Travelers and Jumpers

Chapter 4:

Close Encounters of The Cliched Kind

The normal reaction for those who are held under gunpoint is pretty simple. They’ll either panic, and fall into hysterics, or they’ll willingly comply with the demands of the guy holding the gun. Nothing wrong with that, really. Basic human nature tends to make us want to survive. It’s our natural instinct to comply with the urge to survive to fight another day.

That said, I’m far from normal. So instead of fear, I felt nothing but raw anger surge through me. I wasn’t threatening that Alex person, I had just saved an innocent kid from a chimera, nearly got roasted by said chimera, and got my office forcibly ripped from one reality, and thrown into another one (myself along with it). Even as the Traveler, that didn’t fly. And Ye Gods, he just used Gandalf as an insult.

No one does that to Gandalf.

The runes on my staff glowed once more, even brighter than before, as I poured my will into both it, and the shield bracelet on my left arm. A small, invisible layer of magic formed around my head, effectively protecting me from the gun.

I narrowed my eyes at the man holding the weapon, and told him in a low voice, “Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks.”

The tension in the air was so thick, you probably could have choked on it if you were caught on the tail end of everything. Matt’s gun steadily kept itself aimed at my head, Alex’s hand slowly crept to his knife, and I stood there with my shield bracelet at the ready, my staff filled to the brim with magic.

One twitch from either of us coul-

FWOOM!

Quicker than I could think, a searing bolt of some kind of energy had fired out from the gun, and was thankfully reflected off of my shield, and into the forest.

My eyes widened as I realized what had happened. The bastard had shot me. He had tried to kill me! What the hell?!

Reacting instinctively, I expanded the shield into a solid quarter dome of solid power that pushed the armored human away from me, taking him by surprise. I heard the distinct sound of metal scraping leather, and aimed my staff at the ground.

“Ventas Servitas!” I shouted, releasing the built up energy as a sudden burst of wind that pushed me away from the ground, and into a nearby tree. My arms clawed at the branches for a decent grip, as I glanced back to look at the two humans.

“What the hell?!” I demanded out loud this time, my voice a mixture of anger and surprise.

Alex looked just as surprised as I was. He looked at Matt questioningly, his hand still tightly gripping the very, VERY long knife that he formerly wore on his leg.

“Matt...” he said warningly.

Matthew kept his gaze (well, his helmet pointed towards me) trained on me, and moved closer to Alex. “Something started jamming my HUD when his staff started glowing. Doesn’t take two-and-two together to know he was trying to do something to me.”

Oh, Hell’s Bells. Now that I got a had a better view of his armor, it was pretty damn obvious that it wasn’t exactly “low-tech”. Whatever he was wearing, it was definitely from the future, and probably had a lot of fancy computers and electronics running it.

Fun fact about magic, folks. Us practitioners emit what I like to call a “Murphyonic” field, especially around technology. Anything that can go wrong around tech can, and will, go wrong. The more advanced, the more ruined it’ll be once I’m done with it. This really gets worse with anything after World War Two era, and even WORSE with stuff that involves computers, or electronics. Hell, I can’t even own a CD without it getting ruined in less than a day.

The point is, if his suit had reacted to me summoning my shield, I could see why he would pull the trigger like that. Well, if he was extremely paranoid, I guess.

“Look, hold on,” I tried saying, as I started to lower myself from the tree. “I think I can explain what just happened, if yo-”

The gun started to hum again, and Matt barked out, “On the ground! Hands open, and away from from your body!”

I froze where I was, precariously balanced with my hand on a lower branch, and my staff braced against the trunk.

My inner smartass kicked to life then. “Now, sir, don’t you think you need to take me out on more than one date before we get into the kinky stuff?” I deadpanned.

Matt reached up, and did something to his helmet with his free hand, leaving his gun to stubbornly point at me. It might as well have just been sitting on the ground for how much it moved. There was a small clicking noise, before he removed the helmet, and somehow attached it to his back, as his eyes bored into mine. Once that was taken care of, he reached for a sort of baton on the side of his leg (what is it with these people and leg straps?) and held it with a comfortable ease.

Something tells me that he’s more police than military, I idly thought to myself, snapping my eyes to the side to help avoid a Soulgaze.

“Try anything, and I’ll make you moan alright...but it’ll be in pain.” His voice was playful, but his eyes were cold, and his breathing was faster than normal. Was he amused, angry or scared? I couldn’t tell.

