I was back in the dream realm and watching my mind seemingly fluttering with anxiety and stress. I had survived and managed to get through one of the most harrowing experiences I’ve ever had to deal with in the entirety of my life. The only thing that came close was that incident back when I was a cop… Didn’t want to remember.
“Well it seems that you are going to be fine.”
I turned around in my dream realm only to see Merlin standing with me. I was surprised but I guess this was to be expected since he did have to help me out. Magic was powerful and I was gifted with the power to use it. Too bad when it was given to me my body quite couldn’t hack it in the long run.
“Is there something special that needs to happen to let magic not try to kill me?”
“Yes dear boy there is. But I need you to walk me through some of your memories while we do so. As long as you are conscious of only your memories I can do my magic and help you use magic without letting your magic tear your body apart.”
I nodded and decided to look back and recollect all my previous thoughts. Opening this floodgate would probably leave me emotionally vulnerable to Merlin, but I needed this problem solved. I hated opening up.
It looked like rain… that was how my birthdays would always be. Yet I loved the rain. It was peaceful and calming most of the time. It helped me sleep. It was another wonderful birthday actually, back when my family was still whole. My father Jakob was an industrial worker and due to the constant building projects he was well off to never want again. My mother Evelyn was a teacher in an elementary school. She was content with where she was. Eighteenth birthday and finally out of school… I didn’t put much stock in what to do… So I decided to try going into the police academy. My parents were less than ecstatic but my brother was supportive. Freddy, or Frederick, as he was known voiced his approval.
“Interesting… Why did you choose to follow the path of law?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. I never had any strong feelings for much just going through my days one by one. It was… peaceful… in complete solitude… boring. I needed something that would not leave me out to dry on monotony. I don’t regret it… but that path led me down into something I was not prepared for. A dark place.”
I was trained relentlessly. While I was never going to be a valedictorian I was competent enough to get to the top twenty. It was always challenging, grueling even to fall into that mindset. I was someone who would uphold the law. I had grown that thing I had been missing as a child. Drive. A path to follow. A reason to do more than just survive.
“Congratulations Son. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks Dad. I’m kind of surprised I made it… I never was much of a scholar ya know.”
“Son you gotta be more confident in yourself. You did great.”
“Yeah mom. Where’s Frederick?”
“Unfortunately work kept him late. He’ll be expecting a drink with you since you’re of age.”
“But I’m not twenty one yet…”
“I didn’t hear you son. Must have not been listening to you. Sorry bout that.”
“It’s nothing Mom.”
That night I took a drink of whiskey and while the burn and taste sucked more than I thought it would it did prepare me for what could be my habit for the next couple of years. I was sanctioned within a metropolitan station in a city environment. I was actually working towards being a detective eventually. I was assigned under one of the Head Detectives and acted as his gopher in a sense. It took a few years before anything came of it.
“You seemed to have a picturesque life ahead of you. Yet here you are before me, completely transformed from what you once were. No longer the youth of hope and the drive to pursue the law. Now I see a man who had given into apathy. We all noticed it during your fight. Sometimes you would allow a hit to make contact just to gain an advantage.”
“I’ll admit Merlin that I’m not much for planning… I have a tendency to lose my emotions in order to fit better with what was the case in question. When I was twenty five I finally became his actual partner. A real detective. While I had been left to handle the smaller things within the station I was finally given a chance to do something… important. I didn’t know how bad it could really get.”
Merlin was listening carefully. Each time a new memory would come out he would trace his way through the lattice work on my mind to find where exactly the magic pooled. The first memory had been long enough to allow Merlin to start constructing the necessary construct to hold on to the magic and distill it through my body in a way that wouldn’t kill Gray. He just needed to talk more. The second time had him construct the connections so magic would circulate through the body keeping it from killing Gray.
“Continue my boy.”
“I don’t know. The rest is graphic…”
“I’m pretty sure all people have those skeletons in their closet… but this door must be open for now.”
