Awakening

by blazikenking

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Other
Length: 19635

One Thorsday morning, I woke up as my OC. This should be interesting.

I thought it was just going to be a regular Thorsday morning. At least I did when I went to sleep last night. I never planned on waking up in a familiar yet alien body. Then again, you never really do plan that without the proper technology or magic ready.

I will make references to plenty of things. Some will be subtle, others blatant. If you can manage to figure out what the title references, you get 555 free internets (redeemable absolutely nowhere!). Firebirdbtops won the 555 internets. Congratulations.

Part of the PonyEarthverse.

While this may be my second fanfic (my other one's on dA), I will consider it my first one due to wonderful inspiration and a better plan. All advice is appreciated.

Cover image is fanart of Technia done by Pascal when she got a spot in The Invisible Brony Defense Force.

Published 2012-11-15 22:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-06 22:39:04 UTC

Well, I Certainly Didn't Expect This.

There I was, peacefully sleeping on Thorsday morning, a day for college. Aside from sleeping and thinking over the recent ponification events, I was also waiting for one particular tone to wake me up at 6:45 AM.

Waiting.

...

Still waiting.

...

*ALARM TONE!*

Ah, there it is. Wait, is it really 6:45 or is it a text? They’re the same tone for a reason dating back a bit. Eh, might as well check anyways. I reached out to grab the phone, but instead of feeling the phone or the plastic cabinet thing it was on, I just felt the soft bedspace next to me.

I must have moved towards the wall. Nothing new there.

Using a combination of rolling and sliding, I made my way towards the source of the sound. Just when I thought I was within reach, the phone went to snooze.

Eh, 5 more minutes won’t hurt anything. It hasn’t before.

*5 minutes later*

*ALARM TONE!*

This time, I made it to the phone while it was ringing and tried to grab the thing with my left hand, but I just couldn’t. In a bit of confusion, I checked to make sure it wasn’t the 3DS. Cracking an eye open, I saw the blue and yellow lights of the DS on top of the laptop with its slowly pulsing orange power light (I keep the battery out when it’s fully charged. Lets it live longer) on top of the cooling pad on the comfy chair, so I knew that I was going in the right direction. But why couldn’t I pick it up?

The tone went out again while I was thinking, but I was awake enough that going back to sleep wasn’t an option. Continuing to wake up under what little power I had, I turned onto my back and looked up at my hand. Against the dimly lit ceiling (I sleep next to a window), I held up the limb that failed me and did a bit of observation.

I don’t see any fingers. Probably in a fist for some reason. Maybe my right hand is more willing to cooperate.

I reached for the phone again, but the right hand had apparently agreed with the left hand to not work for me. I held it up for observation as well, and noticed something amiss.

Where did my ring go? I rarely take it off, so where did it go? May as well start searching.

Moving the comfy chair aside (yay for wheels), I moved to get out of bed, but as soon as my feet hit the floor, I noticed 2 things.

1: There was a weird sound as soon as my feet hit the floor

2: I made a slight grunt sound of pain when the rest of me hit the floor

“Okay gravity, you can...”

…That wasn’t the voice I was used to hearing me make when talking. I was used to a more male voice, and while this voice was not high pitched, it was certainly female. Hardly out of bed and already I had an interesting day: my ring vanished, gravity was having fun with me, and my voice has been messed up. If I wasn’t so worried about my ring and not just out of bed, I’d have called that enough excitement for the day and just gone to sleep, but my stomach wanted some excitement as well, which it voiced quite loudly.

Even my stomach wants to see some action.

Deciding to let gravity have its fun, I just scooted/crawled along the floor until I got to my door. It was a short trip. Hardly worth the price of the tickets for the ride there. Opening it was easy. The doorframe was warped in such a way as to not let the door close all the way, but still let it stay closed via mere friction. I just had to apply pressure to the exposed side, and pull. A light challenge that I easily overcame.

Shortly after I opened the door, more light came in from the hall, and revealed to me why I was having so much difficulty: I had hooves. Dark grey hooves and a fur coat of nearly the same color. And there seemed to be something red and dark grey floating at the top of my vision. A few moments of concentration and thought brought up only one possibility: I had become my OC, Technia.

The resulting freak out can be best described as a manic grin of extreme happiness, followed by a thoughtful face, then a panicky one, and then fainting while trying to process everything about my change all in a span of 25-30 seconds. A new record. I like setting new records.

*** Some time later ***

Was that all just a dream? Because, while stuff like that has been happening to people, I’m fairly certain that it wouldn’t happen to me. But it felt a bit too real to be a dream. And to further promote the dream idea, I’m in my bed, wrapped up in my blanket with a nice degree of toastiness. I attempt to get out of my cocoon, but for some reason, it’s harder than normal, almost like there’s more blanket. Or less of me. And it feels like I didn’t wrap myself up either. During the struggle out, I came to the realization that that dream was no dream. Last I checked, my bed wasn’t this big and I had hands. I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. That failing, I took a few more breaths, which seemed to work. Once calm, I started attempting to rationalize everything out loud.

“Okay. I have a new voice. I can’t feel my hands or feet. I can feel hard things where they would be though. There’s some red and dark grey hair in my sight. Chances are that it has happened to me. And I think I’m my OC. At least I can say that today’s been exciting.”

It was at that point my stomach voiced its displeasure at being empty and its lack of caring for my mental stability. It also gave me a mission: eat.

It took a few minutes, but I managed to get out of the cocoon. Getting down from the bed, if I remember correctly, could/did hurt. Without thinking much, I pulled the blanket and pillows onto the floor beside my bed and gently got down that way. I wouldn’t get a 10 from the judges on that landing any time soon, but at least I was down and not hurt.

Next came walking. After trying to get a pattern drilled into my head for at least 20 minutes (and 15 falls), I managed to get a slow walk down with minimal issues. Too bad I didn’t have very much space to practice with. Ah, the curse of a messy room with minimal organization. Still, after I had the walking pattern down, I went out into the hall to make my way to the kitchen to find some food. After all, getting some food in your stomach can help you think better, right?

A/N: I am willing to read any tips that anyone provides. After all, I am kind of new to writing a fanfic. Wrote myself into a corner on my previous attempt.

The Unnamed Second Chapter

Turning left just outside my room, I noticed something: The radio in the front room said that it was almost 10 AM. While I was quietly mourning the loss of perfect attendance and not thinking much about what might be in my way, I tripped over something at the end of the hall. I would have normally recovered, but being unfamiliar with the quadrupedal format, that didn’t happen. My face had apparently set up a date with the floor considering how the two sped towards and embraced each other. The relationship seemed rather abusive though, seeing as the floor was hurting my face so much.

After managing to get up, I turned to look at what tripped me and saw 2 things: my crowbar laying there with the body of it at an angle, just barely long enough to stay in place against the arch after tripping on it, and a folded up piece of paper under it. Being the sensible person that I am, I blamed the paper for making me trip. Seeing as the offending item was folded and obviously hiding a message from me, I pulled it towards me with a hoof and managed to unfold it, revealing a message from mom.

Dear Adam-

I know that you’re a pony now. Dad doesn’t because he left around 6:30 to get breakfast and go to work.
After I heard something hit your floor, I started waking up. Once I was up and about, I went to see what it was that fell and saw you there on the floor. Initially, I didn’t think it was you, but after looking around your room a bit, and thinking about the recent news, I figured it out.
Did you know that you’re much lighter now? I managed to pick you up and put you back in bed. I’m sure you can figure out who wrapped your blanket around you. Anyways, I put some food on a plate on the chair that the King (nickname for one of our cats) likes to play under.
I was scheduled for 12 hours today, but I’ll see if I can talk them into letting me work just 8. I figure you could use some help at some point, but I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own.

-Mom

P.S. I attached a ball and string to both sides of the front door so you can get in and out more easily.

P.P.S. Check your horn.

Well, that was nice of her. If all goes well, she should be home around 5:00. I still blame the paper for making me trip though. I was about to head to the bathroom to check my horn, but my stomach reminded me that there was food nearby, redirecting my focus. While going around to the front of the chair, I worked out how to go about getting my body high enough so that eating comfortably wouldn’t be an issue. I just had to have my back legs on the ground while my front legs rested on the chair. Simple enough, right?

After 15 minutes of trials (including at least 3 backward falls. The floor seems to love me right now), I managed to get into position and saw my brunch: a peanut butter and banana sandwich, some apple slices, and a bowl I usually use for ramen filled with water.

The apple slices were easy enough to eat, seeing as I just had to pluck them up with my mouth. They were very tasty, more so than I remember apple slices being before. Must have something to do with being a pony.

The sandwich was more difficult though, seeing as it was made with hands in mind. After poring over the sandwich, I suddenly remembered a scene from The Ticket Master when Twilight was getting some lunch at a cafe. She had ordered a sandwich and held it with her front hooves like one would hold a sandwich normally. Deciding to step out onto a metaphorical limb, I reached out with both front hooves and attempted to grab the sandwich. To my pleasant surprise, I was now holding the sandwich. To my pleasant surprise, it wasn’t just peanut butter and banana, but also honey. I was so amazed by the flavor that I completely forgot to wonder how I was holding it at all; probably a good thing considering what centipede's dilemma would have done. The water also went down in a similar manner, and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Once I finished my brunch, I remembered that mom had mentioned something about checking my horn. Being inquisitive about this appendage, I went into the bathroom to check in the mirror on the door. What I saw brought a sparkle to my eyes. I saw my ring up there right around the middle on the horn, just as I remembered it with its 2 black stones, silver metal, and modest style. While I was glad to see that it had not vanished, I didn’t want to wear it the wrong way, so I made my way back to my room and took great care to remove the ring and place it on my dresser next to some Lego figures I had made before.

Once that was done, I sat down and thought about what I should do next. Anything that involved my lego collection was not an option, seeing as they weren’t designed with hooves in mind. I could go out, but I live in an area with deer, and it was hunting season. I did not want to risk my hide going out there. Cleaning and such, something I would sometimes do when bored, was also not an option. I had too much energy to sleep. I might as well try my hoof at the laptop. I do have a couple pens around my room, so I could use one of them to type with.

I moved my 3DS with my mouth (not necessarily a pleasant experience) onto one of the plastic drawer towers before I opened my laptop to get to the welcome screen. I found, through experimentation, that I could use my hoof to move the mouse via the touchpad.

At least my laptop still likes me.

…Was that a bit of machine empathy just now? I know Technia’s good with machines (I should know that. I made her), but I didn’t know that she was empathetic with them. Freaky, but cool. Could be useful. I wonder if it works on vehicles?

Catapulting those thoughts aside, I refocused on why I was at the computer in the first place: to use Steam chat to inform some friends of the change. This should be interesting.

