//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - Enemy Pony Territory [Upd. 18/10/2014] // Story: Daily Life of an Equestrian Ninja // by PianoPony //------------------------------// A loud yawn rose from a certain ninja’s bedroom in Konoha, also known as ‘The Village Hidden in the Leaves’. That ninja’s name was Naruto Uzumaki, a sixteen year old, and a genin. The lowest rank of ninja which, as he sometimes thought to himself, doesn’t do him justice. The sheets and covers wrinkled as their occupant turned restlessly in his bed, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep. After a few unsuccessful tries, Naruto gave up, and stretched his hands upwards, letting out a sigh. He kicked the covers away from himself, revealing messy blonde hair. He rubbed his eyes, getting the sleep out of them, and finally opening them to reveal their deep azure color. Removing his hands, three whisker marks were apparent on each of his cheeks. He turned around in bed and put his legs on the floor, slowly getting up. The first thing he grabbed was a headband next to his bead. It comprised of a long, black cloth band, and attached to its middle was a metal plate, proudly bearing the mark of Konoha. He attached this prized headband blindly, still barely opening his eyes, but nonetheless quickly and proficiently. Doing this for over three years on a daily basis will do that to you. Afterwards, he changed out of his pajamas, which were white with fine stripes of blue, into an orange and black jumpsuit. This time he had no choice but open his eyes, as he nearly tripped into the bottom part when changing. After putting on the suit and wearing his black shoes, he walked out of the room and into the bathroom. Quickly brushing his teeth and splashing some much needed cool water onto his face, he finally smiled at the mirror. “Another great day starting with a gorgeous face,” he said to himself with a slightly smug grin. He then walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen of his small apartment, and grabbed for himself a highly nutritious breakfast—instant ramen and milk. After heating some water, he added them to the ramen cup and began the most excruciating wait of the day—the three minutes until the ramen was done. Taking out the milk from the fridge, he opened it up and brought it to his mouth to have a sip, when a rather forceful knock suddenly came from the front door. “Coming,” Naruto called out, taking a large gulp of milk. “Who knocks this early in the morning? Kakashi? Nah… He’d never be this early. Sakura? Welp, that would be the day…” he thought to himself semi-humorously as he walked to the door and opened it. “Hello, Naruto Uzumaki,” said in a female voice what seemed to be a white horse with a long horn and a huge pair of wings. She had purple eyes, and her fluttering mane was sparkling, and had red, green and blue stripes. She also seemed to wear a crown and a golden necklace, embroided with a large purple gem. All Naruto could do was merely stand there and gaze at her dumbfoundedly, his mouth agape and milk dripping out of it onto the floor. His brain was slowlying trying to come to terms with what his eyes were transmitting to it. “I’m sorry, but…” was all the winged Unicorn said before bright light arose from her long horn. Soon the light became bright enough to turn the whole world around Naruto white, effectively blinding him. “Hey! What the—” was all Naruto could yell, trying to shield his eyes from the penetrating rays, before his conciousness completely left him. ***** “Naruto…” a voice called. Naruto groaned, his body feeling as heavy as if it was made of lead. “Wake up you brat!” the voice repeated, his volume increasing five-fold. Naruto’s eyes shot open as he recognized the voice. Finally, he mustered the strength and pushed himself up, only then noticing the hard floor was covered in water. A pair of huge, red eyes with narrow pupils gazed at him from behind a humongous red cage. All around them was darkness, and the echoing sound of dripping water. “Oh look, it’s Mr. Grumpy Fox. For what do I have the honor of meeting you today?” Naruto asked with sarcasm dripping from every word. “This is no time for jokes, brat!” the creature behind the cage growled. Naruto paced closer, and could see the all-too-familiar shape of an orange, nine-tailed demon fox, which was simply called ‘The Kyuubi’. “You let someone get the jump on you, and now we’re probably in the stickiest situation we’ve ever been in. I can’t even tell how far we are from Konoha,” he said, looking down at the ninja angrily. “Did we somehow get kidnapped by the Akatsuki?” Naruto inquired, stunned over being kidnapped out of his own home. “Instead of expecting me to give you some answers, why don’t you just open your damn eyes?!” the fox roared. In an instant, Naruto’s physical eyes opened. He found himself lying on the ground. He was unbound, still intact, and with everything he had on him. Letting out a sigh of relief, he stood up and looked around him. Shadowed by trees, he looked back to see an unusually dark and dense forest behind him. Up ahead, he saw slightly cloudy blue skies. The fields under them were green and slightly hilly. A