Lost In Equestria

by Lord Midnight

Chapter 4

Chapter 4
“Shady. No, your not Shady, but you are. Gah, this is so confusing. Everything about you is just like her. Even the voices...” She starts to turn and leave. “Please don’t go. I’m sorry I made you sad, it’s ok. I want to talk to you, it’s just a little hard to explain. Just please come inside and when everyone else gets here I’ll explain everything.”

She looks at me and just stands there frozen until Dash lands next to her. She turns to glares at me. “Did you say something mean to Fluttershy?”

I stare back and unbidden a smile comes back to my face. “Fluttershy? That’s such a cute name. I didn’t mean it to sound mean, but I’ll explain once everyone gets here. She heard me ask Celestia if it was too late to hide before she got here, I lost my nerve for a moment.”

“Why would you want to hide? You said that we were all the alternate versions of your friends back home. Wouldn’t that make seeing her a good thing?”

“Dash, I… Just let me explain it once. I don’t think I can do it more than that.”

“Well, everypony is here now, so explain.” She still looks pretty ticked.

I walk inside the library and sit down on the floor. I could really use some tea right about now. I explain my story to the six mares sitting around listening to me. I tell them about being a warrior and a noble in my world. I tell them about years of training and fighting on the path of mastery. I show them Stepping and ki. Finally I get down to the hard part.

I sit back down inside the library. “Long ago I was alone, no friends and my family could never really understand me well enough to find friends among them. I love my family, but I was still lonely. But one day I met Shady at a gaming store. She said she saw my sadness and loneliness and wanted to help. She introduced me to her friends and despite some initial reservations about getting close to an Altered they came to accept me as a friend. Recently we discovered VD&D and the personality checker found us all to be perfect matches to our respective Elements. You see me and my friends are a parallel to you six.

“Donny, who always kept us together and was the smartest in our group, Magic of Friendship. Bolt, who was victory obsessed but always Loyal. Suzanah who was beautiful inside and out, so very Generous. Johnny who could always get people to smile and loved to party, everywhere he went he brought Laughter. Me, who works hard, loves gardening and is always Honest to himself and others. Then there was Shady, my beautiful Shady. So beautiful and cute, a gentle soul that is never lacking in Kindness. She changed my entire life with a smile and the day I asked her out was the happiest in my life, you know right up until the sucked out of my world and dropped in another one with no clue if I’ll ever see her or my family again.

“That’s why I was so afraid to meet you Fluttershy. Seeing such a hard reminder of her and knowing I might never see her again, it hurts. Don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault in any way shape or form and it hurts a lot worse if I see you sad. It’s not so bad now, but at first it felt like a dagger of ice in my heart. Now on to something way less depressing. Applejack, nice to meet you. I art thou and thou art I, heh.”

Applejack gives me an incredulous look. “So what yer saying is that yer some kinda version of me from another world?”

I grin. “Aye.”

Suddenly a grin splits her face. “Wait a second, your voice is exactly like Big Mac’s! You sure talk a lot more then him though. Hey Dash, if he’s me and he beats you in a race, does that mean I beat you in a race?”

Dash gets a competitive grin on her face. “There's no way I’m going to lose in speed. But if he can use his freaky powers I get to use my wings.”

I look at her with my head cocked to the side. “I don’t have any freaky powers. Everyone has ki, whether they learn to use it or not.” I frown thinking. “Or do they? I know that’s true for humans, but is it true for ponies? Humans developed our ki through evolution but ponies developed magic. Then again either way the point is moot, if you're using your wings that’s no different than me using my legs. Fine, a race. You can use your wings and I’ll use my ki.”

She grins and Applejack facepalms. Wait, do ponies have palms? Facehoofs? I’ll stick with that for now. They have some weird language changes, but I have to resist picking them up. Last thing I want is to get back to my world saying anypony and calling girls mares. “Now, what exactly have I gotten myself into? There haven't been any stakes set so it’s just a race, doesn’t matter if I win or lose.”

Dash and Applejack look at me strangely until I shoot them a rogue grin. “Not that I’m gonna lose.”

