Chapter 6
The green light of my spell blinked away, and I dropped several feet to the ground. A thick, earthy smell told me I was outside; looking around, the black flowers and thick trees gave me some sense of comfort.
I was still in the Everfree. In terms of autoteleportaiton, I’d done a decent enough job; I wasn’t home, but I’d escaped—
Whatever relief I felt vanished. I was in the Everfree Forest, and I’d just pissed off an extremely powerful person. He’s gonna be looking for me…
I whipped out my compass. Ponyville was northwest of the Everfree, but I only knew the general direction, not the specific bearing. I needed to move, so I put my compass away and began galloping southeast. It was still light enough to see, which offered a little relief; I wasn’t an expert on running for my life, but I figured that lighting a beacon to let your pursuer track you wasn’t the best idea.
The trees whipped past me as I pressed on. I took special notice of the roots as I ran; the last thing I needed was to trip and snap my neck. I had to balance looking down with dodging some of the low-hanging branches as I passed them. Sharp pain lashed on my scalp one time when I didn’t do a good enough job at it. There wasn’t time to stop and give myself first aid. I had to go.
As I wove through trees at top speed, I pieced together bits of a plan. When I got to Ponyville, what then? Was I just luring a monster into the town to wreak havoc? Don’t they have drills for that sort of thing by now?
My dark humor reminded me of Celestia’s six vassals: The Elements of Harmony. They’d put an end to their fair share of dire situations—ranging from world-rending monsters to fashion show drama. They were headed by Celestia’s protégé, and she was a good source of knowledge; whatever tiny echoes of a “plan” I had solidified around her. Step one, go to the library. Step two, hope he doesn’t find me and burn it down out of spite.
I pushed myself harder and ran faster, still ducking trees. My heart pounded, and my panting breaths tasted like metal. I wasn’t out of shape; being an outdoorspony didn’t allow for that. The whole time I ran, my mind raced with panic: Death. Plans. Pain. I was also technically lost, despite my general sense of direction…
I pushed it out of my mind. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, but I needed to keep a straight head.
A smile burned on my face when I came across my usual path through the forest. It was flatter and the tree branches were higher up; not only could I run faster, but I knew where I was! Almost there, I told myself, and I hammered hooves into the dirt.
As I ran, the forest around me began lightening up—literally. More sun could fall through the looser treetops, and I was nearly out of the forest. Ahead of me, I could make out bright, sun-lit hilltops just outside the forest.
I laughed, relieved.
Then, Jesse walked out from behind a tree trunk.
The bottom of my stomach fell out. His black, charred lab coat had burnt to tatters around him, but that only showed how, underneath his clothes, he was perfectly fine—almost like setting him on fire hadn’t done any lasting damage.
By the time I realized how utterly hopeless my situation was, I was too close to him to stop. My only option was crazy: I lowered my head and charged, horn-out. It wasn’t the most damaging of attacks in a fair fight, but maybe if I bluffed…
The world exploded in a sea of bright, shining stars. I blinked to clear my vision, and my eyes were level with Jesse’s furious, violet flames. He kept his now scar-less left hand raised at me, and I slowly floated over to him.
I tried to struggle, but he clenched his fist; my forelegs clamped to my body with crushing force. After that, it wasn’t that I stopped trying to move—it was that I couldn’t.
When I was directly in front of him, he snarled. “Just what the hell was that supposed to be? White phosphorous? Are you insane?”
I gasped a series of tiny little breaths; he was crushing my lungs, too, which made it a fight to stay conscious.
His eye flames flashed indigo, and in his right hand, a black crystal sword materialized out of thin air. He held it back, poised, and he hissed, “Answer. Me.”
I tried to think of what I could say to save my life; the most coherent thing I could manage was, “Jesse… you’re… hurting me.”
“Good.”
My gasps stopped working. The harder I tried, the more I realized that I couldn’t breathe. My whole body filled with dull, crushing ache; Jesse’s hand tightened on his sword, and his frown deepened to a new level of malice.
The only thing left in my mind was hope that it’d be quick.
Then, his eyes flashed to their usual blue. His mouth shot open, but I only got a split-second’s look at his horrified expression before I fell to the ground. My hooves sprang apart, so I landed wrong on my back-right one, but I didn’t care about that fiery sprain: I was too busy sucking in lungfuls of sweet, cold air.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jesse’s feet step backwards from me, and his sword shattered to dust. I limped forward, away from him, even though I had no hope in being able to escape.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I kept walking, but I was too dizzy to see straight. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while; that just left me one option: replying. “So…” I wheezed, “Murder isn’t part of your stupid plan?”
