My Daily Dose of Carotene

Chapters

Chapter 1: The First Dose
Chapter 2: No Introductions
Chapter 3: Chicken in the Grass
Chapter 4: Making a Few Acquaintances
Chapter 5: Vitamins, Nutrients, and Ponies You Live With
Chapter 6: Headlines and Horses

Chapter 1: The First Dose

My Daily Dose of Carotene
Chapter 1: The First Dose
By: Stillmatic

I’ve met only three interesting women in my entire life so far, and each has done something to affect me somehow. Lady Luck, a fickle, conniving hooker, is the first that I tend to get acquainted with more than I’d like. Second is pretty obvious, I think. Life may be a bitch, but god forbid that bitch divorces me. The third, however, isn’t worth mentioning just yet. Better you don’t know.

The first two combined run my life of illicit activities and I find myself both suffering and benefiting from each of them. Unfortunately, it was decided that they’d work entirely against me the moment I was too drunk to not realize what was happening. The alcohol was a good idea, their plan was excellent as well. Two bullets in my direction dropped me to the floor. They fired my gun a few times at where they’d be as a cover-up, most likely so it seems that I attacked them and they retaliated. Lastly, they shoved my still-breathing body off of a penthouse suite, gravity forcing me to plummet down into the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

I suppose I had it coming after what I did, but I still feel my fingers curl into a fist at the memory. Anyway, dropping, dropping, nothing. When I opened my eyes, I was already on the ground, bleeding out like nobody’s business. I was in a cave, I guess, what with all the rocky walls and stuff. Something was glowing behind me but vanished by the time I looked back. It was at that moment, despite being drunk out of my mind, I was scared shitless. You don’t ever expect to hear some kind of malevolent, evil chuckling in the background, especially when it sounds like it’s literally coming from everywhere in the background.

Some freaky-deaky thing showed up the next second, looking all creepy and… well, creepy is probably the best way of describing whatever the hell it was. I tend to dislike the abnormal and unordinary things in life, the things that tend to be more trouble than they’re worth. So what was my first reaction (though it was awfully slow from all that alcohol) when I saw some horse thing with some funky armor, huge wings, a horn, and a pitch-black coat?

“Human, I have a proposi-“

It truly shocked me that I was able to take it down with only two bullets, especially in my state. You ever hear of those Wild West stories where there’s some kind of sheriff or outlaw who shoots better while drunk? Yeah, it was like that except a lot more fucked up in my case. I ended up shooting it in the leg and then somehow in the eye. Splat, end of it talking (didn’t actually consider why it was in the first place). Done with and on the ground, not moving at all. So what did I do, with my amazing logic?

Simple. I crawled away. The blood flow from my wounds wasn’t stagnant up until that point, and it started to worsen quickly. As I was pulling myself out of that cave, I came across something that was hard, white, and oddly shaped. It looked familiar, so I held it up to remember where I might’ve seen it before. I was going to scratch the right side of my head when I realized I was feeling something entirely different. I looked back at my hand and saw more blood than I remembered being there. It was then I finally realized I was looking at a part of my own skull.

Suffice to say, I was scared out of my mind (no pun intended). I forced myself onto my feet and didn’t want to hold out any longer than necessary on the miracle that I was still alive, let alone able to function at the blood-alcohol levels in my body. After all, how much time did I have until I’d fall over and die? One minute? Two? The bullet wounds were still bleeding and I was missing part of my skull, so the odds didn’t exactly favor me. So I tried running, but ended up falling over at every attempt, maybe getting a few meters before tripping over my own feet.

Left with only one option, I walked as fast I possibly could without catching something. One hand clutching the good side of my head to help that splitting headache, the other holding the skull fragment and trying to cover the hole in my chest. I went on like that for an indefinite amount of time, but then again, I was in no position to tell time. Just then, I realized I was walking through a forest the entire time, weaving around trees and rocks. How did I not notice that earlier? I continued regardless until breathing became too hard, freezing up my lungs and making me heave loudly. There was a trail up a few feet away and I did my best to try and get myself there. Hell, my luck was abysmal so far, but maybe someone would find me.

Then again, it would pretty hard to do that, especially when one falls into a bush instead of a dirt trail. My cheeks, nose, and face were throbbing from landing on them, but I couldn’t care less about that. It took a few moments of lying the lowest I’ve ever have had to in my entire life, but I figured things out. Lying there, I surprised myself when I actually came to terms with what was happening. Even if someone did find me, there’s no way I’d survive long enough to get to a hospital, especially after losing so much blood just getting this far. So I just stayed there, waiting to finally black out.

But then, I heard something… odd. The clip-clopping of hooves against the ground. That meant that someone was probably riding their horse or something, right? I always heard stories about goody-goody cowboys saving anybody who needed help and stuff, so maybe I was in luck. Though, I don’t know how much it would do for me at this point. Regardless, I tried my best to crawl out, but couldn’t muster the strength. I stopped once I heard muttering.

“… Where are those things…”

Sounded female? Oh man, being saved by a cowgirl. Despite being half-dead, the more reptilian part of my brain immediately thought: ‘I’m so going to try getting with her once I actually live’, completely disregarding the fact I might not even survive another few minutes.

“… Darn it, where are they? Why are wild carrots so hard to find near the Everfree…”

My mind instantly went to the dirtiest thought possible, most likely due to all the wine in me: “I’ll give you a wild carrot to find…”

It wasn’t until I heard the sound of something approaching me that I figured out I said that out-loud, though, probably for the better seeing that it made it easier to find me.

“H-Hello?” I honestly could’ve sworn I heard someone swallow loud enough that I heard them. “I-Is anypony t-there?”

Forcing myself to move once again, I dug my fingers into the dirt and pulled forward. Let me tell you, it’s an excruciatingly painful experience to shove dirt into open wounds and rub them in. I groaned loudly at the continuing head and body pain, and fell back onto my face as soon as part of my upper-body stuck out from the bush. I heard a gasp, but I could barely make it out in my condition. My entire body throbbed constantly and all I felt was an intense heat. Sweat was already going down my face from earlier, but it was getting like a waterfall now. All I knew was that I was heaving on the filthy ground, eyelids lowering.

A metallic taste became more prominent in my mouth now, and it forced me to slur my words, letting droplets of blood fall and get sucked into the dirt below me, “H-Help…”

Hooves hastily backed up and away from me, “S-Sweet Celestia! Wh-What are you?”

I grunted in pain, trying to maintain consciousness, “Hoshtpitle,” I took a moment to spit out some blood, “G-Get me to a hospital…”

“What are you?! Some kind of monster from the Everfree?”

At that point, I felt like snapping, which I ended up doing. I’m still surprised I went from struggling to survive, to coming to terms with dying, to being berated for something, to feeling an enormous amount of spite towards who I expected to be my rescuer. So much spite in fact, that I decided to just say “Fuck it” and try to give them a guilt-trip after I die. I mean, I definitely wasn’t going to make it out at this point, I might as well leave someone with a slap across their face for not at least trying.

Planting my hands forward, I forced myself upwards shakily, barely able to hold up my own weight. I nearly dropped a few times, but I held it there. I pulled in one leg, put it below my chest, did the same with the other, and stood up. I almost fell right then and there, but luckily a tree was nearby. I heard another gasp and finally decided to check this chick out. Who knows, maybe I’ll at least die happy with the image of some cute woman in my mind. Though, I wasn’t given that chance as my legs suddenly gave out.

Somewhere within my mind, I was screaming at myself, trying to coerce my body to hold out a bit longer before falling over dead. It refused, just as tired as my mind was, and I fell to my knees. I teetered for a good few seconds before gravity slammed me against the trail. That final blow sent me spiraling straight in unconsciousness, making the world go black so slowly. I could hear more muttering, this time anxious, and the sounds of hooves scrambling around. I considered why the girl’s horse was so frightened of me before finally succumbing to darkness.

I didn’t think it would happen, but it did from what I could tell. Somehow, I was still alive. Either that or I was in a very comfortable version of hell that provided comfy beds and some really nice sheets. I decided the former was more likely.

Pain was the first thing I felt, mainly because I tried to sit up against all the better judgment provided by any thinking human being. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking at the time due to the fact I just dodged a coffin. I lied back down, groggily pressing my head against the pillows. The headache only seemed to get worse over the next few minutes, but I didn’t want to open my eyes just yet. Besides, they were bandaged for whatever reason, and I was feeling particularly lazy at the moment as well. And I don’t think that sunlight and massive head pain would work all that well together either.

Eventually, it got to the point that I couldn’t just sit around with all this nausea anymore. I sat up, wincing at the pain in my abdomen. My stomach lurched and I had to force myself from vomiting on myself. That would make for an embarrassing situation, something I didn’t want to be in. I lifted the bandages off of my eyes and looked at myself, realizing that worrying about throwing up was a slightly less concerning matter compared to me currently being stripped of all clothing. The few times I’ve ever been in a hospital, I don’t think I’ve ever been completely naked while being admitted. Did they do things differently in Malaysia?

Well, if it was normal, it wasn’t all that bad, I suppose. Could be worse. I could’ve woken up while they were doing something to me. Shuddering at the thought, I looked around me to find a fairly dark hospital room. Pale, white walls, all immaculate and very faintly gleaming boxed me in quite effectively. There was another bed nearby, but that entire area seemed empty of all signs of life, whether it was another person, food, or get-well cards. I looked to my right, finding an unsurprising absence of cards of my own. Though, I did find two small, plastic cups on the table.

Two identical, white pills were next to each other in one, alongside a green capsule with a red Swiss cross stamped on it. The other cup was filled with what was probably tap water or something. Figures.

Assuming these were mine, I nabbed the pills and popped them into my mouth before downing them with the water. Almost instantly, a fizzy, bubbly feeling passed through me. It faded the next second and was followed by my headache intensifying drastically. I clutched my head in pain and honestly felt like banging it against the nearest wall. It subsided, but not before making me feel like I was near-dead all over again. Groaning, I felt what was probably the worst cause of motion sickness (without being in a vehicle) I ever felt. Oh man, it sure was a doozy when I fell over limp and out of bed, even more so when my head collided with the table and hit the floor. I blacked out quick, but not before hearing more clip-clopping from nearby. Why was there a horse in a hospital? Obviously, I didn’t get a chance to think on it.

I woke up to sunlight and a headache again. Though, I had to admit, I was feeling way better now. Sure, there was still pain in the areas I got shot, but at least it wasn’t as pronounced as when it happened. Better than being a piece of paste on the concrete… Which brings me to wonder how I managed to get from Kuala Lumpur to a forest cave in the first place. Thinking on that, I sat there for what seemed to be a good while, trying to find some sort of connection there. It was possible, in some twisted act of heinous fun, that I somehow survived a sixty-story fall by hitting things on the way down and ending up on the streets, where those scumbags picked me up and dropped me off at some cave.

What the hell was I thinking when I even concocted that thought? But there had to have been some way I survived, yet I’m not seeing it. A quick punch to the leg proved I was still alive though.

“Ouch.”

That actually hurt more than I expected. In fact, it was starting to hurt a lot more with each passing second. A quick look to my right showed that there weren’t any pills waiting for me. That honestly left me with only one solution, a little self-medication of my own. Truth be told, I don’t like the fact I’m addicted to probably the worst drugs a person with my money can get his hands on. It makes me feel less-than-savory, a bit dirty, and not exactly friendly either, usually dampening my mood quickly. But hey, who can blame me? My lifestyle comes with a lot of stress and I need an outlet somewhere.

I spotted my clothes across the room, by the door leading out of the room. Throwing off the sheets like all my inhibitions, I forced my stiff legs forward until I reached that goldmine of a business suit. Shame that it was ruined by something as stupid as a bullet, right? I think so. Rifling through it, I noticed a few things. All of the clothing was perfectly clean, and more surprisingly, fully repaired as if nothing ever happened. No blood, no marks, nothing. Creepy, but fine by me. I found my vest too, which unfortunately was riddled with a single hole. Can’t win them all, I guess.

Let’s see… My handgun was still there, another shocking discovery. Had about four bullets left, too. A bag of blow was in an inside pocket, but I wasn’t jonesing for that just yet. What I really wanted were those generics. Let me tell you, Malaysian painkillers were some serious stuff if you have the money to buy the powerful generics. I wasn’t even sure where these came from, really. Military, government, civilian… Did they even have a name? I couldn’t read this language, so I couldn’t tell. Oxycodone, acetaminophen, hydrocodone, don’t really know. Then again, what did it matter? I threw two in my hand and headed to the cup of water by my bed. It all went down smoothly.

That pain, which was near unbearable mind you, was slowly going away. Another problem presented by extended use. You just can’t get that punch-you-in-the-face type high after the first couple times. It’s sad, really. I tried sighing at my situation but a yawn came instead. Man, those pills made me abnormally sleepy. You know, that floor looked pretty damn comfortable, and the bed was pretty far away. Not giving it another thought, I lied my back against the nearest wall and fell fast asleep.

Waking up this time proved to be the easiest. Well, with the exception of a certain little detail I didn’t notice until a few moments later. Sitting up, a quick look to my right revealed no pills waiting for me. Darn. Next, I heard what sounded like light, peaceful snoring to my left. I didn’t bother looking just yet and assumed it was another patient in the bed a few meters from mine. Except… this sounded oddly close, like it was right next to me. I slowly turned my head to my left and froze.

I was looking at something… not sure what, but it was something. It was literally a big pile of poofy orangeness snoring and lying on part of my bed. I don’t even know how I didn’t notice it before, what with what looked like another part of it on a chair next to my bed. Very gently, I lifted the poofiness, which I learned was hair, and saw something a bit weird. Maybe more than a bit, but you get the idea. Lying there was what looked like the head and neck of a horse, attached to the rest of the body that was sitting on a chair like a normal person would if they were slumped forward asleep. My first thought was that Malaysia now used comfort animals in helping people heal or get their strength back. Hell, if I was any longer in a place like this, I’d get depressed too.

I dropped the hair and looked at it, finding the damn thing so incredibly fascinating. And by fascinating, I mean freaky as hell. Seriously, I’m pretty sure horses aren’t the best type of animal to bring into a hospital to help someone get better. Maybe a dog or a cat, but a horse? Definitely not my type of animal. Honestly, if the doctors here were going to screw with me like this, I’d might as well find a better hospital to go to. Right as I was about to pull the covers off, there was more clip-clopping. So the first horse wasn’t helping my healing process, so they’re going to bring another? Interesting logic.

But who am I to talk about logic? I thought I knew it, but that went straight out the damn window once I saw another horse walk in. Someone obviously had a sense of humor, because it was pretty funny to see a horse dressed up as a doctor. Yeah, pretty fitting joke. It heard me chuckling and I could’ve sworn its face brightened. A lot. Still creepy. It was brown-on-brown color-wise with a combed back mane and some doctor garb. Honestly, it was funny to even look at the poor thing. Probably too stupid to realize what it was wearing.

“Oh, good! You’re awake, wonderful!”

I swear, I must’ve lost all the color in my face, because he was holding back laughs now. This did not make sense, at all. But then I remembered something. These rooms had intercoms, right? I think they did. It was probably a doctor using an intercom to mess with me and make it look like the horse was talking. Playing along, I thought it’d be funny to egg him on, though the fact he was speaking English in Malaysia didn’t pass over my head.

“So, uh… Doctor, you’re a horse, huh? How’s that treating you?”

He smiled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, “Quite well, actually. How is being…” The horse literally looked like it was trying to find the right word, “… you?”

I frowned. How did they get the horse to do all that? Can they even get their legs back that far? What about making its mouth move? God, these people were seriously messed up if they thought this was funny.

“So doc, where are, really? Come into the room and talk to me, without the horse staring at me.”

It cleared its throat, “You’re speaking to him. This is alright though; you’re merely confused about your surroundings after that nasty spill you took a month back.”

Whoa.

“A whole damn month?”

I finally noticed a horn on top of its head, only because it was glowing now. A clipboard was covered by the same glow and was flying in the air, right in front of its face as it read it.

“I’m afraid so. Luckily, we were able to repair your skull as good as new, though I don’t recommend putting pressure on it for a few months. Your chest was a tougher situation, seeing as though some metal object practically destroyed your liver. All the alcohol in your system didn’t help either, along with a number of other drugs we couldn’t properly identify. But all is well, and we were able to fix everything just fine.”

I looked around, turning things over to try and find the intercom, “Well doc, how exactly does one rebuild a liver? Or did some stiff ‘donate’ it to me?”

Stopping to look, I saw it smiling at me again, “Magic, of course.”

Alright, now they was just screwing with me bad.

“Real funny. How much am I going to have to pay once I get out? Fifty thousand? Hundred thousand? I don’t know the price of an organ or the transplant, but I have the nagging feeling you bought the one I’m using off the black market.”

It checked the clipboard again, “Oh, around five hundred.”

I honestly felt like I was about to flip out really bad.

“WHAT?! FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?! WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF PRICE IS THAT?”

It winced at the loudness of my voice, but I didn’t give even half a shit. I wasn’t about to be swindled out of that much money just for a damn organ I could probably buy for a fraction of that in China. I was about to march into wherever this doctor was and kick his ass into giving me a better price. Hell, I should’ve just rip the damn thing out of my body and hand it back to him for the price he set on it.

It waved its hooves apologetically, “No, no, no. I meant five hundred bits! Not five hundred thousand bits!”

“The hell is a bit?”

The horse fished through its pockets and pulled out a gold coin, “This is a bit, sir.”

That coin was mesmerizing. The way it shined, the way it glowed, just everything about it made me want to rip it from its hooves and just walk away. I didn’t get to do that. Why? Because the orange horse next to me decided to wake up. It raised its head tiredly, the curly mane rising upwards. Those half-lidded eyes just stared blankly until they were rubbed by the hooves. It stretched its forelegs wide, much like a person would, and yawned. It was kind of cute the way it did that, but then again, they probably trained it to do just that.

It blinked its eyes a few times before they settled on me, “Oh! You’re finally awake!”

