A Stranger to the World

by Perceptive Key

In Technicolor (Mostly Revised)

Chapter Two
In Technicolor

"Hello...?"

Alex moaned and slowly opened his eyes, only to be blinded by the sudden influx of light. He responded by shutting them quickly. 'Damn. What happened to me?' he thought. He slowly replayed his day, from getting up, to walking to the bus stop, from entering and exiting Devilin's office and getting into the elevator, and finally to the elevator falling.

Alex's thoughts came to a dead stop. "The elevator," he groaned. The elevator fell and he must have fallen with it. He remembered how it happened, now. "Am I dead?" he thought aloud.

"You nearly were."

Alex froze again. 'What?' he thought, 'Who's there?'

"Are you awake, uh, sir? If you are a sir."

The voice was female, as far as Alex could tell. 'May as well answer,' he thought. "Um... yes.... I think so."

"That's good," she said. At least Alex hoped it was a she. Getting someone's gender wrong after hearing their voice is a bit embarrassing in most cases.

Alex tried opening his eyes again, blinking away the painful spots of light. When his vision cleared, he found himself staring at a wooden ceiling. He looked to his right, and a window was looking out over a small town with little houses and cottages lining a small dirt road. Alex turned away from the view and looked down at the rest of his body, finding his left arm was bandaged and in a sling, his left leg was in a splint, and other parts of his body were bandaged and bruised throughly. 'I still have my pants. Good.' Alex's shirt, though, had been removed and was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a large, bandaged patch in the right side of his stomach area, a large red stain residing in the center.

"You suffered quite a few injuries," the female sounding voice said suddenly, "we weren't sure if you were going to survive, at all."

Alex turned his head to the left in order to face the source of the voice. "It could've been worse," Alex replied, "Falling forty-plus floors would do that to-" Alex stopped mid-sentence.

Instead of facing a woman (or a man with a very feminine voice), Alex was face to face with a lavender coated unicorn with a black mane, with a hot-pink streak that nearly matched its coat color.

"That's not possible," Alex gaped.

"Oh, no. Like I said, your injuries were quite seri-"

"That's not possible," Alex repeated when the unicorn spoke, this time with a little more volume. "I must be hallucinating. I'm probably lying in a hospital bed in a deep coma! Yeah, that's it, a coma!"

"No, um... you're not," the unicorn said, "you're in Equestria. Ponyville, to be more specific."

Alex's mouth moved, but no words came out. "Oh, God," he mumbled before he passed out.
- - - -
Twilight watched as Alex's eyes rolled up into his head and he stopped moving, aside from the occasional rise and fall of his chest. "Hmm," she thought aloud, "he must have been a bit light headed from the fall."

---

Six Hours Later

Alex groaned loudly and opened his eyes. The room he was in was now dark, as night had come around while he had been asleep. 'That was weird.' He started to get up, but winced when he put his left arm down to prop himself up. He quickly switched to his right arm and swung his legs over the edge of the small bed. He placed a hand on his head and felt another cloth bandage wrapped around his cranium. Alex looked back at the window that he saw earlier but the curtains were shut, adding an extra layer of darkness to the room.

All of a sudden, Alex heard a fit of giggling coming from outside the door to his small room. 'What?'

"Even you aren't sure what it is?! I can't believe that!" said a newer voice. This one was slightly raspier in tone, but it still sounded female none the less.

"Give her a chance Rainbow Dash," another voice joined in, this one sounded more proper, "Twilight can't know everything! Can you?"

Alex stopped listening as more voices joined in to the conversation. He pushed himself up off the bed and shifted his weight to his, less broken, right leg. He cringed and winced as he limped over to the door, pushing it open with his good hand.

"Son of a bitch."

Alex stared at six ponies, while six ponies equally stared back at him. There were two pegasi, one of them yellow with a pink mane and tail and the other was cyan coated with a mane colored like a rainbow. Two unicorns stared back at him as well, the one from before and another that was white, with a curled, purple mane and tail combination. The final two were devoid of wings or horns and included a pink coated, pink maned and tailed pony, while the second was orange, with a blonde mane and tail, a stetson also sitting atop her head.

