//------------------------------//
// Ch. 7: Wake Me Up Inside 
// Story: There is an I in Generosity 
// by TundraStanza 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 7: Wake Me Up Inside

"You may tell them if you wish," she had told me. "However, I imagine it was difficult enough to retrieve your old memories and meld them into your current ones.  It will probably be just as difficult for your friends to accept theirs.  Perhaps, you could use some... tact."

"Why, Celestia, surely you jest?  I am Rarity.  If there's anything I know, it's how to be tactful in a conversation."

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After returning to Ponyville Station and meeting up in Golden Oaks Library...

"That... could have gone better," I mused with a slight frown.

Twilight was stuttering several unintelligible phrases.  Fluttershy was on her back with all four legs straight up in the air.  Applejack was distantly staring at her own hoof, while her mouth was opening and closing several times over.   Pinkie was the only one I could see that was taking things in stride.  Then again, she was laughing on the floor.  Maybe she didn't believe me.

"I don't get it." Rainbow shook her head.

"You're positive that the princess said that all six of you guys are reincarnations?" reiterated Spike.

"I heard her loud and clear... well, indoor voice and clear.  You get the point," I said.

Rainbow crossed her front legs while flying in place. "No way!  When the awesomeness that was me was born, they broke the mold."

Where did she get the sunglasses from? I wondered. "There aren't a bunch of you, Rainbow.  There are so few of you that life decided to recycle your soul."

Our favorite unicorn finally stopped her stuttering.  She replaced it with an unsettling fit of giggles.  There was too much air being pushed out with each laugh for it to be natural.  The rest of us stopped whatever we were doing to watch her carefully.  Even Pinkie stopped and stared at Twilight with worry.

"You're hilarious, Rarity." Twilight slowly trod across the floor. "Absolutely amusing.  Way to pull one over us."

"Twilight, darling..." I reflexively put up a thin, invisible magic barrier in front of myself. "In all the time that I have known you, have I ever once told an elaborate joke at your expense?"

She forced out some more chuckles. "There's a first time for everything." She kept walking forward. "After all, we're not characters stuck in the pages of a book doomed to repeat our exact same behaviors with every read-through.  We are real life ponies with actual experiences." Her face pressed up against my transparent defense. "So who knows?  Maybe you could have chosen today to be a spring of laughter."

Pinkie Pie rapidly shook her head. "Ewww... Pinkity sounds like a terrible power couple."

I idly tapped one of the curls in my coiffure. "Doubt me if you must, but Princess Celestia herself told me all of this."

"We'll see about that." Twilight nodded to herself as she turned around. "Spike!"

"You don't have to shout when I'm in the same room..." Spike grumbled as he walked up next to her, with quill and paper ready to go.

At some point, Fluttershy had pulled herself back onto her hooves and took a nervous swallow.  I couldn't tell if it was a European swallow or an African swallow.  Still, she managed to calm it down before releasing it to fly out the open window.  She lightly tapped a hoof, and I chuckled sheepishly before releasing the small barrier spell.

"So... um... w-when will we... realize our old selves... like you did?"

That was a good question, Fluttershy.  When exactly were the rest of them supposed to gain the memories of their past lives?  Judging by my interactions with Sweetie Belle shortly after I "woke up", it had to have been at least some time after our first Sisterhooves Social together.  If a bond like that were the key trigger, then we were short a few siblings as far as I knew.  Besides, Applejack still didn't know her 'old self' after all this time spent with both of her siblings.  Maybe I was on the wrong track of thinking altogether.

"I wish I knew what to tell you, Fluttershy." I shook my head. "But I simply do not know."

It was at this moment that Spike expelled a sealed scroll through his dragon flame mail.  He unwrapped the scroll and read its contents out loud. "It is true, my faithful student.  I just wasn't sure when you would be ready to hear this information."

Applejack adjusted her hat. "Well, that about sums up the deal.  Doesn't it?"

Twilight magically pulled the scroll out of Spike's grasp and frantically read through the page and its contents.  Her eye twitched as more and more of the hairs in her mane curled up and out of her preferred style.  She teleported in front of the basement door and galloped through the way.

"Twilight!" called Pinkie Pie as she peeked through the open door. "What are you going to do?"

The rest of us chased after her.  I slid a bit on the floor as I caught sight of her sitting in front of a full-height mirror and charging a bluish spell.  I gasped and instinctively reached out a hoof, even though I was at least a floor away.