There grins match my own and they lead me off to the protesting of Twilight who still wants me to answer her questions and a interested yet worried look on Celestia’s face. They take me to a forest called Whitetail woods where there is a long dirt road. The rules are I can use ki, Dash can use her wings, but no shortcuts, interfering or distracting. I grin and line up next to Dash waiting for Twilight to give the signal.

“Go!”

I Step forwards along the path and grin at the small gasp of the women behind me until a rainbow colored blur shoots by me. No way in hell am I gonna lose, I pulse my ki and dart after her. Step, landing step, positioning step, Step. I blur past her but she overtakes me in the three steps in between Steps. We streak through the woods at breakneck speeds until the path turns sharply. I grin as Dash slows down a small amount as I simply bounce off a tree and keep going. She’s faster but I’ve got a lot of practice Stepping through the city, trust me, if you need to slow down to turn, you’re already dead.

She blurs past me even faster and I catch her determined grin as she passes. I try and find some reason to win, something to be passionate about. Some reason to win this game. Game? I grin as my doa finally unleashes. I love games. Using the doa to strengthen my legs and protect my body from the speed of the next level I stare ahead and Flash Step ahead of Dash. You see doa users use the Flash technique to basically increase the strength of their legs and feet and boost their resistance to damage so the speed doesn’t hurt them. Advantages is it’s basically high speed running and doesn’t have a down time.

My usual move the Step on the other hand is essentially time manipulation. I lock onto a target, slow time down for myself, brace and position my legs, and leap at the target. Advantages is that it is faster in spite of the steps needed to trigger it. The Flash Step on the other hoof-hand, damn ponies infecting my mind, is slowing time down for myself, boosting my strength and resilience and leaping while quickly moving my legs into position for the next leap. It has a farther range and the down time is cut in three.

I rip past Dash ignoring the burning in my lungs. I’m forcing a master level technique with only Elite level doa and my body won’t thank me for it later. Essentially, I’m moving too fast to breath and starting to tear my muscles. I’m closing on the finish line when I hear a resounding boom behind me and a rainbow beam shoots by me missing my by inches. Looking closer I realise that the beam is Dash and stumble rolling over the finish line in a scratched and groaning heap.

“Yall knocked him over! You cheated again Dash!” Seriously why does she have a southern accent? I rise to my head and shake my feet. Wait, that’s not left. Did I scramble my coconut? I feel my vision darkening as I try and shake my hand back to normal. “She didn’t amaze me. I was so tripped I lost control. Hang on, I need ta answer my phone.” I dig the device out of my pocket and hold it up to my ear. I hear a distant voice.

“He… he’s unconscious. Standing and talking, but unconscious. How is this even possible Princess Celestia?”

“Excuse me, I’m on the phone with my garden right now, quiet down a bit.” I slowly come to my senses and watch amused as my vision returns looking at my phone confused. I could have sworn that my garden just called… “I got knocked out again didn’t I?”

I look around to the stunned and scared women around me. Twilight’s horn is glowing and a purple aura surrounds me. She has a look of intense concentration and the cuts on my hands and face are closing. “Is it really safe to perform medical magic on a creature with completely unknown physiology that is supposed to be different from the way their genetics say they should be?” The aura disappears and she looks at me with a sheepish expression.

“I just wanted to help, but something about you was resisting the magic. Your hands and face were easy, but everything else felt like it was far away.”

I flex my hands experimentally and look at her with horror as I feel my grip to be weaker. “You turned some of my muscle back! Twi you're lucky it didn’t work, you could have killed me!”

If she had turned all my muscles back this much my ki would have been too much for my body to handle and I would start tearing muscles every single time I moved. An Altered body is needed to hold an Altered soul. She looks at me in confusion. “How could a healing spell have killed you?”

“Because my body is mutated and you started reverting it from its unmutated state. Think about it like this. What happens if you take a unicorn and turn them into an earth pony but leave all that magical energy without a release?”

“It would get channeled into the muscles and used as physical energy.”

“And what happens to the muscles of the now earth pony that are not used to the strengthening?”

“The magic reinforces them.”

I groan and facepalm. Magic is way too different for this. “What happens if you take a really powerful unicorn and turn them into a child with all that magic packed into their body?”

