Chapter 1: American Unicorn in America
'Ugh, bad coffee'. I thought, as the car pulled up to the crime scene.
“Bout time you showed up, we were just about to call the morgue.” Officer Dechesco remarked as I left the cruiser. As usual, my first hoof out of the car and stepped in something squishy.
“Oh ya, watch yourself there, there’s crap all over here.”
I grunted. Maybe I should have gone into show business after all, no other unicorn on earth has to deal with stepping in crap and lord knows whatever else this alleyway has. Then again no other unicorn on earth ever bothered to do anything productive for society.
Oh ya, by the way, I’m a unicorn. Yep totally forgot about that one. Born here on God’s green (and mostly blue) Earth, raised here and around New York.
“You sure you don’t want to come and watch Pete?” I said, rolling my head back towards my driver/assistant.
“No thank-you, I think I’ve seen enough of your work by now.” He said. Pete was the latest in a long line of assistants. Being a quadruped in a bipedal society does have its challenges, fortunately there’s a government agency created especially for us. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to work with magical unicorns anyways?
I followed Dechesco down the alleyway. Of course there was a probie there, fresh out of the police academy. You could tell because of the fresh puke on his shoes, and you can tell its his because you just learn these sort of things when you work homicides for a living.
“You’d better close your mouth or else the maggots will wiggle in.” I said to the gawking officer.
Just past him lay a body in a pool of coagulated blood, with another pair marked nearby. Investigators were already doing their thing, taking pictures and whipping out little baggies. My caller was standing nearby directing his subordinate officers. “Cmon Manny, you called me down here for a couple of druggies having it out?”
“That's Officer O’Brien to you Special Detective.” Oh, someone's not had their coffee this morning. “And for your information this isn’t just a couple of heroin addicts.” He beckoned us to follow. We passed the bodies and entered a back door and immediately were assaulted by the stench of death. Inside a decrepit empty building lay bodies everywhere sprawled on various “Ten dead, all gang members, all gunned down. We need to know if this is the start of a gang war or just a fight.”
We walked into another room with three corpses already propped up with lights and cameras flashing. “Oh good, you’ve got them lined up. Just stand back and get ready to record this.” I said, cracking my neck. Once again, the differences between those that knew me and those that didn’t was apparent. Some of those working the scene did as I instructed and flipped their cameras into recording mode, others just stood there, transfixed as I began my dark deed.
Focusing the raw power inherent to my kind, I drew it up from my core and out through my horn. The spell was fixed in my mind from years of practice and discipline. The atmosphere of the room charged with a kind of static tingling before I let loose the magic in an arc off my horn into the bodies, starting from the left and chaining along them.
After a moment the corpses jerked. The far left, and the two right most ones were mindless zombies from the feedback I felt, however the center left one slowly sat upright and focused its glassy eyes on me. I let the spell drop on them and focused more power onto the one good one.
“Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick.” Someone whispered. I paid him no heed, I had to concentrate now.
“Your show.” I grunted to Dechesco who nodded. Without hesitating he began questioning the zombie.
“What is your name?”
His lips moved voiceless then paused. Through ridged lips, he drew in a rattling breath. Coagulated blood slopped out from his wound. “My name is Jared Kroktoru.” He said slowly.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?”
He looked off to the side, remembering the events. “….They came from… behind.”
“Who did?”
“The… Colombians. They took our shipment.” He said. “Big Gustavo wants to take over our territory. He-” The corpse froze.
“Oh shit.” I squeaked before the spell surged. Once again, the boys stood by while the men took a dive.
SPLAT
The corpse exploded, sending luke-warm gore everywhere, coating everyone and everything. “God dammit.” Dechesco shouted. “God dammit, not again!” He turned angrily towards me. I gave a sheepish smile from behind my gore covered shield. “Dammit, just get out of here! Get him out of here.”
==\/\/==
“I take it things didn’t go too well.” Pete remarked as I was escorted by two officers, both of whom had been in the line of fire.
“Just get in the car.” I said bitterly.
“Lets get lunch.” I said once we were under way, my horn tapped against the window glass. I pulled out my phone, an old note 5S. Pete turned on the radio.
‘...That was Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, up next on your all request afternoon, Sundrop, Lollipop by the dynamic duo Sunny and Clyde.’
