To Serve Bronies

by Fuzzy Necromancer

Falling Out Among Non-Friends

“Are you serious?” the human shouted.

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her forehead. “It's a twelth-level metastatic spell! I'd like to see you do better on your first try with a void-peircing reverse summon.”

“Well I can't try that, because I'm not the most magical unicorn that ever lived!” the human gasped out, thrusting its five-fingered hands at the sky.

“Well, I wouldn't say I'm the most magical,” Twilight Sparkle said, clearing her throat to cover the confusion between anger and embarassment. “Anyway, it's a start isn't it?”

“It's a speck of smoke from outer space,” Jamal groaned. He proped his awkward, tailless body up against the wall and stared at the jar she had worked so hard on.

“But it's from your outer space,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Look, I'm trying my best, two-legged human. If you'll just stay a while, there's so much we could learn about each other!”
Jamal rubbed his eyes. “I'm kind of not ready to get poked and prodded? Anyway, I've learned plenty of things about you every saturday with my daughter.” He frowned an ugly, suspicious frown. “If you can't get me home, maybe somebody else can.”

“It's not all that bad,” Twilight said. “You can read some of my books while you're staying here!”

“What is a two-legged deer, exactly?” Jamal said. He took a step towards the jar.

“I told you, it's just a euphamism,” Twilight Sparkle said. She tried to remember if she'd left any of her cookbooks open.

Spike came down the stairs, carrying the mixing bowl in one claw and a cooking diagram with choice cuts highlighted in the other. “Do you want me to put it on him right now, or should we section up the two-legged dear into cuts first?” Spike said.

Twilight Sparkle glared at him and resisted the urge to telekinetically smack him upside the head. The human's pupils shrank and it stared at Spike with a rictus of feral terror.

“Did I say something wrong?” Spike said, looking at them each in turn.

Twilight Sparkle charged up her horn. The human grabbed the jar and tried to run.

She was faster than him. She jerked its ankle up ten feet off the ground. The human was fast enough to grab a book from one of the high shelves on his way up.

“Spike, put that sauce down. Set up a roasting pit, and drag out the grill with draining sides. Human blood is too valuable as a spell component to waste in basting.”
The human thrashed and kicked at the air. Spike stood motionless and lifted an eyebrow.

Twilight wiped some drool away. “Sorry, please set up a roasting pit, Spike, my number one assistant.”

“Sure thing Twi!” Spike said with a little salute.

“Did you know that my telekinesis can hold over five tons of living flesh?” Twilight Sparkle said. “It's actually easier to levitate living things than non-living matter, although the spell can be forced back with a very strong will, but I'm pretty sure that your will isn't strong enough.” She coughed. She probably shouldn't have told it that part. She jerked the ankle around to make it scream and stop it from resisting her.

“This book looks pretty important,” the human said, trying to sound casual through the pain. She hadn't heard the pop of a dislocated joint, so it couldn't be that bad. Still,she spread her manipulative field a little wider, to support the whole human's body. Certain types of injuries could spoil the meat.

“Of course it is, you stupid brute. It's a first-edition vellum chronicle of-”

Rip.

Twilight's heart skipped a beat. She looked up the human. It had tucked the jar under one arm, leaving a hand free to dig it's dirty blunt-clawed fingers into the fine aged vellum.

“W-what are you doing? What in Celestia's name are you doing to that book?” Twilight screamed. The world flickered green with a red heart.

“You can't scare me with that little glowy-eyes mojo,” the human snarled. Its fingers jerked the page a little more. There was a slight tearing.

“Put that book right back this instant, or I...or I'll-” Twilight Sparkle stammered. Cold sweat soaked through her coat.

“Or what? I don't think there's much you can do that's worse than anything that will happen to me anyway,” it sneered. Its eyes lit with evil pleasure. “I think you should put me down.”

“Now take it easy, human. That's a very important book. There are healing spells in that text that haven't been found in any other-”

R-rip!

