The Hunted

“UGGGHHHH” Whined Twilight, “Why isn’t this portal WORKING!”

Twilight was furious and frustrated.

Every spell she used typically came from a book and normally produced predictable results. Creating one of the first two way portals in Equestria from scratch however, not so easy.

“Chill out Twilight” Rainbow said cooly while lazily watching from a couch, “I know you will get it working eventually”.

Twilight just sighed and sat on her haunches in defeat. “Princess Celestia wants to create a portal linking Everfree castle to Canterlot. After the fight with the humans she wants us to be able to gather the other princesses and the guard quickly, in case another one comes to Equestria and tries to destroy us… again.” she responded gloomily, “The Canterlot castle and the Crystal Empire portals are already up and I can’t even get mine to work! And I DESIGNED THEM!”

Twilight was running out of ideas.

Since becoming an Alicorn she no longer knew her magical strength, the main cause being that her power was growing constantly. Each day her reservoir grew, and with each growth came the difficult task of compensating raw energy into accuracy over quantity. One could compare trying to force the entirety of a constantly swelling pond through a straw.

So when it came time to give the crystals the precise magical jump that the portal needed to work, she had a hard time siphoning the proper amount. Either too much or too little, it was a constant war with her magic and her mind; a battle of willpower.

She just didn’t have the control and stability that mature Alicorns had though, and it grated on her nerves ever so roughly. So when glaring rather angrily at the portals structural frame didn’t work, Twilight resorted to pouting and hoped that taking a break would clear her mind and give a solution to the little problem presenting itself to her.

While Rainbow Dash was used to Twilight moping about when her spells weren’t working, she knew this extra mope was totally different. Ever since that villainous human destroyed parts of Equestria and terrorized the pony population Twilight hadn’t been herself anymore. She seemed more like a pony with post-traumatic stress disorder, which was understandable considering how much she had fought against the human villains alongside the other princesses.

Rainbow Dash sighed, hopped off the couch and trotted over to her friend. She then laid down, covering her ever so agitated friend with one of her wings and thinking of what to say to help her out. Then it hit her; compliments and support make everything better!

“You know Twilight; you’re the smartest pony I know! And while I know that things have been kind of tough on you lately, you need to snap out of your funk and kick this things flank! I know you can do it! Just believe in yourself, Twilight! Like you did before all this human stuff happened!” She paused before adding a few more words to her statement, “And if you can’t do it alone, me and the girls will always be here to help you figure things out!”

As if on cue, the rest of Twilight’s friends came walking into the old castle’s library through its heavy, iron decorated, oak doors, where they hoped to see the new functioning portal to Canterlot.

“I see the portal isn’t up yet…” Rarity muttered, speaking mostly to herself, but unintentionally keeping her voice just loud enough to be heard by the others.

“I’m sure Twi’ll have it up here in a jiffy!” Applejack stated proudly in repsonse, beaming with respect for their magically gifted friend as she pushed past Rarity, into the spacious book filled room.

Next came Pinkie pie, who flew from the door and tackled Twilight, knocking the air out of the purple Alicorn. “HI TWILIGHT!” the pink pony yelled happily, “I brought a cake for the portal to Canterlot PARTY!!!”

Twilight just coughed, trying to catch her breath under the weight of the pink earth pony. “*WHEEZE* That’s *CAUGH  CAUGH* great  *GASP* Pinkie”

“I KNOW!” Pinkie gleamed, her happy mood almost physically brightening the room, “Isn’t today the best day EVER!!!!”

Twilight groaned as she got up, only just managing to form coherent words for the group in front of her. “The portal isn’t up yet though… and I can’t seem to sustain the right amount of magic to start the chain reaction…”

Rarity glamorously trotted up to Twilight, swaying herself from side to side in a stage like walk. “Need an additional horn, dear? I may not be as magically gifted as you, but I can offer whatever magic I can!”

Twilight thought about it for a second and smiled. “Thanks Rarity! I think that would help a lot.” Rainbow stood up, bringing the wing that had rested on her friend back up to her side and then flapping both of them, making her way back to the couch she was on previously, noting with dull curiosity that Twilight and Rarity were now going over the basics of the spells formula.

The rest of the girls followed Rainbow’s example and began to mill about the library until the two were ready to give a go at it, it being the portal. After creating a plan on how to balance their magic to the specifications of the portal, the two magical ponies were ready for action.

Both turned to the circular machine which oddly looked like the “Star Gate” portal and began to channel as much magic as they could muster. Both ponies simultaneously began launching a beam of raw magic into the middle of the portal machine. The machine’s magic crystals began to glow and the circular opening began to emit a blue glow. It expanded from the center to the edge of the machine as it created a blue liquid like surface across it.

