Gate of Friendship

by StoriesofAShadow

Chapter 15: Paranoia and Pinkie Sense

Yet another week has past after Hoity was here. Me and Twilight went on one of the hills in town since she wanted to try transformation spells, like turning nature objects into articles of clothing or accessories. Can you guess who the test subject was? If you thought or said “you” than you would be correct.

“Alright, Trevor, for this to work we both need to concentrate,” Twilight said.

“Simple enough,” I commented.

Lies. This is gonna be a nightmare and a half.

But that didn't mean I wasn't gonna try. When Twilight closed her eyes and her horn began to glow, I tried to concentrate on what to transform the leaves into. In a few seconds the leaves turned into a tuxedo, the stick turned into a fancy cane, but when it came to the rock, however, something interrupted my concentration and caused the rock to revert back in mid-transformation, earning me a smack on the head by it.

Blast it.

“Trevor, this magic needs our full attention to make it happen, there's no other way,” Twilight said.

“Sorry, couldn't help it,” I said as I rubbed where the rock hit.

When I searched for what had distracted me, I saw Pinkie Pie hiding behind a tree a couple yards away.

Well, well, well.

“What is it?”

“Something that you need to see as well.”

Twilight walked up next to me just in time to see Pinkie Pie look up at the sky as she hid next to a tree and then run underneath a deck just to peek up at the sky again.

What is.... what?

Pinkie Pie then zipped to a rock and somehow hid underneath it with some “cartoon magic” mahogany and took yet another peek at the sky, then she just ran into town.

“Ugh. Never mind her, she's just being Pinkie Pie.”

“She seems paranoid about something. But what?”

I followed Pinkie Pie, Twilight behind me, until she stopped moving in the middle of the street.

“Pinkie Pie, what in the wide, wide world of Equestria are you up to?”

“Oh, it's my tail. It's-a twitchin' twitchin', and you know what that means,” Pinkie Pie said.

Thar be trouble a-brewin'?

“Actually, Pinkie, I haven't the slightest idea.”

"The twitchin' means my Pinkie Sense is telling me that stuff's gonna start falling! You should better duck for cover."

I looked around us, seeing if there were any gray clouds or loose flower shelves outside of bedroom windows, but didn't see either of those things around us. Instead, I saw Fluttershy flying about a couple yards away with a cart of some kind of green mass in it, but I was pretty sure that the cart wouldn't be it, Fluttershy seemed to be too careful for something like that to happen.

"Are you sure, Pinkie Pie? I'm not seeing anything," I said.

"Uh huh, my Pinkie Sense has never been wrong before."

Better safe than sorry, I looked up in the sky again and saw a small green object fall off of Fluttershy's cart and heading straight for Twilight.

"Watch out."

Before waiting for a reply, I quickly pushed Twilight out of the way and got a frog to land on my head as a reward. I looked up and saw the frog looking back at me before it croaked.

"He just said 'nice catch' in Frog."

"Good to know," I muttered a bit irritatedly.

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry. You okay, Trevor? I just couldn't stand to see the pond getting so over-populated, what with the frogs all hopping into each other and all, so I decided to fly as many as I can on over to Froggy Bottom Bogg," Fluttershy said, flying closer to us with a cart full of frogs behind her.

"Really now? I couldn't tell. You want this thing back? I don't think he like me much."

"Oh, yes please."

I grabbed the frog and threw back on the cart, the frog looking none too happy that I manhandled him the way I did.

"Bye-bye!" Fluttershy quietly said before taking off again.

"C'mon Trevor, let's continue our practice session where there's a little less commotion," Twilight said with some spite in her tone.

"Um, okay," I hesitantly replied.

Twilight began to walk away from Pinkie Pie with a mild look of spite, without even saying a goodbye to her, and I walked beside her. I waited until Pinkie Pie was out of hearing range before I spoke to Twilight.

"That was pretty impressive, Pinkie predicting the future. Didn't know she could do that."

"Oh, come on. She said that something would fall, and a frog just happened to fall right around the same time. A coincidence, nothing else to it."

"I usually go by the 'three strike' rule. One's a fault, two's a coincidence, three's a pattern. But nonetheless, that was still impressive."

Pinkie Pie ran past us like a bullet and stopped in front of us, her backside facing more towards us than he head, showing us that her tail was twitching in every which way possible, though me and Twilight didn't stop walking.

"My tail! My tail! Twitch-a-twitch! Twitch-a-twitch! Somethin' else is gonna fall!" Pinkie Pie loudly told us.

Once again I took a quick look at my surroundings, this time only a ditch a couple feet ahead of us being a problem.

"Oh, Pinkie, please. Nothing else is gonna fa-AAAH!" Twilight began to say before she tripped into the aforementioned ditch.

Maybe I should have told her about that... Nah.

"Twilight, are you okay? Wait, Pinkie, was she the falling thing?"

"Yep,” Pinkie Pie confirmed.

Pinkie Pie then proceeded to hop away, humming some song as she did. When I saw that Twilight was still laying down in the ditch, I walked in the ditch my self and extended my right arm with an open hand in front of her.

“Need some help?”

She put her front left hoof in my hand and I pulled her back up.

“Uh, Twilight and Trevor? Why are you hanging out in a ditch?” Applejack asked from the other side of the ditch.

“Pinkie Pie predicted that something would fall, and that something was Twilight.”

“Trevor, she did not. Two coincidences in a row like this may be unlikely, but it's still easier to believe than twitchy tails that predict the future,” Twilight retorted.

“Really? 'Cause I'm from a completely different world, twitchy tails that predict the future shouldn't be too impossible.”

Before Twilight could argue me any further, Applejack interrupted us with a very loud gasp.

“Twitchy tail? Pinkie Sense?” Applejack repeated.

