The Arrival
Flapping his wings a little faster, Ponyville approached as Jason landed on a hill overlooking the city. He touched down behind a fallen tree and pushed his back against it, much like a soldier would press his back against a wall of sandbags when attempting to stay below cover. He tried to slow his heart rate from the fight with the wolf, only partially succeeding as parts of the fight flashed through his memory. He turned his thoughts to planning his entrance, casting an unhappy gaze at the long, bloody scratches on his side. He raised his arm to inspect the damage that the wolf's teeth had caused and flinched a little. It was definitely not a pretty sight. Besides the fact that it was bleeding heavily, he could swear he saw bone in the wound. He didn't think he had regular bones. Maybe the chitin changed color? This lack of any knowledge about himself was starting to get annoying.
Turning his attention back to the task of entrance, he re-thought his decision about his current form. "Okay, so I want to do what when I enter? I need ways to get out of crappy situations should they arrive, so I need magic. Unicorn then, I guess. Jason watched as the necessary transformation occurred, his wings retracted and disappeared in a flare of green flames, while a horn extended from his forehead. "I'll never get tired of that," he mused to himself. "Now lets see... Oh yeah! plan of action!" He looked at his wounds, which were still there, much to his annoyance, but had seemed to stop bleeding. "If I do get caught, what would be useful to escape?" he asked himself "Teleportation would be nice, and I guess if I'm totally revealed I can fly, although there's no telling how far I'd get like that... hmm." He paused. "Okay, first stop, the library to try to learn that spell. Then I guess I need to try to get some love, so I could just find the CMC if they're out and about, possibly try and make some friends. They'll probably notice the lack of a cutie mark before I even see them." He chuckled.
And so, with his master plan in place, Jason set off down the hill and into the marketplace. As he walked, he couldn't help but notice the concerned and even mortified looks that he was getting from some of the ponies that walked by. He chuckled. His leg looked like hell, but even though it should have forced him to limp from the pain, it only felt like a deep paper cut. More ponies stared. It was almost like he could FEEL their pity. 'Oh wait, changeling, duh.' Jason was starting to feel uncomfortable with being such a center of attention and the receiver of all of the ponies' emotions, and decided to break into a trot. One of the ponies gasped, expecting the small colt to fall onto his face or hurt himself with the increased effort on his mangled leg. Finally exiting the marketplace and losing the stares of most of the ponies, he noticed a treehouse in the distance, and, assuming that it was the library, took off in that direction. He passed Sugarcube corner, and noted its location, along with the location of Carousel Boutique, which was only a couple of blocks away.
As he was trotting, he began to think about how much easier it was than a jog as a human would have been. Chalking it up to the new, horse like form, he continued on. He looked at the ground. Cobblestone. But his hooves weren't making hardly any noise as they moved over the hard material, only a faint clip-clop noise, as if he was listening to it through a wall. He stopped trotting, then picked up a hoof and slammed it into the ground as hard as he could. Instead of a loud, resounding CLOP, he barely got a noise louder than before.
"Nice! Silenced hooves!" Jason remembered back to all the times where he had decided to scare his friends and family members as a kid, and was almost always foiled because of the noise he made sneaking up on people. The only person he had ever succeeded in scaring was his grandfather, which he was proud of until his mother told him that he was deaf. Then he was grounded for scaring his deaf grandfather. Like he should've known. He lost his hearing in the war, but had developed an ability to read lips and read faces, which was probably why he never knew. It was also the first time he had met his grandfather. The odds were definitely stacked against him that day. A true underdog story. He chuckled, and then ran face first into the door of the library.
Shocked out of his stupor, he raised his hoof to knock on the door, and ran his hoof into it a few times, slightly annoyed when it didn't make any noise whatsoever. "Really hooves," he said to the one he had used to knock.
The door opened, and inside was a light lavender unicorn with a navy blue mane that had streaks of pink and purple running through it. Twilight Sparkle, if he remembered correctly.
