Leaving Reality

This was not a good day for Twilight Sparkle.

It had started out fairly normal, she was reading through some books when Applejack told her about some strange thing and a box that she found in her orchard. Twilight was intrigued, as was her curious nature.

When she and her friends met the creature, she was indeed surprised. All Applejack had told her was that it had tried to steal her apples. She was very much surprised when she found it petting Applejack's dog, and talking to it. And the strange box, she had one theory rolling around in her head that the human was an alien, and the box his ship. The only problem she ran into with this was that the box was far to small too house all the material required for space flight, but perhaps he held some sort of advanced technology. Her mind had been filled with questions, where does he come from, what is the box, and what in Equestria is a jelly baby?

Imagine her disappointment and surprise when both the human and his box vanished right in front of her and her friends eyes.

At first nopony said anything, they merely stared in shack at the ground where the two once stood. It was finally Pinkie Pie of all ponies who did something. That something was to stand on the spot where the box and human once stood, wave her hooves about as if checking they were still there.

"They're gone!" She finally exclaimed. This brought everypony out of their shock as all present except Pinkie Pie facehoof'd simultaneously. This only left one burning question in Twilight's and everypony else's minds.

Where had they gone?

The human in question was currently having a few panicked thoughts run through his head.

Somethings not right here, I doubt every new creature they meet has to have its memories, there must be something different about me. Well, I am an alien from a different universe, but they wouldn't know that.

"Call it a hunch, but something tells me that not every new creature you meet gets the opportunity to have a princess go sifting through my memories, what makes me so special?"

Celestia opted to answer his question with one of her own. "Tell me, how long have you been in Equestria?"

So it is called Equestria? This is way too many similarities between the television show and where I now stand.

The question surprised Lewis slightly, but he gave his answer all the same.

"Around a few hours, I'm not really sure, I was unconscious for a bit." Celestia nodded, his answer confirming her thoughts.

"My sister and I sensed a presence earlier in the day, around a few hours ago. I have ruled this land for over a thousand years, and only occasionally have we been able to sense the presence of two new beings." Lewis noticed that the tone Celestia took when she said that implied that the last time she was able to sense something, it wasn't good.

Alright, judging from the not so friendly looks and reception, this probably won't go well. Heck, for all I know doing something minor on my world might be considered a serious crime here. Ugh, this multiverse thing, I'm not allowed to take any chances. Thoughts of himself being executed and his precious machine being used for greedy advances and obtaining god-like power ran through his head. No....no I can't allow that. I'd sooner die then let that box be put to use in an evil manner. Such a shame that this has to end this way...I would have enjoyed another friend.

He stuck his hand in his pocket, finding the key to the doors.

I'll have to be quick...

"Well, Celestia, Luna." Lewis said. Luna opened her mouth to tell him off for not addressing her as princess Luna, but he spun around on his heel and tried plunged the key into the keyhole of the blue box.

The sudden movement made Luna think he was drawing a weapon and, unfortunately for the human, his actions were halted by a stun spell originating from Luna's horn.

"Urk-." Was the sound he let out as his body crumpled at the foot of the twin doors, the key falling out of his hand onto the long carpet they both stood.

"Sister, I don't think that was the most diplomatic of solutions." Celestia said, lightly scolding her sister. Luna responded with a huff.

"I thought he was drawing a weapon." Luna said simply. Celestia looked at the unconscious body of the human.

"I think he was scared, did you see his expression when we said we were going to look through his memories?"

"Probably because he committed some horrible deed in his past he does not wish others to see."

"Perhaps. At least now we will be able to check his memories to see if he presents a threat."

"I know 'Tia, I'm curious myself as to his origins." Luna said. Celestia smiled at her sister, there was the Luna she had missed, full of curiosity and how the world worked.

Celestia ordered the two unicorn guards that stood outside the throne room to stand by in case something went wrong, such as the creature waking up in the middle of the memory spell. They had decided it would best to view what he had been doing earlier in the day, even though no reports of a strange creature running rampant in Equestria they still had to make sure.

"Ready Luna?"

"Ready 'Tia."

The two sisters touched both of their horns to the creature's forehead, and commenced the spell. A flash of white soon filled their vision, before finding themselves in Lewis's mind.

The scape in which the castor finds themselves in varies from subject to subject. Each subconscious will vary depending on the individual, though typically a series of doors leading to memories are constructed inside the subject's subconscious.

Our traveling human's mind had settled on something similar to that. Instead of doors, there stood the police boxes he had arrived in, stretching on in a single row for as far as the two could see. These stood in no hallway, but instead seemed to be suspended in the void of space with no visible floor, but floated nonetheless. Looking past the boxes into space twinkling stars and nebula, even a galaxy could be seen.

"I like it." Luna said, smiling at all the objects in the sky. Celestia smiled as well, more so that her sister was happy than the various objects floating in space.

Each box had a light flowing from it, the closest one from them had a light flickering from words and windows of the box.

"Come sister, let's find out whats inside." Luna, somewhat reluctantly, tore her eyes from the sky and made her way over to the box. As soon as Celestia touched a hoof to it, the scene around them changed.

The boxes began to melt away, the stars began descending from the sky, changing in color and shape. The two soon found themselves in a completely new area.

