Jason gave a pained groan as the world around him became less blurry. He felt like complete shit. His head hurt, his eyes stung and he was pretty sure that he could taste vomit. Yeah, there was no doubt about it. Last nights party had really gotten out of control.
The twenty three year old groaned again, slowly standing onto his legs as best he could, only to find that he was unable to. Any time he pushed himself up onto them he fell back down onto all fours, like they were made of jelly. He grumbled softly, keeping his eyes closed for the majority of the time. They just wouldn't stop stinging! Hell, how much had he gone and drunk? Wasn't he supposed to be the 'responsible one' out of all his friends? At least Ash had decided to host the party at his house. He could imagine that the place was completely trashed knowing some of his mates.
Speaking of which, what kind of state were they in, he wondered? Knowing them they were probably in a shittier state than he was. On the bright side if that was true then at least it meant that he still counted as being the most responsible. At least according to himself. Still, it wouldn't hurt to call out, see if they were okay or at the very least responsive.
"Mike? Jack!" He called out as loud as his dry throat would allow. "Damn! What I'd give for some water!" He hissed to himself. "Hey Ash! You out there?"
"Jason? Thank fuck you're okay!" Jason heard from his left. Sounded like Jack. Dude was built like a tank and looked like the meanest son of a bitch to ever exist, yet he had the grace and charming personality of a delicate butterfly. Tough yet sweet as sugar. And at the age of twenty five was the oldest of their little group. "You've been out longest out of anyone! I'll be honest I was starting to worry man."
Shit. So much for his previous self centred thought.
"Oh please, Jason sleeps the latest out of all of us Jack! If anyone's lazy ass was going to wake up last it was his!" Now that was clearly Mike. If the sound of his voice didn't give it away, his attitude certainly did. One clear thing that could be said about the guy was that he could be a bit of a dick at times and was often sarcastic and short tempered, but there was no question about his loyalty to the group. Especially during one point he took a punch to the face for Jason at one point but that was a story for another time. He was twenty three and while not as strong as Jack, could certainly hold his own. Especially if his temper got him into trouble.
"Oh go fuck yourself Mike..." Jason groaned. "How's the others?"
"Craig and Ash are... steady." Jack slowly replied.
"We all are. Considering."
"Considering what?" Jason groaned, his eyes still closed. For a moment there was no reply. "Guys?"
"We're still here don't worry. It's just... well, maybe you should open your eyes. See for yourself."
"Uh, Jack? Are you sure that's a good idea?" Mike pointed out.
"Hey, we all managed to come to terms with it, he will too."
Mike scoffed. "Well we'll find out soon. He has to open his eyes at some point."
"Why? Is there something I should know?" Jason half asked, half demanded. The stinging in his eyes was slowly fading but considering what he was hearing from his friends, was hesitant to do so just yet. Mike spoke up.
"Let's put it this way. Either we've taken the most extreme hallucinogens know to man, or... we've transformed into a bunch of weird creatures mostly from mythology."
"I know which one I'm putting my money on." Jack commented.
Jason scoffed in amusement, believing that he had just caught onto what was going on. "Oh, okay. I get it now. You're just messing with me, aren't you? Mr. Responsible gets drunk once and you decide to fuck with him. Ha! Yeah, nice try guys but I'm not that gullible."
Jason opened his eyes and his cocky grin slowly faded into one of confusion and disbelief. For a moment he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking face to face at but standing in the spots where he had heard Jack and Mike speak from stood two strange creatures. One stranger than the other. The first one was what looked like a yak... maybe? With its fur the same colour as Jacks short ginger hair. This was the most normal of the two. The second being seemed to be some sort of weird horse mixed with an insect. With holes in its legs. And fangs. Jason blinked, unable to say a word. Surely these two weren't...
"Jason? You alright?" The yak spoke carefully while the bug gave a small yet awkward wave and smile.
He fainted in seconds. The two looked at each other then back to the body of their out-cold friend.
The bug-horse gave a playful smile. "Huh. Well at least he took it better than I expected him to."
The yak merely glared at him in annoyance.
