Nick woke up the next morning to the chirping of the birds. He got up out of the small bed and stretched. He then picked up his laser pistol off of the nightstand and slid it into its holster. Not wanting to be rude, Nick made the bed before leaving the guest room.
“She wasn’t kidding about living in a library,” muttered Nick to himself as he scanned over the room filled with shelves of books.
He ambled over to one of the book shelves and started to examine the books in more detail. Some of the titles read: The Adventures of Daring Doo, Book of Prodigious Spells Vol. 1, King Arthur and the Ponies of the Round Table, Equestria Before Harmony, Beginner’s Baking Guide to Cake and Cupcakes, etc. As Nick analyzed the books he realized that this world paralleled Earth in many ways.
“The only major difference,” he thought, “is that they’re ponies.”
Nick’s eyes fell over a book entitled How Weather is Made. Puzzled he removed it from the shelf and started to flip through it. He stopped at the table of contents and read some of the chapter names: Cloud Craft, Snow Production, Hail physics, Rainbow Making, etc.
“So, I see you’re awake,” said a voice suddenly.
Surprised, Nick quickly shut the book and placed it back onto the shelf. He then turned his head to see who was talking to him.
At first he was stunned by what he saw, but he soon concluded, “Sure, if there’re talking ponies then why not talking lizards as well…”
“Excuse me?” replied the small lizard, “I am not a lizard! I just so happen to be a dragon.”
Nick winced, not realizing that he had said that out loud.
“Um, dragon…sorry,” corrected Nick as the small dragon started to walk towards him.
“It’s alright, and by the way I’ve never seen anything like you before,” said the small dragon studying Nick closely, “Last night Twilight told me that a guest was spending the night here, but she never told me who or why.”
Smiling uneasily Nick ran his fingers through his hair, “Let’s just say I’m not from here ok?”
Before the little dragon could respond Twilight walked into the library room.
“Ah, good, I see you’re both up,” she grinned trotting over to the two, “Spike this is Nick, and Nick this is Spike, my number one assistant.”
Twilight then explained to Spike who Nick was and how he was an alien that had crash landed in Equestria and would be stuck here for a couple of days. After the conversation Twilight left to do some “errands” and told Nick he was free to do whatever he liked while she was gone. At first Nick thought about exploring the village that Twilight said was called Ponyville, but then decided to stay at the library and learn as much as he possibly could about this world through the books. For the next few hours Nick sat in a corner reading informational books or, on occasion, chatting with Spike. By the time Twilight had returned Nick had learned four important things about the world. One, there are different types of ponies: Earth Ponies, Pegasus, and Unicorns; along with other mythical creatures such as dragons, draconequus, and Changelings. Two, weather is not natural here and must be artificially made. Three, their ruler is some alicorn named Princess Celestia. And four, they believe in magic. The artificial weather was right at Nick’s limits of believability, but magic was going too far. There is no such thing as magic; things can’t just happen! There must be a scientifical explanation for everything.
“Well Nick, Spike, I’m back,” exclaimed Twilight bursting through the door.
She seemed to be in a very cheerful mood.
“Welcome back Twilight, I cleaned the library, sorted the books, and finished all the other things while you were gone,” said Spike yawning, “Anything else you’d like me to…”
Suddenly the little dragon fell asleep on the stairs breaking off in mid-sentence.
Twilight chuckled and said, “Poor fella, he works himself too hard sometimes.”
Nick chortled as well and then asked, “So Twilight, what’s up?”
“Nothing much, now that I’m finished with my errands how about I show you around Ponyville?”
“Sure.”
The two started walking through the village while Nick looked around intently. He hadn’t seen the town in broad daylight before. Twilight pointed out a few things as they walked but mostly kept quiet.
“Alright, this is Sugar Cube Corner,” announced Twilight as they neared a pinkish house with what looked like a ginger bread roof, “This is where Pinkie Pie lives. It’s a bakery, and they specialize in cupcakes.”
“Cool…”
When they reached the door Nick opened it; the lights were out and nobody seemed to be home.
“Maybe we should come back some other time Twilight nobody…” before Nick could finish his sentence Twilight pushed him inside and shut the door behind him plunging them into darkness.
Then without warning the lights came on along with a huge surprise! Nick jumped, not expecting the sudden light and multi-colored group of ponies yelling surprise. Then there was utter silence as they all stared at him.
Nick heard one pony whisper to another, “What is he?”
Then, out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie suddenly bounced in front of Nick giggling.
“See? I told you I’d throw you a welcome party!” she exclaimed cheerfully.
“I can see that…” laughed Nick nervously as the rest of the ponies continued to stare.
“So what are we waiting for? Let’s party!” screamed Pinkie pulling a cannon out of thin air and firing it at Nick.
Streamers covered his body and a party hat landed on his head unevenly.
Twilight stepped out from behind Nick and cleared her throat, “Um Pinkie, maybe you should introduce him to everypony first…”
“Well duh, of course! How could I have forgotten?” said the pink pony jumping excitedly, “Everypony this is Nick. He’s an alien from another planet that’s like really really far away from here and he’ll be visiting in Ponyville for awhile!”
That’s when Twilight stepped in and explained where Nick was from and what had happened to everypony. Once they all understood and calmed down the place was soon nothing but a huge party. Nick stood in the corner watching the ponies dance and have a good time. He was starting to grow fond of this place and couldn’t wait to report it to the Atropos.
--Meanwhile in Canterlot--
Shining Armor stood over a map of Equestria in the Canterlot castle war room studying it closely. He’d been in the room many times before but this was the first time he was in it to discuss strategic military battle decisions. It was now the morning after he had caught word of Las Pegasus being attacked. Shining Armor was waiting for news on the attack from his scout. As he waited he pondered about what the opposing force could possibly be. Suddenly the wooden door of the war room chamber flew open and the scout stepped inside. He was limping and had a few drops of blood in the corner of his mouth.
“Dear Celestia! What happened?” inquired Shining Armor rushing over to the wounded scout.
“It was terrible,” croaked the scout, “I barely made it out alive. The strange force over took the entire city and anypony who resisted them was killed. They then barricaded the city letting nobody in or out. The troops you sent in didn’t put up much of a fight; the enemy used strange magic and killed almost all of them. I knew I must report this to you so I tried to sneak out. I was seen and the creatures pointed their strange magical weapons at me and told me to halt, but I kept flying. Then the magical weapons made loud banging noises and my chest hurt a lot. I painfully flew all the way here to tell you this…”
The scout suddenly began to gasp for breath before falling to the floor dead. His hoof fell away from his chest revealing a hole in it dripping with blood.