//------------------------------//
// Confusion 
// Story: The Ultimate Life Form 
// by EverfreeSparkle 
//------------------------------//

	I get a pulse back from Luna only seconds later. She should arrive with a convoy of guards soon. Good. They will need to hold a perimeter around the crater. No need for curious ponies getting in the way or falling into the hole.

My ear twitches as it detects a slight sound in the direction of the body. I swiftly turn around and find that the tarp has somehow moved away from the body, and is now lying just next to it. I blink my eyes in confusion as I stare at the pony. The body is perfectly unharmed: no burns, a full coat of sky blue fur, and by squinting I can just make out a scrunched in muzzle, identifying her as a mare.

My eyes widen in shock a few seconds later as the mare shakily gets up on her hooves. How is this possible?! Dead ponies do not just get up, especially ponies who were scorched alive! She frantically looks around, oblivious to my internal musings, her expression going from confused to disturbed as the moments tick by. Her head moves in my direction and she seems startled to find me.

Her deep blue eyes make contact with my own, yet she breaks them away a second later. She takes a single breath and whimpers, “What have I done?” Immediately, her eyelids snap shut, body collapsing onto the floor of the crater in a heap.

Ignoring my shock that she somehow just rose from the dead, or seemed to, I rush to her side, wrapping my wings around her form. I gently place my cheek against her chest and sigh in relief when I am rewarded with a rhythmic, but weak, up and down motion. I relax just a bit, knowing that she just fell unconscious, even though she should by all means still be dead. Honestly, whatever caused this crater should have completely atomized her; the fact that her body was intact at all is miraculous.

My ears flick toward the sound of wingbeats in the distance. I turn and am greeted with the sight of my sister on an intercept course to the crater, royal guards right on her flank. Not a moment too soon. Luna descends into the crater and lands in front of me with a dozen pegasi royal guards right behind her. I notice a crack seeping through her otherwise neutral expression, worry etched on her face.

With a no-nonsense tone, Luna turns to eight of her guards and commands, “Make haste to the top edges of this crater and space out evenly. Do not move unless my sister or I tells you! Let nopony near the crater.” The eight pegasi salute with a single wing before spreading both and taking off in every direction.

Luna starts to walk toward me and glances at the pony held in my wings with confusion, before narrowing her eyes and demanding, “Why did you not get me and gather the guard together immediately?! You could have gotten killed if the explosion was larger than this!” To make her point, she waves one of her forehooves in a sweeping motion around her.

I stand firm and defend myself. “This was no mere explosion. The damage is too contained, and much too minimal for the amount of energy produced. The anomaly seems to have been caused by a tear in the fabric of reality, existing for only a few seconds before greatly expanding and collapsing in on itself. This crater is not caused by an explosion, but by an implosion.”

I pause for a moment to allow my sister to process this new information. “The reason I had to come at once was that whatever, or if I am right, whomever, caused this seems to have ripped through the thaumatic veil, in turn inflicting immense damage to Equestria’s magic.” Luna’s eyes widen as she hears this, now knowing the full extent of the situation.

Luna seems to catch on to my ‘whomever’ inquiry. “Whomever? You think somepony may have been responsible for this disaster? Do you have any idea who could have done th-” Luna trails off as she glances once again to the unconscious pony cradled in my wings. “Explain, sister.”

I take a deep breath. “I arrived too late to do anything, and once I landed in the crater I noticed this mare-” I open my wings to show Luna the pony in question “-near the center. When I found her, she was completely burnt to a crisp, no signs of life. I was honestly surprised there was still a body, given that everything in a couple hundred meter radius was completely and utterly annihilated”.

Taking another breath, I continue, “I tried to identify the pony, but the body was so badly burnt that the only thing I knew for certain was that she was a unicorn. So I conjured a tarp to place on the body until such time that it could be examined by a coroner.”

Luna interrupts, a confused tenor in her voice as she looks at the mare, “But sister, why does she not possess such burns now?”

Sighing, I explain, “I do not know, dear sister. I just do not know.” I pause, getting my thoughts in order. “Only minutes after placing the tarp on the body, I heard the tarp being tossed to the ground. I turned around to find her getting to her hooves, not a single burn on her body. She looked around for a second before noticing me and saying, ‘What have I done?’ She then collapsed, leading to our current situation.”

Once I finish, Luna tilts her head and speaks, “Surely you don’t plan on holding the mare indefinitely?” Knowing my sister is right, I focus my magic into the tarp laying forgotten on the ground and change it into something far more comfortable: a soft wool quilt. I gently place the mare on top of the tarp-turned-blanket, and take note of her cutie mark in the process.

Her cutie mark is unlike any I have ever seen. It is a wavy piece of fabric that seems to solidify in the corner of my eyes before almost disappearing entirely when I look directly at it. Half of it has an almost mystical quality to it that confuses the beholder with a mishmash of impossible shapes that appear to pop out at me, but just as the rest of it deludes me when I fully look at it.

It seems Luna has taken notice of it as well because she gasps with recognition. “Tia! I have seen this cutie mark before! It belongs to a mare called Illuminating Fabric, a scientist that studies Equestria’s magic and how it interacts with the fabric of Space-Time. Her hypotheses about where Equestria’s magic come from are really interesting!”

