Tragodia: Friendship is Philosophy

Chapters

Prologos
Canto 1
Canto 2
Canto 3
Canto 4
Canto 5 (incomplete)

Prologos

Note: Not many ponies in the first chapter, more in the next, promise.

Some town, United States, I sit next to his cell. As a guard maiden, my duty is to steel myself against the evils that are the prisoners of the great State of God. Of the prisoner, I know nothing, except that the minister will deal with him tonight.

I take a look at tonight's criminal. His face captures my attention first. His long, dark-brown hair falls haphazardly across his blemished face. This gives the impression that he is in his rebellious twenties. His hands with their long fingers periodically brush the hair from his vision. When I get a clear view of his eyes, I can tell he has been thinking long and hard about something.

One of the most important rules of guard duty is to prevent prisoners from thinking of escape. “What are you thinking about?!” I demand, but my voice does not reach him in his thoughts.

Second rule is to always be in charge. “You will respond prisoner when I ask you a question, or I will be forces to take drastic measures.”

He looks up, as if surprised that I even exist. “Oh, hi.”

His cordial response throws me off. How could he be so unresponsive in the serious position he is in right now? He could die.

After getting my mind back into the game of guard duty, I respond angrily. “Prisoner answer my question?!”

“What?”

“I asked about what are you thinking about?!”

“And I answered, I am thinking about what, and I am sorry that my joke has gotten you so angry. You should lighten up. You will need to or the question that is the answer might be too heavy for you.”

His cryptic answer unsettled me. I sat down again and look into this prisoners file. Eric Stockhausen, White Male, 23, Philosopher.... That explained a lot. No wonder he was contemplating such abstract nonsense as the question “what.”

Knock knock. I get up to open the door. It is the minister, as scheduled.

The minister addresses the prisoner, “As I notified you yesterday, I am commanded by the High Church of these United States to execute you for your atheism as a threat to national security, but if I witness you sincerely take penance for conspiring with the Devil against America, you will have an opportunity to join God's army as they reclaim Israel from the Muslims. Do you, Eric Stockhausen, choose to die with the devil tomorrow at the hands of the His holy people or embrace your Jesus as your savior?”

“I must go with living.”

“Okay then repeat after me the sinner's prayer--”

“You misunderstand, I said I wanted to live, not kill myself through penance.”

“What do you mean?!”

“Well, I kind of think of this as philosophical suicide. It is kind of like 'Give me liberty or give me death.' In this case of penance, I would lose the importance of myself by submitting to the will of something external to myself. It would also mean dishonesty about the role I play in creating good and evil in my own life by putting the burden of morality on a deity and his supposed spokespeople.”

The guard chipped in, “This one is a philosopher, so expect him to say one thing and mean another and then have a long-winded explanation.”

Eric responded to the guard's derision for his philosophical method, “While you are right about my method, you do not understand why I use it. It is because I think that people need to challenge their everyday thinking about how things work. And--”

The minister cuts in, “That is enough, Stockhausen. I will give you one more chance to cooperate, or I will be forced to have you executed.”

“You know what, I do not think you even believe in the church. You are just another person who was not brave enough to live like I do. You know, with you honesty intact.”

Dumbfounded, then with a show of anger, the ministers writes down in a ledger and says, “Fine then your execution shall be tonight.

“Guard, have alert the acolytes that the bells are to rung in one hour. I will alert the officers that we will have an execution by live burial, since this person is so willing to go to Hell alive.”

Though extreme, live burials are not unheard of. The last few years, the The United States Under God (another of its many names) has escalated its extermination plans of minorities, blaming them for the economic collapses and China's emergence as the most powerful and developed country in the world. Secular education and the professors thereof were first on the new regime's list. With those voices silenced, the government was unstoppable.

The minister left, hoping his front of extremism might mask the truth I hinted to. After phoning the appropriate people, the guard stared at me. Her stare last several minutes as she silently judged me.

“You are more than you seem.”

“I am but a young philosophy student, caught on his journey to escape a fate juridical upon me. If anything is peculiar, it is your interest in me, my dear.”

“Stop it with the fancy talk. There is definitely something unusual about you.”

“And I assure you, I know nothing about which you speak. If you want something from me, I have been thinking of offering a willing soul a gift from this evil devil worshiper.”

She raised an eyebrow, amused at my silly way of talking. “Indulge me.”

“Think of it as a kind of last wish for a wishful thinker. Oh, that pun will not do, for you are so much more than that, my dear.”

“I am only tolerating your condescension because you mean it in jest, but otherwise, I would have flogged you with my club.”

“Yes, right to the point. Um, well, would you please look behind you...”

She looked behind her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, not now you see.” Eric had become very tentative suddenly. His demeanor still the same old silliness, just a change of affect.

“We might have an hour, but you ought not be wasting it on such trifling jokes.”

“Why yes, you are quite right, quite right indeed. I am simply going to request that you look behind you when I am buried. In the resulting view, I hope that you may gain what I first learned vicariously in literature, and then firsthand during the inquisitions as Rhodes College. Furthermore, please attempt to see the world as it is and not be corrupted by its illusion. There you will have a piece of my wisdom I most treasure. It weighs heavily at first, but the demeanor you see before you now is my way of dealing with it.”

The guard contemplated what he said for the next hour after Eric refused to say anymore, claiming that he had spoken too much as it is. Of course, she felt that this man was a vile, but her inherent curiosity force her to pry into this particular criminal. He definitely is weird in many ways, yet there is something he seems to allude to behind his silly bantering and suggestions.

It seems obvious to the guard that she would she the church and its large looming clock tower. There would be the crowd of bystanders, there to help and learn from the burial of a corrupter. The guard distinctly remembers that Eric said something about seeing the world as it was, which did not make much sense to her. The world was in disarray. Only through the leadership of our great leader had America regain any of its former glory. Atheists and leftists like them have always challenged the scared values of America, and there is so much evidence of their conspiracy against America. For instance, the Senate hearings of 2015 had exposed a plot between the ACLU and the Richard Dawkins Foundation to bomb the White House. Despite all this, I find myself curious of this strange philosopher. As far as can tell from his records, he has done no wrong other than not believing in god. He is just a college student.

