Creed: Return of the Alicorns
Written by bossfight1
Chapter 1: Awakening
My name is Aaron Creed, but I ask my friends to call me Creed, just because it sounds cool. For the past couple of years, I’ve been a brony, and proud. The writing, the animation, the songs, the character development, it’s all fantastic; of course it is, Lauren Faust is involved, she has a goddamn Midas touch with cartoons.
Having said that, you’d think a brony would be pretty fucking thrilled to wake up one morning in Equestria as an alicorn, and he would, in the right circumstances. However, just dumping him there out of the blue without any proper explanation isn’t exactly the polite way of transferring people into other worlds.
I was never really one for mornings. Either I slept through them entirely, or grudgingly woke up early because I had to. The way I woke up this particular morning, though, I planned to reconsider my relationship with them. The first thing I realized once I woke up was that I was lying in grass. This confused me, because I strongly remembered getting into bed the previous night. The second thing was that my body felt... wrong. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like my brain was told to control me in stick shift after spending the last twenty-three years driving automatic and needed some time to adjust.
I opened my eyes, seeing a dense yet pleasant-looking forest surrounding me. I reached up to rub the sleep out of my eyes, but felt something thick smack me in the face rather harshly. After giving the obligatory “Ow,” I looked at what had hit me. There I saw a gray hoof where my hand should have been. My eyes widened as they trailed down the hoof to what was unmistakably my own body; gray fur, a pair of wings on my back, a black tail, even a damn CUTIE MARK, this one of six black circles, intertwined with one-another. I raised my hoof to my head to wipe the sweat that was starting to pour from my forehead when I felt it; a damned horn. I prodded it a few more times to make sure my mind wasn’t bullshitting me; not only was I a pony, I was a goddamned ALICORN.
I lay my head back on the grass; the crisp smell helped keep my head together. Try to remember last night, I thought. Did anything out of the ordinary happen?
“Well,” I muttered to myself. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to envision the previous night. “I... got out of class... I went home... it was raid night, so I went to bed late... and that’s it.” Ugh. Nothing weird... Whatever happened must have happened while I was asleep.
I lay there for a few more minutes before finally deciding that my brain wouldn’t forgive me if I just lay there instead of trying to find some answers. Shakily, I pushed myself up, my legs trembling, but I quickly got the hang of it; newborn horses, deer and such can walk within minutes of birth, right?
So, standing was a pass, it was walking that concerned me; I took a deep breath and took a step forward with my right front hoof. Simple enough. Then my back left. Front left. Back right. Soon enough I was trotting comfortably around the small clearing I had landed in. I was thankful this stuff was coming naturally, otherwise I would have been embarrassed that I died in the forest because I couldn’t figure out how to walk, even if it was in a new body. I gazed at my wings and groaned in longing as I stretched them. I’d always dreamed of being able to say “Suck it, gravity,” and here was my chance, but walking was one thing; attempting to fly within ten minutes of getting wings was another. I needed to find help, and I preferred doing so without breaking one or more of my legs. I vowed I’d find someone- or somepony, I’d need to get used to using that term- to give me a crash course... in the figurative sense, hopefully.
With no real plan or direction, I picked up a leaf with my mouth and chucked it into the air. The wind blew it to my left, so I decided to head that way; a bullshit plan was better than no plan at all, I figured. I walked for about ten minutes, enjoying the peacefulness of the forest; birds were chirping cheerfully, the sky was the most delightful shade of blue... I actually felt happy. That’s one of the reasons I’d always wanted to come to Equestria; the simple, natural beauty of it all.
My bliss was interrupted by the sound of foot- sorry, hoof-falls. I glanced to my right and saw, to my surprise, another alicorn sprinting through the trees; this one had more feminine features, had a bright green coat, a red mane that, combined with her coat, made me think of a horse-shaped watermelon, and a cutie mark depicting a spark of flame, no larger than you’d see burning on a candle. The alicorn was panting with desperation, like she was trying to escape something. That something became apparent when seven more ponies bolted into view; two of them were pegasi, one of them was a unicorn, the rest were earth ponies. All of them were decked out in black, green-trimmed armor. My confusion got the better of me and made me say “Uh...”
The ponies heard me. “There’s another one!!” One of the pegasi screamed, glaring at me with malice while still chasing after the other alicorn. “You guys get him,” he barked at the rest of his friends before turning to his fellow pegasus. “We’ll get the girl!” The earth ponies and single unicorn wasted no time and changed course, sprinting towards me without a single friendly-looking face on any of them.
With a yelp I spun in place and sprinted for anywhere that wasn’t here. I was honestly surprised my legs were handling running so well. I turned my head back and noted I had a decent lead on my pursuers, but I also noticed that, unlike Celestia and Luna, despite being an alicorn I wasn’t any larger than any other ponies. I attributed that to me not being royalty and kept running.
