Screwed Minds

I figure I can say we fell hard on the ground, but that’s not the most important thing that happened. In fact, neither verso nor I know exactly when we hit the ground. We were exposed to something much, much worse.
Or so I think, because Verso swapped me away from the controls and our senses in no time. It had just started to fill like we had pins and needles in our entire body at once. But I guess it was pretty horrific began he started to scream as much as he could in a matter of seconds.

Verso! What’s going on?
It burns! It… Argh!

Even from my rather disconnected state, I felt something happened to our body, like a sudden tugging. I connected to our eyes, carefully not reaching for our pain receptors, and discovered our vision was blurry and reddened, even switching on and off somehow, preventing us to see anything.
I then reached for our hearing and heard a terrible mix of buzzing, cracking and screaming. This sense too was turning itself on and off every few instants.

Verso’s cries of pain rang again through our soul, and a few cracks began to appear in it, growing in number each and every time he pleaded for help. That wasn’t funny at all.
What should I do? What should I do?
You stay out of it! Aaah! I can take it as long as we…

He started screaming again and a crack suddenly opened right where I was in our soul. And I suddenly felt so very tired… Maybe I should just sleep it away? Yeah, that’s a good idea… Sleeping…
Numbness extended over my mind while I felt myself drifting away into the greatest slumber I ever experienced… Until I heard Verso’s voice again.

No! Don’t you dare! Stay awake!
But I’m sleepy…
No, you’re not! Stay with me! You can’t do that!
You always sleep whenever you want, I wanna sleep too…
No, no, no, no, no! Stay awake! Please don’t sleep! Don’t drift away!

DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE!

A sudden surge of energy ran through my mind, forcing the numbness away. I burst our eyes open, as I was in control of our body again. Whatever pain Verso prevented me from feeling had disappeared and I felt strangely energetic, if a bit dizzy.
We were face-down on the ground, I that I recognized as white marble from what I could remember from the few general lessons I actually listened to at the Institute. A few voices were audible, rather close to us.
“What was that, Discord?!” a feminine voice said. “Thankfully, it stopped, but I think the poor thing might finally be dead!”
“I am rather happy I ordered the guards to stay out,” another worried feminine voice said. “I don’t think they would have endured this sight, especially after your ‘pastry army’ this morning. I’m a bit worried none of these screams made them come back in, though.”
“That may be because I soundproofed the room when I understood what was about to happen,” mister Discord replied. “I should have thought about that, but it’s over. He should wake up soon.”

That… damn… motherfucking…BASTARD! Verso shouted in a fit of rage only comparable to the anger he felt when he saw the strange box. I’ll rip his arms off and shove them so far inside his rectum he will be able to scratch his throat!
Yuk.

“And there he is,” mister Discord said.
Verso forced his way on the controls and we immediately felt like we were hit by lightning.
“Gaah! What is that?!” he screamed, falling back to the ground.
“Let your friend on the front again! I’ll explain!” mister Discord answered in a hurry.

Verso rushed in the back of our soul and I got the control again. The lightning sensation stopped and I breathed slowly, calming our heart rate again. The ground looked fine.

What the hell have you done!? Verso shouted in our mind, positively hysteric.
“I suggest you try and calm down. You’re okay.”
‘Okay’?! We were just tortured and I can’t get out anymore! This is not okay! We nearly died!

I think he was about to get out and ignore the lightning feeling just to rip mister Discord’s heart out. And squash it for fun. So I got up myself and stood shakily on the ground. In front of us, mister Discord and two other creatures were looking at us, what I recognized as apprehension in their eyes.
Oh, and they were unicorns too.
…
Oh my gosh! Unicorns! It’s even better than the space ducks!
They looked like horses, of course, but their eyes were a lot bigger. There was a white one with a strange aurora borealis-like mane that stood a bit taller than us and a smaller dark blue one with a sparkly mist-like mane. Both of them were wearing a small crown and strange jewelry around the base of their neck, golden with a sun symbol for the white, ink black with a white crescent moon symbol for the other. They also had feathery things resting on their sides.

“Are you okay?” the white one asked with worry in her voice. Wait! It’s an alien! Just because her voice sounded like a feminine human one. Maybe it’s a male!

Mister Discord snickered and placed his hands on his muzzle to stop himself.

“Yes,” I answered, walking closer to them. Or so I’d have, as a sudden case of dizziness made me lose balance and fall on the floor again. I’m beginning to think it either wants to hurt me or it really like me. “I’m okay!” I yelled when I sat up, not daring to walk again for the moment. “I’ll just sit here for moment.”

