Doctor Bright is Very Bright

“Ah, no. That is not right at all!” Jack Bright banged his head against a lone apple tree in the meadow where a pegasus sat. “Nothing is going my way today! Why does the town have to be so far away?! Just why?” Jack whimpered as he banged his head against the tree one last time. On the other side of the tree sat the studious pegasus, who was busy writing in a notebook. The last headbutt had made an apple break from its stem and clonk the pegasus in the head. Doctor Bright remained unaware of the pegasus who had enough of the former man.

“Would you quit shaking the tree back there? Griping about your problems and hitting a tree probably isn’t the best way to let your emotions flow. Go see a therapist or talk to somepony.” The pegasus huffed and removed the intruding apple from his head and rubbed the spot where it hit. “Now I’ve got a lump… Blimey, it’s a decent sized one that is.”

Meanwhile, Jack was biting his lip in thought. Figuring out some way to apologize to the disturbed pegasus. Bright knew how important studies were, and he was especially sympathetic towards those with brains rather than brawn. He did not care for political figureheads or “bad-ass” men and women who acted all tough and hardy around him and his friends. Then again, Jack Bright was a man himself with two P.hD’s in Biological Engineering and Genetics. He didn’t have to take shit from anyone. What came from his mouth contradicted that.

“Hey um…” He started with a nervous chuckle. The pegasus’s ears perked up, but he kept his attention focused on his notes. “Sorry about that… I didn’t exactly mean to aggravate you in any way at all, I was just a little bit uh… frustrated.” He facepalmed, and soon came to discover that the stubs on the end of his front legs were indeed hooves and very hard. “Ow, shit!”

The pegasus chuckled audibly and flipped his notepad over to the other side. “Apology accepted. With all the rushiness in your voice and pauses in your speech, I’d say that you would have nearly died of fright or you are extremely uncomfortable.” He turned his head to look at Jack, who also had an unamused look on his face.

“If you expected me to be blushing then you are very wrong. I am not used to this way of speaking, bigger tongue. Hell, a bigger mouth overall! I’m talking out loud again, aren’t I? Yessir, doctors tend to do those things. Voice out their thoughts for the world to h-“

“Shush you. You ain’t givin’ me much time to talk at all, no you aren’t.” The pegasus started writing in his notepad again with a killed and flexible wing while looking at Jack. “Now then, I got me a few questions for you if you don’t mind me asking.

“Err… Not at all Mister…” He motioned with a hoof for him to pick up.

“Culture Shock ma’am.” The pegasus tucked his notepad inside of his wing and did a short bow. Jack only raised an inquisitive eyebrow. When the pegasus raised his head back up, he caught sight of the beautiful amulet that hung from the mare’s neck. A golden base encrusted in intricately designed rubies. It let off a faint shine for a moment before dying off, the shine seemed repetitive, as if acting as a heartbeat but in an amulet.

“Such an odd name for a pony…” Jack meant to mumble to himself, but the pegasus caught it.

“Oh, and what might your name be, miss?” Culture Shock smirked to himself.

Jack’s eyes widened as a stutter left his lips.

“I didn’t quite catch that.” Shock leaned in closer to hear the mare better.

“My name is Doctor Jack Bright.” He shuffled his front hooves awkwardly. “You can just call me Jack though.”
“Jack, eh? That sounds like a name that a gryphon would have, a male one at that.” He tapped his chin in thought. “Speaking of different species, I need to ask you if you are a changeling.” He eyed her suspiciously.

“I don’t know what that is and I really do not want to know, please spare me the thought.” Jack knew what a changeling was already. A creature that changed its appearance to eat the souls of others. A fairly horrifying thought in itself with good reason. Who would want their souls eaten, especially is the middle of more intimate situations. Jack shuddered at the thought.

“Well at least you aren’t a changeling. I have a knack of telling whether or not a pony is lying or not. It is my special talent after all.” He raised his head as a show of pride. “Now then, for my third question… Where in the name of tartarus did you get that beautiful amulet? I mean, it is bloody gorgeous that it is.” The pegasus eyed the amulet in fascination. He even started to reach out a hoof to touch it, which got immediately smacked back by Doctor Bright.

Culture Shock reeled back in shock and eyed the nervous looking mare. “Just please do not touch this amulet. You do not understand what this is. It contains the magic of a sorcerer’s enchantment and I happened to be the one affected by it, you see? Just do not touch.”
The pegasus sighed. “Well, what does that enchantment do exactly? I’d like to know what happened if you do not mind me asking. I promise I will not tell anypony if it is personal.”

