Author's Note
Yep I’m starting a new story. No I’m not quitting on RES but I’m at a mental block with it and I’ve had this in mind for a long time if I’m being honest so I hope you all enjoy. Like or don’t comment bla bla bla you know the deal, see you next time
Chapter 1
(5:17pm)
A young man walked through the streets of his city, an air of calmness surrounding him. He was undisturbed by the derelict buildings and visible crime occurring or having taken place evidenced by broken windows and body outlines on concrete. The year was 2059 and the world was in a pain that- “isn’t this supposed to be my story? I wanna tell this part myself Ms.Narrator.” He stares into the cloudy sky right before a smooth, southern sounding female voice replied to him.
“Alright child, but remember... just cause you got six eyes does not mean you can see everything... signing off till tonight.” The voice faded as the young man was left alone to contemplate
“Six eyes?” He thought for a moment. “I only have... That’s gonna bug me for a while.”
(POV shift: 1st person)
As the previous narrator was saying, the world is definitely in pain. It’s twenty-fifty-nine and in twenty-twenty-six America suffered another depression that, wasn’t as great as the one before the Second World War but still hit hard, and led to another world war. The might of the U.S held out and we were victorious but that was a bandaid for a stab wound considering the worldwide population decrease. I’d personally say we’re at two billion now and that’s being optimistic since those nukes hit pretty hard. The economy was... almost unchanged since it was already pretty shit but the decrease in population helped since some areas had more money thanks to the violence. Where I lived was exempt from that however since I lived in New York and since D.C was hit... let’s just say there’s another Great Lake that’s green. Now that you know all of this I can start the story. You see after the bombs dropped people started up some kinda crazy religion once they started to mutate and talk crazy about other worlds and divine creatures when it was all just nonsense since science was all there was. At least that’s what I thought.
“This can go the easy way or my way pal!” A homeless man bundled up like a bear brandished a weird looking ice pick and as his “weapon” was in his dry, cracked hands I reached up to my black hair to pull a pin out. “Hey no funny stuff! Hand over whatever shit you got!” I didn’t move as my hair flowed down to my upper back and my left eye was covered entirely. He lunged with the intent to stab me in my left side... at least that’s what I predicted once my hair was down and once he lunged I sidestepped and tripped him sending him into the pavement.
“That was short lived huh buddy?” I said as I rolled him over to reveal the ice pick stuck in his chest, piercing his lung by the looks of it. I ran my hands by and checked his coat pocket to find a wallet with a bloody piece of paper in it along with a crude drawing of the ice pick. I read it and kept my eyes on the pick.
A green tag on the wall reading “Blessed” in the Dead Alley of Old Town. Put the key into the wall and the treasure is yours to have.
“Well damn, this is a key. And it unlocks some kinda treasure... lucky me.” I grabbed the key from the bum’s chest and with it came a spurt of fresh blood that made him groan and reach for me in pain but a kick to his head put that down fast. “Not like you’ll need this anymore.” I walked down the alleyway which was named due to nothing coming back out after it goes in. “Here it is, so how do I- oh there’s a hole.” In the top half of the letter B I saw a small hole and put the key into it. Once I did the wall opened up into a spiral of colors and dragged me right into it. I’d like to say I kept my cool the entire time but I didn’t and screamed like a little girl the entire time until I hit something and blacked out.
(POV change: 3rd person)
Well now, it looks like our boy is heading to greener pastures... for his sake I hope he opens those last two eyes
Before he woke up completely our young man felt a cold surface under him and he felt that he was topless. He also faintly heard the voices of two people outside of his darkened space. “Silky clean hair, healthy, decent skin despite the black marks on his arms. But it’s too muscular to be a male, should’ve checked it to be sure.” A female voice rang
A male voice groaned. “You can act professional all you want, I know you just want what’s in those pants.” A loud slap was heard and the female yelled
“Shut up! That’s not what I want!”
The young man felt something prodding him and he heard a hoarse voice along with it. “Hey wake up.” He opened his eyes and saw a frail man with scraggly brown hair pointing ahead. “El wants you off her side.” He pointed at a woman with no shirt allowing her nearly flat chest to be exposed. She was seated with her toned arms crossed and glaring at the two males.
“Well how about she tell me where the ‘El’ I am before I get mad.” El looked at the young man and only growled. The two dominant figures stood up and matched each other in height but before anything more could happen the blue tarp covering the cage was lifted and the young man looked at the figures who he immediately realized weren’t normal by any means that he’d seen. “Bright colored... horse people?”
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“I hate my life... Two hours of walking to this hole just so I can be in another cage!” The young man yelled as he looked back at the thin male with him. “And what’s the deal with the horse people? Is this some mutated part of the world in Germany or something?”
