> If Anon didn't know > by Unstoppable > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Oh no, Anon doesn't know > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- One day, you find yourself waking up with a pounding headache. Everything looks blurry and your hearing isn't giving you too much more information to compensate for your vision. You swear you hear yelling and some specks of light show up in your peripheral vision every once in a while but other than that you are clueless. "ugh, what happened?" you ask yourself. The last thing you can remember is you laying down to rest. "Maybe I'm dreaming?" you tell yourself. Just as you are getting up, the right side of your peripheral vision is overwhelmed with a sudden flash. *Bzzzt The flash blasts you to your left and you find yourself back on the ground. This time, however, the experience comes with having the wind knocked right out of you. "Yikes!" you think to yourself, "what in the world could that have been? No way I'm dreaming this! It all feels too real. Wait...this is realling happening?!" As you ask yourself this, your vision and hearing begin to return to you. You look around to suddenly realize you are in the middle of some kind of battle. The location you are in appears to be a town filled with tall builds of white, gold, and purple. Some of the buildings seem to be in bad condition but everything seems to be still standing for the most part. A barrage of some kind of energy bolts is being hurled from a hidden source to your right and hitting a giant creature to your left. Just as you get up to look at your surroundings, another bolt strikes a building right behind you. The building seems to hold for a second...before it starts to give way as a result of the absent supporting material that was present a few seconds ago. Guess who is in the building's favorite resting spot? Ya, it's you and you quickly realize this just in time too as you pick yourself up and high-tail it out of there just in time to avoid being pancaked. You hear a crash behind you and what can only be described as a moan as the building settles. You know it has to do with the physics of how buildings collapse but it feels almost like the building was aiming for you on purpose. "Jerk," was your response despite your knowledge that builds do not have feelings and thus can't have the wish to destroy. The monster that you saw before seems to though as it lets out a howling roar as a result of being hit by an energy beam. You turn around just in time to get a better look at it. You then realize just how cartoonish the monster seems to look. It has a simple black body with scales going all across it and it has a kind of shimmer to it. The actual shape of the monster seems a bit globy. One could almost describe it as practically featureless other than that, though. However, you aren't in a safe enough situation to afford to take the time to critique this creature's personal tastes in self-dressing so you decide to make your way to said safety. "Sigh, ok I can do this," you tell yourself. You then begin to run in the direction of the energy bolts and take your nearest right. "This street seems to be safe and uninhabited," you tell yourself. Up ahead you see this castle and a road leading to it. You begin to make your way to it but encounter a small problem. One of the energy bolts was deflected by the monster's arm and hit directly to your left. Again, you find yourself face first into the ground. "I'm getting really sick of this," you tell yourself, "but if I'm going to make it out of here, I had better figure out the safest route. I can't just go by open ground." With this realization, you turn into the nearest ally and work your way to the castle. "If I use alleys and back roads and stick to buildings that are surrounded by other buildings," you tell yourself, "I'm not going to risk having a stray bolt hit me directly. The buildings should protect me better than anything else will." What you lose by going through the alleys and backways, though, is the ability to actually gauge where you are going, but you can guess correctly right? Sure you can buddy, and you continue to think that until you find yourself at a dead end. "...Darn, ya this is bad," you tell yourself. You had just found yourself at not just any dead end but at the edge of a cliff. "Funny story," you tell yourself, "One, you can't navigate without a line of site for even two seconds. Two, you not only found yourself at a dead end and have to turn around to try and find your way to the castle but the sounds of the battle seem to be getting closer. This means you are now in more danger then you needed to be...you fool. Oh, and three, this town is on top of a mountain. This means you aren't going to be getting to open and safe ground anytime soon." As you begin to turn around, though, a stray blast from the now migrated battle travels right between the rooftops of the two buildings that make up the ally way you are in and hits the ground a couple of feet behind you. This lurches you forward and past the edge. The ground and the buildings that were next to you before will soon be catching up to you as they begin to crack and fall apart soon after you fall. "Well," you tell yourself, "This is how it all ends, right? At least it's pretty cool." The buildings up above you are in parts and free falling towards the ground. You must have fallen several thousand feet already, good job genius. As a result of the oxygen change, you begin to lose consciousness. Your vision begins to black out and just as you are about to complete go limb, you turn your head to see...flying ponies?...WITH HORNS!? *whump All of a sudden your stomach is in pain as these ponies ram into you. You quickly find yourself on the white one's back and much more alert than you were before. "Wha!? What happened!?" you yell to the blue one. Through the heavy wind, the blue one responds, "Hello subject, what ist thou doing here? You should have evacuated with everypony else." The white one responded "you've put us in a very bad