The two unicorns glanced at each other, and then glared at mister Discord who didn’t see them, as he was busy whistling while looking at the ceiling.

I don’t care what this soon-to-be rug is doing! I want to know what happened! Verso roared, still angry.
“Well, well, well, since mister Grumpiddy McGrump”- I giggled and he smiled- “is being so nice and polite, maybe I should start my explanations.”
“Who are you talking to, Discord?” the blue unicorn asked, glancing its eyes leaving me for just a second to glare some more at mister Discord’s back.
“We’ll start with the presentations!” he exclaimed. He snapped his talon and a giant mirror appeared next to me, with golden ornamentation on the sides.
“Is that my bathroom’s mirror?” the white unicorn asked, a calm but somewhat resigned expression on its face.
“Oh, Celestia, how can you even imagine I would be so silly in such a situation?” mister Discord scowled, sounding rather upset.

The white unicorn, Celestia – funny name – looked a bit surprised by mister Discord’s harsh answer.

“I’m sorry,” it said, “it’s just…”
“It comes from Luna’s, of course.”
“What?!” the darker unicorn exclaimed while I started to laugh.
“Don’t be such a filly, Woona. Sacrifices needed to be made.”

I was laughing pretty hard at its enraged and frustrated expression, but of course, someone had to be a killjoy.

Will you cut the crap, for God’s sake?! Verso infuriated voice shouted across our soul. He tried to get in the front again, but was cut off by the lightning sensation. What the fuck have you done to us?! Why am I trapped?

Mister Discord and I both sighed, and he snapped his paw once again. This time, though, nothing appeared, leaving all of us in a rather awkward silence. I double checked around us: no additional mirror or chocolate glass milk to be seen, to my dismay. I shrug and inspect the big mirror some more.
The moment I did this, we felt a strange tug at our mind that left Verso really confused.

“What the hell is that?” he said, his voice sounding a bit more distant than what I was used to. “How am I seeing our body without the mirror?”

Both unicorns suddenly stared at the mirror with a surprised look on their face for some reason. Mister Discord was just grinning at us.

What do you mean? I mentally replied.
“Well, it feels like I’m not in the same place you are anymore. What has that fucktarded chimera done this time?”
“Oh, seems I have to put on a T-rated censorship on this one,” mister Discord chuckled and snapped his talon again.
“What the *buy some apples* do you think he means by that?”
Huh… what did you say?
“Nevermind, I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

Okay, there was definitely something strange going on. I moved my head to look at mister Discord and the unicorns, hoping they would have some sort of explanations, but Verso freaked out:

“What the *buy some apples*? Did you move our head?”
Well, yeah, why?
“Because my sight field didn’t move! I’m still looking from that *buy some apples* strange angle!”
You are speaking strangely. Why do you say ‘buy some apples’ in the middle of your sentences?
“What? I don’t say that! Why would I tellyou to buy apples?”

Mister Discord was laughing hard on the floor now and the unicorns looked really, really confused now. The dark one – Luna I think – glanced at us and asked:

“Is it normal for your species’ reflections to talk all on their own?”

I stared at her dumbly and turned to the mirror, wondering what exactly she was talking about. Oddly enough, our reflection was perfectly immobile, just breathing at a different pace from mine and looking confused, its yellow eyes locked on us… Wait, yellow eyes?

“Huh, Verso?”
“Hey, why does our reflection only has your eyes? And why is your voice so strange?” our reflection said.
Oh, that’s new. Our image just moved and talked. And it had Verso’s features.
“And why can’t I access your thought process? Is your mind just bland when you don’t answer to me?”
“What? No!” I giggled, slowly understanding what was happening. And it seemed Verso did too, because we both exclaimed at the same moment:
“You’re/I’m in the mirror!”

Mister Discord laughter intensified and I started to laugh with him. Verso wasn’t pleased, though.

“What the *buy some apples* have you done you *buy some apples* *buy some apples*? Why am I in a *buy some apples* mirror? I’m going to *buy some apples* while I *buy some apples* and *buy some apples* with a pig!”
“And why does he keep insisting that we should purchase fruits?” Luna said.
“I don’t know,” I said, still laughing. “But it’s hilarious!”

Verso growled, furious and his reflection stood up. He looked around him and locked his glare on mister Discord.

