Through The Eyes Of Another Pony

Chapters

Chapter Two: In Soviet Equestria, Something Something Pony...
Chapter Three: A Series of Tubes and A Bucket of Water
Chapter Five - Part One: Burning Books and Tech for Fun and Profit!
Chapter Five - Part Two: Burning Books and Tech for Fun and Profit!
Chapter Six: Pony Science, Pony Pancakes, Pony Ponies... Pony.
Chapter Seven: Glomping Ponies for Fun and Prof-... Well, Mostly Just Fun...
Chapter Eight: Mr. The Shark, The Ponies Are Here For Your 5:00 Jumping
Chapter Nine: That Moment When You're Getting Attacked By The Darkness
Chapter Ten - Part One: If I Had To Choose Between Lucky and Luna, I'd Commit Sudoku
Chapter Fifteen - Part One: Flutterfall
Chapter Fifteen - Part Two: A Few Good Mares
Chapter One: Your Body Is Not Ready
Chapter Four: Luna’s Gonna Loon, Lucky’s Gonna Luck, Twilight’s Gonna Beat You To Death With A Book!

Chapter Two: In Soviet Equestria, Something Something Pony...

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

I dream happy dreams, y’know. They’re pretty fun. Lots of action and randomness that usually involves motorcycles and dinosaurs. Not this time, though. My mind was just wide open thinking of… positively nothing. Entirely dreamless sleep. Not really used to that, but hey, if it was a wild ride every time, then it would just get boring, right?

Well, I finally woke up sometime that year, head pounding as though it had been shoved into a juicer. I’m sure there’s a medical name for that, actually. Anyway, the point was that I was in pain and damn it, I was not happy about it. I felt around my face and winced as I came into contact with a bump on my head just under my temple.

“Judas on a ho,” I grunted, giving it a few more testing pokes for good measure. “Could that possibly hurt any worse?”

I’m not sure why my face decided it would be a good idea to take the fall for the rest of my body. Selfless bastard needed to be a bit more self preserving, in my opinion. Above all, though, my horn hurt the most. I’m going to suppress the urge to tell you what that’s like, actually. There’s really no possible way to describe the sort of painful sensation that was resonating approximately three inches away from my forehead other than it was a painful sensation resonating approximately three inches away from my forehead.

“Hi there,” A soft voice spoke up from behind me.

“CHRISTCHEX!” I squealed as I spun around. I’m known to be a little high strung at times.

Just a little.

Anyway, I expected a pony. Hell, I preferred a pony, even. What I got, though, was not a pony. It was a bird. Not just any bird. The same fowl (so clever) beast that woke me up that morning.

The filthy little bastard resembled a blue jay with black tips at the end of its wings and tail. The eyes, however, were what gave away its intelligence (y’know, aside from the talking part) being that they were almost human in appearance with bright blue irises.

Now, most people would be amazed. Amagad, talking bird! It’s so cool!

I, however, was pissed at the fact that it wasn’t leaving me alone.

“Oh great. Even Stupid Bird is here,” I muttered angrily to myself.

“I’m not just a bird,” it insisted in an unreasonably regal voice. The soft feminine tone was unexpected to say the least, but I was in the magical land of ponies. Anything can happen, right? Still, it was a tad bizarre. I mean, it was up there with Celestia and Galadriel in terms of poshiness.

I trotted over and stared down at it askance. This bird was talking to me. That did not gel with my ‘acceptable parameters of Equestria,’ I’m not ashamed to say. Ponies can talk all they like, but birds are feathered jerks that insist upon ruining my life with their white poo and irritating twittering.

“Stupid Bird is speaking perfect English,” I muttered aloud to myself, “It must be Satan.”

The bird facepalmed with its wing (Wingpalmed? Facewinged? Wingfacepalmed?) and let out a somewhat impatient sigh, “No, I’m not Satan. However, if it pleases you, I suppose I could take that form.”

I glared at it stubbornly for a few more seconds. “Stupid Bird is threatening to turn into Satan. It must be Satan.”

“Clearly, your powers of deduction are unrivaled amongst your species. I am…”

“Nope,” I prevented it from finishing that sentence, “Don’t tell me.”

The bird blinked before cocking its head to one side.

“Pardon?”

“I don’t want to know. Leave me alone,” I stated quite firmly before waving a hoof at it. “Shoo. Go away. Nobody likes you anyway. You smell funny.”

“W… What have I done to you?” It asked incredulously. Apparently, it was unhappy with my treatment.

“Well, nothing. And I want to keep it that way,” I answered, still poking the hoof at it in an attempt to scare it away, “I don’t want a Navi. Go lay eggs or preen or something.”

“You are being quite rude.” It snapped angrily, pecking at my hoof in contempt.

“You are being an overused cliché!” I snapped back, jerking my hoof away from the attacking beak, “I don’t want whatever it is you’re selling. Get lost!”

“Cli… How dare you!”

“Holy shit, you took it to the next level!” I cried out before shaking my head and taking an honest swing at the stupid fowl. “Go away, seriously. I’m about to get a book and turn you into a feathered pancake if you don’t get out of my sight! Seriously, you’re making me feel like Harry Dresden by being all snarky to an obviously powerful being.”

“W-What?!”

It took flight and stayed out of my reach, squawking furiously as it did so. After reaching this stalemate, it glared down at me it’s composure somewhat regained.

“How could you have possi-…”

“Oh my GOD, YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE!” I slumped down to the ground and covered my ears, yelling at the top of my lungs, “I DON’T WANT STUPID BIRD! MAKE IT GO AWAY!”

“SHUT UP, YOU FATHEAD!” it snapped angrily, having lost its self-important demeanor and replaced it with ill temperament.

I frowned up at the bird.

“My head is not fat,” I remarked defensively, narrowing my eyes at the insulting little cuss.

The bird perched on nothing as it shoved an indignant wing in my direction. Dr. Professor Physicist would have a cow if he saw this. I was having a little trouble digesting it as well, but the constant reminder of pony world saved my mind from dwelling on the matter for too long.

“Shut up! I am here to do a job and you are going to be silent! You are going to hear me out! And if you fail in either of those endeavors I will see to it that you regret it!”

“Alright, alright,” I sighed, sitting up and glaring at Stupid Bird with a pout. “Stupid bird.”

“Ah, ah!” It waved a warning wing at me as it continued to mock gravity, “Silence.”

I was gonna smart off to it again; I really was. However, I couldn’t move. At all. That made me very despondent and served to further my suspicions. I couldn’t even lift a hoof to scratch my nose. Thank Celestia it didn’t begin itching or anything. That would have been a nightmare.

“Good!” said Stupid Bird in a satisfied tone. “Now, I need to awaken the latent…”

And then I stopped paying attention. You might be wondering why I’m acting like such an ass here. Well, there is a legitimate reason, I assure you. No, seriously, let me lay this out for you so that you can understand where I’m coming from.

Stupid Bird was the same stupid bird that woke me up at the crater. So it probably had something to do with my presence in Equestria (squee!), even if it was not directly responsible. Stupid Bird was likely not from Equestria or at least was able to observe other worlds if not straight up go to them. How do I know this? Because Stupid Bird understood the reference to Satan. Why is that important? Because that’s a concept understood by those on Earth, not Equestria. So here’s what we know so far: Stupid Bird is related to my presence in Equestria and has otherworldly knowledge at its disposal.

“You are the last line of defense in-…”

Ugh… Right, I forgot just how long this went on. What was going through my head at the time was pretty irrelevant, so I’ll not bore you with that. Mostly the usual junk of wondering whether or not I left the gas on.

Anyway, I’ll try to sum this up as best I can. Anyway, Stupid Bird wants something out of me. I have no reason to trust Stupid Bird. For all I know, Stupid Bird is the villain from the second season of the show (I can’t wait for it!) and is trying to use me against the ponies. Or it could just be a sandbox god that wants to screw around with stuff. Who knows? I don’t. What I do know is that it has a proposal and wants me to do something that it, for whatever reason, cannot do.

Wait, hold on, I think this is where it started wrapping things up.

“… know you are up to the task…”

Holy hand grenade; it’s still going.

So anyway, the long and short of the bullshit on my end is I don’t feel like being a pawn. No matter the situation, Stupid Bird is not going apprise me of the entire thing because the concept of absolute good and evil don’t exist. If something is threatening something, then it has a good reason. Or at least a good enough reason to satisfy said party. It could not tell me every last detail else, I might be inclined to help the opposing party if it had a good enough reason. Granted, going against Equestria would have to have a damn good reason but meh. Anyway, as I said, being a pawn is not my thing.

So… Long story shorter: Being a pawn is not my thing and the gist I was getting from the damn feathered rodent was - and bear with me on this - that Equestria was in danger and I was the big hero here to save the day from the world beyond~!

Gag me.

“So… Will you help us?” it asked, opening its eyes extra wide as they got all moist with fearful tears.

Whatever was restricting me suddenly turned loose of me. Without further ado, I shoved it right back into Stupid Bird’s face.

“Nope!”

“Excellent! I’m glad you…” It started to reply before pausing and executing a dramatic, genuine double-take.

“But hey, maybe the next brony you grab might not see straight through your Disney movie plot,” I said with an over exaggerated wink.

“W-What?!”

Well, I’ll say the look I got in return was worth waiting through that trite monologue.

“You say that a lot. Anyway, listen up, Featherbrain. I don’t know you. I don’t know your motivations. I don’t know why I got here, or how for that matter. What I do know is that you are more than you appear to be, have enough power of your own to forcibly hold me still and silent, are unbelievably annoying, and that I can apparently do something for you. The only other thing I know is that I’m in the magical land of ponies, and that you’re talking about giving me what I need to fight the Big Bad,” I said before facehoofing and looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, I’ve no clue who wrote this script, but I think I’d rather sit through a marathon of the DarkStalkers cartoon. And to put that into perspective, I think I would honestly rather shoot myself in the foot than put up with that abomination.”

“If you won’t help me then I’ll…”

“Send me back? Kill me? Force me to do it anyway? I’ve seen them all in Cable High-Def and 720p on Youtube.” I looked away from the bird, sticking a hoof out at it. “Do your worst. Otherwise, we’re done here.”

“Insufferable child,” it snapped angrily, “You do not understand what is at stake here!”

Yaaaaaawn! Actually, I really did. I even did so whilst covering my mouth with a hoof. No reason to be impolite, after all.

“Fine! But you will regret this!” And without another moment of my precious time lost to inanity, Stupid Bird vanished with a puff. I don’t think I could have been happier.

I turned back towards the library and stubbornly trotted off to the kitchen. I was shocked to discover that the mess that Spike and I made had been cleaned up already. Luckily, there was some homemade lo mien left for me to snack upon next to the wood stove... Even if it did take me several tries to remember just how one goes about picking up objects with but a single hoof. I took my second bowl of chow to a nearby bench and began to think about the situation.

It didn’t take long for that nagging sensation to set in, I’m sad to say. You know the one. That feeling you get when you did something that you’re not certain you can take back and the consequences that you just bit off might be more than you can chew? Of course you do. And that’s what was happening to me, which is the last thing a smartass like me ever wants to have happening to him.

First it was small stuff like how Stupid Bird was possibly unaware of just how incredibly lame it was being. Then it moved on to how I probably should have just paid a little more attention. Before long I began to wonder just what could possibly threaten Equestria enough to bring in an outsider. Finally I realized that I was questioning the very nature of my being and decided that talking to myself, even internally, was a bad idea.

I figured the quickest way of getting out of this funk was to address my need of pony interaction and fast.

“Hey, Twilight?” I called out, unsurprisingly getting no response. I assumed she and Spike weren’t around if they had not shown up while I had that little debate with Stupid Bird.

Still, I found myself a teensy bit sad. Twilight was no longer within yelling distance and that killed most of the plans I had for the rest of my day.

Bah, I need a cigarette, I finally told myself before tossing my now emptied bowl in the sink. I made it about two steps before looking back at the sink and sighing. Yeah, I know, and I’m a gracious bastard for it as well. I cleaned the bowl and spoon, dried them off, and put them away.

This time I kept myself from panicking when the cigarette lit itself. It was crazy. A little shiny red glowing ball of fire just silently jumped from my horn and floated to the tip and popped into nothingness the moment I inhaled to light it.

“Groovy,” I murmured, pulling out the cigarette and inspecting it.

Oh yeah, magic did not suck. Not in the slightest.

As I put the cylinder back where it belonged (between my succulent lips – no homo), I began to just relax and take in the beautiful sights of Ponyville. The incredibly bright green grass~! The unassumingly identical trees~! Even the beautifully hoof-crafted cobblestone roads~! And then pink.

I know, I know, it’s a little girl’s world. Still, the amount of pink was borderline dangerous. I mean, houses and kiosks would have secondary colors such as navy blue, powder white, and royal purple, but it all came back to pink one way or another. Hot pink, light pink, neon pink, pinkish-red, etc. One Pink, Two Pink, Red Pink, Blue Pink!

Pink, I was prepared for. Pink pony, on the other hand, caught me quite off guard. See, when people approach you, there’s this event where you notice the approaching party and because of this, you don’t fall on your ass sputtering like an idiot. That is normal.

But oh no, that’s not good enough for Pinkie. She’s all about the abnormal! Pinkie Pie does what she wants. Why? How the hell should I know?! All I do know is when Pinkie Pie approaches you, she just might decide that giving you the friendly goddamn courtesy of trotting up like a decent respectable isn’t going to be enough to satisfy her. No! Instead, she just bloody appears two inches from your face. You think I’m kidding? No. I’m not kidding. I’m being as serious as a heart attack, which, coincidentally, was what nearly happened to me. Like I said, I was caught off guard

“OHMAGOD!” I yelled, stumbling back onto my plot and gasping for air as I clutched at my chest with a shaky hoof.

“HI!” she chirped excitedly, “I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“I know!” I yelled at her, embarrassed that I had come just short of wetting myself in shock.

Then her eyes got bigger (if that were somehow possible) as she leaned closer (which seemed equally impossible). She gasped in shock, as though the revelation of me already knowing her was mind-blowing on a level that just didn’t compute.

“Err… What a-…” I started to ask. If I had known better, as I do these days, I wouldn’t have bothered wasting my breath.

“Wow you do that’s amazing you must be psychic even though Twilight said you had fire magic but you must be extra special to be able to have that and fire magic I wonder if you can combine the two like set making ponies feel all warm and toasty in their head that would be so silly especially if you didn’t tell them about it and they suddenly feel all warm for no reason and it makes them feel really funny I bet you even have two Cutie Marks do you have two Cutie Marks that would be so amazing like twice the amazing let’s see!”

No breath, pause, or period entered that barrage of statements, questions and exclamations.

“Uhh,” I blinked before suddenly being yanked off the ground by Pinkie who proceeded to flip and turn me every which way like a rag doll. I tried to resist. Hell, I tried a lot of things. I’m pretty sure I even shrieked in shock a few times as the world about me tumbled like a dryer on Extra Floppy.

“You don’t have two Cutie Marks!”

Twist. I yelled out some profanity.

“You don’t even have one Cutie Mark!”

Flip. I paused here to prevent myself from throwing up.

“Wow, you’re really old to not have a Cutie Mark!”

Turn. Insert the shouting of crude obscenities.

“WAIT! Your Cutie Mark could be NOT having a Cutie Mark! You would be, like, SO special! Because everypony, and I mean everypony, has a Cutie Mark! It would SO cool if you never got one! You could be all like…”

When Twilight told me that Earth Ponies were exceptionally heavier and stronger than other ponies, I had no clue just how much stronger we were talking. I might as well have been made of floppy doll parts. None of my struggles even seemed to garner her attention, and I was kicking and screaming something rather fierce by this point for all the good it was doing. Luckily, though, she gave up after a few more seconds and set me down on my feet. I promptly stumbled about before sitting back down. The world seemed to have missed the memo that notified everything that I was no longer spinning. Either that or I was that dizzy. It’s not as though I could really tell the difference. No really. I couldn’t tell the difference.

“Oh well!” she cried brightly before picking up the cigarette that I had dropped. “Oh, what’s this!? You had it like this! This is right, right?!”

She inserted the proper end into her mouth and smiled at me ecstatically.

I might have overreacted.

“NO, PINKIE!” I cried far too late, my hoof stretched out towards her desperately as my jaw hit the ground in shock.

There was a moment of silence followed shortly by, and I’m not making this up, the chirp of a cricket.

“What?” she responded, cigarette still dangling from her mouth. “This isn’t very tasty, you know. It must be one of those acquired tastes. Like turnips!”

I blinked, closed my mouth, and blinked again before picking myself up off the ground. It took a couple of tries; I was still dizzy as a drug addict at the Burning Man event.

“… May I… May I have my cigarette back?” I asked after I finally managed to stand up.

“Okay!”

Pinkie just… She just doesn’t think about her actions, guys. I kid you not. She won’t do something the way you expect her to, ever. You ask her for the cigarette back, you expect her to hold it out to you and let you take it. What really happens is she shoves it back into your mouth, which involves a super-strength hoof colliding with your face at energetic Pinkie Pie speeds.

“Hork~!” I stumbled, falling right back on my butt. I don’t know how she didn’t break my nose, but she sure as hell filled the lion’s share of my vision with pretty, pretty stars.

“Whoops!” she commented with a giggle.

‘Whoops’ my fuzzy grey plot.

“So, what’s your name?”

I shook the last of the stars out of my sight before rubbing my nose and blinking at her, “Anon-Pony.”

“I thought you’d say that since Twilight said you would say that but she said that I was to say that you should say something else because she said that that was definitely not your name! I said, ‘Okay, Twilight, whatever you say!’” Pinkie blabbed happily before turning her head sideways, “So! Whaddya say?”

I blinked, having to replay that sentence in my head a couple of times before I understood what Pinkie Pie said. The rough translation was that Twilight was being a stubborn plotface about me being Anon-Pony. Whatever.

“Well, Twilight can go milk a cow!” I grumped as my ears flopped down against my head in irritation.

Man, I thought the tail was awesome. Ears are just downright wiggy. And that’s the scientific term used, mind you. I put everything else on hold as I began to actively flop my ears about. Oh, it was some kind of trippy. It only got worse as Pinkie began to copy me. Before long we were sitting there in utter silence, staring at one another as our ears began to dance the dance of dances.

“That’s silly! Why would Twilight milk cows? That’s the cowses’ job!” Pinkie replied after several seconds of eerie silence, now flapping her ears as though they were tiny wings.

I… Guys, this is about to get weird. Just a heads-up there. I know, it looks bad now. You don’t have to tell me. But I was pretty desensitized to insanity-spurred moments like this a long time ago. Lafter does this kinda crap all the time (and by Lafter, I mean me!) and later on when Stoic takes hold again, I get to feeling incredibly ridiculous. So let me clear this up before you enter the really strange part… I’ve no clue why the word ‘Cowses’ tickled me so, okay? It just did. Apologies.

That said, however, you’re going to have to put up with the entire thing.

“Cowses?” I phonetically mimicked her, chuckling a bit as I did so.

Then her grin stretched impossibly wide.

“Cowses!”

“… … Cowses.” I repeated in a deeper tone.

“Cowses!” She replied exactly as she had before.

“Cowses!”

I narrowed my eyes, giving her a sly look (which she imitated immediately) and began to whisper, “Cowse-…”

“What are you two doing?!” Rainbow Dash’s interruption spooked us both.

She was hovering above us. I think I just about died from shame, I’m sad to say. I’m really not that quick to blush, but I’ve got this fascination with Rainbow Dash that just isn’t very healthy in all likelihood. I mean, I’m sure this is how stupid co-eds panic when someone like Leonardo DiCaprio catches them in a chicken costume or something.

“Hi, Dashy!” Pinkie enthusiastically waved at the newcomer, her ears still a’flappin about. “Cowses!”

“How long were you there?!” I asked in shock, my cheeks and ears burning with embarrassment.

“Somewhere between the beginning of the ear duel and ‘Cowses,’” she replied irritably, her hooves on her hips and her eyes narrowed accusingly at me, “Twilight sent Pinkie to come fetch you a while ago; what is keeping you two?!”

“Nothing. Duh!” Pinkie squeaked cheerfully, her ears still motoring about.

“Well, I blame Twilight for being silly enough to think that Pinkie Pie’s attention span was up to the task,” I countered instantly, taking a drag off my cigarette.

Rainbow Dash started to argue, but after taking an extra glance at Pinkie Pie, she slapped a hoof over her face and sighed.

“Can’t argue with you there,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Cowses!” Pinkie cried.

“Cowses,” I muttered gravely before nodding at Rainbow Dash with an incredibly serious look upon my face.

She rolled her eyes with a smirk and sighed, “Look, whatever, okay? You two can ‘Cowses’ all you like…”

She totally did air-quotes with her hooves. What the hell…

“But please hold off on that and… whatever it was you were doing with the ears.”

Aaaand Carramelldansen with my ears... Augh, I know, I was acting like a complete moron. I’m sorry. I have the most incredibly strong urges to act out in front of people who don’t know me. It’s both a gift and a curse.

“Y-Yeah, that!” She was struggling to not laugh at this point. “Just… Stop all of that and f-follow me to the crater. Hehe… I said stop!”

“Stop what, Dashie?” Pinkie asked as she joined in, causing Rainbow Dash to sputter a tad.

“Stop the… Okay, enough of the crazy! We’re going now!” Dash quickly zipped around behind us and grabbed both our tails in her mouth before taking off with us in tow.

Now, flying backwards and upside down is, by itself, an incredibly odd feeling. It gets even weirder when you’re about as heavy as a kite thanks to Rainbow Dash’s pegasus magic. It seems that beggars can’t be choosers, however. Still, just the sensation of flying was pretty amazing, but golly, did my backside feel incredibly strange. I mean, a strong wind blowing across it was kinda unique in and of itself, but it was the tail that was really getting at me. This was the day for new sensations and feelings because I have to say, there is no feeling quite like the feeling of a yanking sensation emanating right above your butt. It was the most awkward feeling I’ve ever physically experienced. Luckily, tails are really strong, so it’s not even painful as much is… Just pull HARD on your hair without hurting yourself and imagine that coming from the base of your spine.

“Oh… Oh, that is some kinda freaky!” I squeaked, squirming about as Dash tugged us along the sky.

“I know, it’s so tickly and pully!” Pinkie cried out with joy. Not sure how, but she somehow knew exactly what I was talking about. “Hehehehe! Oh well! At least we get to go to the crater! It’s so smoky and neat!”

“You guys don’t get a lot of craters do… Oof… My cigarette!!”

That oof? That was Rainbow Dash flying along and smacking me into a low-flying cloud that was indeed solid enough to jar me into dropping my smoke. The damn Equestrian Physics were blowing my mind. I’m fairly certain that wasn’t how it worked in the show.

“Nope! First Ponyville crater!” Pinkie shook her head, still smiling broadly.

I spared a moment of attention to lament my poor falling Mareboro before looking back at Pinkie with a sigh.

“So… What’s up, is there going to be a huge party or something?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yeah!” she answered anyway before poking a hoof at my face. “We were going to name it after you but you don’t have a name, so now we have to call it the No-Name Party!”

“That sounds like an untrustworthy political group. Also known as a political group.” I sighed as I checked over my shoulder impatiently.

Luckily, Rainbow Dash’s speed in the show was not an exaggeration and within the few following moments I could see the crater. There was this rainbow palette of colors surrounding it,and as we approached, I realized that the palette was actually a crowd of candy colored ponies. We touched down just on the edge of the square (and by touched down, I mean dropped a few feet off the ground and landed unceremoniously on our faces). This didn’t seem to bother Pinkie in the slightest. In fact, she kinda just... bounced off the ground and onto her hooves. Now, I’ve got your average amount of agility and a pretty good sense of balance as a human. As a pony, though, I tend to smack into things (sometimes it’s the other way around) and just take it like a champ.

After picking myself up, dusting my coat off, and giving Rainbow Dash an irritable glance, we approached the group. Ponies of so many colors! I had to contain my inner squee as I gazed at them. So many I recognized. Roseluck, Berry Punch, Carrot Top, Daisy, Lyra, Bon Bon... It made me get all fluttery in the gut. I played it cool though and pushed through their numbers with Pinkie and Dash.

“I guess we’re looking for Twilight, right?” I commented as we touched the edge of the crater. It smelled a tad acrid, but wasn’t overpowering as much as it was just annoying.

“Yup,” Dash replied as she swung her head to and fro in search of the magical savant.

“Well, I’m not!” Pinkie cried exuberantly.

Dash and I both looked at each other before glancing at the party pony.

“Why not?”

“Because I already spotted her, that’s why!” she explained to us as though we made no sense whatsoever. “Duh!”

Uh-huh. Well, once again, rather than do the expected thing of pointing her out, Pinkie instead had her eyes shut and was bouncing her body side to side to the rhythm of a beat that only she could hear.

“Well, uh... Pinkie, she’s sorta waiting on us,” Dash pointed out impatiently as I nodded.

“Oh!” Pinkie exclaimed, blushing a tad.

That was surprising. I was all, holy crap, did we just get through to Pinkie? As soon as that thought went through my head, she dispelled that illusion with a swift motion. The swift motion consisted of grabbing me and standing on her back two hooves as she lifted me over her head. She must have had amazing upper pony strength or something, because I figure I’m not very light. Males are rather consistently larger than females, and I was no exception, other than the fact that I might even be a little bit bigger than average male as well.

“Gah!” I cried, desperate for something to hold on to as I was swung through the air.

“TWILIGHT!” Pinkie hollered across the crater, “I found the fire pony! The one that caused the crater, right?! He doesn’t have a name so I’ve been calling him No Name! I think that’s what we’re going to call him for now since you said he can’t be Anon-Pony! You said you wanted to see him right?! Also, he’s pretty heavy! I wonder if he eats a lot!”

Well shit, Pinkie, why don’t you give everyone my social and date of birth since we’re in the business of divulging personal information, I thought to myself with a facehoof.

From the higher vantage point, I could spot Twilight standing next to Applejack. Both of them looked rather irritated with the Pinkie PA and I couldn’t blame them. It didn’t take me long to figure out just how bad that was going to sound to the rest of the town. Oh hi, brought the jackass that turned the center of town into a big fat hole in the ground! … Whatever. Since I may as well have been holding a damn sign that said I DID IT AND I’M NOT SORRY, I might as well go all the way.

Okay, maybe not all the way, but I did light a cigarette menacingly. To my amusement, the audible pop scared a couple of nearby fillies. That made it taste better.

“What is that?” Dash asked, her eyebrows lifting curiously.

“That’s his smokey treat!” Pinkie explained happily.

A smokey treat? Meh, close enough.

Twilight and Applejack made their way around the crater as the crowd began to back away from me. At first I was able to explain it away with the cigarette, but before long, I could hear whispers. My gut reaction to that sort of thing was to become offended and indignant, but I swear to God, they started coming up with irrelevant nonsense.

Stuff like, ‘just look at the way he keeps his mane, so uncouth!’ and ‘Look at the (not making this up) sinister way he breathes smoke like a dragon!’ but the best one by far was ‘He doesn’t even have a Cutie Mark, such a poor example for the children!’

I began laughing. These ponies could talk some serious shit! I couldn’t believe my ears. I mean, half of me was insulted and offended as hell, but the other half was marveling at the fact that my mane was so ‘uncouth’ that comments were not only warranted but enthusiastically seconded by those nearby. I was both baffled and entertained. Still, the novelty quickly wore off as the ponies continued to put distance between me and them. I admit, I was starting to get more irritated and less amused as the horribly tame slurs were getting louder and more brazen.

That is... Until there was an intervention.

“Listen to all of ya’ll!” A little voice cried out.

She was tiny with a heart bigger than a mountain and softer than a pillow. Her voice was full of a righteous indignation that belied her diminutive size and her red-gold eyes were as fierce as a gryphon’s. Not to mention that serious pink hairbow.

Applebloom to the applebuckin’ rescue!

Tiny ran out to stand in the center of the gap separating Pinkie, Dash, and I from the rest of the crowd.

“He ain’t been here for but a minute and already I’m hearin’ some of the worst gossip ever!” she cried, glaring at the crowd as her face snapped about to emphasize the fact that she was talking to all the ponies. “Why, he ain’t even had a chance to tell his side of the story!”

The crowd was utterly silent as they regarded the words of the brave little filly. Applejack and Twilight continued to make their way around the crater. Twilight looked a bit worried, but Applejack was practically glowing with pride.

“Haven’t we learned anything?!” Applebloom carried on with fervor, now blushing a little bit from all the attention, “Didn’t we do somethin’ like this to Zecora? And look at how silly we all felt after that! I’m thinkin’ if y’all wanna make a change, now would be a really good time to start!”

Pinkie Pie let out an energetic (technically, I suppose everything Pinkie does is energetic) yell as she continued to stubbornly heft me about in the air. Rainbow Dash trotted over to Applebloom and mussed her hair with a hoof, smirking down at the flustered pony who smiled back up at her.

“S-Sorry,” Applebloom half stammered as both Twilight and her sister approached, “I just...”

“Don’t be, sugarcube,” Applejack immediately replied, lowering her head enough to nuzzle at her sister, “Y’all are right and we all know it.”

Applejack lifted her head and cut her eyes at the crowd, daring them to speak out. “Don’t we!”

An immediate chorus of half-hearted agreements slowly came out of the crowd.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, startling everyone (myself included) with her surprisingly strong lungs, “She said... Don’t we!”

This round of assent was much more audible and sounded less forced this time around. Hell, I was happy with the first one. Dash, apparently, doesn’t settle for second best. Makes sense, in a pony sorta way.

“That’s enough, you guys,” Twilight said with a cough, preventing further heckling of the crowd. She smiled nonetheless, showing them she still approved of their actions regardless of their somewhat tactless methods. I was right there with her on that. I love me some sinus-clearing tactlessness.

“Alright, Stranger, do you...” she started to ask before glancing at my elevated status.

Never one to miss a moment for insanity, I pointed a hoof her way and narrowed my eyes.

“Behold my new method of travel,” I uttered in a grave voice, taking a drag off my cigarette, “Pinkie Schlepping. No longer shall anypony ever have to walk anywhere ever again!”

“I’m an invention!” Pinkie chirped.

“Right,” Twilight said with a half-irritated, half-amused roll of the eyes, “Pinkie Pie?”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Pinkie responded with a bounce, shaking me enough that I nearly dropped my cigarette.

“Please be a dear and drop our new friend,” she said with an innocent smile.

I was just a few seconds from geeking out over Twilight calling me ‘friend’ when I was prevented by way of smacking into the ground. Not sure how I picked up so much speed with such a short distance; possibly something to do with Pinkie Pie’s personal Rule of Funny. Why Twilight didn’t say something more sensible like ‘put down’ or something, I wasn’t quite certain. At least not immediately.

“Oops,” Pinkie laughed hesitantly, amazingly aware of her trigger-response’s consequences.

“Oh my gosh!” Applebloom cried in shock, running over to help me up, “Are you okay?”

Applejack’s sigh landed somewhere between exasperation and mirth. Rainbow Dash did what Rainbow Dash does best when observing the misfortune of others: Laugh her flank off. At me. This here is my heart breaking.

And then Twilight gave herself away.

“It’s alright, Pinkie,” she said with the barest hint of a laugh.

I pulled my head out of a pony-shaped dent in the ground and glared up at the purple mare. “You did that on purpose!”

“Oh, whatever do you mean?” she asked coyly, holding an innocent hoof over her mouth.

“Is this… normal?” said Applebloom as she tilted her head sideways, looking at us as though we were made of cheese and buttons.

“Sadly, it kinda is,” Applejack responded with a sigh before clearing her throat loudly, “Somethin’ everypony might want to keep in mind! We’re sorta the center of attention right now.”

That was when we all looked about at the entire town’s populace staring as though we were a strange circus act. Mmm~Mmm~Mmm~! Awkward situations abound! The ponies all struggled to make a graceful recovery but to be honest, the damage had been done. I, however, simply took a drag of my cigarette and remained awesome. Can’t touch this!

Twilight let out a hesitant laugh and smiled nervously as she whispered, “Well, this is a tad embarrassing."

I began to act natural, dusting myself off with my hooves and tail before glancing back to make certain my flank was semi-clean. That’s when I noticed the smoke from the crater gradually shift from your typical smoky grey to a shimmering violet. I stared at it for a moment before glancing back at the others who were still preoccupied with the town staring at us. I glanced back at the smoke as it began to swirl about, slowly coalescing above us.

I decided I would set up for a dramatic reveal. Y’know… Because my priorities are in the right place.

“Hey Twilight,” I said with a smile, “Would you say you’d do just about anything to get out of this awkward situation?”

She gave me a look that told me she was more curious of why I would ask such a question. After a moment, though, she considered it and submitted her very well thought out response.

“Well, not anything, I suppose,” she replied, staring at me suspiciously, “I agree that this is a little awkward, but everypony here knows one another fairly well. Why?”

Twilight had just bought herself the most disappointed glare I could muster.

“Atta way to ruin it, Twi,” I stated flatly before turning back towards the smoke, “Behold. A distraction.”

As though on cue, a voice began to chuckle. It wasn’t very loud, but it carried with it both a malicious edge and an air of arrogance. I watched in awe as the shimmering violet smoke began to take the form of a pony. Now, this won’t make much sense but the entire thing just reeked of pure evil. Not that I could actually smell the evil coming off of it, but I assure you, this pony shaped sparkling cloud wasn’t here to herald the magic of friendship.

It further reinforced that opinion when it spoke with its deep feminine voice filled with disdain, “Hah! Foalish human! You should have escaped while you had the chance! You will not be given the chance to regret it!”

I blinked in shock. Hokey Smokes here knew I was a human. That was quite interesting. Not as interesting as the dark clouds that swiftly swirled around the skies and quickly blotted out the sun (because that was honestly kinda cool), but still interesting in its own right.

“Ummm, what if I said I’ve no clue what this is all about…?” I asked, tilting my head a tad.

The crowd of ponies began to back away slowly but overall stayed pretty chilled out. The girls, however, were all looking at me as though I had just nominated myself as the chief spokespony. Like I wanted that or something.

“Friend of yours?” Twilight whispered softly.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” I replied similarly.

“What?” the misty villain snapped in surprise as she floated to the ground, a good head and a half taller than everypony else, “You don’t remember…”

“Well, I might’ve been drunk.” I bashfully rubbed the back of my neck. “Though I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I took a dame like you home.”

There was this heavy pause while everyone digested my words. I was trying to break the ice with a bit of humor and possibly dissolve a tenuous situation.

Sadly, Cranky Cloud was not amused. “You think to mock ME?!”

It emphasized the final word with a stamp of its hoof which sent a thunderous shockwave throughout the entire town. A sudden wind blew past me, whipping angrily at my mane as the world continued to darken. The crowd ponies proceeded to wet themselves and took off in a blaze of screams and terror.

The rest of us, however, reacted differently. Twilight glared at me for antagonizing the stupid thing, as though it was somehow my fault that it had an attitude problem. Dash and AJ weren’t even slightly shaken. They did, however, respond to the hostility with a pair of fierce war faces that told the Misty Menace that it was going to have to step up its game if it wanted to ruffle their feathers and cowpony hats. Pinkie Pie said something about awfully strange weather and began to squint really hard at the scary purple sparkly pony. Something about trying to look at it a different way. Hell, I’m not going to contemplate it; it’s bloody Pinkie Pie.

“Wh-What is it!?” Applebloom cried out, hiding behind Applejack.

“I dunno, but I think it needs a nap!” I said with a large smile.

Twilight kicked me with a forehoof to let me know that continued aggravation of the Cloud of Crankiness would result in beatings. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. I mean, other than Fluttershy feeding worms and fishes to some animals, I haven’t seen anything die in Equestria. Does that make Fluttershy the most dangerous thing here? Whatever the cause, I wasn’t intimidated by cartoon violence but I didn’t want to spoil it for everypony else. Therefore, I decided to play ball and act scared.

“Whatever,” I muttered under my breath before throwing a hoof to my forehead in a display of false fear. “Don’t hurt me Oh Great One!”

“It is far too late for that, Human!” It snarled as it began to walk towards us, “You have incurred the wrath of The Nightmare!”

With that, a pair of turquoise eyes with draconic pupils formed within the mist followed by a set of ridiculously pointed teeth. It was so… so incredibly cartoony that I couldn’t help myself. The self-important reveal, the 90’s cartoon dialogue, and the very non-scary purple cloud with very a non-scary face all culminated to a lot of silliness in my book.

I snorted before slapping a hoof over my mouth to prevent more of my amusement escaping.

Unfortunately, I was caught. The Nightmare stopped dead in its tracks and sputtered furiously.

“D-Did you just… laugh?! AT ME?!” she roared with righteous indignation poisoning her words.

The other all glared at me as though I was making a bad situation worse. And to be fair, I totally was. I was totally not taking this as seriously as I needed to. At the time, though, I was enjoying the blissfully ignorant ride through a cartoon. Weeeee~!

“Ahem! No, I uh… *cough* … I totally sneezed. Sorry, I… C-Couldn’t help it.” That was me coughing and covering my mouth to try and hide my smile.

“Your impunity will not go unpunished!” She screamed so loudly that it shook the ground before rearing up. “Now… GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE!”

Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, The Nightmare exploded into a mass of violet tendrils that sped towards me with a dark intent. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I wasn’t betting on it being pleasant. Still, I sorta froze up in shock, not knowing what to do about it and ended up cringing in place with my eyes shut. Yeah. Like all those horrible co-ed slasher films. I imagine there’s an audience somewhere watching me just screaming, ‘MOVE, IDIOT!’

When nothing happened for a second, I opened my eyes and saw Twilight standing in front of me. The purple unicorn had created a wall of violet energy between us and The Nightmare, and our assailant was none too pleased about it. It quickly reformed as a translucent mare and glared at us through the protective barrier.

“RRRRAAAAAAGHHH!” The Nightmare bellowed furiously, “Step aside, Protégé of Celestia!”

“Not a chance!” Twilight snarled back, “Now leave while you still can!”

The Nightmare threw her head back and laughed arrogantly. As she did, a beam of light pierced the tumultuous cloud cover behind her. Canterlot could be seen through the gap, resting radiantly upon the mountainside overlooking Ponyville. From the center of the gap, a tiny beacon in the distance began to move our way. It grew brighter as it neared, but The Nightmare had yet to take notice.

“Hah! And who is going to make me, child? You?!” she sneered before viciously striking the barrier with a hoof. The barrier showed no reaction but Twilight began to sweat as though she had just run a mile. She did, however, grin a bit as the star in the distance began to swell in size upon approach.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash smiled vindictive smiles at one another as Pinkie Pie stopped squinting at The Nightmare to stare in awe at what was behind it instead. Applebloom had yet to see, having stayed hidden behind Applejack, and thus continued to fearfully quake behind her older sister.

“Hey, Applebloom,” I called out, “What’s tall, white, and raises the sun every morning?”

Applebloom fearfully lifted her head above Applejack’s flank and gasped upon seeing the cavalry roll in from the distance.

“Celestia!” she cried out, her fear replaced with hopeful excitement.

The Nightmare’s eyes practically popped out of her head as she looked back at the oncoming princess. The clouds began all around began to give way to the power of light! The lightning and thunder was soon replaced by the melodious ring of magic as the barely discernible form of Celestia continued to blaze towards us like a comet of white light. I couldn’t be certain but it looked as though there was a smaller blue light trailing along with her. Luna, I guess?

I should have realized I wasn’t in a cartoon by that point, really. I mean, Hasbro’s special effects ain’t got shit on this!

“Looks like somepony is about to get dat flank of theirs all kinds of bucked up,” I said with wide eyes and a hoof mockingly covering my mouth. “Eau de snap~!”

The Nightmare turned back to glare at me and I jerked my head side-to-side. If looks could have killed, I would have exploded and then each of the pieces would have been stabbed with ice picks. Fortunately for me, that was impossible. At least, I think it is. One can never be certain when magic is involved.

With that, a long unicorn horn sprung out of The Nightmare’s ‘head’ and with a swing, she stabbed the shield. Amazingly, it not only pierced our protective pinkish-purple shield, but Twilight passed right out on the spot.

And not to go off on a tangent, but I caught Twilight. It wasn’t even difficult. I just sorta stepped over and let her fall into an outstretched hoof. Why they couldn’t have done that for me and saved me the pain and anguish, I’ll never know. But there it is. Ponies are lazy.

“Well,” I said with a blink, staring up at The Nightmare as the shield began to evaporate, “This is awkward.”

“RD, stop!” I heard Applejack cry out as a spectrum colored equine zipped right past my face.

“HEY!” Rainbow Dash soared up to The Nightmare and landed a kick right in her face. “Nopony messes with my friends!”

The hoof-to-the-face caused The Nightmare to dissolve into her Dreaded Cumulus form before swiping back at the brave pegasus with a tendril. “You will have to do!”

Dash dodged back from the attack but her tail got caught in the process. She registered that she was probably in danger and tried to fly away, but The Nightmare wrapped its smoky tendril about her tail and yanked her back.

Out of pure instinct, I jumped forward and caught hold of my idol, dropping Twilight on the ground which was sorta poetic justice.

“It’s got me!” Rainbow Dash hollered fearfully, clinging back at me.

Like we hadn’t noticed or something.

Still, I’m fairly certain losing Rainbow Dash would have resulted in a breakdown on my part so I was more interested in holding on than verbally rebuking her for making obvious observations.

The Nightmare tried to shake me loose, but I held on tight. Rather than play Tug-O-Dashie, she began to lift off with both of us. I made a noise of general panic, but it was quickly followed by a squeak of surprise when I felt something grab hold of my tail. I looked back down to see my tail in Applejack’s mouth. She dug her hooves into the ground and yanked us all back down and I swear, I think I was stretched a foot longer than what was natural. I almost expected me to make an involuntary rubber duck noise or something.

“I wanna come too!” Pinkie declared happily, somehow able to enunciate perfectly with Applejack’s tail in her mouth. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Just then, a thin beam of light zipped past us all, nicking the edge of Mademoiselle Misty. The Nightmare let out a furious shriek in response and we all looked to see Celestia getting ever closer. One way or another, a resolution was about to arrive to this situation.

“Not yet,” The Nightmare hissed furiously before turning its attention back to us. “Soon, Celestia.”

I gagged on the stereotypical line.

The Nightmare decided to play it smart and simply grabbed hold of our quaint little pony-chain before turning away from Celestia and flying off with us in tow. Unsurprisingly, Pinkie squealed in utter delight as soon as she was airborne, flailing about with zest. I wanted to get on her case about being serious, but not only would that have been hypocritical of me, it would have also been quite pointless.

Poor Applebloom got left behind, having not been quick enough to add herself to the Chain of Equine Conjunction.

“Help! Somepony help them!” the powerless filly shrieked fruitlessly as The Nightmare took flight.

I continued to cling to my Technicolor Donkey as we took off, genuinely afraid for the first time. Smoky the Mare wasn’t moving very quickly, which seemed to scare it senseless. Personally, I blame them weighty Earthy Ponies full of sweets and apples.

“Get off’a me!” Dash hollered at the The Nightmare, kicking at it angrily to no avail.

The Nightmare suddenly enveloped us and all we could see were violet clouds, stars that didn’t exist, and more sparkles than a Twilight movie. I kinda had a panic attack. So many thoughts were going through my head.

Oh my God, is this serious?

Holy shit, I’m hugging Dashy!

AJ can stop tugging on my tail ANY time she likes!

Where the hell is Celestia?!

My train of thought was interrupted by the muffled sounds of a certain orange farmer pony trying to yell at me. It was right about that time Rainbow Dash suddenly went limp and I was way too distracted to think about anything other than panicking. When I didn’t reply, she repeated what she had said and gave my tail an extra hard jerk. She had my attention then, along with my ire and an urge to buck her one upside the head. Whatever it was she was saying, I was only able to discern that she was ordering me to do something. Not sure why, but my tail is all kinds of fluffy for some reason and it did a good job of preventing her from getting me the message.

“What!?” I called back, looking at Applejack in confusion.

She rolled her pretty green eyes and spat out my tail, “Ah said that you had best not let go’a her! And why in tarnation does your tail taste like sweet tea?!”

Awkward~! I felt a blush come to my impassive face and started to respond, but with the chain broken, The Nightmare no longer had any reason to tote around those heavy Earth Ponies. As such, they were tossed away like a pair of Twinkie wrappers. If this situation was any less crazy, I would have laughed at them. As it was, we’ll all have to be content with the knowledge that Pinkie Pie sure enjoyed being tossed. I swear, she would probably cackle her way off a cliff.

I, on the other hand, suddenly felt like my life expectancy had taken to skydiving without a parachute.

“Human!” The Nightmare snarled loudly, “Submit your form or I will take hers!”

“F-Form?” I asked, looking around as The Nightmare picked up speed. “Like a W-2?”

“Your body, foal!” it spat angrily, that same cartoony face appearing inside of my gassy prison, “Submit it!”

“I’m not giving you my body!” I replied without hesitation, my eyes wide with shock.

I felt the sky-blue pony stir as she slowly lifted her head to face me.

“So be it,” Rainbow Dash whispered as her eyes opened up to reveal her beautiful magenta eyes slowly becoming draconian in appearance. “We’ll have it your way then.”

“No!” I cried shaking Dash as the slanted eyes slowly changed back before closing.

“Then submit!” The Nightmare hissed.

I blinked fearfully but I did not hesitate overmuch.

I swallowed with a nod before answering, “F… Fine.”

I could hear The Nightmare chuckling softly into my ear as though she were standing right behind me. I felt a chilling sensation spread throughout my body as though I were losing feeling in every last part of me. I shut my eyes and felt the overwhelming urge to cry out, but by the time I yielded to it, I no longer could move on my own. It was almost like I was going to sleep or being forcibly sedated; only my heart was pounding as though it were going to jump right out of my chest. It was probably the single most terrifying experience I’d ever encountered.

Then a voice softly rung out in my head as the entire world and every sensation seemed to freeze.

~Oh, aren’t we in quite a pickle…~

~Stupid Bird!~ My memory put the voice to the feathers and I was a lot more excited than I should have been. Now, it should be said that there is probably something wrong with me since my first reaction upon hearing a voice in my head was to exclaim enthusiastically.

~You remembered, I’m touched.~

I eventually got around to the sensible question. I’m not entirely stupid. Just mostly. ~How are you in my head!?~

~Is that truly important at the moment?~ it replied with impatience and sarcasm both dripping off its words.

~I… I guess not. Look, I’m sorry for being an asshole earlier!~ I thought desperately, hoping it was here to help me and not rub it into my face that I shouldn’t have been such a douche. I totally would have deserved it, though. Not that I would ever admit that in public.

~You should be.~

~Help me and I’ll find you a worm! Two worms!~

~Your bargaining posture isn’t what I would call outstanding.~

~Fine. You win. Three worms.~ Sometimes, I can be stupid in the face of oblivion. Not everyone would name that as a quality, but I like to call those people haters. Or maybe they’re just intelligent. I can’t be bothered with such trivial details.

~Oh, we’ll be extracting payment, child. I did say I would make you regret it.~

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what those in the entertainment industry like to call foreshadowing. Ugly, ominous, nasty foreshadowing. It... I won’t say it wasn’t worth it, but damn it, I am never blindly scrolling to the bottom and clicking ‘Agree’ ever again!

However, being too stupid at the time, all I did was get all excited as I realized the implications of her words. ~Does that mean…~

I ‘heard’ a contemptuous sigh from Stupid Bird. You know the kind. The part where the other party is letting out that defeated huff where they are resigned to do something that don’t want to do, yet they have to nonetheless. Yeah, that one.

~Yes, I suppose it does mean that I will help you. As long as we’re in agreement, that is...~

~Well, seeing as how my bargaining posture isn’t what you would call outstanding... I guess so!~

~Consider yourself helped then.~

~You have been promoted to Awesome Bird.~

And then she sassed me with sarcasm, which made me a lot happier than what was necessary. ~Your generosity truly knows no bounds. Are you prepared?~

~Totally! How we do?~

~We don’t do anything. You sit there like a slack-jawed moron. I’ll do the rest.~

~You just had to slip that sn-…~

And without any so much as a moment’s notice, time was suddenly back on track and I was back to being entirely helpless. The Nightmare’s dark laughter began to rise in zeal as the edges of my vision began to fade out.

“Your selflessness is admirable, Human,” The Nightmare whispered soothingly, “I may show a modicum of mercy to the Equestrians for your act of sacrifice.”

Cliché villainyyy!!!

Just before blacking out, I felt a painful burn sweep throughout me like a rush of flame originating from within. I caught myself on the edge of consciousness and began to struggle in every possible way I could as the incredibly acute pain extended to every part of my being. I do remember it hurting so incredibly much that I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even draw breath of my own volition at the time. I’m not sure what it was inside me, but it was white-hot and it wanted out something fierce. I didn’t know how to give it what it wanted, though.

“What are you doing?” The Nightmare asked, its voice now uncertain.

I felt the pain ease a bit as I discovered that I could speak again.

“H… Hot,” I croaked, my eyes wide with pain and confusion.

As I spoke, though, I caught sight of a few wisps of flame trickling out of my mouth. The pain slowly drifted out of me, but the fire inside was still there. It burned hot in my chest, but if I had to call it anything other than freaky, I’d have said that it was empowering. What shortly followed was not what I was expecting to happen in the least.

“Stop!” The Nightmare ordered, my entire form shuddering as she tried to exert her will over mine, “I command you!”

“Oh,” I murmured, now in complete control of my body, “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

And I then released that fire within me. I’m not sure I can say how other than it was just what felt natural. I somehow just... knew, I guess... what would happen next. The idea of knowing without actually knowing is crazy, right? Muffins. Regardless of intention, knowledge, or what have you, my captor suddenly caught fire, including everything that had me and Rainbow Dash all wrapped up.

“DECEIVER!” It shrieked in agony as it dropped us on the ground.

Side Note: Flying incredibly fast and then making a full stop just before losing all inertia and momentum was an amazingly bizarre sensation. Not tail-pulling bad, but yeah. It was pretty funky.

Our drop wasn’t long and I really couldn’t even tell where we were. All I knew was that it was about ten feet until pony-to-ground collision, and that The Nightmare was soaring off into the distance, screaming hysterically at me as it continued to put distance between it and Celestia. The only reason I was able to pay it any attention was thanks to the fact that it was on fire, burning as though it were made of butane or something. More Equestrian non-physics at work, if you would.

Out of instinct, I grabbed hold of the unconscious Rainbow Dash and braced for impact. I made a whiny sound of fear as we plummeted. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t going to kill me, but that doesn’t mean I was in a real big hurry to see what it was like to jump off the top of my house and land on my back. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out that day as we were caught just before impact by a tiny whirlwind made of a gentle, glowing white breeze. I looked about frantically at the small white wisps, tantalizingly spinning around me as they gently set me on the ground. When a brilliant radiance shone from behind me, I turned around without even thinking and crouched defensively. I clutched at the still KO’d Rainbow Dash with one forehoof as I prepared myself for another fight. With the adrenaline still pumping in my veins, I nearly lashed out at the source of the light before even pausing to consider my actions.

A soft, easily recognized voice helped me to cool my heels though.

“Easy, My Little Pony,” she said as she approached, her incredibly bright aura dissipating to a gentle, regal glow, “You are safe now.”

“Celestia?” I murmured before smiling up at her.

Before more words could be exchange, a brilliant white-blue streak of light rocketed right past us, carrying enough wind in its wake to knock me over. It swerved upward as it chased after The Nightmare, even though it was barely a flicker in the horizon at that point.

“Storm Wing!” Celestia shouted in an entirely non-comforting tone.

The streak of light came back.

“Yes, Princess!” he acknowledged loudly.

His voice was both incredibly strong and intimidating. I don’t associate intimidating with ponies, typically, so you know it had to be unmistakably intimidating for me to say that. I didn’t get a close look at him due to him having covered at least twenty stories worth of height in that short time. Still, I was able to make out an almost white pegasus up in the sky with a steel-blue mane and tail.

“Get back to Canterlot!” she ordered, “Warn Luna and muster the Sky Archons. I want a pair of Archons at every town and city before nightfall.”

There was a very noticeable moment of hesitation before ‘Storm Wing’ took off a streak of honest-to-God lightning trailing after him. I did as Stupid Bird ordered by standing there like a slack-jawed moron. That pegasus was officially cool. He’s got lightning. Real lightning!

“W-What happened?”

Celestia and I stared at Dash as she stirred awake, still being protectively held in my hoof. Oh, I had such an urge to drop her right then and there out of a childish need for vindication against the time she let me hit the ground. I, however, am a bigger pony than that. She opened her very non-draconian eyes and blinked them a few times lazily before getting her bearings.

“Woah,” she groaned before looking up at Celestia and then at me.

This was it! The moment my favorite pony declared me as awesome for saving her and I would live with a perfectly fulfilled life! Ah, life is grand.

“Are you alright, Rainbow Dash?” Celestia asked as she stepped closer.

“Aww, I was out for the whole thing?” she grumped, glaring down at the ground with a sigh, “I completely missed Celestia saving us.”

And that’s where I ran out of give-a-damn.

“What?!” I gasped, completely floored by the stolen glory.

Celestia let a slight smile creep at the corner of her mouth, “Actually…”

“Pffft!” I huffed before promptly dropping her onto the ground, “Oh, you can go directly to hell, and don’t bother asking to about two hundred dollars!”

From there it got pretty boring. The long and short of it was that Celestia grabbed us and used her sick Alicorn magic to levitate us back to Ponyville, stopping along the way to pick up Pinkie Pie and Applejack. The two of them were fine except for being terrified at the prospect that they nearly lost one of their best friends. Pinkie was insisting on staying near Rainbow Dash in case something tried to take her again. It was sorta subtle, but I take a very real interest in psychology (thanks to my insane family) and I can tell you this: Pinkie’s cheerful demeanor was a mask to her fear. You’d only notice after watching her closely, but yeah, it was there in the way she was looking about. Sure, she made it look silly and random, but she was definitely keeping a vigilant bright blue eye out.

I’m not sure why it took so long to get back; maybe The Nightmare went a lot faster than I had thought in its attempt to outrun Celestia. Whatever the case, even with Celestia’s assistance it took us quite a while, and it was nearing sundown by the time we got there. Celestia did very little talking and was watching me like a hawk the entire time. She wasn’t being hostile, but I guess you don’t live for a thousand or more years without being very cautious. Regardless, small talk was kept to a minimum. Scary things have a tendency to quiet people and the ponies were no exception. I didn’t press for any conversation; rather I just floated in peace.

When we finally got back to Ponyville, Celestia took us to Twilight’s library. We were met by the Applebloom rocket that had fired as soon as the door opened. Poor Applejack never stood a chance against her teary-eyed sister. After the shock wore off and the relief was all spread about, everypony began to filter on into the building. I figured I would stay outside; for the moment at least. Mostly because I needed a cigarette and some time to think. Celestia hesitated entering the library upon noticing my election to chill.

“Are you all right?” she asked, remaining unmoving as she awaited my answer.

I turned her way before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a smirk, “Never better.”

She took a moment to digest that but eventually smiled and nodded, “Good. And may I ask your name?”

I blinked at the question before tilting my head and chuckling, “Well, Pinkie has been calling me No-Name for now, so uh… That’ll do for now. Twilight said I can’t be Anon-Pony anyway.”

She seemed a mite confused at first but eventually closed her eyes as she let out a soft laugh. “I see. I won’t press for more at this time, then. After all, were it not for you, Rainbow Dash would have been captured, and as the bearer of the Element of Loyalty, all could have been lost. Thank you.”

She didn’t know The Nightmare was after me. Without even considering my action, I decided to let her keep thinking that for the moment. Hell, it’s not like I knew what that was all about.

“No problem. I’m pretty awesome like that,” I said with a wink, “Not that I had any clue what I was doing.”

Hear that? That’s my self-image going down the toilet and getting clogged up on the rising guilt. I can lie with the best of them, but every time I do… Eh, let’s just say my conscience is pretty hardcore about whipping me into line.

“Still, I thank you,” she said softly before turning to go inside, pausing to ask one last question, “Where are you from? What world, I mean?”

I blinked a few times as I digested the question. I figured one fib was enough and simply played it straight, “Heh, I doubt you’ve heard of it. S’called Earth. How’d you guess, anyway? I figured you couldn’t tell what with calling me your little pony and such.”

She paused just outside the door before glancing back at me. Her face was impassive at first, but she let one last comforting smile show before looking back into the entrance of the library, “That’s because you are, my nameless newcomer. Welcome to Equestria.”

And then I had a fangasm.

Chapter Three: A Series of Tubes and A Bucket of Water

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

Commence the great and powerful recap! I woke up in Ponyville, I had a bromantic day with Spike, I fed Twilight, I partook in insanity-time with Pinkie Pie, and I sassed Stupid Bird shortly before making up with it. And somewhere in there I got attacked by a rose bush and The Nightmare. Oh, and my second favorite pony called me her little pony and meant it. Squee!

Overall, this day was kicking butt, ass, and flank all at once without any apologies whatsoever. Indeed, the amount of derriere getting kicked here was naught but staggering. It was almost too much for me. Even though I was on Twilight’s front lawn, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the cartoony sunset, I was still having troubles believing that this was actually happening. I mean, it was just surreal. How could this have happened at all? Why me? And just how was I supposed to digest all this awesome? I mean it wasn’t getting filtered or anything!

In the middle of my internal questionnaire, Stupid Bird interrupted my train of thought by landing on my back. I turned my head and glanced back at her, pausing to marvel at just how far I could turn my head. Extendo-neck~!

“Hey there, Featherduster,” I said with a smirk, drawing a puff off the cigarette and smiling at it. Well, I guess it would be more appropriate to say ‘her’ by this point. She did save my life, so I guess she should get a pronoun and stuff.

“Hay is for horses, and you by proxy,” said Stupid Bird after a second of wing preening, “And you’re welcome.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I wasn’t certain how powerful Stupid Bird was, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, either. Besides, I had questions and Stupid Bird had answers.

“Thanks again,” I said earnestly, “Sorry about the douchebaggery earlier.”

“Your vocabulary is reminiscent of foul poetry. Apology accepted.”

Stupid Bird was snarky. I like that. I’d rather match wits and verbally spar than deal with some boring asshole that thinks they’re far more important than they really are.

“Besides, I’ve had plenty of time to think it over. You’re smarter than you both look and act, even if you aren’t as smart as you think. And yes, I understand that you had no reason to trust me and still don’t beyond a single act of goodwill.”

Pffft! Goodwill? More like blackmail. Not that I was going to throw that in there like an dumbass. Like it or not, Stupid/Awesome Bird had saved my life. I could spare her the slightest modicum of courtesy. I’m not so stupid as to be impolite. Though I suppose that would depend on whom you ask.

“Eh. We can let it go for now,” I said as I waved a dismissive hoof. “But I totally owe you.”

“That you do,” she agreed, nodding her beak slowly enough to be ominous, “But there are more pleasant subjects to discuss. No doubt you are curious of a great many things.”

“I am but uh…” I hesitated, absently chewing at my lip. “Is this going to cost me every time or something?”

Just checkin’ the fine print. I’d say sue me, but that’s what checkin’ the fine print is for after all.

“No. We made a deal and I have to uphold my half of the bargain,” she clarified, her unblinking eyes staring right into mine. “I’ll help you as much as I can while drawing as little attention to myself as possible.”

“Sounds like you get a cakewalk and I get to do the heavy lifting. Eh, everything has its price, I suppose.” I sighed before lighting up a cigarette and gazing into the box just on the offchance that the pack of cigarettes had been depleting without my knowing. “Okay, seriously though. What exactly is the deal we made?”

“Oh, did you not pay attention to the details?” she said, tilting her head just a tad.

I swear, I don’t know how, but that beak was giving me the most condescending smirk I had ever seen. Without moving! No, I don’t know how that works, either!

I chuckled a bit nervously as I took a long heavy drag. “Nope, I totally ignored the hell out of you.”

“Your loss.” She shrugged. With her wings. For some reason, I found that offensive.

My jaw dropped.

“W-What!?” I cried, keeping my voice down so as to not draw attention from the ponies inside. I know now why I did that, but at the time I had no clue why I didn’t want them to come out. “That’s it? ‘Tough shit’? You can’t tell me? Wasn’t it something about protecting Equestria?”

She laughed at me. Out loud! … How dare she.

“Hardly. Perhaps you could not tell, but I was aware of your lack of situational awareness and simply led you on. Even my outburst was to lead you into thinking your position was at a deficit in our next exchange. I would not waste my time binding you into doing something you would already do. Now that you know for certain that this place is real and not a dream, you’ll give flesh and blood to keep this world and those that live in it safe from any and all harm. Rest assured, though, if you had been paying attention, you would have been able to understand what I was asking of you.”

I had been played. It hurts. Even to this day it burns my ass to know that I’d been had. It sure as hell ended up being a life lesson, though. When I sign an MMO’s EULA, it’s because I’ve already acquired myself a printed copy and have spent more time reading it than playing the damn game. When I go to Holiday Inn, I make myself more familiar with the policies than the damn employees. When I flush the toilet, I’ve already made sure that there’s no addendum that states that by activating the mechanism, I thereby take all responsibility of the direct and indirect consequences and am liable for restitution, including, but not limited to, giving them the right to name my first child Skippy, paying to have the whole damn plumbing system replaced, granting them ownership of my soul and any inheritance I might have to give, and my taking of any and all bullshit. No pun intended. Also, certain details may be grossly exaggerated, but not as much as you might suspect.

“Then how am I supposed to uphold my half!? I don’t even know what you want from me!”

“I find that is more your problem than mine,” she reminded me with a chuckle, “Besides, you seem to have a great distaste for authority so I’ll no doubt have an easier time of manipulating you towards my desired goal if you are unable to actively work against it.”

My jaw further unhinged and I dropped my cigarette as a result. Oh, it was deliciously true. I mean, looking back, she had no idea just how right she was. I have no problems respecting authority, but I take issue with having my chain yanked around. True, things could have had a better start than me being a general assbutt. I mean, I don’t do it often. In fact I’m a pretty easygoing guy. But while I have a tendency to be very… let’s say… impulsive, maybe? I am a very good judge of character. I’m quite literally the only person I know that studies psychology for the simple joy of understanding people better. Do you realize just how much easier it is to get along with people when you can almost scientifically understand where they are coming from?

It’s amazing.

Amazing, that is, until you run into one of those people. Those people are the ones that see everything and everyone around them as means to an end. Those people I just can’t connect with. Stupid Bird, as it turns out, is one of those people. I can work with them when forced to, but when it comes down to it, those people are the ones I find myself actively being aggressive against in a futile effort to get them to understand that I will not be used.

Hey! Never said I was perfect. Quite the opposite, really.

“I…But! How can…” I stammered for a few seconds, mentally grasping at the first straw I could find. “You… … Are a bitch!”

“No, I am simply a pragmatic bird. There is a difference.” She certainly sounded pragmatic. “Keep in mind that I bear you no ill will. I will not try to disrupt your stay in the slightest. Unless, of course, your actions would interfere with my goals. Intentional or not.”

“Whatever. Stupid Bird…” I turned away grumpily. I’d turn my butt her way, but she was on my back still and that would have involved some freaky deaky yoga magic.

“If you care, I go by Tisiphone.”

I blinked in shock as the name slowly registered. I turned back to look at her, my eyes showing more shock than suspicion. “As in… the…”

“Greek Fury of Vengeful Destruction, yes. And no, before you ask, I am not really Tisiphone. My name is merely a concept and that is as close a match as I can find.”

Oh, now I’m comfortable. Goodness gracious, I thought I was just dealing with a worshiper of Tzeentch or something. An Aspect of Destruction is just loads better and brings out all the warm fuzzies deep within me. An aspect of destruction that wants to use me to protect something. I think. Or hell, maybe that’s just a red herring and I’m going to be the doom of all ponies everywhere. Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

Best to start whittling her down, just in case.

“Huh. I’ll call you Tissy!” Because ponies. That’s why.

Tissy leaned away from me as though I was made of bubonic plague. “I… I won’t allow that.”

“Too late, Tissy! It’s been done,” I cried, flashing the biggest grin that I could possibly manage. That’s really big, for those of you that aren’t aware.

“I think I have to leave now,” she replied as she took on an air of introspection. Her voice, while calm, had a slightly manic edge to it and while she was still technically talking to me, her attitude suggested that she was trying to reason with herself. Maybe she was trying not to be blown away by my awesome. Maybe she was trying to avoid murdering me. There’s no way to know for certain.

“I get the suspicion that if I remain here long enough, one of us is going to die.” She took flight and landed in front of me with that physics breaking trick of hers. “Either me by way of your stupidity, or you by way of me strangling you. A lot.”

Nope. No possible way to know. Let’s just be optimistic and assume the best.

I reached a hoof over and gently pat on her little birdy head. “Now, now. Let’s not throw a Tissy fit.”

Tissy leveled a look that would have impaled me on the spot if her malice were material. And then she exploded. Not literally, but it made this trippy little ‘fwoop!’ sound before disappearing in a small cloud of blue and black feathers that just… faded away.

“Oh my God, I killed it,” I mused aloud, blinking several times before shaking my head.

I decided that was enough outdoor shenanigans for one day. I took one final drag off my cigarette before holding it up to my face. I stared at it with intent, willing it to burst into flame as casually as I could. And I totally didn’t scream (much) when it obeyed. After making sure no one saw that embarrassing display, I went inside. My arrival warranted no attention as a conversation was already in progress. At least they were talking about me. That made me feel special.

“And then he started mouthing off to it, provoking it into attacking!” Twilight sounded a wee bit frustrated.

Maybe not as special as I would have liked to feel.

“Next time I’ll just roll over and take it,” I butted in, chuckling as I made my way into the library. “Seriously, you don’t think things would have gone better if I hadn’t sassed it into submission, do you?”

Twilight had enough benches marking the edges of the library to accommodate everypony. Except for Celestia. She didn’t have any Queen or Princess sized benches. Alas, Dear Princess Celestia was forced to stand. So stand she did, but near a window where she could keep an eye on anything approaching. Applejack was doing that pony-equivalent of sitting over near the staircase with Applebloom doing likewise on her back. Rainbow Dash was stretched out on her back over the top shelf of a bookcase. Pinkie was nowhere to be found, which can be terrifying given the right circumstances. Spike wasn’t around, but I knew where he was thanks to the smell of frying noodles.

“I suppose we’ll never know.” Her reply was dry and her eyes fixated upon me with a gaze that screamed ‘Disapproving Mother.’

“Well, maybe not you. But I do,” I countered frowning at her as I hopped up onto the bench and flopped down on it. Mmmm… Sanded pine never felt so good.

Celestia’s soft smile shifted into a pensive stare. “Please explain.”

“The ‘Nightmare’ was very straightforward,” I continued with a yawn. “It has plans. Nasty plans. Plans that don’t involve the well being of ponies everywhere. I don’t know what they are, but I know its idea of a good time isn’t what we would call a ‘widely shared opinion’. So sassing it wasn’t going to make things worse. It made them better, in fact! In the sense that I got to smacktalk the villain and it irritated Twilight to no end.”

Twilight’s disapproving gaze graduated to a full-fledged glare of annoyance.

“And if you just take all that winsauce, you could fill up a jar this big with it.” I held up my hooves, putting enough space in between them to fit a big jar of mayonnaise in. “And it would be delicious. One big ol’ jar of winsauce. Mmm!”

Dash snickered from her perch as Twilight rolled her eyes. I could tell she was trying to hide her amusement. Trust me on this, I’ve both annoyed and entertained enough people to tell when they’re faking either one.

“Speaking of delicious,” Celestia smiled as a certain tiny purple dragon wheeled in a serving cart covered in bowls of Lo Mein.

“Ermagerd~!” I cried before hopping off the bench and rainbow dashing over to snatch a bowl for myself. “Thanks, big guy!”

Twilight wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I was. I guess she’s just too bitter to let some things go. Still, she didn’t wait for Spike to head her way before nabbing her own bowl with magic. “Thank you, Spike.”

He beamed at our gratitude before carting off to the other ponies. Everypony else stared at the two of us as we began to dig in. Oh man, it was amazing. Now, I won’t lie, I was proud of the Lo Mein I made earlier. I put some heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into that stuff and I’ll be damned if it didn’t turn out half-decent. Spike, however, knows his stuff. He had already improved on the recipe significantly and had added something that made it taste like it had been cooked with pork. Not exactly like, but rather close. Either that or he actually cooked pork in it and then removed it afterwards, but I doubt that. Magic, mayhaps? Magical pork seasoning! No, wait! MAGIC. BACON. SEASONING.

“What is it?” Applebloom shied away from it like it was going to jump out of the bowl and kill her. That brought back memories of a younger me!

“Dude called it ‘Low Mane’ and showed me how to make it.” Spike shrugged before handing out the last bowl to Rainbow Dash, who was glancing back and forth between Spike and the dish as though she were trying to determine if he was being serious.

Celestia decided to risk her life and give it a chance after witnessing me and Twilight. I mean, we were tearing into it like a pair of hungry Neanderthals. Very carefully she extracted one of the noodles and gave it a testing nibble.

“Oh my!” Celestia exclaimed before levitating a fork and spinning it in the dish to serve herself liberally. Keep in mind, Celestia’s mouth is significantly larger and is able to accommodate a lot more food than the rest of us. Because of this, she was able to somehow appear dainty and regal whilst eating at my pace. Which isn’t fair at all.

Long story short, everypony ended up loving the food, Spike was crowned royal chef, and we all lived happily ever after. The end.

The end of the fun parts, I mean. Because it definitely didn’t stay fun for me from there on. Because halfway through dinner, I was ambushed by questions. Questions everywhere.

“So, No-Name!” Pinkie called out with her mouth very much full, “Where are you from? Is it nice?”

“Depends on who you ask,” I replied, giving a half-hearted chuckle, “I’m… fairly neutral about my home. I could take it or leave it, personally.”

“What’s it called?” Applebloom was draped across the top of Applejack’s head, sporting her big sister’s hat.

I swallowed before responding.

“Earth.”

“Earth as in Earth Pony?” Rainbow Dash interjected.

“Quite right, Lady Dashington.” Sadly, I was lacking a monocle. “In fact, humans are a lot like Earth Ponies. We build stuff with nothing but brains and brawn.”

“That sounds boring!” Dash pointed out in a less-than-civil manner. But she did so in a manner befitting one so cool.

Celestia quietly watched us all gab it up, content to pretty much fade into the background as she kept one eye on the window. At least, I think it was aimed outside. Celestia’s hair has this tendency to block one of her eyes at any given moment. That’s gotta be hell on the depth perception. I kept expecting her to collide with a wall or something. And then destroy it for its impudent attack uponst her royal person… pony. Whatever.

“Wait, so humans have no magic whatsoever?” Twilight asked, giving me a skeptical glance.

Celestia suddenly became very interested in the conversation. She didn’t say anything but most of her smile faded as stared at me. I hesitated in answering, somewhat distracted by her attention. I recovered quickly enough that none of the others seemed to notice (or they did and didn’t mention it).

“Well, I certainly didn’t have any magic before I got here!” I said with a chuckle. “Except opposable thumbs. Those are pretty magical. Right, Spike?”

Spike gave me a thumbs-up from the kitchen. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

“But your magic glass you showed me earlier. The one with the tubes connected to it?” Twilight pointed a hoof at me accusingly.

It took me a few moments to get what she meant. Then it hit me. The cell phone!

“Ah yes, the series of tubes,” I said with a chuckle, pulling it out and showing it off. “This is actually an electronic device. Nothing magical about it. Lights and clockwork, as it were. Just on an incredibly small scale.”

So yeah, you know that thing with Douglas Adams and flying? If you ever say to yourself, ‘I cannot possibly be flying!’ then reality will reinsert itself and you’ll fall to the ground? Same thing with trying to use a flat hoof to manipulate the security lock on a touchscreen cell phone. It was like trying to pick up that stupid teacup all over again. Only now I was humiliating myself in front of all the ponies.

“Mother Eff-Bomb!” I growled, trying to get the damn thing to cooperate before finally remembering that I just had to let it happen. Like the Centipede’s Dilemma or something.

Pinkie snorted gleefully. She liked that phrase. Which I still kinda feel bad about, whenever I think about it.

“This is harder without fingers,” I sighed before looking up at the ponies with a slight blush, “I need you guys to say something… distracting.”

“Like what?” asked Applejack as she tilted her head to the side.

They all proceeded to look at me as though I were asking to borrow their livers. I don’t know why a slightly odd request is so difficult to comprehend, but there you have it. Ponies can sometimes be a little hard to work with. After a few seconds of non-distracting silence, I sighed.

“Atta way to let me down, guys!” I sighed before looking back at the hoof that held my phone. Much to my surprise, it was empty.

“LOOK LOOK!” Pinkie squealed as she held my phone up for everypony to see.

I don’t know how, okay? I just don’t. Pinkie Pie unlocked my phone. Do you want to know how hard that is? The unlock pattern is complex enough that I don’t have to worry about people watching me unlock it. Seriously, I’ve had people stare over my shoulder and then immediately try to unlock it themselves, only to be met by taunting failure. I’m not making this up, there’s like nine different steps to it and a whole lot of line crossing. So for Pinkie to just guess the combination to unlock it was not only frustrating, but utterly stupefying as well.

“How did y-…” I started to say, only to be ignored by… Well, everyone, actually.

“It’s Twilight with wings, everypony!” She waved the phone around so quickly that there was no way they could actually see what was in front of them.

Twilight blushed, suddenly aware of the picture being shown around.

Dash was very interested in this. “Pinkie, hold it still!”

She tried to keep maneuvering in front of the overly energetic hoof waving, but she simply gave up and snatched it out of Pinkie’s hoof.

“Hey!” Pinkie was displeased, but only for the briefest of moments.

Dash stared into the phone with her eyes wide. “Woah, Twilight, you look just like the princess!”

That got just about everypony else’s curiosity riled and before you knew it, everypony that wasn’t me, Celestia, and Twilight was stuffing their heads together to see the phone. I was kinda surprised that the princess wasn’t that interested, to be honest. After having thought about it though, I’m sure she’s heard of crazier things in life. I personally forgot to give a damn and went right back to eating, as did Twilight, but Celestia kept an eye on the device just in case it exploded or something. Okay, that may have been an assumption, but it’s as good a guess as anything else.

Finally, after they all got their peeks in, Pinkie ran over to me with the phone in her mouth. I was somewhat engrossed in my evening meal that I didn’t notice her right away (Pinkie is fast and quiet, you see. Like a bright pink ninja poninja…). By the time I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, she wasn’t the only one quietly waiting. Pinkie, AJ, Bloom, and Dash were all staring at me as though I was holding everything up. I started to ask what was up before I realized my phone was in Pinkie’s mouth. My reaction was to snatch it out of there for obvious reasons.

