//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 - Confusion // Story: Nature of The Experiment // by Cracked Egg //------------------------------// ARCEUS DAMMIT ALL TO HELL, AND THEN- Oh, hi. Perhaps I should recount what happened before I start on my ever increasing string of expletives again. During my meeting with Celestia... [|||] Luna had left the room, which was when Celestia began her casual interrogation. She calmly took a sip of tea, pondering what she would ask first. Considering the Porygon-Z had used his abilities to kill the Queen, she decided to use that. "So Lenkar, what moves does your Species usually learn?" Considering I had finished my tea twice already, I just left it as-is. I wracked my brain for all my possible moves. "A full list, or...?" Celestia nodded, and levitated a scroll next to her to begin writing. "Well alright, uh..." I reviewed the list of Pokemon moves Porygon-Z could learn, and began to recite them off one by one. "Let's see, there's Trick Room, Conversion 2, Tackle, Conversion, Nasty Plot, Psybeam, Agility, Recover, Magnet Rise, Signal Beam, Embargo, Discharge, Lock-On, Tri Attack, Magic Coat, Zap Cannon, and Hyper Beam." As soon as Celestia finished scribbling, she sent the letter to her office, and stood up. She stood back a ways and cast a shielding spell across the room, the walls glowing with gold energy. "May I see one of those moves? My spell should protect everything in here, just be sure to aim safely." I Magnet Rose--ba-dum, tssh--into the air, and nodded. Celestia was trying to see exactly what I was capable of, so I wasn't going to deny her the chance to. Of course I wasn't actually thinking that, I was just doing it. I summoned Signal Beam, the rainbow cascade of information flowing into my beak, pooling at the front of it. I felt it almost read to be let loose, so I pointed my beak at the window. When I fired, the beam went out normally, the multicolored squares streaming in a line at the window. The shield reflected the beam back though, causing it to bounce every which way. I ducked for cover as the beam continued to sail over our heads, up until it hit Celestia dead-on. Fortunately Celestia had a similar shield over herself in case of this situation. What wasn't so fortunate, was it bounced off of her and into me. I got about a sentence out before I was sent flying into a wall, with the added effect of Signal Beam scrambling my mind. "Oh yeah, I forgot about tha-" [|||] Okay, I'm admitting it. Princess Celestia is so beautiful, she has Serene Grace. No, not serene grace, Serene Grace. If you're feeling confused, I don't blame you. After Sepia had used her magic to simulate Volt Absorb, I'm a little indignant to say I'm surprised Celestia had Serene Grace as well. Remember how I said Pokemon abilities are ALWAYS on? Well, I should have known her hair was wavy like that for some reason. When the Signal Beam hit her, it barely damaged her, but possibly left some trauma due to Bug types being super effective against Psychic types. Not to mention magic is similar enough to Psychic Type moves already. Anyway, Serene Grace is an ability that boosts the likelihood of additional effects, like confusion with my Signal Beam. For example, Psychic will have a twenty percent chance of lowering the target's Special Defense stat instead of its usual ten percent chance, and Rock Smash will always lower an opponent's Defense, as opposed to having a fifty percent chance of doing so. In this case, Signal Beam usually has a ten percent chance of causing confusion, but Celestia's Serene Grace made it twenty. Meaning, someone flipped a really uneven coin and got lucky. Technicalities aside, I went insane the instant I saw Twilight's bookshelf, because you know what I said about that. There's only so many times someone can hear the word 'book'... "AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!" ...before losing their ever-loving mind. [|||] "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Move induced confusion aside, I was having the time of my life. I twirled and dodge around clouds, making corkscrews in the air. I nearly hit three pigeons and I think I accidentally broke someone's chimney. As I sailed through the air, I saw a rainbow blur form next to me. I moved to the left as a cloud passed between us, but didn't so much as flinch when a thundercloud zapped me. Rainbow Dash practically screamed at me. The wind was whipping past us, making it hard to hear anything. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled back at her, spinning circles above her. "RACING YOU! DUH!" Rainbow Dash cringed a little at the intensity of my voice, her ears folding down in pain. "WHAT WAS THAT THING ABOUT BOOKS YOU KEPT YAPPING ON ABOUT THEN?" I floated in front of her while upside-down, and shrugged, crossing my arms. "IT'S AN INSIDE JOKE." Rainbow Dash tilted her head. "WITH WHO?!" I pointed to my torso. "MYSELF!" I chuckled, and bopped the cyan pegasus on the nose. "RACE YOU TO THE MOUNTAIN AND BACK!" She gave me a competitive glare and nodded. "YOU'RE ON!" She took off, flapping her wings as much as possible. I kept at my own speed, mock-yawning and checking a watch I didn't I have. I then got into a 'running' position, twirling my tail like a propeller, and took off. I used Agility over and over until my speed couldn't handle it any further. Everything blurred and stretched as I flew. I saw a very stretched out pony for half of a second as I passed Rainbow Dash, while going faster than was even possible for her. I reached the sound barrier right as I neared the mountain Canterlot rested upon, and broke right through it. What I didn't realize, was that I had also broken the light barrier in the process, along with a few other barriers I had no idea could even break. The amount of speed I was using was ridiculous, and if weren't for how confused I was already, the G-Forces combined with vertigo would probably have crushed my brain. Yet once the barriers were broken, I used Discharge, not knowing what that would even do. Sure enough... Ding... CRASH! Reality broke. [|||] Rainbow Dash had slowed down enough to take a breather once Lenkar had left her in his dust. Panting heavily, she saw the Porygon-Z near Canterlot at speeds that would have ripped her to pieces. Dumbstruck, she followed his form until the red and blue blur stopped. The Porygon-Z had frozen in the air, going too fast for anything to even keep up. There was a bright blinding glow that shone from where he was for a moment, and then... CRASH! The sound could be heard for miles as the very fabric of space-time Rainbow Dash was looking at splintered like a destroyed window pane. The cracks in reality looked like Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom, but were actual gaps in the dimension. She didn't really have the brain or time to wrap her head around it, so she sped forward towards the white and black flashing area.