Brian left the house, and stood in awe in front of the beautiful scene before him. The sun was rising, casting morning light on some green grassy slopes. A small bridge crossed the stream, in which some fish were merrily swimming. He was still weary of that stream, after the events of last night. There were some rabbit holes and birdhouses near the cottage, which were all bustling with wildlife. As he analyzed the scenery, the Human noticed that the world he was in seemed higher in colour than any environment he'd ever seen before, so much so that it hurt his eyes.
Maybe these apples had more to their taste than just sucrose...
He flipped his petrol lighter open and lit one of his cigars, walking down the very path he had crawled on the night before. His head was spinning, both in the literal sense and the figurative one. Literally because of his concussion, and figuratively around one question.
"Where am I ?" He thought, taking a drag on the cigar, and blowing out the smoke.
Deciding to put two and two together, Brian assumed that the three 'horsemen' he'd heard the night before in the orchard were ponies too. But how and why had ponies become suddenly so intelligent, and had taken the habits and customs of humans? These ponies grew food, lived in houses, and slept in beds... "But why ?" That was the question he couldn't answer. He had many theories in his mind, each one more unlikely than the next.
After walking for about five minutes, the trooper suddenly realized that he was feeling a bit peckish. He knelt down, rested his cigar on the road, and got a small box from his butt-pack. On it, the make 'Calorie Mate' was stamped. He opened the box, got one of the shortbread-like biscuits from inside the cardboard, and took a bite. It brought back some memories of him sitting behind the scope of a high-power sniper rifle, waiting for a target, and eating these same biscuits. They didn't have much taste, but they kept him going. That was all he really asked for.
As Brian put the box back into his pack and got his canteen from his belt, he heard a trotting sound from up ahead. Instinctively, he grabbed the cylinder of tobacco and leaped to the right side of the road, doing his best to hide amongst the bushes. He got his M16, and aimed it at the road.
Another pony came into view. It had an orange coat and a blond mane and tail, around the latter two was tied a red ribbon. Having once worked with horses, Brian knew that red ribbons meant that said equines were kickers. But the weirdest feature of this pony was that it was wearing a stetson hat. Though its second weirdest feature could give the first one a run for its money; what could only be described as a tattoo was drawn on its flank. It depicted three apples in a triangular formation.
He didn't know why, but the pony struck the human as feminine. So he just assumed it was a mare. Whichever it was, it didn't strike the soldier as a threat, so he didn't shoot.
Once it had passed, Brian resumed his trekking, eventually arriving at a vantage point, from which, up ahead, he could see a small town.
It was a pretty circular town layout, and the entire village seemed to be formed around a tree, in which a house appeared to have been built. The human got down on his belly, and brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Through the lens, he saw that the entire village seemed to be deserted. After double-checking the alleys and streets, the soldier finally saw one of the equine inhabitants. And it was, to say the least, peculiar...
The mare's coat was bright pink, with a messy darker pink mane. She was skipping merrily, without a care in the world. The human, intrigued, followed the pony through the thick lens of his binos. She was bouncing about, and the movement of her lips told the human that she was either shouting, or singing some sort of tune.
She too had a drawing on her flank; this time, it depicted three inflated party balloons.
The human evaluated carefully what he'd do next. He could either go down to the village and inspect it, or he could just lay there all day, and passively wait for a Deus Ex Machina to bring him home. He chose the former.
The man made his way towards the village, turning around every ten feet or so to make sure he wasn't being watched. When about fifty yards away from the edge of the settlement, the soldier got a few twigs and branches from a nearby bush and 'decorated' his uniform with them. Then, he got back down on his front, and slowly crawled towards the village, and once inside it, he took cover behind the walls of the houses. He also got rid of his impromptu camouflage; it wouldn't be of much use here.
Peaking his head around the corner of one of the stone cottages, he examined the architectural style of the settlement. It all looked so... surreal.
The houses that the ponies (he assumed) had built for themselves all seemed to have been taken straight from a fantasy world.
