Act 1 Chapter 3
Act I: Collision of Worlds
Chapter 3: The Extraequestrials
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It wasn’t long before Corey found himself in the Golden Oaks Library—his initial destination before everything with the dragon happened. However, he wished it wasn’t under the condition that said dragon happened to be John. Now, he was situated in a chair in the main area of the library, dead center. John was a short ways behind him, still bound and not gagged. John hadn’t made any further attempts at communicating, nor had Corey.
Corey hadn’t been tied up…yet. He could feel the pressure on now. Surrounding him, more or less, were the mares who had been involved with catching the dragon. Fluttershy was on the other side of the room, about as far away as she could get from the dragon. Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack, on the other hand, were more or less directly in front of him. The pegasus mare looked like she wanted to deck him then and there and be done with it. The earth pony looked unsure, but equally ready to do what she felt was necessary at the moment. Twilight, however, didn’t look nearly as upset—not to say she wasn’t, given what they were currently blaming him for.
“Alright,” Twilight said, “We’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You seemed like you knew what you were talking about back there…”
“Why are we doing this again?” Rainbow asked, turning to Twilight, “He did just say he sent the dragon here.”
“Rainbow, I ain’t likin’ the look of things here either,” Applejack responded, “But he seemed like he knew what he was sayin’. Either he was tryin’ to tell us somethin’ important, or he’s nuts…”
Corey tried to suppress the urge to swallow the lump in his throat, Well, fetch a straitjacket, because when you hear my story—
Twilight gave her friends an uneasy look before turning to Corey, her face going from uneasy back to stern.
I am on trial, and I’ve been here less than an hour… Corey thought, What the hell did John do to get them this upset!? He didn’t seem to do much more than scare everypony. No collateral damage was caused from what I could see besides that!
“Alright, ‘Corey’,” Twilight began, only to be interrupted.
“Ain’t a name I’ve heard…” Applejack commented, “That really your name?”
“Corey is my name…” Corey said, trying to keep himself calm. Panicking wouldn’t get him anywhere, and he knew this. “The dragon is named John. I’d imagine it sounds odd to you, but I swear those are our names…”
“We’re listening…” Rainbow continued, not at all changing her overall disposition.
“So, tell us your story…” Twilight said, “What did you mean earlier when you said, ‘I sent us here’?”
Corey took a deep breath, then two, to compose himself. He was fairly sure this wasn’t going to be believable no matter how he spun it, and he really hated explaining things. But, since John couldn’t talk, it was all him. With this in mind, he began.
“Alright, I guess I should start by saying…we’re not from here, at least, not in the sense that someone would say that…” Corey started. The mares before him immediately looked confused.
“…Uh…what?” Twilight asked.
“It’s…How do I say this…” Corey faltered, failing to maintain eye contact, his eyes sliding across the room like a person on ice, “Um…uh…That’s…basically...Have you heard of…the multiverse theory?”
“The multiverse…theory?” Rainbow cut in, confused.
“The multiverse theory…” Twilight repeated, before launching into an explanation, “Where a set of infinite universes exists, and each one can be different from the other in a variety of ways…”
There was a pause, “…I...have heard of it…Wait, are you trying to tell us you’re from a parallel world…?”
“Well…yeah,” Corey awkwardly said.
“I…can’t say I believe you. Not when you look like…” Twilight motioned to him. Corey looked down, realizing once again he did look the part of a normal pony. “And I haven’t heard of a single pony who has perfected universal travel, except in fiction…”
“I haven’t heard of anyone on my end either that has…” Corey responded, “But I swear I’m not lying about any of this…I don’t usually look like this, you know…”
-------------------------------
Before anypony could stop him with another question, the green unicorn launched into an explanation, without slowing down whatsoever.
“I…” He already hesitated, “I received some sort of message on my computer…”
“’Computer’…?” Twilight parroted, but Corey continued onward.
“It was in a lot of code, code that, as a programmer on computers, I could piece together bit by bit. It took me a while to do it, but after I did, I ran the code, which caused something…odd, to happen. I’m not sure how, the code seemed like it wouldn’t do anything, m-methods here and there that pointed to nothing, but when it did happen, it attached itself to Sk-Skype, and began to download or upload, I’m not sure which. Either way, when the download finished, I woke up n-not too far outside the town.”
Nopony could say a word, still stuck on half the things the pony they were sure was insane was trying to convey.
“Hold on—“ Twilight tried to interrupt him, but Corey kept going.
