"Shh," a soft female voice said, "I think he's waking up."
Pantheon didn't recognize the voice. He also didn't recognize the surface he was lying on.
"What're we gonna do with him?" another voice asked.
After a moment he identified the surface to be grass. He didn't remember falling asleep in a grassy field.
"I think we should take him to Twilight," a third voice said. "She'll know what to do."
The last thing Pantheon remembered was trying to kill...
"Ryze!" Pantheon shouted angrily, shooting into a sitting position. The coward had cheated during their fight, banishing Pantheon to... wherever he was.
"Careful there," the first voice Pantheon had heard said. He identified the speaker to be a small yellow pegasus with a pink mane. "You had quite the nasty fall, you shouldn't be moving around so much in case you hurt yourself."
To his credit, Pantheon only stared at the bizarre creature for a moment. He realized that, since Ryze had apparently sent him to a new universe, some things would appear strange to him. "I am no stranger to falling from great heights," he said. The yellow and pink pegasus was not alone. Accompanying her were two other similar creatures. One was a white unicorn with a purple mane while the other was a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane.
Pantheon pushed himself to his feet, rising to his full impressive height. He idly noticed the yellow and white equines back away slightly in fear, while the blue one only took to her wings to stay at eye level.
"Just what were you doing in the sky anyways?" the blue one asked, her tone slightly suspicious. Pantheon connected her voice to the second he had heard. The warrior noticed her eyeing his weapon with mistrust. "And why're you so heavily armed?"
After brief contemplation of why a race with hooves would still refer to weapons as "arms", Pantheon answered. "I was in the midst of a glorious battle when the cowardly mage I was facing banished me here to avoid an honorable death by my hand."
"How could you call battle 'glorious'?" the white one, who actually looked a little green at the moment, asked. The yellow one appeared to share the sentiment by trying to hide behind not only her mane, but her friend as well.
Pantheon, being a warrior to the core, answered immediately. "Because that is what battle is. There is no greater honor or glory than warfare. I have trained all my life in the various arts of combat, fought many enemies, and seen many victories and hope to see many more."
"Doubt that's gonna happen," the blue pegasus said. Pantheon noticed that she seemed unfazed by his speech. She was still flying a few feet in front of him, within easy reach of his spear if he chose to strike her.
"What do you mean?" Pantheon asked. Sometime during his speech the yellow pegasus had run off with the white one in tow. In the warrior's opinion, neither of them would last a second on the battlefield. This rainbow one, however, had the makings of a fine soldier.
"There hasn't been any serious armed conflict in Equestria for almost a thousand years."
Pantheon blinked. On Runeterra there were major battles at least once a year until the League was founded. A thousand years of peace was... astonishing. "Surely there's some battle to be found?" he asked.
"Nope," the pegasus shook her head. "Not unless you count the changeling invasion a couple years ago." Pantheon perked up at the word "invasion" but his hopes were swiftly dashed. "That didn't last long at all, Shining and Cadance were able to push 'em out with no casualties on either side."
"Is there some form of arena, or gladiatorial system?" Pantheon asked desperately. The pegasus shook her head. Battle was all Pantheon knew, to find himself in a world devoid of it was quite the blow to his morale. Pantheon sunk to his knees, letting his spear clatter to the ground beside him.
The pegasus landed beside him, tentatively wrapping a comforting wing around his shoulders. "I'm sure you've got plenty of other skills you can use to make a living here," she said.
Pantheon shook his helmeted head. "My entire life has been dedicated to warfare," he said. "I've never had time to cultivate any other talents I might have had."
"Well... is there anything you might want to try?"
A weak smile graced Pantheon's lips. "You know, now that I think of it, I've always wanted to be a baker."
The pegasus quirked an eyebrow. "A baker?" she asked.
"Yes," Pantheon rose once more, confidence returning to his voice. "A baker."
~~~
It turns out that Rainbow Dash, as Pantheon had learned her name to be, had a friend who was a baker and was going to introduce them.
The pair walked through the streets of Ponyville towards a house which appeared to be made of gingerbread. "It seems rather... odd to make a bakery look like a baked good," Pantheon commented.
Rainbow shrugged. "Most ponies don't question it," she said. "Besides, it makes it a good landmark." Pantheon couldn't argue that logic.
