Undesired Assimilation

Undesired Assimilation

Chapter Two - Nate McBoing-Boing

"So since we've established that this is in fact another dimension, the question would be either 'how did I get here?' or 'why am I a pegasus?'" Nate said to the empty hospital room.

It had been five days since the Princess had visited him. Ever since then, only the nurses and one doctor had entered the room. The promised visit from the princess had yet to come. Lacking any form of socialization, Nate grew bored quickly. In the absence of any other entertainment, Nate had started to sing whatever came to mind to occupy himself, but the nurse walked in shortly after with a petition to stop. Instead of arguing against 32 signatures, he ran through a number of things to do. After growing bored of those, he began his one-sided conversations.

"Let's go with 'how did I get here first?' shall we? Let's see, I didn't get involved with any malicious wizard did I? Not as far as I can remember. Aku? No, he's a cartoon... of course, I'm in one... let's mark that one 'maybe.' Any other possibilities? Oh! Can't forget magnets."

His less than sane antics were interrupted by the door opening. Nate perked up slightly. He welcomed any new source of entertainment at this point, regardless of the fact that the source probably thought him crazy. This entertainment took the form of a purple pegasus nurse with a roll of parchment in her mouth. This particular nurse had been the one who had given him the petition, and happily so.

"¡Hola, Señorita!" Nate welcomed her, hoofs stretched out in a gesture to the room. "Que es in tu ... ah... mouth?"

The Pegasus blinked, then shook her head as if she were trying to forget what just happened. She trotted forward and spat the parchment on the bed next to him. It was neatly curled into a roll and sealed with a wax seal.

"It's from Princess Celestia," she said to him, in a voice that said 'I'm only happy because it's in the job description.'

"¡Excellente!"

She responded by rolling her eyes and turning to leave. She only made it to the door before being interrupted.

"¡Un momento, un momento!" Nate called, sounding somewhat panicky.

The yellow maned nurse turned around slowly, an extremely forced smile plastered on her face.

"Can you please say something that isn't jibberish?"

Nate had never seen a more perfect blend of hate and cheerfulness in his life. The fact that it was directed at him made him rather nervous. He chuckled sheepishly.

"Could you, ahem, open this for me?" He usually didn't ask for favors like that, but he had a certain lack of fingers, and an excessive amount of clumsiness with his hooves. The nurse, not aware of his condition, stared at him in disbelief. She was motionless for a few seconds, then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she reopened her eyes she adopted the same smile again.

"Of course! It would be my pleasure," the purple pegasus responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She took rigid steps toward the bed and picked up the scroll with her mouth. She dropped the scroll on a bit of bed sheet that covered Nate's wing and, without missing a beat, struck the seal with her hoof. Nate winced at the foreign pain, partly because it hurt, and partly because of the cold nature of the phony apologetic smile she shot him. Pinning down the edge of the paper that fell away from the middle when the seal broke, she deliberately pressed into his wing as she unfurled the scroll with her other hoof. Satisfied with her handiwork (mostly in taking out her frustration on the annoying, demanding patient rather than assisting him), she slid it next to Nate's head and trotted out the door without a word.

"I feel the love!" Nate called after her as the door closed. He felt equally satisfied with his own work. Make a fool of himself? Check. Annoy someone in the process? Check. Have the last (humorous) word? Check. Despite himself, Nate frowned. He was rather uncomfortable with how easily he was accepting everything. Sure he flipped out a bit when he first realized he went Pagemaster (ponymaster?), but after his chat with the Princess he came to terms with his situation pretty quickly. No more nausea, no more panic attacks, just acceptance. Sure, the oddly colored talking ponies still threw him off a bit, but having hooves and wings didn't bother him much anymore. Nate was well aware of the oddity of the order as well.

Shaking off his train of thought, Nate turned his attention towards the message to the left of his head. Unsurprisingly, it had partially curled back up, both loosely curled ends meeting in the center of the parchment, effectively nullifying most of the purpose the request. Rather than call for further assistance, Nate rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow (or front knee?) to have a better angle at reopening the letter. His side mildly protested, but it had healed up too much for it to bother him. Carefully, he put the corner of his right hoof between the two rolls, and pinned down the roll closest to him with the other hoof. He pushed his right hoof away from himself slowly and unfurled the top half of the letter.

