//------------------------------// // chapter 30. One minus one // Story: Becoming Fluttershy // by Hope //------------------------------// Thomas walked down the rough streets of New York towards his apartment, whistling the My Little Pony theme song. It is a good time to be a brony. With people turning into ponies left and right, the show no longer a social stigma, and the possibility of meeting one of the mane 6, life was good. Twilight had gone missing recently, as well as the Princesses, but the mane 6 were supposedly heading here. He already had a picture of himself next to some OC pony who had been charging $5 per picture, but it had been worth it. Thomas was a simple guy, who had simple wishes, and one of his fondest wishes was to meet Twilight Sparkle. Today, Thomas would get his wish. Twilight watched a man pull a gun, pointing it at her with a sneer. "Well, I see that some pony has decided to come out. Good thing I was here to stop it," He snarled, before a deafening blast rang out. In a moment of desperation, Twilight’s magic tore out from around her, all she wanted was to run, to be free of this fear and her attacker, but the barriers of Discord’s magic kept her from returning to Equestria, and the magic knew no other outlet but to send Twilight someplace, or sometime else. Two days later, she fell to the ground in the middle of a blast of magic. Thomas slipped off a glove to pull his apartment key from his pocket, fumbling with it in his numb fingers before finally getting it in and opening the door. Just as he opened it, an explosion of purple light and noise ripped through the building, sending dust and debris howling through the hallways, and knocking him onto his back. Despite the ringing in his ears, Thomas crawled into his apartment, only to be greeted by a crater just outside of where his back wall had once been. The rubble of the wall was strewn across the room, and some of it was still falling into the hole. Thomas crawled up to the crater and peered down into it, trying to see if a meteor had fallen or something. At the bottom of the crater, laying in a puddle of blood, was a small purple pony. The camera swings up from staring at the cement, to show a windswept and dazed reporter. “Live, channel seven news, we are here on the sight of a massive explosion that rocked the area just minutes ago, an ambulance just left with the missing pony Twilight Sparkle on board. We have a man here who claims to have found her, Thomas, what happened?” The camera pans over to a very pale man, whose hands are coated in blood. “S...She just appeared, and there was so much blood...” He said, barely loud enough for the camera to pick it up over the wind. “Hey, hey, that witness needs to be sitting down and recuperating, cameras off.” A police officer came up, forcing the camera crew to pack up and leave. “So much blood.” Thomas whispered again, as the cop led him back to a seat next to his destroyed apartment. The news broadcast resumed from a desk. "So there you have it, the missing pony has been found, apparently assaulted and injured, causing massive property damage in the process. What will the ponies do now? We have watched as they have lost their leaders, as well as one of the so called 'mane 6', at this point we have to ask if victory is possible, or what victory even means.This is Al Terrance for channel seven news, signing out." The bustling emergency room was unusually quiet, whispered conversations communicating as a unique pair worked on the pony in question. The best Veterinarian in New York, and the best surgeon in the hospital. "Anterior Cerebral," the surgeon said calmly as he clamped a blood vessel closed to prevent bleeding in the brain. "We'll need to shave this section clean," the vet replied as she peeled the skin back, already planning for stitches and recovery. A nurse handed her a simple razor and she shaved the area clean. "I'm not seeing the same muscle groups as I'd expect in an equine normally," the vet admitted. "Not quite human either," the surgeon nodded. "In between, I'd guess. But similar enough. Do you think that normal fillers would work to fill cranial voids?" "Should work fine, the healing process is the same. But considering the size of these eyes we might want to make sure we aren't obstructing or severing facial muscles. They've got to be concentrated around the orbit but there's not much room." "Well of course not, she's a cartoon character," the surgeon huffed. They both paused, locking eyes as they tried to take stock of the situation. "Blood type is AB+," a nurse interrupted. "Switching from O to AB+." The blood bag was changed out, and the surgeon sighed, looking back at the pony on the operating table. "She's going to make it," the Vet said conclusively. "At least alive, but I can't judge how bad the brain damage is." Her conclusion prodded the surgeon back into the process as he applied a special patch to seal the hole in the blood vessel, and then unclamped it to allow blood to reach that part of the brain again. He then began checking, methodically, for other bleeds. "I've seen children with this level of damage recover fully," he concluded. "But it's unpredictable. Comas are common, and sometimes some functionality is lost." "She's not a child, I don't think," the vet murmured. "I'm just going by comparisons to equines I've seen but despite her size she's at least breeding age." The surgeon looked up with a raised eyebrow and the vet shrugged, exasperated. "Teens, late teens. I'm a vet so that's not typically a controversial thing to say." "Fair point," he sighed as he started filling small voids with a special kind of stuffing the body could dissolve harmlessly over time. "So a late teen, the risk is a little higher of lost functionality, but still not too bad. A few weeks of rest, and she might be up and walking again." In the observation gallery, Discord sat alone, watching the procedure, frowning. He tapped his clawed fingers against the desk, and after a moment he stood. "I don't kill," he muttered angrily as he turned away. "And I don't think I like this shooting business either." In a flash he returned to his lair and stormed across the room towards the wall to wall banks of monitors, still scowling. He snapped his fingers and summoned a figure made of shimmering black and white flecks. It tilted it's head. "I'm not supposed to exist." "Well no," Discord said with a roll of his eyes. "Probability isn't supposed to be a tangible thing, math isn't supposed to have a mind, but here you are." He grabbed it around the throat and pulled it close. "For the period of time that this world is mine, not a single pony will be killed or maimed by a bullet, do you hear me? Scrapes and limbs, I don't care. But no more of this brutality. I'm done with it. It disgusts me." Probability gulped and nodded. "Uh... Ok, I suppose... I'll make that happen. Can you let me go now?" "What's the probability of me letting go?" Discord asked with a sudden wide grin. "Eventually? 100%. But I'd prefer you let go now, which is a 21.888889% probability." "You round your decimal places?" Discord asked incredulously. Probability giggled sheepishly. "Occasionally. It's just easier."