Entropy

by PseudoBob Delightus

Lost Chapters - #1 "Pilot"

Author's Note:

I don't know why I named it "Pilot", but I'm fairly certain it wasn't the kind of pilot that TV shows start with.

Chapter 1:
Pilot

It’s Saturday, January 15th. As I arrived home at around 5 in the evening, after my appointment, I tried to distract myself from the anticipation of the results, said to come the next day. I'm usually not antsy for my four-year health report, but that time it felt important as I had just overcome a medical challenge that the doctors can only explain as 'baffling'. For me, that would be an understatement, as would the three previous, and identical, situations and reactions. I was not a practitioner, but I was started to get bored of it, really.

I stepped into the house and flick on the main lights. Everything was exactly where I left it, some of it collecting dust since last time it was moved. I repeated my standard scheduled day to watch TV until six, eat dinner in front of the news, and either work out or play video games. I felt like falling asleep early, so I went with exercise. Hopefully I wouldn’t fall asleep before I finished. It’s happened before.

It had been over a week since my last session, so I tried to push myself harder to make up for it. My standard repertoire of assorted curls, pushes, and pulls were doubled. I wasn’t too fat for my age, though sometimes I just felt it, and that reflected in the strain I put myself through. After I was done, I realized my mistake; my effort rewarded me with a splitting headache. That was not the first time that the exact scenario repeated itself, and I cursed myself for passing my limit.

Going to sleep after that, at around 9, as was my custom, should have been harder with the affliction. I was proven wrong once again when I drifted off almost immediately. The day was full of surprises. I didn't like surprises; they implied changes, which usually meant things were going to get worse. I based that way of thinking off of experience, and I was not proven wrong.

I fell asleep like someone flipped a switch, and it must have been lucid; I could think and feel and see. Not that there was anything to see or feel, though, only faint white dots in the dome of darkness that surrounded me, as well as the regular non-color rainbows that danced and pulsed through my darkened vision. All I felt was a faint attraction to a direction behind me, and my clothes being pushed onto my back. That meant I was accelerating, if that was really happening.

I tried to open my physical eyes and wake up, but it did not come easily or quickly. I was falling faster, and even though it was a dream I swore I could feel my heart beating faster as well. I feared that I would find the landing this time and have a heart attack.

I desperately convulsed my arms, looking and feeling for some sort of... there it was. My hand stroked a solid surface, and the battle with my subconscious ended abruptly; the deceleration forces should have been crippling, but I attributed that to my current status as being asleep.

I was more asleep than before however, and a few fleeting thoughts remained as I tried to escape them. It would be hard to describe it exactly in words, but I felt like I wanted to be on Earth, which was a strange idea. I was on Earth already, so I must have remembered something I heard somewhere, probably from science fiction.

In the final throes of its existence, the fading thought issued a final iteration: I wanted to be back on Earth. I never left, and I had never heard anyone say that. The concept worried me, but I was almost completely blacked out, so it was probably sleep induced. I was still on Earth.

I awoke with a jump. A loud, high pitched wail wrestled me out of my slumber. Looking around for the alarm clock resounding through the air, I soon realized that the typical status lights and displays of my house were no longer there, nor was the alarm. I also noticed that I was standing up.

I couldn’t see anything; the darkness was all-encompassing. My eyes might have been closed – It’s happened before - I make the mistake of checking with my fingers and now one of them hurt too much to remain open. Nevertheless, I could still see nothing, but I felt something surrounding me: something rough and wet, yet weak and malleable. I wondered where I was, but found no obvious answers.

I called for anyone nearby, but I was not able to make any sounds. Snapped out of the inner monologue at my unexpected muteness, I turned around, looked up and down, and to my dismay I found no discernable exit. Not one for standing around, I decided I should probably do something. I felt around again and found the two closest walls, setting my arms up for leverage. ‘Maybe I can climb out’, I thought to myself.

I pushed against with my elbows, but slid to the ground as the walls gave way. I was rewarded by some light coming from what I assumed was the top of the object around me. ‘I guess I can make my own exit’. More pressure and a rearrangement of my arms later, and the additional light revealed my predicament: I had somehow gotten myself stuck in a rotten tree trunk.

