In The Name of Science

In The Name of ScienceChapter Three: The Science of Ottsels     Ponyville was way cooler up close.     Ever been to a renaissance festival? I have. Most people would think it's just a bunch of lame douchebags dressing up and beating at each other with blunt swords and charging people cash to watch. So did I, at one point in time. Oh how wrong I was... the festival that I went to as a kid was awesome. The actors there did a wonderful job at playing their parts. The props, the costumes, the attraction, all awesome. The place felt...authentic, like it was the real deal, like it was the experience that blew the brains out of your low expectations.      Well, that's the same feeling that I had whilst hobbling through the streets of my favorite fictional town. It was the perfect picture of how we all imagined it to be up close, and then some.      First off, ponies. There were ponies everywhere. Of coarse, that was to be expected from a town called "Ponyville". Ponies of all colors, races, shapes, and sizes went about their daily lives, completely ignorant of the transdimensional traveler in crutches staring at them with wide eyes. Ponies trotted by me without a care in the world, probably on their way to meet up with friends, or grab a cup of joe at the local cafe.      It was peaceful. You can already guess that I was a total city slicker, in fact I had never spent more than a week outside of the city. I had never lived in a quiet rural town like this one. Nopony that I passed ever looked like the dealt drugs, picked pockets, or stole cars. They all looked like decent, upstanding folks, which was a stark contrast of the shady shades of grey in the Big Apple.     I was ambllig through a narrow street that cut between two rows of thatch-roofed cottages. I felt eerily comfortable amongst a multitude of structures that were a great deal taller than I, despite them being made of whitewashed brick and wooden framing. Several elderly folks sat in the shade of their porches, rocking away in their chairs with contented looks upon their cracked faces.     One of the elderly ponies, a wrinkly liver-spotted gent, noticed me limping down the street. "Hey hon," he said in a shaky old-man voice "there's a varmint in the street."     "A VARMIT?!" came a bracing voice from further inside the house "GO TELL THAT YELLA LADY TO KEEP THEM RABITTS IN THEIR RABBIT-HOLES. DERN THINGS BEEN EATIN' MA DASIES ALL WEEK 'N I'M 'BOUT THIS CLOSE TO CLUBBIN' 'EM OVER THEIR HEADS."     It took me a great deal longer than it should have to realize that they were talking about me. How rude! I ain't no varmint. "Don't worry folks!" I waved at the old guy "I won't eat anypony's flowers. I prefer regular foods." Like spit-roasted meat. But I wasn't about to tell them that.     "S'a talkin' varnmit!" the elder called back to the inside.     "TALKIN' VARNMIT?! DID YOU TAKE YER PILLS THIS MORNIN'?!"    "I ain't no loon, hon! When I say it talked, it talked!"     "WHUD IT SAY?"    "I dunno." He turned to regard me "How do ya do, son?"     It took all my willpower to not snicker at their exchange "Just fine, thanks. Maybe my leg's a little broken." I shook my injured ankle at him.     The stallion nodded sagely, then turned back to the doorway "He said he's house-broken!"     "Wait, no, I said I--"     "NO. NOOOO WAY. WE AIN'T GETTIN' ANOTHER PET! I DON'T CARE IF HE CAN TALK, SING, DANCE, OR DO OUR TAXES, WE DON'T NEED 'NOTHER CRITTER RUNNIN' ROUND THIS HOUSE."     The old dude gave me an apologetic shrug "Sorry, sonny."     I stifled a laugh and waved my hand dismissively "It's alright."     Chuckling,  I turned and continued on down the road.Loading, please wait. . .     The square of Ponyville was the lively center of this sleepy little town. Ponies bustled about the brightly painted merchant's stalls, exchanging shiny golden bits for groceries, articles of clothing, snacks, or whatever some trader happened to be hawking at the time. This place was the center of local commerce, it kind of reminded me of the grocer's market back in the Chinatown part of NYC, minus the lingering smell of fish and the shopkeepers yelling in a language that you couldn't even begin to comprehend.      I felt the sudden urge to buy some menial trinkets rise in my chest. There were so many cool-looking things that begged me to drop a load if cash on them, but alas, I hadn't a penny to my name. Even if I was carrying freaking solid gold coins in my pocket before today, everything I had on me was lost during the transition between worlds, or whatever.     "Oh shit." I said aloud, just as an uptight-looking mare passed me by. She gave a scoff and went on her way.    