The Chronicles of a Furball

The Chronicles of a Furball

Chapter 3: The Hangover Part Two

Were on a mission from god. -The Blues Brothers

     "Ego?" I asked quizzically "hey, don't worry, I got PLENTY of that."

     Oh boy, here I was, standing in the middle of a country that I only ever visited in my imagination, with a body unlike my own, completely covered in fur, with my best friend as a pegasus pony, talking to a supposed immortal entity who's offering me a lifetime of fortune and adventure in a fantasy world. Oh, and she's giving me something and says I can use it to channel 'magic' and become super OP.

     What the hell was I smoking? Why didn't I keep smoking it?

     Shiva's palm quickly met her furry forehead in a rather epic facepalm "No," she said sternly "E-C-O, Eco. De greatest source of renewable energy in this world, yours, and mine. It is what made me de woman I am to dis day."

     I waved my hand dismissively "Never heard of it," I took another drag of my cigarette and tapped off more ashes to the ground.

     "Dat be not surprising ta me, Eco don't exist in your world at all," she hopped off of her rock and presented me The MacGuffin of the Precursors "Put it on, should be a perfect fit."

     I accepted the brace and studied it closely. The runic language engraved into its polished bronze surface looked a bit like the Elvish language from Lord of the Rings (LAWL! One bracelet to rule them all!). The wide end easily slipped over my fist and onto my right wrist. The cold metal on my soft fur gave me goosebumps all over my arm.

     This thing didn't feel like a simple peice of jewelry, it felt...sentient. A certain saying came to my mind; And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. I can't accurately say as to why I felt this way, but I felt a presence inside my own mind. As if something was thinking with me. Was this how schizophrenics felt?

     Then something even weirder happened. The brace moved of its own power, morphing from solid to liquid and encasing a whole fifth of my arm in one motion. It writhed and slithered around my body like a liquid snake. I desperately flung my limb about in an attempt to loose the offending object, but something in the deep recesses of my brain advised against it. Forget goosebumps, this sent shivers down my spine and made my skin crawl all over. Definitely not a PIP-Boy I thought.

     Then a tingly sensation, not unlike hitting your funny bone, began in my wrist as the liquid brace settled around it. All of the hair on my body (And there was A LOT of it) stood on end when it finnaly reverted to solid form, looking exactly the same as it did save for being a lot more snug around my arm.

     "Yeesh," I summed up the feeling of being violated by an inanimate object pretty nicely "Next time warn me when you're going to give me something like that!"

     "Well damn," Mel chuckled "I'm not even surprised at that, I don't think anything can surprise me anymore."

     I scanned the brace further, What in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus happened to me? Shiva mentioned all this cool shit loaded onto the thing, but I couldn't figure out how to access any of it. There was no form of interface whatsoever. It just looked like a flashy chunk of metal. Mabye it was voice activated?

     What the hell? It was worth a try. I cleared my throat "Siri...Hey, Siri. Hello?"

     The bracelet briefly pulsed once, turning my vision whitish-blue for an instant "Sir, I do belive that I am not a product of the Apple company in any way, shape, or form," This new voice came directly from the brace, its blue light glowing dimmer and brighter to match the voice's tone. It had a robotic, disembodied British accent. Cool.

     "Cool!" I squeed, completely forgetting about what that bracelet did to me mere moments ago "I have my own AI butler!" This is WAY better than Siri.

     "Well, color me wrong," Mel interjected "I can be suprised."

     I ignored Mel "Who are you?" I asked the bracelet.

     "You may refer to me as Giles," It replied in a monotone voice "Though I must correct you, I am not a 'butler'-" I could totally hear the air quotations in his voice "-I am a Personal Artificial Intelligence Nanocomputer built in to this peice of technology to act as a guide and and an assistant to its owner. Very similar to the Siri you know of but vastly more intelligent."

     "Personal Artificial Intelligence Nanocomputer," Mel echoed "You do realize that his name spells PAIN, right?"

     "An astute observation, Mr. Polanski," Was it me, or was that AI being sarcastic? "You may refer to me by PAIN if my owner wishes it."

     Mel's eyes were even wider than they normally are "How the hell did you know my name?!"

