The beginning of the rather epic adventures of Riggs Ironhoof
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The Beginning of the Many Adventures of Riggs Ironhoof
The beginning of the rather epic adventures of Riggs Ironhoof
Richard Johnson (Riggs to his friends) woke up in his apartment as he always did, got dressed as he always did, ate breakfast as he always did (with one arm) Did I not explain that?
Richard had only his right arm (he had his legs but we are talking about arms here) now then back to the story. Richard walked out of his apartment dressed in a pair of jeans,a black t-shirt and a pair of worn out sneakers, when his phone started ringing, Richard pulled it out of his pocket with a hopeful expression on his face "Is this going to be the day?" he questioned in his mind as he answered
"Good Morning Richard" said the voice on the other end of the phone
"So Doctor is today going to be the day?"
"Indeed Richard I'll send a car for you"
"Yes! thanks Doc you know how much i appreciate this!"
"I'll see you soon Richard".
As Richard waited for the car he began to think about what had caused him to lose his arm in the first place Fire so much fire, suddenly a scream pierced through the flames. He was jerked out of the flashback by a black sedan pulling in front of him. "Come on then Riggs i haven't got all day!"
"Alright Sam hold your horses" Richard climbed in the back of the sedan and Sam started driving towards the rehabilitation Clinic.
"So Today's the day huh?"
"How did you know?"
"Doc told me" Sam responded quickly
"That guy is terrible at keeping secrets"
"yeah you know he once told a guy they were doing a placebo test on that the drugs they gave him weren't real?"
"No way" Richard laughed"
"Sadly yes" Sam responded."Hey me and the guys were thinking heading to the bar tonight you wanna come?" Sam suggested.
"Can't" Richard complained "Doc said alcohol could mess with my control of the arm or something"
Sam sighed "ah well, but when you can drink i expect you to get smashed"
"Trust me, I am going to be back in hospital with a failing liver faster than you can ask for another round"
Sam let out a loud laugh as he pulled up near the Clinic entrance.
"Hello Richard how are you today?" asked Casey the receptionist at the clinic.
"I'm doing good, is the Doc ready for me?"
"Yep room 23 as always"
"Thanks Casey"
"Have a nice day Richard"
"You too".
As Richard walked away a thought crossed his mind, he turned around "Was there something else i could help you with Richard?"
"Yes actually I...uh...well i was wondering if you maybe..umm... Goddammit man, come on" Richard mentally slapping himself. "Casey i was wondering if you would like to go out with me sometime?"
"I would love to!" Casey responded happily, unknowingly making Richard's day.
"Well I...uh i should go speak to the Doc"
"I'll see you at eight okay?"
"Yeah see you at eight". Richard opened the door to the Doctor's office seeing the wizened grey haired old man turn towards him as he did so. "Hey Doc sorry if i'm late" said Richard apologetically.
"Don't worry about it the surgery isn't scheduled to begin for a few hours yet, but there is one thing i want to ask you before we begin"
What is it Doc?"
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Doc if i didn't want to have 2 arms for the first time in years would i have applied to become a test subject for this?,would i have gone through all the exercises and tests just to say at the last minute "no i don't want to do this anymore"?" what do you think Doc?" Richard said his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Very well then now i want to take you through this procedure and what it actually involves"
"Alright then Doc"
Two hours later Richard and the Doctor left the room Richard with a determined look but if you looked close you could see that he was actually completely terrified while the Doctor had a wearied expression. "Let's get going then Doc" said Richard evenly.
"Very well then" When they got to the surgery Richard started sweating thinking of all the things that the Doctor had said could go wrong
"Doc what are the chances of the surgery actually failing?" asked Richard, genuine fear in his voice
"The way we are doing this you have a 90% percent chance of this going perfectly"
"and the other 10% percent?"
"Something may damage the nerves making you brain dead, you could have a heart attack during surgery and die or you could lose all movement in your body and be unable to move at all"
"Oh good and i though it would be something serious" The Doctor looked at him with an annoyed expression on his face
"As long as there are no more jokes shall we get started?"
"Yeah Lets do this".
