//------------------------------// // Arrival // Story: A New World... For Jack. // by Dream Searcher //------------------------------// A New World…For Jack. Chapter 1: Adjustments After his vision returned, Jack saw the colorful world he was in. It was much brighter than Earth, it gave him a feeling that he shouldn’t worry too much. Jack shook his head to help get rid of the headache and felt something lying on top of him. Jack turned his head and saw that Rainbow landed on him, and was also a bit dazed. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, after regaining her ability to move, she got off him. Jack looked around and saw all the ponies lying on the ground except for the Princess; it seemed that the spell was natural to her. After a minute or two the ponies stood up, still a bit unbalanced. Jack also wanted to stand up, but he still hadn’t adapted to his new pony form, the only thing he could do was crawl. “Erm… I can’t move.” Jack said, gaining the attention of the ponies. The Princess chuckled a bit and turned towards Rainbow. “Rainbow Dash, you take your friend here and place him in your house, he’s a Pegasus, and so there won’t be any problem. I think it’s a bad idea to take him with us to Manehattan.” Jack felt a bit insulted that she thought he was useless, but she had a point. Rainbow nodded and trotted towards him. Jack grabbed the pictures of Hugo and his parents, the gun, and the bottle of Scotch. She placed herself above him, grabbed his chest with her front hooves, and flew towards her house. “Rainbow, could you go a little bit slower, I’m scared.” Jack had to hold his belongings to his chest or they would fall. He looked above him towards her head, but she just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but this urgent, you can calm down when we’re home.” She was silent for a moment and looked around. When she found what she was looking for, she spoke with the voice of a tour guide. “To my right you see the town of Ponyville, to my left you see the city of Cloudsdale and just in front of us is my home, our home now.” Jack looked in all the directions she said. The town of Ponyville was a small town and everything and everyone was going on with their lives, nothing extraordinary. When he looked to the left he felt his jaw dropping, but he managed to close it. Cloudsdale was a giant city made of clouds, that wasn’t possible on Earth. The architecture made it look like it was from ancient Greece. Rainbow noticed his amazement. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rainbow asked. Jack only nodded; he had no words for it. “Now focus, we’re almost home.” Jack looked away from the amazing view and looked at the house in front of him, he was just as amazed as he had been just a couple of seconds ago. It was a giant cloud house with rainbow waterfalls; it was also built in the same Greek style as Cloudsdale. “Rainbow, that’s a cloud house.” She looked down at him with a confused expression. “I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re a Pegasus now, you can walk on clouds.” She looked back up and after 5 seconds they arrived at her house. They hovered above the cloud that was placed in front of her door. She let go of him and he thought he would just fall through the cloud towards the ground, but instead he felt something soft. Jack opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on the cloud and Rainbow was looking at him, a grin on her face. “You really thought you would fall through the cloud, didn’t you? Don’t worry, you’ll adjust to this world soon enough.” She trotted towards her door and took a key that was hidden in a cloud, with the key she opened the door and grabbed him again under his chest. They flew inside, towards her living room and she placed him on the couch. “Now, there is a table near you where you can place your stuff. If you’re hungry, there is some food in the fridge and the toilet is in the hallway. If you need to go to these places, then you’ll just have to crawl, but don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to walk when I get back.” She came towards him, kissed him on the lips, flew outside, and closed the door behind her. Jack was now alone. Jack looked around her living room and lay down on a red couch that could easily fit two ponies. The strange thing is that the couch wasn’t made of clouds; he’d have to ask Rainbow why the couch didn’t fall down. In front of him was a small table, he placed his stuff on the table and saw a picture lying on the table. Jack looked at it, it was a filly Rainbow Dash on the back of her father, but the mother wasn’t present. He laid himself back on the couch and looked around for any form of entertainment. There was no TV, no radio, hell he would have been surprised if there was electricity at all in Equestria. Jack went back to the table and picked up the picture of my parents. “Mom, Dad, it has been a while since we talked. I just wanted to say that you two don’t need to worry about me, I may look different, but I’m fine. I’m now in a land called Equestria and it’s inhabited by ponies, there are no humans here. I also met this amazing mare, she’s fast, beautiful, and she’s everything to me. So don’t worry about me, I’m now in a better place and I’m sure you two are also in a better place.” He had to hold back a tear, it has been very long since he talked to his parents and that was weighing on him. He placed the picture back on the table and to drown his sorrows he took the bottle of Scotch. He laid himself comfortable on the couch and opened the bottle with his mouth. After some time the bottle finally opened. “Damn hooves, hands were better.” He murmured to hisself. There were no glasses nearby and he didn’t feel like crawling towards the kitchen to get one. There was nopony nearby, so he placed the bottle between his hooves, brought it to his mouth and he drank. After a gulp he stopped and looked through a window, the sun was very high in the sky so it had to be around noon. He spent the rest of his afternoon and evening with his bottle and his memories. ***** It was 10 PM when Rainbow finally arrived at