First Impressions
Ryan felt relieved as he finally exited the forest that had nearly claimed his life and happy when he felt the rays of the sun on his face. The sunlight gave warmth to his body, washing away the dread of death. He didn't know who was watching over him, but they must really like him. It's not every day that a person has two near-death situations in the span of one day. Those wolves had been something else entirely and were like nothing he had ever seen. He knew for a fact that regular wolves weren't made of lumber and didn't have glowing green eyes. Then there was that zebra, Zecora. A talking zebra went against everything that he had learned throughout his life, but one that performed the most advanced martial arts? Insanity.
His walk took him to the top of a small hill with a view, allowing him to see off into the distance. Ryan noted that Zecora had been telling the truth, and that there was a town near the outskirts of the forest. But she had failed to mention what kind of town it was. Was it filled with more of those wolves or just more zebras like her? One way to find out. As he continued towards the small town, he wondered what it would be like, an entire village full of zebras like Zecora? Truth be told, Zecora scared him much more than the Timberwolves, as she called them. The wolves were just acting on instinct, but Zecora was...different. That was the only way he could describe her at the moment. She was different.
Upon reaching the outskirts of the town, Ryan noted two equine creatures talking to each other. After stopping to stare in disbelief, he realized what they were: Ponies. Ponies were the creatures that inhabited the town. And they could talk. Sure, why not? After Zecora, he figured not much else would surprise him. One of the them was small and an odd shade of gray...blue-gray? Ryan couldn't tell. What was much more interesting was that the pony had some odd marking on its flank that was in the shape of...scissors? Odd. Taking a look at the taller, yellowish one, he found that it too had a marking on its flank. This marking looked like a snail. Ryan wasn't sure what to make of them. He flipped up his hood and slowly approached them. Upon getting closer, he picked up on a little of their conversation.
"-and it wasn't even my fault! All I said was..." Ryan watched as the one with the scissors mark stopped dead as he approached. Ryan stood over the two, who were now gazing at him in fear, and tried to ask a question.
"Excuse me, I'm-"
"A MONSTER!" The one with the snail screamed and tore off in the opposite direction. His friend also screamed and bolted, leaving a confused human behind him. Unfortunately, all those who had been within range of the two's voices were now coming to where the screams had come. Ryan watched in growing dread as a few ponies showed up to investigate, only to take off screaming after taking one look at him.
"That's not good," he muttered to himself, taking off back towards the forest. In a few minutes the town was in an uproar, everypony looking around for the monster that was supposed to be around. But none of them ever found him.
/\
\/
Only when night had finally fallen upon the land did Ryan come out from his hiding place in the woods. During the day, he had watched these...ponies run around their town trying to find him. One or two had gone into the forest, but they had entered far away from where he was hiding. Ryan thought back to the earlier encounter with the two little ones and how they had reacted to him. Apparently, he was seen as a monster and if he knew anything about natives and monsters, they would try to bring him down as soon as possible. That would mean he'd have to avoid all contact with them while he snuck into the town. He had chosen to wait until the cover of nightfall before he would try to sneak in. He didn't want to, but he knew he would need those supplies as soon as possible. Whatever medicine Zecora had used to heal him was wearing off and he could feel the pains of his battle coming back to bug him.
'Wonder where Zecora got to?' he muttered to himself, having gone back to her hut for help to find her gone. 'Kinda could use some advice right now.' When he felt that it was time, he quietly slipped into the town.
Upon reaching the first building, he immediately kept to the shadows. His dark clothing would help him blend in with the shadows, reducing the chance of him being seen. So he hoped. As he snuck through the streets, he noted that most of the ponies that had been running around during the day were gone. In fact, the streets were almost empty. That was a small comfort to him, for he had seen a few things that had shocked him while he was hiding. From his protection amongst the trees, he had seen pegasi roam the sky and unicorns searching for him. The fact that this world had not only talking ponies, but also unicorns and pegasi as well, greatly unnerved him.
'Regular ponies I might be able to handle, pitifully, but pegasi and unicorns? I'm out of my league,' he thought to himself. He flattened his body against the side of a building and slowly peeked around the corner. There were no ponies in sight, but plenty of lights were still on in many of the houses, indicating that their residents weren't asleep yet. The only house that he saw with no lights on was an odd tree in the center of the street. He figured that it would be a good place to start. After checking both ways, as well as the sky above him, Ryan quickly raced across the open ground. The moment he reached the tree, he hid himself in its shadows. He had expected to hear the sounds of shouting and his imminent capture to follow, but none of those things happened. He slowly placed his hand on the door, preparing himself for what was to happen next. If there were a pony in the room, he would have to incapacitate it before it saw him...any way he could. He counted to three and pushed on the door. Much to his surprise, he found that the door silently swung open.
