mad giggle fit, struggling to catch my breath as I rolled in the dirt like a child.

Is it sad to say that I had never been so happy to be alive before, that it took a nearly fatal fall to make me realize how much I loved my life, even with my shortcomings on Earth?

Isn’t it twisted to know that all the things I was reminded of were gone? My friends, family, everything I knew and had a new appreciation for, were on the other side of the multiverse?

That’s life in Equestria, in a nutshell. You learn so much only to remember that none of it even matters.

---

Somepony was laughing wrong.

There was a weird laugh, a really sad and bitter laugh that wasn’t a good laugh at all and felt like all the fun had died.

Pinkie Pie had a certain sense for fun things, like parties, birthdays, holidays, weddings, anniversaries, adopt-a-pet-party-days, elections, pretty much anything that had the potential for ponies to laugh. But there was something wrong in the Laugh Horse. Or did she call it the Force? No, she did for a while, but the Force sounded really forceful and not really fun since using force isn’t fun but force is a funny word if somepony uses it enough times and it begins to rhyme with horse, so she changed it to Laugh Hose and…

Too many tangents. She tried to remember TTTTTTTTTTT: Terrible tangents try to talk the time to threaten tummy time. The point was, tangents were sometimes fun, but a bad distraction.

But she really reallly wanted a distraction since something had been making her feel funny for the past month or so. And not, “Heheh, Rainbow Dash squirted milk out of her nose,” funny. It was more like, “Oh, this cookie went bad a while ago, but it’s still so good to eat and now you have a tummy ache,” funny.

She didn’t know who, what, when, where, why, how, or whom it was, but she would get to the bottom of her funny not really funny feeling and get them to laugh the right way, or her name wasn’t Pinkimenia “Rose Quartz” Diane Pie!

… Just as soon as she got some sleep for the carnival in a few days.

Chapter 3: Light a Fire Under Your Ass... Shit, wait, now my house is on fire!

I nearly soiled myself on my first day in Equestria.

I had already learned a lot about my body in only a few short hours, and I continued to learn more with each passing hour. One of the things I learned was how inefficient my costume really was.

I was able to find a zipper on the back of my costume, but it came to an abrupt stop at the back of Punisher’s shirt. Also, whoever’s crotch I had didn’t think to install a zipper or belt. The pants were fused to Sabertooth’s midsection, which in turn was connected to Captain America and Punisher’s logos.

It was a struggle, but I eventually used the symbiote to cut a midsection between my pants and abs. Once again, I was grateful for my healing factor since I ended up cutting myself while I was tearing the seam apart.

If I had waited even a moment longer, then it would have been a minor inconvenience compared to everything else that happened to me.

Aside from my wardrobe malfunction, I had a few other problems to worry about.

The sun was due to set soon and I was in dire need of food, shelter, and water. I was able to chop down over a dozen trees with my heat vision, and stacked them all like a set of Lincoln logs to make a small and wobbly cabin. Spider-Man’s webbing came in quite handy as an adhesive, allowing the trees to stick together like cement.

Spider-Man’s other abilities also proved to be essential when I was out foraging for food. His, or rather my, spider senses allowed me to discern edible plants and mushrooms from the delicious looking and lethal fruits that apparently littered the forest. Everything that looked appetizing managed to trigger my sixth sense, saving me from either a bad case of diarrhea or a slow and painful death.

Water was still an issue, but I knew humans could survive for at least three days without it. Of course, that little tidbit of information didn’t make me any less thirsty, but it helped me ignore the problem as I placed the finishing touches on my second attempt at a log cabin.

It turned out that Spider-Man’s webbing is extremely flammable, so three hours of work vanished in a small blaze. At least the trees around it had all been chopped down, so the fire didn’t spread again.

“Flame off,” I grumbled as I walked into the rickety cabin.

After taking off my helmet and cape, I set the two-piece mask aside and used the velvet cape as a makeshift blanket. I had already used my webbing earlier to make a ball of leaves from the trees, which acted as an uncomfortable mattress and pillow in my temporary shack.

I was a little proud of my shitty little cabin, but I was also too tired to care about anything other than sleeping. It took a few dozen sheep but, after a few minutes of staring at my eyelids and counting imaginary farm animals, I finally managed to slip into a comfortable dream.