“Let’s see,” Nate mumbled to himself, grinning with satisfaction as he read the first half of the parchment.  “Introduction, blah blah blah, due to the consumption of my time as a result of royal duties I shall not be able to visi-… She so crossed out interrogate. Huh. I didn’t think it was too bad. Anyway, blah blah royal duties blah blah. Here we go, visit you anytime soon.  Instead, I shall send you to reside under the watchful eye of-  aaaannd time for part two.”

After a moment of fumbling, Nate opened up the rest of the letter. He spent a few seconds finding his place, then resumed his skimming. “…under the watchful eye of my faithful student Twilight Sparkle in her current residence of Ponyville. You know, that line would be a lot better if it said Liam Neeson and some mountain in Asia.  It can’t be helped I guess. Back to boring, blah blah blah, arranged transportation, blah pony lifestyle, blah blah, make friends blah blah- oh hey, Applejack and Rainbow Dash’ll be there. Blah blah blah, best regards, Princess Celestia. Well that was the most interesting and to the point thing I've ever read. No wait, I forgot about Don Quixote."

Nate chuckled at his own bad joke. A small smile crept onto his face as his chuckle started to escalate. Before it became too loud and deranged, however, he flopped onto his back and groaned.

"I need to get out of here. I am going crazy. When did it say that 'transportation' was taking me? Thursday was it...? No, it's Friday. (Shut up, brain! That song is evil!) so that gives me... wait, what day is it?"

Nate was silent for a second, waiting for an answer, before he remembered that he was talking to himself. After a painful face-hoof, he glanced around for some calendar or something. Seeing no such thing, he changed his approach.

"Hey! What day of the week is it?!"

"Wednesday!" a female voice answered from somewhere out in the hallway. Her voice was muffled by the door, but didn't sound familiar regardless. Nate just assumed it was another patient.

"Thanks!" Nate yelled back.

"No problem!"

Two days. 'Transportation' came in two days. Nate wasn't sure what kind of transportation it would be, or what much else in the letter was talking about. All he knew was that in a couple days he would go outside the tiny room. He really couldn't focus on anything else. Sure he knew Twilight Sprinkle was probably going to send everything she found out about him to the Princess, but he was fine with that as long as he could escape this prison.

'Even if it is a comfy one,' Nate thought as he nestled into the bed.

"Hello? Hello? It's time to wake up. Rise and shine!"

A baby blue unicorn stood next to a bed occupied by a dark blue pegasus that was dead to the world. The unicorn looked at the figure laying on the bed. Nate lay curled up in a tight ball. His legs were pulled in and his head curved around to rest on his tail. Even his wings (which he had trouble using accurately when he was conscious) were folded on his back. The unicorn, seeing how peacefully he lay there, almost didn't want to wake him up. She wished she could let him sleep for just a bit longer, but she had a job. Right now it was to wake him up and get him ready to leave. She nudged him in another attempt to wake him up. Instead of the desired action, he groggily raised up a hoof and swatted in her general direction.

"No!" Nate moaned at her. "No shining. Too early. Need sleep."

"As witty as that comeback was, you still need to get up," the nurse responded. "You need to have breakfast and get on your hooves. You have a train to catch."

"Don't want to. Too heavy," Nate retorted, sounding no more awake than before. This time he smiled a bit at his comment. "S'that witty 'nuff for you?"

She smiled at him. She really was rather fond of him, even if everypony though he was crazy. So did she, but that didn't mean she didn't think he wasn't a bit funny. Sighing inwardly, she remembered he had to leave later, and she had to make sure of it. This was the reason she wasn't supposed to get attached to any patients. Unfortunately, having so little room for laughter in her life, she couldn't help herself. She didn't know what ran through his head, or even who he really was, but despite that she felt as if she had some sort of connection....

"Ow! Stupid hooves! I can't even rub my eyes right anymore!" Nate pressed his hoof to his forehead where he had just unintentionally struck himself. After shaking off his pain, he stretched out his hind legs and rolled onto his back. Blinking repeatedly to bring his eyes into focus, he turned his gaze toward the distracted unicorn.

"Hey, Moonlight," he said once he could distinguish her green and yellow striped mane clearly. Immediately after getting his sentence out he yawned widely, cutting off anything he was going to follow it with.

