Chapters The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 1 - The Beginning
When someone says that they are on the varsity football team at their school, you would think that they would be more or less part of the "popular" clique. Hanging out with lots of friends, invited to parties, forming relationships. That they would be living a very fun life that never gets boring or tiresome, right? Wrong. I've been living a life that, although not completely bad, still emotionally drained me to the core; almost like being stuck in a metaphorical rut. It’s like life is on repeat, never changing, always the same.
On most days, I would be driving home asking myself if my life would ever change or be different, even just a little bit. At those times I would lose track of where I was or what I was doing and almost rear-end another car. But the thing was, I couldn’t help it. Day in and day out, the routine was all the same; wake up, go to school, come home, do home work, sleep, and repeat. I just wished my life would change for the better somehow... someway.
I arrived home at 3:30 P.M. Normally I would get home at about 3:00 P.M., but because of my daydreaming I made a few wrong turns and had to back track. As I sat in my car with the engine running, I thought to myself of what I could do. “I have two choices right now. Go inside and do my homework, or drive away and go do something else for a change. ” I sat there contemplating for about three minutes until I came to a single conclusion. “Screw it.” I shut off the car's engine and went inside my home.
My house could be described by some of the people that I knew as a “rich” house. But from where I stood, it’s just where I lived. My home was a two-story peach-colored house that sat on top of a hill surrounded by various other houses. The others were owned by young couples just starting their lives or elderly couples that were either retired or close to retirement. The driveway was really steep and lead to a two car garage which was connected to the house. I didn't get the luxury of using it because it was where my parents parked their cars. A concrete path crossing through the short, green grass yard lead to the main entrance to my home which was where I normally entered from.
I opened the front door and kicked off my shoes as I went inside. When I closed the door behind me, it made a loud thud. That sound always alerted everyone in the house that I was home, which I hated. I always liked to get home and go up to my room unnoticed, but the door sometimes had other plans for me. So I gave up all hope of walking in undetected and headed to the kitchen.
Walking into the kitchen, I noticed that my mom was talking to someone on the phone. Not wanting to scare the bejesus out of her, I waved at her as I walked by so she knew that I was home. She returned the wave with a smile as I walked into the pantry and got something to drink. I returned just in time to see her starting to hang up the phone. I quickened my pace to get past her and up the stairs as quickly as possibly. But when I reached the base of the stairs she called out to me. “Hey, Kiyoshi, could you come here for a minute? I wanna talk to you.” Hearing that, I turned around and slowly made my way back to her, preparing for the worst.
My mother was a middle aged, short Caucasian woman with wavy, light brown hair. She had these hazel eyes that would either comfort or frighten you depending on her mood at the time. And although she may have not been top of her class, she was still smarter than most people that I knew when it came to medicine and common sense. Her way of living was a little old fashioned but she knew what she was doing while raising me and my sister.
When I got back to the kitchen, I saw that she was standing there with a worried look about her and arms crossed . “Yes, Mom?” I asked with a cautious tone in my voice, thinking that I was in trouble. Most of the time when she says “Can you come here for a minute?”, or “I need to talk to you.” that means that I did something and had to face the music. But when she uses both? Oh boy was I in a world of trouble.
She could see that I was scared and doing what any good mother that cared about their child put on a comforting smile, “What’s the matter? I just wanted to know what school was like today.” She asked.
“Oh.” I looked back at her a little surprised that she wasn't angry with me. “Nothing really happened today,” I started. “Same stuff, different day.”
She squinted her eyes at me as if to try and see through any lies I could be telling. Standing there waiting for her response, I gave her an awkward smile trying very hard to keep myself from running out of the room screaming. After a few seconds, she could tell that I was telling the truth and continued to talk again, immediately changing her expression to a happier one. “So, what kind of homework do you have today?”
Oh great. The one question that I always hated to answer. It always reminded me that I had a mundane task that needed to be done. I had to think about that question for a bit. “I think I have Math, Creative Writing, Science, English, Histo-” Before I could finish my answer, she cut me off with a raised hand.
“Well, just from hearing that, it sounds to me that you have a lot of work to do, Mister" she said with a smile. "So I want you to head straight up those stairs and get to work." I turned and started to head towards the stairs when she called out again. "Also, try not to screw around in your room, ‘cause you know just as well as I do that you can get easily distracted with your Nintendo.”
“For the fifth time, it's not a-" I stopped myself mid sentence giving up the argument with a sigh. "Yes mom.” I wanted to argue about that statement but I just turned around, admitting she was right, and walked up the stairs towards my room.
My room wasn’t any different from anyone else’s room. It was moderately sized with a twin bed, lamp, radio, desk, and posters of different things that caught my interest, mainly video games. The floor was littered with old school papers and an incredible amount of dirty laundry. Pushed up against the wall opposite to the door was a t.v. on top of a stand with a PS2 on the floor in front of it. Throwing my backpack onto the floor next to my desk, I cracked my knuckles as I pulled out my assignments and got to work.
After about an hour of working on a particularly tedious English paper, I heard a knock come from my door. Looking up at the clock next to me, the time showed that it was 8:17 P.M. I stood up and walked over to the door. Opening it revealed that it was my mom knocking. I could tell just by her pleading expression that she needed me to do her a “HUGE” favor as she would like to call them. “You need me to do something, right?” I asked with a blank expression on my face.
She looked back at me in surprise. "I'll never understand how you and your father do that," she said with a shake of her head smiling a bit. "Yes, actually, I need you to do me a HUGE favor and get the mail for me." Called it. "I forgot to get it after shopping for groceries today.”
I quickly thought up an excuse and said, “Sorry, can’t do it. Remember? I've got a lot of homework to do and it’s all due tomorrow. Just have Jade do it when she comes home from whatever it is she's doing." The truth was, I had already completed all my other homework hours ago and was about ten minutes from being finished with writing the final draft of my English paper.
“That’s just the thing,” she started. “Jade won’t be back till tomorrow because she staying the night at her friends house. And your father won't be coming home tonight. He told me that he's going to be sleeping at the hospital tonight because there was a huge influx of patients right before he got off work. I was expecting to get something from an old friend in the mail today, so could you please get it for me?”
I tried to think of another excuse but then I saw the expression on my mothers’ face. She had put on her version of the puppy dog eyes, which made her look like she was trying to not laugh at a terrible joke or was constipated. With a sigh I gave in to her request. “Fine, I’ll do it."
She quickly gave me a hug. “Thanks, Kiyoshi! You have no idea how much this means to me.” She released her grip and looked at me, “Oh and by the way, you should probably take something to protect yourself. I heard that some strange people have been walking around the neighbor at night recently, " she said with a tone of caution.
I gave her one more hug before saying, “I can safely say that not many people would mess with a kid my size, but if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll do it.” I turned around, grabbed my wooden katana off the wall and made my way to the front door. "Be back in a bit."
"Be safe!" She shouted to me as I left.
What I said about me was true; I was a pretty big for my age. Sure I was the tallest in my family standing at a proud 5'10", but that didn't make me the tallest person in general. But, for what I lacked in height, I sure as hell made up for it in strength. In a lot of cases, my strength would be considered either "scary" or "intimidating" as some would say. Some people have even purposely avoided me because of it, much to my annoyance.
As I neared the mailbox, I noticed that the night air was cooler than usual and that the stars were out. Normally, the air was warm and the stars weren’t visible because of the city lights, but it felt good as the cool night air blew on my face. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath to capture what was sure to be a fleeting moment of what some would call "Zen". Feeling relaxed, I opened my eyes to see a strange light in my peripherals. I focused on the strange red light and realized it was coming from a place that I held dear to me.
“Sorry mom, but you’re gonna have to wait a few more minutes,” I said to myself as I walked past the mailbox and continued towards the playground where I used to play as a child.
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When I got there, I saw that the place was a mess. There was trash discarded everywhere on the ground, and graffiti tagged the walls. Sure there was a trash can, but people just chose to ignore it from the look of things. Feeling that I had to do something about it, I started to throw away the garbage.
The playground was a very important place to me. I would go there every day after elementary school got out. It was there that I made my first few friends, shared laughs, and most importantly, had fun. But those days have long since passed. My friends moved on, the laughs ended and the fun stopped. Eventually I ended up alone and had no one to make any memories with. Sure I was able to make new friends later on, but it just wasn’t the same. It seemed like they faked being my friend for their own benefits, whatever they may be. So the only time I went there was to reminisce the good times of my past.
When I finished picking up the trash, I looked around to see if I had missed anything. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a small circle drawn on the ground 10 feet to my right. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to walk over and see what it was.
While I approached the circle, I could see that there were some weird scribbles drawn inside of it, but I still couldn’t make out what it said so I continued to get even closer. I was standing a foot away from the circle when I was able to know what was in it. What looked like scribbles at first, turned out to be runic type shapes and animals.
I could recognize the animals that were in it. There were dragons, bears, cats, dogs, and various other creatures. It definitely wasn't something that a child could draw. But what caught my eye the most were the horses.
The interesting thing about them wasn’t how many there were compared to the other animals. It was that they varied in type. Some of them actually had wings, horns, or were a normal horse. I’m not sure, but I think that one or two of them had wings and a horn.
I knelt down to get a better look. “What is this?” I whispered. I reached towards the edge of the circle hoping that I could rub it off. But as soon as my index finger touched the circle, it flashed a with bright red light and started to expand at a great speed. I fell onto my back in surprise.
“What the hell?!” I shouted as I scrambled to my feet to try and get away from the circle, but it was too late. The circle had extended far behind me by the time I had fully stood up. I ran as quickly as I could to get out of it, but when I reached the edge, I ran into something head first, throwing me on my back.
Slowly I sat up rubbing my aching forehead. "Did anyone get the number of that bus,” I asked no one in particular. Shaking off the dizziness, I looked up to see a glowing red symbol about the size of a basketball floating where I had tried to run.
"I am NOT gonna be stopped by a stupid... whatever you are." I tried time and time again to exit the barrier. Each attempt ended with the same result: me getting knocked on my ass and a stronger headache. I came to a frightening conclusion as I stared up at the night sky after my fifth attempt at escaping. "I'm trapped."
I stood up trying to look for and exit but there was no way out. Several of the symbols were floating around the circle, a new one in each spot where I tried to escape. I could feel myself getting more and more tired by the second. I looked down at my chest to see that a faint red stream was flowing out of it and into each of the symbols. "I need to get the fuck outta here."
Each step was getting heavier than the last as I approached the edge of the barrier. Once I reached one of the symbols, I placed my hands on it and started pushing with all of my might. From the amount of times I ran into the symbols I knew that there was something I could push against. My muscles strained from exhaustion, but I kept going because I wanted to get out before anything bad could happen. "Why... won't... you... MOVE?" I grunted angrily.
I had a small glimmer of hope rising in my chest as I felt the symbol moving backwards. But my reverie didn't last long. My hope was all but shattered when an unknown voice spoke that terrified me to no end. "You aren't escaping, Kiyoshi. Your soul is MINE!" The voice laughed in an almost psychotic way as the symbol glowed brighter. With a surge of light, it knocked me back to the ground near the center of the circle.
I lay there on the ground sweating and out of breath with no energy to even stand. With all hope gone, tears started to well up in my eyes. I could feel myself slowly slipping in and out of consciousness. “Welp," I said aloud with a yawn, "I guess if I'm gonna lose my soul, I may as well get comfortable before it happens.” I wiped my tears off my face as I laced my fingers together over my stomach. I closed my eyes feeling myself falling into a dark haze. "Heh," I laughed to myself. "This sure is one hell of a way to go; trapped inside of a bullshit cage."
I started to think of the good times of my past. Hanging out at the playground as a child, celebrating birthdays, spending time with my family, playing and sharing laughs with friends. All of those memories made me feel truly happy. The last thing I felt before falling unconscious was a small smile forming on my face and a single tear sliding down the side of my face.
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 2 - Familiar Frightening Faces
My body was falling back first into a void of nothingness. “So this is what dying feels like, huh?” The cool wind blowing past made me feel very calm. Sadly, that calm wasn't meant to last. As I descended throught the darkness, I felt I was gradually slowing down. I positioned my feet beneath me, considering that I was now descending at a near crawl. When my feet landed on an invisible surface, I took my time and let my eyes scan my surroundings to only see darkness.
“This is not what I was expecting. I was actually hoping to see something a little less…” I tried thinking of a word to describe the place, “dark.”
I searched myself for any changes whether it’d be physical or my possessions. Black zip-up hoodie, white t-shirt with red kanji in the center, blue denim jeans, grey running-shoes and my boken still on my back. Nope; everything was the same.
I gazed throughout the empty void for anything I could go to. The darkness’ reach seemed almost infinite, except for a glowing speck of green off in the distance.
“What is that?” I asked myself. Hoping I could get an answer I started heading for the light. With each step, I noticed that it looked more and more like a floating ball of light green fire than a tunnel.
“If this is how I’m supposed to enter heaven, then this is a little disappointing.” I gave a little humph of dissapointment.
I’ve been told all my life that when you die, you see a tunnel of light and that when you approach it you can see the golden gates of Heaven, blah blah blah, be judged, blah blah blah, and be welcomed into The Lord's holy embrace. So far, everything was being proven otherwise.
"I'm starting to think that this is hell."
I was looking at the floating orb one foot in front of me after walking for a few minutes. Or was it hours? It didn’t matter, I wasn’t tired and I got to the place that I wanted to get to. The orb glowed with a great brilliance of seafoam green amongst the darkness that surrounded it. As I looked into the orb, I could feel something inside me getting warmer and it was slowly spreading. It was a good feeling to have amongst the unyielding cold of the darkness. But that warmth died when I heard the same psychotic etheral laugh from earlier.
"Come out and show yourself!" I spun around looking for the source of the laughter, a nervous sweat on my brow. The laughing ceased as a discernable tsk-ing could be heard.
"Aww, no need to be like that, Kiyoshi," the voice said. "I'm only having a little fun with ya."
I looked at the shadows around me with a raised eyebrow. "You call this," I spread my arms out indicating to the darkness around me, "fun?"
"Hmm..." The voice seemed to be thinking really hard as I waited. "Yes!" It started to laugh once more.
I crossed my arms over my chest once again looking back at the floating green flame. "Man, you're weird."
The invisible being took on a hurt tone. "And here I thought that I was your favorite."
I turned and looked back into the darkness. "Wait, how can you be my favorite if I don't even know you."
