You have to keep adapting to the times. If you kind of go with it, it can be kind of fun. -Billy Cogan

Karl awoke to the singing of birds and small rays of sunshine. The first thing he felt was a shooting pain along the left side of his face and shoulder when he tried to move. Memories of the previous day came back to him instantly. He brought his right hand in front of his face, or at least what once was his right hand. Instead of looking at a normal human hand; a huge claw was attached to a grotesquely muscled arm, his left arm being in a similar condition. The muscle mass had completely destroyed his sleeves.

“What the fuck happened to me?!” Karl exclaimed in shock.

Did those ponies do this to him? No, they wanted to change him into another stupid pony. Making him into something even more dangerous would be illogical.

He studied his left hand, the mutations on it less dramatic, but still well pronounced. His fingers had morphed into sharp claws, each one the size of a small dagger.

He found out through experimentation that he could use his “evolved” left hand almost the same way as he did a normal hand. The bad news was that the same thing could not be said about his right hand.

And he was right-handed.

Writing with fingers the size of short swords and a palm so big he could probably enclose a pony’s head in it was not likely to be an easy task.

‘Look…’ he thought, ‘you can figure that out later. Right now you’re in the middle of fucking no-where.’

He became aware of that extreme, dry thirst that often follows sleep, and as he ran his tongue around his mouth, he quickly found out something was different. He found that they were extremely sharp and jagged. He reached up with his hand to feel them, but only wound up clubbing himself in the face with his newfound claw.

Karl let out a sigh. He had been awake for barely five minutes and already he had gotten annoyed with this new body. Karl used his left claw to feel his new teeth. He found that the thickness of his new skin had severely dulled its former sensitivity.

“Better check to be sure I haven’t grown a tail or something.” Karl mumbled before proceeding with the examination of his new body.

The legs of his pants had been destroyed by his new muscle mass the same as had been done to his shirt.

“I am so going to need new clothes after this.”

He might as well rip off his shirt and under-shirt, as they were basically completely destroyed and what remained made him feel like he was wearing a friggin’ corset. With one powerful jerk he ripped off the tight dirty clothing. Perhaps this could count as Indecent Exposure, but he seriously doubted there were any police for miles.

Fortunately, his pants had managed to keep up with his growth. Walking in the woods with a bare chest was one thing, but going completely bare-ass naked seemed a bit too much. As he tried to stand up, he found out that he could straighten his legs like normal, but he had a lot of trouble walking that way. After a few minutes of adjusting and trying certain possess he found out that he could walk best with his knees and heels at 45° angles.

His shoes were destroyed by his enlarged feet, which still looked more or less like human feet although they possessed longer and sharper nails and looked just a tad more claw-like than before. Karl could live with that. At least the change wasn’t as drastic as that of his hands.

He began to yawn, as is the acceptable early-morning custom, when blazing, shooting pain streaked through his face.

“Fuck my life!”

Not only had he been changed into some kind of mutant, but fate had also decided to let him keep the burns on the left side of his face and on his left shoulder.

Karl decided he’d better make tracks, though it was easier said than done. While his newly developed muscle was adequate to move his now-enormous frame, he wasn’t completely capable of manipulating his limbs with ease. It felt like he was wearing an inflatable sumo-suit.

****
Karl had been wandering mostly aimlessly through the forest for hours and he was completely drained. Granted, the walk had given him time to get used to his new body, but damn, he needed to train his new muscles if he wanted to do anything productive.

To make matters worse, he was so damn hungry! He should have known that a body as massive as his needed more than a few fruits to be satisfied. He needed MEAT!!!

The problem? He was near-clueless on matters of hunting. Additionally, the energy that he would need to spend in order to hunt would probably far outweigh any energy he could obtain from a quarry.

Fate finally took mercy on him as he heard what sounded like fighting near his position. It didn’t take long to find the tiger feasting upon some indescribable animal. Karl started planning of his next course of action; he got a new stronger body and he needed the meat to survive, but his fighting skills weren’t very sharp, and… well, It was a ducking tiger!

Eventually, basic survival instinct began to take over, and Karl stepped out into the clearing. The tiger immediately spotted him and a warning growl began to rumble in its throat. Karl readied his right claw as he continued advancing slowly towards the tiger and its prey.

The tiger rose to it’s feet and let out a loud roar which Karl assumed was a final warning. Against his better judgment, he kept creeping closer whilst keeping eye contact with the tiger at all times (it occurred to him later that most animals see direct eye contact as a threat, and thus he probably hadn’t helped his situation any).

