Across the Ages

Chapter 7

Tommy had slept deep the night after working at Sweet Apple Acres. While he had gotten some reading done, it wasn’t as much as he would have liked, due to be exhausted, but what he did get through had proven to be interesting. Slowly, so as to nit cause himself any undue pain, Tommy climbed out of bed. Surprisingly, there was no pain.

“Huh. There’s no way this is normal. Maybe I should have the purple one do a scan on me and make sure I’m not actually dead.”

Tommy took a shower and brushed his teeth. He then put on the same clothes he had worn the day before, they were the only clothes he had after all. He would have to come up some way to get more if he was going to be here for a while. He could always wash them in the sink, a trick he had learned in prison to keep other inmates from stealing his socks or even his underwear. The guards, whenever he complained of the thefts, would simply laugh and say, “What do you know. I guess there are criminals in prison.” They were just a laugh and a half. Tommy couldn’t stop himself from muttering ‘assholes’ under his breath.

Eventually, he found himself in the kitchen, Twilight preferred to in the kitchen instead of the normal dining hall due to its size. She had told him that she felt tiny in the cavernous halls and the dining hall was no different. To him, it was not too dissimilar to eating meals within hi old cell. Twilight was already sitting at the table with Spike. Both were enjoying pancakes, but Twilight had a fruit salad on the side and Spike had a bowl of gemstones.

“Hey, Twilight. Mornin’ Spike,” Tommy greeted as he pulled out a seat for himself and loaded a plate.

“Good morning, Tommy,” Twilight said. Spike could only mumble a reply due to a full mouth.

“Twilight, you’re, like, uber-brain pony, right?”

Twilight dropped her fork and Spike snorted and started to try to hack up the gemstones he was choking on. “Just what the hay do you mean by that?”

“What? I didn’t mean anything negative. It’s just, I figured that since you take so much pride in being Sunbutt’s student, wear a schoolgirl outfit, and you spend all your free time in the library, you had to be some kind of super-brain. What’s wrong with that?

“Nothing,” Twilight huffed. “At least as far I can tell. Someponies still like to make fun of me for always having my nose in a book. I still don’t know you well enough to tell if or when you’re being mean. And for the sake of friendship, I’m choosing to ignore you calling Celestia ‘Sunbutt’. No one knows why Celestia and Luna have their cutie marks in such a private place and very few even know where that place is. I only know because I saw the edge of it while sharing a swimming pool with Princess Celestia as a foal. A word of warning; Celestia can be fun loving and playful, but she has her limits. Keep the location of her cutie mark to yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s too bad though.”

“What’s too bad?”

“That an ass that perfect is being kept hidden from the world.”

It took a while for the stars to clear from his vision, but when they did he saw a very angry Twilight and a dragon trying to hold back his laughter. “Celestia is not some cube of sugar for you to drool over,” Twilight practically growled. “No mare, especially the Princesses, deserve to be treated like that.”

Tommy peeled a half-eaten pancake from his cheek and shoved it into his mouth. “That may be so, but remember, I’m not used to mares. Women on my world were often objectified and many seemed to enjoy it. Also, don’t forget, I’ve been in a prison for a while. It’s basically a giant locker room filled with jocks and creeps. Worse yet, no women. Well, except for the guards, and you didn’t dare to hit on them. Either way, it’s goin’ to take me time to change, if I even bother to try. You’ll have to be patient or be rid of me. I prefer the former.”

“Fine,” Twilight crossed her arms with a huff. “But if you don’t make some kind of effort, then nopony else will either.”

Tommy raised a hand, “Message received loud and clear. I will try to keep my asshole-ishness in check.”

Twilight buried her face in her hand while Spike chuckled away. “Will you be starting to try anytime soon?”

At this point, the door to the dining room opened revealing one Starlight Glimmer wearing only a long tee and white cotton panties with striped socks that matched her hair colors. With little more than a mumbled ‘hey’, she sat and poured a mug of coffee and loaded a plate. Tommy looked her up and down and turned to Twilight who was watching him with a sense of dread.

“I think I’ll start after breakfast.”

Twilight’s head dropped like a stone and bounced off the table. “Super.” Twilight sighed heavily.

“How is this,” Tommy indicated Starlight, “my fault? Besides, you all are way too small for me. If you were humans, you’d be the size of a ten year old. Though the boobs make it weird. Like some perv’s fantasy. I would need someone around my own height, though the only ones I’ve seen that match are Luna and Celestia.”

“Mmm, plus Celestia’s boobs are huge.”

“Starlight!?” Twilight stood so fast, her chair toppled backward while Spike laughed enough to fall out of his own.

