//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Hey, Wait a Second // by Erie_Entity //------------------------------// School was boring as hell. Jessie would have slammed his head into the desk if he wasn’t worried about breaking his horn or something. He had already spent the first half of his day ready to jump out of a damn window. The large classroom was quiet in that weird way that school usually was when everyone was bored. It was likely the vomit green walls that sucked the life out of everyone there. Bad enough that he was stuck at the front of the room as a brown and technicolored distraction. There were a lot of eyes that he could feel on him. Ever since Celestia had come to the conclusion that his cutie mark was magic related, he had been forced to attend magic school with Sunset. Not that the boy was particularly complaining because magic was awesome. But having to spend six hours a day sitting around listening to some old timers talk on and on just didn’t sit right with him. Like seriously. Which cruel deity decided that school had to be boring on EVERY world? It didn’t help that he was also in a lower grade than he should have been, meaning he knew some of the normal material already. Somehow his age regressed a couple years when he came into this world. That or pony years were different from human years. But he didn’t like math enough to try and figure out how that could have made sense. According to the medical examiner Celestia forced him to see when he first moved into the castle, he had the “healthy body of a fourteen year old colt”. It could have been worse. At least he wasn’t going through puberty a second time. Do ponies even go through puberty? A small voice in his head told him that maybe he didn’t need to answer that question. Bondye knows that pony puberty was not something he wanted to experience. Much less learn about. “Okay, class!” The old professor called out, pulling the now super short piece of chalk away. Written on the massive chalkboard behind the blue and grey stallion was the most complicated piece of whatever-the-fuck nonsense Jessie had ever seen. It looked like an algebraic equation on steroids. “Who here can tell me what this equation represents?” Jessie could feel his eye twitch. Once, twice, then a third time for good measure. Maybe this was his divine punishment for not paying attention in math classes on his world. There was absolutely no way this wasn’t some kind of sick joke. “I can!” A pink hoof raised and Jessie looked at the pink unicorn sitting on the other side of the front row in bewilderment. She was smiling brightly as if they weren’t in the most depressing place on the planet. “It’s the telekinesis equation! Are we going to use it? Are we, are we?” “Very good, Candy Puff,” Candy’s enthusiastic smile got even wider. The professor raised the chalk again, writing the word telekinesis under the equation. “But no. We won’t be using this in class. You’ll be required to identify which spell belongs to which equation on your paper exam. We haven’t needed to do any actual math in the magic courses since I was a colt.” A small chuckle came from the professor, as if he had just said some brilliant joke that the rest of them weren’t in on. When no one else laughed, he awkwardly coughed and began writing another equation. Jessie could faintly make out the stallion muttering to himself. Luckily, before the professor could finish the equation, the bell rang. Jessie, along with several other colts bored out of their minds, quickly dashed to the exit and into the hallway. If he saw another magical equation he was pretty sure his horn would fall off. “Hey! Idiot!” Sunset called behind him. Jessie skid to a halt, did a quick one-eighty and turned to face her. She looked tired. Her saddlebags seemed to be stuffed full of books. Instinctively, he tried to look for his own bags. But remembered that he didn’t even have any. “Slow down. We’re supposed to stick together you know.” “I’d rather leave that place as fast as possible, thanks.” Jessie snorted. Sunset facepalmed. Facehooved? “Whatever. We’ve got an hour for lunch and I need to talk to you about something.” Jessie could feel her magic tug at a few of his dreadlocks in urgency. He tried not to wince. She at least could have been nicer about it. “We’re going to the library-“ “Actually!” A chipper voice cut in. Candy Puff stepped out of the classroom behind them, followed by a few of her friends. The wide and enthusiastic smile was still present on her face. In constrast, Sunset scowled as if Candy had just spat in her ice cream. “I was hoping to ask Iridescent some questions! If it’s not too much trouble, of course.” Sunset’s scowl deepened but before she could say anything, Jessie spoke up. Candy had at least asked instead of bothering him. Least he could do was save her from Sunset’s barrage of mean comments. “Uh, sure? It’s not going take too long, right?” Sunset elbowed him in his side, giving him a glare. Jessie rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her. He wasn’t about to let this girl mess with him. Well not all the time. He actually found her attitude kind of funny. “I kinda need to talk with Sunset during lunch.” “Oh, not at all! We just want to get to know you better!” Candy nodded in satisfaction, her curly blue mane bouncing