//------------------------------//
// What Could Go Wrong? 
// Story: A Survivors Guide to Equestria 
// by Onomonopia 
//------------------------------//

From one of the bushes near the station Ryan watched the ponies with keen eyes, waiting for Derpy to make her move before he tried to sneak onto the train. The sun had just risen over the horizon, but an unexpected complication had come up during the time he had been waiting. A lot more ponies were heading to Canterlot than he had been expecting, so he had to wait for a more ideal opportunity to sneak on.

'Then again, when have any of my plans ever gone the way I want?' Ryan thought to himself as he looked down at the flier again, seeing now that he had only two hours left to get to the castle in time to see if his world was still standing. Then he saw a grey Pegasus make a waving motion and he knew it was time to act. As fast and silently as he could he ran across the open ground before rolling behind one of the cars, hoping he hadn't been seen.

'Okay, according to what she told me there should be a pony in the caboose for another ten minutes, so all I have to do is wait...' He stopped thinking for a moment when he heard the conductor say all aboard and heard the sounds of ponies scrambling to get on. Then he looked down at the wheels in front of him to see that the train was now moving. He began to weigh his options as the train began to pick up speed. He couldn't get into the caboose without being seen, but that would mean he would have to hang on the train until the pony moved. And that was just crazy.

'Ah what the hell?' Ryan thought as he reached out and grabbed a pole on the side of the train, getting dragged along by the moving train before he pulled himself onto the side. Within a few minutes he realized what a terrible mistake he had made as he struggled to hold onto the side. That left him with very limited options and by the way that a tunnel in the distance was getting closer to him, he had to make it fast. With a growl he opened the window to the caboose and threw himself inside, turning around to see the tunnel that would have scraped him off go flying by.

"And now to deal with you," he muttered as he turned around, ready to deal with the pony that was back here. But to his shock instead of a mail carrier pony he found one of the Royal Guard, who was looking at him with a wicked smile on his face.

"Yes, time to deal with you," the pony said as he pulled out a blade with his magic and attacked Ryan. Ryan swore as he grabbed the railings above him and pulled himself out of the way of the attack before kicking the pony in the face, dropping onto the ponies back while he staggered and went to hit him in the back of the head. The guard threw himself back and slammed Ryan into the side of the car, causing the human to grunt as he lost his grip and fell to the floor. "Are all of you humans so weak?" the pony asked as he went to stab him again.

"Please, I'm just going easy on you!" Ryan retorted as he pulled out the stun baton and turned it on, smiling as the pony backed away from it as the electricity crackled along it. The guard when to attack, but Ryan flipped over his blade and drove the baton into the pony's leg, causing him to cry out as he fell to the ground. "What happened to all of that confidence that you had a moment ago? Don't tell me that you're being beaten by such a weak human?"

The pony roared and threw himself at Ryan, slamming into his mid-section and drove him in the side of the train. Ryan felt the window break behind him as his back slammed into it, but he managed to break free of the pony's grasp by grabbing a piece of glass that was imbedded in his bag and stabbed the pony in the leg. The pony yelled as the blow drew blood but Ryan was surprised how the glass shattered against his leg.

"Sorry human, we're a bit tougher than you thought!" the guard yelled as he spun around and drove both of his hind hooves into his chest, sending Ryan crashing into the luggage. Ryan picked up one of the suitcases and threw it at the guard, smirking as the luggage bounced off his head.

"I was trying to take a nice, relaxing train ride and you just had to come over and ruin it," Ryan said with a smirk. The guard snarled and pulled out from under a suitcase a crossbow, which he aimed right at Ryan's head.

"Fuck!" Ryan yelled as he threw himself out of the way of the first bolt, barely dodging the shot. The pony smirked as he reloaded the crossbow with his magic in a matter of seconds, telling Ryan that this was not a fight that he could win in these confined spaces. "Sorry, but you're being mean and I want no part of this!" Ryan said as he kicked the back door open and dove out of it, kicking off the rail onto the roof as a bolt flew by him.

"Get back here and fight!" the guard yelled as he used his magic to float on top of the train car, where Ryan looked at him with a smirk. The guard fired another bolt at him, but the intense wind caused by the two of the standing on top of the train caused it to veer off course. The guard yelled and charged at Ryan, but Ryan let out a laugh as he threw himself to the roof, the guard wondering what he was doing before a low hanging branch took him right off the roof. He screamed at Ryan as the human waved at him, before getting back into the caboose and enjoying the rest of his trip.

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//; ;\\

The guards at Canterlot swarmed the train when it pulled into the station, but Ryan had bailed long before the train had gotten to the city. So while the ponies were searching the train for him, Ryan snuck into the city through the sewer system, which he was still surprised that they had. Although he wished that it hadn't taken him an hour to find his way there, as the smell had almost been his downfall.

"This has really gone to shit," he said with a smirk, but the humor left him as the smell overwhelmed him. Salvation came in the form of a sewer lid and Ryan quickly scaled the ladder, gently lifting it so that he could look around to see what was going on. There weren't many ponies in the streets, so he hoped that he would be able to get to the castle without being seen. When the streets were empty he shot out of the sewer and made it into an alley way, giving him a moment to breathe before he looked up at the castle.

"Alright, there's where I need to go without getting taken down, but if Zecora is right, which she is, then this is a trap," Ryan muttered as he tried to move into another alleyway, but he found that there were guards stationed in them. 'And they know just how I'm going to try to get to the castle. Those princesses are smarter than I thought.' He figured that he would try the roof next and when he climbed up there he found a number of Pegasus ponies flying around. 'Great, they even have air support. Now how am I going to get there?' 

