A Single Step

I walk in circles upon circles and try to open my eyes…but they never stop until I wake...

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Day 1, 7:17 AM

There is something about the open road that I’ve always loved. Ever since I was old enough to remember, I’d stare out into the vast open spaces of plains and mountains on family car trips. The empty scenes slowly washed by with only me, their lone observer to know their greatness. When I became old enough to drive, I always liked the highway more than the constant bustle and rush of the city streets. That tendency only grew stronger with time, to the point that sometimes when I needed some time to clear my head, I’d just grab the keys and go for an hour or two. Whether I thought long and hard or just thought little and stared at the scenery, I always would come back ready for anything else...as if the journey made me ready for the destination. It never really mattered where I went, so long as I could go fast and see for a long way ahead.

Right then, I didn’t have a lot of ‘fast’, but the road was long and the view was wonderful. To the left, the high plains of central Colorado stretched as far as the eye could see, a dull brown in the mid winter sunlight. That sun was just rising, the light bringing the illusion of warmth to the mountain desert. To my right lay the foothills and mountains of the Front Range, mostly white, save for the green of the pines on the hills and lower slopes. Farther away, green took over from white when I could no longer see the ground beneath the forest. Immediately behind those hills the bulk of Cheyenne Mountain stood tall, which I’d come to know as my office.

I’d been away from the Rocky Mountains for a long time, and everything about them looked like home, and they would probably be...for the next six months, maybe two years? It all would depend on how long my superiors wanted me on-post. Kind of funny how I spent most of my childhood in Colorado Springs, and even after spending six years away for school and training, I’d come right back. Don’t get me wrong, I was all kinds of happy about it. I’d missed the mountains, my parents, my girl, my brother, and a whole host of other things.

I guess that made the drive sound pretty peaceful, huh? Well it wasn’t. Five of those ‘other things’ were in the car with me, and we had the music up exceedingly loud. I didn’t know exactly what was playing, but it had some heavy guitar, so I could enjoy it. Marcus and Sawyer had been fighting over the damned ipod for the last twenty miles, and if they hadn’t been picking good stuff every switch, I might have had reason to take it away and replace it with my own. Sawyer had shotgun, and there was no way anyone else would get it. He is my brother, after all.

Sawyer was tall…six foot something? I stopped counting after he got taller than me. A good buzzcut and the clean shave marked him as an Air Force cadet, now in his third year of school to become a chemist. He had spent the entire drive talking about medical schools, at least when he wasn’t arguing over the music. I really don’t know how Marcus managed to put up with him going on and on, but I didn’t have to acknowledge their constant exchanges, so I didn’t complain.

Marcus, by contrast, was stout and curious and built heavier than either Sawyer or I. For some reason he would also always demand the bitch seat. It made shifting the truck difficult, but he always had the courtesy to move out of the way so I wouldn’t rack him with the shifter. I’m pretty sure he had been the best worst influence of my life. Hell, he’s the reason I became a brony, but that’s a story for another time.

The back seat was quiet, at least compared to the front. How they had managed to coax Terrance into sitting in the middle, I have no idea. Terr was a crew chief who worked on C-130s. He’d been everywhere in the last year, from the bottom of the world to the Middle East, but it hadn’t changed him one bit. There was no doubt in my mind that he could find a job as Grumpy Cat should the economy turn bad.

Seth, who was almost the opposite personality, sat in the back passenger seat. Seth was social and outgoing, and even played the guitar in public. I think that if world could see physics students like him, it would come one step closer to letting go of stereotypes.

And then there was Amelia.

I shifted in my seat to get just a little better of a view of her in the rearview mirror. It didn’t seem fair that someone who was so beautiful could also be so irritating. Judging by Terr’s glare as she poked him in the arm, he couldn’t agree more, or at least with the second half. She was wearing her usual fare: blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt which hugged her slender form.

There on her left ring finger sat the diamond I’d put there months ago. It was still hard to believe that she was going to be mine forever. Brown shoulder-length hair ran down her neck, framing a pale face. Her eyes were brown in the middle and faded to green on the outside, curious and inquisitive.

“Dominic, you ok there kiddo?” Dangit, I’d done it again. I snapped my eyes back to the road to find that we were still on course and in the center of the lane, but that wasn’t the point. I had been doing this all morning, and Marcus had made a point of keeping the group alive by keeping me on the road when my mind wandered too far. Amelia noticed my lack of attention on the road and proceeded to lean over the seat and wrap her arms around me just below my neck. She whispered into my ear playfully, “You know, if you crash us before we get there, I won’t be skiing with you, silly.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be anyways!” I shouted.

“Snowboarding counts!” She stuck her tongue out at me, continuing, “And we both know that you’d never catch me if I skied.”

“Alright, you win,“ I conceded. She stuck her tongue out again and then reached out to take my hand. Since I didn’t need my right hand for shifting I could reply in kind. Chills ran down my arms as I took her soft hand in mine, and I marveled at the feeling, even if some of it was because her hands were cold.

Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Dominic. Dominic Everson, but just call me Dom. If you can picture Sawyer, you can see me too, except a little shorter, and I’d like to think I’m a little better toned. I’ve forgotten how many thousands of times we’d been mistaken for twins. Fortunately, that confusion never happens in uniform though; it’s hard to mix up a cadet and a lieutenant.

When my tech school drew to a close, I figured I’d have to deal with the evils of graduating middle of my class and either pick an interesting job far from Amelia or a very humdrum one close by. As it so happened, when my turn to pick a job came around, the spot for ‘NORAD HQ Network and Project Security’ was still available. So, all it took was one move from the south back to my home state and here I was, going on a ski trip with the most unlikely of people. Marcus was back from his job in Texas and Terr didn’t have his military drill scheduled; it beats me how we all managed to come together.

Right there behind the wheel on the open road, I couldn’t have been happier. I could have lived in that moment for hours, but then my phone rang and shattered all of that. It ruined the bridge on the song too.

Slightly miffed, I asked, “Hey Marcus! Can you get that for me?”

“Sure thing, Dom!” Marcus grabbed my phone, and in the best imitation of my voice he could manage, answered “Hello?”

I fancied I could hear the other end of the line over the music, but I was probably fooling myself. Marcus never bothered to turn it down and seemed to be doing just fine. After giving a few ‘uh-huhs’ and ‘yeps’, he put the phone back in the cup holder and poked me in the side, causing me to jump. Being ticklish is a curse.

