A Life Forgotten (Cancelled)

Hige sat on the bed, thinking of what had happened. ‘What the hell happened! I threw the spear, saw the mare, and then I tried to see if I could catch her scent…’

Hige began to think ‘Who was that mare… and what the hell made me want to choke her!? By the way Celestia treated her, she must have done something horrible… I hope I did what’s right…’

He got of the bed and began to pace around the room. A loud roar sounded from Hige’s stomach. ‘Haven’t eaten anything…’ Hige thought, as he walked to the door and opened it. ‘I wonder if I can get something to eat here.’

Hige began to walk around the halls of the palace until he finally found a royal guard. The guard gave him directions to the dining room, and told him that there was food available at all times. Hige made his way to the dining room door and opened it, surprised to find Shadow Step eating with Princess Luna. What surprised Hige the most however, was the fact that the part of the armor which normally covered her head was undone, and was lying on the back of her neck in some sort of hood; she had a blood red coat and a black mane. Hige walked over to the kitchen and asked the chef for food, the chef told him that he would have to eat the meal already on the table. Not wanting to start an argument, Hige decided to get an apple to calm his stomach. The chef handed him the apple he’d asked for, after which Hige walked out the kitchen. Instinctively Hige took a bite of the apple, the crunch resonated throughout the entire room causing both Luna and Shadow Step to look over at him.

‘You are some sort of genius aren’t you!? Hige thought to himself, as he picked up his pace and ran out of the room. ‘Congratulation, now you’re stupid and rude!’ Hige continued his walk towards the room he had been assigned. Once there, he took another bite of the apple and looked at it.

‘What the… Oh right, I have weird teeth…’ Hige thought, as he looked at the strange bite pattern on the apple. ‘This isn’t so bad, is it? I have a tail, sharp teeth and animal ears… I’ve always wanted them… But I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong…’

Hige quickly lost himself in thought. Only a bit later he was sent back to reality by the sound of the door opening. Hige was surprised to see the mare Shadow Step walking inside, she looked at him with a curious look.

“You’re still awake?” she asked.

“Yes… I’m sorry for ignoring you outside the throne room… and for not saying hi in the dining room. I have a lot on my mind right now…” Hige said in an apologetic tone with his ears folded back.

“Don’t worry about it, I understand.” She said as she began to unzip her suit.

“T-this is your room?” Hige asked with a blush. ‘Is it wrong to look!?’ He thought as he shifted his view to the ceiling.

      “Yep. All rooms are made for two guards.” She said as she slipped out of the suit and threw it on a hook that was on the wall. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Hige said, as he slowly closed his eyes and faded into sleep.

                “Hige, get up.” A voice said, forcing Hige to wake.

                “Oh god… It’s too early for this!!!” Hige exclaimed as he forced his body upright and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He turned to see the royal guard who had woken him. “What is it?”

                “We need to get a few things straightened out before you can leave.” The guard responded. “Follow me.”

                “Fine…” Hige said.

It was morning, Hige had barely gotten any sleep and he was not happy about it. The guard led him to a room where there was a massive amount of machinery, the ponies present were mostly unicorns, and seemed to be well educated judging by how they handled the machinery. One of the unicorns looked over at Hige and began to walk over to him.

                “Excuse me, you must be Hige.” He said as he extended a hoof “I’m Smarty Pants, but my friends call me Emerald.” He was a bright green color with a dark green mane, which didn’t seem to have been combed or cleaned in a long time. He wore a pair of glasses, as well as a lab coat that read ‘Emerald’.

                “Why Emerald?” Hige asked curiously.

                “Oh, funny story.” He said “There was a freak accident with an experiment where I tried to see if I could fix my eyes, so I could stop using glasses. The spell I used ended up making my eyes glow a strange green color and everypony kept saying that they looked like emerald, hence Emerald. The spell wore off soon enough, but the name remained.” He redirected his attention to the guard. “You can leave him to me.” The guard gave a nod and left.

                “What am I doing here?” Hige asked, letting out a big yawn.

                “We are going to try some experiments.” he said as he looked into his lab coat pocket. “Take this and swallow it.” He said as he showed Hige a small tablet.

                Hige did as he was told. His eyes suddenly shot open “I feel… awake?”

