The God Particle

Chapter 12: Changing Seasons

James arrived at Sugarcube Corner only to find that it appeared to be already closed. The windows were dark and there appeared to be no activity inside. Still, he tried the door anyway. It opened.

"Hello?" he called out as he walked inside, the door closing behind him with a squeak. His hand fumbled on the wall next to the door, trying to find a light switch. The place shouldn't be closed yet, and he becoming concerned something might be wrong.

Suddenly, the room lit up like the Forth of July. "Surprise!" he heard a lot of ponies shouting together.

He blinked and looked around on the wall in front of him was a banner than read Welcome to Ponyville. Balloons of all different colors hung from various parts of the room, along with ribbon streamers strung across the ceiling. On a table at the front of the room were cakes, muffins, apple pies and various other apple pastries, and assorted types of candy.

"are you surprised? huh? huh? are you? are you?" Pinkie said, bouncing up to him as if she had springs on her feet.

He blinked "Yeah, I guess you could say, mmmf!" he was suddenly interrupted by Pinkie Pie shoving a piece of cake in his mouth.

"Pinkie Pie!" Rarity facehoofed, but the pink party pony seemed not to even notice.

"Is it good? Huh? Huh? Huh? Do you like it cause I made it myself," she bounced around excitedly again.

He frantically chewed on the large piece of cake she had shoved in his mouth, unable to respond just yet. Finally, he was able to swallow it. "Yes, Pinkie Pie. It's very good, he smiled. It was a double layer cake, with both chocolate and vanilla layers, covered in rainbow colored frosting.

"Twilight should be here very shortly," Rarity said. "She probably left as soon as she was certain you wouldn't hear or see her following you."

Suddenly, something was wrapped around his head. A blindfold he realized. "What the?" he started to protest.

"Time to play pin the tail on the pony," he heard AJ's voice from behind.

"But I—" he didn't get a chance to finish as he felt several ponies spinning him around in circles several times. "Enough spinning!" he protested. "I'm gonna be sick." The spinning stopped, or at least he thought it did, and he felt the paper tail being placed in his hand. He stumbled as he dizzily walked towards the wall, initially heading in the right direction, but gradually veering off course from the vertigo still spinning around in his head.

"Woah there! Goin' the wrong way, sugercube," Applejack said, nudging him back towards the right direction.

Over the next several hours, they played multiple different types of games and consumed way too many sweets. James was not a crowd or party type person, but eventually he started to warm up to some of the rest of the ponies in Ponyville he had not met yet. The party continued late into the night, and eventually early into the morning before ponies started leaving. The thin clouds to the east began to take on a pinkish-orange hue as daylight started ariving when Twilight and James finally left Sugercube Corner.

"I ate too much cake ... and pie ... and ice cream ... and candy," James groaned as he slowly walked back to the library—daylight having arrived by the time they arrived.

"I'm sorry I tricked you last night," Twilight said apologetically. "Into going to Sugarcube Corner like that. But I was afraid if you knew I was taking you to a party, you might refuse to go."

"Well, it's alright," he forced a smile. Even though he didn't like parties very much, he had to admit that he did have a good time last night. The truth is, he probably would have gone even after Twilight tricked him. Pinkie Pie had worked really hard on planning and preparing it, hew knew. And he knew she would be devastated if he didn't show up. That was something, he simply wouldn't do to her. He wouldn't do it to any human. And he wouldn't do it to any pony either ...

o.O.o

Celestia staring out the window in one of the castle towers with a contemplative look on her face. She looked off in the distance, to the north, as if she were trying to bore a hole in some non-existent object on the horizon. Her contemplative look slowly turned to a frown, but her attention continued to remain focused on the north horizon.

"Sister? Tia, something troubles you," Luna had a look of concern on her face.

Celestia felt a gentle rub against her shoulder as the younger alicorn lowered her head slightly, rubbing it up her older sister's side. She looked back at Luna and forced a small smile from the attention her sister was giving her. Then the smile turned back into a contemplative look. Her eyes betrayed a hint of worry. Finally, she spoke again. "I have been sensing ... distrubances in magic lately. No doubt you have sensed them as well, sister. They are very mild, almost imperceptable. Because of that, I cannot tell what they are, or where they are coming from. But they have a sinister feel to them ... as if something is testing the waters—experimenting and preparing for something much more powerful."

"And you think it is a threat to Equestria?" Luna now shared her sister's concerned look.

