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Sundance

You know what I said about French being useful?

I was wrong.

Sure it’s good for signs I suppose. The whole province apparently had laws that no English was permitted or something like that. (After reviewing Jean’s memories of Quebec, I’ve come to the conclusion they are all rather ‘special’ and reminded me of those foals you see raising a fuss just to get attention. So when it came to navigating I wasn’t completely lost.

However, every time I tried to converse in French with a local, they would instantly pick up on my accent and swap to English. Considering the fact I was making an effort to try and learn the language you can understand that by the time I left the hotel the next morning, I was really annoyed.

I spent most of the night wandering around downtown, looking at the closed stores and taking notes of anything that interested me. There wasn’t. A few high end stores, some restaurants. And a great many strip clubs. I wasn’t sure if I had made a wrong turn but considering the proximity of a mall nearby, I suspect it was meant to be easily accessible or something. Not hidden away in some dirty part of the town like one would expect.

The rest of the night was spent in my hotel room. Idly flicking through TV channels before deciding to just spend it on Jean’s laptop doing some more research on ‘Bronies’. They are an odd bunch. Mostly male, and all liking the television show for some reason or another. At first I thought it was pretty tame but… Then I came upon some of the art.

I was really tempted to toss the laptop out the window.

Suffice to say my opinion of them turned from ‘strange’ to ‘perverted deviants’ rather quickly. Most of the time the anato-

I’ll just stop there.

The next morning was spent dining in a small restaurant nearby that served waffles. Once again I ignored the stares and just ate in peace, or I tried to.

“Hey Pascale! C’est un de c’est ‘tit chevaux. De ‘My Little Pony’? “

Seriously?

Glancing behind me I could see a couple looking over. The speaker was a woman, holding up her phone to try and snap a photo. Her coltfriend, or husband, twisted around to look at me and gave a small wave.

My horn shined up for a moment I snagged the phone in my magic and set it down on the table with a small bang (Not hard enough to damage it. I just wanted to get the message across).

“Do you mind?” I growled. Ignoring their shocked expressions and returning to my meal. The rest of the restaurant seemed to share their feelings and stared at me like id grown a second head.

“Maudit grincheux. Je voulais juste une photo…” she muttered, from behind me.

“Madame… Could you please refrain from disturbing the other customers?” a waiter asked a few moments later, probably having seen my little display.

“ Alors, demandez qu’elle fais la même chose…” I reply in French, pretty much saying that she should ask the same of the woman. I don’t want others snapping photos of me without asking. The waiter sighs and gives a nod.

“I will, but please refrain from using your magic like that again please,” she replies. Once again ignoring that I was trying to speak in French, and heading over to speak to the couple. I didn’t really catch much of their conversation but she was much nicer to them than me…

Finishing my meal I left what I owed on the table ( With no tip) and stepped outside, keeping close to the buildings to avoid pedestrian traffic. The bus leaving for New York and the border was still a couple hours away from leaving, so I had time to kill as I wandered the streets aimless-

“What you gonna do now, horse?”

I stopped in my tracks as the sound of an angry male English human drifted into my ears. Strangely enough there was no pedestrian traffic in the area. Seems I had ignored the signs and wandered into an empty construction site, the street itself was torn of asphalt and it seemed like they were working on redoing it completely.

“Well, I think I’ll run, but I see that that’s impossible, as you gentlemen seem to be blocking the exit.” Creeping closer to the alleyway I was not surprised to see a large earth pony stallion facing down four humans. All male.

He was a bit bigger than me, with a yellow coat and blonde mane. For some reason his appearance nagged at me. He seemed familiar, although the hoodie and rucksack threw it all off… His accent seemed to suggest he was a pony from Appleloosa or something.

“Look, it’s trying to sound smart!” One of the others barked out, the others laughing.

“If you could maybe move out of the way, I can just leave, and we can move on, no harm done.”

“No harm? Where’s the fun in that?”

“Well, if you attack me, it gives me a reason to retaliate, and after years of harvesting apples by literally kicking the trees until they fell off, I think I could handle myself in a fight.” It seems like my guess of him being Appleloosan was right. I doubted he could do much in a fight though. All he had was brute force against four humans who were probably armed. No magic, no ability to just fly out of their reach.

Did that mean I was going to help him? No. Not now at least. Let’s just see how this all progressed. I wasn’t going to let him die, but that didn’t mean I had to intervene right at this moment.