"Of course you know me!" The voice said excitedly. "I was your favorite! I 'support'ed you through the tough times. I 'warded' away those that wished to do harm. You could say that I am the 'champion' you'd bet on all the time." That alone took me by surprise. There was no way I could be talking to who I thought I was.
I looked between the green flame and the darkness with a dumbstruck expression. "No... freaking... way."
Suddenly, a lantern made of bone sprung out of the ground in front of me, illuminating the area around me with a greenish light. The chain connecting it to the ground was made completely out of bone. A skull made of bone and what looked like green fire slowly rose up out of the ground. It was wearing a dark cloak that the chains dissapeared into the mouths of demon skulls on its left and right side. The being held a a bone sickle by a chain that was swaying back and forth slightly.
Thresh put on a smirk as well as a skull could and said one word. "Way."
"I would be much happier seeing you if I wasn't dead right now." It was true. I would be way happier to see my favorite champion from League of Legends had I not kicked the bucket. Every aspect of him screamed awesome; his abilities, his design, his voice, hell, even his very presence was cool. But in my situation, meeting the Chain Warden himself was a frightening and intimidating thing for sure.
He gave me a quizical look. "Who said you're dead?" He walked around me, inspecting my being. "You look fine to me," he said nonchalantly
There was something inside of the orb; it kind of looked like a body of some sort. I had to strain my eyes to get a clear picture of what it was. I recoiled when I saw not what, but who it was. It was me. Or at least it was my body. I stood there shocked at this discovery. My body looked like it was asleep, slowly breathing, at peace with itself.
I chuckled to myself. “How cliché, find the light in the darkness to only achieve peaceful eternal rest. This so fits the definition of boring!” I began to circle the orb to see, myself at different angles. Upon further inspection of the orb, I noticed that my body looked like it had been beaten up pretty badly.
I was going over the different possibilities of what could have happened to it until someone interrupted my train of thought. “So nurse, what in tarnation d’yall reckon “it” is?”
“Cool I can hear someone…” My mind immediately jumped into high gear at the sudden realization. “Wait a minute, WHAT!? How can I be hearing a voice? I’m dead!” My mind was racing at what felt like a million miles per hour.
“Honestly I’m not sure,” Another being replied. “I’ve never seen this kind of “thing” before. It has a vast amount of resemblances to that of the primate genus. Where did you say you discovered it again?”
My mind felt like it was going to explode with the questions I had. “Whose voices are those? I’ve never heard them before. What’s going on? Why are there women talking about some sort of monkey?”
“Well,” the first voice started, “ah was out in the orchard buckin’ the apple tree’s when ah saw it fallin’ out o’ the sky. It was goin’ faster than Rainbow doin’ a Sonic Rainboom n’ that’s sayin’ somethin’.” She said with a matter-of-fact voice, “Ah saw it hit the ground near the edge o’ the Everfree Forest n’ followed the giant cloud o’ dust to the crash site.”
The first speaker sounded like she was about 20 and from the southern U.S., possibly Texas or Tennessee. This occurred as strange to me because I didn’t know anyone with a southern accent. Well except for my mother, but she managed to hide it very well.
The nurse said with a surprised tone, “That would explain the scrapes, contusions and broken leg.” Then her tone immediately changed to one of great inquiry, “But what I don’t understand is, how could something that is flightless, be falling out of the sky.”
The “nurse” sounded like she was in her mid-twenties or early thirties. Her voice was calm, collected, very knowledgeable, and sounded like she genuinely cared for me. It seemed like she was able to pick up on any small detail. Hearing her voice almost made me relax from my mental turmoil, just almost.
After hearing that story, it really got my mind going. “What do they mean by “it” and “thing”? They couldn’t possibly be talking about me, could they?” This was seriously starting to freak me out. “Also what do they mean by falling and broken limbs? Last time I checked, I was on my back looking up at the stars as I died.” That was the last straw. I had to know what was going on. “Ok, enough is enough. I have to say something.”
Out of pure desperation I grabbed the floating orb. At first nothing happened, and then the ground started to shake. Worried for my life I just continued to hold onto the orbhoping to give me some sort of protection. Cracks of white light began to appear above and below me in the darkness. Right when I thought that the shaking couldn’t get any worse, everything seemed to freeze. “Hm, well that wasn’t so ba-AAAAAAHHHHH!!!” The darkness shattered like a pane of glass being hit with a hammer and I began to fall, screaming as loud as I could. I looked down to see that I was falling towards my other body. I reacted the only way I could at the time. “FFFFFUUUUUUUUU-!!!” but before I finished the statement I made contact with my other body knocking me unconscious immediately
I was regaining my consciousness. Slowly but surely my strength was coming back to me as well. “What happened?” I thought to myself. “I feel like I got ran over by a train and then mauled by a pack of angry German shepherd’s.” At that moment, I remembered the conversation those two had. “Oh… right.”
I opened my eyes to look around, but was blinded by the sudden brightness so I immediately closed them. “Wait a minute, something’s not right here.” I slowly opened my eyes one more time and noticed that I could only see out of my right eye. I reached up with my left arm to try and touch my face, but was stopped by something. I looked down at my arms only to be welcomed by an unnerving sight. They were in strapped to the bed in leather restraints. I continued to look over the rest of my body only to see that my legs were also restrained to the bed, with the exception of my left leg because it was in a cast that reached up to my thigh.
“WHAT THE HELL!!!” I shouted. My heart was beating faster, my breathing rate increased. I started to struggle to try and break free as the sense of fear began to wash over me. The restraints must be made of something pretty durable because as a lineman on the football team we are required to very strong, and they weren’t even showing signs of weakening. At his point I didn’t care what I looked like trying to get free. For all I know, I could have looked like I was having a massive seizure at the epicenter of a category 8 earthquake.
During my episode, I heard a door slam open and something running at me from my left. I quickly turned my head to see who it was, but my vision was blinded for someone or something had placed a bag over my head. “WHERE AM I? GET THIS BAG OFF OF ME!!! I WANNA SEE MY CAPTORS FACE!!! COME AT ME BRO!!!” I screamed as I continued my fruitless attempt at attaining freedom.
“Y’all need to calm down; unless you wanna go ‘n hurt yourself again.” I immediately stopped thrashing around after hearing their voice.
“Oh thank God you’re here!” I said with great relief, “You have no idea what kind of day I’ve had so far.” It was the southern girl. She had come to rescue me somehow. But then again, who cares? I was about to be freed. I quickly changed my attitude remembering what situation I was in, “I need you to get me out of here. I don’t know how long my captors are gonna be gone, so you need to release me as quickly as you can!” I sat there for a few seconds which felt like hours, in silence, waiting for an answer, “Well? Aren’t you going to get me out of this?” I shook the restraints to get the point through. Still more silence.
Then she spoke up, “I can’t let you go,” My heart sunk at that moment when she uttered those words. If there was a time in my life where I couldn’t feel any more depressed, this one took the cake. “But ah do know someone who can. Ah jus’ need y’all to stay here, and try not to cause a fuss.” I chuckled a bit when she said that. “What’s so darn funny?”
Apparently she didn’t get the joke she just made, “Well, I’m kinda tied down so I can’t go anywhere even if I tried…which I have.” Realizing what she had said, she gave a small laugh as she left the room.
I didn’t have to wait long before she returned. I heard the door open again but this time it wasn’t just one person, it was a whole group of people that entered the room. Honestly I thought she was only going to bring one person with her.
Before I could say anything, one of the people from the group ran up to the side of the bed and started to say really fast, “Ooo, so THIS is what you were talking about! When you said that you needed help with something, I thought that you needed help with planning a party.” Whoever she was, she sounded like she enjoyed parties and was having one hell of a sugar rush.
“Oh Pinkie darling, please do be careful. We don’t know what this…,” she took a minute to come up with a word, “monstrosity is capable of.” This new lady sounded like she was from higher class.
Well, at least I now know two things. One, the hyper one’s name is Pinkie, strange name for a person but whatever, I
don’t judge. And secondly, the person from higher class is quick to judge things, or this case, other people.
Someone else decided to speak up before I did. “Rarity, you probably shouldn’t insult something that could possibly destroy us.” Oh, so the others name Rarity. Well, yet another strange name in an unknown place.
“It looks weak.” Someone else cut in before Rarity could argue. “I could take him down in ten seconds flat!”
There are not many things that can piss me off. Racist jokes, I laugh with everyone else, being called stupid or idiot, not a big deal. But when someone calls me weak, I just go ballistic.
“WHO SAID THAT?” I screamed, “I’LL TAKE YOU ON RIGHT HERE AND NOW, BRING IT!!!” I started to try and get out of the restraints again.
Everyone started screaming; some, out of fear, while I did out of rage. That’s when she spoke up, “Hey there partner, didn’t ah tell y’all not to cause a fuss?” I immediately stopped struggling. She sounded mad and yet, at the same time, very calm.
“Well, when you said you’d bring people to help me, I didn’t expect them to start insulting me right off the bat.” I think my argument had an impact because she didn’t respond for a few seconds.
“Yeah, ah thought so too.” I’m guessing that she scowled at her friends. “Anyway, mah friend Twi here can get those restraints off o’ ya. But before Twi does, ah just need ya to promise me two things.”
This caught my attention. “And what would that be?”
“One, promise to me and mah friends that you won’t do harm to anypony and two, that ya won’t freak out.” I had no Idea what she meant by that but whatever, simple enough.
“Ok, I promise I won’t harm “anypony” and that I won’t freak out.” There was a momentary pause then I felt the restraints being released and the bag slowly pulled off my head. “Now what makes you think that I would… freak…out?”
I sat there motionless, with eyes that were the size of dinner plates. I could finally see who, well I should actually say what, I was talking to. There surrounding me were some of the most colorful horses I have seen in my life. They all varied in color; pink, white, cyan, purple, yellow, and orange.
I only managed to utter one phrase before something hit the back of the head. “What in God’s name are you?”
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The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 4 - After the Struggle, There is Peace
It took a couple of days, but the nurse (coincidently named Nurse Redheart) managed to completely heal my wounds, remove the leg cast and release me from the hospital I was at. Over those few days I was kinda bored. She had told the ponies that they couldn't visit me; something about how their visit had put me behind my healing schedule. Well, I wasn't completely bored. They let me choose a book to read while I was there. I picked the first thing that caught my eye; Daring-do and the Quest for the Saphire Stone. At least my mind got a good stretch once in a while at that dismal place.
Though, there was one problem. It was my eye. She told me that eyes can’t be healed with magic; therefore it’d be a few more days before it would be fully healed, so I had to keep wearing the eye patch. Meh, whatever. When life gives you lemons, you make life take back the lemons and make lemonade. Besides, I think it makes me look about 20% cooler.
I was strapping my boken to my back when Applejack walked in, “Hey Applejack. What’s up?”
“Oh, not much sugarcube. Everypony’s jus’ waitin’ out in the lobby so we can give ya a tour of our mighty fine town.”
“Thanks for telling me. By the way, do you know how I got to this hospital?”
“Sure ah do. But why do ya need ta know?” She asked.
I walked over to the window and looked up at the blue, slightly clouded sky, “Well, I’d like to thank the pony who saved my life and see if there is anything I can do to repay them.”
“Anythin’?”
“Yes, anything.”
She took a second to think over my answer and said, “Well y’all don’ need ta go n’ look fer 'em.”
I turned around and looked at the orange mare in confusion, “Why not? Did something happen to them while I was here?” I started to get worried.
“No need ta worry sugarcube, ah’m the one who brought ya here.” She said with a smile.
I stood there with my mouth agape. "How could a pony her size carry someone like me?" I thought to myself.
She could see that i was in shock, "If'n yer wonderin' how ah gotcha here, it wasn' easy." she started, "Ah actually had ta sneak ya'll in here with a blanket covered cart."
I could only utter one word due to the shocking reveal, "... whoa."
"Anyway, we shouldn' keep the others waitin' on us." she said nervously.
"Alrighty then." I struck a heroic pose, pointing at the door. "Lets go!" This caused her to chuckle. "What? Did I do something weird?"
"Nah, ya didn'." she said as she opened the door leading into the hallway, "It was jus' funny."
__________________________________________________________________________
As AJ and I were walking to the lobby, my left eye started to throb. I put my hand over it to apply preasure in hope that would ease some pain. But as soon as my hand reached my eye, the throbbing ceased.
AJ looked up at me looking worried, "What's the matter sugarcube?"
I quickly put my hand down at my side. Putting on a nervous smile, I said, "Oh I was just uhh, fixing my eye patch."
She just stared at me unconvinced by my lie. "Ya know ah can tell when somepony is lyin' right?"
"Was it that obvious?"
"Kinda."
I looked down in shame, "Heh, sorry."
She looked back at me forgivingly, "Aww, think nothin' of it. Jus' remember, if'n somethin' is botherin' ya, anythin' at all, ya'll can tell me."
This was stunning to me. Even though I just blatanly lied to her, she still forgave me. Hell she even gave me advice. "Thanks AJ... I'll remember that."
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When we reached the lobby, I was greeted by everyponies smiling faces, even Rainbows. After the *shivers* Party Cannon Incident...Rainbow and I have gotten to be good friends. She apologized for insulting me and for hitting me over the head. I told her that everything was "Water under the bridge" but she just wanted to say it to make herself feel better, you know, to get it off of her conscience. Anyway, Back to the main point.
We were all standing in front of the sliding door leading to the exit, ready to embark on our tour and take any challenge that stood in our way. Twilight walked in front of me preventing me from walking outside. "Kiyoshi, wait."
"Just call me Kiyo. It's way easier to say."
"Okay...Kiyo, you remember the plan?"
I stood there with a blank expression. "Yes I do. First we visit Sugarcube Corner, then we go to Carousel Boutique, Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershys' Cottage, Rainbows' Home, and then to the Library AKA your home."
She continued to stare at me, "Aaaaannnd?"
"And in the event I get separated from the group. Just head to the Library, which is located smack dab in the very center of town."
Satisfied with the answer, she started to move out of the way. That's when it hit her, "Hold on! One more thing."
"Did I forget something?" I went over the instructions again in my head. "Go to SCC, CB, SAA, FC, RH, and then the Library. I'm pretty sure that's everything."
"No, you didn't forget anything." she reassured, "In fact, I actually just remembered something."
"What is it?"
She looked at me with a stern expression, "Remember, you're considered to be an alien, and we don't know how everypony will react to seeing somepony like yourself."
I merely tousled her mane as I walked past her. I chuckled, "You worry too much Twi. I'm sure that there's nothing to worry about. They'll probably just see me and want to be friends."
