Chapter 4: The Audition
Breakdown
Chapter 4: The Audition
Day 11: Wagnesday, and Halloween, 3:14 PM PDT
Let me tell you a bit more about my Narrative Theory of the Universe.
Life is a story. It may not have been that way before, but it is that way now.
It is impossible to know anything about the “Author” (or authors) of this story. Perhaps the authors of the story of humanity is every human mind on Earth meshing together unconsciously. There is no possible way to know, so I won’t waste my time speculating further on that subject. What I can say is this: the Author likes drama, and the Author wishes to be entertained.
In this story, just like any conventional story, there are main characters, minor characters, and background characters. For main characters, the universe actually revolves around them. Childhood hang-ups end up deciding the fates of thousands, and everything they do matters to a degree that is quite unnerving if you think about it. Background characters have no idea that anything odd is going on—they go about their mundane lives day after day, until one day they end up as cannon-fodder to prove just how bad the villain is.
Minor characters in my opinion are the most interesting, in that they start with ordinary lives until the moment they meet a main character, and from that moment they are forever transformed. Suddenly, they see before them one of the pivots around which everything must revolve, and they find themselves on a spoke of the great wheel of life, flung around at absurd speeds until something finally snaps. Minor characters after all have a singular purpose in relation to their main character. They might be the comic relief that keeps a serious character sane. Or maybe something truly awful is fated to happen to them to motivate the main character to do something they never would otherwise.
The point of my wool-gathering is this: I never really had a part to play in the Big Story, until now. Right now I was standing before an undeniable Main Character, capital letters and all, and what I did in the next five minutes or so would determine the course of the rest of my life. This was my audition for the great opera Götterdämmerung. Would I win the part of Siegfried the main character, or Alberich the forgettable minor villain? I knew one thing for certain, though: having gained the attention of the Spirit of Disharmony, the role of background character was no longer available. Either I was about to get a juicy part, or I was about to be squashed like a juicy bug.
So in the end I did the only thing I could do: I picked the part I wanted, and sang my heart out to get it.
“I believe we have a business arrangement,” Discord had said to me not five seconds previously.
“Business arrangement?” I said, straightening my lapel and looking him straight in the eyes. “My current business arrangement is with the true parents of this boy here. So unless you’ve been spending your spare time playing ‘Zeus’ with maidens locked in dungeons, I don’t believe I have any business with you.”
Yes, I actually said that. And at the same time I thought: When they come to bury my remains, they won’t even have to re-dress me—thanks to my Dr. Jekyll costume, I’m already perfectly suited for a satin-lined coffin.
He looked at me for a second, before laughing out loud. “Oh! Oh!” he cried out between gasps. “I knew I picked you guys out for a reason!” Then he rose up to his full height. “That’s one,” he said, suddenly serious.
“One?” I asked. As in strikes? “Out of three?”
“Out of I-haven’t-decided-yet,” he said. Then he smiled mischievously and leaned down to whisper in my ear: “And purple goes much better with red satin than black.”
I stared at him incredulously.
“That ‘fooling around’ business has some negative side effects,” he told me conversationally, “or have you noticed that Zeus isn’t around anymore?”
“Seriously?” I sputtered.
Discord smirked. “I’ll never tell.” Then he took off the glasses he was suddenly wearing and pulled out a thick pile of paper from nowhere with his eagle claw. “Now, then, to business: you made a pact last night at 11:36 pm. ‘Something needs to be done’—those were your exact words,” he said, reading from the top page of the pile.
I leaned over to look, and saw the exact words of my thoughts about preventing the merger of personalities in ponies. That only took up the top third of the sheet—the rest of the page, and presumably all of the pages underneath, consisted of the word “ditto” repeated over and over again.
“Ah, the Faustian Bargain angle,” I said, slowly stroking my chin and stretching out my words. “You’ll notice I didn’t state which deity I was addressing. It could have been Nodens for all you know.”
As I said this, I was very thinking very, very carefully. Discord could read my mind. He seemed to think that interfering with the merge was in his best interests, which instantly made me doubt if what I wanted was best for all parties. But I could not see a way in which I could be wrong. And so, with great reluctance, I began my alliance with a literal monster.
