After downing the food Simon left for me, I figured out how to summon my weapons. For the sword I would press the button on the left of the wristband, the daggers on the right button, and the crossbow the middle button, all of which allowed for quick and easy access of the weapons. I then walked into town, moving to the castle as fast as I could without drawing suspicion. Ponies bustled around me, seemingly not noticing the different ears I have. I chalked it up to being too minor a detail, and relaxed a little, knowing that the difference isn't too notable in case the world was xenophobic.

Eventually, I came upon the castle doors, completely unguarded for anybody to simply walk in. Remembering my mannerisms, I knocked on the door, anxiously looking around in case somebody looked at my ears. The door opened, and I quickly spun my gaze over to the door, seeing nobody in front of me.

"Hello?" I said, moving to peek inside. I heard movement below me, and I looked down to see a small purple dragon, with fear in his eyes.

I quickly moved to assure the small little dude as I moved inside, closing the door as I did so. "Hey, there's no need to be alarmed. I'm not an alien out to suck out anybody's brain ok?"

"And why should I believe you?!" the dragon accused me, pointing at me while shaking.

"Because I have no need to be dissected, or hunted down for being a alien. You ever heard of what scientists do to captured aliens?" I deadpanned at him. "Now, can I take a look at the library? All I'm here for is knowledge about this place, and a hoodie or a beanie to cover my ears so I can live peacefully among the ponies."

The dragon noticeably relaxed, but was still watching me closely. "It's on the 5th floor, on the right." The dragon gestured towards a set of stairs. "So... you mind me telling Twilight? I'm sure she could provide a room for you."

I breathed a sigh of relief, happy the dragon didn't call for alarm, but still tense nonetheless. "Thanks, but no thanks. I overheard Twilight's hunger for knowledge on the way here. If she found out my secret, either she'll dissect me herself, or send me off to those fine with it to do so."

The dragon chuckled. "Yeah, Twilight is a bit of a nerd. Trust me though, if she found out she wouldn't go ahead and dissect you. At the most you'll just spend the rest of the day being questioned, and I really like the idea of an alien living with me so I’ll be able to convince her not to!"

I hesitantly looked at the dragon, contemplating his offer, before sighing. "If I die because of this, I will haunt you until you die."

He smirked. "Won't happen. I'm going to go back to making food for the other five in the castle, and I'll make sure to include you in it when lunch is ready." He walked back to where I presumed was the kitchen door, before looking over. "Do you eat meat by chance?"

"Both meat and vegetables actually," I quickly replied. "I can eat practically everything except base materials like wheat, as long as it's not poisonous or uncooked." He nodded, and we both went our separate ways. I got inside the library, quickly looking for anything related to Equestria's history.

"Let's see... Tale of the Two Sisters... Discord's Reign... The Tyranny of King Sombra... there!" I pulled out the book that caught my eye. "A Brief History of Equestria," I read, satisfied at the quick find, before I suddenly heard noises from outside the room.

"I'm telling you Twilight, there's a new pony in town, and I can't seem to find them!"

Oh shit, they're talking about me! I thought, quickly looking around for a hiding place, already having decided to let the dragon reveal me to Twilight. I spotted a curtain all the way at the top of the bookcase. That'll do. I quickly climbed the bookcase, using a ladder that I found on the way to get to the top faster.

"Pinkie, are you absolutely sure that it wasn't a random coincidence?" I heard Twilight said, as I got up halfway up the bookshelf. "You not finding something when your Pinkie sense went off, sounds just as impossible as the sense itself! I've already accepted that it works, but I'm not accepting that it can't not work Pinkie. That already boggles my mind enough as it is."

Just as Twilight finished, I made it up the bookshelf and shimmied into the curtain, not leaving any noticeable bulge in it. "I know! Which is why I'm asking you to-" Pinkie suddenly stopped talking.

"Pinkie?" The last thing I heard before a flurry of movement, and the sound of doors being slammed open made itself known.

"AHA!" I heard Pinkie shout, and for a few seconds there was silence. "Oh come on!" I heard Pinkie cry out in frustration. I had to suppress a giggle to prevent myself from being exposed, and losing my balance. "First my super secret ball stash, and now the castle's library? How is he so good at hiding from my Pinkie sense?! There's literally no place to hide here, and the stash!"

