The Blessing and the Curse

by Equestria Buck Yeah

Chapter 10

Matt drove the Blazer down the dirt road out to Sweet Apple Acres, a cloud of dust in his wake even at the relatively slow speed. He had already dropped off his other three flightless friends at their homes after turning down their offer for a celebratory lunch to his good health. Aside from saying goodbye after seeing Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Twilight off, he hadn't said anything to anyone. Even with only Applejack left, not a word was exchanged, leaving the mare a touch uncomfortable.

Was he mad at them? At her? She couldn't figure out why he would be. Even through her numerous sideways glances, it was nearly impossible to get a read on what was going through his head. Usually when it was just the two of them, he'd have no problem opening up to her if something was bothering him.

As they arrived at the Apple family property's gate, the Blazer slowed to a crawl. Looked like Matt could squeeze through with a few inches to spare. He threw the SUV into 'Park' and got out to open them up while Applejack waited in the car. He took one last glance as he took hold of the door handle. Hopefully A.J. wouldn't be mad if he knocked over a fence post.

Moving at a snail's pace – as well as backing the truck up a couple times to straighten it out – Matt managed to get the metal monster onto the farmland without any incident. He told the cowgirl that he'd close the gate back up again once he headed out. It wasn't like anyone was going to show up and burglarize them in the ten or so minutes he'd be sticking around anyway.

A few honks of the horn nearly made Big Macintosh jump out of his skin as they drove by the corn fields he was working on. The big red stallion stared in bewilderment as the big red machine cruised on by. Though he hadn't seen it up until that point, this must have been that vehicle thing that Applejack had mentioned to him a few days ago. His suspicions were somewhat confirmed when he briefly spotted Matt nodding at him through the window.

...Meh, he had other things to worry about.

Only a few minutes had gone by by the time they rolled up to the house. Sure beat all that walking he usually did! As Applejack reached for the handle – something that had been bit of a challenge for her to open on her own before – she paused and looked back at her bipedal friend, her eyes filled to the brim with concern.

"Matt, please, what's wrong?" she whispered.

"Nothing, nothing," he insisted. "Just...thinking, that's all."

"You've been 'thinking' since you got out of the hospital." She took hold of his hand as it laid against the arm between them, briefly upset when he didn't squeeze back like he normally did. "Shug, if something's bothering you, you can tell me. You know that."

He hoped his incoming venting wouldn't get on Applejack's nerves or upset her or anything. Something told him that A.J. probably wouldn't let up about it, no matter how many times he'd try and dodge the question. The root of the issue revolved around something he typically took pride in – being reasonably intelligent.

"It's just...I got a call from somebody." The cowgirl shifted her eyes about, slightly confused by the foreign terminology. She had a rough idea what he may have talking about, but... "The phone. Someone contacted me."

"Oh. Yeah, so?"

"Well...we know that Tina person isn't the only one here now. What if someone I actually know has shown up recently?"

"Can't you just get in touch with them too?"

With a smirk and dismissive shake of his head, he told her, "First off, I never had any reason to remember their phone numbers and stuff since our phones stored that kind of thing for us. I still remembered phones numbers anyway just because I was able to, but I haven't had any reason to in forever. Second, even if I did, I have no idea whether or not I'd even be able to reach them. I mean, I don't know how many of those towers that let Tina talk to me are here, so I don't know if I'd be able to get the signal through to them even if they were wandering around somewhere. Plus, what if they don't even have their phone on them? I wouldn't be able to get in touch with them anyway!"

Applejack narrowed her eyes and tapped at her chin, the wheels turning in her head. "Let's say that your friends or your family or whoever was here and had their phones and stuff. Those numbers...what are they, sort of like addresses or something?"

"Sort of," he muttered with a tiny shrug. "The first three numbers I can remember without a problem. The rest...just...ugh!" He slammed his free fist into the steering wheel and grit his teeth behind his lips. "I'm usually better than that!"

"Hon, you said so yourself, it's been so long since it was on your mind. You can't be expected to recall something from that long ago." She continued with a bite of her lip. "How many numbers are there in one of those addresses anyway?"

"Ten."

The mare visibly winced at the revelation. No wonder he was so aggravated. He was likely going through every number in the book trying to figure it all out. However, fortunately for Matt, Applejack had a potential plan – an extraordinarily simple one. "Matt, you...remember what Discord did when he first encountered me and the girls, right? You have those memories of his too, yes?"