Another doctor or nurse was trying to have fun again and pulled this on me? Groaning in anguish, I began flipping over items near me to try and find where those intercoms were. There weren’t any seeable items on the horses, so I ignored them for the most part. But I did see the curious stares I got.

“You know, they were thinking about strapping you down with how many times they walked in with you on the floor.”

Once again, ignored. I continued to open drawers and look under sheets until I found nothing at all. There must’ve been something I was overlooking, but what? It definitely wasn’t in plain sight, that was for sure. I looked back at the horses. Polite, but confused smiles. I didn’t have time for this. I tried standing up, but something forced me down. A look forward showed me that the horn on that doctor horse thing was glowing the same color that was pushing me to the bed.

“Now, now, we can’t have you wandering around until we get the blood tests back. Surely you can wait another hour or so?”

Okay, I was seriously starting to believe that they were the ones talking.

“Are you… talking?” I asked. Chances were I was being laughed at for actually asking that.

“Of course, haven’t you heard somepony talk before?”

“Uhh…”

I considered everything before me. Talking horses, glowing horns, something holding me down, the fact I was still alive, me in a funky hospital, the weird drugs they gave out, and the overall situation led to one thing: this was one mess of a way to realize you weren’t dead. In fact, I was actually starting to think what was happening wasn’t some hallucination. I was being weighed down by something that I could barely hold out against, I saw no evidence of cameras or intercoms, and this seemed all too real.

The brown horse grunted, “Please, stop struggling and lie back down on the bed.”

I complied, mostly because I couldn’t do it any longer. Collapsing back, my head landed on the pillows and I heaved loudly. Why was that so difficult to do? What was pushing me back onto the bed? Why the hell did that horse have a horn? Too much confusing shit at once. I turned my head to the left and saw that orange horse (the cooler looking one) make concerned faces at me. Horses shouldn’t have much expression, right? I mean, they’re horses, it’s not like they have as many muscles to make facial expressions. And they were sort of short, way shorter than normal horses. In fact, if I stood up, they’d probably only reach about to maybe my chest, if not lower?

“Are you alright?” It asked. “Why do you keep moving around, you’re still recovering from when I found you!”

“When you found me..?” It nodded. How the hell can a horse find me? This was getting too real, there’s no way I was going to stay there a second longer. “Right… Now I’d like to sign out of the hospital.”

The doctor horse sighed, “We can’t allow that yet. We’re still waiting on the test results.”

Just then, another damn horse walked in. It was white, with a pink mane and a nurse cap on, “Doctor! I’ve got them right here!” It looked at me, “So you’re finally awake, huh? We’re glad to have you on the bed for once, you know.”

I heard the horse next to me giggle. Horses can’t giggle, I think… I didn’t even notice when it touched me though, and man, that was a real shocker. No, literally, I felt like I got shocked, except for the fact it felt really… odd. Like, a pleasurable kind of shock the moment it touched. Regardless, it scared the crap out of me and I nearly fell off the bed again. At this point, I pretty much lost it and started freaking out really bad.

“FUCK!” I scooted back and away from the orange horse. I almost felt bad when I saw the hurt face it made, but I pushed them away. The doctor was getting closer, something I didn’t take kindly to. I saw the flower vase next to me and tried throwing it. I didn’t throw it though, and the only thing that happened was that I soaked the horse with the water. The flowers just fell right in front of me to the floor, bringing nothing to happen. I saw its horn glow, and that same pressure go onto me. Taking a wild guess on what to do next, I threw the plastic vase at the head, right onto the horn. It flinched, disrupting that feeling over me.

I threw off the covers and ran, and I kept running despite the fact that I was naked. Give me credit though, I at least grabbed my clothes before leaving. None of them actually tried stopping me, but I saw the look the orange one gave me. Still, it looked emotionally hurt. I didn’t think horses, even talking ones, could have their feelings hurt. Nonetheless, I thought I’d go the gentlemanly route and just get the hell out of there.

After a few minutes of running, I realized the medical staff that blocked my exits was corralling me up higher and higher. Another thing? They were all horses. What kind of world does a guy live in when he ends up in a hospital run by horses? Don’t they have laws against this kind of stuff? Anyway, I eventually reached the roof, which was probably the worst place to end up seeing as though I was being hunted down by vicious, bloodthirsty horses with a penchant to kill innocent people. I bet they were going to fatten me up, then eat me later. I wonder where all the people are in this place…

I kicked in the door and ran out onto the roof, panting loudly. Saying I wasn’t used to this kind of stuff would be an understatement. I’m used to cars doing all the fast moving for me, not my actual legs! But anyway, it was obvious that I didn’t have anywhere to run at this point, so I tried finding something that could help me get out of here. Seems like Lady Luck cursed me again, because there wasn’t a single thing around that could’ve been of use. It’s not like I wanted to hurt these things, but they were definitely going to try and do something to me.

I flipped around, seeing a swarm of horses just standing there, waiting for me to do something. I mean, they actually looked like they cared for me, or at least care that I didn’t end up a splatter mark on the sidewalk. It really made me feel uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to stop now. Of course, I was forced to stop as several of those horses grabbed onto me with that glowing stuff and held me down by the chest. Struggling didn’t do anything, and I went into another state of panic. The harder I fought, the more tired I got, and I eventually gave up.

I groaned, barely able to breathe after all that. From among the crowd, I could just barely see that one orange horse jump over, just to see me. It smiled broadly when we made eye contact, but I broke it quickly. Too weird for me. Feeling guilty for some reason, I looked back to see a dejected face before it decided to walk away, back down into the hospital. I don’t know why, but that made me feel absolutely horrible. It was a horse, and it was somehow affecting my feelings enough for me to feel bad? What was wrong with me?

“Well, at least you’re getting a healthy exercise, even though you weren’t meant to yet…” I heard from the right. The brown horse adjusted his glasses, “Seems as though you check out for now. If anything begins acting up, come back and we’ll take care of it, alright?”

I nodded, feeling it was appropriate to just go along instead of fighting this. I must be tripping on something horrible if I’m experiencing this. The magic dissipated and I stood up, now a free man, emphasis on the free.

“SHIT!”

I immediately covered my lower body with my clothes, feeling very awkward all of a sudden. You know, they only gave me a weird look as soon as I did that. I guess they finally figured out what clothing means to a person. Then again, they’re horses, not actual people. Still, I saw what looked like the guys clear their throats and walk away quick. The girls though (mostly nurses, something I found quite cliché) were either blushing or covering their eyes. At least those last ones had some decency instead of just staring at what was behind my suit. I edged away, moving around the group of remaining horses and towards the others going down the stairs.

I took a deep breath and headed down as well, feeling very uncomfortable about my situation. I could practically feel their eyes looking into my back, wondering or watching. God, that felt so wrong to think about. I passed by several occupied rooms before just giving up and heading into an open closet. My clothes were on in a minute, bringing some serious relief to me. I made sure everything was where it was meant to be, threw the Audemar on my wrist, and left the closet. To shorten an unnecessary explanation, I found myself outside of a hospital and on a road to a small town within a short time.

“What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

Asking myself that was a common thing, mostly because my occupation tended to get me into rough waters on occasion. I decided to sit on a bench near the hospital, thinking about what was happening. I was near positive that I wasn’t in Malaysia, what with all the English and different terrain, but where was I then? But the most baffling thing were the talking horses moseying on about, doing everyday things as if it were normal for horses to do. It was kind of frightening, when I thought about it. Just where in the universe could I be that allowed for these things to live like people?

As usual, something stopped me from thinking over the important things.

“Hey! I saw you a few days ago! You’re that thing that had its head blown off,” said a mint green, female horse with a horn on its head.

Cute. I should’ve smacked her shit.

“Yeah.” She sat down next to me, “Where’d that one horse go?”

“Horse? We’re ponies, not horses!”

“What’s the difference?”

No really, what was the difference? I sure as hell didn’t know.

She rolled her eyes, “We’re just different!”

Ugh. This was going nowhere so fast.

“Whatever. Where’s that one ‘pony’ who saved me?”

The horse grinned, “I’ll tell you if you let me look at those!” She pointed at my hands.

I lifted them up, feeling uneasy about what she would do, “These? What’s the big deal?”

“Nothing, really… Anyway, I saw her head into the Everfree Forest a minute or two before you got out of the hospital. You should still be able to catch up to her, probably.”

I stood up and tried walking away. Might as well, right? I don’t know; give her some money or something. The horse would probably eat it though… Who cares, I got plenty of it. I was rudely stopped however, by the minty green horse from just a second ago. She somehow had a pretty good grip of my hand as she turned it over in whatever the hell you call those things at the end of their legs. There was a sheepish grin before she let go, letting me get the hell away from that freaky ass horse. Creep.

A short walk towards the nearby forest edge later, I heard a scream. Mind you, a female scream. Another person, possibly? Hmm… Might as well go investigate. I ran as fast as I could, careful not to dirty my shoes. Seriously, those were real Italian. No way I was going to mess those up.

The forest wasn’t easy to navigate, but I eventually came across a big boulder-type thing. It kind of moved at a upward slant, making it look like a small cliff that was maybe six or seven feet above the ground. Looking around it, I saw what looked like five hunched gorillas of different sizes all moving closer to the horse from earlier. Dohoho… I was going to like this, a lot. I dug a finger into my breast pocket and opened a baggie, taking out some coke. I sprinkled it on my jacket arm and lined it up. A quick lick on my fingers told me how good it was; it wasn’t easy getting stuff this pure around a stickler of a place like Malaysia.

I pressed one nostril closed and placed the other at the beginning of the white line. It was snorted fast, heading straight up into me. I blinked several times, pinching my nose to make sure nothing fell out and shook my head twice. Shit was starting to hit me hard right there.

Wiping away some mucus that came out as a side-effect, I grinned a wide, “fuck the world”-type grin, “Oh boy… This… This is going to be fun…”

Things were liable to get a little… Hmm… They were going to definitely get a teensy bit violent. Oh well. Might as well enjoy it, right?

Right.

Author's Notes

Well dayuuuummm, never thought I'd be writing this shit. Originally meant to be a oneshot for a specific person (WHO KNOWS WHO THE FUCK THEY ARE, MOTHERFUCKER), this was turned into something else. And so, a Carrot Top x Human fic was born. Take note! This human has a name, but it shan't be revealed quite yet. Though, this fic will be short, so don't expect much or too frequent updates, like any other story I've worked on (some excluded, of course). Let's see... what else to cover...

Ah yes, this character is based off (partially personality-wise) of a character of a somewhat similar role played by Nicholas Cage. In no way should you associate them in any other way, because this character is definitely not as old or hideous as Mr. Cage. You'll have mad respect if you guess who this nigga is.

One last thing, silver text is quite resourceful into looking how one might act or think if they had restraint/substance abuse problems. Why would I add this? Because it's fucking fun is why.

Anyway, I got nothing else to say. Hope you enjoy this, comment, favorite, thumbs-up, etc., etc..

As Always,

Stay Trilla.

Chapter 2: No Introductions

My Daily Dose of Carotene
Chapter 2: No Introductions
By: Stillmatic

Well, well, well, lookie here. Things were pretty interesting right now. Those things were cornering the horse that helped me earlier, so why not pay it back by assisting it a little? And by assist, I meant killing those things and grabbing some food, because I was damn starved at this point. Anyway, I counted five of these things here, so I thought up some plans, barely able to control myself from the coke.

Man, I love that stuff.

Quickly formulating the plan, I snatched this huge rock from the ground and climbed the boulder in front me. Really, it was literal perfection how this thing went upwards like a cliff, placing me, I'd say, roughly seven feet above them. I peered over the edge; no one noticed me yet. Perfect, again? Lady Luck must be sucking my dick right now. I spotted the horse and the gorilla-looking things encroaching on her. So, I made my move.

"Come with us quietly and you won't get hu—"

The horse screamed god-awfully loud, much more than I thought possible, "STAY BACK! I-I'LL CALL MY FRIEND! Y-YEAH! H- HE'S HUGE!"

Oh damn, was that me? Pfft, friend... Hah... Uhh...

"Oh? And where is this friend now?" The tallest gorilla asked, edging closer.

"He's o- on his w- way! G- Go away!"

"That wouldn't be fu—"

That leader guy was a serious jerk. Which is why I did what I did. Man, you should've seen the faces on that horse and those gorillas when a head was splattered onto the ground like nothing. That rock was pretty big, now that I consider it... When that blood hit her face, it was hilarious. Really.

Grabbing the situation by the horns, I jumped off of the boulder thing and took another by surprise. This one was a runt, whose neck I landed and promptly swerved my heel on, messing things up a bit, here and there. Other than that really loud crack, no one said anything; not even horse- thing. The three other gorillas just looked at me all shocked and stuff... Probably due to my stellar looks and superior class. Or it was because I just killed two of their own, but hey, I'm no mind-reader. I stood up, wiping my shoe on the animal I just landed on.

“Oh, hey. Sorry to drop in unannounced. Just checking up on my friend who you’ve so kindly kept company while I came back to escort her. You know the deal, friend wants help looking for wild carrots, you can’t say no... Same old, same old, huh?” There was an awkward silence; with all of those animals just gawking at me, “Damn, tough crowd...”

The largest gorilla, who I assumed was the leader because he was not only a little shorter than me, but the ugliest (had good taste in jewellery though), scowled at me, displaying his teeth as he hissed a long-awaited response, “You! What in the blue blazes are you?!”

I stepped off of the filthy ape I was standing on and presented myself, hands making an overly-dramatic sweep, “Just your average, neighborhood Spider-Man, here to terrorize you like the troops in Pakistan.”

That so was a good line.

A big fat one next to the leader gave a dumb look and put a clawed whatever-the-hell-it-was to its lip in confusion, “Duuuhhh, what’s a Spider-Ma-”

He howled in pain as he fell to the ground on one knee. Every single one of them recoiled at the sound, and thankfully I was close enough so my aim was decent. Splat, once again. Was I getting tired yet? Nope. It fell to the floor like Amy Winehouse did her bed.

Oops. A bit insensitive? Damn, I loved that lady.

Anyway, that one took a bullet to the chest and didn’t get up, sooooo... I assumed it died a nasty death. The fourth was moving back slowly, but being the incredibly benevolent person I totally was, I administered a very tasty, metal medicine that cured a little disease called “Life.” Not the female version, mind you, you can’t get rid of her pimped self that easy. Now, I didn’t do it out cruelty, but because something that hideous couldn’t possibly have an easy, normal life. Hey, I was doing it a favor by doing what I did. It fell back to the floor, one of the eyes caved in and hitting the brain (still, really surprising how good my aim was right now).

I turned my gun back to the leader. With only one bullet left, I couldn’t mess up, or I’d get messed up. Before I could react though, I already had the gun smacked out of my hands, firing a shot randomly into the forest. Both of us stopped mid-grapple to see a weird chicken-snake thing wobble out from behind a nearby tree, falling over from a gunshot wound. Weird.

That stupid gorilla took my distraction to his advantage and punched me in the gut pretty hard, hard enough that I was sure I was going to have some internal bleeding. I punched back, hitting it right in the nose. It jumped back a few feet, yelping loudly and rubbing at its nose until it started snarling at me and ran forward again. I was going to move out of the way, but it grabbed me roughly and hoisted me up, slamming me down into the dirt and kicking up dust.

That did it. I looked at my suit and saw it was all dirty. That really, really fucking pissed me off.

It barreled at me, but a kick to its dick sent it back, giving me time to stand up, “Hey, jackass!” I shouted, catching his attention. “You think you can just mess my suit up like that?! This thing was fucking hand-tailored! FUCKING HAND-TAILORED!” I threw my hands up into the air, “No, you wouldn’t know though! You wouldn’t know how many hours I waited, or how much I paid for this thing! It’s fucking one-of-a-kind!”

It appeared my rambling did little to curb its desire to rip out my throat, which was practically bulging out as I shouted in anger. The gorilla tackled me to the ground, bringing up a claw to swipe my face. Thinking quick, I yanked the stiletto out of its strap on my right ankle and pushed it between me and its hand as it came down. The blade went right through its hand, and I tore it out and shoved the damn thing off of me as it howled in pain.

Now, I could get my revenge. What it did was unforgivable.

“Do you like to play Razor Tag?”

I flicked the stiletto in my hand and brought it down, across its entire face with one straight line. Even I could feel a wicked smile just settle onto my face. It shouted several words, obviously feeling very physically hurt right now.

“Good! Cause, I just sliced your face!” I kicked it over onto its back and brought the stiletto down on its windpipe a few times for good measure, making sure it was dead. It lunged upwards though, and bit into my arm. It felt like boiling-hot pieces of metal were sawing through, that is, until I stabbed its eye twice, digging the knife in as deep as possible. It fell back, gasping for a few seconds until it stopped entirely. I wiped the blood off onto its vest and stood up, panting from the workout. “Looks like you’re it.”

I placed the stiletto back where it belonged and winced. That bite was deep. I looked at it and sat against the boulder, poking at the wound a bit. The suit was still intact there, but all the grime, dirt and blood probably weren’t going to come out. I sighed, remembering the warning I got from the guy who made this thing. Doesn’t handle stains well, he said, don’t get it too dirty, he said. Now look at me. The damn thing was probably ruined now. What a waste...

“Um, e-excuse me, sir...” I looked to my right, realizing I completely forgot about the horse. It cleared its throat, trying not to stutter after it saw me do what I did, probably. “Thank you. For helping me, I mean. I would’ve been put to work by those Diamond Dogs if you didn’t show up. So, thanks. A lot.”

Those were dogs? Huh. Go figure.

I stood up, trying to wipe away the dirt on me, “No problem, I guess.”

It noticed my arm, mostly the blood that was staining my suit further, and gasped, “Your arm! We need to get you back to the hospital now!”