“As for why John’s here too, I was t-talking to him over my c-computer using…using Skype,” Corey continued his tale, “This is actually the first t-time we’ve seen each other since we b-became friends…”
“Back up!” Rainbow finally interjected, “What is all this about? Code, computers, Skype!? I don’t know what any of these are! How do we know you’re not just making this all up to save your hide?!”
Applejack remained silent for a bit, as though considering what Corey was saying. However, her opinion wasn’t too high.
“I’m not making it up…” Corey continued. His voice was still calm, but his face…
He was obviously panicking now.
“Girls, if you would…” Right there, a few steps from the accused unicorn, they fell into a huddle.
“What do you two think?” Twilight asked.
“You actually believe his story?” Rainbow questioned.
“He sounds like he knows what he’s talkin’ about, but…” Applejack said, “He could just as easily be lying through his teeth and believin’ his own lies…”
“Or he’s a madpony who can’t even explain anything…”
The others glanced over to the captured dragon, who Corey had referred to as “John”, and “a friend”. The reptile was currently slamming his face into the floor.
“Then again, I ain’t totally sure what’s going on,” Applejack continued.
“I’m not sure…He goes on like he knows what he’s talking about, but…” Twilight looked up, “I don’t know…”
“I’m thinkin’ he escaped from a loony bin not too long ago…” Rainbow whispered. “Not sure how much longer I can keep it down…”
The mares quickly broke their huddle, Twilight speaking again, “You didn’t explain any of this: what is a ‘computer’?”
Now Corey looked like he just tripped over an exposed root, “A computer is…is…A computer is…a device…where things happen…and those things can keep going…It’s what things called ‘programs’ do, and I know how to code those, and…and…”
The dragon once again slammed his face into the ground.
He seems to know what these things are, but he can’t put it into words… Twilight thought, I’m…not sure…
“Your story is interesting, ‘Corey’…” It was still awkward to say, “But it’s hard to believe. The multiverse theory is just that, a theory. Like I said before, nopony’s perfected such a thing outside of fiction. You might know of all these things we barely know, but it could have been from another work of fiction that I haven’t touched yet…”
“You? Not touching a book?” Rainbow asked. “Sounds just as fishy as what he’s been spouting…”
“I want to believe you’re not making this up,” Twilight continued, “But I can’t. I need physical proof that you’re not just spinning words. What proof do you actually have that this all happened?”
The green unicorn’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. It closed, but to open again without result. It seemed to be sinking in now.
“You don’t have any, do you?” Twilight asked.
“Well, I guess we’ve talked long enough,” Rainbow scoffed.
“Well, I suppose we’d better go into the other room…” Twilight said, “If you’ll excuse us?”
“Of course…” Corey whispered, nodding. His voice was low and…surprisingly hoarse sounding, for lack of a better term. Which was weird, considering he couldn’t have even said that much. The dragon continued to remain perfectly still, more or less.
The three mares—no, four, Fluttershy had already relocated to the next room as soon as Twilight had brought it up. Rarity and Pinkie were still tending to the shocked ponies that had come into contact with the dragon. They were sure to arrive soon enough. While Twilight would have preferred to have had all her friends present, she surely could understand the simple fact they couldn’t be present for Corey’s explanation.
And she was sure that no matter how many times she heard his story, it still wouldn’t add up completely.
“Alright girls, what do you think?” asked Twilight, breaking the silence of the room.
“I think he’s nuts!” Rainbow announced as bluntly as possible, obviously not caring if they heard from the next room. The others turned to her, brows arched. “Oh c’mon, I can’t be the only one thinking it!”
“I’ll admit that Corey’s story may seem a little—“
“Crazy?”
“Convoluted,” Twilight ignored Rainbow’s aside, “But be that as it may, I’m not so sure we should dismiss everything he’s said so quickly.”
“You’re sayin’ that you believe his multiverse story?” asked Applejack, “Didn’t you say it was just a theory?”
“I did, and as I said, there is no known proof that it is possible to travel between parallel universes. But then again, there was no proof that a pony could simply turn into an alicorn until about a month ago.”
Twilight had a point; all the mares in the room remembered very well those events. The capabilities of magic were still surprising them, even after everything they’d been through since meeting.
“So you’re saying that it might be possible,” All heads turned to Fluttershy, who had spoken up for the first time since the conversation had moved to the library. She shrunk just a little from the sudden attention, but kept right on going anyway, “But…we don’t know it yet?”
