//------------------------------// // Storms // Story: Able bodied // by The Sumareian //------------------------------// Able slowed down a little bit, he wanted to enjoy the last bit of nature he would see in a week, before going back to school just to hear is professors drone on and on about all philosophic crap people used to think. He looked up at the sky, cloudy and gloomy, either hinting at a something bad or something good, just like his life as of recent. It all started when Michelle dumped him in one of the most cruelly elaborate plans that she could think of. He expected it however seeing how she kept on claiming she couldn't make it to all the dates he asked her out on. Then there was his job or more appropriately former job, at Dan's Hand-me-downs. He didn't miss that crappy secondhand clothing store at all but what really made him angry about it was the circumstance in which he left. The manager thought he was stealing money from the register every time he worked it, turns out that after they fired him they found out that not only he wasn't the thief but it was the managers daughter the entire time. He would have paid a million dollars to see his mangers face as they hauled off his daughter. He stopped at a rock and quickly noticed his shoelace had decided to untie itself for the twelfth time in the last hour. As he quickly tied it into one of his world famous quadruple knots he noticed that the air started to smell wet, and that a low rumble was coming from the sky. "You got to be kidding me, the one day I forget my hoodie, and you decide to rain sky, really." He looked up as the first clandestine drop of nature effectively pissing on his day hit him right on his forehead. Able looked at the empty field he would have to cross to get within an half hours walk to his apartment, the air now pouring rain like there was no tomorrow. "Great." He realized he had two choices run like the bats out of hell to the other side of the field or get hypothermia and freeze to death. As he got ready to run the across the increasingly drenched field a blinding flash tore across the ground right in front of him, then another arced across the field. "Oh screw that." He backed up only for another bolt to land on the rock he just a moment ago was leaning on, causing it to explode into a million tiny bits , knocking him into the electrified field. Rather then scramble like an idiot back to the safe canopy of the forest, every bone, muscle and cell in his body told him to run like hell away from randomly exploding anything. As he ran like a suicidal maniac across the field another bolt struck in front of him though unlike before this one crackled in the air singing the ground underneath it, looking around Able saw two others like it behind him. They suddenly shot forward and engulfed him in electrifying doom. ***************************************** Meanwhile on Equestrias east road, somewhere between Manchester and Stalliongrad Trixie glared at the scroll in front of her in frustration. All it was supposed to do was make something from far away pop out of the upturned hat she had placed in front of her but low and behold, nothing happened. "That is the last time I buy a spell from that pony." She angrily stomped her hoof in frustration as she tore the scroll apart and threw the bits and pieces out her wagon, allowing the pouring rain to bleed the ink from the parchment. She sat inside waiting for the storm to pass over a new annoyance added itself to her rather small list of annoying things. ***************************************** Lower Flapstaff, Equestria in a small house near the Greenrun Forest. Harper strummed calmly on his harp, it was calming to him to just listen to the rain and try and add a melody to it, he knew that it was utterly futile but like many days he played in silence in the darkened room the only light was the occasional flash of lightning that lit up the sky. Just as Harper began to slow down his melody a loud explosion of thunder shook his home causing a few pictures of his family to topple over, especially the one of him and his cousin Lyra getting their first instruments on Hearths Warming. He decide to check the commotion seeing as it was a rather loud thundering for the weather patrol to not send somepony over to check in on him. As he opened the door to his porch he saw a rather large crater in the middle of the tomato patch he had been growing so he could save some bits in the market. Deciding to see the damage first hoof and to see what he could save he trotted out of the protection of his porch and into the surprisingly ice cold rain. As he neared the crater it became clear that something was laying in the middle of it he ignited his horn and tried to move what ever it was out of the rain, as he pulled it out of the hole it became clear it wasn't a pony namely because it was too big to be one, however its size didn't seem to make it as heavy as most ponies he tried to levitate. as a matter of fact it was easily no more heavier then he was at 190 lbs. As he dragged the thing on to his porch he heard somepony call out over the now distant thunder. "Harper, Harper." Harper waved the now increasingly familiar looking pegisi over to him. "I'm over here, Storm Shock." He called out to the mare who was now making her decent to his porch. "I told you not to call me that," She flicked her blue grey mane making it seem like she was not flying through one of the most intense storm-fronts to the town in the last year. "Okay Stormy." He released his magic causing the large thing to lifelessly slump on the ground. "I saw the lightning and headed here as fast as I could," She gently hugged her friend before glancing down at the thing he had dragged on his porch. "Do you think its alive?" she