He advanced a couple more steps before the tiger stepped over the kill and towards him while emitting a menacing growl, fed up with the intrusion of this new stranger.

Karl was disappointed. He had hoped the tiger would be cowed enough to simply give up his kill after he had managed to come so far, but now it was clear the tiger would at least try to save his meal.

“Very well kitty cat. I need that meat, and I’m going to get it.” He mumbled to himself as he readied his right claw to attack.

This earned him a roar from the tiger. The tiger lunged forward, trying to latch on to Karl’s left arm, only to be forced to retreat by the much more powerful right claw. The tiger clawed at Karl’s right claw, but by that time, Karl had closed some distance and struck with his left claw and hit the tiger on the right side of his neck, forcing it retreat a bit further.

The tiger snarled angrily at him as his coat turned slightly red around the wound. Karl attacked again, his right claw successfully landing a savage blow. The tiger, evidently not getting the message, again lunged at Karl, who was now thoroughly surprised by his ability to match up in physical strength with the tiger.

Karl would have bet that the tiger’s facial expression turned into one of confusion, momentarily hesitating. Karl knew this was his time to strike. A sudden compulsion overtaking him, he bit down into the tiger’s already wounded shoulder.

Immediately he felt warm blood rushing into his mouth along with a combination of meat and fur.

‘Damn, these teeth are awesome!’ Karl thought surprised at the amount of pressure he could put on his new teeth. He could hear the tiger roar in pain and felt him desperately struggle to escape.

Karl released the tiger a few moments later, and it promptly fled the area, trailing blood behind it.

Karl was busy processing what had happened.

“I beat a tiger! I defeated a fucking tiger!!!! Booyah, bitches!”

By now Karl was literally jumping around in joy holding a small and utterly ridiculous victory dance when he suddenly remembered the thing he was fighting for in the first place.

Karl made sure that there was no one in the area (hey, even mutant freaks have a sense of dignity) before digging into the raw meat. And you know what? It tasted damn good. He didn’t have a knife, but his claws worked just as well. After he filled his stomach the realisation of what he had just done.

“I just ate a raw animal! I can’t even believe I liked it! Okay, okay, calm down; there’s nothing to worry about. Just a possible infection of various diseases and parasites.”

His next problem reared its head as he realized he did not have a place to sleep, nor did he know how to make a fire, not that he had the necessary tools to do so. It probably didn’t matter that much anyway: he doubted he could effectively manipulate any tools with his right arm being so… uniquely augmented.

He decided that he ought to deal first with problems he was actually capable of addressing, such as finding some water to get the taste of blood out of his mouth and to clean his teeth. He recalled hearing the sound of running water before facing off against the tiger and attempted making his way back to the source of the sound.

This task proved more difficult in execution than in thought, and it involved lots of mud, dirt, vines, heat and angry insects. Granted, his armoured skin offered a great deal of protection from bites and stings, but they were still a pain in the ass. When he found the water source, he started drinking from it once, again not caring about the presence if bacteria, amoebas, or other undesirable matter until it was too late, which made him start wondering if his body contained some kind of automatic pilot. He shrugged it off, deciding that it didn’t matter: so far, that automatic pilot had been correct.

With his mouth free of the taste of blood, his teeth cleaned to the best of his abilities and the sun setting, he decided it was time to find some kind of place to sleep.

He climbed into a nearby tree with ease. Karl climbed until he reached a spot where he could lay against a branch with other branches close to it so he would not fall out of the tree should he move in his sleep. Karl fell asleep instantly whether it came to exhaustion or just the want to sleep he did not know neither did he really care he just wanted the comfort of sleep.

****
Karl woke at dawn the next day. By now he had accepted this was the real, not just a dream. He ate some fruits that hung on the tree before descending towards the ground again.

He tried teaching himself to spearfish just to get something on his plate. He made progress, just not any that was worth the effort. He had given his all for hours and all he managed to catch were three fish, two of them barely the size of his left hand. The third one had been the one that had at least given him a decent meal.

After he finished with his fish, Karl decided to further explore the land. He needed daylight to travel, but he knew that he was not exactly inconspicuous should he encounter someone else. He decided that he was willing to take the risk. Besides, he was fairly confident that he could take anything that came his way.

