//------------------------------// // One Small Step For A Human, One Giant Leap For Ponykind // Story: The Human And The Well // by Zandar13 //------------------------------// ♫Walking in the forest, walking in the shade! Walking with my papa, walking with my dog! Well, I am flying above papa….. while in the forest! Flying, flying, flying all day! Flying, flying, flying is so fun! I love flying almost as much as papa! But papa I always love the most!♫ After that last line, Maelstrom dropped right on top of my head and giggled away while she ruffled through my long hair. Maelstrom seemed to pick up the new habit of singing after she heard me sing that song after we left Ponyville yesterday and has been my own little Disney princess…… sort of. And by that, I mean that sometimes when she sings and a bird lands on her shoulder, it suddenly mutates into a random object and starts making sounds to go along with whatever she is singing at the time. So far, I have seen a bowling ball, a tissue, a floating pair of teeth, smiling glasses, and a miniature pink whale that said 'hello'. So….. yeah. But it has been great fun to witness so far, especially since the Everfree Forest has been nothing but quiet and a tiny bit eerie. Doubled only by the fact that I have had this feeling that something as been watching me for a while, but that may just be the spookiness getting to me. But I usually just shake it off and continue heading forward, hoping that this path will lead to somewhere. According to Celestia, heading straight this way should lead me to a small village that was set up in the forest as to help lost or frightened ponies. Then from there I could head either North or West to another city beyond the forest. 'Sigh' Even though I knew it was going to be a long journey, I just can't help but feel a tiny bit overwhelmed at the prospect of traveling across an entire planet, simply just to find my place on it. “What's wrong Papa?” Maelstrom asked while poking her head out of my white hair. Whoops, guess I sighed out loud as well. “Oh nothing, just thinking a little too much” I told her. “Oh…. Do you like Maes songs? Do ya!? Do ya?!” she happily asked me. “Of course I do! You have such a pretty singing voice, in fact, I bet you could give professional singers a run for their money!” I said with a grin during my boasting. She then beamed a strong grin of her own as she took off into the air again and did circles around my head. ♫Papa Papa is so kind, Papa Papa is nice! Papa Papa likes my voice! Papa loves Mae!♫ She began to sing again with her pretty voice, though the songs effect seemed to be a little bit stronger this time for some reason, because random bits and pieces of materials in the forest seemed to gather around her and formed humanoid-like shapes that started to dance with Maelstrom. Great, now she backup dancers too. Hopefully some random Prince wont show up to 'rescue' her or whatever, cause that ain't happening on my watch. No siree! “Hey! You! Stop that this instance!” a random voice called out to us. I felt a slight twitch in my eye when the I heard the voice. He better be some random pony wandering the forest, for his sake. When I looked over to where the voice came from, I saw emerging from the shrubbery a medium-sized stallion with a short manecut and a few visible scars here and there and he was holding a spear in one hoof while he slowly walked towards us. “State your business and identify yourselves at once!” he demanded with a grumpy look on his face. “Hello sir, my name is Adrian Frost. The singing one is my daughter, Maelstrom, and this is my canine companion, Artemis” I calmly said to the stallion. “Very well, now state your business boy” he said again with that rough voice of his. “We are just travelers, wandering the world and such. Nothing more” I explained. “Hmmm” he briefly said before giving me a once over with his eyes “What kind of traveler are you? Never seen anypony like you before” “Well, simply put, I am an-” I tried to say but was interrupted. “-Papa is my Papa! And Mae loves Papa much and much!” she sweetly said as she pounced my head once more, though her 'backup dancers' now fell harmlessly onto the forest floor. At this, I could hear the pony chuckle a little under his breath before he brought his spear up to a neutral position. “I suppose I can live with that answer, Mr. Papa” he said with a smirk while I responded with a slightly annoyed pout. “Anyways, my apologies for surprising you. My village is on alert and we did not want to take any chances. Follow me” he said before turning around and slowly started to walk. Seeing that we should probably comply, we followed him to the village we were most likely searching for anyway. We walked behind him in silence for a little while until I decided to ask “So, can we have your name sir?” “You can just call me Landslide, or simply Lans” he said to us. “Alright, Lans. So, what happened to make you go on alert?” I asked him. “We don't really know. At first we thought it was Discord but now…. I am not so sure” Lans briefly explained. “How do you know?” I asked again. “We were around for when Discord became loose in Ponyville and everyone saw and felt what his chaos magic does, so when we first saw the strange sight we thought of Discord. But, after closer inspection, we didn't feel anything and the disturbance