//------------------------------// // An enlightening arrival // Story: Travels of a Hunter // by Reaper1543 //------------------------------// /something/ <-- means translation from Hungarian. I was floating in a dark place when i groggily opened my eyes. "Ugh, where the hell am I?" I asked myself as i tried to remember who am I and how i got here and where here is. "Okay okay first off what do I remember? I am Jack Daniel and I am 21 years old. I come from Hungary , a small country in the middle of Europe with great past but now a not- so great present. My family and me went to the USA to live because they got a good job there and life was good until a fateful night both of them died in a car accident. Pfff, yeah, an accident. Cars aren’t supposed to blow up like that so my best guess is that someone didn’t like my parents much. But I can’t do anything about that now. After that I lived alone in a small flat in New York, even though I had the large sum of money that my parents left me and the house that we had lived in. It just didn't feel...right for me to live there. I became a loner ever since but not to the point that I became anti-social or a total asshole but I gained a large amounts of smart-ass attitude so I could easily stand my place in an argument and I liked to troll if the chance was given. I was fairly tall, over six feet but next to some of the people I know I was a midget. Thankfully I had all of my clothes. Black sneaker shoes and black baggy pants with tears in it. I had a black T-shirt on and over it a black hoodie of my own design (man I wear a lot of black don't I?). I could pull up the zipper all the way covering my whole face but I could see because it had eyeholes covered with a glass like material making it look like it was a gas-mask. But I made it look like one further when I asked an...acquaintance to make the hoodie. He sewed a life like breathing chambers on it where it would normally be. It wouldn't filter anything but at least you could get air from it and it made you look badass, that's a definite plus. But now it was pulled up hiding my spiky brown hair and multicolored eyes. Now that I had my check-up and found nothing out of place I started thinking of what happened to me. "I remember going home from Dan's place. It was quite cold so I hurried but still went by foot. But then those fucking idiots started shooting each other like they were lunatics, which they probably were. Stupid gangs and their territory problems. I remember hiding behind a car when suddenly one of the fuckers got a small hand-grenade. A GRENADE. Who was the fucking idiot to sell them a grenade? Oh right, a dealer. But what was worse, the idiot had the worst aim EVER. Instead of managing to throw it at the other gang the little bastard HAD to throw it my way. The ball of death landed under the car where I was hiding next to and then a bright flash of red and white, then nothing. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. "Én…meghaltam." /I…died./ was the single sentence I said but what I did not expect was that something or someone replied to me. "Yes, yes you did. And honestly it took you long enough to realize it. I was beginning to get bored waiting for you." I whipped my head around looking for the source of the voice. Something was eerily familiar about it, like I have heard it before but I don't know where. I tried to look again but couldn't find him (I presumed it was a him because the voice was masculine sounding). "Show yourself if you dare!" I spoke to the unknown thing and heard a mock gasp of shock. "OH where are my manners." he declared and with a small cracking sound a creature I had never seen or heard before appeared before me. He looked like he was made from more than one being. He had the head of a goat maybe…hard to decide really, with two different types of horns. A deer antler on the right and a goat horn on the left. With different sized pupils and an absurdly large tooth poking out of his mouth, along with a snake-like tongue. He had big bushy white eyebrows along with a similarly white goat beard. His body was even more mismatched. He had the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat, wow talk about a freak of nature. Also he had a set of wings, mismatching ones of course. One was a bat like the other one was some kinda giant bird wing with blue feathers. He had the mane of a horse and a long serpentine tail with a…. white puff on the end of the tail? I just looked at him with a deadpan expression, not that he could see it (but I had a feeling that he could) and shook my head. "This is one fucked-up afterlife. Not enough that I die, here I am with a thing that could be the wet dream of Frankenstein." the creature didn't even seem to be bothered by my regard of him as he calmly drinks a bottle of...chocolate milk. WTF! "And who may you be and where are we?" I asked still thinking of where the hell he got his drink. "My name is Discord, my uncultured friend and we are.....well honestly I have no idea where we are. But let’s just say that we are somewhere between my world and yours. Of course you are still dead so this could be very well the Limbo as you would call it. And I have a proposion for you." he turned serious, well of course as serious as a mismatched thing with a cartoonish look could. "Yeah? And what would that be?" I asked him suspiciously as I didn't trust him yet. "Oh it’s fairly simple. I can give you another chance in life." I got caught off guard. "You could do that?" I asked in disbelief and he just flashed an ominous grin towards me. "Of course I could. It’s easy for someone as powerful as me. Heck I would even give powers you...how do you call them? 