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// Those Left Behind 
// Story: Tales of First Contact: Tragedy 
// by Banjo64 
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First Contact had gone better than anyone had dared to hope. Interdimensional relationships started strong, and only grew stronger with time. Heck, I saw it happen on live TV, and I still can’t believe how smoothly things went when the first trade deals were finalized. There was just something about those ponies that made everyone want to get along.

While I’ve heard more than my fair share of conspiracy theories, I think it’s just because they're so dog gone cute.

But, as always when there’s some great big world changing event, there are those poor few who are going to find their lives ruined by what improves the lives of everyone else. See, that's the thing about history: it tends to forget all the little people who get left behind. First contact with the ponies was no exception.

Jewelers found their incomes cut to ridiculous lows once it was apparent how commonplace ‘precious’ stones were in Equestria. Energy Companies went bankrupt overnight when it was discovered ponies had proven Tesla right and could provide free power to everyone. And don’t get me started on the “horse rights” debate. There’s more than enough about that mess on the internet already.

And then there’s the group I was a part of.





I woke up with a massive headache and my body aching. It felt like my veins had been pumped full of liquid fire. I managed to glance down to see I was wearing a strange black skin-tight outfit, and that I was lying on rather flimsy bed.

Looking around as best I could, I appeared to be in some sort of white sterilized room. This wasn’t a particularly pleasant revelation. I’d seen enough movies to guess where this was going. I also noticed a man in a lab coat sitting nearby holding a tablet.

“Are you alright?” he asked me.

I figured I was in some kind of hospital, so I answered honestly.

“Not really. My whole body feels like crap,” I answered.

“Good. That means we managed to prevent any preemptive nerve damage,” he said as he looked down at his tablet.

Needless to say, the idea that I had been in danger of nerve damage did not fill me with confidence. That said, I was never one for drawing things out.

“Alright, why don’t we just to the point? What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

The man sighed.

“Can you remember what you were doing last?” he asked.

I thought about it for a moment, then I remembered that I had been going to the hospital to undergo arcanic testing. This set all kinds of alarm bells off in my mind, as this meant there were only two possible reasons I could be in such shape now, and one of them wouldn't have needed to have me hospitalized.

I guess I should elaborate, considering this might be ancient history someday. Back when the portal was first opened, Earth had no magic. I’m sure that must sound crazy to you, but it’s true. There was a time when we didn’t have magic freely flowing in the air we breathed. Of course, this caused a small panic at first since no one had any idea what magic exposure would do to a people that had never touched it before.

Fortunately, for 99.99% of the human population, the answer was nothing. Well, mostly. Most humans when exposed to magic only feel a very faint feeling of euphoria. And by faint, I mean no stronger than what one feels upon stepping outside and feeling sunlight on their skin. As such, it caused quite a stir when that remaining 0.01% was exposed.

There were three possible reactions: The good one, the bad one, and the ugly one. The good one caused humans to start developing their own magic. The bad one caused humans to get sick with exposure, but there were ways to get around this. And the ugly one… well, it seemed like that was the one fate had decided to slam me with.

My expression must have told him my thoughts.

“Are you aware of why you are here?” he asked.

I sighed and nodded.

“I’m one unlucky son of a gun,” I answered, trying to push away the figurative weight that was pressing down on me.

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose. Do you know understand why you are in such a state?” He asked.

I nodded again. I’d seen it on the news enough to know.

Of that remaining 0.01%, the majority underwent a small metamorphosis that resulted in them developing their own arcanic tissue. You know, that stuff that lets ponies take in the magic in the atmosphere and turn it into the energy they use for their spells? I never took the time to learn the details, but what it basically amounted to was that a select few lucky humans gained their own magic abilities.

Of course, as I’m writing this, there has been no major breakthroughs on what exactly these magic abilities are. But considering how excited humans and ponies alike are to find out, I’m certain it won’t stay that way for long. Especially since pony sciences theorised that with constant magic exposure, magic humans will likely become increasingly common as generations pass.

