Shouldn't Be

by Lumadous

Ch 5. Visit

My alarm clock was beeping somewhere off to my right, and in my drowsy haze I instinctively reach out and start swinging my arm around hoping to find the stupid thing when it connected with something soft. Opening my eyes to see which one of my soldiers I just smacked in the face I saw Fluttershy, who was wide eyed with surprise. Guess that being in this world wasn't a crazy dream.

"Sorry," I muttered, letting go of the lock of her hair I had grabbed. "What happened? Last thing I remember was finding...." Sitting straight up I started looking for Applejack.

"Is she okay?!" I yelled, grabbing Fluttershy's shoulders, "Is Applejack okay?"

"Meep" Came Fluttershy's response as I shook her.

Seeing that I had scared Fluttershy into speechlessness, I swung my feet out of the bed, ripping all of the carefully placed needles and sensors out of my arms and off of my chest, causing all of the monitors next to the bed to start screaming in warning. I stood shakily and pushed my way out of the room past the doctors and nurses trying to subdue me. Entering the hallway I saw a nurses’ counter piled high with stacks of paperwork. Making my way to the desk I vaulted over it and started looking through the piles for a roster of some type. Under one of the piles I found a clipboard, grabbing it and giving it a sharp yank sent the pile that was on top of it toppling all over the nurses who were still trying to subdue me. The clipboard had a hoof written note clipped up on top.

"Must thank Zecora for providing the cure for the cockatrices victims in room 203."

Hoping that's who I'm looking for I use the rollie chair that was behind the desk as a battering ram to get through the ever-growing crowd of nurses and doctors trying to stop me, I could see their mouths moving and yelling at me but their voices never made it to my ears. Abandoning the chair after getting through the crowd I took off at a dead sprint down the hallway, quickly out distancing the confused crowd. Looking to my right and left, I saw the small signs with room numbers whizzing past me, too fast for me to really read them. Stopping and looking for a moment I saw the door I was looking for just a bit further down the hallway, just as the fastest of the doctors caught up to me and tried to keep me still with his magic.

Needless to say, he found out that he really can't restrain me if he's flying over the heads of the other doctors.

Knowing it was only a matter of time before they caught me I sprinted to the door and crashed into it shoulder first, shattering the door frame. Landing on my face I looked up to see Applejack’s head sitting on the floor, still stone.

"No, not Applejack!"

"What in tarnation are you talkin’ about, ah'm over here." Came Applejack’s voice from behind a curtain.

I jumped up and whipped it open, revealing the orange mare laying on her back under the blankets, her stetson sitting on the nearby nightstand. She still had stone dust in her mane but you couldn't tell otherwise that she had been a statue the night before.

"How you feelin?"

"Much better now that she's cured of that nasty curse the cockatrice’s eyes can cast, which would've been easier to do if we could've found the dang thing," said Twilight as she entered the room. The doctors and nurses crowded the hallway outside of the room but for some reason stayed there, giving me very nasty looks.

"Ah could've told him myself," said Applejack who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but in the room.

"I know you could've," said Twilight gently, "but I need to talk to Cass, alone."

"Umm sure, gimme a moment. Hey, Applejack, ‘bout last ni—"

"Now," she said assertively.

Twilight not giving me more time to talk, picked me up with her magic and carried me out of the room and into a neighboring room that was empty.

"She won't remember last night," said Twilight as she dropped me onto a bed.

"Why, is there something wrong?"

"Well other than being turned to stone last week, no."

"Well that's good I guess but still...Wait, last week? It happened last night!"

"No, you've been unconscious for 8 days. When we first brought you in you had fallen unconscious due to blood loss, and the doctors here gave you blood transfusion. Unfortunately there were a few complications, turns out human blood and pony blood are too different to be compatible. The shock to your system and the blood loss together almost killed you, fortunately for you I know a few spells that they didn't and we were able to save your life, barely. As for Applejack and Big Mac, since we couldn't find the cockatrice that turned them to stone we were only able to make a partial cure, Applejack only just burst through the shell today, and it seems like the last thing she remembered was you flipping a table when Pinkie Pie surprised you."

"And Big Mac?"

"He hasn't burst his shell yet, he’s in the bed on the opposite side of Applejack."

"So she won't remember that kiss?"

"Oh that did happen? I thought that it was some crazy rumor. But no she probably won't remember it."

"Good."

"That bad?"

"No, my reaction was."

