The Chronicles of a Furball

The Chronicles of a Furball

Chapter 2: The Hangover Part I

My life's work, it turns out, was spent searching for a bunch of furballs.     -Samos the Sage

     Hangovers suck.

     Anyone who had a few too many drinks on a wild Friday night can attest to that. It's the price you pay for fun, just another fact of life.

     But still...that doesn't make them hurt less. Damn near everything can make you miserable during a hangover, things like bright light and loud sounds. Oh, and let's not forget the vomiting and the dizziness. Sheesh, you know you did something bad when your own body punishes you for it.

     Do you know what the most interesting part about hangovers is? Waking up in strange and unusual places. (I once woke up in a dumpster, true story)

     And I belive where I ended up next definitely qualifies as a strange and unusual place...

XVXVXVX

     I woke up after that blurry night, lying on my back and feeling extremely hungover. My head pounded like a ceartian blue-haired DJ pony was blasting Dubstep inside there. My whole body felt all woozy and tingly, I may have had to throw up very soon. Yep, this is the standard case of the Morning Regrets.

     Rember all those Saturday mornings when you woke up feeling nice and refreshed and ready to start the day? No school or work to worry about, it was jus going to be a You Day. Well, This wasn't one of them.

      I opened my eyes, which was a decision that I promptly regretted. The sun was high in the sky and it seared my retinas like steak at a good old-fashioned American barbecue. Why? Why did I think it was a good idea to play Mas tequila? Bad brain, baa-aad!

"Ahh! Burning, so not fun!" I whined, using my hands to save my eyeballs from certain doom.

     With my eyes shut tight, I began to pick myself off of the ground and to try and get an idea as to where the hell I was. This proved to be yet another bad idea.

     "Unnngh...oh god! *huuurrrrrp*"The strain from my feeble attempt at getting up was met with my stomach doing gleeful backflips, which caused it to wretch and to surrender its contents to the...grass? Whudda hell?

     I stared at the ground, the grass was green. Yeah, big suprise there, green grass who would have thought? But this particular grass was a shade of green that must have been three times brighter than that of central park, it wad positively neon. Again, whudda hell?

     I scooted away from the pile of puke and elected to lay there on my stomach until I felt like I wasn't going to die. A few minutes passed before I tried to stand again.

     With eyes still closed, I managed to balance on my two feet without hurling again, even if I was a little bit wobbly. I cracked one eye open, the sun wasn't as oppressive as before so I opened them fully.

     What I saw was not the inside of a karaoke bar, nor was it the streets of the Big Apple. A whole landscape was spread out before me, going for miles in all directions. I was standing in the middle of a neon-green feild, lushly decorated with many different species of wild flowers, the pallete of colors blended together in ways I could only see in an art museum. Off in the distance was a lone moutain, a very specific moutain. This hunk of rock had a whole city built in to its side. But not just any city, it was one that I had seen more times than I could count, both in my dreams and on a computer screen. Canterlot.

     "Hoe-leeee shit..." I gaped in awe at something that physics dictated should not exist. There was no mistaking it, I was in Equestria. Hundreds of questions rattled around in my brain, only serving to worsen the headace. How did I get here? Why am I here? Is this real? Am I dreaming? I don't wanna wake up! Oh god, am I crazy? I don't wanna be sane! Fuckin' Equestria, man!

Well, I do know a way to answer one of those questions...

Smack

Smacking yourself is the best way to find out if you're dreaming, you normally wake up when you feel pain in a dream. "Aaooowww..." This didn't help for my hangover at all, but I nothing changed. The gorgeous fields, the city, and the mountain were still there. Not dreaming. Check.

     "Ohh man..." Someone voice came from behind me. A voice I knew well, one that belonged to a man named Melvin D. Polanski. Mel.

     But when I turned around to greet him, I was shocked to see not the tall figure that I had known since my Senior year in high school, but a sea-blue pegasus pony lying sprawled out on the grass. It had a short-cut bright yellow mane and (get this) no cutie mark, despite being adult-sized.

     "Mel?!" I asked, clearly confused as to how his voice could come from a pony. The most obvious answer being that Mel was transformed into one upon arriving here like in the Conversion Berau fics, but hangovers always gave me -2 to my already low intelligence stat, so I didn't come to that conclusion at the time.

