And What Is Your Name, Mister....Houdini?
Mentally unstable. That’s what they claimed I was. I might have agreed to that. Only problem is I kept switching opinions from time to time. Was I, or was I not mentally unstable? It was hard to think with the other prisoners making so much noise. Especially during that time of night. Princess Luna’s moonlight was pouring through my cell window, cut by the metal bars separating me and the outer world.
I would have sigh if I could. My mouth had a gag in place. They said it was because I shouted too many profanities. I couldn’t even blow my sweaty red mane away from my eyes. They knew I had to use my mouth to use teleport. A lot of unicorns know how to teleport, but they had limits. Mine was short of having no boundaries. They didn’t know that I could have easily taken the gag off, as I have done many times before, but I just didn’t feel like doing so at the moment. I was thinking. How long was I going to be kept here? I had been here for the best of a couple of days. I flashed back to the first day of my stay here.
I kept entering and exiting my cell on the first day, escorted by a brute to a laboratory. The sort of laboratory that had chrome walls, counters with conical flasks filled with chemicals on top of them and warning signs all over.
They would asked me all sorts of questions as they scanned my torso, my head, and any other vital part that could be exploited. How was your family? Do you have kids? What did you work as? I cringed at the word ‘did’. The earth pony sitting in his chair sensed my pain, albeit he took it the wrong way. Either that, or I took it the wrong way.
“Sorry bout that. I’ll be extra gentle next time.” He smiled at me. I didn’t want to smile, but I did anyway. And what surprised me was that I smiled. Genuinely. He looked back down to that checklist of his, fortunately not noticing my right eye twitch.
“How long have you been a blank flank, Mr...”
“Houdini. And no ‘mister’ please. I’m not married yet.” was all I muttered. Then I thought over his question, my tongue stuck out as my eyes scanned the ceiling. I often did so when I wanted remember something. And often times, what I wanted to remember would come to me. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I was mentally unstable.
“I’d say since I was born.”
The scientist looked up at me, with a face that said You don’t say?
“I mean what I meant was, how old are you?”
I didn’t see what asking how long I’ve been a blank flank had anything to do with my age. Moreover, why was he interested in either of that? Me being a blank flank should be the least of their worries. If what I did at the bar the other night was my talent, then they should start worrying.
“I’m 16.”
I snickered at the flashback, and I would have laughed if the gag wasn’t in place. Sighing, I stole a glance outside my cell. The guards weren’t around. Seizing the opportunity, I took the gag off and sat on my bed, my shackles clattering on the floor. My orange coat seemed to radiate as the moonlight poured in. I rubbed a hoof against my dark blue eyes, I was getting sleepy. I cringed in pain a little as I almost touched my recently-blinded eye.
Still I willed myself awake. I had to stay awake. I was about to rise above. I knew that if I didn’t do what I had tonight, then my chances of escaping are slim. I was gonna start a war. I flashed back again. This time to yesterday, a different scientist taking the place of the earth pony scientist that had been there the day before.
“Where’s the earth pony scientist from yesterday?” I had asked from my position sitting on the counter.
The pegasus didn’t even glance up when he was answering. “He’s on leave for today and tomorrow.” His words had a certain type of venom to it, but I couldn’t quite guess why.
The scientist suddenly got off his chair and went over to the counter I was sitting on. I had expected him to run another test on me. He didn’t.
Before the guards, or even I, found out what the pegasus was going to do, he had already brandished a pen, the head sticking out. It was the ballpoint pen he had in his lab coat. He shoved me back against the counter, knocking off conical flasks and trays onto the floor. One conical flash shattered and bloomed into millions of shards on the floor. He stabbed at my left eye. He kept stabbing into my left eye a couple of times before I regained my bearings. I was screaming. I held my hooves up to my face. That was when he started stabbing at my hooves next.
I heard him say, “This is for my son.”
I kicked up in the stomach as he lay on me stabbing. The wind knocked out of him, I went for his pen, my horn lit up as I took it from his grip. The guards grabbed me as I fired the pen with my magic, the force being close to an arrow being fired from a crossbow. It pierced his eye, but didn’t have the desired effect I wanted. He just crumpled to the ground, but he was still breathing. The guards subdued me with their batons as I lay there, bleeding from my left eye, muttering, “An eye for an eye bitch. And an F for fight.” I coughed a bit before I continued muttering, “And for the fight I will give.”
As I was dragged from the laboratory, headed down to the infirmary, I was taken down by a prisoner, who had escaped his cell. He didn’t last long. I didn’t count it as a riot at the time, everypony in their cells shouting. Some had gotten out and were brawling with each other. I simply smashed the prisoner into the nearest set of prison bars.