'Strange...' I thought, 'It should be colder in a forest, during January.' If I had known what was surrounding me before I made an attempt, the first thing that would come to mind would be that it should be frozen solid; the past week had not shown a temperature of above -10 C, and one would have gone back weeks to find a day that was above freezing.

What confused me even more so was how I ended up in the trunk, and why it was hollow. I lived in southern Ontario, and while I had recently explored around the area, I never saw an empty trunk, let alone stepped inside one. The probable method of my arrival reminded me of the trick to removing egg whites without breaking the shell, but in reverse, and with me. I shuddered.

So, I was left with two unanswered questions: 'Why am I here?', and 'Where is here?'

Among all my thoughts about the strange turn of events, my sleep-induced fuzziness started to drain, allowing me to fully take in my surroundings. The air felt warm and humid, despite the month; I could see sparse canopies above my deciduous dungeon; I could smell the earthy scent of moss-covered bark seeping through cracks in the tree, and the inexplicably familiar dirt-and-worm smell in my hands as the decaying walls fell away. Lastly, free from the silence of my blood pumping through my ears I could hear birds chirping diligently, insects buzzing aimlessly, bears fighting in the distance, and a small, high pitched scream...

'Wait, bears? And a scream?'

I call out in surprise from the tree still surrounding me, but the thunder striking near me all but drowns out any message I had sent. A further panicked shriek cemented my limited options: panic and stay here, run and call for help, or pull myself together and save someone. With very little time on my hands, and nobody nearby to tell me otherwise, I made the only choice I could live with. The humor was lost on me at the time.

I immediately kicked a hole in my very own sarcophagus as the bear - and mysterious screamer - continued. “Where are you, what's happening!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, only to find that the lightning inconveniently drowned me out again. I looked up, seeing a clear sky, and frowned. “Not funny”, I though aloud, only to hear rolling thunder and winds echo my voice. ‘Is that my… voice?’ I thought, silently, as no other noises interrupted my thoughts.

“Must have been my imagination” I thought aloud again, but I could still hear some sort of electrical storm from either behind or below me. ‘Or inside me’ I shuddered at how cheesy the concept was, at how I was brought to a strange place and was given powers… for what, a thunder-voice? Not only was that impractical, I never-

Another panicked call for help snapped me out of my ridiculous train of thought, and I suddenly remembered why I was yelling.

Intent on finding the commotion, and filled with an adrenaline rush, I sprinted in the direction of the sound, which was clear as day and coming from the direction opposite where I was originally facing.

I ran along the soft forest floor, quite possibly faster than my legs could usually support, and by the time I was halfway to the point of interest the half-scream-half-cry tapered off to what I might have described as a low whimper. If I even heard it, that is; I didn’t really know what that was about, but I heard it without hearing it. I also snapped out of deep thought.

The realization of the situation spiked my adrenaline yet again, and I slid across a small hill, burst through a thicket, and found the source of the disturbance.

What little I knew of the laws of nature had been defied by what I saw ahead of me; out of a lion’s muscular upper body led the expected head and arms, but crimson bat wings sprouted from the shoulders. The disproportionally small lower half and legs ended in a similarly colored scorpion tail. Altogether the monstrosity was over 10 feet tall, but my fear, rage, and unfortunately directed momentum left me undeterred.

Time slowed down significantly as I closed in, which was not an unusual side effect of the fight-or-flight rush. With time to think, I drilled the whole of my brain looking for a way to either distract or disable the monster. When I awoke not 5 minutes ago I was still wearing my winter sweater, which was thin but dense. I suppose it could provide protection. I’m not sure if my knife was on me, but I had my glasses. How convenient. As I forced my conscience further I ended up waking the section of my mind I oppressed only a minute ago, the memories and thoughts flooding my mind and beckoned to be used.

When the patchwork giant reared back and cast another terrifying howl, my higher brain functions caught up to the action and delivered it’s own message. Within 5 meters of the monster, and time only just speeding up, I opened my mouth and sent out what I had discovered only moments ago: an absolutely horrific and powerful combination of rolling thunder, a sonic boom and smashed concrete reverberated through my lungs, shot forward and cracked against the beast’s side. Were it not for the life or death situation, I would have collapsed at the mere thought of such an attack even being possible, not to mention from me, since I was the kind person that would notice if my shouts were made of explosions.

