Revalations
6
‘Applejack, you bitch.’ Jay thought bitterly to himself while suspended in the air. She may have had all the right intentions of telling Twilight about him, but still..... ‘Bitch’.
Jay had become the center of attention for the second time during his ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party. Suspended in the air, surrounded by the all-too-familiar purple aura, he couldn’t help but draw the attention of everypony in the room.
And by everypony, it seemed as if most of the town had been able to cram into Twilight’s library, with still a bit of room to spare. How this even worked, Jay would never know.
But now, instead of enjoying the party thrown by the pink one, they were all staring at him with immense curiosity. A new pegasus had arrived in town and he had a few tricks up his sleeve. Applejack seemed to be the only one angry with him, however. ‘Probably still mad for stealing a nap on her land.’ That had to be it.
He noticed Rainbow Dash was staring up at him, presumably waiting for an explanation as to how he had been able to disappear before her very eyes.
Jay had also noticed a yellow pegasus with a light pink mane hiding behind a set of curtains, her hooves clearly visible under the end of the curtains and her head poking out of the side, wearing and expression Jay could only guess as a mixture of curiosity, fear and confusion.
‘So I guess I can go back to my starting “bright side” and roll with the fact that no one has tried to kill me, again!’
“So, uh, Jay.” Twilight began, stepping forward and separating herself from the other on-lookers. “Applejack told me what she saw earlier today....” She trailed off, hoping that that would be enough to draw an explanation out of Jay.
Jay held his tongue for a moment, unsure of what to say.
“Ok..... And?” ‘Brilliant!’
The entire room let out an exasperated sigh. They were all clearly looking for a better answer than what had just been supplied.
“And, well, you’re a pegasus... who’s able to vanish...” Twilight urged, trailing off again, hoping to not continue any further.
“Aaannndd?” There wasn’t much else for Jay to say, his brain just kept shooting blanks when he tried to draw from it.. He was hoping to be able to at least be able to get around explaining what he was.
“Well, only unicorns are able to... teleport... is that what you do?” Twilight was the voice of the ponies, who all held the same level of curiosity.
Jay gave up, there was no avoiding explaining what he was. He just hoped that no one rejected him for it, let alone kill him. The first person who actually knew about his talent did try to kill him.
Jay took a deep breath. “Well,” and he jumped, leaving behind a purple blob of magical energy and his distortion ripple. He had decided to appear at the back of the crowd, behind the curious spectators. His action caused a collective gasp to form in the crowd.
Jay stood behind the spectators, a look of amusement on his face. Clearing his throat, the crowd of townsponies turned around to meet him, another gasp arising as they realized what had just taken place. Twilight and Applejack pushed their way back to the front of the group, their expressions demanding an explanation.
“I’m what one per-, er, pony called a Jumper.” Jay had to catch himself with the person/pony dialogue. He didn’t want to reveal the whole ‘other world’ thing just yet. With that, he jumped to the left of the crowd, the ponies following the sound of his voice.
“Any place I’ve been to, any place I’ve seen, whether from a distance or in a picture, I can go there. Instantly.” There was no better way to describe it. Jay jumped to the other side of the room, making the crowd turn once more.
‘Hell, if they want to hear my story, I’ll make them work for it.’
He found himself face to face with Twilight, once again.
“But pegasi aren’t supposed to have that kind of magic!” she countered, her mind cranking out all sorts of theories in her head.
“As far as I know, it’s not magic. It’s just something I’ve been able to do for, well, a long time.” Jay wondered how unicorns teleported, seeing how he was out cold for his first demonstration. “How do unicorns teleport, Twilight?”
Twilight smiled, pleased that she could now show off her magical ability. She closed her eyes and went to full on concentration mode. Her head lowered and the horn centered on her skull began to glow. After a few seconds, she was enveloped in a bright purple light, which was shortly followed by an equally bright purple light next to Jay. Twilight appeared next to Jay, still smiling to herself.
Sure, it was teleportation, but it wasn’t the same.
“What you can do, is much different than what I can do, Twilight.” Jay began to explain. “You had to concentrate to pull off your teleport. In the gap of time between when your horn started to glow and the actual teleport, I could have pulled off, four, maybe five of my jumps. As I said before, what I do is instant.”
He jumped directly behind Twilight, and as she turned around, Jay jumped back to his original spot, as sort of a demonstration.
Now came the moment of truth. There was nothing left for him to do, now that one of his two secrets had been exposed, not to one pony, but to most of the damned town. The collective stood for several seconds before Pinkie Pie hopped from the middle of the group.
“Now it’s a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ AND a ‘cool poofy teleport thing’ party!”
The crowd of gathered ponies cheered loudly and the party resumed. The banner hung along the ceiling had already been changed by Pinkie to support the party addition (‘She may need to be examined, not me...’ Jay thought.). Nopony noticed Twilight slip away into her personal study, Spike trailing behind her.
**********
The party was in full swing. Apparently, the ponies of Ponyville were not fully understanding of Jay’s ability, or they just didn’t care, accepting the fact that he was who he was. Jay preferred to assume the latter. Either way, nopony seemed to mind him, and now that his ability was out in the open, he felt the need to take full advantage of this. Jay had jumped around all night, popping up next to groups and getting to know the various ponies who had shown up to celebrate him.
The most notable was a white pony with an electric blue mane and oversized, purple sunglasses who was pumping out music from her DJ station. She was obviously the first pony to meet: shades are a great conversation starter, and Jay had seen nopony else sporting them.
There were ponies of all colors and occupations, and Jay took it upon himself to meet most of them. Each one of them asked Jay about his ability, and after giving each pony the same generalized description as when he addressed them as a group, he quickly steered the conversation away to something else.