'Kick-ass', maybe? But it won’t be in your old world. You died there and even I can’t pull that off. No, you would live in a whole new world." he stated all too cheerfully and I narrowed my eyes behind my hood. "Let's say I accept, what’s the catch?" he just grinned even more (how was that possible?). "Oh but you see there is no catch. The only thing I want is just watch." I raised an eyebrow. "Now, don't give me that face. You see I can't do much as I am currently just a garden decoration, thanks to six meddling ponies” he mumbled under his breath but I didn’t understand the last part “and as such I can't do what I like to do best." "And that is?" I asked somehow not having a good feeling about this. "Causing chaos. As I am the embodiment of chaos and as such I live off of it. And before you try to send me away let me tell you. I do not want you to cause chaos, either way it would follow you since I saw the life you had. In fact I knew everything about what happened in both your and in my world." "Wow, talk about a stalker." I mumbled under my breath but he just ignored it. "So what do you say? Deal?" he stretched his lion hand towards me and I looked at him suspiciously. "Do I need to kill or anything?" I asked him and he recoiled in shock. "Celestia forbids no! I didn't ask you to be a killer I just want you to live. And if you live then I get my fun watching the events unfold. So?" I still didn't trust him but hey, it could be better than being here for the end of time. I shook his paw and agreed. Immediately he became giddy and shook my hand so hard that it early came off. "But you have to swear that I do not have to do anything that would endanger anything OK?" Discord looked at me seriously and then responded. “I swear upon my word that you will not be in immediate danger” he raised a talon like giving an oath, but what I didn’t see was his other hand behind his back his fingers were crossed. “Now, are you ready?” he asked me and I nodded but then a thought popped into my head. "Wait, you said something about powers. What are those?" I asked him and he just grinned while shaking a finger at me. "Ah, ah, ah now where would the fun in it if I told you now? I will just let you figure them out." I shot a withering glance at him but he ignored it. "Now I will send you off. But I have to tell you to not be afraid of the inhabitants of the world okay?" I was confused about this ad didn’t notice him making a fist with his lion arm with black shadows coming off of it. I was too occupied by my thoughts as he suddenly appeared next to me startling me as he readied his arm. "Whoa, whoa wait just a minute. What are you doing?" he just grinned and took a swing at me. "This is good-bye. May we meet again. Oh and if you ever meet someone like me then say hi to him for me okay? And this is for calling me a wet-dream. Bye bye! And ANOTHER thing, watch out for him." and with that he gave me a haymaker knocking me out and sending me through a pink portal that was leading to my new destination. Discord looked proud of himself for his punch then as a thought entered him he snapped his fingers and a black back-pack appeared in front of him. He grabbed it and threw it into the closing portal. And with a small malicious smirk he finished his send-off. "Have fun with your new life. I know you will." Equestria: near the Dominion/Gem Fido border I arrived with a large crash but strangely nothing broke in my body. But I didn’t think about that I I was losing consciousness fast but when I looked up I saw that from the portal a black something fell out and hit me right in the face covering my already blackening vision. the last thing I heard was someone speaking near me with a female sounding voice. “Now, what manner of creature are you?” she asked me but for obvious reasons i didn’t answer as I was already in the land of dreams. . . . Pain. Utter and undeniable pain. That was what went through my head when I woke up. My head hurt so much that it was a wonder that I was conscious at this moment. I opened my eyes to see everything in a blur. “Ugh, what a dream. I must have drank something reeaallyy strong to make me have a hangover like this. My head feels like it had been hit with a studded baseball bat, a lot.” but my tirade was cut short as I heard something coming towards me. The strange thing was that it didn’t sound like footsteps but more