//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: The Adventures Of Damien The Not So Average Guy // by Flutterftw123 //------------------------------// I sat there on that fountain for a while longer as I mulled over the sudden memory. I finally shook my self out of my stupor and stood up from the fountain and continued my stroll through the garden. I kept walking, admiring all the different forms of flora and fauna, until I came to a section of the garden dotted with statues. I strolled down the walkway that branched off to each statue and studied the master pieces individually, until one in particular caught my eye. This statue stood out to me the most. It was of a very heroic looking pony. It looked male from its bulkier build. He stood proud, a unicorn with a long beard that reached down to his forelegs knees. He had a stern expression, one that told of the vast wealth of knowledge he held behind the stony eyes of his. Atop his head he wore a stereotypical wizards hat and on his back a long flowing cloak that covered his entire body from his neck to back. I stood in front of the impressive statue as I read the inscription below it out loud. "Star Swirl the Bearded, a great hero to pony kind. A scholar and a pony of unparalleled intellect. His knowledge in the field of magic advanced pony civilization to where we are now. Let us never forget the impact he has had on us." I stood infront of the statue admiring the stoic ageless expression the unicorn wore. He revolutionized the world apparently. He used his gifts to change the world for the better, and in doing so earned himself immortality in the record books. A hero and revolutionary. It got me to thinking, maybe I should do something with this new gift of mine. I'll need to learn how to control it better. I'd have to figure out how to control my absorption of magic, and find out if I can channel it in any way. It might be alot of work but hey, who knows, I could become a hero too. My thoughts were interrupted as a voice from behind startled me. "Sir, the princess has requested your presence." A pony clad in white and gold armor with a white coat addressed me. "Oh, okay then. Lead the way good sir." He nodded and about faced and I followed. After a short walk through the garden and through the halls we were outside of the throne room. The guard motioned to the two unicorns stationed at the door to open them. Their horns lit up in shades of blue and white and the massive double doors slowly creaked open. I was greeted to a large open room. Not just large, HUGE. You could probably fit a football field in here. The ceiling was high and had romanized columns as supports. The floor was the same immaculate marble with a long crimson, gold lined, carpet that led from the door to the throne. Which was impressive in its own right. It was an ornate piece of furniture, white in color with gold trim. It was also situated upon a pyramid shaped stair case with what I could only guess were Equestrian flags behind it depicting two ponies circling each other in a yin-yang type pattern, one sporting the sun, the other the moon. And sitting upon this throne fit for a god was, well a god. Princess Celestia looked over to me when the doors opened and offered a warm smile. On either side of her throne stood a stone faced unicorn guard. These ones wore the same armor as the others I had seen but both had a dark charcoal colored coat. "Ah, Damien. So glad to see you up and about. I assume you had a good nights rest." She spoke to me in that ethereal motherly voice that just radiated a sense of comfort. "Yea, I slept pretty great. You know considering what I went through yesterday." I scratched the back of my head awkwardly as I recalled the events of what will now be referred to as "The Beating". "That is good to hear, though I am curious as to how you seem to have not a scratch on you." She ventured with a curious tone as she got up from her throne and motioned for me to follow her. "But you can tell me all about it over breakfast, the others are eager to hear your tales as well." She led me to a set of double doors on the right of the throne room and magicked them open revealing a rather large and lavishly fancy looking dining room. A chandelier made of what I assumed were legit diamonds hung from the ceiling above the long table. Said table was decorated with vases with various colorful flowers and an extravagant looking candelabra with no less than ten red candles situated in its intricate golden arms. There were nine chairs set up at the table. Three on one side, four on the opposite side and two larger chairs set at one end of the long table. Each of the chairs were made of wood (what kind I couldn't tell) and had red felt cushions on them. They had large seats on them but were really low to the ground. I saw Twilight and the others come in and take six of the smaller chairs, Twilight taking one closest to the larger chairs. Celestia Walked over to one of the larger chairs and sat in it while I made my way to the spare chair on the left side of the table with Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity. I stared st the chair for a while, it was too short for me to actually sit in it comfortably but the table was too tall for me to sit cross-legged on the ground. So I just sat cross-legged on the chair. "Damien how are you feeling?" Twilight asked me from across the table. "Just fine, feeling pretty good actually." I said as I re-adjusted my sitting position. "That's good to hear, but when we found you it looked like Princess Luna had beaten you to near death!" She looked a bit skeptical of my obvious health. "How are you perfectly fine and not have a scratch on you?" Rainbow piped in as she searched my bare torso for any scars. "I think it has something to do with your worlds magic." I explained. "Where I come from there's no such thing as magic, at least not the kind here, and I think my body acts like a sponge and absorbs the foreign energy." I tried to explain it as if I thought of it myself rather than death telling me. Don't want to go through the trouble of trying to explain that. "But instead of flying or spells, my cells get super charged by the magic. Which I think is what gives me my super strength and hyper regeneration. So long as there's magic around I can probably heal indefinitely, that is if I can learn how to purposefully absorb and direct magic to healing. When Luna was tossing me around like a rag doll I felt weaker in terms of my strength, I think that was because my body was subconsciously diverting all the magic in my body to healing. If that makes any sense." I scratched the back of my head as Twilight looked to be in deep thought. "That makes sense I guess, for unicorns we manipulate magic with our horns and weave together spells." She demonstrated this by lifting a fork that was in front of her with her telekinesis. "Pegasi channel it with their wings to allow flight and their hooves so they can manipulate the weather." Rainbow got up and hovered a bit to show off her wings before sitting back down. "And the magic in earth ponies enhances their physical capabilities and