“No!” he pleaded. “I never set out with the intent of hurting anyone—”
“LIAR!” I rubbed my neck, which was still sore after being choked. Jesse’s perplexed look frustrated me even more, so I pressed, “Whose horn was that?”
“A tyrannical slave driver. But I wasn’t the one who killed him. I simply harvested his remains—”
“And that’s not sick at all.” I rolled my eyes.
“I took no pleasure in doing it.” The side of Jesse’s mouth twitched down. “It was a necessary evil.”
I pointed to the air behind me, where I’d been floating a moment ago. “And that? Was that also ‘necessary’?”
“Yes.” He said it so matter-of-factly. If I were a few feet taller, I would’ve smacked the nonchalance off his face. “You attacked me, twice.” He looked down and finally seemed to notice that he was wearing burnt rags. Then, he squared his vision back on me. “Which, despite who asked you earlier, the question remains. You attacked me with a war-crime grade chemical weapon, you destroyed a significant portion of my facility’s air filtration system, and I want to know: ‘Why’?”
After a few rapid blinks, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I pointed my hoof at Jesse, frustrated because at how I’d turned into the villain here. “You started walking towards me with your eyes and mouth all lit up and hands out, like you were hungry.” I shuddered at the memory. “I saw what you did to another unicorn’s horn; I didn’t want to stick around and see what you had to do when one was still attached.”
He stared at me, gravely. “I have no memory of that. I just remember waking up on fire.”
I grit my teeth. Knowing him, he was telling the truth. “That doesn’t change what you did.”
“That person was not me.”
He let the words hang in the air for a few moments, but I didn’t have a retort. I was torn between my majority desire to escape that situation—though Sisters only knew that I probably couldn’t—and my own, tiny curiosity about what he meant.
“I… I feel different, now, than I did this morning. Part of that has to do with the raw power I gained, but there are… other parts to me, now. Echoes of the other fragments’ personalities and memories.” He sighed. “It was a lot to ingest at once, which was why I overreacted to your second attack. But now that that my mind is settling down…”
“I don’t believe you.” I shook my head. “No. I saw you punch through solid steel once, because you were mad. That was months ago, not because you just filled your head with crazy purple goo. And I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be in the blast radius next time something pisses you off!”
Jesse stayed quiet for a few moments after I finished something akin to my resignation letter. Finally, he shook his head and spoke simply: “You fear me.”
“Uh, yeah. You just tried to kill me, for starters.”
“After you lit me on fire…”
“Because you looked like a rough approximation of every nightmare I’ve ever had!” I snapped back. “If you’re admitting you’ve got issues controlling your anger, that’s fine. Whip up your pony disguise and join a support group. But you can’t expect me to just blindly continue following you when my life’s at risk!”
“Your life is not at risk.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
My mind blanked when I tried to think of an answer. The best I could come up with was a somber, “Let me go.”
Ironically, I felt a twinge of guilt at how hurt Jesse looked. He stepped back and away from me. Part of his sleeve fell off his right arm as he swept it away, towards Ponyville. “You are free to leave.”
The quiet sincerity of his act made me hesitate. We’d known each other for nine months, and—notwithstanding all the stuff that’d happened in the past hour—this was how it ended? I still felt a tiny sense of duty, so as I turned to leave, I asked, “Are you gonna be okay by yourself?”
“I managed before…” He shook his head and sighed. “If this is ‘goodbye’, then I have two final requests. First, I’d like to apologize for my actions this afternoon.”
I nodded, right as I put weight on my back-right leg. Instead of giving a neutral “Okay,” I let out a hiss at what was definitely a sprained leg—if not broken.
Jesse waved his hand, and instantly, my pain vanished. Despite everything, I fought to keep a grin off my face; if Jesse managed to help Equestria, that sort of magic would do well for us.
It made me think twice about leaving, but then I remembered he’d given me that injury in the first place. Continuing to help him would be unsafe, unwise, and a lot of other “un” words.
“The second is…” Jesse paused. “Something akin to a demonstration. Something I’d like to show you.”
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “If I could explain instead of showing, I would do that. But since the demonstration will directly affect you, I want to ask for explicit permission first.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to do something to me? After what just happened?”