His fears later proved unfounded, but somehow that was even worse than if he had run into anyone. A crushing loneliness began to settle over Karl.

The days dragged on. Karl became familiar with the jungle. He became a superb fighter and hunter.

However, his grasp on sanity became slightly… tenuous, as is the case with most people in similar situations.

“So anyway Mr. Coconut, I said to my pal Will, ‘Don’t play Amnesia while you’re drinking!’ What does he do? He plays Amnesia whilst drinking! Of course he did. Never tempt fate, man. Anyway, he set his beer bottle down in front of him while he was playing, got a good old-fashioned jump scare, and wound up with beer all over his nuts. Oh yeah, and he got killed in the game so he needed to restart from the checkpoint. Boy did I laugh. Ah, those good old times!”

The coconut, adorned with carven eyes, mouth and nose, said nothing and simply listened respectfully.

“Now let me tell you about that time Will and I wanted to test how hot a certain Mexican sauce was in a certain Mexican restaurant… hey, we’re not in the forest anymore.” Karl lamely finished as he found himself on open soil with hills surrounding it and rock formations scattered across them.

“How the fuck did I not notice this sooner? Did I really start to loose my grasp of reality to the point that I didn’t even notice a change in surroundings? Tell me Coconut, and be honest, did I go crazy in there?” Karl asked before he looked at the coconut expectantly. When he didn’t get any response after a few moments, he spoke up again.

“Dear god!!! It’s worse than I thought! Even Mr. Coconut can’t find the right words to articulate it! What has become of me if even my companion cannot describe how deep I have sunk? But can you blame me? I mean that place would drive anybody slightly crazy, right?”

As Karl was continuing his rant about how it wasn’t his fault, three pairs of eyes had been busy watching him intensively from the safety of the shadows of a rock formation ever since he had come out of the jungle part of the Everfree forest.

“He’s big and strong!” said first pair of eyes, which were yellow with vertical pupils.

“He’s crazy!” said the second pair, which looked the same as the first.

“He’s our only option!” said the third pair, which were green instead of yellow. “Let’s just move on with the plan!”

The other two nodded before moving to their respective positions.

Karl had finally finished his mad rant when suddenly the ground underneath his feet started feeling strange. Time to put more thought to the matter was not to be had, as the ground underneath his feet collapsed and he fell into some kind of tunnel, where he got jumped by at least a dozen humanoid dog creatures wearing armor.

His new body was strong, but it still possessed limits.

Limits such as a dozen or so armored dog creatures dropping down on top of him. He felt them putting what felt like cuffs on him before heaving him to his feet. Some more dogs aimed their spears at him.

“What have we here? I have never seen a creature like you, but I bet you’d make a good miner.” said a voice from the darkness

Karl looked in the direction the voice came from and saw three of the dog creatures which looked slightly different than the others. Instead of wearing armor and carrying spears they appeared to wear jackets and diamond-studded collars.

“Well…” Karl retorted, “…joke’s on you. To the extent of my knowledge, I can’t mine for shit.’’

“Well then I advise that you learn it fast! We need more gems and that means more dogpower.” the one with the red jacket replied.

‘Dogpower?’

Suddenly one of the armored dogs stormed in in a panic.

“Sir, the ponies from Hoovetown managed to repel our attack on the convoy!”

Karl saw the dog leader scowl.

“Dammit, Rover; we were counting on the gems of that transport to help fill the order!”

“I know that Spot! What am I going to do now? The Alphas won’t tolerate any more failures!” the one know as Rover exclaimed kicking a stone away.

Now this got Karl’s attention. They hated the ponies too, albeit different than the specific ones who wronged him. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage.

“It seems like you have a few problems with ponies. Maybe we help each other out a bit.”

The big one snorted. “Why would we want to make a deal with you?”

“You have a problem and perhaps I can help to solve it.”

The big one wanted to speak again, but was cut off by Rover.

“Let him speak Fido. Perhaps he could be of use to us.”

Karl grinned inwardly. “Now you’re talking! How about you tell me your story and your problem and then I’ll see if I can help.”

“Fair enough. It’s not like keeping you as miner is going to help us much without that other load of gems to fill up.” Rover stated before leading Karl through a tunnel system.

After a while they arrived at what Karl assumed were Rover’s private chambers.

The chamber was little more than a hole carved into the cave wall, but with a desk, some bookshelves and some blankets on top of some rocks which acted like his bed. In a corner stood a small chest filled with gems. The room was lit by two oil lamps, like the rest of the tunnels. One was attached to a wooden beam on the ceiling and the second one stood on a rock close to the “bed”. On some other rocks lay some cushions to which Rover gestured.