What was I oh shit-ing about, you ask? Well, the idea finally dawned on me that I had left everything that I owned back on Earth. Everything. My wallet, my clothes, my apartment, my guitar, my job (not that I minded that), and everything else important to me. All gone. Three years of working an utterly pointless desk job, all the hard-earned money from that and my Saturday Central Park concerts was gone. Three years! Three years of grinding out an honest living in the most dishonest city in the world just vanished from my grasp. Poof. Bye bye, progress.     Oh god, my stuff. All of it was gone. My dad's old Gibson... it's probably sitting on that park bench, waiting for some stranger to grab it. If I weren't for transdimensional barriers between me and my pa, he would surely rips my legs off and make me kick my own ass. Everything that I had held dear was now sitting where I left it, and probably will be until someone steals it.     I was back to square one in this place. It seemed that all I had done in my life had been erased. All of my achievements, all of my relationships, all of my savings, everything that I had ever done back on Earth didn't even matter anymore, not in this world. I had been stripped of all the things that I had, with nothing to show for it but a memory of the who, the what, and the where. All that was left was...me. All that I had was me.      I was alone.     It's a scary feeling, being alone. I had been alone before, what with living in a state of nearly perpetual bachelorhood in a big city. But I had never been alone like this. Back on Earth, I at least had my friends and family to help me, but not here. Nothing that had ever happened to me could measure up to this. This was like... being born again, but without anyone to guide you through your infant life. No friends, no family, no mentors, no teachers, no nothing. I had nobody to turn to, and that scared the hell out of me.      Everywhere I looked was a place I had never been, every face that I saw and every voice that I heard was strange to me, every thing that I touched, I had never touched before, everyone that I talked to, I had never talked to before, everything that I had seen, I had never seen before.     I was as alone as anyone could ever be. Nothing was familiar.     Leaning on a crutch amidst the crowd of strangers, I realized something. Something very important that would shape the rest of my life-- I had a clean slate. No friends, no enemies, no affiliations, no relationships, nobody knew about me, nobody had met me before, nothing. What I did from here on out could not be hindered by any marks of my past or my lineage, anything that happened to me from that moment on would be a product of my own actions.      It was as fresh a start as anyone could ever get. Everything was new.     I could chose what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, who I wanted to make my friend or my enemy, it was all up to me. I had complete control over my future. Nothing would get in my way that I didn't let get there. I was free, free as anyone could ever get. Equestria was going to be my new box of sand, and I could build the best freakin' sand castle that anyone had ever seen.     It finally dawned on me. This was real. I really was in Equestria.     Leaning on that crutch amidst the crowd of strangers, I swore an oath. An oath that would shape the rest of my life-- I would make the rest of my existence in the image that I wanted it to be. Nothing to hold me back but only myself. Come hell or high water, I would carve out a living sparkled like a diamond in comparison to my meager old life that revolved around money and college. No more playing music to indifferent people for pocket change, no more grinding away at an office space that slowly sapped my will to live, life would give me lemons and I'd slap life in the face and make orange juice.     I was free.     A distant voice sounded from behind me, it had barely registered im my brain as language "You okay there, laddie?" The voice was from a stallion. And he had an amusingly thick Scottish accent.     Also, that's the second time someone's asked me that today "Okay? I'm fantastic." I said, choosing to stare off into the distance, still lost in my own thoughts.      "You sure? You've got the thousand-yard stare goin'."     "I've had a tough day." I answered absentmindedly.      He laughed a low, throaty chuckle "I know what'cha mean, my friend. We've all had those kind of days every now and again don't we?"    Ain't that the truth. I forced my current thoughts out of my mind and chose to focus on this new pony before me. He was an earth pony, about a foot taller than I was, which would make him normal sized, his fur was a kind of bright traffic cone orange and his mane was a much rustier shade of orange, kind of like my own (What was it with the author of this fanfic and his obsession with that color?). Around his neck he wore a curious copper pendant with some kind of yellow stone set into it.     "Hi." I said, extending my hand to the stranger "I'm Silus White." Might as well make friends with the guy, seeing as how I only had one so far. Ever since I was a little kid, I was pretty damn good at making friends.  I guessed it was something about my frank way of being earnest with people.     The stallion with a deep commitment to orange put his hoof in my comparatively tiny hand "Me name's Pi."     I cocked an eyebrow ask we shook "Pie?" I snuck in a glance at his butt, in a totally not dirty way. His cutie mark was some kind of strange symbol, like a capital J but with two hooks instead of one. Ergo, not a pie, like someone would assume.     Catching my facial expression, he rolled his eyes "Not that kinda pie."     "Oh. There's more than one kind of pie? I think you might mean cake, right?"     "No. I mean three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine--"     "Huh?"     Pi half-laughed and slapped his forehead "It's a number, lad! Didn't they teach ya that in school?"     I gave him the most noncommittal shrug that anyone had ever seen "I slept through algebra...and algebra two, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus, trigonometry, physics pretty much any math class that you can think of." Does a race of sentient beings that still use swords and bows even have calculus? Meh. Who cares? Not me, so long as I didn't have to pass said math class.     "Well, that explains it." he snorted "Yeah...they picked the perfect man for the job."      "Say what?"     Choosing not to reply, he turned around and began to trot off "Follow me, if ya will."     His pace was a little too brisk for a furry rodent in crutches, I hobbled after him crying "Hey, wait! Hold on there, pal!"     Pi slowed his speed to a walk, making it a little easier to catch up "What is it?"     "You said something about a job."     "Aye."     "Are you with that old guy that sent me here?"     "Oh, you mean Cosine?"     "Co-sign? Is that another math word?"     He chuckled "You catch on real quick, lad. Yeah, Cosine is our recruiter."     "Our? Who the hell areyou people?!" I shouted a little louder than I had intended, drawing a few pairs of eyes from the marketplace crowd.     Without warning, Pi did a total one-eighty and gagged me with his hoof. It tasted exactly like dirt. "Shhh! Shut ya yap, boy! Do ya want everpony from here to Fillydelphia to hear?"     I grabbed his hoof and shoved it to the side "Eugh!" I spat, in desperate want for some mouthwash. "I don't give a good god damn if the whole world hears! If you're part of that stupid research team that dragged me here, then at least do me the common courtesy of explaining why!"     Pi tensed up qnd looked around frantically as if he had been caught red-hoofed in a criminal act "Alright, alright, fine! I'll explain everything if ya'd put a lid on it! Just not here. Hop on me back and I'll take you someplace where we can discuss this like civilized men."     Men. I didn't think that ponies used that word.     Nonetheless, I managed to tuck the mini-crutches under my arms and haul myself on top of the stallion's back. The ride was kind of bumpy and uncomfortable as he hauled me through the thin crowd of ponies...Loading, please wait. . .     Pi took me across the marketplace and through a few of Ponyville's wide streets, not once making conversation the whole way there. I considered the the thought that this guy might just be a major whacko, and that I should probably jump off his back and hobble away as fast as I could before he skined me and made my fur into a fashionable orange hat that he would wear on a chilly winter day. I'm happy to say that he wasn't, and he didn't. So I'd count that as a win in my book.     He took me to his house, which was a cozy little cottage that looked identical to nintey percent of all the other buildings in Ponyville. It was very tidly kept on the inside. Everything was relatively clean, polished, and organized by the alphabet. Nothing seemed out of order or out of place. Oddly enough, there were thick blankets of cloth covering most of the large pieces of furniture. It was as if this were a home that had been recently bought off the market.      "You must not be home much." I observed.     "You could say that."     I looked around the place a little more. There was no one her aside from Pi and myself. "You live alone?"     "Mmm-hmm."     I carefully slid myself off of Pi's back, making sure to land only on my good foot. "So." I said "Let's talk. Who are you, why am I in Equestria, and what the hell did you send me here for?"      "All in good time." he said with infuriating amounts patience. "This is sumthin' that would be easier to discuss in me basement."     "That doesn't sound shady at all." I quipped "If this were New York, I'd think that you dealt in meth instead of jobs."     "A fine metaphor." He rolled his eyes. Without another word, he strode across the room and threw open a seemingly random closet door. "In here."     "Your walk in closet?"     "Aye."     "What's in there?"     He turned back and gave me a little glare "Will ya just quit ya incessant blathering and do as I ay?"     "Alright alright. Jesus. Don't get your panties in a bunch."      Pi disappeared completely into the darkness of the closet and I followed.     "Woah, this is way bigger than it looks." I said, gaining me no reply from the orange earth pony. Judging by the fact that I didn't see or feel anything but wall in the darkness, I logically assumed this thing wasn't really a closet, it was a hallway. A very cramped,  dark, and claustrophobic hallway. Yeesh, I was not a fan of tight places.     The hallway led deeper into the house than I ever imagined was possible. I went twenty, maybe twenty five, paces before we hit a wall. Yet that wall just veered off into a different direction and led into an even tighter case of spiral stairs. I could barely see my hand in front of my face by now, it was so dark. The only thing leading me along was a cold steel guardrail.     "This must be a hell of a basement!" I said.     "Oh it is." Pi replied nonchalantly. "At least by human standards, anyway. Ah, here we are!"     I immediately collided clumsily into the stallion's backside as he stopped abruptly "Hey, what gives?!"     "It'll just take a wee moment." I saw the figure of Pi shift in the dark, his foreleg was moving in some erratic pattern across the wall. There was the dull murmur of shifting machinery somewhere not too far away, and then the cheery ding of a bell. Suddenly, the my poor eyes were filled with blinding yellow light, searing my retinas for the second time since I stepped out of Fluttershy's cottage. It took me a mere moment to blink away the brightness, the source of the illumination was from the inside of the next room.     Pi casually sauntered in a small, boxlike room with mirrored walls and bronze polished floor--Oh wait, it was just an elevator. I hobbled in and the doors closed shut behind me.          I noticed that the elevator went to only two floors: up and down. Naturally, I pressed the down. Then came that familiar feeling of weighing less than you actually do that always accompanied an elevator ride. I would know, I had a job on the sixteenth floor of an office building for three years.     ...     "I didn't know Equestria had elevators." I said, making conversation on this strangely lengthy ride.     "They don't."     ...     "Jesus, how far down does this thing go? We had to have went like twenty floors down or something."     "Curious one, aren't ya?"     I shrugged,  opting to say nothing.      Ding!     "That's our cue, laddie."     Then the door opened. What was beyond them...I had not expected. Not at all.     It was breathtaking, to say the least. The cavernous expanse of the room dwarfed the comparatively smaller figures of Pi and I. I hadn't before seen ceilings this high, except at a close-domed football field. The walls sparkled and glittered like they were made from gold, yet they had coloration closer to copper or bronze. They shone with the reflection of the dull yellow light cast by some sort of massive luminescent stones that were placed at even intervals. The architecture really reminded me of a cathedral, with the high ceilings and towering support pillars, yet it was spartan, in a way. There were few aesthetic decorations to speak of, it was almost empty, save for a set of semicircular modules at the very center.     The sound of my crutches echoed off of the walls loudly as we strode further into the room toward the modules.      "Whoo!" I hollered.     "Whoo! Whoo! Whoo....whoo..." the room returned.     "WHOO!" I repeated. The same thing happened, only a little bit louder than the first time.     "RIIIII-COOO-LAAAAA!"     "LAAA! Laaa! La...La..."     "CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOOON, THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN Y--"     For the second time that day, Pi gagged me with his hoof "For goodness sake, can't you just be silent for one iota of a second and pay attention?!"     I was about to reply back with something snarky, but my joke died before I could let it out. "What happened to you accent?"     He snorted mirthlessly "Something to fool all of the gullible mortals up top." he said in a distinctly not-Irish accent. His voice actually sounded kinda normal, too. "They think of me as some kind of eccentric noble with a vacation home in their town rather than an scientist trying to unlock the secrets of their universe."     "Makes sense, I guess." I said, stopping a moment to lean on one of the crutches "But is the accent really necessary?"     "No...but what is life without whimsy?"     "A dull life, that's what."     He hummed thoughtfully "Indeed." He turned to trot the rest of the way to the control panels  "Now, if you'll excuse me I need to set up shop. Feel free to ask me whatever you want while I work, but don't be too broken up if I choose not to answer certain questions."     