Author's Note

things have been really rough this summer. The busy season for us. So to publish something I split a chapter in half hope you enjoy.

School Daze

Chapter 8

Blade was bored again the other foals were listening to a lecture on mathematics. It was taking a far too much work to place the new symbols to the ideas as he knew them. The Ponies plus sign looked like a multiplication sign, the minus was something out of science-fiction, but the constants of math were everywhere, even though it seemed that they were just on the basics of Algebra. Though, during a reading section he began to think they either had very weird calendars or were dumb as rocks. Their years were twelve hundred days long, yet a filly was talking about her great-grandmare’s hundred and fortieth birthday.

"Or, you know, they live as long as the Masters?"

The afternoon lesson was something that Blade actually cared about though, though it was in clearly incomplete in terms of detail. According the Cheerilee the ponies had come from some other land once upon a time, fleeing an ice age, but after that they blamed the ice age on something called Windigos. Creatures that fed on the negative emotions produced by their civil war. Which made no sense, you could not feed on emotions. Maybe you could feed of bio-current of the brain, but any creature fed on like that would be left brain dead.[AY1] You could not get just the emotional section. It had to be some sort of mythology.

Then again, he was in a different universe. It was possible that despite the similar appearance of things that the very laws of physics were different here. He would have to remember to ask Twilight later as he was still playing the mute so that the other inmates would leave him alone. Though, a trio of them seemed to have failed to understand that coming to his desk during lunch break just to stare at him.

“You going to stay in the classroom?” The yellow one, clearly the leader, asked him. Blade just nodded. That was when a voice appeared behind him.

“No, I think not. I know you won’t be able to play most of the games with the other students, but it would be good for you to at least be around them, and possibly make a friend?” Cheerilee added with a sweet smile “Girls? Do you mind taking Blade out with you?”

“Not at all, Ms. Cheerilee!” With that the yellow one with a red mane tried to grabbed him. It was funny, watching her grip slip right off, she having built up so much force that she flipped herself right onto her back.

Blade wished that he could feel enough to actually laugh at that. The sensation for an esper is as if the emotion rises out of the depths and just never leaves the darker regions so that you can express it. The pale one tries to grab me much more carefully as her hoof slides right off as well. [AY2] “Whoa, Blade, I think you need to take a bath. Your coat being full of oil that can’t be good for you.” She remarked as she wiped her hoof on the ground

Blade did not bother to respond as he simply walked outside. Instead of joining the others, he walked right to a sunny spot and plopped himself in the sun, then just stared up into the sky. Blade had decided since he had a hour to kill that he would review his memory files for corruption. As a esper, that was not normally a concern for him, but with all the damage that he took to his space, it might be possible for him to have had some memories leak.

“Ugh! Why is that colt so weird Diamond?” A grey filly nearby complained, “All he does is sit there, even if he can’t talk he could at least join in on games. Its creepy!”

“Silvy, you really need to not say stuff like that, we are trying to turn over a new leaf! Unless you want to turn out like my mom? Someone no pony likes?” Her pink companion chided,

“No, of course not, but I think Cheerilee is being too nice to him. I bet you he can talk just fine and is just lying to her so that he can get out of answering questions.” She pouted,

“Well then, I’m just going to have to put on some charm and see if that’s true then.” With that, Diamond Tiara decided that it was a good idea to bother a WMD. “Well hello, Blade, at least, I think that’s your name. The class has a little bet going for how long Ms. Cheerilee keeps believing the line that you can’t talk because your injured. I personally believe that you actually have an issue that is long term.” As she prattled on, Blade, who was reviewing information within his mind’s eye, did not seem to care that he was being spoke to.

“Pay attention you mass murdering bastard. She’s not going to go away, answer her.”

That was when the Diamond Tiara made her worst mistake in years. She pulled her head up so that she could look directly into Blade’s eyes. Though it is not a commonly know fact is that ponies possess empathic powers, Espers use their memories and emotions to create their inner space’s form. This is why they always seem to be so cold, their emotions never leave this space.[AY3] Yet, because of this they all have natural psychic abilities. One of which causes them to unconsciously project information to any of the advanced races. As a result, Espers have learned to code their thought process. Blade had not bothered to do this as he did not believe that these ponies would have powerful abilities like the races back home. After all, they were a pathetic purely herbivore species. As a result, Diamond was able to catch a small glimpse of the thoughts that passed through his minds eye in during his review.

To Blade, these were the tame events in his everyday life. To Diamond, these were nightmares the likes of which even Luna could never have even believed to exist. She collapsed into herself, bringing her mind to its deepest points, allowing the information to flow along the surface without reaching her. In layman’s terms, she went into a deep state of shock. As such, all control of her bodily functions failed her.

“Great now we’re scaring idiots in two worlds.”

Applebloom was the first to approach Diamond, noticing that she had gone stiff. Many of the other colts and fillies had not totally forgiven Diamond for her past bullying behavior, but being an Apple, she felt that she couldn't leave someone in that state. After shaking Diamond’s shoulder hard enough to leave her head falling to one side, and getting no response, Applebloom realized they needed a Teacher.

“Scootaloo, fetch Cheeerilee! Something ain’t right with Diamond Tiara!” Silver Spoon at this point barreled past her to reach Diamond's side to receive no response as well. Scootaloo was quick to return with their teacher, her head pressed against Cheerilee’s flank as she tried to push her to move faster.

“Ok Scootaloo, what is that I need to...” She trailed off as she saw the scene her student had brought her to.

“Ms. Cheerilee! Something’s wrong, Diamond Tiaras just frozen!” Cheerilee ran over her medical knowledge, while not equal to a medical pony, it covered any basic issue that might happen with foals at play, especially in Equestria where strange things could happen at any given time. She was clammy, her breath was shallow, and her eyes had shrunken to the size of pinpricks.