I jabbed the radio off. I was annoyed.
When a few thousand unicorns walked out of the amazon rain-forest forty years ago, magic had been this thing of wonder, something that scientists studied fruitlessly. Even today they still can’t identify what makes it work and there’s unicorns with PHDs now, so… magic. Mom, Dad, Grandpa, they all saw magic in their own way. In the case of my parents, they always saw magic as the embodiment of happiness and life itself, perhaps that's why they spent their lives traveling the world spreading joy wherever they went. Grandpa on the other hand, well his view was shaped by a lifetime melding and shaping spells, having been one of the great mages that brought everyone to this world. He always said magic is a gift to us. He always felt right at home with the way science was held in reverence here.
“So do you have a preference today?” Pete asked dragging me out from my thoughts.
“Ya actually I do.”
==[]==
“Can I take your order?” The golden arches cashier asked almost robotic-ally. One of the advantages of living in NYC, nobody really cared if say, a rainbow maned unicorn walked into a McDonald's to have lunch.
I stood up at the counter. “Ya I’ll have the double with a large fry and coke.” I looked back at Pete who was giving me a look of consternation. “And he’ll have the salad.”
Pete swiped my card and we stood in line for the food. “You really shouldn’t be eating that much meat, it can’t be good for your diet.”
“I see a doctor 12 times a year just to make sure I’m not sick or dying. If they were going to find anything wrong with my diet, they’d have found it by now.” I said.
“U-U-unicorn!” Something tugged at my tail. I turned to look. The little girl currently tugging my tail looked at me with that mix of wonder and amazement that only children ever have. “UNICORN!” she shouted.
“There you are!” A woman, presumably her mother, said. “I’m so sorry sir. She’s just never seen a unicorn in person before.” She picked up her daughter.
I held up a hoof. “Its alright, I get it all the time.” Looking around, I grabbed a paper from the trays with my magic and hovered it over her. “Look here.” I said.
The girl fixated on the floating napkin, held up in my magic aura. With a twirl, the napkin folded itself up into an origami unicorn. “Here you go little lady.” I said, giving the astonished girl the paper unicorn. She looked between the paper and me with her mouth wide open.
“What do you say?” Her mother nudged.
“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!” She shouted, tightly embracing the little paper decoration.
I nodded. By now, Pete had gotten our tray and had come back over.
“I haven’t seen you like that before.” He said, digging into his salad. “You seemed almost outgoing for once.”
“Ya well, what can I say, even I have my weaknesses.” I said, smashing my face into the burger. “If I come off as a jerk at times its only because people don’t know how to react to me. But kids? Its like you walked straight out of their dreams, and I can’t trample that.”
“I guess so.” He said, checking his phone. I meanwhile moved onto my fries, shoveling them into my muzzle.
“Oh its just the baby.” I heard a familiar, albeit irritating, voice say. Of all the dozens of fast food places in this one square area, of the hundreds of blocks in this city, of the hundreds of unicorns that just lived inside this city, I had to run into the one person that I despised the most.
“Hello Abigail.” I said coldly. I turned to the ruby colored mare who was flanked by her entourage. She had a tattoo of a ruby on either side of her flanks, that is, underneath the white designer bags and her white and red dress. Last I checked, she was pretending to be a singing superstar or something.
“Still playing with corpses I see or have you finally moved on to greener pastures?” She jibed.
Abigail was the second youngest unicorn on earth, having been only a couple of years old when they crossed over which put her still almost twenty years older than me. As a result of being A) adorable, and B) one of a kind, she had grown up practically in front of a camera which made her a grade-A bitch.
“Isn’t there a coke machine in need somewhere?” I said, dipping a fry into ketchup.
“HUMPH, the least you could do is be happy to see your favorite aunt.”
“You’re not my aunt, and I only ever went through the motions with you for my parents sake.”
“Spoiled brat.” She said, turning to leave.
“Prissy bitch.”
She pivoted back to me. “Why I never! Take that back.” She demanded.
I stuck out my tongue. “Um Miss Abigail, I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said.” Pete started to say.
“You rotten brat, you had everything hoofed over to you and look at you now; you… you, you mess with forbidden magic and sit around on your inheritance, mooching off your parent’s success.”
