The last human warrior

by leaderofstars

pain is life

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt

“uh-huh... yeah... I see... that’s good,” leaderofstars gave halfhearted responses to Twilight's exposition about the land of Equestria. Really he was paying attention but the fact that this world, while never having a single war with anyone or had any type of problem really, already had those willing to fight for its freedom with powers much powerful then what he had. Which meant that his job skills as a soldier, assassin and demolitions expert were pretty much rendered useless. Maybe he could crave out a niche role in this town Twilight was taking him to with his other, lesser used skills. He was a half-decent chemist and doctor so maybe..... no, wait.... he'll need to learn about the ponies' anatomy before offering his services or else someone could die. He could be a... no, wait.... someone could also die from that. He’ll just have to find his place to fit in with time.

“Are you even listening to me,” snapped Twilight, directing her anger at the human who was still mumbling generic agreements. “Hey, pay attention to me.” she said tapping the human on the leg with her hoof.

The human just looked at her and said, “Yeah I’m paying attention. You was talking about how you and 5 others like you possess powers given to you by the spirit of your home-world, that was encased with a crystal growth by some evil S.O.B., that when combined together summon the your world's greatest warrior Captain Dovahkin.”

“That's not even what I said. I was telling you about the history of Equestria.” snapped a angry Twilight.

“I stopped listening and caring about what you was telling me after you said how peaceful this world is. You make it seem this world this best fucking thing to exist ever. That’s a matter of opinion, my home world may have been filled with assholes, and it may be gone now but it was my home. Nothing will ever change that not even if I live here for the rest of my life, nothing would take the place of my old life. So can you tone down the bullshit spewing out of your mouth.”

Twilight was at a loss for words. This human, while certainly could use several classes at charm school, used to live on a another world. This meant that he is the only one with any knowledge of a completely different civilization not native to Equestria. “Can you tell me about your home-world.”

The human seemed lost in thought as if holding off a flood of bad memories. “I’m from a planet called Terra frima. Well used to be anyways since its gone now. not worth living there any more.”

“what do you mean its gone now?” Twilight asked, confused and unable to understand. “ I don't get it, what do you mean by not worth living there anymore?”

“It may be my home but without other humans to share it with,” he said his face slowly lighting up. “lets just say it means that I cannot go back for any reason.”

He thought back to the wasteland that was once his home. His home at least before that WALKING COON-SKIN CAP came by and killed every-other human there with that damn death laser beam strike. Everyone but him, because he was protected by the nanobots. What little comfort that was; death is supposed to be a sweet release from pain like that. The several days of nonstop pain while his nanobots repaired the damage done to his body was complete hell for him. His only thought and regret at that time was joining that damn experiment that gave him the nanobots to begin with. His family, his friends, his lifestyle all gone in mere moments leaving him the sole human heir of a entire world.

“Are you okay? Whats wrong?” Twilight asked noticing the tear running down this human's cheek.

leaderofstars wiped the tear away. I need to stop getting lost in my thoughts. “It's nothing. Just memories of a life before coming here.”

The two of them resumed walking to ponyville, but neither one said anything. Twilight was trying to word a question about leaderofstars' home that wouldn't offend him while leaderofstars was replaying his fight with the wolves in his head. After three-quarters to ponyville, Twilight stopped. “Wait, you can't just walk into town like this. You'll cause a panic.”

“Why? Does one simply even walk into ponyville?” leaderofstars laughed to himself.

Standing in front of him, she said, “If you go around telling everypony you meet that you eat meat, everypony in town may try to run you out of town.”

leaderofstars blew a raspberry. “Like to see 'em try. I don't care if they ain't gonna accept me for how I choose to live my life. I'll live my life the way I choose to live it.”

Twilight looked at leaderofstars with a face of concern. “Promise me that you will not tell or show anypony that you eat meat.”

unknown to both of them, on this windless day, a cloud was quickly approaching where the two was standing.