I don’t remember what I dreamed about, or if I even dreamed at all. All I can remember is the light growl that stirred me from my sleep, and the sudden wolf attack that completely woke me up.

A wolf made of wood pounced on me when I was starting to rise from my bed, causing me to cry out in fear as the timberwolf lashed out and bit into my arm.

“Walloping Werewolves! Flame onFalmeonflameon!” I yelled, regaining my superhuman powers once again.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t put my mask back on, and I also didn’t think to close my eyes when I called out for my abilities. So, when all of my powers returned, a column of pure plasma shot out of my eyes, forcing me to throw my head back as the sudden blast threw me off my balance.

It easily sliced through the carefully stacked logs above me, causing the entire shack to fall down on me and the dead timberwolf. The Hulk’s super strength and my healing factors prevented any major damage, and I threw the remains of the roof off of me as I crawled out of the broken house.

My eyes were clenched shut as I used Magneto’s ability to find my helmet under the roof, using a magnetic pulse to sense the mask as I tried to wretch it free from under the fallen logs.

Daredevil’s own powers finally made itself useful by allowing me to see with only my ears and nose. It was a strange sensation to hear the world around me like a bat, but it saved my life and I didn’t have any reason to complain.

Using their growls to guide me, along with my spider senses, I aimed my eyes at one of the larger wolves before unleashing a blast of pure heat death. Of course, the downside of Daredevil’s senses once again made the itself known when I had to endure the sound of my heat vision.

I never would have guessed that laser eyes actually made a sound, but they do, and it’s absolutely painful for a blind person. Also, my other kryptonite reared its ugly head when my knees caught the cabin on fire.

I quickly flew out of the large camp fire, finally tearing the helmet free of the burning logs and securing it to my head.

The pack of timber-wolves didn’t stay for too long once they realized their two friends weren’t getting back up, and hightailed it out of the area before I had a chance to fire off another optic beam.

The baritone hum of my visor slowly died as I floated in the air. The fire had blown downwind of me, carrying the smoke across the sky as I slowly descended to the ground and waited.

I was still in a state of fight or flight, and I couldn’t relax after waking up to morning wood breath.

… … Nothing about this was funny. I tried to make it funny, write down a funnier version of what happened, forget all of the worst moments. I already avoided talking about the bears the symbiotic killed, and everything else that happened in my first day. I tried not to focus too much on writing down every panic attack and mental breakdown I had, but I need to say this now.

Nothing about my life in Equestria was fun. Every moment felt like a waking nightmare, an emotional rollercoaster of fearing for my life and relaxing near another forest fire.

For months, I struggled to with everything in Equestria, and I still have a few scars left from everything that happened. Nothing was like what the fanfics had promised. There wasn’t any glory or wonder, just bitter loneliness as I struggled to survive.

I’m sure that, without my powers, I would have died in only a few hours.

And sometimes, when I’m alone for too long with my own thoughts, I can’t help but wonder if that would have been better.

---

Everything felt wrong for Pinkie Pie.

She had woken up in a really good mood after Princess Luna visited her in a dream about a giant waffle hut that sold tiny edible houses, and it put her in a really good mood.

But there was something else lingering in the air that made her feel wrong, like a thousand smiles suddenly turned upside-down and were begging for hugs. She always felt really really really down whenever she was passing by the posters for the upcoming carnival, too.

Something was drawing her to the circus tents that had been set up outside of town, something that tickled her in a bad way. Not like a “bad touch” was, but like a, “I’m not touching you~,” way that felt irritating because she knew it wasn’t touching her but she wanted it to stop touching her even if it wasn’t actually touching her and it all made her feel un-funny funny.

Whatever it was, there was a mystery afoot, one that needed a party planner to solve!

Donning her best detective hat, the pink party planner turned P.I. Pinkie Pie decided to take matters into her own hooves and solve the mystery of the super sad something or other!

“Hey Pinkie Pie, ready for Orange’s party today?”

Right after she did her pony party planner business. Then she’d crack the case!

Chapter 4: A Sight For Sore Eyes, not laser eyes...

It’s amazing how an empty stomach and a severe lack of sleep can make a person act crazy. At least, that’s the excuse I’ll use to justify the mess I landed in on my second day in Equestria.

After the timber-wolf incident, I had no other choice but to accept the reality of my situation, which was both good and bad. On one hand, I suddenly had a direction.