reached a hoof to poke it, Its foot twitched slightly prompting her to pause mere inches from the things head. "We should take it inside, try and see if we can get it cleaned up a little." Harper wrapped it once again in his magic and dragged it into his house and deposited in front of his fire place, where Stormy was tossing in the match for the dry kindling to catch. "So while I'm here you think I could crash for the night?" Stormy stood up from the fireplace as the logs began to crack and smoke. She trotted over to the armchair next to the window and plopped down in its cushions before sighing contently. Harper rolled his eyes at the mares do and then ask for forgiveness behavior, he looked outside at the storm then at the lounging mare before sighing in defeat. "Fine, you can stay the night." He mentally kicked himself wondering what she would want for dinner as he quietly sneaked to the kitchen to see what he had. As he opened the fridge he saw the small jar of hummus and a half a cucumber. "Hey could you make some of those hummus and cucumber sandwiches." Of course she would know what he had in his fridge. "Oh and if you need to go by the market tomorrow I can help you bring back whatever you get." Stormy hopped out of the armchair and went to the bookshelf, and pulled out one of his old comic books. As Harper went to work on some sandwiches the weather mare flipped causally through the pages, before something caught her eye. "Hey Harper, does that thing you dragged in look at all familiar?" She looked at the picture its had a silhouette of something that looked like the thing laying in front of the now roaring fireplace. "No, should it look familiar to me?" Harper poked his head out of the kitchen a plate levitating just above his head. Stormy looked at the comic book again and one of the lines stuck out to her, some scientist in his lab coat was talking about some dangerous creature call a human, and that how one could destroy a pony with its gaze. she looked up to see the thing start to move a little. -- Able, felt sore all over, but worst of all was the headache that was like an army of construction workers with jackhammers all decided that his skull needed work. He rubbed his temple hoping that it would alleviate some of the pain but to no avail. "Oh god, I need an Ibuprofen." He grumbled as he sat up and tried to take in his surroundings. He took note of the rain still pelting the windows of what was now starting to look like a rather nice cabin, though he found it a little strange that there were alot of pictures of horses on the wall. "Looks like someone likes photoshop." he commented before the sound of movement behind him made him turn around. There sitting in the middle of a decently sized armchair sat what looked like all the other horses he saw in the pictures only this one was staring at him with its large green eyes, staring at him unblinking. It whimpered slightly, causing someone in the kitchen to call out. "Stormy you okay in the-" Able looked as another one of the horse things this one with a horn stood slack jawed staring at him. "Did you just...... Talk?" Able pointed at the unicorn , as he cautiously got to his feet. "Harper, I think I know what it is." The horse-thing spread out its wings and hovered towards the one it just called Harper . "I think its a human." It shrunk back behind the unicorn whose horn was starting to glow. "Stormy, that cant be true humans don't exist, that's impossible." The unicorn gritted its teeth as it cautiously took a step forward. "Whoa, whoa. Humans don't exist? Excuse me mister magical talking unicorn but in all fairness you don't exist either." Able stumbled slightly on a side drawer. "Careful, Harper he might use his laser eyes on you." The one behind what he now assumed was Harper retreated to the kitchen. "Laser eyes, What the hell are you you talking about?" Able noticed the confused look on the progressing unicorns face. "Wait you cant shoot lasers from your eyes?" It pointed a hoof at him. "If I could I'm fairly certain my life wouldn't be as crappy as it is now," Able scratched his bushy hair," Did I take shrooms or something and forget I did?" he asked no one in particular as he noticed that more and more of the pictures had this dark red horse in them each one looking more and more like the one in front of him. "So you aren't planning the invasion of Equestria so you can use the ponies in your slave camps?" The one who retreated earlier poked its head out a metal strainer on top of its head. "What the hell is Equestria and ponies?" Able looked at the two talking horses in front of him. "Okay I need a drink." ******** "Here you go, some warm apple cider." The unicorn floated the steaming mug into Able's hands. He nodded his thanks to the unicorn as it took a seat on the couch next to the other one who was now pressing up to it for safety. "So I'm guessing some form of introductions are in order. My name is Gabriel though my ever shrinking group of friends call me Able." He took a sip of the cider and smiled. "I'm also a human for whatever difference that makes." The unicorn shifted in his seat before speaking up himself. "My names Harper, me and my friend here are ponies well more specifically I'm a unicorn and she is a pegasus." He brought his friend closer into his protective embrace. "Then I imagine her name is Stormy," Able commented trying keep the air of civility. She simply nodded to him confirming his assumption. "Well it's a pleasure to meet both of you," Able smiled to the pair of ponies in front of him. In the back of his mind he really hoped he was hallucinating and that they were just a figment of some strange repressed memory he had involving ponies, and that it would go away after a good nights sleep. Oh how wrong he he was...