Celestia and the others waited to see what the human would do, seeing if he would try to fight his way through a pointless battle or if he would give up quietly. He did neither of those things. What Ryan did was rush to the closest pony and kick them out of their chair, which he then grabbed and threw out one of the windows. Celestia yelled to stop him right before he threw himself out the window as well, sliding down the slanted roof towards the ground.
"Shit shit shit!" Ryan yelled as he fell of the roof and crashed into a cart carrying jars. He cursed his luck as he forced himself back to his feet and sprinted through the streets, turning his head slightly to see a rainbow blur coming after him. "And now she's chasing me again. This day just gets better and better!" He threw himself to the ground as a bolt of rainbow streaked by him, coming to a stop in front of him as he got back to his feet.
"You're not getting away this time!" Rainbow said to him with a growl.
"You ponies keep saying that yet I keep getting away," Ryan retorted with a smirk as he pulled out his baton. Dash took up a fighting stance and prepared to fight, but Ryan switched tactics and threw a smoke pellet into her face. Rainbow has just started to cough when Ryan ran forward and drove his knee into her face, dazing her as he then continued to run for his life. Ponies in the streets panicked as he flew by, but he looked down at the shadows on him to see that both of the princesses were about to catch up with him. He dove into an alley to temporarily lose them as he darted around.
'Got to lose them. Can't keep this up forever,' Ryan thought to himself as he looked around the crowded city streets, searching for anyway out. He had to start running again as he heard the ponies approaching from behind and he darted into the crowd, pushing the ponies out of the way or vaulting over them as he ran, noticing that Rainbow was back in the chase along with the two princesses. He slipped out a firefly egg and threw it on the ground as he covered his eyes, not sure whether or not the swarm of fireflies that erupted from the egg blinded them or not. However, due to him covering his eyes he had no idea where he was going and he ran right off the edge of the level he was on.
"Fuck me!" he yelled as he bounced off a flag pole and landed in a pool, Ryan gasping as he fought back to the surface and dragging himself out of the water. He groaned before sprinting again, finding that he was in a less populated area than the upper level. 'I need to hide, if only temporarily. Come on, give me something I can use!' A number of barrels rested by a wall and he figured that would be his best bet and he slipped into one of them as best as he could. He held his breath as he heard the sounds of wings and hooves run by, waiting a moment before he looked out of the barrel. While the princesses and the Elements had passed him by, there were still guards in the streets not too far from him.
'Maybe these barrels can be used for more than just hiding,' he thought to himself as he slipped out of his barrel and pulled out the knife that he kept in his bag, using it to cut the rope that kept all of the barrels rested against the wall. He then kicked them all over before he got back into his barrel as it began to roll. 'This is probably going to hurt!' he thought as the barrels began to roll. He could hear the guards yelling at the ponies to get out of the way as he rolled and Ryan found to his amazement that none of them were bothering to stop the rolling barrels. He and the other barrels came to a stop at the end of the road, where he fell out and lay on the ground while trying not to throw up.
"That...urp...was a bad idea," he muttered as he held a hand to his mouth, looking up the street to see that the guards hadn't spotted him yet. With a small smile he got up and started to head towards the sewer entrance, but then he found to his horror that Pinkie was streaking right towards him at speeds that would make Rainbow jealous. "These ponies are all insane!" he yelled as he began to run again, though he was aware that his stamina was beginning to waver. 'Need a plan, need a plan! Blowgun. That might work. Then again,' he thought as he turned around to see the pink dash practically flying at him as he pulled out the blow gun. 'I don't know if anything can stop her.'
Pinkie was practically on top of him when he brought the gun to his mouth and fired out a single dart, hitting Pinkie right in the chest. To his amazement Pinkie went down almost immediately, skidding to a stop in front of him while snoring softly. Ryan looked down at her for a moment before he let out a sigh of relief, a sigh that was quick lived as he saw Twilight charging down the road after him.
"Give me a break," he muttered as he turned to continue running, watching as spell bolts flew by his head as he ran. Despite him not having much knowledge of Canterlot, he did noticed little patterns as he ran that told him when there was a turn coming up that he could take or whether it would lead to a dead end.
"Get back here human!" Twilight yelled out as she tried to grab him with her magic, but she found that the armband rebounded her magic and blasted her with her own spell, causing her to hang in mind air as she struggled to get down. Ryan smirked at his good fortune as he continued to run, finding a garden that he ran in to, taking a moment to hide in a bush and breath.