as she did so. It reminded him a little of cotton candy. Hehe... Candy. “You’re new and interesting so I hope it’s not too much trouble, Sunset?” Sunset just sighed, letting go of his hair. Instead of talking to Candy or even making eye contact, she walked away. Ouch. Candy’s smile wavered and turned into a small frown but she recovered quickly enough. Though there was an emotion in her eyes that Jessie didn’t recognize. Hurt? “She’s quite grumpy, isn’t she? Hope I didn’t upset her.” “Yeah,” Jessie muttered, watching as Sunset turned the corner and left. He knew where the library was at least. Hopefully Candy and her friends would be quick. “She’s just kinda like that. I don’t think she holds anything against you. Anyway, what sort of stuff did you want to know?” “Just some things about yourself,” The pink unicorn said with a disarming smile. She stepped closer, their muzzles almost touching together. Jessie could feel his cheeks become as pink as her coat. Did personal space not matter to the ponies in this city?! “I hope that’s okay.” “Y-yeah. It’s fine,” He backed up a little and shook the blush away. That was weird. This was weird. Everything was weird. “Just hurry. Sunset’s thing might be important.” “If you say so, Iri!” Candy and her friends collectively giggled at the new nickname. Irides- Jessie tried to hide his grimace. Even if it was ingrained into his head, he still found it difficult to accept his new name. “Do you really live in the castle with the Princess?” “Sure do.” Short and simple. Hopefully this would actually be quick. Candy’s head tilted curiously in an adorable way. He had a feeling she already knew the answer to that question, though. “Oh, that’s interesting! Did you really not know any magic before you met Sunset?” “Yea- Wait. How did you know about that?” Jessie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and he gave Candy an accusing sideways look. “It’s not like we’ve told anypony about it.” “Oh, one of my friends overheard you two talking in the hall,” Candy explained. As if it were the simplest thing ever. “You should really be more careful, you know.” Oh. Yeah that would do it. Jessie just sighed. Keeping secrets was annoying. Bad enough he had to use those weird pony words. “Right. Well, yeah. I didn’t know any magic. Nopony ever taught me,” He shrugged, making his horny glow faintly. “Sunset taught me some basic stuff and that’s about it. I was sent here to learn more advanced magic. To keep up with the ponies my age.” “Oh that’s cool!” Candy said excitedly. Jessie raised an eyebrow. It actually was quite the opposite considering all the weird looks it got him. But to each their own. “It’s good that you’re learning now, though. It would be kind of sad if you never learned any magic.” “I guess-“ “Okay, next question,” She interrupted. Candy got closer again, invading his personal space like they weren’t already pretty close. They were looking at each other down their muzzles. Jessie’s ears folded back onto his head. His vision was filled with the pink of her fur and the rich red color of her eyes. This was definitely weird. “Are you friends with Sunset Shimmer?” “Uh,” The question gave him pause. Mostly because the answer wasn’t as simple as one would expect. He also didn’t really expect the girl to care. “Not really? At least I don’t think so. She’s not the most friendly of ponies. She’s also kind of adamant about not making friends. No clue why, though.” Candy blinked, tilted her head again and looked at her friends for their input. Her friends just shrugged simultaneously. Jessie chuckled nervously and tried to back away. More awkwardness and he’d likely cringe into himself. Break the space-time “cringuum”, if you will. Okay, that was rather lame. “Uh... Can I go now?” *** Turns out, no. He couldn’t leave when he wanted to. Candy and her friends grilled him for answers about his personal life and how things were in the castle. Even asking about his hair and why he chose to style it like that. The ordeal lasted for about twenty minutes that had seemed to drag on for an eternity. They let him go eventually. Now he was walking through the halls, with multiple ponies waving and welcoming him to the school. He still couldn’t really keep his mind off of Candy Puff and her... closeness. The pink filly was rather energetic but she knew when to back down from questions that made him uncomfortable or that he couldn’t answer. Such as things relating to his cutie mark. But she was also relentless when asking about his personal interests and his hair. All things considered she was pretty nice, cute too- Oh no. No, no, no, no. He definitely was not doing that. She may have been sentient and a cute girl, filly, thing. But she was still a pony and he was still a human in his mind. A human with very strict ideals concerning interspecies relationships. The small voice in his head from earlier quietly asked if it was really considered interspecies when he was a pony as well. The colt damn near punched himself in the head. Gross. Stupid brain. Learn to shut up every once in a while. Fighting down more stupid thoughts, Jessie stepped into the large library. Sunset’s talk should set his mind straight. She’d probably even give him some sort of reasonable solution. But then again, that would require for her to know about the