Gregor McAwesomeby psychicscubadiverChaptersThe Best First Chapter EverThe Most Radical Second Chapter EverThe Coolest Third Chapter EverThe Best First Chapter EverIt was a beautiful day in Ponyville, which doesn’t really matter since our hero, Gregor McAwesome, was on Earth. For now. Across a perfect green field on a large estate in Vermont a teenager dressed in a casual pair of jeans and a t-shirt walked manfully. Most people would have been cold, it was only forty degrees outside, but he felt fine. Gregor was six foot four, covered in athletic muscle, had bright blue eyes and golden blond hair which he kept cut short, but not too short. All in all he was so good looking that Adonis, that Greek guy who stared at himself in the pond, would have been jealous. “Man, it sure is great to be home after three consecutive tours of duty with the Navy Seals,” Gregor said to nobody as he strode manfully through the woods behind his family’s five-story, twenty-bedroom mansion. He stopped suddenly, brooding. “I sure hope the rest of the team is all right without me, but since I’m just sixteen I really wanted to come home for a while.” He shrugged manfully, dismissing the worry and started walking once more. He’d be starting school again in a few weeks. He was sure the basketball team would try recruiting him, after all he’d scored the winning basket that earned the USA gold in the last Olympics, but he just wanted to relax this year at school. The expectations he had to live up to were hard, especially after he got perfect scores on both the SAT and ACT. He sighed manfully. Still, for today he could just enjoy his walk in the woods. Sometime around lunchtime Gregor stopped, stunned by the sight before his eyes. It was a giant Mayan temple stretching above the treetops, lined with age and covered in bits of moss. “Huh,” Gregor stated manfully, “I’ve walked down this path literally hundreds of times. I wonder why I never noticed this place before.” He thought for a second. “Or why nobody has ever noticed this from the house, I mean it’s taller than all the trees, you’d think it would stick out.” So intent was his mighty mind on this quandary that he never even asked why there was a Mayan temple in New England. “I might as well explore it,” Gregor thought aloud. “I’ll just have to do it quickly so I can get back in time for tea with the President.” Moving like the ninjas he had studied with for several years, Gregor snuck into the temple. Traps that should have rotted or rusted away hundreds of years ago somehow still activated as our hero journeyed through the temple’s mysterious corridors. Dodging manfully, Gregor passed all the traps with ease and soon stood at the exact center of the pyramid. Temple. Whatever. There stood an altar surrounded by intricate carvings. Huh, Gregor thought manfully, those carvings remind me of my favorite television show: My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. On the altar rested a glowing azure orb, levitating several inches above the stone platform. Next to it was a carved inscription which was conveniently in English. Beware! Beware! Take heed and care! For those who touch this blue stone, Can never more return home. Changed will be your flesh and bone, And a strange new world you must roam. “What superstitious nonsense,” Gregor declared, trying to deduce the scientific principle that allowed the stone to float and glow without an apparent power source. His Rolex beeped, reminding him of his impending teatime, and he came to a manful decision very quickly. “I’ll just take it with me and donate it to a museum or something to study,” he said, momentarily forgetting the rules of aracheology he had learned during the semester he spent at Harvard. The first rule being this: if at any point during a dig, an object glows, speaks or moves under its own power, run. Just run and never look back. The moment his hand manfully touched the stone it flashed with intense bright light, blinding him. Suddenly, he had the sensation of falling, as though the floor had suddenly disappeared. His head hit something, during the fall and everything faded to black. ……… Six hours later, Gregor awoke with a headache, and perfect recall of what had just happened to him. “I appear to have been manfully teleported to another world,” he said, instantly recognizing a hundred subtle differences between the forest around him and those of any biome on Earth. Only after he had ascertained his new location did he notice that he himself had changed. He was now a black-coated alicorn with crimson fetlocks and a pure white mane. A quick glance in a nearby pool revealed that he had golden eyes with dragon slit pupils. He also had three horns, a pair of curving demonic ones similar to Tirek's in his final form in addition to a needle sharp unicorn horn. His wings were vast bat wings and with them he gained the instinctive knowledge of flight. His cutie mark was an infinity symbol made of tiny silver stars, indicating his special talent of unlimited magical power. He sat and pondered his