They both stood there for a while, as Twilight looked at the most mangled foal she had ever seen. It was weird, but he felt almost like he could tell what she was feeling, which in this case was a mix of pity, nervousness and...fear?. 'Must be a changeling thing,' he thought. Jason cleared his throat, giving her a smile. That seemed to make her even more nervous.
"Um... Do you have any books on more advanced unicorn spells?" he asked. She continued to stare for a few more seconds before she finally responded.
"Sure, um, right this way" she replied, walking into the library while shooting a few worried glances over her shoulder. She levitated some books over, and he transferred them into his magical grasp. God he loved floating things.
"Where can I read this?" he asked. Twilight pointed to a chair in the corner, and he brought the top one of the pile over and sat down, cracking the book in front of him, labeled "Magic and its Uses, Volume VI, Spells Q-S." He was about to start reading when Twilight cleared her throat.
"S-so, um, sorry for asking, but what happened to you?" She asked while gesturing towards his foreleg and side.
"Well I was in the Everfree..."
"Alone?!?!" she practically yelled. He had somewhat expected this reaction, and forced himself to keep down a chuckle. The anger that he could feel radiating off of her may have helped a little.
"Yeah. Anyway..."
"What were you thinking?!? You could have been killed!"
"Well was I?" He paused. "I didn't think so. Now if you'll let me continue, I was walking and was attacked by a wolf, but I fought it off. There. End of story." He opened the book back up that he had apparently closed, and opened it to the first page.
"W-well, at least let me get you some bandages..." she said.
"Ugh, you don't need to--" he noticed she had already left the room. "Where was I?" He asked himself as he flipped through the pages. "Ah. Teleportation. Here we go."
Teleportation is the general ability that a unicorn professes to achieve allowing the spellcaster's body to create a rift in space time and... He decided to skim, in interest of leaving the library in less than a week. He picked up a while later.
The actual process of teleportation changes with the user, but is most often achieved by the user as simply concentrating on a new venue that is very well known and concentrating on the idea of appearing there. WARNING: do not attempt to teleport without a destination or to a partially unknown destination because of the risk of...
Looking back up from the book, Jason saw Twilight re-enter the room with an incredibly large first aid kit floating beside her. Before he could protest, she had already retrieved the gauze and wrapped it around his arm, after the liberal addition of anti-bacterial solutions. After the burning pain had subsided, he returned his attention to her.
"Thanks." he said, and got up to attempt teleportation.
"Hold on kid, you're not leaving until you tell me how this happened."
"Didn't I already do that?"
"Yeah, but I'm referring to the circumstances that led into this mess. Why were you even out in the Everfree?"
'Shit' he thought, 'how could he forget to come up with a backstory before he came here? How stupid was he?' He had to think, and think fast to get out of this. Even then, he wasn't that good at coming up with quick, believable lies. 'Lets go, zero years of drama school.' "Well, I was just exploring, and..."
"Just exploring!?! JUST exploring?!?! Has anypony ever told you about the dangers of the forest?" 'She bought it. Perfect,' he thought. This was easier than he had hoped, especially now that he could tell whether or not people doubted him, because apparently that counted as an emotion, and he could only feel it when she briefly doubted he had actually fought a wolf.
"Well sure, but I may have ignored them."
"Whatever, but NEVER do this again. Do you hear me?"
"Yup. Now listen I have to go pick up some stuff from the market, so...yeah see you later I guess." Thinking that it would be a good time to try the teleportation spell, he concentrated on the area right outside the library door, and imagined the travel occurring. He heard a small pop and felt a whoosh of air, and found himself to be outside the library. "Heh. I could get used to that. Still too easy though." He started walking towards the market.
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Back in the library, immediately after Jason left...
"What! how did he do that?" Twilight yelled out after the mystery colt warped away. "It took me years to even THINK about teleportation, and now this little kid comes in here and does it immediately?" She sighed. "I'll just chalk that one up to 'strange experience in general' and leave it at that." And with that statement she went back to reorganizing the library books to her new version of the Dewey decimal system.
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"What do you mean 'why aren't you in school?'" Jason asked a rather large unicorn stallion that had stopped him on his way to the market.
