Everybrony's dream

      Alex grunted as he heaved the dirt encrusted slab of concrete off the trailer and into his arms, sweat trickling down his forehead and beading on the tip of his nose as he threw the heavy chunk of man-made stone into a waiting hole. The slab bounced off the edge and into the hole, slamming against its similarly sized and weighted brothers with a series of loud cracks and thuds, before coming to a rest at the edge of the pile.

Pulling off his aviator sunglasses, he wiped the fogged up lenses with a corner of his discarded shirt, wiping the grime off his bare chest and upper abdomen as he did so. Alex was in peak physical condition, having trained for two years almost every day so he would be ready to join the Marines at the end of his college program. He wasn’t a meathead, but he was toned and could lift up to two and a half times his own body weight using just his upper body without flinching; a perk that came in handy when you were in his line of work. He’d taken up a summer job helping out one of his dad’s work friends with odd jobs around his farm. For the past week he had been tasked with moving and burying a large pile of concrete cinder blocks and slabs.

He pulled out his iPod touch, thumbing the slide to unlock it and checked the time on his watch before selecting ‘Cinderella man’ and began nodding his head to the beat. Peering around the small leafy clearing he dumped the concrete in, he breathed in slowly, savoring the outside air as it played across his dirt, sweat and bug spray encrusted chest. Taking in the beauty of the large sumac plants to his front and the rolling grassy meadow behind him, above him grey clouds hung and while they weren’t just ready to release the cargo they were holding just yet, he wished it would rain just a little.

Leaning back down he grasped two cinder blocks, one in each gloved hand and stacked them on a separate pile of whole blocks, to be used for a different project at a different time. His mind went into a kind of trance as he worked, head still nodding to the beat of his music as he thought what he was going to later on tonight?

Alex heaved the last two concrete slabs onto the pile with a sigh and walked around the trailer to the massive Massey Ferguson tractor attached to it. The huge red workhorse lovingly dubbed ‘Big Mac’ by him, after a character in one of his favorite cartoons. People would laugh at him, and probably think him to be some sort of pedophile, or crazed furry if they ever found out that one of his favorite shows was intended for little girls, but he didn’t care. So long as he didn’t let it slip that he loved Friendship is Magic, (especially when he joined the corps) he would be fine.

“Hey!”

Alex spun around and pulled on his shirt at the same time as he heard the unexpected noise.

His jaw dropped, as he viewed a smoking hot blonde, about 20 something standing about 15 feet into the sumac. She was wearing a pair of daisy dukes, and a checkered red flannel shirt, buttoned low to show off her cleavage.

“Ahwhaaa…” He responded as she made her way towards him, brilliant green eyes staring up at him as he sat on the tractor’s hard metal seat.

“Ah was hikin with my cousins and ah seem to have gotten lost…” She replied in a heavy southern belle accent and a slightly amused expression on her face. “Y’all wouldn’t mind helpin me find the trail ah was on, would ya?”

Alex blinked and shook his head, trying his hardest not to stare down the newcomers shirt as she reached him. “Uh… Sure, hang on a minute…” He wasn’t aware that there were any trails leading behind the farm, but he’d always been taught to help out ‘damsels in distress.’

He pulled the keys from the ignition and jumped down, almost face planting into the blonde’s ample chest. She merely giggled at this and motioned for him to lead the way. There was something oddly familiar about the her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Mighty kind of ya!”

The two walked in silence, Alex leading, the stranger following. He had tried starting a conversation, but was ignored each time, or was replied to with single word answers.

As they reached another small clearing, the girl laid a hand on Alex’s back, looking up at him and smiling encouragingly. Alex smiled back, unsure of what to say or do at the surprise contact.

“You uh… Weren’t actually lost, were you?”

“Sure as sugar wasn’t…”

He grunted as she struck him in the side of the face, the surprise blow sending him staggering further into the clearing; this wasn’t the sequence of events he’d been expecting at all. Not that he’d been expecting anything to happen other than to deliver her to the path. Maybe get a number?