“Well I’m the one you’re going to have to deal with,” Discord said in reply to my earlier statement. I took it from his smile that he probably knew exactly what conclusion I had just reached. “‘Next available operator’, and all that.”
I looked back over my shoulder. Benjamin was standing in the hallway watching us, paralyzed with fright.
“I’m not going to let Discord touch you,” I assured him, before turning to face the chimeric creature. “If you want him, you’re going to have to go through me, Spirit.”
I looked Discord right in the eyes, turned so that Benjamin couldn’t see what I was doing...and I winked.
Step One, I thought at Discord as clearly as I could. Gain their trust.
Discord’s eyes very slowly went wide.
Very well, his voice echoed inside of my head. I’m not sure how, but it felt like his words were wrapped in uncooked bacon.
“You don’t stand a chance, Human,” he replied loudly to my words. “Now how shall I take you down?” A very audible glint sparkled in one eye. Step Two: Unite against a common enemy, he added mentally.
Fear, I thought quickly. Both of them at once, but not enough to leave them incapable of rational thought. Leave me alone, and do not lay a hand on them.
Discord laughed again, without a trace of the warmth he displayed earlier; it was a laugh to freeze the blood.
As I looked back once again, I saw Benjamin jerk his head up, his eyes unfocused. “Stay away!” he cried out, slowly backing away from Discord. He seemed to be staring at an imaginary creature who was towering over him. “You’re not real!”
“No!” I yelled, imitating Benjamin’s look as I shrank from a more human-sized foe, although this one even less substantial than the boy’s. “You can’t!”
I looked over to see Discord idly waving his lion paw—I guessed that this was how he was controlling the fear spell. Slowly the hand came to halt. “And this...is the part...where you...run!” And with a flick of the paw, he caused Benjamin to scream before turning awkwardly around and scampering into the kitchen.
I winced briefly at the amount of emotional pain I was responsible for, before uttering a fake scream of my own and following.
As we made for the door to the back porch, I could have sworn that the deadbolt unlocked itself before the door slipped very slightly ajar. Benjamin fell against the door, surprised to find how quickly he could get through it.
(% % %)
The two of us made straight for the barn. I was all for climbing into the loft, but Rain Shimmer—having taken control when Benjamin was overcome by a panic attack—instead spotted a cow stall that was not being used. This wasn’t very easy, as it appeared that whatever Discord was doing to the two minds made it hard for them to see.
“It’s not real,” Shimmer said quietly to himself, “it’s not real! They couldn’t have captured her—she’s too smart for that!”
“FEE FIE FOE FUM!” rumbled the basso voice of an enormous Discord, his footfalls in the field causing miniature earthquakes. “I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN EQUESTRIAN-AMERICAN!”
I crouched down, hugging my knees to myself. I made a keening wail as I scrunched my eyelids tight.
“Doctor!” Shimmer cried out.
“Ah!” I shouted, jumping to my feet and smiling triumphantly. “I did it!” I lied. “I’ve kicked him out of my mind.”
“How did you do it?” Shimmer asked, darting his head around as he tried to avoid seeing something that only existed in his mind.
“Imagine your house,” I told him. “Both of you, imagine your houses. Benjamin, imagine the ranch, and Shimmer, imagine your...you live in a cloud house?”
“Yes!” grunted Shimmer. “And hurry!”
“Those houses are your shields,” I told them, “so make the walls as strong as possible. As long as all of your walls are secure, Discord can’t get in.”
“I don’t have all my walls!” Shimmer—no, Benjamin cried out. “My house overlaps with Shimmer’s!”
“That’s Discord’s doing!” I told them. “He’s trying to mash you two together, so you’ll have all of your collective vulnerabilities and none of your strengths. Imagine that your homes are movable: Shimmer, imagine that your cloud home is on an unanchored cloud, and Benjamin, imagine that the ranch is on rollers. Now imagine you are inside of your houses and pushing the two apart.”
Benjamin scrunched his eyes closed. “I...I’m trying,” he huffed. “But it won’t move! Shimmer says that it’s the same for him.”
Would you like to go in and help? Discord’s voice asked me laconically from inside my head.
I whipped my head around, to see the draconequus leaning over the partition with the next stall. He was mostly invisible, with a dotted line outline that I supposed only I could see.
