Darkness.
"B...ce..."
I'm surrounded by darkness.
"Wa...e u...!"
I can't see, I can't feel, I can't smell, I can't hear.
"Br...e!"
There's only darkness.
"Come ba...k!"
No, there's also a voice.
"Bruce!"
A light appeared. I touched it.
I gasped and opened my eyes, before slamming them shut again due to the light of the sun assaulting my vision. I was breathing heavily, whatever that darkness was, it was so... Suffocating is the best word I can think of. I brought a hand to my face and tried to ignore the sound of metal shifting, but paused when I felt not the contact of skin against skin, but the cool touch of metal against hair. Slowly this time, I opened my eyes expecting to see the normally light skin on my arm. Instead, the glint of metal greeted me. The breath caught in my throat. I moved my arm and the thing in front of me mimicked it.
I hurriedly sat up, ignoring how I was doing that similar to a dog, and started examining my body. My body was now small and covered in grey fur, and both my arms were replaced with cybernetic hooves. A mass of blue slightly covered my right eye, which I'm guessing is my now long hair. Looking behind me, I could see a pair of bat wings that were twitching slightly and further back there was a two tone blue colored tail. I... I became my OC. I became Blaze! Before I could start panicking again, someone started shaking me. It turned out to be none other than Discord.
"Bruce, snap out of it! I'm all for chaos and losing your mind, but this is just sad..." He said in a- surprisingly- concerned tone.
"D-Discord..." The voice of a little girl- my voice, came out barely above a whisper. "W-what happened...?"
He seemed to be struggling with his words. "Well, how do I tell you this... As I was about to leave your world, something called a nuclear bomb was launched..."
I looked at him in abject horror of what he was trying to tell me. "N-nuclear bomb!?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes... Multiple of these things were launched all around your world, and that was the cause of my magic acting up like that. Naturally, the first thing I tried to do when we landed was try to send you back but..."
He snapped his fingers and a window appeared in front of me. It was my world but... Not. The land was scorched, the plants were dead, the water mostly evaporated, and there was no one in sight. It was a giant radioactive wasteland. It was almost... No... It was EXACTLY like...
"...The Fallout..." I whispered in horror.
"The what?" He asked.
"The event in where nuclear bombs destroy the world... Everything becomes a wasteland, the ground stops being fertile making grow food almost impossible, most of the animals go through horrible mutations to adapt to how the world became, and worst of all... Almost all living beings that don't become mutats die due to either the explosion or the radiation..." I answered in a dead tone.
"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry..." Discord was... Saying sorry? I guess I have seen everything now...
While staring at the window showing my destroyed home, the reality of the situation slowly descended on me. I lost everything. My home. My planet. My people. My friends... Dear god, my friends. They all must have died too... My friends, who saved me from the darkness my heart was in, are gone... I even lost my humanity. My heart broke into a million pieces. Tears flowed from my eyes, but I didn't utter a sound. I had nothing that I could come back to. My drive to continue died along with my friends. I fell into darkness again. I want to end everything. I just need a weapon. A gun or a blade will suffice. The sound of metal shifting against metal brought my attention to my hoof, and when I looked down I saw a shiny blade coming out of a socket in it. I decided to not question this, it wouldn't matter in a few seconds anyway. I faintly heard someone calling my name and asking what I was doing, but I was too numb to the world to be able to respond. So positioning my hoof, I uttered one last sentence.
"Wait for me everyone, I will join you all soon..."
I plunged the blade on my chest.
And blacked out in pain.
{Third Person}
Discord gasped as Bruce tried to kill himself, but thankfully, he was close enough that Discord managed to hold his hoof and make the blade not pierce anything important, but he was still bleeding badly. Discord desperately clicked his fingers attempting to heal Bruce, but for some reason, his magic wasn't working on him. Cursing silently to himself, he picked Bruce's small form up and rushed to Ponyville Hospital. Bursting through the door, all the nurses and doctors that were in the lobby yelped in surprise of the Spirit of Chaos appearing like that, but Discord was having none of that.
"NEED SOME HELP HERE!" His yell brought the attention of the closest nurse, who took one look at the filly in his arms and gasped.
