//------------------------------//
// What Real and What's Not 
// Story: Solipsism 
// by Shadowed Rainbow 
//------------------------------//

After what seemed like ages in the darkness of a dreamless sleep, Twilight became visually aware of something.  Just a flash that brought her a bit more into awareness.

A sky blue.  Then a dash of pink that seemed to momentarily zip around before vanishing just as quickly.

Colors... there were actually colors here in this blackness.  Colors which began to swirl into shapes and forms, surrounding Twilight's vision. A sharp but welcome contrast to the stark metallic world she last remembered.  She blinked her eyes—upon realizing she had them—once, twice.  The world around her then brightened significantly, too bright, and she shut her eyes again just before the environment she was in burst forth in her field of vision.

As Twilight tried to settle the spots dancing in front of her eyes, her perception in her other senses began to return, and she was then aware of her own physical proportions.  She was standing.  On hooves, her familiar hooves in her normal unicorn form.  The brighter setting, as she squinted, becoming accustomed to the light, had her realize exactly where she was.  A place all-too familiar to her.

She was back in Ponyville, the sun shining through the windows at the front of her library, all her friends surrounding her.  Looking stunned for a moment, as if she had just appeared out of nowhere in front of them, they began hugging her.  Spike gripped onto her harder than the rest, wrapping his claws around a hoof protectively as if afraid she would vanish.

Twilight relaxed in the embrace of her friends, giving sideways glances to the decorations around the library's center.  Purple and pink streamers and balloons adorned the bookshelves.  Clearly Pinkie Pie had set up for a party.

Twilight thought it felt good to have them around her again, not utterly destroyed as she had last witnessed the world in the scenario she tried to tell herself was a dream.  But her friends' next words caught her off guard.

"Where'd you go, Twilight?" Spike asked, his claws tightening around her as he voiced the question.

"Huh?". Twilight felt perplexed at the inquiry.

"You just kinda disappeared on us the other day," Rainbow clarified, lifting into the air slightly as she waved her forehooves in a crude imitation of magical energy causing her friend to vanish.  "We were all wondering where you went."

So me waking up as a draconequus was just... me being taken to another world?  It was an option that Twilight wanted to believe, but, regretfully, the thought left her more conflicted than she was before.  

"Well, I'm back now," Twilight said in relief, trying to make the other place worlds away in her mind.  What mattered was that now she was home, safe and sound.  Smiling to herself as her friends let go, she trotted over to the large purple and pink cake on the table, with plates surrounding it.  She could practically envision the process that had went into making this cake at Sugarcube Corner as she read the words:

Happy Birthday, Twilight!

She remembered.  Her birthday.  The day after she slipped away from the world she knew was when she was supposed to have turned twenty-one, and thus been a legal adult.  She had actually been looking forward to taking Rainbow Dash up on her "alcoholic cider" challenge, even though Rainbow herself wouldn't be 21 for another year.

Twilight slowly inhaled, taking in the scent of the freshly baked confection.  She wanted to savor it.  

"So, what happened, Twilight?" Spike asked, concern etched in her voices as the unicorn used her magic to lift a piece of the cake to her mouth.  "You seem kinda... off."

"Oh, you guys wouldn't believe it," Twilight said, laughing slightly, a hint of a nervous demeanor creeping in as a small dollop of frosting touched her nose.  "I had the craziest dream—"

Twilight never got to finish her thought as she opened her eyes, her consciousness roughly pulling her out of sleep.  Perception returned, but it was instantly different from her four-hooved incarnation.  Once again she found her form twisted and contorted, sending her into a brief panic as she was caught in a slight delirium.  Her hind appendages seemed curled in on themselves, and her dragon-like forelimb was practically hooked around the back rung of the infirmary bed.  As a rapid pattern of heartbeats sounded from the monitor near to her, she became more aware of where she was.  She remembered what happened.  She was back in this world again, this world of machinery and different forms and another name.  If this world wasn't a dream... if what Celestia and the doctors had implied were true, than her life in Ponyville could be considered nothing more than a dream as well.

She sighed in dismay, trying to grasp that comforting cake smell and the presence of her friends in her mind and hold on to it, but the feelings quickly left as her brain became more ingrained into the waking world.

Okay, breathe, Twilight... just relax... getting up can't be so hard.

She tried to contort her body to get rid of the stiffness she felt—however she had slept the night before clearly wasn't how Asteria normally positioned herself during her dreaming hours.  Assuming, of course, she actually was Asteria.  Either way, the position didn't feel the slightest bit familiar to her.

She slowly removed the hook of her draconian claw from around the metal rung, careful not to damage either her claws or the metal.  She dimly wondered which would be more liable to break—who knew how powerful this claw was, or what kind of metal the rung was made of—but that would be an investigation for another time.  Next she focused on sitting up enough so she could disentangle one hind limb, then the other.  Once free, she got more control of her appendages and stretched out as she normally would lay, not feeling up to trying her falcon wings yet.  At least laying like this was helping her feel a little more at ease.  