Apparent from the guard's thoughts, her doubts of her government's policy towards college students and nonbelievers are unsurfaced. It will not be until the burial of Eric Stockhausen of Rhodes College that doubt shall make her understand something.

The church bells ring, signaling the people towards a public execution. A raised platform in a middle of a field acts as a place for the bystanders to see the gravediggers prepare Eric's grave. Being the modern age, specially made construction machines served to enhance the spectacle aspect of the execution. Men on either side of the hole lift poles into the hole, and the crowd look in awe as they raise poles of twenty-five, then fifty, then hundred feet long into the hole just to disappear into the rapidly deepening hole. The show of strength represents the power of the sovereign.

The representative of the sovereign power stands fifty feet from the hole with a mic connected to him. When the gravediggers finish, the representative hears the construction noise stop. He gives his speech, and the speakers on the platform magnify his voice.

“I, Mayor Panglos, do, by the power invested in me by God who gave us our soverign President and will protect us as long as we fight evil everywhere, declare that on 2017, Eric Stockhausen, who committed high treason by denying the sovereigns connection with God and accepting the devil's atheistic corruption, will be executed.”

The mayor turns to our hero, Eric watches with the crowd his cell guard tow him to the hole. The gravediggers put a board for Eric to jump off into the hole. Once on the board, the cell guard who Eric gave his last wishes to, pushes him with her sword along the board. Eric needs only one prod and he walks calmly down the board and jumps to his death. His death represents that the sovereign's right to live is protected by his right to kill.

The guard watches him jump but remembers that he asked her to look behind herself during the execution. As she turns, the church bell rings again announcing the death. “When a bell tolls” comes to mind. Behind her, she can see the patriotic crowd saluting the execution of the sovereign's power. On closer inspection, she starts to feel what Eric must feel, the hatred and intolerance.

All the guard's hidden doubts raise to the front, as a stream of consciousness goes through her. She cannot help but speak her mind. “People, hear me, hear me. I ask you, where is the atheist.”

The gravediggers, mayor, other guards, and crowd look at her as if she is nuts, and to be honest, she kind of is now. “Wither is the atheist? I tell you we have killed him.”

Here the mayor steps in, “Amusing guard, did you not see, he jump in himself. He wanted to die this way, the minister attested to it.”

The guard continues, despite the laughs, “No, we have indeed killed him, you and I, by pushing him to his early death. We are murderers. How could we do such a deed, kill such a being as an atheist. With the atheist dead, whom will we place the burden of our crime? Will we not have to become atheists just to feel worthy of this murder?”

The crowd continue to laugh, finding this momentary madness amusing.

The guard sees again the crowd for what it truly is, and reflects. They cannot hear me, for my words have not reached them yet. The guard runs. It is said from this day that a guard was seen visiting the schools shouting to the people of the atheist's death.

Down the rabbit hole, Eric has a strange sense of floating before losing consciousness. He only wakes to see equine-shaped shadows trot across a screen in a dimly lit room.

“A jabberdonk paling corners!” a soft voice claims hurriedly.

After a long pause, another, much deeper voice claims “No, it is definitely a pissant. a second later, a third, more moderate voice responds, “I have to agree with Dragonshout, it is a pissant.”

Eric, with his mind finally clear, struggles to move but to no avail. His body feels incredibly numb. His field of vision focused only directly in front of him so that he see the source of the voices.

“Can you hear me?” Despite his numbness, Eric's attempt to speak is successful.

“Windspeak is that you?” asks the medium voice.

“No, it must be a new voice,” says Windspeak softly.

“Newcomer, state your name!” commanded the deep voice.

“Eric is my name,” he responds.

“And mine is Dragontongue,” replies the deep voice.”

“I am Windspeak,” says the soft one.

“Oh, and I have no name, so they just call me 'normal',” cheerfully a moderate voice says.

“Where am I?” Eric says.

After a second, Dragontongue says, “What do you mean by where you are? I do not understand.”

“I mean what is this place?”

Immediately Windspeak responded, “This is Everywhere, everything, silly. You are not in it, you just observe.”

Normal butted in saying, “Do not let Windspeak get on your nerves, it can be a bit too condescending.”

Dragontongue interrupts, “It is new. I think a proper education is needed. New voices never know anything.” The deep voice continued, “Experience the everything. Notice how dark forms move across the Everything.”

On the paper screen a shadow of a pony-human hybrid walks across guided by a unicorn. “Behold a mordcutie. It bends in a crescent shape. Like mords, it has two lines that reach the based of everything. Notice how they merge and separate continually as the mordcutie moves across Everything into nonexistence.”

Eric like you are probably really confused. “You mean that shadow. Behind that screen, this 'mordcutie' thing looks like a human with a horse head.”

“You superstitious idiot. Talking about non-observables like something people and horses. Next thing you know this Eric will start talking about a beyond.”

“Windspeak, calm down, I was like it when I first came. At least, he did not bring up memories to justify what he is seeing,” calming interjects Normal.

“But I do have memories. I know what these shadows are kind of. Though I must say, I never seen a horseheaded person before,” Eric counters.

“Bah, see, it is just another crazy Platonist. Thinks that his recollection of these abstract forms like horses and persons gives it justification of to claim that the shapes come from a reality behind the appearances.”

“Windspeak, calm down. We must educate Eric, not ridicule it. Eric, we do not have access to these memories. They are not an objective basis for constructing a model of Everything. From my experience with new voices, there is no settled form they attributed to cuties. Some call them ponies, others horses. Since there is no knowing what these forms are for us who do not have memories and these memories come to contradicting stories about these 'shadows', I think that is unhelpful to posit forms in our model of Everything.”

“If only I could move my body, I would show you.”

“A dualist! I thought I saw the last of those with normal here. I am afraid to tell you, there is no such thing as a body. There is only voices,” snobbishly ridicules Windspeak.

“I give up! Just educate me, there is no winning as long as I live in a world where I cannot move,” exclaims Eric.

For hours, not that the four prisoners are aware in the cave, Dragontongue gave a taxonomy of all that comes to exist in Everything. Eric has a least one funny thought during his education. It is funny how they created all these two-dimensional representations of ponies. It is not all that different from the bronies who give names to the two-dimensional representations of the ponies on the television show My Little Pony.