"Oh, good morning, Nate," Moonlight answered, a bit quicker than she should have. Wincing a bit at her response, she stepped to the side and levitated a small tray of food up from a nearby stool. She placed it gently on the bed next to him and cleared her throat.

"Here's your breakfast. You'll have to be quick, because we need to have you out of here by noon."

Nate gave a quick smile as thanks, then looked over at the tray. The meal itself wasn't special, consisting of an egg, a bowl of applesauce, and a glass of orange juice. He sat up, flexing his wings a bit awkwardly as he did so. As weird as they felt, Nate found they were becoming easier to use, like he just had to figure out how to control the muscles. He reached both his hooves over to the tray and, carefully as possible, he squeezed them together on either side of the bowl and lifted it. Sticking out his tongue in concentration, he slowly brought it in front of him. He grinned with satisfaction at a job well done, and then, after folding his wings in, fell back onto the bed. Lifting the bowl above his head, he closed his eyes, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and poured the applesauce directly down his throat.

A soft chortle from Moonlight distracted Nate from his meal. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward her, pausing mid-gulp. The applesauce, however, did not stop and continued to pour on the side of his head. Nate tensed at the feeling of the thick food oozing onto his cheek and brought down his hoof quickly to wipe it off. Still unused to the general bulkiness of the appendage, he smacked himself in the face rather than cleaning it. Immediately afterwards, the bowl landed on his hoof and tumbled into the tray, causing the tray to begin sliding off of the bed. In an attempt to stop it, Nate raised his hoof and slammed it down on the tray. It worked, but the force knocked over the glass of orange juice, which poured into the egg.

In the meantime, Moonlight's quiet chortle has escalated to a loud laughter. She still made an effort to be quiet, but she was obviously failing miserably. Nate didn't mind the fact that she was laughing at him, quite the contrary as a matter of fact. He felt slightly proud that he made somepony laugh that hard. After watching her for a few seconds he turned back toward his tray, only to have the smile melt right off of his face when he saw the orange juice and eggs. If there was one thing that did annoy him (besides Xbox Live payments), it was food touching other food. Drink in food was just that much worse.

"Ahem, sorry," the unicorn said as she attempted to halt her laughing. Her voice broke, and she was still madly grinning, but for the most part she had calmed down. "That was a bit unprofessional of me. I should have-"

"Naw, it's fine," Nate interrupted, slapping a goofy smile on his face. Glancing back at his food, he opened his mouth to say he wasn't hungry, but he cut himself short after something occurred to him. Frowning, he cocked his head to the side.

"Don't you work the night shift? I mean, not that I'd rather have Mrs. Purple Party Pooper here, but why are you here?"

"Oh, ah, I volunteered to help you get out of here and over to your new home. I'm not actually here to work." Not waiting for a response, she levitated the bowl and tray off of the bed and set them down on the table on the opposite side of the bed. "Anyway, the doctor said you might need a wheelchair, but if you felt fine you could walk. What do think?"

Nate went from suspicious to nervous almost as fast as it took for the Road Runner to make a fool out of Wile E. Truth be told he felt like he could run a race, so walking was fine. The problem was that he really wasn't sure if he could. He certainly couldn't on his first panicked attempt. But he would have to figure it out eventually. For a moment he thought over the pros and cons, then he decided to bite the bullet.

"Bring it on," Nate said in his best Kuzco imitation. Dramatically (or dorkily, depending on your perspective), he flung aside the blanket. After pausing for a moment to let Moonlight take a step back, he rolled off of the bed and onto his hooves. Momentum, on the other hoof, denied him of his dignity, or what was left of it. His momentum propelled him to the right until his applesauce covered face hit the ground with a dull spack, sending bits of the runny food in several directions. Slightly red in the face, he unsteadily pushed himself up onto his hooves.

'Okay, time to turn. I've got this. Just move this hoof to the right... that hoof to there... this one here... knight to E5... move that one... wait! Too far! Put that one back! You! Move there! Okay, walk forward. Just with both arms and legs. No problem. Left, right, left right, left, right, left, right. Ack! Closed door! Abort cycle!"