Jay even approached Applejack, offering a sincere apology for..... ‘What did I do again?’ he asked himself. ‘Whatever, I’ll just say sorry and hope she doesn’t delve too much into it..’
Applejack looked him over for a minute, trying to detect a flaw in his sincerity. She eventually grunted in satisfaction, accepting his apology. “But Ah know you’re still hidin’ somethin’.” She added.
‘You’ve got no idea.’
He even got to meet the rest of Applejack’s group: two more ponies who appeared to be friends with Twilight. The aforementioned Rarity, who, as Twilight guessed, gasped and lectured Jay about how sunglasses were so out of style and so on, and Fluttershy, who let out a small ‘EEP!’ when Jay addressed her. After coaxing her for a second, he managed to get a name from her before she looked down and shuffled one of her front hooves on the ground. Her presence quickly became awkward as Jay just sort of backed away.
The night progressed, and Jay quickly grew tired of the ponies, wishing to just be alone. Twilight had reappeared and joined her group, but kept giving Spike an occasional glance, followed by a quick shake of his head. Jay didn’t put too much thought into what it could be.
He eventually found himself outside, sitting alone in the night, the brisk air of the outdoors a welcoming relief from the packed party tree. It was his party, sure, but the guests had long overstayed their welcome. Leaning against the side of Twilight’s tree, Jay closed his eyes, not wanting to go to sleep, but not wanting to be fully awake, either.
“What’s up Jay?” His eyes flipped open, noticing Rainbow Dash looking at him. She had somehow come up without him hearing her approach.
“I just had to get out of there; too many ponies.” Jay responded, still a bit out of it.
“Oh, that’s cool, I guess.” She stood there for a moment, shuffling awkwardly, looking at the ground, just like Fluttershy. “So, uh, yeah... I wanted to, well, thank you for, ya’ know, saving me... Not that I couldn’t have handled it myself or anything!”
It took a couple seconds for Jay to register that this was a thank you. He smiled at this, also realizing how hard it was for Rainbow Dash, THE Rainbow Dash, to thank someone.
“Yeah, I bet you could have, but it was really no problem.” he replied cooly. “What happened with that, anyway? I didn’t really see what went wrong.”
She trotted over and sat next to him, the moonlight glistening off the feathers of her wings. “I dunno,” she shrugged. “I just kept flying higher, and all of a sudden, everything got real foggy, and the next thing I know, you slammed into me in mid-air.” Upon finishing her sentence, she wound up her foreleg, and slugged Jay right in the ribs. “And that’s for running into me.”
Jay tried his best to hide his pain, but Rainbow Dash had a hell of a punch. His wince amounted to her laughter, but as fast as her laughter came, it went, and her gleeful expression was replaced with one of a more serious nature.
“So what else are you hidin’?”
Jay frowned at this. There was no way he would reveal where he was from, afraid that this would disgust her. He had to come up with something fast.
“I can’t fly.” was the first thing that popped into his head.
Rainbow Dash was shocked. Extremely shocked. It was almost as if Jay had just said he killed a puppy. At least it drew her off the subject of his secrets.
“Wh-what?!” After that, everything else she tried to say became incomprehensible, as her fits of laughter interrupted whatever else she tried to say.
‘Maybe I should have just let her into my past. It would have been better than this.’ he thought, sighing.
Noticing that Rainbow Dash would probably not stop laughing at him, Jay began to get up, only to have her hoof push him back to the ground.
“No, wait!” she said, almost shouting it and looking a bit embarrassed. “Not many....fully grown.... ponies can fly!” Her consolations, albeit sincere, didn’t help much, as Jay knew this probably wasn’t true.
An idea crossed Jay’s mind.
“So you’re the fastest flier in Equestria, right?”
Rainbow nodded her head ‘yes’ in reply.
“And I can’t fly, right?”
It looked like Rainbow had to use every ounce of willpower she had to stop from laughing again, but she finally shook her head ‘no’.
“So, how about I learn from the best, and you show me how to fly?” As much as he really wanted to learn how to fly, Jay also had a larger, ulterior motive behind his question, even if he may not have fully realized it.
Apparently the ego stroking had worked, because her agreement came a little faster than really necessary.
“Yes! - er, I mean, yeah sure, why not?”
It could have been the flank-kissing, but Jay hoped that her quick response was the result of something else.
“But, I mean, only if you want to. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything for saving you, or anything.” Jay offered.
This resulted in another punch to the ribs, causing Jay to have to pause to catch his breath.
“I said I could have handled myself, and don’t worry! It’ll be fun.” Rainbow Dash said with a slight smile. Jay also could have sworn that he had seen a faint blush spread on her muzzle, but he couldn’t be sure. For some reason, Jay had not taken off his sunglasses... at night. He knew he was bad at taking them off most of the day, but wearing them at night just made him look stupid.
Reluctantly, he slid them off his head, and cradled them in his foreleg and hoof, not wanting to let them touch the dirt.
Rainbow Dash froze as he did this, staring straight at him. “Whoa... I keep forgetting about your eyes.”
Anger flared in Jay. He tried his best to hide it, thought it may not have worked. “Is there something wrong with my eyes?” he tried to say as calmly as possible. The subject of his eyes was another touchy thing for Jay, having to always defend himself for being the odd one out for most of his life gets irritating after awhile.
“N-no! I mean, they’re just crazy, ya’ know?” Rainbow Dash stammered.
Jay stared at her with a blank look. “I better get back inside. They’re probably missing me at my own party.” he said calmly as he got up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Oh ok. Yeah, I;ll see ya’.” she replied, looking slightly disappointed and a bit irritated with herself.
As Jay trotted back to the entrance, he could have sworn he heard her mumbling, “Stupid, stupid, stupid! It sounded like you insulted his eyes. Why would I say that?!”
But he couldn’t be sure.