Chapter 2
The Doctor had me working as a second assistant, untill something else turned up. You know, mind-numbing labor actually helped filter out all skippy, happy, dancing, singing, and rainbow crap. I even asked the Doctor if that’s why he did it.
He laughed and just shook his head. The Doctor and his assistant quickly became two of my favorite ”people” here. I mean, besides taking Derpy to the hospital constantly (Ditsy?) I’d almost call it slacking off.
Between the explosions… the side effects, the mutations… smuggling various barrels out the back during the small hours. I mean Doc was able to fix pretty much anything, so I chalked it up to being a roller coaster ride.
Digi had returned two weeks later with someone or rather something in tow. Applejack had it collared and leashed. “Down. Down…” “POP!” It appeared to be a pink mountain of fur. Mobile fur given life.
“The hell is that thing?”
I think heard it spit a raspberry at me in response to my question.”Thfppppppppppppppppp.”
“That-" As Digi interjected. “-Is your assignment here.” “I’m already helping the Doctor.” “Then it’s your side assignment.” It's head popped out and blinked at me making another pop sound. “This is FlufflePuff.”
“Who the hell’s self-projection is this?” “That’s an awesome question. I’ll get back to you on that.” Digi quipped. He handed me the leash. “Is this because I let Pinkie almost kill you? Come on, can’t you take a joke?” “Break a leg kid!” Digi replied before strutting off with Applejack. And brother, let me tell you, it was a job it kept smacking into walls full speed, eating things that made me rush it the hospital, getting caught on fire. Jesus it made Derpy seem safe.
I’d generally had adopted the title 'assistant', since I had been here. Assistant as Derpy had been promoted to Ditsy from Doc. Despite all the work, I felt the overall malevolence leave me when surrounded by this new freeloader. And it didn’t sing. It also worked as a mobile pillow. I would ride about town propped up on Fluffle, like I was royalty waving at on-goers, reins, saddle, and all.
Oddly enough, there were no spurs in this world. The towns folk thought I was a arrogant ass, but pretty much no one else wanted to take care of Fluffle, so I got away with it.
One month in, and I had run into Rarity. “That’s utterly deplorable!” She admonished me. “How dare you address my mobile pillow as such mam.” I did something with my thighs. Fluffle abrupt hit her with the proverbial “Pfffffffffffft.”
“How can you treat another pony like that?” I did the thigh move again. “Well really it’s from squat exercises , “ “No. No. No, I mean the treatment.” “It’s a hard job madam, but someone has to do it.” I was so amused with myself, not noticing Digi as if appearing from a black puff of smoke entered. The proverbial fun police had arrived.
“What are you doing now?”
“What? I’m taking FlufflePuff for a walk.” “Pfffffffffffft” She chimed in. Oh, she got him right in the face. “Look, it’s time for your monthly review by princess Celestia.”
“…Monthly review… Princess Celestia.”
“You do know what that is, and who that is don’t you?”
I did know who princess Celestia was. She was the monarch/deity of this world as I understood it. Among the fandom, she was met with praise and ridicule. I had come to accept this world as a place of open-hearted kindness and benevolence. So reasonably speaking, the ruler and or deity of said world would be a benevolent soul who has gotten a bad rep. And suddenly, I had felt bad. I had been acting like a giant tool since I had gotten here. I mean, I had been good with the Doctor, and Derpy (or what ever we were calling her now) and occasionally helping Pinkie terrorize the villages, Oh God what fun that’s been, but it occurred to me I hadn’t done a single fucking thing with myself of interesting note since being here.
I had forgotten something.
“You kind of didn’t mention a monthly review.” I was still stuck in my head while talking with Digi. He seemed to pick up on it. “Forgot something? “ Was it in the lab? Around the house? Around town? Was it FlufflePuff? Crap, what was it? “Well maybe I forgot to tell you while I was being electrocuted.” 'Hardy har har' I thought, sarcastically.
“OH shit.”
I said that out loud. Digi had a way of picking up on little things like that, the 'oh shi't wasn’t even about the review. “What is it?” “Say Digi… um… “ I dismounted my steed. “Remember when I asked can something come through with you? Your sure that’s not possible?”
“Pretty sure.”
“How pretty sure...? I thought I saw something before.”
He kinda paused “Like what?”
“Something I knew shouldn’t be here.”
“Well look, you can’t bring over dark images from other peoples’ minds. You won’t ever see Cthulhu in Ponyville” He laughed.
“Heh... no. No. I didn’t see that.” The others didn’t seem to know what we were talking about.
And than it hit me. If I was gonna spill the beans about what I saw, I was going have to coupe to it from being from my mind... No… I mean nothing had gone wrong as far as I knew. “Has anyone gone missing since I got here?”
God, that sounded horrible when it came out of my mouth.
“Hahah no. No. I keep good tabs with everyone when they get here. “And no one slips in without you knowing it?,” I asked.
“Virtually no one.” There it was again. Look, I’ve been doing this for 2 years I mean I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Look, you’re gonna be fine you haven’t killed anypony.”
