We all walked out of the ruins, me being at the back to have an eye on all of them. Celestia tried to slow down to be at my level, but I stepped away to keep a fair distance between us. She sighed.
"You have nothing to fear from us, Anon. If we wanted to do something to you, we would have already done so." That was true, but I needed to see if it was all an act or not. They don't seem like a bad bunch though...
"Excuse me Princess from doubting your word, but I prefer staying cautious for now. Surely you can understand my point of view." I said, taking glance between her and the group of ponies in front of us.
She nodded silently, then with a couple flap of her wings she went back next to her sister.
I let them discuss between themselves, carefully listening if they were trying to scheme something but there was nothing of the sort. There were mostly conversations about how 'cool' this adventure was and their jewelry were. Celestia was running a quick recap about the most important details that her sister missed during her absence.
I couldn't help but watch the strange scenery around me as I listened to them. My mind wandered too. I was in a place of talking animals and magic.
...
I slapped myself, hard.
The sound making everyone stop and turn back to me. I rubbed my jaw with a hand and made a sign with the other indicating that we could continue. "Just asked myself if I was dreaming or not. The answer is 'no'."
I saw some of them look at me with worry but eventually started walking --trotting?-- again. Luna was staring at me with a look full of regret before she turned back.
~ ~ ~
It took a while but we made it out of the forest. I was greeted by a surreal landscape. Countless green hills around, a village a kilometer or two away. The houses looked a bit rustic from there, and I noticed the air was much cleaner than in the city I live in. Far away I could spot a mountain with a castle protruding from it. I noticed the lack of proper roads though.
Are we in the countryside?
"Where are we exactly?" I directed toward no one in particular.
"We are currently on the edge of the Everfree Forest. We're heading toward the nearest town, Ponyville." began Celestia.
"Yeah we live there." continued Rainbow. She was flying on her back, doing circles above her group. I squinted at her.
Show off.
Looking at Celestia, I followed with "You talked about Ponyville Hospital earlier. I assume it's the same place, but all I see from there is a small village."
"You will see that it is more of a small town than a village."
"You mean it's bigger than what i'm seeing?"
"Indeed. You are only seeing the uphill side of Ponyville. Now if you'll excuse us, we need to prepare for the celebration. Princess Luna and myself will check on you at the hospital later today."
I didn't have time to react. Both sisters just went and disappeared away in a flash.
I looked around me, just in case, but saw no trace on them. I sighed.
"I have second thoughts about magic now." I said dejectedly.
"What do you mean?" asked Twilight. The others stopped on their tracks to listen.
"Well, I only dreamed about magic being real since I was a kid. Thought it would be pretty darn cool to be a wizard or something. But now that I've seen it with my own eyes... Well, it's a bit scary."
"Wait what did you mean 'being real'?" She said with a cute headtilt. It reminded of some puppy.
"Yeah uhhh... Magic doesn't exist?" I said, sounding hesitant. Twilight looked at me in disbelief, the others too. "Well in my world at least. Or dimension... Or universe?" I rubbed my temple, feeling a headache coming. "Whatever."
"Wow. Your world must be pretty boring. I mean, even pegasi and earth ponies use a bit of magic." said Rainbow.
I grunted. "Thank you for your kind words, but we managed without magic."
"But, how could you control the weather and the crops?"
"We couldn't? We made with what we had, and made it better progressively. Technology is much more advanced compared to a hundred years ago. We can now predict the weather and protect our crops with some chemicals." Again, they wore look of disbelief. "Can we move now?" I said with a tilt of my head toward Ponyville.
Wait. Did she imply they can control the weather?
...
I'm going to stop thinking and just accept everything from now on.
"Right..." Twilight said. I think she was the most shocked of them all.
We started moving again, but I wanted to talk about our greatest achievement before the conversation was completely dropped. "We even went to the Moon."
Twilight turned suddenly. "Okay now I know you're just spouting lies."
"I'm not lying. You can ask Applejack, she's wearing the 'Fragment of Honesty' or something, right?"