"Yeah, why?"

"When Discord turned us all against ourselves, Twilight was eventually able to fix us...with some sort of memory spell."

An eyebrow perked up. He stared at her with his mouth slowly falling open as he searched for the right words, ultimately choosing the simplest ones. "How far back can she go?"

Applejack shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe as far as you wanted her to? She could tell you better than me how it all works, but it's worth a shot. Better than nothing."

It was a no-brainer. Matt's sour mood morphed into one of cautious optimism in a second. He brought Applejack's hoof up to his lips for a long kiss, pleasantly startling her. She had to turn away to hide her reddening cheeks. "I'm going to go over there right now," he exclaimed.

"Heh, good luck, Matt," she said while fiddling at the door handle, figuring it was the ideal time to get out of the car. Once she managed to pop it open, the farmer hopped out and shut the door behind her, waving from just below the window. As the Blazer turned and quickly sped out of sight, Applejack lifted up her lucky hoof and beamed. She had to have won a few brownie points!

-----

A distinct noise rumbled from outside the library before coming to a quick stop, causing Twilight to glance up from the book she was reading and Spike to peek out from inside the kitchen. The already-familiar sound of the car's door slamming closed followed a second later. The unicorn was taken aback by Matt simply barging in and not bothering to knock like he usually did.

"Oh thank God, you're here!"

"Uh...come in?" Twilight deadpanned as she got to her hooves.

"Sorry, sorry!" Matt hunched over and grabbed the mare by the shoulders, barely holding back from shaking her in desperation. "Memory spells!"

"Wha–huh?"

"How many memory spells do you know?"

"Err, a-a few, why? Did you want me to perform one on you?" A vigorous nod was her answer. "Um...okay. May I ask why?"

"I'm trying to remember some phone numbers so I can try and reach some people I know. Provided they're here."

"Oh." Twilight recalled his speaking to Tina from a couple nights ago and the realization dawned on her. "Oh! You're right! It's entirely possible your family or some of your old friends may be here now!" He nodded again. "Sure! Please, sit."

He landed hard on the wood floor and crossed his legs, excited and anxious to begin. He didn't even care if a spell used directly on his brain was going to hurt. If it was a way to achieve closure without turning into a vegetable – assuming he wouldn't go back with everything else if and when they fixed the problem – he was willing to do whatever it took.

"Hey, Spike? Can you grab me a pencil and paper?" he called out.

"Uh, yeah, no problem!"

As the young dragon sifted through a nearby desk drawer, Twilight stepped beside Matt. "This won't hurt at all. How far did you want me to go back anyway? I know you've been here about a year and a half, so, a little further than that? Two years maybe?"

"Perfect."

"Alright! Just relax and focus on what you're trying to remember and I'll pull it to the forefront of your mind. Should only take a minute."

And about a minute was all it took once Twilight's horn lit up and made contact with his forehead. All Matt thought of was his old flip phone and several names and numbers appearing on the tiny screen its face had, and amazingly, just as she said, everything became crystal clear bit by bit.

Once her purple magic went away, Matt's vision cleared up, the sights of books, a unicorn and a tiny dragon appearing in front of him. Without saying a word, he snatched the pencil and paper out of Spike's grip, nearly tearing the sheet in the process, and quickly jotted down six particular names with a string of numbers next to each of them. He wasn't about to risk forgetting again! He held up the paper and let the pencil drop, a giddy smile creeping across his cheeks as he bounced on the floor.

"I take it the spell wo–hrrk!"

Before she could finish asking a question she seemed to already know the answer to, Twilight found an ecstatic arm wrapped around the top of her neck, hugging her so hard she could barely breathe. A tap of her hoof on his arm got the message across and Matt eased up a bit, planting a big kiss on the side of her head and squishing his cheek against hers.

"Hehe, I guess so! Go ahead! Try and reach your friends!"

Almost forgetting why he was getting his brain kick-started in the first place, he clumsily hopped to one knee and fished out the phone. Returning to his seat, he woke the iPhone and quickly found the keypad, punching in the first number. Once done, he whipped the phone to his ear and widened his eyes hopefully at his otherworldly friends. They returned grins of their own, just as excited as he was.

Matt's initial joy was shot down when the phone almost immediately beeped thrice in his ear over and over. Damn! That's okay, that's okay. Was only one of the numbers. Five more to go!

