Songs of Sanity and Insanity

by PandoraChild

Prelude 4 // Marked

Buh-beep.

Buh-beep.

Buh-beep.

Buh-beep.

I yawned softly in my sleep, my muscles tensing up. That damn beeping had started up again, and it seemed like every time I became somewhat awake I would hear it. I tried to open my eye but nothing happened.

Buh-beep.

It sounded strangely like my alarm clock, and I tried to raise my right arm to bat it away, hopefully turning it off. My arm felt like it was being pinned down, and I couldn’t feel it very well anyway.

“Damn it, Art,” I thought to myself, scowling slightly. It seemed like my cat had climbed up onto my arm in the middle of night. “If you could get off my arm, that’d be great.” Nothing happened, of course. I decided speaking would be the best course of action. I took a deep breath.

“Mmmfffrrrahha gn ig ga jgo.”

Okay, maybe speaking wasn’t going to work so well. Different tactic. I tried to raise my left arm and felt it move. Alright, making some good progress. I rubbed my closed eyes slightly with my hand, which felt very cold and hard. Whatever, I’d deal with it later. I was able to open my eyes slightly and was greeted with a blast of white light. I instinctively covered my eyes with my arm, which felt much hairier than usual, and groaned. My arm was touching something around my mouth so I pulled it off. It felt like some sort of mask.

The machine beeped again and I frowned. I pulled myself up into a seated position, feeling cool air on my skin. I rubbed my eyes again, feeling some sort of crust fall off, and tried to open them again. The bright light met my optics again and I flinched, yet it wasn’t as bad as the initial shock. Gradually my eyes adjusted to my surroundings, seeing that I was in an all white room, seemingly a hospital. I glanced over to my left and saw a bedside table with multiple different medical supplies and examination tools on it.

The machine to my right beeped again and I turned my head quickly, noticing for the first time that it was a heart rate monitor. It beeped steadily, and I looked down at my chest to find the monitor’s pads. I was instead greeted with a mass of gray, which confused me until I remembered the whole “pony” thing.

Yes, even after three years it took some getting used to. Bite me.

I guess my heart acted up upon my surprise, making the machine next to me beep faster and multiple clopping noises sounded down the hallway. In a matter of seconds two nurses blew into the room, running to my side. I groaned as I recognised Nurse Redheart, one of the doctors who had shooed me away from the Ponyville hospital whenever I needed something looked at. My damn curse affected my personal health too, on association.

“Are you alright, sir?” she asked, worry evident in her features. I stared back in confusion, my mouth hanging open.

This was a mare who openly denied any medical service to me for the past three years, and now here she was, the same mare, flying into my room at the slightest change in my condition and wondering how I’m feeling. I bet you can understand how fucked the situation was in my mind.

“Um…” was all I could manage, my mouth still hanging open.

“Oh, right! Sorry, we haven’t introduced ourselves. My name is Nur-”

“Nurse Redheart, I know,” I interjected, trying to cross my forelegs but found my right one still was pinned to the bed. “What I don’t understand is why you’re tending to me. Care to inform?”

“You were hurt in a training fight, sir,” her assistant chimed in. “So you were brought here and we fixed you up, right as rain!” She beamed while Redheart rolled her eyes.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, smiling widely. This was one of the first times that any normal pony had shown me any compassion whatsoever, and I wasn’t about to let this little encounter slide without some sort of base friendship.

“Nurse in Training Rain Mist!” she squealed. Redheart facehoofed.

“She has to follow me around for a couple months until she can get her nurse certification,” she explained. I nodded, still smiling. “So, now that you’re awake we need to run a few quick tests. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I responded. “What do you need to do?”

“We’ll need you to answer a couple questions and then do a physical.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“You’ve been in a coma for about a month now. What can you remember about what happened right before?” My mind went back to the area.

“I was fighting Twilight,” I started, looking off into space. “She was winning, and she pinned me to the ground, but I blacked out after that. When I came to I was falling, so I… I’m not sure… what I did.” Redheart nodded and scribbled a couple notes on a clipboard she had picked up from my bedside table.

“Mhmm. And what happened to bring on this fight?”

“It was a training facility, isn’t that a little obvious?”

“Too true. Next question, pretty basic, what is your name?”

“Adrian Decimus.”

“Age?”

“Twenty... five? I think?.”

“Mane color?”

Out of my peripheral vision I saw a lock of my orange mane hanging down. I frowned.