"Element." Applejack corrected, trotting toward me. I started backing away from her. "Ah'm not goin' to bite ya. Just say everything again while lookin' in mah eyes."
It was only when she stopped a couple of meters away from that I realized how small they all were. Around the height of my pelvis. "You're short."
"And ah' think you're a tall stuborn idiot. Can't have them all." I recoiled at her attack.
"You seem mad. Did I do something bad?"
"Darn right you did. Can't even mutter a 'thank you' after we saved your skin and ah' don't like how you are looking at us from afar. A little gratitude would've been appreciated."
I took a second to repeat what she just said. She's right, I didn't thank them. "Yeah... I guess I did forget that uh? Well, thank you girls. Dunno what would've happen otherwise."
She nodded but still looked a bit unsatisfied. "Now tell the lot of us why you gave us a false name." Both the group and I were taken back.
"W-well technically I just told you all to call me a certain way. I didn't say it was my real name."
"Ah' know that. But why are you hiding your name? Ah'll have trouble trusting you if you're not being completely honest."
"Does it really matter? Just think of it as a nickname. Anon is short for Anonymous anyway, so it's a good name." I sighed, shaking my head.
"...A shame you don't trust us like that. What if we become friends?"
"Would that happen?"
"Life is full of surprise." She shrugged.
"Yeah I realized that a while ago." I waved my hurt hand to emphasize the point. "I guess it'd be fine if we became friends."
"Ah'm going to ask you for a Pinkie Promise if you mean it."
... At this point, I wasn't even questioning that a pinkie promise was a serious thing here.
"Sure." I held out my pinkie finger, waiting for her... hoof. She doesn't have a hand, nearly forgot that.
"What are you doing?" she asked, a brow raised.
"Doing a pinkie promise?"
Pinkie was bouncing behind Applejack, waving her arm in the air frantically. "Ooh! Ooh! Could it be that your finger is named like me, and that promises are made with them in your world?!"
"Y-yes..?"
"This. Is. So. EXCITING!" she yelled. Rarity was going to her and try to calm her down as Applejack spoke again.
"Let me tell ya. Never break a Pinkie Promise, else Pinkie will find ya, and she will do things your mind wouldn't even begin to fanthom. Understood?"
I nodded nervously.
"So you just have to do like ah' do." Then she goes over the motion of crossing her heart, then putting her hoof over her eye. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
...
I squinted hard enough that i actually closed my eyes.
"Did your catch something in your eyes?" said Applejack, not amused.
"Was it a cupcake?!" Pinkie yelled from nearby, I opened my eyes to see her hoof closing in my face, then pull back a cupcake from nowhere. "Oooh! It was!" then she properly ate it in one, giant, bite.
At that moment, I was sure that Pinkie would be at least twice as terrifying than any creature to ever attack me here.
"Darling, stop scaring poor Anon here. I don't think he likes the..." She searches for a word. "...amount of energy you display."
Pinkie mock-whispers "Okayyyy, I'll try to be caaaaarefullllll."
I had a worried frown on my face, but a small smile edged on my lips. This pony was ridiculous, in a good way. She winked at me and bounced away.
"Alright." I directed at Applejack, looking at her in the eyes. I made the same motions she did and pronounced the words. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. I also add to this promise that everything I said was true. Are we good?"
She scans my eyes for a few seconds, then nods. Twilight was baffled. "How did you even get on the Moon without magic?!"
"Physics and Science. We made the most of them. Any more questions?" Twilight's brain was having trouble to absorb the information. Rainbow just flicked her horn lightly to get her out of her daze.
"Alright eggheads, we should get moving. I'm pretty sure the Princesses will not take long to come back to Ponyville, and I don't want to miss the party."
There was a collective agreeing reponse, and we started walking again toward the small town. Twilight periodically glanced at me, like she wanted to say something, but always stopped herself and looked back forward.