As Richard lay on the surgery table one of the surgeons told him that they would use sleeping gas for this operation as the surgery was very invasive. Richard took the mask that was offered to him and breathed deeply slowly slipping into unconsciousness. In his dream, and he could tell it was a dream because he seemed to be flying over a village where there were no people just brightly coloured llama things with marks on their flanks, Richard was wondering why the hell he was dreaming about this when he spotted one of the llama things with, were those wings? and another with what looked like a horn sprouting from their head. Richard was almost completely sure something had gone wrong in the surgery and he was going to spend the rest of his days floating across a land where everyone was a horse thing when his eyes jerked open to find the Doctor looking down at him with a smile on his face. "So Doc did the surgery go well?"
"Look to your left and you might find out" the Doctor said with his smile growing larger by the second. Richard looked to his left side and saw...what looked like a metal shoulder but no arm.
"What the hell is this Doc?" Richard asked his anger barely contained.
"That,Richard is the socket for your new arm it should allow you to disconnect it and reconnect it at will"
"OK that's nice and all but...WHERE THE HELL IS MY ARM?" Richard shouted at the Doctor, Unexpectedly the Doctor, who Richard had never seen the Doctor even smirk at anything burst out laughing, "Seriously Doc where in the seven circles of Hell is my arm?" When the Doctor had finished laughing he picked up a black case from the floor and placed it on Richard's lap. "Is this it?"
"Yes it is, but when the nerves connect it's going to be quite painful. Ignoring the Doctor, Richard opened the case and saw what looked like a prop from a terminator movie, it was a jumble of wires and metal with what looked like an Ipod embedded into the wrist, it was almost beautiful in its chaos.
"So Doc i can just take it off and on whenever i like?"
"That's the idea just push the prosthesis into the shoulder socket and twist it until you hear a click" "huh" Richard said unimpressed "Just like putting together a child's toy"
"It may seem quite ineffective but it is a proven method and can be done with one hand, not to mention once it is connected it can only be disconnected by putting in the pass-code on the central interface" the Doctor said looking quite annoyed.
"you mean the Ipod?"
"It is much more than an Ipod, it is capable of of controlling the entire arm and is just as powerful as a full-sized PC"
"does it have Itunes and WIFI connection?" Richard joked "Yes actually, it is basically a hugely powerful Ipod in your arm" the Doctor said without humor. "And it has its own WIFI network"
"Wow" said Richard astonished at the piece of technology in the case.
After an hour of explanations on maintaining the arm and making sure that Richard wouldn't have any alcohol for the next few months the Doctor finally allowed Richard to put on the arm. Richard slowly picked up the arm by the shoulder, placed it next to the socket and then pushed and twisted until he heard a loud metallic sounding click, he waited a few seconds trying to move it and then saw on the interface device a simple box saying "boot-up sequence initiated, continue?" and then a yes and no box beneath it. Richard pressed the yes box and almost immediately a shock ran through his body as his brain found a piece of the body that had not been used in years. Richard gasped in pain as the arm jolted upwards, it's fingers curling frantically. "Good, boot up seems to be working well" said the Doctor with a satisfied voice
"Well?!" shouted Richard in disbelief "that was like being struck by lightning!"
"What did you expect it is a prototype after all" said the Doctor the annoyed expression returning to his face
"I was expecting a bit of a jolt but nothing like that, and why was it jerking around like that anyway?" asked Richard
"I would imagine that your brain was making sure that nothing was amiss, rather like a computer checking for viruses" the Doctor explained.
"Will it work now?" Richard asked with the voice of a child on Christmas asking if he could play with his toys.
"It should, try and move it slowly" Richard tried moving as normal first but nothing seemed to happen, he concentrated and managed to flex the fingers slightly.
"Very good Richard, it seems the connection is working fine" the Doctor praised.
Richard however, was not impressed "Is that it?, that is all i can do?"
"Richard this is the first time you have used your left arm in years did you expect to be able to use it perfectly the moment it was connected?"
"Well no but..." Richard trailed off unsure of what to say.
"It doesn't matter in a week or two you should be able to move it just fine without concentrating so hard" the Doctor said in a reassuring voice. "Alright Doc but don't expect me to like it" Grumbled Richard "I don't and you will need to disconnect the arm when you sleep for the first week or so"
"Didn't you say something about needing a pass-code to disconnect it?"
