//------------------------------// // Not What I Expected // Story: I'm Not A God! // by jwizard //------------------------------// My life is messed up. No, seriously; I have a really screwed up life. Perhaps I should explain myself. My name is Jake Welson. I’m- or rather was -twenty-seven years old. I live in a modest but well built mansion off the coast of Crete. Did I mention that I’m also rich? Oh, forgot that part. Oh, one moment… *ten minutes later* Sorry about that; Celly needed a bit of advice. Not the first time, though lately, it’s been far more frequent. Not sure why an alicorn older than most countries is coming to a twenty-something nerd, but apparently I have ‘untapped wisdom in great potential.’ Her words. Anyway, I should probably get back to my tale. My parents died in a car accident five years ago, leaving me with a modest inheritance. Most of that ended up getting sucked up by all the bills they and I had; after selling their house and paying off my student loans, I decided to invest all but around twenty grand. Before I get any further, let me say this; you know the old saying ‘lightning never strikes twice?’ Totally bogus. Anyway, I decided that I was going to have some fun in Atlantic City. Just before I left, I bought a couple of scratch off tickets. Much to my surprise, one of them was a winner. A five million dollar winner. After setting up my few remaining relatives- an aunt and her family -in a nice house, I put the rest into some more investments, then took my twenty grand to the casinos. I was down to my last two hundred when I won again, this time at a slot machine. Thirty-five million jackpot. This time, I invested in some stocks; some of those were from the casino. Needless to say, a lot of people were looking to see if I had cheated. After a rather tired six month investigation, they determined that I was simply bat-shit lucky. Not that having all of this money- my investments were bringing in more millions -was always a good thing. In fact, a whole bunch of people started claiming they were related to me. Let’s not forget all of my so-called friends. To get away from it all, I bought a small mansion on an an island off of Crete. Well, actually, the whole island, but that’s not part of this particular story. *a set of clopping hooves sounds next to John* Excuse me… Sorry about that; one of my efforts has been to help Rainbow Dash and her adopted daughter Scootaloo with the advanced flight prosthesis. Yes; that Rainbow Dash. Hey, I’m getting there, but if you really wanna know all of this, then I need to tell you how it all started. When I first saw my new late-modern Grecian mansion that I had bought for my early retirement- such as it was; all those investments made it so that I couldn’t fully retire -I was more than a little flustered. The place was a run-down wreck. Some local fishermen said the land- hell, the island -was cursed. As a result, nobody had lived here in years. Of course, being the skeptical sort, I didn’t buy it. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. In any case, the house needed a lot of work. After an hour of inspection- my dad had been a house inspector damn near Holmes’ caliber -I realized that it was just neglect. The foundation was solid, and most of the storm shutters were still intact. Plus, for some reason, there was a complete and utter lack of animal or insect damage. Again, one of the fishermen swore that that was because of the carved statues of Arachne and Artemis on the front plinths. I simply rolled my eyes. Again, I really wish I hadn’t been so skeptical. Fixing up my new home wasn’t all that hard. I spent my teen years working on my dad’s construction crew, so I was able to help the work crew I brought in. The village I now owned needed a lot more work, but after a few months, I was able to get a small working community going. Hey, I moved out here to escape all of those that knew me and wanted something from me, not to break off contact completely. If I wanted that, I would have bought a cabin in the middle of the Brazilian rain-forest. Believe me, I was sorely tempted. However, the first really weird thing happened only a couple of weeks after I moved in; it really helped to explain why house was so cheap. I didn’t actually have to buy the island; ended up doing so to secure my privacy. As I was saying, the weirdness began far before I managed to fix the house up. Then again, some of it actually helped with the fixing of my mansion. A thud awoke me from where I had been sleeping on the couch in my new foyer; my room wasn’t ready yet, as there was quite a bit of weather damage from one of the few broken windows. Damn kids and their rocks. Picking up my key-ring and my smartphone, I made my way to my mansion’s cellar. Like most older mansions, mine actually has three cellars. One for my collection of fine wine, one for the heating and plumbing, and one locked one that is mostly used for storage. The light on my phone illuminated the staircase as I made my way down. Once at the bottom, I turned on the overhead lights. Standing before me was the door to the storage room. Using my skeleton key, I unlocked it and went inside. For such an old mansion, there was very little dust in this room. Most of the stuff had sheets draped over them. Picking my way through the junk, I made my way over to the barred door on the other side. This led- or so I presumed, to the lower tier of the mansion that overlooked the low cliff. From what little research I was able to do, that part of the mansion was a restored temple to the goddess Eris. The previous owners had refurbished it into patio and enclosed garden. This room