whole human and other world thing. Last thing he wanted was to open that can of worms. Especially in front of Sunset. Speaking of the sun themed unicorn, he spotted her plucking books from a shelf by a table in a corner of the library. The spot was hidden behind a collection of shelves, isolated enough for other ponies walking into the area to be considered a rarity but easy enough to stumble upon for the first time. He made his way over. Sunset, ever the observant one, noticed him before he could let himself be known. She fixed him with a raised eyebrow and an amused look. “What took you so long?” “Candy,” Jessie muttered, sitting at the table. There were books laid out all over, either open and by themselves or stacked up for later reading. “She asked a lot of questions about me. Invaded my personal space like I owed her money, too.” “Ponies here are rather annoying,” Sunset shrugged. She pulled down a book from the shelf and examined the cover. “Mostly just ponies in our age group. They’re too... touchy feely. Candy Puff especially.” “Yeah. Tell me about it,” Jessie rested his head on top of the nearest stack of books, then sneezed. There were some dusty books on the table. A heap of them, actually. “What’s all this?” “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” The colt sat up and confusedly looked at the books he had just put his head on. “‘Neuromancy’? What’s that?” “Brain magic, you moron. Straight from the restricted section of the archives. Spent all night collecting them.” “Oh,” An amber aura covered one of the cleaner books and opened it carefully. Inside were contents detailing the basics of neuromancy and how it was a taboo practice due to the fragility of the mind. Jessie read some of the words on the pages, trying not to look too stupid. “‘Though not illegal like necromancy, neuromancy spells can be equally as dangerous in the wrong hooves.’ Why are you showing me this?” “Because,” Sunset sat down across from him and snatched the book out of his magic. A few of the other dusty books floated closer towards her. Jessie could see that they were all spellbooks that came from the royal archives. “I think somepony may have suppressed your memories of how you got here. You said you couldn’t even find your hometown on a map, right?” “Right.” That was a complete lie. Oklahoma City was in another dimension so he couldn’t have found it on one of their maps even if he wanted to. He pretended that the headaches came back whenever he tried to spot it. Celestia had believed it, thankfully. “I can learn a few of these spells to help you out. Neuromancy is difficult to perform on oneself and you’re a massive idiot. But if I do it, maybe we can find out what happened to your parents, what happened to you,” All of the books opened and Jessie could see things like pony brain diagrams and spell matrices printed on the pages. Then they snapped closed and settled back onto the table, stacked in a perfect column. “I want to... help you. But I need something in return.” Jessie’s attention had been grabbed ages ago. He had caught on to what she was implying halfway through the explanation. He nodded eagerly. “Anything.” “I need you to pretend to be friends with me.” Wait. “What?” “You heard me,” Sunset snapped. Jessie almost flinched at how quickly she became irritated. “I... I need you to pretend to be friends with me. Celestia is starting to get pushy and really wants me to make nice with other ponies.” “And you want me to pretend to be friends with you?” His head tilted. It wasn’t an unreasonable request but the reasons behind it were rather confusing. “I thought you didn’t care what other ponies think.” “Princess Celestia isn’t just some other pony. She’s my mentor. My shot at being a princess myself,” Sunset put a hoof on top of the book stack and stared Jessie down. In her turquoise eyes was nothing but resolve and determination. “If we do this for each other, we can send you home and I can get what I want. Sound good?” “I- Yeah, sure but-“ “It’s a deal then,” Sunset then smiled, something that threw Jessie off completely. It wasn’t malicious, wasn’t fake. It was tired but in a way that resembled someone happy about the effort they put in. The sight was nice. Made her look like a completely different pony. “I’ll read up some more about neuromancy and see if I can remove that mental blockade you have. In the meantime, you and I just have to act... friendly.” “Hang on!” He blurted. Sunset sighed in exasperation. “How do we know if this is even going to work? What if you end up scrambling my brain like eggs?” “Relax,” She held up her hooves and gestured for him to calm down. “I’m a very talented pony. Do you not trust me?” “Not in the slightest.” Jessie said with a blank expression. Then he shrugged, thinking it over. “Well, not enough for you to destroy my brain. I don’t wanna become braindead. I like being able to think.” “For the last time, you’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it,” Sunset picked up the books and put them into her saddlebags. She sneezed when one of the books she grabbed brushed past her face. “I’d never hurt a pony helping me get what I wan- CHOO! Ugh. Though scrambling your brain like eggs does sound like a good plan B.” “Hey!” He objected. Though Jessie couldn’t even hear himself over Sunset’s cackling.