My eyes went wide as I contemplated the offer. My favorite book when I was a teenager, the book that convinced me that the hard work to become a psychologist was worth it, was the science fiction novel The Dream Master, by Roger Zelazny. It was about the most revered and beloved man in the world, a man who used a machine of his own invention to enter other people’s dreams, and in this way rid them of all of their psychological hang-ups. When I discovered how easily I could influence the minds of other people, I had hoped that I might have been born with the Dream Master’s powers, that through training I could do what he could do. But it was not to be—even with the help of modern science, I could only affect others through my words, and because of miscommunication, I have occasionally caused more harm than good with my interventions. But to go inside another’s mind, to see and shape exactly what they are thinking...
I nodded eagerly. I reached my hands towards the pony’s temples...and then stopped myself. “I have a way to get into your mind,” I told Benjamin hesitantly. “But I don’t want to invade—”
A bored Discord raised his eagle paw and rotated it in the air.
The boy’s eyes sprang open. “Help us!” he begged me.
Without hesitation, I put my hands to his head, and suddenly all was darkness.
I was plunged into a battlefield, split into two very unlike halves on either side of the combined ranch/cloud house. On one side (which resembled a war-torn city neighborhood), a flaming creature ten feet high was trying to tear open the side of the ranch house—I recognized it as the monster from the South Korean film The Host. As I watched, it raised its misshapen head to the heavens and howled in rage. On the other, four teams of horses—their eyes blood red and frothing at the mouth, were pulling ropes attached to the legs of a sky blue pegasus mare with a bright orange mane. As the horses pulled, the mare screamed, louder and louder. Based on Rain Shimmer’s hostility to me and my species earlier, I guessed that these were horses native to Earth. This half of the field resembled the top of an anvil cloud, with thunder loudly rolling beneath and occasional loops of bright lightning darting up and down like solar prominences seen through a blue filter.
Each horrific sight was accompanied by an army: the mutated beast was surrounded by dozens of clones of Discord, all dressed in Confederate gray and armed with bayoneted rifles, and all rushing towards the ranch house. On the other side, another rushing army of Discords were dressed in bright orange jackets and waving spiked clubs in the air; they probably would have been even more horrifying if I had known anything about the military history of Equestria. Both sides were caterwauling like crazy as they rushed each other across the two dissimilar fields.
Seeing as the mental projections of Benjamin and Rain Shimmer were both inside their houses, I was probably the only one able to notice that both armies faded out of existence as they passed out of view of the windows facing them. Also, they were pretty clearly all following the same short animation loop as they ran.
So I was in somebody else’s dream, a scenario I had fantasized about for decades. Needless to say, I knew exactly what to do. With but a single thought, I teleported myself into Benjamin’s ranch house. I began to fall through what should have been the floor, but at the last moment I halted my fall by will alone and floated back up onto an imaginary platform.
“I’m here!” I cried out, loud enough for both human and pony to hear. “Keep pushing your houses apart!”
I took stock of my surroundings. The walls of the ranch house stretched back for fifty feet, then smoothly transitioned into walls made of clouds. The air seemed to shimmer at the point where the two houses met, and I was only able to see a white blur beyond. As for the half of the partially-merged house I was currently in, it was devoid of a floor or furniture, and that was because a dozen long logs were stretched under the open bottom. The reason the floor was missing was because Benjamin, a short human boy with red hair, needed to stand on the ground if he were to carry out my instructions to push the house. Unfortunately, with the height of the logs, the boy could only just barely reach the wall above him.
Benjamin turned his head to look back at me. “Help!” he cried.
I jumped from my resting place to be behind him. Reaching around his waist, I lifted the boy up so that his outstretched arms were level with the bottom of the wall. “Imagine you’re wearing stilts,” I told him. “The strongest and most sturdy stilts that money can buy!”
“The Aliens documentary!” he cried out, and I nodded, remembering the box-like stilts that the stunt performer used inside the Alien suit, stilts good enough to engage in fight choreography with. As he said this, they materialized under his feet. As he leaned forward and pushed, the house began to move.
“Go help Shimmer,” he said, all his concentration on the wall before him.
“Alright,” I said.
