Fall of the Rightful King

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Alan

Ok, so remember that I'm fucking exhausted and sore. Every fucking part of me hurt. Even my eyes hurt, for God's sake. But I was telling the truth. I remembered how Paper Back had fixed Erin before.

So I walked up to her, put my horn on her head, and started to concentrate. So your horn doesn't really feel like anything normally. It's like your fingernails or the hard part of your hoof. But as soon as you start putting magic through it, you can feel that. It's kind of this pushing and electric warm... fuck trying to describe it, it feels like magic.

So I could feel Erin's mind. She was still there - all the different pieces and shit that makes her Erin was there. But it was like it was under this big blanket that weighed her down and kept her from thinking. So all I had to do was pull the blanket off without hurting the pieces of her underneath. Easy. Unless I missed and she got fucking brain damage or something. So no pressure. I got this.

I started pulling the magic off. It didn't really fight me. That was a weird thing about Alexander's magic. Unicorn magic felt alive. It was a part of me, and other unicorn magic felt like it was a part of them. Alexander's magic was just dead, which meant you could take it off when it was done.

Problem is, we'd tried that shit to put my body back together and that was different. Whatever spell that turned me into Paper Back was alive and fought like a motherfucker.

Hey, genius, you're doing fucking brain surgery. Focus. God damn, I wished Paper Back was awake for this. She wasn't, though. That worried me. She didn't feel like she was sleeping. Normally it was like someone sleeping next to you - you can feel that they're warm, but this time I could just barely feel her.

Motherfucking Alexander fucking up her life and my life and all this shit he was trying to pull! Oh, wait, the spell was gone. Erin looked more or less like she was in one piece. She'd be fine. Probably. I pulled my head back and let the magic fade.

Erin blinked a few times.

"Oh... oh God! That... that fucker! He did it again!"

"Erin!" Nick said and hugged her.

"I... I couldn't even think. It was like I was a robot or something."

"It's ok," Nick said. "I've got you."

I wanted to give them space, so I turned to leave.

"Is she leaving?" Erin asked.

"Alan, yeah," Nick said.

"Oh, no you don't," Erin said. I turned just in time to feel her clumsily hug me.

"Thank you so much," she said. "That's twice now you saved me."

"It was Paper Back the first time," I said, "and yeah, of course."

I started thinking about Paper Back as soon as I left. She was still there, in my head, but she wasn't saying or doing anything.

Hey! I tried. Paper Back! Nothing. Hmm. Your face is stupid and your mane looks like a rat's nest! Still nothing? Damn. Ok, think about this, Alan. It's probably magic shit so... try magic? I tried feeling around for her with magic. I actually found her pretty quickly, but it was like she was squished or something. There wasn't enough space for her, if that makes sense. But I couldn't see any space to put her in. Everywhere in my head already had me in it.

I tried pulling back and immediately regretted it. It didn't feel good, that's for fucking sure. It made my head spin and felt fucking freezing. But the warmth that was Paper Back tried to fill the space I'd left, and I thought I could feel her starting to come around. All right, guess I'm just going to have to suck it up. I pulled back a lot, leaving like half my head for her.

It felt like someone shoved an icicle through my head. I fell down and started shaking. It felt so fucking cold, but not from the outside. This wasn't like being in a snowstorm. It was like freezing from the inside out.

"Shit," I said, and my voice was pretty weak. "Oh, shit, that doesn't feel good. Paper Back?"

Alan? she said. Alan, what happened? What's going on? We were driving home and then... what happened to us?

"So," I said, trying to stand up. "Alexander did his fucking mind control thing again and it almost killed you. It fucked up my head too. There's like... not enough room for both of us." My headache was starting to go away. "Oh God damn that hurt."

What did you do?

"I'm not sure... kind of made room for you somehow."

Oh... Alan... you...

My eyes started to tear up. Her, probably.

Yeah, of course. We've stuck together this far, I said.

I wish I could hug you, she said.

"Hey, you'll be able to when we get this worked out," I said.

Nick came in and shut the door. "We need to talk about plans. I'm worried that if Alexander casts another spell, you won't make it, Paper Back. Alan said the last spell almost killed you."

"Yeah," she said. "We can't go before tomorrow, and honestly I don't think we should go until the day after."

"Even with the spells?"

"We kind of found a way to work around it," she lied, "and I'm basically useless. I'm so tired and sore I couldn't fight anything right now. We'll need all we got to fight them."

"That was the other thing," he said. "Are we sure we want to fight them? I mean, Alexander's basically a demigod. Derek turns people into monsters, and last time we couldn't even fight two of his golems. Who knows what he'll bring?"

That was a valid point. A very fucking important point. The fight hadn't gone well last time, and Alexander had been there for, what, thirty seconds? Paper Back spoke up.

"I get it. I'm really, really scared too. I want to go home. I want to see my family again. But look at what Alexander's done to Earth. He's taking over and he's so powerful. He's breaking into Equestria, and if he does anything there like he did it here... I... I thought Celestia and Luna could beat him, but I don't know for sure. We can't just hope they fix things. And Derek? He's worse! He's a monster! They can't be here or get to Equestria!" Nick let out a huge breath.