The creature turned around slowly, off balance and angry, moving its attention to the source of the blast. I jump and slammed my right shoulder against its neck, causing it to reel back from pain momentarily, before recovering and going in for a right slash with deadly scimitar-like claws. Narrowly dodging the swipe, I fumbled around my left pocket, luckily finding my utility knife, before drawing it and slashing at another incoming arm.

The creature obviously did not expect any resistance, and reeled back as I cut a long gash on its left arm, from the outside of the palm to just below the elbow. It whimpered and crawled backwards, hitting a tree. I shouted again, this time with enough rage to cause a physical impact, stunning the creature and flattening several bushes behind it. As it was recovering and preparing for another lunge, I shook the ground with a growl, putting an end to whatever it had planned for me next.

Just like in the old cartoons, it clumsily ran away with a panicked “Yipe yipe yipe!”

After that encounter I finally had some real time to sit down and think about what happened in the last five minutes. By sit down and think, I really meant crawl into a hole and whimper like a lobotomy patient, trying to find shelter from the radically new area, new animals, and new ways of dealing with at least one of the problems associated with the first two. Alas, there was a disappointing lack of the time and holes required to indulge in such a way.

Resolving my near mental breakdown, I actually sat and thought about things. Things like: ‘Where am I?’, ‘Why am I here?', 'What did I just do?', and ‘What the hell was that thing?’

I seemed to remember what that creature was, actually. I had read about it before, in some old fantasy novel called The Manticore. At first I denied myself the luxury of knowing so soon, but as I cross referenced the two, the lion body, scorpion tail and bat wings told me there was really no other conclusion. I was able to get a few chuckles out of that coincidence, and scratched that off of the list of answers I needed.

As for where I was, I simply looked around. It was a forest all right, but something seemed odd about it. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly, but the forest I was standing in gave off an aura of wrong. It could have been the greenish tinge of the sunlight, or the seven-pointed, bright-red leaves that poked up from the ground, or even the indigo flowers that emanated a subtle blue glow. As one strange aspect was observed, two more took its place, each more confusing than the last.

A forest, albeit a strange one, was the answer. I might have been able to ask somebody if I ever got out. Moving onto what it was that I did, I started to think about what caused it, and why I even continued after seeing that thing. It was the size of a bear, and I’ve always distanced myself from the actual animals in question, for fear of a confrontation. If I was thinking clearly, I could blame the circumstances, which were no doubt subconsciously realized before I really confirmed them. If I was cynical, I could blame those damn-

I was snapped out of my trance-like state by the sound of a broken twig and crunched leaves. I had completely forgotten about the first reason I ran over here; to search the area for any indication of the victim. With the exception of a fox barely escaping my sight, nothing stood out to me. I turned back before shuddering at the thought, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a light yellow and pink fox before…’

I thought better of immediately darting after the animal, as I had not had the most usual of experiences so far. For all I knew, it could have been a baby manticore running back to its mother, which I just dispatched. The fur was only off by a few shades, so apprehension was required. Carefully turning back, and sidling around a patch of trees in silence, I saw the fox/manticore/whatever dive into a small hole under a tree, near where I first encountered the manticore. My anxiety rose.

Patrolling around the tree cluster that the rodent-like animal hid in, I found a small hole on the left side which I approached cautiously. Checking for any motion outside, and finding nothing, I quietly ducked in and looked around the miniature cave. I quickly noticed the light yellow and pink creature, only to be dumbfounded as it spoke in an extremely stressed, yet human, voice.

“Ah! No, please, don’t hurt me! Help!” It cried.

The animal talked. It was an animal, and it just talked – or, at least, it sounded like it talked. It couldn’t have been the original target of the manticore, I thought, but as it shrieked and cried with the same voice that brought me here, that skepticism dissipated. Probably one of the only things I knew for sure about this situation was that it could communicate, while my capacity was severely limited. I decided the sensible thing to do was to smile, ignoring the instinctual desire to curl up in a ball and question reality.

“Ah! T-t-those teeth! S-somepony help me!” That was the exact opposite of the intended result, but I guess I didn’t have much of a chance.