“IT’S WORKING! IT’S WOOORRRKKIIIINNGGG!!!” Twilight exclaimed. The blue liquid surface began to show a room with a white door which she hoped was the spot where her mentor kept her portal in Canterlot. But her joy quickly turned to horror... as the door opened, what she saw wasn’t a pony; it was a human.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

His name was Cade Adams a simple college student going for electrical engineering. Though a lot of things in life didn’t go his way, he really had no reason to complain; he loved his life and was at peace with himself. Most of his old problems stemmed from his own mistakes, so in the past he just looked at them like an opportunity to improve himself. The real trick to his success was his father’s passing.

Most people expected him to crumble and lose himself in the loss of his old man, but in some weird way he took it as a sign to improve himself further. He felt his life is no longer just his own and he strove to become a man that his Aerospace father would be proud of. He felt like he would have succeeded… but…

He paced in his apartment thinking about high and low frequency filters with his IPod one hand and a beer in the other -Drunken Science!- like he normally did for difficult problems. He had “Throw It All Away” from the old Sonic Adventure 2 OST blaring in his ears -which he did mostly as a joke to lift his spirits when he was stressed.

He calmly walked back and forth in his apartment, completely zoning out, tuning out the world as he focused. He decided it was time to continue working on the problem and started to headed back to his room, he approached his door and turned the knob, swinging it open expecting his room but what he saw stunned him. A large circular supernatural rift was right in the path way of the door; he panicked as he realized he was heading right for it. The sight of this crazy anomaly made his body lock up at the sight of the weird bluish portal.

As he was falling forward he looked down and noticed that only half of his body would fall in the portal and remembering how in some movies if you didn’t make it all the way through you might get cut in half -damn star gate-, he instantly commanded his legs to push forward to hopefully make it all the way inside just in case.

As he jumped and managed to tumble through to portal, he landed on what he believed to be hard stone, lucky with his wrestling background he smacked his arms down before his body hit the ground, which he was taught to help reduce the impact of the short fall (I’m no physician but oddly it works or at least it feels like it does). He slowly began to get up and saw six horrified ponies which he recognized… but the thing was, they weren’t cartoons, they were real. “HA fuck you bro” Cade thought mentally as he tried to stand. “Umm…. Hello how’s it goi-“is all the human could get out before being surrounded by a pink aura.

“AAAHHHHHHHH” Twilight screamed grabbing the human in her telekinesis quickly slamming him into the wall. She pinned him to the wall with such force that it was hard for him breath. Cade just yelled in pain and tried his best to not to pass out. He noticed the portal that he just fell through dissipated, apparently it wasn’t very stable.

At that moment he heard the ponies start to panic.

“Not another human!” Twilight said as she started to tear up. “Equestria’s finally at peace again and now there is another human here!”

“Let’s beat him back to wherever he came from before he can do anypony harm!” Rainbow shouted

“WAIT!” Fluttershy demanded. “What if he’s not like the last ones! What if he’s good?”

She was ignored of course as the other five continued.

“We need to throw him back in the portal!” Rarity exclaimed, prancing about frantically.

“Why did the portal bring a human here!?!” Applejack said hoping for an answer in the choas.

“IM GOOD AT YELLING TOO!” Pinkie of course was completely ignoring the situation in favor of entertainment.

Cade could only listen as the six began to bicker back and forth with what to do with him.

“What the hell just happened? This isn’t like the show! Twilight would never do something like this!” He tried to breath but was pinned so hard against the wall he could only get short gasps. “Last ones? There were more humans here? What the hell happened here? What caused them to be so hostile towards Humans?”

The ponies kept yelling going in circles that the human was a threat and needed to be thrown back into the portal only to keep looping that train of thought over and over until.

“SSSSTTTOOOOPPPP!!!!” Fluttershy yelled, freezing the other five. They knew if Fluttershy started to yell you “STFU”.

“Why don’t you see if he’s friendly or not?!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she started to tear up, “He just got here and you’re already treating him like an enemy! WHAT IF HES GOOD?!” That’s when she started bawling, causing the rest of the ponies and the human’s heart to sink.

The five sat there quietly and gathered their thoughts. Luckily for Cade that’s when Twilight’s telekinesis started to lighten up, allowing him to breathe easily enough again. His mind finally straightened out and allowed him to analyze his surroundings as oxygen filled his lungs. “An old building with Shelves and Shelves of books, but it looks well kept… maybe this the old castle of the princesses… hmm perhaps, maybe in their timeline this is around season 4 of MLP?” Cade began to look at the 6 ponies in detail, he noticed the horn and wings on the purple pony that he recognized as Twilight Sparkle.

