Wind Chaser

by Thaylien

Chapter 2

Wind Chaser, Chapter Two

In which the story of the main protagonist is explained in the form of his own introduction, and also in which the author hopes that all of his new concepts are clearly outlined, or at least happily left until later to explain.

This is fun, I should do more of this... although... I'm not sure anypony's paying attention.

* * *

Just after dawn, in the country of England, a young man with windblown brown hair and smiling golden eyes was arriving at work.

Dressed as he was, jeans, t-shirt, hiking boots, a brown bomber jacket and some flying goggles tucked into his pocket, he looked a little out of place as he made his way up the steps of a city office block.

The uniformed security on the door opened it for him as he approached, probably because he was carrying a covered hot drink in each hand, but the crisp salute and quiet ‘Sir.’ would have intrigued the average watcher.

If you were more than the average watcher, you would have seen the way the guard’s eyes were glued to the back of the young man’s neck, right where the big padded collar of his jacket folded over. A tiny pair of copper-brown eyes, topped with a green headband and brown locks of hair, was watching him right back, until they closed sleepily and vanished into the comfort of the collar again.

He walked with an easy strolling gait, lanky legs carrying him quickly through the lobby, and passed a ‘good morning’ with the receptionists, smiling warmly. The effect was of a junior office boy fetching a drink for his boss, but again, both the receptionists and the guard on the inner door waved him on with a salute and a ‘Sir’ in their words.

He was heading down, first the elevator for a few floors, and then down via some stairs, until the floors stopped being tiled in carpet and gave way to concrete and painted guides for different sections.

Eventually he reached it, and ‘it’ was an impressive sight indeed. A steel door, flush with the wall, at the end of its own featureless corridor. Surrounded by black-and-yellow markings and with a yellow-outlined ‘keep clear’ area in front of it, the door was watched by not just a regular roof-mounted camera, but also three separate cameras embedded in the walls to foil anyone who made it this close without setting off the main one. He knew this, he’d been coming here for months now, a guinea pig for the tests they ran within.

Pressing the intercom invoked the bored male voice that inhabited the room beyond, “Access code.”

He grinned up at the camera and gestured with the cups, “I have tea.”

“Close enough.” A buzzer sounded and the door seal cracked open. The internal hydraulics took over and slid the impressively thick door out of its equally impressive housing, the young man hopping inside before it had even opened fully, allowing it to close all the more quickly.

Inside was a mad scientist’s dream. Walls of panels blinked at him, to his right a bank of servers flickered and attempted to remake the mythic labyrinth with the cables that ran between them, the air-conditioned boxes they stood in keeping the rest of the room cool enough to work in. The wall behind him and to his left, and what parts of the far wall that could be too were panelled over in copper and steel. Many of these panels were open, bundles of cables corded together and snaking off to all different corners of the room, hundreds of them taped to the floor to prevent people tripping over them. What wasn’t cabled was covered in switches, dials, displays, gauges and things that went beep every so often.

The crowning glory was the Transporter. A breakthrough in scientific research so profound that the ramifications of it were still being theorised by the experts a decade after its discovery, and seven months after it was eventually built and ready to test. It consisted of a single platform of steel grid, surrounded by over a hundred pointy attenuators, claw-ended arms, projector tipped wands and so many bits and pieces that uniformly conspired to spark arcs of electricity from one chromed surface to another every few seconds.

All of this glorious scientific magic was run from a glass-walled control room at the back, occupied by a single desk, a single monitor and single keyboard and mouse. Admittedly a very large monitor, and very sleek keyboard and mouse, and a very expensive desk, but that was really it. The back wall was covered in a whiteboard of charts and around this were pictures, most of them featuring himself or people he knew very well, and all of them taken on the Transporter. He could see from here the biggest of them, himself holding up a sword as wide as he was, and twice as long, as if it was a prize fish... good times, memories all.

The office contained two more things; an operative in his middle years, and the operative’s lunches and snacks and drinks for the last seven months, or what was left of them. Empty pizza boxes, pot-noodles, mugs, cups, bowls, take-away chinese boxes... sentient life was developing somewhere among them, he had no doubt.