“What the fu…” He started, but doubled over and backed away even further, as she struck him in the gut.

Recovering, he backed further into the middle of the clearing, intent on avoiding another blow. He gazed up at where the woman was, eyes watering slightly as he gasped for air; but she wasn’t there any longer. Instead, the woman had been replaced by a sinister looking orange…

“No fucking way…” He wheezed as he rose to his feet.

“Shut it scum!” She lunged at him again, but this time he was ready for it.

He stepped to the side a little, catching her as she vaulted towards him and absorbing her forward momentum as he grasped the struggling orange pony and brought her to the ground. He placed a hand over her muzzle, the other along with his weight resting upon her chest.

“What in the fuck… Applejack?! You aren’t real!”

He yelped in pain as the orange mare chomped down on his fingers, sending a spurt of crimson blood flying high into the air.

“An’ you ain’t supposed to fight back!” She struggled against him and succeeded in bucking him off before giving a sharp, shrill whistle.

Seemingly out of nowhere, two unicorns appeared, dressed in glossy metallic black armor; one black, the other a dappled brown. The brown one stepped forward, horn glowing and grinning menacingly as an aura of brown magic surrounded Alex.

He could feel the magic pricking his skin slightly, as if someone were lightly tapping sharp fingernails into his skin repeatedly; the sensation was a bit more pleasurable to him, rather than painful.

“Buck, not another one with 2214a…”

Applejack muttered under her breath, before shouting and pawing the ground “Looks like we have ta’ wrassle this one the old fashioned way!”

All three of the ponies charged him, two unicorns and an earth pony, the unicorns bearing down on him with sharp horns while the orange mare hung back a little. Alex dropped into a linebacker’s stance, lowering himself to the ground and pulling his Leatherman from the sheath on his belt, using his thumb to flick open the small single edged blade. It wouldn’t do him much good, but it may ward the two attackers off for the time being.

The black unicorn struck him under the armpit before he could counter, and Alex grunted as he was thrown off his feet into a soft patch of tangled long grass. Before he knew it, the grey one was on top of him, horn lowered at his neck.

Without thinking, he grabbed the horn and yanked the head aside with all his strength, deftly spun the Leatherman in his palm and jammed the sharp pointy blade into the pony’s right eye.

Blinking and gritting his teeth, he grimaced as a fountain of hot red blood spouted from the wound and splashed across his face, accompanied by a ragged cry as the pony stumbled backwards; eyeball popping out of the socket and staying attached to the base of the knife gripped in his blood covered hands. A string of red and blue cords still hung limply out of the brown unicorn’s eye socket as he collapsed, hooves clasping his face and still crying out in pain. Alex rose to his feet, charging the stunned black unicorn and lashed out with the heel of his left palm, breaking the pony’s nose, sending him reeling backwards with a sickening crunch, before he toppled; either dead or unconscious he didn’t know.

Alex’s eyes widened slightly as he was bowled over by the orange mare for the second time, the two of them straining against each other, both equally matched. She stomped him in the face and wrists, opening a gash on his face just above his left eyebrow and causing his nose to start bleeding like a faucet. He felt the knife slip from his fingers as she slowly pinned his arms to the ground, while he jammed his booted feet against belly, readying to kick her off.

“Ah ain’t never had someone fight back like you do… Those were two o’ mah best!” She snarled, before leaning in close and whispering in his ear “Thas’ kinda sexy...”

“The Fuck!” he yelled as a response and kicked out his legs to the side, rolling himself on top of the orange pony, who merely smiled seductively up at him and snapped her teeth.