Steamy Chat (Safe For Woona)

First, Justin, the one who got me into the show in the first place. I saw that he was online and opened a chat window with him.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“How has your morning been?”

“Good so far. Yours?”

“Well... I got a new perspective on the world. Oh, I’m not at college right now, hard as it is to believe.”

“What kind of perspective? What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“Would you believe being sick with a serious case of pony?”

“That happens to me a lot.”

“Have you seen the news recently? Or heard things?”

“I haven’t been looking at the news much, reality is too tragic for my tastes.”

“Then let me get you up to speed. But first, a question. Have you looked at your calendar recently?”

“Other than season 3 (finally) showing up, nothing noteworthy for me.”

“Go tell me how long a week is. I’ll wait.”

“Is 7 days the answer you’re looking for?”

“No. It seems that a week is now 365 days long. If you don’t believe me, go look for yourself.”

There was inactivity on Justin’s side for a bit before a message came up from him.

“ … I don’t get it.”

“Discord might have something to do with it. Do you remember any Thorsdays before this one?”

“There was nothing to remember, it’s the same routine every time.”

“I’m fairly certain that Thorsday never existed before today. As for that new perspective and case of pony, well, let’s just say that it’s deer season out here, and I’m afraid to go out right now.”

“Why? You don’t look anything like a deer.”

“Let me give you a few more hints. Everything is now bigger from my point of view, and I have a noticeable lack of hands.”

“Did you shrink yourself and lose your hands in the process?”

“Shrunk? Yes. Hands lost in the process? Yes. Did I do it to myself? Abso-positve-lutely not. Here’s another hint: I now have an irremovable dark grey fur coat.”

“So you’re an animal now? How are you typing then?”

“Pen in mouth for letters and such, hooftip for shift and enter keys.”

“I was wondering if something like this would happen.”

“It has been for a few days. Did you know that Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are traveling to the big apple together?”

“It’s about time something big happened. I knew something was strange when my brother saw something like a dragon a few nights ago.”

“There’s a dragon out there? I didn’t hear anything about this! Oh, did you know that Lauren Faust and Tara Strong are now Celestia and Luna respectively?”

“No I didn’t, I had seen that in a story earlier but i thought it was just a story. I humbly accept our new reality.”

Well, he seems to be taking it with ease.

“Then you might also accept the fact that I’m Technia now. That comes with, yes, the shift in gender. And I think she’s rubbing off on me. I swear I “heard” my laptop say that it likes me. I might have a conversation with it later.”

“Well I’m not surprised, you know how to hit just the right buttons. ”

“I’m serious here. I swear I’m gaining machine empathy. Do consider how many electronic devices and machines there are around us. When it’s safe, I’ll see if I can talk with my car.”

“Once you make your acquaintance with all the tech in your house, see if you can convince the car to drive over here so I can see what you look like in this reality.”

There was a long bit of silence before a wall of text came up.

“Dream on. I’d have to do some serious modding to it. Adding a computer, programming it with high level stuff so that it can make decisions on its own, a “nervous system”, and various cameras and such so it can see the world around it. I’m sure Technia could guide me on that, but where would I get the proper materials? I can’t exactly strip devices around here for parts. Besides, I’m sure my mom would be willing to drive me around for a bit. It’s not like I’m physically able to right now. Although I think Fluttershy may have had her vehicle modded to let her drive it. Just speculating here. Anyways, now that you’re up to speed, I should probably inform Jenny. I hope to see you soon.”
“

“Long post is long. How did your parents take to finding you as a pony? Would you kindly inform me of their and Jenny’s reactions to your news?”

“Mom knows because she saw me collapsed outside my room before she left for work. She left me a nice meal and letter. I’d say she’s taking it nicely. Dad, to my knowledge, doesn’t know. And I fear his reaction. His opinion of the bronies isn’t exactly the most favorable out there. Even of those in the military.”

“Well good luck with all that, and if you find out how you became a pony, please tell me.”

“Probably Discord. If not that, then RD has taken to disco. I’ll tell you more as it happens.”

After I finished my discussion with Justin, I found that Jenny was online and decided to chat with her. I just hope she’s observed the news.

“Yo.”

“Hey, whats up?”

“I seem to have come down with a major case of pony.”

“Really? How?”

“Have you been following the news recently?”

“Yea, supposedly Discord has somehow gotten into this world and started to turn people into ponies. Wait, did you turn into one?”

“Yeah. Would you like to try your hand (I miss mine. I seem to be pulling a Lyra) at guessing who I am?”

“Hmm... wait, let me guess, your OC Technia?”

“How did you get it on the first try?” Is she psychic or something?

“Well, on the news, it said that people were turning into ponies that they supposedly created, so I just guessed that you turned into yours.”

“That’s some good reasoning. But it doesn’t seem to be entirely correct. After all, the mane 6 are out there, and they aren’t the ones who created them.”

“Well, i guess for them, people who were most like the mane 6 turned into them.”

“Most likely. Oh, I think I’m gaining some kind of machine empathy. I swear I heard my laptop say that it likes me.”

“Really? That’s a little weird.”

“Don’t forget who you’re chatting with. You are chatting with your friend who’s mind is in the body of the OC he created. Chances are that our minds are merging a bit. Too bad there aren’t very many Wednesdays anymore.”

“Oh, right, Discord also lengthened a week to a year or so. But still, I never knew that machines could actually talk. Wonder what my laptop says about me.”

“As much as I’d love to come over, there are a couple obstacles. First, I’m too short to drive my car. Second, even if I could, it wasn’t made for hoofed beings. Thirdly, it’s deer season out here and I fear for my life if I step outside.”

“And, I bet it would be hard to walk with four legs instead of the usual two.”

“I’ll get used to the new frame soon enough, including getting a walking pattern down on the inside of my skull. And basic levitation would be nice too. I’ve already had some time walking with this new body, and I’ve got a slow walk down pretty well.”

“Well, that’s good. By the way, since you turned into your OC, do you think that Justin and I will turn into our OC’s? If so, that would be a little weird.”

“To quote the medic, I HAVE NO IDEA! But you’re free to hope for it. After all, it seems to only be affecting the bronies and pegasisters.”

“So, coming to a conclusion of you saying that, then most likely yes.”

“Granted that this lasts long enough, then yes, it will happen. It is only day 11 after all.”

“Well, that’s just great. But what if my mom doesn’t like it, and what will my boss and teachers say?”

“If your mom doesn’t like it, then tough cookies. I can only hope that your boss and teachers watch the news and let you take a pony leave.”

“Hopefully they will understand.”

“Let’s hope so. Could you tell your mom about what happened over here and see if I can come over?”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll wait.”

There was a pause of a few minutes before I got a response.

“My mom said it would be fine.”

“For that, I am thankful. This is probably the pony magic biology surfacing, but being alone like this isn’t very comfortable. I hereby decree that friendship is the best drug.”

“You are very welcome, and friendship is one of the best things in the world. So, I guess I will be seeing you soon.”

“Probably tomorrow. I’m not sure when my mom’s getting off today. She said she was scheduled for a 12 hour day, but would try to negotiate for 8. Hopefully we can meet tomorrow.”

“Ok, well then, I guess I will hopefully see you tomorrow then.”

“Indeed. I’ll be bringing my standard electronics with me. Is there anything you’d like me to bring?”

“Hmm...nope, that’ll be fine.”

“Affirmative. I’ll see you soon then. If something comes up, I’ll inform you of it.”

“Ok, well bye.”

“Ciao.”

With that, all important matters had been discussed and the conversation dissolved into various silly ways of saying “bye”, most of which shall not be replicated here because the light comedy division of the police would come after me.

Checking the time on the computer, I saw that it was almost 3:15. The pen-in-mouth technique is slow. Typing would be so much easier with magic. And less tiring on the jaw muscles.

Magic. Maybe I could practice here in my room. I have plenty of objects of various weights to practice with. What’s the worst that could happen?

A/N: I thank my friends Justin and Jenny for their help in this chapter, and you should too. I shall keep their Steam names a secret.

----------

BONUS STORY ABOUT JAPONYSE NINJAS HERE!

Thanks for reading the ninja story.

The Bathroom, A Song, And a Dream

NOTE: There is a bit of sadness in this chapter. I hope to convey it properly.

Within one hour, I had figured out how to get my magic focused and was able to lift my crowbar from the hall and walk with it easily, placing back in its rightful place on my closet door. It was right about then that nature decided to give me a call.

I made a mad dash for the bathroom by the mudroom in the back. While I didn’t really own it, it was generally considered mine seeing as I was its primary user. Once I was inside, I had to think quick. I figured out a solution, and relief came very quickly in two ways (the author doesn’t want to go into detail on this topic, but he’s pretty sure you’re all smart enough to know what he means).

I found one other benefit to magic really fast: sanitation in the bathroom is easier. Unfortunately, it leaves a gross feeling in the magic, even if it was just the use of telekinesis to move the TP where it was needed. I’m fairly certain that, given enough time, I might get to the point where I can ignore it. And seeing as I was now female, I had more chances to get used to it. What fun.

It was just past 4:30, and I was now bored. Deciding to update some stuff on the internet to pass the time, I went back towards my room at a casual trot. But just before I could set a single hoof in my room, the landline phone rang. With a sigh, I went to the office/guest bedroom to answer it via telekinesis.

“Hello?”

“Is that you, Adam?”

“Oh, hi mom. Yes, it is.”

“Did you see my letter to you in the hall?”

“Yes. It made me trip while trying to frame the crowbar. But I knew the paper’s intent and that it was guilty.”

“If you say so. Anyways, I managed to get the 8 hour shift as I had hoped for and I’ll be heading home after I get to my car.”

“Ok. I guess I’ll wait for you.”

“Alright. Oh, have you been outside today?”

“No. It’s deer season and I don’t want to risk going out there.”

“Good point. Well, I’ll see you when I get home.”

“See ya.”

It was there that the conversation ended. I gently put the phone back in its cradle and went back to my room. After all, I had things to update, and the internet wasn’t about to do it for me. I snagged a couple pens with my magic before going to work.

It may not be the best way to type, but I’ll take what I can get for now.

On DeviantArt, I posted a journal to inform those who cared about my change. It wasn’t very long, as it was meant to be more of a notification thing. It could be summed up as; So yeah. I’m my OC pony now. Aside from figuring out how to do stuff, nothing else is going on.

After clearing out my messages and notes, I went over to Facebook. After I logged out of my profile there, I made a new one for the pony side of me and began checking for other pony accounts. I decided to start with just one pony. And just because she was so darn adorable, I went with Erica Fluttershy. Not wanting to start an immediate chat, I just sent a simple friend request to start things off with, and then left Facebook.

