Xenophobia

Chapter 5

Ray was taking this new world rather well, considering the circumstances. The deeply scarred sergeant listened intently to Jer’s explanation of their current predicament, the three colorful horses occasionally correcting his overly enthusiastic comrade when matters of Equestrian societal structure were concerned. The man blathered on about magic, whole towns populated with pegasi and unicorns, and, on a slightly different note, his abject loathing of their grounded ship’s supply of “Beefy Broth” MREs.

It was all so insane. Ray wanted nothing more than to scream bloody murder at Jer to make him see that this was all completely impossible. He wanted to scream and scream. Howl for eternity. But he didn’t. He just sat, not really listening anymore, occasionally nodding his head in affirmation of Gerald’s explanations. He was still coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t dead. Or was he? This didn’t look like heaven… and Jer’s rather detailed descriptions of the bowels of hell weren’t on par with the sun-dappled forest he currently found himself in. Ray considered the notion that he was dreaming. Being trapped in his subconscious mind had been terrifying a few moments ago… this place seemed too happy, despite the ominous nature of the forest around him. Conclusively, the dazed man decided he wasn’t dreaming anymore either. A sudden twinge of fiery pain shot through his left arm, causing Ray to wince and screw his eyes shut, replacing the confusing world around him with comforting darkness.

“Fuck… I guess that means I’m alive…”

The already pained marksman felt a sharp poke and brief stinging sensation on his upper arm. He opened his eyes in time to watch Jer withdraw a hypodermic needle from his skin and carefully place the syringe back into one of his belt pouches.

“More hallucinogens?” Ray deadpanned. Gerald rolled his eyes.

“Morphine, you asshole,” he replied, looking down on Raymond good-naturedly. His trademark grin lazily played across his face. Ray wanted nothing more than to rip it clean off. “You’re welcome.” As Ray’s arm slowly numbed and the pain subsided, he turned his now slightly glazed eyes over to the three former figments of his imagination. He attempted an introduction, but the morphine was really beginning to addle his already strained mental faculties.

“Niysh to meetchoo,” he slurred, extending his uninjured arm out in order to shake hands… hooves… whatever. The two little ones giggled and both shook his outstretched hand together, somehow gripping his forearm without the use of fingers. This only served to confuse Ray further. He chose to ignore it for the time being, however, and instead looked to the largest of the three quadrupeds. He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile, but in his drugged stupor he only succeeded in drooling a little.

“Damn. How much did he give me?”

The orange mare seemed more hesitant than the others, but, noticing he wasn’t exactly in the position to harm anyone, she stepped forward and shook.

“Howdy there, Fuss-Bucket,” she exclaimed, all pretenses of caution abandoned. “Ah’m Applejack, and these two young ‘uns are Applebloom and Scootaloo. Ah guess, since we’re the only ones here, its our job to welcome you to Equestria… so… welcome?”

Raymond didn’t fully catch her whole greeting, so he simply smiled drunkenly at her. Had she called him Fuss-Bucket? She moved back and sat on her haunches a few yards away. He looked over at Jer who mouthed “I’ll tell you later” to him from beside the fire.

Speaking of fire…

Applejack couldn’t help but giggle at the drugged human. Despite his horrific scars and cataract eye, he wasn’t exactly an ugly creature. It looked like he could smile more, but she assumed he had good reason not to. When he had tried smiling at the fillies and her, his good eye softened. Despite the obviously unfamiliar and awkward execution of the gesture, it was comforting; unlike the mischievous glint that flashed across Jer’s gray eyes whenever he grinned.

Scootaloo and Applebloom had decided to occupy themselves by dashing around the drugged man, shouting about monsters and asking the poor thing countless questions. Fuss-Bucket just looked at the two exuberant fillies and sighed, resigning himself to his fate. Applejack couldn’t resist another fit of giggles, before slowly trotting over to help him. Before she got the chance the situation resolved itself. The two fillies were set upon by a sudden case of narcolepsy and collapsed in a heap on top of the broken alien.