"Well I didn't bring you in here to clear the gossip clouds up, I have a few more serious questions for you Mr. Cass," said Twilight quietly. Whatever she wanted to know wasn't something pleasant. "What happened there? When Rainbow Dash and I showed up you were in a clearing, unconscious, and everything around you was covered with blood. The cockatrice was nowhere to be found but we found no evidence of something else in the area. The only alternative that we saw was that you did something to it.”

She paused, giving me a hard stare. "I wish I could tell you, but I truthfully don't know. The last thing I remember was running into the clearing, watching as Applejack turned into stone, after that, nothing. But I know what did it. Before I tell you though I should tell you what I did back home, before I came here."

"What does that have t—" I shushed her by putting my finger up.

"I didn't interrupt so please do the same." Patting the bed next to me, I told her, "Might want to sit down though, it's going to be a bit of a discussion."

She climbed up next to me and waited patiently as I collected my thoughts.

"On my old world I was a member of the United States Army, one of the larger nations on our world. My job was to kill people, and I was, or rather am, very good at it. I was good enough to be quickly promoted to the rank of sergeant and be given my own squad to command. We had been at war with several countries in an area called the Middle East for many years. However they were just a prelude to a much larger war when another country, who was very militaristic, invaded the area also. Where we were trying to work with the local populace to try and win ‘hearts and minds’ they just swept through and tried to kill everyone. Needless to say the locals reacted out of fear and started trying to kill everyone else also. The United Nations, which is a government that tries to govern the other governments, asked the US to stay and try to be a police force in the area. That was 6 years ago. Now its called the New Wild West, or the NWW, because it is the largest area of lawlessness in existence. I have been there for about 3 years straight, they've tried to promote me a few times but every time I've turned them down because I wanted to stay in the fight." I paused to let her absorb this information.

"Why did you go in the first place?" she asked quietly.

"Revenge, clean and simple. I lost my brother, my sister, my niece and nephew, my mother, everyone I held dear in my life." I started to tear up, not even caring that she was seeing me cry, "I lost them all in one day, the locals from the NWW are also sometimes called terrorists, because they do great acts of evil and destruction, using fear as a weapon. After the North Koreans invaded the Terrorists retaliated against the US for whatever reason and loaded a convoy of 18 wheelers with powerful chemical weapons and drove them into the capital of my nation, a place known as Washington DC. Just outside of the city limits they detonated the bombs and spread its deadly poison through the city. I was in an exhibit at the museum there, it was one for the first manned mars landing, and it involved us entering a sealed container to see what it was like to live the way the astronauts did on their way to the moon. It had a large glass window so we could see out and our families could see in and take pictures of us in there. I had entered with my father and had left everyone else outside because they weren't really interested in stuff like that, but me and my dad where, I still remember when he brought home my first telescope... Anyways, we were in there and they had just sealed the doors when the bombs went off, knocking the power out and locking us in, luckily for us though the air system for the room had a backup generator. But the rest of my family was still outside as the poison hit. You remember how I said that the Terrorists liked using fear as a weapon? Well this was a prime example, the toxins they had chosen to use killed very slowly and painfully. Me and my Dad had to watch, unable to help, as our entire family slowly died before us. I still remember the cries of my niece and nephew, they weren't even a year old yet." I stopped the memories becoming too painful.

"That's horrible," said Twilight gently, tears in her eyes as well.

"We spent three whole days in that coffin, with nothing to do but stare at our dead families. My dad simply lost all drive, he was never the same, and no one has even heard him speak since then. The day they got us out, I went and found a recruiter, I was burning with anger, four weeks later I was at a place called Fort Knox. They had to reopen old training bases because how many were signing up, and I was just another face in the crowd at the beginning. But I had drive, I had the killing instinct as the Drill Sergeants had called it, I quickly rose through the ranks and by the time I first deployed I was a Corporal. On my first mission we were ambushed, all the leadership was killed in the opening volley, leaving me the highest ranking soldier there, in command of 9 other soldiers who had also survived, out of 70 some soldiers. We held our position for six days. When our weapons stopped working, we grabbed one of our dead buddies weapons, when we ran out of ammo, we stripped some more off another buddy. It took six days for another battalion to fight their way to us, and when they found us they found only three living soldiers, including myself. But we had successfully killed over a thousand enemies, delaying them, and in the long run, probably saving even more thousands of American lives. For that mission I received many awards and medals, I truthfully don't know or care about any of them, I had gotten what I wanted for six days, I had gotten my revenge." I paused to let her absorb that information, she was staring at me with a mixture of sorrow and terror, I truthfully don't blame her.

