True Spirit

Chapters

Chapter 1: Hell in the Headspace
Chapter 2: Every Time You Look Around
Chapter 3: Breaking Down the Borders

Chapter 1: Hell in the Headspace

"There is no gravity, but I have somehow fallen so far..."

I shifted my weight to my left, keeping Spencer in my sights as we stared each other down. I flashed him an evil smile, causing the kid to flinch a little and raise his arms to his head, giving me the opening I needed to move low, and hit his belly with a hard punch before backing away quickly.

"Yame!" Sensei Mandy called out. The sign to stop recognised, I relax from my stance and head to one side of the mats, Spencer on the other. Sensei smiled at me. "Excellent reverse punch, Gabriel. Half a point to you, half a point to Spencer," She grinned and readied herself. "Ready? Hajime!" And the fight began anew.

I was in the changing rooms of our dojo, getting ready to head home. I sighed at myself as I looked in the mirror, deep brown eyes roving over my torso. I wasn't fat, per say, and I had great muscle definition, but I was noticeably wider than I used to be. I flicked my brunette fringe out of my eyes and groaned as I saw my greasy hair spiked up from some earlier rubbing. Goddamn it, I looked like a member of Green Day.

Being the only one left in the dojo, I had lock-up duty to attend to, so I roamed the halls and checked every nook and cranny for anything the lower grades had missed cleaning up. Eventually satisfied, I flick the lights off and lock the doors, leaving the keys under the plant pot as per usual. Yeah, not the greatest hiding place in the world, but what was a man to do, huh? I strolled away, heading to the McDonald's around the corner for some chicken nuggets and Fanta, when something curious caught my eye. What I saw remains one of my most vivid memories to this date.

I saw a whirling purple void in the air, just along London Road. I didn't know what it was at the time, there was no way I could have guessed. But it was pretty, as well as pretty confusing. I reached for my phone to take a picture, before remembering that I left the stupid device dead in my bedroom. Well, now I didn't know what to do. Half of me was screaming to run and hide, this thing could be dangerous and I didn't know what it was. The other half was curious as to what the thing was, wanting to touch it, as if I was five years old again. Well, I am a sensible person, so the run and hide option prevailed and I swiftly backed away, dropping my bo staff in the process. I watched it as it rolled down the incline towards the weird purple thing before... vanishing. One moment, it was rolling down the pavement, and I could hear it rolling before... nothing. The sound stopped, it just vanished. Well, I liked that thing, so I sprinted after it, my bag in my hands.

And then I touched the void, slamming face first into the fold in reality. It felt nice, like soft silk against my skin, I felt myself be drawn into it through its softness.

And by any deity that will take me, that was the worst mistake of my life.

It hurt. It hurt like hell, it truly did. It felt like every bone in my face was breaking, every single little piece of cartilage in my feet shifting and shattering, and my clothes seemed to be getting tighter and ripping apart. I couldn't tell what was happening to me, I remember nothing but screaming and pain. And falling. I felt like I was falling for quite a while. I felt my feet touch solid ground, saw light around me for the briefest of brief moments, and then blacked out.

I came to slowly, with a blinding headache. After taking some time to let my head calm down and not split me in half the moment I moved, I tried to open my eyes. Thankfully, I was in a dark area, so my headache retreated to the back of my head to quietly pulse, plotting its next move. I sat up and, feeling around, discovered that I was on a bed of some description. I didn't know where I was, or how I got there. The texture of softness meant that it wasn't my lumpy bed, or even my sofa, so with a feeling of trepidation, I turned and stood up, off the bed.

Just the opening my headache needed to come rushing back. I clutched my head and sat down on the bed again, quickly. When the headache subsided, I tried again and managed to stand up this time. Looking around, I located a source of light in the form of a door to my left. I couldn't see what was through the door, but I could see the outline, so I walked towards it. Headache be damned, I need to know what the hell happened to me after I touched that purple thing. I fumbled around the door for a handle of some description, but couldn't find one, so I resorted to banging on the obstacle with my fists, as loudly as possible.

