Solo Run

by Feather Scratch

That Escalated Quickly

Chapter One

That Escalated Quickly

What’s the weirdest thing to ever happen to you? Go ahead. Take a minute to think about it. Got something? Well whatever it is, I bet I can top it. My name is Theodore Cox. Yes, really. But, please, call me Teddy. So this has been my day. It was Saturday morning. I woke up early to see the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yeah, I know. A twenty year old dude should have better things to do than watching a cartoon for little girls. But work was really stressful and I needed some light hearted escapism. Get off my back! I watched the finale, and, against all my expectations, it sucked! Where the heck did the Discord heel turn come from?! There was no foreshadowing or build up. Talk about tripping on the home stretch. Anyway, it left a bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to get some fresh air and take a run.

Now, you’d expect Saturday morning in Lincoln, Nebraska to be safe as houses, especially for a big guy in fighting shape. But, funny thing, cars didn’t care if you did MMA or not. I didn’t make it half a mile from my front door when some idiot, probably driving home after an all-night bender, jumped the curb and hit me at forty miles an hour! My head collided with his windshield and the lights went out.

Then things started to go downhill.

~~~

I didn’t like going into towns. Too crowded. I preferred my own company. Alone I, at least, didn’t have to endure the constant staring, the looks of pity, the judgement. I didn’t need anypony.

I was training in the Badlands when the skies went red. Creatures I couldn’t even begin to describe dropped down from the clouds and crawled up from the fissures in the parched earth. Swarms of them as far as the eye could see. If I strained my ears, I could just hear ponies screaming in Dodge Junction. Of course they were. Ponies panicked. They lost their minds and ran around like headless chickens when they were scared.

Some of the things saw me and turned my way. I didn’t run. I swore to myself, years ago, that I would never be weak. I would never be afraid. Never again. So I attacked.

As they descended on me, what was left of my horn erupted in a cascade of lightning. I spun, kicked, jumped, threw, bit. No matter how many I put down, they just kept coming. Explosions erupted from the volcano I was camping at the base of, but I didn’t care. I lost all sense of time as my world became a blur of claws, teeth, barbed tentacles, and the pain of a thousand glancing blows. I would not die here. Not today.

I finally got a reprieve when something, some inaudible signal, caught my foe’s collective attention and drew them away. Just like that. As though I were beneath their notice. I would have pursued and finished them off, but I was at my limit. The sun was halfway across the sky from where I remembered it being. My muscles ached, my lungs burned, my coat was matted in the blood of a thousand tiny cuts, and my skull felt like it was splitting open from overuse of my undirected magic. I collapsed. I was just going to lay down. Just for a minute. Just until I had caught my breath.

A mare’s ear splitting scream cut through the brief stillness.

I lifted my head. That was close. The top of the volcano. Damn it!

Ignoring my body’s protests, I hauled myself back to my hooves and limped towards the screaming. I could hear voices now. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. One was male. He was laughing. I picked up the pace. After an interminable hike up the rocky incline that felt like it grew steeper with each step, I finally reached the top. What greeted me made my blood run cold. Dozens of the things swarmed about, picking through dented and broken royal guard armour. Armour devoid of wearers. In the middle of it all, cackling over the volcano’s lip, was a bizarre hodgepodge of a creature the other monsters were giving a wide berth.

I stumbled as my legs almost gave way from under me. The creature froze. It keeled over backwards. It was… flat? Like a cardboard cut-out. I took one step forward when a flash of white light right in my face made me fall backwards onto my rump and temporarily blinded me.

‘Well, what do we have here?’

I snarled, rubbed my eyes, and tried to will away the spots dancing across my vision.

‘Of all ponies, I didn’t expect to run into you. Not here, at least. Sorry you won’t get to do the movie. Emily Blunt would have been a waste of budget anyway.’

‘What?’

A large, taloned claw gripped my muzzle and forced my head up.

'Open up your eyes.'

I did. The creature’s weird, asymmetrical face was inches from mine. I vaguely recognised him as Discord. Celestia’s pet monster. His eyes were manic. I recognised that look. It was the look of a predator who had just caught its prey. ‘Let's have some fu-'

I screwed my eyes shut. I felt nauseous as pain flooded my skull. I summoned up the last vestiges of my undirectable magic, and let loose one last cascade of lightning. Discord yelped and jumped back, letting go of my muzzle. I couldn’t fight. I wouldn’t run. But I wouldn’t make it easy for him. I fell backwards, and the world went black.

