//------------------------------// // Death // Story: Jumper: A New World // by PTTN //------------------------------// Death 3 Jay lay in the grass and dirt facing the sky. He had already gained consciousness, but he wasn’t ready to open his eyes yet. He just couldn’t do it. ‘Scratch that, you’re just lazy, ya wanker.’ His mind insulted him. He slowly opened his eyes; hating every second of the process. He groaned as his eyes fully opened. “AHH!” He shouted! He started to panic; all he could see was darkness laced with hazy images that were not coming into focus. “OhnoOhnoOhnoOhnooo I’m blind!” He whined, reaching up to feel his eyes, “I’m blind and I can’t see and my....sunglasses.....are........” ‘Dang. I’m so glad no one saw that.’ He chuckled as he took his sunglasses off slowly, letting the sunlight hit his eyes. At first, the light blinded him, with white this time, but his eyes adjusted quick. He lay where he was for a moment, not wanting to move. That’s when the memory of last night hit him. Hit him hard. It was like a blow right to the stomach. Everything about the fight came back to him, even the end. HIS end. The one where he died. ‘I should be dead anyway....So where the hell am I?’ He pondered. He looked around where he was, taking in the scenery. He was sitting in the middle of a crater, blown right into the ground. He put two and two together and assumed that that was his doing. ‘Okay, now I should definitely be dead.’ He concluded. ‘But why do I not...... ‘feel’ dead?’ He looked past the crater. He was sitting in some sort of forest, exactly like the one that flooded his mind as he had laid dying on the floor of his room. Trees surrounded him on every side, and everything was just so...... bright. ‘If this isn’t heaven, you could have fooled me.’ He thought to himself. He looked down at the sunglasses he was still holding in his......hoof? “GAH!” He shouted, looking straight at his han- hoof. “Wha-” He looked over to his other side and found a matching hoof. “What’s going on?! And how can I hold these sunglasses in a hoof???” Jay was getting scared. Something was really wrong. He got up slowly, pushing himself up to his two feet, only to fall back down. He looked at his legs and noticed that they too, were hooves. Jay had seen horses walk before. He could do it, too! He stood up, this time supporting his weight on all four of his hooves, noticing that this was now much more comfortable than standing on two legs. This was going to take a while to get used to. Now standing, he looked around. He spotted exactly what he was looking for; a stream running through the forest off in the distance. He looked to the spot where the stream was, memorized it, and brought it up in his mind, just like he had done so many times before. And just like so many times before, he jumped straight to the stream. Jay was ecstatic! He still had his jumping! He looked down into the stream and almost blacked out again. He was staring directly into the reflection of some sort of horse thing..... A pony! That’s what he was! A pony..... He still had his blood red eyes, shining clearly in the reflection. His beanie sat atop his head and he was happy to still have it. He looked at his body and noticed two wings, one on either side of him. He also noticed that he no longer had his tattoo on his right side, but instead a series of black lines covered his body and face. He was a bit disappointed. All of the pain he went through to get that tattoo on most of the right side of his upper body and it was gone. Jay had been extremely proud of his tribal markings. He looked at his front right hoof expectantly. He shook it a few times, just to see what would happen. Maybe it was some sort of hallucination..... Nothing happened. He then slowly reached up, grabbed his beanie, and pulled it off of his head. ‘These hooves are very misleading...’ He thought to himself. Under the beanie, a white mane had been revealed. It was a short, dishevelled looking thing that ran down his head and neck. At the top of his mane, near his head, a streak of red stained part of his mane. ‘Where did that come from?’ He wondered. ‘My hair used to be brown.....’ He turned to look at his body in the stream. On his flank, an image of the Colorado Wrestling logo had appeared on both sides. “Haha! Now that’s pretty cool!” He exclaimed, straining his neck to get a better look at it. He ended up just circling himself a few times, like a dog chasing his own tail. He was, after all, a wrestler. Lastly, he examined his newfound tail. It was white, just like his mane, with a large black streak running right through the center of it, matching up with the black streaks on his body. “Well, I guess I’m a horse now...” He huffed, still unsure as to what to make of the situation. Jay looked around to make sure he was alone. That done, he planted his rear hooves firmly into the ground, and stretched his flank into the air while lowering his front hooves. He felt the familiar pops in his spine and welcomed them. He suddenly felt a new sensation in his side. His wings were stretching with him! Jay had completely forgotten about them! Unfortunately for him, he had no idea how to move his wings, or even how to fly. “So I’m a flightless, flying horse now? Is this some kind of weird joke?” He wondered aloud. “If it is, then, Death, man, your sense of humor sucks.” Jay waited for some response, mainly along the lines of an insult about his mother, but nothing came. All he could hear was the everyday sounds of a forest in action. He moved back over to his hat and sunglasses and put both of them on. These two things were what made Jay, Jay. Jay sat down and looked around. What should he do now? Was he all alone in this new world? Was he actually stuck in Purgatory and he just didn’t know it yet? All of these questions floated around in his head. He began to worry. As much as he hated people, he didn’t want to be the only one in this strange world. His fears were suddenly absolved as his new ears caught onto something and perked up. ‘Voices!’ He thought, adrenaline kicking in. ‘I should probably hide!’ Jay looked around, his eyes scanning for a suitable place to hide. He caught on to a branch, high enough where he could remain out of sight. He jumped to it, landing perched on the thick branch overlooking the area where he had just been. He struggled with his balance some as his new appendages were still being broken in. Jay could see his crater perfectly, even through the lenses of his sunglasses, and judging by the pitch of the voices, they were moving in his direction. He braced himself on the branch and waited just as the voices came into earshot. “Ah’m tellin’ ya, Twi, there ain’t nothin’ out here!” One of the voices said, bearing a distinct southern accent and growing louder as the distance between it and Jay closed. “No, I heard it, Applejack! Something crashed out here and I intend to find out what it was!” The other voice said. Jay could make out no other voices, so he assumed there were two coming in his direction. Two of what, though, he wasn’t sure of. “Well alright, sugarcube, but Ah got some work back on th’ farm Ah need to take care of, so let’s hurry it up...” The western voice said. “Don’t worry, I’m almost positive whatever it was I heard last night is right up here in this clearing.” The second voice said. Just as the second voice finished her sentence, Jay spotted the two owners. ‘More horse things....’ He thought to himself. Just as the thought crossed him, a new wave of panic followed. “By God,” he mumbled quietly, “They’ve done it. The ponies took over the world. Frankly, I could have sworn it would have been the monkeys...” One of them was an orange pony with freckles and a golden blonde mane tied into a ponytail with a red ribbon and draped over her shoulder. Her tail was done in much the same fashion. A brown cowboy hat sat atop her head and three apples adorned her flank. Jay recalled one of the names the two had used in their conversation. ‘Hmmm.....Apples, Applejack....Apples....Applejack.......Well, that one must be Twilight!’ His thoughts were dripping with sarcasm. The other was a purple pony with a horn on her head. Her mane and tail were matching purple with a lighter shade of purple, almost pink, running through it. The mark on her flank was that resembling a six pointed star with 5 smaller, white stars circling it. “We found it Applejack!” The purple one shouted. Jay just had to assume that this one was the actual Twilight. She ran up to the crater with Applejack in tow. As soon as she hit the crater, the horn on her head began to glow with a purple aura. “Well Ah’ll be...... Whaddya think IT is, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, confusion plastered all over her face. Twilight’s face screamed focus. Having to break her train of thought to answer Applejack looked like it irritated her some. “I don’t know what it is, Applejack, I’ve never seen anything like it.” She started, “But I think I’m going to stay here and examine it some more. You can head back now, I know the way.” Applejack looked worried. “You sure, Twi? Ah mean, we are in th’ Everfree forest. It can be a mite dangerous out here.” “I’ll be fine! And if