"No, don't-!"

Before I could finish, she had fired her magic at the mirror.  The spell bounced off in the opposite direction, hitting her square in the forehead.  She yelped as she was propelled backwards along the basement floor.  Rainbow and Fluttershy flew down toward her while the rest of us took the stairs.

Pinkie popped up around various positions in the basement, with just as many different facial expressions to represent her panic. "Twilight! Are you nuts?! You shouldn't go throwing spells around like that! You'll poke some pony's eye out!"

Applejack leaned her head over the sprawled out pony. "Hey. ... Hey!  Snap out of it!"

"Wake up!" insisted Rainbow Dash.

"Please, wake up," pleaded Fluttershy.

I held my hoof in front of my mouth.  I was feeling a little too horrified to properly express words.  Twilight Sparkle practically attacked herself with magic.  I couldn't understand why.  I knew she could stress herself over things that didn't matter to the rest of us, but intentional self-harm was unthinkable.

Spike dropped his head against Twilight's chest. "Oh thank Celestia, she still has life." He hugged her tightly.

Her eyes gradually opened.  She mumbled something about kittens before sitting up straight and rubbing her face with her front hooves.  She looked around and blinked each time her gaze rested on one of us.

"Pinkie Pie?" Her ears were laid flat against her head. "Applejack? Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy? Spike? Rarity?"

"Y-Yes, Twilight." I gave a nod. "Those are all of our names."

"I'm... Twilight?" She slowly turned her eyes to look down at her own limbs. "Huh... I guess that makes some amount of sense."

"What do you mean 'some amount of sense'?" wondered Rainbow. "Did that misfired spell scramble your egghead?"

Twilight's loose mane hairs somehow straightened themselves out. "A spell?" She sighed and put a hoof over her eye. "Of course it was a spell. What else would Twilight Sparkle possibly be doing?"

"Um... Twilight?" Fluttershy moved some of her own mane out of her eyes. "Why are you talking in the third-perspective?"

"Isn't that Trixie's shtick?" added Applejack.

Twilight shook her head. "Sorry, I'm not used to dreaming as one of the ponies. Usually, I'm hanging above and looking in."

Pinkie Pie tilted to one side. "That... doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Spike snapped his claws near Twilight's ears. "Are you still half-asleep?"

"Wait a minute..." I tapped my chin. "What's the last thing you remember doing before waking up here?"

'Twilight' shrugged her shoulders. "Must have been up late, reading the B-Canon comics.  It's what I'd normally do on a work night."

The rest of the group had a mix of reactions.  Rainbow Dash flipped upside-down.  Applejack lifted her brow.  Pinkie Pie's head was somehow mimicking the motion of an analog timer.  Spike scratched the scales atop his head.  Fluttershy fainted and I had to pull around my fainting couch before her head could make contact with anything else.

"Either she hit her head so hard that she's delusional," I thought aloud, "or her past life's memories are in her head now."

This seemed to bring most of the basement's occupants to attention.  Fluttershy was still out of commission, but the rest of my friends were staring in open-mouthed surprise.  'Twilight' was an exception, just looking at me confused.

"Pretty sure reincarnation is just a superstition." The other unicorn stood up. "But you'd already know that, being in my dream and all."

I've read enough fiction to know that telling someone that you're not a dream just vindicates that person's belief that you are a dream.  Together, my two lives gave me ways to think around such situations.  One thing that could break Twilight, and hopefully her past life's mind, out of her delusion was to present an impossible case.

"Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?" I held out my hoof for emphasis.

"Sure." She shrugged again.

"Do you pay any attention to sports?"

Rainbow muttered under her breath, "I doubt she does."

"Not especially closely." 'Twilight' shook her head.

"Okay, so if I were in fact a figment of your imagination that you are dreaming, with no knowledge other than what you have..." I smirked. "... how could I possibly know that last year, the Golden State Warriors won the basketball championship?"

Applejack squinted. "Who in the what?"

Twilight's eyes slowly opened wider. "That was... a coherent thought and intelligent question... but..." She pointed her hoof. "Say that again."

"Last year, the Golden State Warriors won the basketball championship," I said with the exact same inflections as before.

"No drastic change from the same input..." 'Twilight' began to shake in place. "This is real?!"

"That's what brings her to her senses?" Rainbow crossed her front hooves. "A made up sports team and a championship?"