their connection with nature, allowing earth ponies to be great with growing crops and such." Applejack just nodded in affirmation, I guess I'll get to see that aspect in action later. "I still find it amazing that you guys can even do something like control the weather, back home the weather kind of just happened whether we wanted it to or not." I looked towards princess Celestia. "Or that you can control the sun and the moon. In my world our planet orbits around the sun in an oval pattern while rotating on an axis. That's what gives us our day and seasonal cycle." I made a crude diagram with one of the spoons on the table and used a nearby candle for the 'sun'. "Hmm, I see. Your world is self sustaining. That's SO fascinating I would love to hear more." Twilight seemed more than ecstatic to find out more about my world. Before I could say anymore a pair of double doors, on the opposite wall Celestia and I walked in, opened up with a train of pony in maid outfits trotting through with platters of food on their backs. One had a large platter with eggs of different varieties, sunny side up, scrambled, omelets, even a couple of hard boiled eggs already de-shelled. Another mare behind that one walked through with a platter just as large with a variety of pancakes and waffles on it. There were also many plates of salads, fresh fruits, and vegetables. I immediately locked my sights on the chocolate chip waffles and a steaming omelet that looked like it had some green peppers and other veggies in it. A large glass was levitated towards me and a pony in a maid outfit was at my side with three pitures in her telekinetic grasp, one had milk, another had orange juice, and the last one had water. "What would you like sir?" She asked me with a smile. "Uh, OJ sounds nice thank you." I smiled back as she poured the OJ in my glass before moving on to Rarity next to me. "Well, everypony. Help yourselves, don't worry about running out our chefs can make more if you like." Celestia motioned towards the now full table as she levitated a small cup of coffee towards her lips. "Alrighty then." I immediately began stacking my plate with waffles and scrambled eggs. All the ponies at the table happily accepted the meal and chowed down at their leisure. Pinkie and I on the other hand were already on our second stack of eight waffles each in an unspoken agreement to a eating contest before any of the others had even finished selecting. Small talk among the ponies was made as Pinkie and I had our battle, Rainbow and Applejack cheering us on as we both attacked our fifth stack. She kept a steady yet quick pace while I was taking whole waffles, rolling them up and dunking them in syrup before consuming them in one bite. Finally as we each reached our eighth plate I began to slow down. My method of eating the waffles whole back fired, whilst Pinkie looked good to go for another two plates at least. But I wasn't going down that easy. I stared down my glutenous adversary, waffle in hand. My stomach begged me to stop, yet my pride urged me to continue. The pink menace bore a smug smirk as she continued bite after bite of her breakfast. Finally she tossed aside all reason and began matching me waffle for waffle. I would consume a waffle and she would inhale one soon after. Our audience watched in awed (or disgusted) silence as our standoff reached its climax. Pinkie and I had but one waffle left on our plates along with a lone cherry on the large platter between us and it even seemed pinkie was succumbing to the morning match. I rolled up my waffle and slowly lifted it to my mouth, Pinkie matching me move for move, until both her and I had a waffle hovering before our open mouths. Our bodies trying their damndest to stop us but our wills perseveering as we both shoved the last waffles in our mouths. Pinkie chewed hers and swallowed with a sickly look of pride adorning her face. I chewed mine. Once. Twice. Three times, before forcing it down my throat. As I felt the waffle side down to meet its brothers in my gullet I caught a glimpse of a smug smiling pink pony as my vision tilted sideways and I fell to my side in defeat as my nemesis took the celebratory cherry and popped it into her mouth, securing her the victory. "Well fought soldier." Pinkie said as she trotted around the table to my side. "At least I lost to a worthy adversary." I responded as I gripped the side of the table and brought myself up. I looked down and noticed that a good portion of my chest was now covered in syrup. "Ugh, how come you're still clean?" I questioned Pinkie as I tried, with little success, to clean off some of it with a cloth napkin. "You have much to learn young one, but auntie pinkie pie will teach you her ways." She gave me an all knowing smile before bouncing off to her seat as if she wasn't filled with at least a hundred pounds of waffles. "I think I need a shower." I gave up the napkin and turned to Celestia. "Can I take one before we continue the questions?" She smiled and nodded before turning to one of the maid ponies. "Would you please show Mr. Damien here to the bath and get him anything he may need." The maid nodded as she trotted up to me. "Right this way sir." She was about to open the double doors the food came in through before Rarity stopped us. "Oh, wait just a second darling, I nearly forgot to give you this." She levitated a pile of neatly folded clothing towards me which I let drop into my open hands. "Wow, Rarity this is so cool of you. I don't know how I can thank you." "Think nothing of it darling, you needn't worry about any sort of payment or anything. Consider it a welcome to Equestria gift." She gave me a kind smile. "Thanks Rarity, I'd hug you right now but I'm kind of in a sticky situation here." I shrugged "Hehe, then later dear, once you're all clean and well dressed." She gave me a smirk before the maid pony led me out of the dining room. The maid pony led me to a nearby bathroom that contained a bath within it. She nodded her head before leaving me to my privacy, stating that she would be right back with a fresh towel. The bathroom looked nearly identical to the one I used earlier though instead of a simple shower it had a below floor bath tub. I turned on the faucets to the rather large bath, even for my size, and tested the waters for the perfect temperature. I undressed and stepped into the tub and switched it to the overhead, which I still had to duck under. I washed off all the syrup and thoroughly scrubbed myself down before switching the water back to the lower faucet and flipping a lever to block the drain, allowing the tub to fill. I layed myself down in the tub and stopped the water as it reached about to my neck. "Ooooh yeeeeaaaahhhh." I said as I let myself become submerged by the water. I loved taking a nice warm bath, it's always so calm and relaxing. Also it's the best time for one to spend on thinking about their issues and problems. Though I opted for instead letting all of that wash over me as I simple enjoyed the blissful feeling of relaxation. I re-surfaced and slicked my hair back before resting my head against the rim of the bath and drifted off.