He bit his lip in thought as he thought about telling the pegasus. Deciding he had nothing to lose, he started the story. “I, Dr. Jack Bright, a Junior Staff researcher of good standing, was assigned the responsibility of researching SCP-963-1's capabilities, which is this amulet here.” He paused momentarily. “Before I was forced to wear it.”

He shuddered and seemed to choke before speaking. “Later that year, SCP-076-2, basically the embodiment of violence, broke containment. I was transporting SCP-963-1 by hand past SCP-076-2's containment unit, and was apparently one of the first people to die in the containment breach.” He looked up at the pegasus, who was furiously writing in his notepad.

He noticed that Jack stopped. “Please, continue. I am finding this rather interesting actually.” He smiled at her and nodded in encouragement. “Although I am rather… Intrigued about how you said that you died, did I hear you wrong?”

“Unfortunately not…” Jack looked around uncomfortably. “Anyways, a d-class personnel was clearing the debris in the area and came across this here amulet. When he touched it, I went into his being and ripped his soul out of him. This amulet projected my consciousness into them, which allowed me to speak, move, and function with a body. That’s why I told you not to touch it.”

The pegasus was staring into space, processing Bright’s words. “So let me get this straight. You have been body hopping for Celestia knows how long with that amulet? Stealing their bodies on purpose so you could live? That sounds awfully evil.” The pegasus eyed the mare suspiciously. “It also makes me wonder how old you are.”

“Actually, the reason why I was traveling to that town over there.” Bright motioned to the town in the distance. “Is to attempt to remove myself from the amulet so I can actually die.” He stopped for a moment to stare into space. “I came back to life today and it must have been thousands of years after I died. God, my skeleton was nearly pure dust. That poor girl picked the amulet up with her telekinesis and put it on her neck, so here I am.” He chuckled. “And it’s my co-worker who wants to take over the world.”

The pegasus stared grimly at her. “Perhaps you should go. I’d rather not be around somepony who is thousands of years old and steals bodies to live.” Inside, the pegasus was giddy with excitement. He had finally found something newsworthy after the discord incident, which had occurred many months prior. He had written down many details about the mare and her amulet, and was positively drooling over the amount of bits he would get paid for this story.

“Well fine. If that is how you feel about my way of bloody living then you can go shit on someone else’s bowl of corn flakes.” Jack was filled to the brim with annoyance and irritation. The stallion had coaxed information out of him, but he assumed that it would be alright. What could one denizen do to his image? It isn’t like he was royalty or a political figure. So what could really go wrong?

%*%*%*%

As soon as he reached the town that was in the distance, he noticed several of the local residents staring at him with menacing glares. To which he responded with a few select words that made some of the residents faint, some even covered their children’s ears if they were nearby. They muttered to their foals about the evil mare that takes souls with her evil amulet.

Jack sighed and continued trotting, wondering just how came to be in his situation, and wondering how this world’s citizens could be so gullible. He had seen a lot, but this surprised him the most out of anything. The sheer gullibility of the ponies was astonishing. He could easily take advantage of them had he not met that single stallion. When he saw that stallion next, he was going to stick a foot right up his-
“OOF!” His world suddenly exploded in pain as he felt something impact his chest and slam him into the ground below, leaving him on his back dazed and confused. “God damn…” He finally regained enough of himself to see what had impacted him. He noticed an angry cyan pegasus with a prismatic mane staring down into his eyes.

“Listen here miss soul stealer! You’re going to be imprisoned in stone for what you’ve done you little son of a-“ The mare didn’t get a chance to finish as she was suddenly dragged off with a violet glow surrounding her. “Hey I’m not done!”

“Calm down Rainbow! You should know better than to believe what a silly tabloid says. A lavender mare with a violet mane highlighted with a few pink stripes apologetically smiled down at Doctor Bright and helped her up onto all four hooves. “Now then. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and that is Rainbow Dash over there. She’s just worked up about the news lately, she’ll believe anything she sees on the news.” She chuckled to herself.

Doctor Bright merely stood rock solid, unamused by the lavender one’s laughter.

“I’m sure that your name isn’t what the tabl-“

Jack didn’t even let the mare finish as he gripped her hoof with his hand shook it. “Yessir, my name is Jack Bright and I am currently in your fair town of Gullible Valley located in the nation of Backstabbia!” He smiled at her for a brief second before returning to his stone faced expression. “I do believe that you ponies are going to drive me insane, so I might return the favour.”

The pony dubbed “Twilight Sparkle” seemed to be in a state of shock at this point, but Jack didn’t mind. He was used to it.

“I said what could go wrong earlier! And guess what?! Everything went bloody wrong, how fucking dandy is that?!”
Twilight promptly fainted, and a crowd had gathered around them.

“Pretty… Uh… Dandy… Right?” Jack chuckled nervously. “I’m so screwed…”