Odd's Oubliette: Otherwise Obsolete Oddities

by Odd_Sarge

Mark and the Bat

Author's Note:

5-3-17 to 7-26-17. Incomplete.
If I stay on this one for any longer, I might just start writing about bats again.
2022 Update for the previous statement: haha, I still do!
This story was based on Sir Hat's Equestrium, or more specifically, his story Ben and the Bats. It's no longer up on Fimfiction, though I still retain an old personal copy. It's a lovely, angry, mean little story by an author who was widely disliked, and I love it.

I’d hated the sun before, but my recent change had made my hatred for the orb only grow stronger.

“Freak!” Throwing a glance to the fat American tourist snapping photos of me, I rolled my eyes and kept pace.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” He disappeared back into the bustling late afternoon crowd quickly enough. My hand instinctively went to one of my aching fangs, but a mental reminder of my orthodontist’s words came back to me. Sighing, I let my hand fall back to my side.

Ever since Ben Wesk had begun expanding his duchy to the east, Canterlot had been busier than ever. Despite much of the capital’s traffic being diverted to the train station, the streets elsewhere still found a large portion of tourists plastered all over the place. I eyed a happy little family of Chinese eagerly chatting away in accented English with their pony tour guide. One of the kids, a little boy, caught my gaze. I smiled at him with unfortunately bared fangs.

He immediately tugged on his father’s waist and pointed at me. The father turned to me. His face lit up with surprise, and after a moment, gave a respectful nod. Gracious for his understanding, I returned the gesture in kind. The Chinese family disappeared into the crowd just as quickly as the American had. Sighing, I ran a pale hand through my messy hair and pushed further through the streets of the Equestrian capital.

It had been a week since my transformation had finished, and the encounter with the Chinese man had been the first time a human had been kind to me since my transformation.

A little over a month ago, I’d immigrated to Equestria. It wasn’t my first time here, as the place had truly reeled me in on a birthday vacation a few months ago; Equestria had been just too delightful to spend time in. I had visited the rapidly growing town of Ponyville to the south of Canterlot, and the many days I had spent exploring the town with my friends and family had left quite the impression on me. Canterlot had been the cheapest place to settle down in due to its abundance of apartments, but it was definitely no Ponyville.

This place was full of bigots, pony and human alike. I hadn’t experienced much of it myself until I had started looking for a job three weeks ago. Both ponies and humans shut down my applications, their excuses ranging from a new hire already being in place, to a simple no, or the more blunt statements against my American nationality, or in most cases, my age; I was too inexperienced as a twenty-one year-old, apparently. I had almost given up on Canterlot until I had found an old job listing hidden beneath newer fliers on the employment office’s bulletin board. The job was simple; caretakers were wanted for some foals.

While I wasn’t great with kids, the job was too appetizing to resist; it boasted above average wages, discount health insurance for employees, a free apartment room nearby, and it was all for the good of a couple of… well, what they described as not orphan foals, but foals left behind. Looking back now, I should have known something was up with all the great benefits.

I sighed in relief as my workplace came into view. Pushing past the last of the late afternoon crowd, I opened the door to the batpony orphanage.

Sorry, I did it again. Caretaking facility… thing. See, it’s not an orphanage because the foals were left there by batponies who were simply doing their part to grow the population— oh forget it.

Before I had even a chance to wake the snoring batpony registrar at the front desk, I’d been tackled by my boss.

“Mark!” the dark blue batpony screeched. Her voice suddenly dropped to a hiss, as if suddenly realizing the foals were still asleep. “You’re late!”

Dusting the frantic mare off of me, I briefly checked my watch. “It’s 4:33 PM, Crescent. The foals wake up three and a half hours from now.”

“But you’re late!” I opened my mouth to speak, but Crescent Tail cut me off. “No excuses! Get those hooves moving!”

“Feet,” I corrected automatically. I walked past her and towards the staffroom. “And I was going to say I was only three minutes late.” Whether or not the mare heard my soft mutter, I didn’t know.

