//------------------------------// // Ch1: A Brave New World // Story: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun // by chasethebrony //------------------------------// Chapter 1 A Brave New World After passing out, I slide back into consciousness. I try to open my eyes, but all I see darkness. Oh wait, thats just the ground. Never mind. Using my knowledge of wilderness medicine, I stop and see if I am in pain anywhere. Strangely enough, i don’t feel any pain. My first thought is that it would really suck to have been hit and be paralyzed from the neck down in the middle of the wilderness. At the thought of being stranded alone in the wilderness and having to watch myself get eaten by animals as i watch sent a shudder down my spine. Wait, I can shudder? Well that was embarrassing. Silly me, I can still feel, I was just freaking out at the lack of pain after that soul wrenching agony that i was wracked with what seemed like seconds ago. I slowly flex my hands and wiggle my feet in my boots. Then move my arms and use them to feel my torso and neck for blood or injury being careful not to move my head. ‘ok, no blood or broken bones. that’s a good sign’. I can feel my backpack pressing down on my back, so I still seem to have my gear. Feeling better now that I wasn’t going to die right away, I rolled over onto my side so i could take off my backpack. Getting the 50lb ruck off felt amazing. There is nothing like the feeling of moving around with a heavy backpack, and then taking it off. It feels almost as if you are going to float away. Now that my bag was off I went ahead and took stock of what i had with me. I was obviously not in Colorado anymore. Actually, the more i looked around the more confused I became. The flora did not match anything that grew in the mountains. This looked more like a jungle than a mountain forest. Deciding to figure that out later,I looked at what assets i have. Knives, pistol, 2 magazines, 50 rounds of 9mm ammunition, 20 matches, firesteel, clothes, 2 days food left, stove, ebook reader, solar panel, cell phone, flashlight/headlamp, stove, hammock, sleeping bag, 1 canteen, canteen cup, hydration bladder, water filter, pen, pencil, notepad, compass and (now useless) map. Pretty standard backpacking loadout really. Gear: Check now to make a priority list: Shelter: I will just sleep as i can while i find water. Water: need to find water, I have 3 litres of water, so I can last a day or two if i must. Food: I can stretch out the food to make it last about 4 days if i eat everyday and i can last up to a week spacing it out. and 3 weeks before I die of starvation. Communication: No cell service. even pinging the emergency cell on my cell phone gave me nothing. Well, seems like water is my first priority. Just in case there was a search party looking for me (not likely judging that i was nowhere near where I left) I arranged some stones and sticks into an arrow pointing in my direction of travel. I made it about ten meters long since any searchers would be using aircraft to look for me. And off I trekked in search of survival and maybe some answers. The Base of Operations As the Royal Guard and the Royal Army began to Mobilize, Shining Armor and a hooffull of scouts went ahead to Ponyville to get an area cleared for the troops arrival. Landing in the town square, Shining Armor immediately took his scouts in and gave them their orders. “All right, we only have a couple hours before the rest of the forces arrive. So here are your orders: Shock and Awe, you two are go and get the Elements of Harmony that live in town. I believe Rarity should be in her boutique, Pinkie Pie should still be at work at the Sugarcube corner, and get the Mayor. Return here in twenty Minutes, I don't care what they are doing this is more important.” Shining ordered. As the two guards trotted off towards the center of town, he turned to the three remaining scouts. “Stalker and Shadow, both of you fly out to get Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Dash lives in a cloud house above the town and Fluttershy lives near the Everfree forest.”. Once the left, he turned to his last scout. “Stalwart, you go and get Applejack. She should be down at her farm south of town. I will go get Twilight”. As the scouts departed he trotted over to the Ponyville library. He knocked on the door and as he expected, Twilight was stunned that he showed up. “Hello ,welcome to the ponyvil-What are you doing here?!” Twilight shouted in surprise “I thought you were supposed to be guarding the castle? is something wrong?” “Well this is actually business im afraid. Princess Celestia believes that something dangerous just appeared in the Everfree Forest and she has mobilized both the Royal Guard and the Royal Army to contain the situation” “Wait, Princess Celestia is MOBILIZING THE ARMY!?” “Yes she is, and I want the Elements of Harmony on hand just in case things go... wrong.” “Wow. This must be serious if she is marshaling the armed forces and the Elements. In fact, the last time anything like this happened, was back in 450 when the Griffon invasion forced Celestia to call the army out to protect-” “Look Twily, we really don’t have time for this. I need to get all of you and the Mayor informed of what is going on so that we can work together and prepare for the arrival of the army and plan how we are going to handle this.” “Ok, well let me tell Spike i am going out and then we can head out.” Hopeful Springs Eternal After hiking west for a couple of hours, I finally came across a small stream around mid-afternoon. The water was clear, but i still passed it through the filter just to