Sweat began to drip down her face as she looked cautiously around for anything that could fall.

“Don't worry, it's already passed, like I said.”

“Oh, wait. Don't tell me you believe in this stuff too Applejack?” Twilight asked.

“I know it doesn't make much sense, but those of us who have been in Ponyville a while have learned over time that, if Pinkie's-a-twichin', you better listen,” Applejack informed us.

"Wait, so this isn't anything new?" I asked.

“Nope, it's been goin' on ever since Pinkie Pie moved in with the Cakes.”

“Well then. This is all news to me, probably would've been nice to be informed of this earlier.”

Except it really wasn't. I knew about Pinkie's ability for some time, thanks to good ol' fashioned internet videos of the episodes. Though her abilities were the only thing I truly remembered about the episode. Me and Twilight got out of the ditch to Applejack's side of the road, and as soon as we stepped foot on the stone Pinkie Pie showed up out of nowhere.

“My ears are flopping! My ears are flopping!” She yelled as her ears were... well, flopping up and down repeatedly.

“Which means what?”

“I'll start a bath for you,” Pinkie Pie said to Twilight.

Pinkie Pie began to walk away, a sad look now on her face. Me and Twilight looked at each other for a moment, both of us confused on what exactly she meant by that.

“Huh? Ha ha ha, A bath? This thing keeps on getting more ridiculous by the minute!” Twilight mocked.

As fate would have it, Scootaloo rode down the road we were on with her scooter. As soon as she began to pass us, her left wheels hit a mud puddle that was right next to us, causing a small wave of mud to head right for me and Twilight. I didn't expect the wave to come at me, so my reaction was a bit slow, giving the mud a chance to let itself cover my lower arms and hands as well as everything below that.

At least I won't be the only one covered in mud.

When I looked over to where Twilight was, I saw the wave of mud at her feet and no trace of mud hitting her at all. That's when I got on my knees and pointed to the sky with my head held high.

“What did I do to you to deserve this!? It's because I like metal, isn't it!?”

“Uh, who're you shoutin' at?” Applejack asked.

“God.”

“You mean Celestia?”

“No, those are two completely different entities. Well than again...”

“I think I get the idea.”

Heh, even the farmers here don't want anything competing against their traditional religion.

“Okay, fair enough. Guess I should get washed up; you coming Twilight?”

“Sure, maybe I can convince you yet that this 'Pinkie Sense' is just a string of unlikely coincidence,” Twilight said smugly.

You keep telling yourself that.

Twilight and I went upstairs when we got to the bakery, as instructed by Mr. Cake, and saw Pinkie Pie putting soap in the filled bath as we passed the second door on the left. I knocked on the doorway to get Pinkie's attention, and it seemed to have worked.

“Oh good, you're here, I have the bathtub ready and everything!” Pinkie Pie said.

“Good, now you two wait outside while I take my bath.”

“Why would we need to do that?” Twilight asked.

“Because I'm going to take off my clothes so they don't get wet when I get in the bathtub.”

“I don't think I'm seeing your point.”

“I'm going to be naked,” I flatly said.

“We're naked as well, Trevor. The only reason we ever dress up is either for a special occasion or if we just want to.”

She had a good point, though I was very tempted to play the species card at that point, but decided against it since she probably had three more cards stashed away, ready to be used against me.

“Fine, you win. At least let me get in the bath in peace.”

I closed the door behind me before any of them could retort or accept my statement and walked to the bathtub. Once I was undressed and in the warm bathtub, I called out to the girls that I was ready. As expected, they slammed the door open, yet walked calmly towards the bathtub. They first saw my legs, which were half out of the bathtub and half in due to the size of the bathtub, and then looked to my face, casting a suspicious glance their way. Inside my head I thanked Pinkie Pie for having so much bubbles in the bathtub to avoid glancing eyes.

“Okay, so I'm a bit curious, how does this Pinkie Sense of yours works?” I asked.

“Sooo, basically, it works like this: I get different, little, niggling feelings and they mean different things. Like when my back is itchy, it means it's my lucky day. And, when my knee gets pinchy, that means something scary's about to happen,” Pinkie Pie explained.

“Is anything happening now?”

“No, but my shoulder's achy. That means there's an alligator in the tub.”

“What!?”

As the words left my mouth, I felt something bite the left side of my stomach. I almost leaped out of the bathtub in surprise, but stopped myself just before my stomach could rise to the surface. The bite wasn't tearing into my flesh as I thought it was, but instead was a soft clamp. After lowering myself down, I felt where I was bit and felt what I presumed were scales, grabbed a hold of it, and lifted it up as hard as I could. What I pulled up was none other than Pinkie' pet Gator.

“What's this?”

“This is my pet alligator, Gummy. He's got no teeth. See?” Pinkie Pie asked as she took the alligator away from me and showed me it's toothless gums.

“Make sure you keep him that way, I don't want to loose one of my kidneys or stomach if I ever come back in this bathtub.”

Twilight and Pinkie Pie giggled at my half-joke, and set Gummy on the floor.

“So it kind of works how my Paranoia Senses work. Good to know,” I thought aloud.

“Paranoia Sense?” Twilight asked.

“Yep. It's like a small voice in the back of my head, telling me of what could be around me and what could happen if I don't confirm or deny it.”

It didn't work exactly like that, I'll admit. But if I went to go into every detail, the conversation may stray from what Paranoia Sense is to what my mental state truly is.

“Are you serious, Trevor?”

“Aye, I am. I've had this for... some time. How do you think I survived my late night trip into Everfree?”

“Hmm. If what you're saying is true, and if it is connected to Pinkie's 'Pinkie Sense,' than I'd like to do a few tests on you.”

“As long as you don't put me in a box filled with neurotoxins, I'm okay.”

“It won't be anything like that. Just some brain waves tests, maybe something else.”

