Prelude - The Party Bomber
Kyle was sitting at a party, watching to see if any of his drunk and/or high friends went to do anything stupid, like he'd always done. This was normal for him; he always looked out for his friends. The few of his friends that never abused alcohol or any other drug didn't attend to these parties, usually because of work, but Kyle had found that this was his work. He had learned from experience how to set up a party that all of the idiots would enjoy after overseeing several home parties, so he took advantage and became a party preperationist for hire, making lots of money. All he had to do was have a home theater and disco lighting kit in his car and suggest good food for the kitchen. He also had to keep watch for anybody stripping so that there wouldn't be any drunken babymaking going on. He kept a phone and a small TV with him so he could watch, or at least listen to over headphones, to the news so he could know what was happening outside.
As you could imagine, I was the boring, cautious guy that wanted to make sure that everyone else could have a good time without being too stupid.
"Urgent News: a new Russian nuke may be on a collision course with New York city," my mini-television told me, catching my attention, "it is recommended that all citizens evacuate immediately."
I turned to watch it as the news reporter and several live editors entered the camera's FOV, hurriedly lifting bags onto their backs and leaving, not caring about shutting off the camera, when suddenly they were replaced with static.
"Hey, sober guy, can you check this shit out at the window? I need to confirm what I think I'm seeing." some guy I'd never seen before had walked up to me and asked.
"Me?" I asked, getting up from my freshly statick'd tv to come to the window.
It had been midnight when I came in, and I hadn't been there for an hour... I had to rub my eyes against the back of my hand to make sure I was seeing correctly. It was the middle of the day. I pulled out my phone to check the time, and, like I'd suspected, it was about 12:45 A.M.
I looked down at the streets, and noticed that several night traffic drivers had parked their cars in the middle of the road, most of them havinig gotten out and looking up in confusion.
"Why the fuck is the sun up at night?" I thought aloud, moving my head to the edges of the window so I could see it from every possible corner.
I then realized. "Oh shit! That's not the sun, that's the fucking nuke they just announced! PARTY'S OVER, INCOMING NUKE HOLY SHIT RUN!"
Knowing that we were in practically the very center of New York City, I concluded that there wasn't a chance of escape for anybody in this room of now panicking drunks and stoners.
The nuke was coming closer. My heart felt like it was going to beat itself out of place. I felt panicked, but all my body did was stand calmly in front of the window as I watched the gold glowing oversized bomb in an unconsciously hidden horror as it slowly fell through the sky. The room had nearly emptied of people, leaving me to drown in my combination of horror and excitement alone.
Then everything went black.
Author's Note
I know the prelude is a bit short, it just shows off Kyle's selfless personality and what happened around him moments before the Nuke hit.
Chapter 1 - Radiation Induced Mutation?
I woke with a start as I was shaken awake by an unknown assailant.
"Wake up Kyle you idiot you won't believe what you just missed!" the guy claimed, unable to hide the sheer exitment.
"Erik? What the hell are you doing here?" I questioned groggily, throwing Erik off of my body and lifting myself with my hands, "shouldn't you be at work still?"
"Not after that wierd-ass nuke, no," he dismissed, "the damn thing changed everything but the city, and nobody's been daring enough to go out there and figure out why we aren't a crater yet."
"I'll go." I said simply, "I want to figure out why the hell we aren't dead yet."
"I'll figure we were hit by some kind of greenery bomb, because that's the only way I can explain most of what's at the edge of town."
"Well, no better way than to go and see for ourselves," I admitted truthfully, "I'd take the guess that we're more likely to die from radiation in the city than out in the open anyway."
Meanwhile, In Ponyville
Twilight had never seen such an occurence happen to the Everfree forest; she was able to see the buildings that stood in its place even from her personal quarters in the Castle of Friendship. She felt she needed to see for herself what these new buildings were.
Edge of New York
"Well, ya just gonna stand there all day or are ya gonna go like you said?" Erik had asked Kyle in an attempt to mentally push his friend's curiosity.
"I'm going to do it, just give me a minute; the air smells so fresh right here." Kyle said, admitting his reason for having not gone yet.
"Just go dammit, I bet the air will be even fresher out there."
"Ok Ok I'm doing it."
Kyle hadn't much more than stepped onto the grass, and he felt some sort of unexplainnable joy suddenly course through his body as he turned to face Erik with the widest grin he could physically manage.