Normally, I wouldn’t have any objections. But when the coke-rush runs dry and you have the hunger to eat a horse (no pun intended), you don’t exactly consider yourself in a position to move much. I slid downwards, feeling lightheaded from the lack of nourishment, loss of blood, and the high running out. So what did all that add up to? Me feeling like shit. I mumbled some curse words and looked around. I met eyes with that horse and I’m pretty sure we both looked away at the same time.

Weird.

I tried standing up and heading to the hospital, which wasn’t that far away, but I dropped back onto my ass only a few seconds later, my hands out and preventing me from falling onto the dirt.

“What’s wrong? Why can’t you move?” It asked frantically.

Damn, it actually seemed worried. It wasn’t like this was going to kill me or anything.

“Hungry... tired... Don’t feel like getting up.”

“Come on! We just need to get back onto the trail to the hospital and we can get you back in bed!”

I shook my head, “I don’t feel like it...”

Never knew I got so stubborn when I was this hungry. Pretty interesting, really.

“Fine.” It said, not so much in annoyance, but worry.

Next thing I knew, I felt the horse back up into me. My first reaction was to shove it back, mainly because its ass was right up on me, but my movements were slower than a dial up internet connection in 1993. It pushed back once and I fell over, landing on its back. Huh. Pretty clever. Didn’t see that coming. It began moving away from the boulder and out of the forest, hopefully to the hospital. Seeing as though I was hanging off its back like a ragdoll, I decided to use this chance to look the thing over again. Still seemed to be the same horse, but I could’ve sworn its face wasn’t as red as it was when I first saw it.

Wait... That green one said these were called ‘ponies’ right? That honestly sound better than called these things horses. It sounded a bit weird, now that I thought about it. Horses, ponies, horses, ponies... This one was female, I think, if voice was any indication. So, this pony was a her. Eh, might as well keep that in mind, for the time being. Eventually, she started to canter instead of trotting, and it was seriously uncomfortable. Using what meager energy I had, I swivelled around, letting my head rest against her head as I lied there.

I saw her ears flicker for a few seconds, but she didn’t turn back. One sigh later, I felt my stomach groan and make other disgusting noises at my current situation.

“Hungry?”

Obviously. My stomach just sounded like a damn cat was dying in there.

“How long has it been since I ate? Did I get fed at all during that week?”

She shook her head, “The doctors didn’t want to risk anything, so they gave you spell that just made the hunger die off for a bit. Something about the magic and food not mixing well.” She stopped for a moment in thought before starting to move again, “I think they forgot to feed you after that whole ‘run-away’ thing you did.”

Explains the hunger.

I leaned in closer, feeling tired from what just happened. Yawning, I just tried to continue the conversation.

“So... how lo-”

“We’re here!” She chimed loudly in a sing-song voice. She gently put me down onto a chair and headed towards the front desk, “I’ll be right back.”

Oh no, it wasn’t like I was going anywhere or anything, seeing as though I was purposely starved just because two things wouldn’t mix well in my diet. I watched her trot over to the nurse, a certain anxiousness in her step. Her tail wagged a bit, and well... let’s just say as soon as I saw her backend jiggling from her movement, I looked the hell away. Once again, I’ll reiterate.

Weird.

It wasn’t long before that same doctor from earlier went over to me, his horn glowing, “I didn’t expect to see you back here so quickly, but the bite should be easy to fix.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders and stared him in the eye, “First things first, doctor: Screw the bite, it doesn’t even hurt that much. Second, I need some damn food right now, or I’ll start looking for it and you sure as hell don’t want that. Third, and most importantly, who the hell cleaned my suit so well when I was admitted?”

He flinched back, moving away from my now dangling hands, “We’ll have to treat that bite before I answer any questions.”

I nodded in resignation and waited, checking out a clock on a wall across from me. Looking back at him, I asked the best question possible, “So, how long will this take?”

The doctor gave me an odd look, “I’ve been done, sir. I was waiting for you to say something.”

A short looked at my arm and the lack of pain proved that it was already healed, from what I could tell, at least, “Huh. Thanks.”

He cleared his throat, “Right, now, about those questions. I’ll have one of the nurses bring you some food,” a nurse next to him turned heel and walked down a hallway as he said that, “and to answer the second one, we had a local designer clean and fix it up for you. Normally we wouldn’t bother, but the suit seemed to be made from some sort of material I wasn’t familiar with, so I thought it would be wise to send it over to somepony more acclimated to that sort of thing.”

“Good thing you did, this was worth a pretty penny. Where can I find this person again?”

“Oh, I know where to find Miss Rarity!” The orange pony added, turning to me, “I could take you to her after we’re done here!”

I saw the nurse come back with a tray of food, placing it near me. Only one look was needed before I started eating all of that shit. Man, I never knew I could devour something so fast. Apple juice, some crepes, an apple, two pancakes, and a bunch of other stuff were quickly dumped into my stomach. Hell, I was inhaling that stuff. But even though I was incredibly distracted by surprisingly good hospital food, I noticed the orange pony whisper some things to the doctor. His face practically lost all of its color at one point, before he stared at me in disbelief. I gulped down the rest of the apple juice, having finished, and watched as he came up to me.

He coughed nervously, “I hear you saved your savior not too long ago, sir, and unfortunately at a cost, I understand?” There was an uneasy look in my direction, one of slight fear, but some sort of mottled form of concern, or something else. “Specifically, a pack of Diamond Dogs.”

“I thought they were gorillas.” I said simply.

“I’m afraid not. While I highly suspect they had no intention to let you live, you obviously felt the same way, given your actions.”

“So? If I hadn’t jumped in,” I jerked a thumb in orange-pony’s direction, “she’d be a sex slave or something.” Feeling a bit annoyed, I thought I’d mess with him and feigned relent, “Oh, I see. You wouldn’t mind that, would you? You guys probably sell your girls to those guys anyway, right?”

“What?! No, absolutely not! Nopony would ever do such a heinous thing!”

He seriously seemed shocked at that. Maybe I went too far? Won’t know unless I push farther, right? I decided against it and instead to put the final nail in this conversation’s coffin.

“So why hassle me about it then? It’s not like they were important or anything. Hell, I bet they weren’t even worth the suit they ruined.”

“You... You honestly believe five living creatures are worth less than some clothes stitched together?”

I shrugged, “It probably took a hundred to get me the money to buy this thing.”

The brown doctor-pony turned away from me. In disgust, loathing, fear, I don’t know.

“You’re sickening... I-I can’t believe creatures like you even exist.”

Standing up, I stretched my back and cracked my knuckles, then I moved towards the exit before stopping to look back, “Then maybe you shouldn’t have saved my life, doctor?”

I left, heading towards that little town nearby. I didn’t need this bullshit.

Seriously.

Author's Notes

Ight! Pretty decent turnout for the first chapter, I assume. Anyway, this chapter isn't as long because I already started it by the time I finished the first one a few days back. Said "Fuck it" and just finished it up, got it proofread by the ever-amazing editor who always has my back and uploaded this motherfucker, as you can see now.

Let's see...

Shit, I can't think of anything else to include, so I'll end it here. Also, make sure you comment or some shit, because I need feedback on how I'm doing, niggas! Help a brother out and type a message so I know.

As Always,

Stay Trilla.

P.S.: I've taken the liberty to provide something for you ---

[youtube=

Chapter 3: Chicken in the Grass

My Daily Dose of Carotene
Chapter 3: Chicken in the Grass
By: Stillmatic

Take note, youngins, there’s a method and a way to living life with the same amount of exceptional security as I did. When you’re threatened with a situation that puts yourself and work in jeopardy, action and planning was an absolute requirement. Why? Because without that, you’re another chicken clucking around and waiting for your head to get chopped off by your enemies. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that you probably don’t have enemies with the capacity to ruin your life...

Wrong.

Everyone is your enemy in life. But the ones that are the most pronounced are the ones that supposedly protect you. Of course, I’m talking about law enforcement, police, Interpol, et cetera. Don’t get me wrong, they do a lot of right, but those right actions stifle my wrongdoings, and I don’t like that one bit. So now that I’ve established that, I’ll explain how this all ties together. You see, and I’ll say this again, when you’re presented with a situation that can harm you or waste your time somehow, it’s best to gut it like a fish and rip out the intestines like the evidence it is. That way, no one can pin anything on you and it’ll be like there was never a crime in the first place. It’s dangerous, but worth it.

That’s what I was doing now as I walked steadily back to the forest, trying to remain inconspicuous as I decided to get rid of the bodies from earlier. Obviously, killing was a really big no-no here, so I’d need to clean up a little so cops couldn’t charge me and force me to go through some elongated pre-trial, trial, sentencing bullshit. Yeah, the court system is interesting as hell, but only if you’re not on the receiving end.

So, as I got into the tree line, this time looking around carefully for more possible dangers, I came across something a bit surprising. Skeletons.

Yep. Skeletons. Just lying there with little bits of meat and fat hanging off of them. They looked like dog skeletons, so I assumed that’s what I was looking at right now were those scumbags I totally kicked the asses of earlier.

Damn, I’m good.

Anyway, it looked like someone already took care of things for me ahead of time, so I thought, “What the hell, might as well just head back.” But nope, it wasn’t to be. As I was leaving, I noticed something else, something very, very, very, very interesting. It was a chicken. Well, not exactly a chicken. It had a chicken’s head but some lizard body tacked onto it.

Weird.

I walked over to it and nudged it with my shoe, careful not to get any blood on it. After all, this was the one I shot in the chest (or is it breast?), with some of that stuff leaking out a little. I crouched down and considered poking it. I did, mainly because I could and no one had the power to stop me. Though I doubt anyone would bother, seeing as though the situation I was already in would probably warrant others to consider me an escaped mental patient or something. Hell, I would if I saw me right now.

Right as I poked it where it’d been shot, it shrieked damn loud and bit my finger. It didn’t hurt that much, but it’s a chicken for god’s sake. Humiliating, much? I’d think so.

“Ow, you little shit!” I promptly backhanded the small bastard and it pecked at my arm after I pulled back. “You’re just asking for it, aren’t you?” It clucked several times, and from what I could tell, in anger. “Yeah? Well, you too, pal. Go suck a dick -- no homo.” It kept pecking at me arm, probably in self-defense seeing as though my foot was pinning it to the ground. It was at this point that I decided to just throw rationality out the window and teach the damn thing a lesson. I slapped it across the face, repeating for every word I said, “Stop. This. Bullshit. Asshole.”

It was dazed as hell once I got off of it. Seriously, I could swear I saw stars floating above its head, twirling about. The chicken-thing shook it off and clucked in frustration, moving its head around to emphasis some point. I just kept watching it, my mind stuck somewhere between amusement and confusion. Was I seriously talking to a chicken a second ago? Why should I be surprised though, I was talking to horses a few minutes back. It made that one sound, like a “bu-cawk” one, really low and sadly. Personally, it was depressing to watch as it spoke some sort of chicken language while it was going through a midlife crisis or something.

I stepped back a few feet, giving it room. It stood up, barely able to stand on its feet. There were a few steps away from me before it just fell over onto its face, landing its beak into the dirt and wedging it into there. Wow. That was just pathetic, and the kind of pathetic you feel bad about feeling, like you wanna help the damned trainwreck. So... I did. It really wasn’t like me, but for some reason, the little bastard was interesting to me. I mean, how many people can say they helped a chicken-lizard live to see another day and survive a gunshot wound? Five? Six at most?

Or none, actually, but you’d never know.

I picked the thing up in my hands, cradling it like a baby as it clucked several times in confusion, trying to wriggle out of my arms. It was slow, obviously tired from being alive this long with the wound it had. It tried pecking at me, but those meager attacks didn’t even do anything with how weak they were at this point. I grabbed its beak, shutting it, and looked the damn thing in the eye.

“You’re going to stop. That’s it. No arguments, no pecking, just stay where the hell you are and stop moving around. Alright?”

I was expecting an answer, but the jackass practically passed out where it was. Only reason I knew it was still clinging to consciousness was the fact its eyes were watching me and it was still clucking in confusion.

Eh, good enough, I guess.

Despite its appearances, it wasn’t all that heavy, despite the huge-ass lizard parts. As I was turning to head back, I ran my crotch right into something, knocking me to the ground. It wasn’t painful, but it sure as hell scared the living shit out of me.

I heard an “oof” and something falling over too, and lo and behold, it was orange-pony, sitting on her backend, rubbing her muzzle. And then, I realized that’s where my groin made contact. Given her height from what I remembered earlier, I came to the conclusion her head was closer to the ground than normal, possibly looking for something which I assumed were these “wild carrots” she brought up a few times. What does this mean? My dick, though behind my pants, made contact with her face. Not exactly a pleasant thought. Eugh.

Weird.

Getting onto my feet, I extended a hand to the pony. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking it. It was weird, she actually managed to somehow grip my hand despite the fact she had a hoof. Like there were fingers there, but invisible? Hell, I don’t know, I’m no bureaucrat. Not bothering to wonder why I bothered to use that specific area of occupation as an example, I snapped back into reality after that millisecond of thought and felt a jolt of... it was something, something kind of... I don’t know the right word...

It was an odd feeling, really freaky and stuff. After that first second of touching, it was like some kind of electricity was going through me, only it didn’t hurt, it actually felt... good. Real good. Like, almost some kind of bliss without the ignorance. It might’ve been pleasure, but actually getting that feeling of happiness so suddenly frightened me, enough that I ended up releasing my hand and dropped her back onto the ground. She fell onto her backend again, and both of us winced at that. The pony rubbed at her flank tenderly before I put my hand out again.

I gave an apologetic look as she took it, “Sorry about that, there... was a spider in your hair. It’s out now.”

Despite the mistake I made, she smiled and rolled her eyes, “No there wasn’t, you just dropped me because of the thing that happened.”

What.

Not only did she see through my lie (I’m a decent liar, if I say so myself), but she even mentioned something regarding that shock-thing.

“Uh, what’re you talking about?”

She let go and stretched, much like a cat would, and fixed her mane by bopping it, which essentially made it springy again, “I felt it, you know.” The pony looked away sheepishly, “It was kind of hard bringing you back to the hospital when I found you, because of that stuff. It made me feel sorta weird.” Wonderful. She looked back at me, smiling, “But I still managed to get you back there, and you saved me too.”

I gave her a confused look, “So... You aren’t disgusted by what I did to help you? Like the doctor?”

“Of course I am, but if you didn’t, you’d probably be dead and I’d be a slave, pulling carts.” She brushed her hoof against my chest playfully, giving me that feeling again, “I’m not some close-minded foal like Doctor Bleedheart, and even though it was kind of scary seeing what you did, you still helped me out a lot. Thanks, again.”

I stared at her for a while, finding her attitude quite surprising “... No problem.”

She looked at my arms and her smile instantly turned into an uncharacteristic (from my only few hours of knowing her) frown. I noticed her irritated glare, directed at the chicken-headed-lizard-thing, and waved a hand experimentally.

“Something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she huffed, “It’s just the cockatrice you’re carrying.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise, “My what-a-trice?”

“I said ‘cocka-’” She stopped mid-way, mouth hanging open as she thought over what she said for the brief second. It shut and her face became slightly more red, “I-I said ‘cockatrice’! It’s that thing you have in your hooves.”

And to think I could have averted that interesting and awkward moment if I had actually heard her correctly. Ponies seem to have just as dirty minds as people. Interesting...

“Hands,” I said, correcting her, “And what’s the big deal about the lizard-chicken?” I received a look, “Fine, what’s the big deal about the cockatrice?”

She squinted at it, “That’s the same cockatrice that bothers me every time I go looking for carrots in the Everfree.”

“I’ll give you a carrot to look for,” I blurted out.

I quickly covered my mouth with a hand, accidentally dropping the cockatrice on the ground. Snatching it off the floor and back into my arms again, I looked back at the pony, who was now looking off in another direction. Wow, I guess no matter where you go, horribly timed sexual innuendos all end up with the same result: someone feeling awkward as hell. God, why did I even say something like that? I’d normally never say something like that, let alone to a horse. She cleared her throat, bracing herself, and looked back at me with a shaky smile.

“R-Right, uhh...” I must’ve insulted her somehow, “I-I’m not very su-”

I raised a hand, stopping her short, “Listen, I’m sorry for saying that. It was done on impulse and it probably insulted you, so I apologize.”

She waved her hoof dismissively, “It’s fine. Really. It’s just that you don’t get many ponies around here that speak like that unless they’re from Manehattan or some other big city. Ponyville doesn’t really appeal to those kinds of ponies.”

Ponyville. Wow. I’d say something like “Oh, how original,” but I have the sneaking suspicion that doing that would be considered cliche, overdone, and just plain played-out. Was I right? Possibly. You never know. Instead, I’ll stick with something more refined, such as: “My word, what on Earth could have possibly spawned such a cockamamie excuse of a label for a town? Truly, we’ve gone past the looking glass on this one.”

Or something close to that.

“Well, would you mind leading me back to that hospital?”

She looked confused, “Why? You don’t look hurt.”

I pointed to the cockatrice, “This guy, not me.”

“You want to help him? Why?”

Damn. Ruthless. Or just annoyed, either way. I like that.

“Well...” She looked at the wound on it one more time before turning towards the hospital, “Let’s go then. Doctor Bleedheart is pretty quick with healing magic.”

I snorted, “Magic.”

“Magic.” She replied, not hearing the tone in my voice.

“Okay, so what does magic do?”

“I’m not really sure.” She stopped and looked at me, “I’m not a unicorn, so I never bothered with trying to learn about magic. It never really appealed to me.”

I nodded, satisfied, sorta, “Makes two of us then.”

The rest of the walk was in silence mostly. I walked beside her for nearly all of it, until I ended up tripping over a damn rock and falling to the floor. I shuddered, seeing something I really didn’t want to see before she turned around and helped me up. Man, that made me feel like an idiot. Embarrassing sights aside, she seemed perfectly fine walking next to a some guy who killed a bunch of dogs a little while ago. How tolerant and accepting. Almost niave.

Seeing the hospital in sight, I sighed in frustration. It couldn’t come fast enough for me. Jeez, how did I end up like this?

