//------------------------------// // Water and Defibrillators // Story: Ponies and Interdimensional Travel // by Lain_UX //------------------------------// Holes. Tomatoes. Paint-cans. These are most of the things I've cleaned up today. These are also the three things I've gained a phobia of for the time being. But most of all, Mrs. Sunbutt has been catering to my every whim, and that scares me. Every time I patched a couple holes (which effectively puts my mental state in the fourth layer of hell), Celestia would come over and offer me tea or cookies or something along those lines. I took them, because hey, free food. But as you may have heard from Luna, there was that thing about using me to protect Celestia's political reputation at the upcoming meeting, which has a set date of twenty days away. This is only the third day here, correct? Yeah. First day was the horrible Q&A, second day was prosecution by Equestria, now today was the day I cleaned the entire Town Hall, armed with only drywall fixer stuff, and a robotic dog. The dog didn't do much. The drywall fixer stuff did much, but so freaking slowly I can't believe I'm still doing this. I don't even know how to fix drywall. I use that in present tense intentionally. I have left misshapen ugly patch marks on most of the holes, but Celestia was kind enough to keep the cookies coming. In fact, around the time where I was patching a hole in the ceiling (probably caused by I don't know) on top of K-9 (with extension legs of course, but they have this strange mechanical malfunction where sometimes the knees buckles and the entire dog falls down), Celestia came over to ask me a question. "Here you go Tal. Glad to see you working excellently on the drywall holes as usual." She magicked over the tray full of cookies and lemonade up to my hands. K-9 slightly widened in length in order to accommodate the tray and the drywall patches. "Thank you Princess Celestia." I said, in a cheery voice that sounded like it was going to lead up to something. You know when you mess up, and you think your mom doesn't know, so you bribe her to death, and the last time you bribe her she says "Thank you!" in that tone that leads up to "Say, didn't you hear little Timmy got stabbed? Did you have anything to do with it?" But you know she knows you did it, and there's nothing you can do? I'm getting sidetracked... "Say, Princess Celestia, this doesn't have anything to do with the upcoming political meeting, does it?" She screamed, which set off the dog. The dog's knees inevitably buckled and sent me flying right off into the ground. Now I'm sure like 65% of you are bronies, and 30% of you are people being forced to read by rabid bronies, and 5% of you is me attempting to boost my views to get higher on search pages. Now in that case, you would expect me to fly right on top of Celestia and crush her, and probably end up in an orgy. I can safely say that doesn't happen. What does happen is she attempted to catch me with her magic, but I ended up having so much momentum from the fall, combined with her inability to conjure enough magic juice or whatever, that the inertia continued to send me down and impaled me right on her horn. The rest of that day wasn't as fun as repairing drywall and daydreaming about Bryanna/Madison/Twilight. ~~~ I woke up to the sound of panicky voices, Elizabeth hurling in the adjacent bathroom, Alec clicking his tongue, and Taylor laughing his ass off. "What? What's so funny?" "Oh man dude, she nearly got you...there..." "Where?" "There!" He poked my open wound, which hurt like fuck, and also happened to be right above my man-parts. The wound wasn't just a simple hole. It was a zigzaggy line through my chest, and from what Twilight told me, that was the result of Celestia flipping the fuck out that she had one of the very few, very alien, and very important character's that had come into her kingdom since the time she set up that one voting booth office for Mayor Mare, who remains the only mayor for many years. Twilight rubs off on you, y'know? "I'm not sure whether to laugh, or tase a big white pony. Then again, my badge has no power here." Alec pat his tazer like patting a puppie for doing a flip. Another hurl from the bathroom. "Almost...done!" Yet again, another hurl. A weird shiny sound happened, and my chest started glowing. The bleeding was already stopped, but the pain stopped to match. "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh" chimed in