So there I was, Soaking wet, Staring at a black horse with wings and a horn shooting lightning around the room and only one thought could really cross through my mind at that.
"I should go home" None of this was my business, With how this world has been working so far, I should just ignore the obvious evil bad guy, or girl in this situation. Technically she's an old hag since she's more than a thousand years old, But she also doesn't really look her age.
Even now I can see the Guards who were supposed to be guarding the princess are rushing towards her...
Without formation...
and now they're on the ground...
Does this land even have a real military? A Police force even?
These guys suck...
After knocking out the useless guards, Nightmare moon turns into more the blue mist and dashes out of the building.
This really isn't my problem.
But as I look over to Angel, Struggling to get up the stairs with his wet and slippery fur, I decide I should at least help him out a bit.
Walking over to the stairs, Staying close to the wall as I usually do, I reach them and help push Angel up.
"Don't push me, Carry me!" He shouts at me as he jumps on to my head.
I really don't have a problem with this, I am the one responsible for him being so slippery after all. It's the least I could do.
Walking up the stair with a small bunny standing on my head sounds harder than it actually is.
The problem was That I could only go one step at a time because of my tiny body.
If I was in my original body, This would have been over so quick.
A thirty second climb would have turned into five.
"Angel? Angel where are you? Oh where did you go?" As we get closer to the balcony where Fluttershy was with the songbirds, We can hear her calling out to Angel.
"Hurry it up! She's going to start worrying!" Angel taps my head with his food as he tells me to hurry it up.
I know it doesn't hurt and He weighs almost nothing, But he could at least be nice about asking.
Up on a Balcony overlooking the crowd, A yellow Pegasus with a pink mane is looking behind curtains and under carpets looking for her pet rabbit.
"Chespin Ches!" She hears someone calling out to her from the staircase behind her.
Landing on the floor, She slowly walks over to the doorway that connects the Balcony with the staircase.
Peeking over a corner, She sees her lovely little Angel.
Standing on top of an animal she never saw before?
First a Baby Dragon, Then Nightmare Moon and now this? Fluttershy really had a long and exciting day, she doesn't know if she can keep up with it all.
"Chespin, Pin ches." It told her that it and Angel were down on the ground floor eating from the buffet.
Oh she was so worried about Angel, But he was just hungry.
"Angel deary, next time you want to hang out with your friends, please tell me before hand, I was so worried about what might have happened to you." Fluttershy picks up her small white bunny and gives him a soft hug.
She then turns back to the new animal, She's never seen something like that in any of her biology books. Maybe the princess's student that was here earlier might have an Idea.
"Chespin..." It says with a small lowering of it's head, Oh, It was worry that It worried her about Angel.
"It's fine dear, You should probably go back to your nest, with that scary black pony outside, I don't think staying around is safe." As she told the mysterious creature this, She got an Idea.
"Wait, Why don't you sleep in my home tonight? I'm sure Angel will be happy to have a friend over, And it will be safer for you as well. What do you think?" She asked.
The Green and brown animal looked at her, and then at Angel. "Ches?" It asked Angel with it's eyebrow raised.
Angel answered with a small squeak.
"Then I guess It's settled, Let us just stop by the library first, I think I need to pick up a book." Fluttershy then placed Angel on her back, where he quickly hopped into her mane to have something to grab. She then turned to ask the new critter if he wanted to sit on her back too.
"Ches Chespin" It doesn't look like it weighs Nine Kilos, And if Fluttershy remembers her math correctly, that's almost twenty pounds. But it did say it had no problem walking.
I Didn't expect my first meeting with Fluttershy to go like this, But it wasn't the worst scenario in the world, I could have found her dying in a ditch, That's a terrible scenario for a first meeting.
You can't have a conversation when one party is bleeding out on the ground.
I don't know why we're going to the library, But at least I won't be sleeping on the ground for another night.
After a minute or two of walking next to the yellow pegasus and chatting a bit with Angel, We reach the Library, Which is surprisingly not empty.
Why are so many ponies gathered up here?
As we Enter the library, I notice that I can recognize some of the others.
There's the white unicorn who held the curtains on the balcony, Then there's the blue pegasus who tried to fly into Nightmare Moon And finally I can recognize the Purple Unicorn that identified the horse as who she was.
What is going on here? Is this a- Oh no...
Oh no no no no no no!
Nuh uh, No way! Nope!
I am not getting involved with this!
I know this world follows some type of cartoon logic, If the Nice animals and talking colorful ponies weren't enough to clue you in.
But an actual Hero group tasked with defeating a villain? Nope!
Why else would all of these essentially random ponies that barely know each other gather together in one place on the night when a millennia old evil has come to threaten the peace?
These are the main characters of a show...