You know what this situation was?

Bullshit.

Author's Notes.

Yo, what's good, niggas? I bring to you the third chapter, which is fairly short. Fuck it, it'll get interesting eventually. Or will it? Mystery.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, bullshit, other shit, some more shit, etc., etc.. I got nothing left to say.

As Always,

Stay Trilla.

Chapter 4: Making a Few Acquaintances

My Daily Dose of Carotene

Chapter 4: Making a Few Acquaintances

By: Stillmatic

You know, there are times in my life I try to consider what exactly can be made of the situations I end up in. This situation isn’t easy to understand, for obvious reasons. As far as I think I know, I’m somehow alive despite getting blasted in the head. If I’m not dying in a street right now in a state of complete delirium, then this must somehow be real, though I doubt it. I’ll play this right though, and make sure that even if this is all some dream, I’ll lie as low as possible. But look at what the fuck I’m dealing with! I swear, this stuff is not what I ever had in mind when I thought about what Hell would be like.

But, I gotta admit, at least I’m keeping myself entertained despite all of this. That doctor was fun to mess with, and I pretty much guilted him into fixing up this chicken-thing up. Oh man, the look on his face when I brought that thing in. Priceless. I played him easy and the guy was about to start snivelling until he did his job. Left a bit later beside the orange pony and now I’m walking with the cockatrice in my arms, which now reminds me that I still needed to get my suit fixed too. So it was with a weighted heart (because my suit was still messed up), that I put down the cockatrice and stared at it for a second.

“Well, get out of here, you little jackass.” It clucked several times, don’t really know what emotion it was pushing though. I looked over at orange pony, “Can we leave now and find some tailor?”

The pony looked back at the cockatrice as we walked away, “I know somepony in Ponyville that could fix up your clothing.” I hummed my approval until I noticed her staring at my clothes, at which point she spoke her mind, “Why do you wear that? Most ponies don’t wear clothes unless there’s a special occasion.”

“Uhh, because I don’t want to be arrested by cops? Last time, I checked, I wasn’t standing in Detroit, so I have to wear clothes.”

“You’ve been to Detrot?”

I gave a her look and shook my head, “No.”

We continued like that, going back and forth with questions as we followed the trail to some town nearby. I had to admit, it was like talking to a real person the whole walk. It wasn’t until we reached the near outskirts that I asked a question I should have asked a long time ago, especially to the person (pony, whatever the hell it is) that saved my life.

I stopped and looked at her, “Hey, what did you say your name was?”

She stopped, flashed a smile and continued walking, “I never said it.”

Catching up quick, I walked beside her, “Hilarious. I just thought I’d learn the name of the person that saved me. Or pony, actually.”

“So, I’m your hero, then?”

I frowned, “Sure, whatever.”

I had to admit, that smile was cute. She stopped and held out a hoof, “Carrot Top, Ponyville’s only farmer dedicated to all vegetables orange.”

“Nice to meet you, Carrot Top. You wouldn’t happen to be related to the comedian?”

“Who?”

I took her hoof and shook it, “Never mind.” She looked at me expectantly before I realized what she was waiting for, “Oh. Name’s Lyor Coleman, Boston’s most materialistic man. Mostly deal in the less savory things now than what I’d consider an actual job, but it helps pay for the best of stuff.”

Carrot Top looked confused, “... I’ve never heard of any of ‘Boston’ before.”

“I figured. Anyway, where are we again?”

She explained some things as we walked in, along with other topics. Man, she seriously knew her shit on vegetables. Like, no joke, this chick was actually pretty educated on all sorts of farming things like irrigation and moisture and a bunch of other bullshit I don’t understand (I nodded through most of that stuff). So, this town that looks like something straight out of a kid’s movie is called Ponyville. Just thought you should know, seeing as though no one else probably knows either. Anyway, according to this gal, I was now in a country called Equestria, which was surrounded on three sides by land, and one water, which apparently made a really nice stretch of land for real estate.

Ruled by two princesses, yada yada bullshit, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t think you really need to know any of this, actually. Moving on, she explained her ass-tattoo which is given the most incredibly masculine name of Cutie Mark. Only god knows who the hell came up with that one. Came to no surprise that she mentioned the male population of Equestria was slightly lagging behind the female one, though only for these ponies. She mentioned other races as having different ratios, but I honestly didn’t care one bit.

After passing through the entrance of the town, I began to notice that everyone was a pony. I mean, I should have seen that coming, but you don’t really bother considering it until you realize that you’re the only person: walking on two legs, that’s tall, actually looks good. Last one was necessary, don’t hate.

As we passed by random ponies going about their days, things began to get weird. Mixed reactions, mostly. Everything from flirty to horrified were on faces directed at us. Hell, some of them just sped away into their homes, dragging their valuables like doormats and children in with them. It was kind of funny to see their reactions, but a good amount of them just stayed and went about their day as usual when the novelty of seeing something they never saw before wore off. What fun that was.

It didn’t take long before we got through the town that I seriously underestimated in terms of size. Really, the place is pretty big. Anyway, we got to this freaky looking building that I can’t describe past ugly and white. I swear, half of the buildings here are just something concocted by a kid or something. A knock on the door was provided on my part and the damn thing flew open a second later. There was nothing at the door.

“Wow... What are you?”

I looked down to see a... can’t remember what they’re called, but a child-version of a horse. It was whitish, two-tone hair, and a bunch of other boring features not worth mentioning. It had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen and it was beyond creepy. Seriously.

“A customer,” I said, pushing my way in and past the pony. I stood in a circular room with a bunch of even creepier mannequins and decided to call out something, “HELLO?” I looked back at the white pony, “Are you the tailor?”

She shook her head, “Nope, but I can get her!”

The kid zipped off and left me with Carrot Top, who rolled her eyes and settled next to me. I heard some hushed whispers from another room and kept patient. A picture captured my attention for just a moment, and it was pretty interesting. A second later, another white pony walked out, this one looking an ass-load more elegant. Purple mane that was primp and proper, immaculate coat, and eyes that were some kind of blue. I couldn’t be assed to figure what color, though.

As soon as her eyes landed on me, she practically bolted in my direction, with a god-awful amount of random objects floating around her using magic or something. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she was moving around me quick, checking out every part of my suit. Her expression was a bit dampened when she noticed all the scuffs, dirt, dried blood, and tears, which I could assume mattered because she was the one who cleaned it in the first place.

Stopping, she took a step back and looked at me from head to toe, “Darling, do you have an appreciation for fashion?”

Duh. “Of course, who wouldn’t? That’s why a good amount of money goes into my clothing.”

“I can tell!” She exclaimed, smiling, “Though I must know! What happened?”

Carrot Top cut in before I could explain, “He saved me from a bunch of Diamond Dogs and was roughed up a little.”

The fashion pony looked a bit humbled but quickly regained her previous demeanor, “Well, it’s good to see that you’re both safe. After all, safety must come first.” She held out her hoof, “Rarity, sir.”

I wanted to burst out laughing at the “sir” part, but forced myself to keep a straight smile, “Lyor Coleman, madam. Now, what can we do about this?” I asked, gesturing to my seriously messed up suit and shoes.

“Oh, I can have that fixed up in a moment. But,” Rarity suddenly turned serious, “I must know... What material was used to make that suit?”

I lifted an arm and stared at it, practically seeing the animal that produced such incredible cloth, “It was sheared from an animal called a vicuña. Expensive stuff, like, really expensive.”

“I hope you don’t find me rude for asking, but how many bits did you pay for this suit of yours?”

“I don’t use bits where I’m from, but roughly translated into U.S. dollars, this suit by itself cost around seventy-thousand dollars.”

I don’t know how these bits translated into U.S. dollars, but I assume that anyone who pays that many of anything for a single suit would come off as either retarded or extremely arrogant. Both their jaws dropped, probably because they were surprised anyone would spend that much money on anything.

Carrot Top blinked, shaking her head a few times, “That... That sounds like a lot of bits.”

Yep. Who could blame me though? This thing was probably the most comfortable set of clothing I’ve ever worn and it was just amazing to feel on the skin. For freaky camel things, those vicuña made some awesome fiber.

Rarity regained her composure after a quick breath, “Well... I didn’t think I was working with such costly material. I’ll be sure to be as delicate as possible with the suit, assuming you want it fixed and cleaned, that is.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I’d appreciate it. How much would it cost along with the shoes?”

The posh pony looked me over once more, a hoof to her chin and eyes squinted. She continued this for a bit longer, checking out my back a bit longer than I thought normal. That and I heard both of them giggling. I shrugged, not even caring. Rarity came back around, hiding an obvious smile.

“I think fifty bits is a fair price, don’t you think? I will have to replicate any lost material through magic along with cleaning it.”

Now, I’m not exactly the worst guy in existence, but I can be pretty bad at times. Especially so if opportunity dangles itself in front of me, much like it did when I changed my life. Moving on, when the opportunity of getting some gold coins of all things was right there, I took it, much like how I took those coins from the doctor when he wasn’t looking and much like how I keep repeating the phrase “much like.” Now, I didn’t count it out, but I figured a doctor wouldn’t need a sack of coins much, what with how much he probably gets paid. So, it came to Carrot Top’s surprise when I pulled out a small pouch of these “bits” and placed it on the table. I quickly tallied up fifty and pushed it into a pile, where they were taken by Rarity’s magic and put into a cash register a few meters away.

Rarity nodded professionally, “Now, darling, I’d like you to strip from the suit so I can tidy it up.”

Easy peasy. “Alright, got a box for my stuff? I carry a few things and I’d rather keep them in a container.”

“Of course!” The pony trotted into another room, looking back, “I’ll be just a moment, dear.”

Huh. Well, at least I was getting this stuff cleaned and fixed. Even though I haven’t figured out any actual goals (which I probably should), I’ve already taken care of one thing that was absolutely necessary. Carrot Top prodded me with a hoof, getting my attention.

“Where did you get those bits?” She asked curiously.

“Found them.”

“Where?”

“Inside the doctor’s coat.”

There was a moment of silence shared between us as we stared into each other’s eyes, waiting for some kind of reaction. She probably thought I was joking until it actually became pretty obvious that I wasn’t lying.

She shook her head, “I can’t believe I saved a criminal.”

That was a bit offensive, “I’m not a criminal, I’m an opportunist.”

Before the orangey pony could retort, the marshmallow came back. I began dumping random things I kept on my person at all times in the plastic bin, which included: A stiletto, cocaine, painkillers, a gun, a watch, an Earth, Wind and Fire cassette tape, several different needles, a bedazzled wallet, random jewelry, a fancy corkscrew, three disposable cellphones, a PDA with GPS, a few business cards, car keys for a BMW, a flashlight, some raw sugar packets, and lastly, a bundle of documents for fake identities.

After finishing up, taking off my shoes and suit, the ponies gave me odd looks, “What?”

Carrot Top looked like she was about to laugh, “Who carries that much stuff with them? I’ve never heard of anypony doing that.”

“I’m one in a few billion,” I replied, smirking. “Can’t ever be too careful, though. Have something for every situation in case things don’t go as planned.”

Rarity took a breath, “I’m sure you have your reasons, Mr. Lyor. Now please, I must get to work on this and several orders. I’ll be sure to send somepony to find you when it’s ready.”

“There’s a problem, Miss Rarity. I’m pretty much only wearing my underwear right now.”

It was true. I was only wearing a pair of boxer-briefs, my socks, an undershirt and that kevlar vest that was a bit used, obviously. I mean, these ponies didn’t wear clothing as far as I knew, but what of a decent guy like me? I can’t just go around walking half-naked, because I’m classy like that.

In a flurry of white, that pony pretty much did all she needed to measure me, however uncomfortable it may have been. Seriously though, it bordered on violating. Moving on from acting like a bitch, Rarity went up a staircase, only to come back a few minutes later with a very intricate pair of black pants. Jewelled in a few places, the damn thing had orange flames running up the pant legs and a bunch of other random decals I seriously would never wear. What in god’s name was she thinking?

I think should could tell how apprehensive I was, “You don’t like it, do you?”

“It’s... different...” Carrot Top was holding back snickers as I tried to save the situation, “And... I’m sorry, I just can’t stand what you made. It’s like something for a kid or something. I’m in my thirties, not my teens.”

“I see...” She muttered, scrutinizing the pants. “One moment!”

She went right up the stairs and came back within a minute, a pair of plain, black dress pants. I threw them on along with the shoes, citing my reason as “I’m not going outside without them, I’ll clean them later.” Rarity protested, but I stood my ground and thanked her, and she repeated that she would send someone after us later for the suit. After saying our goodbyes, both me and Carrot Top left and started heading around the town without any actual destination.

Luckily, I snagged a hand-mirror to check myself out from my pile of junk in the bin, which proved to be useful for more than just that. Out of the corner of the mirror, I saw something on a cloud, something colorful. It quickly hid back in the cloud, but I took note of its position, just in case. I looked at Carrot Top and she rolled her eyes at my self-absorbed antics.

“You know,” I started, “I’m pretty good at seeing the future.”

“Really?” She raised a brow, “Why don’t I believe you?”

I chuckled and put the mirror in the box, which I set down, “You shouldn’t, because I’m joking. But! Watch this.”

Taking off the bandages on my arm, I wrapped them on my left fist, raising it along with my arm out to my side.

“What are you doing?” She asked in confusion, tilting her head to the side cutely.

“You’ll see,” Was my only reply.

It took a good few moments, but exactly what I expected (I’ll explain how later) turned out to happen. A pink blur slammed right into my fist, sending it straight to the floor. My mirror was now firmly in my hand as the bin was placed down, and then I begrudgingly put it down too. I counted a few breaths, then turned slightly to my right, hooking my hand behind something, pulling forward, and altering its course of flight. The head that was originally going to crash into me was sent right on top of the pink mess and a series of groans were shared in between.

“Sweet Celestia...” muttered Carrot Top. “You knew that was coming, didn’t you?”

“There was a picture in Rarity’s house of this one,” I pointed to the pink pony, “tackling her. The other over here was spying on me for a bit in the clouds, and I felt like she’d try something eventually.”

I looked back down at the two offenders to see they were pretty damaged. The pink one’s muzzle was bloodied bad and looked a bit messed up. Other than that, she seemed fine, though I disregarded the waterfall of tears. The other... she was worse off. She was probably suffering from a concussion right about now and her face had its share of red on it too, contrasting with the light blue. One of her wings looked like it was really bugging out in a weird position, but unfortunately, I wasn’t given a chance to scrutinize either further before what I assume to be the equivalent of a cop showed up. I hate cops. In case you didn’t know, that is.

“What’s going on here?!” He looked at the mares, then to me, “Who are you?!”

I pointed an accusing finger to the two ponies in the pile, “Officer, arrest these two for assaulting me, intent to murder, sexual harassment.”

“Sexual harassment?” He looked me over, and smiled creepily, “I could understand why they would... Anyway, would you mind staying? I need everypony’s accounts.”

I sat on the plastic bin and rested my chin on a fist, “Right here, officer.”

The cop or guard or whatever the hell he was went over to the two mares and read them their charges. The crowd of ponies that I didn’t even notice until now was slowly coming apart, which I was thankful for. Carrot Top though, she seemed like she was having the time of her life. Giggling, snickering, all types of shit. One arm was covering her eyes as she fell onto her back, holding in the noises you’d hear with someone wanting to desperately laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked dryly.

She sat upwards, smiling warmly, “Goddesses, I haven’t laughed like that in a while... Do you know what you just did?” I shook my head. “You’re about to get two of the Elements of Harmony arrested for bogus charges.”

“Hey! You saw her! She was about to attack me!”

“Or invite you to a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party, like Pinkie Pie usually does.”

Well, shit. Definitely not what I was expecting. Which reminded me...

“Oh, is it that time again?”

I pulled the zip-bag full of coke out and a fake ID along with it, which let me quickly line some up on my arm. A quick snort-snort, and bam, feeling good again. I would probably end up needing more later anyway, so might as well get some in my now before the side-effects set in. What extreme fun, right?

Right.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned my head back a bit, blinking a few times. While I was doing so, the cop came back and looked at my funny.

He scratched his head, “What was that you just did? Some kinda medicine?”

You couldn’t believe how hard it was to hold back from laughing in his face, but I did, “... Yeah, medicine for my sinuses. Specially prescribed for me.”

He somehow managed to snap his hoof in disappointment, “Darn, mine were acting up like crazy, but can’t break the rules and share medicine if it’s meant for only one pony.” What an idiot. “Anyway, I just need your deposition of what happened here, then I’ll drop these two off at the hospital.”

“Where should I start?” I asked, sitting back down. “It’ll shock you man, I’ll tell you that much.”

He flipped open a notepad and pulled a pencil out from only god know’s where, “How did you know Miss Pie was going to assault you?”

“I saw a picture in the house of a Miss Rarity that showed the pink one tackling someone else to the floor. I wasn’t about to let that happen to me.”

“Well...” He looked unconvinced for a moment but simply shrugged, “I suppose that’ll work as self-defense. And what of Miss Dash?”

“Oh yeah, the lesbian, right?” Dead silence. “... Anyway, I saw her in my mirror when I was walking around, and she was spying on me, so I assumed she was going to try and either mug or attack me. When she came at me once I defended myself from the other, I just threw her to the ground.”

The stallion scoffed, “You can’t believe how common it is for her to slam into random ponies under the guise of ‘trying tricks.’ If she can do a Sonic Rainboom, you’d think she’d be able to control herself during a few tricks.” What was this guy even on about? “Anyway, your testimony seems to check out for now, and I’ll send for somepony if needed. Have a good day.”

The damn guy just waltzed off after that. Good. He seemed like a real schmuck. At least he used that stupid horn on his head to take away those two ponies on the ground. All in all, that was a fun experience. For me, at least. Carrot Top just shrugged it off a bit quicker than I expected. In fact, I noticed she was giving some pretty mean looks towards those two. If I had to guess why, it would be cause we were having a really good conversation. Or she hates them. Who knows? Maybe crazy shit like this happens pretty often and she’s used to it by now, though I honestly doubt much happens in some rural backend of some country.

