Chapter 3

                    Finally free from Twilight's babbling and her morbid scientific curiosity, Anon settled into a nice little cave and hid as his brain begin to boot up in full force. He then did as any sane person would do given the circumstances, and began to talk to himself. "No more Twilight, no more Celestia, no more icebox, no more Twilight, no experiments, no dissection table, no Twilight, no Spike, no free sleeping quarters, no Twilight, no roof over my head, no bed, no Twilight..." He flailed his scrawny arms in the air and screamed so hard he coughed. "Oh, Jesus, why didn't I think! Was it the Popsicle box? She said it made me stupid! Oh, but apparently, it also gave me a spine and a pair of balls! Why am I thinking? Why can't I just keep being a dumb caveman that ain't scared of nothin'!" He then stared back out of the cave and watched the sun finally set below the horizon as wolves howled and whined like a pre-teen girl. "I'm gonna die here!"

                "Well, let's look on the bright side! She ain't gonna cut me open like those Roswell aliens!" "Oh bullshit, these stupid little horses are too soft for that crap, this ain't some Saw movie!" "Yeah, 'cause that warehouse and freezer were so nice and fluffy!" "Yup, and that coffee was SOOOO bitter and wasn't just coffee-flavored sugar at all!" "Oh fuck it, Twilight, I NEED YOOOOOOU-ACCCCH!" In the distance, a low raspy voice, belonging to some sort of monster, shouted "Shut up!", and he then remembered that he was not alone. "That's nice, scary monsters out to eat me! I can't sleep! I'll die! They'll eat me! Can't die in my sleep if I don't sleep! Yes, that's it. And I ain't gonna be no sittin' duck in this cave! No sir, I'm gonna be a monkey again, and I'm gonna head for the treetops!" As soon as he set foot outside the cave, wolves barked far away, compelling him to run and stumble hap-hazardously through the dark. Compunding his fear was his total nudity, without even a shred of clothing to stand between him and the thorns, burrs, and rocks. To keep himself from harm, he would need to walk more carefully, though his night vision was always shoddy. "Ah man, I can't see shit!" The same low, raspy voice he had heard earlier growled, "Watch your language." "Yeah, sorry man."

            He continued walking at his leisurely pace when it struck him that he was standing in the company of a large, dangerous, monster, and likely one that ate things far tougher than a limp-wristed wimp like him. He threw his hands in the air an ran as fast as he could, following the area that seemed the least dark. "Y'all come back now!", the voice shouted as he ran. There was something of a trail, with a very dim glow growing in the distance. When it ended, there were no lights to be found, but from there he could see a town with it's lights out under the moon's rays. The moon. It didn't feel as comforting as the moon back home did. This one was bigger, and had a presence that could be felt from the ground. No matter how far he was from dangerous beasts, Anon still didn't feel safe. He took some time to sit down on a hill and pluck thorns, burrs, and splinters from his skin and hair, fortunately with nothing more than scratches and a few small bruises on his person. Surveying the area, he could see a cottage with it's lights still on, and a small group of ponies entering. They were just colorful blobs at his distance, but of the two at the door, there was a purple one; He knew that particular shade of purple. It was her.

        This was his chance to apologize. Then again, it was also a chance for him to hand himself over to Josef Mengele in the form of a small horse. Fear rose in his gut yet again, with scenarios of violent capture and torture running through his head. Still, he was tempted by a desire to know what they were meeting for, if even it was about him. He could just waltz up to the door, knock and throw a little pity party, but in his mind he could see nothing but misery resulting from that. But his curiosity could not be sated, so he compromised with himself and decided he would creep and eavesdrop.

    The walk wouldn't have taken long, but the direct route left him open to be spotted by nocturnal hooligans, so of course he stuck to the edge of the forest. Due to his odd physique, he could crawl about on all fours with no discomfort, reducing the sound of his approach and adding to his stealth. The house itself was only about as tall as one-story ranch, and yet seemed to have two stories. These things were quite tiny, after all. Climbing onto it was like climbing on a jungle gym, with all the struts, windowsills, and branches, it was as if it was made fro him to creep on. He leered through a window at the little ponies gathered down below and listened closely. "...and if I can't find him, all our work is for nothing! Our one chance at relations with an alien species ruined!" A brash voice said, "But this guy's bad news! He tried to beat you up and hit you with a rock!" Twilight rubbed a lump on her head and said, "So he's not very friendly, smart, or cooperative, but he hasn't had a single good day since he got here, and we weren't exactly the nicest bunch."

Anon felt a sinking feeling that was familiar to him even before his little odyssey; Guilt. Sure, his living conditions weren't The Ritz, but it would've gotten better, more so if that little fucker Spike hadn't woken him from his nap. He would've asked himself why he thanked Spike, but he remembered that at the time he was literally mentally retarded.

An orange horse, a farmer and a stereotypical redneck named Applejack, asked "Yew sayin' this Anun' feller was just scared?", and the yellow one, a doormat with the fitting name of Fluttershy, added something to her question that was inaudible to Anon. "Which is all the more reason to start looking for him now before-" A shrill scream from the white horse cut her off as they turned their attention to the window and Anon's face behind it. With a gasp, he jumped to the ground, twisting an ankle in the process, because it was anything but a graceful fall. He scrambled to his feet in time for Twilight and the gang to see him. Stalking certainly wouldn't help those "alien relations" Twilight spoke of, and if anything made him look like something out of a bad ufo story.