And I just walked with one of them to the meetup with the others...
Fuck...
As it turns out, The purple unicorn, Named Twilight Sparkle. I'll never get used to those names. Learned about Nightmare Moon in a prophecy and the only thing that can stop her are these McGuffins called the Elements of Harmony.
"-But I don't know what they are, Where to find then, I don't even know what they do!" She tells the group.
I'm just glad That I seem to have been forgotten in the background, just how I like it.
As the heroes of this show talk amongst themselves, I pick up a book and flick through the pages. And I learn something amazing in the process.
The words are in english...
I can read and write here!
As I flip on to another Page, I feel something light tap my shoulder. I turn to look, It's Angel, He's pointing at the door and at ponies that just exited.
Most prominently, at Fluttershy.
"Put that book down, We need to hurry before she's too far to catch" Angel pulls on my arm, trying to get me to budge.
Now here I am in a dilemma, Do I follow Fluttershy with Angel, and help what I can consider my only friend in this place, or do I take this opportunity to read through some important books in the library, specifically survival and foraging.
Help a friend or Help myself?
"Hurry up! She's getting farther!"
If I stay here to read, I won't have to endanger myself by stealing from carts anymore, I won't have to ask for charity all the time, I could actually do something to make my life here easier.
"Fine, then! I'm going after her without you!" But I can always find another time to read through those books. My Friend needs me, Now.
"Wait up!" I call out after Angel as I catch up to him. We need to move fast to catch up with the speed those ponies are going.
But we don't need to catch up with all of them, Only one of them.
We can see them at the edge of the big spooky forest that's on the other side of the town from the lake, and.. wait a minute?
"What is she doing? She should know how dangerous the Everfree Forest is?! Hurry up Chespin!" Angel cries as he taps my head with his foot again. I'm sure he could have run ahead by himself and he could have caught up with her by now, But he brings up a good point.
Why is she walking with them into the spooky forest, And why is The purple one, twilight standing back.
By the time we reach the outskirts of the forest, They all walked into it already.
"It seems we we're late, nothing to do now but go home and wait for her to come back, Isn't that right Angel?" I ask the bunny on my head, Expecting to hear him say something along the line of "No! We need to go in ourselves!" or something like that.
Instead all I got was the sound of something soft hitting the ground and hopping towards the big spooky forest.
I quickly grab Angel with my Vine Whip.
"Let me go! I need to help her!" I struggle to hold him in place without hurting him.
"No! They are all adults, They know what they're doing! Stop Struggling!" I try and wrestle Angel to submission.
There is no way I am going into the dark forest! There is no way I am go to tail after the heroes as they chase after the villain of the story! I am NOT GOING!
After almost a minute, Angel stops struggling in my hold.
"Have you calmed down?" I ask the white rabbit.
"Yeah..." He says dejectedly as I put him down.
Now he's just sitting there, looking at the forest, he's obviously scared to go in. A different reason than mine, sure, But in this magical world, It's as good a reason you need.
I sit down next to him, maybe twenty centimeters away.
"Hey look, I know you want to help Fluttershy, I get it. But she's what? Twenty three? Four? She's a full fledged adult." I tell him to try and break the awkward silence. "She can take care of herself, And those other ponies are there to help her, Aren't they? She'll be fine, I'm sure of it." I tell him as I lean slightly closer to give him a pat on the back.
What I didn't really expect from the usually sociable bunny was to hear quite sniffing.
He's crying right now, And I don't know how to deal with that.
"Do you..." What Am I supposed to do? I forgot that he's only a tenth of my age.
The Average life expectancy of a common rabbit is around eight to nine years.
I was Nineteen before I found myself here, And Angel, even if he acts mature, Isn't an adult rabbit at all. He's still a bunny, something around the rabbit equivalent of a teenager.
And he just saw his caretaker walk into a big scary forest with a bunch of strangers.
I know I probably saved his life by stopping him from following them.
I saved a friend from throwing his life away so carelessly!
I should be proud.
So why do I feel so empty?
After sitting in the middle of the path outside of where the ponies went into the forest for maybe half an hour, I start to hear quite snoring.
I look to my right and see that Angel cried himself to sleep.
I slowly pick him up in a Vine Whip and place him down gently on my head.
I don't think he had sleep before the celebration like I did. After the Adrenaline of everything that happened stopped pumping, he went out like a brick.
I know It's my fault he cried, The least I could do is put him to bed.
As I walk on the path leading from the Everfree Forest to Fluttershy's surprisingly close cabin, I can hear angel mumble something in his sleep, but I can't really manage to catch it.
After fifteen minutes of walking I arrive outside Fluttershy's cabin, I quietly push open the door and walk inside.
Looking at the decorations around the house, It's a lot less Cottagecore than I imagined, It's pretty nice actually.