"Playing a little hooky there are we? We'll see who has the last laugh." he said as he levitated Jason in the air and started walking to the school house. Figuring that the stallion was serious, he couldn't get over how weird it would be on earth if some guy picked up some random kid and decided to take him back to school. He wondered if child molesters existed here.
One surprisingly short walk later, the stallion opened the door to the quaint, one room school house, and burst in, much to the surprise of Mrs. Cherilee and the rest of the students, most of which, he recognized. When Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom saw him they shared some exited whispers, and then became silent. Must be the whole 'not having a cutie mark' thing. The stallion levitated Jason back to the floor and released his magical grip.
"I caught this little bugger trying to cut class." he said awkwardly and matter-of-factly.
"Okay then little guy," Mrs Cherilee said, looking as confused as Jason, "take a seat over there and I'll continue." Almost snickering at the absurdity of it all, he sat down in a chair next to Scootaloo and some other pony. Checking out his surroundings, he noticed Scootaloo and silently cheered, as she was one of his favorites from the show. Cherilee seemed to be getting up the nerve to continue speaking, so Jason stared at her, slouched in his chair, and retook his general sitting position from high school, as if to say, 'Go ahead, just try and teach me'.
"So, class, apparently we have a new student," She said, attempting a glare at the stallion before she realized that he had left. "Would you care to tell us your name?" 'Crud! I didn't think of that either,' he thought 'just need to buy some time'
"Moe" he blurted out.
"Moe...Moe..." she rolled the name around in her mouth for a minute, then asked, "and your last name?"
'Gotta keep a straight face...' "Lester" The classroom was silent for a few moments before nearly all of the students burst into laughter at the teacher's expense. Jason cracked a smile. Kids were so easy.
Scootaloo turned to him. "You're not half bad, new guy!" she put her hoof up, and he bumped his into it with a satisfying clack. When the laughing finally died down, he had come up with a real name. Good timing, because Cherilee looked like she was about to explode. So much for good impressions...
"Your REAL name this time, please," she warned.
"Oh, yeah, um, Blaze"
"Last name..."
"Don't have one"
"Okay, class, say hello to your new classmate Blaze." A sea of hellos and other greetings was heard. "Now we're going to go around the room and I want each of you to introduce yourself." One mind-numbingly boring set of introductions later, Cherilee decided to get back to teaching.
"Why does he have all of the cuts and bandages?" a filly in the back asked in a sarcastic manner, "was he just being too clumsy like those other blank-flank losers?" A few ponies actually laughed. Jason turned around, and saw a very smug looking Diamond Tiara.
'How did I not expect that?' he thought.
"Well?" she pestered.
"Fine, I'll tell you. I was in the Everfree..." he paused, waiting for the collective, slightly annoying now, gasp to wind down, "and then some wolf attacked me. Ya happy now?"
"Yeah right, you were probably running the whole time."
'She doesn't give up, I'll give her that...' "Actually I killed the thing." Another gasp. He rolled his eyes. Cherilee stood up.
"Diamond Tiara, I would like to see you after class." Jason heard a gasp and a growl, realizing he had really pissed her off. 'Mission accomplished!'
A bell rang. "Alright my little ponies, recess!" 'Weird being back in elementary school,' he thought, 'especially since I just finished college.'
Walking outside, he was immediately swarmed by the CMC, albeit expectantly.
"Is it true that you took out a wolf all by yourself?" Scootaloo spoke up.
"Ya..." replied Jason. The small group huddled for a moment and exchanged hurried whispers before turning back to him. This time Sweetie Belle spoke up.
"Do you want to join the" *dramatic pause* "Cutie Mark Crusaders?" They had all struck goofy poses that he guessed were supposed to look intimidating or adventurous, or something.
"Sure...I guess..." Scootaloo elbowed Sweetie Belle in the side.
"Oh yeah, but you have to pass 'Initiation' first." she said.
"Okay, what is it?" he asked, genuinely curious. Appleboom spoke up.
"So here's what y'all has ta do..."