Heart and Mind

Chapter Two: A New World

“Who are you?”

Slowly but surely Hotshot began to wake up. The first sense to return was his hearing, but it was difficult to hear past the ringing in his ears.

“Where did you come from?”

Next was his tongue followed by an unrecognizable taste that Hotshot could only describe as purple? His mouth tasted like purple.

“What happened?! Who is…?”

Hotshot tried to open his eyes but every movement he made came with pain. His heart was slow and his breathing labored but despite all of this he had to see; he had to know why he could no longer hear the fight. Was it over? Had they lost? Finally, after what seemed like an eternity Hotshot was able to get his eyes open to see a hoof. At first he thought it belonged to the unicorn who shot him but that hoof was white, this one was lavender. Hotshot tried to look up but to no avail due to the pain in his neck.

“Who are you?” The voice was definitely feminine but not any he recognized. Having no idea what to do Hotshot began by answering the question.

“Hotshot?” asked another voice coming from the side. This one was a bit more masculine but it sounded young.

“Spike! Not now” the female voice barked. Spike. Was that the name of the young one? Hotshot lifted his head past the pain to get a better look at this mare. The first thing he noticed were her eyes; they were a deep purple just like her coat and lined with her curiosity. They even looked a bit scared, but also warm and welcoming. It was then that Hotshot noticed the horn above them.

In a single motion Hotshot got up on his hooves and jumped back but the pain was too much for him to handle and Hotshot collapsed to his knees. His breath was short and his body was shaking. Hotshot took another good look at the frightened pony and noticed that while she did have a horn she also had a pair of wings. ‘Alicorn’ Hotshot thought. He had never seen an alicorn before, but Hotshot knew they were some of the most powerful magi in the universe; only outclassed by an archon. ‘Remember Hotshot’ came his mother’s voice from a lesson years ago. ‘If you ever encounter an alicorn RUN! There is no way you can fight it by yourself’.

Hotshot looked around the room for a way out but none existed. While there was some windows there was no way he could fly out in his condition and the alicorn was standing between him and the door. He was going to have to fight this powerful being all by himself or… “Just do it”

“Do what?” the mare asked.

“Kill me.” This single phase took the mare back. She looked not only surprised but confused and worried. Could this alicorn really be worried about Hotshot? “It’s what you want, isn’t it?” he continued.

“Why would I want to… to kill you?” Hotshot noticed the hesitation. It’s like just saying the word was a sin to her. Was it possible that this alicorn did not want to kill him? Of course not.

“Isn’t it your job to do so?” Hotshot asked with a bit of scorn in his voice.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. Now that was a strange question. He was obviously talking about the hunt; the war is not over until every psion is dead. So why did she not want to kill him? Could she really not know what he was? Or was it something else?

“What am I?” Hotshot asked. Now this really confused the alicorn beyond words so the young purple dragon standing next to her spoke.

“A pegasus?” he asked while scratching his head which proved to Hotshot that these two really did not know that he was a psion and it was probably for the better. He was safe, for now.

That just left Hotshot with one more question. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the Ponyville library” the alicorn said, slowly regaining her thoughts. Ponyville, he had never heard of a place like that before, and wasn’t he just in Avalonia? A quickly as his injured body could carry him Hotshot made his way past the alicorn, who made no attempt to stop him, and to the door. Once he got the door open his senses were assaulted by the blinding light and the chill wind. Hotshot felt cold, from his hooves to the tip of his wings. Once his eyes adjusted to the bright outside light Hotshot realized he was standing in snow.

As far as he could tell everything was covered in a thin blanket of snow. There were ponies of all kinds walking or flying around carrying bags and wearing boots and scarves. Hotshot tried to take a step but he finally gave into the pain and collapsed onto the snow. The alicorn quickly rushed to his side and helped him up. It was only then that he noticed the red marks in the snow from the blood dripping down his nose. Bloody noses were not good, that meant that all of Hotshots powers were spent and using any more psi would liquefy his mind.

“That looks bad” the alicorn observed. “Spike! Get some towels!”

“Who are you?” Hotshot managed to ask while he was being escorted back inside.

The alicron looked at him for a moment before replying with “My name is Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight lead Hotshot to a chair and sat him down while Spike came with a box of tissues. Twilight promptly started rolling the tissue and gently using them to stop the bleeding from Hotshot’s nose.

“Where exactly is Ponyville” Hotshot asked.

