-2- The Arrival

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You groaned as you opened your eyes. Thankfully it was night, so your eyes wouldn't be blasted by the suns annoying radiation. That's assuming that wherever you are had a sun at all. No one really knows what happened to those scientists who were unlucky enough to have to test out what happens inside a rift.

Ok, so your ocular senses are working, lets see...you smell trees. Great your olfactory system is working. But where could you be if you smell trees. So far your eyes had be less than useless at determining your location, as all you could see was a starry sky and some tree branches that looked...off. You attempt to roll onto your stomach...success, at least your nervous system is still functioning somewhat. Wonderful, now all you see is dirt. You attempt to push yourself off the ground but stop when you get a look at your hand. In your dazed state earlier you couldn't think of why the trees seemed off. Well, now you know why they seemed off.

You look at your hand in shock, it looked like someone had removed bits of the light spectrum. Seriously your hand looked like a fucking cartoon drawing. Shaking off your shock you put your mind back to the task at hand, ignoring the obviously off colour palette. Standing up you see more cartoon trees. Great. You have a few theories as to where you are. One, you are in a coma, unable to be awoken as you are floating through deep space. Two, as you hit the Rift Field your ships primitive fusion drive cores over reacted and propelled you beyond the observable universe. Three, you are in some kind of pocket dimension, caused by the Rift Field interacting with your spatial and temporal manipulators. Or you could just be dead and this is some kind of fucked up afterlife. None of those options really appeal to you.

Enough of that, if you were here you might as well take stock of your items. You looked around and saw a crater with your smouldering ship resting within. Your hull is undamaged entirely, the stuff it was made of was damn near indestructible. Your windows are less lucky. Bits of shattered glass laid strewn about the ‘crash’ sight. You sigh and make your way towards the wreck of your once beautiful ship. Upon closer inspection you see that one of your ships windows was level with the ground. Decision made, your going in through what remains of your frontal viewing screen.

Once inside you assess the damage. Overall, it's not that bad. Sure some pieces of your control panel were missing, but other than that your prized possession was in one piece. A smile appears on your face. At least the situation isn't completely bleak.

A hazard symbol appears on a wall to the left. Curious, you head over to investigate the mysterious unknown hazard. Huh, apparently the ships drives did overheat. Your smile disappears. Your ships entire internal structure was vaporised. The only things you could possibly salvage from your ship remains is the miniature fusion cores, small enough to clip onto your belt, and the Titanium-meta carbon hull plating. Oh, you almost forgot about your antique.

Turning around you make your way to a metal case. Opening it up returns your smile with renewed vigour. Inside was an ancient weapon, still very affective though. It had a shiny silver handle and that was it. You picked up the handle and a blue holographic display appeared. On it, it displayed any useful information about the weapon within your hands. Pulling the trigger, once one of the options on the display was selected, caused pieces of metal to appear around the handle. The floating chunks of metal moved through the air, constructing the desired weapon. Eventually the pieces settled into place and solidified.

You were grinning ear-to-ear now. You waved your tool of death around a bit, satisfied that it wasn't going to fall apart. You spoke to soon, however, as the device fell apart, it's parts colliding with the floor, making metallic clanging sounds. At the same time the handle flashed red and a small canister fell out from it.

Picking it up you realised what the problem was. It was out of power. Oh well, all it needs is water. Clipping the hydrogen cell to your belt, you stood up and began to salvage whatever you could from your hollow ship. You managed to reclaim nine fusion cores(too big for your device of destruction) and the device of destruction itself, which you collected and put away in its case. Further investigating revealed nothing else worth taking, so you returned to the outside of your craft.

Once outside you set about figuring a way of collecting your hull plating, it being much too valuable to leave behind. Each time you came up blank, the alloy was too strong to cut and too dense to be able to move it without heavy machinery.

Suddenly it came to you. You groaned at how stupid you had been to forget about them. To be fair though you haven't used them in nearly a millennia. Trying to connect to the implanted computers in your body, the ones that you hadn't even thought about in years.

Success, you were able to rejoin with your nano-hives. You had several of them placed throughout your body. In your chest, in your hands, in your feet and in your brain. A quick scan revealed that you did indeed have a few thousand Nanites stored within your central chest hive. You were slightly disappointed at how little you had, but you weren't all that surprised. They were fairly old tech.

Deciding that you didn't have enough at the moment to spare for scanning, you sent all of them throughout your body via your bloodstream. Re-infusing with them hurt. ALOT! It would be well worth the pain though. Once you had fully infused with the Nanites a display appeared within your eyes, displaying all useful and necessary information you may need while operating your Nanites.

Feeling slightly giddy from the infusion process you returned to the task at hand. Removing the hull plating from your ship. Now that you thought about it, why didn't you just take the entire ship? Just break it down to its basic elements and store it in a space-time pocket. Yes that seemed like the best course of action.

Sending a mental command to one of the hives in your hands you began the process of controlling a collection of tiny Quantum machines. It was difficult at first, but you eventually managed to gain basic control of the cloud of light blue particles. You sent them on their way towards your ship. Once they made you had another problem. How were you supposed to get them to disassemble the vessel.

Another quick search provided the information you needed, and you began destroying the vehicle. It became even more difficult to control the Nanites as you had to move them, get them to break down the ship, and get them to transport it back to the hive in your hand.

You soon came across another complication. You had to form a space-time pocket to store all of this mass. With a large amount of exertion you managed to form one. You got your hive to control it, as it would have taken up too much of your mental power to keep it stabilised. You shudder at the thought of you being crushed from the inside because you got sucked into a tiny hole in the space-time field.

You finished off the last of your once mighty ship and stored the last of the materials in your pocket of reality. You then recalled all of your Nanites back into your hands, the machines passing through your skin harmlessly.

You fall onto your knees, controlling the Hives taking more of a mental toll on you than you expected. You will have retrain yourself in the art of Nanites. Regaining your mental fortitude again you rise from your knees and go through the list of materials you just acquired. Hmm, you had approximately 300 tonnes of stainless steel, 250 tonnes of copper, 250 tonnes of carbon fibre and 600 tonnes of Titanium-Meta carbon alloy. That last one can't be right. 600 tonnes there would have to be-

You smack yourself in the face. Of course it would be heavier than the other materials, its nearly four times denser than gold. After you've finished with your brief moment of stupidity, you start thinking of what you could do with all of that metal. You have one idea that would be extremely helpful should anything in this forest be hostile. With that thought in mind you send out a mental command to send some of the Titanium-Meta carbon into your bones. What you weren't expecting was the pain it caused.

It felt like the inside of your bones were on fire, and with what was happening you wouldn't be surprised if that was actually occurring. You rolled around on the cartoonish dirt and gritted your teeth in agony. You didn't want to scream, less you attract some forest dwelling predator. After what felt like hours but was only a few minutes in reality, the pain stopped. You laid there on the forest floor, panting from the pain you had just experienced first hand.

After a couple of minutes of you just lying on the floor whimpering quietly, you finally gather the willpower to stand up once more. Still feeling drained you decide to eat some tree leaves, your Nanites making it so you can eat anything with mass or energy, energy you really needed right now.

Approaching the tree, you decide to test something. Yep, it still feels like wood, even though it looks like it has no texture whatsoever. Strange, you will have to look into that later, for now though you need to determine where you are. The Rift could have sent you anywhere for all you know. Grabbing a bunch of leaves of the tree you begin munching, even though they taste horrible, you still swallow anyway. After a few minutes of feasting on the tree you decide it's best to get going, where to though your not sure of.

You pick a random direction and begin walking, experimenting with your Nanites along the way. You pick up random leaves with the blue glow that is your Nanites, not wanting to over exert yourself you start with something small. As you walk you continue to pick up larger and larger objects, until you start to feel mentally drained at which point you stop. You begin to get bored of walking so you decide to run. You take off at a light jog and slowly build up speed. After awhile you realise it was not that tiring so you go faster. Still not feeling overly exhausted you decide to go faster still. Trees are just blurs of brown and green now, passing by so fast you barely see them. You decide to check your Brain-hive to determine how fast you are traveling. You're amazed, you're traveling at nearly 280 kilometres per hour. Apparently you don't need conscious thought to control all Hive processes.

Caught up in your amazed state you didn't notice the tree you were heading straight for. You collide with the tree, which upon contact explodes from the sheer force of the impact. You, on the other hand, fortunately don't explode upon contact so you are left to slide across the animated dirt going at close to 280 kilometres per hour. You skid across the, thankfully, soft dirt before coming to a stop some 600 metres away from your starting point.

Groaning you stand up and survey the damage done to you. To your complete surprise you haven't got a scratch on you. It must be the Nanites. You are, however, completely covered in mud. Oh well, at least your not injured. You can only imagine what you would look like had you not infused your bones with the hull plating of your no longer existent ship. Hmm, a delicious meat smear on some random tree in a forest. Appetising.

Releasing a sad sigh for the loss of your favourite ship you turn back to the direction you were heading and continued on your way. You begin jogging again, this time not going too fast to make sure you avoid any more exploding trees. Your journey is largely uneventful, the only exception to the monotonous jog was when you stopped to eat some more of the surrounding flora.

Eventually you come across a river, so you stop and take a drink. You would have filled up your hydrogen cell except you don't know how clean this water is. Sure your body could drink it just fine, but you don't like the idea of your hydrogen cell suddenly going nuclear because some grime interrupted the fusion process.

While your drinking you decide to check on your Nanites. It appears that you only have one Nanites for every 6000 cells in your body. Does that mean you were only running at a fraction of your full potential speed? Probably not, but definitely not at full speed. You could probably go a little faster than what you can go now. Oh well, back to the present I guess.

Leaving the river behind you continue on your journey. More monotony follows, leaving you bored out of your mind. In your bored state you decide to see if you can make more Nanites and increase your currently pathetically small amount. You open your internal computers and scan for any programming capable of replication. You find it and you stumble slightly, causing you to trip over. Inside there is a list of MILLIONS of different types of Nanites. You select the first one that appears and it gives you the information on that specific Nanite. Hmm, Constructive Nanite, capable of flying, hovering, destroying and building. Can also transport matter. Interesting. You file that piece of knowledge away for later. You decide to look into the Hives at a later date.

You never knew your Hive implants had so much to offer you. You're slightly annoyed at yourself now for forgetting about them completely.

Shaking your head you realise your still on the floor. Huh, I guess you zone out when entering the Hives. Standing up for what feels like the millionth time that day you decide to walk the rest of the way to your destination, wherever it may be. Hopefully you'll find something other than forest on this planet. You don't even know what you expect to find.

As you're walking, you notice that the forest is beginning to thin out a bit. Becoming slightly excited at the thought of being out of the boring continuous forest, you increase your pace slightly. As you near-sprint up the hill leading out of the forest, you notice that the trees stop entirely. As you reach the top of the small hill you see a dirt road, suggesting that there was some form of basic civilisation.

Filing that thought away you follow the primitive dirt path. Seriously, it's not even stone, its just slightly compacted dirt. Oh well, at least it's some form of intelligence. Still though, not much headway had been made in the finding out where you are department. So far any of your guesses could be right. You certainly hope this isn't some kind of afterlife. To you that would be the worst of all your theories. The simple colour palette would drive you insane.

More monotony followed. You kept following the seemingly endless dirt road, despite how boring you found it. You briefly considered full-on sprinting again but crushed that thought as you didn't want to end up skidding across the hardened dirt, taking away your skin as you went.

Just as you are about to give up and return to the forest to the right of the...you hesitate to call it a road, you see a sign in the distance. Rushing towards it, you start to make some more details. It was obviously written in a language you knew, as you could just start to see legible writing on it.

Once you were closer you could see that it was in fact written in...in morse code? Ok, you stumbled upon a civilisation that uses dots and dashes to communicate. Wonderful. It took you a while but eventually you were able to decipher the code into legible English. The sign said-

"Manehatten, 6 kilometres...Seriously who the fuck calls a city Manehatten?"

Good news at least. You now know there is a city approximately 6 kilometres away. Won't take too long to get there.

With an actual destination in mind you take of at a half-sprint, still weary of the hard ground beneath your feet. Along the way you decide to experiment with your Nanites. A little investigating informs you that the Nanites you used to destroy your craft were Constructive Nanites. You also found out you had a secondary passive Nanite in your bloodstream, which was the Healing Nanite. Does just what it says and repairs damaged cells. Well, now you know why you didn't get converted from human to stain on that tree back there.

Tearing yourself away from your internal computers, you notice that a city has appeared before you. Huh, how did you miss that? Seriously how did you miss that, the buildings are tall.

The city itself reminded you of ancient human architecture, something similar to the skyscrapers of old. Whoever built this city clearly needs better designs. The buildings looked like they wouldn't just fall over, but they didn't exactly look like the sturdiest of designs. Or, it could just be the fucking dodgy colours screwing with your perception.

Deciding to play stealthy, as this is looking increasingly alien to you, you decide to stay out of sight. Not that you had seen anyone who inhabited the city yet. Not surprising really, it was nighttime after all. Deciding the best coarse of action would be to get a good vantage point you begin looking for a tall building that didn't look like it was going to fall over at any second. Finding one straight ahead you move through the shadows.

You were beginning to get unnerved, it was nighttime but there should be at least some form of nightlife, especially in a city this big. Where is everyone?

Pushing your thoughts to the side as you stop beside the building, you begin thinking of ways to scale it. Hmm, if your speed was increased, does that mean your jump height has increased also. Choosing to test this theory now you crouch down and prepare to jump as high as you can. Springing up you go higher than you expected, about nine metres. Still, now you have the problem of being nine metres off the ground and only a fourth the way up the building.

As gravity takes a hold of your extremely dense body, you begin plummeting to the ground. Scrambling about in mid-air you attempt to grab onto something, anything. Just as you think your about to hit the ground you stop suddenly. Looking around you see one of your hands sticking to the wall. Not holding something, just sticking to the wall.

Slightly shocked you lift up your other hand and inspect it. To your surprise, your hand has got lines of glowing blue Nanites. You are loving these passive Nanite abilities, they are going to be so useful in the future. Turning back to the wall in front of you, you experimentally place your other hand onto the wall. It sticks. You try removing it and it complies. Awesome. Using your newfound climbing ability you quickly climb the rest of the way up the building, your fusion cores jingling slightly with each step.

Soon you pull yourself up over the rooftop and collapse onto your back. While in this position you decide to find out what that type of Nanite was, it would be valuable for future use. Sifting through all of the Nanite classes you find the one you just used. Adhesive Nanite. Has the ability to adhere to any surface once activated. Hmm, you should see if you can start manufacturing them, the ones you just used have nearly been destroyed. Damn, you don't have the required elements and you don't feel like sifting through raw data at the moment to find what it needs.

Rolling over onto your stomach and simultaneously disconnecting from your Hives you go back to your original task. Finding the inhabitants of this city. Standing up you make your way to the edge of the building. Now that you were no longer in the alley ways between the building you could see nearly the whole city. You scanned the streets for any life. What you found left you breathless. Walking around the near desolate city street were miniaturised pastel horses. Well that's new. Further investigation showed you that these horse-like creatures were intelligent and not just some pets strolling about the city.

You would have gazed upon the pastel horses for longer were it not for a strange noise that caught your attention. It sounded like it was coming from the room just beneath you, so you decided to investigate. Leaning over the edge of the building you looked into the window to see what was making the strange noise.

"You've been a naughty mare, you need to be punished."

"Oh yes, use the whip!"

"Hurrrrgh"

You looked up just in time to see some unfortunate pastel freak get splattered by bits of semi-digested tree leaves. It hit him with such a force that it sprayed out off of his head and into the surrounding area, making a horrible, slimy mess. He didn't look happy.

Of coarse you weren't paying attention to that. You were too busy trying to rid your mind of the filthy images that would most likely plague your sleeping hours for the rest of your life.

You didn't care about stealth anymore. You just needed to get away from the defiled city you stood upon. Still scrambling about with your hand on your burnt, scarred eyes, you failed to notice how close you were getting to the edge of the building.

You slipped and fell. You landed right next to the unfortunate pastel abomination who you just now noticed was male. Upon impact, both the wind and what remained of your lunch exited your body and sprayed across the poor things face. Rolling around in your own bile you managed to stand up and immediately headed the way you came, trying to escape the twisted horse city.

Buildings became a blur as you maxed out your speed. Only one thought was on your mind. What kind of twisted shit hole did this world crawl out of? You didn't get an answer, however, as your face smashed into a tree completely obliterating it. Huh, you made it to the forest, when did that happen? Once again nothing answered as you were left to fly through tree after tree, your momentum slowing down slightly with each impact. After about twelve trees you finally stopped and skidded a bit before collecting yourself and running again.

You wanted as much distance as possible between you and the twisted city. Many a tree fell prey to your face as you continued forwards, not caring about how much damage you did to the forest or your tenderised body.

After 100 or so trees you finally came to a halt, stopping next to a conveniently placed lake. You immediately jumped in, the water cleansed you of your mud stained body but not your mud stained mind. Swimming around for a while and drinking some of the chilled water, you swam towards the edge of the miniature lake. After climbing out of the water you managed to find a small nook within some of the roots of the trees which, you took note of, had changed from forest looking cartoon trees into jungle looking cartoon trees.

After curling into a ball in your traumatised state, combined with the exhaustion of smashing through many trees, your body couldn't handle it so you blacked out. Again.

-3- The Cottage

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"Oh yes, give it to me!"

The mare screamed happily as the shadowy stallion approached her chained body. He approached slowly...teasingly. The mare was dripping juices all over the already drenched mattress.

The stallion enjoyed watching it drip from her mare hood. He stood at the end of the mares body...slowly he bent his neck so he could get a good lick at her exposed-

You awake violently, in a screaming fit. You use your fingers to try and cover your defiled eyes but it does nothing to stop the images of pure hell. After spending a few minutes just rolling around whimpering and then a few more minutes just gathering yourself from the nightmare which you could tell was going to plague you for many nights to come, you calm down.

You spend the next ten or so minutes lying on your stomach, breathing heavily. Finally, you manage to gather the mental strength to pick yourself up and dust of the dirt that had gathered on your clothes. Looking around the lake area you see nothing of interest until you freeze. Standing about twelve metres away from you is a...thing. It looked like a lion had angry sex with a scorpion and a bat, and this was the abomination that was spawned.

You didn't move a muscle, hoping that it wouldn't notice you. It was useless however as it had been attracted to your screaming.

It took a few steps forward, seeming more curious than hungry. You didn't mind, you would rather be examined than eaten alive. The creature suddenly stopped walking forward, deciding it was close enough. It then sniffed the air in front of you.

The thing shat itself and then ran away into the forest.

You were startled by its reaction, and more than a little curious as to why it was so terrified. Lifting up one of your arms you took a whiff. Your stomach attempted to empty it's contents but failed because it had already done so. No wonder the poor creature emptied its bowels and turned tail. You STANK. That quick swim earlier had done nothing to make you smell nice. Deciding you needed to clean yourself before you kill off the population of the forest, you jumped back into the small lake and cleaned yourself off.

Jumping back out of the lake you ponder what you should do. You only just take note of the fact that the sun is high in the sky. Looking back the way you came, it was easy to tell which direction you had come from as there was destroyed trees everywhere, you shudder. Nope, definitely not going back to nightmare city. With that in mind you decide the best direction to go in is the opposite to the way you came.

You begin your trek, not bothering to play around with your Nanites. Instead you opted to just walk in silence. You continue through the forest, which you notice is starting to look more jungle-like, still cartoon-like though.

Speaking of cartoons, you decide to figure out what was up with the weird colours. First you needed to find some Nanites capable of intensive scanning. It took a while but eventually you found one that you could use, now you just had to wait for them to be manufactured. While you were waiting you decided to check your other Nanite statistics. Well, it would seem that you have 14000 Healing Nanites, 3000 Adhesive Nanites and 130000 Constructive Nanites. You just now realised you don't know what type of Nanite is accelerating your speed and jump height. You need to remedy that.

A little research tells you that the Nanites empowering you are Accelerator Nanites. Hmm, can connect to other Accelerator Nanites to form fibres that enhance muscle. Interesting. It would appear that you have 100000 of these Nanites. You immediately start producing more. They are definitely the most useful, not to mention the most fun.

You are alerted when your Specialised scanning Nanites are done. Returning your mentality to the real world you set about the task of scanning the surrounding environment.

You start with basic stuff, gravitational pull, magnetic fields, and air composition to start off with. The scans came back, leaving you slightly confused. The mass of the surrounding area should be creating much more gravitational pull than it was at the moment. Everything here seemed to have a fraction of the density it should. Even more befuddling was the readings from the magnetic scans. According to your readings there was virtually no magnetic field, with how weak the magnetic interaction was.

That can't be right. If the magnetic interaction of this planet is this weak then what is stopping the suns rays from incinerating the planet? Unless the sun has a lesser output of radiation. Unlikely, but not completely unbelievable considering everything else that has happened.

Whatever it may be you decide to look deeper, scanning the radiation outputs of the trillions of singular atoms around you. Now you are completely confused. The amount of radiation being emitted from the matter around is low, very low. So low in fact that you shouldn't even be able to see it with your naked eyes. Something was actually altering the photonic wavelengths in between the molecules and your eyes. Looking for answers just gives you more questions.

Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery you dig even deeper, scanning on the sub-atomic levels. What you found only added to the continuing mass of mind fuck you were receiving. The thing altering the radiation emittance of these strange mystery particles that caledl this world home, were the radiation levels. The energy binding the quarks, found within the atoms, was much less than the energy being released by the atom from as ambient radiation. The sub-atomic binding energy that usually was used for just that, binding, was being used to alter photons as they passed through the atom. It only gets more confusing for you, as only a quarter of the energy is being used to manipulate light, and a quarter actually holding the quarks together.

The rest of the energy...you had no idea where it was going. And that worried you.

So, these particles are self-manipulating and are also feeding their energy elsewhere. Brilliant. You have a theory as to where some of the 'missing' energy was going, and you could put it to test relatively easy.

Deciding to test your theory of the mysterious vanishing energy, you stop opt to stop next to a water source the next chance you get. Fortunately for your curiosity, that isn't that much longer of a walk, as you come across a small river cutting through the increasingly dense forest-jungle.

Using your Nanites, you pick up some water and spread it out over an area open air. Something happens immediately, completely to your surprise.

The water had formed a cloud. Scanning the anomaly that you had to add to your ever growing list of anomalies, you discover something intriguing. The water molecules had become sub-atomically entangled. The quarks within these water molecules had literally left the atom shell and had just started binding with other quarks randomly, while still maintaining the same properties of normal water particles.

This was deeply fascinating. The amount of potential this could have-wait. Receiving new data from the Nanites currently buzzing around inside the water molecules, you discover that this cloud has extra properties. One such property was that the cloud became semi-solid if hit with close-proximity specific radiation.

Intrigued, you stick your hand out and touch the cloud. Two things happen at once. Your hand doesn't pass through it as you would have expected, instead it bounces off, as if the cloud was made of a springy sponge. Second, your mind gets blasted with data. LOTS of it. You collapse onto your knees and clutch your head in agony as your mind is assaulted by torrents of data. You squeeze your eyes shut while trying to make sense of the continuous stream of knowledge.

Eventually it stops, and you attempt to decipher exactly what it was your Nanites were trying to tell you. Ok, so you managed to piece it all together. When your hand came in contact with the cloud of molecules it reacted as expected, it took on a semi-solid property. What wasn't expected was the rejection you received. The cloud of spazzy particles had literally rejected contact with your hand.

Maybe it was the frequency you were emitting with your Nanites? Perhaps the specific wavelength you used stimulated the particles in such a way as to create a reaction in the cloud that prevented you from interacting with it on a sub-atomic level. Thus causing your hand to bounce off of it relatively unharmed. So different frequencies cause different effects. Interesting.

Before you could ponder on the subject any further something bizarre happened, and considering everything else that had happened to you that was saying something. The cloud suddenly had direct sunlight shine on it, creating an interesting bi-product.

You stared down at the small puddle of liquid rainbow at your feet for a few minutes, completely shocked. You absent-mindedly realised that was happening a lot recently. Snapping out of your stupor you decide to analyse the physical rainbow dripping from the cloud.

Bracing yourself in case of another flood of information, you sent your Nanites in. There was another stream of data directed at your over-worked brain, however this time it was no where near as bad. Slowly piecing the massive amounts of data into manageable bits of info, you found out what the rainbow was.

The rainbow itself was actually photons acting like electrons...only a lot weirder. Instead of seeking out a positive charge like normal fields of interaction should, these electro-photons were behaving wildly, clinging onto any molecules it could and then...

...

What?... The electro-photons were binding with the quarks of the air molecules they had bound with... And then they... Were changing the composition of the quarks. Converting the quarks in a way that made them behave more like a wavelength than an actual particle.

Wow, these rainbow electro-photons were acting remarkably similar to a retro virus. You decided to list the events in order to help soothe your aching brain. First, light energy passes through the ectoplasmic cloud. On its way through it is somehow altered by the atoms ‘manipulation field’. This altered energy would then cling to the nearest gaseous molecules and latch on, converting it into a semi-energy form in the process.

Rubbing your temples, you attempt to re-organise your muddled thoughts. So basically the rainbow is just liquefied low end energy. Pure, low concentration energy. You didn't want to imagine how radioactive this stuff must be. Seriously, the amount of energy this would release when in contact with water would be painful. Drinking it would be like drinking pure fire. It doesn't seem to be reacting with the solids around it though, you idly muse. It must be to low energy to cause a chemical reaction. So it has enough energy to create itself, in doing so it loses energy, and then just barely enough to react with certain liquids or chemicals.

One of your Nanites sends a brief burst of data. Huh, apparently one of the chemicals it enjoys reacting with is the same chemical found in receptors in tongue cells. You withdraw your previous thought, drinking it would be worse than drinking fire. You make a mental note to never eat the stuff so long as you live.

Deciding the river is becoming boring, despite all the brand new discoveries taking place, you decide to continue on your way. You think the previous events on this world had desensitised you to bizarre going-ons.

Standing back up from your crouched position over the rainbow, you begin on your original direction, the one you had chosen this morning. Walking along you notice dark it's getting, and not because the sun was setting. No, this forest was starting to look more like a jungle, while still somehow consisting of forest trees. You had taken note of this previously, but now it was hard not to miss.

It was really dark now, you could only just see. This didn't stop you though, you didn't care what lied in the dark as you had never had a fear of the dark nor the things that dwell within it.

Being bored in a darkened forest with nothing to do you thought about...things. You thought about what Droigan had said to you before you got sucked into the rift. Old fashioned. Thinking about it you were REALLY old fashioned. The newest bit of tech you had was the Nanite hives and they were outdated by hundreds of millennia, maybe even millions of millennia.

You should have gone drinking with him though, you were extremely anti-social. It's not that your shy, it's just that you enjoy your time floating through space on your own. Thinking back to it now you can't even remember the last time you visited anyone, besides Droigan on occasion. You hadn't even spoken with another human being face-to-face in over a century.

Something drew you out of your memories. It took you a while figure out what it was but once you did you felt like punching yourself. There was light up ahead. You had reached the edge of the forest. Rushing out into the daylight to soak up its warmth, you take stock of your surroundings.

You run straight into the forest to hide behind a bush though, as you see a couple of the colourful horses approach your position. You hoped they hadn't seen you. You didn't want them molesting you into submission. Letting out a shudder, you decide to stick to the edge of the forest lest any of the other creatures see you.

The walk was rather boring, with nothing exciting happening, but eventually you came across a small town. Deciding you didn't want a repeat of the last horse-inhabited location you chose to do some recon first. But not here, somewhere on the edge of town and close to the forest.

Walking a bit longer you came across the perfect spot. A small cottage, close to the forest you were in and far away from town. Looking around your area for a vantage point, you eventually see a decent sized tree, about twenty metres tall with lots of large branches attached to it.

Jumping up you land with grace upon the lowest tree branch. Not for long though as it snaps off and you land on your back. Blinking, you realise that you had forgotten that everything here was less dense than it should be. Struggling of your back, you take another look at the tree to chose a branch that most likely wont break if you touch it.

Jumping up a second time and bracing for the tree to topple over, you land upon a significantly bigger branch. After waiting for a while you deem it capable of supporting your wait so you jump again. For a second time you land successfully without the branch collapsing under your dense body. Looking down you see that the floor of the forest is further down than you expected, you were high enough to begin your observations.

At first you saw nothing, the inhabitant of the cottage either out doing something or inside doing something really quietly. After a few minutes one of the horse things came out of the cottage with another creature, you couldn't see what it was from this angle though. Once you saw what it was though you had to rub your eyes to make sure they weren't lying to your brain. Coming out of the cottage was a regular male human. Wearing a fucking LEASH and COLLAR-

“Oh, mister human do it there.”

“Yes mistress.”

You open your mouth to scream but fail to do so because at that time the tree branch decides to snap. On your way towards the ground though, your stomach decides to void itself of its contents once more. Because of your random descent your lunch flies in every direction, spraying trees and painting the floor with what little food you had. You shortly followed, thankfully not landing on your vomit. You were instantly winded upon contact with the floor but that didn't stop from trying to rip out your poisoned eyeballs. You failed to rip them out, the only thing you did was rip of your eyebrows which was pointless since your Nanites just healed them instantly, making your self-abuse meaningless.

After lying on the ground panting and heaving for...you have no idea how long, you hear a growl coming from behind you. Looking towards the source of the sound made you consider getting up. From your position on the floor you see an up-side-down wolf made of wood. In your dazed and shock state the only thing you think of is what would have caused a creature to evolve like that. Another growl later and you find yourself on your feet facing the wolf- wait, wolves. There is more of them. You briefly consider using your Nanites to de-atomise them but realise you wouldn't have the time or the mental capacity to take them all at once.

The answer is simple. You run. You run in the direction of the cottage, hoping the local knows how to deal with the wooden menace trailing behind you. You burst out into the open with speed, going so fast as to completely obliterate a small fence that was unfortunate enough to have been in your path.

You stop once you reach the front door of the cottage, thinking you had left the wolves behind. Nope. A wolf slams into your back while simultaneously taking a bite of your neck. The force of the wolf sends you smashing through the door and into a room filled with little critters. It wasn't filled with critters for very long as the wolf scared them all away. Or it could have been you, you weren't exactly sure.

The sound must have drawn the attention of the owner of the cottage floor you were currently being mauled on, as the same yellow horse from before came in to see you being mauled on her floor. Either she didn't want blood on her precious floor or she wanted to keep you alive because she quickly set about removing the offending piece of wood from your back.

What she was doing you weren't exactly sure, she was literally just staring at the piece timber lying on your back. Whatever she was doing worked though so you weren't complaining. You stood up and turned around to see the pack of firewood standing by the entrance of the forest. You were pretty sure they were trying to glare at you but you weren't to sure, it must be hard to glare when your face is made of wood.

Returning your attention to the small yellow horse that had saved some of your time as the wolf probably wouldn't have been able to kill you. You opened your mouth to thank the small creature but stopped when it flew up to inspect your neck for damage using wings that you only just noticed.

“Oh dear, are you alright, that timberwolf didn't hurt you too bad did it?”

From that statement alone you were able to deduce several things in between the time it took he to say it and the time it took for her to reach your neck. First, the wooden monstrosity that attacked you was a ‘timberwolf’. Second, you realised how shy the creature must be if she was speaking so quietly. And third, she was a female. Or at least you think it was a female, you could never be too sure.

The mare, or what you assumed to be a mare, let out a startled gasp once it got a look at your neck. You put your hand up to your neck to see why she was so startled and realised that there was no damage, the Nanites had finished healing your neck before the wolf even left the cottage.

“How did you not get hurt at all?”

You had to think of something quickly. Thinking back to the man you saw walking out of the cottage you stood upon gave you the answer.

“Uhh, my um...collar saved me...?”

Wow. That was a horrible lie. There was no way she would ever believe tha-

“Oh, ok.”

What, how could she have believed the steaming pile of bullshit that just poured out of your mouth just then? Are these creatures really that incompetent? Or did I just happen to come across an extremely gullible one. Perhaps this one is just extremely stupid. That still doesn't explain why she a human as a pet, unless he was even more stupid than this specimen. Oops, it looks like she was talking to you.

“Excuse me, but I just spaced out for a second there, what were you saying.”

“Oh, um I was just asking you what you name is, if that's alright with you.”

“Its fine, my name is Saphrim and it is a pleasure to meet you miss?...”

“Oh, um... my name is Fluttershy. ”

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

“Um...my name is Fluttershy.”

“A little louder please.”

“Fluttershy.”

You could just barely make out what she said because of how quiet she was, also the fact that she added a little ‘squeak’ sound at the end didn't help. So her name is Fluttershy. You wonder if all of these creatures names’ are as ridiculous us this ones.

“If you don't mind me asking mister Saphrim, um...might I know where your owner is.”

What? So that man you saw earlier was a pet. That annoys you slightly but you make sure that the little equine can't tell that. Deciding to activate bullshit mode once more, you give her your reply.

“Um, he lives in that forest over there-you towards the forest you just emerged from- and ah...we got separated, its ok though because...I...ah know where he lives, yes, that's it I...um know where he lives...yes.”

You seriously need to get better at lying, because there is no way she gonna believ-

“Oh, um...ok I guess?”

She sounded slightly suspicious but let the subject drop anyway. If you had to hazard a guess you would say she doesn't socialise very much. Still probably more than you do though. An awkward silence filled the room, which you noticed had started being repopulated by small animals, well smaller than the intelligent one. She only came up to just above your knee caps.

Fluttershy decided to break the silence and asked if you wanted some tea.

“Tea would be lovely, thank you for offering Fluttershy.”

She left the room and headed towards what you assumed to be the kitchen to prepare your tea. Sitting down on the closest chair you tried to absorb the information you had learnt from your expedition. Your attempts failed, however, as an annoying presence made itself known by tapping your foot repeatedly. Looking down you see a tiny white rabbit wearing a small frown upon its face, looking somewhat more intelligent than the other animals in the room.

“What do you want?”

His only response to jump up and down and wave around madly, which you had no clue as to its meaning. Deciding to ignore the pest and get back to your mental ‘filing’ you start categorising- he's at it again. Looking down once more you see the tiny annoyance glaring at you. You return his glare with as much ferocity as you can, a stare that probably would have killed lesser animals on sight.

The white fluff didn't even budge, instead he bent down and went to take a bite out of your ankle.

“Don't you dare.”

The stupid rabbit didn't listen to your warning and proceeded to bite the mid-section of your shin area, his teeth going straight through your pants.

“Son of a bitch!”

You yell in gritted teeth, making sure not to alert your host. The vermin looked up at you triumphantly. You stood up and kicked the damn thing as hard as you could, then watched as it sailed out a conveniently open window into the distance. Walking over to the window you were a able to see the unfortunate creature skewered on a tree branch on one of the trees in the forest, its innards plopping out onto the floor beneath it. Not for long though as a group of timberwolves walk pass and snap the branch right off, earning a delicious raw rabbit kebab. Aw man, you could have eaten it.

“Your tea is ready mister.”

You turn your attention back to the doorway and see the little creature walk in, balancing a tray of tea expertly on her back. She walked over and placed the tray down with some fancy neck manipulation. She looked around the room briefly before turning her towards you.

“Have you seen my bunny, Angel?”

Angel? Who in their right mind would name that little devil Angel? Still though, you needed an explanation as to the rabbits sudden disappearance, the other animals looking about ready to pee themselves.

“The little rabbit? He left a while ago, chasing some random she-rabbit into the forest, right guys?”

You finish your statement with as big a grin you could handle, exposing your sharp canines for all of the animals. Your pretty sure you saw a rabbit piss itself in the corner.

“Whelp...I gotta go, you know, uh...master looking for me and all and...stuff.”

The poor thing looks extremely befuddled but you don't give it time to reply as you are immediately out the door and speed walking away.

You don't get very far though as you are stopped by a wall of pink. You find yourself on your back without even registering how you got there in the first place. Looking up you see a pink horse-ling smiling down at you.

“Hi, my name Pinkie Pie!”

-4- The Pink...Thing

View Online

The pink being on top of you had you pinned to the ground. You briefly consider feeding it to the wolves you saw earlier and continuing on your way but decide against it. Killing a local wouldn't be very wise given your current situation.

She, you assumed it was a she, was talking at an extremely fast rate, almost too fast for you to comprehend. It didn't matter whether you comprehended its words or not as you stopped paying attention to it after it said ‘Pinkie Pie’. Still, you were able gleam a few bits of knowledge from the fountain of speech on top of you. Things like, ‘I haven't seen you before’ and, ‘must have a party!’.

Deciding to just wait until this thing ran out of breath and paused for air, you lay there on the the ground waiting. And waiting. And waiting. By this point you wonder if this thing realises it even needs oxygen to function properly, at least, you think it needed oxygen to function properly. Maybe it just breaths through its eyes and ears. You consider just knocking the thing out and leaving it- and it's passed out.

You lift the pink fuzzy cartoon creature off of you with very little trouble seeing as the creature weighed very little with their extremely reduced density. Placing the pink creature down besides the path you were walking on before being knocked over as you stand up, you turn and look at the creature sleeping silently on the grass.

You wondered why it didn't stop to breath. You guessed she usually had something or someone else stop her before she hurt herself. Oh well. She'll be fine. You briefly glance up at the forest nearby, seeing some ominous glowing eyes. Yeah, she'll be fine. Maybe.

Turning around and beginning your journey towards the town which you had noticed on your way out the door of the cottage from earlier, hopefully your journey will be uninterrupted this time.

Mulling over the past few hours in your head you start to piece together bits of information that could prove useful for later.

Apparently you landed somewhere where humans are treated as pets, despite being intelligent. That, or humans just liked wearing collars here. After recalling the ‘event’ on the day of your arrival you couldn't exactly rule that option out. If it proved to be the former then that could spell disaster for you in the future.

Wherever you are also had very strange anomalies present, which you promised yourself you would solve before you left this funny little planet. That's another thing you realised, how were you supposed to get back home? Assuming you could get home at all. You still hadn't narrowed down your location very much besides the town name of ‘Ponyville’, which you managed to learn from the pink horse-creature earlier, and the city that you swore you would never set foot in again.

Snapping out of your musings, you realise that you are almost upon the town. You notice several strange oddities about the town before even setting foot in it. The first being that whoever was the architect for these buildings needed to be sacked immediately. The buildings look like they would topple over if you so much as looked at them hard enough.

The next thing of note was the building material. While the last city had a primitive brick and mortar for the buildings, these houses had...less than primitive building materials. The houses were literally made of wood and thatch that just screamed fire hazard at you. The last thing you took note of was all the bloody colours! The colours were so bright you physically had to shield your eyes from them. It also didn't help that the colours were amplified by the cartoonish look of things.

You were getting a headache already and it wasn't even midday yet.

Walking into town you see various horse-creatures going about their daily lives, which mostly consisted of eating flowers and doing various chores around town. You also noticed that none of the humans here were wearing collars. Maybe you were right about the whole kinky sex slave idea, an idea that still sent shivers down your spine. Also as a side note, you noticed how few humans there were compared to the natives, or what you assumed to be the natives.

On your voyage you begin collecting many stares from the miniature equines. Lots and lots of stares. The locals were looking at you as if you were a lost puppy. Or sex minion. You couldn't decide whether or not they were staring at you because you were without your ‘owner’, by both meanings of the word,or because of your size. You hadn't noticed it before but all these humans were ridiculously small, by your standards anyway. The tallest of the humans that were inhabiting the quaint little town with the brightly coloured creatures only came up to just below your shoulder.

You were gathering even more attention now; the homunculi and what you assumed to be their owners actually stopping what they were doing to stare at you. You tried to block out as much of the eyeballs as you could but all the attention was starting to get to you. You increased your pace slightly, hoping to find a sanctuary from all the attention, while also keeping a look out for a source of information.

Looking upon the signs as you power walked around held little results as you would have to pause, translate, and then move on. Eventually though you were able to garner some useful information; a sign directing you towards a public library. Feeling a little bit excited at the prospect of actual some-what reliable data you begin to speed up your power walk, nearly entering a jogging speed.

After a few more minutes of walking you came into sight of the library.

It's a tree, is your first thought. It's a bloody tree. The other buildings in town had fire safety issues, what with their thatched roofs and all, but this building took the cake in that department and swallowed it whole. Not even crumbs were spared.

It's not that the building looked like it was going to burst into flames at any second, no that wasn't what made you hesitant to enter. You could see lanterns hanging in and around it. Lanterns! Besides that obvious flaw in the design of the building the rest looked completely fine. You must admit, it would be pretty cool living in a giant tree, minus the dangerous lanterns of course.

Pressing onwards towards the entrance you knock on the wooden door a few times to, thinking of what your tree-house would look like if you owned one.

After getting no response you knock again. Waiting. And waiting. Getting tired of standing there in front of the library you decide to go in. Giving the doorknob an experimental twist brings a smile to your face as it turns without resistance. Pulling the door open releases a blast of dust that shoots straight into your face. Coughing a bit to clear your lungs of the offending substance, you push through the cloud of dust particles and take a look at the library.

It was a mess. It looked liked no one had even set foot in the building for years as there was dust on everything and cobwebs covering the many books that lined the walls. Sighing silently to yourself you close your eyes and began controlling your Nanites, hoping to cleanse the room. You didn't want to read in this filthy room after all.

You use your Nanites to breakdown the dust into individual atoms and store them in one of your hives that had the space. You're about to breakdown the spiderwebs but decide against it; the fibroin protein found in spider silk could be used to make fibres stronger than steel.

Opening your eyes and taking a look at your work, you nod in satisfaction as the room looked spotless, besides a few scattered books. Walking over towards the nearest book, you pick it up and look at the cover. Frowning in slight irritation as it was written in a different language to the ‘horse code’ from earlier. It was completely illegible to you, and you would have to rectify that.

Looking for a Nanite with translation capabilities in the endless list of Nanites within the hives’ data banks, you eventually find one that would suite your needs perfectly. Translating Nanite. Nanite that embeds itself in the optic nerve between the eye and the brain. This Nanite recognises what the user is seeing and will translate anything that is foreign to the user, before sending the correct signal to the brain.

Looking over it again you realise that you only need a few hundred for each optic nerve, so you begin constructing them. A few seconds later you had them ready, so you begin installing them into your left and right optic nerves. A brief explosion of pure agony erupts from behind your eyes as the Nanites dig into sensory neurons located behind your eyes. Unlike before, this pain doesn't last that long, a short burst of it that feels kind of like having ice picks stabbed into your eyes.

Once you reopen your eyes, having closed them during the infusion process, you realise you are on your back looking at the ceiling of the library, the book you had picked up before having disappeared onto the floor somewhere.

As you begin searching the floor for the book you just had in hands you can't help but notice a blur of pink in the corner of your vision. A very bright blur of pink at that. Shrugging off the anomalous pink blur you continue your search for the lost book, with very little results. Sighing in defeat you turn around to the bookshelf to find a new piece of literature for your eyes to ingest. As you turn, however, you see a bright smiling pink creature with your book in her mouth sitting on the library floor very cheerfully.

You stare at the pink creature, Pinkie Pie if you remember correctly, for a few minutes. She stares back at you with a ridiculously huge smile, so ridiculous in fact it was almost comical. It could have just been the sheer amounts of ridiculous you had been receiving since you first landed, what with the colours and the creatures and the absurdity of it all, but that face you were staring at managed to make you crack a smile on your own face.

This only makes the smile on Pinkie Pie’s face increase in size and ridiculousness, which in turn causes you to let loose a small laugh at the pink creatures antics.

“May I please have that book miss,”

The little equine in front of you drops her head and drops the book on the floor, in front of your feet. You immediately bend over and pick up the capsule of knowledge, sitting down in the process. In this position the little creature just barely came up to your nose, leaving you to stare into her massive smile. You smile at her once more before turning to your book, briefly noting a small frown appearing on Pinkies face for a split second.

“Hey! Aren't you going to tell me your name at least?”

“Saphrim.”

You replied in the most bored tone you could muster as you turned to the book in your hands, flipping it open. She didn't stop though, instead opting to hop around you in circles, firing words from her at an insane rate. How she did not destroy her vocal cords you would probably never know.

Turning to the first page in the book hoping to learn where you are whilst trying to ignore the constant verbal assault from the being beside you. Looking at the first few lines you take note of the weird hieroglyphs on the page before the Nanites take affect. Your vision almost seems to blur before a wave of static like images flash before your eyes, their meaning lost to you as they disappear just as fast as they arrived. Looking back to the book you see English text appear as an almost-hologram, flickering slightly whenever you moved.

You take one look at the newly translated title and nearly all your hope of getting help from the natives plummet through the floor.

“Why are you reading a book about magic? Humans can't use magic silly.”

You look up to see Pinkie Pie looking down at the book in your hands.

“Magic.”

Pinkie nods.

“Magic.”

She nods again.

“...Magic.”

You say once again not really comprehending the stupidity of it at all. Eventually though the concept sinks in and you immediately feel like breaking your skull on something hard. You would have to find something though, everything here would probably break due to your skulls higher density.

“Magic, really?...just...wow.”

“What's so shocking about magic?”

You turn your stare away from blank space and instead direct it towards the source of the most ridiculous sentence you had ever heard in your life. That's quite a feat, you having both lived a very long time and having had plenty of stupid conversations with other people. Usually over wireless communications of course.

You enter a staring contest with Pinkie, you just staring blankly into her confused expression. Well at least she's not talking anymore, you thought, trying to make the most of the bleak situation. You doubt you would get any help getting back home from the locals, especially if they believed in magic. That brought you back to another question. Where exactly were you? You had a very basic, flimsy understanding of the way things worked here, but you had absolutely no idea where you could be.

Perhaps your only hope was the locals, but just the thought was enough to fill you with dread. The thought of being stuck here forever in this candy coloured land was not very pleasant. Turning your attention back towards the cheery pink mass you force yourself to sound normal and think up a few questions. Might as well milk whatever information you could out of her, while you had the opportunity at least.

“Oh? Nothing, nothing at all...just...um...what can you tell me about ‘magic’?”

“Ooh, lots of things, like how only certain species can use it, like unicorns, they can do aaaaall kinds of stuff, like make things levitate, and use it to teleport, which is really, super, awesome. I mean, they just go pop! And then disappear, and pop and reappear, and pop and disappear, and pop and rea-”

“Ok! Ok! I get it, they can teleport. I understood you the first time you said it!”

You brought your hands up to your face and groaned quite audibly. If the creatures here possessed abilities like the one in front of you mentioned, you wouldn't be all that surprised if they called it magic. Them being primitive, by your standards anyway, the rest of humanity probably viewing the technology you used as being primitive and being a different case entirely.

Yes, that was probably why they thought of it as being magic, alongside the fact that having such incredible natural abilities would have rendered actual scientific advancement moot. You were beginning to formulate an idea as to where the rest of that energy was going. You just needed to know how much they knew, or at least how much Pinkie Pie knew.

“I get that part, but can you tell me how they actually do magic?”

She seemed a little confused of your request at first but responded regardless, still in her happy chipper tone.

“Weeell, unicorns use their horns to weave magic into spells that do really, really cool things, like-”

“Hang on, hang on. You are telling me how they use magic, not how they actually do it. Can you please explain how they do it.”

Pinkie Pie appeared to drop her cheeriness suddenly and seemed to lose most emotion from her voice, leaving behind a bit of sadness.

“Um...well...you see...um...the thing is...you see...I don't really know how they do that, I'm just an Earth Pony you see, and am unable to cast magic, but I'm sure if you asked a unic-oh my gosh!”

Her sudden change in emotion startled you, making you jump a little, not going very far from your seated posting though. She went from sad and a little downtrodden to being shocked and surprised, albeit with some of her previous cheeriness back.

“What? What is it?”

You were a little bit worried over what could have her so quickly change the tone of her voice from cheery and annoying, to borderline rambling and still annoying.

“You don't have a cutie-mark! Oh dear this is terrible, I've never seen anypony without a cutie-mark before. OH! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I-”

“Please just calm down and explain what is so important!”

She was really beginning to grate on your nerves, the way she just exploded or went on to a different topic suddenly. It was both really annoying and really distracting, probably not helped by the fact she punctuated every few words with a jump, or more of a hop. You couldn't decide which it was.

“What's important? What's important! How can you not know how important a cutie-mark is!”

She was nearly shouting by the time she finished talking.

“I don't even know what a cutie-mark is! Ok!”

She suddenly stops hopping in circles around you and stares directly into your eyes. Oh shit. You feel like you just made the biggest mistake of your life, again, quite a feat considering what you had done in your life time.

When she answers you all emotion is gone from her voice and you could swear you saw her hair deflate a little bit. Her smile was gone and she was SCARY.

“...How could you not know what a cutie-mark is? ”

You had to come up with something fast, fearing the consequences of not doing so would be far worse than the wolves from earlier.

“Uh...heh heh...um, you see...I'm not...from around here.”

“Oh! Ok.”

She instantly regained all her previous emotion and responds in the same cheery voice that you could tell was going to get real infuriating, real quick. But at least she wasn't acting like a cereal killer anymore. You didn't like the idea of that on your tombstone. Death by bright, colourful pony.

“Do you think you could tell me what one is though?”

You had to admit, you were a little curious as to what they could be.

“Weeeeell...a cutie-mark is a marking that magically appears on everypony once they-”

“Wait for a second. Everypony?”

“Yes, everypony, that's right, why is something wrong?”

You filed that information away for later while looking at Pinkie Pie who was staring at you with her head craned sideways in a curious puppy style way.

“Oh no, nothing. Nothing at all. Please continue with your answer.”

“Okie doki. Well, once somepony finds their special talent, a marking appears on them that represents that talent”

She lifts her rump into the air I front of your face and wiggles it, showing you a marking of three balloons. How had you missed that before? No, seriously how had you missed that, it wasn't exactly subtle.

“Mine represents my talent at organising parties and other social events. All ponies get them, like Zebras, Earth Ponies, Unicorns, Pegasi, Griffons, Dragons, and even Humans like yourself! Although not all ponies get their cutie-marks on their flank. Like Dragons get theirs underneath their tails and are considered extremely private, and won't usually show anypony else, like, at all! And Humans like you, who get them on the back of their hands once they discover their special talent, which I'm going to have to help you find later. Ooh, I almost forgot, you also have the Griffons, whose cutie-marks appears on their- what are these?”

You stop absorbing the information and look back to see what Pinkie Pie was pointing at. She was pointing a limb at your belt, which had the nine fusion cores and your antique weapon. How were you going to explain the advanced tech to the creature before you? You didn't really want to explain what your tool of death did so you decided to just explain what the cores were. Albeit very dumbed down.

“They are sources of energy, energy which is stored in there for me to use when I need or want to.”

“So its like a magic crystal?”

You very much doubted that these ‘magic crystals’ had anywhere near as much energy within as the fusion reactors on your belt. But in a sense you guess Pinkie was right. Of course you didn't know what they did, but you had a fair idea based off of Pinkies description.

“What do you use that energy for?”

That's a good questions actually. What were you going to use the energy for. All you knew for now was that they are to valuable to lose, you didn't currently have a use for them but you were sure you would in the future.

“Stuff.”

That was the only reply you could think of.

“What kinds of stuff?”

“Stuffy, stuff.”

“What kind of stuff is that?”

“Stuff that I don't know what kind of stuff yet.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“How so?”

“Unknown stuff is always better than normal stuff, which is why you said stuffy stuff, because stuff with stuffy is better than normal stuff without stuffy. Get it?”

“Yep.”

You couldn't argue with that logic.

“Sooo...can you teach me where I am and the creatures that inhabit this land. I don't really get out all that much.”

That was an understatement if you ever heard one. You didn't get out at all. Like, ever.

“Of course I will silly! You're in Equestria, and it is mostly populated by humans, Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth Ponies like myself!”

“Mostly?”

“Well...there are other species, but they mostly stay in their homelands.”

“What kind of species?”

“Oh, you have dragons that live in the badlands, and gri- hey! That rhymed!”

“Please stay focused!”

“Oh, Sorry! Besides dragons you have griffons, who live in the second largest nation, Griffexia. You also have Zebras, who live in the nation of Zebrica, that has two major biomes, grassland and jungle. Then you have Minotaurs that live in a cluster of medium to large islands with goats and donkeys.”

“Is there really that many sapient species?!”

You couldn't understand how there could be that many intelligent creatures on the planet at one time. Surely evolution and natural selection should have prevented so many sapients from springing up. Also why do most of the creatures here have the same names as the creatures of ancient Earth? Pinkie Pie bore a semblance of a pony but was fundamentally different. Did all creatures here bare a resemblance to their counterparts?

“Oh, no not at all. There are more.”

“More!?!”

“Yeah, of course there are more. I forgot to mention cows, pigs and sheep, who all live in Equestria with ponies. There are so many that it would take like forever to list them all!”

Wow. What kind of world did you happen to stumble across? A fucked up world, a world where physics seems to just stop working properly, and was inhabited by many, many different creatures of varying degrees of absurdity. And also colours. You couldn't forget all the colours this place possessed.

