Chapter 26 – Take Two
Somewhat surprisingly, the yellow-white wormhole remained stable. It gave a gentle tug on everything in the room, yet not enough to actually pull anything through. The ponies and Fred felt the pull, though.
“Is that always going to open so ridiculously loud?,” Fred Walsh muttered. “I guess I'm not getting my rest for now,” he sighed. He released the energy stored in his hand, letting it flow back into him.
Meanwhile, Princess Celestia tried to calm down the guards. “Stand down,” she ordered. “It's alright.”
Princess Cadance and Shining Armor arrived on the scene. The married couple peered inside.
“Okay, wormhole,” Fred started a mixture of talking to himself, and whispering to the anomaly. “You're probably created again by Midgård's scientists, at a guess.” He unlocked the Scavenger Watch, intending to use the radio he soldered on there at one point. “...Wow. I can't believe I forgot. I never programmed it.” He shook his head. “Okay, plan B it is. Oh hey, it's already connected.” Even through the wormhole, he could still detect the wireless network 'BC-N-Sci-Guest', the same one he found and connected to before. The name made as little sense to him as ever.
“Do you need any help?” Princess Cadance asked.
“I am a little worried that I'll bounce off the walls of the universe again, or whatever happened last time.” He thought back to the day he got thrown out of the last one and hit a tree.
“Celestia, do you think we can shield him?” she suggested.
“Possibly.”
The human opened his browser and looked through the internet history for the voice communication site he visited last time. His only other option at this point was to broadcast packets in the network and hope the crazy monitoring sysadmin watched again.
To his relief, there were two people waiting for him. 'And that's why you use private browsing for suspicious activities instead of repeatedly deleting your browsing history, or else lose something important.'
A female voice spoke first. “You owe me five bucks, Gordon.”
“Damn, you win this time, Maria,” the male voice sounded disappointed. They both sounded Canadian.
Fred recognised the people as the same ones he spoke to last time. “About that wormhole...”
“We had some technical difficulties, but nothing to worry about,” Gordon assured.
“That's the understatement of the last two point zero six centuries,” the human in Equestria said into the microphone as he rolled his eyes.
He heard Maria mutter aside, “That doesn't even make sense,” before she spoke directly and replied, “We've fixed the issue. You're free to come through now.”
Unconvinced, he muted his microphone to speak to the ponies. “Anypony have something I can throw in?” In response, two rubber balls bounced toward him. One red, the other blue. “That works.” He picked up the blue one, bounced it a few times before overarm throwing it in. He unmuted and grabbed the red one. “Are you sure it's working?”
“Did you throw something through?” Gordon asked after he heard something on his end.
“Yes. Mind telling me what it is?”
“Dust?”
Through the voice program, palm hitting face could be heard. Fred muted again.
“Perhaps I could be of assistance,” Princess Celestia offered. She levitated the second rubber ball out of the human's hand. She cast something on it, causing a transparent yellow sphere around it to appear. She pushed it through.
“How about now?” he re-activated the microphone and questioned.
“A red rubber ball. I thought I saw something around it, but it must've been the reflection,” the male scientist responded.
“Good enough for me. Be there shortly.” Fred disconnected. “Can I have some of that?”
The solar alicorn placed the same shield spell around him, but she seemed a bit strained. “You'll have to sustain the shield yourself,” she told him.
“Sure thing.” Fred nodded in thanks. He energised his hands.
"Right then, take two it is. I'm still less-than amused that the last one supposedly there to take me home almost killed me in the process, along with ejecting me into a tree. If all goes well, I can actually get back to Midgård through this one. Here's to hoping it works, and that science remains cool.
"Throughout all of the last two weeks, I've helped to fight demons and keep Equestria safe, all at the same time doubting my very own sanity. Along with the previous hope, I also pray that I don't wake up in a mental hospital that I've been in the whole time."
“In I go.”
*The video ends as Fred turns toward the wormhole.*
Twilight Sparkle trotted back to her regular home in Ponyville: Golden Oaks Library. She magically unlocked the door and pushed it open with her hoof. It was dark inside.
“Spike?” she called out. No response. The unicorn flipped the light switch.
“SURPRISE!” A noise bombarded her from the whole library and she stumbled over. When she stood back up and her eyes adjusted, she saw all her friends, gathered around the main room.
“It's so great great to see you all again!” Twilight exclaimed. “But how did you know I was coming?”
In response, Spike pointed at some parchment on the table. “It came only an hour ago. I had to hurry to get them here,” he explained.
“It's a relief to see you're alright,” Rarity said.
“Now you can have a 'Yay! Twilight's back' party!” Pinkie yelled in her outdoor voice, despite her being inside. “I baked you a cake!”
Twilight looked again at the table. Next to the letter was a rather large chocolate cake. She wasn't sure how Pinkie managed to bake it so quickly, but it looked delicious. It had purple icing and 'Welcome back Twilight' written in pink. The colours complimented her mane. She smiled at her friends.
“Woohoo! Let's party like it's 999!” the pink pony screamed with her boundless energy.
Knowing that expending too much magic would end badly, Fred Walsh utilised the minimum amount of magical energy he could to sustain the shield Princess Celestia had cast for him.
As before, he 'floated' in a yellow-white tube of sorts, and the wormhole seemed to take its sweet time ferrying him to the other side. Fred bobbed up and down, left and right, as the lengthy tunnel twisted. 'It's still a mystery as to how I can breathe in here, but I'm not complaining.'
Finally, he began to approach the barrier he interacted with last time. 'Wait, I bounced last time. Did he say the ball disintegrated?' He braced himself. He hit the wall and slowed down slightly. He felt something pop and he increased velocity. He noticed the shield had vanished too, so he stopped trying to keep it up.
At long last, he could see the end. As he flew closer to the exit, he could make out things: Computer equipment, the layout of the room, and eventually people doing various tasks.
'Am I going to slow down at all?' Fred asked himself, moments before he lost any sense of direction as he entered his home universe. He tumbled down a ramp. In an effort to protect himself, he shielded his head with his arms. After some time, he stopped.
He opened his eyes. He stood up and looked around.
“Fred Walsh, you made it.” A man walked up to him, and it sounded like the one he spoke to on the Scavenger Watch.
“Thanks, I guess,” he replied slowly. “Okay, I have some requests. One: Where am I? Two: When am I? And three: I'd like to meet the sysadmin who obsessively monitors the network.”
“That'd be me,” a woman, Maria, from her voice, answered. “You're in a science facility a little bit outside Vancouver, and it's July 19, 2020.”
“...” Fred maintained a serious expression before taking a deep breath. “I'm in Canada. Without a passport. In the future.”
“Yes,” the network administrator confirmed.
He sighed with his excess breath. “Beats a mental asylum.”