That's where you're wrong, Ms Smallfinger. I'm so sneaky, I bet I can hide from you in plain sight! OH WAIT.

"...Great! Just great! Now I can be officially stated as an insane princess. You've truly baffled me to that point," Twilight conceded, utterly stressed by this discovery. "I'm going downstairs to check on Spike. You should go help him with the food."

I waited a couple minutes after the door closed to peek out, seeing nobody in sight. I laughed to myself. "Sorry Ms Smallfinger, appears your version of spidey sense is worse than the original!" I taunted, even though I knew nobody was there. I then climbed back down the bookcase, and moved a chair over to a table. I then sat down, opening the book and-

A pink face with the ears I've seen from everybody else was inside the book. "Are you sure about that?"

"FUCKING SHIT TITTIES!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, falling backwards as I did so, Pinkie laughing all the while.

"I KNEW there was somepony in here!" Pinkie said as she came out of the book. "You evaded me for too long!"

I was left completely speechless, just staring at her. A pair of FF cup breasts. She, and her pair of FF cup breasts came out of that goddamn book... I couldn't help it. The moment she fully came out, I passed out from the overwhelming anxiety attack.

Pinkie looked down on my prone form. "Uhhh, whoopsies?"

I eventually came to, silently wishing this was a fever dream as I woke up. Much to my displeasure, it wasn't the case as I found myself relaxing on a couch as Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and four other girls that I didn't know of talked among each other. The white one was a unicorn with F-cups, the yellow one was a pegasus with GG-cups, the orange a normal one with DD-cups, and the purple one was an alicorn with EE-cups. The dragon kid from earlier was at my side, a plate of buttered toast in his hand. Being the only one noticing that I'm awake, the dragon gave a toothy grin.

"Ah, you're awake! Good timing too, the toast just got made," he said, offering the plate to me.

"Thank you little dude. What's your name by the way?" I asked as I took the plate from him.

"My name's Spike, brother and number 1 assistant to Twilight! From what I heard from the girls, you got a crush on Rainbow?"

I grimaced. "While I like her looks, it was my friend Simon that gave off that impression to her. Dude kept implying I had a crush on her the entire time after I-" I stopped, realizing what I was about to say. Luckily, the girls were too absorbed in their conversation to have noticed me.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "After you what?"

"Let's just say I looked up at the clouds at the wrong time..." I let that sink in for Spike, as he slowly came to a realization.

"Oh." Spike said, a little disgust creeping into his voice.

"Now it's not what you-"

"No, I perfectly understand a mere coincidence, happened plenty of times between Twilight and I," he cleared up my concern. "What I'm more disgusted about, is how your friend just hooked you up with her like that. What if you had a special somepony back home?" He blinked. "Actually, do you guys have somepony in your language too?"

"It's somebody or someone for my kind," I said before taking a bite out of my toast

Spike hummed in thought. "Somebody sounds a little less racist compared to somepony. I like it!"

Their version of somebody is somepony? ...Well now I can see where the xenophobic part comes rolling in. "Well I suppose I should break the ice, since I don't find myself at some laboratory."

Spike snickered. "Is the whole dissection gig well known where you come from?"

"You don't wanna know what we've conjured on both ends." I said, before getting up from the couch and clearing my throat, catching the attention of the six. "So, I assume that since I'm not bound, everything is ok between us?"

The purple one blinked. "Uhhh, yes? Honestly, I was just going to ask you a few general questions on your kind's technological and magical developments. You weren't thinking anything fishy was going on here weren't you?"

I shrugged. "Blame alien movies that I’ve watched. So start off with Ms..." I trailed off, waiting for her input.

"Twilight Sparkle," she said.

"Twilight Sparkle, our kind has developed the ability to go to the moon, talk to one another across the world within seconds, and blow up entire cities with just one of our most powerful bombs without any form of magic."

Twilight Sparkle looked up from her clipboard, blinking a bit at me. "Wait, without magic? Is there a lack of magic at your world?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but as far as I know we don't have any dimensional technology, or the ability to travel to other stars fast enough to not die of old age."