The first night of my job had been both unexpected, and incredibly draining. I had woken early in the morning, applied for the job at noon, gone to work my first shift as the new hire in the late afternoon of that same day, and gotten off work at sunrise the next day. The half-day shift had taught me two very important things about my new job; the facility for batpony foals was severely understaffed, and I had to go nocturnal in order to survive the demonic schedule.

From what Crescent had told me, two of the caretakers employed a little over a year ago had left for Transylmania after adopting an entire generation of foals. I later learned that the now Count Wesk and his marefriend had been said caretakers. They had been the most efficient caretakers that the facility had, and with their leave, only a little over half a dozen batponies remained for the dozens of foals left behind, all adults lacking the wonderful abilities that the two apparently posessed.

Batponies had been a complete unknown to me the day my job had begun, and I had learned the hard way why taking care of young foals began so late in the day.

After the hazing shift, awakening with a thoroughly shattered circadian rhythm, I’d gone to Crescent and asked her, despite her early morning fatigue, if there was a better way to live with the job. Surprisingly, she told me yes. Ben Wesk had proved that a bat-like transformation was possible, and that as a caretaker of batpony foals, I was eligible for a transformation. Like a fool, I’d been on board immediately; it sounded pretty awesome to have fangs.

And the transformation was awesome… to an extent.

The transformation took course over the next week of my new job. My hair began to silver and grow smooth, two obnoxious fangs sprouted from my mouth, and a strange, strong craving for pork arose from nowhere. Tooth issues aside, my circadian rhythm was thrown into disarray as I found myself setting off to sleep earlier and earlier, growing paler and paler with the less time I spent in sunlight, and even growing some sort of resistance to the few teething batpony foals.

Though, that last part might have something to do with the amount that they bite me. Curse their tiny little fangs.

As I put my canvas bag down and began to brew a pot of coffee, I heard the staffroom door open. On autopilot, I grabbed another mug for whoever had walked in. I was just about to turn around when the pony sank their fangs into my arm. Sighing, I pried the pony off of me and stared at them.

A batpony mare smiled brightly up at me. “Hi Mark!”

I gestured to the two new punctures in my left arm, miraculously clear of blood. “Can you please stop this, Hotfang?”

“Nope!”

I leant back on the counter and eyed the mare wearily. “It’s a bad habit, you know? Chewing on me, that is.”

“Bad for you, but good for me,” she purred, running her side against me.

I shook my head and laughed lightly. “You act like one of the foals.” She didn’t respond, eyes closed in contentment.

After a full minute of awkwardly silent rubbing, Hotfang still had yet to leave me. I resigned myself to waiting for the coffee to brew. Once the coffee-making apparatus began beeping, I kicked the mare off of my legs and filled the mugs I had set out. Haphazardly shoving a mug into the mare’s hooves, I made for the door with my own coffee.

“Wait!”

I sighed and turned. “What?”

“Come closer!” she hissed.

I hesitated, but bent down all the same. With surprising speed and ferocity, Hotfang darted forward and placed a sloppy kiss on my lips.

“Thanks!” Hotfang bolted out of the room with her coffee.

I sat there spitting and spluttering before I eventually called out after her. “You little—”

---

“—rat!” All ears in the playroom went up at the caretaker’s shriek.

I pat the silver-maned filly I had been talking to, then stood.

“Nobody move!” I ordered loudly to the unnervingly still younglings. My finger snapped to a foal as he made for the dinner trolley still sitting in the room. He froze mid-step, finally setting the room into a state of stillness.

The calm did not last three seconds.

A large gray rat slipped under the playroom door, squeaking wildly. Not a moment later, Hotfang burst through the door. I relaxed by the tiniest fraction, glad that Hotfang was taking charge, and herded the foals behind me. Together, my little group and I watched as Hotfang and the rat bounced around the room. Toys and books were thrown aside, tiny tables and chairs became obstacles, and the already messy playroom became messier. Finally, Hotfang gave up on her hooves and leapt forward, mouth wide.