Chapter 8: Truths

Living with a secret was a difficult thing to do, living with a secret was even harder.

My parents were fairly busy people, my mom was almost always gone during the school-week, and my dad had to commute to Atlanta every day for work. Mom would usually be home around 6:00 P.M after she had tended to everything she needed to tend to at Penns Creek Elementary, my father would arrive two hours later. By then my mom would have dinner done, I would eat and disappear into my room to do homework or play my X-box while they would eat and watch whatever TV-series they had developed an interest in at that time in the living room. Curfew for me was midnight, but they usually went to bed around 11:00 P.M, leaving me an hour to check up on my unexpected houseguests.

My nerves were a mess the first day, with me at school and the three ponies alone in the basement, I was worried they were going to end up destroying my house with some magical explosion or end up wandering off and be seen by someone. When I had gotten home I had practically thrown myself down the basement stairs to find the three of them still in the basement where I left them. Starlight and Sunburst had their noses stuck in books and Primrose was.... hanging from the rafters, sleeping like a bat.

As the days passed, my curiosity only grew, I could only get so many details out of Thunder before he would get annoyed, even he seemed hesitant to talk about his homeland.

I had questions about my three equine guests, why were they here, why did they look like they had been in a blender when I first saw them? whether or not they were convicted criminals, stuff like that. My thoughts, my concerns, and fears had swirled around my head for the entire day, and seeing the batpony like she was, I suppose it had been the last straw. I began asking questions, starting with less personal ones.

The two unicorns hesitantly explained to me that Primrose was a thestral, part bat, part pegasus, making her primarily nocturnal and omnivorous. A minority in Equestria, they were sometimes subjected to discrimination due to their more predatory natures and slightly more intimidating appearances. More than a few Equestrians liked to throw around the term "vampire" when referring to thestrals, but Starlight had assured me that Primrose didn't suck blood, she just ate meat alongside a standard pony-diet as any omnivore would.

The two agreed to answer my questions as long as I answered a few of their questions about Earth and humanity. Things like biology, history, and customs seemed to fascinate them for a short time, and after about two weeks I think both parties had their fill of general knowledge. When I began to drift to more specific topics, however, the two refused to say anything more. The three of them were extremely tight-lipped exactly who they were in Equestria and why they had come to earth, they had said it was as much for my safety as it was for theirs. I would have been lying if I had said that didn't unsettle me somewhat, but still, a deal was a deal, I had agreed to house them and keep them a secret, and I intended to keep the promise I made.

It was a bit hard figuring out how to keep them fed with only a weekly allowance of fifty dollars, Starlight and Sunburst made do with the produce I bought for them, but when I ran out of money... that was an awkward five seconds when someone made eye-contact with me from their car when I was shoving assorted flowers and weeds into my backpack.

Primrose was a bit more difficult to handle than the two unicorns, considering she could eat meat and appeared to crave it as well, I eventually found Chick-Fil-a to be the answer to that problem. She was a bit hesitant at first to try human food which I had initially attributed to the fact that she didn't trust me, but she seemed genuinely worried about what the food was, after a few days of convincing and eating an entire meal of it in front of, she eventually tried it, and then she ended up wanting it weekly.

Water was easy enough to provide for them, but they began going stir-crazy down in the basement, as they were stuck down there until my parents left for work. I had to empty my bookshelf for the two Unicorns when they had exhausted their supply of literature. Books, board games and a small DVD player solved the problem for Starlight and Sunburst. When I was alone with them in the house I let them up to look around my home, provided they didn't go into my parents' room. They seemed vaguely interested in the technology present in the house, as Equestria appeared to be in an early 20th-century stage of technological development, and magic seemed to be the primary means of advancement for them.

For those first two weeks that was how things progressed, with them hiding when my parents were here and them looking around my house when they were gone. But as much as they were studying their surroundings, I was studying them, my curiosity drove me to understand all I could about them, and I began to get a general idea of their personalities.