“Only with your permission.”
“What if I say no?”
He took another step away from me, this time, deeper into the forest. Raising his hands, he clarified, “Then we say goodbye, and you will never see me again.”
I weighed my options—including serious consideration to just saying no. In the end, my curiosity got the better of me, and I raised a hoof in a shrug. “Okay. What is it?”
Jesse hesitated for a moment, but then he crossed his arms. “What is your take on the fact that our cultures resemble one another?”
His question caught me off guard, but I put my hoof down and switched tracks to my operational hypothesis: “Multiple discovery is a well-documented phenomenon in ancient cultures, where ponies who had no contact both discovered or invented similar tools or ideas. So…”
I looked up at Jesse. He seemed different, now; almost like he was actively listening to something that interested him. I continued, “Our cultures have similar cultural artifacts since we both faced a lot of the same basic problems: biological needs, shelter, and even things like knowledge-sharing. But human culture seemed to be more driven by electricity and mechanisms than by magic…” I left out how they’d had to harvest it through artificial means.
“That makes sense.” He nodded. “Though it doesn’t account for your species’ existence, does it? Not on any sort of feasible time scale from an evolutionary standpoint.”
That depends wholly on how old you are. However, there was a bigger problem with Jesse’s viewpoint: “We didn’t evolve.” I shook my head. “At least, not like fossil records show for other animals. Celestia’s gone on record saying that the same forces that created her created all life, but she’s been notoriously tight-lipped as to what, exactly, those forces were.”
“Of course she has.” Jesse knelt down to the ground and began using his finger to draw a large circle around his feet.
I remembered magic kindergarten, so I knew what it was before he was halfway finished. That raised the question of why he, after essentially tripling his power, needed even more magic strength. “Jesse… why are you drawing a magic circle?”
He left the last tiny bit open before looking up at me with a small grin. “If I told you, in my right mind, that I mean you no harm, would you believe it?”
I thought about his question; ten minutes ago, I’d been making my peace with death. But, after he’d healed me, the only thing that remained was a memory of the pain and helplessness. “I…” I shook my head. “I mean, how can I?” A little righteous indignation flared back up and I pointed a hoof at him. “Why should I?”
Jesse smiled. “Have a little faith in me.”
He completed his circle, and my stomach clenched; as the ground around him started glowing a soft blue, I loosened a little. In nine months, he’d almost always been calm and collected, and he’d at least acted like he had my best interests at heart.
The light in Jesse’s circle grew brighter before exploding in all directions. I shielded my eyes, but once it was over, I didn’t feel any different.
Above me, Jesse stood. In his left hand, he held an invisible ball of heat—or at least, something in his hand caused the air to shimmer and ripple like the desert on a summer afternoon.
“This is a chaos-nullification field, designed to work retroactively with organisms.” He brought his left hand down, and the ball followed; he continued speaking as he thrust his sleeveless right arm through it. “They were originally designed for hospitals—well, they were usually built, rather than made, but the underlying theory remains the same—to rid humans of any accidental exposure to refined chaos, since even the smallest amounts of it could have drastic effects.”
As I watched, the color faded from his right hand. Instead of a healthy looking tan, the skin turned gray and ashy. Then large, dry chunks started falling off. When they hit the ground, they exploded in tiny puffs of dust, and all the while, I fought to keep my granola bars down.
“I apologize if it’s dramatic…” Jesse pulled his arm out of the circle. Immediately, color returned to his hand, and the parts that had fallen off simply glowed blue before reappearing exactly as they had been. “But I wanted to show you that this is safe to use with no adverse effects to any of my abilities.” He snapped his healed hand’s fingers, and a tongue of blue flame lit in his palm.
I nodded, dubiously. “You want me to put my hoof in that thing that just rotted away your hand?”
The air shimmered as his anti-magic field floated over to me. “I doubt you’re older than three decades, let alone three millennia. You’ll be immune to that phenomenon.”
The field came to rest in front of me, which made me ponder the risks of touching it. Finally, I agreed to a hoof; even in the worst-case scenario, prosthesis technology was an ever-expanding field. “I don’t know where you read about pony biology, Jesse, but hooves aren’t all that magical to begin with…” I pushed my hoof through the rippling air. “This probably—”
I blinked at my hoof. The part of it that went through the field wasn’t covered in its usual green fur anymore, nor did it even resemble a hoof.
