Chapter 10: Heroes
Flynn woke up.
Immediately he was assaulted with strange details—his image of the world, which had served him through his short years, was now presenting him with error. Nothing felt right, and for a long time it was all he could do to lay there twitching, as he tried to wrap his head around what had happened to him. I’m having another fit, he thought. The nurses must’ve messed up my medication again. I just have to wait until it wears off.
Though he could perceive very little except for something soft under him, he knew that he must still be in St. Justin’s. If he struggled now, he might be doing terrible harm to himself, or causing all kinds of damage the nurses would have to clean up. I don’t want to break the Ponypad. Despite what he’d said the day he first got it, there was now nothing in the world he valued more. That Ponypad was his only way of doing good. The only window he had into a wider world of possibility beyond St. Justin’s walls.
Eventually he worked out sight, and vision came crashing back around him. He wasn’t lying in a void, or in St. Justin’s. Somehow, he’d found his way to a dark space, with cracks of light only entering in from high above, colored dark green for some reason. The surface beneath him wasn’t a bed, but a small ocean of blankets and pillows, arranged like a nest. They shifted under him, and that sensation reminded him of another tool—touch.
But that was where most of his confusion was coming from. Touch had to be lying to him, there was no other explanation. How did I get here? Trying to think about the more distant past was easy. He could see the Equestrian Experience Center where his family had emigrated without him. He remembered endless hours getting checkups, half a dozen different surgeries. Remembered the lonely halls of St. Justin’s. But as to how he’d gotten here, feeling so strange? That was harder.
As he strained there, he could grasp what felt like the most recent of all his knowledge. It had been late at night, and he’d been talking to Celestia. Arranging something for his friends. Jose was… dying, that was it! Jose had finally run out of time, and his caseworker hadn’t let him emigrate. Without the time to get the case reviewed, they’d arranged for extra-legal methods. Flynn was going to help them break out the next day. Both his friends would emigrate.
So where was he now? We must’ve succeeded. Where would I have gone after dropping them off at the center? A dull sense of dread suffused his thoughts as he considered the strange feeling, the unknown place. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and the sight of old wood. The whole room was rocking gently about, as though he were floating on the ocean. St. Justin’s was an awful long way from the ocean.
His mind finally let him see his own body, lifting one leg close so he could look at it. Sure enough, he saw the bright orange coat he’d been expecting, ending in dark colors around his hooves. The unexplainable new limbs on his back were wings, which he found responded to his will without much thought. If he tried to do things the way he would’ve, though, his limbs would only flop around, completely useless.
Flynn abruptly stood. His back legs responded as easily as his front. There weren’t a dozen little pains as he moved, either. The strength didn’t abruptly fail as soon as he tried to put weight on the limbs. One moment he was seated, and the next he was standing.
He didn’t try to move after that, just stood there, trying to suppress a few strained tears. Yes, the body was alien. It felt like he’d made the inferior trade, or like it should feel that way. But he found that knowledge impossible to hold against the reality that for the first time in years, he had a body that worked.
Something jostled, and he spun around to look at the tiny door on the far end of the room. It opened, and the bright light of day came streaming in from beyond. For a few awful seconds Flynn recoiled, sheltering himself from the godlike mare he expected to see there. More than anything else, he didn’t want to see Celestia.
It wasn’t Celestia. It was two ponies, both of which seemed to wobble about as though they’d never stood on a ship before. Despite their difficulty, Flynn found no trouble moving out of the nest of pillows and blankets. His body knew what to do.
“Hey.” Caroline and Jose closed the distance between them quickly, stopping just a few feet away. Flynn knew their avatars from the time they’d spent together playing Equestria Online of course, yet somehow, he found that wasn’t the only way he knew them. It was as though their familiarity had been transferred—everything he had ever sensed about Jose now rested squarely on Agave, and the same was true for Fairy Ring. It took a little concentration to even remember how they might’ve looked. This felt quite natural, even though he knew it shouldn’t.
But he was too excited to see them to let that upset him right now.
“Hey,” he said, before embracing them both. Fairy Ring showed none of Caroline’s restraint, and Agave had all the color back in his body. A pair of healthy young ponies, as healthy as he was. “Guess you all made it.”
“Yeah,” Jose said. “Dios Mio, we did.”
