Team Fortress 2: Macintosh's Misadventure

by McSlendy

Chapter I: What in Sam Hill?

It was a fine day in Ponyville; ponies of all colors and sizes were wandering the streets and mingling with each other, glad to go about their daily lives without much of a fuss. Shopkeepers such as Rarity served customers, stall vendors like Carrot Top sold their goods, and many of the town's colts and fillies played games with each other in the parks under the watchful eyes of their parents. In the skies above, Pegasi flew about, some racing, some lying on the clouds, and some generally enjoying the peaceful day for what it was worth. The Unicorns were minding their own business, as were the Earth ponies, but amongst those Earth ponies was a certain red stallion who was making his way to the Golden Oaks Library, abode to Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia.

'Big' Macintosh Apple was a stallion of few words, as many of Ponyville's inhabitants and his family could attest. He was also bigger than your average stallion, so it was easy for many of the townsponies to pick him out through the crowd and watch him go wherever he was going. The red pony was seldom seen in town due to his daily and time-consuming work on his family's property, Sweet Apple Acres, so whenever he was around in town before or after a hard day's worth of bucking apple trees, the locals were bound to talk about him, though unsurprisingly it was the lonely mares of the town that did most of the talking. Then again, there was the rare stallion or two who did...

Anyways, Big Macintosh soon found himself in front of the door of Twilight's treehouse-slash-home. He took his time, slowly raising a big hoof to knock on it steadily. Within seconds, a small purple dragon with green spikes opened the door for him. It was none other than Spike, Twilight's personal and number one assistant, and foster child in all but name. Looking up, he smiled at the red stallion towering over him. "Oh hey Big Mac, perfect timing. Come on in, Twi's finished preparing her spell for you."

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh replied, entering only after Spike opened the door wider for him.

What Big Macintosh was doing in the library was simple: Surprisingly having enough time for himself just for today after work, he had volunteered during a delivery earlier to help Twilight as a test subject in her research of all things magical when she happened to lament that nopony wanted to be a test subject for her experiments when he happened to pass by. It helped that he didn't have anything better to do as well, other than go back to bucking more apple trees back at the farm. And with Twilight seeing nothing wrong with that, she accepted, so that was why he was there in the library, now waiting patiently by a table for her to show up.

"Hello, Big Mac!" A voice called out from the top of the staircase. Its owner was none other than Twilight herself. She gave him a friendly wave and bounded down the stairs in record time. The purple Unicorn mare then led him to a chair where she gestured for him to sit. Wordlessly, he nodded and sat down comfortably. Once he settled in, Twilight used her magic to levitate a book from somewhere towards her, where she opened a bookmarked page. "Alright Big Mac, today I'm going to practice teleporting you from that chair to that circle I drew on the floor." She pointed to it, then grinned. "Nothing should go wrong; I've double-checked and triple-checked everything! Are you ready?"

"Eeyup." He nodded, having nothing else to say.

Twilight took in a deep breath to concentrate. "Okay..." She exhaled. "Here goes!"

And with that, Twilight's eyes glowed white as she cast her spell. Big Macintosh closed his eyes and waited for the spell to do its job. He ignored the feeling of his body being compressed, and mentally counted up to ten as Twilight recommended earlier. He eventually reached ten, just as he began to feel light-headed. As the stallion's consciousness began to fade and his body started to feel like it was decompressing, he faintly heard a scream before it was abruptly cut...

Spike gaped at the smoking chair where Big Macintosh just sat. Twilight's expression was one of pure horror when she finally confirmed her spell's results. Both dragon and mare slowly turned to face each other, regarding each others' reaction, before they turned back to face the blackened, smouldering chair that left a thick scent of smoke in the air and in their nostrils. Gulping, Spike could only say: "Oops."

Twilight, on the other hoof, fainted.

+

When Big Macintosh awoke in the middle of a desert, he immediately panicked for two reasons:

One, he was in the middle of a desert when he was supposed to be still in Twilight's library.

Two, he wasn't a pony anymore.

"Horseapples."

He didn't know what he had become; from what he felt and saw for his own as he rose from the small crater he found himself in the middle of, he had become something... coatless and fleshy. Something that didn't feel like being a pony at all. And he had hands. Why he knew what his front hooves turned into he might never know, though somewhere in the back of his mind he blamed Lyra Heartstrings for it. Speaking of the cyan mare, he remembered that the beings with those so-called 'hands' were called humans...

Oh great. He was a human now.

