//------------------------------// // Quantum Shenanigans // Story: Severance // by StealBox //------------------------------// It was a peacful day in the Everfree forest. The sky was clear, the sun shining, birds singing, and the Hive... Feeding. The Farm was full to capacity with the hungry, and the line for those awaiting their turn stretched far beyond this one chamber, winding through the cave system in which they've been forced to hide. The Farm, as I've named it, is my creation. Currently housing seventeen ponies within lime green cocoons, most of them kidnapped by me over the last week. Each is held in a perpetual dream state, magically engineered to consist wholly of the memories of their loved ones. It provides a slow, but steady, drip of ambient love for the Changelings to consume. As I watch them I can't help but think how different this is to how I wanted to live my life here. The whole Hive knows my name and even now I can feel dozens of eyes on me. And though their stares are filled with gratitude, the feeling of being watched leaves me very uncomfortable. I never liked the idea of fame, and I've always hated having people stare at me. As the allotted feeding time for this group ends I leave the chamber with them, soon splitting off to head for the entrance. Seventeen may sound like a lot, but there are almost a thousand changelings to feed, and I needed to continue expanding the Farm. It only served as a supplemental food source at the moment, but someday... someday it would be all they needed. The closer I get to the entrance, the more I can smell that familiar smell. It's nearly impossible to describe, like some unholy combination of cinnamon and acetone maybe, but it reminds me of Zecora, and the day I first arrived in Equestria. It was a slightly less peaceful day in the Everfree forest, and the only sound to be heard was my screaming. I was falling, and I had never been a fan of heights in the first place. "AHHHH!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!" Last thing I knew I was in the lab, now I was a hundred or more feet above a forest canopy. It took me a few seconds to fight back my all consuming panic and spread myself out to create as much drag as possible. Oh God I'm in for so much pain when I get down there. But, if I manage to hit every branch I can on the way down I might survive at least. My thoughts at the time were such that I didn't even notice that I couldn't feel any of my fingers or toes. I drew my arms and legs in at the last second to protect my head and body. Snapsnapsnap, snap, CRACK "AHHHH!!" Snap, snap, Thwack. "Ahh... ahh Go-ha-hah-od. I think my arms are broken." My limbs had unfolded out from beneath me sometime between the last branch and the one I was currently balancing on by my stomach. Crack. "Wha-!" the branch was cracked by my landing on it, and now it was giving out. Snap... Snap, snapsnap. "Oh shitshitshitshitSHIIIIIT!!!" crunch. SO much pain. My vision was swimming and I could feel something hard under my head. I must have hit a root or something. I don't know how long I laid there, eyes closed trying to will myself numb so I could move. As I tried fruitlessly to fight down the pain I started to take stock of my injuries the best I could without any medical background. I can't move my hands, that's a bad sign. I hit that last branch with my stomach instead of my ribs, I hope I didn't rupture any organs. Though If I had I'd probably be in too much pain to even think. I can't wiggle my toes, but my feet feel fine. That's weird. I heard a low growling sound and my eyes immediately snapped open. My first thought was the vicious mauling scenes from The Grey and how I should have just took a nosedive into the dirt and killed myself when I had the chance. Digging my heels into the dirt and pushing myself into a sitting position I was greeted by several sets of glowing eyes leering at me from the surrounding underbrush. This oddity didn't really register with me until they stalked slowly out of the bushes into the meager light from the hole I made in the canopy. I immediately recognized the wolf-shaped collections of logs and sticks for what they were, though this mind warping realization did nothing to quell my fears. There was more rustling to my left and I figured I was surrounded, not that I could have gotten away in the first place. I futilely tried to lift my arms in defense when they lunged and were blocked by a cloaked figure with a spear leaping from the bushes to my left. The figure proceeded to wack the four timberwolves with the stone tip of the spear several times in quick succession like a scene out of some Japanese kung fu show. "Begone foul creatures, or I'll add some new scars to your features!" Shouted what could only be Zecora as she held the spear in her front hooves while balancing on her back ones. The wolves all picked themselves back up and started growling at her for several seconds before they seemed to concede and slowly backed into the underbrush and disappeared. That's really weird. I don't remember timberwolves ever backing down from anything. Although they were only in like, one episode... Suddenly I caught a whiff of something really horrible and I had to wonder if that was the bad breath Spike was talking about. Zecora put her spear back to wherever she holds it and turned to me, and for a moment an irrational spike of fear shot through me and her eyes looked really menacing. A shiver went through me and when I blinked she looked normal again and the feeling had passed, that's when I noticed she had asked me something. "What was that?" "Hmm, injured you are, that much is clear, come, let's be away from here." "Yeah, I think my-" I look down at myself for the first time, to