     The pony lifted his head in reaction to my voice, his dark brown eyes looked at me with a mix confusion and whimsy. Definitely Mel's eyes, just waaaay bigger "Uh, Si? Is that you?"

     "Yeah, who else would it be? Is that you?"

Pony Mel gaped at me "Si," he said calmly "look at yourself."

What did he-? I looked down at my hands. Instead of having milky-white skin that I literally knew like the back of my hand, my digits were covered in smooth, rusty-orange fur, the fingers were tipped with half-inch black nails.

     Then I screamed.

     Oh how I screamed. This was so not right, my real hands were gone, man. Gone! In fact, my whole body was different. I was entirely covered in the orange fur save for the frontside of my torso and on my animal feet (lower paws?), which was a dark yellow color of fluff. The fleshy human ears on the sides of my head were missing, replaced by droopy doglike ears on the top of my skull. (I later found out how awesome it felt when I scratched behind them)

     It didn't take long for me to recover from the inital shock, as sudden as it was "Okay, okay," I said, a little winded from screaming "I'm fine, I'm fine..." I tried to sit down onto the ground, only to be stopped by a sharp pain above my buttocks.  I looked back to see what the cause was.

     I had a tail.

     A tail...

A FREAKIN' TAIL!

With my shock freshly renewed,  I screamed again with more vigour than the first time. My head pounded even harder, apparently emotional rollercoasters and hangovers don't mix together very well. When I finished, my body gave out and I just collapsed to the ground.

     "How do you think I feel?!" Melpony shouted "You still have opposable thumbs! I'm a friggin' horse with wings, I can't even stand!"

     I stopped to catch my breath again, my throat would probably get really raw later on "Yeah but," I said between gasps "you're taking this very well, way better than I am."

     Mel chuckled nervously "Yeah, well I had my overload earlier this morning.  You were too passed out to hear me."

     "Wonderful. Oh, and you're not a horse, you're a pony," I added.

     "A...pony?" He said skeptically "Si, where the hell are we?"

     I rubbed my hands together deviously "We, my fine feathered friend, are in the magical land of Equestria! Behold its beauty!" I made a sweeping gesture toward Canterlot.

     Mouth agape, Mel stared at me like I had gone batshit "I...but...Do you mean we're in that My Little Pony show you watch on the internet?! How and why are we even here?!"

     I shrugged noncommittaly "Well fucked if I know," I said bluntly. I looked up into a random spot on the sky and waved cheerily at it "Wave to  the folks on the internet, Mel."

     Mel snorted mirthfully "Not funny."

     "Yes it is," I said "You just don't want to admit it." I tried to reach into my pants pocket and pull out the pack of smokes only to realize that I had no pants. Ergo, I had no pockets to keep my menthol 100s in "God, I could use a cigarette right about now."

     Mel scoffed "Sylus,  we're in, like, your number one vacation spot in all of existence and the first thing you want is a smoke," He made an attempt to stand on his hooves, but was met with a facefull of dirt. Mel shifted his body awkwardly for awhile and settled for doing that pony thing where they tuck their legs under their body, which looks extremely uncomfortable.

     I scoffed right back at him "Bite my furry orange ass," Mel may have been cool with the brony thing for the past two years, but one of his favorite passtimes was bashing my three-cigarette-a-day habbit. Why are non-smokers always on a major high-horse? It confounds me so.

     "Looking for dese?" A new feminine came from behind us. We whirled around (Well, I whirled, Mel scooted) to meet this new voice, sitting cross-legged on a flat boulder was a furry, orange squirrel-looking thing. She (and I'm assuming it's a she) looked just like I did but with several variations, firstly her coat was more of a fruity orange as compared to my rust fur, she wore her Orange hair in a long braided ponytail that dragged the ground.  Her ears were pierced with gemstone studs in several different places and a single grey feather was tucked into her hair, giving her a sort of tribal look.

     But most importantly,  in her hand she teasingly dangled a shiny green packet of menthol cigarettes.

"Yes I am!" I gleefully shouted as I raced over to this fuzzy lady "Gimme gimme gimme!" I leaped to snatch my smokes from her but she withdrew it not an inch away, causing me to miss them completely. I managed to bury my face in the dirt instead of what I intended. Funny, dirt tasted the same as it did back in New York, very dirty with a hint of grass.

