//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Guardian // by xXNickthenameXx //------------------------------// Bang! Gun goes off, glass shatters, and I’m falling; wait, yeah that body falling from that building, yeah, the teenager falling, blood spewing from a hole in his head slowly dying as he falls? Yeah, that’s me, Nicholas Heart, or as my “friends” call me; Nick DragHeart, and well, dying was sort of a good thing, but... we’ll get to the reason why later. How about I go ahead and tell you exactly what happened before all this? I yawned as I began to stir from my sleep and get ready to wake up, I soon sat up and rubbed my eyes, ridding them of the sleep left over, “I better not get too use to that.” I said, swinging my legs off the bed and taking a look at the clock. The clock read nine o’clock, AM. ‘Geez, I’d better start setting an alarm for six so I can be up for this job that Dad plans on getting me today...’ And then, as if on cue, my father set foot into the doorway of my room. “Hey sleeping beauty, get your fugly ass up and get dressed, we have to be at the office in an hour.” He said in his normal joyous single-father way. I’ve always wondered why he could be so joyous when he’s single and has a teenage son living with him, oh well. “Alright Dad, just let me take a shower and get myself together,” I said, waving him off. “I’ll be down in a half-hour tops.” “See ya downstairs, oh and Nick, I heard on the radio that today should be a chilly day, make sure you wear a hoodie.” There he goes being mother like. “Yes, mother.” I said jokingly.  Once my father walked away, I stood up and gathered my clothes, I steadily walked to the bathroom and hopped in the shower, I finished my normal shower routine and got out. I got dressed - sporting my Rainbow Dash tee; (it features her popping out of a keyboard and saying “I hid in your keyboard, because I love you”), besides the picture, the shirt was black, I also wore black jeans and black running shoes. After walking out of the bathroom and tossing my jeans from the day before into the hamper, I placed a hoodie over my tee, (my hoodie depicts my OC’s cutiemark, who shares the same name as me. His cutie mark is a blue heart sporting neon green headphones), I then grabbed my iPod and Vinyl Scratch headset (her cutiemark is on both headphones) and made my way outside to my father’s car. “Finally, you’re the world’s slowest person to take a shower,” My father said, mocking me. “Funny where’d you pick that up, the guinness book of slow people?” I joked back. “Oh well ‘funny man’, you’re about to get your first big job, how do you feel?” He asked curiously. I placed my headphones over my ears, “Well, I am kind of nervous, but I know with help from my father I can get that job.” I said with confidence. “Ha, let's just see what I can do Nick.” The rest of the car ride was silent; besides my music that is. We live in New York City home of many brilliant skyscrapers, and of course, the city is nicknamed ‘the city that never sleeps’. My father works for one of the highest paying companies out there, and he’s been bugging me for months to just try and get a job there with him, “Come on Nick, it’ll be fun, we can work side by side as father and son.” Heh I guess he made a good point. I always loved my father, he was a great person to be around, he even joined me to watch My Little Pony, and I guess that’s pretty epic for a parent. We drove into the parking garage under the building and parked next to the elevators, “Don’t want to miss the new episode now would we?” My father had a good point. Today was Saturday and that meant there was a new episode of MLP out today. “Right, lets get in there and get this over with.” I said, ready to make a run for the manager’s office. We walked into the elevator and hit the top floor button, once we got to the floor we quickly made our way to the manager’s office. We set foot in front of the secretary’s desk who immediately pressed the intercom button and told the manager we were here. After a moment or two he answered with, “send the father in, I need to speak to him before they both are spoken to.” She waved my father in. “Okay, champ why don’t you look at the beautiful view of New York from one of those windows.” He said, walking into the manager’s office, I stepped up to one of the windows and stared at the never ending buildings to one side of the building we were in, I grabbed my iPod and turned the sound up so I couldn’t hear a thing. A few moments later I felt someone tap my shoulder, I turned around and came face to face with a m911 pistol. The next thing I knew, I was sent flying through the window behind me and I was falling to my death below. One thing I do remember though, was that I felt something pop in my right eye socket once the gun was fired, and I don’t remember ever feeling the impact of the ground below. There you have it. That’s what happened, and now for the adventure... Enjoy; “Ah my head,” I opened my eyes to see the roof of a forest overhead, the sun was barely shining through the treetops, “Where am I?” I sat up and peered into the trees around me, I went to stand up and stumbled as my head began to pound from a large headache I appeared to have, “Ah, son of a...” I leaned on a tree nearby and let the pounding stop. After a moment or two, I stood up straight and scanned my surroundings, ‘funny, I don’t remember a large forested area near New York City.’ Besides the small enclosed areas in the central park zoo, there was really no large forests nearby. I looked around and determined a route I needed to take, one side of the forest appeared to get darker as I peered into the trees, the other lighter, “I’ll go that way, it seems only logical that the lighter the area in a forest gets, the closer to the exit you are.” I slowly made my way through the area, being careful not to trip over a root or a rock. I stared through the trees and saw a town not that far from the exit, “Sweet, there has to be somebody there that is able to tell me where I am.” *Crack* “Ow!” I fell to the forest floor with a larger headache than before. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Twilight~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While looking through her spell books, Twilight found a ‘soul savior’ spell. She didn’t know what exactly it meant by ‘soul savior’, but she was determined to find out. She sat in the middle of the library; spell books littered the floor around her, when suddenly, the room began to glow a bright purple light as she began to cast the spell. Spike walked in, a little curious as to what Twilight was doing, “Twilight, what are you doing?” He asked. “Shhhh, Spike I’m trying out this ‘soul savior’ spell that I found in one of my spell books.” The room continued to glow brighter as she put more effort into the spell. Spike picked up the spell book that she had in front of her, and he glanced at the spell she spoke of. The description below stated that it saved a soul from a mirrored world filled with differences, unlike no other, and if said soul were to be dying, some things about them would change. “Uh, Twilight?” Spike began. “Not now Spike, I can feel the spell working.” After a moment, she stopped and a flash of light lit up the sky, and whatever she had saved landed in the Everfree Forest. She panicked and looked at Spike, “We need to go save whatever that thing is.” “Save...?” Spike questioned, “What if that thing is dangerous? It could hurt us or worse.” “I don’t care, I’m responsible for this and if anypony is going to save it - it’s going to be me.” Twilight quickly grabbed her saddle bag and filled it with a few bandages and gauze, she was determined to find whatever that thing was. Twilight ran towards the Everfree as fast as she could. She entered the forest and found Rainbow Dash standing over something, looking at it curiously, “Rainbow, what did you do to that thing?” “Oh, hi Twilight, I kicked it in the head. It looked like it was heading for town, the strange thing was, it was talking about needing help.” Rainbow Dash said, still studying the creature. “Oh my,” Twilight hurried to the creature and turned it over onto its back, it appeared to be okay, but would need some time to rest that kick to the head that Rainbow delivered. Plus it looked like it had one hell of a migraine judging by the look on its face, “Hmmmmm, well, no harm done Rainbow. How’d you find it?” “Oh, I was flying around town getting ready for a race that somepony had challenged me to and all of a sudden, this bright white light appears and this thing fell from the sky over the Everfree, so I decided to check it out, and I saw it heading to town. I thought this thing may be dangerous, so I kicked it.” Rainbow Dash said, examining the creature now on its back, “This thing looks pretty weird.” Twilight chuckled a little, the creature did seem pretty funny looking. It appeared to have black skin except for the face and claws, its mane was black and it appeared to walk on two legs, she snapped out of her trance of studying the creature and got back to the task at hoof, “Rainbow, do you think you can help take this thing back to the library? I want to study it a bit more before it wakes up?” “Yeah, no problem Twi, all you have to do is levitate it a bit and I can help carry it,” She said, a bit too confidently. Twilight lifted the creature with her magic and let some of its body lie on Rainbow’s back. They trotted along with the creature through town, getting strange looks from everypony as they passed. After reaching the library they let the body lay on the floor. Rainbow Dash began to trot out the door when she turned to Twilight, “If you need any help with this thing just come looking for me. I’ll be napping.” She flew out the door heading for the nearest cloud. Twilight turned her attention to the lifeless body of the creature lying on her floor, “What are you?” she walked over to the body and used her magic to scan it “hmmmm, it appears to be carbon based like us ponies, it appears to be a omnivore meaning it eats both plants and meats... great. It also appears to be male, and has hazel green eyes.” Twilight stepped away from the beast, “Well, here goes nothing.” Twilight charged an awakening spell and cast it on the creature. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nick~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I awoke with a start. As reality slowly slipped back into my vision I began to realize I wasn’t in the forest I had been in when I was... heading towards town and... hmmmmm, I can’t remember what happened. I sat up and looked around slowly as to study my new surroundings.  After looking around for what seemed like an hour I finally rested my eyes on a purple unicorn staring at me with eyes filled with fear. I stared at the unicorn for a while before scooting a tad closer, it backed up absolutely horrified by my appearance, “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you, there’s no reason to be scared” I looked around the room and asked, “Do you know where the owner of this library is?” The unicorn squeaked trying to say something, “I-I am the owner of this Library.” judging by the voice it was female... and then it all came back to me, ‘that voice, could it be?’. I looked back at the unicorn, “Y-you just spoke, so you’re the owner of this library?” She nodded. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, the princess’s protege, you are?” She asked with a shaky voice. “I’m Nick,” I extended my arm as if to shake her hoof. “What are you?” “I’m a human.” Twilight trotted a bit closer and looked at my hand that was outstretched towards her, she put her hoof in my hand and shook. “If you don’t mind me asking, where exactly am I?” Twilight looked at me, “You’re not from here, right, you’re in Equestria.” “Equestria? Well then thats definitely someplace new to me,” I said lying about everything I knew, “Twilight? Do you know how I got here?” Twilight nodded, “I brought you here with a spell called the ‘soul savior spell’ and I guess it determined that you were a soul in danger,” She said ashamed, “I could send you back if you like?” “No, I mean, thats not necessary, I was in danger and that world was too terrible for a soul like mine,” I looked down to the ground as I said this, “You see before I woke up here I was about to be killed by some random person with a weapon. From what I remember I was sent through a window, but that’s it. Plus if you knew what I knew about that world, you wouldn’t want to send me back.” Twilight looked at me curiosity in her eyes, “What happened Nick, why don’t you want to go back?” I sighed, “All my life I’ve been through...” “What?” Twilight asked. “...Hell, and I don’t want to be put through it anymore. I know its a part of life where I’m from to see a friend or family member die right in front of you, but at age two seeing a parent die from homicide, you never forget that, and that’s not all. There’s the constant mocking and physical harm I was put through in school, it left me... sensitive I guess you can say, the full length story is for another time. Right now all I want to do is know what I need to do in order to not be sent back.” I said all this with a few tears hanging in my eyes. Twilight sniffled, “Well, I c-can see why you wanted to stay, and now its my responsibility to make sure you don’t get sent back to that horrible place.” She looked down, curious, “Nick, do people where you’re from show affection for one another through hugs? Or do it to comfort each other?” I nodded, “Yes, yes they do.” Twilight stood up and trotted up to me, she then hugged me tight. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you before all that happened, so you wouldn’t have been put through it all.” She said stifling a sob. “It’s okay Twilight, it wasn’t your fault, you wouldn’t have known about me anyways.” I wrapped my arms around her in order to keep her from crying, “Please Twilight, don’t cry for me, I’ve been crying all my life, and I definitely don’t want anyone crying for me.” Twilight sobbed, “B-but you have to be hurting inside, and just hearing all that you’ve been put through without too much detail is still too much.” “Twilight please, the damage has been done and besides, I’m somewhere better now.” I said with a tear rolling down my cheek. “Right, you’re somewhere better, with ponies who will be by your side.” She said calming herself “Come now Twilight, lets get the word out, we need the princess to come down and meet me so we can get things settled.” I said breaking the hug. “Yes, lets get things settled, then you can tell me the rest of your story later.” She said levitating a piece of paper to her assistant, “Spike take a letter.”