Chapter 2 (1/3)

                                                                Chapter 2 - Greet the New Day

Honestly, I think I preferred the wake up I got from Pinkie Pie much more than the one I got from Twilight. My eyes wearily opened, slowly taking in the light from the room. Instead of the expected light brown blur, I got a lavender purple blue.

"Get up!" She growled anger evident in her now focusing face.

"Just a few more minutes mom." I groggily said, pulling the covers over my head. She was not amused.

"Please, just get up. I have something I want to talk about." I slowly got out of bed, and sat upright on the bed.

"What is it?" I asked, obviously not too keen on getting out of the warm bed. Her face had a sense of slight aggravation.

"I know you went outside last night." I wasn't even going to try and deny it. I didn't do anything wrong so I would follow through with honesty.

"It isn't my fault, a pink pony named Pinkie Pie kidnapped me in the middle of the night and brought me to some tree house to throw me a party!"

"Is that so now? Well, while I admit I can think of no other reason for why you would know her name, I'm going to have to check on that story with her. I'm sending Spike down here to keep an eye on you and make sure you don't go anywhere."  And so she left, much calmer than a few seconds earlier. I took this opportunity to take in what I say of her. She was horse shaped, like Pinkie, but seemed to be a bit skinnier than pinkie. She had a horn on her head, fortifying the statement that she was a unicorn, and she had a blackish mane with two purple stripes side by side going down from the base to the tip, if you know what I mean. A few seconds later, that purple lizard boy walked in, and he honestly looked kinda terrified of me. This kid is going to keep an eye on me? Oh my, how terrifying.

"Sup?"  I said, earning a little jump from him.

"Uh, hi." he said, trying to look calm. I decided that if I were in his position, with some mystery creature that eats meat and is twice my size, I would be a bit on edge also.

"So, your name is Spike huh?"

"Yeah, it is." He just stood there shyly at the door, watching me intently with a frown. He didn't seem menacing so much as he did nervous.

"You have nothing to fear from me." I said, bluntly. There were situations that called for coercion, and sometimes the situation called for being blunt. This was the latter.

"I'm not afraid of you!" he said with a huff.

"Then why are you shaking?" I said with a sly grin. I was willing to be friendly with him, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to mess around with him.

"I'm not shaking, it's uh… cold. It is really cold." If I knew more about dragon anatomy back then, I would have pointed out that even dragon eggs were meant to survive extremely cold and extremely hot temperatures, so there was no excuse for the cold to be getting to him. I didn't know, however, and so I chose a different route.

"So you are giving me an excuse for why you are doing something you previously said you weren't doing?"

"Um… Yes?"

"So that means you lied to me?" I was faking an angry scowl, and I swear his eyes turned to pinpricks.

"I, no I didn't I just, uh, I don't know!" He was seriously freaking out now, so I decided I was satisfied and calmed him down.

"Relax I'm just screwing around with you. I don't even care about this." I plopped back down into the bed, not caring if my attempt to console him worked.

"So, human, what was it like where you came from?" My eyes shot open, and this time I was slightly irked.

"What did you just call me lizard boy?"

"I called you a human, which is what you said you are called right?"

"Do you walk up to a pony here and say, 'hey pony, how are you?'?"

"No, I don't."

"Then don't do it with me. You can call me 3CPO until further notice." I really should've thought of a name before spouting the first thing that came to mind. Oh well.

"Ok, 3CPO. So, what was it like where you came from?" I thought back to what my life was like before I ended up in a tree being held captive by a horse.

"Well... it was different. I really wasn't around for most of my childhood."

"Not around? What do you mean?"

"Well... that is hard to explain. I locked my mind up, for lack of a better term. I was someone else for a long time, until one of those someone elses woke me up. Spike, we shouldn't talk about this, it is a pretty violent story.

"Violent? Tell me, tell me!"

"Spike, I saw this one movie where a dragon had its throat slit. Want to hear about that one?"

"Um... No?"

"Good. So tell me, what time of year is it."

"It is late May, almost Summer. The schools have already let out though. It is pretty nice living with Twilight. I help her with chores around the place and I get to go places with her and her pony friends. I think you will get to meet them if Twilight says it is ok." These could end up being the first impressions that I make on this pony civilization. From now on I shall assume that the ponies are a suspicious and untrusting bunch until I find evidence that contradicts that. From what I heard of Twilight's presentation: there are agile pegasi that can chase me down; unicorns that can do hell knows what, I’ll assume from now on they can stop my beating heart with a single thought; and there are earth ponies that are strong as fuck. I will need to be careful on how I show myself to these few pony friends.

"Spike."

"Yeah?"

"Tell me about the pony friends you mentioned, what are their names?"

"Well there is Applejack; she works down at Sweet Apple Acres on her family farm. She is nice, hard working, and kind of blunt. There is Rainbow Dash, she and Applejack are always competing with each other. They're both cool. Twilight Sparkle, you know her, she’s a real brainiac. Then there is Rarity, total knock out! Twilight seems to think I don't have a chance with her, but feh, what does she know. You've got Pinkie Pie, she is a super party pony, and when she gets a sugar rush you better watch out. Finally, there is Fluttershy. She is real good with animals. She is also a Pegasus afraid of heights, what’s up with that right? And then there is me. Spike! Twilight Sparkle's radical, totally awesome assistant. I help her with everything and keep her totally on track." Wow, most humble guy I've ever met.