“Room 420, check,” says a long-haired human poet as he checks his checklist as he reaches the sliding screen door that separates the subjects from the main part of the facility. This monumental act of our poet shall forever be known to the occupants as breaking the only wall.

As he opens the door, the light from his side flows into the subjects' side unfiltered, causing blindness to them. He walks over to Eric, ignoring the two other humans and the pink-and-blue maned pony with a candy cutie mark.

Due to the blindness combined with numbness, Eric was only aware of the strange sounds of locks coming unlocked and the movement of think clothes.

“Alright then, up you go. It will take a few moments for the numbness to fade and all your memories to come back,” said the poet whom Eric did not know. Immediately, Eric remembered his execution and the torments he faced the last decade.

“How am I not dead?” asks Eric as his vision quickly returns. He starts to stand, awkwardly at first, but quickly regains composure.

“Good, you must not have been here long or you would have been unconscious or at least unable to see,” said the short old man with long gray-haired in medieval dress. “You are dead. This is the afterlife. Though an atheist, our great God has a special job for you as a philosopher. Before I tell you more, we should get out of here.”

“How could I be dead? I still feel alive. How could there be an afterlife and a god?”

“How could you doubt god's existence? I have no idea how all these 'great' philosophers do not believe in something so obvious as God.” The poet helps Eric walk while Eric asks him questions.

“What is your evidence?”

“Look behind you, there a flesh-and-blood cartoon pony as your generation call them.” The poet pauses their movement to let Eric look behind them. Eric jaw drops as he sees that one of his companions in the cave was no other than Bon-bon. The mare eyes are glazed and her face expresionless.

“Bon-bon, how? Why?” At the sound of her name, the mare begins to cry from memories. Though nopony could hear it, Bon-bon softly spoke the name Lyra, only her words conveying emotions since she long lost the use of her face from disuse.

“Well, God for whatever reason has recreated an afterlife version of Equestria. God's reason is beyond us in His perfection.”

Eric only got one more sentence out while they continue their walk out of the cave. “This god is a brony?!”

The endless hallway of subjects finally had a pathway veering off to the side. While this hallway is endless, all the breaks return travelers to the atrium which is of limited space. As our travelers reach the atrium, a human with a unicorn horn tapped her foot in irritation.

“Dante, how dare you take one of my magical subjects from my part of the cave?” said the blue-haired uniwoman.

Dante begins to talk, but before he can speak, the uniwoman cuts him off. “No excuses, I am going to experiment on him before you take him wherever that pretender wants you to bring him.”

“God is no pretender! Your former goddesses are the pretenders!” Dante shouts, which really gets Eric to wake more from his stupor.

Not caring for Dante's arguments, the uniwoman uses telekinesis magic to levitate Eric down another hallway that leads to her lab.

“Lyra don't! Lyra please, just do not do anything radical, I need him to be able-bodied.”

“Fine, fine. I understand. I will just turn him into a pony. Oh, a mare more precisely. Oh, how I love to see philosopher's cutie marks. I wonder what your God will think!”

“You cannot do that Lyra, I need him to be of able-minded as well, not some willy-nilly female like you!”

“And this is why I punish you so, even if you claim your beliefs come from what you call an omniscient being, you are the most bigoted human I have ever met. You need more mares in your life to teach you what's what. Right, young human?”

Eric just is just interested in what is going on and very curious as to what he will learn from this strange experiment. Let just say, Eric is a minority in a lot of ways and leave it at that. Even I admit, most people will not understand this strange philosopher.

Eric woke up, tried getting up but found himself too front heavy and fell over.

“Hello mare! Your cutie mark is just weird. Explain it!” Lyra commanded.

Eric got up and looks at his,..., her yellow-coated flank to see an black arrow pointing down with the word “UP” in white inside it. Eric rubs a hoof against her chin for a second, and an idea comes to her immediately.

“It is ironically true. You see the arrow is pointing up.”

“What do you mean?” Dante asks frowning in disgust.

“To quote a pink pony, 'The Earth is round. There is no up, silly.' Basically, the arrow is pointing up somewhere. I guess my talent is finding truths that counter our everyday beliefs.”

“Well, that will be useful for your job as a demon hunter,” Lyra says. Eric raises an eyebrow.

Dante motions for Eric to get up. Eric blows a stray black hair from her mane out of her face.

Dante grumbles, “That whores disgusts me with her unholy experiments. The only bloody pony she will not commit unnatural crimes against is some other mare, who this unicorn has locked up in the soul storage.”

They take the another direction in the atrium, this one leading to a procession of humans and ponies walking to the exist of the cave.

“We do not need to get in line, just follow me,” Dante advises the happy-go-lucky mare. Those years of having things happen to him has changed Eric's outlook on life so that he, or she rather, can live peacefully.

“You are a philosopher, right?” Dante asks, and Eric nods. “Then you should be able to appreciate this argument for God's existence. I have an idea of perfection. I am not perfect and nothing I know is perfect. The idea must come from somewhere. It cannot come from an imperfect being because an imperfect being could not know perfection; therefore only a perfect being can explain my idea.”

Eric responds with in a practiced way that comes from debating theists for years, “I think this is called an ontological argument. This particular argument relies on two things: one, how we understand the idea of perfection; two, the principle of sufficient reason.

“I am willing to agree with reservation that everything has an explanation. I will disagree on what kind of explanations accurately describe our universe and those that are only pragmatic. I will agree that perfection has a source.”

Dante responds with some confusion, “How can you reservations with the Principle of Sufficient Reason? Do you believe that somethings could possibly not have explanations?”

Eric, “Yeah, I think that it is very plausible there is no necessary connection between cause and effect. That when two billiard balls hit that they must recoil off each other. They could fuse, pass through each other, or make a tree. I think that what we call the Laws of the universe could be themselves not necessary, or as you would put it, contingent.” Dante rejects Eric's thinking completely because his medieval intuitions balk at the idea that the Laws are not logically necessary.