"This shit's safe, and for some reason I feel like I just had a Red Bull laced with laughing gas."
Staring at his friend in amazement, Erik decided to follow in his friend's footsteps as he gained confidence in that the green shrubbery wasn't convered in some sort of nasty nuke radiation. "Oh my GOD. I don't know what sort of drugs are in this air, but whatever it is, I feel like a freaking GOD!"
I watched my friend as he almost flew with his newfound energy, noticing something... different about how I felt. I felt absolutely amazing, no doubt there, but I felt as if the energy was doing something to me, something I couldn't quite point out, but it felt unsettling all the same.
"I'm gonna go grab my car, I'm gonna go for a drive to look at this new laundscape," I mentioned, walking back onto the pavement, "I'll be back shortly Erik."
After walking halfway across town again to obtain my car, which was a early 2000's model Honda Civic, I got in and started the engine, to hear the aging yet well maintained vehicle growl in reaction. I got in, and noing hat there was significantly reduced traffic, probably due to the nuclear fallout situation, I carelessly turned the car around in the middle of the road, taking off to return to my friend.
The trip back took far less time than the walk to my car, but it still took a minute or two to arrive at the same area I had left my friend to occupy. I got out of my car and spotted him, still jumping around like a mad scientist after a ridiculous discovery, and noticed some subtle changes in the appearance of my friend. There was some kind of light bulge in his pants just above his butt area, his neck appeared strainingly long and slightly more leaned back, and his shoulders were jutting out in the back.
"Bro, I think you're mutating!" I yelled in his direction with a worried tone, "If you die of radiation poison, don't blame it on me!"
He stopped jumping around and walked up to the car, allowing me to notice his stride was slouching instead of walking, his balance also appeared to be a bit off. "This is the best I've felt in years! Prove to me that I'm mutating."
Getting out of the car, I grabbed my camera and took several shots of stuff that I'd noiced on him. Erik took a good look at my photos, then finally replied, "Damn, guess I am mutating. Whatever's out there is bound to be in here soon anyway, so let's go out and enjoy the scenery while we still can."
I found myself almost dumbstruck by hissudden sense of reason. He always had a good reaason behind everything he did, but what he just said was possibly the best reasoning I'd ever heard from him. "Couldn't be more true. If that's the case, then come on, get in the car already!"
We both go back in the car, looked at our seatbelts, and decided we were going to go all out daredevil on this last ride. I debated "daredevil" to mean we'd pull of some crazy and stupid stuff, so I decided to start it off with a little pedal flooring. Smoke trailed behind the car, tires squealing as we pretty much shot forward instantly.
I hadn't paid attention to myself through the ride, but as we went on my friend's butt protrusion grew bigger, his shoulder blades seemed to jut out so far I debated whether it was actually his shoulders doing that, and his skin began to tint to a greyish color. I felt worried, but I also felt genuine joy as we guzzled the car's gas away by driving at dangerous speeds, almost sure that we'd both be dead soon from radiation poison, the rest of the city being sure to follow suit soon.
We found and stopped at a cottage, almost sure that it was uninhabited because of the nuke. We invited ourselves in, expecting to find a complete mess and maybe even a radiation poisoned dead body. In all contrast, it was very tidy, with a lot of bird houses and similar looking contraptions, and a suprised and frightened looking small yellow horse with wings and long pink hair standing in front of it all. Confused, we looked to each other's deforming bodies, and then back to the creature standing in front of us.
"Da hell? I thought we were exploring a beautified nuclear wasteland, not a ten year old's greatest dream come true!" Erik said, scratching his head with... shrunken fingers, as wierd as that sounded.
We both heard a small "eep" come from the yellow pegasus as he finished his comment.
"Umm... hello, yellow horse?" I commented, with a lurking feeling that the thing was more than a horse.
"H-h...Hello?" it replied shyly, shriknking back out of fear.
We both took a harmonious step backwards, "This thing can talk??" Erik broke the awkward silence, half closing one of his now... enlarged eyes in a fashion that gave him the appearance of being confused, "In that case, where the hell are we?"
the small horse looked almost too frightened to provide an answer, but it managed to stutter her answer, albeit slowly due to the stuttering, "Y-y-y-you're in P-p-p-p... Po-ponyvi-lle."
"Thank you for the info, and, if it calms you, we mean no harm." I watched as the fear in the pegasus's eyes suddenly dimmed to a far lesser degree. "By the way, what is your name? I should at least ask the name of the horse that helped me."