~~~

A steady beeping was the first thing that made me realise I was returning to consciousness. Or, wait, when did I lose consciousness? Was I in the Badlands or… No. That was a dream. Wasn’t it? More noise. Voices?

‘Brain activity’s rising. They’re awake!’

‘Theodore? Theodore, can you hear me?’

‘Mmm… Names… Teddy…’ My mouth felt weird. Like it was too big.

‘Teddy. Can you open your eyes?’

Good question. Everything felt… weird. Off. I couldn’t feel my hands. I couldn’t feel my feet. Was I hurt? Oh yeah. The car. Celestia, what a shitty day. First the shitty finale, then the shitty driver hitting me with his shitty car, then being attacked by shitty monsters… Wait.

After taking a good long moment to remember how, I cracked my eyes open, only to have a light shone in them one after the other. ‘Urgh… Stop.’

I was slowly, but surely regaining my senses. When the light stopped blinding me, I realised I was in some sort of plush hospital room. The person talking to me was a middle aged bald man, with an impressive handlebar moustache, wearing a white coat. A doctor. Actually, I glanced around, there were a lot of doctors crammed in here.

‘Pupils responsive. Teddy?’ The middle aged doctor called my attention back to him. ‘Can you tell me your full name?’

‘Mmm… Full name sucks.’

He held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three.’

‘Are you in pain? Experiencing any dizziness, blurred vision, or nausea?’

I groaned and tried to shift my weight. ‘No pain. Feel strange. Can’t feel my hands.’

The doctors in the room all shared glances. Something was very wrong. The middle aged doctor turned to the others. ‘Could you give us the room for a moment? Thank you.’

The other doctors packed up their things and filed out, leaving me alone with the middle aged doctor. He pocketed his pen light and leaned forward. ‘Teddy, what’s the last thing you remember?’

‘Car hitting me. Does… does my voice sound funny?’

‘Teddy… My name is Doctor Rhodes. You’re in Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy, a private healthcare clinic for people with long term illnesses. There’s… no easy way to tell you this. Teddy, you’ve been in a coma.’

My ears perked up. ‘What?! For how long?’

‘A little over five years.’

I laid back and stared at the ceiling. Five. Years. Because of some reckless idiot, I missed five years of my life. I’d have lost my job. What happened to my house? Damn.

‘Once you were cleared to leave A&E, in lieu of next of kin, your family lawyers arranged for you to be moved here for long-term care. You’ve been here ever since.’

‘Am I paralyzed? I feel… weird.’

Doctor Rhodes leaned back and rubbed a hand down his face. I suddenly noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the creeping five o’clock shadow, the undone tie, and the crumpled shirt. This was a man running on fumes. ‘About that. Teddy, something happened. Something we can’t… You noticed all the doctors?’

I nodded. ‘Seemed a tad excessive for a coma patient.’

‘They weren’t here because you were in a coma. They were specialists we flew in from all over the country. We’ve been monitoring you around the clock for the last eight days.’

I was almost afraid to ask. ‘Why?’

Doctor Rhodes levered himself out of his chair, walked over to a counter at the far side of the room, and returned clutching a hand mirror. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, so… brace yourself.’

He held the mirror up to my face. Whatever I was anticipating, whatever sickness, or grizzly disfigurement… it wasn’t this. Staring back at me wasn’t my own face. It was a pony. Just like the ones from the cartoon, but real. I could count every hair in its unnatural, purple coat, I could see its face reflected back again in it’s too-large, blue eyes. When I moved my head from side to side, the pony moved theirs in kind. Trembling, I looked down at the hands I knew, in my gut, wouldn’t be there. ‘I’m… I’m still dreaming. Aren’t I?’

‘I wish I could say yes.’

‘How?’

‘I sincerely wish I knew.’ The doctor left the mirror on the bed and flopped back into his chair. He rubbed his eyes and sniffed. ‘Eight days ago, Nurse Redmond was giving you your usual sponge bath when he noticed strange markings had appeared on your legs. We thought they were tattoos. Maybe someone had snuck in overnight. But they weren’t. Tests showed the skin was perfectly healthy. No traces of ink or perforation. That would have been odd enough. But the next day your hair started to change colour and grow at an impossible rate. Then your eyes changed, then your ears… You only stabilised on Monday morning.’

