A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 9 - Bunsen Burner

It was a grey afternoon. A storm was expected early that evening, but for now there was only the mumbling thunder in the distance. Pferdshire was definitely not a cultural center of Equestria. Half the maps across the country didn’t even have it listed it was so small. It was just another unremarkable knothole of a hamlet that dotted the landscape of the northern plains. No one of intrigue had ever come here; neither of the Royal Sisters, no Princes or Princesses. The only pony who regularly came around that represented the crowns was the census taker, and that was once every ten years. It was a boring little place out in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest sister town about forty five miles away.

This also happened to be Bunsen Burner’s hometown. He had not been here for many years, as his duties of being Director of the Royal Science Division had kept him either in Canterlot or near a disaster zone. After his banishment from Canterlot and his titles being stripped from him by Princess Luna, it had taken him nearly a month to return to his birthplace. He had come back to his home in exile, and then he had stopped. He had done nothing except to simply existed in his home for six months, not doing anything of value for himself or for others. He hadn’t gotten a new job; his investments and pay from his years of service could easily cover any expense he could imagine for nearly a full lifetime. He did not have the passion to tinker or create like he used to; his job had always required him to create out of necessity rather than inspiration, and now he had neither. Most days, he simply sat in his small library and read. Book after book after book, he had read them all at least three times, and he was certain that he had memorized the majority of them already. He kept reading; it gave him something to do. He had watched days, weeks roll by, and he did absolutely nothing but read. He had only cleaned and restored a few rooms of the modestly sized manor that his family had owned; the bedroom, the library, the kitchen, and the lab. Everything else had seemed rather extraneous, as he did not expect any visitors. He sometimes walked through the empty rooms, where white shrouds covered all the unused furniture to avoid dust contamination. The house had been placed in this state many years ago, when his father had passed away. That had been the last time he had seen this place before his exile; having been there to handle the execution of the property. He had sold the contents of one or two rooms at auction so that he could convert that area into a laboratory suite. Though the project had been finished, he had rarely ever used the lab since he had been away so often. He felt like he now haunted this house, as if he had died in Canterlot, but was forced to walk these restless halls where he had once been young, watching the ghosts of memories that had been long forgotten past the veil of time, until he had returned here. Now those memories flooded back into him every day, and they reminded him of much younger days, and of much happier times. In a way, he supposed it was true; he had died in Canterlot. Weeks after being cast out, he had read a local headline about how there had been a strange portal that had threatened to destroy Equestria, but that the Elements of Harmony and the Royal Sisters had averted the disaster. He realized then that he had indeed been warned about that very same anomaly by that fellow who had called himself ‘The Doctor’, but he had been so focused on the exaggerated threat of that human being running amok in Ponyville, the threat he himself had exaggerated, that he had failed to see the magnitude of the true danger that was immediately on the horizon. When Equestria had needed him, he had been splitting hairs and trying to neurotically control his world, and he had almost allowed for the destruction of everything because of his pride; because of his constant need to have the world ordered as he saw fit.

Perhaps I’m getting too old, he had thought to himself, Perhaps I just might be going senile.

That thought had utterly devastated him. His purpose, his calling of defending Equestria against unusual and hostile elements; what if he truly was no longer up to the task? Maybe it had been a good action for the Princess to take, banishing him. That was irrelevant now; it was a part of the past; it could not be changed. It was time to look to the future.

What now, he had asked. I don’t know if I can trust myself anymore. He also didn’t know if he could truly be satisfied doing any other job than what he had ended up doing all his adult life.

What now? The question had been lurking over him for the past six months without ever leaving him. He was devoid of duty, bereft of meaning. What good is a soldier without orders? Without an objective? He had no answer to his quandary, so he continued to read, and he waited.

Right answers never come easy in science, and they did not come easy to him in these kinds of life matters either. As his days of self-imposed imprisonment in his home continued, he gathered data from his surroundings and from within himself. The greater the pool of data, the more knowledge he had to answer his life-halting question. It continued to gnaw at his mind, just as it had when he had not been looking for an answer; what now?

It was a grey afternoon. A storm was expected early that evening. From within his small library, the tan colored earth pony heard a great roaring sound that echoed and shook throughout the house. He felt a tingling sensation travel down his spine, as if his back had fallen asleep. He could identify that feeling anywhere and anytime; there was magic afoot, and a deeply powerful one at that!

He slammed his book shut and ran to the nearby window with an energy his body had not seen in months. Across the dark backdrop of the stormy looking sky, Bunsen Burner saw a large ripple of magenta energy beginning to dissipate across the horizon. Magenta..that could only be Shining Armor’s doing. Now that he thought about it, today was supposed to have been the day of the Captain of the Guard’s marriage to Princess Cadence. What in Tartarus was going on? Had there been an attack of some kind?

From out of the clouds he saw a faint lightning bolt strike something flying through the air. A tiny speck came flying out of the clouds, and as he watched, he saw it was getting closer and closer as it fell downward.

“Horseapples,” he hissed as he leapt out of the way. Two seconds later, a dark blur careened through the window, shattering it to tiny crystals. The black object struck the wooden floor and blasted a hole right through it, where it fell to the cellar below. Bunsen Burner began to have a coughing fit as dust and tiny pieces of wooden debris filled his lungs. He whisked away the cloud of irritants with his hoof as best as he could. As the debris settled, and after he had cleaned his rectangular eyeglasses, he looked to the newly created hole in his floor He waited patiently for some kind of response to come from the opening into the cellar. No noise could be heard but for the sound of a liquid constantly lapping as it fell onto the cellar floor below. Whatever it was, it had obviously collided with the mead tankard housed in the basement, spilling its contents. How unfortunate.

Bunsen Burner grabbed an antiquated gaslight from a nearby pedestal, and quickly lit it. He slowly walked over to the side of the hole, and shone what light he could down into the cellar. At first he couldn’t make out anything at all, but as he intensified the brightness, he could see a large black bulky form. Its limbs had random holes scattered throughout their structure. It had a pair of fly-like wings, along with a jagged black horn on its head. Its eyes were closed. It wasn’t dead, but it was unconscious, and sure to wake soon.

In that moment, everything became so very clear to the disgraced scientist. The question that had had no answer before was now found to be fulfilled. Days and nights of purposelessness were at an end. The answer was here, in his basement right now! At that moment, the fire that had all but died out inside Bunsen Burner flared back into a raging inferno. Ideas now coursed through his brain like lightning bolts. Events and patterns began to unconsciously formulate in his head. Whether the world was right or wrong about if he was too old or mad didn’t matter; what ultimately mattered was that now he had an objective.

In that moment of finding an unconscious monstrous insectoid lying in his cellar, Bunsen Burner did something he had not done in a very, very long time. In that moment, Bunsen Burner smiled. “Hello, Changeling.”

Comments

[Alan Smithee]

Why is it any time anyone accidentally winds up inside a stranger's house, it's either a mad scientist or a sex dungeon?

[ChaosDeathBlade]

3262719
Hey at least this time it can go for the better lol