Dennis, although intrigued by the seashell, was not at all impressed by such a common thing. He took a moment to look at the pearly white shell before he began to grind around it in an attempt to dig it up. He started grinding away, but was soon confused as the rock started to yield to the grinding tool far faster than he ever thought possible. He lifted the grinder, and inspected the rock only to realize that the stone near the shell was simply fading out of existence.
As the stone began to fade away, as if it was nothing but foam, Dennis made it his primary goal to get the hell away. A fairly stubborn scientific tool had other ideas however, and dennis soon had tripped and fell straight onto his back, smashing his head onto the floor. The pain in his head far overwhelmed by the caution and fear Dennis possessed, he quickly began to scramble up, but not before catching a glimpse of what the fading stone was revealing, shocking him enough to halt his rearward advances.
As Dennis gazed into the pit that the dissolving stone had begun to form he was amazed by his observations. Instead of another layer of rock, there lay a rather large equine creature which appeared to be in a peaceful slumber. Curiosity greatly overwhelming his sense of fear, Dennis stood still in his half standing position, curiously watching and taking mental notes as the strange layer of stone dissolved away entirely, leaving a crater empty aside the creature which was left behind.
Dennis’ earlier sense of fear returned when the creature began to move. It was not a reactionary fear which consisted of overwhelming adrenaline rush and desire to flee, but instead one of simple caution. The creature of which dennis both had no knowledge of, and was breaking many of the laws he had always considered true scared him on a deeper than instinctual level.
The fear inspired Dennis to began to slowly back away from the creature as it in turn took its time in slowly awakening and coming to a standing position. Dennis’ cautious fear was rapidly replaced by the adrenaline inspired when his vision suddenly turned to a strange yellow tint, and he began to feel an effect across his body. Even without glimpsing the yellow glow emanating from Celestia’s horn, Dennis immediately knew what was causing the strange effect to be cast over him. He immediately attempted to run away from the source of the effect, but the yellow tinge in his eyes was not the only side effect of the strange creatures actions. His sense of balance abandoning him, Dennis lost his balance after only two strides, ending up falling face first onto the floor.
It was even before Dennis had finished falling that he began what could only be described as a mad scramble for the door. Unfortunately the effects of whatever the creature was doing could not simply be removed by physical treatment to the cranium, and despite his greatest efforts he was largely incapable of even crawling, both due to his lack of balance and the minor panic he was feeling. The yellow tinge and the effect soon wore off of him however, allowing him to fully get to his feet, ignoring the minor pain from his multiple attempts at standing while he was dizzy, and begin to make his way to his escape.
However, once again, Dennis had his sense of curiosity greatly overwhelm his fear when he heard the sounds of an apparently hurt and female voice behind him. It may have been due to the fact that the voice sounded human, and resonated with a deeper instinct than fear in Dennis’ mind without him knowing where the voice was coming from, or it may have been the sort of curiosity that was trained or present in his mind from the moment he was born. The meaning the voice held also may have assisted him in halting his retreat from the strange living-from-stone creature.
“Please, don’t run.” The being Dennis could only thought of as “the creature” said.
__________________________________________________________
The guilt she felt when she noticed how much her spell had scared the creature, and what had happened when it tried to run when under its influence was great. Not wanting to miss a chance to begin redeeming her actions, she cast a quick and silent spell to translate its language as it stood up, and when she called out to it it actually listened! It stopped trying to run to a door on the opposite side of the building they were in, and looked at her with its arms held slightly up in a defensive pose. Celestia wasted no time in trying to start conversation with the creature.
“Please don’t run.” She said, choosing her words carefully. “I have no intentions of harming you.”
Her words did nothing but cause the creature to stare at her even more intensely and silently. She could hardly read its facial expressions, but to her it seemed that the creature was actually shocked or stunned at something she had said to it.
“Sorry for scaring you so much with that spell. I hope I did not injure you or anything of the sort. Are you ok?.” Celestia continued.
As the creature realized that Celestia was not a threat to it, it began lowering its arms and started to speak. When it spoke, its voice was tinged with a note of curiosity.
“What exactly did this “spell” do?” It asked.
“It allowed me to speak your language.” The words left her mouth before she could stop them. Celestia knew that it was stupid, and foolish to lie like she was doing, but she was simply too scared to reveal what she had actually done.
