The Dividing Lineby DivideChaptersChapter One: For Crying Out Loud...Chapter Two: Epinephrine Has Its Ups and DownsChapter Three: A Few Bolts LooseChapter Four: Questions and Dodgy AnswersChapter One: For Crying Out Loud...The Dividing Line Chapter One: For Crying Out Loud... All of this happened, more or less. I was not having a good day. First off, the weather outside was absolutely dreadful. No matter how much I wished for it to change, Canadian weather seemingly consisted of nothing but rain, wind, and more rain. Today had been no different, with the exception that it was raining buckets rather than simply drizzling like it had been before. The windshield wipers of my old Mercedes were swishing back and forth at full capacity, and yet I could still barely see. Secondly, I had several reports due that were paramount to my career's continued advancement. I glanced over at my full-to-bursting suitcase. I wouldn't be able to drink a single drop of alcohol during the weekend if I was going to get the reports completed on time. Having a solid amount of Irish genes made that a much bigger deal than one would think. Last but not least, I was also behind in writing my somewhat-popular fanfiction series centered around the children's television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I wasn't quite sure how or why I started watching the show, but I found myself hooked by the believable characters and over-the-top antics nonetheless. In fact, I found the fan-made stories about My Little Pony to be even better than the cartoon itself, which got me into writing in the first place. I knew that I shouldn't worry about something as trivial and non-important as writing about multi-hued cartoons, but I found himself devoting more and more attention to my stories. No matter what I did or how much I wrote in an evening, there was always more to do. Always more. Peering through my windshield, I finally spotted my house—a fairly small, two-story abode that was built sometime in the sixties, if the creaky floors, leaky roof, and copy-pasted design were anything to go by. It wasn't a mansion, but it was my home, and I liked living there: it was out of the way, and the rent was cheap. Having a roommate that split the bills made the deal even sweeter. Letting out a relieved sigh, I pulled into my driveway, tires crunching on the gravel and crushing the dandelion that attempted to grow where it shouldn't have. I turned off the engine, grabbed my stuff, and made a mad dash for the overhang, intent on escaping the heavy downpour. After unlocking the heavy wooden aperture, stepping inside, and flicking the light switch on, I shrugged out of my coat and shoes, then tossed my suitcase on the couch. I'd deal with that after grabbing something to eat. Moving like a ghost over the floor, not eliciting a single creak from the hardwood, I opened up the eggshell-coloured fridge. To my immediate dismay, I realized there was nothing that would be even vaguely considered food inside the metal container. A Tupperware container filled with some sort of ghastly fluid covered by cellophane, a head of cabbage that was supporting an entire ecosystem, and a container of light-bleached baking soda that expired twenty years ago were all that remained within the refrigerator. I sighed and closed the refrigerator door a tad harder than I should have. My roommate was almost certainly on the way; hopefully he picked up something for dinner. I would've loved to be able to make a phone call and know for certain, but with the new laws instituted by the government, it was illegal to use a cell phone while driving. I thought that anyone who couldn't multitask well enough to drive and talk at the same time shouldn't be driving at all, but that was out of my power to change. Rubbing a hand over the stubble on my chin, I decided that I'd try and work on one of my many stories while I waited. It was a darn shame that the universe had other plans. A flash of blinding, purple light that would put a pyrotechnics display to shame erupted into existence directly in front of me. I winced and averted my eyes, nearly tripping in the process. I staggered back in a paltry attempt to get away from the searing, blinding light, but to no avail: it followed me with a disturbing, single-minded sentience, and despite covering my eyes with an arm, it wormed through the tiny interwoven threads of my dress shirt and pierced my vision regardless. The light drove a sharp spike of pain into me, yet before I could do so much as grunt, the world exploded into vibrant magentas, lavenders, and indigoes in what could only be described as a cacophony of colour. The world was colour; colour was the world. I saw the threads of my very plane of existence; ley lines that criss-crossed and intertwined my world with others. If the universe was a spider's web, and planet Earth a single strand, then I was but a fly caught in the intricacies, helpless to do anything but stare into the vastness. I felt an aloof numbness begin spreading throughout my body, starting at my head and working its way down. With the lack of feeling came a lack of caring. Even though what I was witnessing was possibly the most incredible and life-changing event of my entire life, I couldn't care less. There other worlds out there, in the vast unknown, many of which were connected to mine, but so what? I couldn't feel anything anymore, but so what? The world was turning white, blue, orange, yellow, pink, and a familiar shade of purple, but so what? It also seemed to be moving, but so what? Wait... When did the world start moving? I thought for a moment. I realized that I did, in fact, care that my world was spinning. Never one to think of myself as the type who was prone to vertigo, I tried to remember why I cared that the world was turning brown, with little black cracks. And what was that? A sense of being... watched? Those noises in the background were growing louder; a high-pitched sound, followed by a thump, and then... Silence. As the placid laconism filled my ears, the world became more than simply brown, with little black cracks. Colours and textures swirled to life, coalescing into bookshelves, furniture, and my own outstretched arm. I tried to make a fist, but my hand only twitched in response. I blinked and realized that the brown was coming from the wooden floorboards beneath me; the tiny grains swirled and ran along the piece of wood vertically, as if trying to outrace each other. I tried to move, but to my dismay, I found that my muscles were locked and tense in what should have been pain. Strangely, I felt no discomfort from it, even though I knew that my muscles should be burning from the strain of being taught for... however long I'd been laying there. Where was I, anyway? I wasn't in my house anymore; that was certain. I felt that I should know where I was, as it was vaguely familiar yet completely alien at the same time. "What... what is it?" The simple question spoken aloud shattered the silence like a sledgehammer taken to a pane of glass. I knew that I should know the voice, but once again, I couldn't put it to a face or name. Everything felt strangely distant and remote, even excluding the fact that I didn't know where I was, how I managed to get to wherever I was, nor why I was even there. I was certain that I hadn't taken any inebriating substances recently. In fact, I was positive that I hadn't, as I still had those reports to finish. What the heck happened, then? Was I hallucinating? As if to answer my latter question, something drove itself into my ribs, driving what little air was remaining in my lungs. I sputtered and coughed in response. Well, that possibility was thrown out of the proverbial window. I waited for the shock of pain to hit me like a freight train, but it didn't come. I was grateful for the numbness. Sure, it limited my motor control, but I'd much rather not feel whatever pain my body was surely coping with. As my breathing became steady once more, I began hearing voices again. Many of them, speaking in turn. For the most part. The strangest aspect about the voices—by far— was that each sounded the same. Similar, at any rate, just like people's voices when they were sped up. "Why'd you kick it?!" "What was I supposed to do? Check its pulse? That thing probably doesn't even have a heartbeat..." "But what if it's—" "Shh!" The voices stopped abruptly. The only thing I could hear was my own, shallow breathing. I thought I heard a cricket chirping softly in the background, but that was probably just in my head. A few quick, heavy clonks that sounded like wood on wood thundered in my frazzled eardrums. I felt more so than saw something standing above me. I didn't know what it was, what it wanted, or if I was going to live to see it. I could feel its penetrating stare, though it didn't seem overly aggressive. In fact, it seemed to observe me with detachment. I didn't move. I barely breathed, and blinked only when it was absolutely necessary that I do so. I remained this way for a seemingly infinite stretch of time: each segment felt drastically longer than it should've. I took no chances, and gave no reason for whatever... things were nearby to otherwise harm me. Silence and patience were my only weapons now. After an eternity and a half, the thing standing above me spoke, as if to itself. "What are you?" My ears were still ringing, but the voices began to change. A different voice, one that drawled, asked a question of its own. "Ah reckon that a better question to ask would be, 'Why is it here?'" I was curious about that, too. On second thought, a question that I'd much rather have answered would be how they were speaking my language. The thing standing above me moved a few steps away and said, "I don't know why this... thing is here. Starswirl's spell wasn't a summoning—I'd know if it was." "Maybe the spell backfired?" "Maybe." The pause that followed felt like the silence of a court when the judge's decision was made. "What are we going to do with it? Can we send it back to where it came from?" Not meaning to interrupt their conversation, but unable to stifle it, I coughed, and summarily felt many pairs of eyes on me following my outburst. I gulped, licked my lips, and made a decision. I sat up. Head swimming and throbbing, I looked around by only moving my eyes. There were four-legged things around him, but beyond that I couldn't see. Everything seemed to be covered in a thick layer of fog. "Where am I?" I managed to croak. The things gasped and stepped back. One of them fell over. "It can talk!" A small part of me almost replied with 'No crap,' but it was hushed before it could potentially get me killed. I swallowed again. "Where am I?" My voice was rougher than sandpaper. None of the things answered me. They were still there, I knew: I could hear their breathing. Perhaps they were as shocked that I could talk as I was of them. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, squeezing them shut to hopefully get them working properly again. When I re-opened them, the light made me wince, but I could see clearly. I was in a small, circular room that seemed to be made almost exclusively out of wood. Bookshelves lined the walls, but whatever the books inside held was a mystery, as the spines were inlaid with cryptic symbols. I was sitting on a darkened patch of the hardwood floor, and to my back was what felt like a round coffee table. I blinked, not believing what else I saw. Standing in front of me—not five feet away—were six extremely familiar ponies, all of which wearing their respective ornamental amulets, and in one case, tiara, that represented their trait of friendship. "You're in—" began the purple pony before I interrupted her. "Equestria. God dammit, I'm in Equestria!" Chapter Two: Epinephrine Has Its Ups and DownsThe Dividing Line Chapter Two: Epinephrine Has Its Ups and Downs I opened my eyes. And then I blinked in surprise. I wasn't in Twilight's library anymore—that much was apparent. Instead of wood, books, and the ponies I spent nearly a year writing about, I saw white washed walls, along with a white ceiling. Sterile white. I nearly had a heart attack: there were too many parallels that I'd rather not draw upon. Thankfully, after noticing a lazily oscillating ceiling fan, I realized that I wasn't where I thought I was. What happened? The last thing I remembered was spouting something about 'Equestria,' and then... nothing. I tried to get a bearing on what had happened. Did I black out? Certainly a possibility. A combination of having my body shifted to a different dimensional plane and the blood vessel bursting understanding of which plane I was in would be more than enough to shut my brain down temporarily—or something like that. My line of thinking brought me to my next question. Did I hallucinate the entire thing? In an attempt to answer my question, whether it was for better or worse, I tried to sit up. Something as simple as sitting upright should've been, in theory, just that: simple. The only problem was that the pain my body seemed to have experienced over the course of whatever cataclysmic event—that may or may not have brought me to Equestria—managed to hit me, all at once. It felt like I went ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and then followed that up with running a marathon. My vision swirled dangerously, and I nearly passed out, but I held on to consciousness. Sick with the realization that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, I consigned myself to observing what I could via only moving my head. First off, I was lying in a too-small bed; my legs were dangling over the edge, and I felt that if I tried to roll over, I'd fall flat on the floor. The bed sheets were stock white, and I could feel that I was completely naked underneath—I wasn't even wearing boxers. There was a window directly across from me, with light blue curtains open and letting in golden rays of sun. A potted plant was sitting on a small table next to some uncomfortable-looking chairs. I squinted and noticed that there were magazines spread out on the small table as well, presumably in case of visitors, just like in any generic medical centre. In fact, everything pointed to me being in an infirmary. I tentatively sniffed the air. It smelt like grief, hope, and antiseptic—hospital smells. While in the process of determining whether or not it was of the Earth variety, my answer walked through the door. Nurse Redheart—for it had to be her; the hat and colouring was a dead giveaway—strolled up towards my bedside, a strange swagger in her step. Despite my best attempts at trying to remain calm, I swallowed nervously when I saw a strange look in her eyes. "I see you're finally awake," Redheart mentioned as she checked my arm. I felt the underside of her hoof against my skin. It felt strangely static and soft, like a fleece sweater after it was taken out of the dryer. "Now we can finally have some fun." It was at that exact moment that I knew something was definitely wrong. I licked my lips to moisten my lips, and attempted to speak. "F—Fun?" Nurse Redheart licked her lips right back at me. She looked hungry, but not for food. "Oh yes," she whispered in my ear. I could feel her breath on the nape of my neck. "Fun." Eyes wide and wearing a very disturbed face, I opened my mouth to say something, but a hoof gently clamped over my mouth before I could get a word out. "Shh," she shushed. I felt something prick the underside of my arm. "You don't need to say anything. Not. A. Thing. Nurse Redheart's just going to give you a little boost—" I cringed at 'boost.' "—and then we'll be good to go." Almost immediately, I felt my heartbeat start to increase from a tranquil ba-dump, ba-dump to what sounded like a beat I'd hear at a rave. As soon as Redheart's hoof was removed from my mouth, I stammered, "W—What did you just inject me with?" She smiled lustfully and nibbled my earlobe. "Oh, just a little shot of epinephrine. Something to get the blood pumping." "I don't—I can't—" "You don't need to do anything. I'll take care of you the way a mare should take care of her stallion." Before my brain could process exactly what the hell was happening, Nurse Redheart trotted over to the blinds and shut them. "A little privacy never hurt," she said with a wink. She then pulled the sheets off of me and jumped onto the bed, making the already small amount of room I had into virtually no room at all. I could feel Redheart's fur rubbing against my bare skin. It felt surprisingly soft, albeit slightly damp from what I assumed was sweat. What I hoped was sweat. "P-Please get off," I pleaded. I tried to shove her off, but my limbs weren't responding properly, my heart rate was going through the roof, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. I felt like I could bench press a mountain, yet I couldn't even get Nurse Redheart to stop straddling me. Something twinkled in her eye, and she pulled herself directly over top of my chest. "Oh, I'll make sure that we both get more than just off," she teased. The horror of how misconstrued my words were made me want to curl up in a hole. I tried to say something that would dig me out of the grave I dug for myself, but my words shrivelled and died when I felt Nurse Redheart's hoof go somewhere it really shouldn't have. "Ooh," she cooed after groping a feel. "Looks like the blood is pumping." "Please wake up," I mumbled to myself. "Please let this be a nightmare and let me wake up—" I didn't wake up, but the next best thing that could've happened, did. Twilight Sparkle, now officially the best pony for coming to my rescue, was standing in the doorway, hoof raised in the process of knocking. Her face mirrored my own. "The door was open, so I didn't knock," Twilight began, her tone unsure, as if she didn't know whether what she was witnessing was real or just a figment of her imagination. "Nurse Redheart, are you—?" "T—Twilight Sparkle!" stammered the nurse, who was centimetres away from me in every conceivable way. "It's not what it looks like—" I was not letting Nurse Redheart get away with this. "It's exactly what it looks like!" I exclaimed, panic rising in my voice. "Get me out of here!" Knowing that she was caught red-handed, Redheart still tried to talk her way out of it. "I—I was just... administering a... sedative... so that—" "For Celestia's sake, you're straddling him!" Twilight retorted. She took a couple of steps closer, to which Nurse Redheart responded by extricating herself from my person and mirroring the steps in reverse. I quickly grabbed a pillow to cover my most important area. "Nurse Redheart, what's gotten in to you?! I can't believe you'd take advantage of a patient like that!" While Twilight reamed out Nurse Redheart, I glanced at the window. In her haste, Redheart didn't close the blinds all the way: there was a small gap that could still be seen through. I saw a golden eye on the other side of the window. It slowly widened when it noticed me. A feeling of dread hit me like a lead pipe. "Twilight?" I asked. She stopped mid rant to look at me. "Uh... yes?" "I hate to break your tangent, but there's a pony on the other side of that window eyeing me like Nurse Redheart did. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me not get raped." Twilight glanced at the window. She made a quick decision. "I don't know what you are, or why you're here, but I can't in good conscience leave you here to a fate like that." She shuddered, then made eye contact with me, suddenly serious. "I want answers, though. Answers like—" "You'll get them, just get me out of here!" Twilight nodded. "Alright then. Follow me, and keep close. We'll take the back exit out." Stopping only to wrap the bed sheet around myself like a shawl, I followed a galloping Twilight Sparkle through Ponyville Medical Centre. Chapter Three: A Few Bolts LooseThe Dividing Line Chapter Three: A Few Bolts Loose As I ran in Twilight's hoofsteps down the hospital hallway, butt-naked with the exception of a thin bed sheet wrapped around my hips like a towel, I figured I'd lost it. I've listened to mentally unstable people spouting gibberish on the street, and the things they'd say made more sense than what I was currently experiencing. I glanced behind me. Nurse Redheart was about twenty steps behind with a syringe held between her teeth, and she was leading the charge of the roughly ten ponies that were converging towards me like hipsters to a thrift store. Yep. I've probably lost it. Although, even if this was some sort of extremely elaborate delusion on my part, the least I could do was figure out exactly how everything was going to play out. My sanity was null and void; what did I have to lose? I put on an extra burst of speed, going as fast as I possibly could without crashing into a wall. I caught up to and even passed Twilight in no time at all: it felt like I was going for a light jog rather than running for my life from a bunch of sex-crazed ponies. I guess that was the epinephrine finally doing something useful. After sprinting by a number of sick rooms, the back exit—two doors with push bars—came into sight. Going at what felt like a hundred kilometres an hour, I didn't have time to stop and operate the exit like a normal person. Instead, I barrelled into one of the doors at full speed, smashing the mostly wooden aperture open and nearly off its hinges. My shoulder took most of the impact, but I didn't feel a thing. When Twilight ran through the exit right after me, I slammed the door shut. "Here!" she called. I twisted my neck and saw a two-by-four plank hovering within reach. I grabbed it and jammed it between the two handles. A split second later, the doors bowed and the plank cracked loudly when something crashed into it. Thankfully, it held. "They're like zombies," I muttered, backpedalling. "But instead of brains, they want..." I didn't finish my sentence. With a shudder, I turned to Twilight. "Please tell me there's a second step to your plan!" "G-Give me a minute," she panted. Her chest was heaving. Another crash at the back exit, this time causing the plank to splinter, told me that we didn't have a minute. "No time!" I exclaimed. "Where's the nearest place we can hide?" I could see Twilight's mind racing: her eyes scanned across the breadth of her vision like she was reading an invisible map. "Sugarcube Corner!" she blurted suddenly. "Pinkie Pie can hide you!" Of all the ponies that I'd have to rely on, why did it have to be Pinkie Pie? While I'm not normally one who neglects help when it's paramount to my survival, I still almost put a bull's-eye on my crotch and gave up then and there. Thankfully, saner thoughts prevailed. "Alright, fine," I replied a bit more testily than I intended, but I was anxious to get a move on. "Let's go!" Twilight shook her head. "It's five doors down, and looks like it's covered in candy," she explained, still wheezing like we'd ran cross-country rather than a short sprint through a small hospital. And I thought that I was out of shape. "Go on without me. I'll try to—delay them." I wasn't having any of it. "Absolutely not! I'm not having any of your 'go on without me' crap." Twilight's mouth parted in surprise, but I interrupted her before she could say anything. "I know that you think you can't go on, but you can. It's mind over matter, something that you of all ponies should be particularly adept at. Now take a deep breath, and let's go!" Somehow, my hastily put-together motivational speech worked. "You—You're right. I can do this." A determined look replaced the worn-out one, and Twilight nodded resolutely. "Follow me, and stay close!" Even though she was huffing and puffing more than a train engine, Twilight Sparkle and I still managed to elude our—my, rather—pursuers by hopping fences, hiding in bushes, and in one case, climbing a tree. Thankfully, ponies don't seem to look up when searching for a pasty human to pounce on. With the epinephrine causing every second to feel like a minute, and every minute an hour, etcetera, it felt like a bloody year had passed before we were able to sneak our way into Sugarcube Corner via a side door that led into the kitchen. After pressing my ear against the door, I heard the herd of ponies continue on past, their thunderous steps fading with distance. Wiping my forehead in relief, I sank to the floor with my back against the wall. Twilight collapsed into a heap beside me. "I think we finally lost them," I said, relieved. "Y—Yeah. I think... we did... too..." I looked around. Surprisingly, there was no pink to be had: Sugarcube Corner's kitchen lacked the ostentatious decorations of the outside and dining area. Instead, the walls, ceiling, and cupboards were a basic beige, with occasional bursts of metallic shine coming from the various bakery contraptions. I only recognized an oven, a deep fryer, and a refrigerator out of the dozen or so cooking instruments. Since the fridge was closest, I figured that the door we came in was used mainly for receiving shipments. I glanced over at Twilight. She was curled up in a close approximation of the foetal position with her forelegs folded over like an oversized praying mantis. Her tongue was lolling to the side, and she was covered in beads of sweat. I could hear her heartbeat over mine. "Something tells me you don't get out enough, Twilight," I commented with tongue in cheek. Despite the situation, I very nearly chuckled. "Eugh," she grumbled back. "Pinkie! Are you there?!" "No, I'm not there! I'm here!" was the immediate response to my left. I bashed the back of my head against the wall and nearly fell over out of surprise. Without a sound, Pinkie Pie had somehow managed to appear in the kitchen, not a metre away. "What're you doing back here, Twilight and... other? There's a perfectly good front entrance!" Twilight struggled to a sitting position. "We couldn't use the front entrance because... well..." Twilight rotated her hoof, trying to think of how to explain. She turned to me. "Can you—?" "Yeah, I might as well," I sighed. "Pinkie, you don't have any customers to attend to, do you? This might take a while..." Pinkie Pie shook her head. "It's been strangely quiet today, almost like there's something happening that's attracting everypony's attention," she mused. Pinkie's eyes lit up and she bounced nearly a metre into the air. "Oh! Does it have anything to do with the large group of ponies that are looking for something? Because I love scavenger hunts, and—" I held up a hand, silencing Pinkie before she could talk my ears off. She was almost exactly how I imagined her. "If you calm down and let me explain, everything should hopefully be made clear," I said. "Hopefully." Pinkie Pie responded by lying down with her front hooves underneath her chin. Her eyes were wide with interest. After clearing my throat, I began. "It seems that pretty much every pony, save for you and Twilight, want to... err... jump on me—" "Jump on you?" interrupted Pinkie. "Like leapfrog?" I snorted. "Ponies wanting to play leapfrog with me is the least of my worries. No, they want... something else of mine—" "Like what?" I leaned towards Twilight and whispered, "Help me out here!" "How?" she whispered back. "I don't know how to explain this any better than you can!" "What are you two whispering about?" Pinkie Pie asked in a hushed tone as well, yet somehow I was able to hear her as if she was right beside me. "Nothing," I muttered. It seemed that the only way I would be able to get the severity of the situation across to Pinkie would be to start from the beginning. "Pinkie, do you know what happens when one pony likes another pony?" "Like, like-like?" I inwardly groaned at that sentence. "Yeah. Like-like." Pinkie Pie nodded, stone-faced. "Well." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "It seems that almost every pony like-likes me a bit too much. So much, in fact, that when I woke up in the hospital, Nurse Redheart tried to... show how much she like-liked me." I coughed. "Luckily, Twilight came to my rescue before Redheart could do anything drastic, but unluckily, every other pony caught wind. We managed to elude them, and now here we are, laying low until we figure out our next plan of action. The large group of ponies you saw is the one trying to track me down." Pinkie Pie was thinking harder than The Thinker, her face the epitome of concentration. "I understand now," she said. "It all makes sense." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "It does?" "Not really," Pinkie replied. She bounced to her feet. "I just have one question, Mister-not-a-pony." I shrugged. "Shoot." "What's your name? I don't want to keep calling you Mister-not-a-pony!" I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether I should tell them my real name or not. My real name was from the bible, and frankly, I didn't want to bring any religious influence to Equestria, no matter how small. There was also the small problem of my name not making any sense to the ponies; their naming scheme was far different than humans. In the end, I decided to go with my pseudonym, as it made the most sense, given the context. "You can call me Divide." Chapter Four: Questions and Dodgy AnswersThe Dividing Line Chapter Four: Questions and Dodgy Answers "Nice to meet you, Divide!