Twilight, always focusing on everything except the fact that I am indestructible. Yeah, missed that part didn't you? "Twilight, it's fine..." "No no no NO! No it isn't!" "Why not? I have the defibrillator in my chest," There's that part you missed. Or not, if you want to lie. The defibrillator has kept me alive for a long time. Built it when I was ten. Of course, I only had the chance when Dad accidentally slipped with the electric hand saw when we were carving my Pinewood Derby car. Open chest wound next to the heart, I ignored my Dad's 'request' to go to the ER. I instead made a defibrillator out of a car battery and jumper cables...and that's about it, actually. I've been meaning to upgrade it in a while, but it's not every day that you get a chest wound. "Oh! Wait! Open chest wound! This is great! This will be the first chance I'll get to upgrade my DEM3000 since the time my Dad slipped with the-" "OH MY GOD YOUR GUTS ARE STICKING OUT." Elizabeth happened to be on an empty stomach, and it just so happened that my stomach was probably empty too. Twilight was trying her best not to faint from "I know right? This is great. I'll finally be able to fix up my metabolism! I have been a tiny bit chubby for a while, don't you think?" I picked up my entrails and waved them around. "NUMBER ONE. WHY AREN'T YOU FREAKING OUT. NUMBER TWO. PUT YOUR GUTS BACK IN YOUR BODY BEFORE I SLAP THEM BACK IN. NUMBER THREE. YOU'RE REALLY SKINNY. SHUT UP." "Yeah, but the tiny bit of chub, and the fact I don't have any muscles..." Then, it hit me. No, it literally hit me. 'It' is Elizabeth's hand. The impact of the slap landed so hard I fell off Twilight's bed, and I kinda lost my guts all over the floor. "OH MOTHER OF GOD." "PICK EM UP PICK EM UP PICK EM UP" Yelled Taylor. Twilight didn't say anything. It sounded more like her vocal cords were snapping. It made a really cute scream sound that was more of a squeak. "That's it, I'm going to discuss politics with the Mayor." said Alec. He knew better than to interfere. Twilight, however, did not. "TWILIGHT! NO!" yelled Elizabeth and Taylor in union, I was too busy rambling on and on about the various applications of science that could serve humankind in a way that involved loose guts and screaming people. Fortunately for humankind, there are no applications. She ran over and attempted to put the intestines back in. A combination of hoof and magic quickly served the purpose, and she attempted to immediately sew up the wound with a random blast of healing magic. Instead of doing only that, the shock-wave of the magic sent me flying out the doors and over the balcony rails onto the ground. You really can hear the vocal cords snap from down there. Twilight threw herself off the balcony and onto a cushion of magic. Right when she got up to me, I started convulsing like crazy. Or, at least, that's what Taylor said. I started foaming at the mouth and the wound opened up again, bleeding at full blast. Then, smoke and stillness. Not another motion was made out of me for the next couple minutes, but I wasn't dead. Didn't you remember? I'm invincible. No, I was only in a short-term coma. I opened my eyes to see a dark hallway, filled with doors on both sides. Torches lined the halls, but it did almost nothing to illuminate anything except the doors and showing that the hallway was practically infinite. You could see into forever down there. I walked up to the first door. It said: FIRST INVENTION I opened the door and looked inside. I could see from another boy's eyes, someone who was very different than the guy I grew up to be. I instantly remembered the young me. Shy, never really liked anything but to draw. I never became a good artist, and my handwriting is worse than a chicken's scratch, so I moved onto inventing. The boy's eyes I was seeing through let me see this makeshift workbench. On top of it was an old microphone from something like the early 1900s or something, duct-taped to an adjacent lamp. "Just one more wire...ah shoot. DAD? WHERE'S MY BLACK WIRE? Oh. NEVER MIND!" He found the wire on top of his shoe. He grabbed the wire and attached it to the lamp and then to the microphone, then he took the microphone and punched it. It started crackling to life, but the lamp didn't turn on. "LAMP. ON!" The microphone shot a multitude of sparks from the holes inside and the lamp sparked to life. Then, it died as fast as it turned on. "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR! HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE!" The