Regression Of The Mind
Chapter 1 - The Insane Brain Of Cyber Scratch
The world today isn't what I would call “a nice place to live”. There is terrorism, abuse, violence, drugs and everyone's personal favourite… War. Suffice to say things are going to hell in a handbasket really fast these days.
But this has nothing to do with that, this story will instead focus on Bluward, the son of Discord, the self-proclaimed god of chaos from Equestria and Cyber Scratch, a cyber-pony built by a mad professor called Prof. Woofenstein that had a weird obsession with Ponies and dubstep. The two friends share a flat in a rather rustic town filled with your average day people.
The most unusual fact about these two is that they are not human. Bluward, who calls himself Blu for short, is a draconequus. Basically, he looks as if god decided to take all the spare parts left over from other animals and stick them all together. He can defy the laws of physics, and even make it rain chocolate milk. Cyber on the other hand is...well...a cyber pony, so he is shaped like a pony, hoofs and all, which look more like stereo speakers.
“Cyber, have you seen the fridge?” asked Blu. Blu was around six feet in height and had a furry grey face with deep red eyes. He had a V shape of grey fur on his chest, which slowly transitioned brown for the rest of his body. He had strikingly white hair and single tooth, which was as sharp as his imagination.
Cyber, who had an off white coat and an anime style mane with a matching tail in a striped fashion of sea blue and turquoise, put down a controller he was holding. “Dude, for the third time yes, I have seen the fridge. As far as I know it’s still in the kitchen like always and I don’t see that changing unless you make it sprout legs...like you did last week.” he answered with a hint of annoyance as he put the XBox 360 controller away.
Blu was standing in front of said fridge, watching it. The gleaming surface was pulsating rather slowly, as if alive. “Cyber, I meant have seen it recently?” questioned Blu once more. Cyber sighed in irritation and walked into the kitchen to see what the problem was. Blu stretched out a claw and almost poked the fridge, but it moved to the side. “I think it’s broken.” he told Cyber as he looked at his cybernetic friend.
It was hard to tell where Cyber was looking because he had magenta goggles on, covering his eyes. Blu liked to think he just saw everything at once.
What then happened surprised both of them as the fridge suddenly lunged at Blu with its door wide open. Food quickly spilled everywhere as the draconequus grappled with the rogue appliance. Before Cyber could comprehend the strange scene an old tomato sailed through the air and impaled itself on his horn after which he decided it was time to terminate the appliance with extreme prejudice.
“Blu...you may want to get away from that thing...like right now dude.” Cyber said. Blu gulped and hit the fridge one last time before he disappeared from view in a faint flash of light. A whine could be heard as Cyber began charging his now glowing speakers. Blu looked at the fridge from behind Cyber and shed a tear remembering all the fond memories he had of it. Cyber released his charge from his speakers causing powerful dubstep sound waves to emerge from them.
The fridge bent and crumpled in upon itself before stopping. Cyber raised an eyebrow and Blu widened his eyes as the fridge started expanding, and cracking. Blu laughed and spawned an umbrella in front of the two as the fridge exploded in a shower of orange juice, quickly followed by turkey sandwiches and ice cream.
Cyber turned to look at Blu. “Seriously dude? What in the blue hell did you do to the fridge?!” he shouted. As Blu banished his umbrella revealing the smouldering remains of the fridge, Cyber’s face went red. He ripped off his goggles and faced Blu, his red eyes slowly starting to look like they were on fire. “Great! Now we have buy a new fridge and fix this mess. What made you think that animating an appliance was a good idea?” he asked as he glared at Blu. Blu tried to speak, but Cyber interrupted him. “It’s bad enough that the landlord is on us about the rent but now you have to go and pull this?!” he said.
“Cyber, it wasn't me. You know I’ve only been home for a few hours and that I don’t normally use my magic so soon after coming home.” pleaded Blu. Cyber sighed and looked at Blu who was floating in the air above him. Cyber had a hard time dealing with Blu’s shenanigans sometimes and while Blu tended to make plenty of mistakes, many got resolved in the end and some of them were also caused by Cyber as well.
Blu stopped flying instantly and fell into a perfectly placed chair before he looked over at Cyber and sighed. “Sorry Cyber, I don’t know why the fridge went crazy.” he said as Cyber put a hoof to his face and slipped his goggles back on. Blu made the chair float and carry him into the living room before having set him down on the couch as Cyber trotted into the living room.
“Sorry Blu, I’ve just been having a rough week and dealing with your mess ups don’t help things...I think I might need an upgrade soon.” he whispered, facing the floor. Blu patted Cyber on the back.
