Hell Hath no Fury

Twilight Sparkle

Rainbow finally finished the first story in the Daring Do franchise with a resounding, "The end."    This was the same book that she had read in the hospital, the same one that had established an unbreakable love for reading.  I couldn't say anything about her taste for adventure novels only, but it was a start.  She was still covered in some of the human's blood.  The human.

"You know, I was just getting bored of Daring Do.  I'm going to have to thank this little guy when he wakes up." Rainbow says almost wistfully.

"That's if he understands us," I'm plagued with questions about the human, questions that swarmed my mind like bees.  The first rested on the human itself.  Under the oxygen mask, I could still perfectly see the features of the human.  Compared to him, the humans natural to this world looked like brutes.  His nose was thin, but appeared to have been broken a few times, and the left nostril had been torn.  His head was more dome shaped, and didn't slope back so far.  The scalp was covered in scars that could only be scars from burns, the webbing covering the whole of the head, and stretched back to the neck.  Somehow, black hair was actually still growing.  It was quite short, most certainly less than a quarter of an inch.  And it was all so healthy and full, as if the skin below it had never been damaged.

The brow ridges were completely off the table, as in there was no bone underneath the bushy eyebrows to make them jut out.  The lips were thinner, and the cheeks were pulled tight to the prominent cheek bone structures and jaw.  The body of the human was certainly a strange sight.  It was more muscled than the strongest of laborers in the mines, muscles that seemed to fight against his own skin for escape.  The skin.  That was another topic.  It told such a story of pain and suffering that I had to put it out of mind to continue studying the body.  Scars, everywhere.  The left arm was either made of metal, or just covered in it I couldn't be sure, the last segment of the right pinkie finger was missing, and the left leg from the knee down was as the left arm, made of metal or just tightly covered in it.  Damage was woefully inadequate as a description.  The grand majority seemed to resign itself to the left side, but scars littered the entire body.  On top of that, strange marks.  They had some resemblance to Cutie Marks, but there was nothing in Equestria that could possibly resemble these.  Human skulls still crying tears, bony fingers scratching at the skull.   Words in Equestrain letters, but forming sound structures that hadn't been put together in the same pattern before.  I wanted to say that they were names, but I couldn't be sure.  On the remaining arm, an angry eagle carried a waving flag from the pole.  The flag was definitely not from Equis.  Most of the flag was dominated by red and white stripes, 13 in total.  The one part not covered in stripes was a patch of blue with 50 white stars on it.  Yep, I took the time to count them.  Below the flag was two stripes that went up to a point, and then back to an equal point further away.  On the ball of the elbow was a globe with a massive iron anchor behind it, and an eagle, wings spread, and a banner in it's beak resting on top of the globe.  On the forearm, fiery images of the cosmos.  The face was barely touched by tattoos, there being only a single, black tear drop shaped tattoo in each outside corner of the eyes.  I wonder if that means something.

The right shin was of raging streams of volcanic magma and black clouds, the chest being regaled to a magnificent lion, and a regal pack of wolves.  All of them stared deep into my soul.  On the back, I was told that there was mostly quotes in common Equestrian, the most notable being, "Freedom is never free".  All I could do was wonder what the meaning behind it was.  There were others, but not nearly as notable as that.  I think some of the tattoos on the back had been burned off.  I shuddered, now unable to resist wondering How could this have happened?  I hope that it's history won't have any adverse effects on it's actions towards us ponies.  I fixated on one scar in particular that stuck me as terrifying.  It had an epicenter that the rest of the healed wound stretch from.  All I knew was that this had to have been the worst wound.

The door behind me opened, and in came the rest of my friends, Applejack leading with a subdued smile on her face, "How's he doing Sugarcube?"

"Well, the doctor says that he's never seen pony or human suffer so badly in his life, but that this little guy should pull through."

Applejack's smile grows, "Good, cuz I owe that human a mighty thanks fur savin' Applebloom from those critters."

"Indeed, he distracted one of those hideous creatures from my shop!" Rarity says with her usual over-dramatized tone, "I wonder how hard it would be to repair it's clothing?"  To this she ponders.  Near impossible, I would imagine.  I've tried every spell I know of on it's things,

and not one of them have had any affect on them, even telekinesis didn't work!

Our eyes are drawn back to the strange human, who was mumbling and grunting in it's sleep.  Now what is going on in your mind? My mind wonders to what had been on him, the strange saddle bags and clothes, plus the unworldly weapons.  The doctors hay have been unable to use magic on the human, but they didn't say anything about his things!  I looked over to the pile that was all the random junk that the human had on him.  I gathered up my magic, and cast my spell onto it, the spell that was supposed to bring them all to me.  But nothing happened.  The magic from my horn just fizzled out.  W-what?!  My magic had failed.  This had only happened on spells I'd never tried before!  This was just a simple spell, how could it fail?  In my frustration, I tried, and failed, again.  I took the blanket off of the human, and tried to use it to grab up the blanket.  I was met with success.  So I can use indirect magic on those, but not direct.  Interesting.