"Woawoawoawoah, hold on a minute." Rainbow Dash suddenly spoke up. "You're saying you didn't come from space?"

I released a grunt of annoyance. "Got drunk at a bar and died. The bartender, who turned out to be a traveling cosmic entity, decided to have me start a new life here after being taught how to fight. I didn't know anything about this place, or it's history, so I figured looking into a few books would give me insight about the world. That's when defy-absolutely-any-sense-of-logic over there," I pointed at Pinkie, who was smiling sheepishly. "Decided to hide in a book after failing to find me, and I'm pretty sure we all know the rest. For me after this? Just moving as fast as possible to get set up here, and given what Simon has left me with, I figured after learning I'd take up mercenary work, and try to find out the boon the bartender left me."

Rainbow, seemingly satisfied with my answer, motioned for Twilight to continue.

"How many of your kind do you have in your world?" Twilight asked.

"7 billion, along with a 100 or so million." I said, causing Twilight's eyes to widen in surprise. "Because of this, we're hoping to colonize the planets in our solar system, if not outright leave it for some of the more habitable ones. Planet isn't huge enough to contain the next incoming population boom, so I'm sure you can guess how seven billion people effects the global economy and ecosystem."

Twilight nodded, quickly writing it down with the rest. "That's... a lot of stuff for us to process. Is your world prone to war?"

"Unless we're low on resources, and the other nations aren't willing to trade them to us, we'll go to war. Though in the case of a few leaders, we humans have had some really... unfavorable ones we brought upon ourselves." I crossed my arms. "Is there anything else that needs to be taken note of?"

"Just your name and age for now. Afterwards just wait around here for a bit. I'll see about getting Celestia to send you armor and weapons."

"Actually," I pressed the left button, sword appearing in my hand, causing the group to tense a bit. "That weapons bit won't be necessary. Just some armor would be fine." I then pressed the button again, the sword disappearing. "I'd also like it if the public didn't know I'm an alien. It'd allow me to fit better with the local populace."

Twilight looked on with curiosity, inspecting the band before quickly writing on the clipboard. "Spike, send a letter to Princess Celestia describing what transpired please."

"Already done Twi." Spike said, as he threw a quill over to me. He then breathed green fire onto the paper, disintegrating it.

"Was that just the magical version of phones, or..."

Thankfully, Spike cleared up the confusion for me. "My dragon breath allows me to send stuff like that straight to whoever Twilight sends it to. Most of the time it's Celestia though."

The white one spoke up. "If I may ask, why go for mercenary work instead of just taking a job?"

I hummed in thought, before giving my answer. "Well, according to the bartender, I now have a whole multiverse to explore when I got placed here. If I can find some form of agelessness, I can go on an adventure that nobody else can have the entirety of. Or maybe be the first human to go insane from living too long, but who knows? Maybe it'll turn out ok. Mercenary work allows me to explore, as well as hone my skills." I then finished up the toast. "Would any of you happen to have spare room for a guest by chance? I need a place to stay so I can learn the world's herbs, as well as learn herbal skills for the nomad life I intend on taking. I don't plan on freeloading either, so at least have something for me to do."

The girls went back to speaking with each other for a few moments, being quiet enough to not let me hear. After a minute or so, they turned to face me, Twilight speaking first. "Most of us are up for taking you in for a bit, so we'll each offer you a place to stay, along with what you're doing there." She motioned for the orange one to talk first.

"Well, you seem like a nice guy, and that weird looking band of yours certainly seems like it has powerful weapons on it. Mind starting your mercenary work a bit early over at Sweet Apple Acres? We need some protection from the timberwolves, and lately the guard haven't been making the cut. Especially since Apple Bloom and her friends are still slipping through their patrols, and go off doing who knows what in the Everfree."

Assuming these timberwolves don't come in packs of thousands, this should be easy. Just make sure nobody gets in or out of the border between the Acres and the forest, and keep a group of kids from entering.

The white one then spoke. "Normally I'd be asking if you would spend your free time over at the Boutique, but... you're not THAT different from us. Me and Sweetie Belle already keep the place tidy, so there's not much need for a cleaner either. I'm terribly sorry dearie, but there's nothing to do around there."

