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1 - A World Unfamiliar1,451 words
2 - Welcome to Ponyville, scrub1,312 words
3 - An Introduction to Madness1,565 words

1 - A World Unfamiliar

James opened his eyes, effectively waking up. He quickly sat up, and immediately noticed something wrong. Like, for instance, he was in the middle of a grassy field, when he should probably be in his bed. He shook his head, trying to remember what happened.

He had walked to a local store that was known for selling things from all sorts of franchises, and they even had some stuff from random one-off stories and stuff. It was run by a guy cosplaying as the Merchant from Resident Evil 4, and the guy always seemed to be in character, no matter what. All of the stuff was well made, which was cool, considering all of it was probably made by him. James remembered he had watched the Steven Universe movie earlier that day, and wanted to see if the place had anything related to it.

"Hello, sir." James had said, walking up to the main counter, where the store's owner sat behind. The man was currently examining a helmet that looked like it came from an anime or something.

"Well, good afternoon, young man." The Merchant, which is what James had settled on calling him, said, putting the helmet under the counter. "How may I interest you today?"

James set his hands on the counter, and looked around. "You know what Steven Universe is, right?"

The Merchant looked up for a second, thinking. "Ah! Yes, I have heard of it. Not my cup of tea, but I see why people like it." He looked back at James. "What exactly are you lookin' for?"

"I don't know, anything you may have." James removed his hands from the counter, before reaching into his pocket. "But, I only have about... $20, so anything up to that price." He pulled out the bill, showing it to the man.

"Hm..." The Merchant stroked his chin in thought. "I may have something. Hold on a moment." He turned around, and headed through a door that had a label that said 'Backroom - Do Not Enter.'

As he waited, James looked around at his surroundings. The shop's walls were decorated with various memorabilia from different franchises, mostly posters. Official or fan artwork, James couldn't tell, but it was all still pretty cool. He looked at the shelves, filled with both licensed merchandise, and things that the Merchant probably made himself. James could tell the difference because of the various labels that were on the shelves, one having the "Mass Produced" label, and most of the other ones having a label stating what franchise they were from. There was a very wide selection of things to choose from.

It was weird, James never heard anyone ever talking about this place. In fact, he was the only customer as of that exact moment. But, the Merchant man had to have some patronage. How else could he keep this place open?

The door to the Backroom opened, and the Merchant was back, holding a small, polished wooden box. He set it on the counter, and looked back up at him. "Well I was going to go get you the replica of Steven's jacket I had, but it appears I have already sold it, so this'll have to do." He spun the box around, revealing latches on the side. "You like Spinel?"

"..Yeah." James looked at the box, interest beginning to peak.

"Well.." The Merchant unlatched the box, and opened it. Inside was what looked to be a pink, crystalized heart. It was probably made of some sort of resin, but it was very convincing. "I made this replica a bit ago, and I must say, I kind of out did myself." The Merchant seamed to be smiling behind his face wraps. "Now, normally, this would go for around $25, but I'm willing to lower the price."

"Wait, really?" James asked, looking at the Merchant with disbelief.

"Yep." The Merchant removed the replica from the box. "I'm feeling rather... generous today." He held up his free hand."That'll be 20 dollars , please."

"Yes, sir." James said, handing the bill over as he was given the heart. "Thank you."

"No, thank you." The Merchant put the $20 bill into the cash register. "You have a good time now."

"I will!" James said, turning around to exit the building.

He had left the building, and made his way home. He felt odd though, not just because he just got a life sized replica of something for $20, when other independent would raise that over one hundred, no, halfway back, he was beginning to feel incredibly tired, and after that.... nothing.

James finished recounting the events in his mind, and looked around once more. He, in fact, was not in the middle of a field, like he initially thought, no, he was laying in the grass next to a beaten dirt path, which led into an incredibly thick forest behind.

How did he get here?
He lived in the middle of an urban area, and the closest forest he knew of was miles away. Was he kidnapped? And just... dumped somewhere???

