Ultimate Three

by idk12345678910

Chapter 5 - Differences in Opinion

Celestia's expression showed signs of confusion, but before I could get a good look at it, she quickly changed it back to the 'official' expression from before. She quickly turned her head towards Twilight.

"Twilight Sparkle, why have you brought this creature here from the Everfree Forest?" Celestia asked in a voice that echoed authority.

Oh wow. First and last name. She must be in it really deep.

I looked over to Twilight to see her sweating bullets. "I..uhm...I..." Twilight stammered.

Wow, she's really not taking this well. Hey, hang on a second... how did Celestia know I was from the Everfree Forest?

I tapped on the chalkboard and cleared my throat (although it came out as more of a gurgling noise) to grab their attention. It worked pretty good, if Celestia switching her apprehensive look from Twilight to me was considered "good". Twilight looked up at me in relief when she saw Celestia divert her gaze away from her.

I quickly wrote down what I needed and turned it around slowly. "How did you know I was from the Everfree Forest?"

Celestia's expression finally broke. Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.

"You can write?" she asked.

I nodded and scribbled down another note. "Yep. I used to be able to talk, but speech is pretty much impossible with the mouth I have now."

Celestia looked shocked.

Wow. I'm surprised at how good I am at reading ponies' expressions, considering I'm not one of them. Although I think Celestia might actually be more of a horse rather than a pony. Maybe that language spell extends over to facial expressions?

"I am truly sorry. I did not know that you were intelligent when I attacked you in the forest. Is there any way you can forgive me?" Celestia asked.

Attacked?

I looked myself over for scars.

Nothing. Although, it's not like I could tell, what with the whole "unfamiliar body" thing.

I went ahead and nodded at Celestia. Heck, for all I know, she might have been the one to drive me out of the forest.

Relief washed over Celestia's face. "That is good to know. A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders."

I quickly wrote down another few sentences. "One thing, though. As you can see, I'm kind of having a bit of trouble talking thanks to my, ahem, "special" physiology. I don't suppose you could help me out there, could you?"

Yeah, I'm milking this for all it's worth.

Celestia's face seemed to brighten up. "While I'm afraid I can't actually alter your physiology, I think I do know something that might work."

Celestia walked over to me with her horn glowing. It was only then she seemed to realize how tall I actually was.

"Lean down, if you would."

I obliged, and she put her horn at my throat. I quickly leaned back up.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I need to make physical contact for this to work." She reassured me.

Seems fishy. That thing looks really sharp and stab capable. But considering what's happened, I don't think she would actually do that. I hope.

Hesitantly leaning back down, I flinched slightly when the horn touched my throat.

For a horn, it's surprisingly warm. Almost hot, actually.

Before I could muse about it any further, a sensation crept into my throat from where Celestia's horn was. It traveled up past my mouth, through the back of my nose, to behind my eyballs before covering to spread all around my head and ears. My mind went blank before scrabbling back to its senses. I seemed to be feeling refreshed, to boot.

Celestia's horn left my throat. The warm sensation seemed to stay with me before slowly fading back to my normal temperature. I rubbed the spot where Celestia's horn made contact.

Huh. So that's what magic feels like.

"Try speaking." Celestia said with the slightest enthusiasm.

"Is your horn always that hot?"

Shock, suprise, and embarassment all around. some of them even had blushes. It was especially apparent on Twilight, whose cheeks had turned a crazy shade of red. Celestia's face had hardly changed, but even she had a slight blush. I guess it's really hard to hide something like that when you're pure white in color.

"Erm...no. While unicorn's horns are naturally warm because of all the magic running through them, that was an especially difficult spell. I wouldn't be surprised if it was abnormally hot. How is your voice?" She asked, quickly changing the subject.

I mentally smacked myself.

I DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CHECK MY OWN VOICE.

"I don't know, let me check." I said.

Let's see... smooth, not crackly, and, surprisingly, not mine. While it was still definitely masculine, It just wasn't mine. It sounded more...Monotone. Kind of like a robot. One problem though...

"I still have this huge tongue blocking my mouth, and I have no lips. How is this working?"

She started to say something before I interrupted her.

"And don't say 'magic'."

