Inhuman

Chapter 3: An.... Interesting Breakfast

While Twilight dabbled with humans, there was something much more concerning and mysterious going on within the capital city of Canterlot.  The city was fairly quiet, or at least as quiet as the city could be, because most of its residents were now asleep.

That definitely wasn't true for a certain Princess.

Princess Luna was always awake at this time of night, as... she WAS the Princess of the Night after all.  Night was her domain, and guarded it while her sister slept, for when she awoke, it would be time to raise the sun.

Luna's night court was always much, much smaller than Celestia's day court, but Luna made a habit of holding it every single night if possible, to make sure that her subjects were always attended to, even during the time they were supposed to be asleep.

Tonight, there were much more pressing matters to be attended to, however.  So pressing that she had sent the guards to wake up her sister.

This was because earlier, when she was holding her night court, she had been interrupted.  Her personal guards were usually draped away in the shadows, guarding quietly.  They were much less flashy and far more subdued than Celestia's guards, and some ponies even thought they didn't exist.

It's easy to see why Luna would be so surprised when one of her guards barged into the throne room while night court was taking place.

Naturally, the somewhat temperamental princess did not take kindly to this approach.

"What is the meaning of this?!" she exclaimed, this time in the Royal Canterlot Voice.  Those attending the court winced at the volume, but the guard was not perturbed.

"I bring important news, your highness!  I have to immediately inform you that we have reported another disappearance.  It is indeed another unicorn..."

"WHAT?!  Another one!?" Luna exclaimed, stomping her hoof against the marble floor as her voice shook.  Fuming, she began to calm herself, speaking in a much quieter, modern voice.

"That is the fifth disappearance this month.  Are you sure this one is linked with all the others?" Luna asked.  Ponies came and went after all; there could be an alternative explanation for this.

"Nay, your highness.  It happened in Baltimare.  They must be getting extremely confident, for it occurred where there were a number of witnesses to be found.  The disappeared pony's name is Trixie, though, uh... she prefers to go by the Great and Powerful Trixie..." the guard explained.

"I do not care about the title that she wishes to call herself!  Tell me the details of the disappearance, now!" she demanded, and this time the guard winced.

"Yes, your highness!  There is absolutely nothing else to say but that it was the same as all the others.  A unicorn going missing, with strange reports surfacing directly after.  This time though, somepony managed to get a picture..." he leaned over, producing a small portrait from his armor, and showed it to Luna.

Her eyes widened, and her horn glowed as she looked upon the picture.

"Awaken my sister, immediately!"

Despite just crawling out of bed, Princess Celestia managed to make herself look regal in a quick span of time.  That did not mean she was happy about being woken up, however.

She walked into the throne room, a little on the grumpy side, which was considerably rare for the calm, motherly Princess that always seemed to radiate a feeling of warmth and happiness.

"This had better be important, Luna..." she warned, and the close observer could see very slight bags underneath her eyes.  Even the Princess of Equestria was subject to biology.

The Night Princess nodded.

"It is, Tia.   There has been another one..." she said, in a subdued tone.  As soon as Luna finished that sentence, all the sleep and crankiness seemed to disappear from Celestia's visage, and she was at alert.

"What?  Are you positive, Luna?   Where was it this time?" she asked.

"Baltimare.  A unicorn mare named Trixie disappeared there not too long ago.  That's not what makes this disappearance so important, though.  One of the eyewitnesses managed to take a picture of the rumored "Hooded Gorilla"."

Celestia's eyes widened.  This string of disappearances was definitely bizarre.  Prior to Trixie, there had been four earlier disappearances in this month alone that all carried similar circumstances.  They were all unicorns, they were all magically gifted unicorns, and they all disappeared without a trace.

During the second disappearance, things took a turn to become even stranger.  Ponies who had been at the scene said they caught a glimpse of a strange beast that walked around on two legs.  It wore clothes, and its face had been obscured by the hood it wore, they said, but the slightly humpbacked nature of the beast seemed to give off the appearance of a somewhat leaner gorilla.