“Hey, what is this thing?”

You look down at your belt and realise your antique was missing. Looking up in haste you look around for Pinkie, hoping she doesn't fire it. It wasn't powered but you didn't want to take any chances at all.

You spot the pony over by the bookshelf holding the weapon up close to her face, eyeing the barrel of the gun with intense scrutiny. You quickly fix the potential suicide by grabbing the handle and yanking the antique from Pinkies grip. How the fuck does she hold things with her hooves?

“Hey!”

“Don't touch that, it's very old and very dangerous!”

“Why is it dangerous? It just looks like a metal stick.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Metal stick, really? It doesn't look anything like a stick. You were about to lecture to the pink mare about why you don't just take other people's stuff without their permission, but stop when she abruptly lets out an adorable yawn. Adorable? Where did that come from? And why was she yawning?

“Well it's getting late, I should get going. Bye!”

And she disappeared in a literal blur of pink. What did she mean by late, it's not that late is it? Walking over to a window you look out to see the moon already a small distance into the sky. You could have sworn that it was midday just a second ago. Oh well. You might as well take a few of the books and head back to the forest.

Selecting several books that look like they could be promising and another one that was hidden behind some roots, you turn and head towards the exit and back towards the forest you had come from, the overall gloominess of the forest having no affect on you at all.

You venture into the dark...

-5- The Tree

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You liked this forest. Sure, it was dark and gloomy, but it was also peaceful and somewhat quiet. Away from civilisation. You liked that about this forest, it was solitary. Nothing but the gentle breeze and the birds. Oh, and also the predators lurking in the dark, probably hoping to get a hunk of your flesh for dinner.

All in all, the perfect retreat for the whole family!

After walking for about half an hour you stop at a clearing with a stream running through it, placing the books you had gathered from the library on the ground before sitting down next to them.

Looking around at the clearing you had found you notice that it was very secluded, with only the way you came in as an entrance. It was heavily covered over by the tall tree branches as well, meaning that no one would be able to see the clearing from above. It wasn't exactly a small clearing either, spanning about 75 square metres. The perfect place for a home, you realised.

Bringing forth the mental designs you had made earlier outside the library, you began playing around with them, seeing what one would be best for the location you were building in.

Eventually you settled on one of the treehouse designs. You begin constructing it immediately, summoning your Nanites and directing them towards the trees you were going to make your house out of. The Nanites weaves their way through the bark of the young trees and started accelerating the trees growth while directing its growth at the same time.

It was easy to command what tree cells to divide and which ones not to, as you already had a mental map of the entire structure, so all your Nanites had to do was follow the preset in your head.

Once you opened your eyes you couldn't help but smile at your work, right before you clutched your head from over-exerting your mental fortitude.

The main structure of the building was made of one massive tree, with other trees grown around it forming additional pieces of the structure. The main structure itself was situated in front of the small stream, with a bridge extending over it from the back of the building. It was three stories tall in the middle, and approximately two stories tall everywhere else. Approximately because the tree wasn't perfect and you made it like that. You didn't want to make the tree seem artificial, after all.

All around the mega-tree there was other, smaller trees, that branched off to one side, the side facing towards the much larger tree. All the branches from the surrounding trees had curved around the bigger tree and formed balconies, the wood from both trees having grown together to make the entire thing look like one massive tree with multiple sets of roots.

Bending around from the front of the tree was a set of stairs, made entirely out of entwined, small, stick-like branches.

Picking up the books beside you and standing up you head towards the newly formed stairs, you take the first steps in your new, temporary home. Oh wait. Before you went inside you had to do one little thing. Placing the books down beside the wooden doorway, you turn around and head towards the entrance to the clearing.

Summoning a small amount steel from your space-time pocket, you use your Nanites to manipulate the singular atoms and form it into a small, fifteen centimetre blade. This task is more draining of you as you have think up the design as you are guiding the Nanites through the air.

You can see it forming in the air, slowly though. Eventually it is finished, and you are left with a blade with an edge of a singular atom. You leave plenty of Nanites inside the blade so that it could retain its sharpness by having them extract all energy before it heats up. Effectively leaving you with an extremely sharp blade with a temperature of absolute zero.

You grab the blade as it drops through the air, the Nanites having done their job. You expect it to be cold, but are surprised to find that it is quite warm, almost hot even. Thinking about makes sense. You left the Nanites in there to make sure that no energy was in the blade, so the Nanites would have to dump all that energy somewhere.

Giving the knife a few experimental swishes in the air, liking how balanced it was in your hands. Satisfied that the blade was of good quality you turn towards a tree and carve a warning message into it, warning any foolish enough to enter your abode that you had claimed as you own. The knife cut through the bark of the tree like butter, leaving small cartoon burn marks on the wood.

Once you had done the task you had set out to do you turn and head back towards the entrance of your treehouse, picking up the books by the door as you went and clipping your knife to your belt. On your way through the portal you close the doors, also made of tightly packed branches and leaves.

The room directly from the door was elliptical, with the stretched ends facing the door and the back door. Along the sides of the walls there was two sets of stairs that led to the second floor, which was overlooking the ground floor. To the sides, behind the stairs, there was two doorways, with a second door behind the door on the left. Exactly the way you imagined it.

You head up the left set of stairs, although it didn't matter what set you went up as they both led to the same place. Once you reached the top of the stairs you set the books down on a shelf imbedded in the wall of the tree. You got that idea from the library in Ponyville.

You began checking each of the rooms to make sure the design was accurate, even though you could think of no reason why it wouldn't be. Still, it didn't hurt to check.

After half an hour of searching your house you come back to the front entrance and open the door.

It was exactly as you imagined it. A large, elliptical ground floor with the dining table grown out of the floor in the middle towards the back. A medium sized second floor coming halfway over the dining area, with its own mini library. A curving staircase hugging the right wall on the second floor, leading to the third floor; your bedroom. Two doors behind the stairs, leading into separate wings of the house. The right wing having four empty rooms while the left had eight. A third door, in the dining area behind the left door on the ground level, which led to the kitchen. A back door leading to the bridge going over the stream. And finally a door on the left side of the second floor leading into a hallway with two empty rooms. Not to mention all the windows and balconies scattered around at random intervals on the second and third floors.

You didn't know what you were going to do with all the spare rooms but you might as well have them. Just because you had no use of them now didn't mean you wouldn't in the future.

Stepping outside you realise that it was getting dark; you must have lost track of time and missed an entire day. You left your house and shut the door, walking towards the entrance to the clearing. You were going to do some exploring of the surrounding terrain.

Looking for some high ground to do some scouting, you give up as it was impossible to see anything above the thick tree branches. So you decide to just climb the trees, carefully this time, not wanting a repeat of earlier.

Finding a sturdy looking tree you jump up as far as you can, getting about forty metres into the air, way above the canopy and your original target. Landing with a loud thud in the dirt you try again, this time not putting as much effort into your jump.

This time you make it about half way up the tree and grab onto one of the branches. You pull yourself up and crouch over the branch, giving a few experimental jumps to see if it would collapse. It didn't, so you begin climbing up the tree until you reach the top.

Looking out you see just how large the forest actually is. Directly in front of the position you were facing was the village of Ponyville. Behind your clearing you could see a ruined structure off in the distance. Nothing else really caught your attention, a few mountains in the far distance but nothing else really. Not really surprising it was really dark as the moon wasn't really doing much in the way of lighting up anything.

You could see lots of stars though, that was a plus.

And the moon, you could see the moon clearly for the first time since your arrival. It had a Unicorns head on the surface; formed from craters that seemed too well placed to be a mere coincidence. You would have to look into that later, right now you wanted to do some exploring.

Climbing back down the tree carefully, you begin walking in a random direction away from your abode, making sure to remember where it was. Perhaps you could stumble upon another clearing?

You let the soothing atmosphere of the forest soak into you as walk past the countless trees in the massive forest you were currently in. Closing your eyes, you listen to all the night creatures; the distant owls, the-

“Grrrr!”

The growl of the forest predator?

Opening your eyes you see another one of the hybrid species from before. It let loose another growl that was supposed to be ferocious but you found absolutely pathetic. It began charging towards you.

“Stoooop!”

The hybrid stopped charging and skidded the last few metres before coming to a stop less than a metre away from your face.

“Bad thing!”

You gave the thing a light smack on the nose. However, what you would consider a light tap this thing probably thought of as a rock to the face. That was your guess anyway, either that or this thing had a very low pain threshold; it was clutching its nose with its forelimbs.

The thing ran away after that. In the direction of your home, you realised. Well...shit.

Breaking into a sprint you manage to make it back to your clearing, which may or may not have been the hybrids clearing before-hand, you can see the thing from earlier lying down on the grass besides your treehouse.

Huh. So it's not going to kick you out. That's a positive; you've always wanted a pet.

Ignoring the creature sleeping next to your tree you head up the front steps of your treehouse, opening the door once you reach the top. Closing the door behind you, you ascend the second set of stairs and reach the books you had placed down earlier. Picking one up as you sit down on a wooden chair, you read the title.

The First Ten.

You flipped it open to the first page and began reading.

Chapter one -The Beginning

Contrary to what many may believe, Alicorns did not create The World. No, they did not appear until after the formation of The World. Instead, the world was formed by a multitude of different deities, each of a different species.

Mundus, the Minotaur.

A’ris, the Griffon.

Aqua the Serpent.

Mutatio, the Changeling.

Solem, unknown.

Stella, unknown.

Astrum, unknown.

Congeria, the Dragon.

Medeis, the Unicorn.

Cognitio, the Human.

In the event known as ‘the beginning’, Mundus, A’ris, and Aqua decided that they wanted their own realm, beyond the heavens ruled by Stella, Astrum and Solem. A’ris created the Aetherium, a giant cloud that still holds The World to this day. Mundus then formed the first landmasses, before covering up most of the Aetherium with his earth, which he called the Orbis Terrerum. Aqua made the first clouds, made by A’ris, pour with rain, flooding Mundus’ earth completely and forming what he callles his Ardus. This made A’ris angry for using her clouds for his own needs, while making Mundus angry because his earth was hidden beneath a blanket of water. The gods began to fight.

Medeis, Congeria and Cognitio noticed their brothers and sisters fighting, so they set out to intervene. A’ris, Mundus and Aqua explained that they wanted to have their own realms, each separate from the other. Medeis, Congeria and Cognitio convened and came up with a compromise. They should each have their own realm but they would be intwined together.

Mundus and Congeria convened and together they made the flat earth uneven, forming large mountains and valleys, along with many other types of land.

Aqua and Congeria convened and together placed water over large areas of low land, and smaller areas of water over highland.

A’ris and Congeria convened and together dispersed the compact clouds over the entirety of Orbis Terrerum, sustaining the small bodies of water with their rain and adding to the larger bodies of water.

Medeis convened with Mundus, A’ris, Aqua, Congeria, and Mutatio. She then used her Magic to form life on the new World, based upon her fellow gods. And so the first seven animals emerged.

Human.

Unicorn.

Dragon.

Minotaur.

Griffon.

Serpent.

Changeling.

Medeis, Mundus, A’ris, Aqua, Congeria and Mutatio convened and agreed that more animals were needed.

Medeis and Mundus used their magic and earth to create three hybrids.

Earth Ponies.

Zebras.

Goats.

Medeis and A’ris used their magic and air to create two hybrids.

Pegasi.

Nocturns.

Medeis and Aqua used their magic and water to form a single hybrid.

Sea-ponies.

And so the first animals were complete. But Cognitio wasn't satisfied with his siblings work. He used his own magic to gift all the current animals with intelligence.

Chapter two -The Division

The many new creatures, suddenly blessed with intelligence, began grouping together into herds of their own species. This created tension whenever one species crossed paths with another. Eventually, Earth Pony, Pegasi, and Unicorns joined together. This was not a good thing, because as they grew slightly more trusting of each other, their distrust for the other species grew also. Their distrust grew until it could no longer sustain itself and the three species dove into war with all the other species in The World.

During the bloodshed, Earth ponies-

You stopped reading once you noticed there was sunlight on the book you had in your hands. Looking out the window you see the sun is rising above the treetops. You were slightly annoyed; you were really enjoying that book. You doubted most of the first chapter was true, but it was still a good read.

Standing up and stretching a bit, you turn and make your way towards the staircase leading down to the ground floor. Once on the ground floor you ponder what you were going to do today. You might as well go back into town and see if you can find that pink pony, Pinkie Pie, again.

Striding towards the door you open it and then turn a round to close it. When you turn around again you freeze. Oh yeah. You forgot about the hybrid at your doorstep.

The creature stares at you. You stare back at it. You felt like you were standing there for hours before finally the creature turned away and went back to sleep. You let the thing be and started towards your destination; the entrance to the clearing.

Waking past the tree you had carved into the day prior, you enter into a light jog. It was a good feeling; having the wind blow against your skin lightly as you ran past the plentiful amount of trees within the forest. You found it to be relaxing.

After jogging for about twenty minutes you noticed it was started to get brighter; the light being able to penetrate through the canopy here as it wasn't as thick as it was deeper in the forest. Slowing down a bit as you breached the edge of the forest and made it into the sunlight, you looked around and spotted Ponyville not too far away from where you were standing.

Turning towards the small village you set out at a walking pace; not wanting to earn any more attention than you did on your last visit.

As you approached the town you were pleased to note that you weren't getting any more stares from the locals. You also noticed a certain pink pony approaching you, hopping along the cobblestone path towards your position. You wondered how she did that. It didn't look like her bones were structured to be able hop around in the fashion she was.

“Hi!”

“Hello again.”

She was jumping up and down on the spot in front of you. She obviously really liked jumping.

“Where were you? You just disappeared for, like, forever!”

“I was busy doing stuff in that forest over there.”

You point behind you with your thumb, directing Pinkies gaze towards the forest you just exited a moment prior.

She lets out a very loud gasp and seemingly floats in the air for a few moments before landing back on the ground; gravity having decided to work again.

“B-But that's the E-E-everfree Forest! Nopony goes in there! It just not natural!”

“Really? How so?”

“The plants grow! The animals take care of themselves! And the weather moves all on its own! That forest is just mot natural!”

“...”

“...what?”

“Its creepy and spoo~ooky!”

“...yes. Of course it is.”

You glance back at the ‘Everfree Forest’. It didn't look creepy or spooky. And what did Pinkie mean by ‘animals take care of themselves’ and ‘the weather moves on its own’ not to mention ‘the plants grow’. Of course the plants fucking grow, what else are they going to do? And animals taking care of themselves? Does she honestly think that animals need sapient intervention to survive. The last statement was the most ridiculous, what, do the ones with wings fly around and control the wea-what!?!

Just as you were thinking of the ‘Pegasus weather team’, a Pegasus just happened to fly past...with a cloud...which it them used to water some flowers...which it then ate.

“...”

“WHAT!?!”

You looked back to Pinkie.

“WHAT!?!”

Back up to the Pegasus.

“WHAT!?!”

And Pinkie again.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!!”

You grabbed at your hair and pulled on it, almost succeeding in ripping it out. Everything you knew about the natural order had just been pissed on...by colourful, cartoon ponies.

You can't remember ever kneeling on the grass but you had somehow ended up doing it anyway. You grit your teeth in anger before sucking in a large breath and...

“So!...what are you doing today?”

You exclaim in a happy, chipper tone. Almost rivalling that of Pinkies when you first met her.

You seemed to take Pinkie by surprise, either from your outburst or your sudden change in emotion. A bit of column A a bit of column B, you suppose.

She was quick to recover and respond though.

“Weeell...I'm not doing anything today, although in a few days I'm going to have to help with the preparation of the Summer Sun Festival; the Princesses themselves are attending! So I need to make sure that its the biggest! Bestest! Party of all time!”

So they're ruled by a monarchy. Fascinating, humans hadn't used any form of government since...that incident so, so long ago.

“So you're free huh? Want to show me around town?”

“Ooh yes! That sounds fun! What do you want to go see first?”

“Well I've never been here before...so I don't know any of the places of interest.”

“Oh...so that means I get to choose where we go! Yay!”

She began bouncing in circles again, just like she had at the library the last time you saw her.

“I could show you Applejacks farm! Oh, but she probably busy bucking apples.”

Did she just say someone was fucking apples?

“Ooh...maybe Rarity’s boutique! But she's probably busy as well. Maybe we could go pranking with Rainbow Dash...nah, she's probably asleep in some cloud.”

So the Pegasi slept on the clouds as well. You wonder what other traits the native populace had discovered of the plasma-like cloud.

“I know! We could go visit Fluttershy!”

“Actually...”

You didn't know how she would react to your presence if she found out what you did to her pet rabbit. You didn't particularly want to find out either.

“I already met Fluttershy...I don't think she would want to see me any time soon.”

“Why?”

“I accidentally shattered her door with my face.”

She stopped bouncing.

“...what.”

“Oh, um...you see I kinda...it was an accident!”

“Oh, ok!”

Phew. You didn't want to explain that you skewered Fluttershy's rabbit, whether she had found out or not.

“Well if we can't go to Fluttershy's house then that leaves Sugarcube Corner, the place where I work and make cupcakes, ooh and cakes...and also sweet rolls and bon-bons and-”

She's really doing this again?

“Pinkie.”

“-and chocolate cake and-”

“Pinkie.”

“-and vanilla cake and-”

“Pinkie!”

“-and muffins and-”

“PINKIE!”

She jumped about twelve metres in the air; the shout loud enough for some of the windows nearby to form cracks in them. She landed on her rump with a small puff of dust, she looked terrified. You weren't THAT scary...were you?

Apparently you were. All of the surrounding ponies were staring at you again, this time out of fear rather than curiosity. Strangely, you didn't know which one you liked more.

“Ahh, why is everyon-pony looking at me like that?”

You managed to catch your slip up; you would have to start talking like a local.

“...”

Silence was your reply.

“So...Sugarcube Corner I believe...yes?”

“Yeah.”

Pinkie still looked petrified, as did most of the other ponies.

Pinkie turned around and started walking, you following behind. You were slightly worried that you might have broken the poor mare, as she was walking instead of bouncing like you noticed she did everywhere she went.

Why did everyone freak out though, all you did was yell to get Pinkies attention, its not like-oh.

You only just noticed the severity of the damage your yell had done.

Windows on both sides of the street had either formed cracks or shattered entirely. Bits and pieces of wood that used to be the wall in front of you was all over the street. the scare had also made a mare faint.

Great. Now you feel terrible. On the plus side Pinkie seemed to have brightened up a bit, gaining a small amount of spring with each step.

You noticed the ponies seemed to be avoiding you, not surprising considering how much destruction you just accidentally caused.

By the time you arrive at what you assume to be your destination Pinkie Pie had regained all happiness from before and was jumping up and down once again. It was almost like she forgot the whole thing in between the time it took for you to start walking and the time it took you to arrive here.

As you round the corner you notice a sweet smell in the air. Only normal you guess, she did say she worked in a bakery. She didn't say she worked in a gingerbread house though. You briefly played with the idea that the thing was actual gingerbread but eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn't, as it probably would have been eaten by now.

Then you noticed an Earth Pony, chained to the wall of the gingerbread house and holding a spear with his hooves...somehow.

“Hey Pinkie, what is he doing there?”

She looked to where you were pointing and smiled.

“Oh, that's just Brute. We have him around to make sure nopony eats the gingerbread!”

“...ok.”

You looked at the pony again and he let loose a very animalistic growl directed towards you.

You were never going to touch the gingerbread house. Ever.

Pinkie led you to the entrance of the bakery and opened the door for you to enter. Once you entered the smell of baked goods reached your nose, much stronger than it had been outside.

“Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! What would you like-oh, hello there Pinkie, who is your friend? ”

“Hello Mr Cake! This here is Saphrim, I met him at the library three days ago!”

Three days! You had been gone for three days?!? Where did all the time go? You knew you tended to zone out a bit but there was no way you would miss that much time.

“We have a library?”

“Of course we do silly, its the big tree!”

“That's a library?”

Well...that informs you how much this town likes to read. You guess the first clue should have been the spiderwebs. And the dust. And the overall disrepair of the library.

“What would you like Mister Saphrim?”

“Oh, I'm just getting a tour from Pinkie, that's all. I don't even have any money on me at the moment.”

That raises another question. What do they use for money?

“That's ok saphy! I'll pay for it.”

Saphy? Oh well, free food.

“I’ll just have a cupcake or something then, and thank you for your generosity. ”

“No problem!”

The Unicorn you identified as ‘Mr Cake’ went behind the counter and fished out a delicious looking cupcake using his horn. You were skeptic of the whole levitation thing but now you were seeing it you couldn't help but wonder how it worked. You'll look into it another time maybe.

Mr Cake levitated the cupcake in front of you while Pinkie Pie pulled out a cupcake from...somewhere, you weren't exactly sure where she got it from though, or how she got it for that matter. You would look into it later, right now was time for food.

You grabbed the cupcake as Mr Cake placed it in front of you on the table you and Pinkie Pie and seated yourselves at. Bringing it to your mouth you take a bite out of it.

It. Was. Delicious. Not necessarily the best cake you had eaten but still amazing in any case.

You were only partially aware of your Nanites automatically breaking down the food once it reached your stomach as you practically inhaled the rest of the cupcake.

“That tasted amazing!”

“Thank you, Pinkie Pie made that one herself.”

You looked towards the pink mare.

“Pinkie, you are an amazing baker.”

She giggled a bit.

“Thanks!”

Just as you were about to say you're welcome, the door to the bakery opened and a bell jingled, presumably to alert the owner of a new customer.

The pony that walked in carried an air of snobbishness around him that you could detect just by looking in his general direction. He probably wasn't from around here, as he was the first pony you had seen in Ponyville to actually wear clothes. And they didn't look that cheap either.

He gave the place a look over before his eyes settled onto you. You didn't like the look in his eyes, there seemed to be something there that set off alarm bells when he looked at you.

“Hello good sir! Would you like anything to eat?”

The stallion gave Mr Cake a cursory glance before he returned his eyes to you once more.

“I would like some sweet rolls, thank you.”

Your surprised he said thank you at all. He didn't look like one to be polite.

Mr Cake went somewhere, probably to get some sweet rolls for the stallion that was still staring at you. It seemed almost like he was examining you for something. You didn't like it at all.

“How much for the human?”

Oh. That's why he was examine you.

“Excuse me!”

You were ignored.

“I'm sorry sir, but that human doesn't belong to me.”

“Yeah and if he did belong to Mister Cake then there would be no way he would sell him to anypony!”

The stallion glared at Pinkie Pie.

“Watch your tongue you filthy mud pony!”

“What!”

You were ignored again.

“Hey! I'm not a mud pony!”

Mud Pony? Was that some kind of insult? It certainly seemed like one to you. It seems to have made Mr Cake angry so you assumed it was.

“Excuse me sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the bakery.”

The stallion looked miffed, but complied nonetheless. On his way through the door he left one more remark which caught you by surprise.

“You should have better control over your slaves.”

“Slaves!!”

And he was gone. The whole event took less than a few minutes, maybe five at the most, and left you very confused and slightly angry.

Turning to face Pinkie Pie only increased your anger, she looked very upset, over being called a mud pony or a slave you weren't sure which one. Something was nagging you though. Was she really a slave to this Unicorn? It would explain Brute being chained up to the wall.

Did this society allow for slaves of any creatures or was it just humans and Earth Ponies. Thinking back to when you first met Pinkie Pie you recall seeing her slightly upset when she said she couldn't do magic. Was that it? Was anyone who couldn't do magic treated as a slave. As inferior?

“Honey what's wrong?”

You heard a voice come from upstairs, and then another Earth pony walked into the room, this one looking pregnant. Did this Unicorn keep her as a slave as well? Or was she willingly in a relationship with him. You didn't want to jump to conclusions, that never ended well for anyone.

“A Unicorn just came in and called Pinkie Pie a mud pony.”

The pony you assumed to be Mrs Cake let out a horrified gasp before running up to Pinkie Pie and hugging her.

You just had to ask.

“Are things like this common around here?!”

All eyes were on you now.

“Well, no. Ponyville is a very close community you see, and racism if frowned upon here. The rest of Equestria though has many racist ponies.”

That's one question out of the way.

“And is Pinkie Pie a slave?”

You flick your head in her general direction.

“Yes, but she is more family than anything else.”

“I see...I have to check up on something, I'll see you later Pinkie.”

She merely nodded sadly at you.

You had to check up on the library now, you needed to know why Earth Ponies were treated as slaves, and why humans were treated as pets. Perhaps you just conveniently landed on a planet full of racists. You hoped not.

Arriving at the door to the library you go to knock but remember that no one is going to be in there, so instead opt to just push the door open and enter.

You began searching through the shelves, looking for a book on Equestrian law. You had no such luck. It seems that the previous owner of the library didn't believe in organisation whatsoever, so you begin ripping books off the shelves, looking at the title, then discarding it if it wasn't what you were looking for.

The First Equestrian Monarch? Gone.

101 Beginner Spells for Unicorns? Out the window.

Daring Doo and the Fragment of Harmony? You didn't even know what a ‘daring Doo’ was, so you put it back.

How to Pleasure you're Mar-

“Ahhhhhh!”

You threw the book to the ground and stomped on it, then threw another book at it, then used your Nanites to crush, rip and tear the atomic bonds apart, just for good measure. You still weren't happy though, so you used your Nanites to convert the atoms into energy and placed in a separate space-time pocket which you built just for it.

You tried to get your breathing in check, which was becoming too much of a regular occurrence for your liking.

What were you doing again? Oh yeah. Finding a book on the laws of this land. You begin sifting through more books.

The complete guide to Creatures and Beasts. Hmm, not what you were looking for but it seems interesting. You put it aside on the table for you to come back to later.

Equestrian Laws and Politics. Yes, finally.

You place the book on the table next to the other one you placed not a minute earlier and kneel on the wooden to come closer to the book. You flip the book open to its contents page and skim through.

Finding the appropriate page and flipping to it, you begin reading.

Any Earth Pony may be kept as a servant, so long as they are treated fairly and supplied with the all the basic necessities required for survival. Likewise, Any human may be kept as a pet or servant so long as the same requirements are met.

Any one species who has committed a crime may be subject to earning the title of servus, and may also be kept as a servant or pet by any other species. However, any and all servants/pets may become free if their role contradicts any other nations laws.

Any human who wishes it may also enter court with Princess Celestia and ask for their freedom, so long as they have a reason for their want of freedom before they can be released by their owner. For more information on the laws of owning a servant/pet, please read page 77.

Well...fuck. That still doesn't explain why only Earth Ponies and humans are treated as slaves. Or why only a human may ask for their freedom. But damn, anyone that commits a crime is sentenced to become a slave? That's harsh.

You decide that you should probably look at page 77, so you flip to it and begin reading once again.

While owning an Earth Pony, several standards have to be kept, otherwise the owner can be subjected to become servus and lose their servant.

One, an Earth Pony must be kept in an indoors environment and has to have a ‘decent’ shelter above their heads.

Two, an Earth Pony must be allowed the at least the minimal amount of food required for a healthy lifestyle. The Earth Pony has to be healthy otherwise the owner may be subject to become servus.

Three, an Earth Pony must be treated fairly. Any beatings and/or unjustly harsh punishments to the Earth Pony will end with the owner becoming servus.

While owning a human pet/servant, several standards have to be kept otherwise the owner may be subjected to become a servus and lose their servant/pet.

One, all human pets/servants must be kept in a shelter of some kind. The most common shelter for humans are stables in outdoor buildings or shacks.

Two, all human pets/servants must be allowed at least the minimum amount of food for a healthy human lifestyle. The human has to be healthy otherwise the owner may be subject to become servus.

Three, a human cannot be physically or mentally abused by their owner in any way otherwise the owner may be subject to becoming servus.

For more information on sheltering standard laws, turn to page 82.

You didn't know how to feel about your situation anymore. You had landed in a land of brightly coloured cartoon ponies that have some kind of a grudge against humans and a subspecies of their own kind.

You decide right then that you would get to the bottom of this. What could have happened in this lands past to warrant such an abusive societal structure. Not to mention how intriguing it would be to learn about another species history. Humanity had yet to discover another sapient species amongst the stars, despite owning over nine hundred galaxies. Still tiny compared to the literal infinite expanse of the Universe.

You were getting distracted. You needed to do some studying.

Just as you were about to go devouring more of the library you notice a sad looking pink pony sitting by the door. How does she keep managing to sneak up on you?

“Hi.”

She sounded sad, not at all surprising seeing as she looked sad as well. Not to mention the incident from earlier.

“Hey.”

You sounded just as sad if you were to be honest with yourself.

“So...are you really a slave?”

You didn't want to ask, but you just had to find out. The question itself seemed to make Pinkie even more depressed and her hair literally deflated. You would question it but decided against it; it was too early in the morning for a headache.

“...yes.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“...”

“Pinkie. How long have you been a slave?”

“...since I was a filly.”

Assuming that filly means child, that means she's been a slave most of her life, maybe even all of her life.

“Can you tell me why your species is treated this way, or why humans are treated this way for that matter.”

“...”

Pinkie looked towards the floor, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Don't you already know why.”

It was more of a statement than a question.

“I'm not from around here remember.”

You give a weak smile to try and cheer her up a bit. It didn't work.

“...”

She still hadn't taken her gaze away from the floor, so you decided to let go of the questioning and make her feel better. A crazy idea formed in your head; one that just might work. Putting your plan into action you sit down next to the sad little pony and smile at her.

She looked up at you; not smiling, but looking at you nonetheless.

You smack her very lightly on the nose, making sure that it wasn't hard enough to hurt. You didn't want to know what would happen if you hit with your full strength, especially if you tamed that hybrid creature with a light tap.

She scrunched up her nose while simultaneously looking curious and somewhat annoyed.

“Hey! What was that for?”

She looked almost angry now.

“You're upset, are you not?”

She nodded her head once in affirmation.

“Well being sad is a crime against...uh...happiness. And criminals must be punished for their crimes!”

She looked frightened now.

“You're punishment is execution...by tickles!”

You struck swiftly, knocking Pinkie onto her side and pinning her there with one hand while you attacked with the other. Pinkie began releasing small giggles that quickly turned into full out laughter. She seemed like one that would be good at laughing to you.

Soon her laughter made her start breaking out into spasms on the floor; rolling around while letting out a continuous stream of laughter.

She laughed like a child would, and Pinkie has certainly been acting like one in the time you have known her.

She eventually calmed down a bit and pushed your hand off of her before she stood up, smiling brightly once more. It seems that you have discovered the Pinkie cure for sadness.

“You're good!”

“At what?”

“Making ponies smile, that's usually my job. Oh no! Are you going to take my place as Ponyvilles number one party mare?”

She was back to normal and speaking in a happy tone of voice again. You're plan had worked.

“No, no, of course not!”

“Well you seem awfully good at it!”

“Why thank you.”

Silence descended upon the room. It wasn't an awkward silence, but it was still a silence. Pinkie had returned to smiling at you, kind of creepily as well, as she wasn't blinking either.

Ok, now it was an awkward silence. She was still staring at you.

“Well, I'm going to go now. I'll see you later maybe.”

You didn't want to leave the library but Pinkie was starting to freak you out. She still hadn't blinked.

Turning towards the table you had placed that book you placed on the table, as well as the book of law, you pick them both up and head towards the door of the library.

“Well ok! See ya!”

And Pinkie disappeared. You would have to find out how she does that.

Shaking your head to clear it of the thought of experimentation and dissection, you turn towards the now open door and leave the building, making sure to shut the door on the way out.

You turn towards the forest in the distance before starting your trek towards it. You briefly think of where that pink pony could have gone before pushing the thought away. You needed to get to your temporary residence as quickly as possible so you could do more reading.

In your musings you had managed to walk all the way to the edge of the forest. You look back at the little village before turning to the forest and entering it.

Once you were certain that you were out of sight you began a sprint, ignoring your surroundings or just ploughing through them to get to your destination. You made very good time and you arrived at the entrance to your clearing in less than ten minutes. Upon entering you noticed that the hybrid was gone. It probably went off to do its own thing. Oh well.

Running up to the door you pull it open and run up stair, to the second floor, and put your books down next to the other ones.

You looked between the two new books you had brought back with you from the library, unsure which one to read first. On one hand, learning the ways of the law would be useful, but then so could learning about its inhabitants.

Deciding that studying creatures would be more interesting than law you pick up the book you hadn't read yet. As much as you wanted to learn why the ponies social structure was warped, and as much as you hated to admit it, you would most likely be spending a lot of time here before you found a way back home.

Opening the book to the contents page you stagger a bit, not expecting to have so many categories in a relatively small book. Looking up creatures that seemed the most interesting, or ones that could prove to be useful, you settle for one of the categories and turn to that page.

Earth Pony

Earth Ponies are a sub-species of pony that live mostly in the nation of Equestria. Earth Ponies are the strongest of the three pony races and cannot perform magic and cannot fly nor manipulate the weather. Earth Ponies are usually farmers that live in the more rural towns of Equestria.

That was all that was written, besides a labelled diagram of an Earth Pony.

Hmm, you should probably find out what that thing is that lives out the front of your house. Flipping though the book and paying attention to the diagrams was how you went about doing your search. It took a while, and you had seen some pretty fucking weird diagrams in your search, but eventually you found the diagram that matched the look of the hybrid.

You begin reading.

Manticore

The manticore is a mostly unknown creature, as are many other creatures that dwell within the Everfree Forest, but what is known is that it is dangerous. It has a stinger that injects a venom that produces a hallucinogenic affect on ponies. Many criminals purchase this venom from Griffon poachers, which they use as a drug with outstanding hallucinogenic affects as stated before. This affect can last up to twelve days and has extreme negative health factors for most creatures.

The manticore itself has been spotted as both a solitary creature, and as a group. They should be avoided by all.

That sounds like a powerful drug, if it lasted twelve days after a single shot from a stinger. Wait. Why are you assuming that the day-night cycle even works the same way here? They could have shorter days here. Actually that would explain why you lost track of a few days. You usually didn't lose track of time that badly.

One more species you just had to look up.

Finding the page was easy, as you already knew the name of the creature you were looking for.

Human

Humans are species of bi-peds that origins are largely unknown by most of the other species. Humans are stronger than Earth Ponies and have stronger magic than Unicorns. Humans are largely more intelligent than other species and are better at logic and reasoning. Humans live in all nations of the world but have no nation or government of their own.

That leaves you with more questions than answers, and also rules out your theory of ‘non magical slavery’. If the humans that populated this place were stringer and smarter than the other species why were treated like pets, more so why the humans allowed themselves to be kept as pets. Something just didn't add up, and you wanted to find out what.

This was a lot to take in. You needed to clear your head so you decided to go for another walk around the forest. You head down stairs, leaving the books on the table, and leave your house while making sure you closed the door on your way out.

As you were leaving the clearing you saw that the manticore from before was coming in though the same entrance you were about to leave through. As you passed it you noticed that it had blood on its face, probably from whatever it had eaten earlier. It regarded you in an uninterested sort of way, before it just passed you and sat down to presumably sleep.

Ignoring the manticore you set out in a different direction to the one you went last time. Unlike your sprint to your house before, this time you took the time to enjoy the scenery. All the flora was bright, despite being in a darkened forest, and this aspect was most likely due to the weird radiation and sub-atomic manipulation that seemed ambient everywhere.

If the locals could use this ‘magic’ does that mean you could as well? You most likely could considering you could manipulate things on an atomic scale with relative ease. Next time your in the library you would have to look for some of the books on ‘magic’. So many mysteries here...and you could uncover it all. You couldn't wait.

You came upon a stream, which reminded you that you needed clean water for your fusion reactor. You were crouching down to inspect the cleanliness of the water when a...snake...thing came out of the water. It was huge. It looked around a bit before turning its gaze towards you.

“Why hello there!”

The last thing you expected was for this thing to be able to speak. You should probably just assume that most things can talk, as the trend seems to be going.

“...hi.”

You weren't really sure how to respond to the giant creature which you had identified as some form of serpent.

“...um...nice hair I guess.”

It was true. The serpent did have well groomed hair. And a moustache. You pondered ideas as to how he would keep his hair like that when he probably lives in the water.

“Ooh, why thank you! You're mane looks beautiful as well.”

Really? He thought that your uncared for black hair was beautiful? He was probably just saying that to not sound rude.

“I don't really see many of your species around. Why is that? Do you all live somewhere else?”

You didn't particularly care either. You just wanted to prevent an awkward silence.

“Well, I live in this river here. I don't really know all that much about where everypony else lives to be honest.”

Wait...did he say everypony as well? It would make sense for the ponies to use that as a suffix as they are just that, ponies. Why would other species use it though? Another mystery to be solved in the future.

“So you're a solitary creature?”

“Yes, it is terribly lonely in this forest, hardly anypony comes in here at all! It's just simply terrible!”

He sounded like he was going to burst into tears at any second. Was this guy seriously that sensitive? Perhaps it was a trait carried by his species.

“Do you know your way around this forest very well? I'm new here you see.”

“Well, I don't know my way around the forest. But I do know my way around all the streams in the area. I could show you if you want.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

“Ooh, such manners! It's all my pleasure.”

He then approached the shore and grabbed a stick, which he used to start drawing a crude map in the dirt. After finishing the map he dropped the stick back where he found it and smiled at you. Everyone here seemed to like smiling.

You make sure to memorise the map he had drawn for you before you look back at him and return his smile.

“Thank you ag-”

You were interrupted by a growl coming from behind you. It better not be that bloody manticore again. Turning around you saw some of the wood wolves from before, they might actually be the same ones.

“Oh no this is dreadful! It's simply horrible, make them go away!”

He started wailing again. You turned around to face with the most bewildered look you could muster.

“Really! You're huge! Couldn't you, I don't know, eat them or something?!”

During your speech one of the wolves thought it would be a good time to start munching on your arm, to no affect as your Nanites took to immediately fixing the damaged flesh. He responded by wailing even harder and splashing the river water around in a fit.

Ignoring the serpent you turn to look at the wolves and set out to destroy them, starting with the one on your arm as it was beginning to get annoying.

Grabbing the wolf by the head you crush its skull within your hand; its head offering virtually no resistance at all. Dropping the wolf corpse to the ground you turn back to the others who had started circling around you. One decided to charge at you and leap for your neck. You caught it mid-air and threw it towards the other wolves, smashing both into bits of wood in the process. That left three of the original six to deal with, two of which were behind you while the last one was in front of you. You could tell the other two were behind you as they had jumped onto your back and had started clawing at your shirt.

That was another thing. Your clothes were getting destroyed. You could probably fix them later or get new ones from somewhere; there was bound to be at least one store that would sell clothes for humans.

You return to the battle at hand due to the wolf in front deciding to latch onto your face with its jaw. You could probably lick the back of its throat if you had any desire to do so. Punching your fist forward fixed the wolf-on-your-face problem by shattering it to pieces. That left only the two still clawing at your shirt. You came up with a plan to get rid of them, jumping into the air and landing on your back. It worked pretty well too.

Standing up you survey the damage. There was bits of scattered kindling everywhere and sap also all over the floor. You somehow managed to avoid getting any of the sticky residue on you and for that you were thankful.

Your clothes, on the other hand, had been completely shredded. You were lucky enough that they had lasted this long as it is, what with everything they had been through. You would need new ones.

You also took notice to the disappearance of the serpent. He probably went off to cry in some hole. It didn't matter anyway as you had memorised the map already and he was getting on your nerves with the way he was acting.

You should probably write down the map actually. One problem. You didn't have any paper. You could probably make some from your tree house, or better yet, form it out of the tree house walls. That would be a good way of keeping it safe from harm.

With a goal in mind you headed towards the clearing within which your home resided.

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You made good time to the clearing; having run the whole way. When you entered you noticed that the manticore was gone again, off doing its own business you suppose.

Climbing the stairs and entering the house you think of where you could put your map. You wanted it somewhere easily accessible so you decide to put it on the ground floor in the dining room besides the table. That way you would see it every time you had a meal there and it would help you remember it better.

Ignoring the stairs you enter into the dining area and look at the right wall, the one opposite of the door leading into the kitchen. Thinking about how you were going to go about the design for it for a while gave you an idea.

Controlling the Nanites you left in the tree cells from I before, you set about he task of changing the structure of the wall a bit. This was slightly more difficult than you anticipated and you had to really concentrate on what you were doing to the tree. You finally finished though, and you stood back to look at the incomplete map.

In the centre of the map there was your house, with the stream going through it. Branching off of the northern end of that stream was a river which eventually fell into a chasm besides the ruins you had spotted earlier. Going the opposite way the stream split into two and continued both south-west and south-east. One which continued though Ponyville and the other continuing into forest. To the west of your clearing there was a swamp with multiple slow-moving rivers going in and out of it. To the east of your house there was another body of water, this time a lake, which had a waterfall at one end and a stream flowing on the opposite end.

You didn't think this was all of the rivers but that was all the serpent gave to you before disappearing.

Having finished your map you had to think of something to do. The first thing that came to your mind was reading more of ‘The First Ten’, which was upstairs. You decided on doing that as you couldn't think of anything else to do with your time.

You head upstairs and grab the book before you flip it open and continue reading from where you left.

During the bloodshed, the Earth Ponies abandoned their fellow equines and sided with the other species in the war. It still didn't change the tide of the war though as the Unicorns and Pegasi were advancing upon the others in a bid to destroy them. The gods A’ris and Medeis saw the hate from the Unicorns and Pegasi and together created the Windigos’ to help the losing species.

Despite all the advantages the other species had the Unicorns and Pegasi were still winning. Congeria also saw the hatred amongst the Unicorns and Pegasi and so he created the creature known as Discord to help fight for the other species. Using largely unknown magic, the Unicorns were able to trap him in stone, and rumour has said that they received outside help doing it.

Things were looking bad for the species of The World. In one final desperate attempt to survive the remaining species split up and fled to separate edges of The World. The unicorns and Pegasi assumed that they had driven out what they believed to be inferior creatures, and for a time, they were right.

Wow. That was not what you were expecting from a species that looked so naive. That if this is historically accurate which you doubted it actually was. Still though, that was a bit dark for a species that look like they couldn't hurt a fly. Looks can be deceiving it seems.

You continue reading, the book having caught both your interest and your curiosity.

Chapter three - The Return

Many years had passed since the division, and the two species; Unicorn and Pegasi, had thrived in the absence of the other species. What they didn't know though was that the other species had been recovering from the war and had been preparing to retake the land which was once shared equally.

And so started the event known as The Return. The second war fought between the species of The World was just as bloody as the first one. And like the first war, and despite having the element of surprise, the other species were losing once again.

The war had raged for three years before any of the gods took notice to the destruction beneath the heavenly realm within which they resided. The deities were furious with the Unicorns and Pegasi, and had decided to take action. For the first since its creation, the gods descended down to the world which they themselves had created.

The tide had been changed, but it would not last for long. The Unicorns harnessed a set of powerful artefacts forged from the dead souls of the windigos harvested during The Division. It is said that the very same artefacts were used to imprison Discord in his stone tomb.

The Unicorns managed to weaken and repel- but not kill- the deities Mundus and Aqua, while severely weakening the other deities that had left the heavens to fight alongside the other species; Congeria, A’ris, Mutatio and Medeis. In their weakened state, the gods were unable to fight for any longer and so too, they returned to the heavens. The deities that remained in the heavens during the second war have never been seen since the Beginning.

With no help from the gods, the other species fled once more, this time leaving behind the Humans, the Earth Ponies and the Changelings. The humans were able to hold up for a while longer before being overrun by the Unicorns and Pegasi. The Changelings, seeing what was happening, left the battlefields and spread out over The World, using their natural abilities to disguise themselves as various beasts and creatures, while the Humans that had stayed in the battle zone and the Earth Ponies were left to be punished by the Unicorns and Pegasi.

That would certainly explain why humans and Earth Ponies were treated as inferior. The Unicorns didn't want a rebellion. That probably went the same for the Pegasi as well. You were still entranced by the book; you just had to read more, so you began reading the next chapter.

Chapter Four- The Remains

After being disguised for so long in a form that didn't talk, the Changelings started losing their intelligence. The Changelings that were fortunate enough to find a form that could support intelligence were treated as mere cattle by later generations of Unicorns and Pegasi, using them for farming purposes.

Many years following the events of The Return the other species, which had fled to other continents, had started returning to the nation now know as Equestria in order to form a peace treaty between the fledgling nations. At first the Unicorns and Pegasi were suspicious but signed regardless as they didn't want another war.

Since then, the other species have barely been tolerated by any Unicorn or Pegasi and-

The page was torn out for some reason. Why would someone do that? Looking through the next couple of pages to see if any of the others were ripped made a note fall out of the book. Picking it up you read it in your head.

listen,

I know who you are so listen very carefully, no one in this world knows of this book.

And you need to keep it that way.

This book is extremely valuable and must be kept safe at all times; make a copy, if you will but just make sure none of the ponies read it.

From,

You-know-who.

And it ended just like that. You didn't know who this person was but they knew you apparently. And you didn't like that at all. You didn't really understand the importance of a single book either, but you decided to heed the notes warning and keep it safe from the outside world.

Placing the book delicately on the table, now knowing that the book was important, you look around and notice that the moon was just about to give way to twilight. You decide that you had had enough reading for now and started heading towards the town.

Didn't Pinkie Pie say something about a ‘Summer Sun Celebration’?

-6- The Angry Alicorn

View Online

You trudged along the forest in silence, nothing seemed like it was going to disrupt your journey to the town. You had your head facing the ground; deep in thought. You were still thinking about that note in the book. The writing appeared to be artificially printed so you had no ways of telling who wrote it. How could anyone know how you are in the first place. You were new to this planet after all.

Oh well, questions for a later date. You had reached the hills overlooking Ponyville just as the sun was rising over the horizon. It was beautiful. Not as beautiful as the two suns that your home planet orbited around though. Still though, quite an amazing-what the FUCK!?!

The sun just... It just... It just disappeared. And now it's suddenly midnight. That is definitely not natural. It needed study right now!

Calling upon your Nanites which you had used to scan the mysterious rainbow from earlier you set about sending them into orbit around the planet to take measurement on the rotation of the planet. You had to wait a bit for the Nanites to get into the outer-atmosphere but once they did the data was more than a little bit surprising. The planet was flat. Flat. It was completely flat. And it sat on clouds, just like the book you realised.

No. There was no way that this world was created by gods. No way! It's extremely improbable...improbable, but not impossible.

More data came in. Even more startling. The sun, moon and stars weren't actually a sun, moon and stars. No, they were more of that energy that seemed to come from the mass of the atoms around here. And they were orbiting the planet. You didn't know how to respond to the data in your head.

Fortunately for you, you didn't have to, as something rammed into you and knocked you back a fairly large distance; about twenty two metres.

You were surprised anything could have that much energy to move you around. In comparison to everything else around you you would weigh a lot, and that's not even considering the Titanium meta-carbon infused with the calcium in your bones.

Unfortunately for you the object that would be destined to stop you was a stone pillar jutting out of the floor; looking almost artificial, as if someone had put it there just for your misery. You braced yourself for impact against the rock as you sailed through the air, almost hitting a couple of trees on the way.

The last thing you registered before you were overcome with pain was the sound of a very loud crunch. You had the extreme misfortune to hit the pillar with your legs apart. You tried to scream but the only thing that came out of you mouth was a pathetic little squeak.

You're barely aware of yourself as you topple off of the pillar and land on your head before tumbling onto your back. You attempt to stand up but ultimately fail and end up on your stomach. This time using your hands as stabilisers you were able to make it upright, using the very pillar you just hit as a support. You still hadn't regained your voice yet and the only sounds you were making were more little squeaks along with the occasional squeal.

That hurt. You didn't want to have to experience that again, ever, so long as you lived.

After a few more moments of gathering yourself and trying not to fall over you managed to regain most of yourself. The first thing you were looking for was whatever was responsible for your torment. It would die.

At first you found nothing, but then you saw a pony standing in the distance. It was hard to make out because it was dark but you could tell that it was taller that the average pony. It took a step into the moonlight and you could make out some details.

It - you couldn't tell what gender it was from this distance - was wearing some kind of armour that gave it a somewhat menacing look. It also had wings and a horn, you had no idea what species it was. Maybe it was a hybrid? Another thing of note was its hair which seemed to be gaseous while remaining in a fixed position, possibly something similar to the weird cloud substance from earlier.

It kept getting closer to you and by now you could tell it was female, or mare, as it were. Hmm, it also had fangs for some reason. You couldn't understand why it would need fangs as horses were herbivores and so far these ponies shared a lot in common with the animal you were familiar with. Unless this one ate meat.

By now it was about twelve metres away from your position so you push any thoughts of carnivorous ponies aside in order to introduce yourself before ending this things life. If it was the one that kicked you that is.

Before you could introduce yourself the mare spoke up first.

“How dare you get in my way you filthy monkey!”

She tried to be intimidating as she said her insult but it didn't work. Probably had something to do with the fact that she only came up to your lowest rib. Everything here seemed miniaturised.

“Hey you shit! Are you the one that pushed me into that rock?”

The tall hybrid pony appeared to have been taken by surprise at your outburst.

“How dare you speak to me like that you disgusting mortal!”

How dare she insult you.

“Who are you calling mortal, mortal!”

She seemed flabbergasted now, opening and closing her mouth rapidly like a fish in a fish bowl. She eventually recovered and a look of pure rage found its way to her face.

“SILENCE!”

The force of the shout was impressive. Almost as much force as your accidental destruction of the town earlier.

Before she said anything else she looked around for some reason and then the most peculiar thing happened. Her hair halved itself and the half that separated flew off somewhere else. So she has conscious control over her hair...how. How does she have control over her hair. How is that possible without some fancy high-tech? Like yours only better at everything.

She turned back to you after sending her hair somewhere else. She seemed pretty angry at you. She began stomping towards you, her horn started glowing along the way. You wondered what she was going to do as you had yet to see this so called magic in action, besides the bizarre cloud from before.

You braced yourself for whatever the pony might use against you; small clouds of dark smoke had started gathering around her horn. By now her horn had almost completely disappeared behind the smoke swirling around it. You didn't like the look of it so you decided to attack before she could unleash whatever she had been generating.

You never had the chance. The moment you started walking towards her she released a blast of electricity that had set you on course towards another tree. As you smashed through it you continued to writhe in agony; she was still shooting electricity out of her towards your spazzing body.

She soon felt mercy towards you though, as she stopped the flow of electricity.

You took this opportunity to shakily rise back to your feet. You stumbled a bit but prevented yourself from falling over by using the tree as support. That proved to be a bad idea as the tree snapped in half and you found your face in the dirt.

Just as you were about to rise again a message appeared inside your head. From the Nanites it seemed.

It seems like you are getting your ass handed to you by a sapient horse, would you like help?

What kind of sadistic shit programmed this thing? Of course you needed help!

With a mental command you chose yes, and the Nanites informed you of an interesting trait carried by Constructive Nanites. They could pull in all surrounding molecules while traveling at high speeds. You had already thought of a way you could implement that to your advantage.

Backing out of your internal devices you find that you were suspended above the ground by a blue glow, the same glow as the pony I front of you yelling at your face. Perhaps you shouldn't have closed your eyes when you looked into the ‘help program’ of your hives.

As she continued to scream at your immobile body you decide to enact your plan, so you start pooling Nanites into your hands, forming a blue glow. She seemed to distracted to really notice so you put even more Nanites into your palms before you push them forwards with all your might.

The effect was immediate. The pony went flying backwards at tremendous speeds, screaming along the way. The air directly in front of you was pushed forwards at incredible speeds, resulting in a high air pressure zone in front of a vacuum. The vacuum didn't last long, however, as all the surrounding molecules rushes inwards, creating a massive boom that would have destroyed your ear drums had you no Nanites. The high air zone didn't last long either, as it expanded rapidly; destroying the surrounding trees that hadn't been sucked into the miniature vortex milliseconds before.

The whole event looked amazing, as the blue in the Nanites plus their shiny metal surfaces littered the wave of destruction and made for quite a beautiful display.

You looked around for the mare which you last saw hurtling away from you at a very high velocity. You couldn't find her anywhere. Perhaps the blast had killed her?

You were proven wrong as not a moment after that thought she comes barreling towards you from the shadows with intent to kill clear in her eyes. Ha!Good luck with that. Everything else had failed so far.

She began chagrin her horn again; preparing to strike. You wouldn't give her the chance this time. You charged at her, unclipping your knife from your belt and preparing to end this creatures life.

You managed to cut her front left leg before she shot you again, this time with a concussive wave, similar to your blast but much less powerful.

She recoiled from your swipe and you were sent hurtling towards another tree which you broke with your spine. You recovered quickly and charged at her again. She sent another blast at you but you quickly managed to dive to the side as it obliterated another tree, sending splinters and other tree bits everywhere.

You were within striking distance now so you took a stab at her other leg, the armour on it proving to be useless against your incredibly sharp blade as it cut through her plating and into her flesh.

On instinct she kicked you away with her other leg as she wailed from your attack. You got into a crouched position from where you landed as she used her horn to mend her damaged cellular tissue. As she looked up at your crouched form you wiped the blood on the ground beside you. Her blood.

