The Long Way Home

by HyperRandomness

Chapter 6: Alles geht schief.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I used Babelfish for translations from English to German, seeing as I don’t know it myself.

Oh look, things CAN get stranger.

This was the first thought out of his head as Rez began exploring around. Upon taking the landscape in, he definitely noticed things were… different, to say the least.

How different?

How about you ask the upside-down trees and the flower floating by his face?

Rez briefly wondered if he was conscious, so he raised a claw to his shoulder and pinched it. Ouch! He thought, jumping back a bit. Okay, I’m definitely awake. He looked out over the scenery to get a better grasp on his bearings, but the ground was undulating and changing color as though made of liquid rainbow in a wind storm. It gave him a dizzy headache, and he lost his hoofing from seeming to be unable to balance.

He stumbled around briefly, trying to make sense of the ever-shifting ground, but decided to look up instead.

He regretted it.

Above him, the clouds were in a tizzy, shooting this way and that, diving into the sky and making big splashes of fire and pizza everywhere.

That’s got to be the creepiest thing I’ve ever gehesen.

Was, warten?

Rez puzzled at himself for a moment, before speaking aloud, “Warum spreche ich in einer Sprache, die ich nicht verstehe?” He recoiled for a second, before quickly making note to himself that he couldn’t understand himself… or at least, he tried to, but he couldn’t understand himself.

“Dies hat die seltsamen Sache sein, die jemals passiert ist.” He said to himself, sighing about being confused with himself. He looked back down and turned to leave, but was confronted by a forty-hoof-tall behemoth.

It only took him a moment to scream.

It only took another second for him to swim in the opposite direction.

He took off screaming at the top of his lungs, dodging between celery stalks to get away from the massive beast. He looked behind him between bursts of speed, only to see the creature was hot on the trail… which made sense, considering the trail behind him had burst into flames from the clouds carelessly doing sky-dives into the smoky abyss above.

Shame, clouds. Shame.

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Lens Cap could take it no longer. She’d been doing the same routine ever since she had arrived, and every day she only longed worse to go back and check up on Rez.

She did, however, finally start going outside and doing other things to occupy her mind.

She would sit on street corners and think. It reminded her of all the times that Rez tripped over a curb.

She would talk to other ponies. It reminded her of how many other ponies Rez would bump into.

She would walk up and down familiar streets, just trying to get her mind off of the one problem she could not evade. It reminded her of how much time she spend with Rez, just guiding him around.

All the times she had to pick him up off the ground because he tripped over something small or bumped into somepony.

All the times he made great jokes.

All the times he had smiled so warmly, yet his eyes kept their same piercing, empty stare.

All the times she had felt things about him.

All the times she wished she could have confessed her feeling for him.

The one time that it mattered the most, but she just got on the train and left.

It all burned in her mind like someone had branded it on her brain and left an infinitely-playing record in her ears… and she couldn’t stand it. She needed to get up off her lazy flank and do something about it.

So, when she returned home later that day, she said to her parents, “I’m going to Ponyville.”

“No you’re not.” her Father responded, not looking up from the day’s newspaper.

“Wh.. why not?” she said, almost shocked.

“Because we’re going to Ponyville.” her Father looked up from the paper with a grin that could only be described as a look that screams: ‘Gotcha.’ Lens sighed with a simultaneous giggle, rolling her eyes and wandering off to her room. Well, at least they were going to Ponyvi-

WAIT.

WHAT?

Lens’ brain finally processed what her Dad had actually said, to which she responded with a massive grin, an excited “Eeee!” and a jump for joy. She shot like lightning to her room and began to frantically dig through, well, everything to find all the things she wanted to bring with. She hurriedly brought out a suitcase and flung it over her bed, then messily began scrambling to pile as many things as she could into that suitcase.