"This friend of yours, what can I expect from them?" he asked. The seasoned warrior paid no heed to the numerous stares the townsponies were giving him. If a man crumpled under the gaze of a few curious pedestrians, how would he survive in the heat of battle?
Rainbow paused. "Pinkie Pie is, well," she fished around for the appropriate words, "she's just Pinkie Pie. I don't really know how to describe her."
Pantheon raised an eyebrow even though he knew it couldn't be seen under his helmet. "Is she indescribable in a good way or in a bad way?"
"In a good way," Rainbow assured him. "She's just very random is all. Don't be surprised when she talks a mile a minute, and don't try to understand some of the things she does. The last pony who tried to figure her out nearly went crazy."
"I'll keep that in mind. She can't be worse than some of the Summoners I've had to deal with." Seriously, what even is the "LP" or "skins" that summoners talk about all the time?
"You'd be surprised," Rainbow said. The pair reached the bakery's door. Pantheon was able to read the sign above the door. "Sugarcube Corner." He was no equestrian expert, but he thought there was some sort of pun in there. Rainbow wished him luck once more before taking off into the sky.
Wasting no more time Pantheon strode up to the door and flung it open.
A lesser man would not have seen the large pink projectile flying towards him when he opened the door. Pantheon, through reflexes honed by years of battle, was able to raise his shield just in time to block the flying tackle-hug launched by what turned out to be a pink pony with a fluffy pink mane.
"Ooh, you're good," the pink pony said from where she was hugging Pantheon's shield. With an irritated shake, Pantheon was able to dislodge the pink pony from his shield. She dropped the few feet to the ground, then bounced back to her hooves. The only other being Pantheon had seen bounce like that had been the experiment Zac.
"I take it you're Pinkie Pie," Pantheon guessed from her coloration.
Pinkie nodded like a bobblehead. "Yepperooni! And you're a legendary warrior from another dimension here to learn how to bake!"
"Yes, I..." What the pony had said hit him. "What? How did you know that?" The only pony he'd told about his wish to be a baker was Rainbow, and she hadn't left his sight until a few seconds earlier. Was Pinkie Pie spying on their conversation?
Pinkie giggled. "My Pinkie Sense told me, silly!" she explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Pantheon just looked at here and mouthed the words "Pinkie Sense," confusedly. "Oh, am I going to have to explain this again? The readers already know what it... fine. I guess I'll tell him."
"Wha...?"
"Shhh," Pinkie interrupted. "It's rude to interrupt someone who's not done talking. Now where was I? Oh yes! My Pinkie Sense! You see, I get these little twitches and tickles all over my body that tell me when something's about to happen. Like earlier, I got a twitchy tail, which means something's going to fall soon, then I got a leg-kick, ear-buzz, shivery-shoulders combo which means something's coming from another universe, and finally I got an itchy-nose, knee-shake, dry-tongue, twitcy-shoulder which usually means somepony's going to learn how to bake!"
If Pantheon was a scientist, he would have wondered how Pinkie had enough data to know what these obscure messages meant. As it was, he was merely confused out of his mind. "So I put two and two and two together to get you! And now you're here so we can get started with our baking extravaganza!"
Pantheon found himself being pushed into the bakery's kitchen. To his surprise Pinkie had all manner of baking supplies laid out and labeled on a countertop. Just how long in advance had Pinkie's sense warned her? "I don't..."
"Of course you don't know what to do, silly!" Pinkie interrupted Pantheon again. "That's why you're here, right? To lean how to bake?"
Pantheon was reconsidering what he'd said to Rainbow earlier. He had definitely not met any summoners crazier than this. "How do..."
"I know what you're going to say?" Pinkie giggled. "Well, the author isn't too good at coming up with things for me to say so he just keeps making me break the fourth wall. Rather silly of him, if I do say so myself." Just then, a metaphor for the author's displeasure in the shape of a rock crashed through the roof. It would have landed directly on the pink pony's head if not for the ample warning she had received from her Pinkie Sense. "Better luck next time!" she called up through the brand-new skylight.
Acting as if nothing had just happened, Pinkie kicked the rock-shaped metaphor under a table. "So Mantheon, what would you like to bake first?" Pinkie's use of the nickname some of his summoners used distracted Pantheon from the confusion he was feeling.
"I think I'd like to try making some biscuits," he said. Supports seemed to love them, they got one almost every match on the Fields of Justice. And besides, he had to start somewhere, right?