Holding up his hands leaderofstars said quite loudly, “no. I will not hide the fact that I eat meat teh everyone. That would be like...”

“Twilight, get away from that freak!” the cloud said as it fired some kind of rainbow colored missile.

leaderofstars looked up and saw the strike coming for him in time to utter, “what the fuc...”

The rainbow missile made contact with his chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying back quite a bit. Landing on his back, leaderofstars tried scramble to his feet, but something landed on his chest pinning him to the ground. Opening his eyes he saw a light blue pony with rainbow hair coming into focus.

“Twilight, run to town. I'll hold this freak at bay.” the light blue pony shouted at Twilight before turning its head to leaderofstars.

Rainbow dash was just relaxing on her cloud after having finished her task as ponyville's weather manager when she saw her friend Twilight in the distance. She was walking from fluttershy's house, but before she could fly over to greet her a flash of light from Twilight's left kept Rainbow Dash sitting on her cloud. “What was that?” she said. Using her cloud as cover she got close enough to see some-type of diamond dog standing in front of Twilight. The two of them seemed to be talking about something but she couldn't hear it.

Moving her cloud cover closer she heard the diamond dog shout, “I eat meat.” thinking quickly, she concluded that this diamond dog was going to kill and eat her friend, so she flew straight out of her cloud, shouting, “Twilight, get away from that freak!” she hit the diamond dog in the chest sending it flying back. Landing on the dog's chest she yelled at Twilight to run back to town.

Turning her head to the now pinned diamond dog she saw the dog put it's paw behind it back and make a quick slash at her neck. But instead of claws she felt something soft slide across her neck and it was enough to make her take to the skies.

“Dammit, I forgot I left my knife with her.” leaderofstars said scrambling to his feet. It had been pure reaction, making a quick slash to the neck with his combat knife. His combat knife may be with Fluttershy, his light blue pony assailant was still alive, but at least he could move now. He reached for his machetes only to find them missing from where he put them the most. He'll worry about that later, when he wins this fight. Balling up his fists he stuck a fighting stance, watching his opponent’s movements and preparing himself mentally. Suddenly the pony flew at him, but leaderofstars was ready, grabbing his attacker in mid-flight and redirecting pony's flight path over his shoulder into the ground. Hopping up and placing a hand on the pony's chest, leaderofstars raised his fist and threw it at the pony's face. Just before his fist was about to make contact, something stopped him and floated him away from his light blue enemy.

Twilight sighed as she floated leaderofstars off of Rainbow Dash with her telekinesis magic. This was exactly what she was trying to keep from happening in the first place. Maybe now leaderofstars will show some restraint about admitting his love of meat while in public. Placing him on the ground behind her, Twilight walked up to her friend to see if she was alright. Rainbow only had a few bruises on her front hoof where leaderofstars had grabbed her, but other then that was still OK. Physically at least, Rainbow Dash was a little shaken with how close defeat came to her.

“Who or what is that thing, Twilight?” Rainbow asked.

“He calls himself leaderofstars. Can you play nice with him? Hes the last of his kind.” Twilight pleaded.

Rainbow scoffs. “Why are you defending that meat eating freak. He'll kill and eat us as soon as we turn our flanks on him.”

“He eats meat sure but he claims he doesn't eat sentient life like us ponies. Hes also a omnivore so he can eat more then just meat.”

Rainbow walked past Twilight glaring at her. “I’ll take your word for it but you had better be right about this.” she walked towards leaderofstars, who was on one leg with one of his paws on one of his shoulders talking to himself.

leaderofstars clutched his shoulder. The fight with the light blue pony may have pulled out the stitches Fluttershy had used to patch up his bite with. And for some reason the nanobots were completely unresponsive the last time he had gotten injured. It stood to reason that they would never reactivate and he'll be at the mercy of diseases he had no natural defenses to. Maybe his half-baked medicinal knowledge would come in handy at least for his sake, at least he could remain alive long enough to put most of the stuff he learned about humanity’s past onto paper and share that with the inhabitants of this world. His happiness regrading the removal of his curse was short-lived, however as “INITIATING RECOVERY MODE” flashed across his glasses, shattering his happiness and making him curse the way the universe works. Looking up and seeing Twilight and the light blue pony walking toward him, he decided to milk his injury to get a few free hits on that winged little shit. Moving his shirt and jacket would expose his lie, but no one would dare try to take it off him.