The creature seemed to think about what she said for a moment before speaking. “Very interesting.” It said. “Do you happen to have a name?”.
“I cannot believe I forgot to introduce myself,” she replied a bit hastily due to the adrenaline from her expecting dennis to call her out on the small lie, she did cast a translation spell after all... “My name is Princess Celestia. The raiser of the sun, and prin.....” She realized her grim mistake in regurgitating her normal introduction without first thinking it. There was no longer an Equestria to be the princess of.
The creature did not seem to pick up on the fact that Celestia had left off a part of her introduction. “My name is Dennis. Nice to meet you Celestia.” He said.
______________________________________________________________________________
It had been a few hours since Greg had been the first person to discover that objects and energies in the world became much more willing to obey the previously relatively weak commands of an intelligent mind. It took him quite some time to once again summon the surprisingly large amount of willpower and focus that he had managed to create when desperately stretching for nothing but a square piece of plastic, but after spending at least an hour looking like an idiot he had managed to learn to re-summon the same sort of focus on a tentative command.
After learning that he was able to repeat the remote incident, Greg proceeded to exhaust himself by dragging random objects ranging from the size of a pencil, which nearly stabbed him in the chest when it missed his hand when he lost focus for a moment, to a footstool, which did knock him off balance a bit. It was not until he started to feel the fact that this ESP of sorts was actually having a toll on his physical body that Dennis slowed down and started to notice more of the finer things about his newfound ability. After the mistake with the footstool, he made his way to the family dining room, and decided to test with some toothpicks with the sharp, pointy, not-intended-to-be-high-velocity ends off. He started his new tests by trying to take things far more slowly than previously, focusing instead on what he felt as he summoned the toothpicks to his hand.
As he practiced moving the toothpicks he began to feel a sort of presence in his mind whenever he would try to manipulate one of the very light sticks of wood. As time passed, and Greg continued to focus on that strange feeling, he could sense it becoming more definite. It was not long after Greg started to really recognize and notice the “presence” that he realized he could manipulate and focus his mind in order to sort of “push” the presence in certain ways in order to cause the movement of objects to change. It was not long after this discovery that the toothpicks were lazily moving toward Greg’s hand instead of shooting toward it at a fairly rapid pace.
Smiling at his success, Greg tried to slow the toothpick even more. He once again focused on one of the five picks he had laying on the tablecloth, and once again focused his thoughts, trying to emulate the same thing that he had done just moments earlier, but with a much stronger focus. To his surprise, instead of the toothpick simply sitting still in the air as he hoped it would, it rocketed straight away from him, aimed directly at one of the fancy glass cups that his mother always set down as the centerpiece of the dining room table. With a loud sound the toothpick violently collided with the glass cup and simply fell to the table afterward, the glass ignorant to what may as well have been a poke.
Glad that he had decided to practice with toothpicks instead of something more dangerous like metal balls or molotov cocktails, Greg once again picked up the toothpick. He held the toothpick still in his hand and once again began focusing on the manufactured sliver of wood. Due to Gregs prior learning experience the toothpick started off at a crawling pace towards him. After adjusting his focus, and after some time quavering and moving back and forth between Greg and the wall directly opposite him, the toothpick finally appeared to have found its balance and stood still.
The achievement gave Greg a great sense of accomplishment, causing him to smile as he kept his mind in focus and the toothpick in mid-air. Trying to see how long he could hold it still was quite the practice, Greg continued putting every ounce of his attention on the apparently magically floating toothpick. Despite his focus, every once in awhile the toothpick would slide in one direction at a slow speed, then once again become still as Greg once again found the balance it required to keep it in place again.
After what seemed like only an instant to Greg, but what would have been a time span of nearly thirty minutes to any average bored observer, A sudden sound came from behind him. It took only a second for greg to realise that it was the of the loud screaming voice of his mother, who had somehow managed to enter the house without Greg’s knowledge. The shock and panic that Greg felt caused him to rather violently turn to his mother, who was actually facing away from him, focused on the fairly large pile of dishes he had left undone. Both relieved, and slightly scared at the same time, Greg turned to try to find the toothpick he had been focusing on.
It was gone. Only four depointitated toothpicks were left.