Nate, as deep in his concentration as he was, failed to notice the bemused Unicorn standing next to him. Moonlight knew she should be more worried, considering the fact that he had trouble walking nearly two weeks after a fall that miraculously lacked a concussion, but his facial expressions as he slowly and delicately made his way to door distracted her from everything else. His face would go from dead seriousness to mild panic the next, all from something as simple as turning too much. It wasn't until he brought his feet too close together and lost his balance that she finally stepped in. Rather than allow him to fall over onto the floor again, she fell in line next to him and caught his body with hers. They both remained motionless for a moment, Nate’s face reddening by the second.

"I think I'll take the wheelchair actually," Nate mumbled. He slowly folded his legs beneath himself and started crawling back over to the bed, his head hung in defeat. The nurse behind him tried not to giggle as she excused herself to fetch the promised wheelchair.

Coming to a halt next to the bed, the brown pegasus pushed himself into a sitting position. After a few seconds of wobbling, however, he decided that being upright really wasn't that comfortable anymore. Nothing was the same in this body. Sure, some things he could do similarly to his time as a human, but everything else was so weird. He could look straight up and not only be completely comfortable doing it, but also still be able to tilt it back further. Not to mention that he had wings and a tail of course. Granted, he looked like a cool Matchbox racecar he had as a kid, what with his blue coat and twin yellow pinstripes stretching from his mane to the tip of his tail. They made him feel a bit cooler than before, even though he still had the bowl cut, but still: he was a pegasus in My Little Pony. You can’t just waltz into something like that and feel right as rain. He doubted even Link felt in control of himself when he went bunny or wolf. He certainly didn’t seem to have similar trouble walking though…

Nate froze for a moment, his face abandoning the embarrassed expression he had still sported in favor of a look of utter seriousness. Here he was, alone, with nopony to watch him practice walking, and he sat here. He always did do better at things when nopony could see him do well. Besides, even though his personal philosophy was that he was only embarrassed when he let himself feel embarrassed, he would feel a lot better if he wasn’t watched.

“Cue Rocky music!” Nate said to nopony in particular, but rather to rally himself up. It appeared to work too, because he rose to his hooves while singing out the tune. Before he took the first step, though, he remembered his singing was not fondly looked upon here, so he switched it to his mental MP3 player. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and decided to let his body do the thinking. Snapping his eyes open, he pushed his body forward the same way he would walk: without thinking about it. Kind of like how he would effortlessly breathe or subconsciously button mash through boring dialogue. The result was a success, and he took several steps forward effortlessly at a normal speed. When he tried to turn before he hit the wall his luck came to an end. He twisted his front half to the right to pull himself in that direction, but lost his balance almost instantly and fell to the right. Luckily he didn’t hit the ground that hard, but that was probably because he slammed his head into the wall on the way down.

At that moment, the door swung open and Moonlight walked in, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. Nate would have grinned at the sight of her, what with her front hooves propped up on the chair and her back legs pushing it forward, but he wasn't exactly in a dignified position himself. He lay on his side with his chin pressed up against the wall, forcing his head to nearly touch his flank. He tried to scramble to his hooves, but fell toward the bed instead.

If Moonlight saw his blundering, she didn't show it. Instead, she calmly walked the wheelchair forward, head held high. Nate threw himself into a sitting position, his front legs rigid in front, back legs tucked underneath, and head erect. For a moment he looked from side to side passively, as if trying to pretend that his tumble never happened, but quickly dropped it and hung his head.

"Why does God hate me?" He said in a combination of embarrassment and frustration.

"Oh I'm sure it's not all that bad," Moonlight assured him with a comforting smile. "I can't imagine there's something you could've done or said to get on the Princess's bad side. She's very kind and forgiving."

Nate snapped to attention. Something in that sentence stood out to him and completely overshadowed his walking predicament.

"Princess? You mean Princess Celestia? The one I talked to?"

"Um... yeah."

All of the sudden Nate became very self conscious of that particular conversation. He knew that she was important and powerful, that much was obvious from "princess" and her sun thing. He never suspected that she was a goddess. His eyes darted back and forth as he tried to remember anything he said that might come back to haunt him.

"Hey! Snap out of it!"

Nate blinked a few times, turning his attention back to reality.

"Why didn't anybody tell me that she was a goddess before now!?"

