> Lost with Friends: A New World
>  by TheBronyMatrixFilms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Prologue



Do you like those moments when you’re in bed at four in the morning then your alarm wakes you up?

Well I don’t.

But that doesn’t stop me from setting my alarm at such a ridiculous time in the morning. But luckily today wasn’t a school day. So I got up to take a quick shower and get ready for the day. After getting changed into some hiking boots, cargo pants, a short-sleeve black shirt and a light blue sweater, I head downstairs and grab myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

As my mouth gets assaulted with the sweet cinnamon flavor, my dad comes downstairs.

“Buenos dias Leo”, he greets me groggily.

“Mornin’ Pa”

“So, today is your camping trip?”, he asks.

“Yep, already have my bag in the car, just gonna to wait an hour or two before heading out and pick up, Rosa, Ishmael and Felipe cuz I doubt they are up at this time”

My dad just chuckled at that and said, “Pues that is true, I’ll just join you instead of standing here watching you eat.”

He just walks into the kitchen and comes back with a bowl of cereal. I finished a couple minutes later, but I stay at the table having a bit of small talk with him. Lord knows that I rarely just sit and talk to him. Its my fault that I just stay in my room most of the time. 

I go back up to my room and open up my laptop and click on Steam and just play some games. Doing that effectively killed an hour. After looking at my bedside alarm clock that read 06:45 A.M. I grabbed my phone and called Felipe and after about 4 rings he finally picks up his phone.

“What do you want?” he asks me groggily and half annoyed.

“Hey Felipe, you forgot already bro?” I joked.

“Huh? What day is it?”

“It’s Monday man, we going camping today remember?”

“Oh yea, so you coming to pick me up?”

“Yeah man, get yo shit ready. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“Ok then. Bye.”

And with that the call ended and then I called Rosa and Ishmael with similar replies, but they actually remembered and Ishmael sounded more awake. Grabbing the laptop with the solar batteries I bought for it a couple months back, cell phone, Ipod, wallet, car keys, my crimson red Arizona baseball cap and my dog tags that read:

Leonardo


Anaya


Castro


“FACE THE DARKNESS,


EMBRACE INSANITY”

With that I headed downstairs and went to bid my dad farewell for my trip.

“Pa! Ya me voy!”

“Ok Leo. Remember be safe and take care, not just for your sake but, for your mom and little brother and sister.”

“I know Pa. Pues Bai!” 
 
Shouldering my small backpack that I have for my laptop I walked out the door to the porch and opened another door to the world outside. Breathing in the cool spring air I placed the baseball cap backwards and closed the door behind me and walked to my car. Well it’s not really my car but I use it more than my parents do, so i go up to the white Pontiac Grand Prix and open the trunk where a black duffel bag lays with some stuff and put my backpack next to it and closed it and got in the driver seat. I turned on the radio and listened to my favorite station.

“Good Morning Milwaukee! This is KISSFM and it's 6:55 and 56 degrees and here is Katy Perry Dark Horse!” 

By the time the song ended I had reached Felipe’s house and honked. Seconds later a hispanic teenager with dark brown skater-style hair, black Converse, glasses, skinny jeans, a dark blue shirt and red light sweat shirt with a blue duffel bag walks out and towards my car. He knocks on the window and points towards the trunk. I nod and push a button to open it. After hearing it close I see that the passenger side door opens and he jumps in.

“Sup Felipe.”

“Hey. Did we really have to go this early?” he asked while he buckled up.

“No but it’s a long trip and I want to set camp before the sun goes down”

“Well I’m going back to sleep here”

And with that he reclines the seat a bit and nods off. He always complains about waking up early. But hey, its not his fault that I wake up too damn early.

As I drove off I think back about ten years ago when I met him in first grade. Even though I don’t remember the conversation we had (I mean really who is going to remember the first conversation they had with their best friend ten years ago?) but I remember how it went. It’s like watching a fuzzy movie without the sound. 

Anyway, I thought about this as I pulled up at Rosa’s house and repeated the process with honking. Then a short hispanic teen with long curly brown hair, glasses, black Nike, blue jeans, batman shirt and a leather and denim jacket and a yellow duffel bag walks to the trunk of the car and throws her bag in and opens the back driver-side door.

“Hey Leo, what’s up?”

“Nothing much, just picked up Felipe here”, I said pointing to the sleeping body.

“Hey, you know what would be funny?” she asked while repressing a laugh.

“Let me guess…”

“Permanent marker” we said in union.

“Na, wait till’ later, after I pick up Ishmael”, I said.

“Awwwww, ok then”

With that I made a U-turn and headed to the freeways to the north side of the city.

“So Leo, have you asked any girl out yet?”, Rosa asks me.

“No”, I sighed.

“Ha, you’re still the only one between the four of us that's single”, she snickered.

“Shut up Rosa”

“Well, it's true”

Luckily for me, Ishmael’s house wasn’t too far up north so I got there pretty quick. This time instead of me honking he was already waiting for us on his porch. Ishmael was a black teen with a short black afro, glasses (I mean seriously, I’m the only one between us that doesn’t need glasses), brown hiking boots, grey shirt, a grey light sweater, blue jeans and a camo duffel bag. When he finished loading up his stuff he jumped into the car.
 
“Sup’ Leo. Sup’ Rosa”

“Sup’, well let’s get this show on the road!”. I replied

Now comes the really long and boring five hour trip to a campsite that was on the other side of the state. Needless to say I was kinda irritated about an hour into the trip. I swear, I sometimes just invite things to piss me off. 

“Are we there yet?”, Felipe asks who woken up by this time 

“No”

“Are we there yet?”

“No”

“Are we there yet?”

“Look a Mc’Donalds!”, I said in relief. 

When we walked in I told them to order what they want but not to over do it. When we got our meals we walked to a table and started eating.

“Leo you really need to get a girl, man” commented Rosa.

“Seriously can we stop talking about that, it’s bad enough you guys rub it in”

“She’s right man, you need to get laid.”, added Ishmael, “When we get back, we getting you a girl”

“Meh, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the fail”, Felipe said offhandedly.

“Fuck you man”, I shot back.

“Na man, I’m straight, so I'd rather not”

“UGH!”, I groaned in defeat.

“Ok, ok let’s stop messing with him, now did you guys bring anything good?”, asked Rosa

“A revolver, two pistols and a rifle”, answered Ishmael.

A little bit of soda went down the wrong tube when he said that. Seconds later Felipe and Rosa picked me off the floor and patted me on the back to help me clear my lungs of the drink.

“Your joking right”, I wheezed.

“Nope”

“What are they?”

“One Colt Python, two Colt 1911s and a 1911 Springfield”

“Holy shit dude, I call dibs on the Springfield”

He smiled at that, “Knew you’d like it” 

“I’ll be more careful driving then, I don’t want to get arrested for having guns on us”

“Well let’s throw away this trash and head back out”, said Felipe.

“Already did, I’ll wait for you guys by the car”, replied Rosa.



	

*KRACK!*

“BOOYAH!”, I yelled as I hit the last bottle that was set up for me a couple meters away.

“Nice shot Leo, but not as good a me” replied Ishmael, then proceeded to shoot three bottles in without missing with the magnum.

“Shut up Ishmael, you own the guns”, replied Felipe who only manage to hit one bottle.

Rosa was standing behind us just laughing at Felipe’s expense.

“If you think you can do better then you try, Rosa!” Felipe sneered.

“Ok then I will”, she said with a smug grin on her face. She then pulled out the pistol Ishmael lent her and shot the other two bottles that Felipe didn’t hit. She then turned back around, clicking the pistol's safety on, with a shit-eating grin that made the trollface look sad.

“Fuck this shit!”, yelled Felipe, holstering the pistol and walked back to the campsite.

We arrived a couple hours ago to the state park and set camp by a small lake surrounded by woods. Right now it was about 5:30 P.M. and had plenty of time before sundown. Shouldering the rifle I walked up to Ishmael and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks for bringing these things man, Lord knows we would've been bored”

“No, thank you for bringing us out here. I would of been more bored at home. Hell I would of been stuck doing chores most of spring break if you didn’t offer to take us camping”, he said, “How did you get our parents to agree to let us go camping anyways?”

“I have my ways”, I said with a smirk.

“He offered to work for them for the first month of summer break!”, yelled Felipe.

Ishmael and Rosa bursted out laughing. “Hey, its a good trade-off, one week of camping for a month of work”, I reasoned.

“Fuck Yeah! No work for a month or so!”, cheered Rosa.

“Just cuz’ I’m going to be working for your parents doesn’t mean I’m your slave”, I said, “And if you treat me like one, I’ll murder you in your sleep”

“Damn bro that is dark”, commented Ishmael.

“Eh, whatever”, shrugged Felipe, “Who’s hungry?” He pulled out a couple a sandwiches from a cooler.

“I am”, I replied.

“Sure man, throw one over here”, answered Ishmael.

“FOOD!”, moaned Rosa who lunged at the sandwich that was thrown at Ishmael and intercepted it.

Felipe and I rolled our eyes at Rosa’s shenanigans. Ishmael just sighed and walked up to the cooler and grabbed a sandwich. After throwing the wrappers in the cooler we sat around doing various things for half an hour until Felipe spoke up. 

“Hey you guys want to start the campfire?”

“The firewood is already set up man, but here light it up”, said Ishmael who threw a lighter and lighter fluid at him. Felipe proceeded to drench the firewood in the liquid. He then has the brilliant idea to make a stream of the fluid and then light it. 
“Hey who has bug spray?” I asked. Rosa then takes a bottle out of her bag and put some on herself then throws the bottle at me. “You’re using it wrong Rosa”, I then proceed by reliving the lighter from Felipe and then start using the spray flamethrower style at the ground where there was an anthill while laughing like a madman.

“Smokey the Bear must be very proud of you Leo”, commented Felipe, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You haven’t been forest-friendly by pretending you were pissing fire”, I countered.

“As much as I would love to watch the old married argue, I would rather break out the hot-dogs and marshmallows and stuff to roast”, quipped Rosa.

“Shut up Rosa”, I grumbled.

“Lets find some sticks to stab the dogs and stuff”, added Ishmael.

When Ishmael and Felipe left I walked over to my bag and pulled out my bowie knife and three throwing knives.

“You couldn’t leave those blade at home could you?” she deadpanned.

“Hey! At least I didn’t bring all my throwing knives!”, I argued, “Besides I have something to stab at you when you bother me while I’m sleeping”, I added with a dark smile.

“Come on! You know that was funny and besides you sleep all the time anyway at school”

“It will be funny when you get a new scar on you arm”

“You’re no fun”, she said while crossing her arms and faced away from me.

I rolled my eyes at her childish act and chuckled when she turned her head and blew a raspberry.



	

As we all sat around the campfire I was sharpening some of the sticks with my bowie, while Rosa, Ishmael and Felipe were roasting marshmallows. Personally I don’t like s’mores.

“You know this might seem stupid, but I’m still mad at you two for ditching that meeting on Valentine’s”, I said while pointing one of the sharpen sticks at Felipe and Rosa.

“Um… well… you know, I had something called, a… um date”, Felipe sarcastically remarked. 

“Same here”, added Rosa.

“Well some bros you guys are. What happened to ‘Bros before Hoes’?”, I asked.

“Dude, it was bad timing, let it go”, commented Rosa.

“You better not start singing that song”, I warned.

“Fine, I wont”

“Well it’s getting late so we better go to sleep”, said Ishmael looking at the moon, which was full tonight.

“Damn, what time is it?”, I asked.

“Bout’ 9:30”, commented Felipe as he looked at his phone.

“Yep, we better go to sleep, need to wake up early to collect more firewood”, I said.

Minutes later, Felipe, Rosa and Ishmael were in the tent drifting off to sleep. looking over the campsite one last time to make sure we didn’t leave anything too important outside while we slept. After checking I drenched the fire in water then kicked some dirt on the smouldering remains, making everything fall into darkness. I stayed outside for a few minutes, looking up at the heavens. One thing I admired was the night sky, especially when I was miles away from the light pollution of the cities. I was looking up when I saw a shooting star. I knew it was a bit childish but, when I saw the falling star, I closed my eyes and said in a soft whisper to myself, “I wish there was more excitement in my life, instead of this boring life”

With that I crawled inside the tent and into my sleeping bag and drifted into the dreamscape.



	

In the morning I was rudely awoken by something, but disregarded it as my friends annoying me so I tried to ignore it. Whoever it was woke me up when they spoke in a feminine southern accent.

“What the hay are these things?!”

I shot awake and looked to the entrance and saw an orange pony with blond hair and a stetson hat. Although it wasn’t the strange colored pony that shocked me. It was the large saucer sized green eyes that was looking at me and my friends in the tent in shock.



	


Twilight:




“Spike! Spike!”, I yelled.

A couple seconds later a small purple and green baby dragon came running down the stairs. “Yes Twilight?”, he said.

“Can you find me the book called ‘Advance Enchanting Spells’?”, I asked.

“Sure thing Twilight”, he said and ran off to find the spell book.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

“Twilight! Twilight!”, said a small voice from the other side of the door with a very familiar accent.

When I opened the door there was a small yellow filly with with red mane and red bowtie in it. “Hello there Applebloom, what brings you by?”

“Applejack found somepony camping in the orchard!”, she exclaimed.

“That is not uncommon Applebloom”

“But Twilight, when she looked inside the tent to see who it was, she found four strange creatures sleeping in it!”

This caught my attention, “What kind of creatures?”, I asked.

“Ah’ don’t know Twilight and neither does Applejack, but one of them creatures woke up and then they all ran towards the Everfree Forest!”

“How did they look like?”, I asked frantically.

“Well…”, Applebloom started, “They were tall, had clothes on them, and they were furless with only some mane on their heads, and they also walked kinda funny”

“What do you mean by that Applebloom?”

“They walked on their hind legs”, she said matter-of-factly. 

“This is strange” I contemplated, “Applebloom can you get the other girls and tell them to go to Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Sure Twilight!” and with that Applebloom ran off to the town.

“Spike!”, I called out.

“Yes Twilight?”, Spike’s voice called back as he ran towards me.

“Spike, take a letter to Princess Celestia, we have a problem” 












 
 



   

> Chapter 1: We're Not In Wisconsin Anymore
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 1:


We’re Not In Wisconsin Anymore


As me and this pastel pony… horse… thing, stare at each other until a smaller voice with a similar southern accent called out.

“What'cha find Applejack!”

The… you know what it looks closer to a pony than a horse… pony turned to the source of the voice, which was apparently behind it and called out, “Applebloom! Go get Twilight!”

At this point my brain kicked in and told me to wake up my friends, so with three swift kicks I successfully woken up my friends.

“What do you want Leo?”, asked a groggy Felipe. They all murmured in agreement as they looked at me waiting for an answer. Except I didn’t give them any, I just placed one finger on my lips and nodded towards the tent entrance, where the orange pony was now looking at us again.

“But Applejack!”, whined the smaller voice that I identified as Applebloom, “Can’t you let me see what’cha found?”

Again the orange pony now known as Applejack turned and said, “No! Ah’ don’t know if they are dangerous”

At the same time I sharply whispered to my friends, “Get some of your stuff and run when I say when”, they all nodded in agreement and I grabbed the rifle and crawled out of the sleeping bag. I also quickly grabbed a small pack with some random stuff in it and my knives.

When Applejack turned to us again and it’s eyes grew wider in fear and shock, something I didn’t know was possible. Suddenly that Fight-or-Flight instinct kicked in and I knew that my friends had the same reaction so with three slashes at the canvas behind me I made a new opening that was wide enough for us and yelled to my friends, “RUN!”

With that I jumped through the opening and stepped aside to let my friends run out. Right when I was about to follow them, I felt my sweater go taut, and fell on my back. When I looked up I saw Applejack grabbing my sweater with it’s teeth and started dragging me back. Then I felt a tugging sensation on my legs, it was my friends trying to pull me away from the pony.

“Guys just go! I got this!”, I told them.

“We’re not leaving you behind!”, argued Ishmael.

“I’ll catch up in a few just run!”

With great hesitation they ran away. For a few seconds I thought about cutting the chunk of cloth that the pony was grabbing me by, but then I remembered something that I should of known. My sweater was a zip-up… yes, I was that stupid to remember this at the last moment. Anyways, I unzipped my sweater and scrambled to my feet as fast as I could, then I ran… I ran as if the devil was behind me, towards the direction where my friends headed. As I ran I heard the sound of hooves hitting the dirt. I dared to sneak a peek behind me and saw what I feared was behind me. It was Applejack, and she (The pony’s voice was feminine and it’s name was Applejack, so unless males sounded like females here but I’m going to take a stab as say this pony was female) was gaining on me.

“Git’ back here you varmit!”, she yelled.

“Leo! Over here!”, yelled Rosa as she waved at me on an opposite side of a wooden fence. Seeing how close I am to freedom I poured on more speed even if my feet were starting to burn and ache. With one last push, I hurdled over the fence and landed on the pack I was carrying followed by the rifle smacking me on the face… trust me, it hurts like hell. I didn’t have time to recover because, Felipe pulled me up and pushed me towards a treeline.

“Dagnabit!”, I heard Applejack scream in frustration. This put a small smile on my face, but then I frowned.

“Guys come on, we’re still too close to that place, we need to put a bit a distance”, said Ishmael.

“Sure, let me catch my breath for sec though”, I groaned.

Seconds later we were trudging through the dark forest looking for a good place to rest. Minutes later we found a clearing with an overturned tree in the middle of it. Without waiting for anyone to say so, I plopped down next to the trunk and sighed, with the others following my lead, more or less. Rosa just laid down on the ground where she stood.

“Ok”, I said, “What the hell did you guys drug me with?”

“What?”, they all asked.

“I mean come on, pastel colored ponies, and those ponies are also talking. Come on it’s either that or I’ve truly gone mad”

“Um, I’d hate to break it to you but, we are seeing the same things as you, and we didn’t drug you”, said Felipe.

“Then right now I’m wondering, how the hell did we get from a forest to a fricken apple orchard!”, I said with a frustrated growl. 

“Holy shit guys!”, exclaimed Rosa, “We have outlines!”

“What… the… fuck?”, wondered Felipe as he look at himself and us.

“That’s not the only with with outlines”, said Ishmael as he pointed to our surroundings.

They were right. Everything had an outline. “Ok, I know I’m repeating myself, but, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!”, I screamed. Honestly if I still haven’t lost my sanity, I will soon. I’m not the one that freaks out a lot but this was WAY too much to take in, and I’m sure that it will only get worse. I needed to distract myself. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain across my face and my face was turned to the left.

“Ow”, I hissed.

“Yeah… I’m not going to apologize for that, but you need to calm down man”, said Felipe.

“It’s ok, I needed that anyways.”, I reassured, “Now what do we have right now?”

“Candy bars, couple bag of chips and a couple bottles of water”, said Rosa as she looked through the bag she took, “Oh and the pistol”

“Sandwiches and the magnum and three boxes of ammo”, said Ishmael.

“Chips and Monsters and the pistol, of course”, said Felipe. 

“I got… sodas… candy… and… a couple of sandwiches and of course the rifle”, I said, “How much ammo we got? I have ten, five in the rifle and five in my pocket.”

“Three in the magnum, I have no idea how much we have in the boxes, and you shouldn’t keep the bullets in your pocket, give em to me and I’ll put them in one of the boxes”, said Ishmael.

“Six”, said Felipe as he clicked the magazine back into the pistol.

“Five”, said Rosa as she finally figured how to get the magazine out.

“Ok, obviously we need to conserve”, I said.

“Nooooooo”, said Felipe in a sarcastic tone, “We’re going to shoot at random things till’ we run out”

“Shut up Felipe, it’s always good to be reminded that we only have a limited supply”, I said.

“Well if you two are done, we should check to see if there is anything else that is edible in the area, just in case because, the food we have won’t last long, probably three days, or a week tops if we ration”, said Ishmael.

“Well shit, we didn’t pack anything did we?” asked Rosa as she apparently was looking at her hands examining the outlines. Honestly, I would be admiring the outlines but that was another coin in the bucket that further proved that we weren't on Earth anymore.

“It’s more like we kept most of our food in the cooler, since we didn’t expect to be chased by a talking pony”, commented Ishmael.

“We need to see if we can get at least some of the stuff back”, I said, “So… Ishmael want to do some reconnaissance?”



	

“Is it clear?”, asked Ishmael.

“Yep”, I assured.

With that I jumped over the fence then helped him over it.

We waited until night had fallen to start doing some recon on our original campsite. I don’t know if by luck or what but we were blessed with a new moon which would make this job a bit easier. Before we left the clearing in the forest, we helped set up a temporary camp there but, we didn’t have much to work with for obvious reasons. 

Anyways, with the rifle at my side, Ishmael and I walked low and slow. It took us a while, and by that I meant about thirty minutes, we came up about fifty yards from the old campsite and saw light and movement from the camp. We both immediately hid behind the apple trees and looked at each other then at the campsite. 

“I can’t see who’s there”, said Ishmael in a low whisper, “Should we move a bit closer?”

I thought about if for a second and then nodded, “Yeah”, I answered quietly, “Let’s move up about fifteen meters, hopefully this new moon will help us avoid being detected”

At that we both crawled closer about fifteen meters and hid again.

We then looked around the trees to look and saw that the camp was full of ponies in golden armor. I silently cursed under my breath, I knew that getting some of the stuff wouldn’t of been easy.

“Any ideas?”, I whispered hoping that he would be able to think of a good plan because I’m drawing a blank here.

“It’s impossible”, he whispered back, “And what worries me is that although we have at least some food, we don’t have anything if we get hurt. All of the important supplies we have are there”, he said nodding at the camp.

We silently stood there, staring at the camp. As I stared, I saw six ponies who stood out from the others. One was a cyan colored pony with rainbow tomboy style striped mane with wings (There were pegasi here?), a yellow colored pony with pink mane with some covering one eye with wings, a white pony with a horn (Of course there were unicorns here), Applejack was there too, a purple pony with dark blue mane with a pink stripe with both wings and a horn (A pegacorn perhaps?), and finally there was a regular (If you can call them that) pink pony with curly puffy pink mane.

Then the pink pony had a series of random body twitches and spasms. The other five ponies seem to noticed this and she said something to them. I have no idea what she said for obvious reasons but then they started looking around frantically. The pink pony looked in the direction Ishmael and I were hiding, then her eyes widen with glee for some reason. This greatly worried me, but my mind tried to calm my beating heart by rationalizing that we were too far into the dark to have been seen. My mind couldn’t of have been more wrong. The pony turned to the others who then looked in our direction.

“Ishmael, we’ve been spotted”

“I know, we need to get out of here before anything else happens”

Right when we started to crawl away I heard a feminine voice yell, “Guards! We think we see them over there!”

Life, why do you hate me so much? Not much needed to be said between me and Ishmael, we just scrambled to our feet and booked it to the fence as fast as we could. Apparently it wasn’t fast enough, because then a blur went past us and stopped five meters in front of us. It was the cyan pegasus trying to block us. 

“Come at me! I’ll knock you both out in ten seconds flat!” it said in a raspy feminine voice. Ishmael and I ignored her and ran past her. “Hey! Get back here!”, she demanded. Like hell we are.

I heard more stomping of hooves and the ponies gave chase. Luckily since we had a really big head start we made it to the fence and hurled over it and into the treeline before they got to us. After that I’m not sure why they didn’t chase us in the forest. As we walked through the forest I swear I saw a couple pairs of yellow glowing eyes watching us. I ignored them and put it off as my jumpiness of the recent recon.

When we got to the camp, we found Felipe and Rosa just sitting around looking bored out of their minds. I know I would've been banging my head on one of the nearby trees. When they saw us walk into the clearing they ran up to me and Ishmael, asking how it went and if we brought any of our stuff back. We sat down as we retold what happened in the orchard.

“Well shit, if there are guards there, then we won’t get our stuff”, said Rosa, “And I left my phone back there! Who knows what they will do with it!”, she said with a dramatic pose.

“So there are unicorns and pegasuses here?”, asked Felipe, “What kind of messed up place are we?”

“It’s pegasi, not pegasuses”, I corrected.

“Whatever, you know what I meant”

“That doesn’t matter, what matters is that we won’t be able to get our stuff, like Rosa said but not the phone part”, intervened Ishmael.

I then let out a long yawn causing my friends to yawn as well, “What time is it? I don’t know about you guys, but being chased by ponies through the night made me tired”, I said.

“It’s about… 9:45”, said Felipe as he looked at his phone, I’m not sure how he still has battery but he probably keeps it off, like me. Hey don’t judge me! I’m too tired and lazy to pull out my phone or Ipod and turning it on… well my phone at least. I left my Ipod in one of the pockets of my sweater that I lost earlier this morning.

“Damn, it’s too early to be tired”, I commented, “Break out some of the sandwiches, so we don’t go to sleep on an empty stomach”

With that Rosa got up and walked over to one of the packs and grabbed four sandwiches. Minutes later I felt a bit satisfied with the sandwich but I knew we needed to ration them for later.

“Well”, I started, “It has been an interesting day but I’m tired and I need to sleep on this”

“Sure man, see you in the morning”, said Ishmael.

After the others bid me goodnight I walked over to the fallen tree then laid down near it. Sleep found me a few minutes later and I drifted off into the darkness.



	

Over the following week, I started to worry. 

First of all, the guards seem to get braver and started getting closer to the treeline everyday when we scout them out.

Secondly we are running extremely low on food… and by that I mean just half a sandwich and a candy bar.

On the seventh day in this strange world was when the guards started to scout the forest for us.

“Guys grab everything, we need to move!”, I said as I ran into the clearing with Rosa not too far behind me.

“They’re coming?”, asked Felipe. I nodded and then he and Ishmael went around grabbing what little we had.

“Ready”, said Ishmael as he threw on pack at me. I caught the pack and motioned to my right and we jogged out of the clearing and into the trees.

As we walked I noticed that deeper in the forest the foliage was heavier. I thought about going deeper into the forest where it got denser but decided against it.

As we walked I felt as we were being watched. I didn’t like it, and everytime I looked around I didn’t see anything and always heard some of the bushes rustle. I know my friends felt the same way because they had a hand on their holsters.

Couple minutes later we came up on a large dirt path, one way leading deeper into the forest and the other out of the forest.

“Which way should we go?”, asked Rosa as she looked both ways.

“Forward, I don’t want to go deeper into the forest nor out of it”, I answered. 

We were about three-fourths of the way to the other side when I heard a growl that made my hair stand up on the back of my neck. When we turned around slowly to see what it was, I felt the blood drain from my face in fear.

What I saw was a combination of a lion with red leathery bat wings and a scorpions tail. My mind raced with thoughts to identify the creature and one word came out of my lips when I identified the terrifying creature before us, “Manticore”, I said in a small voice, “Don’t move a muscle”, I sharply whispered to my friends.

As the manticore inspected us to see if we made any sudden movements when something happened that made my stomach drop and my heart crawl up my throat.

“ACHOO!”, sneezed Rosa.

Why!? Why do you love to torture me so much, life?!

When I saw the manticore tense up, I managed to choke out one word, “Run”

At this point Felipe, Ishmael, Rosa and I, ran through the forest with a hungry manticore behind us. At one point I decided to unsling my rifle and start shooting at the beast. Let me tell you two things. One, it’s extremely difficult to aim when you have only one second to stop, aim and shoot. Two, that only furthered to piss off the beast. After a few minutes everything went to shit when I saw the manticore trying to flank us and pounce on Felipe.

“NO!”, I screamed as my legs ran faster to push him out of the way.

 When I felt the claws dig into my back and shredded the skin and cloth, it felt like hell. I stumbled and fell to the ground but, that wasn’t the end of it. When I rolled onto my back I felt something sharp puncture my leg. I looked down and saw that half the tip of the tail was embedded into it and felt the poison flow into my bloodstream. When I thought that was the end I heard a sharp crack, and the manticore fell on top of me. When it did I heard a couple of sickening cracks and sharp pain flare up in several places, one of those places being my chest and I found it very hard and painful to breath. This is the worst pain I've felt in my entire life. I mean, I wanted to pass out from the pain but, I was afraid that I won't be able to wake up if I do.

“Oh god! Oh god!”, said Rosa as she and my friends rushed over to me and pulled me out of under the beast. I yelled in pain as they did that.

“We need to take him to a hospital!”, said Felipe as he noticed my wounds.

“There is none unless…”, said Ishmael as he trailed off at the end.

“Are you sure that’s is the only option?”, asked Rosa worriedly.

“It’s the only choice we have”, agreed Felipe.

“You need to carry him Felipe, you’re the strongest between us”, said Rosa.

“Sure”, agreed Felipe. He crouched down and lifted my weakened body, “Don’t worry bro we’ll get you help and fix you up, don’t you worry”

The last things I remembered was that my friends ran to the path then out of the forest towards a little village, screaming for help. When I looked to the sky, I swore I saw a beautiful phoenix in the distance. Then my body succumbed to the wounds and into unconsciousness. 
	
	
	
	
	
	

> Chapter 2: Dark Hauntings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 2:


Dark Hauntings


When I opened my eyes, I was heavily confused. I was at school. All of a sudden I feel someone flick my ear. I looked up to the side to see who is flicking my ear as I see Rosa as she stifles her laughter as she flicks my ear again.

“What do you want?”, I asked her with an annoyed tone.

“Dude, you slept all day”, she said, “You slept in Geometry, World Studies and now in this class!”

“Not my fault that I find class boring sometimes”, I replied as I stretched in my seat. As my eyes wandered a bit I saw that we were in chemistry, the last class of the day.

“We need the credits to pass, dude!”, she urged, “You need to stop being lazy, man!”

“Well, I don’t see you doing anything”, I countered as I nodded at the huge empty space in front of her.

“Stop changing the subject!”, she said with a half annoyed tone. 

I smirked at this and said, “I’m not changing the subject, I’m just here talking”

“Quiet down you two!”, called out our chemistry teacher.

“Well, it’s about time to leave anyways, so this conversation is invalid”, I said while glancing at the clock.

“Your face is invalid”, she replied.

“Oh fuck you Rosa”

“No thanks”, she replied with a sly smile.

*RIIIIIING!*

With that I grabbed my bookbag from the floor next to me and my baseball cap and walked to my locker, with Rosa not to far behind.

“Hey, is it still cool that we come over today?”, she asked.

“Of course, I’ve got nothing better to do other than sit around and do nothing all afternoon”, I confirmed.

“Hey guys”, said a tall white teenager with a green beanie hat and Green Bay Packers jacket as he rushed over to catch up to us.

“Oh hey Victor”, I said.

“Hey Mooch”, replied Rosa as she walked a bit slower so she can grab his hand when he got close enough.

“Rosa, meet me by my locker when you get your stuff, I’ll wait for Felipe then we can walk to the parking lot”, I said. Me, I don’t like being the third wheel, especially when my friends' girlfriend/boyfriend comes along. It just gets real awkward.

“Sure”, she replied, and with that they head the opposite direction.

“Alright let’s see… 2534...2535...2536… here we go!”, I muttered as I found my locker. As I fumbled with my lock I felt a pair of hands cover my eyes.

“Guess who?”, said a voice in a playful tone.

“I don’t know”, I replied with great confusion. As far as I know, no one is this playful with me.

“It’s me silly!”, said the voice as they turned me around. When I saw the person in front of me, it did nothing to lessen my confusion. It was a short hispanic teenage girl, with hazel eyes, long dirty blond curly hair, with a white blouse and skinny jeans. Even if I didn’t know this girl, I found her really attractive.

I guess she saw that my confusion hasn’t lessen and she pouted, “Stop joking, Leo, it’s me Bianca”

This is starting to frustrate me. Although I know a girl named Bianca, but I haven’t seen her for years now. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t have dirty blond hair. Right when I was going to respond to Bianca, Felipe walks towards me with his girlfriend in hand. Honestly, I don’t know his girlfriend’s name or who she is but I recognized her when I saw her. After he kissed her goodbye, he walks up to me and greets both me and Bianca.

“Hey, Leo. Hey, Bianca”

“Felipe, tell Leo to stop playing around”, pouted Bianca.

“What is he doing?”, he asked.

“He’s saying that he doesn’t know me”

“I never said I don’t know you, but I don’t!”, I exclaimed. I was half hoping that Felipe would kind of help me out here, because last I checked, I was single.

“Dude, that’s not cool dissing your girl”, he replied with disappointment, “I see that you still need to learn on how to treat your girl”

Whether if it was a blessing or just more frustration, Rosa decided to walk towards us. Although I told her to come by my locker earlier, which I haven’t opened yet because of the confusion that I’m having with my “girlfriend”.

“Hey guys, what’s up?”, Rosa greeted us.