Marcus gestured into the rearview mirror, shrugging, “So yeah, Taylor figured out it was me pretty quick. No fun in that. He says you drive fast.”

“Huh?” I replied, still thinking about other things.

“He’s right behind us,” Marcus grinned, “It looks like he’s gaining…floor it!”

Ignoring Marcus’ request and righting the mirror, I looked back to see a silver sedan driving closer than I would have liked, and a grinning figure rapidly waving at me. Sweeping my arm in one broad motion, I returned the wave, then my eyes went back to the road -- always back to the road.

Later on, that road would wind around the sides of mountains and along the banks of rivers, but even if those were far away, it was always the same road. That blacktop was turned a dull gray by the forces of time and weather, sunlight and tires, and it was always there for me. I was in that place where I always felt so right, which was why it was so easy to notice that something was wrong.

Looking back, I’m not really sure exactly what I noticed first, if it was the adrenaline, the shaking, or just a cold dread creeping up my spine. It was one of those times where my body knew something was wrong, even before my mind did. I’ve had those moments before, where something was horribly out of place, but I couldn’t find where. It was like a time when my body knew that the pattern of something was off before my brain could process what was causing the distress. This reminded me of a time when I was getting up for a drink of water at two in the morning, and I freaked out because a light that I always left on was off. I wound up grabbing my pistol and clearing my house afterwards, but if that was bad, then this was a thousand times worse.

For the first split-second, I felt the urge to cry out in warning, but something internal checked that. What I would be warning them of? And what would they do? By the time I figured out the first question, everyone else had too. The ground shook and the road swayed under the tires, oscillating perpendicular to us fast enough that I thought I now understood whiplash. While I was still fighting with the wheel, trying to keep the truck on a steady course, a brilliant light flashed through the windows. Instinct caused me to snap my head up to see where it was coming from as yells and cries of alarm filled the cabin.

The hills beyond us were swallowed in a mass of white light as swelling bubble of plasma came to meet us. The blast was not quite like a plutonium bomb, but it was the closest I’d ever had the rare privilege of seeing in person. There was no time for further thought or desperate action as the wave hit. A brief moment of blinding light and intense cold ensued, and I was slammed into the door. Weightlessness was the last thing I felt before a profound blackness overcame me, and I had only one thought:

Well shit. At least it will be quick.

“Dom. Dom. Dom. Dom! Dominic! Wake up you asshole!” I could only barely make out Sawyer’s voice through the thick permeating fog of my unwaking body.

Every word was punctuated with a shake. Ow. Ow. Owww. Sawyer kept pounding and screaming. Whatever he wanted so urgently could wait; I needed sleep. Despite my best efforts, with each jolt, I became more aware of my surroundings. Finally, the world came into being with a sound of emerging from deep underwater, but I refused to open my eyes because of a sharp pain running from them to the back of my skull. Each pulse slid slowly, as if a shard of twisted metal was gouging through my brain matter. Each shake was momentary, but the pain seemed to take far too long to dissipate. Flowery descriptions aside, I was dying to punch him by the third time.

“Stop! Sawyer! Stop it, I’m up!” I screamed for all I was worth. Thankfully, the shaking stopped, but the grip on my shoulders didn’t go away. It didn’t quite feel right, like my shoulders were too narrow, but judging from the headache, I’d either been drinking too hard or had come down with the flu. And why was I lying on rocks? “Augh...what is so damned important that you have to do that? My head...argh…” It was taking all of my stamina right now not to puke, let alone solve Sawyer’s burning issues.

“Fuck! Dom, this is serious!”

“Dangit, don’t yell, that hurts!” I tried to open my eyes just a little, but the light streaming in quickly burned at the sticky darkness that filled them. Talk with closed eyes it would be.

“Do you think I give a shit? Get up!” Sawyer sounded like he was getting angrier quickly.

“I’m working on it! Geez...I hurt all over. How much did I drink last night?” I tried to buy time to make the spinning in my head go away before I had to open my eyes again.

“You weren’t drinking. Now open your eyes!” Sawyer sounded...desperate? That was something that I wasn’t used to. Ever since I was little, Sawyer always had an answer, a plan, something that he could use when things got dicey. Whatever he was looking at was serious.

Was I dying? Naw, probably not.

“Fine. Let go of me already.” I felt the pressure subside on my…neck? Shoulders? It didn’t feel right, but I was in no condition to judge. First things first would be to roll over so I didn’t have to look up into the sky. Rocks dug into my back as I turned, making me wonder where my shirt had gone off to. That shirt would have to wait, though, as rolling over turned into a struggle of its own. My legs didn’t want to stretch out right, and the rocks were getting in the way. I shouldn’t be able to feel rocks on my legs, let alone on my--

“Fuck! Sawyer! Where the hell are my clothes?!” I muttered as I fumbled to find purchase on the rough ground.

“Well, why don’t you have a look. We have bigger problems than your underwear.” The desperate note in Sawyer’s voice was dissipating, putting me more at ease, but the slight waver was still unnerving.

I was trying to ignore the dirt and rocks rubbing into me where they shouldn’t, and getting into my...is that hair sliding down my neck? When did I lose the buzzcut? Forcing my eyes open, the first thing I noticed was that my field of view was not quite the same as usual. It didn’t seem like my eyes had been dilated, but rather that I was somehow seeing a little further out to the sides than usual. And my nose! It seemed bigger and really far away...and it was...gray?

I blinked once, then twice. “Uh…” was the only noise I could manage. For all the thousand words that could be used to express what I was thinking, none came out, because I had no idea what to think. I was looking down a muzzle. My muzzle. Fine medium-gray hair ran down its length, which was blocking more of my view than I was used to. Looking up, I saw my legs, lying in the dirt and rocks.

Curious, I shrugged my shoulders and the legs retracted. Where the undersides of my arms should have been, I felt legs resting against the ground. Curling them up, I could see the darker gray of hooves underneath, the slightly shaggy hair from the bottom of the forelegs having initially covered them up. If those were really my forelegs, then there were several things that should follow. Whipping my head back, I was rewarded with the sight of my own backside and blank flank. Sitting on my back were a pair of wings, and beyond that, a tail of mixed dark and light green. All this before my mane fell over my eyes and covered my world in shades of green.

Again my temples throbbed and pain shook my skull. Damn. Couldn’t make this up. No dream I’d ever experienced had ever come close to this level of lucidity. They always came up as washed-out in some way. Whether gray in color, quiet in sound, or muted in emotion, they all in some way seemed unreal.