My clumsy attempt at countering the second impression was foiled, yet again, by cracks of thunder that barely sounded like the original, “Don’t be scared, I wont hurt you.”

Convinced that being nice and talking my problems out would get me nowhere, I went with the prime directive of getting this creature out of the area and to wherever the others were. I sort of assumed there would be others like it (her?) nearby, since those distress calls weren’t directed at me. I also assumed it was forming speech instead of copying something, given the context.

I reached further down to retrieve it, but the yellow animal retreated deeper into the roots. With one final push from one arm, and a reach with another, tried to grab the shivering whatever-it-was before being pulled straight out of the hole and pushed onto my stomach by two hard objects, later found to be feet or shoes of some kind.

“Whatta ya think yer doin’ ta Fluttershy, ya monster!” said another human female voice, this time with what I assumed what a western accent was (I don’t know any cowboys from Canada). I tried to ask who the hell she was, what a ‘fluttershy’ was, and why I was being stood on, but, once again, all that came out was another growl made of earthquakes and landslides. Another, more raspy voice continued.

“What’s that thing you got, AJ?”

“I don’t have time for this, just look at me,” I tried to say; futilely defying the evidence that it would not be received as such.

“Ah don’t know, but it sure as sugar makes some noise.” The first voice elaborated.

“Good, you too. Now get off.” Whatever was standing on me, whether it was the owner of the voice or otherwise, obviously did not hear me.

After failing to communicate to the two mysterious assailants, I tried to get a better view of them by pushing up with my arms, tucking my legs underneath my stomach and standing upright, throwing the squatter onto the ground.

I turned around and, half-surprised, I saw some more large fox-like animals similar to the other yellow and pink one, but a better view of them than before reminded me of horses, and small ones at that. I really should have been more surprised to hear them speak, but after seeing them there were no more voices and I came to two options: I imagined the voices, or, their owners were somewhere else. I let that choice hang and focused on the bright figures in front of me.

The horse that was step dancing on top of me had an orange body and yellow hair. As it picked itself off the ground, it put on a worn out Stetson hat, despite only having hooves and thus no ability to pick anything up with a single arm. To the left of that was a similar creature of light cyan body and-

No. That was getting out of hand. Bright aqua fur and rainbow streaked hair, on a horse with wings no less, was just too much for me to reserve. I cried out in surprise, pushing them back slightly and, unfortunately, making them think I was hostile. I raised my hands in an effort to plea not guilty, but another pulse of air sending them backward ruined any chance of making amends.

The obscenely colored horse (with wings; I could not stress that enough) jumped up and punched me in the face, and the blow hurt much more than it should have, based on the impact. I clutched my burning face, but while my guard was down the orange horse's back legs connected with the top of my thighs, knocking me to my knees instantly. Through my fingers I saw it doing something with a loop of rope, and I lowered my hands to see if the winged one was still there.

I found out where it went when something heavy crashed into the back of my head, near the based of the neck. My head angled back, my body hit the ground, and I blacked out. It was not fully because of the impact, however; it was more like my head was on fire. More specifically, it was my brain. I could not fully place the feeling or description, though; I was out cold.

Yet my body continued burning.

After swimming in the slow dreamscape of forced unconsciousness, for either minutes or hours, I woke up again, this time with a headache, and little freedom to move through my restrained limbs. At least the lights were on.

Some memories came flooding back as I saw, out past the field to my right, a wide tree line that stretched across the horizon, disappearing behind the atmosphere and the curvature of the rolling hills beyond the near valley. I slowly recalled what had happened, and, fearing some follow-up action, I tried to run towards the nearby trees but was stopped by heavy chains around my arms, and rope around my legs. I nearly forgot why I was standing when I woke up.

I messed around with the chains, reaching to the locks, clanging the thick metal, but nothing made a difference. I was captured, though luckily my captors spoke English. Their attack horses did a number on me, but at least I wasn’t dead. I smiled, and then frowned, as I realized I had not been in a worse situation before.

I became slack again, but that caused the chains to smack against each other hard, loud enough to make my ears ring. After my hearing came back, I heard some voices I recognized as the two attackers from the forest, and the other one I saved from a monster, among some I didn’t recognize.