Rumors were being thrown around as to what that thing was, if it even existed, but until now the crown had just regarded them as just that: rumors.  The crown really didn't pay attention to the disappearances and were content to let the local authorities handle it.  That is, until Celestia realized that only magically talented unicorns were disappearing.  She had wanted to keep a personal eye on the investigation from that point on, in case there was something bigger at work here.

But now, this changed everything.

The picture glowed blue, and Luna levitated it over to Celestia, where the sun Princess scanned the picture.  Trixie wasn't in it, but she did notice the hooded figure that seemed to be running away from through the outside of Baltimare, being pursued by stationed guards.

Celestia took in the figure.  It matched the description almost perfectly.  It stood about a head taller than regular-sized ponies, and walked on two legs.  That's about all she could tell from the quality of the picture and the clothes it was wearing.  The clothes were the real problem.  It was dressed in a loose blood red robe from head to foot, its hood up and concealing its head.  On the back of the robe was a strange symbol of a pentagram or magic circle covered in what appeared to be spines or thorns.  All in all, it was an extremely baffling picture.

"Well, what do we do, sister?"

"I see.  Well, unfortunately we cannot draw any conclusions from this alone.  We do not know what it is, and we did not see Trixie within that image.  However, we have gained some particularly valuable information with regards to these disappeances through this..."

Luna nodded, before her sister turned to her with a serious look in her eyes.

"At the very least, we know that there is something much bigger at stake here..."

"SPIIIIKKKE!" Twilight Sparkle shouted as she entered her home.  She didn't even care about the fact that it was the middle of the night; she needed her assistant right there.

The baby dragon had taken the opportunity to go back to sleep with Twilight, but with her back and shouting at him, he woke with a start and tumbled out of his basket when he heard his name.

"HUH?!  WHAT?!  I didn't shut the window on Owloysius again!  I promise!" he explained frantically, as he crawled to his feet and realized that he just woke up.

"Never mind that now, Spike!  I need you to find every single book on fauna and mythological creatures you can!  Get them to me immediately!" she demanded.

The confused dragon got even more confused when he halted on the steps and saw the strange two-legged creature walk right into through the door.

"Whoa, you live in a goddamn tree?" Zach asked, his eyes alight with wonder.

"Uh, Twilight.  What is this?" he asked bluntly.  Zach himself seemed confused and even perturbed at the sight of the baby dragon.

"Yeah, Twilight.  What is this?" he asked, pointing to Spike.  Spike and Zach stared at each other for a few awkward seconds, neither of them saying anything.

Twilight grunted; she was already flipping through a book at a near impossible speed, her brow knit into a picture of frustration.

"Zach, that's Spike, a baby dragon.  Spike, that's Zach, a human.  Now you know.  More importantly, why aren't you getting those books, Spike?!"

Zach looked at her incredulously.

"Seriously?  A dragon!?  Well, you mentioned those before, but I didn't think you were actually serious?" he asked, but then he thought about it.  He was in another world... universe probably, populated by magical talking ponies and not a human in sight.  The fact that there were dragons should be the least of his concerns.

"Hey!  What's wrong with dragons?  And sorry, but I don't think I've ever heard of humans before!" Spike asked irritated, his small claws on his hips.  Zach just set a deadpan look on him.

"Uh, nothing really.  It's just that well... dragons don't exist where I come from..."

"Oh..." said Spike.  There was an awkward silence again.

Twilight decided to get in on the conversation, snapping the book closed as the boys spoke.

"You say that dragons don't exist where you come from, but you seem to be familiar with the concept of them.  Care to explain?" she asked.

"Yeah.  Dragons don't physically exist where I come from, but the idea of them does.  They're mythological creatures basically, used in stories and fairy tales and the like.  Kinda like... well, unicorns... actually," he finished lamely.