“Well that seems simple enough. Sure, we'll do that here in a few minutes, once I make sure I get this mud off me.”

It didn't take long for me to get all the mud off. Just a few dips of my head into the water, along with curling up my body to make sure my entire body was in the water, and I seemed as clean as I was before I was splashed with mud. After somewhat-politely asking the girls to leave, I got out, dried myself off and got my clothes back on, and met the girls outside the bakery. As we walked towards Twilight's house, I wondered what experiments Twilight had in store for me. Although she could just be doing exactly what she said she would do, it pays to always think ahead and prepare yourself for when that possibility becomes a reality. Most of the things I thought of ended in me loosing a body part, usually something small like a finger or a toe, or my organs exploding after expanding beyond the breaking point.

“Trevor!” Twilight loudly called out.

“What? I asked, instinctively turning my head to the side Twilight was on.

When I didn't find her there, I looked back and found out that I was about a good three yards away from them.

Guess my body went on autopilot.

“I didn't know you were so excited for this test, you seemed a bit hesitant after the first time.”

She wasn't wrong on that. After Trixie's trip to town, Twilight asked me to be the subject for multiple spells. But some of the spells that she wanted to test on me were... questionable at best. My personal favorite one was the “Inside-Out” spell. The spell itself is self-explanatory, and the reason Twilight wanted to test it out on me specifically so that she could write down the anatomy of a human body. Since I wanted to keep all of the blood in my body and continue to live, I refused her, albeit a bit rudely.

When we got inside the house a few minutes later we went down into the basement. I never went into the basement, believe it or not. Multiple times I was tempted to go into it, but whenever I heard Twilight giggling or the sound of multiple vials clanking around at once, I was a bit put off by the idea of going down there. As soon as I saw the iron restraints for the arms and the brainwave machine, I wanted to leave.

“Okay Trevor, just put on that helmets and put your arms in those cuff, then we can begin testing,” Twilight instructed.

Reluctantly, I did as Twilight had said, and she locked in the cuffs once my arms were in.

“So what exactly will this accomplish?”

“This studies your brainwaves and your pulse, so if this 'Paranoia Sense' of yours really exists, than this will pick it up.”

“Alright, maybe I'll make you believe yet. Let 'er rip.”

When she pulled a lever on the small bronze machine, I could see the light coming from the inside of the helmet out of the corner of my eyes and feel the cuffs tighten up even more, cutting off the circulation in my wrists. The machine began spitting out paper with a red and blue zig-zag line. The lines seemed to go in a relatively ordinary pattern, I assumed it was anyway, it could have been completely off the scale for all I knew. But, since Twilight didn't seem perplexed, I guessed everything was okay.

After a few minutes had passed with no different pattern coming up, Twilight began tapping her front right hoof and her left eye began to slightly twitch.

“Are you feeling anything strange, Trevor?” Twilight asked.

“No, not at the moment, or at anytime during the test for that matter. I think you may hav--” I said.

My words were cut off by the door slamming open, instantly catching my attention. When I saw that it was just Spike just seeing what we were doing, I looked back over to the machine and saw that the lines had spiked tremendously for about five seconds before returning to normal. I looked to Twilight who must have seen the results herself, now wide-eyed and mouth open as far as it could go.

“I told you,” I flatly said with a smirk.

“One test does not prove everything. I have a few more tests in mind to see if you really do have something like Pinkie does.”

So you do believe that Pinkie Sense does exist?

I decided against saying the thought, not wanting to prolong the tests and Twilight's patience of this whole thing further. The next test seemed simple at first, sitting in a chair with hands strapped down with leather straps and wait for Twilight to find the right spell to trigger certain things in my mind. Totally not a torture method or anything.

“I think I've found the right spell. All you need to do is to stay still, Trevor,” Twilight said, turning towards me with her horn glowing.

“Ha ha, very funny. Just don't dive into my mind, you won't like what you see,” I replied.

“I'll try not to.”

Twilight then fired a thin purple beam into my head. I could feel it slowly pierce through my skull and into my brain, surprisingly not painful but instead it just felt like a worm crawling on your skin. When the beam first touch my brain my entire body jumped back, causing the chair to begin to fall. After jerking my entire body forward, I managed to keep the chair on the ground again, but the beam started to run across my mind wildly, touching different parts every few seconds.

“Twilight, is this suppose to happen?”

“Is what suppose to happen?”

I then notice that Twilight's horn had stopped glowing and that there was no magical beam to be seen.

This isn't going to end well.

“You got that right,” an eerie voice said.

Next to Twilight, who seemed oblivious of the voice, was Rix with his scythe in his hands. I pushed myself and the chair back a few feet.

“Y-you're not real, you're just an il-l-lusion,” I stammered.

“Trevor, who are you talking to?” Twilight asked nervously.

“You would think that, but you would be terribly wrong. I am actually here, but no one else can hear or see me. So, we're going to have some fun since that little flea John interrupted us last time,” Rix continued.

“Why should I trust you? You're a demon!” I shouted.

“I'm not just a demon, just so you know. Also, demons don't lie all the time, just sometimes.”

“That's comforting. It's also comforting to know that you can't actually hurt me.”

Rix raised an eyebrow and began to walk towards me, slowly twirling his scythe.

“Trevor, whatever you're seeing is not real, it's just a side effect of the spell being interrupted,” Twilight comforted.

“I kinda figured that out already.”

When Rix towered over me he slammed the the middle the the scythe on my fingers, causing a few bones in my fingers to crack. Thankfully none of of the bones broke, but it hurt too much to hold back a yell nonetheless.

“Do you believe me now!?” Rix yelled.

“Trevor, what's wrong!?” Twilight loudly asked.

I didn't respond to either of them, being more worried about calming myself down and trying to banish Rix's image from my mind held my tongue.