“That’s it?” I frowned, and shook my head lightly as I finished climbing back down to the ground. “That’s the best comeback you could come up with? And they say I’m the dense one...” I muttered.

Lightning bolts seemed to fly from his eyes, but he didn’t even blink for a single instant. Ye Gods, but this guy was starting to annoy me.

Just before he could open his mouth to say another “witty” one-liner, I picked up the sound of hooves approaching the three of us.

“Are you guys fighting...?” the filly that I had saved earlier, Cherry Lime, slowly came towards us, a confused expression on her face.

I completely forgot that she had been there the entire time. Shows just how easily distracted I can get when there’s some asshole aiming a gun at me...and when said asshole shoots me, and tries to insult Gandalf. Still, I’m not gonna get into a fight with this guy while in front of a kid. Even someone like me has standards.

I sighed heavily, and lowered myself down to to the ground so I could pick up my staff. “No, kid, we just had ourselves a misunderstanding,” I told her, smiling gently.

“Oh...that’s good,” she yawned. It took me a moment to realize that it was getting pretty late. How long had we been out here?

“No worries, kid,” I chuckled, walking over to her. I sent a pointed glance back at the other humans, and added in a slightly louder voice, “Now let’s get you home, aye?”

Alex caught onto my thought process, and nodded in an exaggerated fashion. “Yes. Come on, little one. I’m sure your parents must be worried sick by now.”

The filly willingly let herself be picked up by the older man, and almost instantly fell asleep in his arms. His eyes seemed to soften at the sight of that, making me feel a little more trustworthy of him.

Matt finally lowered his weapon, and sighed a little. “Alright, this is getting us nowhere,” he stated. “How about this: I’ll take him to the library, where Twilight and Pinkie can keep an eye on him until you show up with AJ and Dash. We’ll figure out what to do with him then.”

The older man nodded sagely, and said, “That’s about as good a plan as we’re gonna get. Maybe you can go grab Fluttershy while you’re at it. Her Stare can keep him down if he gets violent.”

“Right. If gets annoying, I’ll go get Lyra to babysit him,” Matt replied grimly.

“He can still hear you,” I told them both. “And he has a mind of his own.”

Most of the time.

“So start using it,” Alex said bluntly. “Face it; you’re new on this world, you have no idea what the layout is gonna be like, and to top it all off, it’s the middle of the night. You see those woods? There aren’t just bears and raccoons in there. You’d have to deal with hydras, manticores, monsters you’ve probably never heard of, and dangerous terrain. All without being able to see.”

“Don’t forget my personal favourite, Timberwolves...Not as in regular wolves, but animate bundles of lumber that are practically walking death. Trust me, they aren’t as fun as the pun makes them sound.” He rolled his left shoulder and it cracked loudly.

Hmm...There are two ways I can respond to this. Option A, in which I tell them, politely mind you, to shove it up their asses, and not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks. I don’t know why they think they’re experienced in other-worldly affairs, but I can guarantee I’ve got a few more years under my belt than they do.

Then again, that leads to Option B: Go with them, because they have a reason to be talking like that. If they say there’s dangerous stuff in that forest, then there probably is. Hell, didn’t I just finish thrashing a chimera? Despite my status as a wizard, it probably wouldn’t mean much to anything that tried to eat me.

At least until it got a faceful of fire, I thought to myself childishly. It wasn’t exactly false, though...

I rolled my neck, and casually unzipped my coat. “Okay,” I told them. “I’ll go with you. Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to do.” Except find out why I was hired by a Goddess of Good to come here, but no, I’ll indulge you. It’s not like something important is going down.

It may come as a surprise, but I was getting a little bit peeved. Maybe it was the hunger.

In any case, I ended up following Commando Crysis-Ripoff Matthew into the small little town of Ponyville.

The puns. They’ll kill me.

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As Matt led me through the village-like town of Ponyville, I realized a couple of things. Firstly, the town was completely asleep, for the most part. Judging by how high the moon was in the sky, it was a couple of hours past midnight at the least. So why didn’t I feel the normal pull of exhaustion that I’d feel after spending most of the day awake, and after throwing around a couple of heavy-hitting spells?

My best answer for that was jet lag. After all, it had been...what, four o’clock when I left? Now it was almost four in the morning, but I still felt like I could go for a few more hours.

Interdimensional jet lag. Who knew, right?