Oooh, finally! Somebody was going to make sense of this. "Okay, so...let's start of with the easy stuff. Who are you?"     "I am Pi." said Pi.     "Nononono, your science group-thingy. Who are you as a whole?"     "Ahh, that makes more sense now. Please be a little more specific with our questions."      He stopped in the dead center of the semicircle and began to mutter to himself. "Now where did they install the-- Ah! Here it is." He punched a fairly large, bright red button on the panel and the whole thing flicked to life with a faint buzz. There was an audible rumble and tiny vibrations in the air as some machine off in the far corner of the room began to turn its gears.     "We are the Precursors." He went on, absorbed into looking at a faintly glowing screen and not at me "A race of hyper-intelligent and highly sophisticated beings that have dedicated their lives to the pursuit scientific discovery and technological development. We could be called "gods", as well. The other immortal beings seem to consider us as such, as well as a minor planet full of mortal worshippers. Though, we are not gods in the religious sense like your Roman or Hindu gods. We have merely created the technology to extend our lives indefinitely and to harness the raw energies of our universe. We did not ascend to this state through any kind of divine sorcery, we built it on our own. While we may rival these other dieties that participate in the Chess Game, we are nothing more than biological organisms that live and breathe as you humans do."     For the first time today, I was rendered speechless. That's some heavy shit to take on in a day! This is coming from a guy who spent his pre-teen and teen years being educated in a private Catholic school by a bunch of crotchety old nuns. You know, the "You're going to Hell because you masturbate!" types.      It was kind of hard to believe that you were standing in the presence of an immortal being. Sure, Fluttershy had given me the lowdown on how this Chess Game thingy worked, she said that I had been sent here by a god, but I didn't really believe it until then. I had grown up believing that you don't get to learn exactly how this whole god thing worked until you died and went to where ever you were supposed to go. And then...I felt as if I was allowed to know something before my time.      "So, gods huh?" I finally managed to blurt out.     Pi furrowed his brow at me "No, Precursors, not gods. Though we may qualify as deities with the immortals that host these games, we do not consider ourselves as such."     "So what kind of immortal are you?" I asked.     "I'm sorry?"     "How immortal are you? Are you the kind that can never ever die no matter what you do or have done to you, or the kind that lives forever until something cuts your head off?"     "I don't want to answer that." He went back to laboring at his controls "We do not even--" He stopped pulling levers and punching buttons to slam his hoof on the controls with a resounding bang "Blast these horacious hooves! Why did I not remove them in the first place?!"     "Huh?" was my oh-so-clever response.     "Excuse me for a moment."      Pi then preceded to grab the pendant hanging from his neck and rip it off. There was a flash of blinding white light, much like the flash that had transported me here. It seems like somebody somewhere hsd declared that day "Screw with Si's Vison Day". When I rubbed the stars from my eyes yet again, Pi was no longer there.     Well, it WAS still Pi. At least that's what I had thought. Standing right where the earth pony had stood was a strange creature that I had only seen a single one of in my whole life.     Pi had become short, fuzzy, and (most importantly) orange, just like myself. He was a... whatever I was. Though, we bore some obvious differences. His fur was a shade of orange that reminded me of traffic cones, as opposed to my basketball colored coat. Secondly, he had clothes; it was just a simple pair of slacks, a plain white undershirt, and a dirty old lab coat plastered with stains and torn in a few places, but it was more than I had. Lastly, even though his body was covered in fur, this guy still had some big time Elvis Presley sideburns.     "Woah. Didn't see that coming." It seemed that the weird events for that day were not quite over yet. What else could happen? I mean, what could have possibly been stranger than that? Wait, never mind. I don't want to know, so please don't tell me.     "Ahh, much better." he cheerily declared before immediately going back to pushing buttons and staring at a retro-futuristic computer screen.     "Huh. So that's what I am." I said "You made me a Precursor, or whatever."     "No."     "Wait, no? How can I not be! You look just like I do."     