Surprisingly enough, there was actually no slobber. But damn it, there should have been!

“Show us another!” she demanded, pointing at the phone.

I blinked at her before looking back at the Motorola 4GX, pursing my lips in contemplation. What harm could there be, right? With that in mind, I went to my phone’s personal gallery (consisting of 30% ponies, 30% video games, 20% memebase stuff, and 20% randomness).

“Okay just… Just keep it out of your mouth. Here, when you want to see a new picture just slide to the next one like this.” I slid my hoof across the screen, moving the view over to the next photo. I swear, if I had spared a single iota of my thought process realizing that I had just used a flat hoof on a touch screen that covered approximately 60% of the screen, I likely would have went crazy. Fortunately for me, though, I have the attention span of a cat on nip, so I was spared the Lovecraftian descent into madness.

Pinkie was ENAMORED. She snatched it back up with her mouth (… le sigh) and scampered all of three feet back to the others to show off her newly acquired alien knowledge. The ‘Ooo’s and ‘Aah’s that gushed forth were silly to say the least. I couldn’t help but chuckle as the inevitable, “What’s this!?” started up.

Well, seeing as I had little over a hundred pictures on my phone, I’ll just hit the highlights and the silly parts.

Pinkie loves meme pictures. After explaining the ones that had any chance of making sense to her, she would explode into an unmitigated bout of laughter. Luckily, I didn’t keep any of those awful pokepuns (erectabuzz… Nuff said!). That’d have been downright frustrating to elaborate on.

Dash suddenly found me to be much cooler after discovering I was a Spitfire fan. I don’t blame her. I think Spitfire’s awesome, what with her slightly empowered voice of awesome. Spitfire’s the bomb-diggity and stuff. Word.

Applejack was really skeptical that this wasn’t magic at first, but that got canned when I pointed out that cameras weren’t magical and used the camera to snap a picture of her. And then she got all sorts of worked up when I showed her the video-record feature. To be fair, she wasn’t the only one to think that was utterly amazing, but she was the one that found it more intriguing than anything else.

Then the voice recorder came up. It wasn’t that interesting until I showed them how to mess with the voices. That was where Twilight got involved. How much easier would it be to just dictate everything instead of write it down? Apparently easy enough for her to honestly wonder how hard it would be to make her own.

Applebloom was pretty interested all around but it wasn’t until she saw a picture of a human that she actually gasped.

“What’s that!” she pointed.

‘That’ was an old picture that I’d digitized and moved from phone to phone, making sure it always stayed with me. My phone never left my side, so I never had to worry about losing it that way. But as for what the picture actually pertained to… Well, it’s something of a touchy subject.

“That’s a human girl, right?” Twilight asked, glancing at me before getting this worried look on her face, “Are you… alright?”

Dunno what was on my face, but it probably wasn’t a smile. I mean, I’m not one of those guys that lets little mementos drive him into a rage or teary mess, but that doesn’t mean that I’m immune to the stuff either.

“Why’s it so fuzzy?” Applebloom asked, looking up to me before reaching out a hoof and gently tapping mine. “No-Name?”

I blinked as the contact brought me back to reality (or as close as it gets anyway) before glancing down at Applebloom and smirking, “Well, uh… It’s a really old picture. Cameras weren’t as good back then as they are now.”

They all looked at me to continue explaining what the picture was about but that was just not gonna happen.

“So yeah, um… That’s enough show and tell for now!” I picked up the phone before doing this motion that was akin to stashing stuff into a pocket. No, I don’t actually have any pockets, but that seems to be where the magic comes into play.

“Waaait!” Pinkie dived for the flank I stashed it at and hit me like a pony-shaped bag full of rocks. Earth Ponies… Y U SO HEVY?

“AHHHH!” I screamed as we tumbled, glad for the distraction from the photograph, “SWEET CELESTIA, IT’S GOT ME!!!”

Celestia’s expression said it all. She wasn’t going to do squat to save me from the needy greedy Pinkie. Oh, she’ll save you from The Nightmare, but you throw a Pinkie at something and you’re on your own!

It took some coercion, some assistance, a few delicious-looking cupcakes and something shiny to distract her, but I was eventually separated from Pinkie thanks to the mercy of Applejack and Twilight. Not Rainbow Dash, though. No, she was already busy. Laughing herself sick, if you must know.

Still, I was relieved to escape the pink clutches of doom. I thought it was going to take me chewing my leg off or something (seriously, I put that on the table more than once). Luckily, I did get to make it out with all my pieces attached and I didn’t have to explain what the picture was and why I was acting all funky about it. After gathering my wits, I dashed up the stairs as frantically as I could. With all the smoothness of a piece of sandpaper, I politely (if somewhat hastily) excused myself for a cigarette and stepped out on Twilight’s balcony.

“That was a close one,” I mused aloud, checking the bruise on my flank. Unless that was my actual Cutie Mark. Oh man, that would suck; my special talent is getting the shit beat out of me. Whatever. Stupid, unhateable Pinkie! It wasn’t visible or anything, but it still smarted right where my cutie mark would be. IF I HAD ONE!

“Are you trying to complicate matters?”

I didn’t scream, but I did startle and strike the coolest ninja pose in the history of pony-ninja poses. Imagine my disappointment when there were no other ninjas about, but rather, just Tisiphone, the Stupid Bird of Vengeful Destruction and her stupid, vengefully destructive self resting upon the stupid safety rails that were quite clearly a device of anti-vengeance and destruction-prevention.

“Dinkleburg...” I seethed whilst narrowing eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing!” I blurted before lighting my cigarette, “What’s up? Would you like some Lo Mein?”

“No, thank you,” she replied politely, “I’m here to stop you from making a grievous error.”

“You were only gone like two hours! How have I screwed anything up by just talking to the ponies!?”

“That’s what I said,” she said with an exasperated sigh, “Imagine my surprise. I figured you’d have waited at least until tomorrow to start ruining Equestria with your buffoonery.”

“Your face is a buffoonery,” I snapped, feeling prickly all of a sudden.

“Oh stow the bitterness, child,” she groaned before flying over and attempting to land on my muzzle.

For real, does anyone else freak out when something flies into their face? Let me actually ask the more sensible question: Who DOESN’T freak out when something flies at their face? Absolutely no one, that’s who. I don’t care if it’s a bird, a bat, a bee, or (God-forbid) a spider! You. Will. Freak.

Perhaps even like this:

“GEEEGERPPFFFT!” I sputtered as I swiped at the bird attempting to drop down onto my nose. Purely reaction, okay? A damned reasonable one, too. Effin’ birds and their effin’ face attacks. EFF!

She backed away and hovered in midair before exploding into a mocking guffaw. I was all sorts of flankhurt about that.

“You are NOT allowed to land on my face! End of story!” I rubbed my nose as I growled angrily at my assailant.

“Oh, keep your voice down,” she said with a chuckle, having landed on the nearby telescope that Twilight leaves out on the balcony at all hours, day and night. Apparently, their lenses don’t get moisture in them or something, because all it would take is one week of Floridian humidity to permanently ruin one of those.

I took another drag off my cigarette and pouted silently as I glared at the fowl with disgruntlement. Complete with sitting on the other side of the balcony and crossing my hooves.

“Oh, how mature,” she sighed, facepalming into her wing, “Look, just pay attention and we’ll go our separate ways. After that, you can go do whatever it is childish simpletons do.”

“You’re a childi-…” I started to reply before being so rudely interrupted.

I’M AN AH-DUUUUUULLLLT!

“Thank you, for cooperating,” she bellowed to interrupt me before letting out a soft cough for unnecessary preparation. “Alright. Now, I know you probably crave attention and all that, but I think you need to put a little more forethought into how you interact with the natives.”

“The ponies?” I clarified before glancing her way.

“Yes, the Equestrians,” she confirmed with a nod, “Do you realize that less than one percent of the entire population has ever been in a fight?”

I turned my head her way and gave it a tilt to let her know I was listening but had not caught onto her implication yet.

“And that there are no more than two prisons in all of Equestria?” she continued.

“Okaaay…?” It was like a beautiful bald eagle flying way over my head.

“And that those prisons have seen, in the entirety of their combined existence, no more than a hundred inmates?” She was talking like I should have caught on by now.

“That’s some seriously low crime rate,” I answered with a nod, “And you’re still being seriously vague.”

She smacked her wing over her face again before muttering in a language that… really resembled nothing I’d ever heard. I couldn’t even mimic the phonetics of it.

“The Equestrians are as innocent as children with very, very few exceptions,” she finally came out with it, “Now, I know it may seem far-fetched to the unenlightened, BUT! Try to imagine, and stay with me on this one! … If you were to unintentionally introduce the concept of… Oh, let’s start with something small… racketeering?”

And that was all it took. My mind went straight to hell and dragged my comfort zone right with it. All the awful possibilities of Earth’s grimdark potential thrust upon the eager, innocent, young pony mind. They would be monsters! Especially the Earth Ponies with their super toughness and such!

I could see it already. Rainbow Dash becomes a pimp and starts the red light district on the south side of Ponyville, pushing drugs called ‘Sonic Rainboom’ to all the little colts and fillies who want to be 20% cooler (yeah, I went there…). Twilight becomes a beatcop to try and suppress the unforeseen crimewave sweeping across Equestria with Pinkie Pie as her partner. Together they fight crime until it’s just too much and Twilight instead becomes the very monster that she seeks to protect others from.

“I just thought you might want to know… Oh, are… you alright?” I think Stupid Bird was trying to get my attention, but I was too busy freaking the hell out.

This leads to Twilight structuring crime in an attempt to control it but she loses herself to it when Pinkie tries to stop her. Twilight would be forced to frame Pinkie for murder to get her out of the way with an unjust life sentence. OH MY GOD! AND POOR RARITY! She would lose her shop to Twilight, who would then be a soulless shell of her former self, when she failed to pay protection rackets. She would be forced to move in with Applejack, the last bastion of honest integrity amongst ponykind!

“No-Name, is something wrong?” Wait, that wasn’t Tissy.

They would join forces with Fluttershy, only to discover that she’s on Rainbow Dash’s payroll as a hooker. THE HORROR!!! Her betrayal is not discovered in time, though, and Twilight sends some dirty guards to go break their kneecaps while they’re asleep or something. Also, Celestia would wear sunglasses and a beret, just because. Then Pinkie would break out of prison. Now too jaded to make jokes and play nice, she turns to vigilantism and applies her freaky mechanical knowledge to become BATMARE!

“Apparently there is. I apologize in advance.” Hmmm. That’s definitely not Tissy. Whatever, they’ll have to wait, I told myself.

It takes years for the pink pony to penetrate the genius and nigh flawless infrastructure that Twilight has set up, but in due time she works her way up the ladder and finds Twilight! Rather than destroy her though, Pinkie appeals to her with a photograph of how things used to be! Twilight would fall apart and realize what a fiend she has become! Just before she can repent, though, Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash shows up and shoots them both, securing her place as the regional crime boss. All would be lost! AND IT’S ENTIRELY MY FAULT!

I’m not sure what it says about me that I was able to think all that up in mere moments, but I’m rather certain it doesn’t say anything good.

And then Celestia dumped a bucket of water over my head. I made my usual completely unintelligible noises of shock before lifting my sopping wet mane out of my eyes. That’s when the dismay struck. It doused my cigarette. That made me so sad. Sad enough to turn a pair of big watery eyes at Celestia and poke out my bottom lip in despair. That seemed to bother her on an emotional level. Note to self: Celestia can be tormented with sad ponies.

“I… I’m sorry, but you seemed to be…” For the first time since forever, I’d seen Celestia genuinely unsettled.

Oh, I’m sure there was some part of me that thought trolling the Goddess-Empress of Equestria was a bad idea but it was quickly stuffed inside of a box and smashed with a hammer. No postage required, by the way.

“Why do you hate me~?!” I cried, dropping my cigarette and flopping over on my side.

Unfortunately, Celestia is smarter than that. She decided to ‘fix’ her mistake by drying me off. One less-than-amused stare later, I got to feel the unlimited powah of Her Majesty by way of hurricane winds. Like, winds so strong that it gets caught in your mouth and sends it flapping open with an utter lack of regard for your dignity. Well, I was all sorts of frizzy afterwards, and more than a little rustled, but I was definitely, unmistakably dry.

“Thanks…” I responded breathlessly, spotting my cigarette and picking it back up with an empty stare. It was also quite dry, I was happy to discover.

“You’re quite welcome,” she answered with a gentle, if somewhat trollish smile, “Try not to be so dramatic next time.”

“Affirmative,” I nodded soberly, lighting the smoky treat back up and backed away to keep from getting my addiction on her Royal Ponyness. I don’t know how she managed to blow dry me without sending Twilight’s telescope and my cigarette careening off the balcony to their respective dooms, but I assume it has something to do with magic. No, I don’t understand it, so don’t ask me.

“You looked like you could use a little bit of company, but you seemed… distracted to say the least,” she pointed out, tilting her head to communicate that she still didn’t understand what was going on there.

When she noticed I was taking efforts to keep the smoke away from her, she cast a spell to actually shift the wind to blowing my way. She’s considerate like that and it definitely made my job easier.

“Oh, yeah!” I suddenly remembered what was going on and brought a hoof up to scratch at my chin thoughtfully. “I was having this hypothetical scenario play through my head and realized that I might not want to just divulge the… diverse tendencies of my race. I mean, I don’t mean to make us sound like monsters or anything, but humans can be just as renowned for their cruelties as they can for the niceties.”

Celestia actually leaned back as she digested that. “Cruelties? What…?”

“Yeah, we’re not all a bunch of saints. I mean, the average pony here is a sweetheart, if a little bit… sheep-like.” I remembered how quickly the crowd at Ponyville’s Town Square all went to gossiping about me. “But humans… Eh… Well, most of us are decent but we ain’t perfect.”

I gave her a helpless smirk to let her know that it was just as troubling to me as it would be to her. I’m not sure that reassured her so much, but she didn’t lament on it overlong as she changed the discussion.

“Just as long as you’re quite capable of behaving yourself while you’re here.” How diplomatic of her!

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” I was all too happy to have the opportunity to use a Pinkie Pie Swear. Complete with the motions. Oh, I’m sure they make drugs that feel that good, but they just don’t last that long.

“I’ll hold you to it, too,” Celestia countered with a smiling wink. “So, I noticed you were unsettled by what happened inside.”

Bam, sudden subject change. She didn’t even use a blinker to warn me. If the cops had seen it, she’d have been pulled over.

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” I should have asked her if she wanted to fight about it or something. That would have been funnier.

She was just being concerned for me, which is touching and all but I think we can all agree, sometimes, personal space is best space. “Is everything alright?”

“If it’s alright, Princess, I’d rather not talk about... well, that,” I admitted, giving her a reluctant stare. “please?”

I don’t think Celestia is used to being told no. Because I could tell that she seriously wanted to pry into it out of curiosity alone, if nothing else. Still, her better side won out and she nodded with a sigh.

“Very well,” she answered before staring up at the moon, “Let us change the conversation, then.”

See, that I can handle. None of this sentence-by-sentence nonsense; crazy rapid subject bouncing.

“You got it! To what are we changing it to?” I piped up, quite relieved to have my boundaries respected. Seriously, so many ‘Fixer’-types just don’t understand that forcibly digging into your past to help you can be just as detrimental as having a rough past to begin with.

“Why was The Nightmare after you?”

Well, that was direct. So I gave her a direct answer.

“Ummm, it wanted my body. And not in the ‘I find you incredibly attractive’ sorta way,” I explained, flipping a hoof-shrug as if I had nothing else to give.

She laughed at that, which made me feel oodles and oodles better.

“I see. Do you have any idea as to why?”

“To be honest, Princess, not a clue. I’ve no idea how I got here, what that thing was, or where that crater came from.” I started to explain before suddenly remembering the Stupid Bird. “The only thing I do know is that there was this…”

Ever go breathless for absolutely no reason? Yeah, neither had I before then. But I did and it was quickly followed by the most disorienting pain I’ve ever felt coming right from behind my eyes. I shut them and seized up all over, just barely managing to not fall over on my side. I can’t explain it fully because it just doesn’t work. What I can explain was that I was very discouraged from ever talking about Tisiphone to anyone and anything.

It was kinda like a migraine, if you’ve ever had one. If you haven’t, oh they are NOT like headaches. Let me just clear that up, right here, right now. That brand of pain was just, more or less, something I dealt with. Hell, pain in general doesn’t really stop me from doing what I want to do unless I’m in danger of seriously messing myself up. But migraines aren’t like that. Those are something utterly unbearable and it makes you angry. So ready to just rip into something or someone for bothering you. Because it’s so unfair and you know it and you’re suffering nonetheless. The only thing separating this pain from the well-known migraine was that instead of a blaring agony that keeps going up and down like a super-terrible roller coaster, this was more of a steady, roaring pain that just wouldn’t stop. In a way, that made it easier to handle. Mostly, though, it was still PAIN.

“What’s wrong?” Celestia approached me and lifted my head up without waiting for my answer, “Open your eyes.”

It took a whole lotta focus to pull it off, but I eventually made it happen. Opening my eyes, I stared up at Celestia as she stared back. And then, without taking the time to warn me of her intentions, she gently bopped me in the nose. Even through all the pain, I had a huge Dubya-Tee-Eff moment happen right there. Celestia just clopped me right in the nose! What the hell!

For whatever reason, though, it totally worked. Before I could go back to my irregularly scheduled suffering, I realized I was no longer hurting beyond a soft ringing in my ears.

“What was that?” I mumbled, rubbing my poor offended nose.

“I don’t know,” Celestia replied with a soft smile that almost completely hid the troubled demeanor about her. “But… I think I have some work to do in the morning. May I ask you a question?”

“Is it going to hurt?” I aimed a pair of big super pouty eyes her way.

She let out a soft chuckle before replying, “I don’t think so. Would you be opposed to coming to the castle in the morning?”

“Go to Canterlot?” My eyes inflated right there as I sucked in about 15% of my cigarette in one drag. I felt a little dizzy after that, but it was a good dizzy. I did make a swift recovery though and made a nonchalant charade out of accepting, “Well, I hear it’s rather dismal this time of year and that pollution is really getting out of hand, but if you think it will help then YES!”

She blinked, hesitating a moment before making a very obvious comment. “Has anypony ever told you that you’re incredibly energetic?”

With my tail-a-waggin’ and a grin large enough to envelope a watermelon, I nodded rapidly.

“I’m not usually this wired, but trust me when I say, Madame Alicorn, that I am living the proverbial dream,” I clarified, still locked in the state of tail-flapping happiness. I don’t know why I wag my tail, it just seems to be the right thing to do when I’m happy. I don’t expect the ponies to do it, but before you get on my case, I think you need to realize something: This is my flappin’ tail and I’ll wag it about if I damn well please. And I do indeed please.

She gave me an odd look before shrugging her wings which… I mean, it’s Princess Celestia and all, so I can’t hate on her but it just... I dunno, it doesn’t seem fair that I have to do this complicated one-sided shrug or this rearing-up which takes so much effort. I just want some equality here, y’know?

“I suppose I can’t find fault in you just being happy,” she said with a nod, “Very well. I will send an Archon to pick you up in the morning.”

She turned to go back inside but right as she did, I had a bit of a realization. That realization being that I had a load of questions for her, too!

“Wait, hold up,” I implored, trotting her way a bit to help get her attention, “What’s The Nightmare? I don’t remember anything like that from… Well, what I saw of Equestria before I got here.”

She paused at the door before glancing back at me. She kept her eyes fixed on mine as though she were trying to figure something out about me, but whether she got her answer or not, I couldn’t tell. After a heavy pause, she finally smiled and shut her eyes with a nod.

“Let’s save that question for Luna when you arrive at Canterlot tomorrow morning before she goes to bed. No doubt she’ll have more insight on it than I will,” she kindly explained before opening the door back up and stepping inside.

I dropped my jaw in amazement. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about Luna. That was something to get excited about. I mean, no one knew what Luna was really like! She’s so mysterious, having had all of two lines in the actual show. Despite that, she had nearly as much of a fanbase as Twilight or Rainbow Dash, if not more. I mean, I heard she was going to get her own episode in Season 2 and everything but I was going to get the super special sneak peak! I thought I was privileged before! Now, I was just going to get spoiled! Squh-weee~!

“R-Right,” I nodded, lost in wonder at the moment, “Luna. Canterlot. Awesome sauce.”

With that, we made our way back inside. I expected to see a plethora of excited little ponies bombarding me with questions, but much to my relief, they had found other things to occupy their time. Twilight was reading a book (stop the presses!) from her comfy little perch on the bench I had left unoccupied by my departure whilst being picked on by Rainbow Dash who was flying over and blowing on her ear. Incidentally, Twilight ear twitches are adorable. Pinkie, on the other hoof, was hovering over Applebloom, staring at the tiny filly with big shiny eyes that were mesmerized.

Why? Oh, she had her reasons, and they were completely fathomable for once. See, Applebloom was busy snoozing the young night away along with her big sister. Taking into account that they own a farm, that isn’t too surprising on its own. Regardless, that alone would have been pretty cute, but they took it to the next level and made irresponsible use of their powers of D’Awww. AJ was lying on her back with a half smile on her face. Her snoring alone was pretty epic, but it was that right hindhoof bucking away at what I can only assume was an apple tree that really sold it. But wait, I’m not done. It definitely gets worse. Applebloom chose Applejack’s tummy as a bed to lay her sleepy head upon, having approximately 90% of her tiny body covered up with AJ’s oversized cowpony hat. Couple this with Applebloom being only just barely disturbed with each of her big sister’s applebucks and you had a weapon that could stop a brony’s heart at fifty paces.

I’m just glad I made it down the stairs without having to experience the rigors of the five point palm exploding heart technique. I mean, my life had taken a bajillion turns for the better in the last sixteen hours, but that doesn’t me I was ready to call it quits just so that I could go out on a high note. Still, it was a close thing and having to explain that at the pearly gates would have been a little embarrassing.

No, St. Peter, I died from a heart attack caused by looking at adorable ponies…

… Right, then. To Hell with you.

I figured as much.

“Am I the only one about to die from this?!” I whispered, dramatically throwing my hoof out in their direction.

Pinkie was busy soaking it in, too, so she gets a pass. Twilight and Dashy, however, just glanced at me like I was naïve. Which just isn’t fair; being desensitized doesn’t mean you get permission to judge me.

Twilight did begin to answer me to some extent, but Dash was there again, messing with her ears in an attempt to keep herself entertained. “Rainbow Dash, I’m going to stuff Poison Joke into your pillow if you don’t quiddit!”

The multichromatic flying pony snickered quietly behind her hooves as Celestia let out a gentle cough. Not sure how everypony knew to quiet down just by hearing the princess clear her throat, but they did. Maybe it’s the law? I can only imagine how that would sound in an official proclamation.

“I need to get back to Canterlot,” she explained, “Twilight Sparkle, if you would be so kind as to house our guest for the night, I will send for him in the early morning.”

“Of course, Princess.”

Heh… Like Twilight was gonna tell Celestia ‘No’ concerning anything. Hah! That’d be the day.

“But I wanna see Rainbow Dash’s cloud house~!” That was me, if you couldn’t tell. It was all Lafter’s idea and I couldn’t argue with on how cool that would be, even if Stoic was pointing out the obvious flaws in that plan.

“Heh! I’d totally letcha if you didn’t… y’know… Fall through it!” Dash was taking Stoic’s side for some reason. Honestly, he’s not as smart as he sounds.

I put on a brave face and saluted. “That, RD, is a risk I am willing to take. I can’t let such trifling obstacles get in my way if I want to get anything accomplished in life.”

Twilight facehoof’d, Rainbow Dash cackled, and Celestia rolled her eye(s?) mirthfully. I got the impression that I wasn’t being taken seriously. They obviously didn’t know me. I would have made a big deal out of showing how serious I was, too, if Celestia hadn’t distracted me.

“By the way, before I leave, Twilight,” Celestia interjected like the rude mare she was, “Do you want to give me your friendship report before you leave?”

I’m not sure where I found a quill, ink, and paper so quickly, but I did. Oh, it was easy. Hell, I may have even summoned them. Not too sure, though. I kinda blocked out everything but the event that was about to take place.

“Please, write it out,” I requested nonchalantly as I set them all down beside her. I was in PERFECT control of my voice, if you could believe that. It wasn’t even remotely easy, but I managed it. “I’d uh… I’d like to see how it’s done. Y’know, for future reference.”

Who’s an amazing actor? I am. You could have run a nuclear power generator’s current through me and it wouldn’t have excited me even half as much. But I held that poker face. I held it real good. That is, up until she picked up the quill. After that, everypony started to stare at me like I was crazy. And maybe that had something to do with the slightest bit of hyperventilation. Or the bug-eyed stare. Hell, it could have been anything, but one thing was for sure: I probably earned every last one of those stares.

“And... And read it aloud.” I think my voice was a whisper.

Twilight’s expression told me she was back to doubting my mental health. That didn’t matter to me though. Oh, no sir. Just as long as she wrote the friendship report. Nothing else mattered. Just the quill, the paper, the ink, and the pony. Fixation at its most absolute.

And no, I’m not going to write it out for you. It’s mine. If you want one you can go get your own! THIS FRIENDSHIP REPORT IS SPECIAL! IT’S MINE YOU D-...

Due to the interference of a certain annoying pony (GO AWAY, LUNA), I’ve been pressured into giving you that which belongs solely to me. Your gratitude had best be unending. I will know if it isn’t.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that there’s always more to a pony than meets the eyes. Even knowing that, though, one shouldn’t hold their secrets against them. Suspicious though it may seem, assuming the worst is a quick way to a bad start. I was treated with the opportunity to meet the strangest pony ever, and even though his eerie knowledge, as well as the lack thereof, about many things set me off guard at first, I can honestly say that I’m glad to have met him.

Friendship in the past has taught me that first impressions, while important, don’t tell you everything there is to know about a pony. Keeping that in mind, I was able to accept this new friend, and I can definitely say that it was worth it. Were he not here, it’s very possible something terrible could have happened to the entire town. Not to mention I could have lost one of my best friends. Thankfully, I don’t have to know what that is like. All in all, I can safely say that everypony deserves a chance, regardless of how bad the situation looks. And furthermore, I can only hope that other ponies get to know him like I did. If he doesn’t first drive them crazy.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S. Much to our misfortune, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write another letter to you without laughing uncontrollably. Apologies in advance.

Yes, that was quite unfortunate. It couldn’t be helped though. Twilight is a slave to her impulses, after all. I can’t be blamed if she finds it incredibly amusing that I sat there and quivered like a toddler at Christmas. That’s her problem, after all, not mine.

“Hey, Twilight, not to point out the obvious,” Rainbow Dash sputtered behind a facehoof, “but I think No-Name likes your Friendship Reports.”

“Thanks, Rainbow Dash, I wouldn’t have noticed,” Twilight snickered before rolling up the parchment and floating it over to Celestia.

“I liked it, too!” Pinkie declared loudly before slapping a hoof over her own mouth and glancing back at Applejack.

It was a close call that involved both the Apples snorting loudly before rearranging themselves and going right back to their regularly scheduled snooze. Nnnnneeerghh! That was hard to watch. Trust me on that.

Celestia took Twilight’s letter, but rather than tuck it away, she actually turned to me and drifted it my way. “I think you will take better care of this than I will.”

Ohhhh Jesus, why are they trying to kill me with awesome, I asked myself. What did I do to them that drove them to attempt bronycide? Whatever the case, they were doing a damn good job. Because that almost finished me off, right there. I mean, I hadn’t been here twenty-four hours and for some damn reason, I’d had more close brushes with death than I’d ever had in the entirety of my life.

That got me to thinking. Was this really such a good idea after all? Did I need to be taking all these risks and get myself killed through death by awesome? Maybe I just needed to find a way out and go home to-…Hehe… Eh, yeah, I couldn’t keep a straight face on that one.

“Thank you,” I whimpered happily as I grabbed the parchment with my mouth and stashed it away like I do with my phone and cigarettes. I immediately had this tiny mini panic attack and retrieved it, just to make sure it wasn’t gone and breathed this obvious sigh of relief.

Dash continued to laugh at me. She’s allowed, being Dashy and all. My payback came in the form of her hurting herself trying to hold it all in to avoid waking up the sleeping Apples.

“Well, if that’s all, then…” Celestia started to say before being interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

“WAIT!” She was most definitely not using her indoors voice that time, either. She responded by slapping both hooves over her mouth this time.

“Pinkie, why must you be so inconsiderate to the Apples, eh?” I quietly pointed over to the still completely unconscious ponies, “You’re mean, you know that? Meanie Pie~!”

Oh man, she totally believed it. Even from behind two hooves, we were able to see her incredibly distraught frown, complete with sad ear droop and incredibly misty eyes. What had I done?!

“I just wanted us to name you before we all left,” she whimpered from behind her hooves.

Aaaaggghhh! My guilt is unending!

I mirrored her sad disposition which led to everyone staring at us as we unintentionally got into a sad-face competition. This, in turn, pretty much killed what was left of Dash’s self control. She had to snatch one of the pillows from Twilight’s bed and smoosh her face into it in an attempt to smother her laughter. She stayed up on the second floor, furiously kicking her legs about as she let it all out.

“Oh fine,” I finally gave up with an exasperated sigh, “I’ll be Anon-Pony.”

“Absolutely not,” Twilight immediately snarled.

I just can’t win. And Twilight is not best pony. End of discussion.

-=-

This has been a fan-written story by CardsLafter - Follow me onDeviantArt to stay up to date with TTEOAP

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My Little Pony and all characters involved are © of Hasbro and Lauren Faust

Chapter Five - Part One: Burning Books and Tech for Fun and Profit!

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Patty Cake. A damnable pony if ever there was one. She advertised herself as a celebrity chef pony but the fact of the matter was that she had been created for the sole purpose of driving me insane. How? Oh, well it’s simple. The stupid mare took such pride in her work that she had enchanted all of her books to make them resistant to damage of any kind, thus keeping resale value high. Or so she said. The truth was that she was somewhere out there, rubbing her stupid villainous hooves together as she snickered at my feeble attempts to defeat her magic. I know that’s why Luna chose this book. Because it was amusing for her to give me impossible tasks and watch me fail at them.

“Last try, Hot Head,” Luna reminded me for the umpteenth time.

I glared at that *#&^ing book with all the anger I could manage. I was dis-frigg’n-pleased with its existence. The Incredible Edible Hay was the bane of my happiness. It wanted nothing more than to ruin my life, and I’ll be damned if something wasn’t doing a good job of it. Maybe it was the humid, greenhouse-like air that the garden seemed to have at all times, day or night. Maybe it was the annoying ringing song of Patty’s protection spell that kept me from directly burning the book. Most likely though, it was that damn brown pony (no doubt the villainous Patty Cake) staring off the cover art at me as though she were the most badass mare to ever have her countenance printed on paper and sold next to the ‘Cooking for Dumb Ponies’.

I’m being awesome and nopony can stop me, it practically screamed at me. Oh, I wanted to prove it wrong so badly. So very, very badly.

“It vexes me,” I growled, resisting the urge to grab the book and futilely attempt to rip it in half.

I guess I should explain why it was being such a successful source of fury. Well, put quite simply, I was trying to cast a spell on the book. The book was trying to resist the spell because it didn’t like the idea of being transformed into a small pile of ashes and an intangible archive of information within my mind. Handy spell, eh? Do all of your reading all at once. Woo! Awesome! Unfortunately, though, I had yet to make the spell work because, as I said, the book objected to my attempt at fiery destruction/transformation. But last I checked, the book itself did not have rights. I, on the other hoof, had rights. Like the right to happiness. And this book was getting in the way of that right. I’m pretty sure you get the death penalty for that back in Australia or Canada or something. I know they do it in Sweden, at least.

“Please hurry up and fail already.” That was Luna being supportive. Usually she just screamed at me until I ran away crying. And then she would beat me with a bar of soap in a sock. Or maybe I dreamed that all up, but it’s not like that would be out of character for her or anything. “It’s almost time for me to go to bed.”

“Seriously, I’ve yet to successfully singe the book!” I cried out in frustration, slamming a hoof down in anger. “How am I supposed to incinerate it and slurp up the words!?”

She perked up a bit before reaching up a hoof to gently tap her chin.

“Y’know, I never thought about it that way,” she mused aloud before suddenly tensing up as if she were straining. “If I can just… Wait… Wait… I just...!”

I took a step back. Sorry, but there’s just no reason to take unnecessary risks. For all I know, she might be trying to turn me into a newt. As it turned out, she was just being stupid.

“Nope, sorry.” She relaxed before smiling back at me. “I couldn’t bring myself to care.”

“How unfortunate,” I droned sardonically.

“Cast the spell,” she ordered with a soft yawn, waving a dismissive hoof at me.

I sat up and crossed my hooves angrily. “You cast it!”

“I did. Twice,” she pointed out dryly. “Hurry up, already. It’s almost time for me to go to bed.”

I blinked and looked behind me at the horizon. Sure enough, the sky was starting to take on a telltale greenish tint.

“Word?” I murmured.

“Word,” she confirmed after lifting a foreleg up for random hoof inspection.

Oh, there’s a story behind that, if you care. See, I tend to use a wide variety of slang, and Luna’s smart enough to discern the meaning of each one nearly every time. Now, I had said ‘word’ once before and for some unfathomable reason, it had amused her. A lot. And so it stuck. Which led to a lot of silliness. All that was lacking were fingers to throw out ‘deuces’ with. And shutter shades. That girl needed shutter-shades so badly. Because you… Well, y’know, every punk needs a pair of shutter-shades. u c wut i did thar?

“Um. Right.” I was feeling a little on-the-spot; I’ll admit it. “Uh… Third time’s the charm?”

“Right. Incentive then!” she remarked with a cold, crooked smile crawling up the side of her face. “I’m going to chain you to Lucky for a week if you don’t cast the spell successfully before I count to ten.”

Oh, the unmitigated horror that manifested onto my face. If you think she’s kidding, then you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Holy accidental homicide (Hippocide?), Batman! Last week she literally chained me to Lucky for a day and gave us a list of errands to do throughout the day. Never again. Understand? Not for all the gold in Fort Knox. Not for Half Life 3. Not for anything, alright? You feel me? I barely survived. It was brutal. Bless Lucky’s little try-hard heart, she did her best to prevent harm from coming to me but there was just nothing that could have saved me. But I’ve figured it out. Lucky isn’t just lucky. She’s what we will from now on refer to as a Good Luck Singularity. That’s how she does it. She takes everyone else’s good luck and leaves only bad luck around her. If Lucky were to stand in a freakin’ crowd of ponies, a meteor would smash into the crowd with a Lucky-sized, Lucky-shaped hole in the middle that would spare her life. But the worst part? She’ll assume every bad thing happening around her is her fault and cry about it. And as annoying as it sounds, it’s equally heartbreaking to actually watch because there is no way to convince her that she’s wrong. Because, in all honesty, she probably isn’t.

“W-What?!” I gasped as my eyes widened in terror. “Don’t you mean ‘if you try to cast it successfully’?!”

“Nope.” She set her hoof back down and turned that demonic smile my way. “Your belligerence has worked a nerve. It’s do-or-die time. One.”

“C’mon!” I begged, “That’s not even fair!”

“Two.”

“Luuunaaaa~!” I whimpered with all my might, “I suck at magic! There’s no way I’ll be able to cast it!”

My pleas fell on deaf, trollish ears. “Three.”

“Wait… This is all just your plan to watch me suffer for a week!” I shoved an accusing hoof in her face.

“Four,” she continued, a smirk slowly sliding up the left side of her face, utterly unperturbed by my hoof invading her personal space.

“AGH! You’re EVIL! You’re so evil, I’m going to write a song about you!” I roared in defiance.

“Five.”

“You’re an evil enchantress and you do evil dances!” I did the dance, too! “And if they look into your eyes, you’ll put them in trances!”

“Six,” she replied, undaunted.

“YOU THREW OFF MY GROOVE!” I might have been getting desperate.

“Seven.”

“Ahhh… Ahh!” This is where sincere panic began to finally settle in. “FINE! JUST STOP COUNTING, I’LL DO IT!”

“Lenience denied.” Her voice was so calm. So pleasant. And @#%*ing evil. “Cast the spell. Eight.”

“B-But!” I stared down at the book. Patty Cake. It was all her fault. God damn it, I would not let her be the death of me.

“Last chance. Give it a shot or suffer slowly at the hooves of Lucky’s aura of entropy,” she reminded me, “Nine.”

“AAAGH!!!” I reared up and slammed my hooves down around the book. I’d seen Luna cast this spell at least twenty times over the past several days and I had yet to even toast a piece of paper. But I was not going to spend another day chained to Lucky, much less a week. That just wasn’t going to happen. Period. I would be taking a flying leap off a high diving board into an empty pool before that happened. So this was it. Me. Or Patty Cake.

I won.

This was quite literally the most rewarding lesson ever. Seriously, the laws of magic are so frick’n numerous and contradictory that only brain-tanks like Twilight Sparkle are able to memorize them all and apply them with theory alone. I am not that intelligent. Sure, I may have decent judgment, but that means nothing when I need to open a book and use the information within to build… Well, anything, really. However, Luna’s old enough to know that there is more than one way to skin a cat and teach a pony for that matter.

When I first asked Luna the science behind it, she told me that I would never actually be able to keep it all straight; specifically that the academic path was beyond me. That really irked me, to be honest. I mean, she all but said that I was too stupid to learn magic in a traditional sense. Instead, I would be learning the ‘artistic’ way. I call it that because the only way she was able to make a comparison was learning how to draw. You first start out unable to curve your lines just right and because of this, you pretty much suck at it. But then you practice and you practice and you keep practicing and before you know it, the same hand that refused to do exactly what you told it to do is suddenly obeying you.

Anyway, back to the dreaded countdown. Hmm. How shall I describe this? Well, try this on for size: Eat four crackers without any water before, in between, or after. And then grab a peanut butter sandwich on white bread with no jelly and cram that down as fast as you can. You (probably) won’t choke to death (Actually, don’t try this…), but it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Now imagine trying to do that with your brain. It’s like seeing and hearing way too many things at once and neither covering your ears nor closing your eyes is going to help. That’s what happened for about ten seconds straight. I wasn’t even able to perceive what was going on around me until Luna finally tapped my shoulder with a hoof. I startled a tad before blinking and looking at her with was likely the most dumbfounded expression I’ve ever had.

The smirk on her face grew a little bigger as I realized that I suddenly had access to everything there was to know about cooking with hay. I didn’t ‘know it’ per se, but I could ‘open’ the book within my mind and reference everything as though I had committed a picture of every last page to memory. If I had not been so overwhelmed I would have dropped an awesome line, like… I dunno… ‘I know Cook-Fu’ or something clever like that.

“Faith, focus, conviction and imagination.” She tapped her hoof on the ground for each word she cited (which made me think of that stupid counting donkey). “Those are the four legs upon which unicorn magic stands. Do you understand why the spell worked this time?”

I shook my head, staring down back at the small pile of ashes that had once been a cook book.

“In the past, what were you lacking?”

I started to answer, but I instead found myself chuckling. The magic found my lack of faith disturbing. I guess I should be glad it didn’t attempt to choke me to death or something.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I replied before facehoofing and giving her a nod. “Lack of faith, right?”

“Exactly. I didn’t give you time to truly contemplate just how futile this last attempt would be, so it worked,” she smiled before returning my nod with one of her own. “Congratulations. You’ve graduated Luna’s Magic School. And you only cried once!”

“I did not c-… Wait, what?” I tilted my head in shock. “That’s it? We’ve only been at this… what, two weeks?”

“Yup. That was the final test. You passed!” she said with faux excitement before casting a silly little cap and gown on me. “I’ve never been so proud! My first magic student graduated in record time.”

She then gasped teasingly, holding a hoof over her mouth, “My goodness! That means you’re a prodigy! Wow, I’m good.”

“I don’t get it! I can’t even pick up an egg without breaking it!”

Luna suddenly glared at me before conjuring a thin wooden ruler and breaking it over my head.

“AGH! What the hell, Luna!” I cried, rubbing the offended spot as I glared at her.

“Faith, focus, conviction, and imagination, my former pupil,” she growled before pointing at the pile of ashes yet again. “That spell was one of the most difficult spells I could have made you cast. Not only were the effects lacking a physical display, but you had never cast a spell that affected the mind before in your entire life. Do you know what that means? That means you can cast anything easier than that. You just have to have the faith. That’s all you were lacking, my silly little grasshopper. If that was a nine point four on a difficulty scale of one to ten, then a nine point three is well within your grasp. And every time you say the word can’t, you are only making it harder on yourself.”

I continued to rub the newly-formed welt on the back of my head before glancing back down at the pile of ash. Without meaning to, I began to wonder aloud.

“But what can I cast then?”

“I can’t tell you that, silly. That would prevent you from using your imagination,” she trotted up beside me and mussed the front of my mane. “Try to stick with what you know and branch out from there.”

I poked out my bottom lip and thought on that for a bit before being struck with a random idea.

“I already do lots of fire!” I exclaimed excitedly before looking at Luna, “Watch this! Fire-breathing pony!”

I think she facehoofed, but I wasn’t paying close attention. “No, you can’t ac-…”

And then I roared out a wave of fire that had to be at least a good twenty feet long. My reaction? Hop around like a maniac before squealing in delight and hugging Luna’s neck excitedly.

“I’M A PYRO PONY!” I shrieked as I continued to hop whilst continuing to be attached to the silly night pony.

“You’re a freak of nature is what you are,” she replied before covering her mouth for a yawn. “And that’s my bedtime. Be sure to tell Tia that you mastered magic faster than her beloved Twilight Sparkle.”

“I think I’d rather be chained to Lucky for a week,” I replied, detaching myself from her before turning to watch her depart. “Sweet dreams, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that,” she quipped as she waved a wing in farewell. “and put that bench back.”

Yeah, I stole a bench from the courtyard and dragged it to the garden because, strangely enough, the warm air combined with the shade of the trees was, without a doubt, the most comfortable place to crash. It was stuffy as hell at night, but there was an awesome breeze during the day and one could just fall asleep standing straight up.

And no, I wasn’t going to put it back.

* * *

Well, the following night was pretty damned crazy if you ask me. I had slept through most of the day (because my stupid phone alarm won’t wake me up unless I leave it out in the open), successfully made my first Equestrian cheese pizza (I thought Cookie was going to explode in jealousy when Celestia commented on the tastiness of it), burned a map of Canterlot into my brain for navigational purposes, and squee’d at Lyra and Bon Bon (both of whom I’ll forgive for calling the guards on me). I hadn’t seen Luna, yet. Not that I was crazy to butt heads with her that night. It had been all fun and games so far, but today was the day when Luna got her turn in the education trade. And she was not going to like being told ‘no’ when she asked some of the questions I was expecting to inevitably come up. Still, I was going to be fat, happy, and sassy until that moment arrived.

“My little pony~! My little pony~! Ahhh~ Ahhh~ Ahhh~ Ahhh~!” I sang as I bounced around the Royal Canterlot Kitchen of Ponyness (Name Not Yet Official (But it will be)) . “D’ya know you’re all my very best frieeennnds~!”

Winter was fast on approach and I was high on illegal amounts of happy. I’d been in Equestria for all of half a month and becoming homesick wasn’t even starting to possibly be a problem in the foreseeable future. I mean, I don’t hate my life back where I’m from, but I was digging the magical world of friendship. I had yet to get my cutie-mark, unfortunately, but that’s okay. I had magic. And the know-how to make tea. And the capacity to combine the two into a practice exercise. And the capacity to GEEK THE HELL OUT.

“Why do you sing so much?” Starlight asked me from her perch atop the new china shelf as I continued with the making of my tea by setting the teapot atop my hoof. Much to the happiness of my inner-squee (AKA Lafter), using magic was getting easier. I mean, I didn’t even have to try hard for it to turn red like a stove-iron. Hot Hoof Magic~! You are so awesome~!

Luna had given me unlimited access to the kitchen, provided I only used magic whenever I wanted to make anything. That had really cut into my snacking for nearly ten days straight, but now I was getting pretty dang good at whippin’ those ingredients around.

“Singing is good for the soul, my violent blue friend!” I replied cheerfully as I continued steeping the bag of tea, separately using a spoon to gently stir the ever-darkening water.

“Right.” She sighed, bored as usual.

Starlight was second-in-command of the Sky Archons. As such, she was trusted with the night as the Captain, named Storm Wing, took care of the day. Whereas this ‘Storm Wing’ was Celestia’s go-to pony, Starlight served directly under Luna. You would think that would mean that both Luna and Starlight would, at the very least, come to an agreement to have a professional standard to which they adhered in an effort to make working with one another a neutral experience at worst. Such was not the case. Fact was they couldn’t stand one another. Both of them were intelligent, stubborn, competent, and very opinionated. That last one wouldn’t be a problem if they shared an opinion or two. Safe to say, they do not. However, being that literally only one out of every fifty ponies stays up past ten at night, there isn’t a wide variety of neighbors to chillax with. Me? I can stay up twenty-four hours straight before losing consciousness, so I’m all over the place, any time, day or night. And since Starlight would rather talk to anyone but Luna, she hangs around me when I’m not having magic lessons. Even if she finds me incredibly annoying.

“You should sing!” I exclaimed as I made her a cup of her own. “One lump or two, Miss Killer?”

Starlight decided she felt like being a fussybritches. “I don’t drink tea. Tea is for little fillies. So is singing. I think that makes you a little filly, No-Name.”

No-Name was pretty much my adopted moniker because nobody would give me a good pony name. Luna tried a few ideas, but they all sucked hard enough to strip the paint off your bathroom walls. The only reason I liked No-Name was because it was close to Anon-Pony and fairly unique. The only pony that didn’t like it was Celestia, and even she’d slipped a few times (not that she would ever admit to it).

“Yeah, well, your face is a little filly, so let us fill it with tea and song,” I counter-grumped, putting two lumps into her cup and floating it her way. “Enjoy or suffer. Your call.”

She grumped a bit more, glaring at the cup before reluctantly taking hold of it and snagging a sip. I make awesome tea, okay? It breaks your will and forces you to drink it. It suffers no intolerance to pass.

“I’m only drinking this because I don’t like to waste,” she said with a ghost of a smile.

“You’re so noble.” I stuck my tongue out at her before moving to the closest window and lighting up with my tea in hoof. “So, Starlight, were you part of the Sky Archons when Nightmare Moon attacked Equestria last year?”

“Yes, indeed,” she answered, giving her wing a flap to create a breeze that helped to push my cigarette smoke outside.

Sky Archons, I’ve come to discover, are pretty much the pony equivalent of America’s Marines or Russian Spetsnaz. Straight up. They are always pegasi, and are comparable to Wonderbolts on crack. They’ve special weather-control training that borders on the WMD scale when working in cohesion with one another. Once, I saw them make a tornado. It was big. I was frightened. I hid behind Luna. I feel no shame. From what I understand, not even Celestia and Luna are as combat capable as these guys. That in mind, I just had to know one thing…

“Where were the Sky Archons when that happened?” I asked, turning a curious stare her way.

Starlight’s eyes rolled so hard that they ran the risk of popping out of her head. Also, I exaggerate. Seriously, though, I can tell that she did not appreciate the question, but only because of the answer.

“Sitting on our flanks in Canterlot; that’s where.” Her words were dripping with venom, as though she still felt insulted by the situation. “Princess Celestia ordered us to do nothing.”

I blinked before tilting my head to the side and taking a drag off my cigarette. “For real?”

“Mmmhmm.” she answered as she slurped the rest of her tea. “Told us that there was nothing we could do to help and that we might even make things worse. Well, she worded it more nicely than that, of course. But that’s the gist of what she told us.”

I whistled throughout my exhale. If the rest of the Sky Archons had half the pride that Starlight walked with, then I could only imagine that they were pretty flank-flustered about that.

“Must have been a hard pill to swallow,” I commented flatly, not wanting to show any bias for or against Starlight’s viewpoint.

“We weren’t happy, but orders are orders,” she sighed before hopping off the shelf and giving her wings a stretch. “Ahhh~! Not that we did so without question. Well, mostly, anyway.”

“Mostly, eh? I take it you guys weren’t happy about relying on a bunch of teenagers to save the day? I mean, a lot of the obstacles that the Bearers of the Elements faced would have been a lot more easily overcome if just you were there.”

She nodded as she poured herself another cup of tea. “I still hate this stuff, just in case you forgot.”

“Right, I can see the disgust in your eyes whenever you chug it down.” I nodded with a chuckle. “So, I take it not everypony obeyed.”

“Oh, we all obeyed. But the Captain was so angry he could’ve whipped up a hurricane on his own. Him and Celestia weren’t far from having it out,” she said with a humorless chuckle before blinking and turning giving me a suspicious glance. “How do you know about all this, anyway?”

Oops. Yeah, the ponies still didn’t know about the show. I’d already unsettled Luna and Celestia with my bizarre knowledge of events, not to mention Twilight Sparkle. Big surprise, my mouth will oftentimes move faster than my brain. I gave a chuckle that was convincing enough to not betray my sudden nervousness as I spat out the first reasonable thing I could think of.

“Oh, um… Luna told me about it!”

“I must not have been there for that,” Luna’s voice piped in from the window I was leaning on.

“Eeep!” I shrieked at the unexpected interruption, jumping away from the window. To my surprise, there was nothing out there.

“I thought I smelled delinquent royalty nearby,” Starlight murmured as the light in front of me twisted and warped until it took on the shape of a pony. It eventually defined into the likeness of Luna, smirk and everything.

“Then next time, warn a guy!” I hollered at Starlight, before going to take a sip of my tea and realizing it was empty, having spilled it onto the floor when I got startled. I looked at the puddle, then into the cup, back at the puddle, then finally at Luna. She was trying to hold in the scornful laughter and that did wonders for helping me maintain a balanced level of chi.

It wasn’t until I put a hoof to her nose and gently pushed her out of the window that she started laughing. Very slowly, very deliberately, I shut the window, all without ever taking my eyes off her. That’s a good way to help communicate a copious amount of anger, you see.

“I’m sorry, we don’t accept jerks in the royal kitchen, princesses or not,” I informed her as I locked the window with a bit of magic before taking a deep breath and realizing my cigarette was still lit. Which meant I had to open the window back up (I’m so courteous!). I very seriously considered blowing smoke in her face, but decided against it. Mostly due to Stoic grabbing me by the ear and pulling me away before I could commit.

“What do you want?” I huffed.

She inhaled to speak but Stoic decided that it would be a good idea to give her some shut-up juice first. I agreed. So we slammed the window shut before she could get the first syllable out. Starlight found this to be incredibly amusing. I don’t blame her. If it was half as funny to her as it was to me, I’d be laughing, too. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t, mind you. Laughing, that is.

Luna then opened the window, took my cigarette and made it disappear. That made me a little sad, but I saw for it the petty act that it was. She was flankhurt. I was amused. And that’s the important thing here, boys and girls. Tee-hee~!

“What I want,” she calmly stated as she leaned up on the window, setting her chin on her up-propped hoof before continuing, “is for you to tell the truth. Because I don’t remember telling you anything about what happened at last year’s Summer Solstice. Probably something to do with the fact that I purposefully didn’t bring that up. I mean, who wants to talk about getting shown up by a handful of fillies and the ‘magic of friendship’, after all?”

Boy, were my cheeks red or what. I’d been caught red hooft’d… or something.

“Ah, hell,” I sighed before facehoofing and letting my shoulders sag a bit. “Okay, fine. Easiest way to explain this. Err… I… uh… I wasn’t there, exactly, but um… I saw the whole thing. Well, most of it, anyway.”

Luna’s expression remained blank and for several seconds, nothing was said. She finally let her eyes drift over towards the Sky Archon.

“Commander Starlight, could you give us some space?”

Starlight didn’t like being dismissed, but she wasn’t about to disobey a direct order from Luna, even if they weren’t especially fond of one another. She sighed and gave a somewhat informal bow before turning to leave. So then we stood there. Together. In silence. It was some kind of awkward, being under the scrutiny of a stuffy, mean pony princess.

“So, um,” I coughed, looking around nervously, “How’s your night?”

“Fairly boring, but I’m anticipating that it will become much more engaging quite soon,” she replied with a humorless laugh. “Walk with me, No-Name. It’s time we had a talk.”

Ironically enough, we didn’t talk at all as we stepped back out into the Royal Canterlotian Animal Garden (Unofficial name) where the spider monkeys decided they didn’t enjoy our presence. They decided to screech at us for the intrusion as they did every night that we showed up before midnight. Luna threw a few pears at them to scare them off for what was probably the tenth time since I’d been here. She’s pretty blah about animals, actually. So unprincess.

“One day, those monkeys are going to revolt,” I ominously warned, “That will be the day when you find yourself with your back to the wall and thinking to yourself… ‘That damn human was right again!’ And then the ninja will steal your fish. And you will be sad.”

“The surface of the sun will freeze before I let such horrific events take place,” she overdramatically stated with an overly dramatic hair flip.

She then turned to me and narrowed her eyes somewhat. “Now, the first question should be rather easily answered. What are you so afraid to tell me?”

“Where do I start?” I chuckled before looking about the garden for the bench. “I can’t rightly tell you without telling you, but I don’t want to not try. Hmmm, well, how about this: Why don’t we delve into something enjoyable with a wide variety of flavors to choose from? That way, we can slowly move into deeper and deeper waters until one of us backs out like a scared little filly.”

She mulled that over as I continued to scratch my head. I did something with that stupid bench and for some reason, I could not remember just where I had left it. Luna started to comment on my proposition but was infected by my distracted demeanor.

“What… are you looking for?” she began to glance about as well. As though she would succeed in finding a bench that I was actively seeking that she was not. Mares don’t make any sense.

“The b… Oh!” I glanced at Luna and quickly remembered that I had hid it behind some bushes to keep her from finding it later and putting it back where she deemed was its proper place.

I pranced over to the aforementioned bush, locating the desired furniture exactly where I had left it. I grabbed it with my teeth and began dragging it out, which almost immediately incited Luna’s ire.

“I thought I told you to put that back where you found it.”

Apparently, Starlight wasn’t the only fussybritches today.

“Oh hush!” I growled through my clenched teeth as I finally moved the bench into a good spot. Just on the edge of the tree cover; Where the dew wouldn’t pile down onto a pony, but would still be brisk enough to take the edge off the warm, humid air. “I’m no citizen of Equestria. Ya can’t boss me around, Fussyfeathers. Besides, we need something to chill out on whilst we take care of your education. First order of business! Play some video games! We’ll start on something pretty harmless and that should give you plenty of questions for me to answer for tonight.”

I sat down onto the unreasonably comfortable, wooden bench and whipped out my phone. Luna’s irritation was overwhelmed by her eagerness to start and rather than rev up her righteous indignation motor, she instead hopped up onto the bench with me. She peered into the phone with big turquoise eyes that wanted nothing but to see what nopony before her had ever seen.

“‘What’ games?” she tilted her head in confusion.

That’s when things got crazy. We busted out the universal smartphone-game. The most infuriating concept to ever grace the mobile platform: Angry Birds. Thank whatever divine power is out there that my phone had infinite power, because after her first red bird scream, she was hooked. Badly. And it was so sweet to watch her fail, too. Because karma’s a bitch, okay? Straight up. Poetic justice and a half. She couldn’t use her magic at all, and that was her biggest weakness. Eventually, she got too frustrated, and I decided to bend my rules a little by showing her the magic of Google. More specifically, I was showing her everything that she could learn by way of using a powerful search engine. I did my best to keep her searching safely, not wanting her to see anything bad.

It gets worse. I think the most shocking thing was that Luna hated cat videos. She found them utterly lacking in substance. She did, however, love the ‘Friendship Is Magic, Bitch’ Youtube movie. Oh man. She had tears rolling down her face she was laughing so hard. If she had not been actively using the phone, I would have recorded that and put it on Youtube because I can’t stress to you just how much she loved that thing. I mean, I was scared to death when I clicked on it. I was able to steer her away from the actual show, but when she saw the thumbnail of Celestia cackling into a foreground of fire, she was adamant that we check it out. I mean, I was thinking that it would offend her, but she explained afterwards how it was something of a parody of bad days.

I didn’t get it at first, but she was actually stuttering a little as though she were embarrassed by finding the levity in it. She kept trying to explain how it was a bizarre humor that she found incredibly amusing, even if most ponies would be horrified by it. Then it clicked. Luna liked darker humor; especially the clever or intelligently random. And that totally fit with the psychological profile of a person (or pony) using humor as a coping mechanism. It was a classic side effect, really. If you take solace in the more sinister humors, you won’t often be bothered sinister events.

Anyway, the night blew by fairly quickly. Youtube videos have a tendency to do that, after all. We were a good thirty-percent of the way through Red Vs. Blue when I actually nodded off. I think I was only out for twenty minutes or so, but when I came to, I realized that Luna had taken it upon herself to do some unsupervised web surfing. I think she must have been digging through my Youtube history because when I awoke, she was already ten minutes into the first episode of season one. Yeah, that episode. That season.

“I know you. You’re the Mare in the Moon; Nightmare Moon!” Twilight Sparkle quoted through my phone.

“WOAH!” I was suddenly very awake and very panicky. I snatched that phone out from in front of her and immediately powered it off.

She didn’t bother getting upset about me taking the phone. She just moved straight to glaring at me askance.

“What was that?” she kept her voice level but her suspicion was certainly putting her on edge.

“Look, it’s really hard to explain. I mean, I know it looks really strange, creepy, and downright surreal.”

“Well, why don’t you give it the old college try,” she growled, “and we’ll see just how much of an effect that’ll have on my disposition.”

Panic. Panic. Panic. THOUGHT! “Um… Well… What did it look like to you?”

“It looks like humans have somehow been watching Equestria. Incredibly closely and have somehow managed to avoid being noticed while doing so.”

“Well, that’s… actually exactly what’s going on here,” I admitted, letting a bit of relief wash over me. I was afraid she had jumped to a much worse conclusion. “Um… It’s not as bad as it seems, though.”

My relief must not have gone unnoticed, seeing as she also eased somewhat before speaking, “I’m listening.”

“Okay, okay. Lemme light up, this is going to take a while,” I stated as I retrieved myself a delicious smoky treat. I cantered over to the bench and hopped up on it, planting my butt down onto my stolen sanded furniture and lighting the cigarette with a bit of magic. “Okay, first things first: Believe me when I say, I don’t know what the connection between our worlds is, or if there even is one. But… This is… sorta… You know the video I just showed you the tyrant Celestia?”

“Mmmhmm.” She nodded before giving her horn a quick wave to summon up a dark cloud.

I hesitated for a few seconds. I was caught between fabricating a lie and coming out with the truth. Both my inner halves were at a loss for what to do, but the one thing we agreed on was that if Luna caught me in a lie, there would be beatings. Beatings as far as the eye can see. And I’ll be honest with you; regardless of the consequences, I kinda respect Luna too much to feed her anything but the truth. I mean, yeah, we may habitually abuse one another, but whatever, right? Luna has always played it straight with me as far as I know, so really there wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t do the same for her.

“That video was made by a human because he wanted to provide some entertainment for other people. And maybe show off a bit, who knows. And that’s… That’s sort’ve… the same thing.” I gestured out towards the entirety of Canterlot. “This world is like… Something humans watch for… Well, for entertainment.”

She arched an eyebrow would have made Spock proud. “How?”

“Hell if I know,” I replied, giving her a helpless shrug.

Well, she sure as hell didn’t like that answer! “Right. Starlight!”

“Luna, I’m not shitting you!” I hissed, looking about frantically for the inevitable face-grinding tackle. I’m scared of Sky Archons, okay? They find new and inventive ways to cause you pain. “Why do you think I’m so crazy about being here!? Because I’m living inside one of the coolest worlds I’ve ever seen!”

“You honestly expect me to believe that?” she glowered at me. She must have thought that I was treating her as though she were an idiot. But I can’t help the truth, right?

“Luna! Look at this damn phone and everything I’ve been showing you!” I threw up my hooves in exasperation. I was starting to fear that there was nothing I could do to convince her. “I could show you hundreds of pictures of just you and you’ve only appeared in the first two episodes! Mostly as Nightmare Moon!”

Me and my big fat mouth. Technically, I got what I wanted in that she believed me, but she got all butthurt about not being a larger character in the show. I had to calm her down and explain the WHOLE thing, how the show was focused on the magic of friendship and how it was centered on the six Bearers of the Elements. Then she got even more agitated when she discovered that Celestia played a significant role. After that, I just started rubbing it in and called her ‘Princess Footnote’ which brought about the status quo of verbal sparring between us. Luna has some of the most interesting insults that you’ll ever hear. “Talentless, Horse-Hued Mouthbreather” was that particular day’s masterpiece. Wow.

It took us a good while to get it all out of our systems; I mean, we were yelling at one another for a solid twenty minutes, but it was silently agreed that there wasn’t a problem here. Or hell, maybe I was just being wishful. It eventually got back around to the phone and hammering out an agreement. I would trust her if she would trust me. Specifically, I would trust her to do a little surfing on the good ol’ Motorola Atrix 4G without me breathing down her neck and in return she would trust me enough to not jump to conclusions or throw me in the dungeon. No, I didn’t actually agree to this, Luna was actually bringing me a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Not very polite of her, but I really couldn’t blame her. I mean, this looked really bad and for her to take me at my word was asking for a lot.

“Okay, the deal is I give you the phone during the day to mess around with until you pass out and you give me the phone during the night,” I reiterated for clarity’s sake.

“Mmmhmm.” She was so smug. So bitchy. Well, I was going to show her.

“You promise? You’re not going to alter the arrangement the moment you can’t figure something out, right? You can’t have me around to fix your problems and then send me away as soon as I got you back on track. All or nothing, right?” I gave her a suspicious glare.

“Yes, yes. Whatever,” she huffed before holding up a hoof. “I promise. Princess’ honor.”

“Right. Okay, Footnote. You’ve got yourself a deal.” I hopped off the bench and cantered over with a smile, holding out my hoof.

And then we brohoofed to seal the deal. I got a little dizzy from the giddiness that was surging forth within me. Squee-ness aside, Luna had made the mistake of underestimating me. I gave the western skies Equestria a glance and spotted the barest of pinkish glows tracing the horizon.

“Okay. Your first obstacle will be to figure out how to unlock the phone,” I knowingly informed her as I resummoned the device.

Dat look of shock.

“What?!” she cried before immediately slapping a hoof over her face and grunting in frustration. “You mean you… I should’ve… Augh!”

She almost immediately brought herself back to a perfect level of calm after taking a deep breath and letting it out through her nose.

“Fine. No, we’re going to work through this,” she told herself before casually brushing back her mane and holding out her hoof for the phone, “Hoof it over.”

I ‘hoofed it over’ as I let out the one hell of a yawn. “Welp! I’mma go lose consciousness for a few hours. I imagine you’ll probably stay up trying to fight with the security lock for a while. Try not to forget to set the moon before Tia gets up.”

She rolled her eyes before giving the phone a once over and letting out a dreadful sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I should probably get that done sooner rather than later, really.”

“Yeah, go work. Do celestial stuff. Keep the circle of life rolling,” I yawned tiredly before cantering back over to my stolen bench and flopping down onto it. I went to ask Luna if she could set me up a wake-up call spell or something. I didn’t want to miss everything due to being able to sometimes sleep anyway entire days at a time. When I rolled over to look at her, though, I found that she was already gone.

“Goodnight. Morning. Whatever,” I grunted tiredly before surrendering to the sweet, sweet embrace of slumber.

I am actually a restless sleeper. I roll, flop, kick, tuck, tumble, and dance in my sleep; or so I’m told. It’s not like I pay attention when I’m out like a light, right? All I know is that I fell off that stupid bench just as the sunlight fell onto my face. I cursed the bench for its inability to save me from such an unfair fate before grumpily fetching a Mareboro and pulling myself back onto my perch. I began to wonder what time it was after the first drag and started to reach for my phone, only to realize that I no longer had it in my possession. I actually started to go the irresponsible route of falling asleep with my smoke still lit before thinking about the phone and cheating Luna on the deal. My Lafter half kinda felt like I had been an ass in that regard. I mean, yeah, she was kinda being a bitch by twisting my arm like that, but she had also been happy enough to uphold her end of the bargain. Stoic reminded me, though, that while it may have been pretty low, the results had been worth it. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to show her lots of cool stuff during the night anyway, right? Right.

* * *

~Of all the humans I could have chosen to represent my interests, I had to choose you! You are, without a doubt, the most incompetent, immature, short-sighted dumbass I have ever had to deal with!~

Oh great, even Stupid Bird is here.

“Tissy, go away,” I groaned irritably.

She materialized on the rail of the bench and began yelling at volumes that were not fit for a creature her size. I wasn’t listening to her at first. I mean, it had been half a month since I’d heard from the damn thing and that just wasn’t long enough in my opinion. It wasn’t until she’d said something about the consequences of my actions that I remembered the dragon-sized migraine that had been inflicted upon my innocent, if somewhat underdeveloped brain that night on Twilight’s balcony. There was only one fowl that would answers concerning that.

“Hey!” I snapped as I sat up, “What the hell was that brain pain back in Ponyville?!”

“You have more important matters to attend to, you idiot!” she snapped, pointing a wing in my face and ruffling her blue feathers in frustration.

I lowered my head and narrowed my eyes as I met Tissiphone face-to-face. I took a drag off my cigarette and exhaled through my nose, keeping my eyes locked on her.

“Tiss. You’ve got five seconds, starting now, to explain what you did to me. ¿Comprende?” I snarled as I leaned in a little.

“Perhaps you did not hear me the first time, you dolt,” she quipped right back, her voice and demeanor unaffected by my hostility. “But I said you have more important matters to attend to! Such as your precious Night Princess.”

And just like that, all the hostility within me evaporated. I quickly sat back up and blinked as I tried to think of what could possibly threaten Luna.

“What…” I started to ask.

“Why don’t you find out on your own rather than delay yourself by asking me questions,” she preempted with a roll of her birdy eyes. “I’ll come for your apology later, should you make it in time. You might not make it even now.”

“SHIT!” I jumped up, spoiling the pure pony air with my profanity, “LUNA?!”

Well, as much as Tissy annoys the shit out of me, I wasn’t about to risk Luna coming to harm just to get the last word. I’m only that petty when it’s me or something of mine on the line. Jumping off my special stolen bench, I felt the panic set in as I broke off into a gallop for the entrance into the palace. I knew the castle pretty well by now so I had no difficulty navigating my way through the vast corridors and winding staircases (Seriously, there’s not a straight staircase in the entire castle unless it’s just to elevate some part of the room - That’s stupid, by the way). I kept shouting Luna’s name as I approached the only wing of the castle that sported indigo marble rather than the traditional black, white, and gold motifs. As I turned down the corridor (it was more of a sliding crash, really), I saw two Sky Archons standing in front of her door. That right there was a dead giveaway that something was wrong. Luna hated formalities such as being guarded.

“Stop!” the female on the right shouted. Her voice was stern and carried strength. Her eyes, coat, tail, and mane were all silver, varying only in brilliance.

The other was royal purple in color with a neatly cropped gold mane. He narrowed his sky-blue eyes at me and moved to stand in my way. I did not feel confident about trying to smash into a Sky Archon, but I’ll shamefully admit that I had sorta entered sheep mode. See, this is what happens when I stop being funny. I’m either too furious to think straight, or I’m panicking.

“Don’t do it, buddy,” said Mister Goldy as I closed in.

Well, all my panicky brain was able to ascertain at the moment was that Mister Goldmane and Miss Silverflank were standing in between me and someone I cared about. Naturally, base reaction was to get said obstacle out of the way. Ergo, I had to get them to move. That was surprisingly easy. Just breathe fire in front of me as I closed the gap.

“Ack!” cried the blonde stallion as both he and his companion flung themselves out of the way. I didn’t even bother with grabbing the latch on the door, I just smashed into that sucker. I think I’d unintentionally employed some magic in knocking that thing open, because looking back, there was no way I should have been able to do that. I mean, it had to be ten feet tall and just as thick as the library door that had blocked those guards my first night in Canterlot.

“Luna!” I gasped, rather thoroughly winded by the time I’d made it inside. I don’t even really remember what Luna’s room looked like, I was too busy trying to locate the source of danger. She was standing in the middle of the room, wide awake. I was somewhat relieved until I realized she wasn’t reacting to my presence. Instead, she was just staring at the phone. Not just staring at it, but taking it in. Her horn was glowing and her body was tense. It was then I realized what she was doing.

And then BAM! Tackled by Archons! Jesus, they are some kind of strong. I kinda just crumpled under them like tin foil as they restrained me in record time. That isn’t very hard to do to a unicorn already on the ground, actually. You just step on their horns and apply a little pressure, which is what Goldilocks did. And man, that’s the ‘I Win’ button against unicorns. I mean, holy shit, that hurts almost as much as a Roshambo.

“NO, STOP HER!” I screamed at them in pain and desperation, frantically begging them to stop Luna from making an incredibly huge mistake. “SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT SHE’S DOING!”

“I have to know,” Luna murmured as her horn beginning to glow all the brighter. “I’m going to get the truth. No matter what it takes.”

“Archons!” My hero! Starlight’s voice dwarfed all other commotion in the room and even distracted Luna for a moment. “What’s going on here, Silverheart?”

I could see a timid-looking Lucky hiding behind Starlight who looked like she’d just been unhappily pulled from bed to handle an immediate crisis. She wasn’t wearing her armor or anything.

“Commander, this unicor-…” the (surprise!) silver Archon started to explain, .

“Starlight!” I pleaded, “Stop Luna, she’s about to do something incredibly dangerous!”

Hoo boy, I could already tell she wasn’t going to do it. The conflict was there on her face and the fear was in her eyes, but when she looked at the princess, I could tell the resolve just wasn’t there.

“Commander Starlight.” Luna lifted her eyes from the book to glance at her. “I would like to be alone. Please escort our friend to his pilfered bench in the castle gardens and make sure he stays there.”

And then defiance kicked in. Maybe Starlight was feeling cranky and wanted to be a pain in Luna’s ass, or maybe it was the way Luna was ordering her to basically get out of the way, but whatever the case, Starlight didn’t feel like cooperating.

“Apologies, Princess, but I can’t do that in good faith,” answered the dark-blue Archon, “Lucky, go intercept the Captain, he should be getting ready to leave for First Responder Patrol with Snowfall. Whirlwind, interrupt whatever Celestia is doing and tell her we have an emergency here. Silverheart, don’t let him up just yet.”

Lucky and the purple Archon that I was able to determine as Whirlwind departed as quickly as they could. I’ll admit, I was a little surprised that they did not hesitate in the slightest.

Luna shut her eyes and breathed in sharply, as though trying to force herself to remain patient. “Commander Sta-…”

“Oh, stow it, Luna!” Starlight snapped, surprising us all with her incensed attitude, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t trust either of you farther than I can buck you. So I’m putting a hold on this until somepony with better judgment than I can decide what to do. In essence, you don’t move; you don’t cast; you just sit there, be pretty, and be quiet. Understand?”

Who’s a badass filly? That would be Starlight. Just saying.

I looked back into the room to see Luna still staring hard at the phone. I don’t know if she had already decided not to go through with it or not, but with the situation now under control, I was able to calm down a bit. Not to mention I was able to think a hell of a lot more clearly without Whirlwind grinding my horn into the floor.

“Please, Luna,” I murmured, turning my head to face her more. “It’s not worth it. Yes, that device holds vast amounts of knowledge, but the price is not something you want to pay.”

Surprisingly, Starlight did not rebuke me. Looking back, I think she was actually on my side in this ordeal, she just couldn’t outright say she was if she wanted to keep her position. She was definitely risking it already with having yelled at a princess, but she could justify that by way of answering the call of duty.

Luna looked at me, conflict apparent in her eyes.

I sighed softly, slumping a bit, “Remember last night? What I showed you wasn’t bad at all, right? I know it must be frustrating for things to go so slowly, but what you’re thinking of doing could hurt you.”

“I know,” she replied, turning her gaze back to the phone, “But I have to know. And you don’t want to show me everything. And even if you did, there’s just no way to know for sure. I just… I want to know now.”

Then the big guns rolled in.

“What’s wrong?” Celestia’s voice prevented me from responding right away. “What’s happened here? Silverheart, release him at once.”

Silverheart glanced back and forth between Starlight and Celestia, uncertain if she should obey Celestia’s hasty order.

“That isn’t what I would classify ‘at once’ as, Lieutenant,” she gently pointed out, the barest hint of terseness on the edge of her voice.

Silverheart hesitated only a moment longer before hopping off of me. I don’t blame her; even I was shocked to hear that from the Sun Princess. Why the hell did Celestia trust me so much? I’ve not a clue. There’s no way anyone could convince me that Celestia was just being arbitrary or stupid. She had her reasons, of that there’s no doubt.

“Now, No-Name.” She fixed her eyes upon mine as she spoke, “Tell me honestly. What is happening here?”

All attention was on me and I was feeling a little nervous. Just as I opened my mouth to begin explaining, my stupid morning alarm went off. The same one that seems to spectacularly fail to wake me up. Well, that pretty much dispelled all of Luna’s desire to deliberate any longer. Before any of us could reasonably react, she reared up and slammed her hooves down as her eyes flared bright white. My poor Motorola Atrix 4G (all six-hundred dollars of it) went up in flames as she absorbed it and everything it had access to. The amount of magic she’d cranked out to get it done was incredible. I mean so much was focused onto that device that it distorted the colors around it. I know this won’t mean much to you, but I’ll try to put it into perspective by saying that a spell that literally had no display other than a bit of fire was distorting everything around it. You could use half the power required to do that to, oh, I don’t know… power an aircraft carrier? No, that’s not an exaggeration.

The ensuing explosion was caused by Luna failing to completely contain the following dispersion (magic still has to go somewhere after you’re done using it, after all). Don’t get me wrong, I’m still floored she didn’t vaporize half the castle. The fact that she was able to limit it to just knocking everypony back to the closest wall spoke volumes of just how talented she was.

Now, I don’t know precisely what happened next, but what I think happened was I got shielded from the blast by either Luna or Celestia, or hell, maybe even Tissy. Whatever the case, wherever it came from, I was the only one that wasn’t punted away like a ragdoll. Even Luna was knocked back through her bedroom window and my immediate (some would call it idiotic instead) reaction was to dash right after her. I don’t even know how I was able to get there so fast, or how I was able to catch hold of her. I just know that I did.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like to make a habit of defenestrating myself. In fact, I find it downright silly, even in a cartoon world (yes, I know I considered it my first night in Canterlot – We shall avoid mentioning that ever again). For some damn reason, though, that did not stop me from doing what I just did and now I was suddenly plummeting to the ground with a trembling Luna in my hooves. Further stupidity compelled me to twist us around so that I take the fall. Christ, even I can’t believe I did that.