Anyways, that little bit aside, the other thing I noticed: One of the alleys just near the outskirts of the town had been taped off, with big, bold letters saying, “Guard Lines: DO NOT CROSS” on them. Had there been a crime lately? It would fit with how jumpy Alex was around me...

“Hey, focus, Houdini,” Matt said, jabbing me in the back with his tonfa thing.

I bit back another retort, and simply leaned on my staff as we walked through the silent town. See? I can be diplomatic when I need to be. Subtle and quick to anger, and whatnot.

Soon enough, though, we approached a large, tree-shaped building with a sign hanging on the outside of it that designated it as the town library.

Wait...That’s no library...that’s a space station living tree, I thought to myself, quietly surprised.

The other human opened the door, revealing a book-filled room, softly illuminated by the light of about a dozen glowing candles. Somehow, the shelves seemed to be built into the trunk of the tree, artistically flowing so that it seemed impossible to discern where nature stopped, and when craftsmanship had come into play. It all came together to form a beautiful sanctuary of knowledge, where one could escape into the vast tomes that filled the bookcases.

Quite frankly, I already liked the place.

Matt pointed me to a corner, and grunted, “Wait there.”

“Sure thing, Tinman,” I replied, letting out a fake yawn, leaning against the relative comfort of the bookshelf.

Sending what must have been a piercing glare my way, he walked up a nearby set of stairs, and called out, “Twilight! The new human’s here! Keep an eye on him, will you?”

Twilight? I asked myself. Strange name.

Matt looked back down to me, and told me in a strict voice, “I’m only going to warn you this one time: Twilight Sparkle is one of the most powerful unicorns on Equestria. She’s been able to take out entire swarms of changelings, single-hoofedly tame an Ursa Minor, and saved this land from all manner of would-be attackers countless times. A human with a big stick isn’t going to be much trouble to her. So behave.”

“Don’t you have something better to do than be afraid of said human?” I snapped, bringing my eyes up to meet his own. “I’ve done nothing to you, nor do I have any plans to do so. If you keep pushing me, I WILL give you a reason to fear me. Understand?”

The two of us continued to glare daggers at each other, once more coming dangerously close to a Soulgaze. Just before I felt myself get pulled into his mind’s eye, the sound of hooves trotting down stairs distracted the two of us. A unicorn, a sort of lavender color this time, came into view, a perplexed expression on her face.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought for an instant that I had known her, but I shook it off, and blamed it on my paranoia. Talking ponies were new to me this time.

She looked at me curiously, but nodded at Matt to tell him that he could go.

He hesitated just before he crossed the threshold, and told her, “He’s a magic user. I’d keep an eye on him if I were you.”

I felt my back tense up, but I somehow remained at my spot on the ground, and managed to control my temper. There was no doubt in my mind that if I wanted to, I could give him a reason to fear me. That I could tear open his throat with just a word and a thought, and feel his life’s blood spill onto the-

“Are you okay?” I heard the mare ask me. I blinked a few times, and looked up to see Twilight looking at me in concern.

Ye Gods...Nearly lost it there for a second. I need to keep myself in control. Can’t lose it here. Gotta stay calm...

I shook myself out of it, and nodded silently at the unicorn.

“Oh. Good, I suppose,” she said, somewhat uncertainly, before sitting down in front of me.

We both sat in silence for a good long while, each of us taking measure of the other one. As the seconds started to stretch into minutes, I started to try and sift through the information I had gathered so far. Oddly enough, though, I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about the police tape that we had passed by on the way here.

Suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts, Twilight asked me, “Are you really a magic user?”

I gestured to my staff, and said, “Guilty as charmed. Are you really a powerful unicorn?”

She shifted a little uneasily, and hesitantly answered, “I...I suppose I am. My special talent IS magic, after all.”

That got a raised eyebrow from me. She had humility in her favor, I suppose. Then again...They’re not the bad guys here, are they? Neither am I. Both of us are just...well, we don’t trust each other. It’s not surprising, but it wouldn’t have killed me to have acted a bit more polite. Then again, why take the risk?

“Impressive,” I grunted. Adjusting my staff, I told her, “So...nice place you have here. Library. Very nice.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions while we wait for the others to get here?”

I thought about it for a moment, before answering, “Actually, I kind of do mind.”

“What?” She sounded genuinely surprised. That bit of surprise, while understandable, sort of pushed my temper to its threshold.