She seemed even more infuriated now and your attack seemed to have left no lasting damage besides the blood stain on her sliced armour.

She charged at you with her horn down, probably hoping to skewer you on it. You remained in your crouched position as she approached. You would have to time this perfectly. She got closer, and closer, and within ten metres. Now! Just as she was about to gut you on her sharp horn you dodged to the side while simultaneously grabbing said horn and pulling downwards.

She ended up smashing into the ground and sliding for a bit, the force of her sprint still carrying her along. At first you thought that she had given up, was passed out, or was dead but that soon turned out to be wrong as she struggled back to her hooves.

You were wrong. Now she was infuriated.

Her horn began to glow so you took off towards her, expecting her to release some kind of electrical attack once again. She took you by surprise however, as she launched a tree at you. You managed to block most of it with your fist, splitting it in half where it connected with you and showing you with splinters.

The mare took this opportunity to charge at you, placing herself in a position to kick you in a fashion you would relate to horses; a powerful hind leg kick. As she reared up for the attack you grabbed one of her hooves and swung her over your head while you spun around, smashing her back into the ground behind where you were originally facing.

You went in for an attack but she recovered quicker than you expected, kicking you backwards with her hind legs as you approached her.

You were sent flying once again and this time you crashed into a large rock, shattering it in the process and leaving you winded. As you struggled to regain your balance and breath you saw the pony hybrid walking toward you, horn alight with power charging more unpredictable attacks.

She released the pent-up power and it showed to be more electricity. It hit your body and you fell to the floor in spasm. She was relentless, sending an unending surge of electrical energy through your body. Your vision began to dim as you were about to lose consciousness.

Before you could black out though a message appeared within your mind.

Still getting the shit beaten out of you by a colourful pony? Try these.

You made a promise to end whoever coded these things, if he hadn't been ended already. What it was suggesting to you was interesting. Conductive Nanites. Nanites that change the charge of surrounding molecules in cohesion to form chains of extreme conductivity through any gaseous or liquid substance.

This seemed like something you could you to take back this fight. Luckily you already had some in you at the time, otherwise you would have likely been barbecued by the pony in front of you who was STILL electrocuting you.

Sending all the conductive Nanites you had at your disposal into your palms, you began forming them into lines which led from your palms to the horse still cooking your flesh. And then you activated them.

You can safely say that the mare was not expecting return fire. How she didn't see your glowing hands you will never know. The effects were immediate; she dropped to the floor like a rock. An electrified rock. You were once again surprised at how quickly she shrugged off your attack. She stood straight back up after being electrified.

Realising you were still on the floor you set out to get back up and beat this mare into a fine paste on the floor. She apparently had the same idea for you as she ran forwards and knocked you back into the remains of the rock you had just destroyed with your back.

She went for another kick with her fore-hooves as you were falling back to the ground. You anticipated this and managed to block and send a punch to her helmeted face. Your fist connected and managed to draw blood from her nose, bringing a furious death glare towards you.

Ignoring the promise of death directed to you from her eyes, you continued to repeatedly punch the mare in the face; not giving her the chance to block or get in her own swings. After about twenty swings she managed to successfully block a blow and grab you. She use your own punch to her advantage; using your own momentum to swing you around her and into the dirt.

Before you can get up to retaliate she is already on you once more, levitating a sharp piece of wooden shrapnel to impale you. Before she can succeed you roll to the left and conveniently find your knife that had been lost in the chaos. Picking it up you turn to the mare and make another attempt for her legs. You manage to get her left leg this time, your blade going all the way through and cutting her bone in half.

She screamed in absolute agony and you staggered a bit from the sheer volume of it. It would have hurt a lot as well; your blade was hot enough to sear but not hot enough to cauterise. As such she started bleeding from her leg, the blood staining her damaged armour.

Pulling your knife out of the mare you go to restrain her, your intent to kill had passed and now you wanted answers; why had she attacked you in the first place and what species was she anyway?

Just as you are about to hold her down at with a knife to her neck she makes a jump into the air and flaps her wings in an attempt to get away. You wanted answers so you were not letting her get away from you. You leap into the air and collide with her, making her stumble in her flying and causing you both to fall to the earth some fifty metres below.

You used the mare to block most of the damage as you collide straight through a tall, thin tree, causing it to snap in half and fracture along the wood. You then collided into the ground and skidded for a bit. Seeing the tree about to fall onto you and the mare you come up with a spontaneous idea. Jumping into the air an grabbing the falling tree, you angle yourself and use your higher density to flip the tall tree over your head and smash it into the mare, making sure that she won't get away from you.

You land with a soft thud and walk over to the mare who was struggling to get get up. She was having a hard time due to the fact that you had cut through her bone and had Broken some of her ribs. You kick her back down and step on her neck, making sure that she can't get away while making sure that she could still breath properly.

“Why did you attack me?”

She seemed angry, but with a hint of something else. Fear.

“Get off of me you stupid ape!”

You pressed your boot down slightly harder, making her choke a little bit.

“What was that? I couldn't hear you.”

“I said get off me you stupid - argh”

You pushed your knife up to her neck, applying meek pressure and almost drawing blood.

“I. Am. Sorry. What did you say?”

With the way you had said it she knew you weren't playing around.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!”

You removed your knife but kept your foot there.

“Excellent! Now tell me why you attacked me!”

She still attempted to struggle but stopped once you applied pressure to her neck.

“Why. Did. You. Attack. Me?”

The fear in her eyes was more noticeable now.

“I-I-I don't know what you mean!”

“Don't lie to me! You knocked me into that pillar of rock! Which, might I add, hurt a lot!”

She seemed scared out of her mind now. She had probably never met someone who could best her, judging by how strong her kicks were.

“I-I...ENOUGH!!”

She used all of her strength to kick you off of her and stand up. You landed a few metres away and used your momentum to roll back onto your feet.

It seems like this pony didn't want to go down without a fight. Fair enough, you will give her one then.

Springing forward you slash at her but she grabs you with her hoof and knocks the knife out of your hand. You would question how she grabbed you with her hoof but you were preoccupied at the moment.

The mare used your momentary confusion to her advantage by attempting to stab you with her long, and particularly sharp, horn. You dodged to the left and punched her in the gut in the process. Picking her up from your position besides her, you throw her into the ground and hear one of her legs snap.

Stepping back as she released another defeating wail, you tumble over a Brocken log; the same one you had smashed into her earlier. Looking up at her from your position you could see her horn light up once again, this time mending her bones and her other injuries. Once she had finished healing herself she did something you weren't expecting.

She commanded her hair into the form of a sword which she held aloft in her aura of magic.

With her new-found weapon she charged once more in your direction, pointing the end of the blade towards you. As luck would have it you managed to land next to your knife again. Picking it up you blocked the sword just as she swung down at you, aiming for your head. She swung again, this time going for a horizontal slash from your left. You blocked again and instead of going for a stab you threw your blade into her right hoof, the blade getting lodged in her flesh and bone.

Before she a chance to release another blood-curdling scream you dashed forward and grabbed her head with both hands while bringing your knee into her jaw. You heard a crack and then kicked her backwards with the same leg you used to knee her in the chin.

She was bleeding from the mouth and nose so you gave her a chance to regain herself. She spat out a bit of blood and coughed up some more. She looked like she about to collapse from exhaustion, something you were glad you couldn't experience yourself.

You started walking towards her when her horn started glowing again, this time sitting off alarms inside your head. Literally.

The temporal and spatial manipulators located in the quantids inside your very being detected a flux in the spatial interaction field. And that concerned you greatly. You increased your pace towards the pony but as you were approaching she disappeared in flash of light and sound. Your knife fell to the ground as it was still in her leg when she disappeared.

You picked up your blade and tried to find the pony that had disappeared suddenly. Your spatial detectors were of no use, as she had probably already left the admittedly short range of their span. Instead you went to search for energy signatures, specifically light energy. You had seen a very bright flash when she vanished and you guessed that would happen when she reappeared as well.

You got a hit; a massive spike in visible radiation. It was located in the general direction of the ruins you saw earlier. You needed to get there.

Turning around you start running towards the source of the energy spike.

You dodge around the trees in your path and collide through ones that you had no time to avoid. You wanted to see that pony suffer, and then make her answer your many questions.

After running through and around the trees for three minutes you come across a chasm with a rope bridge connecting one cliff wall to the other. You didn't want to walk over it as it looked like it snap apart in a gentle breeze. So you decide to just jump over the chasm. Not all that difficult.

Landing on the other side you take note of the structure; a castle or fort of some kind. It had clearly seen better days. Just as you were about to run into the structure you saw a bright flash of light in one of the windows, which then disappeared and reappeared by another set of windows.

You wanted to prepare yourself as this pony seemed like a formidable foe. You never thought you say that in your life. You wanted to find water for your fusion core, but you didn't want to go to far from the ruined structure. You also didn't know where you could get clean water and didn't want to go looking for some in case the pony hybrid left.

You were about to climb up the side of the structure when you saw another flash of light, this time instead of being white it was a multitude of colours; a rainbow.

You needed to get up there now. The only problem was you couldn't see an entrance. That had a simple enough solution; make an entrance. Taking a off at a running pace to get going at high speeds, you leap into the air and sail towards the side of the building.

As you collide with the solid stone wall you tuck your legs into your chest and enter a dive-roll, pulling out your knife in the process.

“All right! You think you can...hide...what the shit!”

Instead of seeing the pony that attacked you all you see is Pinkie Pie, some other ponies, and some pony hybrids that seemed to be hugging each other. The hybrid that attacked you wasn't here although one of the hybrids in this room looked very similar. Suspiciously similar.

“...Um...am I interrupting something?”

“Hiya Saphy!”

Pinkie was jumping up and down as usual.

“Hi...”

“...”

“...can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on!”

Everyone in the room cringed at your foul language, except for Pinkie for some reason. No one offered a reply but one of the Unicorns did let out a gasp.

“Darling, what on earth happened to your clothes? This is simply dreadful!”

She seemed to be overdramatising things, but she did have point. Your clothes were ruined. What clothing remained was either burnt or shredded or both.

“Meh, some wolves and stuff.”

“I just have to make you some new ones! This is a crime against fashion!”

“...Sure.”

You looked around at the other ponies. The only ones you recognised were Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. You could probably guess the others names though, their names were a bit obvious. Strangely, when your gaze went over the blue hybrid she seemed terrified. As you looked over the white hybrid you could detect something in her eyes; recognition. Was she the one that knew of you, of where you were from? The one that put the note in that book? Perhaps. You do not know the extent of these creatures biological abilities.

Looking away from the ponies you notice that the sun was rising into the sky, despite being midnight a few moments earlier. How is that even possible.

“What is this?”

All the ponies in the room, including Pinkie Pie who seemed to have been unaffected by you smashing through the wall, turned towards the window and looked at the sun. They could probably look directly into it if they had sunglasses on as it wasn't nearly as bright as an actual star should have been.

“...the sun?”

The purple Unicorn was the one to answer your question.

“Oh! Such brilliant observation skills! You have confirmed you have eyeballs! Well done!”

She seemed to shy away from attention after your rant; she was probably embarrassed.

The white hybrid pony was still looking at you, and it was beginning to freak you out. Seriously, she was still staring at you. She seemed interested in you for some reason and she somehow recognises you or has at least confused you with someone else that she knows of. Or both. You thought that she would just sit there, staring at you forever but she eventually opened her mouth to speak.

“May I-”

She didn't get to say anything else before she was interrupted by the rainbow haired Pegasus, who flew up into your face.

“Who are you? How did you break through the wall!? Are you a spy?!?”

“I'm Saphrim. With my face. And lastly, no.”

She didn't seem convinced. The others were still shocked about you bursting in through a wall. What are they all doing here in the first place? Do they regularly visit ruins in a forest they consider unnatural? You doubt they would. Ignoring their varied reactions you voiced your question.

“What are you guys doing out here anyway?”

Pinkie was the one to answer your question.

“We were here to use the Elements of Harmony, but then it turns out that Nightmare Moon is actually Celestias sister! So now we are going to throw the biggest, most spectalurarishish party of all time!”

You stared at the pink pony, who was bouncing in place in front of you. She was wearing some kind of necklace that had the same design as her so-called ‘cutie mark’. You reach down and pick her up by the neck so you can inspect the jewellery closer. You flick the gem on it with your fingers creating a small pinging sound.

“So these are the ‘Elements of Harmony’? What do they do then?”

You were busy looking at the necklace but you could see out of the corner of your eye the looks you were receiving from the others in the room. Ranging from angry to shocked and disturbed. Pinkie didn't seem to mind though so you continued your examination of the supposed artefact.

It looked just like a regular necklace to you. A bit of scanning revealed that they had an amplifying quality. All though, what they were amplifying you could only guess. Maybe it was more of that magic? Or perhaps something else? Questions for a later date, right now you needed to pay attention to the present.

Dropping the mare in your hands to the ground unceremoniously, you turned your attention back towards the others, who all cringed when Pinkie made an ‘oof’ sound as she hit the floor. She seemed unharmed by the small drop so you ignored her. The white hybrid was still looking at you. She opened her mouth to speak once more though.

“May I please ask you to come with me for a second? I wish to speak to you alone.”

What a strange request.

“Sure.”

She turned away from the blue hybrid who was unconscious for some reason. Oh well, you couldn't care much for how she ended up unconscious. The white hybrid led you to the outside of the building through a set of decayed doors that looked like they would fall off at any second. You had somehow failed to notice them before.

You didn't trust this pony so you decided to keep an eye on her as she led you further out into the night- wait, day. The celestial movements were very confusing, and you were having trouble keeping track. You couldn't see how life could survive on this planet if the planetary body - oh...this was a flat piece of earth, not a spherical planetoid like it should be. You should probably just assume that all laws of the natural order have been suspended until you prove it to be otherwise.

By now you had been following the pony for about three minutes, and you had reached a crumbling balcony of sorts. It was severely overrun with various forms of vegetation. It was here that the white mare stopped and turned to face you.

“Who are you?”

“I had assumed you already knew who I was...”

She stared at you. It seemed you had her confused.

“Very well then. My name is Saphrim Onixavier, entropy-born.”

She seemed a little bit suspicious of you now.

“What do you mean by entropy-born?”

She looked like she was about to attack you at any second. You needed to diffuse this situation quickly before it spiralled out of control.

“Well you see where I'm from - which is very far away. Very, very far away. Like seriously far away. A-hem, yes, you are either a entropy-born or a enthalpy-born. This is dictated by what state the general observable universe was in when you were born. For example, I was born during an entropy state, meaning that the greater part of the universe was in a higher of disorder. Because of this it is much more common for people to be entropy-born, as due to its nature, chaos is more common than order. Make sense?”

The white mare seemed to be soaking in what you just said. You could almost see the gears turning in her head as she processed what you just told her.

“So...what is enthalpy?”

You let out a sigh.

“Enthalpy - like everything else - is just a label given to something by us sapients to give it meaning or understanding. This label merely means the state of the universe in which it is in high order while maintaining a high energy quotient. This means that-”

“Please stop, just stop! This is hurting my head.”

Fair enough.

“Ok then - wait, I still don't know who you are.”

She composed herself after removing her hooves from her head.

“I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and raiser of the sun.”

That's a lot of titles to have to ones name.

“In that case it is good to meet you Princess.”

You finish off with a small bow.

“I would like to discuss some things with you. For one, as you can probably gather, I am not from around here.”

You needed some answers.

“Yes, I could tell as much.”

“Yes, and as such I am not accustomed to this land, its inhabitants, or its laws. I have read a few books but I do not know of their credibility or their reliability.”

She seemed lost in thought for a second.

“...I see, well what do you wish to discuss then?”

“The status of humans; are they slaves, pets or neither. I want to know of the ponies relationship with other species, specifically humans.”

“Very well, after events that even I wasn't around to witness caused a split between the species of Equestria, the Unicorns and Pegasi have treated the other species...differently.”

“Differently? How so?”

“They were cruel to them, and eventually it got so bad that they forced most of the other species to out of Equestria. My sister and I weren't even born back then.”

“How old are you then?”

“My sister is twenty six hundred years old while I am twenty eight hundred years old.”

Impressive.

“So are you ageless, and also, what year is it?”

“To answer your first question, yes Alicorns are ageless. And secondly, it is exactly one thousand PN.”

So their called Alicorns, good to know.

“You record time very differently compared to how we do it where I am from. I am at a loss for what PN means though.”

“It stands for post-nightmare. And why would you have a different way of tracking time? Just how far away are you from?”

How are you going to explain the Universal calendar? You couldn't tell her as it required mind-speech, something you doubted the ponies had within them. You would have to write it down somehow.

“Where I come from...we are very far away but also very spread out. As such we need a calendar that can record very large numbers.”

You went and burnt a piece of wood that had fallen from a tree at some point in time, using it to write out some digits and letters on the floor. The Princess was momentarily startled upon seeing your stick that looked like it spontaneously combusted.

“This is our current time from where I am from.”

You gestured to the number 213’344’455’434’333’455’541, which was written in charcoal from the stick. You looked up from the number to see Princess Celestia looking at it in either confusion or amazement, you couldn't tell which one. Maybe a bit of both.

“I don't understand what this word means.”

She pointed a hoof towards the ‘century’ at the end of the number.

“That is century, which is derived from the Latin word centum, meaning one hundred.”

“One hundred years?”

“Not necessarily, it just means one hundred. Although it is often associated with dates as that is its most common use.”

“I still don't understand what these numbers mean.”

Understandable, she hadn't learnt humanity's calendar.

“How many columns are there?”

“Seven.”

She didn't seem to see where you were going with this.

“Yes, now before I said that we are spread out across great distances, right?.”

She nodded her head once in affirmation.

“Well, only the very left, middle, and very right set of numbers mean anything for the whole of our time scale. Understand?”

She nodded again. It was weird because her gaseous hair flopped around every time she did so.

“The other sets of numbers mean...um...how do I explain this.”

You didn't know how to explain galactic rotation and solar movement to a creature who lives on a plant that lacks a proper sun or moon, let alone an entire galaxy. Ah-ha.

“Ok! So see these ones on the right of the middle.”

You pointed to the numbers 333 and 455.

“These are what we call, sub-personalised dates. These are how we record our years and days. Are you still following me?”

She seemed a little confused but eventually nodded her head anyway.

“These numbers here-”

You pointed to the numbers 344 and 455.

“-are personalised numbers. They represent...um...”

How were you going to explain galaxies.

“Cities! They represent cities! They mark time a class above sub-personalised so that it may be collected by the whole. Following me?”

She shook her head.

“Ok...um...imagine that one of these equals one of these.”

You pointed to the numbers 333 and 455 and then pointed to 344 and 455.

“Understand now?”

She shook her head again.

“Ok...so imagine that one personalised year is the equivalent of all of these sub-personalised years multiplied by whatever year that sub-personalised date has at the time. Basically this date-”

You pointed to the numbers 344 and 455 once again.

“-here is the is the sum of all these years measurements. For example, one sub-personalised year could be made up of different time scales to another separate year somewhere else but is still considered a year.”

This was straining. How could she understand what you just said. One year is defined by the time it takes for a planet to complete one full rotation of the sun, but planets orbit at different rates. Hell, you grew up on a planet that had a year that stretched on for seventy two standard Earth years. It was still considered one year.

You looked back to the white mare. She was digesting what you had just told her.

“I...guess I understand...but I still don't understand what these apostrophes are for, nor what these other dates are for.”

“Well, the other numbers are considered non-personalised, as they are the same no matter where you are. This one on the very right is basically the same as personalised and sub-personalised, but for conversion of personalised to non-personalised. This one in the middle is...um...”

How are you going to explain the expansion of the observable universe?

“...not really a date, so much as a measurement. It is the measurement of our expansion, which needs to be included as it affects our other dates drastically.”

She nodded once more, slowly this time.

“And what of the last one, the one on the very left?”

Well that was going to be a bugger to explain. How were you going to explain the total number of times the Universe has collapsed and reignited? That was a tricky question.

“That one is not important.”

The only answer you could come up with.

“...I see...what of these apostrophes? You still haven't told me what those mean.”

“Well, this is a personalised model, as I have already explained, so each apostrophe is the equivalent to the multiplication of whatever follows after the date...soooo...one hundred on this model. Which could easily be used as any other multiple, like decade or even millennium.”

“Wait...how...old...is this model?...”

“Well this model is from where I come from and it is equivalent to-”

You ran the numbers through your head.

“Two hundred and thirteen Universal cycles - or evolutions, as some like to call them -, 156,520,000,000 galactic years, 151,515,000,000 planetary years, and that converts into...I...I...I can’t even calculate a number large enough!”

She was looking at you funny.

“What? What is it?”

“You...didn't say anything just then...”

You smacked your head in annoyance.

“Of course you wouldn't hear me, you don't have mind-speech.”

“What was that?”

“I said you don't have mind-speech.”

You seemed to have befuddled her again, judging from her expression, which looked pretty weird on a pony.

“And what, pray tell, is that?”

Hmm, how were you going to explain this one?

“Mind-speech is a...um...a...do you have computers?”

“...”

“What is a computer?”

Wonderful, that just makes things so much easier to explain.

“Ok then...mind-speech is...mind-speech is...is the ability to communicate without verbal expression I guess would be the easiest way of explaining it. It operates by using advanced machines called spatial and temporal manipulators. Now what these do is something else I entirely, but they can be used to send out pulses of data that is received by everyone that wants to receive it.”

You were really sending Celestia on a mental marathon.

“...how do they work?”

No way. There was no way you were explaining this to her. It would take all day, and probably more than one if the days and nights last as long as you think they do. You would have to communicate with her in a way that she could understand.

“Magic.”

Surprisingly, she actually accepted that as an answer.

“So how old is that model? I didn't exactly hear it before.”

“Old. That is all! Can we change the subject. How about me getting a no-pet-slash-slave-other permit, that like, I don't know, stops anyone from buying me and stuff!”

“Humans aren't pets.”

What.

“What?”

“Humans aren't pets, your species is much too powerful to be kept as pets.”

What!

“B-but-but, what! I saw a human walking out of a cottage wearing a collar! Someone tried to buy me the other day! What do you mean we aren't pets!”

“If a human was wearing a collar it was probably a magic restraining collar, that would prevent them from using magic.”

“What! Why would you restrain someones magic?!”

This was getting ridiculous.

“To prevent humans from uprising, it is law that a human must always be in the presence of at least one Unicorn or Pegasi. Collars are just used to make it easier for them to control.”

“But why! What happened in the past that caused this to happen?! What could have ever have happened to twist a society in such a way!?”

“I don't know.”

Well that was of no help whatsoever. You needed to calm down as you were not going to get anywhere if you were angry. You took a deep breath before replying.

“Do you not have any history book of any kind?”

She shook her head.

“At all?”

“Sadly, no.”

“How do you record events of historical significance then?”

“Whenever we have an event of historical significance it is recorded in the form of stained-glass windows, at the royal halls in Canterlot Castle.”

“That is horrible! What happens if something breaks one of the windows? Does that mean that that piece of history is lost forever?”

She nodded her head. She seemed a bit sad about it though.

“Why don't you use another way, a better way of storing history, like, oh I don't know, a book maybe?”

“Nopony really takes the time to write anything down besides fiction and spell books, any history related subjects are ignored.”

“But history is a major thing! It is important to know of the past!”

Your voice had been increasing increasing in volume with each sentence as your annoyance rose to higher levels. You needed to stop freaking out and calm down.

“...so! About that freedom of non-slavery?”

She nodded her head rapidly.

“Yes, yes. You will be given an approval for a freedom permit.”

Its called a freedom permit? What a weird name, although it is very appropriate you suppose.

Just before Celestia began leading you back in she turned around and started looking you over.

“Something wrong?”

“...no, I just feel like I know you from somewhere.”

And with that she started walking away.

You began following Celestia back into the chamber you first met her in. On the way she pulled out a piece of paper and signed it. You didn't know where she got the paper from and you couldn't be bothered figuring it out at the moment. Upon entering all the mares heads turned to face Celestia and you as she passed the now rolled-up piece of paper. It seems the blue Alicorn was awake now as well and was keeping a distance between herself and the other ponies in the room.

“I thank you for your time Saphrim.”

“And I thank you for this Princess.”

You waved the scroll around a bit before putting it on your belt next to the fusion devices. You leaned into the Princesses ear.

“Oh and by the way, what is the currency made from?”

“It is copper coin that is coated in a thin layer of gold imprinted with a pony-shoe on both sides.”

“Good to know, that will be useful in the future, thank you.”

“Your most welcome.”

You turned back to the ponies in the room. They appeared to have been trying to listen in to what you and Celestia were whispering. They quickly made it look like they weren't doing anything suspicious; they were doing a very bad job of it. The one with the hat even started whistling in the most ‘I'm guilty’ way possible. You decided to remove the building levels of awkward by talking.

“Sooo...you mentioned a party, yes?”

“Ooh yes and it is gonna’ be awesomeriffic! Let’s go and get ready!”

And she was gone in a pink blur.

“Wait up Pinkie!”

And so were the other five smaller mares. You gestured towards the door that the little ponies just went through.

“Shall we?”

Celestia nodded while the still-nameless pony just stood up and followed behind her. You had one final look around the room before following behind the group of ponies.

Pinkie and the others were already across the chasm, apparently going across on a rope bridge that had been decaying for quite some time. The two Alicorns were also quite a bit ahead of you; just reaching the other side of the rope bridge as you came out of the castle. You took one step onto the bridge before it snapped from your weight.

You plummeted downwards just as you noticed Celestia and the other Alicorn turn around from the sudden noise and saw you fall. They didn't have time to react though so you fell all the way down to the bottom where you splashed into the river that was flowing through the chasm.

Before Celestia could do anything else to help you, you dive down to the bottom of the river and kick off of it. You soar up and land besides the Alicorns who are stunned from your display.

“...how did you do that?”

Oh, you know. Nanites, high tech and other such shit.

“Magic.”

They didn't seem convinced but they didn't press onto the matter either, instead they just turned around and started trailing behind Pinkie Pie and the others. And then you started trailing behind them, forming a sort-of line of ponies with you at the end.

Your walk was in silence that was only disturbed by the quiet sounds of the forest. You didn't want to disrupt the silence either, as it wasn't an awkward silence and you didn't want to make it into one.

Eventually the small parade of ponies you were following made it to the edge of the forest.

“Come on guys! We have to start setting up the party!”

There was a groan that travelled through the collective; a groan of displeasure.

“Darling as much as I would like to party I just simply need my beauty sleep.”

“Yer, Rar’s right sugarcube, we hav’nt slept in three days straight!”

“B-but-but the party!”

“Come on, let's just crash at the library.”

Everyone seemed in agreement with the purple Unicorn as they started following her back to the library. You decided to follow them as well as you had nothing better to do with your time and you also liked the possibility of more reading material. You looked over your shoulders to see the other two ponies following as well, the ponies on the street stopping whatever they were doing to bow before them.

Soon you saw the library ahead of you, the six smaller ponies having already ventured inside the ancient-looking tree. The moment you step into the library you almost trip over Pinkie Pie. It seems that they meant crash in the literal sense as they had all collapsed the moment they entered the building.

To avoid tripping over them in the near future you pick them all up - carefully, so that they don't wake up - and put them in the corner, trying to make them as comfortable as possible. They all snuggled up to each other once you had laid them down next to each other.

“Cute.”

“They are, aren't they.”

You turn around, not expecting a reply to your ‘thinking out loud’ speech. It was Celestia that was the one to speak; the other one that you had yet to learn the name of was still being quiet and appeared drowsy.

“So what are you're opinions on the whole ‘other species are inferior’ thing?”

“Well, we were raised to hate the other species. So it's a bit difficult to lose a eight hundred year-old habit. But my little ponies are starting to treat others better.”

“Ponies are treating others better now?”

It was the first time you had heard the other one speak so far. She had a very soft voice and spoke very quietly.

You turn your full attention towards her now.

“She speaks! Who are you anyway? I'm assuming you two are in some way related to each other, yes?”

“Um...yes...she is my sister.”

She seemed very nervous when talking to you. You wondered why that was. Does she have some kind of phobia for humans?

“Was that what that was in the forest? A family reunion?”

She seemed to be slightly unsettled by your question.

“You could call it that I guess...”

Celestia stood up next to the smaller Alicorn and nuzzled her gently.

“A reunion long since over-due Luna.”

“Her name is Luna? Appropriate I guess.”

Celestia turned away from her sister and looked at you.

“What do you mean by that?”

She didn't seem upset, just curious as to what you meant.

“Luna is Latin for moon, night and month, and it was often associated with the night sky. Latin is an old human language by the way.”

“Interesting. Does my name mean anything in this...‘Latin’?”

“Celestia is also a Latin word, meaning heavenly. It is often associated with the sun or any other cosmic body.”

She blushed a bit, which was weird, considering she had a fur coat.

“Oh.”

You could sense an awkward silence coming so you quickly make conversation.

“Hey, you're good with magic aren't you?”

Saying magic in a sentence that wasn't supposed to be a joke was a weird experience for you.

“Why yes, me and my sister are the best magicians in all of Equestria. Why do you ask?”

You had stifle the building laughter from the absurdity of that sentence.

“I was just wondering if you would be willing to teach me some magic, if you had the time that is. I don't know any magic at all, really.”

She seemed shocked at your request. Maybe you offended her in someway.

“I already have a student, but I would be willing to help you learn the art of magic. Perhaps my sister would like to help you as well?”

She turned to face her sister. The small Alicorn quickly nodded her head while trying to form a fake smile on her face. What's up with her?

“Excellent. Now what is your knowledge on magic?”

“Nothing. I don't know any magic at all.”

“Really?! Well then, I'll have to give you some books to study up on then.”

Her horn started glowing and you waited for her to finish whatever she was doing. Your Spatial and Temporal sensors were going nuts, courtesy of Celestia’s horn and the weird energies going through it. After a few seconds the glow turned into a flash and in front of Celgstia was some books. You had recorded the whole thing using every sensor you had in and on you.

“Here, these are from the royal library in Canterlot.”

She handed you a pile of books that looked to be in varying conditions, from new and clean to old and dusty. A few scrolls of parchment was on top of the stack as well.

“Thank you very much, Princess.”

“You are very welcome, however, be careful with those books as some of them are very old.”

“Will do, Princess. May I ask why you have been so cooperative with me?”

She seemed to think for a moment.

“I don't know honestly. I just get this...feeling that I should help you.”

“Ok then. I must thank you again Princess, this has been most helpful.”

“And once again, you are most welcome.”

You look out the window, towards the forest. You contemplate going home but decide to stay in the library and read instead as it would be easier to get new books should you run out of reading material.

You look to Celestia to see that she is lying down with her sister sleeping next to her, her wing draped over the tired Alicorn. She was going to go to sleep, and to that you tilted your head. She noticed your quizzical expression.

“I don't get much time off you see. I'm going to make the best of it while I can.”

Ok then. You nod your head in understanding and sit down on the floor; in the corner opposite to all of the sleeping ponies. You lay the stack of books on the floor in front of you and look over their titles.

Basic Human Magic for Beginners; in good condition and not looking too old.

The Fundamentals of Magic; in decent condition with the signs of frequent use.

The Humana Potestate Liber; in good condition with the signs of lots of use and looking *very* old.

Book of Powerful Human Spells; in a semi-decent condition with the beginnings of some decay, and also very old.

The Fundamentals of Harmony Magic; looking like it was copied or repaired recently.

Basic Enchanting; in a good condition and looked to be brand new.

Basic Alchemy; also in a good condition and looking new.

Basic Conjuration; in a very good condition while looking like it had been used a lot recently.

Basic Summoning; looking slightly more decayed than the other books while also looking well-used.

The other two scrolls you unfurled and read to be, ‘levitation’ and ‘teleportation’.

You sat there thinking on which ones you should read first. The scrolls had all sorts of weird symbols and pictures that you didn't understand so you decided to read them later. The four ‘basic’ books sounded interesting but you think you would get confused without reading something else on magic first. Likewise, you didn't want to read the Humana Potestate Liber or the Book of Powerful Human Spells just yet. Soon, but not yet.

That left you to choose between the book on Basic Human Magic, The Fundamentals of Harmony Magic and the book on the Fundamentals of Magic for Beginners. You crossed the harmony magic book of the list as that seemed to be something you should read after The Fundamentals of Magic. That left you with the option of the book on basic human magic and the book on magic fundamentals.

They both seemed interesting so you couldn't decide based on that. They were both beginner books so hopefully you shouldn't have to worry about getting confused while reading.

Basically you were left with the choice of starting with book based on your species magic or a book on magic in general. You still couldn't believe you were actually in this situation; having to choose between a book on magic and a book on magic. Stupid Rift, sending you to a land populated by racist ponies and what they believe to be magical powers. You let out a sigh. You were getting distracted.

You pile the other books up to the side; the ones you weren't going to read yet. You then pull the remaining two into the space that had previously been occupied with the other books, directly in front of you.

You look to the one on the left; a book on magic that is wielded by a supposedly string and powerful race; the human race.

You look to the one on the right; a book that could possibly help you understand the other book to a greater extent and will help you understand all the other books.

Tough choice. They both had ups, and you couldn't think of any downs that either of them possessed.

You looked at the covers for both books.

The one on the left had an engraving of a hand on the cover.

The one on the right had an engraving of a crystal as its cover.

Left or right.

“Argh! I can't decide!”

You hear one of the ponies stir in their steep from your outburst and you hold you breath. The pony that was rousing was Pinkie. You didn't want her to be awake and disturb your reading.

Eventually she just let a hoof fall down her face and land on the wooden floor with a quiet thud before curling back under the blue ones wings. Coincidentally, her hoof happened to be pointing to one of your books.

There, decision made for you.

You look at the book Pinkie Pie had pointed towards before looking back to the pile of pony in the corner. By now they had practically piled onto each other they were that close. The two Pegasi had their wings outstretched and covered the others in a bunch of feathers.

You turn towards Celestia and Luna, who were off to the right a bit. They were both asleep now as well. Luna had curled up into a ball of fur in her larger sisters embrace and Celestia had laid down on her side so she could wrap her hooves around the smaller pony while also draping a white wing over her.

Ignoring the eight sleeping Equines in front of you, you turn your attention towards the books also in front of you. You look once more to Pinkie Pie, then back to the book her hoof was pointing at.

You pick up the left one and glance back at the sleeping ponies one more time. Setting the book down on the ground, you turn to the first page in the book and begin reading away to yourself quietly, hoping to not disturb any of the other, sleeping, occupants of the library.

-7- The Magic of Science

View Online

Humans, like Unicorns, have many spells and abilities that are unique to them, and them alone. Many of these consist of spells that are more complex than other, traditional forms of magic, used by Unicorns.

Humans have access to entire sections of magic that only very powerful Unicorns may ever hope to be able to understand it, much less be able to wield it or use it in any way.

This book will be looking at the very basics of human magic, with some information on other types of magic as well. This is not a book for Unicorns that want to learn human magic; if you wish to understand human magic you will have to ask a human.

Let's start with finding magic. Humans, unlike every other magic creature known to pony kind, have a very innate sense for magic. This is because, unlike Unicorns, humans don't channel magic through their horns as they don't have horns with which to do so. Instead, humans connect by going outwards, and controlling it that way.

Where Unicorns pull in magic to weave into spells, humans manipulate the magic around them itself. Many wonder why humans have this ‘unique magic access’, and it will probably be a question that will remain unanswered forever.

Now, the first step in practising magic is to be able to extend your will outwards. This is something books cannot teach, as it is different for everypony, or shall I say, everyone, as we humans say. You will have to learn this yourself before you can continue any further into this book.

Tips:

-try focusing on a single object first.

-try focusing your will through a single part of your body.

-try and ignore all that is happening around you.

You put the book down and thought to yourself. So it works sort of like your Nanites do. It seems simple enough.

You try to concentrate on a single book on the shelf opposite to where you were sitting down. After a while you notice a blue glow surrounding the book. You get excited for a moment but then frown once you realise it was just your Nanites. It seems you are going to have to disconnect from them.

Before you disconnect, you set all of the equipment you had to scan and record everything in a range approximate to the size of the library you were in. Then, you disconnect from the Hives that you had only just reconnected to after such a long time.

You still had your spatial and temporal manipulators but that was something you have had since birth. Hell, it was embedded into your very being on a smaller than sub-atomic level. Nothing was going to get those, at least, not anything that wouldn't kill you first.

You turn your attention back to the book you were trying to move. You began concentrating on it while trying to ignore everything else in your vicinity. Again, you see a blue glow, however, this time it's different. Instead of being made up of the tiny spots of light that was produced by the clusters of your Nanites, this glow was solid and wavy. It was a transparent blue of the same colour as your Nanites and it weaved around the book, in a seemingly random way.

You grin at the thought of you moving something with your mind, with naturally occurring technology as well! The only other time you felt like this was when you were using your Nanites for the first time.

You look back down to the book, eager to continue.

Once you have the ability to force your will onto the surroundings, everything else in this book shall become much easier to learn and understand.

The first thing you should probably learn is levitation. There are many different types of levitational spells that are around, however, humans have the ability to move objects without the aid of a spell of any kind.

To do this, all you need to do is focus on one side of the object more than the other side.

Seems pretty simply. You give it a try.

You focus more on the side that you can see; the spine of the book. The book slowly moves out of the shelf before it lands on the floor with a soft thud.

“Marhg! Books!”

You quickly swivel your head around to look for the source of the sound, which turns out to be the purple Unicorn. She stirred a bit more before resting back down and relaxing. You turn back to the book on the floor.

You try to pick it back up off the floor but struggle more than you had before. You put more effort in and you are rewarded with the book being ripped in half. Oops.

You rush over to the dead book and hide it before anyone else discovers the corpse.

Instead if sitting back down on the floor, you decide to stand up and practice. You go for another book, this time being a lot more careful to not damage it. You decide to follow some advice given by the book, and use lift your hand up and focus on that as well. For your efforts, the book floats off of the ground and starts hovering above a reading table set in the corner.

Now you had to move it. Instead of focusing directly on the book, this time you focus on your hand and imagine moving the book with your hand. You tilt your hand up a little and the book follows it. You tilt it to the left and the books does the same. You raise your hand and the book increases its altitude.

You had that down, now you should try without your hand aiding you. You lower your hand and focus on the book instead. You imagine the atoms that make up the book and focus more on the ones that are to the left of where you were standing. Your results were unexpected.

Instead of the book tilting to one side like you had planned, the atoms that made up the book broke away from it; still in the form of a book, just with an atomically thin cut going down the middle of it.

You tried to reverse the process and rejoin the two pieces of book back into one. You succeeded but with a margin of error; the book was now twisted down the middle, going down along the spine.

You frowned at your error, in turn causing you to lose focus and drop the book. You walk over to the floored book and place it back on the shelf; not bothering to read the title.

You walk back over to the book you had placed down on the floor and pick it up. You begin to pace around the room as you read.

Everyone has different ways of connecting to the surrounding magical energies, so finding a way to manipulate it is going to be something that you have to experiment with and find out for yourself.

Once you have achieved some basic control over magical energies, you can learn the first thing that is needed in order to make spells and enchantments, or rather, things, that are needed.

You need to learn to see magical energies, you need to learn how to pull certain areas of magical energies, and you need to be able to ‘sense’ surrounding magical energies.

To be able to see magical energies, all you need to do is focus on the surroundings around you and visualise how it moves, again this is going to have to be something you learn yourself. Remember; experimentation is key.

Visualising magic? What does magic even look like? If magic was the sub-atomic interactions you witnessed earlier then the closest thing you could think of was radiation.

With that in mind you look at the surrounding area and try to imagine what it would look like if it were infra-red, ultra-violet, or radioactive. Nothing happened so you closed your eyes and tried picturing it that way. At first, nothing happened. But then, you opened your eyes and saw the surroundings as different colours.

The wooden walls, floor and ceiling were all orange with some spots of very dark blue here and there. The ponies sleeping around you were all varying colours of blue, going from bright white blue to blue as dark as some of the spots on the ceiling. You yourself are also blue, but you have red spots where your Hives are and where you presume your Nanites to be.

Walking over to the window shows that the ponies outside are all blue as well. The sun is a very bright violet colour while the surrounding atmosphere is bright red. The stone pathways appear as varying shades of multiple colours, from dark red to aqua.

And then you blinked and it all went back to normal. That was such a strange experience. You could probably do it again if you tried. You thought of what you just were thinking moments ago and close your eyes. When you re-open them everything has gone back to the weird colour spectrum. It was also being made more weird by the fact that it was looking more realistic.

Not normal by any stretch, but still in greater detail than what is normal for this strange place.

You dispel the ‘magic vision’ and turn back to the book.

Everyone views the surrounding magic aura differently; no two are alike. However, one thing that everyone sees is all living creatures magical aura, how they are seen is something else entirely, that changes from human to human.

The next thing you need to learn is how to ‘sense’ and manipulate magical energies. This is just fine-tuning your ability to see, or rather, visualise magic. Using this ability is less about seeing - although some rare individuals can actually see what is happening - and more about feeling the magical energies.

For this reason most find it easier to sense magical energies with their hands. Try it now.

Ok. Just sense the magic in the air. Can't be too difficult can it?

You activate your Vision, as you were going to call it from now on, and extend your arm out and try to feel for...something, you're not sure what. At first nothing happens but after a while you feel...something. Again, you're not sure what though.

Looking closely at your hand reveals something of interest though; bits of coloured light was flashing between your hand and the air. It was microscopic as well. Maybe even smaller with how hard it was to focus on it.

You notice something out of the corner of your eye so you look up and let out a gasp upon seeing what caught your attention. The entire room was alive with more of the same lights. They were everywhere; on the walls, on the ponies, IN the ponies and IN the walls. You noted that there was a concentration of the lights on the inside of the ponies heads, where their brains should be. Not only that, but the lights were flowing down pathways that you concluded to be motor neurons and sensory neurons, in bursts or in an organised pattern.

You took a look at yourself.

You thought the ponies looked complicated. There was easily millions, if not billions, of more pathways flowing through just your forearms alone. It was an incredible sight, that's for sure.

You shook your head and when your vision cleared everything was back to normal. Minus the cartoon colour palette, of course.

Ok, enough of the magic for now. You wanted to know what was happening when you were using your Vision and whatever that last thing was.

You reconnect with your Nanites and look through the data that had been recorded during your experimentation.

Fascinating. What you were ‘seeing’ before was actually atomic interaction. You were actually seeing atomic and sub-atomic particles interact with one another.

That would explain why everything was weirdly coloured; you were seeing it according to how much energy it had compared to how much energy it was releasing. The sun would have been purple, or rather, violet, because of the large amounts of energy it was releasing.

Wait. Before your scans said that the sun wasn't releasing any radiation. At least, it wasn't releasing any non-visible radiation like it should be doing. But then again, you weren't exactly looking at the normal spectrum visible to humans. You needed to look into that later.

The question is, what were you seeing inside of the ponies and the walls?

The most obvious answer would be more atomic interaction but it couldn't be that as what you saw was following clear pathways. A little digging into the Hive archives and you had the answer.

What you were seeing was complex atomic interaction, only found within organic matter and also magic connections apparently. The more complex it is the more pathways you would see. That would explain why you had so much more pathways flowing through you. You didn't just have these creatures biological functions. You doubted - no, severely doubted that you even had the same biological functions as the humans that call this land home. It would probably be similar, or at least have some similarities, but it would not be the same.

It would probably be very unlikely for anything to have similar biological functions to you, considering you possessed no normal biological functions. Your DNA were probably so much more complex and different compared to everything else on this planet that you might not even share any similarities with them at all.

You were getting off track, you wanted to know how you were seeing what you were seeing.

Some more searching and you had more answers. Apparently, all magic here depends on modifications, just like the cloud you saw in the forest. Except this time the photons were on the non-visible spectrum and were passing through your skull to edit the neurons responsible for registering sight. The photons would stimulate a certain neuron in a certain way and you would be seeing things slightly differently. This system gets more complicated the more you study it, and by the looks of it you are only just scratching the surface.

You shook your head to rid yourself of the thoughts that were plaguing your mind. It wouldn't matter, you could experiment on that later but right now you wanted to learn more from the book.

You walk back to the book and sit down this time to continue reading from where you left off.

Once you have learnt how to visualise magic the next thing you need to be able to do is control it to a fine detail. You already know how to control it, but only with little accuracy and with low precision.

Being able to see what you are doing helps, which is why you had to learn how to see magic; it will help greatly with future magic lessons.

The first spell - and probably the easiest - spell would have to the levitation spell. As you already know you can do levitation without a spell, but it will require more focus and willpower to keep it as accurate as a levitation performed with a spell.

It is a trade-off: one has easier accuracy but you have to weave the spell first while the other just takes more of your mind to control.

It is true that people can get so good at non-spell levitation that they actually have greater accuracy than that of an actual spell, but that requires a very large amount of practice and not everyone can do it.

Now, onto the actual spell. It is just as easy as pulling magic from the surroundings and literally weaving the magic ‘strands’ into these arcane symbols, exactly how Unicorns do it except humans do it better.

These are the arcane symbols:

Below the text was some symbols. The first looked almost like a backwards, stylised seven, with a vertical line going down the middle, which was also stylised.

The next one was a circle with an almost semi-circle on top, with the closed side of the circle coming though the other circle. On the middle of the semi-circle - which was also the centre of the full circle - was a dot, along with two other dots at the ends if each line forming the semi-circle.

The last symbol was a modified Omega, with stylised, spiky curves coming from the top of the Omega and flowing downwards towards the open end of the Omega. The symbol was perfectly symmetrical, just like the second but unlike the first symbol.

That seemed pretty simple. You activate your Vision and look around. Again you see more of the atomic, or, ‘magic’, interaction strands flowing in and around everything. You attempt to pull one of the strands and succeed straight away. It moves towards your outstretched hand and stays in place; not fully stable as it was wobbling slightly after being moved. Instead of just moving a piece of the ‘magic’ as you had expected, you had actually just stretched one strand and made forced it to change shape.

You began pulling more and more strands into your palm, looping them into other strands to form more complex shapes and to hold the larger shape you were making together. After about a minute if pulling you had almost finished all three symbols. Once you had completed the symbols something unexpected happened; a brief flash appeared and the symbols were gone. Instead, you saw a single stream of violet light weaving around your hands, waving around your fingers.

You briefly came out of your Vision to see if anything had happened to your hand. Something had happened; your hand was covered in a similar glow to when you levitated the book earlier.

You went back into your Vision to further study what was happening.

Nothing. Nothing was happening. Wait, you should probably try to levitate something first. You concentrated on another book and it became engulfed in a bright red light before lifting off the ground. Moving it around was much easier than without the spell, as it was like using your Nanites. The object literally had a connection with your brain.

“I see you have learnt telekinesis.”

You dropped the book, startled by the sudden interruption of the quiet. The voice was much softer than Celestia’s, so it was probably her sister, Luna. You turned around and sure enough, Luna was standing there, or rather sitting-slash-standing, as she was sitting on her rump while standing on her forelegs.

“Yes, just learning the basics now actually.”

“Really? You seemed pretty good before.”

When had she seen you before. Wait was she...

“How do you know I can even use magic?”

“You used it to battle Nightmare Moon in the Everfree forest. I saw it myself.”

“You saw that? How?”

Was she there...or was she...

“...were you there?...”

“You could say that I suppose.”

Her voice had suddenly dropped in volume.

“...”

“...It was you, wasn't it?”

“...yes.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Why?”

She recoiled, as if expecting to be struck, when you asked the simple question. After a few moments later, Luna stopped shivering and removed her hoof for her face so she could open her eyes.

“Your not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“I attacked you! I tried to kill you!”

“So? I don't really care all that much.”

“You seemed to care an awful lot when it was happening!”

“That was then, this is now.”

“Ponies usually hold grudges against ponies who try to kill them.”

“Meh, I've died plenty of times, its not all that bad.”

“But - wait, what!”

Here we go.

“I said its not that bad.”

“...”

She didn't respond for a very long time.

“You...you...you've died...before...”

“Oh yes, many times.”

“...”

“...How are you alive still?”

Hmm, that answer is complicated and you don't feel like explaining very complex technology at the moment. Magic seemed more interesting at the moment. Another time maybe.

“Well, it's thanks to a very complex machine. A very, very complex machine. You wouldn't understand the details, perhaps I'll explain it to you at a later date, but now is time for magic practice. Perhaps you would like to help me?”

The Alicorn grumbled a bit.

“I'm not very good at human magic. The only spell I learnt to use effectively was the entrance to the dreamscape spell. Even then it took me decades to perfect it.”

Dreamscape?

“What's this about a dreamscape?”

She raised an...you didn't know what to call it. She raised the patch of fur on her head that was thicker than the other bits of fur and vaguely resembled an eyebrow.

“You do not know of the dreamscape?”

You shook your head.

“Well then, the dreamscape is just that, a landscape used to enter ponies dreams.”

“Wait! You can enter someones mind just by going into the dreamscape?!”

“The spell only allows entrance into pony dreams and only while they are dreaming.”

“So you can't just enter someone's head whenever you feel like it?”

“No, of course not.”

Ok. Still seems like a big intrusion of privacy to you though.

You shook your head.

“You still haven't answered my question.”

“I told you I don't know human magic all that well. I would probably be more of a hindrance to you than a help.”

“Not true. The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else, it gives you a new perspective and a broader vision.”

She seemed hesitant.

“...ok. But only while I have time and only what I can.”

She walked over from her place next to her still sleeping sister and sat down next to you. Before she could reach for one of the books you stopped her.

“Tell you what. Why don't we learn what your good at first.”

A smile formed on her face, and one found its way to yours as well.

“That would be much better thank you. I feel very uncomfortable using human magic. It just feels...unnatural.”

“Fair enough. Now...where do we begin?”

She seemed to become very excited at the prospect of teaching you something she was good at. It was weird, she switched from being against the idea to being all for it in a matter if seconds. Best not to dwell on it now though.

“We shall begin with magic that I am the best at! Night magic!”

Seemed interesting enough.

“Night magic is the magic that I use to move the stars and moon. Although...I haven't been doing my job as of late. I shall hopefully be doing it again soon though.”

Wait, what?

“You move the stars? And the moon?”

“Yep!”

She's the one responsible for that pile of energy that resembles a night sky?

“Why is that? Surely you haven't always been controlling the night?”

“Well...me and my sister were sort of chosen by the heavens to control them, it's what we do best after all.”

“And what happens if you die? Does that mean that the world just stops having a day and night?”

“No, the heavens would choose another to control them, so long as we are alive they don't need to.”

“Can't these ‘heavens’ just control it themselves?”

“No, they need us to hold the form of the night and day. Without a living creature to hold it together they would just fall apart into strings of pure, concentrated magic.”

That's a flimsy system. But that would explain what was keeping the energy you detected in the sky from taking other forms like heat and mass.

“...I see...well are you ready to teach me about your special brand of magic.”

She nodded her head in excitement.

“I've never taught anypony else before, this is exciting!”

You could see that, she was clapping her front hooves together.

“Oh, no!”

What!

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I need some spell books, hang on I'll be right back!”

She disappeared in a flash of light similar to what she did earlier back in the forest, which caused your spatial and temporal manipulators to have a brief fit. Just as fast as she had gone, she was suddenly back again, this time with some books in her mouth.

Eww.

“These will be essential!”

She was surprisingly good at speaking with a mouth full of book. She didn't even make a mistake.

“What are they?”

You already knew the answer.

“Spell books!”

You pick one from out of her mouth and look at the cover.

“Ah!”

You threw the book at her face, where it stuck there, giving her ample opportunity to read the title.

“Oops, sorry. These are the wrong books. I'll be right back.”

She was gone again, and you were left to think about what had just transpired. You almost had a heart attack when you read the cover of the book. Why would ponies even need a book on cross-species mating habits?!

Before you could contemplate it any further Luna reappeared in a flash of light, leaving you slightly dazed.

When you could see again what you saw was a very embarrassed Alicorn with a blush adorning her cheeks.

“I'm terribly sorry about that. Didn't mean for you to have to-”

“Let's just forget it ever happened at.”

“But-”

“Lets just forget it. Ever. Happened.”

“...ok”

“Marvellous! Now what's the first thing to do?”

She seemed to drop the subject pretty quickly and for that you were glad; you didn't even won't to know why she picked that book up in the first place.

“The first thing you need to learn is basic spell weaving.”

“I was just doing that a minute ago.”

“Oh. I thought you were doing that weird thing were levitating things without a spell.”

“No that was an actual spell.”

“Oh, ok then. In that case you probably want to learn how to read arcane symbols.”

Reading the symbols? It wasn't like it was difficult to just look at it and understand it.

“Done. I also did that before.”

“Oh...I guess you can just read through these then I I'll help you as you need it.”

“Ok then.”

She hands you the books which were on the floor by her forelegs which you flip open and look at the first page. It had more symbols all throughout it and you were only on the first page.

“This is going to take a while.”

“Yes it will. Magic can't be learnt overnight of course.”

Why not?

“Ok then let's get started shall we?”