     "No!" She scolded, though I was too preoccupied with my faceplant to acknowledge her "Ya gotta hear what I have ta say first before ya can 'ave dese death-sticks." She had a really thick Jamaican accent. Seriously, it was like she was doing a Tia Dalma impression.

     "Could today get any weirder? " Mel cynicaly asked no one in particular.

     "Ja," The orange person answered "I got a doozy of bombshell for ya."

     I picked myself up off of the ground and spit out a comically large wad of soil. A slimy earthworm wiggled its way out of the dirt spitball "Ewww nasty..." I wiped some of the execess crud off of my tounge "Yeesh...So what's this 'bombshell' you have for us, then? Coz it can't be weirder than getting sent to a different reality as a furball and a pony."

     The woman cleared her throat "Let me be da first one ta welcome ya two to the wonderful land called Equestria, home of both ya wildest dreams and ya darkest nightmares. Me name be Shiva, I'll be your boss from now on and-"

     "Wait, boss? Aww hell no!" Mel said in an abrasive tone.

     "Yeah," I heartily agreed "I just got rid of one shitty boss, I don't need another!"

     Shiva didn't reply, but instead fixed an icy glare on the both of us. She wordlessly snapped her fingers and out of nowhere a long bronze metal staff materialized in her hand. Shiva bought the pole down in a wide arc and cracked it over Mel's skull with a resounding Ping!

     "Aooowwwww!"

     I opened my mouth to say something snarky, but was cut off by that orange witch assaulting me in the same way. Ping! "Dammit!" I shouted "What was that for?"

     "For interruptin' me," She said pointedly "Now if ya two will just sit down and shut up I'll tell ya everything ya want to know, does dat sound good?"

     We both nodded.

     "Good," Shiva cleared her throat "Dis is quite the story, so ya best sit down while I tell it."

     We agreed, and did as she requested. I tried to sit on the ground, but was stopped by the same tail problem as before It's going to be a loooooong time before I get used to that I thought. Mel took an award sitting position while I decided to lay on the flat of my stomach with my chin cradled lazily in my hands.

     "I ain't gonna sugar-coat it for ya;" She began "Dis idn't de Equestria dat'cha seen on your internet. Dis place had more danger in one country dan de entire surface of Earth, you are going to get de shit beat outta' ya on many occasions. Don't let dat scare ya, with great danger comes even greater reward. I can promise ya near-death experiences and treasure in equal mesure, so long as ya do your jobs."

     "And what are our jobs?" Mel asked, narrowing his eyes at the whatever-she-was.

     "Ahhh! A fine question dat is," Shiva replied merrily "You two are ta represent me in a grand game of chess, serving as my pawns. But dis ain't no simple board game, dis is a competition between The Gods!"

     "God-s," I thought aloud "As in more than one? Well a million religious folks just flipped their keyboards..." I looked up to that random point in the sky again "Sorry folks! Please don't sue Hasbro."

Ping! "You're not on TV, ya cockeyed human!" Well damn, that hurt both physically and emotionaly, I may have even cried.

     Shiva gave me a glare that could've stopped a lesser man's heart "As I was sayin', you are my champions in what we have come to call Da Chess Game of da Gods. I am one of the many of my people who want to partake in it, we are called the Precursors. A race of elder gods who were much like you at one time, squabbling over land and resources...until one day we united and eventually ascended to godhood."

Wait a sec..."Does that make me a god?" I asked. I sure didn't feel immortal.

Shiva simply chuckled and shook her head "No, ya an Ottsel: A mortal creature made in our image. Nuddin' more, nuddin' less."

 "Besides," She went on "It be against the rules dat de others have set to make ya immortal. Many other Gods have sent dere peices to Equestria, err...or they have yet to, ahh no one evea established proper terms for time travel stuff. I probably shouldnt'a tried messin' with it..."

     "Wait, time travel is involved?" Mel asked with an icy edge to his voice "Yeah, great, juuuuuust fuckin' peachy. Would someone please point me to the portal back to Earth so I can get outta this fresh hell."

     Choosing to ignore Mel's snide comment, I asked Shiva "What do you mean by time travel?"

     "You'll find out soon enough," she said evasivly "But for now, the deal it this: Do what I tell ya, and you get to stay here...along with de formerly mentioned ritches."