This time the pain I was feeling was real, and I figured so was everything else...even the dirt rubbing against parts of me that I normally kept clothed. A surge of thoughts and feelings welled up in me all at once, too quickly for me to understand, so I didn’t even try.

Two deep breaths settled the anxiety and nervousness, and I was ready to take a stab at the problem life had decided to lob at me. The logical conclusion was there, and I guess there was nothing else for it, which left only one question. As calmly as I could manage, I asked, “Why?”

“You tell me!” Sawyer blurted. “You’re the one constantly obsessed with your stupid fucking pony shit!” The clippity-clop noise of a hooved animal walking came closer. It rounded my right shoulder. Was it even still called a shoulder? It revealed itself to be a unicorn: violet, with a short yellow mane and tail. His eyes were bloodshot, the now pink whites surrounding red irises. His flank didn’t have a cutie mark either, but right now I really didn’t care about finding out what color his ass tattoo would be.

He stomped a hoof down, scattering the dirt into the air and onto my face. “Maybe you can tell me why I’m purple, or better yet, why the hell I’m a fucking pony!?” It was more than a little bit unnerving to hear Sawyer’s voice perfectly replicated by this especially colorful unicorn.

“I wish I could.” I replied. “When I figure out why I’m gray and have a tail, I’ll let you know.” After shaking the dirt off my face, a cursory glance revealed four walls of flaking sheetrock holding up a worn and battered roof, through which I could see an overcast sky. This must be some kind of farmhouse, but it’s definitely seen some better days. There was no guessing at the time, other than that it was still daylight and didn’t quite look ready to storm.

The air was cool, but not cold, and the breeze whispered through the rafters. All around me the floor was almost all dirt with an interspacing of rocks, and a few chunks that suggested that it had been tiled at one point long ago. Save for ourselves, the room was empty. One door on the nearest wall seemed to be the only exit. “Any idea where we are?” I asked plainly.

“No! Why am I a pony goddamnit motherfucker!” The Sawyer pony was trembling and starting to foam at the mouth. The last time he’d been that angry and actually shown it, he’d broken everything in the room. I needed to calm him down, and fast. Keeping my own cool would be hard enough without him helping.

I figured a direct approach would be best. “Sawyer, shut up. You’re making my head hurt. I have no idea, but standing there screaming in my face and kicking dirt in it isn’t helping me figure it out. As soon as I know, you’ll be the first to know. Can you help me get up?”

“As if. I can barely stand right now, and it took me two whole minutes to get to my...to get up. And the first thing I did is slip and kick you.” Sawyer was still fuming, but seeing me struggle seemed to keep him occupied for now.

“Gee, thanks.” I shrugged as I replied, but instead my body just twitched a little, causing the rocks to prod me in the side another time.

Sawyer didn’t wait for me to get up to continue venting. “Glad you’re grateful. If you didn’t whimper like a little bitch, I’d have no idea it was you, or be able to tell you apart from the other animals in this shithole.”

“Others?” I asked, although I felt as though I was missing something.

“Well, Terrance, Seth, Amelia, and Marcus were with us, remember? I figure that’s them in the next room. As for the other car’s group, I have no fucking clue where they went. The blast probably scattered them into a million little pieces.”

“Oh.” It all came back, my head pounding hard with the vivid influx of memory. Driving, shaking, flash of light, floating in the black…it was all too much. The fact that I was here, as was Sawyer and everyone else, meant that something had happened. What exactly had happened, and why, would have to wait at least until I’d gotten up off the ground. “Are they ok?”

“Them?” He gave me a grin that would have made a demon shudder. “Hell if I know. They’re not bleeding and still breathing. Good enough?”

Scrabbling to get up caused me to slip and plant my muzzle in the dirt, shocking my skull again and filling my mouth with the gritty taste of the earth. This elicited a bark of laughter from Sawyer, and forced me to spit until my mouth was clear. I did try to wipe my mouth out, but lacking hands, all I did was prod my face and lips. Did I mention hitting my head made it hurt more? Anyways, once my mouth was clear, I decided that standing up would be a methodical process. First things first would be to sit up. As best as I could guess, that meant putting my butt…rump on the ground. Check. Then arching my back and neck up. Okay. With my back half anchored on the ground for balance, pulling myself up was trivial.

The first thing I noticed upon sitting all the way up was that for the first time in four years, I was looking down on Sawyer. Yes! Big brother once and forever! The mind changes gears quickly; I couldn’t believe that I noticed that when my brother was a unicorn. Right now probably wasn’t a good time to voice that thought though, and I still needed to finish standing up. My choices were either to walk forward on my forelegs and pull my rump and hind legs off the ground, or to stand up first and then spread out.

Gravity would not be my ally either way; it only wanted to pull the rest of me back to the ground, and muscle memory didn’t seem to apply to new muscles. Picturing both, the latter method seemed more plausible in my head, so I pushed up and immediately got the urge to walk forward. Following it left me standing up, and feeling really solid. Getting up had been unusual, but now I felt like I could take a good punch or two and stay perfectly on balance. Testing that theory, I flexed my muscles up and down my back until I found the one that controlled wing motion. Boy it felt weird having another limb coming off just below my shoulder, and weirder still as the pull increased with each inch of extension. Each feather was beautiful, and I kept staring at my wings until the extra weight, as small as it was, caused my balance to shift, causing me to splay out on the ground once again. Ok, not as good as I thought I was.

Sawyer had already gone on ahead, stumbling and swearing as he made his way through the hole in the wall to the next room. I really wanted to beat him there, and while it was mostly driven by a desire to see if the others were ok, I’m not sure if I wanted to show him up or to stop him from hurting somebody else more. Desire aside, I was no less clumsy than he was, and I still had to get back up.

Raising slowly and proceeding, I only avoided falling again by slowing down. It was a bizarre rhythm, trying to walk with four legs. On the first pace, I tried to move both forelegs first. This left me stretched out and ready to collapse until I moved one leg backwards, and moved the opposite hindleg forward. Ok...like a parallelogram. Gotta keep perimeter under a certain limit. That was totally overthinking it, but I’d live with whatever helped me keep walking to the door without planting my face back in the dirt.