Naturally, with being preoccupied with finding out where the hell I was, I failed to notice the difference in my body in general. That'll come later, I promise.

"Hello!? Anyone there!? Where am I!?" I roared, causing that dull throb in my head to impolitely remind me of its presence. Cursing to myself, I tried again. And again, and again, until my hands hurt like nobody's business and my throat was hoarse. Nothing had happened except that I had shouted myself deaf and back, so I retreated to the bed and lay down, furious. I was nowhere further ahead with what I wanted than before. I seemed to be stuck in this room for now, so I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, all I knew is that my headache had gone by the time I heard something more than my own breathing, heartbeat and/or off-key singing. It's a curious thing, to be able to hear yourself breathe, to hear your own heartbeat in your ears. Sensory deprivation, and all that.

My singing didn't help much, though.

I heard a quiet rumbling from somewhere, then footsteps on stone. Many footsteps. I guessed at maybe twenty. Shit, I was scared. Fight though I could, twenty people at once was never going to work out well for me. Thinking quickly, I stood up and hid behind the door, hoping I could catch them by surprise and maybe stand a better chance at winning. Thinking back, I should've noticed how different my footsteps sounded and felt, but trying to stay alive tends to keep one distracted from such things. The door clattered, and I heard muffled voices on the other side.

"You sure about this? We don't know what it could be able to do."

"It hasn't got its weapon, or any of its equipment with it, Ah think we'll be fine fer now."

The door slid open sideways, not the way I was expecting at all, and light streamed into the room, dazzling me too much to do more than cover my eyes.

When I eventually opened them, what I saw changed my life forever.

Well, the first few things didn't, majorly, they were just blurs, but what I saw afterwards... it was a total trip.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a pony, a lavender pony with wings and a horn, plus a shimmering golden crown. This was clearly an important creature, and its eyes were a lovely shade of violet as it looked up at me and spoke with a voice like velvet.

"Greetings, and welcome to the land of Equestria. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle," began the pony, revealing its femininity. "I assume you have many questions but they must wait. Please, come." She turned around to lead the way out, glancing behind her to check that I was following.

I wasn't.

I had fainted.

I dunno about you guys, but seeing a purple talking horse for the first time does that to some people.

Author's Note

Welp, here we are. My new story. I hope it's alright! :derpytongue2:

As always, thanks to my good friend AxtontheMechanist for proofreading and minor editing, you should check his stuff out, it's pretty cool. And thanks to you for reading! Constructive criticism is appreciated at all times.

Here's to hoping that 2015 will be a better year for writing than 2014 was.

Requiescat in Pace
Fluttershy Auditore

Chapter 2: Every Time You Look Around

"And when you think you've seen it all..."

After being roused to the state of not fainting, I was introduced to the various assembled ponies, which I will go over for the sake of no-one. You're reading this, you know who they are.

There were seven of them in all. Applejack, the orange apple farmer with the admittedly pretty cool Stetson. I couldn't resist a snigger at the whole apple thing, which earned me a glare from the hatted mare. Hey, I can rhyme!

There was Rainbow Dash, the pegasus with six colours in her hair. I felt tempted to break into a McFly song, but I didn't think I'd enjoy being murdered by a multicoloured horse for crappy singing. One strange thing I noticed about her, she never stopped flying, which made me wonder how she managed to do so without running out of energy or her wings cramping up. Either she drinks a lot of energy drinks, or she's a crackhead. I didn't know which was more likely.

Next! Fluttershy, a meek yellow thing with a pink mane and tail, not to mention her feathered wings, much like Rainbow Pride on her right. She was the nicest of the group, I felt, and the only one I'm not making a joke out of. Sorry. I refuse to mock my first actual friend there. Absolutely adorable and the kindest one there.

