Prologue: A Nigga Don't Drink Tea
So Joel was this big badass stallion who almost literally became the sensation of Ponyville overnight. According to him, he'd just a short while prior become a member of the small town, only occasionally staying there, and leaving for entire days at a time to some place that never did fall into the same direction as the last time. An enigma that probably would've come across as something of an enchantment to those around him—that is to say, had he not rubbed off on the residents as the biggest dick you'd ever want to walk away from really fast in fear that he might stare at you so hard that your internal organs spontaneously turned into commercial cookware. It was the kind of reputation that did not require immense study for a character of Joel's status. But being infamous did not stop the residents from being able to know somewhere between jack-of-all-shit and a box full of gnawed-on package peanuts about him. That as well, did not stop them from ceaselessly assuming whatever they pleased at his expense. So a lot of things tended to be passed on about him.
One had to admit, for a shape-shifting, drug tyrant, lizard born, paraplegic, inbred penguin goddess, Joel was remarkably plain. Even the colors of his coat and mane—a brown and a slightly darker variation of brown—seemed to exist for the sole purpose of expressing how little he gave a fuck about anything. Unlike many other ponies though, almost the entirety of his chin and face had largely grown facial hair—truly a testament to how unearthly spectacular he was. It was rumoured that underneath was but another hoof for kicking or perhaps the very secrets to the meaning of life itself. Or perhaps just another chin, but that one was disregarded almost immediately as foal-talk.
When he first showed his marvelous face in town—a Summer day, exceptionally cruel with how wide it chose to spread its sunny grin—he was riding on the back of a gryphon-jaguar with a myriad of beautiful mares wrapped obediently around his hooves, laying gentle kisses all over his body. That, we regret to inform, was a slightly exaggerated chain of events. Joel was actually not riding anything. Well, technically he was being carried over-the-shoulder by some mare... and he was bleeding, too. One can understand how the mistake might be made, yes?
He was slightly conscious, fully awake, and simultaneously taking a nap as he shambled through the town in tow of the mare. The sight was the kind of thing that normally wasn't seen throughout Ponyville—a stallion with a beard, we mean. Oh, and the bloody thing, too. He was bleeding. Like a lot. But no one in the town really cared, because the pony had a beard, it was on his face, and it was the most spectacular thing they'd ever seen in their existence. The mare dragged him to an old pawn kiosk where she bought him a bottle of liquor and a roll of toilet paper, and allowed the half-dead stallion to do his work. And with creating a crude bandage of which he wrapped around his left arm, he began to reestablish his composure and shake the debilitating wounds off like a scrape—and also like he wasn't bleeding more than a prepubescent anime protagonist who just discovered Internet porn. He then trotted off with the mare, who, to be fair, was just as confused as the spectators. And that was the last anypony had seen of Joel until later the next day.
No one really noticed that the stallion was utterly adorned with a bunch of alien crap when he first showed his face—probably too mesmerized by his beard, they were. His clothing wasn't too out-of-the-ordinary, only he was wearing a large jacket more suited for Winter, when it was already the first days of Summer's most excruciating and almost masochistic days. On top of that, he was equiped with no saddlebag anypony had ever seen before, carrying a bunch of weird looking sticks and a baseball bat. When he came into town the next day, following the mare who accompanied him the day before, most of this crap was gone—likely inside the bag (because stuff like that can totally fit inside it).
Most people in the market square that day were unfamiliar with the spectacular stallion in their presence, and thus completely averted their attention—except for the beard; folks were still left helplessly gazing at that. The mare beside him was revealed to be one of the local diamond miners, one Amethyst Star—a pony notorious for implied castration of those she didn't like. The ponies in question would neither confirm nor deny to this assessment. Then again, most young widows were considered stallion tormentors in Ponyville. It was just one of those things.
