Sounds from Another Universe: A Psychedelic Excursion

by Vlasislas32

Chapter 3: E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)

Edited, Retcon'd

Waking up after a sound night's sleep under the apple tree (I don't know what possessed me to do such an irresponsible thing, but I seemed to have gotten through the night safely), I decided to get up and continue on. I got up and stretched, a few stiff joints popping, and re-gathered all of my instruments, I began to move out towards the edge of the orchard, in hopes that I might be able to see something besides trees. Something that might indicate the presence of intelligent life. Heading up a hill (which was not easy with several pounds of musical equipment), I saw what looked like a barn and a large painted sign reading "Sweet Apple Acres".

''Sweet Apple Acres'? Sounds like a petting zoo or something from a kid's show. What gives?'

Continuing on my way, I saw what looked to be a small town which, truth be told, looked vaguely like something one might see out in the British or Irish countryside: simple wooden-frame houses with thatched roofs that frankly looked a bit crooked. They were a bit small for human houses, but then again, this was not Earth (in case you couldn't tell). The only odd thing about it was that some of them seemed to be a bit too fancy for the setting, or at least the designer had tried to make them that way, sticking out from the simpler houses were some that almost exuded affluence. Hell, there was even one that looked like it was made to look like some sort of fancy pastry.

'Maybe we've got some sort of Hansel and Gretel situation going on here.', I thought, jokingly.

Actually, scratch what I said about the small size of everything being what was most unusual. Looking more closely, I saw movement in the streets. Something lived here, but it wasn't even vaguely human. If anything, they looked like fluorescent-coloured horses. Make that ponies (they were too small to be horses). They didn't look to dangerous, but one never knows. Besides, the sudden appearance of 6-foot, 5-inch me in this town clearly unaccustomed to the human figure would probably cause a great deal of unrest. Frankly, I didn't care that that is what Discord had sent me here for. I didn't want to cause any riots.

What happened next was completely unexpected. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of something pale blue and... rainbow-coloured? Immediately after, I felt a crushing impact at the side of my head. My vision began swimming, slowly fading into darkness. My last thought before losing consciousness completely was 'Hm. Maybe they aren't so friendly..

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"Jeez! What is he made of? Rocks!?"

Rainbow Dash had just successfully taken down a monster she saw wandering near the outskirts of Ponyville. It was by far the strangest creature she had ever seen, and she had no doubt that it was somehow dangerous. What else walks on two legs except for Minotaurs and and Manticores? Both of those were certainly a threat to the safety of those in Ponyville, and this bewildering being could easily be the same.

Now the problem remained as to how exactly she would get this beast into a secure location. She had heard that there was a largely disused section of the hospital containing restraining equipment and barred windows. She wasn't entirely sure what it was for as it had never been used (she was almost certain) in her lifetime, but she felt that it certainly would be useful. So that was the location, but the creature was far to large for her to move it on her own. Unwilling to leave it alone, lest it wake up and begin terrorising Ponyville, she decided to wait for another Pegasus to fly over where she could get it's attention and send for assistance. There was some cloud-moving in order for today (which she was currently attempting to avoid), and somepony was bound to fly over at some point.

Okay, that matter was all cleared up. Now what was up with all of these boxes and bags the beast had with it? Some had clasps on them that Rainbow had considerable difficulty opening. The bags had zippers on them, which were rather easier to open. What she found inside was rather surprising: a violin, two items she would have said looked like guitars except one had too many strings and the other had too few, and something that looked like the keyboard of a piano, but she hadn't the faintest idea how one would play it without the rest of instrument. And were these books? If they were, they were written in some language she had never seen before. What was with that weird black-and-white circle on it's... clothes? Why did it have so much clothes?

Soon enough, a Pegasus few overhead, and Rainbow called him down to help her move the creature. It was tedious work, especially with the black packages they had placed on top of him in order to transport them (for some reason she couldn't really say, Rainbow was intrigued by them), but they did eventually get to the hospital.

Staring wide-eyed at the creature, Nurse Redheart managed to get out. "...What... is this thing?... and why did you bring it here?"

"I caught it near Ponyville. It came out of the forest, so I didn't want to take any chances with it. So I rammed it in the head and had it brought here for... safekeeping, if you know what I mean."

"Well... alright...", said Redheart, "I'm still not quite sure why you gave him such a serious injury without proof of any malevolence, but there isn't much we can do about that now. ...Even so, he doesn't look very well. We can lock him down, but I still want to check him over."