“Leo is pretending that he doesn’t know his own girlfriend”, replied Felipe.

“I don’t!”, I exclaimed, “The only Bianca that I know was the one from elementary school, and I haven’t seen her in years!”

“Dude, you have to stop playing like that, you're making her cry”, said Rosa, and she was right, Bianca was crying in front of me. That pulled on my heartstrings but, the fact still stood, I don’t know who she is. This was all giving me a wicked headache.

I grabbed the sides of my head with my hands in hope to alleviate the headache but without avail. When my friends saw this they opened their mouths to ask what’s wrong but I cut them off by turning around to open my locker and saying, “Just. Go. Away.”, each word dripping with a bit of venom.

When I got my locker open I noticed something that felt off everything got quiet… It wasn’t that it just got quiet but it was deathly silent. I turned around and noticed that there was nobody in the hallway. Where did everyone go? I highly doubt that anyone, especially a hallway full of high schoolers, can get out of this hallway that quietly.

“Hello?”, I asked tentatively. Silence. Ok this was getting too strange and freaky for me, so with great haste, I grabbed my things from my locker and walked towards the exit that leads to the school parking lot. I hoped at least that I’ll find Felipe and Rosa waiting for me by my car. 

When I got to the door, I looked out the small window in it to view the outside world. When I looked outside there was no one and nothing outside in the parking lot. I mean sure, I would of understood if there were a couple of cars missing, but all of them? Well I could see my car, but that's it, no others. I jogged over to my car and noticed that my friends were waiting inside of it, which I found more strange because, I don’t remember that I unlocked the doors for them earlier. Shaking a way my confusion, I opened the door and jumped into the driver seat and started up the car. 

“Took you long enough”, commented Rosa.

“Sorry! It’s not everyday that you wake up and realize that you all of a sudden you have a girlfriend”, I said.

“You’ve been with her for about a month now”, deadpanned Felipe.

“I call bullshit on that”, I countered. By now, I drove off the parking lot and into the main road a block down and I’m waiting for the red light to turn green. As I waited, I was debating whether to go onto the freeway or just stick to the roads. By the time the light went green, I took a right turn, then a left turn into an onramp going north-east.

“Hey, should we go pick up Ishmael? Then we can start the meeting earlier”, asked Rosa.

“Not sure, do you know what time he get’s out of school?”, I asked.

“No”, answered Rosa.

“Then text him, I’m not risking the ticket”, I told her.

“Fine!”, she huffed and texted him. Few seconds later, the reply came in with a long ringtone. You guys know the song ‘Baby Got Back’ by Sir. Mix-A-Lot? If you don’t, then I don’t know what to say to you. Anyways, instead of reading the text immediately, she just sat there ‘dancing’ to the song until the song ended. Let me tell you, when someone is trying to dance to ‘Baby Got Back’ while sitting inside a car is the most hilarious thing you will ever see, especially if its Rosa. After that little scene, she read the text and told us, “He said he’s just getting out and to pick him up at his house”

“Ok then, off to somewhere in the north side of town!”, I cheered.

The trip there was uneventful, except when the radio started to go fuzzy and voices started to talk out of it. I couldn't make out much of what they said, mostly because they sounded faint and far away… and the static noise of the radio didn’t help either. Besides the point, the voices said something about a couple of things broken, blood, bones and something about poison. I passed it off as that the radio got some interference with some radio soap opera show… or something along those lines.

When we got to Ishmael’s house I honked three times to signal to him that we were outside. In no time he was out the door and into the back seat of the car. 

“Sup’ Ishmael, how've you been?”, I asked as we drove off towards my house.

“Been good man, just can’t wait to continue to record these skits and stuff for the channel”, he answered with great enthusiasm. 

“So you guys have any ideas for any new skits?”, asked Felipe.

“How about a pillow war, but make it with a MMA style face off at the beginning”, offered Rosa.

“I like that idea, any others?”, I asked as I turned into an onramp.

“A mexican stand-off with nerf guns or BBs?”, asked Felipe.

“I dunno man, where would we film that?, I asked.

“I don’t know, the park?”, he suggested.

“Na, not enough to give it an awesome atmosphere”, I commented, “How about the creek behind the Halloween store on 27th street?”

“I’m not sure Leo”, said Rosa.

“And why not?”, I asked.

“I don’t know, you guys were saying ‘I don’t know’ a lot so I just wanted to jump in”, she said with a idiotic smile.

I just closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and groaned at the sheer stupidity of what she said. When I opened my eyes, they shot open in surprise. About one-hundred feet in front of me was Bianca, right in the middle of the frickin freeway! How she got there, I don’t even know, but on instinct, I sharply turned right to avoid hitting her. What I didn’t remember was that I was: a) on a bridge going over the city; and b) on the edge of the freeway. 

You know what were my thoughts as my car with me and my friends fell quickly towards the ground? They went along the lines of: FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKK!

When we hit the ground with a crash everything went dark.



	

When I woke up everything hurt. I felt really disoriented. That’s when I noticed that the car was upside-down. What the hell just happened? With a thought, I remembered what happened and my head shot to the side to see if my friends were ok. My stomach dropped when I saw that they weren't there. I quickly unbuckled the seat belt and fell to the ground. With a groan of pain, I crawled out the car and onto the broken glass covered ground. 

So. Much. Pain! 

Trust me crawling out a car that has been driven off a bridge and that the ground is covered in glass is not a painless experience. So with great effort, I pushed myself up onto my knees then onto my feet. When I looked back to the car, I saw a blood trail from the window I just climbed out of, up to where I was standing. When I looked down on my leg, there was a shard of glass that cut a huge gash on it, that was slowly leaking my life-source. 

“Ok it’s just a cut”, I told myself, “A really big cut that has a giant piece of glass in it”

*BOOM!*

Suddenly I felt a drop of water fall on my shoulder, then another. In less than a minute, the rain poured by the gallons. And do you know the worst part of all this is? I couldn’t see my friends anywhere. I limped around the car, the rain making it really hard to see especially when it gets in your eyes. Nothing. They are nowhere to be seen. I started to slowly panic as I continue to look for them near the crash-site.

Right when I was about to have a mental-breakdown, I see a humanoid shadow in the rain walking towards me. With as fast as my injured legs could take me, I limped towards the figure and when I saw who it was my face flushed red with rage.

“What the fuck do you want!?”, I yelled.

“What did you do Leo?”, asked Bianca in a horrored tone.

“What did- WHAT DID I DO!?”, I screamed, wincing a bit as my chest throbbed in pain, “You were in the middle of the fucking freeway, you cunt!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, what you did, killed your friends, I didn’t drive the car off the bridge”, she said.

“Shut up! They are not dead!”, I yelled.

“They aren’t are they?”, she said in a mocking tone, “Pray tell, they whose bodies are those over there”, and pointed somewhere right behind me. My eyes followed where she pointed, and saw the lifeless bodies on the ground. From where I’m standing, I couldn’t see who was who, but there was without a doubt, these were my friends.

“No”, I whispered.

“You’ve let your friends die, Leo”, whispered Bianca into my ear.

“No! They are not dead!”, I roared, as I limped towards the bodies and can now identify the bodies.

Felipe’s was in a pool of blood that was clear that he was either dead or unconscious, which I refused to believe the former. Rosa’s had a lot of cuts where her skin was exposed and her head and arm were bending in an unnatural angle. Finally, Ishmael’s body looked banged up but other than a couple cuts he looked more or less fine. 

I limped to Felipe’s body and flipped him on his back. Over near where his heart should be there was a huge shard of glass that was stained blood red deep in his slowly rising and falling chest. I put my ear on his chest and heard a faint *Thump Thump* of his heart. At this sound my head jumped up and tried to wake him up by shaking him, “Felipe wake up! Come on bro stay with me!”

Instead of waking up I heard him give one last shallow breath, then his chest stopped moving. “No. No no no no no no no! Come on dude wake up!” Tears were now rolling down my face as I saw my friend’s body go completely still, “Come on bro don’t leave me!”

“It’s no use Leo”, called out Bianca, “They’re all dead, at least Ishmael had a small chance to live, but he died while you tried to revive someone who didn’t even had a chance”

With that I quickly crawled over to Ishmael’s body and saw that his chest wasn’t moving. I quickly checked for a pulse that I would never find. I wanted to try to perform CPR on him but I don’t know how to do it correctly. If I tried I wouldn’t be helping at all, I would just make it worse. So I just sat there. I sat there crying at my failure and helplessness. I would of stayed there crying if it wasn’t for the laughter that was emanating from behind me.

“Hahahahaha! Oh Leo, you would of failed even if you knew how to administer First-Aid and CPR”, crackled Bianca, “And all because you drove the car off the bridge, you murderer”

Instead of rebuking her for lying, I just fell to my knees and sobbed into my hands, “What have I done?”, I whispered to myself in horror.

Bianca walked up behind me and I felt a cold wet steel being pressed to my throat, “Shhh, It’s okay”, she cooed, “You will soon join them”, she then kissed me and added, “Good bye Leo”, then darkness.



	

My eyes shot open then slammed shut as the brightness of the lights blinded me. I then slowly opened them and groan in pain. I realized that I was in an unfamiliar bed and room. I then saw my left leg in a cast and my chest heavily bandaged. I also hear the continuous beep of a heart monitor, which told me I was in a hospital. How’d I get here? Then the door open and revealed my three friends walk in, looking tired as hell. Rosa was the first to notice me awake and said:

“Well it’s about damn time you woke up!” 
	
	

> Chapter 3: The Inevitable
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 3:


The Inevitable


“Well it’s about damn time you woke up!”, said Rosa when she saw me awake.

“Where are we?”, I asked. I knew we were in a hospital but, my question is WHERE is the hospital.

“Somewhere called ‘Ponyville’”, replied Ishmael.

I just gave him a deadpanned stare and asked again, “No, seriously, where the hell are we?”

“I’m not fucking with you man, the little town outside the forest is called ‘Ponyville’”

I groaned and facepalmed at the actual name for this town full of ponies. What a horrible pun. I kinda wondered if my entire life was just one giant bad pun for some higher power. “Ok then, anything happened while I was out?”

“Well…”, started Felipe.



	


Third Person




“Don’t worry bro, we’ll get you help and fix you up, don’t you worry”, said Felipe as he along with Rosa and Ishmael ran towards a small town while carrying Leo’s broken unconscious body.

“Somebody help us!”, called out Rosa.

“You guys still sure that this is a good idea?”, huffed Ishmael as he eyed a group of pastel colored ponies galloping towards them.

“What the hell man, what could we have done? Just leave Leo there to die?”, asked Rosa with anger.

“Doesn’t matter now. Our welcome committee is here”, huffed Felipe as the ponies now stood about ten feet away from them.

“So, you’re the monsters that was at Sweet Apple Acres”, said a rainbow maned pegasus, “You guys don’t look so tough, I bet that I can stomp you three down in ten seconds flat!”, it said with a sharp snort. Felipe, Ishmael and Rosa decided that it was a female by the feminine raspy voice.

Right when the polychromatic pegasus was about to charge at them, she was suddenly held in place by a purple aura, “Hey! What gives?”

“Whoa there Rainbow Dash”, said a purple pegacorn, “It’s good to be cautious but, let’s not be hasty about this”

The pegacorn then turned to the three humans with a sheepish smile and said, “Sorry about that, she is sometimes a bit brash about things. I am Princess Twilight-”

“We don’t have enough fucking time for this!”, interrupted Ishmael causing the now multitude of ponies gasp at his profanity, “Our friend here is dying!”, he then pointed at Leo’s bloody body.

“My word!”, gasped a white unicorn with a posh british accent, “What happened to him?!”

“Some lion-bat-scorpion hybrid ambushed us and, well, look what happened, he needs to see a doctor!”, stated Felipe with a bit of urgency.

“How do we know that this is not some sort of trick?”, accused Rainbow Dash.

“Really? Now why the hell would we trick you?”, flatly asked Felipe, “Tell us one reason”

“Well you guys are monsters, what other reason do you need?”, huffed Rainbow Dash.

“Can we stop arguing about this? He might not have enough time left, just take us to the nearest hospital!”, yelled Rosa, “Look, we’re lost, confused, hungry and low on supplies, not to mention our injured friend. We’ll answer any questions you guys have later, but only AFTER our friend here is taken to the hospital and that he’s ready to speak!”

Twilight took a few moments to decide on what to do.

“Twilight, you’re not really going to believe them right?”, questioned Rainbow Dash.

“Follow me, I’ll take you guys to the hospital”, decided Twilight. 



	


Present


“Then you rested for about a day, and, well, here we are”, finished Felipe.

“Are they still here?”, I huffed at the situation that we were in.

“Last that we checked, yes”, said Rosa, she then bit her lip and added nervously, “And we have one small problem”

“What kind of problem?”, I asked warily.

“Well, just yesterday, they… um… contacted their princess…”

“I thought that their princess was already here”, I said with confusion.

“Well, not the princess we met while we carried you but… I guess you can say the top princess”

I just put my head on the pillow and covered my face with both hands, and heavily groaned in frustration. “Do you guys think this will make the situation worse? I mean anymore worse that it already is?”, I mumbled through my hands.

“I just hope we don’t get locked up in some secret government base to be tested on or dissected”, said Rosa.

“What makes you say that?”, asked Ishmael.

“Well isn’t that what the feds would do back home if an alien came to the US?”

“We don’t know, there is always some big government secret”, said Felipe.

“Rosa, just…”, I sighed, “No conspiracy theories please”

“Ugh! Fine!”, huffed Rosa.

“Realistically, It won’t make much of a difference since, we don’t know what the hell is going on or where we are”, offered Ishmael.

“That’s true… mhhhhhh… I just realized something”, I said, “Where’s the rifle?”

Ishmael walked over to the bed and reached under it, and pulled out the rifle. There was dirt and blood that caked the rifle, but other than that it looked in working condition.

“Well, it could be worse”, I said.

“Now things are gonna get worse you fucker”, exclaimed Rosa.

Before I could tell Rosa to shut up, I was interrupted by a series of knocks on the door. We all looked at the door, then my friends looked at me expectantly. “Well, go see who it is”, I said.

Felipe was the first to react and walked over to the door and opened it. In the doorway stood a tall white pegacorn with violet eyes, a golden crown and chest piece with a purple gem in the center of each, gold shoes and what caught my attention the most is her flowing blue/green/pink ethereal mane and tail. It moved as if there was a breeze were moving it. It didn’t take long to take a guess who this was.

“Hello there”, she said in a motherly tone, “May we come in?”

Felipe turned to me and raised her eyebrow in a silent question. I nodded and she then open the door wider to allow the pegacorn to enter. Then six other familiar ponies walked in behind her. After they all filed inside the room, Rosa then closed the door and walked over to the left side of the bed, with Felipe and Ishmael doing the same but on my right.

Me and the tall pegacorn studied each other for a few moments until she finally spoke, “Hello, I am Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria and bringer of the sun”

I guess we start with introductions then, “Hello, my name is Leonardo Anaya and these are my friends, Felipe, Ishmael, and Rosa”, I introduced and pointed at each person respectively.

“Oh how rude of us”, said a white unicorn with purple curled mane, “I am Rarity, the element of Generosity”

“I’m Applejack, the element of Honesty”, said Applejack. I really didn’t needed her to say her name, but we didn’t exactly introduced each other when I woke up a week or so ago.

“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! I’m the element of Laughter! Do you want to be friends? I hope you do because then we’ll have so much fun partying, dancing, singing, playing, wait do you like parties because I do, but I mean really who doesn’t like parties. Wait what if you don’t like parties, then that means you don’t like cake. But everyone loves cake! We need to fix that! Wait I know! I’ll plan you guys a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party where we will dance and sing and-”, said the pink bouncing pony with poofy curly pink mane and tail. When I saw her bounce and say all that in one breath before a blue hoof cut was shoved in her mouth to shush her, I was pretty sure she had one too many energy drinks or something.

“Slow down there Pinkie, lets just see how this goes”, said a cyan pegasus with  polychromatic colored mane and tail, “Ahem, I’m Rainbow Dash! The element of loyalty and the fastest flyer in Equestria!”, she then struck a pose with her wings flared out in pride. Nice modesty you have there skittles.

Then a yellow pegasus with long pink mane and tail was nugged from behind Princess Celestia, where she was apparently hiding. “H-hi, I’m… Fluttershy, and I’m the element of kindness”, she said in a small whisper as she now hid behind her long mane.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite get that, can you please repeat it?”, I said in a soft tone.

“I-I’m, Fluttershy and the element of kindness”, she said in a small whisper again. Shy one aren’t you. I look over to my friends with a quizzical look to see if they caught the shy pegasus name. They just shrugged and shook their head.

“Her name’s Fluttershy, partner, the element of kindness”, said Applejack, “As her name implies, she’s quite shy”

“And here I thought my sister was a shy one when she talks to relatives over the phone”, I mumbled.

“And I’m Twilight Sparkle, the element and princess of magic”, said the purple pegacorn.

“Well, I’m not quite sure if I can say we are happy to meet you seven, considering we were more or less hunted down”, I said matter-of-factly.

“We were not sure if you four were dangerous to my little ponies”, said Princess Celestia, “But now that you are here, we can stop beating around the bush and just get to the point. What are you?”

“We’re humans”, I said as if that was obvious, “What I’m wondering is, what kind of horses are you guys? I’ve never seen such strange colors on a horse… or one that talks”

“Hey! We’re ponies! And what the heck is a hyooman?”, asked Rainbow Dash.

“Horses, ponies, same difference, they are both equine”, I said indifferently, “But that still doesn’t answer the colors or the talking”

“Hey Leo”, I turned to look at Rosa, “Are you ok? You don’t look so good”

Am I ok? I feel fine… well except for the injuries, but you know what I mean. Then I understood what she meant. “Yeah, I don’t feel so hot right now”, I lied, “I mean, I woke up a couple minutes ago but, I guess I need some more rest”

“We can have a doctor come in and-”, started Twilight.

“No no, there is no need”, I said with a dismissive wave, “I just need to rest up a bit longer, I appreciate the thought though”

“Well if that is it then, we will come later when you feel a bit better”, stated Princess Celestia. With that the princess and her entourage left the room but stop at the doorway, “If your friends will follow us, we will discuss the living arrangements”

“They’ll be out in a moment”, I said. Then she left, closing the door behind them. 

“What should we do?”, asked Rosa.

“In all honesty, I have no idea on what to do, I mean should we accept their hospitality (If you can call it that…) or not”

“Well we still have our pistols, just in case they turn on us”, suggested Ishmael.

I thought about it a bit, and it was confusing. There were too many unknown factors, one being that they were strangers, and another being that we don’t know their intentions. I finally said, “Accept their hospitality but don’t tell them anything, unless it is insignificant, and for the love of God, don’t tell them about the pistols or the rifle, just wait till’ I say they are ready or when your life is in danger”

“Leo we know, we’re not idiots”, said Felipe.

“You may never know man, just better to tell you guys than not to”, I shrugged, “And try to visit me often, I hate hospitals, It’s not like staying in your room for most of the day, and try to see if we can get our stuff from the original camp”

“Don’t worry man”, reassured Rosa, “and we’ll bring your stuff here when we get it”

“It’s the minimum you can do for me, and thanks, without you guys being there for me, I wouldn’t be here”

“Don’t thank us too much, we know you would've done the same thing to us”, replied Ishmael.

“Before you guys leave pass me the rifle and something to clean it with, at least I won’t be too bored for a while”

“Thanks”, I said as they passed me the rifle and materials to clean it with, including a pack with some ammo.

“No prob’ man, see you soon”, replied Ishmael as they left the room.

With that I started the process of taking the rifle apart and clean each piece. While doing this a string of thoughts went through my head, one of them repeating itself many times. I forgot to ask them on where the fuck are my clothes, there is too much of a draft in very uncomfortable places.

> Chapter 4: Questions, Answers, and Boring Hospitals Part I
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 4:


Questions, Answers and Boring Hospitals Part I


Somebody… *Thud!* … Kill… *Thud!*… Me… *Thud*… Now!… *Thud!*

These thoughts circulated my brain as I banged the back of my head against the headboard of the hospital bed. The reason I am doing this is because, it has been over two weeks… TWO GOD DAMN WEEKS!… of being stuck in this hospital. Sigh… Welp, at least (I hope) that I get released from this god forsaken place devoid of anything fun. Even my laptop (Which has been recovered) full of games and whatnot did not help much. But at least I’ve had plenty of company.

Let me tell you how my stay in the Ponyville hospital has been so far these past two weeks…



	

*Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!*

“Huh!?… Wha?”, I rubbed my eyes from the sleep and looked around in bewilderment. Then another series of knocks made me look towards the door. “Come in”, I called out. The door open to reveal a brown unicorn with white mane, a white lab coat, and a stethoscope around his neck.

When he saw me he cleared his throat and said, “Ah, good morning sorry for waking you, I’m Doctor Stable, how are you feeling?”

“Yesterday I felt like I got ran over by a semi, then the driver decided that I wasn’t roadkill yet, so he ran me over ten more time for good measure. But today I only feels like I got ran over by a prius”

“Uhmm… Even though I don’t know a semi or a prius are, I’ll just assume that you don’t feel well”

“In a nutshell, so what exactly is wrong with me? I mean, I see the bandages and the cast but what’s the damage here?”

“Well according to this and what we had to do to you when you came in”, he grabbed the clipboard from the footboard, “You have three broken ribs, broken your left leg in four places, a large puncture wound on your upper left leg, heavy blood loss, three large gashes on your back and manticore poison”

“Damn… how the hell did I not die quickly?”, I wondered out loud.

“Actually about five more minutes and you would’ve died, so you’re really lucky to be alive and have friends that brought you in. Oh we didn’t get your name when your friends brought you in Mr…?”

“Leonardo Anaya Castro, but I normally don’t use my second last name unless it’s something important”, I held my arm out.

He took the handshake, which felt weird since he doesn’t have a palm or any hands (For obvious reasons), and said, “Well Mr. Anaya, as I said you’re very lucky to be alive”

“Just call me Leo, it’s what everyone calls me anyways”

“Okay then Leo, I just came by to check on you, well I must check on my other patients”, he then turned to walk out but I stopped him.

“Umm… Doc, when will I be released?”

“Not for about a month I’d say”, he said turning to face me.

“Why? Normally, not too sure about the heavy blood loss though, but for broken bones patients are usually released the next day, aren't they?”

“Celestia no! They need time to recover, and for you in your condition, you won't be able to walk!”

“Well… could I use at least a wheelchair?”

“We don’t have one for someone your size right now… I think”

“Well can you check because, no offence, I would rather not be here longer than I have to”

“Sure, it’s completely understandable, and none taken, well, if that’s all then I must go”

“Sure, thanks Doc”

With that he closed the door behind him. I still felt very tired. I looked at the wall where there was a clock hanging that read 10 A.M. Damn! How long was I asleep for? Then the door opened to reveal a light yellow nurse with cyan and sky-blue mane and tail holding a tray, of what I assumed was food, in her mouth. The nurse then placed the tray on my lap.

“Hello there dear, how are you feeling?”

“Felt worse yesterday, I can tell you that much”

“Oh I’m sure, I mean you were attacked by a manticore, afterall”

I looked at the tray that was on my lap and then confusion washed over me… What. The. Fuck? What is this? “Ummm… What kind of food is this?”

“Mhm? Oh that’s lettuce mashed with tomatoes and daisies and with gelatin on the side”

“Uhhhhhhh… It sure looks delicious…”, I said warily, “… Wait, did you say daisies and gelatin?”, what is gelatin made of here?!

“Oh yeah, don’t worry it taste better than it looks”

“Uhmmmm, I can’t eat daisies”

“Oh, would you like some hay instead?”

I shook my head, “No no, what I meant to say is that I can’t eat any plants or grasses because my body can’t digest them and they will make me sick”

“Oh, I’m sorry dear, I didn’t know, then what can you eat?”

“It’s ok since you didn’t know, and I can eat fruits and vegetables”, I excluded the fact that I can eat meat since from what I saw, these ponies are herbivores, and I’d rather not cause a panic.

“Ok dear, I’ll get you some fruits, I’ll just take this back with me and come back in a moment”

“Thank you”, and with that she left the room with the tray and left me with my thoughts. She then came back with an apple and banana on the tray. With a ‘thank you’ she nodded and left me with my breakfast. Such a small breakfast, but welp, beggars can’t be choosers. And with that I grabbed the bright red apple and took a bite. My eyes shot open to look at the apple. This was one of the best apples I’ve ever tasted! Normally I wouldn’t notice the flavor of the apples back at home much but this one was a lot more sweeter than the any that I’ve tasted! Within minutes, there was nothing left of the apple, except the core. I then eyed the banana. If the apple was that good, then I hoped the banana would taste a lot better. And I wasn’t wrong.

Now looking at my now empty tray I sadly sighed. I still felt hungry. A knock then interrupted my sorrow for hunger and called out for the person or pony to come in. The door revealed my three friends, who looked like they ran from the devil himself.

“Sup’ guys, why do you guys look like you ran from the grudge?”

“The pink furball won’t leave us alone!”, exclaimed Rosa.

“Who?”

“The pink one named Pinkie Pie”, said Felipe, “She won’t leave us alone until we let her be our friend and throw us a party”

“I’m not sure what to do about that but, do you guys have anything good to eat on you?”

“Yeah, we managed to get our stuff back yesterday not too long after we left here”, said Ishmael as he handed me my backpack with my laptop, my dufflebag, and small pack of, what I assumed was the food we had. I wasn’t too sure if the food was still good but, I unzipped the pack and looked at the sandwiches that laid inside. They didn’t look too bad, there was no mold on them at least.

“Don’t worry there is no mold on them, we checked them all before we ate some”, reassured Ishmael.

“Okay thanks”, with that I grabbed a sandwich and took a bite out of it. Meat! Glorious meat! And it tasted as if it was freshly made. “So how’s is the town?”

“It’s nice, I guess, but it’s not Milwaukee”, replied Rosa.

“No shit Sherlock, what gave it away?”

“Shut up Leo. Anyways the townsfolk seem nice, but they seem afraid of us and just whisper when we walk by”

“Well we are a new species that appeared out of nowhe-”

 Suddenly I was interrupted by a bubbly, sing-song voice rang out from outside, “♫Rosa! Felipe! Ishmael! Where are youuu?♫”

“Shit! She’s here!”, cried out Rosa, “RUN!”

With that they scrambled out the door as fast as they could. Seconds later a pink furball jumped into the window and looked around. She then saw me and her smile grew.

“Hi there!”

“Hey… what are you doing here?”

“Well I’m looking for your friends, have you seen them?”

“Haven’t seen them today, them bastards”, I lied.

“Awww, don’t worry, when you get out of the hospital, I’ll throw a HUGE ‘Welcome to Ponyville and hope you feel better soon’ party where you can make lots and lots of friends in Ponyville!”, she smiled brightly. I also swore I heard a squee when she smiled.

“That would be nice, Pinkie Pie, was it?”, I extended my hand out for a handshake. Instead of a handshake, she threw her forelegs around me and gave me a big hug. It would of been a nice gesture, if not for the fact that my ribs were still broken.

“Yeporuny! And I remembered your name too, Pheo”

Wow, never expected to hear that nickname here.

“Well I got to go, I Pinkie Promise that I come back to visit you and bring you a super-duper yummy cupcake!”

“How are you going to pinkie promise something if you don’t have any pinkies?”, I asked skeptically.

“But I’m Pinkie, and this is a Pinkie Promise: Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye”, while doing various motions and ending with one hoof over her eye.

“Isn’t: Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye?”

“*GASP!* Why would anyone hope to die and stick a needle in their eye?! That would hurt a lot!”, exclaimed Pinkie.

“It’s just a saying, they don’t really hope to die or stick needles in their eyes”

“Oh, Okey-dokey-lokey then! I’ll see you later Pheo!”, with that Pinkie dashes out of the room leaving a Pinkie Pie shaped dust cloud where she once stood. Huh… Just like the roadrunner.

Suddenly a wind blew in from the window that Pinkie came in from. I shivered, remembering that I was butt-naked under the covers. I knew I forgot to ask the doctor where were my clothing, but luckily my friends had just brought my dufflebag. Reaching over and with some sharp stabs of pain, I hoisted the bag onto the bed. Since looks weren’t that important at the moment, I just grabbed my underwear, sweat-shorts and a plain white undershirt. Let me tell you, the shirt was easy enough to put on but the underwear and shorts weren’t. But within at least a minute and a half, I felt decent enough to be seen if someone decided to pull the sheet off of me.

Looking at the clock, it read: 11:45. Wow, already an hour and forty-five minutes passed? I need to find something to do because there was nothing to do! Eyeing my backpack, I put the dufflebag on the floor and replaced it with my backpack. I quickly unzipped it and pulled out my laptop.

How I missed you technology! I quickly turned it on and logged in. Now… what should I play… Obviously I can’t play any online games, so instead I clicked on a folder marked ‘Emulators’ and clicked the GBA file and started to play one of my all-time favorite games: Pokemon FireRed Version. Honestly, I love every pokemon game, but FireRed was one of the first ones that I’ve played. Seeing that I already have a save file, I copied the file into a different folder and started a fresh new game.

Right when I was going to start, I was interrupted by a couple of knocks. With an annoyed groan, I closed the laptop and put it back into my backpack and called out, “Come in!”

The door was then enveloped in a purple aura and opened up to reveal Twilight Sparkle, with piles, upon piles of paper, quills and ink bottles that were also encased in a purple aura. She then walked in and levitated the stuff to where she sat down on the left side of the bed. 

“Good morning Leonardo, how are you doing today?”, she asked in an upbeat tone.

Naturally I sat there with my mouth agape staring at the object that were levitating a moment ago. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Do what?”, she asked, with a look of confusion on her face.

“The levitating objects thing, how are you doing that?”

“Oh you mean my magic?”

“Suuuureeee… Magic”, I said sarcastically while waving my hands in an arc in front of me, “Next you’ll say that dragons are real and god-like beings raise the moon and the sun”

“Actually, dragons are real, and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna raise the sun and the moon, respectively”, she said in a scholar-like tone.

“I call bullshit on that”

“Hey! Don’t disrespect my teacher like that!”, Twilight snarled.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend you, but I still don’t believe that the white pegacorn from yesterday can raise the sun, reason being because the sun is a giant burning ball of gas that is about ninety-three million miles away, give or take a million”

“Princess Celestia is an alicorn, like Princess Luna and I. Besides, if that was true, then how will sun rise and set?”

“The Earth rotates on it’s axis”, I said matter-of-factly.

“Nevermind about this, you didn’t answer my first question, how are you Leonardo?”

“Sorry, I feel better than yesterday, I can tell you that much, and please call me Leo, I’m not really used to people calling me by my full first-name”

“It’s ok and I’m glad that you feel better Leo. Now the reason that I’m here is that I wanted to ask you or your friends some questions about you guys and your species, but they didn’t wanted to answer any of my questions”, she said with a frown.

“Sorry, but can you wait until later for a Q and A session, reasons being I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m talking to ponies and two I’d rather do this when my friends are here”

“Oh, well okay then”, she said dejectedly, “I guess I’ll just come back tomorrow then”

As she started to walk away, I stopped her before she was able to reach the door, “Wait!”, she turned to face me with a quizzical look on her face, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, beside I’d love some company, it gets lonely here”

With that she brightened up and said, “Okay!”, she then trotted to where she previously was.

“If you want I can tell you a bit about myself, if you tell me a bit about yourself”

She thought about it for a minute, tapping a hoof to her chin, “Okay then, you have a deal”

With that she told me a bit about herself and how she came to be in Ponyville. In return I told her a bit about myself.

Everyday that week was more or less the same. Each day that Twilight came hoping for the Q and A session, and each day I told her I wasn’t quite ready and we instead told a bit more about ourselves, until I finally agreed towards the end of my first week at the hospital…

> Chapter 5: Questions, Answers and Boring Hospitals Part II
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 5:


Questions, Answers and Boring Hospitals Part II




It started off as any other day so far. Doctor Stable checking my healing progress, the nurse (which I still haven’t asked what her name was) came by to give me my breakfast, and my friends visited me although they weren’t being chased by Pinkie. I asked my friends if they can stay, they agreed because apparently, they were bored as hell. As we talked a bit they told me on how the town was treating them.

“They are still scared of us!”, whined Rosa, “I mean how is this adorable and fabulous face scary?”

“Have you looked in a mirror?”, I said with a sly smile. I was then rewarded by a punch on my arm.

“Worth it”

“Why did you want us to stay anyways?”, asked Felipe.

“Twilight has been asking me all week for a Q and A session about us and I told her no but I’ve decided to trust her now”

“Why?”, asked Ishmael.