like, hoof steps? The hell? I tried to focus on the source of the noise but I couldn’t do it as I still only saw various blotches of colors but whatever that thing that was coming towards me was, it had a lot of black and white on it. It stopped close to me and started to speak in a soft melodious voice. “You must be careful stranger, as your body is still hurt. Here drink this concoction, for it will make you sight and mind clear.” I was hesitating a bit as who knows what could be in that but seeing as I had no other choice because my head was slowly killing me I slowly sat up carefully accepted the bowl that was handed to me (tho how I could get it was a mystery to me) and drank it. The effects were near immediate. Slowly but surely the headache went away and my vision cleared and I saw that I was in some sort of hut. “Strange, I don’t remember that there would be any hut in New York. Where the hell am I?” but nothing could prepare me for the incoming heart attack when I saw what gave me the bowl. A Zebra. An honest to god Zebra was sitting in front of me looking at me with patience and curiosity. But I suddenly felt that something was different. What It was I could not put my finger on it, oh well, it can’t be that important can it? I had more important stuff now than thinking about it. Mainly openly staring at the Zebra In front of me who was still waiting patiently. “Did you give me the bowl?” I asked and got a nod in response. I felt a sudden breeze on my fur but paid it no attention. “Did you talk to me before?” another nod. By this time my mind delivered me the information that I was only in my boxers but something even more important. I had fur, FUR! What the fuck was fur doing on me? I looked at my hand and noticed that It was very, VERY different from that of a human’s. First off it was covered in short, black fur with a secondary color of….neon-green? With awesome tribal lines, might I add. But that wasn’t the only strange thing about it. It was slimmer than it was when I was a human, but didn’t feel weaker. And now that I see it I have only four fingers instead of five. I looked down my body and saw that the same thing was everywhere. Black fur, green markings oh and by the sings I have a snout. Jolly good! Just what the hell did I become? With growing horror I looked under the blanket and saw that I had a tail. An honest to god tail- It was long and kinda bushy, but not overly so. It looked like it would belong to a dog…but it was long like a cat’s. Now this is just getting plain weird. But the icing on the cake was when I felt my ears twitch. Slowly, ever so slowly I reached up and touched it. It was definitely non-human as it felt like a dogs, or even something from a wolf. This was the point where I couldn’t take things anymore. WARNING, WARNING internal process of information ended in failure. System is overheating. Would you like to restart? Y/N Well lets try this: Eeny Meeny Miny Moe “Yes it is then.” Thank you for choosing the restart option. Have a nice day. And thus finishing my internal melt-down of my brain due to the impossibilities of things I just experienced I fainted and fell back to the bed. The Zebra meanwhile just groaned and rolled her eyes. “Sheesh, did he really have to do that now? He acts like he had never seen a zebrican in his whole life. Sigh, I will have to wait for him to awaken again now.” and with that she laid down next to the bed and waited for me to wake up. Hours later I awoke again with another groan rousing the sleeping zebra from her slumber as she slowly rose up into a sitting position waiting for me to properly wake up. When I opened my eyes I still didn’t see the bland white ceiling of my flat, no what I saw was the ceiling of an all-too familiar hut. “Please let that be a dream, please let that be a dream…” I chanted the mantra in my head but when I looked side-ways I saw the still sitting Zebra there “Fuck.” I sat up and looked at her. Neither of us spoke up and honestly I was starting to get a bit annoyed with the silence. With nothing better to do I observed her closely and I had the feeling that she did the same. The first thing I notices were her unnaturally large electric blue eyes. And not the bland ones like on color samples but those ones that are made with computer graphics. Although how the hell was that even possible I had no idea but it looked awesome and the best thing is that I could almost see them glowing, neat huh? But moving on, her mane was styled like a Mohawk, adding an ever growing African feeling to her. Her fur was beautiful white with black stripes across it, strangely the stripes looked like there were in a slight of a zigzag pattern and the black didn’t seem fully black, like there was a bit of….deep blue sheen in it. On her flank was a cool looking tattoo of a tribal styled lightning bolt with the same black and blue-ish coloration. Her tail had a solid zigzag pattern of stripes unlike the slight ones on her coat. But what I didn’t expect her to wear jewelry. In her right ear there was a small