“You start explaining right *buy some apples* now or I will...”
“Okay, okay, hold your horses and stop whinnying,” mister Discord told him with a grin. Verso seemingly growled in pain for some reason, when I found the puns rather clever. Mister Discord coughed a little and caught back everyone attention. “Where were we…? Oh yes, the presentations.”

He snapped his talon, and the room was plunged into darkness. Then, a projector’s light coming out of nowhere fell on the white unicorn. Mister Discord’s voice came from everywhere around us, slightly deformed, as if he was using speakers.

“In the right corner of the conversation comes…”
“Will you *buy some apples* do something normally for once?!” Verso interrupted. “I’m *buy some apples* tired of all this *buy some apples* nonsense!”
“He is right, Discord,” Celestia said. “Could we please move the conversation forward?”

The projector’s light flickered for a second and died out, the normal lighting of the room coming back a few heartbeats later. Mister Discord stood next to me with the sorrowful expression of a child who just lost his candy.

“Party poopers…” he whispered just loud enough for me to hear.
“I thought it was funny,” I told him, giggling. It was the most fun I had in… Ever!
“At least one of you four have some taste,” he said disdainful. “Well, here we go. Recto, Verso, meet Celestia -” he indicated the white unicorn “- and Luna,” he showed the darker one. “Tia, Lulu, this funny little guy here is Recto -” he designated me and I waved happily “- and the grumpy guy over there is Verso,” he finished, pointing at the mirror, where Verso stood with a furious glare.
Celestia smiled gently to us. “Luna and I are happy to meet you, Recto and Verso,” she said with a warm voice. How can a voice be warm, by the way?
“We are indeed,” Luna confirmed, not letting me dwell any further on the subject. “But I’m not sure I understand what you are. Does one of you live in mirrors?” she asked I laughed again at the idea.
“No, we share the same body,” Verso answered while I was having troubles breathing. “But this *buy some apples* of an animalistic *buy some apples* here somehow trapped me in this mirror.”
“Well, obviously, we had to find a way to talk with you, and you can’t take Recto’s place for the moment,” mister Discord explained. “So I figured that using something to show your other mindset would be a good idea.”
“Oh, *buy some apples* yeah, that’s right, I’m also trapped inside our own body, I didn’t *buy some apples* remember!” he shouted, clearly angry. For my part, I was mostly snickering at his new tic.
“Well, I’ll start explaining right away. You see, this world doesn’t exactly follow the same rules yours did. And one of them hurt you at your arrival and prevents you from exchanging position with your friend for the moment.”
“What?!”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Luna said, “what are these rules you speakest of?”

I glanced at the darker unicorn, not exactly certain I understood her words. ‘Speakest’? That’s a real word?

“To simplify, our friends here come from a world devoid of any kind of magic.” The two unicorns gasped and looked at him wide-eyed.
“How is that possible?” Celestia wondered. “Nothing is deprived of magic!”
“First of all,” mister Discord countered, “he isn’t ‘deprived’ at all. And that’s the rules I was talking about: his universe doesn’t work exactly the same way it works here.”
“So there’s magic here?” I asked, filled with glee. “Like, real magic?”
Mister Discord winked at me. “You shouldn’t be so surprised; you were using it back on Earth anyway. How did you think you can float things around?”
“Psychic-powers, like in the comics,” I replied, still bursting with excitement. I’m in a world with real magic! Like, everywhere! And I’m also magical! This was definitely the best. Day. Ever!
“Wouldn’t work for real in your universe,” mister Discord affirmed, waving my explanation away.
“Magic wouldn’t either,” Verso countered. “So, how were we able to do it anyway?”
Mister Discord glanced at him and snorted. “I don’t think I would teach you something new by telling you that you are a special case, would I?” Verso both paled and scowled at the same time. “Let’s just say you had a way to connect yourself to a pretty good energy source. And that’s precisely why you were hurt so much when you arrived, and I also believe it’s also why you can’t take the control of your body for the moment being. I may have been able to prevent the first thing, by the way. Here’s for the trouble.”

He snapped his claw and a glass filled with chocolate milk appeared next to me. I beamed and drank it greedily.

“Apology accepted for another one!” I rang. Mister Discord snapped a claw and granted my wish to epic proportions, making a fountain of the delicious liquid of heaven mortals knew as chocolate milk and I nearly drooled.

