//------------------------------// // Revelations // Story: Replay // by Scootaloose //------------------------------// Revelations Morning came faster than I wanted. I spent too much time looking at the skies most of the night, and I probably got 3 hours of sleep before the Sun started rising. I wasn't going to get much time to sleep later anyway, so I rubbed my eyes for a good few seconds to try to wipe out my drowsiness. If someone looked at me they'd think that I was trying to rip my eyes out, thank goodness for the empty traincar. I put my sunglasses back on and watched the sun rise slowly over the horizon as the train rode up the mountain where Canterlot was located. I guess life decided to troll me and pull out a nice and big "fuck your sunrise watch time", because the train started going through tunnels every ten freaking seconds. It was one tunnel, some sunlight, and another tunnel... over and over and over again... as we approached the city, I caught quick glances of Canterlot during the time the train wasn't inside a tunnel. Canterlot had a gigantic white castle that could very well make up for half the size of the whole city. It also was hanging just at the edge of a cliff, with a waterfall at the bottom dropping at a lake down below. I let out a heavy sigh and plopped my head back onto my pillow hard enough for my sunglasses to bounce back to my forehead (like a boss!). I stared at the ceiling until we got to the station, which we were arriving in a few minutes according to the ticket collector who used the intercom. It was so sudden and loud it startled me a bit, but Twilight barely reacted at all, I only heard her shuffle a bit in her bed and went silent again. What a heavy sleeper... I thought. As the train started slowing down. I got up to stretch my legs, and saw that Twilight was still sleeping, her ears down and loose, breathing slowly and peacefully, completely unaware of her surroundings. So quiet and peaceful... I thought. She has a light smile on her face, it means she must be having a nice dream... Would be a shame of something happened to it... A grim smile started taking over my face. "Sorry Twilight, but I gotta have my payback for yesterday..." I reached onto the far side of her bed and grabbed one end of the bed sheet, and pulled it across to my side. In a few seconds I packed Twilight inside her own sheets. I rolled her around a bit --which surprisingly she didn't wake up yet-- to make it even harder for her to get out, then I took her pillow and hurled it at her from across the corridor, effectively waking her up for good. "What the- what's going on??" she squealed inside the packed roll of sheets. It took her a while to crawl out, and when she did she had that look of someone who just woke up, combined with annoyance and confusion, just like me the other day when she hurled Spike at me. When she realized what I had done, she levitated the pillow and stared at me for a few seconds, with a grim smile on her face. "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses now, would you?" I said quickly while lowering my sunglasses back to my eyes. "Of course not..." said Twilight. Then she slowly walked towards me. Pushed my sunglasses back to my forehead, and ducked just before the pillow came from behind her hurdling towards my face. Let's just say that it hit me hard enough for me to see little colourful dots floating around for quite a while, only wearing out when we were outside the train and leaving the station. "Here we are Johnny Streak, Canterlot. It's where I grew up!", said Twilight. Canterlot was very clean and polished, and had white cobblestone roads, unlike Ponyville. The theme for the buildings wasn't too different, but they were a lot brighter and had lots of details in gold. Hell it looked like a city exclusive for rich and sophisticated people. The citizens around here were mostly unicorns for some reason, and all of them wore some kind of clothing, or at least an accessory. Some stallions had some very classy moustaches, true sirs right there. "The castle is this way, Princess Celestia is probably waiting for us already.", she said, nudging me to grab my attention. "This place is so... posh, it's kinda strange..." I commented. "That's because we're in the downtown area of Canterlot. The area where ponies live is not too different, but it's less 'posh', if you want to call it that", Twilight replied. We reached the Canterlot Castle's gates, which looked massive from where we stood. The two guards standing on the two sides of the gate were wearing a full set of golden armor, both of them unicorns. As we approached the gates, they glanced at us with the most serious face I've seen in my life. They nodded slightly at us and each opened each side of the gates and let us in. The castle grounds was much more open and had a few water fountains here and there, and one walkway led to a park full of statues. The main door to the castle had a rather long staircase. As we reached the castle doors, another pair of guards opened the doors for us. I was greeted with a corridor as wide as the length of two buses, and the walls were filled with glass paintings, but I couldn't make out what they meant. The carpet was red and had artifacts in glass covers all over the place. What struck me hard