“Hey, just because magic can do a lot of things doesn’t mean it explains everything,” Rainbow continued, unconvinced. Twilight put her hand to her chin, contemplating this.
She’s right too, just because somepony makes a claim they can do something through magic, doesn’t mean the claim is true. Twilight said, On the other hand, if we went purely by appearances, this case would be open-and-shut, no doubt about it. Still…
“I guess you’re right…”
“Well…um, w-what about the d-dragon?” asked Fluttershy.
“You mean the dragon that terrorized the whole town?” questioned Rainbow, “What about him?”
“W-well…I-I was just…wondering if…um, he was really so bad?”
There were two things seriously wrong with that statement on the surface: one, it was Fluttershy of all ponies who was saying this about a dragon, and two, well, Rainbow’s expression after her meek friend suggested this.
“Are you serious, Fluttershy?!” Rainbow shouted, “Do you remember what he did?!”
“What…did he do?” Applejack asked, looking out the window, “No fires were started, nothing was destroyed other than the road where he made his landin’. Outside of that, he seemed to be desperately avoiding doing any more damage than he already had. Does that really sound like somethin’ a terrorizin’ dragon would do?”
Another good point… Twilight thought to herself, when something else occurred to her, something that was pretty obvious in hindsight, “Not to mention, he has wings. If he wanted to get out of town, he could have just flown away, but instead he ran around. But was that because he refused to fly, or because he couldn’t fly?”
“How could a dragon that old not know how to fly?” Rainbow cut in yet again.
“It’s possible,” Twilight said, “If he didn’t grow up as a dragon to begin with…”
The room fell silent again. Things were slowly beginning to come together.
“So maybe both of them did come from a parallel world or whatever,” Rainbow said, “Then why do they look like they do, and why are they here now?”
“He tried to explain that, but he totally lost us, remember,” Applejack reminded her, “Talkin’ about weird stuff that don’t even exist here…”
“I just remembered…” Twilight suddenly said, “When I heard about the dragon, I sent Celestia for help. When I first saw him, I thought Corey was the help…but now I see that definitely isn’t the case regardless…Whatever the case, you’d think we’d have gotten a response by now…”
All eyes turned to the door as a loud bang, accompanied by a flash, filled the room. Immediately, all present became worried, in their own unique ways of course.
“Don’t tell me he just—“ Twilight started.
“That punk!” Rainbow interrupted, leading the charge towards the door.
The next thing Twilight knew, Rainbow had practically barged through the door, but stopped just a moment later. The others soon realized precisely why she had stopped. There was a tall figure in a long, regal white dress, her exposed fur a distinctly white-pink, if anything…not that’d you’d be able to tell from a casual glance. Her mane and tail—multiple colors—flowed gently, despite the total lack of wind in the room. She also had gold gauntlets and boots. Her wings were gently folded, and one could see a unicorn’s horn coming out of her forehead.
She appeared to be looking over the two alleged dimension-hoppers. Corey hadn’t moved an inch from the chair, but appeared to be slouching over more in the chair. John also hadn’t moved at all, flat on the ground, looking up at the newcomer with wide eyes. A silence hung for a moment, but it was Twilight who broke it.
“P-Princess Celestia?!” she gasped, completely startled. As though realizing they were there for the first time, she turned her head up and turned towards them. Each of them immediately moved to show respect; Rainbow landing on the ground to kneel.
“I apologize for the unexpected intrusion,” Celestia responded, the group slowly rising back to a standing posture, “And I also apologize for not replying earlier, but I was investigating something important.”
“Something…important?” Twilight questioned.
“Yes, but your letter actually helped me,” The solar princess continued, “A few minutes before I had received your letter, there was a magical…disturbance, of some kind. Even now, I do not know all of the details. It wasn’t until I read your letter about the dragon suddenly appearing in Ponyville that I realized there might have been a connection.”
“I should mention, there were actually two, but they happened so close together it was like it happened all at once—but from each of these, an object of some kind had come out.”
At this point, the seeming implausibility of Corey’s story didn’t matter anymore. The pieces moved together quickly in Twilight’s head.
John couldn’t fly because he wasn’t born a dragon, he was made one…which means Corey wasn’t born a unicorn either… Twilight thought, They both had no idea the other was here…Which means…But then…
“So, then, those…those objects…?” Fluttershy began.
“No way…” Rainbow’s expression had turned to shock when she finally realized what had happened.
“Even though it still doesn’t explain the holes Corey’s story had,” Twilight responded, “at least we know something more important. He—and John—are from a parallel universe, where such things like ‘computers’ and ‘Skype’ do exist!”