"Right. You're an almost unstoppable fighter and I'm basically immune to magic." I felt blood rushing to our cheeks. Nick kept talking. "Derek's not coming after us. He's too busy getting ready to fight Alexander, right? He has to be. But you're right, we can't just sit this one out. The military's not going to stop Alexander, not with the mind control spells going on. We might be the only ones that can do it."

"And if they're distracted fighting each other, maybe we can take advantage of that to take them out!" Paper Back said.

"So we have to do this," Nick said. "And it just has to be the two of us."

"I mean, we can try calling the Order, if there's anyone left, but it's not like Brittney or Erin can fight, like, at all."

"Alan, what do you think?" Nick asked.

"Shit, man, I don't think there's anything else we can do. We have to save Paper Back."

Nick nodded. "We have to do this. Maybe we can."

"I know we can," Paper Back said. "Now get some sleep."

Everyone else was up at the God-forsaken hour of 9:00, but we stayed in bed like a normal pony. Person. Whatever. Eventually we had to get up, as much as my back and legs hurt.

"Hey, everypony, come down here!" Brittney yelled. We rolled out of bed, groaned, and walked downstairs.

She'd gotten a call on her smartphone and put it on speakerphone. Somehow.

You know earth ponies and pegasi aren't disabled, right?

I still don't get how, I said.

I'll show you later. I bet I can write better with my mouth than you could with your hands.

Yeah, but it's not like that's impressive.

"Everypony's here," Brittney said to the phone.

"Good," a guy on the other end said. "I'm Doug, I'm one of the Order. We've found out some things and, you know, with how involved you all have been, we thought you should know. Derek is going after Alexander. He's gathering people to come fight. We're trying to get a hold of as many of them as we can and persuade them not to commit suicide on this trip."

"Aren't you going after them? We were hoping for some backup." Nick asked.

Doug snorted. "Are you kidding? It's Alexander and Derek. You can't fight them. Especially not with whatever Derek has. He keeps telling people he's got an 'unstoppable superweapon' now which is probably a huge lie. Maybe if we got everyone left together, we could do it, but most people are too scared to get involved. I mean, obviously no one wants to help Alexander, and the people Derek is getting a hold of are usually too afraid of him to do anything. It hasn't been that hard to convince them to leave, actually.

"So why are you calling?" I asked.

"To get you to lay low. Honestly, our best hope is that both Alexander and Derek kill each other. We're going to wait until after they fight and see just how screwed we are. Call me if anything happens near you." He hung up.

"Well that was a load of useless shit," I said.

"Yeah," Paper Back said. "It was just 'don't go fight them.'"

"They're trying to help!" Brittney said. "Those two are pretty scary."

"That's kind of why we have to go fight them, Britt," Erin said.

"I know! I'm not saying we shouldn't fight them. I just think we need go together so we can use the power of friendship against them."

"Is... that going to work?" Nick asked. He frowned at us.

"Fuck if I know," I said. "But if we're going to go we'll need some water and shit. We'll have to drive there which'll take a while."

"Let's get ready, then," Nick said.

We grabbed water, first aid supplies and road food at the store. I didn't know if any of this was going to be at all useful, but hell, it's not like we had any better ideas. The people there were fucking weird, though. Everyone was just kind of moving like a robot. They didn't really say anything or even look at each other. Except the cashier.

"Find everything ok?" he said, looking at us. He did a double take when he saw Nick.

"Yeah, dude, are you ok?" I asked. He looked back and forth between us, then looked around.

"What's your favorite color?" he asked in a rush.

"Uh, green," I said. "Why?"

"Oh, God!" he said in a whisper and started crying. "You're ok! You're not... weird like everyone else!"

"Yeah," Brittney said. "We're gonna go fight Al-" and Nick covered her mouth.

"So... you might fix this?" he said.

"Yeah," Nick said as he looked at the people around us. None of them looked like they'd even noticed we existed. "Look, just stay quiet about it."

He nodded.

That was pretty much the only weirdness. As soon as we got back I ran a bath as fucking hot as I could stand.

"Ooooh Celestia..." Paper Back said as we lowered ourselves into the water. "That's just what I needed."

Looking over my furry legs and hooves was weird just because it wasn't weird. I mean, come on, I was a human guy in a girl pony's body. You think I'd still find that fucked up, even after a few days.

"Maybe you're just used to it?" Paper Back said. "You don't sound the same as you did when I first showed up."

"Honestly, I don't know if I want to be used to it," I said.

"Oh, come on," she said. "You turned into a smart, pretty, awesome mare. That's a pretty good deal."

We just relaxed in the water for a while.

"Um, when you change back, are you going to be a human again?"

"Fuck no," I said. My old body was fat and had heart problems. No way.

“Ok, so you don’t want to change back, but do you want to be human again?”

I let out a deep breath. “Well… it could be pretty complicated if we can’t turn most people back. And magic is fucking awesome.”

“Yeah it is!” she said. “So you want to be a pony?”

“I mean… kind of?”

"Ok. So... do you know if you're going to be a stallion or a mare? Most ponies don't get to choose."

"I dunno," I said. "I'll probably just become a guy if I get the choice."

"Probably?"

"I dunno, Paper Back. I'm just confused and fucking tired."

"I think you should be a stallion," she said. "I wonder what you'd look like?"