Moonlight, taken aback by the question gave him a look of incredulity.

"Because everypony knows that. It's common knowledge. How do you not know?"

"Well I'm not exactly from around here, am I?!"

The door opened yet again and revealed the first nurse Nate saw: the pink unicorn with the purple mane. She had a scowl on her face as she walked into the room. The scowl vanished, however, when she saw the two occupants.

"Moonlight? What are you still doing here? You were supposed to leave half an hour ago. The train leaves in twenty minutes."

Moonlight took on a look of panic, tensing up.

"What?! It's that late already? How?!"

"Time flies when you're having fun. You really should be going though. I can't really do anything in here until you guys leave."

Moonlight wasted no time in getting Nate up. Using both magic and her head and hooves, she lifted his front legs up and moved him over into the chair. Once in position, she dropped him, raced over to the back and turned it around fast enough to make Speedy Gonzales blush. She then pushed past the other nurse and out the door equally fast.

The pink nurse raised an eyebrow at her coworker. She rolled her eyes as she heard yells of "slow down" and "watch it" indicating the progress of the pair.

"Just one of those days," she muttered to herself as she levitated the tray and started towards the door.

The noisy train station bustled with ponies. Few workers could be seen, excepting the conductor walking back and forth along the platform. The rest of the mass was bidding family and friends farewell or boarding the train alone. Some could be seen in tears, while others gave somewhat of a cheer. Further along the station, toward the front, the crowd tapered out, and only individual or coupled ponies filed into the more luxurious cars. This was the scene that Moonlight and Nate arrived to when they reached the station.

After making their way past the initial horde of bodies and into the nicer cars, they flopped into opposite cushioned benches in their small room. Both ponies panted, Moonlight from exhaustion, Nate from excitement as a result of the terrifying marathon he was just pushed through. Several times on the way there he thought he'd run into something or somepony. It was a miracle that they made it through the crowd without crashing, even though she had gone much slower than she had on the way there.

"It's... hoo... a good thi-thing that the train was delayed," Moonlight said through her panting.

"Yeah," Nate responded, his voice breaking halfway through. He cleared his throat. "But there is one thing. How did I not notice I was naked until now? I kind of feel like I should've been arrested by now or something."

Still breathing heavily she gave him another puzzled look as she wondered what kind of pony this pegasus was. First he was moved to Canterlot as per Princess Celestia's request, then he confessed he had no idea where he was or who anypony was, and now he was wealthy enough to think it odd that he wasn't wearing anything.

"Just... who are you? Where are you from?"

Nate wrinkled his nose.

"That was a bit out of the blue. You sure we can't just-"

The train's whistle blew, drowning out whatever Nate was going to say. For a couple seconds the high pitched trill sounded, piercing the eardrums of the companions, then the train lurched forward. The movement pressed Moonlight deeper into the cushion she rested on, but Nate, being opposite her, slid off of his own seat and into the wheelchair. They both hit the ground with a loud noise, though it was cut short by the blow of the whistle.

Moonlight ignored the urge to smile at the flailing pegasus in front of her. Instead, she levitated the chair back upright, causing Nate to fall off. He popped up grinning a few seconds later, but the grin melted off of his face when he saw the look of seriousness on hers.

"It's kind of complicated," Nate said as he climbed back onto the bench. "I actually have no idea how I got here, or really where here is, but I have a theory. I think that this is a different universe and that someone... somepony magicked me here."

"That doesn't make any sense," Moonlight replied after a few seconds of silence. "How would that even be possible? Even Princess Celestia can't teleport from one city to another, so forget about universes."

"Okay, probably closer to a hypothesis, but whatever. All I know is that one moment I'm champion couch potato of the family and next thing I know, I'm on Qubo."

"What? That doesn't make any sense!"

"That makes two of us," Nate retorted. He froze and made a face when he realized that made more sense in his head. "The thing is, I have no idea how or why I got here, or anything else about what's going on. I don't even know how politics work here. Seriously though, since when does a princess do the royal work? What about the King?"

"Equestria doesn't have a king, and don't think you can distract me from the question," Moonlight responded.

"I'll have to get back to you on that when I know the answer," Nate retorted, somewhat annoyed at her persistence. He glanced at the door, hoping the conductor would come through and interrupt to punch their tickets. Then something occurred to him.