‘”Stabilised.” Like this?’ I clopped my hooves together in morbid fascination.

‘We’ve been watching you constantly. Recording every second. We’ve run every test we could think of. We’ve had haematologists, geneticists, biochemists, bacteriologists, epidemiologists, gynaecologists, even a veterinarian come in to examine you. All we’ve been able to determine is that you appear to have become, more or less, equine in nature, you don’t seem to be contagious, and, as of now, your genes no longer match any known creature on Earth.’

I blinked. For a good minute or so I just stared off into space.

‘Teddy?’

I blinked. ‘…”gynaecologists?”’

‘Yes.’ He shuffled, suddenly awkward in his seat. ‘Amongst the… other changes, you appear to have undergone a complete sex change.’

I blinked. I blinked again.

‘Teddy?’

I did the only logical thing I could do following such an information dump. I fainted.

~~~

I opened my eyes. Wind whistled past my ears. I felt weightless. Clouds were falling away from me. Was I flying? I tried to turn to get a look at where I was going, only for my side to explode in pain as I hit something very solid.

I yelped as I felt my ribs crack and the air forced from my lungs.

I bounced and landed, hard, again on the incline of the volcano. I bounced, tumbled, and rolled as my momentum carried me down. Every time my wounded body made contact with the rocky earth, I was assailed by lances of white hot pain. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't breathe.

Eventually, mercifully, I slid to a stop, a limp heap. I mewled a pathetic whimper. All my battered lungs allowed.

'A shame. You would have made a wonderful minion.' I looked up and willed the world to stop spinning as Discord approached. 'All that delightfully twisted bitterness and anger bubbling inside. Delicious! But I can't have a minion who doesn't know her place. Sooo…'

He grabbed me by what was left of my horn and lifted me into the air. I bit back a cry of pain and tried to struggle free, but I was too weak, and his grip was like a vice.

'I think you need a timeout to ruminate. Let's put a pin in this and come back to it in, oh, a quarter century or so?'

I tried to spit in his face, but the second it left my mouth, the saliva turned into a butterfly and fluttered off.

A malevolent grin stretched across Discord's face.'You know, I think I'm getting the hang of this by now. I'd tell you to brace yourself, but let's face it, that won't help in the slightest.'

I tried to shock him again, but the few pitiful sparks I was able to produce just turned to confetti.

'For Five Score! Divided by Four!

Your memories removed, your body confused!

For your insolence you must pay,

Cast off to a land far far away!

To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks!

Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks all bleak!

Forget everything and live like a fool,

You’ve lost, ponies! None can stop my rule.'

The world went white. My bones twisted, my muscles seized, every nerve in my body felt like it was on fire. This time, I did scream.

~~~

After I had woken up from my second bout of involuntary unconsciousness, I got started on my, surprisingly, full schedule. First, a full physical from Doctor Rhodes and, to my slight chagrin, the vet, Doctor Herdman. Next was physical therapy. That was fun. As if learning to walk again after a five year coma wasn’t challenging enough. Learning how to walk again on all fours, in a new body was a whole other challenge.

A strange thing about this new body. After years in a coma, my muscles had, according to the doctor, atrophied terribly. But following my transformation, those same muscles, despite being differently shaped, were perfectly healthy. Strong even. That didn’t stop them aching from disuse.

'When you're done here, you have a small battery of tests with Doctors Fineman and Fitzsimmons. Then you have counseling with Doctor Ulv.'

I winced as a massive charley horse, heh, flared up in my right leg. Wait, I was nothing but legs at this point. My right hind leg. I fell back on my haunches to try and massage it out. The unfamiliar position felt surprisingly natural. 'Hey, Doc, think I could get some more pain meds? I'm kinda aching all over here.'

'Afraid not, Teddy.' Doctor Rhodes put away the clipboard he'd been scribbling on, and walked over to check my bandages. 'Your next meds aren't scheduled for another two hours. What you're feeling right now is perfectly normal.'

