Heroes Never Die

by Shimmerist Ari

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It wasn’t something Ari noticed or cared about at first. It wasn’t something anyone in the entire world noticed or cared about at first. Not on their own.

But slowly, sometime late into the second week, like a lazy giant opening its eyes, something changed in the way the world saw Ari.

The first clue came one fine day walking back from the grocery store. The police approached her, saying she ‘looked homeless’. They demanded to see her rations book and receipt to make sure she hadn’t stolen anything. They held her up for way longer than they should have and weren’t exactly polite about it.

In her still innocent naivete, that little encounter had been too strange to even upset Ari. Her mind was simply preoccupied with the mystery of what had even happened. What was that?

The police had never harassed her over her disability before. And white women were the last thing on their list of usual suspects.

It wasn’t until she got home and saw herself in the mirror that it all clicked:

Her green roots were showing.

And then it all made sense.

Those mother fuckers!

“The hair dye didn’t do a goddamn thing,” Ari said to herself.

That was somehow the worst part of all of this! She went through all the pain of dying her hair and it didn’t matter because her roots would still give her away just a few days later. Did she have to wear a hat now?!

What even was Ari? She didn’t have words to describe herself, to describe whatever… this was. It technically wouldn’t even be racism or speciesism since Ari shared both traits with those two cops. Hairism?

Up until now, Ari had just been a green-haired human. But clearly, that was no longer the case.

She went to the internet to investigate. Without the right language, it took some time to answer even that most basic question, to find Ari’s new identity. But eventually, she found one single keyword that unlocked everything else:

Partial.

That was what Ari had become. Someone who had gotten stuck somewhere between human and pony. At some point, somebody decided to call them partials.

Specifically, she was a stage one partial.

According to her research, partials were divided into four stages. Stage ones were like Ari, just humans with strange hair or eye colors. Stage two was when you had pony ears or a tail.

Stage three was the worst when you had impacted mobility but no magic. These were the most deformed partials who got nothing in return for their new handicaps. Unsurprisingly, these partials were the main group that went for the new ‘rehumanization’ centers. Ponies seemed largely disinterested in the idea, but not stage threes.

And Ari couldn’t even blame them. Consequently, their numbers were dropping rapidly and soon there’d be almost none left.

Then stage four partials were nearly-pony. You could even mistake them for ponies if you didn’t look closely. They had pony magic sans the cutie mark. Only their faces gave them away, half-formed muzzles and distorted features made them appear off.

Looking at polling data, stage one and stage four were the ones with the lowest desire to get rehumanized, since those were the easiest to be. Therefore, Ari figured, they’d be the two most common in the end.

And already some jerkass was using that to play the oppression Olympics with Ari. ‘Oh, stage two partials are way more oppressed than stage ones, bro. You don’t even know.’

Ari wished!

The troublemakers who instigated these tensions didn’t make that distinction. Yeah, someone turned the talking heads back on when Ari wasn’t looking and they were back to their usual tricks.

“Can we be 100% sure partials don’t emit deadly radiation? I’m not saying they are, obviously. Just asking questions.”

“Can we know for absolute certain that partials aren’t brainwashed sleeper agents who can activate and kill you, your children, and your pet puppy at any moment? Wise men teach us that you can’t know anything for absolute certain. And wouldn’t it be really scary if a partial burst into your house and tried to kill you?”

“I just want people to acknowledge the possibility that partials are extremely dangerous. Oh, I don’t have any evidence of that. But I do like asking these kinds of questions. Hahaha!”

And for the record, not one of them ever made a distinction between stage one and stage whatever.

The effect was pretty immediate. Ari could tell which people at work listened to those guys. People who were completely fine when they first saw her hair, who said they thought it looked cool and wished they could have the same, started to avoid her or not so subtly suggested she should get rehumanized. Pointing out that it might give her cancer or drive her insane or turn her into a werewolf or something later on, trying to make Ari feel the same fear the talking heads had bestowed upon them.

And what could she even say to that? ‘uhhh there’s no evidence of any of that’. That sort of thing was nothing in the face of scary rumors.

Ari mentioned all this to Spring Breeze later that night, wondering out loud why anyone in their right mind would have a problem with her having green hair.

Spring Breeze, ever informed, was quick to point out their motivation to Ari. The government wanted to press rehumanization on everyone as much as possible. Especially partials who seemed like the low-hanging fruit. The easiest to get rid of.

So that was what this was really about, wasn’t it? Pressuring her into making the choice the government wanted her to make. It really should be illegal for the news to spread dangerous rumors like this…

Though at the same time, she could understand her boss’s worry about wearing her hair naturally.

Still, Ari despised those kinds of troublemakers. Them doing this to her only made her want to wear her natural green all the more. One of her new life goals was to get a job where she could do just that, stand in defiance of what society was trying to push her to do.

---

The following night, shortly after the ponies had all fallen asleep…

Outside the rain poured its heart out, coating the city in cold misery. But Ari had shelter for now. She sat safely in her apartment, only hearing the rain. She took out her laptop to find it…

The vision.