new form for a while. He specifically considered what the consequences could be of introducing another alicorn, one more powerful than all the previous four combined, into Equestria's geopolitical climate. Not to mention how it might alter foreign affairs. Nah, Gregor thought, shrugging manfully. Then with a single spell returned himself irrevocably to his normal human form. He let out a quiet sigh, relieved to be restored to his proper state. But, wait, he thought, contemplating manfully. There was something wrong with his hearing, but he couldn't tell what. It was almost like something was missing. He listened carefully trying to solve this weighty conundrum. The wind whispered through the trees like a soothing melody from his acoustic guitar. The calf-high grass tickled him like the trailing fingers of the Baron Vanderbam's daughter whom he'd met while studying abroad in Germany. In both senses of the phrase, he thought, and his clever joke was so good that he began to laugh aloud. "That's it!" he realized with a shout. "The sound of my own voice. that's what was missing!" The problem was manfully solved, and Gregor felt very pleased with himself. He brushed a few blades of grass off of the fine suit he had created as part of his transformation. Eyeing his surroundings, he noted a low hill close to the pond and climbed to the top of it, finding that it conveniently overlooked Ponyville. A short distance to the south, which he identified with his unerring sense of orientation, Gregor spied Fluttershy's cottage. He could even see the yellow pegasus hard at work refilling the many bird feeders in her trees if he strained his hawk-like eyes. In the meadows between the hill he stood on and Ponyville several ponies played or relaxed, including Bonbon and Lyra who were sharing a picnic lunch. Rainbow Dash flew overhead in distance, leaving a chromatic trail that could belong to nopony else. "Well, it looks like my keen senses didn't fail me. I am definitely in the world of Equestria," he said staring at the town with a smile that had literally won awards. "I wonder where I should go first? The Most Radical Second Chapter Ever"I should introduce myself to Twilight. I'm probably only here because she messed up a spell,” Gregor stated. Not being the type to waste time once he’d made a decision, Gregor strode manfully forward on the most direct route towards Twilight’s gleaming crystal castle. There were some gasps and screams and a few shouts of ‘monster!’ but Gregor ignored those. Surely they couldn’t be referring to a man such as he. This delusion lasted all the way into town, where he was met by a wall of ponies, most of them carrying torches or pitchforks. Gregor was manfully puzzled by the display until he looked closer and it all became clear. “Oh! All of you wrapped your hooves in cellophane tape. That’s how ponies hold things.” “Your manfully perfect grasp of the greater mysteries of life won’t save you here, monster,” Mayor Mare called out from the head of the crowd. Gregor paused for a moment of thought as the crowd milled amongst itself. Clearly herd instinct had brought them together to stand united in the face of the greatest predator ever seen on either Earth or Equestria. Yet, when it came to confronting that master hunter their individual nerves failed them. “I just don’t understand why all of you think I’m a monster, much less act so incredibly hostile to someone, and something, you’ve never met,” he said, doing his best to prevent any kind of bloodshed, but mostly pony bloodshed. His years of manfully studying martial arts had taught him that the best fight was the one avoided. Although they did recognize that the second best fight was when you kicked your opponent’s ass. There was some murmuring in the crowd, and one voice manfully rose above the rest. “Because you’re different!” There was a moment of silence after that, but then the crowd gave general nods and words of agreement. “C’mon,” Gregor manfully complained. “I’m not really that different from Iron Will and even if some ponies called him a monster he wasn’t treated like this.” “Yeah, but you aren’t as big, and your face is weird and your legs are weird and you’re wearing that weird clothing,” another, not so manful voice declared. Again came the murmurs of agreement. “Also, you aren’t super cut like he is.” If there were a measurement smaller than a micrometer (and Gregor knew there wasn’t because of his doctoral-level understanding of the metric system) a scientist might have been able to measure the twitch that manfully shot through Gregor’s left eye. Certainly no pony detected the tiny, instantaneous loss of control. “Are you implying,” Gregor said in a low dangerous tone – a tone that Liam Neeson had studied for hours before acting in ‘Taken’ – “that I am not the most straight out ripped creature you’ve ever meet?” “Implying nothing!” Bulk Biceps declared, manfully forcing his way to the front of the crowd. “Hay, I’m more jacked than you!” Gregor gave the only response of any true man. He manfully stepped forward