confirm what I'd already guessed when she never asked what I was, noting my new beige fur as I do so, "-forelegs are broken. I doubt I'll be doing any walking for a while." We puzzled over how to move me without hurting my legs too much and eventually came to a sorta, two man conga line setup. I kept my forelegs hanging as motionless as possible on either side of her flanks to keep from jostling the bone too much. This position was rife with innuendo looking back on it but my mind was on other things at the time. "It is most fortunate that I heard your cry, or those timberwolves would have been your final goodbye." Ha. I think that was my hint to say 'thanks for saving my ass'. "No doubt. That was pretty epic the way you swooped in and started smackin' them around like that. Thanks for saving me by the way missz-." Woah, almost slipped up there, I thought, dragging the 'miss' up into a questioning inflection. "It is Zecora, and I must ask the same. So Mr. Unicorn, what is your name?" Unicorn? Kick ASS MotherF- wait... "oh, it's, uh-" shit, what's a pony sounding name? "uh, c-cotton. Cotton Hill." Thank god Cotton's either fictional, or in a different universe, or he'd kill me for saying his name was pony like. "A pleasure to meet you Cotton Hill, do you live in nearby Ponyville? And what brought you to the forest today? I had heard most ponies tend to stay away." "No, I'm from Manehatten." I need a map. I can't remember any other cities beside Canterlot and Appaloosa. "And I didn't want to be in this forest. I was doing an experiment and it must have gone wrong." Or right now that I think about it. That could explain how I got here... We soon came to a small clearing containing a spectacular tree held aloof by massive aerial roots. The ground had been dug out underneath it to provide a taller space and there were several of, what looked like, tiki torches throughout the clearing. That bad smell came back again but much stronger than before. "Augh! What is that smell! I thought it was the timberwolves before but now it's here too." "Ah, that would be our special mixture, made to ward off frightful creatures. It evaporates into the air and tells the animals to beware." So that's why the wolves backed down. That smell somehow stimulated their fight or flight instincts and made them think she was to dangerous to mess with. That also explains why her house is never attacked by anything despite how dangerous the Everfree is supposed to be. She directed me to lay down on a small cot under the tree and I had to wonder why she brought me here instead of her hut. I carefully flopped onto the cot, letting out a hiss of pain as my forelegs protested this movement, and thought of a way to broach the subject. "This has got to be the coolest tree house I've ever seen, is this like a camp site or something?" "Not exactly, it isn't quite done, the construction of my new home has only just begone." She was sifting around through a small chest of some kind, probably full of potions given the soft clinking of glasses I could hear. "New home? What happened to your old one?" She pulled one bottle from the chest and sat it down by the cot to answer my question. "My old home was in Zabrica, and I thought I'd see what life would be like in Equestria." She offered no more explanation, leading me to believe there was some more backstory to that particular decision, but it was none of my business. "I don't have any bone healing potions, so for now all I can give you is this numbing lotion." she removed the cap revealing a brush attachment and started smearing the white cream onto my legs. I have to say, magic is awesome, my right leg stopped throbbing before she was even finished with the left. "Wow. This stuff is amazing, how do you make it?" I'd love to get this stuff under an mass spec., or any number of analytical devices. It's too bad I don't know how to build any of it... "Perhaps I will show you someday, but for now it is best we not delay." Zecora grabbed a jingling bag, most likely of bits, and hid it under her cloak before flipping the hood back over her head. "There are some ingredients that I need, so I'll make for Ponyville with best speed." As she turned and left Zecora gave me a warning not to move to much. I thought about stopping her, but knowing that the townsponies would all be afraid of her and close up shop the instant she set foot in town would have been an awkward thing to try and explain. Oh well. This'll at least give me some alone time to think things over and make a believable backstory for myself. First things first: quantum leaping into Equestria. Last thing I knew I was in the research lab of the company I worked for experimenting with superconducting organic compounds. My goal, like pretty much every scientist in the world working with electricity, was to make a substance that would superconduct at practical temperatures, e.g. something that wouldn't need liquid nitrogen cooling to work. But no one really knows what superconductivity is at a subatomic level, we only know the symptoms of it, zero resistance to current, ect.. Several of the theories paint it as some property of quantum mechanics that emerges at extremely low temperatures, and very low temperatures of course mean very low energy environments. I'm no theoretical physicist but my best guess would be that I managed to make a room temperature superconductor. And when I ran the electric current through it, the high energy conditions of the situation could have formed some kind of worm hole that I was sucked into, depositing me, or at least my consciousness, in a new universe... But that still doesn't explain how I could have transformed/ been transferred into, a pony body... or maybe it does, fuck I don't