☣☣☣Jacob☣☣☣

I found the museum.

Yeah, big life changing event right? Well, sarcasm aside it actually is. This is the site where I will contact the Princesses and give ample warning about the huge threat looming over this city. This is also the site where two of the, maybe three or four, beings that could potentially beat me are currently hanging around. Naturally I will try my hardest to stay in their good graces, because I'd like to think myself a smart man.

Anyway it is only a twenty or thirty minute walk from the apartment so I won't have to deal with taxi carts trying to move me. I stretched my back and then proceeded to drop down from the roof of the current building I'm standing on. I landed with a rather loud crack of concrete and I quickly disguised myself and hurried out of the alleyway, straight towards the museum.

I was going at a bit of a brisk trot so I arrived fairly quickly, though I would've preferred sprinting. I'm impatient like that. I entered through the glass doors and walked to the ticket counter. It was surprisingly empty, I figured there would've been many ponies lining up to buy a ticket before hand since the Princesses were there. Shaking my head in wonderment I approached the mare behind the counter.

"Excuse me ma'am but may I buy two tickets for 'History with the Princesses' at six?" I politely ask.

The mare looked up, "Oooh, sorry sir. But we are already sold out." She gave an apologetic smile. "It was actually sold out before the first showing."

"Damn! Should've figured the ponies would want to see their beloved Princesses."

I sighed, "That's too bad. Well have a good one." With a nod of my head I walked out of the museum silently cursing this massive waste of time. It was around two in the afternoon now and Color gets off at three. I should start seeing what the unicorn consuming did to me. I quickly trotted to an alley around the corner and changed back to my base form.

I lightly hopped to the roof of the museum.

"Now let's see-"

"Halt!" Shouted a voice from my right.

I turned my head and saw a a royal guard pegasus galloping to me. Raising an eyebrow I said, "Yeah? What do you need fuzzy?"

The guard skidded to a halt in front of me and pointed his spear at my face. "What are you doing up here? This area is off limits for the duration of the Princesses stay. Also... how the buck did you know my name?!"

I mentally snorted, this dude's name was actually Fuzzy? Get real. "Well I am here to enjoy the view. And as for the name... it was a wild guess to be honest. Now please point your toy away from me." I pushed the point of the spear away with a finger.

The guard repointed it at me and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to please leave the rooftop. Any other day and this would be fine but the guard is here to protect the Princesses while they work here and stay in their hotel."

"Hotel? Hmmm, perhaps a late night warning? But how to get the location and room number?" I looked at the guard pony.

Should I consume him? It honestly wouldn't be hard to do and I know I wouldn't hesitate while doing the deed. It would be wrong, because I completely understand murder is wrong, but I simply can't bring myself to honestly care. Looking back at my previous kills one thing truly shined and I finally had the epiphany of a lifetime. It wasn't the act of killing that actually made me feel bad. No... the first two goons I killed? It was because of how easily they died from a single one of my punches that left me stunned. Grassy Knoll? Didn't actually care that I killed him, I was more worried about the kid and believed the two feelings were the same thing. The mobsters from before? I didn't care about their deaths, I was scared because I didn't hesitate and that had me worried.

I looked up and thought about this new revelation I had discovered, it was the fact that I never hesitated to end a life that made me realize what I truly have become. A monster, one that wouldn't hesitate to kill if it furthered its quest and kept it filled with biomass. Strange that, since before I came here I wouldn't have the stomach to do such things or even witness a dead body. Perhaps my transition to the life of Alex Mercer and the introduction of a weaponized virus has made me a sociopath.

I looked back at the guard pony and simply stared at him with glossy eyes. He started speaking again but all I was hearing was garbled noise as I was accepting the fact that I was no longer who I once was. It hasn't even been two days and my entire life until now went from normal and shot straight through hell in an infinite loop.

The pony shouted something one last time, I still wasn't paying attention. He lunged with his spear and that was when I broke out of my little trance. I let it pierce where my heart would have been, if I still had organs. The pony was clearly shocked that I didn't even wince, honestly it barely tickled. Just for the fun factor I walked towards him with the spear sliding through me his eyes getting wider as I drew closer. Soon I was upon him and quickly grabbed his neck with my right hand.

Lifting him casually in the air I used my free hand to pull the spear out of my chest and tossed it to the side. Snapping the guards neck with a twitch of my hand I quickly consumed the body and took his memories, paying close attention to the ones telling me where the Princesses are residing within the city. I decided to get off the roof of the museum, charging the mass in my legs I jumped to the next building and parkoured my way across the rooftops back to the apartment.

I still had forty minutes until I had to pick up Color and I'll use that time to see what my new mutation was.