Sunburst seemed like the bookish type to me, always eager to learn more but at the same time stuck in a constant state of caution when it came to new experiences. He was a fairly polite individual and seemed to enjoy intelligent conversation, he was somewhat wary of me, something that he never seemed to get over. He always had this sour mood about him when we spoke, he didn't hold any resentment towards me, but I had a feeling that he had something that he wanted to get off of his chest whenever he talked to me. He avoided eye contact and winced whenever I brought up the subject of the potion up

He seemed to prefer reading to anything else, stuff like T.V and other complex electronic devices seemed to make him uneasy, to the point where he didn't even want to be in the same room as them. Regardless of that, he seemed content to stay in the house as long as possible, fearful of the unknowns that lied beyond my front door, it had taken no small amount of coercion from Starlight to get him to step outside into my backyard when the mare had wanted some time outside. Another strange thing about him was the fact that he: despite being a unicorn, didn't seem to use magic all that much. He was extremely knowledgeable about it, though, I could tell from his and Starlight's conversations. I had brought it up to Starlight and she had said it had been a "sensitive topic." The mare had said that he; "wasn't the greatest magic user in Equestria," and he was pretty hard on himself about it, Starlight had been doing her best to help him develop his abilities but progress had been slow. I left the topic there, not wanting to put myself at odds with any of my guests.

Starlight was a bit similar to Sunburst in the way that they both seemed to be academics, though she was a bit more brazen in her attempts to learn about her surroundings, which, unfortunately, included me. She would ask about how everything in the house worked, and sometimes I would turn around and find her holding some random object in her magic up to me and asking what it was. She seemed to enjoy T.V a lot when I introduced it to her but wasn't opposed to things like board games and books either. She was pretty competitive when it came to things like that, in fact, both Sunburst and Starlight were fiercely competitive, though the stallion was a little more reluctant than his friend and sometimes I would catch Starlight cheating when I played Uno with her. However, when she tried her hoof at Mario kart and ended up on a losing streak, she ended up throwing a tantrum and teleported out of my room, scaring the hell out of me in the process. She seemed a little socially awkward when it came to common interactions, nothing crazy, but at times I could see some social cues were lost on her, she tended not to think things through sometimes and she seemed to use magic for every little thing she did besides walking and breathing. Which on the bright side, allowed me to learn a little bit about it.

Magic seemed to operate on it's own set of rules, those rules, however, didnt seem to pay much heed to the laws of our reality. Which made sense, considering the mysterious energy was generated by another dimension entirely. Starlight seemed to enjoy speaking about the topic, and she would willingly tell me what she could about it, but despite being innatel talented in the performance of magic, she knew very little about the powers she possessed.

November 24th, 2018
Hallanday Residence Basement
7:04 P.M.

"That's kind of where Sunburst and I kind of cancel each other out." Starlight threw a red seven down, smiling in relief at having a card to match the one I had thrown down. " I know how to cast pretty much every spell that a unicorn could possibly cast, but I couldn't explain to you how it works. That's where Sunburst comes in, he's the one you want to talk to if you want to understand magic. "

I throw down a blue seven, and Starlight's face falls.

We sit under the basement's only window, the moon and a nearby electric lamp being our only sources of light, we had decided to play Uno tonight, just another game she had picked up quickly and got good at it even quicker.

"Great," I sigh, "Guy's afraid to even hold a conversation of more than a few sentences with me."

The unicorn throws out a blue skip card, then places a blue two on the pile before casting a look at her friend, who lay on a pile of old blankets nearby, snoring away. She smiles slightly before her focus returns to the game

"I will admit that Sunburst is a bit of a shut-in, he rarely went outside if he didn't have to, and the whole 'new planet' thing might have him more than a little freaked out, especially with all the rumors about you guys being thrown around Equestria. But I swear he'll warm up to you, they both will."

"Rumors?" I frown, drawing two cards from the reserve pile before pulling out a green two and throwing it on the pile, looking up to see Starlight smiling somewhat smugly.

"Yeah, the whole, 'horse meat' thing, your 'predisposition to violence?' Stuff like that?"

They were saying stuff like that about humans in Equestria? Jeez, no wonder Thunder was scared to talk to anybody.

I cringed, "Well, the first one is true when we're desperate, assuming you meant that we eat it."

Starlight flinched slightly as she threw another blue two onto the pile.

"But, horses are non-sapient, and more like a cousin species to you guys than anything else, and as a whole eating other sapients is usually a capital-punishment sort of thing here. As for the second one, I don't believe that we are, but I suppose there is more than enough evidence to support that rumor nowadays. But I like to think that all the good outweighs the bad stuff we've done."

I frown and pull another three cards before pulling a yellow two and throwing it onto the pile.

"Darn it." She whispers. She pulls four cards out of the reserve before she finds a yellow seven places it neatly onto the pile. "I guess that's fair, I've heard the kinds of things ponies had to do during the Crystal War, I honestly think it's unfair for anypony to say stuff like that about you guys when we're capable of it ourselves."