“Morning Allen,” he called as he made his way around to the office.

“Mornin’” Allen’s eyebrows made it over the top of the monitor as he replied, little else changed.

“Tea.” he put the cup down, “Made by mine own hand, flown to you at Mach 3 without losing the temperature, and now faithfully deposited on your desk. Your gratitude may be expressed in the form of interpretive dance.” He grinned, knowing Allen was good for the humour.

Allen greedily slurped at the scalding brew, his hardened, IT department gullet not even flinching from the heat, and he gratefully performed a few seated maneuvers to show he got the joke.

“You’re a wonder, Nick, a true marvel of our age.” Allen pointed out, “How many of our Elite Guardians would you catch bringing the hired help a cup of tea first thing in the morning?”

“I’d pay good money to see some of them try making it... My team’s the only English one around.”

“Americans just don’t get tea, do they?” Allen sympathised,

“Nope, but we can’t blame them all, a lot of them have pretty good taste. Shame the few let the side down.” He chuckled, token USA mickey-taking was always a good subject to work with. “Anyway, let’s get started, the Council wants results, and they want them fast.”

“As always, prove the machine works, and put our best guys on the spot to make it happen. So, where do you want to go today, Nick?”

Nick made his way out the door and went to inspect the Transporter, not for the first time, and see if he could make any more sense of it than last time. “Somewhere fun today, Allen, all my other missions have been all about the doom and saving the universe. For once, I’d like to help out a world that’s also fun to be on.”

“Sure thing, can do.” Allen started keying commands and clicking through menus.

Nick cocked an eyebrow, “You’re kidding? Just like that?”

“Yeah, we put that in over the weekend. Remember the team we had observing the last trip? They found a way to key personality deviations into the process to tailor missions even more precisely to the subjects. You’ll even be able to take Kirianna along with you this time.”

“At last!” Nick smiled broadly, “You awake, Kiri? Hear that? You’re coming with!”

The back of his collar moved and a fairy, an actual, living, breathing, winged and magic-dust-producing fairy sat up and stretched. “And here I was looking forward to a lie in.” She yawned.

Nick tousled her hair with a fingertip, which she warded off with threats of the tiny dagger she kept at her hip.

“You know the drill, lets start this up.” Allen spoke into the monitor’s microphone, his voice emerging over the speakers.

“I never thought I’d be used to this.” Nick said, mounting the platform in the centre of the room and placing his hands onto the panels that lowered out of the ceiling. He looked straight ahead at the red target on the far wall, which kept him from moving too much during the procedure to come. “Teleporting around the world, around dimensions, and saving the universe... I thought it was bad enough with just Earth to look after.”

“Nick, we’re under observation conditions, please keep the chatter down.” Allen warned him, “Besides, you’re the guy who sprouts angel wings and fights off crazy super-powered bad-guys for a living. Oh, and lets not forget there’s a fairy in your jacket.”

“Touché.” Nick nodded, “Right, I’m ready, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Initialising now.” Machinery sparked and hummed to life around the platform, electricity arcing faster and faster between the arms of the device.

“Scanning... objectives confirmed. Nick, your destination isn’t Earth, there are a couple of possibilities... Checking preferences... You’ve got one solid match to your powers and abilites, but here’s the catch; it’s a non-human world.”

Nick didn’t like some of those missions, the ones that required him to become another creature... His last mission had been... well, the singing through his skin had been cool, but the tentacles were just plain weird. Never a water-world, never again. “What’s the reference?” He asked.

“Earth basic world, target species ninety-nine per cent match to earth mammal. No tentacles this time m’man.” Even Allen grinned at this one, he remembered turning Nick into that thing all too well.

“Fun.” Nick said, mostly to himself, “Do it.” Allen keyed the commands.

“Transporter starting up, morphology adjustment initialising. Charging. Sampling target species. Keying to subject A, Nick Evans, and subject A beta, Kirianna. Compensating for soul-link between subjects. Compensating for powers and abilities. Transformation in 3... 2... 1...”