Before Dante continues on this line of reasoning, Eric interjects, “I think we should return to the debate at hand, since I really am accepting the Principle of Sufficient Reason. My reasons for rejecting this argument has mostly to due with what I see as the misunderstanding of the relation of perfection to imperfection. I have other objections as well, but I really do not wish to explain a laundry list of objections.

“We experience everything as having bounds. All these rocks on the ground have measurable dimensions. The origin of perfection can be something 'imperfect' as you call it because all we have to do is negate the boundedness of this rock and make it omnipresent. Since I only knowingly have experiences of bounded things and not unbounded entities, the explanation that the idea of perfection comes from 'imperfection' is more plausible.

“There are, of course, more sophisticated explanations of why humans create supernatural entities like gods and spirits by changing everyday concepts by adding inverse physical properties in psychology of religion, but I think this will suffice for now.”

Dante continues to press Eric for the hours it takes to finally get into the Inferno.

Canto 1

Author's note: I am happier with this chapter compared to the Prologos. While short, I think it carries more of the fanfiction feel. I am glad for the feedback I am getting.

Pinkie's Unrequited Friendship

Our duo reaches the end of the cave, which opened to a barren wasteland of destitute souls of gray. As far as the eye could see, there is nothing but a sea of gray. The procession of souls broke up as each attempts independently of each other to force a path through.

“This is the ante-inferno. Here, souls that could not make it across the River Styx endlessly search for help,” solemnly comments Dante.

“Cannot they see those around them? Cannot they help each other?” Questions Eric with a look of concern on her face.

“These are the abandoned of the world and those who abandoned the world. They either cannot see others or do not receive help. Their grayness is a symbol of their loss of hope in the power of friendship.”

“We should help them!” exclaims the yellow mare, as she runs to talk to the sea of gray. Dante sighs and chases after his charge.

“Listen to me! I here to help! We need to gather together and we can finally cross,” shouts Eric as he makes her way through the sea like others in the procession, but the sea soon overtake the mare.

A pink mare begins to jump through the crowd towards Eric. “Hi, hello there, pardon me. Nice to meet you.” The pink mare finally reaches to our heroine. Offering her hoof, Eric barely holds on as she is pulled as astronomical speeds to a clearing created in the flow of destitute souls by a rock in the way.

Eyes spinning, heart pounding, the pink mare places Eric in a chair of a table. Cupcakes, hot sauce, and other delicacies lie on the table.

“ooooo, I rarely see ponies in this part of Hell. What is your name? My name is Pinkie Pie, which is strange because I really prefer cupcakes to pie. I do not know what a pink pie would look like, or is it a pie made with human's pinkies? Gross, right?” rattles on the pink poofy maned mare.

“Pinkie Pie?” questions the reorienting Eric. “Oh, yes, this is brony Hell. Well, let's go on with it then. I am Eric, philosopher extra-oridinaire, by which I mean a very ordinary one.”

“A philosopher, what's that?”

“A philosopher is a person--” Pinkie Pie looks at her in confusion. “a pony, excuse me, whose goals are to uncover and understand the fundamental questions of pony existence like what is friendship.”

“Eric, strange name you have there! OOO, if you are a philosopher, can I see your cutie mark?”

“Why of course.” Eric gets up out of her chair to expose her fine yellow flank to her new acquaintance, Pinkie Pie.

Eric's cutie mark does not impress Pinkie. “What is so amazing with that mark. Everyone knows the Earth is round. There is no up.”

“Well, that is what I said when I first got my cutie mark just um twenty minutes ago.” Eric suddenly realizes what has happened. “Oh, I really have to help all these people. They are going to be stuck here forever.”

“What is so wrong about being here. We are all friends here, some of us for thousands of years.”

“These are not friends Pinkie. These are hopeless and lonely people, I refuse to call them souls.”

Pinkie's right eye twitches for a moment. Changing the subject rapidly, Pinkie asks with a bit of an edge to her voice, “Is it your birthday today?” Her mane deflates noticeably but not all the way.

“I do not know because I do not know what day it is, but it probably is not--”

“Great, we can have a Unbirthday party for you!” With the same insane speed as earlier, Pinkie quickly grabs and places four zombies from the sea of gray. Pinkie Pie points to three female and one male human souls in order, announcing their names. “This is Applejack. Here is Twilight, she is such a nerd and not very good at partying. This is Rainbow Dash. Here is Rarity.”

Pinkie then grabs another man from the crowd and says, “This is Fluttershy.”

The fact that Pinkie Pie not only ascribed these humans pony names but also gave the male the name Bon-bon alerts Eric that Pinkie is not quite herself. “Ahhh, Pinkie you know---”

Pinkie interrupts again. “These are my best friends! Right, Twilight?”

The zombie responds with stock answer for the hopeless soul, “Friends are only selfish devils who only think about how you can help them.”

Pinkie's right eye twitches again. “How funny Twilight. You always have something interesting to say. Hey, Applejack what do you think of Eric.”

The next zombie replies with another stock answer, “My friends all abandoned me when I gained too much weight. They only liked me for my looks. When I was no longer pleasurable to be around, they left me.”

“I really need to be going. I there are so many who--” Eric begins to say.

“Why leave, you Unbirthday party has just begun. Right, Gummy?” Pinkie looks around for a substitute for Gummy. Failing to find one at first glance, she repeats herself, “Right, Gummy?” Again failing, Pinkie's left eye twitches, as her mane completely deflates.

“Happy Unbirthday, Meric was it? Oh, have some cake. I just know we will be best of friends.” As Pinkie says this, she pushes some food in front of Eric. Pinkie's face moves towards the philosopher until they are nearly touching. “Best Friends Forever.” Pinkie's eyes begin to cross.

Eric falls out of her chair. Getting up, he notices now that there really is no table and food. That she herself had been captured somehow in Pinkie's delusion. Instead, there are only rocks and stuff. Eric begins to gallop away, but when he turns around, Pinkie is already in front of her.

“Ferret, where are you going? Best friends should be together.”

“My name is Eric, and I am not your friend!”

The words stun Pinkie Pie. Her coat finally becomes gray as the magic of friendship, albeit corrupt friendship dissipates from her.