"It's Fluttershy" she replied, suddenly dropping her voice to a whisper when she said her name.
My hearing managed to catch the whisper; I was always a sharp listener for some odd reason. "Thank you, Fluttershy, for your help. By the way, you're lucky I'm a keen listener, however, you should be a little bit louder when pronouncing your name to someone to make sure they can catch it the first time." I stated, tipping off Fluttershy to that fact.
"I'll... I'll keep that in mind." she replied hesitantly.
"Thanks again, and sorry for barging in unexpectedly, we were under the impression that anything we found that resembled civilization would be deserted." Erik explained truthfully, "I guess we should... probably see ourselfes out now?"
With that we left before Fluttershy could say anything about it. "Damn, we find ourselves mutating and now we find talking ponies? If anything the radiation and mutation should have killed us by now." I remarked, suddenly finding it easier to walk on all fours rather than unsteadily walk on my ever growing slouch, "Now look at us, we're walking on all fours! if anything I'd say we look more like that Flu..."
My comment stopped as I hit a realizaton struck me square in the face. "Oh my god... we're turning into magical freaking horses! take you're shirt off, I want to see you're shoulder blade things," I stared in awe of Eri's back as he lifted the shirt off of his head with the remains of his hands,of which had started to become more like round stubs, "Holy shit you're growing wings!"
He twisted his reforming neck so far that a non-mutant human would have ended up in the hospital for a broken neckbone as he looked at his back with his now humongous eyes, "God damn you're right, but how the hell do I use them? And also, where are yours?" I took my shirt off and looked backwards in a similar neck-breaking manner, only to find that my back had grown nothing of the sort.
"And here I was thinking I'd be able to fly without a plane ticket one day," I grunted sarcastically, "at least they could make the tickets cheaper."
To that we both chuckled. "I dare you to strip and look at your tail." Erik dared.
"i'll do it, but only to the promise that you won't call me gay for stripping in front of you." I gave him a stern glare to drive home the seriousness of the promise.
"And here I planned.... ah what the hell I promise."
Five seconds later, we became more interested in the tattoo on my ass than calling each other gay or taking a focus on the newly grown tail.
"Da hell is this thing? I've never had a tattoo, what the fuck?" I sputtered out almost as soon as I noiced it. It, or rather, they, as I had an exact replica on my other side, pictured a triangular caution sign.
"Maybe someone slapped them on while you were sleeping?" reasoned Erik.
"No, couldn't have been. Try checking your ass too, maybe its an effect of the mutation shit. I promise I won't call you gay for undressing in front of a naked guy." Erik did as told, probably holding me to the promise, and, to our half-suprise, he had a pair of tattoos too. His resembled an analog timepiece, with the hands showing 5:59.
"Don't know, don't care." Erik stated flatly, pulling his boxers back up, "hey, got scissors? I'm gonna cut my clothes to fit these new appendages."
I pulled a pair of scissors from the glove box of my car. I watched as he cu two similarly sized holes in the back of his shirt for the wings, then pull his boxers back down to cut a hole in the back, and finally snipping a hole in his pants after several attempts to cut the thick denim
While he reinserted himself into his clothing, making sure all his new appendages made it through their new holes as he went, I decided to do the same with my pants and stuff, pulling my boxers back on as soon as I finished the cut. I had my pants back on and started to put my sirt back on when it caught on something sensitive on the top of my head. I yanked the shirt back off before I ripped it, and then felt around for the cause. I noticed in my now tangled puffy half-afro-ish hair that I had neglected to comb when I woke up that there was a cone-like stick protruding, most likely hidden behind the puffball of uncombed hair. I put the shirt on, this time avoiding thespike, then pulled my hair to revealit to Erik. "Bro, I think I'm a unicorn."
He stared aat my newfound horn wih his jaw so dislocaed it may as well have fallen on the ground. "God damn, to think we'd become magical horses bacaue of a Nuke, his is a fucking dream." He finally said with an almost flat tone.
We stood there, next to Flutterhy's little house, in front of the car, deep in hought for several minutes before I finally broke the silence. "It's getting dark, think we should move the car out of Fluttershy's yard and get some rest in i?"
"Yeah, why not? It's not like this isn't a dream or anything, right?"
"Right."
They both fell into dreamless sleep, unaware that what remained of their human form, such as their skin, fingers, feet, etcetera slowly shranks and/or deformed as the magic of equestria converted the remains of their previous human forms to at least mimic if not match pony anatomy.