☣☣☣

I stood in front of a full body mirror just staring at the new mutation in my right arm. My arm had boney plates randomly placed along it with tiny spikes on them, and it felt light so it likely wasn't meant for melee. Spikes that suspiciously looked like demonic unicorn horns lined the top of my arm. They came in six pairs of two curved horns in a wide U-ish shape along the top. At the side of my forearms were two very long but not too wide curved horns, kind of like pinchers. They extended just a bit past my hands. My fingers were segmented, each segment looking boneish, and each segment of a finger being connected to each other with black biomass. Interestingly enough I could actually move my hand a full 180 degrees in either direction until my palm faced upwards without moving my arm. My shoulder looked to be made of ebony bones, segmented to allow for easier movement. Finally this all tied together with the usual red, black tendrils that made up a lot of my other weapons. All in all I thought it looked kind of cool.

Taking a look through the memories of the unicorns I tried calling on my magic to pick up a stool that I had placed next to me for experimentation. On a side note my magic pool would be considered extremely large to the average unicorn. That's because a magic pool is determined by the body and the mind. It's like chakra from Naruto but what they mean by body is simply practicing spells. When a unicorn is born, no matter from what family, they have the ability to have their pool grow to increasing heights the more they study and practice. Most don't, since they find their special talent and stick to it, never trying to learn more because they don't need to. Some simply don't have any talent whatsoever or just suck in either study or practice.

My body is unique, since every time I consume someone I gain everything that they are. Hours of study and skills and the more I consume the more I gain. Theoretically I could have infinite potential if I continuously consume ponies. The best targets would be old unicorns that have a special talent in magic. Also when unicorns use magic they get physically tired if used for too long. It's like a muscle and when they have rested enough their magic starts to come back. I will never tire physically so that is a good thing, but my magic pool is still finite so I will run out eventually if I continue to use it. However, it will immediately and quickly start to recharge itself. A bonus to being a bioweapon that doesn't tire.

I concentrated my magic in a basic telekinesis spell, my entire arm glowed a blood red as did the stool. Guiding the stool with my arm, I didn't need to since I could just use my mind but this felt better, I moved it around the room in circles. Satisfied I put it back down next to me and looked back in the mirror while changing my arm back to normal. I discovered I had two mutations one was my arm and the other was a new sense. I lovingly dubbed it magic sense because I'm unoriginal and that's what it senses. Like how thermal lets me see bioheat, magic sense lets me see the magic in living beings or enchanted objects. If I mutate it further I could possibly see what enchantments or spells are being used on what or where respectively. It's just a guess though.

Extra cool factor about it is that my eyes glow like the Lich King's eyes do, all wispy and glowy like. Though the color scheme could use some redecorating. I like red and black and all but... this is too much. I at least want to be able change the glow of my eyes and magic arm. Preferably my eyes to the icy blue of the Lich King and my arm to maybe hot pink. Just for kicks.

I decided to try something new. I quickly changed to my Grassy persona, closed my eyes and concentrated on my biomass to do what I wanted. When I opened them I still had the same face of Grassy but my coat was black, mane blood red with black streaks, and I was an alicorn.

If I was still able to vomit I would've done so that very instant.

I immediately changed back to regular Grassy and I collapsed.

"Ugh, I am never doing that again. I feel dirty and unclean now." I thought to myself. I looked at the clock and saw that it was ten minutes till I had to pick color up from school. Getting back up I stretched and left the apartment.

☣☣☣

Rooftop jumping and running was, in my opinion, vastly superior to walking around on land. It was faster and you didn't have any annoyances in the form of people, or ponies in this case, massing together on sidewalks. It was too bad Color wasn't able to do what I could, and I wasn't about to tell her my secret just yet. Instead I dutifully walked next to her as she talked about her day.

"And Cheery said 'No! The red crayons are yucky! Eat the blue ones!' and I was like 'bleh'!" She stuck her tongue out cutely as she practically bounced along next to me.

I chuckled, "Yeah, the reds are the best aren't they?" Color made a face at me.

"Ew! Not you too daddy!" I merely smiled at her and continued to laugh to show her I was just kidding. The rest of the trip was uneventful and soon Color was settled in. I looked at the clock and it read 3:30. I needed to get out into town, I want to test to see if I could achieve flight using the pegasus DNA I gathered earlier.

I got up from the couch and flicked off the tv, yeah they have these and it's great! I trotted to Color's room and told her I'll be out late tonight and that dinner was in the fridge.

With that out of the way I left the apartment and walked up the side stairs of the building to the roof. I undisguised myself and ran to the tallest skyscraper close to me. I got to the last building on my side of the street and charged my legs enough to leap across the street and onto the building. When I made the leap I looked down and saw that some of the ponies were pointing to me, I guess when a part of your race can fly you tend to learn to look up at times.