Pinkie begins to walk backwards into the stream of loneliness and abandonment, but Dante stops her as he reveals himself from the crowd.

“You know how hard it is to find someone once you get separated from them here. I had to pray to God via this new fangled mobile device in order to get your coordinates. As for saving everyone, you do not have time. I have not told you yet, but God needs you as a demon slayer. This is a job all philosophers, regardless of their religious beliefs are granted, since philosophers are the only beings capable of destroying them. It would take forever to save everyone here. You are just going to have to learn that some people, actually a significant number of people just cannot be helped by you alone.”

“Cannot I at least help one person?” Eric begs, admitting defeat to the poet who knew well Eric's emotional pain at the beginnings of Hell.

“I will let you take one with you, but you will be responsible for his care and conversion.”

“Then I choose to take Pinkie Pie.”

“Another bloody pony. A mare no less! Do you know how much I hate females on these trips?--”

“Well, like Lyra says, you could use for some real getting to know what women are like.”

“I know what women are like, I have my love, Beatrice.”

“I said 'real' not some perfect ideal you created for yourself.” This flabbergasts Dante who has no idea what to say to such an allegation. “By the way, thank you for showing you actually care by stopping Pinkie Pie from joining the herd, if that is the correct term.” Eric has a side thought here: Human herds lack the interconnectedness of pony ones. For instance, a New York City human herd will consist of people who do not talk, know, or care to know each other. This leads to the majority of human herd life being spent in an ironic sense isolated from one another. Eric often has these insights that he puts away for later. One of his talents, you see.

Canto 2

Eric goes to Pinkie and extends a hoof. Pinkie cringes, fearful and confused as the zombification has addled her brains. Eric pauses a moment and then fully extends to pat her mane.

“I am not your friend.” Worry returns to Pinkie's eyes as the philosopher speaks. “Yet. I am not your friend yet. If we spend time together, I am confident that we can become true friends. Look around you. These people are not your friends. You cannot be friends with so many people. Friendship takes time and effort. Most importantly it takes genuine love. These people are all here because they did not have genuine friends. You are different. Your friends are elsewhere, and I will bring them to you.” Pinkie's mane starts to regain color, the epicenter being at Eric's touch.

“Think of Applejack and Twilight. Remember how they would feel if they never saw you again. You need to have the courage to continue. You do not not need to do it alone either, we are here. Right Dante?” Dante looks away, pretending to not care.

“I know the feeling of hopelessness. I look at all these people and think what I could do to help them. My instincts buckle against my reason, and I run into them without a plan. Swept up in my ineptitude I almost lost hope too until you saved me Pinkie. I ask you formally here, will you come with me? Not because I need your help or that I enjoy you being with me, but as someone with whom I wish to be real friends.”

At this, Pinkie's mane reinflated, and she exclaims cheerfully, “Why amazing turnips I do! Let me pack my things and let's go!” With lightning speed, Pinkie goes to gather her stuff.

“Well, aren't we a bunch of happy mares?” Dante sarcastically interjects.

“You know, no one will be your friend if you have an attitude like that.”

“Who wants to be friends with a bunch of nut jobs like you? I already have friends anyways. Homer and the rest of the great poets already named me the sixth great poet of all time. I rather be with them than an atheist like you any day.”

“I am sure your god would love to hear that you dislike the work he has given you.”

At this moment, the patiently waiting Pinkie's attention span runs out, causing her to interrupt. “Hey, I thought we were going? Timelessness is not going to wait for us.”

Our heroes continue through the sea of loneliness and despair by holding each others hands tightly. The combined strength of their bonds, weak as they seem, enable them to cross the sea and come to the River Styx.

“How are we to cross?” Pinkie asks.

“Normally, a boat is here to take the souls across. If you look to each side, countless souls who have made it across await the arrival of Charon.” Needless to say that there is indeed souls of ponies and humans alike on each side of the heroes.

Suddenly a shadow overtakes them. The heroes look above to see a metallic chariot glide through the sky. It flies over the River Styx descending. The chariot makes a sudden turn, revealing that four pegasi pulling it. As it nears, Eric and Dante notice that the one riding it is no other than Lyra, in pony form this time.

The group scatters as the chariot comes to a full stop just where they had been standing. Lyra jumps off with air of self-importance.

“Lyra what are you doing here?” Dante aggressively asks.

“I am doing you a favor. I am on my way to see what is keeping Charon away, If you have not noticed there is an awful lot of subjects, or souls as you call them, who need to be cross deeper into Hell. I saw you needed help crossing and thought I would help you while I was going the same way.”

Dante squints his eyes, his skepticism not put at ease by Lyra's explanation.

Looking around, Eric now does notice that there is an awful lot of people and ponies around. Some places it even overflows into the river do to push from behind and lack of room on the beach between river and sea.

“As for you Eric, I was thinking, since I know you so much better from reading your subject file, that you deserve a pony name more befitting your mare form. The Eric business is bound to confuse ponies, and I have one just for you. You shall be hereby called Fillosophia, and short you can go Fillio or Sophie. It captures the eponymous nature of almost all pony names.” Without asking Eric's opinion, Lyra continues in grand fashion to dub her Fillosophia.

Next, Lyra starts bragging about her experiments that are her chariot pegusi. “When I found these four, they were just old humans. In life, they were known as the Four Hoursemen amongst atheists, so I thought that it would be interesting to make what was a joke in life, reality in death. I got much praise from that pretender of a god for this project who so much loves ironic punishments.

“Needless to say, I made them into pegusi. Though pegusi are a subspecies of ponidom, humans tend to think that pegusi are more related to horses. Being one of my first experiments with creating pegusi out of humans, I made many mistakes. Not only did I make them young and healthy, but one of my mistakes made them forget their prior identities and, thus, making them completely subject to my will. Lucky break that mistake was.”

