Pete Powell in Equestria

Pete groaned as he came to. His throat was dry and he couldn't muster a drop of saliva to swallow down it. Every part of his body protested as he pushed himself up on the bed he was laying in. At which point he realized he was laying in a bed. Opening his eyes and looking around Pete saw a sight recognizable at any time and place, a hospital room. The walls were plain, medical tools were laying on a counter next to the door across from his bed, and a pitcher of water sat on a nightstand next to him.

Without a second thought Pete seized the pitcher and drank from it. He was almost surprised he could drink the whole thing. Thirsty didn't describe how he felt, dehydrated was more like it. Parched. Like something had taken all the water from his body, or like he had been...

Pete recalled the explosion and looked at his body. No stitches, no burns, some aches, pains, and scars, but no sign of lasting damage. Climbing out of bed and finding his clothes nearby, Pete determined he needed to find someone. Anyone would do, he just needed to know what happened. How he had gotten there, where there was, why he wasn't dead. Little things. The door to the room opened as he zipped up his pants.

Celestia trotted into the room and stopped, seeing Pete half naked with his hand over his crotch the ruler raised an eyebrow. With limited bashfulness, Pete grabbed his shirt and slid it over his head. Or rather what was left of his shirt. A nice breeze came through the gaping slashes on the chest, and the garment was closer to a crop top from the burns. The human picked at the shirt and looked at Celestia with worry.

“I'm really not comfortable walking around exposed,” he said without a trace of irony or sarcasm, “But I'm not sure I like walking around in this either.”

The princess smirked, “It would seem those are your only two options for the moment, Pete. I'm sure Rarity or one of the Canterlot tailors could accommodate you, but not as quick as you would like it seems. Should you be out of bed?”

Pete pulled the ruined shirt off his body and tossed it into the trash. “I feel fine. Well... okay, I've felt worse. I'm aching but it's nothing like what I felt out there.” A flash of the chimera on top of him came to Pete's mind as he spoke and he shuddered the image away.

“That's something I would like to ask about.” Celestia closed the door and stepped further into the room. “What happened out there, Pete Powell?”

Pete recounted what had happened, or what he could recall. The fight with the chimera, the changing of his sword, the sudden rush of energy in his body, the release and explosion. It was hazy, hard to remember specifics, but he did his best. Celestia sat and listened without interrupting until Pete finally shook his head and made eye contact.

“That's all I remember.”

“Pete,” Celestia sighed, “You performed magic.”

The human blinked in disbelief and looked at his hands. “Magic? How?”

The princess shook her head in response, instead floating the sword Pete had been found next to. A black, jagged blade with thorns meant to maim while attacking. Thorns that ran all the way down the hilt as well and would pierce the flesh of anyone that grabbed it barehanded and would make a terrible grip even if armored. The design itself was simple otherwise, it was short, no more than two feet long and resembled a cutlass aside from the sadistic thorns.

Almost instinctively Pete reached out and grabbed the sword. Celestia moved to pull the blade back, but stopped as it slowly morphed back to its original shape. Pete stared in wonder and hefted the weapon a few times, turning it over to see if anything was different. It looked exactly as it had before his fight with the chimera. He looked at Celestia, more confused than ever.

“Was that … magic?”

“I'm not sure,” Celestia replied as she took the weapon from Pete once more and examined it. “I don't feel any magic but that was certainly not normal.” Celestia sheathed the blade levitated it to her side. “I'll have our mages investigate. Perhaps Luna's were not through enough in their examination.”

Pete nodded, “So what do I do now?”

Celestia smiled, “For today, rest. If you are truly feeling fine then I suppose there's no reason to keep you here. I've already spoken to the humans. Many of them it seems wished to leave and I did as I promised. They are back home.”

“Well, that's good.” Pete hesitated to mention his own desire to leave.

“There are a few left in town however, and I think you should go speak with them. As well as your friends.”

Pete did a double take. “Friends?”

“Twilight and the other ponies?” Celestia looked shocked. “Surely you didn't think of them as strangers.”

“Well no, but...”

He struggled internally with the idea of being friends with the ponies he had watched for so many years. It was unbelievable to him that they could consider him a friend even after everything he had done. Especially with what he'd put them through in the end. Before he could say anything on the matter however, Celestia turned and opened the door. Stepping out into the hallway she looked back at him.