I will never do this ever again, I whimpered inwardly just before smacking into the ground.

“Luna,” I wheezed as waves of agony wracked me from horn to tail. It was only two or three stories, but damn did it hurt like a mother. “G… Gonna kill you… Just a… Just a heads up.”

Luna began to stutter something as she shakily rolled off of me and brought herself to a slightly unstable stand. I groaned pitifully, not nearly as quick to get up as her thanks to her less-than-successful attempt at flight. She continued to shake for several seconds before looking back down at me. I started to ask her if she was okay but she had other plans that did not involve sticking around. She suddenly broke off into an unsteady gallop towards the castle courtyard. Out of pure determination, I somehow forced myself to get up after a frustrated whine and chase after her. I was calling at her, but she either wasn’t listening or was just too far gone to care. I was hoping and praying that it wasn’t the latter.

The chase didn’t last long, though. It got as far as the main street in Canterlot before it came to an abrupt end. Not because I caught her. Heavens, no, it couldn’t be that easy. Remember when Starlight told Lucky to go get some jackpony named Captain Storm Wing? Remember also when Celestia said that only a select few of her oldest guards were combat worthy? Remember that one electric pegasus from the show that served as Celestia’s right hand pony by beating the everliving hell out of anything that opposed her will? Oh, you don’t remember that last part? No? That’s because he wasn’t in the show! BECAUSE THIS GUY IS TOO FREAKIN’ SCARY FOR CHILDREN! Seriously! We’re talking the Sword of Celestia in the form of pony!

I saw a bluish streak approach like lightning out of the corner of my eye. I would have looked at it if I had ANY reaction time whatsoever. Suffice it to say, I did not. I got tackled. It was like getting hit by a car, or so I can imagine. Now thinking back, I’m pretty sure cars don’t hit that hard. It wasn’t actually a tackle, even; it was more of a body check, like in hockey. Only I didn’t fall over. I flew over. Into a stonemason’s building. I stumbled out of the pony shaped dent and remembered turning to see a blurred bluish-white hoof smack right into my face.

Not sure how long I was out (THANKS TO NOT HAVING MY PHONE!), but let’s just say I didn’t need any more rest for the entire day. I would, however, end up needing quite the band-aid.

Also, screw Captain Storm Wing. (S.C.S.W.C. - 1)

-=-

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Chapter Five - Part Two: Burning Books and Tech for Fun and Profit!

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I would just like to say right now: Ponies are cool. I would like to follow that statement with another line of wisdom. Guys, it’s not safe in Equestria. Okay? It’ll beat the hell out of you and giggle while you quiver like a little girl on the floor. That’s not to say that little girls are especially good at quivering in pain; I assure you, a grown man can do a damn fine job of it, too. What I’m saying is that it was finally starting to dawn on me that for all the frou-frou colors and all sparkly magic, Equestria has its serious side.

“What should I do with him, Princess?” said Steve Blum. No, it wasn’t really him (LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR ALL YOU LAZY BASTARDS!), but it sure as hell sounded like him. Whatever pony had that voice probably had a lot of trouble making friends because it sounded extra rough and definitely unfriendly.

I opened my eyes and instantly regretted it. Light! BAD! Getting bucked in the face can obviously cause some serious migraines and today was no exception. I groaned as I slowly got to my feet, rubbing the spot where that stupid jackpony busted my chops. I was in dungeon cell #17. No doubt about it. The pillow there was a little fluffier than the others. Don’t ask how I knew that. I went to fetch myself a cigarette as I crawled off the unprisonly soft bed and whimpered as my head throbbed a little more. It had to be a Sky Archon. No regular pony can lay that wicked of a beatdown in so short a time.

“I doubt he’s going to be in a cooperative mood,” I heard Celestia say from outside the cell, “I’m not feeling patient enough to spare his feelings, though. Make him agreeable, then after that, bring him to me.”

Make me agreeable. Yeah, that was going to happen. Right after I beat the shit out of whatever pony cold cocked me back on the main street of Canterlot. Oh, there would be a reckoning. A RECKONING, I SAY!

“Yes, Princess,” he replied, “Please forgive my reckless haste.”

“I understand why you did what you did, Storm Wing,” Celestia reasoned as her voice faded away as though she were leaving. “But for one so old, I expect you to show more restraint and discretion in the future. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” I heard the incredibly deep voice named Storm Wing say.

Storm Wing… Storm Wing… Captain Storm Wing? Oh hell. This was the guy that Starlight answered to. He was, from what I can surmise, the ye almighty badass of the Equestrian world. Great googly moogly! If he was half as intimidating as he sounded, I might not need bother trying to break out. Yeah, and monkeys might decide to start flying out of my ass, too.

After lighting the cigarette, I snarled and locked eyes on that stupid cell door. I knew how to pick a lock with a coca-cola can and how to jimmy a latch with a credit card, but I was feeling a little too angry for that. I could see that there were no enchantments on the door (which made no sense… How do you prevent a caster from escaping if you use a mundane prison?) so there was one way for me to do this. Throw fire at the metal door. And if that doesn’t work? Use more fire.

I sucked in a huge breath, pulling in at least a third of my cigarette along with it before blowing out a blast of flame at the door. I held it as long as I could and was met with some results. The entire thing was shimmering with heat and showing the barest hint of a red glow in the center. One breath later, the barest hint turned into a noticeable spot.

“Hotter,” I told myself with an angry, excited growl.

A few breaths later failed to yield any great noticeable results. I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off and let out a frustrated sigh. I looked down at the floor before remembering Luna’s words.

Faith, focus, conviction and imagination.

Right. Right. I couldn’t let the thought of failure enter my mind. I could… No. I would do this. Then I’d go beat the friendship out of whatever pony decided to take that cheap shot at me. Faith… Okay, got it. Conviction? Oh yeah, I definitely had the desire needed to frag the door. Imagination? Check. Focus? No problem; just had to calm down and get it together. Get it together. Get it together.

“You gonna finish the job, human, or do I have to open it for you?” Storm Wing said on the other side of the door. The mocking edge his tone held was… Whew, as if I wasn’t irritated enough.

Well, that was all I needed to hear to get me motivated. I looked back up at the red-hot barrier that was barring me from freedom and put everything I had into that final roar. Out came a stream of my own personal brand of fire. It even matched my mane. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, kids, I was in so pissy of a mood that I didn’t even get that awesome feeling when I did something new and amazing.

I kept the punishment up for a solid five seconds and was rewarded for my heartfelt efforts. The cell door warped and buckled before eventually crumpling in on itself as it finally turned into a small white puddle of slag. With a fair amount of grace, I leaped the dangerous pool of molten metal and looked around to confirm that I was exactly where I thought I was. The dungeon’s hall is pretty much what you’d expect of the rest of the castle, which was to say, immaculate, decorated, and still sporting those silly black and white tiles with gold columns marking the spaces between cells. Seriously, who the hell is going to appreciate this stuff? Was there a gold column and picture frame surplus? Whatever.

Now, when I exited my cell, I was expecting to have to face off against Storm Wing. And sure, that was gonna happen and everything. But when I imagined Storm Wing, I couldn’t help but see this ten foot tall pegasus that eats bacon and crushes railroad spikes on his forehead when he’s bored or something. With, like, a salt-and-pepper mane; maybe sporting a matching beard, even. Do you know what I got? I got a colt that could be no higher than three feet tall (seriously, I think Rainbow Dash is taller than him) that looked thin enough to break over a piece of spaghetti. His coat was the lightest of blues, more white than anything, really. His long, wild mane was electric blue with a few thin streaks of stark white tracing down its length. And those corn-blue eyes of his just seemed a little too bored.

“Not enjoying your stay?” he asked sarcastically. Yeah, that was Storm Wing. That dainty little pegasus was the one with the super scary voice. “If you don’t like the cell I put you in, I can find you another one.”

He wore armor like Starlight’s: Silver with a red star. Only his came with a red trim and the rivets in the back had been left out so that the back of his mane could be interwoven into the helmet’s length and past his wings. The only especially strange thing about his appearance was a large metal ring tied into the end of his tail. Even with him looking totally awesome, I was just at a loss. I didn’t really understand it that all that well, the part where a scrawny pegasus literally half my size sent me flying off into a wall like I had been made out of hay and cotton, I mean. But rest assured, this was the jackpony. So uh… target acquired and all that. I started to inhale to breathe fire at the little bastard before suddenly getting a thump on my head from both of my inner halves.

Was I seriously going to attack and possibly seriously harm some little pony out of anger? No. No, I was not. Stoic was telling me to get a damned grip and I had every reason to listen to him. Just because I had the power to go burning anything in my way did not give me permission to actually go do it. Besides, there were bigger fish to fry, as Lafter was pointing out. Such as saving Luna. That was paramount. My personal vendetta was so tertiary in comparison to that. Worse than tertiary. Hell, what comes after tertiary?

“No, I am, in fact, not enjoying my stay in your shitty prison,” I snapped, still not calm enough to play nice just yet. “I’m willing to overlook that cheap shot in favor of helping Luna, so just take me to Celestia, Captain Short Stack.”

“That’s Captain Storm Wing, but I’ll overlook your childish mispronunciation for now,” he said, his expression bored and his tone flat. “And I’m afraid I can’t do that. Especially with you so hot-headed right now. We’ll go see the princess after you’ve calmed down a bit.”

I took a few steps forward before noticing that his visage wasn’t just bored, it was unresponsive. I was entirely caught off guard by the realization. Storm Wing wasn’t wearing a bored, half-lidded expression. He was blind. The corn blue iris gave it away entirely. A scrawny, blind pony whipped my ass! Well, there goes my self-image. Right there, trying to pull itself to a hospital. I don’t think he’s gonna make it, though.

“Why not? You going to try and stop me? Because I’m actually still agreeable enough to warn you right now, I’ve got no problems turning you into a simple clean-up job for whatever pony is out there with a broom-and-dustpan cutie mark,” I threatened. I always did talk some serious smack-talk when I was angry. Not necessarily cool smack-talk, mind you. But smack-talk nonetheless.

“Mmm. Sounds like I should cower in fear,” he murmured with a soft-chuckle.

Man, was everypony in Equestria a sardonic asshat? I’m thinkin’ so.

“Look, I don’t want to do this, mate.” I let out a perturbed, exasperated sigh. “Just take me to Celestia and we’ll settle this later.”

“And I don’t want to disappoint Celestia,” said Storm Wing, “so we’ll go when you’re good and calm.”

Okay. Screw Captain Storm Wing(2). Just screw him(3). Here I am, trying to be as nice as I c-… Fine, maybe not as nice as I can be, but damn it, I was making an effort!

“You’re seriously going to bring this to a head?” I facehoofed and sucked in a breath for patience. “Because this is your last warning. Get out of my way before I dust you.”

“Be my guest.”

It was the smirk, guys. It really was. I just had to punch it right off his face. I mean, sure, if I had just been a little more clear headed, I probably would have just cooled my hooves and defused the situation. Instead I decided I wanted a piece of that pony. Hey, I tried to be reasonable, but noooo~!

Anyway, here’s the condensed version: The tiny, blind pegasus won. It wasn’t even close. Don’t laugh, okay? I doubt any of you could take him (In fact, I know none of you could). Storm Wing will whip your ass so hard, so completely, and so politely that it just takes the will to fight right out of you. Well, that and the taser hoofy thing he does. Have you ever been tasered? It sucks, I promise. It makes you squeal. Not scream, not gasp, not cry out in pain… It makes you squeal. Specifically because every muscle in your body, throat included, tenses up as hard as it can. It’s awful. Just awful. So uhhh… Yeah! Cut to the part where I’m twitching on the ground, drooling because I’ve lost all motor control.

“Had enough?” he asked, gently nudging my prone plot with a hoof.

“I’ve never... hated a... pony before you,” I said between pained breaths, “How do you mani-... fest lightning... without unicorn... magic?”

“Highly focused weather control. It’s not that difficult, really,” he replied before helping me off the ground and forcing me to stand back up, “Get it all out of your system?”

“Yeah. Uncle. Uncle. Jesus, that’s the… last time I’ll smart off to an Archon,” I admitted, not wanting any more of this fight at all. I’m many things, but arrogant is not really one of them.

“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be the last time,” he remarked as he held out a hoof to steady me somewhat. “Besides, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been so easy for me if you had been more serious about the fight.”

“What?” I looked back at him, staring into his sightless blue eyes as I locked my knees to help hold me up. “I wasn’t… wasn’t holding back.”

“Yeah. You definitely were,” he replied with a nod, closing his eyes along with his smile. “When you’re as old as I am, you find it’s quite easy to learn a lot about the pony you’re fighting.”

I rolled my eyes before summoning up my box of cigarettes and pulling one out. “How can you even see me?”

He looked somewhat shocked, as though he were not anticipating my catching onto his blindness.

“Everything in Equestria emits magic. Even that which isn’t alive,” he elaborated with a nod, “With a bit of time and effort, you can learn to sense that.”

“Like an electric eel sensing an electromagnetic field,” I remarked, finally starting to breathe normally again. “That’s... pretty interesting actually.”

“Most ponies don’t even pick up on the fact that I am blind,” he commented with an appreciative nod, “You’re pretty quick when you’re not too angry to think. That trick with the tail was a new one on me.”

He was trying to be nice. Ugh. I guess no one informed him that electrocuting someone doesn’t exactly endear them to you. Whatever.

“For all the good it did.” I stumbled a bit before quickly recovering. I thought the migraine sucked. Let me tell you, when enough electricity runs through your body enough times, you will feel like you ran a marathon. A long one. Maybe even a marathon that consisted of multiple marathons combined. What do they call that again? A triathlon? Is that right?

“Anyway, now that you’re good and calmed down, it’s time to come see the princess.”

“What?” I rubbed my latest bruise, glaring at him disapprovingly. “I’m not calm. I’m just too… whipped to do anything about it.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to get away with an outburst in front of her while I’m around,” he pointed out dryly.

“So then… What, you beat the hell out of me… Just because?” I clarified, my irritation starting to flare.

“Not necessarily,” he stated with a shrug of his wings. “I was simply doing as I was ordered. You were feeling rather aggressive and now you’re spent. Besides, like I said, you can learn a lot about a pony when you fight them and… Well, I can’t exactly learn from you unless I actually do just that.”

I stared at him hard as I digested his words. He shrugged his wings a second time and I finally took note of their slightly irregular size. They were a bit bigger than that of your average horse-fly. I suddenly found myself wondering if it would hurt more should I decide to kick them really hard. Damndest thing, really; I’ve no idea why I had that purely random thought. I get those sometimes, though. Don’t worry, I didn’t kick him (not that he wouldn’t have just dodged or something). I instead decided a second Cigarette of Patienceness+2 was in order.

“So... … ... you just beat the hell out of me... … Just because,” I repeated, taking a loooooong drag off that cigarette.

“Sure,” he said with a chuckle.

SCREW CAPTAIN STORM WING! (S.C.S.W.C. - 4)

“You’re an ass,” I remarked before letting out a relieved sigh, the cigarette already helping me chill out, “Well, whatever, let’s go see Celestia.”

“Princess Celestia.” He reminded me before cocking his head at the door behind him. “Come with me.”

Easier said than done, I thought to myself as I moved to walk beside him. Not that keeping up with the hard part. No, it was the part where I simply didn’t want to whimper like a baby as I walked. That’s the next thing that sucks about getting a veritable cornucopia of electricity forced into one’s body. Not only are you utterly and absolutely exhausted, but when you force yourself to move, it hurts. A lot. Still, I sucked it up and walked alongside him. One nice thing about the good ol’ Captain was that he walked slowly. As we made our way to what I presume was either Celestia’s quarters or the throne room, I found myself inwardly freaking out for Luna’s sake. You ever have something so… incredible or unbelievable happen right in front of you that you don’t fully appreciate it until you have time to actually think about it? That was going on with me right then.

“Oh man,” I unintentionally whispered, starting to inwardly panic all over again. “Jesus, Luna, why did you… Damn it, that was so stupid.”

Storm Wing paused for only a second, glancing in my general direction if not looking directly at me.

“My Commander tells me that you’re somewhat close to Princess Luna,” he murmured softly.

I hung my head a little bit. As much as Luna infuriated me, she was best pony. Not that I’d ever tell her that, but yeah. “Yeah, what else did she say?”

“That you’re probably our only hope of finding the princess,” he replied, letting out a soft sigh.

Yeah. Sure, no problem. I’d just pop out the GPS on my phone and load up the Luna Locat- OHWAIT. “Why would you think that?”

“Because she told Starlight that you would,” he pointed out.

“She caught up with Luna?”

“The Sky Archons are the fastest fliers in all of Equestria,” he answered with a nonchalant wing-shrug (Grrr…) nonchalant, acting as though everypony knew that.

I wasn’t entirely surprised. I mean, Sky Archons are some zippy motherbuckers, but you just gotta understand how Luna does things. She cheats. She’ll cast spells to negate air resistance and stuff to make it easy for her to fly faster.

“Meh, Rainbow Dash could probably smoke you.” Childish sniping? When have I ever?

He scrunched up his face a bit, as though he were trying to think. “I’ve heard that name.”

Baffled, I was. I guess saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon didn’t really put you on the map? Yeah, I don’t know either.

I gave him a look as though he were from outer space. Not that he would have been able to appreciate it. ‘Cause, y’know… Blind, and all that.

“You’re kidding, right?” I let out a humorless laugh. “Element of Loyalty? Helped defeat Nightmare Moon? Won last year’s Best Young Flier Competition?”

“Oh, right.” He nodded with a smirk. “Her.”

“What do you mean, ‘Her’?!” I cried out. Seriously, light-speed breaking ponies aren’t something you get all meh about.

He let out a soft snort before pausing us just a short distance from a pair of gargantuan white and gold doors. The throne room, if you must know. I’d only been in there once before and that was because I was being chased by… guards. Le sigh. Yes, I know, that’s so typical of me. Go to hell.

“Compose yourself,” he ordered, giving me a stern gaze. “You’re about to appear before Princess Celestia.”

“Right, like I didn’t already know that,” I said with a roll of my eyes before pushing the door open, “Princess, your Captain of the Super Ponies could use a few sensitivity-awareness seminars!”

Goodness, I regretted that and I don’t say that lightly. Reason being was due to seeing Celestia’s expression. She didn’t look happy or amused. Which is a big thing for Celestia. She’s always smiling or laughing or consoling. That day? Celestia was wearing a mixture of fear, frustration, and sorrow on her face. As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough. I mean, I know I tried to stop Luna and everything but… Damn, all things considered this was still indirectly my fault

“Thank you for the advice. I will take it under consideration,” she responded before looking to all the ponies on either side of the court. “Please, leave us. Storm Wing, please fetch Starlight and an Archon of your choosing.”

A plethora of pretty little ponies vacated the court, leaving me and the princess all packed away into a spacious room all by ourselves. Storm Wing hesitated for a just a second, taking just enough time to let me know with but a glance that I was to behave or there would be beatings in store. I took a drag off my cigarette before suddenly remembering that I was smoking indoors. I sighed in annoyance before letting it go. Besides, these were stressful times and I needed to stay level-headed.

Celestia stepped from her throne and slowly walked to a large stained glass window depicting the Mane 6 zapping Nightmare Moon with the Elements of Harmony. I started to approach before glancing at my cigarette a second time. It didn’t take me long to decide that I could do without for the next few minutes. With that in mind, I doused it on my tongue and tucked it behind my ear for later use. With all the nervousness in the world, I stood beside the princess before sitting down, sighing remorsefully. We were both silent for what felt like hours but was likely only a few minutes. I kept trying to think of something to say. Something nice, something funny, something comforting; eventually I settled on a simple apology. I knew that that was going to happen one way or another, so I figured it was at least an okay place to start.

“Hey, Celestia? I’m… I’m really s-…” I started to say before being interrupted almost immediately.

“Was it your fault?” she asked, her eyes glued to the glistening glass before her.

“What?” I lifted my head a bit.

“You tried to stop her, did you not?” she turned her head to look down at me.

I met her eyes and swallowed a bit. When Celestia isn’t smiling, it adds a lot of weight to her demeanor. Everything she says just seems to be so much more… emphatic. And that’s hard to have to face, inward emotional knots notwithstanding. I tried to give her a straight answer, but my voice cracked a little. It was then I realized I was starting to choke a bit so I coughed to hide it as I nodded.

“Sure did!” I managed to say loudly enough to prevent the tightness in my throat from messing with me. I let out a hoarse laugh and nodded again before continuing on. “I tried to tell her that it was stupid. You can just ask any of the others what it was like and they’ll tell you. I was all, ‘Luna, that is dumb!’ and she said, ‘No way, I do what I want!’ And she… she just…”

Well, everyone’s mask cracks eventually, right? Seriously, it’s true. No matter how good you are at holding it in, you’re going to fall apart eventually. Because that’s what it is to be alive. Imperfect and stuff. Whatever the case, I couldn’t just laugh it off. I was scared for Luna and while I did do everything I could to stop her, I failed. No amount of logical reasoning is going to save you from feeling a modicum of responsibility because, damn it, it sucks so incredibly bad to fall short in those clutch moments.

I let my head drop again as I shut my eyes tightly. I could feel my throat constrict itself even more and grunted a bit to help clear it up a bit.

“And she just wouldn’t listen,” I tried to say more loudly, managing only to hiss out a whisper.

I felt her large wing encircle me. She pulled me a little closer in an effort to comfort me, which only made it harder. The fact that Celestia felt concern over me when her baby sister was out there, somewhere, having the worst and quite possibly the last breakdown of her life… It’s so selfless that some would be cynical enough to call it inhuman.

Why she cared, I don’t know, but after a moment of silence she decided to ask, “What is your name?”

“Stephen,” I answered honestly, somehow managing to keep my tone flat and even. I wasn’t feeling silly enough to say something stupid, if you can believe that.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

I started to tell her it didn’t mean anything until I remembered that my parents had actually had a purpose in mind when they originally named me. My last name had changed since then, but my full name used to mean ‘Gift from God’. Nowadays it means something entirely different and completely nonsensical.

“My old man told me it means gift.” I only bothered with the first name, not wanting to go into greater detail.

“Stephen,” she hooked the tip of her wing under my chin and lifted my gaze up until I was facing her. “Do not blame yourself for my sister’s stubborn nature. She has always been one to do what she thinks is best, regardless of the warnings of others.”

I met Celestia’s rosy eyes and had to set my jaw to keep an emotion explosion from entering the equation. It was that close a thing. It really was. And it wasn’t until she gave me a gentle smile that I finally started to cool down. It was like the pressure inside me finally let out and I was so relieved that it had. I did not want to start blubbering right here and now.

“I’m still sorry,” I said with a long sigh, sniffling to clear my nose up.

“Does that mean you aren’t going to try to make it right?” she asked of me. She had that inflection in there that told me she already knew the answer.

And she was right.

I blinked, staring at her for a few seconds before standing up and glaring stubbornly. “Hell no!”

It was exactly what I needed to hear to shake me out of my funk. She smiled a bit more and nodded before taking her wing from around my shoulders.

“I’m glad to hear it.” She turned a bit to look over her shoulder. “Thank you for waiting patiently.”

I blinked and turned around somewhat, feeling a lot of heat surge to my cheeks when I spotted Storm Wing, Starlight, and the Archon that had been guarding Luna’s room before, Silverheart. Storm’s expression was apprehensive whereas Starlight was giving me a small, genuine smile. Silverheart? Well, she looked like she was about to throw up. Psshh… Cynics.

“Oh shit, tell me you guys haven’t been there long,” I groaned, suddenly aware of my ruined reputation.

Starlight snickered in response as Storm Wing arched an eyebrow as if to ask if I was being serious.

“We have more important things to worry about,” Celestia politely reminded me, “Now, if you please, tell us what exactly happened. What has Luna done to herself?”

“I don’t know, precisely.” I shook my head, glancing back up at the Sun Princess. “I know what spell she cast. It was the Knowledge Absorption spell, and the target was my smart phone. Now, if she had just absorbed what the phone held, I don’t think we’d be having a problem.”

“But you don’t think that’s the case.” Silverheart stated.

I shook my head a second time. “Nope. I think she got at what the phone was connected to. The Internet.”

“And that is?” Storm was enough of a sport to provide the obvious question.

“Okay, imagine if every picture, every book, every library, school, college, government building and major business in Equestria were seamlessly connected together with magic so that, with the proper authorization, you could have any of that information your fing-… Er… Hooftips,” I explained, making sure I had everypony’s attention. “You would have… Shoot, I’ll high-ball it and say about ten percent of the information that Luna just sucked up. Probably less.”

They all took a moment to digest that.

“Wow,” said Starlight.

“Word,” I nodded before absently rubbing the back of my neck. “So yeah. I think she’s just pretty much overloaded herself. How badly? I’ve no clue, I’m not an expert on pony brains or any of y’alls physiology. Hell, the fact that she’s talking and flying is a whole hell of a lot better than I was expecting.”

“As daunting as that sounds, the mind is able to bear much more than one would expect.” Celestia. “And as an alicorn, Luna’s mind is meant to withstand the test of time. While this may have been more than she could handle at once, she may only need time to rest. Which she will have plenty of once you bring her back.”

I blinked before realizing she was most certainly talking directly to me and not to all the others as a group. “You say that as though I’ll be alone.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to anyone else,” Starlight reminded everyone with a long yawn. “She said just you. Nopony else. She even said nopony else would be able to find her. So uh… It’s gotta be you, stupid.”

“Starlight.” Celestia is so cool. I mean, all she had to do was say her name and Starlight kinda recoiled and drooped her ears a bit. She must have put a lot of points into her ‘Motherly Browbeating’ skill or something.

Storm Wing cleared his throat, bringing attention to himself. “Anyway, you won’t be alone. I’ll escort you until we locate her.”

“Oh, Celestia, not him,” I looked up at her imploringly. “He’s mean and flatters nopony with his foul scent.”

Celestia began to reply but Storm Wing was faster.

“Princess Celestia,” he growled, not appreciating the familiar way I addressed his Princess. Well, that was all I needed to know. Cross ‘Princess’ off the list for Words-In-My-Vocabulary. We might salvage this day, yet!

“And what do you mean ‘not him’, anyway?”

“Dude. You just beat the hell out of me.” I made a show of pointing at one of the bruises on my flank. Amusingly enough, it happened to be right where a Cutie-Mark would be. I’m sure someone or somepony out there finds that oddly appropriate. “So yeah, you’re up there with, like, Prince Blueblood on my personal list of Ponies-That-Suck, okay?”

Golly, that offended his delicate sensibilities. I don’t think I could have angered him more if I’d punched his girlfriend in the face.

“Just wait until you see my bad si-…” he started to say before Celestia rose her voice, not exactly in the mood to listen to ponies verbally fighting.

“Storm Wing, be silent,” she ordered curtly, before turning on me. She started pretty softly, but by the time she was done, she definitely did not sound so regal and pleasant, “Yes, my little human. An escort. You may very well be the only hope I have of saving my sister from what she has done to herself. This is not a debate; understand that you will be protected. I am not so impulsive to blame you for what has happened, but if you think for a moment that I am feeling patient enough to put your personal desires before the safety of Luna, then you are mistaken. I do not enjoy making threats, but you may rest with the assurance that I will make them if I have to and I am more than capable of keeping my word. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” I replied immediately before flattening my ears a bit back against my head. “Sorry, I’m not… trying to be difficult. I’ll stop.”

Celestia sighed sadly before aiming her horn at me. “This is a stressful time for all of us. I know you only make light of everything to ease your mind, but you must treat this situation with the severity it deserves.”

With that, a gentle shower of ember-like flecks of magic rained down on me. My initial reaction was to squeak and shy away but I suppressed the urge before I could act on it. I expected the spell to clean me up a little, maybe freshen up my breath and put a bandaid on my still-sore derriere, but I got one better. All the pain and bruises that covered me rapidly faded away, leaving behind a sensation of empowerment. I felt awesome, of that there was no doubt. I took a deep breath; so deep in fact that I realized that my chest didn’t seize up as it normally did when I tried to inhale so much at once. I don’t know if it was a side effect of the spell or just the relief from all the pain, but whatever the case, I was ready to take on an army. And quite possibly win!

“Wow. I just… Holy hell, that’s the stuff!” I reared up and slammed down, snorting a bit of fire as I smiled widely. “Thumbs up, let’s do this! You two coming, too?”

Starlight opened her mouth to speak, only to be preempted by the princess.

“Commander Starlight has not had rest since yesterday morning. I summoned her to assist in briefing and nothing more.” Celestia glanced at the dark blue pegasus before looking to Silverheart. “Lieutenant Silverheart, please stay after. I have a special task for you.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said Silverheart with a dutiful bow.

I could tell Starlight did not appreciate the princess telling her to go to bed, but an order was an order. She may have been able to get away with disobeying Luna, but Celestia was irrefutably regarded as the head honcho of Equestria.

“So it’s just you and me.” Storm Wing gave me a half-threatening, half-mocking glance. Which makes no sense. How does he know how to look threatening if he can’t look at all?

“Joy. Ah whatever, I’ll make the best of it. See you guys when we get back!” I was still riding the euphoria of Celestia’s restoration. I kid you not; I was on top of the world. I turned and galloped out of the throne room with Storm Wing slowly cantering behind me. I stepped back out into fresh air before grabbing my smoke from its perch behind my ear and lit it back up.

I cantered in place for a bit while Storm left to fetch the A.S.C.A.™ (Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness™ – Just in case you forgot). When he returned with it, I nearly squeed in delight at the prospect of flying again. I managed to mostly hold it in and simply hopped aboard before rearing up on my back two legs to stretch as hard as I could with a loud groan.

“Feeling better, I see,” Storm Wing remarked before sighing as if he was about to do something he didn’t want to do. “Listen, I know you don’t like me. You don’t have much reason to. I just want you to know, I’m going to do everything I can to help. Just keep me in the loop and I’ll try to stay out of the way. I’m not stupid, I know you’re pretty much the only shot I have of bringing Luna back safely and I’m not going to let my pride screw that up.”

So now Storm Wing was suddenly trying to be an okay guy. That didn’t sit well with me. I hated not being friends with cool people. And he was a badass pony so not being friends with him already sucked. I didn’t want to like him, though. Not yet, at least. I wasn’t done being grumpy over his obligatory greeting-beating. I eventually sighed and turned to face the Sky Archon.

“Look, Storm…” I began to say before suddenly being interrupted.

“Captain Storm Wing!” A haughty voice came from our left, turning my blood cold with seething rage. “I am in need of your assistance!”

“Holy hell, that better not be…” I let my sentence trailed off as I swung my vision towards the source of annoyance.

Judas on a freakin’ ho. It was him. Prince motherbuckin’ Blueblood. The Gary Oak of My Little Pony. Strutting his prissy white ass over to us as he polluted the air with an aura of self-entitled righteous indignation. The fates had been kind to me thus far, somehow steering my path away from his lest I be overcome with the urge to smack a bitch.

“Forgive me, Prince Blueblood.” I could hear the thinly-veiled contempt in Storm’s voice. It seems I wasn’t the only pony that loathed this waste of space. “But Princess Celestia has assigned me with a vital task and I mustn’t delay.”

Blueblood was determined to be a buttface. I could see it in his buttface eyes. They screamed self-entitled buttfacery. Oh goodness, and here I was, already primed to release some frustration. It was certainly within his best interests to not be around me with that buttfaced attitude of his.

“It won’t take but a moment, I assure you,” he pressed, stepping up to the side of the A.S.C.A.™ and hiking a hoof on it to prevent us from leaving. That was strike one. “I’m sure my dear aunt won’t sweat a few seconds of your time.

“Of course,” Storm Wing replied in the same flat tone. He was being so patient and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t impressed. He’s a trooper like that. I, however, am not so fortunate to be blessed with such inner calm.

“Um. No. We don’t have time for this,” I scoffed before looking to Blueblood. “Look, mate, I’m not sure you understand what’s going on. Princess Luna i-…”

Holy shit, he cut me off in the middle of my sentence. That was strike two, which was probably represented by a vein pulsing on my forehead.

“I am not your ‘mate’, as it were,” he sniffed derisively before looking back to my short escort. “Captain, who is this… ah… Blank-Flank?”

And that would be…

“Strike three,” I muttered with a facehoof before taking back control of the conversation. “Hey uh… Storm Wing. Quick question: Placing me under arrest would pretty much directly conflict with the orders Celestia just gave you, right?”

Silence reigned for all of two seconds before Storm Wing responded with a simple, “Yes.”

I smiled deviously from behind my hoof. As a brony, what I was about to do was my civic duty. Maybe not civic, but it was pretty much an opportunity that I would regret for the rest of my life, should I let it pass. Also, no one back home would ever forgive me, nor should they.

BAM! I TURNED AND SLUGGED THAT ROYAL PAIN-IN-THE-ASS RIGHT IN HIS SMUG, PRICK-FACE!

“THAT’S FOR MISS RARITY, YOU HORSE’S ASS!” I shouted at him as he fell back onto his haunches, more horrified than hurt. I’m pretty sure Celestia could hear the entire thing since we weren’t all that far from the throne room. Still, I could play coy with her later and possibly even sweet-talk my way out of retribution. “I can’t believe the Princess let you grow up to be such a complete waste of air! You’re a disgrace to royalty of ALL races! This is your wake-up call, jackass! And there’s more where that came from if you need it again!”

I wanted to flip him off but I lacked the digitry required to get that done. Instead, I just blew him a kiss and flew off with the A.S.C.A.™ so quickly that Storm Wing tumbled right off in my wake. I didn’t even realize I was controlling the damn thing until I was long gone. Luckily, it was just like casting a magic spell and all that it required was for me to make sure I had my four ‘magic legs’ covered. I checked to see if Storm Wing was okay but I soon realized that I need not bother. The guy was Captain of the Super Ponies after all and as such, he had absolutely no trouble catching up and gently landing back beside me. Hell, I don’t think he even had to try that hard at all, really. Keep in mind, the A.S.C.A.™ can haul more ass than an intercontinental airliner.

It felt good, flying did. I’ve always been one for speed and the wind in my hair, so this was absolutely divine, to say the least. My only regret? I didn’t have my shades on me. Which was kind of a bummer, but meh! If that was the worst thing to ever happen to me, I’d die a happy man.

“Well, for not having been a unicorn for very long, you’ve picked up magic pretty handily, human,” Storm Wing commented as he landed beside me. “Most ponies don’t have what it takes to fly so quickly.”

I started to point out that I had a name, but really, I didn’t. Yeah, I know I still had the human name, but to be honest, it was nothing special. I mean, what sucks more than having a lame name? Having a lame name that six other people share that you know personally. Ye be crushin’ me need teh be a unique snowflake, fate!

“Luna’s a pretty good teacher, if not a cruel one,” I pointed out with a sigh before glancing back at Canterlot. “So, uh... Thanks for not throwing me under the bus back there?”

Weird thing about blind ponies and people, they’re pretty damn good at poker faces. All he did was arch an eyebrow and I wasn’t sure if it was surprise, irritation, contemplation, or if he just had the urge to wiggle a brow muscle. Pretty sure it wasn’t that last one. Maybe.

“I assume you’re thanking me for not arresting you for assaulting a member of the royal family,” he confirmed before continuing, “Prince Blueblood is young and very foalish. He doesn’t understand the weight of his responsibilities nor does he comprehend consequences of his very self-centered behavior. I can’t say I wouldn’t have taken action against you, had I not been under conflicting orders. But, I will... admit... Had I not been trying so hard not to laugh, I wouldn’t have fallen off back during liftoff.”

After a few seconds of silence, he subtly added, “And yes, he’s had that coming for years.”

“Damn straight!” I gave him an obligatory nod of awesome-acknowledgement. “So, to find Luna. Okay. That I can do. Just gotta think.”

“Princess Luna. And what do you mean? You don’t know?” He sounded a tad surprised. “She said you would know where to find her, though.”

“I think she was referencing that I would know how to find her. Not exactly where to find her,” I pointed out as I began contemplating, running a hoof over my chin.

I fetched myself a cigarette to help the thinking process run a little more smoothly. It helped a little, but not enough to come to an immediate answer.

“Meh, all it means is that she’s someplace that the rest of you ponies wouldn’t typically go. Especially if it was a place that a human wouldn’t find himself concerned with,” I clarified for him as we soared along at LUDICROUS SPEED.

It wasn’t until I heard myself say it that I figured it all out. There was only one place that I knew of that ponies actively avoided altogether.

“Oh,” I gave a chuckle, “of course.”

“That simple, hmm? Let’s hear it, then,” he pressed with a wing nudge at my ribs. I’ll take the time to mention, I’m tired of other ponies having wings. You’re probably tired of hearing about it. I’m okay with that, too. Not that I’ll stop anytime soon, I’m just letting you know that it doesn’t bother me that it bothers you.

“Oh, well it’s quite simple, actually. It’s a place where the ponies won’t go for certain. Well, not without a damn good reason, anyway,” I said with a nod. “‘Where the trees grow, the animals care for themselves and the clouds move... All on their own~!’”

“What?” He wasn’t catching onto the reference. Poor guy never saw the show. Not that he’d ever actually… see it. Hee-Hee~!

“The Everfree Forest, my zappy little friend!” I smirked as I took another pull on my Mareboro. “Let’s do this!”

With that, I cranked up the speed on Celestia’s Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness™. Let me tell you, that thing could pull some G’s. I’m pretty sure I approached Sonic Flameboom speeds back there or something. I peeked down over the edge and started to land before Storm Wing asked what I was doing. Turns out that the nasty, dangerous forest between Ponyville and Canterlot was actually not the Everfree Forest, but rather, it was the nasty, dangerous bog from that Feeling Pinkie Keen episode. Derp!

* * *

Surprisingly enough, our destination was actually on the other side of Ponyville. No big deal. In fact, I realized that I would be needing a guide anyway, right? Ergo a quick stop by Ponyville would not only be fun, but ultimately pragmatic! So I decided to fly in low over the best pony town in all of Equestria in hopes of spotting one of the Mane Six. Worst case scenario, I would be able to get a bit of guidance, as they’ve all be in the forest at least twice. Storm Wing couldn’t actually see so I didn’t bother checking if he could lead the way. Sure enough, as I passed over Town Square, I spotted Twilight pawing at the dirt near the crater. You know… The one that I probably caused on my way in? Well, Twilight seemed super duper interested in it. I mean, she had to have brought out her half of her library and probably all of laboratory with her. No really, she could have made a sizeable bookfort out of all that stuff.

“DETOUR!” I yelled as I suddenly swung it around, throwing poor Storm Wing right off due to my rapid, unexpected turn.

I broke speed just above Twilight and laughed at the poor pegasus as he reoriented himself. Twilight spotted us and waved a hoof with an excited smile. I grinned back at the OP little unicorn and lowered the Carriage.

“Cute.” His visage was not a happy one. Which, of course, made me happy in return. “Why are we stopping?”

“Phoning a friend,” I answered as I hopped off beside the purple pony. “Twilight!”

I gave her a big pony hug, to which she laughed a bit. “Hey, No-Name, it’s been a while! Did you learn anything from Princess Luna? And who’s your friend?”

“I learned lots! And this stick-in-the-mud is to be ignored,” I assured her with a nod, “He’s also blind, so you can make faces at him and he won’t know! See watch!”

I turned and stuck my tongue out at him. Twilight had her usual reaction: Stare at me like I was nuts. You’d think she’d have learned by now.

“How mature. Get your tongue back in your muzzle,” he groaned before sighing, “Look, human, I’m not wasting time. Catch up to me at the Everfree Forest. I’ll try and find Luna while you’re busy playing hooky with your fillyfriend. Hopefully, by the time you’re done blowing off your responsibilities, all you’ll have to do is meet up with me and we can go straight to her.”

“Whatever you say, Stick-in-the-mud!” I called out to him, smirking as he turned around and bolted.

Literally bolted, that is. Because when I say bolted I don’t mean he took off really fast. I mean it was like he made like a bolt of lightning and was gone. He also left us with a deafening thunder crack and a charred spot where he once was. I wasn’t sure until then, but after that I felt I could safely classify him as a bigger showoff than me.

“Wow,” Twilight blinked to clear up her eyes, “Flashy.”

“Hmmm. Yeah. You think he’s as fast as Rainbow Dash?” I mused before remembering that I didn’t really have the luxury of wasting a bunch of time. “Actually, skip it. Hey, Twilight, come with me to the Everfree Forest! We’s gots us some advertureings to do!”

“What? No, I’m still busy here! I’ve learned a lot, though!” She pointed at her book full of notes and began to recite her findings, “As you can see, I’ve been hard at work analyzing the am-...”

Now, I can’t believe I was able to stay focused. Really, it baffles me. But stay focused I did. Because whatever Twilight had to show me did very much interest me because… Well, I might actually understand a modicum of it thanks to Luna’s Brutal School of Hard Knocks on the Head. Also, it might have shed some light on what specifically brought me to Equestria. Still, I didn’t have time to mess around so I opted for the best of both worlds.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up,” I cut her off, giving her a bashful smile. “Twilight, could you cast a spell to create an exact copy of this book? Like right now? That stuffy pegasus was technically being honest; we’re on something of a time budget.”

“Oh, to read on the way? Hmm, I guess so,” she said after a moment of contemplation, “Here, come this way. The crater is radiating some form of magic suppressant. It’s fascinating, though!”

We walked about twenty feet away from the crater before stopping. She had to carry the book in her mouth, which I have to say… Twilight’s adorable when she does that. Wait… I don’t mean to say that she looks good with things in her mouth. I’m just… You know how they are with… Hmm, this is a hole. I’ve dug myself into it. Let’s just say that Twilight would make an awesome puppy if she didn’t use unicorn magic. There, that seems safe enough, right?

After setting the book down, she smiled and began preparation for a quick spell, fetching a blank book of approximately equal size. I didn’t understand what she was getting at right away, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out.

“Oh!” I nodded eagerly as I levitated a large sheet of paper from her raw materials to keep dust from getting in the way. “Right. It’s easier to replicate details when you don’t have to replicate the foundation. Duh.”

Twilight started to agree before blinking at me. “I’m… surprised you know that.”

“Yeah, Luna’s a monster of an instructor,” I muttered with a slight shudder. “Seriously. There are actual punishments for failure. Like, dangerous punishments.”

She did this whole jaw drop thing and started to stammer but I was ready for that, actually. Twilight never seemed to understand that she was ten times as awesome as any other unicorn but was quick to recognize the accomplishments and accolades of others.

“Oh, don’t even, Miss Faithful Student.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “I’ve had two weeks of painful, abusive lessons. While they’ve certainly produced results, you’ve had years of theory-practice and application. Besides, I’d rather have Celestia for a teacher any day of the week.”

“Well, I...” She started to reply before catching on that I was spouting out information that I had no business having access to. “Wait, how do you know all that?”

I blinked before facehoofing. Damn it, I’d done it yet again. I let out a sigh and began to mentally abuse the part of my brain that controls my mouth for not waiting up on the rest of me.

“I’ll… I’ll explain later, Twilight. I promise.” I groaned before rolling my eyes at my own stupidity. “I just… It’s a really long story and it’s actually part of the reason why I’m in such a rush. So uh… If we could delay a little less.”

“Oh. Right, sorry.” Madame Sparkle nodded quickly before turning to the two books and placing them on the paper. One sparkly horn later, both tomes snapped open and began to flip their pages at insane speeds, only the used book on the right seemed to be throwing specks of black ink at the empty book on the left.

“Damn!” I exclaimed. I have to confess, I was definitely impressed at the speed and efficiency that Twilight was employing. I almost expected her to just summon a replica from scratch, but that would have actually been quite taxing. This was getting the same results with only a few more seconds involved and using less than a tenth of the magical muscle.

“Geez, Twilight,” I flew the newly printed book over to myself and flipped through a few pages. A perfect copy, no doubt about it. But then again, this is Miss Sparkle we are talking about; Celestia’s star pupil? I mean, let me channel Trixie and just say ‘was there ever any doubt?’

“It wasn’t that impressive… was it?” she murmured modestly, blushing a tad.

“Awwww~! You are so cute when you’re humble!” I gushed at her before setting the book back down and winking slyly.

“My turn!” I exclaimed before stomping down on either side it, absorbing it like a pro as it went up in a torrent of turquoise and crimson flames.

“What are you doing?!” She gasped before seeing me tremble all over, sorting through all the information she had compiled. “What... did you do?”

We know Twilight’s smart. I don’t think anyone knows just how smart she really is. I’m just going to give you a quick rundown because we’ll be here all day if I touch on even half the subjects she addressed in detail. She had notes, measurements, hypotheses (Yeah, that’s the correct way to spell the plural form. I would know. It was in Twilight’s notes!), results of many, many, many experiments, (I’m talking dozens) antimagic equations pertaining to a number of popular spells, a few solid theories on the effects of prolonged exposure to what she called the ‘antimagic radiating submatter henceforth known as Inmanipulon,’ the process of how the radiating dirt prevented magic (I can’t even pronounce some of these words), the interactive process between the anti-magic and magic radiation which she called ‘Manipulable Antisubdimensional-Resonance Relativity,’ possible applications concerning antimagic uses if made controllable… I’m boring you, aren’t I? Well, I understood most of it simply because she was that thorough explaining every last detail, with little over two hundred footnotes and references to books, laws, and theories.

TL;DR - Twilight knows more about magic than anything you know about anything. By a long shot. Seriously, where did all those botched-spell fics even come from? I mean, even when Twilight cast a spell to make the parasprites stop eating food, that spell technically didn’t fail!

As I tried to contend with the rush of information, I felt Twilight’s hoof rest onto my shoulder. Patty Cake’s quaint little cookbook had been warm gelatin in comparison to the boulder of information the purple unicorn had just fed me. After a good two minutes of staring off into Lala-Land, I simply forced my mind to think about ponies to occupy it with something else. Luckily that seemed to work just fine and I was overjoyed to discover that just the thought of ponies made my life so much easier yet again. It took another moment to gather my thoughts before accessing the information once more, this time choking the flow of information more fluidly.

The high points were:

1). It was new. Never before had such a thing as antimagic ever existed in Equestria. In fact, several thaumaturgists (spell inventors – FYI) had been universally failing in their endeavors to create or discover this very substance or anything just like it.

2). It seemed to have an unstable molecular structure, meaning it could become liquid, solid, gaseous or even plasma given the right set of circumstances.

3). Given enough exposure to higher quantities, it could potentially scramble the innate magical workings of a pony and really mess them up. Not kill them, but really harm them for a long time. Kinda like a less-lethal pony cancer.

“Ow,” I said as my eyes rolled back into my head for a moment. “Twilight, how long have you been out here?”

“About eleven hours. I’ve been hard at work and I’ve learned so much these past several days!” she answered with bashful smile, looking somewhat ashamed for having done so.

“You can stop being an overachiever anytime you feel like it,” I responded, giving my head a shake to clear it up a bit, “Wow, that’s pretty amazing, to be honest. Okay, this anti-magic...”

“Inmanipulon,” Twilight corrected with a hopeful smile.

“Right, right,” I shook my head with a chuckle, “Anyway, see if you can determine the source of this stuff and I’ll see if I can’t help out later. Or at least bask in your awesome in hopes of getting some to rub off on me.”

Twi giggled a bit before holding up a gracious hoof and setting it over her chest. “Well, I suppose I can be kind enough to allow that.”

“Goodness, you’re such a saint!” I gave her a snarky smirk before remembering I didn’t have time to cut up all day. “Oh, right! Um, since y'all are gonna be busy, who can I hit up to help me navigate the Everfree Forest? I’ve kinda been taking too long as it is.”

“Um, Twilight. Excuse me, but I got everything you asked for,” I heard a quiet, familiar voice peep up behind me, “I... I’m sorry, am I interrupting?”

It wasn’t even a thought process, really. Stoic just stepped aside as Lafter barreled right into my immediate decision making. I instantly shrieked like a woman and turned to wrap my hooves about Fluttershy’s neck, causing her to seize up as though I had thrown cold water in her face. I was quivering with excitement like a freakin’ maraca and to say that I was out of control was a practice in understating.

“FLUTTERSHY!!” I can’t say I even recognized my voice. “OMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSH!”

Fluttershy was shocked into dropping the basket she was carrying but thankfully did not start flailing about in panic. Looking back, I wonder if whatever she was carrying happened to be important. I mean, I didn’t care about the basket, nor its contents, seeing as neither of them were Fluttershy… So yeah. Hope it wasn’t fragile or something!

“N... No-Name, you’re scaring her!” Twilight protested, quite distraught with me and my lack of respect for the pink-haired pony’s personal space.

“I’m so sorry!” I whispered fearfully, my voice becoming deadly serious. Not that I let go of her or anything; I just stopped all the hyperactive bouncing and shaking. “Fluttershy. I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I apologize. Do you accept my apology? Accept my apology. I will cry if you say no.”

“W-What?!” The poor confused pony gasped. Even ‘er gashps are grasheful~!

Twilight yelled at me some more, but I was huggin’ Fluttershy so that wasn’t very important to me at the time. I’m sure you understand.

“Don’t make me cry! I’ll cry, Fluttershy!” I pleaded with a whimper, sounding extra ridiculous if I do say so myself. I know, I know. It was way too much. But I was so very lost in the moment. My apologies to everyone. “You don’t want me to cry do you?”

“N... N-N... N-No?” she stammered eventually.

“Then I’m sorry for scaring you,” I whined, still hugging her like a champ.

“It’s... It’s... … It’s alright,” she answered, giving a hesitant laugh.

“I’mma let you go now. Don’t run away, please.”

I could hear the hope of salvation in her voice when she said, “I… I won’t!”

“Pinkie Promise?”

“NO-NAME!” Twilight shouted.

“Right!” I let go of her and laid flat against the ground. I hid my face underneath my forelegs and whimpered. “I’m sorry, but I just need Fluttershy’s help to save the princess! You want to help save the princess, right?”

I had only just been struck with the idea that she could be my guide and to be fair, it was a genius idea. ‘Cause, come on! Time spent with Fluttershy! That was like Christmas! Only 20% co-... Actually, that would be a really cold Christmas, so nevermind. But still! Chillaxin’ with the Shy was, like, the best idea ever! Going on an adventure with her only made it MORE AWESOME!

“No-Name! Stop that this instant!” I heard Twilight cry out at me. I’m sorry, Twilight, No-Name is not available at the moment. Please leave your name and number and he’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

“What?! That’s your name?!” Fluttershy didn’t seem to trust me very much. And here I was being so nice.

“Help me, Fluttershy Kind-Pony! You’re my only hope!” I urged her, my voice muffled from under my hooves. I also might have sniffled in an attempt to help the guilt tripping process along. Shit, I’d totally forgotten about that until just now. I think that slides me straight into the Chaotic Evil category or something.

“I give up!” Twilight finally left me alone. See, she is a smart girl.

“O-Okay! I’ll help!” Fluttershy promised, “J-Just don’t cry! Please!”

I somehow launched myself four feet into the air with a squeak-smile. I would have proceeded to the part where I squee everywhere and the following clean-up (which would have taken hours) but I got distracted by that squeak. I almost freaked out and demanded to know how that worked, but Stoic flew in with a superman cape to drop kick me back into reasonable thinking.

Luna still needs help. Stop screwing around. Right. Get moving.

Poor Fluttershy looked quite frazzled, standing at the ready to dodge in case I lost control again. I sat on my haunches and smiled happily at her before nodding, “Right. Then we best get going. Princess Luna needs our help.”

“R-Right now!?” She looked absolutely horrified.

“‘R-Right now!’” I mimicked with a nod, turning and hopping onto the A.S.C.A.™

“Now, now?”

“Yes, of course, ‘Now, now’! Princess Luna won’t save herself.” I nodded enthusiastically, holding a hoof out to her. “C’mon!”

“But, uh...” Not sure why, but she still didn’t trust me! After all we had been through! Yeah, I know. Shut up.

“Twilight, please tell her I’m not dangerous,” I said with a pout. Man, looking back, even I can say I was acting pretty damn weird.

“Ugh. Fine. But only because you actually do need a guide.” Twilight rolled her eyes before looking to Fluttershy, “I know, Fluttershy, he’s quite bizarre, but he’s harmless. Just don’t stand too close to him when he breathes that paper roll of his. It smells awful.”

Smoke? Around Fluttershy? What kind of barbarian did she take me for?

“There you have it, my lovely pink-haired friend!” I exclaimed before hopping back onto the Carriage. “Come forth! Let us be heroes!”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped a bit as she tried to think of something to say before looking back at Twilight, who was already back to work at the crater. I gave an encouraging smile, to which she sighed miserably before getting onto the carriage and sitting down beside me.

“No-Name.” I heard Twilight call out after me.

“Yes, my pretty purple pony pal?” I smiled over at her, only to grimace at the glare I got in return. “Woah.”

“If anything happens to Fluttershy, you will be held responsible. You keep her safe,” she swore to me. I could see fire in her eyes. Fire that promised to burn me at any given moment. I knew that she wasn’t giving me a warning, but rather, she was making me a promise.

After recovering from the initial shock, I smiled and nodded. “Of course, Twilight. Trust me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let something happen to the kindest pony in both our worlds.”

“I’m just warning y-,” she started to continue, cutting her eyes at me.

“Good heavens, look at my wrist, is that the time? We’d best be going!” I laughed loudly before zipping off, entirely uncomfortable with being on the business end of Twilight’s horn.

Fluttershy was not used to riding, I noted, because she grabbed me in shock, to which she felt even less safe and instantly let go. I laughed and slowed it down a bit for her, cracking my neck as I let the wind catch my mane.

Fluttershy stared at me for several seconds. Apparently, my change in attitude was a little sudden for her and after thinking upon my words, she nodded timidly.

“How do you know my name?” she queried.

“It’s uh... It’s complicated,” I started, trying to think up an elaborate ruse. I could have just said Twilight told me or something, but as I turned to look in those big, questioning turquoise eyes, I’m not sure I could have handled it if she ever found out that I lied to her, “You see, I’m not from this world. And... I... Ah, hell.”

“What’s ‘hell?’” she asked, tilting her head cutely.

OMG BORDERLINE FLUTTERCUSSING!

“Don’t say that word, Fluttershy, it’s a bad word.” I instantly informed her, internally berating myself out for not having shown some restraint, “I have bad habits, you don’t want to mimic them.”

She looked so chastised; I don’t think I could have yelled at her and got a more intense reaction without her actually running away in tears. ”S-S-Sorry.”

“Oh... No. Nononono. Please, do not Fluttercry. I might not survive that,” I felt weak at whatever you call a pony’s knees. (Are they just knees?) What had I done?!

“What?” the very word seemed toconfluttershy her even more, which thankfully distracted her from her sadness.

“Nothing. Here’s the truth, Fluttershy, I come from a world where we watch... I guess they’re not just... Whatever, we watch other worlds for entertainment, pleasure, inspiration, education, and a sense of desire to relate to ourselves,” I said with a helpful smirk, “You’re pretty famous where I come from.”

“W... What?!” she looked utterly put out at the thought of being famous again. Also, she said ‘What’ a lot, “W-Why am I famous?!”

“Because you’re the kindest, cutest, sweetest, soft-hearted pony ever,” I replied with a laugh, smiling at her. “If somepony can’t relate to you, they want to protect you, if they can’t protect you, they want to empower you. You’re an idol. When you faced down the dragon, you were inspiring. When you stared down the cockatrice, you were a hero! When you... Well, you get the idea. In short, Fluttershy, you’re pretty awesome. And I’m sorry about the scare back there with all the hugging and shamelessness. You’re just that much of a positive influence on a lot of lives. At least I didn’t pass out this time. Rainbow Dash just caught me off guard so much. Talk about embarrassing.”

Her eyes were about as big as baseballs as she stared at me in awe. She eventually smiled a bit and looked down, all bashful and keyoot~!

“I guess... that... that doesn’t sound so... bad, actually,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“Not at all,” I chuckled with a smile.

Who says I can’t make a convincing argument?

* * *

Well, the flight went pretty well. Zoomed on over to the edge of the Everfree forest and touched down to go the rest of the way on hoof. Why? Well, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think Luna wanted to speak to anyone at all, myself being the sole exception. If she saw Celestia’s personal carriage, I don’t think she would reveal herself. Now, I’m sure there are plenty of reasons as why I should take the A.S.C.A.™, but I really didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, the high altitude was scaring poor Fluttershy and I don’t think my conscience could have taken much of that.

The Everfree Forest looks exactly like you would expect it to, unsurprisingly. It’s a forest. The only odd thing about it was the terrain. It was torn up something fierce. There were loads of ravines and canyons. A lot of them seemed to be cut by rivers, but many more of them seemed eerily bottomless. Still, obstacles notwithstanding, it was pretty uneventful. Fluttershy commented on lots of flora and fauna, warning me away from anything particularly nasty. She was quite convinced that each of them were special and wonderful in their own way. I mean, you know you’re dealing with the Bearer of Kindness if she can’t find one bad thing to say about spiders. To her, spiders were ‘nice’, which was a point we had to disagree on.

“They have their place in nature just like everything else!” she protested loudly… Which is to say her voice was mostly audible.

“And their place is to suck!” I reasonably stated. Perfect. Logic. “And also to be demonic vessels of terror and dismay!”

“That… That makes no sense!” She almost looked offended. I mean, she definitely wasn’t offended; this was spiders we were talking about after all. “They make such beautiful tapestries and come in a wonderful variety of colors!”

“Your face makes no sense!” I can’t believe I said that to Fluttershy. What is wrong with me? “Spiders are eldritch abominations and those ‘beautiful’ tapestries are meant for nothing more than to murder innocent insects!”

I would like to take this time to confirm that, yes, I was having an argument with Fluttershy. I don’t rightly know what is wrong with me, but it’s got to be pretty freaking significant that even Fluttershy can’t put up with it.

“It… It’s not murder!” She did that adorable thing where she drops her jaw and looks utterly helpless for a second or two. There was a quick recovery though and she came back for more. “They are carnivorous, and they have to eat like everything else!”

I flipped that metaphorical table like a beast. “Why can’t they eat each other, then?!”

“Because they are predators!” she cried in shock, as though such a suggestion were too terrible to comprehend. “And they must seek food that cannot… fight back…”

Naturally, we still made our way through the Everfree Forest while this was all going on, but I will admit that we really weren’t paying too much attention to our surroundings by this point. Thank God a manticore didn’t jump out and eat me or something. At least let me win the debate with Fluttershy first.

“So, they’re bullies, now!” I scoffed with a roll of my eyes. “Oh, sing more praises for the vaunted spider!”

Why was I being such a dick?! Were spiders really that much more important than Fluttershy?! … Hmmm. No, I don’t think so, but it’s still a close call. Still, I was being rather silly and Fluttershy was getting all Flustershy’d over this whole thing. It was… somewhat trollish of me, I’ll admit. She decided to go for the jugular, though, after several seconds of tense silence.

“You…” She started, searching for the right words to say before trying again, “You picking on them makes you just as much a bully!”

Oh gosh. Fluttershy just one-up’d me. There were two options. One-up her back… Or derail this nonsense with a greater nonsense. Since I really don’t have what it takes to insult Fluttershy directly, I had to go with the second choice. Certain religious groups might consider choosing either option a great heresy, but there was no stopping the insanity.

I stopped and blinked several times. Fluttershy paused right beside me and I swear, I watched her pale with the realization that her words might have hurt me. They didn’t, I assure you. But… If I just let her think that… For just a little while…

“I… I’m a bully?” I poked out my bottom lip and let my eyes mist over a bit.

“Oh… Oh goodness,” she stammered in horror, “I didn’t mean that!”

I am such a tool.

“I don’t even have a name, Fluttershy!” I faux-blubbered as I flopped over onto my side. “How could you be so mean?!”

“I’m so sorry, I was just… I… I…” Ermagerd! Flutterpanicking!

I couldn’t keep it up. Even through all the hammy bullshit, unhappy Fluttershy was killing me inside and I immediately hopped up with a sadistic chuckle.

I smiled brightly at the perplexed expression she now wore. “I’m just picking on you, Fluttershy! Hah! I must be a bully!”

I’ll say it again. I am such a tool.

“You… But…” Her feathers ruffled a bit and she frowned, lowering her head somewhat. “Th-That’s not very nice, Mister No-Name. I was worried I had hurt your feelings.”

I frowned back before cantering over and replacing my snide smirk with a genuine grin. She hid mostly behind her hair, glancing down at the ground to avoid making eye-contact. I didn’t know if I had crossed the line or not, but I really wasn’t going to take the chance to mess things up on making friends with Miss Shy.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I pressed a tad, tilting my head a little to the left. “Your concern for my emotional well-being is both appreciated and cherished, my lady. Forgive me for the harassment; you didn’t deserve it. Totally serious.”

That smoothed things over quite a bit. She blinked and looked up, not having fully anticipated an apology. After a moment of quiet consideration, she allowed a small smile and fidgeted her hoof about with a nod.

“Well, I… It’s not a bother, Mister No-Name,” she murmured demurely, “It was just a joke, after all. Right?”

I shook my head vehemently. “Not at all. Spiders freakin’ suck!”

A troll to the end, it seems. Still gotta get that brain-to-mouth filter installed.

“Wha…!?” she gasped in shock, “B-But!”

Thank Celestia a certain flashy pegasus decided to show up, because we were about to get into it all over again. And yes, he lands the same way he takes off. Like a bolt of lightning.

KRACKA-BOOM!

Well, unfortunately I had my eyes open, so not only did I squeal like a girl, but I also couldn’t see well enough to hide behind something. Luckily Fluttershy squeaked too, so I could blame all the girly noises on her. Unsurprisingly, Fluttershy ran to hide behind something. I was instead surprised, however, that she chose me to hide behind. Now I know how that feels. I think I’m going to hide behind Fluttershy next chance I get just so that she gets a taste of her own medicine. Seriously, who puts the comedian in harm’s way!? That’s how they get killed!

Storm Wing was staring or sensing or whatever at Fluttershy, his expression quite plain. “Why did you bring a civilian into the Everfree Forest?”

I glanced back at Fluttershy before glaring over at the Sky Archon and pointing an accusing hoof at him. “Storm Wing! You scared Fluttershy! Apologize!”

He opened his mouth as though he were at a loss. That was somewhat gratifying, I’ll admit.

“I…” he started to say before he was cut short.

“Will apologize right now!” I finished for him. Yeah, I’m a goofball, I know.

“Ugh…” He rolled his eyes in disdain before turning somewhat to the side and sighing. “Please accept my humble apology, Miss Fluttershy. I did not intend to frighten you. But we are on a very important mission and the human, here, is slowing us down by bringing innocent bystanders into a highly fragile situation.”

Fluttershy’s fright was rapidly transformed into slight confusion. She gazed at Storm Wing as though there was something she just couldn’t figure out. She stepped out from behind me and curiously cantered up to Storm Wing, getting uncharacteristically close. I don’t think Storm Wing liked her proximity because he leaned away before taking a few steps back. I glanced back at the white-blue pegasus before nudging the timid, yet strangely curious mare.

“O-Oh!” she piped, suddenly remembering she had social niceties to participate in. She glanced back at me, flattening her ears as she blushed. “I… I’m alright, you just… Frightened me… Excuse me, sir, but are you blind?”

Storm Wing went to reply, but I was too quick for him!

“He’s totally blind, Fluttershy.” I nodded enthusiastically as I began to tell a complete bullshit story complete with dramatic hoof-waving. “He lost his eyes in a selfless act that saved Princess Celestia from the Greater Archdragon. The foul beast breathed its horrible magic breath and Storm Wing flew too close to the sun! There were explosions everywhere, but Celestia invoked the right of deus ex machina to prevent cataclysmic damage! And then there was a big celebration. His bravery has preserved peace in Equestria for many years past and many years to come.”

The two pegasus ponies were silent for the whole thing and gladly responded by staring at me as though I were insane.

“True story, bro,” I said with a serious nod.

Storm Wing finally turned to face the other pegasus, sighing in exasperation as if to say I was being a burden on him somehow (which is utter nonsense, no?). “Miss Fluttershy, ignore him, please. He’s fabricating that entirely. Yes, I am blind and always have been. If you’re wondering, I’m able to perceive my surroundings by sensing the magical aura that all things exude.”

“That’s… That’s ama-…” She started to say before the skies began to darken as though night were fast approaching. We all promptly forgot about spiders and apologies and instead occupied our time gawking up at the stormy clouds swirling overhead at incredibly unnatural speeds. That sort of thing can really interrupt a conversation bring attention to itself, after all. Hell, it didn’t even need The Nightmare to keep us distracted from the incredibly important conversation about ponies and blindness. Oh, right. The Nightmare was also up there, soaring by like a big, nasty swirl of hatred… Mostly because that is exactly what it was, so big shocker there, eh?

“That was The Nightmare,” Storm Wing murmured the obvious, furrowing his brow furiously. “Were you able to see it?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod, “but why the hell is it here!?”

“Oh… Oh my goodness!” Fluttershy was combating her inner urge to panic like a boss. “Oh, you… you don’t think it’s after the princess, do you?”

I looked at Storm Wing, he sensed back at me and our expressions said it all.

Mother of God.

Not even a second later, Storm Wing took off in a blaze of sparkles. Not exactly manly, but hey, he isn’t a vampire. There was no way I was going to keep up with him, but hey, I wasn’t just going to sit down! I took off running as fast as I could (which is to say very slowly (Fluttershy was keeping up with me (Le sigh))).

“It’s headed for the old capital!” Fluttershy squeaked alongside me as we chased after Storm Wing. I was sort of proud of her, actually. I totally expected her to run away at the first sign of danger, but here she was, running straight towards The Nightmare.

I blinked and gave her a hopeless glance. “The what?!”

“The ruins!” she explained (fruitlessly).

“Which ruins!?” I cried, suddenly feeling a chilly breeze blow past us both.

“The Ruins Of The Ancient Castle Of The Royal Pony Sisters,” she huffed as she galloped relentlessly.

… What a mouthful. Wait. I knew that name. That was the impractically long name of the old beat up castle that held the Elements of Harmony! Why hadn’t I thought of that at the time!? Of course Luna was there! That was something a brony would know and… Hell, that was the first time everyone got to see what Princess Luna looked like! Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!

We approached a large rope bridge and just as I was about to reply to Fluttershy, we found our conversation interrupted by a pegasus. A big one. Landed just in front of the rope bridge and remained motionless with a pair of glowing blue eyes staring us down. Dude had to be taller than Celestia. I kid you not, he was a beast of a pegasus, covered nose to flank in dark grey platebarding that looked as though it had seen a few years of service. The chill in the air was definitely coming directly from him; that much was for certain. His breath wafted out of his full-covering helmet like steam and a shroud of mist lazily drifted off of his mane and tail as though they were dry ice. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, fillies and gentlecolts. This pony (if you could call him that) was downright intimidating.

“Jumping Giant Pega-Ponies! Lookit the size of that mother!” I shouted, hitting the brakes and sliding to a stop.

Fluttershy, having hid behind me again (Damn it, Shy, you’re doing it wrong! I hide behind you!), peaked from over my shoulder and let out a fearful peep. It wasn’t until the titanic pegasus reared up on his back hooves did he finally speak.

“Be… GONE!” He shouted, his voice somehow amplified so loudly that it all but deafened me. One flap of his wings blew an incredibly strong gust of wind filled with sleet our way. It… felt cold when it surged over us, but despite that, I actually didn’t feel particularly chilled by it. I think I know why these days, but at the time, I was a little baffled.

And then Storm Wing came back like the super pony that he is! He pragmatically soared in from behind and body checked the gargantuan equine right in the back of the head. It sent the guy’s head forward and planted it right in the ground. Granted, the bastard was getting back up almost instantly but he wasn’t being quick about it. Storm landed, placing himself between us and Frosty the Road Block.

Now, as awesome as that was, I have no control over my ADD. So rather than provide something useful or complimentary, I decided to let my filterless mouth drop some useless Trivia.

“Hey, I know that bridge!” I piped happily, as though I were being a great help (I wasn’t). “That’s where The Nightmare tried to seduce Rainbow Dash with fame!”

Storm Wing sagged a bit, as though he expected something more out of me. I don’t know why he would do that, but I guess he had not known me for very long at the time. “That’s great. Now, if you don’t mi-…”

Fluttershy was busy panicking behind me as though she were moments away from a cardiac arrest. She was trying to spout poetry or something, but she wasn’t very good at it. It all came out as, “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!”

“She needs to be anywhere but here, Human.”

The impatience in Storm Wing’s voice was more than apparent. It struck something of a note in me, reminding me I needed to stop being an idiot and start listening to Celestia. Namely the part where I treat this situation with the severity that it actually warrants. That would be the part where Stoic takes hold of the wheel again and Lafter goes back into the box where he would be staying for a little while.

I turned to the frightened filly behind me and fruitlessly began trying to get her attention.

“Fluttershy.”

More panic.

“Fluttershy?”

I think she was hyperventilating because she seemed to be in the middle of losing consciousness.

After the second attempt, I just grabbed her face and pulled it to face mine.“Fluttershy! Listen up! I need you to get back to Ponyville. Tell Twilight to contact Princess Celestia and tell her where we are, what has happened, and bring the Elements of Harmony. Pronto.”

She nodded before glancing to the side and looking back at Gigantor the Winged. Just setting her eyes on him seemed to terrify her, so naturally it got worse when he began to lumber our way before picking up speed.

“VAMANOS, SEÑORITA!” I shouted, bringing her back to reality yet a second time.

Either Fluttershy can speak Spanish, or she got the idea. Not that I care more for one result over the other, I was just glad that she started making air-tracks.

“Okay,” I turned back to Storm Wing, suppressing my own urge to freak at the sight our massive host bearing down on us. “What do we do?”

“I am going to take care of the obstacle,” Storm Wing replied, gently pawing a hoof at the ground as his fur began to glow a bit. “You are going to go after The Nightmare on the off-chance that Luna needs help. Think you can do that?”

I glanced at Storm, then at the brutish fiend rushing our way.

“Yeah, but… Are you gonna be o-...” I started to ask.

So Storm Wing is the last pony that I’ll ever need to worry about. Ever. Before I even finished my sentence, he turned and took off towards Hoofy the Ice Giant. The little guy flew right under the pegasus and rocketed into the sky. It was like watching a puppy uppercut a human in the gut and both of them flying off into the sky. Funny as hell if you weren’t watching it in person (pony, whatever). Watching it firsthand? I was flabbergasted.

“Woah.” That’s what I say when I’m at a loss.

Storm Wing broke away from his opponent (see also: victim) and yelled down at me, “Go, you idiot!”

“Derp!” I blushed for being a sheep and took off running across the bridge and into the ruins.

Now, I don’t know if you guys understand just how big those ruins really are. Because they’re huge. In fact, I was all but certain that they had been a full blown city at one point. I say it that way because it was no longer even slightly useable. Some strange calamity had taken place here, as was evidenced by the strange number of crevices and canyons that seemed to have no end to their descent and eventually found their epicenter in the heart of the city. It was like someone had taken a massive ball peen hammer and tapped a city-sized egg with it. More than one of the buildings had half fallen into the bottomless crevices, leaving their more fortunate halves standing with their contents exposed to the elements. Thanks to the passage of time, the buildings that had not fallen into the strange fractures that wound throughout the ruins were also unsuitable for any sort of use.

The only building that was worth a damn, really, was the palace. In the center of the withered city stood the castle itself, where all the massive canyons seemed to just perfectly taper off so as to leave the once regal building untouched by whatever catastrophe had visited itself upon the ancient city. I don’t think anyone has to think hard to guess why I headed for that one.

Anyway, I blitzed for the entrance which was open thanks to what I can infer was The Nightmare blasting the door off its hinges on the way through. I could hear voices coming from above, so I figured it wasn’t too late for me to show up and ruin everyone’s day. Well, that enthusiastic thinking got shut down as I approached the atrium and found that the only way to make my way up was the bane of my life. Goddamn stairs. Like this day could get any worse! I’d been picked on by Luna, beaten up by Storm Wing, had my smartphone burned, jumped out a damn window (why did I do that…) and now stairs!? STAIRS?! Ponies had invented turntables, but elevators were beyond them?! Hell, a catapult would do in a pinch, really. But I was fresh out of siege weaponry and thus had to hoof it all the way up.

So, yeah. I toughed it out. And by tough it out, I mean I dragged my heavy ass all the way up to the top, whimpering and bitching all the while. It took me a few minutes, but I did it. Not that I was worth anything by the time I got there. In fact, by the time I pushed upon the door that led out into the palace’s peak. It turned out to be that throne room where Nightmare Moon had smashed the Elements of Harmony.

There I found Luna, standing in front of the throne with The Nightmare in its pony form, languidly resting upon the royal plot-cushion (The technology for chairs had yet to be discovered, I guess). The Nightmare had that stupid Cheshire smile aimed at Luna, staring down at her with a sense of superiority. Luna, on the other hoof? Not so hot. Her mane was super frayed and her eyes were doing that thing where your pupils shake. From what I understand, that’s usually caused by severe trauma of some sort. I think we can take a few guesses as to what might have been the catalyst there.

“Oh good!” I cried, flopping over and panting like a dog. “Not too late. That’s… That’s a relief. Whoo~! Ahh…”

I decided a celebratory cigarette was in order. MmmMmm, good.

“Y-Y… You came!” Luna turned to look back at me in shock. Stuttering?

“Me!” I wheezed as I slowly rolled onto my back, lighting my cigarette on the way.

“The Deceiver!” The Nightmare shouted angrily as it sat up on its throne-like pillow.

“The cliché!” I gasped, barely able to get the words out before taking a pull off my cigarette. “Christ… I am… so… so out of shape!”

I craned my head about a little to look at the two of them before exhaling the nicotine-filled smoke. I kid you not, I almost passed out right there. I thought it was from the cigarette plus sitting down after that super hard dash up all those stairs. I imagine it’s a good thing that I didn’t. Luna still looked fairly conflicted and I’m not sure she would have protected me. Thankfully, I snapped my eyes back open and coughed a bit more.

“Sorry, I uhh… You alright, Luna?” I huffed in between breaths.

“D-Do I luh… look alright t-to you!?” she snapped suddenly, the anger in her voice getting across just fine.

“You look like… you’ve &%#@ed yourself up good and… good and proper, actually!” I chuckled breathlessly, “I’m kinda… surprised you’re able to… function at all.”

I started to doze off again, only to realize that A) I was not tired in the slightest and that B) I was being messed with. And apparently I wasn’t the only one to notice, either.

“S-Stop. I’m not d-d… duh… done talking to h-… him,” she said, glancing back at The Nightmare behind her.

I suddenly rolled back over and snarled angrily, not happy with the knowledge that I was being messed with.