She looks disturbed. “It’s happened before. They had to wear an inhibitor ring until they grew up again so their horn didn’t explode or melt off.”

I stare straight into her eyes. “Now imagine that, except the power gets channeled with every single movement and breath. All that power coursing through me, yet my muscles are now that of a normal human. Every single breath and movement would tear muscles until I could no longer force my body to breath. It happened before on my world. Medical Nanobots from before the Fall were released on accident. 200 Altered all dead and the area had to be quarantined until a remote hacking unit could be called in to terminate the bots. There were three survivors in the entire village, all small children who had not begun the training yet. The nanobots had done the worst damage of all to them though. They were never able to become Altered or use ki. We called them the lost souls.”

Celestia looks at me in shock. “So simply because they couldn’t fight they were considered lost?”

“It was worse than simply being unable to fight. They were still nobles. Born with our denser bones and different eyes, yet their muscles had been positioned to how they are on a human body and all the pink muscle was deleted. They were barely able to survive without assistance, yet unable to kill themselves because they were the last of their clan. Not that it mattered in the end, as none of them ever ended up with a wife or children.”

Horrified looks spread throughout the group. Celestia asks me a telling question. “Wolf, if you became irreparable crippled and unable to survive without assistance from others, what would you do?”

“I would commit harakiri, as is befitting the honor of a warrior, why?”

A relieved smile spreads across her face. “I was worried you would say you would kill yourself.”

I blink confusedly. “I did say that. Harakiri is honorable suicide. It is counted by Death to be the same as dying in battle with honor.”

She freezes and stares at me in shock but I continue. “It’s better that than live a half-life of suffering and uselessness waiting for my body to deteriorate enough for my ki to kill me.”

“If this is how your entire race thinks they sicken me. Does life hold no value to you?”

“Of course life is valuable, but that is exactly why it is honorable to kill yourself when your life is over and you are merely alive. Why waste the precious food and resources on someone who has no future or reason to exist?”

“Food and resources are scarce in your world?”

“They can be, even the nobles who have more income has to deal with the much higher metabolism of being Altered, so it balances out. You realize that you're talking about a person who must eat enough food to keep five Citizens alive yet cannot perform any of their duties as a noble?”

Her eyes brighten as the ghost of a smile crosses her lips. “This only applies to nobles than? Only to the warrior class of your world?”

“Indeed, Citizens have hospitals that specialize in the treatment of those who cannot provide for themselves and give them a way to contribute to society. Speaking of all this, I’m ravenous and could really go for some…” I trail off, come to think of it I saw a cow walking around and talking to ponies on the way here. What exactly isn’t sentient in this world.

She has a slightly fearful and angry look on her face. “Finish that sentence.” Her words are clipped and dangerous.

I gulp. “I could really go for some burgers and fries right about now.”

She laughs and it sounds off. “Oh is that all? There is a hayburger in town, Twilight take him and send me the bill later.”

“Hayburger? Huh, so you make burgers out of hay here?” At the nod I ponder out loud. “Wonder if I can eat em, I ate grass once when I was lost in the woods as a kid, this is kinda like that except it’s probably dryer. Maybe if I just get plenty of water? But what am I going to do about protein? Alrighty then, let’s go Twi I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me and my world over lunch.”

She leads me away and Applejack and Dash follow us. Fluttershy has thankfully long since disappeared. She nice, but every time she talks I get reminded that I might never see Shady again. Dash doesn’t trigger it for some reason and instead it makes me feel at home. We sit at a table at the Hayburger and I look over the menu. Since royalty is paying I order five deluxe hayburgers with a pitcher of water and a double order of hayfries. Time to find out if I can eat it.

Dash stares at the plate they bring me. “Are you really going to be able to eat all that?”

I grin at her. “I have no idea whatsoever, but I’m gonna try like hell.” I pick up the first one. It is fried hay with several thick slices of tomato and pickles with a garnish of flowers. I experimentally attempt to eat one of the flowers and stare at them confused. Flowers are usually bitter not sweet. Encouraged by the fact that vegetation is distinctively different in this world I pour on some kutsup and take a bite of the burger. It tastes good, but it’s as hard to chew as well, hay. After spending way longer chewing than any food should ever take I give up and swallow the ball of plants and bread with a dose of water.

