Author's Note

well I hope your already and pay attention to the little details.
Mischief: This chapter believe it or not took the most amount of passing back and forth to get to a postable state.

Pinkies frown

Spike was not a happy dragon. They had brought that colt home from the hospital yesterday and he ate an entire bushel of apples before going to bed to “process” them, in his own words, and Spike had woken up that morning with the intent of going down to make everyone breakfast.

Spike was not a happy dragon. He found the kitchen a complete mess. He was used to waking up to find the Library a mess, sure, but the kitchen was his domain. No one went in there without telling him about it first. Poor Twilight, she couldn’t even make a proper cup of tea without his help. The only person who’s cooking was on par with hers was Sweetie Belle’s. The worst part was that someone had emptied out a large section of the food stores and had not eaten any of it. A basket of daisies he had in the fridge for making sandwiches for everyone had been unceremoniously tossed onto the floor and stomped on!

Spike was not a happy dragon. He was used to being thrown a lot of work, he only wished that Twilight would do like Celestia said and start hiring a staff. The castle was huge and thankfully cleaned itself from dust, but it didn’t pick up knocked over furniture. Spike knew that Celestia planned to start handing off parts of the Kingdom to Twilight, or something along those lines, if she did not have at least some staff then those might become a bit more then she can handle.

Of course, it was that moment Twilight decided to gallop in. “Spike! He’s gone!”

Spike sighed internally and wished for not the first time that Twilight didn’t like to play the pronoun game. “Who’s gone, Twilight?”

“The colt! He’s not in his room! Wait, what happened in here? You usually keep everything pretty clean in here” Twilight looked around the room, her anxious look turning to one of confusion.

“I don’t know, Twilight. I woke up to this! Someone was clearly looking for something, and despite going through all of the food they didn’t eat a single thing!”

“It’s possible the colt came in here looking for something to eat and could not find something that worked for his taste buds…”

“If that’s the case, then it’s possible he left the castle looking for something to eat, right?”

“Twilight! Get your flank down here!!!” The two froze at the sudden shouting and Spike jumped onto Twilight’s back as she galloped out of the room, finding the voice to be Applejack in the main entryway, and she was almost as red as Big Mac. “Do you know what that colt that you’re watching was up to? Ah found him, thankfully before Fluttershy did. That colt was sick as anyone ah had ever seen after he killed a manticore, butchered it, cooked and ate the dang thing.”

Twilight was so shocked that she was not sure what she was feeling. “Ok… I knew he might be out looking for something to eat, but I never expected him to go hunt a manticore…”

“Yeah… but you know as well as ah do that ponies lost the ability to eat meat long ago. He’s sicker than a dying dog and his body is in all out rejection. He refused to go back to the hospital, so ah have him resting out on my property. Ah decided to fill him up on apples after his body finished puking all of the stupid meat he tried eating.”

Twilight collected her thoughts before deciding what to say next, “Don’t be too mad, Applejack. Humans are omnivores, so it’s possible he thought he would not have been pony all the way through. He probably believed that he would still have a human digestive system.”

“Well, you’re going to have to lay down some ground rules. Ponies are gonna talk if you can’t keep him under control, Twi. You’re lucky as a pig in a fresh mud pie that this happened on the edge of Sweet Apple Acres.”

Twilight had made a decision. She had spent most of the night reviewing everything the colt had told her about his programing. It was a surprisingly short list, nearly all of it was about maximizing the chance of surviving battle. She had only one ploy.

The colt was lying next to a puddle of vomit and another bushel of apples. It was not a good thing that his diet had been mostly apples and beans since he came out of that black cloud. He needed hay in his diet in order to balance it.

Twilight braced herself and tried to take up the persona of a teacher or a disappointed guardian, “So, have you learned something?”

G-478972 grunted, “That this body is one of the purest herbivores that I have ever seen. Even the herbivores of my world would not have had such a strong reaction.”

Twilight nodded, “I think there are some things that we need to talk about. So, I am going to tell you some things that are going to be the rules that you will follow if you want to stay in Equestria to fight your enemy. First, none of the names you suggested are going to accepted by ponies, so from this point forward you are going to be called by Blade Dancer. Second, you don’t know enough of the basic facts about our world, and combine that with the fact you are now a child, I am going to enroll you in Ponyville public elementary school. You are going to learn how to blend in with other ponies by practicing with other foals. Third, you are going to have to let me run tests to determine what about you is pony and what isn’t, you’re going to have to switch your lifestyle to adapt to that body of yours.”