predicament young one. We had to divert ourselves from the battle to save you. We'll talk about this later but, for now, we must get you to the train station for your safety." "Sister?" yelled the blue one through the heavy wind, "Does thou need any more assistance? Or may I head back into the battle?" "We'll be fine Luna," responded the white one. "Understood Celestia," responded Luna. She then banked left and returned to the battle with the monster which was now...firing energy out of its mouth...ya...that's a thing that happened. "What is your name little one?" asked Celestia to you. You responded in kind," My name is Anonymous, but you can call me Anon. I am a human from Earth and I am very, very confused." "Oh?" responded Celestia, "Is that so? Well, aren't we all in life Anon. Aren't we all?" With those words and a chuckle, Celestia began to descend to a train station right below. While this was happening, you couldn't help but think, "What am I going to do now?" What in deed...what in deed. > Anon has no clue what to do > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As soon as Celestia touches the ground, she turns around to pick you up by the back of your shirt and pulls you off and in front of her. "Hey!" you exclaim, but Celestia has already taken off the ground to join Luna in battle. "So much for trying," says a voice from behind you. You turn around to see the source of that voice to find a pony beaming up at you. She was like the two sisters you had just met but smaller and with no wings or a horn. She had a caramel colored coat with a dark golden brown mane and tail. "Ya," you exclaim, "I know right? The least she could do is apologize for the way she rammed me." "That was you?" exclaimed the caramel horse, "I thought I saw a pony begin to fall to the ground and then the two sisters change direction to help them but I didn't know that was you. You should be more grateful. They saved your life Mr..." "Anonymous," you respond, "but you can call me Anon. What's your name?" The horse responded in kind, "Maple Corn" with a cheery smile. This sent you back laughing. "Maple Corn!?" you respond back, "What kind of a name is that!?" Maple was not pleased with your reaction to telling you her name. She puffed up her chest and with a bright red face said, "Hmmph, it's my name and it wouldn't hurt you to be more respectful to other ponies when they tell you your name. Besides, you shouldn't be one to talk. What kind of a name is Anonymous anyway?" "It's the name that means nothing," you respond while sticking your tongue out, "but more to the point, it isn't as bad as Mapppple Cooooorn." You say this while sticking your nose up and crossing your eyes for added effect but this seems to send Maple off the edge. You can tell because she responds to your actions by kicking you in the shin. "Ow!" you yell, "Why did you have to go and do that?" "Because you're being really mean to me and I don't appreciate it when people are being mean to me," she responded with a puff. Suddenly, you feel bad. "She's right," you think to yourself, "I didn't need to go and do that to her. I should apologize." Despite your best intentions to apologize, however, you only manage to do so in a way that would make any being upset. You take the now turned around and puffy pony in front of you and raise her into a bear hug at your level. "Stop that!" she screams while giggling, "I'm extre-ee-emly ticklish you know!" Her warnings aren't enough to deter you however and, before you know it, you feel yourself bumping into somepony and you quickly find yourself being teleported, alongside Mapel, to the middle of some pony's living room. "Wha-," you say as you get yourself off the floor while leaving the upside down pony to recover herself, "What just happened?" "You dummy," she responds back, "you bumped into a unicorn while you were rough housing and they teleported us back into town. This is probably his house since this would be the location on his mind right about now. He's probably wondering if it'll be flattened by the time the sisters deal with that monster." Her words don't comfort you. They don't comfort you at all. Instead, they bring a steadily increasing panic over you. All of a sudden, you are back in the same life threatening situation you found yourself before except you aren't feeling as lucky or brave as last time. Now that you know what you are facing up against, you feel alot less certain that you can take it on. It doesn't help that a sudden thump is felt right outside the house right about now. You fear the worst and can't bear to open it but something in your new friend-err "aquantince" compelled her to try and open the door for the both of you. "What are you doing!?" you whisper. "I'm just going to have a peak," Maple responded back. "That isn't how you avoid the monsters," you hiss in response, "That's how the monsters find you." "Oh stop being such a crypony," was the mare's answer. With that, she finally brings her attention back to the door and begins to open it. Only, much to your horror, she doesn't simply open it slowly and by a slight ammount. She opens that door within a quarter of a secodn and moves it the full half circle. What she sees behind that door sends her screaming and running into your arms. Don't get too comfortable though because, a second after that, you too are send running with Maple in your arms. You try to find a place to hide behind a coushion. What is it you're hiding from? Why, it's the big eye that was staring at you at the door. It was the big, and scary eye that was attached to a big and scary monster and as you both lay behind the couch trembling only one thought rang through both of your heads, "What are we going to do now?" > What does Anon Do > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are we going to do now," Maple hissed at you. She sounded very angry while she did it. It may have to do with the fact that you are responsible for getting her into this mess in the first place. She still looks cute, though. Despite her now angry and red