“…saying this monster just ran up to Fluttershy and-” A female voice I didn’t recognize was cut off midsentence.

“-Ah say, we still don’t know if it’s a monster.” The familiar western voice drawled.

“Right, fine. We don’t know what it is. It ran up to Fluttershy, possibly attacking her. And you did what to it?”

The raspy voice of my second attacker continued, “We beat it up, obviously! Who knows what it would have done if we…”

The horses approached, and upon seeing me awake, the voices were silent. I looked around for the owners, but, after seeing none, I feared that I would soon make the obvious connection.

I looked, again, to the group that surrounded me. The one to the front of the group was not one of the two I met at a forest, though it had a similar build; it looked like the other two, basically a small horse, just under 4 feet tall like the others, but had a light purple body, indigo hair (were those… highlights?) and a very troubling addition: a single horn coming out of its forehead. I saw another like this, again with purple hair, but with a blinding white body. I tried to kick myself for thinking ‘unicorns’ but then realized that was exactly what they were.

Behind the all-purple one, I saw the orange and cyan bodies, and the wings on the latter reminded me of, as painful as it was to admit, a pegasus. Three mythical creatures in one day was a major problem on its own, but I held out for the worst as I surveyed the rest.

To the right of Purple was the white unicorn. Next to that was a regular, small horse, colored all pink. There were no people near by, but hushed voices continued from an unknown source. My fear was evident through my shallow, quick breaths as I tried to avoid the inevitable conclusion. All the evidence was there, but I refused to believe it. I hoped…

“Yeah... Well, there it is.” The aqua and rainbow pegasus spoke first.

It, a pegasus, spoke first.

The others, around it, started mumbling. That was very possibly the final push to insanity, and I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t real. It was all too real for my brain to handle, despite all my effort being poured into rational thought, despite coming back from the edge twice in the last ten minutes (of waking time). Of the things I thought of, squirming in my binds, two major concepts turned up: A dream, and, of all things, aliens.

I could always tell the difference between sleep and reality, and it once became a powerful source of insomnia when I found out how to wake up on demand. I had been performing the mental ritual since before I got here, in vain, to escape the mental torture I found myself in. It didn't work thus far, so I threw that option away.

Through the process of elimination, as I locked away the absurd sights in front of me with closed eyes, I came upon a dilemma with the alien theory; were they the aliens, or…

I opened my eyes in shock, silently arguing with my subconscious. All of my captors had approached to within a few feet, and I tried to ask them if they came in peace. All I made out was the sound of faint gunfire, which scared me more than them. Perhaps they wouldn’t know what it was. I would always remember it.

My eyes, tiny in comparison to theirs, scanned the faces that surrounded me. With each take, their stares became less resolute, as if they could somehow read the emotions from my face, through the beads of sweat starting to form and trickle down my head.

The colorful pegasus was the first to turn away, and started speaking again. That time, I was less shocked, but I did not take it lightly:

“Well, I got nothing.”

Once again, communication failed, but this time my voice box replicated a brown noise, like a waterfall, and caught the five off guard. One of them said I was a monster again, another asked the general question of where I came from.

“Not anywhere near here.” I earth-quaked in response, hoping they would understand.

Apparently there were six after all; with a small shriek, a light yellow blur darted behind the others, favoring the ones that stayed further. What was it so scared of? Me? It had a trembling, pink tail that reminded me of something else...

“Hey, you’re that thing I saved at the forest!” I thundered as I realized the pony under the tree was here again.

“Quiet down, please! We aren’t here to hurt you!” A female voice came from Purple. It seemed she was trying to comfort me, but that ship sailed a few kicks to the head ago.

“Are these all girls?” I rumbled.

“Ah got it, Twi.”, drawled Orange as it (she?) kicked me in the stomach, but I was ready and backed up to dodge it. I somehow forgot about my current predicament, so I was winded despite the effort. I was also treated to aching shoulders and a burning sensation in my stomach that I was absolutely sure was not a direct result of the kick.

Purple appeared distraught, and while she gave Orange a lecture on some sort of etiquette, my abdomen kept burning, my lungs started to reinflate, and the small yellow one spoke, in the small voice I still remember from the attack.

