PETER
Peter’s head pounded. His mouth tasted like someone microwaved it and his entire body burned with pain. Other than that, he was feeling fine. He tried to open his eyes but sunlight streamed in through a window and blinded him, only adding to his massive headache. He kept them shut but he could hear voices softly speaking around him.
Where was he? The last thing he remembered was… Okay, that’s scary, he couldn’t remember anything from the last day. Did he hit his head? Well, given how bad his headache was, that was probably obvious. But there wasn’t much damage otherwise. He remembered who he was and his family and school and work, it was just yesterday that was fuzzy for him.
He only remembered a fuzzy image of a red-head…
“—Think we should move him,” a soft, gentle voice spoke.
“No harm will befall him here,” said another voice, female with a distinctive African accent. “And besides, Fluttershy, your home is quite near.”
Fluttershy? Peter thought, What a weird name.
“Still, I would like to look after him,” Fluttershy said, just as quiet and serene as before.
“Fluttershy, here he will not be lonely,” the other woman said. “Do not worry, my little pony.”
Pony?!
Peter’s eyes snapped open and he instinctively leapt high into the air, twisting so that his hands and feet adhered to the ceiling so he could get a good look at whoever was talking. The results… confused him. Bright, colorful ponies were staring back at him at awe. Well correction, one of them was a pony, her coat was honey-golden and her mane and tail were bubble-gum pink and wings sprouted from her back. On her flank looked like a tattoo of a bunch of butterflies.
The other was a zebra but she was only a little bigger than the pegasus. Her striped coat matched her large Mohawk and trimmed tail. She wore jewelry on her neck, bands of gold that stacked up to her head and some on her foreleg and earrings. Like the pegasus, she also had a tattoo of a Tribal Sun on her flank.
Great, Peter got hit so hard by Doc Ock he’s hallucinating now.
“Oh my,” Fluttershy gasped. “Zecora… he’s…”
“I see,” Zecora muttered, staring curiously at Peter. “Please do not fear, colt, you can trust me.”
Colt?!!!
Peter looked down at his feet except… they weren’t feet. Instead stumpy little hooves replaced his hands and feet. Panic welled up in Peter’s chest, he must’ve been dreaming, yeah that’s it. Then why was he wearing his costume? Looking back at his body, his costume was still on him, it was torn up slightly and smelled like gasoline but otherwise it was fine.
“Oh God,” he muttered. “Please… tell me I’m not a pony!”
“You are,” Fluttershy said, suddenly appearing next to Peter. She was flying gently next to him, so silently even his spider-sense didn’t go off. “Come down from the ceiling, please. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself—“ Peter’s hooves slipped off from the ceiling and he crashed in the middle of the room, destroying one of Zecora’s tables. Fluttershy winced as the stallion groaned in pain.
“Whoops, I’m sorry I didn’t catch you…”
Zecora was to his side, trying to help him up. “Did you think that was wise or cool?!” Zecora snapped, glaring angrily at him. “You could’ve hurt yourself you fool.”
Peter shook the zebra off and backed away. “Look… I don’t know where I am and who you are,” he said, trying to make his way to the entrance. “If you’re some kind of weird time-traveling alien, fine, but I… I just need to get home!”
“We could help,” Fluttershy said taking a step forward. Peter shot out his hoof to fire off a sling of web but nothing came out. He stared at his web-shooters which were still attached to him. They were charred black and sparked.
He took another step back but he winced as pain lanced up his right hind leg. Zecora stepped forward, one hoof up in surrender. “Please, you are hurt, your leg is lame. Let me help, what is your name?”
“J-just back off,” he said, trying to calm himself down but failing. Peter turned around and ran for the door.
It was only because of his super-reflexes that he hadn’t fallen over and face-planted yet. Peter ran awkwardly through the forest, stumbling and tripping over his legs like a baby giraffe walking for the first time, which, he supposed, was a surprisingly apt comparison.
Every time he threatened to fall over, his reflexes took over and instinctively protected him, preventing him from tripping. Despite his hooves and his horrific walking ability, Peter made it halfway through the forest before he could see the edge of a village.
“Wait!” Suddenly he was scooped up into the air, his hooves whipping around wildly. He struggled to get free but then he heard Fluttershy speak. “Stop… please.”
Peter looked up and noticed Fluttershy was carrying him, only barely able to fly with their combined weight. Her wings struggled to flap and they began to descend. “The… Poison… Joke,” she wheezed.
Suddenly a tingle on the back of his head caused him to swerve his body to the left. There was danger… somewhere. Left? Right? Up?
A hiss broke through the forest and a massive tail whipped up and crashed into Peter and Fluttershy. Peter screamed as they spun around erratically and fell toward the earth. Peter managed to look at Fluttershy as she fell, her eyes were closed, her body was limp and her right wing was twisted awkwardly, was it broken? A surge of protective instinct pumped through Peter’s body. He stretched his left hoof out but again the web didn’t come out. Cursing, he examined the web-shooter, unlike the other one this one was perfectly intact! But since he couldn’t do the gesture anymore to activate them it didn’t help much.