Less joyful are the humans who upon being exposed to magic have a more negative reaction. I’m sure there’s some fancy scientific term for it, but everyone calls it magic allergies. And I mean serious allergies, not just getting a runny nose. These unlucky souls could easily die from exposure to magic.

Fortunately, this was an easy probably to fix. There are certain metals in Equestria that can, through some kind of arcanic something or other, prevent the body from absorbing magic in the air. So, just get a customizable necklace made of the stuff, and you’re good to go as long as you don’t visit Equestria proper. Also, it’s theorized that this particular magic reaction will likely become nonexistent as magic becomes more widespread.

With a slim, but serious danger of dying from magic exposure, it was agreed by nearly everyone that measures should be taken to ensure that no poor sap ended up dying in the street because a unicorn tourist walked past him. As such, several nations, including my own, decided to perform controlled testing to check for magic allergies.

Which leads us to the third possible reaction to magic exposure. This reaction is so rare that when I went in for my magic test, almost sixty percent of the human population already exposed to magic, and there had been only thirty-six cases worldwide.

And wouldn’t you know it, I was case number thirty-seven.

It’s official name is Arcanous Toxacosus. You know those two previous reactions I mentioned? Where some humans began developing magic and other were allergic to it? Well, Arcanous Toxacosus is when a human does both. My body was creating magic tissue, which was also poisoning it.

“How long do I have?” I asked.

“The suit you’re wearing is designed to slow the development of the tissue, but it wouldn’t be able to stop it entirely. As it stands, I’m afraid you have, at best, eighteen hours to live unless you undergo treatment,” he explained.

I winched. After the first few cases of AT, the powers-that-be had come together to find a way to save future patients. While they weren’t willing to invest too much money in developing a cure to a disease that would affects so few people and would likely never emerge again, a solution had been found. Two solutions in fact. The catch was that neither of them were especially pleasant, but they’d both hopefully keep me alive.

Option A would be to undergo a rapid extraction surgery, which is a fancy way of saying “take out all the toxic tissue as it develops.” The problem, aside from having every inch of my body cut open, is that arcanic tissue grows dangerously close to the nervous system. So if I undergo surgery, it’s very likely I’ll end up suffering some form of nerve damage. Using magic to make it easier isn’t an option either, as it would just pump me full of the stuff we’d be trying to keep out.

On the plus side though, after the surgery that would be the end of it. I’d get compensation for my unfortunate condition, be given an anti-magic necklace, and I’d be free to go back to my life as if nothing had happened as a normal human with magic allergies. Well, assuming I don’t end up too crippled to continue doing my job.

Option B is a bit more complicated, though the logic behind it is just as simple. If my body can’t survive magic exposure, then we’ll just have to change it so that it can. They could even use magic to make it happen as I would not longer have reason to wary of it. The problem is that most magical methods of transforming something into something else are either temporary, or don’t alter something to the degree I’d need to change.

Fortunately, there was one exception, though it was a spell that was declared illegal by every single nation on the other world. And everyone had agreed to make an exception for those poor few who share my condition, the spell’s illegal for several very good reason.

First of all, the spell is excruciatingly painful to go under. I’d have to spend half an hour feeling each cell in my body rebuild itself from the ground up, and anesthesia wasn’t an option for some convoluted bio-magic reason.

And there’s the matter of what the spell actually does. While I still don’t understand a word of all the magic technicalities behind it, the bottom line is that the spell can only be used to turn something into one of the half dozen templates that had been created with the actual spell. And of those templates, only one had been approved for use on those with AT.

You can probably guess where this is going, and yes. The spell would turn me into a pony. What pony exactly is unclear, as the template doesn’t specify. Nothing is for certain. I could end up as any race, color, age, body shape, or even gender. Yeah, I could end up as a baby female alicorn with wings as big as a bumble bee’s and a horn longer than the Princesses’. It’s very unlikely, but it’s possible.