“Stay out of this, Disney Villain! I swear to God, I toasted your sorry ass once and I’ll do it again!” I snapped, hopping up to my hooves. I pointed my horn at The Nightmare and snorted a gout of flames.

“You achieved victory through deception and nothing more!” she roared back, also taking a stand and baring her fangs at me.

“S-Shut up! Buh… Both of you!” Luna shrieked in frustration, glancing back and forth between us.

I sat down and looked away, taking a drag off my cigarette to show that I was willing to cooperate. The Nightmare didn’t show any signs of complacency other than keeping similarly silent.

“I… I don’t know what to th-think! I don’t know wuh-what to do! I just…” She trailed off and started to breathe rapidly before falling to her knees and letting out a mewling whimper. Out of reaction alone, I started to move to her but The Nightmare shot this magical spark at the floor in front of me.

She started to warn me away. “Keep your dis-…”

One good warning deserves another, right?

“You do that again and historians are going to write small print novels about the shit I do to you, understand!?” I shouted at the top of my lungs, easily taking control of the conversation. I do have one of the scariest yelling voices, I’m told, and it must be true because The Nightmare actually leaned away from me in shock. Even Luna shut her eyes and winced a little, which made me feel like a complete dick.

It did, however, put The Nightmare in its place. So with that all cleared up, I slowly cantered over to Luna and lowered my voice to a comforting murmur. “Hey… I know you’re probably not feeling great right now.”

I lowered my head to meet the princess at eye level and gave her a comforting smile. She opened her eyes and I could see tears starting to pool up. I could tell that she wasn’t certain whether or not she was happy to see me.

She stammered quietly as two lines of tears slipped down to her jaw line. “Why… Why not j-just… tell me the… the truth?”

I don’t know how I managed to look at her without letting my own emotional roller coaster take a dive, but I did. Don’t ask how; all I know is that I made it happen somehow.

I sighed, putting a little extra helplessness into it. “Would you have believed me?”

She sniffled a little, continuing to stare at me before finally shaking her head. I gave her a chuckle as if to say ‘there you have it, then.’ After another quiet moment, I dropped my gaze and half-frowned as I considered my next words.

“Look, Luna,” I started slow, taking both a seat and a drag off my cigarette. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. I mean, I’ve had to live alongside humanity’s darker side and all that, but what you did… The implications alone are staggering.”

“Perhaps you do not fully grasp the situation, Deceiver.” The Nightmare interjected as it stepped down the steps ascending to the throne. “To you, what has happened may seem crippling. But this is not your world. Events that you find depressing at worst can inspire great terror in the innocent minds of Equestria. Even Luna, old as the night itself, could not have prepared herself for you the terror you exposed her to.”

Initially, I wanted to bite of The Nightmare’s head and tell it to go to hell. But it spoke the truth. I mean, it’s big news all across Equestria if somepony hurts another. Back home? That doesn’t even make the local news unless it’s a hate crime. I lifted my head to meet Luna’s gaze again and was met with the same sad, soul-searching eyes. I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came to mind. So I sort of just sat there with my mouth open, unintentionally letting my cigarette tumble free.

“I… Luna, I…” I shut my eyes and looked down again. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“I d-did it to muh-myself,” she replied after a second or two. “Nuh… Not your f-fault.”

I started to reply before letting out a soft snort, realizing that what I was about to say was sort of… poetic, really.

“I guess if you were one to argue semantics or were looking to dodge responsibility, then yes. It wasn’t directly my fault,” I answered her, smirking as I looked up at her again. “But the fact is… something about swords and drawing them and… Yeah, I don’t remember it exactly.”

Luna blinked before facehoofing and letting out a short snicker. I’m not going to lie, that’s sort of the thing I live for. When someone is down or hurting something fierce, it feels absolutely wonderful to get a genuine laugh out of them. I smiled a bit, relaxing somewhat. It wasn’t until The Nightmare slid along the floor to stand just behind Luna that I had to remind myself that this wasn’t over yet. Strangely enough, the shadowy, pony-shaped… thing wasn’t even casting a shadow. I mean, I guess it was immaterial and all, but damn it, that’s not how physics work!

“Princess, do not be taken in by his charm. He may be kind and even genuinely earnest, but you’ve seen his world now. You know it better than I do, even,” she pointed out softly, swinging her head in my direction and baring teeth at me. “To allow him here is to allow the ruin of your beloved land and people.”

Luna set her hoof back down, her expression hardening a bit as she met my eyes with her own. The fear was there, of that there was no doubt. She was honestly worried that The Nightmare was right. Luna’s no fool, she knew The Nightmare had its own agenda, but there was also no denying that humanity coming into contact with her homeland could result in catastrophe. Probably would, even.

“Huh-He’s d-d-done no wrong. This is my do-do… doing and he did n-nuh… not even co… commmme here by his own volition,” Luna reasoned to The Nightmare with her eyes still locked on mine. “I… I… I can’t… wr… wr-wruh-… wrongfully imprison him. Or banish h-him. I d-don’t know what to do.”

“What do you think she should do, anyway?” I asked, tilting my head and looking at The Nightmare.

“I think we should strike a bargain,” she purred, becoming formless as she slid along the floor and redefining beside me. “We should offer the princess our own suggestions and let her decide. Regardless of the outcome, we abide. Is that acceptable, Deceiver?”

“What? Seriously?” I blinked, somewhat unable to believe my ears. I looked to Luna who glanced back and forth between the two of us. “Is that okay with you? I’ve no problem with this.”

Luna’s internal conflict was short-lived, thankfully. Whatever choice she made, it would feel less like hers yet still give her a sense of control. The illusion of there being no responsibility was there, even if it technically still was. I’m sure she’d have caught onto that right away were she in a more stable state, but at the moment, she was just looking for a way out.

“Wow,” I snorted mirthfully. Was The Nightmare really going to make it that easy? Probably not, but I definitely had nothing to lose. I knew Luna enough that she wasn’t going to compromise her principles for anything, even Equestria. She’s super stubborn like that, and I’d never seen her budge. “Sure. Deal. I think Luna should come back to Canterlot, get some rest, and take as much time as she feels she needs to come to a decision on what to do with me. I trust her judgment enough to know that she’ll make the right choice, even if it’s one that I don’t agree with.”

“Clever and cowardly,” The Nightmare sneered at me before turning back the Princess of the Night. “I offer you something more than prolonged inner turmoil, Princess. Give the human to me.”

“What?!” we both responded instantly. I wasn’t expecting this angle. Goodness, I sure felt like a dumbass at that moment.

“The human is a risk. One that you do not want, but cannot, in good conscience, punish for crimes he has yet to commit,” The Nightmare offered with a fanged smile. “I’ve given you the option of removing the threat you so rightly fear by allowing an ultimatum based solely on your decision. Should you give the human to me, I will use his body to set my affairs in order and leave Equestria exactly the way I found it. Forever. I know you view me as a threat as well and we can both agree that you can see the benefit of removing the two greatest threats you’ve ever known. You are under no obligation to put the protection of this alien above the protection of Equestria and your country will be safer than ever.”

A pragmatic leader would have jumped on that without thinking about it long enough to take two breaths. Luna snarled, shook her head and grunted in frustration.

““Thissss… This only makes it h… harder!” she hissed angrily.

She let her vision move back and forth between the two of us before settling on The Nightmare and narrowing her eyes. “What affairs do you need ‘set in order’?”

The Nightmare’s razor sharp smile lost a bit of its Cheshire edge. “That… It does not concern you. You need only know that Equestria will not suffer for it.”

“T-Thuh… That’s not g-good enough!” she stammered furiously, “No more v-v-veils! Ans… A-Answer me!”

The Nightmare’s turquoise eyes met Luna’s with equal fury. For several seconds nothing was said and I was feeling some nasty tension build up in that piece. Word. Seriously, though, I was getting ready for a fight to break out at any second, but The Nightmare finally lowered its smoky face with a sigh.

It bitterly muttered, “I do not know.”

“Then I’m guh-going t… to make my own ch-choice!” she snapped furiously before standing up on all fours. “I can keep a-an eye on h… him j-juh… on him just fine! B-But y… you’re uh-unstable!”

A green flickering light began to emit from the tip of Luna’s horn. It started out barely noticeable, but as she spoke, it became more and more prevalent.

“T-This way I… I c-cuh…This way I can still eliminate both threats!” Her voice, though unsteady, still carried an uncharacteristic malice. It wasn’t really Luna; it just didn’t feel like it, I mean. Whatever it was, I didn’t like hearing it. It just felt too spiteful to be coming from a pony in general, really.

Before either myself or The Nightmare could respond, the flickering magic quickly became a blinding beacon, flashing with the rapidity of a strobe light. It made me feel cold. And I had not noticed before then, but that was the first time I’d ever felt cold in Equestria. The Nightmare, however, shrieked in agony and lost its form as it slithered away from the princess.

“LUNA, NO!” she shrieked in such pain that I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It sounded so real and… I dunno, I guess I wasn’t ready for that in Equestria. “PLEASE!”

“Y-You dare to… To call yourself a threat to my kingdom!?” There was a bit of mania in Luna’s eyes as she slowly chased The Nightmare, driving it step-by-step to the closest wall and pinning it there in a pool of indigo shadows and mist. “And then seek to tw-twist my wing i-into persecuting the innocent!?”

It cried a moment longer before seeming to flatten as though going limp. I was so caught unawares by everything taking place that I didn’t even react beyond just gawking with a slack jaw.

“L-Look at you, Luna…” The Nightmare’s haunting voice managed to whisper weakly. “You’re… becoming one of them… He’s c… corrupted you and he didn’t even try.”

“A p-poor choice f… for last words,” Luna snarled haltingly, “I hope y-you… you have something m-more profound t-to… to say before the end.”

“Ummm.” That was me finally adding my two cents. What?! I was a little dumbfounded by what was happening at the moment!

“L-Luna, you musn’t! I am not… yet finished! S… Spare me, I… I beg of you, Princess,” it whimpered, its loud and powerful voice now squelched to a pitiful, weak mewling.

Luna said nothing in return. She simply continued to step closer and closer as The Nightmare’s cries of pain diminished to childlike sobbing. I’m not going to lie, it was harrowing. And some part of me didn’t want to see it happen. Though, now that I consider it, it was probably all of me. Maybe Luna was right to try to snuff out The Nightmare. Maybe she was just finding a convenient target for her frustrations. Whatever the case, I caved to my gut instinct and dashed to intervene. So focused on The Nightmare was she that she had made herself unprepared for any interruption. I don’t know how close a call it had been, but I’m betting that I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. Regardless, my tackle had been in time to spare The Nightmare’s life.

“Get out of here!” I yelled at The Nightmare as I held Luna down.

Luna was so shocked that her spell immediately lost its focus and winked out. The Nightmare hesitated the briefest of seconds before regaining a bit of her volume and swiftly swirling out the window. As soon as it was out of sight, I let the princess up and prepared myself for a pony-sized beating.

“What huh-have you done?!” she shrieked through her teeth as she got to all fours and, no lie, decked me in the face so hard that I stumbled back over my hind-legs.

I fell on my back and saw stars. Well, more like silvery sparkly things that let you know you are moments away from losing consciousness if you don’t stop doing whatever it is you are doing. That vaguely translated into ‘Stop letting Luna hoof you in the face – it is bad for you.’ Which made perfect sense, but there was just no way I was going to get it together enough actually do that within the next few seconds.

She pounced on me, holding me down with one foreleg as she lifted another hoof for a good old fashioned face-stomping. I don’t know exactly why, but she hesitated long enough for me to actually react.

Now, I’ve been in a few situations like this before, specifically the part where I don’t want to actually hurt my attacker. Best way to solve them? The power of hugs! Really, it’s not as stupid as you might think. When you’re the larger of the two, you’ll find it quite easy to literally wrap your arms around the other person. This robs them of swinging leverage and will often (not always, mind you) drain them of the will to hurt you. Don’t rely on that completely, because pinching and biting is still a thing, but it’s often still a good first resort. Don’t ask how I know these things, okay?

So yeah. I literally grabbed hold of her and just kept her from getting an angle to get a good, hard hit in. It really made her angrier for a few seconds and I was actually starting to wonder if I was going about this the wrong way. She was snarling and growling like an animal, trying to wiggle away from me. I was kinda freaking out; I won’t lie. Just as I was about to let her go and roll away, she began to chill out. When I say chill out, I don’t mean relax; I mean she went from furiously struggling to half-heartedly pushing. Eventually, even that tapered away and all her snarling degenerated into quiet simpering. When she finally ran herself out of steam, she just went limp and pressed the side of her face into my neck. She didn’t make any noise, but she did give out the erratic shudder every other second.

I was a little confused at first until I felt my fur touching her face start to dampen. She was crying on me.

“Luna? Yo, it’ll be okay,” I broke the silence as I slowly began loosening my hold around her. “It’s fine now.”

“It’s not fuh-fine!” she suddenly hollered, breaking down into a sob, “What h-have I duh... What have I done to myself!?”

My usual reaction when I see others cry is to cry right back, right? This was no exception. Well, it sort of was, actually. I didn’t actually start bawling right there with her, but I was definitely leaking out the eyeballs a little bit.

“I j-just h... hit you. And I wuh… I was g-going to keep hitting you,” she sputtered dismally, her tears starting to really soak my neck. Her stammering was bad enough without her crying, but I was still able to figure out what she was saying.

I inhaled deeply, swallowing the lump in my throat before letting out my breath. “No worries, okay? It’s… It’s okay now.”

“Sssstop saying that!” she snapped between her rapid gasping, “I... I n-never hit any... anypony before! N-Not like… Not like t-that! And I... I almost k... k...”

“Hey. Get up.” I gently ordered. Much to my relief, she obeyed and slowly pushed herself up, settling back onto her hindquarters. I followed suit and lifted her chin with my hoof so that she’d look at me. “You screwed up. I’m not saying you didn’t. I’m saying it’s okay that you did. And I’ll live. If the worst thing about this is that I got smacked around a bit, I think I’m gonna call that a win for the day, right? You didn’t kill The Nightmare, you didn’t pummel me into submission, and you haven’t gone crazy. Crazier, I mean.”

It took her a moment to absorb the fact that I’d just taken a shot at her. When she picked up on it, though, all she could do was roll her eyes and let out a half-sob, half-laugh as I wiped her tears away with my hoof. Also, hooves are known for their absorbent properties. Wait. No, that’s anything but hooves. Oh well, it worked and I’m not gonna question it.

“Y-Yuh... You are s... so s-stupid,” she finally muttered.

“God, if I only had a dollar every time I heard that,” I reminisced, smirking at her.

Luna eventually looked back down for a moment and sniffled for a few seconds before wiping at her nose.

“What was it like?” I asked, having no doubt that she would get what I was referencing. “Or are you okay to talk about it?”

She nodded a bit before taking a deep, steadying breath and letting it out of her nose.

“Too much,” she answered after a moment of contemplation, “I’m thou-... t-tens of thousands of years old. Hundreds of t... thousands c-couldn’t have prepared me. I... It was like reading a billion books at once... In a t... thousand d... d-different languages. I wa... wasn’t even... Ugh... I h-hate s... stuttering!”

“It’s kinda cute, actually.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

Well, she didn’t agree with me. And rather than be civil and tell me that she disagreed, she instead decided to hoof me right in the shoulder. Unsurprisingly, Luna’s stronger than your average pony, but that didn’t keep me from yukking it up as I fell onto my back. Celestia’s healing spell, while awesome, was all for nothing it had seemed.

“Y... You’re s... so happy!” she huffed, turning away from me as I sat back up with a chuckle, “How... How i-is that p... p... possible? Y-You come from a mmmuh… mmm-miserable place!”

“Luna, my silly filly,” I said as I pulled out another cigarette and rolled myself upright, “Where I come from, bad things happen. All the time. Ya can’t let it get to you. It’s how good people just stop caring. They die on the inside. But you don’t have to let it get to you. No matter how shitty things get, it will get better. It may seem like it won’t, but it will.”

Luna coughed a bit, clearing up the last of her sniffles as she glared at me out of the corner of her eyes, “I s... still think y-you’re stupid. Nameless jerk.”

“Yeah, well.” I nodded in consensus before lighting up. “I’m still the coolest human you’ve ever met.”

“That cuts buh… cuts both ways, you kn-know.” She rolled her eyes, not able to keep herself from smirking. It faded off her visage after a moment as she turned back to me. “That’s really h-how you f-face it. Juh-just... block out the bad stuff?”

“More or less.” I gave a shrug, which took a lot more effort than I wanted to expend, “I mean, saying it makes it sound like it’s easy. It isn’t. You still have to take the bad with the good. But just remember that you are always the one in control. You can’t ignore it like it isn’t there; you’ll have to face it. But you can face it and remind yourself that you can learn from this. Tragedy is the result of a problem and problems can be prevented when you see them coming. And you’re smart, Luna, so yeah, I’m confident that you’ll be okay. And, y’know… You got lots of ponies that are here for ya.”

“S... simple as that,” she scoffed, shaking her head as if to say I was crazy. Like so very many ponies before her.

“Eh... It’s slightly more nuanced than that, I admit.” I took a drag off the Mareboro and made a ‘so-so’ motion with my hoof. “But it does get easier with time.”

“Like a mental immune system, almost,” she said with a determined sigh.

“Sort of. Maybe more like a firewall? No matter what comes in, only the right stuff gets through?” I just meant it as a joke, but it seemed to strike a chord within her.

She blinked a few times, as though she were thinking about the word. She finally let out a soft, mirthful snort before smiling a bit. “Yeah. Like a firewall. Stupid things cause more problems than they solve, but they really help with the important stuff.”

“Don’t get me started,” I said with a sardonic roll of the eyes. “They’re, like, necessary and all that, but damn. Sometimes they just make me want to rip my hair out.”

“Oh, I can… I can relate,” she replied with a laugh. Standing up, she tossed a wink my way before slowly cantering for the exit. “Let’s go h-hom… home. Firewall.”

Firewall? I thought to myself. Then it hit me. I was all, Oh. Oh! … … Ohhhhh…

-=-

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My Little Pony and all characters involved are © of Hasbro and Lauren Faust

Chapter Six: Pony Science, Pony Pancakes, Pony Ponies... Pony.

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

“So, I just gotta ask. Not that I’m upset; just curious about it,” I half chuckled as we walked out of… (I’m inhaling for obvious reasons) The Ruins of the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. “Why Firewall? Why not… Oh… I dunno… Anon-Pony?”

“You’ll f-figure it ow… out one day when you’re older,” Luna huffed, blowing her hair out of her face before glancing about.

“Did… D-Did you ruh… Did you really come alone?”

“Nah, I was escorted by St-…” I started to say before realizing that Storm may very well still have been slugging it out with Gigantor outside. “OH SHIT!”

“Isn’t that w-word profane?” she asked me.

I didn’t bother gracing her question with an answer. I’m sassy like that. I instead decided to blitz off the way I came and started cussing furiously down every single stair. It took me a couple of minutes but when I made it back to the ground floor, I was already half-winded. Still, Storm Wing might be in danger so I wasn’t going to let it bother me. Not at the moment anyway. Trust me, I was prepared to bite someone/pony if I got there and everything was okay.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, everything was indeed okay. Well, half-okay, at least. When I got there, Storm Wing was quite literally frozen from his… pony knees (I think they call them hocks?) down in one big block of ice. And he didn’t look happy about it. Luna was already there with her horn pointed at the melting ice, which was somewhat perturbing seeing as I took off before her.

By the time I finally got within earshot of them, I was quite thoroughly winded but not so much that I couldn’t sass it up a bit.

“Wait, Storm Wing, I’m here to save you!” I cried out between ragged breaths before cantering to a breathless stop. “Awww, Luna… Well, as you can see, you are now safe and may begin lavishing your gratitude upon me.”

Luna snorted a bit, disrupting her spell as she slapped a hoof over her face.

Storm Wing slowly turned his head to face me. At first I thought he was going to scream in anger for not being able to smack me in the face, but he decided to be a good sport and sarcasm’d me right back. “Thank Celestia you were here.”

“I know, right?!” I cried out in false-anger, “You need… You need to be more careful; I might not be there next time!”

Luna’s laughter grew louder as our nonsense continued. “S-Shut up, both of yuh… yuh… Jus-suh… just hush!”

“Yeah, Storm! Just chill out already!” I started a terrible... terrible trend.

They both took the time to turn their heads my way as though they couldn’t believe I just crossed that line.

“I mean, I always knew you were a pretty cool guy and all!” I continued.

They were stunned. I think this could be considered mental battery or something.

“But you just need to cool your heels!” Nope. No shame whatsoever.

“He’s not going to stop,” Storm Wing wisely observed.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, though! Everypony gets cold feet now and then!” Oh hell. It hurts to just recall all of this.

“No. H-He isn’t,” Luna confirmed.

“But it’s okay! While you were out here playing Freeze tag with the abominable snow pony.” I’m not even winded. “I saved the princess.”

“Princess Luna.” I had to force myself to not laugh at the way Storm Wing’s eyes rolled back into his head. “I humbly request that you kill one of us. Him or me. At this point, I do not care which.”

“That’s just cold-hearted!” I gasped in faux-horror, “Murder isn’t the best way to break the ice!”

“Oh gosh,” Luna began to crack, unable to keep herself from snickering at the inanity (or insanity, take your pick) of it all. “Why doesn’t he have an off switch?”

“Hey, don’t take it that way. You just need to learn to stay frosty! Besides, everypony knows that revenge is a dish best served cold!”

… … … I’m not apologizing.

Despite being rather amused by the tornado of cold puns, Luna had finally had enough and conjured a muzzle on me. That was the end of that. And just in time, too! I was running out of ridiculously bad jokes! After a bit of whining, I wordlessly vowed to knock off the somewhat improper silliness and help Luna thaw out the poor Archon. He was quite miffed at the better having been gotten of him, but that was mostly dispelled when he discovered that the mission had been a success and Luna had been safely procured. He kept going on about some force that he could not see (yes, we laughed at him for using those exact words) getting the drop on him. I was mostly just glad everything was okay, hence I wasn’t paying him full attention. Seeing as magic takes a fair amount of focus and I suck at multi-tasking, I don’t think that should come to anyone as a surprise. I do remember him saying something about being unable to see (one day he’ll learn to not make those comments in front of the two trolliest ponies in Equestria) as though all the magic everywhere had just disappeared.

So ponies! Which then led to us heading back for the edge of the Everfree forest where the Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness™ was lying in wait. The two of them made fun of me and my winglessness, whining and bitching about how I was holding things up. And quite frankly, that hurt my feelings. Right up until Luna tried tickling my nose with her feathery appendage. Oh, she regrets that. Because I bit it. And I didn’t let go. Naturally the situation escalated and Storm Wing tried to pull me off but that wasn’t going to happen. So just… just try to picture this going on, because I can only imagine how silly it looked.

“What ah-… What are you!? A… A yearling!? S-Storm get huh… h-him off me!” Luna half-gasped, half-shrieked, half-laughed, half-stuttered.

“Submit!” I snarled through my teeth, holding fast to her wing as I glared at her. She couldn’t actually turn to kick me, so she was pretty much at my mercy. “And be judged!”

Storm let go of my mane and tilted his head to the side, somewhat perplexed on how he should approach this dilemma.

“How am I supposed to accomplish this? If I electrocute him, it will cause him to clamp his teeth down,” the little white-blue Archon pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone, “And also it will probably shock you more than it will him.”

“G-Get something heavy and suh-ssstrike him with it!” she yelled as she fruitlessly attempted to kick at me from an odd angle.

Shenanigans ensued. Like I said, just try to picture all that insanity and… Well, it’s not a very flattering scene for anyone. Especially since Storm Wing could not find a stick large enough to terrify me and had to resort to a medium sized branch. Having become rather pain tolerant at this point, I just suffered through it. It wasn’t until he stopped whacking that we finally took note of our surroundings. Oh, we were still in the Everfree forest, but it turned out that we weren’t the only ones.

“Whuh-Why did you st-stop!?” Luna demanded of the Sky Archon.

I could see Storm out of the corner of my eyes and the expression on his face was of utter shock. It was kinda funny watching the branch fall out of his mouth. Naturally, we followed his gaze to a certain big, shiny, white Alicorn Princess standing not thirty feet away with Fluttershy timidly hidden behind her hind legs. The two of them looked at us like we were a bunch of aliens performing a bizarre mating ritual. I was thoroughly embarrassed, actually. Shamed enough that I immediately spit out Luna’s wing and looked down at my feet-hooves! At least she didn’t smite me on the spot or something. I could only imagine how this looked to her, us playing around while she waited home, worrying herself to death. I mean, sure, this was quite literally the worst time for her to meet up with us, but still. Looking like a bad situation can net you the same results.

Well, I’m sure this isn’t exactly a shocker, but Luna’s not so humble in the presence of authority. Because she snatched up Storm Wing’s branch within her magical grasp and quadrupled its size.

“Y-You st-stupid blank flank!” she angrily snapped as she turned my way, brandishing the now-frightening weapon.

I’m not stupid, I knew where this was going! Beatings everlasting!

“Save me, Celestia!” I cried out in terror as I ran for the super-sized Alicorn. I dove behind her and grabbed Fluttershy, placing the perplexed pegasus between Luna and myself. “FLUTTERSHY, QUICK! BLUSH AT HER! USE YOUR CUTE!”

“Wh… What?!” Fluttershy squeaked, helpless to act in the face of adversity.

Use an innocent as a barrier! Dark side points!

Luna cantered my way, but she wasn’t coming after me. Well, I thought she was at first (totally didn’t cry out in fear!), but I was proven wrong when she instead stopped in front of Celestia and brushed up against her. Celestia then draped her neck down over Luna’s and let out a soft sigh of relief.

“Are you alright?” the older sister asked.

“N-No. He j-juh... He just bit my w-wing like some ignorant, slobbering ffffuh... foal,” Luna grumpily replied.

Celestia let out a humorless scoff. “I saw. You deserved it for giving us all such a scare.”

I started to comment on how she also toasted my phone, but Storm Wing decided it was time to find something random to chastise me on.

“Human. Let go of Miss Fluttershy.” I still say a voice so rough and scary need not come from a pony so small. “You’re upsetting her.”

I glanced back at the kind pony that I held within my magical hoof-grasp. She was indeed stiff as board and wide-eyed. Curious, I gave her a little shake just to see what would happen and my efforts earned me a fearful Fluttersqueak. Aw goodness, it took all my willpower to not shake her again. Still, it was something I could show Twilight later and laugh my plot off as she experienced the conflicting urges to yell at me and laugh at Fluttershy. Yes, I’m sorry, but I like to pick on shy people. It’s how I show affection. Wee~!

The moment (I’m talking not even a tenth of a second later) I set her down Luna’s large stick swooped around her sister and smacked me on the flank a few times.

“I’M BEING REPRESSED!” I shrieked as I dived at Storm Wing for cover. Sadly, he’s faster than I am and had more than enough time to simply take flight, thus abandoning me to my fate. So really, all I managed to accomplish was place myself out in the open for more beatings.

“Oh… Oh dear!” Fluttershy wanted to help. She really did. But what was she going to do? Give Luna a stern talking to? Ask politely? Beat Luna up? Actually, that last one would be awesome to watch. It’s not like Luna would hit back or anything. This is Fluttershy we’re talking about after all.

Thankfully, my favorite alicorn saved the day.

“Luna.” Celestia shut her eyes in exasperation and took her younger sister’s beatstick away before it could bludgeon me further into submission. “Try to show some gratitude to the pony that saved you.”

“Yeah! And naming me doesn’t count!” I yelled as I ran behind a tree for more cover.

“Y-You’re about to b… about to be re-renamed to ‘W-Whipping Boy!’” she countered.

“Oh, so his name wasn’t always Firewall,” Storm Wing reasoned aloud before glancing back at the two alicorns. “Now I don’t feel so bad for just calling him ‘human’ all the time.”

“Actually,” Celestia said, “His name…”

“Really is Fuh… F-Firewall,” the younger princess interjected as she glanced back at me. “Right?”

There was this heavy pause where all the ponies looked my way as though they were waiting on a confirmation. I stayed mostly hidden behind my tree because I didn’t trust Luna to not pick the stick back up and start abusing me again. After a few seconds of silence, I gave my thoughts on the matter.

“You just whacked me with a magically enlarged tree branch!” I yelled, still power-cowering behind my deciduous protector. “Why am I going to take up your side in an argument, ya jerk?!”

Well, it got even crazier from there, which is saying a lot. Celestia wanted to go home, Storm Wing was trying to figure out just what my name really was, and Luna was trying to get her stick back from her sister. I just hid behind my tree and shouted insults at Luna, which seemed like the sensible thing to do. Eventually Celestia had enough of the insanity and raised her voice to reestablish order, scaring the living bejeebus out of us all. I think Fluttershy died from a heart attack and had to be revived. Or maybe I dreamed that up; memory’s a little fuzzy around this part. Anyway, long story somewhat shortened was that we were headed back to Canterlot while Storm Wing escorted the other pegasus back to her Flutterhouse atop her Flutterhill.

Celestia initially wanted me to go back to Ponyville for a while, subtly hinting that I had already done enough damage. Luna, on the other hoof, was super adamant that I stay within hoof’s reach. She knew The Nightmare wanted me for some reason and that it probably wasn’t one that shared everypony’s best interests at heart. What she didn’t tell Celestia was that she wanted to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t accidentally burn Equestria to the ground. Like I was renowned for unintentionally incinerating entire countries or something!

Also, Celestia’s a speed demon. I love to go fast, but that was very much the last time I intentionally rode the A.S.C.A.™ with Celestia at the magical wheel. Okay, let me rephrase that: That was the last time I willingly rode with Celestia driving. Because I’m fairly sure that every time you do, you lose a year of your life to fearful stress. Just a hypothesis; not curious enough to ever test it. Because that would involve riding in the A.S.C.A.™ with Celestia as the driver. And that’s not going to happen.

* * *

After we landed back in Canterlot, I tentatively allowed myself to step off the Carriage and shakily draw myself a cigarette.

“Christ, Celestia, I’m… Y’know, I’ve never asked, but are there no speed limits in Equestria?” I mumbled as my mind timidly began gathering up the last remaining pieces of my sanity.

Celestia seemed pleased with the fact that she had terrified me so thoroughly. She did not, however, say anything on the subject. The two princesses stepped off, looking pleased as punch. Even Luna’s mane had somehow cleaned itself up. That wasn’t fair. Not even remotely fair. But whatever, right? The day had been saved and the Powerpuff Girls weren’t even called! That’s a win that deserved a self-congratulatory smoke!

Or so I thought. Right up to the point where Luna took my cigarette away.

“Those are un-un-nnn… Rrrgh!” That was Luna suffering from karma-stutters. Those are a thing, now. “Th-Those are unhealthy.”

I blinked. Then without even turning to her, I resummoned the pack, drew another one, and lit it up. Yes, she took that one, too. I then let out a slow, patient breath before looking back at the two alicorns.

“Celestia, if I say pretty please, will you beat up your little sister?” Even I could hear a slight edge of irritation in my voice.

The Sun Princess looked like she wanted to get involved as much as she wanted her horn removed (meaning not at all) but she did let her eyes roam towards her irritating brat of a sibling.

“Luna, health aside, Equestria is a free land,” she pointed out tiredly before slowly sauntering up the atrium. “As long as he is not hurting anypony else, he may do as he likes.”

“By that logic, I should be allowed to do as I like and help him,” Luna countered, never taking her stupid eyes off me.

Stupid alicorn uses stupid logic!

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” I grumped, retrieving a third cigarette and lighting it up. “I’m very serious when I say you would not recognize me if I go too long without one of these.”

Luna pouted at me, her face a blend of pleading and playful. “You mean you would hurt me?”

“I’d nom your wings off in an instant!” I grumbled.

“Awww,” she whined before sticking out her bottom lip (which is really hard to look at without d’awwing) and lowering her head to glance up at me with half-lidded eyes. “Even i-… if that made me s-sad?”

My mind. She was blown. I couldn’t believe it, but there was no mistaking the tilt of her head, nor the coy pout she was using to duck-face me. I remember my jaw dropping open as it rapidly dawned on me what Luna was doing. For those of you that need it spelled out, let me put it bluntly: Princess Luna T. (for Troll) Alicorn Pony was flirting. And she wasn’t being entirely subtle about it, either! Because Celestia seemed to be noticing as well and was just as shocked as I was.

How did I feel about this? I mean, Luna’s pretty cool as far as ponies go; I’d even venture to say she’s my best friend out of all the ponies. But… romantically? I mean, there were a lot of implications involved with dating ponies. Most of them bad. I couldn’t think of any of them at the time, but I was sure that there were plenty of them. Maybe. Whatever! All I knew was that both inner halves (Yes, both Lafter and Stoic) were waving little red flags, warning me that there were a thousand ways this could go wrong. The emotional risks were already high enough without throwing a couple of heartbreaks into the mix!

“Well, of course not,” I quickly huffed. Possibly too quickly; not quite sure. “But I’m not going to pretend that everything is going to be okay if I am deprived of my nicotine, either. So uh… I’m going to go… y’know… Somewhere else. And I’m gonna smoke there. I’m sure you two have lots to talk about. So I’ll leave you to it since I’ve got to go give the remnants of my phone a proper burial, anyway. Cough, LunaStopBurningMyShit, cough.”

I left them both there without another word. I could feel their beady little eyes on me but I just acted like I didn’t care/notice. I wasn’t certain how they took that reaction of mine (I wasn’t entirely smooth about it, after all) but that was definitely the least of my concerns. So I motored on over to my special happiness bench and flopped down onto it with a sigh. That damn monkey from earlier shrieked at me a few times but I was too nice to get on his case for it.

My mind wandered back to Luna and the very first thing I had to do was not let my idiotic romantic half get out of his prison. No, he hasn’t been named and I had no plans to change that anytime soon. This is mostly due to the fact that every time he decides to come back from hiatus, someone always cries. So for once in my life, I decided I would play this the smart way and eventually get around to talking to Luna about shutting this down. I knew how to convey a rough message in a gentle way, so I wasn’t worried about hurting the girl as much as I was worried that I would inadvertently damage our friendship.

I didn’t get to think on the matter for long, however. My thoughts were suddenly overcome with an intrusion. It was sorta like Stupid B-… Err… Tissi. Only there was something different about it. It was like a musical hum that I could feel inside of me. Not really anywhere specific as much as it was just… well, there.

~You are not from here…~

Voices in my head? Oh yeah, I’m definitely loony by this point, I told myself. Certifiably nucking futs! It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, oddly enough. But as long as I was a basket case, I might as well chill out and enjoy it, right? Like that Sucker Punch movie, where you turn your insanity into an action movie… Except I was already doing that with Equestria. Which was even better.

~You aren’t alarmed.~

“Well,” I replied aloud, “this really isn’t the strangest thing to happen to me in the past several days.”

~I suppose that is more than fair. Our connection allows me to feel your reply from inside; you need not communicate verbally...~

My eyes widened a little bit at the unlikely implication that my stupid mind first jumped to. That couldn’t be misconstrued at all!

“I… … I’m not comfortable being felt up like that!” I cried in shock, disturbing the rest of all the animals that Celestia keeps stuffed away in her silly royal park-garden-thing

~Hah. Not that variety of connection, nor that kind of feeling. You merely need to deliberately think your responses to communicate.~

~And the answer is: The Best Chicken.~

~What is Scootaloo?~

I’m glad no one/pony was watching me in the garden, because I gasped for what would outwardly seem as no reason whatsoever.

~Double reference recognition! Budding friendship status achieved!~

~I’m honored…~

~You should be! So, I take it we haven’t met?~

~We have not. I hope to change that, though…~

~Huh. Is that you Ti-…~

And then BRAIN SPIKES! Holy Gandhi skating backwards on ice! It was almost worse than the last time I tried to talk about Tissiphone to someone that wasn’t Tissiphone! I tried to suck in my breath, but I found the agony just a little too debilitating to allow anything other than to force me into a fetal position. Why did it have to hurt so much!? Couldn’t I get a warning shot first? Then again, this might actually BE the warning shot. Damn, that would blow so hard if that were the case.

~Are you… alright?~

~NO… But it isn’t your fault. Who are you?~

~I am… someone that has a vested interest in keeping this land safe.~

Oh hell. Not another one.

~That’s… That’s great. No thank you, I would not like to strike up any bargains…~

~I… Odd. Very well. I will still keep in touch, unless you otherwise object.~

~Um... I suppose that’s fine.~

~Good. Now, let me simply get to the point. Princess Luna is not well and while this is not your fault, I can sense that you are more than willing to do whatever it takes to help her.~

~Uh-huh... Well, don’t forget! No bargains!~

~Certainly not. I am merely concerned for the Princess and want to help her.~

~Promise?~

~Promise.~

~Okay... Then, yes! Luna’s a little loopy right now so... Yeah, I’d totally jump at the opportunity to make this easier on her. I assume you have a plan.~

~Indeed. Do you know the four necessary mental principles for manipulation?~

~Manipul... Magic? The Four Legs of Magic?~

~Four legs of... Hmm. I suppose I can... see the metaphorical significance from an Equestrian’s point of view, despite the fact that you are very much not a native.~

~Faith, Focus, Conviction and Imagination. Why?~

~Then you lack one of these?~

~What?~

~Forgive me, I am assuming. I merely inferred from your... Well, rather than demean you, let me simply ask: Are you missing one of these fundamental principles?~

~Not really...~

~Then it seems you have everything you already need.~

~I do?~

I thought about that. He was right, actually. If I could stuff a book into my brain using magic, then maybe a little ingenuity could help out Luna.

~I... I guess you’re right.~

~Good talk?~

~Good talk. Thanks, Mister Vimh!~

~Mister Vimh?~

~Voice In My Head!~

~I see. A pleasure to have assisted you. Also, my only request is that you refrain from mentioning me. I won’t pretend to have the power to stop you from doing otherwise, but doing so could endanger me. And I like being bereft of endangerment.~

~Well, you’re the nicest brain voice I’ve ever had, so I think I can do that for you!~

~Thank you. Farewell.~

Mister Vimh cut contact shortly thereafter. As nice as I acted, I wasn’t especially eager to hear more from the... whatever it was. I didn’t like the idea of there being more players in this behind-the-scenes game that Tissiphone was a part of. Not that I could be sure that such was the case with Mister Vimh, but I was fairly certain that whatever the case was, I didn’t know enough about it.

I yawned loudly, rubbing my eyes with a slight frown as I settled more onto my Special Stolen Bench. Equestria: Never a dull moment. I looked up at the sky, noticing that it was pretty late in the evening. I almost reached for my phone again, only to stop halfway this time and pout. Rather than have an internal rant about that, though, I simply let my mind wander as I settled in for a snooze.

* * *

AND THEN I GOT POKED IN THE HORN! I opened one eye just enough to confirm that the stars were still out and that I had no business being awake just yet. Somepony was going to get it.

“I swear, I don’t even know why I bother trying to get some sleep!” I whined, scooting about on the bench. “Ain’t no brakes on the pain train!”

I heard a girly voice say, “What?”

“What?” I asked, rolling over to look at my disturber. It was a purple pony. A purple magical unicorn, to be exact. Great. I can’t exactly smack Twilight, lest I die from shame.

So I decided to harass her. “Twilight. You shouldn’t barge in here. I’m not dressed.”

She opened her mouth to reply, not expecting to be rebuked in such a way. After a second to recover, she finally replied, “But… we normally don’t wear clothes.”

“That’s even worse!” I waved a hoof at her whilst yawning, trying to get her to go away. “Now we’re both naked, in here, alone and everypony’s gonna start talking!”

“We’re not in anything, No-Name!” she groaned in frustration, “Unless you mean us being in the Royal Canterlot Faunal and Floral Garden.”

“We’re bringing animals in on it, too!?” If I gasped any harder or any more dramatically, I’d have probably choked. “You’re moving too fast for me; I’m breaking things off right now!”

She fell back on her usual reaction. Stare at me like I was insane. Finally she slapped a hoof over her face and took a deep, relaxing breath. I don’t think it actually helped calm her down, though.

“You… confuse me!” she snapped after a moment of quiet, “I just wanted to ask if you wanted to help me experiment with the Inmanipulon samples. If you’re tired, though, you don’t have to be childish about asking me to let you sleep!”

There was a little bit of anxiety in the way she spoke, made only more apparent by the way she spun about and began to… not quite stomp, but she definitely wasn’t happily cantering either. I didn’t deliberate on the matter for very long. All I knew was that I was not about to be responsible for the ruining of somepony’s day, Twilight’s especially.

“Wait!” I cried, rolling off the bench and tearing after her. She stopped and looked back at me with, I kid you not, tears rimming the bottom of her eyes. As punishment for my crimes, Stoic beat Lafter to death with a crowbar and stuffed the body into a foot locker. He wouldn’t stay dead forever, but he wouldn’t be coming back for some time, either.

“Oh, Twi… I’m sorry,” I murmured, trotting to a stop as I neared with a grimace. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I was just being silly.”

I conjured her up a simple napkin and floated it her way, which she accepted with a soft, apologetic smile.

“It’s not your fault,” she reassured me as she let out a strained laugh. “I think being exposed to the purified Inmanipulon samples has had a few strange effects on me. I’m fine whenever I’m away from it for an hour or so, but I think it has some strange psychoactive properties. I’ve been so emotionally charged these past few days.”

“Wow. That’s no bueno. You need a case of mood swings like I need another name,” I commented with a short chuckle before remembering that Twilight had yet to be brought up on speed. “Oh yeah. I’ve been given a moniker courtesy of the trolliest princess. I won’t bore you with all the details but the short version is that Luna named me Firewall. Thoughts?”

“The Princess named you?” Twilight dabbed at her eyes before blinking in slight disbelief. “You must have made quite the impression.”

“Pfft. No. She did it to vex me, I’m certain of it,” I snarled, scrunching up my face a bit. “So let’s go play science before she flies out of the bushes and tells me that Gilda is best pony or something.”

That would send any brony up the wall in an unreasonable way.

And then we science’d with magic, which is the silliest thing I’ve ever said. The best part was picking a place to do business. I elected Luna’s library in hopes that we might accidentally burn it to the ground. Of course I didn’t tell Twilight that, but I like to set my games up like Xanatos so that I win either way.

I understood just barely enough about magic to know what Twilight was doing, but didn’t know near enough to do anything but be the assistant. Fetch that, prepare this, cleanse that, etc. That might sound incredibly boring but I can promise you that nothing could be farther from the truth. I mean, I was learning neat stuff about magic, chilling with Twilight, and participating in mad science. Twilight insisted that there was nothing mad about it and demanded that I not call it that, but I assured her I knew what I was talking about. But like a mare, she found other things to nag me about. Specifically taking notes in the ‘informal’ alphabet. See, ponies can read and speak English just fine, but they have this ‘Official’ pictogram alphabet for any special documentation, legalese, and otherwise formal print. To write in English is to be extra informal and relaxed. You send a personal letter in English (otherwise known as Informal), but send a wedding invitation in Formal. So yeah, Twilight whined about it until I brought up one point.

“Twilight, is any of the pertinent information lost in the translation from Informal to Formal?” I asked her as I continued to jot away with the power of magic!

“Well, no, I suppose not, but it’s rather…” She paused, searching for a proper word. “It’s quite silly to take a formal document and write it informally. It gives the allusion of amateur’s hoof at work!”

“Sorry, Twilight, I can’t read your Formal alphabet,” I huffed as I finished marking down measurements. “Ergo, if you want me to be of any real assistance, we’re going to have to write this in ‘Stupid’ and hope all of the smart ponies won’t judge us.”

She frowned a little. “I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t smart, Firewall.”

“It’s too late, Twilight. You’ve ruined my self-confidence!” I cried out in false dismay, feigning a case of the vapors. “I need my comfort food now, which is a shame, because Equestria is probably fresh out of Spaghetti-Os.”

Twilight rolled her eyes with a helpless giggle. “I’m sure that you’ll cope. But as strange as it sounds, if all you can read and write is Informal, then adapting to the situation is the best solution we have.”

“Indeed, my good mare,” I said before setting down the paper and quill. “Okay. All set. The only thing left to jot down is the best part!”

“Results!” she supplied handily… Hoof’dily. Whatever’dily.

And then she brought out the samples. She had four tiny dark grey pebbles that were about the size of a ball bearing. Very tiny, to be sure. She mentioned that getting the dust purified and shaped into such easy-to-handle sample was rather easy. That it just took a bit of metallurgy know-how to separate the sand from the genuine article and took absolutely no magic to accomplish. Personally, I wouldn’t have been so forward in attempting such an initiative, but Twilight’s far more intelligent than I am, so I didn’t bother shoving my opinion out there (very unlike me, I know).

It wasn’t until we began directly experimenting with the stuff that progress became rather… stagnant. Magic sort of follows the same rule of energy. You can’t create it, you can’t destroy it, but you can direct it, disperse it, and focus it towards an end. But these grey bearings seemed to be rule breakers in the sense that any magic they came in contact with just vanished.

Basically it works like this: Any magical task requires three things. A geas (More or less the programming behind the spell), a focus to cast from (such as a hoof, horn, or wing), and the fuel (that being magic itself). Without any of those three things, your spell doesn’t have the capacity to scratch your butt. Inmanipulon initially seemed to just wipe out the geas and destroy the fuel. We were pretty stumped as to how it worked. There should be a reaction for something so phenomenal but our discovery didn’t happen until Twilight accidentally bumped a magic candle over. When it rolled over to the sample we had set out on a simple plate, it winked out. It wasn’t until I picked it up and set it to the side that the candle relit itself. Then we started making some headway.

It took some verifying, but we confirmed that magic was not being destroyed, it was simply being disrupted somehow. The proof was in the magical objects which would simply not function until a certain distance from the submatter (Twilight’s word, not mine) known as Inmanipulon was established. Wiggy! It didn’t explain what was happening to spells, though. Nor should magic be disappearing at all in the first place. But there was no way to actively observe the magic once its geas was disrupted, because the only way to actually see a spell was through its display, which the geas provided. I know, this is getting super technical and stuff, but stick with me on this because it is about to make sense.

“But does it blend?!” I shouted in frustration before breathing fire at the tiny pebble that sat unassumingly on the table before me.

Sadly, my firebreath died not a full meter from the table in question.

“It’s impossible to test upon with magic!” Twilight cried, equally upset with the material. “How are we supposed to observe the effects the material in question has on magic when we can’t see the effects it has on magic!?”

“Well, how did you get results before?” I asked, desperate to find a roundabout solution.

“It wasn’t concentrated enough before to completely disrupt magic, only severely dampen it,” she explained, “It was difficult and required a lot more effort, sure! But I was still able to produce results. But I’ve given it my best focus and we didn’t even get a spark!”

“Can we make any special goggles that let us see magic even without a display or something?”

Twilight sighed as though she had been defeated, “Yes, but that will take days! Not only would we need a specialist to make the goggles in question, we would have to commission the aid of a thaumaturgist to design the spell. Princess Celestia wanted results as soon as possible. I’ve already been researching for two weeks and the only difference between last week and today is that we know for a fact that it’s pain in the flank! We might as well be blind for all the good our eyes are doing for us now.”

Twilight couldn’t have accidently spoon fed me the solution any more directly if she had tried to do so on purpose. Because it wouldn’t have been accidental, nor would it have been my idea if she had.

“Twilight, go fetch us doughnuts,” I ordered before turning and running for the door. “I have an idea! Meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”

“Wait, what!? What are the doughnuts for!?” she cried out after me.

“What do you think!?” I yelled back, not bothering to halt my enthusiastic dash for the stairs (I hate those stairs. I hate all stairs).

* * *

The time was about two in the morning. The target was soundly asleep in his bed. The method was obvious, simple and yet it was delightfully perfect.

“STORM WING, THE NIGHTMARE IS ATTACKING!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and leaped onto his bed. “SAVE ME, STORM! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! SAVE ME!”

I think I gave him a heart attack. He cried out and flung himself off the bed with panic splayed upon his expression. He was half-awake and freaking out, so I snatched one of his pillows and threw it at him with a frantic scream.

“What!?” He dodged like some freakin’ pony-ninja, complete with midair tuck-n-tumble.

“Good reflexes, Storm. You passed.” I softly applauded, my voice now super deep and super serious.

“What is the meaning of this, Firewall!?” he shouted, not appreciative of his emergency reaction drill.

“You’ve now passed into the realm of magical pony science,” I responded brazenly, throwing a dramatic hoof in his direction. “Only you can help us learn more of the power of anti-magic.”

He blinked a time or two before gritting his teeth. “Are you trying to anger me?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation, “but I am also being quite honest. We need your help. Come forth. Twilight is fetching you some doughnuts. You’re like a pony-cop, so I figure that’ll help balance out your chi and stuff.”

“I don’t… What are you talking about?” He rubbed at his face a bit before glaring up at me. “What time is it?”

“Who cares, Storm!?” I flung my hooves in air. “There’s science to be done and Celestia needs results! Are you saying you’re going to let Celestia down!? Because I’mma tell everyone you did!”

He glared in my direction for a few seconds before shaking his head. “What do you need? No more nonsense.”

“Fiiine~! I swear, this is the land of cartoony equines, but the ponies are all super serial!” I grumped, crossly crossing my hooves in a cross-like fashion. “It’s like this…”

* * *

“You can see magic?” Twilight got all kinds of bug-eyed when I explained my thought process.

It’s pretty simple, I’m fairly sure I’m just going to reiterating the assumptions already made but here goes. Storm can sense magic, even if it doesn’t have a display. Since the Inmanipulon disrupts any gaes and, by proxy, the display, his ability to keep track of the magic would be able to tell us where it was going.

“I can sense it, yes. I’ve never been able to see before, though, so I can’t make a comparison, Miss Twilight Sparkle,” he explained, “Firewall, here, claims that I can be of great assistance and that this endeavor is of great importance to Celestia.”

Twilight is an overachiever, okay? Of that there is no doubt. I told her to go get doughnuts. She assumed it had something to do with the experiment and seeing that she had no clue how many she should get, she opted to get a lot. I was somewhat put out that she wasn’t already back by the time I had returned, but that had been offset by the cart full of pastries she eventually arrived with. The doughnuts were for Storm Wing, but seeing as he wasn’t going to be eating even half of them, I found it within my capacity to eat a few… dozen.

“Well, it’s certainly important to her, but I wouldn’t say that it was worth it to wake you up in the middle of the night.” She gave me a glare and I rebelliously ate a doughnut at her. “Still, as long as what’s done is done, do you mind giving us a hoof? It’s alright if you want to wait for the morning.”

“I already said I would help and that is what I will do,” he replied as I held a doughnut up to his nose.

Bitterly accepting my offer, he scarfed down the treat as we went about preparing the next test. It shouldn’t have taken much time, but Twilight is meticulous and is crazy about contaminating results so it actually took us several minutes. After we were finally prepped, we ate one last preparatory doughnut and began the test.

I don’t wanna get technical on you, so I’ll keep it simple. I would breathe fire on the stuff and Storm Wing would tell us where the magic went. If you’re wondering why we didn’t go with more direct spells, it’s because I seem to have an insane efficiency ratio on fire breath. I can roar out the stuff all day and I would sooner get winded from breathing too hard rather than arcane exhaustion.

“Okay! Stand-by. Ready, boys?” Twilight asked before casting a containment spell around us all, thwarting my attempts to destroy Luna’s library. Sad face.

We nodded.

“Improvisational Observation Technique Attempt Number One! Commence!” She was adorable with her research director voice.

I blasted out a decent wave of flame at the pebble of anti-magic juju, only to see the same result of the fire just dying out a couple of feet away from the table. Storm Wing blinked before tilting his head to the left and blinking a second time.

“I… Firewall, do that again. Harder,” he ordered, stepping a little closer to the testing area.

Twilight nodded at me before barking out the go ahead, “Attempt Number Two! Variable: Intensified magic output! Commence!”

Well, he wanted more so I gave him more. I stepped it up, putting a solid effort into the next blast. It was hot enough for me to feel it, so I knew it had to be at least a little uncomfortable to the two of them. As intended, the flames were a bit wider, definitely brighter, and actually made it a few inches closer before ultimately winking out.

“One more time,” Storm requested, squinting a bit. “Hard as you can.”

I gave him an incredulous glance before taking a few deep breaths and bracing myself. Instead of just going with it, I began to actively focus on putting everything I had into the next one. Already I could feel the tightness in my chest like a pressure that was building up as though it anticipated a powerful release.

“Attempt Number Three!” Twilight ordered, stepping back a little bit, “Maximum output! Commence!”

I roared audibly like something out of some corny action movie as I let it all out. If I had not been putting all my focus and effort into this one, I’d have distracted myself with just how *#&%ing cool it really looked. Pardon my Equestrian, but it was awesome. It was a big ol’ torrent of turquoise and red-orange flames that almost made it to the unassuming little pebble made of frustration and stumpery.

For several moments, the only sound was that of my semi-winded breathing.

“Well?” Twilight broke the silence.

“That’s… new,” Storm said after another soundless second, “The magic is being pulled into the blank spot and being compressed into the raw dot at its center.”

“Compressed? What, like a black hole or something?” I asked.

“Not sure what that is, but I can confirm that the magic is not being destroyed, it’s just being concentrated on a focus,” he elaborated, stroking his chin with a hoof, “The blank area around the focus though, I’ve seen it. Yesterday, at the ruins.”

“Le gasp!” I said, “That was what you were going on about! I thought you were just making up excuses for losing a fight!”

Really, I said that unironically. Which is somewhat stupid of me, I’ll admit. Incredibly insensitive, at least. Twilight must have agreed, because she flying-book’d me upside the back of my head.

“Ack!” I cried, diving under the closest table avoid any further airborne literary abuse.

Storm chuckled under his breath. “I found that much more amusing than I should have.”

“Twilight, no flying books!” I whined from under the table. I wanted to get out from underneath it, but I wasn’t taking the chance, even if it smelled like sterile-sweet chemicals down there.

She replied, but I stopped paying attention. I’d just realized how comfortable the carpet was underneath the table and considered taking a nap. I mean, if Twilight needed me, she’d just shake me awake. Or beat me with more books. I wish she wouldn’t do that, but rarely do I get my way these days. I started to close my eyes and murmured a few lines from the Hush-Now-Quiet-Now song.

“What is that smell?” Storm Wing asked, jarring me somewhat conscious. His voice was a little slurred but became somewhat alert when a very audible flop came from Twilight’s direction. I snapped my eyes open to confirm that I wasn’t the only one losing consciousness. Twilight was flopped over a chair in what had to be one of the most uncomfortable chair-flopping positions I had ever seen.

“Miss Twilight?!” Storm barked in shock, causing me to lift my head up. I was just barely conscious enough to realize that something just might be wrong.

All sound was slowly becoming distant but I remember the distinct sound of glass breaking. I looked back at Storm Wing just in time to witness him try to take flight, only to make it two feet off the ground and then gloriously crash into a nearby shelf. Somewhere deep within my mind I suddenly realized that we were all in danger and I had to do something. Anything but lay here and pass out like the others.

That sterile-sweet smell had been slight before, but it was quickly becoming an overpoweringly pungent rot. I had a good idea as to what it was, but that wasn’t as important as doing something about it. With all the willpower I had, I managed to begin dragging myself out from under the table and away from the center of the room. Much to my relief, the smell was indeed getting fainter the further I forcibly moved myself. By the time I made it to the first set of inwardly curved shelves, my vision and hearing began to just barely clear themselves up.

“Hah!” I grunted, slowly pushing myself off the ground with my two front hooves. “Ssss… Sssuck it, bitchezzz…”

And then a wet rag smelling suspiciously of chloroform slapped down over my entire face.

“Oh goodness!” I exclaimed before promptly fading out like a Bollywood romance scene.

Side note: Should you go to Equestria, throw your sleep schedule out the window because you won’t sleep unless Equestria wants you to sleep.

* * *

Well, we stayed clocked out for several hours, surprisingly enough. Last I checked, chloroform was supposed to only affect you for an hour, possibly two. Even if left near you it shouldn’t affect a pony for much longer considering that the stuff evaporates incredibly quickly. For some reason, though, we were out until a good portion into the morning. Lucky found us and was able to revive us all with little cups of water that she dumped onto our faces. I remember the water being really, really effing cold because she fetched it from some clouds near the tower. Damn it, Lucky. Just damn it, okay?

So anyway, we were all completely unharmed except for a bruise on Storm’s left foreleg. That was not to say that everything was all fine and dandy. It wasn’t. All the notes and research we did on the Inmanipulon? Yeah, it was gone. Along with all our samples. Storm was irritated, I was pissed but Twilight? Twilight couldn’t see straight. I don’t think Twilight’s ever been stolen from and it bothered her on some deep level. When she wasn’t on the brink of tears, she was busy trying to keep herself from yelling at everything. Luckily, she was still listening to reason and when I pointed out that her emotional state might still be under the effect of Inmanipulon, she chilled.

She needed something to comfort her so I promised to make her some pwncakes and roffles if she promised to behave long enough for me to whip them up real quick. She acquiesced and I scooted along to the kitchen. As I approached the place of cookery, I could hear my favorite British-Bishi pony inside, humming to himself as he whipped up whatever masterpiece he deemed worthy of the princesses.

I kicked the door open and bellowed. “COOKIE!”

“AAAHHHH!” he screamed, throwing his hooves up in the air and sending a skillet full of something along with it.

“AAAHHHH!” I dived out of the way of… whatever that goop was. All I know was that it was yellow, airborne, and hot enough to kill organisms on a microscopic level.

Splat.

We looked at the puddle of sizzling yellow stuff before looking up at one another. His assistant, known to others as Sugar Dust, known to me as Bitchy Quadruped #4 (FYI: The others are Luna, Princess of the Night, and The Alicorn formerly known as Nightmare Moon), burst into the room from the pantry before slapping a hoof over her face.

“Dude.” I pointed at the mess. “Five second rule. Hurry up, you’re running out of time.”

He probably wasn’t amused, but he didn’t say anything. He just stared at me for several seconds, as though waiting for me to do something.

“What do you want?!” Sugar Dust snapped.

“I want to make pancakes! And possibly a few waffles!” I demanded, slamming my hoof on a nearby counter for emphasis. “You need not assist! Merely stand aside! I had a bad night and so did my friend and I want to make us some comfort food!”

“We’re not going to put up with your idiocy anymore, alien!” she yelled back with greater fervor than I had managed. “Get out!”

I blinked. That wasn’t a very ponyful response. Then again, I was being kind of an ass.

I sighed, deflating a bit before walking towards the little closet in the corner where the kitchen kept its mops and stuff for cleaning. “Okay, look, I’m sorry. I’ll clean up the mess. I’ll even use the crappy wood stove and dump out the ashes myself. No more funny stuff for like… a month. Pretty please?”

“Absolutely n-…” Bitchy Quadruped started to reply.

“Yes!” Cookie loudly cut her off, “go ahead. Don’t worry about the mess. Make whatever you like and hurry up, if you don’t mind. I’ve got to cook for Blueblood’s guests so just… try to stay out of the way. Sugar Dust, please attend to the accident.”

Miss Dust found that to be the most unbelievable thing she had ever heard.

“Cookie, you can’t be se-…” she started to say before being cut off yet again.

“I’m quite serious. We’re already behind and you making a fuss is only making a bad situation even worse,” he sharply replied before turning back for the stove. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

There was a heavy silence that did nothing but further threw off my already bad day. Eventually we all went about our business and resolved ourselves to just ignore one another’s presence. I could feel a lot of tension in the room and all I wanted was to make my exit as soon as possible. That said, I just got it over with and made a total of eight waffles and eight pancakes. I was going to take the time to butter each one, then stagger-stack them so that it would be sillier when I presented them to Twilight. After that, though? I just wanted to get out of there.

Cookie was nice enough to get me a stack of plates and silverware before rushing me out the door. Not wanting to cause more problems, I didn’t give him any grief and just left with the food and condiments in tow. I made my way back out to my special bench where I left the bipolar purple pony to ponder the perplexing problem of our possessions having been purloined from our persons (ponies) without permission by way of chemical persuasion. By the time I got there, I could tell that her jimmies had mostly unrustled themselves. Upon noticing my arrival, she could tell that what little energy I’d had left over from the theft had been sapped by something else.

“What’s wrong, Firewall?” she asked, already frowning somewhat.

“Stuff,” I answered as I floated her a plate and flopped some waffles on it. “Just starting to think I need to be less of a silly dumbass.”

“You’re not dumb, Firewall,” she replied reflexively, “You can be pretty silly, sure, but that doesn’t make a pony stupid.”

“Mebbe,” I answered with a nod, fetching a butterknife and going for the butterdish to do some butterstuff with it. “Mebbe. I didn’t butter them just yet, so…”

“Hey,” Twilight poked me my side with a hoof and sorta left it there. I think it’s the equivalent of setting a hand on your shoulder, but nopony ever confirmed that with me. “You can talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I sighed, shutting my eyes and shaking my head.

“Lesson One about humans, Twilight: Never give a human an opportunity to whine to you. Why? Well, if you had you ever had to listen to one, you’d know. ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, we’re pretty damn good at it and all it does is upset others and stuff.”

Just a note, guys: This is me not wanting to talk about it and making up complete bullshit to get what I want. So uh… Don’t take that for serious, okay?

“Listening is just another part of being a friend,” she countered, giving me a heartmelting smile.

“Oh gosh!” I coughed out a surprised laugh. “Lesson Two about humans! We like to stay grumpy sometimes so that we can blow off steam in our own way. And you making me feel better by talking about being my friend is just deflating my anger balloon like pssssssshhhhhfffbbbtbbttt~! So good job and stuff on ruining my bad mood!”

There was a lot of hoof waving in those sentences to help emphasize what I was getting at. I’m fairly sure if you tied my hooves together, I wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation.

“Oh my, I feel terrible already,” she gasped in false shame before letting out a giggle.

“You should,” I confirmed before spreading warm syrupy love all over my pancakes. Mmmmm…

After that, the small talk turned on and I got to tell Twilight what Luna was like. She was floored. She expected a more mysterious Celestia or something, hell I don’t know. When I pointed out that the two were as different as the day and the night, she was forced to groan and recoil from the terrible pun. All in all, I was making a swift recovery and self-doubt had been all but entirely dispelled.

Shortly after my third waffle (Yes, I like to eat them one at a time), that silvery pony from before showed up. You know, the one that was guarding Luna’s door the day before? Hell, the only reason I remembered her was because she was the skank that held me down by my freakin’ horn.

“Oh, look. It’s that silvery pony from before!” I gasped as though narrating.

“My name is Lieutenant Silverheart,” she stated dryly before rolling her slanted silvery eyes. “You’re Firewall, right? The human?”

Twilight winced a bit. She wasn’t very appreciative of the harsh tone that the Sky Archon was taking, but she’s not exactly assertive enough to throw a pony under the bus over such things.

“Indeed, I am,” I affirmed, tilting my head a bit. “You here to stomp on my horn some more?”

That must be some serious kind of offensive because Twilight gasped in shock while Silverheart blushed a bit.

“No, I’m not here for that,” she coughed a bit, looking away as she cleared her throat and looking back to us, “I… am sorry for how things went during our first encounter. But I take no chances when a fire-breathing unicorn breaks into Princess Luna’s room.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, water under the bridge and all that,” I took another bite of pancake and arched an eyebrow. “Soooo... what are you here for then?”

“Sky Archon Captain Storm Wing has requested your presence. I was sent to deliver the message and escort you to him,” she clarified, meeting my gaze with soldier’s steel in her silver eyes.

Screw Captain Storm Wing (S.C.S.W.C. - 6) was the first thing that came to my mind, but then I remembered that he was big enough to help me and Twilight last night. Even if he wasn’t big enough to reach for the light switch without resorting to wings. Not that he’d need a light switch, mind you.

I let out a soft groan before looking down at my waffles. I didn’t want to squander all that golden brown goodness and I also couldn’t leave them all for Twilight. I had her figure to think about.

“Can I bring the waffles?” I turned my gaze her way, sticking out my bottom lip.

Silverheart blinked, unsure how she should go about processing this development. After a moment of stunned silence, she shrugged her wings (… Damn it…).

“I don’t see why not,” she replied before turning about and taking a deep breath for patience. “Please, come with me.”

“I’ll see ya later, Twi.” I gave her a casual salute.

“Thank you for breakfast!” she smiled back.

I complied, magically grabbing the last few pancakes and waffles that weren’t on Twilight’s plate and tossing a bunch of syrup and butter on them before stacking them all on my plate. Then, just to mess with Twilight, I pushed her plate away from her about two feet. The look she gave me was an amalgamation of irritation and amusement. Thoroughly pleased with myself, I stuck my tongue out at her and scampered after Silverheart. The Archon was looking at me as though she was trying to discern if I was real or just an insane side-effect of a subtle mental breakdown. I turned to face her, tongue still hanging out before sucking it back in and smiling brightly.

“You are… strange,” she stated, having nothing more to say on the matter even after I tried to pester her on the subject.

It took us a short while, but we made our way to the ballroom where Storm Wing patiently awaited my arrival. And man, did he look like hell or what. He wasn’t wearing his armor and his eyes were a little more half lidded, but the messy mane and tail were what gave me the impression that he was having a bad day. Seriously, when your hair is longer than that of the average female, messiness just holds that much more prevalence.

“Damn, Storm. Either you lost a fight with a thunder cloud, or you’ve had a rough night,” I commented as we approached.

He smirked a bit without even glancing my way. “You should see the thunder cloud. What are the waffles and pancakes for?”

“For a while!” I proclaimed.

“Of course they are,” he replied before turning his head our way just slightly, “Lieutenant Silverheart, thank you and you’re dismissed. Go make sure Lucky hasn’t burned down Canterlot for me, will you?”

Silverheart blinked before saluting. I swear to you, I saw fear in those eyes. Maybe I was just imagining things? But probably not. Lucky is one scary hoofie. After dropping the salute, she turned and flew off in an entirely normal fashion. No sparkly lightning, no sonic boom of speed, just a dismal, unexcited take-off.

I thought about commenting, but just let it pass. Instead, I turned to Storm Wing and prodded for information.

“So… what’s up, Speedy?”

“Luna has not slept in two days,” was his dry, flat answer.

“Maybe she should take LUNESTA!”

Yes, I went there.

Storm Wing arched an eyebrow and swiveled his head in my general direction. “What…?”

“Hmmm.” I contemplatively tapped my chin with a hoof. “Yeah, that joke really holds no significance here.”

“I see,” he stupidly answered.

“No, you don’t!” I roared in protest, “You don’t see anything!”

He totally ignored that. Unfortunately for me, he’s a little too smart to be baited into such nonsense.

“Anyway, she asked me to bring you to her…” he started to say before I cut him off.

“Woah, woah, hold up.” I waved a hoof to signal a time out. “Luna asked you to bring me to her. So rather than fetch me yourself, you sent Silverheart, Stomper of Horns to bring me here so that you could escort me the last twenty steps?”

“Princess Celestia asked me to watch after Luna.”

Random Tangent: Storm Wing’s voice is incredible. Why? Only he can say the words ‘Princess Celestia’ and not sound like a sissy. Which totally sucks for us bronies, because there’s a huge difference between sounding like a sissy and actually being one.

“I won’t be able to sense her if I go much farther. This is as close as I could get to fulfilling the wishes of both princesses.”

“Uh-huh. Good cover up, slacker.” I gave him a skeptical glare.

His expression finally cracked when he shut his eyes, took a deep, quiet breath, and let it out through his nose. He sounded like a tire rapidly losing its PSI. (Ponies per Square Inch - Fact.)

“I’m also lacking a good bit of sleep myself and Luna did not specify that I bring you to her in top condition,” he said after finishing his deflation. “Perhaps you should keep that in mind before further testing my patience.”

… … … Challenge Accepted.

-Two Minutes Later-

“AAAAHHH!!!” I screamed as I barreled through Luna’s door.

“Well, if I didn’t have any trouble sleeping before, I certainly do now.”

Luna was laying on her night-themed bed (I personally expected troll faces and a portrait of Rick Astley) with quite possibly the most impatient of looks upon her face.

Naturally, I paid her no mind and leaped over her bed to put something solid between myself and the Sky Archon that was hot on my heels. I checked to make sure I had successfully made the leap without losing any waffles and pancakes. Much to my dismay, though, the final tally showed that I had lost one in all the excitement.

“No!” I sputtered breathlessly before poking my head up over the bed. Sure enough, as Storm Wing entered the room, I could see one side of his mouth protruding from being so full of delicious pancake.

“You heartless bastard!” I cried in horror.

He swallowed, smirking my way after the deed was done. “Consider it payment for not kicking the blank off your flank.”

GAH!!! That line! So… So good… Gah!

“What is going on, again?” Luna didn’t actually look that interested in what was going on; I don’t know why she was asking.

“Luna!” I hollered, snapping my head her way. “What are you doing here?!”

“This is my room.”

I looked about. Indigo paint on the ceiling, black columns, dark blue fluffy pillows, corn-blue stained furniture, and moons on just about everything. There was a big, blue stuffed animal that looked like a mix between a dolphin and the Loch Ness Monster. I wasn’t sold, though, until I noticed the picture of Celestia and Luna in their younger years resting atop the nightstand next to the bed. By the way, Celestia is adorable with pink hair.

“So it is,” I confirmed, “Good observation.”

“Thanks, I like to make my family proud,” she countered sardonically.

I chuckled before looking back at Storm Wing. “You can leave now, ya jerk!”

“Hush, Firewall,” Luna ordered before glancing back at the Sky Archon, “Thank you, Storm Wing.”

“Not at all, Pr-…” he started to reply before blinking at the sudden change of expression on Luna’s face.

Did you guys know that Luna hates, despises, and absolutely loathes being called ‘Princess’? I mean, it doesn’t come up often with me because I call her just about everything that isn’t complimentary or respectful. Well, apparently Storm knew that, too. But he’s a huge stickler for formalities so… yeah.

Storm ended up just grunting and hopping up onto the top of Luna’s armoire. After dusting it off a bit, he did a circle as though he were a cat and simply flopped down. I just had so many comments come to mind that my brain derped out and all I could do was gape in awe.

Luna snickered at my reaction because she likes to laugh at my expense.

“Are you alright?” she asked softly.

“All he needs is a scratching post,” I mumbled absentmindedly before blinking and looking back at Luna. “Hey, you had me brought here! Why would you do something so silly? We both know that I have ponies to play with and this is seriously cutting into that. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk,” she answered quite plainly.

“Damn, I’m good!” I exclaimed, setting my pwncakes and roffles on the nightstand. “Already accomplished the objective and I didn’t even know what it was!”

Luna facehoofed. But not like this dramatic slap on her forehead. No, it was slow, deliberate and perfectly portrayed her thoughts on my nonsense.

Her words were flat and almost helpless. “You astound me.”

“That’s what all the ladies say!” I promised before dropping my pony-elbow-hock thingies up on the bed and bracing my chin up with my hooves. “So, like, enough with the silliness. What’s up with you not sleeping? Isn’t that bad for you?”

“Don’t want to sleep,” she answered with a long yawn. “Been having nightmares. The kind that you can’t scare away with a few spells.”

I suddenly felt extremely numb all over, having a damn good guess as to what was causing the nightmares. As I understand it, dreams and nightmares are the mind’s way of occupying your sensory perceptions while you’re asleep and also act as a sort of taking-out-the-mental-garbage. It’s why people that sleep to music usually have a slightly less restful sleep because they’re occupying a piece of their mind by listening to it. This was all second-hand information from a supposed sleep-expert that worked at a Serta mattress store, but he sure as hell was confident and charismatic. THE POINT was that Luna didn’t have a trash bin full of mental garbage, but an entire junkyard of it.

“Well, look on the bright side!” I said, sitting back on my haunches and pointing to the large plate of breakfast foods on the nightstand. “I brought you foodstuffs! Om nom nom?”

“I’m really not in the mood,” she sighed miserably, slowly shutting her eyes before forcing them back open. “Food makes me sleepy and sleeping is the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Well, you’re having problems sleeping, right?” I retorted, “Let us eat then, and begin the process of forcibly rendering you unconscious! Here, I’ll show you how!”

That said, I levitated a large waffle up to my face and took a huge chomp out of it.

“Now you try!” I proclaimed through the golden, fluffy goodness.

Before she replied, I floated her a pancake and dropped it onto the pillow beside her. Naturally, it soiled the fabric the moment it came into contact with it due to the fact that it was covered in butter and syrup.

“What are you doing!?” Luna cried, sitting up in shock at the sight of her defiled pillow. “You’re ruining my bed!”

That wasn’t very fair of her. I mean, I never even had a chance to answer her question.

“Oh my gosh!” I cried out in dismay, throwing my hooves up into the air. “I suck at comforting ponies! My life is a lie!”

I could hear Storm Wing slap a hoof over his face from behind me. Luna grabbed the pancake and threw it at me, helplessly laughing at the randomness of the situation. I caught it with magic and eagerly devoured the projectile flapjack.

“You’re an idiot,” she grumped tiredly before casting a spell to clean off the pillow.

“You’re the one turning down delicious pancakes,” I countered, my voice muffled by the tastiness in my mouth.

“Yes, yes. Clearly a sign of insanity,” she commented before lying back against the pillow and sighing. “Firewall, are you sure you’re a human? Because I know what humans are like now. More than even you know. And you just don’t seem to me like the typical human.”

Either that was her idea of a compliment, or I was being told in a roundabout way that I’m a freak.

“Wow, that’s a little misanthropic, don’t you think?” I let out a soft chuckle after swallowing the last of the pancake. “I mean, if you know so much about humans, you should also know that we are really, extra, super diverse. No two humans are entirely alike. Hell, it’s hard to find another human that’s incredibly like oneself. I’m just another guy.”

Luna responded by turning over and burying her face into the pillow. She mumbled something into it and the only thing I could think of was the Pyro from Team Fortress 2. I snorted loudly, trying to prevent myself from going off on a tangent of quotes. Good ol’ Stoic, there to keep me in line.

“Well, I can’t discern what you said entirely,” I pointed out with another laugh, “But if I had to take a guess, you’re either insulting my mother, or you’re offering to sell me a pony for an outrageous sum. It could go either way, really. But before you say anything, let me remind you that slavery is illegal in Equestria.”

I paused at that last line before glancing back at Storm Wing. “It is illegal, right?”

Storm’s reply was to yawn and bob his head up and down, so I took that as a nod.

“There you go, Luna,” I said, feeling firmly convicted in my statement. “It’s super illegal. So you may, in fact, not sell me a pony for an outrageous sum. Storm Wing would have to arrest you if you do that.”

Luna’s pillow-muffled laugh was shortly followed by the Sky Archons impatient sigh. She eventually looked up from the fluffy fabric and wiped at her bleary eyes. “Humans are so awful though.”