I wasn’t sent to Equestria by some cosmic accident or some malicious merchant, I was needed in Equestria, I was going to be a hero, one of those protagonists who saves the world from an unstoppable threat and gets along with everypony.

Like I said, lack of food and sleep made thinking a bit more difficult, and the idea of “being a hero,” was a coping mechanism to get over the fact that I was stuck in a world of unicorns and rainbows. It was arguably better than the existential dread of being on another world that was molded after an edgy version of a cartoon marketed to young kids.

So, with a misplaced sense of confidence acting as a crutch, I searched for a way out of the forest. I had, wrongly, assumed that I was in the Everfree Forest since most stories about humans in Equestria started inside the Everfree. I would later learn that I was in Clause Forest, a holy land that belonged to the reclusive Deer Kingdom in Equestria.

How had I found that out? Well, I uh… Well, that’s where the earlier excuse comes into play.

I was flying above the forest early in the morning, feeling the wind bellow under my cape as I soared above the clouds. A few hours had passed since I woke up, and getting out of the forest proved to be a much harder task than I initially thought.

“Just fly out of the forest,” was a simple plan in concept, but almost impossible in execution. Similar to my other abilities, I had two powers that allowed me to fly and essentially one fourteenth of that power.

To put it simply, instead of flying like a rocket out of the forest, it was more like a light jog in the sky, which could become a full-on sprint if I was scared for my life. I had a pantry full of superpowers, but it was like everything was the diet version of what they had.

Still, despite being the slowest flying hero imaginable, it gave me a birds-eye view of the forest, which was also good for avoiding some of the forest’s residential monsters. Of course, there were still a few creatures who would occasionally fly out of the tree tops, like manticores.

Not-So-Fun-Fact, despite being larger than a bear, they’re more like those koalas that drop from trees, except they can also fly.

Follow-up Un-Fun-Fact, they can travel in packs too.

So, after using my optic beam to cut some down, either intentionally or by mistake since aiming in the air is hard, I returned to my casual jog of a flight and tried to find the edge of the forest.

I ended up finding something else when I heard several faint screams in the distance....

....
Instead of running into the CMC, as one often did in these situations, I found several armed deer-like creatures defending themselves from a manticore.

....
Now, as I later learned, the Deer Kingdom share a few similarities with a certain group of fictional creatures who had enslaved Equestria.vThe caribou were mentioned more frequently in fanfics than the Deer Kingdom, and I had leapt to the conclusion that they were the same species.

To be fair, I’m not a zoologist and they really do look alike!.. Shit, is that racist? Meh, accidental racism is one of my least worrying crimes. Attempted regicide is a much bigger one.

Yeah… Yeah, that’s a thing that happened…. Again, in my defense, I was hungry, tired, and not in the right state of mind to be meeting an alien prince.

So, still under the impression that they were caribou,

...
“The heart of the Punisher and Captain America bleeds in my chest, demanding swift justice and punishment for these inevitable monsters!” Terrible line, I know, but I was never a good actor.

...
My magnetism allowed me to easily disarm the would-be rapists of their weapons and armor, while my webbing allowed me to quickly tie them all up.

They struggled against the thick webs, thrashing violently as they tried to escape from me.

...
“I am… Combo Man!” I revealed.

I never claimed I was a very imaginative person. Along with being a terrible performer, I’m also an idiot and an uncreative tool. I’m the worst package possible!

… Wow, it’s hard to poke fun at myself without actually feeling depressed.

...
the forest fire had attracted the attention of the Deer King, who tasked his son and guards to investigate while he called the Equestrians to stop the fire.

...
“Sir, you’re on fire!”

“My knees burn with a deep justice!”

...
“Ha! Foul demons, scourge of Equestria, you dare try to lie to me? None can ever escape my judgment, for my pure heart shall never waver to a silver forked tongue!” I exclaimed proudly.

Chapter Five. A Shoulder To Cry On… And a hug too, if that’s okay…

It was my third day in Equestria and I still desperately wanted to go home.

Nothing was going my way at all. I had threatened a prince and probably earned the princesses’ ire, burned down a large portion of a holy forest, and I was nowhere close to finding a way out of the forest.