She closed her mouth before speaking again. "Well, if you want the gist of it, then It is interpreting what you want to say based on the movement of your vocal cords mixed with the nerve signals sent from your brain to your now nonexistant lips and making the sounds for you."

"Wow, that DOES sound complicated. And you did all that by yourself?"

She nodded. "Being over two-thousand years old does have its benefits. But listen," Her voice changed to a serious tone. "While I was poking around, I found something that you might want to know about."

"What is it?" My voice becoming serious as well.

"There is another mind inside of you." Celestia said.

I relaxed. "Well crap, you should have said that earlier. I already know about that. That's called the 'Las Plagas'."

"Care to explain?"

I explained to her everything that had happened. My life story, the Las Plagas, the Los Illuminados, and even how I came to be in Ponyville.

"Interesting. So you do not remember a thing between from when you were operated on until the time when you arrived outside of the forest?" Celestia asked with curiosity.

"Nope. Quite frankly I'm surprised that I'm sapient at all right now."

Celestia bit her lip. "I think I might know why that is. Tell me: what is your world like?"

"Well, it's kind of like your world, except that, for one, there's no magic--"

"I know what it is." Celestia immediately replied, cutting me off.

"Really? Well don't just stand there, tell me." I asked impatiently.

"Very well, but first, know this: Equestria is absolutely saturated in magic, and as a side-effect of this, every animal has at least some form of sapience."

I mulled that over. That could present a problem if I turned out to be a carnivore. Still, though, I don't see how that is connected to anything.

"That's interesting, but I don't see how that's important."

"It's important because it's the reason why you aren't rampaging through the town." Celestia revealed.

Oh. I feel stupid now.

"Alright, but that doesn't explain why I can't go near the Everfree Forest without feeling like I'm going to go back to being the mindless beast I once was." I said.

"Well, this one's kind of complicated." She continued. " The Everfree Forest has always been resistant to magic of any kind. It's part of the reason we once made our home there, since it provided a natural protection against any magical assault."

I nodded, signaling for her to go on.

"While the Everfree Forest is resistant to magic of any kind, it does have a breaking point. It definitely cannot hold up to an entire atmosphere of magic surrounding,and so the magic that saturates the air penetrates the forest, but at a severly reduced rate. I'm afraid this reduction of magic in the air is why the Everfree Forest reverts you to a primal state. It normally just severly reduces the intelligence of the animals effected by the magic in the air instead of making them completely primal, but I'm afraid it might have been a bit too much for you." Celestia finally finished.

I sat there absorbing that information for a few seconds.

Of course, it's magic. What else could it be?

"I don't suppose you know a spell to keep the forest from affecting me, do you?" I asked hopefully.

Celestia shook her head. "I'm sorry, but we haven't really done any research in that department; there was never a reason to. I can try to have my scientists come up with a way to protect you, though."

I nodded my head. "Okay, that sounds good."

We sat there for a few more seconds until I remembered something that had been bothering me.

"Oh, hey. You wouldn't happen to have any idea of how I got to this world, would you?" I asked offhandedly.

Celestia went back to her poker face. "I do, but before I tell you, I must make sure that you are truly of a righteous heart, and that this isn't simply a facade."

Well, this is a surprise. A test? Bring it on.

"Alright, what do I have to do?" I asked confidently.

"Lean down." Celestia simply replied.

"Well, alright." I said leaning down. "Honestly, I was expecting something harder--"

Celestia's horn lit up and touched my forehead. I black out almost immediately.

-------------------------------------

I woke up in a black void. I could only see black wherever I looked. However, even though there was literally nothing as far as the eye could see, It felt strangely comfortable. Kind of familiar, too.

"Right... this place again." I said, remembering the void I had visited before waking up on the ground outside of the forest.

"Where is this place, anyway?" I asked to no one in particular.

To my surprise, a voice actually answered me.

"We are inside of your mind." Rang out a feminine voice.

Turning towards the source of the voice, I witnessed Celestia gliding down towards me. She landed on a seemingly invisible floor beside me before tucking her wings to her side.

I started to get up before noticing two things:

1. I was already standing up somehow.

2. I wasn't a monster anymore.

"Holy crap! I'm "me" again!" I said happily, patting myself all over to make sure it was real.