was supposed to be a coat room, but had been relegated to storage. Lifting the bar, I opened the heavy door. Half suspecting the hinges to creak, I was surprised that they didn’t. On the other side, I found what had caused the thump; a wooden effigy of a gryphon of all things had been knocked over. The reason was because a tree branch had somehow made its way through the door leading out to the back patio. A door that looked out into a forest. I stared at the branch in disbelief, then at the open door. This didn’t make a bit of sense! The mansion’s back end overlooked the ocean; it was one of the main selling points. Before I was able to get over my shock, a tugging sensation grabbed me at the navel and pulled my six-foot-four, two-hundred-twenty-five pound frame through the open door. I tried to brace myself against the doorjamb, but some force knocked me upside the head, causing me to black out. I came to feeling groggy, but otherwise fine. However, everything felt strange. Shaking my head, I climbed clumsily to my hooves to get a decent look at the large clearing I found myself in. I glanced to my left and saw a shimmering door on the other side. Wait a moment; hooves?! I looked down; sure enough, I was now the proud owner of two pairs of hooves. Something on my back went fwoosh; I turned my head to see a pair of silver-gray wings. I lifted my front right hoof and tapped where I could feel a weight on my forehead. Yep, you guessed it; like every bad fimfiction out there, I was apparently in Equestria. As an alicorn. Cue the groans. Before I could get my bearings any further, I heard a scream. A pair of ponies- one a dark mulberry, the other a pale blue with a beard -came crashing through the trees to my left, just to the side of the portal. Right behind them was a gryphon holding a scythe in one talon. The male gryphon- what I would later find out was called a tiercel -took a swipe at the filly with the scythe. My gaze took on a reddish tinge as my anger flared. My horn lit up bright silver; pointing it at the miserable creature, I decided that he was better off as as statue. A bolt of silver energy struck the tiercel in the chest. He flared, turning into wood. The scythe caught on a branch nearby, dragging it back through the portal I took earlier. Before I could say anything else, the doorway closed behind it. Great ;now I was stuck. Heaving a sigh, I decided to make the best of it. I sat down and motioned to the two. They joined me somewhat hesitatingly. I looked closer at them, realizing that they both looked familiar. The stallion wore a long- tattered robe and a hat with bells on it. Though he was fairly young, I could see that he had a long beard. His horn bore a ring of dense metal. The filly, aside from being a cherry mulberry in color, also had a ring around her horn. Plus, she had heavy horseshoes on her hooves; they looked painful. The stallion cleared his throat. “What little magic I can command through this ring told me I’d find aid this way. I wasn’t expecting a pegacorn. Your kind seldom leave Elysia.” He gestured in the direction of the hapless gryphon. “My name is Star Swirl, and this is my young ward and pupil Clover. Might I know your name?” I shook my head in disbelief. Star Swirl, in the flesh! Seeing that I had yet to answer, I opened my mouth to do so. “My name is Able Hooves, and I’m not from Elysia.” Star Swirl looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Hmm, a common-born. Well, I thank you.” He gestured to his horn and little Clover’s poor hooves. “I hate to ask, but could you use your magic to remove these?” I nodded. “As long as I can keep them in return, as payment.” I focused on the objects. With a pop, both horn rings slid off, and the shoes dropped off the filly’s hooves. She sighed in relief, then glomped me. Star Swirl’s horn sparked as he conjured a saddlebag for them. He then draped it over my back. “The temple is not far from here; once there, these blasted mercenaries won’t trouble us.” He trotted off, the filly following. I followed as well, once more marveling at the fact that this form felt so natural. It unnerved me to no end. A few minutes later, we arrived at the nearby temple. I was immediately struck by the similarities between that and my back patio; if I didn’t know better, I’d say that they were the same building. Clover galloped to an open doorway; myself and Star Swirl followed more sedately. “I must thank you my friend; I could have easily removed the bindings myself, but I can do little to aid little Clover beyond teaching her. Her destiny is greater than my own.” He waved a hoof. “That is why we’ve come here; the God of Need should protect her.” “God of Need?” I asked. Star Swirl nodded, a smile on his muzzle. “Though little is known about him, it is said that things of an unusual nature will happen to ponies. Sometimes they will find themselves in places they weren’t supposed to be; other times they would find something unusual. One thing that is often a part of this though is the meeting of a person of great and unusual powers. He is not always a pegacorn, but he always has whatever the pony needs. He gives aid in return for payment.” Star Swirl summoned a tattered yet quite familiar book. “He gave this to me when I was but a colt; it is how I earned my Emblem.” Star Swirl looked at me with a stern gaze. “When you do meet my younger self, tell me nothing of this.” He held out his hoof; on it was a stone the size of his frog. I lifted it up and placed it in my bag. I turned to trot over to where I saw a trough and saw that a nearby archway was glowing. “Oh no, here we go again, “ I groaned as I was pulled through it.