face, she seems more cuddly than anything else. Her cheeks are puffed out and her face is scrunched up. She even has that red glow from before. You must not have noticed how long you were staring at her because she gave you another small kick in the leg to make sure you got the point. "Ow," you yell, "what was that for?" "That's for taking so long to respond," she said, "you know, I don't like being this mean. If it wasn't for the fact that you made fun of my name and our current time-limited situation, I would have treated you a lot better." This response makes you sad and so you say, "Ya, I know. I kinda feel cruddy about acting the way I did." With that, you outstretch your arm in a show of friendship and say, "Will you forgive me?" What you are met with is not a hand...err...hoofshake but rather full body hugging contact. "Ough," you say as Maple firmly hugs you, "I'll take that as a yes." Just then, a terrible rumble can be heard. The ground all around you is trembling and you feel a sense of moving upward. Then, the gravity seems to change. All of a sudden, you and Maple are on one of the walls of the room. The furniture begins to move all around. The light items and furniture are the first to move. They immediately smash to the new center of gravity that is the wall of this building. "Watch out!" you yell as the heavier furniture begins to come barreling towards you mere moments later. Without the blink of an eye, you take the still hugging pony to the left with a rolling maneuver that was probably just half as bad as actually getting hit by the heavy couch that just smashed a hole in the wall where you and Maple used to be. "You ok," you say over the trembling. "Ya," was her response, "I'll be fine. What is going on with the house?" You turn to look through the hole that the couch created to see that the monster had ripped the house off the ground and was in the process of shaking it to get at you. You then turned back to Maple to inform her of this. "So what are we going to do now?" Maple says. "We're going to find a safe way out of this situation of corse." "Well how are we going to do that?", came Maple's response. "Simple, we teleport back," you respond. Maple sighed, "It's not that simple. I don't have a horn so I can't do magic. We'll need to find a different way to get out of here." In time with Maple's comment, the building began to crumble into pieces. It started out slow, at first. The cracks in the wall were all of a sudden apparent. Then, a lot more pieces began to fall out of the walls. Finally, the whole thing just disintegrated into parts right in mid air. You were in the middle of your second debris filled fall today, but thankfully this particular trip was a very short one. You and Maple both hit this creature on your way down and then simply slid down. When you reached the bottom, however, the danger was not over. When the monster realized that its victims had fallen to the ground with the building's pieces, it turned down to look at you and Maple. After a moment it let out a thundering roar which convinced both you and Maple that now would be the time to run and so you did. Maple was the first to take off but you were close behind. You didn't know if she knew where she was going but you didn't really care. Anywhere would have been better than next to that beast. Shortly after starting your run, however, the ground began to tremble again. This time, however, it was the beast beginning to move towards you. "Oh crud," you thought to yourself. Moments after, it became clear that the beast was making headway to catching up. Worse yet, it would seem Maple has left you in the dust. Ponies, apparently, run faster than humans but don't run for as long as them. All in all, you would be willing to give up stamina for speed right about now. The monster now seems to have halved the distance between you and it. "Ok. Don't panic Annon," you tell yourself. The monster then cuts the distance on your head start in half again. "Now you can panic Anonymouse. Now you can panic!" you tell yourself. Just as the monster was about to begin to swing at you while it was running, however, a beam of blue light hit it in the face. A roar could be heard as a result of this. The monster stumbled. It began to move backward and its balance was off kilter. After another blast, the beast stumbled down. You look to see who saved you and couldn't see anything. "Thanks for saving my butt back there," you yell out to whoever saved you. A moment later, you turn around to see Luna smiling at you and she says, "Your welcome subject." Of course, this startles you but you don't let it show when you say, "Anytime. Now, did you see where Maple went?" "Who is this Maple of which thou speaks of?" was Luna's response. "Oh, she was this pony I bumped into down at the station before an accident teleported the both of us in that building the monster you fought was so interested in a few minutes ago. "Oh, so she is a unicorn then," was Luna's response. "Err, no," you respond sheepishly and with a red face, "she isn't a unicorn. I just bumped into a unicorn while giving her a big hug." Luna raises an eyebrow and says, "I see, so the teleportation was your fault then? Also, why were you hugging her? Didn't you say you just met her at the station? I am confused." Your already red face becomes even redder at these questions and you shuffle them off, "n-never mind, I'll find her later. How about that monster? How are you going to deal with it?" Luna turns around to look at the beast and says, "That monster is made of magic. It would only take someone the force necessary to disperse that magic in order to "Deal with it" as you say." Just as she says that a giant bolt of light similar to the kind you saw when you first arrived here came arching over the horizon and hit the monster while it was still unconscious. The resulting force was the final hit necessary to disperse the energy and after a quick light show the monster was no more. "Ah, it appears my sister and the elements have finally sent the last bit of energy