First Ezio, then Altair fell out of the sky carriage as soon as it touched down in Ponyville. While Altair seemed almost as though he had developed a phobia of the carriage, Ezio only seemed a little wary of the vehicle. Flying through the night on da Vinci’s contraption had prepared him for flight, just not so drug out.
As Ezio picked up Altair by the arm and brought him back to his senses, the two caught up to Celestia and Legend. Two more pony stallions followed behind the assassins, carrying the Apple in a heavy gold chest between them. The denizens of the small village bowed to their ruler and her guard, but stood up as the two humans walked past, giving them weary looks.
The crowd continued to part until there was an obvious path to six mares, all of them except for one glaring at Altair and Ezio. When the group reached the six mares, they bowed to Celestia but stood immediately afterward.
The purple mare spoke in a low, accusatory tone, “What are those doing here?” She obviously knew that they were responsible for the mysterious attack on the town. So, Celestia described to the unicorn what had happened since the guard had come in and told them Connor had been found.
She had acted immediately; putting up a golden box around the Apple and having the guards fetch the heavy chest it was currently in. Once it arrived, Legend placed the golden artifact into the box since he appeared to be the only one immune to the Apple. Afterwards, Altair, Ezio, Celestia, Legend, and two more guards departed and each climbed into the covered carriage. At first, the two humans thought it would be just a normal ride; until it started picking up speed.
As soon as they flew off the cliff, Ezio’s hands flew to the window frames and Altair began clinging to the walls, having never taken to the skies before. The entire trip to Ponyville was spent trying to coax Altair off of the wall. They were able to make an improvement of wall to floor, where he spilled out of onto the Ponyville square.
Twilight nodded slowly, still weary of the two, and turned to lead them through the town. They were met with quite a few glares, but there were at least two that seemed rather curious. After walking for another ten minutes, the houses just stopped, practically throwing them out into the beautiful countryside.
As they continued to walk, a small cottage that looked as though it were almost part of the earth came into view. It was a very pleasant setting that made the assassins feel at peace. The only pony that hadn’t been glaring at them, a timid little thing named Fluttershy, opened the door for them to enter her humble abode.
The crowd of animals that had been waiting at the door for their Pegasus friend disappeared almost immediately at the sight of the humans. The only ones that remained were the dogs, who trotted up to the humans with tongues hanging out as Ezio scratched behind their ears, and an eagle, who flew up to Altair’s shoulder perched upon it as though it were his guard.
Celestia turned to Fluttershy, “Where is the creature?” Fluttershy nodded towards the stairs, but seemed almost frightened when Celestia started walking up them.
“W-w-wait, uh please, Princess.” Unfortunately, the princess didn’t hear her and continued up the small set of stairs. A few seconds later, there was growl, a shriek of surprise, and the sound of things falling as Celestia bolted back down the stairs.
She took a second to catch her breath before speaking to Fluttershy, “Why, is there, a wolf, sitting next to him?”
Fluttershy looked around nervously before replying. “Oh, Therin? Well, uh, he won’t listen to me, and he won’t leave the creature’s side.”
Twilight had a concentration upon her face, and then she turned to her yellow friend. “Didn’t you say that the first time you ran into him, he killed a timberwolf?” At Fluttershy’s nod, she turned away from the rest muttering something about this human and wolves.
At this point, Ezio slowly approached Fluttershy, the dog trotting at his heels. “Excuse me Senorita, but would you mind if I went up there to see if I could calm the wolf down? Also, what is the name of this wonderful dog?”
Fluttershy had been the first to notice that a certain animal liked to pertain to each of the humans, but she smiled and complied. "This handsome fellow's name is Aspen, and his name," she said pointing to the eagle on Altair's shoulder, "Is Toren." Altair looked at the eagle on his shoulder thoughtfully, stroking his breast feathers with his finger. When Ezio gave her a gentle smile in return, she began to wonder if maybe all humans weren't so bad.
Ezio gave her another small smile then went up the stairs, Aspen still following at his heels. Once he reached the top, they could barely hear the quiet growl of Therin, before it went quiet. Then, Ezio called to them, "It is okay now, you may come up."
Celestia and Altair walked up the steps, but as the others made to follow, Celestia motioned for them to stay, "Do not fret, my little ponies, I will not be long." She walked through the door at the top of the stairs, easily spotting Ezio sitting next to Therin, gently stroking his fur and Aspen's.
The third human lay in the small bed, eyes screwed shut. Each of his weapons were lying on another table close by, but out of his immediate arm reach. There was a bow, six arrows, an axe with a curved blade, a small steel dagger, darts with poison on them, some kind of metal tube with a wooden handle, and these other strange darts with rope attached.
As Altair examined each of the weapons, he picked up the small metal tube. He turned it over in his hands wondering what it was. Could it be a message capsule, or perhaps a food container?