It's all in my head. If I don't look at Rix attacking me, it won't hurt me.

As I came to that conclusion, I closed my eyes and slowly leaned my head back until it touched the top of the chair. For a few seconds I didn't hear Rix laughing or yelling at me, though the pain still surged through me hands. Then those semi-blissful moments were destroyed, along with the nerves in my other hand when Rix put the spiked end of the stick in it. Another of my screams echoed through the house as Rix laughed. I think Twilight and Pinkie Pie said something, but their words were drowned out.

“Get me out! GET ME OUT!” I screamed at Twilight and Pinkie.

The two began to run to me as fast as they could, almost knocking everything in their path in the process. When the two were a few inches away from me, Rix swung at them with his scythe and knocked them into the wall like they were baseballs. He turned back to me with a large grin on my face.

“Now we won't have anymore interruptions,” Rix said.

“What do you plan to do with me?” I asked, catching back my nerve and biting off groans of pain.

“My plan? This ain't my plan, boy. If this was my plan, you'd be dead by now and sent to Hell. No, you're going to fight me or die trying!”

He cut off the straps that bound me with two quick swings, nearly cutting my arms in the process. I knew I couldn't beat Rix alone, especially bare-handed, but if I could get to his weapon, it probably would even the odds. Plus, I wanted some revenge for what he did to me now and from before. So being the completely sane person that I think myself to be, I gave Rix a left jab to his cheek, causing him to stagger a couple steps. When I ran towards Rix, I quickly grabbed the scythe and tried to yank it out of his hand, but after I tugged once, Rix sent a strong punch to my stomach, knocking most of the wind out of me. I fell to the floor, hands on my chest and desperately trying to get in some breaths of air. While I was now vulnerable, Rix smacked me it the back of the head with the blunt end of his scythe, knocking down whatever part of me that wasn't on the ground.

“Pathetic,” Rix said with a sigh.

“I'll show you who's pathetic!” I loudly retorted back, grabbing Rix's right leg and violently pulling back as I rose up to my knees.

I quickly got on top of Rix as he fell to the ground and punched him in the throat a couple times before trying to grab his scythe from him again. This time I managed to take it away from him and lunged the spear-end at Rix's head. Rix moved out of the way before the spear managed to hit him, and kicked me in the face as soon as the spear was in the ground. I pulled the scythe out of the ground as I took a step back, letting the sting of pain take its course before earning more hurt from a punch to my left cheek. Opening my eyes until they were slits, I slashed wildly at Rix, trying to cut him up into pieces but only saw him move around my attacks with ease. After the sixth failed swing, Rix grabbed the scythe and punched me in the throat hard enough to knock me to the ground. That's when I quickly spun the scythe around and threw the spear in front of me blindly, guessing that Rix would the try to strangle me. When I heard a grunt, I opened my eyes and saw Rix with the spear in his chest, pinned to the wall.

“You think that this will hold me?” Rix asked with a grin on his face.

“No. It'll give me enough time to get my own weapon though,” I replied.

As soon as the words left my mouth I sprinted towards the stairs as fast as I could, knocking over several vials on the way. As I looked back, I saw Rix pulling the spear out of his body and ran towards me, quickly catching up with me. When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw that Spike had left the door opened when he checked in on us, good fortune for me in the end. I sprinted as fast as I could towards the door, almost loosing my footing or tripping over my long legs a couple times when I made it about halfway. The sound of Rix's footsteps sounded closer to me than I had wanted to be, though at least if I was able to make it to the door I would be able to close it and maybe even slam it in his face. When I reached for the door handle, something hit me on the left side with a strong enough force to knock me over the railing and to the ground below.

Course I would have a demon that uses a cursed customized scythe as his weapon.

As I picked myself off the ground, I looked back and saw Rix charging at me head-first.

If I'm going to survive this, I'm gonna have to get better at fighting. Very quickly too.

Rix swung his scythe at my skull when he was close enough to stab me with the nail. I ducked down and moved to the left, running forward as soon as the scythe was away from my head. Grabbing the back of Rix's shirt with both my hands, I rammed his head into the wall, making him drop the scythe. The strength of Rix's skull along with me forcing it into the wall made a decent sized hole in the wall, similar to what Rix did to Twilight and Pinkie Pie. I attempted to slam his throat on one of the sharp points that were around the hole, but Rix's resistance left us in a deadly stalemate. After a little while, Rix began to slowly rise up despite me trying to push down harder as he rose. Suddenly, Rix grabbed my wrists, pulled my arms away and slammed the back of his head into my face. His head felt like it could have been made from steel from the pain that surged through my head and the blood now going down my nose. I did a quick shake of my head before I threw a punch at Rix, now facing me. He ducked under it and ran towards me, grabbing me at the stomach and kept running until he crashed me into the machine. As I tried to get my upper torso off the machine, Rix grabbed both my wrists and headbutted me again.

“That wasn't half bad, but you could still do better,” Rix mocked.

“Why do you do this to me?” I asked, spitting some blood out of my mouth.

“Does it really matter why? Your people don't seem to care why us demons do things and just blame it on our nature.”

“And is that the reason? Because of your evil nature?”

“No. It's because I have my orders, and I live to have as much fun with my work as possible.”

“I'm not going to let you kill me.”

“Kill you? Ha! You don't need to die just yet. We still have plans for you, and you're going to do those plans.”

“What makes you so sure of yourself?”

“Because I didn't become a king for nothing. You'll give in to me, everyone does eventually.”

“Then I'll have to be the first.”

I spat some blood in his right eye. He didn't seemed to be phased by it at all, and just growled at me with a smile. He let go of my right wrist and went to choke me, but I threw a quick punch to his face before he even got the chance to put his fingers around my neck. When the first punch didn't get him off me, I added a couple more hits, sending him to the floor next to the machine. I quickly rose up and put a foot to his throat, pressing down hard enough to choke him.