'Do these ponies leave their houses unlocked just so someone like me could walk in? Well, I'm not complaining.' Ryan slipped inside and gently closed the door behind him. The moment he was inside, he looked around the room. With the moonlight streaming in through the windows, he could see fairly easily. He was in a library, with mountains of books piled on the floor everywhere. The shelves were the only place that no books seemed to reside. Taking his eyes off the books, he scanned the room, looking for anything that might be of use.
Then he heard voices, voices coming from right outside the door. As adrenaline shot through his body, he desperately searched for somewhere to hide. One mound of books was larger than the rest, so it would have to do. He rushed behind them and had just crouched down when the door opened. He was too afraid of being spotted to poke his head out, so he was forced to just listen.
"Alright Spike, you watch over the library. I'll be back a little later," he heard a female voice instruct.
"Come on Twilight, why do you have to go back out? You looked everywhere for this monster and you didn't find anything. It's late; can we just go to bed?" This voice sounded younger and much more childish than the other, but at the moment Ryan was concerned with what they were discussing. If either of them turned on a light and even glimpsed at where he was, game over.
'Please say no, please say no!' Ryan begged to himself, his heart racing in fear.
"Sorry Spike, but if there is a monster running around Equestria, then I need to find it," the one called Twilight informed Spike.
'Thank you.'
"Alright, I'll be back within the hour. Try not to destroy the place while I'm gone." Ryan heard the sound of the door being closed and the Spike mumbling to himself.
"Yeesh, you set fire to the library one time and they never let you forget it." Ryan's heart leapt in his chest when he heard a flick and the lights to the library came on. He started to plan what he would do if Spike came over to where he was hiding. If Spike walked over here, it would be best to knock him out before being seen. If that didn't work, he may have to resort to...extreme measures. But Spike never even glanced towards the book mound where Ryan hid. Instead, he pulled out a frost gem from the fridge and sat himself down to enjoy his meal. Ryan, who heard the sounds of crunching and guessed that Spike was eating, decided to take a peek at his company.
He saw a small, purple dragon sitting at a table eating what looked like a chunk of ice. A dragon that eats ice. Sure. While the dragon was interesting, he was also preventing Ryan from moving. He might be safe at the moment, but when the other one returned, his chances of being found would skyrocket. He needed to remove the dragon from the equation. Sticking his head out from the side of the book mound, he glanced around the room for anything that might distract or incapacitate Spike. His eyes fell upon an open door that led down a staircase into a basement. A small smile spread across his face as an idea popped into his head. Making sure that the dragon wasn't looking, he hefted one of the larger books onto his shoulder. The next part would require precise aiming. Once he had lined up the book with the staircase, he let the book fly. Just as he had hoped, the book sailed through the open door and straight down the stairs.
KKRRRRAAAASSSSHHHH!
Added bonus, the book seemed to have broken something when it landed. Ryan watched with a smile as Spike shot into the air and quickly hid under the table. He stuck his head out and slowly got out from under the table.
"H-hello, is some pony there?" he stammered, baby-stepping towards the basement. Ryan slowly moved from behind his cover and stealthily walked over to the chair that Spike had been sitting in. He lifted it and waited.
"A-any pony?" Spike sputtered, taking a few tentative steps down the stairs.
WHAM!
Ryan slammed the door behind Spike and quickly wedged the chair under the handle, preventing it from being opened.
"Hey, let me out!" Spike yelled, banging on the door to no avail. Now that the dragon was out of the way, Ryan was free to explore the library at his own leisure...for a while anyway. He naturally went to the ...fridge? These ponies had refrigerators? Odd. He opened the fridge to find a multitude of salads, apples and grass. He looked at the salad to find that there was bits of straw in it. Salad's out. He grabbed two of the apples and placed them in his backpack. He tried his best to ignore the pounding on the door and walked over to a desk. What was on the desk was a bright blue crystal, a blank book and an ink bottle with the words 'inkfinity' on its side. Stooping over to get a better look at the ink, he was intrigued to find that the ink was an odd reddish color.
"Inkfinity ink? Does that mean it never runs out?" he mused to himself. He put a cork on the ink pot and placed it in a side pocket, planning to examine it more later. The crystal was his next priority. He carefully reached down and touched it.