"You said you knew what happened, why you can't remember?" she asked, probably trying to hear something other than the horror that had been my life.

"Yeah, the human brain can only handle so much death. After a while the brain, in defense, just turns off letting to body react, it happened for the first time in that museum, but that hardly was the last time. Anytime there was danger I just blanked out and become a ruthless killing machine with no mercy, completely unstoppable, completely out of control, completely a hundred percent monster. I'm guessing last night, seeing one of my few friends here die, just made me snap. There probably isn't even anything left of the cockatrice for you to find."

"Is this why ya have nightmares and react the way ya do?" Asked Applejack from the doorway. Crap, how much did she hear, how can she even stand looking at such a thing as myself?

"Yeah, because while my conscious brain doesn't know what I do, my subconscious does. They have something similar back on my world called PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but what I have is not what I consider that, there are people who've seen worse than me and don't have PTSD, so how can I?"

"Ah don't care what its called, you come to me if ya need me, no matter the time or place."

"Thanks," came my mumbled response.

"Any change with Big Mac?", asked Twilight.

"No, but I came over to ask if my friends minded comin’ and sittin’ with me, to, umm... Greet him when he wakes up." she said hesitantly.

"Sure, I'll be right there." I said as I stood up, walking after her into the hallway, where the doctors and nurses were still waiting for me, murder gleaming in their eyes. Stopping just at the doorway, I turned to Twilight, "Please tell no one else what I just told you, not even Princess Celestia, somethings need to be said in person."

"Stick a cupcake in my eye," she said solemnly as I followed Applejack through the crowd.

---

I was snoring peacefully, thoroughly enjoying a sleep without nightmares, when I was poked awake. Blinking hazily and looking down I saw it wasn't Applejack, she was still asleep and had at some point fallen onto my lap and was drooling profusely. Looking up I saw Big Mac's still statue form, mouth slightly open in shock. Thinking I was going insane I closed my eyes again and leaned back against the wall when I was poked again, harder this time though. I opened my eyes again and looked around harder, looking for the disruptor of my sleep, noticing this time a pair of eyes that seemed to hover in front of the window.

"We need to talk Sergeant," came a gentle voice, "Care to take a walk with me?"

Gently moving Applejack’s head off my lap and setting it gently on a nearby pillow, I followed what I now saw was a rather large mare who was a dark blue, her hair looked a lot like the night sky and her flank had a blotch of black and the moon on it.

"Hello Princess Luna," I said flatly as we left the room.

"I presume Twilight has told you of me?"

"No." I pointed to a picture as we passed, it had Princess Luna surrounded by a group of young fillies in costumes, the caption said "Thanks for a great Hollows eve, Princess Luna."

"Ah," she said as she led me outside, along a cobblestone path that led through the gardens near the hospital.

"So how may I help you this beautiful night, Princess?"

"Just this," she said as her horn glowed and she touched it to my forehead, sending waves of electricity through my body.

I felt my feet leave the ground and all I could see was the glow of her horn, and just as suddenly as it started it stopped, letting me fall to the ground, panting as if I had just ran an eight mile run.

"What.... did you..... do?" I asked between gasps.

"I'm sorry but I had to make sure my friends were safe, and that you were not going to harm them. Not knowing what type of character you are, I took the cautious path and read your mind." She actually looked a little shaken, maybe she hadn't liked what she had seen.

"You did what?" my voice hiding a barely contained rage.

"I apologize, but you know that I know that if you were in my position you would do the same exact thing. You cannot lie to me anymore Cass, I know everything about you."

"Then excuse me for not being happy, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage!"

"The link can work both ways if you wish," she said, quieter.

"And why would I want to invade your mind, your last inner sanctum, the only fortress that should never be penetrated!" I was yelling now.

"This is why," she responded simply as her horn glowed again and, before I could react and move out of the way, she touched it to my forehead once more.

Once again, waves of electricity ran through my body, but this time it was different, instead of just seeing her horn glow I saw her, the real her, the one she kept hidden for fear of ridicule. I saw before her imprisonment, when she and her sister where the best of friends, when she depended so much on her. I saw her on her prison moon where she spent a thousand lonely years, crying because she was so lonely, feeling a betrayal deeper than I could've ever imagined. She was just as lost in this world as I was, the only difference was she had someone helping her, several someones actually.

I fell back to the ground, knees giving out underneath me, leaving me in a crumple on the ground. Looking up I saw she had fared no better, she was laying on her side, panting just as heavily as I was before.

"Why did you do that?"