                        If Anon thought ill fortune awaited him before, it certainly would now. If magic hoers land laws bore any resemblance to American law, he was already guilt on two counts of aggravated assault and harassment. This would earn him a few years in whatever sort of dungeons they threw convicts in. He began to run back to the forest despite Twilight's pleas to return, and in his mind he already realized that running would lengthen his sentence. With any luck, he might die before they find him and he wouldn't have to serve a minute of jailtime. He hated the thought of dying in a world like this, but without any demonstrable survival skills or chance of returning home, there wasn't anything for him to lose. That thought actually made him want go back and give life in pone world a shot. Nevertheless, he continued to run before he ran short of breath and had to rest in a small clearing. Confident that he was lost once again, he made his choice, and he would keep running.

                    He knew what he was, and without an icebox to give him a mental handicap and take away his fear, he was a coward, and he felt no remorse for it. Let them come, he thought, I'll always be ahead of them. More to his encouragement, there might be things other than ponies out here, given that the boy who freed him was a baby dragon of all things. But before he could go anywhere, he would need one thing: clothes.

                He knew where his clothes were, but the problem was, it wasn't a convenient location. They were at Twilight's house, the very place he had no intention of returning to and a place of consequence should he be caught. And yet, with Twilight looking for him in the forest, she wouldn't be able to get him at her home. Of course, that was an assumption, he wasn't sure if they would go looking for him now or regroup and look later, until the sound of Applejack saying "I thought I saw him go this way" confirmed his suspicion. He leaped up to the trees and peered through the leaves at the ponies below. "Well, where is he?" Twilight asked "Well, ah saw him mopin' here, but-" "But nothin'! Ya lost him, Applejack!" Anon sneered at how obnoxious the blue one was. For whatever reason, the white one stayed behind; He didn't know it yet, but she was too prissy to risk chasing down a feral alien.

            They galloped on away from him, further into the woods, increasing the chances for his plans' success. Following their tracks, he snuck out of the forest and back to the edge of town, to press his luck and get himself some passable protection from the elements. He had left tracks of his own when Spike released him, and they weren't hard to find at all, especially since it had rained the night before and the dirt roads were a bit muddy. Of course, given the possibility of being seen despite the late hour, he stuck to the rooftops and jumped around town like a monkey. Upon seeing her house for the first time with a functioning brain, it appeared as a wide, hollowed out tree, like something an elf would live in. Through the highest window, he slid into an observatory, and a nervous Spike tried to sleep in a basket at the foot of Twilight's bed. His stealth was scuppered when a creaking floorboard alerted Spike, and Anon lunged at him and placed his hand over the boy's mouth. "Not a peep to Twilight, kiddo."

        He removed his hand from Spike's mouth and asked, "Did you see any clothes down there? In the lab?" "Well, yeah, but Twilight threw 'em away 'cause they were ratty!" "Oh God, now what am I gonna wear!" "What's the big deal, are you goin' somewhere-" "Spike, you may not understand this, but where I come from, nobody likes people running around with their dicks out in public." He sighed heavily at the thought of lowering himself to the level of these talking beasts. "Is there anything I can wear?" "Well, there's only one thing I think you can." Spike walked over to a large dresser and pulled out a black suit made of some sort of latex-like material with a hole for the face. "I don't see anywhere my fingers can go." "It's magic, it fits me too!" Reluctant to try on a fetish-y catsuit with support for his genitals, Anon grabbed a short, thin scarf and wrapped it around his crotch before slipping into the suit. For something that looked like rubber or latex, it breathed surprisingly well.

    "Say, does Twilight have like, a vanity, or somewhere she cuts her hair?" "What? Why do you need that?" "Spike, I look like a hobo caveman." "Caveman?" "Yes, caveman, I hear you guys say 'man' all the time, but do you ever wonder what that word means?" "Wait, so a man- Is.. what you are?" "Yeah, now does Twilight have grooming supplies or what?" Spike led Anon to a bathroom filled with all manner of girly soaps and shampoos, but before he even came to Equestria, Anon had used girl soap several times. He made a large mess and splashed water everywhere as he snipped, bathed and shaved; Twilight did indeed possess a razor, but Anon did not want to know why she did, though he would find out eventually. He wiped up the water and threw his clipped hiar out the window, as it would sink into the mud when it rained again the next morning, leaving no evidence. And yet while he got what he came for, he was still overtaken by the urge to snoop in Twilight's lab. "Spike, which way is the lab?" "I thought you knew, you ran right out when I let you go." "Let's just say I.. forgot. Now where is it?"

The lab was down a hall from the library, which comprised most of the first floor, and therein lied the familiar sight of the icebox and Twilight's strange bits and bobs she used for science. Among those things were objects from earth, such as physics textbooks, scuffed boots and, strangely enough, a gas mask with two boxed filters. Anon was immediately engrossed with the gas mask and boots, though they did indeed make him look like a fetish-freak. They were still cool, and though the books were interesting and enlightening, he couldn't afford to carry the around like an albatross around his neck, or damage them since they could learn from them as well. Snapping back into his usualy selfish demeanor, he took the least feminine shoulder bag he could find and placed the filters inside before marching up to the window to leave again. However, the missing boots and mask would tip Twilight off that he had invaded her home, and this would also implicate Spike. Before leaving he said to Spike, "It Twilight asks, you were sound asleep when I broke in."