As soon as I took my first step outside somepony screamed "OH SWEET CELESTIA!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES EVERYPONY!!! IT'S A MONSTER!!!"
I stared at everypony running and this way and that, screaming for their lives. "...or i could be wrong..."
I looked up hearing the sound of something flying overhead. I saw what looked like five, snow white pegasi in golden armor flying towards me. "You there!!! Monster!!! You're coming with us!!!"
"...Correction, dead wrong..." I immediately turned and sprinted to my left into an alleyway now running for my life.
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Somewhere in a cave near the Everfree Forest, a dark hooded figure was looking into a crystal ball. He quietly laughed to himelf as he watched Kiyoshi being chased through the back alleys. "It looks like your 'little friend' has drawn a little attention to himself."
Another dark figure stepped out of the shadows, "It appears he has Arcana." He walked up next to Arcana and also stared at the images, "But no matter, he will obey us and destroy the Elements of Harmony whether he likes it or not."
They walked away from the crystal ball to the back of the cave to a large table with different potions, spell tomes, scrolls, and a singular candle lighting the area. Aracana spoke up to his friend, "How do you intend to do this Lord Malice?"
Malice looked at Arcana in anger, "You dare question my abilities!?" He conjured a sword and held it to Arcanas' throat with his magic.
Arcana trembled with fear at the thought of having his throat slit open. "Of course not my lord! I just wanted to know what your plan to control him was."
Malice stared at the trembling crimson unicorn. He canceled his spell causing the sword to disappear and Arcana to sigh with relief. "You'll see with time but for now," Malice levitated a dagger off of the table and threw it at a picture of Celestia on the other side of the cave, sticking it right between her eyes. "Let's just see how much trouble he can cause."
He walked back over to the picture of Celestia and removed the dagger, "Just you wait Celestia, you will be defeated and I will become the true ruler of Euestria." He released a laugh that shook the foundation of the cave and struck fear into the very soul of Arcana.
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As I was running for dear life, I noticed that there was something different about how I moved. It wasn't how I ran, or how I was breathing. "What is it that's throwing me off so much?" I thought to myself. "Surely it can't be as simple as I think it is." I turned my head to see how far the guards were from me. To my utter surprise, they were flying as fast as they could towards me but I was pulling away from them. Thats when it hit me, "The gravity here must be much lighter than mine back on Earth!" This was great news! Not only was I faster than normal but that would mean I don't have to spend as much energy on anything at all. "Hmm, I wonder..." I pushed off the ground with one foot as hard as poosible. What happened next surprised me. I got about ten feet of air, "HOLY SHIT! THIS IS SOOO COOL!!!" I shouted. But that happiness was short lived. For soon as my foot landed, the roof below me gave in and I fell through landing on my back.
Once the dust settled, I quickly sat up and looked at the hole in the ceiling just in time to see my pursuers fly past it. I gave a sigh of relief as I started to rest from being chased. "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! " I quickly turned around to see a very frightened family of ponies huddling in a corner. The wife screaming like a maniac, the husband holding her staring at me with pure anger and the two babies were crying.
"I'm pretty sure this isn't the right time but, where's the library?" The husband pointed directly outside the door to a tree. I stood up and ran out the front door, I quickly stuck my head back inside and said, "Sorry about the roof! I'll pay for it later." and I proceded to sprint towards the tree.
When I reached the tree, I stood there mouth agape, amazed. It wasn't even a tree at all, it was a house built inside a strong looking tree. "I guess this is where they came up with the term 'tree house'." I began to snicker at my own joke until I heard the sound of wings getting closer. "Damn it! I thought I lost those guys at the roof." I quickly jumped into an open window and hid underneath the window ledge.
I heard one of them say as they past the window, "I think I saw it go this way! Hurry up! I don't want to lose that thing!"
I closed my eye and began to relax from the relentless chasing. "Geez! Took ya long enough to get here." I looked up to see Rainbow Dash flying in front of me with a smirk. I looked past her to see that everypony else was there too; Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack all standing looking at me, happy to see that I was safe.
"You try *pant* being chased *pant* by those guys.*pant*" I stood up and brushed myself off, while looking at my surroundings. The inside of the tree was much more impressive than what I originally thought it would look like. Lining the walls were hundreds upon thousands of books on shelves, catagorized from astronomy all the way to (insert catagory here). The sight was absolutely breathtaking; so much knowledge in such a, well... impressively themed place.
"Those guys? HA!" She laughed. "They wouldn't stand a chance. I'm the fastest flier in all of Equestria!" She proceeded to fly circles around the room leaving a rainbow trail in her wake.
"You probably have the biggest ego too." I muttered to myself.
"What was that?" She said appearing in front of my face.
"Nothing." I walked past her and sat on a chair next to the fireplace leaning back and facing up eye closed.
Twilight and the others walked over to where I was and sat on their haunches on the carpet. "Sorry that the tour didn't go the way we planned." Twilight apologized. "I was hoping that everypony would be a little more accepting than this." She hung her head looking sad.
I looked back at her, "Don't worry Twi," I said assuringly, "They'll warm up to me...eventually." That seemed to make her happier. "So besides the tour, what else did you have in mind of doing?"
"Oh yes, that's right! I wanted you to meet somepony important." She trotted over to the stairs and yelled, "Spike! Can you come down here for a moment? I need you to meet a new friend of mine."
I heard the sound of something pitter pattering down the oaken steps "Who is it Twilight? Is it your coltfriend?" They asked sarcastically.
What stopped at the bottom of the stairs was one of the last things I could have possibly imagined seeing. There, standing next to Twilight was a small, bipedal purple and green lizard! His voice sounded like that of a small boy and was about the same hieght as one too. He stood at about half her height with green spikes running from the top of his head to the base of his tail (I wonder how he got his name).
We stared at each other for a few seconds until he shouted, "Look out girls! It's a monster!" He jumped in front of me putting his hands up like he was ready for a boxing match. "Go get the elements! I'll distract it till you get back." He started to hop up and down throwing jabs towards my direction.
I sat there looking down at the little lizard in dibelief. "What do I do about...this?" I looked up at Twilight as if she would give me an answer but she just watched the performance. I looked back down as Spike was still ready for the fight. I smirked as a plan popped into my head. I got onto both of my knees in front of him, held my hands up and said, "Alright! Show me what ya got!" I could here the sounds of chuckling around us as the fight began.
Every punch that he threw didn't have much power into them, they felt about the same as being shot in the plam with a Nerf gun. I had deflected them all making it look effortless. "He has the determination of a younger version of myself... but with scales." Spike was sweating and gasping for breath, his legs were shaking violently exhuasted from the fight and his movements were becoming sluggish and lazy; we had only fought for about a few minutes. Just by looking at him, I could see that he was giving it all and wasn't gonna go down until I was. "*sigh* I should let him be the victor of this battle."
I let his uppercut skim my hand and land squarely on my chin, which I followed with falling backwards. As I fell, I bellowed, "AAAAUUUUUGGGHH!!! HOW COULD I BE DEFEATED? " and faked to be dead.
Spike finally gave into the exhaustion; he let his arms fall to his side, dropped to his knees and said with a tired grin, "That'll teach ya *pant* not to *pant* mess with *pant* me." With that, he was out like a light.
I gently caught him before he hit the ground and slowly picked him up as I whispered to him, "Way to fight little guy." He gave a small grunt as he proceeded to lightly snore in my arms. I looked over to Twilight and the others who were smiling at the performance making me blush a little.
Twilight led me upstairs to where her room was. Just like down stairs; it was also filled with books galore. Next to her bed was a small basket with a blanket covering it. She levitated the balnket to let me put Spike in the basket and covered his body with the warm embrace of the soft blanket.
As we walked out of her room and quietly shut the door behind us she said, "Thank you Kiyo."
"For doing what Twilight?" I asked.
"For letting Spike win. I'm sure that you could have easily beaten him, but instead you didn't. You've probably just made him the happiest dragon in all of Equestria."
"He's a dragon?" I exclaimed. "Now that explains why smoke was coming out of his nose as we fought. Now I just have one question."
"Yes? What's on your mind?"
I looked at her confusedly, "What's Equestria?"
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Author's Note: I'm sure I haven't said this before, so I'm gonna say this now and get it out of the way. *ahem* "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned by Lauren Faust and Hasbro. Please respect the official release." The OC's I made are Arcana, Kiyoshi Mushya, Lord Malice, and Tomiko (mentioned in chapters 1&2).
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We were all sitting in a cirlce, me with my legs crossed and them on their huanches, in the middle of Twilights living room. They were all looking at me with an odd look. "What do you mean by that?" asked Twilight.
I reached upand rubbed the back of my head, "Well, I'm not from this world, so you're gonna have to forgive me for not knowing of this place or anything in it."
"Didn't any of the doctors or nurses tell you about this place?" Rarity asked.
I looked at her with a depressed expression, "That's just it! When I was there they didn't talk to me. When I saw them, they would either pretend I wasn't there or they would just run away."
"Those big meanie heads!" Pinkie exclaimed. "They left poor Kiki all by his lonesome!" She trotted over and hugged me, "Don't you worry your pretty little head of yours Kiki, your auntie Pinkie Pie will take care of you."
Returning the hug I said, "It's alright Pinkie, I'm fine really. But thank you." I released her from the hug and she trotted back and sat back down in the circle. "So what or where is Equestria?"
Applejack joined in, "Twi, Ah think ya'll better explain this to uhh, Kiki." I shot a glance at her.
"Well, do you want the short version or the long version?" Twilight asked. "I presume you want the short one huh."
"Actually no," I said turning to her. "I would prefer the long version of this. I've gotta know of what I'm gonna have to deal with while I live here."
She dawned a smile that almost resembled Pinkies...just almost. "Great to hear! Let me get a quill and parchment for you so you can take some notes." She trotted into another room.
Rainbow leaned in close to me and whispered, "Your going to be here a while."
"Better this than me wandering around like a lost dog...scratcth that, chased like a wanted criminal."
Twilight returned floating the quill and parchment to me. She sat down in front of me and said, "Okay, let's begin shall we? It all started over three millenia ago..."
"I should've asked for the short one." I thought regretting my decision.
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After the 7 hour non-stop study session, my brain felt like it was about to explode. Not like the usual "Oh, I have a headache.", it was more like "HOLY JESUS WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS PAIN!!!" kind of experience. My head was spinning with the knowledge of Equestrian history; The Pony-Griffon War, The Peace Treaty of Dragons, who Princesses Celestia and Luna are, the Nightmare Moon incident, Discords attempt to reclaim the throne and various others. Twilight had also taught me of what Cutie Marks were and their importance in the community.
What I liked learning about the most though, was the concept of magic. The idea of magic being possible just blew my mind. On my home world, magic was either fancy wire tricks or simple slight of hand to make the illusion of magic seem real; whereas here, magic is the real deal and it's actually tangible. She wanted to teach me about the different types of ponies but I had refused. I told her that where I'm from, unicorns and pegasi were just myth and legend or some fictional characters from a T.V. show.
She closed her book and smiled. "And thats the complete history of Equestria. So, does that answer your question about what Equestria is?"
I sat there dumbstruck, my eye spinning comically in its' socket. "Yeah I think so."
"Okay that's good." She stood up, stretched, and started to put away the diagrams and charts that she made during the lesson. "If you have any other questions, don't be afraid to ask."
Twilight took a moment to look out the window to see how late it was. When she brought her gaze back down, she was starting to smile again. I asked with a confused look, "What's up?" She nodded her head motioning me to turn around. I turned to see what was behind me. Everypony had fallen asleep; Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, even Pinkie were all snoozing. I turned back to Twilight and said, "I'm guessing that it's gotten late." She nooded in agreement and walked over to her friends and woke them up one at a time. Slowly but surely they all woke up.
We were all standing by the front door ready to leave when I realized something, "Wait, where am I going to be staying?" I looked around at everypony to see that this hadn't crossed their minds either.
"I'm sorry darling, but you cant stay at the Boutique with me." Rarity said. "There are too many ponies that come through there for me to hide you well enough."
Fluttershy was next to speak, "I wish I could let you stay at the cottage, but the animals will probably be freightened by you." She realized what she just said and immediately began to appologize. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to insult you, please forgive me."
I just looked at her forgivingly, "There's nothing to apologize for. It's true, I'm a scary guy, I used to be judged as a mean kid just based on my looks, so I ended up with not having many friends." I turned my attention to Pinkie and Rainbow who stared back attentively, "I know that I can't live on a cloud, so Rainbows place is out of the question. Aaaand I kinda broke through the Cakes roof, so I'm sure they're gonna hold a grudge against me."
"Silly Kiki! I'm sure that they'll forgive you in no time at all! Before we go I need to use the restroom." Pinkie said before trotting off to another room that I presumed was the restroom.
"Well, why don't you stay here Kiki?" Twilight suggested trying to hold back her luaghter.
I simply looked at her with an emotionless face and said, "As much as I would love to stay here I can't. This place is right in the middle of town and the ponyfolk are searching for me."
With her head slightly tilted to the left, she asked, "How do you know that they're looking for you?" I pointed out the window to a poster hanging on the side of a building across the street. Twilight surrounded the poster with a purple aura and tore it off the wall, levitating it toward her with her magic. She read it aloud so we could all hear what it said, "Warning! There is a strange monster on the loose. Capture of this monster will be awarded with the bounty of 2,000 bits. Wanted DEAD or alive." Twilight looked back at me and said "Oh."
"So far, I think that everypony wants me dead." I heard the sound of galloping approaching quickly from behind me. "What is tha- OOF!" I turned just in time to have Pinkie hug-tackle me, knocking me to the floor. She was clinging to my chest sobbing, tears freely flowing from her eyes soaking my shirt. Her normally poofy mane now deflated, straight and a darker shade of of the usual fluorescent pink. I started to stroke her mane and asked, "What's wrong Pinkie? Are you okay?"
She stopped her sobbing and looked up at me with those big, light-blue eyes of hers still filled with tears. Her eyes always gave off the feeling of joy and happiness whenever I saw her, but now that she's like this, I can see every ounce of her being is filled with sadness, depression...and fear. She shoved her muzzle back into my chest trying to avoid my gaze. I placed my right hand lightly under her chin and gently lifted it so I could look at her eye to eye. While wiping her excess tears with my left hand, I said "Whatever the problem is, I'm sure we can face it one step at a time. Now tell me, what's wrong?" I gave her a comforting smile which was returned half heartedly.
