The knife looked as harmless as he did, just some middle aged guy with a harmless looking knife. But any weapon that could change its shape like that had to be dangerous and the person wielding it more so. I would have to be careful.
We stood staring at each other, neither one of us making the first move, but I felt like neither one of us wanted this fight. We would have probably stood there for hours if we hadn’t been interrupted. The door handle glowed a gentle blue before turning and opening.
“Alex darling, Princess Luna just sent a message that he should be awake n-” She froze at the scene before her, me backed into a corner, arms raised defensively. Me with my short blades no longer then the length of my pointer finger and Alex with a huge dagger. She turned that almost scowl on Alex, making him quickly sheath his blade. She turned and frowned at me, her expression as disgusted, and I sheathed my blades.
That’s when it struck me, everything looked wrong. Actually not so much wrong as different. Everything was brighter than it should be and more animated. Not moving animated but animated like a cartoon, even ‘Alex’ looked as if he had been drawn by a cartoonist. Yes, he was more detailed than your average cartoon but he still wasn’t quite right. It was like that style they used for the animated Lord of the Rings in the seventies, what was it? Oh ya, rotoscoping. Everything looked like it was a super high quality rotoscop animation.
This thought almost immediately was knocked out of my head by the realization that he had just been addressed by Rarity. The Rarity. A pony from the “My Little Pony” cartoon. I felt myself getting slightly light headed. ‘She’s beautiful. No, not beautiful exactly, more cute in a very feminine way. She definitely didn't look this good back home, even in HD.’ I had visited four realities so far, all of them fictitious from my point of view but aside from the second one that I visited (and from my point of view had created) they hadn’t hit me this hard.
How was this even possible? It wasn’t, the science here wasn’t even real… was it? Every world obeyed the same rules and laws of science. While those rules could be bent, they couldn’t be changed or broken, right? I could see the world swimming in front of my eyes and the discussion sounded like it was underwater.
“He’s dangerous Rarity. Look at him, just look. He’s a soldier.” My head started to clear, things were coming into focus now and even my thinking seemed less muddied than before. Alex continued, angrily pointing a finger at me while facing Rarity, “If that’s not mil spec,” he grunted in frustration, “military specification equipment, the armor, the built in weapons, I don’t know what is. I know what kind of casual destruction my species is capable of. I know I have to give him a chance, but I’m not about to unleash a monster on you, sure as hell not on Dash and Scoots, not on anyone.”
“Shining Armor is a soldier, and you know he is a dear. Princess Cadence would never have married him if he was anything less. It was an wonderfully glamorous ceremony…” she sighed then clicked her tongue, “Well the second one was after we dealt with that horrible mess from the changelings.”
They were busy arguing, totally ignoring me. I couldn’t believe how detailed everything was, yes I was in a cartoon but this world was in some ways just as detailed as a real reality and yet it was still animated. For the billionth time I wondered if this was all just a dream, the last thing I remember in my own reality was hitting the pavement really hard, this could all be some coma fuelled dream. But if it wasn’t than everything I did mattered, and I wasn’t ready to die yet. I’ll die on my feet doing something good that will be remembered, I refuse to be executed for being something I’m not.
”I’m not a soldier, I was shown how to fight but I never fought for anything other than the safety of myself and those around me.” They didn’t even glance at me, I suddenly wished Pinkie Pie was here. This was turning into a show and I felt popcorn wouldn’t be out of place. I had to shake my head to clear that thought, I had no clue where it came from but I was sure I couldn’t handle Pinkie Pie yet. ‘Don’t think her name, it’s like saying Betelgeuse three times, if I do it again she’ll probably pop out from under a pillow or something.’
“He kills for a living, he might even do it for fun. Rarity, he could kill us in our sleep, who knows what he could do! He could even try to kill the Princess.”
First a soldier now an assassin… this guy had a wonderful way of assuming the worst about me, I briefly entertained the thought of using him for target practice. I opened my mouth to defend myself but found myself silenced by a mere glance from Rarity, I could tell she wanted me to wait until she finished, who was I to interrupt a lady anyways?
“By that reasoning Alex we should have thrown you out of Ponyville the second we saw you. But we showed you compassion and gave you the chance to prove what a gallant knight you are or were we wrong about you?” She started taking steps towards him, he stepped back towards me, as if he were suddenly wary of her.
“No of course not, but-”
“No buts Mr. Roberts! You are a citizen of Equestria now, and a Paladin as well. Helping strangers is part of that, now are you one of us or not? Show some Ponyville hospitality to the dear.” Alex flashed Rarity a glare that said they would be talking again later. He turned to me and swallowed, probably his pride, giving me a slightly embarrassed smile before extending his hand towards me.
“I’m Alex Roberts, welcome to Ponyville. These people are under my protection, as are you.” I took his hand and shook gently, I doubted I’d be winning him over any time soon but I was relatively sure he wasn’t going to slit my throat the first chance... Maybe I’ll sleep in full armor for a few weeks, just to be safe. I found the idea of him offering me protection touching but slightly ludicrous. I mean seriously? I’m wearing my own weight in armor and if something is too much for me to handle I doubt he’ll stand a better chance.
“Mathew Brennan, no rank, service or serial number. This is a modified combat flight suit. In case you didn’t notice when I shift realities or whatever you call it I typically end up more than a few metres in the air and exit at your average city speed limit. I’m not a soldier, assassin, hunter, murderer or arsonist and I even pay my taxes. Do I still deserve to die or can I have a chance to discover the magic of friendship?” I did my best to drop the bomb on him as discreetly as possible, I don’t know if he had spoken to them about their being fictional or if he even knew, either way I felt it was best to keep it quiet. The look of sudden curiosity in his eyes told me that he recognised the reference.
