//------------------------------// // Influx Pt. 2 // Story: Sideswiped // by Smoogy //------------------------------// YEAR: 2018 MONTH: OCTOBER DAY: SAT. 20 TIME: 18:35 LOCATION: EQUESTRIA, EQUUS OXYGEN SUPPLY: 100% As you are following Rainbow through town to Twilight's place, your mind is running one hundred miles per hour. Walking on clouds? That's insane! Well to be fair, I did travel to another galaxy or possibly dimension, so cloud walking isn't that far fetched after all! And if this cloud-walking stuff comes in a bottle, when I get back home I'll be set! After a short laugh, you start to remember home, and how long it seems since you've been there. As much as you would love to say you could live here forever and become one with the ponies, you have family back home. Or, you hope so anyways. You never really thought about home that much since arriving here, as it usually isn't a good thought. You are unsure of your family's situation along with the rest of your unit. Being in the military isn't something you particularly enjoyed, but your mates were more than that, they were brothers. At this point you're so lost in your thoughts, you see the three story tall tree just in time before you walk into it face first. Rainbow is standing to your right and giving you an odd glare. "Uh, the door is over here..." She says while having a quick giggle. "Oh, right." You stammer out. As you approach Rainbow, you see the door. It takes awhile for it to click, and then you realize that the whole tree is a home! You never even thought about it until you're about to enter. Taking tree-house to a new level! Rainbow knocks on the door, and after a brief moment, it opens. You hear an obvious male voice, "Hey Rainbow, what's up?" You look over Rainbow's shoulders to see a very short, erm, amphibian of some sorts. "I need to see Twilight, I need to introduce-, speaking of that, this is Jacob. He's a human from another world!" She is very enthusiastic to introduce you to the creature. He has yet to see you, as Rainbow is towering over him. He walks around her to greet you, "Hi! My name is Spike and- Wha- wha- what in Celestia? What are you?!" "I told you! He's a human from another species!" Rainbow hollers, clearly amused by the creature's shock. You crouch down to get on his level, "Hey there! My name's Jacob," you put your hands up in a passive way, "I'm not here to hurt you, as a matter of fact, I've taken more beating here than back on my home!" Still with his mouth agape and eyes wide, "Yea- uh, my name's Spike, and uh, I'm the assistant at the library and for Twilight Sparkle." He says very quickly. "Don't take offense from this, but what are you? I've seen amphibians back on my home planet, but nothing is even remotely close to you." You have to ask, he's just too abnormal! "I'm a dragon! You don't have dragons where you're from?" He says in a comical tone. Your eyes go wider than usual, but knowing that flying ponies and unicorns exist here, is a dragon really too far out? Yes, it absolutely is! "You're joking right? A dragon? Like a fire breathing, deadly dragon? You must be a very young one if so, as I'd imagine them being much larger." "Oh, you don't believe me? I guess I'll just have to prove it to you!" He then spits out a very small amount of flame, like a lighter running low on fuel. "Wow! That was amazing!" You really mean it too, it wasn't like that in the Hollywood films, but it was still impossible back home. "Sheesh, you really are new around here! I'm only a baby dragon as you said, but if you really want a magic show, Twilight can give you one!" "I think I'll be alright for now, as much as I would love to see anything this place has to offer, I've really got to find a home or a temporary place to stay." As the words leave your mouth, you swear you saw a glimpse of sadness on his face. "Hey! Stop fooling around over there and come on!" You turn to see Rainbow waving her hand- er hoof over to follow her. "Let's head in, she seems to get grouchy when she's tired." You whisper to Spike, intentionally loud enough for Rainbow to hear though. As you walk through the doorway, you feel a wave of coolness flow through your body. You flinch, and see a purple unicorn staring at you. "Hi! My name is Twilight Sparkle, sorry if that caught you off guard, I just ran a little test to examine your magic. Rainbow told me a little bit while you were with Spike outside," She goes on and retells nearly the entire story, exactly as you had told Rainbow. "and now you're here at the library for a cloud walking spell, so you can crash at Rainbow's place?" How she memorized all that, detail for detail beats you. What's even more impressive is that Rainbow remembered that much! "Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it." "Well, I can't be too sure how this will go. You have no magic at all inside you, which is very surprising unless the world you come from has no magic." She laughs as she finishes the last sentence. "Believe it or not, we don't have magic. What we lack for in magic, we make up for with technology." You tap your watch a few times, proving your point. "No magic?! That's amazing! The technology required to replace magic must be very advanced!" "Well no offense, but our technology is indeed advanced. In relation to your world's tech, from what I've seen, you are about where we were 200 years ago." You feel like a bad ass, never in life would you anticipate bragging about your world's tech in response to an unicorn talking about magic. "That is most certainly incredible, I will have to look into your technology! By any chance, is that watc-" Rainbow puts a hoof in Twilight's mouth mid sentence. "Alright egg-head, that's enough for tonight, we need to get him a place to stay. And that means we need that necklace thing." She seems to be in a much better mood since the boutique, that or she really just didn't like Rarity. "Phftttt! Ugh, Rainbow! Don't do that, all you needed to do was just ask!" She wipes her tongue after spitting Rainbow's hoof out. She goes up the stairs of the tree house and returns in only a few seconds. She comes back levitating a necklace. "Alright, here it is. Rainbow, you need to be extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY careful with this! Don't lose it, and certainly don't trust it enough to just have Jacob try to walk on there with no worries, if he falls from that height that would be fatal!" She goes on, lecturing Rainbow. You tune it out and instead look at the rest of the library, it is very nice, a lot better than you would have imagined the inside of a tree looking like. "Hey, you ready?" Rainbows hits you on the leg. "Yep, let's get moving! I'm ready to hit the hay!" Pun intended baby! Rainbow isn't amused.