“What? They are. I don’t think it’s exactly a national secret.”

“It has nothing to do with secrets, it’s simply not appropriate to discuss anypony’s… body parts. Especially the princess’s. Also, would you please get dressed before you come down for meals?”

“Okay, I suppose that’s reasonable.”

“Thank you. Now, Tommy, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Huh?”

“You seemed like you had something on your mind earlier. When you were calling me ‘uber-brain pony’.”

Starlight giggled. Tommy replied, “Oh, right. Can you do a scan on me or something?”

“I can, but why?”

“I think something’s off. I worked my butt off at the farm yesterday, could barely make it back here, and yet I don’t feel any pain this morning. I’m thinking it might be some kind of nerve damage or something.”

“Alright, we’ll take care of it after we’re done here.”

“Thanks.”

*****

“Well, I don’t see anything wrong with you. Physically at least,” Twilight said as she was monitoring her scientific equipment in her laboratory while Tommy was laying on the observation table stripped of all but his underwear.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tommy asked with concern.

“It means that you have no excuse for being the way you are,” Spike explained from his cushion and pile of comics.

“Though these are some slightly irregular results,” Starlight added while she looked over the results.

“True, though nothing that should cause any concerns,” Twilight said. “Still, I’ll send a copy of these scans to Celestia since she wanted to be kept in the loop on you.”

“What, is she afraid I’ll turn on you all and risk being shredded by your magic just to get my jollies? Or does she think I’m some monster in disguise?”

“No, nothing like that. She’s just concerned about your health and well-being, same as she is with all her citizens.”

“Uh-huh,” Tommy replied with a heavy helping of sarcasm while he climbed off the table and began to get dressed. “Well, as long as my health is good, you can tell the almighty sun-goddess whatever you want. As for me, I’m gonna head back out to the farm to see if Applejack will let me help out some more today. All that hard labor is better for building up the body than any of that exercise equipment in the yard.”

“Huh? When did we get exercise equipment and why is it in the yard?” Starlight asked.

“No, no. The rec yard at the prison.” Tommy sat to tie his shoes. “When you have a few thousand people locked up in a complex a little smaller than the palace, routine recreation helps to keep them calm.”

“Did you just say a few thousand?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Just how many humans were on your planet?” Starlight questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know exactly, something like twenty billion. There were more, but widespread starvation caused by overpopulation led to constant wars for resources, thus depleting the numbers and the countries of the world decided to put a limit on just how many children one could have. A lot of people were against it and tried to have multiple children, but that all stopped when governments started to mandate vasectomies for every man after his first kid was born.

“What’s a… va-sect-to-me?” Spike asked, carefully trying out each syllable.

Tommy opened his mouth to explain, but was interrupted by Twilight. “Stop! I know he looks old enough, but he’s still a baby by dragon standards.”

Spike looked sideways at Twilight with aggravation written all over his face. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know whenever Twilight’s not around.”

Spike gave him a thumbs up while Starlight giggled. Twilight, face in palm, said, “Please stop corrupting him.”

“No promises,” Tommy called over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

*****

“Well, Ah gotta say, ya’ll did uh lot better than yesterday. Shoot, Ah didn’t think you’d be able to even get outa bed this mornin’ let alone show up asking for anther go,” Applejack complimented Tommy while they were putting away the tools they had been using throughout the day.

“To be honest, I was expecting to need to have to eat a liquid diet for a few days after leaving here yesterday, but I feel great.” Tommy stretched, feeling a couple vertebrae pop back into place, relieving a sore spot that had been building over the past couple hours. “Hell, I even had Twilight give me a full once-over to make sure everything was working right. She said I was good enough.”

“And ya weren’t nearly as annoyin’ as ya were yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to apologize for being myself, but I didn’t mean to piss you off. I would like to come back again to help out around here if you’d let me.”

“Not that Ah don’t appreciate the help, but why’d ya want to put yerself through that?”

“Back in my world, an orchard like this is incredibly rare. I never got to run around in an open field, or climb a tree, or even swing on a rope swing like you sister was doing when I came over. I just want to experience something I never got the chance to in my world.” Tommy then flexed his arms, “Not to mention I feel so much stronger than I ever have.”

Applejack chuckled, “Well, Ah always appreciate the help, but ya’ll know Ah can’t afford ta pay you more than uh few bits. It don’t feel right havin’ ya do all this work fer nothin’.”

“Hey, it’s fine with me. I mean, I don’t have a home to pay for and I bet Celestia is helping to foot the bill. Just give me a few of these apples and we’ll call it square.”