Once Facebook was taken care of, I went over to the great and powerful Youtube to listen to some metal, specifically Sabaton. While all of their songs were very good, one song of theirs had a very high amount of my recent interest, even before the change; specifically A Lifetime of War.

The song had always struck a chord in me, something along the lines of disappointment in humanity. This time however, it seemed to bring tears to my eyes. I suppose that the original Technia would have been moved to tears because I could feel some moistness welling up in my eyes and an unusually powerful pang of sadness.

With this, I decided to attempt a mental conversation with her to see if I could comfort her even a bit. I don’t like seeing anyone sad, even more if it’s one of my characters. I closed my eyes and focused on winding through the maze of our shared mind, seeking her out.

I seemed to be in a house of some kind. There was furniture, most of which was black with red trim. The area seemed to be perfectly lit, and a look through one of the windows showed that it appeared to be nighttime outside.

Where am I?

Looking around, I saw what was probably the front door and tried to open it, but for some reason, even with magic I couldn’t even get it to move.

Well that narrows down my options. But where am I? And whose house is this?

I looked around to see what was could help identify the resident(s) of this place. The furniture looked to be mostly utilitarian, but with comfort highly prioritized and colors chosen afterwards. Various shelves held small mechanical trinkets and an array of books with writing in a script I’d never seen before. But perhaps the biggest hint was a picture of Technia in front of a picture of her in front of the house.

I’m going to guess that this is Technia’s home, if the photo and trinkets are any indication.

While I was thinking, I barely heard what sounded like sobbing coming from a different room. Being careful not to disturb the furniture’s positioning (it seemed to be done very carefully), I walked around to try to find the source of the crying. It seemed a bit louder when I was at the stairs, which gave me a good start.

If Technia is here, I should try to comfort her. I’d hate to see my only OC crying and do nothing about it.

I slowly went up the stairs to stay more focused on hearing, so it took what felt like almost a minute to get to the top. The sobbing was coming from the left, so I went that way. I don’t know how I could have overlooked the one small detail that could have cut some time off my search: a giant red Phi on the door the crying seemed to be coming from.

I knocked on the door a couple times before entering to find Technia’s room. Like my own, it wasn’t the cleanest around, but it did have a clean enough path to get around to the important places, namely a small workbench, some cabinets of small parts and tools, and the bed, which had a crying grey and red curled up mare on it.

I made my way over to Technia slowly, and made my hooffalls intentionally loud so that my presence was known.

“Hey, you okay Technia?”

“I will be.”

“Was it the song that got you?”

A nod was her only response.

“I thought so. I could feel your sadness all the way out there.” I hopped up on the bed and sat next to her and lay a foreleg over her withers.

“Really?”

“Yeah. And I think I can understand it, with you coming from a world that hasn’t been in a major war for multiple generations, if at all.”

“Is your species really so violent?”

“Sadly, we can be and not even realize it. We fight wars over religion, regions, and for revenge while telling ourselves that we’re correct. I honestly envy the peace of Equestria, and I share this sentiment with plenty of others.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I wish that the world could hear that song and learn from it. It would bring much peace. At least I hope it would.”

“Has anyone ever told you how stupidly optimistic you are with that idea?”

“Nope. You’re the first I’ve told it to. Anyways, you seem to be feeling better, so I think I’ll take my leave.” I left Technia on the bed, bid her a farewell, and went back downstairs to try the front door again. This time, it opened with no difficulty and I walked right out.

I woke up with a start, and noticed that there seemed to be something stuck between my teeth. Carefully pulling it out, I saw that it was a 32GB SD card with Pillow.exe written on it.

Where did this come from? What does this Pillow.exe do? How much can I sell this for?

It was right about then that my phone’s alarm went off for the second time that day.

Must be 5:55. Faiz o’ Clock.

I used my magic to pull the phone over and used a hoof to dismiss the alarm, which took a few tries.

Note to self: come up with collapsing stylus for hoof.

A/N: I have no idea how well I conveyed the sad bit of the chapter, but I promise that it won’t become a regular thing. I’ll be aiming for a more neutral/upbeat story most of the time.

The Faiz o’ Clock thing is something I do for real. I really like Kamen Rider Faiz/555, so I’m sure you can figure out the connection. That aside, it’s kind of nice to have a regular alarm for no real reason.

The End of the Day

Wait. The Faiz alarm just went off, and when mom called earlier around 4:30, she said that she had gotten off early as she had hoped. That meant she was most likely home!

With this exciting thought in mind, I lept off the bed, and I swear the rule of funny took hold because just a moment after leaping off, I remembered that it hurt to land on the floor, and I had no practice with landings and I swear that I was floating in midair before falling flat on the floor. This hurt more than you might think, because my floor is hardwood, and not carpet.

After recovering, I remembered the Pillow.exe card was on my bed, and deciding that that wasn’t the best place to keep it, I moved it over behind a heavily armed transformer on one of my lego drawer towers.

That’ll make sure no one takes it.

I decided to head to the open and lit office, seeing as she usually spends a good amount of time there either practicing (I heard no music, so that wasn’t it), checking email (I didn’t hear anything), or playing a game (she usually has the sound off, so I couldn’t tell from that).

Sneaking as quietly as I could (yay for thick carpet), I got to a position where I could see what was on the screen, and I was surprised. She was looking at news around the internet on the whole ponification thing. It wasn’t so much the material she was looking at, but that she was looking at something that wasn’t email or the very occasional shopping site. I let her finish the article she was reading before I sat up and clapping with my forehooves, startling her.

“Don’t scare me like that.”

“I’ve been here for most of the time you’ve been reading that article. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t hear me hit the floor just after Faiz.”

“I was watching a video about it all being a conspiracy of some kind.”

“I’ll accept that explanation. Where’s dad? Does he know of my change?”

“As far as I know, he’s out back working on something. I’m not sure if he’ll be around long for supper, considering your new diet, and thus a new supper plan.”

“Well, I can say I’m not surprised at any of that. How did he react to news of my change?”

“He seemed shocked, and kind of down about it. I’m sure he’ll be fine though.”

“I hope so. Oh, could you take me over to Jenny’s tomorrow? I’m kind of in a position where I can’t exactly drive.”

“Sure. I’ve got tomorrow off. What time?”

“Because I didn’t know if you’d be off or not, I didn’t organize a time with Jenny. I’ll check to see if she’s on Steam for chat.” With that, I went back to my room, and it was a few minutes before I came back with the news. “1:00 seems like a good time.”

“I can work with that. Anyways, you want some supper?”

At that, my stomach voiced my thoughts before I had a chance to reply. I put on a deadpan face at this. “Thanks for giving my answer away, stomach.” I swear it’s psychic or something, always answering for me.

Mom and I shared a brief laugh at this before she went to the kitchen to make some supper. Personally, I was hoping for something with tofu in it. It’s good stuff and goes well with lots of things. While waiting, I went back to my room to see if I could think of something to pass the time with. The Pillow.exe card looked tempting to try, but seeing as supper was soon, I held off on it. After all, it could take time to figure out, and I’m not exactly known for leaving a new program after just starting to figure it out.

Leaving the computer behind, I picked up what could be best described as my favorite transformer: Skyhammer. I’d have practiced fine-tuning my magic control by transforming it to vehicle mode, but aside from being a bit too fine for now, I also noticed that his gun wasn’t detailed like the figure itself. A couple days ago, I had used a Gundam Marker to draw out various panel lines on him, and it made a huge difference in aesthetics. I hadn’t done the same with the gun, so picking it up, and going on a brief quest to locate the marker (there was no Item Get sound though), I sat down and got to work.

I must have been extremely focused on the work because after I had finished the middle section (That part has lots of details), I could smell some food nearby. Scanning the area, I saw the source: a plate with stir fried ramen, tofu, and an assortment of vegetables along with a familiar bowl of water on a tray not far from me.

Normally, I would avoid the vegetables, but this day hadn’t been very normal, so I snagged a mouthful of them, along with some noodles and tofu, and it was while I was chewing all of that that I realized something: ~~The Pillow.exe card could be empty.~~ I have never tasted vegetables this good before. I’m not sure if it’s my new biology, Technia’s tastes, if mom did something new, or some combination thereof, but those veggies were now equal to the ramen and tofu in my opinion. Each bite from there on was savored and enjoyed.

After clearing my plate and emptying the water bowl, I took the tray, plate, and bowl back to the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of the time on the radio in the living room: 8:06.

I can still lose track of time. Oh well.

After setting the items on the counter, I went back to my room to continue working on Skyhammer’s gun detailing and practicing my finer telekinesis skills. This took a couple hours, partially due to being unfamiliar with magic (I’m getting better), but more with finding other transformer weapons to practice with. After having done Dark of the Moon Sentinel Prime’s sword and shield, I decided to stop and check the time: 10:01.

I think I should prepare my stuff and be getting to sleep now. Tomorrow will probably be a busy day.

With that, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself of anything that could randomly wake me in the night (have I mentioned how weird it is for me? No? It’s weird for me), then brushed my teeth (As per ~~Sargent~~ Colgate's instructions) and went into my room. Once there, I picked up my backpack and proceeded to put my laptop, its cord, Pillow.exe, a sketchbook, a few pens, every pencil in my room (both regular and mechanical), and swiss army pliers (23 functions (11 of them are just different screwdriver heads though) including paperweight!). The only other thing left is the cooling pad, but it’s a tad too big to fit in there. Going with the simplest and best solution, I decided that I would just carry it along with the backpack.

Thanks for teaching me that, GLaDOS.

Now that I had everything ready for tomorrow, it was time to sleep. I just hope that I don’t have a lucid dream. The last one was weird enough.

I didn’t have any lucid dreams, but the one I did have was rather memorable: blueprints, 3D part models, and programming code all layered together into a mess I could understand, but would probably make any normal person’s mind partially collapse. I didn’t like it that much.

I am open to ideas on what Pillow.exe does, so long as it’s SFW. Please leave ideas in the comments.

A Dull Day Downtown

The car ride was rather uneventful, save for looking at things from a slightly lower vantage point. Also, I thought I caught glimpses of some architect's lines in my vision, as if there were some kind of super powered computer in my brain, and knowing Technia, there might just be one there.

Hey, Technia. Do you know anything about these architect’s lines that are invading my vision?

…

She’s not responding. Either she’s too focused on something to notice my attempt at communication, is asleep, or is trolling me by being silent. For now though, I’ll just assume that there’s a faulty connection.

It was about 11:15 when we got downtown and found a reasonable parking space.We got out of the car, and while I got my hat, phone, and a pencil from the back, Mom checked the parking meter and found that parking is free on Wagnesdays. I think Discord may have created some jobs around here, seeing as there were signs on every meter that looked to be manually placed, meaning that there had to be someone or a group of people that change them daily. I gave mom my phone and pencil before we set off.