“So…he was tellin’ the truth this whole time?!” Applejack exclaimed, utterly dumbfounded, either because she didn’t see it, or she just couldn’t believe such a fantastic story.
“Well,” Princess Celestia paused, turning back to Corey, “You two appear to not mean any harm in any case.”
“Guess we’d better untie the dragon, then—“ Rainbow started.
Snap!
All eyes turned to John, who was finally standing, stretching his arms and—rather awkwardly, his newfound wings. The rope that had bound him for the past several minutes was snapped to pieces around him. Everypony—everyone—paused at the sight.
“So you could have just done that whenever?” Rainbow asked.
John attempted to answer, but apparently thought better of it, instead nodding.
“Didn’t mean ya’ll had to do it,” Applejack pointed out, “Those don’t grow on trees, y’know!”
John’s response: an innocent-looking smile. Keep in mind, he was still a dragon, so the result was…less than innocent-looking.
“So…” Princess Celestia paused. For a few moments, Corey stared blankly, as though he didn’t quite understand why she’d done so. Eventually it occurred to him.
“Oh!” Corey shook his head, “Uh, I-I’m Corey, he’s John. I’m guessing he can’t talk…for some reason.”
“Corey,” The solar princess continued onward, “If you would, explain what happened to you before you got here, if you can?”
The second time around wasn’t any easier to hear than the first. Granted, Corey did pause to try to explain some of the stuff on his end this time around (keyword being try), but even then, it didn’t quite add up.
So he got a message, with some code—text that when assembled, creates a program—something that runs on a computer and does something. When he ran the resulting program, Skype started to act erratically, and the next thing he knew, he was here…
Twilight had to admit she took away a lot more from this than she had the first time around. Princess Celestia hardly showed much of a reaction to Corey’s story, seeming to take careful notes of not only what Corey was saying but how he was saying it. After a year under her wing, Twilight had to guess that her mentor was making sense of what Corey was trying to convey but failing.
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“Sorry if…sorry if anything…seems a little off,” Corey finished, seeming to be slightly more comfortable talking about his situation now that someone could back him up on his story, “I’m…I’m just not that great at explaining things, and with everything that’s happened, I’m not—“
Corey came to a halt when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, seeing the solar princess looking down upon him with the same kind of gentleness that was present when she walked on four legs—a gentle, warm smile. Even before she had spoken to him, there was a presence about her, one that Corey felt was warm and comforting.
“You need not apologize,” she said, “You have done all you could to explain what happened, and I could not ask for more.”
By now, it was no secret Corey was already stressing over the predicament he was in. The circumstances only made it worse: having to explain it alone, John having royally (and inadvertently) pissed off the locals, not fully understanding what had happened himself. But with those simple words, Corey’s stress melted away.
She’s every bit as kind as the show says she is… Corey thought quietly to himself.
“However…” Celestia said, “What you just explained has revealed something even you haven’t noticed as of yet. This ‘computer’ that you spoke of was the source that let you cross into our world, and it appears that it did not make the jump with you…”
It hadn’t really occurred to Corey that the laptop he owned was that important to the story until she brought it up. Now that he was thinking about it, he was sucked into his laptop screen. He still wasn’t sure how it worked that way, but whatever the case, once he assembled the hidden message and ran the code, he was here, without his computer.
And here, technology like that does not exist…which means…
For the first time, Corey truly realized what kind of situation he was in, his eyes widening. He cast a quick glance to John; sure enough, the dragon’s own eyes were wide.
“…Which means…w-we’re stuck here…”
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I'm going to guess that anatomy is the reason John's having so much trouble. Aside from muzzle length, dragon tongues would be vastly different from human, much less mammalian tongues. Then there are all the other contributors to speech... and the teeth...
Enough rambling... Time to pioneer Spellcoding, Corey! A new way to cast magic. It might take you a few years, but I have confidence in you. (Sorta. Maybe. I'm an optimist.)
4967504 Give this man a sticker!
4968727 You username makes your comment hilarious.
Weren't there two more characters that came with Corey and John in the original? Or am I just going insane?
4970379
There were in the original, but to make rewriting it easier, Leo and Ivan were cut from this version. It just got really tedious keeping track of four different plot threads plus the others.
I feel I should point out that they would have known what a computer was even in the basic sense, Twilight used one, although ancient by our modern standards in the episode where she tried to understand Pinkie's pinkie sense
8884416
Likely isn't exactly the same. Would explain the lack of understanding.