After sniffling a few times, she said "When I heard you say that everypony wants you dead, I imagined you dead and...and well...I *mumble*." Her voice progressively getting quieter as she explained.
"Could you say that last part again?" I asked. "I didn't catch that."
"I said, I don't wan*mumble*. For some reason she looked away from me and her face was slightly a darker shade of pink. It would normally be really hard to see this...well...because she is pink, but because she was so close, it was noticable.
One more time please?"
After a few harsh seconds of silence she turned to me and screamed "I SAID I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!!!" She immediately shoved her muzzle into my shirt and continued to cry. I was stunned to say the least. I couldn't believe I made such an impact on somepony in the short amount of time that I've been here. Especially make one of the happiest ponies that I know cry.
I looked at her crying figure and smiled. "Well then, we don't have anything to worry about." Almost like I said the magic word she stopped crying and looked up at me. "Because I'm not going anywhere, and that I promise." I gave her a quick peck on the forehead like a parent would do to ensure their child that everything would be alright.
Her mane instantly regained its' poofiness and she was back to her old self again, "Okie Dokie Lokie!" She giggled. She gave me a hug and proceeded to hop off of me and out the door to her home.
I looked after her watching her bounce out of sight. I turned to Twilight, "What was that about?"
She looked at me and said, "It was Pinkie just being well...Pinkie."
I sat up and asked "Anyway, where did we leave off?"
"Ah think ya'll were about ta say somethin' about you with stayin' at Sweet Apple Acres." I looked up to see Applejack looking down at me.
I stood up and said "If I could stay there, that would be great! Not only will I be able to hide from the ponyfolk, I"ll be able to help you out at the farm." It almost sounded like I was pleading for her to let me stay at the farm, partially due to the fact that I kinda was. Not only did I want to get away from the authorities that were after my sorry ass, but I also didn't want to get shouted at by Spike knowing from ancient lore what dragons are capable of.
Somewhere in another galaxy, a dark dragon sneezed, lighting a large caravan of khajiits ablaze. Seeing this, he shrugged his shoulders and flew off to revive more of his fallen brothers.
"Hmm..." Applejack proceeded to walk around me looking me up and down as if searching for something. She came to an abrubt halt in front of me. "Okay, ya'll can stay at the farm. But there's one condition."
"Anything is fine, remember? You're the one who saved my life and I owe you a debt."
"When ya get paid for your work some of it will be deducted. But that's not fer savin' yer life."
I looked at her quizically, "Then what's the deduction for?"
"To pay fer the damage ya did when ya crash landed."
I nervously smiled at the reason. "Oh...right."
"So is it a deal?" She spat onto her hoof and held it out to me.
"It's a deal." I spat into my hand and shook her hoof, making the deal official.
We were about to leave when Twilight stood in front of us preventing us from leaving. "Kiyo, before you go, can you promise me something?"
"Uhh, sure Twilight. What's up?"
"You must come back tomorrow and teach me about your kind."
I scratched the back of my head, "Okay Twilight, but just so you know, I don't really know much about the Huamn species. Nonetheless, I'll still teach you everything that I know."
After saying goodbye to everypony, Applejack and I made our journey into the darkness towards Sweet Apple Acres.
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I gotta say that this particular chapter isn't my best work. After much mental debate I have dicided to take a short brake from writing this and actually try to come up with a good plot line. Yes it's true, I admit it, I've been improvising all of the chapters on the fly and tried to make them work. It may take me a week or two to actually get an idea of where this series is gonna go, but do not fret. For I, anon, will get the main story line down in no time at all. So until nex time, I bid you all adieu, sayonara, farewell and adios amigos.
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 6 - A Night Time Stroll
As Applejack and I walked down the path to Sweet Apple Acres, I was taking mental notes of my new surroundings. For instance: the Equestrian moon is either larger or much closer to the planet than Earths', night was a time was more quiet than where I lived albeit the chirps and croaks provided by the crickets and frogs, and the weather is not predicted, it is scheduled. Which was why the stars were shining brightly with their wonderful luminescence. But the most awe-inspiring observation made was that there were no modes of transportation such as cars, motorcyles, planes, trains, etc. that I have seen as of yet.
Everypony relied on either walking or flight. For me, this is a whole new life style. So in other words, I'll just have to *puts on sunglasses* deal with it. When I was back in Oregon, I used to be able to drive wherever I wanted. Well...within my parents reasonable distances of course, which basically meant within the city limits and be home before 1 AM unless I'm staying the night at a friends house. But now, I don't have a car, any sense of where anything is, no curfew, no homework, no school, no need to worry about college...on second thought, I think I'm gonna like it here a lot.
We reached a sign at where the path split in two. The sign was very old and had been obviously used as a target for whomever threw the samll stones that lay about by the base of it. It had two arrows that pointed in different directions, each with its own destination. On the left arrow it said 'Sweet Apple Acres' and on the right it said 'Fluttershy's Cottage / Everfree Forrest'. As we took the left path passing the sign I asked Applejack, "Hey, do you know anything about the Everfree Forrest?"
"Yeah ah do. That place is known fer not bein' the most safe or freindly of places. There are monsters that live there that are both known and *gulp* unknown. Why d'ya ask?" She turned her head towards me, but then immediately turned back away and started to chortle.
I looked at her with a confused expression. "What's so funny?"
She looked back at me with a small tear in her eye, "Nothin', nothin' at all. It's just wierd that you're wearing sunglasses at night." I could see that she was really trying not to bust a gut laughing.
"What is she talking about?" I thought to myself, "I'm not wearing any sunglasses." Hesitant at first, I reached up and felt where the sunglasses should be located. Lo and behold, there resting on the bridge on my nose was what she was laughing at; a pair of Aviator sunglasses. The discovery was shocking enough to stop me in my tracks and reel back in surprise. I ripped them off my face and inspected them. I turned to get Applejacks' reaction to this, only to see what I had already expected. She was rolling on the ground laughing so hard that she was crying. As nice as the Aviators looked, I had no real use for them. I tossed it into a bush causing Applejack to calm down a bit.
"Aww, why'd you go 'n throw that away for?" She asked wiping tears from her eyes.
I looked at her with a deadpan expression and said while pointing up to my eyepatch, "Ohh, I don't know. Maybe because of this."
I walked over and helped her stand up. "Oh...uh, right."
We were just about to be off when I heard a small rustling sound eminating from the same bushes that I threw the sunglasses in. "Wait up Applejack!" I warned, "Don't...move." I slowly approached the rustling bush expecting just about anything to jump out and attack.
"What's wrong Kiyo?" I brought my index finger up to my lips and shushed her while quietly moving towards the bush.
I was reaching out to it getting closer and closer. I could feel my heart beating faster than normal. It felt like it would burst out of my chest at any given moment. Sweat was starting to form on my brow from the anticipation of what I would find. I began to think of the possibilities. "Is it something that I should fear or is it something I could dropkick into the next...town?...country?... screw it, I'll just call them cities." Things like that were rushing through my mind very quickly.
My hand was mere inches from the bush when a chickens head poked out. I stared at the small creature with a great amount of hatred. "Really!? A chicken!? This was what I was getting all worked up for!?" Letting out a sigh I turned back to Applejack. "It's okay Applejack, it's just a chicken." I was walking away from the bush toward Applejack when I saw her trembling with fear. "*sigh* I thought that we went over this already. I told you that you don't have to be afraid of me remember? I'm a friend."
She started to vigorously shake her head side-to-side, "It's not you, IT'S THAT!" She shot a shakey hoof up pointing behind me where I heard a chicken's call.
I looked down and closed my eyes to gather my thoughts, only able to come up with one conclusion. "I'll never understand these ponies." Kneeling in front of her I looked back up and asked, "So...you're meaning to tell me that you're afraid of...chickens?" She shook her head once more, this time sweat beading down her face from the prominent fear that was taking over her progressively.. "Then what is it that you're panicking about?"
She placed her hooves on my face and forced me to turn around. "THE COCKATRICE!!!" Hovering in the bright moons' light was none other than the cockatrice. I remember Twilight going into detail about what the cockatrice looked like. Its features were very distinct now that I could see its' whole body.
Honestly, it looked like the strange, deformed love-child of a chicken and some sort of lizard (EWWWW!). Its' head and legs were that of a chicken, but the body and wings looked reptilian, almost draconic. Releasing a single loud "BU'GAWK" it landed and moved at us baring it's fangs.
By the looks of this thing, and the amount of drool it was producing, it was hungry and desperate for a meal. I saw it heading towards Applejack, seeing that she as a more viable target than me. I grabbed her shoulders, looked at her straight in the eyes and said, "I know you're scared, but I need you to be brave get away from here as quickly as you can. Don't turn back and look, just run."
"But...what about you? What are ya gonna do?" The fear was now void from her eyes. Now all that I could see from her was pure worry and concern for my well being.
I gave her a quick hug before standing up. "I'm gonna stall it so you can get away."
She sat there in shock. She looked up to me with tears in her eyes and said, "No! If you do that then-"
I raised a hand to her signaling her to stop talking. "Don't worry Applejack. It'll be okay." I turned to face the cockatrice for the first and possibly last time of my life. Looking over my shoulder, I put on a soft smile and gave her a thumbs up. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
"But..."
"Just go." Those were my last words to her before I heard her galloping away to safety. I swear I could've just heard her say "Thank you" before leaving. I turned back to the cockatrice only to see it start to pursue Applejack with haste. "Oh no you don't!" I ran as fast as the new equestrian gravity would allow me to, and tackled the creature.
Authors Side Note:
See, I'm not sure any of you readers have ever been form tackled by a 6ft, 230 lb lineman on the Varsity team. But I can tell you for one thing or another; IT HURTS A LOT! The closest thing I could possibly compare it to, would be if you were to stand in the middle of a street and have a car drive into you going about 30 miles per hour. Sorry to pull you away from the story now back to the action!
..............................
When I made contact, I could feel how course it's scales really were. The closest thing that could possibly equivocate to it, would have to be alligator scales. Sure an alligator is much bigger and stronger than the cockatrice, but this thing was putting up a good fight to get out of my grip. Managing to turn itself around, it started to claw and scratch at my face in a desperate attempt to attain its freedom. After a few seconds of it clawing my face, I threw it away to stop any further damage.
Standing up I could see how much anger this thing now had for me. Not only had I managed to let its meal get away from it, but I also had attacked it. As it was slowly stalking its' way toward me Twilight's lesson on it began to replay itself through my head, "The one thing you must always remember if you ever come into contact with a cockatrice, never look into it's eyes. It has the ability to turn its' prey into stone just by looking into it's eyes." Thinking that I could only do one thing from that point, I closed my eye and drew my boken. "I never thought I would have to resort to using this as a weapon."
The only way to beat this thing would have to be without sight. "Heh, easier said than done." I poured all of my focus to my other senses; hearing, touch, and smell. I've only heard stories that people could defeat a whole group of enemies without even looking at them. I stood there patiently waiting to hear the sound of it approaching me, only to hear the sound of nothingness. Slowly opening my eye I searched for the cockatrice. Oh boy did I find it. It was standing mere feet in front of me staring at me in the eye just waiting for me to look. I began to close my eye again, but it was already to late.
I could feel a cold numbness slowly crawl up my leg. I looked down in horror to see that I was turning to stone. It was an odd sensation, it felt like my body was slowly falling asleep starting from my feet and progressively working it's way up. I tried to move my feet only to discover, to my dismay, that they were firmly planted to the ground.
I began to search for any way out of this mess I had gotten into. While looking around, my covered eye began to throb painfully. "Great, just great! Not only am I going to be turned to stone by a chicken-lizard-thingy, but the last thing that I'm gonna feel is this stupid throbing in my eye."
At that moment I heard something of a faint whisper, "Take off your eyepatch. "
"Oh great! Now I'm also going crazy and am hearing voices! Just when my life couldn't get any worse!" I quickly began cursing at my sudden streak of bad luck.
"You're not crazy," The voice replied. "I'm communicating to you telepathically. Now, if you want to live, I would suggest taking off your eyepatch right now." Who was this new person...pony?
"Who are you? How do I know that I can trust you?" Honestly, I can be a very skeptical guy at the worst times.
"Well, from where I stand, you have two options. One, don't listen to me and become this things next chicken feed. Or two, listen to me and save your sorry ass." Both of these were very valid points. Die, or trust someone who I don't know and can't see, and live. "You had better make up your mind quickly, you don't have much time left." This was true, the petrification process was already passing my hips and was making its' way toward my stomach.
AUGH! Who cares! "Alright. I'll do it your way." Reaching up to my eyepatch was a harder task than I had originally thought. When I began to reach for my eyepatch, the process was going past my chest... right where my heart was. I could feel the beating in my chest slowing down. If I didn't hurry, I would die before I could even try anything. My hand was starting to shake from the difficulty of getting to my eyepatch.
Glancing at the cockatrice, I could see the look of victory in its evil, monstrous face. "Heh, don't be so sure...that you've won...just yet." With one final push, I grabbed and removed the eyepatch opening my other eye. I noticed a few things that occured to me as strange, the throbingin my eye instantly stopped after I opened it, and the cockatrice seemed to look afraid. The weirdest part though, was the fact that the effects of the petrification were reversing and I was changing back to my original state. I could feel the warmth returning back to my legs and eventually I could move again. Feeling happier, I looked up from examining myself to see the cockatrice freaking out. Looking down at it's feet I could see that itself was turing to stone. Panicing, it began to squawk and flap it's wings in a desperate attempt to fly away. Thinking it was over and that I had won, I turned, tied my boken back on and began to walk away.
I had managed to take three step before I heard a heavy thud come from behind me. "Oh crap! Is it back for more already?" Cautiously turning around, I brought my gaze to where the sound came from. What I saw blew my mind. On the ground about thirteen feet away from me, lay the statue corpse of the once threatening cockatrice.
Looking at the statue only brought up questions in my mind, but I managed to utter one of them. "Did I...do this?"
"What? Are you surprised at your own power?" The voice returned mockingly, "And here I thought that you knew everything about yourself. Tsk tsk, that just won't do."
I began to furiously scan the area for movement, "Reveal yourself! Tell me who you are!"
There was a momentary pause before it responded. "In due time I will. But until then, just know that you have a friend looking out for you."
Whoever that thing is, was starting to piss me off. "Answer me dammit! Who are you!" There was no response to my questioning. Only the sound of chirps and croaks of the wildlife filled my ears. "Whatever. I'll meet the asshole when I do." With that in mind I began my sprint to Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack was surely waiting for my arrival.
