//------------------------------// // Reunion // Story: Another World: Discovering the Unknown // by Zen //------------------------------// 1: Reunion Waves crashed against the long, crowded beaches. A coastal breeze offered slight relief from the unrelenting summer heat. For beach-goers the neighboring modern high rise condos that lined a major coastal highway offered no shade today. The only potential comfort was the prospect of an afternoon thunderstorm. Zen leaned on the railing of his condo, looking over the beaches and out at the sparkling ocean. As his room was on the fifteenth floor of the high rise he had an unobstructed view of the beachfront, and it was a view he gratefully enjoyed each and every day. Zen shifted his gaze downwards onto the busy highway below. Even during slow hours this highway was constantly packed with cars. Every few minutes Zen could watch the light rail cars travel by between the highway and the beaches. He never understood why city officials refused to try and divert traffic; he was well aware that the city took up nearly half the island that it was situated on but there was still plenty of room to expand this highway. He only ever wondered this because without fail something would happen every day during evening rush hour that would bring the segments of the road in front of the condos to a complete halt. The tall young adult liked living in Crystal City though. He never thought he could seriously live on an island for very long but found that he actually enjoyed it. Zen did concede eventually that Crystal City barely counted as an island city since the island was connected to the mainland by an eight-lane highway and that the mainland itself was only a few miles away. Zen had always been a city dweller. Born in one of his home country’s largest coastal cities and raised not far from another massive metropolis by the mountains, he was accustomed to the busy life of living in the city. There was always something to do, people to meet and socialize with, and places to visit. In fact he had a number of friends he was supposed to meet that evening for dinner and a movie at the Crystal City Mall across the island. Running fingers through his dirty blond hair, he contemplated his current situation. Zen was a socialite; he was rarely happier than when he was interacting with friends at social gatherings. Unfortunately that character trait got him kicked out of his house during a severe economic slump back in his home country a few years ago when his parents refused to even listen to him try to explain just how difficult getting a job was at the time. How he managed to land a fairly nice suite in Crystal City was something he had considered to be pure luck. Not even a year before he was evicted, he had been introduced into a cartoon called “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” that changed his life forever. At first he was hesitant to watch it; the show was originally geared towards young girls, yet for some reason it had gained something of a cult following among people his age rather quickly. After some time and much grief from his then-roommate from college, he eventually began to watch some episodes and was quickly drawn into it. Since then he had made countless friends that very quickly became something of a second family to him and often they felt like they were more his family than his actual family. One day during the following summer shortly after getting booted to the curb, Zen was attempting to reach his friends in a city to the north when he heard some strange news. At the time he still had a working cell phone and had answered a call from one of the friends he was trying to get to. All across the online brony network there was chatter about some kind of device that would allow humans to travel to Equestria and back. How such a thing had ever been built he never found out, and that night the device malfunctioned and opened a rift to an unknown world. Despite all best efforts, the device could not be shut down, and within a day parties were sent in to explore this world. Discovering what appeared to be an empty world not unlike Earth, the bronies decided to inhabit it as their own, dubbing the new land as Haven. It was to be their ‘home away from home’, a place where they could live life how they wanted without the woes of the world they left behind. Within a decade several cities and a main capital had been fully developed and constructed; Crystal City was one such city. Since then peace and prosperity reigned over this new colony. But something rather curious had happened; when the device went haywire it opened a secondary rift to this new world, but not from Earth. Instead this rift lead to Equestria, but this rift had opened up some distance away from where humans first arrived. Roughly a year and a half passed before the equines and humans crossed paths. Initially there was some conflict as confusion and surprise took over common sense, but after a quick meeting between ruling parties