Now that all that had calmed down, some interesting thoughts set in. As much as I hated to admit it, all of this felt all too real. The idea of snapping and going crazy jumped in my mind, but throughout my life, I learned that doing stuff like that is only counterproductive. That and you should take those feelings and drown them in material things along with alcohol or drugs. So... If this happened to actually be really happening... that meant I was in some unknown land full of what seemed to be a bunch of “ponies” that had some seriously funky color schemes. To add to that, they functioned just like people.

Weird.

I think I’m going to dislike this experience. Like, a lot. And right about now, I’m going to have to find a way back to goddamn Kuala Lumpur. At least there I had some cozy living until those jackasses showed up with their guns. The thought that they even did something like that just infuriates me to no end, but I calmed down before Carrot Top noticed. Speaking of her...

She seems kind of nice. Courteous, casual, and classy. Thank god she’s not a snob or some know-it-all or try-hard. Hate those. Not only did she save my life, but she’s damn friendly and hasn’t asked a thing in return. Sounds like a team-player to me. Shit, what am I even going on about right now? Something’s gotten into me, but like all weird feelings, they too can be unhealthily buried down somewhere inside of you. How convenient. Good thing she doesn’t reciprocate those feelings...

At least, I hope not.

I looked to the mare in question, “So, what now?”

“You sorta beat up two other ponies and now you’re just asking what to do now?” she asked blankly. I nodded. “There really isn’t much to do to Ponyville other than seeing the sights, but I could just introduce you to my roommate. That would kill some time.”

“Sure, I just want to get out of the streets.” I muttered, watching as ponies walked by, staring at me.

Carrot Top rolled her eyes, “Forget about them. They just like seeing new things every now and then, so they’ll be looking out for you for a few days.”

A few days? I’m planning on getting the hell out of here as soon as possible, A.K.A. way before that. But I didn’t say a thing and just nodded my head again. Sometimes it’s just easier to do that instead of actually answering. So I got up, grabbed my box, stuck it under my shoulder, and motioned for her to lead the way, which she happily did with a smile. Damn, everyone seems pretty decently happy. Eh, I could be more, but I’m not going to bother with trying. I just want to get my mind off of whatever the hell is happening to me right now.

As we’re walking to some place, she tried making small talk, “So, Lyor, right? What did you say you did before you were in the hospital?”

My eyes looked around while maintaining conversation, “Just arms dealing. It makes friends, enemies, and money. I’m just surprised I’m still alive at this point. It’s a very tricky business.”

“Arms, though? Like, swords and stuff?”

I gave her an “are-you-serious” look laced with amusement but just smiled it off, “Yeah. Swords and stuff like that. I made good money though. That was probably the only perk to it. Anyway, what do you do?”

“I’m somewhere between a gardener and a farmer. I’m not a hick like those Apples though... I just don’t have enough space to actually have a farm, only a really large backyard.”

Hmm. The type of girl that actually provides for herself and has a trade. You don’t see many of those these days. My experience was that a gold-digger will come up to you and try to hustle something from you at any chance possible, but hey, if a guy is stupid enough to let that happen, he probably deserves to have his money taken like that. Though, she doesn’t seem anything like that at all. Respectable.

“Sounds like honest, clean work. Must be rewarding to grow your own food and stuff."

“Oh, it definitely is. Plus, it makes money on the side because of selling everything else at the market.”

I hummed in approval and continued walking, “So, got any f-”

I stopped moving right there and then, unfortunately not of my own choice though. A purple-reddish aura covered in an instant, rooting me in place. Well, shit. I turned my head to see another one of those damn unicorns coming up to me with this huge-ass smile. That’s so incredibly creepy. This one was... hell, purple maybe? Lavender, something. Ew. It had some kind of emo, goth hair too. A darker purple with a magenta stripe going through? No thanks. Why do people have to find a way to make themselves unique through looks? Shit is ridiculous.

The unicorn trotted up quick, a stupidly big smile on her face as she looked up at me, “Sweet Celestia, a real human! In Ponyville of all places!”

I was not going to enjoy this encounter.

At all.

Author's Notes:

Unfortunately, I'm not dead yet, despite how much all of you are probably hoping for that. Anyway, here's the chapter, etc., etc.. Enjoy it, blah, blah, blah, other miscellaneous bullshit, etc.. Can't give even a vague sense of when the next chapter is coming out, but as usual, assume it's "Soon" in terms of Valve Time.

To satiate your hunger for this stuff, have a brief chatlog I saved from between me and Lucius:

[7:23:02 PM] Lucius: Another time nigga
[7:23:14 PM] Stillmatic: Geez bro
[7:25:10 PM] Lucius: Too tired
[7:25:21 PM] Stillmatic: Go to sleep
[7:25:32 PM] Lucius: Got shit to do
[7:25:41 PM] Stillmatic: Then do it!
[7:25:52 PM] Lucius: Too tired
[7:25:58 PM] Stillmatic: Then go to sleep
[7:26:27 PM] Lucius: Got shit to do
[7:27:26 PM] Stillmatic: Then do it!
[7:28:57 PM] Lucius: Too tired!
[7:29:03 PM] Lucius: DONT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS FUCKING PARADOX
[7:29:17 PM] Stillmatic: Nope
[7:29:18 PM] Lucius: ITS AN INFINITE LOOP
[7:29:23 PM] Stillmatic: Then go to sleep!

Anyway...

As Always,

Stay Trilla.

Edit: Did not realize how much errors I had with this before posting. Fuck. Will try to fix it as soon as I can.

Chapter 5: Vitamins, Nutrients, and Ponies You Live With

My Daily Dose of Carotene
Chapter 5: Vitamins, Nutrients, and Ponies You Live With
By: Stillmatic

Carrot Top

Lyor mouthed something to me, but I got the message pretty quickly, “Don’t worry, I understand. Telekinesis isn’t all that fun.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at this kind of stuff. Unicorns always got so grabby with their magic. So to help out Lyor, I just gave Twilight’s horn a flick, disrupting the magic around him and forcing it to poof away. He looked really tense all of a sudden after dropping, probably because of a random pony he doesn’t know coming out of nowhere and grabbing him like that. I knew Twilight was a bit anti-social, but even she had to have the common sense to respect somepony’s space, right?

Right?

He crossed his arms and glared her down, “Just who the hell do you think you are? You can’t just grab a person off the street like that. Where’s that one cop? Maybe he can-”

“No!” She shouted out loud, smacking her hooves to her mouth fast. After pulling them away sheepishly, she took a breath and tried to give him her friendliest look. “I’m sorry about that, it’s just that, well... you’re human.”

… Hmm... Human, eh? So that’s what Lyor is. Normally, I wouldn’t be all that interested in something like this, but this seemed different... felt different, too. How exactly does something that only Twilight’s heard of end up near Ponyville of all places? Well, he was technically in the Everfree for a while, so it might’ve been something from there.

Inside, I was sighing. As easy as it would be to abandon Lyor and let him fend for himself here, I think I’d actually feel real bad about it. He didn’t exactly get here in the best condition, and I kinda felt it was my duty to do something about helping him. Granted, it was weird how not many ponies freaked out about him, but I felt things were definitely going to get strained in time.

He scowled, “Oh, you’re racist? Or...” His brows furrowed, “... Speciesist..?”

“You know, she might be,” I added jokingly. “I could see that.”

Twilight’s mouth just fell at that, “W-What? No! Listen, it’s really important that I talk to you,” she looked both ways, “away from everypony else. A human ending up in Equestria is rare, very rare.”

Why did that come off as really ironic?

Lyor didn’t look amused by any of that, “So, what you’re saying is that there have been others before me?”

“Yes! Now I can explain it further if you just come into my library!”

She was really getting desperate about this, wasn’t she?

I cleared my throat to grab her attention, “Twilight, why do we have to go to your library? Can’t you just say it here?”

Her expression suddenly turned grave, “No. I’m sorry, but every human that ever entered Equestria was murdered not too long afterwards.” She looked directly at him, “The less time you spend out in the open, the better.”

Lyor begrudgingly nodded, “Lead the way, then. Not like I can shoot someone without any bullets anyway. Even though I’m pretty sure you’re just making up the murdering part.”

Murder..? In Equestria? That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? I've never heard of anypony being murdered before. At least... I think so? Why was Lyor so calm about it? And why am I asking all these questions to no one in particular and not Twilight? Mysterious.

If he wasn’t going to panic, then I wasn’t either, “Come on, Twilight, you can’t be serious about that part, can you?”

Twilight gave me an annoyed look, as if I was being a nuisance or something, “Sorry Carrot Top, but this doesn’t really concern you. I need to speak to him in private right now.”

Did she just... No, she couldn’t have... Was she seriously disrespecting me on that level?

Luckily, my new human friend wasn’t very happy with hearing that.

Lyor crossed his arms again, this time fixing a glare at that bookworm, “Whoa, what the hell are you talking about? She’s the one that saved me, you dipstick.” He let his arms fall, “Besides, I need someone here other than Rarity that isn’t a complete mess of social skills. Unlike some others I’ve seen here today...”

Oh darn, that was good.

Twilight sighed in exasperation, “Fine! She can come, but we have to go now!”

That was quick. Might as well speed ahead a bit...

You know, I’ve never heard of a human before, but they’re pretty interesting. They really aren’t all that different from a pony when you consider it, but we definitely don’t look the same...

Okay, that was pretty obvious, actually. I don’t know I bothered saying that last part.

Moving on, me and him were making small talk while he looked at himself in a mirror and Twilight was grabbing books from all over.

That mare needed to calm down a bit.

Anyway, I had a lot of time to look Lyor over while he was in the hospital, but seeing him up and about made him come off kinda different. Pants, shoes, and that really weird looking vest were all that I could that he was wearing right now.

When I asked him if humans normally dressed like he did now, he told me he felt like he was “part of Secret Service and just had a tryst with the First Lady.” I don’t know what that meant, but it definitely didn’t come off as comforting.

But what I mainly focused on was his face, or rather his head. There sure was a lot of thick stubble around his mouth, which he was fussing over right now. I guess being asleep for a week will do that to a stallion’s face. But honestly, if you asked, I probably couldn’t describe his skin tone past light-skinned. And at the top of his head was red hair cut short and clean. Of course, the color of it was nothing in comparison to my mane, but that’s another story for another time. I wonder if all humans looked like this... Probably not...

“The worst part? I always knick my left cheek. Always. There’s never been a time where I haven’t shaved and accidentally cut it,” Lyor finished.

Oh darn, I spaced out, didn’t I? Good thing he didn’t notice.

“Knew a guy who said I was damned to live with the curse of always cutting my cheek, but then again, this was the guy who seemed to think that his family was cursed to die on Tuesdays.” He scoffed, “New Yorkers. Not only does their baseball team suck a fat wad, but they’re all crazy. I’m telling you, they’re way out there.”

I really had no idea what Lyor was talking about at this point. I thanked Celestia when Twilight pulled us toward a table loaded with books and sat us down.

“Alright, now I’ve brought some books on humans throughout Equestrian history,” Twilight began. “Almost all of them were murdered in some way and without a culprit, except for two males that killed each other in battle. Did you happen to know any of them?” She asked hopefully, a sketchpad and quill floating up in front of her.

Lyor’s look was priceless, “You’re joking, right? How the hell would I know anyone who came here before me?”

“Every question is worth asking,” Twilight mumbled, jotting down notes.

I rapped on the table to get her attention, “But Twilight, didn’t you say that all those humans have been dead for-”

“Centuries? I did. But what I’ve discovered is that roughly the same time humans seemed to stop coming to Equestria, tax money from Canterlot was allocated to funding something called the ‘Human Protection Program’.”

“So basically,” Lyor folded his fingers together and rested his head on them, “the Witness Protection Program for guys and gals like me who somehow got here. Riveting. So, how did these fellas before me get offed?”

Twilight’s ears fell quicker than Pinkie Pie’s mouth spoke, “W-Well...”

“Come on, spit it out. I don’t got all day, ya know.”

I grabbed the nearest book and flipped it open to a random page. I started reading the first paragraph I saw and felt my hooves shake, “... Wow...”

That was... I actually feel sick right about now. Really sick. I dropped the book and ran to the nearest trash bin. I really don’t need to say what happened, do I? Somepony was holding my mane back, and I could feel the tingling running down my spine at the touch, so I figured it was Twilight using her magic to help me out.

After I was done, I lifted my head and wiped away the tears in my eyes. I really hated that feeling you get from stuff like this. I really do. It felt so disgusting.

But when I looked back, it became kind of obvious that it wasn’t magic that was giving me that tingling feeling. Lyor let go of my mane, which thankfully didn’t get any puke on it. I shuddered at the thought, breaking his concerned look into some small smile. He grabbed the book and began skimming around, but here’s the kicker: He was reading it, and not getting sick.

I’m just standing there, wiping away throw-up from my mouth and gargling some water Twilight gave me, while Lyor isn’t bothered in the least! You see something wrong with this, right? Or is it just me? I don’t think it’s just me. It has to be him, or something. Probably.

Twilight bit her lip, and scribbled fast, “Insensitivity to disturbing content...”

Lyor looked up long enough to give her a look, “What’s disturbing is your lack of etiquette. I’m right here. If you wanted to make a case about how I read something, why didn’t you just ask like any normal person?”

“Person..?” That was taken down too, “Mister..?”

“Just call me Lyor.”

“Mister Lyor,” Oh, he definitely did not like the sound of ‘mister’, “why weren’t you caught off guard like Carrot Top was? I didn’t really do much better when I first read it, but you obviously didn’t feel shocked by what you read.”

My new human friend held the book with one hand and just started moving the other around to go along with his lecture, “This stuff? It literally just says on that one part that some chick aired-out a guy with a shotgun. That isn’t the worst thing out there. Sure isn’t good, but not the worst.”

You know, I was still feeling a bit queasy from this whole thing, but none of what he just said really reassured me that I was making the right choice here. But even I have to admit that some of it got me curious.

Sweet Celestia, I must look like a sicko for thinking that. But I mean, it is for his safety, right? And that’s pretty important, right? I took a breath. Right.

“So what’s a shotgun?” I asked as innocently as possible. Just to sweeten the deal, I kicked up the cute factor by tilting my head to the side a bit and fluttered my eyelashes twice.

“Is this the part where I become a literal encyclopedia of all human knowledge, history, and culture and mention my hatred for mankind? I feel like this is the roughly approximate point, even if I wouldn’t believe what I say. God knows I hate a whiny misanthrope.” He ran a finger against his stubble in thought, “But, I bet if I had a shotgun, the worst that would have happened was maybe a few blood spatters from those damn dogs.”

That sounded kind of gruesome. I liked the fact he saved me, but I really want to put it behind me. Still, I guess I owe him that he’s at least considering the idea of helping me earlier instead. But he honestly seemed to be taking this too well. Humans are just like that, maybe.

“Dogs?” Twilight asked, “What dogs? As in Diamond Dogs?”

Lyor put the book down and sat, “Forget it. Just get back to this whole murder thing you’re trying to sell.”

“I’m not trying to sell anything! It’s fact that humans were killed off only after each one was alive here for a few weeks!” Twilight let that hang for a few seconds.

I know he didn’t feel it himself, but I was sort of afraid. The way he just brushed off hearing this stuff was weird, and it worried me. I didn’t want him getting hurt or killed by some monsters from centur-

Ugh. That’s it. How didn’t I see this earlier?

I cleared my throat, “Twilight, if all that happened so long ago, what makes you so sure that whatever was doing it is still alive?”

She didn’t have an answer to that. Didn’t consider that, did you? (If you ever read this, Twilight, you should know that I never really meant anything bad with what I said about you. You’re just... different, is all. Yeah. Different.)

“Yeah, that’s right.” Lyor rested back, “Nothing can live centuries. I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear here.”

And that, mares and gentlecolts, is how you get Twilight to start talking a lot. By saying something like that.

That darn unicorn perked right up, “Actually, there are several beings in and out of Equestria that have lived thousands of years.” Oh Goddesses, the smugness. “Both of the Princesses are immortal, as is Discord. I’m sure there’s more too.”

He sat forward again, thinking, “Princesses? Hmm... Why am I talking to you and not them again?”

Twilight looked confused, “Huh?”

“No really, why shouldn’t I just go and talk to them myself? If they’re immortal, they’ve probably been around long enough for them to know how to get me back fully intact.”

Hah! Okay, admit it, hearing that was pretty funny, wasn’t it? A random... human can’t just go and see the Princesses whenever he wants!

“You can’t just go and see Princesses whenever you want!”

Lyor’s face went neutral, “Why.”

I’d just like to remind everypony that he’s new to this place. How could he know that the Princesses are super-busy every single day of their immortal lives trying to keep this country running? I sure didn’t, up until Twilight mentioned it.

“The Princesses are busy every single day, trying to keep Equestria running; they don’t have time for one pony’s whim.”

Lyor stood and grabbed her by the collar of her neck and held his grip, “Listen, I’m not messing around here. I need to get home, so you’re going to get those Princesses off their lazy asses and do it for me! Because you’re really starting to aggravate me, and I may not be all muscle, but I can sure make your life hell pretty easily.”

Oh no…

Twilight gulped, “A-Are you threatening me?!”

I never thought I’d ever use this word, but I think it’s appropriate. Lyor “guffawed”, brushed off her shoulder and set her down with a smile, “Of course not. But I’m just making sure you take note of the fact that you scratching my back would be in your best interest.” I saw Twilight actually motion her hoof behind him, “I didn’t mean the back part literally. Just set up an appointment with whoever’s in charge for as soon as possible. Now get to it.”

Wow. That was a complete turnaround… Did he intend it that way? Twilight looked a bit, well, more than a bit, but she was scared. Not “scared-for-her-life-scared”, but more like “oh-Goddesses-what’s-happening” scared. You may not know it, but there’s a big difference there.