My first homicide case… I threw up outside the building where it happened. The sick fuckers decided to coat the walls… several times. Eight bodies of various ages. No children luckily enough. That had been my first run in with the ugly part of the city. It had taken us twelve days to find the right leads but eventually we cornered the perp in an abandoned office building. It had been scheduled for demolition soon. When I finally came face to face with the criminal he just smiled at me. Even with me pointing a gun at him yelling at him to lay his firearm down. He choose to turn it on his mouth and hold me in check.
One thing you learn about people is that when there is nothing left to lose they will do anything to win. He just smiled at me… happy at what he did. Chuckling while he bit at the barrel of the gun. Behind him were bodies… small ones. Before I could react he shot himself.
That heart I had hardened that day. And it started the slow process where my family drifted apart. The justice I thought of serving… couldn’t even save a child. It was my twenty sixth birthday when it happened. My brother had a nervous breakdown due to the whole idea of the end of the world.
He wasn’t by any terms weak enough to fall into despair… but the wife he had was. She took pills leaving behind their daughter, my niece. It was a slow decline but he soon bit the bullet… a poor choice of words… leaving me to take care of her. I was the godfather apparently. It wasn’t the most ideal but I followed through with it. We became close surprisingly with the idea we called television time. She was young still and for some reason she enjoyed ponies. Whenever she got the remote control first it would always go to watch ponies… I sat with her never really watching but chiming in to make sure she knew I was around. Dad had taken to the bottle when the job market started to fall and Mom was lost in a daze most of the time because of Frederick’s passing. She taught but every once in a while she would call one of the students Frederick and have to be reminded that it wasn’t. She was let go soon after.
The following two years were not kind. Mom could barely take care of Amy, my niece and Dad was slowly becoming a drunk. Here I was supporting two near invalids and a young child. Instead of complaining I just shut down my emotions. Amy was the only one I would allow in. Barely.
The cases I took became more gruesome as the two years dragged on. My mentor was killed in an incident… a hazard of the job, or so I was told. The bullet recovered came from a standard issued firearm that came from our department. I said nothing after they made me Lead Detective for their department. The chief even came down to ‘congratulate’ me.
“Don’t let us down kid.”
I could read between the lines. I kept my nose down and followed orders… because justice was a crock of shit in this world. I eventually found a way out becoming a private detective. I left officially in a way that would keep me out of their hair. They hated I did that but my replacement was… more pliable than me.
Unfortunately I only had the savings to support two people… My parents liquidated most of their own things and drove off… I never saw them again. My niece Amy, decided to stay with me. It was rough on both of us. I had stopped eating full meals only paying the bare minimums we needed that the only luxury we had was cable. It made us… cold to everyone outside of our broken family. The only thing we had where we opened up was television time. Of course she would always find the remote first so more ponies on the screen. It was frustrating but she was like my child. I had never made the effort for a relationship. Trysts with a few coworkers kept in secret but that was it. They never ended in my favor. Or never progress beyond that one night stand. It was… frustrating.
Then the countdown came… Many people had gone insane losing themselves to the mania. Armageddon… The Rapture… The end of times… all a load of horseshit. I kept to myself and my niece who had grown a bit too independent did as well. Only during our television time did we ever speak more than three words at a time to each other. It was there she told me about meeting with Geraldine and helping her make snacks. I had taken up work in a small office building the previous month. It was the last week until the end of the world. I had a friend… as close as someone got to me… who had gotten me the job. Ironically an acquaintance was the closest thing to a best friend I had.
That week… it was the worst week of my life. And during that week I had fallen so far into a ditch I was sure I had made my grave already.
I had found what Geraldine had done… I had found who the first victim was… Trust should never be given… only earned. That night I held her close to me and for the first time in years I cried. Parents had gone dark or didn’t exist anymore. Brother fell to despair. Niece was gone. I fled back into my shell and fell back onto something I did in my childhood. I played games. Before I had gone completely ascetic I had gotten hooked into gaming… mostly as a way to pass the times when I couldn’t sleep. Kingdom Hearts 2 was the last game I had bought out of a growing curiosity. I had finished it before the decline and in my last days I started to play again… in a big empty house where only I lived. It was something I decided to do. I wouldn’t give in to despair but I had no idea what else to do. I had lived my entire life for the sake of another… I was alone now.
