From a distance Ponyville looks peaceful and normal, ponies just milling around minding their own business, not a care in the world. Besides the random castle tree which blots out the sun.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Helix had turned himself into an ash grey stallion, I don't actually know their correct name right now so I'll just call them ponies,With a pickaxe and a shovel arranged in a cross as his mark. I had guessed this was to lower the adversity of the locals, because they were still racist pricks, but just not 'I'll hate you because you aren't pony' racist pricks.
For those who remember that weird shit that was happening with my senses, I figured out they only work when I'm in the sun, so I guessed I was some kind of pyromancer or light mage.
As we strolled into town we gained a whole lot of stares, well, I gained a whole lot of stares anyway. "Excuse me?" I faced an absolute unit of a red stallion. "You know where we could find some books on magic and etcetera?" He pointed at the absolutely fuck-massive crystal tree in the middle of town.
"That's the big castle over there, that'll have all ya' need," I nodded gratefully.
"Ta, mate," we set off for the Crystal library, man, if they spend this much on architecture, no wonder their guards aren't trained, they spent it on all this.
"Eeyup," I like that guy.
I opened the door like I owned the place, which I technically did, because it was public property. "Wooah..." a boyish voice called out from across the vast atrium, "who are you?" A large purple scaled lizard, large for a lizard that is, came plodding down some steps that were kind of big for him. I like how the only people who have asked my name is purple Charmander over here and Helix.
I wonder if when I walk through town again, I'll get accused of stealing something, then cheese it and run from the guards.
"Name's John, you the librarian? You look a little young for it," he snorted indignantly at that, still walking over.
"I'm not THAT young, I'm like, twelve." I chuckled inwardly, "anyway, you're looking for books right?" I nodded, "are you looking for anything in particular?" Huh, so far both the guys I've ran into have been pretty chill, maybe it's a mare thing here? The parallels between this world and mine are staggering. The shock of being transported to another world hadn't really caught up with me yet, so I elected to ignore the questions of; 'when am I going home?' And 'where the hell am I?'.
"Yeah, just some stuff on magic studies, oh and some geography and history would be nice." He nodded and scampered off into one of the side rooms. Helix tapped me on the shoulder "I'll have a look around town, you want me to get you anything?" He asked.
I nodded rapidly, "hell yeah! If there's a bakery could you order me an iced bun? I haven't had anything sweet in days," I forgot to mention this but when Helix stole the guard's armour yesterday, he had a fair few bits on him. As the grey stallion left, the lizard tugged on my slightly singed jeans 'I wonder if there's a tailor here?', holding five or six books in his other hand, which he promptly passed to me.
"I couldn't find any of the spell or magic books, beside some old theories by Starswirl, but I got all the rest" he muttered something about 'Twi' and 'book forts' under his breath.
"thanks, uh... what's your name?"
"Spike, Spike the Dragon," he replied and held out a fist. This guy just rose up a few levels on the badass scale for being a dragon, though what's a dragon doing in the middle of a town of herbivores?
I casually met it with mine, "Nice to meet you, Spike. Say, now that I think about do you know a dragon named Spyro?" He shook his head, causing me to sigh.
"I'm gonna go take a nap, call if you need anything else," he yawned and trotted off into one of the rooms, leaving me for a good half hour of reading, I found out something, I'm either still on Earth but I'm a few millions years late for Christmas dinner, or I'm in a parallel dimension, the geography of maps was fairly similar except for two things.
One. The UK was right in the middle of the Atlantic. So going home is going to be difficult, and the place is going to be way colder.
Two, Australia is practically sniffing Africa's ass, the Zebra's that occupy south... *sigh* Zebrica, yes it's actually called 'Zebrica' of all things, have a large bridge that connects the two continents together. There were other smaller shifts which weren't very noticeable so I won't include them.
Then six somewhat familiar mares burst in, The pink one had an unmasked Helix in tow, captured in some sort of cookie dough prison. I was about to open my mouth to say something along the lines of: 'Helix, are you mentally deficient' before he spoke up.
"She distracted me," God dammit Helix.
We all just stared each other down, "well isn't this awkward?"
-Paragraphs taken from the diary of Twilight Sparkle-
"Now that that whole Starlight Glimmer mess is fixed up we gotta deal with this thing!?" Rainbow poked at the letter Twilight had been sent yesterday evening.