The next was met with the same result as well as the one after. With each failure, the trio grew more downtrodden. As the last number was met with just as much success as its predecessors, Matt hung the phone up with finality, pursing his lips in disappointment. He glanced at the top of the screen just before he let his arm fall – twenty-two percent. Cripes. Even if he did manage to reach someone, he wouldn't be able to talk long before the phone started to gasp for breath. Hell, simply dialing it out was probably having some negative consequences.

"I'm sorry, Matt."

"Sorry, bro."

A sigh gave way to a shrug. "Hey, I have the numbers now. I'll try again tomorrow or something; don't want to overdo it. This thing doesn't have much life left. Still–" He looked over the numbers once more and bit a happy lip. "–you have no idea how...just...mmmph! You're so awesome!" Matt gushed, practically choking the unicorn again.

Twilight looked away awkwardly, happy for the compliment and for her friend, but not really used to such boisterous attention from anyone aside from Pinkie Pie. Jeez, if she was present, she'd have probably thrown a party simply because Matt could potentially reach his loved ones from his old home as long as the stars lined up properly, in a manner of speaking.

"It's no big deal, really."

"It is to me, Twi. It is to me," Matt said, glowing.

"At least you're not so glum like you were earlier today."

"Heh, yeah, no kidding."

-----

A pair of days passed by, the most incident in town being that a black Labrador had shown up in the joke shop from out of nowhere and nearly destroyed the place in a panic – as well as messing the floor in other ways. Fortunately, Fluttershy was called in and had been able to calm it down after offering it some treats. She had brought it back to her cottage where it remained balled in the corner for the most part, scared out of its wits. It was more than a relief to the timid pegasus that it wasn't another ferocious overgrown cat.

It was a bit of a chore to keep the dog sitting still while Twilight examined it. She really couldn't blame the poor thing. It didn't know where its owners were to be found and now it was sitting in front of another four-legged thing whose head was glowing and trying to do who knows what to it. Thankfully, it never lashed out at the purple mare; Fluttershy's soft voice was soothing enough that it curled up in her forelimbs for protection rather than attack anypony. Sadly, like everything else they'd found up to that point, she found nothing to indicate how the dog got there.

When informed of the new arrival, Matt had to turn down keeping it at his place. He didn't have the necessary things to care for a pet, plus he spent half the following day working on roof repair work for Carrot Top. Besides, he didn't want to run the risk of the dog getting his teeth on his list since it was sitting on his desk in plain sight, unfortunately still yielding no results.

Another farm pony was just as delighted to see Matt the day after as Matt himself was over the rediscovery of a part of his past. Applejack just about tackled him when he stepped out of the Blazer once he was finished parking it by the barn. She may have told herself she wasn't going to bring up her emotions but that didn't mean she had to stop being expressive of them in other ways.

The two hung out around the farm working on similar chores together, sharing what had been going on since last they saw each other. Applejack was thrilled that her idea had paid off, even if only in a limited capacity. She understood better than anyone how important it must have felt to Matt to want to get in touch with people he cared about. Hopefully it'd pay off before everything was back to normal. If not, at least the opportunity hadn't been missed. Strange that the only ones he mentioned specifically at all were his parents and his brother though.

Meh, whatever! Applejack was just happy to see him in good spirits again, which is why they shared an apprehensive glance when a letter popped into existence beside the mare in the early afternoon.

Matt sat up against a nearby tree with the cowgirl crawling up next to him, unrolling the scroll for them and reading it out loud.

"Applejack,

Celestia has summoned us to Canterlot on an emergency. Come to the library as soon as you can. We need to leave immediately.

–Twilight Sparkle."

"You think she's found something?" Applejack wondered.

"Maybe! If so then, shit, thank God, right?"

"Yeah, really." The orange mare craned her head and looked over the half empty baskets surrounding them, wincing when she turned back to Matt. "Big Mac's gonna be a bit peeved that we didn't finish what we started today."

"Eh, he'll get over it. We should go tell Granny–"

Another letter suddenly appeared beside Matt this time, falling to the grass.

"The hell?" He opened the second notice, reading it aloud once again. Strangely, this one was addressed to him. It said the exact same thing as Applejack's save for one extra ominous line, the second in his letter.

'You specifically are required to come.'

Those words made the hair stand on both their necks.

"I don't like that one bit," A.J. mumbled.

"Yeah, me either," he sighed. "Let's go let Granny Smith know we gotta head out. She can tell Big Mac for us."