“It’s a town in Equestria” Twilight replied as she threw away the ruined jump suit. Equestria, a place that Hotshot had never heard of before, which meant that he was right in assuming that he had somehow left Avalonia. Unfortunately this presented him with a few new questions, such as how he managed to arrive in this strange world and why didn't he die in the battle? He could ask this and reveal to Twilight what he is and she would kill him, but was that such a bad thing? He had no way off of this planet so why not just end it all? Then another thought crossed his mind, Ombra and Thundra. Without Hotshot helping them they were most likely killed. That meant there were two less psions to pass on their powers. In that moment Hotshot realized why he couldn't die. The responsibilities of both Ombra and Thundra had been passed on to him.

“Why are you helping me?” Hotshot asked.

“Well… Because you need it.” Twilight responded.

Twilight asked how Hotshot go so beat up but he refused to tell her, insisting that the cuts and bruises came from multiple accidents. While this answer annoyed her, Twilight accepted it and over the course of the next few hours she cleaned and treated his wounds.

Every touch and spell she performed was unnerving to Hotshot however, it was also strangely gentle. Hotshot had only ever seen magic being used for fighting or destruction and now it was being used to heal. After Twilight finished her work she left Hotshot in the spare bed and left the room along with Spike.

Hotshot had to get away, if not from the planet then at least from this town. The longer he stayed with Twilight the more danger he was in. The problem was that he needed to find a way out of Twilights tree house. She was not in the room with him so escaping was as easy as jumping out the window but when Hotshot moved toward the window he remembered just how badly wounded he was. Normally a simple two story drop is nothing to him but with his powers drained the fall could be deadly, so going out the window was not an option. This meant that for Hotshot to get out he would have to sneak past without Twilight or Spike noticing him.

He began to make his way down the stairs, pushing past the protests of his body. Before he entered the main room of the library Hotshot peeked in and looked around; the alicorn and the dragon were nowhere to be found. Hotshot dashed toward the door as fast as his body could carry him, opened the door and jumped outside. Now that he was out of the library all he had to do was make it out of the town, which shouldn’t be too hard.

Hotshot progressed through the snowy town without calling much attention to himself. It was nice to see that only about a third of the town was made up of unicorns while the rest of the ponies were the non-magical kind. As he walked through the town Hotshot noticed just how cold he was getting. He wanted to do something about it, like a heating circle, but his mind still would not allow it. He would just have to press on and maybe find a scarf. It was while this thought crossed Hotshots mind a pink blur zoomed past him, almost knocking him off of his hooves. “What was that?” Hotshot muttered to himself as he regained his balance. The blur came rushing back and stopped right in front of him. It was a pink pony, an earth pony to Hotshot’s relief.

“OOOO I’ve never seen you before hi I’m Pinkie Pie what’s your name?” Asked the pink pony. It took Hotshot a moment to process what she just said but he eventually answered with his name. “Your new here right?” Pinkie Pie asked and without waiting for an answer she continued “that means I need to throw you a party. You see I give every new pony in Ponyville a welcome party because I love meeting new ponies and making new friends so give me an hour to get the party ready and everypony is invited so meet me at sugar cube corner alright.” With that the pink pony ran off leaving Hotshot bewildered. A party was the last thing he wanted. Hotshot needed to get out of the town without getting noticed. With that he continued on his way to the outskirts of town.

--

“Oh no oh no he’s gone!” Twilight frantically yelled as she paced across the library.

“Relax Twilight” Spike reassured her. “Where could he have gone?”

“He must have gone into town” Twilight continued. “But he is in no condition to be moving around in the cold. I have to go find him.” Twilight stopped and thought for a moment. “Of course! If he went into town somepony must have seen him. That or he must have left tracks in the snow.” Twilight ran to the door and rapped her pink and purple scarf around her neck. “Stay here Spike in case he comes back.” Twilight said as she opened the door and began her search.

The first thing that Twilight noticed was that Hotshot left hoof prints in the snow just as she had expected. Hotshot did have a lot of bandages on and he did seem to be in a lot of pain so he could not have been moving very fast. Twilight followed the prints into town but this plan quickly turned sour when Hotshots tracks began to mix with the tracks of others. Eventually there was no way to differentiate Hotshots hoof prints from everypony else’s. She looked around frantically for any sign of the pegasus only to find everything in the town was normal. Ponies where going about their days shopping and talking, they had no clue as to what was happening with the alicorn.