AN: Sorry about the REALLY late chapter. It took me a really long time to come up with a plot line, but by jove I think I've got it! I really look forward to future chapters! Who knows, maybe I'll add a certain turn of events that'll change Kiyo's life in Equestria into something for better or for worse. ANYWAYS, I hope you enjoyed this new chapter!
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 7 - Meeting the Family
I'm standing on the lit porch of what I thought to be Applejacks' home. I mean sure it's in Sweet Apple Acres, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any other houses. It looked more like barn than a house really. But what do I know, I'm only 18. The place has a really "homey" feeling to it. It more or less screams "Welcome!". By the looks of things, it has been around for a while. The paint is chipping, floorboards in the porch nervously creak everytime I shift my weight and the fact that there is a rusted plow in the front gives away the true age of this place. With some paint and a few things here and there, this place could look cool. Wait...what am I thinking? I need to check to see if AJ is okay.
I frantically knocked on the door letting whoever inside know that I wanted in. I could hear the faint muffled sounds of what was possibly crying and someone trying their best to console them. After a few seconds of waiting, I knocked on the door again, this time with a little more force.
The door was opened by one of the cutest things I could have possibly seen in my life. It was a small yellow pony with a pink bow in it's red mane. I think it's a girl, I'm not sure, but the bow might be a dead giveaway. She is smaller than Applejack, and I mean SMALLER. She has to be at least half her size. She actually might be her sister.
I looked down at the little pony, "Hi." The pony closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs, slamming the door in my face, quite litterally. From the ringing in my ears and the high pitch scream, I can finally say for certain that was a girl.
Stepping back and rubbing my nose, I looked at the door confused. I could hear the sounds of frantic movement inside. She's most likely running around the house telling everypony in the house-barn-thing "Oh no! There's a monster outside and it's going to eat us! Whatever shall we do?" Pffft, right.
"I'M GONNA SHOW THAT MONSTER WHAT FER!" Whoever just screamed that must be really pissed. It kinda sounded like Applejack. But there's only one way to find out.
Turning around, I ran and hid behind a nearby tree waiting for whoever to jump outside. Okay, recon mission...START! Mission objective: Find out who is sooooo pissed and show self if the target is known. If otherwise, stay hidden. I heard the door slam open and someone scream "COME OUT AND SHOW YERSELF!" I stuck my head around the tree to get a better look. No doubt about it, this was deffinately AJ's home. She stood there clearly not in a mood to talk. She looks like she has been through hell. Her mane is in disarray, she's missing her stetson, and her eyes are slighlty red and swollen. So she was the one crying inside.
I sure hope she doesn't kill me for what I'm about to do. Stepping back from the tree I look up to judge the height of it. Not too tall, about 20 ft. Picking up a small rock, I tossed it near the plow making sure to hit it just enough to make some noise. "THERE YA ARE!" and there she goes after the sound. I'm sure wherever he is, Snake is proud. Jumping into the tree, I land as quietly as possible on a branch, which turned out to be no sound at all.
I looked back to AJ to see her walking back to the porch. "Here I go." I wispered to myself. I jumped from the tree and landed in a kneeling position five feet behind her, still no sound was made. Slowly standing up and looking at her, I started to walk toward her shortening the distance between us.
Out of nowhere, a little girls voice screamed "Look out AJ, it's behind ya!" Quickly looking up, I saw AJ's little sister standing in the doorway. Darn it! I was so close too.
I looked back down at AJ just in time to see her back hooves rear up. F...M...L. She bucked me in the chest hard, and I mean HARD. It felt similar to being hit with a sledgehammer. I stumbled back and started to say between coughs, "Jeez AJ, what was that for?" She quickly spun around and saw me with a hand to my chest. Almost immediately, her eyes began tearing up. I swear these ponies cry waaaayy too much. She started to gallop and jumped at me. Reaching my arms out, I caught her in the air and spun once before hugging her tight, letting her cry into my shoulder. "I told you I was gonna be right behind ya."
Walking into the home, I sat her down on a couch near a lit fireplace and took a seat next to her. Still teary eyed, she looked up to me and asked, "Are you okay? Are you hurt at all? Ah swear, if that cockatrice shows up again..." I can tell she is in a lot of stress. I guess it's not easy to run from danger knowing that someone stayed behind to protect them.
"Well to answer your questions, yes, no and we don't have to worry about the cockatrice anymore. I took care of it."
She looked at me with a confused expression, "How did ya do that. I thought that it was impossible to beat a cockatrice... unless you're Fluttershy."
Wait a minute, Fluttershy? "Did you just say Fluttershy?" She nodded. "How could a sweet and innocent pony like her, beat a cockatrice? Don't get me wrong, I think that Fluttershy is awesome. But seriously, how?"
She looked at me like this was common knowledge. "She uses this thing called 'The Stare' on the animals if they misbehave and it gets them back in order. Applebloom told me about it."
"Whoa. That's intense." She nodded in agreement. "To answer your question, I think I used something close to it."
She tilted her head curiously. "Wait, so yer meanin' to tell that ya'll just stared at it and it began to behave just like that?"
I shook my head, "No...Well yes...Okay I'll just tell you what happened." I stood up and walked in front of the roaring fireplace and looked deeply into it. "After you had escaped, the cockatrice and I were left alone to duke it out."
"Continue."
"Okay. Well, you know how the cockatrice is supposed to turn it's victims into stone? Well, that's actually what happened to me."
She gasped slightly, "If you were turned to stone, then, how are ya still out 'n about?"
I turned to face her, "That's just it, I'm not sure." I walked over and sat back down on the couch. "While I was being turned to stone, I heard a voice in my head." God, I sound like a total nut case. "It told me to take off my eyepatch for some reason. Which I did."
"So, let me get this straight." She put a hoof to her chin, "You were fightin' the cockatrice and were bein' turned into a lawn ornament. Then from nowhere, you heard a voice and listened to it?" The way you're putting it makes it sound like I belong in a mental asylum.
"Yes. But the weird part about it was that, when I took off my eyepatch, the petrification process began to reverse itself."
"Petri-vacation?"
"No, petrification. It's means that I was being turned to stone. Anyway, when I noticed that the effect was wearing off, I looked up at the cockatrice to see it was turning to stone." She looked at me in awe, mouth agape. Yep, that's the same reaction that I had.
"Do ya know what made it turn into stone?"
If I knew, I would have probably told you by now. "No I don't. But I think it may have something about my eye. Can you see anything about it that may appear as, odd?" She began to look into my eyes in deep concentration.
Wow, I just noticed this, but her eyes are very beautiful. They are almost like a dark green emerald that reflects all images upon it's brilliance. And her mane, now that it's not hidden by her stetson, can be seen for what it really is, angelic. Sure it may not be brushed or whatnot, but it still manages to have this perfect- whoa whoa whoa! What am I thinking! How can I be thinking these thing about a pony? A pony! I mean, sure she's cool, smart, brave...beautiful, funny, cute- AUGH there I go again.
"Ah don't think there's anythin' weird 'bout yer eyes at all." Her voice broke me from my internal struggle. And not too soon either, I think I was losing. "But then again, ah'm not sure if they've always been different colors."
Did she just say what I think she said? "Did you say, two colors?"
She nodded, "Yep, sure did. You can have a look fer yerself." She got up from the couch and walked into another room. Okay, I think now is the appropriate time to start freaking out. What could the other color be? I know my eyes are supposed to be a really dark brown, but having two different colored eyes is so cool! Yes Lady, that's plus one to your ego. I just hope that the color isn't something weird like seafoam green.
She came back holding a small mirror in her mouth. Taking the mirror from her, I slowly brought it up to my field of vision. Now that's what I call cool! Looking at my reflection, I could see that my right eye was the same normal dark brown but my left eye was a whole other story.
It looked exactly like the third stage of the sharingan from the anime Naruto. But I can't complain, I honestly can't think of another way that I would want it to be. Another good question is what powers does it give me.
I stared at the mirror for a few seconds before placing it down on the coffee table. Do these ponies even drink coffee? Doesn't matter right now, I need to know why my eyes were like this. "To answer your question from earlier, my eyes have always been dark brown, never...this. Do you know anyone who could tell me about my eye?"
"Ah sure do sugarcube." She stuck out her chest with pride. "If ya talk to Twi, ah'm sure she'll be more than happy to help answer that question." Overconfident much? "Which reminds me!" She jumped off the couch and began to pull me towards the stairway. "Ya'll need ta get yer rest for tomorrow. Twi told ya to be there so ya'll can talk."
I looked at her confused, "Why can't we go see her now? It's not even that late." I looked out of a nearby window to see that it was pitch black outside. Yep, deffinately not that late.
"Sorry mister, but from the day ya'll had, yer goin straight to bed." Where though? I don't have anywhere to sleep. " 'N don't worry about sleepin' arangements, yer gonna be sleepin' with me."
I could feel my face warm slightly, "I'm slepping with you?"
"Well yeah, there's enough room in mah bed to have two sleep in it so ah have no problem with it." Wow she really is gutsy. That or she doesn't understand what it sounds like she's asking.
"Alright, if ya say so. Lead the way." I guess it's okay. I finally get to sleep with a girl. God I really need to get my shit together. This is a pony, not a human girl. Even still, sentient beings can form relationships...FUCK I'M SO CONFUSED! Walking up the stairs, I noticed old pictures of a younger Applejack, that little yellow pony that I think is Applebloom, and some red horse that is much bigger than AJ, must be a relative or something.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I gazed down a long hallway lined with doors that had pictures etched into the woodwork, except for two. All of them must lead into what I presumed were the other residents rooms. AJ walked towards the door on the end of the hallway with the three apples and pushed it open, motioning me to move forward. Walking forward I could hear the sounds of feint snoring coming from one of the rooms on my right. Treating it as nothing, I continued walking and entered AJ's room.
OH...MY...GOD. So this is what a girls room looks like. The room was decorated with all sorts of things ranging from old pictures to awards of all sorts. She had one window facing towards the fields of endless apple trees the her family owned. In the corner of the room was her bed. I would think that it's the pony equivalent to a queen-sized bed. "Kiyo, I need ya ta stay in here fer a bit. I need ya ta meet mah brother and sister." Oh great, I get to meet the family.
As she left the room she shut the door behind her, leaving me alone to my thoughts. Now would be the perfect time to test out my new unknown powers. "Hmm, lets try..." I thought about where I was and what surrounded me. "I guess anything that doesn't involve fire, lightning, moving the earth, creating a hurricane, or controlling water is okay." Looking around, I can see that she has a big room. "Teleporting it is!" Great, now that I have an idea of what to do, how do I do it? I reached into my pockets hoping that I brought anything with me besides my boken and clothing. I felt something metallic with something like a string connected to it. No, did I really have this the entire time? Emptying out the contents of my pockets, I sighed as if I failed myself. I had my i-pod, some spare change, and my wallet with me the entire time. I'll deal with this later. I placed everything back into my pockets except or a singular quarter.
I placed the quarter on the floor and walked to the other side of the room. Teleporting can't be as hard as it sounds. I just have to somehow dematerialize my atoms and move them to another location. Piece of cake. "Alright here goes nothing." I locked my gaze onto the quarter and pictured myself just appearing over to where the quarter was. I can feel something happening, but I'm not sure what. It feels like a sudden surge of warmth building in my left eye. I guess this is what the powers' energy feels like. "Now, release the power."
"Now when ya'll see him, just know that he's harmless." Looking up I saw AJ, Applebloom, and the big red horse walk into the room.
"IT'S THE MONSTER!" Applebloom ran out of the room screaming and the red horse got ready to attack.
"Calm down he's a friend." AJ tried to calm him down, but the words were landing on deaf ears.
"Look buddy. I don't know you, and you don't know me. So let's start things off nice and-" It was as if time had slowed. He rushed at me with his head down straight towards me. I can do only one thing and hope it works. I released the energy in my eye. I could feel my body start to go numb starting at my feet a rapidly moving up. As I looked at the slow motion horse, I saw a raven fly past him. As he got closer and closer, more and more ravens flew past him. Did someone leave a window open or something? Just as he was about to make contact, my point of view swooped around him and changed from being in front of him to behind him. At that moment, time sped up at once and he connected with the wall with a loud thud.
Aj rushed over to the slightly disoriented horse on the floor. Did I do what I had wanted? Looking at the floor underneath me, I saw what I had wanted to see, the quarter. I had managed to teleport out of danger. What I didn't expect, was that I would turn into a flock of ravens. If I remember correctly, wasn't that how Itachi got away from danger? Man, if I'm not mistaken, this eye is really trying to get me to become the next member of the Uchiha clan. "What did ya do ta him?" Looking up, I saw AJ with a concerned look about her.
"I didn't do anything... well, to a certain extent." AJ was starting to look a little more angry. "All I did was teleport behind him." Hearing this, AJ sighed a breath of relief.
I walked over to the disoriented horse and stared down at him. AJ looked at me with a worried expression. I turned to her and gave her a wink letting her know that I had planned for nothing bad. Turning my attention back to him, he stared at me as if he was looking at something straight from a nightmare. "By the looks of things, we got off on the wrong foot... um, I mean hoof. So let's try this again." I extended my hand out to him, he winced a little as a response. "Come on, it's not gonna bite ya." He looked at me and then back to my hand. He reached up and took hold of it. Pulling up, I lifted him to his hooves.
"Thanks." He looked down and scratched at the floor as if he had failed miserably. Well he kinda did, in a way.
"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. This has happened about two times already, so I'm kinda used to it by now." He looked back up from the floor with something that looked like a smile. "By the way, name's Kiyoshi. Nice to meet you."
"Big Mac." He extended his hoof and we gave each other a hand-hoof shake.
"You don't talk much do ya?" Had to ask.
"Nnnope." That answers my question.
"So is everything water under the bridge between ya'll?" AJ spoke up bringing our attention to her.
"Eeeyup." If all he says are one liners, then conversations between us are going to be very limited. I nodded as a response.
"Well as ya already know, this is Big Mac. He's mah older brother." Big Mac gave a single nod to this. "The one that ya saw scream and run away was our little sister, Applebloom. Speakin' of her, Big Mac, could you go and find her? Make sure she gets back ta bed and tell her what's going on." How he's gonna tell her what's going on is a friggin' mystery to me. Giving a nod, he left the room and shut the door behind him, leaving AJ and I alone. "Sorry about that. He can be protective sometimes."