The next room looked almost identical to the first, save for a rickety door, apparently to the outdoors, on the far wall which was slowly opening and closing with the passing wind. While a way out was important, more important still were the unconscious forms scattered about the room. Ponies! It made sense, given what Sawyer had said, but it was still a little exciting. Focus, damnit! There were four of them, which coincided with everyone else that had been in the truck, but I had no way of telling who was who.

A black and white striped unicorn and a beige pegasus were lying the in the far corner, and a gray bat pony was passed out along the near wall. Sawyer was starting toward him with a vengeance, still muttering obscenities under his breath. The left a light gray unicorn curled up in the middle of the room; mane mostly obsidian, with a fiery orange streak in the middle. Something about that pony was different, and it took me a second before I realized it wasn’t just any muzzle, it was her muzzle.

“Amelia!” I yelled her name as I stumbled over to her. She was not moving save for a subtle rise and fall of her body. Pushing her with my forelegs, I rolled her back a little ways in the dirt. “Amelia, come on sweetie, wake up!”

As I waited hopefully for her to stir, Sawyer finally got to the bat pony. It seemed he wanted the leather-winged creature to wake up very badly, and it was clear he didn’t intend to be very friendly about it. Still spitting curses through clenched teeth, he kicked once, then twice, before the bat pony moaned and rolled away from his attacker. The victim made it until he got back on his stomach, at which point he stopped and shook his head.

“Whoa...wait.” That voice was Terrance’s. “What the fuck? ”

“You. Tell. Me!” Sawyer said through gritted teeth as he caught up to Terr and kicked him again. Terr’s eyes shot open, showing them to be narrow-slitted and orange-hued for a split second before he shut them again with a wince. Swiftly, he wrapped one foreleg around Sawyer’s foreleg and tugged. Saywer’s front half thumped against the floor hard, and Terr gave him a swift kick to the face.

“Ow! What the hell?” Sawyer whined and tried to back up, but Terr cuffed his neck and pulled him closer.

“Who wakes someone up by kicking them?” Terr argued, breathing heavily from the fight, “Holy shit. I expected better from an officer-to-be, kicking me when I’m down.”

“Thanks man,” I said pointedly, giving Terr a quick nod which he ignored and then continued bickering with Sawyer. They’d probably be at it for a while, and I needed to make sure Amelia was ok. Gently at first, but soon more forcefully, I tried to wake her up. Not that I figured she’d enjoy being shaken any more than I had, but I needed to know that she was alright. Moments later, I was rewarded for my efforts by a pale gray leg lazily shoving me away.

“Come on, Amelia, wake up.”

“Noooo…go away…” She replied sleepily.

“I know you’re tired sweetie, but you need to get up. It’s important.”

“Do I have to?” She opened her eyes ever so slightly, then closed them just as fast.

For anything less important, I would have been cowed into letting her rest. But this time I would have to actually make her get up. “Would you do it for me?” I pleaded, as much as I hated to admit it.

“Oh fine.” Uncurling slowly, she turned to embrace me with her forelegs. Halfway through the hug she paused then plainly declared, “You’re fuzzy wrong.”

“That’s why you need to open your eyes now.” I figured that one look would be worth thousands of words.

Grudgingly, she did, leaving me looking into orbs of solid brown, rather than the brown eyes edged with green that I was so familiar with. It was bizarre but comforting to see them open again. She just stared at me for a moment, then two, then ten. It was comforting (and warm) but wasn’t helping towards getting everyone else up.

“Amy? You all there?”

“You… made a pony costume? When’d you even have time?”

“Uhm…well…”

“It’s really pretty good.” She stepped back to look at me, but tripped and fell backwards instead. She stared at her hooves for a minute and then looked down the length of her body. “...Dominic?” Her voice spoke equal parts panic and fear.

“It’s ok...I think,” I said as I pulled her up and into a hug. “Stay calm now.”

“Ok? What part of this is ok?” She fumbled as she looked into each of my eyes in turn, searching for answers. “You’re…we’re…ponies?…The fuck?”

“Yeah,” I said, “my thoughts exactly, but your eyes sure are pretty.” There was only so much comfort that words could give now.

“Oh?” She studied mine a minute. “Not as much as yours.” She pushed her face into mine gently before pulling away and giving her head a hard shake. “That fuzz!” she cooed with her eyes crossed.

I’m glad I’ve never blushed easily, and this time any blush would have been hidden behind a mat of gray hair, but it didn’t spare me the embarrassment. Secretly, I enjoy it a lot when she compliments my eyes, but the man code says I can’t ever show it. Normally I don’t do ‘cute’, ‘pretty’, or anything else down that alley. Thankfully, Sawyer and Terr were still bickering, so I leaned down close and whispered back to her.

“Yours too. But as beautiful as you are, compliments are going to have to wait until we get all this figured out. Ready to get up?” I’d say anything to keep her thoughts off the most obvious for the moment.

“Fine,” she conceded, cutely offering her hoof to me. Helping her up was the courteous thing to do, but it came with its own set of difficulties. Her attempts to stand up were met with even less success than mine, so on her third try, I stuck one foreleg under her midsection and pushed her up. Amelia shoved herself on-balance, using me as a crutch to get all four legs straight. It would have been cute watching her struggle, but I was lost in another sensation entirely. Her underside was soft! A small chuckle escaped my lips at the thought.

“What?!” Her annoyed question went unanswered as I swiftly drew my leg back, and it continued to go unanswered as I kept laughing. “What is it?” she stared hard at me, “It’s because I’m a pony, aren’t I?” She looked up and crossed her eyes. “No...I’m a unicorn...oh why…?”

I dragged her into a hug before she could freak out, trying to impart every possible bit of comfort I could while secretly enjoying the softness and still trying to balance on just three legs. “It’s ok, Amy. Everything is going to be just fine. We’ll get everyone else up, and then figure out what’s going on, alright?”

“Oh alright…where is everyone?”

I stuck out a leg and pointed where Terr still had Sawyer headlocked on the ground, then towards where the other two were by the wall. “Sawyer decided not to behave, so Terr put him in time out. As for Seth and Marcus…well that’s them over there.” I bluntly pointed toward the patterned unicorn and the pegasus. Neither of them had stirred.

“Great. Who do you want to wake first?” Ash asked.

“Uhm...well your choice is as good as mine, so let's go find out,” I replied. Still as a statue save for the telltale rise and fall of his chest, the tan pegasus was out cold. I was beginning to wonder if it just an effect of…however we’d gotten here. I’d never had such a hard time getting up...although I couldn’t speak for anyone else other than Sawyer. Perhaps this guy would be easier to get up. I’d have to get there first, though.

