Past to Present

Chapter 2: The Second Chapter

A gust of wind stung the Lieutenant's face as he was unceremoniously dragged through the sky by an irritating, mentally unstable, equine slave. This Lieutenant could not grasp what the miniature horse was excited about. He didn't even know her serial number! Although, it struck him as odd when she said that she didn't have any serial number... And what was this town she was taking him to, Ponyville? What sort of a place was that? A colony for the equines? No, a military encampment? Perhaps it was a civilian town which had adopted this escapee. Perhaps it was named due to the amount of unaltered domestic equines. That was probably what it was. Still, it would have to be a GAPHE town, so he was being shoved ungracefully towards his potential death by a clueless idiot! What horrors would await him there? But then again, this was the middle of the night... Over half of the population would be asleep no doubt. So thus, he could fight off the night guard and escape, right? Then he'd wait for the invasion force to reach this town and he'd be rescued!

Jim, you're a genius! He thought to himself, stating the obvious. But I'm not sure I can fight off the guards to this place... Can't reach my gun either... She's got a grip on me I can't break... This might not go very well for me...

The cyan equine was continually rambling on and on about her roommate and hands and other things which James did not care about that much. But suddenly, she stopped.

"What is your name, anyway?" She asked, completely forgetting that he had only just previously introduced himself.

"Let me down, and I'll tell you."

"Okay!" She said cheerfully as she lowered him to the beautiful, beautiful ground.

He stood up and gazed down at her with a blank expression. He had been taught that if someone asked your name, rank, name and serial number were the three things you were to say, and he didn't object to that rule at all.

"First Lieutenant James Underwood, 34581594." He said blankly.

"That's a rather long name... Wait, are you in an army? ARE YOU HERE TO EXPLODE EQUESTRIA?" She asked him, panicking.

"Equestria? You were just talking about this Ponyville place two minutes ago, what's Equestria?"f

"So... You don't know where Equestria is? Or for that matter, what it is?"

He sighed in frustration. "I just asked what Equestria was, you should assume automatically that I don't know what it is. I would like an answer, if that is not too much trouble." He said exasperatedly.

"Oh not at all! Since I take it you're not from around here, Equestria is the land we're in! This place right now, is in Equestria. The town over there, the land everywhere around here for hundreds of miles, that's Equestria! Oh, and the capitol is a few leagues past Ponyville. It's called Canterlot, in case you wanted to know."

"So... Who owns this 'Equestria' place? Who is your commanding officer? How long was I out? Is this place NUSA or GAPHE?" He asked.

"There you go about new saws and gaffes again. I said I don't understand what that means! Now, we have Princesses Celestia and Luna as the rulers around here if that is what you mean by commanding officer..."

"But GAPHE is a democracy. It's not a monarchy, and NUSA's a republic... Dear Lord, is this Switzerland territory?"

"Switzerland? What's a Switzerland? If that's a human or something, I'd like to say that you're the first human I've ever seen! Humans, you guys are the stuff of history books!"

"Are you implying that this is a government explicitly run by equines? That's not possible! You we--"

"Ponies." She interrupted.

"What did you just say?"

"You keep saying 'equines,' we call ourselves ponies."

"Ponies. As in baby horses? I suppose it fits, but still. You aren't supposed to have a government. This must be some sort of GAPHE experiment... Or maybe NTech has a facility here? Either way, I probably have messed it up... Okay nameless... Pony... Take me to this town. I'd like to speak with whoever is in charge of this operation."

"Sure! I'll take you there!" She said as she began to levitate the human once again.

"You don't have to do that... I can keep up, thank you." He said, rejecting her magical assistance. He knew that his exoskeleton could outrun even the fastest bred equines, er... Ponies...

"Okay, mister... Are you sure you can keep up on two legs?"

"Yes, thank you. Proceed." He said with no emotion visible on his face. He could tell that the small pony was still not sure about his speed, but turned and started running anyway.

"Follow me then! Oh, and I DO have a name! It's Lyra!" She yelled to him.

Lyra? With a lyre shaped flank mark? What sort of a pun is that supposed to be? "Sure, Lyra..." He yelled uncertainly as he sped towards her. Ten silent minutes running at 25 Miles Per Hour later, the houses of Ponyville began to peek over a hill to gaze at the two speeding life forms.

"Okay! That's Ponyville over there! It's not the biggest town, but it's still a fun place! There's a library, a store which only sells quills and couches, a bakery, a massive apple orchard, a school, a boutique and... Actually I think that's it for attractions... But then again, being an alien, you're probably not interested in stuff like that... I'm going to take you to the mayor in the morning. After all, it IS the middle of the night. Ooh, where are you going to stay? Bonbon would flip out and I can't think of anyone who would take you... Pinkie Pie would be overjoyed, but the Cakes are pretty full... Could you stay with Twilight?" Rambled Lyra partially to herself and partially to Mr. Underwood.

"I'm... Not exactly sure who that is... What is... IT's serial number?" He replied, confused.

"No serial numbers! Please, we don't have serial numbers! And she's a HER, just to let you know. She's the librarian! She only lives with Spike, and she's REALLY into research, so I'm sure you'd get along!"

James Underwood, Ex-Director of the Department of Research in NTech, finally saw a light in the dark as he heard of someone who could actually answer some of his questions, and was probably not as flawed as the specimen in front of him. However, the presence of an apparently separate colony of these genetically altered equines seemed anomalous to him. Each second he thought of the design of these creatures hammered his belief of this being merely an experiment run by a governing agency, until he thought of one thing. This was a monarchy.

These equines, ponies they called themselves, were designed to have no qualms about servitude, and, even though they had been shown to have a sense of individuality, typically felt lost when exposed to a situation where they were not under direct control. Thus, a monarchical society would make sense, especially if these "ponies" had escaped from their holding cells and had never realized who their captors were. What didn't make sense though was the age of the mare in front of him. NTech had an education schedule set into place at a very young age. The bred equines would be exposed to the reality of their situation almost immediately. This pony was around twenty years old by design. It didn't add up to him.

"We're here! Well, I guess you already knew that, but... We're here!" The cyan mare exclaimed suddenly. The soldier skid to a stop outside the primitive buildings which made up the equine village.

"How long has this city been here?" He inquired.

"Well, it's within one hundred years. I'm not entirely sure, since Granny Smith's one of the founders but is still alive..."

"Granny Smith? One of the founders? How are any of you old enough to be addressed as grandmothers? It has only been eighteen years since the first equines were bred!" He seemed confused, and Lyra seemed even more confused.

"You keep talking about breeding. If you don't mind, could you get your mind out of the gutter? And what's this about eighteen years? I don't understand what you're saying! Honestly, when I found a human, I didn't expect I'd have found an INSANE human. Did you escape from a mental institution or something?"

"ME escape from a mental institution? Dear Lord, if anyone's from a sanitarium around here it would be the one who doesn't recognize creation dates. This city cannot be over ten years old due to the release of military equines capable of the construction of buildings such as these being three years after the domestic breeds."

"Maybe you should take that up with Twilight. Come on, I'll take you to the library." Said Lyra disappointingly. She'd thought that humans all had bad-ass brain power. Just her luck she'd found one straight from the funny farm. She hoped he wasn't dangerous...

James Underwood was just as confused as her, but was glad that he was to be exposed to more equines who would likely be more informed than this mare.

Unfortunately, James Underwood did not realize that he was mistaken about the age of this town. He doubted everything Lyra said, but did not realize that, in fact, she was correct about almost everything she had said.

So to the library he followed her, to a new tomorrow.