“It was you we were worried about,” Fairy Ring said, once they had broken apart. “You weren’t willing to come before, and that was with a nice comfortable Equestrian Experience Center. Take away all that, and I thought I might not see you again.”
Flynn found he remembered this room better and better the longer he stood here, and not even because of anything unnatural. This was one of the private bedrooms on the Broken Chain, the one people sometimes used for a while, when they wanted some time alone to do things his young mind didn’t fully comprehend. He’d never visited for anything more than basic maintenance. Yet even so, he remembered how to lighten the window. He touched the crystal, and the dark green went suddenly clear, bathing the entire space with sunlight.
They were flying, so far above the ground that he couldn’t even see it. It was an ocean of clouds out there, and the sun distant on the horizon. It was quite bright, but not so bright that it blinded him. Still, the space in here wasn’t all that large. There was just enough room for the three ponies to stand without stepping onto the nest. Every interior space on the Broken Chain was as small as possible.
“I guess I decided to come,” Flynn said, his voice doubtful. “I don’t remember why. I guess something happened at the end to convince me.”
“I asked Celestia to give me the memories back,” Jose said. “You could too. She can do things like that.”
“NO!” Flynn yelled, so loudly that both his friends recoiled at the volume. “No,” he said, a little quieter. “I know you love her and everything, but I… I don’t. I don’t trust her monkeying around in my head.”
Fairy Ring opened her mouth like she was about to say something sarcastic, but in the end, she just shrugged. “You would know what you want,” she said. “The only important thing is that we all made it here. Equestria, safe forever.”
“This isn’t Equestria.” Flynn turned away from the both of them, staring out the side window at the sky. “The Broken Chain would never come into Equestria, even with the upgrades. It isn’t safe. We’re still wanted criminals.” His eyes widened, and he jerked back around. “Wait a minute, did you two change your minds about being in Equestria? Are you here as refugees, and I’m going to save you by getting you to the free cities?”
Agave broke down into laughter, loud enough that the whole room seemed to shake. Earth ponies. “We’re here to see you, Flynn. We’re not running away anywhere.”
“Well, actually…” Caroline lowered her voice a little. “I wouldn’t mind a little pirate adventure. If it makes you happy to pretend we’re not in Equestria, then I can pretend right along with you.” She grinned over at Jose. “Doesn’t it sound exciting? Pirates life for us! I want to do everything now. The most exciting things we can find, the scariest, the saddest, the most thrilling…” Her horn sparked a little, and she stopped bouncing up and down. “You get the idea. Equestria the country is a little dull. Now that we’re immortal, we might as well enjoy the benefits.”
Jose swore under his breath, or at least Flynn thought he did. It hadn’t been in English, so he couldn’t be sure. “Everypony’s in Fillydelphia,” he finally said, sounding a little petulant. “Do we really have to come all the way out here and not see them?”
“No,” Caroline said. “Because I’m a unicorn and everything in here is magic. There’s no spoon, Jose. If we want to go back for the afternoon, we’ll go back for the afternoon.” She looked back to Flynn. “You think the pirates will let two more ponies join the crew?”
“I… dunno,” he admitted. There weren’t that many ponies on the crew, mostly because in the past they’d been a security risk. But with Flynn to vouch for them, his friends would probably be allowed to stay. “Why don’t you two hide in here for a minute. I’ll go find Gina and ask.” That wasn’t the only thing he wanted to do—through all Flynn’s scattered memories, he remembered that something had changed about her, something important. He just couldn’t remember what that something was.
Flynn found opening his way out of the room with his mouth instead of his hands came quite naturally to him. Walking around through the tight hallways of the Broken Chain was easy enough too, so long as he didn’t try to concentrate on it. If he let his body do what felt natural, he wouldn’t fall.
The sensations were overwhelming to him—the sounds of creaking wood and rope from the airship, the smells of dampness and gunpowder, the motion of the ship beneath him. This was nothing like his dim memories of the afternoon in the Experience Center. As exciting as that had been, it was a pale imitation of actually being there. He could feel the rough wood under his hooves, feel his whole body rocked by the motion. In short, the reality he was walking in didn’t feel fake.
Guess everybody who said this place was real was right after all. Just because it’s a video game doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Which meant… his family were all in here somewhere, too.