and threw off his suit coat without another word, muscles bulging and rippling beneath the thin material of his shirt like angry crocodiles beneath the ocean waves. “Flex off!” one pony screamed and soon the torches and pitchforks were forgotten. Bulk Biceps began with a complex move that made the muscles in all four legs manfully bunch into impressive groups, standing taut on his white coat. There was scattered applause from the crowd, and few spectators cheered. Gregor went for a relatively simple flex; normally it would have been nothing impressive but with his shirt still on it was nothing short of amazing. The sudden movement of manfully straining muscles and the massive increase of air pressure caused by the speed of their movement ripped his shirt to shreds. Pieces of silk literally exploded from him and rained down upon the crowd. When at last the smoke cleared they were able to see a more perfect example of mammalian musculature than could be found in even the most detailed of anatomy textbooks. “Oh my,” Mayor Mare said, putting a hoof to her face. Her next words (after she realized her hoof was still covered in tape and was now stuck to her face) weren’t fit to print. Thus it went for minutes on end. Each pose Bulk Biceps took was more and more impressive and yet Gregor manfully outperformed him every time. At last they stood perfectly still, each one covered in sweat. But where Bulk’s sweat only matted his fur, Gregor’s perspiration made his muscles look as though they had been oiled by a skilled masseuse and smelled faintly of spice and fresh pine wood. “And now,” Gregor declared, his voice dropping another octave into a mode known to onlookers only as Perfect Bass, “my Final Flex, a technique handed down through the McAwesome line for generations!” Both arms spread wide before sweeping inward, both pecs thrust forward like a tumbling avalanche, abs bunched rating an eleven on the Mohs hardness scale, latissimus dorsi rippling like flags in the wind and as the piece of resistance a full, perfectly trimmed beard manfully exploded from his formerly clean shaven face. Jaws dropped to the ground, wings stood towards the sky, eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, pupils shrunk to pinpricks and one filly got her cutie mark just from watching. “I…” Bulk Biceps began, staring at manful perfection, “I… concede. B-but you have to tell me how you did it.” “The average person uses only 10% of their follicles,” Gregor lectured manfully. “In decades past my ancestors learned the secret to unlock the potential of the entire body’s hair. I have trained in these techniques since birth and now have full control over 73% of my follicles.” “What happens if you reach 100%?” queried a voice from the crowd. Gregor stared manfully into the distance for long minutes. Nopony dared to speak, as they waited with bated breath. Finally he manfully spoke. “Even I don’t know. The greatest masters in my family only ever reached 78% of their true follicular potential. One day I hope to surpass them, but no man can know what awaits for me when I do.” “I’m sorry we ever doubted you,” Mayor Mare said, wiping away an unfallen tear. “From now on you and your manful ways are welcome here in Ponyville.” “Okay, cool. See you guys later,” Gregor said, picking up his suit and dusting it off. He manfully strode off, considering what his next step should be. The Coolest Third Chapter Ever“I should stop by Rarity’s shop and get a new shirt before I meet Twilight,” Gregor said, manfully stroking his new facial hair as he pondered. That decision made, he hurried across town, looking for Carousel Boutique. A lesser man might have asked for directions since he was in a new town without any knowledge of where his destination was located. But of course, scientists had documented and been puzzled by Gregor innate sense of direction. He had first discovered the ability after falling out of a plane flying over the Amazon rainforest. After a mere two weeks, he had found his way home just in time to celebrate his eighth birthday. Manfully brushing aside the fond memories he had of the lost civilization of the Olmecs and his adventures among them, he turned a corner and found Carousel Boutique exactly where he had expected. A hand strong enough to bend steel, yet gentle enough to paint a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa using only a wet noodle and marinara sauce knocked politely but manfully on the door. The door shattered inwards, and Gregor reflected that perhaps he had knocked a bit too manfully. “AHHHHHH!” a high pitched voice from within the shop screamed. “How could you?” Rarity rushed out, tears filling her eyes. Gregor stayed manfully silent, his face radiating empathy even though – like any man faced with a crying women – he had no idea how to fix it. “You… you brute! You monster!” she continued, batting a hoof at him in reproach. She trailed her hoof down one of the tattered pieces of shirt that was manfully half-tucked into his pants. “Even at a distance I could see the quality