During our walk, I learned they were female ponies, namely mares, and I told them i was a man, a male human. At one point Rainbow asked if, by chance, we could fly. I told her we built machines that could help us fly. Some of them even being able to make the distance from their town, to the castle on the mountain, in 5 seconds tops. The look on her face was priceless, though I think she hurt herself when she fell as her wings went stiff. Probably a cramp.
Rarity asked about the mark on my shoulder, which I replied that it was only ice-cream. "A-and you don't mind it?" She asked me, but I shaked my head, ready to follow up with something, except she just up and nearly fainted on a conveniently placed sofa.
Wait, how did she..?
I decided to drop it. There were some things I shouldn't think about too much, else I'd get myself a strong headache.
Nothing much else happen until we got to the edge of the town. It was really like an old middle-age village. Not that I saw any before, so I may be wrong.
Each mares said they either had to assist the last minute planning of the celebration, or check up on their siblings or 'animals'. Twilight even specified a 'Spike'.
Probably a dog. I thought.
I was eventually left with Rainbow, she didn't even try to come up with an excuse to try and slip away. I called her when I spotted her trying to crawl away, that made her jump.
"I still need to get a check up at the Hospital right? Can you lead me there? I wouldn't want to get lost and attract unwanted attention."
She thought for a bit, then hung her head low. "Riiiight, that would be bad. It could even ruin the party." I rolled my eyes. "What? It's true! Nopony has ever seen a creature like you! It's really easy to cause a panic here you know?"
"Alright Rainbow. Lead the way." I said with a rolling of my right hand. She mumbled something about weird talons.
"What did you say?" I asked with an inquisitive tone.
"Nothing! Let's roll."
We actually made a detour after that, as to not go through where the buffet was. I spotted Rainbow nearly salivating at the sight. I snapped my fingers in front of her face to bring her back so we could move quickly. She shaked her head quickly, coming back to her sense.
"The quicker I'll get you there, the quicker I'll be able to ea--" she stops herself, before saying slowly, "--watch over the buffet. Yeah."
"Just make sure that you're still able to fly afterward."
"Wha? Pshht. You make it sound like i'm gonna eat a plate... or ten. Naaah."
"Rainbow, we're still in the alley."
"Oh yeah, let's go!"
The following minutes had us on edge. Multiple groups of ponies passed by the alleys. We had to move quickly when on the main roads. It reminded me of infiltration games. They weren't my favorite.
Finally we had the Hospital into view. We saw an armored pegasus exit the building.
"That was one of the Royal Guards." Rainbow commented. I shrugged, either he was securizing the area or he delivered the order Celestia said she would give.
We waited a couple more seconds, analizing the area, but no one was in sight. We passed the door in a last rush and I let myself fall and sit again the nearest wall.
I really need to work on my stamina.
Rainbow was breathing a bit quickly but otherwise wasn't much impacted. She smirked at me. "What's wrong Anon? Need a machine to keep up with me?"
"Very funny, Dash. I just don't move as much as I should anymore."
"...Something happened?"
"Administrative job, and lazyness."
"Maybe you just need a partner?"
I raised a brow.
"Hey, it's always better to train with somepony. Plus you just seem to be a bit like Fluttershy. Always trying to dodge others and not being too keen on conversation."
...I shrugged. "Maybe, but from what I saw, I'm really far from her level. Her parents were right on the money when naming her."
"Yeaaaaah. Maybe they can see the future? I should ask her."
"In this world, anything is possible apparently, so it wouldn't surprise me." There is a brief silence after that. I notice her glancing between me and the door. "Okay okay, I think I'll be fine, you can g--" I didn't even have time to finish my sentence. She disappeared, leaving only a multicolored trail leading to the exit. "Have fun I guess."
I got up eventually, though the ceiling was much lower than I would have liked, being just 10-15 centimeters (4-6 inches) above my head. I'm not claustrophobic, but it was still disturbing.
I decided to look around the reception to find a doctor or nurse or someone to ask for the check-up, but there was no one there. I spotted a bowl of candy on the counter though. They're probably for the kids.