“You should go talk to them, Pete. They were worried.”

With that she closed the door and left Pete to his thoughts. At one time he would have sat in that room all day analyzing his own thoughts and feelings. Questioning himself and others. Something had changed. When exactly he wasn't sure, but he had changed. Within minutes he stood and left the room, following exit signs out of the building and surprising dozens of ponies in the process.

Pete marveled at the automatic doors on the Ponyville hospital. They proved that Equestria was more technologically capable than he thought and made him wonder why there were so many places that still had the medieval look and feel if electricity and technology was available on that scale. His pondering was cut short by remembering how exposed he felt without his shirt and trying to awkwardly walk to the main part of town with his arms crossed over his chest. He felt, and was sure he looked, stupid.

Ponyville, despite its relatively small size, was actually rather large. Pete wandered down a dozen side paths and alleyways before finally finding what he would recognize as the middle of town. An open area with a circular fountain in the middle where business buildings seemed to mingle with residential ones. He could see the Golden Oaks library as well as Sugar Cube Corner from the fountain, and a mental map of the town began to form in his mind based around those few landmarks he knew.

Once more his thoughts were interrupted, but this time by an outside force. Before Pete could register the whooshing sound, a blur of sky blue slammed into his chest and he found hooves and wings tightly wrapped around him as he stumbled backwards. Pete returned the hug with a chuckle after getting his balance and looked down at Rainbow Dash. Even up close the wound around her wing was barely visible, possibly even invisible if you didn't know what to look for, but Pete did.

“Hey, come on now,” he chuckled again and pried the pegasus off his chest. “I know you're excited, but you're also kinda heavy!”

Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out and flapped out of his grip. “Fine, fine! But I'll have you know I'm the lightest mare in town.”

“And how do you know that for sure?” Pete raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious when the rainbow maned mare had started to care about the weight of others. Especially enough to check on them all.

Dash opened her mouth to respond but the sudden appearance of Pinkie Pie halted whatever comment she had. Pete was once again tackled, and this time he was taken to the ground. With a loud grunt he looked up at Rainbow with a new haze of pink mane in the bottom of his vision. Pinkie hugged him tighter than the chimera had pinned him and didn't let go until she heard him gasp for air.

“Ohmygosh, sorry!” The pink mare bounded off Pete and turned to look down the street. “He's over here!”

Pete sat up and rubbed his back. Looking in the direction that Pinkie had shouted he saw the rest of the Mane Six approaching, along with five humans. Four men, one he recognized as the young man from the camp, as well as the woman that asked about leaving. The last one surprised him. She had seemed so intent to leave before. He stood up and dusted himself off as the group formed a half circle around him.

“You've been here a day and already you're going native?” Rarity smirked at Pete's lack of shirt, causing the human to awkwardly cover himself again.

“Hey, it was this or a rag that covered less than my arms anyway.”

“Oh yeah!” the young man, a head of messy brown hair flopping around as he jumped excitedly in place. “I heard about that. Well, not the shirt, but what happened to it. You killed that monster! You fought it with a sword and made it explode some how, right? How'd you do it?”

Pete winced and looked away. “Dunno. Just did it some how. Pure luck I guess. I've been getting lucky for a while now.” Twilight made a face, but said nothing.

“Yeah? Well I gotta say, now that we're here, I think this is going to be awesome!” The man was unfazed by Pete's shift in demeanor.

“We're just glad you're all right,” Applejack spoke up suddenly from the side, managing a small smile in the process.

Pete smiled back then looked at the humans. “So, I'm guessing you're all that's left? The only ones that didn't want to go back?”

Surprisingly it was the woman that spoke, her voice soft, almost hushed. “Well, once we got here and actually talked to everyone... or, um, everypony I guess, things didn't seem so bad.”

“And their clothing needs will be absolutely wonderful for me,” Rarity beamed. Ever since she'd seen human fashion she'd wanted to try her hoof at it in an unbridled way, and now she had six humans to test her ideas on.

The twelve slowly walked, or floated in the case of Rainbow Dash, to Sugar Cube Corner and sat down at a pair of tables inside. The humans began to introduce themselves, silently egged on by Twilight.