                “You swallowed it with no hesitation… you either trust me, or you are very stupid.” Emerald said with a smile.

                “A little bit of both probably.” Hige said as he returned the smile.

                “Yes... Well that tablet was an energy pill, it makes you feel like you’ve slept for eight hours. I usually use them to catch up on work.” He explained “Follow me.” He began to walk towards a machine. “Alright, I’m going to run some tests. Just place-”

                “I should tell you, I’m scared of needles.” Hige interrupted with his ears folded down.

                Emerald paused for a moment. “Onto the next machine!” Emerald exclaimed as he walked over to another machine. Once they reached it, Emerald turned around “Okay, just lay down on this bed. Once you are inside the machine, you may feel a slight tingly feeling all over your body.”

Hige quickly laid in the bed, which promptly retracted into the machine, and sealed Hige in. Moments passed before the sides inside of the machine began to glow, sending a surge of energy through Hige. Shortly after the machine opened up, the bed moved out, and Hige got up on his feet again. He turned to find Emerald fiddling with the many knobs and buttons on the machine. Emerald stopped, moments later a glowing stone popped out of the contraption. Emerald picked it up and walked over to another machine. He placed the glowing stone into it and closed the door; the machine began to make many noises until a bracelet popped out on the other side. Emerald picked up the bracelet and put it on. His body began to glow until his entire body was the same bright green color. There was a bright light green flash. Once Hige looked back, he found himself looking at what he thought was the human version of the doctor. He was wearing the same clothes as Hige, had the same eye color, and the same hair color and style as Emerald.

                “Damn, I always forget to remove the clothes from the transformation matrix…” Emerald murmured to himself.

                “What do you mean? You seem very fashionable.” Hige said with a smile.

                “What? Why aren’t you surprised? I just became a copy of your species!” he asked in a unbelieving tone.

                “Considering I’m in a world where magic is a reality, it’ll take more than that to impress me...” Hige answered  “So, how long will you stay like that?” He asked.

                “Well this was just an experiment, so the talisman I used isn’t that powerful. I’ll turn back to normal either when the talisman runs out of energy, or when I take off the bracelet.” He said as he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and showed the bracelet that had come out of the machine.

                “Why don’t you have these?” Hige questioned as he pulled on his animal ears.

                “Wait, what!?” he started as he placed his hands on his head “Dammit! I hate that machine…” he said “Oh, before I forget, the machine showed that you had something strange in your pocket.”

                “This?” Hige asked as he reached in his pocket and took out his IPod.

                “Yes, that matches the shape that I saw… may I run some tests on it?” Emerald inquired.

                “No… sorry, but this is one of the only things that I have that can remind me of who I was…” Hige responded.

        “I understand.” He said.

Emerald put Hige back into the talisman machine a few more times, before he decided to continue perfecting the process another day. The machine could turn a pony into their equivalent human form, but their motor skills, and most of their senses were lowered in the process. The entire line of tests lasted until sundown. Emerald decided to stay and catch up on some work. Hige decided to walk back to his room, and was promptly met with a door to the face as Shadow Step had opened it to leave, hitting him squarely in the nose.

                “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She said in an apologetic tone.

                “Ahh god… Don’t worry.” He said as he covered his bleeding nose.

                “I’m really really sorry.” Shadow Step said as she extended a hoof.

                “I said not to worry, it doesn’t hurt that bad.” Hige admitted.

                “Do you want me to lead you to the infirmary?” Shadow Step asked.

                “Yes please...” Hige said with his ears folded down, waiting for her to take the lead. Shadow Step quickly started trotting away with Hige at her side, leading him to the infirmary. Once there, the nurse looked at Hige and gave him some rolled up tissue to stuff in his nose. She said that the bleeding would stop on its own, and that the tissues were there so that he wouldn’t make a mess.

                “Now what?” Hige asked as they walked out of the infirmary.

                “We could get some breakfast.” Shadow Step mentioned.

                “Okay.” Hige agreed.

                Shadow Step took a few steps and then stopped “Wait, can we make a small detour? I need to pick up a file for a new mission.” Shadow Step asked.

                “Sure, let’s go.” Hige said as he waited for Shadow Step to take the lead once more.