He recoiled slightly and stared down at her, for the first time actually taking a good look at the mare. She didn’t look like a pony from his world, more like her cartoonish version; a bit more defined, sharper around the edges. But this wasn’t the Applejack he knew from the show. She looked the same yes, but she had a more hardened look in her eyes, along with a few scars on her face. She looked as if she had seen hell and helped create it at the same time, the thousand yard stare.  He didn’t exactly enjoy the prospect.

“Well, whaddare ‘ya waiting for!” She half growled, half whispered up at him, licking her upper lip with her orange tongue. “DO IT!”

“Fuck off. I ain’t that kinda brony!” He snarled back, keeping her pinned and watching with grim satisfaction as her expression changed from seductive, to aggressive.

“Don’t tell me that shit! All ya bronies are tha same! You’d buck anypony ifn y’all had a chance!”

“Maybe they would, but I ain’t like tha…”

“BOINK!”

White stars exploded in Alex’s field of vision as something collided with the back of his skull. He pitched forward, face first and only semi conscious into the earth beside the orange pony’s face and rolled off her, unable to even move his limbs because of the pain in his head.

“Pinkie… Pinkie do good?” He faintly heard, as he felt the orange mare wiggle herself free from under him.

“Yeah… Yeah, Pinkie did good.” He heard the orange pony reply, “Now drag this lump back to the portal, ya useless bucking lump o’ shit!”

Just before his vision faded to black, he heard a loud smack and a yelp as something gripped his ankle and the orange mare reached down and whispered into his ear:

“You’re going to make me a very rich mare, y’all know that?”

Alex jolted to consciousness, feeling a sharp pain in his head and on his side, accompanied with the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. He tried to jerk away from the pain, but he was held in place by an unseen physical force.

“Ah, so it’s awake...” Came a heavy southern accent from just behind him, accompanied by another stinging pain in his side. “Not so tough now you’re all tied up, are ‘ya darling?”

Struggling slightly, he turned his head. Just in time to watch as the orange pony he once loved so dearly kick him savagely in the face.

"Fucking die in a hole." He spat back at her, covering her face in blood and spittle.

"Now now, that's no way to treat your new master, is it?" She replied coyly, not even flinching as the blood he sprayed at her dripped slowly down her cheek.

He recoiled in shock as her orange tongue slowly poked through, gently wiping the blood and spittle that lingered on her upper lip.

"y’all will break eventually. You humans always do."

She got off of him, revealing a fresh brand over his right kidney in the shape of an apple. He tried to twist himself as she stepped back slightly, but gave up immediately as a white hot lance of pain shot through his side, almost sending him into unconsciousness.

For five full minutes he simply lay there, contemplating just not getting up. How easy would it be to just not get up? His head throbbed, the dull pain bringing him back to his senses; one of his own personal mottos, ‘you can sleep when you’re dead,’ playing through his head as he pulled it upwards and surveyed his surroundings, noting that he his hands were tied behind his back and feet tied together. He was in a large square dark clearing surrounded by massive redwood trees; in one corner one large freshly dug grave.

Rolling up to a sitting position, he winced as his flesh stung again, thankfully nowhere near as bad as before though. A derisive snort from the orange pony shook the last of the throbbing numbness from his head. Wonderful, she was still watching him.

"What happened to your colt friends?" he sneered, spitting out another globule of blood as he did.

"Y'all killed 'em. Pity, they were good servants."

She rounded and kicked him again, this time in the chest, causing him to slam backwards onto his back; him wincing and biting his tongue to suppress the urge to scream as the brand slapped painfully against the cold, hard ground.

His eyes widened as he felt something poke him in the thigh as he did. While he orange pony had removed his knife from the sheath on his waist, she had yet to check his pockets. He still had the tractor keys, which he knew had a mini Swiss Army knife on a keychain attached to them.

Kicking savagely, he drove his tied and booted feet into the orange pony's chest, sending her toppling backwards; just the distraction he needed to quickly slip the keychain from his pocket and behind his back. He paid for the maneuver almost immediately however, as the orange pony jumped to her feet and another white hot lance struck him, uttering a strangled cry as the pain shot the length of his back. The orange pony kicked him again and again, repeatedly raining savage blows down on his body as he tried in vain to defend himself; managing to land a couple kicks in as the adrenaline began rushing through his veins.