The story goes that she had Joel, a pony whom we should've mentioned as rather large, kick open the door with the force of a belligerent bull baking brownies and then ceaselessly stomp on the owner for exactly twelve minutes and seventeen seconds as she stole all the merchandise. Though, that was also ever-so-slightly exaggerated. Joel kicked open the door by his own accord, and only beat the shopkeep enough for him to soak the floor with his lower bodily fluids and have nightmares for the last twenty-three years of his life before dying in a roaring rampage of shooting oneself in the face. Meaning he didn't beat him at all, really. More like intimidated him with a stare that could wet the non-existent panties of even the strongest mares, stole his toupee, paid for the door (and the toupee), and left. Even Amethyst Star couldn't do much more than stare in a way that one was sure could only be feasting the mind for late night activities.
The two left the square together, the shopkeep sobbing and rolling in his own piss and tears. It was like he'd just been skulled-fucked by a rhino who just ate viagra steak. Only Joel was a lot more threatening than a rapist rhino, and he had a cool jacket. And a beard, too. He also had a beard.
News of the promiscuously sexy mystery stallion began to spread throughout the town like a pathogen inconspicuously transferred through the very aura emitted from being annoying as a gnat with a kazoo—which would've been bad news for the likes of Ponyville. Stallions began to buy all kinds of facial hair tonics, as mares found themselves unable to achieve sexual stimulation without the presence of meticulously unpampered facial hair. Lives and marriages were ruined at the sake of the mysteriously ordinary stallion. And as days passed, his reputation only grew.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The rugged man let out a groan that was the kind of groan that's probably supposed to come out as an actual word when you picture it in your mind, but it instead just comes out as a groan. He was lying face down on a floor of black and white tile patterning, which—to his inspection—smelled faintly of marijuana. Or conspicuously. Whichever you naturally prefer.
"Ah, Hell no," exclaimed a boisterous voice from across the room, "Mah boy's finally wakin' up. Alleluia, Jesus!"
He coughed. There was blood in his cough. Which probably meant that he coughed blood. He lifted a shaking hand up to his face and wiped bloody saliva from his chin. Tasted like it'd been there for a while, so any threat didn't feel precisely imminent.
"Well fuck, nigga, why you just lying on the floor like some cracked-out hoe? Get yo ass ovah he're!"
A slimy, neon blue tentacle cantered itself from out of nowhere and wrapped a tendril around the man's waist, hoisting him into the air. He had to open his eyes, and when he did he saw two brown leather chairs, a coffee table between them with a chessboard atop it. It appeared to still be in game. And sitting on one of the large chairs was an old black man, adorned in a starched-white toga and a thick pair of aviator sunglasses. A smile was spread across his face, exhibiting his two rows of shiny, yellow teeth. Before the rugged man had any incentive to decipher what in the name of a controversial priest was going on, he was dropped harshly onto the other seat in front of the boisterous black man.
"'Sup, bitch?" he asked.
The man took everything in for a moment, then soon realized that it was all too much to take in, but he already began taking it in, so he probably had to take it all in anyway. He lifted his hand to his head and felt a sticky condensation of cold sweat. When he looked at the black man in his company, all he could do was cough again. This time no blood. That was progress.
"Yo, faggot. You as deaf as I am blind? How ya holdin' up?"
The rugged man suddenly realized that he had a searing pain in his stomach, like he'd just tried to pogo-stick on a rhino's horn, and wasn't so successful with his balance. He groaned again, but this time it was moreso intentional.
"Yeah, you pry gonna be feelin' that fo' a while," the black man said, not losing his wide grin, "We had to kick yo boys a couple a' times 'fore you finally gave. You weren't bein' cooperative an' all that." He reached into his robes and withdrew a roll and a bic in one hand. Sticking the blunt in his jaw and lighting it, he began, "Either that or you jus' feelin' what's left of that fucking rebar. Holy shit, nigga, that thing was almost as big as mah dick and yo dick stacked, knowhumsayin'?"
"W-who the Hell are you?" The man finally managed, clasping his belly with one hand and wiping off the sweat on his neck with the other.
"Bitches call me David Davidson. An' in case you hit yo head in that fall, yo name is 'Joel'." He reached over to hand the rugged man one of his blunts. "Like some lone-star nigga."
