Author's Note

Well, I start my swearing spree in this chapter. I warned you.

Memories

Chapter 4: Memories

The sun rose and shone through my bedroom window, directly onto my face. Being a light sleeper, I woke up immediately.

Gotta get that changed if you want to sleep in, Denim.

I stumbled to my hooves and staggered over to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and saw the same pony I had seen in the hospital staring back at me, although, not as well-groomed. My mane was a mess, sticking up in every direction and my eyes were still puffy from having just woken up. Grabbing a comb and turning on the faucet, I began to attack the hair-borne catastrophe.

I had had a nightmare the previous night, which actually took Princess Luna to convince me that it was just a dream. So, naturally I didn’t sleep well.

The nightmare… what was it? Oh yeah…

The nightmare was another version of the evil Queen Chrysalis and her underlings, except in this one I was chained to a wall, with the Queen watching from the side, a sadistic smile playing about her lips. A changeling stood over a set of controls and punched a few buttons. The chains around my hooves grew tighter, threatening to pop my limbs off. Luna suddenly appeared at my side and whispered into my ear: “This is just a dream” and was gone. Chrysalis and her changeling friend didn’t seem to notice.

“Where is it?!” demanded Chrysalis. “Tell me! Where is it?!”

“I’ll” — cough — “never tell,” was my stupidly heroic line.

Chrysalis laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, I can convince you otherwise. Grimhorn! Bring out the Persuader!”

The dream faded to black with a chorus of cruel cackling.

My mane was almost back to normal by the time I finished replaying the dream. Just a couple of unnoticeable hairs sticking up here and there, but I wouldn’t be able to tackle them just by using a comb. A greater force of water was needed, and I landed at the easiest conclusion: shower. I turned on the shower head.

——————————————————————————————————————————

20 minutes later, I felt refreshed and ready to start the day. Maybe even find a job… if I’m lucky.

But, first on my agenda was to go talk to Twilight Sparkle regarding her hostility last night, and what I had done to cause it.

After asking a few directions, I arrived at her house. I was expecting that this Princess of Magic would have an elaborately designed house, all colorful and showy. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be just the opposite. Her house is a giant tree.

I knocked on the door, and a small green and purple dragon opened the door and looked up at me.

“Oh, hi!” he said. “Twilight was expecting you. Come on in!” He ushered me inside.

Twilight was sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by a disorganized pile of books. The look on her face was grim, and her eyes had dark circles around them, implying that she hadn’t gotten very much, if any, sleep the previous night.

“Hello, Denim,” she said flatly.

“Hello Twilight,” I replied.

She snapped the book shut that she was reading and turned her gaze towards me. It’s not a happy gaze. Whether it’s because she was tired, or because she was still pissed at me for no apparent reason. Either way, I can feel my resolve melt under her glacial stare.

I shifted nervously. “So, uh, the dragon told me you were expecting me?”

“The dragon,” replied Twilight with a threatening tone in her voice. “Has a name.”

“I should like to learn it,” I replied cockily.

Twilight kneaded her temples with her hooves. “His name is Spike. Spike, this is Denim the pony I’ve told you about.”

Spike waved, and I forced a smile in return.

Twilight sighed out of exasperation. “Well Denim, I did find out why you don’t remember your past and why you don’t have a cutie mark.”

Hope leapt in my stomach, shoving the words “That’s great! What did it?” out.

“You were shoved through an incomplete or inadequate Trans-Dimensional Gateway. The symptoms are: loss of cutie mark, loss of memory prior to your waking moment, and potential to knock out or even kill the pony that falls through. However, that’s all it does, it says nothing about your wing’s condition.”

Something just wasn’t right about the whole situation.

“I thought you said that I landed hard and broke my wings that way, even though you and Rainbow tried to save me.”

“Yes,” replied Twilight. “But, I saw where you fell from, even at that height, the worst that could’ve happened was that you broke your wings in a few places. You even landed on hard ground, no trees got in the way of your fall, and there was nothing to break it, either. So, that doesn’t explain how your muscles all got torn up or how you broke the wings in that many places.”

A sudden thought hit me, a thought so simple, yet the hardest solution to this all.

“Twilight, can’t you perform a memory spell on me? It might help.”

Twilight’s irises contracted. Her left eyelid twitched involuntarily.

Ohh crap. I’m so dead.

“DAMN IT!” she yelled. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?! Would’ve saved me a lot of sleeping time that I spent looking for the solution to the bucking problem!”

“Twilight? Are you going to perform the spell now or not?”

“Huh, what? Oh yeah. Here goes,” she said with certainty as her horn flared up. Gently she touched my head…

A rush of memories ran through my head. Memories of a small steel-blue pegasus sitting alone in a lunch room while all the other pegasi laughed and talked around him. Memories of that pegasus flying alone during break time. Memories of that pegasus being made fun of, being rejected at every job offer that he came across. Memories of that pegasus watching without remorse, killing other ponies so as to harvest their souls and transform it into spectra and eventually rainbows. Memories of… earning a cutie mark. Two white gears grinding a rainbow.

My mind rushed back to reality.

“Holy BUCK,” was all I said.

Twilight looked at me with a curious glint in her eye. “I take it the memory spell worked then?”

“Yeah,” I replied shakily. More memories were pouring in, ones of Chrysalis torturing me so as to reveal… something… reveal what?

“Oh. My. Celestia,” is my next euphemism of the minute. “I think I understand why Chrysalis and I are linked. She has some grandiose plan, and I was the key to unlocking it.”

Twilight’s eyes widen, but suddenly they grew tired. She yawned dramatically.

“Tell me tomorrow, I need to sleep,” and without another word she slumped to the ground and fell asleep.

So, if I’m part of Chrysalis’ plan, then why did she want to get rid of me? Also, outside of her little social circle, I’m the only one who knows this plan. What now?