NO MORE PONIESby Brony_FifeChaptersPrologueTo the Fashion Show!Pony Battle! (VS Rarity)Side-Job Time! To the Skies!Pony Battle! (VS Rainbow Dash)This Job's For the Birds! (Revenge Battle!)To Appleloosa!Pony Battle! (VS Applejack)The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part I)The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part II: Revenge Battle!)Shinobu Goes to the Moon and Does Some Things!Shinobu Fights A Princess Or Something!PrologueA spotlight fell on Rainbow Dash as everything darkened and soft guitar music began to play. “Three months of winter coolness, and awesome holidays,” she sang. Another spotlight fell, this time on Pinkie Pie as she gently danced about. “We've kept our hoofsies warm at home,” she sang, “time off from work to play.” The word “hoofsies” elicited a quiet groan. Another spotlight. The hat-wearing pony. “But the food we've stored is running out, and we can't grow in this cold.” And then the girliest one. “And even though I love my boots, this fashion’s getting old.” This one was met with an irritated grunt, possibly of pain. Twilight walked across the snow as the music picked up. But just before she dropped what would no doubt be an assault on the ears with more clunky rhymes and verse, everything turned to blackness accompanied by a low hum. In an instant, everything was swallowed by the darkness, leaving nothing left to exist. Nothing except the reflection of the man in the armchair, holding the remote. Travis Touchdown sat in his chair, thoroughly pissed. It felt like electricity was shooting throughout his entire fucking body. The remote fell from his hand and landed on the motel room floor with a muted thud. Frustrated, he placed his hand over his face and sighed into his palm. “They pre-empted my favorite show,” Travis mumbled angrily. One of the best anime of all time (second only to Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly 5 in its undeniable quality) Super Gundoll Puzzle Mustard. It was a new anime—well, technically not “new” new. It took four years for it to come to American shores, and even then it didn’t catch on at first because the English dubbing was dreadful, even by common dubbing standards. But the show had switched dubbing studios between seasons, and the new season was much better off for it. Travis felt the new actors really captured the personalities of Gundoll and her nakama. But that was all shit now. All of it, right down the shithole. All for ponies—for fucking—ponies!!! His face propped up on one fist, Travis glanced to his bedroom. His cat Jeane rolled about on the bed, shedding her fur on the sheets no doubt. The bed’s drawer hung open slightly. The sunlight that snaked into the bedroom caused the drawer’s contents to glint, almost glitter. Travis drummed the fingers of his free hand on the chair’s armrest in thought. It had been a year since he’d been named No. 1 Assassin in the United States. He’d earned that title through bloodshed, carnage, frequent bathroom breaks, and a whole lot of swearing. Travis Touchdown had earned his reputation as an otaku of action. Right now was a time for action. Therefore, Travis Touchdown’s equation of the day was “otaku plus time, multiplied by action, equals shit getting done.” He shot up from his chair and walked into his bedroom, earning a startled look from Jeane. Getting down on one knee, Travis opened the ajar drawer fully, exposing its contents. Tsubaki, Mks. II and III. Peony. Rose Nasty. One by one, he attached each beam sword to his weapon belt. When he was done “suiting up,” Travis closed the drawer and went to his closet. Inside the closet were his usual duds. The rust-red jacket slid on effortlessly over his shirt, the faded yellow letters “NMH” contrasting the rest of the black cloth. He fingered through several sets of designer’s glasses, picking out the one with the kickass yellow lenses, and put it on like a glasses-wearing motherfucker. He was all set, except for one thing… The toilet flushed, his “save” finished. Travis zipped up his pants and refastened his belt before leaving the Save Room. Travis stepped out of his motel room —and then swiftly rushed back inside. He grabbed the nearest bag of cat food and filled Jeane’s dish, then refilled her water bowl. For good measure, Travis changed out the litter box. On his way out, Travis stroked Jeane behind her ear and told her to be good while Daddy was away. With all that done, Travis stepped out of his motel room and into the stifling sunlight of sunny Santa Destroy, California. As he made his way down the stairs, Travis was greeted by a choir of cicadas (who were pretty badass at keeping in tune, by the way). Parked by the sidewalk was his trusted steed, the Schpeltiger. She was a sweet, sweet killin’ machine. Designed like something out of a science fiction movie, the Schpeltiger boasted speeds of up to 300 mph, complete with rocket boosters. Best of all, she allowed Travis the unique ability to breathe in space. JUST. LIKE. BATMAN. Jealous? Travis plunked his otaku ass on Schpeltiger’s seat and keyed her ignition. She roared to life like a vengeful goddess. He hummed contentedly as Schpeltiger’s roar dissolved into a growl. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, my name is Travis Touchdown, and I hate the shit outta ponies.” Schpeltiger’s engines suddenly screamed as Travis shot down the road. Santa Destroy whipped by him at an escalating pace, until everything became a streak of colors that melted into one another. “It seems like no matter where you go these days, ponies are fucking everywhere. You try posting on a message forum, you get all of three posts before images of ponies get plastered everywhere. You walk down the street and there’s guys with stuffed pony dolls under their arms. You try to watch TV and even then you aren’t safe from the pony craze. Ahead was The Ramp. Not a ramp. Not any old ramp. THE Ramp. The Ramp Travis had built for situations like this, because he’s just that kinda guy. “But that’s where I come in. I’m done putting up with this bullshit ‘brony’ craze. Someone’s gotta put a stop to this out-of-control hostile fandom takeover, and it’s gonna be me!” Travis built up even more crazy speed, going so fast he must have torn the foundation of several buildings on his way to The Ramp. The moment he hit The Ramp, the world shit itself at how awesome Travis was as he shot into outer-fucking-space. Space. What else can be said about it besides that it’s big, it’s black, it’s cold, and it’s fucking awesome? As the stars and planets of the solar system piled up behind him, Travis decided that traveling through space on nothing but his motorcycle wasn’t cool enough, so he switched on the radio and cranked some hard rock. Epic head-banging followed. "That's my destination up ahead. This morning's paper talked about a tear in the space-time continuum. I didn't plan to check it out until this weekend, but this is an emergency." The Schpeltiger roared as Travis shifted into high gear. "The scientists who'd discovered it decided to name it the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel. Three guesses what everyone else called it. Looks more like just a plain asshole to me, though..." The music around Travis continued to pound the hell out of outer space as he hit the overdrive, doubling the Schpeltiger's thrust in preparation for entry. "...an asshole that's about to receive a Travis Touchdown enema it can't possibly handle!" The Schpeltiger roared as Travis shifted into high gear. The music continued to pound the hell out of outer space as the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel opened up and swallowed Travis, accepting him as easily as a prostitute. (In fact, maybe even more easily. Travis never had enough money for one.) “Hey! I read that!” (But it’s true.) Everything turned white as Travis shot through the vortex. There was a glow. He’d read that the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel was such a mysterious place that any memory one had of being in it gets erased upon exiting, and maybe that was for the best. When the Schpeltiger hit the grassy ground, all Travis could recall of his trip through SHIT was a lot of screaming and something about a red sock and his mother. The rock music blaring through the Schpeltiger’s speakers reached a kickass wailing guitar finish as Travis motored on through the grassy plains he’d found himself in. All around him were bright colors, mountains the color of ice cream, and friendly, whimsical designs for clouds and trees. Up ahead was a village of… them. The little shitbugs who caused a sensation that ruined otakudom forever. They trotted about, doing various “adowwable” things—not that Travis cared, because ponies were stupid and he hated them. Just looking at them made him sick. This was the place. This was Equestria. He turned his head and looked you in the eyes. “It’s time for No More Ponies. You ready?” To the Fashion Show!06: RARITY “Come at me, darling! Wah-ha-HAAA!” The night over Canterlot was quiet, save for the thudding music of the fashion show going on in the Lunar Garden Auditorium. Every important pony in all of Equestria had showed up for it. Even Prince Blueblood—the Prince Blueblood!—had shown up. This was a huge event, and would introduce the fall fashion lines that no doubt would change the face of Lookin’ Good As We Know It. Not that the security guards cared, honestly. They all stood around the expo building, uninterested in much of anything at all. Hardly anything dangerous happened at these events (though there was the Grape Juice Travesty of 2010), so most of the security guards took to staring at things, acts of personal hygiene, or staring at acts of personal hygiene. One pegasus picked his nose with his wing. His buddy winced. “Ew!” he whispered. “Jeez, Freefall, why not just fart or scratch your ass while you’re at it?” A dull roar bubbled quietly. At first, the security guards thought it was just the roar of the crowd inside the Auditorium, but this sounded a bit different. Like the roar of a tiger instead. As it grew louder, the guards’ ears perked up, one by one. In the distance the Schpeltiger could be seen gliding along the road, its bloodthirsty otaku passenger bearing a teeth-clenched grin. The security guards watched in awe as the Schpeltiger picked up speed, roaring even louder. Their awe didn’t last long, however—the moment Travis Touchdown crashed the gate, the first few security guards ducked for cover while he mowed down those unlucky enough to not run, teleport, or fly out of his way. Travis sped down the lot to the expo building, crushing every guard, every decorative statue, every light fixture, every handicap parking space—his target dead ahead. He looked up at the Auditorium, his eyes zeroing in on the flags advertising the fashionistas that bothered to show up. One flag was purple, with a symbol like a fancy-shmancy “R” that had a looping tail at the end, and a single, sultry eye within the R’s head. His smile grew as he realized he was on the right track. His first target was just up ahead. “Not gonna stop and sword up these mooks?” asked a ghostly voice. Travis shook his head as the Schpeltiger’s front wheel kissed a security guard in half. “Nah,” he said nonchalantly. “I’ve crashed so many fashion shows today looking for this bitch that I don’t care about cutting up henchmen anymore.” He glanced aside as the faded image of his master Thunder Ryu folded his arms and looked at him with a smirk. “Well, I can’t argue with that,” he said. “You’ve had a busy day. Of course, if you’d just looked up which fashion show she’d be attending, you wouldn’t even be in this mess.” Travis shrugged as he felt another security guard get ground up underneath his front wheel. “Fuck you,” he growled. “I visit a world based on a little girl cartoon and there’s fashion shows all over the fucking place. Is it really so surprising I couldn’t find which one, out of millions, she’d be at?” “That’s no way to talk to your Master, whether I’m alive or dead,” Thunder Ryu chided over the Wilhelm Screams of security guards. “Show me some respect, goddammit! And take off your clothes!” “No. Fuck no, shit no, hell no. A million times, no.” Thunder Ryu shook his head. “Kids these days,” he grumbled. “Well anyway, I hear this chick’s supposed to be kinda hot for a pony.” The Schpeltiger screeched to a sudden halt. Travis looked at Thunder Ryu. “…WHAT.” Thunder Ryu shrugged. “You know. For a pony. Kinda hot. In a ponyish kinda way.” Travis shook his head as he backed the Schpeltiger over a security guard who was unlucky enough to survive the first time he was run over. Travis had seen the pony porn, but he never assumed his Master would… …anyway, getting off-topic. “What do you know about her that’d be, y’know, useful?” Travis asked. “Kinda the reason I sought your spiritual guidance, here.” Thunder Ryu rolls his spectral eyes. “I thought you needed my spiritual guidance just to help you figure out which fashion show she’d be at. You know, without that selection menu, you’re pretty crappy at finding places.” “Stop complaining and gimme the goddamn information!” “All right, fine. She’s a unicorn, and an artist. So basically, a magic-user with a creative imagination.” A lone surviving security guard stood at the front door to the expo building. A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he stared down the Schpeltiger and its rider. He exhaled a cold breath as he shivered, mentally wondering why he hadn’t become a baker like Mom wanted him to. “Her magic doesn’t go very far beyond manipulating objects with her mind,” Thunder Ryu continued. “Of course, a little telekinesis can get a lotta mileage, know what I mean?” Travis pressed forward, daring the last security guard to stand his ground. “Yeah, I think I—” “I mean, when you’ve fucked as many psychics as I have, you learn that—” But the shock was too much. Travis completely lost control of Schpeltiger and flew from the seat as it crashed through several fancy garden fixtures and into the bushes nearby. He rolled along the concrete until he stopped at the hooves of the security guard. The security guard looked down at Travis, unsure of what exactly just happened. “I’m alive,” the shaken guard whispered in disbelief. Suddenly, he heard a sound like something lighting up. He didn’t get so much as a chance to look down before the Tsubaki Mk. III came up to meet his face. His vision suddenly split, his eyes gazing in two different directions. It took the security guard all of one second to realize he’d been cut completely in half. Mom was right, he thought as both halves fell to the ground with a splorch. Travis stepped over the bloody corpse and turned off his Tsubaki before opening the door to the main lobby of the Expo. There were a few ponies here, just chatting and chumming it up. All the security guards must have been outside or something. He walked through the room strangely without so much as a batted eyelash. It was odd that none of these ponies seemed surprised that a human being walked amongst them now, but Travis was the kind of guy who never stopped to ask questions. Because questions are for posers, and posers alone. Two security guards stood at the entrance to the auditorium. Travis could hear excited ponies inside applauding, as well as a booming voice describing whatever-the-fuck fashion was being displayed. One of the security guards stopped him. “Please state your name, sir,” he said. “Travis Touchdown,” he said. An uncomfortable pause, coupled with the uncomfortable stares of the guards. Travis found his hands going towards the Rose Nasty, expecting the hall to get flooded with more security guards, but to his great surprise, the guards got out of his way with nothing more than saying, “Cool name, bro.” Travis entered the floor show amidst roaring applause. Up on the stage was a fashion model pony displaying an extravagant design that drew attention to the model’s face and eyes. Girl shows had fashion like spring break had STDs, so it didn’t surprise Travis at all that this pony show had things like this pouring out of its ass like diarrhea. But he never quite understood why these ponies would be so into fashion if they didn’t usually wear anything anyway. He focused his attention on a rather influential-looking pony—nice clothes, playboy-esque look, white pelt, blue mane with an admittedly cool moustache. Plus a monocle. This pony “applauded” the show by stomping his hooves. The moment he started doing so, all the other ponies suddenly had nice things to say about this latest design. Travis pursed his lips This wouldn’t be as easy as climbing the ranks of the UAA, if only because all those Ranking Battles were fought when both parties were aware they’d have to meet. If he was going to fight this Rarity chick, he’d have to draw her out into the open first. Let’s see, what did Master say again? When you’ve fucked as many psychics as I have— Oh God no, the other thing. She’s kinda hot for a pony. Travis shook his head and tried to focus on the things Thunder Ryu told him that didn’t gross him out. She’s a unicorn, and an artist. Okay. If she’s an artist who’s that into her own work, getting her attention should be easy. Travis cupped his hands around his mouth and booed at the top of his lungs. It drew the attention of every pony in the room. “This fashion sucks!” he added. “It looks like something my grandma would wear naked!” The monocle-wearing pony looked at Travis with an eyebrow raised. “I say,” he said, “who is this buffoon?” He analyzed Travis more closely: the jacket, t-shirt, glasses… “Goodness, he looks like… well, a schlub.” Everypony scoffed at Travis’ silly outburst and the show went on undeterred. Travis looked over his own ensemble, and realized much to his dismay that he wasn’t exactly an authority on the subject of fashion. Travis scratched his chin, getting back to the problem at hand. That pony in the monocle seemed to have a lot of influence over this crowd. On top of that, Rarity didn’t even appear at all just because one guy didn’t like her artistic vision. What if… Travis sneaked his way through the crowd as the music thumped and thudded against the walls. The blue-maned DJ seemed to really be getting into her music, jamming in time with every thump and jumping with every thud. As Travis neared the monocle pony, he reached for his Tsubaki Mk. III. “Bravo!” said the monocle pony as he applauded the next disastrous clown costume. “I say, Brav—oh?” He felt the tip of Tsubaki’s laser-blade as it burned his anus. He held a squeak of terror as he heard Travis whisper, “You shit on my sword, it’s going right up your ass. Start booing.” The monocle pony began to sweat as if the air conditioning had been turned off. “Boo!” he cried, suddenly. “How dreadful! It looks like a cross between Swiss cheese and the 1990s!” It didn’t take long for the other ponies to blindly agree with Mr. Moneybags. Even the music died as the DJ looked out at the crowd in disbelief at how quickly they revolted. Travis looked at her and watched her mouth the words, “What’s wrong with the 1990s?” The pony announcing the fall lineup found herself suddenly shoved out of the way by a unicorn the color of marshmallows. “WHO DARES?!” she bellowed, her dark blue curls bobbing as she skidded to a stop. So the Queen of Fashion crawled from her lair! Travis sheathed his Tsubaki and jumped on the stage, eliciting a gasp from the crowd as the model on the catwalk cowered before him. “Please don’t kill me,” she whimpered gracelessly. He stepped over her as he pointed in the direction of the pony holding the microphone. “I dare,” he said dramatically. “What?” asked Rarity, raising a hoof to her ear. Travis raised his voice. “I DARE!” The pony cocked her head as if she couldn’t understand him. He groaned and cupped his hands, shouting through them “I SAID I DARE YOU! I DARE THE SHIT OUTTA YOU!” “Oh?” she said at last. “You? You dare to challenge my artistic vision?” “ANYTIME! ANYWHERE!” There was a long pause before Rarity gave an answer. The ponies all murmured and stared. Finally, Rarity spoke into the microphone. “Meet me on the roof in ten minutes.” With that, she gave the microphone back to the hostess and left. Travis smirked and nodded as he got off the stage, every eye on him as he stepped through the crowd like a badass. This was gonna be fun. But first, it was time to Save. Pony Battle! (VS Rarity)The cold night air nipped at Travis suddenly as he opened the door to the roof. He had half a mind to draw his jacket closed, but he remembered that it’d make him not look cool. He compromised, zipping his jacket half-closed, leaving the yellow letters “NMH” exposed. Yeah, that looked pretty badass. The roof itself was huge—perfect arena for a fight should one occur. In the center of it stood a huge statue of that... pony... moon... goddess-queen-princess-whatever whose name escaped Travis at present. Beds of nocturnal flowers added some serenity to the overall scene, colored in ghostly lights by the moon shining above. A path was outlined before him, with pony-shaped, well-dressed mannequins standing at either side like resolute guards. And there, at the other end of the rooftop sitting atop multiple bags of what Travis guessed to be money, was Rarity. She wore a billowing magenta dress with black leggings on all her fours, an equally black tie around her neck with a neat bow and long tails. Her wide-brimmed hat—also magenta—held white roses within its again-black band. The magenta did wonders with the moonlight pouring down on her, the black accents going hand-in-hand with her dark mane and pearl-white pelt. All told, let it never be said Rarity couldn’t dress for shit. She looked to Travis as he stopped just before her mannequins. “…So,” she said. Travis nodded. “…So,” he said back. “I take it you aren’t the artistic type,” Rarity said as she repositioned herself. “I didn’t come here to talk about art,” Travis said almost spitefully. He reached for his Tsubaki Mk. III, his hand hovering just above it. “I came here to kill you.” Rarity stared at Travis as he drew his Tsubaki, the bright green light of its blade coming to life with a sound like a tearing of space. Her heart pounded against her chest as she realized what was about to happen, but kept her face as still and nonchalant as she could. “I suppose it’s too late for apologies or explanations,” she said. “But if it’s convenient for you, darling, do you mind telling me who sent you?” “No one.” Travis took a step forward. Rarity gulped, a bead of sweat rolling down her temple. She sighed, then stood up. “…I see. Care to tell me why you’re asking for this?” Her horn began to glow a dull blue color. Travis took another step forward. “Because you ponies are seriously fucking me over back home.” Another step. Rarity snorted. “Such barbaric language! And in front of a lady, no less!” The glow of her horn intensified as a moneybag was lifted into the air. “I’ll have to wash your mouth out with punishment!” The punishment came at a speed Travis didn’t anticipate—the moneybag’s open mouth facing him, rapidly spitting gold coins like bullets from a machine gun. The first few coins bounced off his face, leaving small bruises. He rolled out of the way until Rarity ran out of money. With a quick dash, Travis was able to reach her before she could lift another moneybag. He lunged for the moneybag first, destroying it with a single swing, releasing an ocean of gold coins in every direction. He brought the Tsubaki back up, only to gasp in surprise when he noticed Rarity had teleported away. “You'll have to try harder to keep up, darling,” she said, causing Travis to jump. Her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Travis gripped his Tsubaki cautiously as he looked around. Fantastic, he thought. More teleporting enemies. I thought I was done with that bullshit since beating that Jasper Batt punk! One of the mannequins moved. Travis leapt off the pile of moneybags and brought his Tsubaki down— —only to find that “Rarity” really was one of the mannequins. By the time Travis realized this, he felt a warmth around his feet. Before he could react, he was flipped into the air, crashing onto the rooftop and dropping his Tsubaki. “You could have just decapitated the thing!” Rarity chided as Travis reached for his Tsubaki. “That dress was one-of-a-kind, and you ruined it! It! Is! ON!” As he got back up, flashes of gold coins ricocheted off the ground around him. Travis gasped in surprise, then rolled out of the way before he could get pummeled by the incoming money missiles. He got back up to his feet and ran, a trail of screaming coins tracing the path behind him. He looked to the pile of moneybags and saw that quite a few of them were being lifted and fired off simultaneously, with no Rarity in sight. “You rich girl types are all the same,” he said as he ran by the mannequins, ducking under the coin-fire. “You just throw money at any problem and hope it goes away!” He heard Rarity huff. “What makes you think I'm the rich girl type?" she sneered, her voice again coming from multiple directions. “Unlike those spoiled brats born and raised in mansions or castle spires, I worked hard for my money and fame.” Travis stopped, swinging his Tsubaki to parry several coins before darting into a different direction. “My fashion designs are worth fortunes now!” she continued. “I’m working my tail off building a fashion empire with my artistic vision and talent as its base. It took me long enough to get this far—and no sword-swinging, self-centered simpleton is going to mess everything up for me now!” The gold coins stopped firing, only for the mannequins to glow a dull blue. Before Travis could react, the mannequins were on him, their wooden appendages striking his legs and torso. Their last blow knocked him flat on his back, sending him skidding across the ground. He heard the low hum of a unicorn glow as the mannequins chased him. Travis corrected his balance, flipping back up to his feet with ease, and sliced the closest mannequin in half before darting away. Travis ducked, rolled, and then dived, dodging coins and mannequins, behind the huge statue on the middle of the rooftop. He tried to recollect himself, breathing heavily from this constant exertion. He hadn’t had this much excitement since his last Ranking Battle! To think a stupid pony could give him a run for his money… he assumed he was rusty. A year spent not assassinating anyone could do that to a guy. Okay, he thought, this chick is seriously pissing me off. Think, Travis! If you were a unicorn/mad artist who could teleport and levitate stuff with your mind, where would you hide? He waited a few seconds for his mind to produce a proper response, but his brain was apparently running on outdated dial-up. In Australia. Travis groaned as he looked up— —and saw Rarity looking down at him from where she sat catlike atop the statue’s back, her face contorted into a monstrous smile he had no idea a pony could make. “BOO!” she hissed. She laughed as Travis stepped back in surprise. Her horn glowed once more. The statue was washed by that same dull blue from before. “Oh fuck,” Travis murmured as he realized what was happening. He darted away as the statue unfurled its wings and took its first few steps forward. “You gotta be shitting me!” “You don’t learn, do you, darling?” Rarity asked from her perch. She watched Travis run before sniffing and making a commanding wave of her hoof. The Luna statue’s joints groaned as its metal movements drew it closer to the fleeing assassin. Before long, the statue was running full-speed. Travis was approaching the end of the rooftop as he heard the statue’s groaning movements catch up to him. With a ducking roll, he managed to dodge getting trampled underhoof. He watched as the statue ran right off the roof, falling out of sight. He laughed. “Serves you right, bitch!” Travis’ laugh ended abruptly when he saw the statue fly right back up with an iron scream accompanying every beat of its giant wings. It dove for him as he rolled out of the way for dear life. He could hear Rarity humming “Ride of the Valkyries” as she swooped past, clearly enjoying herself too much. Travis watched the statue fly past the rooftop, banking as it turned around. He needed a new plan, a new approach to beat this clever telekinetic enemy. His eyes brightened as an idea came to him suddenly, followed by a manic grin. As the Luna statue dove for him once more, Travis ran to meet it instead of running away. Rarity pursed her lips at her opponent’s foolish little game of chicken, snorted, and increased the speed of her dive. The night sky screamed past her as—just before the statue could collide with its target—Travis slid on his knees like a rock star, shooting underneath the statue. Before she could figure out what Travis just did, Rarity saw a long, powerful shaft of hard red light. Travis watched the statue as its two halves crashed into the mannequins, knocking everything into a chaotic mess with a godlike sound. The ten-foot-long blade of the Peony hummed menacingly as he stood back up. He looked behind himself and saw that the statue wasn’t the only thing he’d cut in half. Nonchalantly, Travis turned off the Peony and put it back on his belt. He began to make his way to the rooftop’s exit, but stopped when he heard something behind him. The Peony was back in his hands and alive again in the blink of an eye. Travis turned around and saw Rarity slowly making her way to him with hobbled steps. Her horn glowed, but then again, so did the rest of her body. “I guess I was wrong about you,” she groaned. Travis cocked an eybrow. “How so?” “That you weren't the artistic type. That stunt you pulled just now was nothing short of fabulous. I realize now that we are simply artists of different media, different forms of expression. Mine is fashion. Yours? Violence.” She coughed, blood beginning to dribble onto her chin. “And I hate to sound like an unappreciative philistine, but I still don’t get it. Why? Why are you doing this? What's your point?” Travis once again “sheathed” the Peony. “Where I’m from, you ponies have become so popular, you’ve infected every aspect of my culture. Every comic book, every TV show, every message forum. You’re like some kind of religion to your so-called ‘fanbase’.” He turned his back to Rarity like a motherfucker, raising his thumb. “I’m here...” He turned his thumb down. “...to topple their pop-culture pony pantheon.” With that, Travis Touchdown once again made for the exit. “Hey.” He stopped, but didn’t turn. “…Fuck you,” Rarity said, followed by a small cough. The low hum stopped, followed by the sound of something wet splashing the rooftop. Rarity's two halves fell to each side with a thick plop. Then silence. Travis Touchdown shook his head. “Such barbaric language. And from the mouth of a lady, no less.” He left the building, the rooftop a scene of carnage. RARITY NOT ALIVE Author's Note See, Rarity didn't die. She just... isn't alive. Like another character I introduced in Chapter One. I'll let you guys chew on that one until I can crank out the next chapter. Till then, toodly-oodly! Side-Job Time! Side-Job Time! It turned out the next day, much to Travis’ great surprise, that in Equestria there were actually consequences to killing people. Newspapers had flown about, sensationalizing the Fashion Show Nightmare that had happened in Canterlot the night before. Royal Guards were on the lookout for… well, something—none of the witnesses could seem to agree on what kind of creature Travis was. The papers all had differing opinions on what Travis looked like, and what his motivations were. And none of them were accurate. Of course, Travis had the ultimate disguise: paper bag, plus Sharpie, equals nobody knows a thing. Behold the power of math. Travis discovered the ponies’ reaction by reading some of the newspapers as he delivered them. Yes, in addition to not expecting the entirety of Equestria to react to the brutal assassination of a fashionista, Travis lacked the foresight to grab any of the money Rarity shot at him. So once again, Travis Touchdown found himself facing the grim reality of menial labor—right now, a paper route he was probably two hours behind on anyway. The Schpeltiger growled as he slowly rode by the houses, tossing newspapers here and there, not really caring where any of them landed. One splashed into a birdbath while another socked some dumb kid in the head. Travis looked over his shoulder and saw some fat, balding pony running after him, yelling about how a newspaper had landed in the rose bushes or some other bullshit. Travis just rolled his eyes and disregarded him as another newspaper found itself flung into an uncertain direction. He heard a panicked shout, then a crash. But he didn’t care—no sir. Upon finishing his route, Travis drove back to the Hiring Center in Ponyville. This town was quiet, for the most part. Not crowded. Not polluted. Not choked with chain restaurants and shopping malls. Some of the ponies were kinda… odd. All told, it vaguely reminded Travis of Santa Destroy pre-Desperate Struggle. Travis had to duck his head a bit as he walked through the door, since pony buildings were obviously never built with humans in mind. He felt a slight shove at his side and looked down. Looking up at him was a pair of bright yellow eyes: one that focused on him, and one that… didn’t. They were set in a grey face framed by a blonde mane. The pony gasped as she fluttered her wings. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she said in a voice that was too deep and dopey for a girl. Travis shrugged, readjusting his paper bag mask. “Don’t worry about it.” The pony scrutinized him a little more with her good eye, her lips pursing as her face scrunched adorably. “Hey,” she said slowly, “don’t I know you from someplace?” The newspapers. But she couldn’t know what he looked like—there weren’t any pictures! Just hearsay! Not to mention his awesome disguise! Travis sweated profusely before stammering, “Uhhhhhhhh…. No?” Silence. With a blink—and a curiously well-timed chime—the pony bounced right back to perky. “Okay!” she said as she hopped up and down in place. Travis walked to the line in front of the reception desk, waiting for his turn. He heard a rhythmic sound from behind him: a clop—clop—clop. He turned his head around and saw that same pony from before bouncing in place with the biggest shit-eating grin Travis had ever seen in his whole, long, seemingly-never-ending, pathetic, squandered life. He cocked an eyebrow. “…Yes?” She continued to bounce. “…No?” she asked. An awkward pause. “…What?” “…Why?” Travis snorted impatiently. “Look, what the fuck are you doing? Are you following me?” She stopped her bouncing and stroked her chin as her face scrunched again. “Hmmmmm…” Back to bouncing. “I guess I must be! You’re all in front of me and everything!” Travis sighed and facepalmed, returning his attention to the line as more job-seeking ponies received work requests. The clop—clop—clop behind him didn’t cease. Travis turned to her again. “What’s your deal?” “I’m not making no deal,” she giggled. “No, you’re following me.” “Yup.” “So you must be working for someone!” Travis growled as he put his hands on his Rose Nasty, ready for a fight. “Well, I’ll be working for someone in a bit,” she said. “Isn’t that why everypony else is here?” Travis stopped and thought about it. He inhaled, exhaled, released his grip on Rose Nasty, and went right back to standing in line. It felt like it was taking forever to move… like the slowest caterpillar in caterpillar history. All the while, the pony behind him continued to bounce in excitement. Annoyed with her continued noisemaking, Travis turned around and pressed the pony down, holding her in place with his hand. “Can you stop that?” he nearly shouted. “It’s getting on my fucking nerves.” “Hey, you used that word again,” she said. “What’s it mean?” Travis raised an eyebrow. “What word? Fuck?” “Yeah, that.” Travis clicked his tongue. “Well…” “…and when you’re lying there on the come-soaked sheets, looking into each other’s eyes, you realize what a worthless shit you are and hope to God she doesn’t ever find another man,” Travis concluded. She stared at him wide-eyed, unsure of how to process what she’d been told. “…But it’s such a tiny word,” she said quietly. “But it means a lot,” Travis nodded as he finally walked up to the receptionist, leaving the confused pony to herself. He placed the empty newspaper bag on the desk. “I’m done with the job. How much I get?” The receptionist sighed. “Nothing. All the customers complained. Broken windows, KO’d kids, one of them mentioned a porn mag showcasing some rather bizarre bipedal animals somehow got into their mailbox…” Travis facepalmed. “Jesus H. Christ…” He calmed himself down, running his hand over the top of his bag mask. “Well, OK. Fine. There any other work? Lawns need mowing? Trash needs collecting? I’m gonna need something…” The receptionist shook her head as she pointed to the nearby board. “Pick one, then bring it here. And be serious about it this time, please.” The candy shop was in a bind, and had been ever since Bon Bon’s only help—her best friend Lyra—had to go out of town to Canterlot. Her apprentice, Twist, was only so good at spinning the caramel or baking the fudge, and often made mistakes that cost Bon Bon quite a bit in losses. So when the guy from the Hiring Center showed up, Bon Bon felt both a wave of relief and a sense of uncertainty. This creature was nothing like she’d ever seen—dark glasses over a box-shaped head, walking on its hind legs. Still, it was wrong to judge somepony based on their species, and Bon Bon (after reading over the recommendation written by the Hiring Center) put him to work almost immediately. She watched over him for the first hour, making sure she didn’t make a mistake in hiring the first guy to answer her demand for additional help. But then she smelled smoke and ran to the kitchen, only to find that Twist had once again annihilated the refrigerator. While Bon Bon cleaned what was left of her kitchen off the walls, Travis took care of the customers—at least, as much as he could be patient with. He’d had harder part-time jobs than this, obviously, but a candy store attracted quite a bit of unwanteds. He’d never be able to figure out how Bon Bon could stand the tantrum-throwing children—or their tantrum-throwing parents, for that matter. (Answer: alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.) It wasn’t until later in the day that a trio of kids came in. The first two were one of those winged horses, while the other was just a regular pony. The winged one had a purple, feather-shaped hairdo and eyes to match. The other one, the regular pony, had a color scheme that greatly reminded Travis of apples. He might have seen her in the show once or twice—what was her name again? He couldn’t remember. But the third one to come in after the first two took her time in entering the store. Her footsteps (Hoofsteps?) were sluggish and tired, the tiny sounds they made as she walked across the linoleum floor hitting like gentle raindrops. She was a little white unicorn that looked the type little girls would adore—curly hair, bright colors… But there was something missing, and it destroyed the whole thing the kid had going. With all other kids, Travis could look in their eyes and see a spark. There was genuine life and activity behind the eyes of kids, suggesting hyperactive brains that produced wild imaginations that could have adventures with nothing more than a cardboard box. This kid didn’t have that spark. That’s not to say her eyes looked more adult or grown-up—they looked more like she’d skipped her teen years, her adult years, and her senior years, fast-forwarding all the way to the grave. There was nothing behind her eyes: no happiness, no joy, no imagination, no adventure. Nothing. Travis observed this little group of kids as the first two tried leading the third around the store, asking what candy she wanted. She didn’t seem interested in anything her friends suggested. Her voice was quiet and damp—like a tissue used then forgotten. Travis drummed his fingers on the counter, uncertain. “Come on, Sweetie Belle,” the orange kid said. “Candy usually cheers you up!” Sweetie Belle looked at her but said nothing. The neutral line of her mouth curved into a frown. The apple girl put a hoof on Sweetie’s shoulder. “Look, Sweetie Belle, don’t do this. Y’know how bad yer Ma ’n Pa took the news. Just… Just be brave fer them, OK?” Sweetie lowered her head. The nothing behind her eyes became something that second—and it was something Travis didn’t like seeing. There was sorrow behind her eyes. Hurt. She sniffled as her eyes began to shimmer with tears. The two others wrapped her in a hug as Travis heard her stifle a bawl that threatened to erupt. Sweetie put her face down into her front hooves. To hide. Travis sighed, then looked around. Bon Bon probably wouldn’t like it if he just… aw, hell, who cares what Bon Bon thinks? She has a stupid name anyway! Travis “accidentally” knocked a peppermint stick off its stand, and onto the counter—technically making it unsellable. “Whoops!” he said, his theatre degree finally coming in handy for once. “Looks like I can’t sell this anymore.” He looked up to the three kids. “Hey, since I gotta throw this one away anyhow…” Travis walked over to the three, peppermint stick in hand, and put it forward. It hovered just before Sweetie’s face. “Here,” he said gently. A pause. Sweetie hutched a bit, once again trying not to cry. She reached out and took the candy. “Thank you, m-mister,” she said quietly. Travis nodded. “Don’t mention it,” he said. He looked over his shoulder to see if Bon Bon was done cleaning up her kitchen. Once he saw the coast was clear, he leaned forward and added, “Seriously, don’t mention it.” Sweetie smiled. The way her little lips curved was adorable—and totally worth it. She jumped up and wrapped her stubby forelegs around Travis’ neck, holding him there for a few seconds before breaking away. After that, she and her friends all left the store, Sweetie proudly sticking the peppermint into her mouth like a cigar. Travis stood back up as he watched the trio leave, his hands on his hips. He breathed a victorious sigh, then turned around—only to be met with a scowling Bon Bon. “Uh” was about all he could get out before Bon Bon thrust out her hoof. “Apron,” she demanded. Travis undid his apron and handed it over. Then Bon Bon pointed to the door. “Out,” she commanded. With an inward groan, Travis left. To the Skies!05: Rainbow Dash “I’m gonna kick your ass in ten seconds FLAT!” There’s always been one thing about flying through the air on a motorcycle, and that is that it’s every young man’s dream. Travis Touchdown lived that dream as the Schpeltiger roared across the sky. He looked down, getting a beautiful view of Equestria: from up here, he could see several of the cities whose pony-pun names he couldn’t remember, the forests, the deserts, the badlands… and waaaaaay down there, Ponyville. “Eyes on the road,” Thunder Ryu said sternly. “What road?” Travis asked impatiently. “We’re in the fucking sky!” “No, I mean, look ahead.” Travis looked from the spirit of his mentor that floated beside him, to straight ahead. In the distance came dots of varying colors. As they grew closer, they were revealed to be several of those flying ponies—pegasuses?—wearing some kind of goofy blue tights. “We got company,” Thunder Ryu said in a way he hoped wasn’t obvious. “The Wonderbolts are some of the best flyers in Equestria. Your next target’s been training her whole life to become one, and last I checked, she’s in their ranks and rising pretty quick.” Travis counted the pegasuseses—they numbered somewhere between a small army and too many. He nodded nonchalantly and drew the Peony, its dark-red beam extending a good ten feet to his right. Thunder Ryu flinched as it flicked out of its handle like a long red tongue. “Sheez!” he said. “Watch where you point that thing, kid!” “What are you worried about?” Travis asked. “You’re already dead.” “Being a ghost may lend me some privileges,” Thunder Ryu said with a snarl, “but that don’t mean I can’t be cut by hard light. Remember how you took out that one fat fuck in the cemetery?” Travis thought about it for a moment. He was never one to question the machinations of a beam-saber, nor was he one to question how said beam-sabers could harm something on the spiritual plain. He always considered it coincidence—no, scratch that, his balls were so fucking awesome it powered his beam-saber to their ghost-bustin’ max! Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t hurt yourself. Just keep it in mind once you find yourself up against another ghost. For right now, you might want to get ready—here they come!” The Wonderbolts zeroed in on Travis, coming forth like a tidal wave. He looked to the Peony contemplatively, then put it away. “What are you doing?!” Thunder Ryu yelled. “Don’t worry; I got this,” Travis said with a cocky smile. “I’ve played enough Starfox 64 to know what I’m doing here.” Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. Then the Schpeltiger began firing laser beams. Out of the wheels. “You put motherfuckin’ laser beams on your motorcycle?!” Thunder Ryu cried incredulously. Travis grinned as he gunned down the first wave of Wonderbolts. “Well hey, I thought since I could make it fly, why not throw in lasers?” He drove the Schpeltiger through the sky, the red tongues of laser beams flicking as they bit through each Wonderbolt. Travis raised an eyebrow as he noticed one Wonderbolt fell on a cloud… and lay there. The cloud beneath him went from white to pink to red as it absorbed the Wonderbolt’s lost blood. “These pegasus fucks can walk on clouds?” Travis asked. Thunder Ryu looked about cautiously before speaking. “Yeah, and that’s not all—uh, bogey on your six.” With a nonchalant movement, Travis drew the Peony and turned to look behind himself. A lean, seafoam-white pegasus had sneaked up behind him and had reared his foreleg up for a punch to the back of Travis’ head. With a twitch of his hand, Travis decapitated the pegasus, his mop of ocean-green mane waving like a flag as the head fell from his shoulders. As blood erupted from the neck, the body twitched, then chased the head to the ground far below. “Fucking rude,” Travis said as he sheathed the Peony and returned to blowing pegasuses out of the sky. “It’s like he can’t see we’re talking or something.” Thunder Ryu chuckled. “Some ponies, huh?” He returned to his lecture. “These pegasi are capable of controlling the weather to some degree—watch out! Dive!” The Schpeltiger’s roar dulled as Travis suddenly lowered his altitude, dodging yet another pegasus—this one quite a bit bigger than the one before, but whose pelt was almost as white—who’d sneaked up from behind him. The pegasus barreled, then yelled as he dove after Travis. Tired of these fucking ponies interrupting his conversation, he once again drew the Peony and growled as the pegasus came down on him. Another single effortless swing. There was a split second—one in which Travis saw the look of rage in a pair of otherwise friendly, almost brotherly eyes. But the red-maned pegasus they belonged to fell out of the sky, his body cut in half, his blood painting a blush on the clouds around him. “‘Pegasi’?” Travis asked as he put the Peony away. “Plural of pegasus,” Thunder Ryu explained. “Oh.” Another group of incoming Wonderbolts. Another barrage of laser beams. Feathers fell. Showers of blood sprinkled through the air, staining more clouds red. Travis cocked his head to Thunder Ryu. “So I guess this means my next target also has this weather-power-thingy?” Thunder Ryu nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “and even among her peers, she’s something of a weather wizard.” He fell silent suddenly. After shooting down some more pegasuses—excuse me, pegasi—Travis noticed Thunder Ryu’s silence. “Something wrong?” Thunder Ryu shook his head. “Uh… well, all right, ya got me. She—Rainbow Dash—and me, we go way back.” Travis rolled his eyes. Whatever Thunder Ryu did with a pony was something he didn’t care to hear right now. “I’m sure you do,” he said quickly as he shot down another pegasus. Thunder Ryu nodded. “Yeah. We do. Sorry to get so sentimental.” His eyes widened. He pointed his finger outward. “Do a b—” Travis reached out the Peony again. “Finish that sentence and I hurt you!” Thunder Ryu threw up his hands defensively. “No, I mean it! Do a fucking barrel roll!” He pointed ahead. Not even a hundred feet from Travis was another Wonderbolt—this one different from the rest. Her uniform was even different, looking less like the cadets she flew with and more like a spandex-wearing superhero. Her eyes were hidden under a set of goggles, but Travis could still feel an anger that burned behind the lenses. The moment she shot for him, her red mane and tail billowing behind her like a trail of fire, Travis yelped and… well, okay, fine, he did a barrel roll. Grumble, grumble… In the defense of that tired meme, Travis was able to dodge what might have been a killing blow. He tried turning the Schpeltiger around to chase after her, but she was as fast as a screaming comet and was soon out of his sights. Travis scanned the sky for his firesome foe, finally catching her spinning through a number of clouds, their white fluffiness becoming darker and darker. Travis had a bad feeling about this. He began shooting at the clouds that the fiery Wonderbolt was shaping—since violence solves any problem (scientific fact; don’t argue!)—but much to his surprise, it didn’t work. The lasers were absorbed as the clouds became denser and darker. “Hey,” said Thunder Ryu suddenly. “I just noticed somethin’.” Travis gritted his teeth and flew around the sludgy mass of cloud, attempting to look for the pegasus who’d gotten away. “What?” “All the other pegasi just flew away.” Travis looked at Thunder Ryu strangely for a second—and then a lightbulb came on in his head. “Oh, shit!” he shouted. With a jerk, Travis attempted to turn the Schpeltiger around to get as far from the black cloud as he could. Up above, the Wonderbolt had finished her work. She looked down as Travis was turning around. She sneered. “Never turn your back to an enemy, freak!” With that, she gave her creation a good kick. The dark mass of clouds shot several lightning bolts, miles-long tentacles of electricity that reached out faster than a blink. Many struck the ground far below while others chased after Travis, striking him with bullet-like force. If Travis screamed, he couldn’t hear it over the sound of the electricity snaking its way throughout his body. His sight grew hazy. Thunder Ryu cried out, but whatever he said came up from the depths of the ocean: distorted and a million miles away. Travis slumped over in his seat, and a sensation like falling overcame him. The Wonderbolt sat on her monstrous cloud, watching from afar. She cheered when she saw the lightning bolt cut through the fucker on the motorcycle. She began laughing as his motorcycle began veering out of control. Served the son of a bitch right for invading their airspace and killing her cadets! Her eyes widened as the motorcycle suddenly hitched upwards, as if being pulled up by invisible strings. It danced clumsily, bumbling across the sky as if its rider had gone bonkers. She watched in complete disbelief as Travis shot and spiraled and hooked and jawed straight for the Wonderbolts Academy, crashing through the main hall’s window. She sat there, staring stupidly for close to ten seconds. Then she slammed her hoof on the cloud. “Fuck!” she spat. Beneath her, one last tiny strand of lightning was coughed out of the cloud. She cleaned up her own mess, taking apart the dense cloud before accidents could happen. Then she shot for the Academy. From above, she could see into the Academy. Her eyes widened when she saw the motorcycle… but no driver. Cautiously, she descended. Upon landing, she looked about and received a shock. Bodies of other Wonderbolts littered the halls. Blood smeared against the walls, body parts hanging limply over upturned chairs and desks. How had he managed to do all this in the short three minutes it took for her to get here? She followed this wake of destruction, the tension in her spine growing every second. From ahead, she heard a cry. She picked up her pace and followed it, through halls and turns, and into a nearby room—dodging at the last second a body that had been thrown at her, smashing into the wall instead. There, standing amongst her fallen comrades, was Lightning Dust. Her mint-green coat was covered in blood, her gold mane a mess. “Spitfire!” she cried. Good fucking grief, her voice mewled like a hurt kitten. Spitfire looked to the body that had been thrown at her. It was Travis. He’d been knocked into the wall and sat there, unconscious. She looked him over a second, then turned to Lightning Dust, who’d drawn near. “How’d he manage to do all this? He was only here for three minutes!” Travis mumbled something: "Stuh... way..." Spitfire gave him another kick. Travis clutched his stomach and rolled onto his side. As Spitfire turned to Lightning Dust again, she didn’t notice Travis reaching for his Tsubaki. “Cadet, report! How did—” “I’m sorry,” Lightning Dust said suddenly. “This isn’t your fault, cadet,” Spitfire said assuredly. “You couldn’t have known he’d—” Spitfire fell silent as she felt the air escape her. She looked down and saw the knife Lightning Dust had shoved through her chest. She looked up to Lightning Dust’s eyes—gold, rimmed with madness, an impish smile dancing from behind dark soullessness. For a second, her eyes glowed a sickly green. Then the impish smile left. Lightning’s lips trembled as tears trickled down her face. “I’m sorry,” she said once more. Spitfire fell down, dead. “I tried to warn you,” Travis gasped as he clutched the Tsubaki. “Goddammit, I tried to warn you!” Travis expected Lightning to shank him next, but much to his surprise she lifted Spitfire back up from where she fell, and held her the way a frightened child would hang onto his mother. He witnessed, in horror, as Lightning Dust pressed her head against Spitfire’s—Spitfire’s face a frozen state of shock. She pressed her lips against that fiery mane and blubbered like an infant. At a loss for what else he could do, and too terrified of what he was seeing to do much else, Travis sheathed the Tsubaki and walked carefully around Lightning Dust and the bodies she’d cut open. He was at the door on the other side of the room when he realized he hadn’t drawn a breath since Spitfire’s shocking end. He opened the door and walked through. The hallway here, while still lathered with blood and bodies, was noticeably lacking in psychotic killers—a fact Travis was thankful for. To his right was a restroom. Time to save. Travis drew a breath as he entered the nearest stall, shaking his head. “These ponies,” he said quietly as he sat down to save. “These ponies are fucked up.” Pony Battle! (VS Rainbow Dash)The deeper Travis went into the Wonderbolt Academy, the eerier everything felt. Did that little green pony seriously kill everyone in the building? She might have already done his job for him. It occurred to him only now that he might have inspired a copycat assassin. Yet another “number one fan” in a whole legion of them. Travis shelved that idea for now. For now, he was on the trail of his next target. She wasn’t in her quarters, where he half-expected she might be. Not in the training hall. Wasn’t in the gym, either. The chilling silence of the aftermath here at the Academy was really beginning to grate Travis’ nerves. His hands were at his hips, each finger snaking around the handle of either one of the Rose Nasty’s hilts, as he walked down the hallways. He looked almost like a cowboy expecting a shootout. Suddenly, he heard some talking. Travis’ feet clipped along the linoleum floors, following the voice to its source. There, in the lobby, was his target. Over her light blue pelt she wore a snazzy bomber jacket. Crowning her rainbow mane was a set of aviator goggles. As she turned to meet him, Travis noticed that she wore, under her bomber jacket, a dark blue military dress shirt with a black tie. She stood over what must have been a fallen comrade. Brighter blue pelt than hers. Dark blue mane and tail. There were an alarming number of cuts in his side, like a set of sanguine gills. Travis raised an eyebrow, slightly hopeful that he wouldn’t be facing a similar out-of-control pony like the green one. They stood there, quietly. Travis took note of the fact that Rainbow Dash didn’t have a knife, and therefore couldn’t have stabbed that other pony. He also noticed how she fought the tears threatening to spill down her face. Was that pony a friend? A lover? Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “…You.” Travis nodded. “…Me.” “You did this.” If it were any other pony, Travis would have thought of the tremor in her voice as a sign of fear. Maybe on some level, it was. But the tremor in Rainbow Dash’s icy voice—coupled with the intense look in her eyes—denoted an almost-electrical hatred, aimed squarely at him. Travis looked around. “Uh, well… no, actually,” he stated honestly. “This bloodbath wasn’t my fault. It was that green pony.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did Travis realize how utterly ridiculous he sounded. He blinked. It might have lasted a split-second—maybe—but it was enough time for Rainbow Dash to cut across the linoleum floor and head-butt him in the stomach, knocking him clear into the hall. When he regained his wind, Travis got back up to his feet. Rainbow Dash was already halfway to him on another head-butting trip, but before she could get him again, Travis drew the Rose Nasty. Travis dared a swing at Rainbow Dash, like a matador challenging a charging bull. But just before the white-hot laser-blades could bite into her, Rainbow Dash leapt over Travis’ head. He turned as she landed, bringing the Rose Nasty’s left sword upward. With a series of acrobatic twirls, Rainbow Dash dodged the first strike—then the second—then the third. When Travis brought down both blades of the Rose Nasty for a fourth strike, Rainbow Dash brought up a hoof as if she were chancing an uppercut. Her hoof connected with Travis’ hands, knocking the Rose Nasty out of his grip and sending them scattering across the floor into the lobby. They settled near the body from before. Travis looked from where the Rose Nasty stopped to Rainbow Dash—who greeted him with a buck to his chest, launching him after his weapon. Travis slammed into the wall near the entrance with a deafening noise, then fell face-first onto the hard linoleum. It took a while for his lungs to pull any air into them. From the searing-hot pain in his chest, he could tell a few of his ribs might be broken. He considered himself lucky. There was a clip-clop-clip-clop on the linoleum from far away, drawing nearer. “That style,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ve seen it before.” The clip-clops ceased. Travis looked up to meet Rainbow Dash’s angry glare, coughing and sputtering as sweet, sweet air was finally beginning to collect in his lungs again. “You’re one of Thunder Ryu’s students,” Rainbow Dash continued. “I get it now. I understand why you’d kill my friends. It’s all a matter of revenge, isn’t it?” Travis challenged his legs to lift him back up to standing, and because he’s such a badass, his legs were more than up to it. He clutched his side, coughing again. “Revenge?” he said. “Kid, this isn’t a matter of revenge. It’s about you annoying ponies fucking shit up in my world!” “So it is revenge,” Rainbow Dash confirmed with a nod. “You think you can just waltz in here, and kill Rarity? And Soarin? And everypony else? You think you got the right to just take everypony away from me?! Who do you think you are?!” The way her voice choked, the way her eyes shimmered—Travis could tell Rainbow Dash was having a pure surge of anger, on the verge of a complete rage takeover. His eyes flicked to the Rose Nasty before coming back to her. “Me? I’m the guy who’s gonna kick your ass!” Finally, Rainbow Dash’s patience broke. She lowered her goggles over her eyes, the lenses both flashing dangerously. “Know who I am?!” she roared. “Know who I am?! I’m the one that put those scars on Thunder Ryu’s FACE!!! You’ll be lucky I let you crawl away with your LIFE!” Travis dove for the Rose Nasty, and just as he picked them up, Rainbow Dash shot at him, striking him like a bolt of lightning and thrusting him through the front door and into the Academy’s courtyard. Thankfully, the clouds were much softer than the linoleum. It was like landing on a mountain of marshmallows. Travis wondered how on Earth (in Equestria?) he was able to stand on clouds—but he was also one to never look a gift horse in the mouth, nor was he one to question deus ex machina when it was clearly in his favor for once. Travis stood back up, his feet finding awkward footing on the clouds around him. Rainbow Dash burst from the open doors of the Academy, taking to the sky. He watched her get some distance, implying that she was readying a charge. The Rose Nasty wouldn’t do for something like this, Travis realized. Sporting four laser-blades, arranged in a long rectangle, the Tsubaki Mk II was more of a baseball bat than a sword. If this was the way Rainbow Dash wanted to play, then Travis would more than welcome his chance up to bat. With a threatening hiss, the Tsubaki Mk II came to life. Rainbow Dash dipped a wing and dropped below the clouds. Travis raised an eyebrow, unsure of what she had in mind. Suddenly, he felt a pair of hooves shoot up from around his feet, grabbing him by the ankles and pulling him down to his neck. It was like being buried in oatmeal. From a good thirty feet in front of him, Rainbow Dash “poofed” up from the clouds. She pawed at the cloud-ground, readying a charge. Travis’ eyes widened with the realization that Rainbow Dash had changed her game from baseball to football—and she was going for the extra point with his head! He struggled to pull himself out of the clouds as Rainbow Dash ran for him. He managed to loosen the clouds around his shoulders, and as luck would have it, he was able to pull his right arm up, Tsubaki and all, and thrust it toward Rainbow Dash. She connected with its blunt tip, leaving a bruise on her face as she backed down, dazed. With some effort, Travis was able to yank himself out of the cloud. Just as he did so, Rainbow Dash regained her senses and took off again. Travis decided to keep himself mobile to avoid another trick. His eye traced Rainbow Dash’s path as she circled around the courtyard like a raptor. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash flew in an arc, leaving behind after-images of herself. Each one was a single color of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, that bluish-purple color, and purple. One by one, the after-images shot at him like a dart of hard light. The red one connected with his stomach using a karate-kick. When the orange one rushed him, Travis was able to knock it away using a well-timed swing from his Tsubaki. He kept up this rhythm—and since he wasn’t all that great at rhythm games, I’m sure you know how well he kept it up—until finally, after he’d deflected the purple one, the real Rainbow Dash followed. He met her with a swing of his Tsubaki, but for some reason it didn’t cut her right away. Although it stopped her momentum cold, Rainbow Dash pushed against the Tsubaki, turning this into a vicious battle of tug-of-war. She glared at Travis. “Give up!” she bellowed. “You first!” Travis hissed through gritted teeth. “No, you!” “No, you!” “No! YOU!” “NO! YOOOOOUUUUU!!!” Rainbow Dash thought it over. “Okay,” she said nonchalantly. With that, she let go, allowing the Tsubaki to continue its swing as she sidestepped the blow completely, sending Travis off-balance. In his clumsy state, Rainbow Dash stuck out a foreleg and tripped Travis, causing him to land on his face. Without wasting a moment, Rainbow Dash jumped on him. And then jumped on him again. And again. And again. Amidst the horrible, horrible pain Travis was feeling that moment, he realized she was pushing him down through the clouds slowly, likely delivering him into a decidedly fall-y death. Which was only slightly lamer than tripping him the way she did. His free hand clenched around a handful of the cloud as Rainbow Dash gave him one last good stomp. Travis would have fallen then and there, had his grip not been as badass as the rest of him. Rainbow Dash looked down the Travis-shaped hole she’d just made, expecting to see him fall and become a smear on the ground below—only for Travis to swing right back up on top of the cloud, getting her in the face with a good kick. Everything went blurry from the kick, and Rainbow Dash tried to remain balanced. Suddenly, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her, lift her up—and over—and then crashing through the cloud in a well-executed suplex. She was halfway down to the ground below when she regained her senses and opened her wings, skimming treetops as she took flight once more. When she was far enough away, Rainbow Dash cocked herself like a bullet in a gun. “Should have just done this to begin with,” she growled. She then shot from that gun, colors screaming by her as she built up enough speed to break the sound barrier. While she did this, Travis watched her from afar. She’d changed the game back to baseball. With a nod, Travis struck a swinging pose befitting a professional slugger, the Tsubaki poised over his shoulders. There’s the wind-up! With a shout, the sound barrier was broken, a wave of colors bursting like a bubble in every direction. "SONIC RAINBOOM!" she shouted. And there’s the pitch! Travis swung the Tsubaki, hard light meeting hard light. A loud cacophony deafened everything within a ten-mile radius, the sky turning all colors of the rainbow at once like a kaleidoscope fireworks show. It was an explosion unlike any other, leveling the clouds—the Wonderbolts Academy—the birds—that Squadalah guy on the carpet—fucking everything in the sky. Gradually, everything quieted down and the blinding lights faded. If anyone was brave enough to look up that moment, they’d have seen this tiny black cloud. On it was a man—scratch that, a complete badass—who more closely resembled a burnt match. Travis coughed, realizing that the fact he was breathing meant he somehow survived the battle. Of course he knew he would, but come on, he was kinda worried for a second there. Travis looked around everywhere for any trace of his quarry. Suddenly, some light-blue feathers began falling around him quietly, like snow. He took that as his victory. About as good as one could come. He tried sheathing the Tsubaki, but upon trying to close it up, Travis realized it was broken completely. All its parts dangled about, spitting electrical sparks like broken teeth. He looked it over, sighed, then let go of it, letting it drop. It was twice the sword at half the size, but it died honorably in service of its master. After that impromptu funeral, Travis then looked around, hands on his hips. “Well shit,” he finally realized. “How the fuck am I gonna get down from here?” RAINBOW DASH: DASHES TO ASHES This Job's For the Birds! (Revenge Battle!)The air of Santa Destroy could be charitably described as blistering and syrupy, like walking through a thick summertime fog of gym socks and pea soup. As Shinobu rode her bicycle through this thick heat, she elected not to shoot a menacing glare at the astral body responsible. Her snow-white hair was hanging down, made damp and spongy by her hated enemy The Heat. Her dark skin was shimmering with sweat and smelling like a spoiled taco by the time she reached the No More Heroes motel. Master claimed that he kept a spare key for his motel room behind the mailbox next to the door. She placed a hand on the mailbox, and with a strong enough shove, the mailbox slid to one side and fell downward, hanging in place by one nail. Evidently, it had been damaged some time ago and was never repaired. There, stuck to the wall by a piece of tape, was his key. Shinobu took it, unlocked the door, and entered into a fairytale world of sweet, sweet A/C. Or at least, she should have. Master’s motel room was only just barely more tolerable than outside, with his anime merchandise and wrestling magazine (as well as other magazines he probably should have kept hidden) littering the floor. The air inside was crusty and strangely cold, like an empty tomb. From somewhere in Master’s bedroom, she heard a faint meow. “Jeane?” she called. A small gray cat bounded from Master’s bedroom when she heard Shinobu call for her. Upon seeing who it was, Jeane leapt into her open arms. “How’s my favorite kitty?” Shinobu asked, giving Jeane a scratch behind her ears. “Master told me to take care of you while he was away, you know.” Jeane gave her a curious look. “Hey, don’t look at me,” Shinobu sniffed. “I don’t know how he was able to give me a phone call from another dimension, either.” She put Jeane down and looked over to the feed bowl. Empty. She’d have to fix that. She found the cat food, and as she poured some into Jeane’s bowl, she continued. “I mean, I tried asking him, but Master was pretty vague. Something about the ghost of his sensei.” After feeding Jeane, then refilling the water bowl and changing out the kitty litter, Shinobu took it upon herself to clean up a little. Maybe listen to the messages on Master’s answering machine. She still had his number on her cell from his last call; she could just relay the messages to him. She pressed a button on the answering machine/fax. “You have – 3 – new messages,” chimed the automated voice. As she gathered various undesirable items and put them into a trash bag, the first message was played. “Hellooo, this is Tammyyy, from Beef Head Videooo,” said a slow-speaking woman. Shinobu couldn’t quite attach a face to the name Tammy, so she assumed BHV must have recently hired her. “I’m calling about the videooo you were supposed to return on Mondayyy. Pleasure Islaaand?” Pleasure Island? Is that a movie based on Pinocchio? Never took Master to be an appreciator of classic literature before. Shinobu nodded as she dumped some crumpled up tissues into the trashcan, wise enough not to open them up to see what they held. She saw the video in question sitting on the shelf—on the cover, scantily-clad women fawned over a man in his forties dressed in lederhosen and cartoonish white gloves, with lines clumsily drawn here and there on his body to make him look like a puppet. She took one look at the video’s cover and cringed. Still, Shinobu took the video, intending to return it later after she left Master’s apartment. Tammy continued to drone on in her slow voice about how Master had apparently returned a different movie by mistake—one involving “a short video of whipped cream and pillows.” Shinobu blanched. Reluctantly, she looked to Master’s bed, and sighed in relief at the sight of no whipped cream—or any other suspicious elements. Apparently, Master had cleaned that up long ago. The second message came on. “Like, Oh-Em-Gee!” squealed what sounded like a young girl with a British accent, “I seem to have, totally by accident, found your private number! Which means now I know your address, Travis the Great! That means it’s only a matter of time before I find youuu~!” Shinobu listened, growing more and more uncomfortable with how the girl went on and on about what she intended to do with Master once she found him. This girl (whoever she was) was totally off her nut. She ended her call with a series of kissing sounds—and not the over-the-top type you’re likely to hear in a cartoon. It literally sounded like she was making out with the phone. Shinobu crushed her eyes shut, shaking her head slowly. That sound will forever haunt her nightmares. “-3rd- message,” chimed the automated voice. “If my calculations are correct, then this message will reach Travis Touchdown,” said a dark and elegant voice. There was an air of beauty and control to it—the kind of voice Shinobu associated with royalty or world leaders. “I insist that you cease your mad crusade at once, Travis Touchdown. I honestly do not believe you quite understand the extent of the damage you’re causing my sister’s kingdom. “This is your first and only warning. You will leave and never return… or I will find you myself.” The sudden change in tone at the last six words sent chills down Shinobu’s spine. It was as if the speaker’s heart and voice had dropped a few hundred degrees. As she continued, her voice grew ominous and deadpan. “And when I find you... I will end you. There will be nothing left of you to return to any of the loved ones a creature like you might possess. You will be merely dust in the wind, if even that. This is not a threat. This is a promise. "Stay the fuck out of our home.” A click. A dead beep. Shinobu stood there, stunned by what she’d just heard. The hasty call from Master. The fact that his drawer where he kept all his beam-katanas was empty. Now this threatening message? Shinobu quickly drew out her cell phone and dialed up Master. She got all of two rings before she was informed she couldn’t get a connection. She closed her phone, pocketed it, then looked aside at Jeane as she entered the room. Jeane looked at Shinobu with her big, brown eyes and mewled inquisitively, as if she were asking if or when her owner was coming back. A long frown split across Shinobu’s face. What was going on? Suddenly, a paper was spit from the fax machine. Shinobu raised an eyebrow, cautiously walking toward it. She took the paper from the tray and read it: -To Whom This May Concern: Please come to Equestria right away. I think our mutual acquaintance Travis Touchdown may actually be in over his head this time. —T.R. Equestria? Shinobu thought. That magical land of ponies from that cartoon show for girls? Shinobu’s mind began to connect the dots. Was Master in Equestria? Was that voice just now actually the Princess?? What was Master doing there??? There were notes at the bottom of the fax page, instructing her on how to get to Equestria through the SHIT. Shinobu cocked an eyebrow. The SHIT? The big hole in the universe scientists discovered a few weeks ago? That was an entryway to Equestria? Shinobu shrugged. It was as good an explanation as any. She once fought a psychotic superhero who’d been cut completely in half then rebuilt as a pair of cyborgs, so she supposed anything was possible at this point. Shinobu stroked Jeane. “Sorry, Jeanie,” she cooed. “Mama’s gotta run. Master’s in big trouble!” With that, she readied her katana, dusted off her black skirt, adjusted her top, then ran back out into the awful Santa Destroy heat. It seemed it was time she’d have to pay a visit to the local robotics expert/beam-katana designer/space rocket designer. All he wanted to do today was deliver. Some fucking. Pizza. It wasn’t that much to ask, right? He took up a job (once again in his Awesome Disguisetm), and expected to just do it and get paid so that he could at least gather enough money to head to his next target. The worst he expected was a crappy minigame. He did not expect a motherfucking griffon to just swoop the fuck down, and knock the fucking pizzas off the fucking Schpeltiger! And now he was motherfucking PISSED! The griffon shoved the Schpeltiger with her massive shoulder, its tires squealing in peril. Travis clenched his teeth as he tried to correct the Schpeltiger's balance, warm wind and glinting sunlight battering him from nearly every direction. When he heard a clatter on the desert road, he chanced a glance and noticed that his cellphone had dropped out of his pocket. It kissed the asphalt at nearly 150 mph, shattering on impact. Let's add that to the Reasons I'm Gonna Fuck Up This Griffon list, Travis thought. Her wings beat vociferously as she sidled up to Travis, giving the Schpeltiger another shoulder-shove. Travis lost his balance for a few seconds, and only regained it just in time for the griffon to give him one last shove, forcing the Schpeltiger off the road. Travis struggled to maintain control as dry desert earth was flung all around him, getting in his mouth, in his eyes, in his ass, every-fucking-where. As he struggled, he heard a birdlike cry just before a pair of sharp-as-fuck talons dig into his shoulders and yanked him right off the Schpeltiger. Travis watched in horror as it crashed into a tall cactus, lying still with one wheel spinning as a dust cloud quietly washed over it. “I just repaired that fucking thing!” Travis growled as the griffon carried him higher and higher. Despite the searing pain in his shoulders, Travis forced his arms to reach for his beam-katanas—struggling at first—reaching for it—come on, come on—okay, got it! With a strained grunt, Travis brought up one half the Rose Nasty, and with a flick of his thumb, it hissed to life. The moment she heard it, the griffon dropped Travis like he suddenly caught fire. Travis panicked for a second—because even badasses are allowed at least one second of worry—and then stuck the Rose Nasty out towards a cliff he was hurdling toward. It bit deeply into the cliff’s side, slowing Travis’ descent little by little, until finally coming to a stop. Once he was sure he wouldn’t fall off, Travis pulled out the other Rose Nasty, then stabbed it into a higher point on the cliff, following with the other one. He climbed up as fast as he could manage, his shoulders screaming in agony as he forced himself to keep going. He heard another birdlike scream zeroing in on him from behind. Travis took an alarmed breath as he pulled out one Rose Nasty, turned around and just as the griffon was about to slam him into the cliff, Travis thrust the Rose Nasty outward to impale her. Her body twisted in a way that implied she saw it coming a mile away, her right talon grabbing Travis’ arm and slamming it against the cliffside. Travis barked in pain. Only now did he get a good view of his attacker. He knew she was a griffon right from the start—the lion body and eagle’s head were both dead giveaways. Travis was no ornithologist, so he wasn’t totally sure her beak should be able to snarl like that. Her glaring golden eyes were set inside blueish feathered recesses. The white feathers on her head were larger and longer than the rest she had, as if it was supposed to resemble a butch haircut. “Rainbow Dash,” she growled. “What about her?” “You killed her.” “AND???” Travis pushed her off with a boot thrust hard into her stomach, sending her spiraling off and down the cliff, clutching her middle as she desperately sucked air back into her lungs. Travis continued his climb up, finally reaching the top of the cliff just as he heard the griffon come back. His shoulders ached, his right arm felt like shit, his pizzas were ruined, his boss wasn’t gonna be happy, his whole day was shot to fuck—and this bitch was gonna pay! He assumed his usual stance with the Rose Nasty—one blade above, one below—and steeled himself as the griffon flew upwards and around the top of the cliff. She circled about a little before dipping a wing and soaring straight for him, one wing lowered enough to act as a razor-saw. Travis rolled underneath it, a loud force of wind ripping by as the griffon passed. The griffon turned, fluttered her wings, then landed. Now that she was on all four feet, she looked even more predatory—her lion body sending all kinds of dangerous signals with every step she took. “You killed Rainbow Dash!” she shouted. “You killed her!” Travis stood up. “Yeah. I repeat. AND???” If looks could kill, Travis would have been... well, mildly tickled. Travis was too badass to be hurt by ugly looks. “She was my friend!” she roared. Travis shook his head and laughed. “I already saw that fucking episode. It was the only one I actually had the stomach to sit and watch all the way through.” The griffon looked flabbergasted. “…WHAT?” “Yeah. Your name, I forget—” “I’m GILDA, motherfucker!” “Yeah, Gilda. I saw how things ended between you and Rainbow Dash. Wasn’t pretty. In fact, I’d swear Rainbow Dash hated the shit outta you.” Gilda paused. Her teeth clenched. She has teeth to clench? Travis thought. “I—she—it wasn’t—I—guh—d’wha--!” The words and pieces of words tumbled out of Gilda’s beak, gradually blubbering into barely-held tears. Finally, she stomped a talon. “She and I might not have been on good terms at the end, but she was the best friend I ever had!” Travis shook his head as he readied himself again. “Jesus Christ, you’re like some clingy ex-girlfriend who can’t get over a bad breakup!” Gilda ran at him, her talons extending like knifeblades shooting from their handles. “I’ll break you up, freak!” Travis darted forward, intent on meeting her halfway. “Let the bloodbath begin!” Travis ran at her. Gilda ran at him. Travis ran at her. Gilda ran at him. Travis ran at her. Goddamn this cliff is long, he thought. Finally, they clashed—this one loud sound of earth breaking, angels falling from heaven, demons shuddering in fear. It was like the climactic swing of a sword in a samurai movie, where everything would pause just before someone got decapitated. A few seconds trickled by as Travis and Gilda held their breaths. Finally, Travis felt it—a huge rip at his side, four long lines tearing through his jacket, decimating his shirt, gouging out chunks of flesh, blood spitting out of his side and coloring the ground in splotches of red. “Oh, shit!” he choked as he fell to one knee. Gilda resumed her breathing. She turned around, smiling in victory as she saw Travis clutching at his bleeding side. “End of the road, freak,” she said smugly. “See you in Tartarus.” She extended her talons again—those knives extending from their sheathes, ready to take another bite. When she drew her arm back, Gilda suddenly had an odd loss of control. She blinked in surprise as she suddenly felt several feet shorter, a feeling of suspension in mid-air, and got a good view of the clouds above. Then intense pain as she hit the dirt. “What the fuck?!” Her headless body shot a waterspout of blood as it fell to its knees, its raised talon frozen in place. Travis grinned despite all the horrible, awful, terrible, not-at-all-pleasant pain he was feeling at the moment. “I thought I felt something pass through the Rose Nasty,” he said. “No fair!” Gilda’s head gurgled. “Take it up with fate,” Travis said flatly. “And when you end up in hell—or Tartarus, or where-the-fuck-ever—tell Rainbow Dash she’s still a bitch.” Suddenly, Gilda’s body swung the raised talon, getting Travis in the back hard enough to send him careening over the edge of the cliff. Gilda’s head looked at the spectacle of Travis spinning about before finally falling with a cartoonish yelp. Her body fell to the ground with a muted thud, dust puffing upward as blood continued to spill from her neck. Gilda smiled. Then her smile froze as her eyes glazed over. So let’s try this again. Travis corrected himself in time to not splatter on the ground. He stuck his Rose Nasty into the side of the cliff, his descent slowing gradually. The pain in his sides, shoulder, and back all wailed in a harmonious, agonized choir. Travis grunted a laugh as he slid down the cliffside. “Fucking bird,” he laughed. “Forgot I could still do this.” He laughed aloud as his descent finally neared its stop. Travis was pretty close to the foot of the cliff, so he decided he’d just hop down, patch himself up a bit, then get to the Schpeltiger, go back to civilization, get hospitalized, lose his current temp job, and start all over again tomorrow. However, Travis didn’t check to see where his little hop would land him—and for his efforts, Travis landed in a rather expansive patch of cacti. His scream could be heard from space. GILDA: KAPUTSKI To Appleloosa!04: APPLEJACK “Let’s dance, cocksucker!” There was a noise nearby that drew Braeburn’s attention from the newspaper he was reading. He glanced up through the window to see a strange, hulking contraption with wheels that spun, spokes that steamed, lights that blinked, whistles that screamed. It rolled through the center of the street, its various sounds joining together into an odd melody. Many ponies’ and buffalo’s attentions were caught by the sight and the sounds, and they followed it to the center of Appleloosa. Braeburn got a glimpse of the contraption’s drivers as they went by: the horns on their heads, their red-and-white manes, the barbershop-quartet look of their clothes, their near-identical appearances save for one’s moustache. They matched a certain description his cousin Applejack had given him some time ago. He sighed, taking one last draw from his coffee before folding up his newspaper. He set both objects back down on his table along with a tip and grabbed his hat. “Thanks fer breakfast,” he called to the waitress on his way out. His hoof-falls went from the empty creaking of wood to the dusty crunch of desert earth as he followed all the commotion. Braeburn’s green eyes scanned the gathering crowd. He spotted Little Strongheart among them, the biggest smile on her pretty face, the cutest look of curiosity in her eyes. He called out to her and got her attention right away. “Braeburn!” she chirped. The two hugged. “Ah ain’t seen you in a coon’s age, Strongheart,” Braeburn said. “Where ya been?” Strongheart smiled shyly and shrugged. “Oh, y’know… Places.” “Keepin’ it a mystery, eh?” Braeburn asked slyly. He elbowed her gently. The crowds gathering broke their conversation—especially when music began to play. The two looked to the contraption’s owners as they sang and danced, getting the crowd in on the song. Little Strongheart looked to Braeburn as his eyes squinted as they performed, his lips pursed, his whole body language changing. “Something wrong?” she asked. Braeburn glanced at her, then relaxed. “Oh, n-nothin’,” he said dismissively, “They’re just… familiar.” “Keeping it a mystery, eh?” Strongheart returned. They shared glances before chuckling. Up on the contraption, the Flim Flam Brothers broke from their verse to deliver their pitch. “Have you been reading the papers, Flim?” asked Flam. “Certainly have, Flam!” said Flim. “And I gotta say, I’m really worried for our safety!” That much was true, Braeburn thought. The newspaper he’d been reading that morning followed the recent series of vicious killings. Among the victims were two of his cousin’s best friends, as well as several Wonderbolts. The body count was rising by the week, with still no progress made in catching whoever was responsible. It didn’t help anything that the witnesses to the first murder spree couldn’t agree on what he looked like—not to mention that poor Wonderbolt cadet who had to be carted away to an insane asylum. “Fear not, Flim!” said Flam. He turned to their gathered audience. “And you lovely folks shouldn’t fear, either!” The two brothers parted and presented to Appleloosa their machine. “Behold!” they announced, getting back into their song. Braeburn’s hunch that the Flim Flam Brothers were up to no good proved true—these two conponies were capitalizing on this tense situation. He groaned and rolled his eyes, pushing down his hat in consternation as everypony else looked on, entranced, applauding. Flim flipped a switch on their control panel. Suddenly, with a familiar transformation sound effect, their contraption stood up like a pony. On four strong legs, it paraded with thuds that shook the earth. “It serves!” proclaimed Flim. “It protects!” exclaimed Flam. “It’s a monarch among mechs!” the Flim-Flam Brothers said as their monstrous machine loomed behind them. “The Gut-Shaker Face-Breaker Widow-Maker 8000!” As he observed their presentation, Braeburn made a double take. “Braeburn?” Strongheart asked as she watched the color fade from his face. “Braeburn, what’s wrong?” About the most Braeburn could get out of his mouth was a surprised croak. He cleared his throat and turned to Strongheart. “Didn’t you see it?” he asked. “See what?” Braeburn looked back to the brothers. He could have sworn… …their eyes were glowing green. They had to have been—it couldn’t have been a trick of the light. When the Widow-Maker stood up, it cast a shadow over the brothers, and when it did, their eyes were… A chill crept up behind him and played sour notes on his spine. He blanched, taking a few careful steps back as everypony cheered. “Braeburn?” Little Strongheart asked, her voice shaking. “Braeburn, where are you going?” “A-Ah hafta go,” Braeburn as he turned to run. Suddenly, he slammed into somepony, sending them both to their rumps. “S-Sorry,” Braeburn said as he got up. When he got a good look at the pony he’d run into, Braeburn froze. It wasn’t a pony at all. It was a creature that stood on two legs, like a minotaur or a diamond dog. Dark hair. Black leather shoes. Torn blue jeans. A dull purple shirt with the word “Do!” written on it in vibrant pearl. A black leather jacket, a checkerboard pattern going along the sleeves. The creature adjusted pink-tinted glasses as it muttered, “Watch where you’re fucking going.” The creature got up and walked through the gathered crowd slowly, his hands at either side of a red belt that seemed to be longer than it needed to be. From this belt hung what Braeburn at first thought were slim cans, like the kind you’d hide spring-snakes in for a prank. He got the feeling whatever they were, they weren’t designed for silly jokes. Strongheart watched the creature as well, giving it a hairy eyeball as it passed her by. It glanced in her direction and sneered, as if to ask her the fuck you lookin’ at? As the creature made its way towards the Flim Flam’s presentation, Braeburn looked to Strongheart. “Go back to your tribe,” he instructed. “Gather as many braves as you can. Ah’m gonna get the Sheriff. Ah get th’ feelin’ some real shit’s gonna come down.” “R-Right,” Strongheart said, worried. She turned and ran down the nearby alley. Braeburn got back up and, like Little Strongheart, skedaddled. Travis drank in the scene before him. The cheering ponies and buffalo. Half a barbershop quartet singing and dancing to apparently sell the giant Transformers pony. He sniffed nonchalantly and shrugged. “So,” he said as Thunder Ryu finally appeared. “You sure this is the place?” “Pretty hard to hide secrets from the dead,” Thunder Ryu said with a tired smirk. “I know she’s here. Just follow the scent of apples, and you'll find an Apple. Kinda runs in her family.” Travis raised an eyebrow as the crowd before him cheered at the presentation. “Yeah?” “Yeah. I once met her Granny, and we—” “Not interested,” Travis said, cutting off his mentor before he would be given yet another pony-related nightmare. “I just need to know this bitch’s weaknesses and strategies.” Thunder Ryu folded his arms and scowled, his beady eyes focusing like a laser beam. “Fine, be that way. Disrespectful little fuck.” Before Travis could argue with the person only he could see, he noticed all the ponies and buffalo near him looking at him suspiciously. Suddenly, he heard a voice from afar. “A-ha!” cried Flim. “It would seem we have a volunteer for a demonstration!” Ponies and buffalo began whispering. Their muttering waves sounded panicked. They backed away from Travis as the Widowmaker took a few menacing steps forward, the ground shuddering beneath each powerful hooffall. Its purple chrome body glimmered under all the sunlight as it snorted a puff of dark smoke. The Flim Flam Brothers mounted their mechanical beast. “Behold!” they proclaimed. “The Gut-Shaker Face-Breaker Widow-Maker 8000!” Travis groaned as he reached for the Peony. Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “What?” Travis asked him as the townsponies all scattered. “You know what you owe me,” Thunder Ryu said bitterly. The Peony growled to life, its deep red shaft extending seven feet ahead. “No way! You were gonna launch into one of your fucking creeptastic pony stories. I’m not having that shit!” The Widow-Maker barreled down on Travis, its gargantuan forelegs crushing the earth where he once stood. Picking himself up from the impact on the earth beneath him, Travis ran up one foreleg, hoping to end this fight early. As he reached its head, the Widow-Maker’s red eyes began to glow. Travis brought the Peony up in a defensive position as the laser eye-beams shot forth at him, whipping shot after shot at its otaku antagonist. The Widow-Maker then tried standing back up, its foreleg becoming less inclined. Travis dodged an eyebeam blast as he jumped for the other foreleg, sinking the Peony into it like a long red fang. He slid down, opening the foreleg, exposing its mechanical insides and spilling oil and sparks. Travis brought the Widow-Maker down to one knee. Its head was bowed for only a second—but a second was all Travis needed. He whipped the Peony up for a mighty swing, and with a sound of screaming metal, the giant beast’s head flew off in a trail of oil. It landed nearby with a shuddering sound. The Flim Flam Brothers glared daggers at Travis. He wasn’t especially fond of them either. “This was—” “—our life’s work!” “You know what they say about putting too much effort into one project, right?” Travis said snidely. He brought the Peony up. “You get fucked in the ass by some jerk with a beam katana.” Thunder Ryu facepalmed. “Who the fuck ever said stupid shit like that?” Angrily, the two brothers launched themselves at him before he could swing the Peony. (It had always had an annoying delay between swings, so Travis wasn’t about to blame himself for this.) Thunder Ryu observed the ensuing battle with a keen eye and a twisted mouth. The beatdown on Travis was nothing short of savage. Every swing was graceless and every kick was brutal and every bite was animalistic. Travis’ returned blows didn’t seem to faze them much. It was strange, not to mention wrong. Thunder Ryu’s hunch was slowly being proven correct. Finally, Travis had had enough. He sheathed the Peony and went for the Rose Nasty. “Here, I got one for each of you assholes!” As the brothers, their bodies bloodied and their clothes tattered, shrieked at him like furious evil spirits, Travis swung the Rose Nasty with a graceful twirl. By the time the twins suddenly found themselves as triplets, it was too late. Flim held his brother’s upper half as the lower half toddled about awkwardly, spilling blood all over the ground before finally falling flat. He died with a gurgle. Flim held Flam’s head to his chest, tears streaking down his face as he rocked himself, babbling. The battle over for now, Travis sheathed the Rose Nasty. Thunder Ryu shook his head. “That was largely unnecessary.” “They started it,” Travis defended. “No, I meant sheathing your swords.” Thunder Ryu tilted his head in the direction of some incoming carriages. The carriages, black and intimidating, skidded to a halt. The ponies (strangely dressed like cowboys) pulling them unyoked themselves as more cow-ponies exited the carriages. They must be some kind of local law enforcement, judging by the stars pinned to their chests. An older-looking pony rockin’ a mean ’stache—whom Travis guessed was their leader—began barking orders to the others. The silver star he wore glistened in the sunlight. He turned to Travis. “This is my town, you little shit!” he yelled. “And Ah ain’t havin’ yer nonsense! Come quietly or we’ll be forced to take extreme measures!” Out once again came the Rose Nasty, each one coming to life with their ominous hums. The sheriff nodded to the others and they responded in kind—many of them had hats that glowed and lifted, revealing unicorn horns that shot fucking LASER BEAMS, complete with awesome sci-fi sound effects, like—chu-chu-chuchuchu-chu! “Oh, shit!” Travis cried as he instinctively blocked a few shots. One bolt struck the dusty ground next to his foot, forcing him to move. The unicorns moved forward slowly, acting like a slowly encroaching wall of death. As Travis ran, dodged, and rolled, he didn’t quite see the pegasi descending on him like vultures until one landed on him, knocking him ass-first onto the ground. “Distractions,” Travis hissed as another pegasus landed a kick or two on him. “Fuckers are getting smart!” First things first, the laser beam-happy unicorns had to go. Travis ran in a zig-zagging line as he continued defending himself from shot after shot, finally reaching the creeping wall of unicorns. When he was close enough, he suddenly ran into something solid—yet invisible. “Forcefields?!” Travis cried. “Seriously?! Fucking forcefields?!” As the unicorns continued firing, as the pegasi descended, as Travis dodged and rolled and generally got the shit beat out of him, Thunder Ryu reclined midair and watched almost dismissively. If Travis was having such a hard time just getting to his next target, she’d waste him without a second thought. He was tempted to lend his spectral hand... But no—unlike Travis getting zapped on his way to the Wonderbolts Academy, now was no time to just jump to the rescue. There were still pieces waiting to be pushed into place for his main intervention to happen anyway. Finally, Travis figured out a strategy—not that it was rare, mind you; he was just preoccupied with not getting beat up or shot at. Holding the Rose Nasty at specific angles, Travis was able to bounce the laser beams at the descending pegasi, getting many of them dead on, while others had their wings clipped. He managed to mince the fallen pegasi before they could react. Travis could feel his bloodlust building, his anger marrying the stressful situation while planning to divorce it later so it can take its stuff. It was like he was ready to fucking explode! With a feeling in his body that electrified him head to foot, Travis bellowed, “STRAWBERRY ON THE SHORTCAKE!” Thunder Ryu cocked an eyebrow as the world around them suddenly slowed down and became grainy. The colors washed away like a receding tide, along with the sound. This should be interesting. Travis’ form had changed slightly. While he was badass before, he was ten times as badass now—his hair had gone all Super Saiyan and shit. He took slow, menacing steps toward the unicorn wall, intent on breaking them. He saw their eyes s l o w l y widen, their irises steadily shrinking. Travis licked his lips. He could taste the fear. He inhaled. He killed. He exhaled. As his murder spell broke, Travis felt the once-rising anger within him somehow smooth out, like coming down from a fucking awesome orgasm. The electricity had escaped from his body and into the bodies of his victims, exploding them all to pieces with sounds like thunderstrikes, their blood showering the desert floor gloriously. The unicorn wall stood no more. The only pony left was the sheriff. His eyes darted this way and that, taking in how wicked-scary-fast Travis had mowed down his reserves. He took one careful step back… then turned and ran for his life. But a hand clenching his tail stopped him mid-flight. The sheriff got all of one girly little scream before he felt a pair of hands around his middle, a sense of being lifted off his hooves, and then finished by intense pain as he was suplexed onto the ground. The Rose Nasty then fell down from the sky where Travis had tossed them, impaling the fucker with extreme prejudice. Travis pulled out the Rose Nasty and looked around, making sure there weren’t any stragglers. Then he cleared his throat and looked back to Thunder Ryu. “You gonna tell me more about this bitch or not?” Travis asked. Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “Okay,” he said almost angrily, “Listen. And listen good.” Nearby, Flim, largely ignored during the fight, had crawled back to the decapitated Widow-Maker. Travis and Thunder Ryu hadn’t noticed him during the fight. They hadn’t noticed that he was quivering and mumbling like a mad pony. They didn’t notice when his eyes began to glow green. “Applejack’s the kinda girl who’s really up close and personal. She’s never been one to take any shit from anybody, so she’s gonna be less than happy to see you especially.” Flim flipped open the Widow-Maker’s hatch and began to rewire it. He hummed a disjointed song as he did so. “She can take as much punishment as you can. I’d recommend fighting defensively. Let her tire herself out, then go in for the kill.” “That’s it?” Travis asked. “That’s like—I don’t—” His anger swept him up and he stomped his foot while gesturing wildly. “I COULDA FIGURED THAT SHIT OUT MYSELF!” Thunder Ryu shrugged. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted my advice.” The Widow-Maker lurched and hummed. Flim giggled maniacally. “Well, you said that she has family. I don’t think I saw any… Apple… ponies. Like, their asses—” (he pointed a thumb to the bodies behind him) “—didn’t have any apples on them. I kinda thought she’d have, like, an army of cousins or something.” Thunder Ryu waved his hand. “She doesn’t want her family getting mixed up in this shit. I mean, you can feel for her, right? You wouldn’t want some asshole to cut up your brother when what he really wants is a piece of you, am I right?” His statement gave Travis pause. “So… she’s tough… and honorable.” He nodded approvingly. “An honorable enemy. This should be fun.” Finally, Flim got the Widow-Maker back on its feet. His eyes glowed greenest as he witnessed the rebirth of this vengeful beast. “So, where would she be here in this town?” Thunder Ryu looked behind Travis. Travis turned around, and saw a great orchard in that direction. Applejack. Apples. Like, duuuuuhhhh. “BEHOLD!” cried Flim as the decapitated Widow-Maker stood back up. “WE LIVE AGAIN!” With one mighty step, the Widow-Maker’s foreleg crushed Flim underhoof. The sound Flim made was barely audible over the angry whirring of the damaged machine. Before Travis could think, the Widow-Maker was already barreling forth clumsily. The wound Travis had left on one of its forelegs was enough to slow the fucker down, but not by a whole lot. Already beaten within an inch of his life, and electing not to take any chances in a second round, Travis turned and ran like hell towards the orchard. “Good luck,” Thunder Ryu called, noticeably lacking interest. The Widow-Maker, being unable to see thanks to not having a fucking head, stumbled over the carriages left behind by the cow-colts, allowing Travis more time to escape. He arrived at the orchard’s gate—but as was his own misfortune, the fucking thing was locked. The lock itself was bullshit incarnate: it had six holes, each a certain shape. Beneath the holes was a short riddle that Travis didn’t have any time to read. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” he grumbled. “As if anybody has time for some bullshit gate-opening puzzle. All I need now is zombies running ar—” But not willing to push his bad luck any further, Travis cut himself off. The ground beneath him shook violently. He turned around just in time to see the Widow-Maker galloping toward him. Travis licked his chapped lips, certain that the answer to the gate riddle was in front of him already. “As much as I hate using the same act twice,” Travis said as he ran towards the Widow-Maker, “it looks like it’s time for a repeat performance!” He slid on his knees between the legs of the oncoming Widow-Maker, taking out the Peony and holding it upwards, dragging it deep along the Widow-Maker’s belly. The damage sustained was enough to send the Widow-Maker crashing clumsily down, obliterating the obnoxious gate. A few seconds passed before the dust settled. The ominous hum of the Peony was cut short as Travis sheathed it and placed it back on his belt. He whistled “Walking on Sunshine” as he tip-toed over the fallen Widow-Maker and entered the orchard. His eyes descended on a nearby apple tree. The orchard’s caretakers probably wouldn’t like the surprise he was going to leave for them, but he heard it made good fertilizer. He squatted by the tree and Saved. Pony Battle! (VS Applejack)A warm wind danced by, shaking the leaves and filling the air with the songs of summer. Cicadas joined in as backup singers, their whines underlining the growing symphony. As Travis Touchdown walked through the orchard, another sound joined the symphony, giving it an almost drumlike beat. A repetitive chunk, followed by a soft, flowing noise. Travis followed it to its source. There was a small clearing here in the orchard. In the middle was a young apple tree, its apples red and glistening in the afternoon sun. Underneath the shade of its green leaves was a hole about seven feet in length and four in diameter, with a mound of dirt nearby. The head of a shovel poked out of the hole, sending more dirt into the neighboring pile. Travis arched an eyebrow in interest as he drew nearer. More dirt joined the pile as he closed in. Inside the hole was a pony whose brown hat adorned a head of blonde hair. Her dull-red duster cloaked an orange body, black gloves on each leg (so would that technically have made them boots?). When she noticed Travis’ shadow looming over the hole she’d dug, she stopped and looked up. Her green eyes pierced Travis like a pair of emerald arrows, her lips drawn taut. Otaku and pony stared at one another. “So,” Travis said, deciding to initiate the conversation this time. “So,” Applejack said back. Travis clicked his tongue. “…I take it you knew I was coming.” Applejack threw her shovel out of the grave she was digging. “Sooner or later, yeah.” Travis offered her a hand to pull her out of the grave, but she eyed it like it was toxic. She helped herself out of the grave, Travis taking a few steps back to make room for her. “…Not t’be snide’r anything, but Ah kinda thought you’d look scarier,” she said, brushing herself off. “I get that a lot,” Travis responded casually. It felt weird that they were suddenly almost neighborly to one another—he wondered if Applejack felt the same. It was time to end the pleasantries and get to work. Travis pulled out the tried and true Tsubaki Mk. III. Its bright green blade extended with a slow, menacing shriek. He gave it a test swing or two before assuming a badass samurai pose. Applejack shrugged. “Not one fer big speeches, are ya?” she asked. “The only two words I’m gonna need are ‘die, bitch.’” She adjusted her hat. Popped the kinks out of her neck. Limbered up. Then she assumed a battle stance. “Fine by me. But the only two words you’re gonna be sayin’ is ‘oh, shit.’” The two clashed, a tiger of the jungle against a wild horse of the plains, colliding with a thunderous force, the trees in the orchard shuddering at the impact. Travis brought down his Tsubaki—a miss. Applejack leaped into the air and performed a drop-kick—a dodge. Travis swung the Tsubaki for Applejack, who nimbly ducked and rolled into Travis’ shins, knocking him to one knee, chased with an uppercut to the jaw, sending him onto his back. She jumped and followed up with an elbow-drop. She’d have crushed his head had he not rolled away in time. The two warriors circled one another. “You’re pretty good at this,” Travis admitted, wiping blood from his lip. “Where’d you learn to fight?” “You learn a lot from yer parents,” Applejack said. “Some ponies learn how to love. Some learn how to hate.” She cocked her head. Spat. “Mine taught me how to break!” At break, Applejack stomped the earth. The tremor she caused shook Travis, forcing him off-balance. Before he could recover, Applejack shot for him like a bolt of orange lightning, crashing into Travis’ stomach with the force of a speeding train. A tree caught him midair, the impact showering hard apples on him as he slid down to its base. Applejack took a few measured, ominous steps forth. “Y’know, the day Ah heard Rarity got herself split in half, Ah didn’t believe it ’til Ah saw the body.” No witty retort came to Travis’ mind as he struggled to his feet. Once again too fast for Travis to react, Applejack brought a foreleg towards his arm, pinning his hand to the tree. The other foreleg went straight into Travis’ stomach, giving him round after round of softening. The tree Travis was pinned to shook harder and harder with every pound. Maybe she was trying to remain in control, or maybe because she had more to say, Applejack let go of Travis. He plopped forward, air struggling to make its way back into his body, his insides all fucked up to hell. Applejack readjusted her hat and continued. “…Ah think Rainbow Dash took it hardest. She had half a mind t’just hunt you down and kill you herself. Twi’n me had a Tartarus of a time tryin’na talk her out of it.” Travis caught something in her eyes he didn’t like. It was like she was observing an insect under a glass. Like she felt sorry a creature like him had to exist. She licked her dry lips. “Didn’t seem to matter none. You murdered her all the same. All they found were just some singed feathers.” Applejack reached into her jacket and retrieved a rope as Travis struggled back up to his feet. He coughed. “Oh, shit, seriously?! Tell me you’re not!” She quickly formed a lasso, spinning it between her teeth. Almost as if the lasso had a mind of its own, it wrapped around Travis’ leg. He caught a particularly nasty grin on Applejack’s face as she turned around, lasso between her teeth, and took off, dragging Travis along behind her. Over sharp rocks, over desert, over sand-burs. Travis’ new clothes were now officially fucked. Applejack jumped a fence—Travis half-expected to go up with her, only to just crash through the fence, sending wood and debris and other shit flying like a flock of moths. A sharp turn here and there sent Travis smashing into nearby trees. Travis regained his composure and decided to try guiding himself along the ground. With some leaning, he managed to dodge the rocks, and with some finesse, he was able to avoid trees. Travis felt himself suddenly flung forward. Applejack had come to an abrupt stop, and with more power than her diminutive form suggested, she began whipping Travis around her head in circles. Finally, she brought him down, expecting to crush his body against the orchard’s earth. Suddenly, there was no weight at the end of her lasso. She looked up in surprise as Travis sailed through the air, his Tsubaki back in hand, the rope around his leg severed. While his form before was studied and practiced if a bit clumsy, he practically glided to a stop, kicking off an apple tree and hitting the ground running right at her. “Fuck,” Applejack spat as she got up on her hinds. She brought her forelegs together, stopping Travis’ downward strike mid-swing and turning the attack into a power struggle. The amazing might in Applejack’s hind legs bent Travis backwards, only for Travis to really put some oomph behind his upper-body strength. Not wanting to struggle for too long—as Applejack seemed more than capable of winning the tug-of-war—Travis lifted a leg and belted Applejack in the stomach. Her green eyes widened as the air blew out of her like a bagpipe. Without wasting a second, Travis tossed his Tsubaki into the air. Applejack had yet to come back down from her hindleg-favoring stance, allowing Travis to jump in, wrapping one arm around her middle and the other around her neck as he sidled up beside her. With a backwards jump, he slammed her into the dirt, the crash loud enough to spook what looked like literal fruit bats out of the trees. Travis got back up, expecting gravity to do its job and let the Tsubaki drop down and pin Applejack, ending the fight. But Applejack had other plans. Even after getting suplexed, Applejack was hardly winded. She saw the Tsubaki as it plummeted, and with a motion fast amazing enough to make Travis WTF, she shot right up and caught it by the handle between her teeth. She glared at Travis, her green eyes bulging. An angry snort shot from her nostrils. Great, Travis thought. Just fucking great. Hey God ,if You’re listening, I could really use a favor right now. The ground beneath them began to quake. A quick turn of both fighters’ heads revealed a fleet of buffalo headed their way, a tidal wave of thundering hooves and angry glares and warpaint and an intent to make roadkill of the orchard’s intruder. Not quite what I had in mind! Travis thought as his eyes bulged. Almost as if acting as one, Travis and Applejack both leapt up above the buffalo stampede, catching the wave as it descended on them. They landed on the backs of the buffalo, riding the stampeding surf, locking eyes with one another. Travis had already pulled out the Rose Nasty, their hot-pink twin blades crackling dangerously. Breathing heavily, hot blood pumping through their veins, both Travis and Applejack bounded on the backs of the buffalo, their beam katanas ready. Despite having never held a sword before, Applejack seemed to grasp the idea of how to use it effectively—every swing from Travis was countered or dodged expertly. The buffalo below made shaky ground for their battle. The loud thundering of their hooves silenced any battle cry, any hum from the beam katanas. The buffalo Travis was standing on decided to buck him from his back—only for Travis to land on the buffalo behind him. Applejack followed, leaping from raging buffalo to raging buffalo, Tsubaki between her teeth and murder in her eyes. Travis stood back up, trying to remain steady enough to bring his Rose nasty back up. A light of realization flashed through his eyes. A Cheshire smile gracing his lips, Travis watched Applejack come closer. She leapt from one of the nearby buffalo, Tsubaki raised for a downward strike—and just before she could land on the buffalo in front of Travis to bring the Tsubaki on him, he jabbed one Rose Nasty into the buffalo’s neck. The buffalo went down, taking Applejack with it. Travis stood back up and jumped to a nearby apple tree, grabbing onto its branches and pulling himself up. He sat on the strongest branch, waiting out the stampede as the tree vibrated dangerously. After nearly five minutes, the entire buffalo herd had passed. It took another minute for the dust to settle. Travis then climbed down from the tree, his aching body reminding him not to do anything too strenuous. He hobbled over to where he spied the corpses. The buffalo Travis had stabbed was barely recognizable. He’d been stomped to mush by his brothers. When he heard a cough, Travis froze, his hands already on the Rose Nasty. There, just behind the buffalo corpse, was Applejack. Her legs were bent and purple in many spots, her hat and duster shredded and torn. Blood trickled from a mouth that was missing a few teeth. Her mane and tail were loose and wild, spooling about her like warped waves of gold. Her breathing was haphazard and hoarse. Applejack’s green eyes looked up to Travis. When their eyes connected, something between them was suddenly shared. Something deep and fundamental. Primal. Travis’ lips tightened. “Why…” Applejack coughed, sounding like a mare about to die. “Why th’ long face, cocksucker? Ain’t this what you wanted? Blood ’n glory?” Travis thought about it. Then he sighed. “Yeah, but… this…” He knelt by her side, where the Tsubaki had miraculously not been broken underneath buffalo hooves. Picking it up, Travis looked to Applejack. “…Your friends died almost instantly. I might want you fucking ponies to get outta my face, but I don’t want you to suffer.” A pause. Applejack smiled. Coughed up some blood. “That it, huh? You’re gonna suddenly be all noble ’n shit? Yer a funny one, Travis. Real comedian.” Travis stood up, the Tsubaki once again hissing to life, its long and sloping blade stopping an inch above the ground. Applejack looked at it as if she was relieved to see it. Then she looked back up to Travis. “If Ah ’kin ask fer one last favor…” “…Yeah?” Applejack coughed. “…Take me… take me back to Bloomberg, won’tcha? Ah wanna see ’im one last time ’fore Ah go.” At first, Travis didn’t quite understand her demand. Then it clicked. The Tsubaki’s blade was sheathed for now. He knelt down, working his arms around Applejack and lifting her as best he could. He heaved her across his shoulders carefully, wincing when he heard her grunt in pain, walking back toward the tree he found her under. For some strange and mystical reason, he could just… feel his way back there. “Bloomberg was my tree,” Applejack said as he walked. “My first one, Ah mean. My Pa… he showed me how to plant a tree, once Ah got big enough to start apple-buckin’. He asked me to name it. So Ah did.” Travis took a short cut through a gaggle of apple trees, the jagged shade from the leaves coloring their surroundings in darker hues. “Givin’ up Bloomberg fer my cousin’s orchard was a tough choice, but Ah knew they could use ’im.” “It’s just a fucking tree,” Travis said. “But it really means that much to you?” Applejack let out a small, pained laugh. “Ain’t you ever had somethin’ precious given to you by somepony ya love? Somethin’ to remember them by?” A long and lonely silence drifted between them as Travis saw Bloomberg up ahead—and the hole Applejack had dug beneath it. “…Not really.” As Travis set her down in front of the hole, Applejack looked at him with eyes that seemed to… apologize. “Ah’m sorry t’hear that.” They shared some more silence. As Travis’ fingers went for the Tsubaki, Applejack piped up again. “You got ’ny family, Travis?” “…Got a twin brother. Had a sister. Parents.” A pause. “…Had.” Her apologetic eyes went from expressing pity to expressing sympathy. “Ah won’t ask how they got taken away from you,” she croaked, “that ain’t important. Travis, you an’ Ah both know how much senseless cruelty there is in the world. Why you gotta go an’ add to it?” “Because the people who do those senseless acts of cruelty? They took something away from me.” “Did killin’ ’em bring that somethin’ back?” She blinked. “Does killin’ my friends’n Ah, does that bring anything back? What’d we take from you, anyway?” More silence. “…I didn’t come here to talk,” Travis said finally. Applejack shook her head silently, sighing sadly. “Yer so fucked up. Ain’t nothin’ to you but violence ’n want.” “Fuck you,” Travis spat. He took a step back. “Doesn’t change anything,” she said suddenly. “Y’know, Ah usually ain’t so negative. I’m actually pretty upbeat. Like this? Dyin’? Most would look at it like it’s the end. Not me, though—death’s not an ending. It’s just goin’ home after a long, hard day. Know what Ah mean?” The Tsubaki sprang back to life. Applejack once again looked at it with relief. The end of her suffering was near. She smiled. “Ah don’t think you do. You look too scared.” Applejack breathed deep and lifted her head towards the sky. For some reason, Travis stalled. “’Samatter? Ah know you ain’t above killin’ a lady, so do it!” The force of her voice shook Travis as he lifted the Tsubaki. “Do it, cocksucker! Fuckin’ DO it!!!” Applejack felt cold, suddenly. A sense of weightlessness as she got a good view of the sky. Her vision haloed with blackness, the sounds of the orchard becoming distant, everything going dark, then pure white as her disconnected body chased her head into the hole behind her. Applejack… …We’ve been waiting for you. …Welcome home. It took Travis a while to get over crying for his fallen foe. It took him a while to bury her, leaving the shovel stuck in the dirt as a makeshift gravestone. It took him a while to gather his bearings, to leave the orchard before those buffalo came back. As he slowly walked away, Travis turned to give Bloomberg one last glance. Then he turned and made his quiet exit from the orchard. From Bloomberg’s branch fell a single, bright red apple. Slowly, it rolled along the ground, touching the shovel before coming to a stop. APPLEJACK: GONE HOME The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part I)Travis didn’t recall much between when he walked out of the Appleloosa orchard and when he arrived back in Ponyville. His legs moved him out of their own accord, scuffing against dirt, pavement, and grass, while his mind was just… someplace. Or maybe no place at all; it was kinda hard to tell. The last time he’d felt this deflated after a victory, Travis had done something similar. In between evenings where he felt too depressed even to masturbate, he was just mindlessly doing odd job after odd job, attempting to busy himself until he could get his mind back on track. But no matter what odd job he worked, no matter how many weeds he pulled or fish he caught or pipes he fixed, Travis couldn’t shake his mind of the last conversation he had with Applejack. Yeah, he was fucked up. Yeah, he loved violence. And yeah, he wanted stuff. But what did she mean when she told him he didn’t understand that there’s solace in death? He’d seen that same look of peace just before death on quite a few other people—Holly Summers, Captain Vladimir, Margaret Moonlight—and he understood what it meant. …Or did he? He was so used to seeing it on the faces of some of his foes that he thought he understood it well enough. Or was it like cocaine or sex? Something you had to experience yourself in order to truly understand it? Or maybe she was just fucking with him and didn’t mean anything. No, that didn’t make sense—she’s supposed to be, like, some Element of Honesty or some shit, right? She wouldn’t be honest if she were into mind games. Maybe she was just being honest about her opinion of him… but then again, her honest opinion of him was worded so vaguely, it made his brain go ppppbbbttttthhhh. Whatever. Upset, confused, and a little bored, Travis was relieved when he saw the poster. Seemed there was a magician headed this way—someone who claimed to be “Great and Powerful.” He’d seen the poster about a month back and wondered to himself why a bunch of unicorns would even have use for a magic show. Like, didn’t they all use magic? What was so special about stage magic’s subterfuge and misdirection? Maybe there were like, different levels of magic or something, I dunno. Whatever the case, the magic show interested Travis greatly. It looked like just the thing to take his mind off his recent win/loss. So there he was, in the Ponyville Theatre, in his usual disguise, waiting for the show. The theatre itself was gaudy and… what’s the word… oh, fuck it—the theatre was pony-riffic. It was a brand-new word that indicated pony statues, paintings, motifs, and so on, done up in ways Travis found unnecessary, pretentious, and unnecessarily pretentious. And pretentiously unnecessary. Travis hated it. But at least the popcorn wasn’t bad. He’d been seated for maybe five minutes, lazily munching on popcorn, half-wondering why he was even here before he realized something. It was quiet. Too quiet. Travis looked about himself, taking in the eerie oceans of empty seats on either side of him. No ponies behind him or in front, either. Before he could wonder where the exact fuck the rest of the audience was, however, the lights around him dimmed. A spotlight fell onto a pony wearing a fancy green jacket with an equally green bowtie. She sauntered onto the stage, her fiery curls bobbing about her neck as her sunny hooves clip-clopped across the wooden floor. She turned to face the seats with a theatrical twirl, her bright green eyes shimmering as the spotlight’s sight danced across them. “Fillies and gentlecolts!” she announced before realizing there was no audience to address. Her face contorted for a second as the sounds of crickets lifted to her ears. Her eyes fixed onto Travis, and suddenly she became a little more steeled. “F-Fillies and gentlecolts,” she began again, “as a warning, this theater would like to attest that the astounding feats of magic you are about to witness might blow your mind inside-out! Viewer discretion is advised. Introducing—” She was interrupted as the red curtain behind her shuffled a bit. Travis heard a voice whispering as the mare’s face froze stupidly for a moment. “Re-introducing,” the mare amended, “the GREAT! And POWERFUL—” Before the mare could finish, the curtains lifted as pyrotechnics flashed and fanfare played, settling into calliope music. A blue pony leapt high into the air above the stage, her star-splattered purple cape and stereotypical witchy-poo hat fluttering as she descended, landing in front of the announcing mare—who at this point adopted a tired frown and surrendering eyes. “TR-R-R-RIXIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” yelled the mare emphatically. The flashing pyrotechnics exploded at her interjection, their spectral stars and fireballs forming the performer’s name above her head before dissipating like fireworks. How modest. “Watch! And be amaaaaazed!” howled Trixie as she waved a hoof hard enough to count as a punch. “The Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie has returned from a journey of self-discovery! A journey that involved the discovery not only of Trixie herself, but her truest potential!” The announcing mare’s mouth turned up at one end as she trotted off-stage, clearly amused as she shook her head. Trixie meanwhile continued her rant—I’d write most of it here, but Trixie went on for a while. It was as if half her show was about how awesome she was without really proving it. So basically, just like your average rap musician. Travis was already bored before Trixie even started her routine, and even after she finally shut the fuck up and did some stage magic, he wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was his battle with Rarity, but now that he’d seen how awesome unicorn magic could be in a fight, he couldn’t accept anything else. That one other magician Travis fought years ago—Harvey something-or-other—would probably have pointed and laughed… or maybe give her constructive criticism. He was actually rather polite. Trixie’s act really could use the improvement. Teleporting out of a tank of water resulted in Trixie taking the water out of the tank with her, dousing the entire stage and shorting out some of the equipment. Turning a tiger into a kitten only resulted in the tiger becoming angry and chasing Trixie around the stage… ruining the rest of the stage equipment. In short, she was entertaining, but for the wrong reasons. “I didn’t know this was a comedy act!” Travis said, laughing his ass off. As the other mare lured the tiger back into its cage with a piece of steak, Trixie’s head snapped in Travis’ direction. Her eyes flew wide as she took in her only audience member, who was holding his sides. Pointing. Laughing. Laughing. “Epic fail!” Travis crowed. “Epic motherfucking fail! I bet failure must, like, run in your family or something—nobody could fail that hard all on their own!” Trixie’d been heckled before. She’d withstood the neigh-sayers, the skeptics, the bullies, the shmucks, inviting many on-stage to outwit and embarrass, to put them in their proper place beneath a Great and Powerful mare. But this… “Nopony… talks that way… about… my…!” Trixie growled through clenched teeth, her eyes bulging, becoming red. Her red-haired assistant looked at her with wide eyes and a perplexed twist for a mouth, apparently unused to seeing Trixie boiling with this much contempt for another living being. “Uh… Trix?” she asked timidly. “…You okay?” Trixie jerked her head back, a dangerous look in her eyes. “Trixie will be perfectly proper once she puts this putrid palooka in his place!” “You sure that’s a smart thing to—” Trixie waved a hoof impatiently out to the empty theatre. “Is there an audience?!” “Just him.” “Precisely!” “Hey, where’s my fucking magic show?!” Travis called up. “I didn’t pay eleven of those weird… horsey-coin thingies to just sit on my ass and watch you fail at everything.” That dangerous look in Trixie’s eyes tripled. Her silvery mane bristled as she clenched her teeth, snorted a hot rush of air that blew back her assistant’s mane in a gust— then resumed a pleasant demeanor as she turned around, big smile on her face as she once again looked out at her adoring audience. Facetiously, Trixie struck a pose as she announced, “For Trixie’s NEXT trick, she’s gonna make a bitch disappear! DO WE HAVE ANY VOLUNTEERS, I think you'll do nicely, COME ON UP HERE ASSHOLE!!!” Travis felt a slight burning sensation envelope him—then he was launched through the air and slammed on stage. The spotlight shone down on Travis as he stood back up, looking Trixie right in the eye. Her face blanched, her eyes wide with surprise. “What? The fuck you looking at?” It was only then Travis realized his Awesome Disguise (tm) had fallen off when he was thrown onstage. “You!” the red-haired assistant barked in surprise. “You’re that guy from the newspapers! The Element Killer!” “That what they’re calling me now?” Travis said nonchalantly. “Real fucking original. Remind me to give ’em a goddamn medal.” Trixie’s mind wheeled. He’d killed three of the Element Bearers already. No doubt he had Twilight Sparkle in his sights as well… “Element Killer,” she began. “I believe we’ve established that bullshit already,” Travis spat as he reached for his beam katana belt. He plucked the Tsubaki from its holster, readying it as its single, three-foot fang flicked to life predatorily. “Can’t say I fucking care for the title, though. You can call me…” He struck a badass samurai pose. “…Travis Touchdown.” “You can call me unimpressed,” the assistant said with a dismissive frown. “Travis Touchdown,” Trixie said, ignoring her assistant and taking a step forward. “You intend on killing Twilight Sparkle as well, don’t you?” “That purple bitch? Yeah, she’s on my shit list too.” Trixie’s assistant frowned. “Really?” she asked with some derision. “You think you can take on a Princess? Celestia’s own prized student?” “Celestia?” Travis asked. “That the queen pony?” “She’s a Princess,” the assistant corrected. “And a very powerful magician who passed her knowledge onto other ponies.” “Like Twilight?” The assistant removed her green bowtie and tossed it aside. “Like me,” she growled, removing her jacket and letting it settle onto the stage. “Oh-ho-ho-hooo, a two-on-one battle,” Travis crowed with a Cheshire smile. “Can’t wait to get started!” He shot forth, his blade ready, only for the assistant pony to raise a hoof to stop him. “Hold on there, sport,” she said. “You took a moment to ready your weapon; it’s only fair we get to ready ours.” She looked aside to Trixie and nodded. “Trixie! Binding Magic For Intertwining Destinies, Spell 83.” Trixie’s eyes widened. “S-Spell 83?” She looked this way and that hectically, as if she were asked a particularly tough personal question. “But Sunset Shimmer, we already tried that one! It didn’t—” “We’re using it,” Sunset demanded. “Just focus.” With some hesitance, Trixie assumed a wizard’s stance, one front hoof off the ground and curled up beneath her barrel, her head bowed, her horn aglow. Sunset Shimmer copied this stance, the both of them close enough to each other so as to cross horns. Their lights—blue and green—mixed and became one, enveloping their entire bodies into one hell of a lightshow. Stars rose from the floor around them, wind whipping upward like a sparkling tornado. The two unicorns were then swallowed by a shaft of bluish-green light that burned for half past eternity, so bright Travis to shield his face from it. Then, all at once, the light died. Travis brought his hand down, opening his eyes to something he only ever saw when he took that cocaine at that one party that one time—I swear it was only once. On four legs stood a unicorn twice as tall as Travis. Its pelt was an ice blue, with a rolling snow-white mane and tail that flowed as if it were on fire. Where the ass-tats were was a yin-yang symbol in a constant rolling motion. Its legs, like its body, were long and slender and powerful, with the same snow-white fire billowing from its fetlocks. Its horn must have been about as long as the Tsubaki Travis held in his hands. But at the end of the unicorn’s horn was a red fireball about as big as your head (or one of Travis’ testicles), burning brightly, angrily. Within the fireball’s glowing core was a pair of cool green eyes—Sunset’s eyes. It spoke, both mares’ voices clamoring over each other at once. “Let the bloodbath begin!” Then it charged. Author's Note I apologize for cutting this one short, but it's been so long since the last update and work just got workier. So there might not be many updates from me in general. But I swear it won't be as long a wait as you think. ...One can only hope. The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part II: Revenge Battle!)It wasn’t so much a gallop as it was bounding leaps. As the merged, maddened mare barreled down on Travis, he was nimble enough to dodge her opening charge, but not nimble enough to land a strike on her legs, the Tsubaki hissing as it bit through a whole lot of nothing. The giant unicorn disappeared—dissolving into thin air as her fluttering laughter echoed through the entire theatre. “Uh-oh!” she crowed in a mocking, menacing tone. “Where’d that big bad unicorn go?” Travis stood stock-still, his samurai stance unwavering because it’s awesomer like that. His eyes flicked cautiously around the theater, a bead of sweat running down his temple, his teeth clenched, his fingers wrapping around the Tsubaki’s handle as the unicorn chuckled sinisterly, echoing eerily from all around him. Her voice barked from one end of the stage. “Are they over here?” From the other end: “Maybe they’re over here!” From the ceiling: “No, no! Up here! Up here!” Finally, from behind Travis: “BOO!” Travis spun like a tornado, the Tsubaki up and forming its menacing yellow half-moon—and striking nothing. The unicorn, wherever the fuck she was, laughed her head off like a child whose prank was pulled successfully. “Enough of this bullshit!” Travis growled. “A great and powerful magician shouldn’t have to—” Something struck him in the stomach, lifting him up off his feet and launching him backwards, barreling across the stage, where he flopped and rolled to a stop. Evidently, this wasn’t a battle meant for brute force. No Thunder Ryu around meant Travis would have to employ his own strategy. He thumbed through his mind for any scrap of useful knowledge. After scouring several volumes of stupid shit, Travis came up with an idea that would probably have worked, if only he hadn’t left his fire extinguisher and toothbrush at home. Before he could come up with anything, Travis noticed the snow-white flames forming on the stage. They rose from the stage’s floor as if being pulled up, then glowed for a second before being launched like bullets. Travis’ legs coiled and sprung, launching him into a defensive roll. Strangely, though the fireballs exploded against different objects, nothing they hit caught fire. Wiggy. Then he heard her giggling again, reverberating all across the stage, bubbling and bouncing all around him. This time, he was ready. Travis realized now that… well, for the sake of convenience let’s just call her Shimmermoon. Yeah that sounds pretty cool. Anyway, Shimmermoon used her laugh to disorient him. Years of stage performance and work in the live entertainment business meant that one half of Shimmermoon—Trixie—had learned the art of misdirection. One such art? Throwing her voice. Thusly, instead of listening for the more obvious sound—the menacing giggle—he listened for the less-obvious, careful clip-clop of tip-toeing hooves on wood. When he heard her approach him from the side, Travis knelt down low, then sprung up spinning. His lips curled into a Cheshire grin as he felt that satisfaction of hard light connecting with flesh, the scent of ozone and burnt meat lifting into his nostrils. The two voices screamed in unison as the giant unicorn popped back into visibility, backing away, stumbling around on its too-long legs. The red fireball that burned at the tip of its horn glowed, its shimmering green eyes wide with anger. “What are you doing?!” growled Sunset Shimmer. “Tag out before you get us killed! Tag out, tag out!” Before Travis could dive back in and land another blow, she leapt high into the air with a marvelous backflip (though how the everlovin’, blue-eyed fuck a horse can backflip is beyond human comprehension), the red fireball bathing the blue unicorn in scarlet fireworks. When the unicorn landed, it shook the entire stage, then stood up. Travis had been knocked flat on his ass by the impact, and when he looked into Shimmermoon’s eyes he knew what was gonna come next would not be fun. Shimmermoon was no longer in the form of a blue unicorn, instead a human shape with golden skin. The snow-white flame that acted as mane and tail for the unicorn now burned as a bright fiery cape of hair that cascaded down her back, stopping just above her ankles, while said ankles and her wrists also burned with the same bright-red flame. Her cool green eyes glimmered as she grinned, showing off a mouth full of shark’s teeth. Her ears were long and pointy, giving her a resemblance to those elves you’d read about in fantasy novels. She stood up to her full height, revealing she was still twice as tall as Travis—and to Travis’ dismay, though she was naked and had some magnificent titties, Shimmermoon lacked the more-interesting features of female anatomy. She still had a horn on her head, same length as before, only this time the fireball at the end burned bright blue, with a pair of purple eyes—Trixe’s eyes—glaring Travis down. Travis jumped back up to his feet. “Nice,” he said earnestly. “Tag-team shapeshifting. You two know how to run one hell of a fight. Let’s see what other tricks you got up your sleeve!” He should have known something was wrong when he ran at her, Tsubaki raised, and she didn’t so much as flinch. He should have known something would go wrong if he swung that Tsubaki at her. But alas, Travis Touchdown figured no such outcome until it was too late—the Tsubaki’s hard light was pinched between her two fingers, stopping Travis mid-swing. Her one hand held the Tsubaki, while the other curled into a fist and punched Travis in the gut, sending him up to the ceiling. Then into the ceiling. Then off the ceiling. Then back down to the stage. He only noticed a second after landing that the Tsubaki was no longer in his hands. He glanced up to see Shimmermoon twirling the Tsubaki playfully like it was a baton. “New form means new powers,” Shimmermoon growled as she turned the Tsubaki off and tossed it to another corner of the stage, where it clattered distantly. “Let’s see how tough you are without your toys, you macho little fuck.” She reached down and pulled Travis up by his hair. Then she lifted him up and, holding him with both hands, spun him around her head like that one guy did with Will Smith in the opening credits to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, before finally slamming him onto the stage with a back-drop. There was a darkness that exploded with stars. Shimmermoon might have said something, but whatever it was had been hushed by the ringing in Travis’ ears. He felt her long fingers dig into his shoulders as she yanked him up to his feet, and with a sharp jerk on his arm, Shimmermoon tripped him with one foot, then chased after him with a body slam, pinning him to the floor. She crossed her forearms over Travis’s neck, her shark teeth glistening darkly in that wide, menacing smile, her green eyes aglow with ecstasy. She giggled as she squeezed her thighs around his middle, crushing him little by little. Normally, finding himself pinned under a hot lady was pretty high on Travis’ to-do list, but as of right now, he figured out that there was always a dark side to every fantasy. For instance, this lady, twice his height, was also twice his weight, and bearing down on him with malicious, crushing intent. Secondly, her body heat was atrociously high—he’d felt stinging sensations when she grabbed him, and now it felt like he’d been caught under a lit stove. There was no air in his lungs. His skin was beginning to sizzle. No way to escape such a pin. Losing oxygen too fast… His vision began to halo as he felt her snort acrid breath over his face. “You obnoxious little fuck!” she spat. “You call this a fight?! You’d never beat Twilight if this is the best you can do!” There had to be some way out of this situation. Travis’ eyes widened. In fact, there was. Even though the way she’d pinned him was effective at reducing his arms to helplessly flailing paddles, he still had some motor control—and with this gift, he used his hands for the other thing a man should use it for besides violence and masturbation. He grabbed Shimmermoon’s breasts and gave them a hard squeeze. The look on her face was sudden, shocking, and hilarious (though not as funny as the blue fireball’s awkwardly-squinting eyes). It was all the indication Travis needed. Teeth clenched, he brought his forehead up, getting Shimmermoon in the nose. As she recoiled from the impact, Travis followed it with rolling her onto her side, getting a knee into her stomach. At last, Travis was free. Smokey and struggling for air, but free. Looking aside, he saw his Tsubaki and dove for it—but being as light-headed as he currently was, his dive was more of a bumbling forward-collapse. His hand found the Tsubaki almost without input from Travis’ brain, and clenched around its hilt. As Travis struggled to his feet, a fist came up to greet his stomach, each knuckle popping as searing heat and pain knocked him upward, off his feet and onto his ass. “You oughta know better than to touch a lady without her permission!” Shimmermoon growled. Despite the beating Travis had taken thus far, he drew from the well of awesome (or perhaps, the well of stupid), drank deeply, and kicked back up onto his feet. He wiped the blood from his nose and pocketed his Tsubaki. “You didn’t seem shy about getting physical before,” he retorted, reaching for the Peony. Shimmermoon barreled toward him, each footstep its own stampede, elbow and shoulder thrust outward, intent on flattening Travis like an oncoming train. As the Peony sprung from its hilt, Travis side-stepped Shimmermoon’s charge, holding the Peony’s ten-foot, blood-red laser blade at such an angle that it struck her sharply in the shins, tripping her. She flipped through the air, and screamed only when she was about to slam into some stage equipment. That entire part of the stage came down with a crash, caving in on Shimmermoon and covering her in various electronics and machines. Travis walked languidly towards Shimmermoon, the Peony humming sinisterly as he held it over his shoulder like a motherfucking badass. Suddenly, in a burst of white light, Shimmermoon sprung out from under the pile of damaged equipment, once again in unicorn mode. Without pausing to let her make some kind of fucking stupid monologue, Travis brought the Peony down, only for Shimmermoon to teleport with a bright blue pop. “Not this teleport shit again,” Travis growled, looking all around him. As if vanishing wasn’t annoying enough... Shimmermoon had teleported to another part of the stage, her snow-white mane and tail whipping and twirling like an inferno, falling to just behind her neck. “Spotlight, please!” she called. Travis didn’t even know there was anyone else here working the theater, but sure enough, spotlights cascaded down on her, three in all. She then slowly strutted the stage like a runway model. Rarity would have been proud. He heard some kind of whining coming from above him. Quickly, Travis performed another roll-dodge, nearly escaping an incoming white fire bomb. It struck the stage with a shuddering boom. Travis looked upward, watching as more white fire was dropped from the ceiling, simply appearing mid air instead of being shot from Shimmermoon’s horn like before. Being forced into constantly moving to avoid getting shit on with fire didn’t count as a fun time for Travis. As he ran to Shimmermoon—still strutting with slow, powerful, graceful movements—he readied the Peony. He swung. It hit the light… then rebounded. It was as if he were trying to strike sheet metal with a rolled-up newspaper, except not as effective. The rebound left Travis stumbling backwards, and of course, one of the white fire bombs landed on him with a shattering kaboom. Well, there went another set of clothes. He stood there with a vacant stare, smoking like a fish on a grill. Shimmermoon squealed with laughter. “Well, what do you know! Looks like mine’s harder!!” More white fire dropped from above as Shimmermoon watched Travis dodge—and dodge—and dodge. Soon, Shimmermoon grew bored with watching Travis, and decided to change the rules of the game a little. Pillars of blue fire shot up from the ground, one right after the other, chasing Travis as he struggled to think over what he could do to bring down Shimmermoon’s forcefield. Let’s see: hard light—made hard probably by magic—break the horn?