“No, we’re not awful,” I rolled my eyes and handed (hooft’d? Seriously, I’ve no clue what the appropriate term is…) a piece of waffle that I had sectioned off for her. “Some humans are awful. A lot of humans are just fine. And there are even more that are bigger sweethearts than some of the ponies I’ve met.”

She gingerly inserted the treat into her mouth. “I... I know... It’s just... I can’t explain it, Firewall. I know you’re not all bad, but I can’t help but see all the dreadful potential.”

“Yeah, I figured,” I said with a nod, sighing feebly as I tried to arrange my scatterbrained thoughts. “I mean, The Nightmare wasn’t kidding. Humans can get pretty nasty. And yeah, we’re pretty keen on recording the worst parts of our history. But it’s in an effort to learn and better ourselves from it. Does that make any sense?”

“Mmmhmm,” she nodded with a soft yawn that Storm Wing quickly contracted. “And I can see a lot of reason and logic for many things that humans actually do. But… Firewall, you have to realize that your world is terrifying compared to mine."

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” I felt my ears flop down against my head as I generally deflated all over. “Look, Luna, I know you…”

“However,” she interrupted me, “It’s still incredibly fascinating. And industrialized technology is quite literally the most… amazing thing I’ve ever heard of.”

I blinked, tilting my head and perking up a tad. “Really?”

“Yes,” she nodded sleepily, “I just…”

She paused to yawn again, this time taking an exceptionally long time to get it over with. I was impressed enough to clap a bit.

“Mmmm, first show is free,” she chuckled gently before continuing. “I don’t judge you, Firewall, for your origins. I don’t even judge your origins. They’re just different than mine and I’m fine with that. But deep within the uncontrollable reaches of my heart... I guess the best word you would recognize is the subconscious. I fear it. I fear the world you come from. And now that I understand those origins, Firewall… I cannot help but fear you; if just a little bit. And no matter how much I know that it’s foolish, I cannot stop those fears from tormenting me while I sleep.”

I lost a lot of happiness in that right there. The idea that Luna was frightened by me, even just subconsciously, was really heartbreaking. My eyes went wide with disbelief and my voice couldn’t even find itself to let me assure her that I was nothing to be scared of.

“Let me explain.” She sat up a little. “I do not fear you hurting me, Firewall… But I fear that powerful human passion that you house. In just the short time I’ve known you, I know that without a doubt that you live by leading with your heart. And that’s beautiful. You’re just so different from everything I’ve known. But you’re also a mystery. The Nightmare is an evil, but it’s an evil I know. It’s an evil I can fight. You… I don’t know what would happen if you were driven to an extreme. You might tear down all of Equestria for what you think is the good and right thing to do.”

I blinked, shutting my mouth as I tilted my head back to the other side. “I think you are… vastly overestimating my potential. Like… by a huge margin.”

“No.” She shook her head back and forth, slowly. “I don’t think I am. On Earth, you might have been just another human. Here, in Equestria, you will soon discover how limits are only determined by what you make of them.”

“And the thought of that bothers you?” I gave her a big goofy grin. “That I might get a wild hair up my plot one day and pierce the heavens with my horn?”

She sighed in exasperation before walloping me with a pillow and sending me sprawling. I tumbled back a bit, bumping into Mister Captain Pony’s armoire. I lifted my head to see him looking down at me with a smirk.

“Storm!” I cried out, pointing an accusing hoof in Luna’s direction, “That pony just assaulted me! How many years in the dungeon is that?!”

“Four years for the victim,” he grunted, “and no trials.”

“Damn.” I slumped a bit as I started to pout. “What if I hit her back?”

“Then you get four years in the dungeon and a beating. So by all means…”

“Luna… Your justice system sucks harder than Kirby at an AYCE (All You Can Eat for the acronym ignorant),” I whined.

She grunted back at me before sitting up a bit, her eyes widening somewhat.

I leaned away. “What…? You okay?”

She tensed up a bit before suddenly dropping herself back against the bed and letting out a frustrated sigh. “Sorry, Firewall. Tried to give a buck. Couldn’t do it, though.”

With that she began to tiredly giggle. I didn’t show it at first, but hearing her laugh in earnest was music to my pointy little ears. Don’t know why; it was just a relief to see her happy. Eventually I did smile and she took note, raising her eyebrows in confusion.

“What’s that for?” she queried.

“Dunno,” I replied honestly before getting up and cantering back to her bedside. “I guess I was just really worried and it’s nice to see that you’re okay.”

“At least I’m not stuttering anymore,” she remarked with a slow nod before turning on her side as though she were setting in for some inevitable bed rest. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything,” I answered without hesitation. “Keep in mind though, you definitely know much more than I do.”

“That’s nothing new,” she replied, the side of her mouth slowly turning upward. “But seriously, I want you to answer me as best you can. In your own words, what is a human? And if you say ‘A Miserable Pile Of Secrets’, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I am sure it won’t be pleasant. For you, at least.”

I was totally going to say it, too.

I sighed, drooping down somewhat before giving her a pout. “No bullshit?”

“You heard me,” she almost growled.

I let out a snicker before wiping the grin off my face and getting myself in the proper mindset. It took me a moment to think of a place to start, but after a few moments of thinking, I figured I would just… let it flow.

Brace yourselves for the PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS OF FIREWALL!

“Alright then.” I took a moment to collect my thoughts one last time, tilting my head a bit before taking a deep breath. “Humans are... quite odd, now that I think about it. They’re imaginative, desire-driven, persevering, stubborn, passionate creatures. Nothing more. Not that different from ponies, really, except that humans don’t get cutie marks to tell us what we want deep down. Which is hard because sometimes we never find out what we want. When we do, though, we chase it without so much as a second thought and often never even realize that it makes us happy to have that purpose. We’re not afraid to fight for what we want, even if it means fighting one another.

You can’t classify all of humanity in just a short, concise idea. We’re way too diverse and to try would be pretty futile. Some humans just think about themselves and their personal desires. Some people want to help the race as a whole thrive and flourish. Others, like me, want them and everyone around them to have fun. In general, however, your average homo sapiens just wants to live his life and keep his head down in a simple, happy existence. But no matter what a person’s cause, there are good and bad ways to go about it. Sure, there are plenty of humans that aren’t afraid of stepping on anyone and anything, but there are plenty that refuse to show such carelessness. Remember when you asked me how I’m able to stay so happy?”

Luna nodded at me, laying back down tiredly. I glanced back at Storm Wing, only to meet his gaze. He was staring back at me as intently as a blind pony could. I think he was more interested in hearing this than Luna was, actually.

“That’s what it’s all about. You’ve gotta take the good with the bad,” I said popping what was left of the waffle in my mouth, “Yesterday you were just a pony princess, but now you’ve seen some serious shit. And you’ve got to realize that the choice to either be happy or miserable is exactly just that. A choice. I know, it’s easier said than done, and you can’t really make yourself not have nightmares, but maybe... maybe you can adjust with time. Much to your misfortune, though, you’ve just got me to help you along the way!”

Luna snorted before holding out her hoof to me. After a moment of hesitation, I took it. I felt her squeeze my hoof gently (which baffled my understanding of physics to no end) and after a few silent moments, she let her eyes flutter shut. I bit my lip and felt my chest tighten up a little as the realization that Luna would probably not have a pleasant sleep despite my comforting words. And I hated that. I wanted to do something about that. I wanted to be that protector. That firewall, just as Luna had said. My only problem was that the sheer ridiculousness of that notion was holding me back. It was just such a magical and ludicrous thought process that I was following that I didn’t know if I should let myself go down that path. Was this fanciful thinking just too far out there, I kept asking myself. This wasn’t some fairy-tale, I said. You’re still just another guy!

My train of thought was interrupted by Luna twitching a tad. It wasn’t long before I understood what was happening. Luna’s nightmares were returning. She stirred with a whimper and I felt frustration seethe within me. I just wanted to do something but what can one do about a nightmare? Then I remembered Mister Vimh and his advice to me. I had everything I needed to help Luna. I was a freakin’ unicorn! This was something I could do! I had the imagination! I had the faith! I sure as hell had the bloody conviction! All I needed now was the focus and I told myself that I would be damned before I screwed this up, too.

I shut my eyes, told myself what I wanted and how I would get it done. I knew it would work if I just gave it my all, holding nothing back. Almost immediately, I felt as though all strength I had left me so swiftly that I almost wondered if I had always been so decrepit. I instantly recognized the arcane exhaustion for what it was and heard a small part of me begin to panic. I nearly collapsed, but I wasn’t sure that I had produced results yet. And that wasn’t good enough. Uncertainty was not an option and I wasn’t going to stop until I knew I’d succeeded. Despite my determination, though, I started to feel dizzy and was nearly forced into giving up by way of passing out. It was the sound of Luna murmuring anxiously in her sleep that drove me on to keep on giving everything I had until I heard a distinct melodic ring.

I opened my eyes to see Luna sleeping peacefully with a little glowing shield just under her horn and nearly collapsed from the fatigue I had just inflicted upon myself. Storm Wing caught me, having evidently left his perch to see what I was doing.

“Come with me,” he said quietly, hooking a wing under me and began to guide me out of the room. His voice was urgent and his motions were a little rushed. If I had been just a little more aware, I’d have tried to discern what the big hurry was. Things as they were, though, I wasn’t in much of a condition to do anything but comply with a tired grunt.

As we exited, Storm Wing shut the door and sighed in relief. “Thank you, Firewall. I don’t know what you did, but I’m glad you did it.”

“Did what?” a regal voice popped up from behind us, “Is Luna any better?”

Celestia is not small. Nor is she particularly colored to camouflage against anything, considering she glows like the sun half the time! Hence, you can understand my shock when she got so close without making any noise.

“Sssshit!” I hissed despite my exhaustion, stumbling away from the princess until I fell back on my hindquarters.

“Yes, my princess. Firewall helped Luna get to sleep with a spell I’ve never seen before,” Storm Wing answered her, ignoring my dramatic reaction. “She’s now not having any nightmares. At least, I don’t think she is.”

“D-Damn it, Celestia!” I placed a hoof over my chest. “Are all princess ponies so stealthy!?”

“I’m… I’m so glad.” Celestia smiled as though Christmas had come early before looking down at me. “I… Thank you, Stephen.”

“Yeah…” I panted, nodding as I smiled back up at the princess. “Yeah, just… You just make some noise when you walk, and we’ll call it even, yeah?”

“We should probably move him away from the door,” Storm commented slyly, as though I were about to make a racket. To be fair, I’m prone to do that sort of thing.

He pointed at me with a hoof, attracting Celestia’s attention. She followed his hoof to me and didn’t seem to notice at first. After a second, though, she gasped and held a hoof up over her mouth in shock.

“Oh my,” she murmured in surprise before smiling brightly. “I think you should come with me, my little human.”

I think I just came up for a way to make a million bits selling a new line of toys to little colts and fillies.

The worst of the exhaustion departed, I simply obeyed. Picking my sorry plot up, I cantered after the princess with a curious, if somewhat tired expression on my face. Storm Wing kept pace with a slight smile on his lips. I kept trying to get what was up out of him, but he kept shaking his head, unwilling to spill the beans.

I followed Celestia all the way to the ballroom and all the way to the dais where they put performers like the ones we had seen at the Grand Galloping Gala. Alongside the back of the wall was a large mirror that stretched all the way up on the impressively tall ceiling.

“Now that we are sufficiently away from Luna’s room,” Celestia started with a laugh, “Why don’t you take a look at yourself.”

I blinked tiredly before turning my head at the mirror. It took me a minute to realize what was so damned important but after I finally noticed what was up, I could see why it was so critical that I stay away from Luna. Because I was about to make a lot of noise. Or at least, I had every intention of doing so.

“Mother of God,” I wheezed, stumbling a bit. “There’s a tattoo on my butt. How drunk did I get last night?”

Storm Wing snorted as I lost my balance and held up a hoof to help steady me.

Yes, it was true. A mother-bucking Cutie Mark. It was beautiful. The design was simplistic, yet stylish; a tri-pointed red shield that held a smaller blue shield inside of it with a tiny tongue of flame in the center. I was utterly breathless. I couldn’t believe it. I had a Cutie Mark. Oh sweet pony Jesus. Things were getting dizzy.

“I’m… I’m so... Oh God.” I craned my head to look upon it with my own eyes. Oh God, it was still there. That meant it was real. “I think I’m… I think I’m going to cry.”

It made such perfect sense. I wanted to be a protector and now I got a shield for a Cutie Mark. All I needed now was a pair of wings to complete the All-Bronies-Will-Die-Of-Jealousy combo. And yeah, my eyes were totally welling up with glee.

“Celestia, I’m… Does this make me a pony, now?” I looked up at her with my lip poked out to help show her just how emotionally charged this had made me.

She was about to reply when she was cut off by a loud, brash, and arrogant laugh. A very distinctive loud, brash, and arrogant laugh. Indeed, it was my favorite loud, brash, and arrogant laugh.

“Tremble, Canterlot! Tremble from head to hoof! For this land is now under the rule of a New Order! I, The Great and Powerful Trixie, claim this city in the name of Azure Flora!” her beautifully obnoxious voice boomed throughout the grand room.

“I’ve never been so happy to hear an invasion announcement,” I stated with all seriousness, my eyes wide with excitement. “I, for one, welcome our new pony overlord.”

“What?” Storm Wing was so very confused by my words. I can’t say I blame him.

The roof was suddenly torn off of the ball room and that awesome blue pony dropped in, laughing haughtily, “Cower before The Great and Powerful Tr-r-rixie!”

This was quickly followed by me running down the stairs and hitting her with a glomp. For those of you that are not fanboy/girl-inclined, a glomp is an enthusiastic flying tackle-hug. And that’s just what I did. I glomped Trixie.

For great justice.

Yes, you may all proceed to die from jealousy overload.

-=-

This has been a fan-written story by CardsLafter - Follow me onDeviantArt to stay up to date with TTEOAP

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My Little Pony and all characters involved are © of Hasbro and Lauren Faust

Chapter Seven: Glomping Ponies for Fun and Prof-... Well, Mostly Just Fun...

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie demands that she be released this instant!”

Does not compute...

“Trixie said to unhoof her!”

Invalid command: (A)bort, (R)etry, (Q)uit...?

Spoiler alert: A and R are also (Q)uit. Which I’m fairly certain makes me a hot-as-hell hacker.

“Did you not hear me!?”

“I’m your biggest fan!” I squealed, my hooves still tightly wrapped around the sky-blue marvel we all know and love. “Celestia! Look! It’s the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

I pointed the best pony at Celestia and smiled the best smile. Well, it wasn’t the best smile. Trixie has the best smile. But mine was pretty close, I think. We’ll assume that for the record, at least.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is not enjoying this!”

Celestia’s somewhat startled visage faded into her usual half smile before giving me a nod, “I see that. And for the first time, I think I’m glad that your exuberance has gotten the better of you, Stephen. We wouldn’t want a guest of the castle to be mistreated, after all.”

“Tr-... What?” The best pony paused, unsure of this sudden turn of events.

I nodded rapidly before doing a spectacular one-hoofed spin with my favorite pony still in tow.

“I am the best host ever!” I exclaimed in glee. Trixie shrieked in delight, too. Strangely enough, her cries of joy sound eerily similar to wails of terror when spun about. No clue what causes that, but there you have it.

“I... I think I missed something,” I heard Storm Wing mutter.

I came to a full and complete stop and gave the worst captain buttface my full attention. I gave him a look that told him I didn’t understand what he meant, but looking back, that was kind of stupid of me. Oh well, it’s not like being a complete buffoon isn’t outside of the norm for me.

“I just,” he started before rubbing the back of his neck with a hoof, “Didn’t that... unicorn just... I don’t know... tear off the roof and declare war on the crown?”

“Yes!” Trixie roared in frustration, “This is an act of ag-...”

I slapped my hoof over Trixie’s mouth and shook my head violently, “Storm Wing! Such slander! You will take that back! Trixie merely demonstrated her kindness and her amazing skills as a magical unicorn to instantly install a new sunroof for the princess! Thank the pony, Storm Wing!”

He cut me a glare (somehow) that told me he was going to be difficult about this.

“THANK THE PONY!” I yelled, holding Trixie out to him.

There was a full six seconds of silence. A silence that was unmistakably lacking in any apologies, praise, or acts of gratitude from Storm Wing. And I wasn’t going to be having any of that. Or at least, I would have, but Trixie had more important things to say and I wasn’t about to interrupt her. No, I’d never do that.

Never.

She took a deep breath before glaring daggers back at me and yelling, “Put The Great and Powerful Trixie down!”

“After Captain Facebutt apologizes to you!” I snapped back.

Much to my surprise delight, she turned her head back to Storm Wing and glowered.

“Do it. If only for the sake of moving this along,” she growled.

Celestia rolled her lovely rose-colored eyes before tugging Trixie out of my grasp. I whined like a grown man (which is to say, like a big puppy) before pouting at the princess.

“Celestiiiaaa~!” I faux-blubbered.

“Hush, Stephen,” she ordered softly. “As amusing as your antics are, I must treat this situation with the sincerity it deserves.”

Storm stuck his tongue out at me the moment Celestia took her eyes off us. I swear to the Almighty, he did that. He’ll never admit it, (Storm Wing: That’s because I didn’t) but he totally did. OBVIOUSLY, CAPTAIN STORM WING CAN GO SCREW HIMSELF (S.C.S.W.C: 7) AND THIS PROVES HE’S NOTHING BUT AN IMMATURE, LITTLE FILLY. AND A PLOTFACEBUTT.

Celestia set Trixie down in front of herself and for half a second, looking up at the grand poobah of ponies, the bestest unicorn looked as though she were having second thoughts about this entire thing. Maybe. Not too certain. Regardless of whatever it was, it didn’t last long. With dignity and grace, she had quickly composed herself and cleared her throat.

“Thank you, Princess Celestia,” she barked in her extra self-entitled voice before straightening her hat and glaring back at me. “I’m glad that at least somepony here has a notion of propriety!”

Trixie was glaring at me. I... Well, to be quite honest, I swooned a little. Thankfully Storm Wing was a boss and caught me before I could go prone. Though some might assume that it was only because I had aimed myself to fall on him. In fact, that’s probably the only reason he caught me. I mean, it’s not like the little bastard’s nice or anything.

“Of course.” Celestia nodded. “Please, carry on with your business.”

“With pleasure!” she snapped before directing her attention back to the best sun princess.

“Ahem! Princess Celestia, I’ve come with an ultimatum!”

“Ulti... Wait, does that come before or after you claim Canterlot as your own?” Storm Wing asked.

“What?”

Celestia went to shush Storm, but I was all over that. “Shut up, Storm! The ladies are talking business!”

He ignored me. Ass.

“You said you claimed Canterlot as your own,” he pointed out, his tone suggesting disinterest.

“I did not!”

“Stephen, silence.” Celestia ordered.

“Yeah, you just did. Like... two minutes ago,” Storm continued.

“Why does Storm Wing not get a shush?” I whimpered.

“Shut up, Firewall,” he rebuked me alongside a blind eye-rolling.

“Captain. That’s enough.”

“I did no such thing!” Trixie declared.

I helped her remember because I’m all sorts of awesome like that. “No, remember? Right before you tore off... Err... Put in the new sunlight?”

“Firewall, she said knock it off!”

“She told you to shut up, too, jackass!”

“I... I got a little... carried away, I suppose.”

“You tore off the bucking ceiling! What happens when you get very carried away?”

“Obviously worlds explode. Like... Psssshhhbbtttt~!”

And then Celestia raised her voice. Which is like a direct path to the pony panic button. Seriously. Any pony within earshot of Celestia voice pretty much rolls over whenever she does that. Or takes the strength out of your hocks so you at the very least will instantly flop over.

“Storm Wing! Stephen!”

Flop.

“Out!”

* * *

After a rapid scampering out to the courtyard, I decided a smokey treat was in order. Storm Wing had gone off to do his own thing, which was fine with me! I didn’t like the little featherbrain anyway! There wasn’t much else for me to do, but that was okay. I needed some cooldown time. I’d just glomped Trixie and got my cutie mark in the same five minutes. So yeah, Lafter was two steps from critical mass. If anything else fun and exciting happened in the next twenty minutes, I’d have collapsed in on myself and created a gleeful black hole. Fortunately, no such excitement happened, for which Stoic was no doubt grateful. As was everything else that was within the vicinity of my theoretical event horizon.

The courtyard was boring, despite there being that super big statue of Winter Sky still glaring at everything that dare cross its path. I brohoof’d him because that was the right thing to do, but then decided that I was needed elsewhere. Namely the garden. Where my special happiness bench was. It needed me.

So after touchin’ down onto that beast like a balla, I continued to process nicotine and tobacco at a steady rate before thinking of the strange sounds my belly was making.

“I just fed you!” I yelled at my stomach, unsure of just what would make it so groany after having been supplied with a ridiculous stack of pwncakes and roffles.

After a pinching sensation, I quickly discovered that it was being quite sincere. I was undeniably hungry. Blargh.

“Fine! Gastrointestinal tyrant...” I grumbled before rolling off the bench with a fantastic flop to the ground. “But we’re going to have a talk about this later!”

With that, I began to trot my happy self on over to Cookie’s kitchen. I would have simply strolled right in there, but I remembered that I had promised to behave myself in exchange for his cooperation earlier. And I do my best to not be a liar. Really, not keeping one’s word is actually one of the things that gets me. Thusly, I trotted my happy-yet-grumbling self to the dining hall, where a window to the kitchen had been installed for obvious reasons.

“Hey, Cookie Monster?” I called out as I approached the window, “Hey buddy, just to let you know, I’m behaving here. Totes not kicking down the door and demanding food. I’m just curious if I could have, like, a banana or something. They’re, like, super nutritious and stuff.”

Much to my displeasure, Cookie did not respond to me. I wasn’t going to be denied! But I’d rather not be denied in a mutually agreeable fashion at this point. I can get pretty insufferable, I’m told, and I was just aiming to not be a burden on anyone’s patience for once. Still, for him to just ignore me...

“Hey, c’mon, mate. Just toss a banana out here and I’m gone. Err... If that’s okay... with you...” I muttered lamely as I continued making my way toward said window, feeling stupid about this whole... meek approach. “Look, I suck at talking all normal and all I’m needing is something small to get my stomach to shut up! Bananas are a must!”

After being ignored the depths of hell a second time, I hiked up to throw my hooves over the kitchen window only to see not Cookie, not Sugar Dust, and not Luna on some fattening kitchen raid. No. It was somepony else neck deep in the bottom shelf of Cookie’s pantry. Which was simply unthinkable! Who would let themselves into the royal kitchen without permission! This pony was breaking the rules! All the rules! Which is my turf! And I wouldn’t hoof for it or whatever! Lame pony pun!

“Twilight!” I cried, my jaw hanging open in faux-horror.

“Ah!” she shrieked, snatching her head upward, only for it to smack into the shelf above. “Ow! Owww!”

I hoof clapped. Self-inflicted head wounds always deserve applause.

“No-Na... Wait, Firewall... Right.” She rubbed the new developing bump on her head and pouted a bit. “What do you... Nnngh, that smarts.”

“What are you doing in there?” I demanded. “Don’t you know that raiding the kitchen is my job? I swear, Twilight, you can’t cut me a break even on my Cutie-Mark Day.”

“I’m looking for...” she started before blinking and actually registering what I had said. “Wait, your what?”

With that, I hopped onto the window and strut my stuff around like I was on the catwalk. Which, to be honest, was probably the sexiest thing Twilight had ever seen. I wasn’t thinking of that at the time, or I wouldn’t have emphasized all my glorious awesomeness at her. It can be a little too much to process all at once. “Unf! Booyah! Ah’m... too sexy for mah cutie-mahk!”

She stared at it as though she weren’t believing her eyes, which is totally understandable. It’s pretty hard to comprehend just how awesome my butt-tattoo is.

“That’s... That’s wonderful, Firewall,” she replied hesitantly before rolling her eyes at my buck-awesome strutting. “I’m very happy for you. Now get down from there and help me search this pantry.”

I paused mid-incredibly-sexy-strut before glancing back at her. “What? Why? Twilight, raiding the royal pantry is punishable by glomps. And I’m the pony judge, pony jury, and execu... pony... FOR GREAT JUSTICE!”

“Punishable by whaAAAGH!?” she screamed as I dived off the window to tackle-hug the unsuspecting filly. “Firewall! This is serious! Let go!”

“Royal execution of pony glomps is serious business, Twilight!” I yelled back before spying an incoming recipe book. “NOOO!!!!”

This went on for a while, so I’m not going to bore you with the details but suffice it to say... Flying books and their unicorn taskmasters can go buck themselves.

So yeah. After chasing me out from under a table and into the pantry, I tried to take refuge under the bottom shelf which had way too many contents for me to fit my fat grey bohonkus in there. This led to a huge mess that involved me throwing whatever I could get my magic horn on at Twilight until she got a good wallop that sent me right into the pantry shelves!

INGREDIENTS EVERYWHERE!

Now really, that may seem like a bunch of inane craziness... And it totally was! But it led to a certain bottle that fell on top of my head and shattered, covering me in whatever was inside. Smelled like a mix between window-cleaner and ammonia. Whatever it was, it knocked me the hell out.

And just a side note before we move on...

YOU SEE! SLEEPING IN EQUESTRIA HAPPENS, BUT ONLY WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT!

… … … /rant. Sorry about that.

* * *

“I cannot possibly work in this environment!”

I wasn’t sure what all had happened, but it was the yelling going on in the distance that woke me up. It sounded like it was coming from Cookie. No clue who was bearing the brunt of his pony aggression, but it wasn’t me and that’s all that matters. Duh.

I slowly opened my eyes, letting out a grunt as my world came into focus. A soft cough brought my attention to the one and only Twilight Sparkle staring down at me from the right of the bed. She was wearing her little saddle-bags and had an expression that told me she was trying to decide whether or not she was done being irritated with me.

“Twilight?” I winced a bit at the slight pain inside my brainpan.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, a hint of annoyance still in her voice.

I sat up as I took note of my surroundings. Teal walls, white curtains, fluffy, clean beds... Damn it. We were in that damn medical wing again. Which was overkill! I got a bonk on the head and I wake up in the hospital? Seriously, there was absolutely no reason for me to be here. I just got clobbered by books, is all. What’re they going to do if, God forbid, I get a paper cut?! Rush me to the Pony ER? With Pony George Clooney?

Whatever.

I took a breath of the clean, clinical air before turning my head to the pony that was my aggressor. “You’re a jerk.”

“And you started it!” she quickly snapped back.

“Shush... I’m injured...” I slurred at her, still a little bleary from waking up. “What happened?”

“I think we acci... Well, no... I was on the right trail. You just blundered into it like a serendipitous little foal.”

“Pssshyeah.” I rubbed my forehead before blowing a raspberry at her. “Imagine if I was actually trying. It would blow your mind. Like, your mind would be so blown. You’d be all, ‘Firewall... Your mad skizzles. They blow my mind.’”

“I’m sure,” she groaned sardonically.

“You’d be all, ‘Teach me, Firewall... Teach me your ways.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’d be all, ‘Twilight. Child. You know the way. Search your feelings.’”

“Mmhmm.”

“And then you would become greater than me. Only not really. And we’d have to kung-fu fight. Whereupon I’d fake my death and let you believe you were the greatest. Because I’m so damn selfless.”

“A paragon of charity.”

“Damn right. A veritable monument to grace itself.”

And then there was this long, heavy pause where she continued to glare at me for several seconds. I mean, I figured it out eventually, but yeah... She was waiting on something specific.

“Oh! Shit! Umm... Yeah, what did we find, again?”

She face hoofed. “Took you long enough.”

“Hey!” I poked my bottom lip out. “I just woke up.”

“Forgive me if I find myself short of patience,” she drolled on sarcastically before using her nose to flip open one of her saddlebags. “Get a load of this!”

She whipped out... AN EMPTY BROKEN BOTTLE! My first thought was to scream that I was actually in prison and Twilight was trying to shank me, but that thought was more silly than even I was willing to accept.

“We call those bottles back on Earth,” I scratched my head, giving her a confused look.

“No, Firewall!” she huffed before holding it closer, “The smell!”

Now clued into what was going on, I took her cue and gave it a whiff. It smelled so clean it was almost repugnant. Maybe even a little sweet. And the moment I had it good and fully classified, I remembered that it was the same smell that had preceded a pair of untimely naps.

“It’s the chloroform!” I cried, throwing my hooves into the air. “In Luna’s library!”

She nodded very seriously. “Yes. This is the bottle that broke on your thick skull.”

“Hey!”

“Which happened to be stashed away in the royal pantry.”

Then my eyes widened. “Oh buck. The royal pantry!”

“Yup.”

“Inside the royal kitchen!”

She nodded. “Mmmhmm.”

“With the royal cook ponies!” I exclaimed.

“Exactly!” she confirmed.

“But that means everything in the castle is royal! Which makes that royal chloroform!”

“I... What?” She tilted her head as she digested that before facehoofing. “No! Okay. Uh... Technically, yes. But no, that’s not what I'm trying to show you. One of the cooks must be the crook!”

I frowned. “Yeah, well, that was going to be my next guess! After it being... Y’know... Molestia’s chloroform. And bad stuff happening while I was asleep.”

The perplexity on her face was marked with a modicum of suspicion, and all I could think was how much I would have really enjoyed a filter on my damn mouth.

“Uh... Who? What?” she inquired.

“Oh... Shit, um...” I stammered, trying to think of anything to change the subject. Fortunately for me, that change blessedly walked into my patient’s room in the form of a tough-looking silver Sky Archon. “Oh thank Tom Cruise and Scientology! Silverheart’s here to distract us!”

And she was! Strolling in with that self-important demeanor that practically advertised her badassery. Or maybe it was just a dutiful march, but same difference in my opinion. She gave me half a smirk at the joyous mentioning of her name, but otherwise did not react to the comment.

“I’m here to do a lot more than distract you,” she announced almost deviously. “Get outta that bed and come with me.”

“Uh-oh,” I voiced my concern, giving Twilight a look that begged for assistance.

She rolled her eyes yet again before turning away. “You’re on your own. I’m going to speak to Celestia about what we’ve learned.”

I delayed Twilight’s departure with an ordeal of tomfoolery, trying to make her stick around in an effort to entertain myself (at least I’m honest about it) by diving after her back hooves. And then book’d me in the face (which was starting to become a more regular thing), much to my displeasure. I retreated under the bed for safety, but Silverheart had to be an assbutt by way of dragging me out by my tail.

Note to self: Always account for one’s tail in any and all situations.

The dragging nonsense didn’t get far before she became impatient and promised me a world of hurt if I didn’t start becoming a lot more cooperative. I know this is going to make me sound like a pushover, but I wasn’t dumb enough to try and call her on a bluff that didn’t exist. With that explained, I obviously played ball and followed her to wherever we were headed off to.

“So,” I rattled off, trying to make small talk. “How’s the weather?”

“Perfect,” she announced as we trotted. “I saw to it this morning.”

“You?”

She nodded.

“Don’t they have weather ponies for that?”

She wingshrugged which made me a little sick just watching it. “It’s a convenient source of practice for the Artillery Archons.”

“Is that, like, some subsection of Sky Archon?” I queried. “Because I’m going to be honest, that sounds pretty strange. I mean, do you guys also have Sniper Archons and Orbital Strike Archons, too?”

Well, she set the record straight that I needed to stop acting like everypony was going to understand anything about my race (she called me a Hoo-Mane). I don’t think she was enjoying my self-indulgent humor, but whatever, right? After I promised to stop, she went on to describe Sword Archons and Artillery Archons. Sword Archons were basically the quickest, strongest fliers in Equestria hoof-picked by the upper echelons of command and groomed to be fearless frontliners. Artillery Archons were like wizards or something. Really amazing when it came to controlling weather and able to work out the best results in the worst of circumstances.

Now, this wasn’t too relevant to anything except... Silverheart didn’t know what artillery actually was. She thought I was making fun of her and nearly decked me for it, but after I assured her that I wasn’t, she admitted that she wasn’t entirely aware of the word’s meaning. I... kinda broke my rules a teeny bit on the condition that what I told her would be kept in confidence. I mean, she took it fairly well, but it was obvious that she wasn’t too sure about me after I described what human artillery was and what it was used for. As in she started keeping me at wing’s length.

“I guess Hoomanes know their way around combat,” she remarked, a little distracted by her own unsettled thoughts.

“Yeah, something like that. And it’s pronounced Hyu-Mens,” I clarified before changing the subject in an attempt to take her mind off of the grim subject. “So, seriously. Where are we going?”

“To the royal armory.”

I struggled to keep Lafter and his urge to complain about how everything in this damn castle was ‘royal’ but Stoic was right there, helping me sit on that box. What a guy!

“What for, if you don’t mind my asking.”

She wingshrugged yet again, filling me with bile and hatred!

“Celestia and the ambassador Trixie agreed to a time and place f-...”

“Woah... Back up there. Ambassador?”

She gave a half-interested nod before continuing. “Yes. Ambassador. Anyway, the situation is rather strange and apparently involves you. Negotiations have been arranged at the Ruins of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, and they hinge on your presence being a thing that happens.”

Balls.

I bit my lip and grimaced a tad. “So we’re going to the armory... to what, dress me in barding?”

“Princess’s orders,” she answered with a nod.

“Well, if this is to be the death of me, at least I’ll look damn good.”

She let out a hollow laugh before shooting a suggestive glance my way. “Too bad Luna’s too busy snoozin’ it up, eh?”

That made my stomach do a few flips. I didn’t say anything afterwards and she teased me for what she thought was me being shy. If only, y’know? Seriously, I had no idea how I was supposed to handle this whole... pony... dating... … … thing. We didn’t really talk much until we made it to the Sky Archon Barracks. Which, to make a long story short, was a ponyfied version of the Roman Coliseum. Only, y’know... not in ruins. Though I will admit, it sure was beat up. Training was apparently pretty brutal, if the holes and cracked columns were any indicator.

The Archons themselves were all lined up (a grand total of about fifty) and standing at attention in two groups. Storm Wing stood in front of them as Starlight (That’s the red-eyed deathmare in case anyone forgot) yelled at them like a drill instructor with a PG-Filter on her language, handing out orders based on team assignment. The two stallions that stood front and center of the unit sported their own lieutenant stars matching the one that Silverheart wore on her chest. They were a good bit larger than the others, easily matching my height and looking a good bit more built. One was a royal violet with a long, shiny gold mane and matching eyes. For some reason, he seemed to be the only Sky Archon not dressed in armor, so I was able to see his tornado Cutie Mark. His counterpart was just a tiny bit bigger and dressed in gold armor like Starlight. His black mane was cropped Trojan-style and did a good job of accenting his dark-red mane.

Now, call me strange for noticing stuff like this, but it only took me a glance to realize that his eyes were a very distinct royal-blue. As in, the same royal blue of Starlight’s coat, who, inversely, had eyes that matched his coat. Which couldn’t have been a coincidence, okay?!

So yeah. I notice weird stuff like that. Sue me.

Anyway, we really didn’t say anything as we passed on by. We just got a barely perceptible nod from Storm Wing and continued on our merry way. I almost wanted to throw a water balloon or something at him just to cause a scene but even I knew that doing that in front of his subordinates would be crossing a huge line.

“He’s a surly little bucker, ain’t he?” I remarked as we finally entered the armory which had been up until that point a purely hypothetical idea that might not have existed.

I have to admit, I was a little blown away by all the different armors. It seemed 100% defensive. Not a single weapon to speak of. Not even a particularly spikey set of armor. Still, lack of offensive capabilities aside, there was everything from a dozen different types of leather to plate (which seemed to be rather dusty from never being used) and a number of banded mails that seemed to be well worn.

Silverheart blinked before giving me an incredulous stare.

“What?” I asked.

“You mean Storm Wing?” she asked, “The Captain?”

“Well... Yeah,” I admitted, suddenly aware that I might have said something stupid.

She let out a long line of soft laughter as she cantered along the wall, glancing up at the armors with an expert’s eye.

“‘Surly little bucker’?” she echoed, still snickering just a bit. “You realize his thousandth birthday is right around the corner, right?”

I opened my mouth to reply, realized I had nothing to express my shock, and promptly closed it back up with an embarrassed chuckle. I tried to think of something for the next several seconds and got so distracted in the effort that I didn’t even realize that Silverheart had picked out a set of sweet looking platemail. It was all silver and dusty and so awesome that I nearly squealed like a little girl!

“Omigoshface!” I cried, dancing on my hooftips in a rush of instant excitement.

She couldn’t help but smile just a bit. “Easy there, filly.”

“Yes ma’am!” I piped, staring at the armor as though it were made of delicious, hot doughnuts.

Well, donning the damn thing took a while. Seriously, it was like, twenty minutes. But I didn’t mind, nor did I fidget. Which seemed to surprise Silverheart quite a bit. I guess she reasonably expected me to be difficult, but I’ve always been really good about sitting still ever since I discovered that I love my hair getting played with at the salon. She made an offhand comment about it, but I ignored her once she got to pulling my mane through the helmet. Which was a delight, if I’m to be truthful on the matter. Felt great, pony!

“There we go. All done.”

“Mirror!” I demanded gleefully.

She nodded at the other end of the armory. “All the way down on your left. Try not to take too long.”

That was all I needed to know to go scampering off like a boss! I knocked over a few armor stands along the way, eliciting some unpleasant dialogue from Silverheart in the process, but on the whole, I made it safely to the mirror!

My first thought was to whine inwardly at just how dirty it was. After a quick dusting with my extra fluffy tail (which is a super pony faux pas by the way), I took a long, hard gander at myself.

Well, to be honest, I was a teensy bit disappointed. I really didn’t look that different from any of those other grey unicorns in the Equestria Guard except for my mane and tail. Though I totes looked like a badflank with that Trojan mohawk. Unf! But yeah, overall I'd rate it a Friggin’ Sweet on a scale of Tepid to Awesome Sauce.

And then I was suddenly not in the armory anymore. Which is to say, there wasn’t some poof or any magical nonsense or any mystic chiming. Just... Like someone flipped a switch and I was suddenly in a white room. It was a little jarring, to be honest about it.

“Woah,” I stated profoundly before checking all my quadrants, confirming that I was standing in a big white abyss.

“Forgive me,” a voice echoed from all directions. “But I felt we would need a bit of privacy.”

It took me a minute to place the... impression with the identity. Or lack thereof, at least.

“Mister Vimh?” I murmured, continuing to look all about me in vain.

“Indeed.”

“Um... Is time passing normally here? Because I got somewhere I’ve gotta be.”

“Should it not?” His tone suggested interest more than suspicion.

“Well, I’m not going to assume everything works the way I expect it to. And you really shouldn’t expect me to expect that. Or so I should expect at the very least!”

There was a short pause before the formless voice began to chuckle softly. Now, I’m all for people laughing at my jokes, but inwardly I was slightly leaning towards a degree of panic. Because this was stranger than just about anything else I’d encountered so far. And that’s saying something.

“You aren’t as funny as you think,” he answered, the origin of his voice slowly focusing behind me. “That said, you’re still pretty funny.”

I turned around and was almost blown away by the presence of Harry Potter! Okay, not exactly Harry Potter. But there were more similarities than you would think. His eyes were a shocking bright blue and his black hair was pretty damn shaggy, not to mention he seemed to be failing in the attempt to grow a decent pair of sideburns. But everything else was almost spot on. He wore rectangular glasses (close enough, alright?), was pale white, had the gaunt, lanky physique in both his face and body, and he sported a maroon sweater that covered the belt-loops of his worn jeans!

My first response? Duh. Run my mouth a little.

“Listen, man, this ain’t the Hogwarts aisle,” I clarified for him, “You passed it already. This is the Hub. Where we keep the awesome ponies and Dan Vs.”

He smirked a bit before extending his hand. “Then I’ll just have to make do.”

I’m sort’ve a sucker for formalities and respectful behavior. I mean, it’s not the kind of stuff I do, but it has a genuine effect when applied on me. So without thinking about it, I took his hand and shook it with my own.

“David,” he named himself.

“Firew-... Err... Stephen,” I hesitated before glancing down at my hand and failing to bite back a swear. “Shit.”

“Problem?”

“Not a pony anymore,” I admitted with a sigh. “I’m all sorts of bummed out about that.”

“Oh, that.” He nodded. “Don’t worry. It’s just while you’re here with me.”

Relief!

“Awesome sauce. Good to know,” I smiled brightly before letting it fade into a curious smirk. “So what’s your deal, Mister Vimh-Dave?”

“More goodwill,” he confirmed with a simple shrug.

I grimaced before rubbing at the back of my head. “Damn. I uhh... Shit, I’m going to be real with you, mate. I’m not in a big hurry to trust someone I just met on his word that he’s just flying around, dropping little pieces of awesome for the good of all. It’s like this huge invitation to have lady luck stab you with a broken chloroform bottle, if you get what I’m saying.”

“I understand,” he said. “That’s why I’m just going to give you a warning and let you decide what you want to do with that information.”

“Well, if you wanna sweet talk me into it,” I answered while motioning for him to go on about it.

“Trixie is not trying to fool you or Celestia. There is much at stake and the negotiations are not a disguise for darker intentions,” he started, pausing for my obligatory acknowledgement.

“Okaaaayy... But?”

“But that which she represents is not the only player in the game. And the situation is quite open to sabotage. In fact, I will be very shocked if things go peaceably, even if no agreement is reached.”

“So... Trixie declaring Canterlot hers...?”

He let his eyes roll back for a moment, pulling away his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. “Ah, yes. That. Trixie sometimes gets... carried away.”

“No doubt.” I smirked, amused by the subject but changed it nonetheless. “So who does she represent?”

“Me,” he replied, putting his spectacles back in place and giving me a very deliberate stare. “And you are the conditions of peace.”

I blinked, leaning back a bit before crossing my arms and frowning. “Wow. Seriously? Just like that, eh?”

“Just like that,” he responded, meeting my gaze very deliberately, “I need to protect Equestria from my daughter before she can destroy it. And you are the lynchpin to her doing just that.”

Speechless! Which is a big deal for me!

I gave him a good ol’ fashioned Spock eyebrow in an attempt to properly convey my confusion on the matter. Sure, I didn’t want to insult the poor guy, but he looked a good bit younger than me. So for him to tell me he had a kid meant that not everything was as it seemed. And the fact that this kid was apparently some dire threat to all those that exist in Equestria wasn’t helping to make everything suddenly crystal clear. So yeah, color me confused.

I cleared my throat before voicing my obvious lack of understanding, “Pardon?”

He opened his mouth to reply but hesitated for a moment. Without another word, he reached into one of his pockets and drew out what looked to be a small metal book. It pulsed with a soft blue light that came from within it. The pulsing was slow to start but it began to pick up the pace after several seconds of our little stare-a-thon. I figured it had to be made of magnets or magic or some unholy combination of the two, but it wasn’t like this David fellow was giving me a rundown of what it actually was.

“Stephen, I’m sorry but I think one or both of us have been discovered. I must go.”

I blinked but shrugged it all off regardless. “Nah, it’s cool. Like I said, I have somewhere to be. I’ll just see myself out the door... … Oh wait.”

He smirked before pocketing the book once more. “Yes, yes, I’m working on it. We’ll speak again.”

“Apologies if I wet myself in anticipation.”

And without so much as a magic twinkling, I was right back where I’d been. Only rather than staring at some badflank in plate barding, I was instead laying on the floor. With my mouth open. Drooling, naturally. These things just aren’t complete without excessive drooling. Incidentally sampling the flavor of the floor. It wasn’t the best floor I’ve had, that’s for sure. The carpet in Luna’s library is much better.

After a second of absorbing all the knowledge that could be absorbed from my current situation (which was surprisingly little), I picked my head up from the armory floor and took a moment to sputter the dirt that had collected on my tongue. I figured I might try licking myself to get the rest off, but that weirded even me out. Then I noticed Storm Wing and Silverheart standing just behind me.

“I’m sorry for holding you up, Captain, but as you can see, I don’t have much to work with,” she commented before.

Bad choice of words.

“Silverheart!” I gasped in false horror. “How dare you make fun of Storm’s blindness! ‘As you can see’ indeed!”

Her response was to roll her eyes and saunter off. I guess there’s no getting under her skin. But whatever, right!?

Storm cleared his throat before rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “I’d ask if you’re done making a foal of yourself, but you haven’t stopped, yet, so I’ve no reason to believe that we’re going to see a change anytime soon. So I’ll just ask, are you ready to go?”

“Technically, you’ll never see any changes any time soon,” I reminded him because I want him to be more self-aware.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Which is a lot more than I was hoping for,” he stated before turning and cantering back out.

I left a healthy pause in there before yelling out at him.

“I’m fine by the way!” I hollered. “Thanks for asking if I was okay and that if me randomly passing out for no reason is normal! Because it totally is!”

“Good to know,” he countered, “Get well soon.”

… Screw Captain Storm Wing. (8)

* * *

Well, I’ll make this simple. We walked up to Celestia and talked about girls. Or... Wait, no that was my dream. But technically that’s still true. Because what we actually talked about was Trixie. Oh, and Twilight. We said some things about Twilight. Which means, techincally, yes. We spoke of girls together. Because Trixie is one girl, and Twilight is another, making it plural. You know... Girls... … … Moving on.

Moral of the Story: I’m awesome and my dreams come true. Note, my dreams become true because I am awesome, not the other way around.

Anyway, because I’m not allowed to skim (buck a certain somepony for that), the long version is that me and Storm made our way back to the throne room to meet Celestia. It should be said that I wanted to go do other things that involved fun, but Storm Wing is actually comprised of 87% Anti-Fun and thus cancelled it out wherever I went. So I was forced to unfunly go with him to report to Celestia.

Which was a drag because it went like this:

I bucked open the throne room door and cried out, “PRINCESS CELESTIA, CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, Because this pony is on... fi-...yer? Goodness, I’m... totally interrupting, aren’t I.”

The room was full of ponies who were suddenly all staring at me.

I didn’t really recognize most of them but they didn’t seem pleased about the interrupt after the initial shock wore off. And they all seemed to be very gathered around on what I could only speculate to be a briefing involving Equestria’s defense. They had this huge map pulled out with a lot of marks and strings all over it along with a every last guardspony dressed in armor.

Super awkward. Other than Twilight and Celestia, there were those two Sky Archon Lieutenants and a whole bunch of Equestrian Guard, I didn’t recognize anypony. Storm Wing backwinged me upside the head, which, to be fair, was deserved. I nodded, knowing it was a well-earned punishment and promptly shut my trap for once in my life. No, it wasn’t easy.

“Apologies, Princess,” Storm Wing called out before nodding. “We are prepared to leave at your leisure.”

“Then we will waste no more time,” she nodded before glancing at the two Sky Archons standing at attention. “Lieutenants Whirlwind and Hot Shot, I assume you can handle the rest from here on?”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the purple stallion.

His red counterpart nodded.

“Very good,” she said before turning back to Storm Wing and I. “Gentlecolts.”

Without another word, the three of us trolled on out of there with Twilight tagging along behind, looking a deal too nervous to speak up. As the three of us trotted out to the courtyard, I couldn’t help but glance at the big Winter Sky statue. I frowned up at the oversized yard gnome before remembering what Luna had said about Winter Sky having fallen one-thousand years ago and how Storm was supposedly right around that age. I’d taken a good bit of time pondering on the situation, wondering if the dinky Captain Storm Wing had been around back then.

I turned to ask him about it but I was interrupted by AWESOME.

And by awesome, I mean the Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness™! Yes, there it was, descending from on high with Silverheart as its humble driver. Its sheen was like something really impressive on a midsummer’s eve... whatever the hell that means. And the majesty... the majesty alone would have killed mortal men and mares alike.

Luckily, I’m a stallion, so I survived. Twilight was not so fortunate. A moment of silence for death by awesome. … … …

Anyway, we all went to board the craft with Twilight (... of course she didn’t actually die; that would be stupid...) continuing to lag behind. I glanced back at her from my incredibly awesome perch and frowned. Now, don’t get me wrong, Twilight’s cool and all, but whenever Celestia is involved, she gets all shy and intimidated. So naturally, me being the loudmouth that I am, spoke up without considering what I was saying.

“Twi! This carriage isn’t going to wait around forever!” I barked, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Celestia doesn’t bite you!”

She went from purple to magenta in a real quick hurry but otherwise didn’t respond. But I still held up my end of the deal.

“Princess, may I request that you not bite Twilight Sparkle?” I politely requested.

Although Celestia seemed initially distracted, she blinked and turned my way after I finished my sentence. A quick mental rundown of what was going on gave her all the clues she needed before realizing what I was asking.

She neglected to answer the original question in favor of answering the genuine one that had been sitting in the subtext. The question, that is... I said the... … … You’ll figure it out.

“I’m sorry, Twilight, but I can’t allow you to come with us,” she firmly stated.

Twilight and I did a double-take before turning back to the Princess.

“Princess, but I...”

Celestia shook her head and gave her protege an apologetic frown. “I’m sorry, but I cannot risk taking you.”

“Woah, woah, woah! Twilight, are you in trouble!?” I suddenly demanded, whipping my head back to Twilight.

Everypony paused as I gave the purple unicorn the most suspicious glare I could muster.

“I... What?” Twilight tilted her head, unsure of what I was doing.

“What did you do!?” I snapped, scrunching my face up.

She started to answer, but I cut her off.

“Did you steal something!?”

“What!?” she gasped, her jaw dropping for a half-second as the shock took its time wearing off. “No!”

“Then you must have used your magic for evil!” I accused.

“I... I have done no such th-...”

“Was it treason, then!?”

“No! I h-...”

“ARSON?!”

“No!”

“BRIBERY OF A DIGNITARY?!”

“WOULD YOU STOP!?”

“Well, you must have done something!”

She met my glare with an indignant glower of her own. “And why is that?!”

“Duh!” I threw my hooves up in the air. “Because Celestia has a reason to think she can’t trust you! And since your responsible nature isn’t in question, nor is your level of competence, then you must have betrayed that trust! CONFESS, TWILIGHT! CONFESS AND BE FREE! LET GO OF THE DISHARMONIC BURDEN ON YOUR MAGICAL, CANDY-COLORED SOUL!”

I heard a couple of gossipy-faced horseflies (aka pegasi) commenting on my magnificence.

“Sometimes I’m just floored by the realization that he is legitimately always like this. One-hundred percent of the time. It’s not an act. He’s really like that.”

“Well... Not all the time. You should see him when he’s serious. Like night and day.”

“CONFESS, TWI-...”

And then a magical muzzle appeared around my... muzzle. … I didn’t think that sentence through. Still, you get what I’m saying. Now, you’d blame that on Twilight and 9/10 times, you’d be betting on the right horse. Yeah, you see what I did there. But not that time. No, you’d have lost that bet and would have watched all your hard earned bits pushed on over to the... Celestia... … Look, this betting pun has only lasted two sentences and it’s already messing with the flow, so let’s start over.

Celestia muzzled me with the magic of friendship.

Not as fun to say, honestly, but I suppose it gets the job done.

Regardless! I’d accomplished my objective.

“That’s enough, Stephen,” the Sun Princess pointed out. “I... understand your meaning.”

FINALLY! SOMEPONY WHO UNDERSTANDS ME! … … … She was totally lying, by the way. Nopony can understand the complex critter that is Firewall McStephen Ponycorn. That lie only the way to madness.

“Stephen?” Twilight’s confused visage only worsened.

“That’s his human name,” Storm Wing pointed out, happy to be a part of the conversation once again. “But he seems to like Firewall just fine. Which is good. Stephen’s a dumb-sounding name anyway.”

I tried to flick Storm the bird, but just the idea of flipping the bird to a pegapony was so funny that the moment I thought of it I started snickering from behind my muzzle. Also, I lacked the digitry. During my own chuckle-fest, though, Celestia shot a wistful look Twilight’s way.

“Twilight Sparkle?” she called out.

Twilight cantered forward as timidly as she could, looking up to the princess with all the reverence a purple equine could possibly muster.

“You will stay near me,” she ordered.

Twilight nodded.

“You will stay as safe as you possibly can?”

The faithful student nodded again.

“And you will do exactly as I say, no matter what happens. That isn’t a question.”

“Of course, y-your majesty,” she murmured.

After a long silence, she nodded. “Then let us leave at once.”

AND THEN SHE WAS ALL LIKE, “FIREWALL GRAB MY TAIL!” AND SO I DID AND THINGS WERE LIKE...

AD-FRIEND-TURE~!

Author's Note

Wow! The Import from GDOCS button is much better these days. :3

Okay, guys, here's the skinny... This upcoming weekend is going to involve me starting the final draft of the book. Now, before anyone asks, no, I will not be selling the book. I've something else in mind...

Now, don't go crazy just yet... I still have lots to do to finish the book. But here in the next couple of months, I'm going to post my book online to give away. Why would I give my book away? Well, my father's cancer treatment had the 'best case scenario' deal, right? Well, best case scenario still means he gets to enjoy 45 or more radiation treatments. This is probably going to take the wind out of his sails and keep him from working for a while. Well, he's the breadwinner of his family of four dependents. And this will put him back in debt (having JUST changed jobs, he still isn't able to obtain medical insurance).

So instead of selling off my book for profit, I'm going to give it away and set up a donation fund for his cancer treatments. You don't have to pay a single cent for the book, but if you want to show appreciation, you can donate to his cause. All the money will be used to cover his cancer treatments and sustaining his family should he be unable to work for whatever period of time. Anything left over will be put towards the second book in the series and not buying me a pretty house on a pretty hill.

I'm not sure if this idea is the best, but my gut tells me this is the right thing to do. With my mother just having died from cancer, one could say I'm not in the right mood to see it again. I would be loathe to ask for money, but me giving my book away in exchange for gratuity is something I could live with. Even if you guys don't pay anything for the book and tell a dozen people who do, you will have helped me a lot.

I'll be spreading the word more as I get closer to finishing, but TTEOAP will definitely be backburner'd until then. :o

What do you guys think of that idea? Also, my father can never know about this until it's too late. :P He's the kind of proud jerkface that would donate $300 to someone else's cancer treatment but refuse to take donations for his own. I know because he's actually done this. XD

Chapter Eight: Mr. The Shark, The Ponies Are Here For Your 5:00 Jumping

Oh, did I mention that I made the mistake of getting on the Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomness again? Because I did. Which was entirely my fault. I don’t know why I let this happen. But I did. And I wasn’t the only one in for a treat. Because as soon as we lifted off, I realized it was the sunniest of princesses driving this magnificent piece of magichinery. Also, props to myself for epic, on-the-spot word creation.

“No,” I muttered in absolute horror, “What have I done?!”

I could feel the magic seep out of the driver and slip into the A.S.C.A., causing the entire vessel to tremble like a muscle car ready to scare the feces out of every bird within a twenty mile radius.

Why am I so stupid? WHY!

Twilight gave me a strange look, which is all she seems to be good for, before vocalizing her confusion. “What are you on about this time?”

I turned and dived for Celestia’s forehoof in a last-ditch effort to save my already tenuous grasp on sanity.

“No, Celestia, let somepony else drive!” I begged.

She looked down at me and I swear to all that is pony, I could see the sadistic glint in her big, beautiful eye.

“I’m sorry, Stephen, but time is not a luxury that we can afford to squander,” she murmured apologetically just before magically dropping the clutch and snatching us off at breakneck speeds so intense that any normal human would have been shredded to tiny giblets by nothing but pure windshear. Cartoony durability does have its perks, at least.

“PleaaAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!”

You know you’re going WAY. TOO. FAST! … when you are experiencing an actual blue shift. When light is literally blurring in your peripherals because you’re going so fast that the photons colliding with the cones and rods in your eyes are doing so in a stretched-out pattern that makes everything look blue. Hence the name. I mean so fast that the idea of wetting yourself for comfort was passed long ago and you’ve gone straight to fetal-position happy-place ramblings in the back of the corner. I mean, I love to go fast as much as the next guy, but Celestia likes to keep it close to the ground for some damn reason, so hills and trees go from being lovely landscape to lethal obstacles. I can only handle about thirty or so close calls with collision before my mind decides it’s time to take a break in la-la land.

And I wasn’t the only one, either. Underneath all that stubborn, bookish nerdness that makes up Twilight’s outer-pony lies a tiny filly afraid of tight turns and extreme speed. So she was right there with me, screaming like a little pushover because that’s what we really are. A couple of pushovers. Afraid of Mach 20 or whatever absurd velocity we were going. Screaming like little girls. Though I’m fairly sure my scream was girlier. Why? Because I don’t settle for second place.

Deal with it.

Anyway, I could bore you with trivial details about how the trip took forever in my mind, but the fact of the matter is thus: Celestia is a pony with a time budget. The trip that took us an hour or two last time ended up taking, like… I dunno, four minutes? If that? Yeah, she was in a hurry. So suffice it to say, we got there pretty damn quickly, and just in the nick of time to avoid real tears leaking from my poor freaked out eyes.

Oh, and the Sky Archons? Storm Wing and Silverheart? Yeah, they gave zero bucks. They treated the ride like it was some pokey-old sedan getting good gas mileage on the highway. Whatever! Freaks.

“Twilight,” I whispered upon feeling the extreme turbulence die down to a halt. “Are we dead?”

Twilight shivered for a moment, staring off into her own version of la-la land.

“The P-P-Princess is a g-great… d-d… driver!” she stammered quietly.

I frowned before looking back at the rest of the ponies, “I’m calling it here, Twilight has gone nuts. We might as well leash her to the carriage and leave a book with pretty pictures for her to look at while we’re gone.”

“Shut up, Firewall,” Storm Wing huffed impatiently before reaching a hoof over to poke Twilight’s side. When the first poke didn’t render a response, he poked again. Only a little more energetically. And by energetically, I mean he spiced it with some pegasus voodoo, giving Twilight a gentle joy-buzzering.

“Eee!” she squealed in protest, the shock bringing her out of the stupor that had taken hold. “I… Where are we?”

“We’re here, Sunshine,” I pointed out, gesturing at the castle in the distance. “Great things await us!”

Twilight gaped a bit and I could see her eyes lose a bit of focus as memories both heart-warming and bone-chilling began to resurface. “Oh.”

“Twilight, do you want to stay behind?” Celestia asked almost hopefully, likely in an attempt to cash in on Twilight’s emotional rush.

That shook her out of her memory-drenched stupor.

“Oh, n-no, Princess,” she replied.

Celestia hesitated just a moment, likely unsure whether or not she should press the issue. I could tell that deep down she knew Twilight could handle herself, but she didn’t really have this burning desire to toss her faithful student into harm’s way.

Which I don’t get at all. There have been plenty of times that I’ve had the desire to toss Twilight in front of a speeding Sky Archon. Flying books comes to mind, y’know?

Well, to make a long story short, we gabbed it up as we made our way to what I could assume to be the palace… Or what was left of it. Ruins, y’know? Anyway, we had touched down just outside the atrium, so disembarking meant we didn’t have to go far. I felt a slight nagging sensation as the A.S.C.A. ascended all on its own and flew off. Personalized valet parking. So jelly.

“Are we the first ones here?” I asked, looking around to see nopony but us.

“They’re either not here yet or perhaps they are already in the Council Room,” Celestia readily supplied as she made her way towards the central building.

“Or lying in wait to ambush us. That’s always an option,” Silverheart said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Aren’t you cheerful.” Twilight dryly laughed a bit as we all followed Celestia inside.

“She’s about as cheerful as an irritated basilisk. That’s why she’s my Artillery partner,” Storm Wing acknowledged with a smirk as we crossed the atrium and entered into what I was pretty sure was the Council Room, which was surprisingly still in fairly good shape despite its age. It was a large dome building with a long rectangular table in its center and an entrance at every compass point. There were spots specifically shaped to hold cushions for ponies to sit on and though there were no cushions at the time, having a pair of powerful magic ponies makes that an easily overcome obstacle. And by easily overcome, I mean Twilight and Celestia went about flying smack in the face of the Laws of Conservation by creating new matter in the shape of cotton-filled silk pillows for us to rest our pastel-colored bottoms upon. After all the tablespaces were properly cushioned, we all took our seats. For those of you that simply MUST know, the order from left to right was Silverheart, Celestia, Storm Wing, myself, then Twilight.

“So uh... How long will we have to wait?” I asked, getting fidgety after the first few minutes.

“Not long at all, my silly admirer!”

I heard Trixie’s voice and instantly perked up with a huge smile as she sauntered into the Council Room from the same entrance we had made use of.

“Trixie!” I threw up my hooves happily.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie!” she stated firmly, crossing her hooves and holding her head up proudly before noticing the pony sitting beside me. “YOU! You’re that second-rate unicorn that tried to show me up at that backwater hamlet!”

Twilight rolled her eyes before glaring right back, suddenly not so happy she had come along after all. I could tell she was biting her tongue. She and Trixie didn’t get along. People make all these Twixie ships, and while there may have been a flankload of tension between the two of them, there was not a damned thing romantic about it. I felt like I was going to catch on fire and then explode (TWICE!) from being on the sideline of those two glares.

That was when we heard the hoofsteps of an incoming pony. They were loud. As in, heavy-loud.

Only one pony came to mind when I thought of incredibly heavy ponies. And I had no idea what his name was.

“Is it about to get chilly in here or is it just me?” I asked, leaning over to glance over at Storm Wing. I could tell by that pissed off glare of his that he was thinking the same thing I was.

As the hoofsteps got closer they became even louder and out of the North entrance behind Trixie came the largest pony I had ever seen. It didn’t take me long to recognize the monster that had tried to get in our way before when we had come to fight The Nightmare off Luna. The Hoofy Blue Giant, I call him, among many, many other things. He still bore the same black plate and chainmail armor with a helmet that covered his head and mane completely, showing only a pair of blue, glowing eyes that seemed to have a terminal case of resting-bitch-face. Quite possibly the most uncuddly-looking pony to have ever existed. It’s not like you can cuddle something that cold and… big. Because damn, he was big. Hell, even his wings were up there with Celestia’s in terms of magnitude. Nothing about this pony said ‘Oh hey, kids! Let’s have peaceful negotiations and then skip home together as we hold hooves!’ but rather, everything about him screamed something along the lines of ‘These negotiations will actually be beatings and they will involve both you and those you love.’

And I object to those kinds of negotiations.

“You,” Storm Wing seethed, not even slightly happy to see this familiar face show up.

I just do what I always did and made fun of him.

“That’s Frosty the Snow-Pegasus. He got in the way of us when we went to save Luna. Don’t make him mad, he might make a squeaky chew toy out of you. And that would be a big waste of your potential,” I whispered over to Twilight, who snickered despite herself.

“Are you Azure Flora?” Silverheart asked, smirking a bit, “Because if you are, I’m going to need to excuse myself long enough to laugh at your name, big guy.”

Celestia gave Silverheart and I an impatient pair of glances to the two of us but said nothing.

“Of course that’s not Azure Flora, you foal!” Trixie snapped irritably as a second set of hoofsteps belied a second pony entering, these much more soft.

That’s when we saw the villainous Azure Flora. If I had been taking a drink of tea or something, I would have spewed it everywhere with a double take. My jaw almost fell off as I looked at our so-called conqueror. I was not impressed, or rather, I was, but more by just how nonthreatening she looked. She was just a hair shorter than Trixie and a whole lot less intimidating in terms of hostile demeanor. In fact, she was downright timid. She was an Earth Pony with a white coat and a royal blue tail and mane. She looked about as fierce as Fluttershy, in all honesty. Even her brown saddle bags looked like a couple of dainty young women's purses.

“You’re kidding,” I murmured over to Storm Wing as both Azure Flora and her bodyguard (bodypony? ponyguard? You get the idea!) as the two of them walked toward their seats beside Trixie, just across from us, “That’s Azure Flora? I guess we’d be screwed if this were a cuddling competition. Well, you might be, anyway. My cuddle game’s still pretty solid, b-...”

“Where?” Storm Wing’s visage pulled away from The Frosty Mammoth and cast about as though he were trying to find what I was referring to, “All I sense is Trixie and that big guard that I have a score to settle with.”

Celestia, Twilight, and myself all looked at him as though he were blind! Which was not only reasonable, but it was a great set-up for another jibe at Storm Wing’s expense. Haha! He is quite blind. Oh, my sides. Moving along.

“Dude, she’s right there,” I murmured as the second-most non-threatening pony I’d ever seen continued her patient gait to the open space between Trixie and the icy Hulk pony. Fluttershy was definitely still in first place for that title, but there was definitely not a huge margin between the two.

Celestia said nothing, but still arched an eyebrow our way. The visible one, naturally. Yes, I know it’s not always hidden, but she spends enough time using one eye that she has to be able to function without depth perception by now.

“She’s standing just behind Trixie, Captain,” Twilight leaned over to inform him, “You don’t sense her?”

“No,” he shook his head, “I see nothing but those two.”

“Technically, you don’t see at a-,” I started to point out before having to adeptly dodging Twilight’s Rebuking Hoof™, “Hah!”

“Firewall, if you cannot act maturely during grave matters, then I will send you back to the castle,” Celestia warned, not in the mood for shenanigans.

“I... Yes, I’m sorry,” I sighed, reminding myself that this situation wasn’t a joke. A big part of me wanted to whine about how I didn’t actually make Twilight swing at me, so it was totally her fault, but that part of me needed to shut the hell up for once. This might end up being super duper serious and I needed to regard it that way.

“We welcome you, Miss Azure Flora, I presume?” Twilight offered, allowing the newcomer a chance to introduce herself.

The pony in question went to respond but was interrupted by the best of ponies.

“I’m surprised you had the nerve to show yourselves!” Trixie chortled pridefully.

“Please, Trixie, do not antagonize them,” the white pony gently commanded, her voice quiet and pleading.

“I... … Very well, pardon The Great And Powerful Trixie’s outburst,” Trixie looked as though she were going to be sick, having forced herself into an apology, “Let us begin.”

“Agreed,” Celestia agreed agreeably (I agree, that was an excess of agreement.) as we all sat up and paid attention. “I’m glad you’re willing to negotiate peacefully. I am Princess Celestia, Ruler of Equestria.”

“I am Azure Flora. Nothing more,” she replied humbly, “Forgive the impunity, Princess, but Equestria is in danger from a lurking threat. One that I am sure you are unaware of, at least in part.”

“I see,” Celestia nodded, seemingly taking Flora’s words very seriously. “And where did you learn of this threat?”

“I’ve seen it before,” she murmured, looking down, “This is not the first time this has happened, and I... I think you know that already, your highness.”

That led to an awkward pause. For a good several seconds, no one said anything. We were all pretty content to let the big ponies talk.

“Suppose that I don’t,” Celestia finally countered, her visage fading into slight confusion, “How would you convince me of this threat?”

“Your majesty, there is no proof I could offer. That is why I was preparing to fight for this cause. I... I can not let history repeat itself.” She looked back up at all of us, having steeled herself in determination. “I will not fail.”

“What is this history?” I asked, listening very closely.

She flinched. Visibly. And we all noticed. She then looked at me and frowned sadly. “You are not the first outsider to have come to Equestria.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I chuckled in response.

And then $*#&@!ING BRAIN FREEZE FROM HELL. Naturally, this is right where everyone’s attention turns to me and all I can do is breathlessly whimper at the sudden lance of icy pain in my head. Obviously my coolest moment ever. Totes obvs.

“You… What?” Twilight poked my shoulder or whatever the pony equivalent is called before taking notice that I wasn’t in the best of sorts. “Firewall, are… you alright?”

“He is not,” Flora piped up, drawing the majority of the attention back on herself. “And it’s his fault for speaking without thinking.”

“He does that a lot.” I’m not sure which pegasus said that, but I was going to kick their plot up past their mane once I recovered from this.

“You see, Firewall, as you call him, is from a different world. And while he has been honest about that, there have been others that were here before him. Some of which he’s already met. I’d ask him to confirm that, but he’s under coercion to avoid doing just that. I’m sure any of you that have spent any amount of time with him may have noticed this happening before.”

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!

Yeah, that sound didn’t actually play or anything, but if it had, it would have been super appropriate apropos the situation. After overcoming the headhurt, I checked the others to gauge their reactions. Surprisingly enough, they weren’t all gawking at me, but rather, they all seemed to be lost in varying levels of contemplation as though they were all trying to remember the last time I had brain freeze around them.

“How do you know this?” Twilight spoke up, breaking the tense moment of silence.

Azure Flora frowned a bit before sighing somewhat, “His being here in Equestria is no accident. But his current situation is.”

“Wait, what part of my situation in an accident?” I asked, still rubbing the side of my head for comfort.

“The one where you’re able to exercise, for the most part, free will.”

“Oh,” I responded, a little taken back, “Glad somebody botched that part up.”

“I’m not,” Storm Wing muttered under his breath.

Screw him. ( S.C.S.W.C.: 8 )

“The last visitor to Equestria vanished over a thousand years ago, Azure Flora. That was part of the agreement.” Celestia interrupted, completely distracting me from retorting to Captain Flankface.

Everyone’s mind was blown. Like super blown. Even Azure Flora was fairly shocked at this revelation. Actually, scratch that. Ice Mammoth was pretty chill about the whole thing. Then again, he had not even blinked since he took his place at the table, so I’m fairly certain he doesn’t count.

“The agreement?” Trixie repeated, her coolness temporarily offset by curiosity.

“This isn’t news to you, then?” I leaned around Storm Wing to look at HRM. “Anything else you wanna operationally blast our perceptions of reality with while we’re dumping everything out on the table, Princess?”

“I will explain later,” she promised, never letting her eye waver from Azure Flora, “So I was right when I thought I had recognized you. I never forget one of my little ponies. You were a gardener then. You made floral arrangements.”

“Yes.” She gave a nod.

“So wait, you’re over a thousand years old!” I pointed an armored hoof at Flora.

“I am,” she confirmed.

“You were there when Luna became Nightmare Moon!” Twilight emulated my gasp. I admit, hers was cooler. That’s what you get when you’re competing with O.P. Sparkle, I suppose. BUT DAMN IT, MY SCREAMS ARE GIRLIER!

“Did you see what happened?” she pried.

“I did.” These two-word answers were getting pretty silly.

I almost wanted to ask her something silly, such as if she had ever dressed up in a colt’s suit or something. Just to throw her off, y’know? I didn’t, though. The tension was so thick here, you could have cut a book-shaped chunk out of it and bludgeon somepony senseless with it. So, I was definitely not going to find out just how quickly I could get magic’d the hell out of there by shattering the heavy mood.

“What happened the day The Nightmare was defeated? What happened to Winter Sky?” Storm Wing slammed his hooves on the table, “You were there, weren’t you?!”

“I was,” she nodded, looking to Celestia, “Shall I tell him, Princess?”

“All will be explained in time, Everypony. Let us conclude this business and then we will all talk at length later,” Celestia looked over at me, Storm Wing and Twilight. We all promptly shut the front do... err... We hushed. “Now, Azure Flora, your terms stated that Stephen had to be present. Why?”

“Because we need him removed from Equestria. As you may already know, The Nightmare is after him and his power. But not only that, but he also has the ability to create this,” she finally reached into her saddle bags and tossed a fist-sized ball of metal onto the table. Trixie glowered at it initially, but slowly became more at ease as it rolled from her and more towards us.

“Inmanipulon,” Twilight gasped, her eyes widening. “And a lot of it!”

Azure Flora glanced at Twilight, her expression bemused. “That’s an… oddly fitting name for it, I suppose.”

I wouldn’t have cared about that line if Twilight didn’t feel it was a good time to shoot me the biggest, shit-eatingest, I-told-you-soest grin she could manage.

“I still say it’s a stupid name!” I harumph’d.

“I’ve always just called it Anti-Magic,” Azure Flora continued, ignoring the side-line shenanigans between us unicorns. “It is a dangerous, malleable substance. It can be metal, it can be wood, it can be sand, and it can even be liquid. In fact, there is very little that it can’t be,” she explained, staring at it with a hint of malice. “Whatever the shape or state it is in, it is dangerous. Not only to ponies, but to the very fundamentals that Equestria’s reality is built upon. Short-term exposure has minor effects that are often ignorable and easily cured. Longer term effects, however, can be far more dire. Mine was the loss of my mortality. I… can no longer age. But also… I am immune to magic. So much so that… I even… lost my talent.”

You ever see the color drain out of a pony’s face? Well, I have. And it’s a little off-putting. But yeah, everypony else in the room seemed to be a little aghast. And then it hit me why.

“I… Dude,” I sat up a little, letting her words sink in, “You haven’t been able to do… y’know… The things you love to do anymore.”

She paused. She didn’t look at me, but when she went to respond, her voice cracked a little bit, causing her to clam right up and swallow hard. It was brutal, her quiet confirmation was. Downright heart-crushing, even. I mean, it struck a chord with me the moment I realized the significance of what she said, losing something so fundamental to your being that your life is never the same again was something I could relate to. But after glancing at the others, I realized it sure as hell unsettled them even more. It was just downright nightmare fuel for the ponies: The idea of one’s cutiemark and special talent just falling apart like that.

You’ve got to understand, the ponies have a pretty good thing going for them. They’re all incredibly talented and their incredible talents make them happy. We all titter at the adorable Cutie-Mark Crusaders, but they’re on a mission for a reason. Cutie marks aren’t just an obvious clue into a brilliant talent. They’re a pony’s calling. Their rite of passage. It’s the rise to adulthood, a college graduation, their one true love, and bar mitzvah all wrapped into one. This not only makes them happy, it makes them complete. And the idea of becoming incomplete, even to me, is harrowing. So I could only imagine how they were taking it.

I wanted to do something like say how sorry I was for her, but it wasn’t going to help and she probably didn’t want to think about it overmuch anyway. So I tried getting us back on subject.

“So… This ball of suck...” I pointed at the eerily dull metal ball of Inmanipulon. “I can make this stuff?”

“Yes,” she answered right away, happy to get off of the doubtlessly painful subject of her lost talent. “And quite a lot of it.”

“Now, this doesn’t sound like something I want to do.” I gave a soft cough before leaning up on my hindquarters and shrugging. “So how do I avoid making it?”

She still didn’t look at me. “I don’t know.”

“That’s… That’s super helpful,” I groaned, dropping my face into a hoof. “What do you know?”

“I know you’re a danger, human,” she replied, still very intentionally keeping her vision off of me. “I know you mean well, but eventually, on a long enough timeline, you’re going to be part of the next major cataclysmic event in Equestria. And I won’t let history repeat itself.”

SEE! I TOLD YOU ALL, IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT ME!

“What does history have to do with this?” Twilight asked, cutting a skeptical glance Azure Flora’s way.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Azure Flora that answered. But rather, it was Celestia.