The panels under his hands zapped him, causing Nick to writhe for a second as if tasered. He felt warmer, falling limply to all fours as he tried to shake off the effects of having his mind and body forcibly re-written to another species.

“Complete. Transporting to destination in 3...” Nick had time to blink, realising his eyes were in a different proportion than before, wider, larger on his head.

“2...” He looked down at his... white fetlocks and cream hooves? “1...”

“Scorch m-”

There was a stutter of electrical discharge and a noise. It was the inexplicable sound of somebody popping a bubble that itself was filled with the sound of a metal spring being rung with a wine glass. Nick and his fairy were gone.

* * *

“-e!” Nick blinked, shaking his head and looking around.

It never ceased to amaze him, teleportation and dimensional jumping. People like him had this power, he’d met them, fought alongside them and even against a few, but for him the idea of going to a place completely outside his own universe was still very new and exciting, every time.

But first, time to check out what his new body was like. He had hooves, last he checked, and on looking down, there they were.

“Kiri, I need to borrow your eyes a second.”

I’m not coming out. Kirianna’s voice was in his head, their link letting them talk mind-to-mind, but she usually didn’t use it because it sent over her emotions and connected thoughts too; Nick felt a little wave of red-faced embarrassment from her, and thoughts about hands.

“You know, if it’s that bad, you’re only going to make me laugh harder the more you put it off, right?” Nick couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle his sharp-tongued partner. He felt the equivalent of a mental shrug as she gave in and flew from the back of his neck.

What met Nick’s eyes was... hilarious. She was a little round ball of green fluff, with long dragonfly wings and gigantic copper eyes. It was adorable, absolutely, completely adorable. But like dressing a cat in a tutu, you knew that the cat was planning to murder you in your sleep for laughing. Still, he nearly collapsed from trying not to laugh too much.

Yeah, yeah, pony features, check out yourself before you laugh at me. And Nick’s laughter turned to surprise as she started sending him a feed of what she could see. It was a useful trick almost all the time, everything from eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head in a fight to spy work. Only time it wasn’t was when Kirianna chose to take a shower with other girls. Didn’t matter whether he was able to peep or not, the girls would beat him senseless on principle.

He was... well, loosely, an actual pony. Long muzzle, mane and tail the same colour as his hair had been, coat of soft, white fur, hooves, the whole pony shebang. Only differences from normal were the proportioning, this kind of pony seemed... almost cartoony, the eyes being key to that; they were huge and mostly forward facing, allowing him fairly normal vision. And also the presence of a large brand, or logo, or something on his flank. It appeared to be a standard winged shield motif, if a little childish on the wings, which were folded down the sides instead of spread out, with a red circle device on the shield. Reminded him of his pendant which, like all his clothes, was now missing.

“This is... somehow weirder than everything else I’ve done so far.” Nick commented dryly to his partner. Also weird was the talking, he hadn’t expected to be able to vocalise as normal.

Can you transform? She asked him, curious and with the image of a pegasus appearing in her thoughts, Because pegasus form would be really cool.

Nick gathered himself and did just that. His transformation wasn’t a flashy affair, a burst of air from his gain in mass and a brief light playing all over his coat as if somebody was shining torches on him, and he was done. He stood now a good six inches taller, deep chested and with dense muscles. White wings, wide and sharp-feathered, adorned his back behind his shoulders and the mark on his flank had spread its cartoon wings.

“Pegasus I am.” Nick nodded in satisfaction, Kirianna’s eyes better than any mirror as she circled him to check the changes, “Transformation is a go, and I’m guessing I still have most of the same powers.” He held up a hoof which... failed to do anything at all.

Aww, Nick, don’t feel bad honey, Kirianna’s voice was laden with smirking, it happens to a lot of guys, maybe you just need a few minutes.

“Shut it, tart.” Nick quipped back with a grin. Well, it had happened before, Transcendant powers often didn’t translate entirely from one world to the next. Hurling energy from his hooves obviously wasn’t on the agenda this time.

