Lost Soul

It was at this point that I was convinced I was just in a shitty, dated JRPG. Dark forest? Mythical enemies that can magically shapeshift into being a larger version of themselves? On overly colorful assortment of side characters? And who the fuck makes signs out of wood anymore? Most- if not all- of them are metal or LEDs nowadays. Speaking of wood, the now massive singular timberwolf readied a swipe at us, to which I used the wooden sign still in my hand to parry it away, breaking my makeshift weapon in the process.

“Girls, plan?!” the orange one screamed.

“Large timberwolves have cores that allow them to reform!” Twilight shouted back, “If we can remove the core, it shoul- Whoa!”

I pulled her back out of the range from the next swipe, gaining a couple feet distance.

She gave me a sheepish grin, “Thanks for the save.”

“Blindly hitting at it until we remove its core is unnecessary. Where’s the most open space this town has?”

“Huh?” She gave me a puzzled look, “I guess the Town Square, why?”

“Then lead it there. Which way?”

“Straight down that way, you can’t miss it.” Her hoof pointed down the path we were on, “What are you planning?”

“Head over there first and clear the area. No sense having anyone get caught up with what I’m about to do to this thing.”

She gave me a concerned look, “I really hope you know what you’re doing. Rainbow!”

“Little busy, Twi’!” Rainbow didn’t pull her attention away from flying literal circles and crazy 8s around this thing to keep it distracted enough so that it couldn’t attack us.

“Head over to Town Square and clear everypony out! We’re gonna lead it there!”

Rainbow looked over at her, completely confused, “You sure?”

“Hurry!”

The blue pegasus broke off from the rest of the group, and flew as fast as she could in the other direction. She could have been mistaken for a blue lightning bolt.

“Now what?” The purple unicorn looked up at me, concern flooding her face and body language.

I raised one of my eyebrows at her. “It’s made of wood. Just burn it.”

“We- we’re gonna burn it? That’s…” She mulled it over for a couple seconds, “Actually not a bad idea. The water fountain in Town Square should allow us to mitigate whatever stray flames make it away from the open space. How are you gonna keep it there?”

Only me? “Simple. Break its fucking legs once we get it there.”

Almost as if she were listening to our conversation, Rainbow came back to report, “Town Square’s all clear, Twi’!

“In ten seconds?” I asked incredulously.

As soon as Rainbow opened her mouth, Twilight immediately stopped her, “Later, Rainbow. This one’s new, remember?” Rainbow huffed before Twilight continued, “Girls, let’s move it out!”

As a unit, we swiftly made our way to Town Square to initiate my plan, the massive wolf desperately trying to swipe and bite at us along the way. We had managed to trap it into an open space once we got there, with all Twilight’s friends surrounding it. Rainbow flew past it at one point, baiting out an attack to leave its left side open. Taking the opportunity, I ran up and drop kicked its front left leg as hard as I could, leaving me flat on the ground after making the hit. Its leg cracked, splintered, and subsequently crumbled under the pressure of its body, forcing it to lie down mere inches away from me. I guess the orange one saw me do this and decided to follow suit with kicking the thing’s right hind leg with her back two hooves. In what looked effortless, she was able to achieve the same result, breaking the other leg.

I guess she’s not as dumb as I thought. I ran back to regroup with Twilight. “If you’ve got a match, now would be a good time to use it.”

She nodded at me. “Girls, stand back!” Once she saw her friends out of harm’s way, her horn lit up with this magenta glow. I wasn’t sure what caused it at the time, but the wooden wolf suddenly burst into flames, squealing a bit as it slowly burned to a crisp. It wasn’t able to move around with its opposite legs broken.

The flames were contained around the beast, and when they finally died down, its pieces slowly began to erode and fly off with every gust of wind that passed. Still not sure why that happened, it was supposed to stay a charcoal mess on the ground, considering it was made of wood. Well, at least that worked. I took a few seconds to sit down at the nearby water fountain, trying to steady myself after being assaulted by these strange wolves. I wasn’t exactly as young as I used to be the last time I fought like that. It took more out of me than I thought.