her house. The disaster was a strange device, it wasn’t larger than a hoof and it seemed to have to do something with communication, it even had a small antenna sticking out of it. Celestia had taken it with her to Canterlot to inspect it and invited the mane 6 over for a talk about Earth. It was fun and Celestia had written the information down so that Twilight could write a book about it, her very first book. She opened her door and saw that Jack was drunk and that he was singing. “Oooooooh, zay can you *hic* zeeeeeee by the dawn’zz early light *hic*.” He was singing the American national anthem. Rainbow had an amused look on her face, but then she saw the bottle. “How much did you drink?” she closed the door and trotted towards him. “Wa, who? Ah, Rainbow care to *hic* join me?” He raised the bottle with his hoof and looked at it, then he saw that the bottle was empty. “Oopzzz, better luck next time. Don’t you have any other drinkzz in here?” Rainbow shook her head and took the bottle from him then she trotted with the bottle towards the kitchen. “No and I think you had enough. Seriously, if your cutie mark isn’t a bottle of alcohol then I don’t know what it will be.” She placed the bottle on her kitchen table and trotted back to him. “That would be *hic* cool, my zpecial talent izz drinking boooozze.” He laughed and when he finally stopped he looked directly in those perfect magenta eyes. “Come here, I wanna tazte the rainbow.” Jack held his forelegs open and motioned her to come to her, she just shook her head. “Oh no, you can taste rainbow when you’re sober.” He just crossed his forelegs and blew a raspberry at her. “That’s no fun, I wanna-“ His sentence was cut off, because he fell asleep. He slumped forwards towards the cloud floor, but Rainbow had been just in time to catch him. She chuckled and laid him back on the couch. When she saw that he was comfortable, she laid herself on the couch and used his flank has a cushion. This was truly one hell of a day, but she had her coltfriend to be with her, always. ***** Jack woke up with a giant headache and a sick feeling in his stomach. He felt some breathing on his flank. He slowly opened his eyes, adjusting them to the light and looked at it. On his flank was Rainbow sleeping with a smile on her face, he smiled also until he felt his stomach turning. Jack pushed Rainbow’s chest with his left hind leg. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at him, her smile never leaving her face. “Rainbow, do you hate me?” Rainbow’s smile faded and this was replaced by confusion. She got off his flank and sat on her haunches on the couch. “I don’t hate you, why would I hate you?” Jack slowly turned his head towards the ground. “Because of this.” When he said that, he opened his mouth and threw up on the cloud floor. When he finally stopped he looked at Rainbow. She had an angry expression, but it was quickly replaced by a compassionate one. “I can’t stay mad at you and don’t worry about the clouds, they clean themselves. Now rest, I think you need it.” He nodded and laid himself back on the couch. She got up, went to the kitchen and took a bottle of water. She came back and gave it to hiù. “Drink this, it will help to get that nasty taste away.” “Thanks.” He opened the bottle, still struggling, but it gets better and drank it. He placed the bottle on the table and laid himself comfortable. He looked at Rainbow, she was again lying with her head on his lap, but he didn’t mind. “Tell me Rainbow, how is it possible that your furniture stays on the clouds?” She smiled. “Well, furniture for cloud homes is a bit different than furniture from the ground. The furniture is magically enchanted to stay on the clouds, the unicorns enchanted it, but it is only available in Cloudsdale.” “And is there any electricity here and a TV?” “Yes I have electricity, otherwise the fridge wouldn’t work. As for the TV, I never really cared about that. Equestria has TV, but most of the ponies don’t need it.” Jack felt satisfied with the answers and almost drifted to sleep, but then another question struck him. “I saw a picture of you with your father, but not with your mother. Would you like to tell me about that? If you don’t mind, of course.” He quickly added that last part as he saw Rainbow’s eyes watering and she started to look away. “It still hurts, but I’ll tell you, because you told me about your parents. You see, my mother died when she was giving birth to me, I was left with my father. It seemed that he really didn’t like me, mainly because he blamed me for my mother’s death, but I know that deep inside he loved me. Last year he passed away. He was in a storm, it was too fierce and smashed him on the ground, and he was dead before he even knew it. He was the reason why I pushed myself to the limit and I never blamed him for it.” She was now crying her heart out, Jack grabbed her with his forelegs and laid her on his chest, his right forehoof going through her mane. “I’m sorry I asked that, but if it makes you feel any better I’m here for you.” She was still sobbing, but she gave him kiss on the cheek. “Thanks and I know you will always be there for me, but now let’s get some rest.” Jack nodded and laid his head back on the pillow, sleep was going for a walk with him. ***** There was a man sitting at his desk, a cigar in his mouth. The room was dimly lit, so it was a hard to see the face of the man. In front of the man sat a smaller and younger man. “Is the device in place?” The man with the cigar asked, no emotion in his voice. “Yes sir, our MX-98 spying device has arrived in the other universe.” The younger man was nervous. “Good, do you have any information yet?” The man still hadn’t any emotion in his voice. “We know for certain that there are life sources there and from the occasional small talk our device has picked up we saw a word that always returned.” The young man was now beaming with pride. “And what was that word?” The man came out of the shadows. He had short gray hair and some wrinkles, it was clear that this man was over his fifty years. He was eager to hear the response of the young man. “Pony, sir.”