Pony of a Different Color

by Sparky Brony

Chapter 2.

She tips her hat to me as she heads into the store. Finally, I get to look around. What an amazing town. Well, I know where I need to go. I head to the big tree on the edge of town, and as I draw close, yes, it's the library. Near the tree is a little cafe, and they are just opening up just as the sun is rising over the horizon. I order some water while I wait. After a little bit, the door to the library opens up, and a small purple dragon walks out. Now is my chance. I throw a coin down and head over to the door to the huge tree.

In response to my knocking, the door opens and there she is. Princess Twilight Sparkle, in all of her Alicorn glory. Let's just say the animation style does not do her justice, she has the same colors, purple coat, but she's actually a very pretty pony. I'm mesmerized by the colors of her mane. I just stand there looking at her, apparently too long. She get's an expectant look on her face, I never knew ponies could have such expressive faces. “Can I help you?” Yes, she also sounds exactly like her cartoon voice.

“Actually yes, Princess. I have urgent need of your help.”

A glimmer shines in her eyes, she can help somepony. She leads me into her study off the main library. “And how can I help you?”

How do I tell her? She's easily the most intelligent of the ponies around here, and she's also done the most. She has a huge magical ability. I don't think any story I craft would be able hold up under scrutiny, so I'm going to have to go with the truth. At least some of it that is.

“First off, I need this to be entirely between you and me, I'm going to tell you some things that you are going to find amazing, and you are certainly going to have to believe me, I can present some evidence of what I'm telling you, but here goes.” And I launch into some of what I do, and some of the show. As evidence, I pull out my ipad that was in my bag when I crossed into their world. I show her an episode I had saved there, one from season 3. I watch her face as she watches her animated self. I can tell she was not believing me until the video file was being played. I even pull out the comic that shows me jumping from universe to universe, and some of my experiences there, she got to see with it, what I actually look like. After about an hour of talking to her, I finally wind down. She looks thoughtful.

“So, you are not a pony?”

“No, I'm a human, similar to what you were when you went through the mirror in the Crystal Empire. But it's not a mirror to your world, it's a complete world unto itself”

“I'm somewhat familiar with multiverse theory, but this is so far and beyond any theory I've ever read.”
No kidding Twilight, I'm living proof that the multiverse is real, and I've seen quite a few parts of it. “Yes” is all I say.

“And what exactly happened when you closed the rift between your world and mine?”

“Apparently, my magic, I call it the source, doesn't exist in your world, so in allowing the gateway to close, I closed off my connection to it. Without that connection, I can't get back, so I'm stuck in your world, and as delightful as this beautiful world is, I will eventually want to go home. You are an Alicorn, you have magic. Maybe we can figure out a way to create a new gateway and allow me to channel again.”

“I don't know if it works that way Sparky. Your magic works completely different than my magic does.”

“I know that, but I have to try. And there is one other potential problem.”

“And that is?”

A long pause from me, this is hard to say. “If somepony with my abilities is cut off the way I was, there is a possibility that my ability to channel is burned out of me. Can you use your magic to feel the texture of my mind, and maybe tell me if there feels like some kind of break, or cut?”

She looks at me thoughtfully, and after a few moments, her horn glows and her eyes close. I can feel her inside my head. I've never had much ability to heal someone with channeling, I can repair many injuries, but anything more than maybe a broken bone, I'm helpless at fixing, apparently, Twilight, with her abilities, is very powerful at many kinds of magic, it's a very unusual experience, though, having someone looking around inside your skull. I close my eyes, and I find I can mentally steer her around a bit, guide her where my abilities connect to my conscious mind. After what seems like forever, she withdraws, and we open our eyes at the same time. She smiles at me. “I don't feel any break or any tear, what I do feel is like a void that wants to draw my energy into it, I had to pull back rather hard, it threatened to pull me in, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to try again anytime soon. I don't know, if you had a horn, you would probably be able to use my magic, do you have any idea why you came here as a Pegasus instead of a unicorn?”

I chuckled. “I was thinking of one of your friends as I was walking through the gateway, and she's a pegasus, I guess there was some subconscious decision making going on there.”

“And who would that be Sparky?”

“Rainbow Dash, I was thinking if I were a Pegasus, I would do a Sonic Rainboom”

This elicited a giggle from her, how cute. “I think she would have something to say about that.”

No kidding Twilight.

She stops and looks levelly at me, “I know this is trying for you Sparky. But we will certainly try to get to the bottom of this, and try to find out how to send you home. But you may have to face an uncomfortable fact.”

“And what is that?”