The ex-pony gaped at his new body, forgetting about the unforgiving heat attacking his senses. His back hooves had been changed too, but instead of the normal red coat he always had on them they were covered with something that was blue. Also, the article of clothing he had on his chest turned out to be a red jacket with a white shirt underneath, with the jacket's collar and shoulders being brown, apparently replacing his work yoke. It was then Big Macintosh realized that his coat was no longer red, but was actually a fairly colored skin, and that he was wearing clothes that would've made Rarity happy to see him wear during the fall if he were a much younger pony, with his wrists having tight brown bands on them and with his feet having fitting beige shoes on them.

"What." He gaped to himself in disbelief, staring at his lower body.

He shook his head to calm himself as much as he could and finally looked around. From where he stood, dunes of sand stretched away from him as far as his eyes could see, an occasional rock or two jutting out of them. The sun's heat made the horizon distort, making it harder to see further. Big Macintosh was definitely in a desert alright. But when he turned to see the other way, his eyes widened, and before he even knew it he rubbed them awkwardly with his new fingers just to make sure he wasn't seeing a mirage.

"Woah."

There it was, not too far away. The ruins of a previous civilization; one that he recognized as Egyhooftian from his old history books. It was one imposing sandy-white complex, and with awe the former pony looked at it in all its ruined glory. Being teleported to a desert was one thing, but seeing ruins that he only read about in the past? No wonder he was surprised. But there was something off about the place that snapped Big Macintosh out of it. He blinked, looked around, and weighing his options, decided to get closer to the ruins. The shade they provided would give him protection from the scorching heat and the hot winds of the desert.

It took a few tries to get used to walking in his new body, having tumbled and scorched himself a few times, so once Big Macintosh got the hang of walking on two legs, he went on his way albeit slowly. Once he got close enough, he noticed that fences of barbed wire surrounded it, as well as a few warning signs that detailed danger ahead. Before he could even ponder why they were there, he heard loud noises coming from the area. He immediately stopped, strained his ears, and listened carefully.

Some of the noises sounded suspiciously similar to screams, while others sounded like laughter.

"What the hay is going on in there?"

A louder scream stopped the ex-pony from musing - and with a start Big Macintosh realized somepony needed help. And fast. Though a part of him wondered why would there be ponies around the place when the area looked dangerous, not to mention abandoned, nevertheless he rushed towards the direction of the scream and with luck, found a gap in the fences and decided to squeeze right through it, nearly cutting himself in the process. He breathed a sigh of relief and soon found himself in a large, lonely courtyard. He wondered where to go from there, when the same scream echoed in the air. Following the direction from where it came from Big Macintosh picked up his pace and began to jog faster to his left. He didn't feel confident enough to run just yet - he might trip face-first into the scorching sands, hurting himself even more.

He found himself in another large courtyard, though this time it seemed there was a large stage with an equally large circular metal plate on it, surrounded by sandstone blocks and a ruined pillar or so. The metal plate looked awfully out of place, but Big Macintosh wasn't about to wonder what it was doing there. He finally saw who had been causing the screams - it wasn't a pony like he hoped it would be, but a human wearing red that barely looked like an adult. Why Big Macintosh knew why that human barely looked like an adult, he again blamed Lyra for it. Her research was detailed after all, so he couldn't help but read about it.

The young human was being punched in the gut by a bigger, burlier, and bald human, who happened to wear blue under his black vest and was laughing mirthlessly at the younger man's suffering, alongside two others that Big Macintosh didn't get a good look at from where he was standing. The bald man then grabbed the younger human by the front of his shirt, chuckled darkly as the young human whimpered, and then bodily threw him a slight distance away from his group, making him bounce twice and groan deeply in pain.

"You are dead, baby man!" The very same bald man laughed again, his accent noticeably Rhoofian-ish.

Something snapped in Big Macintosh when he got a clearer look of the bald man's victim. The red-wearing human's face was sporting a heavy bruise on his left side, and a black eye on his right. And judging by the way he was weakly trying to get up or crawl away, he'd been abused by them for quite a while now. Big Macintosh huffed. This wasn't right. Nopony should suffer like this, even if the pony in question was in fact a human.

The BLU Heavy, Medic, and Scout did not notice the furious Big Macintosh's stomps until it was too late.

+

The RED Scout was having the worst day of his life.

He knew it was a very bad idea to piss off his teammates with a prank on an early Saturday morning. From the start, he knew it was going to end in tears, but then again he was completely bored of out his mind, it was really hot outside his base to do any running, and pretty much there wasn't a lot to do in the locale of Egypt other than annoy the others with his pranks. So when his prank - a masterfully planned out one if he could say so himself - worked, he had been chased out of his own base by his angered teammates after managing to laugh the loudest laughs he could ever laugh at their angry faces, and now he was wishing that he hadn't pissed them off by putting poisonous scorpions in their rooms, clothes, and food, because it so happened he got captured by his team's enemy, BLU, just as he was about go back and apologize, and was now being beaten up by them.