I brushed against a tree and felt the feathers of my left wing get rustled, and had an idea; what better teacher than first-hand experience, right? I waited for a break in the trees before spreading my wings and, giving a short prayer to every god I knew and some gods that I made up on the spot, kicked off from the ground while giving a powerful flap of my wings. I gained a good six or seven feet, but with another powerful flap I cleared the treeline. I heard my pursuers shout in frustration, and felt good. I looked back and resisted the urge to scream something along the lines of “So long, suckers,” before noticing the sole unicorn in the group charging his horn, a bright blue aura surrounding it..
Before I could react, he let off a bolt of energy that hit me right at the point my wings met my back; it didn’t hurt much, just enough to get me to lose altitude. “Shit!” I yelled as I frantically flapped my wings and kicked my legs as I fell towards the treeline, but my descent was as inevitable as the scratches I’d get from the branches I’d fall through as I tumbled towards the ground, making a variety of sounds like “Gah!” or “D’oh!” and “Ohgodwhy!” before landing painfully on my back in a bush. I lay there, groaning for a good minute before the black-armored ponies finally approached. “Nice try, buddy,” the unicorn said with a sneer. “Get that collar on him and tie his wings down!”
One of the earth ponies stepped forward, reached into his satchel with his mouth and pulled out a stone collar, thick enough to wrap around my neck without choking me, ornate runes lining its surface. The pony opened the hinged collar and locked it around my throat; I was in no real position to resist anymore. I languidly rolled off the bush and stood still, letting them tie my wings down tight with a thick length of rope. When they finished, they began leading through the forest, surrounding me to ensure I didn’t try to escape again, but I wasn’t planning on it; this was probably my best bet at getting answers. I only ran out of panic.
For about a half-hour, we walked. I kept quiet, these guys didn’t look like the talkative type, and I doubted they’d answer any questions I’d have, like “Where are we going”, “What do you want from me”, or “Do you have any idea why I woke up as a pony this morning?” But after awhile, the unicorn turned to me. “Were there any others out there?”
I stared. “Other what?”
“Don’t play dumb!” He barked. “Other alicorns! Did you see any others?!”
“No, no others!” I cried defensively. “Well, there was that green one you were chasing, but that’s it! And honestly, I’m more than a bit confused here, so cut me some slack!”
The unicorn glared at me for a few seconds before accepting it as the truth and looking away. We kept walking for another few minutes before finally, I saw it through the treeline; an immense, magical, gray-colored dome that stretched a good mile or so across the forest. Around the base of the dome was this forty-foot high stone wall, towers rising from several points in the perimeter and a great deal of armored ponies patrolling the wall, armed with a variety of swords, spears and other equally pleasant weapons. The guards led me around the dome and through a massive gate inside the complex. Just beyond the gate I spotted an immense number of low-quality tents beyond a tall, wrought-iron fence, but I was pushed to my left and guided into a dark, windowless office within the stone wall, with a table and a single unicorn sitting behind it. He was wearing the same black and green armor set, minus the helmet, and was using his magic to levitate a variety of stamps, pens and papers. He pulled up a blank form and pen, and looked up to regard me. “Name?” He asked.
I was silent; do I say my full name, or make up a pony-sounding name, or...?
“Name!” The unicorn asked. “Your name is the only thing you can bring in here, but we could just as easily assign you a number-”
“Creed!” I said. “My name is Creed.”
The unicorn filled out the paper with disinterest, mumbling to himself. “Name, Creed... coat, gray... mane, black... eyes...” He looked up at me. “Red...”
I took a moment to think, I have red eyes? Nice!
“Mark...” The unicorn said, giving a quick gesture. I was forcefully rotated on the spot to show the unicorn my cutie mark. He looked at it and doodled a quick sketch of it on the paper as I was turned to face him again. He looked like he’d been doing this all day. Once he finished, he pressed his stamp against the paper; a black handled sword with a green blade.
“Okay,” he said, preparing to give a well-practiced set of guidelines. “You will be fed at regular intervals each day, you have free reign of the camp, just don’t try to escape, guards have full jurisdiction, and NO, I can NOT tell you why you are being kept here, you will discover that at the right time. Any questions?” Before I could think of anything he gestured for me to be rushed out of the office. I was led past a growing line of other alicorns, among which I saw the green one I’d seen earlier. I was escorted through the fence to the area with the tents, where the guards removed the ropes around my wings before simply leaving me there, passing through the gate and slamming it shut. The unicorn who had blasted me turned to face me through the fence.
“Welcome to Equestria!” He said with a malicious grin before turning away, leaving me alone and dreadfully confused; so much for answers.