______________________________________________________________
Dennis relaxed himself after Celestia stated her name. He had been in a bit of a panic, which was understandable of course, but he no longer needed to be fearing for his life. No longer was the possibility of being attacked by a strange thing from stone a reality. Even with his relaxation, Dennis was beyond skeptical of what his eyes were showing him. As a scientist he had always wanted to except the strange and bewildering of the world, and study it for the benefit of mankind, but this was simply too insane to begin to believe.
As the fear subsided and his consciousness took over, Dennis began to truly believe that the strange creature was fake, and that perhaps he had hit a pocket of hallucinogenic rock while drilling. He tried blinking his eyes slowly, prying into his own mind to find some form of security, pinching himself in the leg, and even went so far as to check himself for a fever. His tests were still inconclusive as the blinking did nothing, pinching resulted in pain, his mind felt as normal as ever, he could feel no fever, and the creature was still sitting in front of him, slightly worried by his actions.
“Is something wrong?” Asked Celestia.
“No, I am fine, I just feel a little funny is all.” Dennis mumbled, still considering the subject of his sanity.
Celestia’s question served to notify Dennis that even though Celestia may have been an imagination of his heavily work-stressed mind, she could still notice and react to his actions. Also that as impossible as it was that he was speaking to what seemed to be a creature that was just made of stone, everything felt real to him. Nothing seemed off, and every check he tried had already failed. As he began to warm up to the thought of actually having met a creature that was so strange, foreign, and potent, he grew excited. However he soon calmed himself, and decided to not make any decisions until he had spoken to another real human being and confirming the existence of the thing that he was about to once again speak to in order to begin the process of actually getting other people to confirm what he was seeing.
“Actually...” Said Dennis, moments before Celestia was going to attempt to bring up another topic to keep him speaking. “Would you mind if we were to go to somewhere more secure? I need to contact someone before I should speak to you any more.”
Later on, Dennis would read the papers that his research foundation had created on first contact scenarios, and most of them did detail contacting the head of the research company ASAP. Of course, Dennis did not know this at the time, or he would be not saying anything but “i need to speak to someone before I can speak to you”.
“Of course.” Said Celestia, who was not the dullest knife in the drawer. “I assume you are going to get more of your kind to visit?”
“Yes, actually.” Replied Dennis. “Now I just need to.... oh...” He finished his statement with a bit of disappointment while looking over at the entrance to the undersea dome.
“What is wrong now?” Asked Celestia.
Dennis walked over to the entrance to the dome, and opened the door, awaiting inside was the ONE MAN submarine that was designed to shuttle him back and forth to and from the dome. He looked back at Celestia, and stated what he hoped to be already apparent.
“I am not really sure you are going to fit.”
______________________________________________________________________________
Celestia was confused by Dennis’ actions. If she could not fit in the transport than she could simply fly or walk, it was of no issue in her mind, at least until she noticed that the transport was floating on water.
The transport confused Celestia, she was never supposed to end up sleeping so far under the water where nothing would find her. The spell was supposed to put her at a place where sentient life would find and set off the trips in the spell easily, not underwater, or deep in a cave. Celestia, not wanting to believe what her common sense was saying, relied on the next best source of knowledge near her.
“Are we... Underwater?” Celestia asked,
“Yeah, this research base is actually pretty new, the first of its kind with a real mobile seadome.” Dennis had a hint of pride in his voice, but soon turned back to the problem at hand.
Celestia did not have much time to continue to think about what could have caused her to go so far underwater, because it was not long until Dennis found a solution to his problem.
“Ok, here is what we can do. Do you think you could fit in here,” Dennis said while opening up the sub’s main cargo hold, which was full of tools at the time. “if I move everything out of it? It’ll be a tight fit, but I think it will work.”
Celestia looked at the cramped space for a moment before deciding that it would, in fact, probably manage to hold her inside. As dennis had said, it would be a tight fit, but it was better than waiting for Dennis to leave and get something that would be capable of carrying her.
“I do believe that will do,” said Celestia. “Would you like me to help move the tools out so you can get to your friends more quickly?”
Celestia knew that Dennis was trying to contact his friends as a security measure. She could see that he did not seem to trust her, she wouldn’t either, truthfully, if Dennis had suddenly appeared out of nowhere when she was ruling Equestria.
“If you want to help out, it is fine with me.” Replied Dennis, not fully realising the impact of what was about to happen.
