Chapter 5: The Gathering
I finally got to meet Molly once she woke up and regained her composure, she seemed nice enough and had a pretty good sense of humor despite the practical mass extinction of our species physically. Apparently, the duo didn’t even live in the city, they said they were actually from Massachusetts. They said though, that they hadn’t been able to get in touch with any family there though. Molly suggested we try the internet, while Russel tried to build a radio beacon, apparently, we still had luck, because Russel and Molly lived in Cambridge... in MIT student housing. We had gotten two geniuses by complete chance, because they were attending a convention nearby. Molly was a computer engineer and Russel was a technician, together they were unstoppable. Though apparently Russel couldn’t broadcast without more equipment, he was able to pick up the national emergency broadcast, which sounded like it hadn’t been updated in twenty years. Molly had more luck and I felt like a caveman for not thinking of it sooner, she jumped onto an online forum and found out that there were other people!
Only a few people were active on the forum, but we learned that this whole incident was worldwide. One guy was from Toronto, another from Phoenix, and a girl in Ireland among others. All of them reported the same thing that had happened to us, they’d all been turned into cartoon-like colored horses and most of the people around seemed to have disappeared. The girl in Ireland said though that there was actually a large number of people left in her country, the government had retained its stability, but things were insane. Riots daily and murder and suicide rates were skyrocketing. Overall by th time I got to sleep that night things seemed grim.
* * *
I woke up with a tired sigh, my head felt heavy, the bone-like horn sticking out of my forehead didn't help either. I now found that a lot of the time when I turned my horn caught against the wall nearest to me or door frames when I walked through them. It was annoying, but it had done me good twice now and I was determined to make the best of it. That was why I was walking up the stairs towards the roof, pulling a box of recyclable glass bottles behind me. I had tied a rope around the box and looped it around my neck, so far so good. Stairs were a bit bizarre with four legs and hooves, but once I got the hang of it I was moving up in no time. I finally reached the top floor and sighed as I rested myself. Behind me I heard a ding as the elevator doors opened and Russell stepped out. “You know we still have power for now,” he said smugly.
“Yeah yeah, I know. But, my body feels so weird now, almost like I spent the last eighteen years of my life pulled taut on a stretching rack. My whole body feels so… tight. I need the workout.”
Russell nodded knowingly, “Yeah I had the same feeling at first, like I’d been in a cramped box.”
I motioned towards the door, “do you by chance wanna join me?”
“What are you doing exactly?” He said eying my box of glass bottles.
“Practicing my shooting.”
Russell”s eyes lit up, “yes, I’d love to see that, you keep telling me about your ‘magic,’ but I’ve yet to see it first hand and I am very interested.”
I shrugged and pushed the bar on the door to the roof open, it whined and squeaked as it opened and the two of us stepped out onto the cool roof. I shivered, “I’m glad we have fur coats, at least the cold has less of a bite.”
“One word, windbreaker. Also, you’re literally wearing a jacket right now.”
I looked down at myself, I was wearing a grey hoodie I’d gotten when Eli and I had got our supplies from the Walmart. I looked back up, “be that as it may… I rock this hoodie.” Russel just chuckled and shook his head. I chuckled myself and pulled the box of glass bottles towards the middle of the roof. I’d recently found out and explained to the others that if they focused on their hooves like hands and “moved” their imaginary fingers the hoof would flex and could hold onto things.
So,taking a bottle out with my hoof, I flipped my leg upwards, flinging the bottle into the air. The bottle did a lazy somersault as I watched its flight. Focusing myself I took aim and concentrated. I felt the now familiar sensation surround my horn as my magic flowed through it, noticing Russell watch in awe as my horn began to glow I resigned myself to make this a show for him. With a large pulling feeling in my horn I focused hard and pushed out with my mind, sending a beam of pure magic spearing up at the bottle. The bottle exploded upon contact with the beam and fell back down as melted bits and pieces. The beam however, didn’t stop and instead kept going upwards before exploding into a shower of blue light in the air high above.
Well, I thought. That was a show. Russell stood awed at the light shop before eventually picking up his jaw and turning his attention back to me. “How… did you do that.” he said excitedly. “It was amazing, you’re like a battery of energy! Has the energy run out yet or does it regenerate itself?” Russell kept asking questions as I stood there almost as stunned as him. I hadn’t tried to make the energy explode like that, maybe I shouldn’t have used so much. Russell kept going on about something to do with the laws of physics and other things I’d never even thought of. Waving a hoof I finally responded, “calm down man, I can’t keep up with you. To answer your first question, no, I haven’t run out of energy yet, and yes, I think it regenerates.”
Finally regaining his composure, Russell opened his mouth again to say something, but stopped as a bright flash suddenly appeared to our left. A bright purple light appeared and then suddenly disappeared, standing in the place of the light was the strangest pony I had seen yet, the pony, obviously female, was a lavender mare with a darker purple mane that had a pink stripe in it. She had a horn, but looking again I realized she also had wings, bizarre, I thought. Finally, on her head she wore a golden tiara that bore a bright pinkish-purple crystal at its crest.
Even more bizarre was the creature that stood next to her, a monster if I’d ever seen one. It looked like Dr. Frankenstein had a few pieces left over and made this thing, it had the head of a pony and that’s where the similarities between the two ended, the head had two different horns and was on a sleek body with two different wings sprouting from its back and ended in a red scaled tail with a tuft of hair on the end, it had the arms of a lion and an eagle, and it stood on a leg like that of a goat and the other seemed like that of a dinosaur or some other large reptile. In a way it was like a strange piece of abstract art.
The purple pony seemed just as surprised to see us as we were to see her. She spoke with a surprised tone at the creature at her side, “Discord, you said there was nopony here! Is this another one of your games?”
The creature, “Discord” seemed unsurprised, but still curious as it spoke with a male voice, “yes, that was what I thought, it seems that somepony else was here, but it has nothing to do with me Twilight, that I assure you.”
Now, I knew both their names, Twilight and Discord. It was my turn to start asking questions.