There's a Monster Pony Outside My Window

by Halira

Chapter 11: The Only Thing More Dangerous than a Genius is an Idiot

Charles sat debating if he could somehow get past the creature blocking the door to the hallway, get to his room, and get the gun stashed in the closet. It seemed unlikely. The beast already had proven it could stop him without touching him. Charlotte had proven that it could be hurt when not on guard for an attack, but all five of them were sitting right in the creature's field of view.

It was red-furred and had a purple mane and tail with yellow highlights. There was a horn directly in the middle of its head that exerted some sort of power. She also had a tattoo or brand on her flanks, which looked like a Bible. There were a few grey hairs mixed in here and there and a nasty-looking scar on her neck and shoulder. The scar proved she wasn't invincible, although he couldn't guess what had given her a scar like that one.

"I need to make this explanation quick before the police get here," Miss Newman said, horn still glowing. "I'll give you a more detailed explanation after they leave. You deserve to know what's going on, but I need more time to do that."

"Talk," Charles ordered.

Miss Newman sat down. "Those other ponies and their allies technically aren't after all of you. The rest of you are just barriers to getting to their target. The one they want dead is Charlotte. The rest of you are acceptable casualties to them in that quest."

Wendy moved to shield their youngest daughter as Charlotte started to cry. "You aren't going to hurt my baby!"

"I'm trying to protect her!" Miss Newman fumed. "I'm trying to protect all of you. That's why I'm here. Believe me; it would have been easier for me to stay at home, my real home, than come here and babysit all of you. It would have no impact on my life if they killed her, so I could have ignored them and laughed when they realized the truth, but I'm not letting them get away with murder."

"Why do they want to hurt Charlotte?" Charles asked.

"Petty vengeance, extremely petty," Miss Newman answered with a shake of her head. "Taking vengeance on her for things she hasn't even done yet and is now unlikely to even do—which makes their foray here even more pointless. Even if it did make some sort of impact, which it won't, there are countless more effective places they could have gone to change the world, but no, they felt like attacking a child because they're idiots. You can't expect intelligent thinking from people blinded by hate. They're fools, and that's what makes them dangerous."

"I don't understand," Charles replied.

The pony hung her head. "Let me spell it out. We're not aliens; we're from Earth, only not from this time. We're from a future. Let me stress that A, as in one of many. The second they all came back here, they created a divergent timeline that is not connected to the timeline we came from. No matter what they do here, it changes nothing when they return home because it is now two different timelines. It is pointless to ask what Charlotte did in that timeline because it will never happen here—the course of her life has changed. She wasn't even that important in terms of the big picture in my timeline. They just hated her and gave up on trying to kill her then, after multiple failed attempts, and decided to go after her here because they believe killing her as a helpless child gets rid of her in our timeline. As I said, stupid petty idiots who don't understand they can't change the past, only make alternate timelines."

"How far in the future?" Andrea asked in a small voice.

Miss Newman looked at her. "It doesn't matter, but if you wish to know, we're from roughly sixty years in the future. These ponies who are attacking you aren't even born yet in this year. The two I saw looked like they were in their twenties or thirties, maybe forties. I don't know them personally, so I couldn't tell you for sure. Ponies have similar lifespans to humans, but we age more gracefully up to a point."

Charles looked at Miss Newman's grey hairs. "Were you telling the truth about your age?"

She stiffened. "Yes, I tried to tell the truth whenever possible. I'm not the most honest person, but it's easier to keep up with the truth than lies."

"So… there's a younger you alive in this time?" Charles said, trying to put things together.

"Yes, and don't go digging for information about that," Miss Newman warned. "The much younger me has no idea what's coming. She's completely innocent. Almost every single pony over a certain age in my time had been a human originally; only younger ones were born that way. The first generation of ponies who were born as ponies is just now coming into adulthood. Humans are still around and still the dominant species on the planet, but there are three-quarters of a billion ponies on the planet too. None of us chose to become ponies; it was just something that happened, the result of a virus. There's been no human-pony war or anything like that. For the most part, it is peaceful coexistence with only occasional patches of friction. These ponies, the ones here to hurt Charlotte, are bad eggs which would love to see a human-pony war, but don't judge all of us by their actions."

The pony's ears suddenly swiveled like radar, picking up noise. "Crap! The police are here! Their car just pulled up. I can't have them see me like this. I need to get my necklace on and get dressed. I need you to stall them and don't tell them anything about ponies. This is completely out of their depth, and they wouldn't believe you anyway. If I meant you harm, I could have killed you all instead of explaining myself. Please, trust me, for yourselves, and for Charlotte."

Miss Newman then hurried into the bathroom, and the clothes and necklace flew through the air from the living room after her. A second later, the bathroom door slammed shut.

Wendy looked at Charles. "What do we do?"