Up next was Pinkie Pie, and the first pony to touch me, by giving me a massive hug. Now, I won't lie, I've never been a fan of hugs, but she was pretty cool, if very hyper. Forget Relentless Dash up there, this one here is the cocaine sniffer. Oh, and the pink. Think, say, Barbie, multiplied by about 50. It's fine in moderation, but that pony made me want to make sure my balls were still there in case I was emasculating myself just by looking at her. Ugh.

Ah, now here's the interesting one. Princess Twilight Sparkle. Now that I had to laugh about, but afterwards I had to explain that the words 'Twilight' and 'Sparkle' were linked via a certain book series. I left the reputation of said books up for debate, though she seemed pleased as punch when I mentioned this. Maybe she liked books.

And then there was Rarity. Rarity. Oh, that mare and I did not hit it off well at all. She was just a bitch, through and through! "Will you be staying long?" Oh, her snide voice and I would never get along, I knew that at once.
Then again, she did make me new clothes for free. So she's probably nice. I wouldn't know. But that comes later in this story, so for now at least, she's a bitch. Cool? Cool. Cool cool!

And finally, Lyra Heartstrings, a mint-green unicorn mare that reminded me of someone from a book... No, wait, that's Lyra Belacqua. Balls.
She seemed cool at the time, but looked a little... disappointed, I'd say. She refused to explain it when I asked, so I was forced to drop it. I believe the question bounced down the corridor and hit a guard in the nose, because he sneezed not soon after. Huh.

Heh, I love His Dark Materials.

"So, what about you?" I glanced down at Twilight, who was addressing me.

"What about me?"

"Please, tell us about yourself," the princess requested. "We're curious as to who... and what... you are." I thought for a little while before mentally shrugging my shoulders and deciding to give them what they asked for.
"Well, not much to tell. My name's Gabriel Anderson, I was born and raised in England. I'm 17 years old, I'm a guy, uh..." I shrug a little. "You'd probably be better off asking me questions to answer, I'm not great at talking."
"Well... Let's start with your species," began the princess, retrieving a notebook from who knows where. "What species are you, how many are there of you where you're from, where are you from, is it anything like here..." She would have continued, if it wasn't for the flying Gay Pride Parade interrupting her.

"And is it as awesome as here!?"

I raised an eyebrow quietly. "Well. I am a human-" I was cut off by a snort from Lyra SilvertNOPE. Wrong one again. Harpstrings. Heartstrings. Goddamn, learning her name was difficult. "Is everything okay, Lyra?" I enquired, eyebrows raised.
The mare didn't have the decency to reply. The nerve! Well, since she was giving me the silent treatment, I turned back to Twilight and began again, thankfully uninterrupted. "I'm a human, I think there's about... 7 billion on Earth, our planet. As for anything like here..." I looked around the dungeon we hadn't left yet. "I don't have a damn clue. Unless this is your whole planet-"
"It isn't," muttered Dash.
"Then I dunno, I'd have to get to learn about this place before anything else."

Twilight finished taking notes and the notebook vanished into thin air. Ignoring the minor break in physics (and compared to how I got here, that's easy enough to ignore), I walked out of the cell. "So, what now?"
"You should follow us, we'll take you to the princesses," began the princess. Noticing my raised eyebrows, she continued. "I may be a princess, but I'm not in power. The other princesses, however, are." With that, she walked off, followed by every other pony. Everypony? Is, is that how it was said? Yeah, it was. Anyway, I followed them quietly, with two guard ponies bringing up the rear. Noticing their spears and the way they pointed like knives... or, rather, spears, I was in no mood to mess with them.

After about a minute of walking, we reached some stairs, leading up into a much nicer area. Bright white pillars replaced brick walls, archways replaced heavy metal doors, light replaced darkness and other imageries happened. This lead to the interesting discovery that my headache was not gone yet at all, so I clutched my head and cursed the rest of the way to the throne room.