Celestia tapped her hooves on the ground to draw my attention. The floor sounded like it was made out of tile. "Unfortunately, what you're seeing is just how you picture yourself. It's not actually real. Sorry."

I sighed and let my arms fall to my side. "I guess I should have known better. But hold on, if I'm inside of my mind, how are YOU here?"

"Well, in order to look at your memories and judge your character, I've directly linked my mind to yours. Unfortunately, I had to knock you out so I could have a direct line to your memories without your conciousness in the way."

Yeah, and so I can't dig around in your memories while you dig around in mine.

"I heard that." Celestia said.

I facepalmed.

Right, our minds are connected. Of course you can hear my thoughts. You've been doing this for a while, too, seeing as how you're so good at covering up YOUR thoughts.

Celestia simply remained silent.

"Anyway..." I continued, brushing myself off. Dust actually flew off into the air from my brown coat. "If you're looking into my memories, then you probably know what I was called before I become U-3."

"Indeed I have, James Shepard. Might I say that your world is very... interesting." She said.

I began to get suspicious. "Wait, how many memories have you seen already?"

"All of them."

"ALL of them? But I've only been awake for a few seconds!"

Celestia grimaced "Actually, I've been looking at your memories while you weren't "awake". The only reason you're "awake" now is because I need your help in seeing your memories between the surgery and arriving in Equestria."

"How in the world could I help?"

"Just try and remember, and I'll do the rest."

I thought this over. "Alright, but only on one condition: I get to pick the first memories."

"Very well. Which one did you have in mind?"

"How about right before I came here? You should know a rough estimate of how long I've been here, seeing as how you attacked me, so let's go back to right before I showed up."

"Very well." Celestia said.

Celestia's horn started to glow , and the world around them faded into color. I seemed to be back in my chimera-like body, although my actions were not my own. I was facing towards the ground so I couldn't see anything, but that wasn't an entirely accurate statement. I could feel another presence in my mind, and it felt exactly like the Las Plagas. This other presence let me connect to it and "see" from its perspective. Lo and behold, it WAS the Las Plagas. It seemed to be bursting from my back, and though I myself could barely feel anything, it seemed to be controling the lower half of my body perfectly well.

In front of me, though, was a face I recognized from my flashes of memories in front of the Everfree Forest.

What's he doing here?

It was only then I noticed the Smith & Wesson revolver in his hands.

The Las Plagas leaned down to roar at its enemy.

The man aimed his revolver.

No!

The man pulled the trigger. In that second, there was the most blinding flash of pain like no other. If I could have, there was no doubt in my mind that I would fall to my knees from the pain. The world started to swirl together, before fading to black. Everything seemed to tumble away.

Then, in a second, it all stopped. The pain vanished, leaving confusion in its wake. I looked up to see Celestia grimacing.

I guess she was affected by it, too.

"Yes, I was." She continued, placing a hoof on her head. "I must admit, I have felt pain from others' memories, but in none of them did I have to relive their deaths."

"Yeah, dying's kind of painful." I remarked.

Hey wait a second, that body is built like a tank. There's no way just one bullet would take it down. Unless...

"Jesus Christ, I must have been full of holes by that time. But if I felt the pain from that last bullet, why didn't I feel the pain that any of the other bullets he shot me with would have cause?"

Wait a minute. I could barely feel my body, like it was numb, and the plaga was controlling my body instead of me. Did the plaga take over when the pain became too much for me? Huh, I guess it must have taken the pain for me as well.

"Hold on." Celestia's voice rang out. "When we accessed that last memory, I felt a psychic link open up."

"Psychic link?" I said, pickin myself up of the floor I was laying down on again for some reason. "Psychicness was a lot more plausible in my world than magic, but even if it did exist, we didn't have the resources or technology to prove it."

I paused in thought before speaking again. "Hey, can you see who it's connected to?"

Celestia replied in a focused tone. "No, It is too small of a link for that. I'm going to try to force open the link. Steady yourself."

I sarcastically looked around for something to hang on to. Coming up with nothing, I just crossed my arms with an amused look instead.

"I meant mentally." She rolled her eyes. "Regardless, I'm starting. I'm very curious about this myself." Celestia said while her horn started to glow.

