Richard Pound
In:
Experiments 11 & 12
By: Green Draft
I felt strange. Was I dead? I remembered the crash; the great bursts of fire as explosions tore through the ship. I remember thinking of Sunny and Twilight, knowing my life was going to end. Yet it wasn’t. I opened my eyes. This was a familiar scene for me, on my back in Celestia’s bed. Twilight slept next to me.
I softly pressed my hoof into her side, trying to rouse her. “Twilight,” I said, “Wake up.” Her eyes opened, blinking rapidly. She saw me looking at her.
“Richard, you’re awake,” she murmured happily. We both got out of the bed, stretching. “The princess saved you.”
“Oh really?” I asked, shocked. The princess decided to save me.
“She wants to meet you as soon as you wake up,” Twilight explained.
“How’s Sunny?” I asked, knowing what was important.
“He’s staying with Rainbow Dash,” she said, “And no, I’m not worried about the egghead thing.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked. Clearly I need a lot of information.
“Only a day. You’re starting to heal fast. I like that.” We walked out of the room, going to meet Celestia.
“Richard! You’re awake,” Celestia exclaimed as we neared the throne. Both Luna and Celestia sat on their thrones. Luna looked slightly bored.
“You know I am,” I said. “What happened? How did you save me? I thought your magic couldn’t touch that thing, at least you didn’t feel like it if you could.” She gave a small laugh.
“Oh Richard. Human technology is rather impervious to magic, but when you turned it off, it became little more than falling scrap, which is easy to deal with,” she explained. She gave a small sigh.
“What will you do now, Richard?” asked Luna out of nowhere. I gave her a blank look.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps I’ll be happily married, and have a loving family.” I feigned a look of introspection. “Yeah, that sounds good.” Luna rolled her eyes.
I spoke up again, “you know Celestia. I want to thank you for saving me. I am grateful for that. Thank you.” She looked taken aback. I wonder what she must be thinking.
“You’re… welcome, Richard,” she said.
“Sunny, read anything good?” I asked him as he fluttered around the library.
“Yes,” he said, “Rainbow Dash had this cool book series. Daring Doo she said.”
“I’ve got all of those too!” exclaimed Twilight. She went off to one of the bookcases to grab them.
Things had turned slightly normal in the months passing the strange attack. Twilight had told me what Celestia had done in the aftermath. She and Luna had used magic to make the humans disappear entirely. Not only in what they had done to Equestria, but in the minds of all the ponies. Only Twilight and I would remember. It was like they had never attacked at all.
If only they hadn’t. The one problem being those that had died would stay dead. There was no going back on that. Celestia had put up a monument in the gardens with their names. It couldn’t be public because it would raise too many questions. Twilight had returned with a large stack of books and placed them in front of Sunny. She took the top book and gave it to me.
“What do you want me to do with this?” I asked. Sunny grabbed a book in the middle of the stack, causing them to tumble to the floor. Twilight gave a chuckle.
“Read it, silly. It’s good, and frankly, she reminds me of you.” I looked at the cover; it had a pretty brown mare on it.
“Seems… interesting,” I said carefully. Internally I was working out how to not read this.
“It is, dad! If you read it I can talk to somepony about it,” said Sunny. I guess I was going to have to read it.
“Did you know these books are based off a real pony? Daring Doo was a researcher at Canterlot who decided to go into the field literally,” explained Twilight. Of course she knew this. She knew everything about books. There was a knocking at the door. Sunny fluttered to the door, opening it.
On the other side was Spike. He was drenched with sweat, in his hand he held a scroll; he panted heavily.
“Twilight,” he gasped, “here’s a letter for you.” Twilight enveloped the scroll with her magic, bringing it to us. She opened it. It said Celestia needed to see me immediately. The magic in the scroll would teleport me as soon as I read it.
I was in the castle, hooves placed as if they were grabbing a scroll. Celestia sat on her throne in front of me. Luna wasn’t here nor were any of the guards.
“Dick, there’s something I need to tell you,” Celestia said solemnly. What could she possibly need to tell me? Everything had been said years ago.
“Richard, you aren’t the first I brought here. There are others like you. Others… who are human in pony bodies.” That was a shock to my system. Others like me. “Not just from your time, but from all over, different countries too.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because you have to get rid of them,” Celestia said.
“What? Why?” I questioned.
“Our worlds were meant to stay separate, Richard. But by using magic I breached the gap, and now it is falling apart. Those humans have to go. I can give you whatever information I know.”
Appeloosa, it was a dusty little town with many southern folk. Tumbleweed blew through the town; nopony seemed to notice or care. Twilight walked off the train behind me.
“I remember this town,” she said. “It was built by the Apple family to some extent. That made the buffalo mad.”
“Bufallo? Never seen one of them,” I said.
“Maybe you will.” She shrugged. We weren’t here for sightseeing. We were here to find a ‘brony’ she had called it. He was the first one she had sent for. He had been too excited to be here that he had failed miserably. She said I could use Twilight to lure it out. His time at the castle had been spent asking for the ‘mane 6’.
“We’ve got to find that thief,” I lied. She didn’t know the truth. I told her it was a thief that was attracted to the color purple. So gems, art, and Twilight would be in his interests. Celestia had said that he had recently moved to Appeloosa; he was too scared to move directly to Ponyville for fear of her wrath.
“Let’s try looking at the saloon,” Twilight suggested.
“I agree. It’s a hot day, and I doubt the thief is doing much today.” We walked to the Salt Lick Saloon. The town was full of townsfolk. I scanned the crowd, looking for a lingering glance. Success, a pony at the back had his eyes fixated on Twilight. It felt dirty watching it. Twilight followed my gaze, nodding. We took separate seats at the countertop, trying to look separate. I wondered if he would make the first move, if not, Twilight was going to have to do some acting.