She nodded like she was still intimidated and grabbed a fresh scroll, “I-I’ll see what I can do.”

Lyor gave her a pat on the head and motioned to the door, “Come on, let’s leave her to it.” He saw me give a concerned look toward Twilight and rolled his eyes, sorta smiling and mouthing “she’s fine.” Eh, not like I was empathetic for long, so I just walked out with him and closed the door behind me.

Who was I to argue anyway? He seemed to know what he was doing. I think. But threatening Twilight to get what he wanted… Oh Celestia, I hope this doesn’t bite me in the flank later on. Worst part? I still felt like supporting him. Either I can’t recognize danger, or I’m just too lenient with him. He’s a grown stallion, so he can definitely handle his own problems. And they didn’t seem that bad. He just needs somepony to look after him, just in case. I looked back at Twilight scribbling away.

Oh yeah, definitely needs somepony.

“Now, before we were interrupted, you were talking about seeing someone?”

I rattled my brain for a sec, “Hmm… Oh yeah! I wanted to introduce you to my roommate. She’s really real.”

You know, I didn’t think he’d recognize that last bit, but it looked like he did when he almost laughed. I didn’t think they would have movies where he was from, but who doesn’t love Really Real: The Blueblood Story? Other than being amazing and really high-budget, the special effects were unbelievable.

“Really real, huh?” Lyor cracked his neck while we walked through Ponyville, “That brings back memories.” See? Even he loved it.

So it went on like that for another fifteen minutes, us talking and asking questions while we got closer to my house. Now, I know what you’re thinking:

“Carrot Top, why do you own a house and not live on your farm? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

The answer to that is I hate being so far from Ponyville. I may own a farmhouse with more than enough room, but it just wouldn’t feel like a home without being in the town my family’s lived in for generations. Does that make sense? I don’t know, but I’m not changing my mind. Besides, living in Ponyville has its perks if you compare it to the Root of Health Farms (that’s what my farm’s called). Close to the market and other businesses, my friends are nearby, and most importantly, I don’t wake up on the property next to hers.

Ugh… I didn’t want to even think about that. That’s always a real downer.

We eventually got to my house and I learned a few things about Lyor that actually got me more interested in him. I don’t know if he would want me saying anything, so I’ll zip it for now. You know, just in case.

“Nice place. I like the patio.”

It was true. It really was the nicest of what I think were only two in Ponyville. The only other pony I knew that was willing to invest the bits to buy the real estate space for that was Filthy Rich, and well, the only reason either of us have one is because of a drunken bet between us. Before you get all “holier-than-thou” on me, I didn’t need to spend a bit that wasn’t on making it myself. Both of us had the room beforehoof, he just hired somepony to do it for him.

What a wimp, right?

“I built it myself,” I replied a bit too happily. Oh Goddesses. I probably looked like an idiot.

But what really surprised me was when he walked through the front yard and looked at almost everything, “And the landscaping is great too. Lemme guess…”

Why did that make me give him such a dumb smile, whyyyyy, “Me. Glad you like it, it took a lot of time to do.”

So after all that happened, we went inside and sat in my kitchen. Now, I consider myself a pretty modest mare. I work hard, I get paid good money for my vegetables, and I try to live comfortably. But my kitchen was the last thing that actually represented that about me.

“What the hell.” Lyor seemed perfectly fine with my house up until this point, “I did not expect this.”

“Okay, I admit it.” I couldn’t help but just slump a little, “I may spend a bit extra here. But I swear, those countertops aren’t even the really expensive granite from-“

He gave me a weird look, “Wait, what? I’m talking about the fact you have electricity here.”

Uhh… did I miss something?

“… Of course I have electricity. Who doesn’t? I pay my bills, you know.”

Lyor seemed like an okay guy, but now he looked really confused. Didn’t they have fridges and microwaves and toasters and all that stuff where he was from? That’s sort of the basic stuff for a kitchen. I just buy a lot more of the specific appliances.

“I didn’t mean that either. I’m surprised you guys have all of this.” He pointed to toaster, “Like that. From walking around in a town full of thatched roofs and cobblestone streets, I didn’t exactly expect to see something like a toaster or a blender. Surprisingly advanced given what I-“

I heard that familiar crash against the door, which wasn’t all that new.

Obviously.

Anyway, when Lyor heard it, he practically jumped out of his skin. I can’t say it frightened him, because as soon as it happened, he bolted up and pulled out that knife I saw him use earlier. It was actually kind of funny to see him waving it around in such a paranoid way.

I should probably keep him away from the kitchen knives. You know, just in case.

“Calm down,” I waved him away with a hoof, as nonchalantly as a pony can do when a weird species starts swinging a small knife, “It’s just my roommate.”

Lyor’s eyes looked around as he settled back down and put the knife away, “Your roommate has a battering ram?”

Huh. So he knows about the rams from the Green Steppes? Most ponies might see a goat or something during their lives, but even I haven’t seen a ram. Maybe he knows more than he lets on. I watched him stare at the door.

Maybe.

“Door’s unlocked!” I called out. “As in don’t break it down!”

And boom, in comes Derpy.

Yeah, she’s a pretty nice roommate to have. Always offers to pay rent (I turn her down), cooks some great food, and is probably the friendliest mare in Ponyville. Who doesn’t love her? Celestia knows how many stallions go after her. Kinda funny when you think about it. She has all of them running after her, she’s oblivious, and I was in a relationship with him.

Lyor noticed me shudder, “What’s wrong? Want me to get rid of her?”

“What?! No!” I shouted. “Derpy, come meet our guest!”

For some reason, ponies that don’t know her tend to assume she’s slow, and they don’t even realize how wrong they are. I guess it’s her eyes? One of them rotated towards Lyor. He looked kind of creeped out, so I gave him a gentle nudge with one of my legs from under the table. This human did not seem pleased by that. But that was practically gone once Derpy was in his face and flapping her wings in excitement. She was always easy to get going.

“Oh my gosh! You’re famous!” Derpy put her hooves to her mouth and squealed, “Oooh! A joo-mun!”

Lyor backed his chair up a bit, “Sorry to break it to you, but I’m only half-Jewish. The other half is Irish.”

Even if she gets confused, Derpy just tends to look past it instantly, “Wow! Really? I know a-a…”

It seemed like anytime you put him into a chair, he started to lean back, “As ungodly cliché as this is probably going to sound for some reason that I can’t even begin to understand, I’m a human.”

What? “Wait, why would that be cliché?” He shrugged. “Hmm. So, Derpy, this is Lyor. Lyor, this is Derpy, my roommate!”

My fine, feathered friend plopped her flank into a seat and stared at him in amazement, “So it’s a hyoo-min! That sounds like it more sense now that you’ve said it! Like my dad always used to say, ‘Enunciate Derpy, enunciate!’ And it only took me eighteen years to look it up in a dictionary.”

Lyor was obviously confused, so I asked the obvious question, “Derpy, how did you even know about what he was?”

“Oh!” She started rummaging through that ratty, old mail sack of hers and threw down today’s paper, “He’s all over the news! See?”

I looked at the newspaper and started reading it… It didn’t look right. The picture they used for the front page was a perfect shot of Lyor with his fist out and Pinkie’s face crashing against it. You could see teeth flying. Teeth. And the article’s title was something like “Human Sighted! Defeats Attempted Rapist And Saves Town!”

Luna’s mercy, they quoted the officer: “I saw him strike like lightning! Who knows how many stallions could’ve fallen for that wench’s tricks! Thank Celestia he was there when he was and took care of her! Whoever this human is, he’s a bucking hero in my book. It was an honor to have met him. Wherever you are, human, you got a buddy in me.”

I put it down without a word and Lyor took it while he had the chance, reading it over, “… I like your people’s ability to have rational public discourse through print. Mine don’t do that much anymore.”

… What? What was he even talking about?

Derpy pouted and kind of surprised me with what she said, “Really? So, you have to, like, deal with the commercialization of the media spheres and stuff like that?”

I sort of blanked out at that point. I’m not some idiot, but when ponies started talking all that political doodad flip-flap like this is when I draw the line. Last thing I need is to hear some nutty conspiracy theory Derpy thought up and tries pushing onto Lyor. I don’t know if I could recover from some embarrassment like that.

“Uh, Carrot Top?”

I snapped out of my thoughts with a weird cross of a “hmm?” and a grunt.

“I was asking where the bathroom was,” he smirked, “If you aren’t too busy daydreaming.”

Ugh, he caught me off guard right there. I… I actually giggled. I really hope it was just from embarrassment, but that cheesy smirk might’ve helped too. After giving him the directions, he took off and left us two girls alone. Too bad I didn’t realize how awkward that would be for me.

Derpy grabbed my face out of nowhere and literally lifted me out of my chair, “Carrot, I’m so proud!” She broke it off into a tight hug, “Finally getting back onto the dating scene after Caramel!” Now it was her turn to titter like a schoolfilly.

I didn’t see this coming. This is bad. And the fact I felt my face heat up didn’t help my situation out AT ALL.

“You’re blushing! It’s true!”

“How can you even tell?! I’m orange!” Hushing her up with a hoof to her mouth, I tried to compose the straightest face I could make, “Derpy, listen to me. You got it all wrong. Where did you even get an idea like that?”

We dropped each other and she kept that stupid grin on her face, “Oh come on, I saw the way you blushed at what he said!” Oh no. There was that overly-dreamy look and sigh, “That was soooo cute the way you giggled! And don’t forget the fact you were literally waiting for him to get out of that coma!”

“I was worried!”

“A whole week spent fussing over your bed-ridden little vegeta-“

My hoof was over her muzzle again, “Derpy, that’s a terrible pun. And nothing’s going on between me and Lyor,” I added for good measure.

It just got silent after I said that. Derpy was staring off out the window with that look. You know, the one where the pony is touched by romantics and that sorta stuff. Ugh, that always bugged me a lot. Derpy always waited for her knight in shining armor, I just wanted to avoid that gushy stuff altogether. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some old witch or anything, but I have to run a business that takes a lot of work to maintain. I don’t have the time to mess with any of that, let alone consider it.

So I told Derpy that, even if it was nervously.

I was practically rubbing a mark into the table with how much I ran my hoof against it to try and look bored, “Besides, it’s not like I can make the time for some air-headed romance. The farm and garden aren’t easy to keep up with when you don’t have any help.”

Big mistake.

“You can’t just say something like that, CT! And I bet Lyor could help around if you just asked him, you know.”

She might’ve had a point, but I sure wasn’t going to follow up on it.

Instead, I just stared at her like she was crazy (I always had my suspicions), “Derpy, he just came out of a coma, got into a fight with a pack of Diamond Dog slavers, knocked out two of the Elements of Harmony, and saved the life of a Cockatrice. I don’t think he’s in the best condition to do any sort of farm work.”

Sinking in, sinking in…

“But-“ Guess not, “- he’s like, strong-looking!”

“Strong?” Both of us turned around to see Lyor standing over our shoulder, “I always considered myself scrappy, but definitely not strong. I’m too lazy to do anything past cardio.”

Oh chips. How long was he standing there for? I hope he didn’t hear any of that…

“And to answer what I’m sure you’re thinking about, I just walked in.” My new human friend shrugged and sat down, “So, what now? We probably have some time to kill before what’s-her-face gets a response back from those ‘princesses’.”

You see? I was worried for nothing… Unless he lied to just make this not as awkward as it could have been. But being the lovely mare I am, I just wanted to get on with putting that in the forgotten past. And as much as I wanted to show him around some more, it was getting close to noon and today was a half-day for Cheerilee’s class.

Getting up, I headed towards the door, “I actually have to go pick up my sister from her school, so if you want, you two can get to know each other while I’m gone.”

But of course it wasn’t meant to be. Derpy snatched me up before I got outside and sat me back down with that bubbly look of hers… This could only end so well…

“Actually, we’re staying here while Lee-orr picks her up.”

That grabbed his attention, “… Huh? No offense, but that probably isn’t the smartest thing to do. I doubt Carrot Top would be comfortable with that, and I don’t even know my way around this place, so…”

Derpy grinned, “So you agree that you don’t mind and that you’ll ask for directions to the schoolhouse!”

“Lyor, this really isn’t necessary. I’ll go pick her-“ And she put a hoof over my mouth this time.

Giving a sweet look to him, she finished her argument, “Me and CT have some stuff to talk about. You understand, right? Mare stuff.”

I don’t know why, but he got pretty uncomfortable when he heard that. The look he was giving us wasn’t really something I could recognize. Honestly, how do you even know what a human’s facial expressions mean after only just meeting him that day? I sure didn’t.

So he got up and started walking with a small wave back, “I’ll leave you ladies to it then.”

Once the door closed (and we were practically waiting for it to), Derpy looked at me with a gleam n her eyes and said what I definitely didn’t want to hear, “So gimme all the details on this guy!”

Oh boy… “Derpy, for the last time, I…”

Lyor

Well, here we are.

Again.

So just let me get this straight with you all: I don’t know what the hell my life is becoming at this point. It’s been less than a day and I’m already feeling trapped by this place. The only reason I know this isn’t some sick nightmare from a bad high is because the coke highs I’ve given myself here feel nothing like the ones I’ve had in dreams. Yes, I’ve dreamed of cocaine before. But here’s the thing, these feel real. Like, absurdly real. Unrealistically surreally real. And that’s not the real I like.

But maybe that isn’t the worst thing on my plate right now. I’m a free-thinker, get me? I don’t really do well in restrictive environments, and as free as this place seemed, the amount of confusion I felt every second was like a pseudo-slavery. I’m good at hiding things like that from cropping up, but god damn, am I perplexed right now. Things seem to work so oddly here. Obviously I noticed that before, but look at what’s been happening. First off, I’m still alive. Second-

Wait, why am I even explaining any of this?

Forget it.

Anyway, I’m walking through the town, using my internal male-compass to guide my way to this schoolhouse (jealous, ladies?). A bunch of ponies that I pass by wave at me with those smiles you’d see on a go-go dancer or something… Ehh, maybe not the perfect comparison, but you get the point. If not, make one of your own, you lazy ass.

So the locals seemed to be getting friendlier with me, and lo and behold, stop me to thank me about stopping the “rape” that was mentioned in the paper, as well as some “window vandal.” Gosh, do I feel special. No really, I actually felt like laughing from this. Those ponies chuckled alongside me and one really weird guy-pony asked for my autograph. Suppose there’s a first time for everything.

After a bit of walking and trusting my natural intuition, I somehow was lucky enough to get to wherever Carrot Top was talking about.

Good lord, it looked like something off Little House on the Prairie. Andjust so you know, I really, really despised that show. With every fiber of my being. Really. So you could probably guess my reluctance to even get close to an abomination like that, but I did it. Somehow. I’m a hero or something, now.

But as my luck would have it, guess who I ran into as I was heading and the school bell rang. Yeah. It was the cop. The kids, or whatever the hell they were, were cheering him as they all left, with some other adult pony tagging along behind. And then, they saw me.

“There he is right now!”

God damn cops.

“Uh…”

He somehow got onto his hind legs and threw an arm over my shoulder like we were chums, “This is the hero that I was talking about! This is the crime-fighter from another world!”

…What…

Kids swarming all over me, trying to be crappy little nuisances by asking questions and being loud. I guess some things really are the same in both worlds. Maybe they were more annoying here, who knows. But gee whiz, they tried.

The school teacher pulled the kids back to give me some room and gave a disgustingly large smile, “So you’re the human that everypony has been talking about! You’re being called a hero, you know.”

“I’ve heard.” I really hope she got the point when I said that.

Of course, she didn’t and it went right past her bulbous head.

“I’m Cheerilee, and you are?” She held out a hoof, which I shook with as much reluctance as I had when I saw this nuthouse.

“Lyor. I’m here to pick up Carrot Top’s sister for her.” Would she get it this time? Let’s find out…

“Oh! You mean Staple Crop?”

Who the hell in their right mind names their daughter something like that? It’s god awful. I… Man, what the hell have I gotten myself into?

The cop gave me a playful slug on the shoulder, “Hey buddy, how about before you head on out, you give a few words to the kids? You know, get ‘em interested in education and all that?” He set himself down and forced me to shake his hoof too, “Brass Buttons, by the way.”

Cheerilee’s face brightened up like a freaking Christmas tree powered by a nuclear reactor, “That’s a wonderful idea! Would you be so kind, Mister Lyor?”

For the love of Moses, what’s with all the “Misters”?

“Sure, why not? I can always make time for the kids.”

God I hate kids.

The teacher turned to her little followers and cleared her throat, “Now class, I want all of you to be on your tip-top behavior while Mister Lyor gives a rousing speech! No interrupting and mind your manners, kids.”

All those buggy, big eyes on small bodies just looking up at me… One of the most unnerving sights I’ve ever encountered in all my years…

But if I wanted to get through this, I had to play along. So to hell with everything, I was going to go all out. I took one muddy shoe and sat that piece of shit on nearby stump as heroically as possible and made one hell of an impression.

“Listen up kids, because I’m about to tell you one of the secrets of life.” They all leaned in closer at hearing that, “Knowledge is not power.”

Cheerilee’s face fall so fast I thought I somehow shot her with an empty gun.

But I continued anyway, “Knowledge is never power. It is the application of knowledge that is power. You can be the most book-learned person in the entire world and still be an idiot for not taking advantage of the information you know. And if you don’t want to take advantage of it, don’t even bother getting up in the morning to tackle life. The world turns only for the person that wants it in their hands, so never settle for less and always strive to be not the best you can be, but the best there is or ever will exist. Success comes to the person who never gives up.”

Alright, so I went a little overboard, but the way everyone was looking at me, you’d think they considered me a god or something. The kids were practically buzzing with excitement, the cop had an unnecessarily proud look on his face, and Cheerilee was smiling again. Who would’ve guessed? Welp, time to finish this little thing.

“Oh, and uh, stay in school and stuff, don’t do drugs, avoid time-shares, and try not to get into rivalries with Slavic arms dealers when you know you probably can’t win.” I looked at Cheerilee and nodded, “I guess that’s it.”