Twilight rubbed her eyes, being incredibly careful not to poke her eye out with her black dragon claws.  If this world, this place where she was a creature similar to Discord, was real, it would be best to get familiar with it.  Or rather, re-familiarize herself with the place.  And as much as she didn't want to admit it, she wasn't all too keen on exploring this place on her own.

Finally getting her bearings as she sat up, she willed herself to speak.

"H-Hello?"  Twilight winced a little at the sound.  Her voice was scratchy from just waking up, and it seemed as if the lower, older pitch of her voice was a permanent thing.  How old am I in this world, anyway? Twilight mused.  Clearly older than 21.

As if on cue, Celestia stepped in through the door, her eyes automatically meeting Twilight's as the door shut behind her.  As strange as this new world was, Twilight was at least glad to see a familiar face. 

But Celestia looked much more tired than she had the day before.  There were bags under her eyes, as if she hadn't gotten a minute of sleep all night.  Twilight suspected that was the case, and it was likely because of her.  The alicorn took a deep breath, clearly anxious at the kind of response her words would receive, but she eventually voiced what was on her mind.  "Good morning, Asteria."

"It's Twilight," Twilight insisted.  She was still unsettled to hear herself addressed by the unfamiliar name, and as long as her memories of Ponyville were still clear as day, with nothing contradicting them, she wouldn't treat the name as if it were exclusively her own.

Celestia's face fell at the draconequus's insistence, and that wasn't exactly the best encouragement.

Twilight and Asteria are not one and the same, Twilight thought, hoping that the more she told herself it, the more evidence she'd find for it to be true.  We're not the same.  I'm not her.

Celestia said nothing for a moment, then slowly walked over, a sad look in her eyes.  "You still don't remember anything?"

Twilight shook her head.

Celestia sighed, pressing a weary hoof to her forehead.  Reintroducing the thought experiment back into her old studies wasn't going to be easy.  "I just hope that you'll remember eventually, so you can return to your research..."

For a moment, Celestia wondered if, truly, she wanted Asteria to return back to her old ways.  True, Asteria was one of the leading minds here, having grown quickly after her formation, but in her early days she had been... unpredictable.  Even more recently she was prone to violence.  Improving, yes, and gaining some trust and companionship, with those who knew how to calm her down, but the uncertainty was still there.  Celestia had no idea just how this complete amnesia would affect Asteria's mental state.

All this talk of research and memory disturbed Twilight, and for the moment, she wanted to push it as far out of her mind as possible.  She pushed the covers off herself, the dream of her old life still fresh in her mind.  She needed someone else familiar, someone who wouldn't try to insist about this sort of past research... "Prin—I-I mean, Celestia?"

"Yes?"

"W-Where's Pinkie Pie?"  Twilight seriously felt she could use a little cheering up right then.  If Applejack was busy, maybe Pinkie would help.

Celestia fell silent.  Her gaze glanced away from Twilight, as if embarrassed to say.  Or perhaps ashamed.

Twilight could feel her heartbeat speeding up again, holding her breath, nervous.  Something about Celestia's expression and posture filled her with unease.  Had something happened to her party-loving friend?

Finally, Celestia let out a resigned sigh, looking at Twilight with regret.  "...There is no Pinkie Pie," she finally said.

"W-What?!"

Twilight couldn't believe it.  It was bad enough waking up in a world she had no recollection of.  It was bad waking up in a strange body.  It was bad learning that her life as she knew it had been a lie, and the ponies she did know, Celestia and Applejack, were slightly different from how they were before.  But the realization that some of her friends might never have existed to begin with... there'd be no more spontaneous parties, no more enthusiastic random singing, no more of Pinkie's physics-defying antics and her love of making her friends smile...

Twilight gripped the bedsheets with her forehoof and claw in an attempt to steady herself.  "H-How many more of my friends... d-don't exist?"

The look of devastation in the draconequus's eyes was too much for Celestia, and she turned away.  She walked away a few paces, inhaling slowly before speaking.  Her eyes were closed.  "I don't think it's the best time to tell you of your immediate friends."  Her voice grew quieter.  "Some you knew are still here, but not in the way you remember.  And some..."  Celestia trailed off, knowing that she didn't need to finish the thought.

Twilight felt like her mind was shattering, not wanting to believe it.  Applejack was here, at least, though under a different profession, but the thought that her other friends either were different than she knew or didn't exist to begin with... after all they had been through, was she just supposed to forget about them?  "C-Can I see them?"

"In a little while, yes, once our doctors make sure you're well enough to walk," Celestia replied.  "Applejack offered to take you on a tour around the facility."

Twilight nodded in response.  Maybe if I talk to Applejack, I'll get some answers, she thought.  She is the Element of Honesty, after all.  Her eyes grew a little saddened again as she realized that the Elements of Harmony likely didn't exist here either.  What if Applejack is actually a compulsive liar?  No, she seemed sincere when she spoke to me yesterday...  That was one point of hope she still clung on to.