“She doesn’t seem to have ill intent towards us and I mean we get some questions and answers of our own don’t we?”, I said with a shrug.

“Well I guess”, said Ishmael, “I wonder what is happening back in Milwaukee, I mean we have been here for how long?”

“About two weeks”, answered Felipe.

“Yeah, so spring break should’ve been over about a week ago”, Ishmael said with urgency, “Our parents should’ve noticed that we haven’t came back from camping”

“But we don’t know exactly where we are or IF we can get back”, I said.

Then when the clock struck twelve a couple of knocks can be heard from the door.

“Come in Twilight!”, I called out.

“How did you know it was me?”, said Twilight as she opened the door with her stuff in tow with her ‘Magic’.

“For the past week you’ve visited me at twelve sharp”

“Oh”, Twilight smiled sheepishly as a small blush spread across her face, which I found kinda cute, “Well I always like to be punctual and on time”, she said with pride.

“Punctual and on time for what?”, asked Rosa.

I then proceeded to grab the nearest thing, which was my pillow, and smacked her with it, “Shut up Rosa”

She then crossed her arms and huffed, “Fiiine!”

I then turned back to Twilight, who was looking at us with a curious look, “Sorry about that, just ignore her for now”

“It’s quite alright, not many ponies appreciate punctuality”

“Well now that you’re here, I guess we can start our Q and A session, so ask away and we’ll answer your questions as best we can and we’ll ask you some questions that we have”

“Ohhhhh! There are so many questions that I have!”, Twilight said excitedly.

“Then just start with the simple ones”, I calmly stated.

“Ok then” she said while looking through some flash cards, which I assumed had the questions she was going to ask us. And let me tell you, she wasn’t kidding when she said she had a lot of questions. The stack was as tall as she was. “What species are you guys?”

“Didn’t we answer this question before?”, huffed Felipe.

“Yes but, I forgot to write it down”, said Twilight with an embarrassed look.

“It’s ok, and to answer your questions, we are called humans, or if you want the scientific name: Homo Sapiens”

“Homo Sapiens?”, she asked quizzically.

“It means ‘wise man’ from an ancient dead language called Latin”

She furiously writes it down, “Where do you guys live?”

“Us or specie-wise?”

“Both if you want”

“Well specie-wise, humans can live almost anywhere, from the tundra, grasslands, desert and mountains and more places that I’m too lazy to name. As for where we lived, we lived in a city called Milwaukee, which lies on the south-east corner of the state of Wisconsin, which has the most bipolar weather you can imagine, at least in my opinion”, my friends muttered in agreement at my last statement.

“How large is your species population?”

“Last I checked, there we’re more than seven billion people living on planet Earth”

“S-Seven b-billion!?” 

“And the funny thing is that in the not too distant future we will be fighting for space”

“You mean like, wars?”, Twilight asked tentatively.

“Yep, just another stupid war”

“And that’s a natural occurrence?’

“Yep, just useless fighting, mind you that humans for the most part are peaceful, but we are also at the same time extremely violent and dangerous, soooo… there have been plenty of wars and right now we’re just hoping that World War III doesn’t start any time soon” 

 “And is Earth the name of the planet you live in?”

“Yeah”

“And there have been TWO world wars?!”

“Yep, not humanities best moments, and the second world war was the bloodiest war in human history”, I said while rubbing the back of my head.

It went back and forth like that for about a good hour before I got to ask some of our questions.

“Ok time for our questions. Where are we exactly?”

“You’re in the Ponyville General Hospital”, Twilight said matter-of-factly.

“No no, you misunderstood my question, I mean planet and country-wise”

“Oh, well this planet is Equis and this country is called Equestria”

So I was right, we we’re not in Wisconsin, let alone planet Earth, anymore.

“Any of you guys have any questions?”, I asked my friends.

“I have a couple” said Rosa.

“Ask away Rosa”, I said.

She then calmly walked around the bed until she was in front of Twilight and grabbed her by her shoulder and then, “WHERE ARE WE?! HOW DID WE GET HERE?! HOW WILL WE GET BACK HOME!? AND IS THERE WIFI IN THIS HOSPITAL!?!”, while shaking Twilight furiously.

“W-W-W-We-e-e-e-e a-al-r-ready a-a-a-a-n-n-n-n-s-s-s-s-w-w-w-w-e-e-e-e-r-r-r-r-d-d-d-d t-t-t-t-h-h-h-h-e-e-e f-f-f-f-f-i-i-i-i-i-r-r-r-r-s-s-s-s-s-t-t-t-t q-q-q-q-q-q-u-u-u-u-u-e-e-e-e-e-s-s-s-s-s-t-t-t-t-i-i-i-i-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-n”, said Twilight while still being shaken by Rosa.

“WHY AREN”T YOU ANSWERING ME!?!?!”, shouted Rosa at Twilight.

“No! Down Bessie! Bad Rosa!”, I scolded.

Rosa then calmed down and gently put Twilight down, who looked so shaken by Rosa’s stunt that she was wobbling and her eyes seem to turn dizzily cartoon-style.

“Twilight, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I-I just need to lie down”, she then flopped on the floor unconscious.

“………God damn it Rosa!”

“Hehe, sorry”, Rosa chuckled nervously.



	

About one and a half hours later Twilight came to and Rosa apologized.

“It’s okay Rosa, not much harm was done”, said Twilight as she picked herself up from the floor.

“But anyways as for your questions, we already answered the first one, we don’t know how you got here, we don’t know how to send you back at the moment and what in Celestia is wifi?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain what wifi is, at least without explaining some advance human technology but I’ll give you the very short version”, I then inhaled deeply and pulled out my laptop from my bag, “This is a computer, think of it as an advance notebook/library/entertainment center but mostly the first and third thing. Now there is thing that is called the internet which is basically a giant digital library that people can put and search for anything they want on it, but to be able to access the internet you need a router to send a signal called WiFi”

I knew I said something that greatly interested her, and I’m going to assume that it’s the fact that humans have created a plethora of information in a convenient place… and that her eyes grew to the size of plates when I mentioned that the internet was just a giant library. It was quite funny to see her nerdgasm.

I would've loved to see her awestruck expression for a bit longer, but I still had a couple of questions, “Hello? Is anyone home?”, I waved a hand in front of her muzzle and snapped my fingers. 

Still no response. I looked over my friends and gave them a evil smirk and nodded my head to Twilight. I then put my index finger in my mouth and then proceeded to stick said finger in one of her ears. The look on her face. *Gasp!* It. Was. Priceless!

“Aaaahhh!”, screamed Twilight as she fell back causing me and my friends to start bursting into a fit of laughter. I winced a bit as my ribs haven’t fully healed yet but, it was worth it.

Twilight then gave me the cutest mad face I’ve ever seen. Yep… I’m totally going to pay for that later. “Awww come on Twilight. You left yourself wide open for that one”

“*cough*That’s what he said*cough*”

“Shut up Rosa, you too Felipe”, 

“Anyway, you ok Twilight? Sorry about that”

She tried to be mad at me, but I guess you can’t really stay mad at this face for that long. “It’s okay, I’ll admit, I did leave myself open for that and it was a bit funny”, Twilight giggled.

“Yeah”, I then cleared my throat, “Anyway another question of mine that I’ve meaning to ask is, what’s with the butt tattoo?”, I asked while pointed to the marking on her flanks which was a purple six-pointed star with five smaller stars surrounding it.

“Oh this? This is my cutie mark”, she said as if it were obvious.

“What the fuck is a cutie mark?”, asked Felipe. I couldn’t have put that in better words my friend.

“A cutie marks is a mark that appears when a pony finds his or her one true talent, mine representing my talent for magic”

“Soooo… a tattoo just randomly appears on your arse when you find something you’re really good at?”, said Ishmael skeptically, “That is the stupidest and weirdest thing I have heard so far. And that is kinda saying something”

“Okay, MOVING ON!”, I said not wanting to start up on the ‘that’s bullshit’ conversation, although it did sound strange but I wondered something. I wondered what would my cutie mark look like? “What other nations are on Equis?”

“Well that is a big subject, but to simplify it I’ll just name some of the major nations to the east, across the ocean is the Griffin Empire. To the south-east are the Dragon Lands. To the south of the Griffin Empire is Zebrica. To the north of Equestria is the Crystal Empire. To the west of Equestria is the Minotaur Lands and the far east is Saddle Arabia”

Wow so apparently someone decided to fuck it and dump every mythological creature, monster and beast into this world. Hope I don’t run into Medusa while I’m here. Well with my luck, I’ll run into something a lot worse, like the Furies or a big ass Hydra.

“A while back you guys called you and your friends named yourselves the elements. What did you mean by that?”

“Me and my five friends each represent a quality of friendship: Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter and Magic. These six elements are the Elements of Harmony, one of the most powerful magical artifacts known, but about a month ago we had to return the elements to where they came from to prevent the Everfree Forest from overrunning the town and Equestria”

“That is the most cheesiest and kinda cool thing I’ve heard. I mean the power to defeat foes and evil with the ‘power of friendship’ seems a bit ridiculous but that would be cool to defeat them that way, and funny”, said Rosa.

“Well that is all my questions for now, but you can ask me anything when you visit later”, I said while I stretched a bit in the bed.

“Ok Leo, and thank you for letting me learn a bit about you guys”

“No problem, it’s better than you guys fearing us because of the lack of knowledge, you know what they say: Knowledge is power”

Twilight giggled, “That is true, well I’ll see you guys later”

With that she closed the door and left me with my friends, “That went well”, commented Rosa.

“Well it’s getting boring here so I’ll just leave you guys coming?”, said Felipe.

“I would but I can’t for obvious reasons”, I replied.

“That’s too bad now isn’t?”, he said in mock pity.

“Oh go fuck yourself with a branch up your ass!”

“No thanks”

“Ladies calm down, we’ll just leave, see ya later man”, said Ishmael.

“Yeah, see ya”

With that, they left me to die of boredom.

> Chapter 6: To Victory!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 6:


To Victory!


YES! AT LAST! FREEDOM!

…Or, at least a form of it.

But after a tortuous and agonizing three weeks, I was finally released from the boredom hellhole that was the hospital. 

Twilight and my friends say that I’m exaggerating it a bit, but I highly doubt that they had to sit in one place for about three weeks.

Anyways, as Twilight, Felipe and Ishmael helped roll me out of the hospital with the wheelchair that was provided by the hospital - That Dr. Stable told me to stay in, for the exception of going to sleep - I took in my first deep breath of the natural and what I assumed, country air compared to the sterile air of the hospital.

“Soo… This is Ponyville?”

“Yep”, replied Felipe and Ishmael.

“Looks medieval with all the thatch houses”

“Well compared to what you have told me, we are not as advanced in technology or anything for that matter compared to your world is”, said Twilight as she trotted up next to me.

“If it weren’t for the planks, bricks, stone or siding, I would think that we were in Skyrim… minus the warm weather”

“What is Skyrim?”, asked the now confused Twilight.

“I’ll explain later, but now I guess it’s time for the tour that you said you’ll take me on when I got out”

“Ok then, but I expect a full explanation”, Twilight said with a demanding tone.

Great that is another long explanation I can add to the now growing list of explanations I owed her.

What? I get lazy to explain some things to her and my friends are just as- wait- my friends are the laziest bastards ever! I’ve had to explain and answer most of the questions Twilight had and they didn’t even lift a finger to help.

As I looked out into the distance, I see a town with the main roads leading to a tall circular building which I guessed was townhall. Farther in the distance I can see an orchard. I can take a safe guess that It’s the same orchard that we appeared in about a month ago.

Wow. It’s hard to believe that a whole month has passed since we appeared in the orchard. As I thought about this, a purple hoof suddenly came into focus as it waved in front of me.

“Leo? Are you listening?”

“Mhh? What?”, I said as my vision refocused.

Twilight gave a heavy sigh, “Never mind, just follow me and I’ll show you around town, your friends don’t have to come if they don’t want to”

“Nope, they are staying right next to me today since they barely hang out with me these past few weeks”

“Hey we visited you!”, protested Felipe.

“For about five minutes then you guys leave”, I deadpanned.

“Well, It’s not exactly exciting not having to do anything for any period of time”, said Ishmael.

“Nooooo, you think?”, I sarcastically replied, “Where’s Rosa anyways?”

“I dunno, but she should be around town somewhere or working”, said Ishmael.

“She has a job? Since when?”

“Since about a few days since Pinkie Pie let her stay at her place”, answered Felipe.

“Ok then, first tour then I’ll ask you guys what you haven’t been telling me while in the hospital”, and with that we headed towards the town.



	

It took about ten minutes to get to the edge of town and when we were about ten meters away from the first house, Twilight stopped and turned to me. “Ok, I’ll need to warn you about something before we head in, the ponies in this town are kind of xenophobic and will freak out at most new things”

“So they are afraid of something that has been among them for about a month? Shouldn’t they have gotten used to seeing my friends by now and won’t be afraid when they see me?”

“They should've, but they are too afraid to get to know your friends”

“So best case scenario is that they run away in fear and worst case is that they trample me down in their panic?”

“Pretty much sums up our first month here”, mumbled Ishmael. 

“Hey guys”

They turned to look at me, “Let’s go in there and enter with the epicness that we have”

“What do you have in mind?”, asked Ishmael.

After looking around for a second, I found something that can work with my plan. My smile then grew wider and my eyes shone with dark intent.



	

“You sure this is a good idea?”, asked Ishmael who was sitting in a cart that was tied to the back of the wheelchair.

“You aren’t afraid now, aren’t you?”, I asked in a mocking tone.

“There is a difference between being scared and knowing the stupidity of something”, stated Ishmael, “And this screams stupid and idiotic idea all over it”

“Ishmael is right Leo”, said Twilight, “Besides you haven’t still recovered from your injuries yet! You can hurt yourself!”

“Aw come on Twilight”, I pouted, “But this will be fun!”

“No! This is stupid!”

“Fine!”

“Thank you”, said both Ishmael and Twilight in union.

“Ahora Felipe!”, I yelled out. Felipe then pushed the cart and the wheelchair in turn and jumped into the cart that was now rolling quickly down the steep hill.

“LEO!”, yelled Ishmael who was still in the cart. I responded with a maniacal laugh as the wind blew my hair away from my face.

When I looked back I could see Twilight running (or was it galloping?) after the cart and wheelchair. Felipe and I whooped and laughed as we saw the improvised ramp that was made up of a couple planks of wood leaning against a few boxes that we grabbed where they were which was next to a house.

I braced myself as the wheelchair hit the ramp and shot into the air along with the cart behind me. While in the air, I saw that the ponies that were outside stared at me and entourage as we hanged air for a couple of seconds. Then we landed with a loud and hard *THUMP* and rolled to a slow stop in the middle of a market.

The crowd of ponies stood still as they stare at me and blink.

Then I blinked.

They then blinked again.

Come on dumbass! Say something instead of gawking at the multi-colored ponies.

“Hola, how are ya’ll doing today?”, I said with a two-finger salute.

They just stood there in silence. Well, until… 

“THERE’S MORE OF THEM MONSTERS! EVERYPONY, RUN SO THEY WON’T CATCH YOU AND EAT YOU!”, screamed a hot-pink pony with lime colored mane.

Then chaos reigned in the marketplace as every- er - pony ran, closed their stalls, close their doors and shutters and locked them, all in a span of thirty seconds.

“What the hell just happened?”, I asked with an extremely confused expression.

“What? You didn’t believe Rosa when she said that the ponies ran away at the sight of us?”, said Felipe as he crossed his arms.

“Not really, what I imagined was like one or two or even ten ponies panicking but not a full blown mass-panic and riot that all of the ponies locked themselves in their homes!” 

“Welcome to Ponyville, Leo”, Twilight said with a sigh, “Where everypony here is crazy”

“Man, I hate xenophobes”, grumbled Ishmael.

“I second that”, I agreed, “But anyways, ONWARDS! TO VICTORY!”, I cried out as I pointed forwards as Felipe pushed the wheelchair.

I heard a sigh and turned around to see Twilight face… hoof and shake her head. When she looked up, I gave small laugh and waved her over, “Come on Twilight, or else I’ll get lost”

She then giggled and trotted over to where I am and walked along next to the wheelchair.



	

The first place we visited on our tour was Sweet Apple Acres, but we didn’t stick around for long, but I learned a couple of  fun facts about this place.

Applejack and her family owns this farm (Should've seen that coming).

And that apparently they collect the apples by bucking the tree and then they are rewarded with a rain of apples from the tree. How does that even work?

But while we were at the orchard I asked the farm pony if she still had my sweater from the first day that we were here. I got it back but it was dirty and torn in some places. I don’t even… Applejack just gave me a sheepish smile and apologized for messing it up. Instead of blowing a fuse and saying a long string of spanish obscenities for messing up my favorite sweater, I told her not to worry about it too much and I’ll try fixing it myself (Thank you grandma for those ‘useless’ lessons on stitching!).

Our next stop was Fluttershy’s cottage. Her house was near the edge of the forest that was called the Everfree Forest. Apparently no one would remotely dare to enter because the plants grow by themselves and the weather changes by itself. I laughed for a good ten minutes along with Ishmael and Felipe when Twilight told us this. She was pretty mad for a while after. 

Anyways, Fluttershy’s cottage was just a giant hollowed-out tree and there are a lot of animals here. Twilight told us that Fluttershy was the local animal care-taker whether it is tamed or wild. We didn’t see Fluttershy so we just headed to the next place of our tour which was Rainbow Dash’s cloud-house.

At first I thought that she was bullshitting us until we saw the said cyan pegasus sleeping on a fucking cloud. I stared at her with my mouth agape and apparently so were Felipe and Ishmael (These guys really didn’t pay much attention their two weeks in town now did they?). The only thing I was thinking was ‘Holy shit! I’ve always wanted to walk on a cloud and wonder how soft they are’ but I was quickly shot down when Twilight told us that only pegasi and alicorns can walk on clouds. She then told us that any *sigh* pony (These horse/pony puns are starting to get old) can walk on clouds if a unicorn or alicorn cast a cloudwalking spell on them and that she’ll cast the spell on us later (and by that she meant REALLY later).

The next place was the Carousel Boutique which was both the home and business of Rarity, who was a fashionista and clothes designer. When I saw the shop I groaned and wanted to bang my head against the armrest when I saw that it resembled a carousel. When Rarity saw us she invited us in and served us some tea and some sandwiches (Which I had to pick out most of the inedible greens). Now I’m not a tea person but I enjoyed it. When she saw my dirty and torn sweater she cried out that it was a crime against fashion and told me to giver her the sweater and that she’ll improve it without charge. I tried to convince her that she doesn’t need to fix it for me but she ignored my pleas and walked to a different room and came back with a tape measure and took my upper body measurements. 

Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to move around in the wheelchair to allow her to get good measurements but, after about five minutes she nodded in satisfaction and told me to come back to her shop in about one to two weeks since she still has other clients’ orders to work on and with that we left the boutique.

“What just happened?” 

“I have no idea”, said Ishmael.

“Ditto”, added Felipe.

“Come on we have two more places to go and the day is almost over”, said Twilight.

The day was what? I looked at the sky… well what do you know it is almost over. Grabbing my phone I checked the time and it read 5:15 PM. Wow time does fly when you’re having fun(?).

Later we reached a place called Sugarcube Corner and my first thought was ‘Does the gingerbread man live here?’ since the building resembled a giant gingerbread house with a giant cupcake on top. Must be a bakery.

“This is our town’s local bakery”, Twilight informed us. Called it.

The place was kinda straightforward so Twilight didn’t bother to show us the inside of the shop.

The last place we visited was a giant tree near the center of town that was both the town library and Twilight’s home. The place was a giant hollowed out oak tree that was still for some reason still alive with a sign outside that read ‘Golden Oaks Library’. By now the sun was halfway set and both Felipe and Ishmael had to head to where they were staying.

“So, Twilight where am I going to stay?”

“You're staying here with me”

“You didn’t have to do that for me Twilight”

“I volunteered for you to stay here, so did Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy for your friends”

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you going through the trouble to help a stranger, but not just any stranger but a stranger that is an unknown species and is potentially dangerous?”

“Because friends help one another”

I was kinda taken aback, “Friends? You consider us your friends?”

“Well yeah, I know you wouldn't hurt us on purpose and we’ve talked for the most part in the hospital, so aren’t we friends?”

I thought about it for a bit and agreed to her logic and truth being, I also considered them as friends, “Yeah, I guess we are”

“Great! Now since for now you can’t go upstairs where the bedrooms are at, I’ve set up the couch/bed for you in the living room, so follow me”

I followed her through a door on the other side which revealed a kitchen and then past that, the living room. She then moved some stuff around with her magic and set up the foldable bed from the couch and a pillow and blankets from a cabinet nearby.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

I looked around and saw a grandfather clock rang out signaling that it was ten pm. Wow time does fly by. I then tried to stifle a yawn but failed. This then caused Twilight to yawn as well.

“Well time to go to sleep", she said then she levitated me out of the wheelchair with a bit of struggle. Damn, am I that fat that she is struggling to lift me up by magic? If so then I need to workout more.

She then levitated me to the bed. “You know I could've gotten to bed without your help right?”

“Doctor Stable said that you should keep off that foot for at least two weeks”

“Ok mom”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “Good night Leo”

“Good night Twilight and Thanks again for letting me stay here”

“It’s no problem and you’re welcome”

With that she turned off the lights and closed the door. I didn’t even know how tired I was till’ my head hit the pillow. So without much thought I drifted off into dreamland.

> Chapter 7: Royal Summons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 7:


Royal Summons


“M-m-ma? D-d-d-donde estas? W-w-where a-a-are y-y-you?”, I shivered.

It has been nearly an hour since I was stuck outside on the coldest night in Milwaukee, and it was not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t feel anything anymore at this point except for the sharp pain every time I move. So I’ve decided to call my parents to see why haven’t they picked me up yet. By this point I was furious that they won’t answer me. Then my mom finally answers her phone.

“Hola?”

“M-m-ma? D-d-d-donde estas? W-w-where a-a-are y-y-you?”, I stuttered into the phone as loud as I could, which wasn’t very loud.

“Que?”

“W-w-where a-a-are y-y-you?”, I repeated.

“Haber, no té escucho”

“Where are you?”, I repeated, a bit louder this time.

This kept on going for a few minutes until I heard that the call was cut. After a string of spanish obscenities I fumbled to unlock my phone and redial my mom’s phone.

“Que quieres?”, she asked with an annoyed tone.

“Donde estas? Where are you?!”, I practically screamed into my phone.

“Donde no te importa!”, and with that she hung up.

I stared at my phone dumbfounded and shocked. ‘Did she not care about me anymore? Did she just threw me aside like a piece of trash and abandon me?’ My vision started to get watery as tears began to form and roll down my cheek. I then walked to the wall and sat down and pulled my legs closer to my body and began to cry.

Then I heard laughter. I wasn’t a joyful laughter but a dark and maniacal one. I looked up to look for the source of the laughter. I didn’t see anyone, then after I blinked a girl that looked no older than me appeared with long dirty blond curly hair and wearing nothing but a white blouse and a pair of skinny jeans and tennis shoes. Part of me was trying to tell me that I’ve seen her before but I couldn’t recall when, where or what was her name.

“Poor, poor Leo”, she mocked, “All alone and abandoned, like an unwanted dog, how sad”

“Who are you and what the hell do you want?”, I shivered.

“You don’t remember moi? I thought you’d remember but I guess not everything is to be as such”, she slowly walked towards me, “As for what I want…”

She was then face-to-face with me and what I found really unnerving was her deep violet eyes, “What I want is to see you suffer and to put you down”, she said with a maniacal grin.

“W-what do you mean by tha-!”, I was suddenly stopped by a sharp pain in my stomach. I looked down to see a knife embedded all the way to the hilt of the blade. She then gave the knife a twist and pulled out the now bloody blade.

I fell to my side as I gasped and struggled to catch my breath. Everything started to go colder and darkness was creeping into the edges of my vision. I then started to cough up some blood.

The girl then leaned towards my face and kissed my forehead, “I’ll see you later Leo”, she said in a low sweet-sounding voice.

Then everything faded to black.



	

I suddenly woke up in cold sweat, panting and gasping for air. ‘What the hell?! That’s the seventh one so far!’ For a second I was wondering why I couldn’t see anything but I looked out the window and saw that the moon was ever slowly being lowered towards the horizon. My eyes then adjusted to the low-light and looked around and saw that I was in the room that Twilight had let me use after the doctor took off my cast and put me on walking boots and crutches. It had been three weeks since I moved in with Twilight so things have been interesting, especially that first morning here.



	


	Three Weeks Ago



ZzZzZzZzZzZzZ!

ZzZzZzZzZzZzZ!

SMACK!

“Ow! Dafuck?”, I groaned groggily. 

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Who the hell is hitting me!?”

“Twilight! I found something sleeping on the couch-bed! It must of broken in while we were sleeping!”, yelled out a childish voice that sounded like a kid, while he/she kept smacking me with what I think was a rolled up newspaper. ‘At least it wasn’t a baseball bat or a broom or something harder… wait how would ponies hold a baseball bat if they weren’t unicorns?’

I then heard a rush of hooves ran down the stairs, “Spike stop!”, yelled Twilight, then I hear a twinkle and chime, then the smack down stopped. I cracked one eye open and saw what appeared to be a purple and green lizard with a newspaper in one claw while being suspended in Twilight’s magic. ‘Holy shit it’s Barney as a baby! I hope he doesn’t start singing’ I then started to rub the spots he smacked me. Believe it or not that little dude could hit hard as hell, even if it was a rolled up newspaper.

“Spike we don’t hit guest, especially ones that are injured”, she scolded to who I guessed was Spike.

“Guest? Opps… sorry”, he apologized sheepishly.

“It’s not me who you should be apologizing to”, she then pointed a hoof to me.

“Uhmmm… excuse me…”, I looked up to see him look at me with an apologetic expression, “Sorry about the ‘smacking-you-awake-with-a-newspaper’”, he then extended a claw for a handshake. 

I then chuckled and took the handshake and looked him in the eyes, which were the same green as the scales on his belly and they were reptilian, “It’s no problem little dude, I’ve been hit with worse, I’m Leo”

“I’m Spike, I’m a dragon and Twilight’s number one assistant”, he said with pride. 

Wait… Did he just say he was a dragon?!

“You’re a dragon? I thought that dragons were… I don’t know… A bit bigger?”

“He’s just a baby dragon”, explained Twilight.

I gave a silent ‘oh’, “What are you? A monkey?”, Spike asked.

I gave him a ‘are-you-fucking-serious?’ look and looked at Twilight, “First of all, I’m not a monkey. I’m a human. Haven’t you seen three others around town that look like me, well sorta like me?”

“I haven’t been in Ponyville for the past three weeks. I was in Canterlot looking for books for Twilight”, he explained.

“Oh, well then”, then my stomach growled, and then I gave him and Twilight a sheepish smile, “Sorry, guess I'm a bit hungry”

“It’s ok, I was about to make breakfast anyway, well until you know” 

“Ok, but can you make something without any grasses or flowers?”

“Ok, I was going to make some pancakes anyway”, with that he hopped out of the bed and headed to where the kitchen is.

“Sorry about that Leo, I guess I forgot to tell him about you and tell you about him”, Twilight then gave me a sheepish smile.

“It’s alright Twilight, although it was annoying to be woken up like that but he didn’t cause much damage”, then a thought crossed my mind, “Wait should we be letting a baby cook breakfast?”

“He’s actually eleven years old, which for dragons, is still considered a baby”

“Ohhhh… Welp! Better get up. I’ve been in beds long enough”

She then giggled as she saw me try to get to the wheelchair parked next to the bed, “Here let me help you”, then I heard a twinkle and chime and I was surrounded by a lavender aura. I pouted as she levitated me to the chair. She then bursted out laughing when she let me down.



	


	Present


I chuckled at the memory and then looked at my phone to check the time. It was 4:30 AM. ‘Damn nightmares’ Might as well get up since I don’t think I can go back to sleep. I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stood up with a bit of difficulty. I then stretched, causing the bones on my back to crack and pop into place. I then jerked my head from one side to the other with the same results, and I did the same with various parts of my body, ending with my knuckles. 

After getting changed I left my room and headed downstairs, until I heard a burp followed by something hitting the floor coming from where Twilight and Spike sleep. I limped to their room to see what happened. When I opened the door slowly, I saw Twilight lightly snoring in her bed facing away from me and Spike curled up in his basket. I was about to leave until something caught my eye.

I slowly and quietly limped to where the object was. It was a scroll. Huh… The princess must of sent a letter while Spike slept, in which surprised me that he didn’t wake up because of it. I quickly grabbed the scroll and put it in my back pocket and left the room quietly.

When I was downstairs I turned on the lights and headed to the kitchen to serve myself a bowl of what was called Celestia-O’s. Inwardly I groaned at the name. When I finished eating, I pulled out the scroll and pondered whether I should read it or not, until I saw ‘To Leonardo Anaya Castro’ written nice and clearly below the wax seal.

Inside the letter read:
        

Dear Leonardo Anaya Castro,

                I ask you and your friends to come to Canterlot Castle so we may speak about certain things that are long overdue. I have sent a chariot to come collect you and your friends in half an hour on the road leading towards Fluttershy’s cottage. I’ll see you here.

        Sincerely,
Princess Celestia



Well then… I guess I should've seen this coming since she did say that she will talk to us when I felt better but that was a long time ago. Well I guess I should go get my friends and pack something just in case. 

I grabbed my dufflebag and stuffed it with some clothes, including some that Rarity made for me (Who I thanked but felt bad that I couldn’t pay her back, but she insisted to not worry and that they were free of charge), laptop and some boxes of ammo. Slinging the duffle bag on my back I grabbed my dog tags, baseball cap and slung the rifle on my back and started to head out. But I stopped to leave a note for Twilight telling here where I was and to not to worry. Satisfied with the note, I left it on the kitchen table and headed to where my friends stayed at, the closest being SugarCube Corner.

After waking up Rosa by throwing pebbles on Pinkie’s/Rosa’s room I told her to pack some stuff and meet me on the road leading to Fluttershy’s cottage.

I then headed to Sweet Apple Acres and did the same but being extra careful not to wake up the Apples. Luckily I didn’t wake up any of the Apple family. 

I then headed to Fluttershy’s cottage where Ishmael stayed at with Felipe following closely behind. 

Couple minutes later we were all on the road waiting for the chariot to pick us up.

“Tell me why you woke us up at five in the fucking morning?”, asked Felipe with a grumpy tone.

“Royal Summons”, I simply said.

“How you got the letter?”, asked Ishmael.

“Our friendly fax machine”, I joked.

I looked down the road to see if the chariot was close but didn’t see any, until Rosa pointed to the sky where I saw a golden chariot being pulled by two pegasi guard in golden armor. Oh fuck me.

When the chariot landed I was reluctant to get on, same with my friends for obvious reasons. IT’S A FUCKING CHARIOT! CHARIOTS HAVE OPEN BACKS! I’m not going to exactly immediately jump on a chariot that can fly and then fall off it to my death. Then when we all got on, we took off. As we took off I gave a silent prayer hoping I won’t fall and become the first human pancake in Equestria.
	
	

> Chapter 8: The Test of Trust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 8:


The Test of Trust




“Have we landed?”, I asked shakily as I held on for dear life on the side of the chariot with my eyes closed shut tightly.

“Close, but dude you should really see this!”, exclaimed Rosa.

With great hesitance, I slowly cracked open my eyes but then open them wide in surprise. Now first things first: we were about three miles in the air and going about 50mph. And second: our destination ahead was the city of Canterlot that was sitting on the cliffside of a mountain with a river flowing through the city. 

The city itself was a mixture of alabaster, purple and gold and on the portion that was hanging off the cliff was the castle itself and was being held up by giant beams, which was not really reassuring, but overall it was an amazing sight especially with the rising sun coming over the horizon.

“Brace yourselves, we’re about to land”, said a gruff voice of one of the pegasi guards.

True to his word, moments later we landed, but it wasn’t exactly a smooth one. When we came to a full stop, I stumbled off the chariot while Rosa jumps down and starts kissing the ground, “Land! How I’ve missed you!”

“Pull yourself together Rosa! You’re making a fool of yourself”, scolded Felipe.

“Ahem!”

We all turned to see another guard but this time it was a unicorn, “I’m here to escort you four to the princesses, please follow me”

I looked back at my friends and shrugged and followed the guard down many corridors. “How does anyone know where their going in here?”, I wondered out loud.

“Once you’ve been here long enough, you’d memorized the castle and know it like the back of your hoof, or claw”, replied the guard while still keeping a stoic look on his face.