—no, the horn’s on the other side of the forcefield—but maybe—what if—divide by the square root of hairs on a yak—so much science. Eventually, the answer popped into his head sometime between getting run breathless and getting burnt. Travis’ eyes shot up to the stage lights. They were a little too high to reach, even with the Peony. He’d have to approach this one differently. Sheathing the Peony, he returned the Tsubaki to his hands and turned, waiting for the next fireball. Sure enough, there one came, dropping down from above like that cage in a game of Mouse Trap. He struck a stance—this time, baseball player instead of the samurai—then took aim and swung. The fireball was knocked back upward, smacking into the stage light and bringing it down—and with it, one shaft of hard light. Shimmermoon gasped, her eyes wide, her teeth clenched, the red fireball on her horn gaping in shock. “Shit,” she growled. “Shit, shit, shit!” Up came the pillars again, Shimmermoon avoiding the fireballs since that would only give him more ammo. Travis ran, his legs pumping like pistons, propelling him across the stage, off the stage, through the theatre seats, and finally, shooting right up underneath the other stage light, destroying it. Travis had taken out the Rose Nasty at this point, shooting back up onto the theatre stage like he was motherfucking BATMAN, bringing both hot-pink blades down on Shimmermoon—once—twice—a kick to her knee—upward slash—downward slash—then a cross-slash finisher. Shimmermoon stumbled backwards in shock, the red fireball on her horn glowing. “Trixie, what are you doing?!” Sunset chastised. Without waiting for Trixie to respond, Shimmermoon spun, the scarlet fireworks changing her shape once again to the wrestler/fantasy elf, her fiery hair flailing under an unfelt breeze, stopping to just beneath her shoulders. Out came the Peony. Shimmermoon leapt into the air like she was an extra in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, coming down when she was above Travis. He jumped out of the way in the nick of time, but was blown back by the aftershock of Shimmermoon’s mighty stomp. Travis flattened against a pillar, his back screaming from pain and want for revenge. As he got back up to his feet, Shimmermoon once again barreled for him, the whole stage shaking, her left arm outstretched for a clothesline takedown. Travis decided to meet her midway, the Peony giving his attack some range. But just as he swung, Shimmermoon revealed her clothesline takedown was a feint—she crouched low, the Peony aiming for a face that was no longer there, now with both arms stretched out for a grab. She picked Travis up with both arms, wrapping them around his middle as she jumped up about as high as before, spiraled upside-down, then rocketed downward. The impact was enough to loosen the ceiling, numerous panels falling like snowflakes onto the theatre seats below. Heavy snowflakes that could kill on impact, but hey, you know, metaphors and all that. Shimmermoon got up off Travis, breathing in a deep breath victoriously, the blue flame on her horn chuckling wickedly. “Learned that one from wrestling class in high school,” she said with a nod. Travis could only gurgle in response. She knelt down and grabbed Travis by the ankles. “This one, I picked up from an Italian plumber.” Travis felt his body lift off the stage, and a dizzying nausea gripped him as he took flight in tight circles, Shimmermoon spinning him ’round and ’round. The dreaded moment when Shimmermoon let go came and, with unbelievable speed, Travis was launched like a cannonball, taking off to the ocean of empty seats. He landed on his head, so he was totally safe. But the rest of his body felt a lot of the effect. It wasn’t a struggle to get back up—it became a war. By the time he’d finally gotten back up to standing height, Shimmermoon had casually walked the length of the entire theatre, fists on admittedly attractive hips, her head cocked analytically, her lips twisted into a smirk. “Fuck, you just don’t know when to die, do you?” she asked scornfully. “You don’t get to be number one by letting a little thing like death get in your way,” Travis spat. He squinted his eyes a little more closely at Shimmermoon. Was her…? Her hair had been to the ankles before, hadn’t it? Why was it now only down to just her shoulders? Then it hit him. The Cheshire smile worked its way back onto his face. With renewed vigor—and every muscle in his body begging him to reconsider—Travis raised the Peony and swung. Shimmermoon raised her arms, crossing them to guard against the blow. Then he swung again. And again. And again. And with every block, Shimmermoon’s hair grew shorter and shorter. Just like how his beam katanas had a battery, so did Trixie’s and Sunset’s own weapon. It looked like they only had a little juice left. If he could just press the attack a little more, maybe… Finally, Shimmermoon gave a push against Travis, knocking him off his feet and over some seats. With a mighty yell, she raised both fists into the air, ready to bring them down and murder the shit out of Travis’ face. She brought the fists down. Travis brought the Peony up. And then there was a flash of blue-green light. Trixie felt the floor before she saw it, and it greeted her with a malicious punch to the everything. Her energy was straight-up gone—Spell 83 had sucked both her and Sunset dry. Sunset Shimmer herself had been socked clean away, spiraling through the air, across the stage, into the main stage light, where she got a nice tan to go with the sizzling pain. Trixie lifted her head as she watched Sunset shimmer, her pelt blackening, her mane sticking out at funny angles. Her heart sunk as her mentor finally peeled off the now-broken stage light, falling all the way down and landing with a shuddering thud. Her first instinct was to go to Sunset and make sure she was okay, or even still alive—an instinct thwarted by her aching, unresponsive limbs. Spell 83 took too much out of her, so much it left her weak and thirsty and dizzy and sluggish. And dead, if the hissing red beam of hard light hovering next to her head any say in the matter. Trixie could feel its heat prickling against the pelt on her face, and could hear Travis’ raspy, tired breath. The red beam glowered as it was raised. Trixie turned her head to see Travis holding the Peony like a golfer readying a swing. There was no way out of this, a part of Trixie told herself. Just… Just let it happen. He’ll make it quick. There’s no point in resisting, just let it happen. Just as Travis was about to bring the Peony down, there came a— “MASTER, WAIT!!!” …shout. (I hate it when the characters beat me to the dialogue.) Travis turned his head as a creature similar to his design—but noticeably feminine, with dark skin, snow-white hair, and goth chick clothing—jumped down from the rafters. She looked like she’d just ran a million miles. “Whoo!” she said, getting her bearings, “I made it just in time!” “Shinobu?” Travis asked, lowering the Peony. “The fuck are you doing here?” “I came,” Shinobu said before wheezing some air back into her lungs, “to stop you.” Travis looked from Shinobu to Trixie, then back. “You’re... gonna fight me? Seriously?” Shinobu looked at him, puzzled. “…Maybe I should rephrase that,” she said. “Then fucking rephrase it,” Travis retorted impatiently. Shinobu took a deep breath, running a hand through her hair. “I mean, I’m here to stop you from killing these two. They’re… uh… important.” Travis gave her the biggest what ever. She raised her hands defensively. “Look, I get you’re confused, Master, so am I. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I just need you to not kill them.” “It’s… fine,” Trixie said, suddenly pitiable. Both Travis and Shinobu looked to her, surprised. Trixie struggled back up to her hooves. “You know, I trained my heart out under Sunset Shimmer’s mentorship. Before I met her, I really screwed up. I got the entire kingdom of Equestria on my ass every time I stuck it out the door.” She scoffed. “She trained me for almost a whole year before I decided to get back into show business, to show off how much I’d grown. But…” Trixie looked out at the empty theater, her eyes grey, her heart broken, her voice flat. “I left those posters hanging up for three weeks to get plenty of time for advertisement. And this jerk’s the only one who showed up.” Her words hung damply in the air before she sighed. “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe there really isn’t any hope for me… just like they always said.” Travis popped an eyebrow as Trixie sat down like a defeated dog. “They always said I was trash,” she said in sudden bitterness. “Because my dad was the town drunk. Because they thought a worthless drunkard couldn’t produce anything of any value.” Her voice grew angrier. “Well, they never knew him, and they never knew me. He might never have been sober for longer than five hours, but he also never hit me, never missed a day of work, and never missed my birthdays. Everything Daddy did, he did for me!” She could no longer fight the salty tears running down her face as her last sentence echoed in the stadium. “But every story has an ending, doesn’t it?” she asks with a choked smile. “Mine just came sooner. I kinda wish it was a little happier, like in one of Daddy’s bedtime stories… but beggars can’t be choosers.” She looked at Shinobu. “It was valiant of you to try to stop this, but it’s okay,” she said softly. “Really. Nopony’s… gonna miss a failure like me. It's okay.” Silence. Suddenly, there came a clumsy clip-clop of hooves. Everyone looked behind Trixie to see Sunset Shimmer, burnt but very much alive, hobbling over, wearing a scowl. She stopped in front of Trixie. Snorted. Then popped her across the jaw. “Shut up!” she said angrily, her voice shaking. “I don’t ever wanna hear that bullshit out of you again! Understand?” Trixie looked at her like a child who’d just gotten spanked by her mom. She merely nodded dumbly, holding the side of her face where Sunset’s hoof connected. Then Sunset swept Trixie into a tight hug, tears streaking down her singed face. She sniffled, burying her face in Trixie’s mane. “Don’t ever say that,” she murmured. “D-Don’t ever.” There was a pause as the two ponies embraced. The Peony gave a hiss as its blade slunk back into its sheath. Travis put it back onto his belt as he turned away. Shinobu turned to look at him—and caught something sparkling as it fell from her Master’s eye. “Let’s just go,” he said curtly as he exited the theater. Shinobu looked from the exit, to Trixie and Sunset. She smiled as she followed her Master out. TRIXIE LULAMOON and SUNSET SHIMMER: DOUBLE K.O. Author's Note And now, the first Act of NOMOPO is finally complete. Tune in next time for the Shinobu levels. Don't worry--I removed the annoying platforming segments. By the way, if anyone's interested in more Trixie and Sunset Shimmer hijinx, read this story! [SHAMELESS PLUG] Shinobu Goes to the Moon and Does Some Things!OK, so here’s what happened. It all started once I went to your apartment to take care of Jeane. I went through some of your messages to relay to you later—that reminds me, sorry about your cell phone—and I came across a call I found kinda scary. She sounded angry, but regal, like a queen. Then I received a fax from someone whose initials were “TR”, saying that you were in over your head, along with where you were. I knew I had to do something, so I bolted out the door, got my things together and sought out the only person I knew could help me… Naomi drew her gloved hand across her nose, sniffing obnoxiously as she turned in her seat to face the dark girl in the darker dress behind her. “You want me to what now?” Shinobu explained her situation up to this point, tastefully leaving out the Pinocchio porn and the perverted fangirl phone message. “And now,” she said as she came to a finish, “I’m going to need a way to reach that SHIT in outer space.” Naomi shifted in her chair, her dark hair bobbing—as well as the breasts that made up, like, fifty percent of her body. Her eyes swept the machines and other equipment resting quietly in the corners of her cool, airy workshop, as if looking for something that could help. She sighed. “Look, kid,” she said. “This isn’t my problem and I don’t have all day.” “But isn’t Master a friend of yours?” Naomi rolled her eyes, taking off her glasses while rubbing the bridge of her nose. “All I’m hearing outta you is ‘I’m broke’. And I don’t make friends with broke people.” She clapped her glasses back onto her face, turned in her chair, and returned her undivided attention to that arresting game of solitaire she was playing on her computer. Getting her helped proved difficult. She wanted money—and lots of it. So I tried it your way, Master: odd job after odd job. I soon grew sick of pulling weeds and catching scorpions (especially catching scorpions, I mean seriously what the hell is up with that), and once again picked up my sword to look for some assassination work. My first target was— “How fucking long is this gonna take? Be honest.” …W-What do you mean, Master? “I mean, seriously, do we have time for this?” …uh… “It’s been like three fucking months since the author updated this thing, and it’s been more than a year since he started. On top of that, we’re only done with the first act. See, that one other story the author’s been working on has been suffering from the same problem and I don’t need that bullshit here. Just do us all a fucking favor and get to the point.” …OK, fine, I get it, I get it. To make a long story short, it took me a few days and the going was rough, but I killed a lot of people and got enough money to pay her off. The silver suitcase was set onto the card table with a louder plunk than was necessary, the lock popping open on impact. Naomi felt like a pirate opening a chest of buried treasure: while there was no glint of gold coins or sparkling of diamonds, the collective stares of dead presidents was just as gratifying. “Okay,” she said, reaching in and grabbing a stack. She ran her thumb over one end, going through the money with a fluttering noise. “All right, now we’re talking.” She adjusted her glasses as she looked up at Shinobu, who was covered in bloodstains, held together with bandages, had a beartrap clamped in her hair, was soaked from head to toe, had a few knives sticking out her back, and scowled like the whole world hated her. Naomi coughed politely. “You, uh… You okay there, kid?” Shinobu snorted. “…You taunted them after every combo, didn’t you?” “Couldn’t help it,” Shinobu said glumly. “It’s a reflex. How soon can you get me to the SHIT?” “Well, I could do it this afternoon,” Naomi explained, dropping the stack back into the suitcase. “But honestly… don’t you think you need to see a doctor? Or take a break at least? You look like hell.” Shinobu sneered. Naomi was never this considerate when she didn’t have money… Naomi raised her hands defensively. “Hey yeah, I get it, none of my business. Mum’s the word.” After that, I got access to a spaceship she’d been working on. It wasn’t anything too big—more like a big, flying clown nose than anything else, really—but it got me to the SHIT. Plus, it got Pandora radio, so there’s that. Upon going through the SHIT, the spaceship malfunctioned. I mean, can you believe it? Forty million for that piece of junk! The ringing in Shinobu’s ears only started fading after she climbed out of the wrecked remains of the spaceship. She made a mental note to file a legal complaint against Naomi… if she didn’t strangle her first. Her legs wobbled as she stumbled out the spaceship’s door, her balance lost and her senses left dumb and hazy. When her feet left the ground, she expected to just tumble out, head over high heels, and look like a dork. Much to her surprise, she drifted over the ground, ghostlike. Shinobu blinked as her senses finally decided to come back. She looked about, taking in all the blackness and the glittering stars and the dusty, white surface beneath her. An upward glance revealed a large planet, slowly turning—but it looked nothing like Earth. “I’m on the moon!” she exclaimed. Of course, there was the little matter of being able to breathe, the insane amount of cold and pressure of outer space, but that’s junk I don’t care about, and frankly neither should you. Shinobu’s just that talented that she can not die in space just like Travis, okay? Since the spaceship was totaled, Shinobu had no choice but to simply explore the moon. She whistled a tune as she did so, bounding across the moon’s surface with attempted steps that shot her across the ground. It was a while before she became used to soaring several feet. The moon was like a cross between a tomb and a desert, mysterious and silent and lonely. The only real features of the moon besides the dusty ground were the craters of various sizes: some wide enough for Shinobu to hide in, some small enough that her foot was stuck once or twice, and some big enough to fit a whole baseball stadium. As she got used more and more to the weak gravity, Shinobu began to get a little more adventurous, pirouetting and spinning as gracefully as a ballerina as she launched herself across the surface. The little girl she was never allowed to be struck several silly poses in midair—the Egyptian, the Superhero, the Thinker, and her personal favorite, Marilyn Monroe. She landed with a demure thump, and stopped. Now was no time to have fun! Master was in trouble! Shinobu looked all about, now totally lost and still with no way to get off the moon. There was something in the distance. Something that glittered and glowed. I must have traveled all over the moon before I finally came into contact with the enemy’s base... Shinobu analyzed it curiously, leaning forward as if it would give her binocular vision or something. To no one’s surprise but her own, it didn’t—so she did more moon-leaps towards the glowy thing until its form became more definite. “…A castle?” Shinobu said aloud. And yes, it was a castle, thanks for asking. Interestingly, it was a cross between the classic fairy tale castle and a mad scientist lair you’d see in some science fiction movie. The castle spires were topped with glass orbs that housed various artificial environments, making the whole shebang look like a garden of bizarre neon mushrooms and lollipops. Forked tongues of light flicked from its base, as if attempting to draw attention to itself. Even more moon-leaps put Shinobu in the middle of a deep crater, where she sneaked forward bit by bit. Just ahead was the outer wall of the mysterious castle, and as she reached the edge of the crater, she carefully poked her head up. Darkly-colored ponies wearing wickedly designed black armor strolled about on patrol, their yellow eyes glimmering against the blackness of space. Some fluttered above on bat wings, while others leaned over and investigated the ground below with light emanating from twisted horns. A swath of light from one of those horns scanned the ground just in front of Shinobu. She dropped down and held fast against the wall of the crater, crushing her body down until the light passed her by. Shinobu took deep breaths, planning her next move. Obviously, if someone could build a castle on the moon and put guards in it, someone could have a spaceship or other means of getting off the moon. I wasn’t about to be left there for like a thousand years! There were many guards. Normally I wouldn’t be too concerned—after all, killing’s something you and I are good at—but these guys weren’t anything like I’d faced before. Horns that emit light and God knows what else? Flying around like bats? Fangs? And they had me beat in sheer numbers, too. This was a situation that called for stealth. “Fuck, are you serious?” Why, Master? What’s wrong now? “Because nobody likes a goddamn stealth mission. The only ones that were any good ended up being pretentious and long-winded anyway.” But… “I don’t really wanna sit through a stealth mission. Can’t you just skip it or something?” But it’s an important part of the story! “No it fucking isn’t. The only reason anybody’s reading this shitty story at all is because of the awesome fight scenes. Stealth missions are too slow. Slow pace means high word count—and you know how readers react to that!” …OK, fine. Jeez, first the money-raising missions, now the stealth... [DELETED SCENE] She’d explored the entire castle—through its Escherian hallways—through its alien gardens—through its exotic kitchens—through its mysterious laboratories—and she’d been quiet as a shadow on a wall. She’d disappeared when a guard would turn his head her way. She’d hid in darkness and in foliage and in cardboard boxes. She was so sure she couldn’t be caught. The moment she set foot in the elevator, she found out how wrong she was. The elevator itself was a huge, round platform of brick and stone, made grey and lit only by the torches on the walls. It had a very medieval dungeon feel to it, save for the huge gears that suddenly squealed to life and dragged the elevator down at an ominously slow pace. Then the haunting howl of a pipe organ filled Shinobu’s ears with its eerie song—and her heart with dread. As the elevator descended, as the pipe organ played, as the gears squealed from equal parts exertion and neglect, Shinobu’s spine prickled with the sense of impending doom. She gripped her sword tightly with one hand, but stood straight and tall, her heart clawing against her chest. Somewhere up above came a hiss. Shinobu, against her better judgment, looked up. She was met by the glowing yellow eyes and the gleaming white fangs of the bat-pony guards as they climbed down from the darkness like spiders out of a hole. Shinobu’s katana sprung from its sheath, its glimmer ghost white and its shrill shriek like a banshee’s. Down from the wall jumped three of the ponies, their fanged smiles miles wide, their eyes burning in their sockets like fireballs. The first sprung forth, his mighty bat wings pumping to give him lift as he opened his vampire mouth. There was a swing—then head and body divorced and fell to the ground, the elevator floor stained red. The second shot forth right after the first and joined him just as quickly. But the third was smart: his magic grabbed onto Shinobu’s katana, pulling it in random directions playfully. He chuckled menacingly as more of his fellows dropped down for round two. Finally, Shinobu let go of the katana—and just as the unicorn… demon… guy… let’s just call them demonicorns. Anyway, just as the demonicorn commanded the katana to eviscerate its owner, Shinobu drop-kicked him into one of the others, knocking them both over. The katana fell to the floor and clattered noisily. Shinobu ran, slid, grabbed her katana, then sprung up in a Shoryuken and lopped the head off another bat-pony. There was a never-ending stream of the little bastards, all fangs and glowing eyes and curved horns and bat wings and malicious intent. Many blows were taken. Many deaths followed. Shinobu had lost count of how many she’d slain, but the elevator’s stone floor was going from cool grey to blood red considerably fast. Bodies and pieces of bodies, piled here, piled there, blank eyes and slacked jaws and limbs that twitched before going still. Panic gripped Shinobu as the organ music filled her ears over the screaming and shrieking of the descending monsters. Her heart pounded against her chest as if demanding to be freed. Beads of sweat flew from her face as she moved like lightning, striking and striking and striking her enemies like an act of God. Throughout all the chaos, the organ’s ominous song grew louder and more intense. At last, the elevator came to a halt, shuddering so suddenly, it threw Shinobu off her feet. The remaining demonicorns and bat-ponies descended on her as she fell, screeching and laughing with warbling, distorted voices. There were bites and scratches and the pounding of hooves—interrupted suddenly by Shinobu's thunderous roar, coupled with a sudden upward thrust of wind and blade. The demonicorns and bat-ponies were all tossed like waves, with Shinobu escaping what could have been a vicious end, covered only in bruises and cuts. Her katana sang through the air, a long white tongue of metal that ghosted through her approaching enemies, tentacles of blood escaping open wounds. At last, only one foe remained. His eyes flickered in the low lighting, glowing as ominously as his horn. Shinobu’s lungs and heart and limbs and head were all screaming for mercy, her breath escaping her in desperate rattles. There was a ringing in her ears that deafened the organ music. The two circled one another like predators, until finally the demonicorn charged, his horn aglow and teeth bared. Shinobu swung her katana soundlessly, and the demonicorn ran by her almost absentmindedly, completely unaware that his two halves were falling away. Both his left and right fell to the elevator floor with a wet flop. Shinobu finally relaxed. Her shaky breaths became shaky sighs as her katana suddenly gained a thousand pounds, pulling her wobbling arms down almost to her knees. Sweat rolled down her dark skin, soaking her socks and pooling around her feet. With concentrated effort, she managed to sheathe her blade. Then the organ music ground into an intense conclusion, drawing Shinobu back into the present. The elevator had stopped on a floor that stretched forever in every direction, save for the small shrine before her. Stained-glass windows depict a terrifying horse goddess burning the planet while six ponies surround her. Statues of mares and stallions in various stages of grief and distress bow toward a small, cobblestone dais that holds the pipe organ. And there, hunched over the organ, was its musician, a long black cloak trailing down, rolling right off the dais and across the floor. She turned her head slowly, taking longer than needed, revealing a long, dark blue horn, glittering blue eyes, and the most sinister smile Shinobu had ever seen. “So another pest has arrived,” said the figure. Hers was the exact same angry, regal voice from the phone message... Shinobu tightened her grip on her katana. Shinobu Fights A Princess Or Something!“It’s been nearly two years,” the pony began as she drew near to Shinobu, “since your insipid friend came here. The deaths that followed have been gruesome and many.” She stopped just in front of the elevator. Her eyes, blue and mysterious and full of anger, scanned the piles of body parts and the pools of blood that covered the elevator. They fixate on Shinobu—Shinobu, who caused this; Shinobu, who slaughtered her subjects; Shinobu, who is soaked head to toe in their blood. “And now another rat follows,” she said, the words slithering slowly from her mouth. “I’m just here to rescue Master,” Shinobu said. There was pause. Then the pony-unicorn-princess-thing threw her head back and the entire chamber was suddenly filled with wicked cackling that changed pitch with every guffaw. Suddenly, the black cloak exploded into a swarm of shrieking bats, their wings carrying them up and away into the elevator shaft above. Shinobu shielded her eyes out of reflex, putting her hand down slowly, looking into the intense, hateful blue eyes of the nocturnal demon before her. Wings of a pegasus fluttered angrily at her sides. Horn of a unicorn glimmered ominously, painting her scowling crumple of a face in its light. Her mane flowed dreamily, rolling and licking like an oceanic wave of midnight. Suddenly, Shinobu wanted a plushie of her. “Rescue?” the pony princess spat. She nickered. “Your Master requires no rescue. He appeared to us, sudden as the breaking sound of thunder, swinging blades of light and howling words of rage. He brought, and still does bring, grief and misery and horror to my land.” Her horn glowed more intensely than it did before, and a screen sprang up from the nothingness around them. On it played scenes of Travis’ previous battles. How he’d sliced Rarity in half. How he’d blown Rainbow Dash to smithereens. How he’d ended Applejack. The screen then displayed graveyards becoming fuller, houses becoming emptier. Throughout this showing, Shinobu said nothing. Finally, the screen changed again, this time showing the moon. And on the moon was a castle that looked like a garden of glowing mushrooms. And in this castle was a cannon, loaded and glowing. Shinobu’s eyes widened. “You’re going to blow up your own planet?!” The pony shook her head. “Nay,” she said, “if your idiot Master had only listened to the stealth part of your story, you and the readers would all know that this cannon is zeroing in on his unique signature. I aim to scorch him off this earth. ” Shinobu waved her hand. “Whoa, wait,” she said, “I’ve seen this show before, and I remember you. You’re supposed to be some kind of powerful magic Princess or something. Why can’t you just go down there and try to defeat Master face to face?” The screen vanished, leaving the two of them in the almost-darkness. “Doing so would be suicide, even for a Princess of my power and standing,” said the pony. “He has survived several situations that would have disintegrated anyone else. He is obviously a foe we must approach with tact and guile.” She blinked. “Plus I’ve always wanted to blow something up with a giant laser. It’s been my dream since I was a filly.” “…What?” Shinobu asked with some concern. Luna shrugged. Her horn glowed once more, this time coupled with an ominous rumble shaking the whole castle like it owed the rumble money. “The countdown has initiated,” she said to Shinobu’s horror. “In five minutes, your Master will be just a memory.” An anger fueled by terror was injected into Shinobu’s mind, drawing her lips back, clenching her teeth down, tightening the already titanic grip she had on her katana. She snorted fiercely. Just as the word memory had finished slipping from Luna’s lips, other words escaped Shinobu’s. They weren’t words she often used, and besides her Master, she didn’t really like hearing them out of other people, but for the situation, it felt appropriate. I’d actually write them, but it’d take up at least a thousand words and I don’t have that kind of time to waste these days, as you’ve no doubt noticed. In either case, Luna’s face had gone ash-white at how crass and tasteless Shinobu’s outburst was. The white quickly turned to an angry red. “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO A PRINCESS IN SUCH A TONGUE!!!” she bellowed in a voice that left a ringing in Shinobu’s ears. “THE TIME HAS COME TO TEACH THEE, NAÏVE ROGUE, THE IMPORTANCE OF MANNERS AND CLEAN LANGUAGE!!!” Before Shinobu had any time to react, Luna was in her face, along with a hoof. One punch was all it took to knock the tired, beaten-up Shinobu out. Light flashed, scrubbing away the darkness. What replaced the darkness was like something off a black metal album cover: mysterious bags dangled from the ceiling on hooks, along with black birdcages and elaborate coffins. Twisting brambles wormed through most everything, save for the statues of tall, spindly things with indistinct conical faces, with tiny hands holding pitchforks, with long crooked tails. Shinobu gulped uneasily. “Wh-What is this place?” “Let’s call it the Horizon,” came a voice. Shinobu turned her head behind her, where the voice had come from. The voice had sounded much like Princess Luna from before, but there standing behind her, was instead her Master. He was clad, head to foot, with black leather duds, much of it spike-studded, as if he had joined a biker gang. Perhaps most frightening about his appearance, besides the menacing length and sound of the Peony he held at his side, was the black void he wore for his face. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, no glasses—merely a suckling darkness that belched a noise like a neverending scream. The scream dulled as Not Master looked to his knuckles, dusting them against his jacket. He looked back up to Shinobu, and a giant eye that looked like something out of one of those silent films from the thirties peeked from inside the hole. It blinked, then went away. “This is where dreams die,” Not Master explained in what was clearly Princess Luna’s voice, tinny and faraway as it was. “They are brought here, kicking and screaming, and dropped off to starve. Gradually, they pervert into horrid shapes, then die and become something like a zombie that never leaves you.” He stopped talking and the screaming resumed. “L-Like night terrors?” Shinobu asked. She hadn’t realized how scared she was until she spoke. She was too busy shivering from that fucking eye peering at her. The screaming quieted before Not Master gave his reply, motioning towards himself. “This is the Tantabus, Mark II. Like its predecessor, it is a device meant to embody someone’s worst nightmares. In this case, yours. ” Shinobu’s fingers snaked around her katana, shaking and shivering like leaves in the wind. She said nothing, her lungs pumping air in and out in torrents, her eyes widening and her nostrils flaring. She cleared her throat, then suddenly wondered how her body could keep working even though she was asleep. Was this just her imagination? What was anything? Not Master walked around Shinobu, lazily spinning the Peony. The baritone of its hum groaned lazily as it formed arc after arc. “I want to put forth an experiment, if you will. Have you ever heard of bed death? It occurs unexpectedly when one is asleep. To cut a long story short, many assume this phenomenon occurs while the victim is dreaming. They think that dying in a dream results in dying in the waking world.” He stopped. The screaming intensified. He turned, and inside the hole in his head was a mouth with jagged teeth, opening and closing and flicking a forked tongue, in the same strange silent film colors as the eye. He raised the Peony, pointing it at Shinobu. It might have only been four inches from her, but she could feel the heat rolling off of it—which again made her wonder how and why everything felt so intense if it’s all really just a dream. “The first Tantabus didn’t become powerful enough to achieve bed death. Let’s see if this one can remedy that.” Tantabus II thrust the Peony forward, its tip nearly impaling Shinobu’s face if she hadn’t nimbly dodged it. The Peony went up, the hole in Tantabus II’s face screaming the whole while as he swung it left, right, up, down. The arcs it left behind reminded Shinobu of wide, clownlike grins. How could a katana withstand the heat of the Peony without warping? As Shinobu discovered, quite well, actually: when she stood her ground and countered an incoming blow from above, the Peony bounced off with a surprised shriek, the entirety of the Horizon shuddering at the impact, a sensation that lasted for perhaps two seconds. The two seconds were all Shinobu needed. With a bounding leap, she closed the gap between herself and Tantabus II, and her katana formed an arc, another silver smile that flashed for a single moment before colliding with her target. What escaped him was the color of nightmares, and was ejected in a flock like flies. Something spun in the air, and as the flies began to part the something fell to what passed for ground here. The arm convulsed for a bit, dropping the Peony to the floor, where it rolled to a stop, and, with a whimpering hiss, the twelve feet of red melted away. Tantabus II clutched his arm as more flies flew from where the elbow had been. Shinobu stood, lifting her katana and pointing it at him. Both stared each other down. Or at least, Shinobu knew she was—who the hell knew if Tantabus II could stare thanks to that blank hole of his. He leaned forward, convulsing. Shinobu heard a chuckle fluttering from lungs a million miles away. Suddenly, Tantabus II lurched as if vomiting, his whole body deflating like a balloon and falling flat to the ground. From that hole in his head was launched a headless horse that, against everything Shinobu believed in, still released an angered whinnying that echoed for miles and miles. Its hooves thundered across the Horizon as it sped right for Shinobu. She swung. It exploded into more black flies. An angry whinny from behind. Shinobu turned and swung again, at another headless horse. More flies. Again, from the left. Again, she swung, and again, more flies erupted. This continued for some time, with Shinobu striking down each and every headless horse, bursting them into flies. As the flies fled from the bodies of the horses, they flew upward and became a pitch black thundercloud. Shinobu looked up at the cloud, and like the clouds she used to gaze up at in Santa Destroy, this thundercloud took a shape. It was a horse. Or rather, a nightmare in the shape of one. At least this one had a head—and a billowing nighttime mane to go with it. She was similar in appearance to Princess Luna, save for the obvious black instead of dark blue, not to mention the garish silver armor she wore. She threw her head back and released a sound halfway between a horse’s whinny and a dentist’s drill. Almost as if following a command, the demon statues nearby groaned loudly as their parts moved and came to life. They lifted themselves up on strange, spindly legs, their conical faces wiggling as they snuffled the cold air. Then those conical faces looked, eyelessly, right at Shinobu, and their tiny hands—each one probably the size of a nickel with fingers the length of teeth—clasped harder around their pitchforks. The spider legs that stuck from their backs began to spin, and Shinobu realized then that those things were supposed to be wings. They lifted off and lunged right for her as the cloud-Luna laughed. She changed the boss fight mid-battle? You’re shitting me. Just shitting me. I’m not kidding, Master! She really pulled that. I wasn’t pleased either, especially since those two statues really had nothing to do with ponies or assassins. They were just kinda there. I honestly wonder what the author was thinking when they got included. Eh, he was probably cranking some Rob Zombie or some shit and just thought the idea was cool. Probably. Either way, the rest of the fight went like this… The conical-faced demons leapt down, the ground and the brambles all shuddering upon their impact. Only when one was close did Shinobu realize how big they were. It was like a child facing Godzilla—if Godzilla were a Lovecraftian monstrosity and the child was highly skilled in samurai arts. The demon thrusted its spear down at Shinobu, only for its target to vanish and its spear to impale the ground with a crash. It glanced closer, its three tiny eyes blinking one after the other as it saw a diminutive figure running up its spear handle, sword in hand, before she leapt up into its face. It was like a hyperactive spider biting the ear of a wolf, its poison spreading throughout its victim’s body. One swing cleaved the tip of the demons’ cone-face, the second shearing off another section, the third doing much the same, and so on. By the time Shinobu got to the arched, brontosaurus-like neck of the creature, it was completely headless. With a quick and careful step, Shinobu held fast to her katana as she leapt for the second demon, who at this time leapt into the air to bring its spear down on its fellow to skewer Shinobu. Unfortunately, its mission to make a Shinobu-ka-bob was a total bust: all it did was give her a quicker way to travel up its spear. Second verse, same as the first. The thundercloud creature shrieked in anger as Shinobu killed its servants. As the last demon fell to the ground, Shinobu wondered how on earth she was going to defeat the thundercloud creature. Then she looked at the demon’s bodies and found an answer. Shinobu used her sword to carve one of the demons like a turkey, and put the piece in her mouth, chewed it, and swallowed. It tasted like chicken. ….That’s seriously some fucked-up Hellraiser shit right there. I know it sounds weird, Master, but you have to remember, this was a dream. It made sense at the time. I know, I know, but holy fuck. Shinobu ate the demons, tearing the meat off their bones and swallowed them with greedy gulps. When she finished, she realized the demons were dead and she was fifty feet tall. Now that Shinobu was a giant, she could cleave that cloud in two. She drew her sword and threw it at the cloud. It became a silver serpent and slithered through the roaring sounds of the Horizon, penetrating the black cloud easily. The black cloud parted and welcomed the silver serpent with a song that ended abruptly, with a sound like an elephant stomping on a sousaphone. The black cloud reformed as the same nightmarish armored unicorn from before—only now did Shinobu realize it was Princess Luna’s less-amicable form of Nightmare Moon—and she charged Shinobu with the force of a million trains. Without a weapon, Shinobu attempted to wrestle Nightmare Moon, like her Master would have done. But Nightmare Moon was crafty and ducked her head when Shinobu reached for her, stuck the horn between Shinobu’s legs, lifted her up, and tossed her over. She fell for a second. She fell for a year. She fell for hours. But the important part is, she landed, and the dreams she’d crushed weren’t happy about it. One of them had been dreaming he was BATMAN, for Christ’s sake, and when he clambered onto the invasive giant’s ear, he made sure she wouldn’t forget it. Nightmare Moon chased Shinobu into the web of countless dreams, where she lied in a state between subconsciouses, dazed as fuck. Then Nightmare Moon opened her mouth and vomited a giant wasp. Shinobu saw the wasp as it lumbered for her. She shook her head to remove the obnoxious creature complaining in her ear (saying something about Batman) and reached out to grab the wasp. It broke in her hand like glass. The pieces formed an army and rebelled against Nightmare Moon. They latched onto her legs and buried their heads inside them like ticks. Then they exploded. Shinobu reached into a nearby dream where someone was dreaming she was a samurai, and pulled the katana from her hands. She probably shouldn’t have done so—the dreamer was surrounded by armed villains. But, hey, c’est la vie and all that shit. Nightmare Moon stumbled about on legs that were going to yogurt as more of the soldiers exploded. She began to breath fire as her horn grew miles long. She swung her horn in a desperate attempt to stop Shinobu’s swing. … … …And? …And, that’s it, Master. I won. I beat her in the dream, and when I came to, I found her crown on the ground. She wasn’t anywhere else. Here it is, in fact. Ooh, shiny. Fucking sweet. I needed to hock something to the pawn shops. But, let’s continue. So I found an escape pod and shot for earth… And the ride there was bumpy. Shinobu felt like she’d been put in a blender set on chaos, and as the pod hit the atmosphere, it only got worse. She was thankful that she hadn’t eaten any lunch before this, and thankful more that she left her katana sheathed for this trip. When the pod hit the ground, Shinobu was pretty sure she was either dead or shaken into a jelly—which would still render her dead. Hours passed in darkness. Her eyelids fluttered, threatening to open, then relenting and letting her sleep since sleep was so much nicer. It was nicer because, Shinobu suspected, her dreams were not anywhere near the Horizon. She dreamed she was with Master, sitting on a log in a meadow. They were talking about the future.