“Well, they did have a long day,” the farm mare mused to herself. “Thank Celestia he was drugged, ‘er that mighta hurt somethin’ fierce.”

The sudden presence of two children in his lap seemed to sober the scarred human slightly, and he winced at something. Applejack continued over to him in time for her to catch him trying to get Jer’s attention without waking his two sleeping leg warmers. Jer was unfortunately too engrossed in the sky above to notice his feeble gestures.

“Jer!” Applejack stage-whispered. He tore his eyes away from the heavens and looked over to them. Noticing Fuss-Bucket’s attempts at contacting him, along with the sleeping fillies in his partner’s lap, he quietly made his way over and listened to the encumbered human intently.

Applejack leaned in, hoping to catch what he was saying.

“… how long… shitty cook…”

It was then that the orange mare noticed the smell. She looked back over toward the fire pit, seeing the remains of whatever poor animal Jer had caught finally break off of the metal spit and land in the flames with a loud thump, the flesh a deep charcoal black. Several brittle pieces bounced off of the barrier of stones that surrounded the pit before finding final resting places among the forest grasses and fallen leaves.

“Shit…” Jer sighed. He turned back to his comrade-turned-bed and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I got a bit distracted, hehe…”

The disgraced chef trudged over to his ruined dish and fished it from the flames. He held the smoking carcass at arms length and then proceeded to walk it out of the camp, passing over the wire and soon disappearing from view. Now Applejack was alone with the broken alien. She turned to ask him a question, only to find him snoring along with Applebloom and her friend, head lolling to the side. He snored softly. Applejack snorted and sat down next to them. The sun hadn’t even begun to set yet.

“Great… just great...”

She was about to let her eyes drift closed as well when a bright flash of purple light engulfed the clearing, followed by the muffled pop of a teleportation spell.

Jer crashed through the underbrush, burnt deer in hand, until he reached the spot where he had been assaulted by some gigantic winged lion. Looking back on the encounter, he recognized the fact that it was technically his fault that things got out of hand in the first place. He had neglected to clean himself off after burying the inedible deer bits, and the greasy smell of innards must have attracted the gigantic carnivore. Even so, he had handled himself pretty well and now the creature lay sprawled out near the roughly tilled earth where he had buried the deer’s guts, its lower jaw blown clean off.

Jer dumped the ruined deer carcass and gently lifted its arthropodic tail, careful not to prick himself on the most-likely poisoned barb. It was still warm. After a few grunts of exertion and much tugging, the human was able to drag the dead manticore across the leaf-littered ground. He had almost reached the edge of the crash site before he was forced to take a break. He dropped his cold, chitinous handhold and sat upon the dead mammal, panting and trying to ignore the curses and stutters bouncing around inside his skull.

He was about to resume dragging the beast when there was a bright flash of purple light. Jer flinched, thinking it was the flare of something coming into contact with the defense system. Thousands of gruesome scenes flashed through his mind. A flash that big had to have come from something much larger than a curious squirrel or small mammal, and Jer couldn’t remember if he’d informed his drugged friend of the barrier. He quickly broke into a run.

“Did I input him into the database? Shit, I don’t remember.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The worried human burst from the forest into the clearing, taking in the scene before him in a heartbeat. On one side of the camp stood five more natives, two pegasi, two unicorns, and a regular (earth?) pony. He recognized the two unicorns as Ms. Sparkle and the alabaster unicorn he had seen drag Sweetie Belle away earlier that morning. The two pegasi were yellow and blue, respectively. The yellow pegasus hid behind Twilight while the blue hovered above the group, sporting a mane that was a living tribute to the spectrum of visible light: a fucking rainbow, if you will. The hair color probably threw Jer off the most, the fact that horses could fly not bothering him all that much anymore. Finally, the earth pony. She was a bright pink color, her mane a slightly darker shade than her fur. It stuck out in all directions and bounced a little as she hopped in place, eyes darting around camp.

