"As I said, I come originally from Camelot, the seat of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. With my ...partner, Sir Justin, I fought dragons, evil knights, dark wizards and rescued maidens. We used might for right.
"Then one day Merlin appeared before us, and announced that we had a great destiny. He enchanted Justin's sword and armor, and gave me my wings." Winged Victory spread his pinions.
"Soon thereafter, we fought a wicked giant, and although we won, we were trapped in an icy cave and slept for mamy years. When we were revived, I and Sir Justin found ourselves in a land called 'America', full of strange machines and great cities. But it too had monsters and criminals to battle, and maidens to rescue.
"We joined a group of great heroes known as the Seven Soldiers, and they were True Companions to us.
"And now I find myself here in...Equestria, you say?"
"Just stand perfectly still... oh." Since Shepard appeared to have zoned out already, Pink Eye was pleasantly surprised. ''"I guess I won't have to use the look after all. Handy ability to have.""' Then without further preamble she applied a series of swift kicks to Shepard's body, to force her prone and to literally cut the fur where it burned to the armor, which would allow the mare free from the rest.
Twilight nodded. "Okay then, Eddie. Well I'll figure out something for you, don't you worry!" She listened for a bit. "An adventure huh...? Possibly something to do around here..." She remembered at some point that she had actually used the Daring Do series- based on true stories of a legendary adventurer pony- to triangulate the positions of possibly important historical ruins. Important and dangerous. Perhaps they could explore some of them at some time... Twilight nodded to herself. She'd tell him when she could find the map she had drafted. It was surely in her library somewhere. "Anypony here willing to help me find some old things?"
"Oh Twilight, you know you can always count on me." Rarity then considered the stories she had heard out. "Dragon blood, Burns? I wonder if that means anything with respect tot he native dragons of Equestria?" She shuddered. "I hope not, they're awful beasts." She turned to Winged. "And yes sir, Equestria. Yours sounds like such a majestic story, really. Like the fairy tales we listen to as foals."
Satori considered Jake. "What is on the other side, then?" Of course she already knew, but she was just trying to make conversation. She wasn't especially forthcoming with information on her own world, it seemed.
The rest of B-Company was following the group, and was otherwise silent, listening to the story at large. None of them felt really compelled to add anything - their world sounded downright boring compared to the others. Excusing the Russians.
Shepard yielded. All of her armor came off at that point, tumbling to the floor in discarded, electrically-arcing pieces. Almost immediately, Shepard inspected it, looking for anything she could salvage from it. She kept one piece - which she managed to place on herself - that she promptly attached her folded-up firearms to.
edited 27th Mar '12 1:37:30 PM by SpartyMcFly
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp.""Hell 'f ah know. 'S a metaphor. Most talk 's a load'a campfire stories and gen'ral hogwash. ...'Course, if yer really curious, one tall tale th't crops up a lot 's 'bout the 'Spirit O' The West': some man ridin' about in an alabaster carriage, with a host o' 'golden guardians'."
And a Strange Figure Emerges.Winged Victory smiled wistfully—and was not aware of it, for his face too had new flexibility. "Yes, the people in America often compared us to fairy tales as well. I do not know the full story, but it is said that Camelot fell on dark times after we left. It was destroyed so completely that its very location became a legend, and for long centuries the cynical believed Camelot was completely made up."
"I have a bit of experience with archaeology," said Winged Victory to Twilight Sparkle. "Justin took a job with a museum in America."
"Well, that depends. The dragons where I am from are descendents of Akatosh, the god of time, and Alduin World-Eater was his firstborn. Some just want to be left alone, and I gladly oblige, but when they come swooping down breathing fire and ice on me and my pet goat while I'm walking between the holds, well, then they're asking for me to absorb their power."
"I'm always willing to help, Twilight."
...and that's terrible.Dungeon
"Whoa!" Pink staggered back as the armor flew off, startled by the sudden explosion of sharp metal. She quickly recovered and smiled at Shepard. "You good, dear?" The guard silently inspected the pile of armor after Shepard was done with it, with an attentive but inexperienced eye searching for anything suspicious in the wreckage. Rainbow had actually lingered, and as a result was around to be impressed Shepard's speed to the uptake.