That bitch crossed the line! “Lazy? You’re calling me lazy? I’m out solving crimes with my magic What do you do? Sign autographs, shake your flanks to the camera, and act like a premiere bitch to us normal people.”
She stood down for a moment. “Don’t you dare say I do nothing. I gave up my fillyhood so unicorns like you can live a normal life! You should be thanking me.”
“Pff, whatever. Come on Pete, lets go.” I said, pushing past Abigail. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I thank this bitch.”
“At least I have people who love me and adore me!” She said.
“At least I still have my magic.” I mumbled just enough for her to hear.
“You… you… bastard! You rotten little good for nothing!” The trash on the table went flying towards me. Effortlessly, I grabbed it mid air and redirected it back towards her. The soda exploded, soiling her expensive dress.
“UUUHHHGH” She grunted. With extreme effort on her part, she picked up a chair and tossed it at me. I grabbed something and tossed it back.
==\=\=
The New York chief of police sat behind his large desk, wearing a permanent scowl. I was still dripping from the exploded soda machine. They hadn't wasted much time bringing me in.
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have mentioned the magic. Of all the unicorns out there, Abigail is probably the most sensitive about it. See, its sort of a taboo subject in the unicorn community, as magic is basically all we got going for us. A lot of the unicorns have been losing their magic over the years and nobody knows why, which makes my abilities even more exceptional. Oh it starts out as things being slightly heavier when you lift them, maybe a light spell doesn’t last as long, but after a while the magic becomes harder and harder to channel, to the point where, like Abigail, something like levitation becomes painful and only when one is sufficiently motivated does it ever come forth.
“Tens of thousand dollars worth of damage to a McDonald's, and a goddamn PR nightmare.” The chief grunted. “On top of that, I’ve got to explain to the families of a drug dealer, why their son’s corpse is returning in a garbage bag and you’d better hope to God or whatever you believe in that they don’t find out it was because you exploded him.”
“Look I’ll pay for the damage to the restaurant but it really wasn’t that bad.”
Grunting, he flipped his monitor around to display the local news station’s website. ‘NYPD Detective assaulted beloved star.’ “OK that looks bad but honestly she came at me first.”
“Look… you do good work. You’re an invaluable asset to this city, hell you’ve cleared up almost all of our cold case backlog since you started working for us, but I can’t have anyone connected to the police department attacking pop-stars in McDonnalds, its just not going to go well in the media. You’ve had some hard times lately, take some time off for Christ's sake. Maybe this isn’t the life for you.” He finished. “I’ll have a squad car take you back to your place, please stay outta trouble.”
==\/\==
The squad car honked as it drove away. My car sat parked outside my townhouse. I looked around, the musicians and culture that had brought my parents to this neighborhood all those decades ago was gone, evicted and replaced with expensive shops, Starbucks, and ugh… hipsters. My townhouse was the last bastion of the old guard, no homeowners association or developer will tell me how to paint it! I levitated my set of keys out of my vest and undid the locks on the white door and stepped in the pink house.
‘”…..and today the pop-idol and fashion icon Abigail, best known for her role as little Abby in many children works, was involved in an incident with David Moon, the son of the late music duo Sunny and Clyde. David, a special detective with the NYPD apparently caused an argument with her which resulted in a fight causing massive property damage. Here to tell us what happened, Abigail herself. Could you shed some light on what happened?”
“Yes well I’ve known David for all his life, I have to say, I was a bit surprised by his outburst. I understand he’s suffered some losses recently but his actions today reflect poorly on the Unicorn community in general. I can’t really speak to what he’s going through right now but I hope in time he can pull through.”
I looked at the TV Pete was watching. Abigail's dress had been of course, completely replaced, and her mane was styled up.
“Now, you said you’ve known him all his life, David was the first and so far, only unicorn to be born here. You were the youngest unicorn on earth until he was born. Some would say you might know something of what he’s going through having grown up yourself here on earth.”
“I can’t really say, David and I have lived completely different lives. I was a good friend of his parents though before they passed away and I think he sees me as a family fi-”’
I flipped the TV off. Pete was in the kitchen making a ‘healthy’ dinner. “You’re back already.” He said. I grabbed an apple and ate it. “I’m getting reassigned.” I dropped my apple. He continued. “They called me earlier after what happened, I’ve been reassigned to a unicorn in Texas and I have to leave in a few minutes.”