of the silk and the craftsponyship of this shirt.” Her eyes met his own and she glared like the NFL linebackers that always tried for a blitz when Gregor practiced with them. “I know,” Gregor said. “I magicked the shirt into existence as part of my transformation from alicorn to human.” He then paused, realizing that the statement no doubt sounded manfully insane to the average pony. “Oh, you’re one of those,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes. “I should have guessed from how manfully you do things. Come in then. I’ll get some measurements, start on a new shirt, and we can have a quiet ceremony for the old one in the backyard.” “One of those?” Gregor questioned, manfully wincing as he stepped over the splintered remains of her front door. “Sorry about the door.” “Oh tosh, think nothing of it,” Rarity replied, slipping on a pair of fancy red eyeglasses and grabbing a tape measure with her magic. “But yes, you are hardly the first human we’ve ever seen. The vast majority of them being young males like yourself. The town mob usually scares away the idiots, although given how often those same humans come back with some dark source of power to ‘exact vengeance’ for their ‘cruel mistreatment’, I do have to wonder at the wisdom of that.” She continued to speak as she carefully took all of his measurements; all of them equally manful. The circumference of his biceps and the surface area of his pecs were especially impressive. “At any rate, I expect one way or the other you’ll have some sort of large impact for at least a few weeks until ponies get bored and forget about you.” Gregor manfully considered her words and how meta they might be as her tape measure dutifully measured the density of his facial hair. Rarity cleared her throat interrupting his train of thought and preventing the story from becoming too self-referential. “Now, not to be rude, but let us discuss the matter of payment.” Never before in his sixteen years, three months, one week, four days, nineteen hours, five minutes and sixteen seconds of life had Gregor ever been so manfully shocked. “But you’re the Element of Generosity,” he stated, resorting to ventriloquism as his jaw refused to stop hanging open. “Yes, dear,” Rarity said, patting him on the arm like a slow student that had made an a particularly foolish statement. “But I am also a businessmare. If I worked pro bono for everypony – or human – that walked in here I’d be out of business within the fortnight.” The measuring tape was still active, unnoticed by the two of them as it measured the Teslas of his personal magnetism. “Still,” she said, “if you don’t have means of payment on you, I suppose we could find...” she trailed a hoof along his manfully perfect abdominal muscles, “another way of working off your debt.” Gregor politely (and bit less manfully) removed her hoof from his body. “I’m not just some object for your pleasure,” he said, true and deep hurt in his eyes. How many times had he encountered this? Women who only wanted him for his body without caring about the person he was on the inside. He had written a Tony-winning musical about the struggles and personal tragedies he had faced. It had sold out every show, last he had heard. Rarity tittered at that. “Oh, that’s not what I meant at all, though I see how you could have mistook my intentions. I meant that you could model my wares, perhaps do a suitable promotion, assuming that you become famous rather than infamous.” Gregor manfully chuckled, realizing with relief that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, until her next words stopped him cold. “But there are some ponies that will want exactly that. We’re terribly xenophilic as a species. I mean, considering that we started out with only Earth ponies.” “Then,” he said slowly, manfully trying to wrap his mind around what she had just said, “where do pegasi come from?” “Well, all pony hybrids are fertile, so mostly other pegasi, but even today there are some ponies with an attraction for birds,” Rarity replied, not even paying attention as her measuring tape measured the depth of his manful personality. Gregor was silent for a moment. Then manfully he asked, “What about Crystal ponies?” Rarity gave a snort that ruder individual might have described as ‘manful’. “Surely you don’t think King Sombra and Maud are the only geosexuals in Equestria?” “But what about unicorns?” Gregor asked, so confused that he forgot to do so manfully. “Narwhals,” Rarity replied, a hot blush suddenly spreading across her face. “There’s just something about that long elegant spiraled horn that not even the strongest of ponies can resist. Some of the greatest romances ever written are about stallions manfully straining to reel in the perfect catch.” She giggled, the blush only growing. “That is where the phrase ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ comes from, you know.” Gregor rocked back on his feet, his entire headcanon crumbling around him. The tape measure continued on, calculating his kidney function and electrolyte balance. Then a thought occurred to him that required manful consideration.