Well not directly I thought... hell,l I was so distracted I forgot to cringe when he said anypony. I had basically, out of bitterness and amusement, let a walking butcher shop walk around town for a month without so much as a “Hi, what’s going on?” I’m not saying I could have stopped him. I’m not saying they could stop him. It was one of those hind sight, it sounded like a fun ideas at the time, and when you’ve had time to think about it you realized what a dick you were. The next day I went to see the princess.
I started the day, in a human world, in a human house, breathing human air, eating human food, and reading pony Tumblers. If I could give you one piece of advice that I learned from this experience, you should skip that last one, because maybe I wouldn’t have gotten in this whole mess. I was between clicks following, stalking, (and also reading) my favorite entries, before the screen became undone. Frozen, and disjointed.
Now, not being a pony fan I refused to say it became discorded. Even if it totally 100% fit, I’m just not going to say it. Pretty much whatever I did seemed to stretch, and distort the screen. Opening up task manager by hitting CTRL, ALT, and DELETE to kill Firefox (Yes, I’m sure you're thinking I should have been using Google Chrome, but hey, we all have our bad habits). I tried to end the program, I tried to reset the computer, manually click the on the off button, etc. The pictures became more distorted, and irregular. It began to look like a one of those kaleidoscope things that kids have nowadays.
Suddenly, just like that like that, I felt I was falling. My mind felt disjointed.
It felt askew.
It’s hard to describe. Imagine having an ice cream head ache and having your ears pop at the same time while suffering from an intense claustrophobia. And just like, it stopped. The colors that had surrounded me had disappeared as my vision calmed. The colors were no longer in my mind. But before my eyes...
This was the sunniest, most colorful, happy land of nature and wonderment I had ever seen in my life. I’d like to take this moment to express I was not high. I do not currently use or otherwise, in bide drugs. I had drank two Monsters in the same day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This wasn’t a normal habit, but I felt my heart. "Yep it was going crazy", I thought to myself. I was suffering a delusion from a heart attack and/or a stroke.
“Excuse me.” I heard a voice call out from behind. I noticed something strange before I looked back. A hoof was placed to my chest. I couldn’t wiggle my fingers. “I’ll bet you’re a little anxious about what’s going on, but I assure you nothing is wrong and there’s no reason to freak out.” The same voice continued calmly. I hadn’t responded or turned yet. I was still staring at the hoof, shaking it as if fingers would pop out. “Am I drugged?” I finally replied. “No, but that’s not an entirely unique response.” I slowly turned seeing a grey unicorn, with purple and pink hair. I snorted. “Ah.” I went to raise my arms and I felt something else raise, wings? Ha fancy that. I had wings. I began to stretch them. Up, down, little circles, big circles. It’s not that I’m self-absorbed, but these were attached to me. “I have wings.” I must sounded at a complete loser. Big, blue wings… I couldn’t see my hair, because it was to short, but my fur was blue. Well that could have been worse. “My names Digi and welcome to Equestria.” I finally looked back at him. “I have wings... and I’m a horse-” He cut me off. “Well technically you’re a pony.” “…I have four legs and wings, and I don’t have hands.” I asserted. “You're resisting the pony thing aren’t you. Are you not a fan?”, Digi continued. “I’m familiar with the series…” “So... your not a fan?” He seemed insistent. “I think there are some very strong moments that could have walked their way into a normal show.”
“Your taking this very well,” He seemed to change the subject. "Oh no you don’t" I thought, I felt myself becoming comfortable. An argument, ah, an argument. All no holds barred, chin for chin, knock down, drag out brawl. It would have been like I never left my laptop back home. “I take it that you are a fan?” I had actually heard of Digi. I had seen his work. I had seen more of it than I had not as far as YouTube was concerned. But I desperately needed to argue, and this was no time or place to reply with “Hey man, I really love your videos!”. He replied to my question about being a fan. “I am indeed, but I’ll understand if you're not.”
It was like someone stabbed me in the chest with a shank. No... No... No... No. I wasn’t going to stand for being a blue... winged horse... (Yes, a horse…) and sit here and make pleasantries. By God, if I couldn’t be in charge of how I looked I was still gonna be a jackass. But than I got side tracked. “Okay, why are you, or more importantly, why am I here?” I hadn’t asked how I would get back yet. It was possible I fell asleep on my laptop, but I’m not one of those people either. “Well, some people have this misconception that they have been drawn into a alternative universe and they need to get home immediately, and I need you to remain calm as that’s not what has happened at all.”
“Oh, well yeah, I’ve watched enough TV and movies, and I kinda was guessing that, this wasn’t really my first picture of places I’d go… but hey, what the hell, so what is going on?” “You, are a projection of yourself back home. That hasn’t stopped, it’s still behaving, and acting as it normally would, this is a pony-fication, if you will, of who you are.”