Ezio, not paying attention to the great assassin, barely looked up in time to see Altair looking down the barrel of the gun, his finger on the trigger. He jumped up, sprang forward and pushed the barrel out of the way just as Altair pulled the trigger.
*Boom*
The gunshot echoed into the surrounding forest and left a rather sizable hole in Fluttershy's roof. Altair had dropped the gun and jumped away from it, pulling out his sword. Legend burst through the door and looked about ready to kill, Celestia's horn was charged for defense, and the human...
...was still asleep. Ezio sighed and picked up the weapon, carefully placing it back upon the night stand. "It is okay, brother, " he said to Altair. Turning to Celestia and Legend, "Just a simple misunderstanding. Now, shall we continue what we came here to do?"
Celestia gave a little hesitant nod of her head as the magic within her horn changed from hostile to a more neutral energy. She turned towards the third and lowered her horn to his forehead, casting the spell. She looked up and turned to leave, a tired look etched upon her face. "Let's go, he will wake up in a few minutes."
She turned around to see the inquisitive stares of the two assassins. "All I cast was a simple translation spell. What, did you think that us speaking the same language was an astronomical coincidence? I cast it on you two as well, since that is the only time it will work." She turned with a cocky scoff and strutted down the stairs, which had seemed possible to the humans.
They just looked at each other, shrugged, and followed after her. Altair lifted his left arm and Toren took to the skies through a small window. He placed his right hand onto Ezio's shoulder and spoke to him in a friendly voice, "Now, you will have to explain to me the new technologies of your world, like that oversized gun."
Ezio let out a soft chuckle as he began to tell of how the world had changed to Altair as they walked down the steps. Unfortunately, neither of them noticed the flash of white light that appeared next to the assassin's bed.
~~~~~
Connor groaned, and slowly opened his eyes. He observed his surroundings, noticing he was within a small room. Oddly enough, there was a medium sized hole in the ceiling. Raising his hand to his head in an attempt to quell the oncoming headache, he began to slide out of the bed when his feet touched a furry warmth.
He slowly brought his feet back up and looked over the edge of the bed. Sure enough, a large grey wolf was lying down on the floor next to him. He cautiously poked its forehead, finding that even the harshest of pokes would not wake it.
A voice spoke from the corner of the room, “Well, will you listen once you’ve finished your examination?” Connor shot from the bed, grabbed his tomahawk from the nightstand, and threw it horizontally towards the voice.
As he watched though, the form of the axe seemed to turn to liquid, hitting the chest of a snake-like figure with a squeak as it finished its transformation into a squeaky chicken toy. It fell to the ground with another squeak before the figure, some type of mix between what seemed like twenty different animals, bent over and picked up the rubber chicken.
“You seem to have dropped this,” said the odd creature with a little chuckle in his voice. “But do you mind? Yes?” Connor simply stared at him, so he shrugged and the rubber chicken changed into a glass full of a brown, milky substance. He raised the glass to his lips and…drank the glass.
As he finished with a content sigh, he tossed the brown milk to Connor, who lifted his hand to shield against a falling liquid. So, one can expect his surprise when instead he caught his tomahawk. “How did you do that? Who are you?”
A pair of red glasses appeared on his face as walked over, appearing to examine Connor’s choice of clothing. In a rather over exaggerated English accent, he spoke to Connor, “Yes, well, my name is Discord darling. Now, about those clothes.” Discord snapped his talons and began laughing uncontrollably, both at the look on Connor’s face from the ‘darling’ and his new clothes, a clown suit with a red nose and everything.
Connor looked down in disgust as Discord said to him laughing, “Maybe you should quit clowning around!” Connor began walking towards him, murder present in his mind. However, he stopped when Discord spoke to him again, “If you kill me, how do you ever plan to go home?”
Connor thought about it for a moment, then started to run towards Discord, jumping in the air to deal a deathblow to his head. Discord scowled and waved his hand, sending Connor flying against the wall. Discord picked him up by the throat, “You know, I think you are perhaps too dangerous to be around Fluttershy. I think I’ll change you into a tiny little songbird.” His hand began to glow with energy, moving towards Connor’s face.
He came within an inch of the assassin’s nose, when he stopped. A look of confusion was on his face as tried getting closer, but to no avail. Suddenly, he flew backwards as Connor’s rescuer came out of the nearby wall. The same little golden ball from the forest floated to his face, Connor feeling its worry for him.
As it was healing his small wounds, he reached up a hand a caressed its golden light. “What are you?” Receiving only what felt like a playful shrug, it then decided to shoot out the window towards the forest.
Discord stood up again, now with a thoughtful look upon his face. “If they’re protecting you,” he muttered quietly. When he saw Connor’s confused look, he abruptly changed the subject, “Anyways, I brought you here to bring some excitement into Fluttershy’s life. So, I’m sending you on an adventure!”
He snapped his fingers, disappearing after a few seconds. As Connor blinked away the black spots dancing in his vision, he heard a cry from outside.
“The Apple! It’s gone!”