“C-c-careful, girls… it’s d-dangerous!” she made an ‘Eep’ noise, again, before darting behind the next furthest pony, again; this time it was the all-pink horse that was eyeing me with a furrowed brow, or what passed for one on their cartoonish faces. It was also rubbing an upside-down hoof on it's chin, and I wondered if the gesture meant the same thing for both of our races.

I would have also thought it was cute if I wasn’t currently captured by super-intelligent farm animals that looked like they collided with narwhals, eagles and a crayola factory at high speed. I almost laughed at the imagery, but I just coughed hoarsely through the pain.

“No, seriously, I've never seen one of those.” The cyan pegasus (I decided to stick with fur colors as identification, despite having far better indication in this one via mane and tail color) stated to no-one in particular, “either way, that’s the first time I’ve ever beaten up something that big before!” Orange and I gave her a nasty look, both of us remembering what actually happened. “Well, not that I haven’t come close before…”

“Come on, Rainbow” said Orange, as I started to realize that they were referring to each other with these names. It was pretty obvious that Cyan, with the rainbow-coloured hair, was Rainbow, but I remembered hearing ‘Fluttershy’ ‘Twilight’ and ‘AJ’ and I had to listen closer to their conversations to find out. I had more time to think, but if I thought too much about how easily I could separate voices I would probably just end up tuning them out.

My breath returned, and I grimaced in the residual aching while looking around for the voice with a British accent coming from my right. The white horse was slowly circling me, eyes flashing up and down my (luckily) clothed body, but they met mine. I scowled at the last hope of any humans being around here disappeared, after briefly and futilely wishing that an English woman came to rescue me, but my full expression might have given a different meaning. White fainted.

"I've got it!" Pink clopped a hoof on the ground in some sort of realization, and a book hit the ground from an unknown starting point. Purple, the closest to the book, looked at Pink with a strange face.

"Got what?"

"I know what-hey, what happened to Rarity?" The group looked towards the downed unicorn, some with faces of fear, others with exasperation.

Purple had her back turned and was trying to calm the group down, “Come on girls, we don’t have anything to be afraid of. This… thing… it’s all tied up, thanks to Applejack and Rainbow Dash.” Noting their responses, I named the orange one ‘Applejack’, and was proven right about the name ‘Rainbow Dash’.

I almost blacked out again, this time from sheer confusion, when I saw Applejack tip her hat to the purple one, but I decided that physics had long since been ignored after the manticore incident. That was something I had to get used to.

Purple continued, “Now then, Pinkie Pie, what did you remember?"

I was too focused on figuring out what kind of a name 'Pinkie Pie' was to remember what she said. The only phrases that I made out were, "I think he might be...", and, "I don't know, nothing's come up yet!" I forced myself out of the confusion and began to listen again.

"Hmmm... I guess it'll be a mystery, unless... ah, Fluttershy?"

There was that 'Eep' noise again, and from behind Applejack the yellow horse peeked out and said, “Y-yes, twi-ilight?” She was almost as shaken up as when I found (and accidentally shouted at) her, under the tree.

“Do you have any idea what kind of animal this is? I’ve never read about anything like it, and as for Pinkie... Well, that sums it up. Any ideas?” ‘Twilight’ seemed impatient towards Fluttershy's cowardice. I guess I couldn’t blame that one, as she was being attacked by that patched together lion-bat-scorpion hybrid, and afterwards by me, so it was appropriate for the situation.

“I d-don’t really kn-know, I thought it-t was a m-m-manticore at f-first, but w-when it f-found me hiding it looked c-completely different.” She barely made it through the sentence after noticing me glance at her. I guess I was right about the large creature being a manticore as well, but the small victory didn’t hold me over for very long.

I thundered and cracked a slightly coherent “That’s what I thought” and regained hope for initiating formal contact with them, and their leaders, if I wasn't looking at them.

While ‘Rarity’ was being fanned (where did that come from?), Twilight tried to get some kind of useful answer out of Fluttershy.

“Do you think we can let it out of the chains? It doesn’t look too dangerous anymore.”

"Come on, Twi, you didn't see it when it wasn't in chains!" Rainbow Dash argued, cutting Fluttershy's reply. The yellow one hid behind her hair, and Twilight tried to justify.

"That's why I'm so curious!"

