/V/irgin In Equestria - Chapter 1

>It's Friday night.
>You've had a less than stellar week at the supermarket.
>Today was the full stop for all the drama you had to put up with from your co-workers. Someone sitting on your lunch in the break room was the last straw.
>But that's over now.
>Your package finally came in the mail today: the processor for your new rig. Now the machine you've saved every last piece of money you could spare for the last six months lies completed in front of you.
>You've already spent a good chunk of your evening on it arguing with strangers on the Internet about which game has the best soundtrack and which series has the worse fanbase but now it needs to be tested to see what its capable of. What shall you try? Crysis? Metro 2033? STALKER with mods?
>Stuff that noise. You load up Kega Fusion – classics all the way.
>Damn it dude, your brain moans, you've spent a few grand on a new computer and you're still playing games on emulators. Here's a hint: why don't you play those on the actual consoles? You spent ages constructing that shrine for all your systems. Just turn around, it's right behind you!
Ah but this has up-scaling and filters, those don't.
>Whatever dude, it's not my money I'm wasting.
You're right, it isn't. Now if you're done, help me pick something.
>As you scroll through the list of roms, your bedroom window rattles. You remember hearing on the TV about a bad storm coming tonight, hopefully nothing too crazy.
>Hey dude, your brain says, that one.
>A smile comes to your face as you see a title you haven't played in ages.
>The music sends you on a nostalgia rush.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16fbqTbwEE

>MEANWHILE IN SWITZERLAND
>At the Large Hadron Collider, security personnel are searching desperately for a dangerous individual.
>Time is short as an experiment is in progress.
>They find their target next to one of the detectors attaching a large object.
>”You! Hands up!”
>He turns to face the security guards, his face twisted in rage.
>“IMPUDENT SWINE!”
>The guards move forward.
>”ONE STEP AND GO BOOM, NO SCIENCE FOR ANYONE!”
>“Hold on, think about what you're doing!” One of the guards pleads to the man.
>”YOU THINK CAPITALIST LITTLE GIRL CAN CHANGE MIND? NEVER!”
>A near empty bottle of vodka falls out from his rough woollen coat before he pulls out a remote, a red LED on it blinking menacingly.
>”DASVIDANIYA PIG! FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!”

>If one was in space and had the ability to see gamma rays, they would see a beam of charged particles bouncing its way along the ionosphere at near light speed, heading in a certain direction.

>Despite the double glazing, you hear thunder in the distance.
>In a fit of anger, you've thrown your controller on the desk and are close to pulling your hair out.
>You've died for the fifth time in the underground caverns. Your jumping skills aren't as pixel perfect as the game would like them to be. The animatic of you getting Lester's legs chomped off has been burned into your retinas.
>You remember why you stopped playing this game in the first place.
>Rubbing your eyes, your stomach makes its desires known audibly. You reach over to a plate that had your dinner on it, still sparse of food since you finished if off half an hour ago. Your cup is completely dry too.
>As you get up to grab a snack and a refill from the kitchen, your skin begins to feel tingly and you notice a strong metallic taste in your mouth.
>Before you get a chance to assess what's happening, a tremendous crack deafens you and you're enveloped in white light.

>Everything's black.
gordonfreemanbreathing.wav
>You open your eyes but can hardly see: lightning must have knocked the power out.
>You hope your surge protector saved your new PC from getting fried.
>Pain rushes through your head. It feels like someone's gone to town on it with a sand wedge getting a golf ball out of a pot bunker.
>You stand up but lose your balance, falling onto a pile of dirty laundry you had been meaning to get washed for a fortnight.
>You soon realise that the whole room is titled at an angle.
>That's stupid, your brain states confidently, that would mean your apartment building is doing its best Tower of Pisa impression right now.
>Nope, your inner ear interjects, there's a definite incline to your room where there hadn't been one before.
>Better leave while you have the chance, your gut adds, you don't want to end up crushed and buried underneath feet of rubble if the place collapses.

>You grab your phone and wallet. You leave your wardrobe alone fearing you might cause the whole building to come toppling over.
>You slowly open your bedroom door and step out.
>What the-?
>POMF!
>You land face first in slick mud. Pulling yourself up results in a wet sucking noise.
>Groaning, you swipe the dirt off your face and see where causality had taken a holiday.
>You're outside in the open in the pouring rain. The hallway that would normally lead to the rest of your apartment, as well as the front door, is missing, as is the rest of your apartment.
>Not only that but so is the rest of the building.
>Welp
>Getting to your feet, you take in your surroundings.
>The closest approximation you can come up with is Dagobah on LSD.
>It's dark but you can still make out some features.
>You're on the edge of what looks like a lake filled with sludge instead of water. There are flies everywhere.
>The trees are tall and imposing with thick vines strung between them.
>All manner of wildlife can be heard despite the falling heavy rain, some sound especially threatening.
>NOPE.jpg
>You climb back inside your bedroom, slamming the door shut with your back to it.
>Breathing heavily, you review what happened during the day.
>You got up, early too thanks to the neighbours' daily row.
>The journey to work was without tribulation.
>Work itself was uneventful, other than the aforementioned drama from the people you have to work with.
>Despite some traffic, you got home all right.
>Everything went great once you were inside: you had some leftover meat feast pizza and potato wedges for dinner, the new computer was working great and you were playing a great, if somewhat frustrating game.
>Then there was the tingling and metallic taste.
>You wonder if its the pizza making you hallucinate.