an understanding was reached and an alliance between the two factions was formed. In the year that followed, humans and ponies began to mingle and travel between the other’s cities. Being a more tourist-based location, Crystal City exemplified this mixing of the races. Zen continued to watch the ocean sparkle in the mid-day sunlight. When he and his friends from an online forum decided to come to this place, many of them decided to leave their old identities behind and create new ones. Zen was quite partial to his forum handle ‘zenith’ but decided to shorten it to what he was often called, ‘Zen’. Zen was also naturally a blond, but when he arrived he immediately noticed that his hair was blue with a few streaks of turquoise. Nobody could explain why, but he wasn’t complaining; he liked the color blue and it matched his eyes. But whatever caused the color change happened to a fair number of others as well; occasionally Zen would see someone with lime green or neon pink hair, so he figured he couldn’t have been the only one. The one thing that bothered him was that when he and his friends from back home travelled through the rift, most of them were separated when they arrived. Only three others from that group had ended up on the island with him, and since arriving he had only heard from two more. What made things complicated was that he lacked a means of travelling very far and despite the fact that entire cities had been built seemingly overnight there was still no reliable internet service. A phone service had been developed but getting an internet service that spanned across every developed part of Haven without the use of satellites was still slightly out of reach. However they had developed short range wifi within the developed cities that functioned fairly well for local use. But the lack of a global internet system hasn’t stopped Zen from trying to get back in touch with everyone; in fact part of what he was going to discuss with his friends that evening was possible ways to find everyone and get that whole group back together. Zen took one long lasting look at the ocean before heading back inside the air-conditioned condo. He checked his phone to see no new messages and there still were several hours to go before the scheduled meeting time at the mall. Just as Zen was about to relax in one of his couches and channel surf for something interesting there was a knock on the door. Zen wasn’t really expecting anyone, and he doubted that it was one of his friends that he was having dinner with later. Opening the door Zen was greeted by a grey male pegasus sporting a white mane. “Hey Zen, some dude down at the beach was looking for you.” The pegasus said. Zen raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say?” “I do say. I also say that this person seems to know you really well and seemed like he was in a hurry.” “Alright Sprinter, got a description for me?” Sprinter thought carefully for a moment, as if trying to decide what words to use. “Yeah, he was about average height for a human, had dark hair, slightly tanned, and was wearing sunglasses.” Fortunately and unfortunately for Zen that particular description fit several of his friends from Earth. He only had one choice from here. “Cool, thanks for the heads up. Whereabouts on the beach was he?” “Just down by the boardwalk.” Sprinter pointed with a front hoof in the general direction of the boardwalk. “Well I suppose we shan’t keep this guy waiting. Let’s go.” Zen closed and locked his suite before heading down the elevator and outside of the condo with Sprinter. Zen had met Sprinter not long after landing his current home in that condo as compensation for helping in the construction of many of the city’s parks and beaches. The pegasus had been out flying with the waves when one crashed down on top of him and deposited him at the edge of the beach. Zen happened to be in the area and noticed that the pegasus had been washed up. Being the person he is, Zen couldn’t help but run over and make sure that the equine was alright. Fortunately Sprinter was mostly okay, just a few bruises and a damaged ego, and very quickly the two were chatting as if they had been friends for years and nothing had happened. The two friends had made it out of the condo and across the busy highway by way of an underground pedestrian tunnel. Sprinter was busy trying to locate this mystery character. “So I’m guessing this guy knows you know me somehow?” Zen asked, also scanning the crowded beaches. “Considering how often you and I hang out most of your friends should know who I am.” Sprinter replied. After another moment he pointed with a hoof towards somebody. “There he is!” Zen looked in the direction Sprinter was pointing and struggled to see anyone he recognized. “Where?” “Right there by that pier. Blue shirt.” Zen scanned the area by the pier but the bustling crowds made it difficult to see clearly. However he did manage to spot the mystery man and recognized him almost immediately. “That’s James…I wonder