"Well, I guess that's where the conversion bureaus get some of their validity from." I shrug and place a wildcard onto the pile.

Without warning, Starlight throws her hooves up in frustration.

"Why would you draw cards if you-?!"

Primrose grumbles overhead, removing her wings from around her head to shoot a warning glare our way before returning to sleep as she hangs from the rafters. I was still a little confused about how she did that exactly, but that was a question pretty far down on my "needs answering" list.

"Shhh." I hold a finger to my lips mockingly. "All part of my Uno technique."

"But that's cheating!"

"What're you talking about?" I feigned innocence, "I just didn't realize I had the right cards is all."

Starlight scowled at me as I smiled toothlessly at her. She grumbled, holding her hooves out as if to strangle me with them, I smile warmly, and she only seems to angrier.

Finally, she drops her gaze and sighs, shaking her head. "Fine, what color?"

I pucker my lips, looking through the deck of cards in my hands before choosing the most numerous color I had.

"Green."

The pony's eyes flick down to her deck and she frowned in an accepting manner, picking out a green five and placing it on the pile.

"What did you mean by that?" She said as I looked through my own deck once more.

"Mean by what?"

"About the conversion bureau getting their validity, why would they need validity at all?"

I stared at the cards in my hands, trying to come up with an answer.

"Oh, uh, well I suppose anyone would need convincing to turn into a pony when they've gone their whole lives as a human, I mean I guess its an easier choice when you're about to die or something, but anyone else I would imagine would need at least a little bit of convincing, I guess there were always people had given up on humanity, people who wanted to be something else, like that would fix any whatever personality flaws they had," I shrugged again. "Going for people with the whole, 'fatalist mindset' seems like the best choice for a target audience."

"So you're implying that the bureaus are using the idea that being a pony makes you a better person to attract more people to convert?"

"Well, yeah."

Starlight seemed thoughtful for a moment, and her eyes scanned her deck as if she were looking at pieces of evidence connected to a crime scene.

"You know, the news back home never really portrayed you guys in a good light either."

"They didn't?" I looked back up to her, my hand temporarily forgotten.

"No, I attended a study on humanity once, one funded by the crown, and it was like they wanted to downplay humanity, to make us look down on you. In fact, that was pretty much the case for everything involving humanity, nothing directly attacking you, but they were essentially telling us that you were all misguided savages who couldn't overcome your natural urges."

The look on my face must have been telling because Starlight must have made a connection.

"I'm guessing that's not how we've been acting here?"

"No, the elements of harmony are like celebrities here, I mean, most of them are, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash don't really show up here very much, but even then there's a bunch of other ponies that seem to like us, but there's also a lot of us that don't like you guys."

The pinkish unicorn tilted her head, a loose strand of her man falling into her face as she did so.

"Well, there's always skeptics, on both sides it seems " I remarked.

Starlight nodded but remained silent, mouthing something behind her deck of cards.

We didn't say much else to each other for the rest of the game, Starlight hid her face behind her cards, only offering a quiet thanks for the game and the company before she quickly moved to her bedroll and announced she was going to sleep.

I already knew the trio were hiding something from me, they all but screamed it at me the night we met, but by the way Starlight was acting during our talk, I was beginning to suspect it ran a lot deeper than a couple of disillusioned citizens of Equestria fleeing degrading conditions in their homeland.

The last of the trio, Primrose, was a distant individual, letting little information about herself slip and letting even less about her situation out. I had already put it together that she was some kind of soldier from the armor she wore, her overall mannerisms, and the fact that she had tried to kill me the first time we all had met. She wasn't impolite or spiteful, however, and she always thanked me when I brought food or did my best to make sure the three of them were comfortable, but she seemed more interested in keeping an eye on Starlight and Sunburst than she was making conversation. I had an inkling that her attempt on my life had been more of an impersonal, professional kind of decision than it had been a grudge or emotional one. From what knowledge I could glean from overheard conversations and my sparse interactions with her, she was a few years older than the two unicorns, not by a lot, but enough to be considered an elder by the two of them. She seemed to be on friendly terms with Starlight, but Sunburst seemed borderline uncomfortable around her. By the way she ordered the two of them around I assumed she seemed to be protecting Sunburst and Starlight, from what exactly I didn't know, I assumed humans maybe.