“Isn’t it a little obvious? Orange.”

“Sorry, they make me do it.” She chuckled slightly and flipped the top page of the clipboard over, scribbling something on the second page. Once she was done she turned it around and pointed it towards me. “This is a pretty simple test, all you have to do it keep reading the words on the page, no matter what. Sound good?”

“Sure. I am currently in Canterlot Medical Center wher… um… where I’ve… uh… I can’t read it…?” Somehow during my recitation the words had become blurry and I rubbed my eyes.

“One more time?” Redheart asked. I nodded, but wasn’t able to make it any farther along the page. “Alright, it seems as though you have a fairly severe concussion. That test is used to test for trauma and concussion, all I have to do is move the board gradually closer to you.” She chuckled again. “Works like a charm.”

I felt the back of my head with a hoof, parting my orange mane. Glancing to the side I found Rain Mist twisting some dials on the machines, changing the displays and collecting data.

“Adrian, I need to pull your covers down now, do you mind?”

“Go ahead.” Redheart gripped the covers with her hooves and pulled them down, exposing numerous amounts of bandages that I hadn’t even noticed before. I swore under my breath, noticing for the first time that my body felt numb. I glanced back at my right foreleg and saw a catheter feeding into it. It was strapped down to the bed via gauze.

“What’s wrong with my arm?” I asked quietly, more to myself than the nurses. They heard me anyway and stopped what they were doing to answer.

“It got shattered in multiple places. Four of your ribs are broken also, and your left leg was nearly completely severed. Fortunately we were able to get both it reattached and the metal imbedded in your back removed with magic.” Redheart began palpating random places on my body, making me either be greeted with a numb feeling, no pain, or extreme discomfort. She noted all of these on her clipboard.

“Wow. How did all of this happen?”

“I’ll let your friends explain it to you. They’re waiting outside. Should I bring them in?”

“My… friends?” I stammered, unable to grasp the concept after three years without them. My heart started racing again and Redheart took note of it with a faint sign of impatience. I quietly willed my heart back down to its normal rhythm.

“Yes… a Ms. Applejack and Ms. Dash?” My mouth formed a small “O” at the realisation of who she was talking about.

“Sure… send my friends in.” I emphasised “friends” just for emphasis, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. This was all happening? I have a fight with Twilight and I make friends? Ponies stop seeing me as a monster? They start being… friends?

Nurse Redheart placed the clipboard on the top of my bedside table and trotted out of the room, dragging Rain Mist - who was currently waving goodbye - behind her. I sighed and slapped myself with my left hoof, causing a stinging pain to course through my nervous system. This was definitely not a dream.

Trotting sounds in the hallway. My ears perked up and I returned my attention to the door to see an orange earth pony and cyan pegasus enter the room, moving to the foot of my bed.

“A-Adrian…?” Rainbow blurted out upon seeing me, while Applejack’s mouth purley hung open in shock. I looked at them, confused, before realising what they were gawking at. They were seeing me for what I really was instead of some monster.

“Uh… yes… that would be me. I didn’t know this was a roll call,” I lightly joked, giggling slightly. My ribs hurt however and I winced, breaking the duo out of their stupor.

“But… but you’re not… not… wha…-” Rainbow was silenced when Applejack’s hoof planted itself over her mouth, accompanied by a stern look from the apple farmer. She turned her head to face me.

“Sorry hun, Princess Celestia told us you would be looking different. Rainbow,” a light jab from her hoof onto Rainbow’s barrel, “should have been listening. Right sugar?” The pegasus nodded and pushed Applejack’s hoof away, however her eyes remained wide.

“First question,” I asked, placing my left foreleg over my ribs, “why do I look different?” At that moment Princess Celestia herself trotted back into the room, a wide smile on her face. She turned to the rest of the company and nodded before moving her attention back to me.

“Hello, Adrian,” she spoke, her melodious voice causing my autonomous sensory meridian response to kick in full gear. I shuddered slightly as tingles ran down my spine. In my good mood I grinned.

“‘Hello, Princess," I responded. "Is everything alright?"

“Instead of telling you what we did to you, we may as well show you,” she offered, extending a hoof to the bed. A yellow tint clouded my vision and I felt myself being lifted off against my will, the catheter in my arm pulled out by the same yellow field. Celestia moved me over to the bathroom without letting me touch the ground, which I assumed was a good thing given my injuries. The full-length vanity mirror shown my reflection back to me.