Well, at least she's honest about it, and not a two-faced twat...

The yellow one looked as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't. Wouldn't want to try and live around with GG cups over there anyways. Seriously, how much milk does the average baby in Equestria need to grow?!

Then Pinkie Pie spoke "Himyname'sPinkiePieand-" I quickly put up a hand to interrupt her.

"English please. Also, I already know your name."

She nodded. "I think Mr and Mrs Cake would like some help over at Sugarcube Corner, especially with the Twins. When I'm out with my friends, they're usually left alone, and that's not fun!"

That's probably a baking place. Useful to get cooking skills, but the big downside is babysitting, and I do NOT like cleaning up baby shit. I had enough of that back home. I then blinked a bit, suddenly realizing something. Wait, why am I acting as if I could only pick one thing to do? The others can still come in handy later on.

"As for me," Twilight began to speak. "I need to question you a lot on your kind, and a quick one here, what would you call yours?"

"Humanity," I stated without a second of delay.

"Right, I'm going to need to learn as much as I can about humanity from you. Since Equus is most likely going to benefit from the revelations of what can be done without magic greatly, it needs to be done in order to push the waning interest in regular technology. So you can take up residence with me to speed up the process, and organize the library with Spike if we get done before you start taking mercenary work."

I looked towards Spike to see how he felt about it, and saw him waving his arms frantically as if to tell me not to take it. Wouldn't blame him, the library is pretty huge... and who knows what kind of organization she'll put me through. For all I know, it's alphabetical order by author. Gods only know what kind of weird form of organization that looks like. Then there's the fact of this castle not having enough room. It honestly looks more like a small keep than anything else, if not a poorly constructed one. At best I see a dozen or so rooms, so it'd probably become cramped quickly considering all things. I looked towards Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. "You two not going to say anything?"

Rainbow Dash stammered for a few seconds, before composing herself. "W-well I do happen to have a ground house. It's in pretty bad shape since I hadn't cleaned up the mess from Pinkie's party, which was a month ago, but you can take up residence there! There's just not much to do there beyond some house work, so I wasn't going to offer..." I looked to Fluttershy, patiently waiting for her input for a nice 20 seconds, before Rainbow Dash spoke up again. "And Fluttershy has a LOT of animals at her place, which she takes care of. I'm serious, there's a bear that stops by there almost every week."

That made me widen my eyes, as Fluttershy stammered in response to what Rainbow Dash said. "A bear? Either they must not be nearing extinction, or you raised it. Impressive either way."

That piqued Twilight's interest. "Are there a lot of animals and bugs nearing extinction because of humanity?"

I nodded. "Partially, but we try our best to keep them around. I'd go into detail, but there are thousands of species that even I don't know of. It'd probably be best to tell you about them when there happens to be a Earth like it we can go to, or when there's more time."

Twilight nodded, writing it down on the notepad. "While we hardly even started, taking a break from it now is fine considering everything you went through. I've already estimated that your stay in Ponyville will be 8 months at best, more than enough time to learn everything possible."

I blinked a bit. 8 months? Did this girl actually calculate how long I'll be staying here? Either there's already data for this sort of thing, or she's just spouting shit. Then again, there's the question of why such data was taken... ah fuck it, just roll with it. "Ok then... so Spike, when will the-"

Spike then suddenly belched, smoke coming out of his mouth. The smoke moved about for a bit before suddenly materializing into gold armor that landed on the floor, a letter slowly floating down next to the pile. I stared at the pile of armor for a few moments. Yeah, I think I was wrong when I said I'm ready for the second life.

"Well," I said as I picked up the armor, putting on the helmet as I moved back to the stairs. "I guess I'll just be moving this up to the library. You girls check out the note."

Thus, I began reading up on Equestria's history.

Firstly:Nobody escapes the pie.
Secondly:As it's Ponyville, you will immediately be introduced to the cliche.
Finally:You will never escape the pie, because only the pie escapes you.

Jokes aside, I couldn't think of any way not to avoid having him meet all the main 6, and the jumpscare was the main problem as I couldn't help but not add it in. Not only did it seem very Pinkie to me, but I myself was having trouble getting the smile off my face.

Editor:Vutava