He honestly had no idea. They could tell the police what was happening, show them the pictures, warn them that Miss Newman wasn't human, but she was right; it was unlikely the police would take that seriously. The bathroom was close enough to the front of the house that she'd hear anything being said anyway. The police could possibly protect his family if he accused Miss Newman of being deranged. They'd figure out the truth real fast when they took that necklace off her.

"I don't want a monster pony to hurt me!" Charlotte cried.

Charles chewed on his lip. On the flip side, Miss Newman was the one warning them about the danger, and given the powers she had demonstrated in the last few minutes, he could believe that she had been the one to get Wendy and Charlotte out of the road. That counted for something. How much could he afford to trust her? She wasn't even human. However, if she was telling the truth, then Charlotte's life, possibly all their lives, were in danger. Would the police be able to defend them? Would they make any attempt to protect them? Police didn't do patrols in this area. The only one here who even knew what ponies were capable of doing was Miss Newman. Without her, they had no idea what to defend against.

The doorbell rang. It was decision time.

He stood up, took a deep breath, and walked to the front door. "Coming! Be right there!"

The bathroom door was still shut as he passed by. How long did it take her to dress? Did switching back and forth tire her out? Charles wished he had more information about what she could and could not do and what those other ponies could and couldn't do. That pony in the picture had wings. Miss Newman had no wings. That pony in the picture had to physically strike Wendy to knock her in the street. Miss Newman could send Wendy hurtling through the air without setting a foot near her. Why was one so different from the other? Miss Newman had a lot of explaining to do.

Charles opened the front door and found two officers standing there. "Hello, I'm officer Perkins, and this is officer Roe. We are looking for Cherese Newman, your neighbor whose house burned down. Is she here? We need to ask her a few questions."

"Miss Newman is here. She's in the bathroom," he informed the officers. He then stepped to the side. "Did you want to come in while we wait on her? Last time I had to wait on her, it took forever—you know how old people's bowels are."

"I heard that!" Miss Newman yelled from the bathroom. "Someday, you'll be old too and have to deal with things like hemorrhoids. Speaking of which, do you think you could get me some cream for that later?"

He hoped she was playing along and didn't need hemorrhoid cream. Whether ponies got hemorrhoids was not a question the world needed to be answered.

The officers looked at one another, silently expressing their feelings about the crazy woman shouting about her hemorrhoids, and stepped in through the door. As they were doing so, Miss Newman emerged from the bathroom, human again, with all her clothing facing the right direction and a distressed look on her face.

"Officers! What happened to my house?! I was out for much of the night, and when I came back, there was just a burnt ruin with a police line around it. I'm so glad the Portsmith's let me nap on their couch till morning when I could call. It also had the blanket my mother knitted me before she died. It is my most precious possession. The only thing I have to remember her by. Did you find it? Surely it survived."

Charles frowned as the lies poured forth from Miss Newman's mouth.

Perkins stepped back, looking uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Our crews were unable to find anything in the house. I'm very sorry for the loss of your blanket. I know how precious things like that can be. I do need to ask you a few questions."

Miss Newman dropped to her knees and began sobbing loudly. "Oh no! Mama's blanket! I...I can't believe it. I should go over there and search for it myself."

Perkins held up a hand as if to block her even though she hadn't moved. "I wouldn't advise that, ma'am. It isn't safe to go walking around in that. I'll ask if anyone saw a blanket when I get back to the station. For now, can you try to be calm and answer our questions?"

Miss Newman gave a miserable nod, sniffling as she did so. "I can try."

Roe pulled out a notepad and began. "You say you were out last night and came back very late. Around what time did you go out, and what time did you return?"

Miss Newman sat and considered. "I believe it was around eight or nine I went out. There were still a few children about. It took me forever to find the park, but a nice boy at the Seven-Eleven gave me directions. I fell asleep on the bench shortly after getting to the park, and I'm not sure what time I woke up."

"You fell asleep at the park?" Perkins asked. "Ma'am, this is a dangerous neighborhood. It would be best if you were more careful. Someone could have tried to rob you."

She shook her head. "I didn't have my purse or anything on me—nothing for them to rob. That might be why they left me alone. I'm not sure what time I got back since I don't have a watch or anything. It was dark, and the fire trucks were gone." She turned to look at Charles. "What time did you let me in, dear? I know it was really late. I'm sorry for having woken you up."

She expected him to help her lie to the officers? Didn't she have any shame at all?

He scratched his head. "Not sure. I was half-asleep. We had a long night before that, running Wendy to the hospital."

"Who is Wendy, and why were you running her to the hospital?" Roe asked.

Wendy walked into the room. "I'm Wendy. I fell in the street and dislocated my shoulder. I almost got run over by a van speeding through the neighborhood like a maniac. Are you guys looking for that van? They could have killed someone. They were really suspicious."

Roe scratched his head. "That would be a different case if someone called it in, so I don't know any details on that. I will note that there was a suspicious van in the area last night, just in case it becomes pertinent. Do you have a description or license plate number for it?"