"Wait a minute, you do have tickets or something for this, right? They're not gonna, like, throw us off of the train or something?"

"Of course," the unicorn answered, still eying him. "The princess rented out this section for you and any escorts. I put the ticket in the wheelchair."

She pulled the page-sized ticket out of a pocket built into the back of the chair via magic to show him. After suspending it in midair for a few seconds, she slipped it back in the pocket.

"More like a deed than a ticket," Nate murmured before replying in his normal voice. "Next question: would you mind calling me Professor Layton while we're on the train? I do feel like a gentleman right now."

His badly suppressed smile melted off when he saw her look of confusement.

"Forget it, you wouldn't get the reference here anyway. How long is the ride anyway?"

Moonlight shrugged. "How should I know? I've never been anywhere but Manehattan and Canterlot."

Nate opened his mouth to make another reference that would be wasted on pony ears, but was cut off by the conductor sliding the door open.

"Tickets?" the slender orange pony asked.

Moonlight nodded and raised the ticket. The conductor looked it over intently for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction.

"Seems to be in order. Hope you enjoy the ride."

"Thank you."

"Ah, excuse me?" Nate said, raising his hoof. "Um, ah, about how long will the train ride be, approximately?"

The conductor looked up in thought for a second, then nodded and answered, "about three and a half hours if all goes well."

"All right, thanks," Nate said, his voice almost breaking halfway through.

"My pleasure," the colt acknowledged. He nodded his head at Moonlight, then closed the door and continued down the car.

Nate cleared his throat awkwardly, then shifted in his seat. Across from him, Moonlight tried to mask her smile at his discomfort. Like before, she failed and ended up pursing her lips instead.

"You of all ponies," she said, abandoning her attempt at concealing her amusement.

"What?" Nate replied innocently, his face reddening ever so slightly. "What'd I do?"

"You're shy."

"What? Pfft, no I- yes, yes I am."

He hung his head, while she stifled a giggle. She found it hilarious that this pegasus who amused himself in the most obnoxious way possible in an apparently unfamiliar place was shy when it came to talking to strangers.

Nate popped back up with a faux relieved smile.

"I'm just glad you didn't think I was gay," he said in an attempt to distract from his mild shame. "But if I was, I'd have to say that the guy in the booth next to us has a higher rating. Just sayin'."

Moonlight rolled her eyes, her grin still intact. When she glanced out the window, though, her heart skipped a beat. Her face visibly lost all of the cheerfulness the second her eyes drifted to the left. Instead of the expected mountainous landscape, she saw a single eye. Unlike any eye she'd seen, this eye was almost the size of the window. It had a slit for a pupil, like a reptile, but was otherwise entirely red. The small bit of jet black skin she could see around the eyes consisted of what looked like hoof sized scales. The evil feel it gave off was the worst part. She was filled with dread and felt as if she had no hope or happiness left; only fear remained. A scream tried to escape her lips, but she couldn't make a sound. Then a voice snapped her out of her trance-like state.

"Hey, are you all right?"

Moonlight darted her eyes toward the speaker. She saw Nate looking at her, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. She looked back at the window, still panicked. The eye was gone, replaced by the view of the valley and the mountain ranges in the background.

"Moonlight!"

The Unicorn felt a hoof on her leg. She glanced at Nate and saw he had leaned forward and now had one hoof on her left hind leg and the other on the wheelchair for support. Letting out a breath she didn't know she had, Moonlight tried to relax.

"I'm fine," she said in a shaky voice. Nate was nowhere near naïve enough to believe that for a second.

"What's wrong?" he asked somewhat forcefully, yet at the same time gently.

Moonlight took a deep breath before answering in a much calmer voice, "I'm fine. I... I thought I saw a spider. They, ah... yeah."

"Oh. Well, if you say so," Nate replied, still skeptical. He didn't believe her statement, but he didn't want to pry into something she obviously didn't want to tell him. He reasoned that if he wanted privacy, he had to give some first.

A silence followed, but not an awkward one. Rather, this one was tense, suspenseful. It was the kind of silence that was followed by something bad. It was like the calm before the storm, broken by a single sentence uttered in the most serious tone Nate could muster:

"I have to go to the bathroom."