small creek passed through it not far ahead, and had a bridge built over it. A trail, which the bridge was a part of, extended past the creek into a small town about half a mile away. “Hmm…” Naruto crossed his hands, trying to remember what just happened. “One moment I was home… And the next I was here…” he muttered to himself, attempting to connect the two pieces of information. “Agh! I can’t remember!” he called in frustration, giving up after only drawing a blank. “Oh well, at least if I was kidnapped, those kidnappers didn’t do a very good job if they’re leaving me out in the open like that…” Naruto said with a smug grin, which disappeared a moment later. “Wait… What if it’s a genjutsu?! Hmm… Aha!” Thinking it is a genjutsu, he started pinching his cheeks and jabbing himself with chakra-charged fingers. Five minutes of that later, and he heard a somewhat malicious chuckle. “As much as I enjoyed this little show, I have to tell you this isn’t a genjutsu,” rang out the fox’s voice in his mind. “Great, so what am I supposed to do now?” Naruto grumbled. “How should I know?! Just go over to that town and gather some info!” the Kyuubi replied, his tone indicating that the conversation was over. “Yeah, I probably won’t get anywhere if I just wander around,” Naruto figured, and did as the fox suggested. As he walked over the bridge, a mountain which was hidden behind the trees came into view, revealing a city built into a mountain. Naruto rubbed his eyes in disbelief, and took in some of its details—it was white and beautiful, a large castle standing in its middle. The roofs of the buildings were completely covered in gold. “Well… This looks… Strange…” he muttered, having never seen anything built quite like that. It was as if a completely different culture had built it. ***** Approaching the town, he started hearing a lot of noise coming from it. “When’s the shipment coming?!” a male voice demanded. “Bring the flags to the town hall!” a female voice called. As he strode even closer, something caught his eyes. A rainbow suddenly flashed in the sky in front of him. “Odd, it’s not raining and that rainbow is completely straight,” he thought to himself. Then, from between the building he caught a glimpse of two of the smallest horses he’d ever seen. But that was hardly their striking characteristic- one was white with purple, long swirly mane and tail, and the other was pink, with a puffy and darker pink-colored mane and tail. “The hell? Those are some weird looking horses if I ever saw ones,” he muttered to himself, raising a brow. “I’m really, really sorry, darling,” a very feminine voice rang out from the white and pink horses’ direction. “But this time I just don’t think I will need your help. While I do appreciate your parties and your abilities as a party planner, a more refined taste is required when none other than Princess Celestia herself will be coming over to visit!” Watching the entirety of this being spoken, and the white miniature horse’s mouth moving in perfect synchronization, Naruto slowly but surely came to a shocking conclusion—“T-T-T-Talking Horsessssssssssss!” he screamed, hiding behind one of the buildings. “Wait a second...” he muttered to himself. “There has to be a logical explanation here." He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. "It's not a genjutsu. Is it a transformation jutsu?" However, the sheer ridiculousness and colorfulness of their appearances made him realize that probably wasn't it. "I got it! They must be summons! Weird, small, colorful summons…” he realized. “Hmm… I wonder what kind of jutsus they use?” Naruto took another peek at the horses, only to see the white one heading away, and the pink one nowhere in sight. He let out a sigh of relief. "Best not be spotted by them. They could be aligned with enemy ninjas…” he muttered worriedly. “If that’s the case, this whole place could be an enemy pony territory as far as I'm concerned." Quickly realizing just how ridiculous that sounded, he dearly hoped no one would ever hear that. “That was the weirdest thing I heard this past hour. By the way, who's 'them'? They sound like a bunch of meanies.” Turning his head to the left side and way below his eye level, he was met with a pair of light blue eyes, belonging to the pink horse he saw earlier next to the white one. “Woah!” Naruto shouted, surprised. Stunned by her sudden appearance, silent and undetectable even to his ninja senses, he stumbled back and fell on his rump. “’Woah!’ yourself,” replied the small pink horse back at him, smiling brightly. “Ooh, you’re tall! And you have a nice mane up there. Oh, I know! You’re a Minotaur! You kinda look like one! That’s so cool! No, wait, you don’t have horns. But then it’s really cool how you’re standing on two legs like that! How are you doing that?!” She said all that really quickly. “Oh right, so what’s your name? Mine’s Pinkie Pie!” “H-How did you do that?! Are you a ninja?!” he called in shock. “She must be at least a jonin!” he thought as he was about to reach out for a kunai. “No, silly! I just said I'm Pinkie Pie! Ponyville's best party thrower! Who are you?” “Umm… Naruto Uzumaki,” he answered hesitantly as he got up, his hand still