Shades of Other Realities

by Seluxity

Chapter VII. Breaking Good

A beautiful red apple clock hung on the wall of the living room. Very convenient thing, you always know how much time, whether you need to hurry or not. It is a pity that now many people prefer not to use a wall clock.

The clock in the living room of the Apple farm said a little after eleven. It's late in the morning, as I usually call it.

"Before you got here, we thought it through," Twilight Sparkle said.

I listened carefully to the girl, as did everyone else in the room. They probably knew what she was going to say, but I could only guess.

"You were born in two thousand and one, right?"

I nodded. I think I was talking about it. Yes, last night. Or rather, this morning.

"So you're only sixteen in this world."

"Yeah. What are you trying to say?"

"Do you already have a passport?"

"Certainly. Got it last summer."

I think I was beginning to guess where Twilight Sparkle was going. If I were a three-time traveler from a parallel universe, I would need a document if I was going to stay here. I want to stay.

However, the traveler is loudly said. It was more like a guy who had been dragged out of his world and taken to another world while he was having a hard time figuring out what was going on.

Twilight was clearly alluding to the document.

"So you need a new one."

"Of course."

"And you're just the right age to get a passport."

It turns out, I'm coming. You can't argue with that, it was just perfect for me.

Well, this can only be happy.

"Pinkie Pie has a friend. Her name is French Fries... No, Le Big Mac... What's her name, Pinkie?

"Mad Chicken!" rosy-hair blurted out, as if waiting for a question to be asked.

Twilight adjusted her glasses again.

"Well, French Che... I mean, Mad Chicken can help us with forgery.

"You want to fake my passport?" I said it a little louder than I had intended, and in a somewhat surprised tone.

"No, you will get your passport legally. You will become a full-fledged citizen of our society."

"That's good to hear."

"Your birth certificate will have to be forged."

Logical. You can't get a passport without this document.

I remember when I got my passport for the first time, I mean, on my own planet, my father and I had to go to the passport office and back for a few days, and then wait a whole month. A lot of documents, receipts, receipts. It's all bureaucracy. Just like in the old cartoon 'Twelve feats of Asterix'. When Astrix and Obelix needed to get an A38 pass. As a child, you are amused by the seemingly funny running around of characters, their going crazy from the constant bureaucracy of officials, but as you get older, you begin to realize how much this is a caustic satire on modern society.

A bureaucracy that's worse than a cave of monsters or a Legion of dead soldiers in a field.

"Yes," I said. "but in addition to the birth certificate, you also need your parents' passports. How do we get them?"

"Parents or guardian," Twilight said.

"A guardian? But I'm not an orphan, I don't live in an orphanage. I have parents."

"And now to the next question."

"So, interesting."

I looked around at everyone present. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Sunset Shimmer, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack. It's nice to know that everyone is together and that I am with them. Next to them.

"You've already thought about where you're going to live, haven't you?"

"Certainly."

I don't think it's in a special facility for aliens from another world. I don't want scientists poking at me and asking me where I hid the flying saucer I came here on. And I, in turn, will answer them that there is no flying saucer and I was brought here through a portal between dimensions by one of my favorite cartoon characters, whom I love very much and about whom I watched cartoons and read books. This is exactly like the truth.

"We found a solution."

"We think you'll like it," said Sunset Shimmer.

"Definitely," Rainbow added, and whistled.

Twilight folded her hands and continued.

"You'll be an exchange student."

"That's great," I said.

"We understand that you lived in a country that doesn't speak our language."

"Yeah. Your native language is English. We speak a different language in our country."

"So you can pass for a student from another country. So I came here to study for an exchange."

"Understand."

My classmate in the tenth grade left for exchange to study in the United States. So I'm very familiar with this. He submitted the documents himself, but did not pass the selection process at the time. I wasn't particularly upset at the time. This prospect seemed more like something fabulous and unrealistic than a real chance to go abroad.

I wonder if I had actually flown to the States a couple of years ago, would the girls have found me there? It is quite possible that things would have been very different and my signals, so to speak, did not reach them.

"We'll introduce you as an exchange student," Twilight repeated. "I came here from another country to study. And you will live in a family that accepted you."

"What kind of family is this?" now's the time to worry. Right now, in the presence of seven girls from Equestria, my fate was being decided.

"You will live with my family," Sparkle said after a brief but painful pause.