“The Everfree Forest was once known for being a pony’s paradise,” she said, her gaze becoming unfocused as she began to elaborate her recollection. “Its original namesake actually came from the fact that the Everfree Forest afforded a pony freedom from the rigors of hard work and unnecessary toil. It provided the ponies with everything they needed, from shelter to food to clean water, and even protected my little ponies from danger. It was my dream to eventually grow the Forest out over the entirety of Equestria and create a perpetual paradise. But it failed when The Nightmare took Luna and the Outsider was forced to help me and Winter Sky defeat her. His methods, while effective, had… terrible consequences.”

“The Everfree Forest reacted horribly to the material you know as Inmanipulon,” Azure Flora cut in. “It no longer recognized us ponies as charges to protect, but rather, it saw us as intruders. The horrible truth is that this forest once lived up to its ghastly reputation, and still does at least to a very diluted degree. I’m all but certain that only a few more centuries need pass before it becomes completely safe for ponies once again. And I plan on living to see it happen, but that will only come to pass if the human goes home.”

I was flabbergasted! My jaw was in a constant state of being hung wide open! I had that feeling, something gnawing at me that me being here was bad. I felt it as soon as I had woken up in the middle of Town Square. I had run to Twilight to see if it was true or if I was just being paranoid. Yet here it was, an ancient Earth Pony staring me down, telling me that history was just going to repeat a tragic event, and only because I was just sitting around, polluting the air with some dreaded side-effect that I had no idea how to control.

“Wait,” Twilight interjected, rubbing just under her horn with a hoof as though she were having trouble processing what was being told. “If he’s shedding Inmanipulon so badly, then why is he able to use magic? And what causes it to appear? What reaction takes place that c-...”

“I don’t know! I just know something about him, or perhaps the world the Outsiders come from stagnates magic!” she cried out suddenly, shaking her head in frustration. “What frustrates me the most is how it’s inconsistent with you. The crater you left from being summoned here was covered in the substance! Yet you’ve been here for days and I’ve not been able to find a speck elsewhere!”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Silverheart offered, “I mean, we don’t need to jump to conclusions about what has to be done to Firewall. Judging by how little you do know, it would be a little ridiculous to simply assume the worst will happen. Though I’m all for you carting him off.”

Storm Wing nodded. “Seconded.”

“You guys both suck.” I felt they needed to know that.

In an adorable show of endearing fury, Flora slammed her hoof on the table (which created almost zero sound) before bellowing at us with all the fury of an indignant butterly. “I’m not waiting for more to appear! This castle, or rather, what’s left of it, is proof enough that even a grand city such as the one that once surrounded the former capital can not weather the effects of your entropic aura! You have to leave, Firewall. And if you don’t... I... I’ll make you leave. He’s already spoken to you, so you know this isn’t some trick. You knew this was coming.”

You know those shocked looks we were all tossing at Celestia? Yeah, suddenly I was on the receiving end of all that nonsense. Not that I am unaccustomed to ponies looking absolutely baffled when I’m around.

“I have my orders and they will be carried out,” she continued, “and he told me to beg you for your cooperation. But I do not plan to beg. I will give you one chance to come willingly, Firewall, so we can prevent another calamity as quickly as possible. But do not misunderstand me, regardless of whatever you decide, you will be coming with us.”

I paused, a little taken back by the implications of her thinly veiled threat. Still, she felt she had a reason to believe everything was saying. Hell, she was there. Why wouldn’t she have a reason to believe what she saw? Maybe she was right. Maybe humans + ponies = disaster. Just not for the entirely misanthropic reasons that we might assume. And as crazy as this might seem, I believed her. Hell, David, the voice in my head, told me I was part of the bargain. And while I may mistrust him, I had no reason to believe he meant any ill will.

“Okay, I guess. So... How do I get home?” I swallowed, idly running a hoof over the table just to busy some part of me. Distracting oneself, if you would.

That certainly wasn’t what everypony was expecting to hear.

“Firewall...” Twilight looked almost betrayed.

I hung my head a little. “Listen, I don’t wa-...”

“Shut up, Firewall,” Storm Wing snapped at me before turning his head across the table and glaring with all the menacing fury a blind pony could muster. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I missed the part where this stopped being a negotiation and started being a list of demands.”

“First of all, it isn’t much of a list if we’re only demanding one thing. Second, we are negotiating for the safe transfer of Fireball into our care,” Trixie harumphed (Trixie wants me! Yay!). “I, The Great and Powerful Trixie, thought this sort of thing is standard fare for typical negotiations.”

“Yeah, sure,” Silverheart countered with a shrug of the wings. “Typical negotiations. Except we missed the part where we discuss the value of what’s being negotiated, then we forgot to talk about the importance and relevance of the negotiations, and then, somehow, we completely glossed over the part where we come to agreeable terms. But other than that, yeah, typical negotiations.”

“The value is us saving Equestria’s future!” Flora cried out, seemingly shocked that things were not going to plan. “Why are these terms not agreeable?”

“Because we have no reason to believe you!” Twilight snapped, “You yourself admitted that Firewall’s perceived threat to Equestria isn’t even remotely consistent with what you know.”

Azure Flora sputtered for a moment before finally throwing her gaze back to Celestia. “Is that how you feel, Princess Celestia? Are you willing to take this chance?”

Celestia stared long and hard at the questioning anti-threat pony before lowering her gaze to the table between us all. I watched as her eye scanned over its cracked and damaged surface, as though it were a representing reminder for the past that she had struggled to forget. The same past that Blue Flower, or whatever the name was trying to prevent.

After a long, deep breath, she redirected her gaze back to the other end of the table. “Allow me to answer your question with another question. What kind of a ruler would I be if I let fear and caution rule in my stead?”

And Celestia with the logic spike to the face! Praise be. This turn of events was not what the other side of the table wanted to hear, however. I mean, the situation went from tense argument to steam-pressure-rising, boilers-about-to-blow, bypass-all-do-not-blow-the-buck-up-out-of-the-opposition safeguards. Ice pony began to freeze up from what I can only guess would be him standing still for too long, Trixie started glancing at all of us like a Mexican standoff participant, and Azure Flora went from looking completely non-threatening to might-could-stamp-out-ladybug-with-her-rage. It couldn’t have been more telegraphed, really. So naturally this was where I leaned over to Twilight and whispered…

“This is where the fertilizer hits the oscillating wind-motor.”

And you know what, I was right. Unfortunately, Twilight had ZERO clue as to what I meant by that and was sadly unprepared for the angry retaliation of the bad-guy side of the table.

Without so much as much as a second of delay, the ball of anti-magic schtuff suddenly split off into a handful of, and I kid you not, reins complete with bits. Twilight, being slow on the draw, got herself a mouthful of anti-magic ball gag, as did Silverheart. I was, thankfully, prepared enough to flail myself out of the way with moments to spare and Storm Wing’s… Well, his ninja pony training came in handy and he dodged. NOT EVEN CLOSE, BABY!

Celestia did what Celestia does and simply OVERPOWERED THAT TRASH LIKE A BOSS. Seriously, it evaporated before it ever even touched her face and she didn’t even have to blink to get it done.

“Well, that concludes negotiations,” Silverheart snipped before whipping the reins around her head and tearing them off like tissue paper. “Thanks for coming, everypony, let’s never do this again!”

Storm Wing didn’t snark so much, but he did kick the table over onto them, so that was cool, too. It didn’t get far before being wholly smashed into powder by Super Frost over there, which did great things for visibility. Nothing like a thick layer of crushed concrete to muddy things up.

AND THEN THERE WAS TRIXIE SHOOTING LIGHTNING AT ME; THAT WAS A THING.

The only reason I could tell it was Trixie was because of her awesome laughter piercing the fog-like cloud of dust.

“You should have just given yourself up, silly fan of mine.”

“But you’re bad guys!” I whined. “And that’s just not how these things go.”

Through the murky haze, I could see the big frosty pegasus lunge for me, flying like a rocket. He never made it to me, though, thanks to Storm Wing diving into him and using the good ol’ taser hoof. Which, I gotta say, is a hell of a lot funnier when it’s not used on me.

Trixie shot another bolt at me, but Celestia deflected it with a bit of her own magic as Silverheart reared up, flapping her wings and slamming back down to send a gust forth that shoved Trixie back, though Flora’s hair didn’t even get ruffled by the wind. I decided I wasn’t going to wait for something else to attack me and began to rush at Azure Flora. She wasn’t far away and thus I was on her in an instant. When her eyes widened and she fell back out of instinct, throwing her hooves up to protect herself, I lost my nerve. I felt so small when I heard her whimper, and it was like letting the air out of a fight-balloon. She was just another little pony, having been frightened into action.

“Please,” I said, frowning at her, “Just... come with us. We can work this out. I don’t want to hurt anypony.”

For a moment, she looked as though she would comply, but after contemplating, she looked at me with resolve once again.

“Neither did he!” she cried, jumping up and dashing for the exit behind her. I started to chase her, but she haphazardly bucked at me as she screamed for help.

Spurred to action, the frosty stallion finally threw Storm Wing off his back and froze one of his hooves to the floor before dashing after her. He was faster than I thought was possible on the ground because I had to roll out of his way as he thundered by. He called out to Trixie as he passed her, his voice cold and hoarse (That pun was totally intended! Lawl cold horse.), “Trixie. Retreat.”

“The Great And Powerful Trixie does not retreat! She merely allows her opponents to live in fear of her retribution!” she snarled before disappearing in another wink. The cold pony literally closed the path behind him with a wall of ice.

“C’mon!” I shouted, burning the ice down as Storm finally freed his hoof, “Azure Flora has to escape on foot, er... hoof! Remember? She can’t be affected by magic!”

Silverheart and Storm Wing nearly ran me over as they flew out the exit. Celestia paused to look back at Twilight who was having the worst time ever trying to tear off the bridle on her face. I tried not to laugh at her.

“Will you...” she started to ask before being interrupted.

“Yes, I’ll be fine! Hurry, this might be our only chance,” Twilight protested. “I’ll get back to Ponyville and get this dumb thing off of me. Quick, go catch her!”

With that, we bolted out into the ruins of the Courtyard as Celestia whistled loudly, calling in an airlift via the A.S.C.A. (Yes, the Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness™). We hopped on without it ever stopping and took off after them. Shocking as this was, we actually were struggling to catch up to them. Turns out Frosty the Ice Pony was a fast flier, despite that huge frame of his. In fact, the only reason we were able to gain ground was likely due to the fact that he was having to carry Azure Flora. So much for travelling by hoof!

I was wondering where Silverheart and Storm Wing were when they suddenly shot out of a nearby cloud and team-tackled our quarry. They fought to ground him and in the struggle, Azure Flora slipped loose and began to fall. I’m glad Celestia was quick on the turn and had the kind soul to help her enemy, because it would have traumatized me to see anything bad happen to her, misguided as she was.

We went in for a pass and to my shock, Celestia had totally mistimed the catch. Once again, my gut reaction was to jump an unsafe distance to save somepony. My aim was significantly better, fortunately and I repeated the same trick I had done to save Luna. Luckily, the armor took the worst of the hit, but that still didn’t mean it felt good!

We landed in a large clearing just outside of the forest’s edge. I didn’t recognize it as any place significant, though I do remember spotting a few red buttes in the distance, so I figured we weren’t far from the railroad tracks that led to Appleloosa.

“This is becoming... a terrible theme. Next falling pony gets... to take one for the team,” I groaned as I held onto the frightened pony, “You okay?”

“Y... Yes,” she was shivering, scared out of her mind. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was still in trouble and with that realization in mind, she hoofed me right in my damn face before jumping up and sprinting away. Gratitude at its finest.

“Trixie!” she called out, “Help!”

The magician pony appeared with a puff and confidently put herself between me and Flora.

“Trixie,” I warned, seriously conflicted deep within, Lafter and Stoic waging war over whether or not to remove the silly pony as an obstacle, “Get out of the way or you will regret it.”

Trixie laughed, throwing back her luxurious sky-blue mane, “You think The Great and Powerful Trixie would soil her lovely hooves fighting you foals?! The idea is laughable! This negotiation was doomed from the start! But Trixie is kind and therefore, she will leave you a parting gift! It’s my favorite pet! Don’t forget to feed it, LOSERS!”

With that, Trixie’s horn glowed brightly. Like, Twilight “OP” Sparkle bright. Which is extremely bright in first person. Trust me when I say they’re dimming that down a whole lot in the show, because this had all of us (sans Storm Wing, -10 points if you can’t guess why) squinting as though Celestia had scooted the sun a few million miles closer. What came next, I didn’t see coming at me in the least. A black thunderous portal had appeared above us all, unbelievably large and only getting wider. I didn’t think twice when I noticed something starting to come through it, I just ran. I wasn’t the only smart one since everypony made way for whatever was manifesting up in that thing. Even the battling pegasi had broken it up to give whatever was coming plenty of space.

It was big. It was purple. It was kinda glowy and transparent. It was a full-grown Ursa Major. It landed behind us as we continued to haul tail and shook the ground with an impossibly loud roar. My teeth vibrated like I had bit down on a lawn mower engine (not that I’ve actually done that, I just figure it would be as intense as that.) as the sheer volume caused us all to tremble involuntarily.

I looked over my shoulder and chuckled nervously as I channelled a bit of Fluttershy, “Heezabare!”

“I’m sorry. I did not want this,” Azure Flora called out as she looked at us with a sad but resigned visage, sighing remorsefully, “but I must. Equestria is in danger.”

With that, she dumped out both her bags of Inmanipulon and waved a hoof, creating an immensely huge metal cage around us, boxing us in with the Ursa Major.

“Curses,” Celestia spat angrily (at first I was like ‘Curses? Really?’ but after thinking about it, what was she supposed to say? ‘By my beard!’ or ‘Oh me damn it!’) as she tried to dispel the conjuration. “How did she get so much!?”

Azure Flora gazed at us sadly. It was obvious she did not enjoy these drastic measures. That sure as hell didn’t make me like her any more at the moment, but to her credit, she was taking no pleasure in this. Trixie laughed, poofing away as the icy pegasus flew off with Azure in tow. Typical villains! Just assume your traps defeated the Hero! To their credit, however, I sure-as-sugar wasn’t betting on our survival either.

“Great, so we’re in a box with a bear big enough to beat an ancient dragon into the dirt. No, I’m cool with this,” I said offhand, shaking my head in frustration, “So we just gotta trash the two-hundred foot tall bear and then we’ll have all the time we need to figure this out, right?! Storm Wing, you get on that. Silverheart, hold me as I whimper.”

Silverheart didn’t hold me. She hit me in the shoulder instead. I wasn’t comforted by that in the least, however. In fact, I was hurt. Not just my feelings either. She’s got quite an arm... Leg... Hoof? Whatever.

“Shut up,” she said quite simply as the Ursa began making its way to us.

She was right, naturally. I just often faced my fears with nonchalance to trick myself into not freaking out. A small voice inside was telling me that this was a perfectly justifiable freak-out moment, and another part of me was agreeing with it. Just to paint this little scene, we were four ponies trapped in a cage about the size of the Colosseum in Rome with an ill-tempered Ursa Major. The comparison in size alone was staggering, as I was able to see just the barest hint of atmospheric fade. Shadow of the Colossus did not prepare me for this in the least. It was like four little frogs versus a fully grown adult human. Don’t bet your money on the frogs, right?

Just a thought. This is where a commercial would go if this were an episode. Much to my displeasure, though, this was really happening.

“What do we do, princess?” Storm Wing asked, his mane and hooves starting to crackle with power. Silverheart swallowed a bit, obviously intimidated but still holding her cool. I did what I do best: Light a cigarette and play it cool. Cool involving getting ready to wrap a blindfold around my eyes so I don’t tense up too much.

Celestia glared at the cage, then back at the Ursa Major before uttering the most unlikely words I’d ever heard from the pony princess. “We fight. Buy me as much time as you can, ponies. Just be safe.”

All hesitation and second thoughts were instantly dispelled. I looked at Silverheart and Storm Wing, both of which nodded and began to paw at the ground before charging the incredibly huge bear. I looked back at her, smirking as I resigned myself to what I figured would probably be my last day as a pony. Then I took off as well, snorting flame and kicking up fiery chunks of dirt in my wake.

“BEST. TIME OF MY LIFE. PERIOD!” I screamed like a lunatic as we began to close distance. It wasn’t going to take very long, mostly because anything that size can haul big bear butt when it wants to.

Storm Wing took off into the sky, falling back as Silverheart slipped in front, taking flight ahead of him. Ever see two Sky Archons work in tandem? Okay, stupid question. Ever imagine what two pegasi could do when working in tandem? I have. I was grossly underestimating their potential. Silverheart stopped advancing as Storm Wing took to higher altitudes. She began to loop rapidly, swirling the air about betwixt Storm Wing and the Ursa, which was still getting dangerously close to us.

I wasn’t sure what they were going for, but I didn’t like the fact that the Ursa was raising a paw to swat Silverheart out of the sky. So I stopped just under her and I inhaled. When I say I inhaled, I mean I burned nearly an inch off that cigarette sucking in as air much as I could hold. Just before it could swing, I let loose enough fire that it yanked its paw back, quite singed from my little outburst. That little escapade took a lot out of me. The second worst part? I’d received worse burns from roman candles in comparison. The absolute worst part? The damage seemed to fade away after a few seconds.

“Yey, I’m helping~!” I laughed sadly at how much effort I had put into causing a temporary annoyance at best.

Fact was, I was actually helping a lot, I just didn’t know it at the time. When Storm Wing finally got enough altitude, he turned and began to dive at Silverheart, whom had actually been forming a storm cloud. A small, concentrated thundering little beast of a cloud. It shot lightning and everything. Craziest thing I’d ever seen? Not by a long shot. But still quite mind blowing.

“Get’m, Storm!” Silverheart cheered as she veered off at the last second, releasing the cloud. Storm Wing punched straight through it and sucked up every last bit of that lightning and thunder, ripping it right out of the cloud and dragging it with him.

I’ve been to concerts that wish they were as loud as the impact between Storm Wing and the Ursa Major. I actually had to clap my hooves over my ears to avoid being deafened. He connected with it right in the shoulder, literally knocking it back and into the air for just half a second. Bears are not used to getting knocked around, thus I can assume that Ursa Majors experience such sensations with even less frequency. It roared and thrashed for a moment as the electricity coursed throughout it before shaking its head, somewhat dumbfounded that it had just been booted into the air by such a small opponent.

“That should have put it down!” Silverheart protested, not believing her eyes.

“It’s magically protected,” Celestia’s eyes were shut as her horn flashed over and over, “I’m still trying to dispel them all!”

Now, I’m not an incredibly fair fighter. I mean, when I get into fights, it’s not for fun. It’s because something huge is on the line and it’s gone far enough that I’m willing to do whatever it takes for that something. Celestia’s life, Silverheart’s life, my life? Those were important. Oh, yeah, and that other jackpony. What I’m getting at was that I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for it to get back up as a go-ahead to attack. I just galloped up and starting roaring fire at whatever part I could reach.

Ursa Major’s response? Roll over on me. You’ve no idea how incredibly stupid I felt as that stupid bear’s fat butt began to roll my way, going way faster than anything I could have done to escape. So I decided against escaping and tried to fight the tide of purple starry fur rolling my way by rearing up and slamming down, creating a pillar of fire around myself. Remember that whole, ‘expect it and you get it’ trick? Yeah, I owe Luna so much for that.

It brushed against the pillar before roaring again and throwing itself in the other direction. Storm Wing and Silverheart began to roll up another Stormy-Silver-Combo-Thing when the bear finally got back to its feet and spotted them. It wasn’t going to make it in time to stop them, so it just decided to scrape up a pawful of dirt (to us, it was like ripping up a small hill) and chucking it at Silverheart, who barely managed to dodge the worst of it. A bit of debris caught her in the wing, however and she went down, roughly skidding along to a halt, crying out upon impact.

“Man, just go away!” I shouted before breathing more fire at its foot, causing it to roar angrily before turning at me in earnest. It tried to stomp on my sorry plot but uh... I just burned that foot, too. I didn’t know what else to do and I’ll be damned if it didn’t work!

Storm Wing collided with its face, though without the storm cloud, it wasn’t nearly as effective. It roared and swatted at him a few times, driving him away as I spat a fireball (Expect it! Ole~! I expect you to disappear, Ursa Major! (No, that didn’t work, sadly!)) at its face.

“Finally!” Celestia cried out triumphantly as she shot a ray from her horn at the Ursa Major. It hit (like you could miss something that size) it right in the nose and as soon as it did, the Ursa Major changed just a bit.

It grew armor. Not just any armor, but a very specific armor. I’d seen this armor, actually, and very recently, as a matter of fact. It was the same armor that Nightmare Moon had worn, sans the horn in the helmet.

“The Ursa is being controlled by The Nightmare!” Celestia explained, teleporting to my side. “It’s not a pony, so this has to be a spell. We just have to overcome its magic.”

Celestia tried firing another ray, but a purple mist crept forth from within the Ursa and struck the spell away.

Now, I kinda got that ‘OSHI-’ feeling when she said ‘Ursa controlled by Nightmare’ going down all over me. I kinda broke into a cold sweat even. But it was quickly replaced by more feelings of awesome as I realized something.

“The anti-magic crap!” I pointed to the bars behind the bear.

“Indeed,” she was thinking the same thing, “The Inmanipulon.”

“Storm!” I yelled up at him. When he didn’t immediately give us his attention, I spat a couple of small fireballs at him to get him. He didn’t think that was funny, but at least he looked our way.

“What are you doing, you foal! Aim at the armor-clad bear!” he scolded me.

I hated the name, but apparently I had to use it, “The stupid Inmanipulon! Push the bear into it!”

“And how are we going to do that, Genius?!” he shouted back, “Silverheart is down!”

“Ask it nicely?” I shrugged. Damn it, Fluttershy, why aren’t you here when we have a giant monster that needs to get its face told in!?

“I’ve a better idea. Firewall, why don’t you breathe some more fire?” Celestia said with a smirk, her horn began to glow, “I’ll see what I can do to help.”

I watched in confusion as a line of magic lazily drift from her horn to mine. Then, I felt it surge throughout my entire body, all at once. I don’t think there are words for what Celestia was doing to me (Use that out of context and you may be beaten and then handed to the masses.). It was like I had been plugged into a nuclear generator. Ever see ‘Meet The Medic’? Yeah, there was no way they could have made it look this awesome. I could feel heat and fire flowing from every inch of my body and it was only getting hotter. It was a rush like no other. Indescribable, to be certain. My hooves were white with heat, my entire coat and mane were blazing like the sun, and the best part was it didn’t even burn my cigarette. I looked at the bear and considered saying something snarky just to be goofy about the entire ordeal, but I just settled for spitting out the Mareboro and roaring out the largest inferno one could possibly imagine. The Ursa had to be at least half a mile away, but it made no difference because its body was not ready.

The Nightmare Ursa roared in protest as the flames washed over it. It stumbled back, badly singed all over as I began to pant heavily, stopping only to take another breath. The air was shimmering from the residual heatwave still left over from the last breath, and through it I could see it staring at me angrily, this time ready to dodge. I hesitated, unsure if I should take an uncertain shot, especially when the first had left me so lightheaded. Storm Wing was on top of it, though, flying up to lightning-blast it in the nose with a quick pass, distracting it just long enough for me to tag it with another staggering wave of flame. I heard Celestia gasp a bit. This was taking its toll on her, especially within this cage. I could relate. I was barely able to stand after that second one. I even saw those same silly sparkles that let you know you’re about to pass out.

“One more, princess,” I promised, my voice somewhat unstable and melodic with all the power coursing through me. It was obvious that such a small body was not designed to act as a conduit for so much power. The fatigue wasn’t even in my body, it was more as though my will had been drained. Like lethargy on crack or something.

“As many as it takes, Firewall,” she answered, her voice still strong. “Do not stop.”

I didn’t respond. In all actuality, I wasn’t certain I could do one more, much less anything more than that. Taking another deep breath, I spread the volley out a bit to push the Ursa back once more, putting everything I had left into it. I could tell it wasn’t as strong as the last one, and to my dismay, it wasn’t enough.

Its back brushed against the cage a bit, causing it to convulse a bit as the spell faltered somewhat. I then inhaled as hard as I could, knowing that I had to try. Try harder than I ever had. My lungs were aching from so much air (I’m sure smoking had NOTHING to do with that) filling them as I began to let it all out. Just before I did, I discovered that I couldn’t go through with it, after all. I was quaking all over just from trying to stay standing. I began to cough violently and fell to my knees.

“I’m s*cough*sorry, Princess,” I gasped out in between breaths, my eyes watering as my body ached all over.

“You did your best,” she assured me before taking flight towards the Ursa, shining like a star as she accelerated. The Ursa began to move, but Storm Wing was there again, like a bad penny, disorienting it by clapping thunder by its ears and striking amongst the face. It was like watching a fly beat a man about the head and shoulders with a small tack hammer in terms of effectiveness. Celestia took the opportunity to crash into the corrupted monster’s chest, knocking it back that last bit.

The Ursa collided with the cage, causing it to rip up out of the ground behind me as it fell over. The effect was instant, nearly, with an explosive reaction that thrust The Nightmare out of its host. The Ursa lost consciousness as The Nightmare was forced from its body, causing the vaporous fiend to scream in pain and fury. I smiled tiredly, grinning in triumph as I put more weight onto my knees(those are knees, right? Ponies have knees and not some obscure jargon for their leg joints, yes?).

“There it is, Storm Wing. Arrest that cloud,” I chuckled as I shook my head, trying to clear the adrenaline and fatigue out. I was just so tired after all of that and I wasn’t the only one. Celestia flew back lazily, landing with a shaky canter as she panted even harder than I was. We could barely stand up, we were so exhausted. I’m pretty sure the victory rush was the only thing keeping me awake.

“Not bad,” she gave a tired chuckle.

“No *cough* kidding. Eat your heart out, Trixie. We vanquished... the dreaded Ursa... Major,” I laughed a bit before falling over, fading in and out of consciousness, “Beat that.”

“Look out!” I heard Storm Wing cry out to us.

“THIS ISN’T OVER, BEAST!” I heard the furious, disembodied voice of The Nightmare echo as I felt a rush of air blowing over me.

The Nightmare dove straight for me and for a second, I could feel the weightlessness start to take hold just as it had last time. My mind was starting to get all washy, like that sensation that you get when you can’t make yourself get out of bed no matter how badly you need to. Only, like, x100. It almost made me feel ill.

“I won’t allow it!” Celestia bellowed breathlessly before quite literally tackling me back to the ground just as I started to float away. “Release him!”

“GET AWAY!” The Nightmare keened furiously.

I could hear it all and I could sorta see it. But it all sounded like it was being shouted in a large bathroom. Not far away, just… super echo-y and way out of focus.

Then I could feel my hooves started to fight back against Celestia, pushing her away. Not that I was wanting to do that or anything.

“I. WILL NOT. ALLOW IT!” Celestia cried, pinning me to the ground and shining a marvelous green light from her horn that flickered like a strobe light. The agonizing shriek that came from both around me and also my mouth was kind’ve… horrific, really. Like the stuff that people look for in their nightmare fuel fanfiction. Almost like a grown man, a little girl, and a feral beast all crying out in unison.

“THEN I WILL TAKE YOU INSTEAD!” It screamed back.

And just like that, everything snapped back into focus as the Ambiguous-as-hell cloud fluffed out of me and in immediately started in on Celestia. At first it seemed as though this plan wasn’t working. I mean, Celestia didn’t seem to react too much until suddenly her visage was overcome with strain. And just like that she started to float away.

“No!” I shouted as I flipped myself over and scrambled to my hooves.

Celestia was trying her best to fight it off, but I could tell in her weakened state, that wasn’t going to happen without help, “Celestia!!”

“Princess!” I heard Storm Wing shout as he dived down at us, “NO! Get away from her!!”

Storm Wing was just too far away, but I had a chance. The Nightmare lifted her from the ground and my horror was absolute when I failed to grab hold. My hoof actually nicked hers, the margin was so small. I felt sick as I jumped again, knowing there was no way I could have closed the widening distance. It was the single, most difficult thing I’d ever had to watch. I thought I had known fear when Rainbow Dash was being stolen from me. I thought I was afraid when I had faced down an Ursa Major with just three other ponies. But for the first time since being in Equestria, the sensation of absolute terror took hold and gripped me from within.

“At last, I am victorious!” The Nightmare laughed in total glee as more of its misty form vanished into the alicorn, “Equestria is MINE!”

The skies began to shift colors as the sun changed from a warm, beautiful yellow to a threatening dark red. Clouds swirled and formed, thundering loudly within an instant as rain and torrential winds surged forth. The armor appeared, gold and razor sharp on Celestia’s form, adorning her hooves, neck, crown, and wings. Her multi-hued mane and tail shifted and swung low, becoming blood red. She gave one final cry as she lost the battle to The Nightmare.

“CELESTIA!” Storm screamed in futility, making a line straight for her.

“No,” their voiced mixed harmoniously, chilling my blood. “Celestia no longer. I am Nightmare Sol, Ruler of Equestria. And you, Son of Winter Sky, are my subject.”

“Never!” he shouted as he closed the last bit of distance, only to be struck away with a wink of her magic.

“This... isn’t funny anymore,” I murmured softly, swallowing the horrible truth that floated down before me.

“On the contrary,” she replied with a small chuckle, turning to face me, “I’ve never felt like laughing so much in my entire existence.”

Author's Note

:D Yey!

Chapter Nine: That Moment When You're Getting Attacked By The Darkness

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

I stared at her as my heart continued to sink. Sorrow and horror alone had caused me to break into a cold sweat; not that you could tell, what with the torrential rain pouring down on me. I had seen it with my own eyes and still did not want to believe it. Numbness had settled in all over. I took a step back as Nightmare Sol landed before me gently, smirking down at me arrogantly. Her pink eyes were now golden, draconian in shape and staring right into mine, the corner of her mouth upturned in a way that just screamed self-assured superiority. Terrible possession aside, Celestia had lost none of her regality. And when she snapped her wings open, a shrill ringing pierced the thundering storm, instantaneously quelling the blustering squall.

“I don’t suppose you just... want the day to last forever or something?” I asked with a nervous chuckle.

“You’re not that lucky,” she said as she cantered forth. Her voice was deeper, carried more breath. It would have been seductive if it weren’t so clearly veiling an ocean of malice.

I watched as her flowing red mane lazily trailed behind her. It was almost hypnotic. But not so hypnotic that I forgot just what it was I was looking at. “No, I’ve much greater, much grander designs. Oh~ho~ho... Yes, plans that would make you cringe in terror.”

With that, she lifted a hoof to softly stroke the side of my face, “And it’s all thanks to you, my terrible human. My little… herald of destruction.”

I struck that hoof away from me, suddenly no longer in the mood for humor. “Bullshit.”

“Did I not tell you? I believe I told you and Luna both.” she asked with a laugh, less insulted and more amused by my reaction, “I certainly remember something along those lines. Hah, I imagine she’ll regret not disposing of you herself.”

She sounded so calm. Not nearly as feral and insane as The Nightmare was when it had no host. Made sense, though. Nightmare Moon was quite coherent. I guess Nightmare Sol gets that perk, too. The silver lining here was that I didn’t have to listen to that enraged disembodied shrieking, though no amount of optimism could have helped at that particular moment.

“My name is Firewall,” I spat, snorting a bit of flame in anger.

“No, it isn’t. Do not lie to either of us. Though in reality, I should ask you to continue fooling yourself. It got me where I am today,” she pointed out, laughing all the more, holding up a hoof up in front of her muzzle to emphasize her mirth. “So go on, then, ‘Firewall!’”

“What are you talking about? And how is it that you’re working with Azure Flora?” I snarled, cutting a glare at her. “I can’t really believe that she ever wanted to hurt anypony!”

“She believes what she is told. She doesn’t have to know that I brought you here, she only needs to know that you’re the cancer that is plaguing Equestria.” She gave a shrug as if to say she was helpless in that regard, “You, on the other hand, seem to do whatever it is you please, despite my warnings back at the ruins. I said that you coming here would bring it all crashing down, and it did. And you were there to help make it happen. If you had listened from the start, this wouldn’t have happened. If you had simply forfeited that body of yours, we could have gone our separate ways. But you’ve been more than a distraction. And though the hour of my vengeance draws close, I will make you regret crossing me.”

“You’re still speaking as though I’m a monstrous demon, yet I‘m the one that spared your life, and YOU’RE still the one actually causing ALL of this!” I growled at her, already sick to death of this conversation.

“Oh, I suppose I’ve been outsmarted again. Your logic is so strong and flawless! Oh, very well. Perhaps I should let you roam free as I show you what I’ll do with you beloved ponies now that I have control of their great leader. What do you think of that, ‘Brave Firewall?’” she mocked, pouting her lips at me. “Should I let you go?”

“I think that has got to be the worst and most cliche villain mistake ever. And you’re stupid for even considering it,” I remarked, giving her a derogatory snort of laughter.

“And you’re a foal for having fallen into my trap. And the best part? I didn’t even need Celestia. That just made my task so much easier.” She leaned down and smiled brightly at me. “If only you had done as I had asked, it wouldn’t have had to come to this. Really, I’ve no interest in this world, but you… you’ve brought this down upon all of Equestria. It would be sad if it weren’t so laughable.”

“You want to know what’s even funnier than that?” I asked before trotting up to her, getting a hoof full of dirt on the sly. “Here, I’ll sum it all up for you. When this is all over, ponies and humans are going to read about the terrible things that I’ll have done to you. It’ll be biblical, I promise. You think you’re The Nightmare, but you’ll be the one begging to wake up when I get a hold of you! I swear to you, Celestia will be free and you’re going to curse the name of whatever created you long before it’s over! I’ll make all your fanciful delusions of misanthropic humanity look like a bedtime story! Do you hear me?! You’re dead, Nightmare!”

“Ah, so you’re not so defeated. I’d call that admirable if I liked you. Which I don’t. And in that case, I had best take care of you right now,” she frowned, no longer amused by my threatening rant. “I’ll put that beautifully passionate threat on your grave as an epitaph. I wouldn’t want to waste such heartfelt poetry.”

“You’ll have to catch me first,” I murmured softly before showing that I still don’t play fair. Remember that dirt I got a hooffull of? I had been pumping as much heat into it as I could without being caught. And without a moment’s hesitation, I chucked that hoof full of superheated dirt right into her pretty serpentine eyes before turning and sprinting off. Yes, I know, that’s terrible of me, but I was in no shape to be taking on ponies of my caliber, much less possessed demi-god-ponies. So instead of a fight, she got a load of fiery sand to the face. “STORM WING! WE ARE LEAVING!”

I looked over to see Storm haphazardly stumbling back to a standing position. He’d seen better days, but he was no worse off than I was at least. Using that bit of magic just to heat up that sand had taken more out of me than I had expected, even in this state.

“But Celes-...” he stammered, shaking his head.

“AGGGH! I will scour you from this world! ALL OF EQUESTRIA WILL BURN!” I heard Nightmare Sol scream furiously behind me, showing her true colors.

I looked back to watch her fire off a few random spells in different directions. Judging by the damage they were causing, I don’t think I would have lasted very long if I had tried to take her head on. I ran over to Storm and gently nudged him with a whisper, “Look, if you want to go try and save her right now with us the way we are, be my guest. Actually no, that’s stupid. I’ll save you the time and tell you that she’ll just kill you or worse. I need you to fetch me the Sky Carriage, wherever it is. I’ll take care of Silverheart. Go. Now!”

When he didn’t immediately comply, I bucked at him which forced him to dodge into the air. I really just wasn’t in the mood for waiting and I certainly wasn’t in the mood for consolation. After another second, he got the idea and sped off, leaving me to run over to the incapacitated shiny silver pony. I looked over to see Sol rubbing at her eyes, still crying out in pain, and I knew I didn’t have much time. I threw Silverheart over my shoulder and began to gallop as fast as I could. It didn’t take much longer for her to wake up and start looking around lazily. I was bolting back into the Everfree Forest since it was the only thing with any visual cover nearby. I don’t think I would have made it to Appleloosa if I tried that route. It was only a few days away by hoof, so yeah. Hop, skip, and a jump, right?

“What have you done?!” an annoyingly familiar voice bellowed.

“Oh, Christ, like I don’t have enough to deal with,” I muttered before tilting my head upwards towards the sound of the offensive whine. “Tissy, could you take a number? I’ve already got one self-important mega-fiend on my case, and I don’t want her to fill out a bad survey because I failed to give her all of my attention.”

Yes, indeed. Stupid Bird floated just above me, hovering backwards (perched on nothing in particular) to keep pace. She looked upset, which, at the time, was so low on my list of priorities that I very well may have discovered entirely new areas on said list. Hers was filed under the ‘refer to in dire need of suicide’ section.

“How could you let this happen?!” She snarled at me.

I… became genuinely pissed at that. Like, so pissed that I almost forgot to keep running. “How could… What?! Listen up, you feather-lined piece of s-”

She interrupted me with a motion from her wing, drawing my clamp shut very forcefully.

“I’m sure whatever you had to say isn’t worth hearing. But I suppose you’re not entirely to blame, nor does it really matter who is. Just… Get back to Canterlot; we have some damage control to run. Where’s Storm Wing? Ah, there he is. Hmm, he’s quite a ways away. Still, I think he should be able to find you. Silverheart is like a lighthouse of electromagic, and he cares enough about her to actually rush. I don’t… think I’ll be needed. Try not to get in a situation where I am, though. I’m way too busy to be cleaning up after you. Alright?”

“I hate you,” I seethed as soon as motor control over my mouth was relinquished back to me.

“I’m aware. Let that motivate you into living to see the day where you might get back at me,” she mentioned nonchalantly. “Best of luck. By the way, your cargo is waking up.”

And before I could respond, she vanished. God, I hated that bird. I hated that bird so hard that the amount hatred mustered up could very well disqualify any attempt at labeling me as lazy. But rather than spend my time thinking of the ways I would burn the feathers off that little varmint, I instead slowed down to glance over at Silverheart, who was indeed stirring. After a grimace, she opened her eyes and dreamily looked about.

“Did we win?” she asked with a blank expression on her face.

“Yes,” I said with a nod, “That’s why we’re running our sorry plots away as fast as we can.”

“So we didn’t win,” she replied with a wince.

“Not much gets by you, darling,” I confirmed with a snarl. “Also, if you hit me, I’m dumping you out here and leaving you to The Nightmare.”

“Oh.” She shook her head as we finally slid into the sanctuary of the forest. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m not angry, how about that?” I snapped, already feeling bad for having taken out some of my frustration on her. “Can you walk or fly?”

“Lemme s-Ow... Um. No,” she answered after an experimental movement. “Why?”

“Because we might have had to split up,” I groaned irritably.

“Why?” she continued to pursue.

A beam of energy that screamed like nails on a chalkboard immolated the tree right beside us. It wasn’t a small tree, nor was it a small beam. In fact, the tree was one of the biggest I had seen in Equestria (And so was the beam for that matter!). But it turned that tree into a burnt match in a real quick hurry.

“Oh,” she stated with a nod. “That’s a pretty good reason.”

“I’d like to think so,” I concurred with a sigh, crestfallen with the realization that Nightmare Sol knew where I was. I wasn’t particularly fast, and Nightmare Sol could fly, had better magic, and was not burdened by a passenger. I was still going to give it my damnedest, I told myself. That in mind, I sprinted amongst the trees, dodging in and out of them as I moved, making myself an evasive target as I galloped, hoping that landing a hit would be more difficult that way. It was when I spotted an incredibly huge tree that had fallen down in front of us that I cursed aloud. I had to veer to the left which led to a small gorge. Small or not, though, I wasn’t going to make that jump with Silverheart on my back, and I had the feeling turning around was going to lead to my premature, but no doubt lovely, funeral. I imagine there would be flowers, some crying ponies, some jackpony singing ‘It’s A Great Day To Be Alive’ by Travis Tritt, and a heartfelt eulogy by some pastor that would struggle to define and describe me since he had never met me in person. At least the song would have been lovely.

“Keep running,” Silverheart commanded as she wrapped her hooves around my neck. “Jump as hard as you can!”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I obeyed. Just before the jump, I felt a surge of lightness, and my jump propelled me incredibly far. For a moment, I thought I was flying, and if I had any wings, I’m pretty sure I could have done just that. I almost became not unhappy (SUFFER, YOU DOUBLE NEGATIVE GRAMMAR NAZIS!) as I realized that Silverheart had just given me a taste of pegasus magic, and that our chances of escaping were starting to look a little better.

“Nice one,” I exhaled upon landing on the other side of the gorge. “Got any more tricks?”

“Such as what?” she asked as we both looked back over our shoulder to see Nightmare Sol in the sky, scouring the trees for us.

“Fog. Lots of it,” I suggested with a whisper, as I rounded a tree and took small break. “Like... I want the forest to be impossible to see from above.”

“No can do. I have to be able to fly to create the vortex that condenses the water enough to make clouds. Duh,” she said with a shake of her head.

I stared at her like she was mutating into a platypus or something. She had just given me a scientific rebuttal to my request for magic. It was like asking if one could solve a math problem, but was told no because their grammar was bad. Hell, magic was like... the antithesis to science, right?! Silverheart was spouting complete nonsense, in my opinion!

“But magic... ponies... you just science it... AGH!” I shook my head in frustration. MAGIC Y U NO WORK?

“That’s common knowledge,” she gave me a skeptical stare, mirroring my incredulous attitude.

“Oh, it’s common knowledge, is it?! Just shut up. I’m going to pretend we didn’t have a conversation about this,” I replied with a sad laugh, my mind still reeling from the blow to my universal perception.

Before she could reply, Nightmare Sol suddenly landed with an explosive crash just meters away from us. I’m pretty sure I nearly wet myself in shock. Don’t even try to judge me.

“This chase is over, barbarian,” she seethed, aiming her horn at us and glaring with both her eyes. If I wasn’t scared out of my mind, I would have noticed that sooner and vocalized my fascination. However, I was just frightened. Shrieking-little-girl frightened.

For no apparent reason, Silverheart threw her hooves over my eyes. At first I thought she was trying to spare me the horror of death by pony. (As if the cupcakes nightmare wasn’t bad enough.) As it were, though, I heard a thunderous clap as though lightning had just struck mere inches from me. I jumped like a scared bunny and dared a glance. Today was not Nightmare Sol’s day for seeing very well. From what I gathered, Silverheart had caused a lightning strike right in front of our pursuer, and was successful in blinding her as I had done. Pegasus flashbang! I’ll put it this way, it was still bright even through her hooves.

“I will destroy you both!” Nightmare Sol roared angrily as she shut her eyes, rearing up and shaking the ground with a thunderous stomp.

“Run, you idiot!” she shrieked, hitting me in the back of the head with her hoof as Nightmare Sol vaporized a boulder right beside us, crying out in anger. That had to be frustrating. She was probably going to need glasses if this kept up much longer. Wouldn’t that be silly? She could get tape to hold them together after they get broken! We could call her Nightmare Bifocal!

But I digress. I didn’t argue and took off as fast as I could. Everything from my back, to my neck, to my legs, and I’m pretty sure even my poor tail were all aching from exhaustion. I listened to the thunderous skies that Sol had summoned and thought of Storm Wing. Just how long was he going to take?

“We have to hide; we’re not going to outrun her,” Silverheart pointed out, watching our backs as I tried to put distance between us and our attacker.

“We just have to wait... for Storm Wing to find us,” I answered, starting to pant heavily.

I looked back and felt a modicum of relief as I did not spot Nightmare Sol in the sky or on our tails. I continued to run, grunting with every soft beat of my hooves against the dirt. The toll it was taking on my body was starting to be more than I could handle. I began to lose speed, and while I could simply order myself to speed back up, at first, it wasn’t long before my hooves were going on strike and no longer taking orders.

“You’re slowing down,” Silverheart pointed out. “What’s wrong?”

“I... I’m not... I’m just too,” I literally slowed down to a canter, finally running out of steam. I looked forward to spot another ravine and groaned in exasperation. What the hell had happened to the stupid Everfree Forest? It had more cracks in it than a dropped egg! Almost like some terrible calamity had… … … Oh right. I guess there was a terrible calamity after all.

“Son of a whore,” I wheezed.

“You don’t have the strength, do you?” she asked, to which I slowed to a stop and shook my head, panting like a dog.

“You’re... too fat.” I couldn’t help myself, okay!? I was about to die, so I had to get one last laugh in! It was totally worth the bitchhoof (Pony bitchslap, fyi. Yeah, I know. Unnecessary profanity.) that I got to the back of my head, too!

“You are the most immature, undisciplined, stupid human I’ve ever met!” She wasn’t amused by my nonchalant nature. I mean, I really didn’t want to die, but at this point, I’d had a chance to brohoof Dash, glomp Trixie, squeeze Fluttershy, hug Twilight, kick Blueblood in the face, and fly throughout the air. My bucket list was all cleaned up a long time ago.

Yeah, that’s actually all a bunch of nonsense. I was simply in a complete state of inner panic, and my trigger reaction for calming myself in bad situations is... well... humor. Laugh it away. Worst thing that could happen is you die laughing, right? I make fun of horror movies, I giggle at awkward situations, and I make bad jokes when I was looking at purchasing the farm (which is slang for dying, for those of you that don’t get that age old adage.). It’s a stupid self-defense that keeps me from losing my cool, simply because my mind simply stops working when I lose my cool. I’m one of the sheep after that. I don’t like being a sheep, and if that involves laughing in the face of death (that actually sounds pretty badass) then so be it.

“I’m also the... sexiest... coolest one, too,” I pointed out, reminding her that I was the only one she had ever met.

“This is how it ends,” she gave a groan as she began whining in frustration. “Couldn’t have just been slowly eaten by a dragon or something, could it?! No, it had to be stuck with you!”

“I’ll make sure you don’t suffer long,” Nightmare Sol’s lovely and sinister voice came from behind us.

I turned and scampered back a few steps, unintentionally putting myself dangerously close to the aforementioned ravine. I looked down at the river at the bottom and... really, I didn’t feel like taking the shot. It was a long way down, and I don’t think there was any point in taking a jump when your pursuer could just fly down after you.

“Quite a merry chase you’ve led me on,” she started to gloat with a sadistic smile as she began to emit a flashing green light from her horn. A very familiar green light. Silverheart tried flicking her tail, but nothing happened except for a tiny spark. She was blocking out our magic “Too bad it couldn’t go on f-”

“Oh, God, please... do not... monologue me to death,” I groaned in between breaths, rolling my eyes and shaking my head.

“Silence!” she snapped angrily, not appreciating my lack of appreciation for the situation. “You’re in no position to make demands!”

“For once, I agree with him.” Silverheart shook her head. “I’ve no intention of listening to your drivel before it’s all over. Get it over with.”

Her eye twitched furiously for a few moments before she quickly brought herself back to sensible thinking. She coughed and nodded before simply smirking.

“Very well. Consider it your final request.” She lowered her horn at us as it began to illuminate the entire area.

My mind flashed to my family, my friends, the girls back at Ponyville, Luna and Celestia, Storm Wing (Screw him for not being here! (S.C.S.W.C.: 9 )), Lucky’s god awful luck-sapping aura, and finally back to a lovely stack of pancakes that I never got to enjoy. That actually made me snort out a laugh as I shut my eyes. I was starting to mentally crack all over as I realized that the merry chase and the beautiful dream had all come to an end. I was only consoled by the fact that I wouldn’t be causing some small cataclysm by shedding off that anti-magic crap.

“Hey, Silver, I just want you to know, I...” I started to crack one last line, sweating all over as I felt tears come to my eyes. Yeah, I know. Not the most dignified thing to do, cry right at the end, but in all honesty, I was sad that I didn’t get more time in Equestria.

She hit me in the back of the head yet a third time, not in the mood for another joke. I’m glad she did, because in all honesty, I wasn’t in the mood for one either.

It was then that Storm Wing did the COOLEST thing I’ve ever seen a pony do. You remember the Sky Carriage? The A.S.C.A.™? He saved the day with amazing amounts of awesome and justice and glory. It was pure art watching him work, and if you blinked, you missed it all. He swooped in on the Sky Carriage, turned it sideways as he came up from behind Nightmare Sol, and used it like a dragster to fishtail that alicorn right into the ravine behind us, sending her clear over our heads. It was an 11 out of 10 on the awesome-random-silliness scale. For a few seconds, we all just stood there, shocked at what had just happened. Even Storm Wing seemed blown away by the epic maneuver. I heard a monkey chatter in the background, adding to the whole sensation of ‘what the hell just happened’ that we were all stewing in.

“Captain, will you marry me?” Silverheart broke the silence, coughing out a gracious sob as I decided to stop dawdling and threw myself up onto that damn thing.

“Get in line, hooker!” I snapped, brohoofing that bastard in the shoulder. “Time to fly! God, I’ve never been so happy to see you! I could kiss you!”

“You do and I will throw you off this carriage,” he warned me in all seriousness as we took off. I don’t know if Nightmare Sol was knocked out, or if she was just dazed, but I couldn’t care less. Nopony here wanted to take the risk, and nopony able to appreciate the situation could have blamed us.

I set Silverheart down, giggling at her with a big smile. “I’ve never been so happy to be alive!”

“Agreed,” she said with a laugh, her eyes wide as though she couldn’t believe it. “I hope this thing is faster than the Princess.”

I was rather divided on that issue myself. On the one hoof, being faster than Celestia means we had a much better chance of not being magically vaporized, which was aces in my book. On the other hoof, it meant going faster than the Princess and, well… I don’t exactly handle that sort of speed very gracefully, if you might recall.

“It is with me driving,” Storm Wing assured us.

God help me, and Screw Captain Storm Wing (S.C.S.W.C.: 10).

“Hold onto something,” he growled, his voice cold and distracted.

I grabbed Silverheart. She hit me. I whimpered, but didn’t let go. Good times.

And then my eyeballs slid into the back of my skull. Too many G’s. Way too many G’s. I cried a little. But it was a manly cry.

“Firewall!” Storm Wing yelled.

Sorry, Storm Wing, Firewall is not available at this time. Please leave your name and number after the emasculating scream.

“FIREWALL!” He bellowed, kicking at me with a back hoof to get my attention. “Where are we going!?”

“Oh! Uhh… Canterlot!” My mind raced as it slid into my backside from the aforementioned G-forces, but I eventually remembered that I needed to think about the big picture. “Actually, Storm, you need to go to Ponyville. I need the Carriage to get to Canterlot.”

“The Elements of Harmony!” He didn’t understand right away, but it didn’t take long to dawn on him what I was getting at. “We could purge The Nightmare from Celestia!”

“Hey, someone’s keeping up!” I nodded back. “I need you to get over there and find Twilight Sparkle at the Tree Library south of Town Square. Hopefully she’s already made it there. If she hasn’t, look for Rarity at the Fashion Boutique. It’s the big house with pink lace.”

“Um, Firewall,” Silverheart coughed. I was confused for a moment, not understanding their hesitation before slapping a hoof over my face.

“You don’t act nearly blind enough for me to treat you like are, okay!?” I cried in self-defense, “Fine! Start creating a storm or something, and Rainbow Dash will fly out and kick you in the face! That’s the element of loyalty, so you’ll get along with her just fine!”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He rolled his eyes and tossed control to me, though not literally in either case. It was more of an event where we started to plummet until I grabbed mental control of the carriage. “Why are you going to Canterlot?”

“Princess Luna,” Silverheart answered, interrupting me before I could say it.

“Yeah, Sol might see her as a threat, so on the off-chance that she goes for her instead of the elements, I want to help get her to safety, as well as warn the other Sky Archons. Silverheart also needs medical attention,” I pointed out, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole thing, though after thinking about it, I was starting to wish I had been the one to go help gather the Mane 6. I was not cherishing the idea of being the one to give Luna the bad news. “Where should we meet up?”

“You tell me,” Storm Wing shrugged his wings because he knew deep down that I envied him for that. (Maybe not, but he sure as hell did it enough that I had reason to believe so!) “It needs to be somewhere we’re both familiar with. You’re the newcomer, not me.”

“Appleloosa,” I said with a nod after a moment of consideration. “Far enough away, yet we both know how to get there.”

“Fair enough.” He gave a nod before turning to jump off.

“Stay safe, Captain,” Silverheart’s voice betrayed her uncharacteristic worry. Red flag, kiddos~!

“Storm Wing,” I called out, causing him to turn his head towards us somewhat to let us know he was listening. “This isn’t over. We’re going to get her back and make The Nightmare pay for this.”

“Count on it,” he swore to me, jumping off and tearing up the sky in the direction of Ponyville.

I watched him as he soared away and started to nod off as the adrenaline began to taper down, earning myself a poke from the prone Silverheart. I shook the exhaustion from my head and pulled out a cigarette. I lit up and gave her a glance as I began to move towards Canterlot, puffing on the cigarette like it would be my last. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that it could have actually been the last one, I was just... excited!)

“Here, let me fly. You rest,” I heard Silverheart pipe up. “You’re barely able to stand.”

“I think I’m okay,” I tried to reassure her, though my voice sounded weak, even to me.

“Your back legs are shaking,” she informed me, causing me to look down to confirm her statement.

“That’s just ‘cause I’m so overcome with giddiness?” I chuckled tiredly.

“Firewall...” Her voice was actually full of concern and not irritation.

“Okay,” I sighed as I released control, flopping down as I puffed the last of the magical white smoke that makes me function properly.

She was much quicker at picking it up than I had been, likely due to being adept at pegasus magic. I tossed my cigarette over and laid my head down.

“How long?” I murmured.

“Forty-eight minutes,” she said with a smile aimed my way. “Rest a bit. You’ve earned it.”

“No, I haven’t,” I gave a sad laugh as I drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

I don’t remember what my dreams were entirely, but it kept going back to how I wasn’t able to give enough. I couldn’t catch Celestia, I couldn’t out-run Nightmare Sol, and I couldn’t push back the Ursa Major. It was as though I was playing my own personal fail montage dedicated to me, by me. Quite pathetic, I can assure you.

I kept going back to the words of The Nightmare. Her talking about how it would all come crashing down and ‘I would be part of it all.’ I knew that I had not caused all of it, but I could not deny that things would have probably would have been going much more swimmingly without me. Would the Nightmare have been able to pull off its trap (which, I’ll admit, I think it was just full of nonsense and trying to make me think it knew what it was doing.) if it did not have me as a motivational catalyst to spur Azure Flora into action? Then I remembered that it very well might have brought me here to do just that. Maybe I was just the ball that triggered the elaborate mousetrap, and it was proclaiming my presence as its herald simply because it used me to start the entire process. No doubt the worst part about dreaming, though, was where I was predicting how telling Luna about her sister would go. How I had just fallen short of what I needed to be to prevent it all from happening. In my nightmares, she cried and I wasn’t able to help this time because I had been the cause.

In my contemplative sleep, I didn’t wake up from Silverheart’s pokes and prods. Much to my displeasure, she gave up on regular prods and moved right on up to cattle prods. By cattle prods, I mean she used her damned taser hoof. I jerked and thrashed as I realized we had landed in Canterlot at the courtyard of the royal palace.

“Aaghghghghg!!” I cried before rolling away from her. “W-What is wrong with you!?”

“Behind you!” she cried, causing me to roll back over and spot a large, dark pony rearing up to trample my sorry plot into the ground. I gave a shocked, not-so-manly shriek (I WAS BOTH SURPRISED AND ELECTRIFIED, OKAY?!) before blasting it with a huff of fire. It evaporated as though it were made of a gaseous, sand-like substance and dissipated almost instantly.

“Oh. Thank Celestia. I thought you’d never wake up in time,” she breathed in relief, giggling a tad. “Nice scream. I think my little sister sounds more masculine.”

“I’ve got no problems leaving you here,” I warned her, blushing brightly as I got to my feet/hooves.

“She’s also very large, strong, and eats metal rivets for breakfast,” she assured me, nodding enthusiastically. “The pinnacle of masculinity.”

“You must have been a fine example for her to aspire to.” COUNTER SASSED! Silverheart just didn’t know who she was messing with, obviously!

“Nice. Now cut the smart-horsing and let’s get to the palace. No doubt Starlight will stage it as her base of operations,” she said, holding her front hooves out imploringly, silently asking me to help her up and out of the A.S.C.A.™

I stared at her for a second, taking that image in. She looked absolutely adorable, to be honest. I resisted the urge to channel my inner old lady and pinch her cheeks or something before giving her a grimacing smile, lifting her up and helping her onto my back. Her back legs looked pretty beat up, but I had a feeling the way of handling such things wasn’t the usual ‘pony is lame, gotta put’r down!’ response. I made a quick mental note to get her to a reasonably shotgunless doctor pony before I did anything else. Plus, I was looking for any excuse to delay speaking to Luna. Just thinking about it was taking the wind out of my sails, and they didn’t have much left to begin with!

I couldn’t guess the time due to the storming clouds above us, but it felt later in the afternoon and possibly nearing night time already. Thunder crashed all around us as we made our way back into the palace and much to my disapproval, our welcoming committee involved a Sky Archon tackling me. He had actually put himself in a precarious position, specifically behind me. I took advantage of that when I had heard Silverheart cry out in pain from having been dropped roughly. See, I had pent up a rather large amount of frustration by this point, and hearing a friend cry out because some pony was being stupid and/or paranoid had given me all the reason I needed to let some of it out. This release of frustration involved a fiery snarl and a back kick in said Archon’s face. A really hard one, surprisingly enough. He was out cold.

“Stop, stop!” Silverheart cried out as more of the less-than-lovable military ponies descended upon us, “Friendlies!”

Fortunately, they backed down. Which was good, because I didn’t want to get my sorry plot beaten into the dirt by some stupid ponies! Which is totally what would have happened! Promise.

“Lieutenant Silverheart,” one of the male pegasi called out as he approached. He was dark red with a spiky black mane and tail, sporting a set of narrow blue eyes, “You’re in no shape to be of any use. That’s… unfortunate.”

“No kidding, Hot Shot,” she huffed irritably as I helped her back up, “Thank Luna you’re so observant! And getting thrown onto a stone floor doesn’t help!”

“Hah!” another male pegasus laughed as he descended. This one was dark violet with a matching set of golden hair and eyes. His tornado cutie-mark was exposed with him having not worn any armor like the other Archons. “Poor Blue Rain got clocked the hay out! That’ll teach him to leap before looking!”

It took me a moment to place where I had seen this purple guy. He was one of the guards that Luna had used to try and keep me out before sucking up the internet like a damn data hoover.

“Shut up, Whirlwind,” Hot Shot ordered before nodding at us, “Bring Commander Starlight up to speed inside; should be in the Ball Room. If there’s anything we need to know, she’ll see to it that we’re informed.”

“Alright, I’ll handle that. Where can we get Silverheart some medical attention?” I asked softly, offering to help her onto my back again, though she didn’t seem to want to show such weakness to her comrades. How cute~!

“Nurse Tendercare is with the other wounded Archons in the kitchen,” he nodded at the Southern Hallway that led to the Ballroom. I nodded and began to simply help Silverheart hobble along by offering her something to wrap a wing around, even though I knew this was really a massive waste of time. As impatient as I could be at times, I would really take any excuse I could find to put off speaking to Luna. So naturally, I didn’t say anything and just let her lean on me for support.

I nodded as we approached the kitchen, and sure enough, there were a few Sky Archons laying on counters and tables. They looked perfectly fine except they all had black marks that resembled paint-like smears covering them. One had an entire wing covered in the stuff, and it had warped his wing to look sharp and jagged, almost. I noticed Cookie in the corner, feeding one of the patients to help make her more comfortable. I remember praying to whatever power listening out there that Sugar Dust wasn’t anywhere nearby. I really wasn’t in the mood to withstand being yelled at.

And after closer inspection, I realized the patient he was feeding wasn’t a Sky Archon at all. It was an Earth Pony. And she was covered in whatever that black inky crud was. Watching that really made my heart ache quite a bit. Even though I’d only been in Equestria for a few weeks, I can definitely attest to how much it bothered me to see unhappy ponies. And not only that, but Cookie was my bro. I mean, he and his sister hated my guts in a very special way, but he also fed me and that elevated him to the status of bromance. In fact, had I not been interrupted, I would have taken the time to become furious. Such was not meant to be, though, as I was quickly distracted by the sudden on-comer that was both eager and busy.

“Oh dear, an actual patient I can work with!” a red unicorn with a white mane galloped up to us and levitated Silverheart off my back, “Oh dear, that wing will need to be set, oh dear, oh dear~!”

Oh dear, indeed.

“Nurse Tendercare, I presume,” I asked as I followed both her and the floatingly irritated Silverheart.

“Yes, yes.” She nodded as she laid Silverheart on a nearby counter and began to examine her legs. “Oh dear, it’s not looking great, oh dear no. At least nothing is broken here, but... oh dear, I don’t see you walking for a while, my dear. Oh dear, I hope that doesn’t upset you.”

“She’ll be okay at least, right?” I was insatiably curious to see how ponies performed medical procedures. Do they operate? Do they cast a spell? Do they combine such techniques, creating magical icepacks and thermometers? Perhaps just a magic pill?

“Get outta here,” Silverheart groaned irritably waving me off, “Starlight is still waiting, genius.”

“Right!” I gave a grimace as I remembered what I was here for, procrastinating nonetheless.

Tendercare nodded before moving producing a large pill so large that I half expected her to tell me it was a suppository from absolutely nowhere in particular (pony magic is so subtle) and holding it out to Silverheart’s face, “Let us begin! Say ah!”

Silverheart gave a frustrated roll of her eyes before complying and getting a pill shoved in her mouth. This pill was pretty cool, simply because it made grumpy ol’ Silverheart go right to sleep and look adorable again. She was so pretty when she wasn’t scowling. I would say I wish we had pills like those back on Earth, but we do. They’re called Rohypnol or in a more technical setting, Flunitrazepam. Derps to you if you didn’t think of those right away.

“Best of luck, doc!” I nodded to her as I turned to leave, pausing only to glance back at Cookie.

Against my better judgement, I decided to trot on over to him and, y’know… just say hi. Anything to delay my dreaded confession with Luna a moment longer, right? He spared me a half a moment to nod at me as I approached, but said nothing as he continued to feed the poor pony covered in the ambiguous ink. Whatever that gunk was doing to her, she really wasn’t enjoying it. Her eyes were sorta glazed over and her breathing was shallow enough to be compared to the kiddy pool.

“Hey, Cookie.” I set a hoof on his shoulder. “You okay, bud?”

His lips tightened, but he didn’t say anything. He merely nodded and gave me an appreciative glance.

“How’s Sugar Dust? She okay, too? I know we don’t get along, but… y’know, doesn’t mean I don’t care and stuff,” I pressed a little more.

He blinked once, digesting that before turning to look away, seemingly crestfallen. “Ask her yourself.”

I thought he was being standoffish at first and really just wanted me to go away, which I started to do until it hit me what he was saying. The painted up pony that he was feeding. I didn’t recognize her through all the gooey black stuff. But it was Sugar Dust. Staring off at nothing in particular, only half-heartedly chewing the food served to her.

And that’s when it sorta hit me. That things were bad. I mean, I knew things were really bad before, but seeing it affecting somepony that I knew… I mean, I was struggling with guilt before, but that’s the point where my stomach just about turned over. This massive… failure of mine had consequences. Fallout that was quickly spreading to those around me.

Damn, that… that was a rough feeling. And I’m no stranger to harsh realities, trust me.

“You should probably go, Firewall,” Cookie murmured. “I heard Silverheart mention that Madame Starlight is waiting.”

Without another word or wasted moment, I took his advice and quietly slipped out of the room. I continued down the hall and yawned loudly despite the current heavy thoughts currently weighing my mind down. I had to blink several times to rid myself of the watery haze I had just inflicted upon my eyes, though I honestly wasn’t really paying attention to where I was headed. I just couldn’t get the image of Sugar Dust out of my head. I was so focused on what I had just seen that I didn’t even realize that I had walked right into the Ball Room, which was fortunately where I needed to be anyway.

“Welcome back, Firewall,” Starlight called over.

I blinked again, her voice snapping me out of my haze. I blinked a few more times and noted Starlight standing over a dining table nearby with a few maps spread out across it’s polished surface. She was in full armor and staring at me with an uncharacteristic concern.

“Huh? Oh. Hey, Starlight.”

“I… take it the situation is worse than we thought,” she surmised, letting out a sigh, “Seeing as you aren’t bouncing around like a filly.”

“Yeah, it’s… It’s pretty bad.” I coughed with a nod.

She frowned. “How bad, though?”

“Bleak. Dire. Grim. Here, uh… I’ll just give you the quick version. Trixie is working with an immortal Earth Pony by the name of Azure Flora as well as The Nightmare. Negotiations went nowhere and while we ran Trixie and Azure Flora off, The Nightmare has possessed Princess Celestia. It now goes by the moniker of Nightmare Sol,” I recapped, neglecting certain details that I felt did not matter for the moment. The more I spoke, the more shocked she seemed to be, “Captain Storm Wing is headed towards Ponyville to gather the ponies that defeated Nightmare Moon, and hopefully we’ll be able to reverse the effects of the possession. I’m here to gather Princess Luna and rendezvous with him at Appleloosa. Now what’s wi-...”

Interrupting me oh-so-rudely were a trio of pegasi crashing through the northern window. They quickly oriented onto us and dived in, shaking us both out of our dour stupor. They looked as though they were completely made of pitch and shadows with bright glowing golden eyes and wings made of razors instead of feathers. What was truly frightening was that their cutie marks were all like Celestia’s, only blood red in color.

I began to inhale to breathe at them, but Starlight blew them all away with a flap of her tiny pony wings, following up with a series of lightning bolts that were pulled in from the same window the intruders had crashed through. After each one convulsed for a moment, they puffed into a dusty black cloud that faded unnaturally fast. I blinked, now quite well aware just why Storm Wing had chosen Starlight as his Commander.

“Nicely done.” I nodded with a smirk.

“Been an Artillery Archon for a few hundred years. You pick up a few tricks.” She smirked right back. “These Shadow Ponies don’t seem to understand though, that they simply cannot have this palace.”

“Are they the ones causing those black marks on the ponies in the kitchen?” I nodded, smirking at her arrogant nature.

“Yes.” She nodded, her chagrin showing plain as day. “The black marks fade with time. They only last about ten or fifteen minutes, but they’re incredibly painful while they’re there. Also, if you get covered in the stuff, you... turn into a bigger, stronger version of the same thing.”

“That’s... creepy.” I grimaced, my mind going straight to zombies (Z-Z-Z-Zoooombie ponies?!), “Is it permanent?”

“Far as I know it doesn’t just fade with time, but it can be reversed,” she answered with a nod, “Cookie knocked one out with a frying pan earlier. It was his assistant that got... changed. Sugar Dust, I think her name is. Anyway, when she came to, she was just thrashing and resisting at first. She was one of the first to get caught by the Shadow Ponies and ever since then, he’s been lovingly fussing over her like a mother hen. Last I checked, the black stuff has been fading off of her and she’s been slowly changing back. When she started speaking again, we went ahead and untied her, but she’s been fading in and out so I really don’t know what to make of it.”

“Huh.” I tilted my head. “By the power of love?”

“Hay if I know.” She gave a wing shrug to show she was equally confused.

“How long ago did they appear?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as an idea formed within the back of my mind.

“A little over an hour ago,” she replied, biting her lip as she started to realize the very same thing. “That... was when... The princess...”

“Yeah. If I had to guess, I’d gather that these are from Nightmare Sol.” I let out a groan, nodding in agreement with her. “Just another reason to get out of here. You and the other Archons should come with us to Appleloosa.”

“Maybe eventually,” she countered shaking her head immediately, “We’re under orders to guard the palace and that should double as a distraction to the pri... Nightmare. Besides, most of Canterlot’s residents are in the library, hiding away from the Shadow Ponies. We have to protect them, especially with the Equestrian Guard at our borders. After we’re certain that the city is empty, I suppose evacuation will be our next order of business.”

“Oh, sh... I didn’t even think of the citizenry!” I coughed out an embarrassed laugh, “Okay, yeah, no, that makes sense. I guess... All I need to do is get the princess and rendezvous with Storm Wing, then. Silverheart will be remaining here until she has recovered.”

“I’ll spare you a few Arch-...” she started to offer before I interrupted her.

“I’m not trying to say they wouldn’t be an amazing asset to have, but it looks as though you’re having enough troubles on your own,” I pointed out, shaking my head to emphasize my declination. “The only thing that could likely stop us is Nightmare Sol and I don’t think a few Sky Archons are going to be of any help there. You would make better use of them than we would.”

She blinked before shrugging with a smile. “Very well, sir. I’ll trust your judgment.”

“Don’t call me sir, please?” I asked, grinning sheepishly.

“Don’t wear an Officer’s suit of armor.” She shrugged her wings (Ahhh... Nostalgic jealousy.) and winked. “Looks good on you, I should add.”

“Actually, I just look good no matter what I’m wearing. Just so you know.” I replied with a chuckle.

She let out a short laugh and socked my shoulder. That helped. Just making a little joke and seeing someone smile really took the edge off the burden that was plaguing my mind. With that, I took a deep breath before looking down at the armor and sighing wistfully. “Yeah, as cool as it is, could you... help me get it off? I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be doing a lot of running and this only makes it that much harder. Not to mention I’m running on just an hour of sleep.”

Then came the reality check.

“And while she’s doing that, you can tell me everything that has happened,” I heard a distant voice call out softly.

That good feeling that I just described. Boom. Gone. With one sentence, Luna had sent me right back to a world of worry and anxiety. I glanced her way as she began her descent from the highest balcony, her wings fluttering a tad as she landed.

I was happy to see her and all, but I certainly wasn’t smiling in the slightest. Her expression was one of worry and fear, as though she could tell something terrible was amiss and that all she was waiting for was a confirmation from me, “Start from when I went to sleep this morning, Firewall.”

At first, I was just going to summarize everything for her, but she stopped me and had me go into detail. Starlight was indeed gracious enough to help me out of the armor as I recalled everything that had happened. I spoke of Trixie and her short-lived attack, but it wasn’t until I told Luna about Azure Flora and the Inmanipulon that she began to show worry. When I told her of how she demanded I be sent home or dealt with in some other fashion, Luna scoffed, seemingly insulted by such a demand. Finally, I got to the Ursa Major, how The Nightmare was magically controlling it, and eventually getting to how we had lost the battle when Princess Celestia became Nightmare Sol.

“Which is why Storm Wing is in Ponyville, and I’m here to collect you. I was going to bring the Sky Archons, but they have to protect Canterlot and its citizens, especially with Nightmare Sol creating all these Shadow Ponies,” I finished, my voice flat and lacking inflection. A cripplingly numb sensation had set in, and I could hear a soft ringing in my ears as I spoke, muffling all other sound. I was avoiding looking at her, feeling considerably at fault for being unable to give more in the fight. I was certain that Celestia wouldn’t have been so weakened if I had just been able to push the monster back a bit further. I would never know for sure, of course, which gave me no real comfort. I simply had a feeling that I had fallen short of what was needed, and the consequences were dire. I was glad I had Starlight to focus on as she helped me out of my armor, but her task was not indefinite and eventually, I had no reasonable excuse to not look at the pony I was speaking to. So naturally, while the sensible thing to do would have been to look at her, I did not. I simply stared at the floor instead.

“Firewall?” She knew something was up. Hell, I wasn’t being very subtle by that point.

“Yep?” I gave a small snicker, watching one of my hooves scrape at the floor. I think I might have some crossed wires upstairs, because all I was doing was finding the dark and terrible humor of the situation. Funny thing about dark and terrible humor? It’s not funny when it’s real. My laughter sounded hollow, I know, and Luna wasn’t buying it. That didn’t stop me from laughing, though.

“Firewall.” she took a step closer, causing me to involuntarily take a step back. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“Well, you know. It’s just funny, is all,” my voice cracked right there at the end, “You know, it’s... It’s Equestria. A great place to be, right? I mean, every guy like me just has that dream, even just once in passing. ‘What would it be like to actually go to Equestria? I bet it would be fun! No responsibility, no nagging family, no bills, no killing. Just good times, fun jokes, silly shenanigans and all around utopia, right?’ Nothing serious ever goes on here.”

“Firewall.”

She took another step forward, causing me to once again take another back from her. I didn’t want to face her. I was struggling so badly with what I was saying and how inadequate I felt that it quite literally affecting me on a physical level. The ringing was getting louder and the desire to just stop existing right away was peaking hella bad.

I finally rounded off the pity-party with the big guilty admission. “At least... At least, not when I’m here, right?”

I know it was stupid, alright? I know deep down that I wasn’t directly responsible for everything going on. I know that The Nightmare was purposefully causing all of these things to happen. I know that I should not be letting Nightmare Sol get to me. I knew it and all that knowledge meant nothing. I still played my part.

Rather than take another step, Luna just jumped forward and caught me by my neck, wrapping her wings and hooves around me as I fell to my knees, “Stop it. Just... take the good with the bad, remember? And don’t let the bad get to you.”

I don’t know if this happens to everyone or not, but have you ever just been holding it all in? Just squeezing down this big emotional weight and been doing a perfectly good job of it until someone who gives a damn happens to come along and ruin it all by doing something small? Like maybe setting a hand on your shoulder? Or patting you on the back? Or just hugging you and telling you it was going to be okay? Because, despite your ability to hold it all in, that dam of emotion shatters because you just subconsciously realized that the someone that broke it is going to help pick up the pieces while you let it all out? It’s happened to me a few times, to be sure, and being able to see it coming only makes it twice as hard to experience.

Twenty-three, just a few days from twenty-four years old, and I was doing nothing but burying my face into Luna’s shoulder as tears poured out. I was silent except for the occasional sniffle. I had only cried like this once before in my life and that was when my mother had to tell me that I can’t help people that don’t want to be helped. For what seemed like the next half hour, I just quietly cried, soaking Luna’s fur coat and shivering with every shaky breath. Not my proudest moment, I’ll admit. I will say though, that having somepony that could understand what I was going through allowed me to actually get through this without curling up and wishing myself away. Luna’s entire perception of life had been shaken apart by seeing my world, having been unaware of the consequences. The only differences for me was that it was taking me longer and hitting me harder.

After I began to wind down, Luna decided to make an attempt to cheer me up, “I think that’s one you can mark off the brony checklist. ‘Cry on a pony.’”

I snorted, a tad unprepared for the levity before nodding a bit and standing back up as we broke apart. After a few seconds of composing myself, I decided to give her a counter-joke, “Achievement Unlocked: Thiiis~ is Cryyyyiiiinnng~~!”

Luna gave a snicker before gasping, “Oh! We’re going to meet the rest of them, aren’t we?”

I blinked before smiling tiredly and nodding. I looked around, wondering if Starlight had watched the entire breakdown and was somewhat relieved to discover she had taken her leave, though she was likely nearby in case we came under attack.