“Go back where you belong demon!” I shouted.

“T-T-Trevor.”

It wasn't Rix's voice that came out of him, but instead it sounded a lot like Twilight's. Thinking myself mistaken, I violently shook my head a couple times and saw that Rix was now gone, and instead was Twilight who was under my foot, still choking and looking to be nearly unconscious. I immediately took my foot off her and fell to the ground in shock, quickly scooting back a couple feet in horror of what I was doing.

What – what's going on? Where did Rix go? Was he really just an illusion? If that's the case, then... By Gorlog's braided beard.

Twilight slowly got up and looked at me, not with anger but with concern. I can only imagine what she saw me as. A scared and shaking child perhaps.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered nervously.

It truly could have been a new trick from Rix that I had never seen before, though the thought never passed my mind at that time. I kept looking at Twilight, Pinkie Pie now walking up to her with fear written on her face. Who knows what those two were trying to do to help me, but I repaid them with hostile attacks and nearly killing one of them.

“I forgive you, Trevor. Just stand still and remember that whatever else you see is a fake. It's not actually there,” Twilight softly reassured.

Her body began to turn into a goo-like substance, slowly building up and turning black to make Rix, grinning at me with his weapon back in his hands.

“You're going to Hell,” he said.

“It's not real,” I said to myself.

“You keep telling yourself that, kid. I am real, and have been for thousands of years now.”

He struck his scythe into the ground and a large crack ran out of it, heading straight to me. Inside the crack was a white fire with shadow-like demonic figures coming out to grab me.

“IT'S NOT REAL! IT'S NOT REAL!”

Not wanting to mess up whatever Twilight wanted to do, I held me ground and kept watching the figures coming in closer, chanting to myself over and over that none of it was real. The first shadow that got out of the crack slowly approaching me, almost looking like he was studying me. When the demon approach closer to me, he opened his hand and slowly put it across my face. As soon as it did that, everything froze in place. The flames didn't roar, the demons halted their movements, like all of time had come to a stand still. After a moments of pure silence, the demons were sucked back into the flames, the hole came back together whole, and Rix changed into dark ooze which eventually became Twilight.

“Is.... is it all over?” I asked.

“That depends, what do you see? Is everything how it's suppose to be?” Twilight asked.

I looked around, seeing the hole in the wall where I had slammed Rix into and that the machine was still broken. Other than that, there were no real changes to be seen.

“Things seem normal. What did you do to fix all of it?”

“I used the same spell as I did before, but managed to reverse the effects that were caused when I lost control.”

“I'm glad you did. I thought I was going to die a few times there.”

“What exactly did you see that made you so terrified?”

“A demon, my demon tried to kill me in order to make me a better fighter.”

“Why would it do that?” Pinkie Pie asked, almost forgetting that she was in the room.

“I don't know why he would do that. But he's gone now, and that's all that matters.”

“We also proved that your Paranoia Sense is real!”

“Not necessarily,” Twilight commented.

“Oh come on. You saw the chart spike when the door opened and saw what happened when your magic tampered with that part of my mind,” I spitefully said.

“It touched multiple parts of your minds, causing some sort of chain reaction to start giving you illusions.”

“There's still the chart.”

“One shred of evidence doesn't prove that you have some sort of sixth sense.”

“Then what else would you have me do to prove it to you?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin and looked around tat the vials and other machines in her lab.

“I think I have a few ideas.”

Twilight lead me and Pinkie Pie to an empty field about a quarter mile from Fluttershy's house. She told us on the way there that her plan was to have me stare out into the Everfree and try to predict where she and Pinkie would come from as they tried to tag me.

“I'm pretty sure my paranoia sense can't accurately predict where you two are at when I can't see you,” I explained.

“Maybe not with perfect accuracy, but me and Pinkie Pie will be invisible when we hide, courtesy of an old invisibility spell.”

“This should be pretty easy then. Wait, how will I know when to start looking for you two?”

“Here in a little bit. Pinkie Pie and me need time to go back far enough.”

“Fair enough. Let's get this over with.”

I turned to the forest, noticing the small entrance of where I went in the last time I was at the Everfree. As I stared into the forest, I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that dark clouds began to roll into the area, like a terrible storm was about to start. But when I looked up in the sky to see if this was any of Rainbow Dash's doing, I saw that there was no pegasi at all. At first I had simply shrugged it off as Rainbow Dash doing quick work, but then I saw something dark come from within the forest. It was some sort of ring of darkness, going through the ground and the sky. When it passed through me, I saw something within the forest for only a mere second. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it looked to be made out of old-looking stone. Out of curiosity, I got up and slowly walked towards the forest, trying to find out what exactly I saw. Another dark ring came out of the forest, growing bigger as it entered the outside world. Once again I saw the ancient object, now seeing that it was a single podium, about three feet tall and had something scribbled on it, but I couldn't read it fast enough before the ring passed beyond me.

What is this thing?

I was at the entrance of the forest when the third ring came out of the forest. This time I could that there were five podiums, each marked with something different, though I couldn't tell what the signs meant. Slowly, I began to walk into the forest. When I walked two steps in, I felt an electric charge suddenly go through my body for a second, shooting me back after it had taken its course. I got up to see what had shocked me, but found nothing but the road that went on ahead.

“Don't go,” a girl told me.

I turned to where the voice had come from and saw a raven on the ground, looking at me.

“What are you?” I asked it, not for sure if the raven was the perpetrator or not.

The raven cried at me then began to fly back out into the open.

“Do not worry, I am here. Don't go in.”

“I'm going to see what those things are, whether you want me to or not.”

“Don't go, I'm begging you.”

“You can beg all you want, your opinion doesn't mean anything to me.”

