Strangers Like Me

by MrEnter

Chapter 3: Worlds Apart

Escape. That was the only thing left on Harry's mind. He looked to the back of the room—perfect, a window. There was another knock on the door, this time more aggressively. There was no time to think of the situation. Harry picked up the knife and dashed for the window as the guards broke down the front door. They stared at the fallen unicorn, trying to piece together what happened.

Harry jabbed the knife into the window causing the glass to shatter. The guards turned their attention towards him. Harry climbed onto the sill and felt one of his arms being pulled backwards. Through the corner of his eye he saw the other guard shoot a fireball at him. Harry ducked down and rolled as much of his body out of the window as he could, causing the fireball to to just narrowly fly over him.

His wrist still remained in the room over him, and the guard was pulling on the shackle harshly. Harry tried to pull back, but faltered. His strength was no match for that of a trained guard. Harry heard hoof-steps over the scattered papers. The other guard was coming closer.

Harry looked to the knife. He prayed that this would work. He gave some slack on his arm, and then pulled with all of his strength. He breathed a moment of relief. Excellent, some of the chain was on his side. Harry jabbed the knife into the chain. As expected he felt electricity coursing through himself as he struggled to turn the knife. He heard one of the guards inside give a grunt of pain. He wasn't the only one suffering from an electric shock.

It was a battle of endurance. Harry was gritting his teeth, struggling not to let go of the knife, no matter how much pain he was in. If he didn't get out of this one, there would be no telling what the consequences were. Harry heard a thud and seconds later his arm was freed. The knife clanged onto the window sill and he pulled his arm out before the other unicorn could ensnare it. Harry fell onto the ground, barely dodging the pieces of shattered glass. He had to think through these things more thoroughly.

Harry looked around the area he was in. It was that mare's backyard, fenced in with walls presumably built high enough to stop a human from jumping over. That wasn't going to stop him from at least trying to climb over it. He ran at the wall, jumped, and just missed the top of it. One of the guards jumped out the window. Harry heard the sound of glass chips breaking. He turned to see the guard standing in front it in the house's dim light. He was shaking as he scouted the yard. Harry could barely make out any specifics, but it was clear he had jumped onto the window's broken glass.

Wait, if Harry could barely see the guard in the house's light; then the guard definitely couldn't see him. Harry intended to keep it that way. He ducked down and scooped up some of the dirt. A light shone from his horn and he began to scour the yard. Harry charged forward Light shone on his face, forcing his eyes shut. Harry blindly tossed the dirt in front of him. Harry felt the light on his face die out and opened his eyes. The unicorn was tearing up, shaking his head, desperately trying to get the dirt out.

Harry ran back inside the house. The electrical blast from earlier seemed to have knocked out the unicorn guard. Harry didn't have time to worry about this. He bolted out the door into the street. He looked around and saw some lights in the distance in most every direction—guards most likely. It didn't really matter where Harry was running to, just anywhere but here.

The cover of darkness was a comforting one. Harry thanked his lucky stars that it was at least a cloudy night. There was no telling what these unicorns could see in the pale moonlight. There was also no telling how fast Harry's crimes would spread around the city either. The one solution obviously was to escape it as soon as possible.

The Harry's memory struck him. The ruins from the modern age. They spread out really far. This wasn't simply a city, it was a bustling metropolis, at least at it's destruction. Harry kept sneaking through the city as he swam through confusion. How could humans go from slaves to having statues built of them... in twenty years? That puzzle could be dealt with later. There was a much more important puzzle to solve—that of survival. Harry was running through random streets and he was getting tired.

He was too often running into dead ends. Roads ended at massive walls too frequently. Two guards strolled almost every street, scouring each nook and cranny fiercely, and that was before they knew that a criminal was on the loose. Harry ducked into an alley and sat beheind a barrel in order to attempt to gain his breath. Fatigue from getting thrashed against a wall and electrocuted twice was finally setting in.

Harry sat there breathing heavily until he heard what sounded like a lock being unhinged. He tightened his chest, closed his eyes, and prepared for the inevitable. The inevitable never came. In its place were whispers.

"This way, come here."

It repeated a few times before Harry opened his eyes. He turned towards the whispering to see that a trapdoor had opened next to him. There was a sillohuette down the stairs calling out to him. Harry couldn't make much out, but it was definitely bipedal. Harry knew that this was going to be a mistake walking down there, but anything was better than staying up here just waiting to get caught. Harry ducked into the trapdoor and the sillouhette closed it behind him.

"Don't move," a raspy voice said.

A torch was lit and Harry stood face-to-face with another human, similar to his own stature. He looked misshapen, partially starved, and like he hadn't cared about his hygenie in months. He definitely smelled that way. He beckoned Harry to follow along down the stairs. As he stepped down he heard clanking around the human's chest. In the torchlight, he also noticed a lack of shackles.

