It was cold and snowy winter morning as I walked home from a late night at a mate's house in the city. I was dressed in my normal winter gear: my long sleeve black jacket, a black pair of jeans, a black trench coat, my black fedora and a pair of black sunglasses.
Normally I don't need to put on my black scarf or my black gloves, but it was cold this morning. Like, freezing cold. I dug through my shoulder bag, finding both of them at the bottom of the bag - along with my laptop, my USB hard drives, Ipod and other random stuff. I have to remember to clean this out once I get home.
I chuckled to myself. Hell, I'm luckily enough I found them and got them out of my bag without all of my stuff falling out.
Last night was one of those nights where I just let go. The whole night was full of video games and drinking. I don't normally drink that much - no more than 5 or 6 shots of rum and cokes - and the only time I do drink is when I'm out with buddies of mine. To be honest, I just don't see the point in getting stone cold drunk. Getting buzzed . . . doesn't appeal to me that much.
I guess you could say that's a good thing.
Half an hour later, I reached my apartment. Nothing really special: It was only a two bedroom apartment (the second room was just in case anyone needed a place to stay), with a living room, kitchen and bathroom. It was a simple life, but it was home of sorts. I didn't think about it much.
Opening the door, I tossed my sunglasses and hat onto the kitchen counter, along with my gloves and scarf. Carefully placing my bag onto the table, I went into my bedroom, took off my jacket, and looked into the mirror.
I was a thin twenty-one year old guy, tall at about six-seven, with short light brown hair which ran to orange in the bright light. I didn't consider myself good looking; I was just very plain.
As I looked a bit closer in the mirror, I noticed that my blue-green eyes were bloodshot. I wasn't surprised - I had been up since six A.M. yesterday morning for work as a video game character artist.
Maybe it also didn't help that I went straight from work to my mate's house and play video games all night long.
"God, I need to get some sleep," I said in a slow groaning yawn. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time, it was 8:30am; I looked at my reflection, then back to my phone.
"Ah, stuff it; I'll just go to bed early tonight," I said as I put my phone back into my pocket, walking out to my bag and grabbing one of my USBs. I plugged it into my computer in my living room and sat down in my computer chair.
After typing in my computer password, I quickly went on to the internet and on to Youtube and clicked on the latest episodes of My Little Pony.
I remember how I started watching this show, as a mate of mine that I used to go to college with when I was doing my game design course for the better part of two years from 2010 - 2011, introduced me to it and I started to like it. Mainly due to how great it looked since it was made in Flash, which could be very temperamental to work in, but later on I started to like it for it humor and how well the characters were developed.
But as I started watching, the show was put on hold after episode thirteen due to them losing all completed future episodes and there files after a freak accident of some sort,causing them to redo it all from scratch. It wasn't until early March of 2012 that they started showing the rest of season one.
After waiting for the website to load, I found the last three episodes of season one and started to watch them, while relaxing in my chair.
After the last of the latest episodes was over, I got up and grab my notepad and a book on supernatural myths and legends, as I started writing down some notes and ideas for a game idea that I was working on. I decided to stop for the day after an hour of writing, just as my phone started playing its message tone.
I quickly grabbed my phone out of my pocket to see who sent me the text; it was one of my mates, probably seeing if I got home alright.
I open the text and from first glance for anyone else who might have being reading it, the text looks like gibberish, but that due to all the drinking that the sender of the text did last night.
After quickly translating the text from what I would like to call "Drunk-ish" to English. The text was asking if I got back ok and that if I wanted to come back over later on tonight for a game of D&D.
As much as I want to go and join them, I can't; I'm still tipsy from last night which I want to sleep off and I doubt that I can get my creative juices going for a game of D&D tonight. In the end I reply to his text with a maybe and that I'll call him if I'm coming over.
With that now out of the way, I looked at my phone to check the time, only to see that it was still ten in the morning.