“Rainbow Dash, apologize to him. You may have pulled the stitches that Fluttershy used to heal the wound she found him with.”

“Fine. I'll play nice and apologize to the freak” Rainbow Dash said getting as close as she felt safe to the creature. “look I’m sorry for attacking you just now.”

“What? You'll have to get closer, I can't seem to hear ya now.” a total lie but the closer this “Rainbow Dash” got to me, the easier it'll be to cold-cock her. “You'll need to come to where I can reach you.”

Rainbow turned glaring at Twilight mouthing, “He going to try and eat me I just know it.”

Twilight mouthed back, “Just do it. I promise he will do nothing of the sort.”

Rainbow got closer this time but was still outside leaderofstars' punching range. “come closer please. I have horrible hearing.” She got right next to his face and whispered, “I’m sorry for treating you like the freak you are.”

If both Rainbow Dash's voice and her words were sincere, they did little to keep leaderofstars from punching her in the face, knocking her down to the floor. “apology not accepted, bitch.” he stood up, giving the downed pony a gesture she wouldn't understand and turning around to grab his dropped gun.

Twilight started shouting at the human, “why did you do that to her! she was trying to apologize for attacking you!”

“She could have made me pull my stitches out.” picking up his firearm, he turned around. “Also I enjoy petty revenge.”

“You are very rude.” Twilight said trying to talk some sense into the human. “You didn't have to buck rainbow in the face. She was sorry for attacking you and you just...” she said as she helped Rainbow Dash up with her magic.

Rainbow stumbled a bit before feeling strong enough to stand on her own four hoofs. Twilight and the human were still having a shouting match about the human's actions. Rainbow dash pause to think about what she had said to the human. Her voice wasn't sincere, it had been dripping with hate and malice toward this creature that ate meat. Somehow this creature had heard the hate in her voice when she had said her “apology.” she started walk towards Twilight when both Twilight and this “leaderofstars” shouted something about Fluttershy at each other. She wanted to know what going on, “What about Fluttershy?”

“She sewed up my wolf bite earlier.” leaderofstars shouted. “Whats it to you?”

“She's a close friend of mine and if you did anything to her you freak, I’ll make you regret it.”

“How, because in case you forgotten I just dropped your ass like a sack of bricks. Besides the most I did was faint in her home.”

Rainbow glared at the human before calming herself and trotting slowly over to the human. She let her head down as if bowing to the giant. “look I’m sorry for being so hostile towards you I was trying to protect my friend from you because I thought you were going to kill and eat her.”

“that’s gross. You're a sick little fiend. But I’ll forgive you this time because you were trying to save your friend. Its nice to see-ORACH...” rainbow headbutted leaderofstars in his groin causing him to grab them and fall over on the ground.

“Hahaha! That's for bucking me in the face.” she said flying around the downed human mocking him.

“Heh. clever girl. Using a real apology like that to lower my defenses... not bad.” getting up to his feet, no longer in pain, he extended his hand in a traditional human handshake. “Truce?”

Twilight prepared a spell, ready to stop leaderofstars if he tried something.

Rainbow saw his outstretched hand and at the same-time noticed Twilight readying a spell of some-kind. “What is this, some kind of trick again?” she demanded cautiously. The last time she got close she had gotten bucked in the face and she didn't want that to happen again.

“Nope. I'm offering a truce the way we humans did it at one point. We hold each others right paw and shake them up and down gently.”