I continued my trip to the infirmary, this time with extra guards flanking me. I was laughing maniacally, a demented grin plastered across my face a couple of times on my way to the infirmary. The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was the earth pony scientist from yesterday treating me, shaking his head as he requested assistance from a couple of nurses.
Next thing I knew I woke up the next night, with shackles on and a gag in my mouth, in my cell. Literally my words were tied. That’s where I am now. Here on my bed, going through everything that had happened. The words of the now-blinded scientist resonated in my mind.
“This is for my son.”
I remembered the bar fight three nights back. I had put a couple of ponies in hospital for trying to hustle me. I wasn’t even afraid of them. Because fear can make ponies compromise. Fear was the reason why some ponies suffered downfalls. Before they could have hustled me any further, I swung my bottle into the jaw of one of the ponies. The other one flew off, hoping to escape, but he didn’t get far as I fired the neck of the bottle, in the similar fashion that I fired at the pegasus scientist, into the abdomen of the fleeing pegasus.
I still had time to order another bottle of Buck Daniels and down it before the authorities came by last night. I didn’t care if they took me. I wasn’t the one who started the problem, so I was sure I’d be out of custody soon. I grinned as they dragged me away, kinda like how the guards had dragged me to the infirmary last night.
I started chuckling again. Good Celestia I must have been mentally unstable to enjoy such things. Well...not exactly enjoy. I had a bit of guilt inside of me. But I had done what I had to. I had no idea what that scientist’s son wanted to do with me but starting a brawl in a bar, but I was sure it wasn’t for a good purpose. Or maybe I was just another one of their hustling victims, in which case I shouldn’t be feeling guilty.
I decided to act now. I got off my bed and whispered the words ‘disappear’. I teleported out of the cell, just as how I envisioned I would. The shackles were off, thankfully. Those things were hard to walk in.
My cell was the only one at the end of the row of cell without a cell opposite, whereas the others did. For this reason my cell wasn’t that heavily guarded as the other cells. They underestimated my ability. I crept down the hall, not hoping to alert the other inmates in their cells. They were consumed in their own noises. What was surprising was the fact that there were no guards outside the cells, like there would be every night. I wasn’t that sure since I was around for only two nights.
My brow was drenched in sweat, and my right eye was twitching again, an obvious sign of fear. I had to get rid of that fear before it drags me down. Every time I lose the fear, it’ll come back. If the fear stayed, it would really hinder my progress and would eventually lead to my downfall. That would be too quick a downfall to recover from. Even if I couldn’t shake the fear, I would still keep moving, albeit more jittery, making me more dangerous. I’m sure any other pony would be more dangerous if they had fear on their side.
I crept past a couple of cells, glancing from cell to cell, watching the inmates go about their activities. A couple of them were listening to music, while the others were either reading of talking to walls, another inmate most likely on the other side. I reached my first roadblock when I reached a crossroads. Staircase in front of me, I knew it would lead me to the laboratories, but I wasn’t really sure about my two sides. I debated with myself for a couple of moments, before darting down the staircase.
I knew my hoofsteps against the metal staircase was loud, but I hoped that my hoofsteps wouldn’t be loud enough to attract anypony’s attention. I reached the bottom of the staircase within four seconds (if my estimation was right) and glanced to the left, at the laboratory. The transparent glass doors enabled me to see everything inside. The countertop where I had been attacked on yesterday was now back to original state, conical flasks now lining the counter top. The earth pony scientist that had treated me was there, in his chair, going through the same clipboard he had two nights back. He was alone. I didn’t see any guards around the laboratory, so I took the chance and knocked on the glass doors.
The earth pony scientist raised his head from the clipboard and glanced over to the door. A look of bewilderment flashed across his head as I pushed the door open. I gave him the genuine smile I had given him two nights back. He let out a sigh, and smiled back. The same smile he gave two nights back. It went from a sorry smile to a sad one. He kept looking at my blinded eye, the evil deed done by his partner.
“Listen… About your ey-“
He was cut off as I raised my hoof. I was still smiling as I spoke, “It’s no big deal. An eye for an eye, and I heard he lost his. However, I know that won’t stop there.”
The earth pony scientist merely shrugged. I eyed his acetate nametag. It read: Midnight. True to his name, he had a dark blue coat, and a white mane with several streaks of blue. He reminded me of Princess Luna’s night.