I got up from the lounge and when to grab my USB drive again and put it back into my bag and placing it near the lounge just in case I get up in time to go to the game.
I then went to grab my jacket and trench coat, then my fedora with my glasses on them. I placed my hat on top of my bag and used my jacket and coat as a makeshift blanket as I laid back down on the lounge, then went off to sleep.
A few hours later . . .
With my eyes still closed still trying to sleep, some birds started to chirp loudly outside.
Did I leave the windows open? I thought, trying to block out the sounds as I roll over trying to get comfortable on my lounge, only to feel something sharp stab me in the hip.
I lazily opened my eyes to see what stabbed me in the hip. When I rolled over, I should have seen the back of my lounge in my apartment, but instead there was a field with rows of trees.
Finally now fully awake, I looked around, with only one thought on my mind.
"Where the fuck am I?" I said out aloud.
I sat up and found my shoulder bag next to me a few centimeters away. Upon seeing it, I started to panic and quickly opened the bag to see if all of my stuff was still in there, which they luckily were.
Following that, I then saw my hat and glasses next to my bag and decided to put my hat on, then attempted to stand on my feet. Using the tree as some form of support, I finally stood up, only to be hit in the face with a bit of cloth that I recognized.
As I pushed it out of my face and look up the tree, all I saw up there was my trench coat and my jacket.
"How the hell did they get up there?"
After looking at the tree that was holding my jacket and coat, I was forced to go back to my first question- Where the fuck am I?
I did a proper look around and noticed that the trees had apples on them and not just three or four trees, but every tree that I could see has apples on them.
"Okay, I'm betting that I'm on an apple farm of some sort." After saying that, my mind went into overdrive.
Crap, this farm might have dogs or guns or dogs with guns! I thought in a panic; however, I had to laugh out loud about the dogs with guns due to that one Robin Williams joke about the right to arm bears, I then remember to shut up just in case I was heard. I couldn't afford to get hysterical.
I decided to grab my stuff from the tree, shrugging them on as I started to look around, trying to see if there was a fence nearby that I can jump over to get off the property. Thankfully I saw a fence in the far off in the distance and started walking quickly towards it.
However as I neared the fence I was spotted.
Nearby a dog started barking and I quickly turned my head to see, all the while thinking; Please let it be just a dog, please let it be just a dog.
After I turned my head facing the dog, I saw a person walking with the dog.
"Ah crap!" I said to myself, the dog's owner catching sight of me as the dog continued to bark.
Now at this point in time I was slowly moving towards the fence; everything was going smoothly until a sudden SNAP of a branch under my feet spurred the dog to start after me.
"AH SHIT!" I shouted as I started to run for the fence.
Behind me I heard the woman yelling. "Winona! You get back here and leave that man alone!"
I wasn't about to turn around and see if the dog did as she was told. I was running like hell to the the fence, I just hoped that I wouldn't run out of breath before I needed to jump it.
As I was getting closer I realized something: it was one tall-ass fence. It was about five feet tall and I know I couldn't have ever cleared it, even with a running start like the one I had. In the shape I was in I doubted I could clear even half it's height without tripping and falling.
Ah fuck it, I'll just have to pray that gravity fails for a second so that I can clear it, I quickly thought as I neared the fence.
I prayed for a good five seconds as I ran and then jumped forward, squeezing my eyes closed in fear of what might happen next.
I didn't feel any pain of any sort; I open my eyes and quickly looked around.
I was on the other side of the fence.
"I made it?" I said in shocking disbelief as I then started laughing and shouted "I MADE IT, HA HA!" laughing at my success.
However I stop my laughing realizing what I had just done, I had just jumped a five foot fence, a jump I could never make in my entire life, so how the hell did I do that then?
I was thinking of every logical thing that I could think of, as to how I got over that fence, while crossing off things at the same time. The only two things that I could come up with that would make any sort of sense was; that I must of step on a tree stump and used that to jump over the fence or that I vaulted over the fence. But then even that leaves me with more questions than answers.