I grabbed a nearby rock and chucked it to the area where I was shocked and saw that the rock didn't suffer any punishment for wandering in that area. So I got back up and ran passed the rocks, feeling the electricity run through me again a few seconds later. Despite the pain, I managed to go about two steps further before getting shot back further than last time, and was now smelling like burnt meat.

“Let me through!” I shouted, looking around for the voice that was talking to me before.

“No. You can't go,” the voice replied.

“Why not? I've entered this forest before!”

“You carry an evil that would desecrate this place. You shall not enter until this evil is away from you.”

“If you want the demon in me gone, then exorcise him.”

“I do not know how to do this 'exorcise.' It is something you must do on your own.”

“Fine. But I will be back, you can be sure of that.”

“Trevor, who are you talking to?” Twilight asked.

The skies then instantly changed back to how they were before when I looked to Twilight and Pinkie Pie. Just like myself, they did not find the person I was talking to.

“No one. I was just talking to myself,” I lied.

“Really? Because it sounds like you were talking to someone.”

There goes my bluff.

“I'm pretty sure there's no one else here, otherwise you would see them.”

“You were having another illusion, weren't you?”

“I may or may not have been hallucinating. I thought you said you fixed it.”

“I thought I did too. Guess I'll have to use another spell to help you with that.”

“On no you don't. You're not digging around in my mind anymore. Just face it Twilight, my paranoia sense is real.”

“I highly doubt that, Trevor. I'm pretty sure hallucinations wasn't in the list of things your paranoia gives you.”

That was something we could have both agreed on. Paranoia, in my case anyway, was an extreme case of pessimism when it came to the future, trusting people, what people will think of me when I do this or that and the like. Sure, it helped giving me an upper hand in what to expect should it come true, but I always seemed to not think of the outcome that actually happens, making me question my mind and how good I was at truly knowing what is to come. For the most part I had it under control, but there were some moments in my life before I came to Equestria that I had absolutely lost control, which almost resulted in my own death a few times.

“Maybe it's a new power from it that I haven't realized yet. Like when I came to this place I didn't have wings, but now I do.”

“Those are two completely different things.”

“But you understand what I'm talking about, no?”

“No, because there's a huge difference between a psychical attribute that you got from however you came here and a mental ability that you've had for 'some time.'”

I was starting to get irritated now, even though I knew Twilight was right on that matter. Just when I was about to tell her that things like these can evolve, a somewhat baseless claim, until I noticed that Pinkie Pie's body was vibrating up and down like a jackhammer.

“Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?”

“It's my Pinkie Sense! But I've never gotten any like this before. Whatever that shudder's about, it's a doozy. Something you never expect to happen is gonna happen!” She explained.

“Where's it gonna be at?”

“It's gonna happen... at Froggy Bottom Bogg!”

“Isn't that where Fluttershy went to?” Twilight asked.

“By Gorlog's braided beard. We need to get there now, before something happens to her,” I said hurriedly.

“It's just a case of the shiv--”

“Twilight, I don't care if you're a skeptic on this or not. A friend is in danger and I'm gonna help them whether that danger is real or not. Now, where is Froggy Bottom Bogg from here?”

“It's north-east from here, just through the forest!” Pinkie Pie replied.

“I'd prefer a way not through the forest.”

“Why don't you want to go through the forest?” Twilight asked.

“Let's just say that during my hallucinations I saw something a bit shocking.”

“But it was just a hallucinations, whatever you saw ca--”

“Once you get to the Bogg, let me know with a signal of some kind,” I said as I ran along the side of the forest.

Twilight had said something with a semi-tone of a complaint, but I was too far away to hear or give a reply to it. Despite my long legs and decent running speed, my stamina is not the greatest when it comes to doing the same motion over and over again, like running next to a forest for about a mile for instance. In the distance I could see a sudden change from green and flush tress to dead trees with orange leaves constantly falling into brown swamp marshes. Once I had taken my first step into the marshlands, I reduced my running to a near-limp while taking in very deep breaths that were probably similar to the breaths one would make after being passed out for about a day. The first tree I passed by I sat down next to it, cursing myself for not doing more “psychical activities” back home.

No more running. Next time I meet Rainbow Dash, I'm gonna learn to fly so that I never have to deal with this again.

Granted, I was sure that using your wings would probably be very similar to running, except the air was your ground and your wings were your legs, but that particular thought didn't get much air before drowning back into the storage of my mind. I looked into the darkness of the Everfree forest, seeing strange shapes move around slowly, which almost greatly encouraged me to find somewhere else to lay down, but I just kept reminding myself that it could just be another illusion, or that it has no interest in me. I didn't know how I was gonna get rid of these illusions, nor did I know how those things even began, at least to the degree that they were at. The sound of a gunshot echoed through the forest, quickly following with a small purple light in the sky.

Guess that's the signal.

I slowly got up and walked to where the light had come from. Eventually I found a small dirt road and followed it until I saw Twilight and Pinkie Pie, standing next to Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy, it's glad to see that you're okay,” I said.

“Why wouldn't I be?” She asked.

“My Pinkie Sense told me that something big was going to happen, but I'm so glad everything's alright,” Pinkie Pie said.

I saw something out of the right corner of my eye, something big swimming around in the marshes. Thinking it was another trick of the mind, I didn't speak up to it or give it another glance. But then, a small part of it's head popped out from behind Twilight.

“Sorry, I know it's not nice to gloat but... AHA! I told you there was nothing to worry about, and I was right. Pinkie Pie said whatever she was shuddering about was a doozy, and the only doozy here is how right I am,” Twilight boasted.

The monster was now completely out of the water, though Twilight was still completely oblivious to it. It was an orange-scaled, four-headed hydra that breathed out a weird green smoke. It didn't seem poisonous, but seemed to make Twilight and the rest of us cough a bit. Perhaps it was just the beast's rancid breath.