“Oh, and these are hands”, I said while wiggling my fingers. He didn’t reply and kept leading us through the castle.

“Any idea on what the princess wants?”, asked Ishmael.

“I think I have an idea, but I’m not exactly sure”

“Well, are you going to tell us or not?”, asked Felipe.

“On second thought my idea was stupid, so no, I have no idea, well actually maybe is to check on us and to see if we are not dangerous”, I said with uncertainty.

“Ha! What so dangerous about this fabulous face?”, said Rosa as she put her hands on her cheeks.

“Watch it Rosa, you might give someone a heart attack”

“Because I’m so cute and fabulous?”

“No because on how ugly you are”, Felipe and Ishmael snickered and I thought that the guard was also holding back his laughter.

“What if the princess found a way to send us home”, suggested Felipe.

“God can only tell then”, I replied as we stopped in front of a large double door, which I assumed was the throne room. To my surprise it was a large study room with bookcases on the walls and a window with the morning sun shining through it. In the center of the room was a round coffee table and a bunch of cushions around it and on the other side of the table was the alabaster alicorn Princess Celestia and next to her was a smaller alicorn but her coat was a dark blue and instead of a rainbow flowing mane like Celestia, her mane was a flowing cobalt blue with sparks here and there that looked like if there were stars twinkling in her mane.

“Good morning Mr. Anaya, Ms. Rosa, Mr. Ishmael and Mr. Felipe, and welcome to Canterlot, I hope you enjoyed the ride here”, welcomed Princess Celestia.

Out of respect we gave her a slight bow, “Morning princess, and please just call me Leo, and as for the ride here can I suggest at least a back and some parachutes?”

“Just call me Rosa”

“Felipe”

“Ishmael”

“Very well then Leo, Rosa, Felipe and Ishmael”

Cough Cough

“Oh sorry, how rude of me, Ahem! This is my younger sister Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria and bringer and mistress of the night and moon”

“Hello Princess Luna, nice to meet you”, I greeted the lunar princess.

“Hello, tis’ nice to meet thou as well”, she replied. Huh old english dialect.

“So, why have you called us Princess Celestia?”

“Have you found a way to send us back home?”, asked Ishmael.

“Sorry but we still haven’t found a way to send you four back, but as for what I called you four here is to help convince me if you four are a danger to my little ponies and if I should allow you to live with the public”

We stood there in silence letting both the news of going home and what she was asking us to sink in. Until Ishmael spoke up, “How would we prove to you that we mean no harm to your subjects?”

“That is what I asked myself when for a while until my sister came up with a way, Luna?”

“When our sister asked us for advice, I told her that to be able to prove thyselves is to send thou on a quest!”

“A quest to where exactly?”, asked Felipe.

“And will there be snacks?”, added Rosa. I just facepalmed.

“Shut up Rosa”, I sighed, “Sorry about that princess, just ignore her for now, you were saying something about a quest”

“Yes, well actually this quest will be separated into separate parts but thou art only required to do only one part to prove thyselves to us but you four can do the rest later if thou want. I digress, Ahem! Long ago we had some artifacts of power that when together, anypony who wields them have the power that can rival the Elements of Harmony”

Now from living with Twilight for a while she has taught me about Equestria, including the Elements of Harmony. And from what she has told me, they were Equestria’s most powerful defence weapon. Now Princess Luna is telling us that there are magical artifacts that when they are together or something like that, they are as powerful as the Elements.

“So… you want us to retrieve at least one of the pieces so at least no one can accidentally get all of them and use them to take over?”, I asked.

“Correct”

“And how many artifacts are there in total?”

“Five”

“Ok where is the first one and how does it look like?”

“For the first one you don’t have to go that far, in fact we are not that far from the temple in which it is resting in. The temple itself is inside this mountain. As for how it looks like, it looks like this”, and she showed us a painting with an old gray unicorn with a long beard, large blue hat with bells on the rim and a blue cloak with stars and bells holding a staff that looked like the one that Gandalf the Grey had in The Hobbit. “This is the Staff of Star Swirl The Bearded”, explained Luna, “Almost everypony doesn’t know about this artifact, or the others for that matter, reason being is that they are a closely guarded secret of the crown and only a selected few know that they exist and only us and our sister know where they rest, well until now that we hath told you four”

“If it is such a guarded secret then why would you tell us here where someone can be eavesdropping?”, asked Ishmael.

“Before you four came here, I’ve cast a spell on this room to make sure nopony can ‘accidentally’ hear what is said in here”, answered Celestia with a mischievous glint in her eyes. ‘Oh I think I’ll like this one’

“Ok, what will we need to go dungeon diving cause’ I highly doubt that we can just simply walk in and grab it”, I said with a smirk knowing what I lead her to say.

“Thou art correct, one does not simply walk in and grab it”, ‘Yup, today is going to be a good day’, “The temple is actually not just the resting place of the staff but also of Star Swirl himself, so the whole temple is littered with traps to ensure that grave robbers don’t defile his resting place. We don’t know where are all the traps, but we know of a passage that is free of them”

“Well then… that’s convenient”, I said.

“Yes it is, it is actually a passage that is for ponies to give their respects to Star Swirl but, the temple has long been forgotten by our subjects and all the maps of the temple have crumbled to dust except for this one”, Luna then teleported a piece an old piece of paper (or was it parchment since it is who know’s how old?) and handed it to me.

“How old is this temple again?”, I asked as I felt the material of the map. ‘Yup, this is parchment’

“The temple is just under a thousand years old, unfortunately he passed away not many years after my banishment”, said Luna with a somber tone.

Celestia then nuzzled Luna, “Don’t dwell too much on the past dear Luna, Star Swirl would be proud to see you now”, Luna then nuzzled Celestia back and whispered something in her ear. Celestia then nodded to Luna and turned back to us as we stood around awkwardly.

“Well”, started Celestia, “You four will leave for the temple an hour after sunset and we’ll provide your equipment, for the rest of the day you are free to explore the castle but please try to stay away from the public parts of the castle, I’ll have some guards escort you four around and take you to your rooms”

“Thank you your majesties for letting us prove ourselves” ‘Even if it’s pretty unnecessary’ 

“Your welcome”, moments later a guard knocked on the door and told us to follow him to our rooms.

When we got to our rooms, let me tell you, it was a huge decked out palace suite. Hehe get it? Palace suite, because this is a pala- oh shut up that was a good one! Anyway the first thing I did was throw myself onto the emperor-sized bed (it was hell-lot bigger than a king-sized bed) and groan in relief because my legs were starting to throb in pain. I knew I would regret not bringing my crutches, I was holding in my pain since we were meeting with the princesses, and luckily I was able to not show my pain… much. Hopefully either princesses haven’t noticed me in pain.

So as I layed on the bed, I decide to take a short nap.



	

“Why do you bother?”, asked Bianca, “No one wants you around. Now I would say to go away and not come back, but I’ll do everyone a favor and take out the trash”

From my kneeling position I looked up with tears running down my eyes with hatred glaring at her as she walked up to me and stared at me with those purple eyes that for a second shone and revealed blue serpentine pupils but then as fast as they showed they disappeared and returned to it violet color.

She then pulled out a Beretta M9 pistol from behind her and placed the barrel between my eyes. I felt as if there were chains holding me in place denying me the ability to move as her finger squeezed the trigger.



	

My eyes shot open then squeezed right back as the bright light from the sun streamed in. I then with caution opened my eyes and pulled out my phone and checked the time. ‘Damn 2:25! I slept almost the whole day away!’  I was then interrupted by a loud growl. I looked down as my stomach growled again. “Ok, ok I’ll get something to eat”, I got up and limped to the door and saw two guards standing… well, guard on either side of the door. The one on the left was a dark grey pegasi and the one on the right was a white unicorn.

“Umm… excuse me?”, they both flinched slightly and turned to look at me.

“Do you know anywhere where I can get something to eat?”

“S-sure, Ahem! Please follow me Sir”, said the one on the right.

We went down many corridors and staircases (which were a pain in the ass or if you want to be a smart-aleck about it, a pain in my legs, to walk down), until we reached the royal kitchens. The chefs were surprised and shaking a bit in fear when they saw me, but when I asked for an apple they scrambled to go get one. Then when I walked out the door, they slammed the door behind me a bit too hard.

“Do you know where any of my friends are?”, I asked a bit hopeful. The guard just shook his head, “Well do you know anywhere where I can relax and enjoy the rest of the day?”

“Sure thing sir, I know just the place”, and then he lead the way down another corridor and another set of stairs, until we reached a set of doors what had a forest with a moon behind the trees carved into the wood. When I opened the door, it revealed a dark forest. It wasn’t a forest because I could see the castles walls surrounding it, “Hey what is this place?”, I asked the guard.

“This is the Lunar Garden”, he said simply.

“That would explain why it’s kinda dark, so it’s ok for me to walk in?”

“Yes, the Solar Garden and the Lunar Garden are open to everypony”

“Ok thanks then”, he nodded and stood post at the door waiting for me to come back.

As I walked through the garden, instead of giving me a creepy feeling that the Everfree gave me it gave me a peaceful feeling, like sitting on a hill looking up at the stars. I could see flowers that glowed and had dark and crimson colors to them here and there. I then reached the center of the garden which had a couple of benches and at the center was a fountain with a crescent moon engraved in it. 

I walked to the fountain and sat on the edge as I munched on my apple. ‘Not as good as the one I got from the hospital, but still not bad’ I stayed there for an unknown amount of time, letting my mind wander. My thoughts kept on focusing on one thing. ‘Why am I getting these nightmares? I’ve had like one or two nightmares every couple of months, but I’ve had more nightmare these two months than I’ve ever had’ My train of thought was then interrupted by someone.

“Hey Leo”

I turned to see Felipe on one of the paths, “Sup’ bro. How’d you find me?”

“I just did, how you doing?”

“Not bad for a cripple”, I said with a smirk.

“Do they still hurt?”

“I would say no, but that would be a big pile of shit”, I chuckled.

“Where are your crutches? Shouldn’t you be using them?”

“Left them at the Library by accident”

“Sure, by ‘accident’”

“Oh go shove it, pinche guey. Anyway, why are you looking for me?”

“Do you even know what time it is?”

“Uhhh… no?”

“It’s dinner time, I came looking for you, I’m sure you’re hungry”

As if on cue my stomach growled loudly.

“Hehe. Well then lead on bro, to raid the food!”

We then left the garden by the way I came in, while there were two guards waiting by the door instead of one, “I’m guessing he’s your escort?”, in which Felipe nodded.

Me and my guard escort followed Felipe and his guard to where the dining room was at, with Ishmael, Rosa, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, and a white unicorn with well-groomed blond hair and he had a look on his face like ‘what-are-these-things-sitting-with-us’ as he looked at me and my friends as I walked in. I knew I’m not going to to like him much but, I’m not going to judge him much, I try to give everyone a chance. ‘Just like how you gave Applejack a chance when you first arrived here?’ ‘Oh you can go shove it’

“Sorry I’m late! Was lost in thought”, I called out.

“It’s alright Leo, we haven’t ordered anything yet as we all just go here not too long ago”, replied Celestia.

“Those good for nothing servers are late! They should of been here when we arrived in the dining room!”, whinned the white unicorn, “I say that they should be fired”

“Blueblood, we will not fire our servers”, said Celestia coldly but tried to hid it.

When Felipe and I sat down, I sat next to Celestia, who was at the head of the table, next to her was Luna, then the unicorn now known as Blueblood, then Ishmael, then Rosa, and Felipe sat next to me. Across from me was Blueblood who when he looked at me or my friends kept giving us a disgusted look.

Two minutes later a server came and took our orders. I asked for a sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, avocados and pepper-jack cheese with some orange juice. ‘Not sure if they have soda here’

When the server left, Celestia broke the ice at the table, “So, how has your day been?”

I was about to say something until I was interrupted by Blueblood, “Well Auntie, my day was simply horrid! When I went to the royal masseuses I asked them to get rid of the knots on my back, and when they started they were too rough on me so I fired them for hurting the prince”

“You know it hurts when someone massages a tense spot but it will go away”, I commented as the server came back with our food.

“And who told you to talk you hairless Ape!”, he sneered.

“No one but I’m just sayin’ because you wrongly fired someone”, I said with a calm tone.

“How dare you talk that way to me! I am Prince Blueblood! You should not be talking to me at all you filth!”

I looked down at myself then back at him, “Look I know I haven’t showered today but I’m not that dirty, you sure you don’t need any glasses?”, I said with a small smile forming.

“My vision is perfect! I don’t have a need for glasses! Unlike the garbage that is sitting at this table!”

When he said that I was at mid-bite on my sandwich. I then lowered the sandwich down on my plate and gave Blueblood a murderous glare. I know my friends were also mean-mugging him too.

“Blueblood! That is not how you treat our-”, scolded Celestia, until she was interrupted by me.

“No, no. It’s ok. But let me give you a warning Prince Blueblood!”, I spat out, “I don’t care if you insult me, I’ve heard most of them anyways so it’s like water on a duck’s back to me. But you never, EVER, insult my friends again. You have no idea what I’ll do to you if you do. And if you try to hurt them”, I then leaned over the tabled and said in the most, dark, sadistic, murderous tone, “Let’s just say that you’ll be lucky to either have your body found or alive even on life-support”

Blueblood was sweating bullets and gulped deeply and looked like he was going to piss himself. I then leaned back and continued to eat my sandwich. He then got up and hastily left, leaving his food half eaten.

I turned to face the princesses, “I’m sorry about that princesses. Just wanted to make my point across to him, it’s rare that I have to threaten someone like that, I’ve only had to do it once before”

“It’s alright Leo, and I would like to apologize for Blueblood’s actions”, replied Celestia.

“We agree with our sister, but tis was quite humorous seeing the spoiled brat being put in his place”, laughed Luna.

“You don’t have to apologized for what that motherfucker did”, I replied, “Excuse my language please but I can’t find a nicer word to describe him right now”

“Yea, you don’t have to apologize for him”, agreed Ishmael.

“I hate spoiled people, he reminds me of snooty white kids in private schools”, said Felipe.

“You sure he’s not actually a girl? Because he whines like one”, said Rosa.

“Well, thank you for understanding, Blueblood can be quite… Difficult”, said Celestia.

“Why’d you keep him around then?”, asked Ishmael as I finished my sandwich.

“He’s family, or at least distant family”, sighed Celestia, “But enough of that, now that I see you four have finished eating, can you please follow Luna and I to get you equipment”

We all then stood and followed the celestial sisters to what seem like a blacksmith. They then floated four sets of armor to us and had the smiths help us into them. My armor was a some kind of dark metal with boots, leggings, chestpiece, gauntlets and armguard and a greek style helmet and chainmail under. My friends all had the same armor as me and they seem to be all the same size. But when I put on the armor it seemed to fit me snuggly and seem to be weightless.

“We have cast a numerous of enchantments to make it easier for you four, especially with yours”, said Celestia as she looked at me when she said that last part, “Dont think we couldn’t see you hide your pain when we met this morning, so to help you support your weight, we have put a strength enchantment on your leggings. The other enchantment you four have probably noticed were the weightless and one-size fits all, both kind of self-explanatory. And here is the standard swords that the royal guard have and the letter of the royal guard if you are stopped by anyone”, she then handed (hoofed?) us four swords in their scarabs and a rolled up scroll.

“You have us pretty decked out princess, is there a particular reason?”

“The temple hasn’t been visited or entered for over five-hundred years, who know’s what you’ll encounter. Oh I almost forgot to give you the lanterns”, she then levitated four oil lanterns and some tinderboxes and extra oil.

“Ok now you four go to the Lunar Garden and wait for us there”

We all nodded and walked out to find a guard ready to escort us to the garden. The armor was kind of uncomfortable to wear at first but then I got used to it like if it was part of my normal clothes. I thanked God for having Celestia put the strength enchantment because I didn’t feel much pain when I walked.

“How’d you think she had our body type build to make the armor?”, wondered Felipe.

“Probably had some templates from Rarity, seeing that she’s made us some clothes”, I replied.

Moments when we got to the garden we found Celestia and Luna already waiting for us there.

“Wow you guys are fast, what did you do?”, asked Rosa.

“Our sister just simply lowered the sun and and we raised the moon”, replied Luna.

“Well then… I still find that hard to believe”, I said.

“Art thou think we are fibbing?”

“I said it was hard to believe not a lie. Keep in mind that in our world, the sun and the moon rise and set using the laws of the universe and do it by themselves”

“Such a strange thou live in”, mumbled Luna.

“Well how are we going to go to the temple?”, I asked.

“We will teleport you four to the entrance of the temple and we will send a chariot to wait for you and bring you back to the castle”, said Celestia.

“Ok then”, then both Celestia’s and Luna’s horns were glowing with a golden and light blue aura, respectively, “Beam us up Scotty”, the princesses gave me a strange look before they disappeared.



	

We appeared in front of a rock wall in bright flash of gold and blue. Immediately I felt my head spin and stomach to flip. I held a hand to my mouth and rant to the nearest bush and emptied the contents of my stomach. I heard three more reches as my friends also threw up. 

“Ah! Well that was a new experience”, I said wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Never… Again!”, gasped Felipe.

“Well we’re here but where’s the temple?”, asked Ishmael.

“We’re standing in front of it”, then Rosa pointed a finger to the wall, which the section we were standing in front of was carved to look like the entrance of the Parthenon.

“Woah…”, was all that escaped my mouth.

“Well now what?”, asked Ishmael.

“Well, we knock and say that their Girl Scout cookies are here”, I said with a smile.

I then walked over to the huge stone doors and gave them a pull, but they wouldn’t budge. “Yo! Guys, get over here and help me open this!”

“C’mon! A… Little… More!”, I strained as we all pulled on the great door.

Then with another pull, we managed to open the door wide enough for us to fit through. When we entered the temple, we were meet with darkness. 

“Take out your lanterns”, with that I unhooked the lantern from my side and lit the wick in it, my friends doing the same as I did. With the now semi-lit temple we saw that there were columns on either side of us at about a ten-foot interval. Opposite to where we were stranding was a corridor. I pulled out the map that Luna has given us and look at the corridor then back at the map.

“Not down there”, I said with a frown, “Poison-dart trap with a pitfall half-way down. Although it’s the most direct way to the staff”

“Then where? It’s the only way I see”, asked Ishmael.

I then walked to a wall and looked at the map then reached out to touch the wall, but instead of touching the stone my hand went through it, “We go here”, and then walked through the veil. On the other side there was another corridor leading to two opposite directions. My friends joined me and looked down both hallways.

“Which way?”, asked Rosa.

“I say it’s left, It goes to the direction of the staff”, reasoned Felipe.

“Nope, it’s right”, I said.

I then lead the way with my lantern in front of me and looking down at the map and looking where I’m going with the edge of the top of my vision. 

Every once and and awhile I warn them of various traps that we walked by but as Luna said, not all the traps were marked on the map, as a giant galive almost speared us and nearly gave us a new asshole to shit out of. We encountered many rooms, one room was full of stone statues of various creature like, a wolf that looked like it was made out of stone twigs instead of stone fur, another one was a hydra, another was a… Shudder… a manticore, well, there were too many to name and some I had no idea what they were. After about an hour exploring the temple, we finally reached the resting place of both Star Swirl and the staff.

“Ok, lets rest for a minute, my legs are killing me!”, I huffed as I sat down and rubbed my sore legs. My friends follow suit as they sat down.

“Other than those traps and that one room, this place is not that bad”, said Rosa.

“Well what time is it?”, asked Felipe.

“It is…”, I pulled my phone out, “8:55”

“Damn, well let’s get the staff and get out of here”, huffed Ishmael. He then looked around, “Umm… where is the staff?”

I looked at the map and pointed to the stone sarcophagus that was on a dias on the edge of the light of our lanterns, “It’s resting with it’s owner”, I said with a groan. 

“I don’t really want to touch anything dead”, said Rosa.

“I’ll grab it but help me push the top off”, I said as I got up and walked over to the dias. Rosa, Felipe and Ishmael all stood next to the sarcophagus and with a great heave we pushed the top just enough to be able to open the oaken coffin within. When I open the coffin I was met with the grinning milk-white skeleton of the dead Star Swirl, with his spine to the bottom and one hoof wrapped around a wooden staff with a white crystal within the top in wrapped in the wood. 

“Sorry about this old man”, I apologized to the skeleton and I reached in and carefully removed the staff. When I grabbed the staff it’s crystal lit up for a second then went dim.

“What just happened?”, asked Ishmael.

“I don’t know but I don’t want to stick around to find out what it did”, I then closed the lid of the coffin and we place the top how it was before we disturbed it.

“Ok we got the staff now let’s get out of here!”, urged Felipe.

When we reached the corridor we came in we were about to walk into it until we were interrupted by the sound of stone cracking. We stood still and turned to see the source of the sound. All we could see was a silhouette of… something and glowing red eyes. 

“NOPE! I’M NOT GOING TO SEE WHAT THAT IS! RUN!”, I yelled as I ran with my friends at my heels. We speed down the corridors not caring that we were setting off the multiple traps and luckily we weren’t hit with any, but hoped that they did hit the beast behind us. All was going well until we reached to statue room. When we ran into the room all the statues’ heads turned to see us with their eyes glowing a crimson red. Oh. Hell. No… I ain’t dealing with this shit!

We quickly ran to the exit with the many statues chasing us. Luckily the some of the bigger statues couldn’t fit in the corridor so, instead they decided to roar into the corridor, causing the corridor to shake and dust to fall from the ceiling. I then had an idea. It was crazy. It was stupid but hopefully it will work.

“Guys! Run ahead I’ll catch up!”

“What are you going to do?”, asked Ishmael.

“Something stupid, now go!”

They then sped ahead and I stopped, unsheathing my sword and putting the lantern on my belt and grabbed the staff with my free hand. ‘Hope this will work, cause’ I’ve always want to say this’ I then turn to face the oncoming statues and mustered in the loudest voice I could and then, shouted with both sword and staff above my head, “YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!”, then slammed the butt of the staff on the ground. The crystal then glowed brightly, and white lines spread from the butt of the staff to the ceiling above the not dazed statues. The ceiling then cracked and fell down on the statues.

“Holy Shit! That actually worked!”, my cheering was cut short, by a roar and some of the stone moving, “Nope! I’m outta here!”

I then ran to where my friends went and reached the main room in five minutes with the now very angry, and pissed off statues not too far behind. My friends were waiting for me by the giant stone door.

“OUT!”, I yelled as I neared them. They got the message when the statues rushed out of the illusional wall. We then ran out of the temple and rushed to shut the door on the statues. There was a chariot with two waiting pegasi guards near the entrance. “You two, come help us quick!”, shouted Felipe.

With two great heaves, we shut the giant door and heard something slam into the other side of the door, but the door didn’t budge, thank God. We all then slumped down against the door hearing the statues roar in anger that their meal just got away.

“Well I should've seen that booby-trap coming, no artifact is just there without a trap”, I huffed.

“Well… You know what they say; Booby-trap backwards is Party Boob”, said Rosa with an idiotic grin on her face.

“Shut up Rosa”, I huffed.

“Umm… when you four are ready we will take you back to the castle”, said one of the guards that were breathing pretty heavily.

“Okay thanks, just let us catch our breath”, I huffed. They both nodded and hooked themselves to the chariot and wait for us.

“Bro… what time is it?”, asked Ishmael.

I pulled out my phone and read the time that appeared, “9:25, heh, we cut our time in half coming back here”, I joked.

“Well we weren’t being chased into the temple, and I think I lost ten pounds back there”, said Ishmael.

“Touche”

We then picked ourselves up and walked onto the chariot which took off as soon as we got on it.



	

We reached the castle in ten minutes and limped after our escort who greeted us and lead us to the princesses. Instead of knocking I just simply pushed the doors open and walked in. Celestia and Luna were sitting and drinking tea.

“Oh, hello Leonardo, I see that you got the Staff of Star Swirl The Bearded. I hope you four didn’t get hurt”, said Celestia with a motherly tone as she put her tea down.

“Just tired after being chased down by a horde of bloodthirsty statues”

“Bloodthirsty statues?”, asked Luna with a confused look.

“When we grabbed the staff, it glowed briefly and then the statues around the temple came to life and chased us down, someone must have put a spell that activated when someone removes the staff as a defence mechanism”

“Oh well, we will seal off the temple so nopony can accidentally release the statues”, she then took the staff and put it in a chest with an indentation of the staff on the bottom and locked it, “Well then, you four must be exhausted, go back to your rooms and rest, oh here you go”, she said while she levitated four scrolls. I opened up the scroll she handed me. It was the acceptance of citizenship of Equestria.

I looked at the scroll, then to my friends, then to Celestia and Luna. Scroll. Friends. Celestia and Luna. I then rolled up the scroll and slightly bowed to the royal sisters, “Thank you, your highnesses”, my friends followed my example.

“Welcome to Equestria, you four, and please there is no need to bow, and call me Celestia”

“And call me Luna”, added Luna.

“Well thank you anyway, but now I want to go to sleep. There is a bed in a palace suite with my name on it”

“Ok then”, giggled Celestia, “Good night you four”

“We shall see you four very soon”, called out Luna as we left the room.

When we reached the hallway with our rooms, I bid my friends good night. I then stripped my armor and crawled into the sheets and fell to sleep. ‘Ahhh! Now this bed feels like it’s made out of clouds’

> Chapter 9: One Overdue Party and A Creepy Dare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 9:


One Overdue Party and A Creepy Dare




“Yo Twilight!”, I called down, “You down there?”

Silence

“Twilight?”

I started to make my way downstairs until I heard a scuttle and patter of many feet… or hooves… or legs… honestly I had no idea on what I just heard, but I know I just heard it behind me.

“Who’s there?”, I was too far away from my room to grab my rifle, so I resorted to unsheathing my bowie knife. I turned around and found… nothing. “What, the… I thought I heard something”, I mumbled to myself as I sheathed the knife and walked to the kitchen. When I reached the doorway to the kitchen I heard it again, but I heard it more clearly. It sounded like hooves. Fast scuttling hooves. Then I heard them slowly scuttle towards me from behind. 

“Hey Leo!”, said a maniac sounding Twilight.

“Oh! It’s only you!”, I said while letting out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding, “Seriously Twilight, you almost scared me for a momen- DAFAUK!?” I said as I turned around to find low crawling Twilight head with four legs coming out from under her with her tail and crazy derped eyes that were shrunk to near prick points slowly crawling towards me. 


“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU!?!”

“Come play with me!~”, the Twilight… thing said in a sing-song tone. Then it jumped towards me, straight at my face.



	

“Holy Shi- OW!”, I yelled out as I woke up and tried to sit up when my head collided with something.

“Ow”, groaned the person or pony I accidentally banged my head against.

After making sure I didn’t give myself a concussion I looked up and saw Ishmael rubbing his forehead with his hands, “Ishmael, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Came to wake you up for breakfast but then you sat up and decided to headbutt me”, he said with a groan.

“Oh, sorry about that man, I’ll head down in a couple of minutes, just let me get ready”

Ishmael then left the room and then I got up and limped over to my bag and grabbed some clothes and my toothbrush and paste, and walked to the bathroom. When I walked in, let me tell you, it was the biggest bathroom I’ve ever been in. I walked over to the giant tub/shower and looked at the shampoos, soaps and conditioners and read what they were for. Some said that they were for fur coats, others were for feathers, and one said it was for scales. Finally, I found one that said for hair and skin. I popped it open and gave it a sniff. It smelled like almond and shea butter (I know how it smells like, I have a bottle of shampoo back home that has that), and nodded in satisfaction and turned on the shower head. Now comes the tricky part… the balancing act of the water temperature. I twisted and turned the knobs until the water was to my liking. I quickly stripped and jumped in.

A couple minutes later, I got dressed and walked out of the bathroom feeling refreshed. I threw my dirty clothes in the corner where my bag was and grabbed my cap and dog tags and walked out the door. 

Again on either side of the door were the same two guards, “Do you guys ever sleep or get tired?”

“We do sir, but we are the day shift guards, two night guards take our spots at, well, night”, responded the one on the left which was the pegasus.

“Ah ok, that makes sense. Well anyway can you take me to the dining room please?”

“Sure thing sir”, and he lead the way to the dining room, with me right next to him.

“Enough with the sir stuff, I’m not that old”

“Then what would you like me to call you?”

“Just call me Leo. Or Leonardo, take your pick, but I prefer the former”

“Well Leo, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Staff Sergeant Blue Swift”

“Blue Swift, I know it’s just a name but, I’ve been here enough to know that names have a litteral play on the pony, like Princess Luna: She moves the fucking moon; Fluttershy: She’s shy; Rainbow Dash: Have you seen her mane color and she’s fast. So what’s the gist with your name, cuz’ you’re grey. Hell it looks like someone put a pony in a cloning machine and just changed the tone and type for a bit of diversity, cuz’ all of you guards look the same”

“Well to answer both of your questions at the same time, is that our armor is enchanted to make us all look the same. Think of it as a uniform”

“Ah, that makes sense”, I said as we turned a corner and found ourselves in the dining room with everyone including Blueblood aka Bluewaffle (If you don’t what that is I highly suggest that you keep it that way) waiting and talking.

“Morning you sexy people!”, I greeted everyone, “Excluding one”, with a short glance at Bluewaffle.

“Good morning to you too Leo, and thank you for the compliment”, said Celestia with a small giggle.

“Art thou trying to flatter us?”, asked Luna with a bit of suspicion.

“You’re welcome Celestia, and Luna, anyone who is nice to me deserves a compliment”, I said with a smile.

“What of us? I demand for a compliment!”, demanded Bluewaffle.

I just gave him a deadpanned ‘are-you-fucking-serious?’ look before flipping him the bird, “You can go choke on your grandpa’s dick, Bluewaffle”

Rosa had a spit take when I said that and started to laugh and hold on her sides as she fell to the floor, “HAHAHAHA! B-BLUEWAFFLE?! HAHAHAHA! Oh god… haha… that’s…hehe… that’s perfect!”, she gasped.

“Who-Apht-Wha?-”, he stuttered, “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY! WHO DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU ARE?!”

“Can I have a simple bowl of cereal? Thanks”, I said to the server who not a minute later came back with our breakfast while Bluewaffle was sputtering in anger.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE INSULTING ROYALTY AND IGNORE THEM WHILE SPEAKING TO YOU?!”, he yelled across the table.

I looked up and looked at him, while still eating, “I’m not insulting royalty, in fact”, I then turn to the princesses who was looking between the both of us, “Celestia, Luna. This has been a nice time but we need to go soon. No doubt Twilight and her friends are starting to get worried for us”, my friends looked up from their meals and started to finish them.

“It’s my pleasure Leo, I will arrange for a chariot to send you four back when you four are ready”

“And what should we do with the armor?”, asked Felipe.

“You can keep them if you wish, think of them as welcome gifts”, she said with a wink.

“Thank you Celestia”, I said while standing up to collect my stuff.

I was followed by the guard and my friends.

“You think that was a good idea?”, asked Ishmael.

“Yeah, even though it was hilarious”, giggled Rosa.

“I don’t care about what the spoiled asshat will do, I say, let him try doing something”

Arrogant? 

Yes.

Confident?

Check.

Completely suicidal?

Possibly.

“You are the craziest and stupidest person I’ve ever meet”, said Rosa.

“Agreed”, said Ishmael and Felipe.

“Aww! But you guys know you love me!”, while throwing my arms around them and brought them in close for a hug.

“Ugh. You are such a dork sometimes”, said Rosa as I rolled my eyes.

When we reached our rooms, I walked in and winced as my leg throbbed in pain. Looking around for my armor I quickly spotted it by the window. I hobbled over to the armor and wondered if it was possible to put the leggings under my clothing. My idea was about to be shot down when I saw how big the armor was compared to my clothes, until I remembered what Celestia said about the enchantments placed on them. So I quickly undressed till’ I was just in my underclothing and put the armor on.

“This is the most awesome armor ever!”, I exclaimed as I put my clothes back on, which fit perfectly as if I wasn’t wearing the armor.

“Ok, got to make sure I have everything with me.”

Duffle bag?

Check.

Rifle?

Check and slung.

Helmet in bag?

I checked the bag until I found it. Check.

Phone?

Check.

Headphones connected and playing music?

Double check and I’m done. Now all I need is some happy music. Aaannnnnndddd… there we go. 

I headed out to find my friends waiting for me.

“What took you so long?”, asked Rosa.

I pulled down the collar of my shirt to reveal the onyx colored armor.

“Ohhhh, I didn’t know you could do that”, she mused.