>After half an hour, it's clear this is no illusion.
>What are you going to do?
>You recall that if you ever get lost in an area you're not familiar with, you stop, stay put and wait for rescue.
>That would be applicable if someone knew roughly where you were in the first place, your brain states. You don't even know where you are. One minute you were in a city, the next you're in some miserable looking swamp.
>You're right brain. Screw the rules, you're walking out of here.
>After cleaning yourself off as best you can, you go under your bed. Being the paranoid sort, you've had an Apocalypse Backpack ready for dangerous situations. You've got all manner of survival gear in it as well as some bottled water, a few packets of smoked beef jerky and a DS for some necessary wilderness gaming. Granted, you had kept the kit case of a nuclear attack but being dropped into an unknown area probably counts as an emergency too. You change out of your dirty clothes into something more durable, as well as putting on your walking boots. You nearly forget but you also remember to take your spare pair of glasses. Can't be too careful.
>Before you leave, you take a last glance at your now useless computer.
>You chuckle as you'll never know if it'll run Crysis or not.

>Using a compass to get your bearings, you head South-East leaving the swamp behind you. After a couple of hours, the trees are getting thicker and soon you're deep within a forest.
>So far so good, it hasn't been as difficult as you had imagined. No giant insects or arachnids to contend with is a huge bonus. It's stopped raining too and the clouds overhead are beginning to part.
>You've also stumbled across a path, or at least a well travelled route though why anyone would want to come here voluntarily is beyond your comprehension.
>As you put your foot down, you lose your footing and fall over. At first, you think you tripped on a tree root but then you feel the ground vibrate. A nearby puddle shakes in unison with the impacts.
>You're getting some serious Jurassic Park vibes right now.
>The sound of a tree crashing down rounds it off perfectly.
>Eclipsing the moon, a ferocious looking lizard's head on top of a snakelike neck towers over you. A moment later, it is joined by another. And another. And another. Soon there are eighteen beady eyes looking at you. The nine heads are attached to a bulbous body supported by two huge muscular legs, complemented by a long whip-like tail.
>You know the name of this creature, even though it only existed in the annals of Greek mythology: Hydra.
>All the heads let out a roar that sends chills racing through you.
>OH HELL NAW.
>You jump up and run as fast as you can away from the nightmarish creature but the extra weight on your back is slowing you down. Like hell your going to drop it though, you spent about two months of your wages on this gear!
>Zigzagging through the trees helps but you know it's only a matter of time before that thing closes the distance between it and you.
>You wished you stayed in your bedroom now.

>The trees are beginning to thin.
>You're out of the forest!
>Not that it gives you any solace, that monster is still chasing you.
>You look right.
>Nothing.
>You look left.
>A house!
>Between gasps, you can taste blood in your throat. If that wasn't bad enough, you're wheezing like an accordion and your legs are burning up. God, you're unfit. Why didn't you use that guide to help you exercise? The only thing you can remember from it was SQUATZ N' OATZ.
>You leap over a river in order reach the abode that is sitting atop a hill, the adrenaline the only thing that's keeping you going.. You reach the front door and bang on it as hard as you can. You yell as loudly as possible, hoping someone is at home to come to your rescue.
>No answer.
>Checking behind you, you see the Hydra speeding towards you, its legs taking massive strides.
>You begin ramming into the door, hoping to break it down.
>You curse each time, every impact stinging like you wouldn't believe.
>It's practically breathing down your neck now.
>Last chance...
>A swift kick causes the door to tear away from its hinges.
>You dive inside, narrowly missing a set of jaws that would have taken your head off.

>You're safe for now but the creature is waiting outside. You get the feeling it knows you'll have to leave sooner or later. If it gets impatient, it might even try and break its way into the building as you did. Got to think fast. You reach around to your backpack and unclip your flashlight. Thankfully it still works.
>Whoever lives here has interesting taste in decorating: everything has a very 'natural' feel to it and it's all built to scale, like the place was made bespoke for a midget. Interior design analysis can wait for another time. You need a weapon to take on that thing. You have a survival knife hooked onto your backpack but you highly doubt you could duke it out up close and personal. Not even Strelok has the balls for that.
>You can't remember how the mythological Hercules dealt with the Hydra so all you have to go on is the Disney movie. You recall that if you cut a head off, two grow back in its place. You don't have a sword so that isn't really going to be a problem. Second, Disney Hercules used a rock slide to kill it. That would be a good plan to enact if you were near a mountain.
>That means you need to come up with something in say, oh, the next five minutes or you're dead meat.
>You search cupboard after cupboard. All of them are filled with animal food or some other animal related items. Real helpful. Who lives next to some forest filled with dangerous beasts and doesn't even have a weapon to defend themselves with?
>You move onto the kitchen. Failing a gun, you could always throw knives or any other sharp implements you find at the thing and hope for the best. A false hope and sure to get you killed but you'd rather go out knowing you tried your best rather than curl up and wait for the end.
>You find a locked cupboard. Some Hammerfell lockpicking makes short work of the lock though and suddenly your prospects become a bit brighter.