Walking had not gotten any easier with the added practice of trotting from one room into the next, so I could only imagine it would take a while to get used to. The same would probably be true for Amelia, who nearly tripped twice as we made our way over to our sleeping friend. When we finally reached the pegasus, I knelt down and nudged him a few times.

“Hey, Seth? Is that you? Marcus, dude? Wake up!” The tan pony grumbled in a deep register and rolled over, falling right back asleep. “Come on man, get yourself up.” Reaching around his torso, I rolled him back over to face me. It was a heavy process; he was certainly bulkier than I was. He shifted again, and I grinned at my success, just in time to take a hoof to the face.

“Augh!” Stars flashed in front of my eyes as the developing bruise in my muzzle got struck for the second time that day, and I fell back on my rump with Amelia cackling at me. When my vision cleared, I rubbed my muzzle slowly, wincing at the tenderness. Whoever it was that I was trying to wake up didn’t seem to have been roused at all, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take another shot at it.

“Sucker!” Amelia said as she stuck her tongue out at me.

“Agh…he hit me!” The sight of that beige pony lying flat on his back, eyes closed, legs splayed out, and a huge grin on his face was too much to bear. There was no reason to be gentle, not after getting hit like that. Positioning myself just right took a few moments, just enough time for me to consider if I was behaving too much like Sawyer. Nah. With enough room to keep my balance afterwards, I went to kick the sleeping pegasus.

The strike flew true, and hit him right in the side of the ribs. It hardly did anything against his thick wrapping of muscle, other than throw my balance off. As I teetered, a set of legs reached out and swept my legs out from underneath me, and I plummeted down into the dirt. Before I could struggle any further, I was wrapped up in a tight bear hug. My attacker let out a low, contented breath before lying still again. That noise was quickly lost under the sound off Amelia laughing, and the following thud as she fell back into the dirt.

“Yeah. Laugh it up.” I growled as I realized I was losing a fight to a sleeping person.

“I-I will! You-you...just you!” She continued to laugh, which sounded disconcertingly like nickering. For that matter, I sounded like I was snorting. Made sense, but it didn’t make me happy. I knew one thing that would help with the humiliation, and began slamming my leg against the pegasus again and again with what little room I could get to wind it up.

“Wake. Up. Dammit!” My voice rose as my pride was rapidly falling.

This elicited a slight groan from him, and that’s when I knew it was Seth. His voice washed over my ears, expressing both eloquently and resolutely his intention to honor my request.

“No.”

“Get up!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a pony. Good enough reason?”

“Uhh-huh, sure...” The sarcasm was dripping from Seth’s inflection. Oh, this will be good when he opens his eyes...

“Then can you at least stop crushing me?” I could only picture what a gray pegasus turning blue would look like in my head.

“Uhhhhh, fine, leave me alone then.”

The grip loosened and I slumped to fall in the dirt for the umpteenth time today. Amelia was still laughing, and for the life of me I just didn’t get why. Ok, I suppose I understood why she was laughing, but I didn’t understand why Seth was being so obstinate. Sure he was the kind of guy who set a dozen alarms over the course of an hour to get up, but whenever I’d had to tell him to get up, he did so quickly and without complaint.

“Seth. This isn’t a joke. You need to get up right now.”

“Eh, fine, I’m up.”

This time one eye opened, and then two. He stared at me for a while, then tilted his head to look at Amelia. Looking at himself, he let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s a thing.”

“Yeah, it’s a thing. Look, I’m gonna go wake up Marcus, and then we’re all gonna have a long talk about this. Just wait here and work on standing up, and then I’ll come get you when everyone is ready, ok?”

Instead of giving me an answer, Seth hopped up. It really was a hop, all one quick, smooth motion that left him standing with a grin. My jaw dropped. Amelia glared and sat in a huff.

“Wow, that was way easier than I expected!” Seth said exuberantly. Craning his head about to examine his new form he shouted. “Fuck yeah, and I’m a pegasus!” He trotted over to a more open area and started to test out his wings.

I continued to look on as he pranced one way and then the next as jealousy blossomed in my throat. When he started to hum as well, I turned away with a growl and stumbled my way over to where Marcus lay. It seemed somewhat funny to see him with stripes and a horn, but it was just as funny to see everyone else as they were. Or should that be ‘everypony else?’ Ah well. I could swear he almost looks like a zebra, though. Would be if those looked a little more like stripes than bands.

“Hey, Marcus, time to get up, man.”

The reply came back right away, still a little muted from his drowsiness. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s happy ‘you’re-a-pony-day’ and I think you should get up and help me figure out why the hell it’s on the calendar.”

“Wait, really!?” Before I could answer, Marcus’s eyes shot open. He looked up at me, then at Amelia, then squirmed around in the dirt until he could see his own legs. The grin on his face looked like it couldn’t get any wider. “There’s only one other thing that could make this better…” He trailed off as he reached up to plunk a hoof on the end of his horn. “WOO! Yes!”

As I looked on, his horn lit up with a dark forest green glow, and so did a pebble by his hooves. Slowly, as if a young child were trying to drag it off the ground, the pebble lit up and wobbled back and forth in the dirt. Marcus took a deep breath, and the pebble rose several inches off the ground, and then several feet. About the time he was whirling it in circles around his head, the sound of my insistent coughing got louder than his zoned-out focus would allow and he set it down to listen.

“So, think you can put off magic-ing for just long enough to help us figure out what’s going on?” After a few wobbly attempts, he managed to fidget into a sitting position, and raise into a standing one.

He frowned, but nodded. “Only because that would be the annoyingly logical thing to do. Let’s get to it.” I watched curiously as Marcus attempted to get up. It seemed like each person had a dramatically different time with that part.

Marcus first sat on his hindlegs and locked both front legs to sit up straight. “Whoah,” he stated, sounding overwhelmed. “This is REALLY different. Like, take all of your limbs and flip them around weird.” He wobbled slightly as he moved to all-fours in one motion. “Hey! That wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought!” Page declared. He then immediately began to try to stand on fewer than four legs before walking. He lifted one leg, pointing towards a wall, then repeated with each of the other three. Those proved simple enough, but as soon as he tried two legs, he lasted a few seconds before flailing wildly and falling down hard, getting the wind knocked out of him. “Oof,” he wheezed, “Maybe next time.”

