I sat up and looked around the dark room. No life-force, souls or refined magic, it was safe for now. Now that I was standing it became apparent that I was no longer bipedal. Looking over my body I realise that I was now dark green with a red ethereal mane and pair of wings. Doing a double take, I confirm that my mane is indeed ethereal, although in the process of confirming I managed to head-butt the ground. If anyone thinks that hitting your horn was like being punched in the balls, I have to say you're right.
After massaging my horn to relive the pain, I looked around the room, looking for a way to hide the fact I appear to be an alicorn. I knew that I couldn't be an alicorn, my magic was too weak to be divided successfully into three separate functions, so my wings or horn or maybe both were useless.
At that moment I realised I missed something.
“This is on fimfiction, so naturally I've turned into a pony since I'm no longer human.” I explain before spotting my backpack. Racing over to it, I noticed my HUD had my mana poisoning at 69%, no magic I guess. Given the mana poisoning, I couldn't risk any magic which made opening my bag, that's a problem, I could use my mouth or...
“Nite, could you give me a hand?” I whispered. No response. “Nite…?” Again I got no response.
“He must have been knocked out by the magic that brought us here.” I mumbled before grabbing the zipper with my teeth and tried to open the bag. It went badly, for my first attempt I placed one hoof on the bag and ended up slipping off it and slammed into my side, my second was more successful after positioning it upwards and holding it with my fore hooves. A broad brimmed hat shot out while I unzipped the bag, and of course targeted my horn, leaving me on the ground clucking at my horn. With my bag now open I managed to find a green zip up hoodie, it should be able to hide my wings and possibly my mane. Oh God, now to put it on.
It took me about ten minutes to get the hoodie on, during that time I discovered that the base of my wings are just as sensitive as my horn and that I have a scar on my windpipe. Thankfully my wings were now hidden and by flipping the hood over my head the river of blood known as my mane was also hidden. I grabbed the hat which had landed downside up, unfortunately I had to grab it with my mouth, I hoped that I won't have to keep doing that. Stuffing the hat back in the bag, I set about zipping it back up; again I had to do so with my mouth and ended up slipping on the bag again. Slightly thankful that I had practised that at school, it didn’t take too many attempts. While walking out of the room I rechecked my HUD, everything was fine except mana poisoning, which had dropped to 61%. So some improvement.
Stepping out onto the street, I scanned the city looking for anything to help me while I moved in pace with the crowd of ponies.
“There he is, get him!!!” shouted a gruff voice from somewhere at the back of the crowd.
Turning my head, I caught sight of a pony in armour with a spear pointing at me, so I did what any normal person would in that sort of situation, I bolted. I shoved through the crowd, knocking over ponies and most importantly, never looking back. Judging by the noise coming from behind me the ponies that were after me were trying to be as polite as possible to the crowd, which meant I was going faster than them. The further through the crowd I ran the softer the noise of the ponies chasing me became, seizing the moment I dived into an alley (there is always an alley for the protagonist to dive into during a chase sequence). Before I could catch my breath a coughing fit began, leaving the ground covered in my blue blood. I heard a door open and a pony asking if I need help, but I couldn't stop coughing. The pony injected me with something and the coughing slowed and then stopped.
“You have mana poisoning.” exclaimed the pony who was grey with a white mane and a scalpel on his flank.
“Can you help?” I hoarsely whispered.
He gestured inside before asking if I was a sorcerer, I weakly nodded.
Gesturing to the surgery, he told me, “You should get out of Canterlot quickly; I would recommend Las Pegasus because the train leaves in half an hour.”
“So I have half an hour to recover from surgery and make it to the train station, better than nothing.” I thought as I got on the table before receiving another injection before the surgery began.
My hoodie was pulled down on the right side. A scalpel was brought into view and made two incision on the right side of my chest then a pair of tools I'd never seen before were inserted through the incision. The doctor cast a spell allowing him to see into me. My gland that held mana was cut open and another tool began to drain the mana from the gland and my blood. After the mana was drained, the tools were withdrawn and a needle punctured the skin either of the incision and drew a thread through the punctures. The process was repeated all the way down the incision and the continued onto the other. Bandages were wound around my chest and final my hoodie was zipped up.
As I got off the table I was given directions to the station, slipping on my bag I glanced at the mana poisoning on my HUD which was showing 0%, I will have to remember this pony.
“Not all of us agree with what Celestria is doing to your kind,” the pony explained. “By the way, I'm Doctor Scalpel and don't give me your name.” Doctor Scalpel informed me, sliding me some of the local currency.
“Thank you.” is all I replied before disappearing into the crowd outside.
Following the doctors directions lead me to the station and there was a train waiting there with none of Celestria's minions guarding it.
“I’ll take a ticket to Las Pegasus.” I said to the ticket mare.
“Certainly, that will be sixteen bits.” she answered.
As I gave her the bits she continued, “Unfortunately there is a delay before leaving. Apparently there's a sorcerer running around here.”
“What, how did one of them get here?” I exclaimed.
“I know right. Anyway, here's your ticket and the train will leave a bit later than expected.”
I grabbed the ticket with a levitation spell and boarded the train. Leaving the ticket in my pocket, I dropped my bag on an empty seat and curled up beside it as the train started to leave.
"Why is it leaving now, what about the delay?" I asked another passenger. They simply shrugged.
I waited patiently until we were on the mountain track before having my quiet victory moment. I had escaped... somewhat stealthily. I looked backwards to see the home ground of Celestria blocked by a mountain.
Author's Note
I work slowly so don't expect regular updates and please if you hate my story, write a comment containing between 300 and 600 characters explaining why.