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she wrenched my shoulder out of its socket with a vicious handshake. "I'll be sure to throw you a party as soon as I can!" I removed my hand from Pinkie's death grip and rolled my shoulder. I grimaced. "Yeah, sure. Sounds great, Pinkie." I rubbed my neck. "Not to be rude or anything, but don't you have any customers to attend to—?" As if my words brought them into existence, I heard the jangle of bells and the sound of hooves hitting the floor. A patron. "We've got customers!" Pinkie shouted, doing her best impression of SpongeBob SquarePants. She disappeared in a flash of light befitting a star going supernova. My face must've been twisted in a strange expression, for Twilight spoke up about it. "Sorry about that, uh, Divide," said Twilight, who was treating my name like overly strong mouthwash. "Pinkie Pie can be a little... eclectic." "So I gathered." A few seconds of silence passed between us while mumbled words of a customer-employee transaction were barely overheard through the wall. "Look," Twilight began, turning her entire body to face me, "I know this probably isn't the best time to bring this up, but you promised that you'd answer some questions when we found a safe place to hide." "That's paraphrasing," I grumbled, "and I hardly consider this place safe when there's only a single wall between me and a possibly sex-crazed pony... but whatever. I got nothing better to do at the moment." Twilight took a deep breath to say something, but I raised a finger and said, "Ah-ah, hold your horses, missy. Me first, then you. That's the way these things always work." She glared daggers at me. "One question. That's it." Her tone brooked no argument. I nodded. "Fair enough. One question: How did you know that Pinkie wouldn't be affected by... whatever it is that's affecting every other pony?" To my surprise, Twilight coughed nervously and looked away. She mumbled something that I didn't quite catch. "What was that?" "I said I didn't," was the quick response. "I didn't know that Pinkie wouldn't be affected." I sat there with a dumbfounded look on my face for an indiscriminate amount of time. Surely she didn't—no, there's no way she would've guessed. No matter how much I wanted to pretend, however, Twilight said it herself. Poker-faced and surprisingly calm, I went outright with it. "So... you guessed." Twilight gulped and nodded. I sighed, made an exhausted noise that wasn't any specific combination of letters, then snorted in disbelief. "Remind me not to bet against you in a coin flip. You could knock over Caesar's Palace at the roulette table in a matter of hours with your luck." I laughed at the mental image. Though I knew she had no idea what I was talking about, Twilight still laughed along with me, albeit nervously. "To be completely honest," she began after the chuckles ceased, "I didn't just guess: I made an educated guess." I raised an eyebrow and placed my fingers together, Mr. Burns-style. "Do elaborate." Twilight cleared her throat. "First of all, I wondered why I wasn't falling head-over-hooves for you like everypony else, and by logical progression, what made me different. After thinking about it, I realized that the only difference was that I was an Element of Harmony, and that that must've had something to do with it." I scratched my chin in thought. Twilight took that as me not knowing what an Element of Harmony was. She explained—in great detail, might I add—what exactly the Elements were and how they came to be in possession of her and her friends. I remained silent the entire time, only nodding and asking basic questions when appropriate. I didn't think revealing that I had intimate knowledge of Twilight's life since she came to Ponyville was conducive to my well-being. After Twilight wrapped her story up, she asked, "So does that satisfy your question? Can I ask mine now?" She was literally shaking in anticipation. "Yes and no. Before you begin, I have to put out a disclaimer: I'm probably not as interesting as you think I am." I leaned back against the door and motioned towards her. "With that out of the way, go ahead. Ask away. Just don't expect to be all that entertained." Twilight rolled her eyes. "Yes, a mysterious visitor that speaks my language and somehow has the sexual attraction of almost every mare in Ponyville is definitely not very interesting. Not in the slightest. Not even a little." The amount of sarcasm gushing forth would put Niagara Falls to shame. I glared at her. She smiled back cheekily. "Alright, first question: What are you, race-wise? I haven't seen any species like you before." "I'm a human—as in, you're a pony, I'm a human," I explained. "I'm sapient, bipedal, and omnivorous—but you probably knew those already. Well," I added, "with the possible exception of the last part." "Actually, I hypothesized as much," Twilight said with smile. "Your teeth are a teensy bit too pointy to be a herbivore." I frowned and subconsciously ran my tongue over my canines. "Humph. I was half-expecting a shriek of terror and a kick to the face," I muttered. "So you're not bothered by that at all? The fact that I eat meat, I mean." "No, of course not! Just because you eat meat doesn't make you a bloodthirsty monster!" Twilight paused for a second. "Uh, you don't need to eat meat, do you? I ask because we don't really have any, erm, available—" "I'm quite capable of functioning without it. My parents are vegetarians, as a matter of fact. Thanks for asking, though." "—Alright, good to know. Let's see here." Twilight consulted her clipboard. Where she obtained the clipboard from was a mystery to me. "Ah, yes: Why are you here? In Equestria?" I shrugged and put my palms skyward before letting them fall back down to the floor. "Why? I have no friggin' idea. I didn't try to come here," I explained. "I was in my home, minding my own business, and then poof—everything goes to Hell and I wind up on your floor." I glanced at my arm, noticing the tiny hole where Nurse Redheart injected me for the first time. A small amount of blood welled up whenever I bent the crook of my arm. I smirked wryly. "I'm sure you know what happened next better than I do." The fact that I saw the very fabric and inner machinations of the universe was purposefully forgotten for the moment. That particular can of worms seemed like something to open at a later time. "Hmm. I suppose it was too much to ask for your appearance to be straightforward." Twilight clicked her tongue and looked at the clipboard for a few seconds. "The last thing you said before passing out was, 'Equestria. God dammit, I'm in Equestria!' How did you know where you were?" I inwardly smacked myself. Somehow, I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass. If a pony appeared on my floor and said, Gee, how'd I end up in Canada, I'd be pretty damn shocked, too. Twilight was handling this far better than I would. Outwardly, I remained stone-faced. I'd like to say that I took the moral high-road and told the truth—but I didn't. Call me a bastard for withholding information, but I'd rather not discuss how there's an entire community of teenage and fully grown men and women obsessed with everything pony-related. Yeah. That might be a tad hard to explain. "I've, uh—" I coughed, "—been here before." A noise akin to choking came from the back of Twilight's throat. "You've... been here before?" she asked, not sounding like she truly believed it. "Well, metaphorically speaking—" I began to say, only to zip my mouth shut when I heard Pinkie Pie's voice clearly through the wall. Confused, Twilight asked, "What—?" "Shh!" I put a finger on my lips and pointed with my thumb towards the wall. I placed my ear against it, and Twilight followed suit. "Hey, no, wait!" Pinkie exclaimed. "You can't go back there! That's for employees only!" "B-But there's something back there! I—I can feel it and I just... want it all... to myself..." "There's plenty of baked goods available for everypony!" "No, that's not what I want. I want something... else..." I wrenched my ear from the wall like it was made of hydrofluoric acid. Pinkie could only keep the pony occupied for so long. If they could sense me over the overwhelming smell of all the pastries and in a separate room, then where could I hide? "Time to go?" I whispered towards Twilight. By the look on her face, Twilight was thinking the exact same thing that I was. "Yeah, I'd say so." She stood up and moved to exit via the same door that we entered. "Twilight," I said, realizing something that I probably should've a lot earlier. "Can't you just use magic to get us somewhere safe and out of the way?" I asked, purposefully avoiding the word 'teleport.' I was going to give myself a brain haemorrhage for not thinking of that earlier if there wasn't some sort of catch. "The last time I used magic on you, Divide, the results weren't pretty," she explained, saving my forehead from blunt force trauma. "You ended up regurgitating whatever you ate for lunch onto my floor and your body was wracked with pain spasms. And then you stopped moving." Twilight was visibly disturbed retelling the story. "I nearly had a heart attack when I thought I... killed you. Thankfully, you were still breathing." "Oh. Uh, sorry about that..." Twilight waved my apology aside. "It's not your fault." She shook her head. "Anyways, I would've offered to teleport us back to my home back in the hospital, but..." "I understand. And while I appreciate the sentiment towards my well-being, I'm not going have any well-being left to be sentimental about if they get a hold of me." My stomach gurgled unhappily, voicing its complaint. "And while I hate making a mess in other people's homes, I don't think I have anything left in here—" I pointed at my gut, "—to throw up." "If you think it's necessary, Divide, I won't say no," Twilight sighed. I saw the tell-tale aura of magic surround her horn. She winced in sympathy pre-emptively. "This is probably going to hurt," she warned. A flash of light strikingly similar to a camera flash blinded and disoriented me. My internal compass was going haywire, almost as if I fell into a whirlpool with a blindfold on. My entire body felt twisted and disproportioned, like I was a piece of extremely stretchy taffy, or maybe pizza dough. After an undetermined amount of time spent feeling miserable and spread out, everything snapped back into place and I fell unceremoniously onto the same floor that I had first woken up on. I felt fine for the first few seconds. And then the pain kicked in. Twilight was right. It hurt. A lot.