"Like I said, I'm used to this already." Strange for me to say considering that I've only been out of the hospital for less than a day. "Anyways, I'm sure he was just lookin' out for you."
"Thanks. Anyway, it's time fer ya ta sleep." She walked over to bed and got in. I, on the other hand, had other plans. I lay down on the carpet in the middle of her room and shut my eyes. "Uh, what're ya doin'?"
I opened my eyes and rolled over to look at AJ. "I thought I was going to sleep. Why?" I really hope she doesn't mistake this as an insult to her hospitality.
"I told ya that ya could sleep in mah bed. There's enough room fer two." She patted the available spot next to her.
She obviously doesn't know what it sounds like she is asking. "Oh. Uh, okay." I slowly stood up and walked over to the bed. I placed my boken next to the bedpost and removed my shoes. Sliding under the covers, I lay my head on the soft down-feather pillow.
She was looking at me the entire time. "Comfy?" She asked.
The bed is incredibly soft. It feels like it was made out of the clouds themselves, that is if it were possible to sleep on them...or is it? NAAHHHH. "Yeah I am. This is the first time in a while that I've slept in a real bed." Corny or not, it was the truth. Ever since I arrived here, I've been cooped up in a hospital room on one of the beds either by choice or tied down against my will, which I gotta say, wasn't very comfortable.
She wore an expression of joy. "Good ta hear. Well g'night." She turned to her right and extinguished the lamp on her nightstand.
"Once again, thank you for letting me stay here."
"It's no problem at all. G'night Kiyo."
"Goodnight AJ." With that, I closed my eyes and drifted off, awaiting for the unexpected dangers of Ponyville to creep up on me once again.
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 8 - Just Dropping In
Waking up early in the morning is something that I'm sure nobody likes to do. I'm not talking about waking up to an alarm or being awoken by someone. I'm talking about waking up in the middle of the night before anyone else. It feels like I've been asleep longer than I wanted and I have to get up and do something. It doesn't matter what, just as long as I do something.
I lay on the bed in complete darkness, staring at the ceiling wondering what I should do. Not able to resist laying still for any longer, I shifted a little to a more comfortable position. The sound of Applejack grumble caused me to dart my head in her direction afraid that I had just woken her up. Her eyes were still closed, thankfully, meaning that she was still asleep. Turning over to face me, most likely to find a comfortable position as well, she reached out, wrapped her hooves around my arm and pulled herself closer, resting her head on my arm. She let out a sigh and sleepily uttered one word, "Kiyoshi." I looked at her wide eyed, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Whatever she's dreaming of must be making her happy.
Looking back up at the ceiling, I noticed the room was slowly getting brighter. "The sun is coming up already?" I whisper to myself. Barely lifting my head to look out the window, I saw that it wasn't the sun that was producing the light. Something falling out of the sky was causing it. Focusing on the source more, my eye started to pulsate. "Whatever it is," I thought to myself, "I must be related to it somehow." Looking over to Applejack, I gently removed my arm from her grasp and got out of the bed. Once I had my belongings with me, I quietly made my way to the door and opened it. I turned around to see that she was still sleeping peacefully. Happy with this, I closed the door and went to investigate the strange anomaly.
Reaching outside, I scanned the night sky for the meteor. Sure enough, the meteor was still falling, but only closer now. I could see that the meteor was much bigger than it originally looked like. Judging its' trajectory, I started my sprint towards the Everfree Forest.
The entrance of the Everfree Forest loomed in the distance getting closer with each step. I watched in amazement as the meteor screamed overhead into the middle of the forest, landing with a loud crash. The sight of frightened birds taking flight made me realize something. Stopping in my tracks, I face-palm at my own stupidity. Focusing on the entrance, I could feel my eye pulsate and then everything go numb. Seeing my vision going aerial, I could only assume that the teleport was working. "Hmm, I wonder..." Focusing new energy into flight control was a simple yet complicated task. Seeing the forest pass beneath meant that I am in total control of where I can "reassemble."
Gazing at the sight beneath me was almost frightening. There was a smoldering trail of fire and destruction that stretched on for at least a mile stopping where the meteor had come to a rest. "I really hope that my 'entrance' wasn't that exquisite." Continuing the flight getting ever closer to the massive crater, I could see a flock of ravens flying by my side. "Good, at least I don't have to worry about missing an arm or leg." I thought to myself.
Looking down at the crater, I saw a flash of purple light near its edge. Swooping down into the remnants of the tree line, the "flock" and I landed on the remaining trees that are still standing. "Twilight? Have I ever told you how much ravens scare me?"
Looking around for the voices' owner, I saw Spike and Twilight next to the crater. "Yes Spike, you have. If I recall correctly, you said quote "They swarmed around me and stole my ice cream." correct?" Spike nodded to this. "Spike, that was just a nightmare. There is nothing to be afraid of. Here, I'll prove it." Twilights' horn began to glow and she disappeared from where she once stood, only to reappear underneath the branch I was perched. Sticking out a forehoof, she levitated a cracker out of her saddlebag. Looking up to me, she started to coax me to fly to her.
"Hmm," I thought to myself, "Listen to her, get free food. Don't listen to her, make her look like a total fool." Not wanting the latter, I flew down to her forehoof and began to happily eat the cracker as birdlike as possible.
After I had finished eating the cracker, she nuzzled my side and looked over to Spike. "See? Nothing to be afraid of."
Looking over to Spike, I winked at him. "Yeah, you really shouldn't let your nightmares get to ya. They'll make your life miserable." Twilight and Spike looked at me in total shock. They looked like they've seen a ghost. "Problem?" I look down at my body to realize that I'm still in bird form. "Oh! Right, hold on." Twilight and Spike followed my every movement as I flew to an open area. Landing on the ground, I canceled the spell and the other ravens immediately flew into my body one by one. With each raven, I could feel myself rising to my original height.
Once completed, I gave my body a once over to check if I was complete. Arms, check. Legs, check. Head, check. Other head...check. Satisfied with the inspection, I walked over to the stunned Twilight. "So Twilight, what brings you here?" No response, expression the same and still focused on where I was before turning back to normal. I crouched on her left side facing her and began to poke her face. "Yo Twilight, you there?" No response. I waved my hand in front of her face. "Helloooooo." The response I got was silence yet again.
Fed up, I stood and looked over to Spike to see him unconscious on the charred ground. "Definitely not the bravest dragon I've ever seen. " A familiar male voice in my head spoke.
"Oh joy it's you again," I say sarcastically, "What do you want now?"
The voice began to laugh, "You still mad about our last encounter? " It asked.
"Well, you managed to leave me with more questions than answers the last time we met. So that kinda left me a little peeved."
The voice took on an apologetic tone, "Yeah sorry about that. I was kinda in a hurry due to the fact I'm behind enemy lines. "
"Really now? How do I know you're not lying to me?" I couldn't trust the voice just yet.
"Hmm, let's take a moment to think about that, " the voice began, "If I was lying to you then you'd probably be dead by now. " He got me on that account. "Also there's the fact that after I saved you, I told you that I'm an ally. "
"Alright, ya got me. But how can you prove that you're an ally?" I asked half expecting it to not give a good reason.
"I was waiting for you to ask that. " Dammit! "If you ask Twilight what the most recent major event was, then you'll get an idea of who I am. " Yet again more questions.
"I would like to do that, but she's kinda... gone at the moment."
The voice took a few seconds to gather its thoughts. "What do you mean, "gone"? "
"Just look for yourself." I turned back to Twilight and sure enough, she was still frozen from the sudden shock. "See what I mean?" I picked up a small pebble and tossed it at her. The pebble bounced off of her head as she made no attempt to evade or block it.
"Oh right, she does that when she's confused sometimes, " the voice said nonchalantly. "Just say that Princess Celestia is there for her most recent friendship report. "
"Princess Cele-say-who-now?" I was utterly confused to the point where I was drawing blanks.
"Just do it. It's something of a mental shock remedy for her. I don't get it myself, but it works, " The voice went silent for a moment before returning sounding very hurried. "I've gotta go, remember: Ally, recent events, Celestia, Friendship reports. Got it? Good, I'll resume contact when I have a chance. Later. " With that, the voice went silent.
"Dammit, he left again before I could even ask what the enemy's name was," I thought to myself as I approached Twilight. "I guess all I can do now is get her back to normal."
Looking down at her, something in my mind clicked and caused a new plan to come forth. I began to lightly scratch the top of her head to see if that'd get any type of reaction. Seeing her shudder and slowly close her eyes was a good sign. Ceasing the scratching motion, I placed my hand by my side.
She nudged my hand with the top of her head almost like a cat wanting to be scratched. "Who said to stop?" She asked in an euphoric manner. Shooting her eyes open, she realized what she just said. Stumbling back, she began to freak out. "Who... Why... Where... What?" The confusion on her face was just too funny, causing me to go into a fit of laughter.
"Welcome back Twi," I said while wiping away a tear. "How was your vacation in the clouds?"
"Oh shut up..." She said angrily trying to hide the blush that appeared on her cheeks. "What are you even doing out here?" She snapped.
I looked at her like it was obvious and said, "Probably the same reason as you. I'm here to investigate the meteor."
Her ears immediately perked up at the mention of the meteor. "That's right! I was here to study the meteor before anypony else did." Turning around she galloped past the still unconscious Spike to the crater.
"She really is devoted to her studies." I say to myself. Walking over to Spike, I hoisted him onto my back giving him something like a piggy-back-ride. Spike weighed next to nothing surprisingly. From all of the video games that I've played in the past, I know dragons weigh an exponential amount because of their thick scales and sheer size, but probably due to his lack of stature and scale size, he might not be fully matured yet. But what do I know, I haven't seen any other dragons.
"Kiyo, I think you should see this." I turned to see Twilight staring into the crater, unable to look away from it.
Calmly walking towards the crater I ask, "What is it?" Looking down into the crater, I saw a body. Only the body wasn't a pony, it was a girl. Dropping Spike, I slid down into the crater to the and rushed to her. She was laying on her back, positioned how someone would stand at attention.
Sliding to a stop, I got down on my knees and placed my ear over their mouth. "Good, she's still breathing." Sighing a breath of relief, I stood and looked up to Twilight with a calm demeanor and yelled, "Twilight, come down here, I need your help." Watching her levitate Spike onto her back, she teleported next to me. Before she said anything, I asked, "Can you teleport all of us to your place?"
She looked at me with a shocked expression and asked, "What? Wouldn't the Hospital be better?"
I looked down and shook my head. "No, it wouldn't." I said matter-of-factly. "Remember? Humans aren't part of your world. So the staff would probably freak out just like last time if they saw the two of us."
She closed her eyes in deep thought, only to reopen them and nod in approval. "You're right. I have a laboratory in my basement, so she'll be safe there."
"Thanks, I don't want her to go through what I had to." I said while had images of me being chased through Ponyville. Kneeling down, I picked the girl up placing my arms behind her shoulders and knees. "Okay, let's go."
Nodding in agreement, she closed her eyes and her horn glow a violet color. With a flash of a violet light we were gone.
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 9 - A Helping Hoof
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.
The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 10 - Unexpected Detour
"Hey Kiyo! Kiyo! Wake up!"
I quickly sat up gasping for breath, and sweating profusely. The bed and sheets were completely soaked and cold from the sweat. I rested my head in my shaky hands as I recalled the recurring nightmare. I've been having the same nightmare for more than a week now. I would always start off standing in an empty field and I would start to hear laughter all around me. I would then search for the sound to find my family laughing. After finding them I would run to them and give them a group hug. I would start to feel something wet trickle down my arm, looking up I would see them start liquidizing in my arms still hearing their laughter becoming more and more distorted while at the same time louder and louder. Every time, I would either wake up screaming bloody murder or would start crying like a scared child. The nightmares began the same night Twilight had basically thrown me out of town with the rest of it behind her.
After a few moments, I looked up to see who had awoken me. "You were screaming in your sleep. It sounded like you were having one hay of a nightmare." the pony said.
I looked back down and rested my head in my hands again. "You have no idea Arcana."
Arcana was the first pony Malice introduced me to after bringing me to the cave. He was a crimson unicorn with a Cutie Mark of what looked like a blue fire surrounded by some old runes. He had a spiky light blue mane and a grey tail with black streaks in it. His eyes were of a deep brown color that that were somewhat similar to mine, well... the right one anyway. I mean sure he looked odd for a pony as far as color goes, but who am I to judge this weird technicolored world.
He sat on the edge bed next to me and draped his foreleg over my shoulder. "You know you can talk to me if something is bothering you." He looked at me with concern for my well being. I just shook my head in my hands. How could I tell him any more than I already have? I've told him everything that I know. But he thinks that there's something more to it than just that.
When I first told him about my arrival, he was curious as to why Twilight would become friends with me and then treat me like I was more vile than Discord, who I learned was the embodiment of the purest chaos. I chalked it up as her knowledge about what my eye truly meant, but that didn't seem satisfactory to him. So the more and more he pressed, I told him to leave it be or I didn't answer at all.
Ever since I arrived at the cave about 3 months ago, he's acted like a big brother towards me. He gave me the tour of the entire cave, which turned out to be an underground castle of some kind. He hung out with me as I tried to get used to my new environment and new faces. He even taught me some magic that I could use defensively or offensively. Even though it took some time and a lot of anti-burn creme, I managed to get the basics down. The time he gave me the tour though stuck out in my mind the clearest.
The further that we went into the cave, the more its features would change. First, the walls and floor would transfer from their original rocky surface to old stone masonry. Second, the walls would expand and hold highly detailed paintings of important looking ponies wearing armor or fancy garments fitted for them and landscapes that would seem impossible to recreate on a canvas. We would more often than not pass by stone obelisks that would stand tall and strong as they seemed to be holding the ceiling up from crashing down on us.
Every now and then we would pass by a group of ponies or individuals that looked like they were busy. But even as we passed them, they didn't try and attack me or run away in fear. They would look at me, smile and wave. It was true what Malice had said, I could be here and nobody would treat me any differently than they would themselves. Here I could be treated as I've wanted to be...normal.
Getting up from the bed, Arcana trotted over to the entrance of my room. "Well, if you don't wanna talk to me, I understand." I looked up at him to see him looking back at me with a playful smile. "But don't think just because I gave up this time means that there won't be a next time."