lamp returned from the dead, for longer this time. As long as the young me was singing (horribly, if you were wondering), the lamp stayed on. The longer he sang, the longer the lamp would stay on after he stopped singing. The longer the lamp stayed on, the brighter it got. "TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLLL GAME! TAKE ME OUT TO THE CROWDSSSS!" Brighter and brighter. "BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACKKKK! I DON'T CARE IF I EVER GET BACK!" It proceeded to blot out the other light sources in the room with it's power. The power in the house could've died and I wouldn't have noticed. "MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB! LITTLE LAMB! LITTLE LAMB! MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB AND IT'S FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOWWWWW!" The lamp finally exploded into a bunch of tiny glass shards, which proceeded to rip right through the poor kid's chest. Crying was heard, and the door shut by itself. I laughed a fair bit at that sight, then I sighed and walked down the hall. I quickly grew bored of the rooms in the hall, so I ran down the hallway all the way down to the door on the end. I saw doors such as "SCIENCE FAIR 2009" and "FIRST BRONY CRINGE", but what was on the last door was even more impressive than any other door I've seen. Not even the "FIRST KISS" door (which remained painted into the wall, as such,) excited me as much as this door. This door didn't even disappoint. Instead of being stamped on the door, it was a large gold nameplate above it with even bigger text. It read: PERSONALITY AREA Opening it revealed a much brighter and futuristic room, with only a couple doors this time. One door at the end, however, was in an unlit area, and the door was breathing in and out slow and paced. I checked the other doors to see rooms such as "PHYSICAL HEALTH" and "INVENTING ROOM", but the door that caught my eye was one that had the shiniest nameplate I've ever seen. It read: SELF-ESTEEM In fact, it was solid gold. The typewriter doesn't do gold though, so just use your imagination. Opening the door revealed a great throne room, with pictures of me smiling on every inch of the wall. On the end of the room, there was a big throne, completely covered in red velvet, and it had a golden crown on it's seat. The crown had an assortment of jewels embedded in the headband, and the piece on top of the headband looked like an empty soda can, except it was solid gold. It was perfect. I took the crown and placed it on my head, and sat on the throne and looked around the room for a couple of minutes. After flexing my pecs in front of a mirror that made me look like the strongest and sexiest man in the world, I found a coat hanger with a magnificent robe and a sword hanging from it. The robe fit me perfectly, to say the least. I entered the room as Tal. I left as Sir Tal, the King of all the Lands of My Comatose Mind. Taking the sword, I swung it around a bit for size, and it too was perfectly matched to my weak muscles. I left the room and marched to the unlit door, and strained my eyes to read the rotten wooden nameplate. It said: MENTAL HEALTH The nameplate had lost it's sheen, and it shrunk from water damage. Somehow. I reached my hand out to the door and grabbed the doorknob. The door quickened it's breathing and the knob went from room temperature to ice cold in seconds. As I slowly turned the knob, I heard a galloping from down the hall. "Stop! Don't open that door!" I followed the orders as best as I could and turned around to face Twilight. "Twilight? How the hell did you get in here?" "I don't know, why don't you ask yourself? You're in your mind after all." She was really pissy about this. "What? Why are you mad?" "Because you forgot me! You forgot all about me, and you never paid any attention to me!" "Look, just because I'm asleep and half-dead doesn't mean I ignored-" "NO! I'M NOT TWILIGHT!" "But you very clearly are her. Who are you then?" She angrily stomped her hooves and pulled me down the hallway, back to where I started. She stopped a couple doors in and stopped at a door that resembled a front door of sorts, looking very lively and inviting, yet at the same time it looked dead and forgotten. The nameplate was gone, replaced with a quick scrawl reading "Tulpa". "Tulpa? Rings a bell, yet a small and cracked one. What is this memory about?" "This is my home. It's not