Lashing out one last time, the pony spat down on his bleeding body; him now unable to feel any pain as he slowly opened the small knife and began shaving away at the ropes around his hands. Wordlessly, the pony trotted off towards the tent, clearly intent on nursing her own wounds.

He jumped slightly, as something slowly nuzzled his hands; causing him to nearly drop the knife.

"Sorry about the pan earlier... Needed to keep up appearances. You alright?"

He jumped slightly as the ropes fell away from his hands and feet. Adrenaline still rushing, he turned to his savior, involuntarily recoiling from what he saw.

It... Well it had been Pinkie Pie at one point. Her face was scarred from multiple beatings, normally poufy mane straight and matted with god knows what. The color of her coat and mane had faded drastically, her coat an almost white and mane an almost salt and pepper grey, a few pink splotches still remained, looking oddly out of place on the defeated looking mare in front of him.

He had to quell both the urge to jump back again, and the urge to throw his arms around the party pony out of sheer despair. He knew his world was like this; it was always the most joyful ones who got fucked up the worst… The thought made him shudder slightly, as he wondered what could’ve befallen Fluttershy?

“What? Is there something in my mane?” The pony asked, mock panic in her voice and a sad smile playing over her face, “This is what happens to you if you’re a party pony and Nightmare Moon wins…”

“You mean the elements of harmony failed to stop Nightmare Moon?”

“We stopped her… Well, we thought we did… Celestia IS Nightmare Moon… Well, Sol I suppose…”

Alex inhaled, not 100% surprised; Celestia was a grade A troll, and one hell of a tyrant after all. “Wait… What?”

Pinkie sighed, as if she’d had to explain this dozens of times before, “When we defeated Nightmare the first time, she wasn’t completely vanquished… Basically, in her weakened state she inhabited the most powerful thing in the room… Celestia. Kind of like a virus that only targets powerful ponies… Anyway, Nightmare didn’t make herself known until a year after our first Grand Galloping Gala… It’s been ten years since that day.” She inhaled briefly, fearfully glancing at Applejack’s tent before continuing, “Some of us turned to support Nightmare Moon… Some of us didn’t; Twilight, Dash, Fluttershy and I… Though they don’t know about me just yet.”

“What about Applejack and Rarity?” He asked calmly.

“Applejack at first was against it… She was captured and… Broken. Rarity was just… Brought in by it.”

He expected something like this would happen, though he really only expected Twilight and Rarity to cross over… Rarity because underneath all that ‘generosity’ lived a greedy, jealous monster. Twilight because she was ‘Celestia’s faithful student;’ though he was pleasantly surprised at Twilight’s refusal to join ranks with her mentor.

“And you?” he asked tentatively.

“Double agent.” She replied matter of factly. “At least, I am now… You must be special, never seen a brony stand up to Applejack like that. Most of them just lie back and take it, even if they have 2214.”

Alex chuckled slightly, wincing as a sharp pain stabbed through his chest “It was dumb luck really… I was never properly trained to fight, even in cadets we only learned basic self-defense. Self-defense meant to defend against other humans mind you… I’m just lucky I remembered I had my knife on me…” He paused for a second, “what exactly is 2214?”

Pinkie sighed, rolling her eyes as if he should know this by now, “It’s a gene that makes you near immune to unicorn magic…”

Alex frowned, “wait, near immune?”