“These downsides usually balance something else though, Kiri, what else do you think I can do?”

Well we’ll never find out sitting here, lets go find out about this world.

She was right, of course, it was time to find out why he was here.

* * *

Transportation, the greatest scientific discovery of the millenium, even in the first decade of the millenium there would almost certainly be none to rival it for innovation for a thousand years. It was a process by which a person, object or even group of either, could be instantly placed anywhere in the universe. It was by accident that the creator of it also found that it could be used to place them anywhere in any universe. Nick remembered it well, he’d been the test subject.

Over the years of theory, and over months of testing, the accuracy had gotten better and better. That’s when the latest round of ideas had come in. Following the trend of missions that resulted from Transporter use, the theorists formed a loose set of rules. First, alarmingly, the Transporter wanted to help the user. It wasn’t sentient, but it demonstrated too many incidences of spontaneous action that averted disaster or adjusted locations and even whole universes to prevent accidents caused by user-created errors. First rule therefore was that you could calibrate a transport to what the subject was best suited for, the Transporter itself would handle the how to get there. Second, due to the disparate natures of realities, the transporter could also adjust a subject’s morphic field to match the native species of a world, so as to fit in better, or not if remaining human was more beneficial. Even though the process was now a traceable and manageable thing, the Transporter still decided whether it was necessary. Third, the Transporter would invariably attempt to place you where you would naturally encounter the purpose of your travel. If you were going to have fun on a beach, it would place you outside a set of changing rooms in sight of the beach. If you were going to save a world from an evil tyrant, you would be placed near the rebel headquarters. It was a little more nuanced than this, however it was generally deemed that the first individual you met on a mission would be the most influential person in succeeding.

There were many theories too as to why the Transporter would place people on other worlds when looking for ways to help. And it was the popular theory again that the worlds in question needed two things; first they needed somebody with the skills or mind-set of the subject, and while that same person may have already existed in that world, by law of averages, they secondly needed an Outsider. Capital ‘O’. Somebody who could act and then leave, vanish. Whether that was because order would establish itself better without that person, or because that outsider could be used as a scapegoat that would never have to suffer the consequences.

In any case, the Transporter knew what it was doing, and as confusing as this sounded, it had been working out amazingly well so far.

* * *

The world in which Nick found himself was a countryside paradise. Living in England, the country was never far away, however it was ordered, managed. There were fields everywhere, but each was owned and farmed, or simply owned when things got too steep.

Here was rolling, open countryside, fences and hedge-rows were simply non-existent. A forest, deep and heavy with age, clung to the land a few miles away, while a river played its way through a small valley nearby.

It was amazingly peaceful, with a quiet breeze, warm sun, little wisps of cloud on the horizon and all throughout it permeated the smell of summer greenery.

But enough about the ground, what he wanted was the sky.

With a bunch of his new muscles, he threw himself into the air. His wings, ethereal energy made solid, were sweeping again and again, driving him with more power than any normal wing could muster. If he were to stop driving ahead, his wings would float him back down like a feather, even upside-down, but right now, he needed to fly and fly fast.

This was living, this was freedom, this was something so few people could experience back home that he actually felt sorry for anybody that couldn’t fly like this.

His new body adjusted quickly, easily. If there was one thing he enjoyed about changing shape for missions it was the way it was never awkward. In its urge to help, the Transporter reconfigured the brain to the new shape without losing the memories of the original, meaning that while you could feel the difference between, say, four legs and two, you were as smooth and easy on four as you were on two. Or twelve, if he recalled the tentacles. Never again... but still, twelve was a good record for legs. That’s not even including the arms.

The air was crisp and clear, the highest and wispiest of clouds were the only thing between him and space, and it was a matter of moments to reach them. Too many moments though... “Kiri, were you timing that?”

Yeah, what’s your problem? This height usually takes a whole two seconds less than that.