“B-b-but I need you right now, if this is about money, I can give you a raise, I can give you a bonus or something, just don’t go!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t work for you, I work for Unicorn Services and there’s nothing I can do about it.” His phone vibrated. “That’s my cab, sorry about all this, they just think you’re too much for me to handle apparently.”
I followed him to the door and watched him as he grabbed his suitcase which had been sitting next to the door, and leave like so many assistants had before.
I went back into the kitchen to the table and looked at the fresh meal. He had initially been assigned to me because of his superb culinary skills as well as his superb housekeeping skills. After Grandpa Moon passed away, I had been… sort of a slob to the point that the powers that be worried about it. I looked at the lovingly hand crafted meal, a creative vegetarian recipe that looked straight out of a cooking show. I tossed it straight into the trash.
I pulled out my phone and ordered takeout, by the time the surprised delivery guy had arrived, I had already located and retrieved the southern comfort as well as the rest of the liquor from where Pete had hidden it.
Slightly buzzed I wandered through my now empty house. I paused in front of a picture in the center of my upstairs hall. It had been one of the last times we all were together, me, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, all posed for one large photo. Mom and Dad, sat there with their eternal smiles, Mom’s fiery orange and red hair frozen in time, Dad’s blue hair seemingly defying nature. Grandma and Grandpa Moon off to the side, with a small smiling me, with my white fur and rainbow hair on a stool in the middle. “Why did you two have to go first.” I said, taking a swig from my bottle. “Why were you two always so damn happy to be stranded here. Why were you so damn happy to have a kid!” I said, breaking out in tears. “Why did you leave me.” I fell backwards knocking over an end table. A heavy book spilled out from the drawer. From my back, even drunk, I immediately recognized the ornate cover with a stylized moon. It was Grandpa’s spell-book, his, and probably my most prized possession. For a while after he died, I carried it around as he had always done. The book, about three inches thick, written in the arcane language of from our homeland had been in our family for centuries, having been given to him by his father, and his father before.
In time, it would have been given to my father but instead it fell to me. When mom and dad died, grandpa started training me in magic to distract me and for a while the wonders of magic, to a teenager who grew up reading harry potter books, was enough of a distraction. We spent countless hours in the occult and arcane, him teaching, me sponging. I mean, you can do this on the internet, but this is real magic, M.A.G.I.C. magic. In time, he pushed me to find a place that I could use magic to help, which is how I found myself solving cold cases with necromancy. When he passed away last year though, magic just lost its magic.
I dragged the book over to me and wrapped my arms around it. The familiar heft rested on my chest. I looked down the hall to his study. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in there. Taking my friend jack and my spell-book, I wandered up to the door, at some point mom or dad had painted a large moon on it, the same as grandpa’s mark. I put a hoof on the door and pushed it open. Inside there wasn’t really much. All the knowledge of arcane had been carried here on the backs of the stranded unicorns.
He had a bookshelf on one wall where he had collected some tomes from other unicorns, as well as any other sort of occult book he took a liking to. Grandpa believed that man had once had magic like unicorns, I really couldn’t argue against a grand-mage, so I helped him collect books on the occult.
On another wall, he had a desk which he had covered with all sorts of writing utensils. He was always amazed by ballpoint pens and other things people used to write with.
Finally in one corner of the room was a large ornate mirror which he had purchased at a flea market one day and we brought it home. He meticulously cleaned it and cast spells on it.
I looked at my reflection. Twenty-nine years old, alone. My rainbow mane was a mess, my white coat was still stained with flecks of junk from earlier. I sat down with my back to the mirror and flipped through the spell-book, drinking while I studied.
Suddenly, the world went spinning. Everything went rainbow, and I felt like I was exploding. Then I felt myself hit the floor, hard, too hard for the floor in my house.
I heard a gasp. My vision turned purple for a moment. “OH MY GOSH IT WORKED!” I heard a feminine voice shout. Before I could respond, my friend jack turned into my enemy jack. “SPIKE COME QUICKLY!”
The last thing I remember was puking up rainbows before I passed out.
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Well, this seems like an interesting start, though I hope you'll explain just where the unicorns came from to suddenly appear on Earth. I may track this...
7979439 if only there is some almost all knowing thousand year old person who might remember lots of unicorns suddenly disappearing...
