//------------------------------//
// Running away... Kinda 
// Story: Power Lottery 
// by Khanathara 
//------------------------------//

I stood at the edge of the crater looking out at the city and thinking about how and where I woke. It only took a couple seconds for my foggy mind to figure two plus two equals thirty-six divided by nine.

Deciding that I was better off not going into town I turned around and made my way back to the place I woke, and figuring out why I didn't notice the gazebo thing when I first looked around. It was literally nothing more than a floating ceiling about seven feet across and ten feet in the air, the three statues evenly spread under it in a circular fashion were of a Unicorn, a Pegasus, and a normal horse/pony all about as large as me. Under the gazebo and between the statues were a number of offerings, food, money, toys, as well as a number of things that didn't make as much sense. Well not to me any way. There was some kind of staff that seemed very out of place for quadrupeds, an obsidian stone with a glowing mark, and... is that a heart? 

I shake off the strangeness of the... the heart, hoping that they haven't been making sacrifices to me. If it was even me they were making them to that is, as there was a possibility that I had taken over some else's body. It was highly unlikely that that was the case based on my spotty memory of last night, and most of my life before then, but it was still a chance.

Thinking about what was going on I would much prefer to be alone to think and process everything. Preferably unseen by the locals, even if it wouldn't take long to discover I wasn't here anymore. The only way I could think of to leave unnoticed would be the river. Otherwise I would undoubtedly be seen.

I wasn't given long to ponder this however as I began to hear voices and footsteps coming from the side opposite where I had walked to take a look. Having to quickly think I ended up forgetting to force myself to stay calm and panicked. I ran in the direction the river before I could be seen only to collapse at the edge of the crater huffing and puffing as if I had just ran a marathon... or three. 

However long I had been here asleep has obviously not done my body any good, and now I just had the thought that if I've been here for however long... please tell me no one did anything to me in my sleep. Someone did, didn't they?

I heard a shout of alarm from behind me and my adrenalin began pumping as I shot to my hooves and ran for the river diving in as soon as I reached it.

And this was a bad idea, why did I do this!? I thought to myself as the current caused me to swiftly fly down the river, knocking off several submerged boulders and hurting places that I didn't know that I had, as well as the ones I already knew of.

.........


I would estimate that it was thirty minutes to an hour before I had managed to drag myself out of the river and not move for about... however long I was passed out for.

After I woke for the second time that day, or maybe it was tomorrow now, I stood up and immediately felt a pain in my left back leg. Turning to look at it I said. "Ok, I know that the way legs on most quadrupedal creatures is strange to more or less all humans, but I am one hundred percent sure that the bone is not meant to be sticking out of it at a perpendicular angle. Why in the seven heavens did I leap into a river?"

I heavily sat down on my right side trying to think of a way to fix my leg when I noticed something quite odd, my leg was not profusely bleeding. Instead, there was ice around the wound and I could see under the thin layer of normal(?) ice that it was covering bright reddish-silver ice, which only felt like a scab or a band aid as I could not feel the cold from it.

Pondering this I looked at the rest of the wounds on my body and saw much of the same, though on a lesser scale as none of the other wounds were as severe. I hope.

Deciding to have this bodily inspection go further I began to take note of what I looked like. I had a light snowy blue coat with very light streaks of sunset pink that you had to actively look for to notice, an ever-flowing mane and tail of rose quartz pink that faded into an iridescent shade and was lost in an ethereal mist, my tail slightly reminding me of that of an ox or lion. 

I didn't have wings like the Pegasi I saw earlier. No, instead I had what appeared to be large gatherings of ethereal mist in the shape of wings. The base of them were true limbs the same color as my coat but obscured by the mist so I couldn't tell if they just ended or were full wings. The ethereal mist started as the same color as my coat fading into the rose quartz color of my mane and ending in the same iridescence.

Bringing a hoof to my forehead revealed that I had no horn, or at least it did until I attempted to slide my hoof to the back of my neck and it caught on something that was most likely a horn on the back of my head on the left side. With some feeling around I found one on the right side as well. They seemed curve back and then forward again in an S shape, but I was unsure as to what use they would serve.

Now I had one last thing that I had to check before I could end this self-inspection, my memory is spotty. I can only remember tiny fragments of how I ended up here, and the rest of my life is clear as crystal in one memory and blurrier than an old fashion television without any signal in the next.

So, I had to check.

What gender am I?

I focused on my back legs with the intent to find out, however my broken leg was going to be a problem with this as I needed to move it in order to see. I slowly and carefully began to lift my leg, fully expecting it to dangle at a sickening angle, but it didn't. The ice on and in the wound seemed to keep it in the position that it was frozen in and I was able to move it without issue, aside from the pain that is.

Now with the way open for me to see I looked, and I saw... wait, what?

There is literally nothing there. It's just smooth skin, no hot-dogs and hand grenades, no sausage wallet, no nothin'. "What kind of sick joke is this? How could they take my great and powerful bush gardener?" I said to myself, dropping my leg and severely regretting it as the pain reach my brain and the loud cracking of ice reached my ears. 

"MOTHER OF THE-"



"D-dr.?" Isen said, getting a slight tilt of the head from the Dr.

"Make it quick Isen, I'm busy with sub-volunteer 6039582." The doctor spoke, saying volunteer with enough venom to kill an entire LeeStanian universe.

Isen's eyes darted to the still conscious volunteer, his chest cavity open for all to see a machine above them holding the front half of his rib cage and his organs dangled form hooks, some still attached to his body and some not. The Dr. had been experimenting on the Faustian Anthropomorphic Kirin for a while now, injecting him with a number of different serums and mutagens. The Dr. had even surgically removed his horn to see if it worked like a unicorns did.

Removing his eyes from the unwilling volunteer Isen gave the Doctor the news of 63720985 "Volunteer 63720985 h-has woken and is acting o-on her own. So far b-based on her appearance, a-and how long she has lived wi-without basic mortal needs, she seems to h-have gained a form of i-immortality. 63720985 has a-also displayed a type of ice p-power that only seems to have b-been used sub-subconsciously as of now."

The news of subject 63720985 had actually surprised the Doctor at first as they had assumed that the experimental mutagen serum and the process of binding it to them had truly broken its mind. "Oh? Then I will be able to perform the test I needed for the experimental procedure now." 

"H-however Dr. we do have a-a problem." Isen regretfully continued his report as the Dr. turned a scathing yellow eye towards him. "T-the M-merchant has c-claimed 63720985 a-as one o-of his D-displaced T-toys." Isen paused to clear his throat. "And h-he has sent a th-three more of th-them to the same world a-at different points i-in time."

"How much of my experiment has the bastard claimed, my little mortal?" The Dr. said, his voice threatening a treatment worse than existence has created so far if he didn't like his answer, his current experiment forgotten.

"O-on-only e-enough s-so th-tha-t F-Faust w-woul-d rec-recigni-ize it a-as h-his." Isen said cowering behind his clipboard in a vain hope that the thin aluminum would protect him from the ancient eldritch being that is his master.

"Hmm, that means that the subject is guaranteed to interact with more of his displaced even outside of its new world." The Dr. said seeming to ponder this. "It shouldn't interfere to much in any of the test that are planned for the next several hundred millennia that will be 63720985's lifetime." They added causing Isen to relax as his master was distracted by the bad but not too bad news. 

"Maybe I should perform the experiment again on another mortal, or even an immortal, and send it to the same world to see their interactions." The Dr. said much to the horror of the other two in the room.