Episode 1: The Soul Spectrum Dimension Part 3: Oopsies…

“…He looks like what again?” asked Applejack, hoisting up a bucket of apples and setting it on the cart.

“He looks sort of like a monkey, but without a tail, and less hair,” answered Pinkie Pie.

“So he’s like one of those ape critters?”

“No, he’s a human. He looks almost like the shadow monsters that tried to steal the color from Fluttershy’s rainbow flower bed. You know, with only TWO legs; Just with less spikes and much less monstrous. And he’s not a shadow.”

“Now wait, I never heard you were attacked by shadow monsters.”

“Oh yeah! That’s because you were away in Appaloosa visiting your cousin.”

“How come you never told me?”

Somewhere in the sky, a blue Pegasus dive-bombed around a passing cloud, and landed a few feet away from where Applebloom and Big Macintosh were standing.

They were finishing the last rounds in the southern orchard. First they bucked the Apples. Then they chucked the apples. Lastly they truck the apples. So now they were carrying all the buckets to the carts so they can lift them off to the juicers where they would be making their popular Sweet-Apple juice that night.

Rainbow Dash ran up to Applejack and Pinkie Pie, shaking the dust out from her mane, “I saw Aaron heading towards the Everfree Forest from the west roots.”

“Thank you, R-D,” said Applejack. ‘So two random creatures pop up outa nowhere, scares the whole town, runs away, and now me’n Rainbow hav‘ta be the ones to chase him  down, while Twilight and the other go to check out another universe for security,’ at least that’s what she thought she heard from Pinkie Pie.

“It’s no problem. I have to go tell everypony now that my celebration party is going to have to be postponed,” Pinkie Pie replied, helping with the last basket.

“You were having a party?”

“Yes, I was going to use the rainbow flowers from Rarity’s garden, to decorate the town hall for the very first, annual spring celebration. I was going to invite you, but then Garion and Aaron arrived and we all freaked out. So, I’m just going to move the party to a later date so we can welcome our guests, then.”

“Which of them are we following again?” asked Applejack as her brother Big Macintosh began driving the cart step-by-step down the hill.

“Aaron. He has a black mane on the very top of his head, walks on two legs, wears glasses, and his stomach is ‘burning red’,” said Pinkie Pie hopping up and down. “I know you can’t see what color your stomach is, but that’s what he told me. So if you need me, I’ll be going over to the Cakes to find out when they’ll be able to schedule this party,” she bounded off, squeaking as she bounced.

“I still can’t tell if she was planning one party, or two parties,”

As Applejack was beginning to leave, Applebloom trotted up as fast as her little legs could make her move. “Wait!” she called out, her golden southern lilt flowing as she spoke, “If y’all were going to push the juicin’ aside for later; I wuz wonderin’, do ya think I can join ma friends at the Cutie Mark Crusader’s booth at Open House? I can stay for a few hours ‘n then still have enough time to clean out the pig’s troughs before we begin juicin’.” This year she, her friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, were given their own booth at open house to introduce their club to the new colts and fillies without cutie marks, who were coming into their first day of school next year.

Applejack smiled and nodded her head.

“Whoohoo!” triumphed Applebloom as she quickly galloped straight up over the hill, disappearing into the setting sun.

-------

Aaron walked silently amongst the trees, singing, “…Draw a circle, there’s the Earth. I am Hetalia.”

He wasn’t deliberately trying to set himself in any danger; he just wanted to push his boundaries and just be free. Despite his earlier rage on Garion, he was actually quite happy that he was here. This day had let him not only have an actual good reason to go bonkers, but also a pink pony gave him a delicious cupcake, and he got shrunk seven inches, and now he was going to brave an evil forest. It was horrifyingly beautiful. Never had a day been so completely out of whack, that it just seemed illogical to worry about anything at all.

“Talking ponies everywhere,” he muttered to himself, stepping over a dead branch.

Aaron wanted to be himself, test fate, and see if anything bad could actually happen to him in a world of candy, rainbows, and ponies. That and simply just escaping Garion and that braniac pony.

Garion was an astronomer and philosophy junkie, and it seemed dangerously likely that he and Twilight Sprinkle…Sparkle… or whatever were likely to get themselves lost in an hour long conversation about something stupid and boring like, maybe molecular intervention or something relating to their favorite type of books.

But why should he have to know why he was here, when in a world like this, he can do anything.

“Now to have some real fun,” he whispered.

The forest was beginning to collect with fog. The trees were looking ominous, like a horror element in a children’s cartoon. There were owls hooting and eyes watching in the shadows.

Perfect.

He took a few swipes of dirt off of the ground and drew marks on his face. Then he ran straight into the darkest shadow he saw.