Joel stared at the marijuana for a minute and shook his head, turning down David's offer. "You sure, foo'? I got a million a' dese things around this fuckin' place. Foo's don't know I got an operation goin' on. Lots a' guys under mah thumb, but no one suspects none, because they don' even wanna think about a nigga slaver, knowhumsayin'?" He let out a boisterous chuckle. Joel was beginning to notice that everything about this man was more than slightly boisterous.
Joel just shook his head again. "Is-" he paused for a moment, "What is this?"
"Mah crib," David replied.
There was a long moment of silence, as if Joel was expecting more than that.
"Your..." he paused again, "Your crib?"
"It's mah house, G. It's where I live."
"Why am I here?" Joel finally snapped.
David Davidson threw his blunt onto the ground along with a large pile of many other burnt blunts that Joel was slightly ashamed of himself for having not noticed. "You know a guy, Joel?" David asked.
"Uh..."
"Shut the fuck up, nigga; we all know a guy. Don' matter whether we been isolated since we was birthed, because then y'all still know yo' mama. Maybe even yo' doctah. Even if either a' dem foo's was pokin' ya with a wire."
It was then that Joel realized David was a fucking maniac. He felt like at any passing moment the man might jump across the table and stuff whatever was underneath those robes straight down his throat and then spin around the room like a helicopter. The thought made him wince, regardless of its obvious absurdity. "That's... terrible."
"That's life, dawg. Shit's some backward shit." He kicked his legs up on the table and revealed a pair of sandaled and exceptionally hairy feet. At least they weren't tentacles. "But you get aroun', so you must've met a guy. An' you might've happened to meet a guy who happened to hire a guy. A guy to help save yo life 'fore no reason at all. Maybe you was just bein' a respectable nigga, an' you was too good to die."
Joel stared at David for a good long time. Holy shit it was just like high school all over again, only there was less marijuana and bad decisions.
He was about to say something, but David, clairvoyant negro that he was, stopped him at the raise of a hand. Then he laughed both sides of his ass off. "Damn foo', jus' look at yo face!" David dropped his feet from the coffee table and laughed some more. "Damn bitch, I just love fuckin' with the poor mothafuckas."
Joel twitched his eye. He was beginning to theorize that this was a dream—a wet dream, on top of that. It wasn't wet just yet, but he's had dreams about half-naked, blind black men before, and the last time he did, he had a lot of explaining to do to an associate of his. He could just about smell the potential of furious and humiliating sex on David's breath. "Um..."
"Zip!" David raised his hand again. "You shoulda talked when you was actually bein' asked shit."
Joel was about to protest, but he remembered that that was the kind of formula that spelt the beginnings of most sex fiction. So he closed his mouth, not one to anticipate the amount of sex he knew he was about to have.
"See dis game a' chess he're, cowboy?" David asked, gesturing towards the board on the coffee table.
Joel looked down at the board and then back up at David. He nodded his head. Looked like the match had already been in game previously, but had to be cut short somehow.
"You evah play in any chess clubs or some shit?"
"I, uh, never-"
"Nevah went to college, yeah." David reached into the chair he sat in and withdrew a very warm, albeit fresh, bottle of beer. He rubbed it a bit on his toga and popped the cap off, flinging it onto the table. After taking a sip, he said, "You still pretty good at this, though, right? I get a lot a' shit heads comin' in he're bringin' all kinds a' shit, and this one nigga challenges me to a game a' chess he kep' in his fucking backpack." He takes another drink and exhales loudly. "Kid was a total faggot. Thought I was the Grim Reapah, and he was gonna cheat death like a little douchebag. Kicked that little foo's ass, I did."
"I..." Joel rubbed the back of his head. "I reckon I know how to play."
"Well shit, nigga, that's all I need!" David said, lifting his arms into the air, "Les' play a game a' chess, and we can talk shit while doin' it." He began placing all the pieces back into their corresponding places.
Joel gave a glare to no one in particular—because even he was capable of breaking the fourth wall. "Uh..."
"Erm, uh, um! Yeshua Christ, dawg; you wanna speak, speak!" He finished placing all the pieces onto the board and pushed it Joel's way. "Pick a side."
Joel rubbed the back of his head again. "U-" he cut himself short, "W-white, I guess."
"Das' racist, dawg," David said, shooting him his best glare from behind his large sunglasses.