PrologueA spotlight fell on Rainbow Dash as everything darkened and soft guitar music began to play. “Three months of winter coolness, and awesome holidays,” she sang. Another spotlight fell, this time on Pinkie Pie as she gently danced about. “We've kept our hoofsies warm at home,” she sang, “time off from work to play.” The word “hoofsies” elicited a quiet groan. Another spotlight. The hat-wearing pony. “But the food we've stored is running out, and we can't grow in this cold.” And then the girliest one. “And even though I love my boots, this fashion’s getting old.” This one was met with an irritated grunt, possibly of pain. Twilight walked across the snow as the music picked up. But just before she dropped what would no doubt be an assault on the ears with more clunky rhymes and verse, everything turned to blackness accompanied by a low hum. In an instant, everything was swallowed by the darkness, leaving nothing left to exist. Nothing except the reflection of the man in the armchair, holding the remote. Travis Touchdown sat in his chair, thoroughly pissed. It felt like electricity was shooting throughout his entire fucking body. The remote fell from his hand and landed on the motel room floor with a muted thud. Frustrated, he placed his hand over his face and sighed into his palm. “They pre-empted my favorite show,” Travis mumbled angrily. One of the best anime of all time (second only to Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly 5 in its undeniable quality) Super Gundoll Puzzle Mustard. It was a new anime—well, technically not “new” new. It took four years for it to come to American shores, and even then it didn’t catch on at first because the English dubbing was dreadful, even by common dubbing standards. But the show had switched dubbing studios between seasons, and the new season was much better off for it. Travis felt the new actors really captured the personalities of Gundoll and her nakama. But that was all shit now. All of it, right down the shithole. All for ponies—for fucking—ponies!!! His face propped up on one fist, Travis glanced to his bedroom. His cat Jeane rolled about on the bed, shedding her fur on the sheets no doubt. The bed’s drawer hung open slightly. The sunlight that snaked into the bedroom caused the drawer’s contents to glint, almost glitter. Travis drummed the fingers of his free hand on the chair’s armrest in thought. It had been a year since he’d been named No. 1 Assassin in the United States. He’d earned that title through bloodshed, carnage, frequent bathroom breaks, and a whole lot of swearing. Travis Touchdown had earned his reputation as an otaku of action. Right now was a time for action. Therefore, Travis Touchdown’s equation of the day was “otaku plus time, multiplied by action, equals shit getting done.” He shot up from his chair and walked into his bedroom, earning a startled look from Jeane. Getting down on one knee, Travis opened the ajar drawer fully, exposing its contents. Tsubaki, Mks. II and III. Peony. Rose Nasty. One by one, he attached each beam sword to his weapon belt. When he was done “suiting up,” Travis closed the drawer and went to his closet. Inside the closet were his usual duds. The rust-red jacket slid on effortlessly over his shirt, the faded yellow letters “NMH” contrasting the rest of the black cloth. He fingered through several sets of designer’s glasses, picking out the one with the kickass yellow lenses, and put it on like a glasses-wearing motherfucker. He was all set, except for one thing… The toilet flushed, his “save” finished. Travis zipped up his pants and refastened his belt before leaving the Save Room. Travis stepped out of his motel room —and then swiftly rushed back inside. He grabbed the nearest bag of cat food and filled Jeane’s dish, then refilled her water bowl. For good measure, Travis changed out the litter box. On his way out, Travis stroked Jeane behind her ear and told her to be good while Daddy was away. With all that done, Travis stepped out of his motel room and into the stifling sunlight of sunny Santa Destroy, California. As he made his way down the stairs, Travis was greeted by a choir of cicadas (who were pretty badass at keeping in tune, by the way). Parked by the sidewalk was his trusted steed, the Schpeltiger. She was a sweet, sweet killin’ machine. Designed like something out of a science fiction movie, the Schpeltiger boasted speeds of up to 300 mph, complete with rocket boosters. Best of all, she allowed Travis the unique ability to breathe in space. JUST. LIKE. BATMAN. Jealous? Travis plunked his otaku ass on Schpeltiger’s seat and keyed her ignition. She roared to life like a vengeful goddess. He hummed contentedly as Schpeltiger’s roar dissolved into a growl. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, my name is Travis Touchdown, and I hate the shit outta ponies.” Schpeltiger’s engines suddenly screamed as Travis shot down the road. Santa Destroy whipped by him at an escalating pace, until everything became a streak of colors that melted into one another. “It seems like no matter where you go these days, ponies are fucking everywhere. You try posting on a message forum, you get all of three posts before images of ponies get plastered everywhere. You walk down the street and there’s guys with stuffed pony dolls under their arms. You try to watch TV and even then you aren’t safe from the pony craze. Ahead was The Ramp. Not a ramp. Not any old ramp. THE Ramp. The Ramp Travis had built for situations like this, because he’s just that kinda guy. “But that’s where I come in. I’m done putting up with this bullshit ‘brony’ craze. Someone’s gotta put a stop to this out-of-control hostile fandom takeover, and it’s gonna be me!” Travis built up even more crazy speed, going so fast he must have torn the foundation of several buildings on his way to The Ramp. The moment he hit The Ramp, the world shit itself at how awesome Travis was as he shot into outer-fucking-space. Space. What else can be said about it besides that it’s big, it’s black, it’s cold, and it’s fucking awesome? As the stars and planets of the solar system piled up behind him, Travis decided that traveling through space on nothing but his motorcycle wasn’t cool enough, so he switched on the radio and cranked some hard rock. Epic head-banging followed. "That's my destination up ahead. This morning's paper talked about a tear in the space-time continuum. I didn't plan to check it out until this weekend, but this is an emergency." The Schpeltiger roared as Travis shifted into high gear. "The scientists who'd discovered it decided to name it the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel. Three guesses what everyone else called it. Looks more like just a plain asshole to me, though..." The music around Travis continued to pound the hell out of outer space as he hit the overdrive, doubling the Schpeltiger's thrust in preparation for entry. "...an asshole that's about to receive a Travis Touchdown enema it can't possibly handle!" The Schpeltiger roared as Travis shifted into high gear. The music continued to pound the hell out of outer space as the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel opened up and swallowed Travis, accepting him as easily as a prostitute. (In fact, maybe even more easily. Travis never had enough money for one.) “Hey! I read that!” (But it’s true.) Everything turned white as Travis shot through the vortex. There was a glow. He’d read that the Space Hole of Interdimensional Travel was such a mysterious place that any memory one had of being in it gets erased upon exiting, and maybe that was for the best. When the Schpeltiger hit the grassy ground, all Travis could recall of his trip through SHIT was a lot of screaming and something about a red sock and his mother. The rock music blaring through the Schpeltiger’s speakers reached a kickass wailing guitar finish as Travis motored on through the grassy plains he’d found himself in. All around him were bright colors, mountains the color of ice cream, and friendly, whimsical designs for clouds and trees. Up ahead was a village of… them. The little shitbugs who caused a sensation that ruined otakudom forever. They trotted about, doing various “adowwable” things—not that Travis cared, because ponies were stupid and he hated them. Just looking at them made him sick. This was the place. This was Equestria. He turned his head and looked you in the eyes. “It’s time for No More Ponies. You ready?”
To the Fashion Show!06: RARITY “Come at me, darling! Wah-ha-HAAA!” The night over Canterlot was quiet, save for the thudding music of the fashion show going on in the Lunar Garden Auditorium. Every important pony in all of Equestria had showed up for it. Even Prince Blueblood—the Prince Blueblood!—had shown up. This was a huge event, and would introduce the fall fashion lines that no doubt would change the face of Lookin’ Good As We Know It. Not that the security guards cared, honestly. They all stood around the expo building, uninterested in much of anything at all. Hardly anything dangerous happened at these events (though there was the Grape Juice Travesty of 2010), so most of the security guards took to staring at things, acts of personal hygiene, or staring at acts of personal hygiene. One pegasus picked his nose with his wing. His buddy winced. “Ew!” he whispered. “Jeez, Freefall, why not just fart or scratch your ass while you’re at it?” A dull roar bubbled quietly. At first, the security guards thought it was just the roar of the crowd inside the Auditorium, but this sounded a bit different. Like the roar of a tiger instead. As it grew louder, the guards’ ears perked up, one by one. In the distance the Schpeltiger could be seen gliding along the road, its bloodthirsty otaku passenger bearing a teeth-clenched grin. The security guards watched in awe as the Schpeltiger picked up speed, roaring even louder. Their awe didn’t last long, however—the moment Travis Touchdown crashed the gate, the first few security guards ducked for cover while he mowed down those unlucky enough to not run, teleport, or fly out of his way. Travis sped down the lot to the expo building, crushing every guard, every decorative statue, every light fixture, every handicap parking space—his target dead ahead. He looked up at the Auditorium, his eyes zeroing in on the flags advertising the fashionistas that bothered to show up. One flag was purple, with a symbol like a fancy-shmancy “R” that had a looping tail at the end, and a single, sultry eye within the R’s head. His smile grew as he realized he was on the right track. His first target was just up ahead. “Not gonna stop and sword up these mooks?” asked a ghostly voice. Travis shook his head as the Schpeltiger’s front wheel kissed a security guard in half. “Nah,” he said nonchalantly. “I’ve crashed so many fashion shows today looking for this bitch that I don’t care about cutting up henchmen anymore.” He glanced aside as the faded image of his master Thunder Ryu folded his arms and looked at him with a smirk. “Well, I can’t argue with that,” he said. “You’ve had a busy day. Of course, if you’d just looked up which fashion show she’d be attending, you wouldn’t even be in this mess.” Travis shrugged as he felt another security guard get ground up underneath his front wheel. “Fuck you,” he growled. “I visit a world based on a little girl cartoon and there’s fashion shows all over the fucking place. Is it really so surprising I couldn’t find which one, out of millions, she’d be at?” “That’s no way to talk to your Master, whether I’m alive or dead,” Thunder Ryu chided over the Wilhelm Screams of security guards. “Show me some respect, goddammit! And take off your clothes!” “No. Fuck no, shit no, hell no. A million times, no.” Thunder Ryu shook his head. “Kids these days,” he grumbled. “Well anyway, I hear this chick’s supposed to be kinda hot for a pony.” The Schpeltiger screeched to a sudden halt. Travis looked at Thunder Ryu. “…WHAT.” Thunder Ryu shrugged. “You know. For a pony. Kinda hot. In a ponyish kinda way.” Travis shook his head as he backed the Schpeltiger over a security guard who was unlucky enough to survive the first time he was run over. Travis had seen the pony porn, but he never assumed his Master would… …anyway, getting off-topic. “What do you know about her that’d be, y’know, useful?” Travis asked. “Kinda the reason I sought your spiritual guidance, here.” Thunder Ryu rolls his spectral eyes. “I thought you needed my spiritual guidance just to help you figure out which fashion show she’d be at. You know, without that selection menu, you’re pretty crappy at finding places.” “Stop complaining and gimme the goddamn information!” “All right, fine. She’s a unicorn, and an artist. So basically, a magic-user with a creative imagination.” A lone surviving security guard stood at the front door to the expo building. A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he stared down the Schpeltiger and its rider. He exhaled a cold breath as he shivered, mentally wondering why he hadn’t become a baker like Mom wanted him to. “Her magic doesn’t go very far beyond manipulating objects with her mind,” Thunder Ryu continued. “Of course, a little telekinesis can get a lotta mileage, know what I mean?” Travis pressed forward, daring the last security guard to stand his ground. “Yeah, I think I—” “I mean, when you’ve fucked as many psychics as I have, you learn that—” But the shock was too much. Travis completely lost control of Schpeltiger and flew from the seat as it crashed through several fancy garden fixtures and into the bushes nearby. He rolled along the concrete until he stopped at the hooves of the security guard. The security guard looked down at Travis, unsure of what exactly just happened. “I’m alive,” the shaken guard whispered in disbelief. Suddenly, he heard a sound like something lighting up. He didn’t get so much as a chance to look down before the Tsubaki Mk. III came up to meet his face. His vision suddenly split, his eyes gazing in two different directions. It took the security guard all of one second to realize he’d been cut completely in half. Mom was right, he thought as both halves fell to the ground with a splorch. Travis stepped over the bloody corpse and turned off his Tsubaki before opening the door to the main lobby of the Expo. There were a few ponies here, just chatting and chumming it up. All the security guards must have been outside or something. He walked through the room strangely without so much as a batted eyelash. It was odd that none of these ponies seemed surprised that a human being walked amongst them now, but Travis was the kind of guy who never stopped to ask questions. Because questions are for posers, and posers alone. Two security guards stood at the entrance to the auditorium. Travis could hear excited ponies inside applauding, as well as a booming voice describing whatever-the-fuck fashion was being displayed. One of the security guards stopped him. “Please state your name, sir,” he said. “Travis Touchdown,” he said. An uncomfortable pause, coupled with the uncomfortable stares of the guards. Travis found his hands going towards the Rose Nasty, expecting the hall to get flooded with more security guards, but to his great surprise, the guards got out of his way with nothing more than saying, “Cool name, bro.” Travis entered the floor show amidst roaring applause. Up on the stage was a fashion model pony displaying an extravagant design that drew attention to the model’s face and eyes. Girl shows had fashion like spring break had STDs, so it didn’t surprise Travis at all that this pony show had things like this pouring out of its ass like diarrhea. But he never quite understood why these ponies would be so into fashion if they didn’t usually wear anything anyway. He focused his attention on a rather influential-looking pony—nice clothes, playboy-esque look, white pelt, blue mane with an admittedly cool moustache. Plus a monocle. This pony “applauded” the show by stomping his hooves. The moment he started doing so, all the other ponies suddenly had nice things to say about this latest design. Travis pursed his lips This wouldn’t be as easy as climbing the ranks of the UAA, if only because all those Ranking Battles were fought when both parties were aware they’d have to meet. If he was going to fight this Rarity chick, he’d have to draw her out into the open first. Let’s see, what did Master say again? When you’ve fucked as many psychics as I have— Oh God no, the other thing. She’s kinda hot for a pony. Travis shook his head and tried to focus on the things Thunder Ryu told him that didn’t gross him out. She’s a unicorn, and an artist. Okay. If she’s an artist who’s that into her own work, getting her attention should be easy. Travis cupped his hands around his mouth and booed at the top of his lungs. It drew the attention of every pony in the room. “This fashion sucks!” he added. “It looks like something my grandma would wear naked!” The monocle-wearing pony looked at Travis with an eyebrow raised. “I say,” he said, “who is this buffoon?” He analyzed Travis more closely: the jacket, t-shirt, glasses… “Goodness, he looks like… well, a schlub.” Everypony scoffed at Travis’ silly outburst and the show went on undeterred. Travis looked over his own ensemble, and realized much to his dismay that he wasn’t exactly an authority on the subject of fashion. Travis scratched his chin, getting back to the problem at hand. That pony in the monocle seemed to have a lot of influence over this crowd. On top of that, Rarity didn’t even appear at all just because one guy didn’t like her artistic vision. What if… Travis sneaked his way through the crowd as the music thumped and thudded against the walls. The blue-maned DJ seemed to really be getting into her music, jamming in time with every thump and jumping with every thud. As Travis neared the monocle pony, he reached for his Tsubaki Mk. III. “Bravo!” said the monocle pony as he applauded the next disastrous clown costume. “I say, Brav—oh?” He felt the tip of Tsubaki’s laser-blade as it burned his anus. He held a squeak of terror as he heard Travis whisper, “You shit on my sword, it’s going right up your ass. Start booing.” The monocle pony began to sweat as if the air conditioning had been turned off. “Boo!” he cried, suddenly. “How dreadful! It looks like a cross between Swiss cheese and the 1990s!” It didn’t take long for the other ponies to blindly agree with Mr. Moneybags. Even the music died as the DJ looked out at the crowd in disbelief at how quickly they revolted. Travis looked at her and watched her mouth the words, “What’s wrong with the 1990s?” The pony announcing the fall lineup found herself suddenly shoved out of the way by a unicorn the color of marshmallows. “WHO DARES?!” she bellowed, her dark blue curls bobbing as she skidded to a stop. So the Queen of Fashion crawled from her lair! Travis sheathed his Tsubaki and jumped on the stage, eliciting a gasp from the crowd as the model on the catwalk cowered before him. “Please don’t kill me,” she whimpered gracelessly. He stepped over her as he pointed in the direction of the pony holding the microphone. “I dare,” he said dramatically. “What?” asked Rarity, raising a hoof to her ear. Travis raised his voice. “I DARE!” The pony cocked her head as if she couldn’t understand him. He groaned and cupped his hands, shouting through them “I SAID I DARE YOU! I DARE THE SHIT OUTTA YOU!” “Oh?” she said at last. “You? You dare to challenge my artistic vision?” “ANYTIME! ANYWHERE!” There was a long pause before Rarity gave an answer. The ponies all murmured and stared. Finally, Rarity spoke into the microphone. “Meet me on the roof in ten minutes.” With that, she gave the microphone back to the hostess and left. Travis smirked and nodded as he got off the stage, every eye on him as he stepped through the crowd like a badass. This was gonna be fun. But first, it was time to Save.
Pony Battle! (VS Rarity)The cold night air nipped at Travis suddenly as he opened the door to the roof. He had half a mind to draw his jacket closed, but he remembered that it’d make him not look cool. He compromised, zipping his jacket half-closed, leaving the yellow letters “NMH” exposed. Yeah, that looked pretty badass. The roof itself was huge—perfect arena for a fight should one occur. In the center of it stood a huge statue of that... pony... moon... goddess-queen-princess-whatever whose name escaped Travis at present. Beds of nocturnal flowers added some serenity to the overall scene, colored in ghostly lights by the moon shining above. A path was outlined before him, with pony-shaped, well-dressed mannequins standing at either side like resolute guards. And there, at the other end of the rooftop sitting atop multiple bags of what Travis guessed to be money, was Rarity. She wore a billowing magenta dress with black leggings on all her fours, an equally black tie around her neck with a neat bow and long tails. Her wide-brimmed hat—also magenta—held white roses within its again-black band. The magenta did wonders with the moonlight pouring down on her, the black accents going hand-in-hand with her dark mane and pearl-white pelt. All told, let it never be said Rarity couldn’t dress for shit. She looked to Travis as he stopped just before her mannequins. “…So,” she said. Travis nodded. “…So,” he said back. “I take it you aren’t the artistic type,” Rarity said as she repositioned herself. “I didn’t come here to talk about art,” Travis said almost spitefully. He reached for his Tsubaki Mk. III, his hand hovering just above it. “I came here to kill you.” Rarity stared at Travis as he drew his Tsubaki, the bright green light of its blade coming to life with a sound like a tearing of space. Her heart pounded against her chest as she realized what was about to happen, but kept her face as still and nonchalant as she could. “I suppose it’s too late for apologies or explanations,” she said. “But if it’s convenient for you, darling, do you mind telling me who sent you?” “No one.” Travis took a step forward. Rarity gulped, a bead of sweat rolling down her temple. She sighed, then stood up. “…I see. Care to tell me why you’re asking for this?” Her horn began to glow a dull blue color. Travis took another step forward. “Because you ponies are seriously fucking me over back home.” Another step. Rarity snorted. “Such barbaric language! And in front of a lady, no less!” The glow of her horn intensified as a moneybag was lifted into the air. “I’ll have to wash your mouth out with punishment!” The punishment came at a speed Travis didn’t anticipate—the moneybag’s open mouth facing him, rapidly spitting gold coins like bullets from a machine gun. The first few coins bounced off his face, leaving small bruises. He rolled out of the way until Rarity ran out of money. With a quick dash, Travis was able to reach her before she could lift another moneybag. He lunged for the moneybag first, destroying it with a single swing, releasing an ocean of gold coins in every direction. He brought the Tsubaki back up, only to gasp in surprise when he noticed Rarity had teleported away. “You'll have to try harder to keep up, darling,” she said, causing Travis to jump. Her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Travis gripped his Tsubaki cautiously as he looked around. Fantastic, he thought. More teleporting enemies. I thought I was done with that bullshit since beating that Jasper Batt punk! One of the mannequins moved. Travis leapt off the pile of moneybags and brought his Tsubaki down— —only to find that “Rarity” really was one of the mannequins. By the time Travis realized this, he felt a warmth around his feet. Before he could react, he was flipped into the air, crashing onto the rooftop and dropping his Tsubaki. “You could have just decapitated the thing!” Rarity chided as Travis reached for his Tsubaki. “That dress was one-of-a-kind, and you ruined it! It! Is! ON!” As he got back up, flashes of gold coins ricocheted off the ground around him. Travis gasped in surprise, then rolled out of the way before he could get pummeled by the incoming money missiles. He got back up to his feet and ran, a trail of screaming coins tracing the path behind him. He looked to the pile of moneybags and saw that quite a few of them were being lifted and fired off simultaneously, with no Rarity in sight. “You rich girl types are all the same,” he said as he ran by the mannequins, ducking under the coin-fire. “You just throw money at any problem and hope it goes away!” He heard Rarity huff. “What makes you think I'm the rich girl type?" she sneered, her voice again coming from multiple directions. “Unlike those spoiled brats born and raised in mansions or castle spires, I worked hard for my money and fame.” Travis stopped, swinging his Tsubaki to parry several coins before darting into a different direction. “My fashion designs are worth fortunes now!” she continued. “I’m working my tail off building a fashion empire with my artistic vision and talent as its base. It took me long enough to get this far—and no sword-swinging, self-centered simpleton is going to mess everything up for me now!” The gold coins stopped firing, only for the mannequins to glow a dull blue. Before Travis could react, the mannequins were on him, their wooden appendages striking his legs and torso. Their last blow knocked him flat on his back, sending him skidding across the ground. He heard the low hum of a unicorn glow as the mannequins chased him. Travis corrected his balance, flipping back up to his feet with ease, and sliced the closest mannequin in half before darting away. Travis ducked, rolled, and then dived, dodging coins and mannequins, behind the huge statue on the middle of the rooftop. He tried to recollect himself, breathing heavily from this constant exertion. He hadn’t had this much excitement since his last Ranking Battle! To think a stupid pony could give him a run for his money… he assumed he was rusty. A year spent not assassinating anyone could do that to a guy. Okay, he thought, this chick is seriously pissing me off. Think, Travis! If you were a unicorn/mad artist who could teleport and levitate stuff with your mind, where would you hide? He waited a few seconds for his mind to produce a proper response, but his brain was apparently running on outdated dial-up. In Australia. Travis groaned as he looked up— —and saw Rarity looking down at him from where she sat catlike atop the statue’s back, her face contorted into a monstrous smile he had no idea a pony could make. “BOO!” she hissed. She laughed as Travis stepped back in surprise. Her horn glowed once more. The statue was washed by that same dull blue from before. “Oh fuck,” Travis murmured as he realized what was happening. He darted away as the statue unfurled its wings and took its first few steps forward. “You gotta be shitting me!” “You don’t learn, do you, darling?” Rarity asked from her perch. She watched Travis run before sniffing and making a commanding wave of her hoof. The Luna statue’s joints groaned as its metal movements drew it closer to the fleeing assassin. Before long, the statue was running full-speed. Travis was approaching the end of the rooftop as he heard the statue’s groaning movements catch up to him. With a ducking roll, he managed to dodge getting trampled underhoof. He watched as the statue ran right off the roof, falling out of sight. He laughed. “Serves you right, bitch!” Travis’ laugh ended abruptly when he saw the statue fly right back up with an iron scream accompanying every beat of its giant wings. It dove for him as he rolled out of the way for dear life. He could hear Rarity humming “Ride of the Valkyries” as she swooped past, clearly enjoying herself too much. Travis watched the statue fly past the rooftop, banking as it turned around. He needed a new plan, a new approach to beat this clever telekinetic enemy. His eyes brightened as an idea came to him suddenly, followed by a manic grin. As the Luna statue dove for him once more, Travis ran to meet it instead of running away. Rarity pursed her lips at her opponent’s foolish little game of chicken, snorted, and increased the speed of her dive. The night sky screamed past her as—just before the statue could collide with its target—Travis slid on his knees like a rock star, shooting underneath the statue. Before she could figure out what Travis just did, Rarity saw a long, powerful shaft of hard red light. Travis watched the statue as its two halves crashed into the mannequins, knocking everything into a chaotic mess with a godlike sound. The ten-foot-long blade of the Peony hummed menacingly as he stood back up. He looked behind himself and saw that the statue wasn’t the only thing he’d cut in half. Nonchalantly, Travis turned off the Peony and put it back on his belt. He began to make his way to the rooftop’s exit, but stopped when he heard something behind him. The Peony was back in his hands and alive again in the blink of an eye. Travis turned around and saw Rarity slowly making her way to him with hobbled steps. Her horn glowed, but then again, so did the rest of her body. “I guess I was wrong about you,” she groaned. Travis cocked an eybrow. “How so?” “That you weren't the artistic type. That stunt you pulled just now was nothing short of fabulous. I realize now that we are simply artists of different media, different forms of expression. Mine is fashion. Yours? Violence.” She coughed, blood beginning to dribble onto her chin. “And I hate to sound like an unappreciative philistine, but I still don’t get it. Why? Why are you doing this? What's your point?” Travis once again “sheathed” the Peony. “Where I’m from, you ponies have become so popular, you’ve infected every aspect of my culture. Every comic book, every TV show, every message forum. You’re like some kind of religion to your so-called ‘fanbase’.” He turned his back to Rarity like a motherfucker, raising his thumb. “I’m here...” He turned his thumb down. “...to topple their pop-culture pony pantheon.” With that, Travis Touchdown once again made for the exit. “Hey.” He stopped, but didn’t turn. “…Fuck you,” Rarity said, followed by a small cough. The low hum stopped, followed by the sound of something wet splashing the rooftop. Rarity's two halves fell to each side with a thick plop. Then silence. Travis Touchdown shook his head. “Such barbaric language. And from the mouth of a lady, no less.” He left the building, the rooftop a scene of carnage. RARITY NOT ALIVE Author's Note See, Rarity didn't die. She just... isn't alive. Like another character I introduced in Chapter One. I'll let you guys chew on that one until I can crank out the next chapter. Till then, toodly-oodly!
Side-Job Time! Side-Job Time! It turned out the next day, much to Travis’ great surprise, that in Equestria there were actually consequences to killing people. Newspapers had flown about, sensationalizing the Fashion Show Nightmare that had happened in Canterlot the night before. Royal Guards were on the lookout for… well, something—none of the witnesses could seem to agree on what kind of creature Travis was. The papers all had differing opinions on what Travis looked like, and what his motivations were. And none of them were accurate. Of course, Travis had the ultimate disguise: paper bag, plus Sharpie, equals nobody knows a thing. Behold the power of math. Travis discovered the ponies’ reaction by reading some of the newspapers as he delivered them. Yes, in addition to not expecting the entirety of Equestria to react to the brutal assassination of a fashionista, Travis lacked the foresight to grab any of the money Rarity shot at him. So once again, Travis Touchdown found himself facing the grim reality of menial labor—right now, a paper route he was probably two hours behind on anyway. The Schpeltiger growled as he slowly rode by the houses, tossing newspapers here and there, not really caring where any of them landed. One splashed into a birdbath while another socked some dumb kid in the head. Travis looked over his shoulder and saw some fat, balding pony running after him, yelling about how a newspaper had landed in the rose bushes or some other bullshit. Travis just rolled his eyes and disregarded him as another newspaper found itself flung into an uncertain direction. He heard a panicked shout, then a crash. But he didn’t care—no sir. Upon finishing his route, Travis drove back to the Hiring Center in Ponyville. This town was quiet, for the most part. Not crowded. Not polluted. Not choked with chain restaurants and shopping malls. Some of the ponies were kinda… odd. All told, it vaguely reminded Travis of Santa Destroy pre-Desperate Struggle. Travis had to duck his head a bit as he walked through the door, since pony buildings were obviously never built with humans in mind. He felt a slight shove at his side and looked down. Looking up at him was a pair of bright yellow eyes: one that focused on him, and one that… didn’t. They were set in a grey face framed by a blonde mane. The pony gasped as she fluttered her wings. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she said in a voice that was too deep and dopey for a girl. Travis shrugged, readjusting his paper bag mask. “Don’t worry about it.” The pony scrutinized him a little more with her good eye, her lips pursing as her face scrunched adorably. “Hey,” she said slowly, “don’t I know you from someplace?” The newspapers. But she couldn’t know what he looked like—there weren’t any pictures! Just hearsay! Not to mention his awesome disguise! Travis sweated profusely before stammering, “Uhhhhhhhh…. No?” Silence. With a blink—and a curiously well-timed chime—the pony bounced right back to perky. “Okay!” she said as she hopped up and down in place. Travis walked to the line in front of the reception desk, waiting for his turn. He heard a rhythmic sound from behind him: a clop—clop—clop. He turned his head around and saw that same pony from before bouncing in place with the biggest shit-eating grin Travis had ever seen in his whole, long, seemingly-never-ending, pathetic, squandered life. He cocked an eyebrow. “…Yes?” She continued to bounce. “…No?” she asked. An awkward pause. “…What?” “…Why?” Travis snorted impatiently. “Look, what the fuck are you doing? Are you following me?” She stopped her bouncing and stroked her chin as her face scrunched again. “Hmmmmm…” Back to bouncing. “I guess I must be! You’re all in front of me and everything!” Travis sighed and facepalmed, returning his attention to the line as more job-seeking ponies received work requests. The clop—clop—clop behind him didn’t cease. Travis turned to her again. “What’s your deal?” “I’m not making no deal,” she giggled. “No, you’re following me.” “Yup.” “So you must be working for someone!” Travis growled as he put his hands on his Rose Nasty, ready for a fight. “Well, I’ll be working for someone in a bit,” she said. “Isn’t that why everypony else is here?” Travis stopped and thought about it. He inhaled, exhaled, released his grip on Rose Nasty, and went right back to standing in line. It felt like it was taking forever to move… like the slowest caterpillar in caterpillar history. All the while, the pony behind him continued to bounce in excitement. Annoyed with her continued noisemaking, Travis turned around and pressed the pony down, holding her in place with his hand. “Can you stop that?” he nearly shouted. “It’s getting on my fucking nerves.” “Hey, you used that word again,” she said. “What’s it mean?” Travis raised an eyebrow. “What word? Fuck?” “Yeah, that.” Travis clicked his tongue. “Well…” “…and when you’re lying there on the come-soaked sheets, looking into each other’s eyes, you realize what a worthless shit you are and hope to God she doesn’t ever find another man,” Travis concluded. She stared at him wide-eyed, unsure of how to process what she’d been told. “…But it’s such a tiny word,” she said quietly. “But it means a lot,” Travis nodded as he finally walked up to the receptionist, leaving the confused pony to herself. He placed the empty newspaper bag on the desk. “I’m done with the job. How much I get?” The receptionist sighed. “Nothing. All the customers complained. Broken windows, KO’d kids, one of them mentioned a porn mag showcasing some rather bizarre bipedal animals somehow got into their mailbox…” Travis facepalmed. “Jesus H. Christ…” He calmed himself down, running his hand over the top of his bag mask. “Well, OK. Fine. There any other work? Lawns need mowing? Trash needs collecting? I’m gonna need something…” The receptionist shook her head as she pointed to the nearby board. “Pick one, then bring it here. And be serious about it this time, please.” The candy shop was in a bind, and had been ever since Bon Bon’s only help—her best friend Lyra—had to go out of town to Canterlot. Her apprentice, Twist, was only so good at spinning the caramel or baking the fudge, and often made mistakes that cost Bon Bon quite a bit in losses. So when the guy from the Hiring Center showed up, Bon Bon felt both a wave of relief and a sense of uncertainty. This creature was nothing like she’d ever seen—dark glasses over a box-shaped head, walking on its hind legs. Still, it was wrong to judge somepony based on their species, and Bon Bon (after reading over the recommendation written by the Hiring Center) put him to work almost immediately. She watched over him for the first hour, making sure she didn’t make a mistake in hiring the first guy to answer her demand for additional help. But then she smelled smoke and ran to the kitchen, only to find that Twist had once again annihilated the refrigerator. While Bon Bon cleaned what was left of her kitchen off the walls, Travis took care of the customers—at least, as much as he could be patient with. He’d had harder part-time jobs than this, obviously, but a candy store attracted quite a bit of unwanteds. He’d never be able to figure out how Bon Bon could stand the tantrum-throwing children—or their tantrum-throwing parents, for that matter. (Answer: alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.) It wasn’t until later in the day that a trio of kids came in. The first two were one of those winged horses, while the other was just a regular pony. The winged one had a purple, feather-shaped hairdo and eyes to match. The other one, the regular pony, had a color scheme that greatly reminded Travis of apples. He might have seen her in the show once or twice—what was her name again? He couldn’t remember. But the third one to come in after the first two took her time in entering the store. Her footsteps (Hoofsteps?) were sluggish and tired, the tiny sounds they made as she walked across the linoleum floor hitting like gentle raindrops. She was a little white unicorn that looked the type little girls would adore—curly hair, bright colors… But there was something missing, and it destroyed the whole thing the kid had going. With all other kids, Travis could look in their eyes and see a spark. There was genuine life and activity behind the eyes of kids, suggesting hyperactive brains that produced wild imaginations that could have adventures with nothing more than a cardboard box. This kid didn’t have that spark. That’s not to say her eyes looked more adult or grown-up—they looked more like she’d skipped her teen years, her adult years, and her senior years, fast-forwarding all the way to the grave. There was nothing behind her eyes: no happiness, no joy, no imagination, no adventure. Nothing. Travis observed this little group of kids as the first two tried leading the third around the store, asking what candy she wanted. She didn’t seem interested in anything her friends suggested. Her voice was quiet and damp—like a tissue used then forgotten. Travis drummed his fingers on the counter, uncertain. “Come on, Sweetie Belle,” the orange kid said. “Candy usually cheers you up!” Sweetie Belle looked at her but said nothing. The neutral line of her mouth curved into a frown. The apple girl put a hoof on Sweetie’s shoulder. “Look, Sweetie Belle, don’t do this. Y’know how bad yer Ma ’n Pa took the news. Just… Just be brave fer them, OK?” Sweetie lowered her head. The nothing behind her eyes became something that second—and it was something Travis didn’t like seeing. There was sorrow behind her eyes. Hurt. She sniffled as her eyes began to shimmer with tears. The two others wrapped her in a hug as Travis heard her stifle a bawl that threatened to erupt. Sweetie put her face down into her front hooves. To hide. Travis sighed, then looked around. Bon Bon probably wouldn’t like it if he just… aw, hell, who cares what Bon Bon thinks? She has a stupid name anyway! Travis “accidentally” knocked a peppermint stick off its stand, and onto the counter—technically making it unsellable. “Whoops!” he said, his theatre degree finally coming in handy for once. “Looks like I can’t sell this anymore.” He looked up to the three kids. “Hey, since I gotta throw this one away anyhow…” Travis walked over to the three, peppermint stick in hand, and put it forward. It hovered just before Sweetie’s face. “Here,” he said gently. A pause. Sweetie hutched a bit, once again trying not to cry. She reached out and took the candy. “Thank you, m-mister,” she said quietly. Travis nodded. “Don’t mention it,” he said. He looked over his shoulder to see if Bon Bon was done cleaning up her kitchen. Once he saw the coast was clear, he leaned forward and added, “Seriously, don’t mention it.” Sweetie smiled. The way her little lips curved was adorable—and totally worth it. She jumped up and wrapped her stubby forelegs around Travis’ neck, holding him there for a few seconds before breaking away. After that, she and her friends all left the store, Sweetie proudly sticking the peppermint into her mouth like a cigar. Travis stood back up as he watched the trio leave, his hands on his hips. He breathed a victorious sigh, then turned around—only to be met with a scowling Bon Bon. “Uh” was about all he could get out before Bon Bon thrust out her hoof. “Apron,” she demanded. Travis undid his apron and handed it over. Then Bon Bon pointed to the door. “Out,” she commanded. With an inward groan, Travis left.