Instinctively, he brought his hand up to rub his head in annoyance, but before he did he noticed his hand. He was now wearing large pink gloves.
"What the-?" He began, but clapped his newly gloved hands over his mouth. His voice, it sounded... different. It sounded, familiar.... He uncovered his mouth, before clearing his throat, and started once more. "Voice test, 1, 2, 3. What the hell?" His voice was definitely different, and it sounded feminine. Not that he was the most masculine man on the planet, but it was very noticeable. "I need to call someone." He reached for his cellphone in his pocket, he couldn't find it. He looked down. "HUH?"

He looked completely different! He immediately who he now was after looking at the upside down, heart-shaped gem in his chest. "I'm Spinel????"

He began to hyperventilate, and stood up, rapidly looking around, panic beginning to spread throughout his system. "How? How is this possible? Why is this happening? Where am I? Am I dead?" He muttered quickly to himself, before taking a deep breath, attempting to calm himself down, which was working, to a certain degree. "Okay, James, okay.. Panicking isn't going to help anything, it's only going to make things worse...." He clapped, and began to look around. "Okay, time to put that information from that Youtube I watched two years ago to good use! Now, to see if I can get a grasp of where I am..."

His thought process was interrupted by a low growling behind him, coming from the forest behind him, prompting him to turn to the source. He Immediately notice bright, yellow eyes staring at him from the underbrush.

"Yeah, no, fuck that." James swore in Spinel's voice, which sounded really odd, before spinning around, and began to sprint off down the dirt road. He noticed how weird his limbs now felt. They didn't seem to have joints, moving around freely without any restrictions, which all probably culminated into a very odd looking run. Or maybe it didn't, James wasn't entirely focused on how he looked right at the moment.

After what seemed like a full ten minutes of running, only then did he begin to feel tired. This amazed him, because normally, he couldn't go a full five seconds without getting somewhat winded. He stopped, panting slightly, and looked behind him to see if that thing was chasing him. He saw nothing, then sighed, then looked at his feet. Pink boots with their pointed toe upturned that went up to his thighs. He also wore some puffy shorts. He reached to the back of his head, and felt two large, messy tufts of hair. He let arms go limp at his sides, before sighing again.

"What the hell is going on...?"

"Hey!" A voice said, sounding a few feet away. "You okay?"

"Uh..." James thought of what he was going to say, still looking at the ground. How was he going to explain everything that happened? He didn't even know what happened! He looked up, coming face to face with-

"Whoa! You don't look like a pony.." Said a weird anthropomorphic horse-thing, pink in color with a long, puffy mane. It was looking at him with large, deep blue eyes, appearing confused.

Not as confused at James, though, who began to wobble on the spot. "What... what the fu...." He collapsed to the ground, having fainted out of pure exasperation.

"Oh, sprinkles!" The Anthro Horse exclaimed worriedly. "I should get you to the hospital..." It grab James' arms, and threw him over its shoulder effortlessly, then began to jog back the way it came from.

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Solid Punch

Solid Punch #1 · Feb 23rd, 2022 · 2 · ·

Oh, it's Spinel. I hoped it would be Crystal Heart (artifact, not organic pony) isekai'd to Steven Universe' universe. With powers like Rose's, healing and repelling evil by positive emotions (like she repelled and shattered King Sombra).

Spazz Kid

Spazz Kid #2 · Feb 23rd, 2022 · 2 · ·

11162482
That would be very cool, but i'm not exactly creative enough to make that a really interesting story.
But, since you just came up with that, I'm sure you could whip up something based on that idea.

Mystic Sunrise

Mystic Sunrise #3 · Feb 24th, 2022 · 3 · 3 ·

11162580
So you chose Displaced, where being creative is a curse word (not literally of course. But very little of the genre is actually new between authors it seems, and people just copy-paste a lot of it.)

Obsidian blade