Well, nice beginning... and i'm already imagining the equestrians squicked out by our nice little necromancer... XD
"Sooo what do you do for a living ?"
"Oh, i'm just reanimating corpses to help solve Cold Cases..."
*Siglty Green* Huh...
"Not the most glamour job, but heh, get bills paid. Except when the corpses explode. That tell you you'll have a shitty day."
*Twilight ans Spike go barfing in the bathroom*
A millennial son of immigrants that actually does something useful, yet is called lazy by his pop-star aunt because she considers that it's wrong for him to be toiling with forbidden magic.
He sits on his inheritance yet instead of living a life of luxury, he is out there toiling through the bloodied and rotting gutters of NYC to solve Cold Cases.
Yet he is given an assistant by some agency that makes five star vegetarian dishes, yet hates the idea of being a vegetarian.
Seems to me like the guy is a depressed wreck that concentrates on work to avoid paying attention to his parents never paying enough attention to him when they were out doing good in the world, and selfishly is wanting them to care more for him than their work.
So yeah.
But temporary reanimation should really be that taboo, if the soul is still running around, and the body is intact enough, it's valid to interrogate the suspect. Not to mention that it's also a lot more complicated in theory than what it's shown here. But that is my deal, and I can get that what is important in this story is his American-ness when dealing with the Equestrians.
All right I'll watch.
7980404 ya hes a bit of a wreck, Unicorn Services is a dumb name but i couldnt really come up with better, its supposed to be a small gov agency that looks after the unicorns since they are quadrupeds in a biped society and have all sorts of difficulties on their own. plus who wouldnt want to work with a unicorn for a day job?
david is sort of special to them too since hes like the ling-ling of unicorns so they pay him some extra attention
i didnt touch on it though but davids parents loved him very much and pretty much wound down their music careers after he was born
7980731 Then what is he complaining about? Sorry, but I had to ask. Though I'm guessing that he is going through some guilt complex? Is his aunt right, or is he right? That is the question. Part of me likes him the other part of me can't really ignore the large inheritance.
I mean, I'm not going to take his testimony on his aunt being a Bitch.
Don't get me wrong I don't hate any of this.
My Arcanum Folklore himself is basically an Equestrian version of a 1920's Irish-American Occultist. And lived fro a short time in a Bookshop that he inherited from his uncle Archive that is located near the Canterlot Red Light district. But all he really inherited was that one shop, with nothing to really run it with.
And there is his unmentioned crime of tax evasion....
But yes, rest assured that I'll keep reading
7980770 hes just lonely because his family is all dead and his aunt really was just a friend of his parents and hes a totally different species than everybody else, plus hes worried about his magic failing him
7980996 Wow. All right.
This better get finished! You can't just hook me with a chapter like that and then threaten to not finish!
7983575 i've already gotten a little of chapter 2 down, ultimately im thinking 3-4 chapters but we'll see. its hard to find time to write sometimes
7983614
Oh, no rush. Life comes first, after all. Just so long as it does get finished eventually I'm k with however long it takes.
Hmm, this looks promising. I love the juxtaposition of the treacle-looking rainbow-maned white unicorn being a gruff, messed up necromancer who gobbles down meat and doesn't flinch at gore. I'll be tracking this as I want to see what happens when the gruff, no-nonsense SOB hits Equestria like a bowling ball in a crystal shop.
This is definitely one of the most original premises I've seen, and I'm really looking forward to the ensuring cultural clash. Just an FYI, when you have someone speaking that would normal end in a period/full stop, the correct punctuation is to replace it with a comma. For example this:
Would be be correctly written as:
Aside from that I can't see any problems.
One question, why are they all unicorns? Were they from pre-Heart's Warming Eve Equestria?
7985248 i plan to address that in later chapters but thx for the advice i cant really say it will help, i tend to write dialogue then scenery or scenery then dialogue so something thats a complete sentence suddenly becomes a part of a sentence.
I do plan on doing a pass over chapter 1 for a few little misplaced paragraphs though and I'll look into it there
glad you liked this so far though
This story looks cool so far. By the way, what did he mean when he said that his friend jack became his enemy jack? I've never heard that phrase before.
8005567 the whiskey made him sick and throw up
8005956 Ok, got it.
Why was he the only unicorn born on earth? Were most of the ponies who came over a bunch of prudes?