To say that I was surprised is to multiply all my feelings at that moment by one-tenth. No, not even one-hundredth. I was, so to speak, very surprised by what I heard. Live in the Twilight family? Not only did I get into this world, but I was also so lucky with it? It seems that all the benefits of the universe poured out on me from a giant cosmic cornucopia. And I didn't do anything about it myself. Or, after all, is this the result of the last years of my life, which I spent in a world of dreams and fantasies? I practically refused to communicate with the opposite sex. After all, my favorite characters are the only ones I really loved. I couldn't love anyone as much as I love each of these lovely girls.

Yes, there was Alice in my life, but it's more of a hobby. Every teenager has something that he takes for true love for life because of his stupidity and, due to age, inexperience. So I had something similar. I didn't lock myself out of the world. I wasn't a Hickey, I went to school like everyone else, went to the movies, walked. Although, sitting in the classroom, I felt like I wanted to disappear here and be somewhere else. But it is very difficult to hold back, one way or another.

You can still demand something like this from an adult and formed person, and then not always, but not from a teenager. When you're a teenager, feelings prevail over common sense. It is the heart that controls you, not the mind. No matter how much you want to be different from others, to be, as they say, not like everyone else, but the heart always plays the same role. It is feeling, not reason, that drives you to rash and stupid actions. So how do I differ from other boys and girls my age? The same stupidity, the same recklessness that is common to all teenagers.

"It... it real?" I blurted out at last, coming out of a reverie that might have taken me with it for a long time. "I mean, is it really possible? What will it look like? Hello, I am a student from abroad, I came for an exchange and now I will live here with you?"

To be honest, the prospect of living in a Sci-Twi family was hard to believe. Everything works out perfectly for me.

In response to my questions and reasonable comments, Twilight laughed kindly.

"Things are settled with my parents." I arranged it so that they supposedly agreed to exchange students. But this is actually a fiction. Right now, they are waiting for a student from another country, who should arrive any day.

"So if I show up at your parents' house, I'll be accepted as an exchange student right away?"

"Yeah."

"But it's not just that. You need some kind of document, right?"

Twilight glanced at her watch, checking the time. The green Apple looked down from the wall and also seemed to be listening to our conversation. He probably cares about the fate of a guy from another world. He also wonders what will happen to him next.

I pictured Applejack and his family spending winter evenings here in this room, drinking tea and talking. Probably playing board games. And the clock looks at them from above, looking steadily, because this is their mission - to show people the time and watch their actions.

"That's what we're going to do today."

"We'll take a picture and make an exchange student card," Rarity said.

"And your friend will do all this? What's her name, Fries Chicken."

"Mad Chicken," Pinkie corrected.

I guess their names are too strange for me. In their world, most names mean something. Me have to get used to it.

It's one thing to name your favorite characters. It's different when everyone around you has it. Well, that's all right. You can get used to everything. And getting used to it won't be the hardest thing, I'm sure.

"Delicious," I joked.

Pinkie licked her lips.

Every minute I felt more relaxed in the company of the girls. Every minute I merged more and more into their team, became a part of it, one of them. A friend to them. And they are my friends. It remained only to settle matters and go to conquer a new world.

"Yes," Twilight continued. "Mad Chicken will help us. So, today we will take pictures. We'll make you an exchange student card, make you a fake birth certificate. After that, we will buy you a suitcase and things to make you look like a person who came from abroad."

I smiled sweetly.

"When it's done, you and I will come to my house and introduce you to my family. And you will live with us."

"Okay," I nodded. "What's next?"

"Since you're an exchange student, you came here to study."

"Where will I study?"

"At our Canterlot School. Since you are sixteen years old, you will go with us to the eleventh grade."

"I'll be accepted, won't I?"

"You can be sure," said Twilight Sparkle.

"Still as will be," winked at me Sunset Shimmer.

The girl crossed her legs and looked at me. We met Sunset Shimmer's eyes. She seemed older than the others. No, not that it's older. More like an adult. As if she had seen and experienced more than all the others combined.

However, it was true. She's not from here either. Not from this dimension. And when I came here, I changed, as I changed, in turn. This brought me closer to her. Sunset and I are alike. Each of us had a reason to leave our own world for the other. Motives that justify our actions. Perhaps in the eyes of others, what we do seems very strange, but we know that we are doing everything correctly. We do what our hearts, eager for sincere feelings, suggest.

"They will, of course," Rainbow Dash added. "A student like you will be welcome here."

"I'm very glad to hear that."