Celestia nodded and soon was unstrapping, and lifting many of the foreign tools from the even more foreign vehicle using her magic. After about three or four tools had been lifted from the transport, which only took a few seconds, Celestia noticed that Dennis was staring at her with even more amazement than before.
“Is something wrong?” Said Celestia for the third time that day.
“Nothing is wrong, no,” Dennis also said for the third time over, but continued unlike the previous times. “Its just whatever you are using to move the tools there.... What exactly are you doing to move them?”
It was then that Celestia learned that not only had she been asleep at the bottom of the ocean, The creatures that found her did not possess the magic that was theoretically the only way to get them there to find her.
______________________________________________________________________________
Dennis picked up his landline phone, and dialed his research companies number as fast as possible. Due to the fact that he wanted peace when speaking about what he thought may be a figment of his imagination he had asked Celestia to remain in the main “living room” of the surface base. That room was probably the least likely of the other candidates to leave a creature unfamiliar with the buttons doing something unfortunate, but Dennis still did not fully trust Celestia and wanted to get back to her as soon as possible to avoid any possible unfortunate accidents. Also, despite not having anything specifically deadly in the room, it was full of things like electronic plugs, and most importantly, Dennis’ new television and computer set.
When Dennis heard the “Hello” from the other end of the line he began his normal introduction when calling management.
“Hello, This is Dennis on oceanic research base X-U-D #4. I am calling to request conversation with high management, or an emergency team to be sent ASAP.” He had always hated the very formal way he had to contact the firm the base was funded by. Even requesting extra food supplies required this level of formality! The secretary at the other end simply gave him a generic “please hold”, and Dennis was left to wonder which half of his request would be granted. Either he was about to end up on the phone with another secretary discussing the needs, and filling out the paperwork to get an emergency team on-site, or he was going to get a real manager of the company on the phone.
Dennis was hardly shocked when he heard the voice at the end of the line confirming that he was about to endure at least thirty minutes of explaining and answering questions. The only purpose of which resulted in that piles of piles data could be put into computers in order to get an emergency team down to his base. The voice on the other end of the line caused him to remember the last time, when the problem he was having actually resolved itself before the paperwork could be completed, yet he still had to finish explaining every detail to the secretary at the other end. The conversation started as normal. The call went normally, with Dennis rapidly stating his information and the information about the base he was stationed on very hastily, at least until the secretary on the other end asked why he needed an emergency team to be sent about ten minutes into the process.
“and could you please state the emergency that the team is needed for?”
“Um... Well, I was mining into the sea floor, searching for what I thought was a natural form of plutonium, or some other normally man made radioactive material which I kept finding signs of when I found something pretty unexpected.” Dennis stopped there, hoping it would be enough, and was wrong.
“Could you please tell me in detail, what was it you found.” The secretary was annoyed at what seemed to be a deliberate stall tactic from the scientist.
“Well, its actually pretty hard to explain what I found really well.” Dennis sighed, knowing he would have to tell the truth. “It was some sort of horse like creature inside of the seabed. I need a team to help me confirm what I have seen.”
“Sir, if you would refer to section P3, CH-7 of your manual, you would find the exact procedure for unexpected fossil findings, specifically that you are to contact the biology wing, not management.”
“See, um.. That’s exactly the problem I have. It’s not really a fossil.” Dennis replied
“Living, and yet undiscovered sea-creatures are still to be dealt with by the biology wing.” The secretary was getting frustrated, especially after the person on the other end of the line was hardly understandable with how fast he was talking.
“Again, not a sea-creature either.” Dennis replied, knowing he would have to jump of the deep end to get his point across. “It is literally what appears to be a horse, about normal size, bright white, with a horn on its head which resembles that of a unicorn, and wings of which resemble a Pegasus. It was buried in the sea-bed, and when I started digging into the rock around it it woke up, and is fully capable of speaking to me.”
After Dennis finished that sentence there was only silence on the other end for quite a few minutes. He was almost beginning to wonder if the call had been dropped when the secretary spoke again.
“I am going to have to redirect your call to upper management. Please hold.”
Dennis had a few extra minutes to himself to wonder what horrible things Celestia could probably be doing while he was sitting and waiting for the incredibly slow management to get him an emergency team. When the line picked up again the voice was one of someone who was much less bored than the secretary.
“Hello, this is Dr Rodgers, I hear you have a bit of a situation down on your end? Would ya mind explaining to me?” Said the male, slightly southern voice.