readied at a moment's notice for an attack. He wasn't quite sure how to react to the creature's hyperactivity. “Ah! Since I don’t know you it means you’re new here, ‘cuz I know everypony, and I mean EVERYPONY here in Ponyville!” she said, again very quickly. “So… Welcome to Ponyville, Naruto! Now let’s see here… No horn… No wings… I’ve got it! You’re an Earth pony like me! We’re Earth-pony-extra-special-friends!” she shouted out, her eyes practically beaming out with joy. “Earth… Pony…? I’m a human…” he muttered. Her constant over-the-top shouts made him drop his both his guard and the whole ‘talking horse’ issue. “What’s a human? Sounds like a name of a bad brand of candies if you ask me”, she chuckled at her own joke. “Wait a second… Where are we? How far is this place from Konoha?” he inquired quickly before she could continue blabbering on. “Ko… No… What?” “You know, the Village Hidden in the Leaves?” “How can leaves hide an entire village? Is the village really small? Or maybe the leaves are really big? Come to think of it, the other day I saw nearby the Everfree Forest—” “The Land of Fire?” he quickly interrupted. “That just sounds dangerous. A whole country that’s burning? Oh, maybe that’s where all the dragons live…” “Are you really that dense? I can’t take her rumblings any longer…” spoke the fox in his mind. “We’re in another dimension now. No amount of walking can get you back to Konoha.” “An… An… ANOTHER DIMENSION?!” Naruto yelled aloud. “Yep! Welcome to this dimension!” Pinkie answered cheerfully. “You can call it whatever you want, it doesn’t really have a name. Oh! You can make up a name for it! How about dimension-discovered-by-Naruto-who-came-from—” “Pinkie,” Naruto cut her off. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly before speaking. “Pinkie… Is there anything around here that looks like me, like a human?” He couldn't just take the fox's words at face value and had to hear it for himself, no matter how bad her answer would be. “So… You’re not an Earth pony?” she confirmed. Naruto glared at her angrily, starting to lose his patience. “Nopey-dopey. Only Earth ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi. Oh! We do have some bunnies, bears, griffons, dragons, donkeys…” “If she doesn’t know humans then it means they’re not summons… Wait, what was that?” he asked, catching some bizarre ones in that list. “Bunnies. You’re not afraid of them, are you?” she asked with a teasing grin. “No, no. After that.” “Donkeys?” “Before that.” “Dragons?” “Dragons are only myths, aren’t they?” he arched a brow skeptically. “Well, we don’t see them much, but they’re definitely real! Ooh, if one comes and lives here, wouldn’t it just be both awesome and terrifying?! It would be just awerrifying!” “Come to think of it, aren’t Unicorns and Pegasi also myths?” “What are you talking about?! It’s as if you’ve never seen a pony in your life!” she started pushing him into town. “Oh right, you didn’t,” she giggled. “Okay, just come and meet some. And afterwards I’ll throw you an awesome par—” “Wait, Pinkie! Listen, I can't stay here. I have to get back home.” “Aw, come on! It'll be as quick as pie! Besides, I still have to throw you a party! I mean, I have to throw a party for every new pony in Ponyville!” Naruto pondered this. “Well… I do need some help getting home, and I do have the day off… Maybe I could get one of the ponies to cast a reverse summoning jutsu to send me back to Konoha? But… They don't know what humans are...” “Okay, Pinkie. I’ll come,” he decided eventually. “But I can't just walk around like this,” he said. “Everyone will probably panic when they see me!” “Oh don’t worry, Rarity will fix your hair in a jiffy!” Pinkie smiled. “Hey! What’s wrong with my hair?!” he cried in protest. “Wait… That’s not what I meant!” “Transformation Jutsu!” Naruto called, performing a certain shape with his hands, which looked odd to Pinkie, and causing a cloud of smoke to appear around him. When the smoke cleared, instead of Naruto the human stood an Earth pony, deep orange in color, with bright yellow mane and bushy, fox-like tail which was white at its tip. He had blue eyes, and adorning his forehead was the Konoha headband. His whisker marks slightly thickened in comparison to his human self, but not as much as when the Kyuubi took over him. Only the top part of his jumpsuit remained in place, along with his tool bag, on the side of his belly. “That… Was… AWESOME!” Pinkie cried. “How did you do that?! Are you really a Unicorn and you just hid your horn!?” “No… That was just a transformation jutsu.” “Ju-su?” she inquired, having trouble pronouncing it. Naruto let out a sigh. “Never mind, don’t fret about it. Anyway, Pinkie,” he stared her square in the eyes “Don’t tell anybody—“ “Anypony.” “Er… Alright. AnyPONY about this. As far as you know, I’m just a regular pony. Got it?” “Cross my heart and hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my eye!” she immediately proclaimed. Naruto stared at her for a few seconds after that weird outcry. “Umm… Alright, I suppose it’s okay then.” Naruto couldn’t take even one step before falling over. “Dammit, how do you even walk on four legs?! That’s like two too many!”