"I see..." Twilight regarded him with a narrow look.

"Oh yeah!  Spike!  Where are those books?!"

The poor assistant dragon was running all over the place, looking for books on animals and mythological creatures to give to Twilight.  He was handing her them one by one, and soon enough there was a stack of at least a dozen books on the desk where she was studying.

"What exactly are you looking for, anyway?  We sorta rushed here kinda quickly..."

"I'm looking to see if there's any information on your kind, whether it be in these animal books or books on mythology." she explained, flipping through pages.

"That's it?  I don't see the point of that, really.  No one here so far has ever heard of a human, and believe me... if we're around, you'd definitely be hearing from us.  The only conclusion that I can come to is that I'm not even from this planet..."

Spike backed away quickly.

"What?  You're an alien!?  For real!?" he asked, a twinge of fear in his voice.  Zach looked at him bluntly, while Twilight closed her book.

"We can't be sure of that, though.  That's why I'm looking.  Besides, I think it's a little far-fetched that you came here from another planet..."

"At this point, I'm not even sure it's just another planet..." Zach said somberly.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm starting to think that I'm really in another universe, or dimension if you will."

Twilight looked at him incredulously, before she scoffed.

"That's ludicrous.  Even if other universes existed, at this point that's nothing more than a hypothesis.  Not to mention, there's no real way to travel between universes anyway." she said, levitating a book.  She was ready to ask another question, but Zach seemed to be staring intently at the book floating in mid-air.

"How the fuck are ya doing that?" he asked in amazement.  He was fairly observant, so he noticed the stream of energy around her horn, and the same color around the book.

Twilight looked confused.

"Huh?  What do you mean?  I'm just using my magic..." she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  Well, for Zachary, it clearly wasn't.

"Magic?!  You can't JUST be using magic!  That's a pretty big deal here!" he said, his mouth practically hitting the floor as he saw it.

"I still don't see how it's such a big deal.  Magic is something that exists in everything; you shouldn't be that shocked when you see it..." she explained.

"Oh, that's right.  I'm in a world of talking ponies, for God's sake.  I shouldn't really be surprised by anything I see here.  Besides, I probably already saw it when I was high on weed or something..." he said, forcing himself to calm down.

Twilight was still confused.

"I probably shouldn't even mention the fact that magic doesn't even exist in my world..." he commented with a quick, cracking laugh.

"WHAT?!" Twilight screamed, for what must've been the one-hundredth time that night.  Once again, it looked like she was about to have an aneurism.

"But... how... why do... how do.... WHAT?!" she managed to stammer.  Both Spike and Zachary looked at each other, and a brief moment of understanding flashed between the two.

Twilight's whole body was twitching now, and her face had scrunched up into a permanent grimace of confusion and over-thinking.  Spike actually had to walk up to her and adjust her face back to normal.  When he did, the only thing she had to say was...

"HOW?!"

"It just doesn't exist.  That's probably the best way to explain it.  Keep in mind that you saying magic does exist has got me just as confused as you." Zach explained.

Twilight shook her head, allowing herself to calm down.

"That shouldn't be possible.  Everything needs magic to live, no exceptions, and for a creature to just show up and say there's no magic where he lives is just... it can't be true!"  It looked like her entire life was being turned around at the thought of it.

"Does this mean you finally believe me when I say I'm from another universe?" he asked, grinning at her like he had just won.  Twilight scowled at him.

"You just keep throwing that idea around without really knowing anything.  And maybe you think there's no magic where you come from, but that doesn't make it true..."

Zach frowned at her.

"Do you even know how I got here?"

Twilight shook her head.

"Well, I got home from to my dorm after I had finished my classes at college... that's a school, by the way.  And I was so tired so I basically collapsed on my bed and fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.  The next thing I knew, I was waking up to an explosion and I found myself in some bushes in the forest you found me in  I'm guessing the explosion had something to do with me arriving here, but I can't say for sure," he commented.