Rainbow flew slowly over to leaderofstars and slowly extended her hoof until leaderofstars grabbed it giving it a simple, gentle up and down movement, letting go after two shakes.

Rainbow pulled her hoof back as soon as leaderofstars let it go. She look at his claws, they were so soft yet firm very much unlike spike's or a diamond dog's claws. The most that looked like any real claw were at the tip of them and even then they were flat, short and dull. “What are you? You look like a diamond dog but without their face and your claws aren't even sharp. I can't believe I thought that you even eat meat.”

“I do eat meat. I'm a apex predator on my home world.”

“Ok now your lying about that. There’s no way you can even be a predator, you don't have the muscle tone.”

“You make it seem like you weren't on the receiving end of a beat down. Being a apex predator isn't all about brawn and no brains, its about using your brain to maximize the usefulness of your brawn. Besides I use tools to help me gather food”

Twilight started to relax. It seemed like those two may get along after all. She couldn't wait to get back home and curl up with a good book, just to relax after having to deal with those two.

The trip to Twilight's library/home was uneventful with leaderofstars and Rainbow Dash trying to out do each other with feats of increasing impossibly that either they or their species did. leaderofstars claimed that his species had reached their moon several times with their human technology and left a plague there with the inscription “HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET TERRA FRIMA FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND” written on it. Not only did Rainbow Dash find that hard to believe that the humans once had a machine that could reach the moon, but leaderofstars also couldn't believe that in this world at least, breaking the sound barrier shatters visible light.

The both of them had long since reached Twilight's library/home when leaderofstars finally won the argument by performing the one action Rainbow Dash couldn't do: dance like Michael Jackson. Granted all he knew about dancing like MJ came from his game but he didn't care since he doubted anyone here knew anything about Michael Jackson, making his performance look so natural.

Dancing circles around Rainbow Dash was especially tiring when dancing to and singing a song like “bad.” after a couple of minutes of showing off his human dexterity a crowd had formed around the dancing human enjoying the free entertainment this weird two-legged creature had brought.

leaderofstars paid no attention to anything around him so he didn't notice two ponies, one with light gray fur, blonde hair with wings and the other, a light green pony with a horn sticking out of her head, trying to dance along with him, but due the differences between human and pony anatomy they ended up falling down after a few seconds. After finishing the song he became aware of the fact that he was in a thick group of ponies. The group was far enough away to let him dance but all the attention was making him feel uncomfortable. When a pink pony jumped out at him, asking a lot of questions he freaked out, jumping straight into the air and landing within the branches of Twilight's tree/home. The pink pony's once fluffy hair deflated as leaderofstars stood within the leaves watching the crowd below trying to find where he was hiding.

He never was fond of crowds despite his attempts to hide it by acting like a jackass. He hated having so much attention on himself and because he was the only human in this world he would get all kinds of it. He watched as three tiny ponies attempted to dance like he did but couldn't maintain their balance and fell down laughing.

His thoughts were broken by Twilight yelling at him, she seemed mad. “leaderofstars get down here and say hello to everypony.”

“Screw you! I ain't getting down. I'll live in this tree if I have too.” he turned around and was scared by that same pink pony from before popping out in front of him, causing him to lose his footing and tumbling down through the branches. He hit the ground hard and could only lift his head up for a few seconds, coughed up some blood then passed out.

“Quick, help me take him to the hospital.” Twilight said gathering several unicorn ponies together to help her lift leaderofstars. Together they lifted leaderofstars up ever so carefully as to avoid making any injury he may have even worse. They admitted him to the nearby hospital where the head unicorn doctor expressed his uncertainty on being able to do much to this new patient, since they knew nothing of his physiology and as such would be flying blind to deal with any injuries he may have.