You begin reading the book while Luna distracts herself for a while.

Star spell.

The star spell is exactly as it sounds; a spell to move, modify, add or remove stars. It is a spell that is derived from a common levitation spell but with more focusing arcane symbols. The spell is the simplest form of the night magic category and should be learnt and mastered before attempting any more complicated spells in the night magic category.

Here are the arcane symbols:

There was some more symbols beneath the text, one being the same modified omega from before. There was a lot more symbols this time though, as instead of there being just three symbols there was ten.

The modified omega symbol from before.

A circle with a dot in the middle of it. It had two lots of a third of a circle on each side of the larger circle forming a sort-of spiral out of curved lines.

Again, another one from before; the reverse seven.

The fourth symbol was a slightly-more-than semi-circle with the blank side facing left. It also had a triangle in the middle of the curved line.

The next symbol looked like a backwards stylised four but much more curvy than a normal four should be.

The fifth was just an average circle with nothing special about it at all.

The sixth was three small circles linked together to form a vaguely triangular shape with curved lines; one circle on top, one on the bottom right and one on the bottom left.

The seventh was another semi-circle, this time with three lines coming form the open side of it, each getting larger the closer it got to the bottom, overall making it look like a set of stairs.

The eighth was once again a semi-circle except this time it was smaller than the others. The only difference from the last symbol you could note was that it was pointing diagonally; upwards and to the right side of the page.

The ninth symbol was vertical line with a small line coming off from it at an angle. On top of that line was another line which was parallel to the first line.

The tenth and final symbol was a sort-of ‘e’, with the top left half of it replaced with blank space and the top right half appearing to be a straight line.

Unlike before where the symbols were in a random order, these symbols were arranged in a specific pattern which was detailed further down the page.

In the middle was the fifth symbol; the generic circle. Above that was the first symbol which was connected by a single line to the fifth symbol. A lot of the symbols appeared to be in arrangement like this. In fact the whole diagram was just the other nine symbols in a circle around the fifth symbol, all connected by a varying amount of lines.

You put the book down and enter your Vision to be able to see the magic around you for easier manipulation. Before forming the symbols from the book you try to recreate the last spell you did.

It is easier to do this time, and a few tries later it gets easier and easier for you to make the symbols. Alongside that you got faster at making it as well, and it took less of your attention to do. You concluded that it must have been some kind of muscle-memory type thing.

You dispel the spell that had ‘sunk’ into your hand and started forming the diagram from the book held within your other hand, occasionally looking back to it for guidance. It is much more difficult to create than the last one had been, as you had to weave it in a specific order otherwise it would get tangled in a mess or just break apart.

After twenty or so attempts at it you manage to succeed and create a picture perfect copy of the diagram in the book. Like the other spell it flashes and disappears from its position above your palm, however this time there is no glow around your hands once it does disappear.

You exit your Vision to see if anything else in your surroundings had changed. Most of the ponies were still sleeping so that hadn't changed. You decided to ask the one waking pony for help.

“Hey Luna?”

“Yes?”

She pulled her head away from the window that she was looking out very quickly, almost as if she was waiting for you to need help.

“I've done the first spell but nothing has happened. Have I done something incorrectly or what?”

“Oh, you probably just need to envision it to make it happen. A lot of magic is based around imagination.”

“Envision it. Got it.”

You imagined a couple of stars just drifting around through space. It wasn't difficult as you had spent a lot of your lifetime in deep space with nothing to look at but stars, galaxies and other amazing objects.

Within a couple of seconds the room was filled with seven different stars, all different colours. They ranged from bright white to dark blue and varied in size from small to medium. Of course ‘small to medium’ in the sense of relativity; they weren't that big compared to actual stars. They were tiny, only about half a metre in diameter on average.

“Amazing for a first try!”

“Thank you.”

You briefly entered your Vision to see what it looked like through that and it looked very much different compared to the normal spectrum. Instead of before where there was webs of ‘magic’ going between you and the object you were controlling, this time they were all connected together by millions of different strings, each having separate ones going to each other. They formed a sort of network of lights as each one was connected to every other one by at least one string.

When you thought about moving one thousands of strands shot out from the one you were ‘editing’ and into you, with the other stars doing the same but with far less strands going into you.

You exited your Vision and turned to face Luna.

“So you do this every night?”

“I used to. But now I'm hopefully going to do so once more.”

“You must be pretty amazing at it then.”

“It's my sole purpose in life, just as my sisters is to raise the sun and shepherd the day.”

Not just a figure head then.

“You must be loved by your subjects then, to bring such a marvellous gift to the world that is the night.”

She winced. It seemed like you had hit a nerve. A very painful nerve by the looks of it.

“Not necessarily...”

“What do you mean by that?”

You really didn't want to make the situation worse but your curiosity got the better of you.

“I...didn't get all that much attention in the past. It may have made me a bit jealous of my sister who received all the attention. Which also made me a bit angry. And a bit lonely. Then something in me snapped, and I attacked my sister! I was an idiot and I attacked her! How could I have done something like that? I attacked my sister! She punished me fairly though! She sent me to the moon! Yes she sent me to the moon! Oh, the cold moon which became my prison. Where it was even more lonely and lonely and - ha ha - lonely and lonely-”

You think you broke her. You were not expecting such a reply and it really caught you of guard. By now she had shrunk into a small ball and was muttering ‘lonely’ over and over again. Something was clearly bothering her if it had driven her to a state of insanity in such a short amount of time. Then again, you knew little to nothing of these ponies physiology or psychology.

You walked up to the shivering pony and put your hand on her back between her wings, the action caused her to tense up in shock and stop muttering.

“You all right there?”

She was panicky at the moment, looking around the room sporadically with her eyes unfocused.

“She'll send me back! Gotta’ be good otherwise she'll send me back!”

This pony was clearly suffering from some kind of mental trauma. Funny, you didn't notice anything off about her previously, besides her sudden shift in attitude before.

“Why would your sister send you back?”

You tried calming her down by stroking her hair which was strangely normal, from what you seen of other Alicorns’ hair at least. It wasn't working though as she was still freaking out and mumbling words under her breath.

You took a more direct approach. You lifted up the light Alicorn and cradled her in your arms. It made you feel awkward holding her but you would rather that than have her break down further.

Picking her up was easy as she didn't even come up to your hips. It was just a struggle to fit her in your arms as she still was quite large in comparison to her weight.

Apparently she hadn't noticed that she wasn't on the floor any more as she continued on with her insane ramblings. You put her in one arm and used your other arm to stroke her belly gently.

You had never felt more awkward in your entire life.

At least you got her to stop as now she was just laying completely still in your arm. You couldn't even tell if she was breathing anymore, she was that motionless. She did move eventually though, she turned towards you with a completely blank expression.

“Why am I in your arms?”

Why did you just freak out?

“...”

“...oh, no reason...no reason at all.”

And with that you dropped her unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Oof!”

“Where were we again? Oh yes! You were complementing me on my fine spell work.”

You gestured around you towards the stars that hadn't changed at all during Luna’s meltdown.

“Oh! Yes! Yes, of course! How could I forget!”

She seemed really quick to drop the subject. Perhaps she didn't actually forget her breakdown from moments ago. Oh well, you didn't really care at the moment.

“So...what now?”

“...”

“You know...I didn't actually plan this far ahead...”

Wow. Some teacher she was.

“Well...I suppose we could sit around and wait for night. You have been practicing for most of the day and my brand of magic is best cast at night anyways...”

Again, her mood changed so quickly, why is it - wait, what.

“Did you say I've been practicing for most of the day?”

“Yes, I did. Why?”

“And remind me again, how long does a day last exactly?”

She gave you an odd look which made you want to laugh. You forced down your laughter.

“...Three hours. Six if you count the night, which I always do myself.”

So...a full day lasts six hours. A quarter of a standard Earth day and very short compared to your home planets day and night cycle. That would explain all the lost time you had been experiencing lately, at least.

“Ok then. We could wait for the night I suppose.”

You sat down on the floor opposite Luna yet still facing towards her. Soon she followed your example and sat down as well. A silence descended upon the room so you decided to break it with some questions that had been gnawing at you since you first saw these ponies.

“How do your legs work?”

Luna didn't respond at first.

“...what.”

“How do your legs work? They seen to have no bones whatsoever.”

“...”

“...I really don't know. Any thing that was discovered about our anatomy is...well...lost on me. I wasn't exactly around to study it now was I?”

“Wait. Nothing at all? You weren't around to learn anything at all? How long were you imprisoned?!?”

She went really silent again.

“...one thousand years...”

“...”

“One thousand years. You were on the moon for one thousand years. One. Thousand. Years.”

That wouldn't be all that long for you or any other human that you know of for that matter, and they have shorter days than most human colonies but still, one thousand years? Was that really necessary? One thousand years of confinement? Couldn't they have just locked her in a room for a few years? The other Alicorn who was somehow this Alicorn was not all that difficult to defeat.

“I'm sorry to hear that. But at least you are back now, that's all that matters.”

She smiled at you.

“Thank you.”

“So...how much longer until night time?”

“About half an hour, maybe an hour.”

You nodded to her in response. So you had half an hour to kill. You might as well look into what was making this ‘magic’ tick.

You entered the archives in your Hives and fished around the near-endless amounts of data within until you found the correct information.

You started with your Vision.

Apparently what was happening was that the strings or strands of ‘magic’ that you were pulling was actually many different types of interaction. For that ‘spell’ in particular it was taking non-visible radiation and pulling it together into your palms using highly precise electro-magnetic pulses. This light, which was in the form of optical data once it reached your hand, was then further refined into more detailed instructions using your mind.

Each piece of quanta was a piece of data that would be received by the surrounding molecules and acted as instructions once released from your grasp. Each minute detail could have massive impacts on the overall product of whatever you intended to do in the first place. Each piece of quanta was changed to be at an exact frequency and programmed to be released at the exact right time.

It just got more interesting from there.

Each bit of quanta that you received was carrying all the information from the atom from whence it came. All information on every single atom in your surroundings. Every. Single. One.

Most of that information wasn't even being processed by anything, your subconscious was literally just ripping the bits of data that was relevant and dumping the rest back into the surroundings. Your subconscious then literally had to compile that relevant data in a way in which you would be able to understand on a conscious level. Then, when you tried to change the surroundings in the very same way you were receiving data, more updated data became available and was received only to be compiled once more. All of this done near instantaneously.

The implications of this were not lost on you. You were literally in a massive computer - artificial or not, you had yet to decide - that programmed and recorded everything. Every action, every movement, every thought and every thing within itself.

You felt a massive swell of pride knowing that even the extremely outdated machines within you had the capacity to do exactly what the surroundings were doing. Even more so when you thought of how this ‘ mega-computer’ paled in comparison to even the most basic of all human computers outside of your home galaxy.

“It's almost night-time.”

You were startled out of your Hives by Luna, who was walking upstairs to the higher levels of the tree. You quickly got up and followed behind her, being careful not to shatter the wood with your tremendous weight.

At the top of the stairs there was another large room, with another floor that lacked any walls covering almost half of the room itself. This room, like the last, was filled with more books. While on the lower section of the floor you were on looked like a library still, the upper half looked more like a private study or even a bedroom, if the beds were anything to go by. Unlike the ground floor this floor seemed to be lacking in the dust and grime department and for that you were grateful. You didn't want to waste any of your time cleaning some stingy library.

Luna spread her wings once she reached the middle of the room and took off for the higher level of the floor. Seeing as you didn't have wings you just walked up the stairs. Luna then led you out onto the balcony where you could see ponies going inside as the sun began to set.

She laid down on the balcony as you arrived next to her, which you promptly followed suit and sat down beside her.

Luna then began doing the most weird thing you had ever seen in your life. She bent her neck backwards and began shuffling the feathers that were on her wings, plucking a few out every now and again. The action looked so alien and foreign on the Alicorn as you never expected to see a mammal pluck out feathers from their own wings. That is, assuming these ponies even are mammals at all. For all you knew they could be some weird parasite in the shape of equines.

Once the little Alicorn besides you had finished with her chore she turned back towards you just in time for the sun to set completely, sending the world into twilight. You took this opportunity to set a clock going in your Hives and set it to the local three hour time, for future use.

Luna turned to face back towards the horizon.

“My sister does her job very well, does she not?”

“Yeah, she really does.”

Soon the balcony descended into a silence. Luna and you were the only ones that you could see that was looking up at the sky as the first stars appeared amongst the steadily darkening sky.

“Well...it is night now...what are we doing again?”

“We are going to test your magic.”

She pointed towards a cluster of seven stars that was directly in front of you from your position on the balcony.

“You want me...to move some of your stars...now...after about, I don't know...an hour?”

“Well, why not? If you get anything wrong I can always fix it.”

“What of one of your subjects notice the change though? Wouldn't that be a little difficult to explain?”

“What ponies?”

She pointed outwards towards the houses in front of you. Not a single light was on.

“Ok, point taken. I'll give it a shot then.”

You turned away from the little Alicorn and faced your goal. Instead of just activating your Vision you decide to try and modify it a bit. You ‘overlay’ your magic ‘sense’ over the top of the cartoon world, allowing you to see things...differently.

Everything you could see had multicoloured lines going between them and their surroundings, forming a web-like network that made what you saw in the library look pathetic by comparison.

The stars looked even more complicated. They had at least twenty different coloured strands going to each and every one. If you looked closely at the stars you could see something even more complex. The stars themselves were comprised of many strands that had been joined together, not by an adhesive, but just by bending around one another in an infinitely complicated way which formed even smaller web-like networks within the other networks.

And you had to change it in some way without breaking the whole system. Oh joy.

“I can smell the failure already.”

Luna ignored your comment and kept her gaze directly on you.

“Fine then.”

You released a heavy sigh then returned your gaze to the stars that seemed suddenly more beautiful all of a sudden. It was most likely because you could now comprehend how they were formed.

You put your hand up towards the sky even though it wouldn't actually affect your spell in any way at all, it just seemed natural to you. That and it looked better than just staring at something as hard as you could.

You started on just one star, pulling at a single strand of magic while holding all the other ones in place. After you had pulled the whole thing out you began yanking on the other ones, repeating this process until you had nothing left but a bunch of strands left behind.

“Well done, now put it back together.”

Oh shit. How were you going to do that.

You began by weaving a few strands into a circle, then looping a few more around that to hold it still. You ‘let go’ of the strands to see if it would hold without your assistance and was happy to find that it did.

You repeated this process of making circles, with each one being halfway between the two closest edges of the circle. Had you been looking from the side it would have looked like a line, then a plus sign, then a...shape, of some sort, divided into eight equal pieces, and then continuing until eventually you could no longer see any more gaps.

By the time you had finished the shape was a perfect sphere of strings expertly woven together, if you do say so yourself.

The end product was a star that shone brightly, more bright than any of the other stars in the sky.

“Well? How did I do?”

Luna’s jaw had somehow unhinged and was literally on the floor. Ok, you could handle the other weird stuff, but how in the actual FUCK is she doing that!?! Do they seriously have no bones in their bodies at all?!?

During your internal rant Luna had regained her bearings and was about to reply before you cut her off.

“What in the actual shit is this? What the fuck!”

She stumbled backwards slightly, either from the force of your shout or your foul language. Either way you didn't care, you were still fuming over the bizarre pony in front of you.

“W-w-what?”

“Your jaw, it - how - just - argh!”

You really shouldn't be surprised at this point. After all the other bullshit this world has been shoving down your throat nothing should surprise you anymore. Hell, even you knew that anything was possible but still, a little warning would be nice.

You sucked in a deep breath to calm your frazzled nerves. You were quite honestly surprised your mind hadn't completely snapped yet.

“What about my jaw? Is something wrong with it?”

“Are you seriously telling me you couldn't feel you jaw getting splinters from the floor?”

“No, why would my jaw do that?”

You shuddered at the realisation that she was talking like her jaw could actually do that, almost like this was a regular occurrence. You don't think you could survive if that was the case.

“Ok, ignore that question! how did I do?”

“Y-y-you, did amazing!”

Did you really do that good of a job?

“Really?”

“Oh yes! I didn't even do half as good as you on my first try!”

“Can you tell me what I did well on then?”

You were curious as to what made your star so ‘amazing’ as Luna puts it.

“Certainly! The best thing about your design of star is that your star was brighter than mine.”

“That's it?”

“No, it is excellent because you got a brighter star from the same amount of magic. I would love to see the spell you weaved just then.”

“I didn't weave a spell. I just thought it up on the spot and went on from that.”

“That's even more amazing then! You're-”

“Sister? Are you up here?”

You turned to face the stairway that led to the lower region of the library; the direction of the voice which you had identified as Celestia’s. Soon the face that matched the voice appeared in the doorway, which promptly settled on you and Luna.

“What are you to doing?”

“Practicing spells sister! Isn't it amazing! Some pony actually wants to be taught by me! I feel special!”

Celestia’s gaze turned towards you.

“Really?”

“Yep. I even made a star just a second ago. It's a very nice star if I do say so myself.”

She did a weird motion with what you would call eyebrows. You think that she was once again trying to raise them. It failed. It looked like someone had smeared coloured chalk pastels all over her forehead.

“You made a star? On your first go?”

She seemed really skeptical. If someone told you that they had made a star you would believe them. It was an almost everyday occurrence where you were from, even more so outside of your home galaxy.

“Come see for yourself if you want to.”

You pointed towards your star, shining brightly in the night sky.

Celestia followed your hand and her gaze settled upon your freshly made star near the horizon. Her skepticism was replaced with disbelief.

“You made that?”

“Yep. Had you been here earlier you would have seen me make it.”

“Incredible. I have never seen anypony with such magical potential.”

“I'm not a pony remember.”

“I know, but still, such skill is impressive.”

You really didn't agree but you didn't interrupt either.

“It will be morning soon and I believe the new Elements wish to throw a party in your honor sister.”

“B-b-but there'll be other ponies there! I can't go!”

You came up with a compromise.

“How about we just throw a little celebration in this library? A sort of, ‘welcome back from the moon sorry for almost killing you’ kind of thing.”

“Perfect!”

Celestia’s eyes almost exploded out of her head when you said ‘almost killing you’. That's right, she wasn't there in the forest was she?

With that said Luna flew down the stairs, past her still bug-eyed sister and disappeared from view. You followed suit, leaving behind the stunned mullet of an Alicorn that was Celestia.

Upon arriving at the ground floor you noticed that the other ponies in the building were beginning to wake up. They must really get up early.

You decided to just sit down in the corner and wait for them all to get up of their own accord. In the meantime you took notice of Luna leaving the room with Celestia any going into another room in the ‘tree-brary’. They emerged a few minutes later and by that time all if the ponies had roused from their slumber.

Luna stepped forward to speak with them.

“H-hi. Um...I would like to thank you all for saving me from...well, myself. I know that you would like to throw a celebration for doing this but I must decline this offer as-”

“But why not?”

“Well you see...I'm kinda’ nervous around other ponies...so I thought a small celebration just between us would be better...if that is ok with you.”

You still hadn't decided what was up with Luna. You had definitely seen evidence for some form of multiple personality disorder, along with some kind of other mental trauma. You couldn't figure out what it was though.

“Woo-hoo! It's time to party!”

Pinkie Pie pulled out a cannon from absolutely nowhere and lit the fuse, making sparks fly from it. She then proceeded to lift the cannon over her head and place it in front of her, just as the fuse ran out.

To avoid being shot in the chest you dive out of the way just as the cannon fires and smoke fills the room. The room continues to fill with smoke until everyone in the room is coughing and absolutely nothing is visible.

Luckily for you though, you were near a window so you just walked over to it and opened it up.

“Next time make sure the window is open when you try to...um, what.”

The whole room was filled with decorations and other party equipment, but that wasn't what had you startled. No, somehow in the time between the cannon being fired and the smoke leaving the room the ponies had arranged themselves to make a tower. Celestia was on the bottom, followed by Luna, then the purple unicorn, followed by the white unicorn and the orange earth pony. After that there was the blue Pegasus and Pinkie, followed by Fluttershy on the top.

They were all blinking their eyes slowly, with the exception of Pinkie, who you think would probably be jumping were it not for the other pony on her back.

Flittershy was the one to break the silence, using her quiet voice as usual.

“...um...how did I get up here? If you don't mind me asking, that is.”

“I am confused as well.”

Before anyone in the room could react, Pinkie Pie jumped down from the stack of ponies and landed on the floor, bringing down the pony on top of her as well, who clung on for dear life and let out a little squeal of surprise.

“Come on guys! Let's get partying!”

Pinkie began bouncing around the room, completely oblivious to the pony still stuck to her even as she began to ‘eek’.

“eeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeee-”

Fluttershy's voice was being altered as every time Pinkie Pie landed from another bounce her lungs would get compressed.

“Um...Pinkie darling, I think you are frightening our friend here.”

She suddenly stopped, forcing Fluttershy onto Pinkie’s side, still clinging on as if her life depended on it.

Pinkie looked down at the shivering yellow clump that was stuck to her fur.

“Heh heh, sorry.”

Fluttershy flopped off of Pinkie and fell onto her back on hone floor, still shivering.

“O-o-oh d-don't worry P-pinkie.”

Fluttershy seemed really shaken up. Pinkie Pie seemed to stop caring pretty quickly though, as she just walked off towards one of the tables that had appeared out of nowhere where she started eating some of the food, which also appeared out of nowhere.

You were still trying to process what just happened.

“Did I miss something here?”

“Aah!”

You looked towards the now smaller pile of ponies just in time to see Luna fall off of Celestia, bringing everyone else down as well.

Ignoring the group of ponies that were struggling to get off of Celestia while apologising, you turned towards Pinkie over at the table and made your way over to her. You had something you wanted to ask her.

“Hey Pinkie?”

“Hmm?”

Her head swivelled around from its position to face you, bits of cupcake frosting stuck to her lips. How does she not have diabetes?

“Last time in this library you said that humans couldn't do magic. Why was that?”

“What? Oh! Silly filly, I didn't mean all magic! I just meant Unicorn magic.”

“Ok then...I guess.”

You left Pinkie Pie to her...food fest, and headed towards the other ponies in the library. You still had yet to learn some of their names.

The ponies had somehow managed to get themselves out of the mess of limbs and fur and were now apologising to Celestia and, to a much lesser extent, Luna. As you approached Luna looked towards you, probably to distract herself from saying ‘it's ok’, and ‘no need to apologise’, to the still apologising ponies.

“I'm so sorry Princess! I don't know how that happened! I'm so, so, so-”

“It's alright Twilight. Nopony knows how that happened.”

“But-”

“It's ok Twilight. Now aren't we supposed to be celebrating my sisters return?”

“Yeppery!”

Pinkie appeared out nowhere in a shower of confetti and streamers, thoroughly startling all the ponies present, leaving only you immune to her sudden arrival. She still had frosting and other confectionary all over her, somehow getting some on her chest region and hair.

“Come on guys! This is a PARTY! Let's go get some food!”

And then she bounced off again, towards one of the tables covered in food. This time, however, all the other ponies - minus the white Unicorn - left as well. The only remaining pony turned towards you.

“Well, that was a bit startling. I do believe I offered to make you some apparel, seeing as your current attire is completely ruined.”

“Yes it is.”

You look at your clothes. They were completely and utterly beyond repair, at least without Nanite intervention. You preferred the idea of new clothes though, and you already had an idea in mind. With a little use of your Nanites you managed to make the ‘blueprints’ for some new clothes, which you handed to the white Unicorn.

“Can you make these? I have a specific material in mind, which I will have sent to your place of business as soon as possible. I will pay whatever the fee may be once it is complete.”

She quickly skimmed over the paper, taking in as many details as possible.

“This seems complicated, but I always like a good challenge. Deal.”

You shook the small ponies hoof, crouching down to reach the little equine.

“Be careful Pinkie!”

You turned back to the table to see a levitating Pinkie, smoke and fire billowing out of her facial orifices. Great, what had you missed this time?

“W-what did i miss?”

The voice came from the doorway upstairs. Shortly afterwards you saw a small reptilian creature waddle down the stairs, rubbing his eyes blearily along the way. As he reached the bottom of the stairway he released a large yawn before turning towards the purple Unicorn.

“What happened Twilight?”

So her name was Twilight? Or it could just be a nick-name, you didn't exactly know for sure.

“We fired a rainbow at Nightmare Moon and a Princess came out!”

Pinkie Pie was obviously faster to answer than Twilight.

“...what.”

“We saved Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon.”

“Oh, ok.”

The little reptilian wandered off, probably going back to sleep if his yawns were any indication. The ponies continued on as if nothing had happened.

“Hey, who was that?”

“Oh, that was my assistant, Spike.”

“I take it he's a dragon?”

“Yes. He's only a baby though, so he needs lots of sleep.”

That was a baby dragon? How big do they get? He was still tiny compared to you, but he was apparently a ‘baby’ dragon. He seemed to be able to talk pretty well for a baby as well.

You discarded your thoughts and sat on the floor before levitating some food over towards you. You didn't even know what you were eating but you didn't care.

“How are you doing that?”

“What? The levitation?”

She nodded her head, curiosity shining within her eyes.

“Well...let's just say that science is magical, and leave it at that.”

She scrunched up her face in confusion, something which you had to stop yourself from laughing at.

“What?”

You lent in close to her, not an easy feat considering you towered over her.

“Shh, don't tell anyone.”

Her eyes crossed over for a moment in what you assumed to be intense concentration, before she finally replied.

“Oh, ok! A secret! I won't tell anyone!”

“Good, good. Now excuse me I'm going to go and read for a while. Enjoy the party.”

With that you walked over to the corner of the room and sat down in it, carrying the books you were reading before with you using a combination of your magic and Nanites. The other ponies seemed to be enjoying themselves without your presence so you opened your book to the part you were up to and continued reading it. Or at least, the part you think you were up to.

Humans have an array of unique magic that they can and only they can cast, one such unique type of magic actually comes under another category, the teleportation.

Humans have a harder time grasping at the Unicorns ‘blink’ spell, and so, have other methods of ‘transportation’. One of the most famous and difficult ones is the portal spell.

You stopped reading. That was it! You could use a portal to get home. You just needed to get to your temporary residence and work out the details. You stand up and turn towards the ponies. They didn't even notice you missing so you're sure they wouldn't notice it if you left.

You leave in the stealthiness way you could think of.

Straight through the glass window.

By now it was midnight, possibly later. You couldn't tell as the weird time system here was screwing you over. Still though you pulled yourself out of the broken pieces of glass and brushed yourself off.

Before going directly home you decide to stop by at Rarity’s place of business, only problem was you didn't know where she worked. Before Pinkie mentioned a boutique, so you scanned the village for any buildings that fit that ‘class’ of structure.

You soon located it and followed a little blue line that appeared on the floor, leading you to your destination, courtesy of the Nanites you infused into your eyes.

Upon arrival you noticed that it was another weird building but you didn't care anymore, instead you started making the material you wanted Rarity to make your clothes out of.

You pulled the fibroin out of your space-time pockets and weaved them into a fabric, leaving behind some Nanites in the process. You left the Nanites there as you figured that it would be easier for you to just keep a digital copy of your new clothes in case anything happened to it. They were there to record every little movement the fabric made and then calculate it into a visible image for you to work with.

Once done you left the fabric by the door with a note explaining that the material could be dyed if she wanted to. You didn't think she would though as you left her specific instructions for your clothing designs.

With your minor chore out of the way you continue on your journey to the forest where you lived. Yo eventually got tired and bored of walking so you just sprinted the whole way there, the scenery really not all that interesting to you anymore.

You noted that the manticore wasn't at your clearing anymore. In its place was a giant blood smear and a massive crater. If you had to hazard a guess you would say that this manticore might have accidentally ran into Luna during what you had pieced together as her ‘nightmare moon’ persona. Oh well.

Before entering your house you collected a sample of the manticore’s blood for later testing using your Nanites.

Once inside your house you begin planning immediately.

You knew some of the facts. You knew that the humans here had a way of making ‘sub-rifts’ in this rift, or at least some form of spatial tearing in order to move around from place to place. You had a lot of energy at your disposal, but it probably wouldn't be enough to make a hole in the rift you were in. That would be your first goal. Your second would be a focus; you needed something to concentrate that energy into a single point and use it to create a portal.

You ran a few calculations through your Nanite Hives, as you would not be able to do them yourself. Using the size of the rift you were in and the amount of energy it contained, as well as a few other factors, your Hives calculated you would require the energy equivalent to twelve mini fusion reactors of the same type you had.

You already had nine, plus building them would be easy so you set about that first.

You began searching for blueprints in the massive archives of your Nanite Hives, eventually finding some for a machine that produces the same fusion core you had. Building it was easy enough, as you already had the desired materials and the blueprint already made up. Within seconds you had the machine in your hands. It was small - at least compared to some other monstrously huge machines you had seen - about twenty centimetres and roughly square. It looked like a shiny steel box with no openings at all.

You placed the machine on the nearest table to you, which happened to be the dining table, and connected wirelessly with it through your nervous system. As your hand hovered over it blue holograms appeared floating just centimetres away from the surface of the shiny metal. On it was a list of all the materials required for the machine to do its job of making reactors, all of which you had on you and for that you were grateful; you didn't want to have to search around for materials.

You extracted the exact amount of each required material and turned them into solid bars of metal in your hands, or in the case of the water, a solid ball of ice. This action caused the machine in front of you to move. The whole box broke down into many pieces and started forming a sphere of metal, with two other pieces leaving the now sphere metal machine and floating over to your hand. The metal slices picked up the materials from your palm using even smaller pieces of metal that had broken off from the ones above collecting the materials.

These two little pieces, now carrying cargo, returned to metal sphere and deposited the resources in the centre. The two pieces of metal, having done their job, returned to the other floating chunks of metal which had now started spinning around the materials in the middle slowly.

The now rotating began periodically releasing bursts of amplified radiation of the green wavelength, making the ball of spinning metal look like an inverted light show, with green lines bouncing around with an extremely calculated accuracy.

You checked the hologram again and it showed that it was going to take a week for all three reactors to be finished.

Now the hard part. You had to make the portal focus non-specific, so that way you would be able to change things on it if necessary. And that meant doing something that you had very little experience in; quantid programming and assembly. You hadn't really looked up on the subject besides a basic crash-course on the topic, and that was probably due to your upbringing in an Event galaxy. If you had to code any lower than that you don’t know what you would do as you had absolutely no idea what was lower than the quantid level.

No use in having such pessimistic thoughts. The programming would come later, for now you should just come up with a functional design. You set out and starting thinking of ideas of what your focus would have to be shaped like. You settled on a basic design of spherical revolving mass of different pieces of metal, much like the machine working away in front of you.

You have it so that the twelve cores would be in three layers; three on the top in a triangle, four in the middle in the shape of a square, and three on the bottom in the shape of a triangle, but facing the opposite direction to the top triangle. It had a shape so that it would direct all of the energy into the centre, where the focus would force the Spatial and Temporal fields to stretch into the surrounding fields, to make a massive, artificial rift. Hopefully it wouldn't blow up in your face when you activated it. Knowing how well you did at quantid programming it probably would.

Now that you had a general concept ad design thought out and stored in your Hives, you now needed to program it. Wonderful.

You would just use the four standard inputs and not bother with anything too out of your league, lest you mess anything up and have catastrophic results. You would use the inputs T, S, G, and R to program your machine, and use the surrounding TSGR frequencies as an example for your machine to run off of. Hopefully that way it would be less likely to explode in a violent fashion. Or at least that was the idea.

You began programming, making it so that the TSGR quantids were in the same quantity as the surrounding molecules. Luckily for you, you had a helpful little program that gave you visualisations of what your programs would end up looking like had you assembled it as it was. That way you could go and work it into a basic shape and gradually make it look more like the final product.

That was what was weird about building something using quantid programming, you almost always started with the final product and then went backwards, getting less and less complex with each ‘layer’ of instructions, until you had the most basic of commands.

Eventually you had programmed it to be an exact replica of the model you made earlier, including the floatation and movements of the metal pieces. Now you just had to assemble it, which would probably take a while.

You began assembling your program and at first nothing happened, but then a ball of tiny flashing blue lights appeared in front of you at chest height. You reached out to the orb and lightly touched it, not exactly sure what would happen if you did.

Surprisingly, nothing happened. Your hand interacted with it as if it was a normal object, albeit one that defied gravity completely. Of this was what was assembling your program you would have to keep it safe and close by. Using your Nanites you were able to fashion a metallic necklace of sorts, with a ‘string’ hanging halfway down from the loop of the larger ‘string’ of metal.

You picked up the orb and attached it to the middle piece of metal, leaving the lower piece empty and just dangling there.

You used this opportunity to take a closer look at the fusion cores on your belt. A little bit of experimenting shows that they were even smaller than you originally thought, as what you were seeing was mostly just metal casing. The actual core was only about the size of your thumbnail. This was convenient.

You pulled all of the cores out of their casings and stuck them on the lower end of your necklace, leaving room for the three other ones that hadn't been made yet. Now you had a necklace that had nine shiny metal spheres hanging in a vaguely oval shape around a glowing blue orb.

And thinking of orb, you wanted to see how long it would take before it would finish and you would be able to test it out.

Looking through your Hives told you that it was estimated that it would be complete in approximately two to three standard Earth years. You had two years of this place to live through...

“Oh, fuck me.”

-8- The Griffon

View Online

Two years. You had two years minimum before you could get home. It could have been longer for all you knew. Well at least you had a lot of spare time now.

And what you wanted to get done the most in that time was the studying of magic, because it was an anomaly and needed to be studied. Plus it was fun to move things with your mind, even if you could do that normally anyway.

Oh. Well, shit. You left all of the books in the library in your rush to get home. Minus the ones that were already here and the one that you had in your hand at the time of your departure.

You could always go back into town, it's not like you had anything to do out here anyway, although, you had been thinking of an experiment that you could perform in the future, as you had suddenly found a large amount of time to kill.

Before you began your run back into town you checked to make sure that the orb assembling your program was secured and wasn't going to fall out any time soon. Satisfied that it was not going to fall from your necklace, you turned towards the door and began the journey back to Ponyville.

You ran, as even though you had a vast amount of time before you could be able to leave, you still didn't want to waste any of it. Within seconds trees were whizzing past you as you sprinted towards the little village, narrowly avoiding trees and other obstacles by either jumping or swinging around it, the latter often resulting with broken trees.

One tree you had to do both in order to prevent yourself from smashing through it; jumping into the air grabbing the branch and back flipping down to the ground from the momentum you possessed. This caused you to have to stop for less than a second to regain your balance before taking off again.

It took you a total of four minutes going at a relatively slow speed - at least compared to what you were doing when you first came here - before you reached the edge of the forest, at which point you had to slow down.

You leant to the left slightly and put right leg forward, digging it into the floor to decelerate you and prevent you from falling over at the same time. As you slowed down to a near stop your kicked your other leg downwards bringing you upright as you walked the last few metres out of the forest. It was amazing what you were capable of when you put all of your attention into doing it.

The little town was full of activity; ponies in the markets selling goods, smaller ponies - which you assumed to be foals - running about, and ponies just generally enjoying the sunshine.

Before you ventured any further you checked to see how long you had been gone, just in case you needed to come up with a story as to why you were gone so long.

Well, you had been gone for a solid forty two hours, which was an entire week for these ponies. Programming your way out if this world took longer than you thought.

With this knowledge in mind you set off towards your first destination. You attracted a lot of attention, and all it took for you to figure out why was to look down at your clothes. Your clothes were still filthy. New destination then.

Instead of going straight to the library like you had planned, you instead go to Rarity’s boutique to see if she had done with you clothes yet. You didn't have any money though, so that could pose a bit of a problem.

Looking around you saw one of the ponies handing over some coins of some sort to another pony, just like the ones Celestia had described to you at the ruined castle. As quickly as you could you snatched one of the coins with your new-found magic skills and brought it to your outstretched arm. The action did not go unnoticed by the pony you took it from.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Do not worry sir, I only needed to look at it. Here, have it back.”

You tossed the coin back to the pony where he managed to catch it with his teeth, showing quite some skill and flexibility while doing it.

The pony wondered off, which surprised you as you thought he would have been a bit more upset than that. It didn't matter anyway, you got what you needed. In the split second it had been in your hand you had scanned it and stored the exact atomic structure of it, so that way you would be able to reproduce it in the future as you needed it.

Although, before you could make any you needed a place to store it. Seeing as leather probably wasn't going to be accepted here, you used a brown fabric produced by your Nanites to form a small bag which you tied to your belt right next to your weapon.

You didn't even bother making any now, as that would just add weight that you didn't feel like carrying around. Instead, you just programmed your Nanites to produce the coins in the bag at will. That way you would just be able to reach into your bag and pay whenever you needed to.

With this done you set off once more to Rarity’s.

You had attracted even more attention after your stunt with the Earth pony, and your sudden materialising bag probably hadn't helped at all. You ignored them and continued on your way to Rarity’s. Hopefully she had finished your clothes as you didn't want to keep attracting this much attention.

Within moments you found yourself out the front of the oddly designed building in which Rarity worked and may also live. You walked up to the door and knocked on it a few times to see if she was in or not.

“Come in!”

Well, she definitely was in. You opened the door into the building, seeing the inside for the first time.

“Welcome to the Carousel Boutique! How may I - oh! Hello darling, I take it you're here for your clothing?”

“Yes, that would be wonderful. Is it complete though?”

“Of course it is! you gave an entire week to finish it. Many of my other customers are never that generous with the deadline. In fact you didn't even give me a deadline and for that I thank you.”

“It's really no trouble at all.”

“Well then, do you wan to see it? I got that strange fabric you sent. I must say it was quite difficult working with it, recall difficult to cut you see.”

“This wasn't a problem was it?”

“Oh nonsense darling! I love a good challenge, it makes the job boring you see. Here we are, your new apparel. I hope it meets your standards.”

The clothes were...not on a mannequin like you had expected. Instead they were just floating there in midair with nothing supporting it - that you could see of anyway. You could probably blame that on magic.

The clothes themselves were to your exact specifications. The top consisted of two layers of clothing; the under shirt which was black in colour and long-sleeved, and the over shirt, which, technically, wasn't a shirt. It was more of a cloak than anything else. It had sleeves that were semi-baggy and that extended about halfway down your forearms, ending with folded over bits of fabric precisely stitched together. At the top it had a hood that had an inner fabric of a darker colour and an outer fabric which was the same fabric used to make most of the cloak. Down the waist the cloak split in two, leaving the front region more exposed than the back due to the bottoms on the cloak, meaning the back area had less of a gap in fabric. Where it had split in two was more fabrics of varying types, forming three separate layers; the middle layer which was the base of the cloak, the inner layer which was the same as the inner hooded area, and the outer layer which was slightly lighter in colour than the rest of the clothes. At the shoulder area, where the hood joined to the torso section, was six strips of fabric in two groups; the left and the right. Both were in perfect symmetry, with the middle layer of fabric being the base colour, the inner being the darker one, and the outer being the lighter one.

One last thing that you took note of was the similar strips of fabric extending from the front waist area, which extended down to just above the bottom of the cloak. And also the fact that the whole thing was lined with a pattern of blue lines - the same as your magic - which was not entirely for aesthetic purposes. Before-hand you had programmed your Nanites to form higher concentrations wherever there was blue pigment, not leaving the rest of the material without any machines but still with less than the blue dyed regions had.

The blue pattern followed most of the edges of the cloak, leaving about four centimetres before the material ended. The lines were also going down the strips of fabric that hung down the back and in the front. The area on the back that was only slightly hidden from view because of the fabric also had its own patterns, however in a similar pattern to what the edges of your shoulder bones would look like had you been wearing it - albeit much more angular. The last area that had any dye in it was the hood, which had it going straight up from the ‘spine’ of the cloak before parting and following the edge of the fabric down to the bottom where it ended.

“It is perfect Rarity! How much do I owe you?”

“Oh think nothing of it darling. You can have this one for free.”

“Free. Really?”

“Absolutely dear, generosity is my best trait after all.”

“Ok then. I thank you again.”

She would be getting an ‘anonymous’ donation later that day, you would have to make sure you didn't forget though.

“Well, try it on dear. I don't even know if it fits yet.”

“Do you have a changing room?”

“What? Oh yes! How silly of me, I forgot you humans were a bit funny about nudity. It's right down that hallway.”

She pointed her hoof down to the side of where you were standing, which was a hallway like she had said.

You smiled at her and thanked her again before she brought down the clothes with her magic and handed them to you. You walked down the hallway and found a single doorway, which you presumed to be the changing room, or at least a single changing room.

You walked into it and noticed little difference in the style of colour, as it had the exact same layout as the rest of the building did, at least from what little you had seen of it that was.

You didn't even bother with the little cubicles, as you were the only one in the room, instead opting to just get changed in the middle of the room.

You were about to just rip your current clothes of but failed to do so as they fell off before you got the chance, leaving you standing there in nothing but underwear. You didn't mind the clothes falling to pieces as they weren't very nice to begin with.

You put the black under layer of clothing on first, which were pretty much just a normal pair of pants and a shirt. They were a perfect fit, on the border of ‘hugging’ your skin but still just loose enough to allow you to be able to move without any restraint, even allowing you to move at speed as well.

You picked up your belt - which had fallen to the floor with your pants - and tightened it around you, even though you didn't actually need it to hold up your pants. You necklace was able to stay on your neck as your shirt sort of just split in half and allowed it to stay. Even so, it didn't exactly feel comfortable so you tucked it under the small collar on your new shirt.

You picked up the grey cloak, which you had placed carefully besides you. It too was a perfect fit, and buttoned up nicely. You only buttoned up three of the five buttons though as you wanted to be able to pull back the ‘skirt’ of the cloak if you needed to, plus you didn't like having the top button of your shirt done up anyway.

You tested the Nanites in the fabric just to make sure they were working. They connected to you just fine and still followed your instructions as you gave them. You could see many uses for the Namite infused material, besides the ones you had already designed and built into it and the obvious positive of never again having to worry about damaging your clothes. After all, if they did get cut or torn, your Nanites could just remake the exact design that had been recorded down.

You picked up the remains of your old clothes and headed back down the hallway to Rariy.

“It's a perfect fit! You did an excellent job!”

“Why thank you darling, and I must say, it looks spectacular on you!”

“Thank you. Hey, has anything interesting happened in the week that I've been gone?”

“Well, there was a little incident regarding some tickets - during which I am ashamed to admit I was acting very unladylike - but since then nothing of interest has really happened.”

“Wait, what was this incident all about?”

“Well, Princess Celestia sent Twilight and Spike some tickets to the grand galloping gala, and we all wanted to go. It ended with us trying to impress Twilight so that she would give us the tickets and I must say we were very unruly.”

“Wait, why didn't Celesita just give you the tickets when she was here in Ponyville. That would have prevented the whole thing as you could just ask for some more tickets.”

“Well, I - ...I don't know why she didn't. It doesn't matter anyway as the problem has been resolved.”

“Hmm, yes - well! Thank you again, and I will be on my way.”

“What are you going to do with those?”

She pointed a hoof towards your ruined clothed that were in your hand.

“I was gonna burn them. You can do it if you want.”

“Oh, no it's quite alright. Well, it's been a pleasure doing business with you Saphrim.”

“Likewise.”

You turn towards the door and reach for the handle, but before you can open it a flying pussy starts eating your face.

You go cross-eyed trying to get a look a the white cat chewing on your nose but all you can see is white fur which was all over your face. You peel the little thing off of your face and hold it with your thumb and index finger, as it was probably small enough to escape if you held it in your hand.

Rarity was standing there with her mouth agape, surprised by the sudden materialising cat.

“I take that as a yes then.”

You dropped the cat down to the ground and it ran away down the hall you just came out of. Rarity was still in a shocked stupor.

“Well, goodbye.”

And you left the building with Rarity looking like she was embarrassed for some reason. Oh well, it didn't matter. Now, onto the library.

The ponies were no longer paying any attention to you at all. In fact, it was almost as if you had become completely transparent to them. That was good for you as it meant less distractions in the future from these annoyingly bright ponies.

Within moments you found yourself outside the front of the tree you first sought answers in. It was weird; you knew it had been more than a week and for you it was a quarter of that. It was a really surreal feeling, living with two separate measures of time in the same place.

Upon opening the door you noticed Twilight and Pinkie Pie straight away, arguing over something.

“I'm telling you Twilight, she's a big meanie-head!”

“I'm sure your just jealous of her Pinkie, I really don't think she's that mean.”

“Hello?”

They turned to face you.

“Oh, hi there. Is there anything I can do for you?”

You shut the door without turning around to face it, keeping your attention on Twilight.

“I'm just here to pick up some books I accidentally left behind last week. Have you seen them? They were given to me by Luna.”

“Do you mean the pile of books that was just on the floor carelessly?”

She seemed a bit annoyed, if her tone of voice was any indication.

“They probably are. Can I have them please?”

She stared at you for a long time, a gaze that was somewhere between a scowl and a look of boredom. She had apparently been doing something to her interest before you - and possibly Pinkie - arrived.

“I'll be right back.”

And with that she walked upstairs to presumably retrieve the books you had left behind. You turned to the only pony left in the room, who was being surprisingly quiet.

“Hey, what were you talking about when I walked in?”

“It's Gilda! She such a meanie pants!”

“Who is Gilda?”

Pinkie started waving her limbs around in the air as she frowned at the ceiling.

“She's Dashie’s griffon friend but I think she's a big meanie pants!”

Why was she a ‘meanie pants’?

“I think I'm gonna’ have to side with Twilight on this one. I think you are being a bit jealous. Do keep in mind though that I have no clue what you are talking about at all.”

“You - but - she - augh!”

Pinkie zipped past you opened the door slammed it shut and disappeared from view. All in the space of one second. You really needed to find out how she did that.

Twilight came down the stairs just as she disappeared, her hooves making small clacking sounds as they hit the floor, muffled from the wood.

“Where did Pinkie go?”

“You tell me, she quite literally just vanished.”

The little Unicorn just rolled her eyes before placing your books from before into your hands using her magic.

“Here's everything you left behind last week.”

Twilight seemed like she was going to leave but then stayed and asked another question.

“By the way, where did you run off to so quickly? And why did you go straight through my window?”

“Well, it was quicker. And I left so I could go home and...study.”

You didn't feel like explaining to her what you were actually doing, and it would probably take a very long time to do so anyway.

“Well, sure, but next time could you at least give us some warning before randomly smashing windows with your face.”

“Sure, I'll keep that in mind for the future.”

“Goodbye.”

“See ya’ later.”

You left the building and closed the door behind you, cutting off your line of sight to the waving Unicorn. Now, you had the books, but you wanted to make sure you had everything you needed before going back into the forest. It may not take long for you to get to your house and back but that was still for the time you were used to, for these equines it would be four times as long that you would be away just because you were going to your house.

You stepped down the street quietly, trying to not attract too much attention to yourself and doing a remarkable job of it. You may be a normal sight to these ponies but you were still a foreign entity that they knew nothing about, you didn't want to find out what would happen if you were found out. Celestia seemed pretty understanding, or at least you assumed she understood you were - at least on some level - from a different place.

In your thoughts you only just noticed you were approaching the markets.

Trade was another thing that you were uneducated in. In fact, most humans would probably be uneducated in it, as there was no need for trade. Why trade something with no value for something else of no value when you could just snap your fingers and make it appear. At least, if memory served you correctly. You had only been to a tier one galaxy on one occasion and you vaguely remember someone doing something along those lines. It almost made you jealous of the technology they had access to.

Not that you didn't have access to it, you just didn't know how it worked and you were too shy to ask. You didn't exactly like going up to people and asking them questions, especially when said people can use planets as play-things. Not that you couldn't do that if you wanted to - if you *really* wanted to put the time and effort in you could, but again, it was the ease at which they did it that was discouraging.

You were in the markets now, ponies scrambling about buying and selling goods, a few humans here and there although in far lesser number than the ponies. You might be able to find something of interest that you could purchase.

You hadn't noticed until now, but a large portion of the stalls in the market were owned by humans. One stall in particular stood out to you, and so, you walked over to inspect it closer. The man at the stall was short - but then again so were all the other humans here - only about Celestia’s height, and coming up to your ribs. He had brown hair and green eyes, with - quite the opposite of you - a dark complexion.

“Can I help you?”

“I'm just looking around, killing time mostly.”

“Oh, ok then.”

He looked down at a book he had in his hand.

“Although, could you tell me why there are so many stalls run by humans here?”

This brought his attention back to you, the book temporarily forgotten.

“This is the only place where we are allowed to sell things. Most other pony settlements won't allow us to set up stores. The other species are an entirely different matter though, you'd be much more likely to see human stores in other parts of The World.”

“Ok, thanks for that.”

He went back to his book and you had a quick look around his wares. He was selling various forms of weaponry, mostly antiques by the looks of it. You found that funny as you couldn't imagine these little ponies using weapons, it was just too ridiculous. He probably wouldn't make much profit from it either.

Your eyes landed on a decent sized bow, a weapon that you hadn't even physically seen in your lifespan due to how old it was.

“How much for the bow.”

“Thirty five bits.”

He didn't even bother looking up from his book when he answered you, apparently he had lost all interest in you.

You produced the correct amount of currency in your pouch and pulled it out.

“I'll take it.”

You placed the money on the wooden bench and picked up the bow. The human just picked up the money and placed it in a box, still not looking up from his book. It must have been a very fascinating book.

You left the markets and ventured onto a hill next to the forest in which your home resided. The day was progressing now, faster than you were expecting although probably not actually going any faster than what Luna had told you.

By the time you had reached the top of the hill you realised you didn't have any arrows for the bow and so you could use it. You groaned in frustration and headed back down the hill towards the little town.

By the time you had reached the markets again the stall from which you bought the bow had already closed up. That was annoying. You would have to make your own arrows then.

Before you could turn to leave the town again, a large weight slammed into you from behind, causing you to topple over into the dirt floor. Looking behind you as you scrapped the dust and grime from your brand new clothes you saw a creature which you assumed was a griffon. A female one from the looks of it.

She opened and closed her beak multiple time before releasing a gasp.

“I-I-I'm so sorry, I'm s-so terribly s-sorry!”

She then did something you weren't expecting; she bowed down to you, as if you were some kind of royalty. You really didn't know what to do in this situation.

“Hey it's fine. It was an accident, no harm done see.”

She still seemed a little upset, if her frazzled feathers and darting eyes were anything to go off of. It was almost like she feared you.

You then took note of how skinny she was; you could literally see her ribs from where you were standing, even though she was trying to hide it with her wings. She must have been starving.

“Why don't you come to my house, I'll make you something to eat.”

“O-oh, no I couldn't possibly accept that o-offer.”

You wondered what was up with her, she seemed almost as scared as Fluttershy was. Unless she was always like this.

“Please, I insist.”

She seemed even more worried now.

“...ok.”

She answered in a very Fluttershy-like way, in the fact that it was so quiet you almost couldn't hear her at all.

You began walking back up the hill with the griffon in tow behind you. You got about half way up the small incline when the griffon stopped suddenly.

“You live in the Everfree forest!?”

“Yep. By the way I still haven't gotten your name.”

“It's Gilda.”

“Ok then Gilda, yes I do live in the forest. It's nice and quiet there you see.”

So this was the one Pinkie was talking about. She didn't seem very mean to you.

She went silent. Before soon you found yourself at the entrance to the forest. You walked in without hesitation but Gilda quickly glanced back towards Ponyville when she thought you couldn't see her.

She looked like she was almost dead from the lack of food so you would have to give her something she liked, it was the least you could do after all. You didn't exactly want her to die from a lack of sustenance, especially since you could just ‘magic’ up some food using your tech.

“You coming?”

You looked back at Gilda, who still looked unsure as to whether she should enter or not.

“Don't worry, nothing is going to eat you while you are with me, just stay close and you'll be fine.”

And with that but of encouragement she entered the forest behind you, still cautious but following you nonetheless.

Gilda was very jumpy; quite literally jumping at every sound be it from your feet snapping a twig in half or the call of some distant bird. You took the opportunity to think of what Griffons might eat. They’re supposed to be a hybrid of lion and eagle so she might eat meat. Then again, she could eat anything for all you knew, she could be feeding on your emotions right now. Perhaps she is hematophagous and drinks blood? You doubted she would photosynthesise as she probably wouldn't look so hungry if she did. You would just have to ask her.

“Hey, what do Griffons eat?”

“What?”

“Well, if I'm going to be making you food I need to know what you eat don't I?”

“I eat plants, just like everything else in the world. Shouldn't you know this?”

Like every other creature on the planet? You did not see that coming. Those wolves from earlier certainly didn't look like they wanted to eat plants. That manticore definitely got blood on him from plants, you're sure. Oh well, you could probably just force some plants to grow in order to feed the griffon.

You had been walking for about five minutes when you saw more eyes in the forest, similar to that of the wolves from earlier. You could tell there was going to be another confrontation, so you began channeling Nanites into your hands, in a such a quantity that they were powerful but not visible unless one was looking for them specifically.

All throughout that you kept walking normally, as to not hint the wolves in to the fact that you knew they were following you. When they jumped from the bushes they didn't know what hit them. Literally.