Now that the fight was over, the six came up to me, still inquisitive as to what I was.

“So, do you have a name?” Twilight asked, staring at me.

“He doesn’t remember.” Rainbow piped up before I could say anything.

I frowned at her. “Actually, all this running around helped the blood flow to my brain a little better. I remembered around when we got to this Square. Franco Herman.”

Rainbow huffed, no doubt annoyed. Even if I had been messing with you, you deserved that.

“Well, Franco, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Twilight Sparkle,” She introduced me to her friends. The rainbow-haired, blue abomination needed no introduction, but the white one was Rarity, the yellow Fluttershy, the pink one appropriately named Pinkie Pie, and I had to struggle to contain my laughter upon knowing the orange one was called Applejack. Had someone been called that back home, they would have been excessively bullied into submission. Matter of fact, any of those names would have received varying degrees of ridicule. Clearly I was dealing with a culture that was vastly different from my own.

“So how’d ya know that was gonna work, Franco?” Applejack asked me after Twilight was done with introductions. She had a very distinct country accent.

“It was made of wood. Why wouldn’t it work? All we had to do was ensure the flames wouldn’t spread.”

It seemed like she wanted to follow up with another question, but Rarity interjected. “Dear, those clothes you’re wearing look positively fascinating.” She intently studied my unassuming outfit. I hadn’t bothered to look at it before, but I was apparently wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, and some slightly worn-out tennis shoes. Wherever I was going before getting tossed here must not have been very important. “Do you all wear clothes where you’re from?”

The way she spoke gave this air of pretentiousness about her. It really rubbed me the wrong way upon first interacting with her. Made it seem like she was attempting to throw thinly-veiled insults at me through innocuous words and statements. “Yes. It’s taboo to be naked in public where I’m from.”

Rarity seemed shocked at the statement, clearly wanting to press me for more information before being cut off by her pink friend. Pinkie placed her front hooves on my right shoulder as she stood right next to me on the water fountain. “Do you like parties?”

As I used my left hand to brush her hooves off my shoulder, I took extra care to glare at her the entire time I did it. “No.” I had planned on saying something I figured she wouldn’t like to hear even if it wasn’t true because she assaulted my personal space, but I was actually being honest with the topic at hand. Parties and other such social events were never particularly my strong suit. I especially hated surprises, even more so nowadays.

I could see her eye twitch in response to my answer. “B-but, parties… Fun… Why…?”

Twilight walked over to Pinkie and placed a hoof on what I would assume to be their shoulder. I actually don’t remember off the top of my head whether ponies have shoulders or not, so for the sake of convenience on my end, I’ll call it a shoulder. She patted her back a couple times. “There, there. Not everypony enjoys parties as much as you do, Pinkie.” She turned to me. “Maybe we should move this conversation inside? If it’s alright, I’d like to compare our societies.”

I shrugged. “I suppose.”

I rose up from the fountain, towering over all of their heights. The yellow one- Fluttershy- seemed particularly intimidated by this as she squirmed and lowered herself further down into the ground, like a cat readying itself to pounce. I, however, was following Twilight’s lead and opted to ignore that altogether so that I could keep up. We made our way to this tree that had been hollowed out and converted to a building. Twilight said it was the Golden Oaks Library. Clearly I’m going to have to spend a lot of time here. I actually quite liked that they converted a massive tree into a library. Very clever.

I was significantly taller than the doorframe, so in order to get inside, I had to bend all the way down and practically tumble through the entrance. Rainbow apparently wasn’t freakishly short, the average height of their species was just way smaller than mine. The longer I stay here the more I’m going to have to get used to that.

The rest of Twilight’s friends followed us in as she called out, “Spike! Would you get some tea? We have a guest.”