“Did you hear that?” asked Rainbow Dash, hovering over a set of brambles.

“Only the wind,” grunted Applejack, who used her lasso from the farm to swing across from an overhead branch, landing squarely on a rock, “What did you hear?”

“It sounded like… It sounded like… I don’t know exactly. Hey, did Pinkie Pie say this guy had a

Mane on the top of his head?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yes.”

“Well it sure didn’t look like a mane to me when I saw him around here,” Rainbow stated.

The atmosphere of Everfree was familiar to them, from the many encounters they had in the past, but even the most experienced of travelers can always be put off guard in some way. This was not a place for people to thrive.  Everfree was the definition of danger’s name. Sometimes it seemed that the forest was one, whole thinking entity that tries to entrap you and stick you into any kind of trouble available. The leaves even clustered together to block out the sunshine, and in this particular area, it replaced the wood-scape with dim moonlight, even though it was the middle of the day.

“Where could he be?” whispered Rainbow Dash, striving to reach a place where the blue moonlight of the forest would give her the upper hand.

“Be careful you don’t fly too high and get caught in the branches” warned Applejack, who climbed up a fallen trunk to get onto a rock.

“Why can’t we see him?” asked Rainbow Dash, coming to a landing on top of a branch, “I mean, how hard is it to find a 2-legged-walking-monkey, without-fur, and wearing clothes?”

“I see him!” blurted Apple jack.

“Where?”

“There.”

“Where?”

“Over There!”

“Over Where?”

“Over there by that tree with the branch shaped sort of like Granny Smith’s face!”

“I still don’t see him!”

Applejack put her hoof to her head, “He’s the only skinny creature wearin’ glasses and making weird faces at us.”

Rainbow Dash took a step out of the fuzzy blue beam she was standing in, and only then did she see the human sticking his tongue out at her, “Oh, there he is. I’ll get him!”

“Like heck, you’ll get me,” Aaron muttered. The rainbow one flew at him, coming at a rapid speed before she got knocked by a branch that was hidden just lightly above her line of vision. Seeing the ponies get mad was very amusing to see.

Aaron chuckled.  If there was one thing that defined who he was, it was that he loved being a troll. Before the rainbow-maned pony could get up, Aaron spun around and ran off.  “There’s a branch there!” shouted Aaron from over his shoulder.

“Get back here!” Rainbow Dash called out. When she finally stood up, she flared her wings and burst into the air again.

Aaron purposely ran off to the trees with the lowest branches so that it would be difficult for the pegasus to reach him by flying. He quickly ducked beneath a barky extension and crawled on his belly beneath the brush.

“Wait! Get out of there!” shouted the voice of the Pegasus from a distance.

“Try to get me now, flying pony!” Aaron taunted.

“My name’s Rainbow Dash, and you’re-”

Suddenly Aaron felt something touching his arms.

“Get off of me!” he shouted, thinking that it was perhaps the other pony nabbing him from behind, and he swung his arms and kicked his legs to defend himself. Whatever had been touching him, had quickly moved to his back, and his arm landed in something soft and sticky.

“What the…” he muttered, turning over onto his side to see a glistening wall of silver cotton candy within the ghostly moonlight. “What?”

And then that’s when he saw the enormous eight legged spiders in front of his face. They were 10 inches long at least.

A lightning bolt struck through his mind and his primal instincts took over. He tried to stand up, but got his head stuck in a dense cobweb all around him. “AHHHHHHH!!” he screamed, while spiders crawled around, landing on his chest, legs and other appendages. Only one word existed in his mind: RUN.

Branches and bristles slapped Aaron in the face while the tarantulas hissed and crawled on his back and appendages. He flailed his arms among the webs and just kept running, desperately trying to escape the tree and the forest.

Rainbow Dash stood outside in the moonlight, watching in bewilderment as the human came bursting out of the brambles, screaming like a maniac with four to five different enormous arachnids on his body. As he came by, Aaron accidentally punched Applejack in the ear, and bolted toward the deeper end of the forest.

“Quick, we have to follow him before he gets into anymore danger!” shouted Rainbow Dash, leaving Apple jack to rubbing her bruise.

“Hey! Wait up, will ya?!” Apple Jack hollered back.

“YADYA! YADDA AHAHA! BWAAH AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!” screamed Aaron as he lost sight of where he had been. It didn’t matter though. The spiders that clung to his chest and back propelled him to continue thrashing and running. In the process of kicking off the arachnids, he collided with a tangle of vines, which somehow caught onto the spiders, ripping them off his body.

“Get off me! Get off me!” he wailed maniacly.