Celestia and Luna were incredibly confused at the strange room they were in, a hemispherical shaped room with a large tube running up the center, and various knobs, switched, and levers wrapped around it. Strange, bulb-like things adorned the wall everywhere. And the creature, he was there as well, sitting in a chair. Then he began talking, much to the convenience of the two. Since Lewis was unconscious, his thoughts would not be broadcast to the two sisters. Although they were not viewing the room from Lewis's point of view, they saw it as if they were there when the memory occurred. Anything they saw that was not in Lewis's line of sight was filled in by his subconscious as it was last viewed by the human.

Time travel, TARDIS, wormholes. Luna and Celestia understood little of what he spoke. Then the memory reached the point of his appearance in Equestria. They saw how the large hemispherical room was contained in the blue box. The thought of leaving the memory and opening the doors in the real world to confirm this briefly crossed their minds, but they both realized that they would need to see his actions so far in Equestria.

They watched his fairly harmless interactions with the ponies, though it did strike Celestia as an odd coincidence that he met her student, and his reaction to Rainbow Dash was strange as well. When the memory reached the point of Lewis being knocked unconscious by Luna's stun spell, the scenery began to dissolve back into the hallway filled with the blue boxes.

"Now what sister?" Luna asked, going back to staring at the stars as she spoke.

"I'm not sure, he seems fairly harmless, but why was he trying to run earlier?"

"Perhaps looking into some of his other memories will give an answer." Celestia nodded.

"They might indeed, let's try the next one."

There was only one difference in all of the boxes stretching in the row. While the first emitted a flickering white light, the rest produced a dull yellow. Celestia placed a hoof on the second box in the row, and again the colors and shapes melted away to reveal the same hemispherical room.

The memory started much like the other had, with Lewis waking up in his chair and talking to inanimate objects. He walked around the controls, fiddling with various ones. As he did, he muttered "maybe this time". When he touched certain levers and switches, the room would shake in response. When he stopped using the controls, he walked towards the doors and stepped through them.

Luna and Celestia looked out onto a barren red-orange landscape, made of something appearing to be sand.

"Sister, look! The stars!" Luna exclaimed.

"Yes, what about them?"

"These stars have never appeared above Equestria."

"But that would mean..." Luna turned to her sister and nodded.

"Yes, we're standing on a different planet."

"So that's what it does..." Celestia said.

"A spacecraft..."

"I had thought that he was uncloaking the box when he first arrived, not landing from a different planet!"

"It must have taken an incredible amount of magic to create this." Luna and Celestia looked at the human, who was holding out a blue rectangular device in his outstretched hand. He stood like that for a few moments, before the device gave a small chirp.

No Signs Of Life Encountered, read the message on the blue device.

Lewis let out a sigh, and with a face of extreme disappointment, he retreated back to the blue box. The memory soon dissolved back into the long row of blue boxes.

"He was searching for life?" Luna said.

"It seems, perhaps he is an explorer for his kind. That could explain why we haven't seen anything like him before."

"Or he could have been exiled from his kind, let's look through a few more." Celestia nodded in agreement, even though she suspected Luna just wanted to look at how many different planets the human had encountered.

Celestia placed a hoof against the next box, emitting a dull yellow light like the previous one. The memory played almost exactly the same, the only difference being the planet. They tried the next box over and found the same thing. And the next one, and the next one, and the next one. All of them contained the human finding a planet, searching for signs of life, finding none, and then departing. Some memories he didn't even find a new planet, but would sit staring at the computer and talk to himself or inanimate objects.

Luna and Celestia found though, that they did not actually have to walk form box to box. If they wished, the boxes would fly past them as they stood still. Finally they reached an anomaly.

While the first box had a flickering white light coming from it, and the others so far had a dull yellow, this one contained no sort of light; The words and windows were unlit. Luna and Celestia had decided to skip over a few of the boxes, but this one needed investigation as to why it wasn't lit.

When the memory began, it started the same as the others, with Lewis waking up sitting in his chair. He would type for a short time, move some levers, then sit back down. For some reason, he was silent in this memory, not once making a remark to himself or his machine. He opened the doors and went outside just as in every memory, and received the same response.

No Signs Of Life Encountered

Instead of the disappointed sigh he had let out in past memories (technically the memories the two had already viewed were in the future relative to the memory they were currently viewing), he began trembling with anger. He walked back towards the box, and once inside, began shouting.

"This is all your fault! I should never have built you!" He began punching the console, his fist becoming bloody.

"If I hadn't built you, I would have a normal fucking life! I would still be on Earth!" He began punching the tube extending from the center of the room..

"SAY SOMETHING!" He screamed, delivering a hard punch to the tube. He eventually stopped, his body shuddering. His eyes were leaking tears, and were bloodshot.

"Please, just say something." He said softly. He just collapsed there on the floor, every few seconds a sob escaping from him.

Celestia and Luna watched all of this unfold in stunned silence. They did not speak, even when the room dissolved back into the rows of blue boxes. They didn't know what to say to each other, each trying to understand what happened.

"So!" A voice said from behind them. The two whirled around to face the voice. It was Lewis, standing there in a blue pinstripe suit, leaning on a black umbrella. His voice was dripping with venom.

"How do you like my mind?"