The first stop would be Trilbia (Note: fictional business), seeing as that place would take a while for the hat modification no matter what. The walk there was somewhat eventful, but not in the best way. People tended to avoid me on the sidewalk or suddenly become interested in whatever was next to them. I did get a few polite nods though. I’m guessing that those people were either bronies who didn’t want to openly display their bronyness out here or were intelligent enough to figure out that the evasiveness wasn’t very nice and gave a nod as a subtle way to help make me feel better,even if they’d never even heard of the franchise.

This continued until we arrived at Trilbia, which had a low count on customers at the moment. My hooves made a nice clopping sound (get out of the gutter) on the tile floor. The only person there honestly looked bored and visibly perked up upon our entrance, but his face became one of confusion at the sight of me.

“Ma’am?” Clearly, he was addressing my mom. “Are you aware that we don’t allow pets in here?”

I didn’t wait for mom to respond. “I am not a pet, but rather a sentient being, and I am here on business matters.” I managed to get a look at his nametag, and apparently his name is Steve.

I wonder if he plays Minecraft?

“It talks?”

“I am female, thank you very much.” I shuddered a bit internally at the fact that I had to make this statement. “Can we please get on to business?”

“And you’re a unicorn?”

“Yes. And don’t start on the mythological ones.” I am NOT going there.

“Okay, okay.” Steve took a moment to clear his throat and regain his composure. “So, uh, how can I help you?”

I levitated my fedora up to him. “I need ear holes in this hat, and maybe a red Phi on the bow too.”

“I can do that. I just need to see where your ears would wind up on the hat first.”

I pulled over a chair and hopped onto it so Steve would be able to measure more easily and I wouldn’t be as towered over. The measurements took a bit of time, considering that I wasn’t of the species he normally dealt with, and the best way to get the right measurement would be to draw an outline on the underside of the hat.

It was almost 11:30 when the measurements were done. Steve’s estimate timewise was about 20 minutes for the earholes with some padding to not hurt my ears, along with the addition of the red Phi. I promised that I’d be back by or around the time he would be done.

Word of my presence must have gotten out and spread really fast because the sidewalks were getting really empty really fast, and many parking spaces were opening up, even though it was close to lunchtime. Fortunately, those who were at work didn’t leave, meaning that my plan to get a nice drink could still be carried out.

Kaldi’s Coffee (Note: real place) was next door to Trilbia, so the walk there wasn’t that long, but seeing as lots of people had left, downtown felt kind of empty. A lack of people around made me feel smaller than I really was and rather lonely.

As far as I remember, Kaldi’s usually had a nice assortment of people around relaxing over drinks and snacks, talking about various topics. But they were just about empty right now, save for one person behind the counter and maybe some in the kitchen.

Speaking of that person behind the counter, I think he was a brony, because he gave me a very friendly wave and greeting, and addressed me as Ms. Unicorn. I gave a nice greeting back, and saw that his nametag said his name was Mark.

I made my way up and stood on my hind legs with my front ones up against the counter before I placed my order: hot chocolate with pumpkin spice, a bit of chamomile tea, and some honey mixed in and served at a lower than normal temperature (We don’t like it when our drinks burn our tongue. That’s not the archaic style of speech. Technia and I share the same opinion). Medium size would be big enough, considering my new size. I also opted to get a shortbread cookie once I caught sight of one. Those are good.

I got my phone and pencil from mom, and while I was waiting for my drink, I sent a brief text to Jenny about my location, and that we might be getting lunch while here. I didn’t tell her about how downtown seemed to empty shortly after I appeared there. When Mark asked for a name, I gave him my pony name before I snagged the cookie and made my way over to a couch they had. It looked new. Mom was beside me before long.

It was about 5 minutes before our drinks were done and my name was called out. I used my telekinesis to pull our drinks over. One of them had a Phi on it. Must be mine. Seems Mark saw my cutie mark.

I took some time to reflect on that statement, and I would have had an epiphany about life’s true meaning if I hadn’t decided to stop thinking about it and just drink my hot chocolate. Trust me when I say that it was a glorious mix of flavors at an adequate temperature. My eyes may have shrunk to a really small size at that first sip, it was so good.

Note to self: share this recipe on Facebook.

I won’t go into detail on what I did for the next 20 minutes, but lots of meditation was involved and I somehow got to thinking about Shakespeare, which reminded me that it was almost lunchtime, and pizza did sound good. Speaking of lunchtime, my hat should be done, or pretty close to it. I finished my drink, threw the cup away, and made my way over to Trilbia. Mom wasn’t too far behind me.

Steve was there, and seemed to be adding the finishing touches to my hat. I stood at the front desk and before I could say anything, he put the hat right on my head, and I must say he did a good job with the earholes. I felt only softness against my ears, meaning that the stiffer material of the hat wouldn’t chafe my ears, and (pardon the pun) that did not sound like a pleasant thing to experience.

I recovered from the shock of the hat’s placement and found my way over to a mirror, and I saw a really nice hat atop a familiar mare’s head. And dare I say it, she looked good.

If the hot chocolate hadn’t put me in a good mood, the hat certainly did. Fortunately, the hot chocolate did put me in a good mood, so my happiness was essentially doubled. I felt like there was nothing that could get me down. Then I briefly remembered that gravity did not care about emotions before being double happy again.

My stomach (I swear that thing has its own brain and knows the best times to interrupt good moods) soon voiced that it wanted food. I thought back to my meditation and decided that Shakespeare’s Pizza (Note: They make really good pizza) would be a good idea. I collaborated a bit with Jenny and my mom, and we agreed that bringing some pizza over would be a good idea. We decided on getting 2 pizzas: one full cheese and the other half veggie.

The walk there was highly uneventful and very quiet. When we got to Shakespeare’s, I opted to stay outside in order to not cause any commotion or delays inside. I’ve had enough of those already, and I’m sure mom has too.

I think mom ordered fresh pizzas because I was outside for quite a while, bored with nothing to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if she got herself a salad while she was waiting. While I was outside, I decided to go for a walk around Shakespeare’s. Mom came out with 2 pizzas just after I had finished my 5th lap, and it was during that lap that I realized that having hooves allows you to easily set your own rhythm for walking on hard surfaces. I relieved mom of the pizzas via telekinesis as we made our way back to the car.

It was just after 12:30 when we left downtown. Next stop: Jenny’s house.

A/N: I do apologize for any issues with the dialogue (or lack thereof). I find that dialogue works best with at least 2 people writing. This problem will be alleviated a bit in later chapters, like the next one.

Face, Meet Floor.

The trip from downtown to Jenny’s house was quiet, save for the radio, which was set on the local NPR station. Not one story was on the ponification that was happening. I think that once 1 million people are changed, they’ll start reporting on it. But then again, it wasn’t a very long drive, so they could have had a story about the ponification sometime before leaving downtown and after the arrival at Jenny’s house.

Once the car was parked, I got everything in my telekinetic grip and walked with mom up to the door, where she rang the doorbell and I transferred the pizzas to her. Jenny answered the door with a speed that made it seem like she was sitting on the steps just behind the door.

My mom was the first to speak. “Hello Jenny.”

“Hello, how are you today?”

“Not bad. Where’s your mom?”

“She’s in the kitchen, cleaning dishes. You can come inside and talk to her, but I kind of forgot to tell her that Adam turned into a pony, so she might freak out. Sorry.”

“I’ll go tell her then.” Mom went off to the kitchen, leaving me looking up at a friend who I used to be slightly taller than. It was a weird experience.

I decided to prevent any wild awkward silences from appearing. “So, what should I do now?”

“Well, come inside first, so you don’t freeze outside.”

“I’m not too worried about freezing. I have fur now. But if it’ll make you happy, I will.” I put on a clearly fake unhappy face while I made my way in, where I was harmlessly assaulted by a white and very energetic cat. Good thing its front paws were declawed. Seeing as its attacks were fruitless, it left and I set my stuff down by the door.

“Well, it looks like Tiffany still likes you.”

“You don’t say! So, how about we go upstairs and do stuff?”

“Sure, hope you know how to walk up stairs with four legs now.”

I’m fairly certain I got a twitchy eyelid. “I haven’t. But going down seems more daunting.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll get to that later so you don’t have to worry about it now. So let’s just see how you do going up stairs first.”

“Well, I guess we’d better start sooner than later.” I managed to take three steps up before losing my balance and flipped backwards. “At least I got further than Valve!”

“Haha. Do you need any help going up? Because I can help if you want.”

“Unless you have experience with 4 legs on stairs, I think just being there to catch me would be satisfactory.”

“Works for me.”

The next half hour could be summed up as 5 more failed attempts, a break for pizza, then 3 more attempts with the last one featuring me collapsing at the top of the stairs.

“I made it!” I weakly held up a forelimb in victory before it and my neck gave out, making me faceplant. Gravity loves my face!

“Congratulations. Now, let’s see how you do going down stairs.”

My neck seemed to get a sudden infusion of strength when it lifted my head, but its power must have been taken from my jaw because it dropped. “Now?”

“I’m just kidding. Do you want me to carry you to my room?”

“I think I’ll be able to make it there within 5 minutes.” The door to her room was just about 6 feet away. It seemed reasonable enough.

“Sorry if my room is messy, I still have to get rid of some stuff.”

I put on a mock regal tone. “Please, do tell me about the last time I cared about that. I am interested in your tale.”

“Good point. Well anyway, what do you want to do?”

“Crawl to your room, see if I have enough energy to jump up on your bed, and crash there. If I don’t have the energy to jump up there, then I’m sure the carpet will be nice too.”

It seems I overestimated myself. It took closer to 10 minutes to just get to the door. once I made it there, I noticed that Jenny had moved her chair and a few other things to make a ramp going up to her bed. I thought I saw a camera, but I didn’t care. Calling upon a hidden reserve of energy, I stood up and made my way up the ramp, and aimed for the pillows. I think I was going a little too fast because I hit my head on the bedpost and fell asleep just seconds later. A double crash, if you will. And it was close to 2:00. How appropriate.

*4 10 minute segments of time later*

I don’t think I’ve collapsed from fatigue like that in a very long time. I did have a weird dream about talking hats though. Might be because I was still wearing mine. I took a brief look around and found myself surrounded by pillows.

“Have I been assimilated into the pillow horde?”

“Yes, yes you have.”

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Wait a minute. Pillows don’t talk. There’s a spah around here. Where’s a Pyro when you need him/her/whatever it may be?”

“Sadly I don’t know. But anyway, did you have a good nap?”

“I became a pillow! So no. Unless I’m not a pillow. Which is it?” I was on the verge of a fake panic attack.