However as I started to drive a bit further into it, a voice and a bark broke my train of thought, I knew I forgot about something.
When I turned around I finally noticed the person who owned the dog was a young woman, no older than myself, but there was something weird about her, like I knew her from somewhere but just couldn't place it.
The woman was wearing a brown cowboy hat and worn blue jeans, with a red checkered long sleeve shirt and brown cowboy boots as well. I didn't notice her hair until she turned her turn head to see what I was looking at, as she had her long blond hair tied into a ponytail and out of the way, but again her voice bought me back down to earth.
"Excuse me feller, but what in tarnation are you looking at?" the cowgirl asked.
"What? Oh sorry what was the question again?" I asked, a bit dazed at the moment.
There I go with that weird feeling again, her voice sounds so familiar, but where have I heard it? I thought, growing even more confused with each passing moment.
"Ah asked if you would please kindly tell me, why yer were in mah apple orchard without mah permission?" she repeated, leaning on the fence looking at me with her dog at her side.
"I... uh, it's kind of hard to explain to be honest" I said looking at her. I didn't even remember how I'd gotten here myself.
The cowgirl lifted one of her eyebrow at me, expression willing me to continue.
Yeah, she doesn't believe me, I thought and started to feel worried a bit.
The cowgirl clambered over the fence and started to walk towards me, her dog ducking its way under the rungs to follow her. At this point I was sweating bullets, eyes locked with hers as she stared me down. She had blight green eyes with a few freckles under them and she was an average height, maybe a bit tall for a girl at around 5'9". For the third time I got that weird feeling again.
Dude not now, you might get the crap beaten out of you, or worse she might sic the dog on you! You gotta pay attention! I thought to myself.
The cowgirl finally broke the silence. "What's yer name feller?"
I decided to take a quick breath of air before answering her trying to calm myself down.
"Uh… it's Vincent, my name is Vincent Pleasant" I answered her.
"Fancy name you have there," she complimented and despite the bizarre circumstances I didn't find myself doubting her sincerity, she seemed the honest type.
"Thanks, and seeing how I told you my name, you mind telling me yours?" I asked, trying hard to look as friendly as possible.
"Ma name is Applejack, I work here at Sweet Apple Acres and this little doggie here is Winona." Winona barked once, wagging her tail at the mention of her name.
Before Applejack even finished her sentence a thought came screeching into my head.
Wait a minute, did she say that her name was Applejack? That can't be right! I quickly looked at her again and took all of her features and put them on an orange pony. A blond-haired, freckled, cowboy-hatted orange pony.
As I put two and two and two together, the sound of glass shattering went off in my head.
You got to be fucking kidding me! I thought.
During that time I zoned out again as I stared at her, and Applejack gave me a weird look and forced a cough to snap me back to the situation at hand. I shook my head and looked back at her.
"Sorry about that, I'm just still trying to figure out where I am. I've never heard of a place called Sweet Apple Acres before." I said to her, deciding to play dumb for as long as I can here. I didn't want to let her or anyone else know that I knew way more then I should.
Now it was Applejack's turn to look confused. Hell, I think even her dog looked confused, cocking its head to the side with a whine.
"Good gravy Vincent, how have you not heard of Sweet Apple Acres?" she asked me.
Oh, I have heard of it, but if I told you how you might just send me to the crazy house. Bloody hell, what can I possibly tell her? I thought to myself.
"To be honest I don't know why I never heard of this place," I told her shrugging my shoulders and having a quick look over the parts of the apple orchard that I could see. "But it does look like a nice place to live and you must have worked hard to keep this place so well maintained." I said, hoping she'd react to the complement of her livelihood the way the AJ I knew would.
"Well Vincent, seeing how yer never heard of the Apple family cooking or hospitality, how about you come up to the house with me and try some of our chow?" she asked me, a small smile on her face.