'Can't keep running, no stamina left,' he thought to himself as he did his best not to breathe too loudly, so he wouldn't give away his position. Once he had spent a few minutes recovering, he stood back up and turned to leave only to come face to face with a yellow Pegasus. "The hell?" he yelled as he went to strike her with his baton, but one look into her eyes told him that she wasn't going to fight him. "Out of my way."
"I don't mean to bother you, but I'm just wondering why you're doing this?" Fluttershy said to him a soft voice that almost got him to stop being angry. Almost. "I mean, we're not going to hurt you and all we want to do is talk."
"Sorry, but for personal reasons I have no desire to be near you ponies, now if you would kindly move out of the way," he growled, but she moved in front of him. "Seriously, I will knock you out if you keep this up. Just ask you rainbow friend what happened when she tried to mess with me."
"If what she told me is true then you were being beaten until you threw dirt in her eyes and cheated to win," Fluttershy replied.
"Yep. Now out of my way or I'll do the same to you," he said as he tried to walk around her, but she moved in front of him. He debated whether to knock her out or not, but something wasn't adding up in his mind. Fluttershy was supposed to be a coward afraid of her own shadow and yet where bigger ponies had been afraid of him she hadn't so much as flinched. Why would that...?
"You son of a bitch," he muttered before he turned around in time to receive two orange hooves to the face, knocking him out without another sound.
"That's fer calling mah friend that," Applejack said as she kicked him again, but Fluttershy stopped her before looking down at the human.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this," she said with a sad shake of her head.
\\ //
//; ;\\
Ryan groaned as awoken, blinking twice when he realized he was in a room with really bright light. What concerned him the most at the moment was that he couldn't feel his nose, but that leapt to a lower part of the list when he looked up to see Princess Celestia looking across a table at him, her eyes telling him that he was in deep shit.
"You finally awaken," she said to him in a calm voice, which only made him more nervous of her. "You have given us quite the run around today and I must commend you for your ability to think on the fly. I have had Pegasus that have been caught faster than you and they can fly." Ryan said nothing, but he moved his hands to see that they weren't bound or in cuffs. While he was grateful for the chance to see if his nose was still there, he wondered why they hadn't bound him. His backpack was gone, but he still had the armband on under his jacket, another item that they had not taken.
"Are you comfortable?" Celestia asked him, knowing that his silence meant that he wasn't going to talk easily. "If you are hungry or thirsty you can always ask, I do not wish to be a rude host." Ryan responded with silence again, causing Celestia to sig as she took on a more serious face. "Alright then human, I have a lot of questions for you and I expect answers."
"Three days, forty two and penguins," Ryan said with a smirk when he saw Celestia's confused face. "There, I answered your questions. Can I go?" He heard a scoff outside the room and he looked at a mirror on the wall, telling him that the other ponies were out there listening to what he was saying.
"Very funny," Celestia said after a moment. "But I will still ask my questions. We'll start simple. What is your name?"
"I don't feel like telling you my name nor what is my quest," Ryan responded with a smirk. "But I will tell you the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow." Celestia raised an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes at her missing the joke, but then she cleared her throat as she looked at him.
"Alright, let me make this clear. The Elements of Harmony, the strongest weapons we have, and my own sister are standing outside that door," she said as she pointed to the door behind him that he had missed. "I am trying to be nice since you have done nothing to my subjects that would make me perceive you as a high level threat. But I know that you are dangerous, so if you want to get out of here you would do well to tell me what I want to hear."
"Fine. Yes, you need to go on a diet, you look massive," Ryan responded with a sigh, causing Celestia to burn with internal fury as he looked at her with a confused face. "Wait, did you say WANT to hear or NEED to hear? I wasn't paying attention."
"You are trying my patience human," Celestia said in a less than friendly tone. "Is there a reason you choose to be...funny as oppose to answering the most basic of questions."
"Actually there is," Ryan responded as he put his hands behind his head as he smirked at Celestia. "It's to show you that I don't want to talk to you or answer your questions. But I will tell you this much. Despite your best, I don't want to talk to you or your ponies nor do I want to be around you or your ponies. I want to be alone. Got it?"
"You are a strange one," Celestia said with a shake of her head. "Do you not realize that we may be your only chance of getting home?"
"You saw my home princess. Does it really look like I want to go back there?" Ryan asked her with a snarl before he lowered his head, causing Celestia to frown slightly.