I stopped listening to them. My gaze was frozen on the most beautiful thing that could exist. All this chocolate milk! A glance at the glass mister Discord gave me was enough for me to decide it wouldn’t be enough for my burning desire of drinking this this marvelous liquid. But I had a much better idea.

“Don’t even hope that it will make me forgive you. And I still don’t know what rule we actually angered.”
“Of course, I knew you wouldn’t be convinced by this.”
“Oh, and get my head out of the fountain before Recto successfully drowns us.”
“What?”

*SPLASH!*

Paradise is a brown liquid place! I felt a hand catch our shirt and yanked me backward, leaving me alone with this flavorless air instead of sweet wonderful chocolate.
Or saving me from suffocating in the most beautiful of deaths. In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.

“Recto, if you could please try and not kill us when I cannot physically prevent you from doing it, I would really appreciate it,” Verso told me.
“S-Sorry, it’s just that it looked so… nice…”

I was soon captivated again by this heavenly sight and gasped when it suddenly disappeared, replaced by a strange nearly empty hourglass reaching well above my head. Upon further inspection, I discovered a pierced card of cardboard separated the top and bottom parts, that the top part had just a few liters of sweet liquid deliciousness within, filtered slowly by the card. Oh, and the bottom part had a little faucet, that would probably let me get some beverage.

“What is that, now?” I heard Luna asking.

Mister Discord appeared in flash next to the hourglass, wearing big glasses and a lab coat. And he spoke with what I recognized to be a thick german accent.

“‘Zat’ as you call it, iz zee pest reprezentasion of our guest’s proplem. Now, iff eferypony could pleaze shtayen quiet during zee explanation, I vould appreciaten it.”

A ruler appeared in his paw and he used it to point at several parts of the hourglass.

“Zee top-part off zee experiment iz here to reprezent zee amount off magical energy afailable to zee test subject, fisualized vith zee chocolate-milk. Pack in hiz vorld, he couldn’t access much, due to a process far too complicated for me to explain to you.”
“Are you referring to us as ‘experiments’?” Verso growled.
“Nein, nein, nein! Zee hourglass iz zee experiment! I am takink you az example! Now, payen sie das attention! Az I vas sayink, the bottom-part iz here to reprezent hiss potential. In orter to get az much magic az possible, he pecame a potentially huge magical reserfoir, dragink zee energy in hiss surrounding.”
“I think I’m starting to understand,” Celestia remarked. “I figure the faucet represents his spells?”
“Gut, gut! It can pe explained zis way, ant it iz also a vay for jung Recto to get hiss chocolate.”
“Yeah, but nothing is coming out right now!” I whined.
“Later, later,” mister Discord dismissed. “Ant zee final part off zee experiment iz zee cartpoart, zat reprezents hiss poty filterink the flow. In hiss vorld, it vorked fairly vell.”

Mister Discord snapped a talon and the flow of sweet sweet deliciousness accelerated, slowly filling the bottom and reaching the faucet. I squeed when the first few drops started to came out, salivating in anticipation. But it was still a lot too slow.

“Could you please make it go faster?” I inquired.
“Ja, ja. Just vait a moment.” He closed the faucet and turned back to the others while I sipped slowly what little beverage I had. “Zat iz pretty much how it vorked on Earth. But here, it vorks like zis.”

Mister Discord snapped a claw and the top-part was suddenly filled to the brim with chocolate, making me drool again. The sudden change of pressure exerted on the cardboard seemed to be too much and it promptly snapped, letting a huge flow of chocolate enter the bottom of the hourglass.
I think Verso shivered in comprehension.

“So you mean to say that, because this world is full of magic and because of our great potential, the magical void we are dragged so much energy inside us that it nearly killed us?”

Mister Discord returned to his ‘normal’ appearance and nodded.

“In fact, it would have killed you if I had realized what was happening too late. I used my magic to prevent your body from breaking, but we all know it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“Hey!” I called. “The faucet doesn’t want to open!”

They didn’t answer me and continued to have their boring serious discussion. I humphed and got a closer look at the faucet. Maybe I could use magic to turn it instead?

“But now, we’ve adapted sufficiently to survive the magic, didn’t we? So why can’t I go in front?”
“The way I understand it, it’s because of your difference with Recto.”
“I’m guessing you mean…”
“Yes. You’ve told me that you are more powerful with your powers than he is, and I think your potential is too much for your body to handle for the moment. It’ll adapt with time, eventually.”
“Your powers vary with the personality in command?” Luna asked in an oddly ghastly voice.
“I suppose you can say it like that, but I always thought we had the same potential and that I was just more… tuned with it. To know that each of us has a different natural level of power is a… disturbing idea.” Verso's oddly grave tone replied.