remained constant. So, unless he is doing something entirely different, we do not believe it to be him” he said. “So, what exactly is the disturbance?” I asked once more. Lans was looking like he wanted to speak but just couldn't fine the right words, since his mouth opened and closed a few times before he cleared his throat “I have no proper words to describe it, since I have never seen it before in my life or anything remotely similar” “But, if I had to make some sort of guess….. it… it looks like someone took a photo of the forest and cut out pieces of it?” he told us. “Pieces of the forest are missing?” I asked with concern. “Hmmmm…. Not exactly. Gah, it would be far better to just show you. You can see a small portion of it from the village. And we are very close now” Lans said. I took a quick look around the forest to see if I could spot this anomaly before I laid my eyes upon what looked like a giant entrance that has wooden defensive spikes mounted before it with another spear wielding guard standing by. The second guard at first took a defensive position but he must of recognized Lans for he returned to his post and stood by. “Keep up the good work Patches, anything new to report?” Lans asked the pony. “No sir, everything has been quiet. Almost a little too quiet but we have not noticed anything new” Patches said. “I see, well keep your guard up unless otherwise instructed” Lans told the guard pony. “Yes sir!” Patches said with a snappy salute of his hoof. “Follow me, Mr. Papa” Lans told me with a tiny smirk on his face. Gah. I really don't like him now. We crossed through the barrier and I was taken back a little when I saw the town within. It was very old and rustic looking, houses and shops were not only built out of wood, but some were carved inside of the trees and some were even up in the trees themselves! I think Twilight and Fluttershy would of loved to see this. “Welcome, to New Leafton!” Lans said as he used his front leg to present the town. “Wowie Papa! House trees! Tree shops! Home trees! Tree! Tree! Tree!” Maelstrom excitingly said as she pointed to everything she saw and commented. I heard Lans laughing again “You have quite the daughter there, Mr. Papa” he said to me. “The names Adrian you know and yes, she is certainly a handful. But in a good way” I said with a smile. “No worries, I know that feeling. I have a daughter myself. Would you like to see the…. Disturbance?” he asked me. I nodded and immediately he started walking with us in tail, which was fine since it allowed me to see more of New Leafton and it was certainly a bizarre place. All sorts of shops littered the lower area, from blacksmiths and jewelers to tree swings and parachutes. Looking up, I saw that most of the tree houses were actual living homes, which makes sense considering they live in the Everfree. But the most peculiar sight was all the different races I saw wandering the streets, ponies, gryphons, a few bat ponies, what I can assume to be minotaurs, and a few others I did not easily recognize. This is not the type of town I had expected when Celestia said there was a town inside the Everfree. “What is it that has you confused boy?” I faintly heard Lans ask me. “Huh? What?” I confusingly asked. “I can tell when someone is confused, so what is it?” he asked again. “Oh, well. I guess I am just a little thrown back at the concept of there being such a huge and thriving town in the middle of the Everfree Forest. I thought this place would have been more of an outpost or something. Considering the danger out there” I told him. “Originally, yes. We were quite small and only a few volunteers held there own out here, always on the lookout for danger. But when a rich pony came through and got saved by us, he saw our little outpost and few homes as a potential market and before I knew it, this place grew and grew into New Leafton” he explained. “You make it sound as if you were here from the beginning. Were you?” I asked again. “Yes and no, I was not part of the original group but I did come here soon after since they needed a strong hoof to guide them. Certainly helped that I was part of the Royal Guard in the past and have had many dealing in this place. Ah, here we are” he suddenly stopped while he said that. “Look, just up past those three trees there, you can clearly see it” At that, I did my best to follow his hoof and eventually found where he was pointing but I saw nothing at first. Then, that whole section of the forest seemed to faze out for a second and little fragments seemed to crack the air. But, what spooked me the most was that this seemed familiar. Then it hit me. “Glitches?” I said out loud. “Glitches? What are glitches?” Lans asked me. Now, I was the one who was speechless. Why in the world would there be glitches in the Everfree? Why would there be glitches outside a computer? And from what I have seen, there are very few computer systems and are either not popular or not known about since I only saw Twilight and Doc Feathers have them. But that doesn't mean anything right now, since the forest is not some sort of program to be corrupted. It is a living place in the real world and for it to be glitching? Unthinkable. I can certainly see why they thought Discord was behind it, since it is something so random and weird. “Adrian, what is it?” Lans asked, this time using