Tank

I was surrounded by gunfire, the shrieks of mortars and artillery, and the screams of my friends.  I was in that muddy foxhole that I'd spent months in with only one other person, a black dude my age whose name was Mikey.  In war, whether you like someone or not, you learn to love your comrades as brothers.  Thankfully enough, neither of us had any qualms, and got along fine from day one.

Today was like any other day.  We woke up, and ate our rations through a mortar bombardment, had a quick skirmish for about an hour against a convoy of trucks and their escorts, relinquishing a massive store of food and weapons.  The weapons, we sent back to command in the back of a small moving truck to be shipped off to our headquarters, and most likely sold to help aid our war effort.  The food we kept for ourselves to help feed us, as our own supplies had dwindled very low.  Unfortunately, it didn't help much.  While there were many packages,

the food they held was pitifully small.  It took three rations to fill us, where our own would only take most of one.  Plus, ours tasted better.

Now, we fought against a larger contingent.  Our .50 caliber machine guns roared consistantly, and the stream of pops from our rifles backed them up with vigor.  Mikey and I were behind one of the .50's, off to the far right flank, which the attack was heaviest.  A spray of bullets cracked over our heads, "I hope that we get some support soon!" I yell in between bursts from the .50.

"Got that right!  We're fucked if they don't give us something good!" He manages to yell over the gun.  I pop up over the edge of the dirt wall, and let go a few choice shots at some of the dumbasses who were charging us.  I plucked a grenade out of my deep pockets, pulled the pin, and chucked it as far and as hard as possible.  As far as I could tell over the sound of war, it blew up a few soldiers dumb enough to be near it.  *Clunk* *Clunk*  My eyes gravitate to the grenade that both Mikey and I were now staring at.  Before I could even process what I should do, Mikey was on the ground, trying to cover it up.  All sounds disappeared, except for the thundering sounds of my heartbeat, like bombs landing on both sides.  *BOOM BOOM*  *BOOM BOOM*  Everything stopped moving, even my heart.  Then, just as the grenade blew, all ceased.

Rainbow Dash

The twitching and moaning evolved into screaming and thrashing.  Even with both me and AJ doing our best to hold him down, it was hard, like trying to make a Rainboom after I did it the first time.  Even Fluttershy tried to relax him, but to no avail, while Twilight immediately refocused her attention on the human, rather than the still closed bag.  Finally, those clenched eyelids opened, and a discernible word erupted with pain in our eardrums, "MIKEY!!"

Those eyes!  One was bloodshot, with a black iris, the other was... unique to say the very least.  It looked like it had been made out of a white metal, but there was blue lights in it.  The largest source was a single blue circle in the middle, which matched the movements of the other, with small lines of blue pointing towards the main source.  There were other lines made by engravings, however, quite shallow.  These looked like, oh what was it?  Ooo! I remember now!  A right angle, but only with rounded edges.  These didn't make any words, and formed no images.

All these details, I could see and understand in less than a second.  What took time to figure, was the terror on his face.  My hooves were swept away, forcing me to back off as the human sat up quickly, and slamming into the wall, ripping off the oxygen mask and needle.

"It's ok!  You're safe little one, no one wants to hurt you.  We're all friends!" Fluttershy says with her most calming voice.   Now, the human drove nails into her with his eyes in disbelief.

Tank

Oh, I forgot, they talk.  Still, I couldn't help saying, "The fuck?" by reflex.  The yellow pegasus recoiled along with every other one of the horses in the room, except for the only other pegasus in the room, the one that helped me to the hospital.  She seemed confused, but nonetheless unsurprised.

"Can you say something else?  You know, something like what I'm saying?" She says.  Her voice is quite tomboyish, hoarse, and hopeful Well go figure.  A horse with a hoarse voice.

This... will take some getting used to.  "Yeah, sure.  My name's Gunter Ludger, I'm a Corporal in the United States Marines with nearly six years of service and five years service in the Freedom Force Rebellion.  May I ask who you six are?"

"Seven, actually."  A young, boyish voice corrected.  I looked down, and saw a... Now what the hell is that supposed to be?  It kind of looks like a lizard.  This strange creature that had spoken walked on two legs, had purple scales with a leathery faded green belly, and green spikes running up and down his back, small on the tail, and much taller on the top of his head.  At least, I think it was a he.

"Ok, seven.  Whatever.  May I ask who you SEVEN are?"

"Oi, it's going to take a long time to get used to a human talking." he says offhandedly, as if I couldn't hear him.  Why that little-!  I cut off my building ire, Give him some time.  He probably didn't mean to be rude.  "I'm Spike, and yes, I'm a dragon!"  A dragon, and with no wings?  Is he a Chinese dragon or some shit?.  I was going to ask, but thought better of it.