I turned away as he began getting up again. Gathering everyone together proved to be a lot less difficult than waking them all up. At the very least, I got hit in the face exactly zero times during the process. The end result was all of us more or less standing up in a circle in the middle of the room. Sawyer was still grumbling, Terrance was squinting, and Marcus was playing with his pebble, but it was probably about as much coherency as we were going to get. I was really hoping, perhaps praying, that somebody had a better idea of what was going on than I did. Still, it looked like no one else was about to say anything, so I had to kick it off.

“So...I think you’ve all realized our predicament. I’d like to know how we got here, and why. Now, if anyone has any ideas, solutions, or anything else useful, speak up.” The only noise audible was the wind in the rafters as five sets of eyes stared back at me. I had another chance to notice the change in color of each person’s eyes. Just like Amelia, everyone else had shifted eye colors, some drastically. Terrance was squinting, so I couldn’t see his. Well shoot. Guess that was too much to hope for. “Ok, well if that’s all we’ve got, let’s move on to the next thing. Anyone remember what happened before we got here?”

Seth was the first to answer, somehow rubbing his forehead with a hoof while he spoke. "To put it simply, Dom, I think we fucking exploded."

Latching onto Seth’s thoughts, Terrance spoke up. “I remember being in your truck, the ground started to shake, big ball of light, then black, some voices--”

“EEEP!”

Heat toasted my eyebrows as Marcus was completely engulfed in flames. Instinct left me diving to the floor, and I glanced up to see a cloud of smoke rising from where he had been standing. I blinked several times and wiped the crusty feeling away from my face; the side of my leg covered most of the area in one sweep. As the smoke cleared, the first thing I saw was that same smile. Marcus, while somewhat covered in soot, was grinning from ear to ear and quite unharmed. “Yes! It really works! Also, don’t sneeze when you’re magicking.”

There are moments when glares can be a palpable thing. Focusing five of them at the same time is outright intimidating.

“Marcus? What exactly is it that works?” He was trying my patience and he knew it. And did I really just hear a squee? This just keeps getting stranger.

“Oh, fire spells,” he replied, stifling his grin.

“Fire spells are great, but lets focus on something that could help us get back home?” I barked. I really didn’t want to sound too angry, and I’m pretty sure that it was my headache talking. That, and watching a dear friend of mine go up in flames was shocking, even if he turned out to be just fine.

“Yeah, sure. Sorry about that. On that note, I was thinking--”

Several loud raps sounded against the door, and muted voices sounded from the other side. Ten thousand thoughts exploded into my mind all at once. Perhaps they can help us. But who would it be? If it’s locals, and they’re ponies, they’ll think we’re crazy. I guess we could open it, or just talk to them?

“I’ll get it!” Seth said as he completely broke my train of thought and bounded to the door. How he could do so with so little effort was beyond me. Moreover, what was he going to say to whoever was on the other side? Before I could call out to him to wait, he opened it.

There are times that you can recognize something without instantly knowing what it is. When I saw that short green unicorn mare smeared with dirt, her mane caked into spikes with what looked to be dried blood, and a weathered cut-down shotgun with a strange handgrip, that was one of those times. Oh shit!

She clocked Seth on the side of the head and grabbed him as he slumped to the ground.

“Oooh! You’re mine, pretty colt!” A drop of drool slid from the side of her mouth as she handled his body.

“Seth!” The bellow left my throat as the crazed mare dragged him out the door and slammed it shut behind her. Howling and cheering filled the room, muffled slightly by the thin walls. Adrenaline filled my chest, and it took every ounce of self-control I had to walk slowly enough to not fall over. I knew there was no way that they were doing anything nice to him on the other side. I realized that these thoughts were shared, as everyone else followed me until I walked headlong into the door. The dull clunk of the side of my face meeting the weathered wood was drowned out by the far too familiar noise of someone trying to start a gas power tool. One...two...three times the revving noise sounded, then one voice rose above the rest in a yell.

“Hold him down, Grimmel!”

Panic overrode the adrenaline as I grasped for the doorknob. It was not shaped like any knob I knew, but rather as if a hoof were meant to fit over it. The thoughtful design would have been great for a pony who wasn’t trying to use a foreleg with the muscle memory of an arm. Once, then twice, I tried to meet the handle. Both times I slipped off. Then, whoever was revving the engine succeeded, and the all too familiar roar became continuous. A scream cut through the engine noise, raw and agonized.

“No!” My voice was barely audible above the din, and I was completely unable to hear the nimbus of magic shimmering around the doorknob, but I knew that Marcus had turned it for me. With a furious yell, I kicked it out. It could have been something out of a game, except that the shake of the aged and rotting door giving way resonated through my whole body, and the roar of what I thought to be a saw engine got a lot louder as the obstruction fell aside.

Seth lay shaking and yelling, pinned to the ground on a mess of dead grass. Next to him stood an earth pony covered in rusty spiked armor. Seth’s severed left wing lay lifeless next to him, while blood ran freely onto his coat and splashed onto the ground below. As the gruesome sight took hold, I saw a dirty orange unicorn holding a chainsaw who was halfway through cutting off his other wing.

There was no time for thought, no room for higher mental functions, only the drive to sprint forward. Hatred for the beasts that were killing my friend, fear that I would be next, and rage at such cruelty became one single intent -- stop him. Leaning down on my forelegs, pushing off with my hind legs, and closing the gap, I jumped. Slamming into him headlong, I tackled the raider wielding the chainsaw like a sack of bricks.

He went down beneath me, and as the shock from hitting the ground reverberated through my bones, and so did the constant vibrations from the saw. The raider screamed beneath me as his own weapon split open his underside from neck to tail, splashing the ends of my legs and the tip of my tail with droplets of his blood.

Horror seeped into my adrenaline like hot wax running down the inside of my throat, and I leapt off him. As soon my belly had left his back, the noise stopped. My own weight had kept his body on the throttle. I saw the blood in stunned silence. The other raiders saw it too. A vague whisper of thought passed through my mind. He’s...dead? But there was no more time, as the unicorn turned and I was staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

I hit the dirt, as my neck, cheek, and most of my front landed with a squelch in the raider’s blood. A scream of fury and a crack rent the air as the mare fired where my head had just been, and my heart thudded a mile a minute. Was that one shot or two? I had no way of knowing, but either way, she would be coming around to shoot again. I needed to get up and move now.