I ended up sleeping in a damp cave. Super senses made it a living hell inside the musky and dark echo-chamber, and it was too cold to go long periods without my powers. I barely ventured outside of the cave for fear of running into any Deer Guards or other creatures. I was sure that I could defend myself, but I was also certain that it would only add to my list of crimes.

....
“Step right up, mares and stallions! feat yer eyes on the world’s most powerful freak!” Mr. Tent shouted, prompting the light to fall on me as the curtains dropped.

A series of gasps exploded in the audience as the drank in my naked form.

I still had on my helmet and visor, hoping to protect them, but that was obscured by a potato sack that had four eye hole slits. Mr. tent said it’d make me look “better” for the crowd.

“What you see here, folks, is no illusion. This creature is a bonafide alien! Look at it’s furless body, it’s metal shins and flaming knees! And don’t be fooled, mares and stallions, that’s not paint on his arms! It’s something otherworldy!”

...
adopted a dumb voice for my persona.

“Me am… Me am Combo Man. Me strongest there am!” I yelled half heartedly,
…

I… I wanna go home… I wanna be a grown up and worry about taxes and not sell myself to a bunch of carnival ponies like an an-i-maaaallll!

....
I could have gone anywhere. Flown far away to be “free,” but there was nothing out there for me. I had already attacked the Deer king of all people, and I was certain either the gallows or a dungeon would be waiting for me if I went anywhere else.

I would also be alone again, cold and hungry, in some damp cave without anything other than my fucking knees to keep me warm.

The circus was demeaning, but they gave me so much. Mr. Tent fed me and gave me a magic bed that was flame-retardant. I finally had at least a little comfort, and all it cost was my dignity.

I was just something for them to point and laugh at. I was just a sick cosmic joke, a living accident.

...
the two-headed dragons, Devon and Cornwell.

Fire Fly was a pegasus that was shrunk down by a unicorn curse. While an average unicorn could break a shrinking spell, curses were another ball park entirely.

Basically, she could live her life as a small pony, or die from suddenly growing back to her normal size.

....
I told her everything, poured my heart and soul out to her and even told her about the tv show and fanfics. I think I rambled on for a while about the story Cupcakes, which in hindsight was incredibly stupid, but I couldn’t stop.

I just kept talking, eve as plasma tears rolled down my cheeks and nearly melted my jaw. It was an endless stream of words with no direction, and she sat through it all, nodding and occasionally giving me a hug whenever I broke down.

....
“You need to smile more, Combine. Life’s too short to always have a frowny face.

...
“But… But he was right here… I saw him, I did!”

“Pinkie Pie, I doubt an actual alien draconiqous from another dimension came here.

...
“Hm? Oh of course, it was a snap. Literally, in fact,” Discord explained to Pinkie. "He should be hugging and kissing his family as we speak."

....
“Blah, I hate those oddballs. Sure, some of them are fun for a while, but they get too chaotic even for me. He needed a good amount of actual harmony inside of him, which you provided with your hug."

"Okay... But why did eveypony else forget about him when I didn't?"

“And make you forget about your friend? Now that just sounds cruel,” Discord pouted. “Do I really look like that much of a bad guy?”
“Yup.”

“Fair point,” he shrugged before disappearing in a puff of smoking butterflies.
...
Not all heroes wear capes, sometimes, a the greatest hero is just someone willing to lend an ear.

---

And that's everything from that trashed fic. If you want to take the ideas, dialogue, anything, just PM me and you can have a partially made story ready. Also, check out some of the incomplete fics below to see if you'd want to continue where I left off. And have a great day!

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Good and evil, right and wrong, heads or tails. While many people believe in grays and in-betweens, one criminal only sees the world in black and white. Torn from Gotham and sharing a body with someone pretending to be Harvey, Two-Face forges forward to see what the techno-colored world of Equestria has to offer. Tales From the Trash Bin 3. (Two-Face)

The Dazzlings daring plan to conquer the continent with a concert of chaos isn’t stopped by a band of heroes, but by a corrupt conductor. Can the Dazzlings out preform the sinning singer, or will they join his concerto of crime? Tales From the Trash Bin 5. (Music Meister)

After finally graduating from high school, a twenty year old man is reborn as a high school student in a cartoon. What’s worse, is that he’s become debatably the worst character in it. No, not the villain, not even some random background character. He’s Flash Waifu-Stealing Sentry, and he really hates… Everything at the moment. Watch as Flash Sentry is forced to relieve the nightmare that is high-school while attempting to use what little knowledge of the show he has to his advantage. Tales From the Trash Bin 6. (Flash Sentry)