“Don’t worry, you’re still a pony... It feels weird saying that to you because you were a human, and now you’re not.”

“I thank thee, Captain Obvious. That was a very profound observation.”

“You’re welcome Sargent Sarcasm.”

“So, how long was I out?” I held my head up, proving that I had not become a pillow, although I felt that I could make a good substitute.

“About 40 minutes, so not that long I guess.”

“That’s nice, and I guess I should start practicing going down stairs, but first thing’s first.” I made a mad dash for the bathroom. I think I looked like a grey and red blur as I raced there.

Once I finished (I think I’m getting better at tuning out that gross feeling when cleaning myself), I felt, needless to say, really good. I felt so good that I didn’t care that I faceplanted off the toilet. I just felt too good to care.

I made my way back to Jenny’s room. “So, where were we?”

“About to see how well you do going down stairs.”

“Right. Let’s just get it over with.”

I must say, going down was tough. My first attempt got me down to the bottom of the stairs, but that was just gravity getting help from the stairs in order to show how strong it was. The next few attempts got me practice at 3 things: walking down the stairs, falling down the stairs, and walking up the stairs. I was doing well with 2 of those, and it was about half an hour before I made my first safe trip down. My coach decided that wasn’t enough and made me do it again. I don’t know where she got that hat she was wearing, but it certainly made sense.

“Can’t I take a break?”

“Nope.”

“Aww.” I went back to going down the stairs, along with up them for a while longer. After one hour of this, I had a rough pattern down with icicles. “Well, I won’t be playing that one about going down the stairs any time soon.”

“Haha. Well, at least you have kind of mastered going up and down the stairs, so they won’t bother you that much anymore.”

“Good point. I’ll work out any issues as they come up. Thanks for the help, coach.”

“You are very welcome.”

“Thanks. And the best part is that my hat is undamaged.” I took it off to check this fact, and it was true. “So, is this the part where we surf the net for a few hours until supper? Also, is my mom still here?”

“I’ll go check, and I guess.”

“Thanks. I’ll wait here.”

It turned out that she was still here and was talking with Jenny’s mom. What they were talking about, she didn’t catch and I didn’t care. The important thing is that there was still some pizza left, so I went to get some. “Want any of the pizza?”

“Sure, I’ll have plain cheese.”

“Cool. I think I’ll try a slice of the veggie.” I levitated a slice of cheese pizza over to Jenny and a slice of veggie to me. I took a cautious bite, and enjoyed it. There were more bites taken, but they were less cautious.

“Well, I’m not going to complain about the veggie pizza. Must be the new diet thing.”

“Must suck not being able to eat meat like you used to, but at least you can still eat vegetables and fruits.”

“Yeah. Tofu as well. If I go into a grocery store in this body, I’m probably going to spend a good deal of time in the produce section.”

“Of course.”

“Could you get me a glass of water please?”

“Sure.” Jenny made fast work of getting the glass of water. Once it was filled, I relieved her of it and greedily drank the clear substance, feeling refreshed.

“So, back upstairs and on the computers?”

“After you.”

“If you insist.” I made my way back to the stairs and we headed back up to her room, where we spent the next three hours on the internet, including some good music and other silly stuff. And then, it was time for supper.

Supper wasn’t that exciting. There was much discussion on the ponification thing, and for some reason, I felt like I was the only one in town at the time. It seemed that I would be staying overnight, seeing as mom left just a couple hours before. Not that I’m complaining. We ate and talked for about 45 minutes before Jenny and I went back to her room, where our computers awaited us.

“I just remembered something. You wanted me to see what your laptop thought of you, right?”

“Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

“Yep. Now then.” I woke her computer up and then started to listen. To anyone who wasn’t me, it would only appear that I was in the middle of a staring contest with the computer. “It likes you. That’s it. Nothing more.”

“Sweet, thanks.”

“No problem.” It was right there that I went back to my computer and decided to try and use my magic to fix a key that wasn’t responding at all when pressed. I managed to get it cleaned within a few minutes and tested it. The key worked and I started going over the rest, each one taking less time than the one before it. Once that was taken care of, the rest of the night was spent browsing the internet until Jenny and I were both yawning. We both got ready for the night (needless to say, I was done much more quickly). Jenny took to the bed, and I a spot on the floor. Soon, we were both asleep.

My Girlfriend is Now My Marefriend

I had another lucid dream that night. But instead of just Technia, I also saw another familiar unicorn mare. I swear I recognized her from somewhere, but I couldn’t figure it out. The two seemed to be rather good friends, and were chatting merrily about something, though I couldn’t tell what. There seemed to be a bubble of some kind around them that muffled all sounds from inside. I tried shouting to get their attention, but they didn’t seem to hear me.

I called forth a giant mallet and tried to use it on the bubble, but the mallet just bounced back in the direction it came from, somehow leaving a crater on the dreamscape surface. I tried heavy artillery next, along with a failed backstab attempt (how do you backstab something that effectively has no back?), sticky bombs, and a giant steamroller. None of these did anything. Out of desperation, I picked up a frying pan and started smacking the bubble with it. I’m not sure if it was from the earlier attacks or that the frying pan was the bubble’s one weakness, but cracks started forming in it and the unicorns inside reacted to the sound and repairs were quickly commenced. Repairs that proved to be rather fruitless when I got a second frying pan and started using them like drumsticks until I made my way through the bubble. The mares inside noticed my entry and looked at me as I approached them.

“So, why am I having a lucid dream this time? Am I going to become a different pony?”

Technia chuckled at this. “Nope. You’ll still have my body. Amanthera here is coming over, and it just so happens that the one who will be turning into her is the girl you’re with.”

I think there were a few audible gear clicks as my brain worked on processing the new information. “Ah, I know where I recognize you from! You’re her OC! But why am I seeing you here now?”

“Oh, hello, and to answer your question, I HAVE NO IDEA!.”

“I’ll accept that answer for now. So, why was I only able to break the shield with frying pans?”

“Possibly because they are an overpowered weapon, and they can destroy anything if hit enough times.”

“A giant 6 foot blade on fire is overpowered, especially if it can turn into a gun. But still, why are you in my dream?”

“The best idea I can come up with is that you’re somehow in the way, but that doesn’t make sense as there’s no physical barriers.”

“Well then, how about I wake up and call this dream over?”

“Fine with me.”

“Then someone please hit me really hard with something.”

“Sure thing.” Amanthera said as she took the frying pans out of my grip and whacked me over the head with them, thus knocking me out. I didn’t wake up, but the rest of my dreams were normal. At least as normal as one can get with something like Team Fortress 2.

I woke up in the morning and noticed a few things:

1: I had somehow been assimilated into the pillow swarm on Jenny’s bed (again).

2: I was being used as a pillow.

Because I was being used as a pillow by someone I really cared about, I was stuck there with no hope of getting up anytime soon. Fortunately, technology came to my aid because I heard an alarm go off. I thought a bit on what it could be for, then remembered that Jenny has work in the mornings. I should be able to get up soon.

I felt her move to get at her alarm, which happened to be behind me. Rebelling against my nature just a bit, I moved out from under Jenny’s head before things could get too awkward. This had the unintended effect of accelerating her wake up speed.

I gave her a quiet “sorry.” Fluttershy would have been proud of the volume I used.

“It’s ok, let me just turn off this annoying alarm first.”

“Did you catch a cold or something? your voice sounds a bit different than I remember.”

“No, I feel fine actually.”

An idea came across my mind. “Alright then. Just be careful with your alarm.”

“Ok?” Due to the darkness of the room and having just woken up, I couldn’t see much of anything. I could tell though that there was some clacking noise around where the alarm clock was. Eventually, the alarm quieted, but this was accompanied by a cracking sound. “That didn’t sound too good.”

“What was that?”

“Do you want me to prepare the funeral for your alarm?”

“How did my alarm clock break?”

“It certainly wasn’t one of my hooves.”

“So, somehow I did that. But I don’t have enough force to break something like that.”

“Try clasping your fingers together.”

“Ok...”

I kept silent as my suspicions were confirmed when I heard some hard clacking. This was swiftly followed by a heavy silence as a metaphorical ton of unflavored ramen (THE HORROR!) crashed upon Jenny’s mind.

“Seems I was right. Welcome to the quadruped club. Do you have any horns or wings you’d like to register as well?”

“Wait, wait, wait, no, no, this cannot be happening. This cannot be happening!”

“You know, you sound like a stereotypical villain whose plans that he was so confident couldn’t be stopped just got stopped. I’d slap some sense into you, but it’s not in my nature to do that and I can’t see you. Also, I think a slap with hooves would hurt.”

“Wait, let me just turn on my lamp first, IF I can.”

“Just be careful.”

There was a bit of rustling as some stuff on the stand was moved by her hoof, but eventually a button on the base of the lamp clicked on and with it came light. With the light, I saw a unicorn shaped mare who seemed to absorb almost all of the light spectrum.

“Whoa, this is a little freaky. I never knew that I would actually turn into a pony, let alone a unicorn.”

I took a moment to look her over. “You look like your OC, if a bit more detailed. Speaking of whom, I had a lucid dream last night and she was passing through. Also, I somehow became your pillow.”

“Really? You had a dream about Amanthera? Mind I ask what she said? And can you please get out from under me, because it’s getting a little awkward.”

“Very well.” I dashed out from under her and promptly found myself acting as a bridge between the nation of Jenny’s bed and the wall dwellers. If I were crazy enough, I would have felt toll booths being build on me, but I’m more sane than that. In reality, my horn had been accidentally implanted in the wall.

“Aww, my wall. Oh well, I was going to repaint it anyway. I was getting tired of that light purple color. And that flower decal is a little bit too girly for me now that I’m older. Anyway, thanks for moving, now all I have to do is try and get down onto the floor.”

“What about me? You can’t just forget about recently installed infrastructure. After all, bridges need proper support, and I don’t have enough.”

It would appear that my plight went unheard and I heard a soft thump from the other side of the bed. It would appear that Jenny had just made her first landing. It was rather fortunate that her cat fur infused carpet softened the landing. Unfortunately, that also meant that I would probably be here for a while.

***Jenny***

“Well that went well” I thought to myself as I was sprawled out on the ground. “I should really vaccuum this floor more often, because there is cat hair everywhere.”

“Is everything ok over there?” Adam called out.

“What? Oh yes, everything’s fine, it’s just hard getting out of bed on four legs instead of two.”

“I’ll let you get used to walking around. I’m going to try and get back to sleep. Being a bridge is tiring work.”

“Wait, before I do that, can you tell me what time it is?”

“I’d say your alarm went off about 5-10 minutes ago. That aside, I’ll just forward your question to Medic.”