Upon standing up, I got perhaps a half second of relative stillness and silence to take everything in. The raider at my hooves was still twitching and moaning in pain. Seth was unmoving, his eyes half-lidded. The blood wasn’t gushing from the stumps where his wings had been, but instead just trickling. His jaw worked slowly open and shut, but no noise came from it. The raider with the spiked armor was bent over, retrieving a shovel on the ground, while on Seth’s other side, the mare with the shotgun stared at me, vehemence burning in her eyes as she pushed two more shells into her gun. But that moment of respite ended all too soon, as something hurtled past me with a yell.

Terrance wasn’t armed, but he had to be nearly twice the size of the raider mare. As he slammed headlong into her, the shotgun went flying, and her shells fell out of the barrels as both forms collided with the broad side of the faded barn. Something crunched as his weight crushed her, and I couldn’t tell if it was either the ancient wood or one of her ribs. Despite the impact, she rolled out to bite and kick him. I started towards them, only to run into the armored earth pony holding his rusty shovel between his teeth, poised to swing. Before I could respond, the flat of the spade connected with the side of my head, and I connected with the ground.

Half of my face ached as waves of pain accompanied the impacts, but clarity rushed through the stars in my vision. I had to roll over, had to do something, or I wouldn’t be getting back up. That thought was forced from my mind like the air was forced from my lungs as he kicked me right in the gut. The recoil from the strike left me looking directly at him and the end of his shovel. The edge of the spade was the one part not completely coated in rust. It had been filed to a sharp point.

Getting up would have been impossible. There just wasn’t enough time. Rolling wasn’t an option, I was already winded and lying on my side. So I did the only thing that came to mind, and swung one foreleg up to meet the shovel and bat it aside as it came down. Only the raider’s eyes were visible through his helmet, gray irises gleaming with hatred as he brought the shovel down upon my throat. I swung, and my foreleg met it. Pain erupted along the end of my leg, as it slammed to the ground, taking the shovel with it. The force of the strike had left it buried in the ground, and he would need time to pull it out. Time that the still very much alive me could use to get up, or would have used to get up if he didn’t kick me again. And again. I curled into a ball, trying to get the the barrage to stop, when suddenly it did on its own accord. Another yell sounded, and the raider left kicking me to grab his shovel again. This time I rolled over quickly, my body protesting at the movement. Now sitting up, I saw the raider wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, but instead to Marcus.

Marcus was standing a few feet away with a look of grim determination across his face. “I won’t die here! Not to you! Not now!” Marcus shouted, his voice quivering with fear and determination. Slowly, a dark green glow spread over his horn, then over his irises. It was a terrifying sight from but a few feet away. He raised his right forehoof and it took on the same baleful glow.

Once again, the raider hefted his shovel and raced forward. As the raider brought his shovel down, Marcus leaned back to strike with his leg. The two masses met with a crack and a flash of green light, and a pressure wave passed that I could feel on my skin. In the moment after the light faded, the raider was flung back all the way over to the barn wall, and smacked into it with a dull, lifeless thud. Marcus immediately slumped to the ground where he stood, and I feared the worst as I hurried over to him. Each of my steps were pained, and I had to wonder if I’d broken ribs. That would have to wait until I knew he was ok.

“Marcus!” No answer came from the unicorn, and I stumbled to a halt over his form. It took a few seconds, but soon the faint, but definitely present, rise and fall of his chest became evident. Still alive. Whipping my head back around, I could see Terrance was climbing off the motionless raider mare. He was bleeding from several nicks and bites in his coat, but was otherwise ok. The same couldn’t be said for Seth. Amelia was lying by his side, frantically pressing at one of his wing stumps, and screaming at Sawyer to do the same on the other side. Seth lay still, his eyes closed, the blood forming a thin trickle through Amelia’s hooves. If he wasn’t dead yet, he was certainly dying, and needed something. Anything. But we don’t have anything. The farmhouse was empty! The only other building here is...the barn! “Terrance, help me search the barn! They might have something to save Seth!”

“Right.” He said with a nod.

Together we walked as quickly as we could around toward the open side, which was still agonizingly slow now that they mindless adrenaline had worn off. It seemed now that I could think again, and all of the sudden I was thinking about walking, which made it just that much harder. Every last stride had to be mentally lifted, measured, and planted, and it took all four to make one pace. It didn’t look like Terrance was faring much better.

Inside, the barn was almost the same as the farmhouse: bare floor, stark, and empty, save for the pile of misshapen junk in the near right corner. Centered around a low but still-burning fire were two mattresses, one worn with some old sheets on it, and the other covered in blood and...other things. The stench made me gag, and I was somehow certain that I was smelling with more clarity than I ever had before in my life. How do they sleep next to that? Stench or not, there had to be something in here to save Seth.

Two saddlebags made of worn cloth sat behind the beds, which we immediately fell to turning inside out. A small mess of shotgun shells, three bottles of water, some flint, and a long knife fell out, as well as an odd piece of rock about the side of my hoof. It was dark gray with flecks of bright gold in it. Pyrite, probably. To my left, Terrance had found several more bottles of water, a small pile of bottlecaps, and a few skewers with roasted rats on them. Last of all came two cubic plastic devices half the size the rock, each sporting a pair of metal terminals. They were apparently a lot heavier than they looked, judging by how he handled them.

“Spark batteries?” I mused aloud. When I looked over, Terrance was wearing a pair of very old and dusty sunglasses with a large crack running down the left lens. Well at least he can see now.

“Probably.”

“Well shoot. I don’t see anything medical in here. I could use this knife to cauterize him, but he’s already pretty far gone. Guess we just bind him up with the sheets?”

“It’s all we’ve got.”

Together we shoved the sheets one way and then the next until they were balled up enough to carry. For lack of hands, I slowly spread both of my wings out evenly until there was enough room on top of me to set them on. To get them up there, I had to lay down in the dirt for Terrance to shove them in place. That done, we rushed back outside to find that little had changed. Marcus was still passed out, and Amelia and Sawyer were holding pressure on Seth, their hooves covered in his blood. It took far longer than I would have liked to get the sheets off my back and strung out between us.

“Amy, you’re gonna have to cut the sheets up. You’ve got magic, and we have no idea how long Marcus will be out!”

“But I don’t know how!” She sat still next to Seth, still pressing on his wounds.

