Grounder

by JustAnotherEarthPony

Chapter One: Darkness (Re-Write!)

Darkness. The absence of light.

But what in the world does that even mean?

Light is ‘something that makes things visible or affords illumination’.

But illumination just means that it has light, and everything we interact with is visible!

Is space ‘invisible’ and thus lightless? But light travels through space!

...These were my thoughts when, on a bored whim, I had decided to look up the definitions of Darkness and Light on Google.

It was a typical night for me. I was googling whatever came to mind in order to avoid thinking about all the job applications that I had done the night before, and how inevitable my failure was. Sure, I was not an overweight twenty something with little social life, a computer addiction and little to no talents. But surely, that didn’t mean I couldn’t get a job to save my life!

As expected, at exactly twenty-four hours since I had send my previous job interviews, I got about five emails in quick succession. Anyone who’s hunted for a job before knows what that means.

God damn denial bots and their key-word searches.

Looking at my impressive display of failures just made me feel depressed, so I quickly changed the tab back to YouTube in order to re-hear ‘This Day Aria’, the best song My Little Pony had produced throughout it’s two-season runtime.

I had been watching the show ever since the band-wagon started rolling around the mid 2010s and hadn’t hopped off since. I mean come on, magic horses! What’s cooler?

As fate would have it, I wouldn’t get to relisten to my favorite MLP song because of another email arriving at that exact moment.

A brief surge of concentrated Hope, hastily squashed down by well-trained pessimism.

It was… not what I hoped. Instead of a request to meet for a job interview, it was an email with no subject line, sent by what had to be a joke of a username.

“[e-mail]” I murmured softly to myself, trying to make heads-or-tails of the strange message.

Opening it yielded no results. No text, just a link to the official MLP website.

My first thought was advertising. Perhaps Hasbro noticed my email linked to my fimfiction account? That would imply that they know about the fan website and were using it for advertising though…

An alarm bell rang through the back of my mind.

You know… if I was in one of those HiE fanfics… this would be the exact moment where everything went wrong.

This would be that instant, that magical moment when the protagonist isn't paying attention to what they are doing and clicks a suspicious link, or falls down a hole, or gets murdered. This would be the moment they'd be sent to Equestria.

I calmed myself. That was impossible. Equestria didn’t exist, humans never went there and it was all wish-fulfillment in the end, right?

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a magical or flying creature?

Still, I had nothing to do. And as I was taught from much movie watching and book reading, being genre-savvy is the best way to success. You never know when a new opportunity is flying by, waiting for you to reach for the stars and grasp it… not that I’d ever seen proof of that old verse.

Thinking about it now, maybe the pessimism didn’t help my job applications much...

So I decided to go the extra mile, marathoning the entire show. Sure, it was a little crazy but honestly I had been looking for an excuse to do it for a long time and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. If it was fake, I got to rewatch my favorite show. If it was somehow real…

Well, win/win one way or another, no?

Despite my attempts at remaining properly pessimistic, I seemed to be unable to stop thinking about the possibility of this being the start of something different. An adventure, finally the chance to realize my dreams!

I only managed to stop myself after I had already thought about all the magic I could learn as Luna’s personal student. Or perhaps as Twilight’s library assistant? The possibilities were endless!

Finally managing to lower myself back to reality, I added that being a pegasus wouldn’t be that bad as an afterthought. It’s not that I hated pegasi (pegasuses?) or anything, but from what I’d seen all they cared about was overall speed. And unless I was some godlike Marty Stu (which would be boring as hell), I was never going to beat Rainbow Dash in a straight race.

Once I was done, I turned back to my mail and contemplated the innocent looking link once more. I tried to remember other HiE possibilities. Would I be soulbound to another pony? Ghost-like? Remain a simple human and be experimented on? Or, god forbid, would I become an Alicorn?

I suppose now would be a good time to mention that it was five in the morning. I was practically delusional by that point and I was falling asleep on my own chair. Deciding to finally bite the bullet and preparing for fierce disappointment, I clicked the link.

---

Suddenly… nothing.

No, really. I clicked the link and not only did my computer disappear, but I was stuck in a very small, very dark confinement.

It wasn’t pitch black though. I couldn’t really move my head much, but I could see the reddish hue of a bright light obscured by whatever was trapping me. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it was like closing your eyes while looking directly at the sun. My eyelids block the harmful glare, but I can still see the light shining through.

None of that explained how I even fit in such a small confinement, much less how I got there.

I was floating in liquid. I could tell as much the first time I opened my eyes, and it hurt. I slowly got used to it though. It wasn’t harmful liquid, very reminiscent to water honestly, yet I felt no urge to breathe. After breathing your entire life, it’s a really weird sensation when you suddenly feel no need to.

I decided to try and see if there was a way out of this place. As comfortable as floating in breathable liquid was, I had my doubts as to how much time had passed since I clicked that link…

Wait

The link!