"I do not know yet, sister. The disturbances are too minor, and nearly imperceptable. I can't get a good feel for them yet," the Sun Princess shook her head slightly, tapping her right forehoof on the ground once in frustration at her inability to discern more information.

There was a pause before Luna spoke again. "Do you think the human is behind them?" she narrowed her eyes slightly, still distrusting James.

"No," Celestia shook her head again. "I do not. But my heart tells me that he will have a role to play in this. I don't know why he is here, or how he got here. But we will need him when and if the time comes. And he will need to trust us completely and absolutely," she sighed and looked at the ground. "Keep all of this between just the two of us for now, sister. I do not want to cause public panic. Not even the council knows of my fears."

Luna nodded her head softly. "Of course, Tia," she nuzzled up against her older sister gently, trying to comfort her and ease her concerns, elicting a small smile out of Celestia. But after this discussion that had just occured, Luna herself, also needed comforting.

o.O.o

Things began to go much smoother between James and Twilight after their last trip to Canterlot, and after the welcoming party. James immersed himself deeply in learning from the unicorn about all aspects of Equestrian life including law, customs, traditions, history, politics, geography, and culture. He also continued his study of science, but with a more open mind that was willing to incorporate magic into it when necessary. James, of course, could not perform magic himself. But he took an intellectual interest in it nonetheless—trying to understand how various aspects of it worked, and how it might be able to fill in the gaps that could not be explained through pure science.

He also helped Twilight with her own research, taking on the role of her scribe in Spike's absence—even writing her letters to Princess Celestia for her. All the writing duties helped him become much more proficient at both reading and writing in Equestrian script. He hoped that Princess Celestia could read all the handwriting in his letters though. His handwriting, even in his own world, had never been particularly good thanks to doing most everything on a computer. No doubt, his handwriting in Equestrian was far worse.

Over time, James and Twilight developed a very close and loving, although completely platonic relationship. James still had somewhat frequent episodes of depression about not ever being able to go home and see his family or friends again. When those occurred, there was nopony he felt more comfortable confiding in than Twilight.

As he had promised, he also tried to help the cutie mark crusaders. It hadn't taken Apple Bloom very long to get him completely wrapped around her hoof as she quickly figured out that she could usually manipulate him into giving her what she wanted by using her sad pony expression. Scootaloo once had the idea of building a rocket, which James agreed to. Model rockets were fairly trivial to build after all. Unfortunately, James had neglected the fact that solid fuel pre-made model rocket engines were not available in Equestria. Designing and building a workable engine turned out to be the most difficult part of the project. The first attempt, burst into flames on the launchpad and consumed the rocket, much to the dismay of the three fillies. However, James was able to turn it into an object lesson on learning from failure, analyzing what went wrong, and building it better the next time around. The second model rocket they built actually flew—making it to a height around 2,000 feet or 700 meters, before parachuting safely to a landing, which all of the crusaders—especially Scootaloo, throughly enjoyed. However, even after all this, none of them had gotten their cutie marks. James made sure to remember to enforce upon them what Twilight had told him about cutie marks only coming when they are ready.

James also found himself teaching at the school on a substitute teacher basis, often when Cheerilee just wanted to take a day or two off. Despite Cheerilee's insistence, he continued to refuse any pay for doing so.

He also received nutritional counseling from Nurse Redheart and Fluttershy on how to eat a balanced vegetarian diet. He followed their dietary advice as best he could, and his iron levels had returned to normal by the third time Nurse Redheart rechecked them. Fast food junkie that he had been before arriving in Equestria, he still had cravings for meat every once in a while. But he found that he could survive on the vegetarian diet, and that properly prepared vegetarian dishes were actually very tasty. With time, he got used to it to the point where he never even thought about wanting to eat meat anymore. Once he had managed to balance his new diet, he found he had more energy and stamina, which helped with the workout routines.

As far as the workout routines / drill instructor / boot camp with Rainbow Dash and Applejack, it became routine for James to be up well before sunrise to meet the two of them for a morning workout. The next few workouts were as bad as the first one had been, but they became easier with time. By the time the leaves had started to change color on the trees, James was able to keep up with the two ponies without Rainbow Dash having to constantly yell at him to pick up the pace. James got additional exercise during this period by helping Applejack with the apple harvest on her orchard. By the time the leaves had started to fall off the trees, and the first hints of the chill northern air could be felt on the wind, James had gained an estimated 20 pounds, or 9 kilograms of muscle. He didn't have a bodybuilder physique or anything. But neither did he have the scrawny nerd appearance anymore that he did when he first arrived in Equestria. He could even hold his own with Rainbow Dash now during their wrestling / sparing sessions. He still lost every time, but now it was entirely due to lack of technique and experience and not lack of strength or stamina.