"Indeed for now the code is 1234 but you can change it any time you like in the settings" Richard did so changing it to one of his most used ones (nope I can't tell you what it is, (its a secret!)
"I'm guessing you set it to 2468?" (GODDAMMIT DOC)
"What!, how did you know?" "Richard I know you well enough know that i can easily tell what you would set it to". Richard set the code to something else "6969?" asked the Doctor with a mischievous smile on his face, Richard grumbled again before tapping on the screen a few times. "trying to fool me into thinking you changed it when you didn't?" the Doctor asked with the smile growing wider.
"Right I give up how do you know this?"
"I can see the screen Richard"
"Goddammit"
Richard had left the clinic and had decided to walk home instead of taking a car. He was going past a small alley when he noticed a strange kind of light coming from it. The light looked like a swirl of every colour in existence. It was almost hypnotic, Richard, instead of running the living hell away like he should started to walk down the thin dark passage and saw what looked like a hole in the air itself. It was as if the fabric of the universe had a rip in it. Richard walked towards what he had decided was some kind of portal, and so Richard did the stupidest thing he would ever do. He touched the portal. Immediately he was sucked in, to anyone watching it would seem as if he had disappeared along with the portal. Richard felt as if he was dying piece by piece, he had a strange sense of movement even though all he could see was darkness. He swore he saw what looked like a blue phone booth cross his path but he dismissed it as a hallucination. Richard started to see a light at the end of the darkness, it looked like he was racing towards the sun after only seeing darkness for what had seemed like years. Just before he reached the light, he blacked out.
The scream pierced through Richards entire body "MOM!?!.
Richard woke up with his eyes still closed, he could feel grass beneath him and a slight breeze blowing his hair. "Ok Richard" he thought, "it's time to get up and see where the hell you are". Richard slowly got into a sitting position, his new arm hard to control.
"Ok Richard, lets see what bullshit you've gotten yourself into this time" Richard opened his eyes slightly to see another pair staring back at him, they were huge purple globes, one eye almost as big as his fist, they looked like something from a cartoon. Richard opened his eyes fully now curios to see who, or what, was staring at him.
The first thing to hit him was that this creature was definitely not human, the four legs were the giveaway, it looked like a horse but with a much longer neck and a horn sprouting from the top of it's head, it had a coat of light purple with a small star on the top of it's hind leg. It's mane was dark purple with a pink streak running through it, as was the tail. It looked like the someone had taken the love child of a llama and a horse, died it purple and painted a star on it.
"Hi!, I'm glad to see you're awake, you gave me a bit of a shock when i found you" Said the Purple thing, it's voice friendly.
"Bollocks" said Richard simply before passing out again.
Richard's eyes snapped open. He could see he was in a library of some sort, with books lining shelves that went all around the room, he could see that he was on some kind of sofa with pillows propping his head up, Richard stood up as fast as he could and started looking around for an escape route, anything to get out of here. "Wait! where are you going?" Richard spun around and saw the purple thing looking at him, it had a glass of water in one hoof, how was it even carrying it?
"Wh...where am I?" Richard stuttered
"You're in Ponyville" replied the purple thing "Look come sit down and I'll tell you where you are and hopefully you can tell me how you got here" Richard slowly walked across the room and sat down on the sofa again, his feet feeling like concrete. The purple thing was taking out a quill and a piece of paper and seemed to be holding them in a purple aura which was also coming off off it's horn.
"Ok first things first, What's your name?" asked the purple thing
"Richard, I'm Richard"
"It's nice to meet you Richard my name is Twilight Sparkle"
"So where am I?"
"You're in Ponyville" Richard gave her a blank stare. "In Equestria?" The blank stare continued
"Okay right now I am either in an alternate dimension after going through that portal or this is all a dream from the surgery"
"Surgery?" Twilight asked (I am really glad I can use her name instead of "purple thing")
"For my arm" Richard waved his prosthetic arm around for emphasis
"Whats an arm?"
Richard guessed that in a world with no humans or possibly no bipedal creatures at all they had never heard of arms. "These things" Richard waved both is arms around to show her.
"Ok but why do you have a metal arm?