golden earring. Strange but that didn’t change the fact that this was an awesome zebra in front of me. Having enough of the silence I spoke up. “So… you can talk.” I asked awkwardly and she just rolled her eyes at me, I mean really, what kind of animal rolls his or her eyes? This place is getting stranger and stranger with every waking moment. Not only I am something I wasn’t but now this Zebra is rolling her eyes at me. “I think that we have already gone through that path and I swear that if you faint again I will hit you.” oh, so she wants to threaten me now? I like that, she got guts. “Ohhh, you really scared me now. I’m shaking, can’t you see?” I taunted her but I didn’t see the evil glint in her eyes and when I closed my eyes at the end of my taunting session she stealthily pulled out a big stick from…somewhere that only this land gods know and hit me with a mighty swing. TWACK “The hell!” I cried out nursing my head where the impact zone happened to be. I looked up and saw the smirking offender in front of me with a stick in her hooves. “What was that for?” I asked indignantly and she just smirked more. “Don’t mock me and I don’t hit you. Now, just what in Equestria are you? I can honestly say that I have never seen or heard anything like you.” she asked and I answered “What I am, my equine friend is….i have honestly no idea of what I am.” I stated and she just quirked an eyebrow at me. “You don’t know what you are? How can that be?” she asked me and I just shrugged my shoulders. “Dunno, may have something in common of how I arrived. By the way do you have a mirror or something? I would like to know how I look like.” she nodded and got me a mirror from somewhere. She gave it to me and I looked into it. Yep, that’s definitely a muzzle there. Not too big but not too small. My eyes remained the multicolor that they were but my hair…well it became black like my fur but with the green stripes in it. If I have to say it looked awesome, not to mention it was longer than when I was human. Not much but the difference can be seen. I tried to stand up, with the keyword being tried. As soon as I stood up I lost my balance and fell forward falling flat on my face. “Ouch.” I mumbled while massaging my newfound muzzle while the mare giggles at me. I looked down to find why I fell and saw that my leg had changed too, something that should have been obvious. My legs were like and animal’s, like a cat’s or a dog’s so basically I am tip-toeing all the way. Great. But otherwise my legs were a lot longer than I remembered so that means that I probably gotten taller. Basically I became an anthromorphic human who was built for speed if my deduction was right. I will have to test that later but first, I tried to stand up again and this time I managed to do it, albeit shakily. Decided that I wouldn’t try my luck with falling down again I sat back down to the bed and remembered that I had a host whom was still watching me without a word. “Sorry. And now that I have that out of the way, may I ask what you are and where we are?” “Well, I am a Zebrican and you are in my hut.” she answered with a cheeky smile. “Oh, ho we got a real badass over here!” I answered in a deadpan voice making her smile more. “But really now, where am I?” I asked seriously. She got up and moved towards a small table that was not far from her. She produced a medium sized paper from it and brought it to me. It was a detailed map of what I guessed was this place. But there was a teeny little problem with it. “Umm, not to bother you but there are some problems miss… now that I think about it we didn’t really get introduced to each other didn’t we? Well to start off, my name is Jack Daniel. You can call me either Jack or Daniel I don’t mind. Now, may I ask your name fair lady?” I introduced myself and watched as a faint blush appeared on her cheeks. “Cute… wait, where did that come from?” “You can call me Lightning if you want.” she introduced herself and I nodded. “Thanks, and now that that’s out of the way, can you give me back my clothes please?” I asked her nicely, I mean I had my underpants on but come on! I want my diminished dignity restored a bit (if that is even possible) She just laughed and nodded walking away to another part of the hut. Meanwhile I used my time to look around the hut. It was a fairly simple one with not many stuff to look at. The only thing really mentionable was a wooden mask of a snarling face painted with red and black colors. In the middle of the hut was a small empty cauldron with the aforementioned table next to it. Other than that, nothing else worth mentioning. “She must live alone here, and probably don’t have many friends either.” I thought to myself as I watched her coming back with my stuff. She placed them down and I immediately put on my shirt and pants.Strangely, my clothes had been modified to fit my new form. That guy really managed to do everything, huh? But when I looked at the rest of the things she brought here I noticed something else there. “Huh? What’s that?” I asked as I