“Where’s your armor?”, she patted her dufflebag, which clanked when she hit it, “And you guys?”, I said turning to Felipe and Ishmael, they pointed to their bags as well, “Ok you guys got everything?”, they just nodded so I just tapped the guard and nodded for him to lead the way.

By now I should of been used to the labyrinth like castle, but I’m not, it’s just fucking annoying. 

Until who knows how many turns and stairs (seriously why are there so many hallways and stairs?!) we reached where our chariot was waiting, which was a hangar full of airships. And by airships I mean like the ones from Mario, the big friggen wooden ship with steel plating, but instead of propellers lifting the ships they have a giant balloon covered in steel plating.

“Who knew that the laws of physics and gravity can let literal ships to fly”, whispered Ishmael causing us to laugh but left the guard confused as hell.

At the end of the hangar was a single chariot with two pegasi harnessed to it. “Sorry that the princesses won’t be able to see the four of you off, but they were called for an important meeting”, said one of the pegasi.

“It’s ok, we already said farewell to them this morning”, said Felipe, who looked bored for some unknown reason.

“Oh… ok sir, just step on and we’ll head off right away”, he jerked his head to the chariot, which we just nodded and climbed on, already getting used to the death trap of an air travel.



	

I’m sure some smartass out there was laughing their ass off when they made these air-chariots. Especially Rosa when she kept on asking and insisting for peanuts and airline food.

One thing I forgot to mention, is that the trip from Canterlot to Ponyville took about an hour and a half. You might of expected that it would of been a half hour flight, considering Ponyville and Canterlot are not too far from each other (this being said that it would probably be a day’s journey on foot… or hoof). But nooooooo! Well it’s expected, since it is flown by just two pegasi.

Anyway, it was a bit past midday when we landed in front of the library and was tackled down by a mass of lavender, while my friends laughed their asses off.

“Where have you been?!”, yelled Twilight.

Instead of answering her, I lifted my finger and poked her muzzle, “Boop”, this caused her muzzle to twitch. This seemed to infuriate her further.

“Whoa! Whoa! We were in Canterlot. Didn’t you read the note?”

This seemed to confuse her, “Note? What note?”

“The one I left on the kitchen table”

“I didn’t see a note”

“Huh… I wonder what happened to it…”



	

	


	Owlowiscious


	Yesterday early morning:


‘Who left this scrap paper here?’, I then turned my head around to look around the room, ‘Twilight or Spike or the new one must of forgotten to throw this away’

Picking up the paper in my claws, I flew to over to the trash and dropped the paper in. Seeing the library clean once more, I flew to my perch and rested.



	

“Where have you four been?!”, Twilight exclaimed.

“Can you get off me first?”, she then chuckled sheepishly with a slight blush forming on her cheeks. It was really cute… ‘Did I just call a pony cute? What’s wrong with me?’ I shook my head, ‘I’ll sort through my thoughts later’. Twilight then got off me allowing me to sit up and explain where we’ve been. What I didn’t tell her was the quest or the staff, considering that Luna and Celestia seem to want to keep it a secret. All in all, if they want to tell Twilight about the quest and the artifact then, that’s ok, but I will keep it a secret… for now.

When I finished telling Twilight she offered us lunch (well offered Rosa, Ishmael and Felipe lunch since I live here for now). When I entered the library, I did not notice a certain pink pony spying on us from the branches and speed away to Sugarcube Corner.

A couple hours later I found us lounging around and/or rolling on the floor hugging our sides watching the Gabriel Iglesias: Aloha Fluffy special on my laptop, when we were interrupted by a couple of knocks.

“I’ll get it!”, called out Twilight.

A couple minutes later she came up and to my room and told us to meet her in Sugarcube Corner in ten minutes. We told her that we'll be there and she headed out to the bakery.

When the ten minutes came, we headed to Sugarcube Corner, wondering why Twilight wanted to meet us there. But as we walked through the town, everything was quiet. And deserted.

“Where is everyone?”, I asked.

“Uhhhh… home?”, offered Felipe.

“At four in the afternoon?”, scoffed Ishmael.

“Well… we’re here”, I announced as we arrived outside of the bakery.

With a small shove I opened the door to reveal that the lights are off, as we entered I felt that we weren’t alone. With one hand gripping my knife I entered last and the door closed behind me, with the darkness swallowing us. Suddenly, the lights came on and a collateral shout of ‘SURPRISE!’ rang out as ponies hopped out of their hiding spots.

“Gah!”, my friends and I shouted in unionized surprise.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! We’re you four surprised? Of course you were surprised, because DUH! This is a surprise party! But not just any party! It’s you guys’ late ‘Welcome to Equis and Equestria and Ponyville Party!’ I was going to throw the party yesterday, but we couldn’t find you guys. Were you guys playing hide-n-go-seek? Because you guys are good! No one found you! And when I saw you guys go into the library today, I totally ran all over Ponyville inviting everyone and set up this awesome party! And also-mfhmfhfmfh!”, rambled Pinkie until a lavender hoof got shoved in her mouth but she still tried to talk through the hoof.

“Sorry, as always Pinkie can get a bit excited”, apologized Twilight.

“Awwww! No need to apologize especially to my bestie Pinkie!”, exclaimed Rosa as she gave both Pinkie and Twilight a bear-hug, in which Pinkie returned in full.

“Ok, ok put them down Rosa, I don’t think Twilight will appreciate it if you break every single one of her bones”

“Sorry, but lets hurry up and get partying!”, she cheered along with Pinkie who then appeared behind what looked like a turntable and reached under and pulled out a white unicorn with wild neon blue and cobalt mane and violet shades and started up the music.

I then turned to Felipe and Ishmael and just shrugged and join the party.



	

The party lasted till’ the early hours of the morning, with either somepony (I'm starting to get used to this language… Er… the ponified words) unconscious on the floor or headed home before Pinkie pulled out the cider. Now I know what you’re thinking. Why are you drinking alcohol when you’re just a high schooler!? Now this is not the first taste of alcohol, nor will it be my last but when I drank the stuff it just tasted of soda. I had no idea till’ someone asked me why wasn’t I or my friends on the floor after who know’s how many drinks. Then one thing lead to another, which lead to me and Felipe having a drinking contest against Applejack and Rainbow Dash. I think we won at least, but it’s kind of fuzzy. 

Anywho! I’ve met most of the town ponies and they seem to warm up to my friends and I. At some point I saw Twilight walk over to the DJ and hug her and started some small talk that was drowned out by the loud music.

So when I woke up in my bed with a small headache, I got changed and went out to look for my friends.



	

About five days have passed since the party and the mood of the town was calm and cheerful and most importantly NOT AFRAID of me or my friends and actually started to greet us when we walk through the town.

This morning I woke up a bit late than what I would usually wake up and got ready for the day. When I walked downstairs there were piles upon piles of books everywhere!

“Whoa! Twilight you there? Was it reshelving day?” ‘again?’, I sighed inwardly, when a frustrated groan sounded from behind one of the piles.

“What’s wrong, Twilight?”, asked Spike as he walked down the stairs. ‘Took the words right out of my mouth’

“Oh good morning”, she greeted when she saw me and then went back to skimming through the books, “Ugh! I’ve gone through every book in Ponyville and I can’t find a single mention of the mysterious chest that came from the Tree of Harmony or how to open it!”

“Uhhh… what chest and what is the Tree of Harmony?”, I confusedly asked.

“You know about the Elements of Harmony, right?”, she asked, I nodded slowly, “Well, about over a thousand years ago Celestia and Luna found the Elements of Harmony in a magical tree hidden in the Everfree and used them to turn Discord to stone”

“Who’s Discord?”, I asked as she just gave me more questions.

“Discord is a draconequus and is the ‘lord’ and spirit of chaos”

“I’m not going to ask what a draconequus is but spirit of Evil chaos or what?”

“Define evil”

“You know, fires raging, continents shifting at a fast rate, death and destruction. Ultimate destruction”, I said while imagining the movie ‘2012’.

“Evil like that, no, but just causing chaos”

“That is very unspecific, but whatever, now what’s this about a box?”

“Well about two weeks before you and your friends appeared, the Everfree was invading and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna went missing”

“Invading? How can a forest invade? And missing? How can you lose two of three alicorns in existence?”

“The forest was growing at a fast rate and spreading, so my friends and I went into the forest looking for the source, long story short, we found the Tree of Harmony, which was weakened and it helps keep the forest in check, so we returned the Elements to the tree and prevented the forest from spreading across Equestria, found the princesses, who were abducted by the vines that were spreading from the forest, and there are four alicorns in current existence” 

“You still haven’t explained anything about the box”

“I was getting to that”, she growled, “After we freed the princesses and returned the Elements to the tree, the tree sprouted a flower and when it opened up it revealed a box with six key holes”

“Sooo… what kind of info are you looking for about the box?”

“Anything! But nothing in these books mention anything about the box or how to open it! I have a feeling that opening the box is important and I hope Princess Celestia has some ideas. If the library in Canterlot doesn’t have any information, then I don’t know where else to look!”, she said frantically.

Burp!

A scroll materialized in from of Spike, who was still standing on the staircase and the scroll what caught in Twilight’s magic and began to read it out loud:

        My dearest Twilight,
                
                While it would be perfectly lovely to have you in Canterlot once more, I have another option in mind much closer to Ponyville. As you know, the ancient castle that I once shared with Princess Luna lies mostly in ruins, deep in the Everfree Forest. But if you look carefully, you may find a book that could prove helpful to your research, hidden somewhere in what's left of the castle library.

        Sincerly,
                Princess Celestia

“Well then, that was really convenient, especially since you just literally not one minute ago you were hoping Celestia had an idea to help you”, I said with a bit a suspicion.

“Well might as well go check out the castle, come on Spike!”, she called out.

“Coming Twi!”, he yelled out as they started to leave.

“Leo are you coming with us?”, asked Twilight, with a bit of hopefulness in her voice.

“Nah, but I’ll go over in a bit to check on you guys”

“Oh, ok then”, she said with a bit of disappointment, which I didn’t catch, “I’ll see you in a bit then”

“Ok then, I’m heading out anyway”, I said while walking out with them, “Wait! I Forgot something in my room!”, I then ran up and grabbed my phone, keys, dog tags, my signature and favorite cap, and a small pouch of bits that I earned from Twilight and doing some small odd jobs around town. 

Apparently they haven’t invented paper money yet, so they used these gold coins with the value of the coin stamped on one side of the coin with either Celestia or Luna stamped on the other. The ones with Luna stamped were a darker shade of gold while the Celestia ones were a brighter shade. The Luna coin (aka bit) were worth ten of the Celestia bits.

When I collected everything I needed, I ran back down and closed and locked the front door behind me. ‘Huh. Twilight must of left for the castle already’ I then headed to Sweet Apple Acres to hang with Felipe for the day. While I walked through the marketplace greeting everypony (even if I’m getting the hang of it, I will only used the ponified words when referring to ponies only!), I ran into Ishmael carrying some groceries, most probably Fluttershy asked him to, then probably apologized, then… well you get the idea.

“Sup’ Ishmael!”, I called out as I walked over to him.

“Oh, hey, sup’ Leo”

“Nothing much, you?”

“Not bad so far”

“That’s good, hey wanna go hang with Felipe, and Rosa if we run into her?”

“Can’t, Fluttershy asked me to take care of the animals while she went to help Rarity with something”, he explained.

“Ah well then, have fun with that man”,

I then walked away, feeling a bit like an ass but, I really don’t want to play zookeeper today. I reached Sweet Apple Acres and it didn’t take long to find Felipe, with who I assumed was Applejack and Rainbow Dash covered in bees, with Pinkie and Rosa sitting behind a white table and it looked like Pinkie was commentating what was going on, but I just walked up to Felipe.

“Sup’ Felipe, what’s going on?”

“They are trying to see who is the quote-unquote ‘The Most Daring Pony’”

Then a pony came up next to us with a beekeeper suit, “Uh, whatcha’ll doing?”, he asked confusedly.

“Rainbow Dash and Applejack are competing for the title of "Most Daring Pony"! This is the final test: the Bee Stare! Last pony to blink wins!”, said Pinkie excitedly.

“The bee stare? Seriously?”, I asked incredulously.

“Uh-huh!”, replied Pinkie while bobbing her head up and down so hard, I though her head was going to fall off.

“I’m going to need my bees back”, the pony said.

Rainbow Dash complained for a bit but he just said ‘sorry’ and whistled for the bees to follow him. When the bees left I saw both Rainbow and Applejack in beekeeper suits.

“Well what do we do now?” asked the farm pony as she removed the suit.

“You know it’s not a single bit daring if you have the suit on”, I said through my palm which met my face a couple of seconds ago.

They just ignored me as Pinkie started talking, “Don't worry, ladies, I've been keeping excellent score all day!”, she then started to mumble to herself, “Hmm, move the decimal, carry the 2, and... Congratulations! You're tied!”, she finally exclaimed.

“Tied?”, asked Applejack.

“You can’t be tie for the ‘Most Daring Pony’!”, complained Rainbow.

“I dunno! Numbers don't lie!”, she then showed us a notepad that was full of random drawings.

“How is that even?... I don’t even”, I said as I threw my arms out in failed comprehension of the pink mare.

 “I'd love to stay and keep keeping score, but I promised to help test the new school bell. I get to ring it all week, nonstop!”, said Pinkie as energetic as ever. She then started to hop away.

“And I get to help!”, said Rosa proudly as she followed Pinkie.

“Ok then, I guess we have to make another daring challenge”, mused Rainbow.

“I think I have an idea”, said Applejack as she eyed the Everfree.

“Which is…?”, asked Rainbow Dash.

“C’mon and I’ll show ya!”, called out Applejack as she headed to the Everfree.

“Uh… Ok?”, said Rainbow with a bit of uncertainty.

As they walked off I leaned over to Felipe and asked one simple question, “Should we follow and see what happens?”

“Meh, nothing better to do”, we then followed the two mares into the forest.



	

“Well, here we are!”, announced Applejack as she lead us to a castle in ruins deep in the Everfree. It took a hell of a long time to get here, mostly because Applejack swore up and down that she knew where she was going but, we ended up being lost for a couple of hours till we finally got here when it started to get dark out.

‘Didn’t Twilight say something about going to an old castle in the forest earlier?’

“What about it? This is the place we got the Elements of Harmony, I don’t see anything daring about this place”, said Rainbow as she idly kicked a small pebble.

“When I was just a filly, Granny Smith told me of an ancient legend. When Nightmare Moon was banished, not every last bit of her dark magic went with her. Granny used to say, when night falls on the castle, that magic takes the form of... the Pony of Shadows!”, said with a spooky tone.
 
“So… a ghost?”, asked Rainbow.

“Nopony knows”, said in an ominous tone.

“So… let me get this straight”, I said with an amused tone, “Your idea to prove who is more daring is to be in a ruined castle that can fall on top of us in any moment, just because of an old legend your granny told you that may not be true at all?”

“Yup!”

I then facepalmed for the third time today, “I could of done this when I was ten!”, I then sighed, “Well we’re here anyway so might as well get it over with, besides, I don’t believe in ghosts, although demons on the other hand are legit as fuck”

“I agree with Leo, besides even if ghosts were real I would totally kick their flank!”, said Rainbow while puffing out her chest in pride.

“Uhh… you two might wanna rethink your position on that”, Applejack stuttered.

Rainbow and I then turned to face the direction that Felipe and Applejack were facing. In front of us was a wall but that wasn’t what they were staring at. On the wall was a giant tapestry that was moving. It wasn't moving in a ‘there is a small breeze’ kind of way, it was moving in a ‘fuck you I’m haunted motherfuckers’ kind of way. As if that wasn't enough I heard some screams coming from the tapestry.

“Holy-!”, I screamed as Felipe and the two mares ran away from the tapestry and into a random hallway, with me at their heels.

“Ok so, maybe the legend is true”, panted Rainbow as we ran.

“That’s why I brought ya’ll here, only the most daring pony can stay in this castle all night without being scared off”, replied Applejack who was equally out of breath.

“Hey we’re here too you know!”, I added.

All of a sudden Rainbow screeched to a halt. Unfortunately I failed to stop in time and tripped over her and tumbled to the floor. Even worse when Felipe also failed to stop and landed on top of me.

“Oof! Oooowwww”, I groaned, “Dude get your fat ass off of me!”

Felipe groaned but wasn’t in as much pain as me, since I soften his landing, “Oh, sorry man”, he then got off of me and offered his hand, which I took and helped me up.

“Deal!”, said Applejack as she and Rainbow bumped hooves and shook in an unknown agreement.

“What did you guys agree to?”, asked Felipe.

“Whoever stays in the castle the longest gets the title of the Most Daring Pony! And I’m going to win!”, said Rainbow with a smug expression.

“What makes you so sure”, I said while I raise an eyebrow in a challenging way.

“It’s going to take more than a ghost to scare me away, that’s why. Plus I’m the most coolest pony in Ponyville!”, way to show that your humble Rainbow.

“Not unless I win”, said Applejack.

“We’ll see about that”, I said, “C’mon let’s go exploring”

Couple minutes later we found a spiraling staircase that lead to a dark abyss. “Damn! Should've brought my lantern”, I mused.

“What? You scared?”, said Rainbow mockingly.

“Phhfff! Please. But I’d rather not trip on something in the dark and fall to my death”

“Dude, don’t worry, I’ll be able to catch you before you hit the ground”

“If you can handle 150 pounds”, I said.

“Or if there is a ground to fall to”, mumbled Felipe in a way that I barely heard him.

“What was that partner?”, asked Applejack.

“Oh nothing, come on”, clarified Felipe.

We started to decent. As we descended it started to get darker and darker. Instead of walking down the steps like the rest of us, Rainbow decided to float down.

“Hope you’re not afraid of the dark Applejack”, taunted Rainbow.

“I can't say that I am! But even if I was, I'd be at least fifty percent less scared of it than you, Rainbow Dash”, Applejack taunted back. Then she started to run down the stairs with Felipe and I in pursuit.

“I dunno how all that math works, because I know I’m not scared at all”

“Me neither!”, yelled Applejack as we rushed passed Rainbow.

All of a sudden Applejack quickly stopped when she reached to bottom causing Felipe and I to trip over her. ‘Jesus! Couldn’t you have at least warned me so my face doesn’t have to say hi to the floor again!?’

I looked up to see a long hallway with disembodied hooves on the walls holding unlit torch handles.

“W-what's the matter? It's just a dark hallway full of... disembodied pony legs”, stuttered Rainbow.

“Y-yeah, nothing scary or creepy about that”, replied Applejack in an equally shaky voice.
I got up and dusted myself off, then Felipe did the same, “Well lets not let a couple of hooves stop us, onward!”, and walked into the corridor with Rainbow covering her face with her wings and Applejack pushing her stetson hat lower to hide under.

As we walked Rainbow suddenly stopped, “Applejack, if you're scared, you can just admit it. You don't need to put your hoof around me”

“Umm… I’m over here” waved Applejack who was standing a couple of feet behind Rainbow.

“Leo? Felipe?”

“We’re over here”, I said with a bit of fear settling over me as I waved to show that I’m standing about four feet in front of her with Felipe next to me.

Rainbow looked to her side and saw a white hoof, then screamed. Then Applejack joined in the scream. That scream must’ve been contagious because both Felipe and I started to scream like little girls along with them. Instead of calming down we just booked it down the hall.

After a few minutes of running, we ran past another room, then the hall was filled with the sound of a pipe organ. When we heard the organ Applejack screeched to a halt causing not just Felipe and I to trip over her, but also Rainbow, who I had no idea you can trip while flying.

“Ya’ll hear that?”, asked Applejack shakedly.

“You mean the haunting sound of a pipe organ?”, worriedly asked Rainbow.

I nodded in fear but also in interest. ‘A pipe organ? Now this I’ve got to see, but at the same time, who’s playing it?’ I then started to walk to where the source of the organ was but waited for a bit to hear where it was coming from.

“M-maybe”, answered Applejack.

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about”, replied Rainbow.

“I-I know I’m not scared, are you L-Leo?”, said Felipe.

Then the organ started to play again, scaring the crap out of Rainbow, Felipe and Applejack causing them to scream, hug and run away Scooby and Shaggy style, while I ran to the open door way to see a giant pipe organ with two hooded figures facing away from me, one playing the organ. Obviously they haven’t noticed me yet, so I slowly approached them without letting them know I was here.

When I was behind them, I threw back their hoods, who lied beneath them surprised me.

“Pinkie?! Rosa!? What are you two doing here?”

“Oh, hey Pheo!”

“Sup’ Leo”

“Hey, but what are you two doing here? I thought you two were ringing the school bell”

“We were but we only rang it for about five minutes before they told us it was enough”, said Pinkie.

“Oh… So was it you that was playing the organ?”

“Yepporino-Leorino!”

“Ok first off, please don’t call me Leorino, it just sounds weird, just stick with Pheo if you’re going to use a nickname since I’m used to you calling me that anyway. Second, can I play the organ for a bit? Third, can I have a cloak too?”

“Of course you can play the organ! And here you go!”, she said while handing me a black hooded cloak out of nowhere.

“Wha-? Where you get the cloak so fast? And why do you have another if you didn’t know that I was here?”

“Oh Pheo! I keep hooded cloaks hidden all over, in case of hooded cloak emergency”

I just looked at her and just shook my head at her antics. Pulling the cloak over me and making sure that the hood was up, I sat down and started to play one of my favorite songs on the organ.

When I finished I looked over to Pinkie and Rosa who were a bit shocked.

“Dude! I knew you can play piano, but you can play the organ? And that song? Dude that was awesome!”, exclaimed Rosa.

“Hey Pheo can you show me how to play that?”, asked Pinkie with a small pout as she stuck her lower lip out and gave me puppy eyes.

‘Dawwww! Cuteness levels are going critical!’

“Sure Pinkie”, I then patted next to me and showed her how to play. Don’t ask me how she could, but she mastered that piece really quickly.

‘How the fuck does she play it that good with hooves?!’

Then all of a sudden all three of our hoods were pulled back and a collective gasp sounded behind us.

“Pinkie?! Leo!? Rosa!?”, I turned around to find everyone there: Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Applejack, Felipe and Fluttershy’s pet bunny Angle.

“Sup’?”, both Rosa and I replied with a simple wave.

“Hey, you guys! Did you know I can totally play the organ? Because I didn't!”, said Pinkie, then she proceeded to play ‘Charge!’.

“Leo! We thought that the Pony of Shadows got you!”, exclaimed Applejack as she shoved her face in front of mine.

“Sorry to worry you guys but I wanted to see the organ then found Rosa and Pinkie”

“I told you that there was no such thing as the Pony of Shadows!”, exclaimed Twilight to her friends.

“Pinkie, Rosa,  I thought you two were ringing the school bell all week”, said Rainbow.

“We did ring the bell but only for five minutes, then they told us that that was enough”, answered Rosa.

Pinkie then started to play the organ to a tune that sounded like ‘Take me out to the ballgame’, “Then when we finished I decided to throw a "finish ringing the school bell" party! But I didn't have any bluebells, and you can't throw a "finish ringing the school bell" party without bluebells, so Rosa and I went to Everfree Forest to pick some, but it started to get so chilly. I had to wrap myself up in the tarp I was gonna use to gather flowers and gave one to Rosa because she must of been getting cold too, and then I saw Fluttershy and Rarity. But they went into the castle before I could invite them to my party. Luckily, we followed them inside so I could help you all with your party!”, Pinkie explained, then stop playing when she finished explaining.

“And what party would that be darling?”, asked Rarity.

“Uh, the "everypony come to the scary old castle and hide from each other while I play the organ" party? Duh!”, she then pressed a random note, which then followed by a spring being activated, launching Spike to near the doorway to the hallway.

“Well now that this mystery has been cleared up, let’s go back to the castle’s library”, said Twilight.

This came with an agreement from everyone and then followed Twilight to the library, but stopping so that Rarity can grab a tapestry that she was going to fix and restore.

When we reached the library, Twilight lead us to a small hidden room and we all sat around and relaxed.

“I’m putting this right back where I found it as soon as I’m finished fixing it”, said Rarity as she was restoring the tapestry.

“Now don't go running off again! Oh, I can't believe I was so frightened. Guess I let my imagination get the best of me”, said Fluttershy as she nuzzled Angle.

“We all did”, agreed Applejack.

“I always let my imagination run away from me! Then it comes back... with cake!”, added Pinkie.

“Damn Pinkie, I wished my imagination did that, but with pizza or tamales instead of cake”, I said.

“Well it’s good to know that when you let your imagination go wild, a friend can help bring it back. Although I couldn’t find anything about the chest, I’m glad I could’ve help all of you”, said Twilight.

“Help us with what? You barely did anything”, mumbled Felipe.

“You certainly did Twilight”, commented Rarity.

“Yeah, but why weren’t you scared?”, wondered Rainbow.

“Well after reading Celestia’s diary, it kind of made it hard to be afraid when I read how her’s and Luna’s life was when they lived here”, said Twilight.

We all mumbled in agreement but something went through my head.

‘She read Celestia’s diary!? Damn, hope she doesn’t get mad’

“Hey I have a great idea. Why don’t we all keep a journal, just like the royal sisters?”, suggested Twilight.

“A journal? As in a diary?” asked Felipe.

“Sure why not?”, said Rainbow.

“I know what will be my first entry, ‘Dear Diary, I’m glad that Granny’s legend is not true’”

“Me too!”, added Rainbow.

“Me three! Because that mean you two are still tied for ‘Most Daring Pony!”, exclaimed Pinkie.

“Oh hell no”, I mumbled.

“Hey where’s Ishmael?”, asked Rosa.



	

	


	Back in Fluttershy’s Cottage:


	

“C’mon you stupid chickens it’s time for you to go back in the hen house and sleep!”, said Ishmael angrily.

They just ignored him and dodged him when he tried to grab them.

“I swear, if you chickens don’t go in, I’ll cook you guys up, It’s been a while since I had some chicken!”, growled Ishmael.

Then out of frustration he grabbed a small rock and chucked it at one of the chickens.

“CAW-CAW!”, cried out the chicken that the rock hit.

“What the-!”, Ishmael was then flocked and attacked by many chickens as they tackled him down and surrounded.

“Ack! HELP!”
> Chapter 10: Uhh... Does Anyone Know How To Do This?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 10:


Uhh… Does Anyone Know How To Do This?


	

“Annnnddd… You’re free to go Mr. Anaya-Castro”

“Doc. I’ve told you, it’s just Leo”, I said with mild annoyance, although I know he’s just saying that just to annoy me.

“Alright Leo, just remember to do some exercises to regain the muscles on your leg and you’ll be back to your previous leg strength in no time”, added Dr. Stable.

“Alright Doc and thanks for helping me with this”, I said as I jumped off the table he had me on and shook my left leg, put on a sock and shoe and walked out of the room. 

In case you didn’t know, today I’ve recovered from my shattered leg and officially am off the brace/boot. What surprised me was the amount of time it took to recover from the leg itself was about two months. Now I’m sure that recovering from a shattered leg bone would take at least six months to fully recover, but I’m going to blame it on that this is a magical land full of talking ponies and save myself a giant headache. 

On an off note, Ishmael is recovering excellently after an accident with Fluttershy’s chickens about a week ago. He didn’t tell me or anyone except Fluttershy or the doc how he exactly got hurt but all I got out of him was, and I quote ‘chickens, just god-damn chickens’.

Anyway, after bidding the good doctor and the nurses farewell, I headed to the library for some lunch.

“Twilight, Spike! I’m back!”, I called out as I entered the home.

“Oh hey Leo! You came just in time for lunch!”, said Twilight from the doorway to the dining room.

“Cool, what’d Spike make?”

“Spaghetti and hayballs!”, she said with glee. I just sighed.

“Yo Spike! No hayballs for me!”, I called out to the kitchen as I walked into the dining room. 

“Sure thing Leo!”, said Spike as he walked into the room with a serving tray balanced on one claw… or hand, whatever you want to call it. He scooped the hayballs out of my plate with a spoon and split it between himself and Twilight.

I sighed as I ate my food. ‘Man, I miss meat. I’m getting sick of this vegetarian diet. I NEED MEAT. And bacon, you always need bacon’

“Something wrong Leo?”, asked Twilight.

“What do you mean?”, I said with fake confusion. I still haven’t told them that my friends or I are omnivores in fear that they will run us out or hate us. I know it’s stupid and that they should know since they are our friends, but I’m not going to risk ruining this friendship or have Twilight hate me.

“You seemed kinda down, you’re normally full of energy. So tell us what’s wrong”

“I’m just feeling a bit homesick”, I half lied. I mean I did truly missed Milwaukee and my friends and family back home, but I know that chances of going back are slim to none so I’m going to need to move on sometime. “And missing my family, and kinda sad that they may never see me again”

I had my head down, starting to feel worse. Well the meat thing is not that depressing but the thought of never going back home, it’s just indescribable to say how it feels. Suddenly, I was interrupted by a warm body embracing me from my side. I turned to see Twilight hugging and nuzzling me, trying to comfort me. She then looked up and her muzzle was just inches away from me and she said, “Leo, I know you and your friends are hurt that you might not go back, but you still have us… and me”, she mumbled that last part so I wouldn’t hear her and I saw a blush grow on her face.

I then wrapped my arms around the alicorn and returned the hug making her blush a bit deeper, still going unnoticed by me, “Thanks Twi, you’re a great friend”, I then released her and went to my room after putting my plate in the sink feeling a bit better. A bit better, not completely, since I’m still a bit sad about not having meat. 

As I laid in my bed, I noticed my rifle sticking a bit out from the closet. This suddenly sparked an idea within me as I then walked over to the closet and retrieved not just the rifle, but also a box of ammunition, armor, sword and knives. I then stripped to my underclothing and put on the armor. After the armor shrunk to fit me, I put my clothes back on and contemplated if I needed all the stuff I brought out. After a while, I placed my sword back in the closet, deciding that it will bring unwanted attention to myself. I then grabbed a forest camo light jacket that I asked Rarity to make for me, with a bit of difficulty since she said, and I quote ‘Why would you want such a horrendous jacket? I doesn’t go with anything! It’s just absolutely dreadful and a crime against fashion’. 

Anyway, getting a bit lost in thought, I placed the box of ammo in one of the many pockets of my cargo pants and the knives in the pockets inside the jacket. Then I slung the rifle over one shoulder and walked out of my room.

“Hey Twi, I’m heading out, I might be out late so don’t wait for me to eat!”, I called out as I headed to the door.

“Ok! Try to be careful!”, she called back.

I then rushed into the basement, where I kept the cooler and took it with me without being detected by Twilight. Again, a bit of a risky move, but if everything is done correctly then I might need it. I then headed to Sugarcube Corner. 

“Hey Pheo! What are you doing here?”, greeted the ever-bubbly Pinkie.

“Hey Pinks, is Rosa here?”

“Yep! She’s up in our room, you can head up if you want”

“Ok thanks Pinkie”, I then headed up the stairs and reached their bedroom. I knocked on the door before I did anything else.

“Who is it?”

“Rosa, it’s me!”

The door then unlocked and opened up. I then walked in and was greeted by Rosa.

“What are you doing here?”, she asked.

“I’m getting tired of this vegetarian diet, I need meat, and I’m pretty sure you and the others are feeling the same way”, her half-glazed eyes told me the answer as I was certain that she was daydreaming about meat.

“Rosa”, I snapped my finger in front of her face.

“Huh?”

“Grab your armor and pistol, we’re going hunting, but make sure you hid the armor under your clothes and meet me by the Everfree entrance”

“Ok, what about Ishmael and Felipe?”

“I’m going to head to Fluttershy’s and Applejack’s to tell them”

“Oh ok, I’ll meet you there”

“And don’t forget to bring a box of ammo for your gun, just in case”, I called back as I left the room and headed to Applejack’s after bidding the party pony farewell.



	

“You guys ready?”, I asked as I looked back at my friends who had their pistols holstered and armor underneath, as we were about to enter the Everfree.

“Dude, we’re getting meat, of course we’re ready!”, said Ishmael.

“Ok, here is what we’ll do, Rosa and Felipe will carry the cooler and Ishmael and I will lead”

“Why do we have to carry the cooler?” asked Felipe and Rosa simultaneously.

“Cause’ you two are the worst shots ever, and no those were lucky shots Rosa”, I said pointing to Rosa right before she said anything, “Anyway, we can’t afford to lose our prey, so Ishmael and I will be taking care of the hunting, you guys can help spot any prey”

After that they reluctantly agreed to their job and we headed into the forest. 

After a few minutes we talked softly just in case if there were any animals that might be worth eating nearby.

“So Ishmael, how’s the injury?”

“Not too bad, at least it’s not that bad”, he said with annoyance.