He scoffed "Have you not listened to me at all since we stepped into this room? I said that Precursors are immortal beings, and you are as mortal as you could possibly be."     "Well, if I'm not a Precursor, then what the hell did you turn me in to?"     Beep beep boop. He was working that control panel like a boss. "You are what we were before we ascended; an ottsel."     "Ott-suhl..." I rolled the word around on my tongue as if it were a fine wine "An ottsel. Hmm...Ottsel."     "We would've liked to make you a Precursor like us," Pi said "It would most definitely make you a more useful assistant.  But, alas, this cosmic game as a slew of highly restricting rules and eddicts, and making your chess peice unkillable would break rule number one: no giving them an divine advantage over the others."     "Uh huh. So this game..."     "The Chess Game of the Gods, as we call it."     "Right, right, I get it. But, why are you playing it? Is there a reward for the winners? Or is it just for shits and giggles?"     "That doesn't matter, we are not playing it."     "I feel like I'm repeating myself, but huh?"    Pi's body froze for an instant,  his newly formed hands hovering over the control panel. His voice was hesitant at first "The game is merely a means to an end. My people don't care for the glory and control that these other petty immortals squabble over without end. What would be the point? Those so-called gods? They're nothing but imbeciles. Their behavior since the beginning of time has always been the same: kill, destroy, and take what isn't theirs. They only wish to murder one another in a mad quest for influence over their mortal worshippers and the power to destroy them, if they wish. The fighting will never end. Never. At least, not until there is only one of them left sitting atop a pile of their dead brethren, with everything in existence at the tips of their wretched fingers."     "Woah. I kinda hit a sore spot, there. Didn't I?"     "Yes."     "So, if you hate all the gods, then why play games with them?"     He sighed and turned to look me dead in the eye. "Ever since this accursed game began, Equestria has been off limits. Rule number two of the Chess Game is that immortals cannot directly influence the inhabitants of this world, their own chess peices, or any opposing chess peices. We've wanted to study this universe for quite some time now, but that dammed rule has prevented us from making any real progress in unlocking the mysteries of this place. We still tried to study it, but the other players accused us of breaking that rule, even though we wanted no part of their game. The data that we've collected before we brought you here was wiped as a punishment, and we were set back to square one."     "Damn, all you wanted to do was learn about Equestria. But...where do I fit in to this? Do you think that they would take off all the red tape if I won?"     "Don't you see? You don't need to win to be the solution to this problem. We can't directly gather information on this universe, but you can. You can do whatever you please to this world and face no reprocussions from the rules. You can be the one to collect data for us."     Then it all fell into place. I wasn't here to be the deadliest warrior or some shit, hell no. If they wanted to win, they would've made me a dragon, or a t-rex, or a Mary Sue alicorn OC. They weren't playing to win, they just wanted me to get up close and personal to Equestria for them. It was actually kind of smart, if you ask me.     "If you have no further questions, I realize that we have yet to ask you for your own stand on our work relationship, and I apologize on behalf of my people. We did drag you here without explicit permission, after all. So if you wish to return to your planet, we will send you back as soon as you are ready."     "Uhmm..." I hesitated. That would have probably been my one and only chance to go back home, right then and there. It's every brony's dream to live here, right? Equestria... it wasn't as I expected it to be. Well, it actually looked and felt exactly like you would imagine it to be, but I believed that going there would have been under different circumstances. I always thought that if I actually did become a HiE, it would be under all the cliché circumstances that you'd read in the typical fanfiction, and not through a gladiator-style game.      Well, you know what they say about beggars and choosers. "When do I start?"     Pi looked surprised for a moment, as if he had nit expected me to accept so quickly. His dumb look quickly melted away to a sly, toothy grin. He spun around and yanked one final lever with all of his might. I was suddenly away of how the entire room was awash in a sapphire blue sea of light. A gigantic image of what I assumed to be a map of Equestria floated in the air, suspended by some unknown force. I quickly realized that it was a big hologram, like in The Avengers or something.     "Immediately."