The whole situation, to be honest, reminded me of the TV series 'Breaking Bad'. Well, where a school teacher, after learning that he had lung cancer, turned into a drug dealer.

Twilight ran a hand over her right cheek. I noticed the gesture. I don't know why, but it caught my attention.

"Now let us repeat all that has just been said. But now in chronological order. First, we make you a student card and a birth certificate. You come home to my parents, settle in, and live with me. Then you go to Canterlot School. Then we go and make you a passport. Oh, Yes, your parents won't be needed. My parents will act as guardians. This is allowed by law."

Applejack put her index finger and thumb together, making the appropriate gesture. This was encouraging.

In General, it turns out that the girls have already thought everything through. In fact, I was not enough to carry out all this. And here I am, sitting on a comfortable sofa in the Applejack living room, listening intently to the accompaniment of an Apple wall clock.

Inside, butterflies fluttered, no matter how banal it sounded. I imagined a life together with Twilight sparkle. Study at the Canterlot School. I've often imagined this before. I fantasized in class at my own school. How I would behave, how I would talk to other students.

Sometimes I transferred his fantasies to paper. It turned out so-so, but over time I honed my skills, read a lot and, in the end, it became something more or less suitable for reading without the risk of loss of vision.

"We've explained most of it," Twilight said, as if to sum it up. "Except one."

It seemed to me that we had really explained everything that was needed. But there was something else.

"Name. Your name. Will you leave your present or invent a new one?"

I thought about it. I don't think my real name will fit this world. But on the other hand, I came from abroad, didn't I? This is, in fact, true.

However, I wondered what my name would be here. Of course, you should not invent a speaking first and last name. Otherwise, I'm not likely to pass for a foreigner. Especially since I have almost no accent, I speak English fluently.

I thought with my chin in my hand. Finally, I said:

"What about it? Joshua."

That's the name of one of my favorite players. Jozua Kimmich is a defender for my favorite club Bayern Munich. I decided to name myself after him.

"That's a strange name," Pinkie Pie said.

"No stranger than Mad Fries."

"Mad Chicken, stupid," Pinkie corrected again.

"Well, I can't even remember," smiled the human from now on call Jozua.

What was happening was more and more like a TV series.

Twilight nodded in agreement. Like the other girls.

"What about the surname? Or don't you have them?"

"Do you have any?" I asked.

"Some have it and some don't," said Sci-Twi.

"Then let Walker be mine."

I like that name. I decided to take it for myself.

"It's not a very foreign name," Sunset said.

"I will say that this is a very popular surname among us."

"By the way, where exactly are you going to be?" Sunset asked.

I thought about it. And how does the geography of this world work? Is it similar to our earth? Is there, for example, Europe?

"Do you have Europe here?"

"Yes," Twilight said.

"In that case, I'll be from Eastern Europe."

"All right, so be it."

I think we've allowed that, too. I am Jozua Walker, an exchange student from Eastern Europe. Sixteen years old, single, no trial. I lead a healthy lifestyle of a typical geek who went all over his head.

"So, your name is Jozua Walker," said Twilight loudly.

All were in agreement with this. It's my choice.

"That means we've discussed it," Applejack said.

"Yes," Twilight Sparkle stood up from her place. "Now let's get down to business. Let's start by buying you the things you came here with. And then we'll go to.."

- Mad Chicken!" Pinkie exclaimed.

Then she corrected her voice and added:

"Just in case you forgot her name again."

The girls laughed, and I couldn't help it either. Everything was great, everything worked out perfectly for us and for me in particular. So why not give vent to sincere emotions and laugh? It's been a long time since I felt so light inside and so confident that it would be good. I have regained the optimism I once lost. I got rid of the clutches in my chest. It was like being released. And I became himself. Became real.

"Thank you for everything you've done," I said again to the girls. I was ready to tell them that every day.

We stood in a circle. All in total.

"You're my best friends," I said. "Once I saw you for the first time. You won my heart once. One day you became a part of me. An integral, most important part. I loved you once. Once and for all."

"Oh, how nice of you," Rarity took a deep breath.

"We saw you for the first time once," Sunset Shimmer said. "And we realized that we would do everything to make you our best friend, too."

Then our feelings got the better of us. Again. I felt warmth, care, and love. Something I haven't had for so long. And I was absolutely happy. The main thing in my life is these wonderful girls. And we will always be together. Always.

Forever & Always.
We'll be together.

Yes, it will be like this. I'm sure.