     "What if I don't want either?" Jesus, what was wrong with Mel? Many other men would kill to be in his position and he wanted to go back?

     "It's not your decision," Shiva said matter-of-factly "You signed the contract;  ya'are bound to me. No take-backs, mon." Contract?

     Mel's new pony nostrils flared "I don't remember signing any god-damned contract! And I sure as hell would have read it if I did!" He looked like he wanted to tackle her, but was thankfully held back by his own unfamiliar anatomy "Just who the fuck do you think you are?!"

     I tried to put my hand on his shoulder, he immediately shrugged it off scornfully "Mel, calm down man. It's going to be better than you think it-"

     "NO!" he cut me off "I didn't want to be ripped from my life and made into a kind of a champion for some crazy anthro-ferret!" Mel was hysterical by now "I mean, why does it have to be me?! I'm just one of the many other fuckin' people in New York, why couldn't you pick someone else?!"

     "BECAUSE!" Shiva shouted "Ya had no future, NO FUTURE! Do ja think that we would'a picked someone that would be missed by someone else? No. We needed a person who had no family, no job, and no friends,  but still had the power of will! Ya two fit the bill perfectly"

     Damn. She was right. It was no big revelation that Mel and I didn't have much in the way of family. Mel didn't talk much about his parents, I could only gleen from him that they have been dead and gone for a long time. Me beign a curious bastard, I pressed the issue one night in the Singing Monkey, Mel all but turned to stone. He didn't budge on a single question, no matter how hard I tried to coax out the truth. I was relentless and he was tougher than a brick wall, so I quit. I'd have more luck squeezing tomato juice from a carrot.

     For me...well...I won't bore you with some sob story filled with bottles of gin and pharmaceutical overdoses. My parents most likely aren't dead, but they are probably farther down in the dumps than I could've imagined. I fell out of contact after I went off to college, not because I didn't call them, but because they didn't pick up the phone.

     In all honesty,  I got over that issue quicker than a normal person. My parents weren't abusive, to me anyway. They abused themselves with the aforementioned booze and drugs. Yah, I had a bad childhood. Boo-hoo, poor me. I think I'll go cry in a corner.

     The point is; no one would know if we disappeared off the face of the earth. Or boss won't be wondering why were not at work, our parents won't file a missing-persons report, and our friends aren't close enough to go combing New York for us. We were the two most abductable people on the planet. And Shiva had us by the metaphorical balls.

     Then Mel did the most unexpected thing I could think of: he laughed. Like a maniac.  It started off as a low giggle, like he had just heard a mildy humorous fart joke."I can't belive it!" Then it rose in volume and intensity, it became a louder-than-indoor-voice laugh, the kind you'd have while bantering on with your buddies at a decent birthday party. "That's hilarious! Hah hah, I 'fit the bill.' Hah hah hah hah hah!" Finnaly, he hit an apex with a full-on maniacal scream of lost sanity, only ever heard echoing through the halls of Arkam Asylum as The Joker was being wheeled away into his cell. "Look at me Si, I'm a champion!" He was litteraly rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically as if it were thw last time he would do so. Even the Shiva, a supposed elder god who had lived longer than anyone, looked unnerved by Mel's behavior.

     "Uhh, M-Mel...?" I asked, fighting the against lump in my throat so I could speak "Mel...are you okay?"

          Mel calmed down as my voice registered in his brain. He took in a shaky breath of fresh air and let it out slowly "Hah, No..." he said, the false humor still in his voice "Sylus, I think I've finnaly gone insane. " Mel elected to lay limply on the ground, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.

     "You're not insane, man," I tried to reassure him "C'mon, we'll just take a breather and talk about this, alright? "

     "Alright," he weakly agreed. Mel laughed again hoarsely "Toady has been one hell of a day, hasn't it?"

     I knelt down and put my hand (Is it a paw now?) on his shoulder again. He accepted it this time, but he did stiffen at my touch "You just need some time to process this."

     "I give you all da time ya need to accept ya fate,"Shiva said solemnly "I understand why you're doing what'cha doing. It's hard to cope with all dis...madness, I would know."

    "One more thing..." Mel said, lifting his head to regard the Precursor "What's the deal with that 'contract' you talked about? Like I said, I didn't sign anything."

     Shiva chuckled nervously "Well, ya may or may not have been very intoxicated whilst signing it."