"Thanks Spike, I'm sure all this information will help." That was all that was said before Twilight Sparkle walked back in,

"Ok human you're-"

"3CPO." Spike corrected.

"Huh?"

"He said to call him 3CPO." Twilight looked to me for confirmation, I just shrugged.

"It will do for now." My mind was already shifting through different character's names from different games.

"Ok, 3CPO, I have a few questions for you now that I have cleared up the whole escaping business." I didn't like how she chose the word 'escape'.

"Alright, can I ask one first?"

"I suppose so, what is it?"

"Why exactly did you bring me here? I don't recall you explaining it."

"Didn't I? Oh well. Princess Celestia wishes for me to study a kind of magic I'm not fully practiced in. It is called Conjuring. You are the first thing I have conjured in years, and I am supposed to spend a year studying you. After that, I assume you are a free pon- er... human."

"Alright, well I guess I really don't have shit to do with the rest of my life, since, ya know, I've been torn away from my entire life to be a student's science project and all." You know, sometimes I want to slap myself. Just go back in time, line myself up for a perfect hit, and give me a good one right across the cheek.

"I told you I was sorry about that! Stop shoving it in my face!" She burst. I let her cry for a moment, because I knew that if I didn't use the right words, everything could turn to shit. Why does she even care? If I abducted some creature from another planet, well, I don’t really see myself caring whether or not they had plans. Yeah I was a dick. I’m not sure what was with me back then.

"Twilight, please don't cry. I hold no anger for you, and you have no need to feel guilty. There really isn't anything for you to feel guilty about Twilight." I knelt down beside her and lifted her eyes to meet mine. "I was likely going to die soon anyway, my death was just being postponed. This way I get to do something useful and then die. I am thanking you now Twilight, I might actually have a chance of survival because you brought me here." My cooing worked, as the unicorn was now calm and sedate.

"I'm really sorry; I didn't mean to take you away." I want to say you so did but… I think I’ve upset you enough.

"Twilight, I would have left soon anyway, you were just doing your job. You didn't take me away from anything I wasn't prepared to leave."

"But your family-"

"I left my family long ago, just not physically. They will no doubt mourn me, and will think me dead. Don't you worry about that, though…" Why though, what reason can I give her for not worrying? I knew she would want a reason, but I couldn't make one up fast enough, so I just sat there by her side, as she let out all her emotions.

"Thank you." She sniffled, hugging me back. I really didn't know what to say, so I just sat there next to her, hugging her. Now that I think about it. It has been years since I hugged someone. It has been even longer since it meant something to me. I’m not saying that hug meant anything to me, she was just a horse as far as I was concerned. A few moments passed before she dropped the hug, telling me she was all right.

"If you and I are going to become friends, I should start putting effort into building a good relationship with you." All she could do was hold a sappy smile on her face. She just sat there for a few moments before she pulled back the cloak of science-ness and walked over to the table.

"Spike, you can leave now. I'm fairly certain that 3CPO here means me no harm." While I am pleased that she made an active effort to show trust in me, I really hate that fucking name. Maybe Zelda? I don't know, I'll think of a name. Samus is bad ass, but it is a girl’s name. Hold on a second… I know what name I want.

"Twilight, Spike, please don't call me by that fake name anymore. My real name is Herbert Dashwood. Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood." Yeah, we are getting Fallout 3 up in this bitch!

"That's a pretty long name. Can I just call you Herbert?"

"Sure, unless we are being formal. Then call me Herbert Dashwood. The middle name is to distinguish me from other Herbert Dashwoods because there are so many of us."

"Is that really a common problem? Ponyville has almost a hundred ponies, and no one has the same name. How many of you are their usually in a city?"

"Oh maybe a couple hundred thousand," her jaw dropped," and sometimes even a couple million." her eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

"Sweet Celestia, there are over a hundred thousand humans where you come from?"

"Oh no, there are way more of us then that, you only asked about cities. I'm pretty sure we number somewhere close to a trillion."

"How is that possible? What about all the other races on your planet? Is there room for them?"

"Well to be honest, we sort of annihilated anything that could have threatened us in the past. If we want, we could wipe the planet clean of all life. Didn't I already say that before?" She disregarded my question as she wrote a flurry of notes on her notebook, constantly turning the page over.

"Tell me, what kind of weapons do you have?" Now, I was no idiot. If I bring human weaponry to this civilization, it could tear the world apart. In my opinion, if a species isn't smart enough to make a weapon, they aren't nearly smart enough to wield it properly.

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that Twilight, I’m not very educated in that field.” Not entirely a lie.

"Ok, let’s move on from that, let us move to behavior. I'm going to place you in your room with Spike, and he will execute a few tasks. See how he acts, and respond as a normal human would."

"Kay." I walked into the bedroom and just sat on the bed until I heard the door close behind Spike.