"We already told you, from what Fluttershy said, it defeated a manticore, and when me and AJ got there, it-"

"Well, I think we should hear from Fluttershy on that."

Fluttershy began to voice an opinion, but was overshot once again.

"But she's too scared to even look at it!"

The two continued like this, their arguments degrading into madness with timing and percentages mixed in. I was interrupted in my observation when a head bobbed up and down in front of me, obscuring my view. Pinkie Pie was hopping to my height, trying to meet my gaze, and talking a mile a minute.

“I almost didn’t know what you were, but I just figured it out a few seconds ago! I’m Pinkie Pie, you might actually know that from back there, but then again, you could have figured it during all that exposition we were having. You know, that thing when we all say each other’s names because otherwise how would you know, you know? Unless you know of us from back there, that is. Anyway, I think you’re nice, and those two are almost done arguing, and when we get you down from there we can totally have a-”

Barely keeping my sanity throughout the interrogation from something that had already lost it, I pleaded to the others, but it fell silently as I did not wish to frighten them again. Until, that is, a few seconds later, when the pink horse’s voice became far too familiar for a brief second.

The others stopped and turned towards me and Pinkie Pie’s voice as she became quiet, replaced by a scream, in her squeaky voice. They pulled her back, before noticing she was still talking, yet no noise was coming out - at least, until the shrieking stopped.

“… and then I was like *gasp* because I couldn’t believe what just happened and… what?” She might have continued if she wasn’t being shaken violently by the orange one, Applejack. I still didn’t know how she did that stuff with no hands.

More shrieks came, and soon they realized that it was not her, but me. After whispering amongst themselves, I began to form some vowels, consonants, and eventually, my first, if barely understandable, word of the day.

“Hello!”

I was not a poet.

Pinkie Pie, after recovering her voice, said, “Hey! It sounds like me! Hello, Pinkie Pie number two! Ooh, we can be twins! That sounds like fun! But we’ll have to have make-up birthdays… Yay! Now the next-”

I stole her voice again, but words did not come easily. I spent the next full minute attempting to say a simple “Stop!”, but my vocal chords, tongue, and mouth were not working in unison and the sounds coming out were weak and slurred.

Trying a different strategy, I clumsily voiced through the five I could see, and got to Twilight’s voice. She looked extremely thoughtful, possibly considering the torture I was going through, but instead of saying something to silence the others she just took a few steps towards me an her horn started glowing.

The most fearful of events that day happened right after she started, when my wrists and feet started to heat up. They glowed with the same purple aura as Twilight’s horn, so I knew she was doing it.

“I think it’s just frightened; we should probably do something about that.” Twilight said, sounding sheepish. The tone and intention betrayed what was really happening, and I shook in my binds as my arms and legs were very close to being numbed by the burning pain. The others watched in awe, as if it was some sort of performance. I pulled and shook harder.

Twilight’s ethereal aura shifted down my arms, which then felt like they were burning on the sun, and my chest contracted as the light surrounded me. I could not breath anymore, and the drops of sweat leaking from my face would drop a short distance before being held in place and evaporating within the strange glow.

I actually had no idea what was happening to me, but a new sensation drove me to conclusions. My stomach area felt warmth like I had downed a hot beverage. It proceeded to heat up like a small fire within my upper bowels, and continued rising in temperature until my stomach acid boiled.

I was not being freed. I was being killed.

Somehow, for some reason, I had not reacted to the furthest extent just yet. Even as I was being killed by these sadistic aliens, I never reached my full effort. That was held off for when I felt like my body was being torn apart at the seems from all directions, as if every fabric of my being was dedicated to no longer being a whole piece. And so I screamed in agony. The others did as well.

A high-pitched tone reverberated through the clearing, increasing in frequency and volume until things started shaking. I heard windows shatter from miles away, and the chains around my arms started to shake violently. As the pitch became inaudible, with the nearby captors trying desperately to either find shelter or cover their ears, and the violet aura dissipating, I felt the chains stop vibrating and pulled down, rewarded with the sound of sheared metal. The ropes, which looked like thick twine from my perspective, had snapped easily in the heat of the moment. I took advantage of the ‘flight’ side of the adrenaline rush to find an escape route, pushing despite my nearly disabled limbs.