Somehow a vine snagged onto one of his shoulders and swung him into the air, lifting him above a patch of blue flowers on the ground.

He instinctively grasped for one, and caught onto what he thought was a vine. But it hissed at him, turning out to be a snake. He screamed again and instantly let go, falling into more vines which snapped the vines and dropping him onto a bare spot on the turf.

Still, he kept running. All around him, the trees had suddenly grown horrific, anthropomorphic expressions and the branches appeared to be reaching for him.

“It’s evil. Its…all…evil,” Aaron muttered to his wild conscience. The trek led him into a direction he couldn't identify. He had managed to rid himself of the spiders, but now the forest itself was trying to kill him! A weird red light illuminated the branches of the trees and distorted the image of reality.

Subconsciously, he managed to come to a bog where a large gap separated his path. Due to the unfortunate amount of momentum that Aaron obtained while running, he had to make the decision to either fall into the rift, or attempt to jump it. To his disbelief, he found himself in midair from subconsciously throwing himself across.

Unfortunately, his efforts failed to protect him from falling and he missed the other side. But instead of hitting ground, Aaron landed on something that seemed to moving beneath him. The thing opened its mouth and snapped at Aaron. He caught the image of a scaly spine, tail and body, but nothing else because now he was trying to escape.

He leapt for the high ridge, grabbing branches and turf along the top of the rock wall, and pulled himself up desperately. He wasn’t able to make it at first, but fortunately the accidental force of the creature’s nose against his feet gave him leverage. He lunged with all his might, and barely managed to get his whole body on top of the ledge.

But he wasn’t safe yet. The red glow still pervaded the forest, except that now, the trees were much darker and there was very little light to see. Something smelled awful. Aaron looked around but couldn’t see what it was. He kept himself still until several something’s that looked as though they were made out of logs and sticks, but took the form of dogs, or maybe wolves, emerged from the darkness. He was surrounded by this pack of growling cottonwood, and it was obvious that they were planning on making an entrée out of him if he stood there any longer, so he just kept running.

The dogs barked and snapped at him, and he was out of breath and almost being unable to go any further. “I’m going to die. I’m going to die,” was all he was saying to himself, before suddenly a root caught his foot and he ended up tumbling through a hole in the ground.

Aaron was plunged into total darkness, until the vertical chamber brought him to a shallow cave underground. He found himself sprawled on a pile of rocks. For a moment, Aaron just lay still, trying to regain his breath.

“This world…is going…to kill me,” Aaron panted.

The passage wasn’t entirely dark like the human had first perceived, as light began to fill his corneas. Soon he could detect that the cave was made from limestone and dirt, and was probably no taller than six feet. Throughout the grotto, small rays of blue light seeped in through the dirt ceiling, which appeared to be supported with the stretching roots of the trees above.

He soon began to wish that he had simply let those ponies take him before, instead of trying to cause them trouble. They seemed ten times nicer than the place he was in now.

The cave was completely silent except for the water droplets that echoed somewhere else.

Aaron was not alone. A shadow that he had originally assumed to me a large rock picked itself off of the ground, so that it stood on four legs.

At first Aaron thought that it was a pony, but it was a lot taller than the others. The hide was like a black silhouette against the walls. But then its eyelids lifted to reveal two eyes, which glowed green into the dark. Aaron was daunted to see her body out of proportion; that being, that its torso and legs were unusually skinny. Then it struck him when he saw the holes that penetrated through her body.

Frozen with insane fear, Aaron watched the zombie-pony approach.

“What reason have you here for, unfortunate little morsel?” her voice almost sounded multi vocalized and sent chills down Aaron’s spine.

Aaron kept his mouth shut.

“But now that doesn’t matter, because you have fallen. You are trapped and we will take your-”

The dictum of the creature was broken by an incoming rock, coming from Aaron’s hand when he barely acquired the nerve to defend himself. The stone bounced off a wall, distracting the creature.

Aaron ran off, screaming.

“What the?” the perforated pony echoed alone.

Aaron ran off to the opposite end of the cave. He quickly approached an exit and burst through yet another spider web that that had been covering the opening. He tripped, and fell down a slope.

When he came to a final stop, he saw the opening of the forest, the meadows and fields waiting for him beyond.

Ready to escape for his life, he pulled himself off the ground, before something wrapped around his feet and knocked him over. He looked down and saw that it was a lasso.

“Finally! Now will ya’ hold still so we can talk to ya?” said Applejack, cantering up from over a rock.

“Let me go! Let me free, you horrible, horrible, demonic horses!” bellowed Aaron.