On the other side of the clearing: Ray sat where he had left him along with the Apple siblings and Scootaloo. They seemed just as surprised by the intrusion of the other five as Gerald, all but proving that they had nothing to do with them getting in, which could only mean…

“GOD DAMMIT!” the ex-marine howled, falling to his knees. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF HAVING THIS FUCKING THING IF IT DOESN’T KEEP SHIT OUT!!!”

Eight-and-a-half pairs of stunned eyes focused on the prostrating human. The new arrivals cowered behind Twilight, save one cyan pegasus who, shaking off her initial shock at shouting alien, cast him a glare that would make a Caspairan Human Resources Clerk squirm. Ray simply stared at him drunkenly, annoyed at being awoken from his pleasant morphine-induced dreams. Jer sighed shakily, calming down after his stress-induced outburst. He wasn’t used to having camp defenses breached at all, let alone thrice in a day. Physical security had always been important to him since his increasingly fractured consciousness made mental security an impossibility.

Jer took a deep breath, counted to ten, and shifted his gaze back upward to Twilight.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he rasped, chuckling briefly despite himself. “I’m going to have to get used to the constant breaking-and-entering on this planet.” He noticed Twilight blanch at his words, apparently realizing that she had encroached on his sense of privacy once more and remembering his previous reaction. Good.

“Oh… Oh Celestia, I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I just--”

“Wanted to show your buddies the alien?” Jer finished, smirking.

“Well…”

“Just please stop breaking into my home. If you had asked, I would have let them in. None of you look exactly menacing, anyway.” The rainbow pegasus’s indignant glare intensified. She spoke up, her raspy voice clearly betraying her annoyance and distrust of the human.

“Yeah? And what makes you so tough, huh?” She shifted into an upright position in mid-air and crossed her forelegs over her chest. Outwardly, Jer sighed and shifted resignedly to his feet. Inwardly, however, he couldn’t help but grin wickedly.

“Oooh, we’ve got a feisty one, boys.”

“Kill it. Bathe in its blood.”

“Now, now. They’re guests. It’s best to be polite.”

Jer turned to Ray, Applejack, and the two fillies. He made eye contact with his partner and the dazed man cocked an eyebrow quizzically.

“You hungry, Fussy?”

Realizing that the question was directed at him, Ray frowned, but nodded, choosing not to make use of his already taxed vocal cords. Jer walked over to the defense computer and punched in the deactivation code for the perimeter wall. He then proceeded to stroll out of camp.

Rainbow was pissed. She had woken up for weather duty with a hangover that would’ve left Berry Punch floored and had been struck by lightning from a rogue cloud, singing her left primary remiges and making her look like a foal. Now she was in the middle of the Everfree Forest because Twilight wanted them to meet a couple of “extra-equestrials.” At first, she had been excited at the prospect of meeting the, as the egghead had put it, “excitable creature” that called itself a human, but now she was having second thoughts. It had practically called her weak! The Greatest Flyer in Equestria: weak! So what if it was bigger than she was. By Celestia, Rainbow Dash would not be put down in such a way, even in passing!

But now, once again, she was unsure of herself. The human didn’t anger at her goading, but when it had looked into her eyes, she had seen into forever… frightening images of a lake, not of water, but of roiling grey flame had flitted across those eyes. A malicious glee like that of Pinkie’s when she had snapped a few years ago on her birthday seemed to radiate from them. Dash tried to hide a small shudder and failed. She glanced at her Pink friend, who was utterly oblivious to the Rainbow’s sudden discomfort, as she was now staring across camp at the other alien and… Applejack?

“Ya’ shouldn’ta done that Rainbow,” Applejack reprimanded as she slowly pushed herself up into a standing position from her place next to the other alien. “He was just jokin’ an’ you girls shoulda known better than to just barge on in here. Ah mean Rainbow Ah can understand, but you Twilight? Ah’m disappointed.”