be sure. Nothing can ruin a hike like a bad case of the runs. Resting against a tree I contemplated my situation. Firstly; I have no idea where the hell I am. My compass works, and points consistently to one direction (assumed to be north), I have not gotten any sort of cell or GPS signal, and the terrain here looks like a temperate jungle. Many animals and insects seem like what I would find in the US, so I am not anywhere too exotic or strange. As it is, my family won’t worry about me for another 4 days. I told my wife that if I didn’t contact her when I was done (7 days from departure) to wait 48 hours for me to call or arrive home and then to call for search and rescue. So I have 4 days to figure out how to get some sort of message home to my wife. I still have food and now I have water, so those are taken care of. So now to find some sort of civilization and get in contact with someone who can get me a line of communication home. After running through my plans, I realized that it was starting to get dark. Finding a couple trees, I set up my hammock, hung my bag, and crawled into bag and went to sleep. Spaced Out Once Luna woke up to raise the moon, she saw that Celestia had left her a note by her bed. “When you wake up, I need to talk with you. I will be in the Library” -Tia ‘well that’s odd’ thought Luna. “She usually just comes and gets me if she needs me for anything.’ The goddess of the night went to her porch, raised the moon, made sure that it would behave this night, and walked towards the library. As she was walking through the halls, she ordered a servant to bring her her breakfast in the library and to bring something extra for a snack later. Once she entered the library, she immediately noticed that the librarian and her assistants were nowhere to be seen. This was highly irregular as the librarian was usually never seen out in the book stacks. Luna decided that this would be a good time to try out the little bell on the desk that was supposed to call for the librarian in case she or one of her helpers was away. As she was reaching over to ring the bell, the librarian walked across the hallway loaded down with books. Though she could have easily called out to the mare, Luna decided to ring the bell anyways. It was so small and cute that she just had to. As soon as her hood brushed the ringer, a sudden peal of pure crystal sound rung forth and echoed through the entire room. Startled, the librarian dropped all the books she was carrying and turned to give the offending pony a glare that could wilt flowers. Once realizing it was the Princess of the Moon, her glare turned to surprise. “Oh my your majesty, I am so sorry about not being at the front. It’s just that Princess Celestia has had us running around grabbing obscure tomes from all over Canterlot today.” “Well, I am actually looking for Celestia, if you would be so kind as to point me in her direction” “She is over in the reading section surrounded by books and scrolls. Follow the sounds of frustration and arcane mumbling” “Thank you very much, don’t let me delay you any longer then” said Luna as she walked off towards the reading area. After navigating a veritable maze of shelves Luna was able to hear the mutterings the librarian told her about. Only able to pick up a couple of words she was intrigued as to what the words timespace, galaxy and flowers had to do with Celestia's summons. Luna was able to walk up behind Celestia and was busy reading over her sister’s shoulder when she leaned close and whispered “Boo.” Suddenly Celestia screeched and almost fired a beam of pure laser at the sneaking assassin when she realized it was just Luna laughing at her. “You should have seen the look on your face dear sister, I thought you were about to die of fright” luna gasped between fits of laughter. “That was not funny Luna, I was about to fire my laser into your face.” “Oh come on Tia, you know that you can’t laser an alicorn. Any fatal damage would simply be shunted off into the moon.” “That wouldn’t stop you from being in massive amounts of pain though” Eager to change the subject, Luna wanted to ask about Celestia’s note“Well in any case, what did you want me down here for?” “While you were sleeping, did you feel anything odd?” “Well now that you mentioned it, I felt the dream realm tear for just a second. I assumed that it was just another cosmic lance, so I fixed it up and went back into supervising the rest of the realm” Luna replied perplexedly. “Was there something else that happened in the material plane?” “I think something may have been ripped into Equestria. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it in the Everfree forest. I dispatched a company of the guard and mustered a division of the Army just in case. I don’t know what came through that rift, but if it’s dangerous I don’t want any of our subjects to be at risk.” Sighing, a very worried looking princess looked at the books surrounding her. “These books haven't been much help either. “What do you think caused it? “Well So far I think that there was a rip in the spacetime continuum and that it somehow must have connected two points in the universe and brought something across. Also, all i have eaten today was a a bowl of flower flakes and milk. But other than that, I have nothing.” “Well at least you have done something. Now we just need to sit and wait for Shining Armor to send a Situation Report.” “I just hope that nothing too dangerous appeared. The Everfree Forest is dangerous enough as it is.” /ch 2 A/N: This chapter took a bit more thinking through to write. If anyone wants to volunteer to preread for me, please PM me. -Chase