Becoming Raindrops

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“No, but it would be easier to get it over with now rather than later.”

“That's true enough.”

“And you'll be there... just make sure they stay back, okay?”

“We will,” TJ nodded to me. “Don't worry about that. You'll be fine.”

I nodded nervously, anxiety filling me as we parked and started to move forward. Nopo – ugh, I'd been doing that recently, mostly since this morning. Taking a shaky breath, I followed my friends towards the PUB, Penguin Union Building, where our friends were meeting upstairs for some games. Mostly card games, but that's what we did. As they approached the building, I did my best to ignore the stares from the people that were there. It wasn't easy, to be honest. While it was true that there weren't many people there, for some reason, that made it all the more awkward and difficult to stay on the ground.

“Wait, how am I going to get up the stairs?” I asked as we got closer to the entrance.

“We take the elevator.”

“But the bathroom is down a small set of stairs, and I'm certain I'll be needing that sooner or later.”

“But that's also connected to by the elevator.”

“I don't want to have to rely on that thing all the time, I gotta learn how to use stairs sometime.”

“Doesn't have to be today, does it?”

“...No,” I agreed with a nod.

“Then let's get upstairs and play some Magic!”

I gave a smile and followed my friends to the front doors, where they held them open for me and headed inside. Noticeably calm upon seeing that the bottom floor was devoid of people, we went up the ramp ahead of us, and turned into the alcove that had the elevator sitting by the stairs. There was nobody there, and walked out the door into the other upstairs area. If one were to check my pulse as we stepped around the corner, they would find it speeding up faster than should be safe for any living being.

“Whoa, who’s the Raindrops?” Aubrey asked upon spotting us, blinking. “She looks so cute!”

Okay, now that definitely wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I blinked and found my jaw working and trying to make words.

“What?” I blurted out without thinking, a look of confusion at the rather lax reaction clear on my face.

“Must be pretty weird, though,” Emma commented. “The four legs and all.”

“And the wings! Can you fly?” Justin asked.

Now that I was being barraged with questions that I hadn’t really expected, I found myself coming over with a disbelieving smile. It took me a moment to remember that these were my friends, the kind of people that didn’t care about such things.

“Well,” I began to say as I climbed onto one of the leather chairs. “I still can’t fly, don’t know how to do that yet. The four legs were annoying as hell at first, but I figured out how to pick things up with my hooves anyway. Don’t ask, I don’t know how that works aside from just explaining it as magic grabby hooves. As for who got the lucky draw... it happened while me, Andrew, and TJ were on that campout we mentioned last time we met up.”

“No way, Thomas?” Aubrey asked with a bit of a laugh. The others laughed a bit as well, realizing what she was giggling at immediately. I blushed.

“Shut up,” I mumbled, trying to glare at them. My growing smile kind of ruined it. These guys were too awesome for me to stay mad at. “Can we get on with what we came here to do? Gimme my cards, TJ.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckled, tossing my bag to me.

“Ack!” I exclaimed, throwing out my front legs and catching it perfectly. I unzipped the main pocket and checked the contents. “Careful! It has my lunch in it.”

David stared, “How’d you do that?”

I blinked at the youngest member of our little group before realizing what he meant. “Like I said, magic grabby hooves. I have no idea how it really works.”

“So you really can play cards?” Justin asked, as he shuffled his big Commander deck.

I grinned as I pulled out my box of cards, followed shortly by the deck and started shuffling. “Yes.”

There was another round of laughter as I continued to shuffle my cards.

“When’d you figure out how to do that?” Steve asked.

“Yesterday. It took me all. Freakin’. Day. Now onto more important things -- who’s going first?” I responded, watching as Justin reached for his Bionicle container of dice and pulling out the big thirty-sided one.

“Of course your game is more important than being a pony,” Aubrey commented, rolling her eyes.

“Well, yeah. Priorities, ya know?”

“I gotta ask, what’s it like being a mare?”

I scrunched up my muzzle without even thinking about it as I answered, “Weird.”

There were a few more laughs all around, but Emma decided to lean over from where she sat with her cards and squeezed me in a tight hug without warning.

“You are just too cute with your nose like that!”

“I don’t do cute!”

“I don’t think you have a choice now that you’re a pony,” Justin pointed out. “And it’s your roll.”

Emma let go of me just so I could roll, and ended up being the one to go first for our game. We settled our hands and I started the game. It was an easy start, just a land... and a couple other cards. Then it was Steve’s turn. When it finally got back to me, I reached for the top card of my library and paused upon noticing a couple of older guys walking over. Both seemed to be in their mid-twenties, wearing some polos and jeans. They stood on either side of my chair, and from the way they were staring at me, an uncomfortable silence almost immediately settled over all of us.

The one on the right decided to speak up first, his voice harsh and cold and sending shivers down my spine. “What is it doing here?”

Being the smart aleck that I am, I decide to look him in the eye and answer. “I’m here doing exactly what it looks like I’m doing.”

The next thing I know, I’m on the ground, and my face hurts. There was the familiar taste of iron on my tongue. Many of my friends are on their feet, expressions varying from pissed to murderous.