Lyra beings to laugh, but noticing that no one else is, she clears her throat and continues. “As I told you before, I do love the cutie marks of human intellectual and would love to share the marks on these ponies. Would you care”

The first is has an image of an outline of a brain with Rodan's The Thinker inside. The second had a a The famous stages of human evolution from chimpanzee shape through homo erectus to the modern form. The third had a neuron firing next to smiley face. The last had a shot glass, book, and a podium. Fillosophia explains, them in turn. “The first one with the statue is Daniel Dennett, a cognitive scientist and philosopher. The statue is symbolic of human rationality and often associated with philosophy. The second is Richard Dawkins who is an evolutionary biologist. The third is Samuel Harris, a neuroscientist interested in creating a moral theory based on human health and flourishing. Last, is Christopher Hitchens, whose cutie mark is the most mixed up the four. The shot glass reflects his love of hard liquor. The book reflects his career as a literary critic. Lastly, the podium symbolizes his affinity for debate.”

Please with herself, Lyra replies, “Just as the report said, very knowledgeable indeed. Oh and so very quick on textbook explanations. If you all do not mind, I do have an important task to do as supervisor of this part of the Inferno, so if you are interested in getting across anytime soon.”

They get on, Pinkie excited to be on such an amazing chariot. Lyra snaps the reins and off the gang go into the bland sky above the River Styx.

Canto 3

While Pinkie Pie and Sophia play delusional tic-tac-toe (Pinkie has the power to bring people into delusions), Lyra and Dante begin a conversation.

“When are going to turn him back?” asks Dante.

“I will leave that up to young Sophia.”

“It's cruel to mess with the proper order of things.”

“God didn't complain when I turned these old men into pegusi.”

“This is different. He has a place as a guardian of the Inferno, no all of the afterlife. He is supposed to be a great philosopher.”

“I read his file. Your god must really have high hopes for him. He actually never graduated from college. In his life, the inquisition forced him to end his studies.” At this point, Eric raises an ear to eavesdrop. Pinkie raises both ears competitively.

“That explains the sudden increase of work lately. God has recently been extinguishing the long-suffering souls in order to make room for more. If this continues much more, some the Afterlife will lose its eternity aspect.”

“You know Dante, I remember when I first came to the Afterlife. The human god created all of us ponies with our memories of Equestria. He spent time individually making each and every one of us, but when we saw the world your god made for us, we knew he was just a pretender. A true god is like Celestia, whose kindness would never leave any being to suffer for all eternity. She would sooner extinguish their souls than let any more suffering occur.”

Angry, Dante responds, “God's ways are beyond us and cannot be judged by mere imperfect beings such as us.”

At this point, Sophia interjects, “And that is why I am dead, for the morality of God cannot be questioned. My family killed in a name of a morality that the state preaches and practices but cannot understand because it is beyond rationality, they say.”

Sophia notices that Pinkie's confusion and stress at listening to such a pathos latent conversation, so changes the topic. “Pinkie tell me how you ended up in the Ante-inferno.”

“Oh, well, one day, I woke up and I was in this room with a bright and powerful light in the middle. Around me there was a crowd of humans. I didn't know what they were at the time, so I thought they were really funny, you know, being hairless apes and all. Well, a small voice came from the light. It was so worried that I tried to tell it jokes to make it feel better. I couldn't get it too laugh, but it told me that it would feel better if it passed on a message. It said that I would meet my friends sometime after I gave the right person the message.”

“What is the message, Pinkie.”

“I don't remember silly, it has been like a ga-billion years since then.”

“You want to meet your friends don't you?”

“Oh my, oh yes,” Pinkie exclaims. Giving a salute to Sophia, Pinkie declares that she will rack her brain for clues to the missing message of the small voice who threw her into the Ante-Inferno.

Pinkie finally pesters Dante into playing tic-tac-toe with her. After losing his first game, Dante swears that he will win against the pink mare. This goes on for awhile. Dante slowly learning how the game really works.

Lyra and Sophia begin to talk in the front of the chariot. “How are you Fillosophie?”

“It has been strange getting used to the new body in all. At least the afterlife makes most of this just an illusion anyways. Sure I feel stuff, but it not like I have internal organs or anything.”

“You know the human god probably wanted you to get that message. He has a way of manipulating people into his strange plots.”

“I realize that as well. I am still wondering what this all is. Is this really Hell? Am I really Eric anymore? Am I in charge of my life, or in this case, afterlife?”

“You are definitely full of questions. I cannot answer them. My specialty is transformation magic, despite my talent being the lyre.”

“Why did you get into human transformations?”

“Eric, that is the hardest question for me. I have these memories. I have memories of obsession back in Equestria, but everything I have learned from humans tells me that I am nothing but a figment of somebody's imagination. That is not even the biggest reason why I doubt my memories. The biggest reason is that my memories from before are full of contradictions and holes. Sometimes the holes are filled, and other times contradictions create new holes. I do not even remember how I died.”

“If it makes you feel better Lyra, it could be us humans who are fake, and god has just put up a elaborate hoax to challenge your will and determination.”

Throughout this whole conversation, Sophia is thinking about Bon-bon. She does want to bring the mare's roommate up yet seeing that it must be a sensitive issue.

At this point it, the group encounters a storm. Waves underneath the flying charioteer would sink any average boat. Sophia worries that the boatman might have sunk, but Dante and Lyra laugh that possibility off.

Lyra commands the pegusi to descend frighteningly close to the river. Pinkie asks, “What are you doing? ascend, ascend!” Confused, the pegusi start losing coordination, requiring Lyra to pull the reins to stop the chariot from careening out of control.

“Pinkie if we maintain such a high altitude we will be struck by lightning.” At those words, a giant bolt jumps between the clouds. The noise is so loud the mares have a ringing sound remain in their ears for a minute.

“Dante? Sophia, Dante has fainted!” Pinkie exclaims.

“Who would have thunk it? Dante has a weak constitution to lightening. I will remember this for future pranks.” Sophia raises an eyebrow at this.

Dante awakes at the sound of giant's warcry.

“We are coming Charon!” Lyra shouts. Ahead of the charioteers, a battle between the giant boatman and a hoard of plaid monsters. The monsters dance around Charon, taunting him and attacking him from behind. Every time Charon tries to attack he misses. Despite his infinite fortitude, the constant wear is getting to him.

“Why can't he hit them, they are right in front of him?” Pinkie asks.

“What do you mean? He is hitting them, but every time he does, a new one pops up.” Lyra replies.