I was a bit hungry, seeing how the last thing I had to eat was at 2am and that was only a small bag of chips, but I had more pressing matters at hand.
"Thank you for your kind offer, but I got a lot of things I need to get done today, sorry." I told her, trying to sound as regretful as possible.
To be honest she may have thought she was Applejack, but unless I had some kind of proof to say back it up, I just couldn't believe her for who she said she was. I had seen and read stories about people who got so into the ponies they couldn't tell the difference between reality and the fiction of the show. Hell, right now, maybe I fit that description.
Applejack seemed to be a little disappointed at what I just said, but she nodded anyways, "That's ok hun, just promise me to come over to Sweet Apple Acres once you have time to try ma cooking, maybe that will jog your memory about this place."
I let out a small laugh and flashed Applejack a smile,
"Ok, I promise that I will come around once I have the time."
Applejack smiled back at me "Shake on it?" she asked.
"I'm willing to shake on it," I told her.
Applejack raised her hand to her face and spit on her hand and then hold out it in front of me, all I could do was look at her hand for a minute then shrugged my shoulders again.
"Meh, when in Rome I suppose" Before I spit into my hand and shook Applejack's hand.
After we finished shaking hands I resisted the urge to wipe the spit from my hand in front of her, in case it was considered offensive if I did so. But before I could say anything else, Winona started barking at something.
"What is it girl?" asked Applejack to her dog.
Please don't tell me that her dog can talk back to her, I don't think I can take it, I thought to myself.
Luckily for me, the dog ran off towards the fence, under it and out of sight
.
"Winona! Where're you going?!" shouted Applejack.
"Maybe you should go and see what she went after?" I suggested.
"Yeah, I should shouldn't I?" said Applejack and started running after her dog, but stopped once she got to the fence, one hand resting on the wood in preparation for the vault as she turned back.
"I'll see you later Vincent! And remember yer promise!" She shouted to me.
"Don't worry Applejack, I always keep my promises!" I shouted back to her, holding up my hand that I had spat on and gave her a wave, Applejack did the same then climbed over the fence and ran after her dog and from my sight.
I finally wiped the spit off my hand onto my jeans while still thinking about what just happen.
I still feel kind of guilty for lying to her, even if she thinks she is Applejack. But I need to find out where I am and I'm not going to believe that I'm in Ponyville, at least not without some cold hard proof to support it.
Then a another thought crossed my mind "I haven't checked my phone since I woke up."
I took out my phone and was quite surprised to see it still worked, from what my phone clock told me it's was Sunday and it was only just after one in the afternoon.
Ok, calm down for just a sec. If this place is really Sweet Apple Acres, it would mean that Ponyville is somewhere around here. But is it really Sweet Apples Acres? I started walking down the dirt road and up a hill. At the top, I saw a town and from the distance it looks like any modern town you might just come a crossed, I started to walk towards it in no real hurry.
Yep. That's Ponyville, alright.
20 minutes later . . .
I finally managed to get to the town.
Feeling hungry, tired and still feeling a bit tipsy from the night before I decided to sit down on a bench that I saw nearby.
Once I sat down and put my bag next to me, I had a looked at the town from where I sat, I didn't see anything that I recognized from anywhere that I know of.
I guess it's not Ponyville after all and weirdly enough I'm a little disappointed about that I thought to myself.
Speaking of which I wasn't paying any attention to any of the townspeople as I was walking into town, looking at it now I did notice that most of the people here do have different color hair.
And by different I mean hair colors you wouldn't normally see, unless that person was emo, goth, in costume or something else.
I also notice that most of the buildings I saw were either shops, houses or both with the shop on the ground floor and apartments on the next floor.
But even from what I could see I still don't have any information on where I am, but I decided to stay on the bench for a few more minutes to get some of my energy back from all the running and walking I did earlier.