“You might be stuck here a good long time, maybe permanently, your mind is so alien to me, I can't even conceive how your magic works, I have no clue how to construct a gateway, as you call it, to cross a room, much less between my universe and yours. But you have my word, I will try to help you to the best of my abilities. And for now, we are going to keep some of your nature between us, while my friends can accept you being completely different, the rest of Ponyville wouldn't be as understanding. Would you like to meet them?”

“I certainly would, I have known these ponies on my television and computer for a few years now, meeting them in the flesh would be a delight. As I've told you, I've met Apple Jack already, I would love to meet the rest. But there is one more concern about me staying here.”

“And what would that be?”

“When an adept is permanently severed from the source, we don't live long, we start to go slowly insane, I've known one who was burned out while channeling, and he lasted nearly a decade, but the last few years were horrible, his mind was gone for over a year before his body finally gave up. I have serious time pressure I have to face here.”

She looked thoughtful. Her horn glowed and several books floated off the shelves onto her desk. “Well, I had better get started then.” A sharp knock on the inside door to her study interrupted. I nearly jumped out of my, uh, fur, as the door opened, and a cyan pony with a rainbow colored mane stuck her head through the door.

“Morning Twilight, ready for a flying lesson?” Her magenta eyes focused on me, “Oh, I didn't know you had company Twilight.”

Twilight breathed in, I knew what she was doing, steeling herself to tell Rainbow Dash what I was. “Dash, we have a bit of a situation, I can't...” I broke in.

“Twilight, you can tell Rainbow what has happened, but I could probably use her help flying as well. I've had these wings for just a few hours, I would love to learn how to fly.”

Confusion reigned on Rainbow's face as she digested what I said. Twilight saved her confusion though, telling her my plight in a nutshell. As my sad story was recited, Rainbow's face went from confusion, to surprise, to joy.

“So, you are saying you are from a completely different world, where you are all humans? That is awesome.”

I couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm, “Yes, and I'm stuck here, probably for some time. I would love to get to know you girls. But we need to keep this information close for now.” She nodded enthusiastically while we headed to the door.

We all walked outside with Rainbow peppering me with questions, I answered them to the best of my ability. Once we got outside she turned on Twilight, “Now, the summer sun celebration is happening in a few weeks, Twilight, we need to get you flying a lot better. Now, both of you, spread your wings.”

Both of us obediently spread our wings, and I got my first real look at my new wings, I was mesmerized by my them, they were beautiful, my charcoal gray fur transitioned to feathers, but down the length of the wings, the color deepened into a midnight black, and amazingly, at the very tips of the primary feathers, pure white edges. Rainbow looked at them, and I think she liked them, hell, I liked them. I snapped my attention to what I was doing.

“First, you need to get airborne.” She demonstrated, her wings slowly flapping as she lifted off the ground a few feet. Twilight flapped her wings, and apparently she had trouble getting them to work together. I wasn't anywhere near smooth, but I was able to flap them enough to get off the ground. After a few moments, Twilight was hovering next to me. A look of sheer determination on her face. I'm pretty sure my face mirrored hers as I was concentrating on getting my wings to move together, I could feel muscles I had never owned before working, I was in luck, they were quite strong and after figuring out my balance, it became easy to keep a slow, steady beat. I had to fight my knowledge, I know I'm a few hundred pounds as a pony, but even with these wings, which seemed really small for my size, I didn't need to do much to keep airborne. Again, it must be some kind of magic endemic to being a Pegasus. I experimented with the wings, hovering in place, moving slowly forwards and back, up and down, sideways. I saw Twilight doing the same, she looked at me, “You seem to have it down, you've had your wings less time than I have, and you already look better in the air than I do.”