"Yes, Rainbow, we do. If something goes wrong the Griffins and Minotaurs could attack us!" Twilight expressed.
Applejack snorted, "Twah, ah think your blowin' it a tad outta proportion there. Ah know there's some big meeting goin' on up there-" She pointed out of the window, towards Canterlot, "-in a few days about trade routes an' the like. Hay, everypony who sells anythin' under the sun does! It also means more Griffins and Minotaurs 'round Equestria too, but it's not as vital as stoppin' a dang war!"
"Yeah! So cool your beans, egghead." Rainbow quipped, Twilight look indignant, ruffling her feathers before taking a deep breath and sitting back down on one of the plump chairs lining the carriage sides, letting sleep take her.
Rainbow whispered at Applejack, "I swear she's been getting crankier and crankier, before that time with Tirek, she was waaay calmer..."
Applejack whispered back harshly, "well what would you feel like if yer cloud house went kaboom!? She's been working her plot off, trying to stop Starlight from doing whatever the buck she did to time or somethin' like that!" Dash's ears splayed back slightly at AJ's hushed scolding.
Rarity, however was pulling a mane brush through her hair, taking a sip of tea before speaking, "I for one believe that she's been coping rather terribly with things, you saw how she was before we took the roots from Golden Oaks, she always looked like she would start crying at any second!" Both Applejack and Dash gave her a deadpan look before Rainbow opened her mouth.
"Says Ms. Drama Queen herself!" Rarity simply gave a 'hmmph' and turned her nose up.
"Umm, girls?" The trio's eyes' turned to the butter coloured mare, "we shouldn't really do this over Twilight's head, if you don't mind, that is..." She looked down at the polished carriage floor. Once the mares had registered what she said, they mumbled some apologies. Pinkie was not present as instead of coming back the following day with the rest of them, she went yesterday with the satisfactory explanation of 'Pinkie sense, gotta go, bye bye' that they had all come to accept.
The moment of silence the five mares found themselves in was countered by the appearance of the creature, in the form of smashing the door down, an axe in hand, shouting, "HERE'S JOHNNY!"
The moment of pandemonium caused by his outburst was hilarious, the sleeping princess jolted awake, slamming into the table above her head, which was punctured by her horn, this dropped everything on the table in Rarity's direction, spilling the extremely hot tea she had all over herself, causing her to start shrieking for the second time in the last twenty-four hours, Applejack, for some reason, reflexively bucked her back legs into the carriage side, sending a visible vibration up through her body, Rainbow Dash however, had the best reaction, flaring her wings she propelled herself upwards... straight into the roof, this knocked her out sending her plummeting back down right on top of Applejack,
Discord laughed in the human's form before dropping his guise and sending the axe off into oblivion. Should any of them do anything rash, he put a life-like discord pinata where he once stood. "A little birdy told me you need some help," They were all still recovering from his surprise, "oh please, you four have gotten up from things much more dangerous than this far faster," Discord sighed, "have the villains been getting easier since I last terrorized you? I mean for Faust's sake! You four look absolutely hopeless." Fluttershy, who had previously disappeared, came out from the closet she was hidden in, giving Discord a rather disappointed look, "There's a joke there somewhere... Correction, you FIVE."
"Discord that wasn't very nice! Now what do you have to say for yourself!" Fluttershy berrated the chimera.
"That it was funny?" I imagine if Fluttershy was anyone else she would've hit him right then but instead she just gave him a very womanly look.
After they had all recovered, including the recently passed-out Rainbow Dash, some rather irate Elements were looking at their beloved Lord of Chaos. "Ah! You're all ready then, good!" Discord, clicked his fingers and an image of Discord's counter with the creature popped up in their faces. "This, elements, is a human. He is the jolly good fellow that Good old' sunbutt has sent for you to capture, is it not?" Twilight nodded, "excellent, now this creature is currently in Ponyville, searching for ways to use his magic, he is not doing anything wrong, nor does he plan to-" Discord looked between the mares confused faces, "-but Celestia thinks that Griffins and Minotaurs are some sort of barbarians, so she asked you to clean up her little mess! What I'm suggesting is that you talk to the fellow, instead of trying to capture him so Celestia can send him to the moon, order you to turn him to stone or something like that. he can actually be quite reasonable you know." Twilight pondered what the Draconequus told them, before coming to a decision.