Joel bit his lip as he stared back awkwardly.
When David broke the silence, Joel just about fell back from his seat with how inappropriately loud it was. "Hahahahaha! Nigga, you split my sides!" He pushed the white side of the board to face Joel. "Yo' move, foo'."
Joel only loosely recalled the pieces' designated movements. He'd played chess with his brother and a few others before, but he didn't even think they knew what they were doing. Pawns moved forward, but could only attack diagonally, he remembered. They really were the only things he could move at the moment, so no strategizing was really put into it. He picked out a random piece and set it a tile further.
"So." David took another large gulp from his beer. "Joel. You got any a' dem questions yer dyin' for me to answer?" He moved his piece two tiles further, just one tile horizontal to Joel's first move. Now he was just straight confused to the nature of how pawns worked.
"Uh..." He didn't lift his eyes from the board, planning his next move.
"Like where I put all yo shit?"
Joel lifted his eyes back up to meet David's. Without having to ask, David answered, "'Notha dimension not too far from he're. 'Less some nosey mothafucka pokes his head into it, should be fine. You might even be able to find it." Joel wanted to comment on that, before David made another gesture to the board. "Yo move."
"Oh, um." Joel just picked up another pawn and moved it two tiles further. He found himself exponentially less interested in the game now that David appeared to have claimed he hid all his valuable crap in a place that probably doesn't exist to those who don't breath cannabis. "Now, what'd you say?"
"Hold up." He picked up another pawn adjacent to the one he moved on his last turn and moved it forward a tile. "Said all yo shit is in anotha' dimension. Y'know, like, space an' shit."
Joel just moved another pawn forward two tiles. "All right, what the Hell does that mean?"
David pushed the third pawn over another tile up. "Like space an' shit."
"Another... dimension?" Joel shouted, exacerbated.
"Yeah, nigga; like where we are now."
Joel stammered and pressed his palm against his forehead. "All right, where is 'here'?"
"Bad question, nigga. I'm not allowed to answer dat one. Yo' move."
Joel gave the board a glance and pushed another pawn forward. "Why not?"
"Do you wanna know why yo' he're?" David asked, pushing a different piece this time around diagonally all the way to the side of the board.
"Uh..." Joel didn't know how to respond, considering David had just averted his other question entirely. "I..."
"Check."
"What?"
"Check, dawg; yo in check."
He didn't care what David was talking about and just moved another pawn forward. "Why am I here? Okay, yeah, just tell me that! Can you at least tell me that?"
"Nope." He moved the odd piece diagonally down the board again and took Joel's king. "Checkmate. Gotta say, Joel, that was fuckin' depressing. Coulda got yo'self a lot more questions." David snapped his finger and cantered the board and the table out of existence. "Welp, that's all the time I got." He lifted himself from his seat and cracked his back.
Joel stared disbelievingly at the now evaporated coffee table before lifting his gaze back to the David as he began to walk away. "No wait! Goddammit, could ya jus-"
Joel once again had no time to respond to anything before another light blue and glowing tentacle emerged from a vagina shaped portal that had cantered out of nowhere below him. It wrapped itself around Joel before he could even fall through, giving David one final moment to say something, if anything.
"Sorry to cut this session short, nigga, but I never have any mothafuckin' idea what I'm supposed to tell you foo's."
Joel tried like Hell to free himself from the tentacle's grasp, but that thing was, like, really fucking strong. He could almost feel his heart start to fail and it was magical.
"So I took the liberty of writin' all this shit down on a card I bought at a mothafuckin' corner store." He pulled said card out of his robes and waved it at Joel a bit before tossing it into the glowing portal beneath him. "Read that shit, and you'll be as fine as candy."
Joel let out a large gasp as the tentacle squeezed harder for no indicated reason. It's as if the thing was sexually stimulated by the whole of the situation.
"So, uh..." David snapped his finger, and with that the tentacle shot down into the portal faster than a bullet raped by Jesus. Joel would've pissed himself if he wasn't such a badass. The last thing he heard before everything faded to darkness was a characteristically boisterous "Audios, mothafuckaaaaaaaaa...!"