It was a human hand.
I gasped and pulled my forelimb back. As soon as it left the field, my hoof turned back to its normal, green self. After moving it around a few times and sensing no lasting effects, I took a deep breath and plunged my hoof forward again.
Again, the anti-magic field acted like a color barrier: green pony fur on one side, pink human skin on the other. The little bits of keratin at the end were neat and trimmed, like how I kept my hoof, and the truth dawned on me:
It was my hand.
The past nine months of interactions with Jesse, all of the times he talked about saving his race and culture and helping Equestria… I shook my head. I understood now, what his plan entailed.
I wasn’t sure if I agreed with it.
I pulled my forelimb back to my chest; that time, the anti-magic field dissipated with a warm gust of heat. I looked up at Jesse, but I truly didn’t know what to say.
“Are you still parting ways with me, for your own safety?”
I looked down at my hoof and leveled with him: “I don’t know.” My eyes flashed up to him. “You’re dangerous. You’re a liar. For all I know, you could be evil.” Jesse stood motionless at my accusations. I waved my hoof at him. “But I don’t know what this means. Not yet. It’s a lot to think about, so I don’t want to give an answer until I have.”
He nodded, vacantly. “I understand. And fortunately—” He stretched the word in an annoyed manner. “—I’ve got to make some repairs to my facility if I wish to continue living above several large magma chambers.”
I considered apologizing, but I decided I didn’t want to say the actual words. Instead, I gave him a guilty smile and asked, “How long is that going to take?”
“I’m not certain.” Jesse stared back. “But if you need time for soul searching, then come back in a week. If things are still toxic down below, I’ll be waiting for you outside your usual entrance.”
A week, I repeated in my mind. Maybe the biggest dilemma I’ve had in my life, and I get a week to think through it. I took a deep breath and nodded; it wasn’t the most generous of deadlines, but he was giving me time to think it over.
My nodding slowly turned to head-bobbing from side to side, since I wasn’t sure where I needed to go from there. The obvious answer dawned on me, so I turned to head home.
I waved at Jesse as I departed. “Well… goodbye for now, at least.”
He returned the wave, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes when he answered, “Have a nice week.”
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What an interesting conundrum this will be.
Holy shit. I kinda saw that one coming, but still. Wow.
wow
Dun dun dunnnn! I'd been suspecting something along these lines, though not that ponies were literally human. Looking forward to seeing what the resolution of this all is. :)
Ahaha, called it. I knew I wasn't just imagining things with all those hints.
I have to admit, I've been looking for a story with this premise for a long time now. It just seemed to make sense given all the similarities between the sapient races of FiM and their civilizations to our own.... Even the fact that they are all "mythical" creatures that we recognize fits... Having them all be "transformed" or future humans after the discovery/creation of "magic" just made sense to me... but no story had ever really done that (and I suck at writing so I never wrote one myself)... until now. I am quite happy.
Of course... now is where things get interesting. What is the right course of action at this point? Personally, I'd recommend he either start up some cloning facilities instead of just turning all the ponies, minotaurs, griffons, dragons, etc. back into humans... Alternatively, going with the title of the story "Human After All" isn't it true that they still all ARE humans, just with different bodies? I mean, what defines "humanity", anyway? Perhaps instead of restoring humanity's bodies he should instead just restore humanity's history, culture, and knowledge. I mean, none of the modern humans have ever even held a human form before... Well, unless.... hmm...
Of course, for those who want human bodies I see no issue with him "restoring" them.
SO the horn was from a tyrannical slave driver? I wonder who that was.
*cough* Sombra *cough*
so it wasn't Discord that screw a monkey wrench in the works it was tia
I've never been one to completely trust her but JEEZE this is something else ENTIRELY
So, for however many thousands of years, there's never been any kind of magic nullification experimented with? This seems like something that someone would discover sooner or later.
It's still annoying how she was acting like she was in the right after firing on him first in fear.
But our own self-justifications are the same way alas.
If that is what happened then what does that make Discord?
3849745
May be a cover up that magic keeps you alive and removing it kills you. Throw that in a few books that are old enough and give ample warnings, etc. It becomes a fact accepted and not wanting to be dealt with because you'll die. My question is: what the hell is discord and his magic then?