“You never told us exactly how you got the injuries”, commented Felipe.

“And I’m going to keep it that way”, grumbled Ishmael.

“Come on Ishmael, how bad could it have been?”, said Rosa.

“I said that I’m going to keep it between myse-”

“Shhh! Get down”, I hissed.

“What’d you see?”, whispered Ishmael as he laid prone next to me.

I shouldered the rifle and parted the tall grass in front of us, “A lone deer”, I then pulled the grass apart farther to show him the deer.

“What do you think?”, I asked as I placed the rifle down and pulled back the bolt, loading a bullet and locking it in.

Ishmael took a few seconds examining our prey, “I’d say go for it”

I simply nodded and looked down the sight. I lined the sight to the back of it’s head and slowed down my breathing. I then started to slowly squeeze the trigger and right before I pulled the trigger completely, I whispered to myself, “Boom, Headshot”, and pulled the trigger back completely.

KA-CRACK!

The bullet went straight through it’s head and blew out the front bringing some brain matter with it. The deer then fell limp to the ground. I looked back at my friends with a grin, “Just bagged us our dinner for the next couple days”, they then returned the grin as we got up and walked over to our prize.

When I saw the deer, I didn’t really know what to do next. I looked over to my friends to see if they knew what to do.

“Uhh… Does anyone know what to do next?”

 Ishmael rolled his eyes and asked for the knife. I gave him the bowie knife and he went over to the deer’s throat and slit it, causing blood to gush out.

“Hey help me hang it with those vines to drain most of the blood”, Ishmael told us.

“Uh… ok?”, I then went over to the vines and tied the deer’s legs and lifted it up with the help of Felipe. Let me tell you, that deer weighed at least a ton. After a few minutes the blood stopped gushing and then stopped altogether.

“Uh… It should of taken longer to drain the blood out”, he said confusedly.

“Dude, don’t question small things like that, just blame it on that we are in a magical world full of ponies”, I shrugged.

 We then carried the deer away from the blood pool that it was hanging over and laid it down. Ishmael then cut the head off completely and then cut open it’s abdomen. 

Let me tell you, the smell itself made me want to puke, but I held on to my lunch. Rosa on the other hand ran over to some bushes and threw up.

“Well then, *cough* should’ve expected that”, I said while keeping my lunch down as it tried to make a reappearance. Ishmael then shoved both hands, with one hand holding the knife, into the entrails and organs of the corpse. 

“Hey can one of you dig a hole to put this stuff in?”, said Ishmael with a disgusted look on his face. I truly feel bad for him, he’s right in the pass out zone of the stench but he’s managing to fight it and gut the deer. By the time he’s finished, Felipe and I had a decent sized hole… Well as decent as digging with your hand it could get. We then buried the organs… all the organs except one.

“Uh Ishmael. Why do you still have the heart?”, asked Rosa as she walked back from emptying her stomach.

“It’s hunting tradition, that your first game kill you get to eat the heart, then you become a true hunter”, he told us, “Or something like that, it’s been a long time since I last went hunting with my other friends, but this is what they had me do for my first kill”, he then walked up to me and handed me the bloodied  heart.

“Uhh… So… I just eat it raw? And all of it?”, my hand kind of twitched a bit for holding the warm heart.

“If you want, but it’s just a bite and that’s it”

“What do we do with the heart after?”

“We bury it, don’t think about it much man, just take a bite”

So I did, and immediately I wanted to spit out the raw meat. It was disgusting, with the copper and metallic taste of the blood and raw meat; Did I mention the raw meat? Trust me on this, NEVER eat raw meat, it’s not only unsanitary and will make you extremely sick cause, duh! it’s raw meat, but it doesn’t taste good. 

With great effort I swallowed the chunk of the heart I bit and gasped and spit hoping to get the taste out of my mouth.

“So Ishmael how do you think we’re going to take this back?”, asked Rosa.

“We’re going to have to remove the meat now because we’re obviously not going to drag a deer carcase into Ponyville, so we need to cut it now”, he then walked over to me, “Dude it wasn’t that bad get over it, and do you have your other knives?”

“You’re lucky that I see you as my younger brother”, I said with annoyance as I gave him two of my throwing knives, which he gave one to both Felipe and Rosa and told them and me to start cutting certain parts of the deer. 

Half and hour later we filled up the cooler with the meat and started to head out of the forest, leaving the almost skeleton of the deer behind.

“We’re going to need to place this stuff on ice when we get back”, informed Ishmael.

“And we’re going to need towels, especially you Ishmael, you’re practically covered in blood”, I said.

“I’ll get us some towels since I’m not as covered in blood as you guys and Sugarcube Corner is closer”, said Rosa. She then ran off without letting us decide.

“Soo… Where are we going to keep this cooler? It’s not exactly the most inconspicuous thing and someponies will get curious”, stated Felipe.

“I don’t know, I guess I can put it in Twilight’s walk-in freezer”

“Why does Twilight have a walk-in freezer?”, asked Ishmael.

“I really have no idea, but since the basement is basically her lab, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say sciency/magic stuff”

“Sciency/magic stuff?”, asked Felipe with a raised brow.

“Well I don’t know, I mean this is a magical pony filled world”

“Hey… guys… here’s… some… towels”, gasped Rosa as she handed us some towels. We then proceeded to wipe the blood off, and it wasn’t easy, especially with Ishmael and I because we got some of it on our clothes.

After we cleaned ourselves and the cooler we don’t look like we went swimming in blood we headed into town.

“So when will we have our first BBQ?”, I asked.

“How’s this Saturday sound like?”, asked Rosa.

“Sure, but I still have no idea what day it is today”, I sighed in annoyance.

“Pinkie said today was Wednesday but didn’t say anything else”, said Rosa.

“Huh, so they at least have the same week system as we do back on Earth”, I half-mumbled.

“You guys know that we won’t be able to hide this for long”, whispered Felipe as we walked through the market.

“Yeah, but how will we tell our friends about the omnivore thing?”, I asked with a bit of worry.

“I think telling them will be sooner than we think, I think Fluttershy saw that I had canines but I’m not sure”, said Ishmael.

“Well when should we tell them?”, asked Rosa.

“We don’t”, I said.

“What?”, they said in union.

“We don’t tell them, I don’t want to ruin our friendships with the girls by showing them we eat meat”

“But if they’re our friends, they will accept us even if we eat meat”, said Rosa.

“I-I don’t really know what to do, but for now, this stays between us, and if they find out we’ll tell them”

“Well… Ok, I don’t like it one bit though”, said Ishmael.

“You don’t have to like it though, I don’t either but it’s the best for now”, I then looked at the setting sun, “Well I got to head back, or else Twilight will worry”

“Ok we’ll see you tomorrow then”, said Felipe as I fist-bumped him, then Rosa, then Ishmael.

“Bye”, I then walked to the library which didn’t take long, but it took enough time for the sun to completely set and the moon to rise.

Unlocking the door I walked in and saw no one in the library, so as quickly and quietly I headed down to the freezer and put the cooler in it but locking the cooler with it’s built-in combo lock. I then headed up the stairs and into the living room and saw Twilight on the couch reading a book.

“Hey Twi, I’m back”

“Who’s the-? Oh, hey Leo, how’s your day?”, she asked.

“Not bad, where’s Spike?”

“He’s making dinner, and should be done right about…”

“Hey Twi! Dinner’s ready!”

“… Now”, she said with a smile.

“Ok, what are you reading anyway?”, I said while tilting my head to get a better look at the title. 

Twilight then hid the book behind her back, “N-nothing!”, she said with a blush.

“Meh, well, it’s your business and I’ll respect that, now let’s go eat, I’m hungry”

She giggled and said, “Ok then, let’s go”

When we sat down a glorious sight welcomed us at the dinner table. It was one of the foods fit for gods: Macaroni and fucking Cheese.

> Chapter 11: Jobs! DO YOU HAVE THEM!?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 11:


Jobs! DO YOU HAVE THEM!?


“I’m BORED!!”, I moaned.

“Then do something Leo”, said Twilight with a calm demeanor.

“There is nothing to do!”

“Why don’t you clean your room?”

“I already did”

“Living room?”

I gave a glance around the room, “It’s already clean”

“Kitchen?”

“Spike cleaned it”

“Bathroom?”

“Ew, and it’s already clean”

“Then do something productive, like read a book or something”

I gave a quick glance at the bookshelves that are around the living room. I know this place is also a library, but Twilight has bookshelves in almost every room in the home. I couldn’t be in a room without seeing a bookshelf.

“I don’t feel like reading today”

“Then stop complaining, I’m behind on something the princess wants me to do”

I groaned and decided to go out and walk around town. I went up to my room and grabbed my keys and anything else I usually bring when I leave the house.

“Twilight, I’m heading out!”

“Ok, just be back before dark!”

“Don’t worry about me Twi, I’ll be back”

Walking through town I greeted the ponies that waved at me. Reaching the marketplace I looked at the many stalls and stores. Most didn’t have anything that interested me, but on many stores had ‘HELP WANTED’ signs out front.

‘Huh, peopl- I mean ponies really need help recently’, I then shook my ever emptying pouch of bits and sighed, ‘I really need to get a job too, I hate mooching off Twilight’

Just then I saw Felipe, “Yo! Felipe!”.

He turned and saw me waving at him and walked over to where I was, “Hey Leo, what are you doing here?”

“Just walking around, nothing to do, you know same as back home. I was just thinking that I should get a job so I won’t be mooching off of Twi. What are you doing?”

“Looking for a job too”

“Huh” ‘coincidence much?’ “I thought that you helped Applejack at the farm, since you lived with her and her family right now”

“I don’t work there, I don’t like farming. I do chores, but that’s it”

“Well then… I guess we’re on the same boat here”, I said while I started to head in a random direction with him following next to me, “Why don’t we look for a job together, I’d rather have someone I know to work with me”

“Meh, why not”, he said with a shrug, “Where to first?”

I stopped and looked around spotting a couple of ‘HELP WANTED’ signs. I then set my sights upon a building that was in the shape of a jesters hat with a sign above the door that read: ‘Funny Bone’s Joke Shop’. “How bout’ that one first?”, I said pointing to the shop.

“Sure, why not?”

When we walked in the store a pair of bells hanged above to signal a customer, but instead of the Ding-dinga-ling chime that bells do, it did something… different.

AHOOGA! AHOOGA!

“Dafauq?”, said Felipe along with me saying, “The hell?”

“Welcome to Funny Bone’s Joke Shop! How may we tickle your funny bone?”

I quickly turned away from the strange sounding bells and faced the bone-white pony behind the counter, “Uh… Good morning sir, uh, we saw, the um, ‘Help Wanted’ sign outside and were hoping to get a job”, I half-mumbled as I pointed at the door.

“Oh that old thing is still out there? I’m sorry, but we’re not in need of new employees”, he told us with an apologetic smile.

“Ah well, at least thank you for telling us. Umm… I guess we’ll be off”, I turned to Felipe and nodded to the door and left.

When we opened the door the bells rang out again but with a different sound.

WOOF! WOOF!

‘Seriously. What the hell is with those bells’

 “Welp, where to next?”, I asked.

“How about that one?”, he said while pointing to another store with a ‘Help Wanted’ sign. The building had a sign hanging which had a sofa and quill.

“Welp… *sigh* Let’s see how this one goes”



	

“How are your craftsponyship skills in making sofas?”

After resisting to let my hand meet with my face and groan due to one of the growing list of pony puns for everything, I calmly answered the sofa and quill manager, “I have some experience with woodworking but I haven’t made any sofas”

“I don’t have any experience with woodworking at all”, Felipe answered flatly.

“Well I might be able to hire you”, the stallion said as he turned to me, “But I’m not going to be able to hire you as it will take to much time and money to teach you how to woodwork and make sofas”, he said turning to Felipe.

“Sorry sir, but it’s both of us or none of us”, I said before Felipe can say anything.

“Well, then I understand, but if that’s the case then I can’t hire you two, I’m sorry”

“It’s alright, but thank you for at least considering us”

Felipe and I then stood up and left the store. “Dude, you should’ve taken that job, you didn’t have to turn it down just because’ I wasn’t going to get a position”

“Nah man it’s alright. Besides when he said ‘making sofas’ I immediately didn’t want to take the job, I don’t really like to make things with wood, I will if I have to, but I’m not going to be a carpenter or anything with working with wood if I can avoid it”

“Ah, well let’s look for another place”



	

“Have you had any previous experience with making clocks or watches and/or repairing them?”, said the stallion with a brown fur and mane while wearing a green tie and had a hourglass for a cutie mark and had a british accent. ‘Why does this guy sound so familiar?’

“Nope, I haven’t made a single clock or a watch in my life”, replied Felipe as I studied the stallion.

“Well I’m sorry dear boy but, I cannot hire you two, if what you two said that it’s both or none. I would have hire you both if one of you had some experience but it will be too costly to teach both of you, I’m dreadfully sorry for this inconvenience”

“It’s alright sir, we’ve been getting that for the most part of today. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your name, we didn’t quite get it earlier and you sound familiar but I couldn’t figure out from where”, I said with a confused look.

“Well certainly, I am the Doctor”, he simply said.

‘No. Fucking. Way.’

“Who?”, asked Felipe.

“Exactly”, the Doctor said with a sly smile, one that I shared with him.

“Well then, Doctor”, I said as I stood up and held my hand out for him to shake, with an idiotic smile plastered on my face, “Although we don’t the job I hope we can hang out in the future”

“Well as do I”, he said as he shook my hand. Then suddenly the clocks around the store chimed twelve.

‘Damn, it’s barely twelve?’

“Well look at the time, I dreadfully sorry but I agreed to meet somepony right now”

“It’s quite alright Doctor, we were on our way out anyways. C’mon bro let’s look somewhere else”

As we left I swore I saw an old blue british police box behind the store, but when I blinked it wasn’t there.

“What the-?”

“Hey Leo, let’s check out this place. I think we could get a job here”, he said pointing to a restaurant.

The restaurant he pointed to was in a horrible state. Trash littered all over the place. The windows were foggy with grease and grime, one of the windows had a hole in it. The tables looked like as if they haven’t been cleaned in ages and the hay that is used to sit on were green with mold.

I gave Felipe a ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ look and turned right around and walked away flipping a double bird behind me while saying, “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope”, over and over again with Felipe following behind me, trying not to burst out laughing.



	

“Dude we’ve looked all day. Why don’t we call it a day for now and try again tomorrow?”, asked Felipe as he looked at the ever rising moon as it started it’s journey across the sky.

“Ugh, fine. Meet me right by the fountain at ten”

“Ok see you tomorrow”

“See ya”

I then walked to the library and entered it’s threshold, “Twilight! I’m back!”

“Oh hey Leo. What have you been up too today? I haven’t seen you since you left earlier this morning”, said Twilight as she looked up from a book that she was reading, it looked like the one she was trying to hide from me earlier.

“Ran into Felipe in the market. Long story short, we went to look for a job”

“Oh!”, she perked up when I said that, “And how’d the search go? Did you both find a job? Oh, I’m so glad that the town has accepted you four to let you work in their stores or business!”

“We still haven’t found a job yet. Mostly because we lack the skill and it’s too costly to train the both of us or one of us, it really depended on who we went to but we’ll try again tomorrow with any luck”

“Well there is leftovers in the fridge, so help yourself to them and then you can go to bed if you want”

“That sound nice, I am feeling tired as hell after all those interviews”

I went to the kitchen and served some of the leftover noodle soup.

“Oh and Twilight!”, I called out from the kitchen.

“Yes Leo?”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Monday the 18th!”

“The 18th of what?”

“August”

‘August? If we left Earth late April, then we should be in mid-June. Not mid-August. Did we travel through time?’

“Twilight what year is it?”

“It’s the year 1985 A.D. or 1004 A.N.M.M.”

I stood up and walked to where the bookish lavender alicorn was, “A.D. and A.N.M.M.?”

“After Discord and After Nightmare Moon, same date on both just different year”

“Ok thanks. It’s good to know then”

‘Well we’re not too far from each other time wise, but I’m too lazy to do math right now. So does that make Rosa and Felipe a year older since we’ve basically time jumped over their birthdays when we transported here? Or does that make us younger, like negative years old?...’

“Ugh, this time travel crap makes my head hurt”, I mumbled.



	

“Are you ready?”, I asked Felipe.

“I woke up too early to deal with this stuff”, he groaned.

“Oh stop whining”, I rolled my eyes as we walked through the town looking for employment, once again. “I bet that I woke up earlier than you anyway. What time did you wake up?”

“Around 6 this morning when the sun came up”

I bursted out in laughter, “Hahahaha! Oh god! You still think 6'o clock in the morning is early? Dude I still get up at 4 every morning, just like back in Milwaukee”

He looked at me as if I were insane, “Seriously?! You still wake up at that time?! What do you do, since we don’t go to school anymore and you don’t have to be there early”

“I workout, no one bothers me and the air is cool, so yeah”

“You? Workout? Since when? You still look as scrawny as before”, he said with a look that said he didn’t believe me.

“Dude I know I’m scrawny but believe me, I’m a lot stronger now, probably a bit more stronger than you, but you’re bigger than me so you can most likely still take me”

“Huh… Well how about this place?”. He then stopped in front of a candy shop with a sign with tree blue wrapped candies and that read : Bon-Bon’s Candy Shop.

When we entered the store we were welcomed to the sound of bells chiming, announcing our presence in the shop. A mint colored unicorn with golden eyes saw us and greeted us with one of the cheesiest greeting I’ve ever heard from a greeter.

“Welcome to Bon-Bon’s Candy Shop! How can we serve your sweet tooth?”

“I’m sorry but that’s one of the cheesiest greetings I’ve ever heard from a candy shop greeter”, deadpanned Felipe, which was followed by me jabbing my elbow into his side.

“Ignore him, it wasn’t really that bad”, I lied.

The pony just sighed, “No, it’s alright I already told Bon-Bon that it was a horrible greeting but she insisted on keeping it, and well I’m kinda stuck with saying it when I’m back here. So anyway, is there anything I can help you two with?”

“Well first of all, I’m Leonardo, but you can call me Leo if you want, and this is my friend Felipe, and we saw the Help Wanted sign outside and we were hoping if we could get a job here”

“I’m Lyra Heartstrings, but you can just call me Lyra, and I’m sorry, Bon-Bon is out of town at the moment and she will be back in a couple of days”

“Ah well, that’s a bummer, well as long as were here, is there any caramel candy here?”

“Yeah, we have caramel candy, how many would you like?”

“Just one please”

Lyra then levitated a pair of thongs in a golden aura and grabbed a candy in a dull gold wrapper and placed it in a small paper bag, “That’ll be a bit please”, I then dug in my bit bag and grabbed a Celestia bit and passed it to Lyra, who took it in her magic and placed it in the register then handed me the bag containing my one piece of candy, “Thank you I hope to see you two again”

“Not prob’ Lyra, bye!”

When we left Felipe slugged at my arm, “Ow! What the hell man?!”

“That’s for jabbing me”

I rubbed my arm, which I’m sure I lost some feeling in it, “But shit man”, I shook my arm and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in it, “Any other places you see that could possibly land us a job?”

Felipe scanned the area around us and his eyes stopped at one building, “How about that one, it looks promising”. The building he pointed out stood out from the building around it. Instead of wood like the other building, it was made out of stone the only wood to be seen were a couple of wooden beams here and there, the window frames and the door. A sign hung above the small porch which only showed an anvil and hammer with a smaller wooden sign under it that said: Help Wanted in bold red letters. The chimney was billowing black smoke, signaling that there was someone inside. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was most likely a smithy.

“I hope we get a job here man, I’ve always wanted to learn how to work metal”, I said giddily.

We walked to the door and entered the building. The first word I thought of when I saw the smithy was sooty. The room was smudged with the stuff. But other than that, the various things on display were clean, shined and near flawless. There was also a counter with a register and a bell with a plaque next to it that read ‘Ring For Service’.

 Ding!

I waited for the owner to come out front but Felipe decided to pull a Rosa and rang the damn bell again… repeatedly.

Ding!     Ding!       Dingdingdingdingdingdingdi-!

“I heard the damn bell the first time!”, yelled out a gruff voice that emanated from a door behind the counter. The door opened to reveal a silver-grey earth pony with a brown messy mane and a tail that was covered with soot and cerulean eyes. “Ok which one of you knuckleheads thought it was funny to keep ringing my bell?”, he said with a dangerous edge.

I’m not sure about Felipe, but I was afraid. Sure between the both of us, we could probably take this guy but with an unlikely chance to succeed. And it didn’t help that there were also bladed weapons on the pony’s side of the counter. 

“Well?”, he asked impatiently, “Which one of you was it?”

Both Felipe and I looked at each other and turned back to the owner. I decided to take the blame and slowly raised my hand.

“It was me sir, I’m sorry for doing it”, I said while looking at the floor and kicking the floor in nervousness.

“Boy look at me when you’re talking”

I slowly lifted my head and look at him in the eye, something I can do with difficulty as I almost never look at someone in the eye. Makes me feel nervous.

Then all of a sudden, he had an amused smile grow on his face, “Apology accepted, I’ll let it slide since I would of probably done the same thing when I was your age. Anyway; Welcome to the ‘Steel Ingot’, can I help you boys with anything?”

“Uhm… We saw your help wanted sign outside and were hoping to see if we can get employment here”, answered Felipe.

“So you two wish to get jobs here?”, we both nodded our heads, “Well then, do any of you have any experience with metalworking?”, he received his answer with both of us shaking our heads. “I’m going to assume that this is a ‘hire both of you or none’ deal, am I right?”, we nodded. He then tapped his chin then looked at both of us with a serious look, “If I were to hire both of you, would you two put in the effort to learn how to work with metal and to do everything I say?”, Felipe and I looked at each other and Felipe raised his eyes in question.

Although I don’t know exactly what he’s trying to ask but I took a stab in the dark and nodded. Turning back to the stallion I answered the question for both of us, “We’ll do it, but within reason”

The stallion looked between us for a couple of seconds then gave a hearty laugh. “I like both of your styles! You’re hired!”, Felipe and I high-fived and fistbumped in success, “You two start tomorrow”, he then extended a hoof to us, “I’m Silver Hammer and welcome aboard”

“I’m Leo, and he’s Felipe”, I introduced back.

“Well, come back tomorrow and I’ll start teaching you both, and be here by 6:45 in the morning sharp”

“Sound’s good to me boss, well thank you for hiring us, see ya tomorrow”, I said.

“Ok, c’ya boys tomorrow”

When we left the smithy Felipe let out a groan, “Why do we have to be early!?”

“Oh stop whining pinche pendejo, it’s not that early. Besides, be at least glad that we have a job now”

“Ugh fine!”

With that we headed to Sugarcube Corner to celebrate our employment.

> Chapter 12: The Crusades and Understanding Your Feelings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 12:


The Crusades and Understanding Your Feelings




It was a beautiful morning in Ponyville. Everypony was outside enjoying the nice summer’s day. Little foals run around and play while the adults walk around either buying goods in the market or just talking with friends in the park. Everyone was enjoying the day. 

Everyone except for Felipe and I.

‘I just had to go and get a job didn’t I?’

After looking at the window of what the freedom of the outside that mocks me one last time, I turn my attention to the glowing orange metal that was laying on the anvil. Lifting the hammer over my head I brought it down onto the metal.

CLANK!

I repeated the process until I shaped the metal to the way I wanted.

‘Remember, take your time on each piece of metal. If you rush your work, then the metal will look bad and it won’t last, but if you take your time and let your heart do the work then, and only then you will succeed in your projects’

Theses words of advice that Silver gave both Felipe and I when teaching us the art of blacksmithing bounced around my head. It took a while but when I was completely satisfied with the metal I was working with, I placed it in the furnace to temper the metal.

“Whew!”, I said while taking my cap off for a second to shake my head and wipe my forehead from the sweat, “I’m done… for now at least. Yo Felipe!”

The clanking stopped sounding around the building and a voice emanated from another room, “What do you want!?”, shouted Felipe.

“You finished with your half!?”

“Almost! Why!?”

“Fuck this, it’s too hot in here to yell”, I mumbled as I walked to the room where Felipe was working, “Bro, it’s too hot for this shit man, can you hurry up so we can get out of here?”

“Dude, don’t worry, I’m almost finished with my half… Aaaaannnnddd… There! Done!”, he then wiped the sweat from his forehead and placed the shaped metal in the furnace like I did.

“Great! Now let’s head out for lunch, I’m starving man!”

“I’m coming don’t worry man, just head on out I’ll catch up with you in a few”

I nodded and walked to the break room with had two large lockers, one for me and the other for Felipe. To my knowledge these lockers were recently installed after we got hired. So with three quick twists I put the combination to the lock and put my apron in the hook in the locker and grabbed my phone, Ipod and headphones and locked the locker.

I looked around to make sure I had everything and nodded once I was satisfied and headed towards Sugarcube Corner.

Halfway there Felipe finally caught up with me. 

“Dude, do you have any bit I can borrow? I only have two bits and I might not not have enough for lunch”, he asked me.

“Sure I have a couple”, I said while I checked my bit bag and pulled out a Luna bit and flipped it to him.

“Thanks man”

We then reached our destination and entered the bakery. Behind the counter manning (Or was it called ponying in this world?) the register was the town’s pink party planner Pinkie Pie.

“Oh hey guy’s! Haven’t seen you two in a loOoOoOoOng time!”, said Pinkie as she reached over the counter to give us a bone crushing hug.

‘I swear, these ponies are as strong as hors- Oh...’

“Hey Pinks, how are you doing?”, I gasped out as I felt the oxygen leave my body and not come back.

“I’m doing great!”, she exclaimed as she released us, “Wait…”, she then inspected the both of us, “oil stained clothes, the smell of sweat, metal and smoke”, she then gave out a large gasp, “You two got jobs and didn’t tell me!? I would’ve thrown both of you a ‘Got A Job!’ party!”

I was at loss for words. She was upset that we didn’t tell her that we got a job?

“Sorry Pinkie, we didn’t know that you would be upset that we didn’t tell you”, said Felipe.

Then a memory from a few days ago entered my thoughts, “Hey didn’t we kinda celebrated our ‘Got A Job’ here right after we got accepted?”, I asked.

“You’re right, so in a way you did kind of threw a party for us but, a party minus the many people, er, ponies and only the food”, added Felipe.

“Oh…”, Pinkie then put a hoof on her chin in thought then smiled brightly, “Then in that case I hoped you enjoyed the food! By the way, why are you two doing here? Are you guys planning something? Is it a surprise? Is it for me!? Don’t tell me! I don’t want to ruin the surprise!”

“Uhh… Actually-”, suddenly a pink hoof was shoved in my mouth before I said anything else.

“Uh-uh! Don’t tell me! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to act surprised”, she said.

Then Rosa came out from the kitchen and looked between Pinkie and I, and I looked at her with pleading eye to help me out. Rosa then bursted out laughing and fell to floor clutching her sides.

“Mfh mtftfm mftfmt!”

With great effort I managed to pry Pinkie’s hoof out of my mouth, and it didn’t taste good, it tasted of fur… go figure.

“Bleh! Screw you Rosa”, I spat as Rosa still laid on the floor laughing, “Anyway, we’re just here for food, Pinks. No surprise party. Nothing else.”

“Ohhhhhh! Then why didn’t you say so Pheo?”

‘Resisting. Urge. To. Have. Palm. Meet. My. Face!’

After giving an exasperated sigh I finally said, “Can I just get a three blueberry muffins and a banana milkshake?”

“Sure thing Pheo!”, she then quickly ran to the kitchen with a bunch of clattering sounds and I swear I heard a cow moo. Then a pink blur came back out with my order and she said, “That’ll be five bits”, I then quickly counted the coins and them to her.

“And you Felipe?”, she asked.

“Uhm… I guess I’ll just have a bagel and a chocolate milkshake”

“That’ll be three bits”, Felipe then handed her the money. Then with the speed of a thousand roadrunners Pinkie ran to the kitchen leaving a Pinkie shaped dust cloud where she once stood and then the noise rose up in the kitchen again. The noise suddenly stopped and Pinkie came back in her usual hopping self while balancing a milkshake and a paper bag on her back, “Here you go Felipe!”

“Thank you Pinkie, so are we going to eat here or somewhere else?”, he asked.

“Well, we have about an hour and a half to kill before we have to get back to work, why not head to Twilight’s and hang in my room and watch a movie on my laptop?”

“Eh, sure why not?”

“Ok then, c’ya Pinks. C’ya Rosa”

By the time we left Rosa finally composed herself and waved goodbye to us as we left the bakery. I didn’t take long to reach the library and when we entered Spike was on a ladder dusting the bookshelves.

“Hey Spike”, I greeted the young drake.

He turned to see who greeted him and saw us, “Oh, hey Leo, hey Felipe. What are you guys doing here?”

“Gonna watch a movie”

“How? We don’t have the projector set up yet and I doubt that we have any good movies, only some boring informational ones”

“Follow me and I’ll show you”, I waved at him to follow as I headed up to my room.

After putting my food on the nightstand I went to my closet and grabbed my bag containing the laptop. “So, what movie are we watching?”, asked Felipe.

“I was thinking of ‘Spirit: The Stallion of the Cimarron’?”

“I don’t want to watch that one”

“How about… ‘Billy Madison’?

“Na”

“Big Daddy?”

“Uh-uh”

“Then how about ‘The Road to El Dorado’?

Felipe pondered then shrugged and said, “Sure, it’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie”

“The Road to El Dorado?”, asked Spike, “What’s it about?”

“You’ll see, oh before I start it, where’s Twilight?”

“She’s in her room right now”

“Ok, well Spike, get ready to have a taste of both human technology and entertainment”



	


About 1 hour and 20 minutes later


“That. Was. AWESOME!”, exclaimed Spike as the end credits rolled.

“This was one of my favorite movies when I was younger and I’m glad you enjoyed it”, I said as I closed the laptop and put it back where it was.

“Can you show me another movie?”, pleaded Spike.

“Sorry Spike but I have to go back to work or else Silver will have my skin”, I chuckled and then looked at Felipe, “Strike that, he will will have both of our skins”, I said while pointing at Felipe.

Spike then looked down dejectedly, “How about later I show you one of my favorite comedy special”

This seem to do the trick, as Spike’s mood did a one-eighty, “Okay! But do you Pinkie Promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye”, I said while doing the various motions of a Pinkie Promise. When I did this Spike seem to visibly relax, “Welp, we better start heading out before it get’s any later, I’ll see ya when I get back from work”, I said as Felipe and I start heading out”

When we climbed down the stairs I saw Twilight sitting on the couch while having a cup of tea and a book in her magical telepathic grasp, “Hey Twi!”

“Oh hey Leo, hello Felipe how long were you two here?”

“We were here for a good hour and half or so, but we’re heading back to work”

“Ok then, but please be careful, I don- I mean, you don’t want to get hurt after you’ve recently recovered”, she stammered as a blush started to grow on her cheeks.

I didn’t noticed this nor picked up on what she was going to say, “Don’t worry Twi, I won’t get hurt”, I then pulled out my phone to check the time, “SHIT! Dude, if we’re going to make it back we need to book it!”, I then turned to Twilight and out of old habit and without thinking I rushed over to her and hugged her farewell, “Got to go, I’ll see ya later”, I then rushed out the door and closed it behind me.



	


Twilight:


After Leo and Felipe rushed out the door I tried my best to dissipate the blush that heated up my face but failed without avail.

“UGH! What is wrong with me!?”, I yelled out.

“What’s wrong Twi?”, asked Spike as he came downstairs.

“I don’t know Spike. It’s that every time I talk to Leo or even think about him I just feel nervous and self-conscious”, I then slumped down and gave a huge sigh, “What is wrong with me Spike?”

Spike open his mouth to say something but somepony gasped out loud making both our heads to turn to the now open doorway.

Standing in the doorway were three fillies: a white unicorn named Sweetie Belle with light-purple and pink mane and tail and pale emerald color eyes, a butter-yellow earth pony named Applebloom with red mane and tail with a bow in her mane and pumpkin-orange colored eyes and lastly a orange pegasus named Scootaloo with violet mane and tail and pale-violet colored eyes. The three of them are known as the infamous Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Awwwwww! That’s adorable!”, coed Sweetie Belle.

“Twilight is in love!”, exclaimed Applebloom

“Ewch! I don’t like this lovey-dovey stuff but it’s cool. Who’s Leo?”, asked Scootaloo.

“W-what?!”, stammered Twilight as the blush returned with a bit more intensity at the mention of the human in question.

“Leo is a heu-man just like Felipe”, answered Applebloom.

“Oh, and it’s not heu-man. It’s hoo-man”, corrected Scootaloo.