“Its fine, I know you’ve been having issues with your hardware and that it gets on your nerves when that happens.” he answered. Cyber smiled as Blu stood up, “We don’t need to buy a new fridge you know, I can make one.” he finished. Blu clicked his fingers and the entire place was suddenly clean, and shiny, except for the tomato of Cyber’s horn which he promptly removed.
“Why don’t you just use your magic to make money anyways?” asked Cyber.
“Because, that would be cheating and life would be purposeless.” The draconequus said in a rather serious tone. Cyber face-hooved before walking into his bedroom, slamming the door. Blu laughed before disappearing in an explosion of confetti.
Cyber started to pace in his room as he tried to think about everything that had happened today. “Blu, why are you so complicated? I mean, I know you’re a drac-dracon-Arrgh!” he said before giving up on trying to pronounce Blu’s species. Cyber stopped pacing before removing his black rimmed goggles and staring into a small mirror on the wall. “If Blu didn’t cause the fridge to act like that then what did? There can’t be another member of Blu’s species around here can there?” he asked himself.
He walked over to the window and looked out into the street below. The streets were rather busy today as a lot of the towns residents were taking advantage of a sale at one of the major businesses down the street. Many of the humans would sneak a peek at him as he rested his head on the windowsill out of curiosity before quickly continuing their business. Not a whole lot of people in town actually cared about him or Blu and tended to ignore their existence unless it affected them directly. The only real friends the two of them had were fellow gamers but many of them lived a long way away and as such it was rare to get a visit from them.
Cyber looked at the small cube-like clock beside the bed and closed the window upon seeing that it showed 7pm. Cyber had two jobs, the first was DJ’ing at a local club that went from 7:30 to 10:30 and paid pretty well. It was a rather easy job seeing as Cyber was his own music player and as such he could get set up faster than any other in the business.
Cyber put his goggles on and checked the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything he might need before turning off the lights. Upon exiting his room he called out to his flatmate “Blu?!” he shouted. He waited for a few seconds with no reply from the draconequus before closing the door behind him and heading out of the apartment. Suddenly, Blu appeared in his face.
“Yes?” he said, giggling. Cyber jumped, almost falling over before glaring at Blu. His friend stopped laughing after a few seconds before putting on a serious face, “Cyber, I wanted to apologize about earlier, the whole fridge thing, it wasn't me, but I am sorry the kitchen got messed up anyways.” Blu finished sincerely. At this moment, a couple who knew Cyber quite well passed them.
After they had passed, Blu heard one of them saying something about him being unnatural. Cyber heard also and scowled at the couple as they walked away before turning back to Blu. “Blu, I believe that it wasn't you, you have a certain style to your magic and while it tends to be irritating its rarely violent to the point where a fridge tries to eat you.” Cyber snickered. “Besides, you’ve gotten better with your control.” he said.
“But when I do lose control of it, it gets more severe.” Blu answered. Cyber playfully punched Blu in the shoulder before he carried on walking and looked back while he did so.
“Blu, just get back to the house and take care of yourself. And whatever you do--”, Cyber was soon interrupted by Blu, laughing and floating back to the house.
He turned into Cyber and said, “Don’t eat my apple cinnamon cupcakes.” he quoted from the previous time Cyber had told him off about eating them.
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Cyber was playing the last track for the night and couldn’t wait to head home to relax for a few hours before his job at the radio station. It had been a slow night with barely enough patrons at the club to justify the work. It didn’t help that there was this one patron that kept giving him the stink eye from the bar. Cyber thought about going up to him to ask what his problem was but thought it would be a waste of time and so headed to the back as the song ended.
Nearby, Cyber saw something tip over, but there was no-one over there. He readied his hoofs and crept over. About half way to the area, he turned and saw most people leaving, but there was a few teenagers and an elderly couple. There was also the manager there.
“Cyber?” said a highly familiar voice. Cyber sighed and shook his head.
“Blu, for god’s sake. What have we talked about?!” whispered Cyber with a hint of anger. He trotted up to him and pushed him behind a pile of cardboard boxes. “Blu, you cannot just appear at my place of work!” he angrily whispered.
Cyber looked around for any sign someone had just seen Blu, and sure enough the teens were looking over at him, wondering what he was doing. Cyber looked back and saw that Blu had disappeared.
“Cyber, I’m sorry, but I had to come and tell you--”, Blu started but before he could continue Cyber pulled him from the ceiling and they both went out the back door.
Blu teleported amongst a pile of dustbins as soon as he exited the building. “I needed to tell you that I went into town today, and I got shot at.” Blu finished. Cyber’s face went from being very angry and frustrated to being a little shocked and had a hint of worry.
“You alright? And who did it?” Cyber asked, urging Blu to spill the beans. Or rather, pick them back up. Blu stared at the ground and backed up. Cyber’s eyes widened when he realized who he must’ve been shot at by.