"Well, that certainly is strange, but still... that's pretty circumstantial if you ask me.  There's no good enough evidence in that story to be able to conclude that you're from another universe..." Twilight said skeptically.

"Well, that's my story so I'm sticking to it.  I'm from another universe and that is that..." he said bluntly.

Twilight huffed at his stubbornness.

"Fine!  Be that way, then.  But see what happens when I find an article about humans in that book.  Then you'll find out you're just a far-flung civilization that just hasn't had any contact with ponies..."

"Twilight... you're not going to find anything in that book.  How many times do I have to tell you that?  But, if you're really insistent on that, don't you have someone you can ask about this kind of stuff?  The sooner we figure that out, the easier it'll be for the both of us," Zachary said.

Twilight actually stopped reading her book and looked at him, pondering the course of action.

"Hmm, that might not be a bad idea, actually.  I can always talk to my teacher, Princess Celestia, about this.  Is there's anyone who would've ever heard of humans, it's her..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Hold up a second!  You mean that you're teacher is a princess of all things.  Doesn't that mean you're like... a bigshot or something?" Zachary asked, his eyes wide.

Twilight smirked at him, her eyes alight with pride.

"Yes, she took me under her wing when I was just a little filly.  She said she's never seen anypony with such a magical talent.  I've been happily studying underneath her ever since," she beamed with pride.

Zachary's eyes softened.  It seemed that this purple pony was really close to her teacher.  The way she talked about her made it seem like she regarded her almost like a mother.  It was unlike teacher-student relationships on Earth.

"Ha!  I've done things your feeble human mind couldn't even comprehend!  But I'll make sure to tell you about those later.  I'm not one to brag about them after all!" she huffed.

"Yeah, right..."

"Uh, yeah, Twilight.  I'll make sure to ask about them later..." he added.

"Well, your feeble human mind actually had a good idea.  Spike, take a letter!" she ordered her assistant.  The baby dragon had been watching the two of them argue in silence, waiting for a chance to butt into the conversation or sneak away back to bed entirely.  The opportunity hadn't presented itself yet.

"Dear Princess Celestia,

Today, something very interesting happened.  I'm afraid I don't have a friendship report this time, but there is something I would like seek your guidance.  You see, tonight there was a large explosion coming from White Tail Woods, but more importantly I made a very interesting discovery.  A creature I have never encountered before.  He calls himself a human, and as you might have guessed, he has the ability to talk.  I've never seen anything remotely resembling him before, except maybe a monkey.  He is almost completely hairless, walks and two legs, and is much taller than a normal pony.  The strange thing is that he's claiming he's from another universe, or dimension if you will, but both of us have no idea how he got here!  He also seems to lack a common level of knowledge on basic subjects such as magic and ponies themselves!  I have no idea how to handle this situation, and I would be incredibly enthused if you would happen to know what a "human" is or how I might handle this situation.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle."

"And... done!" Spike called out, as Twilight recited the letter to him.

"Pretty flattering words you have of me there..." Zach commented.  Twilight blushed.

"Hey, I'm just telling it like it is!"

"What's a "friendship report"?" he deadpanned.  Normally purple cheeks got even redder at that.

"Uh, I'll tell you later.  Spike, send it!"

The baby dragon blew a stream of green fire over the parchment, watching it crumble into incinerated fragments.  Zachary looked at it in amazement.

"What was that?"

Twilight grinned at him.

"Magic..." she said in a condescending tone.

"You're right, though.  The only to do now is wait for Princess Celestia's response, but she shouldn't be awake right now.  I really do need to slow down..." she yawned.  "I have so many things to ask you, but they can wait until the morning..."

"No kidding.  If I told her about the type of technology we have, she may never shut up..." Zach thought.  He made a mental note to never go into detail about that.

"Well, if you're getting ready for bed, I'll just be going then..." Zach said hastily, and a little overly polite.  Twilight stared at him quizzically.