...
I popped two of them in my mouth. I was happy for a whole second, waiting for the sugary sweetness to greet my tastebuds... It never came.
They weren't candies. The bowl was full of little dices of salt.
What is wrong with these ponies?! I started searching for a trash can, so I could spit the vile things out.
That's when I heard a soft cough from behind me, making me jump. He was green, with yellow hair. "You must be the creature the guard mentionned. Pleased to meet y..." The pony's voice trailed off as he looked past me. "I thought I asked Nurse Redheart to put away the medicine. You didn't take any, did you?"
I think my worried frown gave me away.
"Alright, just spit it out in the bin behind the counter." I mumbled a 'thank' and went around the counter to spit the little cubes. "Should I assume salt act as a soft sedative for your kind too?" he asked.
Sedative? Okay, that surprised me. "What? No, no. We just use a small amount salt on our food to add some flavor. But this was a bit too much. I'm more of a sweet guy. No pun intended."
He nods with a smile. "I'm Doctor Bandage Wraps, pleased to meet you."
Again with the convenient names? Also he's wearing a doctor coat. These things must be constant across every world that could exist.
"Pleasure is mine, you can call me Anon. Should we proceed with the check up?"
He nods again. "Just follow me, I prepared a room."
He opens a door leading to a corridor with his magic.
"How does it feel?" He tilts his head at my question. "To do magic I mean."
"Hmm." he presses his hoof against his chin. "It actually feels like draining your own energy. Though life force and actual magic energy are two separate thing. So going through your reserves will only make you feel slightly tired, but will not really put you in danger. Unless you try to continue doing magic when your pool is empty of course."
"Interesting. So you just focus your energy through your horn and think about whatever spell you're trying to launch?"
"More or less. Spells can be really technical and need a lot of knowledge about whatever you're trying to do so it doesn't fail, or cause a disaster. There's a lot of parameters to think about." He stops next to a door and opens it. We didn't go too far down the building. "The Princess is supposed to visit later, so I chose a room without patients nearby."
"Uh 'Princess'? As in single princess?"
"Well, Princess Cadanza isn't supposed to come in town for the celebration, so yes."
"What about Princess Luna?"
He looks at me like I sprouted another head. "...Who?"
"Nevermind." I walked into the room, then sit on the small bed.
Celestia said Luna disappeared for a thousand years. Still strange that he doesn't know about his ruler's sister. I'll need to ask her about this.
He pulls a little device from the nightstand nearby. It looks like a Gameboy honestly, except it's linked to a small ring at the end of a cable.
"We normally use these to check on the magic pools of growing unicorn foals, but since I don't know anything about your kind, well, we'll have to start with something."
"Where does the ring go?"
"It would have gone on your horn if you had one. Let's try on your talon first."
"You mean my hand, or the fingers?"
"Are those the proper terms?" after an affirmative humming from my part, he scribbles something on a notepad. "Fingers then."
"What does the thing do exactly anyway?"
"It sends a pulse in your body and show data based on the magical echo." He presses a button, the screen lights up with a greenish tint. "Alright, keep the middle finger out and bend the others please."
Aaaand now I'm flipping him off. Thankfully he doesn't know about human 'culture'.
He floats the little ring above my finger swiftly, but he suddenly made it drop just before it came into contact. I could feel a small tingle and itch coming from my finger.
I saw his confused face staring at the ring, then he shook his head lightly.
"I may be more tired than I thought. Let's try again."
He floats the thing again, but the same thing happen. He looks at me with a raised brow. "Are you doing this?" He asks.
"Doing what exactly? I'm just waiting here." I said, taking the ring on the ground and sliding it on the finger. It's a bit too big.
He writes down some notes again then looks down at the screen. He squints and flips the little device. I noticed the screen was flickering. He opened up a panel and scanned the inside for a second before closing it back.
"I think it's dysfunctional." he said.
"Try it on yourself?" I replied, lifting the ring and holding it with two fingers.