“I don’t know either, Amy, but we’ve gotta save him.” I tried to stay calm, but every moment that we waited was another moment Seth got closer to death. And I was not about to let a friend die! “Try and picture the knife doing what you want. Failing that, take my place and I’ll cut it with my teeth.” Taking my end of the sheet in my teeth, I bit down, pulling it taut between Terrance and me. The taste was akin to slurry of mustard and coke left out in the sun for a week. Amelia closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed. I could only imagine what it was like using magic, fate having decided not to give me a horn, but I hoped she would succeed.

Slowly, her horn and the knife handle were matched with a bright red glow, and the knife shuddered as it lifted into the air and began to cut a long swath out of the sheet. It wasn’t neat or pretty, but it was a lot faster than Terrance or I could have done. As the first cut ended, both of us moved over to tension the next one. Halfway through, Amelia was shaking, and the glow gradually faded. Just before the second cut was finished, it faded altogether, leaving her gasping for breath and the knife on the ground.

She looked up at me sorrowfully, before a deep indigo lit up her features with surprise. Sawyer was staring at the knife with supreme malice, his horn covered in purple-blue light. He finished the cut, then sliced off two more strips, and floated them all over to where he and Seth lay. Soon, Seth was also enveloped in that light, which lifted him off the ground just long enough for all four bandages to be wrapped tight, and the last one tied off.

“Damn Sawyer, I didn’t know you had that in you.” Despite his temper, I had to be proud of him.

“You can thank me by getting me home.” His words came out slowly as he leaned his head forward to rest it against Seth’s side, and he let out a long exhale.

I’ll get you home, little brother. Or at least I’ll do everything I can. Home was a nice sentiment. If I knew how to get there, we’d have been going by now. As it stood, I had no idea how to get back home, much less where it was. Standing there, seeing the blood gradually soak into the makeshift bandages we’d wrapped around Seth, reality was slowly starting to hit home. This wasn’t happy pony land. But if there were raiders, it would make sense that there were other ponies in this wasteland too, ones who could help him. Those with medical expertise, or at the very least, ponies who could walk without falling.

We needed to get him to them, and home could wait until he wasn’t dying. But where? A few dozen yards beyond the trees at the end of the barn, a slight ridge ran in a half circle towards where we stood. I did my best to book it over to the top, with Terrance not far behind.

The vista looked familiar, though I felt pretty safe in assuming I’d never seen it before. Hills and ridges, ravines and gullies stretched out before me in every direction. Interspaced with random sections of flatland, the hills and valleys were covered in a sea of pale dead yellow-brown grass. That ocean went on for miles away to horizon, where the dark outline of peaks reached up towards the sky, encircling the edges of the horizon in every direction. White at the top, they met the endless gray of the overcast skies. Like the mountaintops I was so used to, they met with the mist at the top, reaching through it with fingers of stone. All of the heights were still, save for one wisp of a darker gray rising up from the hills to join the larger mass in the sky.

“Hey, you see that?” I nudged Terrance and pointed toward the smoke.

“So that’s where we’re going?” He seemed ambivalent.

“Unless you’ve got a better idea. We can probably find help there.”

“Shouldn’t we fly up and take a look?” Terr asked the most obvious...and brilliant questions sometimes.

After how easily I fell over just by putting out one wing earlier, and how hard it was for all of the unicorns to use their magic, I had the funny feeling that flying wouldn’t be something I’d pick up on intuitively either. Still, Terrance was right. If there was any way we could get in the air, it would help. An aerial view of where we were going, what it was like, the safest route there, any other possible destinations would all help. Savoring the idea, I spread out my stance. “Sure, lets do it.”

Together, we spread out wings wide. This time, I made sure they were both at the same level to begin. Giving them a test flap, I was surprised that I immediately lifted half a foot off the ground. Either I was a lot lighter than I thought I was, or my wing muscles were much stronger than I would have guessed. Either way, it seemed that flight was something that was very much possible. After that first push, I kept going, and after a few more seconds of hovering a few inches off the ground, I realized that I couldn’t just upstroke and downstroke in the same fashion. Rather, I had to rotate my wings just a bit on the way up to generate some altitude.

As I began to gain some height, it was easy to forget how I got there. “Oh my gosh!” I made one small mistake in a stroke, and the ground quickly swept away from underneath me. The sudden change in orientation caused me to flail, my legs jerking away what precious little balance I had. Some instinct told me to snap my wings taut, and I glided forward to ram into the dirt. It was better than falling from fifteen feet up, but it hurt nonetheless. At least nothing was broken, but it seemed that flight was something that was going to take time to learn, and time wasn’t something we had right now.

With a loud thump, Terrance crash landed next to me, narrowly missing breaking his new glasses. At least I wasn’t the only one. He looked at me, a grimace on his face.

“So,” Terr conceded, “to the smoke then?”

“Yeah. Let’s go get the others.”

???: Level Two
I can’t...won’t let him die. Not here, not now.

Perk: Pegasus Pony
You are now a pony...with wings! Flight is now an option for travel anywhere, though the reduction in weight needed to accomplish this feat is taken out on your bones and muscles.
+1 to END, -1 to STR.

???: Level Two
Well shit...

Perk: Night Pony
You are now one of the famed ‘batponies.’ Your sight is now set permanently to night vision, you can hear more frequencies, and your appearance is permanently changed. This perk also opens up new dialogue options with characters, although most reactions will not be friendly.
PER +2 in dark or dim environments, PER -3 in bright environments.

???: Level Two
I couldn’t…save him...

Perk: Unicorn Pony
That thing in the way when you cross your eyes lets you perform magic (provided you have mental discipline and focus)! Careful not to run into anything...you might get stuck.
-1 STR, +1 INT

???: Level Two
I see this, and the only reason I can believe it is because my hands...hooves are covered in blood.

Perk: Pretty Unicorn Pony
The one comfort in your new four legged and far-too-colorful form is that you can now use magic to blast those who piss you off. Oh, and you can use your horn to gore other ponies too…
-1 STR, +1 INT

???: Level Two
...

Perk: Unicorn Zony
Your new powers are just begging to be tested and grow! You might be struggling to lift rocks right now, but soon fire and ice, darkness and light, will be within your reach.
+1 INT

???: Level Two
...

Perk: Chainsaw Mini-Massacre
You got wings! And now they’re gone. The grit required to survive such an event has made you tougher, and focus on your remaining limbs will allow them to strengthen beyond what a normal pegasus could do, assuming you live long enough for it to happen.
+1 STR, +1 END, -1 AGL

Author's Note

And that was all the human you're going to get for a long time, if ever.

Re-edited 5/3/15