BOOM!
A bolt of lightning surged through Ryan's body and blasted him across the room into a bookshelf, before he slumped to the floor. He groggily pulled himself to his feet, trying to shake the numbness out of him limbs.
"Okay, that hurt," he groaned, shaking his head.
"W-whoever you are, you'll be sorry once Twilight gets back!" Spike shouted out from behind the door. Ryan ignored him and cautiously examined the crystal again. On closer inspection, he saw little bolts of electricity running around inside of it.
'That explains the thunderbolt.' Taking his stun baton out of his pack, he used its insulated handle to push the crystal into his bag. Finally, there was the blank-paged book. There was nothing special about it, but what the heck, it would be good to write some things down. Ryan wanted to continue searching, but another voice outside the library forced him to change his plans. Searching around the room, he spied a window on the far side of the library. He made his way over to it as the voices got closer.
"I can't believe Spikey-wikey would just forget that he was supposed to help me," Rarity said to Applejack as the two entered the library.
"Ah reckon he had a good reason," AJ guessed, when they both heard a loud banging sound.
"RARITY! APPLEJACK! Let me out of here!" The two rushed over to the door and removed the chair, finally allowing Spike to push the door open.
"Spike, what happened?" Rarity asked in shock.
"Some pony broke in here and locked me in the basement!" he exclaimed. Applejack and Rarity looked around the room, but there was no sign of any pony. The only thing that looked different was that the back window was open.
/\
\/
Ryan counted his blessings that none of the ponies had seen him when he had left the small town. He had heard Spike and the other two ponies searching for him, but by then he had already left and was almost back to the forest. He planned to have some words with Zecora, especially for her not telling him how the inhabitants would react to him. He followed the dirt path to her hut and opened the door. The weird lighting was on, but Zecora wasn't home yet. Ryan shrugged and turned around to find the zebra standing right behind him.
"Gah!" Ryan jumped backwards and knocked himself over on Zecora's table. It must have been quite a spectacle, because when he got back to his feet, Zecora was laughing so hard tears rolled down her face.
"Glad to see I could provide some entertainment," he growled at her. Zecora eventually stopped laughing enough to answer him.
"I did not mean to make you move in such haste, but you should have seen the look on your face," Zecora smiled, trying to repress the laughter. Ryan scowled and brought his backpack onto the table. He emptied the items that he had gathered onto the table for Zecora to see.
"I got these from the town that you said would help me," he muttered angrily. "What you failed to mention was that everyone there would call me a monster and try to hunt me down." Zecora looked over each item with interest.
"Endless ink and a crystal of electricity. You have been to Twilight's house, I believe." Ryan cast her a wary look.
"How'd you know that?" Zecora chuckled at his expression.
"Twilight is the only pony who finds interest in these. I also guessed and your reaction told me." Ryan scowled again as he realized that he had been outsmarted by Zecora. She was very clever; another reason not to completely trust her. He looked at the items and remembered what he wanted to ask her.
"So is this really infinite ink? Or just a shrewd business con?" Much to his surprise, Zecora picked up the ink bottle and after removing the cork, turned it upside down. Ink began to pour out of the bottle and it showed no signs of stopping. After a few seconds, she up righted it and placed the cork back in.
"It seems legit. What I want to know is how you got it," she said sternly, giving him a questioning glance. He shrugged.
"Since I was met with less than a warm reception, I was forced to...steal to survive," Ryan explained. Zecora narrowed her eyes at him, but eventually just sighed.
"Stealing is wrong, no matter why. But I can forgive you for doing it to survive."
"Well if you hadn't vanished when I came back for help, I wouldn't have had to. Where were you?"
"Neither here nor there." she responded with a sly smile. "But without me it seems you have no prayer. I can go to Ponyville for you and set the record straight. Or would you rather prefer that I wait?" Ryan thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.
"I'd rather they'd just forget about me for the time being. I need time to...get things straight."
"Very well. About you, I will not tell."
"You called this a crystal of electricity. Does that mean it literally stores lightning in it?" Zecora nodded, careful not to get too close to the crystal. Ryan looked at the crystal, then back to his baton, an idea forming in his head. He opened the stun baton's flap where the batteries were supposed to go and used Zecora's wooden spoon to carefully push the crystal into the slot. He closed the flap and then with a bit of hesitation, turned on the power. Both he and Zecora jumped as electricity crackled through the baton, giving it a blue glow. Ryan smiled at his now operational weapon, whereas Zecora just raised an eyebrow. Ryan turned off the power and started placing items back into his back pack, when a thought occurred to him.