It, frankly, was the most humiliating experience ever for him. From earning a black eye, a couple of bruises that'll stay for weeks, a few broken ribs, and losing half of his pearl-white teeth, the Scout resigned himself to his fate - a prolonged, painful death - because he deserved it. He was on the ground, faintly conscious and mentally flipping himself off for his own stupidity, not caring about what he was doing to himself because nobody else was able to hear his thoughts, nor would they care. He struggled to release an infuriated sigh at himself, but at that moment the BLU Heavy punched him at the same time he did. His sigh came out as a strained, pained scream instead, and unfortunately that scream of his sounded a little too girly for his tastes.

The mocking laughter from the BLU trio that followed rang in the Scout's ears. Aside from the indescribable pain searing though his body, what hurt the most about their mockery of him and his pride was that his BLU counterpart was participating in it. It was then that the Scout made an oath to... well, short of brutalizing him, return the favor to the BLU Scout someday. In his mind, the RED Scout imagined dousing him with the Sniper's Jarate, then lighting him up with the Pyro's help, though he momentarily paused to blink and think about how unlikely that was going to happen, considering what he recently did to the two of them.

Oh well, at least thinking about revenge was better than minding that he was getting hurt with no means of fighting back.

"You are dead, baby man!" He heard the BLU Heavy laugh over his overwhelming pain.

"Damn that fatass and his stupid Medic. And that asshole Scout!" The RED Scout swore mentally, before tiredly closing his eyes. "Oh well, at least I'm going back to the base."

After he felt himself being lifted up and being thrown to the ground, bouncing twice and groaning in pain, the Scout was now impatient to die and be free of his erstwhile torment - but suddenly out of the blue, he remembered that the Respawn System didn't work while the teams weren't fighting officially. Oh God, why did he have to remember that now?!

"Oh, crap!" The young man panicked immediately, his eyes shooting wide open. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Someone help me! I don't wanna die!"

He weakly looked around, and in his adrenaline rush, saw Big Macintosh with a dark look on his face as he drew near.

"Yes! Someone's here to save me!" The Scout thought in relief. "But wait a minute, who the hell is that guy?!"

The Scout realized he was the first person to notice the RED newcomer coming closer to them.

+

Big Macintosh was very mad.

But he knew that he had to be focused on keeping the wounded young human from experiencing anymore harm. From the moment he understood the gravity of his situation and that of the young man's, he was marching up to the trio of blue clothed men who were too busy enjoying themselves to notice his approach. He walked past two of them and then softly tapped the shoulder of the bald, burly man.

"Da? What is it, doctor?"

After he turned, the BLU Heavy flew a few feet away from Big Macintosh's punch to his face alone, and instantly upon contact with the ground and a part of the sandstone complex, fell into a painful unconsciousness with a groan. The laughter around the courtyard immediately stopped, and Mac felt shocked eyes on him. Big Macintosh, in a moment of clarity, wondered how he knew how to... what was it called... ah, 'punch' someone, and... wait a minute. There was no need to blame Lyra this time. Punching someone was no different than smacking somepony with a clenched hoof. He should've known - he's had his fair share of brawls.

"What?!" Exclaimed a glasses-wearing human with a Germane-ish voice.

Big Macintosh grunted and threw another punch in the man's direction, who in turn swiftly fell to the ground unconscious, his glasses flying off. Then he turned to face the third formerly laughing man, intent to knock him out as well. He only saw rising dust instead. That human had escaped while he was busy dealing with the man with the glasses, and now he was calming down, though his priorities immediately switched from saving the red-clothed man on the ground to attending to him. The Scout groaned as he caught sight of his rescuer, his consciousness beginning to fail. And then he blacked out, leaving Big Macintosh all alone just as he moved to him.

"Eenope, this isn't good." Big Macintosh murmured to himself as he sat beside the man.

+

From a camera control room deep within the RED base, the shocked Engineer could only gape at what he had seen. His goggles reflected the image projected on the screen before him - a blond civilian putting his ear to the prone Scout's chest. After he worked up the nerve to shut his mouth, the Texan mouthed off the words that conveyed his confusion and surprise the most.

"What in Sam Hill?"

Author's Note:

... What have I done?
... Erm, anyways, enjoy.

*Updated as of 26th of June, 2014.
**Updated as of 16th of July, 2014.
***Updated as of 5th of January, 2015. I must be the slowest author ever to live, don'tcha think?

Comments

[Noble Wings]

welp time for hoovys and heavys to fist fight

good luck with to story dear writer i hope you get lots of likes

[Barbecue Sauce]

Welp, it's time to see where this goes.

A bit of advice: You're doing a lot of telling with your writing style. You may want to try and show a bit more, giving more description and detail with your writing.

[RisingMoon336]

To answer your question. Something wonderful!