“Hey Twilight!” A voice came from above. Twilight looked up to see Rainbow Dash coming down from a cloud. “What are you up to?”

“Hi Rainbow, I’m looking for somepony.” Twilight responded.

“Really? Who?” Rainbow asked.

“He’s new in town. He has a blue mane and a silver coat and should be covered in bandages.”

Rainbow thought for a moment before responding “nope, haven’t seen anypony like that, but I did hear that Pinkie is throwing a party for somepony new.”

“That must be him!”

“Yeah” Rainbow responded. For a moment Twilight felt relieved. She was still scared of Hotshot’s whole death wish thing but at least she had an idea of where she could find him. “Thank you Rainbow, that’s all I needed to know.” With Rainbow Dash following close behind Twilight made her way to sugarcube corner.

--

Hunger is a powerful thing. It can make the best of ponies into savages and it has the power to destroy entire armies. If a pony gets hungry enough it could make them risk their lives for the promise of food. A party in Hotshots honor is the worst place he could possibly be especially since being discovered could mean his death however, Hotshot could not remember the last time he had a decent meal so the moment he could smell food his stomach began to growl. On one hoof starving to death was slow and painful while on the other Hotshot was pretty sure that being blasted to death by 50 unicorns was swift and painless. After a mental debate Hotshot resolved that he would go to the party, get some food, then get out. The pink pony had said that the party would be at a place called sugar cube corner, which should not be too hard to find. After a quick observation of the immediate area Hotshot found a street sign on the corner pointing him in the general direction of the sweet shop.

It was easy for Hotshot to tell that he was in the right place. He had found a building which was two stories tall and looked as if it were made of gingerbread. Balloons and streamers hung from every corner and while Hotshot could not see inside he could hear playful music that anyone could easily dance to.

The inside of Sugar cube corner was warm and colorful with streamers and balloons hanging from every surface. The music was loud enough for everyone to enjoy yet quite enough so ponies can talk to other ponies without a problem. The room was already filled with a variety of different ponies and more were coming in. A large banner hung over the center of the room that read ‘Welcome to ponyville Hotshot!’ On the far wall rested a buffet with a variety of different foods and drinks. It was all rather surprising, Hotshot had only seen this pony half an hour ago and she already had a full-fledged party set up. “Hi” came a loud squeaky voice from behind. Hotshot turned around to meet the gaze of Pinkie pie. “I’m so glad that you came!” she said while hopping up and down.

“Yea” Hotshot responded awkwardly “How did you get it set up so quickly?”

“Well it’s easy with a party cannon” she said while pointing to a blue and pink canon sitting in the corner. “Hey everypony!” she yelled. The music stopped and everypony’s attention was on the pink mare. “Let’s all give a big warm welcome to Hotshot.” With that everypony in the room came toward the pegasus, which scared Hotshot. He was not only crowded by earth ponies and pegasi but by unicorns as well who all wanted to know where he came from and why he was wearing so many bandages among other things. The questions came so fast and from so many directions that Hotshot ignored them and instead responded to the ponies welcoming him to their small town. After about a minute or so of all this the ponies, unicorn and alike, went back to the party, all except for one purple alicorn.

Hotshot felt a shiver go down his spine as Twilight glared at him. Had she figured out what he was? Twilight took a step forward before asking "why did you run off?"

It took Hotshot a moment to realize that she meant no harm. He stuttered a moment before saying “I just wanted to explore the town a bit." He couldn't tell if Twilight believed his story or not.

"You could hardly walk when you popped up in my library and now you want to explore the town?” Twilight asked.

Hotshot's only response was “I got better."

Twilight was silent for a moment before sighing and saying “as long as you are ok, but you still should have asked me. After this party I can show you all around ponyville. " While that sounded nice Hotshot had other plans. He was not going to stick around just so he could die.

The party went on and Hotshot did his best to avoid other ponies, which, due to the fact that he was the guest of honor, proved to be difficult. Many ponies including the unicorns had much to talk about. Most of them asked about his bandages which Hotshot replied with the excuse that he fell, a lot. One unicorn that Hotshot assumed was some sort of doctor due to the red cross cutie mark commented on how well his bandages were wrapped, which was a relief to him. It was not long however, before it was time to eat.

Hotshot had never even heard of most of the foods that were at the party, such as the apple, but he ate the strange fruit none the less and at that moment he decided that he hated apples. This was unfortunate because most of the foods at the party had apples in them but even though he did not like the fruit he was hungry and needed to eat. As he ate the apples and all of the apple based products Hotshot overheard a conversation a candy colored earth pony was having.