“I think it’s the wings...” Nick mused, floating groundwards, conversely a little faster than usual, “If I go by the proportions of the grass and the trees around where we started, my wingspan here can’t be more than six feet, right? It’s a third what it was back home!” He knocked his hooves together, like slapping a fist into his palm, “Has to be it.” He sat down.

Nick? Kirianna began, Just in case mentioning it breaks the trick... how are you sitting down?

Nick frowned and looked down. He was still above the clouds. He was sitting on the clouds. He stood up. He folded his wings. It felt... like a thick layer of fuzzy cotton, except it was definitely water, and it was definitely holding him up. A non-elastic trampoline of it... a mattress? No... It was like describing what a cloud looked like to a blind person, he’d never felt anything like it, but it was definitely and unquestionably the sensation of standing and sitting on a cloud.

“I think we’ve figured out one of the benefits.” He smiled.

* * *

An hour playing with clouds was well spent. He found all sorts of things out about them, they were solid enough, so long as it was him doing things, the moment they interacted with anything else, they drifted apart like the vapour they were. He could burst them like smoke, spin them like tops, hang from them, bounce on them... and this last one he discovered made any cloud thick enough start to rain. He even doused himself down with some concentrated rainwater too! This was fantastic!

Enough was enough, however, it was time to find some locals to study. First one would be his ‘assignment’, but if he played it right, he could actually find out a little about this world first, and not seem so weird. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, either way, better safe than sorry. Admittedly, his friendly nature had gotten the better of him plenty of times, striking up conversations when a native spotted him rather than playing it cool. As he said, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Pretty soon though, he was lost to flying again. He loved it, beyond words. Even something as simple to consider, like ‘would the sight of a pegasus be as unusual to ponies as a guy with angel wings would be to a human?’ didn’t register consciously as he zipped about, playing with the air.

Wings scooped and flicked sending him spinning once, twice, three times upwards in a vertical corkscrew. His head snapping around like a ballet dancer’s to lock onto the horizon, keeping him balanced, and letting him practically blast out of the spin and on into more loops and tricks. And finally, dragging Kirianna along by her teeth in his mane, he sprinted straight for a hill with a single tree on it. He wasn’t the most mathematical, but between Kirianna’s timing and some basic sums in his head he could work out how fast he could fly at top speed.

Half way there though, he became distracted yet again. His eyes were drawn upwards to a natural circle of clouds, a ring of little fluffy cloudlets arranged like a finishing goal. It was right over the top of the tree he was aiming for, due up, and high enough to make it fun. New plan, Kiri! He grinned.

As late as he possibly could, his wings providing another amazing talent of nearly pinpoint turning, he pulled up inches from the leaves of the tree on top of the hill. Utterly brilliant as it was, the perpendicular climb was even better. Wings sweeping as smoothly as possible to keep his upwards momentum, he thundered through the ring of tiny clouds.

Sunshine blasted his face as he crested out, balancing backwards on his wings, all four hooves in the air as he kicked them in time to his laughter. This was fan-tastic!!

"YEAAAH!!" he shouted, "That was AWESOME! Kiri, we've GOT to do that again." Laughing, he just lay back and enjoyed the adrenaline high.

There’s somebody here! Kirianna’s voice cracked like a whip, A local, and you’re in luck for a change, it’s a pegasus too.

“What? Local? Where?”

Flipping back over, he found them... her... wow....

What caught him first were the eyes, staring back up at him from one of the small clouds, a pink, like magenta, shading to plum, wide and clear. Next was the windblown mane and tail, they were rainbows! All six colours from one side to the other! Amazing! Well, he admitted to himself that it would be less amazing if they were a dye job, but what if they were real? And then her coat, it was cyan, a light, open-sky blue, unlike anything he’d ever seen on earth. The mark on her flank was a cloud with a tri-colour lightning bolt. Hang on... when had he decided she was a she? But she definitely was, this was a female pegasus.

He was still staring, she was still staring, big magenta eyes giving him the once over the same way he’d been doing to her. Kirianna finally gave up and bonked him on the head, bodily.

You’re being rude, you big oaf!