My mane was a mess, to say the least. It seemed like my entire back was covered in bandages and gauze, whereas only a few strands wrapped around the underside of my barrel. My right foreleg was wrapped completely in bandages as well as my left hind leg, and a splint adorned the side. But what was most interesting was something on the base of my horn.

“What’s that?” I asked, not realising my question was way too vague, however Celestia didn’t seem to mind.

“That is a magical interference ring.”

“We’ve tried those before, though. What’s different about this one?”

“Everything. We moved away from trying to harness the magic of friendship, which was what Apple Bloom’s adolescent mind used to see you in your current form, as it was becoming much too difficult and we were moving into much darker territories than we wanted to.

“After my colleagues got fed up with the project they tried to scrap it, however I was able to convince them to leave the project team without destroying our research - they don’t like you very much. So, I continued to work on your condition until I found something interesting.” She paused to take another breath.

“Please elaborate,” I said more than asked.

“I decided to use what was left of King Sombra’s horn and run some tests on it. Since he was able to harness his illusionary powers and transform himself into a wall of smoke, I figured that it would be a good starting point. I removed some of his neurological magic adapters and fused them into a ring already containing a few areas of the elemental spectrum, what you see when the elements are fired as one. Without the elemental fragments you would have instead been “harnessed” by the dark energy in King Sombra’s horn, so to speak. But with the careful balance I was able to negate the illusionary magic coming from your horn while maintaining your other spellcasting abilities.”

I turned back to the mirror.

“So, in a word…”

“You’re fixed.”

The realization sunk in.

“I… I’m… f-fixed…?”

“Yes. Also, you have earned something. You can Twilight can talk about that more once she wakes. You may find some very interesting things about you, Adrian.”

A yellow aura pulled away some of the bandages from my flank, revealing an icon. A silver triangle with a golden circle in the center.

“Is that…” I dumbly asked, still in shock.

“A cutie mark? Yes. You, Adrian Decimus, have earned your cutie mark, and it means much more than you think it does.”

Trotting sounds from the hall once again.

“Princess Celestia!” Rain Mist blew through the doors, paperwork flying everywhere, followed by a very unhappy Nurse Redheart.

“Yes, my little pony?”

“Princess Twilight! She’s awake!”

* [] * [] *

I was lifted out of bed and placed into a wheelchair once the commotion in the room died down enough for Celestia to levitate me over to it. Then her magical grip moved to the handles and we moved down the hall, following the rest of Twilight’s friends and the two nurses.

When we got to her room, the rest of the group was already there, standing around the princess’s bed. I was rolled up by Celestia to the side and she pushed the brakes down, insuring I wasn’t about to go rolling off anywhere. I winced as I tentatively rubbed a hoof on my side, feeling the bandages and mangled flesh underneath. I knew the doctors had done the best they could, given the circumstances, but the pain was immense even with painkillers. I shrugged it off and paid attention to Twilight.

She was blinking, but it didn’t really seem like anything her friends were saying was registering before she finally coughed and made to sit up, instantly pushed down onto her back by Rainbow so she didn’t injure herself further. Applejack reached out her foreleg and pushed down one of the buttons on the side of Twilight’s hospital bed, moving her head up so she could see all of us. I saw her eyes roam around the group, yet stop on me. I raised an eyebrow–which made my head hurt–and returned her gaze.

The staring contest went on for a few moments before something finally snapped.

A tear squeezed out the side of the princess’s eye, rolling down her cheek and falling onto the white bedding beneath it. Then another followed. She let out a choking sob, and the torrent was unleashed. Through her blubbering I could make out two, loosely defined words;

“I’m sorry.”

* [] * [] *

After all her friends said hello and backed out of the room, I was left alone, staring at Twilight. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me, sniffing slightly. I sighed and grabbed the rims of my wheelchair and rolled over to her bedside, placing the brakes down again once I got there and laying my leg on her bedside table.

“Shit, you look awful,” I said, making small circles on the table. When neither of us spoke, I decided to ask the question that had been weighing down on my conscience ever since I had awoken. “... did I do that?” She shook her head and rolled it to the side, looking me in the eyes.

“I don’t… know.” Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. I sighed again. Princess Celestia coughed from the corner.

“You both don’t remember because it wasn’t exactly you fighting.” We both looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“... what?”