"Just that it was a dark van, and whoever was driving it acted like they were trying to hit me," Wendy answered. "No one got their plate, but everyone agreed they seemed to be aiming for me. It was around eight last night."

"I remember that!" Miss Newman exclaimed. "I left for my walk right after the ambulance took Wendy to the hospital. I remember thinking to myself that if I saw that van again, I needed to get the plate number and report it, but I didn't see it again."

"Noted," Roe said, and he flipped back a few pages in his notes. "You said you didn't have any of your IDs, and they were in the house. You told our operator that you'd be contacting your landlord for copies. Have you done that yet?"

Miss Newman shook her head. "No, as soon as I got off the phone, I ended up urgently needing to go to the bathroom. I didn't expect you two to get here so fast; otherwise, I would have asked Wendy or Charles to call for me. You do outstanding work at your station! Very efficient!"

"Thank you, ma'am. We do our best," Perkins replied.

Actually doing some patrols around the neighborhood would be better. Charles thought bitterly to himself.

"You know," Miss Newman said. "They have one of those fax machines at my landlord's office. Did you know that? Does the police department have a fax machine too?"

Perkins nodded. "We do."

Miss Newman clapped. "Good! I can have my landlord fax you my ID stuff. Isn't modern technology wonderful? I don't know how we would all get by with just the technology I had when I was a child."

Perkins pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and passed it to Miss Newman. "That will work. That card has the police fax number on it. What is a good number to reach you at?"

Wendy recited off the house phone number, and the officers seemed satisfied with their brief questioning. It wasn't much of an interview, but maybe they assumed Miss Newman was a clueless old lady and didn't want to waste time with her. Not that they ever gave this neighborhood much of their time to begin with. They gave instructions for her to send the IDs and took their leave.

Once they were sure the officers were back in their car, Charles let off a long breath. "I can't believe we just lied to the cops."

Miss Newman shrugged. "Not my first time, and that's even with me formerly having been a mayor."

"That doesn't make you seem like someone we should be trusting," Wendy muttered.

"Yet it seems you are," Miss Newman countered.

"So what did Charlotte do in the future that made these ponies mad enough to want to travel through time to kill her?" Charles asked.

Miss Newman frowned. "I'm not sure you want to hear that. It could give you the wrong idea without proper context. I will say that everything she did, those ponies deserved."

"Just tell us," Wendy growled.

"Fine, but don't look badly on her for it," Miss Newman said in resignation and started lifting fingers as she listed things off. "She regularly acted as an informant to the FBI about their group activities—nefarious activities, I assure you. She flaunted that she had information that they desperately wanted and that she would never tell them—information that could lead them to make a pony world with no humans if they had it. Called out their misdeeds and denounced them on national television. She caused a massive schism in their group, which greatly reduced their power and influence. She had several of their members arrested for treason against the United States. She also blew one of their minor leaders' horns to bits during a fight which resulted in him dying from severe burn wounds in the resulting explosion. Please don't feel bad for him; he had been a murderer and had threatened to torture and murder a foal—which she was there to save. As I said, they deserved what they got. Still, to say they hate her would be an understatement."

Charles was practically speechless. "You're talking about our daughter?"

Miss Newman nodded. "However, they have found she is now near untouchable in our time—too many powerful allies and too much security. They have branded her as a traitor to their cause—which is true enough—and also one of their biggest obstacles to remove. They can't kill her there, so they are trying to get her here where she can't fight back or the security and allies to guard her flank. I've already explained why their plan is stupid, but here we are, proving Tom and Jerry right."

Wendy shook her head, then stiffened. "So… she's a pony?"

Miss Newman looked Wendy in the eyes. "Every single person in this house is in my time; one-quarter of the United States is, and at least two-thirds of your descendants—many of whom are notable in their own right. Believe me, being a pony isn't a bad thing. Don't take it as that much of a shock or anything to be horrified about. From what I understand, every one of you is quite content with your new species. All three of your kids have big families, successful careers, and are respected members of their community. Be proud; your family is one of the most powerful and influential families in the US. I don't know how things will go now because current events have negated that future. Let's focus on keeping you all alive, and hopefully, you and your daughters will still end up with happy and fulfilling lives. Whether you end up as ponies or humans in the future, your safety and well-being are what's important. I'm not going to allow them to kill a kid on my watch."

Charles and his wife could only give dumbfounded stares.

Miss Newman smirked. "Now, can I please finally call my landlord?"

Comments

[harts fire]

well i am liking this story.
in a way this is a prequel for the Pandemic story line.

[Charlie_K]

11038367
You know, now that you mentioned that, it makes me want to see an inversion route taken where a virus in Equestria starts turning the ponies into humans who no longer have access to magic.

[Numinos]

Ayy, answers! And quite interesting ones... Hello there, Sunset Blessing : )