Minority

Thump!  Thump!  Thump!

There was someone knocking on Feather’s door.  He slowly opened his eyes, and sat up.  There were three more thumps from the door, reminding him why he was awoken.  He rolled to his right and got a look at the clock.  Seven thirty.  Seven thirty!  Who has the audacity to wake me up at seven thirty?  I should have at least four more hours of sleep!

Thump!  Thump!  Thump!

“Can it!  I’ll get there when I get there!” he shouted.  The knocks stopped for a little while.  He hurried out of bed, and walked down the stairs.  Before he opened the door, he looked through the peephole to see who it was.  It was Sugar Song, and Honey Suckle.  Weird, they don’t come on Mondays, he thought before opening the door for his daughter.

“Grandpa!”

“Hi, Honey!  Sugar, why are you here so early?”

“I had a job interview, but I forgot to tell you yesterday.  I need you to watch Honey for the day.”

“Alright,” he said as a smile crept onto his face.

“Thanks, Dad.”  Sugar bent down so that she was eye level with Honey.  “Honey, you’re going to stay with grandpa today.  Ok?”

“Ok,” Honey replied.

“Bye, Honey!  Bye, Dad!”

“See you later.”  Honey had already run into the house, like the energetic foal she always was.  Feather turned around, shutting the door behind him.  “Honey, have you had breakfast yet?” Feather asked.

“Does some apple slices count?”

“No.  Come on, we’ll get you some breakfast.  And it’s ‘do’, not ‘does’.  Use proper grammar.”  Feather led her into the kitchen to pick out a cereal.  He levitated a bowl, a spoon, milk, and three boxes of cereal onto the table.  “Take your pick.”

Honey sat down and looked at the three boxes.  She put her hoof to her chin, stuck out her tongue, and started to think.  She furrowed her brow as her thinking became more intense.  She still couldn’t decide, and started to hum as if it would help her decide.  Finally, after to long of a time, she decided.

“That one!” she shouted, pointing her hoof at the box on the right.  Feather gave her a weird look, but complied none-the-less.  He hadn’t thought that she liked that brand of cereal.  Foals her age normally like cereal with much more sugar.  He grabbed another bowl and spoon for his own bowl of cereal.

When they had finished breakfast, Feather made Honey go up stairs to brush her teeth.  He had always kept an extra toothbrush around in case of an emergency, most of the time it was him dropping his toothbrush in the toilet.  Sadly, that happened to much.  Honey, just like almost every foal, didn’t want to.  Feather finally convinced her to brush her teeth by promising he would do it too.

After Feather and Honey finished brushing their teeth, they were done with their morning routine.  They went down stairs and found a place to sit.  Feather was in his chair, and Honey sat on the couch.

“Grandpa? Can you please finish your story?”

“Alright, where was I?”

“The mean pegasus hurt you!”