“All inhabitants of this world have chaotic magic running through their body. It’s a way to balance out one’s emotions and feelings. However, in dire situations, one can tap into their own reserve and become something that they are not, with no recollection of what had happened.”

“But our situation wasn’t dire,” I interjected, gesturing to Twilight and back at myself, “... wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was,” Celestia glared at Twilight, who shrunk back into the bedding. “She obviously wanted to kill you. If she hadn’t… well… let’s just say I noticed a significant gift from both of you. Around your first days here.” She got up and paced around the room. “Upon your arrival, I did an impromptu magical scan on you, Adrian, because I wasn’t sure if you were friend or foe yet.

“I noticed a strong potential for harnessing one’s own chaos magic, and that was the main reason I sent you to the Crystal Empire, to protect you while having you keep your distance from my subjects.”

“‘Course it’s a Chekhov’s Gun,” I mumbled under my breath. “But what about Twilight? Why did she forget?”

“She has the same gift as you,” Celestia replied, standing in front of us once again. She sat back down and leaned back, popping muscles in the process. “Both of you are able to think on your hooves, and when you fail to do even that your body takes over your mental capacities, thereby leading you to lose control.”

I glanced over at Twilight again, who was having more or less the same reaction.

“Back to the matter at hand, what compelled you to attack me in the first place?” She fidgeted slightly, wincing as she became acquainted with her bandages and splints, the most prominent being around the wing that I broke during our fight in the arena.

“I… I don’t really know. Spur of the moment?”

“Could all of this,” I gestured at my bandages as well as hers, “be ‘spur of the moment?’” She pulled the covers up above her snout and looked downwards, appearing saddened.

“Something happened that morning,” she began, “in the library. After I teleported you to Canterlot, everything went downhill.”

* [] * [] *

“Alright, hold onto your horn,” I mused, preparing the spell. A lavender glow wrapped around my horn and my wings flexed instinctively.

“I know the drill,” the unicorn in front of me chuckled. Adrian shifted to the side, his ripped, gray coat shifting slightly as he moved. I shook it off and laughed.

“‘Course you do.” The spell fired and there was a blinding flash of light, and Adrian was gone. I sighed and took a step back, rubbing my temples. I glanced around the room and trotted back to my desk, ruffling some notes around and looking at one in particular. The neat, black ink of my own hoofwriting was jumping off the page, reminding me of my limited capabilities.

“Subject seems to pass his illusionary magic onto the ponies he comes into contact with, making them look strange to others.”

I leaned back and sat down in a chair, reclining back and looking up at the ceiling. My brain toyed around with my thoughts for a few moments, changing some words around and thinking of new theories to Adrian’s strange condition, as well as how he was brought to Equus in the first place, much less how he became a pony during his relocation.

However, my thoughts were interrupted by knocking at the door to the library. I grumbled something having to do with coffee and glanced over at the entrance.

“Come in…” I halfheartedly called. The door swung open and the Element of Generosity herself trotted in, her snout to the floor, a blue glow surrounding her horn. She levitated something in behind her.

“Hello, darling. Here are the books that I bro-”

Rarity froze. I raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… what?” was my only response. I started to get up and the white unicorn flinched.

Then, like had happened many times before, she ran away, screaming.

“Son of a…” I slapped a purple hoof against my face and ruffled my wings. The princesses and I had been making progress, lots of it. But Tartarus if it wasn’t getting on my nerves, the constant screams of the ponies that Adrian encountered, the fact that they wouldn’t listen to any sort of explanation for his condition, much less what happened when Applejack, Rainbow Dash, or even myself spent too much time around him.

But I remembered that the sooner we could get Adrian home, the sooner ponies would stop their strange behavior, and things could go back to normal in Equestria. Yet, as I had grown to expect from my five years living in Ponyville, it was never meant to be.

A butter yellow pegasus flew into the door and immediately started looking around for me.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy called, still not noticing me sitting in plain sight by the desk. “I saw Dash flying away and she looked awful! Do yo-EEEEEPP!”

And she was out the door. This was getting old.

My mind wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Screw waiting,” I grumbled. “This ends today.”

* [] * [] *

“And…” Twilight finished, rubbing a hoof along the side of her neck, “that’s pretty much what happened.” I looked down at the princess, her fur matted with tears, realizing that she truly was sorry for what had happened.