It happened so fast; you swung your arm around in a horizontal arc, releasing the Nanites as you went. The affect was so fast you doubt that Gilda would have been able to follow what happened, you being another story entirely as you had Nanites in your eyes. The wolves were hit by a shockwave of air, caused by the Nanites, that contained enough force to shatter half of them instantly. Those that didn't shatter from brute force alone collided into the sides of trees and other obstacles and met a similar demise.

You didn't even stop walking during the entire event. Gilda most definitely did though, and you had to stop, turn around, and gesture her to follow.

“Come on.”

She quite visibly gulped at the prospect of entering the clearly ‘dangerous’ forest, or it could be that your display of power intimidated her. You weren't exactly sure which cone it was. Regardless, she followed you still.

You managed to make it to your clearing without any other interferences from the residents of the forest. Gilda kept a close eye on the blood smear for some reason. Had she never even seen blood before? You found it increasingly strange that she wasn't a carnivore, or at the very least an omnivore. There was no use dwelling on it now though, you were already home after all.

You pushed open the door and held it open for Gilda to enter. She appeared to be tacked aback by the scale of your house, even more so when she entered it. You were a lot taller than even the tallest residents you had seen, so of coarse it would look large. At least for anything besides you or anything larger than you.

By the time you shut the door it was already getting dark; annoying time differences at its finest.

You walked down under the overhanging second floor towards the wooden table further down the tree. Gilda had already sat herself down at the table, looking both awkward and skittish at the same time.

“If you excuse me I'll just make something to eat. Would you like anything specifically?”

“Um...whatever y-you have i-is fine.”

What was with this planet and trauma. Seriously, she seemed like she was about to break down at any moment. Was this planet extremely dark or something? Or were all these sapients just that sensitive? You let out an I audible grumble, both from your internal pondering a and the fact that you would now have to come up with something to make.

You stepped into the kitchen. There wasn't really much in there, just a few benches made from the surrounding tree. You still had yet to furnish your house and you doubt you would ever get the opportunity to do so. It wasn't like you needed the furnishings anyway, they would be mostly for aesthetic purposes if you did install them.

Getting back to the problem at hand; you had to make some food for a near starving griffon who happened to be sitting at your dining table. Your own thoughts made it sound like you were in some tier two class human entertainment planet, they often liked to engineer animals for fun. They sometimes even went so far as to make entire planetary ecosystems just to watch them grow and develop from basic bacteria. Still nothing compared to what some tier one class humans often do for entertainment. It often revolved around making small-moon sized rockets and launching them into defenceless suns. And that wasn't even the most insane thing they did.

You shook your head and shuddered slightly at the distant memory, you were getting very distracted as of late, probably something to do with finding a new planet.

You turned your attention towards your current task, making some food, some ‘plants’, as Gilda described them. The only option you could see that would be viable would be to just scan her brain and see what she wanted to eat at the moment. So you did.

You scanned for tiny pulses of radiation coming from Gilda’s mind, then compiled that data into your Hives, which then began processing it into information which you could better understand.

You kept away from memories and other personal things as you didn't like intruding too much. Apparently she wanted some kind of plant which you didn't even know of, probably being native to this planet. Or ‘slab of rock’, would probably be a better term as it wasn't exactly planetoid in shape, more of a flat disk of unknown depth.

Making this food would actually take a bit of effort, as you would have to process more of Gilda’s mind in order to find out what she was tasting when she was eating the fruit, then use that to figure out what chemicals were being released onto her tongue. You would then use that to work backwards and figure out the plants DNA by reverse reconstruction of the same chemicals being made from its own DNA samples. You would have to figure out small segments of the DNA at a time, but it wouldn't matter when you had the processing power of your Hives.

Eventually you had an exact copy of the plant’s DNA and began synthesising the actual fruit plus some seeds for future use. You made some metal plates, as you didn't have any other material on you besides wood and blood and that would probably discourage Gilda’s appetite.

You brought the finished meal into the dining room to find Gilda looking in wonder at the machine producing cores on the table. She was just about to touch it with her left front claw.

“Don't do that.”

“Ah!”

She quickly brought her claw to the ground and began stuttering, trying to formulate an apology. She seemed almost ashamed that she almost touched your machine, even though you couldn't really care less, as you could just build another if it was damaged. The amount she was stuttering though made it look like she had just defiled a sacred object.

“It's no problem, just don't touch it in the future.”

She opened her beak to speak some more but shut it again and going quiet. You placed the food on the table. It was just a bunch of sliced up fruit arranged to look somewhat nice, nothing special though. Gilda looked like she was going to kill something to get at it. You may have underestimated just how hungry she was.

You sat down on the opposite side of the table and put your plate down as well. You had to commend Gilda; she was still being polite despite her ravenous hunger. Once you sat down Gilda began eating, though not inhaling like you thought she would, instead just eating by pecking at it with her beak.

You still found it strange that she wasn't a carnivore, she certainly looked equipped to be a predator. She had the claws after all, and you assumed she had at least a fairly good eyesight to go with those wings. It didn't look like her beak was overly good at breaking plant matter either.

By now she had eaten most of the fruit with her beak and you realised that you hadn't eaten any of yours. You pushed your plate to Gilda, as you didn't feel like eating the fruit, or anything for that matter. It wasn't like you were going to starve either.

She looked up from her food.

“Thanks.”

“It's really no problem.”

She pulled the plate closer to her and began eating that, as she had already finished with the other one and still looked very hungry. You sat in silence, with the only sound being the quiet pecking of Gilda. You thought of your situation again, you had been doing that a lot lately. Ok, so you were stranded in a land populated by multiple sapient creatures of varying degrees of biological weirdness. Fair enough. You were in a land were everything was thought to be run by some ‘mystical’ means. Ok, you'd seen weirder. You were in a land that followed virtually no laws of continuity at all, again not all that surprising; you'd seem it all before. However, add it all together and you get a big pile of mindfuck. Plus the bright colours were making your eyes sore. That was another downside.

At least you may have found a possible way out of this place, which you hoped would take you straight home. Back to the solitude of space in the comforts of your spaceship, which you just now realised you would have either rebuild or replace with another. That could be done though, for now you may as well get what you could from this ‘vacation’ to this weird land.

“So, Gilda. Mind telling me why you looked like you were anorexic? Or what you were even doing in Ponyville?”

She froze. She had finished with her food now and was just stacking the plates on top of each other.

She sighed.

“It's a long story,”

“I've got a lot of time on my hands as of late, so don't worry about time.”

She looked down at the table in front of her.

“Things aren't exactly nice were I'm from, heck, anywhere outside of Equestria is in bad conditions. Low resources, wild animals, predators, bandits, not to mention...Him.”

“Who's ‘Him’?”

“I...I don't want to say. It is considered an omen of death to even mention His name.”

Wow, you did not see that coming. You would have to further investigate this in the future.

“I came to Equestria because I've been here before, when I was little. I made a few friends, although it wasn't easy seeing as Equestrian citizens seem to treat other species like dirt. I realised very quickly that Equestria was a much nicer place than where I lived.”

“I see. Well I hope you enjoy your stay here in Equestria.”

“Oh no, you see I have to leave soon. I'm only here for a month at the very least.”

An idea came to your head. You could be able to learn more about Gilda’s home country and the Equestrians at the same time. Although you already liked Griffons more than Ponies, if Gilda was anything to go by then they were much nicer and less...fucked up was the only analogy you could think of. Perhaps you could go there with her when she leaves.

“You can stay here if you want. I have lots of spare rooms that have no use at the moment. The only problem is that they aren't furnished but I'm sure you could handle that, if you choose to stay that is.”

She looked surprised at your offer.

“Of course I would like to stay, I would be very grateful.”

“Sure you can stay, I don't really have anything in this building though. Only just moving in, in a sense.”

“That's fine, I'm just so grateful you allowed me to stay - a human allowing me to stay in their home!”

“What's surprising about that?”

“Oh nothing, it's just a great honour that's all.”

“Yeah, but why is it a great honour?”

“Well...everypony has different opinions about your kind, but most species adore you.”

The ponies don't seem to follow that line of thinking.

“Some even consider you Gods for crying out loud!”

Wait, what! You...your kind...or at least these humans...were treated as Gods? To some on this planet you were a God. They thought you were a God...

...

...The irony of the situation was not lost on you.

“...ok.”

Your voice had no emotion in it, you were pretty sure you were still in shock. You shook it off quickly though and spoke in a normal tone of voice.

“So I will just leave you to get settled in, the bedrooms are down that way. Call me if you need anything.”

You pointed down the hallway which had the most spare rooms down it. Gilda walked off, gaping at the sheer scale of your tree house. She hadn't seen that part of the building yet so she was probably feeling a little small right now.

As she disappeared from sight you turned towards the machine on the table, still spinning around doing its job. According to the readings you were getting this thing still had quite a while to go before the fusion cores are completed. It wouldn't matter though, as you had an even longer wait for the focus.

Oh. You just realised the bow from the market had fallen off of you, probably when Gilda flew into you. You didn't want to go back into town just yet and it was already dark outside. Perhaps there was a spell you could find that could bring it to you. It wasn't that much of a stretch, as apparently Unicorns could teleport.

You walked over to the books, which had somehow ended up on the floor, and began skimming the pages for something that you could use to bring you your bow. Eventually you found a ‘conjuration’ spell. It could supposedly make a portal and bring objects from point A to point B. You still didn't know what to call these portals, as they weren't quite Rifts. If they were getting home would be simple. For now they would be referred to as sub-rifts, as that was something that actually made sense to you. Rifts within Rifts.

The spell was incredibly complex, having hundreds of symbols all interwoven together to form a complex pattern. You decided that you would cheat. Just a little. You used the recordings from the Nanites - which were still archiving everything that happened - to form an overlay that lapsed over the real world. It was a holographic image, only not. It wasn't actually physical, instead it was a mental image produced by the Nanites from within your mind and your eyes.

Still, it did the job, and everywhere you looked an exact copy of the spell was floating, looking semi transparent meaning that you could still see objects behind it. This would be so useful in the future, you could tell. Instead of having to memorise each symbols and go from memory, you could just place an exact duplicate of the image over your eyes and build from that.

You began pulling strands of magic into your palm, not going into your Vision as you wanted to test if it would still work whether you had it engaged or not. Within moments you had the spell completed and you released it from your mental grip, allowing the photons and other particles to do their thing.

Directly above your outstretched palm a ball of blackness appeared, although calling it black would be incorrect as it was completed void of all light. Not even the absence of light could escape the nothingness. It was a familiar sight, the sight of a Rift. You had barely any time to think about it further though, as the familiar form took the shape of your bow and fell to the ground.

The whole ordeal was a quiet one, not even a single sound escaped the Rift, which had disappeared quickly after delivering its cargo. At least you knew the spell worked now, which meant that you could use it in the future without worry of backfire. And you also managed to summon your bow as well, a win - win situation.

You picked up the bow and inspected it, looking to see if the summoning had done anything to damage it in any way. It didn't look damaged but it could still be damaged internally. You gave the string a few test pulls, only pulling it back to half your full arm length before lowering it back down. Satisfied that the string was not going to snap, you twisted side on and pulled the string all the way to your chin. It promptly snapped and whipped you in the neck, the bow flinging out of your grasp in the process.

Your arms were still in position, as you hadn't quite processed what just happened. Blinking, you walk towards the broken bow and pick it back up, the string falling to the ground as you did so. You suspect that the thing broke because of your strength. You put the thing on the table for now as you see that it was becoming day again, losing track of time was becoming something you were good at.

You decided to make some breakfast, as Gilda was probably going to get up soon. Your choice was some simple pancakes, as those would be easy to make and were always good for breakfast. While manipulating your Nanites your mind wandered to other places. You only just now realised that despite your love of it, you had yet to get any actual sleep besides your traumatically induced unconsciousness during your first day here. Or was it your first week? You couldn't be sure, tracking time was so difficult here.

You had managed to lose track of time whilst thinking about losing track of time, as a metre high pile of pancakes had been produced in the time it took you to realise you had lost track of time. Again.

The tower of food began to lean to one side, leaning in the direction of you. You acted quickly, using your body as a barrier to prevent the pancakes from toppling over onto the floor. You were met with some success, as only several out the hundreds of pancakes fell to the ground.

You quickly brought forth some Nanites to carry away the monstrous amount of food, food that you didn't know what to do with. With a mental flick you sent some of the pancakes down the hall, out of sight and out of mind. At least until you heard a panicked scream and the sounds of flailing limbs from down the same hall.

Rushing into the hallway you took notice of the massive pile of food and also the limbs sticking out from under it. A head poked itself out from the mound; it was Gilda. She looked dazed and her huge eyes were spinning around, showing that she either had very flexible optical cords or none at all.

She shook her head and looked towards you, lifting her claw to steady her head which caused multiple pancakes to flop onto her beak. She went cross-eyed trying to look at them as she opened her beak to speak.

“Wha-”

“Good morning. Here's breakfast. Goodbye.”

You returned down the hall trying to ignore her as best as possible. The moment you were out of sight you ran to the wall and listened to her, seeing if she would make any comments on...what just occurred. Your poor social skills seemed to be random, one minute your talking to strangers without a care the next you were running away from house guests that are covered in pancakes. What should you do? She may be hurt. Why the fuck were you suddenly acting like this? Perhaps Luna wasn't the only nut in town. Or it could be the stress of the past few days crushing your inexperienced, solitarily confined social personality.

“Um...Gilda are you alright?”

“...”

Oh no. What if she choked to death on pancakes! What then! Where would you hide the body!

“Gilda!?”

Your heart rate increased significantly. You looked around the corner slowly. You didn't see any trace of Gilda or the massive pile of food.

“...Gilda?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!”

You tripped over suddenly and hit your head on the wooden floor. Gilda had somehow managed to sneak up behind you. The hit to the head must have fixed something though, as you were no longer having a panic attack. Gee, you knew you were prone to social anxiety but that seemed a bit extreme, even for you. That was definitely out of your personality. Were you being affected by the planet you found yourself on? You certainly hoped not.

You mentally pushed all those thoughts aside and looked up to Gilda. From your position on the floor she was taller, still only just though.

“What was that?”

“Um...”

“Is this how you normally treat guests? Good morning, here's breakfast. Catch!”

“I - um...no.”

She gave you a funny look. You tried to salvage the situation.

“Um...good morning...?”

“Good morning. Thanks for breakfast by the way.”

She smiled at you. You don't know how she did it with a beak though. It must be some kind of flexible keratin-based molecule. Possibly with inner muscles that were used to communicate and eat. That made the most sense to you. At least more sense than using magic as an excuse to explain something that happens.

“I'll be staying here for a while if that's ok with you.”

“...sure.”

You didn't know what was up with her, or you for that matter. She seemed a lot less nervous, and definitely a lot more cheerful compared to yesterday. Was that normal here? To have spontaneous shifts in mood - no - entire personalities? Was that in some way affecting your own neuro-chemistry? You certainly hoped not!

“I'll be in my room. See ya!”

And she skipped back down the hall she had come from in the first place. Well that was weird. What had she done with the pancakes anyway? Not even the ones that you hadn't thrown at her remained.

You had a sudden urge to go outside for a walk in the strange forest you found yourself in. Although, it was more of an urge to study your surroundings as best as you could, than an urge to actually go walking.

You threw the front door open and hit the ground running. You didn't have a specific direction in mind, just jumping over the tops of the trees that made up your clearing and smashing through the other ones that were between you and the ground. You took off, gaining speeds close to that of which you had achieved your first day here.

You ducked, weaved and jumped around any obstacle in your path, having to completely focus all your attention on what you were doing lest you miss a jump and come crashing down to the ground at speeds of two hundred plus kilometres per hour.

You didn't need to map out the area as you were still recording the entirety of your experiences from within, out into raw data that could be converted into something understandable at a later date.

You were so focused on not falling over during your run that you only just managed to notice the fact that there was significantly less light than when you started your little trip. When had it gotten so dark?

You slid to a halt under the shade of a very large tree. It wasn't really shaded though, as the sun wasn't even up any more. It was dark, and you had somehow failed to notice it. It seemed you could lose track of things without the use of Nanites.

You turned around to head back home but noticed something troubling. You were lost. The forest looked completely different to where you had set up residence. It wasn't just the lack of light that made the forest seem dark, the very trees themselves were darker; darker leaves and darker wood.

No problem, you could just jump above the tree canopy and figure out where you were.

You crouched down and leapt as high into the air as you could, getting about one hundred and fifty metres above the forest canopy, which itself was about twenty metres above the ground. You noticed something very troubling. You couldn't recognise anything.

You fell back to the ground with a heavy thud, not sure exactly what to do. You could always decider the data in your Hives but that would take a while. It was still a better option than just walking, or running, around with no direction. Your annoyed that you did that in the first place as you wouldn't be in this situation had you not decided to just go for a supposedly short run.

You may as well get comfortable as you were probably going to be here for quite a while. You noticed an overhanging cave entrance not to far away, hidden behind some of the surrounding flora.

It seemed like a good place to wait for your Hives to do their thing, especially since it - wait, when did it start raining? Well, that settles that, you were going into the cave.

It wasn't as dark inside as you thought it would be, although still a lot darker than outside. That was to be expected, you were in a cave after all. Strangely enough though, the further you went in the brighter it got, which was weird as it should have been the opposite.

Not only was it getting brighter the deeper you went, but the further you went in the less natural it looked and the more smoother the rocks walls became. Eventually it got to the point where the walls were completely smooth and looked like it had been built by someone. Or something.

You didn't like the idea of ‘or something’.

As you continued in deeper you realised that the walls had scratches in them, made by large claws owned by some unknown creature. Probably a large creature if the claw marks were anything to go by. Another thing you took note of was a distant rumbling, which was also increasing in volume as you went further down the tunnel.

By now you couldn't see the outside world anymore because you were so far away from the cave entrance. You continued on regardless of this fact as you were curious as to the source the rumbling. Your first guess would be some sort of machine, possibly manufactured by one of the clawed creatures that left behind the scratches on the wall.

You could see more light at the end of the tunnel and the rumbling now sounding more like manual labour and less like machinery like you had expected. Then you walked out of the end of the tunnel.

You were a little surprised to be honest, though not as much as you would have been had you come here a few days earlier. Or weeks? Fuck it, you didn't care anymore. More interestingly though, it was the people that were making the noise that had your interest. People was becoming a very loose term for you.

The people, or rather dogs, had oddly proportioned bodies, with very large upper bodies supported by relatively small legs. In particular their arms were huge, with some even making up three quarters of their total height. That was another thing, there was more than one species of dog in this cavern. You didn't even need to scan their DNA to find out either, as some of them differed so much that you could almost call them a separate species entirely.

They were all gathered in the centre of the cavern, which had a very large amount of open space for them to occupy, with stalagmites dotting the areas in between the dogs. The roof of the cavern was also covered in stalactites, or at least it was before, as the dogs seemed to had ripped them from the ceiling, probably in order to prevent any accidents.

The dogs before you were all entering from multiple entrances around the cavern, before converging into the centre, leaving a gap in the cavern opposite to where you were standing. If you had to guess you would probably say they were assembling for some sort of important meeting. Perhaps you could listen in on their conversation if you were careful enough to not be seen.

You quickly ran from the tunnel you were hiding in and hid behind a convenient boulder about twenty metres away, carefully avoiding all attention. It was probably helpful that the tunnel you had come out of was higher than that of the other surrounding surfaces, with the majority of the cavern floor being below every other level.

You peaked out of your hiding spot to see a dog walk out onto a slightly raised rock platform in the area where the dogs had been leaving an empty space. He was followed by two other dogs that were slightly shorter than him, though it didn't really matter as all three of them were at least a head taller than even the tallest of the other dogs in the room.

He - along with the other two dogs - were well dressed compared to the other dogs, wearing some kind of ceremonial robes. The larger dog had silver coloured robes while the two others had bronze coloured ones, which you assumed to mean that he was a higher ranking individual than those other dogs. You paid attention as the larger dog began to speak to the assembled crowd.

“Alright! Settle down! You all know why we have gathered here, so let's get straight into it. We cannot keep this up for much longer; our efforts aren't stopping Him and he gets closer to the Equestrian safe zone everyday. Now-”

“What of the others? Are they giving up hope as well!?”

More voices joined the one that shouted out, also voicing their concerns on the matter.

“Quiet! We are not giving up hope and neither are the others. We are simply...falling back.”

He didn't sound all that convinced himself, and the his speech only served to make the crowd even more loud in their outcries, which in turn made the room even louder as their voices echoed across the cavern. It got louder and louder, the shouts if protest and fear becoming the only thing you could hear from your hiding spot.

“SILENCE!”

Not anymore, it seemed. Your eardrums payed the price for the silence though. You felt something wet dripping from your ears, which after a quick feel, you confirmed to be blood. At least it got the crowd to shut up though.

You looked back over the rock to see the source of the voice, a Minatuar if you had to guess. He stood even taller than the dogs but still shorter than you, surprisingly. He made good use of the silence it seemed.

“The other nations are doing their best to aid us during this time, I have been informed myself that the Griffons have sent someone just recently to request help from the ponies of Equestria. Now-”

“What do you mean they sent to get help, from ponies!?”

It wasn't a dog from the crowd speaking out his time, instead it was one of the shorter dogs on the stage, speaking in harsh whispers to the taller Minatuar. Said Minatuar promptly turned to the dogs in the crowd.

“Excuse us for a moment.”

The creatures on stage, Dog and Minatuar, huddled together and began speaking in hushed tones. You could barely make out what they were saying over the sounds of the murmuring crowd.

“...are they insane!”

“...have no choice...low on...as it is...”

“...but surely...crazy enough to...be serious about this...”

“...they should know that...have no honesty...could end up...fools who had...failed before...”

“...told you no...out of options...we are going to...if something...help us...”

“...fine!...you will...when it backfires in...faces...”

“Hello, it's good to see you have done squabbling with each other.”

They all turned to face someone you didn't expect it see here. Gilda flew in from the entrance directly opposite to you and landed besides the arguing sapients on the stage, lifting up minute amounts of dust in the process.

“Gilda, what are you doing here?I thought you were supposed to be requesting help from the Princesses.”

“Well let's just say my journey here was...more eventful than I first thought. I could never have made it all the way to Canterlot in time for the deadline so I came here instead. I've found some interesting intel on the ponies that love here.”

“And? What is it?”

“...they...haven't changed. Some are willing to be nice but the majority are still the same as they were during The Purge.”

“I...see. This is bad news then.”

“Yes, I don't think they will be willing to help us, not to mention the fact that they somehow don't recall history at all and have seemingly lost the way of warcraft. And to top it all of I'm currently living with a freakishly tall human who has the intelligence of a rock.”

What...

Seriously, what...

She thought you had the mental capabilities of a stone...

How nice of her.

You decided now would be a very good time to leave. You don't think that you could survive another insult to your intellect. Somebody insults you? Sure, you didn't care, but your intellect was special to you. Probably the only thing you could actually pride yourself in. That comment really hit deep for you. The funny thing was you probably wouldn't care anymore by the time you got outside the cave system.

You quietly crept around towards the entrance now being used as an exit, being even more careful now not to be seen. You made it back into the tunnel and - believing that you were in the clear - you took off into a sprint. Luckily for you that was true; no one was within earshot or eyesight.

Once outside you came back to your original problem once more. You had no way of knowing how to get back home and it was still raining. The little expedition you had just undertaken hadn't exactly helped your situation in any way either, so that was just adding to your level annoyance.

Well, you couldn't just sit around all day and - night...and do nothing. Stupid planetary rotation bullshit. Oh yes, you forgot to give a fuck about that comment. Oh well, you couldn't care less anymore. Also, you totally called it. Well now it seemed like the only option was brute forcing your way through countless yottabytes of data and deciphering it, as it would take longer for your internal computers to do it. What fun!

You sat down on the ground, as past experiences doing this told you that this wasn't something you wanted to do standing up. You tried to focus out the sound of the rain, tried to ignore everything around you. You would need as much mental capacity as you could muster. You were ready, now all you needed to do was sent the message and begin the flow of raw data directly into your mind. This should be interesting; it had been a while since you had done this.

The flow began and you instantly and instinctively grabbed your head despite there being no traditional pain. It still ‘ached’ though. The flow was smaller than you had expected, and you were easily able to keep up with it. Until it increased, that was. It was still tolerable to you, so you began the hard part; processing and translating it. It almost became to much for you to handle, all the data being shoved into your cranium from...within your cranium. It wasn't even ‘normal’ data either, just masses of formless...stuff, that held no sense or...meaning. You had to actually make...sense of this completely shapeless data, certainly a...daunting task.

Time was meaningless to...you here in your own...mind. Things were...difficult, as you were...losing your sense of...self. It...-done.

Thank Universe that was over! You opened your eyes to get in some light. It was a weird experience having to adjust to a different medium of data and at first everyone of your senses felt strange to you, alien even. You also didn't like how forcing data through your mind made you lose some cognitive ability, which was a slight frustration when doing it because you had to focus on staying sane lest you lose all sense of self and become a purely logical machine, certainly something you didn't want to experience again. Being nothing but data was a very...different experience in your list of memories to say the least.

Oh, it had stopped raining, that's nice and convenient. And your Nanites had also translated the pre-translated data into a holographic trail of light barely above the dirt ground. Now all you needed to do was follow it straight home.

Standing up was a bit of a struggle though, as you had to essentially re-learn how to use your muscles, as if they were completely foreign to you, and in a sense, they were. Only unlike when you were younger in your foreign body you were born into, this time you had muscle memory within your brain so you weren't completely hopeless at standing up. Still another annoyance you had to deal with though.

At first you started limping forward, still not quite comfortable with your stability. You had, technically, been separated from your body for however long you had been deciphering data. Still though, you were making progress and you could now somewhat walk again, albeit shakily. You would probably be back to normal in a days time so that was a plus. Or four days as it were. Still no running for you, or any movement requiring more than just simple motions of your legs.

You had a very long journey ahead of you, it seemed.

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It took a while, and an entire Equestrian day had passed, but you eventually made it back to your wooden abode. You basically flopped onto the door and pushed it open with your own weight, unfortunately landing on the floor in the process. Your chin would probably be bruised if it weren't for your Nanites.

“...my...legs...why...burn...uhh...”

You attempted to lift yourself up again. Emphasis on attempted. You could hardly feel anything anymore, just numb stubs that should feel like arms and legs. It would be a long time before you did anything that required you to fuck up your nervous system. You had also procured a headache during the trip back home, so that was a pain.

“Hi there.”

You looked to Gilda, who had a happy, weird smile on her beak, looking like an innocent child. If you didn't know any better you would say that she knew you were listening in on her little speech. Luckily you knew better.

“Fuck off...please.”

She seemed shocked at your request, judging by the way she jumped back and gasped at your prone form.

“Well! How rude, but since you said please.”

She seemed to be wanting to annoy you further, as - wait...that actually worked? Yes, something you did actually worked for once instead of blowing up in your face. This was cause for celebration!

The wall in front of you suddenly exploded and showered you with bits of wooden debris and other forms of shrapnel, some even impaling your arms and firmly nailing them in place.

“Huh................ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! My freakin’ leg! What the fuck!”

“Have you seen my explosives by any chance”

Gilda’s head poked out from the new hole in the building, still looking like a childish...whatever she was called, you couldn't recall at this time as you had other pressing matters at hand, like the three metre long piece of wood impaled through your neck. Seeing as you couldn't use your vocal cords to do anything but scream and gurgle, you did the next best thing.

You took your middle finger and showed it to her. Thankfully she got the message and she disappeared, probably off to blow up more of your stuff. That didn't matter at least she was gone.

You really couldn't be bothered to pull the bits of debris lodged into your numb body, so instead you just sat there, trying to move as little as possible to not disturb the wounds anymore as the slightest movements sent bursts of pain throughout your entire body.

Oh shit. You had a sudden urge to sneeze.

-9- The Bear and Unicorn Show

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Dear diary. Or journal. I don't really care. I am writing in this to prevent my sanity from slipping away after finding myself in the most bizarre of situations. Or I could be writing this to slow down my descent into madness, either way I still don't care. This planet seems to have stolen all of my fucks. Anyway, I have found myself in a land filled with sapient (I think...it's hard to tell) creatures and am surrounded by complete idiots. The population of the country I'm living in is comprised of glorified, colourful horses that seem to love to be bigots for some strange reason that I have yet to understand. I doubt I will ever understand, but I will not judge them for their ways.

Another thing, as noted previously, is that they all seem to be completely nuts. What's worse is that I think that it’s starting to affect me. The ‘ponies’, as they call themselves, seem to break down over simple things, have sudden and spontaneous mood swings and personality shifts, have some form of superiority complex, and are just overall off the deep end. To make matters worse, I experienced one of their ‘personality shifts’, which is why I fear I'm being affected by my environment somehow.

They all seem to believe in what they call magic, which given the complexity of the technology that drives this belief, I can understand why. I have made it a personal goal to study this magic whenever I have free time on my hands, which, as of late, is in abundance. On the topic of magic, I believe I should write down some of the more bizarre traits of this world (as if everything else wasn't strange enough). The most major point I have observed is that the Concept of Continuity seems to be in lesser effect than from my home (a planet from the Graduur Galaxy) and seems to be causing every other strange occurrence here. Again, I have chosen to look into this as it is causing me quite some grief.

Even this journal is being made with me in a position of...I don't know how to describe. Pain, I guess, would be the best term. Why, even the ink of this book isn't ink at all. It's written in my blood! Why, you ask diary? Well, it was the only thing around at the time, and I'm still stuck to the floor since my last encounter with one of the inhabitants. I don't dare get up just yet, in case they have more traps deployed in my own house.

I think I'm rambling. Forget what I just wrote, I’m going to try and un-impale myself from the floor. Wish me luck.

That really didn't make you feel any better, but at least you had something to do with your hands while you were stuck to the floor. Ok, so maybe it did distract you from the insane world outside of your mind, but it wouldn't last forever and now you would have to remove your self from the improvised wooden nails holding you down.

You chucked the conjured book to the side for now and dropped the improvised-wooden-debris-pen to get to work on the other debris that was in your body and not in your hand. You would start on the biggest piece as that would offer you more monuvearobilty to get rid of the other pieces. Right here goes.

Just before pulling it out of your leg you look around quickly to make sure Gilda wasn't around with more IED’s to lob at you. Fortunately for her, she wasn't, because if she was she was going to be made into a feathery quilt for your still furniture-less bedroom. Lucky for you Gilda.

You went straight for it, pulling it out as fast as possible. It hurt a lot less than you thought it would, the pain was nowhere near as bad as getting stuff fused into your bones, or being slammed crotch-first at probably a hundred kilometres per hour into a stone pillar. It still hurt though, although not enough to make you scream out in pain. One down, numerous others to go.

You began the process of removing the rest of the overly large splinters from your body, which at first was painful but became tedious as they became more normal splinter sized and were harder to remove.

Eventually you managed to get them all out after much effort and concentration. Now it looked like you were just laying in a large pool of your own blood for no reason, as your wounds had already sealed up. Your clothing also regenerated, which you were happy for as it meant your design had worked and you had conclusive testing to show for it as well.

You almost forgot about the huge hole in your house. It was still trying to repair itself, and was succeeding somewhat. The hole was growing back at a faster rate than a normal plant and also in the shape of your design but still relatively slow. It just needed a little help from you that's all. With a mental shove you forced the Nanites to work faster and you saw the fruits of your effort in the form of the tree growing back before your eyes. Now that that is taken care of, what were you doing? Oh yes, that's right, decision time.

Now, to decide whether to get up and hunt down Gilda, stay here and study, or go into town and see what’s been happening in your absence. Thinking about it for a while, you decided to go back into town, as the inhabitants were probably getting into some crazy situation or another, if your past experiences were anything to go by. Plus, you might learn something else about your current situation from one of the obnoxious creatures. You would have to find Gilda later it seemed! Or at least wait until she came back.

Oh yes, you also needed to get some certain...supplies from Ponyville for your next experiment. You had already planned it all out, you just needed a few more ingredients. To be honest you had no idea what would happen but it would be nice just to do something other than reading. Besides the results would be interesting either way. To Ponyville it was.

You passed the still healing doorway and started running in the direction of Ponyville. You couldn't get lost, as you had decided to start compiling a digital map of the entire world so that you wouldn't. It would have certainly been helpful to have yesterday.

In your journey you noticed none of the predators were attacking you any more. Had you built up a reputation that quickly amongst the forest dwelling inhabitants? It seemed like it. Either that or you had killed off all the apex predators in the localised area, which was less likely as there was bound to be more than just two types of predators in this huge forest. You didn't even know how large this forest was, as every time you jumped into the air all you could see was forest. All the way to the horizon. At least on one side anyway, the other half of the horizon was Equestria which was mostly rolling hills with two distinct mountains ranges.

In your musings you had failed to notice that you had already reached the edge of the forest, and when you went to leap forward again your foot met nothing but air, courtesy of the sudden elevation upon the entrance to the forest. This caused you to land on your legs funnily and smash face-first into the dirt hill. You had your eyes open, so when you landed on the ground soil filled up your eyes lids and scratched away at your eyeballs. It wasn't a pleasant experience to say the least.

You stood up and removed the dirt from your eyes and looked at your clothes, once again satisfied that no dirt had clung to it and no other form of damage had taken to it. There was still some aspects that you had made for it that you had yet to test, though you could do that later. For now you wanted to check on the town.

It was...different. You couldn't exactly say what was different, but something was definitely off about the small little village. You would have to investigate this. For now though you decided it would be best if you just went straight to Pinkie to get your needed supplies.

You made the rest of the walk to town in under a minute, and on your way you noticed even more oddities about the little village. For one it seemed to be completely void of all life.
For another the buildings looked different since you last saw them, and again, you couldn't quite exactly place what was different about them. Still though the silence was unnerving, so you pulled out your blade and produced a second one so you could have one in each hand. You would feel really embarrassed if everyone was just in their houses or if there was some other stupid explanation.

“Hello?”

You got no response whatsoever.

“Anyone there?”

Again, no reply. You changed the way your blades were facing in nervousness. Where was everyone? Oh, you noticed something that had changed. The damage done by you was no longer here, although you doubt that was the only thing that had changed as the whole town felt...off.

You ran as quietly as possible towards a wall of one of the buildings and lent around it to see more abandoned streets. You crept out of your hiding place and walked down the street, not being overly cautious as you thought the coast was clear but not trying to deliberately attract attention either. You still had yet to find any signs of life.

“ - The Great and Powerful TRIXIE!”

Suddenly fireworks shot out of from behind the building to the rear, scaring you to no end. If it were possible, you would have most definitely had a heart attack from that jump. Regardless, your heart was still pounding in your chest.

Once you had your heart rate under control you decided to investigate the source of the noise. You chose to keep your knives out because you would hopefully be able to return the favour of a fresh heart attack to whoever decided to scream and launch explosives into the air.

Well, at least you found out where everyone was. It seemed like the whole town had gathered before this one mare and her stage for some reason. Was she some kind of deity to them?

“Apparently we have some Neigh-Sayers in the crowd.”

That sentence alone put that theory to rest, and also informed you of a very, very bad pun used around these parts. That still left a question unanswered though; why exactly were they gathering here? Your best guess would probably be that she was some sort of actress or entertainer of some sort, and that she was putting on some form of show. If her apparel was anything to go by then she was probably a magician, but then you remembered that magic was a common sight around here. Maybe she was talented at it? Her, what was it...cutie mark?

“Oh please. Everypony knows that I'm the best.”

“Oh really? Come then Pegasus, prove yourself to be better than the Great and Powerful Trixie; anything you can do, I can do better.”

“You're on!”

Rainbow Dash was the one being an annoyance to the mare, her voice made it obvious. She rocketed up onto the stage to glare at the blue Unicorn before racing off into the sky, performing many stunts and tricks to impress the gathered audience. Some of them were quite good to be honest. She sailed into the air before crashing down through multiple clouds and landing on the stage with a dull thud. Another interesting anomaly occurred because if this; the vapour left from the clouds formed a small rainbow directly over Rainbow’s head. That wasn't the truly interesting part either; the Unicorn mare on the proceeded to use her magic to pull on the light and turn it into a whirlwind of colours. Fascinating, you wonder what else this mare could do.

Rainbow Dash waddled off stage, clearly disorientated by the sudden miniature tornado of bright light.

“Clearly Trixie has proven that she is the Greatest and most Powerful Unicorn in all of Equestria. Are there any others who dare doubt her superiority?”

The crowd began to cheer, bar a few, amongst which were Twilight and her companions. They seemed to dislike this magician for some reason. You wanted to find out why.

You began wading through the crowd trying to reach the little ponies. They were easy to spot, what with you being so tall and all, but they seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves and Twilight looked as if she was actively avoiding attention. You had to pass both humans and ponies but you made your way to the small group of equines.

“Hey. What are you guys doing?”

You sat down on the ground to try and make yourself eye level with the ponies before you. It was futile but at least they didn't have to crane their necks as much to look you in the eyes.

“This show-mare is being most boastful and obnoxious.”

“Well you can talk Rarity.”

She narrowed her eyes at you.

“What does that mean?”

“It's means that you're obnoxious as well.”

“But - I - how rude!”

Rarity stormed off. Or at least tried to; the crowd of ponies and humans was making it difficult to leave.

“So...yeah. That was something. Oh yes! Have you seen Pinkie Pie anywhere?”

Twilight, who seemed to have ignored the entire conversation between you and Rarity, turned away from Spike and looked towards you.

“I'm not entirely sure, she could be anywhere but I think I saw her in the crowd earlier.”

“Ok, thanks.”

You began your search for the Pink mare, standing up and walking amongst the crowd in the process. For a bright pink pony she sure knew how to blend in; you were having quite some difficulty finding her. You would see a pink fluffy tail and then it would just disappear a second later. You saw something out of the corner of your eye, something pink and bouncy. It must be Pinkie.

The blur left the gathered crowd and raced down a street in a direction towards Rarity’s home. You left as quickly as possible, trying your hardest not to knock any of the ponies over in your rush. By the time you reached the edge of the audience the pink speeding blur had already vanished beyond your field of vision.

You ran down the streets in pursuit, going down the way you saw Pinkie last in the hopes of finding her. You ran around a seemingly endless amount of streets and pathways before finding Pinkie entering Sugarcube Corner. Funny, you thought Rarity’s place was here.

You pushed open the door and crouched to enter, which was another thing that you had just noticed; all of the doors seemed smaller than last time you were here. Inside you found the place to be in a relatively similar state to when you last saw it. Any differences you could write off as being modifications made by the owners. Things like moved furniture and different candles used for light.

You spotted Pinkie by the entrance to the kitchen, about to enter.

“Hey Pinkie.”

She turned around in a split second, so fast you could barely keep track of her movement.

“Oh hiya!”

She began waving her hoof at high speeds, again you could only just barely able to see her movements at all. How did she do that? Well, you suppose you could wait a few more hours before performing the test you had been conceiving since first meeting Pinkie Pie to find out answer to that. Speaking of which.

“Hey Pinkie can I ask you for a favour?”

“Hmm?”

You took her head tilt as questioning, though it was a little difficult to tell at first seeing as you still had very little grasp on Ponies’ facial expressions, human as they may be.

“I was just wondering if I could have some of your...hair?”

“My mane?”

Pinkie’s eyes rolled up to look at her fluffy mane, the mane that you wanted a piece of.

“What would you want my mane for?”

“It's a secret, I can't tell you. I really need it...please?”

“Well...ok. But keep it safe! My mane is very special to me.”

“Don't worry I will. Do you want me to cut it or you?”

“You can do it if you want, but please only take a small piece. My mane is really, really special to me.”

“I will only take what I need, don't worry.”

You pulled up a piece of Pinkie’s mane and cut it using your ‘magical’ technology. The small tuft of hair fell into your waiting hands and you quickly put it away for later, not decomposing it as that would void your whole expedition into Ponyville.

You took note of Pinkie’s reaction though. She seemed to flinch at the ‘touch’ of your Nanites. You had no idea her hair meant that much to her.

“There, all done.”

She opened her eyes; you had failed to notice her closing them in the first place.

“It's over?”

She seemed on the border of being traumatised. Did her hair really mean that much to her. You wanted to know but you didn't want to press the matter, as doing so might upset her and you already had what you came for.

“Thank y...ou?”

Pinkie disappeared, probably off to do some baking or other such chores that you took no interest in. You had what you came for so you didn't care where she went off to, although you were a bit concerned about Pinkie. Nothing to dwell about now though.

You walked, or rather crawled, through the door to the bakery and into the outside world once more. You briefly thought of anything else you could do while you were here in town, as you might as well do it now while you were here. You came up blank; you really couldn't think of anything else to do while you were here. You didn't exactly feel like going back home just yet either, that would be a waste of time despite how quickly you can make the trip here and back.

You could always check up on the others to kill some time. At least that would make this trip somewhat more worthwhile.

With that decided you began looking for them. The first pace you would search was obviously where you last them, at the centre of town. Hopefully they hadn't wandered off to do some chores or whatever business ponies get up to in their spare time. Having to look all over town would just be inconvenient.

It seemed like they would still be there as there was still nobody in the streets. Perhaps they were still watching that magician? You had a few questions to ask her, specifically how she manipulated that rainbow with her magic. At the very least you hoped she would be able to give you a spell of some kind, or at least direct you to a place where you could find the spell.

Luckily for you everyone you were looking for were all where you last saw, sitting around in the middle of the town centre. With the exception of Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy everyone you were looking for was here. Well, you weren't exactly looking for Twilight and Applejack, they were more of a welcome surprise. Still, the mare - Trixie you believed - was here, and she seemed to have some spare time on her hooves so she might be able to answer some of your questions.

You approached the small group of ponies; they seemed to be discussing or arguing about something, you weren't entirely sure which it was.

“It's ok to have talent Twilight, just as long as you don't go around showing it off. That's my job!”

“You sure are full of yourself aren't you Rainbow Dash.”

All ponies present - excluding Trixie, who was busy doing something to her stage - turned to face you at the sound of your voice.

“What do you mean by that, monkey boy?”

“Monkey boy? What is that supposed to mean?”

“It mean you're stupid.”

“...you do know that humans are more intelligent than ponies...”

“Exactly!”

“...what.”

Twilight took this opportunity to smack herself in the face with a hoof, which looked like it would hurt quite a bit. Rainbow Dash was smirking for whatever reason. You decided you wanted to leave, fearing that you might catch their stupidity. Seeing as you somehow managed to ‘catch’ Luna’s breakdown it didn't seem like that big of a stretch and you didn't want to take any chances.

“Goodbye. I'm going to talk with that Unicorn over there, wait, can you even understand my words?”

“Of course I can. What, do you think I'm stupid or something?!”

“Yes.”

The conversation died. Just like that, it ceased to be. At least, until Twilight brought something else up.

“You're going to talk to Trixie?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I just thought I should let you know that she is really boastful of her magical prowess.”

“I think I can handle it.”

As you said it you looked to Rainbow Dash. She hadn't been overly boastful in huge time you had known her but she emitted an aura of snobbishness, just like Rarity did.

“Yeah partner, she's real obnoxious too.”

“Oh don't worry, I think your all obnoxious.”

Your comment was left unheard because Rainbow thought it would be a good time to interject.

“Yeah! And she talks in third-pony! How weird is that?”

“Well, not really that weird. I mean, I think to myself in second person.”

You wondered why you did that. Maybe I could try- no, no way too difficult. Besides the Other voices didn't like it when you thought in first person. In your thinking you had failed to listen to the words coming from Rainbow Dash.

“Sorry, what was that. I was busy arguing with the voices in my head so I didn't hear what you said.”

“I take it back; you're not weird, you're insane.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn't a compliment.”

“Oh, I know it wasn't. But for me it is. At least I'm intelligent enough to have more than one line of thought at once.”

“...What?”

“Oh forget it, this is pointless. You could cut off my big toe and it would have more brains than all of you combined.”

You turned towards Trixie and walked off before any of them could get another point in. You couldn't exactly place it but they seemed to be acting differently compared to what they usually are. Then again you hadn't exactly known them all that long, maybe this was how they acted all the time.

Trixie appeared to be packing up things from around the stage, which was now no longer a stage and was instead some form of transportation that you struggled to identify, probably because you hadn't seen anything like it before in the time you had lived. If you did some study though you would probably find something similar to it in ancient human history, but you lacked both the resources and the patience to do it.

You only just noticed now because of your proximity to her, but something felt ‘off’ about this mare and you couldn't quite place it, a similar feeling to how you couldn't tell what was different about the buildings. Even then this kind of ‘off’ was different; She just didn't feel right.

“Hello there. I was wondering if you could-”

“Please just fuck off, Trixie is very busy.”

“...pardon?”

“You heard Trixie.”

Wow. The first pony you had heard - no, the first intelligent creature you had heard use a swear word.

“I like you already...”

“Yes, yes. Now go away.”

“Ok I will, but I was wondering if you could teach me how you manipulated that rainbow. I'm curious as to how you did it that's all.”

Trixie turned to face you, seeing your form for the first time. She seemed shocked, if her open mouth and wider-than-alredy-huge eyes were anything to go by. You didn't know why she was shocked though, because of your height difference or something else perhaps?

“Uh, of course. Trixie could probably spare a few minutes before resting. She is that Great after all.”

“Ok, thanks.”

“Uh-huh, j-just follow Trixie over here. Actually, just take this spell book. This is where Trixie learnt how to control rainbows.”

She started walking back to her home, or what you presumed to be her home.

“Ok, thanks again. Hey wait!”

She turned back to face you.

“What is it?”

“I could make a copy of this if you want. You could keep the original if you wanted.”

She pondered this for a moment.

“No, no. You keep it; I've already learnt all the spells in there anyway.”

You looked down to the book in question. It looked like it had a lot of pages in it.

“Ok then thanks agai-... Where'd you go?”

She had disappeared. Your first guess would be that she was back in her mobile house, but that didn't matter, you got what you needed and it was almost dusk.

On your way through town you noticed a couple of young, male ponies. Colts, if you remembered correctly. One was orange-y and the other was a blue-ish colour, and both of them were talking to Spike about something that you couldn't hear from this distance.

After tossing the idea around in your head for a bit you decide that their argument is of none of your concern, and instead opt to find a quiet place to read the book Trixie gave you. An ideal place is spotted by you, just out of the corner of your vision, over by a park bench. Said bench had no ponies around it so you figured that it would be less distracting there than out in the open.

Within moments you were sitting on the small- scratch that, tiny bench with the book in your lap. The bench was so small, you were surprised it could even hold your weight, so tiny compared to your figure that you decided you would be better off just sitting on the grass floor than on it.

You pulled the book out after settling comfortably onto the grass. The book in question had a simple title of ‘Illusion Magic’ in large stylised text. You had no idea how you knew it was stylised as you didn't actually know the language. It must have just been the Nanites in your optical nerve Woking their magic on your perception. You were still thankful for that.

You turned the book open to the first page, ignoring the contents for now. You began to read the book in silence amongst the fading sunlight.

Welcome to the the art of Illusion, one of the most difficult classes of magic out there. In this book you will learn some basic spells in this school of magic and will also be educated in the subsets of all Illusion category's. Why would you want to learn illusion magic, you might ask? You could learn how to alter your appearance, or perhaps confuse others around you. Maybe you will choose to become completely invisible. This book features all and beyond in terms of the illusory arts!

The basics should be taught first before attempting this book, so if you don't have an at least basic understanding of magic you should probably read something else first. Let's get straight into it! First of all, illusion magic is the art of changing the surrounding light, not the surrounding objects. Depending on the specific type of spell, altering matter would either come under transmutation, alchemy, or any of the major elemental manipulation categories. Seek other books if you wish to be able to control the environment around you; this book does not teach you how to do that.

Now onto the magic itself. Illusion itself can be broken down into three main classes; Refraction, Reflection, and Projection. Refraction is the art of attracting or repelling light, Reflection is the art of changing the properties of existing light, and Projection is the art of creating new light. To become a true master of the illusory arts one must first master all three classes of illusion, and the only way to do that is through practice, practice, practice! This book has hundreds of spells for you to practice and excel at, the difficulty ranging for both those who are just starting to those that are masters of this particular field of arcane power.

You flicked though the rest of the book after that, as it was just spell after spell from then on. The first few were vital for learning other spells in the future; spells like attract light, repel light, bend light and create light, just to name a few.

Once you had finished flocking through the entire book you opened it back up to the start and began committing all the arcane symbols to memory, not fully remembering them but storing them in the form of raw data in your Hives. The only time you didn't do this was when you found a particularly interesting spell and thought it would be fun to try sooner rather than later, so instead you put a little tag of sorts to mark its position in the book.

You have no idea how long you did this for, but it must have been for longer than you thought because when you finished it was already dark and all the ponies had left the village streets. Some parts of the book were interesting, like the use of labels for the names of spells and classes. You could analyse it once you got home.

You stood up with the book in hand and tried to re-orientate yourself. You appeared to be near the centre of town - as you would have guessed - opposite the area where Trixie had set up her stage. You began off in the direction of your house but stopped; you could have sworn you just heard something. You shook it off and continued on your way, sure it was just your imagination.

You heard it again, slightly louder this time. It was coming from the Everfree forest and was getting louder with each passing second. Whatever it was it sounded big.

You decided to investigate the source of the disturbance as it was in the direction of your house anyway so it wouldn't be that big of a waste of time. You made it to the forest with no hassle but by now the noises were becoming almost audible if you weren't specifically listening for it, and now along with it you could hear two smaller, almost insignificant sounds along with it, although you had to strain yourself to hear it.

Quickly dashing around any trees or fallen plants you made your way closer to the sound, now loud enough to be distinguished as something running. Something that was very big. By now the sound was so loud you wouldn't be surprised if it started waking the inhabitants nearby.

You found yourself within a small clearing, much smaller than your one. The ground was visibly shaking by now and the bush behind you was rustling.

Suddenly two colts - the same ones arguing with spike earlier, if you were not mistaken - came running out of the bush.

“RUN!”

“What is i-”

You didn't get to finish as a massive ear splitting roar blasted across the clearing and beyond. You turned around in time to see what it was as it emerged from the tree line. It was huge. You only came up halfway on this monstrosity and even then only just barely. It resembled a bear in form but appeared semi-transparent and had what looked to be stars dotted all over it. When it opened its mouth again it didn't look transparent on the inside, so you inferred that it must bend light around it in some way, maybe as an evolutionary way to hide. You could see no reason why this thing would need to hide from anything.

Another roar tore across your form. Maybe now wasn't the best time for theorising.

The thing took a swipe at you, to which you barely avoided by diving to the side and rolling away from it. The thing went for another swipe at you. This time you stopped it mid-strike by grabbing it. Holding its leg up was difficult and it was all the more so when the thing started applying force, pushing you backwards and leaving big trenches in the soil where your feet were. You couldn't keep this up forever; holding it was started to tire your arms. You summoned as much strength as you could and flipped the whole thing over your head.

The thing smashed into the ground creating an earth shattering thump as it collided with the forest floor. It moved far faster than you expected it to be capable of, flipping itself back over and charging at you again. This time you were ready but there was one thing you had to take care of first. This thing was much larger than Nightmare Moon and would probably create much more collateral damage; you needed to get it as far away from Ponyville as possible.

You ran deeper into the forest but a problem soon arose as the gigantic bear lost interest in you and started off for Ponyville again, quite intent on terrorising it for some reason.

You needed a better plan, and luckily you thought of one. Using just recently acquired knowledge you produced a small white glow of light in front of the mammoth bear. It was poorly made and flickered in and out of existence for a few moments before stabilising somewhat and staying still, still breaking apart but at farther intervals.

It worked; you got the things attention back, although it wasn't interested in you, more that it was interested in the light you had created.

Here came the problem. You had used a basic Projection spell but now the light was stationery; you would have to move it closer to you with a Reflection spell without breaking the other spell and causing the light to disappear completely.

You timed it carefully, releasing the Projection spell just as you started moving the light with a Reflection spell, transferring it over to the new spell. You brought the light closer to you, the bear trying to claw at it the whole time, until it was just in front of you. You brought the light into your palm and dispersed it; its purpose was served. It had gotten the things attention, and now it wanted you. Maybe that wasn't a good thing.

It swung again, this time missing and roaring in annoyance before charging at you again. You dashed away as fast as you could and headed in the direction that the creature came from, leading it as far away from Ponyville as possible.

You eventually came upon a cave, large enough to have been the bear’s home and point of origin. You were far away enough now.

You sounds around suddenly and slammed your hands into the oncoming bear. Your attack took the thing by surprise and caused it to stumble in its footing, collapsing and sliding into the cliff wall surrounding the cave entrance. You had the sense to duck beneath it when it fell, bringing your blades out as you skidded across the dirt in the opposite direction to the bear.

You came to a halt and flipped back up into a standing position to face the creature once more. It crawled back into a standing position and began charging you again, this time stopping just before reaching you and taking a swipe instead. You ducked and brought your knives up to slice as the things paw went straight into your warm, sharp blades.

The bear released another roar, this time louder than the others as it howled in pain.