Peter slammed his free hoof into the webshooter’s manual extract button and a web shot out and stuck to Fluttershy’s body. He yanked her toward him, embraced her and turned around so she was on top and he’d absorb the impact.
The two broke through the trees, destroying them as they crashed down and down through what felt like a million branches until they stopped by a murky lake. Peter groaned and blinked the black spots from his vision. Fluttershy was still on top. Twigs and leaves were stuck in her once beautiful mane that was now just a rat’s nest, her coat was a mess as well and there was a cut on her right cheek, but she was breathing.
Gently, Peter set Fluttershy down, careful to mind her wing, and felt her heartbeat. Then he cursed as his hooves weren’t as sensitive as his own fingers were or maybe they were too sensitive, Peter’s own erratic heartbeat merely brought confusion to his senses. So, instead, Peter put his ear against Fluttershy’s chest to listen to her pulse.
A bit spikey but otherwise fine. Whew, she’ll be okay.
Peter looked around, what was the thing that knocked them out of the sky? It felt like a dinosaur’s tail but that wasn’t possible, right? Peter looked down at his hooves and scoffed, if he could turn into a pony, maybe these guys had dinosaurs wherever they are.
His spidey-sense buzzed, this time going absolutely nuts. Peter looked around wildly, trying to find the source of the danger but the trees around them were so thick and twisted and curved unnaturally that it was hard to tell where the town was.
Then the lake moved.
A massive brown structure the size of a small house rose from the lake… No, it wasn’t a lake. As it rose, the water rolled off its back and onto the trees, it was crystal blue. The water wasn’t dirty, it was reflecting this creature’s brown skin…
Peter watched with horror as something out of his nightmares rose from the ground and hissed at him with four heads. A Hydra blinked each head and shook itself off as if it had just woken up from a really good nap.
It fixed its red eyes on Peter and the masked hero whimpered heroically.
“Good Hydra…” he said cautiously. “Friendly Hydra…”
One of the Hydra’s head spat out toxic sludge at Peter. He grabbed Fluttershy and jumped to the right as far as he could. Good news is, he dodged the poison, bad news is he misjudged how powerful his new legs were and dove into the forest, slamming into a tree by accident. Worse news, he hurt his hind-leg even more and Fluttershy woke up and yelped in pain, grabbing her wing.
“O-ow!” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “M-my wing!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, trying to stand up and calm her down so she could stop crying. “Just… shh! There’s a Hydra out there!”
“A Hydra?” Fluttershy repeated. “Oh no, if he woke up from his nap he’s going to be really grumpy. I prefer him when he’s not so grump.”
“What?” Peter asked, still whispering. He felt her forehead for a fever. Nope. Perfectly fine, but why is she talking about Game Grumps now?
The Hydra roared and with its massive claws it swiped at the forest. Peter leapt on top of Fluttershy and covered her with his body. “Watch out!” he yelled as broken pieces of trees and branches landed on top of him.
The destruction ceased and Peter broke through the debris that covered him. The Hydra was still there, all four of its heads looking for him. Suddenly, it spotted the village to the north and Peter cursed. “If that thing gets to the village…”
“There you are!” Zecora said, running toward them. She looked a bit angry but relieved that they were fine. “What happened? What have you done, Stranger, you are too dangerous; a wild card!”
Peter shook his head. “The Hydra just randomly attacked us!”
“If only you didn’t run,” Zecora hissed as venomously as the Hydra. “Now Fluttershy is hurt, look her wing might be done!”
Zecora pulled out a round canister from her bags. That’s when Peter realized she had saddlebags on her back, yep, things couldn’t get weirder. Zecora opened it up and dabbed the paste into her hooves and on Fluttershy’s busted wing. Fluttershy yelped and whimpered, tears running down her face but she didn’t cry out, which he thought was immensely brave for someone so shy.
“I-I was saving him from the Poison J-Joke,” Fluttershy tried to explain. “He would’ve w-walked into—“
“Be still my brave filly,” Zecora said, gently shushing her. “No more talk, don’t be silly.”
Peter looked down where the Hydra went, it was now lumbering toward the town probably would take a minute or so to reach there. Peter cursed under his breath. “Listen, Zecora, or whatever your name is, take care of Fluttershy. I’ll go try to stop that Hydra.”
Zecora scoffed, rolling her eyes at him. “You? You cannot stop a Hydra that size, little colt. Wait for help, I’ll call the Wonderbolts.”
Peter wondered if the Wonderbolts were like the police for these ponies but kept his comments to himself. He adjusted the mask on his face, making sure it wouldn’t slip off, and checked his functioning webshooter. His hind-leg still ached but it was healing now, so it should be fine.
Stretching out his hoof, he shot a web that perfectly connected with a nearby tree, then he leapt and charged toward the Hydra one web at a time.