//------------------------------//
// Broken Body Built Anew 
// Story: Rebirth of Magic: Law and Order 
// by The Blue EM2 
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It is said that in times of  danger, heroes will come together to face the rising tide of evil, and  fight back to preserve the light. These heroes can come from the  strangest of places.

This is the story of one such hero. Although  he appears to be Hitch Trailblazer, you may be surprised to learn his  true origins...

Good morning, Maretime Bay! All seems to be in order. The litter is in the trash cans, the ground isn't littered with garbage, there are no violations in sight, the streetcar seems to be running properly, and there are no pegasi outside of their flight lanes- hey! You there! No levitating goods off stands before you've bought it!

Ugh. Shoplifting has become such a problem since magic returned. Unicorns have a habit of just picking the produce up and walking off.

Oh? I didn't see you there. You want to talk? Sure thing. There's a table over there we can use, so let's sit at it. I think I can spare the time from my duties.

Perfect. The chairs are well sprung, aren't they? I should probably ask Pipp how pegasi make them this way.

Now, whilst we wait for our coffee, what was it you wanted to talk about?

Oh, I see. Yeah, that time was pretty wild. I remember it pretty well. It pushed me pretty far out of my comfort zone, but those chaotic times got started in a rather mundane way. You see, I didn't start out around here.

You'll probably have already heard that story if you've spoken to some of the other ponies around here. But that's not a problem. My story begins rather differently to the ones they will tell you, though it does have some resemblance to Misty I'll admit. The story begins on a hot night in the South far from here.

I was on vacation whilst travelling across the region in a hire car. Cars are rather like those truck things you'll find in Zephyr Heights. The region wasn't one I knew hugely well. It was rather flat, but also quite isolated and a bit dull, to be honest. Having said that, my frame of reference was the Rocky Mountains, so anything else would probably look quite dull by comparison. I rolled along, the streets and black tarmac rolling underneath the tyres as I rolled along at speed. The highways were reasonably well kept here, unlike the rollercoaster rides you'll encounter in some states.

I should probably add I was one of those things called a human back then. I'd suggest you talk to Sunny if you want to learn more about those, but I can see she's already deep in conversation with somepony else. I only hope she remembers to check if they're actually listening this time.

Back to my story. The road surface was pretty packed with cars, but we were still moving along efficiently and smoothly as the cars were propelled along by the desire to get home and out of the heat. There was air conditioning in the car, but the heat hit you like a brick wall the second you stepped out of the car. This wasn't fun, and if I didn't have to stop between now and my hotel in Richmond it would be quite nice.

The miles continued to roll past, until I spotted new road signs which gave me a clue as to where I was. I was passing by Charlottesville, Virginia. That's Thomas Jeffersons' old place. If you can ever get the chance to dimension hop I'd advise visiting Monticello. Interesting and fascinating place. There's a university there as well. Also an interesting place to visit.

Anyway, I continued to navigate through as the traffic continued to build. Quite a lot of traffic was joining which was starting to cause tailbacks as we drove along.

Suddenly, I spotted a rather odd car joining the road. The thing that sticks out to me was the odd vanity plates it had. A lot of people, to use the term, had vanity plates in that part of the world, but the name was very strange. I won't disclose what it is now as it'll make more sense to mention it later on, but safe to say the car really stood out.

And the driver was driving very erratically. I'm talking borderline drunk erratically. He was being blasted by horns, but seemed not to be paying attention. This would soon prove to be serious.

He seemingly hadn't seen a car in front of him, and slammed into it. This caused the car he had crashed into to spin out of control and flip into another lane of traffic. This caused another car to swerve and collide with other vehicles.

Before long vehicles were colliding at a frequency I had never thought was possible. The cars were crashing and being hurled about. A tanker tried to stop, but tipped over and blocked the highway. The impact caused its tank to crack, leaking fuel across the road. More road vehicles slammed into each other, further blocking the road and making it impossible to turn away.

I tried to bring the car to a stop, but it was too late. My car smashed into the wreckage, crumpling like matchwood against the wall of metal in front. Other vehicles slammed into the mess, causing a large crash and connected pileup.

I had prayed that I would never get caught in one of these. But it seemed this was my end. I was wedged in by the wreckage and the airbag, and an attempt to move only brought searing pain. I had broken several critical bones, and even worse was to come.

A large explosion roared in front, which I realised meant the end was nigh. The tanker's load had ignited, and the wall of flames was moving towards us! It looked like this was the end of the road for me.

Then, suddenly, everything stopped moving. I glanced about in confusion. "What?"

A voice cut through the chaos. "Your story does not end here!" it said. The voice was curiously female. "Take his place!"

I had no idea what this meant, but if it meant escaping a horrible death I would happily take it. The thing quickly got to work, and boy was it weird.

I soon lost any real sensation in my feet, but then again my nerve endings were so mangled it was hard to tell if they would detect anything correctly. I could feel other things, though. My legs seemed to invert from their correct posture, even as the bones were knit back together and set to not being broken.

The world also seemed to be getting larger around me, which was an interesting development. This was pulling my legs up out of the footwell, and several items of clothing fell off as this happened. In my borderline delusion state, I saw no feet, but hooves!

I was probably hallucinating. The brain does weird things when it's caught in stressful situations.

My chest shifted in size to be noticably larger as the cracked ribs knit themselves back together, not looking particularly human anymore. The chest, that is. This was an... interesting development. I would need to file a report about it at some point.

The process that seemed to have done strange things to most of my biology then did the same to my arms. I had view of them this time, and I could clearly see my hands morphing into what looked like a pair of... hooves?

I could only conclude this was some sort of dying dream. Bones continued to be repaired and nervous channels restored as my arms flipped to a different configuration and my shoulders were reconfigured for what was probably quadrapedal movement.

That, I guess, left my face. My eyes were brown before then, so that meant that there was one fewer thing to swap around. I got plenty of clues as to the other things, though. My face was being stretched, or so it felt as my nose and mouth were squashed into a single unit. I also felt my teeth flattening and my mouth getting a much thicker tongue. This would make talking difficult.

My hair turned green and spread down the back of my very long neck, meaning I now looked like an anime character. Two ears popped out of the top of my head as what could only be a tail appeared out of my butt, followed by a wave of orange and white fur across my entire body.

As I took in what had just happened, I saw the flames once more. I had to act fast, and so turned with my back towards the nearest door and kicked it open, the door coming flying off its hinges. I then charged for the nearest bank and up into the neighbouring forest to escape from the accident.

I stopped there, panting, not really having a proper chance to examine myself. Whatever had done this was, shall we say, unconventional in their approach, but I also wanted to thank them.

They'd saved my life.

The exhaustion finally caught up to me, and I collapsed in amongst the trees, finally letting sleep claim my mind.