"Uhh...man...that’s the last time I ever shoot a reactor point blank..." Zero moaned as his mind drifted through the darkness. He probably should have been used to the feeling he was having at that moment, but dying always seemed to bring out the biggest headaches regardless of whether or not he was ready for it.
"Still, at least Ragnarok has been stopped." He thought. "And maybe this time, I'll stay dead for good. I’ve never been so tire-"
"Zero..."
"...Huh?"
"Wake up Zero."
"Who...Who's there?!"
"You're still needed in a mortal realm Zero."
"What do you mean? WHO ARE YOU!?"As he this, he began to feel a pulling sensation.
"Zero, you're still needed. Only you can stop what’s coming for these beings."
Zero saw a bright light. "Listen, I appreciate that you would do this to help out Ceil and the others, but I'm sure they'll be able to do fine without me. To be honest...I'm done fighting."
"Zero, please, help these beings. You might not even need to fight."
Zero had a feeling that he could trust the voice. For now. "Fine...Just tell me what I need to do."
As he felt the pulling sensation pull him to life, the voice said "Wake up."
As Zero felt his return to the world of the living, he saw that things were WAY different from when he left Earth to take on Ragnarok again. For one thing, there weren’t any trees fitted with machinery, the air was clear, and he was in a meadow.
A GREEN meadow.
"...How long was I out?" He asked no one in particular. Seeing that nothing would help if he just stood there gawking, he decided to just move on. After walking for what seemed like hours, which translates to 20 minutes our time, he heard something incredibly soothing.
"Wow...is someone...singing?" He thought. Heading towards the sound, he saw a yellow horse with long pink hair lying down with many animals all around it.
"Oh! It must be a little girl behind that horse."
Walking up as not to disturb the animals, it became clear that there was no girl there. When he got right up to them, he received several huge surprises.
One, the horse had wings.
Two, there really wasn’t any girl nearby.
And three, the horse was the one who was singing.
There came a time when even the most battle hardened people had no words to say. Zero had no such problem right then, as shown by his next choice of words.
"The fu-"
The animals, seeing a very different thing from the nice singing horse cursing, decided to flee. The horse, however, made a small 'eep' sound before dashing into a nearby bush in a way that would make even a cold hearted machine say "aww".
Seeing the mistake he made, Zero decided to walk up to the now hiding horse and try to communicate with it.
"Hey, don’t worry... I won’t hurt you. My names Zero, what's your name?" He said in as nice a voice as he could muster, which wasn’t very well, but still did its job as the horse climbed out the bush slowly.
"Um...it’s...." the next part was inaudible.
"Huh? Sorry, could you repeat that..." Zero asked.
"..Its..."her voice went even lower than before. Zero was starting to lose the small amount of patience he had.
"SPEAK UP!!"
If the horse was scared before, it was terrified now, as it pulled a fainting goat maneuver and fainted. Seeing that the one thing he could probably communicate with had fainted, Zero decided to move along the path. Or he would have if a rainbow streak hadn’t slammed into his chest at mach 2 speed.
"What’s your deal bozo!" the streak, or rather, a light blue winged horse with rainbow hair, yelled at the slightly fazed reploid. "Why are you yelling at my friend!? I was enjoying that you know!"
Taking notice that the thing she slammed into was most definitely not a probably well built pony, but an elf looking monkey that seemed to look like a girl. "Wait a sec, just what the hay are you anyway? Are you a spy or something?" it asked in an accusing tone.
"What’s my problem?" Zero asked in a fairly annoyed tone, getting up from the ground. "You ran into me for no reason!"
The blue pony scoffed. "No reason? You just made my friend faint."
"Oh. Well, I’m sorry." he said, surprising the blue pony.
"Eh...it’s cool then. So you wanna help me get her home?"
Just like that you trust me? He thought. Well, better not look a gift horse in the mouth. Literally so in this case.
"I guess so. My name's Zero by the way."
"I'm Rainbow Dash, the fastest pony in Equestria! The pony you made faint is named Flutershy."
"Well that explains the quiet tone of voice then."
Some few minutes later, Zero found himself being questioned by an Alicorn named Twilight Sparkle in a tree. A fact that still sort of amazed him.
"So Mr. Zero, what brings you to Ponyville?" she asked.
"I really don’t know. I just woke up in a meadow and wandered until I ran into Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. And you don’t have to call me Mr. anything. Zero is just fine Twilight."
"Thank you. Now let’s see..." She then unfurled a checklist labeled 'found person who doesn’t know where he is or why he's here'. "Do you have amnesia?"
"Not this time."
"Oookay...You know your name, do you know what you do?"
"I was Maverick Hunter a long time ago, but until recently, I was a Resistance Soldier."
"Resistance Soldier? Against what?"
"Neo Arcadia."
"Well, that doesn’t sound like something you should fight against, but I guess I had to be there..."
You don’t seem like you would last long...he thought. In the time he had spent in Ponyville so far, he could tell that this civilization of Ponies had never really seen a day of war or strife. He could tell he would like it here. But why would they need his help? Everything was perfect. Even the weather obeyed the whims of the Pegasi.
"Zero?"
"Huh?"
"I asked if you knew what year it was."
"Well...it was 24XX last time I checked."
"Really? It’s the year 1003 AF."
"...that means after death right?"
"No, After Fall. What’s with that look?"
This was impossible. Somehow, he had come back to life in another dimension, or maybe way into the future. It didn’t matter, he was in a real bind if he didn’t even know how long he had been gone. Deciding to keep this fact hidden for now, he decided to just ignore it. "Nothing. Is that all you have to ask me?"
"Yes, thank you."
"You done Twilight?" An orange pony called from the front door.
"Yes Applejack, come in. Zero, I’d like you to meet my friend Applejack. Applejack, this is Zero."
"Well howdy, you ain't like anything Ah've ever seen."
"Heh. I've never seen talking flesh and blood ponies’ before." he said, remembering the Pegasus reploid he had fought trying to stop Ragnarok.
"Anyway Twi, Ah've got's me a small problem."
"What is it AJ?"
"Well...ya may want ta bring 'Supernaturals' with ya."