“Scootaloo! I need you go to the Hospital now and tell them I am bringing Diamond there. I think she’s goneinto shock. Appleboom, run into town and find her father. He's going to want to be there for his daughter.” As the two fillies ran off to complete their respective tasks, she turned to the filly fretting over her friend and the similarly colored colt. “Silver, Blade, how exactly did this happen?”

Silver dived right into a panicked tirade. “I don’t know! Diamond was just trying to get this colts attention since most of the students don’t think it's true he can’t talk. She looked him in the eyes and next thing I knew she was frozen and became all stiff!”

“Its called Shock, sweetheart, and I hope you’re not attached, she might die”

“Class! I don’t want anyone else to bother Blade! I don’t know what happened, but I don’t want it to happen again while I’m gone. Matter of fact, I want all of you to go home now. Pipsqueak, I want you to go tell the other teachers what happened so that none of their students try this.” With that, Cheerilee placed Diamond on her back and ran off towards Ponyville General Hospital.

“You think that something would happen if we poked him with a stick?” A colt from the class spoke up.

“You dumbie! He broke Diamond Tiara just by looking her in the eyes! If you poke him with a stick we'll be scraping what's left of you off the side of the school!” Someone else calls out.

“You overestimate yourselves if you think there would be that much left.”

With that, the lanky unicorn that had suggested it turned a darker shade and says, “Yeeeeeaaaahhhh, not worth it...”

Over the next five minutes the entire class left the school, looking for more interesting activities to perform. About thirty minutes later, the other teachers had decided to allow their classes to go stand around the colt, though none of them were willing to look him in his eyes. To the more discerning eyes of adults, it was clear that he was allowing his thoughts to flow right out. They knew that if they were to meet those eyes they might see the private memories of the colt. They thought it was strange, most ponies could not simply project themselves this way. The other teachers decided to call Twilight Sparkle to respond to her charges actions.

It was at this point, while the ten teachers of Ponyville Elementary and their students gathered around him, that Blade came out of his self-induced trance. “What's with all of you? Lunch is over, you all should be going back to your classes, should you not?”, Blade said in a very raspy voice.

“Your name is Blade Dancer, right? Do you not even realize what just happened? You managed to hurt another student.” One of the teachers spoke,

“Actually, I would like to help figure out what happened!” Everyone turned to see none other than Princess Sparkle. “If anyone could tell me what happened, I will talk to Blade and see if we can understand what we can do to fix it, I doubt he would even talk to any of you.” Twilight cautiously approached the colt. “Blade, can you tell me what’s going on?”

Blade himself chimed in, “I would also like to know what happened. I have been working on some of my own issues and have not paid one ounce of attention to the world around me in a half hour.”

“You don’t know!?” Came another distant voice, a brown stallion with a black mane, wearing a necktie of all things, marched up to him. “I want to know what happened to my daughter, and I want to know now!” he snarled,

It was Applebloom that spoke up next, having followed Filthy Rich back, “It was strange. You were staring up towards the clouds. Me and the girls weren’t able to get your attention, Diamond was trying to play it up so that you would pay attention to her, but you didn’t move. So… she decided that it was important to meet your eyes that she finally was able to get you to pay attention. She finally managed to look into your eyes, fell back on her haunches, and just froze. It was after that we went and got Cheerilee.

It was Twilight who Blade looked at next, “Twilight, I think you have failed to mention something important. Do ponies have any sort of psychic ability?”

“Huh? They don’t seemed evolved enough for that.”

Twilight was taken back by the question, “Well… Yes, in a manner of speaking. Ponies have an empathic ability that helps us sense the emotions of others. Its why ponies are known as the kindest creatures in all of Equis.” She explained hesitantly.

“…Really?”

Blade nodded, “Ah, so that’s what happened.”

Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiaras father, was quick to snap at that. “Tell me then! What happened? I demand to know what you did to my daughter!”

Blade did not seem to react in any way to the clear anger in his voice, “She saw my memories. Twilight failed to mention that your race had psychic abilities, so I did not encode my thoughts so that they could not be read. I was reviewing the memories from before I came here.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense! Even if you could show your memories to other ponies, which I doubt, there is no way you could have a bloody memory that could hurt my daughter!” Screamed Filthy Rich.

“Oh? You believe that? I am not a pony. I am a Esper, our minds have a much stronger effect on the world. Second, you think I am innocent, so here, something mild.” With that Blade reviewed the memory of his materials’ Grandparents going away ceremony. Though he kept most of the images away he allowed the feeling of the memory to pass right into Filthy Rich, who immediately retched and all four legs collapsed underneath him.

“What in the world was that?! Filthy Rich felt as if he simply had no hope like the best thing he could do for himself and all of pony kind was to slit his own throat and save someone else the trouble. It was the emptiest that he had ever felt.

“Heh, well Mr. Rich, you just got to see what it is like inside my head for second. Though, you got a very censored version. I am sorry, but I think your daughter got a much clearer vision. Twilight, I hope your world has drugs to destroy short term memory.” He looked over at Twilight, who was troubled at what was happening to Filthy Rich.

After a moment, she answered, “…Yes, a simple snap spell will clear her memory of everything that happened today. Ill inform the hospital that that may be necessary”

Blade stretched out and began to trot off. “It won’t happen again. Now that I know ponies are empathic, I will spend the night recoding my mind so that no one can read my thoughts. ”

Twilight immediately followed after him, “Blade, we need to talk about this. Discord showed me that, yes, you’re hurting, but if you don’t allow these memories and feelings to be dealt with they will eventually destroy you.”

“That not really a issue.”