After about 15 minutes or so of sitting down and relaxing, I got up and started to stretch for a bit, then out of nowhere a woman shouted "WATCH OUT!"
But it was too late, before I could even turn my head to see what was coming, I was hit on the right of my side body by someone or something but it didn't matter as I launched about 10 feet in the other direction and hit the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of me.
Still on the ground I rolled over onto my back and tried to sit up.
But I started to feel dizzy and the most I could do, was tilt my head up to see what hit me.
I was hit by a bike or anything else like that otherwise I would have felt the metal when it hit me, so I'm guessing that I was either crashed tackled by someone or someone was running pretty fast, didn't see me and then crashed into me.
After another minute or two I was able to sit up and see who hit me.
However before I could even get a look, a young woman quickly ran over to me and stood over me.
"Sorry, but I did tell you to watch out" She said jokingly.
I was still feeling dizzy from being crashed into but I swear that this woman's hair is rainbow colored.
"Hey you alright?" she ask me.
"I'll live" I groan.
The woman with the rainbow hair offers me her arm to help me get on my feet.
After I got back on my feet and I had a good look at this woman.
Besides her medium length hair she wore mainly a light blue sleeveless sports top and light blue sports track pants with light blue joggers.
I also notice what looked like a tattoo on her left arm near her shoulder, after seeing what the tattoo was my eyes went wide as if I saw a big ass spider on my wall.
No, she can't be Rainbow Dash, she just can't be! I thought.
But the woman saw my face.
"Hey, you alright man?" she asked me in a questioning tone.
I knew I had to play dumb and lie again.
However before I could say about to her, some music started playing somewhere.
I started to look around to see where it was coming from and was praying that it was not my phone ringing. However after listening to the song for a bit, it sounded similar to mine, but it wasn't my ringtone, it was hers.
She pulled out her phone and answered "Hey Applejack what's up? Yeah I just got held up, some guy just crashed into me"
I was quite shock by the fact that this woman is blaming me for crashing into her when it was the other way around and secondly, she has a phone on her!?.
Which leaves me to think about what other technology is available here, seeing how the last thing I want is to have my laptop taken apart, after I finish up here I should look at the shops in terms of what technology is here and what is not.
Wait a minute, why am I even thinking about this, for all I could know I could still be in my universe, not the MLP universe and that the people I met so far could be just a bit sick in the head like I thought before, god this is giving me a headache I thought as I realize that I zoned out again and not being listening to the phone conversation going on next to me.
Hopefully the both of them don't mention me at all, I thought to myself
She then got up, put her phone away back in her pocket and turned to me "Sorry to leave ya hanging like this, but I've got to fly!" she then started running down the road heading that i was walking on that lea towards the Apple farm.
I let out a sigh of relief, "Thank god, if that woman started to fly around I don't think my mind could have taken it" I said quietly, but before I could turn around to start walking again, I was god smack by what happen next.
As this woman was running down the road, she jumped forward and then launched herself from the ground up into the air.
If that wasn't enough I thought I saw large light blue wings on her back but the thing is that the wings look like they were transparent not solid.
Did I see her wings before? Shit I can't remember I thought to myself but at the same time my jaw dropped after seeing what happen.
I dropped down on the bench still in shock at what just happen and all I could say was "That was Rainbow Dash and she was flying which means. Oh sweet tap dancing Christ, I can't be" I said out aloud while I put my hands on my head almost ripping my hair out.
This can't be happening, I must have lost my mind or something, I can't be in Equestria there is no way I am here, it's impossible! I thought, luckily keeping my mouth shut.
I spent the next 15 minutes sitting on that bench trying to figure out what to do next, as I took a deep long breaths to try and calm myself down and went over my options.
After a few more minutes, I only had one option left that might just work.
I got to go and see Twilight and see if she will help me or even better yet get her to talk to Celestia to help me out I thought as I got up from the bench with my bag and started walking around town to find Twilight's library.