The smaller male was confused by the questions asked. “The ponies? They’re the main things here in Equestria. And they believe in using humans for whatever they want since we’re below them in every way...” His voice was filled with defeat at his statement but before he could say anything else the door to the cage lifted and one of the ponies walked in with a club in hand.
He sneered as he looked at the humans but pointed to the young man and walked over to him. “Come on you!” He said but the young man didn’t move
“The hell? The guy with me speaks English but these ponies... hmm.” The pony tensed and gripped his club. The young man managed to see that he was visibly taller than his captor and that unlike him he didn’t have feet but rather hooves at the bottom of his legs.
The pony was confused at why the human didn’t respond. “I know you things understand me! Just cause you can’t talk doesn’t mean you can’t listen.” He raised the club and made the weaker human male flinch in fear but the young man wasn’t intimidated. “Tough huh? That’s fine... we got something for that. OPEN IT!” He yelled and the large wooden panel in the back of the cage opened to reveal that the cage was in a circular formation in a pit with others being around it and before the young man could process what happened he was kicked in the back and knocked out of the cage.
“Well then mares and gentlecolts it looks like we have our first challenge of today!” A voice came from a small tower just outside of the pit. “A male? Well it might be short lived folks but enjoy the ride. We have our own human in the other side, he’s won every fight this far and now has a knife and mace to show for it versus a freshly caught human that looks a bit off. Who will win this one? I know who my bits are on.”
The small crowd of around fifty cheered as the armed man across from our protagonist walked closer. “If I win twenty fights I’ll be free. Just make it easier for me please.” Once he stopped, his reddish hair and scars on his chest were easily seen.
“So you want to play games? Fine.” The young man reached into his hair and pulled out his hairpin, his black hair spilling down and covering his left eye. “I’ll play with you, literally.” The crowd stopped cheering and one called out.
“Hey that’s a female human!” A voice rang.
“Might make it fair!” Another replied
The announcer started speaking again. “Now now folks despite appearances that is a male and yes he’s strange but that makes this more interesting... Now FIGHT!”
As soon as the announcer called the word the scarred man rushed in and swung his mace but missed his mark as the young man threw a punch to his side, making him step back and cough. “This will be a challenge, I have to ask, what is your name? I am Maximus.” He pointed his mace at the young man who stood tense ready to fight.
“I’ll tell you when it matters. You want to earn it? Win or lose.” He said which prompted his opponent to move towards him and slice the air as the young man ducked and kicked for his ankle but they crossed shins instead, both having the same idea. The young man saw blood on his arm and a knife in the air, but both he and the scarred man were falling backwards in his premonition.
“Great it’s one of those!” The scarred man pulled his leg back and swung his knife but his wrist was grabbed by the young man, so he lifted his bare foot to his enemy’s chest. “Wait.” The young man grabbed the knife and slashed the scarred man’s chest right as he was kicked back, the both of them flying backwards and landing on the ground back first. “So that’s where the blood came from...” A noise next to him made him look and see the knife tip first in the dirt. He grabbed it and stood up right as his enemy charged again with his mace in both hands. He swung twice and missed both times.
“A shocking occurrence as our new fighter already obtains a weapon but that mace isn’t a joke, one wrong move and his good luck is over.” Clanging and sparks were the results of the two weapons connecting. The two were at a struggle trying to push the other back when a gust of wind blew the young man’s hair into his face.
“You’re done boy!” The scarred man took his advantage and kneed the his enemy in the stomach, backstepped and advanced again with his mace held in the air. “So what’s your name so I can hold you in my heart as a gifted fighter?”
The younger man held his abdomen, hair still in his face as he saw himself on the ground with his back covered in blood. “No! No! No! How am I supposed to figure this out?!” He clenched the knife right as the mace came down... and struck his back. But not with as much force as it should’ve because the scarred man was now on his knees, blood still flowing from his chest. “Crem... short for Crimson, just like blood.” Crem stood up and slashed the neck of his opponent before he fell forwards and his deceased enemy fell backwards.
“What an amazing finish mares and not so gentlecolts! They ended up beating each other! This rarely happens but when it does oh boy does it.” The crowd cheered as two ponies went to recover the bodies from the arena.
===(Clearly it’s pronounced “Crim”)===
Death... that was all Crem could smell around him, it was all that was around him. Human bodies lying around with various reasons of death but Crem wasn’t dead and he wasn’t ready to die either. He had the ability to know his fate, he could tell what to do but never could change it and right now it seemed that his fate was to rot in the human graveyard while trapped in a place with talking pony people. But even though he was injured and surrounded by death he reached a hand out and grabbed a leg to pull himself forward towards an opening he saw between rocks. In an instant when Crem blinked he was closer to the rocks and standing up with a hand against a rock face. “Wait... how’d I?” He questioned as he moved forward again towards the exit and stumbled to fall but when his eyes opened he was outside of the cave on an overlook for a small town that he started towards but he collapsed to the ground as he faintly heard the sound of wings flapping.