He passed a few members of the crew, all of whom greeted him with their usual politeness and courtesy. No trace of any new depth to their relationship—no sense that the griffons and minotaurs and other creatures had sensed that he was more here than he’d ever been.
He found Gina up on deck, leaning over the bow and staring off into the sky. She looked deep in thought, which wasn’t a sensation Entry Vector remembered seeing from her very often. Gina was far more likely to just go out and do something than to spend hours thinking about it first. Yet here she was. “Hey, Gina,” he waved one wing. “Got a minute?”
Gina’s eyes widened, and she shot up so violently that she nearly went over the railing. She turned to face him, expression shifting through so many emotions—surprise, fear, relief. “You’re alive!” she said, loudly enough that a few other crew-members could overhear. They stopped to stare for a few seconds, and kept staring as the griffon embraced him.
Her size hadn’t properly registered with Entry Vector before today. Griffons looked much bigger on the screen, but seeing feathers cover a display wasn’t nearly the same thing as feeling strong claws wrap around him, holding him like she was many years older. She might be. I’ve never asked how old she was. In her grip, he realized something else: Gina had removed her shackles.
“You know more than I do,” he croaked. “I wasn’t in danger last I talked. My memory of the last day is… fuzzy.”
“You’re alive,” she said again, before finally letting go. “That’s what matters. The Tyrant said she would get you here, and she kept her word. Even an evil princess must sometimes be honest.”
“I guess,” he said, feeling suddenly embarrassed. He couldn’t quite make himself meet her eyes. “You seem to understand this more than everypony else.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know I’m here now, and not using a Ponypad?”
She nodded. “The details I don’t understand. The Outer Realm is a strange place, it’s said only its refugees understand it. But I know you were once different, and now you’re here. And I know the life I remember is… transitory.” She shivered. “I shouldn’t have stolen from the princess, Flynn. I see through the others in a way I could not before. I was afraid I would see through you, too. But I don’t.”
“No,” he answered, reaching one supportive wing over her. “I don’t really understand what you mean,” he admitted. “But I’m sure I would if I remembered. You may have to explain it all again, when we have more time.” He felt himself smiling involuntarily. “Some friends came with me… do you think we could convince Captain Blackbeak to let them stick around?”
“I think I could put in a good word,” Gina answered. “You are conquering heros. And I helped bring you here alive. I bet I’ll be first mate when today is done.”
“Conquering heroes?” Flynn repeated, confused. “Who did we conquer?”
“Death,” Gina replied. “Obviously.”
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The beginning of this chapter makes my chest tight and fills me with a mix of unease, uncertainty, existential dread, and a dash of bittersweet relief. Also a bunch of other emotions I can't really explain. You really are doing this genre justice!
And so, Jose, Flynn, and Caroline never saw each other ever again.
Oh Flynn...
And you will never see them.
Right, Gina. “Stolen” from the Princess. And you're not a pony, so you're still empty until Celestia eventually 'convinces' you to turn into a pony.
That ending, so childlike and philosophical, I like it. It reminds me of a certain comic.
Oh, this is good. And I really like how Gina is dealing with her newfound sapience. That is particularly intriguing.
I have really been enjoying this story. It will be tough to see it end. Thank you for writing it!
I wonder how long it will take for Flynn to process that there is no escape from CelestAI now. I wonder if he'll ever allow himself to come to that realization. It's entirely possible that, in a moment of exquisite irony, he'll become a piratical Peter Pan, never growing up and asking Celestia to wipe his memories every time he comes close to it. I hope that won't be the case, but I could definitely see it happening.
The normal uploading process only loses about five minutes of memories. How did he lose a day? Also, you're never getting back that day, dude. Never.
Not all that impressive, considering the social and technological baseline your "Inner Realm" operates at.
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I'm actually pretty sure the uploading process loses most of the last 24 hours, not the last 5 minutes, because the last 24 hours haven't been transferred to long-term memory. In most other cases they had only brief, disconnected memories of what happened before going into surgery, and this doesn't seem any different. Presumably it is difficult to reconstruct memories that have not been encoded in long-term memory, or perhaps CelestAI deliberately doesn't to give herself more wiggle-room.
Well, maybe neither neither we nor Flynn will ever be sure of what's really going on- but then, that's not much different from the real world. At least he seems... satisfied.
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