Dennis sighed, not wanting to explain the whole situation in detail again, before explaining the whole situation in detail again. The “doctor” on the other end of the line managed to make Dennis know that he was listening about every ten seconds. By the end of the time he was speaking, Dennis would have sworn he was listening to a tape of yeahs and mmhmms.
“Well, Dennis. I have to say that your situation is truly a strange one.” The “doctor”, who Dennis assumed was more a psychiatrist than a real doctor, said after he finished explaining. “I am going to go ahead and send an explicit order for an emergency team to get sent down to your research lab. Is there any other information you would like to inform me of?” The doctor asked.
“Nothing in particular.” Replied Dennis, glad to hear that people were being sent.
“Ok, now I would lik...” The doctor began to say as Dennis hung up the phone without hearing his full statement.
With the call finally over Dennis breathed out slowly and leaned against the metal wall he was standing next to. He was both glad to be done with the call and scared of the future.The creature that he was maybe seeing was still sitting outside, taunting and bending his entire future. Its reality would probably make or really screw up the rest of his career.
When Dennis finally entered the room that Celestia had been waiting in he would wish she was only in his imagination.
______________________________________________________________________________
The local governor sighed as he found himself meeting the eyes of the local sheriff. After years of careful adaptation of numbers and a generally confusing and confuddling people into believing that the extra tax was part of the normal government he had been caught. Now he was destined to a lifetime of public shame, living as an example of the man whose greed superseded his care for the community he existed inside of. A man of society..
The governor was hardly amused as he was handcuffed, dragged outside amid many cameras, and pushed violently into a police car as his next in line managed the media. The blinding flashes of cameras illuminated every corner of the police vessel, the sound of the babbling news anchors could probably be heard for miles. The unfairly elected politician was grateful when the police cruiser finally began moving towards the first stop to his ultimate destination. The politician, although lacking self control, had his smarts about him. The police had evidence, he WAS going to serve time.
They had just turned onto one of the more rural roads in the town the local governor was supposed to serve when he heard a loud popping noise, and an even louder grinding noise from under the white car that put fear into the hearts of speeders and litters everywhere. The car began vibrating, and he was pushed slightly to the side as the officer in control of the vehicle put it into a turn to take the cruiser off the road. He saw the other officer say something into the radio in front of them, but it was muted by the plexiglass dividing them.
The politician was almost sad to see that soon after the driver of the car left to check on what had occurred, the co-pilot of the cruiser also joined his superior officer in surveying the damage. He never did like peace and quiet like most. It simply stressed the politician out, and left him fidgeting with his restraints and wishing he had not let that punk kid get onto his computer to “look something up” that one fateful day.
The politician, in his fidgeting, eventually noticed the keys simply laying in the seat in front of him. As his eyes landed on the piece of metal that was the one thing between him and freedom he felt more anger than he ever had in the past, which was soon replaced with longing.
The politician looked desperately at those keys. The keys that would allow him to get free, go off to some place like Mexico, where the law would have a much harder time catching him, after emptying his bank accounts at a local ATM, he could get away from this life that may as well have ended a few hours ago. His whole life could get back to a semi-normal, and even better, fully free of jail life. As the prospect entered his mind, he was wishing with all his mind that the keys could be as easily twisted and confused as the civil workers were when it came to their paycheck. The willpower of his desperate mind reached out to the keys as he stared out at them, his mind caressed the keys as surely as if he had his hand grasped around them. He felt the pull his mind had on them, the specific feeling was one that had not been felt by a human being before that point. As he felt the grasp, the politician immediately was able to pull the keys with his mind, so desperate that he was willing to believe something so stupid as thinking he could teleport them into his hand.
The keys did not simply move to the politician, surrounded by an aurora as they had done for Greg only moments in the past. They did not teleport to his hands in a logical fashion, but instead the keys disappeared in a flash of smoke, appearing directly atop the politicians unsuspecting head. When he felt the weight on his head the politician was, needless to say, surprised to the point of jumping back into his seat, causing the keys to fall directly into his hand. Silent, and amazed at the miracle that had just occurred, the politician smiled as he thanked God for his miracle. After all, who could make a pair of keys simply teleport, or grant the politician the power to teleport them asides god?
Could it be called god? It did technically produce the politicians race...