"Then again," piped in Pinkie, "we didn't exactly have any other ideas on how to fix her."

Spike clenched his fangs. "Uh, guys?  We should probably move this discussion upstairs."

Applejack responded, "Why's that?"

Spike scuttled his little feet. "Because when Twilight stresses out, a magical outburst is inevitable.  Trust me and run!"

Following his lead, Applejack galloped after him.  Pinkie bounced up the stairs to the ground-level floor.  I magically pulled the couch with Fluttershy on it.  Rainbow quickly pushed the couch from behind and we made our way through the door to the main entrance.  Immediately after, Twilight unleashed a terrified scream and something reddish exploded from behind the door.  The entire library shook, causing most of us to rattle off stuttering syllables, save for Rainbow who was still low-flying.

When the shaking stopped, I let out a sigh. "Thank you for the fair warning, Spikey."

Spike twiddled his claws. "Aw, no need to thank me."

"Think it's safe now?" wondered Rainbow.

"Only one way to find out." Applejack adjusted her hat and marched back toward the basement door.

Each of us peeked into the basement.  The light was flickering on and off, as if it were a low-budget haunted house.  Black dust made up a thin layer on the surfaces of the walls and floor.  Rainbow went in first, descending via wing power.  Spike was soon to follow along the stairs.  Applejack and I took up the rear, because Pinkie had somehow popped out of a hole in the wall ahead of us.

Twilight's horn was illuminating consistently while the overhead light was currently unreliable for continuous sight.  She was staring down at her front hooves.  Her eyes were unblinking and her mouth line was scrunched up.  Curiously, her coiffure survived her magical outburst completely intact in her favored mane style.

"Are you okay?" Spike ran up and put his claw on her shoulder.

"Y-Yeah..." Twilight barely moved even as she spoke. "J-Just needed to...to cast the memory spell... amidst the panicked magical signature surrounding me." She closed her eyes. "Never... better."

"So... what was all that earlier jibber-jabber about?" Pinkie Pie stretched her neck over to bring her eyes no more than two feet away from Twilight.

"I remember everything."

When the rest of Pinkie's body snapped over to join her head, it made exactly the same sound as a pin dropping.

"Remember what?" asked Applejack.

Twilight opened her eyes again. "The piles of bills... my wife... the jumping in and out of the fandom... the long commutes in the rain... everything." She held a hoof up against the side of her head. "I really did have a past life as a human."

I tried to smile in support. "That doesn't sound too bad of a life."

She shook her head. "It's not that.  I'm more stressed out that I could have forgotten all of that to begin with.  How could I have lived so long as some pony... somebody else and just tossed it aside like that?"

I pressed a hoof into the shoulder opposite of the side Spike was standing on. "Twilight, listen carefully.  You did not 'toss it aside'.  I doubt you had much choice in the change of life.  You were given a new life to start.  It's going to be difficult to come to terms with that idea.  But if any pony can learn to cope with a duality of minds, it's you darling."

Twilight set her hoof against my own.  She chuckled nervously. "Is that Rarity talking or Diamond Edge?"

I kept my serious gaze upon her. "Yes."

Rainbow scoffed. "Feathering smart-flank."

"Heh. Seems safe now." Applejack trotted over and joined in the group hug.

Twilight's chuckle was more genuine this time.  Pinkie pulled us all together to complete the group hug, much to the discomfort of Rainbow and Spike.  Actually, I couldn't really blame them.  This hug felt really tight, though not as tight as some of our other group hugs.  There was something a little off about this.

"Hey!" Pinkie chirped. "Some pony should probably go let Fluttershy know everything's okay now."

"Goodness, I left her up there all alone!" I exclaimed while trying to urge us toward the stairs.

"Hold on." Twilight's horn glowed brightly.

In a burst of magenta light, we were instantly in the main area of the library.  As I looked around, a yawn caught my attention.  There was our calm pegasus slowly getting up from the couch.  Then, she promptly fell flat on her face.  We all ran over to her.  Rainbow flew ahead of us and picked her up and shook with her hooves.

"Fluttershy, quick!" Rainbow dropped down and curled the ends of one wing. "How many feathers am I holding up?"

Fluttershy barely opened her eyes, and chuckled creepily. "You've got a funny-colored wig."

I put my hoof over my muzzle against my head. "Oh sweet Celestia, please don't tell me her past life was a druggie."
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