Chapter One: For Crying Out Loud...The Dividing Line Chapter One: For Crying Out Loud... All of this happened, more or less. I was not having a good day. First off, the weather outside was absolutely dreadful. No matter how much I wished for it to change, Canadian weather seemingly consisted of nothing but rain, wind, and more rain. Today had been no different, with the exception that it was raining buckets rather than simply drizzling like it had been before. The windshield wipers of my old Mercedes were swishing back and forth at full capacity, and yet I could still barely see. Secondly, I had several reports due that were paramount to my career's continued advancement. I glanced over at my full-to-bursting suitcase. I wouldn't be able to drink a single drop of alcohol during the weekend if I was going to get the reports completed on time. Having a solid amount of Irish genes made that a much bigger deal than one would think. Last but not least, I was also behind in writing my somewhat-popular fanfiction series centered around the children's television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I wasn't quite sure how or why I started watching the show, but I found myself hooked by the believable characters and over-the-top antics nonetheless. In fact, I found the fan-made stories about My Little Pony to be even better than the cartoon itself, which got me into writing in the first place. I knew that I shouldn't worry about something as trivial and non-important as writing about multi-hued cartoons, but I found himself devoting more and more attention to my stories. No matter what I did or how much I wrote in an evening, there was always more to do. Always more. Peering through my windshield, I finally spotted my house—a fairly small, two-story abode that was built sometime in the sixties, if the creaky floors, leaky roof, and copy-pasted design were anything to go by. It wasn't a mansion, but it was my home, and I liked living there: it was out of the way, and the rent was cheap. Having a roommate that split the bills made the deal even sweeter. Letting out a relieved sigh, I pulled into my driveway, tires crunching on the gravel and crushing the dandelion that attempted to grow where it shouldn't have. I turned off the engine, grabbed my stuff, and made a mad dash for the overhang, intent on escaping the heavy downpour. After unlocking the heavy wooden aperture, stepping inside, and flicking the light switch on, I shrugged out of my coat and shoes, then tossed my suitcase on the couch. I'd deal with that after grabbing something to eat. Moving like a ghost over the floor, not eliciting a single creak from the hardwood, I opened up the eggshell-coloured fridge. To my immediate dismay, I realized there was nothing that would be even vaguely considered food inside the metal container. A Tupperware container filled with some sort of ghastly fluid covered by cellophane, a head of cabbage that was supporting an entire ecosystem, and a container of light-bleached baking soda that expired twenty years ago were all that remained within the refrigerator. I sighed and closed the refrigerator door a tad harder than I should have. My roommate was almost certainly on the way; hopefully he picked up something for dinner. I would've loved to be able to make a phone call and know for certain, but with the new laws instituted by the government, it was illegal to use a cell phone while driving. I thought that anyone who couldn't multitask well enough to drive and talk at the same time shouldn't be driving at all, but that was out of my power to change. Rubbing a hand over the stubble on my chin, I decided that I'd try and work on one of my many stories while I waited. It was a darn shame that the universe had other plans. A flash of blinding, purple light that would put a pyrotechnics display to shame erupted into existence directly in front of me. I winced and averted my eyes, nearly tripping in the process. I staggered back in a paltry attempt to get away from the searing, blinding light, but to no avail: it followed me with a disturbing, single-minded sentience, and despite covering my eyes with an arm, it wormed through the tiny interwoven threads of my dress shirt and pierced my vision regardless. The light drove a sharp spike of pain into me, yet before I could do so much as grunt, the world exploded into vibrant magentas, lavenders, and indigoes in what could only be described as a cacophony of colour. The world was colour; colour was the world. I saw the threads of my very plane of existence; ley lines that criss-crossed and intertwined my world with others. If the universe was a spider's web, and planet Earth a single strand, then I was but a fly caught in the intricacies, helpless to do anything but stare into the vastness. I felt an aloof numbness begin spreading throughout my body, starting at my head and working its way down. With the lack of feeling came a lack of caring. Even though what I was witnessing was possibly the most incredible and life-changing event of my entire life, I couldn't care less. There other worlds out there, in the vast unknown, many of which were connected to mine, but so what? I couldn't feel anything anymore, but so what? The world was turning white, blue, orange, yellow, pink, and a familiar shade of purple, but so what? It also seemed to be moving, but so what? Wait... When did the world start moving? I thought for a moment. I realized that I did, in fact, care that my world was spinning. Never one to think of myself as the type who was prone to vertigo, I tried to remember why I cared that the world was turning brown, with little black cracks. And what was that? A sense of being... watched? Those noises in the background were growing louder; a high-pitched sound, followed by a thump, and then... Silence. As the placid laconism filled my ears, the world became more than simply brown, with little black cracks. Colours and textures swirled to life, coalescing into bookshelves, furniture, and my own outstretched arm. I tried to make a fist, but my hand only twitched in response. I blinked and realized that the brown was coming from the wooden floorboards beneath me; the tiny grains swirled and ran along the piece of wood vertically, as if trying to outrace each other. I tried to move, but to my dismay, I found that my muscles were locked and tense in what should have been pain. Strangely, I felt no discomfort from it, even though I knew that my muscles should be burning from the strain of being taught for... however long I'd been laying there. Where was I, anyway? I wasn't in my house anymore; that was certain. I felt that I should know where I was, as it was vaguely familiar yet completely alien at the same time. "What... what is it?" The simple question spoken aloud shattered the silence like a sledgehammer taken to a pane of glass. I knew that I should know the voice, but once again, I couldn't put it to a face or name. Everything felt strangely distant and remote, even excluding the fact that I didn't know where I was, how I managed to get to wherever I was, nor why I was even there. I was certain that I hadn't taken any inebriating substances recently. In fact, I was positive that I hadn't, as I still had those reports to finish. What the heck happened, then? Was I hallucinating? As if to answer my latter question, something drove itself into my ribs, driving what little air was remaining in my lungs. I sputtered and coughed in response. Well, that possibility was thrown out of the proverbial window. I waited for the shock of pain to hit me like a freight train, but it didn't come. I was grateful for the numbness. Sure, it limited my motor control, but I'd much rather not feel whatever pain my body was surely coping with. As my breathing became steady once more, I began hearing voices again. Many of them, speaking in turn. For the most part. The strangest aspect about the voices—by far— was that each sounded the same. Similar, at any rate, just like people's voices when they were sped up. "Why'd you kick it?!" "What was I supposed to do? Check its pulse? That thing probably doesn't even have a heartbeat..." "But what if it's—" "Shh!" The voices stopped abruptly. The only thing I could hear was my own, shallow breathing. I thought I heard a cricket chirping softly in the background, but that was probably just in my head. A few quick, heavy clonks that sounded like wood on wood thundered in my frazzled eardrums. I felt more so than saw something standing above me. I didn't know what it was, what it wanted, or if I was going to live to see it. I could feel its penetrating stare, though it didn't seem overly aggressive. In fact, it seemed to observe me with detachment. I didn't move. I barely breathed, and blinked only when it was absolutely necessary that I do so. I remained this way for a seemingly infinite stretch of time: each segment felt drastically longer than it should've. I took no chances, and gave no reason for whatever... things were nearby to otherwise harm me. Silence and patience were my only weapons now. After an eternity and a half, the thing standing above me spoke, as if to itself. "What are you?" My ears were still ringing, but the voices began to change. A different voice, one that drawled, asked a question of its own. "Ah reckon that a better question to ask would be, 'Why is it here?'" I was curious about that, too. On second thought, a question that I'd much rather have answered would be how they were speaking my language. The thing standing above me moved a few steps away and said, "I don't know why this... thing is here. Starswirl's spell wasn't a summoning—I'd know if it was." "Maybe the spell backfired?" "Maybe." The pause that followed felt like the silence of a court when the judge's decision was made. "What are we going to do with it? Can we send it back to where it came from?" Not meaning to interrupt their conversation, but unable to stifle it, I coughed, and summarily felt many pairs of eyes on me following my outburst. I gulped, licked my lips, and made a decision. I sat up. Head swimming and throbbing, I looked around by only moving my eyes. There were four-legged things around him, but beyond that I couldn't see. Everything seemed to be covered in a thick layer of fog. "Where am I?" I managed to croak. The things gasped and stepped back. One of them fell over. "It can talk!" A small part of me almost replied with 'No crap,' but it was hushed before it could potentially get me killed. I swallowed again. "Where am I?" My voice was rougher than sandpaper. None of the things answered me. They were still there, I knew: I could hear their breathing. Perhaps they were as shocked that I could talk as I was of them. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, squeezing them shut to hopefully get them working properly again. When I re-opened them, the light made me wince, but I could see clearly. I was in a small, circular room that seemed to be made almost exclusively out of wood. Bookshelves lined the walls, but whatever the books inside held was a mystery, as the spines were inlaid with cryptic symbols. I was sitting on a darkened patch of the hardwood floor, and to my back was what felt like a round coffee table. I blinked, not believing what else I saw. Standing in front of me—not five feet away—were six extremely familiar ponies, all of which wearing their respective ornamental amulets, and in one case, tiara, that represented their trait of friendship. "You're in—" began the purple pony before I interrupted her. "Equestria. God dammit, I'm in Equestria!"
Chapter Two: Epinephrine Has Its Ups and DownsThe Dividing Line Chapter Two: Epinephrine Has Its Ups and Downs I opened my eyes. And then I blinked in surprise. I wasn't in Twilight's library anymore—that much was apparent. Instead of wood, books, and the ponies I spent nearly a year writing about, I saw white washed walls, along with a white ceiling. Sterile white. I nearly had a heart attack: there were too many parallels that I'd rather not draw upon. Thankfully, after noticing a lazily oscillating ceiling fan, I realized that I wasn't where I thought I was. What happened? The last thing I remembered was spouting something about 'Equestria,' and then... nothing. I tried to get a bearing on what had happened. Did I black out? Certainly a possibility. A combination of having my body shifted to a different dimensional plane and the blood vessel bursting understanding of which plane I was in would be more than enough to shut my brain down temporarily—or something like that. My line of thinking brought me to my next question. Did I hallucinate the entire thing? In an attempt to answer my question, whether it was for better or worse, I tried to sit up. Something as simple as sitting upright should've been, in theory, just that: simple. The only problem was that the pain my body seemed to have experienced over the course of whatever cataclysmic event—that may or may not have brought me to Equestria—managed to hit me, all at once. It felt like I went ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and then followed that up with running a marathon. My vision swirled dangerously, and I nearly passed out, but I held on to consciousness. Sick with the realization that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, I consigned myself to observing what I could via only moving my head. First off, I was lying in a too-small bed; my legs were dangling over the edge, and I felt that if I tried to roll over, I'd fall flat on the floor. The bed sheets were stock white, and I could feel that I was completely naked underneath—I wasn't even wearing boxers. There was a window directly across from me, with light blue curtains open and letting in golden rays of sun. A potted plant was sitting on a small table next to some uncomfortable-looking chairs. I squinted and noticed that there were magazines spread out on the small table as well, presumably in case of visitors, just like in any generic medical centre. In fact, everything pointed to me being in an infirmary. I tentatively sniffed the air. It smelt like grief, hope, and antiseptic—hospital smells. While in the process of determining whether or not it was of the Earth variety, my answer walked through the door. Nurse Redheart—for it had to be her; the hat and colouring was a dead giveaway—strolled up towards my bedside, a strange swagger in her step. Despite my best attempts at trying to remain calm, I swallowed nervously when I saw a strange look in her eyes. "I see you're finally awake," Redheart mentioned as she checked my arm. I felt the underside of her hoof against my skin. It felt strangely static and soft, like a fleece sweater after it was taken out of the dryer. "Now we can finally have some fun." It was at that exact moment that I knew something was definitely wrong. I licked my lips to moisten my lips, and attempted to speak. "F—Fun?" Nurse Redheart licked her lips right back at me. She looked hungry, but not for food. "Oh yes," she whispered in my ear. I could feel her breath on the nape of my neck. "Fun." Eyes wide and wearing a very disturbed face, I opened my mouth to say something, but a hoof gently clamped over my mouth before I could get a word out. "Shh," she shushed. I felt something prick the underside of my arm. "You don't need to say anything. Not. A. Thing. Nurse Redheart's just going to give you a little boost—" I cringed at 'boost.' "—and then we'll be good to go." Almost immediately, I felt my heartbeat start to increase from a tranquil ba-dump, ba-dump to what sounded like a beat I'd hear at a rave. As soon as Redheart's hoof was removed from my mouth, I stammered, "W—What did you just inject me with?" She smiled lustfully and nibbled my earlobe. "Oh, just a little shot of epinephrine. Something to get the blood pumping." "I don't—I can't—" "You don't need to do anything. I'll take care of you the way a mare should take care of her stallion." Before my brain could process exactly what the hell was happening, Nurse Redheart trotted over to the blinds and shut them. "A little privacy never hurt," she said with a wink. She then pulled the sheets off of me and jumped onto the bed, making the already small amount of room I had into virtually no room at all. I could feel Redheart's fur rubbing against my bare skin. It felt surprisingly soft, albeit slightly damp from what I assumed was sweat. What I hoped was sweat. "P-Please get off," I pleaded. I tried to shove her off, but my limbs weren't responding properly, my heart rate was going through the roof, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. I felt like I could bench press a mountain, yet I couldn't even get Nurse Redheart to stop straddling me. Something twinkled in her eye, and she pulled herself directly over top of my chest. "Oh, I'll make sure that we both get more than just off," she teased. The horror of how misconstrued my words were made me want to curl up in a hole. I tried to say something that would dig me out of the grave I dug for myself, but my words shrivelled and died when I felt Nurse Redheart's hoof go somewhere it really shouldn't have. "Ooh," she cooed after groping a feel. "Looks like the blood is pumping." "Please wake up," I mumbled to myself. "Please let this be a nightmare and let me wake up—" I didn't wake up, but the next best thing that could've happened, did. Twilight Sparkle, now officially the best pony for coming to my rescue, was standing in the doorway, hoof raised in the process of knocking. Her face mirrored my own. "The door was open, so I didn't knock," Twilight began, her tone unsure, as if she didn't know whether what she was witnessing was real or just a figment of her imagination. "Nurse Redheart, are you—?" "T—Twilight Sparkle!" stammered the nurse, who was centimetres away from me in every conceivable way. "It's not what it looks like—" I was not letting Nurse Redheart get away with this. "It's exactly what it looks like!" I exclaimed, panic rising in my voice. "Get me out of here!" Knowing that she was caught red-handed, Redheart still tried to talk her way out of it. "I—I was just... administering a... sedative... so that—" "For Celestia's sake, you're straddling him!" Twilight retorted. She took a couple of steps closer, to which Nurse Redheart responded by extricating herself from my person and mirroring the steps in reverse. I quickly grabbed a pillow to cover my most important area. "Nurse Redheart, what's gotten in to you?! I can't believe you'd take advantage of a patient like that!" While Twilight reamed out Nurse Redheart, I glanced at the window. In her haste, Redheart didn't close the blinds all the way: there was a small gap that could still be seen through. I saw a golden eye on the other side of the window. It slowly widened when it noticed me. A feeling of dread hit me like a lead pipe. "Twilight?" I asked. She stopped mid rant to look at me. "Uh... yes?" "I hate to break your tangent, but there's a pony on the other side of that window eyeing me like Nurse Redheart did. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me not get raped." Twilight glanced at the window. She made a quick decision. "I don't know what you are, or why you're here, but I can't in good conscience leave you here to a fate like that." She shuddered, then made eye contact with me, suddenly serious. "I want answers, though. Answers like—" "You'll get them, just get me out of here!" Twilight nodded. "Alright then. Follow me, and keep close. We'll take the back exit out." Stopping only to wrap the bed sheet around myself like a shawl, I followed a galloping Twilight Sparkle through Ponyville Medical Centre.
