Chapter 11 - Learning Something You Already Knew
We all learn stuff. That's a part of life. You grow, you eat, you live, you die, and in-between, you learn.
You learn in all sorts of places. You learn at school, at home, on a site like this while reading some person with a stupid username's stupid story. Yup. You learn in all of these places.
I, as the person with a dumb username and writing this dumb story, have several things to say about learning(Welcome back to school kids! Also, BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!).
Learning is inevitable. If you all don't know what that word means, than go look it up. Never mind, I'll just tell you. Inevitable means that something is bound to happen. No matter how hard you try to say differently, or even try to change it, it will happen. Now that that's out of the way, let's continue(NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!).
Not all kinds of 'learning' is good(Phew). Sometimes, you could learn something that you might already know. Like how one plus three equals four. That's Kindergarten learning there. But, it most likely proves my point to you already knowing that.
If you didn't know that...
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Just stop reading this now. Please, you'll be doing us all a favor.
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Are they gone?
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Good. Now I can rest easy that there are actually people a lot less dumb than me(Ha ha).
Anyway, back to the original topic(Oh, PLEASE NO!). There is a vast amount of knowledge in the world we live in(Duh...). Some of it still has to be discovered by the people who actually have a life(That means none of us. No offence). Some of that knowledge could help the entire world with sickness, or possibly cause even more of it to occur.
Not all knowledge is good for one to learn. Sure, we can learn it, but that does not change the fact that the knowledge we learn is or is not safe. An example would be knowing the future. If you knew what was going to happen, you might want to change it in some way. Or, in the case of this story, you might spoil it for some others. That's why I'm not giving out too many clues about the future in my story.
Well, I think I've written my point here. Now for some questions for you all to think about while reading this new chapter.
What do you learn, but still have to relearn it? Have you ever regretted having to relearn it?
???
There was darkness around me, and that was it. No sounds, no words, no light, and only me. I turned my head to the left, and then to the right.
"Hello?" I called, a bit worried. I heard my voice echo throughout the darkness. It wasn't the voice I had when I went to sleep. It was my voice. My voice.
The voice I had when I was a human.
I brought my right hoof, or arm now, up into my sights. My familiar pale hand and it's five fingers greeted me as I flexed them, not entirely used to seeing or feeling them in some time.
"What's going on?" I asked myself out loud. "I was a pony last night, was I not? Why do I look the way I am now?" A sudden thought crossed my mind. "Do I look like I used to?"
I'd like a mirror, I thought. Out of nowhere, a large, sliding mirror appeared to my right, which I caught in the corner of my eye. I turned to it and observed myself.
"This mirror," I said, carefully observing the figure I recognized as myself. "It looks like the mirror in my room." I thought about my room, the small, messy zone that I retreated to in order to get away from my family. At least for a couple hours at most.
In an instant, that appeared around me too. It didn't look quite the same though. It had it's small in-wall closet, and the mirror covering over half of one of the walls, but it was empty. No bed on the floor that my brother would sleep in, no wood structure that held my bed above his, nothing. The room was spotless.
I observed this closely. Where'd everything go? I turned to the door and reached out for the handle, thinking about the rest of the basement on the other side. I inhaled deeply, and turned the knob quickly. I yanked my hand back and got a good look at what was on the other side of the door.
Sure enough, it was the basement I knew so well. It was the some as my room; empty. Though, I didn't pay attention to that. I walked slowly across the wooden covering to the concrete floor. My dad had tiled the entire floor of the basement when the concrete floor was too cold for everyone's feet.
I eventually reached the stairs that led upstairs, and slowly walked up those as well. I reached the top and opened the door that concealed the basement from the rest of the house. I saw the familiar shape of the dining room, but alas, empty as well.
I thought if I should head upstairs once more to see if the top floor was the same shape, but empty as well. I shook my head and turned to the front door. I grabbed it's handle and turned it to open the door, expecting to see the familiarity of the front yard of my house.
I opened the door, and saw a bare hill in front of me. I stepped out to it, almost forgetting to close the door behind me. I turned to close the door...
...but it wasn't there anymore. My head darted around confused. Where... Where'd my home go?
I turned back to the hill that was definitely not my yard. One- no... Ten additional things were there now that definitely weren't before.
Ten flowers. I stared at them for who knows how long. I made the mistake of blinking when nothing happened.
And in the blink of my eyes, they changed. No longer ten flowers, but nine ponies stood in front of me. I stepped back slightly, only to hear a voice behind me.
"Do not be afraid of us, for we are only here to help."
I quickly turned around to see another pony standing in front of me. This one... This one seemed familiar... But where? Where had I seen him before?