When the day in question came I merely… sat down and waited. I hoped desperately that I could think of better paths. I couldn’t. The end of the world came and I slept through it. When I woke up I met a god… or God. I didn’t care. When I was chosen I wanted to go back and just face the consequences of a day I had to live for myself. He managed to convince me otherwise. When he gave me powers I went for the one I had remembered fondly. When he asked for the world and was given an idea… I followed through for her sake, for the thing she liked to speak with me about. I had no interest in it but for her… I suppose it was worth it. I had already felt no real emotion for anything. Then I was a pony… One I recognized as exotic and different enough to get me far away from the past. I chose that because they were the ones my niece always wanted to know more about. That was the start of a new life.
“My word… That was certainly dark. Are you alright my boy?”
“Honestly… no. I don’t think I ever will be but… I have to try to have a new life. Apparently others are looking at me not as someone of convenience but in long term goals. While I still don’t get the aesthetics I’m going off personality so far. I’m in for something interesting and I hope maybe I could reciprocate it earnestly one day. God knows I need some normalcy one of these days…”
Merlin stroked his beard in contemplation. I noticed that his wand was no longer lit with magic and that for some reason my body felt lighter for some reason. I didn’t feel that horrible pressure beneath my skin trying to cleave its way out of me.
“Am I fine now?”
“For the most part, yes. I have completely transfigured your entire magical system to allow you to handle magic better. I even managed to leave the magic this body provides you intact. It seems that the natural magic your body contains and the magic you were using caused some problems when you were given this body. The being who casted it probably was rushing or something broke his concentration. Either way you are fine to cast magic once again. Though I’ve noticed you haven’t learned even the basic spells yet so while I’m here I’m going to train you a bit with some other spells. I only have two in particular that you might need.”
“I’m ready.”
He nodded and motioned me to the center of my dream platform. I think he knew I could learn spells by being hit with them. So I was hit with a spell. First I was dragged closer to him from a large sigil floating in front of him.
Obtained the power of Attraction. Magnet now available.
I was floating around kind of absent mindedly noticing how weird it felt to know I was being held up by magnetism. Then he stepped closer and the moment I was closest to him he summoned a shield from nowhere.
Obtained the power of Protection. Reflect now available.
“This is what I can teach you right now. With how many times you wander into danger you’re going to need to better protect yourself. This will at least mitigate some of the problems that plague your life. As for the problem of others in your life… I would say take a chance. We can’t live alone for all our lives. It’s impossible and you are no different.”
“I’ll try… I’ve had to lie about what I am though… Won’t that be a problem?”
“Gray I’m not going to say it was wrong. There are secrets out in the world that would do better to be forgotten but… we must face the truth someday and I would rather face that with those I trust by my side rather than face it all alone. I once tried to escape facing a fate I knew would happen… I couldn’t and I stuck around and knew the truth. I was better for it. Should they know the truth there might be some hurt feelings but it will be better for you in the long run.”
“Yeah… Working on that…”
Merlin merely chuckled as he walked off out of the dream realm. I mused back on my interactions with the mares I had met… Surprisingly they found me interesting. I didn’t see why but I knew eventually I would need to open up. It took nearly dying for me to open up to someone who could be my magic teacher. I still didn’t know the Aero spell, the Fire spell, the Blizzard spell, or the Spark spell. I felt there was more to learn but until then I would have to look for how to learn these spells later.
Since he was gone I looked over my own stats. I didn’t know how strong I actually got but I needed to know.
Nebula Gray
Level: 14
Attack: 30
Defense: 43
Magic: 33
I was still not as strong as I thought I could be but I was making progress. I wondered what was left for them to check. It was probably important if they were still checking me in my dreams.
“So that is the problem…”
“Yes Godmother. His heart is so well protected because his own inner darkness has formed into an armor for him. It’s not even corroding his heart like it does for most beings. He doesn’t have any control of it but it was tempered into following his subconscious thoughts.”
“There is little I can do for his heart now then. I will still try in a bit. Any suggestions?”
“I can’t offer any. This is a case outside my own domain. Yen Sid?”
Yen Sid peered down at Gray and crossed his arms fully engrossed in his thoughts. He weighed his choices and finally opened his eyes.
“Make contact as best you can. I shall assist you when you do.”