Sophia stares at the battle with seemingly blank face with just a smidgen of the deepness of thought emerging onto her countenance as if seeing something completely different from both Pinkie Pie and Lyra.

Dante finally wakes and explains why the difference in perception between Lyra and Pinkie. “These are low-class demons called No-True-Scots. They have the power to prevent damage by making false their original self and moving around. Pinkie probably cannot see the fake ones because she has the power over delusion.”

The chariot lands near the battle, which is at a dock near an entrance to an metal-wall-enclosed city. While Lyra takes care of the pegusi, Pinkie and Dante run to help Charon with the battle. Sophia does a slow trot as if still abstracted from the world at hand.

Dante pulls out a sword of bright light, which causes him to cover avert his eyes a bit. In a somewhat futile attempt, Dante begins to slash at the No-True-Scots, only to distract them from Charon.

Pinkie runs up Charon and jumps on him. “I will be your eyes, big sir.”

“Aye, little mare!”

“Okay to the right,” Pinkie shouts. Charon hits one but misses the group Pinkie had been aiming for.

“No your other right.” Charon hits them this time.

“Now to your left while staying right.” Charon figures out Pinkie means due to his mind being pulled into her world.

Dante starts being overwhelmed. Being an inexperience fighter on top of his fear of his own weapon does not help either. Before all hope is lost, Sophia comes to one of the Not-True-Scots. As if they do not see her, Sophia leans her head against the monster. The next moment does not make any sense. Charon, Dante, Pinkie, and Lyra see the hoard of monsters one moment, they blink, and the hoard is replaced with a bunch of humans with their eyes burning with light. Their forms disintegrate as if blown out like candles. From the sky, a gem forms from the remaining light and falls to knock Sophia out. With this anti-climatic ending, Sophia earns her first reward for demon-slaying.

Canto 4

The sound of rythmic beeps stirs Sophia from her slumber. Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep...

The light is too bright for her to open her eyes completely, so she asks where she is to the brightness beyond her vision. A mild headache irritates Sophia's sense further.

“Heaven.” It is Dante's voice.

“Guide Dante is joking. You are in a hospital in the Gatecity New Canterlot.”

“Who are you?” Sophia queries further.

“I am Nurse Redheart, and I was assigned to you as you recover from you concussion.”

Eventually the brightness resides, and Sophia is able to comprehend her situation of being in a hospital. Neither Pinkie Pie nor Lyra are present, and Dante is impatient to finish his duty to guide this blasphemer to specific destinations until he has depleted his usefulness as a demon-slayer.

“Dante said you rid New Canterlot of a large number on No-True-Scots before suffering your injury. There are some side effects that such a slaying has. In order to assess the damage done to your soul, the Doctor and I need to examine you,” explains Nurse Redheart.

Without waiting for Sophia's consent, the nurse begins to move the mare to another room. Dante only follows them out of the room and then waits for the tests to finish. In a room with a lot of advanced medical diagnostic machines, the nurse places a metal hat with many wires connected to a machine on Sophia's head. The machine had a needle that would go back in forward on continuous piece of paper paper a varying speeds that flows through it.

“The machine measure your strength of your philosophical state. That combined with the other data we have on you from Lyra's facility, we can determine important data that you would not understand, but Dante will need to know it. After the doctor inspects the results and hands an overview to Dante, we will teach you how to treat yourself.

“Now, I need you to think about what happened when you fought the demons outside the city. Remember how you felt.”

“I remember stoically coming near them. I remember looking one in the eyes and seeing a person...”

Suddenly, Sophia begins to shake and her eyes starts flashing golden. The machine starts to become far more active.

“I remember seeing people, many people. They just wanted to believe in something Nurse, but they did not know how. They did not know they were thinking wrongly and that it was hurting someone.” Sophia continues to recount countless impressions contained in the demons.

After a long time, the machine makes a few beeps. Whatever in the machine which caused Sophia to go into a philosophical state just from suggestion now inhibited it so that she may recover.

Nurse Redheart disconnected Sophia from the machine. With that, she regains her senses and is led back to Dante.

“The doctor will be back in a few minutes after reviewing the results. Now, Dante would you please hand Eric his channeling bracelet,” requests the nurse.

Dante goes to a table in the back of the room where a leather pouch lay. After digging through it a second, Dante pulls out a golden bracelet, the same object that had knocked Sophia out earlier.

“Eric, lift your hoof now,” the nurse continues. Dante places the channeling device on her. “Whenever you deconstruct demons, part of their essence becomes part of you. When in the philosophical state, you can use this bracelet to quickly transfer this essence into another.

“If you look carefully, there are six crystals slots. Crystals allow you to convert demon essence into elements of harmony. This will not only allow you to transfer particular elements to others on your team but also use some forms of pony magic. You might even learn how to become human again.

“Pinkie Pie will be playing in the courtyard outside the hospital. From there you should go to the training grounds. This being a common place where philosophers begin there journeys in Hell, we already have an escort who can answer all your questions along the way.”

With that, Nurse Redheart and Dante leave to go to a private meeting with the doctor. It bothers Sophia that there is something that they are hiding from her, but her Earthly life as a second-class citizen in America that when wanting to know a secret that those in charge of you have, it is often best to remain quiet.

Sophia walk down the hall. The nurse was right to assume that she could find her way to the courtyard because without walking far Sophia encountered a window and saw Pinkie Pie playing with some of the human children who must be full-time patients at this hospital. Sophia marvels at the immensity of the courtyard though and how lucky she is that Pinkie Pie's party shenanigans enable her to spot her quickly.

Sophia follows the hall until she comes by another line, this one strikingly similar to the mindless line coming from the cave to the ante-inferno. A hospital attendant stares at Sophia as she squiggles into the line that is, according to a sign on the ceiling, exiting. Apparently, she had done something out-of-order in this extremely organized city.

A beeping sound first alerts our heroine that she is coming upon the exist. As each pony or human passes through a sensor, they name and daily schedule is printed on the screen for he or she to review before exiting. One by one, they go through the sensor. The monotonous beeping keeping everyone in step with each other.