Alex fell backwards into the room and decided to lie down for a while, ignoring the intense pain racing through his system from the fall. "I'm definitely dreaming."

"No you're not, silly!" The pink mare jumped on Alex's chest, receiving a loud groan in response. "Get... off... me," he said through pained breaths.

"Okay!" The pink pony suddenly floated into the air about an inch above his chest. "Is this better?"

"Loads."

"Pinkie, get back! Don't you see you're hurting him?" The pony from earlier walked, or should I say trotted, into the room and used magic to pull the still hovering mare into the other room. When she was finished, she came back over to Alex, "Sorry about her, she was just being... Pinkie."

"Where the hell am I?" Alex asked.

"You're in-"

"Where the HELL am I?!" He repeated, his voice rising.

"Where do you want to be?"

"In a hospital somewhere. In a coma. Hallucinating this!" Alex shouted.

Instead of a verbal response from the mare, he felt his body rise up off the floor and was moved into the larger room. Alex was gently set down in a cushioned chair that was barely large enough for him to sit in. The lavender unicorn trotted back and stood in front of Alex. "You are in a hospital," she said calmly.

"What?!" the cyan pegasus cried, she had been the slightly raspier voice. "No he's n-" the orange pony pulled the pegasus back by her tail, cutting her off. Alex eyed her uneasily, making a mental note to be cautious around her.

"You are hallucinating this."

"Well," Alex interrupted, "you're lying."

"No, I'm not."

"You're just saying what I want to hear," Alex said frankly, "and thusly, you are lying. I am in this place you call 'Equestria', I am in 'Ponyville', and that most certainly means -hooray hooray-" he added sarcastically, "that I am in your library!"

The six ponies in the room exchanged confused glances with one another at the creature's change in attitude. Twilight suspected that he was still experiencing shock trauma or brain damage from his fall.

"So..." Alex started, "... who are you?"

The lavender unicorn spoke up, "I'm Twilight Sparkle."

The orange pony with the stetson chimed in, "Ah'm Applejack." Her voice had a southern accent, unsurprising to Alex.

"I'm Rainbow Dash," the cyan pegasus added boastfully, "the coolest and fastest flyer in all of Equestria." She did a few flips in the air to prove her point.

'Note to self,' Alex thought, watching the pegasus cautiously, 'be wary of her ego at all times.'

"I'm Pinkie Pie!" the pink pony jumped up to Alex and hopped on his lap, staring into his eyes.

'Note to self number two: establish personal space with hyper-active, pink one.'

The white unicorn with the purple, curled mane spoke up, "I'm Rarity." Alex nodded. He then looked over to the yellow coated pegasus, who was busy hiding behind her bright pink mane.

"And you are?" Alex asked her.

"I-I'm F-Fluttershy," she whispered.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"Fl-Fluttershy."

Alex looked to the others, "Anyone?"

"She's Fluttershy," Twilight answered.

He nodded again, "Of course she is." Alex surveyed the group of technicolor ponies before him. They each seemed nice enough, but he didn't get why they hadn't dissected him yet. 'Unless... there may be some normal people here!' he thought hopefully. Normal people meant that he wasn't crazy

"So..." the pony called Twilight started, "... what should we call you?

"I'm Alex. Alex Harper."

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" the one named Pinkie jumped up and down with a hoof raised, "Do you play the harp?! Do you play anything with strings?! Do you play-" Applejack put her stetson in front of Pinkie and cut off her rambling.

Alex mouthed a 'Thank you' to Applejack. "Um, I don't play the harp, but I can play a little bit of the piano." He watched as the others nodded and whispered about his ability.

"What else can you do?" asked Twilight, pulling out a piece of paper and quill from literally nowhere.

"I can pick a lock in less than thirty seconds, I can make a mean batch of instant cinnamon buns, and I can reprogram a computer hard-drive fairly quickly," Alex added.

"Mm, hmm," Twilight hummed thoughtfully. "What is a computer?"

"Well..." Alex tried to think of how to explain, "... it's like a machine that can hold massive amounts of information and applications that can help with everyday life... or sometimes not. It depends."

"Interesting..."