But I'm not here to look at furniture.
I spot a little doggy bed with a carrot shaped plushy near one of the sofas.
I gently put Angel down in his bed and cover him with a small blanket.
As I turn to leave, I can finally hear what he's whispering, "~no, mommy, don't leave me~" Before he goes back to mumbling incoherently in his sleep.
Dammit Angel, Why do you need to make me feel bad about saving your life?
I walk out the door and silently close it behind me.
When I reach the dirt path outside, I pull myself into a ball and start rolling downhill.
After five minutes of Rolling I stop. In the Pokemon Games and Anime, the move Rollout is a physical damaging move of rock type, And one that Chespin can learn early on in the games.
Right here and now, It's just me rolling around as a ball, Kind of like the slowest Sonic The Hedgehog character. Maybe only around 80 kilometers per hour, Or fifty miles per hour for those who don't use the correct measurement system.
I stop when I reach the coast of the lake outside of Ponyville, and When I do I immediately fall on the ground.
My head is spinning and my eyes are dizzy. I really shouldn't have used Rollout for more than a minute.
But Dammit, I couldn't stand to be around Angel after that.
What a Terrible friend I am.
Two Weeks Prior
My Name is Samuel Cohen, I am Nineteen years old.
I Live in Haifa with my father and Brother.
I Graduated from High-school with an average of 78 on my diploma around eight months ago.
Six months ago I started my mandatory military service.
Last month I finished training and started my work.
It was a complicated but mostly safe part of the army, Using Satellite Imagery to locate military bases belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah and point them out on a map.
Tomorrow I am getting my first Payment from the army, A measly 1,200 shekel. But after two and a half years of service I'll be getting government paid tuition to the best universities in the state.
It should be another normal day today. Wake up, Take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast and catch the bus to the station.
So Why did none of that happen?
Why the hell am I in a forest?
Why am I only half a meter tall?
What the hell is going on?
"CHESPIN!"
I stop, I take another look at myself and open my mouth again.
"Ches, Pin."
I can't breath.
This Can't be happening! This isn't real!
Getting Isekai'd only happens in Novels to nerd who hate their life!
I DON'T HATE MY LIFE!!!
TAKE ME BACK!!!
WHY ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After that I think I blacked out. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, But I was not in a good mood.
"WHY! Chesp-Why ME?! I DON'T WANT THI-pin ches!" I couldn't even finish sentences without hearing the wrong sounds coming out of my mouth.
I Don't want this...
I Just want to go home...
The sun has already set and I'm still in this forest. I wasn't trained for this type of stuff.
Give me a Map, A Computer and a before and after satellite image And I can point you to where the terrorists are hiding the hostages based on geographical advantages and car tracks.
Put me in a forest with no equipment in the body of a monster from a game I haven't played in years And I'm lost.
I can't do anything.
"Are you okay?" As I lie on my hard, unfeeling back, I hear a voice call out to me.
I turn over and I see a white rabbit.
"Chespin" Those aren't the words I wanted to say.
I'm not fine, I'm a grown man talking to a bunny in the middle of the woods and I'm pretty sure I'm having a panic attack.
"Is that your name? Chespin? I never heard of a name like that before! My Name's Angel, I'm kind of a big deal around here. Why don't you follow me, I'll introduce you to the other animals." I couldn't refuse his offer even If I wanted to.
So I followed him, And I talked with the other animals, And I managed to get my speech under control.
But I still can't go home, And there isn't anything I can do about it.
"Good Morning Mr Chespin" I get called to when I meet the other animals in the field behind the caretakers cabin.
"Thank you for helping us move Mr Chespin"
"Have this Mr Chespin, Mom wanted to give it to you"
"Good Afternoon Mr Chespin-"
"-Mr Chespin-"
"-Mr Chespin-"
"-Chespin-"
"Mr-"
My Name Used to be Samuel Cohen.
Now My name is Chespin.
And It's going to stay as Chespin until I can find a way back home.
But Until then,
I'll have to stick with Chespin.
Back In the Present
Lifting my heavy body from the soft ground of the lake beach, I start my slow walk back to my burrow.
Twenty Minutes Later I crawl Inside my hole and take one last look outside.
I should be happy I did because I was just shown the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
A Large Pillar of light made up of six different colors is shooting up from where the Everfree Forest should be.
And When that pillar reached the sky, I saw it.
That must have been the second most wonderful sunrise I have ever seen in my entire life.
It doesn't beat waking up at four in the morning to climb up Masada just so see the sun rise over the dead sea and Jordan, But it's a close second.
Maybe I should hike up a mountain to see the sunrise here too.
Yeah, I think I'll like that.
And With those thought on my mind, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.