I moaned. He was right. I just needed to suck it up and work through the pain, like I always did. Didn’t mean I had to like it. 'You suck.'

'You'll thank me later.'

I stood back up and limped the ten thousand miles to the full length mirror on the other side of the room. I hissed and flopped back down on my rump.

I stared at my reflection. This was the first time I had gotten a proper look at all of me. I really was a dark purple pony mare. My pink mane and tail, because yes, I had a tail, were shorter than most mares in the show seemed to wear them. While I had no real world frame of reference to compare to, I seemed taller than average. I had a lean, almost willowy build, closer to Princess Cadence or Fleur De Lis than the infinitely recoloured basic base shape of most mares. But, I wasn't as soft as I appeared. Every inch of me was lean muscle, like bundled steel cables.

I was wearing a hospital gown, backwards so it draped over my back like a blanket. I was sorely tempted to hike it up to get a look at the cutie marks the doctors assured me were there, but that seemed a little inappropriate to do in company. Later though.

My new face fascinated me. I was still struggling with the cognitive dissonance of this being my face. It wasn't exactly what I would have called "pretty," but I, maybe, could have conceded to calling it handsome.

What caught my attention most, however, were the marred features. A nasty scar ran down over my right eye, and something that looked like it was supposed to have been a unicorn horn, but ended up as nothing more than a jagged stump, sprouted from my forehead. My stomach roiled at the thought of my horn shattering.

I gave it a tentative poke. 'Hey, Doc. Where's the rest of this?'

Doctor Rhodes frowned. 'What do you mean?'

I turned to him and pointed to my stump. 'This. My horn. It looks like it broke. Where's the rest of it? Couldn't it be reset?'

'I don't know what you mean, Teddy. That growth began appearing a little after midnight on the second day of your change, but once it reached the point you see it now, it stopped. There is no "rest" of it.'

I turned back to my reflection and poked my stump again. 'Curiouser and curiouser.'

Doctor Rhodes rested a hand on my back. 'We can talk more about that later. For now, come on. Doctor Fineman and Doctor Fitzsimmons are waiting. We have to get their tests out of the way before your counseling session.'

I groaned and stood up. 'More tests? Come on, Doc. I just woke up. Haven't you guys been running tests all week?'

'We're in entirely uncharted waters, Teddy. We're going to have to run as many tests as needed until we can figure this out.'

I was afraid of that. A creeping dread ran through me as I raised my gaze to the exit sign above the door. I tried to keep my voice even. 'Level with me, Doc. Just how much trouble am I in?'

He raised a brow. '"Trouble?"'

'I may have just woken up from a coma, Doc. But I'm not an idiot.' I closed my eyes and lowered my head. 'A guy spontaneously shapeshifts into a purple, talking, horse thing whose DNA matches no known life forms? We're in a private facility full to bursting with doctors and "specialists" who have been running test after test on me, nonstop, since this started. Is this like… an "Area 51" deal? Am… Am I going to get dissected?'

Doctor Rhodes' eyes bugged out in horror and he waved his hands. 'What?! No! Of course not!'

I looked up into his eyes, my gaze level. 'Then tell me. If I decided to walk out that door, right now. If I decided to leave. Would I be allowed to?'

'Teddy. That isn't a good-'

'Would I,' I snapped. 'Be allowed to leave if I chose to?'

'Let's… Let's get some coffee.'

He brought over my wheelchair. I snorted and rolled my eyes, but clambered up into the seat as he held it steady. He brought me to a small break room and poured us two cups of coffee. I stayed silent until he decided to speak. 'Teddy, the reason you've seen nothing but doctors here is because, as soon as we realized your condition was progressing, we moved all the other patients in this ward to different wards. We've been in full medical quarantine ever since. None of us have left since this started.'

I cocked a brow. 'None of you? Even the ones that flew in?'

'No. In fact, even within this quarantined area, we only stopped wearing full body PPE as of the day before you woke up.'

'Because I'm not contagious.'

Doctor Rhodes inclined his mug towards me. 'Because none of the tests we could think to conduct indicated you were contagious. Important distinction. Since your DNA matches nothing on Earth and this… metamorphosis is unlike anything ever seen in science, we just can't be sure. For all we know you are contagious and we just have no idea how to detect it.'

