The Forgemaster had just entered the forest and all was quiet. That was to be expected of course! Humans just don't go into a forest without the locals noticing and running away. Such is the norm in the life of a predator. With that thought in his head, he continued down the path towards his destination.

-5hours later-

The Forgemaster had left the town well into the afternoon and it was dark now. He gathered a few sticks near the path he was on, set up his bed as a pile of leaves, and then made a small fire with the stick he collected. As he lie there, next to the fire, he stared at the night sky and thought, as great men do, great thoughts.

Thoughts like: 'I hope it doesn't rain.' and 'The sky sure does look peaceful.'

But as he lied there, he had an epiphany! What if there were other worlds! But just as quickly as the thought came up, he quashed it.

'Even if there are other worlds', he mused, 'I could never visit another!'

And with that, he drifted off to sleep.

-Morning in Equestria-

(A/N - I know you all know the plot of the first episode; my character isn't present for most of it. We skip to the morning on the day where the Mane 6 meets Nightmare Moon)

The Forgemaster was waking up, with a start. He quickly got to his feet.

'Something is wrong here.' He thought.

As he glanced around, trying to find out what was troubling him, it hit him like a pile of bricks: HE WAS NAKED! He looked down, surprise showing on his face for the first time in years, he quickly checked to see what else was taken from him. He still had his gauntlets, and after some searching, found the metal samples nearby. Now THAT was confusing, what thief would steal his clothing but not his metals? They would carry far more value than his clothes. And another thing, his logic butting in, how in the world did the thief take his cloths without him noticing!

While completely and utterly confused, The Forgemaster kept his calm, it had kept him alive in situations both similar too and more dangerous than this one. He grimaced at the memory. He went to a nearby puddle and put mud all over his body, then he mentally shrugged, at least he had what really mattered and what couldn't be replaced if lost. Besides, it wasn't the first time he woke up naked someplace he probably shouldn't have been naked…

But as he looked around, he noticed something strange about the forest he was in, but he couldn't quite place it. Then he noticed, nothing looked familiar to him! Even the path he practically slept next to was gone! With that, he mentally shrugged once more, and, picking up the metals, he started heading off in his chosen direction.

'After all,' he thought with a trace of amusement,' no forest can last forever!'

-14hours later-

'I was wrong, horribly horribly wrong!' he thought,' this bloody forest DOES go on forever!'

In his defense, The Forgemaster hadn't crossed a path, a person, or even an animal in his trek across this forest! The Forgemaster was getting somewhat tires, considering he was practically running the entire time, so he found the nearest bush and crawled underneath it and fell asleep. He awoke not 20 minutes later to a cry of: "A Manticore!" then a sudden "ROOOOOAAAARRRRR!"

He groaned, then peeked through the bush but couldn't see anything; the voices were coming from the top of an embankment he was at the bottom of. So he just stood completely up and climbed on up, leaving his pack of metals in the bush. On the way up he heard what could only be described as a battle. As he reached the top, he stepped on to a path.

'Goddamnit self!' het thought angrily, 'how could you sleep this close to a path and not see it!'

Once properly on the path; he looked left. And saw the oddest assortment of tiny horses he had ever seen. They were all manners of colors from purple to yellow and even blue! In fact, one of them had a rainbow colored mane! And they had the largest eyes he had ever seen, yet they all had the same emotion in their eyes: fear.

'Ponies, not horses, too small to be horses', he corrected himself, then he looked closer, seeing the wings and horns,' OK unicorns and pegasi, too. God, that is weird, but hey, you live a few centuries; your opinion of weird changes."

He took all this in with a glance not even considering them the monster he had heard as he climbed the embankment; he then turned to his right… to see a very large, very angry, half-lion, half-scorpion with frickin' wings.

'Of course it has wings, you get that much ugly in one from, God gives you a conciliatory prize', He thought, drily.

He then noticed that this abomination was looking straight at the ponies as thought they were its next meal. And that he had just walked between it and its meal. The angry manticore then looked straight at The Forgemaster as a predator evaluates its prey.

The Forgemaster thought,' There is no way I'm going to get killed and eaten by the likes of you ugly!'

And with that, The Forgemaster extended the claws on his gauntlets, specifically enchanted to cut through anything and everything, and dropped into a fighting stance.

-Twilight's POV-

As we sat there, preparing our next attack against the manticore. A HUGE creature I had never seen before walked out of the forest, looked at us for a moment and then looked at the manticore, which looked straight back at the creature. This new creature all of a sudden grew claws right in front of me!

'This creature was certainly strange', I thought to myself,' Bipedal, furless, giant at least2 times my height probably more, with appendages that ended in fingers, like Spike's. I've never seen anything like it before; I just have to study it! Oh no, is it going to fight the manticore!''

As she and her new-found friends looked on, a quick yet brutal battle played out before them. The manticore did what any giant predator encountering a new foe would do: it charged straight at the newcomer and tried to gauge its strength relative to itself. But as it reached the new creature, the giant bipedal side-stepped and brought his left-hoof claws directly into its chest, while simultaneously he used his right-hoof claws to take its left wing off. The manticore howled in pain and was instantly crippled; the new-comer had no thoughts of mercy however. As the manticore lay on the ground in obvious pain and unable to move, this giant thing calmly walked up to it, then brought its claws down across its throat, decapitating it instantly.

Twilight was astounded! She had never before seen a creature that could kill a manticore so quickly. Granted she had never been to a forest before, but no other creature she had read about besides a dragon or a hydra could have killed one that fast! And hydras and dragons are much bigger than this creature, yet it still managed to kill the manticore just the same!

Twilight took a glance at her friends… they were all staring with their mouths wide open at the spectacle. As Twilight watched, the creature put out a hoof and fell on its backside and sat there looking at them.

'Studying us more like,' thought Twilight.

Twilight quickly gathered her wits and walked up to this… thing. At 10 feet she stopped and sat down across from the creature, staring at it even as it stared straight back.