I held my hoof out. Midnight took it, and shook it. After that, I had let go first. He merely nodded, to which I turned around and left the laboratory. I wanted to talk to him about other stuff. But I knew I had to get out of the prison. Word had spread among the guards that some of the unicorns that had been jailed had somehow managed to escape their cells, despite having their magic cancelled out by a magical barrier surrounding the prison cells. I should have asked Midnight how I got to bypass it.
I turned around and saw Midnight once more checking his clipboard. I sighed and looked around. I could go right and go back up the staircase, or I could continue down a different set of stairs which would lead me to the infirmary. I chose the latter and headed for the infirmary.
I crept down the dark staircase as I was once again lost in my thoughts. I wondered if I should have brought a weapon should I encounter an escaped inmate or the Pegasus scientist from yesterday, the brawler’s father. I envisioned the end of the staircase looming up below me and whispered ‘disappear’.
My train of thoughts went from getting a weapon, to wanting to disappear again. Sometimes I wanted to disappear just like that, but I couldn’t really envision the outside of a place I didn’t know, right? I had to know where I was in order to teleport to a certain area. I was able to teleport to the end of the staircase because I was dragged down it on my way to the infirmary.
In the end, I dumped the thought of disappearing. The furthest I could go was back to my cell, or head back to the laboratory. My mind was playing tricks on me again. It kept making me feel guilt for blinding the scientist yesterday. Guilt supplied stress, but from what I had learned, I could pass stress off on a better day. I decided to look for the blinded scientist yesterday; all feelings of hate for him suddenly disappeared. But that didn’t last long.
I glanced up, and saw the infirmary crew staring at me through the transparent glass doors of the infirmary. Among the crew, was the pegasus scientist I had blinded yesterday. And among those staring at me, it was only in his eyes did I sense a flurry of emotions. The others had fear in their eyes. The Pegasus scientist had fear, oh yes he had fear, but he also had burning hatred and what seemed to be a thirst for revenge. Had I noticed yesterday, he actually had the same thirst for revenge yesterday as he had now.
The other scientists started moving around, which I presumed to be an attempt to notify security, while the Pegasus and I had a stare off. His glare was burning me, but I could tell he was not far from flinching himself. He didn’t break his glare, but raised a hoof up and waved it in a gesture saying come at me, bro. I obliged. I assumed that the glass doors had some sort of security measure set upon it, so I did the same thing I had done with the staircase and my cell. I envisioned myself inside the lab, and whispered ‘disappear’ moments before a baton struck the air where I had been milliseconds ago.
I had wanted to meet the Pegasus scientist somewhere else, but he was here in the infirmary, which made things all the more difficult. Well I got what I want, but I never knew that I’d receive it here. There were ponies all around me. The chance of collateral damage was high. However, he was first to strike, and in my rulebook, anypony that struck first was the one that will go down first. He had no weapon this time, rather, just leaped at me.
I tried to use my magic, but it didn’t work most likely because of an anti-magic barrier around the lab, or maybe because I wasn’t concentrating hard enough. Whatever the case, I was tackled to the ground before I could do any magic. He managed to land a couple of punches before I managed to push him off my chest. We both got up at the same time, but I leapt at him next and pinned him down. He held his hooves up in an attempt to block off what he thought were going to be punches from me. He thought wrong. I smashed my head downward, impacting him in the forehead.
He lay there dazed as I got up, myself feeling slightly dizzy from the head bang. I was lucky that it wasn’t my horn that had impacted the pegasus’ head. If not, I would have been in a much deeper state of dizziness. He got back up and had grabbed a syringe from a nearby counter. His muzzle was bleeding from my head bang earlier. My pupils widened at the sight of the needle. The Pegasus had gotten a weapon, and I had nothing to use. He was going to stab me even before I had a chance to get a weapon. So the best I did was I bucked him in the chest, sending him sailing through the air and landing roughly 5 metres away in a pile of boxes.
I glanced around me. Terrified nurses, doctors and patients stared at me. I could hear rustling in the pile of boxes, so I tried to achieve a weapon before the Pegasus could make another move. That’s when I saw a scalpel. My right eye twitched. I have had several unfortunate incidents with the scalpel in the past, and to have the memories of such unfortunate incidents bombard my mind at the same moment of immense stress was a little too much for me. The maniacal laugh that I had omitted yesterday, when I was on my way to the infirmary, once more escaped my lips as I picked the scalpel up.