(% % %)
Rain Shimmer’s half of the joined house was not moving, and the reason for that was because he was not moving. The stallion was shaking in horror, his eyes locked on the wracked form of his marefriend.
“Snap out of it!” I screamed, slapping him across the face.
Ouch! Pony heads have a lot more bone in them than human heads and...I realized that I had more important things to think about at the moment.
He looked at me, wild-eyed.
“Are you just going to let those mindless beasts from my planet do this to your one true love!” I bellowed.
“Cerulean!” he yelled, jumping up and flying straight for the window.
He was angling to fly through the window, but I used my imagination to constrict it down so that only his head was able to emerge.
“Are you going to let Discord keep you from rescuing her?” I challenged him.
“No! Never!” he cried, beating his wings furiously and straining against the window.
“Nothing can stop you!” I encouraged him. “Nothing!”
Through a side window, I could see that the house was beginning to move.
(% % %)
I materialized back on the hill where I first appeared in Benjamin’s mind. I could see the joined house slowly growing longer and longer as Benjamin and Shimmer pushed in opposite directions. New walls of the appropriate texture faded into existence as this was done. I noticed that Discord, the real Discord, was standing silently beside me.
Finally, with an odd sort of “pop!”, the two houses sprang fully apart from each other. At that moment, the two scenes outside the homes faded away.
Discord pointed in a direction that didn’t seem to belong to Euclidian three-dimensional space. Somehow, I was able to imagine going in that direction, and in that way I left Benjamin and Shimmer’s mindscape.
I was back in the stall with the pony.
“Is...is he gone?” Benjamin asked, slowly rising to his hooves.
I stood up and looked around. “It sure looks that way,” I honestly—if somewhat misleadingly—replied.
“Thank you,” Benjamin said, holding his forelegs out weakly for a hug, which I leaned down to give him.
“Is Rain Shimmer alright?” I asked.
The pony looked to his lower left for a few seconds. “Yes,” he finally said. “Thank you.”
“We still have much to do,” I said as I stood back up. “Find your real parents, reunite Rain Shimmer with his marefriend.... But first let me see if it’s safe.”
Benjamin began to get up. “Stay here,” I told him with a wave of my hand. “I’ll be right back.”
(% % %)
I walked out of the barn door, but was stopped short by the sight of a bank vault sinking slowly into a nearby pig sty.
“Well,” commented Discord slyly as he climbed out of the vault wearing a straightjacket and chains, “you did say you were going to see if it’s safe.”
I looked back to see that the barn was encased in a clear force field of some kind, probably to block out the sound of our conversation from Benjamin’s ears. With a frown, I advanced on the draconequus. “Why do you want to prevent pony and human minds from merging?” I asked, poking Discord in the chest with one finger.
Discord removed his bindings just like they were a coat, and hung them from a hanger that insisted on remaining in midair. Underneath he was wearing a white tuxedo. “Why do you want the same thing?” he asked. A magical wave of his eagle claw caused my poking hand to fly away so forcefully it nearly dislocated my wrist. “Oh, and that was two.”
“I’m trying to save them,” I said, cradling my bruised hand to my chest. “Someday they will be returned to their rightful bodies, whether by science or by magic. And when that happens, both minds need to be present. Anything else is a sort of murder, of one or both of them.”
“Well there you are,” he said with a grim smile. “There was one thing, one line from my episode of the cartoon that the fans keep forgetting me saying: I don’t turn ponies to stone. And that means I also do not condone the death of ponies or humans, not even mentally.” His head shot up suddenly as he looked to the sky, the movement reminding me of a bird of prey suddenly sighting its next target. He looked back over at me out of the corner of his eye. “I haven’t time to take care of them myself,” he explained, “and it’s not like they would ever trust my motives.”
“For which they are completely justified,” I quipped.
“For which they are completely justified,” Discord repeated with gusto. “So I want you to do it. I’ll let you keep your little dream-walking ability, and I may from time to time provide you information about newly-arrived ponies that I deem especially need your help.”
“In return...” I said, and waited until I had his full attention. “In return, you will not advertise our relationship. I will not have you undermining my efforts.”
Discord nodded. “But of course.” He held out his paw. “Do we have a deal?”