“You watched My Little Pony?” He sounded skeptical, not many twenty-six year old men watched that show.
Rarity rolled her eyes, “Oh, no. Not that dreadful... what did you call it? Tee Vee show? You were an aficionado as well?”
I looked at the metal masterpieces that are my boots and tried my best not to sound like too much of a fan boy. “Yes,” I chucked involuntarily as the reality of the situation sunk in, “I am, I’m kind of a hardcore fan. I would really like to know if everything is similar to the show it is at least. I’m curious how close everything is to the fanon, do the fan names match up to everyones real names, how about the fan insights, timeline? What about-” Yeah, I guess I kind of got too excited about it. But how would you be if you got dumped in a reality based off a show that always made you smile, even on your worst days? Hell I don’t think that words can express the shit eating grin I had plastered on my face.
“Darling, please! You’re sounding like Lyra does about humans, please calm down.” I blushed in embarrassment and out of the corner of my eye I could see Alex with his face buried in his hand.
“Heck I’ve even written fiction set in this universe.” Rarity gave me an uncomfortable look,
“Oh, don’t worry Rarity. Nothing I’ve written involved anything… Uncouth, or involved anyone you know.” She seemed slightly relieved, but still uncomfortable probably at the thought of someone writing the lives of ponies who may or may not exist. Little did she know that thought left me uncomfortable as well, well that and wanting to see if those characters even existed.
Alex smirked, “I’ll tell you what I learned about the show and the reality here. They skip out on a lot of stuff, change the context, reorder some of what happened, and do all kinds of editing to make it kid friendly.”
“The best example is Pinkie Pie.” I shudder at his mentions of her name and look around, expecting her to pop up at any moment. “On the show, they present her as a spastic crazy all over the place party pony. While she does love parties, did you know she prepares all the food for her parties? She also invented her party cannon. A device that can decorate a room, without using traditional magic, just really complex pony engineering. Even Twilight has a hard time following the technical stuff involved for that thing. The funny thing, most of the time, what I talk to her, she’s a smart, funny, insightful pony. But,” he chuckled, “she does tend to hop instead of walk.”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “What I’m saying is, don’t rely on that damned show for much. I’ll tell you this, they’re all far better people than you would expect them to be based on nothing but the show. So, you want to know what the difference is? Everything. The personalities are kind of right, but they were only shown at their funniest, not their best.” He smiles warmly at Rarity.
Well, that answered my question and it seemed to reassure Rarity, but killed the conversation. It was useful information, I wasn’t as well informed as I had hoped but I still had a head start. Hopefully it would be enough to keep me from making a complete idiot out of myself.
With timing you would expect in a cartoon reality there was a knock on the door, as a side note let me just mention that hooves make for very loud knocking. Rarity trotted over to the door and opened it, out in the hallway were three ponies, two I recognised and a stallion I had never seen before. First entered Applejack, followed closely by the light blue stallion with a well groomed dark blue mane and finally, hesitantly entered Bon-Bon.
“Alex, sugarcube. Are you okay? Elusive here came to the farm and dragged me away from my bed to come make sure you were okay. Big Macintosh was not impressed with him,” she chuckled a low chuckle and flashed a warm smile to the stallion, “even less than he already was. Anyhow, he said something about you sitting here in the dark, playing with your knife and muttering something about ‘the cost of protecting innocence’. He was worried that you’d go and do something foalish and judging from that there human in the corner I’d say I got here just in time.”
I waved and managed a small smile, “Hi.”
“Howdy” She tipped her trademark hat in my direction before looking back to Alex with an easy smile, “You didn’t do anything to tarnish the Apple name now, did you?”
“Just a misunderstanding on my part Applejack, nothing to worry about. Things just got a little heated between us, but Rarity helped bring us to our senses, right?” I got to hand it to Rarity, she understood my silent plea and attempt to save face and responded in perfect form.
“I simply brought fresh air into closed room and reminded the windows to open. They were both simply under stress, this situation can hardly be easy for either them. Now, as fabulous as I am, darlings, I still need my beauty sleep.” With a flirtatious smile she trotted out of the room, practically glowing with feminin allure. Applejack rolled her eyes at us and shot Elusive a bemused glare. She even even took a moment to make eye contact with me.
“Honestly fellas, do you think you can think with something other then your willies? Especially you, Elusive,” she gave the stallion a wink, “when y’all got me right here.”
“Hey!” We all protested in unison and treated her to glares of our own. Applejack was saved from being skewered by three sets of glaring eyes by Bon-Bon clearing her throat at the back of the room, she looked uncomfortable being there and I had a feeling she didn’t want to be here.
“Ah, that’s right. Alex, from what Elusive told me I doubt... I’m sorry sugarcube, what’s your name?”
“Mathew Brennan, you can call me Matt or Mathew, or whatever you’d like to call me really. I’m easy that way.”
“Alrighty Mathew Brennan, I’m Applejack. Pleasure to meet you. Like I was saying I don’t think it’d be a good idea for Mathew to stay with you at your place and I ran into Bon-Bon on the way over here. We had a quick discussion and came to a conclusion. We’re going to have him stay at their place, that also bucks two trees with one hoof. He’ll have somewhere to stay where we can keep an eye on him and he’ll have two ponies close by to keep his exposure to magic down.”
I could feel the cooling systems kick in as I began to sweat.