After they got comfortable, the Diamond Dogs began to tell their story. It seemed that they had tried to capture some white unicorn for ransom. They found it rather odd though, that the townsfolk put up very little resistance to the action. The reasons became apparent as the unicorn commenced whining to such a degree that the Dogs actually begged her friends to take her back. In their desperation, they even gave up all their gems just to get the ponies to relieve them of the torturous individual. Somehow though, the Equestrian government had heard what had happened and ordered the Dogs to be forced out of their den despite the return of the unicorn.

Then Rover had led his pack to this spot where they’d had conflicts with ponies from the local town, but in order to acquire the funds necessary to set up their new home, Rover had been forced to borrow money from the High Alphas and the time to return the loan was getting closer and closer. Due to the delay in the construction of the mine, they weren’t able to even obtain gems until fairly recently and they couldn’t mine fast enough to make up for time lost.

Rover had thought of a plan to hijack a gem transport from the ponies in order to make up for the amount of gems the Dogs couldn’t mine quick enough, which, as Karl just learnt, ended in a spectacular failure. By the time Rover finished, he was fuming from rage as he remembered how the ponies had harassed him from the moment he became a pack Alpha.

“What do you know about the town they brought the gem transport to?”

“Medium sized town with a wall around it to prevent creatures from the Everfree from entering. There’s an Equestrian military camp nearby.”

“Do you have a map?”

Rover nodded and stood up to get some maps. After he had retrieved a set of rolled-up maps, he laid them in front of Karl and sat back down. Karl examined the maps. One was of the town the other of the surrounding area.

“Do you know where they store the gems?”

“No, but we assume here.” Rover pointed to a place on the map. “It’s the local smithy. It’s the most logical place.”

“Tell me, what do you need besides those gems from the transport to get the required amount to pay back your debts?”

“Workers. A lot of them, or maybe even some unicorns who can use gem tracking spells. That white unicorn was annoying as hell, but I have to admit that she was extremely useful at first.”

Karl knew when a deal could be made and this was such a situation “Listen, keeping me here won’t do you any good as I would be incapable of mining the required amount of gems you need, but perhaps I could be of assistance to you in another way.”

“How?”

“I can infiltrate that town and get you your gems and some workers from that city.”

The three Dogs burst out in laughter, but Karl’s face remained unchanged. The Dogs stopped as they noticed he wasn’t joking.

“Wait, you’re actually serious. Surely you know that idea’s completely ludicrous. It’s a town full of ponies. No offense, but you could even get noticed in Diamond Dog ranks.” Spot stated.

“Yeah; most ponies are fucking racists anyway. Even if you weren’t associated with us. I doubt you’d even get into the city at all.” Fido added.

“I have to agree with my friends and commanders on this one. There’s no way they will allow you access to the town.

“I don’t expect them to voluntarily give me access and to be honest I couldn’t give less of a shit. I’ll get into that town. Just give me a deadline.”

“Fine, but remember don’t betray us! We don’t take lightly to betrayal! Whatever your plan is make sure we get the gems and the workers over seven days.”

“I wouldn’t think about betraying you guys. You are currently my only allies and I take care of my allies, but remember once I deliver those workers I get to keep my freedom. No sneak attacks anymore.”

“Seems like a fair deal to me. We’ll show you where you have to make deliveries of both gems and ponies. We can give you a sword and some pony currency, but if you need anything else, you’re on your own.” Rover said.

Not fifteen minutes later Karl was walking towards the pony town of Hoovetown. Not his first choice of occupation, but at least he had some sort of goal, and he was planning on keeping his promise to the Diamond Dogs if only to have something else to do besides aimless travelling.

“Let the games begin!” Karl said to himself as he was thinking of just what he could do in Hoovetown.

Author's Note

I hope you guys enjoy the story and I thank you guys for the support it has gotten so far.

For those wondering my other story will probably be updated tomorrow.

Also this Friday I will be in Paris for an entire day and with that I mean get on a bus at 6:00 AM and be home at 1:00 AM the next day so I will most likely be exhausted so yeah I will put this as a blog post as well, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it in this chapter as well.

Please keep on supporting the story if you enjoy it and until next time!

Editor: Vlasislas32
Author: TheShadowOfZama