With the enemy temporarily neutralized, I could have had second thoughts about my ability to melt metal by screaming , but denied myself the curiosity once again. I needed to find a place to hide from these assailants, and as I looked to my right to see the unsettling forest, my mind was set.

Rolling to the side, I jumped over one of the cowering heaps and ran towards an apple tree before tripping over and hitting the ground. It was lucky I was turning to hug the tree, or else I would have crushed my jaw instead of falling on my right shoulder. Looking down to find what tripped me, I saw the familiar yellow and pink ‘Fluttershy’ in a fetal position (or, the horse equivalent) at my feet. Weighing the pros and cons of my next action, I quickly changed plans and tried to scoop the yellow one into a choke hold, as if it would provide me with leverage enough to make them talk.

As the others recovered, I tried to lift the small horse, newly discovered to be a pegasus, but suddenly lost all energy in my numbed arms and it fell to the ground. The burning in my arms returned again, and I centered on the purple unicorn that caused all of this, eyes ablaze as if it would hide the fear that nested in my gut.

Twilight’s horn was glowing again, and I quickly reached down to grab Fluttershy in a panicked re-attempt to make a hostage deal with them. When my hand hooked under her belly, I realized my mistake. The mistake that I made several times since getting there. The mistake that I was making again.

Strands of purple energy were drawn towards Fluttershy’s prone form, and I tried to drop her, but my arm was being pulled towards her center as well. The glow enveloped her, and I was partially blinded by a bright flash when her weight was suddenly lifted, replaced with third degree burns and a backwards momentum.

After regaining my footing from an awkward roll, I kicked up grass and dirt before moving to the tree line. I might have considered it silly to re-enter the forest, since they must have had a civilization, but Twilight did something to Fluttershy, and I was just collateral. I shuddered at the thought of what she could do if she was focusing on me, and succeeded, unlike the first time. I had time to think while outrunning them and their short legs, which were probably less suited to speed, despite them essentially being horses. Then I heard wings flap.

My heart sank as I remembered that two of them had wings, and probably the capability of flight. I slowed and turned, only to see a multi-colored streak rocketing towards me. I was back to running as fast as before, but the flyer clearly had a gain on me. Expecting the worst, I tucked my arms in front, lowered my head, and, waiting to the last second, jumped into the oncoming projectile.

A few seconds, several rolls and a couple more painful burns later, the pegasus was unconscious on top of me, while the others were quickly approaching. Where it's fur touched my neck and arms was another source of fiery agony. I rolled it off and continued running, quickly passing over the tree line despite the state of continuous discomfort and weakness I found myself in. I managed to limp a few dozen meters in, past several dense pockets of vegetation and around another patch of blue flowers. I didn’t know what they were, but the glowing blue mist around them was a mystery and I wasn’t much for experiments while being pursued by powerful aliens in an unfamiliar land.

Still running, I slowed down when I heard the footsteps (hoofsteps?) dissipate behind me, followed by queries about the condition of Rainbow Dash. I started to feel guilty about the injured pegasus, but I quickly justified it, seeing as it was the one that tackled me. Not to mention whatever Twilight was doing, I resolved any feelings for them that were brought on by benefit of the doubt.

I looked around at the low hanging sunlight that reflected off mossy trunks and shimmered beneath the canopy. I would have to find out where I was without asking the local pastel animals, and I thought a good place to start was the tree I woke up in. That was ground zero, but I didn’t pursue it right away. Unapparent sounds and movements kept me alert, but the voices died away, their cloudy presence dissolving into the woods.

So, I stopped and listened. I thought about things. I questioned reality. I asked why.

After a while, I got a funny thought in my head, and it all suddenly made sense to me, despite only giving me more questions.

“I’ve got a feeling I’m not in Kanata anymore…” I thought aloud, resting against a tree, momentarily safe from my attempted captors (and executioner). The grass shook in the wake of my closest attempt at speech yet, and I was thankful for one moment of peace in the last, incredibly taxing half hour of waking time. If only my hands had regained feeling that I could have felt the blades bend to my will, the dew collect on rough skin that did nothing to hint at the damage beneath.

I didn’t need to worry; it changed back, eventually.