“Oh, right.  Back to the story.”

~~~~~

Being drugged isn’t as bad as everypony says it is.  To Feather, it was like waking up every time he tried to sleep.  He could not feel, see, or hear anything.  If he had seen, heard, or felt anything, then he could not remember anything.  When Feather finally became conscious, he could just barely make out some voices.  Upon opening his eyes, he quickly shut them from the light.

When his eyes adjusted to the light, the first thing he noticed was that he couldn’t move his legs.  They had been hoof-cuffed to the chair he sat in.  He started to take in his surroundings, but something was blocking his view.  It was a unicorn mare about six inches from his face.

“Aah!” he yelped.  Her face wrinkled as she tried, and failed, to stifle a laugh.  She had fallen to the ground, almost in tears.  While Feather tried to calm his heart the unicorn was rolling left and right on the ground, getting too much humor out of the childish joke.  Feather took a look around the room, and it could accurately be described as a large metal box with two chairs on either side of a table.  Feather was hoof-cuffed to one of these chairs.

“Sorry, sorry.  I just had to do that.  You wouldn’t believe how long I was sitting there, waiting for you to wake up.  It was totally worth it.”  It was the unicorn again.  Feather looked her from head to hoof.  She had white fur, and her mane was split into stripes, half were the same color as her fur, and the other half was a light purple.  She had three purple stars for a cutie mark.  She doesn’t even look like she’s out of high school.

“Mr. Feather Quill, is it?”  She had sat back down in her chair, and was reading from a manila folder.  He nodded and she continued.  “I’m Velvet Sunset.  Do you know why you’re here?”  He shook his head.  “Well, to make it short, you’re weird.  We think you have a special talent that very few ponies have.  Just in case you can’t figure it out, it’s your telekinesis.”  Her tone abruptly changed to one more harsh.  “Didn’t you parents teach you it’s rude to try and break somepony else’s stuff.  I’d appreciate it if you stop trying to break the hoof-cuffs.”

Ponyfeathers! he thought.  The surprised look on Feather’s face gave away his emotions.  “How did you-“

“You’re pulling a link two different directions trying to break it.  Next time try turning the tumblers inside of the lock.”

“How old are you?  You look a little young,” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“I’m fifteen, and I don’t ordinarily do this.  Swift handles all the introductions, but he’s off doing Celestia knows what.”

“Well, what do you ordinarily do?”

Her face lit up lit up like a tree on Hearths Warming Eve when she heard that.  “I do all the-“ Just as quickly as her face lit up, it went out, her eyes narrowed on Feather.  “Hey, I’ll be asking the questions here.”

“Then get started.”  She stuck her muzzle back into the folder she was so fond of.  She started to spout off information.  Feather’s face dropped when he realized it was about him.

“Feather Quill.  You were born in Trottingham to a Mr. and Mrs. Hoof, a smith, and a seamstress respectively.  You had an older brother and sister that had already moved out of the house, which you didn’t see often.  Currently, you are twenty-four years old.  After graduating from Stalliongrad University, you moved to Canterlot to accept a job offer teaching Grévy.  You live on Blue Mane Road, in apartment building numb-“

“That’s enough!  You don’t need to read me my whole life story over to me!  I lived it, so stop telling me everything I know!  I know what happened better than you ever could!”  Every word had made Feather increasingly annoyed.  Just like everypony else, he had a breaking point, and he just hit it.  “How do you know all this stuff?  How do you know everything about me?” he asked, trying to calm down.

“Oh, I know more than this.  I have your school report cards, medical records, and more.  I’d tell you where we get it all from, but it’s a secret only I get to know.  Besides you don’t even work here.  Now let’s get back to the matter at hoof.”

“What would that be?”

She had just opened her mouth to answer his question, but a door to the left swung open, cutting her off.  A red pegasus with a black mane walked in, Swift Victory.  Just seeing his muzzle again was enough to make Feather even angrier than he already was.  “Hey, Velvet, I got it from here.”  Velvet just sighed and left the room.  Swift walked forward, and took a seat in the chair across from Feather.

“Before we continue, how about you tell me just what in Tartarus is going on here?” Feather shouted at Swift.

“Ok.  Mr. Quill, if you’ll walk with me, I’ll explain everything.”  He got back up, and walked to the wall.  He pushed on a small part next to the door.  The wall popped out revealing a small hole.  He pulled out a key, and undid the hoof-cuffs.  Feather got up and followed him out of the room.

Feather was on the ground floor of a building going up to a third story.  He was in the first room of the building, and the second floor above him was little more than a balcony.  He looked up further, and saw a glass ceiling.  Only the middle of it was glass, and the rest was tiled.  He couldn’t see much of the third level besides the ceiling.

