Edited by Hunter Steel

Chapter 3 Rebirth in Exposition and Shameless Self Promotion

After providing me with my current location, Ahuizotl and Caballeron went off to get a bit of privacy for their planning session. Ignoring them for the moment, I started walking around the room while contemplating my situation, all the while the goons never took their eyes off me. ‘Ok, let’s see, I’m apparently in a large city of which I have a vague layout, in addition to that I'm weak and starving something I should probably address first’. Looking around I saw a sign for the bathroom, letting out a sigh and cursing my impatience I made my way in the indicated direction. A few halls later I came to the restrooms and entered the door with a prominently blue coloration. Stepping into the restroom I promptly had my nostrils dropkicked by what has sadly become a familiar stench. ‘GOD FUCKING DAMN IT WHAT IS IT WITH THIS DIMENSION AND- you know what, fuck it, just fuck it. I’ve lived in this world for years but that’s something you just don’t get use to.’ Sticking my head out the door to get a lung full of untainted air I stepped back into the restroom. The room was relatively small with three stalls separated by roman style columns, the walls were a pristine white and each of the square sinks had a fancy looking round mirror above them. I had initially hoped to get a drink of water from the sink in here, but that’s not happening with this stench, I'm not that thirsty. Crouching to look into one of the mirrors that come up to my stomach I took in my features, my eyes are bloodshot and my face is slightly gaunt, but I'm not showing ribs which is a miracle by itself so I guess I can’t complain too much. I was completely covered in flakes of rock, anyone looking at me from a distance might mistake me for a brown dragon instead of white. The growl from my stomach provided sufficient motivation for me to leave in search of a break room. ‘If I'm lucky they will at least have fruit’ I thought. Wandering the halls checking every door marked staff only and occasionally stopping to look at a display, I eventually found an employee break room I had to hunch and bend my neck to stand in, and even then the spines at the base of my neck never lost contact with the roof, shifting to a quadrupedal stance I surveyed the room which just happened to have, yep you guessed it, glorious food, sixty percent of which is hay based in some way or the other. The rest was comprised of thirty-five percent flowers. But there was that wonderful five percent that consisted of half an apple, go figure.

“…”

What? I never said there was a lot of food, I just gave you percentages, it’s a museum not a supermarket. In reality there was only a small table with a plate of hay fries two hay burgers and half an apple which was diced up and spread across a small dish of daffodils, Calendula, Oregano, and Mint. “Damn herbivores,” I muttered after eating the apple slices and greasy burger bread which also had hay in it. The room was about three by three meters, counters with cupboards and cabinets ran along all the walls, interrupted only by a refrigerator and a double sink above, which had an open window covered by mesh, and in the centre of the room was the table. Turning to a small cupboard from which I smelled Pony, fear, determination, and a bit of urine, I used my tail to open the door from a distance and found a teal coated Pegasus mare with a blue mane and tail and a terrified looking Unicorn stallion with a yellow coat and orange mane and tail. Both were armed with thick tomes posed to strike. That decision was quickly abandoned however when they found they had to crane their necks back to meet my piercing blue eyes. The mare, who was looking quite determined quickly dawned a forced grin and tried to hide the tome behind her under my stare while the stallion froze, terror evident on his face. Closing the cupboard I continued to search for something eatable, all the while listening to the ponies hushed conversation about their inability to act in the face of danger. In my search I unearthed bags of chips (‘bags of breeze’ if you want to get technical) ‘with hay’ a box of donuts ‘again, hay’, dried flowers‘, and hay’, bowl of hay, ‘covered in an unhealthy amount of hay’, a box of milk, (made from hay) ‘how the fuck do you milk hay’ and a cereal box ‘filled with hay’, failing my quest, since such an unholy amount of hay isn’t healthy for me. I went over to the sink and grabbed a jug to drink my fill of water as I observe the city’s mid-evening rush from a small window above the sink, all the while being careful not to wash off any of the flakes marring my scales. From what I could see the museum was surrounded by high-rise buildings and skyscrapers, the bustling city streets were filled with ponies and the occasional donkey. Ponies pulling cars ponies… why am I telling you this? You know how a busy city looks like at… whatever time it is. If you don’t then consult YouTube.

Smiling and waving at the few ponies that managed to notice me for a little while, I eventually turned back to the occupied cupboard when the inhabitants started to raise their voices to something a pony could hear. Once again opening the door with my tail I was met with a magically propelled superbook headed for my crotch. Reacting quickly I raised my right foot and blocked the projectile. Frozen once more the Ponies locked eyes with me. Raising a brow I asked. “Do either of you know of any more food around here?” After a few seconds of staring they managed to give me directions to where the night guards stash their snacks when on duty. I thanked them before returning the tome and closing the cupboard door, however before leaving, I made a simple statement that, considering the herding instinct of their society, could give me quite a bit of anonymity. “The way you two act I could swear I was the first brown dragon you’ve ever met.” At which point I left to find more food.