“But sis,” Applebloom began. “Y’all did th-” she was cut off by a glare from her sister. She turned back to the five mares, ready to give Rainbow a further dressing down, when Pinkie suddenly shot past her and practically straddled the clearly dazed creature that Twilight had warned them about: Fuss-Bucket.

“He’s pretty protective of his friend, so don’t touch him,” Twilight’s voice rang out in Rainbow’s memory. “He’s sick, and was asleep when I was… examining him.”

The cyan pegasus flinched and made a move to try and stop the party pony, but it was too late.

Ray jolted back into semi-consciousness when he felt a sudden pressure on his chest. He became aware of a blur of pink and the quiet yelps of the two fillies that had originally been sitting in his lap. Almost immediately, he was beset by a pair of piercing blue eyes, much like his own… except plural. He caught a faint whiff of cotton candy and… was that ozone?

“HI MR. ALIEN GUY!” the pink mare shouted, seemingly unaware of the needlessness of such excessive volume at her current proximity. “I’m Pinkie Pie! OMYGOSH that rhymed! I love rhyming! Guy, pie, shy, try, high, why, my, tie, nigh, lie, cry, sigh…”

Raymond didn’t know what to do. He had accepted the talking ponies, but now he wished their existence was once again in doubt. His brain felt like it was slowly being crushed in a vice while having lemon juice dumped on it. The pink mare just kept going! Good Lord why?

“Pinkie!” the purple unicorn shouted. “Get off of him! He’s injured!”

“Injured?” A flare of pain traced its way up his left arm. “Oh… right.”

The pink poet, apparently named Pinkie Pie, quickly removed herself from Ray’s lap and grinned apologetically at him for a moment before resuming her previous greeting.

“Sorry Mr. Bucket,” she apologized, “I’m just really excited to throw your party! I’ve never planned a ‘Welcome to Our Planet’ party before! There’ll be games and sweets and punch and streamersandeveryponywillbeinvitedandthey’llallgettomeetyouand…” her voice grew faint as she began to bound around the clearing, completely caught up in party-planning euphoria.

“I can’t believe Gerald told them my name was Fuss-Bucket. Where the fuck did he come up with that?” Ray seethed silently, expression betraying nothing.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Sugarcube,” Applejack muttered so Pinkie couldn’t hear. “She just gets a might excited whenever new ponies… er… humans show up in town.”

Ray just nodded. He wanted more morphine… needed more morphine. Pain lanced through his arm again. He made a move to get up, but immediately found himself surrounded by every brightly colored quadruped in the immediate area, excluding Pinkie, who was still ranting and hopping around the clearing.

The pristine white unicorn held out her hoof imperiously, apparently taking it upon herself to introduce her friends.

“Good evening,” she huffed. “My name is Rarity. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance… despite your apparent lack of fashion sense.” The unicorn began scrutinizing Ray in an almost predatory fashion, staring intently at his battered body armor. She reminded Schaffer of Chairman Yutani’s wife, Francesca. Ray had only met her once, and it didn’t really count as a meeting (more like a bit of illegal surveillance), but the similarity was a bit disconcerting. He immediately disliked her. Choosing to remain silent, the scarred human shook her hoof and listened patiently as she introduced her friends, excluding those he’d already met. The fact that Applejack and the two crusaders were already present in the clearing was temporarily ignored.

“My name’s Twilight,” the lavender mare with a twinkling star tramp-stamp held out her hoof hesitantly. “We’ve already met… but you were unconscious before, so… yeah…” Ray shook noncommittally, still focused on trying to escape this surreal situation into opiate bliss.

“What’s wrong with your eye?”

“Rainbow!”

“What? It’s an honest question! Don’t tell me you don’t wanna know the same thing!” A cyan blue snout and a pair of rouge eyes invaded Ray’s personal space momentarily, before being pulled away by a purple aura.

