Tragodia: Friendship is Philosophy

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.