"Where are you even going to go?  You don't have anywhere, do you?  You just dropped right into the middle of White Tail Woods, as far as you're concerned..." Twilight noticed.  Zach halted in his tracks, his hand on the doorknob.

"Uh, we barely know each other.  It wouldn't feel right to stay with you..."

"Nonsense.  You may be a new species, but so far you've been nothing but civilized the entire time, even if you are a bit annoying.  I'm the one that found you, and I don't shut the door on any sapient creature who might be in need. Not to mention, I still have so many more questions to ask..."

Spike's eyes widened.

"Wait, wait, wait!  He's gonna be staying here?!  B-But... but he's an alien!  Who knows what'll happen if we let him stay under our own roof! He might zap us with some kind of weird beam or whatever!"

Twilight looked at him, unamused.

"Spike, he's probably not even an alien.  And we can't just throw him on the street like that.  There's no reason to believe that he's any danger..." she turned to Zach.  "You can stay here, until you get back on your hooves- I mean... whatever... those are..." she said awkwardly, looking at his shoe-covered feet.

Zachary smiled at her.

"Well, it's hard for me to turn down such a generous offer..." he remarked.  Spike just stared at both Twilight and Zachary in terror.

Twilight smiled cutely at him.

"I'll pull out the extra mattress for you and you can make your own bed from that.  Follow me upstairs and I'll show you..." she said, as the human quickly shut the door, walking past a wary dragon and up the stairs.

Twilight didn't seem to care about Spike's reservations, but there was one thing that was bugging her though.  If she were in Zach's situation, she'd probably be very eager to find her way home.  But not once that night had he mentioned or asked about a way to get back to his home.

She couldn't help but wonder why...

The morning sun peek through the window and hit Zach's face.  He had taken to sleeping on a mattress on the floor that night, a few feet away from Spike's basket.  Of course, he took up a lot more space than the little dragon, but man could that kid snore.

Nonetheless, he had gotten a good sleep last night anyway, so he was already in a good mood.  He cracked an eye open; neither Twilight nor Spike were there.

Yet as he woke up, he realized that it wasn't all a dream.  He was half-expecting to just wake up in his own bed back at his dorm, yet he was still sleeping on a mattress on the second floor of a library in a town of talking ponies.

Meh, it didn't hurt his mood that badly.

There was something wafting through the air right now, and it made his mouth water.  He had had a long night yesterday, and he hadn't had anything to eat since he got here.

Luckily, they spoke his language, if the smell of breakfast from downstairs was anything to go by.

He got out of bed and stretched, his mind fixated on only one thing: food.

He smiled and began his way downstairs, his weight making a light creak as he descended out of the bedroom.  As he neared the kitchen, his hunger was forcing his mind into overdrive.

The smell was getting more pungent too, and it was definitely coming from the kitchen.  As he entered into the room, he saw both occupants already up and getting ready for the day.

Twilight was perched at the breakfast table, while Spike was at the stove, dressed in an apron and chef's hat, toiling away on what appeared to be some type of dish.

"Good morning, Zach!" Twilight said, her nose already in a book.  Spike grunted something from the stove, clearly not trusting Zach all that much yet.

"Yeah, mornin'" he yawned.  The smell was still overpowering him.  He noticed that breakfast had already been made; Spike had apparently been hard at work, because there was a big plate of pancakes stacked at the table, and a couple of them were already on Twilight's plate.

It smelled so good.

"Spike already made breakfast.  Hope you like pancakes, Zach, because there's plenty.... of.... them... to.... go.... around...." she trailed off.

Zach didn't pay attention to her, and he walked right by the plate of pancakes and the breakfast table, confusing Twilight.  There was a strange look on his face...

The human was still sniffing out the source of the good smell.  He walked past the breakfast table, nonchalantly walking up to the large wastebasket next to Spike.

With a deep breath, he opened his mouth and shoved his head straight into the plastic liner of half-eaten food and disposable goods, and began to eat...