     "I have full access to all of my owner's memory data and personality patterns. I know everthing he does, coupled with the vast banks of informative files stored inside the bracelet itself. But you wouldn't know, would you?" Giles stated condescendingly.

     Mel glared fiercely at my right arm "Smartass."

     "Christmas came early!" I beamed gleefully at Shiva "This is the second best damn gift that I've ever gotten! Thank you kindly, Miss Shiva," I may have been unwillingly hijacked into being her pawn for a big-ass game of chess, but I'll be damned if I forgot my manners!

     Shiva cocked an orange eyebrow "What be de first best gift you ever get?"

     "Getting sent to Equestria with my best friend,duh," I took a drag of my cigarette "Seriously, how do you top that?"

     "I can think of a few things..." Mel grumbled irritability.

     "You better get used to the weirdness, Mel" I chuckled darkly and shook my head "Lest ye go nucking futs."

     Mel sighed and hung his head, suddenly becoming very somber "Yeah, get used to it he says...I'm never going back home, am I?"

     I considered it for a moment, and turned to regard Shiva, who had crawled back onto her rock and was sitting cross-legged "Can he?"

     Shiva broke eye contact looked off into the distance, apparently mulling over our request in her head "I suppose," she said slowly "but not until de game be over. Ya both are bound by a divine contract, which can only be broken my me self. Tell ya what; If one of ya wins me the game, I'll send ya wherever ya want to go, be it Earth or otherwise."

     I looked at Mel "Fair enough for you?"

    "Yeah," he murmured "but how long will your little game take?"

     Shiva scratched her chin thoughtfully "I cannot say for shore. It could take a year, it could take twenty.  That truth be beyond my sight."

     "Alrighty then, one to twenty years in paradise working as pawns for a fuzzy goddess then we go home. Is everyone in agreement then?"

      Mel looked at me and gave a barely perceptible nod.

     "Ja."

    "Great! " I said perkily "So what will you have us do to start, boss? Do you need us to slay any monsters or save any damsel in distress?"

     "No. First thing be first," she said "Before ya can go off and do sumthin' dumb, De Brace of de Precursors need to be tuned to your body. De secondary features may work with no problems,  but ya can't yet channel any eco, not without de proper training."

     "Can't I ask Giles how to do the eco stuff?"

     "No sir," Giles answered dryly "An AI can only go so far as to teach you things. You need an actual expert to show you the techniques of channeling eco."

     "Okay, so I assume your going to teach him then?" Mel asked Shiva.

     Shiva looked embarrassed for a split second, but quickly caught herself "No," (Is it me or does she say no a lot?) "I'm already bending de rules a bit by givin' ya the bracelet,  I can't afford to give you anything else. Even if it be only knowledge. "

     I facepalmed "Of coarse, that would be just toooo convenient. So where can I learn how to channel eco?"

     "Several people actually. All scattered across Equestria," another facepalm from me, so soon after the first "Ya see, dere be six different types of eco, each represents a different kind of energy: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Light, and Dark. Last time we visit Equestria, the Precursors appoint six Sages to be de guardians of eco. Dey are the masters of their craft, and wise too. Dey can teach ya everything ya'll need to know."

     "Ok, go see the Sages. Easy enough," Please, please, oooh pleeeeease be that easy!

     "Ja, we keep tabs of where they all be livin'" Yessss! Score one for Si!

     Mel awkwardly shuffled to sit in an upright position "Where do we start?"

     Shiva motioned toward my new bracelet "I've got a map on de brace dat has all de Sages' current positions uploaded to it, check dat out."

     "Shall I do as she says, Mr. Mercury? " Giles queried.

     "Go ahead..." and as and afterthought I added "Oh, and call me 'Captain', 'Mr. Mercury' or 'Sir' sounds like I'm some kind of illegal arms dealer."

     "As you wish...Captain." I didn't realize that a robot could use a disdainful tone in their voice. I guess you learn something new every day!

     Mel snorted mirthfully "Why did I ever show you The Next Generation?"

    "Because it's awesome," I retorted "Now show me the map, G."