"Fine.", said Rainbow with a bit of an edge. Why should this thing get any treatment? And what was I supposed to do? Wait until it got into town to see if it were friendly or if it started smashing things up?

Together, they brought the creature down to a section of the hospital that had gone largely disused for years. Flipping on the dim lights (how they still worked after all this time is a mystery) revealed a rather menacing room. It was nearly completely underground and the few windows that were present were blocked by metal bars. The beds were equipped with straps for the hands and feet.

"What exactly was this place used for?", inquired Rainbow. It would be the greatest lie of all time to say she was not disturbed by the dust-laden surroundings.

"It was used quite a long time ago for patients who were... not quite right.", replied Redheart, choosing her words carefully. "It hasn't been used in years because it turned out to cause more damage to these patients than healing, so other methods were developed. I think it should be alright for our guest here, though, considering the circumstances. Of course if it turns out that he really is friendly, keeping him here would be a grave mistake."

After helping Redheart heave the creature into the bed and fasten the straps, Rainbow took her leave, eager to get out of the unsettling mental ward.

Redheart stayed for a bit though to examine the beast. While its form was certainly alien to Equestria, it was not without a certain elegance in its design: broad shoulders, leading down to a pair of oddly-jointed arms which ended in five-fingered... hands? This is what they were called on monkeys and at the time, Redheart couldn't find any better analogue. The nails were a bit long on them, though not nearly long enough to constitute claws. The five fingers were long and a bit thin, but the veins and sinews standing out from the skin and running up just past the wrist before disappearing into the skin suggested that this creature was rather proficient at using them for some sort of work. Muscles stood slightly out from its neck, which led up to a slightly out of proportion head with a squarish jaw. She cringed a little at the several pointed teeth visible through the creature's slightly open mouth. But there were also several flatter teeth. Omnivorous? Its mouth was separated from its snout, which was small and triangular with a rounded-off point near the end. The creature's overall appearance seemed to suggest it to be a male, but there was something vaguely feminine about its features. Nothing particularly overt, but its face seemed a bit too shapely, its appendages a bit too delicate, and its colouration a bit too creamy for a typical male.

Having other patients to tend to, she decided to leave the creature alone for now.
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Wandering through Ponyville, earnestly avoiding Cloud Duty, Rainbow was mulling over just what this strange new beast could possibly be. Failing to come up with a suitable explanation on her own, Rainbow concluded that the best thing to do would be to get Twilight and have her look at the creature: if anyone knew, it would be her. Walking to the library, Rainbow found it locked with a sign on the door reading "CLOSED FOR RE-ORGANISATION. PLEASE COME AGAIN. THANK YOU!

"Ugh, I don't have time for this.", Rainbow said to herself, and proceeded to knock loudly at the door until a rather irate Twilight poked her head out the door.

"What?! Was the sign not clear enough?"

"Look, re-organising your precious books can wait. I have something important to show you!"

"Is this going to be like the last time you said you found something important and it was just to get me to help you with your paperwork for the Wonderbolts?"

"No! I'm serious this time! I found some weird creature out at the edge of Ponyville, so I bashed it in the head in case it was dangerous. I have no idea what it is, and I need you to tell me!"

This mention of a strange creature clicked in Twilight's mind, reminding her of the bizarre conversation she had had with Fluttershy the day before.

"And it has books."

Twilight's ears stood up at this. Books?

"What did they say? What were they about?"

"I don't know. I couldn't read them."

"What do you mean, you 'couldn't read them'? I know you aren't much for reading, but I know you know how to read."

"It's not my fault! They're all written in some funky language! I can't read any of it!"

Twilight relented.

"Alright, I'll go with you. But I can't stay too long: the library is in an absolutely dreadful state."

Rainbow hadn't really noticed before due to her being preoccupied with the creature herself, but much of the town must have noticed her and the other Pegasus dragging it through the streets, and there was a considerable buzz rippling through the crowded streets.

Reaching the hospital, Rainbow led Twilight down to the eerie ward where the beast had been tied down. After overcoming her surprise at realising that the creature almost exactly matched Fluttershy's description (with the exception of the large white bandage wrapped around its forehead), Twilight asked the obvious question:

"Why is he tied up? He seems to be out cold."

"And what happens when he wakes up?", retorted Rainbow, "We don't want him terrorising the town now, do we?"

"Whatever. Where are those books you told me about?"

"They're in these black case things over there.", said Rainbow, gesturing in their direction.