Soon enough, I started to feel another presence in my mind. Kind of like the Las Plagas, but it felt...different. It wasn't coming from inside of my body, but from somewhere else...somewhere...different.

I tried poking my metaphorical head through the metaphorical hole. It took some concentration, but I could finally start to see glimpses of another area.

Green.

Some kind of cacoon.

With green liquid in it.

And... A hand?

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Blinding light overwhelmed me.

------------------------------------

The light faded to reveal I was back in Twilight's house, but all was not well. To my left, there was Celestia. Her bright fur had dimmed to a more white-ish grey color, and her hair's invisible wind seemed to blowing alot slower than usual. All of the ponies were surrounding her and looking to something to my right. Turning my head, I saw what drew their attention.

A freaking manticore had bursts through the wall.

That's right, a manticore. The thing that's supposed to shoot poisonous spikes and swallow its prey whole. And it was looking right at celestia with its sickly green eyes.

DO SOMETHING!

I got up and charged right at it. I think I took it by surprise, because it took quite a tumble. ended up a whole ten yards away from me. I turned around and looked at the ponies behind me.

"Stay back and protect Celestia!" I ordered.

I turned my attention back to the manticore. It seemed to have recovered from the hit.It stood on its four legs and roared at me. I flashed back to my own memory that Celestia showed me.

Wrong move, buddy.

I extended my tentacle arm to wrap around his neck and drag him towards me. I don't think he expected that, because of the surprised look and the way he freaked out. His neck was resilient as all hell, though, and resisted every attempt I made to bend it the entirely wrong way.

I got him about halfway to me before he finally remember he had claws. He swiped at my tentacle arm, and JESUS did those things hurt! I unwrapped my tentacle arm and retracted it before he could do any more damage.

I hope that poison doesn't carry over to the claws.

The manticore charged at me. Determined to meet it halfway, I charged as well. It lifted its front paw up for a swipe, but I caught it with my hand. It lifted its other arm up, and I caught that one with my tentacle arm. We were locked head-to-head. However, I had an advantage the manticore didn't.

I moved my upper body back, before slamming my head foreward into the mythical beast's head.

OH GOD, THAT WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA, JESUS CHRIST!

I cradled my head in my hand whie checking on the manticore. It seemed to have taken the hit alot harder than me, and was holding his head in his paw while on the ground with stars literally circling around his head.

Good, at least now I can stew in this pain for a little bit longer.

But no, the universe would not let me. Through th haze of my pain, the psychic link in my head suddenly burst wide open, replaying memories that were not mine.

-----------------------------------

"That was amazing, Lieutenant. The way you took out that perp on the run?" A voice that was not mine called out.

I seemed to be in a locker room of some kind. Grey painted the walls while a poster of a woman was put up on one side of the lockers.

A gruff man with a white handlebar moustache in the corner looked over to me."Naw, it was nothing. Just an old wrestling move from my younger years."

"I really mean it when I say it was amazing. Can you teach me how to do it?"

The Lieutenant seemed to consider this for a moment before speaking again. "Alright. You're gonna go places. Who knows? You might need it one of these days. But I want you to look me in the eyes and tell you will ABSOLUTELY not use this unless you HAVE to. It puts great pressure on the neck, and more often than not has a great risk of instantly killing someone by snapping their neck. I was probably wrong in busting it out tonight in the first place."

"I promise, sir. You have my word." My hand reached up and touched my forehead.

The man looked amused by this action. "Alright. First of all, you need to get behind 'em...."

------------------------------

I faded back into reality. I shook my head and looked towards the manticore. He was still down on the ground, but he was slowly coming to.

Good. He's still down. I know what to do.

I rushed over to the manticore, and the Lieutenant's voice rang out once more.

"If you can take out their legs, or just plain get them off balance, do it."

Already taken care of. He's on the ground.

I leaned down and grabbed around his sides. He seemed confused about why there were suddenly two things wrapped around him.

"After you get your arms around him , lift him up as hard as you can."

This is a one-time thing. If I mess up here, there's not gonna be an opportunity like this again. I HAVE to go all out.

I secured him in my grip, before lifting as hard as I could. The manticore came off of the ground and started to head upwards.

"The taller you are, the more of an impact it's gonna make. The way it works is that the taller you are, the longer they fall."

Taller. I can do taller.

