//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Trace // Story: Nature of The Experiment // by Cracked Egg //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle was a pony who thought that, just because she had wings and a crown, she should not be treated any differently than before she became a princess. She never wanted to feel indebted to anypony. What she wanted to specify right then and there, was that included the universe. She began a rant in her mind. I should be able to spend an afternoon with my friends relaxing for once instead of fighting some monster on the loose. Twilight sighed as the six ponies stopped in their walk right at the edge of the Everfree. Rarity looked at Twilight. “I wonder what could have caused such a large explosion.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m not sure, but it was big. Even though it had absolutely no magical signature. It doesn’t make sense!” Twilight stomped a hoof to the ground in frustration. She had gone over every spell she could think of to search for the source of the explosion, but was unable to detect anything at all. Rainbow Dash flew over the tree tops. “I’m going to go see if I can find what caused it! Be right back!” “Rainbow Dash, wait!” The cyan pegasus was already flying off towards the billowing smoke. The other five looked at each other, and began to enter the forest. It was always dark in the Everfree, and saying it was a eldritch landscape of agricultural abominations would be an understatement. They carefully paced through the woods, while Pinkie Pie pronked along behind them, still as vibrant as ever. A hissing sound was let out over to the left of the group. Everypony stopped in their tracks, and stared at the direction of the noise before continuing. Abruptly, a grainy sound screamed from the area in front of them, and music began to play. Everypony stopped to listen. “What in tarnation is this racket?”, Applejack said. Everypony looked around, while Pinkie Pie was bobbing her head to the music. “I like this song! It’s catchy!” Before Pinkie Pie could break out in dance, Twilight shushed them, and motioned her hoof in front of them. “Come on, everypony, follow the music.” The five ponies listened intently at the retraux sounding song, keeping vigilant of any creatures that might jump from the shadows. They followed the music, up until they reached a newly formed clearing. This part of the forest looked warped and burnt, as if forcibly carved out of the landscape by dragon fire. A crater with smoke around it lay in the middle, while charred trees surrounded the impact site. Rainbow Dash was at the crater’s edge, leering into the newly formed pit. “Rainbow Dash, there you are! What did all this?”, Twilight said, looking around the ruined area. “I don’t know, but I tried to clear the smoke away and this… music started playing.” Rainbow Dash looked a little unnerved as she said ‘music’. Twilight tilted her head. “Ok, so did you find anything in that crater?” Rainbow Dash turned towards Twilight. “No, I couldn’t, there was too much smoke.” Everypony looked into the crater as the smoke cleared bit by bit. [|||] Tm93IEkgaGF2ZSB0d28gcHJvYmxlbXMsIGFuZCBib3RoIHRoZSBvcmlnaW5hbCBwcm9ibGVtIGFuZCB0aGUgbmV3IHByb2JsZW0gYXJlIG9uIGZpcmU=. I tried to shake my head. RGlkIHlvdSBrbm93IHlvdSBjYW4ganVzdCBidXkgbGFiIGNvYXRz? My mind was screaming and laughing all at once. TWV0aG9kaWNhbGx5IGtub2NraW5nIHBlb3BsZSdzIGhhdHMgb2Zm. My entire existence was foreign to me. My body attempted something similar to waking up. SSBhbSBpbmZvcm1hdGlvbg==. I moved my arm. It moved, but it was not an arm I knew. I slowly opened my eyes, and all I saw was darkness. I rolled my eyes around, trying to obtain a clear view of my surroundings and myself, yet there was too much c21va2U= in the way. I paused, and tried to say the word again. c21va2U=. My body suddenly woke up all at once. Smoke. You crashed. I thanked whatever deity that was above that I didn’t die from the Project overloading. I groggily picked myself up off the ground, and wondered why I felt so lightheaded. I looked around and noticed the smoke had cleared. Examining myself, I turned my view towards my arms. Let me set something straight here. I am a reasonable eighteen year old with green eyes that speak volumes of my mental intellect and ingenuity, but to say nothing of my memory. Yet that goes without saying. Because as soon as I saw a blue flipper-like appendage rise in front of my face instead of a human arm, I was more than a little panicked, and may or may not have screamed like a computer about to vomit a compact disc like it was the plague. I frantically looked over my body. I had no legs, in place of legs I had a single cyan tail, shaped like an elongated teardrop that connected to my torso. My torso had a blue ring around it, which was thicker around the front and back, while the rest was red. I slapped an arm into my face, and was met with a beak. I went cross-eyed to look at my beak, before realizing I already was. My eyes were on either sides of my face, and I felt around my head a bit more to find an antenna-like protrusion on top. I felt around my torso a bit more before coming to a horrifying conclusion. I HAVE NO NECK. I panicked for a few minutes, then realized if I have no neck, then I don’t need to breathe. Or perhaps I do and it’s very complicated. I filed that under things to worry about later. Literally, it seems, as my systems had created a folder specifically for that purpose. Convenient. My head was disembodied, floating about two inches above my torso, as if hanging in thin air. I tried to get up and stand on my tail, in which I received a face full of dirt in reward for my efforts. I tried to get up again, this time trying not to fall over. I rose into the air, hovering a few inches above the ground. One of Porygon2’s moves is Magnet Rise. Though that was ridiculous to think, I couldn’t possibly be a Porygon2, could I? Unless the machine that sent me here somehow merged me and Technus together… I shuddered at the thought, and spun my floating head around to examine the environment. While me and Technus merging together was an interesting prospect it wouldn’t explain why I was this new creature. The smoke wasn’t bothering me in the slightest, so I carefully hovered out of the crater, trying not to fall over, and ran right into something very soft. “Hey, watch it!” I shook my head and looked at what I ran into. It was a cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail, it also had hot pink eyes that were trying to bore holes into my new form. It flew at me in a poor attempt at a Tackle, so I simply moved to the side. It flew past me and crashed into the crater. I shook my head and turned towards the rest of them. A few were looking at me in pure terror, another was looking at me with scientific curiosity. Then there was the equine that was pink all over, and looked as if it wanted to jump on me for entirely different reasons, wearing a smile so large I thought it might fall right off it’s muzzle. I looked over at another Pegasus in the group. It had a butterscotch coloration, and was looking at me in both terror and worry. I wasn’t quite sure about the second part. I looked her over a bit more, but my assessment of the situation was interrupted. I was bucked in the back of my head by an angry Rainbow Dash. My head was sent careening into a nearby tree, where my beak was promptly lodged into the trunk of it. The pegasus then grabbed my headless body and swung it around in a circle before letting it fly into another tree opposite my head. “Rainbow Dash, what did you do that for?!” “I thought it was going to attack you!” “Well it didn’t!” With my head still in a tree and my body jammed in another, I spoke in a voice that sounded like a mixture of autotune and TV static. “Yes, I’ll take those floppy disks to go, thank you miss…” And promptly fainted as the song ended.