Author's Note
First chapter felt like a mouthful of something that couldn't choose whether it wanted to be meat or fruit to me; I had no idea what to do with it at multiple points, so I ended up improvising, and kind of ended up with... well... this, I guess. Also, I am writing this in a fashion that they speak different languages; the communication with Flutters I'm going to leave you with the explanation of Flutters' natural ability to communicate with animals (humans are animals too, yaknow, just... really smart animals).
Chapter 2 - The Pony Phenomenomenomena
I woke up to the sound of my car door being opened up and looked over to see Fluttershy carefully pulling against the handle with her mouth. I sat up, momentarily startling her, and noticed a small bag of apples sitting on the hood.
"Sorry to wake you, I thought you'd be hungry so I brought a bag of apples. That is, if you don't mind of course." The shy pegasus said as she finally managed to pull the door open enough for the spring to push it the rest of the way out, causing her to stagger in suprise.
"Ya coulda just knocked," I told her, "its not like the door is soundproof or anything."
With that comment, Erik began to stir. "I never want to have that dream again god damn."
"What sort of dream did you have bro?" I asked, already knowing what he was going to say.
"We got hit by a nuke and mutated into magical horses or something."
"Open your damn eyes already."
"Oh... well shit, that wasn't a dream then?"
"Not in the slightest"
"Damn."
"Umm... sorry to interrupt, but what are you talking about dreaming, if you don't mind me asking." Fluttershy interrupted.
"Don't worry about it." I commented to the yellow pegasus. "Thanks for the food, by the way. How I should thank you?"
I got out and popped the trunk, and after a bit of digging in the mess and moving my sound system around to access different places, I finally pulled out an unopened bottle of wine that I had salvaged from the leftovers of a previous party. "This vintage wine should be more than enough. It is a special Mango-flavored brew that has been in storage since 1982. Now how do I pick this up?" since I no longer had fingers, I had resorted to prying at it with my teeth, failing miserably. "Well, it's yours now, I guess it's the thought that counts."
Fluttershy, whom had walked up next to me, gave me an odd look as she opened her mouth and picked it up with ease. "How'd you do that? Is it rough teeth or something?"
The shy pony didn't give much more than a grunt in response, most likely because she had a facefull of wine bottle.
"Well, thanks for the apples. I guess I'll see you around then?"
"I sfubbosh sfo."
As Fluttershy made her way back home, I slammed the trunk and came back up to the door to find that Erik had pulled the bag of apples in and was practically devouring them.
"Save some for me, bro!" I shouted at him with a sarcastically angry tone.
"God, you gotta try one of these, they're to fuckin' die for!" My friend told me, finishing off a third apple with a ridiculous grin on his face.
I took one of the remaining apples from the bag using my mouth, and, using the sides of my hooves to hold it up, took a big chunk out of the side.
It was possibly the most amazing apple I'd ever tasted, with an undescribably delicious flavor and so much juice it started running off the sides of my mouth. I managed to get what hadn't run out of my mouth down, then practically commanded my friend, "Hand me about three more of those things, god damn!" not saying anything due to the apple he had in his mouth, he tipped the bag next to my seat, letting exactly three of them roll out to sit next to me.
We finished our apples, tried and failed to wipe off the sticky juice with our... forehooves, as I guess they are now, and decided to drive back to the city.
"Everyone else is still normal. What he hell?" Erik commented as the city came into view, showing off several people milling about near the edge, probably trying to determine the safety of it.
They all looked up from their geological studies of dirt when they heard the roaring engine of a honda coming from the distance.
We had become a pair of mythical horses, with fur in the colors of light grey for Erik and a deep shade of red for me. We would be freaks in the crowd now; not even our friends would recognize us. "Well, at least we can be sure that noone will know us anymore." I commented to the upcoming situation.
"Well, they may not know us, but we can at least warn them that they'll look like this if they're out here for too long. I'd be willing to bet hat some people would jump at the chance to become a myth, though."
"That's on them."
"True that."
When we stopped and got out, everyone just stared at us,some in suprise, some just annoyed. " Don't worry, we're not here to cause any harm, in fact, we have just returned from a car ride, we were once human."