“Twilight,” another voice from the other side of the room announced. I stole a glance over and realized it came from Princess Celestia, who had stood up and was now staring mindlessly out of one of the windows. “I’m very disappointed in you.”

“I realize that,” the purple alicorn replied. I sighed and patted her hoof with mine, noticing a small smile plaster itself upon her face.

“But,” the Princess of the Sun said again, “I cannot be angry at you or your actions, mainly because of the circumstances that led to your acts. If Adrian had been able to relate to others like a normal pony, I would most certainly have stripped you of your title of princess.” I could feel Twilight’s skin grow colder at that mention and she shivered slightly. “But, I cannot. You acted the way that your instinct told you to and wanted above all else to protect our subjects. I commend you for risking yourself to do that.”

“Thank you, Princess,” Twilight replied. Her eyes were closed in shame.

“As for you, Adrian,” I looked up and into the Princess’s eyes. “Once you have recovered you are free to move about as a regular citizen of Equestria.” I grinned. “Now, I have an appointment with the Solar Court in a half an hour, and I need to prepare a couple stacks of notes. I imagine you two have much to discuss.”

And with a flash, the white alicorn was gone, the sound from her teleportation spell fading away as the echoes dissipated. I decided to break the silence.

“So...”

“Yeah.”

“What happens now?”

“I still have to run tests on you.”

“Dammit.”

* [] * [] *

Four black-clad hooves echoed throughout the massive hallway as they ran towards a large atrium at the end where many figures were huddled around one table. The figures turned their attention to the approaching pony and rolled their eyes exasperatedly.

“You’re late.”

The hooves slowed but did not stop, instead bringing the pony they belonged to up to the edge of the table. She placed his forelegs on the top for a brace and caught her breath before replying.

“I’m sorry, Master. What is the news?”

“Good, to say the least.” The figure the voice belonged to, a short, small orb of seemingly dark energy, sounded crass and deep, cutting through the silence of the hall like a knife. “Celestia has found the weakness and has filled it.”

“I thought you had said the weakness could not be discovered.”

“I also had stated that our empire would never fall. I don’t think my record is exactly crystal clear.”

“How does Celestia finding the weakness help us in literally any way?” Another pony spoke up, this one a unicorn. His yellow eyes flicked around the circle before coming to rest again on the ball of energy.

“The illusionary magic instilled on his body upon his arrival on this planet had been obtained from the ambient magical diffusal field surrounding the atmosphere. This magic has hidden the planet from all other forms of life on other worlds, intelligent or not. Due to the memory spell Veil had been oh-so-gracious to lend me, I was able to find out that yes, his culture was developed, even more so than current Equestrian culture.”

“What does the Field have to do with anything?”

“Well, for one, we now know that our theory is correct,” another pony replied, his voice sounding droll and dragged out.

“That alone is good news. Reading his memories and figuring out his fears and adversities, we decided to go with our Plan C. For any who don’t remember,” a beam of light shot out of the ball of energy and a piece of parchment materialised on the table. “Our plan was simple, upon his arrival implant magical energy into his being, remove some of his choice memories, and then deliver him to Equestria.

“But now, the implanted magical energy on his being has been tampered with, by Celestia no less, who has figured out the secret to the energy’s persistence and has decided to use special nullification rings around the subject’s horn to remove the visible effects. Citrine had asked how this could help us in any way. It’s very simple. Remember our first drafted plan, Plan A?”

A new picture materialised onto the table, this one with a large ‘X’ at the top right corner. “This one called for us to tap into his mind with magic and control him by one of us, thereby helping us in our endeavors. However, the one problem with this plan was that there was no way for any one of us, especially me, to be near enough to the subject at all times, as the spell requires a minimum distance between the user and the subject.”

“We are still too far away, and all the problems remain,” Citrine replied, glancing away from the drawing and to the ball of energy. “How does this change anything?”

For a moment, two green eyes materialised on the face of the ball of energy, purple tails of flame coming out of the corners.

“My horn is contained in the rings. I am now closer to his mind than anypony else could ever hope to be.”

Author's Note:

Look, I know her reasoning is awful. I told you not to read this part. Not my fault you didn't listen.

Comments

[Closet-Bronie-333]

oh come on to short

[damnaion]

dam this is good

[Humbucker]

My nickname is art. So yeah.

[Vitae]

Last chapter I kept remembering the part where their hooves smacked together and I keep thinking....the brohoof of quantum singularites it's stupid I know but still