To the Skies!05: Rainbow Dash “I’m gonna kick your ass in ten seconds FLAT!” There’s always been one thing about flying through the air on a motorcycle, and that is that it’s every young man’s dream. Travis Touchdown lived that dream as the Schpeltiger roared across the sky. He looked down, getting a beautiful view of Equestria: from up here, he could see several of the cities whose pony-pun names he couldn’t remember, the forests, the deserts, the badlands… and waaaaaay down there, Ponyville. “Eyes on the road,” Thunder Ryu said sternly. “What road?” Travis asked impatiently. “We’re in the fucking sky!” “No, I mean, look ahead.” Travis looked from the spirit of his mentor that floated beside him, to straight ahead. In the distance came dots of varying colors. As they grew closer, they were revealed to be several of those flying ponies—pegasuses?—wearing some kind of goofy blue tights. “We got company,” Thunder Ryu said in a way he hoped wasn’t obvious. “The Wonderbolts are some of the best flyers in Equestria. Your next target’s been training her whole life to become one, and last I checked, she’s in their ranks and rising pretty quick.” Travis counted the pegasuseses—they numbered somewhere between a small army and too many. He nodded nonchalantly and drew the Peony, its dark-red beam extending a good ten feet to his right. Thunder Ryu flinched as it flicked out of its handle like a long red tongue. “Sheez!” he said. “Watch where you point that thing, kid!” “What are you worried about?” Travis asked. “You’re already dead.” “Being a ghost may lend me some privileges,” Thunder Ryu said with a snarl, “but that don’t mean I can’t be cut by hard light. Remember how you took out that one fat fuck in the cemetery?” Travis thought about it for a moment. He was never one to question the machinations of a beam-saber, nor was he one to question how said beam-sabers could harm something on the spiritual plain. He always considered it coincidence—no, scratch that, his balls were so fucking awesome it powered his beam-saber to their ghost-bustin’ max! Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t hurt yourself. Just keep it in mind once you find yourself up against another ghost. For right now, you might want to get ready—here they come!” The Wonderbolts zeroed in on Travis, coming forth like a tidal wave. He looked to the Peony contemplatively, then put it away. “What are you doing?!” Thunder Ryu yelled. “Don’t worry; I got this,” Travis said with a cocky smile. “I’ve played enough Starfox 64 to know what I’m doing here.” Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. Then the Schpeltiger began firing laser beams. Out of the wheels. “You put motherfuckin’ laser beams on your motorcycle?!” Thunder Ryu cried incredulously. Travis grinned as he gunned down the first wave of Wonderbolts. “Well hey, I thought since I could make it fly, why not throw in lasers?” He drove the Schpeltiger through the sky, the red tongues of laser beams flicking as they bit through each Wonderbolt. Travis raised an eyebrow as he noticed one Wonderbolt fell on a cloud… and lay there. The cloud beneath him went from white to pink to red as it absorbed the Wonderbolt’s lost blood. “These pegasus fucks can walk on clouds?” Travis asked. Thunder Ryu looked about cautiously before speaking. “Yeah, and that’s not all—uh, bogey on your six.” With a nonchalant movement, Travis drew the Peony and turned to look behind himself. A lean, seafoam-white pegasus had sneaked up behind him and had reared his foreleg up for a punch to the back of Travis’ head. With a twitch of his hand, Travis decapitated the pegasus, his mop of ocean-green mane waving like a flag as the head fell from his shoulders. As blood erupted from the neck, the body twitched, then chased the head to the ground far below. “Fucking rude,” Travis said as he sheathed the Peony and returned to blowing pegasuses out of the sky. “It’s like he can’t see we’re talking or something.” Thunder Ryu chuckled. “Some ponies, huh?” He returned to his lecture. “These pegasi are capable of controlling the weather to some degree—watch out! Dive!” The Schpeltiger’s roar dulled as Travis suddenly lowered his altitude, dodging yet another pegasus—this one quite a bit bigger than the one before, but whose pelt was almost as white—who’d sneaked up from behind him. The pegasus barreled, then yelled as he dove after Travis. Tired of these fucking ponies interrupting his conversation, he once again drew the Peony and growled as the pegasus came down on him. Another single effortless swing. There was a split second—one in which Travis saw the look of rage in a pair of otherwise friendly, almost brotherly eyes. But the red-maned pegasus they belonged to fell out of the sky, his body cut in half, his blood painting a blush on the clouds around him. “‘Pegasi’?” Travis asked as he put the Peony away. “Plural of pegasus,” Thunder Ryu explained. “Oh.” Another group of incoming Wonderbolts. Another barrage of laser beams. Feathers fell. Showers of blood sprinkled through the air, staining more clouds red. Travis cocked his head to Thunder Ryu. “So I guess this means my next target also has this weather-power-thingy?” Thunder Ryu nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “and even among her peers, she’s something of a weather wizard.” He fell silent suddenly. After shooting down some more pegasuses—excuse me, pegasi—Travis noticed Thunder Ryu’s silence. “Something wrong?” Thunder Ryu shook his head. “Uh… well, all right, ya got me. She—Rainbow Dash—and me, we go way back.” Travis rolled his eyes. Whatever Thunder Ryu did with a pony was something he didn’t care to hear right now. “I’m sure you do,” he said quickly as he shot down another pegasus. Thunder Ryu nodded. “Yeah. We do. Sorry to get so sentimental.” His eyes widened. He pointed his finger outward. “Do a b—” Travis reached out the Peony again. “Finish that sentence and I hurt you!” Thunder Ryu threw up his hands defensively. “No, I mean it! Do a fucking barrel roll!” He pointed ahead. Not even a hundred feet from Travis was another Wonderbolt—this one different from the rest. Her uniform was even different, looking less like the cadets she flew with and more like a spandex-wearing superhero. Her eyes were hidden under a set of goggles, but Travis could still feel an anger that burned behind the lenses. The moment she shot for him, her red mane and tail billowing behind her like a trail of fire, Travis yelped and… well, okay, fine, he did a barrel roll. Grumble, grumble… In the defense of that tired meme, Travis was able to dodge what might have been a killing blow. He tried turning the Schpeltiger around to chase after her, but she was as fast as a screaming comet and was soon out of his sights. Travis scanned the sky for his firesome foe, finally catching her spinning through a number of clouds, their white fluffiness becoming darker and darker. Travis had a bad feeling about this. He began shooting at the clouds that the fiery Wonderbolt was shaping—since violence solves any problem (scientific fact; don’t argue!)—but much to his surprise, it didn’t work. The lasers were absorbed as the clouds became denser and darker. “Hey,” said Thunder Ryu suddenly. “I just noticed somethin’.” Travis gritted his teeth and flew around the sludgy mass of cloud, attempting to look for the pegasus who’d gotten away. “What?” “All the other pegasi just flew away.” Travis looked at Thunder Ryu strangely for a second—and then a lightbulb came on in his head. “Oh, shit!” he shouted. With a jerk, Travis attempted to turn the Schpeltiger around to get as far from the black cloud as he could. Up above, the Wonderbolt had finished her work. She looked down as Travis was turning around. She sneered. “Never turn your back to an enemy, freak!” With that, she gave her creation a good kick. The dark mass of clouds shot several lightning bolts, miles-long tentacles of electricity that reached out faster than a blink. Many struck the ground far below while others chased after Travis, striking him with bullet-like force. If Travis screamed, he couldn’t hear it over the sound of the electricity snaking its way throughout his body. His sight grew hazy. Thunder Ryu cried out, but whatever he said came up from the depths of the ocean: distorted and a million miles away. Travis slumped over in his seat, and a sensation like falling overcame him. The Wonderbolt sat on her monstrous cloud, watching from afar. She cheered when she saw the lightning bolt cut through the fucker on the motorcycle. She began laughing as his motorcycle began veering out of control. Served the son of a bitch right for invading their airspace and killing her cadets! Her eyes widened as the motorcycle suddenly hitched upwards, as if being pulled up by invisible strings. It danced clumsily, bumbling across the sky as if its rider had gone bonkers. She watched in complete disbelief as Travis shot and spiraled and hooked and jawed straight for the Wonderbolts Academy, crashing through the main hall’s window. She sat there, staring stupidly for close to ten seconds. Then she slammed her hoof on the cloud. “Fuck!” she spat. Beneath her, one last tiny strand of lightning was coughed out of the cloud. She cleaned up her own mess, taking apart the dense cloud before accidents could happen. Then she shot for the Academy. From above, she could see into the Academy. Her eyes widened when she saw the motorcycle… but no driver. Cautiously, she descended. Upon landing, she looked about and received a shock. Bodies of other Wonderbolts littered the halls. Blood smeared against the walls, body parts hanging limply over upturned chairs and desks. How had he managed to do all this in the short three minutes it took for her to get here? She followed this wake of destruction, the tension in her spine growing every second. From ahead, she heard a cry. She picked up her pace and followed it, through halls and turns, and into a nearby room—dodging at the last second a body that had been thrown at her, smashing into the wall instead. There, standing amongst her fallen comrades, was Lightning Dust. Her mint-green coat was covered in blood, her gold mane a mess. “Spitfire!” she cried. Good fucking grief, her voice mewled like a hurt kitten. Spitfire looked to the body that had been thrown at her. It was Travis. He’d been knocked into the wall and sat there, unconscious. She looked him over a second, then turned to Lightning Dust, who’d drawn near. “How’d he manage to do all this? He was only here for three minutes!” Travis mumbled something: "Stuh... way..." Spitfire gave him another kick. Travis clutched his stomach and rolled onto his side. As Spitfire turned to Lightning Dust again, she didn’t notice Travis reaching for his Tsubaki. “Cadet, report! How did—” “I’m sorry,” Lightning Dust said suddenly. “This isn’t your fault, cadet,” Spitfire said assuredly. “You couldn’t have known he’d—” Spitfire fell silent as she felt the air escape her. She looked down and saw the knife Lightning Dust had shoved through her chest. She looked up to Lightning Dust’s eyes—gold, rimmed with madness, an impish smile dancing from behind dark soullessness. For a second, her eyes glowed a sickly green. Then the impish smile left. Lightning’s lips trembled as tears trickled down her face. “I’m sorry,” she said once more. Spitfire fell down, dead. “I tried to warn you,” Travis gasped as he clutched the Tsubaki. “Goddammit, I tried to warn you!” Travis expected Lightning to shank him next, but much to his surprise she lifted Spitfire back up from where she fell, and held her the way a frightened child would hang onto his mother. He witnessed, in horror, as Lightning Dust pressed her head against Spitfire’s—Spitfire’s face a frozen state of shock. She pressed her lips against that fiery mane and blubbered like an infant. At a loss for what else he could do, and too terrified of what he was seeing to do much else, Travis sheathed the Tsubaki and walked carefully around Lightning Dust and the bodies she’d cut open. He was at the door on the other side of the room when he realized he hadn’t drawn a breath since Spitfire’s shocking end. He opened the door and walked through. The hallway here, while still lathered with blood and bodies, was noticeably lacking in psychotic killers—a fact Travis was thankful for. To his right was a restroom. Time to save. Travis drew a breath as he entered the nearest stall, shaking his head. “These ponies,” he said quietly as he sat down to save. “These ponies are fucked up.”
Pony Battle! (VS Rainbow Dash)The deeper Travis went into the Wonderbolt Academy, the eerier everything felt. Did that little green pony seriously kill everyone in the building? She might have already done his job for him. It occurred to him only now that he might have inspired a copycat assassin. Yet another “number one fan” in a whole legion of them. Travis shelved that idea for now. For now, he was on the trail of his next target. She wasn’t in her quarters, where he half-expected she might be. Not in the training hall. Wasn’t in the gym, either. The chilling silence of the aftermath here at the Academy was really beginning to grate Travis’ nerves. His hands were at his hips, each finger snaking around the handle of either one of the Rose Nasty’s hilts, as he walked down the hallways. He looked almost like a cowboy expecting a shootout. Suddenly, he heard some talking. Travis’ feet clipped along the linoleum floors, following the voice to its source. There, in the lobby, was his target. Over her light blue pelt she wore a snazzy bomber jacket. Crowning her rainbow mane was a set of aviator goggles. As she turned to meet him, Travis noticed that she wore, under her bomber jacket, a dark blue military dress shirt with a black tie. She stood over what must have been a fallen comrade. Brighter blue pelt than hers. Dark blue mane and tail. There were an alarming number of cuts in his side, like a set of sanguine gills. Travis raised an eyebrow, slightly hopeful that he wouldn’t be facing a similar out-of-control pony like the green one. They stood there, quietly. Travis took note of the fact that Rainbow Dash didn’t have a knife, and therefore couldn’t have stabbed that other pony. He also noticed how she fought the tears threatening to spill down her face. Was that pony a friend? A lover? Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “…You.” Travis nodded. “…Me.” “You did this.” If it were any other pony, Travis would have thought of the tremor in her voice as a sign of fear. Maybe on some level, it was. But the tremor in Rainbow Dash’s icy voice—coupled with the intense look in her eyes—denoted an almost-electrical hatred, aimed squarely at him. Travis looked around. “Uh, well… no, actually,” he stated honestly. “This bloodbath wasn’t my fault. It was that green pony.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did Travis realize how utterly ridiculous he sounded. He blinked. It might have lasted a split-second—maybe—but it was enough time for Rainbow Dash to cut across the linoleum floor and head-butt him in the stomach, knocking him clear into the hall. When he regained his wind, Travis got back up to his feet. Rainbow Dash was already halfway to him on another head-butting trip, but before she could get him again, Travis drew the Rose Nasty. Travis dared a swing at Rainbow Dash, like a matador challenging a charging bull. But just before the white-hot laser-blades could bite into her, Rainbow Dash leapt over Travis’ head. He turned as she landed, bringing the Rose Nasty’s left sword upward. With a series of acrobatic twirls, Rainbow Dash dodged the first strike—then the second—then the third. When Travis brought down both blades of the Rose Nasty for a fourth strike, Rainbow Dash brought up a hoof as if she were chancing an uppercut. Her hoof connected with Travis’ hands, knocking the Rose Nasty out of his grip and sending them scattering across the floor into the lobby. They settled near the body from before. Travis looked from where the Rose Nasty stopped to Rainbow Dash—who greeted him with a buck to his chest, launching him after his weapon. Travis slammed into the wall near the entrance with a deafening noise, then fell face-first onto the hard linoleum. It took a while for his lungs to pull any air into them. From the searing-hot pain in his chest, he could tell a few of his ribs might be broken. He considered himself lucky. There was a clip-clop-clip-clop on the linoleum from far away, drawing nearer. “That style,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ve seen it before.” The clip-clops ceased. Travis looked up to meet Rainbow Dash’s angry glare, coughing and sputtering as sweet, sweet air was finally beginning to collect in his lungs again. “You’re one of Thunder Ryu’s students,” Rainbow Dash continued. “I get it now. I understand why you’d kill my friends. It’s all a matter of revenge, isn’t it?” Travis challenged his legs to lift him back up to standing, and because he’s such a badass, his legs were more than up to it. He clutched his side, coughing again. “Revenge?” he said. “Kid, this isn’t a matter of revenge. It’s about you annoying ponies fucking shit up in my world!” “So it is revenge,” Rainbow Dash confirmed with a nod. “You think you can just waltz in here, and kill Rarity? And Soarin? And everypony else? You think you got the right to just take everypony away from me?! Who do you think you are?!” The way her voice choked, the way her eyes shimmered—Travis could tell Rainbow Dash was having a pure surge of anger, on the verge of a complete rage takeover. His eyes flicked to the Rose Nasty before coming back to her. “Me? I’m the guy who’s gonna kick your ass!” Finally, Rainbow Dash’s patience broke. She lowered her goggles over her eyes, the lenses both flashing dangerously. “Know who I am?!” she roared. “Know who I am?! I’m the one that put those scars on Thunder Ryu’s FACE!!! You’ll be lucky I let you crawl away with your LIFE!” Travis dove for the Rose Nasty, and just as he picked them up, Rainbow Dash shot at him, striking him like a bolt of lightning and thrusting him through the front door and into the Academy’s courtyard. Thankfully, the clouds were much softer than the linoleum. It was like landing on a mountain of marshmallows. Travis wondered how on Earth (in Equestria?) he was able to stand on clouds—but he was also one to never look a gift horse in the mouth, nor was he one to question deus ex machina when it was clearly in his favor for once. Travis stood back up, his feet finding awkward footing on the clouds around him. Rainbow Dash burst from the open doors of the Academy, taking to the sky. He watched her get some distance, implying that she was readying a charge. The Rose Nasty wouldn’t do for something like this, Travis realized. Sporting four laser-blades, arranged in a long rectangle, the Tsubaki Mk II was more of a baseball bat than a sword. If this was the way Rainbow Dash wanted to play, then Travis would more than welcome his chance up to bat. With a threatening hiss, the Tsubaki Mk II came to life. Rainbow Dash dipped a wing and dropped below the clouds. Travis raised an eyebrow, unsure of what she had in mind. Suddenly, he felt a pair of hooves shoot up from around his feet, grabbing him by the ankles and pulling him down to his neck. It was like being buried in oatmeal. From a good thirty feet in front of him, Rainbow Dash “poofed” up from the clouds. She pawed at the cloud-ground, readying a charge. Travis’ eyes widened with the realization that Rainbow Dash had changed her game from baseball to football—and she was going for the extra point with his head! He struggled to pull himself out of the clouds as Rainbow Dash ran for him. He managed to loosen the clouds around his shoulders, and as luck would have it, he was able to pull his right arm up, Tsubaki and all, and thrust it toward Rainbow Dash. She connected with its blunt tip, leaving a bruise on her face as she backed down, dazed. With some effort, Travis was able to yank himself out of the cloud. Just as he did so, Rainbow Dash regained her senses and took off again. Travis decided to keep himself mobile to avoid another trick. His eye traced Rainbow Dash’s path as she circled around the courtyard like a raptor. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash flew in an arc, leaving behind after-images of herself. Each one was a single color of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, that bluish-purple color, and purple. One by one, the after-images shot at him like a dart of hard light. The red one connected with his stomach using a karate-kick. When the orange one rushed him, Travis was able to knock it away using a well-timed swing from his Tsubaki. He kept up this rhythm—and since he wasn’t all that great at rhythm games, I’m sure you know how well he kept it up—until finally, after he’d deflected the purple one, the real Rainbow Dash followed. He met her with a swing of his Tsubaki, but for some reason it didn’t cut her right away. Although it stopped her momentum cold, Rainbow Dash pushed against the Tsubaki, turning this into a vicious battle of tug-of-war. She glared at Travis. “Give up!” she bellowed. “You first!” Travis hissed through gritted teeth. “No, you!” “No, you!” “No! YOU!” “NO! YOOOOOUUUUU!!!” Rainbow Dash thought it over. “Okay,” she said nonchalantly. With that, she let go, allowing the Tsubaki to continue its swing as she sidestepped the blow completely, sending Travis off-balance. In his clumsy state, Rainbow Dash stuck out a foreleg and tripped Travis, causing him to land on his face. Without wasting a moment, Rainbow Dash jumped on him. And then jumped on him again. And again. And again. Amidst the horrible, horrible pain Travis was feeling that moment, he realized she was pushing him down through the clouds slowly, likely delivering him into a decidedly fall-y death. Which was only slightly lamer than tripping him the way she did. His free hand clenched around a handful of the cloud as Rainbow Dash gave him one last good stomp. Travis would have fallen then and there, had his grip not been as badass as the rest of him. Rainbow Dash looked down the Travis-shaped hole she’d just made, expecting to see him fall and become a smear on the ground below—only for Travis to swing right back up on top of the cloud, getting her in the face with a good kick. Everything went blurry from the kick, and Rainbow Dash tried to remain balanced. Suddenly, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her, lift her up—and over—and then crashing through the cloud in a well-executed suplex. She was halfway down to the ground below when she regained her senses and opened her wings, skimming treetops as she took flight once more. When she was far enough away, Rainbow Dash cocked herself like a bullet in a gun. “Should have just done this to begin with,” she growled. She then shot from that gun, colors screaming by her as she built up enough speed to break the sound barrier. While she did this, Travis watched her from afar. She’d changed the game back to baseball. With a nod, Travis struck a swinging pose befitting a professional slugger, the Tsubaki poised over his shoulders. There’s the wind-up! With a shout, the sound barrier was broken, a wave of colors bursting like a bubble in every direction. "SONIC RAINBOOM!" she shouted. And there’s the pitch! Travis swung the Tsubaki, hard light meeting hard light. A loud cacophony deafened everything within a ten-mile radius, the sky turning all colors of the rainbow at once like a kaleidoscope fireworks show. It was an explosion unlike any other, leveling the clouds—the Wonderbolts Academy—the birds—that Squadalah guy on the carpet—fucking everything in the sky. Gradually, everything quieted down and the blinding lights faded. If anyone was brave enough to look up that moment, they’d have seen this tiny black cloud. On it was a man—scratch that, a complete badass—who more closely resembled a burnt match. Travis coughed, realizing that the fact he was breathing meant he somehow survived the battle. Of course he knew he would, but come on, he was kinda worried for a second there. Travis looked around everywhere for any trace of his quarry. Suddenly, some light-blue feathers began falling around him quietly, like snow. He took that as his victory. About as good as one could come. He tried sheathing the Tsubaki, but upon trying to close it up, Travis realized it was broken completely. All its parts dangled about, spitting electrical sparks like broken teeth. He looked it over, sighed, then let go of it, letting it drop. It was twice the sword at half the size, but it died honorably in service of its master. After that impromptu funeral, Travis then looked around, hands on his hips. “Well shit,” he finally realized. “How the fuck am I gonna get down from here?” RAINBOW DASH: DASHES TO ASHES
This Job's For the Birds! (Revenge Battle!)The air of Santa Destroy could be charitably described as blistering and syrupy, like walking through a thick summertime fog of gym socks and pea soup. As Shinobu rode her bicycle through this thick heat, she elected not to shoot a menacing glare at the astral body responsible. Her snow-white hair was hanging down, made damp and spongy by her hated enemy The Heat. Her dark skin was shimmering with sweat and smelling like a spoiled taco by the time she reached the No More Heroes motel. Master claimed that he kept a spare key for his motel room behind the mailbox next to the door. She placed a hand on the mailbox, and with a strong enough shove, the mailbox slid to one side and fell downward, hanging in place by one nail. Evidently, it had been damaged some time ago and was never repaired. There, stuck to the wall by a piece of tape, was his key. Shinobu took it, unlocked the door, and entered into a fairytale world of sweet, sweet A/C. Or at least, she should have. Master’s motel room was only just barely more tolerable than outside, with his anime merchandise and wrestling magazine (as well as other magazines he probably should have kept hidden) littering the floor. The air inside was crusty and strangely cold, like an empty tomb. From somewhere in Master’s bedroom, she heard a faint meow. “Jeane?” she called. A small gray cat bounded from Master’s bedroom when she heard Shinobu call for her. Upon seeing who it was, Jeane leapt into her open arms. “How’s my favorite kitty?” Shinobu asked, giving Jeane a scratch behind her ears. “Master told me to take care of you while he was away, you know.” Jeane gave her a curious look. “Hey, don’t look at me,” Shinobu sniffed. “I don’t know how he was able to give me a phone call from another dimension, either.” She put Jeane down and looked over to the feed bowl. Empty. She’d have to fix that. She found the cat food, and as she poured some into Jeane’s bowl, she continued. “I mean, I tried asking him, but Master was pretty vague. Something about the ghost of his sensei.” After feeding Jeane, then refilling the water bowl and changing out the kitty litter, Shinobu took it upon herself to clean up a little. Maybe listen to the messages on Master’s answering machine. She still had his number on her cell from his last call; she could just relay the messages to him. She pressed a button on the answering machine/fax. “You have – 3 – new messages,” chimed the automated voice. As she gathered various undesirable items and put them into a trash bag, the first message was played. “Hellooo, this is Tammyyy, from Beef Head Videooo,” said a slow-speaking woman. Shinobu couldn’t quite attach a face to the name Tammy, so she assumed BHV must have recently hired her. “I’m calling about the videooo you were supposed to return on Mondayyy. Pleasure Islaaand?” Pleasure Island? Is that a movie based on Pinocchio? Never took Master to be an appreciator of classic literature before. Shinobu nodded as she dumped some crumpled up tissues into the trashcan, wise enough not to open them up to see what they held. She saw the video in question sitting on the shelf—on the cover, scantily-clad women fawned over a man in his forties dressed in lederhosen and cartoonish white gloves, with lines clumsily drawn here and there on his body to make him look like a puppet. She took one look at the video’s cover and cringed. Still, Shinobu took the video, intending to return it later after she left Master’s apartment. Tammy continued to drone on in her slow voice about how Master had apparently returned a different movie by mistake—one involving “a short video of whipped cream and pillows.” Shinobu blanched. Reluctantly, she looked to Master’s bed, and sighed in relief at the sight of no whipped cream—or any other suspicious elements. Apparently, Master had cleaned that up long ago. The second message came on. “Like, Oh-Em-Gee!” squealed what sounded like a young girl with a British accent, “I seem to have, totally by accident, found your private number! Which means now I know your address, Travis the Great! That means it’s only a matter of time before I find youuu~!” Shinobu listened, growing more and more uncomfortable with how the girl went on and on about what she intended to do with Master once she found him. This girl (whoever she was) was totally off her nut. She ended her call with a series of kissing sounds—and not the over-the-top type you’re likely to hear in a cartoon. It literally sounded like she was making out with the phone. Shinobu crushed her eyes shut, shaking her head slowly. That sound will forever haunt her nightmares. “-3rd- message,” chimed the automated voice. “If my calculations are correct, then this message will reach Travis Touchdown,” said a dark and elegant voice. There was an air of beauty and control to it—the kind of voice Shinobu associated with royalty or world leaders. “I insist that you cease your mad crusade at once, Travis Touchdown. I honestly do not believe you quite understand the extent of the damage you’re causing my sister’s kingdom. “This is your first and only warning. You will leave and never return… or I will find you myself.” The sudden change in tone at the last six words sent chills down Shinobu’s spine. It was as if the speaker’s heart and voice had dropped a few hundred degrees. As she continued, her voice grew ominous and deadpan. “And when I find you... I will end you. There will be nothing left of you to return to any of the loved ones a creature like you might possess. You will be merely dust in the wind, if even that. This is not a threat. This is a promise. "Stay the fuck out of our home.” A click. A dead beep. Shinobu stood there, stunned by what she’d just heard. The hasty call from Master. The fact that his drawer where he kept all his beam-katanas was empty. Now this threatening message? Shinobu quickly drew out her cell phone and dialed up Master. She got all of two rings before she was informed she couldn’t get a connection. She closed her phone, pocketed it, then looked aside at Jeane as she entered the room. Jeane looked at Shinobu with her big, brown eyes and mewled inquisitively, as if she were asking if or when her owner was coming back. A long frown split across Shinobu’s face. What was going on? Suddenly, a paper was spit from the fax machine. Shinobu raised an eyebrow, cautiously walking toward it. She took the paper from the tray and read it: -To Whom This May Concern: Please come to Equestria right away. I think our mutual acquaintance Travis Touchdown may actually be in over his head this time. —T.R. Equestria? Shinobu thought. That magical land of ponies from that cartoon show for girls? Shinobu’s mind began to connect the dots. Was Master in Equestria? Was that voice just now actually the Princess?? What was Master doing there??? There were notes at the bottom of the fax page, instructing her on how to get to Equestria through the SHIT. Shinobu cocked an eyebrow. The SHIT? The big hole in the universe scientists discovered a few weeks ago? That was an entryway to Equestria? Shinobu shrugged. It was as good an explanation as any. She once fought a psychotic superhero who’d been cut completely in half then rebuilt as a pair of cyborgs, so she supposed anything was possible at this point. Shinobu stroked Jeane. “Sorry, Jeanie,” she cooed. “Mama’s gotta run. Master’s in big trouble!” With that, she readied her katana, dusted off her black skirt, adjusted her top, then ran back out into the awful Santa Destroy heat. It seemed it was time she’d have to pay a visit to the local robotics expert/beam-katana designer/space rocket designer. All he wanted to do today was deliver. Some fucking. Pizza. It wasn’t that much to ask, right? He took up a job (once again in his Awesome Disguisetm), and expected to just do it and get paid so that he could at least gather enough money to head to his next target. The worst he expected was a crappy minigame. He did not expect a motherfucking griffon to just swoop the fuck down, and knock the fucking pizzas off the fucking Schpeltiger! And now he was motherfucking PISSED! The griffon shoved the Schpeltiger with her massive shoulder, its tires squealing in peril. Travis clenched his teeth as he tried to correct the Schpeltiger's balance, warm wind and glinting sunlight battering him from nearly every direction. When he heard a clatter on the desert road, he chanced a glance and noticed that his cellphone had dropped out of his pocket. It kissed the asphalt at nearly 150 mph, shattering on impact. Let's add that to the Reasons I'm Gonna Fuck Up This Griffon list, Travis thought. Her wings beat vociferously as she sidled up to Travis, giving the Schpeltiger another shoulder-shove. Travis lost his balance for a few seconds, and only regained it just in time for the griffon to give him one last shove, forcing the Schpeltiger off the road. Travis struggled to maintain control as dry desert earth was flung all around him, getting in his mouth, in his eyes, in his ass, every-fucking-where. As he struggled, he heard a birdlike cry just before a pair of sharp-as-fuck talons dig into his shoulders and yanked him right off the Schpeltiger. Travis watched in horror as it crashed into a tall cactus, lying still with one wheel spinning as a dust cloud quietly washed over it. “I just repaired that fucking thing!” Travis growled as the griffon carried him higher and higher. Despite the searing pain in his shoulders, Travis forced his arms to reach for his beam-katanas—struggling at first—reaching for it—come on, come on—okay, got it! With a strained grunt, Travis brought up one half the Rose Nasty, and with a flick of his thumb, it hissed to life. The moment she heard it, the griffon dropped Travis like he suddenly caught fire. Travis panicked for a second—because even badasses are allowed at least one second of worry—and then stuck the Rose Nasty out towards a cliff he was hurdling toward. It bit deeply into the cliff’s side, slowing Travis’ descent little by little, until finally coming to a stop. Once he was sure he wouldn’t fall off, Travis pulled out the other Rose Nasty, then stabbed it into a higher point on the cliff, following with the other one. He climbed up as fast as he could manage, his shoulders screaming in agony as he forced himself to keep going. He heard another birdlike scream zeroing in on him from behind. Travis took an alarmed breath as he pulled out one Rose Nasty, turned around and just as the griffon was about to slam him into the cliff, Travis thrust the Rose Nasty outward to impale her. Her body twisted in a way that implied she saw it coming a mile away, her right talon grabbing Travis’ arm and slamming it against the cliffside. Travis barked in pain. Only now did he get a good view of his attacker. He knew she was a griffon right from the start—the lion body and eagle’s head were both dead giveaways. Travis was no ornithologist, so he wasn’t totally sure her beak should be able to snarl like that. Her glaring golden eyes were set inside blueish feathered recesses. The white feathers on her head were larger and longer than the rest she had, as if it was supposed to resemble a butch haircut. “Rainbow Dash,” she growled. “What about her?” “You killed her.” “AND???” Travis pushed her off with a boot thrust hard into her stomach, sending her spiraling off and down the cliff, clutching her middle as she desperately sucked air back into her lungs. Travis continued his climb up, finally reaching the top of the cliff just as he heard the griffon come back. His shoulders ached, his right arm felt like shit, his pizzas were ruined, his boss wasn’t gonna be happy, his whole day was shot to fuck—and this bitch was gonna pay! He assumed his usual stance with the Rose Nasty—one blade above, one below—and steeled himself as the griffon flew upwards and around the top of the cliff. She circled about a little before dipping a wing and soaring straight for him, one wing lowered enough to act as a razor-saw. Travis rolled underneath it, a loud force of wind ripping by as the griffon passed. The griffon turned, fluttered her wings, then landed. Now that she was on all four feet, she looked even more predatory—her lion body sending all kinds of dangerous signals with every step she took. “You killed Rainbow Dash!” she shouted. “You killed her!” Travis stood up. “Yeah. I repeat. AND???” If looks could kill, Travis would have been... well, mildly tickled. Travis was too badass to be hurt by ugly looks. “She was my friend!” she roared. Travis shook his head and laughed. “I already saw that fucking episode. It was the only one I actually had the stomach to sit and watch all the way through.” The griffon looked flabbergasted. “…WHAT?” “Yeah. Your name, I forget—” “I’m GILDA, motherfucker!” “Yeah, Gilda. I saw how things ended between you and Rainbow Dash. Wasn’t pretty. In fact, I’d swear Rainbow Dash hated the shit outta you.” Gilda paused. Her teeth clenched. She has teeth to clench? Travis thought. “I—she—it wasn’t—I—guh—d’wha--!” The words and pieces of words tumbled out of Gilda’s beak, gradually blubbering into barely-held tears. Finally, she stomped a talon. “She and I might not have been on good terms at the end, but she was the best friend I ever had!” Travis shook his head as he readied himself again. “Jesus Christ, you’re like some clingy ex-girlfriend who can’t get over a bad breakup!” Gilda ran at him, her talons extending like knifeblades shooting from their handles. “I’ll break you up, freak!” Travis darted forward, intent on meeting her halfway. “Let the bloodbath begin!” Travis ran at her. Gilda ran at him. Travis ran at her. Gilda ran at him. Travis ran at her. Goddamn this cliff is long, he thought. Finally, they clashed—this one loud sound of earth breaking, angels falling from heaven, demons shuddering in fear. It was like the climactic swing of a sword in a samurai movie, where everything would pause just before someone got decapitated. A few seconds trickled by as Travis and Gilda held their breaths. Finally, Travis felt it—a huge rip at his side, four long lines tearing through his jacket, decimating his shirt, gouging out chunks of flesh, blood spitting out of his side and coloring the ground in splotches of red. “Oh, shit!” he choked as he fell to one knee. Gilda resumed her breathing. She turned around, smiling in victory as she saw Travis clutching at his bleeding side. “End of the road, freak,” she said smugly. “See you in Tartarus.” She extended her talons again—those knives extending from their sheathes, ready to take another bite. When she drew her arm back, Gilda suddenly had an odd loss of control. She blinked in surprise as she suddenly felt several feet shorter, a feeling of suspension in mid-air, and got a good view of the clouds above. Then intense pain as she hit the dirt. “What the fuck?!” Her headless body shot a waterspout of blood as it fell to its knees, its raised talon frozen in place. Travis grinned despite all the horrible, awful, terrible, not-at-all-pleasant pain he was feeling at the moment. “I thought I felt something pass through the Rose Nasty,” he said. “No fair!” Gilda’s head gurgled. “Take it up with fate,” Travis said flatly. “And when you end up in hell—or Tartarus, or where-the-fuck-ever—tell Rainbow Dash she’s still a bitch.” Suddenly, Gilda’s body swung the raised talon, getting Travis in the back hard enough to send him careening over the edge of the cliff. Gilda’s head looked at the spectacle of Travis spinning about before finally falling with a cartoonish yelp. Her body fell to the ground with a muted thud, dust puffing upward as blood continued to spill from her neck. Gilda smiled. Then her smile froze as her eyes glazed over. So let’s try this again. Travis corrected himself in time to not splatter on the ground. He stuck his Rose Nasty into the side of the cliff, his descent slowing gradually. The pain in his sides, shoulder, and back all wailed in a harmonious, agonized choir. Travis grunted a laugh as he slid down the cliffside. “Fucking bird,” he laughed. “Forgot I could still do this.” He laughed aloud as his descent finally neared its stop. Travis was pretty close to the foot of the cliff, so he decided he’d just hop down, patch himself up a bit, then get to the Schpeltiger, go back to civilization, get hospitalized, lose his current temp job, and start all over again tomorrow. However, Travis didn’t check to see where his little hop would land him—and for his efforts, Travis landed in a rather expansive patch of cacti. His scream could be heard from space. GILDA: KAPUTSKI
To Appleloosa!04: APPLEJACK “Let’s dance, cocksucker!” There was a noise nearby that drew Braeburn’s attention from the newspaper he was reading. He glanced up through the window to see a strange, hulking contraption with wheels that spun, spokes that steamed, lights that blinked, whistles that screamed. It rolled through the center of the street, its various sounds joining together into an odd melody. Many ponies’ and buffalo’s attentions were caught by the sight and the sounds, and they followed it to the center of Appleloosa. Braeburn got a glimpse of the contraption’s drivers as they went by: the horns on their heads, their red-and-white manes, the barbershop-quartet look of their clothes, their near-identical appearances save for one’s moustache. They matched a certain description his cousin Applejack had given him some time ago. He sighed, taking one last draw from his coffee before folding up his newspaper. He set both objects back down on his table along with a tip and grabbed his hat. “Thanks fer breakfast,” he called to the waitress on his way out. His hoof-falls went from the empty creaking of wood to the dusty crunch of desert earth as he followed all the commotion. Braeburn’s green eyes scanned the gathering crowd. He spotted Little Strongheart among them, the biggest smile on her pretty face, the cutest look of curiosity in her eyes. He called out to her and got her attention right away. “Braeburn!” she chirped. The two hugged. “Ah ain’t seen you in a coon’s age, Strongheart,” Braeburn said. “Where ya been?” Strongheart smiled shyly and shrugged. “Oh, y’know… Places.” “Keepin’ it a mystery, eh?” Braeburn asked slyly. He elbowed her gently. The crowds gathering broke their conversation—especially when music began to play. The two looked to the contraption’s owners as they sang and danced, getting the crowd in on the song. Little Strongheart looked to Braeburn as his eyes squinted as they performed, his lips pursed, his whole body language changing. “Something wrong?” she asked. Braeburn glanced at her, then relaxed. “Oh, n-nothin’,” he said dismissively, “They’re just… familiar.” “Keeping it a mystery, eh?” Strongheart returned. They shared glances before chuckling. Up on the contraption, the Flim Flam Brothers broke from their verse to deliver their pitch. “Have you been reading the papers, Flim?” asked Flam. “Certainly have, Flam!” said Flim. “And I gotta say, I’m really worried for our safety!” That much was true, Braeburn thought. The newspaper he’d been reading that morning followed the recent series of vicious killings. Among the victims were two of his cousin’s best friends, as well as several Wonderbolts. The body count was rising by the week, with still no progress made in catching whoever was responsible. It didn’t help anything that the witnesses to the first murder spree couldn’t agree on what he looked like—not to mention that poor Wonderbolt cadet who had to be carted away to an insane asylum. “Fear not, Flim!” said Flam. He turned to their gathered audience. “And you lovely folks shouldn’t fear, either!” The two brothers parted and presented to Appleloosa their machine. “Behold!” they announced, getting back into their song. Braeburn’s hunch that the Flim Flam Brothers were up to no good proved true—these two conponies were capitalizing on this tense situation. He groaned and rolled his eyes, pushing down his hat in consternation as everypony else looked on, entranced, applauding. Flim flipped a switch on their control panel. Suddenly, with a familiar transformation sound effect, their contraption stood up like a pony. On four strong legs, it paraded with thuds that shook the earth. “It serves!” proclaimed Flim. “It protects!” exclaimed Flam. “It’s a monarch among mechs!” the Flim-Flam Brothers said as their monstrous machine loomed behind them. “The Gut-Shaker Face-Breaker Widow-Maker 8000!” As he observed their presentation, Braeburn made a double take. “Braeburn?” Strongheart asked as she watched the color fade from his face. “Braeburn, what’s wrong?” About the most Braeburn could get out of his mouth was a surprised croak. He cleared his throat and turned to Strongheart. “Didn’t you see it?” he asked. “See what?” Braeburn looked back to the brothers. He could have sworn… …their eyes were glowing green. They had to have been—it couldn’t have been a trick of the light. When the Widow-Maker stood up, it cast a shadow over the brothers, and when it did, their eyes were… A chill crept up behind him and played sour notes on his spine. He blanched, taking a few careful steps back as everypony cheered. “Braeburn?” Little Strongheart asked, her voice shaking. “Braeburn, where are you going?” “A-Ah hafta go,” Braeburn as he turned to run. Suddenly, he slammed into somepony, sending them both to their rumps. “S-Sorry,” Braeburn said as he got up. When he got a good look at the pony he’d run into, Braeburn froze. It wasn’t a pony at all. It was a creature that stood on two legs, like a minotaur or a diamond dog. Dark hair. Black leather shoes. Torn blue jeans. A dull purple shirt with the word “Do!” written on it in vibrant pearl. A black leather jacket, a checkerboard pattern going along the sleeves. The creature adjusted pink-tinted glasses as it muttered, “Watch where you’re fucking going.” The creature got up and walked through the gathered crowd slowly, his hands at either side of a red belt that seemed to be longer than it needed to be. From this belt hung what Braeburn at first thought were slim cans, like the kind you’d hide spring-snakes in for a prank. He got the feeling whatever they were, they weren’t designed for silly jokes. Strongheart watched the creature as well, giving it a hairy eyeball as it passed her by. It glanced in her direction and sneered, as if to ask her the fuck you lookin’ at? As the creature made its way towards the Flim Flam’s presentation, Braeburn looked to Strongheart. “Go back to your tribe,” he instructed. “Gather as many braves as you can. Ah’m gonna get the Sheriff. Ah get th’ feelin’ some real shit’s gonna come down.” “R-Right,” Strongheart said, worried. She turned and ran down the nearby alley. Braeburn got back up and, like Little Strongheart, skedaddled. Travis drank in the scene before him. The cheering ponies and buffalo. Half a barbershop quartet singing and dancing to apparently sell the giant Transformers pony. He sniffed nonchalantly and shrugged. “So,” he said as Thunder Ryu finally appeared. “You sure this is the place?” “Pretty hard to hide secrets from the dead,” Thunder Ryu said with a tired smirk. “I know she’s here. Just follow the scent of apples, and you'll find an Apple. Kinda runs in her family.” Travis raised an eyebrow as the crowd before him cheered at the presentation. “Yeah?” “Yeah. I once met her Granny, and we—” “Not interested,” Travis said, cutting off his mentor before he would be given yet another pony-related nightmare. “I just need to know this bitch’s weaknesses and strategies.” Thunder Ryu folded his arms and scowled, his beady eyes focusing like a laser beam. “Fine, be that way. Disrespectful little fuck.” Before Travis could argue with the person only he could see, he noticed all the ponies and buffalo near him looking at him suspiciously. Suddenly, he heard a voice from afar. “A-ha!” cried Flim. “It would seem we have a volunteer for a demonstration!” Ponies and buffalo began whispering. Their muttering waves sounded panicked. They backed away from Travis as the Widowmaker took a few menacing steps forward, the ground shuddering beneath each powerful hooffall. Its purple chrome body glimmered under all the sunlight as it snorted a puff of dark smoke. The Flim Flam Brothers mounted their mechanical beast. “Behold!” they proclaimed. “The Gut-Shaker Face-Breaker Widow-Maker 8000!” Travis groaned as he reached for the Peony. Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “What?” Travis asked him as the townsponies all scattered. “You know what you owe me,” Thunder Ryu said bitterly. The Peony growled to life, its deep red shaft extending seven feet ahead. “No way! You were gonna launch into one of your fucking creeptastic pony stories. I’m not having that shit!” The Widow-Maker barreled down on Travis, its gargantuan forelegs crushing the earth where he once stood. Picking himself up from the impact on the earth beneath him, Travis ran up one foreleg, hoping to end this fight early. As he reached its head, the Widow-Maker’s red eyes began to glow. Travis brought the Peony up in a defensive position as the laser eye-beams shot forth at him, whipping shot after shot at its otaku antagonist. The Widow-Maker then tried standing back up, its foreleg becoming less inclined. Travis dodged an eyebeam blast as he jumped for the other foreleg, sinking the Peony into it like a long red fang. He slid down, opening the foreleg, exposing its mechanical insides and spilling oil and sparks. Travis brought the Widow-Maker down to one knee. Its head was bowed for only a second—but a second was all Travis needed. He whipped the Peony up for a mighty swing, and with a sound of screaming metal, the giant beast’s head flew off in a trail of oil. It landed nearby with a shuddering sound. The Flim Flam Brothers glared daggers at Travis. He wasn’t especially fond of them either. “This was—” “—our life’s work!” “You know what they say about putting too much effort into one project, right?” Travis said snidely. He brought the Peony up. “You get fucked in the ass by some jerk with a beam katana.” Thunder Ryu facepalmed. “Who the fuck ever said stupid shit like that?” Angrily, the two brothers launched themselves at him before he could swing the Peony. (It had always had an annoying delay between swings, so Travis wasn’t about to blame himself for this.) Thunder Ryu observed the ensuing battle with a keen eye and a twisted mouth. The beatdown on Travis was nothing short of savage. Every swing was graceless and every kick was brutal and every bite was animalistic. Travis’ returned blows didn’t seem to faze them much. It was strange, not to mention wrong. Thunder Ryu’s hunch was slowly being proven correct. Finally, Travis had had enough. He sheathed the Peony and went for the Rose Nasty. “Here, I got one for each of you assholes!” As the brothers, their bodies bloodied and their clothes tattered, shrieked at him like furious evil spirits, Travis swung the Rose Nasty with a graceful twirl. By the time the twins suddenly found themselves as triplets, it was too late. Flim held his brother’s upper half as the lower half toddled about awkwardly, spilling blood all over the ground before finally falling flat. He died with a gurgle. Flim held Flam’s head to his chest, tears streaking down his face as he rocked himself, babbling. The battle over for now, Travis sheathed the Rose Nasty. Thunder Ryu shook his head. “That was largely unnecessary.” “They started it,” Travis defended. “No, I meant sheathing your swords.” Thunder Ryu tilted his head in the direction of some incoming carriages. The carriages, black and intimidating, skidded to a halt. The ponies (strangely dressed like cowboys) pulling them unyoked themselves as more cow-ponies exited the carriages. They must be some kind of local law enforcement, judging by the stars pinned to their chests. An older-looking pony rockin’ a mean ’stache—whom Travis guessed was their leader—began barking orders to the others. The silver star he wore glistened in the sunlight. He turned to Travis. “This is my town, you little shit!” he yelled. “And Ah ain’t havin’ yer nonsense! Come quietly or we’ll be forced to take extreme measures!” Out once again came the Rose Nasty, each one coming to life with their ominous hums. The sheriff nodded to the others and they responded in kind—many of them had hats that glowed and lifted, revealing unicorn horns that shot fucking LASER BEAMS, complete with awesome sci-fi sound effects, like—chu-chu-chuchuchu-chu! “Oh, shit!” Travis cried as he instinctively blocked a few shots. One bolt struck the dusty ground next to his foot, forcing him to move. The unicorns moved forward slowly, acting like a slowly encroaching wall of death. As Travis ran, dodged, and rolled, he didn’t quite see the pegasi descending on him like vultures until one landed on him, knocking him ass-first onto the ground. “Distractions,” Travis hissed as another pegasus landed a kick or two on him. “Fuckers are getting smart!” First things first, the laser beam-happy unicorns had to go. Travis ran in a zig-zagging line as he continued defending himself from shot after shot, finally reaching the creeping wall of unicorns. When he was close enough, he suddenly ran into something solid—yet invisible. “Forcefields?!” Travis cried. “Seriously?! Fucking forcefields?!” As the unicorns continued firing, as the pegasi descended, as Travis dodged and rolled and generally got the shit beat out of him, Thunder Ryu reclined midair and watched almost dismissively. If Travis was having such a hard time just getting to his next target, she’d waste him without a second thought. He was tempted to lend his spectral hand... But no—unlike Travis getting zapped on his way to the Wonderbolts Academy, now was no time to just jump to the rescue. There were still pieces waiting to be pushed into place for his main intervention to happen anyway. Finally, Travis figured out a strategy—not that it was rare, mind you; he was just preoccupied with not getting beat up or shot at. Holding the Rose Nasty at specific angles, Travis was able to bounce the laser beams at the descending pegasi, getting many of them dead on, while others had their wings clipped. He managed to mince the fallen pegasi before they could react. Travis could feel his bloodlust building, his anger marrying the stressful situation while planning to divorce it later so it can take its stuff. It was like he was ready to fucking explode! With a feeling in his body that electrified him head to foot, Travis bellowed, “STRAWBERRY ON THE SHORTCAKE!” Thunder Ryu cocked an eyebrow as the world around them suddenly slowed down and became grainy. The colors washed away like a receding tide, along with the sound. This should be interesting. Travis’ form had changed slightly. While he was badass before, he was ten times as badass now—his hair had gone all Super Saiyan and shit. He took slow, menacing steps toward the unicorn wall, intent on breaking them. He saw their eyes s l o w l y widen, their irises steadily shrinking. Travis licked his lips. He could taste the fear. He inhaled. He killed. He exhaled. As his murder spell broke, Travis felt the once-rising anger within him somehow smooth out, like coming down from a fucking awesome orgasm. The electricity had escaped from his body and into the bodies of his victims, exploding them all to pieces with sounds like thunderstrikes, their blood showering the desert floor gloriously. The unicorn wall stood no more. The only pony left was the sheriff. His eyes darted this way and that, taking in how wicked-scary-fast Travis had mowed down his reserves. He took one careful step back… then turned and ran for his life. But a hand clenching his tail stopped him mid-flight. The sheriff got all of one girly little scream before he felt a pair of hands around his middle, a sense of being lifted off his hooves, and then finished by intense pain as he was suplexed onto the ground. The Rose Nasty then fell down from the sky where Travis had tossed them, impaling the fucker with extreme prejudice. Travis pulled out the Rose Nasty and looked around, making sure there weren’t any stragglers. Then he cleared his throat and looked back to Thunder Ryu. “You gonna tell me more about this bitch or not?” Travis asked. Thunder Ryu rolled his eyes. “Okay,” he said almost angrily, “Listen. And listen good.” Nearby, Flim, largely ignored during the fight, had crawled back to the decapitated Widow-Maker. Travis and Thunder Ryu hadn’t noticed him during the fight. They hadn’t noticed that he was quivering and mumbling like a mad pony. They didn’t notice when his eyes began to glow green. “Applejack’s the kinda girl who’s really up close and personal. She’s never been one to take any shit from anybody, so she’s gonna be less than happy to see you especially.” Flim flipped open the Widow-Maker’s hatch and began to rewire it. He hummed a disjointed song as he did so. “She can take as much punishment as you can. I’d recommend fighting defensively. Let her tire herself out, then go in for the kill.” “That’s it?” Travis asked. “That’s like—I don’t—” His anger swept him up and he stomped his foot while gesturing wildly. “I COULDA FIGURED THAT SHIT OUT MYSELF!” Thunder Ryu shrugged. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted my advice.” The Widow-Maker lurched and hummed. Flim giggled maniacally. “Well, you said that she has family. I don’t think I saw any… Apple… ponies. Like, their asses—” (he pointed a thumb to the bodies behind him) “—didn’t have any apples on them. I kinda thought she’d have, like, an army of cousins or something.” Thunder Ryu waved his hand. “She doesn’t want her family getting mixed up in this shit. I mean, you can feel for her, right? You wouldn’t want some asshole to cut up your brother when what he really wants is a piece of you, am I right?” His statement gave Travis pause. “So… she’s tough… and honorable.” He nodded approvingly. “An honorable enemy. This should be fun.” Finally, Flim got the Widow-Maker back on its feet. His eyes glowed greenest as he witnessed the rebirth of this vengeful beast. “So, where would she be here in this town?” Thunder Ryu looked behind Travis. Travis turned around, and saw a great orchard in that direction. Applejack. Apples. Like, duuuuuhhhh. “BEHOLD!” cried Flim as the decapitated Widow-Maker stood back up. “WE LIVE AGAIN!” With one mighty step, the Widow-Maker’s foreleg crushed Flim underhoof. The sound Flim made was barely audible over the angry whirring of the damaged machine. Before Travis could think, the Widow-Maker was already barreling forth clumsily. The wound Travis had left on one of its forelegs was enough to slow the fucker down, but not by a whole lot. Already beaten within an inch of his life, and electing not to take any chances in a second round, Travis turned and ran like hell towards the orchard. “Good luck,” Thunder Ryu called, noticeably lacking interest. The Widow-Maker, being unable to see thanks to not having a fucking head, stumbled over the carriages left behind by the cow-colts, allowing Travis more time to escape. He arrived at the orchard’s gate—but as was his own misfortune, the fucking thing was locked. The lock itself was bullshit incarnate: it had six holes, each a certain shape. Beneath the holes was a short riddle that Travis didn’t have any time to read. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” he grumbled. “As if anybody has time for some bullshit gate-opening puzzle. All I need now is zombies running ar—” But not willing to push his bad luck any further, Travis cut himself off. The ground beneath him shook violently. He turned around just in time to see the Widow-Maker galloping toward him. Travis licked his chapped lips, certain that the answer to the gate riddle was in front of him already. “As much as I hate using the same act twice,” Travis said as he ran towards the Widow-Maker, “it looks like it’s time for a repeat performance!” He slid on his knees between the legs of the oncoming Widow-Maker, taking out the Peony and holding it upwards, dragging it deep along the Widow-Maker’s belly. The damage sustained was enough to send the Widow-Maker crashing clumsily down, obliterating the obnoxious gate. A few seconds passed before the dust settled. The ominous hum of the Peony was cut short as Travis sheathed it and placed it back on his belt. He whistled “Walking on Sunshine” as he tip-toed over the fallen Widow-Maker and entered the orchard. His eyes descended on a nearby apple tree. The orchard’s caretakers probably wouldn’t like the surprise he was going to leave for them, but he heard it made good fertilizer. He squatted by the tree and Saved.