Now, the expression of suprise, and a newfound expression of confusion, sweeped the crowd in front of us. "Don't ask me how the hell it happened, I'm just letting you know and showing you what happens when you get out here for too long. By the way, you can't grab shit with hooves, and several things I've had to pick up taste really nasty in my mouth, I really don't recommend getting out here if you like your grip."
I allowed the crowd to start a murmur, and then several of them brought up a question. "Who the hell are you, anyway, horse?"
"I'm Kyle. anyone who goes to parties more often than none probably know me as 'that sober guy', because I stayed sober and watched over everyone."
"Kyle? I'm either trippin' balls right now, or you're a little red unicorn." claimed a familiar voice in the middle of the crowd.
"I guess you can go ahead and assume you're high right now." I replied to the voice.
"Ok, whatever."
I sat down in a dog-like fashion, waiting to see those who would follow Erik's little Idea from earlier. One went, then another. A small group that had supposedly been debating something suddenly stood in a line and all stepped onto the grass harmoniously. Erik was right, several people were actually becoming myths, and all because concocted a show-and-tell show to them about what would happen.
We trotted, however unsteadily we still were, back onto the streets, only to get caught in what felt like mutation happening all over again and to a much higher degree than before. After we recovered from the gut wrenching feeling of mutation I looked around to notice the crowd had suddenly circled around us, and then to my recovering friend Erik, noticing that he was his old self again. "Da hell was that? Well, at least we're back to normal." I commented, getting up while trying to tuck in the hole in the back of my pants and dusting my shirt of any concrete gravel from the road.
The crowd was beginning to murmur, several looks of further displaced fear and confusion spreading across the faces of the participants. "....Were they human in the first place?....Should we trust their words?....Are they aliens?....How did they drive a car with hooves?...."
I grabbed Erik by the hand and ran off in the confusion of the crowd. Before anyone noticed us running off, I pulled Erik with me into an alley, slinging him so hard that he had to tense his muscles so as to keep his shoulder in place. "What a save, bro, I feel like they were going to riot us if we stayed there much longer." Erik thanked me with a hint of fear in his voice. "They did bring up a valid question, though. How DID you drive with hooves?"
I tried and failed to find a decent explanation. "I know I can't say practice, so I'm going to just say lots of pressure against the sides of the wheel." I finally answered.
"Where do we go now?" Erik questioned before quickly answering, "Oh, how about your apartment?"
"Splendid idea." I remarked sarcastically, "Well, it's still better than lingering in an alleyway, so let's go."
Several minutes ago, before my return
Twilight flew towards the odd stuctures that were once Everfree Forest, making sure nopony else approached it. Eyes sweeping the fields around, she spotted a grey object quickly approaching the destination.
Being nothing she could recognize, she let the speedy thing go on, keeping up with it just out of sight in the sky. It finally stopped several yards in front of the destination, in front of a large group of heavily clothed humanoid figures that reminded Twilight of the residents of Canterlot High on the other side of that magic mirror.. Two ponies with similarly oddly styled and cut clothing stepped out of the vehicle and started yelling at the crowd in a language that Twilight couldn't recognize.
Several moments later some of the bipedals stepped off of the artificial flooring of the ex-everfree onto the grass and began running around, several doing what appeared to be some form of acrobatics and running. Twilight made her way to above one of the structures and landed on it to look over the side.
The two ponies gathered themselves clumsily and walked onto the artificial streets, a glow erupting from their bodies as they began to.... transform into more humanoids? When the glow faded they were on their hands and knees, and the crowd was swarming them, murmuring in more bits of unknown language. The two ex-ponies took advantage of the distraction in the crowd and ran into a nearby alley, much more naturally and steadily than as ponies.
interesting. thought Twilight as she pulled back from the edge that the group had failed to notice giant lavender eyes from.
Author's Note
Writer's block hit me hard on this one, I gave it a lot of thought and this is the best I could come up with. I wish I had a friend as depemdable as the Kyle character I'm describing; oh, wait, I actually AM that person in my friend circle IRL. oh well, at least I can say the feeling is satisfying, 'cause it truly is. I sympathise with you, Kyle. Maybe that's the reaaon I made you the main character. By the way, I rushed this in no way, I did have to go real hard to figure out a way around a writer's block. Only way I could do that, though, was to chamhe perspective entirely after the alleyway escape. My mind is of an extremely creative breed but in turn it crashes when I hit turns on creativity road, even if I'm taking a measely 5MPh slow cruise through it. creativity road: A road that's well built but at the same time is slicker than ice.