“Yeah, but... You’re not upset about Celestia?” I murmured, sniffing one last time as I wiped at my eyes.

“Of course I am.” She glared at me as though I had asked her the stupidest question ever (Okay, so it might have been quite up there.). “But the last thing I need to do is fall apart. Especially since the one I keep around to fall apart on is falling apart on me. And being possessed by The Nightmare doesn’t mean she’s lost. It just means we have to gather the Elements of Harmony and thrash The Nightmare.”

“It... just feels really horrible.” I mumbled pathetically.

Luna gave a snort before hugging me one last time, “Good with the bad, remember?”

“Right!” I nodded and swallowed that sadness down like a dry peanut butter sandwich before rearing up and yelling out as I slammed my hooves down, “Hah! Time for a cigarette!”

She rolled her eyes, “If it will help, I suppose. How soon are we leaving?”

I turned to look back at her dumbly as I considered the question, a Mareboro having already made its way to my mouth, “Ummm. As soon as you’re ready. Or after this cigarette. Whichever comes last.”

“Well, unlike humans, we don’t have to pack for every little thing,” she said with a laugh and a nod, following me out to my favorite garden bench.

“Oh, so you’re a reference guide to human culture now,” I teasingly mocked before lighting up, “Did you google that or something?”

“I can’t google anything,” she said with a raspberry.

“Oh?” I took a long, relaxing drag before tilting my head, “How’s it work then?”

“Basically, it’s like I have access to an archive of the entire Internet from that date.” She gave a wing shrug, “What, did you think I received updates?”

“Maybe!” I laughed for a bit, “You could have jumped onto some pony blogs or something! Maybe set up your own authentic AskPrincessLuna blog!”

“Oh, and start doing crossover asks with other AskPony blogs?” she suggested, smiling brightly at me.

“Maybe AskBerryPnuch, even!” I had almost forgotten about all the terrible things that were happening, just having a fun time talking about such trivial matters. I started laughing in earnest, finally letting the dark thoughts that had been clouding my mind flow out of me.

“Want to know the worst part? I can’t see the new stuff he puts out!” she began to giggle with me, “Seriously, I still struggle with the reality that we’re just a television show to humans.”

“Hah. ‘Just a television show?’ I can think of several bronies who would take offense to that,” I replied, sitting on the bench with a yawn and being struck with a pressing question. “Serious time, Luna. I need to ask you something.”

“Hmmm?” she narrowed her eyes a bit inquisitively, but nodded nonetheless.

“Which is your favorite pony?” I asked with a huge smile. “Most people pick one of the Mane 6.”

She blinked before laughing out loud, somewhat caught off guard, “My favorite pony? Heh. Well, it’s not one of the Mane 6, though if I had to choose one of them, I’d definitely go with a tie between Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.”

“That’s not choosing one of them at all,” I pointed out with a smirk. “So which one is your favorite, then?”

“I thought that would be an easy guess.” She looked off into the stormy skies, smiling ever so slightly. I thought she was trying to get me to look up there with her, but when I began to turn, she just laughed at me.

“You’re losing me, Princess,” I stated with an overly serious nod.

“Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about it.” She started to look guilty of all things, biting her lip and looking down.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I tilted my head, now looking a bit concerned, “Is this about... Celestia?”

“Well, it... I mean, I don’t want to seem carefree. I’m just doing as you said.” She sighed, looking up at me, “Not letting it get to me.”

“And doing a better job than I am, too.” I took a drag and nodded, “It’s not as though we can do anything right this instant. As horrible as it is...”

I looked up at the thundering skies and sighed softly. Grimacing, I found myself just wondering what could have been different. What could have been done to change something. Anything, really. But I quickly shook it off, taking my own advice for once. My mind steeled, I looked back at Luna and scowled to show my resolve.

“We won’t let this be the beginning of the end.” I said.

A short nod from her and a scowl later, she murmured, “Of that, you are right, Firewall. I can promise you that.”

I suppose this is where the big heroic speeches go, but uh… Yeah, I’m not fast enough on my feet or my hooves to get that kind of ball rolling. I always know generally what I want to say, but not precisely if you catch my meaning. Instead I just sort of stood there, scowling at Luna, who, in turn, scowled right back. I’m not sure how it turned into a scowl off, but it did. Just the two of us, standing there, scowling harder and harder, stepping a little closer each time. It got to the point where if I arched my brow any further, my face was either going to get stuck that way or my eyebrows were going to break loose and fall all the way down to my chin. But Luna? Whew! Talk about scowl master. I swear, if she squinted any harder, her eyelids were going to end up pushing those big pretty eyes of hers right into her brain.

So yeah, that went on way, WAY longer than it had any right to. Just imagine two people, standing around for about forty seconds or so having the absolutely derpiest staring contest ever and that should about sum up that entire situation. Eventually, one of us cracked, we won’t say who because I never crack, and it devolved into a fit of laughter, surprising no one. Which also took a while, but to be straight with everyone, it was sorely needed. Upon winding down, we both continued to just sorta… stand there, somewhat winded but certainly uplifted.

“I think, we may in fact, be the silliest ponies ever,” I pointed out, rubbing away at the moisture all that laughing had accumulated just under my eyes.

“I won’t disagree,” she replied before letting out one last chuckle. “Well, at least we can always laugh, even in dire straits.”

“Pretty sure that’s the best thing we can do at the moment,” I pointed out before pausing at hearing my own words. “Unless… We shouldn’t be goofing around and should instead be making with the leaving.”

As though we had conjured up the purple pony of impatience, Twilight appeared with a flash and what sounded like a whip being cracked. I jumped a little, just saying.

“Jesus!” I wheezed, “You got a volume knob on that thing, Twi?”

“Yes!” she nodded enthusiastically, shaking off what seemed to be disoriented spacial leap lag (not to be confused with jet lag!), “Come on, we have to leave right now, you two!”

“Why the rush?” I said, hopping up as I glanced back and forth between her and Luna, “Is something wrong?”

“You mean besides the shadow ponies, my sister possessed, and your emotional breakdown? No, I can’t say much else could be going wrong at the moment,” Luna droned sarcastically, “Twilight Sparkle, I take it you’re here to fetch us?”

Starlight suddenly struck down beside us with a thunderclap. I was blinded, deafened, and pretty damn irritated after I got my heart to settle back down after it had jumped up into my throat.

“WE HAVE COMPANY, EVERYPONY!” she shouted as the entrance to the palace bursts open.

“Oh no!” Twilight cried out as a few dozen Shadow Ponies poured forth, barrelling straight for us.

That’s when Mister Freeze the Pony stepped out from behind them, his glowing blue eyes aimed directly at us from behind his helmet. My blood ran cold (I sense a recurring joke) as I turned to look at the others, “I’m going to run. The rest of you can make up your own damn minds about this.”

With that, I took off for the courtyard on the far side of the castle. Sure, we would have to run all the way around, but I figured that was better than trying to fight off thirty or forty Shadow Ponies plus Frosty the Snow Pony. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought this was a good idea, because the others were hot on my tail. Except for Twilight. Do you know why? Because she had suddenly remembered she could teleport. So rather than spend her time running about, she simply began to blink forward several yards and cover our retreat with spells. One day, if it were at all possible, I was going to get her to teach me how to do that.

“Capture the Human! Capture the Princess! Convert the rest!” I heard his voice echo out above the commotion. I looked back at Luna as she flew by my side and grimaced. I had no clue why they wanted us, but I did not want to find out, either.

Starlight put a hoof to her mouth as she kept pace and whistled loudly, the shrill sound echoing over the chaos. I glanced back to see Freezey the Pony closing in on us way faster than I’d have ever guessed, just to be grounded mere seconds out of reach by a red and black pony. Hot Shot had literally dive bombed that sucker right into the ground going at speeds that I had only seen pulled off by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Suffice it to say that Chilly the Frosty Grey Giant seemed out cold (Ahahaha~! I kill myself!). I could relate, having been soundly trounced by Storm Wing. Sky Archons just have this tendency to not give a damn just how big you are as they’re beating the hell out of you.

“Gotcha, you giant freak!” Hot Shot shouted before stomping on the back of his head and leaping off into the air before the surrounding Shadow Ponies could take hold of him.

“Nice one,” Starlight called out, smiling back at her partner. I know, I never mentioned that, but that didn’t come up until much later.

I loved the Sky Archons for being so cool. Had I not turned to look ahead and spot a second crowd of Shadow Ponies headed my way, I would have cheered as enthusiastically as a trailer park on day one of NASCAR. Predictably, though, cheering was the last thing on my mind.

“We’re very popular today,” Luna said with a groan as we all came to a halt, “I really wish you could fly.”

“Me too!” I agreed before breathing a wall of flame between us and our interceptors, “Now what?”

I looked back to watch Starlight begin to crackle with energy as she covered our backs, unleashing a barrage of lightning from her wings and forcing the pursuers away, lest they be destroyed in her furious display of power. After several seconds of this, both us and our attackers were at a stand off. The Shadow Ponies couldn’t approach without being destroyed, and we had nowhere to run without... … leaving me. Damn, I am like the Buzz Killington of action scenes, am I not!?

“The question still stands!” I called out, turning to fry a shadow Shadow Pony that was able to survive a leap over the fire.

That was when that massive frosty bodyguard got back up, shaking his head a bit before growling and approaching us, slowly at first. The Shadow Ponies scrambled to make way for him as he picked up speed, and those unfortunate enough to not react quickly were crushed and dissipated by his determined charge.

“There is no way!” Hot Shot cried out as he landed beside Starlight, “I practically dented my armor when I hit him!”

“You’re supposed to dent him!” Starlight gave a snort before slapping his flank with her tail, “Run him over, Sword Archon!”

Hot Shot seemed a bit hesitant at first, but nodded after considering it for less than a second, “Affirmative.”

And suddenly the game of pony chicken was on with two pegasi running at one another in complete disregard for their own safety! Starlight took to the air just behind Hot Shot and quickly threw a powerful gust of wind that blew all the Shadow Ponies out of the way before diving at the two pegasi still aimed at one another. She tucked into a spiral and within seconds, was trailing a storm-like tornado she passed onto Hot Shot just before the collision.

Today was a day for loud noises and bright flashes in great abundance. I’m desensitized to them these days, to be perfectly honest. You can’t go anywhere with a Sky Archon (much less two) without a pair of sunglasses and a set of earplugs unless you planned on going without two of your five senses. I bet you they sell those in package deals for unfortunate ponies that have to spend extended amounts of time with them. If not, then I have a grand business idea that everypony needs to invest in right now. Anyway, I’m way off track; the point is that the collision was loud, bright, and epic. All ponies had been knocked back by the force of the collision. I was fortunate enough to catch Starlight. And when I say catch, I mean she crashed into me as though she had been shot out of a canon.

“Had to be me. You couldn’t have fallen on Luna, could you?” I groaned as I pushed her up off me and got to my hooves before staring at the result of the collision, which was most definitely not epic at all. Both Hot Shot and Ice Pony had been knocked out. The difference was that the bigger of the two got back up and the smaller pegasus was already being swarmed by Shadow Ponies.

“No!” Starlight tried to go after him, but I caught her by the tail. I was going to tell her that it was a lost cause, but she started the conversation by kicking me in the face after realizing what was stopping her, “Let go of me!”

“We have to leave!” Twilight shouted as she portaled away an oncoming group of Shadow Ponies.

Now, I don’t seem to learn my lesson, because I didn’t let go, and she kicked me in the face again. I still didn’t let go, and had I been less dizzy with hoofprints, I’d have considered making the Shadow Ponies the least of her worries. As it were, though, I was so close to being knocked out that I could hear children laughing and Santa Clause proclaiming a merry Christmas to all.

“Commander Starlight! Stop!” Luna shouted as Twilight shielded us all in a lavender transparent shell, allowing me to let go finally.

“Hot Shot!” she screamed as the Shadow Ponies began to back away from him. When they parted, there was a Hot Shot shaped Shadow Pegasus in his place. A large one that still wore the armor of Hot Shot. Everypony watched as the Shadow Pegasus stood upright before staring down at its hooves. It then threw its had back in an emphatic, yet inaudible cry, calling black lighting to strike down all around. The icy pony approached, looking down at it for several seconds before speaking.

“Shadow Archon,” he said with an approving nod.

“Can we all stop watching!” Twilight begged loudly, shaking us all from the frightening scene.

“Well, what do we do!?” I cried looking around as the Shadow Ponies began to close in, “I keep saying, ‘Now what!’ but I never get an answer!”

“Now, we get creative!” Twilight said with a nod, lowering her horn and creating a magical shimmering violet bridge over the Shadow Ponies. Luckily, these seemed of the Earth Pony variety, so our only concern rested with Ice Hoof and his newly minted Shadow Archon.

“MOVE, STARLIGHT!” I shouted at the Commander who continued to stare, horrorstricken at Hot Shot. “You’ve still got a princess to protect! Not to mention me!”

When she didn’t immediately respond, I bit down on her mane and started forcibly dragging her. It didn’t take long for her to finally start making tracks, but it didn’t come before a choking sob squeaked out of her. Luna and Starlight took flight as I jumped onto the ramping bridge and ran for dear life.

I was charging over it as fast as I could, wishing I had been in better shape for all this running. Fortunately, not wearing all the armor did help tremendously and it was also a forward moving bridge, like one of those flat escalators that roll you forward. The best part was that Twilight allowed perhaps twenty or so of those ponies to jump onto the bridge before she dropped what was behind her, causing them all to crash to the ground. Even through all the fear and excitement coursing through me, that was very amusing to watch.

I continued to look over my shoulder and spotted both the Shadow Archon and Freezy McFrostPony take flight. They were closing in, and fast. Fast enough that I started to say something, but Starlight looked at me and must have seen my panic. Immediately, she spun about and began flying backwards and flapping a torrent of wind their way. Maybe they could have flown through it if they were more prepared, but nopony expects (the spanish inquisipony!) a hurricane gust out of a small pegasus.

“Starlight!” Luna cried out, as she whizzed past me and Twilight, “Come on!”

Starlight ignored her as she continued to cover us our retreat. I stopped to turn and yell, but Twilight was quick to jab my plot with her horn.

“Don’t you dare stop! Move it!” she ordered, refusing to look at what was distracting me. I guess this is why they always say to not look back. It’s definitely distracting.

The Shadow Ponies jumped at us in futility. They weren’t even close to closing half the distance, but you had to hand it to the persistent little bastards. They knew what they wanted. They were so focused on getting at me that they didn’t even spot Twilight, who had teleported ahead of everypony and began focusing, causing her horn to glow brightly. This, in turn, caused the bridge to fade away, causing me to wonder just what the hell she was thinking as I plummeted.

If I had been paying attention and looking forward instead of down, behind me and everywhere else except forward, I would have noticed my salvation long before it got to me. As it were though, I was entirely caught off guard by Luna the SuperPony. I’m not sure why she doesn’t wear a red cape to show how heroic she is, but that was all she was lacking when she whipped around the corner of the castle with the A.S.C.A.™ and caught me mid fall.

“Starlight!” Twilight cried out, her eyes shut as her horn began to flash like a beacon, “M... Out of the way!”

Starlight looked back, her eyes widening as she suddenly bolted out of the way. As soon as she was clear, Twilight unleashed a wave of multi-hued light that washed over the Shadow Ponies, dissipating them as it moved. As luck would have it, both Frosty and the Shadow Archon formerly known as Hot Shot flew out of its path. I did note that they did not chase us at least, having given up for the moment. I flopped down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if this was when I would finally get a chance to rest.

“I’ll never look at ponies the same again,” I said with a tired sigh as Starlight landed on the carriage with us, “What about the other Sky Archons?”

“They’re evacuating the citizens,” Starlight said with a nod, turning to watch the opposition fly away, “They’ll be alright. I... … Hot Shot.”

“We’ll get him back, Starlight,” Luna said, setting a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder.

Twilight teleported onto the Carriage, panting heavily, “That was very... very scary. I thought running from a hydra was scary. That was...”

“Would that it were just a hydra,” Starlight laid down and shut her eyes.

Twilight grimaced a tad, looking to us for support. Mostly to Luna, though. I was busy fading in and out of some much needed rest.

“Wake me when... it’s my turn to drive,” I told everypony with a loud yawn, only to be spooked by a thunderous crash of the dark clouds above us, “D-Damnit!”

“Here,” Luna took us up through the clouds as Starlight flapped her wings, pushing a hole in them. A few moments later and we were beyond the tumultuous racket. The night sky was beautiful from up here. I’d seen it a few times while flying coach, but in the Sky Carriage, it just seemed so much more... real. Like I could reach out and touch it.

“Not a bad job with the night sky, Luna,” I said with a tired, yet mystified smile, “Mmmm... Goodnight.”

I heard Luna snort a bit before feeling a hoof stroke my mane a tad. I’m sure I purred or something, because I heard them laugh at me. With a yawn, I finally began to submit to sweet, sweet slumber before taking one last glance at the lovely scenery surrounding me. I spotted a rainbow up there, prancing through the sky and snickered tiredly as I shut my eyes.

Then I realized what I had just seen, “What!?”

I jumped up and dropped my jaw as I stared in complete shock.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Twilight commented, following my stare, “How long has that been there?”

“That’s a recent addition,” Luna informed us all proudly, “Just last night, actually.”

“Luna, is that what I think it is?” I asked, too blown away to think about sleeping for the moment.

“I dunno, Firewall,” she replied, stifling the urge to snicker, “What do you think it is?”

“It looks like a pastry with a cat head leaving a rainbow trail,” Starlight observed, arching an eyebrow, “That was intentional?”

“Jesus H. Christ, you put Nyancat up in the Equestrian sky?!” I cried before bursting out into a fit of laughter, “What is wrong with you?!”

“You don’t like it?” she seemed genuinely upset by my reaction.

Fortunately, she realized my mirth was not of mockery, but was of appreciation which caused her to smile happily. For the next several seconds, I was laughing until it hurt all over. This was a good hurt. I liked this kind of hurt, though, even if I was the only one experiencing it. Luckily, I have an infectious laugh that soon had both Luna and Twilight giggling, and even had Starlight chuckling softly before too long, shaking her head at me. After I wound down, I dropped back to the floor of the carriage and sighed.

“Thanks, Luna,” I gave one last yawn, “I needed that.”

“Anytime,” she answered softly, giving one last snicker as I laid down my head..

“Goodnight, everypony,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes.

And just like that, I was out. But not before getting a subtle message from a certain Stupid Bird.

“Well done, Stephen.” I heard Tisiphone whisper as though she were right beside my ear. “We’ll speak soon.”

Oh goody.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading, fillies! TOTES APPRECIATE!

Don't forget! We are streaming a hilarious run of Season 2 Hardcore Diablo 3 on at http://www.twitch.tv/dunktimusprime @ 9:30 EST / 6:30 PST

Chapter Ten - Part One: If I Had To Choose Between Lucky and Luna, I'd Commit Sudoku

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“Do humans normally sleep this long?” I heard a squeaky voice ask, abruptly removing me from my state of slumbery goodness.

“Blergh,” I blerghed.

Somepony poked me. That was rude. Super rude.

“Humans are varied in just about every fashion. Some will only sleep four hours a day. Some, like this fine specimen turned pony, take much longer.”

That was Luna. Nagging me about all the sleep that I rightfully deserve. Ugh.

I opened my eyes, somewhat surprised that I had experienced an entirely dreamless night for once. Maybe I was getting used to all this insanity? God, I hope not, I thought to myself. I’d hate to see what the long term ramifications of would be. What wasn’t surprising was that we were still travelling on the Sky Carriage, hauling flank towards Appleloosa. One bout of pendiculation later, I lifted a hoof up to rub away the eye crud that had accumulated in my time of sweet and blessed rest. Also, whoever decided to name said crud ‘sleep’ was dumb.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” I heard Luna’s voice from behind me as she gently pat my head. I looked around to see that it was still in the dead of night. “Sleep well?”

“I think I slipped into a coma, actually. It was the best coma ever. I need more comas like that in my life,” I replied, nodding lazily as I rolled to my hooves without standing up just yet. “How long was I out?”

“Oh, about half a day.” Twilight was just to the side of me on the carriage, lounging as I was. “I went to sleep after you and woke up before you.”

“Well, that’s because no one beats me, Twilight. I will always be the best at sleeping.” It wasn’t easy getting that sentence out of my mouth before I yawned. “And what’s this nonsense about the moon still being in the sky if I’ve been asleep for so damn long?”

“Well, I haven’t put the moon down, of course.” She gave a smirk before nodding at the distance, pointing out the moon still hovering above the horizon.

“So... What? Do we need the cover of night or something?” I tilted my head, not quite understanding.

“Well, right now it’s to limit Celestia’s power,” Luna pointed out. “Which, in turn, limits The Nightmare as well. So I’m holding up the moon to keep her in check.”

“What does… holding up the moon have to do with anything?” I asked, scratching my head with a hoof. “Does that, like, keep the sun away somehow?”

“Of course it does, Firewall,” Twilight said with a laugh. “The sun and moon are like matching ends of a magnet. They push each other away.”

I looked at them as though they were crazy. I just wanted to try it on for size to see if it was fun. Because… Well, everyone else does it to me, so I figured there might be something special about it, but no! Ponies just don’t know how to handle me and seem to fall back on that as a reflex.

“There was no reason that should even remotely work.” I was blunt, I was honest, I was flabbergasted. “Luna, you know how such things work now, right?”

“I know how they work where you come from... But there is no denying that the sun and moon push each other away. In fact, if they weren’t bound to Equestria, there would be nothing stopping them from flying away,” she said with a nod, smirking at me. “Why do you think Celestia had to send me away when I wouldn’t lower it? Because, she had to raise the sun, and she couldn’t do that with Nightmare Moon interfering.”

That… That nonsense was grounds for a cigarette. Thusly, I retrieved one without ever taking my eyes off of Luna and stuffed it in my mouth as indignantly as I could.

“That’s stupid.” I decided.

“Stupid or not, that’s how we roll,” Luna clarified with a bright smile. “What, did you think she sent me there for a thousand years just because I was misbehaving?”

“Maybe!” I supplied.

She gave a laugh. “Seriously? Sorry, Firewall, but despite all the Trollestia content out there, nothing could be further from the truth. My dear sister did what she had to do, and it bothered her for a very, very long time.”

“Yeah. Because she’s a reasonable, sensitive pony, not to mention pretty cool.” I gave a nod before looking at Twilight before giving her a hoof-poke. “RIGHT, TWI?!”

“Yes, yes. The princess is certainly amazing.” Twilight chuckled as she rattled her head in agreement. “You’re pretty wired, I see. That nap really did help, I take it?”

“Well, I always was a morning person. Can’t lie: I feel like a million bits!” I called out eagerly before hopping up and lighting my cigarette, moving to the side of the carriage to prevent smoking on anypony, “So, how far are we out?”

“At our current pace? Mmm…” Twilight summoned an astrolabe, sextant, and a few star charts. After a bit of compass work and using the stars as a locational reference, she nodded and unsummoned all of it. “… About six hours.”

“Road trips. Cool, I can handle it.” I nodded before doing a quick count and looking about frantically. “Hey! Where’s Starlight?!”

“She’s left to meet up with the train from Ponyville,” Luna answered.

“Yeah, they probably need her more than we do,” I reasoned aloud. “It’s a good thing you showed up when you did, Twilight. If Luna had goofed off any longer, we’d have been up to our manes in shadowy ponies.”

“Hey!” Luna protested, but I ignored the mess out of her.

“So how did you get back with that no-casty-the-magics rein on your face, anyway?” I pressed.

“It… Remember the Sky Archon that tried to arrest you back at Ponyville?”

Yeah, that was a pretty memorable experience.

“The green one?”

“Yes. Th-”

“The one that crashed into me with the very awesome carriage upon which we ride?”

“I… Yes, that one. Well, sh-”

“And then proceeded to tackle me out of the air and dig a trench with my face. With my face, Twilight.”

“... … Yes. That one.”

“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. Why, was she cute?”

Luna was just sputtering at me with this… incredible urge to laugh. Not with me. No, she were holding in the urge to laugh at me. Because the deep-seated trauma was clear on my face. Oh, I remembered. Lucky the Green Destroyer would forever be a source of nightmares for me. Forever. The grass and dirt… Never forget.

“Well, by purely random chance, she happened to be flying by on patrol and spotted me,” Twilight continued, completely unperturbed by my traumatic reaction to her question. “Also, she’s… very strong. It hurt quite a bit, but she was able to bite onto the inmanipulon and tear it off like it was nothing.”

Twilight frowned as her gaze lowered just a skosh. “If I had been quicker, we might have been able to make a stand. But truth be told, I was just desperate to get everyone to safety after what happened at Ponyville.”

“Why, what happened in P-ville?!” I let my jaw drop, eyes wide with all the fear for ponies in the world.

“Trixie led the Shadow Ponies in an attack on Ponyville. We lost… erm… A few of us were captured. I’d never seen anything like it before. Never heard of it anything like this, even. I thought… … Lucky did what she could, but she couldn’t be everywhere at once. It was really fortunate that just before matters could get worse, Storm Wing arrived and made short work of the remaining Shadow Ponies. Trixie was forced to run away, but not before she started blabbering about her masterful plans for some reason. She let slip that soon Canterlot would also be under attack, and that Luna would be their prisoner within the hour. She didn’t know that I could teleport, I guess. A good thing, too. And if I had been slowed for any reason… You both could have ended up like… like...”

“Like Hot Shot,” Luna pointed out with a bit of a timid grimace.

We all stood in silence for a moment. None of us knew Hot Shot especially well, but that didn’t mean we didn’t care. He had saved our plots, sacrificing himself in the process, and I had every intention of doing whatever it took to help get him back to flying on the good side. I can promise you, Twilight and Luna felt likewise.

“Hey, let’s not dwell on it. He’s just on ice until we fix everything. And I mean everything.” I finished my cigarette and set a hoof on her to show support. “Don’t get caught up in the ‘What-Ifs’ or you’re going to drive yourself crazy. Trust me, I know all about that. Remind yourself that because you were there in time, Luna and I get to spend another day with free will.”

“Actually, I arrived there several minutes before. I was simply helping the Sky Archons organize an efficient evacuation plan before finding you two.” She modestly looked away but still gave away a tiny smile. “Luckily, they seemed to be specifically after you both, so the evacuation went off without a hitch. I just checked up on them a little while ago. The Canterlot citizens are all on a different train to Appleloosa as well.”

“Does Appleloosa know we’re about to triple its population?” I asked with a nervous chuckle. “Is there going to be plenty of space for everypony?”

“Please. There will be enough of a workforce to help make plenty of room,” Luna said with a roll of her pretty blue eyes. “I know this will blow your silly human mind, but we create buildings in hours and towns in days. I can’t believe it takes you all several years for a town to properly begin flourishing.”

“Woah.” I blinked again. “And here I thought China was awesome for having built a single skyscraper in six days. Ponies are amazing.”

“Yes, but you already knew that,” Twilight gave me a knowing wink.

I gave her an odd look before looking to Luna in confusion. She blushed a bit before smiling sheepishly. “We’ve been talking. I might have mentioned a few things. Such as irrigation.”

“Okay...” I gave a fearful nod. “But that’s not all, is it.” (Note: That wasn’t a question. I was not asking. I was making a statement. Because I knew the answer.)

“And maybe a few things about human history. Nothing bad, though!” she promised me, her smile becoming more and more sheepish and more and more nervous.

“For some reason, I am not feeling a sense of relief.” My eyes were widening already. In fact, it was a sense of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM that was setting in.

Then she mumbled something under her breath that I didn’t catch.

“Speak up, princess!” I ordered, my eyes only getting bigger.

“May have... mentioned TV,” she tried to make it sound nonchalant. Guess what? SHE FAILED MISERABLY!

“You didn’t...” it was like getting hit with a bucket full of cold water. Then getting that bucket dumped on me as I writhed in agony.

“And MLP:FIM,” she blurted out, blushing brightly.

“Luna!” My mind began to blue screen. Errors popping up! IT DOESN’T COMPUTE!

“And maybe a few shipfics!” she cried out, taking advantage of my blown mind to get the entire confession out.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Emergency switches were going off. The pressure was critical. If my skull had escape pods, my brain might have abandoned ship. As it were, it was forced to deal with it. Much to my displeasure.

“And the human fascination with nudity. And the imaginative ways to portray it.” She went for the Coup de grâce.

“Thhhbbbbbbtt~!” I blew a raspberry (Obviously I’m reverting to childhood responses.) because my mind was already overloaded. It was in the middle of a reset, and the ability to arrange vocabulary into audible sentences fashioned in a grammatically correct pattern was still quite out of order.

“Don’t worry, Firewall. I now know why you weren’t so quick to divulge everything to me, and I understand. You were just being cautious on my account, and I’m touched by your concern,” Twilight replied in earnest, trying to make the entire situation feel nonchalant. “It’s a human cultural activity. Strange as it is to me, I do not judge you for your ways. It was how you were raised, after all. May I ask a question, though?”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.” I was shaking my head. “In fact, I’m sure I’m going to regret this. Go on.”

“Do humans not have multiple genders?” Twilight looked very serious. In fact, if she had not looked so serious about it, I’d have thought she was making a poorly executed joke.

“I cannot fathom how you came to wonder such a thing, but yes. Males and females. Just like ponies.” I was still shaking my head, not wanting to think about where this was going.

“I’m just... confused. Usually, ponies... um... ‘pair up,’ I suppose, with their opposing gender,” Twilight said with a contemplative gaze.

“Oh man, I don’t like where this is going,” I said, starting to become quietly horrified. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh. Well, it just seemed... A lot of... speculative fiction was,” Twilight was starting to blush a bit as she spoke, “revolving around... A lot of female-only pairings.”

“I noticed that as well.” Luna looked at me with an amused smirk. “Why is that, Firewall?”

“Oh just… shut up, Luna,” I groaned, causing her to burst into a fit of laughter.

Twilight gaped, somewhat shocked that I was being so direct and familiar with Princess Luna.

“But I’m curious~!” she faux-whined in between her snickering.

I facehoofed. “No, you’re antagonizing. There’s a big difference. Look, Twilight... Best to describe it like this: Humans think of everything. And I mean everything. The human imagination runs wild. If you can think of something, there’s likely a human who’s taken it four steps further and put his ideas into some form of media that you can find on YouTube.”

“What’s YouT-...” she started to ask me before I cut her off.

“Skip it.” I shook my head, “That’s going to be an extremely long line of questions on an entirely different subject. And you can alwaysask Luna anyway, right? But I digress, the simplest way that I can put it is that you’re a popular medium in modern human culture, which means there is nearly endless amounts of ways to speculate on every unanswered question about you. Including your romantic preferences on everything from whether you like colts and/or fillies down to if you have any interest in Fluttershy.”

Twilight blinked, utterly stunned by that last part. “Y... You mean...?”

“Ummm... I didn’t mention anything about her ships, smart guy.” Luna held a hoof in front of her mouth as she began to laugh yet again.

“W... What?!” I began to panic. “Twilight, ignore what I said!”

“H-How can I!?” she shook her head, “What... That’s just... I don’t have time for a... relationship! I’m too busy... with studies and... Oh... Humans are so... weird! I thought Pinkie Pie was strange!”

“Okay! Let’s just drop this subject!” I cried, still panicking. Hell, I even broke out into a sweat. “Humans are strange! That works! Let’s just go with that! I am more than okay with shouldering that burden if we just forget about this subject. Right now.”

I looked at Luna. She was still sputtering mirthfully. I gave her an annoyed stare, which only made her erupt into an uncontrolled guffaw. Reflecting back on this, I think it’s fair to say all she needed was trollface.jpg printed out on paper and taped to her face to complete the effect. It took her nearly an entire minute to calm down, but that didn’t stop her from staring back with a huge shit-eating grin on her face. Apparently she forgot there was only enough room in Equestria for one smart ass.

“Okay. We’ll drop it,” Luna said, still smiling as brightly as the sun on the other side of Equestria.

Nopony said a word for the next several minutes. We just busied ourselves with doing unnecessary activities until the tension finally deflated. Just as I turned to say something, not patient enough to fly in silence for so long, Twilight actually slipped the first word in.

“So... Who am I often paired with?” she asked, trying to look halfway uninterested. Now, keep in mind, Twilight actually sucks at lying, so her half-flanked attempt at disinterest was about as transparent as a window with no glass.

“BWAHAHA!” The damn indigo alicorn actually lost control of the stupid —I’m sorry, A.S.C.A. you’re not stupid… I take it back!— carriage as she doubled over in laughter. We began to plummet, causing me to panic for an entirely new reason as I clung to the side of the carriage. Twilight snatched control of us, the terror of the situation about as apparent on her face as it was on mine. After a full two seconds of stabilizing our fall and another second for us unicorns to breath a sigh of relief, I pressed my face into the side of the coach and just whimpered.

“Kill me. Just kill me now,” I murmured, my words drowned out by Luna’s rambunctious laughing.

“Hahahaaaa~!” That was Luna, naturally.

“Princess, please, I’m not sure what’s so funny, but please, let’s not let that happen again.”

She tried to agree... or disagree? Hell, maybe she just laughs funny… Hell, I don’t know. All I could tell that despite whatever Luna wanted to do at the moment, she was much too busy laughing so hard that it looked painful. And it took a few minutes.

“See, Twilight,” I pointed out with a sigh, fetching about cigarette. “This is my life. You got Celestia and all the good natured magic training in the world. I got this.”

“Oh… Oh sun and stars…” Luna gasped, wiping at her watering eyes. “My tummy hurts…”

“Well, it’s your face that’s killing me!” I hollered, pretty bitter with the situation.

“Oh yeah? Well, Twilight, why don’t you ask Firewall here about the Human’s taboo fascination of Clopping.”

“You monster,” I breathed, my blood suddenly running cold.

“Taboo fascination? What’s-” She started to look my way and inhaled to genuinely do exactly what she was told but stopped the moment she realized that I was giving her the most horrified stare she’d likely ever seen me give. “Oh. I… I take it you would rather not talk about it.”

“Twilight, your powers of deduction have served you well this day. And if you ever regarded me as a friend, you will never bring it back up.”

“Aww, c’mon!” Luna nudged Twilight with a very deliberate smile that was just too wide to be healthy. “Want a hint?”

“Princess, please, can’t we just-”

“It has something to do with the human reproMmph~!”

I may have tackled Luna and smacked a hoof over her muzzle.

“Twilight, darling, I’m going to now throw Luna off the Carriage. Yes, I’m aware that she has wings and that this won’t amount to much. But it’s not about winning, Twilight. It’s about sending a message.”

And so I threw Luna, who was cackling like a maniac at the time, straight off the A.S.C.A.. And yes, she came right back with her stupid wings and picked right up from where she left off. But for those few seconds of silence. All was right in the world. But everything after that… Questions like:

“So, what’s so… alluring about the human tongue? Is one tongue more attractive than the other…?”

“So humans have wars with each other, right? How do you assure historic accuracy if only the winner is left?”

“Wait, so humans don’t have purple hair? … At all? How do you differentiate from each other if you all have the same five hair colors? And does the hair match all over?”

“Humans use the Golden Ratio to subconsciously attract themselves to a mate!? That’s… There’s something very… Wow, I just don’t know what to say! So wait, I recently did a study on where you can find the Golden Ratio on a lot of pony anatomy. Does that mean you find us attractive? … … W-What do you mean no? … … I’m not… ugly, am I?”

And it was like that for SIX. MORE. HOURS. I will tell you all, Twilight doesn’t have many flaws. In fact, she’s just got only three that I can name offhand. The first is that she’s obsessive compulsive to a fault on certain matters. The second I will tell you later. The third? She is insatiably curious and has no inhibition when it comes to learning anything about anything. I’ll just skip the details and let you know that it was a difficult six hours. I’d never been so happy to see Appleloosa in my life. Which made sense since I had never seen it in person (in pony?) before.

Now just to set the scene, (I really wasn’t interested in taking it in at the time, I was just ready to get away from those two) we all know what Appleloosa looks like by day. Multiply its population, though, and it’s a mess with a rainbow of ponies running everywhere. There were dozens of ponies swinging hammers at buildings and workbenches, all to accommodate their new guests and more to come. I’m sure I would have reflected on just how... perfectly communist it all was if I wasn’t so preoccupied with my upcoming getaway. In fact, I’m pretty sure George Orwell wrote a book on this.

“LAND!” I jumped off the A.S.C.A. and what was quite possibly my least enjoyable sky ride ever, “SWEET FREEDOM!”

With that, I ran away from Twilight and her incessant queries. I know I’m not a perfect pony to be around, but man, you get Twi started, and she can not stop. I mean, she tried. She really did. But Luna was there every time to toss in a subtle comment to get her started on something entirely new. It was the greatest trolling ever. She was a master troller. A pony has no business being such a master troll. The only thing she didn’t do was look at me and go U MAD, BRONY?!

“I’m sorry!” I could hear Twilight calling out to me apologetically, though it was difficult to make out between Luna’s gasps for air.

In my mad dash to escape, I was tackled yet again. Like, I’m not sure how Equestria says hello, but I’m pretty sure it involves some NFL level contact. Why a hoofshake couldn’t suffice is still beyond me. But yes, I was systematically smashed into the ground by a pink organism with pink hair and a pair of pink... NO! Blue eyes! Yes, it was Pinkie Pie, hugging me so hard that the intensity was matched only by the volume of the excited squeal that soon followed. My reaction was to try and get the number of that bus that ran me over. The local department of transportation would hear about this if it was the last thing I did!

“NO-NAME!” Her thrilled shriek pierced the air, causing everypony in Appleloosa within a two block radius to stop what they were doing and smile. “Now we get to NAME YOU!”

Now, I’ll have you know, I didn’t panic. I calmly waited out the throttling hug. And by ‘calmly,’ I mean flailed madly, and by ‘waited out,’ I mean as I nearly blacked out from lack of air from.

“Pinkie. Princess Luna named me already,” I broke the news to her as plainly as I could (wheezing breath notwithstanding), refusing to beat around the bush. Only because it was the only thing that I could think of that would get her to let me go long enough to breathe.

Much to my delight, she stared dumbfoundedly for a moment, slackening her grip around my neck long enough to process that thought, which was also long enough for me to get a few vital breaths in. Now, I was expecting that she might be a little put out by this news, and that we might have a Pinkamina moment, or just explode in a pink jealousy rage. The last thing I expected was for her to gasp before hugging my neck with the strength of Hercules yet again.

“That means you’re hers now!” she squealed, bouncing as she dislocated my vertebrae in her titanic embrace. “I’m so HAPPY FOR YOU~! She can afford the really expensive scratching posts and *GAAAAASP~!* All the CUPCAKES YOU COULD WANT~!”

“Pinkie,” I squeaked as my vision began to lose focus, “I’m happy, too. Let me go.”

“Okay!” she laughed as she released me before honking my nose (which was shockingly gentle, I might add). “Honk~! What did she name you?”

“Firewall,” I coughed out my answer as sat back.

“That’s great! Is it a wall made from fire?” She stuck her tongue out at me sarcastically. “What does it mean?”

“It mea-” I started to say.

“Wait until I tell the girls!” she interrupted me before turning around and running down the street.

“Ummm... Okay.” I scratched my head as I watched her fade into the distance. I continued on down main street and turned into what looked like the local watering hole. My first thoughts were actually pretty silly, like…

Oh man, I hope they serve a bitching martini; I’ve not needed a drink this badly in a long, long time.

Then I came back to reality and realized that this was dumb. Which is to say I came back to pony reality. Ponies don’t drink liquor. There’s never been liquor in the pony world. Who would do that? That’s stupid.

So with all that said, I flopped through the door and began scanning about for familiar faces. Found one, but it was a dumb face. Of that there was no doubt. Storm Wing.

Damn. Oh well, one can’t pick their friends noses and all that.

I trotted on over to him, halfway distracted by the fact that my hooves did not properly clop along the wooden floor.

“Salutations, Firewall,” Storm Wing murmured as I approached, able to see me without even looking my way. He gave a half-hearted wave, causing his armor to ring a tad when he set his hoof back down.

“Hey Storm. Listen, I need a second opinion: Can you hear my hooves?” I asked, not even looking at him. (Like he would care, right?)

“No. Can you hear your hooves?”

“Nah, dog.”

“Well, if they’re your hooves, and you can’t hear them, then it’s a pretty safe bet that no one else can hear them.”

I started to reply, but was interrupted by my pony-shoulder-thingy getting punched.

“Hey there, tough guy!” cried Rainbow Dash, having appeared out of nowhere. Like a magical pony. See, if I could have heard her hoofsteps, the surprise would have been less… surprising, I guess.

“Dash, no!” I whined as I turned her way, rubbing the spot she offended, “I still hurt all over.”

She smiled brightly before popping the other side faster than I could react. “There, now you’re evened out. And hey! Congrats on your name, Firewall!”

“Thanks!” I gave her a large goofy grin, holding up my hoof, which Dash laughed at before brohoofing me in the epic fashion that only befits two awesome ponies.

“You just get in?” she asked as she looked back at the barkeep. “One juice for my friend here.”

“Yeah. Pinkie caught me and tried to name me. I had to break the news that she missed out and that Luna gave me a name, although that only seemed to excite her even more,” I explained as I took hold of the cup of juice Dash was serving me. I noticed that Storm Wing was being awfully quiet. “Thanks, Dash!”

I knocked the glass back with a smile and felt a rush of nostalgia. I’d not had apple juice since I was a pre-teen.

“Huh? But Pinkie was there when Twilight told us.” Dash looked a tad confused, furrowing her brow in response.

“Ah, you made the classic blunder of assuming Pinkie Pie was paying attention,” I pointed out, not surprised by this in the least.

“Hah! Yeah, I guess that ain’t a safe bet!” she snickered with a wing shrug. “Oh, Pinkie Pie.”

“Mmmyes, one might say she is… so random,” I finished for her, causing her to start laughing with concurring nod. I looked again at Storm Wing, chuckling along with her before glancing at Rainbow Dash.

She caught my glance and looked back at him before nudging him with a wing. “C’mon, Sparky, it’s okay to relax during serious times. Laugh a little or you’ll end up crying instead!”

I resisted the urge to laugh at Rainbow Dash's choice of relevant monikers. It wasn’t hard to resist, however, after seeing that he wasn’t being his usual stiff self. I mean, Storm Wing being silent is just another day. Him being unresponsive was just a good day. But him showing an actual degree of visible dismay… Well, that was another thing altogether. I leaned about to look at him from the side to see that his expression was a sad one. Dash gave me a wing shrug before deciding to give us some dude time. Not that she didn’t belong in any bro circle. In fact, I’m pretty sure Rainbow Dash is more fitting in your typical bro circle than most bros are.

“I’ll catch you guys later. I’m going to go see if Starlight needs another cider.” She excused herself before smiling at me as she left. “Good to see you again, Firewall. By the way, tell Luna I approve of the name!”

“I’ll just smack her upside the head instead,” I half murmured to myself as I waved goodbye to Rainbow Dash.

I suddenly remembered that Storm could probably hear such privately spoken words and glanced his way to make sure he wasn’t about to hit me for saying such things. It was kind’ve a flinch, even. Like I was pre-wincing for the oncoming smack upside the head. But it never came.

Now more than a little perturbed, I turned back to Storm Wing and began gently poking him with my hoof. “Hey.”

“Hey,” He said quite plainly. “Glad you’re okay.”

“You alright?” I asked, ignoring his attempt at smalltalk.

“Yeah.” he shut his eyes and sighed.

“We’ll get her back, mate,” I reassured him, shaking my head at the barkeep pony (I wish I had asked his name. It was probably something cool like Wet Whistle or Sarsaparilla) when he gave us an asking glance, wondering if we needed another drink.

“The last time The Nightmare took an alicorn, it lasted for a thousand years,” he murmured as his ears drooped.

“Well, Nightmare Sol won’t even make it to her first birthday, I promise.” I set a hoof on his shoulder.

He faced my general direction before inhaling deeply. “Right. You’re right.”

“You don’t sound convinced.” He really didn’t. I was then struck with a thought that I blurted without thinking, “Storm Wing, have you ever even failed in a task?”

“What?” He opened his eyes, confusion now splayed on his visage.

“Have you ever been defeated? Or failed to carry out a mission?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Not... Not really.” I was surprised to hear him say.

“Never?” It seemed a little too far fetched for me to swallow. “One thousand years and you never met a dragon you couldn’t bring down? Or had to retreat?”

“Well, retreating isn’t failure. Just a delay until victory,” he said earnestly, “and no, dragons aren’t very fast fliers, and when you fly faster than the fire they breathe, they’re quite a joke. Phoenixes are the worst, really. They've long memories and longer talons.”

I couldn’t help but feel he was exaggerating, at least a little. “Whatever. Repeat what you just said?”

“Phoenixes have… long memories?”

“Seriously, man? You think there’s something significant about phoenixes in what we’re talking about?” I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see it. “You know what I’m talking about.”

He blinked before letting a grin spread across his muzzle. Finally, he gave a chuckle and nodded. “You’re right. We’ve just retreated. It isn’t over. Victory has been delayed.”

“That’s right. We’ve taken a victory raincheck. And while that sucks, we’ve not lost; we’ve just put some distance between ourselves and our opponent, aka our victim,” I chuckled before hearing the bell at the door ring loudly. Curiosity provoked me to give it a glance before groaning, “Damn it all to hell.”

“What?” His eyes narrowed as he focused, trying to sense what I was seeing.

Luna was at the door with Applejack, walking towards the bar. Fortunately, her demeanor had changed from TROLL TEH FIREWALL to rather serious and determined. But in case anyone was wondering, no, that did not mean I was ready to play nice with her. I mean, six… hours. HOURS! HOOOUUURS!

As they approached, I did my best to ignore them, but Applejack seems to have never heard about a thing known as Volume Control, so pretty much everyone in the saloon got to hear her half of the conversation.

“An’ Braeburn says we should be able t’house everypony fer today, but we’re needin’ to chop down some’ah the orchard to take care’ah the ponies from Canterlot. Ah think they’ll fuss about the uh... rough livin’, though,” Applejack explained as she smiled over at me, acknowledging me with a nod as she continued to speak to Princess Luna. “Ah gotta say though, between you’n Twilight managin’ matters, things’ll be goin’ swimmin’ly, Ah reckon.”

“Swimmingly is the goal we’re shooting for.” Luna stared through me, pensively murmuring her reply, “Go ahead and take whatever you need from the orchard and clear as much land as you need. Tell your cousin he’ll be compensated as soon as order is reestablished. And if any of Canterlot’s citizens give you any grief, you send them straight to me. I’ll straighten out any pony that thinks he or she is more deserving than anypony else.”

“Your highness.” Storm Wing turned to her with a bow. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Likewise, Captain. And… just Luna will do.” She huffed before looking to Applejack once more. “Any other questions?”

“No, yer highness,” she replied instantly, not thinking about what Luna had just said.

“By the light of... Did you not just hear what I said to Storm Wing here? You call me anything but Luna again and I’ll have Storm Wing give you combat training for a week.” She facehoofed as she shook her head. “And trust me, I’ve seen what the Sky Archons go through. There’s a reason there have only been fifty Sky Archons in a thousand years.”

“Everypony cries on their first day,” Storm Wing pointed out with a smirk, supporting Luna’s argument. “Everypony.”

“S-Sorry, Ma’am... Um... Princess Luna! Ah... Luna!” Applejack looked rather intimidated, her face turning red. I was rather surprised. The only time I’d ever seen her sweat was when Pinkie Pie gave her that god-awful stare.

“That scare you, Applejack?” I asked with a laugh.

“Well... Shoot yeah! Ah saw’m fight off that big-headed showpony, Trixie!” She nodded vigorously. “It was none too kind, neither! She’ll be rubbing the bruise off her cutie-mark fer weeks!”

“Nothing but a stupid unicorn with a load of chaotic magic. She doesn’t even know how to use it properly,” he scoffed, a bit of his pride showing through. “Honestly, you probably could have taken her on your own, Applejack, strong as you are.”

I was getting all kinds of offended hearing Storm talk garbage about the best pony in the world, but they continued the conversation before I could butt in. Which is probably a first, or something.

“Well, uh... Ah’m not much fer fightin’,” Applejack blushed a bit more as she stammered. Her modesty was quite endearing. “Anyway... Ah’ll see everypony later. Ah need t’help get everythin’ ready for the ponies on their way. Good t’see ya again, Firewall. Be grateful an’ such. Not everypony gets named by the princess, after all. Ya’ll stay safe, now.”

“Trust me, she’s made up for it with other shenanigans.” I waved at her as she turned to leave. “Peace AJ!”

We all watched her leave for a moment before Luna spoke up, looking back my way with a smirk, “Still bitter?”

“I am so bitter that you could probably use me instead of black coffee to wake you up in the morning,” I huffed irritably.

“Awww, but you seem so sweet~!” she teased before laughing, glancing at Storm Wing. “Did everypony make it?”

“Yes, your highness,” he responded with an affirming nod.

“Storm Wing,” she cut her eyes his way, “what did I just tell Applejack?”

“As long as I am your Captain, you will be my Princess.” His voice sounded as though he was willing to get in a fight over the matter.

“I’ve no problems promoting Starlight, you know. At least she can drop formality when I order her to.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but I could tell that Storm Wing didn’t find it funny either way. It made sense that they had conflicting personalities. After all, Luna isn’t formal in the least, and Storm Wing was nothing but strict order and discipline.

“Woah, woah, woah.” I stepped in between them as Storm Wing set his jaw, ready to hash it out on the spot. “Really you two are being stubborn on a stupid matter. Let it go. Storm Wing, learn to relax when ponies are trying to be relaxed. Luna, don’t escalate something so pointless just because somepony feels strongly about an idea that opposes yours.”

“Butt out,” Storm Wing growled as Luna stepped around me.

“This doesn’t concern you, Firewall,” she snapped at me before looking at Storm Wing, her eyes narrowing in determination. Her voice had suddenly shifted to a higher volume and a stronger tone, “Are you questioning my orders, Captain Storm Wing?”

It suddenly came to me that she sounded almost exactly like Celestia. Like her sister, she was showing that she could leave no room to argument, but I could tell Storm Wing was not able to tell just yet.

He glared for a moment before lowering his eyes and bowing yet again. “No, your majesty.”

“Then you use my name when I tell you to. You’re an example. If my own Captain doesn’t follow my orders, then why should anypony else,” she clarified, her voice still firm and above reproach. “Do you understand?”

I blinked in shock. Luna really knew how to step up to the plate whenever she needed to.

“Yes,” he replied, remaining bowed.

“Marvelous. Now, how are you today, Storm Wing?” she asked, raising her head and staring down her nose at him.

“I am not doing well... … Luna,” he answered forcibly, looking as though he was going to be sick.

“Hey.” She cantered over to raise him to up. Without warning, she suddenly pulled him into a hug, catching everypony off guard and for several seconds, nopony said anything. Even all the other bar patrons were staring at the two of them in shock. Their nosiness shook me from my stunned gaping, causing me to glare at them all. I don’t like nosy people or nosy ponies!

“Do any of you ogling rubbernecks have bloody camera?! Because a picture’s going to last a lot longer,” I shouted at them, causing all of them to quickly go about their business, somewhat ashamed of their own snoopiness.

“Thanks, Firewall,” Luna murmured before breaking the hug and looking down. She began whispering softly, “Look, Storm... We know I’m not used to leading. I could barely manage to train Firewall on how to use unicorn magic. It was like chewing nails, trust me.”

“Hey!” I was offended, to say the least.

She ignored me completely. “I’m going to need your help. I don’t know if you can tell or not, but I’m actually scared out of my horseshoes. I just... You took care of my sister while I was gone... And now I need you to take care of me as I do my best to fill in for her. Please.”

Storm Wing’s stunned expression faded into regret before steeling itself in determination. He nodded with a dire look on his face. “I’m sorry about the attitude, your... Luna. I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to help you and nothing less.”

“Thank you,” she said with a deep breath, sighing it out and giving a yawn. “I need a rest. I’ve placed a spell to hold the Moon in place. If it starts to move, come wake me up.”

“Sleep well, Luna,” Storm Wing offered politely.

She smiled at him then looked to me expectantly.

“Still bitter,” I reminded her after a moment of awkward silence. “Like. Maximum bitter. So like go tuck yourself. In bed.”

“But,” she pouted, sticking out her bottom lip expectantly. I had to look away. Even if she was a primary source of annoyance, she had mastered the art of the cute and undeniable pout through thousands of years of having used it on Celestia. “Pleeaaase?”

“Now why does he get the magic word and I get the royal talk down?” Storm Wing huffed irritably.

Because Screw You, Captain Storm Wing! (S.C.S.W.C. 11)

“Shush,” she ordered before looking at me one last time. “You’re going to hurt my feelings~!”

“Jesus, I sure hope so.” I let out a humorless laugh. “I’d get behind them and suplex the hell out of them if I could.”

“Hey!” I heard a small voice come from beneath me. We all looked down to see a tiny yellow pony with red hair and a large pink ribbon in the back. Luna and I both gasped, recognizing her right away. “Ya’ll kin give th’princess due respect! She’s just askin’ fer a ‘good night’ after all!”

“Applebloom! It’s so good to see you again!” I gasped, going parallel with the floor to look her straight in the eye. “You are ADORABLE. Wait… If you’re here… Where are the other crusaders!?”

“Oh, they’re here!” She sarled, entirely unprepared for such familiarity, “Ready to strike if ya’ll don’t start showin’ proper reverence! What’d she ever do to you?”

That’s a big word for a such a tiny pony.

I was barely able to restrain myself from squeeing at her. Luna proved she still had no self control in that department and had to cover her mouth with a hoof as she cackled. Storm Wing looked down at the little filly and promptly turned back around to the bar. Somepony doesn’t like kids. Me? I love kids that are right around that six-year old stage, especially when their parents actually had the balls to keep them straightened out and such.

“Loads, little Bloom. Loads of things,” I muttered gravely. “Things that you couldn’t possibly stand to hear. In fact, it may comes as a surprise to you, but Princess Luna is a real jerk. Fact.”

“Y’all can’t call the princess a jerk!” she protested, glaring at me ADORABLY.

Naturally, my reaction was initially to pick her up and run around the room with her in the air just out of impulse. I was barely able to refrain from such a display, but it was harder than I thought it would have been. But I’ll be real, the only thing that stopped me was realizing I didn’t have hands to hold her up whilst running about… But if I’d been in my normal body, I’d have been sprinting around with a flailing pony for, like, hours or something.

“I just did. Whatcha gonna do about it, tiny?” I taunted with a big smile.

“Cutie Mark Crusader Princess Defenders!” I heard two small voices cry out from behind me and before I could look, it was on. I had Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo on my back, jumping up and down on me as Applebloom grabbed my face in an attempt to wrestle it to the ground and hold me there. Fortunately, they were doing absolutely no damage with their endearing efforts, but I let them think they were. Kids are cool. With a false cry of strain, I rolled to my side and let myself be ‘pinned’ to the ground.

“Blergh!” I blerghed.

“Well done, Crusaders!” Luna cried out after a minute or so of laughing at my expense (I am still not allowed to win, I see). “Let’s see if he’s willing to cooperate now.”

“You’re such a pushover, Firewall,” I heard Storm Wing comment as I was released from the tiny assault.

I got back up, feigning injury before sighing and looking at Luna. “Well, Luna... It seems I’ve been defeated. Curse you and your protectors.”

“Watch it!” Scootaloo growled warningly.

“You cannot talk to the princess that way!” Sweetie Belle declared, cutting a glare my way.

“Right! Now ya’ll apologize an’ wish her a good night! Or we’ll give ya more’a the same!” Applebloom threatened, waving a clenched hoof at me. How she managed that, I’ll never know.

“Well, Firewall?” She smirked arrogantly behind her damned wall of cute and cuddly defenders. “Let’s hear it.”

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and steeling myself for what was to come. After a moment of consideration, I simply shook my head. “Nah! You’ll have to beat it out of me!”

“Oh, I am next in line as soon as they’re done,” Storm Wing offered as the Cutie Mark Crusaders charged me again.

I leaped over them, smiling at Luna as I ran past her. I did whisper as I passed by, though, “Good night.”

“You cannot run from us!” Sweetie Belle cried out as I made for the door.

For the next few hours or so, I exhausted myself running from the Crusaders. We entertained a lot of ponies with our nonsense, running around like a bunch of idiots. Being nearly five times their height, there was no way they could keep up on hoof, so they started getting creative. This involved splitting up and heading me off. I answered by ambushing loners and putting them in buckets that they were too small to get out of or putting them up on high surfaces that they couldn’t easily get down from. Then they tried using the scooter and wagon, to which I used the wheel’s greatest enemy: the stair. Eventually, though, I ran out of will and simply flopped over in the middle of a grassy patch just on the edge of the apple orchard after another foot race. Much to my fortune, they were equally beat and merely proceeded to poke at me lazily as they made their demands.

“Ya’ll... thought ya’ll... could git away.... eh?” Applebloom panted through her words.

“Now, yer... gonna get it,” Scootaloo swore to me, lazily flopping across my shoulder. “I’ll... hold him down.”

“Good job... Scoots...” Sweetie Belle likewise lounged upon my neck, giggling a tad, “Do you... surrender?”

“Well, okay,” I said with a tired laugh. “But I’m... not getting up for... a few minutes.”

“F... Fine,” Applebloom agreed to that, sitting back against me, her breath still coming in gasps. “Ya’ll... kin take a br... break.”

“But don’t... don’t expect us to go easy on you,” Scootaloo mumbled lazily.

“Of course not,” I snorted softly, staring at the closest apple tree for no particular reason. “I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never sass the princess ever again.”

Hah! HAHAHA! … Ahh… That was such a lie.

“Did we... get our cutie marks?” Sweetie Belle asked, too tired to look herself.

I chuckled again, inhaling the scent of the sweet apple orchard and smiling. With the moon in the sky, it was actually rather easy to see everything. The beautiful stars twinkled down at me, and the troubles of Nightmare Sol and Azure Flora seemed so far away. This is what Equestria is supposed to feel like, I told myself. A soft breeze floated our way, carrying a bit of a chill, and the Crusaders all shifted away from it a bit. It wasn’t long before I heard Scootaloo snoring, and I realized I had become a bed.

“Great,” I murmured lowly, craning my neck to look at them. Surely enough, they were all passed out. I smiled and gently lifted them all up with a bit of unicorn magic before placing them on my back after standing. With the utmost of care, I began to walk back into town, thoughtfully keeping the air around me warm on their behalf. As I made my way back in, I quickly remembered I had no idea where to go. I wandered about for a bit, looking for a familiar face. Thankfully, I found a pair of said faces, but was a little hesitant. It was both Miss Rarity and Fluttershy sitting under a table umbrella with a candle illuminating them as they sipped at their beverages.

I had to pause for a moment, taking that image in. I’ve no clue what they were getting at with the umbrella; were they trying to beat the heat or avoid a moon burn? It was night!

They were sipping at what I could only assume was tea. I steered my approach to come up behind Fluttershy. Rarity spotted me and gave me an odd look, but I held up a hoof and shooshed quietly. She was confused, but amicable enough to agree. I slipped up behind the yellow pegasus and leaned over to whisper right into her ear.

“Boo,” I said suddenly, causing her to jump and squeak a bit in shock. I laughed quietly as she turned around, panting a bit in fear, “You’re going to wake them up, Fluttershy. You’re such a loudmouth.”

“Oh... It’s you!” Her exclamation, while excited, carried the decibel strength of a mouse’s heartbeat. She smiled at me and nodded, turning to Rarity with a quiet giggle, “Rarity, this is the one Twilight was talking about.”

“Firewall, she said?” She smiled after I nodded my confirmation. “It is quite a pleasure to meet you. How do you do, my good gentlecolt?”

“Splendid, milady,” I answered with a polite nod, speaking softly. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I can... drop off this cargo, would you?”

“Awwww~!” Fluttershy was quietly examining the crusaders, gently brushing Scootaloo’s hair and causing her to happily moan in response. “They’re such angels~!”

“I’ve just the place in mind,” Rarity said with a pleasant smile. “I should thank you for occupying them. I was afraid they would get in trouble or disrupt some pony’s hard work.”

“They’re so cute~!” Fluttershy cooed to no one in particular as she continued to feed her inner Squee.

“Nah, they just need some attention.” I gave a nod before looking myself over, grimacing at how sweaty and dirty I was. (YES, I’D BEEN BATHING FOR THOSE WHO WERE WONDERING!) “And I need a bath. Badly.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t going to be rude and make assumptions,” she said with a strained smile. “I suppose you have no place to stay.”

“I figured Luna would...” I started to say before I was cut off.

“Princess Luna,” she reminded me, “and I’ll take that as a no. Come with me, then. I’ll see you shortly, Fluttershy.”

“Awww.” Fluttershy was saddened at the prospect of leaving the crusaders, but she nodded and smiled nonetheless. “Just as well. I need to get back to finding the animals their homes while they’re here.”

“Trust me, Miss, she hates the formality. She’s... more practical than that,” I explained, trying to think of a way to tell Rarity that Princess Luna did not behave like a princess at all.

“You sound as though you’ve spoken with her.” she smiled, looking back at me as she led me through the streets to one of the recently constructed homes. The difference between this house and the ones directly beside it was that the wood had been polished, sanded, painted, and decorated from top to bottom in ribbons, etchings, and greenery.

“Oh, Twilight didn’t explain everything, I see.” I gave a chuckle as we entered.

Rarity looked back at me as she began to scan about her home for something, “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m the human that appeared the same time the crater did. Went to Canterlot, and Luna decided I needed to learn how to use magic like a proper unicorn.”

Really, it was the quickest explanation that I could have come up with.

“Oh, that dreadful thing,” she gave a haughty laugh. “What an eyesore, don’t you think?”

“Days upon days of lost sleep, milady,” I laughed as I rolled my eyes. She smiled at my humor, taking it all in good stride.

“Where were you at that time, anyway?” I couldn’t help but be curious.

“Oh, I was actually in Canterlot, fashioning a few new dresses with Hoity Toity,” she replied nonchalantly as she sighed in frustration, still searching for whatever it was that eluded her. “The gentlecolt has an eye for spotting fashion, and an even better one towards marketing such beautiful work, but I must say, he’s not much of a designer himself.”

“This really isn’t fazing you in the least, is it?” I was smirking, amazed at just how interested she seemed without being enthusiastic about the situation. Then it hit me that she was doing so intentionally, to which she confirmed with her response.

“A lady must keep her composure, my good sir. It’s all fascinating and certainly frightening, I assure you, but I’ve learned that a pony must keep her wits about her if she’s to make any progress.”

“You know... You’re the toughest pretty-girl, ever. Props to you, Miss Rarity,” I said in all honesty. “You’re actually something of a popular culture icon where I come from, and are admired for keeping such poise and grace, even under pressure.”

“Why thank you, Mister Firewall, your homeland already sounds wonderful,” she feigned modesty with a hoof covering her cheek just as she finally found what she was looking for. “Celestia’s tears, that’s where it was!”

She yanked a furniture sheet out from under her couch, tossed it into the air, and let it billow out with her magic before settling it back over the couch.

“Please, just Firewall. So, you’ve been here all of what... a few hours? It looks as though you’ve spent days decorating just the walls,” I proclaimed as I looked about. Not a drop of paint was out of place, nor a bit of sawdust adorned her floors. Her colors of warm pink carpeting and stark white walls blended well, and I could tell that she had gone out of her way to acquire a special thinner for her paint. I could smell that very particular resin that my uncles had sworn by, proclaiming anything not made with this certain plant or tree or whatever was not worth the time (Yeah, I kinda tuned them out when they got to talk about the exciting world of PAINT. HOLD ME THE HELL BACK!).

“Well, it is my gift after all. Here we are.” She beckoned me over to the couch and one by one, we transferred the somewhat dirty crusaders from my back to the couch. They were so small that they weren’t even slightly crowding each other’s space, but after a moment, they inched their way to one another, piling up like tired puppies.

“Heavens, I must confess that they’re absolutely darling when they’re not conscious and making such a fuss,” she admitted with a smile, running a hoof over Sweetie Belle’s mane. “They must have been such a trouble.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Kids are fun,” I told her with a confident smile. “Nothing to it, really. You just have to remember how to be a kid.”

“That doesn’t sound very... mature, if you don’t mind my saying,” she teased with a soft titter before moving to the closet and bringing me a towel. My first thought was that Rarity had done her homework for hitchhiking across the galaxy.

“Well, a wise man once said, that the desire to be an adult is a child’s way. A healthy and maturing child’s way, mind you, but a child’s way nonetheless,” I began to roughly quote C.S. Lewis. “As you grow to become an adult, though, you set away childish things, including the urgent desire to be an adult.”

“Why... I never thought of it that way,” she looked somewhat surprised, mulling over the profound words. “What else did this gentlecolt say?”

“He also said that one never truly possesses anything until they can give it away,” I gave a chuckle, wondering if she would get the philosophical implications.

“I see... That... actually makes perfect sense. If one is unwilling to part with their possessions then, in a way, it is more as though that one belongs to their possessions,” she mused aloud. It was my turn to be stunned, this time at how quickly she had thought it through. I’ve met hundreds of people that still think all C.S. Lewis meant was to just start giving everything away because he was a drug addicted author. Before I could comment on how much she had impressed me, Rarity rushed me along, “And speaking of possessions, you will find my washroom behind you. It’s very clean and you may use whatever you like, but I simply ask that you put everything back where you found it.”

“Thank you, Miss Rarity. You truly are the Element of Generosity.” I gave her a sweeping bow, simply because I was aware that she would appreciate the somewhat dramatic effort.

“Not at all, my dear. After all, you saved one of my best friends,” she shushed me with a prize winning smile. “It’s the least I can do.”

“I did?” I gave her a puzzled glance, stopping just as the bathroom door.

“Oh, do you not remember? Rainbow Dash was saved thanks to your efforts, Firewall,” she reminded me with a nod, “It must be quite a heroic life you lead if you so quickly forget about the ponies you save.”

“Hah! Not so much. Wow, that seems so long ago, actually. It’s been a little while, hasn’t it?” I smirked, somewhat surprised at how the time was flying, yet it wasn’t moving so quickly after all.

“Indeed. Now run along, we can chat later.” She gave me a dismissive wave of her hoof. “I will look after the girls.”

“Yeah, now that the hard part is over with,” I gave a laugh as I entered the bathroom.

“Why, I simply do not know whatever it is you’re talking about,” her voice feigned sorrow. It actually reminded me of Luna’s sarcastic nature, only more... ladylike.

As I settled into the bathroom and drew the bathwater (I’ve not taken an actual bath-bath in years. Just showers. That alone was pretty cool.), I began to marvel once again how good and trusting the ponies were. Rarity’s generosity truly did touch me, and while she wasn’t my favorite of the Mane 6, she was definitely the one I could grant the most respect to. I’ve always been able to look up to the truly independent and consistent for being able to take the heat and still keep everything in their life together. Parasprite attacks excluded, I’d never seen Rarity panic for a very long time. I didn’t get the impression that she was just naive and didn’t understand the situation, but that she knew to keep on keeping on.

Finally, I let myself sink into the steaming hot water and sighed, submersing as much of me as I possibly could. I shut my eyes and relaxed, suddenly aware of all the aches and bruises for the first time in a long time.

“Feels good, pony,” I murmured. “Feels good.”

“Having a good time?” A familiar voice penetrated the silence, “Firewall.”

Oh great. Even stupid bird is here.

Chapter Fifteen - Part One: Flutterfall

Through The Eyes Of Another Pony

Chapter Fifteen Part One: Flutterfall

By CardsLafter

Please READ HERE to get your bearings... No seriously... Go read it first...

***NO, STOP SCROLLING DOWN!***

GO READ THE LINK FIRST. IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME READING THE STORY AND YOU DON'T WANT TO BE LOST, READ THAT LINK THAT SAYS 'READ HERE'

Three Days After Flutterfall

I’ll have you know, I’m not an overly giving woman. I look after myself well enough and take care of those that matter to me, few as they are. I try to keep my head low and my spirits high because when you’re in my line of work… Or rather, the line of work I was in… you come to find that staying alive is difficult if you can’t manage those two things. That makes for a very simple, albeit sometimes exciting life.

I am… was a mercenary. Yes, a soldier of fortune; one of the few women that managed to make it stick and didn’t lose myself in the process, mentally or otherwise. I’ve been doing this since I was taken in at thirteen years old and have continued to do so for the sixteen years that followed. It’s easy. Was easy. I’ve seen a lot in that time though. Enough to believe that I’d seen just about everything that was relevant.

That, my friends, was so far from the truth. The truth was that I had seen nothing. Not a thing. Not even a glimpse of the big picture. And I assure you, the picture is big. Bigger than big. Bigger than comparing the smallest grain of sand to the largest red giant star.

And that’s pretty big, I’ll have you know.

Now, you might ask, “Shara, what made you look at the big picture?”

Well, it isn’t easy to explain. And I’m not going to bother trying to prepare you for this. Because for this, there is no preparation. The whole story is that a little yellow horse, whose head did not come past the middle of my thigh, changed everything.

Now do not make any assumptions, please. This was no ordinary tiny yellow horse. This tiny yellow horse came with wings, a tattoo on her flank, and a heartwarming smile. Yes, a smile. That was also something different about her. Its face was more human than anything else, complete with human-shaped eyes colored like the clear blue sky and a rounded muzzle that has more expressive capability than any human I’d ever met. Wait, it gets better, I assure you. It speaks. Well, it speaks English at least. I can’t say I care for its nationality in the slightest, but there you have it. Oh right, she’s also quite… ‘magical.’

Yes, ‘she’. Her name is Fluttershy. We bumped into each other during some recreational hunting I was doing in Northeastern Russia. Yes, I like to hunt animals. It’s a change of pace from hunting people, not to mention far easier and more practical. Anyway, I was just looking for a bearskin to replace the one I had just tossed in along with an unscrupulous bargain when… Perhaps it will just be easier if I start from the beginning, yes?

It was a cold morning sometime in the birth of spring. I don’t keep track of months or days, I find that practice to be silly in my line of work. Unfortunately, my old boss leaves me a message on my answering machine every year to remind me that I’m aging. I find that to be a killing offense, personally. He is, however, quite hard to locate. As I was saying though: The morning. It was cold. I was hunting around for the Eurasian Brown Bear for a number of reasons. Food, fur, fun, and just for something to do. It was a slow season for work, which was fine by me. I was not a cheap gun, thus a break in business did not bother my pocketbook in the slightest.

The young season was doing its best to try to stamp out the worst of winter’s frozen bite. As it stood, it had only halfway finished the job. That was fine. Tracking in mud is almost easier than tracking in snow. Scents would be harder to navigate by, but the advantages significantly outweighed the hindrances. Actually, to be quite honest the worst of it is trying to stay silent. It’s easy to get into a walking pattern in all mud or all snow, but the mixture of the two can be quite frustrating.

It took me quite a while to find a trail. A storm sweeping in from the North had me wondering if I should just give up only a few moments before I got lucky. Luck in the form of bear crap. Lovely. However, I could tell just by looking at it that it was not at all old. Not even a meter away was an especially large paw print in the muddy snow. The trail, while literally cold, was not figuratively so. I think he was no more than a mile ahead of me. I didn’t even need to get that close, in all reality. I just needed to spot him from any distance and I should have been able to take him down with a single shot.

Well… That was the plan anyway. Normally, it’s a safe bet to follow these trails of scent, musk, and footprints because most sane animals want nothing to do with a bear. In fact, most of the native bears shy away from one another’s scent. Not all of them, though. No, the largest and most aggressive, on the other hand, actively follow such trails to establish dominance and territory. These are the ones that do not fall under the category of sane. Luckily, those are quite rare. But despite all odds against it, it just so happened there was indeed such a beast following the same trail.

One would think a creature of such mass would make noise in its approach. That is not the case. What is the case is that the Eurasian Brown Bear tends to be quite silent while lumbering about. In fact, it was so silent, that it was merely a handful of steps away from me when we finally became aware of each other’s presence. This may be a tad redundant, but that was incredibly awkward and we both seemed to agree on that, taking barely half a second to register one another.

After the initial shock had passed, the bear reared back on its hind-legs and towered over me as it inhaled to bellow ferociously. I feel no shame when I say I felt a pall of dread fall over me. You must keep in mind, this particular breed of bear can be half again to twice the size of a Grizzly Bear. And if you’ve ever seen a Grizzly Bear, you know just how big that is. Take into account that I am barely 160cm tall, which is less than five and a half feet for all you backwater Imperial system users. The roar it let out was unsettling, even for someone as disciplined as myself. The bear hit the ground on all fours, using its momentum from the drop to throw itself forward at speeds that did not seem quite possible from something so large and heavy. Even as I pulled my hunting rifle about, I knew I was hoping against hope for a lucky shot. I was not set, the target was moving rapidly with its head bouncing up and down, and to make matters worse, the sun was directly behind the ridge at its back.

One shot later, I felt my heart sink. I didn’t even hit it at nearly point blank range. That is incredibly embarrassing, I think you should know. If any of my colleagues had seen it, they would have been laughing until their guts hurt. That wasn’t a huge concern at the time though, seeing as how I would not get a second round in the chamber before the beast was upon me. Still, I tried. Hope against hope and all that.

As expected, I did not get a second chance. Instead, I got a paw the size of my entire torso right in my shoulder, sending me sprawling like a paperweight. I’d used the gun to absorb most of the impact, destroying it in the process. I was only delaying the inevitable but I’m somewhat known for never giving up. Still, even the smallest part of me was saying I was pretty much done for. I was slower, weaker, and thanks to the state of my improvised shield, weaponless beyond a small skinning knife. Upon landing some dozen feet away, I blinked my vision clear and tried to scramble to my feet in an attempt to escape. I tripped halfway up, landing on the shoulder that had been hit and cried out in pain. A small part of myself found this incredibly stupid and a little funny. To die like this had to be the most incredibly anticlimactic way to leave this world. After everything and its mother, brother, and child had failed in their many attempts to kill me, I was going to get eaten by a bear. Well, technically bears don’t actually eat people, but I think we know where this is going regardless. Shara Vladimirovna Dostoevskaya (No relation to the stupid author, so do not ask.) had met her match at the claws of Mother Nature.

Until the unimaginable happened. Not the unexpected. A second hunter saving my life would have been unexpected but not unimaginable. No, this was beyond comprehension. A small yellow horse, nearly a fifteenth the behemoth’s size, jumped in between it and me. I assumed I was seeing things or was possibly already dead. It wasn’t until the bear skidded to a sudden halt, staring dumbfounded at my protector did I realize that the little winged equine before me was quite possibly real.

Then it spoke and forced me to reconsider the possibility of hallucinations and/or insanity.