From my hiding spot I watched as the earth pony gave no resistance as they started to-

“Ow, shit! The little fuck kicked me!” Never mind. I stifled a laugh as he rolled away after delivering a kick to one of the humans groin. The others pulled out their knives and started to advance when a turquoise blur joined in the fighting.

The newcomer was a pegasus, with a messy green mane and two musical notes on his flank. Seems the Appleloosan wasn’t alone. Good. Maybe I wouldn’t have to get involved then, a thought that was proven wrong a few moments later.

The two were… Horrible. The pegasus just looked like a mess of limbs before he was grabbed, yanked to the ground and hog tied. The earth pony managed to get a couple decent kicks but he eventually just gave up; the threat of their knives apparently enough to make him give up. Both were eventually placed side by side, gags in their mouths.

“You two could fetch a pretty price,” Slave trade? That was something new. Or maybe there was some sort of trade that’s sprung up to sell ponies to satisfy the perverted brony desires. Nopony deserved that.

Looking around I gave a sigh and picked up a couple decent sized rocks in my magic and flung one at the human that seemed to be their leader.

“Eh bien... Ce q’est passe ici?” I asked with a small grin on my face.

Rubbing the back of his head the man and his friends all turned around in surprise which turned into a grin as they noticed me.

“We got another one?” One of them grinned. “And a unicorn too...” Yes you did, not just any unicorn but the most powerful one in this world if Discord was to be believed. I almost felt sorry for them. Knives and rope? A human saying of bringing knives to a gunfight sprang to mind.

After flinging another rock, I took a couple steps back as one of them got his rope ready. This was going to be easy compared to the wolves. They were being so nice, not trying to close in on me quickly, giving me time to cast…. This!
A bolt of lightning flew from my horn, striking the cord one of the men were handling. A moment later it started to writhe with a life of its own. An odd spell, it imbued ‘life’ in an inanimate object and placed it under my control. But in this situation it had its uses. Directing the now living rope to tie up its owner I focused on the others as they started to pick up the pace…

“Shit, what the fuck?!” He dropped the rope on the ground, stamping on it in fear. The rope wrapped around his leg, snaking around and tripping him up.

Grinning, I waited just until the others were within a meter of me before teleporting away in front of the two hogtied ponies.

“You two gonna run? Or do you wanna help me teach these morons a lesson?” I asked, hoping they would be willing to join in. More targets for them meant less chance I was going to get hurt. Yanking the gag out of the pegasi’s mouth he stared at me with a mix of fear and surprise.

“I- What? Of course I’m gonna run!”

Coward. Unlike the Earthpony, he seemed to have an accent that reminded me of Trottingham… Or Scoltland? I wasn’t too sure. Accents in that part of the world all sounded similar to me.

“We tried fighting, and look what happened!”

They didn’t have me… Rolling my eyes I quickly removed the gag from the Appleloosan, the humans were still looking around for where I went, one of them finally spotting me at the back of the alley and alerting his compatriots.

“You too?” I asked him, looking for another weapon to use against these four (Three really. The one with the rope was alone and failing to free himself as the rope anaconda began to restrain him completely) , my eyes settling on a dumpster. “N-no!!”

I figured… Looks like it’s up to me to save the day.

With a flick of my horn I sent the large dumpster careening into the group, causing them to scatter in a panic and splitting the group in two. I followed it up by wrenching the closest human’s knife out of his hand, sending it spinning on the floor. Giving a groan, the man lunged at me, only to fall on his face as I teleported a short distance away.

“Get that bitch!” Glancing away from the human, I’d momentarily incapacitated, I turned my attention to another that had managed to get around the bin. I wonder how…

The man let out a scream of fear as I managed to lift him up in a telekinetic field. He was heavy… But his slow speed and my ability to see him clearly made it easy to focus and send him flying into the dumpster, his legs hanging over the side as I slammed the lid closed.

“Gotcha!” The man on the ground from earlier had recovered faster than I thought; his hand grasping at my rear leg as he tried to crawl onto me. Grimacing I kicked out with my other leg. I was no apple bucker, but it was still enough to dislodge his grip on my leg so I could get free for a teleport.

“Where’d she go?!” One of the men asked.

I almost laughed as I reappeared behind the only human who had been left somewhat alone the whole time.

