It was a beautiful day. Birds chirping, animals doing as they do...

It was pretty nice...

  In the loud and active city of Manehattan, the buildings were uncommonly high compared to the rest of the world. It was a 'normal' upper class city. Crime was not so bad, buildings were descent, homelessness dropped from 35% of the population to 10%. This was also one of the major economic hubs in the world.

Needless to say, this wasn't the worst place in the world...

  Down on the streets, a young filly was walking to an orphanage. She was small and cute. Large, wandering eyes on her head showed others she is adventurous. Most ponies on her normal route recognized her light blue coat and her light green mane. One of her eyes was hidden by her mane, as it swoops onto one side of her face. She was incredibly bored...

Bored and sad...

  Two months ago, a horrendous fire nearly crippled her older brother, and killed her parents.Nobody knew where it came from, or how it came to be. She was not alone for months, until one day her brother died in the hospital. She was released into Foal Protective Services, where she lived with the other orphans there. Nobody really pays her any attention, and the bullies there actually live with her. She had nowhere to hide. It didn't matter, though... As she always said, 'Things could be worse'.

Her name was Emerald.

  She continued walking, cutting corners to let the gang members past. They paid her no mind, though. She was too innocent to kill, too sweet to mug, and too young to do anything... interesting to.

  Still, she went around them. To an alleyway to be specific.This alleyway was a shortcut to her orphanage. Although she wanted to stay away from that place as much as possible, she needed to stay out of the city. Staying in too long was a death-wish, even for her. She would rather deal with bullies, than knives and magic.

  Halfway to the orphanage, she saw a mysterious light. Being a unicorn, she recognized magic anywhere. This was definitely 'it'. She hid from view, and waited for it to be over.

  While she waited, she watched. While she watched, she saw what was happening. The light was getting smaller. As the light condensed, it got brighter. Bright to the extent she wished she had sunglasses to keep watching. Seeing the unbearable light get brighter, she closed her eyes. The only thing on her mind was 'How in the hay does nopony see this!' At that thought, the light diminished. When she finally opened her eyes, what she saw was... interesting.

  A grown stallion, one with grey fur, a black and red striped mane and tail, and a jacket with a strange symbol on the back. He was lying on the ground, unconscious.

  "Hello!" she had been trying to wake him up for half an hour now. Any normal pony would have left a while ago, but this stallion was just too warm to be dead. Something was very... odd about this stranger. He appeared to not be breathing, and he refused to wake up. Deciding he was dead, she began to leave.

"(GASP)"

  Emerald turned around. She immediately recognized the gasp as a suffocating person's gasp, from those times she watched her brother. Looking at him, she saw a strange... liquid covering his body. He seemed to be convulsing but something seemed... off? She couldn't just place her hoof on it...

And then he got up...

  She wanted to let loose a sigh of relief, but this stranger seemed to make her feel... Fear. Fear like an external force was trying to push her, but it's lack of contact with the material plain limited it to subtle emotional projections. She was frozen in place as he stood up. He looked at her with a look on his face... Confusion? She couldn't understand it. It was as if something was behind her, something truly unnerving. It ceased when he looked at his own body.

  He began checking himself as if he had just died, came to life, and saw a odd thing. After thoroughly examining himself, he looked around with even more confusion on his face. Pulling on the hood on his back, he covered his eyes with a veil of darkness before Emerald could get a good look at them.

"Um... hello" she asked.

  The stallion looked up, seeming to see her for the first time ever. That was not true, of course. "What am I?" he asked. She looked at the stallion as if he was asking the dumbest question ever.

"Duh! You're a pony, an Earth Pony to be exact."

  "Where am I?" he asked. Once again, she gave him an incredulous look. He seemed to not know anything that he should know. Considering he literally appeared in front of her, she let it slide.

"Manehattan City, sir."

  The stallion opened his mouth to ask another question, but as he spoke those gang members from earlier showed up. One of them grabbed Emerald to take her out of the danger zone, as they usually did when she was too close to violence. For a gang, they really have child friendly rules... or maybe it was because her brother ran with them back in the day...