“Don’t you remember what I said back at the library? Don’t disturb him so much! Jer’s already in a bad mood because of you as it is, Rainbow, and I don’t want him to feel like we’re threatening anypony,” the unicorn, Twilight, chided, as she magically lifted the rainbow-maned pegasus away from him.

Ray remembered vaguely that Jer had mentioned magical energy coming out of unicorn horns. So it was against everything humanity saw as reality: whatever. Ray had seen weirder shit in Gerald’s footlocker.

Twilight seemed really nervous about her friends touching him, leading him to believe that more had happened while he was asleep than Jer had been willing to tell him. The pained human sighed quietly.

“What did he do?” he demanded, calmly, not raising his voice any more than necessary to be heard. Each of the mares, even Pinkie, who was still on the opposite side of the clearing, immediately turned their full attention on him. Jer had always told him he had a way with civilians. I guess that applied to waist-high talking horses as well.

The uncomfortable purple unicorn blushed, looking everywhere but Ray’s mismatched eyes. Schaffer had to mentally force himself not to smile. These things were so damn cute…

One of the fillies who had been using his lap for a bed earlier, the orange one, Scooter-something, finally chose to fill Raymond in.

“He threatened to cut off her tail.” The other mares flinched and looked at Twilight with a mixture of shock and pity. The blue pegasus, whom Ray now knew was named Rainbow (well that’s creative), glared at him indignantly, as if it were his fault her friend had been threatened.

“Why, Darling, whatever could have been the reason for such violence?” the Yutani-esque mare cried, clearly disgusted by his partner’s actions. Twilight’s blush only deepened and she began to shift nervously.

“She was examining him with her magic,” the filly quickly elaborated, eager to defend her new friend.

“Examining?” Ray asked, confused.

“She was holding you in the air and turning you all around. I think she was about to try and take off yer’ weird clothes when Jer came back from wherever he had been earlier,” the young pegasus elaborated.

“I was not! Well, the levitating was true. And the examination. But I hadn’t even thought of that yet! W-Well, that’s not entirely true either, I-” Twilight stammered.

“Twi!” Applejack scolded. “Really?!? Ya couldn’ta thought it through a bit more?”

Ray once again lost interest in the conversation. His arm was killing him! Leaning forward, he attempted to escape the circle of quadrupeds, all of whom were now voicing their disappointment in their purple friend. They asserted that there was no reason for such violence from Jer, however, despite Twilight’s uncouth actions. When they heard that the tail-slashing threat had been a joke, they simply glared at her in exasperation.

Ray couldn’t care less. He was halfway to his feet when a loud crashing could be heard at the edge of the clearing where Gerald had disappeared earlier.

“Finally. Some food.”

Remembering the manticore, as well as Jer’s inquiry as to his friend’s hunger, Applejack moved to explain what was going on, hoping to lessen the shock of what she assumed was going to happen next.

“Girls, there’s somethin’ ya should know about Jer an’ his friend. They eat… well…”

“Meat?” a timid voice asked from behind Twilight. Everyone turned to the source of the voice, who visibly wilted under their stares, hiding behind her long, pink mane.

“Fluttershy, how’d ya know?” Applejack asked incredulously, expecting the canary pegasus to be the most uncomfortable out of everypony upon realization of the aliens’ eating habits.

“I n-noticed his c-canines when he smiled,” Fluttershy stuttered, still hiding from her friends. “They’re longer… meant for tearing soft tissue… n-not to mention the deer skin drying on the boulder over there,” she finished, pointing feebly across camp to the deer pelt Applejack had noticed earlier.

“But, Darling,” Rarity interjected, “doesn’t that bother you?” Fluttershy stammered nervously and hunched over, trying to hide her entire body within her voluminous mane. To Applejack, it looked as though she were blushing.