pulled the mysterious item into my lap. It was a black one shoulder back-pack with a neon-green Biohazard symbol on it. It had only two pockets but oh well. “Neat but this isn’t mine, where did you find it?” I asked Lightning and she just shrugged, more impossibility I’m sure of that. “I found it with you, actually it was on your face so I brought it with me.” she explained to me and I had a nagging thought that this Discord fella gave it to me. I decided to open it and look if there is something inside it. I opened the bigger pocket and looked inside it. There was nothing else other than a paper note in it. Látom megkaptad a táskát. Nos lenne néhány tudnivaló róla amit el kellene mondanom…de nem fogom! Szóval ennyi. Csak azt mondom el, hogy ebből a részből bármit elő tudsz venni a másikban pedig bármit tudsz tárolni A többit meg találd ki te. Sok sikert kis sakkfigurám. Remélem sok izgalmat hoz neked az új életed. Ja, a tároló részben hagytam neked pár dolgot aminek örülni fogsz. U.I.: Ez az üzenet öt másodpercen belül megsemmisíti önmagát. /For the English readers to understand the message was this: I see you received the back-pack. Well I should explain some things about it…but I won’t! So, ha. But I will tell you this, from this pocket you can pull out anything you want and in the other you can store anything. The rest is up to you to figure out. Good luck my little chess piece. I hope your new life will bring will be interesting enough. Oh, and in the containing part I left some things for you which you will like, I’m sure of that. P.S.: this message will self destruct in five seconds./ My eyes widened at the P.S. and I dropped the paper like it was plague itself and true enough it went out in a brilliant orange fire. Lightning yelped in fright not expecting this and I just looked at the smoldering pile of ashes on the floor. “What in Celestia’s name was that?” she cried out to me while staring at the small, now innocent pile. “A gift.” was my simple reply and she raised an eyebrow at me in confusion. “A gift? What kinda gift goes up in flames?” she asked incredulously and I just grinned. “An awesome one. And it wasn’t the paper what was the gift but this back-pack.” I held it in front of her. She just looked at it quizzically not understanding what can be so good about that piece of fabric. Although the symbol on it interested her other that there was nothing peculiar about it. “Sooooo, what can it do?” she asked me and I put on a thoughtful face. “Well if what the note said was true then…” I trailed off as I focused on one thing that I wanted to pull out of it. An apple. A simple apple would be the test. I opened the bag and much to my amazement pulled an apple out of it. Lightning however were not so amazed by this feat. “Wow, an apple. This is some great gift I can tell.” Ah, sarcasm, my greatest enemy and friend in one. How I missed you. “Har de har very funny, O’ Queen of sarcasm. This was only a test. Now I need something to drink.” And with that I simply pulled out a bottle of Hungarian Brandy (Pálinka). It was in apricot flavor. Well, normally I am not one to drink too much but I think that the situation present enables me to drink a bit. Lightning watched me curiously as what I am doing but deadpanned when I took a large swing of it. I took large gulps of it (something that shouldn’t be done as that stuff can be strong if it’s made like that, fun fact: that stuff can have alcohol content of 86% ) and when I finished I shook my head to get the burning feeling of my throat and tongue away. “Whoa, this is the real stuff all right.” I said to myself while my temporary audience still looked me like I was an idiot. “What?” I asked her impatiently and she just shook her head. “Nothing, just watching you, by the way what is that stuff?” she asked and I held the bottle to her. “This is called Pálinka from where I am. But be careful. This stuff packs a punch if you drink too much. But you know what? Fuck it, just try it.” And with that I gave the bottle to her and she started downing the alcohol. After some big gulps she immediately pulled it away and started breathing hard. I laughed at her when she tried to shake the burning feeling away, just like I did. “Yuck, this is disgusting. I feel like my throat is burning. How can you drink it?” she questioned me with tearful eyes and I just laughed harder. Saying nothing I pulled out two small glasses and showed them to her. “Well, usually we drink this stuff from these glasses and not in big gulps like you and I did.” I explained and if looks could kill I would have died that instant. “Oh? And care to tell, why didn’t you tell me about this tiny detail?” she asked me in a dangerous tone, normally the one that makes you reconsider whatever you wanted to say, but clearly this wasn’t the case for me. “I just wanted to see your face. And boy, I am glad that I did. It was hilarious!” but as soon as I finished I realized the mistake I did. With murder in her eyes she leaped at me and gave me a full body tackle. Let me tell you one