"Alright Discord, I can't believe I'm saying this but-" she sighed, "I'm trusting you, we'll try to talk to him, but if he won't come quietly, we will drag him back to Canterlot..." She trailed off, before collapsing onto the cushions she recently slept on. He looked back at the other mares.
If looks could kill... Discord wouldn't have died because he was one of the very forces of nature, and as such, couldn't die. He snapped his fingers, teleporting away from the carriage in a flash of light.
-John, Ponyville Castle, The Present-
"Well isn't this awkward?" They all nodded, including Helix, who was still entrapped in a ball of dough, his head poking out as Pinkie rolled him about. I'm assuming these six are the Elements of Harmony, they look pretty similar to the more recent stuff in the books.
These six are the wielders of magical maguffin X, blah blah blah, basically they teach love and tolerance with giant rainbow death beams that purge chaos, something I didn't want to happen. I'm rather attached to my chaotic spontaneity.
"So, you got my compadre, you gonna take me back to jail for no reason again?" The purple royal looked confused.
"No reason? You set a building on fire!," I simply shook my head in response, "Well, who did?"
"Not a clue."
The pink one somehow teleported over here, "Twilight, was anypony in that building?" She shook her head, "then why is it such a big deal! Even if he did do it, he probably did by accident and he didn't hurt anypony, except for your brother and Luna." They all looked at her with varying degrees of shock, whether it was how much sense she made, or if they felt like she betrayed them. "I think this is just silly, honestly! It's like I'm the only sane one here!" I silently agreed. She looked back at me, "Hi! I'm Pinkie!"
"I'm John. Can you let the Changeling go? He's my friend." She somehow licked his dough prison off of him within a few seconds. "Thanks," I turned back to the princess, "I'll go to Canterlot if you pardon me."
Her horn lit up and I backed off, "Nope, turn that shit off, if you're going to sign some shit do it without magic," the pink glow tapered off and she frowned, "Good girl," she just growled angrily as she walked up a flight of stairs, her hooves making clopping noises against the stairs slowly getting quieter until there was silence. "So..."
"The heck are you!?" The one who was called Rainbow Dash shouted, her eyes narrowing and her wings flared, like she was gonna attack me, Wow. Great first impression there skittles. The pink one zoomed across at some unfathomable speed towards her.
"Oh Dashie, that's no way to say hi to a new friend! Why don't you introduce yourselves, girls!"
After some long winded and frankly boring introductions from those five, as well as Helix and I, the purple Alicorn, Alicorns are winged unicorns, came down holding a piece of parchment in her teeth, balancing an ink pot and quill on herself.
She put the quill in her mouth, holding it between her teeth. She better get me another quill, I'm not gonna get mad horse disease yet. "This scroll dictates that you are to be royally pardon by H.M PRINCESS Sparkle. There! now finish it up and come with us," Jeez Sparky, get your non-existent knickers untwisted.
I'm surprised she actually did this, she could have been an was about it and zapped me with a death laser or something.
*Cough* *Cough* Luna *Cough* *Cough*
The million pound/dollar/bit question: Do I still have a pen on me? I patted my pockets down before discovering a pen shaped lump in my left trouser leg 'those are pants for any Americans reading this. Actually, an even better question is: if you are Americans, then how the fuck did my journal get thrown back to Earth?'
Fishing the thing out I click it, sign the waiver or whatever it is and put it back. Now, I'd like to say that it burned up and a red ram demon came out of the ground and dragged me to hell.
Sadly it didn't.
Twilight? I think that's her name, is fucking awestruck by my pen. "What was that!?"
"It's a pen. Do you not have these?"
"We use quills here. This 'pen' is extraordinary! Is that an onternally stored ink source? How have we never thought of that?" After a while of babbling she just gets this far-off look in her eyes and becomes completely unresponsive. I wave a hand in front of her face, "I think I broke her..."
"Just give her a few minutes," 'Dashie' told me, pfft, that's like the dumbest nickname ever, "Dude, what's a hooman?" I cringe at her horrible pronunciation.