I turned to the pile of boxes, and the Pegasus that was climbing out of it. I cracked a disturbing grin at the staggering Pegasus, and watched with delight as his eyes went from the rage earlier, to complete fear, as I lifted the scalpel. I would have fired the scalpel at him had spellcasting been available at the moment. I had cracked, so I wasn’t going to use some spell to get the job done.
The Pegasus still had the syringe he had earlier, and backed up against a wall, aiming it at me. I knew he couldn’t throw an accurate shot at me, not with those shivering hooves of his.
My right eye twitched a couple of times, my grin not faltering. That was when I started inching closer to the Pegasus. Outside, I could hear the sound of hoofsteps approaching. I didn’t care. I wanted to make sure that my gift was going to reach its receiver.
He was screaming, begging at me to stop getting closer. He was threatening me at the same time, saying that if I got any closer he’d stab me with his syringe. The latter made my impossibly large grin larger as I got closer and closer. The other doctors and nurses were leaving the room hurriedly, leaving behind the patients to watch the pegasus’ fate. I could hear the guards getting closer now, so I decided to act. But first I had to make one thing clear.
“To be frank,” I said, my grin disappeared as I spoke, “it was your son who had started the fight, so here’s a gift for you, a rather perfect one if I do say so myself!” My grin reappeared as I threw the scalpel forward, eliciting screams of fear from the Pegasus. The scalpel impacted the wall next to him, and I saw him shiver. He looked like he was going to piss himself. I let out another maniacal laugh as I grabbed another scalpel and galloped out of the lab, where I realized my mistake.
I came face to face with a team of three guards spread out in a wide arc in front of me. They were trying to push me back against the glass doors, which I couldn’t open without risking turning around to open them. I still had the scalpel, held between my teeth as I eyed all three guards.
Then I noticed that I was out of the infirmary. Magic probably worked outside the infirmary. I dropped the scalpel from my mouth, much to the delight of the guards. But the looks of delight didn’t last long as I grabbed the scalpel with my hoof mid-drop and whispered ‘disappear’.
The guards were startled, so much that I had the chance to stab the guard on my right in the neck. After he tried to halt the blood spraying out of his neck, the other guards started tensing up as I disappeared from place to place around the guards, teasing them on their ability not to catch me. The guard on the left was waving his baton around, hoping to lay a crack on my skull as I traveled. He didn’t even notice me slitting his friend’s throat as he swung it around until he heard him choking on his own blood.
I left the last guard alone. I didn’t want to hurt him, instead I disappeared back to the laboratory Midnight was in. I took in a deep breath as my hooves landed on the marble floor. Midnight looked up, not expecting me to pay another visit. He sighed as he looked down on my bloody hooves, along with the bloody scalpel.
“Seems that I should have stopped you before you went on that rampage of yours.”
My demonic smile receded as sanity began returning. I hung my head as I thought over what I had just done.
“Hey.” I looked up to see the smile that Midnight had given me earlier. “You do what you have to. Even if that means cleaning up on a few ponies.” He had the warm and soft tone of a mother advising her son after the son had screwed something up terribly. What I did earlier might have been invigorating, but as reality set in I realized how much I shouldn’t done so.
My train of thoughts was shattered as a javelin pierced Midnight’s torso, knocking him off his chair, his clipboard clattering against the floor. I turned my head in the direction of the firing, and ducked just in time as a javelin sailed through where my head was moments earlier. Standing in the doorway, the Pegasus pony was aiming a javelin gun at me, sneering as he did so. He had attacked, what might possibly be, my only friend in this place. My look of surprised was soon replaced with a grin, though it wasn’t the maniacal one. I felt fear, I didn’t like fear, and this will bring me down faster than the prisoner from yesterday had.
I whispered ‘disappear’ and the Pegasus fire the javelin. I appeared above him as the javelin he fired embedded itself into the wall. He swung around, thinking I was behind him, but he caught a glimpse of me as I disappeared again to where he was facing a moment ago. I threw my bloody scalpel at him and turned and galloped towards the wall with the javelin still sticking out. I loosened it a bit before disappearing again, this time right behind the Pegasus.
My scalpel had no effect on the Pegasus, merely grazing his flank. I bucked him in the jaw and disappeared once more. I loosened the javelin further, feeling it come out much easier compared to the first try. The Pegasus recovered from my buck and readjusted his aim. I disappeared and he turned around, anticipating my presence. He anticipated wrong. I appeared to where he was facing before and jumped onto his back.