Unzipping and un-clipping the cases, Twilight too was taken aback by the instruments inside, but those were of secondary interest to her. She gathered up the books and levitated them to a nearby table. Rainbow was right: they were in a language, or at least with characters completely foreign to Equestria. The first to catch her attention was a medium-sized blue book covered in white and green characters, the basic design of which seemed to be lines intersecting, meeting, or sprouting other lines, with a few circular characters here and there. In the centre of the cover was another character, or at least Twilight thought it looked like a character, although a better description would be a collection of lines of differing shapes and thicknesses mashed together in a shape. Inside were more characters like this, along with more of the line-based script, which was consistently stiff and regimented, kept in neat rows and columns. It was much neater than the wavy, squiggly writing of Equestrians. She liked it.

The rest of the books were all written in this latter script, but the subject matter of each appeared different:

One book had only a small square of text on the front, but on the back was a rather striking, if slightly too angular illustration of some other member of this creature's species. It bore a fierce scowl, a clump of orange-yellow fur on it's head which was made to look spiny (much like that of the creature on the bed, except it's was black), was wearing a black robe and was brandishing what Twilight thought looked an awful lot like a sword from one of the history books she had read. On the inside, instead of words, there were boxy collections of pictures, many of which included the figure from the cover along with still other versions of this species and a few rather monstrous-looking creatures, with words next to their heads in bubbles. Twilight noticed that the images seemed to have a flow that went from right to left, instead of the normal left to right. Was this book printed back-to front?

The next book had an illustration on the front. This time, even though it had no colour, it seemed to be a much more realistic representation than that on the previous book. The expression on the face of the creature on the cover could only be described as sanguine. He was rather young-looking, his lips were barely curled in a slight smile, and his eyes seemed almost half-shut, gazing off in another direction. His head-fur, instead of being wildly spiked, looked as if someone had put wax in it and shaped it to look smooth. All of this gave him a very noble, stately look. Perhaps he was a prince or a lord.

There were several other books, all with varying illustrations and all filled with the same indecipherable yet strangely aesthetically pleasing writing.

Then the creature began to stir.

________________________________________________________________

When I came to, my vision didn't come back clearly right away. I had a smashing pain in my head, like I had gotten totally hammered the night before. Through the haze, I tried to pick myself up, but I found that I couldn't. Looking around, I found that I was being restrained on a bed by straps around my wrists and ankles. They seemed to be rather flimsy in their construction, but were sufficient to keep me in place in my weakened state.

'Aw crap. Maybe I went nuts while tripping and somebody locked me up in a mental institution. I knew this was all too weird to be true.

But even as I thought this to myself, it became implausible: two of the vividly-coloured pony-like creatures that I had seen earlier were standing a short distance away from me.

Were they reading my books? Wait, where was all of my stuff?!

Attempting to adjust my position in the bed gave me a slight headache behind my eyes, causing me to grunt softly. The two creatures must have heard it, because they turned around and looked directly at me. One, a purple-coloured pony, cautiously stepped over to the end of my bed and began speaking speaking to me. I was slightly surprised that it could speak English, but that surprise quickly turned to annoyance when it became apparent that it was talking in that slow, loud, drawn out way that jackass tourists talk to non-English speaking locals, as if it somehow magically makes them understand the language.

"HELLO. YOU... ARE... CURRENTLY..."

Then the light blue one with wings said, "What are you doing? It's some monster from the forest. Why would it know how to talk?"

This irritated me severely.

"Look, I don't know how we speak the same language, but I can understand you perfectly. You... (I looked at the first pony)... can stop talking like that, and you... (I looked at the second pony)... is it to much to ask for a little respect? Or at least give me a chance before coshing me over the head?" (My memory of the event that led to my current situation was starting to come back now.)

Both of them looked at me with shock written all over their features.

The blue one recovered rather quickly and began pushing the purple one out the door, agitatedly whispering "Get out! Get out! We have to tell somebody that it's awake!"

I was a bit put off by their reaction, but I could understand it. I must look at least slightly freakish to them. But there was time to smooth things over at a later date. Right now, I needed to get out of these wristbands.

I waited until I was sure they were out of earshot, and then I began to pull up with my arms. Much to my surprise, the wooden structure fastening the straps to the bed gave way rather easily, responding with a resounding snap.

'Crap. I hope nobody heard that.'

As I sat up and unbuckled the straps around my ankles, I heard a rush of feet, or... hooves coming towards my room.

'Damn.'