They came in rapid succession, attacks coming from left and right, howls of agony filling the air as you weaved around its attacks and delivered your own in return. After countless swings the thing just gave up and attempted to eat you, which was a huge mistake on its part.

You jumped over its wide-opened mouth filled with sharp looking teeth and landed on the things back.

It screamed louder than any other time as something broke within it, either bones or organs you couldn't tell. It tried to flick you off but struggled to even support your weight. You may have looked weightless but you would probably weigh just as much as the poor creature you were crushing, quite the feat considering that it was almost ten to twenty times your volume.

You brought your knives down into the back of the bears neck and pulled them up with all your strength, producing deep gashes in the things skull and effectively killing it.

You fell off the creature, feeling quite exhausted at your exertions. It was a strange feeling for you, feeling tired that was. You had never really felt tired in your life, as you seldom did anything strenuous and your body lacked any need of sleep, sustenance or maintenance in most cases of everyday life.

Your eyes snapped open to the sound of a low growl...which slowly turned into a roar much louder than the one produced by the bear you had just killed. You rolled over onto your stomach and brought yourself up to a standing position just in time to see something come out of the darkness within the cave.

It. Was. Massive.

That was an understatement. It was truly mammoth in size. Unlike the last one this thing was purple in colour with stars that matched its fellow bear. Likewise, both bears shared a transparent coat of fur, which seemed to sparkle occasionally like star light. You didn't notice it on huge smaller one, but this one had a large blue star on its forehead. You probably noticed this one because the star itself was almost as tall as you were.

This time it approached you slowly instead of charging in head first. It stopped before it reached you, standing absolutely still. It radiated anger and hatred and you could see something within its eyes; a thirst for blood. Your blood, it was hungry for your blood.

It clawed at you suddenly, it's speed surprising you greatly. The claw slammed into your chest as you had no time to avoid it and you probably wouldn't have been able to stop it with force either. You sailed through the air and smacked into the cliff face surrounding the cave entrance. That hurt more than you thought it would to be honest.

You didn't even have time to fall off of the rock face before the paw made another attempt at your life. It smacked into you and stayed there, holding you against the wall, then began scraping up and down. To you it seemed like something was trying to flatten you into a pancake, and that was exactly what was happening to you in a sense.

When the thing realised that it wasn't killing the pink squishy thing it tried a new strategy; It began punching you repeatedly. It wasn't a pleasant experience. You were practically bounced off of the wall and then smacked straight back ‘down’ again, over and over and over. At this point you were feeling a bit numb all over.

“Enough!”

You jumped out of the way just as the thing’s paw lifted off of your for another punch, forcing your legs to propel you upwards which was actually going sideways straight into the giant bears face. In hindsight that might have not been such a good idea.

The thing opened its mouth and flicked you off of its snout, causing you to fall down into its maw. You jumped off of its tongue before it had a chance to chew into your flesh and eat you entirely. The thing somehow managed to hit you while you were in the air and you were sent flailing towards the tree line, rolling around before landing back on your feet near the trees surrounding the area.

You didn't know how much more of this you could take, time to electrify this fucking thing.

You commanded your Nanites and sent out arcs of electricity to fry the freakishly huge creature and hopefully end this things life. Your hopes are dashed though, as the bear doesn't even seem to be phased by the massive amounts of current coursing through it. On closer inspection you see that the electricity wasn't even going through the bear as it should have. It was bouncing off of its fur and pooling on the floor as a liquid. A fucking liquid.

The electricity seemed to have angered the bear further because now it was charging at you again. Thinking quick you decide to use magic for this one and look to the major sources of energy in the area. The amount of energy seemed to be fairly balanced in the surrounding area, but that gave you an idea. You focused on the magical strands in front of the charging beast and pulled them all to a central focus point, so much so that the surrounding matter was left with nothing at all and became an visible dust, visible only to you because of your spatial and temporal manipulators detecting it. When the bear stepped above the focus of the magic you released it causing the energy to explode out in every direction and in every form. Heat radiated outwards, a shockwave of sound blasted your eardrums, and the gravitational pull in the area went nuts.

The bear was sent flying into the air as a result, something it wasn't too pleased about if the roars it was making was any indication. It landed with a massive thud and collapsed into a heap, staying down for a while. Not for long it seemed, as it struggled back to all fours and glared at you menacingly. You still had yet to kill it and you couldn't just zap it like you did to Nightmare Moon, meaning you would have to fight it in a more conventional way.

You pulled up your hood - which had fallen off during the scuffle with the annoying bear you currently faced - and had your Nanites produce two more small knives to use, the previous ones also being lost in the chaos. You charged at it before it had a chance to charge at you, jumping into the air once you got into proximity with the bear and then landing on its snout for a second time. You began slashing at it, cutting at its flesh and drawing large amounts of blood from its head. What seemed like lots of blood for you though was probably more like a paper cut to this thing; it didn't even seem affected by your efforts at all.

You jumped off of its head once you realised your efforts were futile and instead you formulated a new plan. As you landed on the floor you kicked off of it and sailed back to the things head but this time instead of landing in it you kicked it as hard as you could, and with your mass that was quite a bit of force.

The knock confused the bear and gave you the time you needed. You ran back to the tree line towards the thickest tree you could see, a pine tree. Once there you ripped it out oft he ground and threw it into the air with a precise accuracy. You jumped again, this time landing on top of the tree in the roots, your force tipping it over so that the top of the pine was pointing towards the earth. The initial throw made it so that it was still flying through the air with you on it, now you just had to time your next jump perfectly.

...

Now.

You jumped off of the log of wood and in the direction of the bear’s snout, in doing so causing the log to surge towards the ground and impale the bear’s paw. You then jumped off of the bear’s snout and back onto the tree impaling the creatures paw, sending it further into the dirt and the bear’s claw, branches snapping off as they reached the base of the creatures legs. This did not please the bear. Not at all.

It roared to the point that you could feel blood coming out of your ears, so it was probably really loud. You couldn't tell at this point because you had gone temporarily deaf. Ignoring your deafness you took out your knives once more and started slashing at the bear’s neck, the log you stood on having brought you up to the base of its neck. Blood began pouring out in torrents, flooding over you and flowing down to the ground below. You stopped; the bear had ceased its screaming.

You pulled your arm out from the wound in which it was stuck in leaving you covered in blood and bits of meat. You jumped to the ground from your spot on the tree and landed with a soft thud in the dirt ground below, the impact causing small splatters of blood to fall off of you and stain the floor. You looked like someone had poured a bucket of thick, red paint all over you.

You examined the bears both flopped to the ground, dead. You didn't know what to examine first; the liquid electricity, the bears strange fur, or the intangible material from the magical land mine.

Eventually you settled on the bears fur. You hadn't encountered either of the other two curiosities before but you had heard about them before so you could examine them later for now you would settle for the bear. As you walked over to the corpses you blood-soaked pants made wet slopping sounds akin to pulling something out of thick mud. The excess blood also made it semi-difficult to move, but you managed anyway.

Upon closer inspection you found that the bear’s fur was actually some sort of microscopic crystalline insulator, but at the same time it was a conductor as well. That still didn't explain why the electrons had just abandoned their nuclei and become free radicals, much less explain why those said free radicals had bonded together and made liquid Electronium. Speaking of which.

You walked over to the pool of liquidised Electronium. You had never seen the stuff in any form, besides arcing electricity but then that wouldn't technically classify as Electronium. The pool was glowing a bright blue, bordering on white, which was weird as usually it was relatively colourless. It must have been a side-effect of the way the electrons had bonded together. You just didn't want to be around something this unstable that wasn't produced by human hands; the stuff was incredibly unstable and could explo- shit!

You dove to the ground just as the liquid began vibrating at high speeds, producing quite a lot of heat and sound in the process. No sooner than you touched the ground did it explode, arcs of electricity was sent flying everywhere as electrons shot off into the surrounding atoms; into the air it went, into the ground it went, and most importantly it went into you.

It didn't hurt you, which surprised you. You would have thought that you would writhing in agony by now since last time you were electrocuted that's what happened. The only thing that changed since then was your understanding of magic and your use of electric Nanites. You guess it must have been the latter that was preventing your pain, though, you weren't exactly complaining about it either.

You looked to the blast site. The dirt in which the liquid had combusted on was vitrified and the surrounding soil around that was glowing white-hot, a testament to the amount of heat released by the sudden reaction. Well, there was nothing you could do about it now that the electrons were balancing themselves around the surrounding environment. The only thing left to analyse now was the residue left behind from your magical explosive.

You approached the crater. To an onlooker it may have been but an empty hole with blackened stains, but you knew better than that. You crouched down besides the hole and pulled your hand through it. Just as you suspected; nothing in the hole, or at least, nothing tangible. The affects of such an anomaly were often referred to as ‘ghosting’ due to the fact that nothing could interact with it. The only reason people could see it was because they could use devices to sense tiny, minute changes in gravity suggesting that something should be there instead of nothing. Usually the only time this stuff was seen occurring naturally was at the collapse of the Universe and the beginning of a new one; that brief moment that lasted an eternity where everything in existence just collapsed and restarted all over again again. Of course you hadn't been around long enough to actually experience the end of an eternity; there had only been one hundred and fifty during humanities reign over the Universe, and your relatively short lifespan had yet to see such a rare event.

You looked back to the hole, or rather, the intangible mess of matter that filled that hole. You didn't exactly know what to do with it; all of the material’s electrons had been removed, it had zero energy left inside the atoms comprising it, and to top it all off a quarter of the Quantids that made it up had been removed from existence as well, all of the R variety. You decided to just leave it as it was and salvage whatever else you could from the bears’ corpses.

You definitely wanted to keep some if the fur from the bear corpse, the uses for such a material being unknown at this point but the properties of the material were too good to pass up. Another thing you wanted was the larger bear’s DNA, so that way you could make more fur if you somehow lost the pelts’ of fur acquired from said bear. You could fortunately get both at the same time.

You brought out another knife, having lost all the others at some point, and started cutting into the large animal’s fur coat, blood gushing out in the process. You took this opportunity to collect some DNA samples from the large quantities of vital fluid pouring down onto the dirt before continuing with your gory task. By the time you were done you had about twenty square metres of pelt folded up into a nice, small square that was comfortable to carry. You could have just broken it down to single molecules but that might risk damaging the cell structure due to its weird attributes; it was far better to be safe than sorry, in your opinion.

Now you just had the task of getting back home, the same journey you attempted to make before some...inconveniences decided to intervene with your plans. Such a waste of time.

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The journey back to your house didn't talk all that long, as you were already halfway there, the little detour having actually been in the right direction to home, surprisingly enough. You were glad you dealt with the bear problem now though, having them suddenly appear next to your house would not have been a very pleasant experience.

You walked up to the door of your tree home and pulled it open, not even bothering to close it behind you. You found Gilda within the first few seconds of even stepping into your house, she was sitting by the table enjoying some of the pancakes that you made, somehow not spoiled despite not being kept cool. Also, where did she get them? She turned to face you, probably alerted to you by the sound of blood dripping off of your clothes.

“Oh...I thought you were dead.”

You clenched your fists to your sides and spoke in a chilling tone.

“You...”

“Ah, he he...um, bye!”

Gilda dashed across the room and dove out of the window to quickly escape your wrath, where once outside she promptly started to fly away.

“Oh no you don't! Get the fuck back here!”

You dove out the window as well, although because you were much larger than Gilda you also took out half of the wall at the same time. You grabbed onto Gilda's lion-like tail and made sure that she definitely couldn't get away from you. You had to commend Gilda, you had no idea she was strong enough to drag you across the floor. You attempted to get yourself back up to your feet so you could stop Gilda but all you succeeded in doing was standing up, still being pulled along by Gilda’s implausible strength.

You began dodging the obstacles sent your way, forcing your limbs to twist in ways that probably weren't very healthy for you and looking like you were doing a weird dance of flailing limbs. You failed to notice a rock that you were heading straight towards and you ended up smacking into it crotch-first, sending you sailing into the air and smacking into another tree. Tree after tree impacted you as you were sent hurtling through the forest like some kind of human pinball, each crash harder and louder than the last. Eventually your torment ended and you were left to be dragged across the dirt.

You made a few more attempts to get Gilda to stop but gave up in the end, besides being pulled across the floor wasn't really that painful. You wondered when Gilda would stop, she must have been going for a solid five minutes now, which for an Equestrian resident was a total of twenty minutes. She must have been exhausted by this point.

You suddenly found yourself in the outskirts of town, Gilda still carrying you along across the dirt roads. Also, at some point it had become day time, and now you were earning many glances from the town’s inhabitants, which quickly turned into screams and shrieks at the sight of your blood-soaked body. Gilda made a sharp turn, forcing you upright and onto your legs again before continuing back down the streets of Ponyville once again, this time in the direction of the Everfree.

Now you found yourself at the forest edge again, Gilda not stopping to think before diving into the forest filled with supposedly ‘dangerous’ animals, the same forest she was petrified of days before. Your game of pinball with the trees continued once again, with team tree being victorious in the tournament.

You lost focus for a split second as your head collided with a particularly thick tree, surprisingly thick enough to not be obliterated upon contact with your also thick skull.

“Gilda!”

That was all the time she needed to get away apparently; she was nowhere to be seen, she didn't leave any footprints, she didn't leave any indication of which direction she took, and she most definitely wasn't in the air. Shit, you were so close to getting her!

You managed to calm yourself down before going into a fit by reasoning that she would probably come back to your house again at some point or another, sooner or later. For now though, back to your house. You had many things in mind that you could do once you arrived back home, with the primary one being your planned ‘experiment’, among several others. With that in mind you headed off towards your home in the woods, first off though you had to find directions to said home. You didn't want to brute force any more data, so the only option left would be to sift through the data in your Hives; you had already began constructing a map, you just didn't know where it was exactly.

After sifting through approximately three hundred thousand folders of data you came across the folder containing the map, the program to read it, and any miscellaneous files needed to properly use and navigate the map from external devices. The folder itself contained one point seven exabytes of data, relatively small for how much it had within, you had expected it to be a much larger file. No doubt its small size came from the incredibly complex programming contained within as well, the same coding that you failed to understand to any in depth sense; you couldn't code, but you understood how it worked...somewhat.

You pulled open the map, more than ninety percent of it was black as you had yet to explore those areas of this planet’s estimated total size. Furthermore, the area in which you could visibly see was constantly changing to be an exact copy of the environment. The map using data constantly streaming from your various devices and sources to update the atomically accurate map; if you so chose to view the world an atom at a time, then so be it, the map could handle it more than easily.

You were currently thirty four kilometres away from your house, to the east of it to be exact. You once again found yourself marvelling at Gilda’s super-endurance. She must have travelled at least twice that distance to get you to where you were now, and your weight wouldn't have been easy to drag around everywhere, especially with you struggling the whole way. Perhaps you should look into that later as well, for now though, to your house.

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You were getting tired of having to run to your house all the time. Maybe now would be a good time to learn about teleportation magic, Pinkie certainly seemed to enjoy talking about how amazing it was. No, not yet. You had one experiment you had to do before doing anything else, you feared for your sanity if you didn't do this, the very thing that had been annoying you since you first came to Ponyville; you were going to figure out Pinkie Pie, and you weren't stopping until you had it completely understood and figured out. First things first though; preparation, lots and lots of preparation.

You already had Pinkie’s DNA so with that you would be able to find whatever it was that gave Pinkie her strange abilities, so really yet he only things you needed to get ready was some equipment; a genetic analyser would be needed, along with an atomic reader, a genetic synthesiser, and some form of base for the DNA to ‘rest’ on, although that would be entirely dependant on the DNA itself so that would come last.

For the genetic analyser you would first check your Hive’s database to see if it contained the blueprints for one, otherwise you would have to make on from scratch and that would take a large portion of time, so hopefully it did have designs for one in there somewhere. You were in luck, it seemed, as there was blueprints for such a device, several in fact. You just needed one though, so you began making it after briefly checking over all of them to see which best suited your needs.

Your hands glowed blue as the Nanites within surged outwards into the air around you. They took to flying in patterns, large circles in the air that when put together formed a sphere just in front of your at head height. The machine started to take shape, first a glint in the light as a tiny piece of metal appeared, then more tiny shiny sparks as many pieces of metal began to form in the air. The glints converged and formed a new, larger piece of metal, the base of what would eventually become the genetic analyser. More sparks appeared, repeating the same process as before until two small pieces of metal remained floating in the air. These two pieces then fused together to make a large piece, still small in size though and only about your thumb in length and half that in width. This process repeated further, tiny bits of metal forming into existence then fusing together to become larger pieces and then fusing once more until a large piece of metal was left levitating in the field of blue Nanites, about the size of your hand in length and half that in width once again.

You went to pick up the floating chunk of metal before realising that it wasn't entirely finished forming yet, so you let it be for now.

The Nanites continued their task, circling around the newly formed rectangular piece of metal with the same steady speed as before. Two new formations began, to the left and right above the rectangle. These too were made in the same way as the previous structure, forming smaller parts before joining together to make the whole of the object. The process kept on repeating until the two separate parts were finally finished and left floating in the air. Before they moved towards the incomplete device another much smaller chunk of metal began forming in the air above the device on the side furthest away from you. The two angular pieces glided down and rested bare millimetres above the device just as the last peace was completed, before that too floated down to the analyser.

The Nanites, finished with their task, spread outwards away from the rectangle before funnelling back into your palms in a dazzling display of lights. Despite this, the box of metal did not fall to the floor, the device seemingly ignoring gravity all together in its successful attempt to avoid the wooden floor below. You reached out and the plucked the thing from the air, the machine suddenly remembering gravity at the proximity to your hand and falling into it.

You walked over to the table in the middle of the room with your new toy, placing it on the wooden surface and sitting down next to it after creating a chair with your Nanites. The device would act as both a analyser and a base for the DNA, now all you needed was an atomic reader and a genetic synthesiser, the latter being easy to acquire while the former would not.

You went back into the Hive, sifting through more blueprints looking for the one you had seen while looking for the analyser. You eventually found it amongst the masses of files and documents, however there was one problem. You lacked the required materials to make it. You were missing two of the required materials; sugar and phosphate, both of which were needed to create deoxyribose, an essential ingredient in most DNA strands. Now, acquiring these would be easy, all you would need to do is strip mine them from a tree, or any organic substance for that matter. You probably could have synthesised these from raw elements but it would be much quicker to just destroy a plant and get what you need in the process.

Considering you were surrounded by a plant, extracting the materials would be easy. You singled out a piece of wood and ripped it away form the tree with your hands, the missing piece starting to grow back the moment it was removed. You went to dissolve the chunk of wood with your Nanites when you realised you were unable to do so. A warning started flashing in your vision, startling you quite a bit, the sudden red text appearing just in front of your eyes in the form of a hologram.

Huh. So an in-built command prevented your Nanites from destroying any organic matter that was still alive, with a few exceptions, one being if it was in your stomach. You could see the reason for such a command, so you let it stay, assuming that you could remove it at all that is. That still left you with the problem of mining the cube of wood, and since you didn't particularly feel like eating a box of wood the only option was to somehow kill it without the use of your Nanites.

The first thing that came to mind was magic, and that was a little concerning. Still though, it was a good idea so you left the table and headed upstairs to where all the books in your house were. You began sifting through all the books you had on magic, looking for one capable of reducing the temperature of an object. That was your plan, to freeze the wood until it classified as ‘dead’.

You found a book that looked like it would contain damaging spells, then you flipped it open to the contents to see if it had what you were looking for, or anything similar that could be used instead. After flipping though the first couple of pages, all of which were contents, you found a spell that literally fit exactly what you needed; a spell, one that would reduce the temperature of a given area or a specified object, if so desired.

You quickly read over all the symbols needed to perform the spell correctly. Literally, you used your Spatial and Temporal manipulators to directly engrave those images into your brain, you lacking the patience and the focus to properly learn the spell, as you had been doing up until now.

With the spell learned and added to your ever-growing arsenal you decided to give it a few test runs to make sure you had memorised it correctly.

You went downstairs after confirming that the spells did indeed function properly. You had tested it on some of Gilda’s shit that she had just left lying around. You hoped that those pills weren't of any importance to her.

You found the piece of wood where you left at the table right next to the analyser and across from the device still manufacturing what you hoped would be able to transport you away from this cartoonish nightmare. You picked it up with your levitation and spun it around a little, just to make sure that it was firmly in your grasp which once was proven to be correct you began the spell.

At first nothing noticeable happened, with the exception of the wood stopping its motions through the air because you had to focus on the ‘chilling spell’, as it was called in the book. Then the fun started, or at least something interesting. The wood began to expand while gaining frost on the edges, slowly at first but then gaining speed in both its expansion and it accumulation of ice. It expanded to the point where it suddenly cracked and splintered open, tiny fragments of frozen wood showering everywhere. You stopped at this point, deciding that the wood was most definitely ‘dead’.

One thing you were curious about though. Where had all that energy gone? You took the heat away from the object, so surely you should have gained some energy from that reaction. You scanned quickly while stripping the wood for the minerals you needed to continue your little project. Hmm, apparently the energy ‘disappeared’ back into the veins of magic that seemed to be everywhere here, becoming a part of the surroundings once more. With a little tweaking of the spell though you should be able to direct that energy to you rather than having it go into the environment, possibly for any spell that you will ever learn as well. Although, that would have to wait as you hadn't yet seen a book that tells you how to ‘spell craft’.

Storing that idea away for later, you begin producing the synthesiser you had chosen before. Unlike the other device that was materialised this one formed differently. Instead of forming separately, this one formed many tiny pieces of metal all at once, all of which were very angular and sharp. These pieces all converged together once they were finished, forming one, much larger piece of metal. Like before this one remained stationery in the air after its completion, until your hand drew near, that was.

You placed the device on the table besides the analyser and thought about the last thing you needed. Acquiring an atomic reader would be rather difficult, or at least you assumed it would. You got lucky finding those other machines so you hoped your luck would continue on and you would find another design that would be able to make an atomic reader. You had searched through hundreds of thousands of files already but there was still billions more in the Hives inside of you, maybe, just maybe one will work.

You sifted through the endless lists, numbers and letters flashing past your mental vision as they scrolled by at incredible speed. It was easier to focus on more things at once since you didn't have to worry about other things such as sight, taste or any other sense for that matter. It was borderline brute forcing code really but you were still aware of your surroundings due to the fact that you were still receiving data from the world outside your own mind, just not as ‘HD’ as it were normally.

Wow, you got lucky. You found one, an atomic reader perfect for what you needed to do. You had all the materials required to make it as well, so that was extra lucky for you. You briefly consider what the odds were of getting three devices that weren't all that easy to come by, sure, maybe two may have been common, but the third? Also, why was it that atomic readers’ were so much more difficult to come by in tier ten tech and galaxies? You would think that it would be common, despite being shunned by most of your worlds’ population due to the stubborn, borderline-religious traditionalists that they were. They usually really didn't care at the end of the day, so why was this little device so rare in your home galaxy? Questions for later, you decided.

You started the production of the third device, this one being constructed like the first one, a seemingly slower process. Instead of watching this one build though, you decided to get ready for the experiment by pulling out Pinkie’s hair that you had acquired earlier that day. You pulled out a single, fine strand of hair from the small tuft and put the rest away. Then you ripped it to pieces using your Nanites, leaving behind nothing but pure DNA. You then stretched it into a long rope, curving it around in a way so that it wouldn't hit the walls. Luckily pony DNA seemed to be significantly shorter than human DNA, so you didn't have to have it as tightly compacted as you would have for a human genetic strand.

You placed the strand on the first device in a spiral to fit it all of the hard light, said screen that had appeared on it as the three parts came off at the presence of the DNA in your grasp. Everywhere it touched on it the light changed from a soft white to a deep, blood-red colour, slowly becoming a warming green colour as it was decoded bit by bit from the centre outwards.

Moving on you pulled another piece of Pinkie’s mane out, repeating the same process but this time putting the strand of DNA in the now-finished atomic reader instead of the device working away next to it. At the presence of a solid material the machine exploded into the smaller fragment that had formed it earlier, tiny angular devices filled with sensors and Nanites. These small devices began encircling the strand of DNA, like before making it glow red then green as it was analysed at an atomic scale. You supposed it did that so you could see where the genetic strand was, and also to show the progress if you had to guess.

Once both strands of DNA were fully scanned and glowing green you pulled up a hard light display with the details of the scan, showing the code itself and any anomalies within the genes of Pinkie. Both the atomic reader and genetic analyser had picked up anomalies, both within the DNA and within the atoms themselves. You decided on viewing the atomic reader first; start small then work upwards, so to speak. Actually, you have a better idea. You would simply push all the data onto one hologram for you to read all at once.

So Pinkie’s ability stemmed from an extra chemical, a fifth nucleobase. Said nucleobase wasn't throughout all of Pinkie’s DNA, oh no not at all, it was confined to a single, larger-than-normal codon, with a length of four base pairs instead of the usual three. Now this is where it got interesting; this nucleobase was forming a new chemical, which you guessed gave Pinkie her powers. You would need to synthesise this and then run that through the reader to get any more useful data, so you did just that.

You extracted the DNA from the reader before placing it in the synthesiser besides it, programming the spherical machine to produce only the codons that were forming the ‘Pinkie chemical’. The DNA hovered in the air, glowing red before disappearing entirely. It then began reforming, looking like a glowing green string in the air.

Once the entire strand was complete you pulled it away from the machine using your Nanites, careful not to damage it in any way shape or form. Now the only thing left to do was get this into a living cell and start making some chemicals. But first you needed a cell to implant the DNA in, the nearest being your cells or the trees cells. Since either would work you pulled a leaf off of the tree and inserted the DNA strand into the cells’ nucleus, removing the plants own DNA in the process. You then forced the plant cells to start replicating, killing it in the process since the DNA carried only the instructions to make a single chemical and not the ones the plant needed to live.

Once finished you looked to the floor, now stained with a patch of pink fluid. Seeing as your sample was now contaminated you pulled another leaf off of the tree and made sure this time you caught it before it hit the floor. This time you were left with a small amount of floating pink liquid, held aloft by your Nanites. You needed more than this so you repeated the process until you had about twenty litres of the stuff, all wobbling in the air in front of you. Ok, so maybe you didn't need that much. You put more than two thirds of the substance away inside a separate space-time pocket within side yourself, storing it for later use.

With that done you went to put the pink substance in the reader but then realised that it probably still had some leftover cellular organelles. You concentrated and your Nanites quickly removed anything that wasn't Pinkie chemical, leaving you with pure, refined Pinkie. This stuff was probably a lot more potent than the stuff flowing through Pinkie’s body though, at least twenty times potent if you had to guess.

You shuddered at the thought of Pinkie ever getting ahold of this. And on that line of thought, what would happen if you injected this into you, or anything else for that matter. There was only one, well, two ways you could figure that out, and one involved a syringe. Not yet. Soon, perhaps, but not yet. For now simple testing only.

With that in mind you placed the pink substance within the still-spinning devices that made up the atomic reader. Unlike before with the DNA, this time the thing didn't glow red. Instead a wall of green light started travelling up and down the floating chemical. It repeated this action twelve times and then stopped, displaying the data it had collected the same way as it did before. Within moments you were upon the holographic display, soaking up the information it held within it.

The first thing your mind picked up was the fact that this innocent looking pink liquid was actually extremely volatile, containing enough energy to melt through a good four square metres of solid lead. You decided to be very careful with it from now on. It was fragile enough to explode from mere contact with anything but oxygen, after all. It was a good thing nothing had touched it yet as you didn't want to find out that snippet of knowledge from experience. Your house had seen enough explosions for now.

The second thing you took note of was this molecules natural ability to form complex magical symbols, usually only done by a unicorns’ horn or a humans’ mind. The magic was flowing through it then it suddenly began warping into different shapes before flowing out the other side again, seemingly unaffected by its small detour. What made it even more fascinating was that it was forming actual arcane symbols. Granted many of them you couldn't understand as you hadn't learn them yet, but a few you could make out; levitation, motion, freeze, magic, sight, vision, sound, light, heat, energy, life, just to name a few of the countless thousands that were constantly forming and changing within the molecule itself. Not just that, each individual molecule had a different symbol from all the others at any one time, so it was forming actual spells within the substance; they were actually working, as well, they were just too small to have an actual visible field of affect, besides the actual affect itself. Pinkie was literally a walking spell.

On top of all these amazing properties, this Pinkie chemical also had some biological properties as well. When taken into a cell this chemical would send production of ATP into overdrive, simultaneously removing any and all waste from the cell in the process. It also had several neurological aspects as well; it decreased the need for sleep by a large margin, increased focus, memory and logic substantially, and gave a massive increase in the reaction time of the brain. All in all, it was a super chemical, and it explained Pinkie Pie pretty well.

You were pulled away from the holographic display by the other holographic display, the one for the reader. It had apparently discovered something else that hadn't been transmitted to the panel you were currently reading. Intrigued, you stepped over to the red flashing display and had a look at its contents.

Oh...well, fuck. Apparently the Pinkie chemical did react in oxygen, it just needed time to form its own catalyst. The display showed you the molecules breaking apart into singular atoms before they were enshrouded in magical veins that coated them completely, shaking violently. You needed to act quickly as you really didn't want another hole in your house and this substance was going to make a huge bang. You checked what this stuff needed to be stable and was briefly shocked at what it was, before remembering you had a short while before this thing went boom. It needed DNA.

You quickly reached out your arm, leaving above the air of the now-glowing substance. You pulled out a knife a carved it down the entire length of your forearm, making sure that the entirety of the substance was covered in your blood. To an outsider it would look as though you were performing some sort of dark ritual, but it didn't matter since you were alone and you didn't care what other people thought of you either.

It seemed that your efforts were futile; the light building up was now so bright it was like looking into a miniature sun, something that you could do but wasn't exactly pleasant when you were this close to it. Seeing as your blood wasn't doing anything to halt the impending disaster you pulled the knife out from your arm, it healing instantly thanks to the Nanites in your blood. Trying a new tactic you summoned your Nanites and surrounded the machine, hoping to at least contain the blast to a small area.

It exploded. It was so fast that you suddenly found yourself on the floor with no breathable air as it was currently travelling outwards from the blast radius. There was surprisingly little heat considering the amount of energy the substance had, akin to that of a small fission device. All that was left was a cloud of dust, but just as you began standing back up the air that had been forced out to form a temporary vacuum came back in, knocking you down to the ground again and returning sound, something you hadn't really noticed was missing. The sudden fluctuation in air pressure left the room covered in more dust, making it so you couldn't see anything.

You stood up and started forcing the dust to clear. There were a few small fires - which you quickly put out - and many pieces of wooden debris scattered across the hole-filled floor. Something took your attention though, something obscured from view by the still lingering dust in the air. It was... Oh.

Well this just got very interesting.

-10- The Problem...?

View Online

Well...this is...interesting. I conducted a little experiment just now and it has created some bizarre and unexpected results. I am still unsure as to what caused this, but my best guess would be the phenomena known as magic that runs through this planet, maybe with a little bit of help from the tech that was in the air at the time. Regardless, it has already happened and now I'm left with another challenge, though I believe this one will be both more difficult and easier at the same time compared to the other things I want to get done during my vacation to Equestria. Yes, that is what I'm calling it; a vacation. Don't like it journal? Then get fucked. Why am I writing in this as if you can actually respond, at least The Others actually do respond to me.

I'm getting off topic. Anyway! As I was saying writing, I have...well, not necessarily a problem. Honestly I have no fucking clue what I'm going to do right now, my ‘problems’ are just piling up. I'm just thankful that the device making my means out of this place wasn't destroyed in the explosion. I've placed said device away in secure meta-carbon cube, which is hidden away someplace that I'm not going to say, just in case anyone happens to find this and steal it from me; can't have anyone get ahold of the most advanced piece of tech in the entire planet now could I?

Bah! More rambling, I need to learn focus more I'm telling you journal! Anyway about my situation; I've done something that I would have never expected someone of my stature and tier to accomplish, I've-

You felt a tugging on your trouser leg, probably caused by the thing you were just about to write about. You looked down and saw a pony, an earth pony, cautiously poking your legs, as if they were about to attack her. It was a fully grown mare with a blood red fur coat and pitch black hair similar to yours. Her eyes were also similar to yours, being a lovely ice blue colour. Her cutie-mark was that of the atomic reader she had destroyed with her own formation, ironically enough.

She looked up to see you looking down at her and her eyes widened in fear. She quickly dashed away towards the pile of bear fur you had carelessly chucked aside before the experiment before hiding inside if it, letting out a small squeal as she ran. While she was hidden in the bloody cloth the only thing you could see was her mane and her ears, the rest completely consumed by the sparkling bear fur.

You went back to your journal; she had been doing this back and forth for a while now.

-created life. Just what the fuck. Seriously! This is something I would expect to happen in a tier one galaxy, or any galaxy with a tier nine and up classification! Not me, a lowly-in-tech human from a tier ten galaxy! I mean come on, in terms of technology I'm considered a primitive, ‘uncivilised’ monkey. I don't know what to do in this situation, anyone from a tier one galaxy would just snap their fingers and will their problems away but me? Nope, sorry, can't do that. I don't think I could bring myself to just erase another being from existence even if I could.

I think...I think that I'll focus on the current situation to take my mind off of things, before I go completely insane. Or at least more insane than I already am. I suppose I need to come up with a name for the new mare, or at least tell her to come up with her own name. Pony names seem to be nouns so I'll have to work around that. I have yet to learn why they name their children after actual real-world things instead of unique names, but then again I don't even know if they name their children. Or even have children for that matter. I have to be careful about this; I want to blend in and so far I have been doing a very shitty job of it, so I don't want to draw more attention by having a pony around me constantly that has a non-pony name.

So then journal...

Names?

No? I'll ask The Others then, they'll help me.

Fuck this, I'll just get her to name herself, it'll probably end up being a stupid name. Actually, that might work better, seeing as all these ponies have rather stupid names that are not unique or original in the slightest. At least it makes guessing their names a lot easier.

You looked up from your journal, bloodied wood Chip in hand. You had decided to continue with the blood text as your OCD demanded that the writing be the same colour and consistency throughout the whole book. You saw that the red mare was still in the fur pile on the floor, trembling slightly. You didn't blame her, you had been in the exact same position; suddenly alive, in front of a being of far greater power, and really, really confused. Of course, when you were in this situation at least you had the luxury of being alive before being...well, alive again. Ha, It never was any good at doing everything with a hundred percent accuracy. The whole machine operated on miscalculations in a manner of speaking, some of the time, all of the time, and never all at once.

Thinking about The Capsule was beginning to hurt your brain, so you stopped. Now this was why you never did any of that advanced educational classes in the laws of the Universe. You turned your full attention back to the red mare, who had gathered the courage to stick her head out of the nest she had made from the bear fur. Her eyes were wide with equal part curiosity and fear, and when she saw you looking at her she dove back into her den of bloody skin.

You needed to calm her down, so you got her attention.

“Hello there.”

You tried to sound as soothing as possible, a feat in itself really. It worked...somewhat, so you pressed on.

“Don't worry I won't hurt you.”

You crouched down to the floor to make yourself appear smaller, which didn't really work since you were still almost three times her height. Also the fact that you were drenched in blood probably wasn't helping either.

“Can you understand me?”

She nodded her head slightly, almost unnoticeable. That was good, at least you could communicate to her in some way.

You tried to approach her, slowly, and still crouching down so as to hopefully not scare her. It didn't work though; the red mare dug herself even deeper into the fur sheets and away from you. You still approached though, not having to worry about scaring her as she was looking into the furry rags, leaving you to approach without care for crouching but still having to make as little noise as possible. As you got closer you noticed that the mare was actually wrapped around in the fur and not just hiding under it. You would have to unwrap her to get her out.

You carefully lifted the blanket of fur off of the mare’s head and revealed her mane and ears, poking out above the rest of the fur. The mare tightened herself into a little ball because of this action, further burying herself and making your job of removing her from the blankets more difficult. You pulled at the fur to the mare’s sides to try and unwrap her but she dug herself in even deeper. You let out a sigh, this was taking too long.

You decided that this was enough so you pulled the small pony out by her abdomen, or barrel, you supposed. The mare began squirming in your grip, trying to run away in a futile attempt to escape from your grasp. Her legs, about half the size of your shin bone, started kicking wildly in an endeavour to strike you and seek freedom. It really didn't do anything, besides flexing her muscles which felt sort of weird in your hands, especially since your hands were large enough to encompass her entire barrel.

“Calm down.”

You tilted the small mare so that she was looking directly at you, face to face. Her enormous eyes widened in fright, a feat you didn't think possible.

“It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Ok...”

She responded so quietly you could barely hear it. Her voice was quiet, but it held an undertone which suggested happiness and cheerfulness, like Pinkie but a lot less in-your-face and more of a subtle-cheeriness and bubbly tone. You were kind of surprised she could talk at all, having suddenly been materialised from virtually nothing you would have expected her to have no memories at all. Perhaps it was some sort of genetic memory? Or maybe she had acquired some of her intelligence from the magic chemical that spawned her.

“Are you ok?”

She nodded slightly to your question, trying to avert her gaze at the same time but failing because she was within centimetres of your face. She realised that she couldn't look away for you so instead lifted her fore hooves to cover her face, shying away from you apparently hideous face.

“Why are you not looking at me? I'm not that ugly am I?”

She shook her head and began shivering, and now that she was in your hands you realised she was cold, freezing even. That probably wasn't normal for a warm-blooded creature, especially since this continent - or at least what you had seen of it so far - had a warm climate. You tossed an idea around in your head for a while before finally deciding why not?

You pulled the little pony into a hug, hoping that it would help keep her warm. At first the mare tried to resist by wriggling in your grasp, but she gave up and instead tried to snuggle up closer to you, likely trying to get warmer. The little pony felt so fragile shivering against your chest so you made sure to be careful while holding the small creature. You began stroking the mare down her neck to further comfort her, something she seemed to enjoy immensely if her curling up and leaning into your hands was any indication.

After that you kind of zoned out a little bit, idly stroking the mare down her back. By the time you were back in reality the little red mare was asleep in your arms, having at some point wrapped her fore hooves over you for support. You didn't particularly feel like holding her like that for the rest of the day - err, night, so you decided to put down somewhere where she could sleep comfortably. The only room you could think of that might have a bed was Gilda’s but you didn't want her to wake the newly formed mare if she returned to her room, so you would have to pick another room. No problem.

You walked to the door to your left, careful not to wake the sleeping mare. You went down the hallway until you came to the second door from the entrance. Upon opening it you found the room to be spacious but bare, about six metres by five metres with a height of about three metres. The floor was was made of solid wood while the walls and ceiling consisted of entwined branches and leaves, starting tightly bound and becoming looser the higher up it went until it was just like a normal tree at the ceiling.

You willed the Nanites in the surrounding tree cells to form a bed from the branches that made up the walls and ceiling. Probably not the softest thing in the world, so that would have to be remedied. You took some leaves from the roof and tore them apart using your Nanites, then you broke those pieces into smaller pieces, and then those into smaller pieces, until you were left with a fluffy fibrous material. You then used this to form a soft fabric that you folded upon itself until it was thick enough to support the mare’s weight. You pulled the new mattress out of the air with one hand, using the other to hold the little red pony against your chest while you pushed the mattress on top of the bed.

You carefully placed the red mare onto the mattress so that she wouldn't awaken, she tried to latch onto you when you pulled her away, likely because she wanted to stay warm. Seeing as she was almost literally cold as ice before you didn't want to let her get any colder than she already was, so you made another piece of material out of tree leaves which you then placed over the resting mare, to which she snuggled into happily with a small, content smile.

You realised that she was covered in blood, a consequence of hiding in bloody fur, so you would have to clean it off before it dried. You looked at your arms and realised that you too would need to be cleansed of the vital fluid, but you would need to clean the mare first before the blood dried into her fur and made even more work for you. You lacked a cloth though, so that would be a bit of a problem.

It was funny how you had highly advanced tech, as-of-yet unknown limits to magic, and weapons of ultimate mass-destruction yet you lacked any day-to-day items like towels or furniture. And indoor plumbing; your house lacked any plumbing actually.

You pulled more of the ever-re growing leaves from the ceiling and turned them into a small cloth within your hand. Now all you needed was water. Unfortunately, you didn't have any water. Instead of walking outside to the stream that cut through your clearing you decided to just use the hydrogen that you had for the use of emergency fusion in the extremely unlikely chance that the large reactors that are - um, were in your ship malfunctioned. Actually now that you thought about it the hydrogen was useless because if the reactors did malfunction...

Anyways, water.

You brought out the gas, from where you weren't too sure; it had been eons since you had even need to think about this stuff, it was probably stored in a space-time pocket but it could possibly be stored somewhere else. You then set it on fire, which was a bad idea since it was in the air and it reacted with oxygen.

A few singed hairs later and you had a large amount of water pooling in your telekinetic hold because for some reason you immediately used magic to catch it instead of Nanites. It was irrelevant at this point as it was already in the air and you seemed to be having no trouble keeping it aloft. You then pulled some of the water down and dropped it on the cloth in your hand so it was wet. You moved back over to the small bed having run away from it after you little incident with the flames.

You crouched down so that your head was level with the little pony, as you didn't feel like leaning over a bed that didn't even come up to your knees. You could see the red mare sleeping peacefully despite almost combusting moments before, seemingly oblivious to the danger around her. She shivered again, bringing you to realise that the water was cold and that that should be remedied. With a quick thought you increased the temperature of the water so that it was warm, but not so that it was too hot.

You began the delicate process of removing the blood from the mare’s body without waking her up. First you removed her blanket so you could get that out of the way and put it back on faster, hopefully before she froze to death. When you brought the little wet cloth up to the red mare’s barrel she instinctively shrank away from it so that she could retain her warmth, but you pressed on and put the small piece of fabric up against her anyway. You started rubbing away the many blood stains that had accumulated on the mare, reaching over for more water to clean the cloth every time it became completely covered in blood before continuing to wipe away the red fluid.

This process continued, the legs and tail being cleaned first before you placed the blanket over the mare again, to which the mare snuggled into with a content smile on her face, hooves hanging over the edge of the blanket. Now came the hard part though, cleaning the mare’s face without waking her up.

The first couple of attempts to clean the red pony’s ears were met with failure. Every time you brought your hand close to her ears to grab them she flicked them and shrank away further into her bed, and every time you went to wipe her face she scrunched up her muzzle and rolled over to get away. You fixed this by placing a hand on the back of her head and preventing her from moving it backwards, allowing you to clean the rest of the blood away.

Now that that was out of the way, it was time for you to clean yourself, as you yourself were covered in more blood than the mare was. It had mostly dried as well, so it was like walking around in a suit of blood-caked armour.

You left the room of the sleeping mare and headed out the hallway towards the front door. You passed by what appeared to be Gilda’s room on your way down the corridor and decided to investigate. You were sure she wouldn't mind if you took a look around her stuff anyway. Actually, looking down at your blood encrusted hands made you choose to take a look after you were clean, as being coated in blood was starting to become irritating.

That decided, you walked on past Gilda’s room and out into the main room of your house, before turning left and opening the front door, stepping out into the moonlight. The starry night sky and bright moon gave everything a soft white colouring and made everything seem surreal. This was further influenced by a thin mist that had found its way into your little clearing inside this large forest that you currently called home. Lights danced across the rippling stream you intended to swim in, creating intricate shapes and patterns as the water sloshed about down the river and into the dark recesses of the forest.

You dove straight into the river, finding it to be illogically deep for the slow water that flowed through it. As you broke the water you flicked your head back to make sure that your hair wouldn't get caught on your face, as short as it was it still came down to your eyebrows and tended to get stuck there when it got wet, which was rather annoying. The water that was in your hair flung out into the air as a result of this, forming a dazzling display of red reflected moonlight to add to the surreality of the clearing. Something about this moment in time felt odd to you, and when you finally realised what it was your eyes widened in shock; the water, the blood, the lights, the ground, the stars, the moon and everything else all looked realistic and not cartoonish like everything else in this world. And like a bursting dam everything suddenly returned to normal from the outwards in in a surge of pastel colour, leaving you at the epicentre of the spectacle you had just witnessed. The water in the air came crashing down in the water around you, though you barely noticed as your mind was reeling.

You were stunned. Did you do that? What had caused that? A hallucination, brought on by your time in this colourful land?

You looked down at the water you were floating in, single colour blood drifting away from you and flowing down the stream. All this got you thinking, the unaltered human eye could distinguish ten million different colours, whereas your modified eyes could perceive over ten billion, not even considering the tier one humans who could distinguish between many trillions of colours with ease. And that was only the traditional visible spectrum, let alone the rest of the radioactive plane. Your eyes could pick out individual photons, and every second billions of wavelengths entered or passed through your eyes, all of it being processed by the brain instantly, before being saved and stored somewhere in your brain, able to be accessed at any point by your conscious mind. And so that begged the question; if your brain was used to processing such titanic amounts of data, what would this sudden lack of large quantities of data do to your mind?

When you looked at an object in this world you saw only one colour, and with scanners you were able to confirm that that object only released one specific wavelength. Not even heat was spared, it too was seemingly reduced to just several specific wavelengths compared to the infinite amount of your world, going from hot to warm to cold to freezing with very little in between. What, then, did that do to your psyche when instead of trillions of sensations and sights and smells all at once, it was a mere few hundred? Did it increase your other cognitive areas? Did it hamper other cognitive areas? Did it help or hinder other senses like hearing and your sense of touch? The only way to find out the answer all those questions would be to record your own mentality over a large period of time, but you feared by that time you might already be permanently affected by this world. You would just have to wait and see, it seemed.

Seeing as you couldn't do anything to change your current situation and dwelling on it wasn't going to solve anything, you forced yourself into the present and finished cleaning the blood off of yourself. You then hoped out of the little river and landed on the grassy ground beside it, your hood falling over the front of your shoulder with a wet slap. You looked at it, then looked at the moon. It had lost some of its beauty once the colours went back to the standard of this world.

You sat there for a few moments before standing up and squeezing most of the water out of your cloak and clothes, forming a small puddle of water at your feet. You walked up to your door and entered the main room, closing the door behind you as you did so.

Now, you decided, was a good time to look through Gilda’s belongings, seeing as she wasn't around and hopefully wouldn't be back soon. You hoped she got eaten by something so that her presence didn't have to stain your vision ever again.

You passed through the dangling vines that made up the doors of this house and too in your surroundings. Gilda had somehow managed to get a full sized bed - by their standards, anyway - into the room. Besides that and the other pieces of Gilda’s belongings the room was identical to the one of the as-of-yet unnamed mare in the next room over. Her stuff was looked pretty normal, although you have no idea where she got anything since she came into your house with nothing on the verge of starvation; some cloaks, some - also surprising - food and drink canteens, and some knives. Among that you found a rusted long sword which was laughably short for such a name, only being the length of your forearm, some bottles of unknown liquid, and what you guessed to be a pile of hallucinogenic powder, or at the least some form of drug, presumably snorted through the nose or inhaled in some way. That would be quite a feat considering Gilda has a beak.

Moving on you found a curious little book underneath Gilda’s bed aptly named ‘Diary’. You immediately made a copy of it and stored it in your Hives for later. Placing the book back where you found it you looked around with even more enthusiasm, looking under her pillow and then her mattress. You found things in both. Under her pillow was another blade, this one not being rusted and stingy like the other and also being quite a bit shorter in comparison, only being half the length of your forearm. It had curious symbols carved down its length as well, and even you, being new to magic, could both feel and see the magic enchantments in the metal of the sword. Picking it up you found it to be well balanced and light weight, but then again, you found everything in this world light weight. You placed it back down and into its sheath, made of a mixture of hard and soft leather entwined in a helical pattern.

What you found under, or rather in the mattress was even more interesting. Concealed in a carved out portion of the mattress was a bag of roughly rectangular shape. You would have questioned how she cut a hole into the mattress but then you would also have to question where she got the mattress in the first place and that was just too much effort. The bag itself was made of leather and had one main compartment with two pouches on either side of that, leather straps holding the pouches tightly together. Opening it up revealed something you did not expect at all. Inside the bag was an assortment of weapons and devices one would probably find on someone who killed for a living; Throwing blades tipped with what appeared to be poison was one of the many tools of death in there, others things like collapsable spears and swords were also present. A thin looking set of lightweight metal armour was also in there, and you could feel magic in that so you didn't doubt that it would have some kind of edge despite being made of light and flimsy looking material. Also in there was a crude looking projectile weapon of some kind made of wood and metal with magic also lacing it.

Looking into the pouches on the side of the bag you found small, round balls of metal with little runes of magic chipped into them with a chisel. You assumed these were probably what was fired by the gun in the other compartment of the bag. In the second pouch you found what looked like a small grappling device, although very old and looking well used compared to the other things in Gilda’s bag. The third pouch had navigation equipment like binoculars and a compass, among other pieces of equipment. The fourth and final pouch had paper folded up tightly and not all that neatly. Unfolding them revealed them to be maps of the Ponyville area along with roads and travel routes through the northern most part of Equestria. In a haphazard pile inside one of the folded maps you also found pictures, pictures of various species like ponies, griffons and...some other creature you couldn't identify, all with red crosses over them. The last one was hand drawn, and badly at that, it appeared, but you could only see one side as it was folded up. Unlike the others you had found this tied to a large sack - filled with what you didn't know - that you had overlooked in the main compartment of the bag. Removing the image also removed the leather string holding the sack closed and it spilled out its contents. Jiggling filled the air as a large pile of Equestrian Bits found themselves on your lap, you didn't notice though, as you were far too busy looking at the image in your hands.

In your hands was a drawn picture of you.

You looked at Gilda’s gear and then to the massive pile of money, then to the image in your hand. It didn't take long to figure what was going on.

“Gilda’s a bloody freeloading bitch!”

Also, it seemed like she wanted to kill you.

00-0-00

You sat on a wooden chair at the dining table, the table still burnt slightly after the explosion from earlier. You had packed Gilda's stuff away and tried to make it look as normal as possible for when she returned. You had sat there for about an hour now, not really sure what to do and feeling quite bored. You had briefly considered studying some magic but decided instead to sit around and do nothing for a change. Most of your life had consisted of doing nothing but sitting down in a chair and watching the cosmos go by, so why not sit down now and watch the grass grow.

You began idly scratching at the black explosive residue on the wood in boredom, peeling off layers of dust and soot which flew up into the air in the form of tiny particles that set out on a quest to get sucked up your nose. In other words, you sneezed. Yet for some reason you continued to scratch at the stains on the table, why? Well you didn't know.

“Um, h-hello?”

You turned to face the source of the sound, finding it to be that little red mare from your experiment. She had the blankets you gave her wrapped around her, the overflow of material being dragged across the floor behind her. She was still shivering and seemed to be trying to stop her teeth from clattering together.

“Hi.”

You waved to her in the most friendliest way you could possibly do. She waved back but lacked the vigour that you did, probably because she was having trouble moving with how much she was shivering.

“Hey, come over here for a second.”

The red mare stood still for a second before following your instruction and trotting up besides you, her large eyes looking up at you.

“Are you cold?”

The mare nodded her head vigorously and wrapping herself tighter in her blanket.

“Do you want me to see if I can help make you warmer?”

“Y-yes please.”

You patted your lap twice, the mare realising what you were doing and timidly standing on her back hooves so she could reach up to your knees and pull herself up onto you. She failed to just pull herself up and instead struggled to get up by jumping and grabbing whatever she could in that weird way ponies grab things with their hooves. The only thing she could grab though was the fabric of your clothing and that wasn't enough for her to lift herself up, and so she tried to kick off of the ground, but seeing as she wasn't standing on the ground all this did was make her back hooves kick out randomly at the air while she struggled to hold herself up. It was at this point you helped, putting your hands around her barrel and lifter her up into the air before placing her on your lap, losing her blanket in the process.

It felt like someone put a solid block of ice on your thighs.

You could see why she was shivering now. You quickly pulled the blanket off the floor and wrapped the mare in it to the point that it looked like she was in a cocoon. You could still feel the mare shivering so you commanded your Nanites to vibrate in the air and increase the temperature of the room by at least twenty degrees Celsius. By now it felt like there was a fire next to the table, and the mare’s shivering had started slowing down. You just had to wonder though, what was making her so cold?

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

She turned to look up at you with those huge, expressive eyes that seemed to be on every living thing in this world.

“Can I run some tests on you? It might help you stay warm.”

She obviously wanted to stay warm, because she nodded her head up and down so fast that her head became a blur of red and black.

Ok then. You held out your hand, palm facing the roof, and sent forth Nanites into the air above it. They floated through the air in a roughly spherical shape, never drifting too far from your palm, illuminating the air with their bright blue light.

“Ooh, what are those?”

You looked down to the mare in your lap, her mouth open in awe and her eyes wide with curiosity. You were curious as well, because this was the first time you had seen an object emit more than one colour; her fur was, well, not exactly emitting colours but at least it bouncing colours back instead of just diffusing it. You could see the Nanites reflecting in her eyes, and the light changing the colour of her face and mane.