     "Please do not call me G" Giles said as the brace hummed and glowed blue again. A large holographic display of Equestria spewed out from the bracelet and formed itself right in front of us. It reminded me of those Iron Man movies, when Stark did his computer-thing.

     First off, Equestria was friggin' gigantic! According to the map's key, it was about the size of a small continent that was composed of several different countries, each country had their own little biome. The temperate forests and grasslands made up Equestria, with Canterlot at it's very heart. The really rocky mountain area to the north was split into several territories, each occupied by a different species. The Changelings had the Changling Wasteland, the diamond dogs owned a slice of land called Gem Fido, The Griffin Dominion was a more jungle-ey, island-from-Lost kind of place and the Dragon Badlands had, you guessed it, dragons in it.

     This was only the northern half of the place! To the south, there was a little corner of geography dedicated to more mountains and volcanoes called the Volcanic Wastes. Right below Equestria was the Great Southern Rainforest which had many lakes and rivers snaking through it, as well as tons and tons of trees. Finnaly to the east of the rainforest was the Black Marsh, so one could assume it was swampy as all get-out. Surrounding the entire continent were many different clusters of islands that were owned by the zebras, dubbed the Zebraconian Isles.

     According to the map, we were only a day and a half's walk from Ponyville, south of Maneapolis, and northwest of Stalliongrad. Pony puns. Me gusta.

     I got a bit off-track, didn't I? Along with the general map were four large dots scattered across the place, each with the color of one of the previously mentioned ecos. The closest one to us was blue, and it was right on top of Canterlot.  Well I know where we're going first! Just west of a town called Wethoof in the rain forest was the green dot, the yellow dot was directly on top of a volcano in the south, and the red dot was nestled somewhere in the mountains of Gem Fido.

     After staring at the map for a few minutes,  Mel was the first to speak "Wait...one, two, three, fou- Where are the other two? You said there were six Sages."

     "You don't say!" Giles' disembodied voice said, badly feigning surprise and causing me to stifle a laugh.

     "Shutup!" He wittily retorted.

     "Am I going to have ta separate you two?!" Shiva snarled.

     "He started it," both parties said in stero.

     "I'll finish it!" Shiva said just as sharply "Now to answer ya question,  I have no idea where they be hidin'. Both de Sages of light and dark went of da grid a millennia ago, we got no way to find 'em."

     "Oh well, I guess we'll run into them sooner or later," I assured "It's a small world after all."

     "Indeed."

     "So is there anything else we need to know?"

     Shiva cracked a small smile and shook her head "Belive you me, dere is. But nuddin' I can tell ya at the time. The best coarse of action would be to visit the Blue Sage in Canterlot,  he should have more to tell ya dan I can."

     "If that's the case, then we better get started!" I declared cheerily.

     "Yeah, let's," Mel said with much less enthusiasm than I "Now if I could only learn to walk..."

     "It'll come to ya in time," Shiva assured him "I'll keep in touch, don't do anything stupid while I'm away, got it?"

     I gave her a casual two-fingered salute "See you in the funny papers, boss."

     "What the furball said," Mel quietly grumbled.

     With a nod at us both and a motherly smile, the goddess took her leave. She made a show of snapping her fingers and disappeard in a shower of white sparks. Poof Just like that she was gone.

     I smirked and took a final puff of my smoke, the cigarette was burned almost to its brown filter so I casually flicked it off to the side "Welcome to day one of your new life, Mel," I announced "It's going to be a doozy."

     Together,  we silently stared off into the distance.  The vast world of Equestria was spead out before us, just ripe with adventure, ready for the picking. Canterlot clung to the side of mountain, its white-washed walls and golden spires  inviting us to come and see the splendor for ourselves.

     I was ready to do this, to go out and explore the world that I belived was synonymous with paradise.  But I needed to commemorate the beginning of my journey with a few words.

     "Come get some."

     And with that being said, we began our first steps into our new selves. This road I was going to walk, I had not a clue what I was getting into. I would meet many people, fight many foes, and drink much booze. It would change me, it would change Mel, and nothing will be the same. Ever.

     Ladies and gentlemen,  welcome to my story. This is only the begining of The Chronicles of a Furball. Until next time, I bid you all adieu.