anything does go wrong, I’ll just teleport back to Ponyville!” That last line piqued Jay’s curiosity. He had never heard of another being able to teleport like him. Twilight’s answer must have been acceptable for the orange mare as she started to make her way back to wherever she came from. Jay saw her look back once at her companion before she disappeared on a hidden path in the foliage. With the orange one gone, he turned his attention to the purple one, Twilight. She was still at the crater, horn aglow. She stood rigid, as if the slightest movement on her part would cause some catastrophic failure in what she was trying to accomplish. Jay battled with himself on his branch. Should he make himself known? And if he did, should he reveal his ability? He had already overheard her talking about her own teleportation ability, but he wasn’t sure if he should bring it up, revealing that he had, in fact, been spying on her. Or should he just stay up there, hidden in his tree, and let things play out. He did, after all, hate confrontation. People just always seemed to annoy the hell out of him. Especially the stupid ones. Oh, how he hated stupid people, especially the people who tried to press their opinions onto other people. His high school had been filled with plenty of people like that. As Jay started to rattle of the names of stupid people he found annoying, he hadn’t noticed a purple glow coming from underneath him. It climbed up his body and locked him into place. He was still thinking of people he hated. Oh, the joys of ignorance. “Uh, hello?” ‘What the hell?’ Jay’s mind scrambled to assess the situation. Its’ first priority was to figure out what that noise was and where it came from. Its’ answer: look around. “Down here.” Came the familiar voice from somewhere below him. Looking down, he noticed the glow coming off of his body, then noticed the two purple eyes staring at him suspiciously farther below. “What are you doing?” Twilight asked, probably wondering why he was in a tree. “Uhhh.... what are YOU doing?” ‘Smooth’. “Oh! Well, I was examining that crater over there and I casted a spell to see if whatever caused the crater might still be around!” She said with a smile, clearly quite proud of her magical ability. Jay was taken aback. How had that actually worked? Even HE knew he wasn’t that persuasive. “So is that why I’m glowing purple?” Jay asked, looking himself over. “Oh right! Sorry!” With a glow from Twilight’s horn, the purple glow around Jay’s body was dispelled, and he figured it was as good a time as any to get out of the tree. Clumsily, but very carefully, he made his way out of the branches and down to the forest floor, deciding on taking the manual way down, instead of just jumping. He didn’t want to reveal his ability just yet. “Couldn’t you have just flown down?” She asked quizzically. Jay looked at her, puzzled for a moment, and then he remembered the feathered wings folded to his sides. “Well....sure.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but she shrugged anyway, offering him her hoof. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, star student of Princess Celestia and the librarian of Ponyville!” Jay took her hoof with a firm grasp. “I’m Jay.” She stared at his shaded eyes expectantly. She was obviously waiting for more. Jay sat there staring right back through the dark lenses, letting the awkwardness of the current situation sink in. Here was this stranger, in a black beanie with black sunglasses, sitting up in a tree. She must have thought him a bit off. “That’s it?” He shrugged. “Yep.” “Oh...” She said, hesitating with her next choice of words. “Where are you from?” Jay was unsure of what to say. He wasn’t at all sure of where he was or which way home could be. He wasn’t even sure he was in the same ‘place’ as home was, considering he was now a talking, flightless, flying horse. He looked around trying to establish his bearings. He pointed his hoof to the crater in the clearing. “Over there.” Twilight’s eyes went wide. Jay could have sworn she started to vibrate. “You’re what made the crater?!” She exclaimed, a hint of relief in her voice as she realized that her magic was spot on in locating him, but she also sounded very excited. “I suppose I am.” He honestly had no idea what else to say. “This is amazing! We have to go back and we have to run some tests and I have all sorts of questions! What were you doing that caused a crater? Are you injured? Why were you in that tree anyway? Oh you have to let me examine you!” She babbled. She had lost Jay at ‘run’. He tended to tune things out like that. Not