The Best First Chapter EverIt was a beautiful day in Ponyville, which doesn’t really matter since our hero, Gregor McAwesome, was on Earth. For now. Across a perfect green field on a large estate in Vermont a teenager dressed in a casual pair of jeans and a t-shirt walked manfully. Most people would have been cold, it was only forty degrees outside, but he felt fine. Gregor was six foot four, covered in athletic muscle, had bright blue eyes and golden blond hair which he kept cut short, but not too short. All in all he was so good looking that Adonis, that Greek guy who stared at himself in the pond, would have been jealous. “Man, it sure is great to be home after three consecutive tours of duty with the Navy Seals,” Gregor said to nobody as he strode manfully through the woods behind his family’s five-story, twenty-bedroom mansion. He stopped suddenly, brooding. “I sure hope the rest of the team is all right without me, but since I’m just sixteen I really wanted to come home for a while.” He shrugged manfully, dismissing the worry and started walking once more. He’d be starting school again in a few weeks. He was sure the basketball team would try recruiting him, after all he’d scored the winning basket that earned the USA gold in the last Olympics, but he just wanted to relax this year at school. The expectations he had to live up to were hard, especially after he got perfect scores on both the SAT and ACT. He sighed manfully. Still, for today he could just enjoy his walk in the woods. Sometime around lunchtime Gregor stopped, stunned by the sight before his eyes. It was a giant Mayan temple stretching above the treetops, lined with age and covered in bits of moss. “Huh,” Gregor stated manfully, “I’ve walked down this path literally hundreds of times. I wonder why I never noticed this place before.” He thought for a second. “Or why nobody has ever noticed this from the house, I mean it’s taller than all the trees, you’d think it would stick out.” So intent was his mighty mind on this quandary that he never even asked why there was a Mayan temple in New England. “I might as well explore it,” Gregor thought aloud. “I’ll just have to do it quickly so I can get back in time for tea with the President.” Moving like the ninjas he had studied with for several years, Gregor snuck into the temple. Traps that should have rotted or rusted away hundreds of years ago somehow still activated as our hero journeyed through the temple’s mysterious corridors. Dodging manfully, Gregor passed all the traps with ease and soon stood at the exact center of the pyramid. Temple. Whatever. There stood an altar surrounded by intricate carvings. Huh, Gregor thought manfully, those carvings remind me of my favorite television show: My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. On the altar rested a glowing azure orb, levitating several inches above the stone platform. Next to it was a carved inscription which was conveniently in English. Beware! Beware! Take heed and care! For those who touch this blue stone, Can never more return home. Changed will be your flesh and bone, And a strange new world you must roam. “What superstitious nonsense,” Gregor declared, trying to deduce the scientific principle that allowed the stone to float and glow without an apparent power source. His Rolex beeped, reminding him of his impending teatime, and he came to a manful decision very quickly. “I’ll just take it with me and donate it to a museum or something to study,” he said, momentarily forgetting the rules of aracheology he had learned during the semester he spent at Harvard. The first rule being this: if at any point during a dig, an object glows, speaks or moves under its own power, run. Just run and never look back. The moment his hand manfully touched the stone it flashed with intense bright light, blinding him. Suddenly, he had the sensation of falling, as though the floor had suddenly disappeared. His head hit something, during the fall and everything faded to black. ……… Six hours later, Gregor awoke with a headache, and perfect recall of what had just happened to him. “I appear to have been manfully teleported to another world,” he said, instantly recognizing a hundred subtle differences between the forest around him and those of any biome on Earth. Only after he had ascertained his new location did he notice that he himself had changed. He was now a black-coated alicorn with crimson fetlocks and a pure white mane. A quick glance in a nearby pool revealed that he had golden eyes with dragon slit pupils. He also had three horns, a pair of curving demonic ones similar to Tirek's in his final form in addition to a needle sharp unicorn horn. His wings were vast bat wings and with them he gained the instinctive knowledge of flight. His cutie mark was an infinity symbol made of tiny silver stars, indicating his special talent of unlimited magical power. He sat and pondered his new form for a while. He specifically considered what the consequences