Out of nowhere, a thunderous sound rocked the air, causing me to jump. I turned to my left, which seemed like the actual source of the sound, and saw a tree fall right next to me. In an instant, it caught on fire... Something I really didn't like was fire, and because of past incidents.
"You said you were here to help, right?" I asked the ponies that I had expected tot still be near me. But when I turned to look at them, they were all gone.
I was alone, like always. Alone to deal with my problems, like always. I thought about all the events that happened, starting with the blackness, all the way up to the sudden disappearance of the ponies that were around me.
And in a sudden click of my mind, I understood. I grinned at what I realized.
"I get it," I said. "I know what this is."
I stepped closer to the burning tree, almost feeling its non-existent heat. I reached my left hand out to the tree and grabbed onto one of the burning branches. The fire that wasn't there burned my hand with non-existent pain.
And as I was awaiting my own time to wake up, the image of Sunset Shimmer popped into my mind. For whatever reason, however, was a mystery to even me.
Canterlot Castle Bedroom February 19th 985
When I awoke, I kept my eyes closed. I could tell I was awake now because of the sun hitting my face. Although, was I still a human? I tried to grab against the blanket with what I thought was my hand. Nope. It was a hoof. I was a pony.
I could tell that I had tossed and turned in my sleep. My hair- no... Mane felt like it was going in about ten to fifteen different places at once. Yup. Bedhead. Happens to us all.
I slowly opened my eyes to see the dimly lit room from the rising sun around me. I lifted my head and stretched out each of my legs. Afterwards, I tilted my head to the left and right until I felt a pop in my neck. That certainly woke me up if I wasn't already.
"Well, it's a new day today," I said. My tired ears perked up at the sound of my voice. I sounded... different. Like I had gotten a new voice overnight. I shook off the feeling, deciding that I was still half asleep and was hearing things.
I looked around for the couch that Shadow had slept on the previous night. I finally found the couch next to the bed, exactly where it had been the previous night. I really need to remember that the couch is there... I thought to myself. I trotted over to the couch where Shadow was still sleeping.
"Shadow," I called, still hearing the weird voice from a few seconds ago. "You up?"
"Mmmhhh," came the reply from the lump on the couch. "Five more minutes..."
I rolled my eyes. If there was anything I wasn't going to do, it was allow a changeling under my care alone while I got some food. "No, now," I clearly stated, only to get a groan in response. I once again rolled my eyes and allowed my magic to activate. The blanked in front of me glowed a turquoise color and flew from the couch. The changeling underneath curled up even more than he already was. "Do you want breakfast or not?" I asked.
I got another groan, but a better response of him lifting his head up from the couch's arm. He yawned and rubbed his eyes with his hoof before setting his eyes on me. "Who are you?" he suddenly asked.
I tilted my head and gave a confused look. "What do you mean? Don't you recognize me Shadow?"
They started to try to back even further into the couch than they already were. "If Princess Celestia sent you to check up on me, you can tell her that I haven't broken any of her rules! I promised Blue that I wouldn't transform into any other pony except my disguise that we both agreed on!"
"Shadow, it's me, Blue. Would you stop joking around and come off the couch?"
"Y- You're not Blue!" he argued. "I may have only met Blue yesterday, but I do know that you are not him! Who are you anyway?"
I huffed. "Is this some sort of joke? You're the changeling, and also the only one here that can change forms. Now unless you're saying that I somehow managed to do that, please stop and come off the couch!"
"No!" he screamed back at me. "Blue is a nice stallion that promised to help me while my wing heals! You, miss random mare, are not Blue!"
My ears perked up at his words. "'Miss random mare'?!?" I repeated. "Shadow, this is anything beyond a joke now! If you don't stop this right now, I will tell Celestia at your defiance! After all, I am responsible for you!"
He seemed to calm down a bit. "H- How do you know that name?"
"How do you think?" I asked back. "You suggested it to me yesterday! Other than us, nopony knows that that's what you wanted to be called! I haven't told anypony else, not even Celestia!"
He calmed down a bit and started to move a bit closer to me. "B- Blue?"
"Yes," I said in a 'that was completely obvious' tone of voice. "Who'd you expect?"
Shadow finally hopped off the couch, but still stayed several feet away. "H- How'd you do that?"
"Do what?" I asked back.
"That!" he said, gesturing to me.
"What?" I asked back. "Gesturing to me and saying: 'that' doesn't tell me what you're talking about.
He didn't say anything else, but I didn't know why. All he did was point a hoof over to my left. I turned to follow his gaze and saw Sunset Shimmer staring at me.
"Sunset Shimmer?" I asked. "What are you-" I stopped as I realized that she was speaking, but heard no words. "What?" I asked, and her mouth repeated my words, as if speaking the same thing.