It was on one of those autumn nights with the chill northern wind blowing against the windows that Twilight Sparkle entered the library guest room James was sleeping in. She watched him sleep for a few minutes as she mentally weighed the morality and ethics of what she was about to do to him. She needed information—information that, if it existed at all, only he had. But even he would not be consciously aware he had it. There was only one way to access it. She was about to violate him in a very personal way, she realized. Some would even go so far as to call it a form of magical psychic rape as she would have access to all of his thoughts and memories, both conscious and sub-conscious. She would have access to and be able to probe any and all energy fields that were flowing through him, around him, into, or out of him. But it was the only way to get what she needed, and she feared he would say no if she asked him while he was awake. That and she also didn't want to get his hopes up since she thought there was very little chance she would be able to make this work anyway, even if she did find what she was looking for. She continued to torture herself for several more minutes as she watched him sleep, weighing the pros and cons of seeing if he had the information she needed, against the act of violation it required to see if it was there. Finally, she made up her mind. She would get in and out as fast as she could. She would search only for what she needed, and she would ignore everything else she encountered and not examine it—at least not any deeper than required to determine it was not what she was looking for.

She sighed, resigning herself to what she was about to do, her horn starting to glow. She began by placing a deep sleep spell on him to make sure he would have no memory of what she had done after he woke up, then she started her second spell and began to probe his mind and his energy aura. The first thing she encountered on probing his mind where various thoughts of his family, as well as thoughts of herself. She was somewhat surprised to have run into his thoughts about her so early in the probe. As tempted as she was to examine them and find out what he really thought about her, she resisted the urge, knowing it would be unethical to read his private thoughts like that. She immediately stopped probing those thoughts before she determined what any of them were or what they were about. Then she encountered libraries worth of academic information on physics and other aspects of science. Again, she had to resist the academic temptation to probe deeper into those. What harm could come from it after all? It was just scientific knowledge. No, even if that's all it is. It would still be unethical, she thought to herself and once again moved on, probing deeper and deeper until she had reached past even his subconscious mind and into the realm of his metaphysical energy field.

Navigating this part was hard, as it always was anytime she had tried this spell on willing participants for practice. Hundreds of thousands of energy fields and streams whipped around here. She quickly probed and discarded quite a few of them, determining they were not what she was looking for. After another thirty minutes or so of probing, she was about to give up, thinking what she was looking for just wasn't there.

Wait! What was that? she thought to herself as she suddenly went back to an area she had just passed over. It was a magical thread! Very weak, but it was there nonetheless. But it was so weak, that she could not get a magical lock on it to probe it. She concentrated harder and increased the intensity of her spell as her horn glowed brighter. There! She had finally gotten the lock on it! She probed it and found that the thread was pulsing in and out of phase with this dimension. One end was connected to James. The other end was very far away and she could not tell where it went. But it should be possible to use it anyway. This had to be it! This had to be what she was looking for. She examined the thread closer. A sense of urgency rose quickly within her when she noticed it was badly frayed and unraveling. She might still be able to figure out a way. But even now she knew it was a long shot, and the odds of being able to figure out a way were very small, if they existed at all. Now though, she at least had something to go on, but she knew she was running out of time. Soon, the frayed thread would snap. And when it did, it would sever the only magical energy connection with James's homeland. When that happened, he really would be stuck here forever, with no hope of ever being able to return him home.

Twilight quickly released James from the spell once she had that information. She wanted to start working on the problem tonight. But it was very late—after midnight already. And the probe spell she had used had taken a lot out of her, given she had been at it for well over a half hour. It would do no good for her to try to work on the problem tonight given she was too exhausted to concentrate on it. She went back out to her desk in the library, levitating a quill and frantically scribbling down notes about what she had found to make sure she wouldn't forget any details in the night. When she finished, she locked it in a private desk drawer to make sure James wouldn't find them in the morning if he awoke earlier than her. Then, reluctantly, she climbed up to her loft and went to bed herself. But even in her weary state, sleep did not come easily for her. And so she lay awake, listening to the cold wind pound against the windows.