Applause everywhere. Man, what the hell is going on. I half-assed that to the point where anyone with any sensibility should’ve at least questioned that last part. Oh well, I guess I benefit either way from this whole unwanted escapade. And was it unwanted.

“That was excellent!” Cheerilee dick-rode. “I don’t think the class will mind having you as a guest-speaker later in the year, will they?” Of course, the kids were going wild. “I look forward to it, Mister Lyor.”

Five minutes later, the crowd of kid-ponies was thankfully gone and I was being introduced to Carrot Top’s little sister. You know, the one with the odd name.

The little filly was hopping all around me in a circle, spouting all sorts of crap about how exciting it was to meet a hero. I just sat there on the stump and tried to prevent a headache from creeping up on me. Of course, I remedied that with some powder to the nose, but that’s beside the point. Carrot Top’s little sister was a bit hard to describe. God knows I’m awful with naming colors, so I’ll just say she’s a young girl-pony with a lighter coat than her sister, and sort of golden hair. Bout all I can say, really.

The kid stopped and smiled the biggest smile I’ve seen on any of these damn horses.

“Hi!”

“Hey.”

“I’m Staple Crop!”

“I’m Lyor.”

“Wanna be friends?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright then.”

“Are you taking me back to Carrot?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?!”

“Yes.”

“Are you and her friends?”

“Yep.”

“That means we’re friends with a crime-fighter! Are you partners with the Mare-Do-Well?”

“I work alone.”

“Why?”

“I like it better that way.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Why?”

“You like to ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“You betcha!”

“Well, we should probably be getting back to your house. Your sister is probably worried sick.”

And thank the lord, the conversation ended right there. For the most part, at least. She still asked a few question while we were making our way back, but I took it like a real trooper. Why did I even volunteer for this? Ugh…

“So, are you and my sister coltfriend and marefriend?”

Besides the fact it took like ten seconds to even understand what the hell she was talking about with those funky words, I had only one thought left.

This was going to be one of those long walks that no sane person ever enjoys.

Author's Note

Well, here it is, finally. I can't remember when the last chapter was up and I'm too lazy to check, so fuck it. Now if you don't mind, I have half a dozen or so papers to write due by roughly next week. Also, CT's perspective will occassionally happen, but Lyor is likely to be used the most, mainly because he's funner to write for.

As Always,
Stay Trilla.

Chapter 6: Headlines and Horses

My Daily Dose of Carotene

Chapter 6: Headlines and Horses

By: Stillmatic

So, to put things in a clear and concise way, I was basically bored out of my mind. Staple Crop, Carrot Top’s little sister, was sitting next to me and enjoying a smoothie I bought her with the money I stole from that doctor. It looked good. So good, apparently, that she had to stop, sit down, and then drink it. I believe it was mango-flavored.

See, I developed a theory as to why these pony things can grab things with those hooves of theirs. Hooves are flat. Flat. So you might wonder, how do they even go about their daily lives when they apparently can only grab things with their mouths? At first I assumed that only those unicorn ones could live a fulfilling life because they got magic. Wouldn’t be surprised, but that’s not the point. The problem with that is that ponies can grab things with their hooves, so what I think goes on is that they have some weird-ass magic in their hooves that helps them grab what they want to grab.

Crazy stuff.

You probably don’t give a damn about this though. Neither do I. But I did notice Staple was having trouble walking on three legs and grabbing the smoothie, so the younger ones probably develop that crap as they get older.

Which once again returns me to my previous statement: bored out of my mind. You know I'd have to be if I was coming up with stuff like this.

Anyway, we were sitting at a park bench, minding our own business as time was crawling by like an anorexic cripple out of their wheelchair. Yeah. That slow. I was still a bit messed up from the coke, so with my thoughts racing every second, my heart pumping unhealthily fast, and my right leg jumping in place, I sat there, eternally tormented.

Or, at least until I saw something. Turns out some guy was sitting next to us the entire time... Wait. Two guys... No, actually, two guys, and two little girl ponies. Not counting Staple, of course. She was just chilling and sipping, they were talking some unimportant drabble about crap no one cares about.

The two males had their faces shoved right into the afternoon edition of the local cage-liner. Why's this important? Because lo and behold, guess whose picture graced the front page. Three guesses.

Screw it, it was me. Again. Twice in one day. Let's not even consider the fact that whoever makes these can somehow churn out stories like nothing, but focus on the fact that I'm somehow famous for something totally blown out of proportion. The picture was of me when I was posing on that stump with a foot on it. I gotta admit, they did snap my good side.

But the headline... The headline was something else.

"Sex Defender-"

Hilarious.

"-Prevents Total Collapse of Ponyville School System."

I always did love the education system, even if it was a mess.

I couldn't make out much more than that, but I did see another story way below it titled: "The Dangers of Psychotropic Radiation and You!"

Needless to say, I found myself slightly interested in what they had to say about me. So I did the most courteous thing I could possibly think of at that moment.

"Hey buddy," I started, "You done with that paper?"

Staple was watching intently at this exchange of vocal information, still drinking her smoothie away.

A guy's voice responded with, "Just about. Interesting news we've been having today."

He pulled the newspaper away and I finally got to see this guy. Guy-pony with a brownish coat, some darker hair, and some fancy clothes. Nice clothes, honestly. But that wasn't the end of it. Not by a mile.

A more familiar voice answered, "Definitely. You see me in the picture on the front? I'm famous now."

Brass Buttons. By some ungodly force in this universe, we somehow crossed paths again, despite seeing each other less than twenty minutes ago. Which would also mean that someone's written and printed an entire newspaper in even less time...

Anway, Brass Buttons. This guy already got on my nerves for being so chummy with me, but as I sat there weighing my options, I realized I'd rather have an unnecessary ego boost about being mistakenly called a hero instead. Who knew.

So as Buttons pulled away his paper and the first one snorted at his comment, they finally noticed who asked to borrow theirs. Yep. Me. Buttons looked like he was about to rocket out of his seat if one of those girl-ponies didn't put a hoof on his leg to stop him. He gave her a grateful nod and motioned to me.

"This is the guy I was telling you about, Rich!"

Well, well, well. His name is Richard. That's a bit different.

I expected Rich to size me up or something, but he just stuck a hoof out and smiled, "Pleasure to meet you. I'm Filthy Rich, one of Ponyville's local business magnates."

I shook his hoof, "Lyor Coleman. I'm one of Ponyville's local heroes, apparently."

"You bet!" Buttons encouraged. "He's been doing good things around this place, I tell you. Superior things!"

He's probably right, but that didn't stop Filthy Rich from asking questions.

"So, how long have you been in Ponyville?"

"Consciously? Less than a day. Funny how many things can happen in the span of a few hours. Even how much of a story, really."

"Of course, of course." He pulled his eyes from me to address a slurping sound. Staple sat there, eyes wide as she viewed the exchange between adults. Amazing. "Hello there, Staple Crop. How are you and your sister today?"

The "word for a young, female pony" stopped drinking the smoothie and smiled a huge-ass smile, "Great! Carrot just got done with your shipment, Mr. Rich! And now she's friends with Mr. Lyor too!" Good lord. "I think they may be special somepony's, but-"

I yanked the smoothie away, stopping her mid-sentence. She forgot it all before I even handed it back. Even I can recognize some ambiguous accusation like that. Not gonna let a rumor like that get around, even if I am going to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

Rich looked amused, "So, are you her foalsitter, then? And where is Carrot Top, actually?"

"Carrot Top just asked me to go and pick her sister up while she talked with her roommate."

Some word in the sentence caught his attention, "Oh? How is Derpy?"

"Interesting," I replied, not really knowing any other word.

Buttons elbowed his friend with a grin, but Rich played it off like a real gentleman. And when I say "like a real gentleman", I mean knocked his friend over. Funny how different cultures have different contexts.

"Hey! Watch it, Daddy!"

I looked around the guy-ponies and saw what I'm now guessing are their daughters. One was grayish with glasses, the other was basically pink with other colors that no one ever likes including into a mix. She had some royalty crap on her head, but that's unimportant. They were both looking at their dads with looks of bemusement. Guy things like hitting your friend or busting his chops seemed to universally go under the radar when it comes to females. Not that I expected otherwise.

Buttons' eyes lit up, "Oh! I forgot to introduce you to my daughter when you gave your speech at the schoolhouse." He nudged his daughter to the ground and towards me, "Say hello to Mr. Lyor, Silver Spoon!"

She seemed mildly interested in me, "Hello, Mr. Lyor."

Rich did the exact same thing, and his daughter was in front of me a second later, blowing a lock of hair away, "Hello, Mr. Lyor."

Rich chuckled, "Diamond Tiara can get a tad fickle with new ponies, you see."

"Daaaaaaaaaad!"

Not wanting to get involved with some familial bullshit, I said the only thing that would distract them, "What's up, kids?"

They immediately broke off their pretty passive faces and looked at each other, then me. Collective gasp from both. Suddenly, from Diamond Tiara, "You're from the city?!"

Once again, amazing. Why this was such a big thing was getting weird.

"Yeah. A pretty decent city, too."

"You sound like you're from Manehattan," Silver Spoon observed loudly.

"Nah, I'm from Boston." Best city ever, mainly because it keeps coming up in conversation. "Best city ever, mainly because it keeps coming up in conversation."

Yep.

"Where's that?" she asked. "Is it near Trottingham?"

"Nah. It's over in Massachusetts. Not the best state, but it's okay." I never was much of a fan of northern places. "Hey, are you three in the same class?" Probably a stupid question seeing as though it's a single schoolhouse, which somehow manages to teach all grades apparently.

Staple nodded, "Yep! I think we sit on opposite sides of the room though."

"Why don't you three go play or something like that? I'm just gonna read the paper for a bit."

They did leave, but they didn't play. More like head over somewhere nearby and start talking shit about their classmates or some similar stuff.

Good for them.

Rich handed me the paper and I started skimming through the article about me. It was really well-written, I'll give it that. Sure, it was filled with blatant lies about me, but at least they were positive ones. For example, I was apparently master orator and philosopher who came from a forest of wisdom.

Apparently.

Moving on, I noticed other things that seemed out of place. I'll just start listing the cumulative things that I've done to help the fine, but stupidly named town of Ponyville:

As the headline said, prevented the collapse of the education system.
Chopped down a tree and use the stump to give the greatest speech in town history.
Defended the rights of all sexually repressed males in the country.
Gave all of the children reason to pursue higher education beyond what was expected of them from society.
Defeated a Diamond Dog invader force.
Caused a decline in rapist activity nationwide through #5.
Set precedent for no-tolerance policies for sexual harassment for law enforcement.
And this one felt very strange to read, but I also seem to have tamed a wild Cockatrice. I feel like that's gonna affect me sometime later, if the others don't beforehand.

... So to put things in very basic terms, I was apparently a person who was both heroic and wise. Heroic? No way. Wise? I'd settle for cunning, but even that might be pushing it most days. Still, I was, in some weird way, flattered and confused. It'd probably be best to ignore it entirely.

My mind drifted briefly to what Carrot Top and Derpy might be doing or talking about. I was pulled away, just about literally, by a tug on my pant leg. I looked down to see another one of the girl-ponies. White coat, and some two-tone hair. Did I already meet her? Can't remember.

"Mr. Lyor?" I nodded. "Rarity sent me to deliver this to you!"

I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but my shirt and suit coat were being dragged around inside of a plastic bag thing with a hanger sticking out. At least they didn't get dirty. I picked up my clothes, tossed them on, stood up, readjusting everything, and sat down as the universe realigned itself and resumed its order. It felt good. So good, I did this.

"Here, kid." I handed her five of the gold coins, "That's for you." I then pushed another ten into them, "And that's for your sister doing a good job. Tell her I said 'thanks'."

Apparently, a five coin tip was a lot of money to little kids, because she bolted away fast as hell. I shrugged and started reading an article on the applications of thermocline transducers, whatever the hell those were. Once again, I was interrupted.

"Hey Lyor, that guy over there looks like he's talking about you. Keeps looking over here and whispering to his friend."

That caught my attention. And not in a good way.

Carrot Top

"Derpy, pleeeaaasse. Can't we just drop this?"

I was practically begging Derpy for the past half hour to just forget whatever assumptions she was making and talk about something normal already. Granted, normal wasn't exactly something I could use to describe conversations with her, but normal for her at least. But she was stuck on talking about Lyor, who just woke up today for Celestia's sake! Kinda funny how much can happen the in span of a few hours though...

Still, I wish she'd drop this. It was downright awkward.

"Not until we deconstruct his wording and figure out what he meant!"

I stared at her for a second, "Doctor Bleeding Heart said he was in shock most of the time before he came in. He was missing a part of his head, Derpy! How could Lyor have possibly been thinking straight? And another thing! Nopony even knows him that well yet, so why are we jumping to any conclusions ? Especially one like this!"

"But-"

"This is all probably weirding him out way too much. That can't be good for his health."

Even from something like that, she got encouraged. Well, encouraged enough to press her hooves together at the side of her face and squeal like a schoolfilly, "See! You do care!"

Unlike her, my hooves were rubbing my temples. This was getting out of hand.

"We've already established that I care enough about his health that I waited by his hospital bed for a week, alright? Whhhyyy do you think there's something more to this when there isn't?"

She shrugged, "I thought you two would look cute together." I groaned out loud. "And besides, don't you think it's time to move on from that troublemaker?"

"Caramel wasn't a 'troublemaker', Derpy. He just didn't have any social etiquette and that's why he ended up losing potential friends. If there was a more oblivious stallion..."

For a quick second, I found myself thinking about Lyor and Staple, and what they were doing.

Lyor

"You happen to know this scumbag, by any chance?"

Now, let me make this clear to you: I said that loud enough to draw attention from ponies at least thirty feet away. It was obnoxious and boisterous and completely unnecessary, but I'll just chalk it up to my amazing ingenuity.

You might ask yourself, "Why would you make it so obvious, Lyor?"

The answer is really simple: "Because I can."

Rich was confused, but Buttons didn't seem bothered in the least. God knows why, but he seemed like he was just waiting for something to go down. Totally like a cop.

Anyway, by saying that, I got the two schmucks to look over towards us, jaws a bit loose. Hate that look so much. It's very birdbath-ish. So, lemme just give a really quick description of these guys.

One was basically a carbon-copy of that doctor I stole from with the exception of his ass-marking being some stupid apple bullshit. The other was way bigger and really red with some ugly freckles and blondish hair. Hell, I have red hair and even I don't have freckles. Then again, I'm not really that pale, which makes me wonder what this guy's excuse was when he's goddamn red. All in all, they looked just like any of these other pony things. Kind of expected, honestly. They all look the same.

The big red one finally broke out of his catatonic stupor of thought displacement and realized what I called him, then called back to me, "Ya'll better watch yourself, pardner. Ah don't take kindly to the words y'er usin'."

Of course, I didn't give a shit.

"Of course, I don't give a shit." Thankfully, the kids were off somewhere else and didn't hear me. But he sure as hell did. He seems really sensitive.

"We also don't take kindly ta those sorta words 'round here neither," he said, starting to come closer to us. The other one he was with was practically hiding behind him.

I raised an eyebrow, "'Neither?' Who the hell taught you proper grammar? A pitchfork?" I turned to Buttons and Rich briefly for council, "You guys seem educated past kindergarten. Your schools let kids fail without learning how to speak real sentences or something? Hicks'll be hicks, I guess."

That really riled him up. Like, severely.

He practically puffed a cloud of smoke out of his bulging-ass nostrils towards my direction, "Now just hold on a darn minute, pardner. I'ma honest-ta-goodness, apple-pickin', hard-workin' stallion doin' his best." Big Red looked smug, "City-slicker like ya'll wouldn't know nothing 'bout any'a that anyways."

"So you admit to being uneducated trash, then?"

I was tearing him up, apparently. Brass was grinning ear-to-ear at this point and Rich seemed to just watch this stuff go on in his own amused, little state. The big one, on the other damn hand, was so pissed off that he became even redder, by some weird turn of events I had no part in. Honestly, can I even be blamed that this escalated to this point? He was talking shit about me with his butt-buddy. That's more than enough reason for me to retaliate.

"Best not say somethin' ya might regret," he threatened, poking me chest pretty hard.

Thank god I still had the vest on. Still, I was not amused by his bullshit. So I stood up, which basically meant I was now taller than him than I was sitting down, and also more intimidating. I briefly considered raising my arms as high as possible to see if I could scare him off. Unfortunately, he didn't back down, despite the pony behind him tugging at his tail in a crappy attempt to pull him back.

I thumbed to the individual in question, "That your gay lover? I thought your kind fucked their own sisters, not their brothers."

Now, it was at that particular moment I dealt the blow I was saving. This could have done one of two things: shamed him into trying to disprove me and fall apart; or make him really, really angry.

Obviously, with my luck, it was the latter.

His eyes practically shot out, his neck veins were all bulgy, and I could tell this guy was getting overly aggressive. I was prepared though. That thing on the end of their legs shot out for a gut-shot, but I swerved away at the last second. It went straight through the back of the park bench though, so there's that.

Now knowing that this guy could possibly punch a hole through my skull, I made some distance and ignored the growing crowd around us once those pieces he punched off sliced right through the side of an apple-cart and mashed the products into sauce. I tossed my jacket on top of a random pony and yanked out my stiletto, ready for some one-on-one action.

"Ah warned ya, ya varmint! Now y'er gonna git your beatin'!"

He was thoroughly mad, but I knew I had it under control. All I need to do was slice him like I did those dogs and he'd run away crying to his mom. Who he probably gets into bed with too. Just saying.

But about that action... I didn't actually get much of that, mainly because he somehow managed to charge at me, flip around as I was about to dodge, and then somehow kick my hand and dislodge my stiletto from my hand, which then went flying into a helium tank used by a mime-looking pony that was filling balloons. Needless to say, the thing went flying upwards from being punctured near the bottom and basically made like a missile and went into a house-shaped cloud in the sky that I just noticed. The cloud promptly exploded, while my stiletto landed safely on someone's roof nearby.

