Gentle sunlight on my skin. The smell of nature, not yet corrupted by 'progress'. The sound of a gentle breeze passing through branches. The sight of a perfectly clear sky. And finally, the taste of blood in my mouth.

Rolling over and getting to my hands and knees, I shut my eyes and spat out the blood and muttered one of my favourite lines.

"Ugh. My mouth tastes like high-school."

Slowly getting to my feet, I felt several familiar cracks from my spine before tilting my head left and right for the same result from my neck. As I opened my eyes, I was hit with an overpowering wave of nausia and proceeded to throw up bile, having not eaten prior to my displacement.

Wiping my mouth, despite it being clean, I looked down and made a mental note to clean my metal-capped boots at the first available opportunity.

Finally standing straight, I took in my surroundings. Everything had bold outlines and colours really stood out.

Thinking out loud, I said, "Well this is new."

As I spoke, there was a suprised squeek from behind me. Turning, I saw a small yellow pony on the edge of the crater. With more curiosity than rationality, I approached, only to have it hurriedly back away from me before finally stopping to cower under its forelegs, pink mane shifting slightly with its fearful shakes.

Before I could try and convey my lack of ill-intentions, another voice, this time to my left, drew my attention.

"Get away from Fluttershy, you monster!"

As I turned to face the new voice, I was blasted off my feet by a cyan pegasus, which then proceeded to pin my shoulders and glare at me, even as some of the techni-colour hair fell in front of th left eye.

"Nopony hurts Fluttershy and gets away with it.", the mare said, threateningly.

Acting on instict, I quickly wrapped my legs around her waist and started trying to crush the breath out of her.

As she gasped at the sudden force, the pressure on my shoulders lessened and I explained, "I'm not a pony, and if I wanted to hurt her, you wouldn't have been able to stop me."

With a twist that strained the joints in my shoulders in a way I'd never felt before, I quickly slammed her onto her back and pinned her still flapping wings with my hands

At that moment, rope made its way around my neck and pulled me off, restricting my breathing. As the blue pegasus quickly got up and hurried over to me, my last thoughts were, 'Fate must obviously hate me'

Looking up, I saw the blue pony's hoof descending before my vision flashed red and I was surrounded by darkness with the 'taste of high-school' back in my mouth.

[-]

With the 'monster' unconcious, Rainbow Dash went to Fluttershy who was still trying to hide under her forelegs.

"It's okay Fluttershy. The creature's knocked out...for now anyway", Rainbow said with a sideways glare at it.

As Fluttershy slowly stopped shaking, Rainbow made her way over to Applejack, who was awkwardly trying to retrieve her rope without directly touching the creature. After extricating her rope from its neck, she proceeded to tie bind its limbs.

Without waiting for AJ to finish, Rainbow said, "I'll go get Twilight. She might know what this is.", and took off, leaving the farm pony with no idea of what she should do with the bleeding creature.

"Fluttershy, it's bleedin'. Could ya help me stop it."

[-]

Upon arriving at the library, Rainbow Dash heard Twilight's voice at the speed it usually went when she panicked. Upon entering, however, she soon found that the unicorn was interrogating the local, muffin obsessed mail-mare, who never got the chance to answer a question before getting asked another three.

"Twilight, come quick! There's an unknown creature near Sweet Apple Acres that tried to attack Fluttershy!"

At that, Twilight stopped her barrage of questions, paused to look at Rainbow and process what was just said before returning her attention to the letter-carrier.

"Stay here while I deal with this. If you ask, I'm sure Spike will make you some muffins.", she said while grabbing several books.

Then, with a bright flash, Rainbow, Twilight and th books she had were gone. Soon after, Spike walked in fom an adjoining room.

"Hey Derpy, Where'd Twilight go?"

With a shrug, the grey pegasus said, "She said I could have muffins."

As realisation of what she implied hit the dragon, his smile dropped.

"Oh crud."

[-]

At carousel boutique, Rarity was adding some detail to her latest design, when her vision suddenly became filled with pink.

"RaritymypinkiesensejustwentoffandsomethingbigishappeningatSweeApplaAcresandtheothersmightneedourhelp!"

Before Rarity could register what had just happened, Pinkie Pie was out her door and gone from sight.

"I had best go make sure nothing too drastic happens.", Rarity decided as she started towards her friend's farm.

"I bet I'm going to get all dirty"