a memory." "So you live in my brain? I don't remember inviting you in, Not-Twilight." "My name is Twilight, but I'm not Twilight, and yes, you did invite me in. In fact, you created me." "Were you a robot experiment? You seem much more human than my other inventions." "Wrong again. I'm your subconscious." "You know what? I do remember you! How did I ever forget you?" She seemed to calm down a bit, and then she took a deep breath and continued. "I don't think it was all your fault, it's just you had other things to do." Let me back up and explain things. A tulpa, in short, is a self-induced hallucination that would be stuck as one character with one personality. You would be able to see your tulpa with practice, and have it control your body with permission, and you could even make more, but it took extreme amounts of time to work for. When I forgot my tulpa, she was only able to talk to me and possess my fingers, but nothing more. "Look, if I could bring you back, I would. You meant a lot to me back then. Obviously not as much as now, I guess, but...I don't know. I don't like you much as a pony anymore, now that I have the real deal." "That's easy. I've only been pony-Twilight to surprise you." She then, in a blink of an eye, turned into this slightly emo/goth teenager of some sort, resembling a Twilight in some sort. "Missed the old humanized Twilight?" she said with the biggest shit-eating grin I've ever seen. "OH DEAR CHRIST WHAT WAS IN MY HEAD‽" She then proceeded to fall back on the floor and laugh as hard as any person could, and in a blink of an eye she was a pony again. I was busy having seizures on the ground from the cringe. Unfortunately, the cringe didn't stop, and neither did the seizures. Tulpa-Twilight stopped laughing, though. "Yo, Tal, you okay?" She stood over me and pat me down, but that didn't accomplish anything outside of pushing me into the stone walls of the hallway, so I could smash my face on the wall. Everything seemed to slow down, even my thrashing and her voice were slowing down too. I woke up with a jolt in a medical bed. No, I'm not kidding. No hyperbole. A literal jolt woke me up. I looked up and a glass of water was busy spilling on my DEM3000. The very next chance I got I slapped the glass of water out of the hand holding it, which happened to be connected to Elizabeth's arm. "Sorry." "It's okay, you almost killed me a couple of times in that short time-frame." "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU KIDS‽ I LEAVE YOU FOR FIVE MINUTES TO TAKE A NAP, AND YOU GET DISEMBOWELED! WHY DID I COME HERE‽" "For a good learning experience?" I replied. He replied with an inhuman scream of rage and stomped out the hospital door. "So, how did I do?" "Not too well Tal," said Taylor, "you not only managed to give the Princess an aneurysm, you also managed to piss off every doctor working on you. Three quit because of how tangled your guts were. Fatty." "Hahaha, shut up." I gave a punch to his shoulder to prove my point. "Now you're punching everyone today, Tal." said Elizabeth. "I guess I am. How's the Princess doing?" "She actually sent a letter over while you were having your seizures. Here you go." She handed me the scroll, still freshly sealed. The letter read as follows: "Dear Tal, As you may know, I accidentally impaled you while you were doing your community service today. I have no words for what happened and as such I am still extremely embarrassed about the situation. All of the holes are patched and the ceiling hole has been patched, courtesy of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who unfortunately did not receive their Cutie Marks. As you may know, I am attending a political meeting of the highest importance next week about, among other things, animal cruelty laws. I have been wrongfully accused of not holding Canterlot to the highest they can be to animals, and as such I will need you as my 'animal' to prove that I do care about animal cruelty laws. Do not take this the wrong way. Your services will be appreciated and paid in due time. Sincerely, Princess Celestia. P.S. I've paid your medical bill in full and cleared things up with the medical staff. Rarity crafted a new top and jacket for your own personal use, as it is very close to winter." "Holy crap!" I exclaimed. "What is it?" said Taylor. I showed both of my companions the letter I received and let them laugh over it. "So, what happened in your coma?" "It's a long story. A very very long story."