  They didn't care if she was watching, but she didn't have a pretty descent view about what was transpiring. One of them walked forward and began to ask questions.

  '(Sigh) Why do people always want to go after me? Do I just attract danger? Am I so powerful? Are other people just so foolish?' These thoughts went through Alex's mind as he was being rudely interrupted by a group of people. He was taken from these thoughts when a hoof connected with his face. 'That hurts significantly more than a fist...'

  "You will listen when we speak!" one of the equestrian creatures yelled. This one in particular was annoying. It was as if he had problems growing up. Upon looking at the faces on the gang of horses, Alex noticed the facial expressions, if not cartoonish, were at least displaying the looks humans get. By the faces, he could see murder, rape, sorrow, kindness, fury, and intolerance. 'Such an interesting group of faces...' Another hoof struck his face. "You will answer when I ask!" the same voice said. 'If he touches me one more time...'

Alex headbutt the creature.

  The horse staggered back, clenching it's nose with a hoof as if it would help stop the bleeding. It looked up in fury and decided to go on the offensive. A hoof was blocked this time by Alex's hoof. "Enough of this." Alex felt as if invisible fingers were on his new appendage, as he could feel himself gripping the stranger's hoof.  Experimenting, he squeezed harder with his invisible fingers to see what they could do. He could see the opponent's hoof being gripped by something, and heard bones crack. He ignored the screams and protests, as he was lost in 'science mode'.

  Alex pressed harder and heard the creaking and pops get louder and more frequent. He smirked, seeing how appropriate this invisible force would be, especially now that he had no fingers. At the point when the creaks stopped, he sighed with disappointment. "Oh well, I did a lot anyway..." Looking at his victim, he nearly passed out from the pain. "Weak..." Alex smashed his skull with a forehoof, spraying blood and brain through the air.

  Faster than he thought possible, tendrils thin as wires split from his hoof and grabbed every single drop of biomass. Pulling everything into his body, corpse and all. The experience was... new to his body, but not his subconscious. The lookers looked around horrified. Some were paralyzed by fear, one of them puked, and others were moved by fury. Alex was uninterested. The shock of death was nothing new to him, and the pain others felt were meaningless.

  One of them tried to run away as fast as possible, but was stopped by another. This one was muscular and radiated authority. While he was distracted, another one of them ran out of the alleyway as fast as he could.

  Two ponies in the group charged, one with a horn likely for impaling, and the other with wings... Okay? As they charged, they did a disorienting move which temporarily broke Alex's concentration. Dazed, they both struck. One with a strange substance coming from the horn, and the other with a powerful tackle. Alex hunched over, the new energy doing a number on his body. "<Grunt>"

  The pegasus and the unicorn landed behind him, and gloating. "Wow, I cant believe you actually killed Scorpio!" the unicorn said, "You're weak and you would fall for such a common attack!" The other one, too stupid to have his own line, simply said "YEAH!" annoyingly loud. They seemed as giddy as children in a candy store.

  Their glee was shattered when Alex got back up. If they were skeptical before, they were outright terrified by how he simply brushed aside their attack. They hesitated to attack again, and were completely unaware of the hoof that impaled itself through both of their necks. All that could be heard from them was a sickly gurgle and the swishing noises. It was a sickening noise, but Alex smiled in glee. A look of pure bliss was on his face, and he looked at the ground, his hood once again covering his eyes. "Oh... I love that..." He paused and looked around at the remaining ponies. "Sometimes, I just love to swish people around just... Make the experience last longer for the both of us..." He regained his posture and walked closer to the stallions. "Perhaps you should run..." He said to not them, but Emerald. She took the advice, and ran away.

  Alex walked closer to the two stallions and placed both hooves around their necks in the closest way to a bro hug a horse body could get. One of them squirmed. "You two don't seem that bad... It's best you forget what happened here, yes?" They both shook their heads. "Maybe nobody should know what happened to your friends?" The two stallions shook again. Little did they know that Alex had small tendrils inside of their body, displaying their thoughts to him. "I hate liars..." A cracking noise was heard, and he stood in the alleyway, utterly alone. He looked at his body and one thought came to mind...

"What the fuck..."