Her pony friends all talked about this often enough that Ari felt she couldn’t possibly relate to them with her surface level understanding of it. And really, the more she read the more curious about it she became.

It was an experience so profound the government insisted it had to be mind control... before ironically using the exact same thing to push their own agenda.

Imagine something so beautiful and meaningful that you were no longer considered in control of your mind ever again after seeing it.

Those who got it initially believed they were in contact with a truly divine entity, sometimes interpreted as God himself, one that still many worshiped even after learning it was a trick.

Cooler heads pointed out that it was merely a mummer’s dragon, comparing it to a projector.

If you went back in time and showed a projected video recording to some medieval village, claiming to be a god, the people may very well be shocked enough to wonder if it was the truth. They may consider that a religious experience or miracle.

Dream weaving, the source of the vision, was no different. It only seemed divine if you didn’t know how truly mundane it was. Plenty of ponies could do it. They used dream weaving all the time, going into each other’s dreams, using it to treat all kinds of mental health issues.

But humans could never experience it…

On the news, night ponies often went on and on with the assurances that humans couldn’t experience magical dreams or see dream weaving for themselves. As if that was a good thing. As if all those humans who reacted to its existence with fear weren’t pathetic, incurious cowards.

How could you seriously hear about that sort of thing and not want to see it?

Ari wished she could see the vision, or any dream weaving or dream magic at all. It was almost like she was robbed of something truly profound. What she wouldn’t give to see anything that incredible.

To that end, she went one step further than Spring Breeze suggested. Sure, Ari would watch the lecture Spring sent her. But first…

She found some hypnotic suggestion videos on YouTube that promised to simulate the experience for humans as best as possible. There were so many to choose from even narrowing it down to that much. Ari even found five that were narrated in Celestia’s voice, one from a voice actor and four using an AI recreation of her actual voice.

Ari spent a couple of hours lying on her back, going through twelve such videos with eyes closed, lights out and headphones on, trying to empty her mind and get in the right space as the video detailed what she was to imagine. Hypnosis had never worked on her before, but this was her first serious attempt to let it.

She’d seen pictures of Celestia and could imagine a pony goddess coming to her. The real vision was personalized, but Ari had to make due with the most generic version possible, with a patchwork of accounts all stitched together.

But every account Ari found, from the hypnosis videos to the lectures to the interviews of ponies recounting the vision…

All of them had one thing in common, the very beginning.

You always started out alone and afraid. Perhaps in the dark or the cold, maybe a wide open field, but always alone. But it never lasted long. Ponies came to join you. Celestia came to join you. Soon you were surrounded by a pony community, armor through which no loneliness could ever penetrate.

And from that you learned the first, most universal, and most important message of the vision: no pony is ever alone.

From there it spun out in many different directions, but always more ponies came in. Ponies in dire need would come to you and your community would take them in, you would take them in, opening your heart beyond what any sane person would have the courage to do.

Ponies always helped. Ponies always had the courage to help. That too was always there.

And from iterations after iteration, Ari pieced together all of their morals. Came to understand all the sayings ponies liked to use.

Ponies were kind. Ponies were honest. Ponies were loyal. Ponies never hoarded. Ponies always helped.

Ponies were never alone.

Ari heard this, imagined it, was taught it fifty times over through her little adventure in the darkness.

Maybe Spring Breeze was right. If that was a lie… then it shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t let it be.

Who’d want to fight against all that? Almost everyone around here, apparently.

Ari opened her eyes to remember the dark. She took off her headphones to remember it was raining harder than ever.

The actual hypnosis had been marginally effective at best, hardly to the point she felt as though she’d gotten a divine revelation. But so many versions of that gave her a better understanding of the ponies. It really did sound like what Spring Breeze described it, like the perfect anarchist commune where everyone just loved and helped each other for no other reason than just that.

She looked outside into the night, in the rain coming down harder and colder with each minute. There were so many people stuck out there right now. While Ari sat in here warm, going on her little quest for understanding, some guy not half a mile away froze as the rain drenched him and he made due with whatever second hand food had been spared to him.

Ponies always helped.

Ponies always helped…

Ari closed the blinds.

“Maybe. But ponies are never alone.”

Comments

[AvoidingFever17]

Ponies were kind. Ponies were honest. Ponies were loyal. Ponies never hoarded. Ponies always helped.

but is it really the truth?
???: you may not know me
But lets just say i am similar to the one who SHE killed
I am a alternate version of sunset shimmer
Ponies aren't perfect
No creature is
However Its the magic of friendship that can help ari

[Halira]

11557243
Yeah, easily disproven in other stories set in same universe.

The most notable Shimmerist from the time period in Pandemic Universe was Sunset Blessing, who is known for being a liar, gathering every resource she can whether she needs it or not (hoarding). She also tends to frequently backstab other Shimmerists by reporting on them to the government, so she definitely isn't loyal to people outside those she cares about. She does help others and can be kind, but that is primarily to advance her agendas, at least at the point this story takes place.