I returned the smile and said, "I wouldn't have it any other way," as he left. I stood up from the bed and stretched, releasing a few satisfying cracks. Walking over to the dresser in my room I saw my belongings patiently awaiting me: my iPod at a 22% charge, an old black wallet still containing the memories of my old life, and my ever faithful family boken, but with a few more dents and scratches. Opening a drawer I pulled out a new set of clothing to change into. The clothes that I had been given were made with great care and precision but also strong and durable so that they would last awhile.
The three shirts that were made were all of the same basic short sleeve design but were given their own look. They all had the all black design but either had a grey, crimson or white stripe that traveled up the sleeve to quickly change direction and go down the front of my chest in a mirroring "Z" pattern eventually going straight again before the hem at the base turning 90 degrees and meeting in the middle of the shirt.
The two pants that were made were especially cool. They both felt like they were sweatpants but were much more durable than that. They were a plain black color and designed for the utmost flexibility but also for maximum protection. They had the same feeling that sweatpants had but breathed better keeping me cool and could take some damage. The designer had imbued them with a magic property that would act like shield or barrier on the point of contact in the event that I was attacked or had to do some major ass kicking, specifically kicking or using knees, I could still move around and not be hindered by any heavy armor or worry about injuring myself. There was also a written incantation that were placed on the inside of the two pockets that allowed me to put nearly anything in it. They acted similar to giant storage area that weighed nothing at all, if the item was in it then all the wearer had to do was think of the object, reach in, grab, and pull. The two rules about it were simple; the item had to be smaller than the wearer, and there was a five item limit per pocket.
I was also given a new jacket because the one I had originally wore was scratched, torn, ripped and stained with blood, most of it being my own. Well, it was more like a trench coat than a jacket. Its overall look was amazing to say the least. It was made from faux leather and was dyed black just for the occasion that I had to blend in with the shadows and hide. The zipper reached from the waist up to the collar which could be buttoned closed to conceal my mouth. To make the whole thing look slimming on me, a thick black faux leather belt with a loop for my boken was adorned on the waist. For practical reasons the tailor had decided to give it a hide-away hood in the event that it rained or i needed some shade from the sun. For a safety precaution, it was enchanted so it couldn't be torn or ripped. This meant that while I wore it, I couldn't be stabbed or have a limb severed. However, I would still feel the force behind the attack. At least I wouldn't have to worry about any sharp objects anytime soon. But I would still have to be careful nonetheless.
Malice took it upon himself to introduce me to the tailor that had been living here ever since he found her a year ago in the great capital of Equestria called Canterlot. Now one would think that being from the capital of a country, she would be living the high life, right? Drinking fine wine every night, eating meals that were on par with royalty, and getting to wear clothes made by the most highly recognized designer. That's what I had thought when I had first heard of her. But I had been proven otherwise.
She had been living in a house with her parents and a 5 year-old brother. They were the image of a perfect family. Nobody fought, they shared everything, were honest, and most importantly loved each other very dearly. Sure they had some wealth, but they hadn't flaunted it like their neighbors and everyone else in Canterlot did. They would spend their money wisely and not buy everything in sight or the most expensive item available at the time. Nor did they brag about their living space. They lived in a medium-sized house, just big enough for them to be comfortable but not too small for them to be cramped. No matter what was said about them, they were happy living the way they did. But one night was all it took to take that happiness away.
She had spent the night at one of her friends unaware that her home had been broken into. When she returned the next day, she found her family dead lying in a pool of their own blood. Each of them had their throats slit from ear to ear. With no other family to go to, she had been forced to fend for herself by taking any job she could, but it all didn't work according to plan. Eventually the house was foreclosed and she had to live on the streets where no one was willing to help her all because she was "lower" than them.
We would always meet each other either due to me needing new clothes or for the usual meal time gatherings. I took the initiative to introduce myself to her as she seemed to be the socially awkward type. She told me her name was Violet Spool and true to her name, she had a violet coat with a sewing spool for a cutie mark. Her long ash colored mane was always kept in a ponytail that formed a cute little hook at the bottom. What grabbed my attention the most about her were her golden eyes that seemed to glisten like finely polished gold. Eventually she warmed up to me and we began to hang out often than not, like friends would.
By the time we noticed the giggles from the groups we would pass or the silent whispers of ponies during meals it was already too late. Someone had started the rumor that we were a couple and had been going out for month now. Baffled by this new discovery we began to try and disprove it. No matter how hard we tried, we were unsuccessful at proving them otherwise. Eventually we went along with it and started dating. Actually, now that I think about it, it was her idea that we should go along with it. Although odd at first, I finally got used to the idea that I would be dating a pony and the fact that she was my first girl- er, marefriend.
As I was tightening the last strap on my coat, I saw a rolled-up note kept shut with a little violet bow left neatly on my nightstand meaning it could have only come from one pony. Unraveling the bow, I began to read the note.
Dear Kiyoshi,
Today's the big day! Aren't you excited? Because I sure am! So just a reminder, don't forget to bring your essentials and a few other things cuz we're gonna be gone for quite some time. Who knows? This might be our first time being alone together. OH MY GOSH! WHY'D I WRITE THAT? Ignore that last bit, anyway... yeah. Just remember to bring some essentials and, wait didn't I already write that? You know what, just meet me at the dining hall and we'll go see Malice together. I wonder what kinda mission we'll get? Hopefully it's not too dangerous. See you soon.
Love,
Your Marefriend,
Violet Spool
Lightly laughing, I gently rolled up the note and stowed it inside the nightstand. "You're something else Violet." I said to myself. Grabbing my stuff from the top of the dresser and everything else I could need, I placed them into their proper places on my being, or to be more exact, my pockets. I took a quick glance around the room one last time in case I forgot something. Smiling at myself, I quickly made my way towards the dining hall to meet up with Violet.
Approaching the dining hall, I could see Violet patiently waiting at the entrance for me. Seeing me, she started waving to get my attention. Smiling at her, I waved back and jogged to get to her quicker. As I reached her, she jumped up into my arms and kissed me lightly on the lips which I was more than happy to return.
"Hey there Kiyo." She said with a smile. "Have a good nap?"
I put her down gently and smiled sheepishly, "I've had better to be honest." I said while rubbing the back of my neck.
She looked at me inquisitively. "Nightmare again?"
I just nodded slowly. "Nightmare, again." She just shook her head, picked up her saddlebag and started walking towards where we were to meet Malice.
She gave a soft chuckle, "You know, you should put up that dream catcher I made for you."
I look down and give a laugh of my own, "Yeah I know. I just can't find any space to put it up."
We turned a corner and kept up the conversation. Things about my daily life and my "training" as I like to call it were brought up. In reality it was just Arcana teaching me stuff about magic and other things that are useful to know. When it came to magic though, that is where I would have the most fun. Whether I would botch the spell or not, I would always get a good couple of laughs out of it.
We entered the meeting room in high spirits, excited that this was our day to shine. The meeting room was fairly sized. There was a large round table with candles lighting the room pretty well, illuminating all that needed to be seen. A few chests and drawers could be seen lining the walls most likely holding something important. The lone figure looked up from the papers in front of him and smiled as we entered.
"Good afternoon you two. Have you had a good day so far?" Malice asked with a smile.
Violet was the first to speak, "I've been having a wonderful day, thank you for asking. Him on the other hand," she said motioning towards my direction, "not so much."
Malice tilted his head in my direction and gave me a questioning look. "Nightmare again?" he asked.
I just facepalmed at the question, "Man, does everyone know about my nightmare?"
He gave a small smile in response, "No. Just everyone you know." We all laughed at his joke. "Okay, all pleasantries aside, are you ready to get your assignments?" We both nodded in agreement. "Good." he said cheerfully. Malice levitated a scroll over from one of the shelves in the room and opened it flat on the table.
"As you may know, every once in awhile I send out ponies to get certain things for me while they stay here," he began, "And as of now, your times have come to get this item." He brought our attention to the opened scroll. On it was a drawn picture of what looked like a small gemstone surrounded by some old runes. The gemstone was a perfect sphere and seemed to look like it was giving off an aura of sorts. He levitated over a map of the Everfree Forest in which we resided. "The Guardians Fire," he began, "is an artifact that was thought to be lost over a millennia ago," he paused for a dramatic effect, "that is until now." He began to point to an "X" on the map. "From the old tomes that I've been researching, I think I may have found its location. Somehow it managed to find its way into the Everfree and now it is just ripe for picking."
I glanced up from the map and asked, "What makes this 'Guardians Fire' so special?"
He looked at me like I was crazy. "The Fire was rumored to have the ability to heal wounds, remove illnesses, dispel curses, stop you from aging. In essence, if you were to obtain it, you would become immortal." He said almost excitedly.
If I had the ears of a pony, they would be sticking straight up and focused on everything he was saying. "Okay, now that's important."
He continued where he left off, "Your assignment is to get the Guardians Fire and bring it back to me."
We heard a knocking at the entrance and turned around to see Arcana standing there wearing a saddle bag. "You wanted to see me Malice?"
Malice looked at him with a smile on his face. "Perfect timing Arcana." He turned and looked back to Violet and I. "Because neither of you have ventured out before and the Everfree is a dangerous place to be, Arcana will be escorting you to and from your assignment." Arcana gave a quick nod as confirmation to this.
Violet gave a sigh and hung her head. "And here I thought we were going to be alone." she said just above a whisper so that only I could hear.
I leaned down and whispered in her ear, "When we get back you'll get to have as much alone time with me as you want."
Her head shot up immediately with a dark blush gracing her cheeks. She quickly blurted out, "When is the earliest we can leave?"
Malice gave us a grin before his horn started to glow a faint yellow color. "Right now." Before we could say anything else, there was a bright flash and we found ourselves standing outside the entrance to the cave.
After walking for about an two hours or so the three of us had come to a unanimous decision to take a quick lunch break. I had been given the task of building ourselves a small campfire to illuminate the area while Arcana and Violet left together to go and forage for some edible plants for all of us. Occasionally I would hear around me the sound of a twig snapping or a rustling of a bush. Probably just an animal running around spying on me trying to discern whether I am predator or prey.
I had been sitting and waiting on one of the three logs for about thirty minutes that I had dragged over to the fire to use as a seat, bored, when I heard a rustling of leaves from my right. I turned and saw Arcana and Violet walking back with a basket of blueberries.
I looked at the blueberries with an air of suspicion and asked, "Where did you manage to find those?"
Arcana took a seat on the log to the left of mine and Violet on the one I was sitting. "There was a bush of them about ten minutes that way," he said pointing the way they came from. "We were about to give up and come back when we found them."
"We got lucky too," Violet began, "We saw a pack of timberwolves near it but we got past them."
I looked to see her smiling at me in the cutest of ways. "And how did you manage to do that?" I asked with a sudden interest in the mare sitting next to me.
She suddenly gave me the most serious expression that I think she could muster. "I killed each and every one of them and ate their lingering souls like candy."
I could feel nervous sweat start to form on my head. "R-really?" I asked with a small amount of fear.
She fell into a fit of giggles before returning to her normal expression. "Of course not silly," she said. "They were asleep so we snuck around them."
I closed my eyes gave a sigh of relief as I removed the thought that my marefriend could kill me in my sleep. I could feel a small round object being pressed up to my lips. Opening my eyes again I saw Violet holding a blueberry in her magical grasp trying to feed me. "Say ahh." She said drawing out the 'ahh'.
I did as requested and she fed me the blueberry. As I chewed it, my taste buds screamed out in pure bliss at the flavor. I let out an audible moan of pleasure at the flavor being so exquisite. Swallowing, I looked over to the basket in amazement. "Wow! Those are really good! And you found these?"
Violet looked up at me with a happy smile, "Yep! Eat as much as you like."
I picked up a few from the basket and positioned to eat before I stopped myself. I looked at Violet with concern. "Don't you want any? I mean, as much as I would like to eat all of them, you two have to eat also."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Don't worry about us, we already ate some on the way back. Now go on and eat up. We all need to be prepared for anything that might be guarding the Guardian's Fire." Looking down at the delicious fruit that lay in my hand, I gave a nod and continued to eat.
As I ate I felt a strange pain at the base of my skull. Reaching for the spot I felt nothing at first but the pain gradually increased causing me to break out into a pained sweat. What is this pain? I felt fine a minute ago, but now I just hurt. I turned to try and find if anything was behind me only to see nothing.
Turning back to Violet i could see her looking back at me with an questioning look. "Are you okay Kiyo?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
I shook my head as my vision swam and became blurred. "I...don't think so." I tried to stand from the log only to be pushed backwards tripping me over the log by an unknown force. Landing with a grunt I looked up into the sky not daring to move a muscle.
Hearing a lot of movement around me I could see some objects start to walk out of the surrounding bushes. I gave a startled gasp as the objects became clearer. The golden armor, the snow white coats, the sun insignia on the armor; they were Celestia's Royal Guard. I struggled to get up when I saw a crimson hoof keeping me pinned. Looking up, I saw who it belonged to. "Arcana?" I asked with a hurt tone.
Arcana looked at me with with a sad frown revealing a cloth in his other hoof. "I'm sorry Kiyoshi." With that he raised the cloth and covered my mouth and nose. I started to struggle, breathing faster as fear got a firm grip on my being. My flailing arms and legs grew heavier and eventually stopped as my conscious finally succumbed to the darkness that clouded my vision.
Awaking to the feeling of being thrown to the ground, I groggily lifted my and blinked several times to clear the fuzziness in my sight. As it started to clear, I could see that I was currently laying prone on a long strip of red carpet atop white marble. Looking up I gazed at a pristine throne atop a set of steps of which to armor clad unicorn guards stood at the base protecting it. Bringing my gaze further up, I saw banners hanging from the high ceiling, On the left half of the ceiling hung red banners emblazoned with a sun in the middle. On the right hung blue banners emblazoned with a crescent moon. The windows along the walls were all stained glass art. Some displayed scenes of ponies playing together while others showed what looked like important events that transpired over the years.
The look of this great hall was astounding to say the least, but the one question that kept floating in my head was simple and clear, "Where am I?"
"You are currently reside within my castle Kiyoshi," a female voice announced. A giant sun symbol appeared in the air in front of me radiating a bright light. Splitting in the middle, the symbol opened like a door releasing a blinding light causing me to shield my eyes. I could see a silhouette walking out of the light getting closer and closer. Once the figure was close enough the symbol closed and disappeared taking the blinding light with it, leaving a single pony behind. She had a white coat that seemed to almost glow with a magical light. Her light green, blue and pink mane and tail seemed to wave in a non-existent breeze. A long sharp horn sat atop her regal head, and two glorious angelic wings were spread open making her seem much larger than she really was.