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It’s been two days now and I'm still in the museum. Ahuizotl and Caballeron both had to leave in a hurry when the royal guard eventually showed up, funnily enough they weren’t drawn to the magic in the area, rather it seems one of the ponies I met in the break room got out and reported everything. Before that though Daring somehow managed to get free and started causing trouble for the goons. She left the scene before the guard got there, secret identity and all I guess. Additionally it seems the museum used the attention from the incident as shameless advertisement, and it worked, especially since ponies apparently saw Ahuizotl leaving the scene with his ‘cultist follower’ and a beat-up Caballeron in toe. Apparently that unicorn I learned the language from originally decided to join up with Ahuizotl or something. Some of the officials think the situation was real but apparently most of them along with seemingly all of the populace think it’s just a publicity stunt for a new daring do book and the museum. Well I can say that if it was it would have worked, I learnt all this just listening to snippets of conversation that pass by the display I'm hiding under, and considering this display is both empty and in an out of the way part of the museum, the place is probably packed. Best of all, no mention of a white dragon in the mix, none whatsoever.

Regardless I will hopefully be able to leave tonight, my stomach would have gotten me caught already if I didn’t know how to magically filter sound. After leaving the break room I found the night guards’ Stash of food, which had a small bag of freeze dried prunes a pack of bubble-gum, and several dozen boxes of cereal, again all hay based, except for a box of Sugar Apple Bombs, The latter of which put me into a small panic attack after I remembered where I first heard of the cereal. The day just kept getting better and better, however I can’t verify anything at this point, something I need to do so I can plan my next several moves. if I'm in the version of Equestria I know that god damned delicious cereal from, I will be digging a very deep hole somewhere obscure and putting myself back into stasis for another 800 years, either that or move to the Canterlot High School if the mirror exists in this world and destroying the portal after hopefully figuring out its magic… hopefully. Regardless I need to leave this museum, preferably without being noticed, seeing as the museum is packed through the day and I don’t know the night guards’ routine, though it seems completely random from what my senses picked up from the times I woke up in the middle of the night. I need to leave early enough in the morning that the guards are tired or asleep but before the next shift starts. I would prefer not to use any magic unless it becomes absolutely necessary, the last thing I need is to become known for my magic, I Just don’t want to deal with the potential hassle.

Though I suppose I will need to acquaint myself with the kind of magic ponies use, however I doubt most of them will allow a fire breathing dragon into their libraries. Well all but one, who knows, maybe I can save Applebloom from the Everfree poster boys and get a free pass… I was probably gonna go there regardless. Hopefully I can also verify to some extent the version of Equestria I’m in. Ok thus far my priorities are food, magical knowledge, peace of mind. From there… meh I’ll see what happens.

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Leaving my hidey hole at the ass crack of dawn, seeing as I have no other reference for time and following the exit signs in the gloom, something that thinking back on it was an asinine idea, I was eventually met with the sealed main entrance to the museum, “Fuck”. I muttered as I used my senses to keep track of the patrolling guards, two of whom seemed to be headed my way. The lobby was two stories tall with an open design and a skylight that let in the early morning rays of the sun, and there were several support columns that supported the second floor which wrapped around the room and allowed the beings on the first floor to look down on the peasants entering the building. With nowhere to hide in the relatively empty museum lobby, I had to draw on my magic in my weakened state to make myself mostly invisible, you could see my outline if you really looked but at a glance no one would think much of a distortion in mid-air, at most they would suspect it to be a trick of the light or a ghost. This was in an effort to save energy, as using high amounts of magic in my current state (Like I did with Ahuizotl) would only make my condition worse and harder to recover from. With the clip clopping of hooves becoming more distinguishable despite attempts to muffle the sound, two night guards eventually rounded opposite corners of the room on different levels. One from the right on the ground floor and the other from the left on the first floor, however what caught my attention was the fact they were both Thestrals. Both were the same shade of grey one having a blue tail and mane with a more slender build while the other had a main for crimson and orange and was noticeably more muscular. Slowly shuffling my way into a corner the sunlight has yet to reach, I stayed quiet. They both moved around their respective levels of the room, occasionally casting several sideways glances in my direction, something that I didn’t miss, despite their attempts to keep it discreet. It was obvious they knew I was there, but it took a few seconds for me to realise how, every few seconds I would hear a high pitched click. ‘The bastards were echolocating’ I thought, at that a small smile touched my lips it was obvious they were waiting for something and were wandering the room to hopefully keep me here without needing to confront me, depending on their presence to be deterrent enough to keep me from moving and giving them time for… something. I gave a mental sigh, ‘and I didn’t want to use much magic.’