     Mel gaped at her "You mean we didn't pass out in the bar?"

     "No, ya stumbled into da back alley where I ambush ya with a contract.  I tell ya: "I give ya both new jobs right now if ya sign on dis dotted line." Then I give it to ya and ya both signed it."

     "Sooo it our fault?" I asked slowly.

     Shiva nodded "Ja, mon. De other Gods' rules say dat I can't take ya here by force, I gotta get'cha to agree to it first," Shiva snapped her fingers ince again and with a spark of energy, a scroll poofed into her hand "I'll let ya two look at it if ya want to."

     She tossed the scroll to me, I caught it easily and unfurled it, a trail of paper longer than I am tall rolled acros the ground. This contract was damn big. I skimmed over the many paragraphs of endless droning legal talk until I found one that caught my eye "We the pawns hereby agree to give Precursor Shiva all proceeds from show earnings, endorsement fees, broadcast royalties, syndications residuals, vehicle sponsorships, mall appearance fees, collectible card assets, fast-food tie-ins, use of likeness rights, talk show deals, clothing lines, all print rights including book, novella, comic, pamphlet, ticker tape, neon sign and bathroom graffiti designs..." I paused and took a DEEP breath "Toy rights, shoe lines, mood rings, game rights, (GAME RIGHTS?!?!) Vitamin endorsements, city kickbacks, movie deals, and of course, all death and dismemberment accident insurance claims..."

"Wow," Mel commented dryly.

     "Damn straight. " I agreed.

     "I just needed to protect my ass in the legal department," Shiva defended "It be no big deal inside Equestria."

     "Do you need our firstborn sons, too?"

    "No." Shiva snapped her fingers and the contract vanished.

     "Well I'm good with that," I said.

     "Ya got no choice," Shiva reminded us "Anyway, we got too far off topic...I have a gift for ya, Si."

     "Oh yeah, you've got my smokes don't you?"

     "Ja," she tossed the packet of tobbaco-ey goodness to me and I eagerly snagged one out of the pack and put it between my lips.

     "You got a light?" I asked her, she nodded and gave me my silver lighter "Thanks, " One click of a lighter later and I was in bliss. I inhaled...then exhaled slowly, letting the euphoria run through my body. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, use the ground as your ashtray, breathe in....

     "Sylus," Shiva's voice broke my trance.

     "Hmm?" I hummed dreamily, letting a cloud roll out of my mouth.

     "Focus mon."

     "Oh right!" I was in a conversation, wasn't I? I must've zoned out. That's kinda what happens when I don't get my nicotine. I moved the cigarette to the corner of my mouth so I could speak "Sorry, uh... what did you want?"

     "I have a gift for ya," She stated.

     "Oh, it wasn't the smokes? Ok then, what'cha got?"

     The same way she produced the staff and the scroll a metal cylinder appeared. I was made from the same alloy as her staff, it had the color of polished bronze but it glitered like a bar of gold. It was hollow on the inside with the top and bottom open, it looked like a bracer. Sevral runic marks were carved into it everywhere. It wasn't any human language,  I can tell you that.

    "What is it?" Mel asked cautiously.

     "It is de culmination of all my people's technological knowledge and ingenuity. We've been developing this peice of equipment for exactly 729 years, ten months, and eleven days, give or take a few hours. We call it The Brace of The Precursors."

     "Oooh-kay, I'll bite. What does it do?"

     "Standard radio communication with anyone within four lightyears, (Only I have de tech to pick up the signal, though) real-time information on ya medical status, a workin' encyclopedia on anything and everything, built-in MP3 player, and a few other features I'll let ya find out on ya own."

     "Well geez, so it's like a souped-up PIP-Boy?" High powered tech and Equestria? Oh this was gonna be fuuuuun!~

     Shiva looked like she was going to hit me again but was restraining herself "No," she said, glaring at me yet again "Dose are only its secondary functions, De Brace is far more advanced den dat. I added dose while ya two were sawin' logs. What makes it so special is its ability to let any non-magical being channel a kind of magic."

     "Like Skyrim?!" I asked hopefully.

     "No," she replied.

     "Than what kind of magic can I do with it?"

     "De kind that my race has harnessed since the beginning, the ancient energy that flows through the universe, governing all living beings."

     "And that is?"

     "Eco."