“I have no idea where I am, who you are, and why the only other humans for miles around are treating me like a piece of radioactive waste,” I countered, doing my best to sound calm and controlled. “I’ve been blamed for kidnapping a child, when in reality, I saved her from a chimera that nearly roasted me alive! All I’ve got to my name is either on my back, or still at the place where I landed when I got here. The armored guy nearly shot my head off, and the guy with the knife has only shown me the barest trace of common courtesy. And to top it all off, I’ve been dumped like a prisoner at a library, where someone, who they claim is the most powerful mage in Equestria, is supposed to keep an eye on me. Before I answer to anyone on this damned world, I’d like to get some information!”

I took another calming breath, and closed my eyes. Something stirred in the deepest recesses of my soul, but miraculously stayed dormant.

In a subdued tone, I muttered, “Sorry about that. It’s been one of those days.”

Twilight’s eyes glimmered strangely, but she nodded in...sympathy? I was expecting anger, or contempt at least. This was unexpected.

“It’s alright,” she replied. “I can understand that. It’s perfectly reasonable.”

I blinked. “It...is?”

“Of course,” she kindly said. “I think Alex and Matt are just on edge. Especially with...well, that’s not important now.”

Okay...I’ll ask later. For now, it’s time to ask the most important question of all.

“Who are they? And how did they get here?”

Twilight thought about it for a minute, and started explaining.

“Alex Roberts. How old does he look to you?”

“He looks like a middle aged man. But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“Yes. He and Matt call themselves Jumpers. For some reason that neither of them know about, they can somehow jump between different realities. Alex has been doing that for over sixty years, while Matt’s only been doing it for two. They can’t control when they jump, and can only guess at how long they’ll stay before they jump again.”

“How long are they here for this time?”

“Well...they’re both certain that they’ll pass away on this world.”

“Ah. I guess I treaded on to personal territory there, didn’t I?”

“No, it’s no trouble. Now you can see why they’re a little wary of new humans.”

“They don’t want anyone harming the ones they care about?”

“Exactly.”

“So why are you telling me all this?”

“...Call it strange, but...there’s something about you...I...I don’t know, really. Let’s just say I have a hunch.”

“Alright. So. Jumpers, huh? What’s Alex’s story, then?”

“Alex is a strange one. He’s spent the better part of his lifetime jumping between worlds. First, he went to places that held technological marvels, or had alternate timelines. From what it looks like, he finally started hitting worlds with magical properties, and then...poof. He’s here. Nothing but a magic backpack, and his knife. It took him a while, but soon the other ponies started trusting him, and now he’s probably one of the most valued members of Ponyville.”

“...So. Human from another world, starts contributing to society. Makes sense.”

“Really?”

“In my line of work, it does. So, what about Matt? Same story?”

“Matthew Brennan. He’s a good man, but you wouldn’t have guessed that by the way he and Alex got along when he first got here. It was almost like Alex was going to kill him, just to protect us all. It’s a good thing he didn’t, though. Matt’s been another welcome addition to this town, and a lot of folks see him as a good friend.”

“Great. That leaves the wizard as the black sheep of the bunch.”

I sighed, and let the information settle in my mind. There were so many questions I had, but I’d have to get them from the humans if I wanted any real hopes of putting all of this together. Not to mention that I still had to learn about this world itself, and about everything they had, culture-wise.

Good thing I’m a detective. Gathering information is supposed to be something I’m good at.

Still, it would take hundreds of hours to gather all the required info. I’d have to get all the right answers, no opinions, just straight, hard facts. Everything would have to be memorized, organized, and all without getting someone who’d mess it up to see me fail for a good laugh.

That’s why I have Ivy.

Mentally, I called out to the creativity spirit, and asked her, Ivy, did you get all that?

"Affirmative, boss. "

Good. Now, do me a favor, and start scanning as many of these books as possible. I’ll keep Twilight distracted, and if she asks, I’ll tell her something about how on our last worlds, it was polite for familiars to be allowed to do this.

"Isn’t that the truth, though?"

Maybe a few worlds ago. But she doesn’t have to know that.

So as Ivy floated out of my watch, and passed through my jacket unnoticed, I said to Twilight, “Alright. Now it’s only fair for you to ask me anything you want to know.”

This got an excited gleam into her eyes, and her horn glowed as she used what I assumed to be her magic to levitate a scroll of parchment in front of her, along with a quill and ink bottle.

Something tells me that this is gonna take awhile.

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