Seeing as I wasn’t willing to wait for their little plan to work out I concocted what was a simple plan in my mind at the time, give them a distraction and split. I first began using what rock flakes still clung to my body to form several runic arrays which I then energized and allowed to take effect. Immediately the flakes on my body took on a life of their own and quickly formed a vague outline of my body (also invisible) directly in front of me, the differences being its lack of a tail, legs, horns and the fact it’s face was more human like but pretty much featureless, basically I made a dementor (thank goodness for Harry Potter) Only a bit larger being modelled off me. Since I was still weak I used as little energy as possible to make the arrays but designed it to absorb magic from living creatures to sustain itself, if it didn’t get any magic it would only last about three minutes tops if I was lucky, it wouldn’t do any physical damage, but its victims would be left feeling weak from the encounter. Now you might be saying “What the fuck as of yet unnamed protagonist!!! Why the hell would you bring something so fucked up to a world of peace and happiness!?!? That was my only escape from real life you bitch, and you fucking corrupted it with a soul sucking eldritch horror like H.P Lovecraft on speed”. And as explanation I would mention that at that point I was, once again, starving, weak, malnourished, and just a bit lightheaded from making myself invisible, something that only got worse as the situation progressed, you’ll notice I also did a few more things that ‘looking back’ were completely unnecessary. Since I needed it to act on its own, I included a runic array it allow it to behave ‘instinctively’ for lack of a better term, along with several runes to make sure it didn’t attack me while also allowing me to modify the runic array from wherever. Both of the latter runes being standard in all my arrays. I then made myself inaudible using an array that has the side effect of negating sonar and echolocation by extension. To them looking at me would be more akin to looking at the negative of a picture in a sense. Under normal circumstances this would make me stand out more but with my dust dementor in front of me now becoming visible, they would be a bit preoccupied.

Instantly the temperature dropped severely as my creation absorbed all easily available energy to fuel its existence (Plus five minutes to life). Both Thestrals dropped into combat stances despite the fear and confusion on their faces. One of them tries to stutter out something but I wasn’t in the mood to indulge him. Setting lose my dementor it flew toward the guard on the ground floor all the while screeching its whispery screech like only a dementor can. The guard ducked low to the ground, not that it did him any good, as my dementor swooped over him stealing his energy for itself, (Plus three hours to life) and eliciting a pained scream and flailing hooves from the muscular stallion before circling the room and coming in for a second pass. The thestral on the first floor that had ducked behind a pillar upon hearing the shout of his companion immediately dove at the dementor in an attempt to save his friend. Succeeding in his task, the dementor was pushed into the beams of early morning light eliciting a pained whisper screech as it moved into the shade and flitted about. Standing over his friend with both front hooves frost bitten the thestral readied himself for another pass. At this point I was making my way to the back of the building to hopefully find the employee exit, all the while listening to the sounds of battle coming from the front room escalate as the remaining night guards hurried to the scene. After half an hour of wandering the large building while keeping track of the fight with my senses I found a backdoor into an alley. Quickly making my escape I brought back up the weaker version of my invisibility and made my way through the city avoiding the locals and weaving through streets and alleys as I made my way North-West, my hunger slowly being sated by what food I was able to snatch from restaurant goers who decided to eat outside. At one point I managed to liberate an entire fruit salad, a loaf of bread, and a bowl of soup from a mare sitting alone on the first floor balcony of a bakery. While I practically inhaled the soup, the mare who was enraptured by a newspaper titled “Museum Stages Robbery”, looked up to find her soup missing, looking around as her face of confusion morphed to annoyance, I managed to switch the empty soup bowl with her fruit salad, the audible clink of the bowl drawing her attention and causing my hand to freeze mid-air as she squinted her eyes at it “Darn it crescent this ain't funny,” she shouted in exasperation as she turned to the balcony door. “How many times ‘ave I told ya not to play ya pranks while I'm eaten!” casually munching on her salad I watched in amusement as an irate unicorn stallion poked his head out the window.

“Come on I didn’t even do anything”.

“Really” she inquired skeptically “then what happened to ma soup? Did da tooth breezy take it as penance for mi not flossin’ properly”? I took this time to put back the now empty salad dish and move the bread.