"To show you that you aren't alone in this world, don't let yourself push away your new friends here, let them help you. I will tell you right now that you cannot go back to your world, the magic required would be so great it would destroy this world, but I can show you what is happening on your world. Not right now though, I've used far too much magic, flying home is not a task I am looking forward to at the moment." Somehow, knowing that she was telling the truth calmed me down alot.

"Thank you, Princess."

"Luna, I don't like it when my friends can’t relax near me."

"Okay Luna, you can just call me Cass."

With a smile on her face, she took off and flew away, leaving me alone in the garden.

And dammit, I don't know how to get back to the hospital.

Comments

[Lumadous]

1104949

It's a good writing device that keeps people coming back, and I'm not going to complain about people coming back and reading more

[bladespinner4]

true that. And I just want you to know that I'm not trying to troll your story. I find it refreshing from all the sci-fi fiction stuff that's going around. anyway, keep up the good work and keep them chapter's rolling in.

[Lumadous]

1108772

Sci-fi, hmm, maybe I need to get out of my corner and read more stories, and if your trollin your doing it in a subtle way so I really don't mind, now I just need to figure out some way to introduce rarity without resorting to "oh you must meet my friend, she make dresses hur dur"

[bladespinner4]

I would suggest a chance encounter in the market where Rarity is buying supplies and your character accidently runs into her. Introductions are made and she critisises his uniform.

there yah go. thats one Idea.

[Sassaflash99]

Ummm.... PTSD stands for Post Tramatic Stress Disorder not Syndrome. Other than that, good chapter

[Lumadous]

1110902

thanks for the save

1110517

And how many times have I seen that done....

[bladespinner4]

it probobly has been done before. other than pinkie shooting him with the party cannon and him crashing through rarity's doorway, I might have a few other idea's

[Lumadous]

1113966
Well im listening

though I haven't read another story where pinkie had shot him with a cannon, its not surprising that i'm not the only one who had thought of her doin that

[bladespinner4]

well, there's alway's vinal scratches bass cannon. in case pinkie just dosen't work. The character could meet celestia and she could say that he dosen't have the proper clothing to walk around Ponyville in. I'm pretty sure a Mariene in full combat armor is a bit intimidating to pony's.

[Lumadous]

1114166

Not a marine, thought I had said US army at several points, i'll have to check that, and shoot him with vinyl scratche's cannon? I'd rather not kill him.

[bladespinner4]

who said that it would be set to max?

[Lumadous]

1114424
True, maybe if it was just set to dishwasher....maybe he would survive, maybe....

[Vates Despero]

"No, you've been unconscious for 8 days. When we first brought you in, you had fallin unconscious due to blood lose, and the doctors here gave you blood transfusion, and unfortunately there where a few complications, turns out human blood and pony blood are too different to be compatible. The shock to your system and the blood lose together almost killed you, fortunately for you I know a few spells that they didn't and we where able to save your life, barely. And as for Applejack and Big Mac, since we couldn't find the cockatrice that turned them to stone we were only able to make a partial cure, Applejack only just burst through the shell today, and it seems like the last thing she remembered was you flipping a table when Pinkie Pie surprised you."

"No, you've been unconscious for 8 days. When we first brought you in, you had fallen unconscious due to blood loss, and the doctors here gave you blood transfusion, and unfortunately there were a few complications, turns out human blood and pony blood are too different to be compatible. The shock to your system and the blood lose together almost killed you, fortunately for you I know a few spells that they didn't and we were able to save your life, barely. And as for Applejack and Big Mac, since we couldn't find the cockatrice that turned them to stone we were only able to make a partial cure, Applejack only just burst through the shell today, and it seems like the last thing she remembered was you flipping a table when Pinkie Pie surprised you."

Putting it through Google Docs will catch most problems like that with the build in editor.

[redskin122004]

Lady....Your bad memories don't even hit my 'I give a shit about you' bar. I would of been pissed off. Just because you gave me your memories, which i might add don't really move me, doesn't give you the right to just go ahead and mind rape me for your pleasure.

No wonder you were sent to the moon.

Cue the anger fight and raging

No, but really. I would of been really wary of Luna, probably refuse to even talk to her ever again if i could. Still good story though.

[Theresa]

1173970
Plus if you want trust you have to give it. He hasn't done anything but maybe hurt some feelings and not on purpose and her you might be dangerous is not good excuse for her behavior even if she went nuts and was punished for a thousand years.

[f0st3r21]

That was some forceful friendship, Princess. Dam.