“Shoot. Ok, can you hand me my phone, because I want to call my boss and see if I can call in a sick day, I don’t really want him to see me like this just yet.”

“Why not wait for your mom? She’s better at using her hands than I am right now. But if you can pull me out of this wall, I could magic it over to you.”

I considered my options of either calling my mom and going through a long discussion of how I got like this, or pull Adam out of my wall and make him help me with getting my phone. I decided to go with the latter option and try to jump up back onto my bed. I tried to turn around on my wobbly legs (because I had only about 45 seconds of use on record), but everytime I turned a little, I kept falling back down.

“I guess gravity loves me a little too much right now, since it really wants me on the ground.”

“Don’t worry. Once your legs get tired of being sprawled out and start connecting with your brain’s motor sections, you’ll be able to partially break up with gravity. I think. At least that’s how it went with me.”

After a few more falls, I had successfully positioned myself facing my bed, and now all I needed to do now was to get on my hind legs, and climb up. This was challenging because of me still not being used to four legs, and I fell a lot more. After about 7 tries, I had finally gotten up on my bed, and began to move around Adam over to my phone.

***Adam***

“Why do I feel like I’m being ignored?”

***Jenny***

After multiple failed attempts at getting my phone, I finally decided to try and get Adam out of my wall. It was not that easy because trying to use hooves as hands does not work that well. After having slightly loosened Adam from the wall, I worked up the courage to bite down on his tail and pulled. It would seem I used a bit too much force as he flew for half a second before landing on the carpet. I made my way over to him to see if he was alright.

“How could you have slept through that!?”

About 3 seconds later, Adam stood up and stretched. “With my eyes closed. That aside, I was faking it. Your reaction was priceless. So, now that we are both thoroughly awake, I think you could use some walking lessons.”

“Just let me call my boss first, and then I will.”

“I’m guessing you need my help with that?”

“Yes I do, you are the one with the most magic experience.”

“Alright then. Just tell me the numbers.” Adam used his telekinesis to pull my phone over, and used my horn to open it.

I told him the number and he then proceeded to dial by using my horn before he put the phone near my ear. I waited for a while until I heard my boss’s voice. I then told him that I wasn’t feeling that well and that I believed that I couldn’t go into work that day. He noted that my voice did sound different than normal and let me off.

“Ok, now that that’s over, I guess you can help me along with my walking skills” I told Adam as he hung up the phone (guess what he used). “But let’s try and be a little quiet, because I don’t want to wake up my mom or my sister.”

“The carpet should help keep the noise down.” Adam put his fedora on, then looked around until he saw the Coach hat I wore not too long ago and put that on top of his current hat. “Ready?”

“Lets do this.”

Let’s just say that I fell down a lot. I wasn’t really that good because of me just turning into a pony overnight, and I didn’t have that much room because the upstairs is kind of small in my house.

“Hey Adam, should we go downstairs? Because the living room has a lot more space to walk around in instead of my room.”

“The defense has no objections. I’ll go down first just in case your legs decide to play that one about falling down the stairs.”

“Ok, thanks.”

We proceeded out into the hall and Adam went down the stairs first. I watched him walk down the stairs, and he seemed to have it down. “That doesn’t look too hard, but then again, I have just begun to walk.” I thought to myself as he reached the bottom of the staircase. “Ok Jenny, lets do this.” I put down my forehooves on the edge of the floor above the top step and felt myself shake a bit. I then proceeded to put my left forehoof on the top step, followed by the right forehoof on the next step down. As soon as I tried to put one of my back hooves on a step, it didn’t go too well. I fell down the stairs (isn’t that a surprise?) and landed on Adam.

“Sorry about that, I guess I still have a lot of things to learn, don’t you think?”

“Eeyup. At least I served my purpose and didn’t get impaled.”

***Adam***

It took a bit of time, but once we were downstairs, we made our way to the expansive living room. Jenny got the hang of walking around faster than I did. I don’t know why that was so, but I’m guessing that it had something to do with the fact that I was wearing 2 hats. Once her walking lessons were finished, small jumps were covered next with the couches in the room. It was only after we finished at around 6:00 that bit that we both noticed something: we were hungry. We would have just gone to the kitchen for something, but there was suddenly a series of forceful knocks on the front door. And from what I could see through the glass by the door, there was a group of people there, most of which were wearing black or other dark colors.

“Why do I have a feeling something bad is about to happen?”

Author's Note

No, this is not an illusion. Awakening is back. And it returns with a cliffhanger. I know what's going to happen next, along with a couple friends. Big thanks goes to UnknownNinja1993 for her assistance in this and later chapters.

Also, who here (aside from me) has ever had unflavored ramen?

A Briefly Successful Escape

When you catch a glimpse of a bunch of people wearing dark colors, it means that either you saw some ninjas, which can’t be true because you never see ninjas, or that some nefarious group is after you for some reason or another. It was quickly apparent that these were not ninjas. Fear overrode my pangs of hunger, and my brain began working overtime.

“Hey, Jenny?” My voice had become dead serious.

“Yeah Adam?”

“I think we should hide somewhere.Those people at the door don’t seem too friendly.”

“I totally agree, I believe we can hide downstairs somewhere, maybe even leave the house and hide in the woods because it is still pretty dark.”

“I think that, if we do flee, that we should at least take some stuff with us for communication purposes. I’ll go back and gather my stuff, you fall downstairs and I’ll meet you there.” I didn’t wait for a response and just went to go get my electronics. The phone’s uses were obvious, the laptop would allow for more global communication, and the 3DS was just tossed in for fun. Once that was all gathered up, I ran back downstairs, then into the basement.

“Should we hide in this area or run?”

“I believe we should run because who knows if they are looking for us, but it’s up to you if you want to hide.”

“Running sounds good, even if it won’t get us too far. Whoever’s there is probably smart enough to have someone watching the back. Still, it beats being an easy target. Ready?” I walked over to the back door, latch in my magic grip, but not moving.

“Let’s just hope nothing bad happens.”

“You probably just tempted fate. Either way, let’s go.” I silently opened the door before the two of us made a run for the woods, backpack of important stuff floating nearby as well. Before we were even halfway there, I heard gunshots or something similar behind us as some ground exploded around us. Looking back for a moment, I managed to catch sight of a group of government agents and what looked like a S.W.A.T. team. I now had no reason to doubt that they had someone watching us, and hoped that the woods would provide us with shelter.

After a bit of running, we found ourselves relatively deep in the woods, our dark colors helping us blend in with the shade the canopy provided. Once we were in a place where we couldn’t see the roads or any houses, we silently agreed to stop for a breather.

“What do you think that was?” I was clearly exhausted. Running and telekinetically carrying a backpack of stuff was not easy for me.

“This might sound like a crazy idea, but what if they want to capture and experiment on us like they do when they capture an alien in those alien movies?” While she did sound exhausted, she seemed to be in better condition than me.

“That sounds like a very reasonable idea considering all that’s going on. But why would they use live rounds? The best reason I can think of would be to shoot a leg of ours to make us easy prey.” A quick look-over revealed that no bullet wounds were present on either of us, but there were a few scratches from the occasional stick, nothing too big.

“That is weird that they used live rounds, but I believe it’s better off not knowing why.”

“I’ll agree for now because I can’t think up a good counter argument. I do propose that we go south, though. I believe one of the local lakes is there, and we could probably use the hydration.”

Jenny’s response was just a nod, and we made a silent agreement to walk carefully from there on and keep the chat down to a minimum. I also took a bit of time to figure out how to put my backpack on my back in order to cut down on the glow from my magic.

By my estimates, it took about an hour for us to get to where we could confirm the lake’s presence, and about 15-20 minutes more to figure out the best way to get to the edge where we could get a drink. The plan took a detour though when we spotted a water fountain, which we silently agreed to being a better choice.

We each looked around the area, just in case there was someone watching, waiting to capture or kill us. After a few minutes of each of us looking around and seeing nobody, we made our way over to the fountain. The brief distance we covered was not done with a casual trot or walk, but we dashed like the madmares we were.

Water is my preferred drink at everywhere, but something about being shot at, hiding in and navigating a forest, and looking around for signs of danger made it taste even better. I don’t know what ran through Jenny’s mind (it was most likely electrical pulses), but an audible sigh of satisfaction told me that she too enjoyed the refreshment.

“So, what should we do now?” I had visibly relaxed, but I was still looking around.

“I believe that we should push forward because we don’t know if they are still on our tails.”

In a moment of sheer brilliance, I looked at my tail and saw nothing on it. “Alright, but in which direction should we go?” Most of the area was surrounded by trees, but there was one road in that led to a parking lot. It was strangely empty.

“We should probably stick to the trees, because we don’t know what people will do if they saw us.”

“A good idea.” I looked at the foliage cover again. It all looked the same, so I pointed to a random area. “How about that way?”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s go.”

After another minute or two of resting, we made our way towards the trees I had pointed to. We had barely made it 10 meters in before I felt something pierce my flank, which I’m sure elicited a weird look on my face if Jenny’s reaction was anything to go by before she too took on a similar expression. It wasn’t long before drowsiness overtook me, and it was at that moment that I realized what was in those darts: ~~Jarate~~ a tranquilizer. I stayed awake just long enough after falling over to see black boots approaching us. I heard something about a lab or something like that, but I was too tired to make out what was said. The last thing I remember was being picked up.

~~~Some unknown amount of time later~~~

I felt cramped, like something was pressing against me from all sides. My back felt empty and my flank was sore. But I don’t remember setting my backpack down or crawling plot first into whatever I was in now. I couldn’t hear much, but what I could hear sounded like a vehicle on pavement. A constant sound. Unless there was a pavement treadmill nearby, that meant I was in a moving vehicle. And it sounded like it was going fast. It took a bit more time for my eyes to get to work, but once I had gotten the lids to open, I realized that it was very dark. I did not like that at all.

I suddenly got the brilliant idea to attempt an illumination spell, but all it revealed was that whatever I was in had no slots in it and looked like metal. I couldn’t see outside of whatever I was in, and that included Jenny. A feeling of foreboding managed to find its way into my mind and set up a hotel there, and it turned out to be a very successful one. I decided to close my eyes again, seeing as there was nothing I could do at the moment.

~~~Less time later~~~

You know what they said in Inception about just having to move someone’s head enough to wake them up? Turns out that that was somewhat true. I could feel myself being moved very roughly for a bit, set down somewhere, and moved again, but more smoothly. I neither heard or saw anything; I could only feel what few vibrations came through whatever was holding me and changes in momentum.

After some time, I was lifted ag
in and set down on something else, but I didn’t move anywhere this time.

