It took Twilight and I some work, but we managed to calm down the others mares before they did anything hasty. There were a few close calls, one of which involved Applejack holding Rainbow by the tail, pinning her down as the pegasus tried to launch herself at me. Now that scared the piss out of me because of how violent Rainbow seemed to get on the show, but I was glad that there was someone of equal strength to keep her in control. And even if Applejack somehow failed to stop here, I guess Twilight was there to pull Rainbow off of me too.
So an honest five minutes after my hand-hoof-whatevershake with Twilight, we were all sitting down in more or less a circle, trying to figure things out between one another. Twilight had already 'introduced me' to everyone, and I of course acted like it was my first time meeting them. I couldn't tell them about the show, not yet. I'm trying to establish inter-dimensional relations here, and I really don't think that the greatest way to do that is to complete a pact of peace then say "Oh, by the way, our world spies on your everyday lives, chronicles them and releases them to the public for our greater enjoyment!" No, that wouldn't be smart. I felt kinda bad for not telling them though, and it ultimately meant two things for me: One, I had to keep on top of my game to keep the lie alive and not slip up in any sort of way. That would be crappy. Two, I will need to tell them eventually, because I know from personal experience that the longer you hold a lie the harder it is to hold. The kind of focus you need to do something like that for more than two months if astounding, and unless I can find a way within myself to not tell them, I will have to tell them someday. And that day will suck.
I sat in the soft grass, cross-legged with my arms posted behind be for balance. I really, really wanted to stand up but I didn't want to intimidate them or anything. After standing side-to-side with Twilight, I realized that I was a whole foot and a half taller than them. Granted, I am six foot five, but that's still and incredible margin considering they're fully grown adult ponies. Well, at least I think they're adults. I mean, most of them have jobs and own their own homes, so I can't imagine why anyone would believe that they're less than 21 years old. I mean sheesh, how dense could you get?
Anyways, we were all in a circle, and the order of ponies clockwise from me was Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight. Applejack kept a weary eye on Rainbow, but otherwise had her attention to me. Rarity still seemed a bit scared-if not disgusted-of my presence within the group. There was nothing I could do about that for now, she was just going to have to get used to me and deal with it. Rainbow Dash was grumbling to herself, holding her tail in her two forehooves and shooting dirty looks at Applejack once in a while. Pinkie Pie looked as if she was having trouble staying still, shuffling her butt and bouncing in place every once in a while. Fluttershy was of course, still scared of me and constantly hid her expression behind her mane every time I ever so glanced at her. However, I did see her peek out and lift her head up from the corner of my eye every time I wasn't looking directly at her.
Twilight was quick to describe initial friendliness once we all sat down. That had managed to calm them down a little bit more at least, but I could still feel the mistrust in the air. I managed to stay quiet through the entire explanation and leave it to a professional. The others obviously trust Twilight a lot more than they trust me, so I figured that it was better to leave as much talking to the unicorn as possible. I only chirped in when Twilight was unsure how I got her exactly.
"Ugh, so let me get this straight," Rainbow Dash said, peeved by something I probably said. "You were at your home, waiting to go to school, then SNEEZED, got sucked into a portal out of nowhere, then fell from the sky and hit the ground UNHARMED in the outskirts of Ponyville?"
I nodded.
"That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of! How the hay does that even work? You sneezed and then a portal appeared! That doesn't even make any sense!"
Meanwhile, in a dimension far far away, a handsome, perfectly toned writer sneezed all over his monitor while typing the next chapter of his work.
"It really doesn't make too much sense to me either." I said, bemused.
"All of this sounds like a load of baloney to me!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, folding her forelegs and giving me a glare.
"Now hold on a moment Rainbow," Twilight began to explain. "We can't put his word out of the question. He's just as honest as all of us here in this circle, right Applejack?"
Applejack looked at Twilight, then turned her gaze to me. She squinted, then nodded her head. "He's tellin' the truth. Ah can feel it."
I was thankful that I now had two ponies on my side to vouch for me that weren't complete nutcases.
"It has been a little bit crazy as of late," Rarity pointed out. "All these portals and monsters that come climbing out of them, well, I think I'm willing to believe anything at this point."
That left me confused. "Monsters? Wait, you haven't told me why exactly you were all posed and ready to shoot at me as soon as I arrived. What's up with that? How did you know I would be here?"
Twilight bit her lip, her eyes locked on the lower left of her vision as I waited for her answer. "We've been having a bit of a portal problem lately. About two months ago, a portal appeared over Ponyville, and with it a horrible, two-legged monster came. It stepped into Ponyville and began destroying everything. The girls and I had to use the elements to subdue it, and then it seemed to melt and get washed away by the Elements. When we were done, there was nothing left of it, and the only proof of it actually being there in the first place was all the destruction it left behind."
All the girls around me appeared to be a bit nervous, not looking at anyone in particular and settled with staring at the ground.
"After that, portals began appearing every two weeks or so, and every time they did another monster would appear from it, and we would have to use the Elements against it to keep it from destroying everything. The monarch of our land, Princess Celestia, sent the royal guard to all corners of the land and sent them on high alert, trying to catch where the portal would appear before the monster that came from them did too much harm. Every time a portal did appear, the Princess would send all of us to deal with it, and we would use the Elements against it."