~~G-478972~~Blade Dancer scowled, “Are you done?” Twilight nodded, “I am willing to agree to your terms if you agree to aid me in finding my enemy and not interfering in any of the actions I have to take.”

Twilight was upset, but she had expected this answer. “Fine. I will stay out of your way. I can only hope that you will learn to see the world differently after you have seen the way we live.”

“Well students, Ms. Twilight Sparkle has seen fit to help enroll a new student. He will be joining our class as of today.” The plum-colored teacher announced to the class before muttering, “Although, I think he is a little younger than you and should be moved to next class down…” ~~G-478972~~ No Blade thought to himself that this teacher would do well to remember how good ponies hearing was.

Getting used to a new name would take a while. Twilight had made it clear that it was in fact a name, more so it was to be his name. If he could feel embarrassed, he would dying of it by now. Why did these creatures have to have such an asinine form of identification? All of the foals were clearly excited to have a new member of their class. Blade only hoped that he would be able to slide through without dealing with these foals. The adults were childish enough in their innocence.

“Blade Dancer?”

Blade turned towards the plum-colored earth mare. “What?”, he croaked

The teacher, he thought her name was Cheerilee? God, pay attention “Blade”, continued “Blade, sweetheart, I was asking if you would be willing to do an introduction so the rest of the class can you get to know you?”

“No.” He replied flatly. With that Blade walked to the back of the class to an empty desk. He was already tired of this, and the foals were all looking at him, open mouthed with shock. Thinking, “What a tool!”

It was clear looking back that Cheerilee was not really suggesting and more telling politely. She had not expected Blade to simply shrug off her request. “Blade, I know you might be feeling a bit shy, but I think it would be a good idea for you to introduce yourself.”

Time to lie through my teeth. If only the Translation Matrix did the written word. Blade thought, instead tapping his chest to indicate himself. “My lungs are still healing”. Not to mention being sick last night…

Letting control of his body slip, he began hacking up blood. He decided to wave whatever this front leg thing is called at the teacher. Her eyes going wide. “O-oh!” Cheerilee exclaimed, taken aback. “Yes, Twilight wrote a note saying that you were just back from the hospital. I suppose it hurts when you try and talk. Are you sure you’re well enough to actually be here?” She asked, anxiously

Blade nodded and smiled, Well the dumb bitch bought it. Not that it was actually a lie, Blade still was missing about the third of that lung. The level of pain was nothing to write home about though. She should leave me alone for at least a month now.

Sitting in this class was weird as Blade could not read anything she was writing on the board, and he was not willing to put in the effort to learn the written form of the language. It was a strange block format, reminding him of some earth languages. Yet, after watching the board for almost two hours he realized something, they had far more letters in their language than English. He decided to spend the next couple of hours going through all the sounds this language actually had.

He was surprised to find that there was a much wider range of sounds they could make, even including several kinds of snorts and whinnies. This body had an extremely wide ability to express itself. It was almost like this body was designed to be as expressive as possible.

“Blade, you are not taking any notes.” He looked up at the teacher and rolled his eyes. She had been mostly writing and not doing a lot of talking.

Blade saw that instead of continuing the lesson, she had focused on him. He had seen most of the students were using their mouth to write. It was weird, but he picked up his pen and wrote some letters in basic U’le’tek. He then flipped the paper and showed the class.

They stared at the paper. “That’s not Ponish!” one of the colt yelled. Cheerilee was staring at the paper trying to see if it was one the ten languages she knew. “Blade, can you read Ponish at all?” He simply shook his head. “I see. I was told that you understood the language. So, while you clearly understand what I am saying, you don’t understand any of what I’ve been writing all class, do you?” He shook his head again, “In that case, I am willing to simply say what I am writing aloud. In exchange, I expect you to take notes. I will also wish to speak to you after class.”

It was almost three o’clock when the class let out. Cheerilee was exhausted and annoyed. Exhausted was normal dealing with a classroom of foals. The annoyance, well… Twilight was in for an earache when she received her letter tonight. She had said the colt was hurt, not that he was coughing up blood. Cheerilee also felt that she should have been told he COULD NOT READ.