“Very well then, if you must have something to blame me for.” With that his horn lit up and a turkey appeared above the mare. Sniffing the bread I detected the now all too familiar smell of hay, sticking out my tongue I put it back on the plate. Being a dragon of my size, my appetite wasn’t anywhere near sated. The stallion levitated the bread in front of the bird who immediately started to drool, eyes drawn by the sound of crumbling bread the mare looked up in time to be showered in bread crumbs and descended upon by a ravenous turkey. The stallion cackled as the mare ran in circles trying to escape. Spurred on by the females frantic screams he begun to summon more turkeys to join in the hunt as the mare ran into the building. Slowly losing the battle to keep in my laughter I begun to walk away trying my best to remain quiet and not think about her situation.

After an hour of sneaking around I started to draw too many squints double takes and inquisitive stares as my fatigue and lightheadedness increased with inverse proportionality to my energy reserves. In my state the light of day started to make me more visible. Eventually I decided to wait for nightfall in an empty alley not visible from the street. Curling up under a fire escape I decided to drop my cloaking and rest for what it was worth as I waited.

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I had eventually fallen asleep only to be woken up by an annoying poking sensation in my facial area. Opening my eyes I recoiled, my head shooting up at the sensation of something prodding the sensitive orb. Closing the affected eye and opening the other, I was met with the sight of an Earth Pony Mare dressed in a police officer’s uniform, pointy stick outstretched in her hoof she had a light blue coat with orange mane and tail. Her eyes were obscured by a pair of aviators making her expression hard to read. I would suspect it was a cross between neutrality and determination… whatever that looks like. When she spoke her tone was firm and resolute. “Why are you sleeping under a fire escape? Do you know that’s a safety hazard”? BAM. instant respect right there, especially considering that her two colleagues ‘a Unicorn and a Pegasus stallion’, each more than twice her size and rippling with muscle at that, were trying and failing to hide behind a full trash can I know without a doubt was not there when I fell asleep. Seriously, this mare must have balls of steel. ‘Hmmmmm, should I try to escape? Eh, why bother, probably best to see where this goes’.

Judging by the light it was probably a little past midday. “Well I'm currently on my way to the forest North-West of here”, I shrugged as best I could with my curled position, “But I was tired so I decided to rest here for a while.” Don’t lie to the police kids, they're here to help, and keep you safe. She rose a brow at that. The sound of rattling metal became prominent in the alley. We both turned to see the stallions trembling and rattling the trash can they were clutching. In response to drawing my attention they recede further behind their makeshift fort when my eyes landed upon them.

Turning back to me the mare spoke. “Well you can’t stay right here,” the rattling redoubled. “Like I said it’s a safety hazard.” In reply I stood up, and being several times taller than her she had to crane her head back to look me in the eye. “However if you insist on staying here, I will be forced to place you under arrest and bring you down town”… I retract my previous statement, this mare has a pair of brass cojones. Smiling a serrated, razor sharp smile, I noticed one of the stallion's eyes roll to the back of his head before he promptly passed out toppling the trash can and leaving the other guy frozen to the spot.

Replying to the mare whom I now dub Integra, I nodded. “I understand, I’ll just leave then”. I could hear a relieved sigh from the stallion left standing as I walked off. “Hold on a minute”, turning back I found the mare approaching me, “It would probably be best if I escorted you, dragons aren’t a common sight here and I would rather you not cause a panic”. I shrugged in response. "Corporal Warden would you mind helping Lance Corporal Stone wall back to the station”. She looked at the downed stallion, “then again it's probably best to get him to the hospital”. The stallion’s eyes never left mine and I stared him down for the heck of it. He meekly nodded. ‘Aww, he did a Fluttershy’. Turning back to me the officer took the lead.

You want to learn how to make an entire city street go quiet in five seconds flat? Well it’s easy, just leave a random alley with a few hundred pounds of scaly apex predator trailing behind you. But that’s not all there is to it, you’ve got to walk with confidence, be sure you're directly in the centre of the sidewalk, make certain that all the plebeians know you own that shit. Keep your eyes forward and head up, but don’t stick your nose in the air you’re not in Canterlot, let the world know you're confident, not stuck up.
I fucking swear, this mare walked like this was in her job description. I could only imagine the reaction of the people she would tell this story to. We eventually came to an industrial district on the outskirts of town with train tracks leading out of the city, “This is as far as I can go. I'm already way off my patrol route.”

“Well, thanks for the escort, I guess”. With that I continued on my way to the forest surrounding a mountain range Something tells me , if I'm lucky I’ll be able to catch some decent food. Thinking back that pony didn’t have anything to indicate her rank did she?

Author's Note

Pony ignorance for the win!
But was it enough to get our scaly friend in the clear? Will he survive the forest in his weakened state? As as a matter of fact how did he walk so far in his state? Why didn't he just fly in that case? Will that dementor ever call back? Who was that police mare? And where can I buy some actual Sugar Apple bombs!?

Stay tuned and find out next time.

As always a huge thanks to my editor Hunter Steel whose efforts make this story something worth reading.