"Its 'human'. Like Hue-man, and we're, in short: a bunch of dicks. " she blushed at that, Applejack laughed into her hoof, 'the books told me that Pinks and Applejack were a species called Earth Ponies. They're stronger than most I guess and can grow plants, but don't have magic or wings. If that isn't the raw end of the deal, I don't know what is.
Helix has just been sat there with Pinks, looking bored. "Helix." He shrunk, literally. he hopped into Pinkie's mane. Now I don't usually say this kind of thing, but Helix looked adorable with his little head poking out of her candy coloured hair. I wished I had a camera on me, because that would have been perfect for trolling him. "Helix, you are going to tell me how you got captured, and where my iced bun is."
Pinkie gasped, "he was meant to get you something from the Sugarcube Corner!? Oopsies, I thought he was trying to find my secret recipe so Chrysalis could conquer Equestria, so I used the dough-stroyer!"
Not even gonna comment on that horrific pun. I face-palmed, why... would Chrysalis need her secret recipe? Wait, why,am I not playing along with this? "Yoink!" I pulled Pinks in before tapping her on the snout, making her giggle, "silly pony! Plankton is the one who steals the secret formula!"
She turned the tables, hugging me while tutting, "That's the Krabby Patty one! Not my cupcake formula!"
Wut. How does she know about that!? Is Spongebob transdimensional? Even worse, Is PINKIE transdimensional?
"How did you..." I trailed off. She stuck out her tongue, which was now dangerously close to my face.
"How did I what, Johnny?" Thus, my nickname was reborn from the ashes of my old world. Don't take that 'ashes' bit seriously, because as far as I know, it's still up and going, unless the stupid fucks in charge took a day to start a nuclear war on each other.
"Bu-, but, whaaa?" She carefully placed a hoof over my mouth.
"No tears, only dreams..." Pinkie scares me sometimes.
"Ahem." Alicorns are such spoilsports, I swear...
"Ok, Sparks I'm coming," Pinkie launched off of me as I got up, I was about to walk off before I remembered someone, or some'ling' "you too, Helix." I heard a muffled curse before the changeling jumped out of Pinkie's mane, growing back to normal size with each step. I pounced on him,wrapping him in a bone crushing hug, and giving him a maniacal grin before saying in a low voice, "Where's my iced bun, motherfucker?" He gave an amusing whimper.
Twilight smiled for a second, before letting the irritated frown she was wearing come back in full force. "I'll take him back to-" she yawned,"-excuse me, I'll take him back to Canterlot while the rest of you settle back in..." is she going to pass out? She's practically sleep walking.
"Aww, does da wittle pony want the human to cawwy you?" I said in my baby voice, she lifted her front hooves up leaning against me and stared me down with puppy eyes. Ok, that's just so plain adorable, I'm actually gonna do it. And so i lifted her up slumping her over my shoulder. She's surprisingly light, not as light as helix though, it's probably got something to do with the fact that Helix has holes in him. The other five just d'aww at that, even Gay pride Pegasus over there.
"Spike!" Twilight half-moans, half-shouts. The little drake scampers over, before laughing 'is there something I'm not getting here?' "Spike, climb on, This human is taking us to Canterlot!"
"If you burn my shirt I'll cut you, " I warned him, dropping a hand down, which he grabbed onto as I lifted him onto my other shoulder. And so, I left the tree palace thing for Canterlot to get the law off my back.
*Spoilers* it sorta worked, but ended up getting me in debt to the princesses, which in Equestria, is a really, really bad idea'.
Pinks waved goodbye, an action I reciprocated, while the other four just dispersed.
The walk through Ponyville was short, Helix bought me my iced bun, 'he changed back to the miner guy before we left the tree.' I devoured it mercilessly
We got a lot of odd looks with the sleeping pony on my shoulder, Spike just told them she was just tired and they all pissed off.
The train was still in the station by the time we got there so we just hopped into the royal carriage, Twilight was off in dreamland as I put her down on one of the seats, Spike hopped off, sitting on one of the elevated seats, motioning for me to sit down next to him.
"Thanks, John. Twilight and I have had a really really long day," he flopped back into his seat.
"What did you do to get yourselves like this? it's like two in the afternoon and you're both utterly wrecked."
Time-travel...stuff, saving the present..." He mumbled before nodding off.