I saw her horn light up again as some nearby stools floated around in the open space of the library. It caught me completely by surprise as I whirled my head around to one that was levitated near me and stared at it. I had my suspicions from the timberwolf fight, but figured it couldn’t have been what I thought it was. Is that…? “You… can use magic?”

I looked over at her to find her staring at me. “Yes! Can you use magic, too?”

She’s lucky I’m not a zealot from the dark ages, I’d have killed her three times over by now. Probably the same way we killed the timberwolf, too, ironically. “Uh, no. Magic is something that’s only discussed in fiction where I’m from. No one can actually use it.”

She gave me a quizzical stare. “Maybe you can but you’re not aware of it? You should be able to, in some capacity.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Every sapient creature has something called a leyline system. This system helps channel the mana around you to perform spells. I can give you a full lecture about it if you want!”

She seemed way too happy upon the suggestion. As much as I hate being lectured, I think I’ll need to hear that later.

“Let’s start with the easy questions first, Twi’.” Applejack piped up. I almost forgot she was there. “We know your name, how old are ya’?”

I was more hoping to squeeze information out of Twilight, but I suppose as long as they don’t ask me questions that are too personal, it’s fine to give them something small. “32.”

“Oh! Are you male or female? What’s your average life expectancy? What’s your profession? What country are you from? Do you use the same dating system as us? What’s your species’ technological standard? Oh, what do you eat?” Twilight’s rapid fire of questions seemed like it would never cease for a second or two.

“Er, Twilight, darling, I don’t think Franco can-” Rarity tried to slow her down, but I didn’t need it.

“Male. In my country, roughly 90-110 depending upon family lineage and general quality of life. Detective. United States of America, located on the continent of North America. I have no idea what dating system you use, but it should be 2052 where I’m from. Technological standard is a bit difficult to describe fully without something to compare it to, but last I checked we were on the cusp of utilizing FTL travel. And my species is omnivorous, so whatever we want.”

My answer got quite a number of strange stares from the girls, excluding Twilight who looked like she was going to explode since I mentioned FTL travel.

“You can eat anything you want?” Rainbow hovered over to me, looking me square in the face. “Even ponies?”

“Were I so inclined,” I said, unflinching. “Although I’m told your species isn’t exactly very palatable.”

She scowled at me. “Is that a threat?”

Don’t play this game with me, you arrogant twit. I’ve had far more experience with it than you have. “That depends. Do you intend to violate my personal space all day?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Applejack slowly walk towards her friend, bite her tail, and yank her down to the ground.

“Hey!” Rainbow whirled her head back to face her friend.

“Why are you antagonizin’ him?” She tried to whisper, but I could still clearly hear her. “If he really wanted to eat us, don’t’cha think he would have tried to eat you when you were alone with ‘em?”

“He could have just not been hungry!” Rainbow made no effort to conceal her concerns the same way Applejack did.

“Oh, fer Celestia’s sake!” I had no idea what that expression was supposed to mean, but she walked over to me apprehensively. “Are ya’... Gonna eat us?”

I shook my head. “I have a feeling that eating sapient species would feel like cannibalism, so I’ll abstain from eating anything sapient as long as I’m here.”

Her whole demeanor changed as she let out a big sigh.

Rarity, who had been watching with apprehension off to the side let out, “Well, that’s a relief.”

“FTL travel?!” Twilight finally echoed about five minutes too late. “Your species can use FTL travel?!”

I shrugged. “Sort of. The technology is there, been tested to work, but right now no singular country has the funding to make it accessible. Stupid political shit. We’ll probably get there in like 30 years if we try hard enough.”

Rarity’s face scrunched up in what I could only assume at the time was confusion. “Pardon me, Twilight, but what’s FTL exactly?”

“Faster Than Light travel”
“Faster Than Light travel” the two of us said simultaneously.

I picked it back up. “As the name would imply, it’s a method of travel in which objects can be propelled through spacetime at a rate that’s faster than the speed of light.”