BY DE LANCIE’S VOICE!

I’M IN EQUESTRIA!

After… that… I decided to examine my body and see exactly what I’d turned into. I mean, human was clearly out, considering how small my confinement was. Still, Equestria was full of possibilities! Dragon, griffin, timberwolf, mantincore…

Nope. According to my hooves, just a pony.

Not to say I was disappointed, I had wanted to be a pony. I mean, being a griffin would’ve been cool, but come on! magic!

It was only after I’d checked my newly acquired equine body that I noticed noise coming from outside. Apparently my mind simply didn’t register what my ears were hearing since I hadn’t realized they were on top of my head.

“Doctor… I don’t suppose… when our daughter… born?” The noise was garbled, probably because I was listening to it while underwater. I thought it might have been masculine though.

Well… the magical scan showed… probably a few days… unicorn filly…” This was a different male voice, probably the doctor. Were as the first voice was impatient, this one was nervous. He also seemed to be pausing periodically, perhaps checking his notes?

Suddenly, a voice sounded out, much louder than the rest of them. It was feminine and quite plummy, almost haughty.

“Oh please doctor, I’m sure it’ll be fine. After all, we’ve already bought all of her new toys and decorations! I hope that she’ll end up at least a little pink, so that it all matches!”

Panic.

I had read way too many FiMFiction stories to know where this was heading. I would have to struggle with my sex change, be constantly mocked for my stallion-like attitude and be forced to wear mare’s clothing…

My panicked check of my private bits revealed that it was not to be. Everything was where it was supposed to be if a bit… reduced by my small size.

I considered what the doctor had said. Apparently, a magical scan had been done on this body’s embryo, and determined it was going to be a mare… Had my arrival in this pony’s mind had somehow knocked things off course? For that matter, where was the unborn filly’s mind? My body? That would’ve at least made for a funny image, if it wasn’t so depressing.

I decided that there was nothing I could do about it, one way or another. It was better to focus on what I was going to do now that I’d arrived to Equestria… after a fashion.

Like lighting, the realization the doctor had also mentioned me being a unicorn filly came to mind. I had ignored it during my panic, but now it occurred to me that if the scan had been wrong about me being a filly, I might not be…

It was difficult bringing a hoof up to my forehead in the confined state, but I managed it eventually.

Nothing.

My small foal brain didn’t know how to deal with mental shock and thus decided the best course of action was to pass out.

Darkness…

Author's Note:

Alright, I decided that perhaps my first attempt at a FiMfiction chapter needed a little bit of a checkup, since to be honest with you it was pretty clear that I wasn't very experienced at writing when I made it.

Nevertheless, should any of you be fans of the original version of chapter one, I will be posting a 'new' story called Grounder: Deleted Scenes, in which I'll put in deleted chapters, bloopers writing this story and any other details I feel don't fit the flow of the main work.

Any comments, suggestions and reviews are appreciated!

Comments

[ferret]

You should tell us that he's debating on whether to click the link in the beginning. Otherwise all we know is he saw an email with a link to a website, and then decided that something might send him to Equestria, without telling us what it is. He then went to marathon the show before he went and did the... thing, the thing that he knows he's going to do but we're sitting here clueless about.

[JustAnotherEarthPony]

8269134
Added an additional paragraph I had forgotten to put in
Hopefully it helps!

[flutterboot]

Looking at my impressive display of failures just made me feel depressed, so I quickly changed the tab back to YouTube in order to re-hear ‘ This Day Aria ’, the best song My Little Pony had produced throughout it’s two-season runtime.

Make that nine

[ArcherStern]

9530953
Much has changed. I kinda stopped watching before Twilights school got up and running.

[NecromanCREEEEEE]

9530953
Idk, I really like "open up your eyes" from the movie, "Flawless" struck a particular cord as well if we're talking in the show directly, "Smile" is pretty catchy too. Sure, Aria is huge, but there's plenty of good songs past season 2.

[Amaponynoob]

Sure, I was not an overweight twenty something with little social life, a computer addiction and little to no talents.

Wow. Next time I feel like geting my nuts kicked in and don't want to do it by playing an Xcom game, I'll be sure to give you a call .

You sir/ma'am(/or whatever one the other ten options are on the list these days) have my attention.

[Andrew-R]

A brief surge of concentrated Hope, hastily squashed down by well-trained pessimism.

- exactly my state for quite some time ....

[KvAT]

I was floating in liquid. I could tell as much the first time I opened my eyes, and it hurt. I slowly got used to it though. It wasn’t harmful liquid, very reminiscent to water honestly, yet I felt no urge to breathe. After breathing your entire life, it’s a really weird sensation when you suddenly feel no need to.

Lmao I already know from here where he is

[Oreng Pingvin]

it happened finally, someone will use their knowledge not only to determine whether he is in the forest or not and TD