“Well yeah… If a unicorn magically throws a rock at you, or turns the ground underneath you into lava, you’re pretty much gonzo!… Though, there are only a select few who can transmogrify objects, so don’t be worried… But watch out for flying rocks all the same…” Suddenly, her eyes grew wide and her expression suspicious; “Wait… What do you mean you expected this? And what in the hay are ‘cadets’?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “Well… Uh… I was thinking of an alternate Equestria, kinda like this one time… I guess it was bound to happen, you can’t keep something as powerful as Nightmare Moon tied down for long… I mean, when you think about it, you ponies are all symbols representing the goodness of mankind… Or err, sentient life in general? Anyways, we all know evil is in every living thing’s nature, despite what they put on the outside...”

She cocked her head, not exactly giving him the impression she agreed with him, but not exactly giving him the impression that she didn’t. His train of thought was interrupted however, as an ominous rustling emanated from the tent the orange pony had disappeared into. Pinkie meanwhile, sucked in a long harsh gasp, before shooting off into the forest, leaving him alone in the clearing.

“Now… We can’ have y’all starving now can we? Gotta keep ya’ niicceee an’ healthy fo… WHAT IN TARNATION!”

Before he knew it, the orange pony (having dropped a thoroughly unappetizing looking bowl of grey looking mush from her jowls) was on top of him again. Her hooves pinning his shoulders down as she grabbed the rope back in her mouth, attempting to tie him up again. Alex wouldn’t have it.

Kicking upwards, he propelled the orange pony off of him, winding her in the process. Before she could recover, he hurled his broken and bruised frame onto her, blood gushing from a fat lip and multiple facial wounds as he pinned her to the ground; making sure to keep both her fore and hind legs splayed outwards, to prevent her from using a similar kick maneuver on him.

His head spun every time she struggled, as his body cried out in protest under her exertions. After what seemed to be an eternity, she finally gave up and glared up at him; face changing from innocent, to pure hatred, to seductive, then back again, almost as fast as he could blink.

“Well, well well… Someone likes ta’ be the dominant one…”

Alex head-butted her before she could finish her sentence. Immediately regretting it as a field of stars broke out before his eyes and he keeled over sideways. Somehow still managing to keep dazed Applejack in his grip.

“Lan… Lan sakes… That’s one hard noggin y’all got thar’”

“Thanks… I gu-“

Before he could realize what he was saying, or who he was talking to, she was in control again.

“An’ thas’ whatcha get fer letting yer guard down!” She shot down at him, holding his hands in place as she leaned ever closer, so close he could smell a faint hint of apple cider on her breath. “’an now it’s mah turn ta have some fun…” she added, as she leaned lower, taking his ear in her teeth, slowly, seductively chewing on his lobes as he struggled to throw her off him. Clearly ponies weighed a bit more than he thought they would.

He stiffened and grimaced, as he felt a hoof brush up against his crotch. He wasn’t about to just let any pony have their way with him. Especially not this Applejack. Kicking out his legs wildly, he managed to get back on top of the pony, the adrenaline numbing the pain he was undoubtedly feeling from the maneuver.

“Can you just make it easier on us all…” he grunted, pressing his knee to the orange pony’s throat, “and just get knocked the fuck out for a while?!”

She stared up at him, struggling to breathe through the pressure on her windpipe. “No…ope” she pushed out, before spitting out a dark red, fleshy globule of what he barely recognized as the tip of his ear. To his horror, Alex began to feel a hot trickle of what could only be blood start seeping down his face. Half grunting, half screaming, Alex drove his right fist into the orange pony’s temple with enough force to both break the skin, and finally send her into unconsciousness.

Alex let out a sharp breath, quickly removing his knee from Applejack’s throat before falling backwards to the ground. Upon which he was immediately accosted by the blurry image of Pinkie’s face as she rushed to stop the bleeding from his ear.

“What do I do with her?” She asked, gesturing to the limp ex-farm pony.

“Tie her up…” he managed to choke out as his vision faded, succumbing to the dull throbbing pain shooting through his whole body. “We’ll need her later…”

The last thing Alex saw before his vision faded to black was a soft smile from the pony tending to him. He was safe for the time being.