Alex looked around the room, eyes darting around searching desperately for something even he wasn't sure about. A brief flash of green brought him out of his trance. He watched Twilight and her friends come back into the room. He didn't even notice that they had been gone! "What just happened?" Alex asked, "How long was I zoned out?"

"Only about ten minutes," Pinkie replied happily.

'Ten minutes?!' Alex's mind shouted. "What?"

"Well, you started to look around the room for a few minutes before staring into space," Twilight explained, "so that gave me enough time to send the letter I wrote to the Princess. I was going to send before you woke up, but... you got up."

"Wait. Who?" Alex asked.

"Princess Celestia," Twilight continued, "is the pony in charge of ruling Equestria. She's been the princess for over one thousand years! It's quite amazing."

"But she's an alicorn!" Pinkie interjected, "And alicorns can live for years and years and years and years and years and..."

Alex stopped listening and turned his attention back to the other five equines in front of him. "So... is your quote, unquote princess going to execute me or something for invading your land without permission, or whatever?"

The ponies just stared at him before bursting out in fits of laughter.

Alex watch them and their hysterics with a serious expression. "What's so funny?" he asked them, "I'm serious, here."

Twilight was the first to catch her breath. She coughed out a few more laughs before regaining her composure. "She's not going to," she giggled, "execute you! She's probably going to welcome you. Anypony is welcome in Equestria, no matter what!"

Alex sat back in the chair and sighed, "Remind me to throw myself off a ledge if all this happiness becomes a regular thing."

"Hey, Twilight!" A newer, slightly male, voice came from the room that the six ponies had returned from. Seconds later, a small dragon with purple and green scales rushed in to the main room, waving a scroll in his claws. "The Princess responded!"

"Excellent!" Alex watched as Twilight's red-purple magical aura engulfed the parchment and unfurled in front of her snout.

Alex turned to the pony next to him, which happened to be the one called Rarity. "So, who's the small lizard, and what now?" he asked her, motioning to the reptile for the first part.

Rarity ran a hoof through her mane, "The dragon is dear Spike, Twilight's little assistant and connection to the Princess. As for now, Princess Celestia has just replied to Twilight's letter detailing your arrival. Including the extra few hours that she was observing you in your slumber."

Alex's eye twitched slightly. "You mean to say that she was watching me? In my sleep?! For a few hours?!" Alex turned to Twilight again, a look of annoyance crossing his face. "That's not... weird at all," he said sarcastically.

Twilight finished the scroll and turned to those gathered in the room. "Alright, everypony. The Princess has announced that she'd like to meet Alex."

"When?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Now."

"Now?" Alex blinked. "If it's now, then where is she?"

Before Twilight could respond, the room was engulfed in a large burst of pure white, magical light. The force of the magical energy was powerful enough to knock Alex out of the chair and onto the floor, landing on his broken arm and the wound in his stomach. The pain he experienced made him cry out and his vision went fuzzy. After a short while, he was able to blink the blurriness out of his eyes and roll onto his uninjured side. He looked over to the chair he was sitting in so that he could pull himself back up into it, but there was one problem:

The chair was gone.

Alex stared at where the chair had been, his mouth wide in confusion. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked for the others. Luckily, they were still there, but they were facing away from him. It took him a second to realize that they had their necks inclined, like they were bowing or something. He slowly followed the direction they were facing. "What are you all do-" he stopped.

Sitting before them, on a solid gold throne, was a full-grown mare. She had a pure white coat, and her long self-flowing mane and tail were filled with the bright colors of blue, green, pink, and purple. Another couple seconds of examination revealed that the mare was not just a unicorn, but a pegasus as well, her wings gently resting at her sides.

"Damn," was all Alex was able to say, awed by the sight in front of him.

The mare laughed gently, a small smile forming on her lips. "I suppose that I should take that as a compliment?"

"Sure... whatever you'd like," Alex said before promptly passing out.

Author's Note:

Major edits complete. Minor, non-plot related edits still in progress.

Comments

[Ivellios]

It probably isn't good for his head every time he hits the floor.

[Perceptive Key]

2519056
I'm planning for him to receive a major concussion by the time the third chapter is over!

[Mr AJ]

i.imgflip.com/1cgzl.jpg
Sorry, I couldn't help it. Other than that, the story looks good.