"Great, now they're both passed out. Who am I meant to irritate now!" I through my arms up in the air.
"No one," Helix harrumphed, "Ponies in Canterlot won't be as welcoming as these were, thanks to Chrysalis', so I'll stick around here." I nodded understandingly.
"You're just going to sit around Ponyville then?" He gave an affirmative buzz, "I respect that, you told me why you aren't welcome in Canterlot," neither was I, but Helix could just disappear into the crowd in Ponyville, "May the force be with you, or something like that."
"Goodbye," he shrunk again, then flew out an open window.
Equestrian trains are really fucking slow. Which is why I was ecstatic once we got to the Canterlot. Quick fact:,it's somehow the capital of the country, despite it being the size of a large town on Earth, just with more verticality.
Imagine the surprise when I saw Shining motherfucking armour on the platform outside, "Sparks," she shifted, I poked her lightly,"Twilight, wake up" I shook her awake, "we're in Canterlot, Spark plug." She moaned lightly before going to sleep again.
I had to pull out the big guns. If any of you have a dog or cat, when you try blowing in their ears they go nuts. So I did that to Twilight, she freaked out for a few seconds before hitting me with her hoof.
"What was that for!?" She growled, waking Spike.
"We're in Canterlot, and the guard guy I collapsed a dungeon on is there, call him off or something."
She looked outside and her eyes widened, "You dropped a building on my brother." do I have some sort of royalty magnet? Are the royals in this world just really attackable? I keep beating them up.
"It was structurally unstable so it was coming down anyway." I waved her off.
We were at the door by the time they all opened so Twilight glomped her brother instantly, "Shining, I thought you were in the Crystal Empire!" She refrained from trying to kill him by asphyxiation.
Then he saw me, oh goodie, he stepped in front of Twilight entering a combat stance, "Twilight, what is that thing doing with you!?"
"Semi-surrendering. Not too fond of being hunted to the ends of the earth over something I didn't do."
"I have to say, that was some incredible firepower to be able to burst apart the buildong like that. Did you study magic where you come from?" Wait, what? Why is he not being an asshole?
"Nope, just started yesterday. That blast was probably the first magic I ever did. Spike hopped up on Twilight and began to ride her like the filthy horse she was.
'Get your mind out of the gutter.'
"Welp, it seems like its about time to hit the hay, seeing as the castle wouldn't be open around now."
"Actually I should be able t-" Shining began to explain before being cut off by Twilight and Spike simultaneously.
"Yes! Thats an excellent idea, John. We should go to a hotel or inn immediately." Twilight looked at me with the eyes of sleep deprivation. A phenomenon most students were well acquainted with.
And so we did. It was blissfully soft on those beds.
I had some weird ass dreams that night.
--A torn page--
A page made from a different material than the rest of the journal, clearly taken from another older book.
Deep within the wastes surrounding the newly re-emerged Crystal kingdom, a dark sorcery had been perfected. A unicorn corpse lay at the bottom of a cavern, not noticably different from any other cave dotted around the wastes, but this one went far, far enough that the howling wind and storms could not be heard, where absolute silence reigned. The corpse pulsed, sending a rattle through the cave, echoing endlessly through the vein-like tunnels.
"Aahhhh." The body sighed comfortably. Its eyes alighting. Dark tendrils pushed it off the ground, onto its hooves. "Flexible. This vessel shall do nicely... for now at least." It turned looking across the icy walls. "Wings. I need them."
His horn glowed with dark, sparking power before cracking and then falling off. "WEAKLINGS, CAN'T HANDLE A DROP OF DARK ENERGY CAN THEY? CONFOUND THESE USELESS CREATURES!" He yelled, taking a moment to calm himself. "Wretched ponies. I shall have to find another, more suitable host."
He jumped into the abyss breaking the majority of the body, before transferring himself into a rare body he had found years ago, a pegacorn. As the name suggested, it took the traits of each breed. Wings and a horn. A perfect temporary vessel.
He took flight, weaving through the stalactite-ridden cave, sometimes cutting apart the body before suturing it up. He was glad that he had affected his ability to feel pain long ago. It was troublesome.
He quickly found his way out of the caves. Taking a breath of freezing air, he summoned a brown cloak to hide the wings and began to journey south.