“Wow,” said Rainbow Dash, landing beside Apple jack, “He actually doesn’t look like a monkey at all. Good going Apple jack!”

Aaron screamed and thrashed, “If you don’t let me go, I will show you what humans do in defense!” He attempted to swing and hit, but he was too far away. He tried to get up, but ended up falling back.

“What in the hay were you thinking! Going into that Spiders nest in the first place?” scolded Apple Jack.

“I thought it was just a normal tree!” Aaron screamed.

“That wasn’t a dang tree!”

“What? It was a tree! There were freaking big branches and everything! I didn’t know there were giant spiders in them!”

“Those weren’t branches you were climbing through…”

Aaron closed his mouth in confusion.

“….those were the legs of their mother.”

------

“…And that’s why you never go off the path in the Everfree Forest,” said Twilight to Garion.

“Got it,” he answered, feeling pretty awkward about casually strolling with a unicorn.

The wind blew across the trees, leaves falling gracefully to the ground. They had left the welcoming foundations of their town, and were now walking into the sun of the valley where the two humans had originally arrived.

There were ranges and foothills to the north, and just as Twilight Sparkle had told him, he could see the capital at the crest of the tallest mountain, Canterlot. It was a beautiful citadel made of towers and spires, which was all he could really see from where he was at.

He was trying so hard to keep his gaze at the awe inspiring color pastel trees, but he was just too creeped out by the odd, purple, dinosaur creature walking next to him. The creature had just ran up from out of nowhere, carrying the same worried expression in meeting Garion that the human had upon meeting the ponies for the first time. From his current height, the dino stood as tall as Garion’s chest from the peak of the creature’s highest spine.

Silence pervaded their chances of realization for 3 terrifying minutes, neither one of them breaking their awkward gazes. Twilight Sparkle walked ahead, unaware that the dragon was even there.

When the human couldn’t take it anymore, he finally spoke aloud to ask the creature a question.

“I’m sorry. Can I help you with anything?” he asked.

Twilight stopped walking and turned around, “Oh, there you are Spike. I was wondering when you were going to arrive. Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”

The reptilian cleared his throat and replied, “I would have, but this….person was staring at me, and it was kind of…scary…” chortled Spike, causing Garion to feel ashamed of not speaking earlier.

“Oh, he’s nothing to be afraid of,” Twilight Sparkle claimed. She pointed a hoof at the human. “This is Garion.”

“Oh, well nice to meet you Garion, my name’s Spike,” said the reptilian, offering a clawed hand to Garion, who awkwardly shook it, both people receiving chills from the surreal contact with the differentiating textures of skin.

“What are you?” Spike asked, whose voice was a little scratchy and stereotypically boyish.

“I’m a human.”

“A hee-you-man?”

“Human. Sounds like ‘ew’ with a ‘huh!’ and ending with ‘men’” elaborated Garion, using the bold attitude that he used to have when he was younger.

“Oh, Heeumen. Heeyoumen. Human. Ok, got it!” and the group began walking again, but Garion still didn’t get his question answered. So he moved quickly to Twilight hissing, “So what the heck is he?”

“He’s a dragon.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Hey!” complained Spike.

“Well, he’s obviously not a full grown dragon yet. He’s still in his hatchling years,” Twilight explained.

“Oh, well that makes more sense. Sorry, Spike.”

“It’s alright, but where are we going again?”

“We’re going to the place where Garion and his odd friend arrived,” Twilight answered, “Apparantly, a portal still stands between ours and his, and we want to make sure that nothing from our world can get into theirs. You see, Spike,” and with this, the lavender Unicorn turned around and stared intently at the dragon to keep his attention, and she whispered, “His world doesn’t have magic.”

Spike put his claws over his mouth and gasped, “NO! If he doesn’t have magic, then…that means-”

“That’s right! and, and..!”

“And what??? AND WHAT!??” yelled Garion carrying an exaggerated look of confusion, “I’m so confused right now. Exactly what-the-what is going on here?”

Spiked grabbed his Arms and pulled him close, “How do you survive?!”

Garion stood upright again and mumbled to himself, “You pay less on car insurance. I have never seen so many people act so crazy over something so…” at this he glanced up at a cloud which a green Pegasus happened to be pushing across the sky, “…ordinary.”

“Calm down, Spike. It’s nothing unusual to Garion. But we have to make sure that the portal is unsurpassable so that no harm can seep into the other world,” directed Twilight, pulling Spike away from Garion using an aura of her unicorn magic, “So let’s hurry up and go!”

Garion, becoming particularly antsy, now began to run.

They had exited the grove and were now entering the wide plains that Garion and Aaron had first walked upon. “Show me where it is please. The sooner, the better.” she asked.