"Who are you? What's going on?" Harry asked, trying to spark up a conversation. Before he even finished the second sentence a knife was at his neck. The human began to whisper.

"Not a word."

Yup, this was definitely a bad idea. Harry gave a subtle nod, and the human dropped the knife. There was more clanking. It wasn't much sound, but it was the only sound that overpowered the torch fire. There was nothing else to focus on until Harry was hit with an overpowering stench. His eyes began to water. Never in his life had he smelled something so terrible.

Harry heard the human make a splash in some water. Then it come together. Harry was in a sewer. He got close to the water, debated going further, and just plunged in. The splash brought him down to his knees, and caused an echo throughout the tunnels. The human looked back to Harry with rage in his eyes. He didn't say a word this time; he didn't need to. The message was clear.

They followed the twisting passages of horrid odors for quite some time. The only sounds to keep them company were the squeaking of the rats, and the clanking. The near-silence was gnawing to say the very least. Finally, the human let out one solitary word: "Speak."

"What's going on?" Harry asked the most important question on his mind. He didn't really care who this nutjob was anymore.

"Freedom," the human said.

Before Harry could ask a next question, the human grabbed Harry's wrist and examined it under the torchlight. He gave a motion that told Harry to take it. Harry did as he was instructed. The human reached under his shirt and pulled out a neckless that seemed to contain three rather long teeth. He jabbed Harry's shackle with it. Harry winced, expecting the electrocution, but none came. He saw that the tooth had stopped just before puncturing Harry's wrist and was absorbing the magical shackle. He used another one to free Harry from his other shackle, and then he took the torch back. They continued on their way.

"Th-thank you," Harry said, examining his own wrists. "What were those?"

"Unicorn horns."

"Wait, what!?" Harry said, almost under his breath. Harry stopped walking. He thought very hard about turning around, running back, and just saying sorry for what he had done. The human almost seemed to predict this and grabbed Harry's arm again.

"What I did to them will be nothing compared to what they do to you if they catch you."

"I don't see what could be worse than murder," Harry said, eyeing the horns still hanging from the human's neck.

"Murder now? That's a rather harsh assumption."

"..." Harry tried to speak, but couldn't over the gagging. Now he could see what was worse than murder. He left three unicorns permanently mutilated, their magic robbed from them for the rest of their lives.

"Are you coming or not?" the human asked.

"I'm not going with any creature as demented as you are."

The human practically laughed.

"Do you know what lies outside the city?"

Harry thought back to before he went back in time. That archeologist mentioned something about poisonous fire beetles and flying sharks. Still, Harry decided to feign stupidity. He shook his head. The human came in closer.

"Fiends darker than your worst nightmares. What did those legends tell you about? Dragons? Landsharks? You are just one human and you will be ripped to shreds by next nightfall. The unicorns may be horrid slavemasters, but they still have honor. A human that agrees to serve their kind stays safe in the city. A human that does not..."

"Dies in the wilderness?"

"If you're lucky," the human said and he let go. Harry felt like he didn't have much of a choice and continued following him. His mind didn't really want him to do anything but find some sort of comfort, and the only thing of comfort right now was conversation.

"The uni-unicorns can't be that bad," Harry stuttered. The human stopped again.

"First of all, you made your choice. You've clearly just escaped. The unicorns do not give second chances," said the human, and suddenly the knife was back at Harry's throat. "Just so you know, neither do we." He put the knife down and began walking again.

"Secondly, I noticed those burns on your hands. You must've had a fairly good defender if that's your only scathing, and you think that they have any shred of decency. They're allowed to do anything with their humans beyond sending them outside the city walls. Some humans we find cannot speak. Some humans we find cannot see.

"Come to think of it, you seem a little well-off for an escapee. You keep the pet fed and he never runs away. Why did you leave? You're well-dressed, you're well-groomed, and you're well-fed. Several of us would kill for a life like that."

"I-I-I," Harry said, stammering for a lie. That unicorn barely believed it when Harry said he was from the future; he definitely wouldn't believe it.

"I understand," he said, and then he let go. "Some of them just suddenly snap. You're not alone."

"Wh-who are you?" Harry asked, the only question that could still rush to his mind.

"Remlocke, a friend."

Right, because friends hold knives to friends' necks. Harry looked back to the darkness of the tunnel. If he were to turn around he could be lost in this labyrinth for who knows how long. There really wasn't much of a choice but to follow this guy. That didn't make it an easy one. Harry took a deep breath and continued to follow along.

"They-they're not all like that," Harry stammered. He thought of Twilight.

"Pardon my skepticism. Care to tell me which one of them is so pure of heart?"

"What?"

"Who did you escape from?"

"She was an orange mare with a yellow mane. I don't know more than that."

"That's two from her in a week. I'll have to pay her a visit later," Remlocke said, more to himself than to Harry.