                It didn’t take very long for them to reach their destination. The room in question had a double door, one side had the symbol of the moon engraved in it, and the other had the symbol of the sun. As Shadow Step opened the door, Hige was able to see a table in the middle of the room with a map that covered the entire surface, various pins of different colors and shapes adorned the map.

                “You wanted to see me, sir?” Shadow Step said in a happy tone.

                “Yes, take a seat.” The voice answered. Shadow Step and Hige walked inside the room. The owner of the voice was a gray stallion. He wore the average royal armor. “Who’s your friend?” The stallion asked in curiosity.

                “Hige, this is Shining Armor. Shining Armor, this is Hige.” She said as she introduced them to each other.

                “Hello, Shining Armor.” Hige said as he extended his hand.

                “Hello, Hige.” He said with a grin as he extended his hoof and began to shake Hige’s hand. He took back his hoof and grew a serious expression. “Shadow Step, I have a new mission for you…” he said as he placed himself in front of Shadow Step “It’s him…” Shining Armor said in a grim tone.

                “Racer?” she asked in a nervous tone.

                “Yes. They believe he’s still alive.” he said, his tone apologetic and guilty.

                “How much time until I get sent out?” She asked in a serious tone.

                “Two weeks.” He said as he walked over to the desk in the corner of the room. “You can bring companions, but they have to meet the qualifications that are specified here.” He said as he took out a file from a drawer and placed it on the top of the desk.

Shadow Step walked over to the desk “Taskforce qualification?” she asked.

“Yes.” He replied in the same grim voice.

“Okay.” she said “I’ll take my leave then…” she said as she grabbed the file and walked out, Hige following her closely. They both remained quiet until they reached the door to a strange room. The door to the room was bigger than any of the other doors, and it was engraved with the symbol of the moon. Shadow Step tapped a hoof on the door, and waited for an answer. Hige was surprised when the door began to glow a dark shade of blue and suddenly opened. He was even more surprised to see that it was Princess Luna waiting on the other side.

“Hello, Sha-” Luna began, but stopped once she took a look at Shadow Step’s face. “You seem happy...” She stepped aside and let Shadow Step walk inside, closing the door shortly after.

‘Awkward… I should leave…’Hige thought as he began to leave, he stopped once he heard a murmur though. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate on his hearing.

“They gave me the mission.” A voice Hige recognized as Shadow Step said, she seemed to be excited.

“When?” A voice he recognized as Luna asked.

“Two weeks from now.” Shadow Step answered.

“What will you do?” Luna asked.

“If there’s a chance Racer is alive, I’ll take it.” She answered.

“But it’s suicide!” Luna exclaimed in anger

“You wouldn’t understand...” Shadow Step replied in a strange tone.

“You should be more worried about yourself…” Luna said, worry plain in her voice.

“Worried? Yes I’m worried... But Racer means much more to me than that... ” She responded in a grim tone.

‘What the... whatever it is that they’re talking about, it’s none if my business...’ Not knowing where exacly he was inside the castle, Hige tried to retrace his steps, hoping to find some other area which he would be more familiar with. As he walked by the room where he had met Shining Armor, he noticed that he had forgotten to close the door when they had left. As he reached his hand inside the room to grab the door, Hige took a quick look around and saw Shining Armor resting his head against the desk. “Are you okay?” Hige asked in a worried tone.

                “Not in the mood…” Shining Armor answered in rather irritated voice.

                “Why?” Hige asked as he stepped inside the room.

                Shining Armor took a deep breath and raised his head off the desk, but made no effort to look at Hige. “Shadow Step... she’s going to get herself killed.”

                “W-what?” Hige asked in shock ‘Wait... What are you doing!? You heard THAT when you were eavesdropping!’

                “Racer was part of the Night Guards and a very good ‘friend’ with Shadow Step... He was taken captive a few months back. We all thought he was dead, but the army commanders still thought he was alive. He was one of our best guards, and they would risk anything to get him back...” He turned his head to lock eyes with Hige “... They’d even sacrifice Shadow Step if it meant that they’d have a chance to get him back...”

This chapter was pre-read by... Salacar. Also... I'm really sorry for the delay.