“Well, it’s edible. Digestible is still a question, but I can eat it and it doesn’t taste all that bad.”

“So what do your species make burgers out of?”

“Usually beef but some places use a pork and beef blend that makes it taste better.” You could have heard a pin drop as the already nervous crowd slowly turns to stare at me. The only cow in the place starts hyperventilating and backing away slowly staring at me in horror.

“Not the sentient kind, humans don’t eat sentient animals. Like horses, cats, dogs or the like. Don’t worry I’m gonna try and go vegetarian while I’m in this world. No idea how I’m gonna get all the iron and protein I need, though.”

The girls hesitantly come back to the table where I am calmly attempting to eat my burgers, but the restaurant is quickly emptying. A very nervous looking pony in a suit comes up to me.

“I am the owner of this establishment and I would like to ask you to… um… please leave… if you don’t mind… um.”

He starts breaking up as I turn my head and stare at him. After I finally swallow and can talk I reply. “Mind if I borrow this tray?” I pile all the burgers and fries back on the tray at his nod and dump a small pile of catsup in the corner of it for the still untested fries. I’m hoping they are easier to eat and intend to save them for last. I hold the tray in one hand and walk off munching on my burger. Did my life get too good and my happiness trigger a calamity of karma? It really has been a string of bad things since we won.

I wonder around town munching on my food and melancholy watching ponies dart into their houses when they see me coming. I come across a zebra wearing a cloak that is looking the opposite way.

“I thought this was done foolish pony folk, this is poor taste for a joke.”

“What’s the matter?”

She doesn’t turn and instead stares around the deserted town. “Long ago my little filly friend had brought this hiding to an end. Yet now as I wonder the town everyone had hidden and none are around.”

“Yeah, their hiding from me.” Is it just me or is there something off about the way she talks?

She turns and stares up at me in surprise. “Ah, so the fools still fear the unknown and hide from all strangers in their home.”

Huh, that settles it. She’s speaking in rote. I wonder why? “Naw, they were fine until they found out I eat meat. It’s ok you can run away, it won’t make you a hypocrite. Totally different scenarios of hiding from someone because they're different and hiding because they actually do something that scares you.” I finish the last bite of my last hayburger and start on the fries. Oh, they are good! A little weirdly textured, but easy enough to eat and they go down like normal fries.

She seems to freeze for a moment. “Of many creatures I know the lore, yet never your kind have I seen before. However from the ancient stories learned by mother's side not even a traveler as lost as you can hide. From another world cast into this, inside their heart is an abyss, hands that create what is in their mind, yet dangerous still is mankind.”

She is backing away and suddenly turns and darts off in a gallop. I have a choice to make. Risk my lunch and maybe learn more about previous humans to come to this world and hopefully a clue towards getting home. Or stand here and not scare the hell out of the locals anymore. Setting down my food quickly I Step next to the zebra and tap her on the shoulder as I run alongside her. “Oh, now this is interesting. I’m not the first human to get stuck here and from the sound of it they were common enough to leave a mark on history. The fact that they are no longer here means either they all died out, or there's a way home. Which is it and I’ll leave you be.”

She slows and stops. “Humans came as the pawns of the darkest evil and destroyed themselves after his fall. None was known to ever return despite the tales the dark one did turn. The zebras used to be so proud, yet Grogar turned all that around. Now we live simpler lives lest we fall again to his lies. Beware young human for this is true. He brought you here and has a use for you. Listen not to what he says, for in the end nothing he gives ever stays.”

She turns and trots off towards the forest as I Step back to where I left my food. Luckily it’s still perfectly fine and I finish off my fries contemplating her words. It seems I have some clues. Theres someone named Grogar who if he isn’t involved it is likely someone who followed in his footsteps. The way she described him leads to me thinking he’s some manner of demon, complete with the one sided contract shtick.

“Cat! I think it’s best if we return to Canterlot now.” Celestia looks annoyed.