3849736
Magic supression maybe but never full nullification, magic is for the ponies an omnipresent rule like gravity, also notice how he said the field needed to be build? You Probably cannot cancel out magic with itself so they would need technology for that and in that field they are woefully lacking.
Discord probably is just pure chaos,refined and given Sapience
If Celestia "came on record" and said that ponies were created (by and out of humans, for whatever reason) then does she know about humanity?
Does she remember them?
3849729
Mixing ANYTHING with someone as powerful and evil as him can't be good.
I'm 80% positive that at some point Jesse will go crazy again.
3850497 Basically my thought is that all the evil's in Equestria are part of the Sapience ex. Sombra
3850292
Ah, but in that song it's the future robots. This time it's ponies.
Reverse Conversion Bureau, away?
Keep it up, I can't wait to see how this story goes.
Hold on...
The purple goo was most likely the SMOOZE.
The horn? Sombra, most likely.
Jesse already had another fragment in himself...
Either Discord is three fragments combined or I dunno. Luna and Celestia are one each and Discord is Last? Nightmare Moon persona was one? I don't knooooooow!
Quick! Speculations!
3826926
3850663
Actually, I'm betting it was that purple stuff that flew off when Nightmare Moon was turned back into Luna.
As for conjecture, I agree that Discord contains at least one. If he contains all three, that would lead to a great action climax of Jesse versus Discord. On the other hand, if Discord, Celestia, and Luna each have one, that would be good for a dramatic climax. Given that this story is commissioned and I don't know who the commissioner is, I could see it going either way.
Also, the Elements themselves (and/or the Tree, if it's included,) could be fragments.
3848391 Or that we're dimensionally crossed doppelgangers?
I have deduced that Jesse is psycho-bonkers crazy and is probably gonna stub his toe and set the world on fire in anger.
3849750
I'm pretty sure we can all tell when a psychopath wants to rip our face off. I mean, it's kind of obvious.If we couldn't tell if somebody meant harm against us, we'd have died long ago, or at least fallen onto REALLY bad times.
Ohhh, shits gettin' exciting now!!
Wow.
Just when I thought I knew where this story was going it surprises me again
And again...
And again...
And the next day... And the next day... And the next day...
Blegh. pbbblt. I have just lost interest completely. And in fact now wish I could retroactively erase this story from my memory.
3851691 It's crazy that none of his computers in the facility have ever crashed in these thousands of years causing him to end Equestria.
So Jesse was one part of the Somniator, Sombra was another, Nightmare Moon(?) was another and I guess Discord also is another. What I am wondering right now is wether or not Sunbutt and Moonbutt are the two missing pieces and wether or not Jesse will try to take them by force. Shit's going down nyuggah!
So you've been posting these stories day by day, a lot faster than any other author I've seen. I'm just wondering, are you writing up each story each day or did you already have the first six pages typed up and were just submitting them each day?
Reason that I ask is I've noticed a trend of about 23 hours for each story to come out. So far, it has been 25 hours since the last story, and I'd like to know if you're writing up the new set causing me to have to wait for the next part or that because you're good enough to be able to write within a day that I only have to wait another few hours.
3855780
This is a prepaid commission. The story is complete barring some editing. He posts it in the evening after work.
3853002 "human after all" is the title and you expected what, exactly?
3849687 You should read this 'Man Of War' by Tallestbrony It is a very good story and you'll probably like it.
Lyra sees her "hands"
Lyra: "HANDZ!!! I HAZ HANDZ!!! MWHA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!"
Jesse: "Whut?"
Sorry but I just got a general feeling of 'meh' on this chapter and the last. I feel as though you didn't sufficiently convey enough for me to sympathize with Lyra throwing a bomb in his face. She's been with the dude for what, nine months? With the only time she's ever seen him angry was because he was pissed at whatever he was working on and punched through it. Her reaction just seems over the top especially when we were given positive information about him, such as him saving Lyra when they first met. Obviously seeing her as something thats cute that he wouldn't harm, him becoming saddened by the mortality of ponies he met thus closing himself off. Hell, he doesn't have time or need for cruel acts he said it himself and Lyra stated she knew she wasn't really helping him.
The cannister also wasn't really that well described for me. Was this cannister pony-size that had an opening for its horn or was it just a cannister holding a horn? If its the former I guess she had a little more reason to freak out.
The whole ponies are humans thing is also meh but I could read past it if it weren't for Lyra's irrational behavior coupled with her refusal to appologize.