There was a sound akin to a hissing of steam and my eyes were assaulted by a bright light. Due to my legs still being pinned, squinting was my only option to cut down the brightness. Fortunately, whatever had enclosed me was loosening its grip and more light began to spill in. I managed to move a forelimb in front of my eyes as the constrictions vanished.

Once my eyes had time to sufficiently adjust, I saw that I was in some kind of metal chamber and that Jenny was nearby. After she had adjusted, I ran over and gave her a big hug.

“I don’t know. I’m just glad to see that you’re ok. But I think we got abducted. Foalnapped. Something like that.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do now?”

“Well, judging by the room, I’d say a test chamber of some kind. I’d love to say Aperture, but they don’t use metal panels.”

One of the panels slid up a bit and a four bowls slid in. Two had water in them, and the other two had some kind of food in them.

I looked at the bowls for a bit and started thinking. Some kind of police force, a tranquilizer dart, high speed on the road, somewhat rough transportation afterwards and a fancy metal chamber. I came up with only one conclusion: the government had abducted us and would probably run tests on us or keep us borderline forever unless something happened, which was not likely to happen anytime soon. I suddenly lost any appetite I might have had and broke down in tears. How would we get out of this situation?

Author's Note

So, what kinds of tests will we be put through? Reply in the comments below. Please keep it clean and survivable. I may select some of the tests from the comments.

Once again, Thanks to UnknownNinja1993 for her help.

Escape With Cool New Stuff

After I got over my bout of tears, I decided to at least try some of the food. It looked like hay and a few other things I couldn’t completely identify, but I could tell that there was no meat. Good enough for now. I got a bite of the stuff and let me tell you, it was soaking up my saliva like there was no tomorrow. After forcing it down, I greedily attacked the water.

“Who made this stuff?”

“I don’t know, but probably the people who captured us.”

I thought past the dryness and to the flavor for a moment before I gave my thoughts while pretending to wipe a napkin over my mouth in a posh manner. “My most sincere insults to the chef.”

“I agree, I don’t really trust what they gave us, so I’m not going to eat it.”

“I’ll make a point to do that too.”

After we had made our refusal and distaste of the food apparent, it was taken away. A minute or so after that, a voice came on over the intercom. “I have just been informed that you two are unicorns and are capable of using magic.”

Jenny and I both rolled our eyes at that statement, which we accompanied with a synchronized “duh!”

The voice continued, but with a slight bit of irritation. “I’m interested in seeing just what your ‘magic’ is capable of, so I have arranged for some tests for each of you. Happy testing!”

Before we knew what was going on, the chamber went dark and we were each picked up and taken to separate test chambers.

~~~Minutes Later~~~

To say that I was gently set down in a comfy chair at a table with a wide array of real food in front of me, while it would be greatly appreciated, was an absolute lie. In reality, I was unceremoniously dropped in the dark on a piece of padding barely thick enough to cover up the fact that there was a metal floor under it. A door closed right before the lights came back on.

What I saw when I looked in front of me was a solid steel wall. Not very interesting. After studying it for all of 5 seconds (I found a tic tac toe board etched into it), I turned to look behind me and saw an assortment of parts, all organized into various piles based on function.

A voice came over the intercom. “Hello, Ms. Unicorn.”

“My name is Technia” I corrected. If I knew where the camera was in this chamber and still had my hands, I would have shook a fist at it.

“No matter. I want to see what you do with the materials here. You’ll find tools on the wall. Also note that there is a dispenser for all the small parts you may need.”

“Wait wait wait. So you’re saying that my test is to just build something? And how did you figure that this kind of test would suit me?” I started looking over the parts given and I swear, a visual overlay of architect lines started to appear in front of my eyes. Seems the real Technia was getting an idea. I decided to let her take control of her body.

Just before she had taken control, I heard the answer to my questions. “To answer your first question, yes. As for the second, we went through to files on the laptop you had with you. Found a biography of all things.” So that’s what it was. Soon enough, Technia was in charge of my body and I was just watching through her eyes.

~~~Jenny’s point of view~~~

I looked in shock as Adam got transported to another chamber. I didn’t want to be separated from Adam just yet, I was still confused on how to use magic since I haven’t had the time to practice, and I didn’t want to be left alone in a weird place like this. “Well this is just great.” I thought to myself as I stared down the white corridor ahead of me. “Well, I might as well see where this hallway leads me.”

After a couple of minutes walking, I finally entered a wide room with nothing inside of it. The intercom crackled to life and the voice I heard before Adam and I got separated began to speak again.

“Welcome Miss Unicorn, I see you finally made it into the test chamber I made for you. I hope you like it because I spent a lot of time and money on it. Ever since that monster entered our world and started to turn people into ponies, I have taken an interest in them and wanted to know what they could do. So I’m glad that you and your friend have *volunteered* to do some simple tests for me.”

“More like forced to do these tests against our wills.” I thought.

“Well, without further ado, I hope you succeed, because I don’t want my precious test subjects to fail on me. Good luck.” And with that, the intercom went silent. I looked around the room wondering what was going to happen next. After a few seconds, a small panel in the wall in front of me opened up and out crawled a robot that looked like a spider. “What the…” I said as it crawled towards me. As it approached me, it extended a small metal piece out of what looked like its mouth and when it struck me with it which sent a small jolt through me. “Ow. What the hell?” I said as I stepped back a few steps. It began to come at me again and I continued to step around it. “Maybe I can pick it up and smash it against the wall with my magic in order to make it stop. But the thing is, I still don’t know how to use magic.” I thought to myself. “Well, I guess now’s a good time to try it out.”

With all of my might, I tried to pick up the spider-bot with my magic, but nothing happened. After a couple of more tries, I got a spark out of my horn. Soon a golden light enveloped the robot and began to levitate it a couple of inches off of the ground. “Hey, this isn’t that hard.” I thought as I began to twirl the spider-bot around in the air. “Now, let’s see what happens when I do this.” I said to it as I hurled towards a wall. It crashed into pieces when it hit the wall. “Well that wasn’t that bad” I said to myself, but then more small panels opened up and more spider-bots crawled out. “Oh god dammit. I just hope Adam is doing a better job at this than me.” I said as I positioned myself to face the new enemies.

~~~Technia’s POV~~~

I had managed to get an area set up for building a vehicle of mass coolness, and there were some large parts around the area. I was in desperate need of some small parts though, and so I had gone over to the dispenser. While I was trying to figure out how to get it to work, I got a brilliant idea, although the brilliantness may have been dimmed a bit considering that the idea came from Adam.

I made the best impression of Derpy that I could, stuck my tongue out to one side and started slamming my head against the dispenser while shouting “pootis” repeatedly. Looking through Adam’s head, I knew it had to do with dispensers, although I couldn’t figure out quite how.

I think it worked because after about a minute, I was practically swimming in small pieces. I’ll save the mystery of pootis for a better time.

~~~Back in the other chamber a bit later~~~

After a couple of rounds, the spider robots were replaced with bigger robots that looked like dogs which were meaner and faster than the spider-bots. I was having a hard time dodging them because they worked in a pack and they liked to surround me on all sides.

“If only there was a way to create a weapon with my magic to kill these things. I know, I’ll try and create a weapon out of my magic, that could possibly work.”

I began to think of a weapon in my head, and soon enough, a sword made out of magic appeared before my eyes. “This should do. Alright you stupid dogs, let’s get this over with.”

~~~In the observation room~~~

3 of the 6 observers were on the floor in the fetal position, muttering things about something called “pootis”. The other 3 were calmly recording notes on Jenny and her magic skills. They seemed to be unaware of the status of their colleagues, as they were so focused on their work.

~~~Adam’s test chamber, an hour or two later~~~

I took a good look at the car as it was coming along and compared them to the shower curtain schematics in my head. I was on step potato and all was coming along well.

“Alright. This is looking pretty cool. The engine is done, all the computers are hooked up, and the paint is dry. I think I’ll make something for Amanthera while I’m at it.”

I promptly got to work on designing a couple of blades for her. Seeing as I wanted to get out as soon as possible, I resorted to making them rather simple, but I still decided to include a nice feature.

It took about 15 minutes to craft the blades, and I swore that I would make some better ones later. Somehow. For the moment, I just got into the car, put the blades inside, and started it up. A glorious sound, a combination of magic and technology, came from the engine.

Before going anywhere, I turned on the radar to take a look around some of the building. It turned out that one of the walls in my chamber had a somewhat normal room on the other side, and opposite that was another chamber, this one with lots of activity in it, if the moving dots were any indicator. There wasn’t enough space to ram through, so I got out, picked up the longer blade via telekinesis, and pulled a switch on the bottom. I felt some of my magic get sucked into the blade, which started to glow green.

“Sword beam time”

I swung 4 times before the charge on it ran out, but I had cut out a rectangle easily big enough for the car to go through. Soon, the wall fell towards me; fortunately, I was out of the way.

The room on the other side looked weird for where it was. For starters, I saw a bed that I had accidentally slashed around. Further inspection showed a bunch of servers that I had just barely missed.I walked over to the opposite wall and saw that it had been slightly cut into and was severely weakened.

I suddenly remembered his devices and made a small drone to collect them. Once it was made, I sent it on its mission, which probably wouldn’t last too long.

With this in mind, I went back to the car, “downloaded” a guide on using it into Adam’s mind, and put him back in control just as the drone dropped his backpack (did I mention that I love the design on it? No? Well I do) on my head.

~~~Adam’s point of view~~~

I felt like something was being inserted into my mind, but that shouldn’t be possible. I’m not in the matrix, and if I am, I never left it. Still, it seemed important, so I glanced over it. They appeared to be instructions, a guide of some kind. I didn’t have much time to ponder this as Technia put me back in control and I found myself in the driver’s seat of both my body and the car Technia made.

Soon, Technia “spoke up”. “Go through that wall.”

“Why?”

“Your friend is on the other side.”

I needed no more persuasion as I hit the accelerator and went forward, sacrificing the oddly placed bed before breaking through the wall.

~~~Jenny’s point of view~~~

Using the sword made of magic was becoming a little easier to use after some time. This was probably because Amanthera was a master at sword play, and I did turn into her, so I possibly got some of her talent.

After I defeated all of the robot dogs and a couple of other robot waves, I finally had some time to rest. “Will this person ever run out of these damn robots?” I said to myself panting as I sat on the machine ridden ground, exhausted from all the fighting. “And why does he want me to fight them anyway?”

I heard a small crackle above me, and the intercom came on. “Well my dear, I just want to know how well you can unicorns can fight using your magic abilities. Don’t worry though; we won’t let the robots kill you.” And with that, the intercom went silent. A few minutes later, the walls opened up again, and flying robots came out.

“Great, now they can fly. This will be fun.” I said sarcastically as I got back up. “Hopefully Adam is having a much easier time than me with his tests. Oh well, let’s just kill these things and hope that this test ends soon.”