"I told you Lyra to stop this nonsense" she said.

"But Bonbon, humans are some of the most amazing creatures there are. They had so many inventions and creations..." responded a mint green unicorn before Hotshot cut her off.

"They're not that special". Both ponies turned to look at him.

“Wait” the earth pony started, “You’re not saying you believe her are you?”

“See Bonbon I told you that humans were real!” This confused Hotshot. Humans, or at least humanoids, where some of the most abundant creatures in the universe. Any planet that has had contact with other planes has at least seen some kind of human.

“What do you mean by ‘they’re not that special’?” Lyra interrupted Hotshots train of thought.

"I just mean that they aren't any more special than ponies or anything else. Have you ever actually met a human?"

Lyra sighed before responding. "No, but I really want to. Wait, have you?"

"There are no such things as humans you two" Bonbon yelled.

"Yes there are Bonbon" Lyra began. "And Hotshot believes me, right Hot... where did he go?" By this point in the conversation Hotshot was long gone.

Now that he had eaten Hotshot only had to get out without anyone noticing him leaving. The task should not be that difficult due to the fact that everypony was too busy partying to notice him, even if he did stick out. As he approached the door Hotshot was stopped by a cyan pegasus. “Hey, aren’t you going to play pin the tail on the pony? Because you’re the guest of honor you get to go first.” Before he could react someone had put a blindfold on Hotshot and spun him around. Afterward they put what Hotshot could only assume was a fake tail in his mouth. Not knowing what to do Hotshot simply walked forward until he hit the wall and a chorus of cheers arose. He took off his blindfold to see that he had perfectly pinned the tail on the pony.

“You're pretty good at that,” commented the cyan pony. “I’m Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in all of Equestria! So what brings you to Ponyville?”

“I don’t really know” Hotshot responded. “I just sort of ended up here.”

“So you’re a traveler?” chimed a white unicorn which made Hotshot reel back a bit.

“I guess you could say that” Hotshot responded.

“Well you simply must tell me about it sometime over a cup of tea. I’m Rarity by the way, now tell me, where are you staying while you’re in Ponyville?”

“Oh I wasn’t planning on staying in Ponyville too long” Hotshot said while taking a step back.

“What!” Rarity replied. “But you must! We have so many great things here. We have Sweet Apple Acres and winter wrap up is in a few weeks and surely you’ll let me make you some better clothes than those bandages.”

“It’s just that I was only passing through. I don’t have any place to stay” Hotshot responded.

“Hi girls. What’s going on here” asked Twilight as she walked up to join the others.

“Hotshot says that he has no place to stay” Rainbow said, filling her in.

“Well that only makes sense” Twilight started. “He only showed up in my library about two hours ago.” Twilight then went on to explain how she was reading a new book when the library was filled with a bright light followed by Hotshot laying on her floor wounded, so she grabbed a first aid kit and bandaged him up. As she spoke other ponies, one of which was Pinkie pie, joined to listen to the story. “As for not having a place to stay, you can stay with me” Twilight ended. This erupted a chorus of disapproval from her friends.

“Look Twilight,” an orange pony started. “Ah know you’re tryin to be hospitable an all but we don’t know this pony. Are ya sure ya want him livin’ in your house?”

“I must agree with Applejack” Rarity chimed in. “While he seems like a nice pony I would suggest getting to know him better before you let him into your home like that.”

This was met with a pout from Twilight then Hotshot said “If it’s too much trouble I could just leave.”

“No,” Twilight responded. “You’re in no condition to be traveling.”

“Can’t you just buy a motel room” Rainbow asked.

Hotshot shook his head “I don’t have any money. I must have lost it all when that spell brought me to the library” he lied. All thought out his life Hotshot never had any money because currency changes no matter where you go and he didn’t really own anything. He had a spaceship but that was inherited from his and Thundara’s parents.

“Then here’s what we will do” Twilight started with a smile on her face. “I’ll help you pay for a motel until you’re better.” This idea seemed to sit well with her friends.

Hotshot thought for a minute, was this a good idea? Twilight was probably right in saying that he was in no condition to go off on his own. He needed time to regain his powers but staying in a town with such a powerful spell caster could be dangerous. After about a minute Hotshot decided that he would have to risk it. After all, this alicorn has already shown him kindness so maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.

Hotshot simply looked at Twilight and said “Ok.”