//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 — The Testimony of Big Trouble 
// Story: Anterograde 
// by Archmage Ludicrous 
//------------------------------//



From Twilight Sparkle's Notebook: 

The following is a statement of the truth as one "Bigs" Big Trouble saw it on the morning of the Fifth of Juniper, Third Year of Equestria's Fifth Recorded Age. 

"Okay, so here's what happened. I'm takin' the back alley down to the train station at around, say, somewhere 'round seven thirty or seven forty? The Canterlot Royal Train Station, that is. Train station's where I go sometimes, just for uh, reasons. It's a long story, see, but I like to go down there and do my best to help the Guard out. I kinda want to join them sometime, but it's not lookin' so good on that front. Anyway, I'm on my way there, and this kinda-lavender-colored unicorn is stumblin' down the alley (that's you, by the way). Anyway, she's not lookin' so hot, she's got a pretty brown hood with some design on it, and a giant 'ol lime-green saddlebag. I go ask her what she's doin' in the alley, although that bit's pretty obvious. Nobody sets out with clothes like that unless they're runnin' from somebody, see? I got some street-sense in me, after all, so I know these things.

"Anyway, I don't get much of a response, and I try to get a look at her eyes under her hood, see? And uh... I might have been a bit rough, there, yeah, but you need to get a hold of the eye color for a proper ID. Race, fur color, gender, stature, and eye color are the main things for a good identification, y'see? Gotta have all of 'em to be sure.

"Well, then, she freaks out a bit, and straight barfs on the ground, right in front of me! It's mostly bile, so I can tell she hasn't eaten in a while. I walk around the puddle, tryin' to figure out what's goin' on, and take down her hood. She's got this huge, and I mean huge, straight gargantuan, swollen bump on her head. I take her home, to my place—a room in Miss Bee House's Home for the Busy and the Luckless. We get there a bit past eight, I think. Anyhow, she's gone and passed out by the time I get her home, so I tuck her into my couch and do my best to take care of the wound on 'er head. I cleaned it up real good, turns out there was a blood blister underneath the skin or something, too, 'cause when I was cleanin' it popped! Real messy, lemme tell yah. 

Anyway, I did my best to keep quiet: I figured she was runnin' from somethin' earlier, see? And the Guard wouldn't bean someone like that, so I figured she was on the run from somebody real nasty, and wanted to stay low, just in case.

"Anyhow, one o' my buddies shows up pretty much right at noon, by the name of High Stakes. He shows up, sees me tendin' to your—er, her wound, and he freaks out. He thinks that I was the one who beaned yah, so I meet him at the door to keep him from freakin' out. I eventually calm 'im down, but he goes out to work and says he's gonna get the guard if he thinks things are still fishy when he gets back. Anyways, the unicorn wakes up right when he leaves, we talk and she introduces herself as Twilight Sparkle. She's suspicious of me, too, but after talkin' some, she comes to trust me to some degree. Anyways, we talk, and she forgets my name as we're talkin'. In fact, she forgets the first part of our conversation. We dig through her stuff, and she finds a paper that's a note to herself, tellin' her she has some kinda amnesia. Then she tells me to make this testimony. That's what happened, one-hundred-percent."