Well as it turns out, the princesses were busy with some sort of court, so I was redirected into a guest bedroom to get settled in until they stopped dealing with ambassadors and dealt with the alien just down the hallway. As soon as some other guards had shut the door, I hurtled into the bathroom for a well-deserved piss. After that was dealt with, I went to wash my hands. Then stopped. Then looked at my hands. They were very brown, browner than I, as a Caucasian, was used to. Then I saw that it was fur. Thoroughly creeped out by now, I stared into a mirror.

Staring back at me was a crazy amalgamation of horse and human. My face was almost entirely equine in appearance, even having brown fur. I had a somewhat masculine, angular jawline. The short, auburn hair, or should I say mane, on my head parted around a pair of very horse-like ears that grew up from my head. Looking down at my body, I had a relatively slim figure with a decent amount of visible muscle, and a crazy amount of visible fur. My shirt hung in tatters around my shoulders, and my trousers were ripped where some crazy muscle growth had happened on my legs. I was thankful that what was important was covered, though. I had narrow thighs, and a long, brown horsetail hung from just above my ass, having ripped a hole through my chinos just to get shown. Two human-like legs grew down from beneath my waist, ending in human-like feet.

Fuck, I liked those chinos.

Also, where the hell were my shoes?

I stared at myself for some time, then turned to the toilet and threw up, before passing out again.

Hey, hold on. Can horses even throw up?

Author's Note

Part 2! :pinkiehappy: It's finally here and I'm happy that I can finally get this story going. I've been very busy recently, so I'm glad that I've finally been able to buckle down and get it sorted. Proofreading and editing by, as always, AxtontheMechanist, he's a very good friend of mine and both of his stories are spectacular.

Here's hoping I can get some more done soon.
Requiescat in Pace
Fluttershy Auditore

Chapter 3: Breaking Down the Borders

"Vicious, malicious, a voice we know..."

After being roused to the state of conscious-yet-feeling-very-sick, and God knows how long I was unconscious for, I was escorted by two of the aforementioned guards back to the princesses. No mention of how I had thrown up, how I was found unconscious or how I could barely stand on my own two feet, nope, just thrown to the ground without a care. As perhaps befitting royalty, though, I managed to shift into what looked like kneeling in awe, but was closer to keeping my damned balance so I didn't look entirely stupid. Only mostly.

So, in front of me were the two rather tall princesses of Equestria, Celestia and Luna. I knew this fact from the talking of the Sparkle to the guards. 'Course, I didn't know which one was which, though I guessed the darker one was Luna and the brighter one was Celestia. It just made sense, y'know? Luna, like lunar, like the moon?

Anyway, I was kneeling and trying not to keel over, when I heard one of the two speak. Her voice was lovely, soothing and almost motherly.

"Rise, my friend. You shall come to no harm here," began the princess. I glanced up and saw Celestia (I think?) beaming down at me. "What's your name?"

Now, I was more than a little stunned at this point. The new world thing was no longer news, and the new body fiasco was taking precedence so, as you can tell, I had far too much on my mind to comprehend 'rising' right about now.

Yes, I should probably re-write that. But I won't.

After about ten seconds of having to think the question through, I stood up, unsteady on my feet, and coughed. "My name is Gabriel, your highness. Gabriel Anderson."

"Gabriel Anderson," Luna (I think?) began, taking a step forwards. She seemed much more serious and less kind than her sister, but I could tell that was a front by the way her eyes seemed to shimmer with excitement at the prospect of an alien. "I am Princess Luna, and this is Princess Celestia. We are in command of Equestria and..."

Y'know what? I'll skip the infodump. You all know this shit. Bla bla bla sun and moon, bla bla bla Las Pegasus, bla bla bla stay at castle bla bl... Wait, go back, what was that second one? Las Pegasus? That anything like Las Vegas? Rewind!

