So after I signed out of the hospital, Twilight and Rarity gave me a tour around Ponyville. Sadly, I found out that Equestria is a complete technological backwater compared to Earth. Twilight had explained that through magic, it more than made up for what they lacked in modern technology. I thought she was just naïve to the miracles of such things. I mean, look at me. Sixteen years of age, extremely intellectual and I literally have the world at my fingertips, hooves in this case. Tell me one other individual that has the same perks I do.
Also, a mass of pink that constituted itself as a pony gave me one glance, gasped and ran away like I had the plague earlier. I also had come up with a theory that unicorns were the master race among ponies, a fact that I was grateful for. Just listen for a moment, yes? The earth ponies, or commoners as I’ve taken to referring to them, handle the brunt of the physical labour, which reminded me of Killbane and his Luchadores. The pegasi are capable of flight and apparently control the weather, so they’re one step above the earth ponies. Flight would be fine and all, but when you have the potential to burn a foe to cinders with magic, the ability of flight and weather manipulation paled in comparison.
Once I learned how to use magic, that is. Maybe Twilight, being the more helpful one, could teach me. You know, something interesting was that you could compare the factions of the Syndicate to the subspecies of ponies. Earth ponies would be Luchadores, the pegasi would be the Morningstar and unicorns would be my fellow Deckers.
As we trotted along, I heard the most enrapturing sound known to man. The distorted ubiquitous bass, the volume and the general euphoric feeling it was giving off was just perfect. I had to find the pony behind the music right at that instant. I spun on my hooves, surprising Twilight and Rarity with my sudden activity.
Rarity must’ve caught onto what I was hearing, because she proceeded to comment on such a beautiful thing. “I swear, that noise that Vinyl Scratch calls music is going to be the end of my hearing someday. I don’t understand how Octavia could stand to hear it every waking moment…”
“What are you talking about?” I questioned her without turning back to her, still searching for the source of the music from our position. “By the Thirty-One Gods of Diaz, that is the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard!”
With that, I bolted off in the general direction of the electronic music and aimed to leave the two other unicorns in the dust. Or rather, I had aimed to do so when I felt something grab my tail, leaving me dangling above the ground from an invisible force.
“You can’t just go barging into somepony’s house uninvited, Matt. I want you to Pinkie Promise that you won’t try something like this again,” Twilight warned as I tilted my head up and saw a purple aura surrounding the majority of my tail.
Apparently she had me in a telekinetic grip with her magic. I wasn’t much of a fan of being upside down, so I decided to play along for now. But she would slip up sometime and I would find the source of that music.
“I’m not familiar with the implications of a ‘Pinkie Promise’,” I said calmly.
“Just repeat after me,” She placed her hoof on her ‘heart’. “I promise not to go into anypony’s home without their permission.”
I mimicked her movement and repeated, “I promise not to go into anypony’s home with their permission.”
She crossed her ‘heart’ with her hoof and jabbed it dangerously close to her eye as she continued, “Cross my heart, hope to fly and stick a cupcake in my eye.”
I stifled a snicker from the absurdity and repeated the motions, managing to jab my eye with my hoof, “Cross my heart, hope to fly and stick a cupcake in my eye. Ow.”
She ceased her magic grip on my tail and I dropped to the ground. I double-checked that my Dubstep Gun was still strapped to my back and Rarity excused herself from the tour. She had explained that she was a fashion designer working at one of the buildings called the Carousel Boutique, aptly named because it looked like a carousel had collided with a boutique. She’d explained that after subtly insulting my dress sense. Like hell there was too much neon lighting on my jacket. There’s no such thing as too much of something, especially if its cyberpunk.
That left me with Twilight, who offered me a place to stay until I found a place of my own. She was a librarian and lived in a house carved inside a tree. It also served as the town’s library. The plethora of books she aught to own would hopefully serve as a momentary diversion until I figured out a way to get out of this technological backwater of a world. It wouldn’t hurt to stay for a while, though. After all, who else can honestly say that they got turned into a unicorn?