was that I could actually recognize some of the objects, though barely, because they looked like they took countless hammer strikes to them. Some ponies were walking around with saddlebags with books in them, and some were just chatting next to some of the windows. "Is this a museum or something?" I asked confused, because this place didn't look like a royal castle at all. "We technically are at the museum part of the castle." Twilight nodded, "The Royal area is on the far side of the room. And the castle also has a hotel area to the left, where they host most of the parties here." "So this place is a hotel, a museum, AND houses the royalty?" I asked surprised. In which Twilight just nodded back with a hum. "You'll get the time to look around once we talk to the Princesses.", Twilight added. "It shouldn't take too long. We might even make it to the train back to Ponyville this afternoon." "Ahem, excuse me miss" ,said a light grey stallion pegasus from behind us. "I'm sorry for listening in to your conversation, but did you say something about the train?" Good god these ponies just love to listen into everyone's conversations... "Yes, what about it?", Twilight asked. "Well, I was at the train station not too long ago, and the train's engine seemed to have malfunctioned.", replied the stallion, "I wouldn't hope to ride the train today, at least not until tomorrow." "Well, at least we know we don't have to waste our time getting back there, thank you", she said. The stallion nodded and walked away. "Good thing we're right next to a hotel, we can probably book a room right now." I added. "We don't have to", Twilight interrupted, "I'm sure Princess Celestia will let us use the royal guest bedroom while we're here." "Oh, the perks of being a princess' personal student... that's lucky." I commented. "Come on, the sooner we deal with this Johnny/Carbon problem the more time you have to tour around the city. I might even get time to go visit my brother" Twilight said. And we continued walking towards the "royal room" door, which had yet another pair of guards. The only difference was that one of the guards wasn't a unicorn but a Pegasus. They smiled at us and opened the doors to the room where the princesses were in without even asking what our business with them was... Yet another huge corridor to walk through... except this time it had two large thrones at the end, where I saw two large unicorn and Pegasus hybrids talking. One was almost twice as big as us and had a white coat and a rainbow-like mane that flowed in a non-existing wind. The one to the right was smaller than the white one, but she was a bit larger and stronger-looking than a regular pony, and had a dark blue coat and a mane that looked like the night sky, which also flowed around. I couldn't help but stare at it for a few seconds seeing as I enjoyed stargazing myself, but I quickly snapped out of it because, well... It'd look creepy and they are royalty for goodness' sake! I approached Twilight as we walked towards the Princesses. "So what are they? They're both unicorn and pegasus, what do you call them?" "They're Alicorns. They can live for many centuries compared to regular ponies who only live for at most one century", she whispered back. Oh damn talk about aging and still looking young... The two Alircorns got up, and the taller (and older one, presumably) spoke. "Twilight Sparkle! My faithful student! I received your letter from Spike. What is this about somepony named Johnny?" she asked. She had light pink eyes, had a Sun as her cutie mark and wore a golden chestplate-like accessory. The other princess had ocean green eyes and had a crescent moon as a cutie mark. She left the throne and walked to Twilight and they embraced for a moment. I just stood at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for my turn to speak. "Right..." Twilight started, "as I told you in my letter, Rainbow Dash found this pony in the rain and she brought it in to Ponyville. A few days later Ponyville received a pack of posters for a missing pony, who looked exactly like him. But he claims that he is from another world and that he was sent to this body instead." "Ah yes, we did receive some posters around Canterlot about this same Pegasus." Princess Celestia said while taking a look at me. She squinted her eyes for a second, examining my flank... Goddammit... I thought, trying hard not to shudder. "Unfortunately they weren't descriptive enough and forgot to give a description for a cutie mark." "So there's no way to find out what happened to him?" Twilight asked. This time Princess Luna spoke, which according to Twilight was the princess she and the other "bearers" helped a few years ago. "Actually, one of our scientists discovered a special kind of 'history check', it can be performed on any living creature as long as they fit in the machine... We might be able to find out what happened. But first we'd like to hear his side of the story", Princess Luna said, looking towards me. "Would you mind telling us what happened to you?" "Yes, your Highness." I said politely and bowing down for a few seconds. I proceeded to tell them a short description of my life before dying and how I woke up, as well as what I think happened, but this time I held back on my electrical pun. They