“Uh, Twilight--” I began to warn.

“Pinkie's made a lot of predictions today but... ugh, what is that smell? But what we've shown here is that there's no point in believing in anything you can't see for yourself.”

“Oh really? Then what exactly is right behind you?”

Twilight looked back and saw what the rest of us had already seen, and was terrified like her friends.

“I see it... But I don't believe it!”

The hydra let out a mighty cry from its three heads, all acting as one voice for its terror.

“Book it!”

Twilight and Fluttershy were quick to get as far away from the monster as possible, me being close behind them. But then I saw that Pinkie Pie just stood there, quaking at the presence of the hydra. Whispering a quick curse, I completely turned around, grabbed Pinkie Pie by the tail and threw her in the direction Twilight and Fluttershy were headed, making sure she was turned the right way too. As I ran behind Pinkie, the hydra nearly took a bite out of my leg, but I jumped forward as the second head went after me, avoiding its attack by half a foot. During the chase, the bright blue sky began to wipe away into a unsettling darkness with the sound of thunder coming from it. The trees around us began to suddenly light ablaze, acting like big torches in the dark field. Out of the marshes came men and women who wore the swamp like it was their skin, their eye sockets completely hollow and teeth missing from their mouth. They called to me, wanting me to join them in the marshes below. Of course, I responded to them by running away from them and trying my best to ignore them. I didn't want to know what this new illusion had changed the hydra into, but judging by the fact it had roared the same roar as last time, it probably didn't change at all.

“Everypony up that hill!” Twilight yelled.

I knew that would be a bad idea. Even if it would slow the hydra down, the long neck would easily compensate for it and give it a chance to eat two or three of us. So, to increase my chances of not being eaten, I quickly looked around for some kind of weapon as I ran next to Pinkie Pie. Most of the weapons I passed by were either on fire, too weak to attack a hydra, or both. One of the marsh puddles had a man with a timberwolf bone stuck in its right eye, but his hand was worryingly close to it as well. I decided to take the chance and shifted myself near the man with the bone. As soon as I was next to him, I snatched the bone from his skull and managed to avoid his grabbing hand as well. Like the bone I had back at Twilight's house, the other end of the bone had sharp points where it had been snapped off.

Now what does our little friend look like now?

When I took my first step on the hill, I looked back and saw what the transformed hydra looked like. It still kept true to what it was, but the heads were more monstrous, almost like a worm head with a shark-like set of teeth and was three times bigger than before. The legs were no longer there, instead in its place was a big serpent's tail with aquamarine scales. The head on the far right charged at me, mouth opened to swallow me whole as if I were a mere crumb to it, but I rolled to the left and quickly got back up to start running again. The head crashed into the hill, leaving a big crater in its wake with a roar as it went back to the others.

This is going to be a suicide mission, isn't it?

Whether this new form of the hydra could hurt the girls or not I didn't know for sure, but I wasn't willing to take the chance of letting the hydra eat or hurt any of them. So, I decided to be the suicidal anti-hero that I knew in my mind I wasn't, but desperate times call for desperate measures. As much as I don't care about the life and death of others, the lives of my friends is a completely different story. Their lives I put above my own, though I've had my arguments with them, Rainbow Dash and Twilight in particular, they were still my friends through and through.

“Come and get me!” I yelled at the hydra.

“Trevor, what are you doing!?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“Make sure you write down my story for the next guy that comes here!”

That's when the hydra's third head went towards me, and I jumped towards the hydra. When I was in the middle of the beast's mouth, I shoved the sharp part of the bone into the roof of its mouth and dragged it down with me as I went into its throat. I could hear the blood rushing down the throat and felt it rush past me, covering me in its black and smelly texture. When I landed at the entrance of the hydra's stomach, the entire world began to shift backwards, but my body wasn't taken along with it. Seeing walls of flesh appearing in front of me, I ran ahead began to cut through the flesh like it was grass, only to see more walls being formed ahead of me. Once I cut through all the walls, I saw a floating white orb in front of me.

What in the world is this.

“Take it,” a man in the dark told me.

Why?

“Consume it.”

I'm not gonna do anything until I know what this is.

“It's the heart of the hydra. Consume it's essence and you will destroy it.”

I'm not going to eat this thing.

“You don't have to eat it. All you have to do is touch it.”

“Hmm, well that doesn't seem too bad then,” I said to myself with a smile.

I tossed the bone aside and touched the ghostly orb with both my hands. It slowly began to cover my arms until it was the orb was no longer there, and then evaporated in a second.

“Who are you voice? You sound pretty familiar,” I asked, looking around for some sort of manifestation.

The voice reminded me of the man on the boat, but although the voice here was smooth like the man on the boat, this voice had more of a deeper, almost trustworthy tone.

“I don't think we've ever met before. Think of me as a friend, and to prove this, I'm going to fix your mind from having all these... interesting illusions.”

“That'd be nice. Can you do exorcism too?”

“What in the world of Equestria is an exorcism?”

“Do I seriously need to preform a self-exorcism just to find out what those cursed things are?”

“Things? What things? Magical ones, ancient ones, what do you mean?”

“I don't know what exactly is. It seems like nothing, plus they were part of a hallucination so it probably wasn't real at all.”

The man said something else, but his words sounded distant and came out muttered. I could feel my body being pulled away by some strange force. When I looked back the walls of flesh were gone, and in their wake was a giant wall of light. I tried to run away from it, but the pull proved too strong and yanked me into the light. The next thing I saw was Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy looking down on me.

“He's awake!” Pinkie Pie cheered.

“What happened?” I asked as the smell of rancid flesh assaulted my nose.

“You managed to kill the hydra.... but then you,” Fluttershy said, turning away from me as she stopped herself.