“Yup season 4 without a doubt. Too bad the season wasn’t over...” The human quickly changed his train of thought and focused on analyzing the main six’s conversation they were having while he was pinned. “I know they were saying there was one or several humans that was here at some point… but they seemed hostile saying that they were a threat to them… maybe I should play passive and ignorant of the background knowledge I have of them and try to gain their trust… and while I’m at it I’ll try to ignore the fact that TWILIGHT THREW ME INTO A WALL!” The human sighed at that last thought, trying to let go of his anger.

Rainbow Dash looked at the human, and saw his expression change from thoughtful to anger then back to thoughtful in rapid succession. In her experience with humans that meant one thing, and one thing only.

“What are you planning!” she demanded as she rushed in front of him, throwing her face only inches from his own. “You better tell us what you’re thinking or ELSE you’re gunna get it, pal!”

The human glanced at the cyan pony and looked into her large expressive threatening rosy eyes. He couldn’t help but joke with himself “AWWWW SHES SO CUTE!!! I WANT IT!!!” And he smiled as she glared back wondering why he changed his current expression.

“I mean no harm” Cade stated “If you’re wondering what I’m thinking, I am only wondering why I’m being treated so unfairly when I just got here! I’m no threat to you ponies, I already know I can’t stand up to you! You have me pinned to a wall by what I assume is some sort of magic, and last time I checked I don’t have any.” Cade said wryly.

“I assume from your conversation earlier that there was another or several humans that were here that left you girls with a terrible impression of our entire species, but in our defense, none of us are the same, there are terrible ones and good ones, just like any sapient beings. I hope you are willing to give me a chance to prove that the majority of humans are good beings…” His body twitching lightly as he lay against the wall he was pinned too, hoping and trying to continue his train of thought but unfortunately running out of ideas. So instead he resorted to the depressing card. “If not, all I ask is that you make my death quick, I assure you I mean no harm.”

The ponies just stared at the human. Compared to the other ones he seemed like a saint, as the other humans usually started with a bad impression in Equestria and then everything usually went downhill from there. This human however seemed kind, and willing to cooperate from the start.

Rainbow Dash backed off a bit “Ok I believe you, a little, but one wrong step I’ll make sure you regret it!” She lifted and shook a foreleg threateningly to warn him that she meant business. Cade tried his best not to laugh as the adorable display. “Rainbow always had that macho personality”, he thought quietly to himself.

The ponies looked at each other, and it seemed like they telepathically reached a conclusion on what to do with this new human. With a small nod of understanding they began to approach him, stopping only by Rainbow Dash who was only a few feet away from him, each giving him different look, ranging from anger and suspicion to concern and one of them even had an expression of not really giving a fuck -Pinkie Pie.

“Alright” Twilight started. “I understand you accidentally fell into my portal, what are your plans now that you’re here?”

Cade thought for a second and simply replied “To survive”… he quietly thought for another few moments. “Maybe if you girls can provide me a portal back home I’ll take it, but if that takes any longer than a few days, then there is no excuse I can make back on my home world without raising suspicion from my government. If it takes too long, I’ll be considered dead there, and if I try to go back, there is no way to explain my absence without sounding crazy. No one will believe that I landed in another dimension that had sapient magical talking ponies with wings.” Cade gave a little smirk “So in few days I hope we can work out a way for me to live here if it comes to that.” I hope it doesn’t though, he thought sadly to himself.

Twilight sat and thought quietly. She knew that, now that the portal activated and failed to stabilize, the crystals will have used up all the magic charge that they contained, and that it would take at least a day for them to charge and get within an acceptable level. She turned to her friends curious about what they thought and saw they were looking at her expectantly, probably waiting for her to decide what to do.

She really wanted to just blast him just in case, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do… she really didn’t need this right now, after just dealing with the human attacks, then right after their defeat Celestia gave her the difficult project of creating one of the first ever two way portals from her castle to another, and finally she still had her new duties as a princess, she knew having to deal with another human was just too much.

“Alright this is what we will do, it will take a day for the magic crystals to recharge, so tomorrow Rarity and I will try to recreate the portal to your home... So until then, I will provide you with a room here.” She then turned to her friends. “Does anypony mind watching him tonight? I have to make some recalculations for the portal and write a letter to Princess Celestia about all this.”

Cade’s realized that he has a 4/5 chance of having a relaxing and possibly fun night. Please don’t be Pinkie, Please don’t be Pinkie Please don’t be Pinkie. Fluttershy quickly spoke up “I’ll watch him, umm that is if that’s ok with everypony.”

Internally the human celebrated, YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! BEST DAY EVER!!!

Cade then spoke up hoping to interrupt any naysayers “Well then now that, that’s all sorted out, you mind introducing yourselves?” He said with a half grin as he scratched the back of his head.