He didn’t expect the surprise attack and tried to swing me off his back by shaking himself rapidly. I hung on like those ponies at the rodeo do. I succeeded in hanging on either because he was weak at shaking me off or I was strong enough to hold on. I wrenched my hooves around his neck to strengthen my hold on him, and at the same, to strangle him. I attempted to tame the Pegasus further by pulling back on his wings. He let out a shout of pain as he tried with increasing succession to shake me off.
He flung me forward, finally getting me to let go, but it was useless as I once more disappeared. He couldn’t see where I was, which was good news for me. He crept off to one corner of the room, hoping that that would be enough to protect him. He was wrong. I reappeared in front of him, albeit with my rearhooves facing him. The Pegasus raised his javelin gun in an attempt to knock me out, but before he could do so I bucked him in the eyes. I had been aiming for the lower jaw, but the eyes were a good place.
He started bleeding out of his blinded eye, and he let go of his javelin gun, and raised his forehooves in a vain attempt to stop bleeding. I quickly picked up javelin gun as his blood dripped onto the floor. His screams were filling up the lab, to the point that it was ringing my ears, and quite possibly his own ears as well. It was hurting my brain. I jammed the javelin gun’s head up into his jaw, and pulled back on the trigger.
The javelin didn’t penetrate all the way through, but it had served its purpose. The explosion of blood, brain and skull fragments that was accompanied by the partial exit of the javelin was enough to convince me he was dead. But I had to really make sure he was dead. As he fell sideways, I slammed the javelin gun down repeatedly on his neck, making sure it was destroyed to the point that he would never breathe again, not that he would anyway.
Somewhere, an alarm blared in the distance as the guard I let live sounded it. Immediately a troop of about half a dozen guards ponies were thundering down the hallways, en route to the lab.
I strode over to Midnight, who was slowly bleeding out. I tried my best to hold back tears, but I knew that I couldn’t do so. I let the tears run freely as I hugged his dying form. Amidst all that chaos, he opened a drawer of a table nearby and gave me a picture. It was of this field just outside a little town.
“Visualize this place, and go free. You’re not meant to be here.” He whispered between gasps for air.
“Why are you helping me escape?” I choked out.
“Because you don’t belong here. You’re dangerous, but that’s when provoked. You’re just like every other pony, just with a unique gift. You’re not mentally unsound, you’re just misunderstood.” He gave me that signature warm smile of his I had been receiving the past few days. He lifted a bloody hoof and touched my cheek. “I have faith in you, my boy. Now leave, before you get taken down. Raise up to your ability.”
He let out a final soft exhale, his hoof went limp, and his eyelids shut. I let go of him and digested his words. All this while I’ve been abusing my disappearing skills, but now I had to abuse it again to escape. My sanity being imbalanced as it is started fighting back.
I never knew that I could find, what would have come when I realized that I didn’t want to compromise. Fear being a past now, it was much easier to focus on the picture Midnight gave me. I could hear hoofsteps storming down the staircase now as my horn started emitting a dark blue glow that soon enveloped me. By the times the guard had raised their crossbows, I had already disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Though the duration in which I teleported between prison and the fields outside the little town wasn’t long, every single thing that had happened within the past three days flashed through my mind. The bar brawl, my arrest, meeting Midnight, getting stabbed in the eye, stabbing the Pegasus back in the eye, deciding to escape and then killing three ponies in the process, and losing a friend. I had never had friends before. My life had always been a silent, peaceful one. Having Midnight, albeit for a short time, had opened me up a bit. I pondered whether or not I would climb out of my reclusive shell once I get things settled.
I tumbled across the grassy field as my teleportation spell ended, right at the same spot Midnight had pointed at in the picture. I had brought the picture along with me, hoping that they couldn’t trace me that way. Off the side of the field was a dirt path, which I slowly made my way to. I pondered. Focusing on my ability helped me gain again what they wanted to steal. My freedom. I chuckled, but then I noticed I still had blood across my hooves and face. The Pegasus had left one Tartarus of a mess earlier.
It didn’t matter. I walked up the dirt road and saw a sign that read ‘Welcome to Ponyville!’. I smiled. Maybe this is where I’ll settle down and refocus on my life again. Hey, I might not have to use the disappearing ability again if things really go smooth. I hated running. It was like submitting to fear. It was either fight or flight. I had to pick the former.
I noticed Princess Celestia’s sun peeking over the horizon as I trotted into town. The first thing I had to do was wash up, and get a place. This place will do well.
Author's note: As I've said, this fic is not to be taken seriously >.> The song is a good one though. I'm kinda hooked on Foster The People's Houdini. Might either write Call It What You Want with Pinkie Pie as the character, or All The Right Moves with the mane six in alternate dimension.