“I don't know, just a natural I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders, it was really easy, it was as if this body already knew what I needed to do. I decided to try actual flight. I angled my wings and flapped hard, I shot forward, barely in control. I knew I needed altitude. I banked a bit to circle as I rose, after I was higher than all the buildings I hovered again. I had never had any problem with heights, I looked around. It was amazing. Just being so high was exhilarating. I looked around, Twilight was trying to copy my moves and she was circling to gain altitude. Her wing movements were not synchronous, Rainbow was next to her calling out instructions. Shortly, she was up high with me. A quick dirty look at me for being such a quick study and she started hovering again. I was itching to see how fast I could go, I just took off, flapping as hard as I could, I was above the trees, I zoomed off. I found the less that I thought about my wings, the coordination problem was much less, both wings beat in perfect unison as I accelerated. Oh my god, the feeling of flight was amazing. It filled me up, similar to how the source filled me when I had hold of it, I just kept accelerating. I looked behind me, I saw a rainbow colored streak hot on my tail and gaining rapidly. So, she wants to make a race of it. No problem, I kept going faster. Rising as I did. I felt the wind change. I was actually approaching the speed of sound, I could feel a cone of compressed air forming around me as I kept going faster and faster. I could feel the magic of the Pegasi helping me accelerate more and more, I knew I was well over the speed of sound. There is no feeling like this. Then a rainbow colored streak passed me like I was standing still. A few hundred feet in front of me, she broke well past the sound barrier, a rainbow streak turned into a ring of pure color, expanding out from her. She had just performed a sonic rainboom! Right in front of me! I only had a moment to wonder at it before the blast hit me. All coordination, all attempts at flying stopped as I was caught up in the shock wave. I was stunned, I found myself falling, I looked down from the dizzying height that I was falling from, I was thinking, no way this is a survivable fall. At least I was over pasture land, and I didn't have any trees to land on. Ah, a lake. I kept trying to adjust my fall to hit the water. My wings remained spread as I floated to the side as I fell, then, all of a sudden, there was a cloud beneath me. I landed on it, defying all knowledge of what clouds are, I landed and it was soft and fluffy, it didn't hurt a bit. I looked over, and there was Rainbow Dash, holding it and guiding it to the ground. She was apparently trying not to laugh too much at me, as the cloud came down, I was able to flutter off of it and land somewhat steadily on the ground. A moment later, Twilight landed next to me. She seemed to be in full on panic mode. I kept trying to fend her off as she pulled my wings and inspected them, she checked my legs, and to top it off, she lit off her horn. The feeling of her inside my head transitioned to her inside every part of me, she was checking every part of me. I kept trying to reassure her I was fine, but she was having none of it. I had no choice but to submit to her scrutiny. After several minutes of intense scrutiny, she declared me healthy as a horse. Then she turned on Rainbow Dash.

“That was completely irresponsible of you Rainbow Dash, you could have killed Sparky with him being so close to a Sonic Rainboom.”

Rainbow was stuck between laughter at the situation and remorse at what she could have done to me. I stood helpless as Twilight lectured Rainbow on how her actions could endanger other ponies, and she needed to be more careful. After a moment, I broke in.

“Twilight, I know I was in serious danger, but I am okay, and this taught me a lot about flying. Please, let's get back to flying. It's one of the most amazing experiences I have ever felt.” Twilight gave me a good hard look before subsiding. Rainbow quickly regained her composure, and we spent the next few hours working on our flying. I'm actually pretty good at flying. While Twilight and I are heading back to her library, I nudge her shoulder.

“I think I know why you are having the problems you are having Twilight.”

“What would that be?”

“You are thinking about what you are doing too much, your body knows what to do, but you are trying to force it to do things your way. I was watching you, you are thinking every motion through, you are now an Alicorn, your body knows what it needs to do, just let it.”

She looked thoughtful, “Perhaps you are right Sparky, I will try that next time.” We walked in silence for a while.

“Hey Twi, are you hungry? I'm starving, a lot of flying certainly primes the appetite.” That elicited a smile from Twilight.

Comments

[Sparky Brony]

Anyone who's posting downvotes, could you please tell me why?

[exsnaggerwes]

What an amazing town.

In my experience, if a sentence starts with a question word, but isn't a question, it's an exclamation. There's a small difference between.
'What an amazing town.' and 'What an amazing town!'

Unless Sparky's magic is chaos, I find it hard to believe it would react with Twilight's in such a way. I think it would be better if Twilight couldn't find the problem, and if she were more wary of a strange pony entering the library and talking about scifi stuff. Whether it's good for the pace or not, he has to convince her that he's not crazy.

[keybounce]

> Anyone who's posting downvotes, could you please tell me why?

I can't say. I'm not casting a downvote or an upvote yet; I'm interested, and reading.

If this is based on another series, I don't know it. What I see is a very powerful, almost marty-sue type of character, suddenly cut-off from their power source. Suddenly not-so-marty sue, he does the obvious: Go to the one pony most likely able to help, and spill the beans.

That's a sign of an intelligent character, fully knowing their problem, and trying to solve it as fast as possible. Time limit, possible loss of sanity, no expectation that he can just settle down and live there.

He's traded magic for flight; he went from being very good at magic to very good at flight. But that's one skill, and it won't help him long-term. He's almost overpowered in flight (Rainbow made it clear that she still outclasses him; he'd probably give the Thundercolts a run for their money).

A strong character? Yes.
A sense of "Most interesting day of his life"? Yes.
A conflict to resolve? Yes.

Does the character have flaws? Problems?
We haven't seen them yet, but it's early.

Maybe the down voters wanted to see the flaws from chapter one?