After a moment to try and fail to find any additional terms to suggest that would do me any good, I gave him my hand. “Deal.”
I winced as I felt him sink two of his claws into the flesh of my palm.
“That’s a little something to remember me by,” he said, with a truly evil grin as he released his grip.
I pressed my hands together to try and stop the bleeding.
“Excellent!” Discord cried. “It is so hard to get good help these days. Now while I have you here, I thought I’d pick your brain.”
I suddenly found myself in an operating theater, lying on a gurney with a sheet around the top of my head. I sat up in shock, tearing the sheet away and feeling the top of my head. Instead of a skull, all I could feel was a wet spongy substance. “Discord!” I cried.
Discord walked into my view. He was dressed in a surgeon’s green scrubs. He had a used popsicle stick in one claw, while the paw was supporting a golf club held over his shoulder. “Can’t take a joke?” he asked lightly.
When I answered this with nothing but a scowl, Discord snapped his claw, causing a flash of light that put us back in front of the barn.
I took a moment to calm myself down. I realized that I was in league with a mad-...creature, and would have to get used to this kind of insanity. I took in a couple of calming breaths. “What did you want to ask?” I finally said.
“I just wanted your loquacious opinion of my rule so far,” he said. He was now wearing a black tuxedo, and was apparently trying to act up to its classiness.
“We barely know you exist!” I exclaimed.
“And...that is a good thing, yes?” Discord said hopefully. “Nothing to protest about, after all.”
I had to admit, he had a point—humans were very good at protesting against anything and everything. “Well, you still should reveal your goals,” I told him. “Perhaps...how about you give three mutually contradictory agendas to three different interviewers on the same day?”
Discord chuckled. “I’ll put you back to zero for that,” he said.
“Dr. Franklin?” echoed Rain Shimmer’s voice from inside the force field.
I looked back to see that Discord was seated in mid-air. There was a rumbling, like that of a motorcycle. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” he said, putting on a pair of aviator sunglasses and riding off into the glow of a sunset on the northern horizon.
I felt a twinge of pain in my right hand. I looked down to see that the two puncture wounds inflicted on me by Discord were nothing but well-healed scars.
But the pain was there to make sure I didn’t forget.
So that’s how I got my part in this planet’s Götterdämmerung.
There is no need to remind me that the opera in question ends with none of the main characters surviving.
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This was great.
That last line put a chill in heart and a smile upon my face, this is something i love.
Can't wait to see the world burn.
But the question is if the doctor is a main character.
And no... not that doctor... the one in this story
I do love it when people remember that, in Discord's opinion, a live victim is orders of magnitude more interesting than a dead one.
Also, Dr. Franklin may be one of the most compelling non-villain antagonists I've ever seen. Especially since, in his mind, he's entirely in the right. Heck, he's got me convinced, especially since I'm finding it difficult to get involved in other stories set in this universe. The only reason I'm not rooting for him is that alliance with Discord. Anything the draconequus wants probably isn't in line with what's best for anyone. Except Discord himself, of course.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
Again, allying with Discord - A sign that we're following the story of a villain here. And yet I completely agree with him and want him to win.
He's right, regardless of his "choice" in allies.
It's hard to taking anything discord says at face value, but if he's being legit...
It also helps that I'm not reading any other stories set in this universe, so Doctor Franklin is an ultra-protagonist in my book.
So many ideas... just so many.
Also Psychonauts. I do hope you've brushed up on that.
3044418
Hmm...interesting. Predictably, I had no idea what Psychonauts was before I looked it up, because it's a game. I suck at strategy games, because my thinking is too slow, and I suck at any game requiring hand-eye coordination, because I haven't got any.
I'll watch the first few parts of a walkthrough to get the general feel.
3048084
It's really more of a platform adventure type of game than any MAJOR strategy, but some of the ending levels get pretty frustrating. It's also one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. I have an extra copy if you'd like to try it out yourself.
I definitely recommend that you go watch Yhatzee's review of Psychonauts if you need convinced of how fun it is.
I thought the pony and human minds were merging because it over-stressed the pony brain to have two minds inside it, and either they merge or start having anyeurisms.
That doesn't have to be true for this story, but it would make a glorious plot twist as his hubris catches up with him.