././././././././././././././././././
THIS STRANGE WORLD
BY SWARMLORDABDONIS
././././././././././././././././././
When Jason Finally came to, again, he noticed that he was in a forest. Or rather right on the borders of one. The first thing he sensed was the warm glow of a fire. He turned to his left and saw quite the unique sight just mere feet away. A group of different animals were sitting around a small campfire. He instantly recognised the Yak and the bug-horse thing but the other two were new to him. One was a red feathered bird mixed with a lion, or to put it more accurately a griffon overall. The other was a blue lizard with wings with a pair of horns sticking out of its head. He listened to them talk.
"Seriously Jack, how in the hell are you not sweating with all that fur? Don't you feel even a little hot? Especially with the fire right there next to you?" The griffon asked in amusement.
"Hardly." The yak smiled. "The winds are enough to keep me from worrying about it."
"Yeah, thank fuck Ash can now breath fire otherwise I dunno what we would have done." The Bug-horse continued, causing the lizard to smile in pride.
"Hey, with powers like that, how can I NOT use it?"
"Guys, not to bring down the jolly mood but... can we address the elephant in the room?" The griffon suddenly asked.
"What, you mean Jack over here?" The bug -horse snorted, earning a harsh look from the yak.
"Yak, Mike. Not elephant."
"Yeah, a five hundred pound yak that shakes the ground with every step it takes."
"That's enough, both of you!" The lizard snarled, sensing an upcoming fight. "Besides, look who's up from his afternoon nap."
All eyes turned to the once sleeping Jason. Each one had either a friendly smile directed towards him or a look of relief. In order to cut the slowly growing silence, the griffon decided to speak first.
"Shit man. glad to see you're up and running."
"Yeah seriously bud, glad to see you're alright." The bug-horse nodded.
Jason couldn't find the correct words on what he wanted or needed to say. It didn't take long before his brain took in the group of strange beings before him and managed to force out a few words.
"Guys? How... what's going on?"
The beings turned to face the griffon who looked a little off out from the sudden attention. "What?"
"You're the one who knows what's going on better than the rest of us. You explain it." The lizard hissed.
"Hmpf… fine. I was going to explain it before you noticed Jason wake up but at least I don't have to be arsed explaining it a second time now." The griffon got up off of the grass and onto all fours. "Putting it in the simplest explanation possible for those with an extremely limited vocabulary..." He took a moment to look at the lizard before quickly continuing. "... We're in a cartoon."
"Or on drugs." The bug-horse added, getting a look from everyone that was either one of annoyance or confusion. "Well which one sounds more realistic to you, huh?!" He pouted before crossing his arms and sulked. "In a cartoon... of all the..."
"Anyway, as I was saying..." The griffon continued. "There's this show called My Little Pony, which I'm sure many of you have heard about at the least. I won't go over too many details since we could be here hours going back and forth but essentially according to what I've seen and what we've been turned into, my closest guess is that we've been somehow delivered, or transported if you will, into what I'm dubbing the MLP universe through unknown means. Usually the sort of thing you see happening in a fan fiction story."
"Uh huh." The bug horse mumbled. "And you claim that you're not on drugs. Fucking hypocritical idiot."
The griffon sighed. "Oh why do I bother with you?" He turned to Jason with a less irritated look. "Anyway that's the main theory we have so far."
"Also, even if we happened to be on drugs, would it even be possible for us all to be having the exact same hallucination?" Jack added.
Jason quickly decided to interrupt. He had more questions that needed serious answers.
"So... wait. Who is who. exactly?"
"You seriously can't tell from our voices?"
"Just please... answer the question."
"Mike." The bug-horse nodded.
"Ash here." The lizard continued.
"Jack." The Yak smiled.
"Which leaves me, Craig." The griffon waved.
"Fuck me..." Jason groaned in disbelief, looking down. A mistake he soon regretted as he noticed that his friends weren't the only ones who had changed. He quickly found that instead of having hands he now had two green hooves. Again, he looked to his friends for answers.
"Kind of surprised that it took you this long to notice, but..." Ash trailed off.
"Yeah, you're a horse." Mike picked up.
"Uh, pony. Not a horse." Craig stated strictly. "But then again in this case, you're more than that thanks to that horn growing out the centre of your forehead."