The soldier slapped himself around the face several times when he spotted a building that seemed to be made out of candy. Not entirely, but the roof seemed to be made of chocolate tiles, and there was a small tower on top of it that looked like it was covered in frosting.
The human stood there, mouth wide open, staring fixedly at the building. Boy, did he have a sweet tooth. He stood there for so long that he didn't notice that somebody had crept up behind him.
"HI!" the pony shouted, causing the soldier to spin around. He readied his rifle, and aimed it at the pony.
It was that pink mare again. It started talking in an overexcited voice.
"Ooh, hi, you! Who are you? What are you? Why're you in Ponyville?" She continued screaming questions at the human, to whom these interrogations sounded more and more like gibberish.
Then, without warning, she jumped onto the human and embraced him.
"What the- get off!" He shoved the pink pony away, who somersaulted and flew for about two yards, before comically landing on her hooves.
"Okaaaaaay," said the mare, looking a little confused. But mere nanoseconds later, she shrugged it off and smiled again.
"I'll go first. I'm Pinkemina Diane Pie, but most of my friends call me Pinkie Pie, or Pinkie! I work at Sugar cube corner, that's the building there, I like making cakes but I like eating them more than anything else! It's the best cake shop in Ponyville! Did I mention that we're in Ponyville? Oh, doesn't matter, I like to..."
She went on for quite some time. Brian was doing his best to follow what she was saying, or rather shouting. All of this commotion wasn't going unnoticed, either. Lights were flicking on in some of the houses, and some sleepy-faced ponies of all colours were making appearances at the windows.
"Look-" said the human, trying to interrupt Pinkie's monologue.
"And that's why I think that Hayscartes' theory on dualism is very interresting, but I have more of a-"
"Pinkemina, I-"
"-liking for Jean-Paul Saddle's existentialist views, because I believe that everypony is constantly free, and that, like he said, 'Le Poney est condamné à être libre'1, and-"
"PLEASE, BE QUIET!" shouted the human. But by then, it was too late. Five or six ponies were already on the streets, here to witness the scene. Pinkie was gaping at the soldier, mouth wide open.
"What's your problem?" she asked, cross. "I'm just trying to be friendly, you big meanie!"
"Hey, guys!" shouted one of the ponies. "Y'all should come and see this!"
More ponies flocked to the scene.
"Well, this is just great," said the trooper, sarcastically. He gripped his rifle, just to signal all the ponies to stay away.
And before long, it seemed that the entire town was assembled around Pinkie and the human. And everypony present looked either confused or downright scared. The trooper couldn't blame them. They were all whispering to each other, wondering what the human was.
One of the ponies (two, if you count Pinkie Pie) stood out from the rest. For one thing, she was flying over the crowd. But what really set it apart from the rest was her colour. She had a bright-blue coat, and a raibow mane. Her eyes were red. Not a violent red, but rather a dark one. Furthermore, Brian couldn't seem to decide whether that one was a stallion or a mare.
With even more whispers, the crowd parted, to reveal the two ponies that the human had seen earlier: Fluttershy, and the cowgirl 'earth pony'. The cowgirl was supporting Fluttershy, almost carrying her.
"That thing there!" the cowgirl shouted, pointing an accusatory hoof at the trooper. "That varmint tried stealing some o' mah apples in the orchard last night! And look at what it did to Fluttershah!"
So the cowgirl was the tomboyish pony that the soldier had heard the night before.
"Makes sense..." The trooper thought.
At the cow-filly's accusations, everypony started whispering even more wildly.
"I already said I was sorry," Brian pledged calmly. The cowpony looked at Fluttershy, who looked down at her hooves.
"What I think Fluttershy is trying to say," the rainbow pony said, "is that mister meanie here hasn't shown that he's sorry!"
"Hear, hear," asserted Pinkie. "And, he's a big meanie!" she added.
All of the ponies had very cross expressions on their faces, now.
"Could we please stay calm about this?" the human asked, fruitlessly.
The ponies started walking towards him. And if the amateur-level ethnology he had gathered over his years of soldiering were to be believed, it was that a crowd of people walking towards you with cross faces obviously wasn't about to give you a welcome present.