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After feeling he had put significant distance between himself and the wall of creature that had previously been following him, Rez stopped and leaned against a giant pile of quarters to rest. He was breathing heavily, and it was definitely getting colder, because he could see his own breath in front of him. It waved an angry hoof at him before dissipating, to which Rez only shook his woozy head.

He had given up trying to process things several minutes ago. It was either that, or he’d already had a nervous breakdown and was having a seizure somewhere and was just imagining this… but that was very unlikely. He pinched himself earlier, so he knew he was probably awake. Unless his mind had shut down completely from being unable to comprehend anything.
Yeah, that would be bad. He thought to himself, looking confusedly forward into a waterfall of brown cakes, realizing he could understand himself again. “Well, it’s a start.” he said aloud, making quick note that it echoed.

As he stood to continue onward, he turned another direction to avoid a wizard pony casting spells on his left, and a fire-breathing frog on his right. Things were sure unusual today.

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Lens was still throwing things around her room when her Father entered. "We’re not leaving just yet, y’know. You can take your time packing.”

Lens didn’t hear him. She was packing her camera, rolls of film, her journals, clothing that she didn’t really need, and other non-necessary items with gusto. Finally going back to Ponyville! she thought frenziedly, hurrying to aggregate all the unnecessary things she wanted to bring with.

Finally get to see Rez! Oh, I hope he’s okay!

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Well, there go those hopes.

In the time that the story cut away from Rez, he’d managed to get himself hurt. How convenient.
He wasn’t completely sure how it’d happened, but he had somehow managed to run headlong into a wall of metal. A small green splatter on the wall showed that he had been running full speed.

Rubbing his snout and wincing at the pain, Rez turned around to find that the landscape had changed slightly. Everything seemed to be settling back into place, there were no crazy creatures running after him, and the celery stalks became trees.

“Well, weirder things have happened today,” he said with a cross-eyed laugh, then proceeding to completely shut down due to the incomprehensibility of the situation, falling flat on the grassy ground, rendered completely unconscious.

He really needs to stop doing that.

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Lens had two days to pack. Two whole days?! That’s way too long to wait!! she thought to herself, shifting impatiently from hoof to hoof by her usual window seat. She had an entire forty-three hours to wait until she would be departing for Ponyville and leaving this drab scene behind.

For starters, hardly anyone wanted pictures there. They were all too busy, and none-too-friendly. Secondly, nothing there seemed as inviting or pleasing as they did in Ponyville. Next up was how crowded everything seemed… cars hurrying around this way and that, buildings packed so tight you can’t see the sun, and nobody really seemed to be in any mood to stop and talk, as they all seemed too busy to care.

Everything was boring, nothing was fun, and nothing EVER HAPPENED.

In Ponyville, even though most of the exciting events weren’t always for the best, at least they were something. Whereas, where Lens lived, nothing ever happened.

No curses.

No strange encounters.

No awkward quests.

No adventures.

No evils rising to fight again.

NOTHING.

It was the most boring place that ever existed in the entire history of forever. For all time. In all of eternity. Always.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but that’s certainly how Lens felt about the place. She couldn’t wait to get back to Ponyville.

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In Ponyville, an unusually green Stallion had just bought a baker’s dozen of cupcakes. He felt satisfied in the purchase, having gotten 20% off when he bought an additional four cupcakes. With a smirk, he walked onward.

Until a tap-tap-tapping on his shoulder stopped him.

He turned around to greet the disturbance, but was met with a hoof to the face. Out in the open. Where everyone would clearly see the assailant.

Recoiling a bit from the hit, he angrily turned to the direction of the assaulter, but was met with an empty plaza. Where is everypony suddenly? He thought to himself, shaking his snout out a bit before turning to continue onward.

In the shadows of a nearby bush, a self-angered pony sat in disgust. “Failure.” He whispered to himself. It appeared that some ponies were simply more resilient to hooves to the face than that one blind one had been.

Comments

[-Brutus]

Who is that pony at end o:

[HyperRandomness]

1348500
I'm not telling.