Chapter Three: A Few Bolts LooseThe Dividing Line Chapter Three: A Few Bolts Loose As I ran in Twilight's hoofsteps down the hospital hallway, butt-naked with the exception of a thin bed sheet wrapped around my hips like a towel, I figured I'd lost it. I've listened to mentally unstable people spouting gibberish on the street, and the things they'd say made more sense than what I was currently experiencing. I glanced behind me. Nurse Redheart was about twenty steps behind with a syringe held between her teeth, and she was leading the charge of the roughly ten ponies that were converging towards me like hipsters to a thrift store. Yep. I've probably lost it. Although, even if this was some sort of extremely elaborate delusion on my part, the least I could do was figure out exactly how everything was going to play out. My sanity was null and void; what did I have to lose? I put on an extra burst of speed, going as fast as I possibly could without crashing into a wall. I caught up to and even passed Twilight in no time at all: it felt like I was going for a light jog rather than running for my life from a bunch of sex-crazed ponies. I guess that was the epinephrine finally doing something useful. After sprinting by a number of sick rooms, the back exit—two doors with push bars—came into sight. Going at what felt like a hundred kilometres an hour, I didn't have time to stop and operate the exit like a normal person. Instead, I barrelled into one of the doors at full speed, smashing the mostly wooden aperture open and nearly off its hinges. My shoulder took most of the impact, but I didn't feel a thing. When Twilight ran through the exit right after me, I slammed the door shut. "Here!" she called. I twisted my neck and saw a two-by-four plank hovering within reach. I grabbed it and jammed it between the two handles. A split second later, the doors bowed and the plank cracked loudly when something crashed into it. Thankfully, it held. "They're like zombies," I muttered, backpedalling. "But instead of brains, they want..." I didn't finish my sentence. With a shudder, I turned to Twilight. "Please tell me there's a second step to your plan!" "G-Give me a minute," she panted. Her chest was heaving. Another crash at the back exit, this time causing the plank to splinter, told me that we didn't have a minute. "No time!" I exclaimed. "Where's the nearest place we can hide?" I could see Twilight's mind racing: her eyes scanned across the breadth of her vision like she was reading an invisible map. "Sugarcube Corner!" she blurted suddenly. "Pinkie Pie can hide you!" Of all the ponies that I'd have to rely on, why did it have to be Pinkie Pie? While I'm not normally one who neglects help when it's paramount to my survival, I still almost put a bull's-eye on my crotch and gave up then and there. Thankfully, saner thoughts prevailed. "Alright, fine," I replied a bit more testily than I intended, but I was anxious to get a move on. "Let's go!" Twilight shook her head. "It's five doors down, and looks like it's covered in candy," she explained, still wheezing like we'd ran cross-country rather than a short sprint through a small hospital. And I thought that I was out of shape. "Go on without me. I'll try to—delay them." I wasn't having any of it. "Absolutely not! I'm not having any of your 'go on without me' crap." Twilight's mouth parted in surprise, but I interrupted her before she could say anything. "I know that you think you can't go on, but you can. It's mind over matter, something that you of all ponies should be particularly adept at. Now take a deep breath, and let's go!" Somehow, my hastily put-together motivational speech worked. "You—You're right. I can do this." A determined look replaced the worn-out one, and Twilight nodded resolutely. "Follow me, and stay close!" Even though she was huffing and puffing more than a train engine, Twilight Sparkle and I still managed to elude our—my, rather—pursuers by hopping fences, hiding in bushes, and in one case, climbing a tree. Thankfully, ponies don't seem to look up when searching for a pasty human to pounce on. With the epinephrine causing every second to feel like a minute, and every minute an hour, etcetera, it felt like a bloody year had passed before we were able to sneak our way into Sugarcube Corner via a side door that led into the kitchen. After pressing my ear against the door, I heard the herd of ponies continue on past, their thunderous steps fading with distance. Wiping my forehead in relief, I sank to the floor with my back against the wall. Twilight collapsed into a heap beside me. "I think we finally lost them," I said, relieved. "Y—Yeah. I think... we did... too..." I looked around. Surprisingly, there was no pink to be had: Sugarcube Corner's kitchen lacked the ostentatious decorations of the outside and dining area. Instead, the walls, ceiling, and cupboards were a basic beige, with occasional bursts of metallic shine coming from the various bakery contraptions. I only recognized an oven, a deep fryer, and a refrigerator out of the dozen or so cooking instruments. Since the fridge was closest, I figured that the door we came in was used mainly for receiving shipments. I glanced over at Twilight. She was curled up in a close approximation of the foetal position with her forelegs folded over like an oversized praying mantis. Her tongue was lolling to the side, and she was covered in beads of sweat. I could hear her heartbeat over mine. "Something tells me you don't get out enough, Twilight," I commented with tongue in cheek. Despite the situation, I very nearly chuckled. "Eugh," she grumbled back. "Pinkie! Are you there?!" "No, I'm not there! I'm here!" was the immediate response to my left. I bashed the back of my head against the wall and nearly fell over out of surprise. Without a sound, Pinkie Pie had somehow managed to appear in the kitchen, not a metre away. "What're you doing back here, Twilight and... other? There's a perfectly good front entrance!" Twilight struggled to a sitting position. "We couldn't use the front entrance because... well..." Twilight rotated her hoof, trying to think of how to explain. She turned to me. "Can you—?" "Yeah, I might as well," I sighed. "Pinkie, you don't have any customers to attend to, do you? This might take a while..." Pinkie Pie shook her head. "It's been strangely quiet today, almost like there's something happening that's attracting everypony's attention," she mused. Pinkie's eyes lit up and she bounced nearly a metre into the air. "Oh! Does it have anything to do with the large group of ponies that are looking for something? Because I love scavenger hunts, and—" I held up a hand, silencing Pinkie before she could talk my ears off. She was almost exactly how I imagined her. "If you calm down and let me explain, everything should hopefully be made clear," I said. "Hopefully." Pinkie Pie responded by lying down with her front hooves underneath her chin. Her eyes were wide with interest. After clearing my throat, I began. "It seems that pretty much every pony, save for you and Twilight, want to... err... jump on me—" "Jump on you?" interrupted Pinkie. "Like leapfrog?" I snorted. "Ponies wanting to play leapfrog with me is the least of my worries. No, they want... something else of mine—" "Like what?" I leaned towards Twilight and whispered, "Help me out here!" "How?" she whispered back. "I don't know how to explain this any better than you can!" "What are you two whispering about?" Pinkie Pie asked in a hushed tone as well, yet somehow I was able to hear her as if she was right beside me. "Nothing," I muttered. It seemed that the only way I would be able to get the severity of the situation across to Pinkie would be to start from the beginning. "Pinkie, do you know what happens when one pony likes another pony?" "Like, like-like?" I inwardly groaned at that sentence. "Yeah. Like-like." Pinkie Pie nodded, stone-faced. "Well." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "It seems that almost every pony like-likes me a bit too much. So much, in fact, that when I woke up in the hospital, Nurse Redheart tried to... show how much she like-liked me." I coughed. "Luckily, Twilight came to my rescue before Redheart could do anything drastic, but unluckily, every other pony caught wind. We managed to elude them, and now here we are, laying low until we figure out our next plan of action. The large group of ponies you saw is the one trying to track me down." Pinkie Pie was thinking harder than The Thinker, her face the epitome of concentration. "I understand now," she said. "It all makes sense." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "It does?" "Not really," Pinkie replied. She bounced to her feet. "I just have one question, Mister-not-a-pony." I shrugged. "Shoot." "What's your name? I don't want to keep calling you Mister-not-a-pony!" I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether I should tell them my real name or not. My real name was from the bible, and frankly, I didn't want to bring any religious influence to Equestria, no matter how small. There was also the small problem of my name not making any sense to the ponies; their naming scheme was far different than humans. In the end, I decided to go with my pseudonym, as it made the most sense, given the context. "You can call me Divide."