But the soldier had come prepared. He ejected the still-full clip from his rifle, put it in his pouch, and inserted another one, which was loaded with blanks. Then, he raised the gun, barrel upwards, and fired a single shot, that echoed through the town, freezing the equines where they stood.
Nopony seemed to want to get close to the human. However, the blue and rainbow pegasus stood (or rather fluttered) its ground.
"Hey!" she shouted, in a voice that didn't make discerning her gender any easier. "D'you think you can scare me, ya big bully? Well I'll show you what sort of pony you messed with!" She zoomed towards the human, hooves raised.
Brian wasn't prepared for that. The pegasus' front hooves made contact with his chest, and sent him flying backwards. He landed on his back, in the middle of a clearing that the crowd had made when they had scarpered.
As he landed on his back, the soldier started wheezing for breath. These hooves to the chest hadn't done him much good. To make matters worse, the pegasus had landed on his belly, in the aim of asserting her dominance. The human, however, hadn't said his last word. He reached out his left arm, grabbed the filly by her mane on her own left, and he slammed her down to the ground. He jumped onto her, and forced both of its hooves behind its back. Then, he retrieved a nylon zip-tie from his butt-pack, and tied her hooves together.
Having won this short confrontation, he stayed there, pressing the pony's head into the ground, breathing heavily. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something orange approaching, and leaped away just in time to see some hind legs narrowly missing his head.
Falling backwards onto the cobblestones, Brian rolled over, got up, and got his pistol and dagger from their respective holsters. He held the knife with his left hand under the gun, which he aimed at the cow-filly, who froze in place.
Brian had made his point. He tried lowering his gun. But his arm didn't follow his will. It was as if he was completely paralyzed. He could still move his eyes, but nothing else. A inexplicable and strange purple aura had formed around him.
Yet another, even more peculiar pony made its appearance. This one also struck the soldier as feminine.
Her coat was lavender, and her mane was purple with streaks of pink. But that pony had something special about her. She had two wings, just like Fluttershy and the rainbow pony. But she also had a horn, sticking out of her forehead. Her horn was shrouded in purple, the same colour as the aura that surrounded the soldier. Looking around, he realized that the winged unicorn wasn't the only one with a horn sticking out of her forehead. About one in every three ponies was a unicorn.
But one more thing set the alicorn apart from the rest of the ponyfolk. The rest of them were all looking either scared, or confused. She, however, was downright shocked. She looked at the soldier as if he was something she'd seen before, and that she didn't expect to see here.
"Let go of me!" the soldier said, struggling to free himself from the pony's grip.
He mustered all of his strength into trying to move his arms. But it was as if he was trying to swim in a pool of quickly-drying cement. That image panicked him, somewhat. So he pushed and pulled harder. And with each pull and push he made, he could see that the alicorn's grip was getting weaker. At every pull and push, the mare's eyes fluttered. Her knees shook. Eventually, her front knees gave way. She was really putting all that she had in that magic grasp: her teeth were gritted, her forehead was sweating, and her eyes were shut, as people did when straining themselves. After about a minute, the aura faded, and the soldier was free. The alicorn fell to the ground, powerless.
"Impossible!" said the rainbow pegasus.
"No!" went the cowgirl.
"It- it can't be!" muttered Fluttershy.
"Anyone for cake?" asked Pinkie Pie to a nearby pony. She hadn't yet realized that Twilight was on the ground.
The human wasn't exactly pleased with himself. The unicorn-pegasus tribe leader or whatever her title was, had now been added to the steadily growing list of people and ponies who wanted his skin. He looked around, and saw that the emotional state of these ponies hadn't really improved. In fact, it seemed worse, now that their unicorn queen was out.
The soldier, while trying to fight the fatigue, nevertheless fell to his knees. He was having difficulty breathing, and a few of his ribs had been shattered by the rainbow pony's front hooves.
As he crumbled down, and saw the colour leave his eyes, he uttered three last words, before passing out :
"Need... A... Medic."