"Bring me a stretcher! We have to take this filly to the surgery room!" She shouted and in seconds there were nurses and doctors stumbling around before one of them brought a stretcher, on which Discord was instructed to put the filly on. Discord complied and watched as they took Bruce to surgery, before he was approached by one of the nurses, who seemed hesitant about asking him something. He sighed and motioned for her to speak.
"D-Discord, right? May I ask what happened to that filly?"
Discord was about to tell her but hesitated. If he told them that Bruce tried to kill himself with a blade that came from his own hooves, most would probably blame him, saying that he 'Messed with the filly's head!', and worse, Bruce would probably be taken away to some place for "rehabilitation", where he would no doubt try to kill himself again. But... Why was Discord caring so much about what would happen with Bruce? Was it because he was 'reformed'? Was it because Fluttershy would be angry at him if he didn't?
...
No... It was because Bruce has truly became his friend. And he would do anything to make sure he is safe. So with that in mind, he had to think about a cover story for this.
"I don't know..." He started. "I was on my way to visit my friend Fluttershy when I came across the poor dear, and she was bleeding a lot from a wound that seemed to have been caused with a sword. I rushed her here and you know the rest." Lying came naturally to Discord, so it was no wonder that the nurse believed every last bit of what he said.
"I see. Don't worry, we'll take care of her and contact her parents as soon as possible." The nurse said, walking away. Had she stayed, she would have seen Discord's nervous face. He knew that they wouldn't find any information on either Bruce or his parents. He worried what would happen if he were to be taken to an orphanage, but he could do nothing at the moment. So, albeit reluctantly, Discord snapped his fingers and made a chair for him to sit and wait for news on Bruce, since barging into the operation room wouldn't be very appreciated. Again, he wasn't sure why he cared about that, but it was definitely something he would look on later, after all, if Bruce's friendship meant so much to him, then he would do anything for him.
"Please don't die..."
{Bruce's POV}
I was floating on darkness again, still in my pony form, but this time, I wasn't alone. I was seeing things, these things being my memories. Was I already dead? Maybe what they say of you seeing your life fly past your eyes when you are dying is true. But... The memories were so confusing. They kept shifting for some reason. There was a memory of me, running on my two feet after my friends and laughing happily, which turned into a memory of me, running on my four hooves away from dark equine shaped shadows in white lab coats, crying in fear. A memory of me sleeping on my bed with a happy smile on my face as I spread my arms and legs under the warm covers turned into a image of me laying on the ground of a white cell and grimacing as I kept my hooves tucked close due the the cold. Everything kept shifting. It was like I was living two lives at the same time. But that was not possible, was it? I know who I am. I am...
Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze Bruce Blaze!!!
I grabbed my head in pain and screamed. It was like these two names were trying to forcefully imprint themselves on me at the same time. The memories I was seeing started to shift more violently. I kept screaming, feeling I was being torn apart, it was an excruciating pain, unlike any other I have ever felt. I wanted it to stop. Stop!
"STOP!!!"
I jolted to a sitting position with a gasp and started breathing heavily. I lifted my cybernetic hooves in front of my face and saw how badly I was trembling. It... It wasn't a dream. Everything truly happened... Then, why am I still alive...? The blade was sharp enough to cut into me no problem. Did... Did someone save me...? But why? Why!?
"WHY WOULD THEY DENY ME THE COMFORT OF DEATH!!!" I screamed out loud, my mind drowning in sorrow and anger. Next thing I know, a pony nurse with a white coat and light pink mane rushed through the door and started to ask me what was wrong as she tried to comfort me. Emphasis on 'tried'. Like I said, only death would bring me peace now, so I stood there in silence with fresh tears running from my eyes. I must have been trembling very badly again, because she wrapped her arms around me and started whispering soothing words to me. It partially worked as at least I stopped crying, but I gave no other reaction. She tried talking to me again but as she saw that I was still unresponsive, she gave up and left the room, saying that I should call her with the button next to the bed if I needed anything.