“Freaks don’t talk,” The one on the left snarled.

“And neither do those who hit our friends,” Max snapped.

That’s when I realized it. The moment my friend said it, I finally figured out why my face hurt. They’d punched me. They’d punched me hard. The taste of iron, I was bleeding, and from how it felt, it seemed pretty bad.

“Friend?” The one on the right again, snorting in disbelief. “Who would honestly be friends with something like that?”

Looking a little closer at their shirts, I finally noticed something that I should have seen sooner.

It was the logo for the People Against Ponies Association.

I didn’t think I would encounter these guys so soon. It’s only been three days since I became Raindrops! And already I’m being attacked by these guys? That... that was just not fair.

“You really think that I wanted this?” I’m not sure where this anger is coming from, but now I’m standing back up and ignoring the pain in my face. One of them moved to hit me again.

“I thought I said you don’t get to talk,” He growled, moving his fist back.

Before he could follow through, his arm was grabbed by someone who had come up behind him. Another hand grabbed his other wrist and pulled them behind his back and pushing him against the chair. In doing so, it was revealed to be one of the security staff, with another taking care of the other guy.

“I don’t need to ask for an explanation.” The name tag labeled him as Jordan. “I’ve seen and heard enough to know what happened.”

“Unhand me!”

“Sorry, no, you’re under arrest for physical assault.” The other security staff responded as she cuffed the other man, her name tag identifying her as Jean. “Both of you are.”

“And make no mistake, I will be pressing charges.”

“You're not human, you don’t get to use human laws!”

“Considering that I’m not the one who attacked someone without provocation, I’m a better human than you are now, or will ever be!”

Both of the men tried to break away from the security staff, but were pulled back and led away before they could. The moment they were downstairs and out of sight, every little last bit of anger and frustration left me and the pain in my face took its place. Not to mention the fact that it was very upsetting to be attacked in front of my friends like this. I collapsed onto my haunches, putting a hoof to my right cheek and wincing at how tender it was.

“Are you alright, Thomas?” Andrew asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on my back.

“I’ll... I’ll be fine.”

“How bad is it? Are you bleeding?”

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want them to worry about me all that much. It’s a weird personality quirk of mine. More than happy to help someone else, and not very willing to accept or ask for help.

“Thomas,” Andrew began, gently insisting that I turn around. “Show us how bad it is.”

Reluctantly I removed the hoof from my cheek, and heard a couple gasps. I couldn’t tell how bad it was.

“Can you open your mouth so we can see how badly you’re bleeding?”

It took me a moment, but I did it. There were a few sighs.

“I’ll get the first aid kit from downstairs,” Justin volunteered, already heading down.

“I’ll go get you some ice.” That was TJ. He was already heading downstairs as well.

“Here, take a look, Thomas,” Aubrey said, holding a compact mirror in front of me.

I was shocked at how much blood there was. It felt like there wasn’t that much, but from what I saw, it was kind of pooling around my tongue. There was a big cut on the inside of my cheek, and my gums were oozing blood as well. Somehow, my teeth were in one piece, and it didn’t feel like my jaw as broken. But it still hurt like hell.

“At least nothing’s broken,” I mumble, putting the hoof against my cheek again.

“Do you wanna head home?”

“No. I don’t want today to be ruined by those jerks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah... I wanna keep playing.”

“Will you be able to, with one hoof busy holding the ice pack?” Justin asked as he came up the stairs, TJ not far behind with said ice. He handed over a stack of gauze pads. “And your mouth full of gauze?”

He had a very good point. I thanked them for the items as I gently took them. It took a minute to put the gauze on the bleeding points in my mouth, and a moment to hold the ice to my cheek. It would certainly be difficult to talk with both of these things. That was, of course, when I felt arms wrap around my barrel and pick me up. A blush immediately colored my cheeks, as Aubrey decided to sit back and hold me.

“I’ll help you with that,” She said. “I’ve got nothing else to do, anyway. Just point out the cards you want to play, I barely know the rules.”

Aubrey held me close, letting me stay in her lap like a cat. My hoof still held the ice, and the gauze remained in my mouth. Some of the others laughed at my embarrassed look, my cheeks felt like they were burning, even under the ice. I nodded to her though, grateful for all the help my friends were giving me. The game continued on, and soon after I was able to pull the gauze out.

“We’ll help you tell your mom about this,” TJ mentioned.

I nodded, “That’d be great, thanks.”

“Okay, you are really freaking warm,” Aubrey suddenly said. “Warmer than my cat! Why is that?”

“I’m a pegasus. I fly really high, and it’s really cold up there.”

“True enough.”

“...Thomas?” Andrew started to say.

“Yeah?”

“...We won’t let guys like those do that again. Okay?”

“...Thanks.”

There were nods and sounds of agreement all around, and it made me smile at how awesome my friends were. I knew, I just knew that they would keep their promise. And that was more than enough of a comfort to make this whole ordeal so much easier to deal with.

I’m very lucky to have friends like them...