“Welcome to the Minority, your new home!  This is the ground level, more specifically, the living room.  The room to your left is the kitchen, and the room on the right is the rec room.”  There were two sets of stairs on either side of the living room leading to the second floor.  Swift turned to the right and started up.

The center of the second floor wasn’t much.  It was only the balcony that overlooked the living room of the first floor.  However, there were two rooms that were on this level.  Swift turned into the first one, on the right.  “This is the first aid room.  We only have one doctor, but she’s more than enough.  She normally sleeps all day, so I’ll introduce you to her when she gets up.”  Feather looked around the room.  There was a bed that looked like it would be used for surgery.  Next to it was a tray that had some scalpels and gauss on it.

The pair turned back around, and walked to the other side of the balcony, and into the second room.  “Welcome to filing.  This is where we keep the information we collect on everything.”  The wall all the way to the left had three filing cabinets with papers sticking out of the top.  On the other end was a table.  It had a map of Equestria, and some more papers thrown about.

Once again, they went up a pair of stairs.  This was more like the first floor.  It was a small hallway with rooms lining both ends of it.  “These are the rooms.  Most are empty, so pick what ever one you want.”

Feather walked to the first room on his left.  When he opened the door, it was clean. The covers were lay neatly on the bed, and the pillows were resting at the top.  The nightstand had its drawers closed, and the closet doors were shut.  Feather just shut the door, and went to the next one.  This one was empty, and the bed was nicely made.  “I’ll take this one,” Feather said.

“Good!  Now for introductions,” Swift said happily.  He walked to the room across from the clean one Feather was in.  There was a loud thump, and Swift came walking out.  He walked past the stairs, and into another room.  This time there was no thump, and Swift came out with a green pegasus.  His fur was a light green all the way around, and his mane was split down the center.  Half of it was the same color as his fur, and the rest was blue.  Then it struck Feather.  This was one of the ponies that attacked him at work.

Feather bent his fore legs to assume an offensive stance.  He was about to slam the green pegasus into the wall, but Swift stopped him.  “Wait!  This is Hazy Day.  He’s not going to hurt you.”

“Why is he here?” Feather said back, anger seeping from his words.

“He’s part of the Minority too.  If Orange gets up, you’ll see he’s not going to hurt you either.”

Right on cue, the floorboards squeaked, and Orange walked out of his room.  Like his name suggested, his coat was a solid orange.  His mane was blue, but the ends were dyed black.  “What do you want Swift?” Orange asked.

“This is Feather Quill.  The one from the school.”

Orange looked to his right.  Seeing Feather, he looked him up and down.  When he was done, he turned back to Swift.  “Is this the entire reason you woke me up?”

Swift face hoofed.  He didn’t expect much of a reaction from Orange, but he did expect him to say something more than that.  “Go down stairs.  Once I’m done showing Feather around we’ll start planning.”

Orange didn’t say anything.  He walked down the stairs, to find a snack and find Velvet.  Swift was tapped on the shoulder.  He turned around and looked at Hazy.  “I’m going to head home.  I have chores to do.”  Hazy also walked down the stairs, this time to leave the house.

Feather gave Swift a look of confusion.  “They may be weird, but they might as well be family.  They both have a power like us.  Orange has super strength, and Hazy can teleport.  Come on, we need to go down stairs.

They walked back down the stairs to the first floor.  They went into the filing room and found that Orange, and Velvet had beaten them there.  Swift didn’t particularly care, and started to explain the plan to the group.  Feather didn’t play a key role in the plan, but was being brought along just to get some experience from a fairly easy job.

Feather hadn’t been paying attention to the plan much until he heard Swift mentioned the Paladins.  He hadn’t said anymore than a short backup plan encase they decided to show up.  Feather, being the only one that didn’t know who they were, got the name stuck in his head.  Being a teacher, he knew the time for questions, and now was not the time.

“Any questions?” Swift asked.

“Who are the Paladins?”  Feather asked.

Swift’s normally cheery face fell into a frown.  “Everyone go get ready, we leave in an hour.”

Feather and Swift were the only ones left in the room now.  “The Paladins are the ones who hate us more than anypony else in the world.  They’re a bunch of religious nut balls.  They think that we don’t deserve to live because we defy the laws of magic, and in a few cases, physics.  Remember reading about the witch hunts centuries ago to kill unnatural ponies?  That was them killing us.  Why do you think that we live in the middle of a forest?”

“They hunt us?”

“And kill us like animals.  Don’t worry too much about it, they shouldn’t be showing up on this opp.  Come on, we need to get ready.”  Swift turned and left for his room.  Feather just stood in place taking everything he just heard.  When he finally understood the situation, he just shuffled back to the empty room he claimed.  One thought went through his head, Am I going to die?