His horn lit up as he stared at the little thing, but nothing was happening. I saw his face in deep concentration before he managed to finally lift it a little. When it was floating again, I retracted my hand to scratch another itch forming on my fingers.
The ring suddenly shot up toward the ceiling, only to be stopped short by the cable. It fell down on the ground with a soft 'poc'.
We both stared at the ring for a moment.
"Are you sure you're feeling alright doc?"
He thinks for a moment, his brow furrowed. His horn lit up again, making the ring float then fall down once, then twice, then a third final time. He takes the device with his hoof and put it back in the nightstand.
Then he looks at my hand. I see his horn lit up, and then the glow disappears not even a second after. The itchy feeling comes back when he stopped casting his spell.
"Do you feel anything different about your fingers?" He asks.
"Slight itch and tingling sensation. Not the first time it does since i'm here."
"Did it happen in your world?"
"No?"
"Let me see." he approaches, lifting my hand with a hoof and turning it around, examinating it for a few seconds. "No skin reaction, so it's not an allergy. I assume you're not a dragon in disguise, are you?"
What? "Dragons exist?"
"...I guess it's a no. Then we may need something more powerful to check on your status." he says, turning around and walking toward the door. "Follow me."
I get up hastily, following the doctor to another room. I think he was getting anxious, if his face was any indication.
"Did you get those itches when in contact with magic before being here?"
"You mean from my world?"
"Yes."
"There's no magic there."
He nearly stumbles at my words. He then looks up at me, and put a hoof against my knee. "Sorry." he says while giving me the famous doctor Look Of Pity™.
I stared at him for a good second before letting out a small chuckle.
"Way to be over-dramatic, doc. I'm fine."
"...Good. Let's proceed then." He opens the door a bit further down the hall. It doesn't take long for us to reach it and enter the room.
Inside was a BIG machine. There was a sort of stretcher that led inside a hole in the main part of the thing. It looked like a MRI machine honestly, but more... old-styled.
They are much more advanced than I thought.
"Lie down there and we'll start." He points to the stretcher and goes to sit next to another machine. He'll probably read the results from there.
I did like he asked. The machine didn't take long to power up. I felt the stretcher move, putting me inside the hollow ring.
"You will probably be itchy all over, but it's important that you do not move."
...
I spent the longest 5 minutes of my life in pure itching agony.
I frantically scratched myself in any way I could when I finally got out of that torture device. Thankfully, it calmed down after a few seconds.
When I got up, i saw the doc look at some paper that unrolled from the machine next to him.
"Impossible." he said, mortified.
"W-what is it doc?" I said, approaching cautiously.
"Nothing. The magic scan returned absolutely nothing. That's impossible, even insects return a magic pulse. Tartarus, even dirt have a magic pulse."
"Wait wait wait. What does that mean?"
"Considering your have a brief reaction when you're in contact with magic, we can consider that you can negate it. There's also the fact that only strenghtened spells have an impact around you... That would mean... Well, the only think I can think of is that you have strong magic resistance, along with the ability to completely negate any magic over a short period."
I rub my temple as I think about everything that happened since being in this world. It would explain why Luna's spell only temporarily blinded me, but not about her other spell. "There's still a problem. I couldn't communicate with your kind before I got hit by a specific spell, and since I'm still able to talk to you, it didn't get negated."
"Hmm, then maybe you only negate part of the magic, and absorb the rest?"
"So i'm just highly resistant to magic?"
"Much more than dragons at least. Now that I think about it, that can be a problem."
"...How so?"
"Think about it. Magic will eventually build up in your body and cause oversaturation."
...
I sat down, not trusting my knees to support me. I was shaking. "W-what will happen to me doc?"
"Probably what every young unicorn go through at one point." he pauses dramatically. "Magic puberty."
PUBERTY? Did I ever want to slap someone this hard before? I don't think so. But assaulting a pony would probably be really bad. I took a second to breathe deeply and resorted to only glare at him.