But a quick magical examination showed no injury to his body that one would expect from falling down a tree. There were stitches on his shoulder but no wound, and attempting to remove them proved futile as they could not become undone. This was a different species then what they were used to to after all and decided to let him rest. When he wakes up, he'll have to explain a few things before being discharged.

leaderofstars floated in a ocean of black with no real sense of direction and unable to see any thing except a giant floating dialog box labeled "INSTALLING UPDATES" and a progress bar. This was new, normally when he sleeps, his dreams were just a bunch of 0's and 1's flashing by. Enjoying the nice change in his psyche he decided to stare at the box until he woke up.

Twilight, having gotten home after that exhausting day of dealing with leaderofstars, decided to send princess Celestia a letter informing her of the human now living in ponyville. With spike busy making dinner, she decided to write the letter herself.

Dear Princess Celestia

I’m writing this letter to inform you of a unusual creature that has appeared near ponyville today. His name is leaderofstars and he claims is the last of his kind, hue-man, from another world. He is a oddity, changing his mind on a whim and refusing to keep his love of meat himself. This has caused a fight to break out between him and Rainbow Dash but it ended after Rainbow Dash had headbutted him. He appears to value the mix of strength and cleverness rainbow used to defeat him as a virtue rather then her loyalty to her friends.

I believe you should visit him. He's currently resting in the hospital after falling down from my home. Maybe you could get him to keep his love of meat to himself before it gets him in any more trouble.

Your faithful student
Twilight Sparkle

Rolling up the paper Twilight placed it on her desk and trotted towards the kitchen. She'll get spike to send the letter after dinner.

Meanwhile a lone figure was siting atop a horse composed of bones somewhere outside ponyville. His white robe was fluttering in the wind, and his scythe and scales gently reflecting the pale twilight sky. His scales floated up, and despite the heavy wind, refused to move up or down. “What still binds to the mortal coil human? You have proven yourself worthy of redemption. What prevents you from moving on to your final reward?” Neither he nor his horse moved until a white dove landed on the horse's head. The figure looked at the cooing bird before turning his horse around. “I see. He still has work to do before he can forgive himself. I will act as his guardian until then and help him find the peace he seeks.” The bird cooed then flew off disappearing as fast as it appeared. The figure rode his horse away from the town into the nearby forest.

author notes
I would like to thank the three people who tracked this story when I first uploaded it, even though it was probably out of sheer pity.

Maybe now would be a bad time to mention that I never saw the show itself, up until finding this site I’ve only read the fan-fiction cupcakes (don't see the problem with everyone freaking out about it I’ve seen far worse.) and I’m using the official and fan labor wiki to determine, personality, voice and actions of any preset character.

Why write a story like this? because I suck. Also because there ain't enough stories about true culture shock involving different foods, table manners, and customs. Its all “I’m in a land of talking ponies just like that TV show. I'm gonna swear off meat as not to offend anybody oops I mean anypony. Derp” I really don't see the point of stories like that. Sounds way too easy to write a story where the focus human character knows the ponies already or has ability to learn about them and has opinions on who's the best. The twist here is that friendship is magic was never made therefore the focus human is flying blind trying to coexist with the ponies.

Just a head's up the human will never know a character’s name before it had been said to him. So when said in first person he'll used color of fur, hair and wings/horns to describe characters unless he knows their name beforehand.

Comments

[Tome]

They shouldn't be so shocked about eating meat.
There are gryphons in Equestria you know.

[leaderofstars]

257350

i'm kinda sure them gryphons don't parade around eating it in public. it's kinda implied and not really shown in the show itself.
besides gryphons hardly ever come to ponyville so i doubt they could really handle that fact.

besides just about every-other fanfic i read has roughly the same plot to them. this will be one of the few that walks a different path towards the same goal.

[Tome]

258183I don't know what goal your talking about.
But I'm expecting the human to turn into a pony. I also expect
shipping with Twi. Jk jk...that's how things usually end up
like, which is great.

Btw you should find your self a prereader. You got some
Mistakes in your chapters.

Now in the mean time I'm gonna lay in bed, and play some Xbox.