When you’ve been abandoned by everyone you love, is it wrong to lie to someone so that you can find some small sense of compassion? Sunset Shimmer’s life had taken a turn for the worse. Abandoned by her friends, she finds comfort in a misunderstanding and becomes friends with a group of rather strange humans. Tales From the Trash Bin 7. (My Street)

An Iron Golem’s one job in life is to fight evil and protect their village. Only death can stop these titans from pursuing their objective. Nothing, not even being teleported to a village full of only colorful horses in another dimension, will stop these sentinels from protecting everyone from the forces of evil. Tales From the Trash Bin 8. (Iron Golem)

The tragic end of Anon-A-Miss leads to the ominous beginning of a new threat, Onymous. Will the students of Canterlot High find the perpetrator, or will Sunset be trapped in their claws? Tales From the Trash Bin 9. (Anon-A-Miss)

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life decides to screw you over time and time again, add a splash of vodka to your lemonade to feel better. And when life decides it’s not content letting you wallow in self pity, go to a bar and meet a strangely sympathetic centaur. Tirek may not give you a shoulder to cry on, but he will give you something to wash your woes away. If you're lucky, or if you’re considerably unlucky, then he might even offer a piece of advice as well. Just don't expect it to be free of charge. Tales From the Trash Bin 10. (Tirek)

There’s a mysterious pony with an equally strange life. The mare of mystery, the walking questionable copyright infringement, the hero of all Equestria Mare Do-Well Mystery Mare (For copyright reasons) debuts with a worrying case of amnesia on her mind and a heart thirsting for justice! Tales From the Trash Bin 11. (Mare Do-Well)

Zephyr Breeze liked to consider himself as a normal person. However, after getting amnesia, Zephyr learns about his disturbing hidden shrine to his next-door neighbor and begins to question what kind of sick creep he was. Tales From the Trash Bin 12. (Zephyr Breeze)

Good and evil are not always black and white, despite what one “evil” simian has to say about it. After being defeated once again by a trio of trifling heroes, Mojo-Jojo attempts to return to his evil mountain lair and sulk. However, by some twisted sense of fate, the depressed villain is flung into another world where he crashes into a grey town full of downtrodden ponies. With renewed vigor, Mojo-Jojo plots to conquer the alien planet and return to his own world with an army standing at his side! Will the evil simian be recognized for the evil mastermind he is, or will his villainous plots reveal something else to him? Tales From the Trash Bin 13. (Mojo-Jojo)

A certain villain tries to replace Princess Celestia with a robot. Luna can’t tell which of the two is her sister. Tales From the Trash Bin 15. (Sir Ratagin)

Local Human is trapped in Equestria, and is annoyed that the only close cure to her boredom is reading books. After lamenting to Rainbow Dash, the coolest pony she knows, Rainbow Dash invites her to do something “really cool”. She would have said no if she knew it was cloud watching. Tales From the Trash Bin 14. (Erebus)

Human arrives in Equestria as Berry Punch. Unoriginal hijinks ensue. Tales From the Trash Bin 16. (Berry Punch)

A man arrives in Equestria as Thor, the God of Thunder… Except everyone aside from him can lift the hammer because he’s unworthy. Tales From the Trash Bin 17. (Thor)

A second person story following Kite Man’s adventures with a little communist pony that really likes kites. Tales From the Trash Bin 18. (Kite-Man)

Flim and Flam have Starswirl's Time Tiller, and end up meeting a few bad creatures throughout history. What could possibly go wrong for the villainous siblings? Tales From the Trash Bin 19. (Flim and Flam)

Duke Nukem, the Man, the Myth, the washed out has been has rediscover his life purpose. Kicking ass, chewing bubblegum, and stealing references while decking a few alien fucks. This is Duke Nuk-M, For Mature. Tales From the Trash Bin 20. (Duke Nukem)

(Displaced Stories)
Tales From the Trash Bin. (Dani Phantom. Pt. 1)
Tales From the Trash Bin. (Dani Phantom. Pt. 2)
Tales From the Trash Bin. (Scott Howl)
The First Tales From the trash Bin. (Pearl)