“Of course not,” Pinkie answered for her embarrassed yellow friend. “How else do you think she feeds sick bears, or wild cats, or other silly meat-eatery animals? Duh!” Applejack thought she was going to die. The image of kind, gentle Fluttershy feeding… oh Celestia… it was too much. The other mares, save Pinkie, seemed just as disturbed. This only served to embarrass Fluttershy further, and she made to run away but Pinkie stopped her before she got past the fire pit.

“S-So they’re carnivores,” Rainbow reiterated, glancing nervously at Fuss-Bucket, who had given up on trying to stand, content to watch the little drama play out in front of him.

“I think ‘omnivore’ is the term, actually,” a familiar voice suddenly interrupted.

The mares jumped and looked toward the edge of the clearing just in time to see Jer drag the battered, bloody remains of a bull manticore into camp. Its once proud face was riddled with small holes and lower jaw was missing entirely. Rarity gagged while Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared, horrified, as the human let the creature’s tail fall to the ground. The human glanced at Dash noncommittally, making brief eye contact. From Applejack’s perspective, the cyan mare seemed visibly shaken.

Fluttershy fainted.

“So much for being the calm one…”

Jer smirked at the no longer airborne pegasus. She flinched fearfully away and the ex-soldier found this unbearably funny. He doubled over in laughter, his body twitching spasmodically as he fell to the ground.

“What’s the matter, Sweet-Cheeks,” he inquired between fits of whooping laughter. “CAT got yer’ tongue?” Noticing the rainbow-maned mare’s fear was only compounded by his crazed laughter, Jer did what he did best: laugh harder. “D-Don’t worry! *giggle* I won’t bite!” The human clutched his sides as he writhed on the ground, cackling like a crazy old crone. He was soon joined by bubbly female laughter. Gerald cracked an eye and took notice of the pink mare he had seen bouncing about earlier.

“CAT!” the pink pony giggled hysterically, totally disregarding the carcass lying a mere two yards away. “I get it, cuz it’s a manticore!” Jer hadn’t expected a partner in his little hysteria attack, and was glad to have the company. Unfortunately, the fun soon ended as Ray chose that moment to butt in.

“Jer, stop it. You’re scaring the natives, especially Miss Dash.”

“I-I’m not-”

“Fine,” the anarchic bug-hunter chuckled; interrupting Rainbow Dash as his laughter slowly petered out. “Scoots? Could you go get my green tool bag? You remember which one?”

Scootaloo watched as Jer spazzed on the ground, laughing at her idol. She had no idea what to do. He was laughing at Rainbow Dash. THE Rainbow Dash! The pegasus she’d looked up to her entire life! She’d even started a fan club for the brash mare… and now she was being made to look like a fool by her new friend from beyond the stars.

The orange filly understood that being a bit put off… no… really put off by the brutally carnivorous tendencies of a strange creature was normal, so she wasn’t really being made to look too foolish, but Rainbow wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything! The cyan pegasus’s display of weakness distressed Scootaloo enormously. She knew that her feelings were hypocritical: seeing as she’d been frightened of Jer’s eating habits earlier that same day. But now… it hardly bothered her at all. Was that normal?

Scootaloo was torn. Should she defend her idol: the kind of mare she’d sought to become since she’d first arrived in Ponyville? Or should she join in Jer’s infectious laughter along with Pinkie Pie? The human had taken her in for the day: something no one else, not even Rainbow Dash, had considered. They didn’t know, nor did Jer, but… she had been hoping, maybe, they could’ve taken the time to notice. She thought that if she followed Rainbow Dash enough…

“Scoots?” The orange filly snapped to attention at Jer’s voice. “Could you go get my green tool bag? You remember which one?”

She remembered all right. The bag with the knives. The “bone saw.” Scootaloo couldn’t help but shiver, not just because of the gruesome scene that was about to unfold, but also in anticipation: anticipation of the maddening smell of cooked flesh. The orange pegasus wanted to buck herself in the face. Anything to dispel her strange desire to sit, sucking in that delicious aroma…

“Dear Celestia… what is wrong with me?”