I don't know how long has passed. I have been sitting there on the bed staring at nothing, trying to think of why someone would bother with saving me, and who. The only one with me at the moment was... Discord, right? Does this mean he was the one to bring me to the hospital? But why? How would this benefit him? I sighed and looked at my right cybernetic. I'm alone now, so I could probably try it again... But I'm too emotionally drained now. I don't even have the energy to kill myself anymore...
"Please don't try that again..." I heard from my right. My breath stopped for a moment before I looked to the side of the bed, seeing Discord with that concerned expression that seemed so out of place on him. I relaxed and flopped down on the bed.
"...Why shouldn't I...? I have nothing to live for anymore..." I said in a broken tone.
"Maybe not for your old life."
I lifted my head a little and stared at him. "...What you mean?"
"I mean that you can think of this as a second chance, Bruce. You're young again, you could make new happy memories to fill the void left by the destruction of your old ones..." He said, sounding desperate to convince me that I shouldn't kill myself. I just sighed.
"Since when did you become so philosophical? There's not a 'void' left, Discord. My old memories weren't completely destroyed. But they are utterly broken now, just like my soul..."
"Then why not let Equestria mend the pieces back together? Just give this a chance, please." He pleaded. I rolled my head a little and stared at him from the corner of my crimson colored eye.
"...Why do you care?" I asked in almost a whisper. That gave him pause and he himself looked like he didn't know the answer for a moment, before he closed his eyes and sighed. I opened my mouth to ask again but he interrupted me.
"It's because... Besides Fluttershy, you're the only one true friend I have..." He said finally, and the response threw me for a loop.
It... Actually makes some sense... If you look deep at his background, Discord is a very lonely guy, so he turned to the jovial chaos being everyone knows to try and fill that void he feels in his heart. It probably wasn't working, and at first he didn't knew why, but that must have changed when he met Fluttershy. He would do anything for Fluttershy, as she was the only one who truly befriended him, the others merely tolerated him as long as he didn't step out of line. But now, I have made the same, I truly accepted him as a friend and he now wants my wellbeing, just like with Fluttershy.
I looked at Discord... At my friend and decided my course of action. "I... Think you are a great friend too, Discord. And... I think I'll give Equestria a chance. For you." I lifted my hoof to him, signaling for a hoofbump. He let out a sigh of relief at my response before smiling and bumping his eagle talon with my cybernetic.
"I'm glad to hear that, Blaze." He said in his usual jovial tone. I rolled my eyes, but that is actually a good sign. I was still feeling pretty broken, but at least I wasn't curling up on a corner and moping.
"Guess I'll have to use that name to avoid suspicion, eh?"
"It's for the best, but don't worry. I'll use your real name when we are alone." He patted me in the head. I frowned a little at that, after all, both names felt like my real name.
"Thanks..."
"Now come, I convinced the staff to let me take you for a walk around town, but advised that you not strain yourself so the wound won't open again." He probably didn't notice the frown on my face, but it was for the best. I carefully stood up and climbed down the bed, letting go as soon as my back hooves touched the ground and waiting for myself to fall forward on my front hooves.
...
I remained standing.
"Wha...? Shouldn't this, y'know, feel uncomfortable?" I asked Discord in bewilderment. He scratched his goatee in thought.
"Well, maybe your body is used to it? I mean, I have seen a lot of ponies who have no problem walking on their hind legs. That Lyra mare is one of them."
"The one the fandom says is obsessed with humans? Oh god, let's keep our distance from her, I'm not eager to find out what she would do if she found a human who's been turned into a pony A.K.A me." I said with a shudder as we walked out of the hospital room, me still as a bipedal. I received a lot of stares because of that, and unconsciously tried to make myself seem smaller.
A few more excruciating seconds of stares, which felt like an eternity to me, and we were outside. But apparently we weren't alone. A certain group of mares and a dragon were waiting for us. The mane six and Spike themselves. I looked inquisitively to Discord, who just smiled sheepishly at me.
"I may or may not have told them I found you bleeding and brought you to the hospital. They apparently came to see if I was telling the truth..."
I groaned and looked back to the ponies and dragon, but all I saw was pink and blue.
"Hi!"
I screamed in fright and did one of the worst sins in brony fandom, one of the sins that would guarantee a one way trip to brony hell.
I punched Pinkie Pie in the face.