Anyway I finally got to the building and immediately began to run up it. I avoided the windows to spare the ponies inside some headache and when I was close to the top I charged my legs to leap up the last bit. I rose over the edge and did a dramatic front flip and landed like batman. The little things mattered, even if no one saw them. I turned around and looked out at the city.

I closed my eyes and called forth the DNA of the pegasi I killed and I could feel the wings growing from my back. I snapped my eyes open looked behind me.

They were tiny, dinky little black sprouts that buzzed a bit when I tried to move them.

I face palmed hard and dragged my hand down my face and said to myself, "God damn it, I was too focused on bringing forth the DNA and forgot to add more biomass. Let's try again."

I pulled them back in and tried again. This time I added much more biomass and when I opened my eyes again I saw that they were much larger than before, about my height and a half on each wing. They looked like black, seriously the color scheme, angel wings. It fit in a weird way considering, but the only thing that mattered now was flying. I brought forth the memories of flight from the various pegasi and dived off the building.

I was about halfway when I heard the screaming of horror the populace was doing as they saw me quickly descend to the ground. I flourished my wings out and rode the air, skimming above the ponies as I made my way through the city, turning at random streets. I pumped my wings harder and I felt the wind rush by me as my speed picked up. I gave a wide grin, twice in one day I did something humans only dreamed of. Magic and unassisted flight.

In my random flight path I eventually found my way back to the street that led to the museum, and what looked like a parade was going on. But as I looked closer it was actually just the Princesses going back to the museum for their final showing, ponies cheered as the two royals and their guard-ponies went about their day.

I decided to give them a quick show of myself and I flew in the center of the street heading in the same direction they were. This quickly got the attention of every guard and civilian alike. The guard pegasi flew up to intercept me and I quickly shot upwards. They chased me a bit until I gave a sharp turn downwards and beat my wings hard, I shot down like a cannon and I barely pulled myself up from crashing into the ground. Good news was that the guards were left behind in my figurative dust. That little stunt left me close to the carriage and I weaved my way over the ground based ponies until I was casually flying a little in front of the Princesses. Luna looked tense and Celestia looked a little wary, I needed to break the ice.

I flew backwards casually, it was easier than you'd think with the help of pony magic, and put my hands behind my head. "Hi." I gave a sly grin with added eyebrow movement, "How ya doin? The name's Alex Mercer. How's your day going? Huh?"

Luna still looked a bit tense but Celestia went from wary to giggling. She put a hoof over her mouth to stifle them, Luna just looked at her like she was crazy.

"Sister, why do you laugh at this creature's strange antics? Should we not be worried that it disregarded our guards and flew straight towards us?"

Celestia rolled her eyes, "Oh come now sister. If he had any malicious intent he wouldn't just lazy fly in front of us like that."

I smiled, looks like the ice breaking was a success. But the two were speaking quietly so the guards didn't get the memo. A lot of magic bolts struck me across various parts of my body but I didn't even deviate from my flight path. They stung a bit but it was nothing I couldn't shrug off. Not like they did anything other than leave some very small burn marks that instantly healed.

The princesses seemed a bit stunned that I just casually ignored that, and judging by the lack of continuous fire the guards were as well. I just continued on like nothing happened.

"Excuse me ladies but I didn't come here to just casually flirt with a pair of b-e-a-utiful mares. I came here to tell you that I will stop by your room at your hotel tonight to deliver a message and a warning about the dire future of this city. I won't tell you just yet, you'll fret too much over it all day if I do. We also do not have enough time for the whole story anyway and I don't want to only give you bits and pieces of it." I adopted a serious face during this, as did they.

"Very well... Alex. What do you say to, hmm, 11?" Said Celestia.

"It's a date." I said and with that I flew away but not before blowing a kiss at them. It's fun to mess with people when you don't have to be serious right then and there. I pumped my wings hard and rocketed off to the place where I first fell into the world.

Around the midpoint there I slowed down a bit and had to land onto one of the roofs, blinking in astonishment as I realized something about my powers that I forgot. My wings going back into my body.

"I forgot about infected vision..." I said in bafflement. "I could be out in the city right now killing infected and carriers. Instead I'm just fucking around playing house with a filly that isn't mine, and playing prophet with the princesses when there could be ponies dying right now!"

A brief pause.

"Gaaaaah! I am such a fucking retard!" I screamed to the skies with my head in my hands.

And with a primal roar I charged my legs and, completely forgetting about my new wings, I charged across the roofs straight towards Quill Station.

I needed to scan everything and every pony there before it was too late.

I was just thankful there isn't an Elizabeth Greene or Supreme Hunter in this world.

Author's Note

Bonus info, I was writing this while listening to this music.

Also here is a bit of artwork showing the new mutation as drawn by Turning Gears: