//------------------------------// // Chapter 13. It's a Small World After All. // Story: Magnets in a Mare's World. // by Triple-Rainbow //------------------------------// I was right about Gloriosa becoming another resident in our prison, though I turned out to be wrong about where she would go. Glory, or “Gaia” as she prefers now, is around a level four cursed criminal. The way this prison is set up is that criminals who used enchantments go in one area where our history doesn’t matter, while criminals with curses are kept separate and then divided into sectors based on how much of a threat they are. I suppose the Power Ponies would be a good example in this instance. Radiance, Matter-Horn, and Zapp have enchantments, objects that give them powers when they wear them. Without those enchanted objects, they’d be normal mares with no overtly unique abilities. Saddle Ragger, Fili-Second, and Marevelous, however, have curses. Curses can occur randomly, like being bitten by a certain type of bug, upsetting a spirit, making a wendigo laugh, reading a weird book, kissing something they really shouldn’t be kissing, essentially anything that could go in a Marvel Comics backstory. Saddle Ragger doesn’t need an enchanted item to hulk out because that’s a curse. The same applies to Fili-Second with her super-human speed, and Marevelous with her inhuman strength. Of course, Marevelous also possesses an enchanted lasso, which is pretty rare on both sides. Most heroes or villains fall into category A or B, while Marevelous is a bit of an outlier in that regard. If you’re a criminal who needed enchanted items, you go to the less secure prison with idiots like Cat Colt and Maresterio, and if you have a curse then you’re locked up tighter than Fort Knocks. Anyway, back to “Gaia”. I’m not entirely sure what it was that cursed her, but she’s become this world’s answer for Poison Ivy but with most of Dr. Freiz’s backstory. Last I heard, Timber was doing alright, but that was some time ago. I wonder I don’t know what Gloriosa and I would even talk about if we saw each other again. We’d probably blame each other for what happened to Timber, and I’d agree with her but I wouldn’t let her know that. She’s at fault for what happened, too. We both are in out own special ways. After all, if it weren’t for me then he would have probably lived an average life. I shouldn’t have stayed that day, I should have left. I should have just been alone like I am now. It all began nearly a week after my fight with the Dazzlings. Something about my mutant DNA apparently gave me an increased healing factor. I doubted that it was comparable to Logan’s healing factor since he could survive anything from a bullet to the head to being eaten by a hillbilly hulk, but it was still favorable to my old human body. At the rate of my improved immune system, I was on the road to making a full recover in a little bit under a month. As I lazed in bed recovering, the police were still searching for “Magnito” as they incorrectly labeled me. I was a bit worried about how they would react when I inevitably returned. Quite a few articles had speculated that I was trying to steal the Siren Amulet, so I definitely wouldn’t be able to keep it as a token of my first battle. I didn’t even mean to take it when I flew off, I was just so exhausted that I didn’t notice that I was holding the it until I woke up a few hours later. While I was resting in bed, my tattered costume and the amulet were locked up inside an old time capsule that Timber bought and never used. Thankfully, I didn’t need to remember where it was buried since I could just follow my senses to it later. I wasn’t even sure how to go about giving it back. Was there a museum I needed to go tp, would the police take it, did I need to call the Harmony League and schedule a meeting? A lot of the papers were saying they wanted to find it, but none of them bothered to leave me any instructions for how to do that! As I read the weather schedule, (because of course they can control the weather for some reason) a knock at the door called for my attention. “Yeah?” I called out, setting my paper aside. “Hey Xavier, it’s me, Timber. Do you mind if I come in?” “Sure thing,” I called back. Timber held a newspaper under his arm and a glass of orange juice for me to start the day. Aside from my “fall” in the forest, I was also still recovering from my tangle with my caffeinated demons, so only healthy drinks were on the menu for me. “Soooo, you’ve been reading the papers, huh?” “Yup, Trott City is getting a heavy downpour next week, so we should probably grab groceries a bit earlier,” I replied. “Right, right. Hey, what do you think of that Magnito dude,” I swear I could hear the misspelling in his voice. “Yup. About time some stallion supers started cropping up huh?” “I guess. So, how are you feeling?” “Better than I was yesterday, hopefully worse than tomorrow.” “Good, good,” he replied, finally handing me the glass of orange juice. “… You’re really going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Timber asked. “Say what?” “That you’re Magneto,” he said is a hushed whisper. I felt my veins turn to ice as I started to question every decision I made, still completely ignorant to the fact that Timber saw me in the damned costume already. Not giving me a moment to respond, Timber unfurled the newspaper under his arm and showed it to me. On the front page was a picture of the broadcast the Dazzling’s were running, where I was nearly struck by Zapp’s lightning. “You were wearing this costume when we first met. It’d be weird if I didn’t notice something like this.” “It does look a bit like my costume, I guess.” “It’s not ‘like’ your costume, this is your costume.” “Look, I told you that hero fell into a time vortex,” Timber didn’t give me the courtesy of letting me continue my bullshit as he cut me off. “Xavier, do you think I’m an idiot?” There was an uncomfortable amount of silence after that question. I didn’t think he was an idiot, not at all. However, I did think he was extremely gullible, almost dangerously so. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. Unconvincingly, I might add.
 “Xavier, I know you’re Magneto. Do you really think I couldn’t put two and two together? You were wearing the same costume when we met, and now everypony is looking for a stallion that was beaten bloody by a bunch of mares. And you just so happened to trip down a steep drop the same day Magneto fought the Power Ponies? “ “Look, I can explain.” “Explain what, that you lost your mind and decided to, to be a vigilante? Don’t you understand how dangerous this is? You could die!” “I’m not going to die, Timber.” “So, you admit you’re Magneto then?” He asked with a snap of his fingers. I stumbled on my words a bit after that, taken aback by his accusation and his subsequent childish trick. “No! I’m not Magneto, Timber. That’s ridiculous,” I dismissed as I tried to pull myself out of bed. While I was doing better, I was certainly no spring chicken. Random aches and pains still riddled my body after my fight with the Power Ponies, and not even an advanced healing factor could dull the irritating stabs of pain. “Hey, hey, lay down, you need rest.” “I’m fine, Timber. Just forget about this whole ‘Magneto’ thing.” “Nuh-ah. I know who you are, and I’m not letting you put yourself in danger like that again. I’m your friend, Xavier, and friends don’t let friends dress up and fight supervillains.” “That’s not a friendship rule, Timber.” “Well it is now. So, lay down, get some rest and stop—” “Mother-fucker!” I yelped as he grabbed my arm. Alright, so I was in a bit more pain than I realized, so I decided to not fight him anymore and crawl back into bed. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, Xavier. You can barely stand on your own,” Timber admonished. “I’m fine Timbe-YOU FUCKING WHORE!” I shouted as he decided to poke my side. “You were saying?” “Suck a bag of dicks, that’s what I was saying,” I grumbled as I laid back down. “I don’t know why you would think being a ’hero’ was with this.” “You’re not letting that go, are you?” “Are you going to keep lying to me?” A quietly contemplated trying to find another way out of the conversation with Timber. He was right, and even if I miraculously managed to convince him otherwise, it would just take another ‘fall’ on a trail to convince him otherwise. After releasing a tired and annoyed breath, I stared at the ceiling as I spoke to him. “Fine, you caught me, congratulations. Can we pretend this never happened now, and move on with our lives?” “Aw come on, at least tell me why you’re trying to be a super hero.” “And why would I do that?” “Because friends are supposed tp be honest with each other,” he claimed. Before I could make a rebuttal, he leaned in and stared into my eyes. “You’re my friend, Xavier, but I don’t think you’ve been honest with me once.” A bit uncomfortable from the invasion of my personal space, I placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him a little bit away. “Fine. Fine, fine, fine. But you need to promise not to tell anyone, alright. Nobody else can know. Not your sister, not any of the campers, not even Day Breaker herself. Okay?” “Is it really—" “Promise,” I stated with a bit more authority. “Alright, alright. Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” he monotoned as he did a series of odd hand gestures to accompany the rhyme. Once again, pony culture was completely lost on me, so I didn’t give his little rhyme as much serious thought as other creatures on this world do. Still reluctant to share anything about myself, I tried to think of the best way to broach the subject of my displacement across time and space. I wasn’t at all comfortable with sharing my story with Timber, but I had known him for close to four months at that point, and he had been more helpful than any other creature on the planet. He gave me clothes, food, a job, a h a place to sleep all without asking anything in return. He was too good for this world. I ended up using him as the example of what his species was capable of, but I was wrong. While he reflected some of the negative aspects of this world’s morals and beliefs, his personality and infectious honesty were all his own. For the stallion that gave me hope for his species, I could try to give him the truth, though I was still unhappy about it. “What I told you about comic con was true, Timber, though that was where a majority of my truths ended. I ended up upsetting a vengeful little demon by shouting at him after he stole my helmet. I was teleported to the Everfree Forest where I met you later that same day. “I’m… I’m not from this world, Timber. That day in the forest, I don’t know what happened. I… I pissed off some thing and I woke up here with these powers but I didn’t know about those yet, so I thought I was still on Earth. But then I found out that I was on another world and I wanted to go home but, but I don’t know how to do it on my own so I thought I’d earn their trust and maybe I’d find a way back and, and I” my voice began to crack as I continued, my words growing faster and less organized with each passing second. I rambled for nearly half an hour, covering everything I had done from my first day to my last in Equestria. I told him about how I hit Prismia with a car after seeing him get taken as a hostage, that I trained entire nights trying to master my powers and how I had to get used to a new body on a new world. I even went into a worried tangent about how I could have gotten block lung from trying to clean up the Polaris Palace. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried as I kept talking in random rabbit holes where a story would lead to a deeper fear and a harsher piece of resentment. I felt a lot of tension leave my body as I talked, and I was grateful that Timber kept his interruption s limited to only asking for clarity on a few things. By the time I was finished, I was out of breath and felt more tired than I had been in days. For a while, the only sound that filled the room was the sound of my ragged breathing as I steadied my heart and dried my eyes. Timber was respectfully silent, only offering me some consolation by patting my back as I calmed my nerves. When he finally broke the silence, he stood up to stretch his legs as he ran his fingers through his mossy green hair. “Wow… I was not expecting that much… You doing okay?” Too exhausted from my venting, I only replied with a tired nod before he continued on. “Cool… Cool… Wow. No wonder you don’t act like a normal stallion at all. You’re an alien!” He exclaimed before I desperately shushed him. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just, wow this explains so much! Like, I always wondered why you didn’t say ‘somepony’ or ‘anypony’ and you say ‘fuck’ instead of ‘buck’ and the fact that you didn’t know about Friendsgiving, and,” As he began pacing back and forth, listing off every “strange” characteristic about myself or my overall personally, I felt his words sink in like a knife. Having our differences pointed out one after the other just it made it I know I knew we were different already, but, something about what he said made it feel more “solid” I suppose. I opened myself up to Timber and he reaffirmed everything I knew with just a few words. I know he didn’t mean anything by it, it was simply his naivety and own social awkwardness. They were both charming in their own unique little ways. It was the type of naivety where what they say is more accurate than they can even realize. To him, I was the alien, not the other way around. Yet, despite having an extra-terrestrial, a creature from another world living with him after lying for so long, he still called me his friend. “Oh, this is awesome! My best friend is an alien!” I wore a bit of a hesitant smile at that. I considered him a friend, and I suppose by default he was my “best” friend, but a familiar feeling of uncertainty crept into my mind as I tried to stamp it out with a little bit of positive thinking. While I was still weary of trusting others, I had just poured out my heart to Timber and he had stood by my side the entire time. He earned at least a bit of my trust. And, at the time, it felt right to call him my friend. For what it was worth, I valued our friendship above anything else on this strange world. He gave me faith in this planet's ponies, a hope that they could reflect his positivity. And now, I can only feel sorry for how it ended. Perhaps I should see if Gloriosa can get mail in her cell. It would be nice to hear if TImber is doing better.