Guards from a distant world

Chapter 1: Strange Markings

May 1st 2020

Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

It was my birthday today! In about one hour I will be officially 25 years old! A few friends from work offered to show up, even though none of their birthdays were the same as mine… aside from my brother, we’re twins.

We all sit in front of a big clock which is hanging from the wall in the middle of my apartment. At about 9:45 pm I will be officially 25 years of age. Everyone was having a conversation, except for me, I was staring intently at the clock.

One of my best friends from work turned to me. “Almost time! We need to be sure we drink our booze when its time!”

I close my eyes for a moment, when I open them I realize the time had changed…

“Am I imagining things? Surely no one could’ve got up and changed the clock manually. I only closed my eyes for a moment…” wait, it has been almost a half an hour since I last looked… was time speeding up or something? I’m not sure what to think. Somehow almost an entire hour passed… but it only felt like seconds… Five minutes left…

My friends had all stopped their discussion and turned their attention to the clock… another time skip… my friends were already chanting,

“TEN… NINE… EIGHT…” I quickly reached for my shot glass of liquor.

“FIVE… FOUR… THREE…” Happy birthday… I smiled

“TWO… ONE...!” I raised the tip of the shot glass to my lips and I drained the glass.

I’m not sure when I passed out but I woke up at some point later with my brother tapping my shoulder

“HEY ZACK!! WAKE UP!”

I rub my eyes and I sit up. “What time it is?”

“Well, seeing how we have a giant clock in the middle the room, you can figure that out for yourself.” He leaves the room.

I smirk, that damn clock. “Yeah, right.” I peer over towards the clock and I see that it was almost midnight.

My Brother comes back into the room, rubbing his pants where his butt cheek is. “What happened to you during the twenty seconds that I was gone for? You look like a dumpster.” I snicker at his joke.

“You should go take a shower Zack, you look horrible… and get a change of clothes, Too.”

I get up and I walk out of the room towards the shower, it’s a good thing I’m prepared for this stuff. I take off my clothes and I place them in the laundry hamper, I catch a glimpse of the mirror and I see an image on my butt. “What the…” I carefully examine the tattoo on my butt. It was a simple symbol. On my butt cheek, was a picture of two orange crossed swords.

“… hell is this?” out of curiosity I check my other butt cheek, and sure enough, the same image. I try to dismiss the weird phenomenon that has happened… it must’ve been Richard. “Damn you Richard! and your obsession with those damn ponies!” I step into the bathtub and I turn on the shower. Dismissing all thought of what just happened.

A bit later I step out of the shower and I dry myself off, I put my clothes on in front of the mirror as an old habit. Halfway through putting on my shirt, I realize my hair color has changed ever-so slightly, you see, my hair is naturally brown... but it’s turning white. I’m sure this isn’t old age… I’m only twenty five!

“Okay… what is the meaning of this?” I step out of the bathroom, and I walk into my brother’s room. I immediately notice that some of his auburn hair has changed color to more of a bright orange. Seeing how those colors were very similar, I surprised myself knowing that I just spotted that, and knowing for certain that something strange is going on.

Since I didn’t have much of a basis to go off of, I just shrugged it off. I walked to my room and I fell asleep on my bed.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning went rather normal. I woke up and I walked into the kitchen to grab some cereal, I grabbed a bowl, milk, and my favorite cereal and I put it together.

It tasted better than I expected it to.

Hmm… weird, perhaps my taste buds are changing, they always are. But… not overnight, how could this be? I turn to see Richard standing in the doorway behind me, visibly angry. “uhh, what are you angry about?” He doesn’t speak, he never does when he is angry, and he points to his huge head of hair. It takes me a moment to realize what he is pointing at.

He has pointy ears, like an elf.

I couldn’t help but laugh, he looks like a red-headed elf!

My laughing didn’t help Richard’s mood. “I know you did this to me.”

I stop laughing. “Wh- what?”

“You gave me these ears and an orange head of hair!”

“No I didn’t!” I feel my hair, horrified that I may have the same fate. Yep… pointy ears… go figure.

The rest of the day went by; Richard was still fully convinced that I did this to him. He tried taking the ears off but the harder he pulled, the louder he would yell in pain.