>Outside, the Hydra paces impatiently.
>It had been in the middle of stalking some prey before the bright flash when the stone block appeared, squashing its meal in the process.
>If there was one thing it didn't like, it was being deprived of food.
>A noise catches its attention.
>The animal has come out of its hole.

>Sure enough, it's still there.
>You wonder if it has any clue about what's going to happen and pray to whatever gods that may be watching, specifically the Greek gods, that your plan will work.
>In one hand, you hold a glass bottle. In it contains a cocktail of everything inside a medicine cabinet. You emptied the contents of every pill and ground up every tablet you found into the bottle, diluting the powder with every tonic there was to be found. You're hoping that what applies to humans about mixing medications applies to monsters too.
>The heads of the Hydra hiss menacingly, some of them snapping at each other, all of them eager to devour you.
“Catch.”
>You throw the bottle, arcing it perfectly towards the target.
>All the heads watch the bottle and one of them instinctively snaps forward and catches the bottle in its mouth. There's an audible swallow.
“Please work, please work, please work...” You mutter.
>The heads return their gaze towards you.
>Shit. It didn't work.
>You try and back away towards the cottage but trip. You don't even bother to try and crawl away. Face it, this is the end.
>One of the heads lowers itself to your level. Its mouth slowly widens, almost as if beckoning you to jump in.
>You close your eyes and wait for the inevitable.

>But nothing happens.
>You open your eyes and see the head is frozen in place. A few seconds later, you hear a gurgling noise coming from within the Hydra.
>If you weren't so frightened, you probably would have shouted your praises to Zeus there and then.
>The Hydra's head jerks back up. You notice the other heads are similarly acting off, like if they had been spinning around too much and had gotten dizzy. Suddenly, white foam starts bubbling out of their mouth and the creature stumbles. A minute later, it collapses, its breathing laboured and hoarse.
>It soon stops moving.
>You wait until you're sure this isn't an act the Hydra is putting on. Getting up, you take the knife off your backpack and cautiously walk up to the creature. Reaching its body, you poke at it a few times before decisively thrusting the blade into its rough flesh.
>There's no reaction.
>You do it a few more time just to be sure. Again, the Hydra don't so much as twitch.
>Your mental state now registers a 10 on the relief scale and a 16 on the badass scale. You let out the loudest primal roar you can and laugh your head off, stunned speechless at what you've just accomplished.
“Now THAT. THAT was pretty heroic!”


>You go back inside the house after taking some pictures of you and your trophy. Definitely an event that deserved to be documented. Gonna have some fun showing that off when you go to work. You figure if anyone was home, they would have been woken up by all the commotion.
>Your stomach grumbles. After all that exertion, you sure are hungry. You head to the kitchen to see what there is to eat.
>You check the fridge. Mostly fruits and vegetables, a few eggs, milk and... some hay? Okay whatever, must be some vegetarian living here. You take a couple of eggs.
>You turn to the cooker. Wow. A solid fuel burner. Never seen one of those in person before. Hopefully it's not that different from using a gas or an electric stove.
>It is. Lighting the damn thing was a challenge but you got it going soon enough. After the eggs were cooked, you found some bread on the table and made a sandwich. You decide to eat outside as there are no chairs for you to sit on at the table, just cushions.
>It's a really nice night you have to admit, despite the near death experience and the corpse lying 20 feet away. The sky has cleared and there's no light pollution so you can see loads of stars. You automatically recognise the Orion constellation so you determine you're still in the Northern Hemisphere. The Moon however is another matter: the craters are all wrong. What the hell is going on?

>As you take your final bite, you hear a clattering noise from inside. You unsheathe your knife rush in, hoping to find what it was, only to hear rapid thuds of someone or something running upstairs and a door slamming. You head upstairs cautiously, not wanting to run into an ambush after fighting that monster.
>There's only one door that's closed upstairs.
“Rookie mistake.” You whisper.
>You creep up, listening carefully. There's definitely someone inside. After a minute, it goes silent. You kick the door open, only to find the room empty and the window open.
>You look outside and see something flying away in the distance. It looks like a bird but you can tell it's bigger than any bird you've ever seen, even from this distance.
>This place is rustling your jimmies.
>You soon realise you're in a bedroom. Taking the opportunity, you decide to get some sleep. Before that though, you close the window and barricade it and the door using a wardrobe and a chest of draws respectively.
>You take off your rucksack and shoes and climb into the bed.
>It's really comfy, large enough to sprawl out too, although it does smell a bit strange. Whatever, it beats sleeping in a tent out in the elements and being eaten while you're asleep.
>You take off your glasses and put them on the bedside table.
>As you drift off, you think back to how your day began. Who would have thought you would be dealing with man-eating predators when you had your toast this morning? It'll be great to sleep past 9 without the neighbours shouting at each other for once, you think to yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaOi6ew6BmE