“Er…” Her confused look seemed like it got worse.

“It’s basically just a fancy way of saying that we’ve figured out how to travel extremely long distances in little to no time at all.”

“Ah.” She nodded.

“To put it into perspective, Rarity,” Twilight piped back up. “I’m sure you all remember the Sonic Rainboom?”

They all nodded their heads, even getting Rainbow’s attention from her incessant scowling at me. I had no idea what a Sonic Rainboom was, but if she was referring to the sound barrier, I knew where she was going. It was the same way it was explained to me.

“In order to reach a speed where FTL travel would be possible, we’d have to be going at a speed that’s roughly 874,000 times the speed of a Sonic Rainboom! And you get to wherever you’re going at the speed of a teleportation spell!”

They all seemed utterly floored upon the comparison, even Fluttershy who hadn’t spoken an audible word since she got here, but I was more intrigued by the fact that their species can use teleportation. In essence, FTL travel is basically just teleportation with extra steps with how instantaneous it’s supposed to be. If they can teleport, why is she so giddy over FTL? Maybe they can only teleport short distances?

Rainbow, who had been visibly fuming prior to this, jumped up off the ground and started flying in excitement. “That is so. Awesome!” She took another look at me and immediately went back down on the ground. “I mean, that’s cool, I guess.”

Real convincing. Someone give this horse an Oscar.

“Your species is really that technologically advanced?” Twilight asked.

“That’s the high end of it, yes.” I looked around and noticed a distinct lack of electrical outlets and internal lighting. “What of yours? From the looks of things it seems like your species has yet to harness electricity as a power source.”

“No, we have. It just isn’t very affordable to implement outside of major cities like Canterlot and Manehattan. Ponyville’s still trying to develop fully as a town, so it hasn’t quite caught up with the rest of the country yet.”

And their cities are horse puns. Fantastic. That won’t get old any time soon. “I see. Feels strange to ask this, but are there any other sapient species in this world other than yours?”

Pinke, who had been very quiet before, now suddenly found her voice as she gave me a long-winded explanation. “Of course, silly! There’s ponies,- that’s us!- griffons like that meanie Gilda, cows, zebras like Zecora, donkeys, yaks, although I’ve never gotten to meet one. Oh! And Spike over there is a dragon!” She pointed one of her front hooves at the door frame behind me to reveal a small, purple, reptilian-like creature with green spines standing with a platter of a tea kettle and some tea cups in one of his claws staring at me.

“Thank you, Spike.” Twilight levitated the platter away from him onto a nearby table with a- I presume- pony head decorating it. “Are you saying your species is the only sapient one in your world?”

I nodded. “The only other species that was close to ours intellectually was dolphins, but they haven’t evolved enough yet. I recall there being some studies done fairly recently saying that they’d need at least another 10,000 years or so to catch up to us.”

Both Twilight and Rarity seemed stumbled. “Dolphins?” Twilight asked.

I was about to explain, but Fluttershy finally spoke for the first time. “They’re, um, an aquatic mammalian animal that lives in the oceans. I’ve never gotten to meet one yet, but they seem so sweet.”

Unsurprisingly, her voice seemed like it would shatter like glass if you so much as looked at it wrong. This one’s got some serious self-esteem issues. How she managed to fight with us is beyond me. “Surprised you have those here, but that’s correct. They’re at a strange transitional point in their evolutionary cycle where they have lungs, but still live underwater and need to come up to the surface to breathe.” I mostly added that for Twilight’s benefit as she seemed to enjoy clarifications. It didn’t exactly have the effect I intended.

“Y-you know animals?” Fluttershy managed to sneak up next to me silently. If she weren’t so timid and meek I would have been intimidated.

“Not much. Certain behavioral patterns, random trivia depending upon the species. Nothing extensive.”

“Is that how ya’ knew what t’do with the timberwolf’s legs before?” Applejack asked. This must have been the question she wanted to ask before.