"I lost my real one years ago" MOM?!? Richard ran towards the source of the noise, he heard a crunching sound above him
Richard shook his head to get rid of the flashback.
"How?"
"I don't like to talk about it"
"Why?"
"Let's just say my arm isn't the only thing I lost that day" Said Richard, looking at the floor
"Oh" Twilight said quietly
"So what happens now?" asked Richard
"Well I'm going to write a letter to Princess Celestia telling her about you and then she will decide"
"Princess Celesita?"
"The ruler of Equestria and my teacher"
"Friends in high places" Richard smiled slightly
"Well, I'm a princess too but she is much more powerful then me" Twilight said casually, as if it was no big deal.
"Wait, what?"
"I'm a princess"
"And you live in a library?"
"I don't like to make a big deal out of it"
"Fair enough I guess"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing" Richard responded quickly
"Women Huh?"
"Who said that?" Richard asked, looking around
"Who said what?" asked Twilight
"Nothing, I just... never mind"
"Well I should get back to writing to the princess"
"Yeah I'm gonna get some sleep"
"Ok" said Twilight
""She trusts people really easily doesn't she?"
"Ok who, and where are you?" asked Richard
"I don't really have a name and as for where I'm in your head, I guess the best description is that I'm a voice in your head
"Great" Richard thought "I've been transported to a place where everyone is a pony, I seem to have no way of getting home and I'm going crazy"
"Don't be ridiculous"
"You mean there is a way of getting home?"
I don't know, I just know what you do, but you are definitely not crazy"
"Helpful, At least if I was crazy I would be distracted from what the hell is going on"
"At least you have music and an internet connection"
"Thanks for the pep talk"
"What are voices in your head for?"
Richard snorted "So what should I call you?"
"How about Pussy Magnet?"
"If you want to be called Pussy then fine"
The voice chuckled"How about Eddie?"
"How did you come up with that one?"
"I'm Eddie and I'm in your Heady"
Richard shook his head. "I'm ashamed to say that part of me thought that one up"
"Fine how about... The voice didn't get a chance to complete the sentence because Twilight walked in with what seemed like a small bipedal lizard on her back.
"Hey Richard this is Spike"
"Hi it's good to meet you" said Spike, he sounded like a 13 year old kid
"Hey and I thought I was the only thing with two legs" Richard joked. Spike chuckled slightly
"As we're on the subject of species I was wondering what do you call yourself?" Twilight asked
"Well my species called ourselves humans, or Homo sapiens if you want to go into Latin meanings"
"Your species? You mean there are more like you?" Twilight asked, curiosity shining in her eyes
"Yeah a whole lot more, about 7 billion or so"
"7 BILLION!?!" Twilight yelled
"Yeah and no need to shout"
"Oh sorry" apologized Twilight. "It's just...How did you keep yourselves hidden for so long? There are so many of you"
"Well I would imagine it's because we live on a different planet or even dimension than this"
"A DIFFERENT DIMENSION!?"
"Twilight" Spike said "you're shouting again
"Sorry Spike but this is so exciting!" "I have found a member of a species that doesn't even live on this planet!" Twilight started swarming around the room pulling books out seemingly at random and throwing them onto a table.
"Is she always like this?" Richard asked
"When she finds something new...yeah, and I'm gonna be the one to clear it up"
"Fun" said Richard sarcastically
"It's my job" said Spike, his voice full of pride "I'm her number one assistant"
"Well if shes like this a a lot I don't envy you"
"SPIKE!" shouted Twilight her muzzle firmly stuck in a huge tome
"Yes Twilight?"
"I need you to get me Myths and Legends of Equestra volume three!"
"I'm on it!" Spike got up and ran to a section of the library pulling books out looking for the right one. Richard just watched as Spike pulled out a book that seemed bigger than he was and started carrying it towards Twilight on his back.
"What the hell is wrong with these people" Richard wondered
"From what I can see, a hell of a lot"
"I was wondering when you would come back" Richard greeted in his thoughts
"Oh I'm always here, I am in your head after all"
"So what were you going to suggest?"
"I was going to suggest The voice never got to finish the sentence because a pink blur had sped through the door and slammed into Richard knocking him straight onto his back.