“She looks worse for wear!”
“What’d they make her do?”
The sound of running was heard as well as everything started to blur for Crem. “Sweet Celestia, what’s that smell?!” Was the last thing Crem heard before he completely blacked out from the injury to his back and he remembered the feeling of being carried before he went numb.
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“She seems to be stable at the moment, her back was badly injured and her spine was cracked in two vertebrae but we managed to fix it Princess.” A voice said as Crem started to come back to the land of the conscious.
“Well what did your analysis say about her other than that?” A very maternal voice said with a voice as relaxing as a hot bath.
The other voice hummed in thought as papers flipped. “Doesn’t match any other human by description, I’m shocked that she’s wild since she’s very well toned and both her hair and skin are luxurious compared to most humans. Anypony would be lucky to keep her for themselves.
“Well then I suppose I’ll need to adopt her when she’s well so whenever she’s able to-“ The sound of beeping made them look at the human in question pull the equipment away from himself and quickly get up even as the nurse walked over and tried to put a hand on his chest to stop him but she froze as he grabbed her arms and lifted her to his right and stepped past her.
“Wha- Princess I don’t think that’s a female, there wasn’t a mammary gland... I think this is a male.” Crem stopped in front of the tall white mare as he eyed her up and down and saw that she had a massive set of wings and a large spiraling horn coming from her forehead.
“Something tells me I don’t want to reveal myself... in regards to anything at all.” He thought as she looked down at him.
“In this case I’ll take him now, maybe even find out more about him. Come along now, you humans always interest me.” She started as she walked out of the room only to look back and see that he stood there unmoving but he took one step forward then stopped. “You have nothing to fear, I know you understand my intent as all animals do. I plan on finding you a new home.”
Crem froze as he processed that sentence. “Animal?! Do these things think I’m an animal?!” He stepped forward again as he thought about that, it never left his mind even as he wound up in a castle with maids examining him and washing his hair free of dried blood and dirt.
“I don’t believe that this is a male. I mean the hair is so well kept and it’s surprisingly strong looking.” A maid said as she handed a towel to her coworker who was washing Crem’s hair
The pony washing his hair took a moment to stop and look at the markings on his arms and tried to run water over them but they didn’t move. “Are these human cutie marks? What do they mean? Oh... I just asked a human a question!” The maids in the room started to laugh as Crem was silent, all the way to when he was given a pair of cleaner cotton pants to wear in place of his burlap rags. The maids tried their best to truly see if he was a male or not but he managed to be done before they even fully walked in again.
Later on he’d been with the tall white ruler that he nicknamed. “Bright mother.” When he’d heard her name was Princess Celestia he decided his moniker fit well enough and never even thought of her actual name during his short stay.
“Well now it’s time for you to meet the pony I want you to go with, I don’t know why but I see something different about you. Maybe you’ll be another new friend for Twilight, or another assistant... I’m not sure Spike take kindly to that.” Her horn began to glow before a barrier enveloped Crem and in a flash he was gone, but to him he traveled through what felt like a tunnel of rainbow light that made him feel like he was transcending to heaven itself but when he reappeared in the world he was a bit higher up than he should’ve been and ended up crashing through a table and startling another pony.
“What the-? Oh there’s a note from Princess Celestia. ‘This is another gift from your mentor, I hope that you two become well acquainted.’ She sent me a human? This means I can finally read Your Human and You!” She rushed over to a shelf and grabbed a green hardback book as Crem got up.
“Not the hardest table I’ve hit.” Crem looked around the area and saw that he was inside a wooden house with bookshelves lining the walls but as he looked around he saw that the house was an incredibly large hollow tree. “Wow! This is a big tree! If I had one of these I could have fresh air for my whole life... which could be shortened if I’m in magical ponyland.” He marveled at the massive floral organism right as the other occupants of the room started calling to him...
Except it wasn’t proper English but sounded more like a person with their tongue cut off trying to ask for water. “Dink, he, eah, bah.” She was silent after that as was Crem who went back to marveling at the books. “That’s strange it says humans call out to each other in their language... maybe I should learn more from Fluttershy. Well first you need a collar. Let’s go shopping- Uh you don’t have a name do you?” Almost instantly she facepalmed at her question. “Humans aren’t ponies, well I hope you learn to understand me.” She grabbed the book and opened the door right as she fully took her new pet and his size. “Oh you’re a female, at least we can bond over that.”
“I’ll kill you.” Crem had a slight smile to his face as he thought that to his owner’s surprise.