But another pony she was close to crossed her mind.  If he didn't exist, if he suffered the same fate as the others...

"W-What about... my brother?"  Twilight's voice was hopeful, but at the same time pleading, nearly demanding, that no one else she loved was taken away from her.

Celestia's voice was quiet.  She raised her head, but aside from that she didn't make a move to see the expression on Twilight's face.  "... Your brother, too."

"S-Shining Armor?"  She swallowed, hoping that he at least was here in some form.

"He doesn't exist.". Celestia's tone was even, as if she had given up trying to deny it and tried to distance herself from any emotion toward it.  What happened, happened.  This was real, and Asteria had to remember to accept that.  

"N-No..." Twilight's voice broke.  This was getting worse and worse.  Her BBBFF?  Gone completely?

"He was a... late addition, at my request," Celestia explained.  Her own mind filled with her adjusting the algorithms slightly, reconfiguring the brain patterns and data logs on Twilight's early life.  It was the only time she had ever made such an alteration, but then again, there were only a few select times when Asteria had started out as one so young.  "Your childhood was lonely... I wanted to help to make it better, to help you improve."

"So you... rewrote my past?!"  There was a hint of anger in Twilight's voice now, replacing the shock and devastation..  Even after all this false life talk, Celestia hadn't let that life run its natural course?

"Yes."

A memory flashed briefly in Twilight's mind.  It wasn't a memory of her Ponyville days, but she remembered it just as clearly as if it had been.  A recollection of who she had been before.  Before her life as Twilight Sparkle.  The words that came out of her mouth were quick, almost against her volition, as her eyes grew dark.  When she spoke, it was with much more authority.

"You went against my orders, Celestia!"

Celestia gasped in surprise and swiftly turned around to see that Twilight—no, Asteria—had gotten up from the bed, hovering in the air with her falcon-wings in full control.  It seemed, for the moment, the personality of Asteria had returned, but in the worst way.

Before Celestia could move, Asteria lunged at her with a falcon's speed and seized her with her claw and hoof, slamming the alicorn into the wall and holding her there as she tore herself from the equipment, which fell with a crash.  A loud beeping sounded, but Asteria seemed not to notice.  "I told you!" she exclaimed, looking as if she could strike Celestia at any moment.  "I told you, no matter what happened, to not disturb the process!  You might have ruined everything!"

Celestia's horn glowed slightly with a golden aura, though the glare in Asteria's eyes seemed to prevent her from retaliating.  "Asteria, I—"

But in that moment, the anger was gone, and the creature's eyes turned to the widened, uncomprehending state they had been at before.  The movements of her body lost their controlled purpose and became erratic, trying to control muscles she never remembered possessing, and she crashed to the ground.

"Wha—?"  There was no trace of Asteria's recent personality left there, only Twilight.  She looked up at Celestia, then at the fallen equipment, uncomprehending.  "W-What happened?"

The alicorn arched her brow, surprised at the sudden change.  "You don't remember what you just did?"

Dazed, Twilight shook her head.  "I-I just remember you said... Shining Armor didn't exist, and..."  She shut her eyes and shook her head again, a gesture of refusal to believe.  Her voice was filled with a heavy sadness, but it was clear that she had no memory of Celestia mentioning that the existence of her "brother" was an unauthorized addition, nor of the shift in personality that had followed.

Celestia found it best not to bring it up again.  "It's all I should probably tell you for now," she said.  "I—"

Celestia was cut off as the double doors opened, with the doctor from earlier, followed by Applejack, galloping in. 

"Are you alright?!

Celestia sighed and inclined her head in greeting.  "Asteria just went through a relapse, Doctor Cobalt."

"Seems pretty violent, by the looks of it," Doctor Cobalt said, looking meaningfully at the fallen monitors and wires.  "We'll need to get it repaired."

Applejack looked hesitant.  "So... will Asteria have another relapse like that?"

"It's..."  Twilight fell silent.  It seemed there was no reasoning with them right now.

"Well," Doctor Cobalt began, levitating a clipboard in front of him as he trotted forward, looking carefully at Twilight as if wary she'd attack again.  "Aside from some higher-than-normal brain activity through her cortex, Asteria seems fine physically.  We'll have to keep an eye on her though."

"Ah, uh, was gonna take her on a tour of the place..." Applejack said hesitantly, looking more uncertain now.  "Maybe Ah shouldn'—"

"On the contrary," Doctor Cobalt interrupted, "I feel like having her be taken around as a guest would probably do her good.  It could help jog her memory in a way that's hopefully not as violent."

Applejack bit her lip.

"I'll come along with you."

Applejack eventually nodded after looking at Celestia, who inclined her head in a wary approval.

Applejack then turned to Twilight, who had managed to steady herself.  "Ya ready to go?"

Twilight looked at the three ponies before her.  She was confused, afraid, and wanted answers.  And it seemed like the best way to get those answers was to get out of that room and see the rest of this new world.

With a resigned sigh, anxious at what or who she would find, Twilight nodded.  "I'm ready."