"Wha-? OH! Right! Sorry Kiri." He hovered lower, this whole experience feeling very surreal, a real pegasus, and she was blue...

"Sorry, I'm not used to this place yet. Nice to meet you." He extended a hoof, hoping that they shook hooves, or something, as a greeting.

She recovered from her stare and gave him a big grin, knocking her hoof on his like a fist-bump, "Heh, nice to meet you too, those were some pretty sweet moves back there." Oh thankyoooou Transporter! He understood the language! Her voice was scratchy, definitely female, but tomboyish. He liked how open she was, considering how much they’d both stared.

“Thanks, I kinda needed to work the kinks out, y’know?”

"Totally. Of course, you're not up to my standard, but you're not bad. Where are you from?"

Not up to her standard, hmm? Well maybe I should test that theory, anyway, "Heh, you wouldn’t have hea-… Oh scorch me! I've done it again!" His eyes flew wide in shock, "Sorry, gotta fly!"

* * *

Not again! Kirianna berated him internally, I cannot believe you did it again.

The chase was over, the blue pegasus was flying back the way they’d come and he was sedately walking down the road, feigning innocence as hard as he could.

This wasn’t going to hold up under close scrutiny, however. Unlike back home, his features didn’t change enough to fool people between his transformation and his regular self. As a human, the disparity between his transformed face, height, stature and so on, could be compounded by a change of clothes and a quick spray of a different deodorant, making it impossible to connect the six-foot-four lanky twenty year old with the seven-foot-four professional athlete type who’d been seen minutes earlier. Here... he was still a white pony, with a brown mane and tail, a green flying pet and a shield mark on his flank. Even if he was pysically different, those three facts would connect him to the pegasus she’d seen before.

He should hide out for a while until things settled down. Maybe that small woodland area from before?

Turning around and heading back towards it, he sped up to a trot, and then a canter, and finally a gentle gallop, stretching his legs over the dirt and even enjoying the feeling of running on four hooves. The authors had the right of it, horses and ponies could run so easily it was ridiculous. Especially if they were in good condition.

He smoothly (this pony thing was actually making him jealous, so much easier than as a human) jumped one of the first fences he’d seen and crossed the small open space into what he now realised was an orchard.

Well tended trees and carefully trimmed grass were the order of the day here, acres and acres of land devoted to an abundance of trees, different types of apple all mixed in together but no trees seeming to interfere with each other.

What Nick couldn’t understand was how she’d been faster than he was. His wings weren’t real, they were energy, and back home they could actually push him to mach 3 and higher, provided he took a rebreather and full body protection to let him stay there beyond a few moments. Today he’d just had it shoved in his face that he was limited to an amazingly slow speed by comparison.

And she’s going... going... gone! Kirianna said, feeding Nick the image of the blue pegasus, leaving a rainbow trail behind her, disappearing over the treetops. She looked ticked.

“Well you would be too if somebody just did what I did.” Nick’s mouth quirked and his eyebrows drew together, slightly regretting it now.

Well, could be worse, at least this one’s still looking for you. Steamed or not, that’s an improvement on that one that thought you were her ex and tried to escape from you for five days. He could feel the needling in her thoughts, she had loved learning about that particular mission, Don’t worry about it, just find out some more about this world then go flying for a while until she spots you and kicks you in the face.

“Either way, I’ve got lots of explaining to do when I meet her again.”

“Ee-yup.” Nick jumped a clear foot in the air.

* * *

I like these kinds of cliffhangers! Thanks for reading, everypony, I really appreciate you taking the time.

No, this isn't my first fan-fiction, yes it's my first Pony one, and I desperately hope I've learned from my mistakes on the others. (I.E. It’s the characters from the series that are important, not your own, and that you need to work twice as hard to reduce the double-whammy of Mary-Sue that OC insert fictions produce.)

Comments

[Sonicbrony66]

Wot.

[Thaylien]

77944

Wot wot?

[Celestial]

So that's where the first chapter went! I should have known better... again
I's being very nice so far! 5/5 yays my good sir