“I’m still apprehensive towards your residency choices, Miss Sparkle,” I admitted, gazing over the tremendously large tree/library. “What if the pegasi suddenly brought in a storm and you’re residing in a tree, which is by far the worst thing you could seek refuge in?”
Twilight waved a dismissive hoof as she trotted in, “I’ve got a magical lightning rod on the roof so I can avoid such problems.”
I had mixed emotions about that answer. Frustrated because simple magical enchantments could ward off simple problems, and intrigued because I would be able to do such things when I got around to asking Twilight for magic tutoring. I trotted in and closed the door behind me to be polite.
“Spike, are you here?” Twilight called out.
Spike? Honestly, these ponies had seriously horrible names. I trotted over to one of the many bookcases and ran a hoof over the spines of each and every one, looking for one that would occupy my time.
“Yeah, Twilight? What’s up?” Answered a significantly younger voice from another room, a boy on the cusp of his teenagers years, perhaps?
“I need to send a letter to Princess Celestia, bring a quill and some parchment please!” Twilight said, a sense of urgency in her voice.
“You know royalty, Miss Sparkle?” I asked as I turned around, surprise in my tone. “Colour me impressed. That’s an honour if I ever heard one.”
“Well, not to brag, but I am Princess Celestia’s star pupil.” Twilight said bashfully, waving a hoof.
“Interesting. Anything else of significane you’ve done? Perhaps you’ve slain a demon using the power of friendship?” I joked, snickering.
“Actually, yes,” She said truthfully. “My friends and I petrified Discord, a God of Chaos, recently. But like I said earlier, it’s not something I like to brag about.”
My jaw hung loose at the revelation, and I was flabbergasted at how one could remain so modest after such events. I quickly recovered my composure and was about to return my attention to the shelves when a short bipedal iguana-like creature came into the main section of the library with a quill and a scroll in its claws. It had purple and green scales with reptile-like green eyes.
It also noticed me staring right at it, looking to Twilight for clarification.
“Twilight, who’s that pony?” It asked in the same voice that had come from the other room, pointing to me.
Twilight turned to the iguana/lizard thing and gestured to me. “Spike, this is Matt. He’s going to be staying here for a while.”
Spike looked at me pointedly. “Your name is ‘Mat’?”
“It’s spelled M-A-T-T,” I explained, receiving a confused look. “My full name is Matt Miller. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintace.”
I trotted over to him and held out my hoof, which he bumped with his clenched claw. A sly smile adorned his face as he looked back to Twilight.
“I didn’t know you were into those fancy Trottingham stallions, Twi,” He said, which made Twilight and I blush profusely moments after.
Silence fell over the three of us and you could literally hear a pin drop. I needed to defuse this embarrassing situation as quickly as possible. I deliberately coughed and, with the warm feeling still on my face, replied slowly.
“Be that as it may, my draconic friend, I assure you that Twilight and I aren’t like that,” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Even if she does remind me of Agent Kensington in an endearing, bookwormish sort of way.”
Before he could answer, a blur of cyan dashed through one of the windows lacking a pane of glass, kicking up a cloud of dust as it landed. Ponies, ponies everywhere! THEY’RE COMING OUT OF THE BLOODY WOODWORK!
“Hey Twilight!” Said the cyan blur that was actually a Pegasus with a chromatic mane, her voice raspy and resembling a tomboy’s. “Do ya have the latest Daring Do book yet?”
“Hold on a moment, I think it came in yesterday,” Twilight moved over to one of the shelves, naming off several books as her eyes took in the titles. “Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue, Daring Do and the Raiders of the Lost Ark… Aha! Here it is, Daring Do and the Ankh of Anubis!”
Twilight’s horn was encased with a purple aura, as well as a hardcover book with elaborate cover art that floated out of the impeccably arranged shelf and into the waiting Pegasus’ hooves. I got a better look at the artwork as the ecstatic Pegasus turned the book over in her hooves, most likely opting to read the synopsis for now. The mare on the image looked like a recolour of the Pegasus holding the book, a tan-yellowish coat instead of cyan and a monochrome mane instead of multicoloured. She was dressed in adventurer’s garb consisting of an olive pocketed shirt and a pith helmet, holding a ankh in her teeth as she dashed away from what I assumed to be Anubis.
I was reminded of Indiana Jones at that moment, a feeling of nostalgia washing over me. I wondered what this Daring Do character went up against in her ventures, because the only enemies of Indy were cultists, Russians , Nazis and the Chinese Mafia. And probably some more Nazis because he loathes them so much.
“A treasure hunter against the Egyptian God of the Dead is a little overkill, isn’t it?” I asked no-one in particular, chuckling to myself.
The Pegasus snapped out of her stupefaction and saw me for the first time, taking in my appearance. She looked like she was the athletic type, but I could be wrong.
“It’s Daring Do, she’s more awesome than you think!” Seemed to explain it all. Talk about a fangirl. “Hey, I’ve never seen you before in Ponyville, are you new here?”
“You’re quite right. I’m Matt. Matt Miller,” I offered her my hoof, a gesture she returned by bumping her own hoof against mine. “I take it you’re a friend of Twilight’s?”
“Yep, the name’s Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in all of Equestria!” She boasted, fluttering above the floor while flexing her legs. “By the way, how’d you your jacket to glow like that? The only other thing I saw that glows like that is that aether-something stuff Rarity has, and it doesn’t even glow that brightly. Well, that and the glowsticks that DJ PON-3 has at those raves…”
I smiled and glanced at the blue lightning on my jacket. “Something called neon lighting, Rainbow Dash. I doubt you’ve heard of it, but that’s what it is. Does this DJ PON-3 character reside her in Ponyville? I swore I heard the most remarkable electronic music coming from somewhere in town earlier, and not many musicians of that quality catch my eye.”
Rainbow Dash snorted as if I had said something amusing. “And I thought you Trottingham and Canterlot types were obsessed with your precious stringed instruments. Yeah, she lives in Ponyville with that cellist Octavia.”
I rolled my eyes. Predictable. Just because I’ve got a blissfully sweet accent and proper vernacular, I’m a snobby, stuck-up rich kid who flings their money at everything that’s ‘in’ and listens to classical music? No, I worked for my hard-earned money. Robbing the Bank of England from right under their noses isn’t a walk in the park, you know.
“I’m as likely to enjoy the works of many classical musicians as the next man, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven just to name a few, but to be honest, classical music becomes nothing more than mindless drivel at some point. Dubstep is just the superior genre, I’m afraid.” I replied, straightening my tie.
“I wouldn’t call classical music ‘mindless drivel’ in front of Octavia. Insulting somepony’s passion like that can make one furious.” Twilight added.
“That’s why it’s called a personal opinion, my dear Twilight. As long as this Octavia pony doesn’t take my somewhat mean-spirited comment to heart, she won’t need to get angry.” I countered, going back to browsing the fiction section on the shelves. “Now let’s see here…”
“Alright, I’m gotta get back home, Twilight. I’ve got to be ready for weather duty soon.” Rainbow Dash excused herself, possibly opting to fly out through the same window she entered because I didn’t hear anything from her afterward.
“Twilight, do you have any books you’d recommend, preferably science-fiction?” I asked after a while of silence browsing the shelves., getting tired from seeing book after book on physics or chemistry or something of the sort. "Maybe even something of the apocalyptic genre?"
Twilight didn't answer, but several thick hardcover books floated out of the shelf and dropped into a neat pile at my hooves. I glanced at them curiously before picking them up and heading to a secluded corner in the library to read. I doubted that they had eBooks here, so the original thing would have to do. I picked up the first book from the stack and opened it gingerly, sighing contently as I sank back into the corner.