“Look Blu, I told you to stay away from those gangs! They will say anything to get what they want and then stab you in the back once they got it, understand?” he asked. Blu started waving his arms and pointing his eyes. “Blu, why were you even in town-- What are you doing?” he asked.
Blu simply whimpered and sat on a dustbin lid, biting on of his claws and looking like he was gonna panic.
“Maybe in a couple of weeks I could get you a job at somewhere I work, where people don't have to see you. Maybe even here.” he continued. However, Cyber suddenly had a really bad feeling… Like someone was right behind him.
Cyber turned around to three words uttered behind him. “You are fired! I told you I don’t want your freaky friend anywhere near my establishment!”
His boss was standing there with a garbage bag in his left hand. “Mack! I can explain! Blu was here to tell me about--”, he began, but didn't finish.
“No, Scratch! I don't wanna hear it. Take your spaghetti friend home and get another job.” he murmured.
Blu’s eyes became those of someone who had taken enough. He exhaled and centered his vision on Mack. “Screw you, you cocky little shit!” he shouted. Cyber, surprised, turned around and gaped at Blu.
“Everyday I have to deal with this shit! Why do you not like me?! Why? Does my multi-animal appearance offend your oh-so-delicate eyes?” he rampaged on. “I am a normal guy. Sure, I'm not human! but who is?! What does human even mean? Human is your species. Yeah, I might be a monster, but my species is a draconequus, and Cyber’s is a technopony!” He continued.
Cyber had never seen blu act like this before. Sure, he had been sad, and sure enough mad, but this was a whole different level.
“Why do you like him so much? Because he was built by HUMANS? Because he can play music?!” Blu shouted. Then he pushed Cyber out of the way and looked into Mack’s eyes dead on.
Don't you dare fire my best friend. If you do, you know exactly what i can do, don't you, Mack?” he said. Mack stepped back and looked at Cyber, who was facing the floor.
“I- I’ll think about it.” said Mack, rather worried looking as Blu clicked his fingers. Mack flinched, expecting something bad to happen to him, but instead Blu had transported the trash to the bin.
Cyber nudged Blu in the side. “Come on Blu...lets go home...I need some sleep before my radio DJ job in the morning…” Blu glared at Mack one last time before following Cyber home.
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“This is Cyber Scratch signing off and just a reminder to you all that if you do have to go out in this weather...bring a raincoat or three.” Cyber said before the “On Air” sign flickered off signaling the end of the broadcast.
“Great work Cyber! Another excellent day if I do say so myself.” said the radio technician behind the glass.
“Thanks Johnny, I’ll be surprised if the signal got out though with how bad the weather is.” Cyber replied
“Yeah it’s pretty nasty out there. I’ll see you tomorrow morning I guess.” Johnny said as he began to clean up for the next technician to come in.
“Seeya tomorrow dude.” Cyber said as he grabbed the raincoat he kept at the station just in case of bad weather like this. As soon as Cyber walked out the door he got blasted in the face by high winds and lashing rain. “2 hours ago the weather was clear…” Cyber grumbled as he headed home through the storm.
As Cyber neared the door up to the flat he shared with Blu he spotted something on the doorstep. When he got to it he saw that it was a large wicker handbasket covered by a thick blanket and strangest of all there was the sound of crying coming from it. Dreading what he would find he slowly lifted the blanket before quickly dropping it back over the basket as soon as he saw what was in it. “Oh come on! This can’t be happening!” He yelled and began pacing in front of the door.
After a few seconds Cyber decided he should do the right thing and bring the basket inside out of the weather. He quickly grabbed the handle of the basket with his mouth and carried it up into the flat.
“Blu! Get over here! We have a big problem!” Cyber yelled as he set down the basket before tossing aside his raincoat and running to grab some towels from a nearby closet.
“What is it? Is it the government? They will never take me alive!” Blu said as he appeared wearing greek armour and wielding a shield made from a giant cucumber slice in one claw and a spear that looked an asparagus. Cyber looked at Blu with a deadpan expression.
“If the government wanted to do anything to us they would’ve done so before they gave us citizenship 3 years ago…” he said before dropping the towels beside the basket.
“I Know...I just wanted to see what your reaction would be.” Blu replied as he snapped his claw making his armour and weapons vanish. “What's with the basket?” he said as he looked at it curiously.
Cyber rolled his eyes at in amusement at Blu’s joke before getting back to the issue in front of them. “Take a look.” He said as he pulled the blanket off the basket and revealed the contents causing Blu’s eyes to widen and his jaw to literally drop to the floor.
Inside the basket were six baby fillies looking up at the two of them with tear filled eyes. but the strangest part was, they all had different coloured bodies. one was pink, another purple, a yellow one, an orange one, a white one and finally a blue one.