The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?

It had been only a mere hour since Twilight and I got back from the crater.  We rested the girl on a spare bed that Twilight had stored in the basement/laboratory.  She did a quick scan of the girls body for any signs of injury, to my relief there weren't any.  All things considered, this has been one hell of a night so far.

I was sitting in a chair on the main floor relaxing when Twi came in from the kitchen with two cups of tea.  Taking a seat across from me, she levitated one of them to me.  Thanking her, I grasped the cup and began to slowly sip from it.  It was very good to my surprise.  Normally, I'm not one for tea.  But what she had made tasted really sweet.

"So,"  Twilight began causing me to stop drinking, "What do you think we should do when she wakes up?"

"What do you mean?"

She set her tea down, "What I mean is, how are we going to tell her what happened?  I would guess based off of past experiences that it's highly probable that she will be scared and confused, causing her to cause an uproar and garner the attention of many unwanted eyes."  She lifkted her cup and took a small sip before placing it back down.  "So I think we should come up with some sort of plan to reassure her that she'll be safe and won't come to harm.  So, I'll ask again,  what should we do?"

This was true.  When I woke up here, I wasn't the most... pleasant.  So Twi was right in thinking that we should make a plan.  "In my opinion, I should be the one there when she wakes up.  Since humans aren't used to see talking multicolored ponies, she'll probably be in a more relaxed state if I were to explain everything that happened to her, to a degree."  Twilight seemed to absorb everything that was said, nodding in approval the entire time.  "Also," I continued, "She might be connected to me somehow.  So that might be a positive in her reaction."

Twilight tilted her head at this.  "Connected?  How so?"

"Well, when she was falling out of the sky, my eye started to throb.  Not painfully, but like... hmm,  how should I put this?  Ah!  Like it had its own heartbeat."  I pointed to my left eye to direct her attention to it.  "That's when I got the idea that her and I might be connected."  That's when I remembered the talk I had with AJ.  "Speaking about my eye, could you have a look at it?  Aj said to talk to you about it tomorrow, but since I'm already here, may as well, right?"

"Um, sure I don't see why not."  Twilight set down her tea and walked over to where I was.  She began to look at it when she suddenly gasped and began backing away slowly.

"Is something wrong?"  She started to look around nervously, almost looking for a way out.  "Twilight?"  I stood from my seat and took a step towards her.

"DON'T COME CLOSER!"  She shouted.  Twilight quickly used her magic and conjured a pink bubble around me.

I walked forward and placed a hand on the bubble.  "Please, Twi, you're really starting to freak me out."

She looked at me and then immediately looked away.  "Uh... I just don't want you to catch what I have.  Yeah, that's it."  She gave a poor excuse of a coughing fit and smiled nervously.  "See?  Sick as a dog."

I just looked at her unconvinced.  "Really?  You were just fine a few minutes ago."

"Nope, I've been sick this whole time."  She trotted over to one of her bookshelves and pulled out one of the many tomes.  After a few moments of scanning she set it down and closed it.  When she faced me, her horn was glowing brighter than before.  "I'm going to try and see if I can make you temporarily immune to my sickness."

I gave a shrug of my shoulders.  "Ooookay?  You could've just asked instead, but no harm done."

"Great then!"  I heard her mumble something as I took my seat again.  But I swore I heard something like 'Or will be done.'

"What was that," I asked.

She jumped a little.  "Nothing!"  She continued to smile like nothign happened.  "Now just sit there and hold still.  This may take a bit."

"MONSTER!"  Somepony cried out from their window, causing a domino effect amongst the other homes.  Lights of houses were being flicked on one by one at the mention of the monster.  "Somepony get the Royal Guards!"  Another yelled.  Ponies of all types were starting exit their homes and walking out to the scene.

"Nopony get too close," shouted a brown earth pony stallion, "It could attack at any moment."

I stood up looking around at the group that was forming around me.  The situation was becoming more and more terrifying by the second.  Suddenly from somewhere within the massive group, somepony threw a rock that struck my forehead.  Reaching up, I placed my hand on the spot where the rock had hit me and brought it back down to look at it.  I was bleeding.  The pain began to spread not only on my forehead, but also, within my heart.

Before anything else could thrown, I jumped from the middle of the group landing just outside of it.  I began to sprint away from them as I heard one of them scream, "Hey, we got it on the run!  After it!"  Immediately after they said that, I heard the roar of the crowd and the sound of hooves on cobblestone giving chase.

I ran, and ran, and ran more still.  It didn't matter where I ended up.  As long as I was away from the town, I was safe.  Upon not hearing the sound of hooves, I stopped and turned around panting heavily.  Looking back at the town, they were all celebrating.  I could see all of them cheering and praising each other.  I could hear them say things like, "That'll teach that freak not to mess with us!"  and, "Yeah! That beast didn't stand against us."  Turning away from the town, I began my lonely trek.  I could feel the tears streaming down my face but no sounds were made.  I couldn't think straight, my mind was in turmoil.  "How could she do that?"  I thought.  "What did I do to deserve that?"

I wracked my brain for what seemed like hours only to come up with the same answer every time, "Because I'm a freak."  I whispered to myself.  At those words, I collapsed to my knees and broke down.  I just stared at the ground sobbing to myself.  I had been abandoned, left alone to fend for myself on an unknown planet with a small amount of knowledge of the landscape.  Looking around myself, I noticed that I was in a forest clearing.  Somehow in the time that I spent running I managed to get lost in the Everfree Forest.

"So, I see that they ran you out of town."  A voice said from behind me.  I quickly turned to see a hooded pony standing there.

I turned away from him and looked back at the ground.  "Do what you want.  Beat me, kill me, I don't care anymore.  I give up."  I said with an  emotionless voice.

I could hear him walking up to me at a steady pace.  I prepared myself for whatever onslaught that was to come.  But nothing happened.  I felt him place a hoof on my shoulder, then he asked, "What if I could take you away from here?"

I looked at the stallion with a sad expression.  "Why would you do that for me?  For a... a freak."

He removed his hood to show his face.  He was a red unicorn with yellow eyes.  He had a short black mane and a medium length black tail with a red stripe going through it.  "Because we're the same you and I," he began.  "They only see us as freaks, and nothing more.  You see, they feared me because of my eyes.  Every day, they would call me things like 'monster' and 'freak'.  Every day was worse than the last.  It all started as name calling, but then it quickly escalated to public beatings.  They all treated it like it was some sort of sport or game."  He removed his hoof from my shoulder and walked to the center of the clearing.  Turning around he looked at me holding out his hoof towards me.  "So what's it going to be?  Return to them only to shunned, humiliated, and hurt.  Or go with me to a place where you'll be treated like normal?"

I stood up and walked up to the unicorn.  With a smile, I grabbed his hoof and shook it.  "The name's Kiyoshi."

The red unicorn adorned a wicked smile as he said, "Nice to meet you Kiyoshi.  My name is Malice."  With that we departed deeper into Everfree Forest, away from the cruel town that I thought once to be a peaceful place.

Author's Note:

Sorry about the really short chapter, but the events that happened in this chapter will lead up to the next chapter.

A shout out to Church:  Thanks dude!  Without your help this chapter and all future ones wouldn't have been possible.