An idea came to him and he moved back out into the streets, where he saw a pony simply walking along. 'This is either going to get me killed or it will be the greatest idea I have ever had,' he thought to himself. He took in a deep breath and walked right up to the pony, who froze at the sight of the human as it walked up to him with a huge smile on his face.

"Hey there, how you doing?" Ryan said to the pony with a huge smile as he wrapped an arm around the pony's shoulder, the pony looking at him with terrified eyes. "Just came over to say hi and see how you were doing. Now I know that you seem to be afraid of me and everything, but there's no need to be since there's a number of guards right over there in that alleyway. Well I'm glad to see that you're doing so well, I'm going to be over by that park. Later." 

Ryan walked around a corner before he looped back around behind another building, where he sat with a smile as the pony ran over to the guards and got all of them to run to where he had told them he was going. Now that they were out of the way, Ryan strutted over through the alleyways, making great time to the castle. He also noticed that the Pegasus had gone over to where the guards had run off to. Added bonus.

"All that's left is to get into the castle," Ryan muttered as he looked up at the castle with a frown. 'Now I'm not sure what to do here. The princesses have shown they know how I think and what I'm going to do, so it is highly possible that they have all of the windows and back entrances covered. And now that I've gotten the guards mixed up in this I really don't have much time to do this. I guess the garden is my best chance.' He moved past the main gates (where he noticed there were no guards) before he slipped into the garden, where he found a number of statues that looked really weird and strange.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he muttered aloud as he looked up at a weird statue that looked like a mix and match of a number of different animals into one. He shook his head at it as he spied an open window that he could slip in. Once again he noticed that there were no guards there and he was on guard as he slipped inside. The castle looked gorgeous, but he couldn't focus on that as he slipped through the halls.

'And still no guards,' he thought to himself as he moved through the castle, not sure if he was getting closer to the grand hall or not due to how large the place was. Then he could hear them, all of the ponies that had gathered to see his world. He could hear them murmuring out in the hallway and he now knew that he was getting close. He walked over to the massive pairs of doors, noticing that there were slightly open. He knew that it was too good to be true, but he figured that he had come this far. And it he had survived worse than anything the ponies could do to him. So his slipped inside a braced himself for a massive battle. But to his surprise he found that all of the ponies were looking forward in the massive room and the princesses were focused on whatever Twilight was doing, giving him a brief moment to slip behind a pillar to hide. He could see that all of the Elements were up on the stage as well, including the pink pony that he did not like.

'That was either an incredible stroke of luck or they're just toying with me,' he thought to himself as he looked up at the stage, seeing how Twilight was creating some sort of field with her magic. 'Alright then princesses, you got me all the way up here, now I want to see if you can deliver the goods. Show me what happened to my home.'

"Hello ponies of Canterlot and Ponyville, we are glad to see so many of you here today," Luna said to them as she scanned the crowd for the human, Ryan wisely hiding behind the pillar until it was time to start. "We know that many of you are concerned about the shadow as he has been called, but he is no threat to you. In order to prove this to you, we are going to show you his world where there are millions of these creates that live without magic." The crowd let out a chuckle at this, wondering how any creatures could survive without magic.

"Yes and today the pony performing the magic will be my very own assistant Twilight Sparkle!" Celestia said with a smile as she turned to face Twilight, who was waving at the crowd with a blush on her face. "Go on Twilight, I know you can do it." Twilight nodded and turned towards the magical portal, closing her eyes as she channeled her magic into the portal. The crowd began to ooh and awe as the magic opened an incredible spiral that Ryan noticed was similar to the one that he had used to get there.

"And...tada! Twilight yelled as the portal opened, only for her and the entire crowd to be struck dumb by what they were looking at. The portal had revealed a room that was consumed by fire, with once great buildings laying in ruin and the smoldered remains of cars littering the streets. There was no plant life anywhere and the skies were covered in a black ash, but what terrified the ponies the most was the bodies, the skeletons that lined the streets. All that was left of some of the bodies was a black ash outline against a wall or car, but there was nothing alive. 

"How can this be?" Celestia asked herself in a whisper as she and the others looked upon the destruction with horror. Ryan on the other hand had nothing to say about the devastation in front of him. All he did was place his head in his hand for a moment, knowing that was what he was going to see. He could see the fire again as the images of his world vanishing in a flash shot to the surface again, but he simply let them play out as he sighed slightly. He knew now that there was no reason to stay anymore, not that he should have bothered in the first place.

'I just...wanted to know,' he thought to himself as he prepared to leave. 'I needed to know if there was a chance.' The ponies all murmured to themselves as they looked upon this sight, but a certain pink pony was feeling a tingling in her mane and that could only mean one thing. She looked away from the portal to the very back of the room, where she saw a human in a black coat about to slip out.

"Hi there Mr. Human!" she said to him with a wave. The moment she said this every head in the room spun around to look at him, a massive gasp spreading as the ponies all saw that he was there. Ryan, who had been about to slip out of through the door, jumped back as it was slammed shut by magic and he slowly turned around to see everypony in the room looking at him.

"Well then, it seems the guest of honor has arrived," Luna said with a smile, despite still being shaken up about what she had seen. Ryan could hear what sounded like a large number of guards taking up positions in the hallway beyond the doors and he looked up at the Elements to see that they were all focused on him. "Anything that you'd like to say to this large crowd?" Luna asked.

"Well fuck me," Ryan muttered.