At about five o’clock in the afternoon, I realized that sitting down wasn’t very comfortable. I ran toward the restroom, noticing that I’m standing on my toes… huh, that’s weird, I’ll worry about that later.

I enter the restroom and I take off my pants, fearing the worst. I looked behind me, dreading what I may see.

A tail. A white fluffy tail…

THUNK!

I was passed out on the floor.

Around the time I woke up, I was praying that this was all just a dream and I was fine… my pants were still down, I woke up on the bathroom floor…… uh oh… does this mean?... I look behind me and I see a tail…

I struggle to stay conscious. “OH MY GOD! A FREAKING TAIL?!” something was DEFINITELY going on here and I want to know what.

A sudden realization occurs to me… “If I have a tail… pointy ears and strangely colored hair… could it be possible that I MAY just be turning into a horse?”

My thoughts were interrupted by Richard pounding on the bathroom door. “YOU BASTARD! FIX THIS NOW! I DON’T WANT A TAIL!”

I put my pants back on and I open the door “Richard… this isn’t my doing. I don’t know what is going on” He looks up at me and instantly all hatred disappears as he sees my pure-white hair and tail.

He doesn’t speak, instead, he starts crying.

I’ve never seen my brother cry before…

I kneel down with a bit of trouble, I realize with a face of horror that my middle toe on both feet… had darkened to a black-charred color and had grown much larger.

“What the… HELL IS GOING ON?!” I watch as my big toe slowly grows bigger and bigger, and starts to merge with my other toes, as if…

A hoof?! Am I turning into a pony?

The realization caused me to forget about my brother. I look at him. “We’ll get through this together”

After a while, Richard stops crying and looks at me. “D- do you have a cutie mark too?”

“A cuti- whatnow?”

“A cutie mark. I have one… apparently, not sure where it came from… Its on my butt, im assuming the same for you?”

“Yes”

“Well? May I see it?”

“Uh… I guess” I pull down my pants just to the point where the ‘cutie mark’ is visible.

“Fury blade, that’s whose cutie mark that is.”

“And… who is ‘fury blade’?”

“Fury blade is the personal guard of Shining armor”

“Okay,” I’m not much of a brony… so I have no idea who Shining Armor is “Who is Shining armor?”

Richard rolls his eyes “You clearly don’t know much… come, lets watch some cartoons” He hints with a wink. Hoping I would catch on… but I don’t.

I follow Richard into his room where there is a flat-screen tv. Richard walks over, takes out a disc from a case and puts it into the dvd player, then hits play. Instantly the room is full of music screaming: “MY LITTLE PONY, MY LITTLE PONY, AAHHH AAAAAAAAHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!”

I wince. “Can you turn it down a little?”

Richard clearly didn’t hear me correctly. “You want it louder?! Okay!” he turned it up louder…

At this point my eardrums are going to pop. I cover my ears and I walk towards the tv, manually turning down the sound. “What… the… hell, you REALLY didn’t hear me.”

“Well I thought you wanted it louder.”

“Why in Celestia’s name would I want it louder?...” my voice trails off. What did I just say?

Did I just say Celestia? The ruler of Equestria? I barely even know who she is, yet I’m already saying her name like its normal for me to say such things.

Richard raises an eyebrow. “Did you just say ‘Celestia’? You haven’t even seen a single episode, yet you are already saying her name… what gives?”

“I’m not sure, a tongue slip maybe?”

Richard doesn’t seem to be buying it. “Whatever, let’s just watch some cartoons.”

The remainder of the day went by filled with colorful ponies. I hadn’t even noticed what new changes had occurred to my body.

A thought appeared in my head as the credits were rolling on an episode in season 2.

“Hey Richard? Earlier you said you had a cutie mark. May I see it?”

“Uh, sure” His voice sounded slightly feminine, but I didn’t put much thought into it.

He starts pulling down his pants to reveal the image on his butt. I saw an image of a bow surrounded by electricity with a single arrow appearing to have just been launched from it.

“True Shot, that’s a female archer. it- she was one of Princess Luna’s personal guards… and sister to Fury Blade” Richard looks at me in concern. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”