necessary to defeat the creature," said Luna. As soon as she said it, Celestia and 7 other ponies with a dragon teleported in front of you. "Yikes!" was your only response. "Hello sister," said Celestia. Luna responded in kind and before long they had gone through the events that had just transpired and moved on to the topic involving you. "Now that that is taken care of sister," Said Celestia, "may I ask why Anon is present?" "Certainly sister," said Luna, "Anon and a young mare had accidentally bumped into a unicorn which teleported them to a building in Canterlot. Anon's friend ran forward while Anon himself couldn't keep up with her." Besides a few bruised feelings when Luna recognized your inabilities to keep up with ponies, you feel she explained the situation well enough that you can move on to the next subject in a smooth transition. You turn your attention to Celestia to ask about Maple but she says she didn't see Maple on her way over here and she gives you a concerned look. "I'm not crazy," you say. "I believe you Anon," responded Celestia but her face didn't show it. "Now," asked Celestia, "what are we going to do with you now?" You cocked your head and repeated her question back to her, "What are we going to do with me now?" > What to do > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- You wake up in a large bed and open your eyes. A shining light on your face makes your eyes hurt. When they finally adjust, you see that the shades in this room are wide open and light is pouring in from outside. The room around you seems equally large. This is in stark contrast to the living room of that random pony's house that you found yourself trapped in with Maple. This room seems fit to a pony much larger than the average one. You suspect it is one of the princess' rooms and find a strange symbol etched into the base of the bed. It seems to be a crystal like heart shape with gold fines to the right and left of it. "Wierd," you think to yourself. You don't know this particular symbol. You think they call it a "cutie mark" but you will have to check with somepony to see if this is the case. You had come back to the castle with the two sisters after the day's events but you didn't really get a good look at this place until this morning. You were only now beginning to notice these details. Just then, you hear a knock on the door. It startles you and you do what your instinct tells you to do as the result of the previous day's experiences. You hide in a nearby closet. Within a moment, you dart into the closet you spot on your right and wait to see what happens. A few seconds pass and the door opens slowly. Something comes inside. The closet you are in has space in between the doors that let you see what is going on outside. However, that space is very tiny and you can't move to see better out of fear that the, hopefully, pony in the room would hear you shuffling around. So, you wait. You hear some movement. Then, humming begins to fill the room. You catch a glimpse of what is in the room with you. It appears to be a maid pony. You can't exactly get too good a look at her but that doesn't stop you from trying. In an attempt to see more of what is going on in the room, you lean forward in the closet. However, you aren't really calculating where your body weight is very well and you accidentally lean too far forward. The ground seems to slip from under you and you fall out of the closet. The maid pony, whose back is turned toward you, jumps several feet into the air. After you get back up, you look to see that the maid pony is maple. "Maple!" you say in surprise, "What are you doing here!?" You quickly pick up and hug the caramel-colored horse. "I thought I'd never see you again, Maple" "What are you doing here," asked Maple. "The princesses brought me back after the incident. I told them of my story and they said they would do what they could to help. I obviously didn't have a place to stay so they let me tag along with them and come to the castle." "Story? What story? Also, don't you have a home?" After Maple utters those words, you draw back a little and say, "I guess...I guess not. As for my story, I just woke up here. I'm from a different world. In my world, magic doesn't exist. Pastel colored horses don't exist. Life is more alone and it's up to every individual to look out for themselves." Maple looks at you for a second. She seems to have a glimmer of sadness in her eye. You try to change the subject. "So, what's with that symbol at the base of this bed?" "Oh, that," says Maple as she points to the symbol, "That's Princess Cadence's cutie mark. She's the princess of love. She lives in the Crystal Empire most of the time and needs a place to stay when she is Canterlot. This is the room she stays in when she gets here. Speaking of, I heard she was on her way here. I presume it has something to do with you." "Oh, Me? She shouldn't have," you say, "Anyway, what are you doing here?" "I'm a royal maid. That's my job," said Maple Corn, "Now, I'm going to continue to clean up the rest of the castle and you should meet up with the princess. Just wait here, I heard she was on her way to see you." "Wait," you say to Maple, who was already halfway out the door, "Can't you wait for Celestia to see you? I think she thinks I'm imagining you." "Now now," was Maple's response, "I have work to do. Besides, I like the idea of the princess thinking you're crazy." With that, Maple left. Just as the door closed behind her, the door on the opposite side of the room opened up. Celestia stepped in. "Oh, I see you're awake," she says with a gentle smile, "Did you have a good night's sleep?" "I can't even remember it," you joked. "Well, There is something I wanted to talk to you about, Anony-" "Just call me Anon." "I understand. I will call you Anon then. Now, there is something I wanted to talk to you about Anon." As she said this, she sat down in a chair facing you and said, "What do you plan to do today?" You thought about the day ahead of you and said, "Well, princess, what am I going to do today?"