I could feel the adrenaline flowing. I put that adrenaline to good use. Aided by the manticore's momentum, I pulled the manticore upward, and rose the front part of my lower body into the air. I was now only standing on my two back legs.

"After you get them up, all that's left is to get them over."

Over.

I threw myself backwards , slamming the manticore into the ground. A pained yelp could be heard from the manticore as its head met dirt.

"And that's how you do a German Suplex."

Letting go of the manticore, I rolled over and stood upright again, ready in case the manticore still wanted to fight. I noticed my upper body was swaying left and right again.

Surprisingly, the manticore actually got up. Slowly, but definitely surely. It turned towards me and I crouched down to lower my center of gravity in case he decided to charge again.

He rubbed his head with his paw, and slowly turned towards me before his eyes shot wide open. To my surprise, his eyes were not a sickly shade of green anymore, but instead, regular old white. He yelped before running off back in the direction of the forest.

It was only now I noticed the crowd of ponies watching me. I was still too far in the depths of my adrenaline rush to notice or care about their expression. My only thought was making sure the others were safe.

Turning back to the house, I noticed Celestia weakly walking towards me, still as dull as before. She was followed by the rest of the ponies. I breathed a sigh of relief and calmed down. Unfortunately, the ponies in the crowd were now bowing, and I could not see their expressions with their heads lowered.

I decided to ask some hard questions.

"What the HELL just happened?" I asked, still regaining my breathe from the battle.

"I think I may have some answers." Celestia replied.

Comments

[supbrony101]

everything in this chapter was amazing.

[TeaPartyCannon]

...Green eyes and a cocoon. I sense changeling involvement.

Like I said though, I'm hooked on this story. More, please!

[Jack Kellar]

Holy crap, U3 made awesome.

Oh, and in the previous chapter:
"continent of spain"
wut

[Professor Litmus]

Changeling mind control.

[Medium-Chan]

oh shit

[Perception Filter]

heheheheh

[HighTreason25]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did he just pile-drive a manticore? This guy's got some kick!

[DavidPony]

U3: pile-driving a mythical creature LIKE A BOSS

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/508/watch-out-we-got-a-badass-over-here-meme.png

[RaptorJesus]

That's definitely the best Whatever-in-Equestria story ever xD

[idk12345678910]

672279 Waving is now officially universal.

713068 Phew, good to know I haven't majorly screwed up yet.

713076 713453 We've got some winners over here.

713295 Hahaha, I can't believe I did that! Thanks for catching it. Now I can fix it and not look so retarded anymore.

713588 Yep, the game has definitely been stepped up.

713896 Your laugh kind of gives off that "Impending doom" feeling.
Suddenly I don't want to know what you're laughing about.

714052 714606 Well, actually it was supposed to be a German Suplex, but I guess it came off as more of a piledriver. Lemme go fix it to where it comes off as more a suplex than a pile-driver.

715016 bwahahaha

715017 Nah, I'm sure there are better ones. That being said, it's my story, so it's kind of special to me and i'm going to see it through to the end.

[HighTreason25]

716516 Whatever it was, it was epic!

[RaptorJesus]

716516
Let me get this straight: You just had an artificial chimera with a sarcastic sense of humor pile-drive a manticora to protect an alicorn goddess.

The more I stare at this sentence, the manlier it gets. I've never read anything as metal as that.
You're officially awesome!

[Craterfist]

716555
The manliest sentence in the world.

[whiteportal117]

german suplex 4 lyf

[Erik Tiber]

"Very well, but first, know this: Equestria is absolutely saturated in magic, and as a side-effect of this, every animal has at least some form of sapience."
Okay, I just have to comment on this. This just really stood out to me.

This is one of the most clever pieces of worldbuilding I've ever seen. Not only does it fit with the show, it also explains why U-3 is sentient. It being magic also gives him motive to go to Ponyville to get away from the Everfree, thus putting the plot into motion.

There were a few errors where you used the third person rather than the first person, but other than that, this is turning out to be a great story. I'm very interested in what happens next, and everyone seems to be in character (though I'm not familiar with resident evil, so I can't tell with Leon).

[Dustchu]

This was awesome, hehehe.
German Suplex... alright, I can dig that.

Nicely done!