could be of introducing another alicorn, one more powerful than all the previous four combined, into Equestria's geopolitical climate. Not to mention how it might alter foreign affairs. Nah, Gregor thought, shrugging manfully. Then with a single spell returned himself irrevocably to his normal human form. He let out a quiet sigh, relieved to be restored to his proper state. But, wait, he thought, contemplating manfully. There was something wrong with his hearing, but he couldn't tell what. It was almost like something was missing. He listened carefully trying to solve this weighty conundrum. The wind whispered through the trees like a soothing melody from his acoustic guitar. The calf-high grass tickled him like the trailing fingers of the Baron Vanderbam's daughter whom he'd met while studying abroad in Germany. In both senses of the phrase, he thought, and his clever joke was so good that he began to laugh aloud. "That's it!" he realized with a shout. "The sound of my own voice. that's what was missing!" The problem was manfully solved, and Gregor felt very pleased with himself. He brushed a few blades of grass off of the fine suit he had created as part of his transformation. Eyeing his surroundings, he noted a low hill close to the pond and climbed to the top of it, finding that it conveniently overlooked Ponyville. A short distance to the south, which he identified with his unerring sense of orientation, Gregor spied Fluttershy's cottage. He could even see the yellow pegasus hard at work refilling the many bird feeders in her trees if he strained his hawk-like eyes. In the meadows between the hill he stood on and Ponyville several ponies played or relaxed, including Bonbon and Lyra who were sharing a picnic lunch. Rainbow Dash flew overhead in distance, leaving a chromatic trail that could belong to nopony else. "Well, it looks like my keen senses didn't fail me. I am definitely in the world of Equestria," he said staring at the town with a smile that had literally won awards. "I wonder where I should go first?
The Most Radical Second Chapter Ever"I should introduce myself to Twilight. I'm probably only here because she messed up a spell,” Gregor stated. Not being the type to waste time once he’d made a decision, Gregor strode manfully forward on the most direct route towards Twilight’s gleaming crystal castle. There were some gasps and screams and a few shouts of ‘monster!’ but Gregor ignored those. Surely they couldn’t be referring to a man such as he. This delusion lasted all the way into town, where he was met by a wall of ponies, most of them carrying torches or pitchforks. Gregor was manfully puzzled by the display until he looked closer and it all became clear. “Oh! All of you wrapped your hooves in cellophane tape. That’s how ponies hold things.” “Your manfully perfect grasp of the greater mysteries of life won’t save you here, monster,” Mayor Mare called out from the head of the crowd. Gregor paused for a moment of thought as the crowd milled amongst itself. Clearly herd instinct had brought them together to stand united in the face of the greatest predator ever seen on either Earth or Equestria. Yet, when it came to confronting that master hunter their individual nerves failed them. “I just don’t understand why all of you think I’m a monster, much less act so incredibly hostile to someone, and something, you’ve never met,” he said, doing his best to prevent any kind of bloodshed, but mostly pony bloodshed. His years of manfully studying martial arts had taught him that the best fight was the one avoided. Although they did recognize that the second best fight was when you kicked your opponent’s ass. There was some murmuring in the crowd, and one voice manfully rose above the rest. “Because you’re different!” There was a moment of silence after that, but then the crowd gave general nods and words of agreement. “C’mon,” Gregor manfully complained. “I’m not really that different from Iron Will and even if some ponies called him a monster he wasn’t treated like this.” “Yeah, but you aren’t as big, and your face is weird and your legs are weird and you’re wearing that weird clothing,” another, not so manful voice declared. Again came the murmurs of agreement. “Also, you aren’t super cut like he is.” If there were a measurement smaller than a micrometer (and Gregor knew there wasn’t because of his doctoral-level understanding of the metric system) a scientist might have been able to measure the twitch that manfully shot through Gregor’s left eye. Certainly no pony detected the tiny, instantaneous loss of control. “Are you implying,” Gregor said in a low dangerous tone – a tone that Liam Neeson had studied for hours before acting in ‘Taken’ – “that I am not the most straight out ripped creature you’ve ever meet?” “Implying nothing!” Bulk Biceps declared, manfully forcing his way to the front of the crowd. “Hay, I’m more jacked than you!” Gregor gave the only response of any true man. He manfully stepped forward and threw off his suit coat without another word, muscles bulging