what he’s doing here…” Sprinter shrugged. “Beats me, I just know that he really wants to talk to you.” Zen quickly jogged across the hot sand and weaved between the crowds as he headed towards James, who spotted him and walked up to Zen when he got close. “Long time no see Zen.” James greeted with an extended hand. “Long time no see is right James.” Zen shook the extended hand. “So to what do I owe this visit? I thought you were working in Alliance?” “I was, but when the city government caught wind of the group that we had back home they gave me orders to find as many of us as possible for some kind of project. Since you knew almost everyone I thought I’d start with you.” “Well it is true that I got around back in Colorado…visited every region we had in that state and got to know a lot of people.” Zen mused. “You know I was actually going to have dinner later with Kevin and Zan. They both found me about a month ago and decided to stay here for the time being.” “Sounds good.” James said. “Since dinner is still a few hours off, what’s there to do around here?” Zen chuckled. “Well if you’re a tourist there’s plenty between the beachfront gift shops and the various strip malls and parks across the city. Otherwise we’ve got about the same that any other city in this world has.” “I certainly noticed no lack of any beaches here, that’s for sure.” James looked up the beach and then at the condos across the highway. “You live in one of these?” “Yup, that one there next to the intersection.” Zen pointed about halfway up the thirty-five floor structure. The condo, as with most of the other condos on the island, looked not unlike the average condo found in the many coastal cities in the state of Florida. Zen was originally from Florida, but has no memories of it due to moving away at a very young age. Not going back was one of the few regrets he had when he left for Haven. “Well maybe we could crash at your place then?” James suggested. “Not like there’s anything better to do for the time being.” Zen looked at the pegasus. “You wanna come?” “Nah, I think I’ll go fly the skies for a bit. I’m liking this breeze.” Sprinter replied and promptly took off. Zen watched him go for a moment before motioning for James to follow. “So about this proje-“ James began but was cut off by a gesture from Zen. “Save it.” Zen said. “If it involves our group from back home then Kevin and Zan will want to hear this.” James paused for a moment but nodded. James was also a part of the group that Zen was a member of before coming to Haven and getting separated. Though the two had never formally met beforehand, James had bumped into Zen on the mainland a few times. One thing that Zen noted was that James put on a tough façade more often than not but was really a friendly individual once his trust was gained. James had talked about having some friendships turn sour and how it had caused him to distrust people at first to avoid having it happen again. Zen could sympathize with that, and was pleased to learn firsthand that once he was able to gain James’ trust, James was a very loyal friend, though a bit quiet at times. After heading back up to Zen’s condo, James immediately went to the balcony to get a view and Zen started up one of his many gaming consoles he brought to Crystal City and began to mindlessly pass some time on it. At some point James came back inside and settled down into an empty chair and watched Zen play. Zen cursed as he fell into a trap he had completely forgotten about and his character died. As he restarted the level, he noticed that James seemed to be deep in thought. “What’s up dude?” Zen asked. “I know you have this tendency to be quiet but it looks like something’s really eating away at you.” It took James a moment to respond, and when he did he almost sounded like he had barely even noticed he was being addressed. “Huh? Oh sorry, just got to thinking…how many are you currently in contact with?” “Well including you there’s just Zan and Kevin.” Zen replied. “I have a vague idea as to the whereabouts of the others but it’s a shot in the dark at best and even then it’s only for a few. If you need our entire group then that could take a while.” That last statement didn’t seem to bring James good tidings. “Hmm…we’ll just deal with it then. When exactly are we going?” “We could leave now I suppose.” Zen put his controller down and shut off the screen. “It takes about half an hour to walk there from here.” “Alright, let’s get going then.” Zen could definitely tell that something was bothering James, and he has a suspicion that it was related to whatever business that had brought James to him in the first place. However he refrained from pressing the matter until they had met up with Zan and Kevin. They took the stairs down to the lobby and from there exited the tower. Zen took a deep breath of the fresh, yet slightly salty, air. It reminded him of the home he never had. “So which way from here?” James asked. Zen pointed towards the middle of the city. “This way.”