Jason checked the middle of his forehead with an experimental tap from his hoof and sure enough, he could feel the tough yet smooth horn protruding from him for all the world to see. He quickly snapped out of his thoughts. He could worry about his strange new body later when he had more knowledge on what was going on.
"Maybe we should move on to more important matters. Craig, I'm assuming you know most, if not everything about this... show? World? Whatever it is?"
"More or less a certified brony." Craig stated with pride.
"As long as you're not one of those crazy nutters who sleep with body pillows I don't care as long as it helps." Mike added on, causing the griffon to look away with a minor blush.
"So with that in mind, do you know what our next step is?" Jason quickly moved on.
"Yes, I have given some thought about it. Our best solution is to go down into the town not too far away from here." He pointed behind the group, showing a small town just a few hours walking distance away, causing Jason to press on with a somewhat critical matter.
"Wait, if it's just right there, then why are we here squatting over this mangy campfire like a bunch of homeless people instead of just going down and booking a hotel?"
"Hey dude, let's see how well you do blowing fire out your gob for the first time!" Ash quickly snapped at Jason's criticism on the campfire he made.
"Three reasons. One, when we all woke up it was late evening, and thanks to you fainting for a second time, we figured we may as well be better off here for the night. Two, we don't carry any bits, which is the currency of this land for those who didn't know. And thirdly, the most important reason, is because of him." Craig pointed directly to Mike who recoiled a little in surprise.
"What, don't they like black people?" Ash casually asked, earning him a look from all. Especially Mike.
"The fuck dude?! Where did that come from?!" The bug-horse all but yelled in anger.
"Guys, chill! Let Craig finish!"
"Thank you Jack. While racism does technically have a hand in it, I'm afraid its more to do with your species than the colour of your, uh... chitin. Right now, it's possible that we've ended up before Queen Chrysalis was overthrown by Thorax, the newly appointed king of the changelings, which is the name of your species Mike. Also if this time period is after the canterlot wedding then that means that most, if not all known species are highly sceptical of changelings, to say the least. Maybe if we're lucky, this is a time during Thorax's reign when all other species become more accepting of changelings. When first light breaks, we might be able to spot Princess Twilights castle which will indicate that the canterlot wedding has already come and gone, but that doesn't mean to say that we're out of the woods yet. Still, it'll be a good start."
…
"Is... something wrong?"
"You mean other than the fact that we didn't understand most of what you were fucking blabbing about? Of course not, please continue!" Ash replied.
"Yeah, I agree with Ash." Jack nodded. "Sorry Craig, I just don't speak nerd is all."
"Wait, so you're saying there's a good chance I'm going to be shot or something if I go down there?! Fuck that, I'm staying here where it's safe!" Mike added.
Craig sighed. "Okay okay, sorry. I guess I'll have to break things down more so for you all. And Mike, don't worry, ponies don't kill living sentient beings. Probably... Besides, I know a certain trick that will come in handy so that you won't have to worry about that. For now though, maybe we should get some sleep and worry about all of that in the morning."
"Thank goodness. I'm exhausted." Jack sighed happily, lying down on his back right away.
Everyone followed suite and made themselves comfy. However before they could get any rest from the bizarre events in store for them tomorrow, Jason still had one last question.
"Hey Craig?"
"Yeah?"
"In the case that this isn't just some strange dream, or Mikes stupid theory about us all being on drugs is also wrong, I don't suppose there's anything that could point to us finding a way home in this place is there?"
The griffon hesitated.
"I'm... not all too sure Jason, but I will say this. If we managed to get here in the first place then there must be a way out. And... in the case I'm not dreaming all this up too, I won't give up on it until we've exhausted every other option. I promise."
Jason smiled. Craig was a smart individual, and certainly the smartest of the entire group. Only twenty one years old, he was the youngest out of all of them, yet he was usually the most sensible after Jason. He was the type of guy who preferred to fight with his mind instead of his fists, not that he had ever been in a scrap before but he was certainly the sort of guy you could easily trust, so long as you didn't abuse said trust.
"Thanks man. Good night."
"Night dude."