pondered for a second and Princess Celestia spoke again. "Hmm...", she paused, "that's quite a... shocking story, really." Oh dear god she didn't... "Shocking, indeed", added Princess Luna, who was giggling silently, but I could see that she was shaking like one would when they're laughing under their breath. Twilight's ear and left eye twitched, but she still kept her composure. "I didn't notice any doubts on his words, he seems honest about his story" the princess continued, "but it is still a good idea to run this examination on him to confirm his story." "It's not going to hurt him, is it?" Twilight said worryingly. "It's completely safe" said Princess Luna, "he won't feel anything according to the doctor who designed the system." "Okay", Twilight said relieved, "there is still one teeny little problem: the train we were going to take to get back to Ponyville broke down and we don't have a way back until the train is fixed." "That's okay, Twilight", Princess Celestia said, "I'll have you two stay at the guest bedroom while you are in Canterlot. I'll escort you to it once we finish with Johnny's examination." "Thank you, Princess", said Twilight. "I'll walk you two to the medical bay", said Princess Luna while getting up. We followed her back to the first room we entered and took a right to one of the corridors. Every single time we passed by somepony they'd bow to Princess Luna. A few minutes walking and we reached the medical area of the castle, which had a different setting than the rest of the castle as it was mainly tinted white and had marble flooring. It was much like a regular hospital back in my other life, it had a patient area with a receptionist, emergency rooms, a staff room, etc. We entered an examinations corridor, where it had rooms for different kinds of equipment such as X-ray machines. But the room we walked in had a rather peculiar machine. It looked like a shower box but it obviously wasn't meant for that. There was a pale yellow unicorn fiddling with some wiring behind the machine, but he heard us walk in and quickly went to greet us. "Good morning Princess Luna!" he said, bowing down for a second. "Is there something I can help you with?", he had an eastern-European accent and wore a doctor's robe. Why does every accent I hear sound exactly like the accents I heard before?? "Yes, Nikolai" said the princess, "we have found somepony that might give your machine some interesting results, this is Johnny Bass, or Carbon Streak." "Wait, two names?" he asked confused, "I do not know what is going on, your Highness, but my machine was not built for testing which name fits best for a pony." Princess Luna giggled and continued "Not at all, Nikolai. We believe that Johnny might have accidentally taken possession of this Pegasus named Carbon Streak for some mysterious reason. I am sure your machine can detect what exactly happened, am I correct?" "We could try. It should be a good way to test my machine. It's not every day somepony walks in with a case like yours", he said to me. "Now let me just finish installing the chamber's camera and microphone and you can walk into it. It shouldn't take long". He walked to the back of the machine and spent a few minutes behind it. In the meantime I spent a moment to examine the contraption I was going to walk into. It had a large console screen embedded onto the side and a small slit next to the screen that probably meant paper came out of it. It had a few buttons below, but I wouldn't know what they'd do since I'd be inside while the machine is in use, and the machine was turned off anyway. "Alright, the camera is hooked up, let me start up the machine and mister Bass can walk inside." he said walking out from behind the machine. He powered on the machine and let me walk inside. He closed the door shut and everything went dark for a second until the lights turned on. I saw the camera he mentioned staring down at me from the corner. "Wow it's very small in here, I'm glad I don't have claustrophobia." I said. "Yes, which is why I had to install the camera and intercom right away", I heard Nikolai say through the intercom. "When the machine was still being tested, we had some volunteers come over to make sure the machine was scanning properly. The last pony who walked in freaked out in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately he was a unicorn and when we closed the door he tore a hole in the door in panic!" "Ouch, that looks like very expensive equipment." I heard Twilight say. "It is. I'm glad I work at the royal medical bay and not out in some other city without the proper funding. This thing costed a fortune to build!", said Nikolai. "Now, Johnny, I'm going to start up the scanner, so please be as still as possible!" I promptly stood still as a statue, and immediately an orange beam started sliding down from above very slowly, going right through my body. I didn't feel a thing, except the mild discomfort when the beam slooooowly shone down into my eyes... After a few seconds, the door opened and I walked out. "Hmm... this is very interesting..." Nikolai said looking at the screen. "What does this machine actually do, Doctor?" asked Twilight. "What is ultimately does is run a 'history' of the subject's body up to a week in the past. The scan ranges from organ functionality to brain activity, though it can't actually read the subject's mind." he started. "The interesting part is in the time frame 3 days ago." "The day Rainbow Dash found Johnny. What about it?" asked Princess Luna. "Well, you see, take a look at his organ and brain activity for the morning." Nikolai pointed at the console screen, which had the outline of my body, and the structure for a nervous system and vital organs, "if you examine his digestive system, it shows definite signs that he hasn't eaten for quite a long time. Same thing for any kind of liquid intake". "Are you saying that Carbon Streak was starving?" the princess asked. The doctor nodded. "Well it makes sense, since he left Manehattan and wasn't seen for a while, so he obviously got lost and didn't eat much after that." said Twilight, "what happened next?" "I know the machine runs with 100% accuracy after the countless test runs I ran. So according to the results..." he paused for a moment, thinking of what to say, "...you actually died at 12:30 in the afternoon, according to the history results for your heart. It just stopped beating!" "Wait what!?" me and Twilight asked at the same time. Princess Luna's eyes were wide open and just as confused. "You're not possibly suggesting I took possession of a... dead body, are you?" I asked the doctor. What the fuck?? This is so messed up! "I'm sorry, but I actually am..." he said slowly. I felt the urge to scream and panic like in a horror movie. My legs started shaking. "Am I a zombie or something? What the fuck man!!" I screamed, startling the three ponies. "What is this word 'fuck' you speak of?" asked Princess Luna. I stared dumbly at the two ponies and the princess. Not sure of what to make out of this. Oh man their innocence. At least profanity here is not going to be a problem... I think. "It does sound like the word 'buck', but it probably means something else" said Twilight. "What does it mean?" Nikolai cleared his throat loudly, "Sorry for interrupting, but I'm still not done with the results." THANK YOU DOCTOR! "My apologies" said the princess. "Please continue." "You better tell me I'm not a freaking zombie or I will flip out!" I said nervously. "That's what I was going to explain before you started screaming..." Nikolai sighed, "And no, you're not a zombie in any way. Take a look at your body functions about an hour after Carbon Streak died." he filtered my body's system and showed my neural system. "At around 1:30 in the afternoon, your nervous system fired up out of nowhere, and the rest of your body fired up with it instants later." "That was the same time Rainbow said she found him..." Twilight pondered. "She did say one of the clouds she kicked didn't fire a lightning bolt, even though she was sure it would." "That must have been when she kicked you out of the cloud and you got shot down right into Carbon Streak's corpse" added Princess Luna. "So pretty much you revived his corpse and now live inside his body. But Carbon Streak is no more, because the brain patterns after the revival are completely different, which means it's a completely distinct mind living inside this body." Nikolai said. "So you really did die in an accident before all this..." said Twilight. "But how did he end up in this world?" "Now that's completely out of my expertise, Miss.", Nikolai interrupted. "You'll have to find that out with somepony else." "Thank you for your time, Nikolai" said Princess Luna. "We should go back and talk to Tia and let her know our findings." "I'm still dazzled by the fact that I took over a dead body an revived it..." I commented. "Takes a while to sink in, you know." "It'll pass." said Twilight. "Let's go back to Princess Celestia." We walked back to the throne room and explained what we discovered to her. She took it all in without asking anything until we finished. I like people who are good listeners and don't interrupt others with questions every five sentences. "I see.", said Princess Celestia. "I assume it is safe to say that we can let Carbon Streak's family about what happened to him and we can proceed to give Johnny a proper identity." "Pretty much", said Twilight, turning over to me, "I'm sorry I doubted you when I saw the poster... please don't hate me!" "Oh come on, Twi. I can't hate you for that!" I said, "It was just a misunderstanding. I would've thought the same thing about someone else!" "Somepony.", she uttered. I held back a grunt, but she clearly saw my face of frustration and laughed. The princesses giggled a bit. But Princess Celestia quickly continued. "As for the guest room, let room service know that they should prepare the room for two guests.", she said looking at one of the guards stationed next to the thrones. "Yes, maam.", said the guard. And he galloped away to the door, which the two guards quickly opened, letting him through. At the same time another guard came inside, stopping beside us. "Your Highness, the Royal Scout has arrived from the Everfree. " he said. "She says she has found something and needs to talk to you right away." "Bring her in", the princess said quickly. The guards at the door nodded, and one of them went outside to tell the scout to come inside. And in came a light brown pegasus mare with black mane and an Indiana Jones-like jacket.