my real name, which helped me snap back to our conversation. “Sorry, Lans. Um, oh how to explain this, lets see. Do you know anything about machines or computers?” I asked, trying to establish some sort of base line. “I know some about machines, yes” he told me. “Ok, so simply, a glitch is some sort of fault that occurs in the machine that makes it go haywire or simply stop working. That, that out there” I pointed at the glitching forest “That is what it physically looks like, a glitch. You were right in thinking Discord was the cause but I am not sure even he knows what a glitch would look like or do in a real life area like this” “No, no this is something different and could be very dangerous, not too mention powerful. Powerful enough to make the physical world glitch like this. We should warn Princess Celestia about this, although it might be faster to contact Twilight first since she can send a letter to her faster than anyone else” I explained with a worried voice. “Now, now. Calm down now. We don't know whatever is causing these 'glitches' is dangerous or not. It has been like this for about an hour now and nothing has happened. I say we should proceed with caution and do a little investigating, if it is truly dangerous than we shall contact the Princess at once. Agreed?” Lans said while he stuck out his hoof. I thought about it for a little while and even though my head is telling me to contact Celestia, But, I feel like I can trust Lans and, against my better judgment, decided to go along with his plan. “Good, now normally I would have you stay here but you are the only one who knows about these glitches and as such, are the only one we can depend upon in figuring out the source. Though, I will leave the choice to you to come or not. What do you say?” he asked me. Hmmm, I should probably stay here since I am not a warrior like him or the other guards, but maybe I could help? If, whatever it is, is causing glitches, it might have some sort of technology involved and my electrical magic could prove useful. But I don't want to risk Maelstrom and Artemis getting hurt either and neither one would be willing to stay put. But, maybe I should help? I mean, I am trying to find my place in the world. Maybe this is some sort of test? A way for my powers and magic to be of use? I have to at least try. “I will come along, and offer you as much help as I can” I said with a bow. “Good, good. Strength in numbers and judging by the looks of you, you have plenty of strength to give. Alright, head over to that Inn over there and wait for me there, I am going to recruit our party and maintain a defense team, just in case. Shouldn't be too long, plenty of traveling warriors staying here” he told me. I nodded to his plan and headed over to The Galloping Pony Inn. You know those old western movie scenes where a stranger opens the door and the whole bar stops to look and stare at the newcomer? Well, this was exactly like that, heck even the band stopped playing the second I entered. It was a large room, filled to the brim with creatures big and small, and all their eyes were glued to me. Oh my god, was I nervous. How in the world was I going to smooth this one over? And that is when my stomach growled very loudly. “Papa hungry! Papa hungry! Eat, eat, eat!” Maelstrom said next with her usual cute tone of voice. Well, that was one way to break the ice, for in the next moment the entire room was filled with laughter and swiftly returned to normal. If I wasn't mortified by that experience, I might of groaned at the whole cliché. But I remained silent as I found my way to the back and pulled up a stool at the bar, through Maelstrom decided to use my head as her seat while Artemis curled up on the floor, keeping a watchful eye out. “Well, howdy do there sweet thing! What can I get'cha?” I heard a female voice say in a slightly familiar tone. But when I looked up at who was talking, I saw a minotaur standing there with an apron on with long, golden locks adorned up top. “Oh, he-hello there. I was ghust vaiting fere for-” I tried to say but my cheeks were now being pinched by the lady minotaur. “Well aren't you just adorable! Look at these sweet little face you have! At look at how big you are! I have not met many who can match my height! Much less be taller! Stand up for ol' Sugar Horns now, lets see ya!” she asked of me. For some reason, I found myself standing up and she was right, though just barely as my chin was level with her nose, I sat back down as soon as I could and began to fiddle with my thumbs. “I knew it! Tall and adorable! My daughter would be one lucky calf to have you! Heck, I think my sister might gobble you up!” Sugar Horns said as she pinched my cheeks again. “Lighten up on the lad would you dearie? We don't need you scaring off another customer” I heard a male voice say and I saw an equally large male minotaur stroll out from the back, cleaning his hands with his half-apron. “Oh ho ho! Sorry about that honey, but I just couldn't help myself!” she said to whom I can only presume is her husband. “Hmmm, well I do admit. You are pretty handsome for a whatever you are. What are you, if my be so bold?” he asked. “A-ah! My name is Adrian and I am a human being. And, well, I am an alien to your world. So, I am quite new to these parts of the woods, pardon the pun” I introduced myself. “Oh