Chapter Four: Questions and Dodgy AnswersThe Dividing Line Chapter Four: Questions and Dodgy Answers "Nice to meet you, Divide!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she wrenched my shoulder out of its socket with a vicious handshake. "I'll be sure to throw you a party as soon as I can!" I removed my hand from Pinkie's death grip and rolled my shoulder. I grimaced. "Yeah, sure. Sounds great, Pinkie." I rubbed my neck. "Not to be rude or anything, but don't you have any customers to attend to—?" As if my words brought them into existence, I heard the jangle of bells and the sound of hooves hitting the floor. A patron. "We've got customers!" Pinkie shouted, doing her best impression of SpongeBob SquarePants. She disappeared in a flash of light befitting a star going supernova. My face must've been twisted in a strange expression, for Twilight spoke up about it. "Sorry about that, uh, Divide," said Twilight, who was treating my name like overly strong mouthwash. "Pinkie Pie can be a little... eclectic." "So I gathered." A few seconds of silence passed between us while mumbled words of a customer-employee transaction were barely overheard through the wall. "Look," Twilight began, turning her entire body to face me, "I know this probably isn't the best time to bring this up, but you promised that you'd answer some questions when we found a safe place to hide." "That's paraphrasing," I grumbled, "and I hardly consider this place safe when there's only a single wall between me and a possibly sex-crazed pony... but whatever. I got nothing better to do at the moment." Twilight took a deep breath to say something, but I raised a finger and said, "Ah-ah, hold your horses, missy. Me first, then you. That's the way these things always work." She glared daggers at me. "One question. That's it." Her tone brooked no argument. I nodded. "Fair enough. One question: How did you know that Pinkie wouldn't be affected by... whatever it is that's affecting every other pony?" To my surprise, Twilight coughed nervously and looked away. She mumbled something that I didn't quite catch. "What was that?" "I said I didn't," was the quick response. "I didn't know that Pinkie wouldn't be affected." I sat there with a dumbfounded look on my face for an indiscriminate amount of time. Surely she didn't—no, there's no way she would've guessed. No matter how much I wanted to pretend, however, Twilight said it herself. Poker-faced and surprisingly calm, I went outright with it. "So... you guessed." Twilight gulped and nodded. I sighed, made an exhausted noise that wasn't any specific combination of letters, then snorted in disbelief. "Remind me not to bet against you in a coin flip. You could knock over Caesar's Palace at the roulette table in a matter of hours with your luck." I laughed at the mental image. Though I knew she had no idea what I was talking about, Twilight still laughed along with me, albeit nervously. "To be completely honest," she began after the chuckles ceased, "I didn't just guess: I made an educated guess." I raised an eyebrow and placed my fingers together, Mr. Burns-style. "Do elaborate." Twilight cleared her throat. "First of all, I wondered why I wasn't falling head-over-hooves for you like everypony else, and by logical progression, what made me different. After thinking about it, I realized that the only difference was that I was an Element of Harmony, and that that must've had something to do with it." I scratched my chin in thought. Twilight took that as me not knowing what an Element of Harmony was. She explained—in great detail, might I add—what exactly the Elements were and how they came to be in possession of her and her friends. I remained silent the entire time, only nodding and asking basic questions when appropriate. I didn't think revealing that I had intimate knowledge of Twilight's life since she came to Ponyville was conducive to my well-being. After Twilight wrapped her story up, she asked, "So does that satisfy your question? Can I ask mine now?" She was literally shaking in anticipation. "Yes and no. Before you begin, I have to put out a disclaimer: I'm probably not as interesting as you think I am." I leaned back against the door and motioned towards her. "With that out of the way, go ahead. Ask away. Just don't expect to be all that entertained." Twilight rolled her eyes. "Yes, a mysterious visitor that speaks my language and somehow has the sexual attraction of almost every mare in Ponyville is definitely not very interesting. Not in the slightest. Not even a little." The amount of sarcasm gushing forth would put Niagara Falls to shame. I glared at her. She smiled back cheekily. "Alright, first question: What are you, race-wise? I haven't seen any species like you before." "I'm a human—as in, you're a pony, I'm a human," I explained. "I'm sapient, bipedal, and omnivorous—but you probably knew those already. Well," I added, "with the possible exception of the last part." "Actually, I hypothesized as much," Twilight said with smile. "Your teeth are a teensy bit too pointy to be a herbivore." I frowned and subconsciously ran my tongue over my canines. "Humph. I was half-expecting a shriek of terror and a kick to the face," I muttered. "So you're not bothered by that at all? The fact that I eat meat, I mean." "No, of course not! Just because you eat meat doesn't make you a bloodthirsty monster!" Twilight paused for a second. "Uh, you don't need to eat meat, do you? I ask because we don't really have any, erm, available—" "I'm quite capable of functioning without it. My parents are vegetarians, as a matter of fact. Thanks for asking, though." "—Alright, good to know. Let's see here." Twilight consulted her clipboard. Where she obtained the clipboard from was a mystery to me. "Ah, yes: Why are you here? In Equestria?" I shrugged and put my palms skyward before letting them fall back down to the floor. "Why? I have no friggin' idea. I didn't try to come here," I explained. "I was in my home, minding my own business, and then poof—everything goes to Hell and I wind up on your floor." I glanced at my arm, noticing the tiny hole where Nurse Redheart injected me for the first time. A small amount of blood welled up whenever I bent the crook of my arm. I smirked wryly. "I'm sure you know what happened next better than I do." The fact that I saw the very fabric and inner machinations of the universe was purposefully forgotten for the moment. That particular can of worms seemed like something to open at a later time. "Hmm. I suppose it was too much to ask for your appearance to be straightforward." Twilight clicked her tongue and looked at the clipboard for a few seconds. "The last thing you said before passing out was, 'Equestria. God dammit, I'm in Equestria!' How did you know where you were?" I inwardly smacked myself. Somehow, I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass. If a pony appeared on my floor and said, Gee, how'd I end up in Canada, I'd be pretty damn shocked, too. Twilight was handling this far better than I would. Outwardly, I remained stone-faced. I'd like to say that I took the moral high-road and told the truth—but I didn't. Call me a bastard for withholding information, but I'd rather not discuss how there's an entire community of teenage and fully grown men and women obsessed with everything pony-related. Yeah. That might be a tad hard to explain. "I've, uh—" I coughed, "—been here before." A noise akin to choking came from the back of Twilight's throat. "You've... been here before?" she asked, not sounding like she truly believed it. "Well, metaphorically speaking—" I began to say, only to zip my mouth shut when I heard Pinkie Pie's voice clearly through the wall. Confused, Twilight asked, "What—?" "Shh!" I put a finger on my lips and pointed with my thumb towards the wall. I placed my ear against it, and Twilight followed suit. "Hey, no, wait!" Pinkie exclaimed. "You can't go back there! That's for employees only!" "B-But there's something back there! I—I can feel it and I just... want it all... to myself..." "There's plenty of baked goods available for everypony!" "No, that's not what I want. I want something... else..." I wrenched my ear from the wall like it was made of hydrofluoric acid. Pinkie could only keep the pony occupied for so long. If they could sense me over the overwhelming smell of all the pastries and in a separate room, then where could I hide? "Time to go?" I whispered towards Twilight. By the look on her face, Twilight was thinking the exact same thing that I was. "Yeah, I'd say so." She stood up and moved to exit via the same door that we entered. "Twilight," I said, realizing something that I probably should've a lot earlier. "Can't you just use magic to get us somewhere safe and out of the way?" I asked, purposefully avoiding the word 'teleport.' I was going to give myself a brain haemorrhage for not thinking of that earlier if there wasn't some sort of catch. "The last time I used magic on you, Divide, the results weren't pretty," she explained, saving my forehead from blunt force trauma. "You ended up regurgitating whatever you ate for lunch onto my floor and your body was wracked with pain spasms. And then you stopped moving." Twilight was visibly disturbed retelling the story. "I nearly had a heart attack when I thought I... killed you. Thankfully, you were still breathing." "Oh. Uh, sorry about that..." Twilight waved my apology aside. "It's not your fault." She shook her head. "Anyways, I would've offered to teleport us back to my home back in the hospital, but..." "I understand. And while I appreciate the sentiment towards my well-being, I'm not going have any well-being left to be sentimental about if they get a hold of me." My stomach gurgled unhappily, voicing its complaint. "And while I hate making a mess in other people's homes, I don't think I have anything left in here—" I pointed at my gut, "—to throw up." "If you think it's necessary, Divide, I won't say no," Twilight sighed. I saw the tell-tale aura of magic surround her horn. She winced in sympathy pre-emptively. "This is probably going to hurt," she warned. A flash of light strikingly similar to a camera flash blinded and disoriented me. My internal compass was going haywire, almost as if I fell into a whirlpool with a blindfold on. My entire body felt twisted and disproportioned, like I was a piece of extremely stretchy taffy, or maybe pizza dough. After an undetermined amount of time spent feeling miserable and spread out, everything snapped back into place and I fell unceremoniously onto the same floor that I had first woken up on. I felt fine for the first few seconds. And then the pain kicked in. Twilight was right. It hurt. A lot.