Then I thought of something. It was a pretty goofy idea, but I figured that it couldn't make the situation any worse. Hell, I seemed to be in a land of fairy-tale creatures, and this kind of thing seemed to work in some of them. I stood up, walked over to where my instrument cases were strewn, open, on the floor, picked up my Korg, sat down, and flicked the switch, bringing assorted red and green lights to life.

'Yes! The batteries still work!

And I began to play...
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Nurse Redheart was distracted from her work with a patient by a frantic Rainbow Dash, who was preceded by a slightly put-off Twilight being shoved ahead.

"It's awake! Come quick! The thing's awake!"

"Please quiet down! I'm with a patient here! Besides, it's strapped into the bed. There's no way that it can..."

At this point a loud cracking came from almost directly below them.

"See! I knew it was dangerous! Now it's going to try and kill us all!", yelled a frantic Rainbow, who then raced towards the stairway and down to the basement.

"Rainbow! Wait!", shouted Twilight and Redheart almost in unison, and dashed after her in an attempt to stop her from directly engaging the beast unprotected.

Twilight, unlike Rainbow, was convinced by its instruments, books, and refined speech that the creature was civilised and not a wild animal, but it had seemed pretty agitated at finding itself tied down, and if history meant anything, it was that even the most civil of creatures could provoked to violence.

What greeted Twilight's eyes however, was a complete subversion of her expectations. The creature was not angry. It was not being violent. It was calmly sitting there with it's piano-less keyboard, and playing a song. It was a song quite unlike any other she had ever heard before. It was simple, yet mesmerisingly beautiful. She remembered more of her conversation with Fluttershy, who had said that this creature had been playing music when she had found it. Things were getting stranger by the minute.

Redheart, Twilight, and Rainbow all stood in a stunned silence for the better part of a minute before Twilight recovered her ability to speak.

"That was amazing! More importantly, how are you doing that?"
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"Thank you.", I said. "I take it that you have a revised opinion of me now?

"Yes, well.. some of us...", she nodded to the blue pony, "...may need a bit more convincing, but I am willing to believe you.", said the purple pony.

She seemed a bit put off by my not answering her question, but that could be rectified at a later date.

"Alright. Now, I believe some introductions are in order. My name is Marcus Szekely. I am a resident of Boston, capitol of Massachusetts, one of the states of the United States of America. Although I suppose that won't mean much to you."

"Zeklee? What kind of... oh, never mind. My name is Twilight Sparkle. This (she pointed at the blue pony) is Rainbow Dash, and this is Nurse Redheart. You are currently in the hospital of Ponyville, a town in Equestria."

I had to stifle a laugh at the name of the town. Hey, it sounded like something from a kid's show. What would you do?

The one called Redheart spoke next. "I've never heard of Boston, or... Masachewzets, or any of those places. Where are they? Are they close by?"

You don't know the half of it, lady.'

"Well, they definitelyaren't anywhere close, but I couldn't give you any sort of accurate or believable answer if I tried. I believe that I probably fall under the category of 'space alien' here. Yesterday I was..."

I hesitated here, as I wasn't sure how this society looked upon trippers, if they even had such a thing.

"...out with some friends, and the next thing I knew, I started moving across some sort of portal through the universe. I woke up here. Or more accurately, I woke up in the forest near this town."

"So, you're from another planet?", asked Twilight, excitement audible in her voice.

"At the least. This may even be a different universe from mine."
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Twilight's ears stood straight up. Her brain was exploding with questions. Another planet? Maybe another universe? This was the research opportunity of a lifetime!
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Well, I met an old man dyin' on a train.
No more destinations, no more pain
But he said one thing before I crept away:
"Never let your fear decide your fate"
-AWOLNation, Kill Your Heroes

Author's Note:

I know that the music hasn't played a very big role in the fic as of yet, but I think it's reasonable to have a certain build-up to that point. More chapters coming soon! (Soon being a relative term)

Comments

[Minerva]

He should play "Another Brick In The Wall" just to see Twilight's reaction. "Brain Damage/Eclipse" would remind them of Nightmare Moon with the sun being eclipsed at the end of it, or maybe he could play "Paint It Black".

[Vlasislas32]

3371970 Thx for the feedback. I've already got a few songs lined up for Chapter 4, but I might be able to work your suggestions in. It depends on how the plot goes. If I can't t, I can bring them in later on.

[Dimiein]

he should kick rainbows sucker punching ass now that they are lulled by his dulcet tones