Yes… Yes… The faucet is still fighting against my mental grip, but I think it will move soon. I just have to concentrate a bit more, just like Verso does. I close our eyes and feel the metal mechanism in my grasp. I just have to turn the…

“What is he doing? Why are our hands surrounded in a blue aura?”
“Well, that's because he is using magic of course,” Mister Discord replied. “Here, the magical aura can be seen around the objects emitting and receiving the flow.”
“And what spell is he doing?” Celestia wondered.
“We only know a few techniques, like…”

*CLANK*

The faucet was crushed in my grasp, breaking it and fissuring the hourglass. I looked at the metallic ball I was now levitating and glanced at the flow of delicious beverage now escaping the hourglass. I shrugged and let the ball go to grab the glass that shattered immediately. Another glance at the glass shard ball and at the flow of chocolate made me frown. How exactly did that happen?
I heard someone face-palming behind me and ignored it, in favor of just kneeling and using my hands to drink as much of it as I could. So you can guess that I was really disturbed when it all disappeared.

“Are you okay? No glass shard anywhere?” Verso asked.
“Where did all he chocolate go?” I whispered.
“I think I’m mostly done here. I’ll go back inside our head to monitor these ideas a bit. Recto will talk for me.”

I heard mister Discord snapping his claw and felt a pinch inside our skull. I could feel Verso was back fully in our head. Huh, thinking that aloud, it suddenly makes me understand why people thought I was crazy back on Earth.

Nah, crazy people hear voices in their head that tell them to do things.
A bit like you, then?
Don’t be like that, I don’t tell you to do stuff, I usually do it myself. Now, stand up and ask Discord for a new set of clothes. Jumping in the chocolate wasn’t such a good idea.

I didn’t even have to ask and mister Discord magically changed our clothes and recolored them with a chaotic set of colors, mixing pink and yellow with brown and electric blue.
It’s so great! So much color! We didn’t have so many colors on Earth, just black and white and every shade of grey in between! Luna and Celestia looked at us with a mix of surprise and… and by their looks, I could guess it probably wasn’t that beautiful. But Celestia was smirking!

“Wow, thank you! With that and the chocolate milk, both Verso and I forgive you completely!”
What? No I don’t…
“We totally forgive you!” I repeated with my biggest smile.
“Well that’s nice of you, Recto,” Mister Discord replied. “But my apology isn’t finished yet. You still have to live in this place.”

I was about to repeat myself again when I heard our stomach growling loudly in a hunger neither Verso nor I had even noticed, surprisingly. I thought we ate just a few hours ago? Verso’s lesson and research through the Institute database must have lasted longer than I thought.
Celestia smiled at us warmly – seriously, how does a unicorn even do that? – and got closer.

“I think we can continue this discussion during breakfast. Would you join us, Recto?”
“Well, my tummy sure wants to and I’m not one to disagree with him.”
The unicorn smiled again and wrapped her left wing around us to turn us toward the door and… wait a minute here…

Since when do unicorns have wings? I wondered. They aren’t supposed to!
Well, they aren’t supposed to exist either, so…

I thought about it for a second and glanced at Luna, who I understood now, also had wings where I thought it wore feathery ornaments. It actually makes a lot more sense that these were wings. What kind of horse would wear feathers? Well, probably the kind of horse that has a horn, a magically flowing mane and wore jewelry, but come on. And I had a pretty important question to ask, now.

“By the way,” I started, “I suppose mister Discord told you we are a human, but what are you?”
“Oh, it slipped my mind. Luna and I are ponies, alicorns to be more precise.” Ah! I knew they couldn’t be unicorns! But that didn’t answer my question as I wanted to though… “We will explain it to you during our meal,” she continued.
“Okay, okay, but that’s not what I meant,” I replied as we crossed the doors.

Oh no, don’t tell me you are going to…

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

Celestia froze and looked at us wide-eyed, mouth ajar. Luna and mister Discord were staring at me pretty much the same way and a group of smaller white ponies wearing golden roman-like armors were both astonished and perplex.
Total silence reigned over the corridor for a few seconds, the time mister Discord recovered and started snickering first, before he started to downright convulse in laughter on the floor, soon joined Luna while Celestia’s coat slowly turned redder and redder every second.
Verso sighed.

This is going to be a very long day…