thing. A tackle, like the one I just got from her not only knocked me backwards but it left me breathless. But there were some strange things that I had noticed about the tackle and the afterwards. The first thing was that I felt a brief discharge of electricity when she hit me. Nothing much, just a minor shock. The closest thing I can relate that are the sparker parts of the electric lighters. You know, those things with the small cable and the button that shock you when you push it? Yeah, those. And the second thing was after the initial impact. She started to shake me by my shirt. BY THE SHIRT!! I mean, how the hell does she do that? She has HOOVES!!! Not fucking fingers, but freaking HOOVES!! But this all went down the drain when the back of my head connected with the wall of the hut….repeatedly THUMP "OW!" THUMP "OW!" THUMP "OW!" THUMP "OW!" “STOP IT!” “Watch it okay? I still want to be able to think after this.” I whined and she let me go and got off the bed “Okay, maybe I should have warned you more, but look at it from my point of view, it WAS hilarious.” but I quickly stopped anything more as I saw her glare. “All right, all right I’m stopping…. but I’m still thirsty” I said with a cheeky grin and quickly dodged the incoming apple, the same one that I pulled out from the back-pack. “Sheesh, can’t you take a joke?” I asked her but she refused to answer. I just shrugged and pulled out a can of ice-cold Coke from the bag and opened it. She watched me with curiosity as I drank the chilling drink. I finished with a satisfied sigh and leaned back. I saw her looking and pulled out another one for her. “Want one? This is non-alcoholic but it has carbon-dioxide so it will feel…bubbly.” she contemplated my offer and after a time she nodded uncertainly. I opened it to her and she accepted it, holding it in her hoof “How the hell does she do that?” I asked myself and watched as she took a small sip from it tasting the drink and then a larger gulp. When she swallowed however she started giggling. To my amusement she dropped to the floor nearly spilling the beverage and giggled more. “What is it?” but she didn’t reply as she was still giggling. “It-it tickles.” she answered finally and I arched an eyebrow. “Tickles? Where?” “My throat, as it went down it tickled all the wa-BUUUURP!” Now, this is something I wasn’t expecting. But considering that drinking soda comes with a particular side effect it was somehow satisfying to watch her go embarrassed with pink coloration slowly taking over her facial features in the form of a blush. “Well, well, well, someone can’t hold it in?” I taunted a bit but she was too embarrassed to glare at me. She only managed to produce a smaller belch to make herself even more embarrassed. I gave a hearty laugh and she started to smile too and then it went into a full-blown laughter as she joined in. We laughed for a while and for the first time since I came here I felt truly happy. However the laughter was soon silenced when I made a large belch myself and we did nothing than just look at each other in silence. Then I started to snicker and soon we were again laughing to our hearts content. But something unexpected happened, I had the sudden urge to sneeze, mainly because of the air that went up my nose (you all should know that feeling). I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to make the uncomfortable feeling go away and while it usually worked the itch now was unusually stubborn. “AH!” “AH!” By this point Lightning backed away from me. Not because of a simple sneeze, but because what was happening to me. I didn’t see because of my closed eyes but if I had them open I would see some kind of black smoke rising from my form and one could make out the faint form of a halo over my head, made out of the same black smoke. Poor Lightning had no idea what was happening but she didn’t dare to speak. “ACHOO!” and while sneezing I had a feeling I did not expect in a hut. The peculiar feeling of rushing wind. When the feeling subsided I was surprised by landing on my ass on the hard floor. “The hell…” I opened my eyes just to trail off. For I was no longer sitting on the bed but near the door, which was on the other side of the hut. I saw Lightning sitting and staring at me with awe and shock and I could sympathize with her. Then I realized what happened. Beyond all reasonable things to happen, I somehow teleported. But I had more important matters to attend now. Mainly the darkening edges of my vision, signaling, yet another fainting process in the making. “That. Was. AWESOME!” I managed to yell out before darkness claimed me and I slumped to the floor. My last coherent thought was something like this “Well, maybe this won’t be so bad.” And with that, I went into the land of unconscious. Lightning just face-hoofed and started dragging me to the bed. “Can’t you do anything else than fainting?” Well, here it is. My first ever pony fanfic and in the chess universe too! I got the permission from Rust to use his and BlackWing's ever growing universe.