“Nuh-uh! It’s heu-man you dodo!”

“Hey! I’m not a dodo and it’s hoo-man!”

“Heu-man!”

“Hoo-man!”

“Heu-man!”

“Will both of you be quite! Besides, I heard Rarity say that it was human”, said Sweetie Belle.

“Girls”

“It’s Hoo-man!”

“It’s Heu-man!”

“Girls”

“It’s Human!”

“Is not!”, claimed Applebloom.

“Is so!”, defended Sweetie Belle.

“Is not!”

“Is so!”

“GIRLS!”, I finally yelled out. This made them stop bickering, “Why are you three here anyway?”

“Well, we came to look for crusading ideas but you gave us one!”, said Applebloom.

“She did?”, asked Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

A sense of dread washed over me, “And what is this… *Gulp* idea?”, I asked worriedly.

Applebloom then whispered to her cohorts and then they said a quiet ‘oh’ and turned back to Spike and I, “We can be…”, they then gave a deep breath in and then…

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS INVESTIGATIVE MATCHMAKERS!”

I had to rub my ears to try and get rid of the ringing in them, “Investigative Matchmakers?”, I asked slightly afraid of what does this scheme entail of.

“Yeah! We can totaly help you win Leo’s heart and make him your special somepony, or is it special somehuman?”, wondered Scootaloo.

“It’ll be so romantic!”, exclaimed Sweetie Belle.

“Hold on a minute-”

“Come on girls we need to get disguises to make sure he don’t see us”, stated Applebloom.

And with that the three crusaders ran out of the library to Celestia-knows-where.

‘Am… Am I in love? With Leo?’



	


The Cutie Mark Crusaders:




“So… Where do we find Leo?”, asked Scootaloo as she finished putting on a black spandex body suit.

“We can ask Pinkie, she might know where he is”, said Sweetie.

“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”, cheered Applebloom and ran towards Sugarcube Corner.

When they entered they ran up to the party pony in question.

“Hey girls! Are you guys here to ask where is Leo?”, asked Pinkie.

“Wha-!? How did you know?!”, wondered Sweetie.

Pinkie just giggled and ruffled Sweetie’s mane, “I read ahead silly! And don’t worry about the vase Scootaloo”

“What vase?”, asked Scootaloo as she accidentally hit a table that had a vase on it, which fell and broke.

“That vase silly!”

“I-I’m sorry”

“I said don’t worry about it and Leo’s at his work right now”

“And his work is…?”, asked Applebloom.

“The Steel Ingot. Just head straight then take a left, you can’t miss it”

“Ok thanks Pinkie! Come on, let’s go girls!”, said Applebloom as she lead her entourage out the bakery.

“AND WATCH OUT FOR THE BANANA PEEL!”, yelled Pinkie.

“WHAT DID YOU SA- WHAAAA~!”, yelled Scootaloo.

“THAT BANANA PEEL!”



	

“What is he doing now?”, whispered Sweetie.

“He’s… *Sigh* still working on the same piece of metal”, groaned Applebloom who was looking through a pair of binoculars.

“UGH! We’ll never get our cutie marks at this rate! We’ve been spying on him for HOURS!”, groaned Scootaloo.

“Then why don’t ya get closer to the window and listen to what he’s say’n Scootaloo”, said Applebloom.

“What if he sees me?”

“Don’t worry. He couldn’t see ya unless he poked his head out the window”

“Fine!”, she then proceeded to tip-toe out from behind the bush they were hiding in and leaned against the wall with an ear pointed at the open window and listened carefully.

“Hey Leo! Are you finished repairing that plow? Applejack said that she needed it repaired so Big Mac can pick it up tomorrow”, somepony called out to the human that they were spying on.

“Just one last detail left and I’m finished, why? What time is it?”, asked, who Scootaloo assumed was Leo.

“It’s time for us to clock out”

“Already? Damn… Well I’m finished anyways, let me just get my stuff”

Scootaloo then heard their footsteps towards her and she tensed up and held her breath. She then heard the window close and then a door slam shut inside the smithy. After letting out the breath she was holding, she ran towards the bush.

“What did ya hear?”, questioned Applebloom when Scootaloo barreled into the bush.

“Nothing much, but they’re coming out in a few”

“Who’s they?”, asked Sweetie.

“Leo and somepony else in there, I don’t know who it was”

“It was Felipe”

“Why is he here?”, asked Scootaloo.

“Those two are usually always together”

“Why?”, asked Scootaloo, “Are they siblings or something?”

“Ah think so, Felipe hasn’t talked about his family much”

“Shh! Here they come!”, shushed Sweetie.

They quickly laid down on the ground and pushed apart a section of the leaves out of the way to allow them to see without being seen. And sure enough the humans in question walked out of the smithy and down towards the town square.

“C’mon let’s follow them”, said Scootaloo.

They followed them to the town square, where both Leo and Felipe stopped and talked for a bit. They hid nearby to listen to their conversation.

“What are they say’n?”, asked Applebloom.

“Shh!”, shushed Scootaloo.

“So how’s things going on at the farm? The Apples treating you good?”, asked Leo.

“It’s alright, but I still can’t get used to waking up to a rooster at sunrise”, replied Felipe.

Leo laughed at this. Felipe continued to talk, “Funny thing about that is that we used to live in the city, where there are a ton of loud noises and we managed to sleep through that, but when a rooster crows we can’t stay asleep”

“True, so what do you think about our situation here? I mean there is going to be a slim to none chance to get back home. Do you ever think about settling down here in the future if we can’t go back?”

“Probably not, I mean with ponies? Isn’t that like beastiality?”

“More like xenophilia, since they are a sapient species, like us”

“Why do you asked that anyways? Did you have someone in mind?”, Felipe asked coyly.

“W-what? I have no idea what you’re talking about”, defended Leo with a blush growing on his face.

“Not even for a certain purple unicorn?”, Felipe snickered.

“Her coat is lavender! Not purple!”, said Leo before realizing what he said which caused him to try and back-pedal. But it was too late.

“I KNEW IT!”, screamed Sweetie Belle as she jumped out of their hiding place.

She then covered her mouth but realized that the two humans were looking at her confusedly.

“We’ve been spotted! Abort mission!”, screamed Scootaloo as she grabbed Sweetie and ran away with Applebloom right behind her.



	


Leo:




I stared confusedly at the three fillies as they ran away.

“The hell was that about?”, I wondered.

“I don’t know”, mused Felipe before he turned back to me, “So Twilight huh?”, he said with a sly smile.

The blush returned, if I blushed any harder then I would look like someone who had a nasty sunburn, “Please don’t tell her bro. I don’t want her to feel awkward around me or for her to hate me”, I pleaded to my best friend in a whisper.

“Dude, I’m not an ass like that. But if you want I can help you”

“Thanks man, but not right now”

“Ok but remember, you can’t wait forever or else you’ll miss your chance”

“I know, well I gotta go, it’s getting pretty late.

“Alright, see ya tomorrow”

We then parted ways I was deep in thought.

‘Ha! As if Twi would like to be with me. It wouldn’t work anyways. I don’t think she would like to be with another species’

I then reached for the door to the library. 

‘But Felipe’s right. I have to try, or live the rest of my life with that being my biggest “What if”’

I then opened the door and saw no one. 

“Where is everyone?”, I wondered out loud.

I then climbed up to my room and saw Twilight in the living room writing something, “Hey Twi”

She looked up and saw me, “Oh hey Leo, back already?”

“Yep, is the shower open?”

“Yeah and there is leftover ravioli in the fridge”

“Ok thanks Twi, you’re the best”

This seemed to make her blush, which as always went unnoticed by me. I then headed to the shower to get all the sweat and dust off me.

After coming out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me, I went to get decent and then went to the kitchen to get the leftovers.

As I ate, a single thought popped in my head.

‘Will it even work out?’

> Chapter 13: This Cannot End Well...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 13:


This Cannot End Well…


“Get back here Leo!”, screamed a little girl who was a bit more than miffed. She was pissed. And me like the dumbass that I am and due to the hilarity of the situation, I was laughing my ass off while running away from said girl.

It was one of my best pranks yet against my little sister Celida. It consisted of a couple rubber spiders, hair dye, glitter and a mirror. When I heard her screams from my room I couldn’t contain myself, and it didn’t help when my sister barged into my room with a vomit-green dyed hair with glitter and a rubber spider sticking out of her hair, seething with anger.

After chasing me through most of my house I couldn’t run anymore so I broke down laughing in the backyard, where she body slammed me and sent a flurry of punches at me, which were only minor annoyances.

“Hahaha… Oh come on Celly, you know it was funny- hehehe”, I chuckled as I hugged her.

“Wait till’ I tell mom!”, she then stormed off to the sliding glass door.

“Awww! Come on Celly, don’t do that! It was a joke, beside you can wash it off easily”, I said as I chased her and tackled her in a bear hug. She then tried to squirm out of my grip but without avail.

I then carried her to the grass and started to tickle her.

“Leo!! Hahahahaha! Stop!! Hahahahaha! I-I’m going to pee!!”, she pleaded.

I continued to tickle her but then, she along with the world started to crumble away, like sand in the wind. I stopped tickling her and just watched in silent horror as the world literally crumbled away leaving behind a void.

“Celly?”, I called out for my little sister, “Celida!?”

I frantically turned around in hope to see my sister, “CELLY! CELIDA!!”

“She's not here”

I turned around and the first word to come out of my mouth without thinking was, “Bianca”

“Oh, so you do remember me? Not much good would that do to you, now would it?”

“What do you want?”, I spat.

“Is that how you treat a friend?”, she said in mocking tone.

“Ha! You’re hilarious, you know that, right? Thinking that you’re my friend”

“And who are your real friends, Mhhhh?”

“Well, Felipe, Rosa, Ishmael, Twilight, Spike, and the rest of the gang, but you were never part of this”

“Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. One day, they all will abandon you and kick you aside, especially her”, she said while pointing to a picture of Twilight that appeared out of nowhere.

“They’d never do that. They would never abandon me nor I will abandon them”

Bianca still had that smug grin, like if she knew something I didn’t, “One day, you’ll see that I’m right, and when you do, I’ll be here waiting for you”

With that she too crumbled to dusts and blew away in an invisible breeze. Then, the whole world disappeared completely.



	

I slowly woke up to the sound of my phone and Ipod alarm. I then reached over to them and shut both alarms off, while sitting up in the bed and stretched. I checked the time on my phone and it revealed to be four in the morning.

“Why do I force myself to wake up at this time?”, I groaned sleepily. I then looked at my PT gear laying at the foot of the bed, “Oh, I remember now”, I then tried to rub the sleepiness out of my eye without success.

“Welp. Need to get up now”

After a quick shower, I got changed into my PT gear and grabbed the things that I usually carry around with me. I then tip-toed quietly down the stairs and left the library and started to go through my usual route around the sleeping town.

After the jog, I sat down on a bench in the park and gazed up at the stars.

‘I wonder if my family is still looking for me. I mean we’ve been missing for how long? Four, five months?’

It’s depressing really but there isn’t much to think about, but with a heavy sigh, I sat up and continued on with my exercises.



	


One hour later


I started with my cool-down exercises when I saw the light glow in the eastern horizon signaling the coming of a new day. Upon seeing the sun, I turned around and lightly jogged to the library. 

I managed to make it in five minutes. I walked in to see that the home was as empty as when I left earlier. So, with the assumption that everyone in the home was asleep, I tip-toed to the kitchen to make some breakfast. I looked around the kitchen to see what we had and to see what I can make.

Seeing the obvious lack of meat sadden me a bit, “Man, I wished we had some chorizo or bacon”, I mumbled to myself as I grabbed a couple of potatoes, eggs, flour, and anything else I was using. I started with washing and peeling the potatoes. After that, I diced them and put them to fry on a pan and started to make pancake batter. Twilight came down when I was mixing scrambled eggs with the potato cubes.

“Good morning Leo. What are you doing up this early?”, she asked. I turned to see her standing in the doorway.

“Huh? Oh, morning Twi, I’m just making some breakfast. You can go sit down, it’s almost ready”

“What did you make?”, she asked as she walked to the dining room.

“Scrambled eggs with diced potatoes and pancakes”, I said as I placed two plates with the food and two cups of orange juice that were expertly balanced on my arms. Twilight tentatively picked up a fork with her magic and ate some of the eggs with potatoes. Her face lit up.

“Leo, this tastes amazing! Where’d you learn to cook like this?”, she asked before digging in. 

I chuckled sheepishly at her praise, “I learned from my mom and grandma, but you should taste their cooking. Trust me, they can make it way better”, I said with a sad smile before digging in too.

“Don’t put yourself down like that, it’s some of the best cooking I’ve ever tasted”

“It’s just scrambled eggs with potatoes, nothing much”, I said as I finished my food and placed it in the sink. “Well, since Silver gave both Felipe and I the day off, I’m going to get changed then go look for the guys…”, I then stopped at the doorway, “… And Rosa”

As I climbed up the stairs Twilight followed me up the stairs, “Can I come with you guys?”

I looked at her, which wasn’t hard since she was hovering right next to my face, “Sure, why not? The more the merrier, just let me change”, I then walked to my room and locked the door behind me.



	

“So, where do we head first?”, I asked Twilight.

She gave me a deadpanned stare, “Oh… right”, I chuckled sheepishly while rubbing the back of my head, “Well, ONWARDS! TO FLUTTERSHY’S COTTAGE!”, I said while pointing and walking in a random direction.

“Her cottage is in the opposite direction”, she deadpanned.

I quickly turned around and marched the opposite direction, “I knew that”, I then heard the sound of her hoof meet her face.

“I have a feeling that this is going to be a long day”, she mumbled.

“Why don’t we make this day go faster then?”

“H-huh? How?”

“Race you to Shy’s!”, I then took off leaving her in the dust, laughing my ass off.

“H-hey! No fair!”, Twilight then took off after me.

“Hahaha! Catch me if you can!”, I then saw the cottage getting closer as I ran, that is until I felt someone tackle me from behind, “GAH!”

Me and my assailant tumbled down, rolling further down the road till’ I hit a tree.

“Ugh! I’m going to feel that later”, I groaned. I then heard someone giggle on top of me. I looked up so see Twilight sitting on my stomach with a warm smile on her face. With the sun shining behind her and the soft breeze that blew at her mane, she looked truly beautiful. She then reached out with a hoof and booped my nose, causing me to involuntarily twitch my nose.

“Caught ya”, she said teasingly.

“How’d you-?”, I asked until she opened her wings slightly and ruffled them, “Oh, forgot you had those”, I mused, “Cheater”, I then mumbled, until she lightly slapped me with one of her wings.

“Say’s the guy who rushed ahead, then said guy challenged me to a race when you were halfway there”

“Oh shush it”, I then slightly pushed her playfully. 

I was then interrupted by a soft voice saying, “Oh… my!”

Both Twilight and I snapped our heads to the voice’s source and saw Fluttershy standing near the tree and then she hid partly behind her pink mane, “Oh! I-I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important. A-and, if I may ask, what were you two doing? I-if t-that’s alright with you that is”, the shy pegasus asked us timidly.

I don’t know about Twilight, but my face instantly felt red-hot, as if we were caught doing something naughty… If you know what I mean. “I-it’s not what you think!”, I stuttered, “We tripped and fell, r-right Twi?”

“Y-yeah! That’s it, we tripped and fell”, she stuttered sounding as equally flustered as I.

“Oh ok, it’s not my business anyway”

There was then an awkward silence between us, that was broken by me clearing my throat to Twilight, who was still on me.

“Oh sorry”, she then got off me and offered to help me back up, which I waved her off and picked myself off the ground, “Well then, how are you doing Fluttershy?”, I asked trying to forget the last thirty seconds.

“I-I’ve been good”, she replied shyly.

‘This conversation is going to become awkward again’

“That’s good, is Ishmael here?”

“Oh… he’s not here. He went to Sugarcube Corner to talk to Rosa”

‘Well this makes things a bit easier then’

“Ok, thanks Fluttershy, I’ll come visit later. Come on Twi”

“I would love that you visit later. I-if you don’t mind that is”

“Bye Fluttershy”, said Twilight as we left.

“Later Twilight, later Leo!”

When we were a distance away from Fluttershy I turned to Twilight with a playful grin, “Wanna race to Sugarcube Corner?”



	


Later at Sugarcube Corner:


“What took you so long?”, giggled Twilight.

“I… Had to… Run all the way… Here”, I gasped as I finally reached the bakery, at full sprint… all the way there, “You… Have wings to… Help you”

“Hmph! It wasn’t my idea to race here remember?”

I didn’t answer, instead I focused on regaining my breath and slow my heavily beating heart. After about a minute or so, I walked into the bakery and saw Ishmael sitting on the counter talking to Rosa, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash.

“Hey Ishmael, didn’t anyone tell you that tables and counters are for glasses, not asses?”, I called out.

“Shut up Leo!”, he called back.

“Silly Pheo! Why would a donkey sit on the tables and counters when we have seats besides the tables for them to sit down”, explained Pinkie.

“What are you even…?”, I wondered out loud.

“Don’t bother asking. Who know’s what goes on in that head of her’s”, commented Rainbow.

“Oookk…”

“What are you two doing here anyway?”, asked Rosa.

“Leo and Felipe had the day off”, explained Twilight, “He wanted to be with you, Ishmael and Felipe for the day”

“Yeah, what she said. Anyway, you don’t have to hang if you guys don’t want”

“Are you kidding?”, exclaimed Ishmael, “We’ve haven’t had a chance to hang since you two got the job”

“I’ll have to ask the Cakes if it’s ok with them”, Rosa then walked up the stairs.

“Can me and Pinkie join you guys?”, asked Rainbow.

“Sure Rainbow, I don’t mind you two joining us”

We waited a while for Rosa to come down, but she didn’t take too long, “They said that it’s alright”

“Great! Now let’s go get Felipe, I don’t want to stand around anymore”

When we left the bakery, I apparently never learn, “You guys want to race?”

“You’re on!”, said Rainbow in a cocky fashion.

The small rational part of my brain was telling me not to race, but my non-rational part went ahead to race.



	


Later at Sweet Apple Acres:


“Why… Did I even suggest… racing again?!”, I gasped.

“That’s what you get for challenging the fastest pegasus around, an alicorn and Pinkie”, stated Felipe who was sitting on the same place as when we got here… on the front steps of the Apple’s home. “What are you guys doing here anyway?”

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Pick me! PICK ME!”, yelled Pinkie excitedly as she held a hoof up.

“Yes, Pinkie?”, Felipe sighed exasperatedly.

“Weeeell… Pheo wanted you, him, Rosa and Ishmael to hang out since you both have the day off. Soooooo… he went to Fluttershy’s to look for Ishmael but he wasn’t there because he was at Sugarcube Corner with Rosa, Dashie, and I. So he raced Twilight there and lost. AND THEN-mhfthftmhfmhtf-”

“I don’t need the whole story of how everything became, only on why you guys are here. Now I’m going to remove my hand, and when I do will you only tell me that?”, Pinkie nodded furiously. Satisfied with her response he released her muzzle.

“You fool!”, I warned him too late.

“Pheo want all of us to hang out! Ohhhhh! What should we do? There is so much we can do! We can go play pin-the-tail on the pony, swimming, mountain climbing, spelunking, have a picnic, camping or have a party! I wonder if there is cupcakes in my party cannon, I should go check. Be back before you can say waffles!”, she then dashed away.

“Well then… That was-”, I stated until Pinkie came back.

“But you have to say it reeeally slow!”, Pinkie said while stretching out the e’s for a while. Then like before, she dashed away to who know’s where.

“Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaffffffffff-”

“Shut up Rosa, she didn’t mean it literally”, I groaned.

“So what are you doing here, because I didn’t get anything that Pinkie said”, asked Felipe.

“In eight word. We bored as fuck, let’s all do something”, I said while counting out each word on my fingers.

“What do you want to do then? I’ve been here at the farm for a while, and there’s been nothing fun to do”

“Well shit, I don’t know. I kind of hoped that you would’ve had an idea…”

“Hey Leo, I have an idea”, called out Rosa.

“For all it’s worth please tell us”, responded Ishmael.

“We haven’t had a good shooting practice since the day before we got here, we should practice since we have nothing else to do”, she offered.

“NO!”, roared both Ishmael and Felipe.

“Rosa can we talk in private. Both of you too”, I gestured to Ishmael and Felipe, then headed to the open barn with the three of them in tow. Once we entered the barn I closed the giant doors and turned to them.

“Now… Why the hell would you say that in front of the girls!?”, I hissed, “We’re lucky to have gone this far without them knowing what the rifle and pistols are for!”

“Well, they were going to find out sooner or later! And it’s better that we show some more trust in them! We’ve already proved that we would not hurt them on purpose so what are they going to be afraid of? And besides what’s the worst thing that can happen?!”, she ranted.

“Thanks for jinxing us Rosa”, mumbled Ishmael.

“Leo, she's right you know. You need to stop worrying too much”, replied Felipe.

“You guys are right”, I sighed dejectedly, “Go grab your guns guys. Time to show these ponies how much of a horrible shots we are”, I said with a chuckle.

When we left the barn, Rainbow looked around and whistled innocently, making it plainly obvious that she eavesdropped on us, “Hey Twi, can you guys wait here, we’re going to grab something real quick”

“Sure thing Leo”

“Alright, be back in a flash!”

As I ran, I think I heard Rainbow telling Twilight that we’re hiding something, which was true in some cases but hopefully, they only suspect the guns, which won’t matter for long.



	

When I got to the library I quickly shouldered the rifle and grabbed a box of ammo.

‘Now, what should we use as targets?’

“Hey Spike! Are there any empty bottles or cans that I can use?”

“There should be a bin full of recyclables in the basement!”, shouted the little drake.

I ran to the basement and found the bin which was full of glass and plastic bottles and tin cans, “Thanks Spike!”, I stuffed a couple bottles and cans in my backpack and jogged back to the farm, where I found everyone waiting for me.

“Honestly Leo, why are you so slow? Even Ishmael got his revolver and got here before you did”, taunted Rosa.

I shook my bag, making it sound as the cans and bottles shook inside, “I was getting our targets”, I then turned to Felipe, “You’ve been on the farm for a while, any good places to shoot?”

“I know one but it’ll take a while to get there, c’mon follow me”, Felipe waved for us to follow as he walked into the orchard. It took a while, but eventually we apparently reached our destination in a big clearing in who know’s where in the orchard. At one side of the clearing were a couple of very old looking stumps (Try guessing on what kind of tree’s they might of been).

“So… What now?”, asked Rainbow.

Ignoring Rainbow for the moment I threw some of the cans and bottles to Felipe, Rosa and Ishmael, “Set some targets up guys, and also try putting some a bit distanced away for me”, we then started setting up the bottles and cans. Some on the stumps, on the tree branches and on the grass in varying distances.

“What are you guys even doing?”, pestered Rainbow.

I walked up to the hovering pegasus and booped her nose, “Well my flying equine, we are-”, I then noticed that Pinkie was sitting next to Twilight while eating an ice-cream cone, “When did you get here Pinkie? And how did you- Never mind”, I turned back to Rainbow, “As I was saying, we are setting up some practice targets”

“Practice targets for what? You guys think you can hit them from here without a bow?”

I then loaded a magazine and locked a bullet into the chamber, “You’ll see, now you three stay behind us and I suggest you cover your ears”, I then turned to my friends and saw them loading their weapons, “You guys ready?”, I was answered with a collective yes. “Is anyone down range!?”, I yelled towards the general direction where we were going to shoot and waited for a few moments. After seeing that there was no response I turned to my friends once more, “Ok guys, safeties off and open fire”, there was a collective sound of us clicking the safeties off and then…

KA-CRACK! POP! BANG! BANG!

“AHH!”, screamed the girls behind us. I rolled my eyes as I pulled, then locked the bolt, loading another bullet into the chamber and aimed at a glass sarsaparilla bottle that was perched on a far tree branch.

Within a couple of minutes we shot every single bottle and can in the makeshift firing range, “Well… what do you three think?”, I asked the girls while unloading the rifle and clicking the safety back on.

“That. Was. The most awesome thing I’ve ever seen!”, Rainbow then rambled on how we shot the bottles and cans. Soon after Pinkie also joined in her rambling and they then pretended to be us… Or at least Rainbow switch in playing any one of us while Pinkie pretended to be the bottles or cans. Felipe, Rosa and Ishmael showed them the guns that they had.

“Well I think your marksmanship is great!”, praised Twilight.

“Thanks Twi, although my aim was a bit off a few of the times”

“That’s not true! You hit every target out there. You should consider to try your hoof at archery since you are good at this thing”

“I already have, but I’m only good with compact bows, couldn’t use a longbow for shit”

“Oh I’m sure you’re not that bad at the long bow”

“I beg to differ”, I scoffed.

Twilight was about to say something before being interrupted by a trio of fillies.

“Hey, what are ya’ll doing here?”, asked the little yellow one with a bow on her head, her voice sounded familiar for some reason.

“Yeah! You guys should run before the big booming monster catches you guys!”, warned the little orange pegasus.

“What are you girls talking about?”, asked Twilight.

“Hey… Aren’t you three the fillies that were following me and Felipe after work the other day?”, I half asked and half wondered out loud.

“You haven’t met these three?”, asked Twilight.

“I’ve seen them around town a couple of times but, haven’t talked to them, I don’t usually hang or talk to kids under the age of twelve-ish or ten-ish…”, my voice waivered towards the end.

“We are not kids! Do we look like baby goats!?”, exclaimed the orange pegasus while her wings were buzzing.

“Yeah! And besides we’re not that young!”, defended the white unicorn.

“Oh yeah? Then tell me, how old are you?”, I asked with a smirk.

The trio then fell silent while they looked at the ground pawing the ground and mumbled something incoherent, “I didn’t hear you three, can you please repeat it” 

They gave a defeated sigh and said in usion, “Nine”

I suddenly felt something smack the back of my head, “Leo stop being an asshole and give them a break alright?”, scolded Rosa.

“Alright, alright!”, I groaned as I rubbed the back of my head, “Look, I’m sorry for being mean to you three, but I want to know something. I know no one goes towards a scary sound, so why are you three looking for it?”, I questioned, “And also what are your names?”

“I’m Applebloom!”

“I’m Sweetie Belle!”

“And I’m Scootaloo!”

“And we’re…”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders!”, they yelled in unison. 

‘Oi! I think they just made me deaf!’, I then tried to rub at my ears to get rid of the ringing.

“The reason we went towards the scary sound was that, we thought that might of gotten our cutie marks in monster slaying”, replied Applebloom.

“And what kind of cutie mark would that be?”, asked Ishmael.

“We were hoping to be…”, started Sweetie Belle.

“Cutie Mark Crusader Monster Slayers!”

‘If this keeps up, I’m going to be permanently deaf’

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you girls, but there is no monster here”, said Twilight.

“Yep! Only Pheo, Rosie, Ishie, and Bryan’s scary boom-sticks”, blurted Pinkie, she then quickly covered up her mouth with both forehooves.

“How do you know my middle name?”, asked Felipe.

“What is Pinkie talkin’ about Twilight?”, asked Applebloom.

“Nothing! Nothing at all! Rrrrriiight Pinkie?”, lied Twilight with obvious shifty eyes.

‘These ponies are horrible liars’, I then proceeded to facepalm.

“Nope!”, Pinkie hastily agreed.

An awkward silence then fell upon us as we stared at each other, wondering what to do next.

“Sooo… Since there is no booming monster thing ravaging the orchard, what are you three going to do now?”, I questioned the trio.

“We don’t really know”, admitted Scootaloo, “We kind of thought that the monster slayer thing would of kept us busy for most of the day”

“Hey girls, why don’t we hang out with Felipe’s friends for a while?”, asked Sweetie Belle to her companions.

“Yeah! Why not?”, agreed Applebloom.

“Can we!?”, pleaded Scootaloo as the trio gave me the puppy dog eyes.

 ‘Oh god! How does anyone say no to these three?!’, I was going to say that maybe later but their eyes got bigger and they stuck their lower lips out in a pout, ‘HNG! I think they just gave me diabetes! Must! Resist!’

I then sighed in defeat, “You girls can come if you want”

“YAY!”, they cheered.

I turned to find Felipe facepalming.

“What?!”, I asked.

“I think you just signed our death certificates”, he replied.

“Oh they can’t be that bad, right?”, questioned Ishmael.

“You’ll see” said Felipe ominously.



	


A few hours later:


“Ugh! I can’t feel my everything!”, moaned Rosa.

“I’m sore in places I didn’t even knew I had!”, I complained.

“Leo, when my legs stop hurting, I’m going to kill you”, growled Ishmael.

“Not before I do it first”, hissed Felipe.

“Come on guys, how was I supposed to know that they would of tried something as crazy as trap testers, besides… IS THERE EVEN SUCH THING AS A TRAP TESTING CUTIE MARK!?”, I tried to reason.

Meanwhile, Rainbow found our discovery of the danger of the three fillies hilarious and was clutching to her sides while on the ground along with Pinkie. Twilight on the the other hand was facehoofing. 

“I tried to warn you Leo”, she said with a bit of disappointment.

“They’re just kids, what’s the worst they can do to us?”, mocked Felipe in a horrible impersonation of my voice.

“Shut up Felipe”

“There you guys are!”, exclaimed Scootaloo.

“We have another crusading idea, you guys want to join us again?”, asked Sweetie Belle.

“No!”, was the collective answer.

“Er… what we meant was that we’re going to be busy with some other stuff so maybe later alright?”, I kind of lied. ‘Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it!’

“Oh, okay. Ah’ guess we’ll need to change how we do the next crusade”, said Applebloom, “Ah’ guess I’ll see ya’ll later and I guess I’ll see Felipe in supper”, she then turned to her fellow crusaders, “C’mon crusaders! To the clubhouse!

“Bye everypony”, waved Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo as they followed Applebloom to where the clubhouse probably was.

As soon as they were out of sight my friends gave a collective sigh of relief when the trio went out of sight. I then slowly got up, wincing as sharp pains shot up my body. I then proceeded to help my friends up, with the help of Twilight, Rainbow and Pinkie. 

“Ok, thanks for the lift”, thanked my friends to the girls, they then turned to me and punched me in either my arms or gut. Guess who hit my gut… (It was Felipe).

After trying to regain my breath, I got up with Twilight’s help, “Thanks Twi”

“No problem, although that was unnecessary”, she said while glaring at Felipe.

I put a hand on her shoulder while the other was still on my sore stomach to hopefully calm her, “It’s ok Twi, not much harm done anyway”, I then walked in front of my friends and turned to the girls, “Alright girls, we’re going to off and do some stuff, we’ll see ya later”, I then gave Twilight a hug.

“Ok, try to be back before dark Leo”, she said.

“No promises!”, I yelled as I ran into town with my friends right behind me.

As soon as I was certain that we were far enough I started to speak with my friends, “You guys ready to eat some meat?”

“What do you think is left?”, asked Rosa.

“Probably two rabbits that Felipe and Ishmael got last week, not sure, we’ll just find out what we have when we get the stuff from the library”

Within a couple of minutes we reached the library and found Spike reading a book.

“Sup’ Spike, how’s your day been?” asked Felipe to the young drake.

“Pretty calm today, not many ponies came today”, he replied.

“That’s cool I guess, although, it might been a bit boring don’cha think?”

At this Ishmael, Rosa and I went to the freezer in the basement and collected the stuff we needed. I then went to my room and grabbed the lighter fluid, which still had some liquid in it, and a lighter, which also still had liquid in it. 

I was going to leave but I thought of the last time that I visited Canterlot and thought about what Celestia and Luna had said to us if we wanted to find the other artifacts, we should message her. I mean we already have one of them, but what if someone or something gets their… appendages on the other artifacts. So I wrote out a quick letter saying that we would like to look for the other artifacts.

Dear Celestia,

        How’s everything been in Canterlot? It’s been great in Ponyville so far. Anyway, remember when you and Luna told us if we wanted to look for the other artifacts to send you a letter? Well this is the letter. 

        Your Friend,
                Leonardo Anaya

After reading over the letter, I rolled it up and went downstairs where my friends were waiting for me.

“Dude, what’s taking you so long?”, asked Ishmael.

“Just writing out a letter for the princess”, I said while showing them the scroll, I then turned Spike, “Hey Spike, can you send this for the princess?”

“Sure Leo”, he then grabbed the letter and burned it. About a minute later the reply came back:

Dear Leonardo,

        I’m glad to hear that you four would help my sister and I to find the missing artifacts. I will send a chariot to pick you four up tomorrow morning.

        Sincerely, 
                Princess Celestia

I put the scroll on the table and turn to my friends, “Alright guys let’s go, cya Spike, I’ll be back later”

“Alright Leo. Bye guys”, he waved us goodbye as we left the library.