"What happened to the Earth? What evil creature could have done that to such an advanced race as the humans?" Celestia asked Ryan, getting no response. "Alright, if you do not answer this time, I will be forced to resort to cruder methods. And trust me, it is pain beyond what you know," she said, hoping the threat would scare him. But then she and the other ponies watching outside of through the glass to back away a bit as Ryan began to laugh, throwing his head back as he did so. But it wasn't a dry chuckle or a laugh of joy. It was an insane laugh, the laugh of a man who wasn't all there.
"Oh, it was no evil monster or unstoppable nightmare that killed us, Celestia," Ryan said when he started to calm down a bit. "WE wiped ourselves out. A nuclear holocaust that wiped my race right out of existence! Billions dead in a matter of days as they burn in a fire that will take a very long time to go out! My friends, family and the rest of humanity gone...just like that, leaving me as the sole survivor! So do you see why I don't fear you or your petty threats? Because by killing me you'd be doing me a favor! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Celestia looked at the human in front of her with fear in her eyes as he laughed again, now seeing how he could handle be captured so well or surviving in this new land after his world burned. Because he was pretty much gone.
"You think that any physical pain you do to me could ever come close to the pain I feel for surviving? For getting to live while my friends burned in a world of fire?" Ryan asked her once he had calmed down the point where he could talk again. "Do you think you could put me through a greater hell than that ZEBRA!? No Celestia, you know nothing of my pain...though I'd be willing to share. Interested?"
"No human, I know now what I must do," she said as she stood up with sadness in her eyes as she pointed her horn at his chest. "You have suffered enough already. I am going to put you into an eternal trance, where you need not relive these memories or the pain. You no longer need to suffer." Ryan raised an eyebrow as she said this, because he wasn't looking at her so much as behind her, where a silver pony stood watching him.
'Time to go,' she said to him.
"About damn time," he said as he stood up, causing Celestia to look at him in confusion before a blinding flash of white went off, causing Celestia and the others to cry out as they shielded their eyes. The moment the flash went off Ryan threw himself into the door and bashed it down, scanning the room in seconds to see his backpack laying on a table. He rushed over to it and slipped it on while reaching inside to throw another smoke-bomb into Luna's face for good measure.
"You couldn't just teleport me out?" Ryan asked the silver mare as he began to sprint again, the mare leading the way as they ran through the hallways. He pulled out his baton when a number of guards rushed him, but in another flash the silver mare had stuck them to the wall and allowed the two to rush past.
'You are still wearing the armband that prevents me from using my magic on you,' the silver mare said as she created a key for the front door, sliding it in to have the door open immediately. 'The next time you want me to use my magic to aid you, take that off and try saying please. It's amazing how far it will get you. Now hurry to the edge of the city, I am going to activate the defenses.'
"And what are those?" Ryan asked before she could vanish.
'Trust me when I say you do not want to be inside when they activate,' the silver mare said as she vanished, leaving Ryan to sprint as fast as he could into the streets, rushing by ponies and guards without stopping. He had no idea how long he ran, but his lungs burned as he did so. He turned around when he heard ponies gasping and saw that Princess Celestia was now chasing after him, eyes narrowed as she followed him. He ran with everything he had, but he knew that even if he reached the edge of the city she would still catch him. That was until he saw the giant shield being lowered upon the city.
"Who!? Who is activating the changeling shield at a time like this?!" Celestia yelled, Ryan being close enough to hear her, the shield was coming down fast so with one last push he threw himself to the ground, rolling up to his knees as the shield slammed to the ground right behind him, trapping Celestia inside while he was on the outside. "NO!" Celestia yelled as she came to a stop. Ryan stood up panting and looked up at the princess with a smile, before he gave her a one fingered salute. He then turned around and ran down the tracks back to Ponyville, causing the princess to growl with rage.
"Do not worry human, we will meet again," Celestia said as she looked off to the abandoned castle that rested in the forest. "Soon."
\\ //
//; ;\\
'Feel all of that delicious chaos,' a voice said in the echoes of his own mind as he heard the chaos going on around him as the ponies tried to catch a single human. 'And if all it took last time to get out was three fillies, then I should be able to-!' The stone casing shattered as Discord broke free, giving him a chance to stretch as he looked back at the pedestal where he had stood. "Now then, it simply wouldn't be polite to ruin one of the princess’s statues without replacing it. Oh I know."
He snapped his fingers as he said this and a copy of him in statue form appeared on the pedestal, allowing Discord to laugh maniacally as he shot into the air and turned into a number of butterflies as he flew away. For he needed a bit of time to rest and to plan, but he knew that this time he would not let the ponies get the better of him. Because this time he had his own Element. Surprise.