“Those are Nanites; tiny little complex machines that are connected to my mind and follow my every command. There's over a hundred thousand of them in this little cloud alone.”

“Wow...”

Oh she had no idea.

“What are you going to do with them?”

She didn't even bother taking her eyes away from the display, too fascinated with them to pay you any attention.

“I'm going to make some equipment for your tests.”

And you did just that. The Nanites started forming lines from the cloud that it used to be, still flowing in a spherical shape above your palm. They began crossing over each other in the middle of the sphere, leaving behind some materials in the form of particles for the next set of Nanites to use, which they did, working the material into a new shape. What was left was a cylindrical steel tube with various holographic buttons along the device.

“Ooh, what's that?”

“That's a medical tool, commonly referred to as a Pincher.”

“Why is it called a Pincher?”

“Because it feels like someone is pinching you when you use it.”

You put a finger to one of the white holographic rectangles before pulling it across its length, turning it from a bright white to a dim purple colour. As you did so, the front end of the tube slid open and a short needle emerged from within. It was only two centimetres long and extremely thin.

“W-w-what!”

The mare began to struggle but you held her down and tried to calm her.

“Don't worry, it will just feel like a pinch, like I said. However, I won't do this if you don't won't to.”

She stopped trying to escape and instead looked to you, then the needle in your hand, then back.

“Ok...”

“I'll try to be as quick as possible, ok?”

She nodded her head slightly and laid down again, resting her head on her blanket.

You titled her head slightly, exposing her neck. You pressed your hand against her neck to feel for her pulse, so then you could find a vein. While your hand was there you could feel the mare’s heartbeat and could feel every breath that she took in and out of her tiny frame. You started searching through her fur, flattening her thick yet short hair. You found a vein, looking like a gently throbbing bulge of fur and skin, pulsating evenly and without any form of irregularities that you could see, so whatever was wrong with this mare didn't look to be respiratory or circulatory in nature.

You gently pushed the needle into the mare’s neck, feeling her hold her breath as you did so. The device began working once it was in her, simultaneously pumping Nanites into her blood and extracting blood to analyse, slowly filling up a small glass tube that had poked out of the bottom of the device once the needle was in her neck.

It was over quickly. You pulled the device out from her neck as the small entry point healed over instantly, the wound having been encouraged to heal by chemicals intrinsically bound within the metal of the needle. The moment you took the needle away from the mare she started breathing again, letting out a sigh of relief as she did so.

Now done with the needle, I slid my finger back over the now-green hologram and returned the needle tip back to the inside of the device.

I turned my attention to another display in the device; one that monitors the Nanites currently in the mare’s blood stream. As a whole organism there was nothing wrong with her, so the problem must have been on a cellular or possibly even molecular level.

You saw no reason to remove the Nanites and cause the mare more discomfort, so for now you let the stay in her.

You looked at the glass vial of red vital fluids in curiosity. It appeared normal but you knew looks can be deceiving. You couldn't quite explain it but you somehow felt that something was wrong with this fluid.

With that in mind you activated another part of the device with a tap to the display. The medical tool split in half and the vial of blood was moved inside of before closing again with it, all in one smooth motion. It then began humming quietly, vibrating slightly in your hands as it ran several scans on the blood. It beeped once it was done and it stopped all motion, no sound leaving the small device.

You tapped another hologram and the vial slid out again, following the same motions as before but in reverse. You pulled the vial out and held it in the light. You could see small particles of black floating in the blood, particles caused by the sudden intrusion of Nanites.

You stood up, picking up the mare in the process. She didn't seem to complain, so you assumed she was starting to calm down. You walked up further down the table and placed the mare on it, then the device, placing it next to her hooves.

She stared at it in curiosity, she had been curious of a lot of things, which was to be expected considering her situation.

With another tap to the device it began projecting a hologram in front of you, startling the mare onto her rump.

“What's that...?”

She was wide-eyed in awe and wonder at the holographic display before you.

“A hologram. A standard soft light one to be specific.”

“Wow...”

She stuck her head in front of the projection unit, lighting up her face with light blue and white light.

“Why does it look so different?”

What? Actually now that you were paying attention to the actual projection and be not the data you noticed that it was indeed different. It was the same as it was from your world, and that was probably why you didn't notice it. In fact, now that thought of it, all of your tech that emitted light was still realistic looking. The only way you could explain this was because all of these devices were set to emit certain frequencies, frequencies that just didn't exist here, therefore making staying realistic and not converting into cartoons.

“I'm not entirely sure, but I think its because where I come from everything looks like this.”

“Really!”

“Yep, it's really beautiful as well.”

“I wish I could see it.”

“Well maybe someday you will.”

“Really! How?”

“I intend to go back home, you can come with me if you want, I won't really care either way.”

“Yay!”

She lunged at you, wrapping her small hooves around your neck and nuzzling you gently with a large smile plastered on her face. You didn't know what to do at this point so you just patted the mares back gently.

“Thank-you-Thank-you-Thank-you-Thank-you-Thank-you-Thank-you!”

“Um...you're welcome?”

She let go of your neck and you were able to breath again, not that it really mattered. She instead began leaping around in circles on the table in absolute joy. She stopped suddenly and began trotting on the spot before letting out a loud ‘squee!’.

While she was enjoying herself you set out to find why she was so cold. The only reason she wasn't cold now was because you had raised the ambient temperature of the room to something that you hoped would be high enough to aide the red mare. It seems you were right.

You started reading from the display in front of you, barely noticing the mare staring at you and the hologram and not really minding that she was. The information on the display was in more than one category, so I broke it up into three separate holograms with a sweep of my outstretched arm, sending them in a horizontal arc around me.

You looked to the panel directly in front of you first. On it it displayed the mare’s physical health; Respiratory, circulatory, nervous, all types of systems that were required for her to function properly. Strangely, she lacked a digestive system. You would look into that later. Nothing seemed irregular in any of her organs and bodily functions, at the least the ones that are present, that is.

Done with that you closed the hologram and brought up the one you had moved to the the side of you, to the left of you to be specific. On this panel it showed all the mare’s mental capabilities and functions. Her mind appeared to be fine at a glance, but it wasn't. It was all over the place. She had memories that were broken or just pieces missing entirely, now where she got those memories you will probably never know but at least she could possibly regain some of those suppressed and missing memories. Another thing of worry was twin synaptic cleft firings, either an indication of high cognitive ability or a many mental disorders, the most prominent being multiple personality disorder. As an overall analysis by the device concludes, the mare was very unstable, psychologically speaking. She had the functioning mental capabilities to survive but you would have to keep an eye on her.

You closed that panel as well and brought the last one before you, hopefully this one would have answers as to why she was so cold. This panel showed that it was an analysis of the mare’s cellular and genetic functions, and had the largest amount of data so far. You found what the problem was pretty quickly; it was so blatantly displayed on the panel.

She lacked cells. Any cells. Like, at all.

Her entire form was just strands of my DNA interacting randomly with bits of the ‘Pinkie chemical’. There was no cellular structure at all, and yet, for some reason, the molecules took specific shapes to imitate living organs, living functioning organs at that. That would explain why she was so cold; her body wasn't making any heat at all, not even from motion! Yet, for some reason she required warmth to survive, which was kind of a problem, a problem that needed addressing.

You could probably find some kind of magical spell that could keep something warm, since you had found one that had made things freeze. Then you would just need to find a way to integrate that into an object, an amulet maybe?

You closed the last panel and shut off the device, attaching it to your belt after removing the blood from the vial. This brought the mare’s attention solely to you.

“Did you find why I'm so cold?”

She tilted her head sideways at the question, flopping one ear down and letting her straight black mane fall down her face, obscuring one eye.

“Yes, I did...”

“And...? Can you help me?”

“I...”

You paused. You knew what was causing her plight yet you weren't sure if you could fix it. You would just have to answer honestly and hope for the best.

“...I...I don't know, I think so...maybe...”

She drooped a bit at the news and her bright smile disappeared from her face.

“Oh...ok.”

The red mare’s head dropped and her gaze fell down to the table that she was sitting on.

“But...I might be able to help.”

Her head shot back up again and her face brightened instantly.

“Really?!”

“Yes, but in the mean time I want you to do something.”

“What?”

“Can you come up with a name for yourself? I'm assuming you don't already have one that is, what with your weird memories.”

“Yes sir, Saphrim!”

How did she...oh forget it, it didn't matter anyway.

“Ok then. I'm going to go and do some research, make sure you stay in this room ok?”

“Why?”

“Because it is warm in here, the other rooms are...well, not so much.”

“Yes sir, you have my word I won't leave this room!”

She did a little salute and sat down on the table with a pencil and piece of paper, where she got them you have no idea.

You left her to her own devices and stepped back upstairs towards your ever growing library collection. You sat down on a comfy wooden and leafy chair and levitated all the books you had over to you. They all seemed likely to have some sort of spell that would help, with the exception of Luna’s night magic book and Trixie’s Illusory arts book.

You plucked one randomly out of the magic field suspending them and put the rest of the books back onto the shelves from where they had come. You began flicking through the pages looking for a heating spell. Finding none in that book you went for another. You flicked through this one as well, finding a spell about halfway through, simply named ‘warmth’.

This spell seemed simple enough to cast; all the symbols were the same ones as the spell you used to freeze that wood from earlier, all, that is, but one. The only symbol that was different was what you supposed was the one that determined whether the spell gave energy or took it away. In the last spell it was just a simple jagged, upwards spike. This one was a vaguely upward-pointing triangular shape with the overall shape being rounded and more smooth, giving the impression of some kind of flame, rather fitting really.

Only one problem remained; it was just that, a spell. Not something you could imbue into an object, but something you would have to keep active constantly. You would need to find a way to bind this spell into an item, an enchantment, you believed.

And that led to even more problems; you had no knowledge of how to enchant items, nor did you have any books in your possession that could teach you how. It appeared that you would need to go back to the library in town. And then you would have to break in, since it was still night time.

Well then, best get going.

00-0-00

Ponyville was silent as you crept through the streets, hood up over your head to remain as inconspicuous as possible, not very easy when you were as tall as some of the smaller buildings in the town. This also gave you an opportunity to test out one of the functions you inbuilt into your clothes.

With a mental command you activated the Nanites imbedded into the fabric of your cloak, the lines along your clothes glowed a soft but powerful blue before more lines began stretching out of the Nanite Hives, each carrying more Nanites and more blue energy. Eventually your clothes were entirely covered in blue Nanites, and then...you disappeared.

You moved your arm experimentally, half expecting the camouflage to fail, but was pleasantly surprised to find that your clothes retained its invisibility. It was probably a lot easier for the camouflage Nanites to work when there were so few colours, plus less light because of the night. Some parts were still visible, like your belt for example, but that was easily solved by moving your cloak to cover that as well.

Now completely invisible on the standard spectrum you ran, crouching low to the ground so that you would make as little noise as possible. You only passed a few ponies, as most of the town was asleep in their homes and these rare few were probably on a nightly stroll or some other equally mundane task.

You made it to the library quickly and entered through the hole still in the window from your hasty exit from before. Once inside you began searching through all of the shelves, looking for anything that might have to do with enchanting or something similar. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that there seemed to be no method of sorting, as they all seemed to just be shoved in the shelves in a completely random fashion. You didn't find anything about enchanting, but you did find lots of other useful books about various fields of magic; alchemy, astral manipulation, and various other books were all discovered and copied, but unfortunately no enchantment.

By now you had searched all of the bookshelves on the lower floor, and had amassed quite a collection of digital books, just waiting to be converted to a solid, hard copy. But still no books on enchanting or imbuing. That left only the bookshelves upstairs to search.

You quietly snuck up the stairs and made sure that everything was the same as when you left it. The weren't as many bookshelves upstairs by there was still a lot of books to go through, and you would have to hurry because you didn't know how much longer it was until dawn.

More books were looked over, deemed worthy or not, cast aside or copied and then put back. You had found less and less useful books as you went on. Just as you were placing the last book back on the shelf you noticed a book out of the corner of your eye, laying on a reading table in the centre of the room. You didn't know how you hadn't noticed it earlier, but there it was. On its front it bore a picture of a magical aura surrounding a simple floating wooden stick. It's title was ‘Advanced Enchanting and Imbuing’. This was just what you needed.

Just as you finished copying the book you noticed that it was getting bright outside, and the first rays of sunlight were just rising above the horizon.

You snapped your attention behind and above, where you heard a groaning sound emanating from beneath some crumpled and ruffled bed sheets. A purple head found its way above the thick bed sheets, hair frazzled and eyes glazed with a tired look, before it slowly looked around.

Before Twilight could see a floating book in the lower area of the private section of her library you ran and jumped out of the closest opening, dropping the book with a loud thunk. You were on the second story so you had time to angle your approach to the ground, making it so you hit the ground in roll and used the momentum to continue running forward.

In your mild jog you saw ponies staring at the dust you kicked up in curiosity. To them it would look like little clouds of dust were shooting into the air in a line, speeding along at incredible speeds, but nothing more than that.

By the time you reached the edge of the Everfree the sun was already halfway past the horizon and steadily rising. The town streets were still mostly empty but for a few, early-waking ponies that littered the dirt paths of Ponyville. You had made it without detection, and for that you were grateful but you had to get back to the nameless red mare you had left behind. You still did not know whether she had the sleep patterns of a pony or sleeping patterns similar to that of yours, or rather, none at all. You didn't know whether or not the ambient temperature had dropped in your absence, and that led to a whole other set of thoughts that began to plague your mind.

You remained deep in thought throughout the journey through the forest.

00-0-00

It didn't take you all that long to make it back to your house, and you found it to be exactly as you left it.

You walked into your home, expecting the little mare to be upon you in seconds. She never appeared. Instead you found her fast asleep on the table, face on top of the sheets of paper she had somehow conjured and pencil sticking haphazardly in her mane. To your horror you realised that the temperature had dropped down considerably.

You raced over to the mare and put the back of your hand against her furry neck, finding her to be alive but cold. You don't want to think about what would have happened had you been gone any longer.

You increased the temperature again until it was a almost like an oven in here, then you picked up the blanket from the floor and wrapped it around the sleeping pony. You needed to find a more permanent solution to this problem; next time you might not be here to help her.

You ran upstairs and started getting all the books out of you by printing them into a single book, thick with ultra-thin pages and small print. All books except the one you needed now, that book was printed separately. The whole process took about a minute and left you with two, one put away on a nearby shelf and the other placed on a nearby table. In your rush to read it you knocked it onto the floor under the table it had been resting on previously.

Groaning in annoyance you ducked under the table to retrieve the escaped literature but stopped just as you hand was about to touch the book. There, resting besides it was another book, one you had failed to notice before your venture into Ponyville. Grabbing the other book and flipping it over and it was fuck me.

You growled in anger and flicked your head back in anger, temporarily forgetting you were under a table and smashing both your head and the table to pieces. Only the table was in pieces though. You would be much more upset it your head was in pieces.

On the books cover it simply said ‘Basic Enchanting’.

...

Well, that whole trip was completely worthless. Best just move on and forget about your failure to notice a book simply because it was hidden from view by a few bits of wood that vaguely resembled a table.

Since you were already crouching down you slid out your feat and sat down on the floor, surrounded by bits of broken wood and splinters. The other book forgotten, you opened the book in your hands to the first page and began reading.

Enchanting is the fine art of imbuing magical properties into an otherwise non-magical item, or imbuing magic into an already magical item to give it certain aspects and attributes that are either helpful or hindering, harmless or harmful. This book aims to teach those who have never used any field of Enchanting before and wish to learn to wield this ancient arcane skill.

It is said that Enchanting is the oldest form of magic to have ever been used in The World, older even than harmony magic and chaos magic. Whether this is true or not is under constant debate, as so few records remain of the ancient history of Equestria. The reason for this belief, though, is because of how simple it is to Enchant an object with magical properties.

True masters of this branch of magic will be able to imbue magic into object with their will alone, but beginners will have to stick to using arcane instruments to Enchant objects. That will be the first section of this book: The tools and implements that are used to create arcane circles which are essential to all enchanting, and also other fields of magic; Arcane circles are used in many, many fields of magic and are the backbone of most magic studies.

The most important and most used piece of equipment you will ever use is a simple and easy to acquire one. Chalk.

Chalk is a simple ingredient that can be used on its own or ground up with certain crystals to produce a powdery substance used to make most arcane circles. It can itself be imbued with other items and act as a conductor of magical energies. It can be used to coat other items and objects that will fill arcane circles, so that it can help conduct and insulate magic as required.

The next item is not necessarily required, but it is recommended. A table.

Having a solid, flat surface is needed for enchanting and having a permanent fixture used to house such an important role is recommended. There is no specific aspects that define an enchanting table, it just has to be large enough to be able to have arcane circles drawn on it.

And the last object needed is a foci, something able to contain the magical reactions that take place and able to focus those energies. A foci can be anything, as long as it doesn't break under the immense amount of energy that can be sometimes channeled through them.

The list went on from there, but you only needed a foci and chalk really, a table could come later if you decided to venture into enchanting more, or you could possibly rebuild the table you were sitting on, but not now. You still didn't know how to enchant an item or how to draw arcane circles, but it was probably in the book somewhere.

You skipped through a large portion of the book, only stopping once finding a relevant page which you then ripped out and put on the floor besides you. You had about three and a half pages of actual enchanting left over from the entire book, the rest of it information on various enchantments and their properties, items used for enchanting, and just general tips and tricks for enchanting.

You brought up the first page you had ripped out from the book and started reading it.

Drawing an arcane circle for a standard enchantment is easy, but you must use the correct ingredients when drawing it or risk the danger of having it detonate in a arcane explosion. An arcane circle needs to be started by drawing a circle, and an accurate circle at that. It must be round and not have any gaps or edgy lines in it.

Inside that circle you must draw a shape dependant on the enchantment itself, but for a standard circle it is merely a pentagram, with all sides of equal length and size.

Beneath is an example of a well-drawn arcane circle.

Ok, so that seemed pretty simple enough to do. You would need some chalk though and that table seemed like a pretty good idea now; while the wooden floor you were sitting on was smooth it wasn't exactly even all the way across, having tiny little veins of wood that raised up or sunk down occasionally. You couldn't afford to let this circle explode, especially since the last magical explosion you had seen launched a massive bear through the sky.

With the disturbing image of you being blown to bits in mind you started rebuilding the table you had broken with your head. Pieces of wooden shrapnel floated into the air amongst a blue haze that was your Nanites. They found each other and the process began, pieces joining each other in flashes of dazzling white. These then floated towards the most intact part of the table, more pieces of wood fusing with it as it made its way through the splinter filled air. What was left after a blinding flash was the table as the remaining wood parts fused all at the same time.

The table wasn't exactly the largest but it would do. Now you needed chalk.

You scooped up as many microorganisms as possible from the surroundings, pulling them off of the tree, sucking them out from the air, and tearing dead ones from your skin, the organisms having died the moment they touched your very potent and acidic skin.

Those that still lived were killed immediately. You then put them in a stasis sphere all at once, compressing them into a ball about four centimetres in diameter. Once all were contained within you sped up time inside the sphere, ageing everything inside by millions of years. As you released the bubble the air itself seemed to warp and twist as space-time tried to compensate for the sudden metaphysical hole produced by using all the T quantids in the small area all in one go.

The organisms that went in came out as a white powder while a pile of super nutritious powder fell out of your Nanites grasp; you had no need for the remains of the organisms, just the skeletons left behind. You compressed the powder into a stick, about your finger in diameter and about half its length long. This was now your chalk.

With both the chalk and table ready you began drawing the circle, first activating a hologram to guide you so you didn't make any mistakes. You pressed down hard on the chalk to make sure that there would be no gaps and that the whole line would be of the same consistency. You successfully made a full circle and now had to move onto the pentagram of the arcane circle. Following the glowing lights of the hologram you drew, lines as straight as you could possibly make them.

Within moments you were finished and the arcane circle complete but empty. Now you had to read the preparation part of the pages you removed from the book.

Preparing the arcane circle is entirely dependant on the spell you and imbuing into the object, and also dependant upon the object itself. The first thing to do would be to write out all the arcane symbols of the spell within the five points of the pentagram in the order that they appear in the spell. It is crucial that the symbols are properly written otherwise the enchantment will fail and will most likely explode under the enormous force of magical energies.

The symbols themselves must not touch any of the other chalk line and must not enter the central pentagon.

That seemed easy enough as well. Fishing into your Hives you were able to get an atom-for-atom representation for the symbols using both your own memories and the scanners that were recording everything around you. Another hologram appeared moments later, this one with the magic symbols that needed to be drawn.

You started drawing over the hologram again, and kept going until you had every symbol down on the wooden table. Now then, what's next?

You lifted up the last piece of paper, this one having the most writing on it out of the three.

The final preparations and the actual enchanting itself are the hardest part. The first thing you need to do is find the object of whatever you are going to enchant and make sure it doesn't touch the arcane circle yet. Before you place it you need to place one final component and that is diamond dust.

You looked away from up the paper in thought. Where were you going to get diamonds from? You smacked your face after a moment of thought. Idiot! You could just make some!

Ushering forth your Nanites you made a solid chunk of diamond using the carbon left over from your ship. You dropped the diamond into your hand and squeezed it, crushing the large thing into dust and catching it in your magic before it could hit the floor. You brought it back up to your other hands with the soft blue glow of your magic and caught it there in your hands, releasing it from your magical grasp in place of a physical grasp.

With the dust in hand you looked back to the paper and continued from where you left off.

You will then need to lay the diamond dust over the entirety of the arcane circle but take care not to let any leave the circle itself.

You did as it said and sprinkled the sparkling dust over the nearly the whole table, being careful not to let it touch anything beyond the outermost circle.

Then break your foci into five pieces. It will not matter how large each piece is nor will it matter if they are unequal in size; it only matters that it is broken into five pieces, no more, no less.

Shit, you forgot about the foci. It said anything could be used though so it would easy enough just to use a leaf or something laying around. Something you didn't mind breaking. You could use a single bit, you suppose. Yes that would work. You put a hand into your coin pouch and pulled out a single Equestria bit before splitting that into five as the page said to do.

Place one piece in each of the empty spaces in between the points of the pentagram.

You put the pieces of the bit in place and read on.

Now place the object you wish to enchant in the centre of the inner pentagon.

You didn't know what you were going to enchant, but you would need to think of something. The first thing that came to mind was just a simple stone of some sort, and that didn't seem like such a bad idea. Of you could make it look like some kind of pendant then it wouldn't draw any attention to itself, and anyone that wanted to steal it wouldn't do so if it was just a rock attached to a piece of string. Ok, so the rock was what you were going with, but you needed to find one.

Poking your head out of one of the many windows dotting your house you saw pebbles in the stream you were in earlier. They were perfect; they weren't sharp, as they had been rounded down by the flow of the river.

With a quick conjuration spell one of the pebbles appeared in your hand through a rift. Te spell was a lot easier to cast than last time, and it didn't strain you as much either. Also the rock itself wasn't damaged like the last conjured item was, you were evidently getting better, and you had only done it twice. You must be good at learning new things, it seems.

You placed the little rock in the centre of the pentagram and then read what to do next.

Once that is done it is time to perform the enchantment. First you must place your fore hooves on either side of opposite sides of the circle and simply perform the spell that shall be imbued into the object. Do not remove your hooves during the enchantment process, it will be finished when the object stops moving!.

Seemed simple enough. You didn't have any hooves so you compensated with the palm of your hands, spreading our your fingers on the edge of the circle. You then performed the spell as you would do with any spell. At first nothing happened, but then after a few silent moments, you saw strands of magic leech out of your hands and trail though the diamond dust underneath, looking like little white tendrils, jumping in straight lines from one grain of dust to another.

At first it wasn't actually visible to the normal naked eye, but as the magic strands came out further and started spreading to the pentagram in the middle it became visible to the naked eye, burning white energy spreading across the chalk like fire across oil. Soon the entire circle was covered in a flaming white glow of magic that soon spread to the arcane symbols, each one lighting up a different and vibrant colour until all were alight in arcane flame.

Then it stopped spreading and nothing happened for a while. At first you thought that you had down something wrong but then it started showing signs of working again. A solid red line of magical strands started weaving through the air of the five foci that you placed down, forming a pentagon around the central pentagon with the rock in it. Then the arcane symbols, still ablaze with multicoloured fire, started projecting a kind of pseudo hologram, each of the holograms coloured according to their projectors. Lines of magic strands started stretching across from the outer pentagram to the holographic symbols.

Then arcs of electricity appeared from nowhere, almost making you remove your hands but you held firm. The arcs started out small at first, nothing more than static electricity. They soon started growing in size and soon it looked like the middle of an arc pylon from the tier ten colonies of old. A few stray arcs hit your hands every now and again but it felt like little more than a static shock. The rock started levitating just a few centimetres above the table, in line with the magic pentagon that had formed. At this it seemed as if the rock became a lightning rod, as all the electrical discharges started from there and danced around the wooden table in a mad frenzy of light and power.

The magic in the air was so thick that even you could taste it, despite being knew to the whole concept of magic entirely.

The magic pentagon that had formed started connecting to the floating stone and a flame appeared above the rock, burning an intense yellow-white with flickers of red dotting the ethereal fire. You made sure to keep both of your hands firmly planted on the wooden table throughout the whole event, fearing what might happen if you removed them. By now all of the flames and electricity, even the magic strands, had started forming a spire that peaked above the rock and rose ever higher with each passing moment.

And then it all disappeared.

In one moment all that fire and energy had seemingly evaporated into nothingness in mere seconds. The stone was still moving and in the air though, and on its surface you could see flickering markings of the symbols that were on the table before. The symbols on the rock faded until it went back to being an ordinary looking stone, albeit with magical markings that could only be sensed by other magic users. You kept your hands still though, because the book said that it would stop moving and it was still lightly oscillating in the air.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the rock dropped like, well, a rock. Now you removed your hands from the arcane circle, assuming that it was safe to do so and fortunately you were correct. You picked up the rock laying on the centre of the arcane circle. It felt like it was burning your hand but it was bearable, if just only. You attached the rock to a small piece of fibre and you were done. Now you just needed to see if it would work or not.

You could feel the after affects of the enchanting. The air was thicker, as if the gravity had increased and the pressure rose. You could feel static electricity in the air, prickly at your skin and making your hair stand on end.

All these sensations passed once you reached the ground floor, for the taint seemed to only stay near the arcane table. The mare on the table was awake now. You weren't surprised in the slightest.

As you approached her she rubbed her eyes blearily, no doubt still very tired from being new to life and sapience. She looked to you tiredly.

“Did you find a way to help me?”

She punctuated her sentence with a large yawn.

“Maybe. Did you manage to come up with a name for yourself?”

“Uh-huh. I don't know if its any good though.”

She nodded her head in a dopey fashion, seeming like she was trying to be hyperactive but lacked the energy and willpower to do so.

“Well, what is it?”

“Shae.”

That didn't seem like such a bad name, although it definitely sounded more like a human name than a pony name. But it didn't matter, if she wanted that to be her name then that was her decision.

“I like it.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Oh and by the way I have an enchanted pendant that should help keep you warm.”

“Huh! Really?!”

She was on all fours and in front of you in the blink of an eye.

“Yeah, here out it on.”

You passed her the stone amulet and let her put it on. She seemed happier the moment it was on her but you were cringing on the inside. You had no idea whether it would work or not.

“Yay!”

She lunged at you and wrapped her small hooves around your abdomen in a warm hug. Warm. It had worked. That was a relief; you had half expected her to burst into flames the moment it touched her tiny body, or to turn into a pile of ash without so much as a flame. But she was safe and happy and with a name, so everything was good.

She fell asleep in moments.

Yes, everything was going great for now, but you couldn't help but feel like something bad was coming your way. For now though, the only thing you could do was enjoy the present and brace for the oncoming shit-storm.

~Interlude - 0: He Watches~

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The light struggled to combat the dark amongst the in-between, the halfway point between Tartarus and Astra. It would pierce at the darkness’s defences like little lances of light from a torch or lantern. Ultimately the dark won, as not even the heavenly aura of Astra could shine light upon the in-between, it's dark emptiness blacker than even the very deepest of the inverted mountains of Tartarus. Nothing living could survive here, nothing living could survive without the light.

All but one.

He was a shadow, but not. He was made of a living smoke, held together in the form of a cruel mockery of an Alicorn with tendrils of burning magma and dark magic holding his form. The smoke that was he whipped about, trying to float away in a nonexistent breeze, only held back by the pure power that was he. The only parts of that were not made of smoke, the hooves of obsidian and horn of solidified death, remained still among the silence of the in-between. To an outside observer it would appear that he was unmoving, unchanging, dead.

That was not entirely untrue.

From his seated position on the corpse-throne he waited. He watched. He watched as the world burned, suffered and died. He watched as his loyal followers killed in his name. He watched as the ignorant Equestrians frolicked and abused themselves in a stupid and uncaring bliss.

He smiled.

Soon Astra would fail to protect them and his forces would end the barrier, dooming Equestria to painful suffering. He had been patient, he had waited. For he was ever so endlessly patient, and he could for as long as was necessary.

The Others had already fallen, after all, and there was very little chance for them to rise against him again. His victory was already assured, now he just had to wait for Astra to fall, for the last to fall.

His smile was tugged downwards momentarily. He thought he saw something unpleasant, but he was mistaken. His smile soon returned to his immaterial face.

His eyes snapped open suddenly in horror, his burning red eyes the only thing able to pierce the endless darkness of the in-between. He had seen him. There was no mistaking it, he needed to act now, before he failed again. The veins of magma along his for began to bubble and pulsate, getting faster as his anger and fear built to new levels. His fury so bright that even the fog like darkness of the in-between lifted and dispersed, as if itself feared the wrath of the angry god. His rage boiled at his insides like the magma that burnt his outsides, so powerful and great that it revealed the in-between, or what had become of it.

He screamed.

His shout of anger and pure rage echoed throughout the in-between, echoing back to him as if the world around him was mocking him. His scream cracked the already rundown structures of bone and metal, splintering into many thousands of shards that flew into the air like a swarm of angry bees, flying sporadically and embedding themselves into the surroundings. They didn't stop there. They continued to fly into the air, forming a blizzard of bone shards and metallic death that rained down around him and impaled him.

He paid them no attention as they dug into his not-flesh. He stopped screaming and all returned to silence, with only the sound of a light jingling sound piercing the quiet, as if someone had thrown thousands of needles into the air and were all colliding at a low speed.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing his glowing red pupils saw was something similar to that. Hundreds of thousands of fragments of bone and metal collided together in the micro-gravity of the in-between. Beyond that he saw the city he had destroyed beyond the steep mountain he resided upon, obliterated into shards and particles of dust that filled the air and yet already was the in-between beginning to repair itself after the assault of the angry god.

Millions of fragmented parts flew towards the destroyed structures, building it from the base upwards. He could not watch any longer for like the buildings themselves, the shadows returned. They came down upon the structures of the in-between like a tsunami, washing it away in a blanket of darkness before he as well was consumed.

He was panting.

It sounded like a landslide of heavy rocks crushing down upon a mountain of solid steel, the whine of metal on metal almost hidden behind the sheer volume of the god’s deep, rumbling wheezes. He turned around to try and see something but it was futile for the shadow had already enshrouded everything in its grasp of darkness. Now the only light was once again the few rays of light coming from his ungodly form, now a dull but harsh red instead of the near blinding white of the white hot magma that was now surging and bubbling across his smoky form.

He would need to contact his generals as soon as possible, for if he was right in his sight then he knew something was coming, what he did not know but it looked a lot like him. He needed to get to the surface-world immediately. Calling forth his ancient and terrible magic, he charged a spell only he himself alone knew how to use. His horn encased in a swirling plethora of smoky ash alight by burning flames of crimson light.

The ancient magic crawled its way over his near-immaterial form and soaked into the very core of his being, the very core of his dark soul. In a flash that temporarily destroyed the darkness that permeated the in-between, he vanished, but not all of him went, for a small part of him remained and maintained a careful watch over the in-between and the worlds apart and through.

For he is always watching.

-11- The Blood

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You were in Ponyville. Funny, because you couldn't remember getting there.

The streets were eerily quiet. Not a single pony was out in the streets, and that was strange because it was midday. You had expected to see the dirt roads and pathways of Ponyville flooded with the many ponies that took residence in this quiet town.

But alas, not even from behind any windows could you see any signs of life or movement. You were a bit worried about that. Something about the place seemed off as well, like the last time you ventured here but much, much stronger than before.

Above you could see dark clouds swirling and flashing occasionally with menacing lightning. It wasn't the pathetic Pegasi clouds either, but rather it was an actual cloud from a human world, albeit with cartoony colours.

That was even more worrying.

Was that the shit-storm you felt was coming? Did the Universe see it fit to send a literal storm of bodily waste at you? You certainly hoped not. You didn't want any faecal matter raining down from the heavens onto you.

Only silence answered your unspoken questions. It was as if the air itself was sucking away all sound and removing it from existence. Or maybe the atmosphere had suddenly left? A quick breath in and out confirmed that there was at least some form of gas in the air, whether it was oxygen or not was an unknown. You could quickly check for that though.

You attempted to summon your Nanites but to your horror you couldn't. It's like they weren't even there anymore. You tried again.

And again.

And then you realised that they were gone and panic gripped you with full force before you took ahold of yourself. You had gone on for countless aeons and beyond without ever using your Nanites. Hell, you forgot they were even in you. You didn't need them to survive.

During your little panic attack a pony silhouette appear from out of one of the darkened alleyways. You couldn't tell whether it was a mare or stallion as the figure was still mostly cloaked in the shadows.

“Hello?”

Your call went unanswered verbally, but the figure did rotate its neck...in a very unhealthy fashion. It twisted a full one eighty degrees before stopping and staring at you, meaning that her muzzle was over her back where you could see wings hanging limply from the joints attaching them to the ponies back.

The pony walked into the light and you were able to identify them as being a mare. There was...juices all over the mare. Whatever it was you had no clue of its origins and you didn't really want to find out.

Suddenly you heard moans and groans coming from all around you, finding yourself being approached on all angles. You had no idea how they snuck up on you, but they were closing in and not stopping. You needed a plan in case this...whatever this was, went to shit.

Unfortunately you weren't able to think up a plan as one if the mares latched onto you arm and wouldn't let go.

“Moo~ore...”

Before you had a chance to reply you suddenly found yourself covered in about twelve mares, each covered in slime made of sweat and other unknown bodily fluids.

“Ah! Get off of me you savage beasts!”

You shoved them off as well as you could but they kept on crawling back onto you like ants over an anthill. Seeing as this wasn't working you instead made an attempt to walk away towards the centre of town, where there was the least concentration of mares. In a fit of irritation you forgot your strength and punched one of the mares that had decided to jump on your back right in the face. The effect was similar to a high speed projectile impacting a watermelon, and her head exploded in a gory mess as bone pieces and grey matter rained outwards from your fist, showering the other ponies. Even without your Nanites you were greatly stronger than these little creatures.

To your absolute horror the mares around weren't horrified by the display of violence, instead they started eating the dead mare and picking up her blood and brain juices. It was high time you got out of there before they ran out of mare meat to feast upon.

You ran as fast as you could, which was laughably slow compared to your augmented sprints yet still leaps and bounds ahead of the small ponies in terms of speed and ability, both metaphorically and literally. You bowled over all the ponies that got in your way, and after running for about a minute you were clear from all the mares. Although you could still see them down the street, swarming like some kind of hive of angry ants.

What was with your brain coming up with all these ant metaphors?

You jumped through an open window on one if the buildings across the street to get out of sight. You found the house to be empty, much like the streets outside with the exception of the frenzied and cannibalistic mares. You began looking around the apparently abandoned home for anything you could use in this situation. Whatever the fuck was actually going on didn't really matter to you, just as long as you could get out alive then you would be happy.

The house was still filled with everything that you would expect; chairs and other assorted furniture, pictures of the residents hanging from the walls, rugs adorning the floors and overall looking like it was left in a hurry. In the kitchen you found things that could be useful in this situation should things get violent again, knives in the draw were pulled out and thrown onto the table. You found some duct tape and put that down in the table as well, along with other pieces of cloth, fabric and utensils that you had deemed useful.

You pulled the fabric over to you and held it in the shape of a box while duct taping it together to make the crudest bag you had ever seen, but it held so it was good for now. You then dumped the rest of the stuff you had collected in it, leaving out only two long kitchen knives.

You snuck around the house until you found something that you could use to attach the knives onto, a broomstick, leaning against the wall down the main hall way of the house. You unscrewed the end and brought the stick back to the table before taping both knives onto one end, each bladed edge pointing the opposite to each other.

You took another piece of fabric and tied it around your waist before attaching the makeshift bag to it so that it was hanging down the side of your right leg. It was then you realised that your cloak wasn't on you. Your underclothing was still there but the cloak itself was missing.

You turned suddenly at the sound of banging on the door, crude weapon in hand and raised. The door burst open and in charged a group of figures, hidden in the shadows but all definitely male. Among the group was one human, two Earth ponies and a single pegasus. They were talking to each other but you could not hear what they were saying to one another, a combination of the storm outside and their low volume preventing you.

They took notice of you and all turned to silence as they faced you. You tightened your grip on the wooden pole. As the figures came into view you were able to see them more clearly. You recognised the human as the merchant that you bought the bow from. The others you didn't recall seeing before; a caramel coloured earth pony, a big red coated earth pony, and a blue coated pegasus.

They seemed to all relax once they saw you in the light.

“What's going on?”

The only other human in the room was the one to answer, speaking in a harsh whisper.

“Keep your voice down!”

The others had all gone towards the windows, looking out cautiously and being careful not to be spotted. You could hear moaning and groaning coming from outside and every time the sound got to close the stallions looking out the windows would quickly duck behind the curtains before returning to their gazing.

You looked between the ponies, not all that sure what to do. Luckily it seems that they did.

“Let's move. You, come with us.”

You didn't really feel like sitting in a cramped house all day so you followed them out the back door and into the ever darkening streets of Ponyville. The small group of males stopped every time they heard something that they thought was another pony, dropping to the floors and trying to remain silent.

After a minute or so of this constant stop-start pace you decided to voice some of the nagging questions clawing at your mind.

“Where are we going? More importantly what's going on?”

“Shh!”

That was the only reply you got.

You were about to press your questions further when the nameless caramel coloured pony, who had taken to the front of the group, wailed in pain. You couldn't see from here as he was half covered in the shadows that seemed to be ever-present for some reason. He stumbled for a bit before falling onto his back with a dull thump as dust and dirt flew into the air, being assaulted by fives mares all at once.

The large red stallion leapt onto action by pulling his fellow away from the shadows and delivering a strong, bone-shattering buck to the jaws of one of the mares’ clambering over him.

You darted over to help the caramel stallion, pulling him further away from the shadows as the red stallion fought back against the group of mares with his strong hind legs. One mare got a solid kick to the head and her neck snapped backwards at an unnatural angle while another bit into the stallions neck in a horrific display of cannibalism.

Once you were sure the smaller of the two stallions was safe you turned your attention to the one being attacked, by now covered in blood and sweat as he fought off the insane and rabid ponies that assaulted him relentlessly. You could just make out more eyes in the shadows approaching the red pony, and he was too distracted with the four that were dodging his attacks in surprising displays of agility.

You ran away from the caramel stallion - being tended to by the human and pegasus - and charged head-on into the mass of mares that had trotted out from the darkness that had sheltered them from view. You flicked the pole in your arms and slashed at the nearest mare, blood pouring out in slopping spurts as she limped over onto the dirt, soon to be eaten by her fellows.

Your incursion gave the stallion the time he needed to kick off his remaining attackers and escape from the horde, returning to the others who were still helping the downed pony who had blood leaking from his midsection.

You gave one last swing at the horde before following the others as they ran off around the corner, slicing through another unfortunate mare’s neck.

You caught up quickly and came to a halt as you realised that you, along with the others, were trapped between two different hordes, one in front and the one you just ran from.

“Quick! Follow me!”

The others did as they were instructed and followed you as you ran at full speed before jumping and slamming your mass into the door of one of the houses that had boxed you in. You ran straight through the house and kicked down the back door, finding yourself out the front of Sugarcube Corner.

You saw Brute fighting with the savage ponies that had tried to storm the bakery. They had ultimately failed, though, due to the sheer force of the attacks that Brute was delivering. You and the others quickly ran over to his aid, although it appeared he seemed to be doing fine on his own, for now at least.

The wounded caramel stallion was grabbed from behind just as you made it to Brute. He was pulled back by no less than twelve mares that all tried to force him onto his back. He struggled but it was futile for he was outnumbered twelve-to-one.

You expected him to be eaten but what came next was even more putridly disgusting.

The group of slime coated mares stared rubbing themselves up against the poor stallion, coating him in a thick, sloppy liquid that clung to his fur and matted his mane. It only got worse as they started licking along his barrel and playing with his male-bits, making him ‘show’. They didn't stop there, however, as they began to lick and nibble teasingly at his growing member.

You were about to look away from the horrid scene when something even worse happened.

They started to tear into his flesh with their teeth, ripping of his dick and shredding it into pieces between them. Caramel had up until this point been struggling with them in an attempt to escape. Now though, he screamed in agony.

The ever-hungry and lustful mares moved on once nothing remained of the poor ponies reproductive organs, instead piercing a hole in his chest with their hooves and eating his lungs and heart while he watched with the last moments of his life.

The crowd of ponies looked to you, and you barely registered your hand slowly moving to cover your crotch.

“Uh, hi...”

“Moo~ore... We need more!”

They surged forward as a wall of carnal flesh and lustful desire, charging forwards like a tsunami of flesh and bodily fluids, covered in both sexual juices and bloody stains.

“Nope.”

You ran as fast as you could, looking back just in time to see the others getting eaten. The red stallion was swarmed and had his limbs pulled apart in a flurry of sick crunches and agonised screams. The human launched flaming balls of magic from his hands, incinerating the ponies that got to close but he too was overrun. The Pegasus made an attempt to fly away but his back hoof was caught by one of the mares, allowing the others to climb up him like ants.

The only survivor was Brute, who had the common sense to run the fuck away like you did. He was trailing right behind you, licking up dust with each powerful stride. He was safe, so at least there was one other survivor.

Looking back in front of you made your heart plummet into your stomach. It didn't stop there though. It travelled at such a high velocity that it broke the sound barrier and pierced through the planets outer crust in its trajectory towards Tartarus, such was the terrifying sight that you bore witness to.

You needed to get a hold of yourself, you would not die like a coward. You steeled yourself, sucking the fallen heart back up at a speed so fast that it caught on fire and burned your anal cavity as it surged through your intestines on its metaphorical journey back into your chest. You felt it beat inside once more, and you prepared.

By now Brute had caught up and the two of you went back-to-back against the horde of ponies that numbered in the thousands.

The first one tried to swipe at you so you stabbed it in its eyes for its effort, gunk spraying out across you. They charged after the first one attacked.

You an Brute worked together well. As a mare got to close to you he would swiftly buck it away and if one Drew to near to him you would slice. Mares fell by the dozens around you and Brute, to the point where you had to climb over the mounds to reach the other attackers.

One mare got lucky and managed to yank your weapon away from, but that was unlucky because now you could use your hands. You punched forwards into the mare’s chest and pulled out a rib bone that you used as a makeshift cudgel, smashing it around the ponies’ heads, splitting them open and showering grey matter everywhere.

You went to crack another pony skull when you saw Brute get pulled away from by the mass of mares, disappearing in mere seconds. A pony took this opportunity to grab you around the angles and flipped you onto your stomach. You landed on a pile of still half-warm corpses and a puddle of blood.

You flipped over in time to stop a crazed mare from biting into your neck. With one hand you held the biting mare away and with the other you plunged the rib into her barrel causing blood and intestines to pour out in copious amount, drenching you with its sticky and foul-smelling liquid.

Before you could react another mare dove for you and landed in a position so that her bared teeth were right above your crotch.

She opened wide and-

“AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaahhh!”

You surged upwards in your bed so quickly that the small blanket covering you shot up and became entangled in the branches above your head.

You steadied your breathing. That specific Other would be purged from your mind the moment you got the chance; you did not want to be plagued by horrifying memories every time you closed your eyes. You didn't know what it was about this place that gave you terrifying dreams. Normally you would have lucid dreams, one of the main factors in your love of sleeping but here it seemed like everything was a horror show designed to make you want to gouge out your own brain.

You looked around and your eyes fell on something that made you angry. Gilda.

She was standing there silently and stiffly, sporting a shocked expression on her face that quickly turned to fear once she saw your furious gaze. In her front claws was the same slightly rusted sword you found earlier when looking through her belongings.

You lunged forwards and held the startled Gilda against the wall with your forearm, while your other went and grabbed the claw that had the sword in it, squeezing until she dropped it to the floor with a clatter of steel.

“Gak!”

“You! Why are you trying to kill me?”

“I'm not trying to- gurgh!”

“Bullshit. Why did you have a sword in your claw when I was sleeping, and what about the picture of me in your bag?”

Gilda’s eyes widened in shock from the revelation that you had looked through her things when she was away. Or it could have been the fact that you were crushing her windpipe with your forearm.

“I...was...get help...not kill...hunh...please...”

She began wheezing as she laboured for fresh air, something that you were determined to prevent until she answered you.

“Help with what?”

“I...can't tell you...from here...please...I don't want to die...”

She started sobbing and sniffing while trying to futilely remove your arm from her neck. You let go and allowed her to fall to the floor, where she immediately started gasping for breath. You weren't really going to kill her - that wouldn't solve anything, but you were curious as to what she needed help with, or whoever it was that sent her needed help with.

“Well? What is it?”

“I already told you before; the other nations are in a bad way, and need help with those skilled in magic or combat and you seem to be skilled in both of those areas.”

“I don't know about magic, but I'm definitely well-versed in combat.”

By now Gilda had shakily gotten back onto all fours and was looking at you...expectantly? Curiously? You couldn't tell what exactly her weird chicken face was trying to express.

“What do you mean you aren't good at magic? You took on an Alicorn and won!”

“Well that wasn't necessarily - wait, how do you know about that?”

Gilda stumbled with her words a bit and beads of cartoon sweat started running down her face, dripping down and seemingly disappearing into wherever they came from before they could hit the floor.

“Um, well you see I - uh, have...um...”

“What? What is it?!”

“I...ha, um...”

“Just fucking tell me!”

You threw your arms around in a fit of annoyance, almost decapitating Gilda in the process.

“I've been spying on you! Ok!”

“You-you what!?”

“I've been tracking you.”

“You have-what-arhg~rrrrrrmmm...”

You slowly raised your arms up to your face and rested them there while a loud groan emanating from your throat.

“For. How. Long.”

The annoyance in your voice was almost palpable.

“Um...since you attacked Nightmare Moon...”

Your hands slid off of your face and let them hang limply by your sides.

“How did I not see you?”

“I'm very good at my-”

“I don't care how good you think you are. How the fuck did I not detect you, like, on any frequency?! What, can you turn completely immaterial or something?”

“Yes.”

...

“...what did you say.”

“I can turn immaterial.”

“...Show me.”

To your astonishment Gilda just...disappeared. Even your spatial and temporal manipulators were having trouble picking up anything, which would explain why they didn't alert you to anything when she was hiding last time; the disturbance was small enough to be considered background interference and not strong enough to be considered anything of importance, so it would not alert me. You fixed that, now it would tell you whenever something like this happened again.

Gilda reappeared with a small flash of red light and turned to face you, grinning at your look of disbelief.

“How do you do that?”

“I'm not allowed to tell.”

“Tell me.”

“I told you I'm-”

“Tell me!”

“I'll get in trouble if-”

“I said tell me!! Now!!!”

You ran forwards and grabbed Gilda by her equivalent of shoulders.

“Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”

You emphasised each shout with a violent shake of her shoulders, and after the fourth shake her eyes were beginning to roll around in her head in that weird, creepy way that could only be allowed in cartoons. This just made you shake faster.

“Tell me!!!”

“Ok! Ok! I'll show you!”

Gilda made an attempt to stop her spinning vision by grabbing her head in both claws and holding her head still. You watched intently as she slowly pulled out a bland silver ring from a small satchel that you hadn't noticed until now. She then put it on one of her talons and as she did so disappeared. The moment the ring appeared you had expected that to happen.

A moment of near silence passed, broken only by the sound of the outdoor wildlife and rustling trees, before Gilda reappeared with the ring in one claw. It stunned you, that is, the fact that something so small and simple-looking could essentially force something onto the border between existence and nonexistence. It led to other ideas in your head, and all the while Gilda stood there awkwardly, knowing full well that she was before someone that could kill her with a mere thought. That made you feel kind of awkward, since you were used to being in Gilda’s position, not the other way around as it was now.

“Pass it here.”

Your voice left little room for argument, and yet Gilda still looked a little hesitant. Yet she gave in and handed you the ring, passing the powerful piece of jewellery with a resigned sigh. You gladly plucked the small metal ring from Gilda’s sharp claws and turned it over. The thing didn't look to have anything special about it, no signs of advanced tech that your Nanites could pick up at least, and definitely no enchantments as you would be able to visibly see those. It was only small, probably just the right size to fit on your finger really.

You placed it on one of your fingers and immediately your spatial and temporal manipulators went fucking ballistic, and the problem was you didn't know what was going wrong. No warning messages or flashing holograms, no endless streams of data showing you the inner working of the problem, no visible signs of anything going wrong, only the pain. The pain was tolerable at first, starting as a dull aching sort of feeling throughout your very being, but then it spiked in ferocity and only increased from there, becoming more of a burning agony that coursed through your entire body and mind, like some kind of liquid neurotoxin injected into your bloodstream.

Fearing that something had been put into you and spurred on by the fact that this thing on your hand was causing your discomfort, you attempted to rip the damned thing off of you. To your growing horror you could not remove it, only claw at your finger as the pain grew and you started convulsing and losing control of your limbs. By now weird lines of pure, white energy begun dancing erratically down your hand and further along your forearm. It looked strange, like both a liquid and an electrical arc in appearance.

While you were busy losing control and rolling along the floor in a fit, you noticed that bits of you were flashing in and out of the material world. This became more and more frequent as the white energy seeped in further, but something was seemingly halting the toxic substance’s path; another, blue coloured energy was seeping out of the rest of your arm. The two coloured energies were fighting for dominance, sending of trails of both as they were flung into the air like water after a splash. It looked like the blue substance was winning through sheer overwhelming force.

When the white light was so overwhelmed that you could hardly see it any more it suddenly flared even brighter than before, and you felt a sudden force push you backwards. The ring was sent flying off your finger where it lodged into the side of the wall. You too were sent hurtling at high speed, although you didn't have the luxury of simply lodging into a nice, soft wall. No, instead you smashed straight through it and uprooted half of your house in the process, massive chucks of wood the size of normal pony houses were sent flying through the air in random directions and smaller splinters were sent showering across the entire clearing.

You didn't even hear an explosion, although you felt the shockwave of it, so you assumed it was very loud. Oh wait, there was the noise. It was deafening.

You would have collided with the trees that made up the border of the clearing had the shockwave not passed you already, smashing the trees into tiny splinters and uprooting anything in its way; rocks, fallen branches and animals were not spared as they too flew into the air, forming a sort-of vortex of various debris. You were in the middle of it, and you could only watch, slightly dazed, as a manticore casually floated above your head. It looked just as dazed and confused as you were.

You collided with something hard so you looked up to see what it was. What you saw was some kind of lizard-thing, much larger than you although nowhere near as large as the bears you killed earlier. One of its heads looked at you curiously, despite the fact that it was hurtling along through the forest as well. You seemed to be moving faster than all the other assorted animals, most likely be aisle you were at the epicentre of the blast. You could tell because you were increasing the lizard’s velocity as well.

Without any warning one of the creature’s tails got caught on something on the ground, something beyond your field of view, and stopped suddenly and violently. You didn't. You kept on soaring through the air, tumbling and flailing about mere metres above the solid surface below you.

You tried to do something to stop your momentum but every time you went for magic a piece of debris or large rock would smack into your face, and every time you tried to command your Nanites you lost concentration and failed, also because of shooting debris.

After a while most of the raining bits of wood and rocks lost enough kinetic energy to fall to the ground, but you kept going. At this point it was becoming ridiculous. You surely should have burnt off all the energy from the blast by now. Yet you kept going.

By now you couldn't even see your house anymore, when you got a brief chance to actually see it, that was. You were still tumbling around after all.

It took you awhile, likely due to how dazed you were, but you eventually realised that there weren't any more large, pointy rocks that could hit you in the head and distract you from casting magic or taking control of some Nanites. And of course that was when you hit the dirt.

You slid across the floor, small rocks ripping bits of your flesh and cutting your clothes. You also happened to be face down, so plenty of soil managed to find its way into your many facial orifices.

Just as you were about to stop yourself you collided with something head-first, with enough force to shatter boulders. You kind of lost it there, and you promptly fell unconscious.

00-0-00

You were in Ponyville. It was funny, because you actually do remember how you got here.

Like before the streets of Ponyville were uncharacteristically barren, and that was not a good sign at all. Unlike before though you still had access to your Nanites, something that brought no end of relief to you. This time you pulled out a knife, just in case.