"Let me finish." he said. "When going through puberty, unicorns have magic surges. Having gone through it myself, I can only sympathize." he drops his voice to a whisper. "It can even happen in your sleep."
"That sounds disgusting." I said.
"It can be." he replied. That weirded me out. "There is no way to control them, except discharging magic regularly, but that's a thing you can not do. That means that your discharges will happen at random."
"What does that mean exactly? What will these discharges do?"
"You will expell between 5% and 20% of your magic pool unvoluntarily. For the average unicorn, and when not thinking about anything in particular, it'll be as dangerous as weak or moderate wind, mostly knocking down small objects."
Interesting. That's like shouting a Fus. "And if I do..?"
"Depending on what you're thinking, you will start casting spells."
I went wide-eyed. "Really?! That's awesome!" I exclaimed. I can do magic!
"Not as much as you think." he instantly replies, trying to shut down my enthusiasm. "If you don't know the intricacies of what you are thinking about, then you'll half-bake a spell."
"Is that really bad?"
"Spells are learned with a lot of safe-locks so we don't accidently hurt ourselves or others." he explained. "Let me give you an example. Imagine that you're wishing somepony away and that triggers a half-cast teleportation spell."
...
I most certainly wouldn't want that to happen. "Okay, okay I get it."
"Plus, we don't really know how big your magic pool is, so the surges will start at any moment."
I lift my head, looking at the ceiling. "So to summarize, I'm magic-resistant, a magic-sucking black hole, and a ticking magic-casting bomb."
"I... don't know what a 'black hole' or a 'bomb' are?" He said hesistantly.
"Don't worry about it." I said, getting up again.
He stares at me before shrugging. "One last thing, I would advise you to not touch a pony's horn or wings, or even hooves for the Earth ponies."
"Is there a reason?"
"Aside from the high sensitivity, a unicorn's horn, pegasus' wings and Earth pony's hooves are the main focus points of our magic. You may drain a pony's magic by touching these parts."
I recoiled. "Isn't that dangerous?"
"Like I said earlier, life force and magic is separate, so the worse thing that could happen is the pony being put in a daze due to magical exhaustion after prolonged contact."
"But... 'draining' sounds like it would hurt."
"Ah. That's a fair point. We would need to test... it... out..." he finished slowly. I saw his eyes shifting left and right before he exhaled sadly. "Alright then, let's try on me."
"Are you sure doc?"
"No, but i'm your appointed doctor and we need as much information as we can gather."
"Ehhh. It doesn't seem safe. I'm not sure I want to do this."
"Put your hand on my horn already."
That. sounded. so. wrong.
I cautiously approached my hand to his horn and gripped it. I felt the tingling sensation signaling I was absorbing magic.
There was a soft sound coming from the doctor. It was both reassuring and worrying. "Doc?"
...Was he humming?
"It's... okay." he finally says with a contended sigh. I immediatly removed my hand, getting really weirded out. "W-why did you stop?" His eyes blinked out-of-sync, looking unfocused. It was getting creepy real quick.
"I don't think it was good for you." I said, putting some distance between us.
His eyes focuses on me, then he blinks normally a couple time. "It felt... strangely pleasant."
"Yeah, I guessed that when you looked kind of drunk." I squinted at him.
"I did? Uh. It's kind of hazy. It... doesn't feel dangerous at least. We may need further testing to confirm it is completely harmless."
"I'm not doing this again." I replied. "You acted weird. It felt weird. You ponies are all weird."
He fell silent for a few seconds, then nodded. "Understandable. I'll lead you back to your room then."
"After all of this, I just want to finally sleep." I said groggily, the fatigue from being up all day finally kicking in.
Doctor Bandage Wraps led me back to my room. He had to open the door with his hoof since I actually took all of his magic.
He wished me a good rest as I crashed on the small bed, making it creak. It was definitely too small, my ankles wouldn't even be on the bed if I didn't bend my legs a little.
"This is too crazy." I muttered as I drifted to sleep.