know, I'm just a chemist god dammit! *sign* Not that it matters anyway, I could spend years theorizing and it wouldn't make any difference to the situation. Time to focus on the here and now. Unfortunately I had to disobey my witch-doctors orders and start moving around to get a good look at myself and, most importantly, see what my cutie mark was. Thank fuck for that numbing lotion, who knows how much damage I was doing to myself. My cutie mark, as it turns out, was a single pale blue smiley face with a shut zipper instead of a mouth. So my talent is not talking? ...Yeah I can see that, but it's a shit talent so I'm gunna think of something else to tell people... I mean ponies. I hate grammar. I caught a glimpse of my mane out of the corner of my eye and it looked the same color as my fur, though I'd have to look again when I had access to a mirror. I spent the next hour or so just running through possibilities of what ponies might ask me and how I would answer them. Once I finished planning for my first venture into Ponyville and mentally prepared myself for the inevitable encounter with Pinkie, I turned to the subject of magic. I was a unicorn after all, according to Zecora, and with a quick crossing of my eyes to confirmed it, I set about trying to levitate things. It took me an estimated two hours of intense concentration, but I finally got some sparks to trickle out of my horn by the time Zecora came back. "I apologize for the great delay, but it seems all the shops were closed today. I had to search the forest for the herbs I did need to get your legs back up to speed." She removed the bit bag from her cloak and placed several plants I couldn't recognize on top of the potion chest as she didn't have any tables yet. "That's alright, I'm just getting a lot of time to relax is all." she nodded in acknowledgement and pulled a mortar and pestle set along with a small cauldron out of another bag and started the slow rhythmic task of pounding the plants into powder. I didn't want to practice using magic with her around as it would bring up uneasy questions of why a full grow unicorn doesn't know how to use magic. So I simply laid there, staring at the bottom of the tree that was the ceiling until the rhythmic scraping sound of the pestle lulled me to sleep. Whew, cleanin' that mess sure took a long time, thought miss Jubilee. The click of the lock on the cherry sorting station doors was such a welcome sound that night. A few cherries had fallen off the conveyor belt and got all ground up in the gears. "You have a good night Miss Jubilee," said a blue earth pony mare. "Thank you for staying over to help Peach. Why, I'd've been here all night without your help. See you in the mornin'." They waved their farewells and went their separate ways. It sure is dark tonight, she thought taking a look up to the moon overhead. There were a few clouds blocking the moons light, Dodge Junction didn't have many pagasi so stray clouds were fairly common. "Hrrraaahhhhhhh..." "Huh? What was that?" Miss Jubilee stopped and perked her ears up trying to hear anything. "..." Nothing. "Hm. I must be more tired than I thought." Dismissing the sound as the wind she continued on toward her home. She soon passed an alley, and she heard that sound again, but now it was accompanied by a strange scratching sound. Curious she stopped and looked into the alley. It was too dark to see anything but she thought she could make out the shape of a pony. "Hello? Is that you making that strange sound?" A small breeze picked up and moved the clouds just enough for the moons light to peer through and reveal the pony in the alley. It was a rather tall stallion, he was wearing a fancy suit, but the face was his most striking feature. There wasn't one. As she stood there in shock the scratching noise started getting louder and louder, almost hurting her ears. The shadows in the alley started to move, thin black tendrils of darkness were reaching out to ensnare her. With a scream she bolted and made for the nearest house. "Please let me in! There's something out here!" As she banged at the door the shadows on the porch quickly reached out and grabbed one of her hooves. She frantically shook it off but more kept coming, and with another scream she ran back into the street. There she saw it again, the faceless thing was waiting in the same alley as before, but then it took a step towards her. Jubilee turned and ran down the street away from it, but then it stepped out from behind another building up ahead on the right side of the street. Black cords of shadow speared out in her direction and with another panicked scream she turned left and ran down a different street. "Please! Somepony! Anypony!" Why is no pony answering me! Why can't they hear me! There it was again ahead of her somehow, this time on the left, so she turned right. Again and again, it was always ahead of her, waiting with it's shadows. They clawed and creeped and reached for her, she could see them writhing on every doorstep, waiting for her come to them. She never even noticed that she was being herded out of town until the last building flew past her as she ran. Up ahead she could see another pony, this one a unicorn, it's white mane shining in the moonlight like immaculate silver to her eyes. At that moment, it was like seeing an angel. She ran up to the pony she could now recognize as a stallion, "Oh thank dear Celestia above! You have to help me, there's some, some, THING chasing me it's right-" She turned to show him the monster that would surely be right behind her, but there was nothing there. " *sigh* That makes eighteen." "What does that me-" She turned to see his horn glowing. A blistering red light pierced her forehead and all was dark.