“Hello?”

Your voice echoed across the empty streets as you walked slowly and meticulously, eyes darting between the many dodgy houses that made up Ponyville.

You spun around when you saw a foal on the street suddenly get pulled into the house by an older pony, before all returned to silence. You returned to the direction you were heading in before a little more haste in your movements. Why didn't you just leave, now that was a question you kept asking yourself. For curiosities sake, it seemed. At least to you it did.

“Psst, over here!”

You looked around for the source of the voice, but it was so fast that you only narrowed it down to a single direction.

“Quick, hurry!”

Now you had isolated it to a single building; Sugarcube corner, to be exact. You saw a frantically waving pink hoof inside of an opened half door. You had a feeling you knew who it belonged to.

“Quickly, get in here!”

Your suspicions were confirmed when Pinkie’s head shot up and called you over into the store. Without thinking about it any longer you ran forward and dived through the open part of the door, just barely fitting through it.

“What? What is it?!”

You looked around frantically from your crouched position, eyeing the shadows with your knife in hand.

“Get down.”

Pinkies voice was a loud, harsh whisper. How she managed to sound loud and quiet at the same time eluded you.

“What?”

“Shhh!”

Again how does she do that?

Seeing as you weren't in any immediate danger you stood up and took in your surroundings, or at least you would have tried to had it not been pitch black. In fact you couldn't see anything, not even the entrance or the pink pony that called you in here. Maybe you were still in immediate danger.

As you were about to argue further to get some questions from the pink ball of magic she suddenly began calling out again, from where you couldn't tell for sure, again, because it was so dark. You could hear what sounded like Twilight and Spike talking to Pinkie, before a loud thud rant out as the door slammed shut, or at least that what you hoped it was.

You heard Twilight say something and then the darkness lifted. Literally lifted, as in, someone filled the room with photons after having been in a void for a while. It was very startling, but not as much as seeing six ponies besides you and in front of you, seemingly standing there as if they could see you all along.

“Can someone care to explain what's going on. There's not more primal sex beasts' outside, is there?”

The ponies gave you a bewildered look.

“Guess not.”

“Keep it down guys, she might see us.”

Pinkie was looking out the window at someone, she must have blinked there at some point.

“Who?”

You looked to Twilight as she looked at you; you and her had the same questions it seemed.

You walked over to the window to see what they were all complaining about. You saw nothing but a zebra in a cloak, not exactly something to shit yourself over. She was pawing at the ground, probably annoyed that everyone was hiding in their houses at her mere presence.

“Did you see her Twilight? Did you see... Zecora?”

The voice was much higher pitched than the other ponies, and you found that the voice was that of a foal and not an adult.

“Apple Bloom! I told you never to say that name.”

“What's wrong with her-”

You were cut off and ignored.

“Well, I saw her glance this way...”

You fell over when Pinkie pushed past you to get in Twilights face.

“Glance ee~eevilly this way.”

“... And then a bunch of you flip out for no good reason.”

You stood back up and dusted yourself off.

“I'm agreeing with Twilight here, what-”

“No good reason? You call protectin' yer kin no good reason? Why, as soon as mah sister saw Zecora ridin' into town, she started shakin' in her lil' horseshoes.”

“Di-ei-eie-id no-uh-oh-ot!”

“Do you even wear horsesh-”

“So I swept her up and brought her here.”

“I walked here myself!”

“For safe keepin'.”

“Applejack, I'm not a baby! I can take care of mahself!”

“Not from that creepy Zecora.”

You were really lost right now.

“She's mysterious.”

No she's not.

“Sinister.”

She didn't look it.

“And spoo~oooky!”

She didn't look it, and apparently Twilight agreed with you because she let out a groan as all the others gasped.

“Will you cut that out?!”

Rarity walked over to the window to get another look at Zecora.

“Just look at those stripes! So garish!”

Wow, fucking racist. But then again that is to be expected, what with the way humans were treated.

“She's a zebra.”

“Yeah, no shit dumbas-”

This is getting both ridiculous and annoying, what, were you invisible or something? Had that intangibility ring screwed you up?

“A what!?”

You threw your hands up into the air in a fit.

“Really. Are you fucking kidding me. Pinkie you told me about them so you should know what a z-”

“A zebra, and her stripes aren't a fashion choice Rarity, they're what she was born with.”

Rarity’s tiny brain couldn't handle the simple statement and she promptly fainted.

“Born where? I've never seen a pony like that in these parts, 'cept... her!”

“Who gives a shit where she's born, it doesn't fucking matter, she's here now and you're all being pricks about i-”

“Well, she's probably not from here, and she's not a pony. My books say that zebras come from a far away land. But I've never seen her in Ponyville. Where does she live?”

“Oh for fucks sake I'm not gonna bother anymore.”

You stood there contemptuously, silently fuming over these ignorant ponies with your arms crossed across your chest.

“That's just it, she lives in... the Everfree Forest!”

You heard a loud bang and before anyone in the room could react you spun around and threw out an arm, building knives as you did. The still atomising knives flew through the air, leaving behind trails of blue and white sparkling particles along with blue streaks of light. One imbedded in the swinging door, another hit wrong and clanged to the floor after hitting with the handle, and the last sailed past and clanged loudly against a pot. You missed whatever it was.

“Damn, I'm getting rusty.”

“Spike!”

Surprisingly enough the only one that noticed you throwing the knives was Twilight, and even she didn't seem to care that you almost impaled her companion-slash-brother-slash-whatever.

“Uh, sorry.”

And apparently neither did he.

“The Everfree Forest just ain't natural. The plants grow...”

“As they should fucking do-”

“Animals care for themselves...”

“Again they should do tha-”

“And the clouds move...”

“Let me guess, all-”

“All on their own!”

Well, they're good at synchronised speech, you'll give them that. Also Rarity seems to be good at fainting more than once.

“And that wicked enchantress Zecora lives there doing her evil... stuff! She's so evil I even wrote a song about her!”

“Good for you! No one here wants to hear i-”

“Here we go...”

Rainbow at least had the same common sense that you did, at least if her large sigh was any indication.

Pinkie Pie began singing a song, which you did your best to ignore. She even started doing weird dances and hoof movements. She sang about hypnotism and enchanting apparently being the epitome of all evil, something which was stupid since enchanting was a common magic branch, and dancing was just dancing...so...what the fuck Pinkie?

“Soooo... Watch out!”

“Wow. Catchy.”

After that you just zoned out, paying attention instead to the blades that had started dematerialising. These blades weren't made of steel like the others you had used; you hadn't had time to summon the steel. These ones were actually made of hard light, something that was obvious because it was flaking into many bits of white light before breaking down further into smaller specks of brighter light.

“It's a work in progress.”

“This is all just a lot of gossip and rumors. Now tell me; what exactly have you actually seen Zecora do?”

“Well... Once a month, she comes into Ponyville.”

Nope. Fuck that. You were going out to say hi right now, screw these stupid little ponies.

She was easy to find, both because she was striped and because no one else was in the streets to get lost in a crowd. Her eyes were immediately on you, again because it was just you and her on the streets alone.

“Hello. How are you?”

Wow, you really sucked at conversing with others.

“I am fine, if quite befuddled, everypony is absent and has left me all muddled.”

She rhymed. How. How can someone rhyme just like that?

“Yeah, ponies are really racist. They're actually scared of you though.”

She paused brieflyand brought a hoof to her muzzle in thought, probably thinking of a rhyme.

“You don't have to rhyme if you don't want to.”

She looked almost offended that you had said that.

“I mean, uh, not that you don't have to stop if its a cultural thing. I have met plenty of different cultures before; I am immune to any form of culture shock.”

It was true. You had once went to a solitary tier ten planet inhabited by isolated humans with very bizarre traditions, one of which was to mutilate oneself as a formal greeting. And that planet wasn't even one of the strangest cultures you had ever visited.

“I- are you joking, s-surely you must be fooling?”

She was stumbling over her words a bit.

“No, I'm fine with you talking however you want to talk.”

“I-I ok. I have an avid for rhyme; it is quite the habit.”

“I see. Anyways, what are you doing in Ponyville?”

You gestured around you with your arms, indicating the many flimsy buildings that were all around.

“I usually come in to collect herbs for my remedies, but the ponies often run and hide as if I were in league wit their enemies.”

“Well what do you need? I might be able to help you get some, although ponies treat me like shit as well, so no promises.”

“No need for your assistance; I'll simply come back later and hope for their acceptance.”

“Hey I'll walk you home then. I don't even know how I ended up in Ponyville and my home is in the Everfree, which I hear is where you live, correct?”

You pointed to the forest in which you had flown in from after today's earlier incident.

“If you wish to walk with me then it's not my place to ask you to flee.”

“Lead the way then.”

Zecora simply nodded and walked towards the forest. You followed closely behind before catching up and walking besides her. You didn't say anything, and Zecora didn't look like she was going to break the silence anytime soon, but that was fine with you.

The forest quickly filled up your vision and you entered into a part you hadn't seen before, or at least a path that you hadn't traversed before now. On either side were bright blue flowers with strange petals. Curious, you went over to one and was about to inspect it when Zecora stopped you.

“Beware of the leaves of blue, it's affects are much worse than any flu.”

You stood back up and turned back to the zebra.

“Of course. Shall we continue?”

Once again Zecora quietly nodded before trotting on ahead. When she wasn't looking you quickly touched the flower and collected some samples. You weren't like the humans here, and one of the best hints about you was that your body was completely immune to any foreign bodies, benevolent or otherwise. Even the microbe infested air wasn't a problem.

You had to hurry to catch up but when you did you heard someone shout out behind you.

“Apple Bloom?”

You turned around in time to see that little filly again and her annoying sibling.

“You get back here right now!”

“Beware! Beware, you pony folk! Those leaves of blue are not a joke!”

You almost jumped out of your own skin when Zecora appeared besides you and started talking to the ponies.

“Y-you keep your creepy mumbo-jumbo to yourself, ya hear?”

The others all began shouting and yelling over the top of each other at Zecora, for whatever reason. All but Twilight, the only one of any of the ponies you had met, maybe with the exception if Luna and Celestia, that you found to have any intelligence. Even then that was stretching it a bit.

“Beware! Beware!”

Zecora backed away and started trotting away into a spontaneous fog that had appeared.

“Yeah, back at ya, Zecora! You and your lame curse are the ones who better beware!”

Do shut up Rainbow, no one likes your ignorant comments.

“And you! Why couldn't you just listen to yer big sister?”

Apparently you had gone back to being invisible again, yet you were still very much visible. You sighed and walked over to the small herd of ponies.

“I...I...”

The little filly stuttered before her big sister.

“Who knows what kind of nasty curse Zecora could have just put on you?”

“Just like in my song!”

Pinkie started dancing around crazily and began singing that horrible song to herself.

“You guys, there's no such thing as curses!”

You lifted your finger as if to get there attention to say something but they still ignored you completely.

“Well, that's interesting to hear coming from Miss Magic Pants herself.”

“My magic, real magic, comes from within. It's a skill you're born with. Curses are artificial, fake magic. It's conjured with potions and incantations; all smoke and mirrors meant to scare. But curses have no real power, they're just an old pony tale.”

Twilight gestured to her chest when she said ‘within’, but really Twilight? You were making an argument about curses, where your supporting evidence is magic, are you fucking serious?

“Just you wait, Twilight. You're gonna learn that some pony tales really are true.”

They all walked off without anything else being said, leaving you alone in the small pathway. You could either go home now or catch up to Zecora. You were curious as to what Zecora lived in, so you decided to try and catch up to your striped acquaintance.

00-0-00

It didn't take you long. Within a few moments you had caught up to the zebra and were directly behind.

“Did you really have to be so cryptic?”

Zecora hadn't been expecting you it seemed, as she tripped over and let out a startled yelp.

“You startled me.”

“Sorry.”

She stood up carefully and dusted off her cloak with a hoof. You found these creatures dexterity to be quite amazing, especially when they were only standing on three limbs at a time.

You helped her get re orientated and the two of you set off once more, Zecora being strangely quiet throughout the whole trip.

You arrived at a tree. All outside were bottles of various liquids held aloft by strings attached to the tree’s branches. Also outside were many masks that looked like they wouldn't even sit properly on an equine shaped head. Besides that and the window and door, the house looked just like any other tree in have forest.

Zecora walked forwards and opened the door, entering her home silently. You followed, assuming that she welcomed you in since you had been walking with her for a while. You had to crouch to get in though.

Inside you saw an empty cauldron and even more phials of various liquids, along with more strange masks as well. The whole house seemed to be confined to a single room, with everything Zecora owned either outside or in the room you were in now, which wasn't much. On the far side was a bed, the only piece of furniture you could see in the room. There was another back door entrance leading into a little garden with various growing herbs and flowers.

If you had to guess you would say that Zecora a practitioner of the alchemical arts.

Zecora went over to a shelf and placed her still empty saddlebags onto the floor, before taking out the few things that she had in there to begin with and placing them on the shelf.

Seeing as you had to struggle to stand up straight in the low ceilinged building you decided to sit down, folding your legs so you sat cross legged with your hands behind you for support.

From your new position on the floor you watched as Zecora went around her hut doing various things to chemicals that you didn't know the names of. She seemed to be very uncomfortable with you here though.

“Does his divinity want anything?”

Divinity? Oh, right. You were a supposed deity.

“Not really, unless you can tell me why you speak in rhymes and riddles in front of the ponies yet speak normally in front it me.”

“I-I'm sorry, I-I did not realise wished for me to speak like that, m-my lord.”

Zecora stumbled and prostrated herself before you. If Gilda was crazy then this zebra was insane.

“Uh...no. You don't need to. Like ever. Not even when your with ponies.”

“You don't understand. It is law, I have to speak like that before the ponies of Equestria.”

She still hadn't looked up at you yet and was still bowed over the floor.

“Why though?”

“N-not even I know why, but it is not my place to question.”

You brought a hand to your chin.

“I...see.”

The room descended into silence after that, Zecora still trembling in her position. Speaking of.

“You don't need to bow to me.”

She looked at you, showing a mixture of genuine shock and awe on her face.

“R-really?”

“Sure. Hey what are you making with all these potions and ingredients.”

“I'm trying to make a very rare and powerful potion; one that can give the gift of magic to all to drink it.”

She got up suddenly and walked over to her cauldron, circling her hoof over the rim.

“That sounds interesting.”

“Indeed it is, but I lack one final ingredient that I will have trouble finding and obtaining. The fur of an Ursa is not easy to gain.”

“What's an Ursa?”

She looked over to you, turning away from her metal cauldron.

“An Ursa is a mighty star bear, made of the very constellations themselves. They are nigh impossible to kill.”

“A giant star bear? I killed two of them already, you could have the fur from that if you want.”

“Y-you killed an Ursa?!”

“Two; one small and one big. Well, one big and one bigger but still.”

“T-two...”

“Yep, and the fur is all yours.”

She suddenly snapped out of her stunned stupor and entered an even more shocked and stunned stupor.

“B-but that's enough fur for thousands of potions! How did you kill

two

Ursas’?”

“I crushed ones spine with my weight, and the other one I impaled with a giant tree.”

“...”

Zecora went silent and fell on her rump.

“I can show you where they are if you want.”

Zecora merely nodded her head slowly, eyes still wide with...astonishment? Awe? Fear? You couldn't tell, reading facial expressions was never one of your strong points, and that was even more so for equines.

“Follow me then.”

You stood up, careful not to bash your head through the ceiling, and walked out the door, holding it open for Zecora as she silently walked out besides you. You walked off into the forest in silence.

00-0-00

“See, I told you!”

You now stood before the massive mound of bear flesh. Strangely it wasn't decomposing yet, and no hungry animals had even come near it from the looks of it.

Zecora for her part just stood there, mouth agape and staring at it in shock.

You walked over to the larger bear corpse and pulled at the fur, frowning slightly when it didn't fall out as expected. You had to actually apply force to remove some of strange hair strands. It was strange that it hadn't become loose, as that would be expected of a decaying organism.

Zecora had walked up beside you at some point and was now examining the Ursa coat closely. She hummed to herself as she walked up and down along the wall of bear, occasionally tapping her hoof against it or pulling out a tuft of fur.

“This will be enough to make thousands of potions. Thank you.”

“No problem; I didn't know what I would have done with all this fur anyway.”

She hummed again in response, not taking her eyes off of the giant corpse.

“I may need your assistance in transporting this back to my hut. Could you possibly help me with that?”

“Sure.”

You had taken to sitting down against a tree some ten metres or so away from the larger corpse.

Abruptly, Zecora turned towards you.

“I will see you tomorrow then.”

She looked to the sky as it started darkening.

“It is getting dark, I must go.”

“Ok then, bye.”

You stood up once Zecora had disappeared into the tree line.

Now then, you needed to meet up with Zecora tomorrow with the fur she needed. Since the time on this planet was so short compared to yours you might as well just wait for tomorrow rather than walking home and then walking back. Plus you had to carve off this bear’s fur, so you had better get sarted.

You flicked out a blade and walked towards the downed creature, idly checking the sharpness of the weapon in your hand as you approached.

You plunged the knife into the bear and began your grisly task. While blood did pour out of the wound it did so in much lesser quantities than before, now it was more of a trickle compared to the torrent from last time.

You don't know how long it took you to skin the whole bear, but once you were done the moon was at its apex in the middle of the sky, and beginning its slow descent. To your left was a massive pile of the fur you had skinned while to the right was the now skinless Ursa.

You had time to kill while you waited now, so you thought you could spend it practising your conjuring skills.

You looked around for anything you could conjure, quickly spotting a few random rocks by the edge of the tree line opposite you. They would do.

You concentrated and formed the magic symbols, surprised at how easy it had become to do so. Within moments you had the spell done and a rift appeared. It didn't stay for long, depositing the rock you had woven into the spell in your hand and quickly disappearing. You were happy to see that the rock didn't seem to have any damage to it, and it lacked the signature black burnt stain that had been there on all previous conjured items.

You tried doing something different. Instead of bringing something to you, you would try to send it from its origin point someplace else. It seemed plausible enough, all that you would need to do is tweak the spell a bit.

After a bit of changing you decided that the spell should work the way that you intend it to work and tried it out. Once again the spell came quickly, much faster than your first attempts, forming the correct symbols before you released it. The stone you had woven into the spell disappeared in a rift only to reappear some twenty metres to the left of its original position. So it worked.

You spent the rest of the night continuously practicing all of the spells you had learnt, almost perfecting the illusion spells and getting more than proficient at conjuring.

When the sun came up you picked up all of the fur that you could and placed it on your shoulders, leaving about half of it behind. You set off towards Zecora’s hut just as the sun pierced through the tree line.

00-0-00

You made it to Zecora’s hut quickly, depositing the mass of fur in her back garden area but being careful to not crush any of the plants she was growing.

You walked back around to the front door and knocked on it a few times, creating several loud thuds as the metal in your bones collided with the wood, the only insulation being your skin and whatever minuscule amount of meat and fat was between that.

Several eons of lazy space travelling had not been kind to your muscles. Not that you really needed them.

You heard some stumbling and a moment later you saw a zebra in front of you. She smiled and welcomed you in.

“Have you brought the star bear fur?”

“Most of it.”

“Very good.”

You sat down on huge floor while Zecora walked out to her back door and saw the pile, upon which a smile graced her muzzle. You watched quietly while Zecora ran around and placed a variety of plants and herbs into the cauldron in the room, which, you now just noticed, was filled with boiling water atop a small fire.

For what seemed like hours Zecora put together ingredients before walking outside through her back door. She reemerged moments later with a tuft of that strange fur in her mouth. She measured its weight on some kind of mechanised device before placing the fur into the bubbling cauldron. The cauldron began bubbling even more, and the contents changed from a dark green to a bright purple colour.

Zecora moved away from the cauldron for some reason, which was enough reason for you to move away as well.

You could see why.

The cauldron exploded with smoke, billowing out pink fog and filling up the room. You walked hastily to the only window to open it, only to realise that it didn't have any glass panes or anything for you to actually open. That meant you had to wait for the smoke to slowly get sucked out of the window by itself.

Once the hut was cleared of most of the smoke and some visibility had been restored, you noticed Zecora walking back over to the cauldron with a glass phial. She dunked the phial into the liquid substance and filled it, placing a little stopper into the end to prevent any of it from leaking onto her floor.

Zecora took this strange purple potion and placed it near the window, where the sun could shine down on it from what few rays could pierce the think forest.

“It needs to settle in Solem’s sun for a few hours before it will be ready for use, until then I don't know what to do.”

“Well, we could start by bottling the rest of the...potion in the cauldron, at least before we think about doing anything else.”

“Very wise. Let us work then.”

Zecora showed you where she stored all her phials and instructed you to fill them all up with the chemical substance in the no-longer-bubbling cauldron while she set about finding cork stoppers for all of the containers, which, she had said, she kept outside in some kind of deep storage basement.

Seeing as you didn't truly know he affects of the potion Zecora just made you didn't exactly feel like getting any on you, so instead you carefully levitated all of the phials with you magic, using the opportunity to better your magical focus.

Within an hour of Equestrian time you had already emptied the entirety of the cauldron’s contents into exactly forty two phials, all of which were now floating around in the small hut in your blue magical aura.

Zecora came back in through her back door, a large cloth bag in her mouth. She stared in wonder at your display, which was confusing for you. You could lift this many objects with your Nanites without any problems, and magic was easierto use for this type of thing as well. Your Nanites tended to focus of the extreme minute details, while your magic was the opposite, encompassing huge quantities with little precision. Yet even this was considered a feat, it seemed.

You put the phials down on any surface you could find, leaving the floor littered with slightly glowing purple glass containers.

Words failed Zecora, so instead she ignored your stunt and set about corking all of the potions, placing them on shelves and near the one window, even tying a few to some branches outside of her hut, making sure all were in the light of day.

Zecora opened her mouth to speak to you but was interrupted by a sound of running hooves. From the sounds that were being made it appeared that one pony was running towards Zecora’s hut.

This proved to be true; the door slammed open with a small amount of force and a single, small pony ran in. Well, smaller than normal.

“Zecora! Zecora! Yah gotta’ help me!”

The little yellow filly was panting to regain her breath, yet somehow she could speak without any impediment.

“What is it young one? Surely it must be important to make you run.”

“More rhyming. Ooh, Yay.”

You threw your hands up into the air just to show the world how much you loved rhyming.

“Its mah friends and mah sister, they've all gone weird.”

“I'm no psychiatrist.....Damn, what rhymes with that?”

Zecora brought her hoof up to her muzzle as she mumbled that last part.

“Huh?”

The little filly tilted her head to the side questioningly, not having overheard Zecora’s comment.

“Nothing. Now what is it that ails you friends?”

“They've all got strange sickness’; mah sister is smaller than mah hoof, Rarity’s mane and fur are all messed uhp, Pinkie can't talk-”

That's probably a good thing.

“-, Fluttershy’s voice is all weird, Rainbow dash’s wings are stuck on uhpside down, and Twilight’s horn has gone all floppy!”

What!?! You certainly hoped that meant something different than what you thought it meant. Oh wait, she probably meant her unicorn horn. Hopefully.

“I see. This can only be the work of poison joke, a plant that has much in common with oak, but worse afflictions it can evoke.”

“Poison Joke?”

Again the little filly head tilted, his time to the opposite side.

“She means that blue flower that you almost stepped in yesterday. Your friends must have stepped in it. Here I can even show you what it looks like.”

You reached down into a little piece of folded fabric next to your coin pouch, pulling out the sample you had gathered yesterday, showing the blue flower to the small filly.

The yellow pony went to touch it but you pulled it out of her reach so that she didn't get infected with whatever caused the ailment to the others.

Zecora seemed to be freaking out a bit, though she somehow managed to look calm and collected, if that was at all possible.

When no one spoke and the room descended into silence you voiced your theories about the strange blue flower.

“Perhaps it's some kind of self sustaining virus that produces multiple strains, each with different and various ailments to those infected. If this is the case then a cure might have to be made for every variant strain. Hopefully one cure will be able to kill off all of the virus in one go, if it is a virus at all, that is. If it’s magic then I don't really know what to do, besides some analysis of the plant and the infected ponies. You guys got any ideas?”

You looked between the two, both had mouths open in confusion.

“I guess not. Zecora do you happen to know of any cure?”

She shook her head before looking back up to you.

“I-I- yes, I do. It's a simple herbal brew.”

“Excellent! I'll get going home then and see you in...say two hours?”

You tucked the flower back away for later study. It was an interesting specimen, and would undoubtedly quell your boredom for at least a few minutes.

With a final farewell you left the two to their own devices and set off into the forest, not choosing any particular direction just going any way your feet led you; you really just needed an excuse to walk around for a bit.

The forest was relatively silent, nothing but the...actually nothing at all besides the sound of your feet crushing the foliage and shrubbery beneath you. Nothing really concerning, especially if you could manage to kill those two bears; you doubted that they had any predators to fear.

You stumbled upon a small river cutting through the dense forest. It wasn't anything to be impressed by, only being a metre or so in width. Still though, water was water, and you liked to drink it on occasions, one such occasion being now.

You carefully sat down by the river’s edge, mindful not to slip into the slowing flowing steam while leaning in to drink some of the water in your cupped hands. It tasted like any fresh water would, but it was refreshing nonetheless.

Having had enough of the clean water you sat down upon the dense foliage, crushing it down into a comfy be d with your weight.

With time on your hands you once again evaluated your situation. Your magical skill and knowledge was growing at an exponential rate, becoming more and more easy with every use. You had yet to see any negative side effects of living in an environment where it was lacking detail, and you had yet to experience any more drastic mood and personality shifts, leading you to believe that you just had a mental breakdown caused by excessive stress, something you were usually very good at handling. You had found a way home, or at least an attempt has been made to get you home, its effectiveness having yet to be seen.

You brought a hand up to your necklace, where the fusion devices were. You had taken off the construction module and placed it on the table in your house four or five days ago in the belief that it would be safer there than on your person, a mistake now that you thought about it. What was more it was still there, within the grasp of anyone who entered what was left of your house. That meant it was in the presence of both Gilda and that red mare, Shae.

That would be your next course of action then; finding someplace safe for the module to reside until construction was complete, since neither you nor your house were a particularly stable environment. After waiting here for...ten more minutes.

You stood up and turned away from the river, as you did so you noticed a timber wolf on the other side of the river staring at you. It glowing eyes didn't leave you for even a moment, its piercing gaze looking almost sympathetic.

The creature stared for a few more moments before tilting its head slightly downwards and leaping into the think bush behind it, disappearing from view. How strange.

Ignoring the odd occurrence you continued on your way back to Zecora’s. Since you couldn't remember exactly which direction her hut was you pulled out your map, the hologram appearing and projecting outwards, filling the surrounding air with a multi coloured, three dimensional map that was roughly five metres in diameter.

The map was much larger this time; you had decided to play around with it to understand how to use it better in the future. The majority of the map - the flora, earth and any other natural structure - appeared as a soft white light in the shape of the environment, with the corners of all those objects having a sharp, also white light although much brighter than the other parts, to the point where it made the duller colour almost seem like a different colour entirely.

The only highlights to the map were any buildings, places of interest - designated so by frequent visitation, animals, and you. The map had set it so that any creature showed up as the same colour of magic that emanated from them when casting magic, ergo you were blue while that timber wolf - now about fifty metres away, according to the map - was a deep green.

The buildings showed up as a bright yellow, with outlines similar in fashion to those of the environment, animals, and the other surroundings. The only exception being your home, which was an identical colour to you. On the map your home looked normal, but you knew that it would probably be a smouldering crater by now.

Zecora’s hut was just to the west of where you were currently standing, the same trail that you walked on the map showing you the way. Anything beyond the small pathway became fuzzy, almost static, as you had yet to walk there yet, something that didn't happen with the large majority of the rest of the map because it wasn't as crowded out in Ponyville.

You walked through the hologram down the trail, deactivating it once you had passed through it completely, the particles of light breaking away and flying off in random directions until they fizzled into nothingness.

It was a surprisingly short trip back, partly because you didn't recognise any of the plants you passed; each and every one of them a fascination, just waiting to be studied by someone. Such fascination was why you had chosen to just idly wander the Universe in your starship.

You found the small hut amongst the thick forest, approaching it from the back door entrance, passing past the bear fur and all of Zecora’s plants. They, too, were another curiosity.

Since the door was already opened you entered without knocking first.

“Hey Zecora, I'm back. Have you made the- what the shit is this?”

Inside you found Zecora’s cauldron knocked over, with its green, bubbly contents spilled all over the floor. Many of the glass phials you had carefully placed about the hut had been smashed to pieces, with their contents leaking into the wooden floor.

The elements were all in the room, apart from Applejack, who was strangely absent. All those that were in the hut though seemed to be infected by the little blue flower that you held in one of your many pockets.

Oh, you found Applejack. She was tiny, even by pony standards. She only came up to your ankle, if that. She was gripping onto Zecora’s ear, as if she was trying to break it off.

Before you had run into the room, everyone seemed to be assaulting Zecora, but the moment you had entered they all turned to face you.

Twilight was the first to speak up, walking towards you and pointing an accusatory hoof at Zecora.

“Its Zecora. She's cursed us! I didn't want to believe that she cursed us, but the evidence is overwhelming!”

Rarity joined in, shouting towards you while stomping over to Zecora and glaring...at least you think she was glaring. It was a little difficult to tell when she had hair over her face.

“She made me look ridiculous.”

“She made me sound ridiculous!”

Fluttershy?

“Oh...hmm, ha...ha... Ha ha... Ha ha ha ha heh!”

You couldn't take it. You fell onto the floor in a fit of laughter. T-that voice! With Fluttershy? Between your bouts of mirth you could see Fluttershy shying away behind her mane in embarrassment.

“She made me speak ridiculous!”

Pinkie made you laugh even harder. Despite her voice being completely destroyed by blue dots along her inflamed tongue you could still understand her word for word, partly because you were good at deciphering things and partly because of some inbuilt translators. That just made it even funnier!

“She ruined my horn!”

Twilight pointed to her floppy horn in anger. Now that little pony made sense.

“How dare you! You destroy my home, destroy my work. Then rudely accuse me of being a jerk?”

By now your laughter had died down and you had collected yourself, lifting yourself into your usual crouching position.

“You put this curse on us, now you're gonna uncurse us.”

Rainbow Dash flew forward towards Zecora but you stopped her by grabbing her tail before she could tackle the zebra to the ground.

Before you could stop this from escalating Zecora lost it, glaring at the ponies even more fiercely and trotting up towards Twilight.

“It is unwise to venture down this road. Your actions will make my anger explode!”

“Ugh, fucking rhymes.”

“Where is Apple Bloom!?”

Twilight smacked her head against Zecora’s, returning the death stare.

Just then you saw the little filly from before walk into the hut from the front entrance, carrying saddlebags that looked too large for a pony her size.

“Zecora! Ah think ah found all the things ya asked for. What in Ponyville is goin' on here?”

“These brainless idiots are attacking Zecora.”

She looked up to you with wide eyes before looking back to the assembled ponies.

“But why?”

You shrugged your shoulders, a gesture that was lost on the ponies in the room.

“I don't know.”

“Apple Bloom! You're okay!”

Applejack let go of her sleeper hold on Zecora’s ear and pointing towards the small pony.

Apple Bloom for her part just looked confused.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Twilight suddenly leapt across the entire room and landed in front of the little filly in a defensive stance, still looking hatefully at Zecora.

“Because Zecora is an evil enchantress who cursed us and was gonna cook you up into soup!”

All was silent, until Zecora and Apple Bloom both burst out laughing at the accusation.

“Oh Twilight. Did those silly fillies finally get in yer head? You know there's no such thing as a curse.”

That was a statement coming from a magical talking pony...where did your life go so wrong.

“Apple Bloom, sweetie. You can't just stand there and tell me this isn't a curse.”

Twilights voice was laced with a care that was directed to Apple Bloom, yet was entwined with skepticism, one if the only traits you valued about these ponies. Too bad they always seemed to apply their skepticism at inappropriate times.

Still, Apple Bloom was defiant.

“This isn't a curse.”

Zecora stepped into the attention of the group of ponies.

“If you will remember back, the words I spoke were quite exact.”

“It was a warnin'. About that blue plant. It's called Poison Joke.”

“That plant is much like poison oak. But its results are like a-”

“Stop!”

You flailed your hands in the air.

“I can't take any more of this rhyming. Zecora, if it was cultural or traditional I would hold my tongue but it isn't, it is because of some stupid law that not a single person in this hut could give a flying fuck about! So please, shut up with the rhymes! Speak in a way we can understand without riddles! Please!”

She paused.

“Very well.”

You let out a relieved sigh and lowered your arms.

“Thank you.”

Zecora returned her attention to the ponies.

“As I was saying, the poison flower is dangerous. Its leaves will create a nasty side effect if it contacts a ponies’ body, intended to be only as a joke.”

“What in the hay does that mean?”

The mini-jack has spoken.

“It means this plant does not cause injury. Instead this plant will just torment those who are plagued with it just to get a laugh from its victim.”

“...Will somepony please get her to talk normal?”

You clenched your fists angrily.

“Fucking dumbass! I just did!”

Twilight trotted into the cluster of ponies and tried to explain the concept to the apparently simple-minded pony. She was slow even compared to the other ponies in the room, with the close second either being Rainbow or Rarity, although Rarity seemed to have some modicum of intelligence.

“I think what she's saying is that when we ran in to save Apple Bloom, we ran into the poison joke. All our problems are just little jokes that played on us.”

“little jokes?! Very funny.”

Applejack let out a snort of annoyance, before Rainbow flew onto the scene.

“Ok, fine. But what about the cauldron?”

“And the chanting?”

“And the creepy décor?”

“Ornaments from my native land where I am from. This one speaks 'hello', and this 'welcome'.”

“Not welcoming at all, if you ask me.”

“The words I chanted were from olden times. Something you call a nursery rhyme.”

“But the cauldron... The Apple Bloom soup?”

You zoned out after that, instead flipping at a loose piece of fabric that you made, watching as it rebuilt itself into its original form. It was immensely more entertaining than the discussion going on between the ponies and Zecora.

They seemed to reach an agreement over their petty, stupid argument, and they all departed, including Zecora, leaving you all on your own in the little hut. You would have liked a little warning at least, before being randomly left alone, especially since you were here to help Zecora.

You stood up and stretched, surprising yourself when you heard sounds akin to grinding metal coming from your back. You weren't used to any sound coming from your back; stretching was merely a way to work your muscles, and your bones never really collided or ground against each other.

Curious, you touched your spine with a hand, feeling your pronounced bones sticking out even more than normal. Nothing too noticeable, at least with a shirt on. You had never been anything but skinny, borderline anorexic even, with the only time even coming close to anything resembling muscle mass being the more...exciting days of your life.

You walked out the door moments after your inspections, walking back towards your home. You knew how to travel between Zecora’s and your own homes, so the map wasn't needed. From here, it would be a semi-long journey back home, about an hours walking distance. That's implying walking though.

You set forth at a light run.

00-0-00

You didn't slow down or speed up until you reached the clearing where the Ursa corpses were. You slowed to a stop. Something came to the front of your mind, something you had noticed before; this planet’s cave system, it seemed weird last time you were in one, unnatural in its formation.

You walked up to the cave entrance, peering in. It may have only been a few metres large or it could have spanned kilometres for all you knew.

Creating a small, bright white light with your still-growing illusion art skills you entered the darkened cave that seemed to sap the light from the air, making your little orb of white look like some kind of wavering liquid, casting long shadows over everything.

Such a strange anomaly did not deter you.

Increasing the power to the spell, you walked forward further into the cavernous space. It was understandably big, considering that that Ursa creature had lived here before its demise, about a hundred metres to the ceililung at the lowest points, and about twice that in width.

Due to the darkness that enshrouded the area you could hardly see anything, everything more than a few metres away being reduced to nothing more than a blurry outline. Precisely why you fell over something.

You looked around from your position on the floor, illusion fizzling out and plunging the room into utter darkness, leaving you effectively blind.

The floor was damp and the air felt humid, something you were just noticing now that you were on your stomach, for some strange, bizarre reason.

Fumbling around the ground, you attempted to find what you had tripped over, eventually grasping something that felt vaguely familiar.

Pulling the object in front of you revealed what it truly was.

Its features was somehow enhanced by the poor lighting, the human skull seemed to scowl back at you.

Yeah...now would be a nice time to leave. You had done exploring the strange cave anyway. Just one problem though.

Which way was out?

Rolling onto your back you looked around for any indication of light for which you could use to find the entrance and leave, hopefully sooner rather than later. Whatever light-cancelling field permeated the area made that task impossible, though, so you would need to find another way out.

You sent out a pulse of Nanites, whose normal bright blue lights were dimmed to a dull glow in the cavern. They went outwards, and after a few metres you could no longer see them at all. You could still feel them though, and a few thousand of them had managed to escape out of the dark cave.

The exit was directly behind you, so you crawled around on your stomach until you were facing the correct way before lifting yourself up off the floor and slowly walked forwards. As you went further the darkness became greyness, almost like the light cancelling room was being overpowered by something else.

Gah. Too much light.

Walking past the cave entrance was like walking through a wall of light. On one side no light could exist and on the other it permeated the very atmosphere itself. It burnt your eyes, forcing you to bring up your hands to cover them while they adjusted to the sudden light change.

Rubbing your eyes you looked around the area, finding it to be exactly the same as it was before you had left it. From here you could see that the Ursas’ still weren't decaying, even after having their skin peeled and having their flesh exposed for nearly a whole Equestrian day.

You began walking back to your house, passing through a narrow area of forest that lacked any vegetation that connected the clearing you just left to another, much smaller clearing.

Something whizzed through the air past your face and into the forest behind you. Great what was it now?

Several armour clad ponies jumped out from the forest into the narrow passageway, each wielding something that looked like a crossbow in either their magic or a contraption attaching it to their legs if they weren't a unicorn. All of which were huge by Equestrian standards, coming up to your waist, almost twice the height of any of have other ponies you had seen, barring the princesses.

The small group was only seven ponies large; three unicorns, two earth ponies and two pegasi in all. They all wore similar armour made of bits of leather, fabric and metal woven together into intricate patterns of spirals and runic symbols, similar to that of magical symbols.

“What is it now?”

One of the ponies answered your question by firing its projectile weapon at you, sending a tiny metal rod through the air at high velocity.

You responded by running to the tree line and pulling a large, thick tree down for use as cover. From your position behind the log you could hear the pegasi taking off and hear the sound of magic buzzing and thrumming through the air.

“What the fuck is wrong with you ponies?!”

You had to roll to the side as one of the projectiles tore through your tree cover as if it wasn't even there, very nearly impaling your shoulder.

You leapt out from cover and ran towards one of the unicorns, a mare by the looks of it. She turned her horn towards you as it crackled with green energy before launching a massive fireball towards you, its giant green girth surging towards you with a fury.

You jumped to the side, using a tree as a springboard and breaking it in the process to angle yourself so you could continue running. You heard the fireball impact something behind you and felt a heat wave wash over you from even further back.

You used your momentum gained from the stunt to knee her in the chin, immediately finding something different about these ponies.

They weighed much, much more. Not anywhere near your current weight, but probably close to your weight before your bones were infused with the metalloid that was still there. Almost like a normal pony.

Regardless, your attack held enough energy to fully fling the mare into the air, tumbling around and dropping her crossbow in the process.

Before you could react a weight slammed into you from behind, a brave earth pony stallion having wrapped his forehooves around your neck in an attempt to...something. You didn't rightly know what he was attempting to do really.

It became clear what he was trying to achieve. The only other earth pony, also a stallion, had taken aim and was now pulling the release mechanism with his strange hoof contraption.

You reacted as well as you could, considering how rusty you were with your combat prowess. You jumped into the air, spinning around on all three axes while simultaneously coordinating it so that the bolt impaled directly into the poor fool on your back, who you then landed on as you hit the ground, driving the rod all the way through him. You were quite lucky the projectile was as short as it was.

You didn't stop. Rolling to your feet and charging at the one who accidentally shot his ally with the intent to kill, only being stopped by another, much larger force colliding with you from the side as the only pegasus mare hit you. You flipped horizontally through the air rapidly, so fast that all you could see was a blur of blue and brown, bits of green smearing into existence occasionally.

You hit the ground hard, rolling for a bit before coming to a stop and quickly got back to your feet. Just in time for a unicorn to fire a bolt, which you barely had time enough to raise your hand in defence.

The rod impaled your hand but only went halfway through it before losing all momentum. You had expected to just be able to pull it out and be done with it but that proved to be wrong. Very wrong.

Your hand burned, in more ways than one. Looking in absolute horror you saw that your Nanites, who up until now operated without any flaw, were corroding away into nothingness, such destruction stemming from the offending object in your hand and spreading outwards like a mini electrical storm. Your hand also happened to be on fire.

You yanked the metal rod out from your burning hand, but the damage was done; your Nanites were temporarily out of commission, and the flames had already burnt down to your metallic bones, leaving an almost perfect cut straight through your hand that ceased to grow larger now that the cause was gone.

Within seconds of the flames dying down your bodies own enhanced healing kicked in, albeit much, much slower than the Nanites.

You lacked the time to contemplate it further as the pony you had crushed and impaled before got up and was charging at you again. These ponies didn't go down easy.

You crouched down low as he was upon you and flipped him over your back into another pony who was attacking from behind, with just enough time to grab the stallion pegasus as he flew at you. You spun sideways through the air while throwing the stallion in your hands at the two who were trying to get up, barely dodging the other three projectiles that whizzed past where you had just been standing.

You landed with a soft thud in a crouched position. Seeing as all the ponies assaulting you were momentarily distracted - either with standing back up or reloading their crossbows - you took the opportunity to quickly and crudely bandage your wounded hand with a bit of fabric constructed with your other hand, seeing as all Nanites in the afflicted one wouldn't respond.

You finished just as the ponies prepared their weapons, with less than a millisecond to spare before you were being shot at again.

You dove to the side while simultaneously using your magic to uproot multiple trees to use as a shield, all compressed into a single square block equal to your height and about half a metre in thickness. All the bolts impacted and dug into the wooden shield, none going fast enough to actually hit you on the other side.

With your shield in one hand your melee options were down to none, especially since you couldn't see anything past your wooden barricade without looking around and risking having your head impaled, so you chose to use a more distanced approach to this fight.

You held one hand behind your back while channeling magic into it from the surroundings, preparing to momentarily drop the shield down low enough to release death upon the group. Now.

You pulled the shield down quickly but brought it back up just as fast, feeling something heavy impact it followed moments later followed by a blast of heat. You could feel the wood burning with a brilliant pink flame; within moments your shield would burn all the way down to your hand, so you had to think fast.

Fuck it.

You dropped your shield and brought both arms to your front, the left one now fully coated in bright jumping flashes of electricity after soaking up so much magic. You poured more magic into you right and unleashed the pent up energy upon the unsuspecting ponies before you, all of which, bar one, jumped to the side.

The electricity surged forwards with enough power to vaporise solid iron, ionising the air as it went, filling the air with a harsh buzz combined with an even louder sound of thunder. Within the blink of an eye it was upon the poor stallion who hadn't reacted quickly enough, however something unexpected happened.

Instead of converting into a fine read vapour as you had expected, your lightning clashed against what looked like a hard light dome comprised of connected sparkles that shone over the pony like a beacon. You kept up the attack in the hope that you would be able to overpower whatever shield was guarding the pony, however the other ponies were now back on you, bearing crossbows and magic in kind.

You relented, dodging to the clearing that you had slowly been getting closer to since the fight broke out. It was a small thing, only twelve or so metres in diameter with a roughly elliptical shape. Little was there in the way of cover, with the exception of a few large rocks that littered the fern and grass covered area.

Now exposed, the ponies’ had an easy target to fire upon, as such four bolts whizzed through the air towards you. You leapt to the left, hiding behind a small-ish rock that only just covered your frame entirely. You peeked around the stone to look at what had become of the stallion that should have died.

He was fine. The only change that was visible was the metal in his armour, which was glowing hotly and vibrating within its leather confines. You deduced it as being some kind of battery that stored harmful energy which it then released it gradually. You had encountered these before, so you knew that they were a fucking pain; the only way to break through was to overpower it to the point where the battery either died or exploded.

You didn't know the extent of what it blocked though; some of these batteries could block anything from radiation to kinetic force to everything and anything in between. So you devised a test.

You levitated a small rock the size of a bit and started adding kinetic energy to it. Within seconds it was already vibrating in the air...and then shaking. You released it.

It shot through the air with tremendous speed, almost enough to break the sound barrier. It impacted the same stallion as before but this time his shields didn't save him. Instead it passed through as if it wasn't even there at all, snapping his right foreleg in half like a twig, eliciting a loud pained scream from him as he dropped to the ground.

The others paid him no mind and instead began barraging you with those nasty bolts, each one hitting only the rock you crouched behind.

You closed your eyes and looked around, seeing the world through magic and locating the complex structures of the ponies behind the dull veins of magic in the rock in front of you.

You pulled your hands out in front of you and coordinated the lines of magic using your hands as a template; whenever they moved, the magic you were focusing on would also move. With this you pulled all the magic out of certain areas on the ground, leaving gaping voids of nothingness around them. Your fists trembled as you forced the magic veins to your will until they snapped.

By the time the unicorns felt something off about their surroundings it was already too late.

Several explosion rocked the ground at once, sending out blasts of pure energy into the area. One particularly unlucky stallion was surrounded by three explosions at once and his shield was obliterated, the metal in his armour detonating as well and impaling him all over his body.

You ran out from cover and sent out more electricity towards the remaining ponies, destroying another two shields but leaving those that were protected unharmed.

The ponies retaliated by shooting out more bolts, one of which impacted your humerus while another went through the gaps between your ribs into your left lung.

You stopped. You could feel blood leaking into your lung, and feel blood dripping from your arm as you fell to your knees.

Before you the ponies lined up, silent as they were when you first encountered them moments ago. Even the one that was impaled got off the floor with a groan to stand before you. What the fuck would you need to do to kill these things?

As one, the ponies pulled out their crossbows and took aim, all while you feebly removed the bolt in your arm and the bolt in your chest, each leaking red vital fluids at an alarming rate. You wouldn't die from lack of blood loss; your spatial and temporal manipulators could operate your cells under their own power without need of any outside interference, and they themselves were eternal and everlasting: the one blessing to all from the tier one higher ups.

No, but the ponies could certainly do that if you weren't careful about your next move.

With resounding clicks the bolts slid into place and were ready to fire. You had one shot to not fail this and die.

As they fired you slammed your fists into the ground, sucking up all moisture into a single wall which you instantly froze into a solid.

The wall wasn't enough to completely stop the projectiles, but it did slow them down to the point you could effectively dodge all of them at once, which you did without any delay.

The wound in your chest made it difficult to bend over while the one in your arm made it painful to move your limb at all. This would be a problem if you didn't quickly find a way to kill these things. Well...it didn't fail you last time so why should it now?

You ran to the tree line and uprooted the closest stubby tree, hoisting it above your head like some kind of giant wooden war hammer before charging towards the stallion who was the weakest link; the one who had already been crushed, electrified, and impaled twice.

With a scream of pain the stallion was flattened, the sound of snapping bones filling the clearing as no doubt every bone in his body did snap.

You threw the tree to the side, into the other ponies who had leapt to safety away from - What the fuck! He's still not dead!

The stallion was slowly rising up from the ground, bones somehow completely intact.

“Naaaarrrh!!! Why won't you fucking die!!!”

You charged forward, no longer caring about the bolts as they dug into you. You grabbed the insolent little animal by the neck, choking the life out it as you raised it to your face in anger.

Something in your mind snapped, of that you were sure.

You punched into the creatures barrel, ripping out any organs you could get your fingers on while he screamed in pure agony. You weren't done yet.

You penetrated his upper chest this time, grabbing a left rib bone and tearing it away with a reverberating crack. You pulled out lung tissue and then his heart, holding it before him like some kind of trophy as you squeezed and made it pop like a big, red, juicy, water balloon!

By now the stallion was a meaty mess, naught but a gargling sack that choked on its own blood and bodily fluids.

With one last pull you ripped the two sides of his rib cage open, letting all his remaining organs fall to the floor with loud slurping thuds.

You discarded the useless vessel and turned around to face the other meats, all now quivering before you like they should be. Such mere animals should not even be allowed to exist in the face of a God such as yourself!

“Ha. Ha. Ha ha. Heh ha he hah. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

With manic laughter you lunged towards the nearest flesh sack, futilely attempting to escape your divine fury by shooting more bolts into you as she screamed in fear.

Ha ha, yes! Your screams please me! Your pain makes me stronger!

You tore her in half like a piece of annoying wet paper, letting her bleed out across the grass while holding onto her hind half before ripping that in two as well.

Where's he next one for meeee~ee, heh he!

You looked for your next meal; the other earth pony stallion catching your fancy. In the blink of an eye you had him in your grasp and he screamed oh man did he scream but the scream was sooo~ooo goo~ood and invigorating! You decided you liked this one, so you would play with him first.

Holding him by the tail you slammed him into the ground with the force of a carrier ship, plowing dirt and meat in equal quantities. You lifted your new toy again, before slamming him over to the other side, repeating the process and getting faster and faster until all that was left was a pulpy smear with bits of fur and bone. Clinging to it in a delicious fashion.

Awww, not fair! My new toy!

“Whoooo~oo’s neee~eext?”

You turned to the remaining four ponies, all of which, in a surprising bout of intelligence, decided they should run. In a bout of not-so-much-intelligence they decided to run as a big group, making them easy pickings.

However, you couldn't let them get away now, could you?

You smashed your palms into the ground and electrified the entire clearing, making the whole area look like an orgy of epilepsy and flashing blue and white lights. It didn't stop them entirely, but it did slow them down, which was all you needed.

You leapt high into the air and landed on a convulsing pegasus mare, who screamed in fright and fear for her life.

These animals might be worthy of being my pets!

You held her in front of you. To her, you must of looked like a vengeful dark God; arcs of powerful lightning dancing across a bloodied and impaled body with enough strength to crack the earth and move the heavens, all with an insane smile on his face.

“Ooh, you have lovely wings my dear...”

Her eyes widened in realisation and she started bucking futilely against your chest, but it wouldn't stop you...

You grabbed her left wing suddenly and pulled it right back, smiling further as you heard and felt it snap in half and crumble in your hands, feathers falling to the ground in heaps and blood spraying across your already coated face.

She was sobbing helplessly now, so you ended her quickly with a swift snap of her neck and crunch of bone.

You would need to finish off your fun soon; the electrical storm you had summoned was beginning to dissipate, and the ponies would begin moving once more.

More! More!

The other pegasus, one of the two stallions left, was next.

You landed on his back softly, so as not to spoil him before you could do any fun damage.

You held a foot to his back, pressing him to the ground while bending over. You reached down, ignoring his cries of mercy, and lunged into his skin, grasping his spine before ripping it away from the useless creature it had been in moments earlier, bits of meat and nerves still dangling from it.

The only two left made one last desperate attempt, but more lightning stopped them just as quickly.

Ha ha! Fools!

You walked over to the closest pony, the stallion of the two unicorns left.

Your hand sprung forwards and grabbed his horn, twisting it off with a satisfying crunch, filling the air once more with screams of agony.

Your vision was a swirl of uncountable colours and sensations as you forced his horn to your will and started channelling magic through it, making it burst into hellfire, freeze and crack with electrical energy all at once.

You weakly backhanded the whimpering stallion across the clearing, where he slid to a stop ten metres away from you, conveniently right next to the only other remaining pony, so that you didn't need to walk very far once you were done with this specimen.

You lift him into the air with one hand, the other holding his horn like a knife.

You stabbed him, sinking his own horn into his chest and feeling the pain of magical backlash as the arcane energy attacked everything in the vicinity. Pain was good, pain is good.

The pony writhed in absolute agony as he was burned, frozen and electrified to death with his own magic before slumping over, dead.

Now then...what the fuck was that all about?

You looked over to the mare, desperately trying to climb over steep rocks that she had cornered herself against. Tears stained her fur, and her companions blood soaked her armour. She seemed to be the youngest of the group, and was the first one to fire at you.

She saw your gaze and whimpered while hiding beneath her own hooves for protection.

You looked to the pony in your hands, still with his own horn stuck in his neck as blood gushed from the gaping holes in him, then back to the mare by the rocks.

“You can go now.”

She had not been expecting such a casual tone from you, as proven by her stuttering voice and shaking hooves. Still though, she did not need to be told twice as she was off into the forest within seconds.

Now then, you should get home; sleep was a very nice thought.

You didn't make it ten metres before collapsing into a black void.

Saphrim goes to Equestria

by Delta04

-1- The Rift

-2- The Arrival

-3- The Cottage

-4- The Pink...Thing

-5- The Tree

-6- The Angry Alicorn

-7- The Magic of Science

-8- The Griffon

-9- The Bear and Unicorn Show

-10- The Problem...?

~Interlude - 0: He Watches~

-11- The Blood