"You're pretty fast, but I guess I already kind of knew that didn't I?"
Canterlot
Those following Rarity out had at this point emerged outside of the castle. Dawn was sort of breaking, sort of in that the sun seemed to be having trouble breaking over the horizon, popping up so that it's rays would break through the trees of the garden only to dip below just as quickly. Luna must have been having difficulty with the sun, and as a result a small trickle of well dressed ponies were trotting the streets ahead of the group, wondering at the weird behavior that was throwing off their normally rigid mornings. Rarity put a hoof above her eyes, inspecting the scene before turning back to her companions.
"So you were isolated from your own world then, Winged? It's as some legends of Equestria say- there are ancient secrets that have been hidden from us, that only persist in myths." She then turned to Burns. "Similar to dragons of our world then, only they breath exclusively fire. Still horrid beasts- or at best apathetic. I remember, in fact..." She was momentarily distracted by the memory of the adolescent dragons she had encountered when Spike had gone out on his journey of self discovery. Nasty little creatures from the moment they hit adolescence, it seemed. Thankfully Spike was an exception... right? That moment of morbid doubt was punctuated by a pat on the back from Satori, whose mind reading seemed to be more casually done now that she was a bit acclimated to the newcomers.
"Every companion is shaped more by their friends than by their nature, he'll grow up fine." Satori considered Jake. "Have you confirmed that legend personally?"
Twilight nodded at Eddie. "We are outside right now, so... Anyways, Winged got it right. If I can find some old maps I made up a while back that are in my archives somewhere, we could go exploring old pony ruins."
"Yeah, I know, but, see, thing is...uh..." He made a face. "I'd better just show you."
He flared his wings, taking to the air and flying just a short distance away, landing on his rear legs and taking the guitar from his back, bracing it again, obviously stopping for a second to once again consider just how impossible what he was doing really was, then began to play, a short, quick burst of rock music. The strange blasts of light that always came accompanied the playing, and a blinding light went off when he finished...when it cleared, a strange-looking vehicle
◊ was in front of him, and he all but pounced on it.
"DRUID PLOW!" He leapt into the driver's seat, all but putting his arms around the steering wheel, obviously overjoyed to see it. "You make everything better!" He looked it over while still in the seat, grinning. "Someone washed you!"
Easing back into life one step at a timeApplejack nodded to Fluttershy. "Alright then. Ah won' make ya do somethin' ya don't wanna. Mebbe Ah'll find somethin' fer him ta do."
Pinkie eyes widened at how awesome Joe's new flavor seemed to be. "Oooh...Coooooool... Okie Dokie! Gimme a nice, big tub full! If it's as good as you say it is, I'm gonna wanna share it with everypony!" Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
Shepard looked herself over, smoothing over some sections of fur. She promptly looked over to Pink Eye. "I'm good. Thanks for getting me out of that."
She turned to Rainbow. "No matter who you are, out on the battlefield, speed and reflexes is what keeps you alive. I've had about four or five years to practice. And as a Vanguard... makes it all the more important."
The guard would notice that the armor was mostly unsalvageable. However, even so, it looked advanced. Not magically advanced - whatever this was, it was clear and plain to see it wasn't magic - but it was beyond anything he would have seen with the Royal Guards. Even destroyed the plates looked like they could take a severe beating. However, one of the plates was oozing a translucent, light blue gel...
Sweetwater took notice of the hot rod. "...what? A hot rod? The hell is this doing here?"
Marlowe, ever proficient in his arts, nodded. "Gee, an M1A2 Abrams tank would be nice about now."
When nothing appeared, he shrugged. "Worth a try, at least."
edited 28th Mar '12 3:57:49 PM by SpartyMcFly
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."Dungeon
Pink Eye laughed heartily. "No problem, any time!" The nurse pony looked to the guard, who silently nodded to indicate that she was excused from her duty. "If you ever need a medic and you're in Canterlot, just find me! I'm right in the center of town, too!" She began to trot off.