Eventually it is Sophia's turn. She trots through, eager to get through this formality. Despite being a part of the prison system during life, Eric had stayed beyond the reach of the authorities for a long while before finally being captured; thus, he avoided the prison camps for criminals against God. Being one of the last, he had been treated as a sole individual rather than in a group like those in the early days.

Strangely enough, the sensor could not read Sophia, meaning there was no beep. Without a beep, time seems to freeze for everypony except Sophia. The beep runs deep in all of these citizens of Gatecity and its organized ways. The hospital attendants in the direct vicinity actually start stumbling, chaos actually causing physical ailments.

Concerned that she has caused irrevocable damage, Sophia pulls the exiting patient behind her who is still waiting for a beep to proceed through the sensor, bringing the monotonous beep back into the sound culture of these people.

Sophia dashes out the exit doors, desparate to avoid causing anymore harm than is necessary. It suddenly strikes Sophia that bringing Pinkie here was probably a terrible idea, knowing her zaniness.

Approaching Pinkie Pie, Sophia notices that while still playing, Pinkie's behavior has become robotic. The mirth remains but expressed in a calculated way. For instance, every time Pinkie made a blind filly smile while playing checkers with her, she would say “I have gained a x percent of my quota” where x would increase with every instance.

“Pinkie, why are you saying that?”

Pinkie ignores Sophia's question. Sophia asks a few more times but to no avail.

Time passes, or would have passed if it was not for the fact that there was no sun or moon in the sky to judge how much time had passed.

Eventually, Pinkie fills her quota, happy with herself at finishing before the projected time. Not long after, a bell tolls from a device Pinkie seems to have hidden in her hair. Without a second thought, she speaks happily to Sophia, saying, “Hello Filliosophia, it is time to go to the training grounds. I have to job of escorting you as well as answering any questions you may have.”

More so than akaward playing style, this question cements for Sophia that something is wrong. Pinkie Pie might have been just playing along before with the robotic like behavior, but Pinkie would never be this polite with Sophia.

Sophia gazes at Pinkie and her bracelet starts to shimmer as it begins to channel her philosopher state. Power from the No-true-Scots courses through Sophia through the bracelet into Pinkie. Without the gems, this power is chaotic and undifferentiated.

Then an explosion occurs, an everything is temporarily lost in smoke.

Canto 5 (incomplete)

"Do you remember what happened?" asks a unicorn officer behind a bright light in a dark interrogating room. The officer had a gray coat and a police badge as a cutie mark. He seemed to be of middle-age but was actually younger. The time spent dealing with the crimes of the newly dead who knew neither how society functioned nor how they themselves functioned had worn him.

"I remember being in a courtyard. I saw Pinkie, a pink pony, believe she is a Earth pony. I am not really familiar with the distinctions between ponykind. I am a philosopher, not a biologist you see." Eric, who is now back in male human form, responds. He is excited beyond his usual self the police officers had given him coffee to help bring him back to his wits.

"Please do not go on a tangent. All we need is the relevant information, so a formal report can be made."

"Okay, I will try. Well, I saw Pinkie, and she was acting off, so I tried to figure out was wrong. I used the same power with which i had off the No True Scotsmen earlier that day."

"You were involved in destroying dangerous Manifests?"

"Manifests?"

"You are new, but I am surprised this has not been explained to you."

"Not very much has been explain to me."

"We need to move on. What happened next?"

"Ahh, well, everything went bright and exploded."

The officer sighed and respond like he has seen this all too many times. "That was you letting your power out of control."

Eric was confirmed in his fear that he was the one responsible for the mishap. "Oh, well, that is bad. I am kind of new to this whole power thing."

"That is obvious. I will have to speak to your guide."

"Why?"

"Because he is the one responsible for what happened?"

This only made Eric feel worse as he realized that the trouble he had rot was still underway.

"May I see Pinkie?"

"She is intensive care right now, so no." The unicorn officer said curtly, demonstrating a desire to have Eric leave and Dante come in.

"Can I be a mare again?"

The officer beamed at him, looking at him with a mixture of surprise and disgust. "No, now leave." The unicorn put a hoof on a button he proceeded to call someone outside of the room to bring in Dante and take out Eric.

__________________________

Eric waited in the hall. Beside him was a younger seeming unicorn officer. Unlike the one in the interogation room, his name tag was visible. It read Clover Field. He had magic blast as his cutie mark. Clearly, Officer Field had no qualms about resorting to violence to subdue a perpetrator.

Despite this, Eric's curiosity and lack of genuine fear made him pester Officer Field. "Excuse me sir, can I ask you some questions?"

Officer Field turned to look at the human next to him who had given him trouble of restoring order to his form. He did not really want to answer any questions, but he felt professionally obligated to do so. "What kind of questions?"

"Like when will Dante be let out."

"He will probably done soon, but he will be asked to go to a court in which he might get a sentence for. This will probably bring a lot of attention to this city again by the media."

"Why is that?"

The officer looked at Eric with some surprised, then sighed. "Because Dante is famous."

"Oh...ahh, another question."

"What is it?"

"Can I see Pinkie?"

"Pinkamena Diane Pie? No, not now. One of our magicians are restoring order to her form, again, which you so rudely distrupted."

"What happened to her after the explosion, can I at least know that?"

"Her form lost order. She grew extra legs. Her face became G1, thats a technical term, it's kind of hard to translate. One of her hooves has fingers. Worst of all she is bloated. If we cannot fix this quickly, it is possible that she will die."

That made Eric pause. It took him awhile, but it struck him finally. "Die? How can she die?"

"Well, unlike you, she is not dead. She is merely here on order of Princess Celestia. all worship her harmony, to help conquer evil. Unlucky for her, the forces of Hell have separated her from her friends. Until our ruler, Celestia, blessed be her name, orders otherwise, Ms. Pie will be under our care."

Whenever Clover Field spoke Celestia name, his tone became religious in nature and upon certain designations like 'all worship her harmony' he would make a movement with his right fore hoof. From a human perspective, this would be similar to a Catholic making the sign of the cross.

"Who is Celestia?"

"She is our princess."

Remembering about Pinkie, Eric fought the urge to learn more about the beliefs of ponykind.

"Will I get to see my friend? You see I owe her kinda. She helped me through the Despair."