ho ho! Such a rare sight indeed then! Oh honey pants! He would be perfect for our daughter then! After all, you yourself said that on one on all of Equus could be a match for our daughter!” Sugar Horns sweetly asked her husband. As for myself, I sat there slack jacked at the conversation that was going on and the possible forced marriage going on before my eyes. But the man simply chuckled as he gave me a once over “Well, I do have to admit. He might be strong enough to survive our little Hilda” he said with a sly grin. NO! Oh come on! I was depending on the over-protective father routine! “OH HILDA~! COME MEET YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND~!” Sugar Horn sang out at the top of her lungs. At this stage I could only bury my face in my hands and for some reason, I wanted to peak out behind me and I did. I was once more the center of attention, though what was odd was that instead of glares or stares, they seemed to be praying for me? “WHEEEE! He is a tall one! Eh mama?!” I heard a new voice rang out from behind me, along with the sounds of fast hoofs pounding against wood. And that is when I felt a pair of strong arms against my back before being lifted off my stool and held in place in the air. “Wowie! He is tall and heavy! And look! Look! He can take my hugs! He is perfect!” the girl said. “Oh honey! Even Hilda likes him! What do you think?” Sugar Horns asked her husband. “Well….” he said as she stroked his goatee. “Adrian! Were ready!” I heard Lans say, and with a new found strength I summoned up a small thing of wind and used that to push myself out of her clutches and out the door in two seconds flat. “Whoa, looks like your certainly ready. Good! I like that in a stallion! Now, lets head out!” “YEAH!” said multiple voices as we walked out of the other gate. “I'll be waiting for you my dear Adrian! Be safe! My husband!” I heard Hilda call out from behind me. I could not see myself, but I must have had a weird face since my eye was twitching hard, I was biting my lip, and my nose was scrunched up. That and both Maelstrom and Lans were laughing, hard. -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ A Few Minutes Later, In The Woods -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ “You ok boy?” Lans asked me after I planted my face against a tree and groaned loudly. “I just got forced into a marriage with the minotaur family at the Inn. So, no. I am not feeling very well” I said to him. “HA! Oh dear boy, don't worry too much about that. The Horns family does that all the time, everyone of my men have been hit on and 'forced to marry' their absurdly strong daughter. Just give it a little time and they will have a new target soon enough. So long as Steel Horns disapproves, then nothing will happen anyway” Lans explained. “UGH” I said as I lightly banged my head against the same tree. “No….” Lans said in disbelief. “Well, he didn't say yes but he didn't say no either” I explained. “Hmmmm, well I think an adventure is the perfect thing to clear your mind. Besides, these 'glitches' seem to becoming more frequent now. So I need your head in game now” Lans said with a stern tone. I took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and took a look around and he was right, the glitches that seem to crack the very air were becoming more and more frequent and too be honest, it was starting to scare me. What was causing this? “So, human, what did you say these things were again?” a random pony armed with a sword asked me. “Well, from what I can tell, these look like glitches and a glitch is something that makes a machine act up and misbehave. But for a glitch to appear in the real world like this, such a thing should be impossible unless we were inside a machine or something” I roughly explained to our medium sized group. “Papa so smart! Papa so smart!” Maelstrom happily cheered as she tried to catch glitches in her hands. “Yes indeed, it was certainly a smart idea to have Mr. Papa here with us” Lans commented which made a few members of the group snicker. “Alright, enough small talk. Anyone have anything to report?” “Nothing here!” “Nothing here either!” “Nothing to report!” “Nothi- wait! I think I see something! I'll check it out!” said a bat pony in the back, them and two others veered off to the left while we moved forward. It was a couple minutes of silent walking before we heard another group in the back say “To the right! I think I see something!” then three more veered off into the forest. Here and there, our group slowly whittled down until it was only me, Maelstrom, Artemis, Lans, and two others. “Where in Tartarus did those blasted fools go?! They should of reported in by now!” Lans said while we stopped. “ANYPONY! ANYONE! REPORT IN AT ONCE! WHAT DO YOU SEE?!” he shouted but the only response was the echo he made. “This is not good, we should head back. This is too much for us!” said one of the two left before they both scampered off. “Get back here you fools! And you call yourselves adventurers!” Lans angrily shouted but only his echo responded again. “Whoa! Lans, look!” I said to him as I pointed at something moving through the woods in front of us, which was now strangely filling up with mist. Lans saw what I was looking at and huffed “I have to try and capture them and hopefully I can found out something about all this. Stay here Adrian and keep your daughter safe. I will be right back” he told me before he raided his spear outward and charged off. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. This is not good, I should of followed my brain and sent a letter to Twilight. This is super, duper not good! “Papa! Papa! Look!” Maelstrom tapped my cheek and pointed. But when I look over, I saw nothing but a glitch. I jumped back in surprise and pulled up my fists in preparation but when I looked again, I saw nothing but a mist and glitches. I jumped again towards the strange noise but I saw nothing but empty space. Once more I jumped back and prepared to punch but what I saw made me stay put. The figure I saw in front of me was vaguely humanoid, as it was standing on two feet and seemed to wear a black suit with a long black trench coat. But its head and hands were nothing I had seen before. Its bleach white hands were curled up but seemed very boney and thin and in the center of each hand was a large hole, then its head was also white but seemed like a humans except more round. Its right eye was partially closed with a line heading up an over while its left was fully open and a line heading down. It seemed to be shorter than me but its body was gently floating a bit in the air in front of me and I think it was staring at me, due to the two tiny white pupils in its dark eye sockets seemed to be focused on me. All the hairs on my body stood on end as this being stared at me and I saw that even its body seemed to be glitching as well. Could it be the source of all the glitches? There it was! That strange sound, almost like every word was the sound of a someone talking and suddenly stopping or something. “Are….. are you trying to talk to me?” I asked it while it continued to float there. “Papa! I think he said he is talking, but you can't hear him” Maelstrom said. “Yeah! But you talk funny” Maelstrom said with a giggle. The thing then rose its hand and gave Maelstrom a few pats on the head. “Sure! Papa! I'll tell you what he says!” she told me. “Ok then, well. First off, are you hostile?” I asked it. “He said no! He is curious about this…. Deeminsin?” Maelstrom said. She tried to repeat that last word a few times. “Dimension?” I asked. “Yeah!” she responded. “Are…. You not of this world either?” I asked it. “He said no and he is long way from home!” she repeated. “He said everyone safe, he wanted to talk to you” Maelstrom said. “You wanted to talk…. To me?” I asked apparently him. “Papa is gonna change the world! And he curious about you” she told me. “Curious? About what?” I asked him. “He wants to know how you got here” she told me. “About how I got here? Well, that I cannot answer since I don't know and is one answer I am looking for, among others” I informed him. “He said you both cashewty of life and now he is leaving for other worlds and mystery solving!” Maelstrom explained. “I see, well I wish you luck then. Oh! I never even learned your name. I'm Adrian Frost, this is my daughter Maelstrom and my companion Artemis. So, what is your name?” I asked him but instead of an answer, he simply held up a finger to his mouth before whipping it around and producing a card out of thin air. He placed the card in my hand before turning around to face a door that appeared out of nowhere, when he opened it the inside of it looked like the night sky for it was pitch black and full of stars, and a swirling universe. He then stepped inside and the second we heard the door close, it vanished into thin air, along with the mist and all of the glitches. I stood there, shocked and amazed at what I saw. So much so that I pinched my cheek to double check to see if this was a dream or not. The pain told me it was not, so I stared blankly at the empty space where he stood, completely and utterly dumbfounded. “Papa! What does card say? What does it say?!” Maelstrom asked while she looked down from my head. I looked down at the card and all I saw was a strange font that was full of symbols at first, but after looking at it for a few seconds, the font seemed to shift into letters I could read but with a fancier font. It read: Head to the factory, but be cautious of the device hidden within. I flipped it over and saw more text, reading: And beware of the Nightmare inside you. I felt a chill run up my spine when I read that back part. Beware of the Nightmare inside? Surely, he doesn't mean the nightmares of my mother? But that has been dealt with……. Right? And what of this factory? Why did he want me to go to it? And where is it? I looked back at the front and saw that in the corner on the front side was a small arrow that pointed straight ahead. Was it showing me the way? I turned my body back and forth and saw that the arrow moved so it always faced in that one direction. “What do you think Maelstrom? Should we head back to town or follow his directions?” I asked my cute and adorable daughter. “Follow funny man! Follow! Follow!” she happily exclaimed. “Alright, here we go. Artemis, keep a watchful eye out for us. You too Maelstrom, if you see anything, let us know. Alright?” I asked the two of them. Artemis nodded and took the lead while Maelstrom also nodded and perched herself upright on my head and began to look around. Hopefully the three of us are enough to handle whatever is inside this factory. Adventure, here we come.