If it weren’t for his paranoia that Twilight may end up getting involved in the horrors of his world, Garion wouldn’t have been so much in a hurry. But honestly, he was afraid of going there himself.

She let him run ahead of her, which allowed him to get to the door first, and make sure that it wouldn’t be possible for Twilight to barge in by any odd chance. It was the city after all, and Garion couldn’t stop thinking about every movie he had ever seen with this kind of scenario.

Logically, the average human may actually have responded positively, in the same similar way that Garion did, rather than the insane power hungry stereotypes normally depicted in movies. Nevertheless, his instincts told him that the secret and separation was probably the safe thing to do anyway.

Amidst the passing grass and paradisiacal landscape, Garion gulped and breathed in extreme alertness. He was in a child’s wonderland; what part about that could he not get? His mother would have been so happy to see this, he thought. Maybe without all the rainbows and all, though they added a positive emotion to the landscape, he knew she loved unicorns and horses since she was a child.

The image of the door in the distance ceased his daydreaming, but what he found there struck him dead in his tracks.

The door registered the same white chipping paint and dull brass doorknob, appearing completely normal. What scared him was the grass.

All the turf and vegetation within a 10 feet radius, was completely dead and black. It was so unexpected and in contrast from the rest of the world, it made his heart jumped. It was hard to describe, but you knew from the moment you saw it, that it was NOT ever supposed to be there in that world.

His heart leapt when he saw how familiar it looked, and as if on cue, a small black mist pulsed out from the dark circle. The mist glided off into the distance, before it evaporated into the air. Garion wasn’t able to figure what he just saw before Twilight arrived, along with Spike trailing behind. She looked at the circumference and inquired, “What is this?”

“I-I… I don’t know. It wa-wasn’t there before,” Garion stuttered. He said these words but what shocked him was how much he felt that he was lying, and he didn’t know why he felt that way.

Twilight on the other hand only seemed shortly distressed at the sight of it. It seemed like she had seen stranger things before.

The door on the other hand…

She gazed at the door and cocked her head in confusion, “This is your portal?”

“Well, what did you expect? You know my world doesn’t have magic,” Garion responded.

“The fact that your world was able to pull this off would make me think otherwise,” she argued.

“My world? I actually thought about something in between our worlds; something to cross them over. Either that, or it’s your world that brought me here.”

“I don’t think so, but still I would have expected that any trans-dimensional portal would be more advanced than this.”

“Uh, well, sorry. It looks like you just have a simple door.”

“I actually find it fascinating,” Twilight commented, which threw Garion off. Unsure of where she stood, he decided to change the subject in the hope of continuing to distract her from looking at the circle or the door too much, “Do you know what else is fascinating? The fact that I still haven’t asked you what kind of magic horse you are.”

Twilight gave him a look that was almost in irritation. ‘Magic Horse’ may have been an insult.

“Are you a Unicorn? Or are you a Pegasus?” Garion continued, “Or are you a combined version of that word, like a Pegacorn, or a Unisus?”

“I’m an Alicorn…or at least, I am now. I didn’t used to be. A year ago, I was just a typical average unicorn. And I’m not a magic horse.”

“An Alicorn?” Garion wondered to himself, “Is that really the best they can do? Still, it has a pleasant ring to it.”

Twilight casted a purple glow around the door frame, “Hmm, I’m not sensing anything. Maybe you should check it.”

“Check for what?”

“To see if it’s locked and secured.”

‘Oh well, that should be easy. I locked it before we-’ thought Garion to himself, before he felt in his pockets where his keys were missing. ‘What?’

Garion cautiously stepped onto the grey circle and slowly touched the doorknob and tried to turn it. Then he checked his pockets again. He indignantly faced the alicorn and announced, “Well, it’s locked for sure. But my keys are missing.”

“Missing?” Twilight gasped.

“I know I had them.”

“Well, what about Aaron? Did he take them?”

“I offered them to him before he left us, but he refused.”

“Well you have to be able to get to your own world somehow!” she exclaimed.

Garion kicked the door. He made sure not to hit it too hard, because he didn’t want end up accidentally falling through if it opened, but his efforts looked pathetic and embarrassing this way.

“Here, let me help you,” offered Twilight, who then walked up, turned around, and then-

CRACK!

She bucked, sending the door flying out of its frame in two, three, four splintered pieces on the ground.

Garion’s heart leapt.

Nothing existed through the standing door frame, other than the face of Spike who walked around to pick up a piece.

There were ten seconds of silence.

“You did say it was just a simple door,” the dragon uttered.

Twilight stood staring at the wreckage with her mouth hanging open.

Garion lost all sense of mind.