and rippling beneath the thin material of his shirt like angry crocodiles beneath the ocean waves. “Flex off!” one pony screamed and soon the torches and pitchforks were forgotten. Bulk Biceps began with a complex move that made the muscles in all four legs manfully bunch into impressive groups, standing taut on his white coat. There was scattered applause from the crowd, and few spectators cheered. Gregor went for a relatively simple flex; normally it would have been nothing impressive but with his shirt still on it was nothing short of amazing. The sudden movement of manfully straining muscles and the massive increase of air pressure caused by the speed of their movement ripped his shirt to shreds. Pieces of silk literally exploded from him and rained down upon the crowd. When at last the smoke cleared they were able to see a more perfect example of mammalian musculature than could be found in even the most detailed of anatomy textbooks. “Oh my,” Mayor Mare said, putting a hoof to her face. Her next words (after she realized her hoof was still covered in tape and was now stuck to her face) weren’t fit to print. Thus it went for minutes on end. Each pose Bulk Biceps took was more and more impressive and yet Gregor manfully outperformed him every time. At last they stood perfectly still, each one covered in sweat. But where Bulk’s sweat only matted his fur, Gregor’s perspiration made his muscles look as though they had been oiled by a skilled masseuse and smelled faintly of spice and fresh pine wood. “And now,” Gregor declared, his voice dropping another octave into a mode known to onlookers only as Perfect Bass, “my Final Flex, a technique handed down through the McAwesome line for generations!” Both arms spread wide before sweeping inward, both pecs thrust forward like a tumbling avalanche, abs bunched rating an eleven on the Mohs hardness scale, latissimus dorsi rippling like flags in the wind and as the piece of resistance a full, perfectly trimmed beard manfully exploded from his formerly clean shaven face. Jaws dropped to the ground, wings stood towards the sky, eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, pupils shrunk to pinpricks and one filly got her cutie mark just from watching. “I…” Bulk Biceps began, staring at manful perfection, “I… concede. B-but you have to tell me how you did it.” “The average person uses only 10% of their follicles,” Gregor lectured manfully. “In decades past my ancestors learned the secret to unlock the potential of the entire body’s hair. I have trained in these techniques since birth and now have full control over 73% of my follicles.” “What happens if you reach 100%?” queried a voice from the crowd. Gregor stared manfully into the distance for long minutes. Nopony dared to speak, as they waited with bated breath. Finally he manfully spoke. “Even I don’t know. The greatest masters in my family only ever reached 78% of their true follicular potential. One day I hope to surpass them, but no man can know what awaits for me when I do.” “I’m sorry we ever doubted you,” Mayor Mare said, wiping away an unfallen tear. “From now on you and your manful ways are welcome here in Ponyville.” “Okay, cool. See you guys later,” Gregor said, picking up his suit and dusting it off. He manfully strode off, considering what his next step should be.
The Coolest Third Chapter Ever“I should stop by Rarity’s shop and get a new shirt before I meet Twilight,” Gregor said, manfully stroking his new facial hair as he pondered. That decision made, he hurried across town, looking for Carousel Boutique. A lesser man might have asked for directions since he was in a new town without any knowledge of where his destination was located. But of course, scientists had documented and been puzzled by Gregor innate sense of direction. He had first discovered the ability after falling out of a plane flying over the Amazon rainforest. After a mere two weeks, he had found his way home just in time to celebrate his eighth birthday. Manfully brushing aside the fond memories he had of the lost civilization of the Olmecs and his adventures among them, he turned a corner and found Carousel Boutique exactly where he had expected. A hand strong enough to bend steel, yet gentle enough to paint a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa using only a wet noodle and marinara sauce knocked politely but manfully on the door. The door shattered inwards, and Gregor reflected that perhaps he had knocked a bit too manfully. “AHHHHHH!” a high pitched voice from within the shop screamed. “How could you?” Rarity rushed out, tears filling her eyes. Gregor stayed manfully silent, his face radiating empathy even though – like any man faced with a crying women – he had no idea how to fix it. “You… you brute! You monster!” she continued, batting a hoof at him in reproach. She trailed her hoof down one of the tattered pieces of shirt that was manfully half-tucked into his pants. “Even at a distance I could see the quality of the silk and the craftsponyship of this shirt.” Her eyes met his