Twilight stared at the ground, not caring to keep eye contact anymore. "They keep coming, and we don't know what's causing it. Princess Celestia has her top magic scientists working at it, and I personally took a look, but so far we can't tell why they're appearing, or what's causing it. There's no distinguishable patterns, or any correlation between location and date. The only pattern we've noticed so far is that they occur about every two weeks or so. Every time they do, they cause more and more destruction in their wake because we don't know it ahead of time and it takes us time to get to where the monster is at."
Twilight looked a tab bit depressed. In fact, all the others looked depressed too. I scratched the back of my head. This was pretty shitty. Everything got really damn dark, really fast. I knew that the show could get a bit misguided at times, but I don't think it ever got this bad! The darkest it's ever gotten was when Queen Chrysalis trapped Twilight in the Canterlot Mines through a ring of green fire, and even that wasn't that bad.
What the heck is going on?
"You keep saying monsters," I comment, making Twilight look back up at me. "That's not too specific. What do they look like?"
"Well, they vary from appearance to appearance," Twilight answered. "One was tall, green and bulging with muscles. Another was wearing black robes and threw powerful kinds of magic everywhere it could see. Another one had a full set of metal armor on it, and it covered it's face with a creepy helmet. It had some sort of advanced crossbow that could shoot lightning fast bolts from it and it kept throwing bombs everywhere that set everything on fire."
Oh Jesus. This is crossover syndrome. I've landed myself in some kind of sick crossover fanfic.
"We never know what's coming out of the portals, or what they'll do when they get there, but two things are for certain: They all stand upright on two legs, and they all have claws." Twilight continued, running her hoof along the dirt in the ground.
Oh crap. That meant me.
"Ya'll don't have anythang to do with them monsturs comin' out of them portals, do ya?" Applejack questioned, leaning towards me with squinted eyes.
I gulped. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't, not with the living lie detector staring me down like this. "No, I don't, but the 'monsters' you've been describing suspiciously sound like things that come out of fiction on my world." All the girls had their attentions right on me, putting me on the spot. I really didn't know how to continue. "I, uhh, I mean, we don't have magic in our world, so a dark wizard shooting spells out of his hands sounds like something from a novel, and no one I know has green skin, so I don't really know what's going through those portals."
Every pony in the circle waited expectantly for an answer from Applejack. Her green eyes pierced mine for a couple of seconds before she nodded her head. Everyone relaxed, including me. What I did fail to mention to them however, was the gun-toting one-man army that came out of one of those portals. That literally sound like something from Halo or something. Good think that honesty doesn't mean details, just the truth.
"But how did you guys know when I was going to appear?" I asked, glancing up at the sky to see if the portal was still there.
"Applejack actually saw the portal come out of the sky." Twilight replied, gesturing to the farmer.
"Ah was at mah farm, gatherin' apples when th' sky darken'd fer a could of seconds," Applejack recalled, flicking her hat up so she could see me better. "Ah looked up, wonderin' where th' sun went. Then off in th' distance, ah saw it. Ther' was a black hole, stuck up ther' in th' sky. Ah, er, hate to say it, but ah panicked and ran for Twi' before anythin' appeared."
Twilight nodded. "I found Applejack banging against my door early in the middle of my lunch. After she explained to me what happened, I gathered the rest of the girls and let Applejack lead us to where she saw it. You came down from the sky as soon as we got there."
"Mmm. Ok." I acknowledged. That explained things. That meant that I landed not too far from Sweet Apple Acres. That's why I was seeing a whole bunch of apple trees earlier. I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see a forest of apples, wood and leaves scarred along a large plot of land off in the distance, with a big red barn sitting in the back.
My gaze turned back towards them. I needed to ask a question that I've actually wanted to ask for a long time. "So what now? What's the next step here?"
I purposefully avoided asking 'What are you planning to do with me?', even though the snarky part of me wanted to. That would be low, even for me.
"Umm, that's a good question," Twilight said slowly, mulling over her next words. "I really don't know. I haven't thought that far. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened before."
She looked at her friends, one by one. All of them gave some kind of answer that was related to 'I have no idea', with Rainbow Dash shrugging, Applejack shaking her head, Rarity looking confused, Fluttershy hiding behind her mane and Pinkie Pie swatting at something flying in the air. Twilight sighed, then turned towards me.
"I guess we'll head back to my library, I can send a letter to Princess Celestia and we'll sort it out from here." She concluded, although with a little bit of uncertainty.
The others murmured in agreement. I said sure, then we all got up. I brushed off the back of my pant leggings just to have a cloud of dirt get flung in my face from Rainbow Dash taking off. I ended up inhaling a bunch of it in my mouth and could taste Equestrian soil on my tongue. Coughing and wheezing, I stumbled back while sputtering until I managed to wave out the dirty air away from my breathing area. I could feel the particles of earth on my eyelashes. I shot a glare at Rainbow Dash, who could only give me a nervous smile and a shrug for my suffering.
"Heh, sorry" she apologized, slowly flying away from me.
"Yeah, whatever," I replied, dusting off my sweater sleeves. "I just want to get back home as fast as possible."
Twilight froze. She turned around, a chilled expression on her face. "I'm not sure how possible that is."
I fucking knew it.