They headed out the door into the streets as Crem saw even more pony women and men and a few humans in the streets here and there but he noticed that they were wearing collars as they walked around hunched while he and the others he’d seen were upright walkers but now he was surrounded by primitive, possibly even a different species, of human. “They have them across from the quill and sofa store so we just have to make it there.” She turned and saw Crem putting his hair up into a rear semi braid which only shocked her more.
“Hey Twi!” An accented voice called out to the purple girl. “Oh you got yourself a human?” The figure came closer and was revealed to be a farm girl... or pony human hybrid like the rest of what Crem had been seeing but unlike his owner who he now knew as Twilight, she didn’t have a horn or a librarian like dress but had a gingham top with jeans and boots as her clothing and a wide brimmed hat. She whistles as she looked him over. “She’s a beaut Twi, you even went and did her hair. You think you’d ever be interested in bringing her down to the farm?”
“Well Applejack, I have to get her a col-“
“I have plenty extra.” Applejack interjected
Twilight prepared to argue but knew how stubborn her friend could be so she simply ushered Crem along behind her and walked with her farming friend. “Don’t worry about it Twi, I wouldn’t try to trick ya.”
“Well Applejack... have you ever seen a human put its hair up?” Twilight questioned as they began to encounter apple trees in their walk.
“Huh? I ain’t heard of something like that, what kinda style?”
“Look... She has her hair in two braids and the sides are neat and down.” Twilight pointed at Crem who reached up for an apple but a quick noise from Applejack made him stop and resume following them. After a few minutes they came upon a large apple orchard with a house and large red barn in a clearing. The group walked to the barn and saw a cluster of humans, along with some other animals in pens.
“Go ahead little missy have a seat.” Applejack took out a chair and a machine with wires that had rubber pieces attached to it. “Keep er calm Twi, if she gets aggressive it could be ugly.” She began to attach the rubber bits into Crem’s arms and chest with one being on his forehead. “She ain’t too gifted up top, but other than that she’s mighty fine.” The machine hummed and started to print out a sheet of paper continuously until it was around three feet long which seemed to concern Applejack.
Twilight noticed and voiced her concern. “Is that normal?” Applejack shook her head before starting to read
“I never seen more than two pages and... and he just gave us five... Twi this is a boy human. And it looks like he’s sick from somethin cause he’s burning up, says he’s at ninety eight degrees right now.”
Twilight quickly pulled out her human reference book and found what she needed to know. “He shouldn’t be that hot! That’s eight degrees past what he should be at! Hurry get some-“ A sound rustling in the bushes caught their attention right as a child walked up to the group
“Do we have a new human Applejack? Can I name it this time?” The girl equaled at the idea of naming a new field helper but she also heard the rustling and saw the human undo it’s hair and let it hang free. “Hey what’s that?” She asked as a gust of wind blew and let her see Crem’s forehead which to her looked like it had another set of small eyes... and an angry face attached to it but it calmed down and stopped clenching it’s teeth.
“Applebloom get back!” The older farm pony said right before a small hare came from the bushes to eat a fallen apple. “Oh well uh nevermind, anyways Twi your human might be sick with somethin but other than that he’s fine... very fine if I do say so myself.”
“Uhm what? So the breeding offer is off right?” The librarian asked as Crem was stared at uncomfortably so by Applejack but not in a lustful way to his shock.
“Hold on a minute now! I have a perfect little missy for him to breed with. I’ll triple the offer!” Twilight looked reluctant but Applebloom decided to interject
“Do either of y’all see that thing on his face?” She pointed directly at the smaller face which angled itself to look at her but started to look less calm as she stared. “It’s some kinda baby human face.” She reached for it but it quickly clenched its teeth and looked furious
“Applebloom there ain’t nothing there. Wha- Where’d he go?” She looked around and saw Crem sitting down under a tree but didn’t remember him getting up. “When the-?”
“See you around Applejack! I’m gonna take him to Zecora tomorrow like Applebloom said.” Twilight said as she handed Crem an apple and he took it then stood up and trailed behind her again.
The elder farmer was visibly confused to the point where she started to stutter and bumble around with her words. Of course she was only more shocked when Crem turned to quickly smirk at her before biting his apple. “That was fun but how’d I actually do it? I kinda zoned out so how’d I go from sitting in a room to under a tree?” Crem wondered as he followed Twilight back to her library where a boy in a white shirt and blue shorts was sitting on the couch... the strangest thing were the scales on his body and the tail under him.
“Twilight we really have our own human?! This is so cool! I can show her off to everypony in school and-“
“Actually Spike you can do more with him, you can actually bond with him since this is actually a male so you can teach him how to make tea, bake, and everything you usually do.” Crem froze when he heard that last part even though Spike was now running into the kitchen once he realized something was cooking
“Wait, he can teach me how to what?!”
===
