*Beep Beep. Beep Beep.*
I woke up slowly to my alarm sounding from my Pip-Boy. Lifting my arm up, I turned it off and groggily got up from my sleeping bag.
Looking around outside my tent nothing seemed to have changed. I put my helmet on and started to pack up camp, but an Idea sprang to my head.
‘What If I transformed this camp into a fortress?’ I shook my head at my own thought. Bad idea, too many resources would go into something I don’t currently need. I have a fucking pocket dimension with me right now anyway.
“What to do,” I said to myself, ”Maybe I could see if I can find my way out of these woods?” That’s exactly what I did. I got all of my gear ready, making sure to erase every trace that I was here away. That took about thirty minutes, as I was still pretty sluggish after waking up so soon, I was never one to wake up early, as I always stayed up until the sun rose. I have always preferred the peace and quiet of the night, it was always so relaxing. But I digress, I just hope nothing happens to hinder my progress towards my goal.
The trek through the forest was uneventful, to say the least. Nothing really happened aside from the occasional curious wild animal looking at me. Needless to say, I didn’t pay much attention to my current surroundings as I was walking along minding my own business. I did eventually come to a rope bridge that looked like it has been there for the past 300 years which I somehow managed to make it across safely, it was probably magic.
About half-way through my journey, I stopped to rest and read the books I had picked up. I started with the one on smithing, seeing as I needed to know how to fix my own gear up one way or another. Reading through it I see a page on shields and what type of wood is effective for certain designs which could come in handy later, you never know. After reading for about forty- five minutes I close the book and store it away. I have already come up with a few ideas myself which involve reinforcing my chest piece. The one idea I am very fond of is adding some shoulder protection, much like the Elite Riot Armor from New Vegas because I only have cloth to cover my shoulders.
I shake my head at those ideas, ”I need to focus, even if I do make it out of the forest alive I can’t guarantee I can make contact with the ponies who have what I need.” I lift up my Pip-Boy once again to see if I have any metal scrap. I don’t, I am positive that there is some form of metal scrap I can get my gloved hands on.
I get up from the rock I was sitting on and start walking. Much of the same, wild animals giving me odd looks, etc. I had been walking for about 4 hours in total now, hopefully, I will be out soon. I can always camp out again if I need to.
It was then I realized something extremely important. Where the Hell am I going? I honestly can’t tell what way Ponyville is in.
‘If I can find Zecora’s place I can ask for directions.’ I almost shut that idea down pretty fast, as I had no idea how she will react to seeing a strange creature with glowing blue “eyes”. Probably not as bad as the ponies know that I give it some thought. She seems like the best option, to be honest, if I walked into Ponyville literally every single pony in my immediate vicinity would run away aside from Rainbow Dash, I might get tackled to the ground. This is going to be way harder than I thought it would be.
I should be out soon, the trees are less abundant than they were seven minutes ago.
Okay, I lied. The trees led to a clearing, but it’s not all bad, as there was a stream running through the center. I know I should be panicking at the fact that I am lost in a forest filled with God knows what, but I know I can take whatever it throws at me unless it’s a Hydra. If a Hydra appears I’m kinda fucked no matter which way I look at it.
There isn’t anything of use in the area, so I continue walking after a short five-minute break. I’m honestly trying to figure out what I'm going to do with myself if I don't get accepted by the ponies, more so how am I going to prove I mean no harm? Rescue a pony from this Forest of the Damned? Right, not likely, unless this world has more than one cliche’ to throw my way.
Something else I didn’t take into consideration was the fact that I have Celestia’s and Luna’s cutie marks on my armor, which is pretty fucking suspicious if you ask me. I can’t really hide them unless I paint over them, or scratch them off with a blade. The lenses should be okay, but I’m starting to regret the turquoise color I chose, it doesn’t blend in as well as I had hoped. For cosplaying, it was pretty cool, but now it just feels odd. I’m positive I can replace the lenses with the original red ones from the game with relative ease, that is if I can find them amidst all of the clutter I’ll eventually have in my inventory.
Sighing tiredly, I keep moving to my main destination, Ponyville.
I’m almost there, just another 2 hours of travel. Now, I know I said I want to get there as soon as possible, but I’m tired, and it’s almost midnight. I need to start setting up camp before I pass out from exhaustion. Gripping my machete in my right hand, I start to collect firewood. It was a tedious but easy process.
“Now that I have enough firewood for tonight, I should start to set up my tent. Shouldn’t take me long.” I say as I set down the firewood.
Pitching my tent only took 20 minutes, with a few problems here and there that were solved with relative ease. I then moved onto the fire pit and dig a hole surrounding it with rocks to prevent the fire from spreading. Now onto the actual fire, which was very easy since I had matches, don’t ask where I got them because I don’t know. But with camp set up, I sit down on a log near the fire and stared into it, much like I did last night.
Multiple things were going through my head, many of which involved the Mane 6 and Ponyville in general. I will admit it, I was scared. Not for my safety, but for theirs. What if the timeline doesn’t follow the show now that I exist in Equestria; and the elements are never found? What if Nightmare Moon actually achieves eternal night; will I have to live with that guilt? What about Discord; will my chaotic mindset release him many months too early? What about Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra?
I groan as I start to get a serious migraine from overthinking everything.
I pull off my helmet and set it aside, pulling up my Pip-Boy to see if I have any sort of medicinal herb to help the pain succeed.
“Let’s see here… Mentats - no, Jet - no, Buffout - no, Hydra - maybe,” I list out loud while going through each medical item I have. “None of these would work. There is always a chance that when I use these chems, I will get addicted. Granted, I do have some Fixer, which removes addiction permanently but in turn causes nausea for a short period of time. I think I will just power through this…” I say as I reach for my helmet.
I stumble to my tent with helmet in hand, ready to turn in after having a serious migraine that seemed to never end. This migraine didn’t feel natural, I haven’t had one this bad since… whenever I last had one, in fact, I don’t think I've ever had one before.
“Goddamnit…definitely not powering through this one,” I said, as I took off my helmet and set it down. Closing my tent, I take off my ammo belt and holster and placed them next to my helmet.
I felt my body giving out on me as I slowly laid down on my sleeping bag, waiting for the migraine to end and for sleep to grace me with its presence. Once again the same question crossed my mind before I fell asleep; If me being in Equestria affect events in the future, like Twilight making friends with the others, how will I prevent the change from happening?
My mind began to shut down as I thought this over, making my migraine worse. Eventually, I gave up and once again fell into a dreamless sleep.