knowing what he should do, he offered the first thing that came to mind. “Yes?” She squealed with delight. “You can follow me back to Ponyville, then!” Jay shrugged once again, unsure of what he had just agreed to. He figured that heading to civilization and getting out of the forest was in his best interest, so he decided to play along with the purple mare. As she turned to make her way out of the forest, following Applejack’s path, he followed. As they made their way out of the forest, Twilight was deep in thought. She spoke naught a word to him the whole trip out. The trees slowly started dissipate as they exited the forest. The trees soon ceased to exist altogether, and Jay found himself surrounded by open fields. The trail was even more worn here than in the forest, showing years of usage: hoofprints and wheeltracks forever embedded into the dirt.Twilight kept going, making it clear that her target was a village set on the horizon. As before, Jay followed, nervous as to what he would encounter in the village. His mind ran through all of the possibilities as to what could be in the village. As his mind hit ‘cannibals’, his train of thought was broken by a shouting coming from above him and growing louder. “Lookoutlookoutlookout!” It sounded as if...... *Wham* Jay lay there in a daze, letting the stars in his vision fade. “Heh... I totally meant to do that!” He heard the new voice explain. “Careful Rainbow Dash! I need him to be conscious!” Twilight said, the sound in her voice making it obvious she only cared for his well being if it meant helping her with her questions. “It’s not my fault he was in the way! Like I said, I had planned to land there!” Rainbow Dash said as she turned to look at who had interrupted her glorious landing. Jay managed to get himself up, brushing the dirt from his coat. He found himself eye-to-eye with a cyan colored mare with a rainbow mane. “Whoa......you’re eyes are weird.” Was the first thing she said. Jay felt his face with his hooves in surprise. In his confusion, he hadn’t noticed that his signature sunglasses had been knocked off of his face. He turned his head, avoiding eye contact with the two mares, as he ran over to his fallen sunglasses, dawning them as quickly as he could. “Well uh.... sorry for hitting ya like that...” She said, starting to form a sincere apology, “but you should really watch where you’re going!” And as soon as it the apology came, it went. “Sorry... I think?” Was all Jay could manage. He was mixed somewhere between anger and confusion. “Hey, you look new!” She said, her eyes brightening a little bit. “Well I’m Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in Equestria!” She added, beaming. With that, she took off and did a loop-de-loop in the air, attempting to show off her ability. She landed in front of Jay with a smirk on her face. “But I bet ya already heard of me, huh?” “Can’t say that I have.” He said. He suddenly remembered his own wings, and wished that Rainbow Dash would show off a bit more. “Well then I’ll prove I’m the fastest! How about a race? First one from here to that cloud over there wins!” She challenged. She assumed a launching position and opened her wings, “Readysetg-” “You two will have to race later.” Twilight said, interrupting Rainbow Dash’s unfair countdown. “I need him to come with me, for now.” Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight, disappointed, the challenge fading from her face. “All right...” She said, sounding disappointed. ‘I can’t even express how glad I am that Twilight got me out of that. I don’t even know how to freaking fly!’ Jay chuckled to himself. “Don’t think I’m letting ya off the hook that easy, new guy! I’ll just have to kick your butt in a race later on. Whaddya say, huh?” It sounded like Rainbow Dash was a bit too confident in her abilities. Jay, once more, shrugged. “Sure, after I’m finished doing whatever Twilight wants, I’ll be sure to come looking for you.... I’m Jay, by the way. In your haste to flatten me into the dirt, then publicly humiliate me, I never gave a proper introduction.” That caught Rainbow Dash off guard, as she had been expecting to find some way to weasel out of her challenge. “Well, cool, I guess. I’ll see you later Twilight.” She said as she flew off with a wave. “Is she always that cocky?” Jay asked, turning to Twilight, remembering that she was still standing there. “You have no idea.” Jay was puzzled by the cryptic answer but didn’t care enough to delve into it. Once again, they began their walk on the trail leading to the small village on the horizon, Ponyville, if Jay remembered correctly.