“My name is Jamal,” the human said. It ripped a little further, and flung something down at her face. Twilight Sparkle screamed. Her throat seized up. Who would do this to a book? What would do this to a first-edition spellbook?

She extended a little telekinetic power to catch the page. Thank Celestia, he'd carefully removed it close to the edge. It was ragged, but none of the actual text was damaged.

She realized she hadn't been breathing since she screamed. She hugged the paper as close as she could without bending or cracking it, then snapped open a glass case and shut the page inside it.

Twilight Sparkle's knees trembled. She wanted to stuff this creature with sage and onion, roast it over a slow flame, bite off the tenderest portions and then MAYBE start to kill it, if it apologized.

Twilight took in deep breaths. She needed to calm down. She couldn't panic.

He started ripping the next page.

“Please, please Jamal oh for the love of Celestia stop!” Twilight squealed.

“Let me down,” Jamal said, “and if you try to just drop me I'll land on this jar, cracking it open and soaking the book.”

Twilight Sparkle spent the next three minutes gently drawing him down to the floor.

“Open the door”, he said, twisting a page in his hand.

She kicked the door open.

“Just get out! I didn't want to finish your stupid spells anyway!”

The human sprinted out and slammed the door behind itself, without letting go of the book.

“I've got the roasting pit ready!” Spike called.

Twilight collapsed on the floor and started sobbing.

“What's wrong?”

Author's Note:

Jamal and Twilight Sparkle come to a disagreement over the best way to resolve his problems. Also, property damage occurs, and Spike says a little too much.

Comments

[Seether00]

If you don't want to be eaten, stop being delicious

[isjor1]

He should of threw the book in the roasting pit on the way out

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

5131991
If he did that, he'd lose his bargaining chip.

[Mortal Kombat]

Run!
blog.freedommortgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Kid_Gohan_Running_Away.gif

Run to Celesssss
fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/230/f/3/princess_celestia_by_lupr-d46zmir.png
fuck that!
just keep running!
fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/015/a/0/run_away_by_zeurel-d71lsvb.gif

[ferret]

Ooh, Spike you ruined everything.

You always butcher before marinating! Haven't you ever done this before?

And basting is done all the way at the end, on the grill. You were just going to throw him on the grill without even letting the meat hang for a few days to relax it? You are worst cook!

I bet you put pepper in your soup pot too.

[isjor1]

5132159 So now he is going to carry around a book for the rest of the story o. o

[isjor1]

5132174 i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/811/629/bf6.gif

[Red Bomber]

So the running finally begins and he finds out that Twilight is actually an evil Twilight.

[Krazy Stargazer]

I love everything about this concept! It is terrifying to imagine what the Equestrian ponies could do to a human being if they wanted. Heck I could actually picture unicorns hunting humans. Most of the ponies are probably faster and stronger than even the most fit humans. We can't compeate with Earth ponies strength. Pegusi have the ability to naturally fly (an ability most humans would envy). And unicorns have a power beyond human comprehension (unless it turns out quantum physics, dark matter are actually forms of magic)

But don't count the human race as a whole out. Theirs a reason we became alpha predators, during and after an ice age. We are rescorceful, determined, and immaginitive. Just as ponies have natural abilities, humans have a natural ability to adapt. At first not all that intimidating but horrifying to contemplate. Given time humans could probably find a way to out compete the ponies...even alicorns. But the problem is time.

In this circumstance the human characters are 1) alone, 2) in a new environment, 3) modern humans that are not as in tune with nature as our ancestors.
By all accounts everything is against them.

Yet that's why I love this story!

In particular we see the point of view of the ponies more often than not. Thus we understand their frame of reference more than our own species here. Amazingly you've made the human characters very intreaguing by their ambiguity. They are only known by what they say. I'm surprised how quickly they went on the defensive.

I hope theirs a happy ending though : . Because I'm a sap like that

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

5139701
*hugs*
Thank you. That was some absolutely wonderful, in-depth critique. You managed to articulate something that a lot of readers, myself included, were just reaching for.

[Godiswithus3]

And so, the chase begins with Jamal. He's in DEEEEEP trouble.