I chuckle and mock tease, “My my, Twilight, getting excited I see?”

Luna blushes and protests,”I am not that bad! Modern Equestrian science art much more interesting than it used to be.”

Smiling, I nod my head in recognition of her point. “Indeed it is, sister. The ponies nowadays are really quite clever.” I look at the topic of our conversation. “Alas, we should really get this mare to Canterlot at once and have some professionals look her over. Then we may have some answers to her current state of being.”

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Despite this body being in an unconscious state, I have full awareness of my surroundings. I may not be able to use this body’s senses in this state, but I can still use my own cells as miniature electromagnetic and vibratory sensors. My cells tell me I am in a carriage being flown by pegasi guards, and from what I glean from Luna and Celestia’s conversation, I am in route to a hospital in Canterlot.

I decide that the best use of this time would be to look into Illuminating Fabric’s brain in more depth, so I do so. While within this pony’s consciousness, I find something troublesome. There is more neurological damage caused by asphyxiation than I expected. Her passive knowledge and personality seem to be mostly intact, but the long term memories have degraded to an incomprehensible mess.

What would be the best way of blending in with a society? …Of course! If I use the replicated brain as my primary processor, I wouldn’t have to act or blend in; the brain would act for itself. I would have to restart Illuminating Fabric’s mind and combine my consciousness with the pony’s own subconsciousness, but this way it would make my life so much easier. The only problem would be the effect it might have on my main consciousness, but it is not like I have anything to lose.

Casting my senses outside of the chariot, I see a castle impossibly attached to the side of a mountain getting increasingly closer. Only a few more minutes it seems, and we will arrive. Time to start the process of creating my new consciousness.

//////////////////////////////////

Colors. Colors everywhere. A blend of light bending and twisting in ways I didn’t think possible. The world seems to be spinning and whirling. I can’t see, yet everything seems to be a canvas of flashing colors. It feels as if a spike has been jammed and twisted through my skull, my head throbbing more than it has in my entire life and I can’t seem to make any coherent thoughts. What happened? Why doesn’t anything make sense?

After a few seconds of agony, the pain suddenly and mysteriously disappears, as if it never existed in the first place. I finally become lucid enough to gather my thoughts. Okay, whatever I was doing must have blown up in my face… again. I know it was something to do with ley line manipulation and energy transfer of some sort, but the details escape me.

Bringing me out of my thoughts, I notice that my ears keep flicking due to a rushing wind. Opening my eyes a crack, I am rewarded with deep, blue sky. I sit my head up and look around. I inhale sharply as I realize that I am in a chariot being carried by royal guards. My heart starts to beat at a mile a minute as I realize I am in the sky, nothing stopping me from falling.

I can’t help but try to look over the edge of the carriage, but let out an almost inaudible gasp as my limbs catch on something. All of my legs are bound by plastic cuffs; I can’t move more than a few centimeters in any direction.

Before I have a chance to panic any further, I realize that I still have full mobility of my neck. So, I try stretch as far as I can and take a look in the distance. The first thing I notice is what appears to be my destination: Canterlot. I freeze and take a deep breath before looking in the opposite direction for a second and freeze in shock; there is a massive hole in the distance. I squint and study the flora surrounding it and come to the conclusion that the crater is in the location of where my home and lab used to be.

With a sharp intake of air, it all comes back to me: The Gate. The successful creation of a portal to another world. The destabilization of said portal. Pain, and then… what had to have been my death. It must have caused a singularity that greatly expanded before destroying itself, and everything around it. That type of destruction must have completely vaporized my body. How am I alive? My shield spell! But, at best it could have left my body intact. No way could I have survived being burnt alive.

Before I have a chance panic once more, a sudden thought brings itself to mind. ‘We should be more worried about illegally creating a rip in the fabric of Equestria.’ I swear I can feel my eyes shrinking to pinpricks. The last creature to do something even remotely like this was Discord, and he was turned to stone… Why would I fare any better?

Now panicking once again, I have a decision to make. Should I escape, or face my judgment like a mare? I glance in the direction of Canterlot. “Oh buck this. I’m going for it.”  With that, I charge my horn and try to teleport directly below the carriage, and I am rewarded with my magic fizzling out. “Of course they use magic nullifying rings. This is now hopeless.”

Right as I finish this thought, the most peculiar thing happens; a strange buzz appears in the back of my mind and then the bindings around my legs start to seep through my skin. A second later, I hear a cling as they come out of the other side of my legs and fall onto the carriage. Moments later, the magic dampening device falls to the ground as well.

“What. The. Buck.” Still on the ground, I move one of my forehooves in front of my face in fascination. I twist it around and stare intently at it; nothing seems off about it. I hoof at the ground slightly and my hoof is, in fact, solid. The strange feeling in the back of my mind recedes as quickly as it came.

A lurch in the carriage causes my hoof to poke me in the eye. “Ouch!” I yelp, and I immediately look in the direction of the guards pulling me, hoping the guard didn’t hear me so I can have a little bit longer to figure out what to do next. No such luck it seems.

I panic- I seem to be doing that a lot today- and look to my surroundings for a place to teleport. I gulp and the only thing in sight is the Everfree Forest. “Well, here goes everything”. With that, I charge my horn and disappear with a flash of white light.