“If ya say so,” Applejack plied with a smile. She walked into the barn and came out a few minutes later with a bucket full of apples. “Here ya go. Hope you enjoy ‘em.”

Tommy took the bucket, surprised at how light it felt, and plucked one from the top. Taking a big bite out it, he had to slurp the juices before they trailed down his chin. After swallowing, he wiped his mouth and said, “My god, that’s the best fruit I’ve ever tasted. These things would easily fetch ten bucks a piece back home.”

“Really?” Applejack paused, realizing she had no frame of reference for the prices of items in a world she’s never been to. “That’s good, right?”

“Oh yeah. A normal apple would only cost about eight bucks a pound, but those always taste… off. When the real things died out, they had to use cloning technology to try to bring them back. I never got to taste the real thing, but if they were anything like these, their loss was a great sin upon society.”

“The loss of even uh single apple tree is more’n uh sin, it’s an unforgivable travesty.” Applejack clenched her fists and her jaw.

Tommy looked up at the sun and judged the time by how low it was in the sky, then realized he couldn’t. He decided to cover his brief stupidity, “Well, it looks like it’s getting late, so I think I should be going.”

“Alright, Ah’ll see ya around then. Oh, an’ feel free ta call me AJ from now on.”

“Cool, thanks AJ.” Tommy lifted his apple bucket, “I’ll make sure to bring this back to you tomorrow.”

The two waved goodbye to each other and Tommy made his way back to Twilight’s palace.

*****

A couple years after the meteorite struck, things started to… change. At first, things were great. The atmosphere got cleaner, trees started to grow bigger, stronger, healthier, and faster. Foods were more nutritious, plentiful, and resistant to pests, making chemical additives unnecessary. Even the health of humans was improving. It was starting to look like that meteor was a god-send, and it only cost us one human life.

Sadly, that illusion didn’t last too long. Somehow, every human on Earth became sterile. That’s right, no more babies. People were healthier and living longer, but no matter what was tried, no one could get pregnant. They even tried to clone humans, which had been banned decades ago, but to no avail. They even tried to splice animal DNA into our own, since animals were having no trouble breeding (even some species that had been thought to be extinct were coming back), but that didn’t work either. Within a century, humans were all but extinct. It may have been the first time in history that there were no wars between the nations as they were all trying to work together to save mankind.

Stranger still, my little ponies seemed to be immortal, as did I. The ponies that were out in the field at the time of impact were living up to a hundred years, but my Australians were not aging. Weirder still, they were all getting smarter. All the animals were, but the ponies were starting to understand speech, and more than simple commands, too.

Then, evolution took hold. What should have taken millennia, or even eons, happened in just a few centuries. By year two-hundred, the ponies were walking upright and using rudimentary language. By year three-hundred, they had developed hands, agriculture, and their own societies. Sadly, they also started to split.

Evolution had done a lot more than simply make all my ponies smarter, healthier, and even sapient. The ponies started to physically change as well. Aside from hands and upright posture, they grew into three different races. Some sprouted wings, while others got horns, and the rest simply got uber-strong. I decided to name these races after the legends they resembled. Winged ponies became pegasi, and the ones with horns became unicorns. I didn’t know what to call the other, so I simply called them earth ponies, since the seemed so adept at agriculture and were grounded.

Hannibal and Faust also changed. They grew both wings and horns as well as getting super strength. I didn’t know what to call them. After some carefully thinking, I decided to on something that would show that they represented all the races; all-icorns.

Of course, the bizarre pony races doesn’t even come close to what was showing up all over the world. I had decided long ago to travel and see what was happening away from the ranch. Hannibal and Faust came with me, they said that they wanted to keep me safe. I was grateful to them for that, as I wasn’t nearly as strong as them nor were my instincts anywhere near as honed as theirs. More than that though, I really liked the company. There’s only so many books left to read after a few centuries.

Within just a few days of travelling, it had become apparent that without humans, the planet was doing just fine. Cities had crumbled and roads had turned to dust. Strangely, the railroads seemed to be fine. It really made finding our way much easier. What wasn’t easier is what we found there.

It seems as though without humans, the world decided to fill the holes left behind by their absence. The forms these… replacements took seemed to, once again, take on traits of legendary creatures. The first time we came across what I could only call a griffon was terrifying. The griffons had not yet progressed as far as the ponies had. There was nothing resembling a society, only large nests with rooves, and no farms or ranches. Instead, they tried to eat us. On the bright side, we did learn that Hannibal and Faust’s wings weren’t just for show.

I remember wishing that we had a better way to defend ourselves.