"Princess Twilight and her friends are going to Las Pegasus within the month," Princess Celestia began. "A city of lights and wealth, which I am sure you would enjoy. So I suggest you go with them, in order to see the sights of our world and get out of the castle for a little bit. You will be staying here for now, of course. I do hope you find the room satisfa..." Bored now! Fast forward!

I was taken back to my room by two burly white ponies, the likes of which seemed to compose most of the royal guard's ranks. Like, for real, was racism recently abolished here? I have seen very few ponies with darker fur in the ranks. Like, I've seen maybe ten compared to the about 30 white ones. Oh well. Maybe they just like white, after all, it does match the colour scheme that was still giving me a headache.

Screw you, seriously bright stuff really can mess me up.

Back in my room, I discovered that all my old stuff was there, now that I was (presumably) not considered a threat any more. My oak/birch/ash/whatever-the-hell-wood-it-is bo staff, my karate gi and sparring equipment (all white, perhaps I should try to blend in with the walls in that getup), my bag in which I kept some stuff, even some new, somewhat fancy clothes were folded neatly for me! I checked them over, and found that each one had three diamonds somewhere on them, which I assume is Rarity's signature, after that sign on her butt. Very generous of her.

I still hate her guts. I totally wasn't looking at her butt though.

You can prove nothing! I can prove nothing! Am I being hysterical!?

Yes!?

Oh, okay. Gotcha.

Anyway, I went to the bathroom and got a quick shower, trying and failing to ignore my new equine-like body and its... unique features. No describing, not making this story into porn unless you want it. And that'd come later anyway. 'Cause, y'know, later is when attractions to the ponies does happen, as it does in any given story here. Take your pick. Not a spoiler.

What is a spoiler, is who. And I'm not telling you that, not yet.

Not Rarity though.

After the shower, I relaxed on my bed in some new trousers of mine and let my mind wander, thinking about what happened today. And a lot of things happened today. I was stolen from my world and placed into a world of talking ponies with magical powers. I myself have been transformed into some bizarre furry fetish fuel horse-person and given residence until some shit can be sorted out and I can get home. As for what got me here, I think it was some sort of one way system. Uh, maybe I should have actually listened to what Princess Celestia was saying. But, I knew that I probably wasn't going home for some time, so I may as well enjoy it.

Besides, being a presumably non-magical anthropomorphic horse in amongst actually-magical ponies and the like would be an interesting experience, to see if they shun those that are alike and yet so very different to them.
Sorry, that's the sociology student in me, ignore that.

Heh, this is gonna be a good time; but then I actually thought for once, and I remembered my responsibilities at home. My parents would be wanting to know where I was, if I was safe, my friends were hoping for a night out in a few days time, I had a JOB to get to, I had SCHOOL to get to... Oh, this was the worst feeling ever, to know that you had a million, impossibly important things to do but you couldn't for whatever reason. For some, it's laziness. For others, it's depression.
For me, it's being in a whole other fucking world.

"Fuck this, I'm gonna get some sleep," I spoke to no-one in particular. "Maybe tomorrow some of this will get sorted out finally. I pray to whatever deity takes me, I can get home as soon as humanly possible." I then rolled over and fell asleep, dreaming of Freddy Vs. Jason, because I saw that film twice that week, and I loved that film both times.

Something tells me my little pony friends wouldn't like it as much as I do. Well, the Pink probably would, she looks about as batshit insane as either of the titular characters. Though hopefully less soul-eating or dead-mother-obeying.

Old school cheesy horror is the best though. Without a single doubt.

Author's Note

Hello there! Yes, I know that this chapter's a little shorter than the other two, but this is just filler. I've got ideas lined up for the upcoming chapters, don't worry.
As always, thanks to Axton The Mechanist for proofreading, editing and generally being an awesome dude. Thanks, buddy, be a boss for me like you usually are. :pinkiehappy: He writes too! Go read his stuff, which I proofread and edit for him.

Requiescat in Pace
Fluttershy Auditore