own and she glared like the NFL linebackers that always tried for a blitz when Gregor practiced with them. “I know,” Gregor said. “I magicked the shirt into existence as part of my transformation from alicorn to human.” He then paused, realizing that the statement no doubt sounded manfully insane to the average pony. “Oh, you’re one of those,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes. “I should have guessed from how manfully you do things. Come in then. I’ll get some measurements, start on a new shirt, and we can have a quiet ceremony for the old one in the backyard.” “One of those?” Gregor questioned, manfully wincing as he stepped over the splintered remains of her front door. “Sorry about the door.” “Oh tosh, think nothing of it,” Rarity replied, slipping on a pair of fancy red eyeglasses and grabbing a tape measure with her magic. “But yes, you are hardly the first human we’ve ever seen. The vast majority of them being young males like yourself. The town mob usually scares away the idiots, although given how often those same humans come back with some dark source of power to ‘exact vengeance’ for their ‘cruel mistreatment’, I do have to wonder at the wisdom of that.” She continued to speak as she carefully took all of his measurements; all of them equally manful. The circumference of his biceps and the surface area of his pecs were especially impressive. “At any rate, I expect one way or the other you’ll have some sort of large impact for at least a few weeks until ponies get bored and forget about you.” Gregor manfully considered her words and how meta they might be as her tape measure dutifully measured the density of his facial hair. Rarity cleared her throat interrupting his train of thought and preventing the story from becoming too self-referential. “Now, not to be rude, but let us discuss the matter of payment.” Never before in his sixteen years, three months, one week, four days, nineteen hours, five minutes and sixteen seconds of life had Gregor ever been so manfully shocked. “But you’re the Element of Generosity,” he stated, resorting to ventriloquism as his jaw refused to stop hanging open. “Yes, dear,” Rarity said, patting him on the arm like a slow student that had made an a particularly foolish statement. “But I am also a businessmare. If I worked pro bono for everypony – or human – that walked in here I’d be out of business within the fortnight.” The measuring tape was still active, unnoticed by the two of them as it measured the Teslas of his personal magnetism. “Still,” she said, “if you don’t have means of payment on you, I suppose we could find...” she trailed a hoof along his manfully perfect abdominal muscles, “another way of working off your debt.” Gregor politely (and bit less manfully) removed her hoof from his body. “I’m not just some object for your pleasure,” he said, true and deep hurt in his eyes. How many times had he encountered this? Women who only wanted him for his body without caring about the person he was on the inside. He had written a Tony-winning musical about the struggles and personal tragedies he had faced. It had sold out every show, last he had heard. Rarity tittered at that. “Oh, that’s not what I meant at all, though I see how you could have mistook my intentions. I meant that you could model my wares, perhaps do a suitable promotion, assuming that you become famous rather than infamous.” Gregor manfully chuckled, realizing with relief that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, until her next words stopped him cold. “But there are some ponies that will want exactly that. We’re terribly xenophilic as a species. I mean, considering that we started out with only Earth ponies.” “Then,” he said slowly, manfully trying to wrap his mind around what she had just said, “where do pegasi come from?” “Well, all pony hybrids are fertile, so mostly other pegasi, but even today there are some ponies with an attraction for birds,” Rarity replied, not even paying attention as her measuring tape measured the depth of his manful personality. Gregor was silent for a moment. Then manfully he asked, “What about Crystal ponies?” Rarity gave a snort that ruder individual might have described as ‘manful’. “Surely you don’t think King Sombra and Maud are the only geosexuals in Equestria?” “But what about unicorns?” Gregor asked, so confused that he forgot to do so manfully. “Narwhals,” Rarity replied, a hot blush suddenly spreading across her face. “There’s just something about that long elegant spiraled horn that not even the strongest of ponies can resist. Some of the greatest romances ever written are about stallions manfully straining to reel in the perfect catch.” She giggled, the blush only growing. “That is where the phrase ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ comes from, you know.” Gregor rocked back on his feet, his entire headcanon crumbling around him. The tape measure continued on, calculating his kidney function and electrolyte balance. Then a thought occurred to him that required manful consideration.