But, as a soldier, she seemed to hate the stagnation that came with the whole "safehouse" routine, she became antsy, pacing around and muttering to herself.

That was when she began to disappear.

I remember freaking out somewhat when I came downstairs to find Starlight and Sunburst playing Stratego, only for them to tell me that Primrose had left to "get some air."

I had panicked somewhat, despite the two of them assuring me that Primrose was used to keeping out of sight. If she was found it would mean a crapton of trouble for me. Still, I had said they could leave as long as they weren't seen, and Starlight had assured me

That was only the first month of my time housing the three Equestrians, between keeping my grades up and keeping an eye on them, I had my hands full, so full that I didn't notice what was happening around me, what had been created when I wasn't looking. Starry and Alex were the only two newfoals I had ever paid close attention to and they always had seemed as human as anyone else, so when the newfoals began to change once again, I had been so busy I didn't even notice it.

But Thunder did.

December 18th, 2018
Penns Creek High School Cafeteria
12:45 P.M

"Eli."

I looked up from my lunch, making eye contact with Thunder as he hopped up onto the seat opposite from me and used his teeth to pick up the lunchbox balanced on his back and move it to the table. I almost hadn't noticed him over the countless voices in the room, how I managed to do that I have no idea, as the pegasus' burgundy coat stands out even in a crowd of ponies.

"Hey, Thunder," I muttered absent-mindedly, taking another bite of my ham-and-cheese sandwich as the pony hopped up onto the bench with a flap of his wings. He picked up his own sandwich, which was stuffed full of various greens, and began eating as well.

The two of us ate in silence for a few moments, I was distracted at the moment, trying to figure out how I was going to manage to keep the three Equestrians in my basement a secret when summer break rolled around and my mother was home 24/7. So distracted that I hadn't noticed the rather concerned face on my friend's muzzle.

"So...." Thunder trailed off, his voice carrying a pointed, "I'm trying to get your attention" type tone to it. I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up to see Thunder with a very unsettled expression on his face.

"Thunder, what-?

His orange eyes suddenly flicked to the left, then back to me, I sat there, slightly confused as he repeated the action two more times before he sighed in frustration and began to nod his head slightly to the left. Raising an eyebrow, I shook my head slightly and exhaled through my nose.

"If this is another one of your pranks, I swear to god..."

"Just, bucking, look, at, the, place, I'm, trying, to show you!" He spoke through grit teeth.

I looked up, scanning the cafeteria for anything out of the ordinary, nothing really, every human student sat with other humans, the newfoal table, where the ponies chatted with one another, pretending not to notice the hateful eyes on their back, Starry made eye contact with me giving me a smile and waving, causing both human and pony eyes to follow her eyes to me, the newfoals smiled, the humans looked at me in a mixture of pity, anger, and spite.

I smiled slightly and returned Starry's wave before looking back to Thunder who was speaking through grit teeth and tossing his head to the side.

"Yes, Thunder, I see the newfoals." I said hesitantly, somewhat weirded out at his behavior.

"What are they doing?" He asked.

"Why don't you look for yourself?"

"Because I don't want them to know that I know they're watching me!" He said frantically.

I Iooked back over to the newfoals' table, and I just barely catch the movement of the ponies' gigantic eyes flicking back to their food and each other. My eyes widened as I slowly turned my head back to look at my friend.

"How long have they been watching you?"

Thunder sighed, " The past week and a half, how about you?"

I paused, "What do you mean?"

The Pegasus stared at me, " how long have they been watching you?"

"I mean, like, overall? I mean I guess they did back then when that whole thing with Edward Deloach happened... you heard about that right?"

The pony nodded slowly, but didn't seem to be satisfied by my answer.

I shrugged, "I'm taking 'following' as a loose term here, dude."

Thunder huffed in frustration, "That's what I'm saying! I'm being serious, the newfoals aren't even paying attention to anyone but us! They've been stalking us, Eli, for weeks! How...how have you not noticed that!?"

I blinked, perhaps realizing for the first time how serious Thunder was being, and as the gravity of his claims hit me I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Where?" I said, lowering my voice to where it could only be audible to him, "when?"

"I see one or two tailing you on your way home at least twice per week, they walk past your house a lot, and I think your meetings with Starry aren't just a meeting between friends anymore."

I drag a hand over my face, how could I have not seen something like that, the only thing that didn't connect with me was Thunder's suspicion of Starry, we had met dozens of times and not once had she done anything that had even remotely seemed suspicious. But then, wasn't she supposed to keep tabs on everyone else? Was there someone working behind her back?