I was getting frustrated, tired, and having a hard time completing this wave of robots. I was getting exhausted from using a lot of magic, and running around the room nonstop for a couple of hours. I was also getting frustrated at the robots because they liked to stick to the ceiling and swoop down on me when I was least expecting it. They would also evade my blade when I swung it at them. I decided to make a net to hold them down on the ground and grab them in midair to hold them down and destroy them with my sword.

I almost finished all of them off this way when suddenly, a wall to my left broke down and dust covered the room for a few minutes. When the dust finally settled, I saw Adam in a car.

“There you are, I was wondering what you were doing.” I said as I rushed over to him with newly found energy and completely ignoring the rest of the robots in the room. “Where have you been? I was worried about you.”

“Would you believe that they wanted me to build something? They never even said what, just to build.”

“Really? That’s a little weird of them, but oh well. So, are we finally getting out of here in that car of yours?”

“Yes. But first thing’s first.” Adam pulled out some simple swords and pulled something on the bottom, and the blades started to glow green. “Catch!” The swords, still glowing, were tossed towards me.

“Cool, thanks.” I let my magical blade disappear and caught the ones that Adam made for me. “So, shall we get out of here? Because I’m really tired and I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Use those on the flying bots first so that we aren’t pursued. Go with a sword beam or move them up and slash up close.”

“Ok, I’ll try my best.” I wrapped my swords with magical energy, and then slashed the swords in the air at the robots which resulted in most of the chamber to crumble and fall. “I think that was a bit too powerful, but at least the robots were destroyed. Anyway, can we go now?”

“Yep. Hop in.”

~~~Adam’s point of view~~~

Jenny did not hesitate to get in, and I conducted a quick radar scan. I began to wonder who they hired to design and build this place because one of the walls in this chamber had the front parking lot on the other side. Still, I wasn’t about to question this stroke of luck and I did something that would seem stupid: I rammed through the wall.

Once out in the surprisingly spacious parking lot, I noticed that it was night. I brought the car to a stop to look at where we just escaped from while the GPS worked to figure out our location, map out the roads, and locate good places to eat.

The building was brick and looked like almost any other multipurpose building. There was a golden placard in the headlights that identified the building as belonging to an organization called TOME, or Testing Of Magical Equines. The founder must have an ego as big as the parking lot we were in because his full name was written in big letters under TOME: James Richard Kingston. Considering what happened to Jenny and me at TOME’s hands, I’d say his initials fit him quite well.

Author's Note

1: I apologize for the lateness.
2: If it seems that Jenny and I are fusing with our respective ponies at a fast rate, keep this in mind: we know more about our OCs and their pasts than Markus did RD (just for an example). At least that's what I'm sticking with.
3: TOME is not a government organization, even if James is a politician. Secret splinter group and all that.
4: TOME is available for anyone to use, kind of like PAPA.
5: The best way to figure out what TOME would do would be to look at Aperture Science, but not quite as good. They did get me the means to escape after all. If you have any questions regarding TOME, you may catapult a PM in my general direction.

Final Preparation, But More Importantly, a Hat

I slept like a log made of rocks that night. Either the previous day’s excitement wore me out, Technia was a heavy sleeper, or she hadn’t gotten that much sleep before whatever process sent her body over sent her. What I do know is that I woke up around 7:30. Assuming I fell asleep at 10:15, that’s about 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep. That’s more than I usually got even before my change.

Opening a curtain let some sunlight into my room, I took some time to bask in it before slowly making my way down off of the bed and out to the hall. I caught a whiff of some kind of cinnamon roll variety and made my way towards the kitchen. Mom was there, and she had apparently just taken the rolls out of the oven.

“You’re up early, Adam.”

“As I’m aware.”

“When did you go to sleep?”

“10:15 at the latest by my estimate.”

“That’s a fair bit of sleep.”

“I know that.”

“Anything you want aside from a cinnamon roll?”

“A burrito with egg, cheese, and some vegetables.”

“Egg?”

“Yes.”

“Is that safe?”

“It’s been documented as part of the regular diet in Equestria.”

“If you say so. You probably know best on the topic.”

“Yep. Watching the show and being of their species helps quite a bit.” I decided not to mention anything about my mind combining with Technia’s for now, maybe ever, and opted to take my usual spot at the table. “So, I guess dad’s out at work.”

“Yep. Could you remind me of the value of the prize to that guess?”

“Breakfast.” I picked up the center roll with my telekinesis, and 2 things became apparent rather quickly: These cinnamon rolls have the orange flavored icing on them, and they are still really hot. So now I know that telekinesis allows one to feel the physical textures of things, but it tells you nothing about temperature unless you’re either actively looking for it or are just naturally attuned to it, neither of which I was doing.

I held the bite I had between my teeth inside my mouth while keeping my tongue at a safe distance and managed to finish chewing the bite before swallowing. A double wave of relief washed over me both from getting the hot morsel out of my mouth and feeling its warmth in my stomach.

Note to self: Find a pony that can cook and see about getting a new food made. Preferably one that doesn’t burn the mouth through temperature or spice, but still gives that pleasant warmth in the stomach.

It wasn’t long after I recovered that my burrito was placed in front of me. It looked like it had been pressed on a panini grill to keep its folded shape. A quick look at the counter showed that I was probably right.

I decided that, while I let my breakfast cool, I would pick up one last thing for the trip to Jenny’s. It was something very valuable, depending on who you asked. I went to the hall closet to find my fedora, which wasn’t a difficult task. I took it back to my room, where I quickly fished out the Pillow.exe card and tried to fit it in a spot that looked like an ideal place to stick a feather, only to find that I could not. Slightly disheartened, I set the (glorious) hat on my backpack.

I took a bite of the burrito, and found that it was at a very ideal temperature. The eggs seemed to have been mixed with sesame oil (yum yum!) and the vegetables were leftovers from last night. All in all, I was a happy mare at that moment, and I would be for the remainder of the burrito’s diminishing existence and a few minutes afterwards. Oh, and the roll met the same fate, but much more quickly.

After I had a glass of orange juice, I went back to my room and got my hat. I closed the door to use the mirror on it to try and get the hat at a good angle. After numerous trials over a period of 20 minutes, I found that the most comfortable way to wear it was at an angle that covered up one ear while leaving the other exposed. Now, I may not have an eye for or interest in fashion, but I know that the hat at that angle just looks bad from 27 different angles and 5 different perspectives.

The only solution I can think of would be to cut out ear holes. I can see where they would need to go and about how big they would need to be, but I don’t think I can do it myself. I don’t want to even try it.

I picked up some pencils from my backpack and went to the office to use the computer there to see if I could find a place that could make the correct modifications really quickly. As in, “done within 30 minutes” quick.

My search took me through many search term modifications and about 45 minutes, 15 of which I’m sure were spent just typing and figuring out the mouse. I wasn’t sure if it was that I didn’t visit downtown often enough or if it was a new place, but I found a place called Trilbia on a map, and it looked to be next or close to a coffee shop. After getting the location down, I went on an endeavor to locate mom. The search was shortened dramatically when I heard the shower in the bathroom connected to the master bedroom running.

I found her. Now to wait to tell her about Trilbia and maybe get a nice drink as well.

With little else to do, I checked the weather on the internet. Not very warm today, it looked like. I opened the front door just a crack to get a bit of a feel for the air, and found that it wasn’t that bad. I always did have a bit of resistance to the cold, but now that I had fur, I was more resistant. After taking a few breaths of the pleasant air, I went back inside.

With nothing better to do, I checked over everything a couple times to make sure I had everything I planned on bringing with me ready. I realized that I had something else that would be worth bringing, ~~and proceeded to fit all of my legos into the backpack~~ and found my earbuds with a microphone built in. They are very useful with the phone. Oh, that reminds me; I should also put the phone and its cord in there too.

Note to self: get armband or something similar for the phone.

…

Note to self: write these notes to self down!

It was almost 9:30 when the water stopped, and I took that as my cue to get my phone, its cord, and the earbuds into the backpack and go back to the office computer, where I quickly pulled Trilbia’s location back up and proceeded to listen to music on the media player, constantly keeping an ear out for the sound of mom’s footsteps. I was rewarded half an hour later when she was coming through the laundry area, and I took the opportunity to tell her about Trilbia and what I wanted done with my hat. She agreed after seeing its location, but decided to play a few games first. Typical. At least that means there won’t be as much time to be distracted before meeting up at Jenny’s.

During the 45 minute wait for mom to finish her games, I added my 3DS, games for it, and its charging cord, along with an extra notebook (it’s full of ninja drawings that look like blank pages. They’re very good pieces of art) and micro SD adapter to the backpack, which was very full at this point. I also had another cinnamon roll, went to the bathroom, and catapulted a text (there has to be a better way than using a pencil) in Jenny’s general direction to ask her to tell her mom that my mom would be coming over as well. A reply came just minutes after I sent the message, indicating that the information had been successfully transferred.

It was almost 11 when mom and I left the house in her car. I had spent some time trying to figure out a good sitting position (is Lyra a contortionist or something?) before just sitting with my back legs tucked under me, which seemed to be the most comfortable position. The seat belt was a tad awkward, but I managed to get it in a position that wasn’t uncomfortable, but just barely so. I do hope this trip goes well. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

A/N: This chapter was going to be longer, but that would mess up the normal chapter length. That aside, I figured that the trip downtown needed its own chapter. Also, here’s one of those ninja drawings.

A Sincere Apology

I do apologize for the lack of updates to Awakening. The mane 6 of the PonyEarthverse haven't progressed the plot along very much as of late, and the rate I was going would have gotten me to the planned end of the story before just about anyone else. Because of this lack of developments, Awakening will go on hiatus until the next in-universe day is taken care of, which probably won't happen until 2013.

I think everyone is waiting mostly for Applejack. There have been 2 authors who attempted to write her part thus far, and it hasn't gotten very far in either case.

The next chapter is underway, but shall remain under wraps for the time being.

Author's Note

The best idea I have regarding Applejack's appearance would be to have her be an NPC of sorts. I don't think that idea will be taken too well, though. It'll probably float as well as a lead ball in water.

Cancellation

I am very sorry to everyone who has enjoyed this fic, but I have to cancel it. I have no plans on where it should go, I'm too far ahead of everyone else in the PonyEarthVerse by my calculations, and the drive to work on it is just not there. Honestly, it feels like I'm forcing myself to work on it.

Awakening was great while it lasted, and it was a great experience. I am kind of sad to cancel it, but I'm afraid I have to.

Author's Note

If anyone has any ideas for things for me to write, feel free to post them in the comments. I may just use one.

And no, I am not going to add words to this chapter just to break an even 20,000 words.