The two rose, stretched their sore backs and headed back to the house. Wasn't exactly the way they wanted to end the work day.

-----

The moon would be rising in the sky only about an hour after the group arrived in Canterlot. An escort was waiting at the train station for them, ready to lead them straight to the throne room without any interruptions; the Canterlot crowd didn't see Matt very often and may be tempted to hound him with a dozen kinds of attention they just didn't have the time for. Regardless, having armed guards walking with them must have meant something truly serious was afoot. Nothing like this had happened the other times Matt had stopped by. He wasn't in trouble himself, was he?

The last set of double doors were opened for them as the guards stepped aside, allowing safe passage down the long red carpet to where Celestia and Luna sat talking to a midnight blue pony – a stallion it appeared from a distance – with a salt-and-pepper colored mane. The entrance interrupted the conversation they were having with all three sets of eyes seemingly landing square on Matt.

"Oh wow, he's really real," the stallion was heard muttering.

Matt, Applejack and the others knelt before the Princesses at the base of the stairs to their thrones. "Celestia, Luna," the human greeted. "Been a little while. W-what's going on? You wanted to see me specifically?"

"Hello, Matt. Hello, girls," the solar alicorn said. A grim undertone could be heard in her voice. Something was definitely not good if whatever it was could shake the usually steady ruler like this. "I did call for you, yes, but I needed Twilight and her friends here as well."

"Does it involve, err...what's been happening?" Twilight asked, not wanting to risk revealing sensitive details to somepony she hadn't met before. No reason to leak information to a strange pony who may not be aware of the unusual occurrences – they could cause problems when they return home.

"Unfortunately, it does. However, from what this gentlecolt has told us, we may have stumbled upon some good luck...in a rather...backwards way," Luna clarified.

The group faced the middle-aged stallion, who was still fairly enamored by Matt's presence. "Err, yes, I hope so. My name's Dark Horse, I'm the mayor of Manehattan. It's a pleasure to meet you. I arrived here earlier today. I was just telling the Princesses again before you showed up about a freak flood that happened a few days ago and...well, what caused it."

"What does a flood have to do with us?" Matt asked. "And what did you mean I'm 'really real'?"

With a scratch of his hoof on the back of his neck, the mayor explained, "Months ago, I saw something in all the papers and tabloids talking about this 'mystery creature' killing an Ursa Major. I didn't believe it since, well, as a politician, you see so many ridiculous things written about yourself and others all the time, so I just thought it was some strange, elaborate prank. I only remember it because it sounded so farfetched. Seeing you face to face kind of confirms them. I must say, if everything those articles said was true...wow."

"I'd have to see them," he said dismissively. "But, the flood...I mean, yeah, I'm sure that sucked, but again, what's it got to with us?"

"More like you actually," Dark Horse stated, pointing at Matt.

"Me?"

"Mhm. I know that doesn't seem to make any sense, but what I've got to tell you, I..." The stallion paused, a quiet terror overcoming him. "...I-I don't even know how to begin to describe it."

Comments

[Sniperwolf24]

Cliffhanger...... you bastard. LOL

[Written Sound]

So cheeky.

[lumberjack]

Is making cliffhangers your job? If not, it should be, because you do them so freakin' well.

And I'm guessing that there won't actually be any contact with friends and family...I mean how much of a coincidence would that be? Unless there's a high correlation between where the phasing in happens between worlds, in which case our protagonist's friends and family would appear near Ponyville.

[Equestria Buck Yeah]

4300208 lol Perhaps I should request getting paid for them somehow? I shant spoil anything, but I will say the meat of the story is right around the corner. Muahahaha!

[hs0003]

I'm going to guess that in this fic, the magic of the planet is alive and is trying to balance order and chaos, after Discord got thrown the fuck out.

Meh, probably not. Next chapter please.

[Adjier]

+10000 for brownie points for AJ and hugs. Millions of hugs.

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?!

[Pixel Berry]

Why do I have a bad feeling it was the other humans that appeared in Equestria?

[Love Moth]

If it's a tank

[Grtgfbll]

It's the Statue of Liberty, isn't it? Nah, too obvious.

[Trent Roogna]

"Mhm. I know that doesn't seem to make any sense, but what I've got to tell you, I..." The stallion paused, a quiet terror overcoming him. "...I-I don't even know how to begin to describe it."

This doesn't qualify as a cliffhanger in my opinion.
This is trolling your audience.

[Classy]

Probably a statue of Matt