Also, my hand was broken now.

I cursed loudly and booted the approaching pony square in the face like a gent. It reeled back for a second, which gave me the chance to boot it again, then another time. By now, it's nose was pretty bloody while my hand was swelling like a mobster tossed into a river, which was pretty bad. He was also even madder now. Go figure.

With my focus broken for that one second, he managed to use his rear legs to do a double-kick against my chest. Thankfully, my vest cushioned some of the blow. Not-so-thankfully, I'm pretty sure at least one or two my ribs was now broken. Which also hurt as well, I might add. Still, I wasn't planning on giving up just yet.

Mind you, I was thinking this as I was looking up from the ground, a bit of blood get closer to my mouth, with one of his horse-foot-things resting on my chest, probably ready to crush it entirely. I might have bit off more than I could chew this time, but I knew it wasn't over. How, you might ask for the fourth time? Simple.

The cavalry came to my rescue.

Of course, when I say cavalry, what I really mean is that god damn chicken-lizard hybrid sped towards us out of nowhere and made the entire crowd around us start to freak out. It was clucking like mad, distracting Big Red long enough for him to remove his foot thing. It only got half way though, because this chicken was doing some crazy shit at the moment. Like, its eyes were glowing red directly towards the jackass who knocked me over.

I shimmied away and managed to get myself up despite the pain (slipped myself something when no one was looking). Anyway, the "cockatrice" was staring off with a really scared Big Red. Serves him right. Crazy asshole who is apparently frightened by chicken-lizards that seem pretty harmless.

Or, they seemed pretty harmless. That assumption was made way before I saw this one, and I seriously mean this, turning the doodoo head to stone. I looked back at Brass and he was rocking back and forth with anticipation. The hick pony struggled to break free, but that wasn't doing jack shit. He was really afraid now, and seeing as though he couldn't move because of the creeping stone crap on his body, I decided to rub it in his face.

"That's what you get, you brainless, uneducated, worthless trash."

Extremely harsh by their standards, considering the crowd seemed really uneasy by what I said. Still, I've always been one to push my luck like an asshole. I was going to pry some info from him while he was still alive.

I kneeled to his height and snapped my fingers in front of his face, "Why were you two talking about me?"

His frightened eyes snapped to me quick, not losing the fear for a second, "C-Caramel said ya'll were foolin' 'round with his gal!"

So the little shit, who seemed to have disappeared, was jealous because he thought I was apparently trying to hit on his woman? Absolutely stupid.

"Who's his gal, huh? Come on, you're wasting your own time here," I reminded him, flicking the stony surface of his chest. The stuff was almost a third up his neck by now.

"Carrot Top!" He was about to yell out for help, I think, before someone shouted towards him.

"Big Mac!" Out of nowhere, some yellowish pony sped up to the pony named after a burger. She was looking at different parts of him, desperate enough that I think she was trying to find some place to break off the stone. I mean, wouldn't that shatter him into little bits or something? I thought that's how it worked.

I looked down at my little buddy and saw him clucking a few times. His eyes get a little less brighter, and the weird ass shit going on to the burger-pony slowed down a bit. Him and the other pony were talking really quietly to each other, but I could tell they were practically defecating themselves where they stood with how screwed he was. And it was here that I jumped into even more action.

Using my foot, I scooped away the bird-snake from having its head caved in by a kick from Yellow. Also, Yellow had a cowboy hat on for some reason, but that was my focus for only, like, one and a half seconds. She looked like she was about to start crying, and I'm sure the frustration of having her chance of saving this schmuck sent flying out the window didn't help much either. I picked up the cockatrice and held it tight so she wouldn't be able to snatch it away. Speaking of which, no matter where I moved the little shit, his eyes were glued to burger horse. Creepy.

"Please!" I was pulled out of my rambling thoughts only to be stared at by some pitiful, cowboy hat-wearing, yellow pony. She was already in tears at this point, and I still couldn't figure out why she even gave a damn about this guy. "Ya gotta call off y'er cockatrice! Big Mac di'nt deserve this!"

Now, I'm not usually one to argue, but he sure as hell did. It's incredibly rude to talk about someone right in front of them, especially if you do a terrible job of doing it secretly. But as I looked at the way the circle of ponies around were staring at me anxiously, I realized that turning this guy into stone would probably be a bad idea.

Rule number six of business: Good PR always leads to good profits. Nerve-stapling is a big no-no too.

So basically, I would definitely win some enemies by killing him off. Figures. Then again, killing someone just for something as small and simple as what just happened doesn't seem that smart of an idea in the first place. Guess I just jumped the gun on this one.

"Alright," I started, tapping the little bastard I was holding on the head to get his attention, "You did your job well. Now reverse it so I don't have to deal with the bullshit afterwards."

It clucked a few times, and I seriously attempted to see if I could understand any emotions being conveyed by the damn thing. I didn't pick up on anything, so I just covered its eyes until they stopped glowing. A few more clucks and it just sat there in my arms while the pony named after a burger basically passed out as the weird stone stuff wore off of him. The cowgirl was cradling him and as I made my way to leave this weird ass situation, I heard her mutter something about "what the city-slicker did ta ya."

Bah, I was just defending myself. How did I know this? Well, all of the fine but gullible citizens around me seemed to believe so. There were a few that actually cheered at my supposed ability to command wildlife. Probably another story for the papers. But seriously, this was way too much drama for my tastes. I'd rather avoid these sort of situations if I can. Knowing my luck though, I'll probably end up in a whole lot more like them. Maybe because these horses were way more dramatic and paranoid than most people ever would be. They become very skittish when there's more than a few of them in one place, I think.

Weird.

Anyway, Brass Buttons came up to me as I plucked my jacket from a swooning pony, put down the bird-thing, and threw it on.

He was grinning like an idiot, which seemed fitting mostly, "Holy cannoli! I was skeptical of what they said in the paper about you and the cockatrice, but now everyone will know not to question it!" The guy waved a fan he plucked out of nowhere towards his face, "Jeez, we should find a bookie for this sort of thing. I can see it now, 'Big Mac versus the Cock Tamer!'"

What the hell.

"That doesn't exactly have a ring to it," I pointed out. "Or sound appealing. At all."

Rich smirked a smirky smirk and nodded his finely groomed head, "I'll have to agree on that one. Though, I will admit the concept of training cockatrices to fight each other sounds like it could be profitable if properly regulated."

And somehow, I had just brought cock-fighting to this world. Only it was a lot more fucked up in this case.

If I was bothered, I didn't show it. Instead, I thumbed back towards the somewhat unnecessary calamity that just went, "Who were those dopes anyway? Anyone important?"

While I did expect Rich to make a response, it was Brass that spouted out first, "Hardly. I mean, the only Apple from that family I can actually respect is probably Granny Smith. Applejack too, for the most part."

Filthy Rich shrugged. "It isn't as if there's anything wrong with the family," he mentioned off-handedly, "but I'm normally only ever willing to do business with those two. Never Big Macintosh. He's completely unreasonable about pricing his produce."

"I take it that Applejack is the one with the hat?" They nodded. "She sure seemed upset. Like bad-"

I was cut off by a tugging on my arm sleeve. Normally, I'd backhand anyone trying that sort of stuff from behind, mostly because I'll state again that this is very expensive material and I don't want people's grubby hands all over it. Of course, these things didn't have hands, and I know I'd have to eventually ask what the hell those things were called, but the only reason I didn't react negatively was because I assumed that it might have been one of the kids doing it. So I turned around.

Lo and behold, it was the same damn Equestrian we were talking about. Her hat was tilted down enough that I couldn't see the upper parts of her face, but I did notice a bit of saliva on my sleeve.

That bitch.

Still, I didn't need to get in a fight again, especially now that I remember that I had a fractured rib, and broken hand and some sort of monster following me. I'll just head to that doctor again for the third time today once I find my stiletto. But enough of that. This pony wanted my attention, and now she would have it. I just hope she didn't surprise me by trying to kill me or something as a form of revenge.

She pushed her hat up a bit, just enough for me to see her green eyes as she stared up at me, "... Ah... Ah'm sorry fer Big Mac attackin' ya like that. He ain't normally so quick to fight somepony and he's usually so calm." I could almost feel like Rich and Brass wanted to snicker. This "Applejack" continued her sob story, "Still, n'matter what either of ya said, it wasn't right fer it ta get that far." She held out that damn thing towards me, "From tha entire Apple family, Ah apologize fer causing ya trouble."

Such a nice and sincere apology. Almost a shame that my response was stopping mid-handshake and asking, "What do you call these things?"

It took a few moments before she realized that what I said wasn't even acknowledging what she said but going onto some other shit. Applejack looked at our handshake and furrowed her brow, "Er, a hoofshake, partner? Ya know, like somethin' to seal a deal or make amends or such."

She was obviously confused, but I didn't really care so much because me not knowing what they were called was bugging me like hell. "I meant the thing I just grabbed. You guys walk on them and stuff."

"It's a hoof, sugarcube. All ponies got 'em."

I barely even noticed. Wowzers.

"Huh. I probably should have known that."

"Hope ya don't mind me sayin', stranger," she started, "but ya stick out like a sore hoof in Ponyville."

I'm not sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but she was sorta smiling. I think. Hell if I know.

I idly fiddled with one of my cufflinks and made sure it was straight, "Well, that's a bit understandable seeing as though I've been in a coma for around two weeks or something. First day out of bed."

"Coma?" I heard coming from behind. Rich looked curious, but raised his hooves apologetically and backed off when he realized he was butting in.

I don't know why he did. Wasn't like I was having a private conversation at the moment, and he seemed to have his head of his damn shoulders or neck or whatever the hell these Equestrians would use in this case. Still, I might as well answer his question.

"Oh yeah, it was some wild stuff." I sat on this ugly rock across from them and Applejack took my original seat.

Ass.

Anyway, I began my tale of utterly mundane occurences occurring within expected related occurrence ratios, or something, "A'ight, so this is what happened." They scooted closer in anticipation. "I got ambushed at my apartment and shot up pretty badly. I probably should have died right there, but obviously that wasn't enough. So they threw me off my balcony just to make sure, which was probably somewhere near seventy stories high."

"Whoa," Brass muttered. "That sounds like a serious shindig."

"Y'all got shot? With what?"

Ah yes, why exactly would I assume that any of these horses-slash-ponies-slash-whatever would know what being shot means? Hell, I just got attacked by a hick and he didn't even have a gun on him.

I should know, I didn't sell him one.

Before I could answer, I heard flapping and then something land on my shoulders. I was about to seriously bug out until I heard some clucking going on. I turned my head to see that damn cockatrice perched up left of my head, with its big ass tail resting on my other shoulder. I had to admire its sense of balance, but I quickly warned it that any bird crap on my body or suit would result in any applicable body parts of itself being turned into a delicious and nutritious meal for one. It clucked a few times and seemed to go to sleep after that.

Jackass.

"Anyway," I continued, "being shot means someone put a projectile through you with a weapon spits out metal and lead. It hurts a little. So, they tossed me from seventy stories, and the next thing I know, I'm on dirt and rocks. Which wasn't exactly the pavement I wasn't expecting, but sorta expecting, because I wasn't expecting to live, let alone expect to see the expected pavement of a street that I was, I assume from their point of view, expected to land on. Understand so far?"

Brass scratched his chin, but remained silent, so I went on, "Next thing I know, some weird looking black horse was talking to me while I was bleeding all over the ground. Forgot who, but I think someone said her name was Nightmare Spoon or something. I ended up shooting her in the head and crawling away."

I could tell the three were pretty speechless. Applejack especially, for some reason. It didn't last long though.

"Ya killed Nightmare Moon? That's a bit much, Ah'd figure. Hard ta believe ta boot!"

I thought on that for a second, "Well... If I managed to live with probably a fifth of my skull missing from a gunshot, I'm sure she could too. Well, probably not, actually. Still a mystery how I managed to get as far as I did before Carrot Top saved me."

Hell, it sounded downright fishy. If I weren't me, god forbid, I wouldn't believe me either. But unless my eternal soul is trapped in some childish reincarnation of a youngling's dream of crazy ass shit, which is entirely possible, there must've been something else going on for me to have lived. I mean, I really don't have the sort of endurance or psyche to maintain my own life through a sheer force of will. I tried that once, and it was really tiring.

Which, ironically, ties somewhat into my ideology of accumulating as much money as possible before I die. Which, ironically, I don't plan on doing because dying is a waste of time and there's too much money in this world for me to take to do so any time soon. Which, ironically, still remains a goal even if I'm in a dream or an alternate reality or dimension or world or whatever the hell I'm experiencing is. If you didn't know me, you might think I'd be discouraged from pursuing the lucre considering my situation of being in a completely alien place. If you did know me, you'd wonder why I haven't started selling firearms to the dumbest but financially endowed group I could possibly find. I'm temporarily stuck where I am, though.

Two reasons for that:

First, no product to move. Can't sell a gun that doesn't exist. (Did it once, made the same enemies that threw me from my balcony). I don't even think they have any close to gunpowder or shot or something. Which is bad for business, obviously.

Second, I probably needed a vacation from weaponry for a while now. Believe it or not, I'm only a moderate fan of things that kill people. The real attraction is the money to be made on selling them to people to kill other people who I probably sold to as well. A nifty little cycle, mainly because other groups tend to find these guns after plenty of deaths occur, sell them back to me at low prices so they can afford digging equipment, then buy some guns back at a higher price with diamonds (never gold), and take over other rebel groups and continue the process indefinitely. This happens because no one group lasts absurdly long for several reasons. It's usually in-fighting from kid soldiers hopped up on brown-brown (decent stuff), being exterminated or enslaved by another group.

I went off track by just a tad, so I'll get back on right now.

... Give it a second...

Rich looked mildly surprised, "I still haven't wrapped my head around her wanting to gather wild carrots. They sell well typically, but the danger isn't exactly a part of ideal working conditions."

"She can handle herself pretty well," I answered, shrugging. I decided to lie to help play up her reputation, "She did help me fight off a group of dog things."

"Dog things..?" I could see Applejack wrack her brain for this one, "Hrm... Shoot, ya mean ta tell me y'all beat up a buncha Diamond Dogs?"

"Basically."

Brass grinned, "I bet they left with their tails between their bruised up legs, right, champ?"

Oh boy.

"Not exactly. Carrot Top wanted to be a pacifist about it, but I made sure they weren't going to be getting up."

I let that sink in. "At all."

Sinking... "Ever again."

Sinking more...

"I killed all of them."

Applejack gasped, Brass didn't seem bothered in the least, and Rich was hardly shocked in any sort of way. God damn, he is chill.

In fact, he shrugged for like the fifth time today, "Good riddance." Cold, but admirable.

The only chick amongst us, unfortunately, didn't take well to that, "Whatcha mean, 'good riddance?' Them Dogs were trouble makers fer sure, but killin' 'em? That ain't right, Filthy, and ya know it."

I noticed him grimace at being called his first name, "Applejack, they're detrimental to large swathes of business within Everfree County." He pointed a hoof at her, "You don't feel it because they don't want anything to do with apples because of the Zap-Apples. But what about the gem trade? Or just about any caravan from the Oakleaf region? The Diamond Dogs are becoming a nuisance that are overstaying their welcome."

"Ya get compensated by tha government in full fer any lost product! Ain't a reason in tha world to kill a Diamond Dog, or anythin' fer that matter."

Rich looked like he was explaining some shit to a brick wall, "Compensation, but how exactly do our businesses benefit when they have no products to sell and lose customers because of that? You're being a bleeding heart, Miss Apple."

That reminds me...

"That reminds me..." I now said instead of thought. "I should probably head to that hospital right now. You know, seeing as though my ribs feel like someone liquified them twice and my hand is swelling up pretty bad." It's true, it was roughly the size of a small apple or orange.

I popped a perc, then said a general goodbye and was about to head off when I noticed a fat blob of red and yellow walking beside me. Lo and behold, Applejack was carrying an unconscious asshole on her back. Interestingly enough, she held him up pretty easily, it looked like. I'm assuming horses in my world can carry large shit too, so obviously that would transfer over here too.

Obviously.

Anyway, I was a bit irritated, so I asked, "Why are you taking him there too? All he did was faint."

She rolled her eyes, "'Fraid not, partner. Cockatrices turn things inta stone, and tha stone turns tha thing inta mush. Mah friend Twilight nearly lost 'er life once cause'a the darn things."

More interesting than her ability to hold fat and ugly things, I guess.

"So, they basically turns things into smoothies." Geez, what a place I ended up in. "How the hell is that even treatable?"

Applejack smiled a winning smile, flashing her green eyes and white teeth, "Shucks, yer gonna hafta ask tha doctor 'bout that one. Ah'm just a farmpony. Got no time fer tryin' ta learn all that medical mumbo-jumbo."

I could have told her that she was smart regardless, but I didn't feel the need to, so I just left it at that. We ended up making some conversation along the way to the hospital.

Overall, this was a sub-par experience at best. There wasn't much room for improvement. Still, I had to keep trucking on until I managed to get a meeting with those damn princesses. Until then, which would hopefully be soon, I'd have to dick around and try to kill time.

Yippee, what fun this is going to be.

Clearly.

Author's Note

Well, this is long overdue. It's actually been waiting to be submitted for like two months. I mostly forgot about it until I remembered I actually exist in the third dimension where MLP exists as well.

Bullshit aside, sorry for the wait. If there are errors, PM me about it instead of commenting preferably. Cleaner that way and there are likely to be quite a few considering I just shipped this out with barely looking at it.

Maybe I'll be able to update more during the summer. But for now, I got like six papers that need to be written by the end of this week, so I'm off to wear down my fingers to nothing from fun.

Also, who the fuck would search these keywords highlighted:

Weird. Enough of that though.

As Always,
Stay Trilla.