I tapped the table. 'But that makes no sense. How long did this change take? Start to finish.'

'Well we can only go from when Nurse Redmond noticed the marks on your legs. But our best estimate? A little over three days.'

'And how long since it started?'

'This would be day nine.'

'Ha!' I pointed a hoof at him. 'There, see? If I was contagious, don't you think you or the other doctors, or even Nurse Redmond would be showing signs by now?'

He scratched his mustache. 'Not necessarily. Not every disease or infection reacts the same. Some can lay dormant. HIV or rabies, for example, can lay dormant for years before the carrier shows any symptoms. For all we know, you could have contracted whatever this is before your accident, and it's only just now completed its incubation period.'

I felt my ears perk forward.'Come on, Doc. I've never done drugs in my life. I live in Lincoln, for pity's sake. Do you really think that's the case?'

Doctor Rhodes took a loud slurp of his coffee and leaned back. 'I don't know. We don't know. That's the point. We need to keep testing until we have answers. Until then, the quarantine stays in place. I hope you understand. This is for everyone's good. Including yours.'

It made sense. It did. But it didn't make me feel like less of a lab rat in a cage.

I reached for my coffee, only to knock it over with my sledgehammer of a hoof. 'Damn it!'

'It’s okay. It's okay.' Doctor Rhodes jumped up and grabbed a wad of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. 'Accidents happen.'

'Doc. I'm… Could we skip all the rest of the stuff for today? I think I really need time to just… be alone and process.'

He gave me a sad, appraising look. 'Teddy, these tests are important.'

'Doc. I'm done for today.'

He sighed. 'Alright. I understand. I'll take you back to your room.'

Leaving the mugs and the mess where they were, we headed back to my room. Waiting for me on a tray was a glass of water with a straw, bowls of, what I thought were porridge and applesauce, and a laptop.

As Doctor Rhodes helped me up into the bed, he nodded at the laptop. 'We figured you'd want to catch up on what you've missed.'

I chuckled. 'People still use laptops? Here I was expecting brain implants.'

'It’s been five years, not fifty, smartass.'

I looked down at my hooves, then at the tiny keys on the laptop. 'Um, as nice a sentiment as this is, I see a problem.' I waved my hooves at him. 'You don't happen to have a keyboard with six inch keys, do you?'

It was his turn to chuckle. 'No, but I do have these.' He pulled a pair of small straps from his pocket and secured one around each of my forehooves. 'They're called universal cuffs. Some of our other patients have conditions that cost them the use of their hands, like severe osteoarthritis or progressive Parkinson's disease.'

He pulled a pair of pens out of his breast pocket and slipped them into little pockets in the straps. 'These allow them to use pens, cutlery, a stylus, you name it. There. You're good to go.'

'Huh.' I used the pens to give the laptop keys a few experimental clicks. 'That's handy.'

Doctor Rhodes patted me on the back. 'Relax, do a little web surfing, eat your dinner. Process. Someone will be by to check in on you later and I'll see you in the morning, okay?'

'Yeah. Thanks, Doc.'

With a last nod, Doctor Rhodes left the room and closed the door behind him.

I sighed. Alone at last. Finally, I could hear myself think. I booted up the web browser. I was sure the doctors were doing their best, but I was going to get to the bottom of this myself.

Comments

[Alsey]

A fun subversion of the usual Five Score formula! I'm eager to see what tempestuous adventures await.

[hyreia]

Okay, that was cute and clever. And what an character choice! And yeah good creative solution on getting around the three day transformation time frame!

[Feather Scratch]

11648187
Thanks! I hope the rest of the story doesn't disappoint.😊

[Poparakelis]

Liking the start

[6-D Pegasus]

Love that reference to her song, looking very interesting so far!

[Killjoy1221]

11659082
As far as in concerned, any time the word "eyes" are mentioned, that's a reference to her song, which I absolutely have to reenact.

[Venlinelle]

I love this! I do enjoy the formulaic nature of most Five Score stories—it makes them all fit together wonderfully—but it’s always neat to see variation. I also enjoy seeing fics in this universe that star characters who weren’t introduced when the original was written. I have a Starlight Five Score story outlined; I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to starting it.

Honestly, given the choice between being in a coma for five years and not being a pony, I’m not sure I’d choose the latter.