Equestrian Repo

by TheGypsyBard

Chapter One: Demon's Day Out

First thing I did was, I stole a body. I could have made my own, but I wasn't in an artistic frame of mind.

I was just fed up, you know; fed up with being a cog in a vast machine, with doing my pointless, demeaning job. It's not like I was the only one who could do it- anybody could do it. Tormenting the damned- it practically does itself, no lie. And it's depressing; I can't tell you how depressing it is.

I didn't tell the Boss, I didn't tell anyone I was going. No, Hell could get along just fine without me.

As for the Creator, the One- if you ask me, He hasn't ever paid the place much notice. He wound the watch up, set the hands, and let it start ticking.

Really the Creator is the one I have the grievance with, not the Boss. The Boss is just doing his job like the rest of us, just fulfilling his function. The Creator is the one who set up all the rules, and now He never checks in, doesn't seem to know or care whether the peons of Hell are getting overworked and fed up. I've never been a fool enough to expect redemption, but even a tiny spark of recognition of my drudging toil- or even my mere existence- would have been nice. For thousands upon thousands of years I've labored under a slowly fading hope.

After a while, it was just too much. Even a being like me- no, especially a being like me- has its breaking point.

So, the hard part was picking a body. I wanted keep it simple, start small. Slip into a life that was already taking place. Something with all the synapses in working condition. A body that was carefree, insulated from earthly considerations like hunger; a protected place to try out physical existence. A body without responsibilities- no job or family to care for; someone who had time to experience the things I wanted to experience. Not too protected. Someone who wasn’t watched every second of the day. Someone who had a little time on their hands, but also a safe place to go every night.

I knew I wanted all this, so I decided to take an older pony, already free of their adolescent ties. I looked around for a bit and found a few that I observed closely, waiting until one turned up good to go.The actual hijacking of the mare took place about one second before the guy was about to step out from behind a parked carriage into the street, and get iced, as they say, by a speeding pegasi-pulled drag racer. My candidates were all dependable mares and stallions, each with their own unique pros and cons. This particular one was thinking about a thousand different recipes and cooking jobs she had planned for the day, and stepped off the curb without even so much as a glance down either direction- or at least, began to. The fact that this pink-maned pony missed the last two seconds of her life didn’t really matter; I could see exactly what was going to happen. Although technically there’s free will and anything could have interfered with her death, like a timely muscle cramp to make her pause on the curb- or heck, a bird could have been flying overhead and suddenly taken ill in midair and falled on her head, knocking her out the second before she stepped out into the street- there are laws of physics, and trust me, after millions of millennia, I can spot an inevitability.

Body-snatching is pretty rare amongst my kind. Technically speaking, I broke a few rules, but what are they gonna do? Send me to Hell, ha ha?
Anyway, she stepped out into space and I jerked her hoof back, and there I was on the curb while she was making her whooshy tunnel-of-light way to the hereafter.

All at once I was in this brand-new, slightly used body. It was a fast-motion fill-up, like pouring myself all at once into a too-tight vessel. I’m not used to boundaries, and to be suddenly constricted- to need to breathe, to have a beginning and an end- gave me a feeling of… well, almost panic.

But then everything else flooded in and I was swimming in a vast sea of sensory information. I wasn’t expecting it, and it threw me into confusion. I’d been expecting to just take over, smooth and unnoticed- it looks so easy to be a pony, considering they’re all a little dim- but suddenly I could see, hear, feel. It was beautiful.
Everything was beautiful.

“Pinkie, are you alright?” said Pinkie Pie’s almost god-mother, Mrs. Cake, from the still-open doorway into Sugarcube Corner. I looked at her through Pinkie’s eyes, and it was the weirdest thing.

I have never been anything but spirit- anywhere and everywhere I wanted to be, just never in a physical sense. This was the first time I was ever in exactly one place. Before, I could have known what anybody on Equus was doing, if I’d felt like it. I wouldn’t have been able to see or hear what they were doing, but I would have been aware of it. Sort of an amorphous cloud with the ability to inhabit many discrete sites at once.

But now, in an equine body, I was immersed in an ocean of details. Every single one of them was crisp, clear, and distinct. I was overwhelmed, so even though I had exactly one pony- Mrs. Cake- in my field of vision, I only had a dim, muffled idea of what her facial expression and body language might mean, and I had to think really hard to try and remember an equine word for what I thought Mrs. Cake might be feeling right now.