“What did I do? I don't exactly have memories of what I do when I black out.”

“You cut open it's heart and crushed it with your bare hands,” Twilight explained.

That would explain the smell.

“Well, at least the good news is that I'm cured of my illusions.”

“'Cured'? Didn't you said that it was a part of your Paranoia Sense?”

“Uh, well yes, but I kinda disabled it during my last hallucinations.”

“How? You can't simply switch off parts of your mind.”

“I don't know how exactly I did it myself, but apparently what I did in the hallucination lead to me crushing the heart in real life.”

“So does that prove that Trevor has Paranoia Sense or not?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“The result would be no, he doesn't have it.”

“Gorlog curse it! Twilight, just because you can't explain it, doesn't mean it's not real! My entire existence here is one of those things!” I angrily yelled.

“You being brought here can easily be explained by quantum reality spells. They can only be preformed by the highest skilled unicorns, but it is possible.”

“I give up. Either this entire universe's logic is backwards, or my logic is sideways, or both for all I know!”

“Pinkie, do you have anything to add?”

Pinkie Pie responded by her body shaking again like she did earlier.

Here we go...

“That wasn't it,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Huh? But I-- WHAT?! The hydra wasn't the doozy?! How could it not be the doozy?! What could be doozier than that?!” Twilight asked in fury.

“Dunno, but it just wasn't it.”

A mad twitch began to flair in Twilight's right eye.

“Hit the deck! She's gonna activate devil trigger!” I yelled before diving behind the hydra's dead body.

I peeked over the corpse just in time for Twilight's fur to turn white and her mane and tail turn into a blaze of fire that spread dangerously close to me. When the fires began to lick the hydra's feet, I ducked back down until I couldn't hear the roar of the flames anymore. When I looked back up, Twilight was back to normal with some scuff marks on her face.

“I give up,” Twilight said.

“Finally gonna admit that some things just can't be explained?” I asked, still behind the hydra.

“Yes. I don't know how, why, or what, but Pinkie sense somehow... makes sense. I don't see how it does, but it just does. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean its not true.”

“So does that also mean you'll admit that my Paranoia sense is true too?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Victory is mine once again.”

A quick flash of a purple bolt shot passed me, nearly clipping my right ear.

“Don't get too comfortable with that.”

I sunk my head down a bit after she said that, not wanting to loose something I still wanted.

“Pinkie Pie, is the doozy over?”

She looked at her hooves and bounced into the air once before giving us a big smile.

“That was it. That's the doozy. You believing. I never expected that to happen. That was the doozy, oh and, oh what a doozy of a doozy it was!” Pinkie Pie cheerfully replied before skipping away into the forest, presumably back home.

“Can we go back too? I think I'm tired with today, and just want to forget all this happened.”

“I do too, Trevor. I do too,” Twilight sighed.

The walk back home was silent as a night. Eventually we caught up to Pinkie Pie and she followed us back home and gave Twilight an umbrella hat for whenever her tail twitches again. I didn't hear a peep from Spike until he opened the door and walked in with a small spring in his step.

“Where have you been all day?” I asked with small annoyance in my tone.

“Oh, good, Spike, you're here. Take a letter,” Twilight said.

“With pleasure, Twilight,” Spike said, seemingly ignoring me as he went to a nearby stand with a quill and blank piece of paper.

As Twilight began to say the first part of her letter, Spike took notice to the umbrella hat Twilight was wearing and stopped writing to take in the strangeness, not that I couldn't blame him.

“Spike?”

“What? Oh, sorry, I just...”

“What's wrong, Spike, never thought you'd see me with an umbrella hat on?”

“I don't think any of us expected that, Twilight. Especially inside of all places,” I said.

“Well if Pinkie's tail's a-twitchin', what else can I do?”

“A fallout shelter? You have enough room in the basement for a decent one.”

Twilight giggled at my half-joke and put her attention back to Spike, saying what she wanted to send to the Princess. After which, Pinkie Pie touched Twilight's nose.

“Honk,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Honk,” Spike repeated as he wrote that down.

“Don't write that down, she'll think your crazy,” I commented.

“I'm sure if she let you go for breaking in the royal palace, she won't mind a bit of humor,” Spike proudly said.

Dang, I felt that burn.

After Spike sent the letter via his green flames, Pinkie Pie's tail began to twitch wildly again.

“I wonder what's gonna drop outta the sky this time?” Twilight said.

“You never know,” Pinkie Pie replied.

A loud crash came from outside the second floor. Me and Spike rushed up to see what had caused it, and lo and behold, Princess Celestia was standing on one of the larger tree branches.

“What are you doing here!?” I asked, not sure if I should have been angry or confused at her sudden appearance.

“Twitchy tail?” Spike asked.

The Princess gave no reply, but instead began to fly back towards Canterlot.

“Wait! I'm not done with you yet onda jester!”

But alas, she didn't turn back, nor did she even give me a reply back. I should have expected this from Celestia, but she was always one that I couldn't completely figure out at times. Probably for the better, since there were more pressing matters in my mind. I then made a mental list of things to do once I had some free time. One, find the girl who always has either a crow or a raven nearby. Two, figure out what exactly brought me here, maybe first starting off with the higher unicorns until further notice. And finally three, make another list of questions for the man on the boat when I got back to him. If I got back to him anyway.

Author's Note:

I actually managed to get this done on Christmas day? Excellent! Okay, so before I get to some other news I'll first say Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! Be sure to be safe during your holiday celebrations and try your best to make the most of them. Now for the news: So basically I need to write eight more chapters until the entire story is done, so I'm going to write four of them, post another chapter here, then finish the rest of the chapters so I can focus (for the most part) on this. Eventually we will get to the point where they'll be two/one chapter a week, but that'll be sometime next year. Thank you and have a nice day.