30 minutes passed. The pony in the corner hadn’t moved his eyes from her. I could tell he was uncomfortable. I made a secretive gesture to Twilight; she gave a small sigh and stood up, walking to the staring pony.
“Hello there, handsome,” she said. He gasped, struggling to find a suitable response.
“Oh, uh Hi!” he yelled. His face erupted in a flash of red as he buried his head in his hooves. Twilight sat next to him.
“Aw, you’re so cute,” she said, rubbing her hoof on his back. He tensed his muscles. Surely he felt like dying now.
“Heh, oh, uh, Twilight, you’re cute too,” he said. He said her name. She never said her name and he said it. Jackpot.
“Thank you, now what’s your name?” she asked.
“My name’s, uh, Big Richard,” he said. He said it so quietly it was nearly impossible to hear it. That son of a gun had used Richard as a penis joke! What a dick.
“I love your name, Dick,” Twilight said, purring. This was starting to be hard for me. This Dick was getting with my mare! Big was getting up some courage.
“Hey, uh, you want to come over to my place?” he asked hopefully. Twilight blushed and I died on the inside. What an idiot.
“Oh, sure,” she said. She stood up to let him out. Hastily he stood up as well. He gave Twilight an awkward peck. He started to walk away with Twilight in tow. This was going to be good.
I snuck into a window, falling gracefully to my feet. I had crept into Big’s house after he and Twilight had entered. I must be in his bathroom. It was exceedingly dirty. I heard a scream from the living room, it sounded like Twilight. I burst through the door. Twilight was levitating him in the air; he was trying to grab her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I just love my Dick.” Big looked confused, I cleared my throat. Twilight noticed me and dropped him heavily to the floor. He let out a groan as she trotted to me, giving me a kiss.
“Twilight, would you mind stepping outside?” I asked, she nodded and trotted outside. I turned to Big who was trying to get on his hooves.
“Big, Big, Big,” I repeated. He looked scared.
“Wh- who are you?” he stammered.
“I’m Richard Pound, Twilight’s husband.” He cursed. “Now, I’ve got to give you this pill or something,” I said, rummaging through my saddlebag. I found the bottle Celestia had given me. I shook one out.
“Here we go. Now you have to return home, Big. Back to Earth you go.” His eyes shot wide.
“No! You can’t send me back! I can’t go back. They don’t understand me there. I’m welcome here…. Everypony loves me…,” he trailed off, backing away from me. I took a step forward.
“I felt the same way when I killed myself. I’m sure you didn’t, did you?” he shook his head. “Good,” I said. “Now just take the damn pill so I can go home.”
“My parents don’t understand,” he tried to persuade me, “I don’t have any friends. No one understands this world like I do! This is a dream come true.” I lunged at him, pinning him to the ground.
“Take the damn pill,” I said through gritted teeth. He tried to shake me off, but he was weak.
“No!” he screamed. “She’ll come after you too!” he garbled as I jammed the pill down his throat. His body went limp.
“Ok,” I said, “I guess Celestia will come and deal with this.” I went outside to meet with Twilight. Celestia told me that she would summon me again when she had another in her sights.
Experiment 011
"Yo no soy la persona que estas tratando de buscar. Soy un pony solamente,” said the pony slowly. I had cornered him down the alley off 6th and Main Street. He had lived the life of a hobo since he had run from the castle. He was shivering at the end of the alleyway. His coat was ragged and patchy. I held out a pill.
“This will make you better,” I said. “Better.” He waved a hoof at me.
"No tengo dinero. Por favor, dejame en pas,” he cried.
“I don’t understand you!” I yelled at him. He shut his eyes in terror. Twilight stood behind me, looking at me curiously.
“Let me help,” said Twilight. She used her magic to hold his legs down and his mouth open. The foreign pony tried to scream, but he was too constricted. I dropped the pill down his throat. “Are you sure this is going to cure him?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah, it will,” I told her. “Let’s get back to Ponyville.”
“Richard, who was that pony? What was he talking about?” asked Twilight. We were back in Ponyville. We had taken Sunny to the park, Twilight sat next to me on a bench. Sunny played with other foals.
“I don’t know who he was, only that Celestia said he need help. So I helped him,” I told her blankly. Celestia had told the reason for his failure. He didn’t speak a language anyone had understood. What use did she have for a non-understanding and not understood worker? He had fled in the middle of the night. I wondered how many had been like him. How many had she taken from Earth?
“That’s strange. I’ve never heard a language like that before, Richard. Did she tell you where he was from?” She had not, yet I could manage a guess. He have lived in Mexico or Spain at some point and had the bad fortune to be moved here.
“No, she didn’t. Maybe he was from somewhere south.” That was the best thing that came to mind to say.
“But they don’t talk like that there. I know a lot of languages, Richard, and that was not one of them,” Twilight said. “What was that all about, Richard?” How long was she going to pester me? I couldn’t keep these lies up forever, not to Twilight!
“I’ll tell you tonight, ok?” I said, breaking down. This was going to be tough.
Sunny was asleep. I led Twilight up to the bedroom and told her to sit on the bed, this might be a shock.
“Ok, Twilight. Do you know how I came from Earth?” I asked her. She nodded.
“Yeah, Richard. Of course I do.”
“Well, Celestia told me something more. That I wasn’t the only human in Equestria and that I have to help her get rid of the rest of them.”
“So, those two ponies we ‘helped’ earlier. They were humans too weren’t they?” she asked.
“Yeah, they were. There are more; I’m not sure how many. She didn’t tell me,” I explained.
“What does she do to them?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“But what about you?” Twilight asked.