Pony Battle! (VS Applejack)A warm wind danced by, shaking the leaves and filling the air with the songs of summer. Cicadas joined in as backup singers, their whines underlining the growing symphony. As Travis Touchdown walked through the orchard, another sound joined the symphony, giving it an almost drumlike beat. A repetitive chunk, followed by a soft, flowing noise. Travis followed it to its source. There was a small clearing here in the orchard. In the middle was a young apple tree, its apples red and glistening in the afternoon sun. Underneath the shade of its green leaves was a hole about seven feet in length and four in diameter, with a mound of dirt nearby. The head of a shovel poked out of the hole, sending more dirt into the neighboring pile. Travis arched an eyebrow in interest as he drew nearer. More dirt joined the pile as he closed in. Inside the hole was a pony whose brown hat adorned a head of blonde hair. Her dull-red duster cloaked an orange body, black gloves on each leg (so would that technically have made them boots?). When she noticed Travis’ shadow looming over the hole she’d dug, she stopped and looked up. Her green eyes pierced Travis like a pair of emerald arrows, her lips drawn taut. Otaku and pony stared at one another. “So,” Travis said, deciding to initiate the conversation this time. “So,” Applejack said back. Travis clicked his tongue. “…I take it you knew I was coming.” Applejack threw her shovel out of the grave she was digging. “Sooner or later, yeah.” Travis offered her a hand to pull her out of the grave, but she eyed it like it was toxic. She helped herself out of the grave, Travis taking a few steps back to make room for her. “…Not t’be snide’r anything, but Ah kinda thought you’d look scarier,” she said, brushing herself off. “I get that a lot,” Travis responded casually. It felt weird that they were suddenly almost neighborly to one another—he wondered if Applejack felt the same. It was time to end the pleasantries and get to work. Travis pulled out the tried and true Tsubaki Mk. III. Its bright green blade extended with a slow, menacing shriek. He gave it a test swing or two before assuming a badass samurai pose. Applejack shrugged. “Not one fer big speeches, are ya?” she asked. “The only two words I’m gonna need are ‘die, bitch.’” She adjusted her hat. Popped the kinks out of her neck. Limbered up. Then she assumed a battle stance. “Fine by me. But the only two words you’re gonna be sayin’ is ‘oh, shit.’” The two clashed, a tiger of the jungle against a wild horse of the plains, colliding with a thunderous force, the trees in the orchard shuddering at the impact. Travis brought down his Tsubaki—a miss. Applejack leaped into the air and performed a drop-kick—a dodge. Travis swung the Tsubaki for Applejack, who nimbly ducked and rolled into Travis’ shins, knocking him to one knee, chased with an uppercut to the jaw, sending him onto his back. She jumped and followed up with an elbow-drop. She’d have crushed his head had he not rolled away in time. The two warriors circled one another. “You’re pretty good at this,” Travis admitted, wiping blood from his lip. “Where’d you learn to fight?” “You learn a lot from yer parents,” Applejack said. “Some ponies learn how to love. Some learn how to hate.” She cocked her head. Spat. “Mine taught me how to break!” At break, Applejack stomped the earth. The tremor she caused shook Travis, forcing him off-balance. Before he could recover, Applejack shot for him like a bolt of orange lightning, crashing into Travis’ stomach with the force of a speeding train. A tree caught him midair, the impact showering hard apples on him as he slid down to its base. Applejack took a few measured, ominous steps forth. “Y’know, the day Ah heard Rarity got herself split in half, Ah didn’t believe it ’til Ah saw the body.” No witty retort came to Travis’ mind as he struggled to his feet. Once again too fast for Travis to react, Applejack brought a foreleg towards his arm, pinning his hand to the tree. The other foreleg went straight into Travis’ stomach, giving him round after round of softening. The tree Travis was pinned to shook harder and harder with every pound. Maybe she was trying to remain in control, or maybe because she had more to say, Applejack let go of Travis. He plopped forward, air struggling to make its way back into his body, his insides all fucked up to hell. Applejack readjusted her hat and continued. “…Ah think Rainbow Dash took it hardest. She had half a mind t’just hunt you down and kill you herself. Twi’n me had a Tartarus of a time tryin’na talk her out of it.” Travis caught something in her eyes he didn’t like. It was like she was observing an insect under a glass. Like she felt sorry a creature like him had to exist. She licked her dry lips. “Didn’t seem to matter none. You murdered her all the same. All they found were just some singed feathers.” Applejack reached into her jacket and retrieved a rope as Travis struggled back up to his feet. He coughed. “Oh, shit, seriously?! Tell me you’re not!” She quickly formed a lasso, spinning it between her teeth. Almost as if the lasso had a mind of its own, it wrapped around Travis’ leg. He caught a particularly nasty grin on Applejack’s face as she turned around, lasso between her teeth, and took off, dragging Travis along behind her. Over sharp rocks, over desert, over sand-burs. Travis’ new clothes were now officially fucked. Applejack jumped a fence—Travis half-expected to go up with her, only to just crash through the fence, sending wood and debris and other shit flying like a flock of moths. A sharp turn here and there sent Travis smashing into nearby trees. Travis regained his composure and decided to try guiding himself along the ground. With some leaning, he managed to dodge the rocks, and with some finesse, he was able to avoid trees. Travis felt himself suddenly flung forward. Applejack had come to an abrupt stop, and with more power than her diminutive form suggested, she began whipping Travis around her head in circles. Finally, she brought him down, expecting to crush his body against the orchard’s earth. Suddenly, there was no weight at the end of her lasso. She looked up in surprise as Travis sailed through the air, his Tsubaki back in hand, the rope around his leg severed. While his form before was studied and practiced if a bit clumsy, he practically glided to a stop, kicking off an apple tree and hitting the ground running right at her. “Fuck,” Applejack spat as she got up on her hinds. She brought her forelegs together, stopping Travis’ downward strike mid-swing and turning the attack into a power struggle. The amazing might in Applejack’s hind legs bent Travis backwards, only for Travis to really put some oomph behind his upper-body strength. Not wanting to struggle for too long—as Applejack seemed more than capable of winning the tug-of-war—Travis lifted a leg and belted Applejack in the stomach. Her green eyes widened as the air blew out of her like a bagpipe. Without wasting a second, Travis tossed his Tsubaki into the air. Applejack had yet to come back down from her hindleg-favoring stance, allowing Travis to jump in, wrapping one arm around her middle and the other around her neck as he sidled up beside her. With a backwards jump, he slammed her into the dirt, the crash loud enough to spook what looked like literal fruit bats out of the trees. Travis got back up, expecting gravity to do its job and let the Tsubaki drop down and pin Applejack, ending the fight. But Applejack had other plans. Even after getting suplexed, Applejack was hardly winded. She saw the Tsubaki as it plummeted, and with a motion fast amazing enough to make Travis WTF, she shot right up and caught it by the handle between her teeth. She glared at Travis, her green eyes bulging. An angry snort shot from her nostrils. Great, Travis thought. Just fucking great. Hey God ,if You’re listening, I could really use a favor right now. The ground beneath them began to quake. A quick turn of both fighters’ heads revealed a fleet of buffalo headed their way, a tidal wave of thundering hooves and angry glares and warpaint and an intent to make roadkill of the orchard’s intruder. Not quite what I had in mind! Travis thought as his eyes bulged. Almost as if acting as one, Travis and Applejack both leapt up above the buffalo stampede, catching the wave as it descended on them. They landed on the backs of the buffalo, riding the stampeding surf, locking eyes with one another. Travis had already pulled out the Rose Nasty, their hot-pink twin blades crackling dangerously. Breathing heavily, hot blood pumping through their veins, both Travis and Applejack bounded on the backs of the buffalo, their beam katanas ready. Despite having never held a sword before, Applejack seemed to grasp the idea of how to use it effectively—every swing from Travis was countered or dodged expertly. The buffalo below made shaky ground for their battle. The loud thundering of their hooves silenced any battle cry, any hum from the beam katanas. The buffalo Travis was standing on decided to buck him from his back—only for Travis to land on the buffalo behind him. Applejack followed, leaping from raging buffalo to raging buffalo, Tsubaki between her teeth and murder in her eyes. Travis stood back up, trying to remain steady enough to bring his Rose nasty back up. A light of realization flashed through his eyes. A Cheshire smile gracing his lips, Travis watched Applejack come closer. She leapt from one of the nearby buffalo, Tsubaki raised for a downward strike—and just before she could land on the buffalo in front of Travis to bring the Tsubaki on him, he jabbed one Rose Nasty into the buffalo’s neck. The buffalo went down, taking Applejack with it. Travis stood back up and jumped to a nearby apple tree, grabbing onto its branches and pulling himself up. He sat on the strongest branch, waiting out the stampede as the tree vibrated dangerously. After nearly five minutes, the entire buffalo herd had passed. It took another minute for the dust to settle. Travis then climbed down from the tree, his aching body reminding him not to do anything too strenuous. He hobbled over to where he spied the corpses. The buffalo Travis had stabbed was barely recognizable. He’d been stomped to mush by his brothers. When he heard a cough, Travis froze, his hands already on the Rose Nasty. There, just behind the buffalo corpse, was Applejack. Her legs were bent and purple in many spots, her hat and duster shredded and torn. Blood trickled from a mouth that was missing a few teeth. Her mane and tail were loose and wild, spooling about her like warped waves of gold. Her breathing was haphazard and hoarse. Applejack’s green eyes looked up to Travis. When their eyes connected, something between them was suddenly shared. Something deep and fundamental. Primal. Travis’ lips tightened. “Why…” Applejack coughed, sounding like a mare about to die. “Why th’ long face, cocksucker? Ain’t this what you wanted? Blood ’n glory?” Travis thought about it. Then he sighed. “Yeah, but… this…” He knelt by her side, where the Tsubaki had miraculously not been broken underneath buffalo hooves. Picking it up, Travis looked to Applejack. “…Your friends died almost instantly. I might want you fucking ponies to get outta my face, but I don’t want you to suffer.” A pause. Applejack smiled. Coughed up some blood. “That it, huh? You’re gonna suddenly be all noble ’n shit? Yer a funny one, Travis. Real comedian.” Travis stood up, the Tsubaki once again hissing to life, its long and sloping blade stopping an inch above the ground. Applejack looked at it as if she was relieved to see it. Then she looked back up to Travis. “If Ah ’kin ask fer one last favor…” “…Yeah?” Applejack coughed. “…Take me… take me back to Bloomberg, won’tcha? Ah wanna see ’im one last time ’fore Ah go.” At first, Travis didn’t quite understand her demand. Then it clicked. The Tsubaki’s blade was sheathed for now. He knelt down, working his arms around Applejack and lifting her as best he could. He heaved her across his shoulders carefully, wincing when he heard her grunt in pain, walking back toward the tree he found her under. For some strange and mystical reason, he could just… feel his way back there. “Bloomberg was my tree,” Applejack said as he walked. “My first one, Ah mean. My Pa… he showed me how to plant a tree, once Ah got big enough to start apple-buckin’. He asked me to name it. So Ah did.” Travis took a short cut through a gaggle of apple trees, the jagged shade from the leaves coloring their surroundings in darker hues. “Givin’ up Bloomberg fer my cousin’s orchard was a tough choice, but Ah knew they could use ’im.” “It’s just a fucking tree,” Travis said. “But it really means that much to you?” Applejack let out a small, pained laugh. “Ain’t you ever had somethin’ precious given to you by somepony ya love? Somethin’ to remember them by?” A long and lonely silence drifted between them as Travis saw Bloomberg up ahead—and the hole Applejack had dug beneath it. “…Not really.” As Travis set her down in front of the hole, Applejack looked at him with eyes that seemed to… apologize. “Ah’m sorry t’hear that.” They shared some more silence. As Travis’ fingers went for the Tsubaki, Applejack piped up again. “You got ’ny family, Travis?” “…Got a twin brother. Had a sister. Parents.” A pause. “…Had.” Her apologetic eyes went from expressing pity to expressing sympathy. “Ah won’t ask how they got taken away from you,” she croaked, “that ain’t important. Travis, you an’ Ah both know how much senseless cruelty there is in the world. Why you gotta go an’ add to it?” “Because the people who do those senseless acts of cruelty? They took something away from me.” “Did killin’ ’em bring that somethin’ back?” She blinked. “Does killin’ my friends’n Ah, does that bring anything back? What’d we take from you, anyway?” More silence. “…I didn’t come here to talk,” Travis said finally. Applejack shook her head silently, sighing sadly. “Yer so fucked up. Ain’t nothin’ to you but violence ’n want.” “Fuck you,” Travis spat. He took a step back. “Doesn’t change anything,” she said suddenly. “Y’know, Ah usually ain’t so negative. I’m actually pretty upbeat. Like this? Dyin’? Most would look at it like it’s the end. Not me, though—death’s not an ending. It’s just goin’ home after a long, hard day. Know what Ah mean?” The Tsubaki sprang back to life. Applejack once again looked at it with relief. The end of her suffering was near. She smiled. “Ah don’t think you do. You look too scared.” Applejack breathed deep and lifted her head towards the sky. For some reason, Travis stalled. “’Samatter? Ah know you ain’t above killin’ a lady, so do it!” The force of her voice shook Travis as he lifted the Tsubaki. “Do it, cocksucker! Fuckin’ DO it!!!” Applejack felt cold, suddenly. A sense of weightlessness as she got a good view of the sky. Her vision haloed with blackness, the sounds of the orchard becoming distant, everything going dark, then pure white as her disconnected body chased her head into the hole behind her. Applejack… …We’ve been waiting for you. …Welcome home. It took Travis a while to get over crying for his fallen foe. It took him a while to bury her, leaving the shovel stuck in the dirt as a makeshift gravestone. It took him a while to gather his bearings, to leave the orchard before those buffalo came back. As he slowly walked away, Travis turned to give Bloomberg one last glance. Then he turned and made his quiet exit from the orchard. From Bloomberg’s branch fell a single, bright red apple. Slowly, it rolled along the ground, touching the shovel before coming to a stop. APPLEJACK: GONE HOME
The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part I)Travis didn’t recall much between when he walked out of the Appleloosa orchard and when he arrived back in Ponyville. His legs moved him out of their own accord, scuffing against dirt, pavement, and grass, while his mind was just… someplace. Or maybe no place at all; it was kinda hard to tell. The last time he’d felt this deflated after a victory, Travis had done something similar. In between evenings where he felt too depressed even to masturbate, he was just mindlessly doing odd job after odd job, attempting to busy himself until he could get his mind back on track. But no matter what odd job he worked, no matter how many weeds he pulled or fish he caught or pipes he fixed, Travis couldn’t shake his mind of the last conversation he had with Applejack. Yeah, he was fucked up. Yeah, he loved violence. And yeah, he wanted stuff. But what did she mean when she told him he didn’t understand that there’s solace in death? He’d seen that same look of peace just before death on quite a few other people—Holly Summers, Captain Vladimir, Margaret Moonlight—and he understood what it meant. …Or did he? He was so used to seeing it on the faces of some of his foes that he thought he understood it well enough. Or was it like cocaine or sex? Something you had to experience yourself in order to truly understand it? Or maybe she was just fucking with him and didn’t mean anything. No, that didn’t make sense—she’s supposed to be, like, some Element of Honesty or some shit, right? She wouldn’t be honest if she were into mind games. Maybe she was just being honest about her opinion of him… but then again, her honest opinion of him was worded so vaguely, it made his brain go ppppbbbttttthhhh. Whatever. Upset, confused, and a little bored, Travis was relieved when he saw the poster. Seemed there was a magician headed this way—someone who claimed to be “Great and Powerful.” He’d seen the poster about a month back and wondered to himself why a bunch of unicorns would even have use for a magic show. Like, didn’t they all use magic? What was so special about stage magic’s subterfuge and misdirection? Maybe there were like, different levels of magic or something, I dunno. Whatever the case, the magic show interested Travis greatly. It looked like just the thing to take his mind off his recent win/loss. So there he was, in the Ponyville Theatre, in his usual disguise, waiting for the show. The theatre itself was gaudy and… what’s the word… oh, fuck it—the theatre was pony-riffic. It was a brand-new word that indicated pony statues, paintings, motifs, and so on, done up in ways Travis found unnecessary, pretentious, and unnecessarily pretentious. And pretentiously unnecessary. Travis hated it. But at least the popcorn wasn’t bad. He’d been seated for maybe five minutes, lazily munching on popcorn, half-wondering why he was even here before he realized something. It was quiet. Too quiet. Travis looked about himself, taking in the eerie oceans of empty seats on either side of him. No ponies behind him or in front, either. Before he could wonder where the exact fuck the rest of the audience was, however, the lights around him dimmed. A spotlight fell onto a pony wearing a fancy green jacket with an equally green bowtie. She sauntered onto the stage, her fiery curls bobbing about her neck as her sunny hooves clip-clopped across the wooden floor. She turned to face the seats with a theatrical twirl, her bright green eyes shimmering as the spotlight’s sight danced across them. “Fillies and gentlecolts!” she announced before realizing there was no audience to address. Her face contorted for a second as the sounds of crickets lifted to her ears. Her eyes fixed onto Travis, and suddenly she became a little more steeled. “F-Fillies and gentlecolts,” she began again, “as a warning, this theater would like to attest that the astounding feats of magic you are about to witness might blow your mind inside-out! Viewer discretion is advised. Introducing—” She was interrupted as the red curtain behind her shuffled a bit. Travis heard a voice whispering as the mare’s face froze stupidly for a moment. “Re-introducing,” the mare amended, “the GREAT! And POWERFUL—” Before the mare could finish, the curtains lifted as pyrotechnics flashed and fanfare played, settling into calliope music. A blue pony leapt high into the air above the stage, her star-splattered purple cape and stereotypical witchy-poo hat fluttering as she descended, landing in front of the announcing mare—who at this point adopted a tired frown and surrendering eyes. “TR-R-R-RIXIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” yelled the mare emphatically. The flashing pyrotechnics exploded at her interjection, their spectral stars and fireballs forming the performer’s name above her head before dissipating like fireworks. How modest. “Watch! And be amaaaaazed!” howled Trixie as she waved a hoof hard enough to count as a punch. “The Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie has returned from a journey of self-discovery! A journey that involved the discovery not only of Trixie herself, but her truest potential!” The announcing mare’s mouth turned up at one end as she trotted off-stage, clearly amused as she shook her head. Trixie meanwhile continued her rant—I’d write most of it here, but Trixie went on for a while. It was as if half her show was about how awesome she was without really proving it. So basically, just like your average rap musician. Travis was already bored before Trixie even started her routine, and even after she finally shut the fuck up and did some stage magic, he wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was his battle with Rarity, but now that he’d seen how awesome unicorn magic could be in a fight, he couldn’t accept anything else. That one other magician Travis fought years ago—Harvey something-or-other—would probably have pointed and laughed… or maybe give her constructive criticism. He was actually rather polite. Trixie’s act really could use the improvement. Teleporting out of a tank of water resulted in Trixie taking the water out of the tank with her, dousing the entire stage and shorting out some of the equipment. Turning a tiger into a kitten only resulted in the tiger becoming angry and chasing Trixie around the stage… ruining the rest of the stage equipment. In short, she was entertaining, but for the wrong reasons. “I didn’t know this was a comedy act!” Travis said, laughing his ass off. As the other mare lured the tiger back into its cage with a piece of steak, Trixie’s head snapped in Travis’ direction. Her eyes flew wide as she took in her only audience member, who was holding his sides. Pointing. Laughing. Laughing. “Epic fail!” Travis crowed. “Epic motherfucking fail! I bet failure must, like, run in your family or something—nobody could fail that hard all on their own!” Trixie’d been heckled before. She’d withstood the neigh-sayers, the skeptics, the bullies, the shmucks, inviting many on-stage to outwit and embarrass, to put them in their proper place beneath a Great and Powerful mare. But this… “Nopony… talks that way… about… my…!” Trixie growled through clenched teeth, her eyes bulging, becoming red. Her red-haired assistant looked at her with wide eyes and a perplexed twist for a mouth, apparently unused to seeing Trixie boiling with this much contempt for another living being. “Uh… Trix?” she asked timidly. “…You okay?” Trixie jerked her head back, a dangerous look in her eyes. “Trixie will be perfectly proper once she puts this putrid palooka in his place!” “You sure that’s a smart thing to—” Trixie waved a hoof impatiently out to the empty theatre. “Is there an audience?!” “Just him.” “Precisely!” “Hey, where’s my fucking magic show?!” Travis called up. “I didn’t pay eleven of those weird… horsey-coin thingies to just sit on my ass and watch you fail at everything.” That dangerous look in Trixie’s eyes tripled. Her silvery mane bristled as she clenched her teeth, snorted a hot rush of air that blew back her assistant’s mane in a gust— then resumed a pleasant demeanor as she turned around, big smile on her face as she once again looked out at her adoring audience. Facetiously, Trixie struck a pose as she announced, “For Trixie’s NEXT trick, she’s gonna make a bitch disappear! DO WE HAVE ANY VOLUNTEERS, I think you'll do nicely, COME ON UP HERE ASSHOLE!!!” Travis felt a slight burning sensation envelope him—then he was launched through the air and slammed on stage. The spotlight shone down on Travis as he stood back up, looking Trixie right in the eye. Her face blanched, her eyes wide with surprise. “What? The fuck you looking at?” It was only then Travis realized his Awesome Disguise (tm) had fallen off when he was thrown onstage. “You!” the red-haired assistant barked in surprise. “You’re that guy from the newspapers! The Element Killer!” “That what they’re calling me now?” Travis said nonchalantly. “Real fucking original. Remind me to give ’em a goddamn medal.” Trixie’s mind wheeled. He’d killed three of the Element Bearers already. No doubt he had Twilight Sparkle in his sights as well… “Element Killer,” she began. “I believe we’ve established that bullshit already,” Travis spat as he reached for his beam katana belt. He plucked the Tsubaki from its holster, readying it as its single, three-foot fang flicked to life predatorily. “Can’t say I fucking care for the title, though. You can call me…” He struck a badass samurai pose. “…Travis Touchdown.” “You can call me unimpressed,” the assistant said with a dismissive frown. “Travis Touchdown,” Trixie said, ignoring her assistant and taking a step forward. “You intend on killing Twilight Sparkle as well, don’t you?” “That purple bitch? Yeah, she’s on my shit list too.” Trixie’s assistant frowned. “Really?” she asked with some derision. “You think you can take on a Princess? Celestia’s own prized student?” “Celestia?” Travis asked. “That the queen pony?” “She’s a Princess,” the assistant corrected. “And a very powerful magician who passed her knowledge onto other ponies.” “Like Twilight?” The assistant removed her green bowtie and tossed it aside. “Like me,” she growled, removing her jacket and letting it settle onto the stage. “Oh-ho-ho-hooo, a two-on-one battle,” Travis crowed with a Cheshire smile. “Can’t wait to get started!” He shot forth, his blade ready, only for the assistant pony to raise a hoof to stop him. “Hold on there, sport,” she said. “You took a moment to ready your weapon; it’s only fair we get to ready ours.” She looked aside to Trixie and nodded. “Trixie! Binding Magic For Intertwining Destinies, Spell 83.” Trixie’s eyes widened. “S-Spell 83?” She looked this way and that hectically, as if she were asked a particularly tough personal question. “But Sunset Shimmer, we already tried that one! It didn’t—” “We’re using it,” Sunset demanded. “Just focus.” With some hesitance, Trixie assumed a wizard’s stance, one front hoof off the ground and curled up beneath her barrel, her head bowed, her horn aglow. Sunset Shimmer copied this stance, the both of them close enough to each other so as to cross horns. Their lights—blue and green—mixed and became one, enveloping their entire bodies into one hell of a lightshow. Stars rose from the floor around them, wind whipping upward like a sparkling tornado. The two unicorns were then swallowed by a shaft of bluish-green light that burned for half past eternity, so bright Travis to shield his face from it. Then, all at once, the light died. Travis brought his hand down, opening his eyes to something he only ever saw when he took that cocaine at that one party that one time—I swear it was only once. On four legs stood a unicorn twice as tall as Travis. Its pelt was an ice blue, with a rolling snow-white mane and tail that flowed as if it were on fire. Where the ass-tats were was a yin-yang symbol in a constant rolling motion. Its legs, like its body, were long and slender and powerful, with the same snow-white fire billowing from its fetlocks. Its horn must have been about as long as the Tsubaki Travis held in his hands. But at the end of the unicorn’s horn was a red fireball about as big as your head (or one of Travis’ testicles), burning brightly, angrily. Within the fireball’s glowing core was a pair of cool green eyes—Sunset’s eyes. It spoke, both mares’ voices clamoring over each other at once. “Let the bloodbath begin!” Then it charged. Author's Note I apologize for cutting this one short, but it's been so long since the last update and work just got workier. So there might not be many updates from me in general. But I swear it won't be as long a wait as you think. ...One can only hope.