"Do you have a place where I can stay," he reluctantly asked Zecora. Zecora pondered for a minute, before shaking her head.
"I cannot think of a place for you to stay. As to Ponyville, there is no way," Zecora answered him. He frowned, but he had already received a lot of help from Zecora. He couldn't impose himself upon her further. He may not trust her, but she had saved his life. He was indebted to her. So with a sigh, he slipped his bag onto his shoulders and headed for the door. When he grabbed the handle, Zecora made one last suggestion.
"Actually, with so many places to roam, you could try to make Everfree your home." Ryan sighed.
"I was afraid you would suggest that." He stepped out of Zecora's hut and headed back into the darkness with one last. "Thanks."
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
620 users online
692,077 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Interesting so far can't wait for more.
4711546 Nuclear war? Pffft! That's sooooooooooooooo 20th century!
I propose planetary bombardment with dark matter missiles!
4714544 Hey, an apocalypse is an apocalypse.
Paranoid Ponys! Gotta love e'm.
I like situations like this it's more realistic
Well so far human ingenuity has come through, let us see what else he can accomplish.
All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up! See this? This... is my SHOCK STICK!
Sorry, that's the first thing that went through my head when Ryan got his weapon back in working order. I can't wait to see him use it, but the question is what nasty Everfree beastie will get to Taste the Lightning????
4715194 Hmph! Destroying the world in an art! It requires a certain finesse.
4714544
How about hydrogen bomb propelled temporarily magnetized oxygen antimatter
4716982 I have it: I shall unleash Mr. Popo.
28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lic3qaLSLn1qf8kb8o1_500.png
So far this seems like a good work in progress. Keep going with.
'Wonder where Zecora got to?'
Not a question.
'Kinda could use some advice right now.'
"Kinda could" doesn't sound right.
Some of Zecora's dialogue doesn't rhyme.
Ryan scowled again as he realized that he had been outsmarted by Zecora. She was very clever; another reason not to completely trust her.
Knowing who owns a few things isn't exactly smart, nor is it a reason not to trust someone who saved your life.
"You called this a crystal of electricity. Does that mean it literally stores lightning in it?"
Electricity is in lightning, lighting is not in electricity.
"Do you have a place where I can stay,"
Question mark.
Eh... it's okay, I guess. No comedy or alternate universe stuff in sight so far, but I guess that's coming later.
First Chapter...
empireonline.com/images/features/terminator-terminations/2.jpg
2.bp.blogspot.com/-yk-cekLM970/UNKsEa3ijiI/AAAAAAAADY8/px1AdRuceeA/s1600/judgment_day_nukes_from_terminator_3_rise_of_the_machines.jpg
OH, and it would be nice if you put thoughts into italics. I feel it's better that way but it's not important.
Here's for hoping that it does a jump cut a couple years and he becomes a bad ass.
Zebras, after all, are also equines. Incidentally, I'm figuring that whatever transported Ryan also acted as some sort of translation spell, since he and Zecora (and the Ponies) can understand one another's speech.
Ryan's luck has crapped out in whom he has encountered, and how they reacted. Snips and Snails are not epitomes of Pony common sense or calmness.
He doesn't realize that the Earth Ponies are strong.
I can offhand think of two ways for Spike to get through that door. The first, however (breathing fire), would risk burning down the library; the second would shred the door. Spike doesn't have the leverage to just bash it in, so he'd have to use his claws to rip through the wood, which would leave the door useless instead of being in a condition to be re-hinged.
I really think that the reason you had this work was that you're underestimating Spike's capabilities. A lot of writers do. In the Shadow Wars Storyverse, in his earlier career a lot of enemies do too. They find out the truth -- often painfully.
What, ink and a battery? Though the battery might prove useful, given that Ryan also has an electrically-powered stunstick.
On charging the baton: a lot depends on how that weapon's designed in the first place. The wrong design, and the crystal would just burn it out. Though since it's a magical battery, maybe it alters its power flow to accommodate the object it's powering?
This is probably a mistake on Ryan's part, but to be fair, he has no idea of just how much grief he could bring down upon himself.
"Ryan sighed" should be part of the second paragraph here, not the first, otherwise you risk making readers think that Ryan made the rhyming suggestion (when it was obviously Zecora's).
Hmmm... no easter eggs or hints to anything yet