Rainbow seemed impressed. "Five years? Man, I don't even practice every day. You must be dedicated as a... uh... Vanguard? Hey, I think we should catch up with the others." Her wings unfurled. "Race?" The Guard put a strong hoof down however, trotting before the stairwell out and barring their exit. "Hey, what-?"
"Your armor, miss." He indicated Shepard. "It's leaking... something. Is that going to be a security hazard?"
Canterlot
Satori nodded. "There are a lot of things better left undisturbed, I guess?" She blinked once against the sun, which had finally broken the horizon for good and was now casting rather strong light down onto the city. As they got closer to the crowd of gentry, the crowd began to disperse, muttering silently amongst themselves as they considered the outsiders with barely concealed trepidation. "Do they still dislike us?"
Fluttershy smiled. "Th-thank you, Applejack... So, what should we do now? Go home?" Fluttershy hoped that would be the answer, she had a funeral to attend when they got back home. She hadn't even told Angel about Gabriel's death yet. That would be harsh.
Rarity put a hoof to her mouth, somewhat amused by Eddie. "My, you seem to really love that vehicle of yours!" Twilight on the other hand was actually impressed.
"That's some powerful magic... wait, how are you going to drive that?"
Pony Joe's
Joe just nodded, crept into his backroom. A moment later he emerged, struggling with a large metallic container. It's very aura crackled with some strange power.
"I- hah- I won't charge you a bit! This ice cream is literally priceless!"
Shepard looked at it. Muttering something about squish skin under her breath, she turned to the guard and pointed at the blue gel. "That is medi-gel. It's a quick-application... uh, gel that basically allows you to keep wounds on the battlefield closed and not bleeding by hardening on application. Only ultrasonic emitters can remove it, so... uh, you're probably going to want a container or something."
She scouted out her armor and attempted to see where it was leaking from. She had used a lot of medi-gel during the Battle of Earth; and there was an empty, undamaged container. It was blackened and scarred, but undamaged. Using levitation, she (as carefully as she could) began to scoop the container into the still-soft gel, placing it inside.
Marlowe nodded. "Twilight has a point. You don't have hands, and hands are what you need to grip a wheel. And you don't have a horn either - so you can't use telekinesis to grip it."
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."Eddie jumped out of the seat of the car, flapping his wings to stay in the air, giving the others a somewhat incredulous look. "I can summon cars or call up animals or raise the sun or melt off someone's face with a magic guitar that I can somehow play even though I don't have any fingers, and you ask me how I'm gonna drive a car? Because of all those weirdnesses, only one of them has an easy fix." He zipped off...somewhere, nearly too fast for them to follow him, and stayed gone for a minute or two before returning with a length of rope, procured from who-only-knew-where, and landed back in the driver's seat with it, starting to quickly loop and tie and knot and wind it in a bizarrely elaborate pattern.
Within a couple minutes, they would see that he had knotted a few loops along the steering wheel, and one on the gear shift, all of them just wide enough for him to easily slip hooves through, and he gave things a few experimental pulls and twists and tugs, nodding to himself in satisfaction. "It'll take me some practice to get used to, but this'll work until I can rig up something more permanent. By the way, I hope it's okay if I can borrow this rope. Didn't look like it was attached to anything."
Easing back into life one step at a time"You know this thing's a two-seater, right? I guess we can attach a cart to the back of it if we have to, but uh, the way I drive, it wouldn't be comfortable." He flicked his mane back and reached down, using one hoof to carefully polish the 8-ball design at the end of the gear shift. "Thaaat's better."
Easing back into life one step at a time"Ah, come on! Where's your sense of adventure? Don't make me drive back...back? Back to where, the train station? 'cuz that's where I woke up with the tail and everything. So, uh...someone who knows where we're goin' would have to be up here with me navigatin' anyway."
Easing back into life one step at a time

Archer looked back and forth between Eddie and Burns.
“Honestly your world sounds a damn sight more interesting to live in than mine. Unless you count the Holy Grail war, the Blue, and the infighting in the Clocktower, its fairly normal.”
edited 26th Mar '12 8:04:23 PM by RevenVrake