“Behind you!” The man who had tried to grab me gasped out. Spinning around, the final upright human gave a grin as he began to walk towards me.

“No escape this time!” he said. Which was a rather stupid thing to say really. My back was to the street and I could have escaped easily. Instead I just sat there, my horn glowing as he gave me all the time in the world.

“Not running?” he asked, somewhat surprised. I just shook my head with a small smile.

“Up.” Is all I said, before tipping over the metal garbage can id been floating over him. He let out a scream as a stream of garbage and detritus poured onto him before I slammed the can down with enough force to knock him unconscious.

“Oh shit… I…” the last man made a break for it, running by me only to be stopped when I teleported him again in front of me and hit him with a stunning spell at point blank, ending the fight.

That was, exhilarating. No uncertainty caused by darkness. My enemies had been slow and lumbering buffoons, and it had been easy to take care of them.

Letting out a small laugh, I grabbed the human who’s head was trapped in the garbage can and tied him up with the sentient rope. Once that was done I ended the spell, leaving the two men tied together, and checked on the others. The one in the dumpster seemed to be alright while the one who had been hit by my stunning spell would probably be out for a few minutes. My work complete, I turned to leave with a small smile on my face.

“Hey!”

Oh yeah…

“You gonna untie us or what?” Rolling my eyes I returned over to the two ponies, grabbing one of the knives and started to undo the ropes.

“Thank you.” The earth pony said, as I worked on freeing him.

“So what brings an Appleloosan and a pony from Scoltland here? Or are you a pair of french humans turned pony?” I asked, removing the last of his ropes and moving on to the pegasus.

“We were told to come here,” he explained. “I guess it was a trap.”

“A pretty poor one. I’m surprised you couldn’t take them out on your own...” I muttered, cutting through the ropes around the pegasus. It looked more like the actions of a couple random thugs than any sort of organized ploy to catch the two.

With the pegasus free I turned to leave. The two were fine. The humans dealt with… I had no reason to stick around.

“H-Hey! We tried, okay? They had ropes! And knives! There were four of them!” the pegasus retorted. So? You had the advantage of flight. And I just proved that numbers were not an issue.
“So, you’re just gonna leave, while insulting us, after having just saved our lives?” the Appleloosan asked, “I’m getting mixed signals here.”

Turning back to look at him I shrug. “Well, I have no reason to stay,” I replied and floated out the human inside the dumpster and the one I’d stunned before tying all four up together.

“Well, you’re strong, you’re smart... We could learn a lot from you.” Appealing to my ego huh? Beside me, the man with the trash can on his head began to scream as he came to. Sighing, I floated up a rock and dropped it onto the can, stopping his screaming instantly.

“While true, I still don’t see why I should stick around you two.” I muttered, turning to leave again.

“Because we’re weak and hopeless, and in an unfamiliar place,” The Appleloosan continues.. “We, well, need help.”

“Unless you’re too full of yourself to help us,” the pegasus added. I ignored him and focussed on the earth pony.

“What exactly do you need help with?” I asked. “I’m not exactly planning on remaining in this city for long.” I had a feeling they were in a similar situation as myself. Stuck on the wrong side of the border.

“Well, neither are we!” The pegasus exclaimed

“We need to get to New York,” his companion then explained "And they're not gonna let us through without passports. Unless we're Elements. Which we're not. So, we need someone to take us through. I was hoping you could help with that."

“Im quite aware of that” I glanced at the pair. “Incompetence on the local governments part or something” Not wanting to recognize ponies who have changed based on something stupid like their old passport photos… Yeah that screamed incompetence in my books. “Fine. I was staying at the Delta Hotel last night. There’s a bus station nearby. Meet me there in two hours.” I said after a few moments. And started walking away.

I wasn’t really looking forward to having travel companions but… They might be useful. Having a pair of stallions looking to do my bidding was something I missed from the mirrorverse. And if we were caught I could just ditch them to slow down the authorities.

“Hey! What’s your name? Just kinda wondering...” The earth pony again. Seemed like he was the leader of the two.

“Sunset Shimmer,” I said, smirking as I looked back at the two. “Be there on time. I’m not waiting.”

Author's Note:

Whelp. For those of you who are wondering who the newcomers are...

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/100727/appleloosan

Next update may be a in a little while.Hopefully before the end of the month.

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