I nodded. “Quadrupedal walking cycles require the opposite legs working to stay mobile. Their center of mass will force them to the ground unless the other legs are strong enough.”

Applejack nodded, but I’m not sure she understood. The unsure look on her face seemed to indicate such.

Rarity piped back up, “Tell me, Franco, what’s fashion like amongst your kind? You simply must have some interesting fashion designs if your species wears clothes all the time.”

I shrugged. “Probably.”

“‘P-probably’?” She echoed. “I don’t understand, dear.”

“I meant, I don’t know. Never paid attention to fashion trends back home. Never had the time.” Or the motivation.

The look on her face made it seem like she could break down into violent sobbing at any time. I had no idea it meant that much to her. “I-I see. That’s quite a shame.”

I noticed the reptile finally managed to work up the courage to come near me, so I acknowledged him. “And you’re a dragon?”

He flinched a bit, but his voice finally came out, “Y-yeah… What are you…?” He sounded incredibly young, almost feminine. Considering how little I knew of his species, at the time I thought he was both.

“Human. Classification homo sapiens sapiens.”

His facial expressions contorted into something I couldn’t recognize coming from him. It was probably the scales. “The wise wise ones? Really?”

“Spike!” Twilight barked at him.

I almost smirked. The two of them definitely live together if they can both follow along with me. I doubt they’re related, all things considered. Roommates? Maybe an item? “Try not to put too much stock into the name. Scientists back home can get rather pretentious when it comes to naming certain aspects of us as a species. I mean, we’re the only sapient ones there, so who’s going to stop us?”

This prompted what I could only interpret as nervous laughter from the dragon, as he slowly backed away from me. I hadn’t intended for that to come across as intimidating, but looking back I could see how it would have been taken that way.

I turned back over to Twilight. “What of your government? What’s its structure and who rules it? You don’t have to go into too much detail if you’re not allowed. Just the bare basics is fine.” I’d also rather not be playing 20 Questions all fucking day.

“Oh, Equestria is a diarchy, ruled by Princesses Celestia and Luna. What about yours? What’s this ‘United States of America’ like?” Twilight seemed like she was hanging on every word I said. She’s apparently the excitable type when it comes to subjects that fascinate her. Hearing about this country being a diarchy is interesting, though. That almost never came up back home.

“We like to call ourselves a democracy, but we’re a republic. Much closer to an empire were we to give our ruler any more power.”

She gave a thoughtful nod. “And your ruler? Do you have one currently?”

I guess there’s no harm in giving a name, but I probably shouldn’t say anything more about the inner workings of my country. “...Yeah. President George Sears.” I got up from the seat I used and stretched the best I could. To me, the library had a fairly low ceiling, but to them I’m sure it didn’t feel that way. I couldn’t stretch my arms up, but at least my head didn’t bump the ceiling. “Perhaps we can finish this conversation some other time? I grow weary of these relentless questions. Makes me feel like I’m being interrogated.”

“Aw…” Twilight said, dejected. “Would you be up for more later? Maybe after we check whether multiverse theory is valid?”

I wandered my way over to the nearby bookshelves filled to the brim with their knowledge, picking up a few of them to examine the covers to see which one I would find most beneficial. “I suppose that’s fine. In the meantime, I’d like to read up on your world history. Do you have any recent almanacs?”

“‘Almanac’? What’s that?”

Oh right. It’s probably not called that here, huh? “You probably have one, it’s just called something different. It’s an encyclopedia exclusively dedicated to recent events and historical achievements within a set period of time.”

“Oh, you mean a ponyac.” I heard the dragon pipe up.

I rolled my eyes. Of course it’s called that. Why wouldn’t it be? “Sure, whatever. One covering the last hundred years or so should give me a pretty good idea of where your society is currently standing.”

The girls, excluding Twilight, slowly started to leave the library with Rainbow being the last. I didn’t really pay much attention to why she stayed for so long, nor did I care. I had far too much history to catch up on before I could worry about anything else.