	

“So tell us, what was the letters about?”, asked Ishmael as he took a bite out of the rabbit leg he had.

I wiped the grease from my mouth and swallowed, “You guys remember the artifacts?”, they nodded, “Well, I told the princess that we would like to look for some of the others”

They just stopped eating and looked at me, “Without telling us?”, asked Rosa

“Well I thought maybe it would be fun, you know? Just the four of us looking for ancient missing artifacts. Of course we’ll come back to take a break after finding each one, so it’s not like we’re leaving Ponyville forever, only for a little while for some adventure”

“Well next time, tell us when you make a decision for us, or else I’m going to punch you in the nuts”, warned Felipe.

“Don’t worry, this was a one time thing, I’ll ask you guys before any other group decision”

“So when is Celestia, going to pick us up?”, asked Ishmael.

“The letter said tomorrow morning, so be ready a bit early”, I then looked at the makeshift- grill we have make with the campfire and a metal mesh grill and saw that there was still meat on it. I grabbed one and put it my plate, I then grabbed the other and raised it, “Who want’s more?”






Twilight Sparkle:


The moment that Leo, Felipe, Rosa and Ishmael were out of sight, I turned to ask to Rainbow and Pinkie on what to do now, but the question got caught in my throat when I saw Rainbow giving me a sly smile.

“So, when are you going to ask him out?”, she asked.

“Who are you talking about?”, I feigning ignorance, although I had a good idea on who she was talking about.

“She’s talking about Pheo!”, exclaimed Pinkie.

At the mention of the human made me blush a bit, “Well what if he doesn’t like me back?”, I asked worriedly.

“Oh of course he likes you!”, yelled Rainbow, she then crossed her hooves over her chest , “You know, for an egghead, you can be really dumb”

“But I wouldn’t know how to ask him out or what I should do!”, I then started to hyperventilate.

“Whoa Twilight! Calm down! How about we go check what Applejack’s doing?”, suggested Rainbow.

I started to calm down when she said that, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Let’s see what Applejack’s doing”

I took a while to find the barn, but within half an hour we finally reached it, we luckily had two ponies with wings and one physics defying pony. It also took a while to find the farm pony, but we eventually found her heading into the barn.

“Hey AJ!”, shouted Rainbow.

The farmpony turned around and waved at us when she saw us, “Well howdy yall, what brings you girls by?”

“We were with Rosie and her friends, along with the crusaders”, answered Pinkie.

“Ya were with Felipe and Applebloom?”, questioned Applejack.

“Yeah, why? Do you need them?”, I asked.

“Yeah, ah was going to ask them if they could help me clean out the barn, do you know where they are?”

“Felipe went with Leo and their friends, and Applebloom is in the clubhouse”, replied Rainbow.

“Ah well, I guess I’ll go find Applebloom”, she then turned and started to trudge into the orchard.

“Hey Applejack, why don’t we help you?”, I offered.

“Will ya do that for me?”, we then nodded, “That’s mighty kind of y'all, come on”

We were already in the barn earlier so we knew that it was pretty messy, so when we entered the barn we immediately went to work cleaning it out. We finished cleaning it within ten minutes.

“Finally, it’s cleaned! I thought we would never finish cleaning this place!”, complained Rainbow.

“Aww, but it was a load of fun!”, reasoned Pinkie.

I turned to Applejack who was holding a black stick-like thing, “What do you have there Applejack?”

“Ah don’t even know what it is, ah know it ain't mine”, she then showed me the object in question and I gasped.

“That’s Leo’s rifle! He must of forgotten it here!”, I then levitated the weapon and inspected it.

“Well do you know where he is so we can return it?”, she asked.

I shook my head, “No, he just said that he was going to be with his friends, so I don’t know where he is”

“We can help you look for him”, offered Pinkie.

“Yeah, beside someone must of seen them, I mean they are the only human in Equis”, commented Rainbow.

“Well since y’all helped me, I guess I can help”, mussed Applejack.

“Ok then, spread out and meet back at the library in ten minutes”, I told them. We then spread out and began searching for the humans.

“Have you seen Leo?”

“No I haven’t seen him all day”

“Hiya! Have you seen Pheo or Rosie?”

“Sorry Pinkie, I haven’t”

“Hey Thunderlane! Have you seen Leo or Felipe?”

“No sorry Rainbow Dash”

“Excuse me, have ya seen Leo?”

“No I haven’t”






A couple minutes later:


“How can it be this hard to find one human!?”, I huffed in annoyance.

“I don’t know but this is fun! It’s like a game of hide-and-seek!”, giggled the ever bubbly Pinkie.

“I don’t know how nopony saw them”, wondered Rainbow.

“There sure were many rude ponies”, commented Applejack.

“Well hopefully Fluttershy has seen them”, I said hopefully.

As we walked the semi-wooded road leading, I started smelling something… off. At first it smelled of smoke, but as we trudged on it became more defined and disgusting. Soon after the smell of burning flesh became more apparent.

“Ack, Eww! What’s that smell?, gaged Rainbow.

“I don’t know but it seem to be coming from the woods”, I guessed, “And I intend to find out what it is”, I then wandered into the woods with my friends on my tail. The further in we traveled in the woods the stronger the smell became and soon it became unbearable. We were going to give up on the idea to find out what the smell was, until we reached a clearing with a campfire and four surprised human staring at us. But I wasn’t looking at the humans, I was looking at what was on the campfire.

Meat… 

‘Why do they have meat!? And where did they get it!?! Ok calm down Twilight there must be a logical explanation to this’

While my inner struggle was happening, I faintly noticed that the area seemed to darken a bit and along with it came a foreboding feeling that I haven’t felt in years.

‘There is nothing to explain! It is obvious that they are bloodthirsty monsters that eat meat!’, softly whispered a voice that seem to send chills down my back.

‘Just because they eat meat doesn’t mean that they are monsters! Look at the Griffon Empire and Dragon Clans! Both are nations that have inhabitants that eat meat and they aren’t threats to us-’

‘But we don’t know what the humans are capable of!’. the voice seem to argue and at the same time my vision seem to get darker at its edges.

‘But-!’

‘They are a danger to you and everypony you care about! They! Are! Monsters!’

And with those words the darkness along the edges of my vision seem to close in...





Leo:


This is bad.

Very, VERY bad.

But there was nothing I could do but watch in horror as the events unfolded.

Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow and Twilight, looked at the meat with disgust and confusion. Rainbow couldn’t apparently keep it in and threw up the contents of her stomach in a bush right next to her. One thing that I was afraid of too was to get shot because hovering in Twilight’s magical aura was my rifle.

‘Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! How did I get so careless as to forget my rifle!?’

When I focused my sights to Twilight, it seemed that she was having some conflict and then she closed her eye for a few seconds. When she opened I then saw as Twilight’s look of disgust shifted from the meat to me and she then threw the rifle at my feet. I’m actually lucky that the rifle had it’s safety on or else I would have a hole through my head with the way the barrel was pointing when it hit the ground.

“Don’t bother coming back, I don’t want a monster in my home”, snarled Twilight. I only noticed the disgusted Twilight, what I didn’t know was that inside, Twilight was hurt and heartbroken. She then galloped away.

“Ah’m sorry Felipe, but Ah’ suggest that you don’t come to the farm for a while , nothing personal but I don’t really know what to think of this right now”, explained Applejack before she galoped after Twilight.

Rainbow didn’t say anything she just flew away to who-knows-where.

Pinkie however ran to Rosa and held her tight, “I don’t care what you eat Rosie, because I know you or you guys would never hurt us”

“You’re not going to kick me out?”, quizzically asked Rosa.

“Of course not! You’re my bestest-best human friend!”, the pink pony then turned to me and Felipe, “I’ll try to convince Applejack and Twilight to give you two another chance and remind them that you won’t hurt us”

I slowly got up and hugged Pinkie, “Thank you Pinkie, you are a great friend”, I then pulled her in closer so I can whisper something in her ear, “I’m also guessing that there is another reason that you still let Rosa live with you”

“You’ll find out later”, she giggled.

“Alright, Rosa remember be ready early tomorrow”

“Ok Leo”, she then got up to leave with Pinkie until I remembered something, “Hey Pinkie! Can you tell Silver that Felipe and I won’t be at work for a while for something that the Princess wants us to do!?”

“Sure thing Pheo!”, she hollered back.

Soon it was just me, Felipe and Ishmael sitting around the campfire, none of us saying a word.

“Well I need to see if Fluttershy will still let me live with her, no doubt Twilight told the rest of the girls about this”, Ishmael then gestured at the now burnt piece of meat on the fire.

“You do what you need to man, we’ll be right here. And if she let’s you stay can you see if she’ll let us stay for the night?”

“Sure thing Leo, I’ll be right back”

Then there were two…

“Well… this is the worst day off ever”, commented Felipe.

“Shut up Felipe”

> Chapter 14: Mission Impossible
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 14:


Mission Impossible


The moon slowly moved across the night sky like ship on the sea. Although it was a beautiful sight, it did nothing to raise my spirits.

Just a few hours ago, I was kicked out, but I wasn’t alone in this. Felipe was in a similar situation. Granted, I was a bit in fault for being careless but Felipe wouldn’t blame me… much.

Anyways, we both just sat in silence as we had for the past couple of hours since Ishmael told us that Fluttershy didn’t have anymore rooms for us. It’s just… Kind of hard to believe what just happened, but at the same time I know it really did happen.

“So… What now?”, asked Felipe with a slight hollowness to his voice.

“I don’t really know man. I… guess just wait for morning and hopefully the princesses would help us”, I sighed.

“You mean like how like ‘Princess Twilight’ helped us?”, he practically spat out, making me flinch back.

“Well who else are we going to go to?”, I stood up and walked over to where he is, “Huh?! Do you think that I haven’t thought about that the other princesses might react the same way Twi did?! You think I don’t know that?! I’m just grasping at straws here! Hell! The only logical way to solve this problem as far as I can see, is to get back to Earth!! And you know as well as I know, that it will be a cold day in hell before we are able to get back!”, at this point I was practically in his face  screaming at him. 

This seemed to piss him off, as he shoved me away from him, causing me to stumble a bit before regaining my footing. He then stood up and stomped over to me until we were face-to-face with me having to tilt my head back to look at his face with him being a good four or five inches taller than me. “Well it was your stupid plan that got us in this mess! ‘Let’s not tell them we eat meat, it’s a better option than to tell them that we eat it’!”, he mocked me while throwing his arms up to give more emphasis, “Well look where that got us now! If the princesses pull a Twilight, we’re FUCKED! And in case you haven’t noticed we’re only four humans; FOUR TEENAGE HUMANS IN A WORLD OF PONIES!!! I’ll repeat myself again, in case you didn’t listen: We. Are. Fucked!”, he said while jabbing my chest with his finger with each word.

I don’t know what came over me, but I just felt the anger inside boil over, “If you think it’s so easy to make decisions like this, then why don’t YOU try it!?”, I said while I shoved him away from me. 

You know… 

That wasn’t my brightest moment, because the next thing I know, he charged at me and tackled me down, barely missing the campfire but close enough to throw up some of the smouldering sparks.

On instinct upon feeling the heavy body on top of mine, I pushed him off of me. If we were back on Earth this would've been a problem to me as I wasn’t weak but I wasn’t strong either. But now, all those morning workouts paid off as I didn’t struggle as much to push him off. I shakily got on my feet with Felipe doing the same and we both rushed each other. We both were at a stalemate for a good minute as we tried to knock each other down as we traded blow for blow until I made a grab for him. I then put him in a headlock and using my body weight, I tried to bring him down but he broke out of the head lock and headbutted me. 

I fell to the ground in a daze when I saw three Felipe’s come towards me and grab me and throw me like a ragdoll a couple feet away. While I lied there on the ground, I felt a dull pain on my face where I was headbutted, but couldn’t pinpoint where it was. I groaned in pain as I tried to get up until I felt something stop me.

I looked to my side to see… 

Fluttershy?

Or at least I think it is Fluttershy. It’s kind of hard to tell with my vision going in and out of focus. 

Anyway, who I assumed was Fluttershy is holding a hoof on my chest and giving me a worried look. Now I could of just stood and ignored her but, I felt that the pain on my face was a bit more pronounced and lifted my hand up to my face and felt something wet on my upper lip. When I pulled my hand back I saw that there was some blood on my hand. I fumbled a but as I tried to pulled out my Ipod and used the inner camera to get a better look at the damage.

It wasn’t too bad, or at least I think it wasn’t. From what I could tell I had a pretty nasty bruise on my forehead and my nose was bleeding.

 While I was examining my face, Fluttershy pulled out a cloth and gave it to me to clean the blood. As I sat there I could hear the sound of Felipe arguing with someone else.

I looked to where he is, to see him arguing with Rainbow Dash while Ishmael stood between him and me.

“-is so important that you have to fight about it?!”, yelled Rainbow Dash.

“You want the reason? This is the reason; because of him being paranoid is one of the main reasons we are in this mess!”, he yelled while jabbing a finger in my direction making Ishmael tense up a bit.

“I don’t see you handling this any better”, I groaned as I forced myself up despite Fluttershy’s and my body’s protests. I shakily stood while the feeling of  vertigo hit me, forcing me to hold down what I had eaten earlier.

“But I’m not the one who got us in this mess!”, he exclaimed.

“But you didn’t disagree with it either!”, I pointed out, raising my voice a bit.

“Uhh… Boys?”

“So what?! You didn’t like you own idea to start with!”

“I knew what was one of outcomes of hiding this! Besides you didn’t have to follow what I suggested!”

“Boys?”

“Then tell me why you suggested it, tell me why you accepted the risks!”

“BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID!”, I shouted but then realized what I’ve just said and covered my mouth as if it would stop the words from being spread.

“Afraid of what? If you don’t want to tell us then that’s fine too”, asked Fluttershy in her own unique way.

I dropped my hand, and sighed, “Afraid of messing up,”, I began to explain, “I mean, the two options available that I saw was either telling you girls that we ate meat and most likely having our friendships ruined or just staying quiet about it and hopefully keep it secret, but I guess I chose wrong”

“Yeah, you kind of did”, Rainbow offhandedly commented but was then slapped behind her head by Ishmael, “Ow!~ Ok! Ok! I’m sorry!”

“Well she is right, I really did mess up and consequences won’t be small either, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there”, I mused, “And by the way why did you come back? I mean doesn’t make you want look at us and think we are monsters for eating meat? I kind of get why Pinkie and Fluttershy wouldn’t think that; Fluttershy is very kind and takes care of lots of animals including some carnivorous and omnivorous ones and Pinkie is just being Pinkie”, I asked and explained my confusion while the shy pegasus next to me squeaked and blushed at my statement of her, “Why did you come back Rainbow?”

“Well, although I think it’s pretty gross eating meat but I’m kind of used to it… well not really, but I knew a griffin that used to be my best friend, and griffins eat meat”, Rainbow explained.

“A griffin? At least we aren’t the only species on this planet that also eats meat”, I mused, until I realized what she said about the griffin, “Wait, you said ‘that used to be my best friend’, what happened?”, I asked.

At that she looked away, “I don’t want to talk about it, besides it doesn’t really matter at the moment”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right”, I said.

“So… What now?”, asked Ishmael.

“We do what we were going to do before this fuck up: go the princess and see where we go from there”, I stood up and wiped my nose to see that it has stopped bleeding.

“Why are you guys going to Princess Celestia for?”, Rainbow asked.

“Not for us to tell, but lets just say its for something important and leave it at that”, I said flatly.

“Ok but did she tell you where and at what time she was going to pick us up?”, Ishmael asked.

I opened my mouth to give him the place and time but realized that she didn’t say in the letter, “No she didn’t”

“Why didn’t you ask her?!”, he asked.

“Hunger?”

Most of the company present almost simultaneously facepalmed/hoofed, “Leo, you are an idiot sometimes”, muttered Ishmael.



	


15 minutes later:


“Do you understand what the plan is now?”, I asked Rainbow.

“Yeah, yeah don’t sweat it”, she said while waving a hoof at me dismissively. 

“Ok then what did I just tell you?”

“Distract Twilight while you, Felipe and Ishmael go in and find Spike and grab your things”

“Ok and you Fluttershy,”, I said while turning to the pegasus, “Can you please look out for when we come out and get Rainbow out?”

“Ummm… I guess”, she replied.

“Alright”, I said while looking at the tree in question from behind a bush, “Let’s do this”

With that we ran, excluding Fluttershy, across the street towards it and before we reached it Rainbow headed for the door while Felipe, Ishmael and I ran to the balcony and waited.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Hey Twilight! Open up!”, yelled Rainbow.

I hear somepony, who could've been the the pony in question move to the door.

“Rainbow what are you doing here at this hour?”, asked Twilight.

“Alright Ishmael, get over here, we’ll give you a boost up”, I said while both Felipe and I cupped our hands into footholds. Ishmael took this as a sign to start climbing on us.

“Ow! Dude that was my face!”, whispered Felipe.

“Can you reach it?”, I grunted.

“Almost! Can you lift me up a bit more?”

I looked at Felipe as we nodded and lifted him a bit higher, but with great strain to my arms as they are not used to lifting up this much weight.

I thought that an eternity passed until I felt the weight lift off my arms. I looked up to see Ishmael climbing over the railing and throw the rope we borrowed from Fluttershy’s cottage. I quickly gave the rope a firm tug and felt it go taut. After being satisfied that the rope was secure to some degree I began to climb with Felipe no too far behind me. As I climbed over the railing I made sure that I absolutely made no noise as I moved about the balcony. 

A rather easy trick I picked up a while back and taught to both Ishmael and Felipe before we came over here. The key was to keep you body leveled, spread out your weight, walk toe to heel and breath through your nose. Hopefully this will work.

Once we we’re all on the balcony I silently gestured to the door and tip-toed towards it and checked if it was locked. And to our luck it wasn’t, although I kind of expected it. Turns out that since there is an extremely low crime in Ponyville, hardly anyone keeps their doors locked. As I opened the door, it made a long creaking noise.

CrrreeeeaaaaacccKKKK!

We all froze for a moment and silently listened to see if anyone was coming. 

After about a minute or so we gave a quiet sigh of relief,

“Ok, mini heart-attack out of the way, while Felipe and I gather the stuff we need, you go look for Spike and give him this”, I said to Ishmael while handing him a rolled up scroll explaining some details to Celestia.

“How do I convince him to sent it for us? Most likely he’ll tell Twilight rather than send it”, Ishmael asked with a mixture of skepticism and worry.

“Use this to “encourage” him to send it and say that I’ll repay the favor later”, I said while handing Ishmael a blue diamond that I found on the ground in one of my many morning jogs.

“Alright then, what should we do if Twilight hears us?”, he asked.

“Run like the devil is chasing you and head towards Sweet Apple Acres, we’ll meet up at the Crusader’s clubhouse”, I informed him, “Let’s hurry and grab what we can get, I’m not sure how long can Rainbow stall for us”

With that we spread out to do what was planned, hopefully Ishmael can finish his task first so we don’t have to worry much about him getting caught by Twilight. After about 5 seconds we reached the door to my, er… now ex-room. The moment we walked in we went to work by grabbing what we needed. I looked in the closet and found that my armor was still there. 

Although I didn’t have time to put in under my clothes I decided that it will be easier to have it on instead of carrying it around. Few minutes later, I was fully decked out in my onyx colored armor with my sword strapped to my side and a duffle bag full of extra clothing, bowie knife, throwing knives, two boxes of ammo for the rifle and canteen. Felipe gathered what little that he could that included a bag of bits, a compass, a star chart, some pieces of parchment and pencil.

“Ok, you got everything?”, I asked Felipe.

“Yeah, now let’s hurry before Twilight catches us!”, he urged.

We quietly made it back to Twilight’s room but right before we reached the balcony, I somehow tripped and fell. Now if we were outside, this wouldn’t be much of a problem, but me decked out in my armor falling onto a wooden floor, that is guaranteed to make some noise.

The moment I heard the crash of metal against wood, I felt my stomach drop.

Now how does one fall and trip? I quickly glanced behind me and see Spike rub his head.

And as if it couldn’t get any worse life decided to screw me over… Again.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”, who I assumed was Twilight screaming downstairs.

“Mierda”, I silently cursed to myself.

> Chapter 15: Faith in the Young Generation Restored!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 15:


Faith in the Young Generation Restored!


You know… 

I feel like if maybe, just maybe, that life hates me just a bit… 

Scratch that. Life wants Death to drag me down the nine levels of hell itself…

Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit but, that is how it feels with Twilight coming upstairs to check on the ruckus my damn armor made.

“Oh, my head”, Spike moaned in pain as he held his head.

“Sorry about that Spike but I need to get out of here, I promise I’ll make it up to you later”, I whispered a bit too loudly as I scrambled to my feet and sprinting towards the balcony after my friends. What I didn’t see was that at the moment I jumped off the balcony was the exact moment that Twilight reached the room, just managing to see me jump.

‘Aren’t you the picture of stealth’, a voice seemed to whisper.

I instinctively flinched at the the sound of the voice almost causing me to tip over the balcony head-first. Thankfully, Life decided to stop fucking with me for a moment and I managed to land on the ground without injuring myself. Without hesitation I dived into a bush next to giant tree and waited.

As I expected, Twilight flew out and looked around trying to see where I ran off to. I gave a silent prayer for her to not see me and at the same time wondered where the whisper came from.

Apparently after a minute or so she gave up and flew back into the tree to what I assumed was to check up on Spike. 

With the short opportunity that was shown to me, I quickly ran to a nearby alleyway. I snuck a peek to see if I was seen or heard but saw no activity. I sighed in relief  then started to wonder where my friends ran to. I tried to discreetly scan the area around the tree but didn’t seem to find them.

“Where the fuck did they go?”, I wondered.

Suddenly a cyan blur flew out of the balcony, and raced overhead.

Three guesses on who it is and the first two don’t count.

“Yo! Rainbow!”, I tried to call her without being too loud. 

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, that makes you sound like Fluttershy’, the voice whispered again.

‘Wait… what?’

I looked around to see if anyone was around but found no one.

‘Ok, this is officially freaking me out now’

I shook my head and concentrated on what I was doing and saw her looking around for… something.

‘Is Rainbow looking for something?... Oh wait’

“Rainbow! Down here!”

After finding me, Rainbow swooped down into the alleyway, “Leo, what happened back there and where are the others?”

“Whoa there Rainbow, well first… I tripped”

“You… tripped…”, she deadpanned, “... ON WHAT?”

“Apparently on Spike’s head”, I said sheepishly as I rubbed the back of my head.

At that Rainbow facehoofed, “Ugh… And where are the others?”

“Dunno, I didn’t see where they went after I jumped off the balcony”, I tried to explain, “Twilight flew out trying to find me… Or at least us… Not including you I guess…”

“Yeah, she told me to find a way to get you guys out of Ponyville”

“Well I guess she will get her wish by tomorrow”, I said bitterly.

“Hey don’t say it like that, besides you should know Twilight enough to know that she sometimes overreacts over some things”

“Hard to do that when she was looking at me in disgust and tells me to fuck off”, I grumbled, “I mean she’s a princess for God sake! It would of been expected for her to yell at us for telling her, but if what you told me that there are griffins you can bet on your life that there is a griffin kingdom out there”

At that Rainbow’s ears flattened against her head, “And if Twilight reacts towards the griffins like how did with us… Well, I know you’re smart enough to know that, it wouldn’t end well”

At this moment I realize that I might say something I will regret if I didn’t calm down. So I shut my mouth and took a deep breath before I said anything, “Sorry about that. There is a lot on my mind, if that wasn’t obvious already”

Rainbow looked less nervous now that I didn’t look like I would lash out on accident, “It’s alright big guy, I know that you’re pretty stressed but… Will anything I say change your mind?”

“I’m not sure but getting kicked out and suddenly becoming homeless is a new experience”, I sighed.

“Don’t worry Leo. Twilight will come around and apologize and we’ll forget that all of this happened. Heck! You might look back at this and laugh about it one day!”, she reasoned.

“You’re right, I guess… I mean, for now we have something else to worry about: finding the others”, I said with renewed determination

I looked down the alley where we came from and then looked back to each other. 

“Sooo… Any ideas where the others are?”, she asked.

I wracked my brain as I tried to recall any mention of a rendezvous point. I then thought back to our plan that we had a couple minutes earlier. With Twilight almost catching us it made me almost forget it, “I remember now”, I exclaimed while I hit my forehead, “I told them to run to the Crusader’s Clubhouse if we get chased by Twilight.”

“Well what are we waiting for? If we hurry we should catch up to them!”, she exclaimed.

“Alright, alright just give me a minute to make sure everything is secure”, I said while i did a quick look over at the bag. After being satisfied that none of the contents will fall, I slung the bag and nodded to Rainbow and began running towards the orchard.



	

“Hurry up slowpoke!~”, Rainbow called out to me as we… Er… Well at least I ran to the orchard while she flew ahead of me.

“Shut up! I’m obviously not an angel, cut me some slack”, I huffed as I kept running after her.

“Well of course you’re not an angel, You don’t even look like a bunny rabbit to me”, Rainbow asked as she flew backwards facing me while giving me a weird, “Besides Angel can never catch up to me even if you strap him to a firework!”

“What are you talking abou- Oh! No, no, no, no. That’s not the type of angel I’m talking about”, I said while I slowed to a steady walking pace as we entered the orchard, “An angel is... well, many things actually but in the way I’m referring to is a winged human”

“A human with wings!? That is so awesome!”, she then proceeded to grab my shoulders and I found myself nose-to-snout with her, “Are there any angels where you come from?”

“Ack!”, I stumbled back to give myself some space but instead I tripped over a root and fell on my back, “Rainbow! Don’t grab me like that! Ow, and no. There are no angels where I come from. They are just a mythical creature but according to some religions back in my world, they exist in heaven as God’s servants and soldiers… At least that is the more simplified version of it”, I then proceed to pick myself up and dust the armor off.

‘Maybe I should've found a place to hide this stuff before we came to the orchard’

“Aww! It would’ve been cool to meet an angel and it would’ve been awesome to race one”, she pouted.

“Well maybe they are real, maybe they aren't but it doesn’t matter right now. We’re here”, I pointed to the treehouse.

I tipped-toed up the ramp and tapped at the door. I then heard a flurry of steps approached the door and swing it open. I was then swiftly yanked into the darkness of the clubhouse along with Rainbow. I then felt myself getting forced onto a seat and was promptly tied up. 

“H-hey! What’s going on!? Felipe? Rosa? Ishmael? The hell are you guys doing?”, I asked into the void.

“What’s the big idea?! Let me outta here!”, Exclaimed Rainbow as I assumed she was forced into the same situation as I have. And if the sound of frantic wing flaps were an indication, she was trying to force her way out of her bind.

“Guys be serious! We’re kind of on a deadlin- AH!”, I yelped as a bright light suddenly turned on and was shone on my face.

“Before you came here did you make sure that you weren’t being followed?”, asked a familiar voice that didn’t sound like any of my friends, but instead sounded… more higher pitched and raspy.

“First off, get that light outta my face! I can’t see anything! Secondly I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed someone following me and thirdly, who’s asking!?”, I answered.

“Um, Scootaloo, Ah think that yer hurtin’ him”, spoke a high-pitched southern accented voice off to my side.

Okay, now I’m sure who ambushed us, “Sweetie Belle, are you there too?”, I called out with a sigh.

“I’m here”, called out the timid filly.

“Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t you three be in bed?”, asked Rainbow.

“We couldn’t sleep and we found Felipe sneaking into our window with his other two friends”, Scootaloo added while still on top of me.

‘Great now we have to deal with these three and their insatiable curiosity’

Although the stray thought did seem rather whiny, having these three knowing that we were sneaking into the home of those that just kicked us out is not a very good thing to have…

‘Well… Twilight already caught us so it’s not too bad right now anyways’

“Well regardless, can you please untie us? I feel like you three tied this a tad bit too tight”, I then waved my hand as much as I could while showing them how it started to turn into a mixture of purple and red.

“Hehe… sorry ‘bout that”, Apple Bloom said sheepishly. She then proceeded to untie the binds.

After having my mobility and a bit of my night-vision regained, I looked around expecting to see Felipe and the others but only saw Fluttershy sleeping soundly on one side of the treehouse.

‘Dawwww! That is just adorable! … Well not as adorable as Twi-...’

‘Really? Even after she shunned you and cast you aside you still like HER?’

I’m pretty sure I heard someone that time. But at the same time it sound like someone was whispering behind me…

I shook my head remembering that it’s not an urgent matter at that moment that I might be going insane.

“Where’s Felipe and Ishmael?”, I asked the Crusaders.

“I’m right here”

I turned towards where a ladder lead to what I assumed was… the attic?... I think… Well there was a ladder leading to an upper level with Felipe and Ishmael climbing down said ladder.

“What were you guys doing up there? And why did you guys not come down when these three practically hogtied us?”

“Hiding and waiting for you two”

“And I’m going to take a wild guess that you grabbed your stuff but managed to get caught by these three”, Rainbow said dryly.

I quickly stifled a small laugh before clearing my throat, “Ahem, well, now we have to figure out what to do with them. We obviously can’t have them come with us”, I pointed out.

“Why not?!”, exclaimed Scootaloo, “We helped!”

I looked to Felipe for confirmation and he nodded, “Well I’m glad you three did but, we are already in a bit of trouble with Applejack and Twilight. We don’t want to give them any more reason to dislike us”

‘Understatement of the century’

“We can always leave them a note. Ah’ reckon Applejack and Big Mac would understand”

“Umm, Apple Bloom, I’m pretty sure Applejack wouldn’t like it if you disappeared with just a note saying you’re with the three humans she doesn’t want to see right now”, Rainbow stated.

“Oh… but why doesn't she like you guys? Ah mean, Felipe has been living with us for a couple of months and he ain’t done nothing wrong”, she inquired.

I looked to the others to see if it was a good idea to tell the young Crusaders. Ishmael shrugged while Felipe was unsure.

“Ah… Well… You see…”

“They eat meat”, Rainbow said impatiently.

We looked at her with disbelief… Er well, Felipe, Ishmael and I looked at her with the disbelief of her sheer bluntness, while the Crusaders looked at us with a mixture of emotions splayed across their faces. 

“What?! You guys were gonna tell them anyways! I just sped up the process”, she said defensively.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed, “Look girls, before you three freak out…”.

“Are you guys carnivores?!”, Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Not exactly, we’re omnivores”, Ishmael briefly explained.

“What’s an ‘omnivore’?”, Sweetie Belle asked in confusion.

“It mean that we can eat a lot of things, like meat, fruits and vegetables”, I explained a bit more in depth.

“Oh… that’s pretty…”, Sweetie Belle started to say until she was interrupted by an orange pegasus filly.

“Awesome! I mean not Rainbow Dash awesome, but that you guys are like a manticore and a pony at the same time is pretty wicked!”, gushed Scootaloo.

This threw me into a loop of emotions. From relief that these three fillies are really accepting, to confusion on why are they not afraid… not that I want them afraid, that would be really counter-productive. 

“So you girls aren’t worried?”, I asked skeptically.

“Well if you guys did wanted to gobble us up I’m pretty sure you would have done it already… Well, try to gobble us up. There is no way Rainbow Dash will let you guys eat us”, Scootaloo reasoned, “Right girls?”, the other two fillies replied in echoed agreement.

This really moved me. The fact that children are so accepting and without prejudice towards us, that I knelt down and hugged the three fillies and whispered a silent thanks to them.

After breaking the hug, they asked us if they could come with us. We replied with an unanimous no. Luckily they left it at that and bid us goodbye and good luck.

“Man that was a close one!”, I exclaimed, “The Crusaders are adorable but are annoyingly persistent, aren’t they?”

“You said it, dude”, replied Ishmael.

“Alright Leo, where are we going now?”, asked Rainbow.

“Well Ishmael, Felipe and I are going to wait for the chariot that the Princess will send for us. You’ve helped us as much as you could, but I believe we should part ways for now”

“Why can’t I come with you guys?!”, she exclaimed in disbelief.

“Because we need to do this ourselves!”

“Says who!?”, she challenged.

“Says…”,

… I didn’t have an answer.

“See! You don’t need to do whatever the Princesses need you guys to do alone”, she reasoned.

“Alright…”, I sighed in defeat, “You can come to Canterlot with us but it’s up to the Princesses whether they allow you to come with us wherever she’ll send us”, I conceded.

“Alright! Let’s get going!”, and with that she flew off to a random direction.

“She doesn’t know where she’s headed, does she?”, asked Felipe.

“Nope”, I sighed heavily.