To cap it all off, he was creepy. During the hour of lunch and recess in the middle of the day, Blade had simply waited in his seat while the rest of the class left, all the while Cheerilee watched him from her desk as she graded papers. Most foals who remained in the classroom did it to do schoolwork or to play a game that required the use of tables, yet this colt simply waited at his desk staring ahead like his time meant nothing.

And finally, the day was over. After some time, the colt walked right up to her desk and plopped his flank down on the floor in front of it. Cheerilee cleared her throat, “I would like you to stay with me after school today to learn the Ponish alphabet, if nothing else for the mere value that it will give you later in life.” Blade just shook his head. “Are you telling me that you don’t want to learn or are you implying that it holds no value to your life?” Blade simply nodded. “Well, I am afraid that your Guardian disagrees. She has told me that it should not take long for someone as intelligent as you to learn.” Blade responded by sighing and jumping up on to the seat that she had set up earlier, the one he was supposed to have been sitting in all along.

She spent the next hour reviewing the letters in the complex language with him. They had a total of one hundred and eleven letters, though that did not include the sounds that were not actually used in words themselves, but used to give context. It was not too hard to learn. It was simple to put all of the information that he already knew about to the letters and link them to the sounds that he already knew.

When Blade finally got back to the castle, he found that he was about ready to murder Twilight. Finding her in the map room, the colt began to rant, “You feed me to a class of weaklings that are of no interest to me! Please tell me that you have at least learned something about my enemy that makes all of my patience worth it!”

“I don’t have anything other than that the second ‘star’ that fell with you landed in the griffon lands. Nothing was found at the site when the griffons went to investigate. I sent a group of Squad 2 guards to scan the area. Hopefully, they pick up a trail. Until then I don’t have anything to give you.” Twilight sighed, as this was all he had asked of her since their conversation that morning.

“You could give me the location in which you are sending your guards. I would be far more likely to pick up the trail than them.” Blade offered,

“I thought about that, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. You are still healing. In which case, you’re not in any shape to go chasing after this enemy. When you’re healed enough to behave normally in class it might be possible.” Twilight chided,

Blade spent several seconds debating whether to simply impale parts of her until she handed over the information. In a way it was his own fault. She was using his own behavior against him.

The problem was that while he might be able to beat her, taking on the other pair of Alicorns was a different matter. Twilight had power, but clearly no idea how to use it. He was not so sure of the other two, they moved like true warriors with careful control.

“I will not wait forever.” With that, Blade decided to go to bed. The quicker he healed, the sooner he could get a real grasp of the resources available to him for the fights to come. “Stubborn much? You finally have time for some R&R and you just get straight to snooping. Typical.”

Entering the room that Twilight had told him was going to be his space for the duration of his stay, he plopped himself down on the floor in the sunlight cast through the window. Cheerilee had said in one of the books that she was teaching him to read with that the sun was controlled by the White One. Blade was convinced that was a translation error, yet one thing that was positive about this world was that their UV radiation levels where much lower than on earth. Since the U’le’tek’s arrival, much of the repair done to the ozone layer had been undone. The sun could do serious damage if exposure was more than the amount given on the daily broadcast. As a Esper, he would naturally begin to block all the Radiation if it reached above a threshold, this resulted in many of the whiter skinned Espers ending up as pale as a ghost. It never made him happier that his flesh donor had been of mostly Native Mexican descent. “I preferred the chocolate-colored ones.”

This body though seemed to have a love of the sun that was strange to him. He immediately felt more relaxed laying down in the sun. Back home, this would been seen as foolish no matter what because he was exposing himself to potential enemies nearby. Never mattered which one.

This world felt like a sick joke. It was clear that these creatures knew nothing of blood and fire. Finally, after letting his thoughts slide home it was possible for him get some rest.

It was the second day of this. Twilight had promised that if he behaved and tried to blend in with the other students, that when all the other royal family members gather back at her castle in a two weeks’ time, he could have another go at her brother.

Blade hated to admit it, but he was looking forward to it. By that point, his physical healing should be done and a fight would kick his Blade Esper instincts into overdrive. It was the only way to know how much of his power was lost in the transformation.

“Muscle head…”

Blade had avoided telling Twilight about his possible power loss. He knew that no matter how much these ponies acted stupid, they would not use a rusted sword. If his powers no longer worked, they would not put in the effort to fix him. Or a fate worse than that he could be forced to live the way these ponies wanted him to. To be as some foal growing to be a stupid as them. Allowed to rust away into nothingness.