And with a new body comes new problems. At the very least I’d need therapy to help me relearn how to walk, talk, and come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t human anymore. Add on having to learn about magic, possibly flying, and goodness know what else, it’s more likely than not that I’d end up having to move to Equestria for a year or two to learn everything.

But on top of all that, there’s one more problem with this option, and it’s the main reason why it’s illegal. You know that whole nature vs nurture debate? Well, regardless of which is more important, I think we can all agree that they both play some part in making us who we are. This transformation spell would effectively rewrite the nature part of my mind.

Now, this wouldn’t brainwash me or anything. The the nurture part of me would be completely unaffected. I’d still have all my memories, and my personality would remain almost entirely the same. The key word being almost. There would likely be subtle little changes. Not enough to, say, change how quickly I get angry or anything, but it would still be there.

But once my learning spree was over, I’d be a normal adult pony with my mind mostly unaffected. I’d be perfectly healthy too, as the transformation spell has never resulted in health issues. I’d probably have to make some serious adjustments to my life, but I’d be guaranteed to continue living just fine and fully functional.

So those were my options: I could either go under the knife and likely come out a paralyzed human, or I can painful turn into a pony, spend years relearning everything, and have some small part of my mind be rewritten.

“How long do I have to chose?” I asked.

“Considering the time needed to set up your decision and how long you have until the pain is expected to overwhelm you, twelve hours,” he answered.





I was given access to a phone, so the first thing I did was talk to my family. My dad insisted that being paralyzed was better than being a pony, but the man was known for being very slow to embrace new things so I took his advice with a grain of salt. My mother was hysterical, but managed to choke out that she would support me regardless of my choice. My little sister jokingly said that she was looking forward to a lifetime of free pony rides, but I could hear the despair in her voice.

I think the best advice came from my uncle. He argued that while I had been dealt a lousy hand, I would gain nothing from dwelling on that. He suggested that I don’t think about what I’m losing, but instead think of what I wanted to have more. I can either get back my human form and mind and quickly move on, or I can get a healthy pony body and bring magic into my life.

I also did some research into the thirty-six other poor saps to come before me. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, but I still found a rather ugly picture. And not everyone had even gotten the choice I had. Four had died before the condition had been recognized, and one man committed suicide once he had been informed of his condition.

Of thirty-five remaining, fourteen had opted for the surgery. Their post-surgery symptoms ranged from losing control of one of their arms to winding up in a wheelchair. One poor guy ended up paralyzed from the neck down, and another had died from complications. Despite this, most of them had managed to continue living comfortably.

The last seventeen had opted to undergo the transformation. All of them had completed their transformation just fine, and none of them had ended up the wrong gender. One guy had ended up as a little colt, though apparently he wasn’t too upset about it. All of them were currently in Equestria, where apparently the therapy was going well, though one woman was really struggling to let go of her past life.

I poked around the internet a bit after that. I read direct interviews with some of the people who were in my position once and the any public statements about my condition. I looked up what I could about what might become my new home. I read a few short pieces about what it means to be human, and not just physically. I also checked on how the rest of the world was changing as I lied there with my body slowly poisoning itself.

I also wrote this paper to pull my thoughts together. I have no idea what decision to make, so I figured I’d put my time making a documentation of what I’m going through.

I wonder if this’ll end up as part of some exhibit? Proof that for all the good the ponies brought, there were those of us who were seriously hurt by their arrival. I don’t blame them or anything, but you know how history is with these sort of things. It’d be nice to remembered, though on second thought I’d rather be remembered for some kind of achievement rather than for be unlucky enough to be here.

Sigh.

Well, it looks like my time’s almost up. The pain in my body’s starting to get really bad.

I won’t lie, I’m scared. Scared of what could happen to me regardless of my choice.

I just…

I just hope that whatever happens, I’ll be able to keep moving forward.

Wish me luck, or I guess you can just look up what happened to patient number thirty-seven.