Taking on a body, it seemed was constricting in more ways than one.

“I’m okay,” I answered, feeling the sound rolling out of my throat like a wave. It was so thrilling, I did it again. “I’m okay,” I told Mrs. Cake, as I looked at the way her irises had a bright color, a brilliant rose. Color- what a concept! What a wonderful thing to see, what a great creation! I had to give the Creator a tip of the hat on that one.

Maybe that’s why He never checks on Hell. I didn’t realize how intricate, how rich, earthly perception was. Could be He was busy with the day-to-day here; either that or He was still resting up from setting all this into motion.

Now I was starting to grasp even more of the details. As I looked around at all the movement, heard noises big and small, felt the warmth of the sun- what coup. the sun! What a terrifyingly beautiful thing to come up with! Again, a tip of the hat!- and the faint coolness of a breeze that I couldn’t see, I knew I couldn’t just pick up in the middle of Pinkie’s day and carry on as Pinkie planned.

No, instead, I desired to find out everything I could about the interesting cacophony I now found myself a part of. I made Pinkie stand up, marvelling at the feel of physical strain put onto her lower limbs as she arose. “Are you sure, darling?” The other, much older mare questioned of Pinkie. “Yes, of course.” I remarked in Pinkie’s voice once more, the initial buzz of excitement still fresh on my mind.

I wanted to go someplace- nopony, I believe the term was- could see, and do stuff like make different noises come from my throat and tongue, and look at the bottoms of my hooves and genitalia.

“I’m not feeling too good,” I told Mrs. Cake. “My stomach hurts.” I thought that was quite a realistic touch. Ponies do have stomachaches; they have them all the time. “I’m going to go back in and lie down for a minute.”

“Want me to bring you up some soup, honey?”

“No, no,” I said, and in a flash of brilliance I added, “Must have been the cupcakes.” Because that was what Pinkie had for lunch, and nearly two dozen of the devils- pardon the pun, Boss.

“Oh, deary, I warned you eating all of those at once would be bad for you.”

“I know!” I said happily.

“Well,” Mrs. Cake said, turning away, “if you get to feeling better, your friends were wanting you to come visit them later on today.”

“Okay,” I said, still happy, and started walking back into the sweets store.

Or tried to. Pinkie’s legs went to rubber, a confusion of too many joints, too many muscles and tendons that had to be placed at exact angles. All while keeping her body upright, her head at the very top of her moving jangle of flesh.

I found myself dipping and weaving and, for a moment, stumbling forward in an effort to remain on Pinkie’s hooves and earn her name Equus ferus caballus at the very least.

It took a good half-minute for me to get into the motion, but it was pure fun trying. Having sight didn’t help at first, because everything around me rushed toward and past Pinkie’s eyes at varying rates, depending on its distance from her body. Finally I fixed her gaze on the top step of the incline leading into the store, and concentrated on how it felt to move her legs. Once I got them going, I marveled at the way they were able to coordinate in perfect rhythm- one miscue and she’d go down in a heap, but no, it was as smooth as if she’d been born walking, so smooth it was downright miraculous.

I was walking!

Creator, I thought, I’m sorry I didn’t understand what a bang-up job You did on this place.

He didn’t answer, of course.

I turned Pinkie’s head from side to side, taking in all my surroundings, and soon I found that fast movement of this kind made Pinkie’s eyes perceive things as a blur. So I stopped on the sidewalk and turned around a few times to watch the world lose its form as it passed by. When I stopped, I had a wild sensation that I was still spinning, so much so that I lost my balance again and staggered, When I finally was able to stand up straight and focus, I found that I was facing towards a passing pony on the sidewalk.

The stallion wasn’t looking at me; he was heading up the hill to an unknown destination.

I watched his back for a moment, the way he walked. I’d never understood before that ponies trotted in differing ways, even though their speed and length of stride might be essentially the same. Mrs. Cake had a prim and proper, almost rigid sort of step.

It was clear to me, now.

As I stood there, watching with great interest, I realized I could identify what Mrs. Cake had been feeling when I took over Pinkie’s body.

Concern, that’s what it was.

Comments

[Alicornlord]

Interesting concept u have here keep writing

[RemareShadows]

Oh lookie it's out.
Looks nice~

Pinkie's going to be throwing partys in hades.
Pop up randomly and hold a friendly conv with em.
Then Que Pinkamena