"What are you planning on doing to her!?" Harry demanded. Remlocke turned around, waving his torch in front of Harry's face.

"Perhaps it would be best if you didn't know. I wouldn't want to give you more unsettling thoughts. She wasn't your first defender, was she? From what her last human told us, she isn't anything special."

"You—You're right; my first defender was a purple mare named Twilight. She never layed a hoof on me. We actually seemed to be pretty good friends. There must be more unicorns like her."

"Tens of thousands of unicorns live in this city. One good unicorn versus countless of bad ones do not make a good case."

"If there's one, there must be more."

"Are you willing to risk your chances? If you hang onto that belief so dearly, by all means go back. See how many of these 'good unicorns' there are when they banish you to the wilderness. I've seen enough to make my decisions. I've heard enough to make my decisions."

Harry narrowed his eyes. He had as well.

Comments

[batran]

I thought Harry's defender was Fluttershy? Either that I am not reading the story correctly.

[MrEnter]

2907379 The city is only populated by unicorns. Twilight is the first one that came to his mind.

[lumberjack]

So I guess Harry got lucky in that he picked a unicorn as his "defender" and hasn't actually said much of anything. Why is he afraid of saying exactly what his purpose is in the past to Remlocke? He can't keep the lies up forever.

[Narlepoax III]

I think I know what's going on here.

[Narlepoax III]

2907786
Would you tell some random stranger you don't know-who wanders around with parts of people strapped to his neck-exactly who you were, and exactly what you were doing?

[lumberjack]

Well he seems to be the most friendly person we've met so far (and that's saying something). I'd be spilling my guts out by now.

[Morphy]

The set-up reminds me of Rome so very much. Unicorns being the Romans and humans being, well, you get the picture. All that's missing is a coliseum where human warriors fight for the crowds; I'm sure they could find more interesting critters to fight than lions in the Everfree forest.

[Dragaen]

I like it so far.

[Transivity]

2907379 Form what I read defenders are those of the unicorns who use human slaves, if Im correct pegasai didn't keep the same opinions of the human race so if he said his mothers name the other human would be like dafuq?

[Ellington]

More?

[KingOfDreams]

LOVED NUMBER 1 NOW TIME FOR SOME GOODIE GOO- HOLY SHIT

[Ellington]

I know I already did something like this, but there's just so much I that can be done with this awesome fic.

Twilight and the others went back in time to rescue Harry, they arrive in the sewer where Harry is rumored to be in a place called the Court Of Sapiens. While walking in the sewers Twilight whispers, "This doesn't feel right."

"What do you mean?" Rainbow states; this place is dark, and spooky, it would normally seem too obvious to say THAT.

"I mean, shouldn't there be a guard, or a booby trap or..." Twilight said before her illumination on her horn went out, "An ambush."

Out of nowhere some humans holding torches came out of nowhere, holding rods that shut off unicorn horns when they're within a certain distance. The humans jump to the mane six and Spike, and lasso them up.

"Well well well," Said the lead human,"What do we have here?"

"Trespassers!" Shouted one human.

"Spies!" Shouted another.

"We're not spies!" Twilight tried to explain, but the human behind her gagged her mouth shut with a rag (a very dirty one) as well as the rest of them.

"Don't interrupt me!" Warned the lead human, "You're very clever to have found our hideaway; unfortunately you won't live to tell the tale."

"Maybe who've heard of a terrible place where the humans of the city collect in a lair, maybe you've heard of that mythical place called The Court Of Sapiens. Hello, you're there! Where the lame can walk, and the blind can see; but the dead don't talk; so you won't be around to reveal what you have found.
We have a method for spies and intruders, rather like hornets protecting their hive. Here in The Court Of Sapiens, where it would be inhumane if we let you out alive!"

They took the six ponies and dragon to a large room where the lead human hopped up to a hanging gallows where he announced to an audience, "Gather around everybody there's good 'noose' tonight. It's quite a header, a bunch of pony spies."

"BOOOO!!" Shouted the indignant audience.

"Yes that's right; six ponies, and their loyal reptilious henchman." Continued the lead human, slapping Spike on the head.

"Justice is swift in The Court Of Sapiens, I am the lawyers and judge all in one. We like to get the trial over with quickly because it's the sentence that real important!

The lead human turned to the seven doomed ones, "Any last words?"

"Mhmhmh!" Said all seven of them.

"I never said you could talk!" Shouted the angry lead human.

"Now that we've seen all the evidence...THEY ARE GOING TO HANG!" The lead human and audience all shouted the last part, and as the lead human reached for the lever that would kill them all, but someone shouted, "STOP!"

Everyone turned to the source, who was non-other than Harry, "These ponies aren't spies, they're my friends."

[Exemter]

I take it this fic is dead?

[sillers]

5355914
na its not dead its just ashes

[Evergreentitan7]

Why is has there been such a long hiatus