The Delicious Magic Trick! (Part II: Revenge Battle!)It wasn’t so much a gallop as it was bounding leaps. As the merged, maddened mare barreled down on Travis, he was nimble enough to dodge her opening charge, but not nimble enough to land a strike on her legs, the Tsubaki hissing as it bit through a whole lot of nothing. The giant unicorn disappeared—dissolving into thin air as her fluttering laughter echoed through the entire theatre. “Uh-oh!” she crowed in a mocking, menacing tone. “Where’d that big bad unicorn go?” Travis stood stock-still, his samurai stance unwavering because it’s awesomer like that. His eyes flicked cautiously around the theater, a bead of sweat running down his temple, his teeth clenched, his fingers wrapping around the Tsubaki’s handle as the unicorn chuckled sinisterly, echoing eerily from all around him. Her voice barked from one end of the stage. “Are they over here?” From the other end: “Maybe they’re over here!” From the ceiling: “No, no! Up here! Up here!” Finally, from behind Travis: “BOO!” Travis spun like a tornado, the Tsubaki up and forming its menacing yellow half-moon—and striking nothing. The unicorn, wherever the fuck she was, laughed her head off like a child whose prank was pulled successfully. “Enough of this bullshit!” Travis growled. “A great and powerful magician shouldn’t have to—” Something struck him in the stomach, lifting him up off his feet and launching him backwards, barreling across the stage, where he flopped and rolled to a stop. Evidently, this wasn’t a battle meant for brute force. No Thunder Ryu around meant Travis would have to employ his own strategy. He thumbed through his mind for any scrap of useful knowledge. After scouring several volumes of stupid shit, Travis came up with an idea that would probably have worked, if only he hadn’t left his fire extinguisher and toothbrush at home. Before he could come up with anything, Travis noticed the snow-white flames forming on the stage. They rose from the stage’s floor as if being pulled up, then glowed for a second before being launched like bullets. Travis’ legs coiled and sprung, launching him into a defensive roll. Strangely, though the fireballs exploded against different objects, nothing they hit caught fire. Wiggy. Then he heard her giggling again, reverberating all across the stage, bubbling and bouncing all around him. This time, he was ready. Travis realized now that… well, for the sake of convenience let’s just call her Shimmermoon. Yeah that sounds pretty cool. Anyway, Shimmermoon used her laugh to disorient him. Years of stage performance and work in the live entertainment business meant that one half of Shimmermoon—Trixie—had learned the art of misdirection. One such art? Throwing her voice. Thusly, instead of listening for the more obvious sound—the menacing giggle—he listened for the less-obvious, careful clip-clop of tip-toeing hooves on wood. When he heard her approach him from the side, Travis knelt down low, then sprung up spinning. His lips curled into a Cheshire grin as he felt that satisfaction of hard light connecting with flesh, the scent of ozone and burnt meat lifting into his nostrils. The two voices screamed in unison as the giant unicorn popped back into visibility, backing away, stumbling around on its too-long legs. The red fireball that burned at the tip of its horn glowed, its shimmering green eyes wide with anger. “What are you doing?!” growled Sunset Shimmer. “Tag out before you get us killed! Tag out, tag out!” Before Travis could dive back in and land another blow, she leapt high into the air with a marvelous backflip (though how the everlovin’, blue-eyed fuck a horse can backflip is beyond human comprehension), the red fireball bathing the blue unicorn in scarlet fireworks. When the unicorn landed, it shook the entire stage, then stood up. Travis had been knocked flat on his ass by the impact, and when he looked into Shimmermoon’s eyes he knew what was gonna come next would not be fun. Shimmermoon was no longer in the form of a blue unicorn, instead a human shape with golden skin. The snow-white flame that acted as mane and tail for the unicorn now burned as a bright fiery cape of hair that cascaded down her back, stopping just above her ankles, while said ankles and her wrists also burned with the same bright-red flame. Her cool green eyes glimmered as she grinned, showing off a mouth full of shark’s teeth. Her ears were long and pointy, giving her a resemblance to those elves you’d read about in fantasy novels. She stood up to her full height, revealing she was still twice as tall as Travis—and to Travis’ dismay, though she was naked and had some magnificent titties, Shimmermoon lacked the more-interesting features of female anatomy. She still had a horn on her head, same length as before, only this time the fireball at the end burned bright blue, with a pair of purple eyes—Trixe’s eyes—glaring Travis down. Travis jumped back up to his feet. “Nice,” he said earnestly. “Tag-team shapeshifting. You two know how to run one hell of a fight. Let’s see what other tricks you got up your sleeve!” He should have known something was wrong when he ran at her, Tsubaki raised, and she didn’t so much as flinch. He should have known something would go wrong if he swung that Tsubaki at her. But alas, Travis Touchdown figured no such outcome until it was too late—the Tsubaki’s hard light was pinched between her two fingers, stopping Travis mid-swing. Her one hand held the Tsubaki, while the other curled into a fist and punched Travis in the gut, sending him up to the ceiling. Then into the ceiling. Then off the ceiling. Then back down to the stage. He only noticed a second after landing that the Tsubaki was no longer in his hands. He glanced up to see Shimmermoon twirling the Tsubaki playfully like it was a baton. “New form means new powers,” Shimmermoon growled as she turned the Tsubaki off and tossed it to another corner of the stage, where it clattered distantly. “Let’s see how tough you are without your toys, you macho little fuck.” She reached down and pulled Travis up by his hair. Then she lifted him up and, holding him with both hands, spun him around her head like that one guy did with Will Smith in the opening credits to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, before finally slamming him onto the stage with a back-drop. There was a darkness that exploded with stars. Shimmermoon might have said something, but whatever it was had been hushed by the ringing in Travis’ ears. He felt her long fingers dig into his shoulders as she yanked him up to his feet, and with a sharp jerk on his arm, Shimmermoon tripped him with one foot, then chased after him with a body slam, pinning him to the floor. She crossed her forearms over Travis’s neck, her shark teeth glistening darkly in that wide, menacing smile, her green eyes aglow with ecstasy. She giggled as she squeezed her thighs around his middle, crushing him little by little. Normally, finding himself pinned under a hot lady was pretty high on Travis’ to-do list, but as of right now, he figured out that there was always a dark side to every fantasy. For instance, this lady, twice his height, was also twice his weight, and bearing down on him with malicious, crushing intent. Secondly, her body heat was atrociously high—he’d felt stinging sensations when she grabbed him, and now it felt like he’d been caught under a lit stove. There was no air in his lungs. His skin was beginning to sizzle. No way to escape such a pin. Losing oxygen too fast… His vision began to halo as he felt her snort acrid breath over his face. “You obnoxious little fuck!” she spat. “You call this a fight?! You’d never beat Twilight if this is the best you can do!” There had to be some way out of this situation. Travis’ eyes widened. In fact, there was. Even though the way she’d pinned him was effective at reducing his arms to helplessly flailing paddles, he still had some motor control—and with this gift, he used his hands for the other thing a man should use it for besides violence and masturbation. He grabbed Shimmermoon’s breasts and gave them a hard squeeze. The look on her face was sudden, shocking, and hilarious (though not as funny as the blue fireball’s awkwardly-squinting eyes). It was all the indication Travis needed. Teeth clenched, he brought his forehead up, getting Shimmermoon in the nose. As she recoiled from the impact, Travis followed it with rolling her onto her side, getting a knee into her stomach. At last, Travis was free. Smokey and struggling for air, but free. Looking aside, he saw his Tsubaki and dove for it—but being as light-headed as he currently was, his dive was more of a bumbling forward-collapse. His hand found the Tsubaki almost without input from Travis’ brain, and clenched around its hilt. As Travis struggled to his feet, a fist came up to greet his stomach, each knuckle popping as searing heat and pain knocked him upward, off his feet and onto his ass. “You oughta know better than to touch a lady without her permission!” Shimmermoon growled. Despite the beating Travis had taken thus far, he drew from the well of awesome (or perhaps, the well of stupid), drank deeply, and kicked back up onto his feet. He wiped the blood from his nose and pocketed his Tsubaki. “You didn’t seem shy about getting physical before,” he retorted, reaching for the Peony. Shimmermoon barreled toward him, each footstep its own stampede, elbow and shoulder thrust outward, intent on flattening Travis like an oncoming train. As the Peony sprung from its hilt, Travis side-stepped Shimmermoon’s charge, holding the Peony’s ten-foot, blood-red laser blade at such an angle that it struck her sharply in the shins, tripping her. She flipped through the air, and screamed only when she was about to slam into some stage equipment. That entire part of the stage came down with a crash, caving in on Shimmermoon and covering her in various electronics and machines. Travis walked languidly towards Shimmermoon, the Peony humming sinisterly as he held it over his shoulder like a motherfucking badass. Suddenly, in a burst of white light, Shimmermoon sprung out from under the pile of damaged equipment, once again in unicorn mode. Without pausing to let her make some kind of fucking stupid monologue, Travis brought the Peony down, only for Shimmermoon to teleport with a bright blue pop. “Not this teleport shit again,” Travis growled, looking all around him. As if vanishing wasn’t annoying enough... Shimmermoon had teleported to another part of the stage, her snow-white mane and tail whipping and twirling like an inferno, falling to just behind her neck. “Spotlight, please!” she called. Travis didn’t even know there was anyone else here working the theater, but sure enough, spotlights cascaded down on her, three in all. She then slowly strutted the stage like a runway model. Rarity would have been proud. He heard some kind of whining coming from above him. Quickly, Travis performed another roll-dodge, nearly escaping an incoming white fire bomb. It struck the stage with a shuddering boom. Travis looked upward, watching as more white fire was dropped from the ceiling, simply appearing mid air instead of being shot from Shimmermoon’s horn like before. Being forced into constantly moving to avoid getting shit on with fire didn’t count as a fun time for Travis. As he ran to Shimmermoon—still strutting with slow, powerful, graceful movements—he readied the Peony. He swung. It hit the light… then rebounded. It was as if he were trying to strike sheet metal with a rolled-up newspaper, except not as effective. The rebound left Travis stumbling backwards, and of course, one of the white fire bombs landed on him with a shattering kaboom. Well, there went another set of clothes. He stood there with a vacant stare, smoking like a fish on a grill. Shimmermoon squealed with laughter. “Well, what do you know! Looks like mine’s harder!!” More white fire dropped from above as Shimmermoon watched Travis dodge—and dodge—and dodge. Soon, Shimmermoon grew bored with watching Travis, and decided to change the rules of the game a little. Pillars of blue fire shot up from the ground, one right after the other, chasing Travis as he struggled to think over what he could do to bring down Shimmermoon’s forcefield. Let’s see: hard light—made hard probably by magic—break the horn?—no, the horn’s on the other side of the forcefield—but maybe—what if—divide by the square root of hairs on a yak—so much science. Eventually, the answer popped into his head sometime between getting run breathless and getting burnt. Travis’ eyes shot up to the stage lights. They were a little too high to reach, even with the Peony. He’d have to approach this one differently. Sheathing the Peony, he returned the Tsubaki to his hands and turned, waiting for the next fireball. Sure enough, there one came, dropping down from above like that cage in a game of Mouse Trap. He struck a stance—this time, baseball player instead of the samurai—then took aim and swung. The fireball was knocked back upward, smacking into the stage light and bringing it down—and with it, one shaft of hard light. Shimmermoon gasped, her eyes wide, her teeth clenched, the red fireball on her horn gaping in shock. “Shit,” she growled. “Shit, shit, shit!” Up came the pillars again, Shimmermoon avoiding the fireballs since that would only give him more ammo. Travis ran, his legs pumping like pistons, propelling him across the stage, off the stage, through the theatre seats, and finally, shooting right up underneath the other stage light, destroying it. Travis had taken out the Rose Nasty at this point, shooting back up onto the theatre stage like he was motherfucking BATMAN, bringing both hot-pink blades down on Shimmermoon—once—twice—a kick to her knee—upward slash—downward slash—then a cross-slash finisher. Shimmermoon stumbled backwards in shock, the red fireball on her horn glowing. “Trixie, what are you doing?!” Sunset chastised. Without waiting for Trixie to respond, Shimmermoon spun, the scarlet fireworks changing her shape once again to the wrestler/fantasy elf, her fiery hair flailing under an unfelt breeze, stopping to just beneath her shoulders. Out came the Peony. Shimmermoon leapt into the air like she was an extra in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, coming down when she was above Travis. He jumped out of the way in the nick of time, but was blown back by the aftershock of Shimmermoon’s mighty stomp. Travis flattened against a pillar, his back screaming from pain and want for revenge. As he got back up to his feet, Shimmermoon once again barreled for him, the whole stage shaking, her left arm outstretched for a clothesline takedown. Travis decided to meet her midway, the Peony giving his attack some range. But just as he swung, Shimmermoon revealed her clothesline takedown was a feint—she crouched low, the Peony aiming for a face that was no longer there, now with both arms stretched out for a grab. She picked Travis up with both arms, wrapping them around his middle as she jumped up about as high as before, spiraled upside-down, then rocketed downward. The impact was enough to loosen the ceiling, numerous panels falling like snowflakes onto the theatre seats below. Heavy snowflakes that could kill on impact, but hey, you know, metaphors and all that. Shimmermoon got up off Travis, breathing in a deep breath victoriously, the blue flame on her horn chuckling wickedly. “Learned that one from wrestling class in high school,” she said with a nod. Travis could only gurgle in response. She knelt down and grabbed Travis by the ankles. “This one, I picked up from an Italian plumber.” Travis felt his body lift off the stage, and a dizzying nausea gripped him as he took flight in tight circles, Shimmermoon spinning him ’round and ’round. The dreaded moment when Shimmermoon let go came and, with unbelievable speed, Travis was launched like a cannonball, taking off to the ocean of empty seats. He landed on his head, so he was totally safe. But the rest of his body felt a lot of the effect. It wasn’t a struggle to get back up—it became a war. By the time he’d finally gotten back up to standing height, Shimmermoon had casually walked the length of the entire theatre, fists on admittedly attractive hips, her head cocked analytically, her lips twisted into a smirk. “Fuck, you just don’t know when to die, do you?” she asked scornfully. “You don’t get to be number one by letting a little thing like death get in your way,” Travis spat. He squinted his eyes a little more closely at Shimmermoon. Was her…? Her hair had been to the ankles before, hadn’t it? Why was it now only down to just her shoulders? Then it hit him. The Cheshire smile worked its way back onto his face. With renewed vigor—and every muscle in his body begging him to reconsider—Travis raised the Peony and swung. Shimmermoon raised her arms, crossing them to guard against the blow. Then he swung again. And again. And again. And with every block, Shimmermoon’s hair grew shorter and shorter. Just like how his beam katanas had a battery, so did Trixie’s and Sunset’s own weapon. It looked like they only had a little juice left. If he could just press the attack a little more, maybe… Finally, Shimmermoon gave a push against Travis, knocking him off his feet and over some seats. With a mighty yell, she raised both fists into the air, ready to bring them down and murder the shit out of Travis’ face. She brought the fists down. Travis brought the Peony up. And then there was a flash of blue-green light. Trixie felt the floor before she saw it, and it greeted her with a malicious punch to the everything. Her energy was straight-up gone—Spell 83 had sucked both her and Sunset dry. Sunset Shimmer herself had been socked clean away, spiraling through the air, across the stage, into the main stage light, where she got a nice tan to go with the sizzling pain. Trixie lifted her head as she watched Sunset shimmer, her pelt blackening, her mane sticking out at funny angles. Her heart sunk as her mentor finally peeled off the now-broken stage light, falling all the way down and landing with a shuddering thud. Her first instinct was to go to Sunset and make sure she was okay, or even still alive—an instinct thwarted by her aching, unresponsive limbs. Spell 83 took too much out of her, so much it left her weak and thirsty and dizzy and sluggish. And dead, if the hissing red beam of hard light hovering next to her head any say in the matter. Trixie could feel its heat prickling against the pelt on her face, and could hear Travis’ raspy, tired breath. The red beam glowered as it was raised. Trixie turned her head to see Travis holding the Peony like a golfer readying a swing. There was no way out of this, a part of Trixie told herself. Just… Just let it happen. He’ll make it quick. There’s no point in resisting, just let it happen. Just as Travis was about to bring the Peony down, there came a— “MASTER, WAIT!!!” …shout. (I hate it when the characters beat me to the dialogue.) Travis turned his head as a creature similar to his design—but noticeably feminine, with dark skin, snow-white hair, and goth chick clothing—jumped down from the rafters. She looked like she’d just ran a million miles. “Whoo!” she said, getting her bearings, “I made it just in time!” “Shinobu?” Travis asked, lowering the Peony. “The fuck are you doing here?” “I came,” Shinobu said before wheezing some air back into her lungs, “to stop you.” Travis looked from Shinobu to Trixie, then back. “You’re... gonna fight me? Seriously?” Shinobu looked at him, puzzled. “…Maybe I should rephrase that,” she said. “Then fucking rephrase it,” Travis retorted impatiently. Shinobu took a deep breath, running a hand through her hair. “I mean, I’m here to stop you from killing these two. They’re… uh… important.” Travis gave her the biggest what ever. She raised her hands defensively. “Look, I get you’re confused, Master, so am I. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I just need you to not kill them.” “It’s… fine,” Trixie said, suddenly pitiable. Both Travis and Shinobu looked to her, surprised. Trixie struggled back up to her hooves. “You know, I trained my heart out under Sunset Shimmer’s mentorship. Before I met her, I really screwed up. I got the entire kingdom of Equestria on my ass every time I stuck it out the door.” She scoffed. “She trained me for almost a whole year before I decided to get back into show business, to show off how much I’d grown. But…” Trixie looked out at the empty theater, her eyes grey, her heart broken, her voice flat. “I left those posters hanging up for three weeks to get plenty of time for advertisement. And this jerk’s the only one who showed up.” Her words hung damply in the air before she sighed. “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe there really isn’t any hope for me… just like they always said.” Travis popped an eyebrow as Trixie sat down like a defeated dog. “They always said I was trash,” she said in sudden bitterness. “Because my dad was the town drunk. Because they thought a worthless drunkard couldn’t produce anything of any value.” Her voice grew angrier. “Well, they never knew him, and they never knew me. He might never have been sober for longer than five hours, but he also never hit me, never missed a day of work, and never missed my birthdays. Everything Daddy did, he did for me!” She could no longer fight the salty tears running down her face as her last sentence echoed in the stadium. “But every story has an ending, doesn’t it?” she asks with a choked smile. “Mine just came sooner. I kinda wish it was a little happier, like in one of Daddy’s bedtime stories… but beggars can’t be choosers.” She looked at Shinobu. “It was valiant of you to try to stop this, but it’s okay,” she said softly. “Really. Nopony’s… gonna miss a failure like me. It's okay.” Silence. Suddenly, there came a clumsy clip-clop of hooves. Everyone looked behind Trixie to see Sunset Shimmer, burnt but very much alive, hobbling over, wearing a scowl. She stopped in front of Trixie. Snorted. Then popped her across the jaw. “Shut up!” she said angrily, her voice shaking. “I don’t ever wanna hear that bullshit out of you again! Understand?” Trixie looked at her like a child who’d just gotten spanked by her mom. She merely nodded dumbly, holding the side of her face where Sunset’s hoof connected. Then Sunset swept Trixie into a tight hug, tears streaking down her singed face. She sniffled, burying her face in Trixie’s mane. “Don’t ever say that,” she murmured. “D-Don’t ever.” There was a pause as the two ponies embraced. The Peony gave a hiss as its blade slunk back into its sheath. Travis put it back onto his belt as he turned away. Shinobu turned to look at him—and caught something sparkling as it fell from her Master’s eye. “Let’s just go,” he said curtly as he exited the theater. Shinobu looked from the exit, to Trixie and Sunset. She smiled as she followed her Master out. TRIXIE LULAMOON and SUNSET SHIMMER: DOUBLE K.O. Author's Note And now, the first Act of NOMOPO is finally complete. Tune in next time for the Shinobu levels. Don't worry--I removed the annoying platforming segments. By the way, if anyone's interested in more Trixie and Sunset Shimmer hijinx, read this story! [SHAMELESS PLUG]
Shinobu Goes to the Moon and Does Some Things!OK, so here’s what happened. It all started once I went to your apartment to take care of Jeane. I went through some of your messages to relay to you later—that reminds me, sorry about your cell phone—and I came across a call I found kinda scary. She sounded angry, but regal, like a queen. Then I received a fax from someone whose initials were “TR”, saying that you were in over your head, along with where you were. I knew I had to do something, so I bolted out the door, got my things together and sought out the only person I knew could help me… Naomi drew her gloved hand across her nose, sniffing obnoxiously as she turned in her seat to face the dark girl in the darker dress behind her. “You want me to what now?” Shinobu explained her situation up to this point, tastefully leaving out the Pinocchio porn and the perverted fangirl phone message. “And now,” she said as she came to a finish, “I’m going to need a way to reach that SHIT in outer space.” Naomi shifted in her chair, her dark hair bobbing—as well as the breasts that made up, like, fifty percent of her body. Her eyes swept the machines and other equipment resting quietly in the corners of her cool, airy workshop, as if looking for something that could help. She sighed. “Look, kid,” she said. “This isn’t my problem and I don’t have all day.” “But isn’t Master a friend of yours?” Naomi rolled her eyes, taking off her glasses while rubbing the bridge of her nose. “All I’m hearing outta you is ‘I’m broke’. And I don’t make friends with broke people.” She clapped her glasses back onto her face, turned in her chair, and returned her undivided attention to that arresting game of solitaire she was playing on her computer. Getting her helped proved difficult. She wanted money—and lots of it. So I tried it your way, Master: odd job after odd job. I soon grew sick of pulling weeds and catching scorpions (especially catching scorpions, I mean seriously what the hell is up with that), and once again picked up my sword to look for some assassination work. My first target was— “How fucking long is this gonna take? Be honest.” …W-What do you mean, Master? “I mean, seriously, do we have time for this?” …uh… “It’s been like three fucking months since the author updated this thing, and it’s been more than a year since he started. On top of that, we’re only done with the first act. See, that one other story the author’s been working on has been suffering from the same problem and I don’t need that bullshit here. Just do us all a fucking favor and get to the point.” …OK, fine, I get it, I get it. To make a long story short, it took me a few days and the going was rough, but I killed a lot of people and got enough money to pay her off. The silver suitcase was set onto the card table with a louder plunk than was necessary, the lock popping open on impact. Naomi felt like a pirate opening a chest of buried treasure: while there was no glint of gold coins or sparkling of diamonds, the collective stares of dead presidents was just as gratifying. “Okay,” she said, reaching in and grabbing a stack. She ran her thumb over one end, going through the money with a fluttering noise. “All right, now we’re talking.” She adjusted her glasses as she looked up at Shinobu, who was covered in bloodstains, held together with bandages, had a beartrap clamped in her hair, was soaked from head to toe, had a few knives sticking out her back, and scowled like the whole world hated her. Naomi coughed politely. “You, uh… You okay there, kid?” Shinobu snorted. “…You taunted them after every combo, didn’t you?” “Couldn’t help it,” Shinobu said glumly. “It’s a reflex. How soon can you get me to the SHIT?” “Well, I could do it this afternoon,” Naomi explained, dropping the stack back into the suitcase. “But honestly… don’t you think you need to see a doctor? Or take a break at least? You look like hell.” Shinobu sneered. Naomi was never this considerate when she didn’t have money… Naomi raised her hands defensively. “Hey yeah, I get it, none of my business. Mum’s the word.” After that, I got access to a spaceship she’d been working on. It wasn’t anything too big—more like a big, flying clown nose than anything else, really—but it got me to the SHIT. Plus, it got Pandora radio, so there’s that. Upon going through the SHIT, the spaceship malfunctioned. I mean, can you believe it? Forty million for that piece of junk! The ringing in Shinobu’s ears only started fading after she climbed out of the wrecked remains of the spaceship. She made a mental note to file a legal complaint against Naomi… if she didn’t strangle her first. Her legs wobbled as she stumbled out the spaceship’s door, her balance lost and her senses left dumb and hazy. When her feet left the ground, she expected to just tumble out, head over high heels, and look like a dork. Much to her surprise, she drifted over the ground, ghostlike. Shinobu blinked as her senses finally decided to come back. She looked about, taking in all the blackness and the glittering stars and the dusty, white surface beneath her. An upward glance revealed a large planet, slowly turning—but it looked nothing like Earth. “I’m on the moon!” she exclaimed. Of course, there was the little matter of being able to breathe, the insane amount of cold and pressure of outer space, but that’s junk I don’t care about, and frankly neither should you. Shinobu’s just that talented that she can not die in space just like Travis, okay? Since the spaceship was totaled, Shinobu had no choice but to simply explore the moon. She whistled a tune as she did so, bounding across the moon’s surface with attempted steps that shot her across the ground. It was a while before she became used to soaring several feet. The moon was like a cross between a tomb and a desert, mysterious and silent and lonely. The only real features of the moon besides the dusty ground were the craters of various sizes: some wide enough for Shinobu to hide in, some small enough that her foot was stuck once or twice, and some big enough to fit a whole baseball stadium. As she got used more and more to the weak gravity, Shinobu began to get a little more adventurous, pirouetting and spinning as gracefully as a ballerina as she launched herself across the surface. The little girl she was never allowed to be struck several silly poses in midair—the Egyptian, the Superhero, the Thinker, and her personal favorite, Marilyn Monroe. She landed with a demure thump, and stopped. Now was no time to have fun! Master was in trouble! Shinobu looked all about, now totally lost and still with no way to get off the moon. There was something in the distance. Something that glittered and glowed. I must have traveled all over the moon before I finally came into contact with the enemy’s base... Shinobu analyzed it curiously, leaning forward as if it would give her binocular vision or something. To no one’s surprise but her own, it didn’t—so she did more moon-leaps towards the glowy thing until its form became more definite. “…A castle?” Shinobu said aloud. And yes, it was a castle, thanks for asking. Interestingly, it was a cross between the classic fairy tale castle and a mad scientist lair you’d see in some science fiction movie. The castle spires were topped with glass orbs that housed various artificial environments, making the whole shebang look like a garden of bizarre neon mushrooms and lollipops. Forked tongues of light flicked from its base, as if attempting to draw attention to itself. Even more moon-leaps put Shinobu in the middle of a deep crater, where she sneaked forward bit by bit. Just ahead was the outer wall of the mysterious castle, and as she reached the edge of the crater, she carefully poked her head up. Darkly-colored ponies wearing wickedly designed black armor strolled about on patrol, their yellow eyes glimmering against the blackness of space. Some fluttered above on bat wings, while others leaned over and investigated the ground below with light emanating from twisted horns. A swath of light from one of those horns scanned the ground just in front of Shinobu. She dropped down and held fast against the wall of the crater, crushing her body down until the light passed her by. Shinobu took deep breaths, planning her next move. Obviously, if someone could build a castle on the moon and put guards in it, someone could have a spaceship or other means of getting off the moon. I wasn’t about to be left there for like a thousand years! There were many guards. Normally I wouldn’t be too concerned—after all, killing’s something you and I are good at—but these guys weren’t anything like I’d faced before. Horns that emit light and God knows what else? Flying around like bats? Fangs? And they had me beat in sheer numbers, too. This was a situation that called for stealth. “Fuck, are you serious?” Why, Master? What’s wrong now? “Because nobody likes a goddamn stealth mission. The only ones that were any good ended up being pretentious and long-winded anyway.” But… “I don’t really wanna sit through a stealth mission. Can’t you just skip it or something?” But it’s an important part of the story! “No it fucking isn’t. The only reason anybody’s reading this shitty story at all is because of the awesome fight scenes. Stealth missions are too slow. Slow pace means high word count—and you know how readers react to that!” …OK, fine. Jeez, first the money-raising missions, now the stealth... [DELETED SCENE] She’d explored the entire castle—through its Escherian hallways—through its alien gardens—through its exotic kitchens—through its mysterious laboratories—and she’d been quiet as a shadow on a wall. She’d disappeared when a guard would turn his head her way. She’d hid in darkness and in foliage and in cardboard boxes. She was so sure she couldn’t be caught. The moment she set foot in the elevator, she found out how wrong she was. The elevator itself was a huge, round platform of brick and stone, made grey and lit only by the torches on the walls. It had a very medieval dungeon feel to it, save for the huge gears that suddenly squealed to life and dragged the elevator down at an ominously slow pace. Then the haunting howl of a pipe organ filled Shinobu’s ears with its eerie song—and her heart with dread. As the elevator descended, as the pipe organ played, as the gears squealed from equal parts exertion and neglect, Shinobu’s spine prickled with the sense of impending doom. She gripped her sword tightly with one hand, but stood straight and tall, her heart clawing against her chest. Somewhere up above came a hiss. Shinobu, against her better judgment, looked up. She was met by the glowing yellow eyes and the gleaming white fangs of the bat-pony guards as they climbed down from the darkness like spiders out of a hole. Shinobu’s katana sprung from its sheath, its glimmer ghost white and its shrill shriek like a banshee’s. Down from the wall jumped three of the ponies, their fanged smiles miles wide, their eyes burning in their sockets like fireballs. The first sprung forth, his mighty bat wings pumping to give him lift as he opened his vampire mouth. There was a swing—then head and body divorced and fell to the ground, the elevator floor stained red. The second shot forth right after the first and joined him just as quickly. But the third was smart: his magic grabbed onto Shinobu’s katana, pulling it in random directions playfully. He chuckled menacingly as more of his fellows dropped down for round two. Finally, Shinobu let go of the katana—and just as the unicorn… demon… guy… let’s just call them demonicorns. Anyway, just as the demonicorn commanded the katana to eviscerate its owner, Shinobu drop-kicked him into one of the others, knocking them both over. The katana fell to the floor and clattered noisily. Shinobu ran, slid, grabbed her katana, then sprung up in a Shoryuken and lopped the head off another bat-pony. There was a never-ending stream of the little bastards, all fangs and glowing eyes and curved horns and bat wings and malicious intent. Many blows were taken. Many deaths followed. Shinobu had lost count of how many she’d slain, but the elevator’s stone floor was going from cool grey to blood red considerably fast. Bodies and pieces of bodies, piled here, piled there, blank eyes and slacked jaws and limbs that twitched before going still. Panic gripped Shinobu as the organ music filled her ears over the screaming and shrieking of the descending monsters. Her heart pounded against her chest as if demanding to be freed. Beads of sweat flew from her face as she moved like lightning, striking and striking and striking her enemies like an act of God. Throughout all the chaos, the organ’s ominous song grew louder and more intense. At last, the elevator came to a halt, shuddering so suddenly, it threw Shinobu off her feet. The remaining demonicorns and bat-ponies descended on her as she fell, screeching and laughing with warbling, distorted voices. There were bites and scratches and the pounding of hooves—interrupted suddenly by Shinobu's thunderous roar, coupled with a sudden upward thrust of wind and blade. The demonicorns and bat-ponies were all tossed like waves, with Shinobu escaping what could have been a vicious end, covered only in bruises and cuts. Her katana sang through the air, a long white tongue of metal that ghosted through her approaching enemies, tentacles of blood escaping open wounds. At last, only one foe remained. His eyes flickered in the low lighting, glowing as ominously as his horn. Shinobu’s lungs and heart and limbs and head were all screaming for mercy, her breath escaping her in desperate rattles. There was a ringing in her ears that deafened the organ music. The two circled one another like predators, until finally the demonicorn charged, his horn aglow and teeth bared. Shinobu swung her katana soundlessly, and the demonicorn ran by her almost absentmindedly, completely unaware that his two halves were falling away. Both his left and right fell to the elevator floor with a wet flop. Shinobu finally relaxed. Her shaky breaths became shaky sighs as her katana suddenly gained a thousand pounds, pulling her wobbling arms down almost to her knees. Sweat rolled down her dark skin, soaking her socks and pooling around her feet. With concentrated effort, she managed to sheathe her blade. Then the organ music ground into an intense conclusion, drawing Shinobu back into the present. The elevator had stopped on a floor that stretched forever in every direction, save for the small shrine before her. Stained-glass windows depict a terrifying horse goddess burning the planet while six ponies surround her. Statues of mares and stallions in various stages of grief and distress bow toward a small, cobblestone dais that holds the pipe organ. And there, hunched over the organ, was its musician, a long black cloak trailing down, rolling right off the dais and across the floor. She turned her head slowly, taking longer than needed, revealing a long, dark blue horn, glittering blue eyes, and the most sinister smile Shinobu had ever seen. “So another pest has arrived,” said the figure. Hers was the exact same angry, regal voice from the phone message... Shinobu tightened her grip on her katana.
Shinobu Fights A Princess Or Something!“It’s been nearly two years,” the pony began as she drew near to Shinobu, “since your insipid friend came here. The deaths that followed have been gruesome and many.” She stopped just in front of the elevator. Her eyes, blue and mysterious and full of anger, scanned the piles of body parts and the pools of blood that covered the elevator. They fixate on Shinobu—Shinobu, who caused this; Shinobu, who slaughtered her subjects; Shinobu, who is soaked head to toe in their blood. “And now another rat follows,” she said, the words slithering slowly from her mouth. “I’m just here to rescue Master,” Shinobu said. There was pause. Then the pony-unicorn-princess-thing threw her head back and the entire chamber was suddenly filled with wicked cackling that changed pitch with every guffaw. Suddenly, the black cloak exploded into a swarm of shrieking bats, their wings carrying them up and away into the elevator shaft above. Shinobu shielded her eyes out of reflex, putting her hand down slowly, looking into the intense, hateful blue eyes of the nocturnal demon before her. Wings of a pegasus fluttered angrily at her sides. Horn of a unicorn glimmered ominously, painting her scowling crumple of a face in its light. Her mane flowed dreamily, rolling and licking like an oceanic wave of midnight. Suddenly, Shinobu wanted a plushie of her. “Rescue?” the pony princess spat. She nickered. “Your Master requires no rescue. He appeared to us, sudden as the breaking sound of thunder, swinging blades of light and howling words of rage. He brought, and still does bring, grief and misery and horror to my land.” Her horn glowed more intensely than it did before, and a screen sprang up from the nothingness around them. On it played scenes of Travis’ previous battles. How he’d sliced Rarity in half. How he’d blown Rainbow Dash to smithereens. How he’d ended Applejack. The screen then displayed graveyards becoming fuller, houses becoming emptier. Throughout this showing, Shinobu said nothing. Finally, the screen changed again, this time showing the moon. And on the moon was a castle that looked like a garden of glowing mushrooms. And in this castle was a cannon, loaded and glowing. Shinobu’s eyes widened. “You’re going to blow up your own planet?!” The pony shook her head. “Nay,” she said, “if your idiot Master had only listened to the stealth part of your story, you and the readers would all know that this cannon is zeroing in on his unique signature. I aim to scorch him off this earth. ” Shinobu waved her hand. “Whoa, wait,” she said, “I’ve seen this show before, and I remember you. You’re supposed to be some kind of powerful magic Princess or something. Why can’t you just go down there and try to defeat Master face to face?” The screen vanished, leaving the two of them in the almost-darkness. “Doing so would be suicide, even for a Princess of my power and standing,” said the pony. “He has survived several situations that would have disintegrated anyone else. He is obviously a foe we must approach with tact and guile.” She blinked. “Plus I’ve always wanted to blow something up with a giant laser. It’s been my dream since I was a filly.” “…What?” Shinobu asked with some concern. Luna shrugged. Her horn glowed once more, this time coupled with an ominous rumble shaking the whole castle like it owed the rumble money. “The countdown has initiated,” she said to Shinobu’s horror. “In five minutes, your Master will be just a memory.” An anger fueled by terror was injected into Shinobu’s mind, drawing her lips back, clenching her teeth down, tightening the already titanic grip she had on her katana. She snorted fiercely. Just as the word memory had finished slipping from Luna’s lips, other words escaped Shinobu’s. They weren’t words she often used, and besides her Master, she didn’t really like hearing them out of other people, but for the situation, it felt appropriate. I’d actually write them, but it’d take up at least a thousand words and I don’t have that kind of time to waste these days, as you’ve no doubt noticed. In either case, Luna’s face had gone ash-white at how crass and tasteless Shinobu’s outburst was. The white quickly turned to an angry red. “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO A PRINCESS IN SUCH A TONGUE!!!” she bellowed in a voice that left a ringing in Shinobu’s ears. “THE TIME HAS COME TO TEACH THEE, NAÏVE ROGUE, THE IMPORTANCE OF MANNERS AND CLEAN LANGUAGE!!!” Before Shinobu had any time to react, Luna was in her face, along with a hoof. One punch was all it took to knock the tired, beaten-up Shinobu out. Light flashed, scrubbing away the darkness. What replaced the darkness was like something off a black metal album cover: mysterious bags dangled from the ceiling on hooks, along with black birdcages and elaborate coffins. Twisting brambles wormed through most everything, save for the statues of tall, spindly things with indistinct conical faces, with tiny hands holding pitchforks, with long crooked tails. Shinobu gulped uneasily. “Wh-What is this place?” “Let’s call it the Horizon,” came a voice. Shinobu turned her head behind her, where the voice had come from. The voice had sounded much like Princess Luna from before, but there standing behind her, was instead her Master. He was clad, head to foot, with black leather duds, much of it spike-studded, as if he had joined a biker gang. Perhaps most frightening about his appearance, besides the menacing length and sound of the Peony he held at his side, was the black void he wore for his face. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, no glasses—merely a suckling darkness that belched a noise like a neverending scream. The scream dulled as Not Master looked to his knuckles, dusting them against his jacket. He looked back up to Shinobu, and a giant eye that looked like something out of one of those silent films from the thirties peeked from inside the hole. It blinked, then went away. “This is where dreams die,” Not Master explained in what was clearly Princess Luna’s voice, tinny and faraway as it was. “They are brought here, kicking and screaming, and dropped off to starve. Gradually, they pervert into horrid shapes, then die and become something like a zombie that never leaves you.” He stopped talking and the screaming resumed. “L-Like night terrors?” Shinobu asked. She hadn’t realized how scared she was until she spoke. She was too busy shivering from that fucking eye peering at her. The screaming quieted before Not Master gave his reply, motioning towards himself. “This is the Tantabus, Mark II. Like its predecessor, it is a device meant to embody someone’s worst nightmares. In this case, yours. ” Shinobu’s fingers snaked around her katana, shaking and shivering like leaves in the wind. She said nothing, her lungs pumping air in and out in torrents, her eyes widening and her nostrils flaring. She cleared her throat, then suddenly wondered how her body could keep working even though she was asleep. Was this just her imagination? What was anything? Not Master walked around Shinobu, lazily spinning the Peony. The baritone of its hum groaned lazily as it formed arc after arc. “I want to put forth an experiment, if you will. Have you ever heard of bed death? It occurs unexpectedly when one is asleep. To cut a long story short, many assume this phenomenon occurs while the victim is dreaming. They think that dying in a dream results in dying in the waking world.” He stopped. The screaming intensified. He turned, and inside the hole in his head was a mouth with jagged teeth, opening and closing and flicking a forked tongue, in the same strange silent film colors as the eye. He raised the Peony, pointing it at Shinobu. It might have only been four inches from her, but she could feel the heat rolling off of it—which again made her wonder how and why everything felt so intense if it’s all really just a dream. “The first Tantabus didn’t become powerful enough to achieve bed death. Let’s see if this one can remedy that.” Tantabus II thrust the Peony forward, its tip nearly impaling Shinobu’s face if she hadn’t nimbly dodged it. The Peony went up, the hole in Tantabus II’s face screaming the whole while as he swung it left, right, up, down. The arcs it left behind reminded Shinobu of wide, clownlike grins. How could a katana withstand the heat of the Peony without warping? As Shinobu discovered, quite well, actually: when she stood her ground and countered an incoming blow from above, the Peony bounced off with a surprised shriek, the entirety of the Horizon shuddering at the impact, a sensation that lasted for perhaps two seconds. The two seconds were all Shinobu needed. With a bounding leap, she closed the gap between herself and Tantabus II, and her katana formed an arc, another silver smile that flashed for a single moment before colliding with her target. What escaped him was the color of nightmares, and was ejected in a flock like flies. Something spun in the air, and as the flies began to part the something fell to what passed for ground here. The arm convulsed for a bit, dropping the Peony to the floor, where it rolled to a stop, and, with a whimpering hiss, the twelve feet of red melted away. Tantabus II clutched his arm as more flies flew from where the elbow had been. Shinobu stood, lifting her katana and pointing it at him. Both stared each other down. Or at least, Shinobu knew she was—who the hell knew if Tantabus II could stare thanks to that blank hole of his. He leaned forward, convulsing. Shinobu heard a chuckle fluttering from lungs a million miles away. Suddenly, Tantabus II lurched as if vomiting, his whole body deflating like a balloon and falling flat to the ground. From that hole in his head was launched a headless horse that, against everything Shinobu believed in, still released an angered whinnying that echoed for miles and miles. Its hooves thundered across the Horizon as it sped right for Shinobu. She swung. It exploded into more black flies. An angry whinny from behind. Shinobu turned and swung again, at another headless horse. More flies. Again, from the left. Again, she swung, and again, more flies erupted. This continued for some time, with Shinobu striking down each and every headless horse, bursting them into flies. As the flies fled from the bodies of the horses, they flew upward and became a pitch black thundercloud. Shinobu looked up at the cloud, and like the clouds she used to gaze up at in Santa Destroy, this thundercloud took a shape. It was a horse. Or rather, a nightmare in the shape of one. At least this one had a head—and a billowing nighttime mane to go with it. She was similar in appearance to Princess Luna, save for the obvious black instead of dark blue, not to mention the garish silver armor she wore. She threw her head back and released a sound halfway between a horse’s whinny and a dentist’s drill. Almost as if following a command, the demon statues nearby groaned loudly as their parts moved and came to life. They lifted themselves up on strange, spindly legs, their conical faces wiggling as they snuffled the cold air. Then those conical faces looked, eyelessly, right at Shinobu, and their tiny hands—each one probably the size of a nickel with fingers the length of teeth—clasped harder around their pitchforks. The spider legs that stuck from their backs began to spin, and Shinobu realized then that those things were supposed to be wings. They lifted off and lunged right for her as the cloud-Luna laughed. She changed the boss fight mid-battle? You’re shitting me. Just shitting me. I’m not kidding, Master! She really pulled that. I wasn’t pleased either, especially since those two statues really had nothing to do with ponies or assassins. They were just kinda there. I honestly wonder what the author was thinking when they got included. Eh, he was probably cranking some Rob Zombie or some shit and just thought the idea was cool. Probably. Either way, the rest of the fight went like this… The conical-faced demons leapt down, the ground and the brambles all shuddering upon their impact. Only when one was close did Shinobu realize how big they were. It was like a child facing Godzilla—if Godzilla were a Lovecraftian monstrosity and the child was highly skilled in samurai arts. The demon thrusted its spear down at Shinobu, only for its target to vanish and its spear to impale the ground with a crash. It glanced closer, its three tiny eyes blinking one after the other as it saw a diminutive figure running up its spear handle, sword in hand, before she leapt up into its face. It was like a hyperactive spider biting the ear of a wolf, its poison spreading throughout its victim’s body. One swing cleaved the tip of the demons’ cone-face, the second shearing off another section, the third doing much the same, and so on. By the time Shinobu got to the arched, brontosaurus-like neck of the creature, it was completely headless. With a quick and careful step, Shinobu held fast to her katana as she leapt for the second demon, who at this time leapt into the air to bring its spear down on its fellow to skewer Shinobu. Unfortunately, its mission to make a Shinobu-ka-bob was a total bust: all it did was give her a quicker way to travel up its spear. Second verse, same as the first. The thundercloud creature shrieked in anger as Shinobu killed its servants. As the last demon fell to the ground, Shinobu wondered how on earth she was going to defeat the thundercloud creature. Then she looked at the demon’s bodies and found an answer. Shinobu used her sword to carve one of the demons like a turkey, and put the piece in her mouth, chewed it, and swallowed. It tasted like chicken. ….That’s seriously some fucked-up Hellraiser shit right there. I know it sounds weird, Master, but you have to remember, this was a dream. It made sense at the time. I know, I know, but holy fuck. Shinobu ate the demons, tearing the meat off their bones and swallowed them with greedy gulps. When she finished, she realized the demons were dead and she was fifty feet tall. Now that Shinobu was a giant, she could cleave that cloud in two. She drew her sword and threw it at the cloud. It became a silver serpent and slithered through the roaring sounds of the Horizon, penetrating the black cloud easily. The black cloud parted and welcomed the silver serpent with a song that ended abruptly, with a sound like an elephant stomping on a sousaphone. The black cloud reformed as the same nightmarish armored unicorn from before—only now did Shinobu realize it was Princess Luna’s less-amicable form of Nightmare Moon—and she charged Shinobu with the force of a million trains. Without a weapon, Shinobu attempted to wrestle Nightmare Moon, like her Master would have done. But Nightmare Moon was crafty and ducked her head when Shinobu reached for her, stuck the horn between Shinobu’s legs, lifted her up, and tossed her over. She fell for a second. She fell for a year. She fell for hours. But the important part is, she landed, and the dreams she’d crushed weren’t happy about it. One of them had been dreaming he was BATMAN, for Christ’s sake, and when he clambered onto the invasive giant’s ear, he made sure she wouldn’t forget it. Nightmare Moon chased Shinobu into the web of countless dreams, where she lied in a state between subconsciouses, dazed as fuck. Then Nightmare Moon opened her mouth and vomited a giant wasp. Shinobu saw the wasp as it lumbered for her. She shook her head to remove the obnoxious creature complaining in her ear (saying something about Batman) and reached out to grab the wasp. It broke in her hand like glass. The pieces formed an army and rebelled against Nightmare Moon. They latched onto her legs and buried their heads inside them like ticks. Then they exploded. Shinobu reached into a nearby dream where someone was dreaming she was a samurai, and pulled the katana from her hands. She probably shouldn’t have done so—the dreamer was surrounded by armed villains. But, hey, c’est la vie and all that shit. Nightmare Moon stumbled about on legs that were going to yogurt as more of the soldiers exploded. She began to breath fire as her horn grew miles long. She swung her horn in a desperate attempt to stop Shinobu’s swing. … … …And? …And, that’s it, Master. I won. I beat her in the dream, and when I came to, I found her crown on the ground. She wasn’t anywhere else. Here it is, in fact. Ooh, shiny. Fucking sweet. I needed to hock something to the pawn shops. But, let’s continue. So I found an escape pod and shot for earth… And the ride there was bumpy. Shinobu felt like she’d been put in a blender set on chaos, and as the pod hit the atmosphere, it only got worse. She was thankful that she hadn’t eaten any lunch before this, and thankful more that she left her katana sheathed for this trip. When the pod hit the ground, Shinobu was pretty sure she was either dead or shaken into a jelly—which would still render her dead. Hours passed in darkness. Her eyelids fluttered, threatening to open, then relenting and letting her sleep since sleep was so much nicer. It was nicer because, Shinobu suspected, her dreams were not anywhere near the Horizon. She dreamed she was with Master, sitting on a log in a meadow. They were talking about the future.