"I'll need to talk to her about this," I said, shaking my head.

"Don't."

I looked over at him as he stared at me intently, the way I returned his stare must have given him some Idea of what I thought of his opinion of Starry because his already large frown deepened.

"I came to you with this, Eli." He said, "Trusted you with this because you and your friends accepted me when no one else but the converts would. So I'm asking you, as my friend, to keep this to yourself."

I held his gaze for a moment more before shaking my head and turning away.

"Fine."

As the final bell rang that day and I strode out of the front doors and towards my home, I heard the sound of hooves racing to catch up to me.

"Eli!"

Starry slowed to a trot as she came up beside me and matched my pace.

"Hey, Star." I said nonchalantly, "What' up?"

"Just saying hi," She said, smiling up at me. "Well, hi and I had something to tell you."

I raised an eyebrow, trying to mask the slightly anxious feeling I felt.

"What's that?"

"Well, you know how that reverend guy started the HLF after his daughter ran away?"

"Yeeeaaah?" I replied warily, not knowing where she was going with this.

"Well, I was in class yesterday and the teacher said something that caught my attention, 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction,' and that got me thinking, 'what is the opposite reaction to the HTF's action'?"

I nodded my head, she seemed to be on to something.

"So I looked it up online, and I found it!"

"Found...what?"

"They don't really have a name yet, I'm not sure what the acronym stands for yet, but I looked around on their forums and asked a few questions, and you'll never guess who started talking with me online."

"Who?"

"Dr. Jaqueline Reitman!"

I stopped walking as memories of the woman slandering humans and praising Equestria and Celestia like the second coming of Jesus Christ and the literally rabid things the HLF had to say about the woman.

"Really?" I said quietly, not sure what to make of the situation.

"I know, right? " Starry smiled broadly, "I just started talking about what's going on in Penn's Creek and guess what?"

"What?" I asked, praying she wasn't about to say what I thought she was.

"She offered to come here!"

And of course, Starry said yes.

That was the point where I think things took a turn for the worst, Reitman was decidedly anti-human, no matter how well she managed to hide it at first, anyone with enough common sense would have been able to see her true colors.
I intially didn't know what Starry was thinking, bringing her here, but I learned soon enough that she thought of Reitman as some sort of peacemaker between Equss and Earth. She believed that Reitman would have some kind of magic words to make the hatred and the fear that was dividing the town disappear. I didn't share her optimism, she had helped create the potion, and this group that she was running seemed......suspect, to say the least. I looked them up online searching for a name or website. I found it after some digging, it wasn't like a place from the dark web, it had just been hard to find without a good idea of what I was really searching for, but finally I clicked on a link for a website for the P.E.R, a group that supported ponification in hopes that it would unify both humans and Ponies.

I was surprised to see the level of professionalism that it had been made with, it offered links to conversion bureau websites, news out of Equestria, even several scientific articles regarding the potion. I guessed that Reitman had a good bit of resources at her disposal.

As winter break came, followed by Christmas, I found myself with a few more games and a couple of other amenities, things were normal for those two weeks, and as 2019 finally rolled around I found myself dreading the third week of January, when Reitman had promised to appear.

Word got out quickly, and when the mayor announced her arrival the week before it was due it was like the discontent was a physical force, practically able to be felt as it filled the human residents with foul words and even fouler ideas. The words of the vocal majority of the HTF were no longer being heard in youtube videos, podcasts,and online forums, they were being spoken in the town, between families during rec-ball games, whispered between students in hallways, fights got more common in school, Thunder's house was almost always being TP'ed, and now my family was beginning to undergo scrutiny for our friendship with the Equestrian family. My dad got in an argument with a co-worker and ended up trading blows with him, fortunately the guy had both started the argument and thrown the first punch.

Finally, the dreaded week arrived, and on Tuesday a group of three trucks followed by a news van appeared from the town's main road and pulled up next to the town hall.

I didn't attend the speech she gave, anyone who did was there because they either supported or hated the woman. I did neither, and I wanted to keep myself as far as possible from the doctor and her "support group."

But, I suppose you know by now how well that went for me.

Author's Note

Yes, I know, I said I'll put all three remaining chapters in act zero out at once, unfortunately I only got this one done since that announcement was made, so........

Here you go, I guess.....

Ha! Loser.