Shadow stepped behind her, which confused me in a huge way. He was closer to me, and couldn't fly. He never entered my vision, and was still behind Sunset Shimmer. I turned around and was about to see if he was still behind me. Sure enough, he was! Completely confused now, I began to shift my gaze from the Sunset Shimmer with Shadow standing behind her to the Shadow behind me.
During one of the trips that my head took, some of my mane fell in front of my eyes. A red and yellow mane. I looked at Sunset Shimmer and saw that her mane crossed over one of her eyes as well. I lifted a hoof to move it out of the way, and Sunset Shimmer did the same. I lowered my hoof, not messing with my mane, and she repeated my movements without hesitation.
I looked at my mane again. A red and yellow mane. I remembered then that my mane was just orange, not any other colors. I looked at my hoof. It was a yellow-orange color, not gray. I stared back at Sunset Shimmer, who also looked back at me.
I gave a horrified look, and she did as well. I stuck out my tongue, and she copied. And that's when I finally realized what was going on. Why Shadow called me 'miss random mare'. Why he asked how I did... that.
I was staring into a mirror. A perfect reflection of what I looked like now was what I was looking at.
I was now Sunset Shimmer.
"What's going on?" I asked, also realizing that the voice I was using was no longer my own. It was Sunset Shimmer's.
"That's what I want to know!" Shadow from behind me replied. "How did you do a changeling's magic?"
"I don't know!" I replied. "I woke up like this, okay?!"
"Blue, there's no reason to get angry," he said. "What do you mean, 'you woke up like this'? You didn't cause this spell to happen?"
"No!" I answered. "I didn't even notice that I had turned into Sunset Shimmer!"
"Is that her name?" he asked me. "Huh... I guess that would relate to the red and yellow sun as her cutie mark." I didn't bother to look back. I could tell that he had noticed that I also had her cutie mark. "By the way, what does your cutie mark mean?"
"I... I don't know," I responded. "I got it last week under... unexpected circumstances."
"What kind of circumstances?"
"The same one I'm experiencing right now. I used magic that I never knew I could do."
He looked at me, even more intrigued. "When was this?"
"Last week," I said. "The first magic I used was levitation, but you know what the second one was?"
He shook his head. "Nope. What was it?"
"Teleportation."
He stared at me. "Really?" he asked. I nodded. "You teleported at your age?"
"Yeah..." I said. "But enough about that! How do you stop this spell?!"
"R- Right!" he remembered. "Just stop using any magic, and it should go away!"
"I didn't use magic in the first place!" I argued. "The only magic I used today was levitating the blanket from of you!" I recalled the moment that I lifted the blanket from my changeling friend. The blanket had glowed turquoise before flying off. Turquoise... "Hang on a second," I said, calling upon my magic again and lifting a comb from the nearby cabinet. It also glowed turquoise.
"What?" he asked, looking at the comb. "Is this really the time to be combing your mane?"
"No!" I argued. "Look at the magical aura the comb is in!"
He did as I said. Once he did, he turned back to me. "It's in a turquoise aura, same as yours," he said. "So what?"
"Don't you see? A turquoise aura! My magical aura is a dark blue color!" His eyes seemed to widen at realization of this. "How'd that happen?"
"I... I don't know..." he quietly answered. "What color aura is this... 'Sunset Shimmer's'?"
I thought about that and recalled the time she levitated books in front of me at the library in the castle. I focused on the color that she had levitated the books in.
"It was turquoise..."
Neither of us said anything for some time. When he didn't respond, I didn't. I stared at myself- Well, what I looked like, and began to worry. I wasn't one to always seem worried in situations like this, but I was worried on the inside.
"That's strange..." Shadow finally said.
"What?" I asked back.
"That you have her magical aura. I'm an actual changeling, and we can't do that. Its as if you're actually this Sunset Shimmer pony. I find it strange..."
"Yeah? Well, I don't care at the moment! I want to be back to normal!"
"I'm sorry Blue!" Shadow told me. "I don't know what's wrong!"
I frowned right before sighing. "Alright... There has to be some way of dealing with this problem."
"I did hear once in my hive about there being a spell that could tear away a changeling's illusion spell," Shadow pondered. I turned to him, giving an 'are you serious!?!' look. "What?" he asked when he noticed my look. "I didn't think about it til now! Besides, it's just a rumor!"
His words awoke a small memory in my mind. I remembered Twilight in the changeling invasion of Canterlot. She tackled a changeling to the ground and cast the very spell Shadow just mentioned.
You remember that movie, don't you? I know I do.
"No," I said, causing him to give me a confused look. "The spell is real."
"How do you know that?"
"I just know, alright?" I didn't want to tell him about my knowledge about this world's future. "Come on. I think I know who can help with the situation."
"Who?"
"The only one in Canterlot that would know if a spell is rumor or not. Princess Celestia."