Picking up the two tokens, Joseph put the wrapped up rock into his pocket and held onto the hourglass by its top. Looking down at the potato in his pocket, he frowned at it.
“You know, you really need to speak up more when there’s new company.” Joseph told him as he looked back up to enjoy the view of the party.
“I would if they weren’t so awesome.” Crikey replied, his voice muffled by the pocket.
“It would be awesome if I had powers too but you don’t see me complaining.” Joseph answered, and seeing that no one was paying any attention to him, he began to walk away, hoping that Pinkie wouldn’t see him leave.
“Joseph! Where you going?” Pinkie shouted, running through the crowd to catch up to him. Once she reached him, she saw him pulling out the potato battery and looking back at her.
“Parties aren’t really my thing so I figured I would explore Aperture some more.” Joseph shrugged, stabbing Crikey back onto his gun.
“Easy there, mate. You nearly impaled me through my battery.” Crikey warned, giving a chirp in Pinkie’s direction.
“Why don’t you take a break? Ever since you got here you’ve been exploring Aperture whenever you had some free time.” Twilight suggested, overhearing the conversation.
“Or whenever the plot demanded.” Crikey said, humming quietly after seeing Purple Smart look at him. “Whatcha want Purple Smart? It’s true!”
“It is.” Pinkie agreed, much to Twilight’s disdain.
“That’s not the point though. Joseph, you have been stressing out over ponies being replaced by robots, trying to find the entire town, and on top of all that, you have also been battling a robotic queen. Even if you didn’t know that until a yesterday. You need to take a break. Otherwise you’re mind will snap and that’ll be that. Even Pinkie Pie takes breaks!” Twilight argued with him, pointing to Pinkie when she was mentioned.
“Who’s to say my mind hasn’t already snapped, Sheila?” Joseph asked with a shrug and tapped the side of his head, thinking about what she was saying. “It probably has and I’m just dreaming all this up because I slammed into a wall where I thought a non-existent portal was,” he mused, looking at Twilight and Pinkie blankly.
“Don’t say that. If you are dreaming all this, then how are you speaking to us?” Twilight said with a soft shake of her head.
“Lucid dreaming then.”Joseph answered, leaning against the wall of a nearby house and placing his hands in his pockets.
“Lucid what?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.
“Lucid dreaming. It means when you are aware you’re dreaming and you can make anything possible while you’re still asleep.” Joseph answered, summing up what could potentially be an insanely long talk on the topic.
“Oh! I have them all the time.” Pinkie said, smiling and giggling a bit before excusing herself to entertain some of the other guests.
“You think this is all a dream? Can you even sleep in a dream?” Twilight asked, trying to find a hole in Joseph’s theory.
“How else would you explain me coping so well? I talk to a potato who I believe has the voice of one of my friends!” Joseph seethed, pointing to the spud on the gun, who had conveniently turned himself off to conserve energy. “All you ever do is conserve energy because now you’re making me look bad.” Joseph complained to it, placing a hand on his forehead and leaning back against the wall.
“I know for a fact you can’t feel pain in a dream so try explaining that to me.” Twilight persisted. Joseph opened his mouth to try and argue but found that he had no answer for that. Maybe the stress really was getting to him.
“I think that may be the stress talking. Never really been stressed before so I don’t really know how to handle it that well.” Joseph admitted, sliding down against the wall to rest his back against it as he sat down.
“For one, you can try a breathing exercise Cadence taught me.” Twilight suggested, going through the motions. Joseph studied them for a moment before slowly raising a fist to his chest, breathed in and then out as he moved his fist out in front of him. He did it a few more times and felt some of the stress leave him.
“That managed to help a bit.” Joseph said with a weak grin, resting his head against the wall as he watched the party continue. “But like I said before: parties aren’t my thing. I’m sorry about that dream rant. I guess I finally cracked under all this pressure.” He gave a harsh laugh and placed his gun on the ground, drew his knees up to his chest, and rested his head on them. “Just give me a bit. If you don’t see me in the next half hour, I’ll either be here or somewhere else. Most likely Aperture. Go and have fun, Sheila.” Joseph told Twilight with a smile before looking back at the party.
“Okay, as long as you’re sure.” Twilight said with a bit of concern and trotted back to the party. After waiting a few moments in case she came back to check up on him, Joseph stood up, grabbed his portal gun and blinked a few times to get rid of the pain of an oncoming headache.
“Maybe it really is the stress talking. I need to clear my head.” Joseph muttered to himself, and got up, pacing away from the party before anypony else could stop him.
“Joshu, you feeling okay?” Crikey chirped up. Joseph groaned at him, and slouched as he walked in a random direction.
“Yeah, mate. I’m fine. Just don’t talk to me at the moment,” he muttered and grabbing a screwdriver from a pocket toolkit he found in Aperture, unscrewed a few bolts on Crikey and messed around with some of the wires, shutting him off. Joseph gave a grim smile at this and continued on his way, making sure to drop off the tokens he had acquired in his room at Twilight’s library before walking into the Everfree and passing Aperture. It was about time he saw what was beyond the laboratory/science building.
He walked passed Aperture and further into the forest, through a patch of blue flowers and onto a path that looked like it had barely been used at all. This got Joseph curious. He stepped onto it and looked in both directions. One way, he could see sunlight and the town. The other way his vision was met with foreboding blackness. Scratching at one of his ears, Joseph shrugged and figured going in further would better help him clear his head.
“We need to go deeper,” he muttered to himself, chuckling a bit at what he said before starting the trek deeper into the Everfree. He placed his hands in his pockets and began to whistle a bit, feeling glad that all the ponies were back safely in their town. “The ponies are safe, there’s no more robots … and I’m stressing. Maybe it’s because the entire time I’ve been here, I haven’t let it get to me and it’s all crashing on me now?” Joseph asked out loud, trying to theorise why he was stressing out now and not before all this stuff happened.
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” he said, sounding satisfied at this. Looking at the path, he found it to be long, and straight. Smirking to himself, he brought his gun up and aimed down the path. He pressed the button he had installed and fired a string of orange gel down it. ‘A bit more practice can’t hurt, right?’
Joseph shrugged and leapt onto the gel, gliding along it and managing to keep his balance along the way. As he picked up speed, he braced himself for impact but then his brain kicked into high gear, remembering about the portal gun in his hands. Firing a blue portal at what he assumed was an overgrown tree, he then turned on the spot and gliding backwards into the portal, placed the orange one on the ground, making him shoot high up into the air just before hitting the trunk of the tree. He gave a whoop of joy before realising what he had just done and began to panic as he fell back to earth.
He quickly fired an orange portal on the ground beneath him and shot out the other one, going backwards until there was no more gel to glide on. When he ran out of room, he stumbled backwards and hit his head against the tree, nearly blacking out from the impact.
“Why does this happen to me?” Joseph whined and stood up, intending to solve at least a couple more puzzles in Aperture, despite Twilight and Pinkie telling him not to.