My pupils shrank when I realized who the figure was. "Oh no." I whispered.
Celestia's light purple eyes met my gaze as she spoke in an authoritative voice. "And we need to have a little talk."
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The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?
Chapter 3 - Introductions and New Discoveries
I awoke…again… to the sound of yelling. I opened my eye to see what was happening only to be met by a troubling scene unfolding before me. The cyan and purple horses were arguing over something.
“Rainbow Dash! Why did you go and hit…whatever it is, over the head?” The purple horse exclaimed. “Where did you even get that in the first place?” Obviously the cyan horse, “Rainbow Dash”, was the culprit who had hit me in the back of the head.
I could describe Rainbow Dash as rash, and very bold. For all she knew, I could have easily dodged and taken the weapon and hurt them all. But she still took a chance to protect her friends. Her mane and tail were colored the same as a rainbow (go figure), and she, herself, looked to be in top condition. She had a pair of wings adorning her sides. “So she’s a Pegasus eh?” I thought to myself. “Man, did I end up in the weird part of Youtube™ or what?”
I looked over the rest of them. Rainbow Dash wasn’t the only Pegasus. The yellow one was a Pegasus too. The white and purple horses had horns. “Oh great, unicorns too.” While the orange and pink ones had neither horns nor wings. “Finally, something normal… sorta.” I continued to listen in on their argument.
“This?” she held up the weapon on the other side of her body so that I couldn't see it. “I found it on my way here. It was sticking out of the ground near the White Tail Woods.” She shook her head, “But that doesn’t matter. It was about to attack us Twilight!” Oh, so the purple one is Twilight. “I could see the urge for destruction in its eyes.” She pointed her weapon towards my direction as if to try and pin the whole situation at hand on me.
I noticed something… odd about it. The weapon was made of wood and had an odd curvature to it almost making it look like… “Hey! That’s mine!” I shouted as I lunged for my boken.
Rainbow Dash quickly pulled the boken away from my arms reach, causing me to fall off the bed onto the hard, marble floor. While I was lying face down on the floor, the others quickly jumped on my back pinning me to the floor. “Hey! Urgh, get offa me! I refuse to pinned down by a bunch of horses!” I struggled to get them off, but to no avail.
I heard Twilight speak up from somewhere in the pile on my back, “First off, we're ponies not horses. And secondly, no way! You just tried to hurt Rainbow!”
“Hurt Rainbow? You’re crazy!” I shouted while struggling. “Okay sure, me getting revenge on Rainbow would be well deserved but really, I was just trying to get MY boken back!” My anger was reaching it limit, “That ‘weapon’ your friend found isn’t a weapon… well, actually it is and it isn’t.” This caused a stir in the pile letting me know that I had everyone’s…*ahem*… everyponies attention. “It’s actually a very old heirloom. Just look on the bottom of the hilt! That symbol represent my family name!” My anger suddenly dissipated into sadness realizing what I had just said.
This was the first time I had mentioned anything about my family. I began to think about my family, my home, everything, causing tears to form in my eye. “Mom…Dad...Tomiko…” At this point I didn’t care who was watching. I started to cry into my forearms.
I felt them start to slowly get off my back, but it didn’t matter to me one bit. I was alone and on a foreign planet, hell, I could’ve been in a whole other universe for all I knew.
I felt somepony start to slowly stroke my back, “There, there. It’s ok,” a voice softly said, “Everything will be alright.” I looked up teary eyed to see the yellow pegasus trying to comfort me. I couldn’t take it any longer; I sat up and hugged her. At first she was surprised at the sudden embrace, but then wrapped her hooves behind my neck, hugging me back, causing me to cry even harder. “That’s it, just let it all out,” she whispered. “Nopony is going to hurt you.”
“Thank*sniff*you…” Was all I managed to say between sobs.
“My name is Fluttershy.”
“Thank you…Fluttershy.”
After a few minutes of crying, I stood up, with some difficulty, and sat back down on the soft hospital bed. Everypony was looking at me with concern on their faces. “Now that I got that out of my system, how about we start with the introductions?” I said trying to lighten the mood while wiping tears from my eyes.
I looked from pony to pony hoping for one of them to start until the purple unicorn stepped forward, “Umm…Yes well, my name is Twilight Sparkle. You already know Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash I presume?”
I looked toward the yellow and cyan pegasi, “Yes I do, and it’s nice to meet you Twilight. My name is Kiyoshi Mushya. " I bowed to her as any polite man would do, causing her to blush a little. "And to clear things up, I am male."
Seeing this, the white unicorn jumped into the conversation, “It looks like we have a gentlecolt amongst us.”
“Oh, this is Rarity!" Twilight exlaimed, "She’s the local tailor in our town."
Rarity looked like she had been insulted, “I’m not just some run of the mill tailor. I’m a dress making genius.” She looked away trying to salvage as much dignity as she had left.
“Well, it truly is an honor to meet you Miss Rarity.” I bowed again to show respect.
She gave a small curtsy in reply. “It’s surprising to meet an… individual, who knows how to treat a mare.”
“Thank you, I think. Honestly, I wasn’t so sure how to behave myself at first, but being in… wherever I am, I thought that since it's a new place to me, I should be as polite as possible and try to make new friends as quickly as possible.”
She backed away smiling to be with the rest of her friends. Then the orange pony trotted forward. “Howdy there! Ah’m Applejack!” She held out her hoof to me.
I grabbed it and she started to shake it up and vigorously causing me to shake in the bed. “N-n-n-n-n-i-i-c-c-c-e-e t-t-t-o-o-o-o m-m-m-e-e-e-e-t-t-t-t y-y-y-y-o-u-u-u-u.” She stopped shaking my hand, causing to stop shaking as well.
The pink pony hopped up next to the bed and stared at me with her head tilted to the side like a curious dog does, "Umm, hello?" I said.
She leapt into the air, gave a loud gasp, and disappeared through the door at an amazing speed. I sat there unsure what to do, "What...just happened?"
Twilight spoke up, "Oh don't worry, that's normal for her. You'll meet her again sooner or later." I gave a small sigh of relief, "By the way I believe a certain somepony has something to give you."
Twilight nudged Rainbow towards me. “Here’s your ‘boken’.” She placed it next to me and whispered in my ear threateningly, “Try anything funny pal, and you’ll regret it.” She backed away scowling, keeping full eye contact with me.
"Thanks for giving it back, friend."
"I ain't your friend, buddy!"
"Well I ain't your buddy, pal!"
"And I ain't your pal, friend!"
At this point Rainbow and I were yelling at each other ignoring the others arguement or insult. Twilight sensing tempers were rising between Rainbow and I, she decided to intervene before something bad started, "I think that it would be best that you get some sleep. You've had a long day." I nodded in agreement as I felt how tired I truely was while having a stare down with Rainbow. "Besides, i'm sure that everypony has work to finish." And with that, they all filed out of the room and turned off the light, leaving me in silence and to be comforted by the bright glow of the moon through the window.
I slid under the blankets, rested my head on the pillow and pulled the sheets up to my neck. Once I closed my eyes I thought to myself "This is the first sleep i'll get without being knocked unconscious." With a small chuckle I let sleep consume my being and entered the world of dreams.
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Amazingly, the hyperactive pink pony known as Pinkie Pie (ironic, no?) managed to throw a party in the hospital room I was in the next day, but the party was allowed to only be consisted of the six of them and myself. I had no problem with this, 'cause i'm not usually a very social person. So having a small party was awesome.
The room was filled with some of the best music I have ever heard. Confetti and streamers littered the floor as we celebrated, what Pinkie liked to call it, the "WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA KIYOSHI!!!" party. We played various games such as Pin the Tail on the Pony, Charades, Bobbing for Apples and some cards games. I was sitting in the bed watching the ponies have fun as Rainbow flew over to my left and began arguing with me.
"You may have everypony else fooled, but I can see right through your lies."
I sat there confused, looking at the cyan pegasus like she was crazy, "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't try and lie to me! You know that you're planning on killing us the first chance you get."
"All I know is that you're crazy, and that i'm not gonna kill anypony."
Rainbow continued to argue about my 'plans', then *BOOM*! (Stop music or keep listening, your choice) I looked over just in time to see a wall of forks and knives flying towards Rainbow. "Look out!" I screamed as I jumped out of the bed. I quickly pulled Rainbow into a tight hug and turned my back towards the incoming objects.
"WHAT THE? What in the hay are you-" She was cut off by the sickening sound of something being stabbed multiple times.
I looked down at her still in my arms, "Are you... okay?" Signs of pain void from my face.
"Yeah I am. Why?" She asked.
"Good..." I said with a smile, "At least... you're safe." I let Rainbow fly out of my arms before I collapsed sideways onto the floor. I could feel the warm blood seeping out of my back as I lost consciousness. "Dammit, and right when I thought life was getting better."
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Rainbow Dash's POV
I floated there looking down at Kiyoshi, "Hey, umm what just-" as I was directing my attention to my friends I saw the wall that was next to us. It was impaled by hundreds of metal knives and forks except for a large area of it. I looked over to my friends to see what had happened. I could see that Rarity and Fluttershy had passed out, Twilight and Applejack were charging over to where Kiyoshi and I were, and Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be seen. But something was off. Everypony was moving in slow motion. "Did he...Did he just...save my life?" I looked back at the unconscious Kiyoshi on the ground. The entire back of his body, except his neck and head, had knives and forks jutting into him and was bleeding profusely. Once I figured out what was going on time seemed to speed up again.
Twilight ran past me to where Kiyoshi lay while Applejack ran up to me and asked, "Are ya'll alright?"
"Yeah..." I said still looking down at Kiyoshi, "I'm fine."
"That's good." She said with a sigh, "Ah wish ah could say the same fer Kiyoshi..."
I looked back at Applejack, "What happened anyway?"
She looked back at me with concern on her face, "Ya know of Pinkies' Party Cannon?"
"Yeah I do. Why?"
"She accidentally put the utensils inside it, and well, ya know the rest."
I looked around the room, "Are Rarity and Fluttershy okay? And where's Pinkie?"
"Pinkie ran out of the room when it happened, and they passed out when he collapsed. But that doesn' matter right now! We need ta help Kiyoshi before he dies!"
"Okay, I'll get the nurse and-" Almost like she heard me, Nurse Redheart burst into the room.
"I heard an explosion and I ran here as fast as I could." She looked over to Kiyoshi and I could see the fear spread across her face. She leaned her head out into the hallway only to have several medical staff rush into the room. "I need you and your friends to get out so the team and I can prep for immediate surgery." She trotted past me to where Twilight was, "Thank you, but we'll take it over from here."
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Twilight's POV
"It's been two hours now." I thought to myself, "I really hope everything is going ok in there." I looked around at everypony waiting in the lobby. Rarity and Apllejack were pacing around the room. Fluttershy was still unconscious. Pinkie had cried herself to sleep, we found her crying in one of the supply closets on the third story. And Rainbow was just staring off into space as if lost in deep thought or something. What troubled me the most was how she's reacted to this incident. She hasn't shown any emotions since we left the room.
Nurse Redheart walked out into the lobby looking down, everypony was either awakened, broken out of their trance or stopped to look at her. We all rushed to her awaiting an answer, "Well...Is he gonna be okay Redheart?" asked AJ.
She looked up and bore a smile, "Yes, he's okay. You'll be able to visit him in just a bit." Everypony cheered at the good news. I felt a great wave of joy spread through me. She turned to me and said with a serious tone, "Excuse me Twilight, but can we talk..." She glanced at everypony else, "...in private."
We walked to the otherside of the room, away from the others who were still cheering. "What did you need to talk about with me in private?"
"What I needed to talk to you about is your friend, Kiyoshi was it?"
I felt a shockwave of worry travel through my spine, "What about him? Did something happen?"
'Well, yes and no."
I started to get impaitient, "Well then what's wrong?"
"That's just it, I'm not sure...You may want to prepare yourself for this but, we didn't need to do any surgery on him at all."
I stared at her with a confused expression, "Okay...That's good, right?"
"Normally yes it is," she began, "but this time it's different. He healed himself with," she paused to lean in closer and whispered "magic."
This was very surprising at the very least. Not only is a sentient being here, but he can also use magic. "How is that possible? I didn't sense any magical aura coming from him at all." I asked.
"That's just it, immediately after you all left the room , his eye shot open glowing white and he started to float, emmiting a red aura. What happened next surprised us the most. The knives and forks in his back fell out and the wounds immediately closed up."
I was stunned to say the least. "Why did all of you make us wait then?"
"In all hoensty, we weren't sure of how to handle the situation. After much debate on the situation, we came to the conclusion that this would be kept as a private matter. I suggested that I tell you of what happened and have you try to see how far the extent of his magic capabilities were, seeing if he were a possible threat to us."
I stared at her awe. How could I basically train somepony knowing that they could be a potential threat to Equestria? But then again, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see another magical species in action. After a mental struggle or two, I replied, "Fine, I'll do it." She gave a sigh of relief and smiled, "Just one thing though." The smile intantly faded from her, "Why me?"
She looked at me almost like the answer was obvious, "The reason I chose you was because I, along with the rest of Ponyvile, know you're the most magicaly gifted unicorn, next to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of course. And I'm pretty sure we don't want to get them and the Royal Guard involved."
"Okay, I can see why that makes sense. Now I just need to figure out a way how to test his prowess"
Putting a hoof on my shoulder she said, "I'm sure you'll figure something out sooner or later." She turned around and started to head towards the others, "But for now, lets go see how your friend is doing."
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Back To Kiyoshi
I was sitting in my bed after the surgery looking out of the window. The sun was starting to drift away into the horizon. The sky was slowly turning into a bright orange color. "Man, this place sure is beautiful." I thought to myself. "I wonder if the nights here are just like the ones back home." I continued to look out into the sunset, that's when i saw it. A single bird flying towards the setting sun. "Fly as fast as you can little one. I'm sure your family is worried about you."
I heard the door to my room open and turned to see everypony staring at me. I stared back at them and said, "Hey guys. How's it going?" Almost like it was a signal or something, they all jumped at me, "*sigh*Not agai-" I was stopped by them knocking me off the bed and onto the floor.
Though, this time was different. They weren't accusing me of planning something bad or anything. They were simply crying and embracing me in a group hug. "I swear, if I don't get killed by somepony, I'm gonna die from D'awwwabetes." With that thought in my mind, I smiled and returned the gesture.