I shuddered to his explanation. “Still not feeling all the pony metaphors?” “You're swimming up hill, my friend.” Digi joked and tried to remain pleasant. I had a quite simmering rage building in me. The only thing that kept me from hitting the roof, was that he seemed to give me a look. “Oh that’s natural.” That actually pissed me off even more. “So... if I’m understanding this right, I’m stuck here? But if I’m a pony version of myself... (At this point, I spoke through my teeth) why do I remember all my human memories?"
“Oh, it’s a full pony-projection of you, it only fractures when it’s Discorded.”
'Ah...' I thought. He’s here. I wondered if this was the harbinger of chaos, or the house pet version? “As for why I’m here, we all get a job that helps the community. My job is to welcome newcomers so they don’t freak out. I mean, I have other duties and all.” 'Well, I have wings, I guess I could gold brick up in a cloud like rainbow dash, I thought to myself.
“So there’s no major, dire, circumstance or reason I’ve been brought here for?” He chortled. “You know, I thought the same thing when I showed up… it’s just so funny hearing it now out of someone else."
"You keep looking like you wanna pony slap me” “You must be fantastic at poker.” I replied back. “Well come along I’ll take you into town.”
We were standing on a hill top just outside of Ponyville. I looked around, expecting to see someone else fall from the sky next… but it didn’t happen. What happened next was pretty much what you expected. We went into town, a sea of techno-colored ponies flooded the town. It was like a rainbow throw up all over the place.
“Welcome to Ponyville!” I heard one of those deafening African bee horns behind me. The ones you may have seen at soccer match ups. Digi cringed. I’m one of the few people who likes those things. “Pinkie, we've talked about how harmful those things are.” I turned and saw everyone’s favorite spaz. “Miss Pie.” I mused. “I felt this place was starting to run low on crazy.” God I had been saving that up sense I got here.
Pinkie lowered the horn, and puffed her cheeks “I’m not crazy. The world is crazy.”
And just like, that my little adventuring party was +1. I suspected rightfully, so she was going to drive Digi nuts... and also ignoring her would get her to stay and try harder. This time, Digi was the one shooting me pissed-off looks as if to say, “You fucker!” Ah, I was finally home. Brothers and sisters. She hung on him with the death grip hug “Your going to have to get under the chin if you want that to be effective. He can still breath.” I advised. He gurgled as Pinkie tried to crush his clavicle. “I’m going to kill you!” he wheezed. I had someone inject themselves into our conversation.
“Digi, Temper, temper.” A brown wingless pony with an hourglass symbol (Yes, I know what kind of mark it is… come to think of it I hadn’t checked for mine yet) “Dr Whooves?” I asked. He smiled and stood back. “Fan?” “I’m familiar “ I responded. Digi was in the background “Help- can’t breath.” He was turning bluer than I was by now.
Naturally, I blocked the Doctor's view, by stepping in the way. “Oh, I’ve seen the fan episodes with you and Derpy? Ditsy?” “Assistant will do fine.” Digi's eyes turned into cartoonish- x's. “Oh my Celestia, no!” Pinkie screamed. Derpy was right behind the good Doctor. Pinkie grabbed her and started shaking. “DERPY, GET THE SHOCK PADS!”
“Right away Miss Pie!”
Naturally, I kept the conversation going. All the while enjoying the train wreck before my eyes. “I just found the humor so above the par of the regular show.” I wasn’t lying talking about the Dr Whooves and Assistant series. There was no singing. A pony sporting a French barrette had trotted by as his jaw dropped.
“Pinkie NO! NOT 1000 thousand!” “BZZZZZZZZZZZT” the power from half the block went out as Digi leaped back to life as Pinkie damn near melted the pads. The Doctor finally looked back. “Oh, hi Curious." "Digi, would you stop playing with the girls and do your damn job? Some of us are trying to look professional.” “I blame the schools” I said trying to throw gas on the flame. Oh what a delicious death glare. Best part is, I didn’t even have to do anything. Digi glared me down as I trotted up. “You know what would be perfect? If you said, “You're despicable” And then he started to laugh.
His friend Curious helped him up before going on his way. “Will I be staying with Miss Pie?”
“HELL NO!”
He coughed, trying to regain his calm. Pinkie awed all the unloved. “Besides, most people can’t take her non-stop for a whole week. I’m going to drop you off with the Doctor for now. Maybe he can find something for you to do.”
I saw a curious sight of the corner of my eyes. A red-maned stallion peeking from around a corner, wearing a skeletal mask. Ever hear that song, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong.” “Say Digi, before you go... you said a part of yourself comes over, is it ever more than just one part?” He seemed confused, as if it had never been asked. Or it had never come up. I knew that mask. I knew visage, that was a fire waiting to be started.
“Ah, it’s nothing, thanks for the tour around town.”
I had resented the place sense I got here. Something dark from back home had fallowed me. Three shades darker than nightfall. The kinda darkness that would rend a capable world apart. It was loose.
Unchecked.
Not noticed here.
Imagine being the only person to know a 10 car pileup was about to happen.