The cyan blue pegasus from before went next, "I'm Rainbow Dash!  The best flyer and athlete in all of Equestria!"  An, "AHEM!" from an orange horse got Rainbow to go, "Hehe, ok, so, one of the best."  Equestria?  Ok, it's official.  We aren't in Kansas anymore Toto!  Ok, jokes aside, did it really take knowing that you're some other country to realize you ain't on your homeworld.  I think the talking horses was enough of a clue.  I looked at Rainbow, trying to take note of her features.  She was quite lean, and had a rainbow colored mane and tail, both of which were windblown.  She seemed to have an unparalleled confidence behind those magenta eyes.  Now that I was looking harder at her face, it was almost like the perfect combination of a human face and and a horse's face.  I could see and understand every emotion on her face, and hopefully, it worked the other way around as well.  A final glance revealed a tattoo on her ass.  A rainbow lightning bolt coming out of a white cloud.

Next, the orange one spoke up, saying, "Ah'm Applejack!  I work the Apple farm on the outskirts of Ponyville."  Ponyville.  Ooooook.  I look her over too.  First thing that stood out, was that she had freckles.  Three freckles on each cheek.  Then, ponytails.  Her mane and tail were made into-

FUCKING

PONYTAILS

Unlike Rainbow, she was thoroughly muscled, but certainly not ridiculously so.  Her kind green eyes seemed to install into my mind a sense of trust, like I could wholeheartedly believe everything she said.  She had a tattoo on her ass too.  Three apples in a rough triangle.

"HI!  I'm Pinkie Pie!  I'm the party pony of Ponyville!" a girly, and extremely excited voice burst into my eardrums.  I look over to where the sound came from, and I see that pink pony, hoof held out to me.  I grasp it with my hand and give her hoof a firm shake.  I studied her as well.  What I saw, was a rather... pudgy, almost fat pony.  Her coat was pink, and her mane was radically powerful, and unkempt.  Her eyes were wild, and full of happiness and energy.  This energy had me fully convinced that her weight wouldn't keep her from doing ANYTHING.  She too, had a tattoo in the same place as Rainbow and Applejack.  This time, three balloons.

Then, the white unicorn cleared her throat, calling for attention.  Before she spoke, I quickly observed what I could about her.  Her white coat was kept neat and brushed, her purple mane curled elegantly, like she was trying to avert any and all attention away from her... well... she wasn't fat, but you couldn't get away with saying she was thin or in shape.  Her tattoo was a couple of diamonds.  "My name," Oh dear God!  She's got the accent!  FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!, "is Rarity.  I own the Boutique in town, and the best stylist in the business!"  That accent, oh God in Heaven help me.  It was the same posh accent of some rich prick who thought an accent would make them sound more important.  Those kinds of people always installed a sense of hatred in my mind, and I could never amount any kind of resistance against it, even if I wanted to.  The rich grew up in lavish, and comfortable lives, never actually working for their things.  But when I looked into her eyes, I didn't see that snide glare that rich people usually had.  Instead, I saw a confident kindness, even though she flutter her eyes a few times.

Then, the other unicorn went, "I'm Twilight Sparkle!  The personal protege to Princess Celestia."  Princess?  Fuck.  I hate royalty. Memories from stories that mom used to tell me flooded through my mind, memories that told me rulers like kings, queens, princes and princesses were all assholes that ruled with iron fists.  They oppress the peasants and starve them while they sat on piles of gold coins and feasted.  But I relinquished these images, and studied her.  She actually looked like a middle ground between fat, skinny, and lean.  She was purple, had some stars as her tattoo, and her mane was styled in a straight, level cut with one brighter shade of purple stripe.  I looked into her purple eyes, and saw unparalleled curiosity, barely veiled by joy and friendliness.

The only one who hadn't gone, was the yellow pegasus.  She hid behind her very long pink mane, like she was almost afraid of me, the only thing preventing her from completing this being a glint of curiosity on her face.  She was VERY thin, almost anorexic.  Her tattoo was a couple of butterflies, and her eyes were unbelievably kind and shy, and blue.  I waited patiently for her to speak, and soon enough, she realized that I was more patient than her, "I'm Fluttershy"  I barely heard her, but I was able to hear it fully.  Fluttershy.  Very fitting.

"Come on Fluttershy!  You gotta be louder than that.  You know humans don't have as good ears as we do."  Rainbow Dash says irritated, like this happened a lot.

"It's ok, I heard her.  Her name's Fluttershy, yeah?"

They all looked at me with untold amounts of surprise.  "You could- actually hear her?"  Applejack asked in disbelief.

"Yep, and I heard your comment from earlier, Spike.  I'd recommend that you watch what you say before you piss me off."