Jake was the name of the young and excitable man from the camp. In some ways he matched Pete, thin, brown eyes, shaggy hair, although Jake's hair was a lighter brown and much thicker. He also revealed that he too was a brony. Ever since the first pony had approached the camp he had held suspicions about where they were, but it was too wild to be real, and the reality of everything around them didn't quite live up to his cartoonish expectations. Ponies were larger than he imagined, and he made many remarks about their fur.

Next was Lance, a short blond man with soft blue eyes. The ponies came up to Lance's belly in height where they normally came to Pete's waist, and he was quite reserved in his introduction. He spoke concisely but with an eloquence that spoke more about him than he did.

Maxwell was next, a red head that could have been younger than Jake. Max was quiet and barely said more than his name. Jake explained that Maxwell seemed to be good at math, having helped with the construction of the huts, but was otherwise antisocial. Even more so than the woman Pete had met at the camp, now identified as Lucy.

The girl hid behind her black hair almost as much as Fluttershy hid behind her mane. When she did speak it was just as soft and uncertain as the butter colored pegasus as well. Pete couldn't help but feel there was a certain analog being drawn between the humans left and the Elements of Harmony.

Finally the large Xander introduced himself. Well over six feet tall and with the muscles to boot, Pete found himself in awe of the only person of color in the human group. Although Pete did wonder how long it would be before he found out about zebras and their scarcity in Equestria. He also wondered if it was racist to compare the two.

“You seem uncomfortable,” Xander said, noting Pete's absent stare.

“Oh, uh, sorry. Just not used to someone so large, you know?” Pete managed a half laugh. “You're like a brick wall, dude!”

Xander gave a small smile in return. “I've been told that before. Don't worry. I prefer not to get physical unless I have to.”

“Xander was invaluable when we were building our crude homes,” Lance added, smiling as well. “Even Derek, the overbearing survivalist that defaulted to being our leader, couldn't manage half of the physical tasks Xander did.”

“Please, it was a group effort. I didn't know how to build a hut any more than the rest of us. Derek became the leader for a reason.”

Jake scoffed. “Yeah, because he had a friggin' bow!”

Xander held up a finger, “He made that bow, and he knew how to build shelters and hunt. Strength of body does not equate to strength of mind.”

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Maxwell chimed in absently, his eyes darting all around the room.

“Well, now that they're staying,” Applejack interjected, slamming her hoof on the table, “Where are we gonna have 'em shack up?”

Twilight blushed, “Well, I figured we could each take one as a guest until more permanent housing becomes available.”

Rainbow Dash practically jumped over the table and put her wing around Pete. “I call this one!”

“Rainbow, darling, you live in a cloud house. Pete wouldn't be able to get up there, or stay there. He'd fall.” Rarity pointed out, doing her best not to sound belittling.

“Twilight could cast that cloudwalking spell.”

“I don't know if that's a good idea, Rainbow.” Twilight glanced at Pete, and he knew in that moment that she knew.

The conversation stopped as the door to Sugar Cube Corner flew open, and Princess Luna walked in. The humans stared, they had seen Celestia but were unaware there was a second alicorn. Twilight stood up, the ponies were just as amazed to see the princess in Ponyville, but Luna motioned for her to sit down. She approached the table and looked at Pete.

“It is time to go, Pete.”

“Go where?” Pete looked around, making sure he wasn't dreaming. Luna showing up so suddenly would make sense if he was.

“Back to Canterlot of course.” She smiled, “You have a lot of training ahead of you to join the Night Guard.”

Rainbow Dash blinked and grabbed Pete's shoulder. “The Night Guard?! How did you-”

“I don't know!”

Luna chuckled and smirked, “You did ask if your badge meant you were official.”

Pete reached into his pocket and pulled out the dark metal Luna had given him the night before. The group gawked at it, and then looked at Pete.

“The answer is still not quite, but you were very capable I'm told. And my guard can use more capable members.” Luna continued to smile while Pete waited for a got you moment. Nothing happened.

Slowly, after a time, Pete stood up. He let out a long, deep breath and nodded. He could explain everything to Luna once they were on the train. That might be better than telling everyone present that he wanted to leave. In a small way he was grateful that Luna came in when she did. He was seconds away from explaining that he still wanted to go back to his Earth and try living his life, and he wasn't sure he could look Rainbow Dash in the eyes while he did it.

“Lead the way.”