“G-Go away, please,” it stammered in English as it shivered fearfully, its voice ridiculously timid.

It was at that moment I discovered my sanity had just become suddenly questionable, but I was not so awestruck that my survival instincts refused to kick in. So when they did, I continued to scramble to my feet and took off running as fast as I could. It was seven miles back to my house and I did not stop for a single second. I always feel naked without a weapon but don’t get me wrong, just because I was running like my life depended on it did not mean I was scared. This may come as a shock, but I find myself running for that very reason quite often. You must understand I am very much a Point A to Point B woman. I nearly just died to a bear, therefore I should arm myself to prevent such an event from happening a second time. Scared or not, I was still trying to figure out what had just happened.

What the hell is happening, I asked myself. This can’t… Am I dreaming?

I made it to the door only mildly winded, yet still confused as hell and without a security blanket (See also: gun) to keep me safe. I disabled the security system and unlocked the two locks as quickly as I could without being frantic. I admit to allowing only the tiniest of whimpers to escape as I flung open the door and slammed it shut behind me. Stupid close brush with death. It’s not like I haven’t been in danger before. I’ve almost died so many times that me and Old Man Eternity were on a first-name-basis.

My arrogance. My stupid, reckless arrogance. That’s what bothered me. That little yellow wing-horse was the only thing that stole me from my fate. A fate that could have been avoided had I been less stupid. Taking a bolt-action rifle into the cold wild without so much as a sidearm was as reckless as it got. In all honesty, I feel I deserved what I almost got. I’d been saved by luck a few times but…

“That was so bizarre,” I breathed aloud to no one in particular.

After slowly peeling away my hunter’s coat, I hung it on the rack I keep by the door before groaning at the jingle of the keys within its pocket. I had just left my ATV back in the wilderness. And that storm was much too close to bother running back out there. At best I’d have to take a towel with me to go fetch it tomorrow. At worst I would be chipping the ice off of it for hours. All depended on the incoming storm. Ah well, considering what had happened, I could handle a long walk and a shitty ride back. Seemed more than a fair trade for not dying. Optimism!

The hours dragged on agonizingly slowly. That’s quite unusual for me, since I’m generally good at keeping myself occupied and entertained. Such was not the case that day, though. My mind kept trying to grasp what had happened and only served to frustrate me with failure. It seemed so surreal that my mind just didn’t want to accept that a tiny horse just saved my life by flying up and telling a bear to get lost. I was having trouble just picturing the moment, much less the details. Her hair… mane? Whatever it was, it was incredibly long and a darling pastel-pink. I left her to that bear but she had wings, right? She’d be alright. Was it even a she? Her voice surely suggested so.

Whatever the case, it had been over an hour since I had last seen… it, I suppose… and the edge of the storm had just made its way in. That’s when I began to feel a little worried for the hypothetically imagined creature. Did it have shelter from the storm? I moved back to the door and tentatively reached at its locks.

Perhaps I should go…

And then good sense came back to me. Killing myself by going out in what was likely to be a howling blizzard wasn’t going to serve anyone, much less some dumb wing-horse that I probably imagined in the first place.

I pulled my hand from the door and moved back to the… Well, I call it the central area. There are no walls in my house except for the washroom, which is just an area sliced off the North wall. Other than that? Nothing but one large room with four corners that each serves their own purpose. Northwest is a simple kitchen with island and pantry with as much decoration as a barracks (which is to say absolutely none). Northeast and Southeast are both for sleeping since I occasionally have to entertain the occasional business partner that I have absolutely no interest in beyond their ability to pull triggers or gather information. On the East wall, just between the beds, lays an extremely large and cozy couch that sits in front of an extremely large and cozy fireplace. Southwest, being my fun corner, is where I keep my toys, computer, and workbench. The computer doubles as a TV and my security system silently warns me of anything that sets foot within half a mile of the building. If you care, the walls are all painted taupe and the furniture is all black or dark grey.

And that’s my home. There is one set of stairs that leads to a tiny basement where I keep a lot of supplies, as well as a few handy things such as a backup generator. The same set of stairs also ascends to the roof in case I feel like stargazing, which is more often than you might think.

No decoration, no pictures, and cleaner than a chemical lab. Cleanliness is next to godliness, as the Americans will tell you. Unless they’re atheists. Are American atheists messy, then? I know Russian atheists aren’t, being one myself. Hmm.

Anyway, I set about preparing for a cold afternoon that would probably extend into the evening. I threw a bit of tinder in the fireplace before covering it with larger logs. I knew I’d have a tiny personal inferno within the hour to keep me happy, so I decided to clean up while it built. I slipped into the bathroom and checked myself for any surprise wounds. My skin isn’t dark, but it isn’t exactly entirely light either. A fair amount of musculature makes me a tad bit heavier than the average girl my size, but I’m still reasonably slender. My long black hair was pulled out of its braid and just barely fell to my shoulders. My green eyes were a little bloodshot, no doubt from the anxiety that was troubling me deep down. I’m not easily shaken, but when it happens, I don’t easily shake it off either.

Was that thing an alien?

“Easy, girl,” I chuckled aloud, somewhat amused that I would jump to such a conclusion. I’m a little too cynical for that sort of thinking.

I pulled off the grey shirt that I had been wearing under my turtleneck and glared at my shoulder. It wasn’t pretty. The gun had taken the worst of the blow (at least I had not taken a more expensive weapon. I’d have probably let the bear kill me before I risked my Browning.) but it had been shoved hard against my right shoulder and solar plexus. I moved my arm through its full range of motion and breathed a sigh of relief as I discovered that nothing was broken or hurt overmuch. I did wince upon touching the offending area, but beyond that, it was just a nasty bruise that would fade in a week or two.

I’d been lucky.

I remembered my little savior and shook my head a bit, as if to toss the memory out. That was unnatural, whatever had happened. It just felt wrong for someone like me to be unprepared. Dogs-and-cats-living-together wrong. It didn’t even seem to look real. Like it was…

The sudden crash of thunder shook me from my space-out. I needed to bathe and get out as quickly as possible. I have this slight fear of getting struck by lightning in the shower. I don’t know if that can really happen, actually. I just never remember to check until I’m already in the shower and the storm is overhead.

I rushed my task, but still took the time to do a good job until a second sound shook me some two minutes later. It sounded like something was rustling about on my roof. I don’t like things rustling about on my roof. Nobody has any business rustling about on my roof unless they have business with me. Only two kinds of people have business with me. Those that want to hire me, and those that have been already been hired by someone that knows me. Those that want to hire me know that you call first and I’ll go to meet you. Anyone hired by someone that knows me usually aren’t making social calls. Everyone’s all like, “Oh, Shara… You’ve ruined my drug trafficking! Oh, Shara… Why must you shoot my especially violent zealots!” when the answer is always the same. I got paid to do it. Personally, I think people just have a hard time understanding that business is business.

I’m getting off track… The point is, my home is off limits and everybody that could possibly be interested in finding me already knows that. Thus, anyone at my place of rest is not supposed to be there and anyone rustling about on my roof has signed themselves a death warrant.

I flung myself out of the shower, snatching the robe off the rack as I darted to my toy corner. I grabbed a Springfield Armory 1911 (aka Hand Cannon) and checked both the mag and chamber before moving to my stairs. I was dripping wet and the fire had not spread enough warmth to keep me comfortable on this side of my bunker-like home, but I’d had worse conditions in my time. This was nothing compared to a Siberian winter. I leveled my weapon of choice at the hatch, estimating the chest level of anyone that might be approaching it before waiting. Any intruder not smart enough to wear armor was going to get unreasonably large holes put into them and any smart enough to wear armor was still going to get the equivalent of a small sledgehammer impact to the center of their rib cage. Either of these outcomes were fine with me!

I heard a bit more rustling. It was coming from the Eastern side but was nowhere near the hatch yet. I didn’t want to wait. Waiting was not always the best choice, at least not for extended periods of time. Waiting will give a smart opponent time to prepare by way of explosives or alternate entry routes. Most people that are as impatient as me don’t live long doing this sort of thing. I, however, am not most people.

I flicked on the flashlight clipped to my weapon and sprinted up the stairs as quietly as possible. They wouldn’t be able to hear the unclipping of the latch thanks to the roaring torrent of snow and wind, so I was fairly certain I had the element of surprise. One to get ready, two for the show, three to stay steady…

And I flung open the latch, leveling the gun towards the Eastern side of the house. I heard a meek female voice cry out as I swung the flashlight towards the chimney, spotting something scramble behind it. It wasn’t a very large chimney, but a small enough person could use it for cover. I couldn’t see very well through the snow that was violently whipping past us, but I knew there was something over there.

“Come out!” I shouted in Russian, firing off a warning shot and crouching at the steps.

I heard what sounded like a fearful whimper and blinked as I began to have doubts about the intentions of my visitor.

“Come out!” I cried again, using a little less force this time.

The whimpering continued, but the intruder did not reveal herself. It almost sounded like a child. What would a child be doing sixty miles away from civilization in the middle of a late spring blizzard, I asked myself. Not to mention atop of my house.

I shouted for her to come out again, but there was no reply beyond the same timid whimpering. I snarled angrily and thought about firing off another shot. I decided against it, however. Instead, I did something that was incredibly stupid. I stepped out first, exposing myself to possible fire from cover.

If this is a ruse, you’ve earned yourself the right to die by falling for it, I angrily chastised myself.

Luckily, I did not get shot. That would have been so awkward, I imagine.

“It’s alright,” I murmured, trying to sound less forceful while still keeping the volume needed to be heard through the storm, “Just step out.”

As I neared the chimney, I could hear the whimpering more clearly. Only, it wasn’t whimpering, but the sounds of someone crying. I broadened my approach to come around the stone rectangle protruding from my roof, ignoring the biting chill that was gnawing at my feet and wet scalp. As I circled about, I came to realize that either the crazy had followed me home or that I had not been seeing things at all.

It was the little yellow wing-horse from earlier. She was staring up at me with terror in her big blue eyes, squinting against the sharp wind. Whether she was trembling in fear or from the cold, I could not tell. I began to approach very slowly, only to spook the poor animal into backing away. I watched in complete awe as she unfurled her wings and tried to flap them in an attempt to escape, but she cried out when the violent wind shoved her back against the chimney. She tried once again, but the storm seemed to have taken its toll on her and in the end, her legs couldn’t even hold her up when she tried to stand. Already, my good sense began to beg me to not do what I was already about to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not usually one to leap at the opportunity to help others but this creature had saved me. At the very least, I could repay her in a way that didn’t involve terrifying the poor thing.

She squeaked in shock upon collapsing against the roof. I quickly moved to her but she scrambled away from me once more until she backed up against the chimney. She began to cry again and started to plead in English, her voice still ridiculously timid. My English being fairly rusty; I still knew enough to get by. It’s easier to understand than it is to speak it.

“P-P-Please, don’t h… don’t hurt me! I-I’m s… I’m sorry!” she cried, staring up at me as though I were her doom.

I can’t really explain it, but I felt incredibly saddened over this. That’s a big deal for me, just so you understand. I’ve seen many an awful thing happen and not batted an eyelash or lost a wink of sleep. This… creature, though, was simply breaking my heart by thinking me a source of danger to her.

I stepped up to her and knelt down by her, my teeth starting to chatter from the unforgiving cold. After another second to consider my options, I made a decision to move things to a less frozen spot. I placed the heavy gun inside of the robe’s pocket and tied the belt extra tight before showing the strange creature my empty hands. Her whimpering quieted a bit as she got the message that I had no plans to hurt her. Gently, I worked my hands under her and slowly lifted her up in my arms. She was no than bigger some of the wild cats I had seen but even so, she seemed to be deceptively light. Almost as though she were hollow. She continued to stare up at me as I slowly took her inside. Now closer, I could see how bad of a condition she was in. Her hair/mane was in disarray and filled with twigs and dirt. There was mud splattered about her face and dozens of these strange… oddly grey… scratch marks all over her form.

“Y… You’re not going t-to hurt me?” she asked in shock, her words half slurred. That may not be the exact wording used. Like I said, rusty English. It’s much better these days.

I shook my head at her as I stepped inside, pausing just long enough to brace my cargo against one knee and pull the hatch closed before locking it with a freed up hand. Already my feet were screaming in pain against the relatively warm steps coming into contact with my skin.

“Y-You’re not… You’re…” she mumbled as her eyelids began to fall.

I gave her a shush and watched as her pretty eyes closed. Before I had even made it halfway down the steps, she was out cold. Pun not intended.

Two days had passed. In that time, the wing-horse (which Google called a Pegasus (I knew that…)) had been washed with warm water, cleaned off with a steamed handkerchief, dried with a large towel, and wrapped in a sleeping bag set near the fire. I even took the liberty of cleaning her hair and brushing out all the debris (though I’m still not sure just what compelled me to do that). It was the softest hair I’d ever felt in my entire life and brilliantly sparkled after drying out. I am ashamed to say that I felt a bit of envy surge throughout me somewhere during the process. My hair is somewhat stiff and tends to be uncooperative, whereas this… Pegasus’ hair was one long flowing pink wave of dazzling silk strands. After she had dried out I moved her to one of the beds and made certain she was comfortable, giving her a large pillow to wrap around. Following that, I spent most of my free time doing research, emailing any trustworthy contacts, and even made two separate phone calls.

And I’ll have you know, I loathe making phone calls.

All responses came back negative. No one had heard anything about strange horses, new genetic breeding, winged talking animals, or even anything slightly out of the ordinary. I wasn’t stupid enough to send any pictures, figuring a description to be more than enough to rouse any recognition that could be had. I did, however, receive a lot of advice that involved holding back off the cider and sour apple vodka. A few more names added to the list of people to enact violence upon the next time I see them, I suppose.

The pegasus had slept peacefully, only able to remain awake for a few minutes at a time. I was not sure if she was sick or not, so I had been feeding her chicken noodle soup. Fairly nutritious, Easy to digest, good for fighting off a lot of cold-related illnesses, and it was reasonably delicious. That second evening was no different, other than the fact that I was jealous that she was getting all the soup and decided to toss on an extra can for yours truly.

I checked the clock as I finished cooking up the soup, confirming that it was nearly twenty-two hundred hours by the time I turned off the stove. I brought a tray consisting of two bowls of soup and two cups of water near the fireplace, then fetched my ‘Unreasonably Large’ (says it on the tag) bean bag that I keep around for when I want to be extra close to the fire. The pegasus had been shivering that day, despite being wrapped in thermal blankets, so I had moved her back over to a sleeping bag near the fireplace.

After making myself comfortable, I slowly slurped at the soup as I reached over and gently ran a hand through my visitor’s delightfully soft hair. I’m not exactly the girliest girl around, but I can assure you, this darling creature was possibly going to kill even me with her cute.

Simply put, she was adorable.

My touch disturbed her sleep and she eventually began to stir awake. The process got a little fast forwarded by an incredibly soft sneeze that was so unnecessarily sweet that I couldn’t help but laugh. After the whole “Aaaaaahhh~! Chu~!” incident had passed, she slowly opened her eyes. I continued to run my hand through her hair for a bit, not even realizing that I was still doing so until she turned her head to look up at me. At first she was shocked to see me, but after a bit of taking in her surroundings, she came to the conclusion that she was not in danger and relaxed visibly.

“Thank you,” she whispered weakly.

I smiled. That was the first time she had spoken since she had passed out in my arms those few days ago. She was getting better, it seemed.

“Da,” I replied softly before attempting English, pausing to mentally dust off the vocabulary. “You are… well?”

She nodded.

“You can… Ah… Can you stand?” I think I got it right, anyway. It got easier as time passed, but having not spoken a word of it in at least two years… Well, even getting back on a bike takes a little remembering.

I watched as she struggled to push herself up but she was still too exhausted to actually stand just yet. She slumped back down and let out a pitiful whine as she gave up. I let out a chuckle before pulling her sleeping bag closer. I unwrapped the yellow wing-horse and made room on the ‘Unreasonably Large’ bean bag. A minute of gentle moving about later and I was letting her rest in my lap with my arm cradling her head up. Over the next half hour, I silently spoon fed her all of her bowl and a little bit of mine as well, pausing only to let her drink the water. She ate and drank quietly, offering no resistance as she was served.

“Thank you… No more, please,” she murmured, her voice a bit stronger now.

“Da,” I answered as I began to feed myself. After I had a few bites of noodle soup myself, I looked down at her with a soft smirk.

I placed my spoon in the bowl before pointing to my chest, “I am called Shara.”

It took her a moment to get what I was asking. I could not remember how to ask one’s name in English at the time. I’m fairly certain it was supposed to be the sixth phrase learned, too. Correspondence classes, by the way, are not worth your money. Go get a Rosetta Stone or attend an actual college class if it means that much to you.

“I’m F… Fluttershy,” she slowly placed a hoof over what one might consider a chest.

I snickered, “Fluttershy? That is what you are called?”

She blinked, not expecting that reaction, “Wh… What? Why is it funny?”

“Is funny,” I replied, chuckling a bit more, “You name. It is… pretty…? Ah, English… Cute? Is this right word?”

“My… My name is cute?” She blinked, staring at me in shock.

“ Da,” I answered with a nod, smiling warmly at her, “Fluttershy is cute name.”

“Oh…T-Thank you,” she stammered, blushing at the way she was being treated.

“No. You help me. With bear, yes?” I’m fairly certain I sounded completely stupid. Shara grateful. Ugh. Make talky horse soup. Ugh. Feed it to pretty horse. Da! You’d think I would know how to properly speak one of the most widely spread languages in the world. Truly, it’s a wonder I got as far as I did without at least becoming halfway fluent.

She blinked as the memory slowly registered, “You were the human.”

“Da,” I replied, smirking a bit more.

I am not joking. This is what she said: “He was a nice bear. You just scared him, is all. He’s very sorry.”

I asked her to repeat that a couple of times, not quite certain that I had heard her right.

“I’m sorry, Equestrian probably…. isn’t a well-known language here,” she said with a large yawn interspersed in the middle of her sentence.

“Equestrian?” I blinked, not quite understanding the word. At the time, I thought it was some weird English accent or something. “What does… this mean?”

“It’s… what we’re…” she started to say, starting to drift off to sleep. Silly thing never finished her sentence. I couldn’t help but chuckle as she surrendered herself to sleep yet again. I exhaled a very tired sigh before gently lifting her back up and laying her on the closest bed. I tossed a few more logs on the fire to keep it going through the night and turned on the one ceiling fan that does its absolute damndest to keep the air circulating.

It was time for bed.

I didn’t get much sleep. I just laid there and let my mind mull over everything that had happened and that I had done. With ‘Fluttershy’ not in my actual range of sight, my more cynical side was more easily surfacing. It was practically chastising me for my actions. I didn’t want to listen to it at the moment. Even if everything it was saying was making sense.

You don’t know what that thing is, Shara. You don’t know if it’s from another planet, some freakish experiment, or some rich kid’s pet horse.

Since when do you bring strangers into your house and spoon feed them, anyway? Are you starting to get soft? You can’t get soft, yet. Not now. You’re not even thirty. You’ve still got a lot of ground to cover before you can start breathing easy. Too many people who would take advantage of you.

She’s cute, sure. Great. Wonderful. But you pulled her into your lap and acted like a damned parent coddling a newborn. Why? She special or something? I mean, sure, she’s unique. But you know that unique means valuable. Even if you don’t want to consider what she might mean to you, think of what she might mean to someone else. You know people, past clients in fact, that would kill you to make something one-of-a-kind theirs.

If you’re not going to think of your safety, think of that… Think of her safety. You have enemies. A lot of them. This would not be the first home that’s been burned to the ground and you know it won’t be the last. You’ve had close friends die for the sole intent of hurting you before; don’t leave that side of you open to exploitation again.

She needs to leave. You can give her whatever you like to help her on her way. You saved her from the storm, she saved you from the bear. All debts are paid.

Don’t be stupid.

My practical side was right. As awful as it felt to admit, letting Fluttershy in my life would only cause us both a lot of problems and pain. I had to send her on her way, maybe point her in the right direction… Help her get what she needed. Hell, I could even give her a gun. I had plenty to spare. That’s when I tried to imagine her trying to hold a gun in her… hooflike… things… Whatever they were. They looked more like blunted tentacles than horse legs, in my opinion.

Yes, this is for the best. Without a doubt.

And no matter how many times I told myself that, I was not able to shake off the worry that I was feeling. I’ve left kids in warzones without so much as a second thought, yet letting this ‘pony’ as she called herself, travel alone in Northeastern Russia was scratching at the edge of my mind. My worries were giving me worries! And I don’t handle stress very well.

That morning, I woke up and made breakfast using blueberries and yogurt. I caught myself wondering if the pony ate chicken where it came from; or maybe she was like other ponies and ate only veggies, fruits, and grass. That sounded like an interesting topic to bring up before she left. I added some granola and honey-baked peanuts for protein and fiber, finishing the mix just before hearing her small voice peep up from right behind me.

“Um… Miss Shara.”

I… almost reacted the way I usually do when someone gets so close to me without my knowing. I stopped myself, however, and forced myself to slowly turn about. She was bashfully fidgeting about with her head lowered.

“Good morning, little Fluttershy,” I replied with a ghost of a smile, “I have food almost ready for eating.”

She lifted her head, her eyes wide with gratitude, “Oh… I… I don’t want to impose.”

I’m still a little fuzzy on the word ‘impose’ but I think it means something along the lines of taking advantage of someone else. However, back then? I thought that she meant she didn’t want to gain weight. For the record, I still hate this language.

“You are… full?” I gave her a sideways glance before taking a large scoop of whatever you might call this creation and dropped it into a bowl. I saw her stare at it with what one could construe as lust.

“There is more.” I tilted the mixing bowl, showing her the healthy sized portion left over. “Peanuts, berries, yogurt, granola… And honey, too.”

Her eyes widened considerably as she stared. It thought she was going to knock me out and take it by force for a moment. Such excitement was not fated, it would seem, and she finally just blushed and scuffed her hoof about, “M… Maybe just a little.”

I smiled before reaching down to run a hand through her hair and fetched her her own bowl. I instructed her to retrieve the rolling chair at my workbench and sat her in it before setting our bowls at the kitchen island. Watching her eat was delightful, after getting over the fact that she was using a spoon without any fingers. She kept commenting on how it was quite delicious and that the peanuts were amazingly sweet. Other than that, small talk was very sparse. We kept trying to not get noticed staring at one another, but that’s actually very difficult to do when two people are doing just that. Finally, I tried to strike up a dialog.

“Fluttershy.” I had to force myself to not laugh when she flinched at her name. “Where is it you are going?”

“Going? Oh… Um… I’m uh…” she stammered, staring hard at her now second bowl of fruit yogurt, “I… I’m not sure, actually. I’m… I’m looking for somepony, I guess.”

“You are… trying to find… other ponies?” Translation: I can’t understand this moonspeak of yours.

She shook her head a bit, her blush-pink hair flowing with the movement.

“Oh, no. Well, he was a pony, but he’s really a human… I think he stopped being a pony before he left Equestria.”

The funny thing is, I heard that perfectly fine and was able to understand every individual word. The problem this time was that I did not believe my ears. Humans that turn into ponies? I heard wrong, right? Best to check again.

“This human… turns into pony?” I said through a mouthful of peanuts and granola.

Fluttershy nodded before looking back up at me. She had a hopeful twinkle in her eye as she spoke, “Y… You wouldn’t know somepony like that… w-would you?”

“Nyet.” I shook my head, giving her a shrug in return.

She sighed sadly and spooned another bite into her mouth before slumping back into the chair a bit.

“I thought not,” she replied, looking utterly downtrodden. Her sadness made me sad in return, which I quickly and somewhat irritably noted. This whole emotions-on-my-sleeve nonsense was going to get old, fast.

“What ah… What is he called?” I asked, hoping to be able to provide some sort of assistance.

“Called? I don’t… Oh! His name!” She reasoned after a bit of confusion.

“His name is Stephen,” she answered with firm conviction, as though she were certain that would solve everything.

Sadly, it did not.

“Last… name? Yes, what is last name?” I continued to pry.

“Last name?” she repeated, her eyes growing wide.

“Shara is my beginning name.” I pointed to myself for emphasis. “The entire name is Shara Vladimirovna Dostoevskaya.”

Her eyes got wider with the realization that just his first name wasn’t going to cut it.

“I… I don’t know… Pinkie has a lot of names like that but… … Firewall never told us all his names. I’m sure Princess Luna knows but she… she isn’t here.”

“You do not know his names. You do not know where is he. How is it you will find him?” I asked, trying to sound more sympathetic than cynical. Never really was good at it.

I watched as Fluttershy stared at her breakfast for several seconds. Eventually she lowered her gaze until her hair obscured her face. I figured I knew what was coming next but that really didn’t help to prepare me in any way. Sure enough, she let out a sniffle and quivered once or twice. I really can’t explain why that was hard to watch, but I assure you, it was downright painful.

“I don’t knoooow~!” she cried out all of a sudden, letting her head gently smack onto the kitchen island’s tiled surface.

I blinked, marveling at my inward reaction to the sudden outburst of sorrow. After the few moments needed to recover had passed, I tentatively reached out a hand and ran it through her down-soft hair. As I did, though, she responded by really letting go of her tears and sobs.

“Fluttershy, don’t… … I… I can help?” I offered hesitantly, knowing that I should not be doing this and yet... here I was, giving her a reason to stay. I guess I just hate it when people cry. And I don’t mean it makes me sad, I mean it drives me insane. Still, I didn’t want to be a bitch about it. Hopelessness can be pretty upsetting, so her plight was understandable.

She took a good minute longer to cry out her frustrations. Afterwards, she finally lifted her head to look up at me. Her eyes were red and puffy from the tearful display and her body was still shaking a little bit. I leaned down and smiled a bit. Anything to keep her from starting the water works again.

“All is not lost. Promise,” I murmured softly, my hand still comfortingly gliding through her hair.

I watched as she smiled a bit before letting out another sob and suddenly throwing her foreleg… things around my neck and burying her face into my shoulder. Ah, violation-of-personal-proximity, my old friend; how rarely we bump into each other. I did stiffen a tad, I’ll admit. It’s one thing to lay a comforting hand on someone and it’s something entirely different to embrace them. It wasn’t until she spoke that I was able to snap out of my surprise.

“S-Shara, you’re the nicest pon-… human ever! T-T-Thank you!” she cried, her words muffled somewhat in the fabric of my thick blue turtleneck.

That’s when I knew I was really acting out of character. No one in my entire life has classified me as nice; not even as a child, having been quite the mean brat in my younger years. For this feathered horse to believe otherwise meant I was not being myself and while I am many things, I am not a liar. Well, not often, anyway.

“No, Fluttershy, listen,” I said gently but firmly.

She pulled away from me enough to look at me, smiling despite her tears.

“I am not nice person,” I clarified; ready to frighten her with all the horrible stories about me, “Just because I am helping… …”

And in staring at those pretty blue eyes, I found that I had lost my nerve. Completely. I mean, how pathetic is that? It was the truth, though. I could not bring myself to demonize myself to her just because her current view of me did not mesh with the view I had of myself. I could not tell her how wrong she was and possibly hurt her. Cruel may not have been the best way to describe me, but it was probably closer than nice ever could be. In the end, though, I simply let out an impatient huff and shook my head. The amused smirk that had found its way to my lips was more of a self-mocking nature than anything else.

“Fluttershy,” I started over, “One good thing does not change me. But you say kind things and I am grateful.”

“No, Shara,” she countered, shaking her head before hugging my neck again, “I’m the grateful one.”

And this is where I would shut the terrible romance novel and toss it in the fire for using cliché lines. Fortunately, I was not familiar enough with English at the time to fully comprehend the faux pas. Also, life cannot be shut and tossed into the fire. Not literally, at least. I’m sure a few homicidal tendencies could lead to a figurative representation, but unless there’s a client willing to foot the bill… You get the idea.

The point is I was starting to have second thoughts on my original decision to let Fluttershy go her way. And things got worse on that end. The poor thing didn’t know the first thing about taking care of herself. Oddly enough, she knew everything about taking care of every other creature to have drawn breath, but without a home to call her own, she was practically helpless. We didn’t talk much beyond that, though. What little information she could give me was not nearly enough to work with. I was able to determine that her friend was American and that he was a complete idiot that had a huge heart. When she asked how far it was to America, she seemed relieved that Alaska was only a few hundred miles away. Maybe she knew something that I didn’t. Regardless, she seemed certain that flying there on her own would be quite doable now that the storm had passed and was convinced that she was on the right track. I gave a half-hearted attempt to dissuade her but that upbeat attitude seemed to be beyond reasoning. She sounded so naïve, speaking of how wonderful Earth was with such nice people like me and Firewall (what kind of a name is that, anyway?) to help ponies like her along.

A few days passed uneventfully while Fluttershy recovered her strength. She seemed to enjoy being outside and messing around in the snow in an attempt to find animals to play with. She quickly learned that I wasn’t much of a talker and seemed to be okay with that, seeing as she wasn’t much of one either. Most of her recovery had been within the first day of being awake, but she had been through a lot.

She was amazing. She could talk to animals (I swear, I’m not making this up) and they would talk back. I watched her train a bird how to sing loudly and with greater clarity in just an hour. She kept telling me that it was magic, but I didn’t buy all of that. At least, not until the fifth day when she was well enough to fly again, whereupon I just stared at her with my jaw hanging open. The flying was astounding in and of itself. I wouldn’t have believed that such small wings could propel a creature of her size and weight. Not until she gave me proof that she could adjust her weight by simply willing it so. But that wasn’t even the craziest part. She could change the weather. Not much, mind you, but that doesn’t change the fact that I watched her create a rain cloud about four feet in diameter by flying in a tight circle and then grab hold of it with her forehooves before shaking it (adorably) to cause a small contained shower. I’m no science buff, but I’m pretty sure one does not simply shake rain out of a cloud. Or even grab hold of it in the first place!

She tried to explain the ‘magic’ behind it but it just didn’t make any sense. I took her to my computer to show her just what Wikipedia had to say on the matter of weather, but she insisted that it did not work that way back in Equestria. Of course, she went about it in the most passive way possible, but there you have it. Still, I regretted that decision. After a bit of deductive work, she learned that she could research anything and everything through my computer. That was the start of some truly strange happenings. First obstacle was manipulation of the keyboard and mouse. I will say that I am guilty of taking amusement at her expense when she whined at how her hooves simply were no good. After a few hours of that, she decided to get creative. I watched, with no small amount of astonishment, as she turned sideways and made use her of her left wing as a prehensile limb to type on the keyboard. She then took it a step further and used her tail to move and click the mouse, though that took a lot of trial and error before she could rely on her tail to obey without furiously staring at it.

Damndest thing ever.

Second obstacle was caused by her lack of understanding concerning the human race. At the time, I didn’t buy her tale of sugarplum fairy land where everything is bright, peaceful, and full of magic. That doubt was painfully dispelled when the poor dear was confronted with the brutal reality of humanity. She was incredibly interested in studying history but would often leave the computer to hug me in an attempt to feel better whenever she would hit some of the darker parts of humanity’s past. At first I found that incredibly irritating, but frequency demanded that I be patient and help assuage her fears. To her credit, she refused to lose faith in the goodness of people, but then again, so did Anne Frank and look what happened to her.

I kept my promise and dissected just about every last detail she could give me about her long lost human. It wasn’t easy, lacking names, social information, and physical description but I was able to nail down a good many things after some serious deductive effort. He was a white American (oh joy…) with a penchant for jokes. He liked computers and was old enough to both drink and smoke. He was a… a brony. I did not know what that was until I scoured the internet. Well, I found out. And then I hurt myself laughing at the very idea. I quickly discovered that this ‘Stephen’ and I had nothing in common beyond white skin and a handle on how to be violent when necessary. What shortly followed thereafter was shocking and not just a little troubling. After digging deeper into the subject, I found that there was quite a link between this ‘brony’ and Fluttershy. I didn’t have to muse upon this for long before I was suddenly questioning my sanity. Even moreso than the first time, which should be indicative to just how mind blowing this development was.

After taking a good hour or two of computer use away from my visitor, I beckoned her over.

“Fluttershy,” I called, never taking my eyes off the monitor.

She cantered over with a granola bar in her mouth, setting it on the desk beside me. It was still in its wrapper, though the wrapper was missing nearly all of its corners by now. I didn’t know right at that moment, but Fluttershy thought I was upset with her for loudly fighting with the snack.

“Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to make such noise,” she mumbled meekly, “I just can’t get it open. I’ll try to be quieter.”

I blinked before looking down at her beside me and then at the unyielding bar of food wrapped in stubborn plastic.

“No, I want to ask you questions,” I replied with a laugh before taking the healthy treat in my hands and easily tearing it open.

She almost looked angry upon watching me make the deed look so trivial. More offended than anything, actually. I responded by chuckling and breaking the bar in half; giving her the bigger piece. I watched as she grasped it between two hooves and began to fervently nibble at a corner.

“Fluttershy, you are famous,” I said, bringing my attention back to the image on my computer, “Did you know?”

“Oh?” she hiked back up on her back legs, placing her forehooves on the desk and staring at the screen, “Oh! Oh, it’s us!”

“Us?”

‘Us’ was a picture of six horses that were much like Fluttershy. They were all huddled together, happily hanging on and off each other with nothing but smiles on their faces. Fluttershy was one of them, but besides a blue one with a gay-pride colored mane, she was the only one with wings. The two ponies with purple manes had horns protruding from their heads and the two remaining ones who were respectively orange and pink seemed to have no special additions.

“Yes! Yes, those are my friends back in Equestria!” She seemed to be on the edge of hyperventilation. “T-This one is Applejack and that one is Pinkie Pie! They’re Earth Ponies! The unicorns are Twilight Sparkle and Rarity! And that’s Rainbow Dash! I’ve known her since… since… Gosh, almost forever!”

I watched her stare longingly at the computer screen. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to make of this. What I was looking at was a promotional advertisement for a Western cartoon. A rather popular one, if sources were to be trusted. A little voice inside of me was setting off all sorts of warnings. So many things just seemed off about this. It just couldn’t be real. However, there was no mistaking the love in those big blue eyes.

“Uh-huh,” I replied before looking back at the screen. “So you knew about this?”

“Well… Firewall did say I was famous here I just… I didn’t know how,” she answered, still distracted by what was in front of her. “Can… Are there more pictures to look at?”

Well, it went downhill from there. I sank the next two hours of my life looking for pictures of colorful cartoon horses. At first it thrilled her to see her old friends again, but the sensation didn’t last. It wasn’t long before her joy changed to longing and then longing to sorrow.

“That is good for now,” I mentioned casually, masking my worry as I closed the window.

She stared at the blank desktop screen for a few seconds longer as I stood up. I began to busy myself with dinner preparations, not wanting to focus on the saddened pegasus. I didn’t want to think on it at the moment. I didn’t want to contemplate that she might not be real. I didn’t want to think about how much it would hurt her if she happened to be the only one that actually existed. I didn’t want to think about having next to no possible way of helping her. I just wanted to focus on something else. I do a very good job of keeping a tight grip on my emotions. It just comes with the occupation. An emotional gun is usually a dead gun. Still, it’s best done with something to occupy the mind.

“Shara,” she said, still at the computer, “I… I have to go.”

Though I did not react outwardly, I could feel icy fear slip into my veins and chill me thoroughly. The very idea of the helpless little thing going out into the world bothered me. Irrationally so. I wanted to forbid her much like a mother would a child, but I was not so easily swayed by my impulses.

“I have to find Firewall. I… I can’t…”

“Is alright.” I cut her off before she could continue trying to justify her actions. “You have no need to explain. I am understanding.”

“Thank you,” she murmured before lowering her voice beyond what I could possibly be expected to hear. “Would… Would you come with me?”

I blinked, having not been able to hear her. I took my attention off the sweet potatoes I was crushing and looked up at her. “I can not hear.”

She repeated whatever she said, only instead of increasing the volume, she increased the pitch. It all blended together in one innocent squeak for me.

“Speak!” I shouted somewhat. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t yell, but my impatience for shyness is quite mighty indeed.

“Wouldyoucomewithme!?” she cried out rapidly, spooked by my forceful tone.

“Nyet,” I answered immediately, though I felt a pang of regret shoot through my body as soon as I had said it. “You are kind to ask. But no.”

She seemed genuinely distraught but her determination was as durable as steel. She nodded sadly and started to head for the door. I watched her go and it took every bit of willpower I had but just as she reached for the door handle, I called out to her.

“Travelling at night is not good.” Oh, I am smooth, aren’t I? “You should wait for morning.”

She stared at the door for several more seconds before looking back at me. We both knew it would be a few more hours until the sun began to fall, much less darken the skies. I added some marshmallows over the crushed sweet potatoes and sprinkled a layer of brown sugar and cinnamon on top. Fluttershy happens to love cinnamon. How do I know this? I caught her sniffing a bottle of cinnamon perfume (never used; stupid gift from a stupid friend who died a stupid death) as though she were a drug addict.

“I… I guess so,” she replied, giving the door one last glance.

And that was that. If she had been a fish, I’d have been a well fed fisherman that night. Seeing as she wasn’t, I instead had company for one more night.

We spent the rest of the night in relative silence. What little small talk we had was a bit strained. Except for the conversation about cinnamon. She mentioned that she had a dirty secret love for the stuff and I made mention that I already knew. After retelling my witnessing of just how loudly she was inhaling that bottle of perfume, she turned pinker than her hair. She then made mention that she couldn’t possibly be any more embarrassed. I proved her wrong by describing how hard it was to not laugh at her when she tried tasting it.

The levity helped to alleviate the tension, but that didn’t make it all better. Deep down, I still knew she was leaving and deep down, I knew she wanted me to help her. She never asked why I couldn’t or wouldn’t help. She never even hinted at it a second time. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to mask the worry and fear that was no doubt roiling about inside of her. She knew the world was dangerous, even if she didn’t know just how dangerous it was. And she didn’t want to be alone. I could relate to that, somewhat. Being alone may be simpler, but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable. Just having Fluttershy stay for that short week was enough to remind me of that. Watching her leave was going to make me mope about for a long time to come.

Still, it’s for the best, I thought, Just have to keep telling myself that.

I’ll have you know, I can sometimes be a big fat liar.

The next morning was pretty straightforward. Breakfast, inane small talk that I could not remember to save my soul from eternal damnation, and enough awkward tension to choke out a lesser woman. I wasn’t a bitch; I helped her prepare and was sure to give her plenty of practical supplies. I even let my guilt nag me into giving her some money so that she could get by a little easier. As I gave it to her, my flighty mind tried to imagine her cantering through a drive through for a burger. Which reminded me to not bring up feeding her chicken.

After an hour of pointless mucking about, we finally made our way outside to say our goodbyes. Even though I’d given her plenty of provisions, I’d brought just a few more things to help her along. I’m such a bleeding heart.

“Well, I guess this is it,” she murmured sadly as she stubbornly insisted to stare at the ground.

“So it is,” I replied, approaching her with a long black scarf in hand. This scarf, while not important to me, was actually somewhat valuable. Being made of silk and practically weightless, there was really no reason for me to be giving it to her. She had a damned coat of fur, after all. I just could not help myself, though. That nagging sensation that was leaving me worried for her sake had become a harrowing dread hanging over my head.

I smiled a bit, my insides twisting a tad as I knelt down and swung the scarf down around her neck. I wrapped it about a few times before tucking it into itself. She turned away from me somewhat before finally lifting her gaze and looking at me out of the side of her eyes.

“I’m… You’ve been very good to me, Shara,” she whispered bashfully, “I wish I had a gift for you, too. After everything you’ve given me.”

“Is not to worry,” I replied gently, taking the time to thread my fingers through her hair one last time, “You will call me if things are bad, yes? You have number still?”

I think my English was a tad more mutilated than that, judging by the fact that it took her a few seconds to understand what I was trying to say. She eventually smiled and nodded. She then stepped forward and hugged my neck with one arm/hoof/leg/thing. I’m very certain I got more hugs from Fluttershy in that one week than every other person in my life combined. I had to force myself to hug her back, but only at first. I felt that cynical part of me chewing at my neck again, telling me that I wasn’t going to make this any easier for myself by showing affection. Still, I ignored the inner voice in lieu of the moment and let myself relax.

“I will miss you,” she whimpered, her voice suddenly shaky.

Crying… Why she had to cry, I’m not certain. I was certain that it was going to make me cry though, so I quickly pulled away, standing up and letting out a hasty sigh. I don’t cry beautifully, nor do I behave rationally or intelligently when it happens.

“Ahhhh, is best to not be wasting time,” I stared out at the forest where there was absolutely nothing to see. I could see her gaze at me sadly out of the corner of my eye but I pretended to not notice. I place my hands within my large longcoat pockets, blinking as I felt the belt wrapped around a holster.

“Oh, I uh… I have one thing more,” I stammered a bit before pulling out the contents of my pocket. It was a gun, belt, spare magazine, and holster. Just a small nine millimeter with a full mag, nothing crazy. “This is a weapon. It is for protecting.”

Her eyes grew wide upon staring at it. “P-Protecting w-w-what?”

“For protecting Fluttershy. You,” I replied bluntly before kneeling down and beckoning her forward, “I saw you at computer. I think to myself, ‘If her wing can use computer, it can use gun’ and so I… I decided to give this to you for protecting.”

She didn’t comply at first but after a short staring contest, she gave in and trotted over to me. I gave her an encouraging smile as I looped the belt around… well, maybe it was the waist? Not certain. I didn’t take Cartoon Anatomy back in my six years of legitimate education. Just for clarity’s sake, it was behind her wings and in front of her butterflies ‘Cutie Mark’ (That’s not a joke. She really calls it that. Like it’s the label bestowed upon it by science.). I had adjusted the straps to swing parallel to the belt so she would have easy access to both the gun and the ammo on the other side. After giving it a once over, I nodded and glanced at her.

“Is tight?” I asked.

“N-No,” she shook her head, “No, it’s fine.”

“Mmm,” I grunted before giving a short nod and stepping back, “Try to use it.”

“What?” she looked back up at me in horror.

I pursed my lips and gave her a look, letting her know I wasn’t going to play coy with her. She lowered her gaze before slowly reaching her wing back for the weapon. She actually startled at touching it, as though her body were electrified by its contact. After a moment to recover, she wrapped the tips of her oddly prehensile wings around the weapon and tugged at it several times to no avail. Confusion quickly marred her gaze and before long, her fear was replaced by frustrated strain. I did my best not to laugh.

“It’s stuck!” she whined.

My best was not enough. I was laughing uncontrollably at just how green she was.

“W-What’s wrong?!” she craned her head back to look at the holster, only to notice a leather strap holding the gun in place. Her ears fell flat against her head in embarrassment. “Oh.”

After a bit of fiddling, she unclasped the weapon and drew it out with a cute grunt. Her face lit up with triumph and she gave an enthusiastic bounce.

“I did it!” she cried, throwing her wings in the air with pride.

The motion caused the gun to fly right out of her wing and nearly smack me in the face. Had I not caught it, it would have done just that.

“Eh… We should work on gun control,” I said with a chuckle, suddenly grateful I had the safety on.

Her cheeks burned red with shame as she cantered over, timidly laughing at herself, “Aheh~… W… What is gun control?”

“Is responsible use of gun,” I explained the best I could. My memory isn’t perfect; I can’t remember exactly what I had said. “Weapon is dangerous. Accident could be bad.”

Her eyes slowly grew to twice their normal size, which were exceptionally large to begin with.

“Bad?” she stuttered, terrified of the prospect.

“Bad,” I confirmed with a nod, reaching over and holstering the weapon back in its sleeve on her side.

“Bad like… You might get hurt?” she asked, the fear slowly settling in.

“Bad like you might die or kill someone.” I was very clear about it. I wasn’t going to sugar coat it for the naïve darling. That would be stupid and would have served no purpose but to leave her utterly unprepared for the world. Yes, it was still difficult for me.

“K-K… kill?” she whispered in shock as though she were struggling with the word.

Oh, I can most assuredly promise you, I was having a hard time deciding how to handle this. A large part of me wanted to smack her upside the back of her head and say Yes, Fluttershy, that’s why it will protect you! While another part wanted to just hug her neck and tell her that everything would be okay. Instead, I behaved rationally, like an intelligent person.

“Da. Kill. Is why you must have gun control. No accidents,” I reasoned with her firmly.

Her eyes locked onto mine and for several seconds, she could only gape at me in dismay. When she finally recovered enough to vocalize, her bottom lip began to quiver.

“T-Take it away!” she suddenly burst into a mess of sobs, “I don’t w-wa… I don’t want it!”

I slapped a hand over my face and inhaled deeply for patience. What the hell was I supposed to do?

“Fluttershy.” My voice was muffled through my hand.

“I d-d-don’t want to hurt anypony!” she cried, hiding her face under a wing.

“Fluttershy,” I raised my voice a bit to try and drown out her sobs.

Unfortunately, it did not work and she simply continued to wail. “I j… I just can’t d-do this! I’m… I’m sorry, Sh-Shara, just take it off!”

I felt a lot of impatient anger boiling up so I decided to put an end to her fearful tirade before I had an outburst of my own.

“FLUTTERSHY!” I shouted, silencing her crying, if not her tears and trembling.

I walked around in front of her and knelt back down, staring at the wings hiding her face. After a deep breath for strength and patience, I slowly pushed her wings out of the way, revealing her tear streaked visage. She gave a timid sniffle and let out an equally meek cough. I snorted, somewhat amused by how heartwrenchingly endearing she was.

“Ahhh.” I pulled the handkerchief that I always keep on hand from its pocket within my longcoat and used it to gently wipe away her tears. “You are like baby.”

That, apparently, offended her delicate sensibilities. “I… I am not!”

I smirked before giving her nose a thump and offering a chuckling rebuttal, “Yes, you are.”

She gave me a pouting stare. “That’s… That’s not a very nice thing for you to say, Shara.”

“Honesty tends to be not nice,” I countered, running my hand through her hair (Still unsure of why I kept doing that). “You are a baby and cannot take care of Fluttershy.”

“I can too!” she insisted, her expression becoming frustrated and fierce. Fierce like a growling puppy losing a fight with a kitten half its size. “I lived by myself next to a dangerous forest just like this one and took care of dozens of animals!”

I rolled my eyes. “Is not forest I am afraid of. Forest is safe compared to many places.”

She didn’t seem so sure of herself anymore. Not after digesting that, anyway.

“I… I can still take care of myself,” she murmured sadly.

I cupped her muzzle in my hand and lifted her gaze to mine. “You have trouble hearing, I think. Listen closely. Can you protect Fluttershy?”

Side note: I still had not figured out how to put ‘R’s on the ends of my ‘You’s just yet.

“I… I can stare…” she started to say before I cut her off.

“Fluttershy,” I shook my head, “Let me try this way. What it someone tries to hurt you?”

“H-Hurt me?” she stammered.

“There are good people and bad people,” I said with a very serious nod, “What if you meet a bad one and cannot run away? Would you fight?”

“F-Fight?” I was starting to doubt that she could complete a sentence without a few extra syllables.

“Sometimes, one must fight,” I told her, still holding her gaze, “No matter how nice you can be, some people are bad. They hurt nice people because nice people do not want to hurt anyone. The only way to stop them is to be stronger than the bad. You must be strong enough to fight. Fight for you and others, maybe. This is not the Equestria you come from… Things are different. Do you understand?”

She didn’t cry (MUCH TO MY RELIEF) but the idea did seem to terrify her quite thoroughly. After a bit, she looked down and took a deep breath. She let it out slowly before taking a step forward and pressing her face into my shoulder. This was a hug that I did not have to force myself into, for once. It felt bad, making her sad like this. I mean, crying out of shock and fear is immature in my opinion. Crying because something really bothers you on some emotional level is something entirely different.

“Fluttershy,” I sighed, my words soft and comforting, “It is not all bad. I am worried. That is all. I would not be glad to hear of you getting hurt.”

Scary as this is, those words were quite true. This silly thing had been by my side for all of a week and here I am dreading the thought of harm coming to her.

“Do you understand?” I murmured gently.

She nodded, her face still pressed into my shoulder. I smirked as I felt a wing wrap around to try to hug me back. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the sorrow gripping her heart, despite the fact that I was only trying to help. I let my hand slide down the back of her long neck, doing my best to try and comfort the poor girl. Looking back, I wonder if I wasn’t bothering her every time I pat/stroked her head. I mean, that’s sort of how you show affection to a pet and all. Hopefully she understood that I was just trying be… … nice.

“You are mad with me?” I asked, somewhat worried that I had offended her.

She shook her head, withholding her words for a few seconds longer.

“No,” she breathed, “I… I’m scared.”

I blinked before pushing her back somewhat to look her in the eyes, “Scared? Of me?”

She shook her head, “Of this world. I’m… I’m trying to be brave like… Rainbow Dash and Twilight. I… I want to help F-Firewall like he helped us. B-But I don’t know how. I… I’m not a brave pony. I c-can’t help. What can one scared little pegasus do? I c-can’t even make a decent raincloud.”

I hooked a thumb under her chin and shook my head in disapproval.

“You want to help?”

She nodded miserably.

“You want to be strong?”

She nodded again.

I stared at her good and hard, inwardly strangling the little voice of pragmatism begging me to not do this. It died kicking and screaming, leaving a lot of doubt and fear that I would regret this decision. But die it did. Without it to scare me away from getting involved, I was able to look my new friend right in the eyes and smile.

“Is easier with comrade,” I said with a smirk, giving her nose a gentle flick.

Yes, I said comrade.

“You… You’ll come with me?” The smile she gave me was worth my blood, and I don’t say that lightly.

“Da,” I promised before standing back up and turning for the bunker (Err... house), “We should pack. We will need to teach you many things as well.”

She cantered to keep pace, gazing up at me in thrilled awe. “Y-Yes. Many things! I… What comes first?”

“I teach you Russian. Unless you speak something else?”

“Oui, je parle français, Madame!” she chipped happily as we approached the door.

… Ugh. French.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse.

-=-

This has been a fan-written story by CardsLafter - Follow me onDeviantArt to stay up to date with TTEOAP

Questions, Comments, and Criticism may be directed to theEQD Blogpage

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Chapter Fifteen - Part Two: A Few Good Mares

Through The Eyes Of Another Pony

Chapter Fifteen Part Two: A Few Good Mares

By CardsLafter

Six months after Flutterfall…

I hate stealing, Twilight thought dourly as she glanced out the window onto the empty hotel parking lot. It just felt all wrong in many different ways. Even breaking into this apartment that didn’t belong to her and simply using its bed to rest was trying her conscience. Even as her fingers drummed along the table, her mind began to wonder why she was doing things that obviously made her feel so… wrong.

Because you were made to feel this way, murmured a small voice in her head as she glanced down at her hand. It was a light brownish-yellow. Not too different from the color of sun bleached wood. Her bright violet eyes narrowed. This body felt so different, yet entirely natural. Whether that was just the way she was made or was a side effect of her spell, she would never know. Either way, it was unsettling. Why should her new body feel so normal?

“Aaagh!” Applejack roared angrily, shaking Twilight out of her deep thought.

She shook her head and glanced back at Applejack who was grunting in frustration in her attempts to don a… what had Rarity called it? A brawl? That didn’t sound quite right. Whatever the case, the inanimate object was definitely winning the battle despite Applejack’s Earth Pony strength.

Her gaze trailed over the mauve colored blankets that were tightly wrapped over the large queen sized beds. Pinkie Pie was sitting on the farthest of the two, happily stuffing her face with the contents of a flame orange bag that had dubbed itself ‘Doritos’ in large friendly letters on the front.

At least the others don’t have to know about this. At least they don’t have to know... the truth, Twilight said to herself, hoping the words would comfort her. Alas, they did not.

The bag of the ‘Doritos’ made her feel sick. It had been stolen along with many other human foods after they had exhausted the supplies they had brought with them. What kind of world did Firewall live in where one had to steal just to eat? Oh, she knew that there was a legitimate way to acquire the resources but other than Rarity’s spell to locate precious stones, there was just no way to pursue such avenues. Even with that at their disposal, Rarity could not sense the difference between buried jewels and the engagement rings on a human woman’s finger. And even if she could do that, they could not risk the route of legitimacy lest the Resonant Hunters find them. Any significant use of magic could compromise without so much as a warning.

No, it’s entirely necessary, Twilight reflected inwardly. She knew deep down that it was the safest possible way for them to survive without bringing risk of great harm. Her reasons and motivations for such despicable actions were both sound and genuine. However, that alone did not make her feel any better about what she had done. Simply put, she felt guilty.

No, she thought to herself, you were designed to feel that way, Twilight. He made you to feel like that. But you are not obligated to feel bad about this! You make your own choices about what does and doesn’t bother you. Don’t forget that!

Of course, she still felt bad, but reasoning that it was within her power to not feel that way helped to alleviate the problem. Or maybe that was just what she wanted to think. Ah, circular logic.

“Landsakes!” Applejack continued to fight with humanity’s poor taste in clothing, “How’za pony supposed to fit in this thang!”

Pinkie Pie giggled before eagerly licking the orange… dust-like substance off her fingers and bouncing off the bed over to Applejack. With a bit of struggle, the pony-made-human helped hook the device in the back, ending her friend’s plight.

“Ugh. Thanks, Pinkie,” Applejack swung her new arms about as she twisted her torso, grimacing at the unnaturally tight grip on her chest. “I can’t believe all the human girls walk around in stuff like this all day. They must be tough as nails, I reckon!”

Twilight didn’t find it as uncomfortable to wear the human clothing as Applejack did. That was likely due to the difference in their human forms. Whereas Twilight was slender and less… roundy, Applejack was broad shouldered, somewhat muscled, and a great deal taller than the rest of them. Also, for some reason, her freckles seemed to be just about everywhere on her skin that wasn’t frequently exposed to sunlight. Twilight remembered Applejack’s skepticism where freckles were concerned. She didn’t easily swallow the concept of humans and ponies sharing such traits. After having been around them for over a month, they realized that humans and ponies had more similarities than differences.

“I don’t know anypony as tough as you, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie chirped encouragingly, “So if anypony can handle it, you can!”

Pinkie Pie was something altogether in her own class as well. Her skin was darker than Applejack’s by quite a margin. She also seemed to look significantly younger, too. Twilight wasn’t very certain how old Pinkie appeared in the eyes of a human, but she was fairly certain that she was representing late adolescence. Magic often had a very peculiar way of manifesting. Likely their new forms were somehow influenced by their psyches.

“I suppose so, but that don’t mean I gotta like it,” Applejack grumped before glancing Twilight’s way, “Hey, Twilight, what’s wrong?”

What isn’t wrong? Twilight caught herself wondering as she let her mind wander over the question. They were on an alien world that they had no business being around, their resources were nearly depleted, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both missing, neither herself nor Rarity were able to use any meaningful amount of magic, and judging by the fact that Luna had not contacted her since their arrival over a month ago, Twilight was betting that they really were on their own.

“I’m just worried about Rarity,” Twilight murmured dishonestly, glancing back out the window.

Technically it wasn’t a lie. It may not have been on the forefront of her mind, but she still felt concern bubbling inside of her for their dark-skinned friend. Losing Fluttershy in that accident several months ago was bad enough, not to mention Rainbow Dash making things worse by rashly throwing herself into the second portal. So having not heard from Rarity in two days, Twilight could not help but dread the possibility that she had lost yet another friend to the mysterious Earth.

As though on cue, a yellow cab – as she had heard it called – pulled into the parking lot and slowed to a stop. Its side door swung open to reveal Rarity, who gracefully stepped out and paid the driver with some of that crisp grayish-green paper.

Twilight felt a twist of jealousy in her gut at how easy she made it look. She didn’t begrudge Rarity in the slightest deep down, but the white unicorn, now ironically the darkest of all of them, adapted to the scene as though she was born to act. Where Twilight was struggling with the somewhat innate aggression of her lost naivety, Rarity had shown poise and grace, tactfully manipulating and verbally outmaneuvering the most frictional of situations. She had also been able to deduce the purpose and reason for every last article of clothing the humans wore, from the foot-preserving socks to the purely aesthetic scarves.

“She’s back,” Twilight murmured almost numbly.

Pinkie Pie and Applejack ran over to the window without a moment’s hesitation. They peered at her as though she were the answer to their prayers.

“D’ya think she was right?” Applejack almost whispered.

Twilight didn’t answer. She just sat back in the chair that held her up. How come these hotels always seem to have a small table and two chairs in every room, she wondered.

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie poked her knee, her frown both worried and sad.

Twilight started a mite. “Sorry, you guys. I don’t know. It might have just been a false lead.”

Rarity tapped on the door a few seconds later. Applejack reached for the door before pausing and taking a deep breath. Very deliberately, she slowly twisted the handle and gently swung open the door open. Twilight let out a breath of relief, now certain that Applejack’s Earth Pony strength would not be ripping the door off its hinges. Once fully ajar, Rarity stepped in with a dazzling, if somewhat forced smile.

“Well done, Applejack, no accidents this time,” she strained to beam at her friend before grunting at the impact of the Pinkie Pie Powerhug Projectile.

Twilight was quick and observant. Much moreso than the average person or pony. So much, in fact, that even a talented actress such as Rarity could not hide her internal distress. It made a difficult task of not jumping to the worst conclusion. Another dead end.

“Rarity!” Pinkie squealed in a thrilled fashion, careful to not squeeze the fragile unicorn in her embrace. “Did you find him was it him it was him wasn’t it I bet you were right you’re always right Rarity but I gotta know was it him huh huh huh huh huh?!”

“Pinkie, calm down, please,” Twilight softly interjected, still letting her impassive gaze wander past the window, “Rarity hasn’t even had a moment to relax.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, dear, really,” Rarity waved a dismissive hand before hugging her happy pink friend, “And yes, Pinkie, it was indeed him. And you were right, Twilight, he has no recollection of what happened back in Equestria.”

Twilight blinked as the words sunk in. That was not what she had been expecting to hear.

“Don’t that beat all,” Applejack gingerly shut the door before sighing remorsefully, “I oughta kick David’s hindquarters up past his shoulders.”

“Awww!” Pinkie’s cheerful demeanor rapidly dissolved, “Does that mean we can’t go see him?!”

“I’m afraid so, Pinkie,” Twilight answered, her own heart still struggling with the decision on whether to sink sadly or jump for joy, “If it really is the same… ‘harmonic,’ as David called it, then we run the risk of causing him a lot of suffering just by reminding him of those days. We’re going to have to find a way to reverse it before we try to reconnect with Firewall. That’ll be best for him. Besides, we don’t know how he would react to us without actually knowing us.”

Rarity bit her lip before pulling a small recording device out of her purse and setting it on the table in front of Twilight. Taking the opposing seat, she let out a sad sigh.

“Twilight, I’m not so certain if that it would be best for him after all,” she spoke with reluctance, “He’s… already suffering, you see.”

Twilight felt her stomach turn over on itself. A cold sweat quickly began to break out on her forehead, but she kept her expression stoic and unmoving.

“Firewall’s in pain!?” Pinkie Pie shrieked, suddenly fearful enough to hide her mouth behind a pair of shaky hands.

“Not… literal pain. At least, not entirely,” Rarity clarified haltingly, “Not… It’s not easy to explain. Perhaps I should let you listen. But just to the relevant parts.”

“What do you mean ‘just the relevant parts’?” Twilight met the river blue eyes of her fellow unicorn and let her eyebrow lift in confusion.

“Twilight, I… deceived Firewall into thinking that I was a counselor; a worker whose trade is to help a pony’s mind through their psychological damage. And that everything he told me would be in complete confidence. That no one outside of the room would be privy to anything he shared with me. In fact, I would not be telling you this if I was not worried about his well-being,” Rarity explained, her visage somewhat pleading, “You understand, I already feel bad enough betraying this much of his trust. I’m just… very concerned, Twilight. He’s not entirely well.”

“Shucks, Rarity, we ain’t here to judge ya,” Applejack pulled a shirt down over her head before setting a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “But uh… Ah’d be much obliged if you stopped keeping us in suspense.”

“Go ahead, Rarity. Turn it off as soon as you’re comfortable that we’ve heard what we need to hear.” Twilight let a ghost of a smile show at the corners of her mouth.

The token effort did a lot to assuage the fears of the dark-skinned unicorn, “Right. Here goes.”

Rarity gingerly picked up the tape-recorder and pressed a black button on its side. A soft crackling static resounded from its speaker as she set it back down.

Oh. Wow.

Oh, I hadn’t noticed you! Mr. McPhearson, yes?

Dad? Oh wait, you’re talking to me. Sorry, nobody ever calls me ‘Mister,’ really.

Twilight’s eyes unfocused as she let out a nostalgic sigh. Cheap humor, relaxed voice with a tone that landed somewhere twixt tenor and baritone. Definitely par for the Firewall course.

Aha~! Would you prefer I address you in a more familiar fashion then?

Definitely. This is weird enough as it is. I’ve always been able to handle my own problems before but… Lately, things are just beyond me. I really had to talk to somebody.

Well, Stephen, that’s what I’m here for.

Good thing, too. I just hope it’s as easy to talk to you as it is to look at you.

Twilight blinked at Firewall’s compliment to Rarity. She had forgotten how forward he could be.

“Rarity.” Applejack snickered. “Is Firewall… flirtin’ with you?”

“He’s not lost his shameless charm, that much is certain,” Rarity’s smile complimented her slight blush. Reliving the flattery had somewhat diminished her upset demeanor, Twilight was quick to note.

Ha! You’re too kind, darling. Still, you are paying for my services and I would be remiss to squander your time.

Suit yourself, but it’s actually Dad’s money we’re wasting. Y’know. For the record and stuff. So, anyway, I suppose I should just skip to the parts that matter?

Well, your father provided me a small novel of background information, even though I asked him not to.

He’s an ass like that. I’d totally do the same if I were in his shoes.

I see. Well, where would you like to start?

Well, Miss... Rarity? Really?

That’s what the plaque says, dear.

I guess it does. It’s just… … I’ve heard that name before… What’s your first na-… Nhhg…

Twilight grimaced as Firewall’s voice gasped in pain. She quickly quelled her urge to snap at Rarity and instead rubbed the bridge of her nose in slight frustration, “Rarity. You didn’t.”

“I had no idea it would actually hurt him,” Rarity swallowed shamefully, gently placing the tips of her fingers over her lips, “I wasn’t aware it would take something as simple as a name…”

“But I warned you that might happen,” Twilight shut her eyes, counted to ten, and let out a deep breath, “Nevermind, you were just a little negligent. Not that I can talk; I didn’t even consider false names. It sounds like it wasn’t too bad, at least.”

Stephen, are… you alright?

I’m f-fine… I’m fine.

Are you certain? Should I not call emergency services? You seem very ill.

Nothing they can… do about it.

Twilight could hear his voice strain in agony and noticed the color drain away from Rarity’s face in response. She felt a chill go through her spine before shrugging it off, masking it by readjusting her seating.

What do you mean?

This is why I’m here, Miss… Umm… Ah… Hey, where’d that plaque with your name go?

What plaque, dear?

Huh… Just… Remember there being one right there.

You seem to be mistaken. If you’ve already forgotten, though, my name is Stella.

“Wow, that was fast thinking, Rarity!” Pinkie squeaked in awe. Twilight had to agree. If Rarity had left the plaque out for Firewall to notice, he might have had a relapse; possibly one worse than before.

Stella… Okay. Sure. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. This stuff. Strange things have been happening to me ever since I was found after my... Y’know... missing for three months.

Your father made mention of that. He said you made a habit to contact him once every Sunday and Wednesday.

Yup. And nobody knows what happened to me.

Indeed. Your hospital bill states that you had a few broken ribs, what looked very much like a gunshot wound, and a mild case of amnesia.

Right again.

What do you think happened?

Stella, I’ve not the slightest. One day I’m partying at my Step-Sister’s place in Gainesville, the next thing I know, I’m in the ER with my Dad asleep in a chair beside me in St. Augustine. The doctors there had to tell me that it was July. I got checked while there. Not a thing wrong with my brain.

Indeed. It states that you made an astoundingly fast recovery.

Which is another… change. Now, don’t… jump to any conclusions. Just hear me out. I can prove it if I have to. But it’s going to sound incredibly strange.

Darling, would you care to guess how often I hear that line?

Oh, I’m not trying to say I’m special or anything… But the fact is… I kinda am.

I see. You don’t seem especially conceited or self-entitled, so the conclusion I am drawing is you feel that you have a legitimate reason to believe so.

Yup. I’m just sayin’ though… Don’t freak out. Here it comes… … Wait for it… I think I’ve got super powers.

Rarity’s response was drowned out in the soft chorus of laughter that Pinkie Pie squeaked out.

“If you call being incredibly dramatic a super power,” Twilight mumbled with an amused roll of the eyes, eliciting a few more laughs from her friends.

Well… Don’t hold it against me if I happen to be jealous.

Heh! But seriously, it’s… Maybe it’s just a genetic thing. Who knows? What I do know is that over the past few months, I’ve had a run of seriously bad luck. I got into a car wreck that shattered my collarbone, I got stabbed in a mugging over in St. Augustine, and I slipped on a pool deck, cracking my skull on the concrete. All three times? I was back to being in top shape the next day. If not the same day! I don’t stay wounded for longer than a day or two. And it has to be a pretty nasty thing to last longer than a few hours.

I… I see. Truly?

Yeah. I mean, how long do we have? An hour? Now, this is going to sound weird, I know… But I could stab a hole in my hand and by the time I leave, it will be mostly healed.

That’s… um… fascinating. But please, do not demonstrate. While I’m certain there’s an explanation for this, I feel I must ask… why are you seeing me instead of a physician?

Stella, I’ve got friends in law enforcement and prosecution. I’ve heard the horror stories of doctors and their bioethics. Not saying they’re all like that but I just can’t take the risk. Besides, I just need someone to confide in. At least for now. I know you’re probably scribbling down a diagnosis that states I’m certifiable. I mean, you’ve every right, right? What loon comes in and talks about regeneration, amnesia, and migraines? That’s, like, straight out of X-Men, if you ask me.

Stephen, really. If I thought you were already worthy of being committed, I wouldn’t bother with the niceties of letting you talk. Now please, don’t worry about myself. My job is to listen and help in whatever way I can.

Well good, because I was also thinking about becoming a super hero. I’d like to bounce some ideas off you if that’s alright.

I’d gladly listen to them if you like, but some might consider that a waste of your money.

It’s not like it’s mine, right? Eh? Eh?

That is true. Do you feel as though it would be more of a waste if it were?

Twilight had to admit, Rarity was skirting Firewall’s nonsense with relative ease. The truly shocking part was that she was able to accomplish this feat without becoming impatient, hostile, or insulting. Twilight would have personally struck him with a book by this point.

Heh. No, probably would be less of a waste in that case. Honestly, I’m not much about fussin’ over what’s mine. I’m much more likely to use someone else’s money responsibly. Don’t like to take advantage of others.

I see. Perhaps you might want to stay on the safe side and avoid the risk, then?

Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, I’m just... It’s bothering me. I’m on edge.

I understand. And I want you to know that I believe you’re an honest person and that you are frightened by these extraordinary events. Take my word that I want to hear your side of this.

Alright… Alright, I’m just freaked out, is all. Strange things. Seriously strange. I can’t even begin to tell you about all of them.

We need not cover everything on day one. Just take a relaxing breath and say what’s on your mind.

Where to start? Heh… Well, there’s a tattoo that’s appeared on my back.

A tattoo?

Yarp. A large one. Just above the left shoulder. It just appeared not four days after I was found. I know it wasn’t there before, but I can tell you exactly when it happened because it was like my skin caught on fire for a couple of minutes. Never happened again. It was like magic, y’know?

I… What does it look like?

It’s a shield, actually. A blue one, with a smaller red one inside of it and a tongue of flame in the center. When I looked at it in the mirror, it made my head hurt. Just like it did when I thought of your name. I haven’t told anyone about that. It’s not like they’d even believe me. I mean, even to me it sounds like a lame excuse for rebelling against your parents but… I never even wanted a tattoo!

“Well, if we weren’t sure before,” Applejack murmured, giving a nod and letting the rest of the implication go unspoken.

Does that happen often? The pain, I mean.

Not… as much as it did. It’s pretty random. Sometimes it happens when I’m at home surfing the internet. Sometimes it’ll happen when I’m passing a billboard on the interstate. Hell, it even happened when my baby niece was watching a little kids show. It’s been happening less and less, but still often enough that I’m afraid of what will happen if I actually sit down and seriously contemplate my situation. I mean, between that and… some other stuff.

Other stuff?

Yeah. Other stuff. That’s the medical term for it. I looked it up.

Oh, I must have slept through that class.

Applejack snorted loudly, amused by the pleasant exchange. Pinkie was covering her mouth and nose in an attempt to stifle the rambunctious laughter that was bubbling within. Even Twilight felt the corner of her mouth itch with the need to rise. She allowed it a margin of movement but otherwise remained unmoving, still staring at the device.

Rarity had allowed the playful exchange to go on for a short while, slowly taking Firewall out of his shell. It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually they got back on track.

So, this ‘Other Stuff’... Does it possibly have a specific name that those of us from the unwashed masses use?

Unwashed masses. Oh, but that’s a fun one to use… Haahhhh~…

Twilight felt a bit of moisture on the palm of her hands upon hearing his resigned sigh. She had come to associate that as a human’s reaction to stress or worry. This was serving to further that assumption.

Ah… I don’t really know what it’s called… I’ve just been… Y’know…

I’m afraid I don’t, if you’ll forgive me.

It’s just… I’ve been… Crying at night.

Twilight began to chew her lip. That confirmed that he had been altered. Whatever David had done to him was the same thing he had done to The Nightmare. At least, it was the same method. She couldn’t deny that The Nightmare was better off these days, but something felt wrong about the entire situation. Changing a living, thinking being against its will felt like a fundamental violation of freedom on so many different levels. To think that it also happened to Firewall was almost too painful to think about.

You cry at night? What causes that, do you think?

I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like crying yourself to sleep. No, I’m talking I wake up every night covered in ice cold sweat and tears streaming down my face. I didn’t even know about the tears until my step-mom pointed them out.

You live with your parents then?

Nah. I mean, Dad and Wendy kept me after my hospital stay for a few weeks. But my boss back in Alabama had to let me go for not returning from vacation. So, for the past year or so I’ve been living with my roommate, David, and his kid Natalie. Known them for a while, y’know? They’re like family.

Twilight’s eyes widened considerably before she lifted them to gauge Rarity’s reaction.

“I’ve looked… into the matter,” Rarity explained, noting the concern on her friend’s face, “Apparently, the name ‘David’ is somewhat common among humans. Not even humans exclusive to this country. It could just be a coincidence.”

“No, that just doesn’t fit.” Twilight shook her head. “There are no coincidences, Rarity. Just convenient excuses. Applejack, we’re going to have to look for Dash and Fluttershy tomorrow. Finish getting dressed, we’re leaving as soon as you’re ready.”

“Where are we going, Twilight?” Rarity asked, even though she knew the answer.

“We’re going to rescue Firewall.” Twilight responded before glancing back at her blonde friend and gently commanding, “Don’t delay, Applejack. Pinkie, you too.”

“YAY!” Pinkie Pie jumped up and down frantically, the thought of seeing Firewall again thrilling her to no end.

Applejack bit back an argument and did as she was told. She was more worried about Dash and Fluttershy than Firewall; mostly Fluttershy, though. Firewall and Dash both knew how to fight and how to protect themselves. Fluttershy was a timid creature who was likely panicking somewhere. She trusted Twilight’s judgment more than her own, though, and reconciled to not argue over the matter.

Rarity was not so reserved, “Twilight, I know you don’t trust him, but…”

“Rarity, if it wasn’t for David, we wouldn’t even be in this mess!” Twilight snapped, instantly biting her lip and shutting her eyes upon taking note of her tone and attitude, “I… Listen, I’m sorry but… Rarity, I am not taking the chance. With Luna no… no longer around to keep him in line, I’ve even less reason to put any faith in him. We’re going.”

They shared a silence for a few moments, only to have it broken by the device continuing its playback.

Now, your father thought it necessary for me to ask about your sister.

Cynthia? What about her?

No, darling. Your other sister. Serenity, it says here.

“Wait, Firewall said he only had one sister,” said Pinkie Pie, pausing her emphatic bouncing as she tilted her head in confusion, “He told me…”

Rarity suddenly scrambled forward and snatched up the device. She began to frantically fiddle with its interface, hastily searching for the way to switch it off.

Let’s not, if that’s alright. That’s not what I’m worried about…

I don’t know the details, Stephen, so you need not worry. If the subject is unapproachable, then perhaps we should leave it for another time. However, I would be remiss if I did not remind you that talking about unapproachable subjects is why you are here.

I know, I… It’s ju-

Rarity finally found the stop button and gave a nervous laugh as she tucked the device away in her purse. Twilight’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Rarity wasn’t a pony that would sweat the little things unless it was a personal project of hers. She was, however, a very observant pony and knew that there was no fooling Twilight by this point.

“Um… Applejack, Pinkie Pie? Could the two of you excuse us, please?” Rarity asked. “Twilight, let us fetch the carriage.”

Applejack lifted an eyebrow. She wasn’t dumb, she knew there was more going on than was being said. That, however, did not ruffle her jimmies in the slightest. She knew how to keep her nose out of the business of others. She was confident that she didn’t need to hear whatever it was that Rarity was hiding and if it ever came to a head where she would need to know, she would be told. Applejack’s firm hold on her curiosity was something she took pride in. Also, it had the convenient side-effect of silently asking others to respect her privacy as well.

Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, was more concerned about much more important things. Such as how she would have to restrain herself from crushing Firewall in her powerful embrace. That was something she hated about humans. They were very squishy. Like, baby-pony-squishy. If she hugged one too hard, she would hurt it. Thus, she had to settle for unexciting, less-thrilling soft hugs. But there were good things about humans, too! Such as toes! Toes made up for just about everything. Toes, as it were, happened to be just about the silliest thing Pinkie Pie had ever seen. And they tickled! She made sure all the other ponies knew about the ticklish part when she found out.

“It’s not a carriage, Rarity,” Twilight reminded her.

“I’ll help! Quick, everypony! To the Whinny Bagel!” Pinkie Pie hopped up, dashing to the door only to be caught midflight by Applejack.

Winnebago, Twilight thought to herself irritably, withholding the comment for the sake of moving things along.

“Hey!” Pinkie protested profusely, air-paddling towards the door with an utter lack of forward motion.

“Pinkie, go get some of those pants or somethin’. Ya’ll know the drill. Ya can’t be showin’ all that skin or the humans will start starin’ atcha. Not that you don’t give’m plenty of reasons anyway.” Applejack set her back down with an impatient sigh.

Twilight did find it somewhat amusing that Applejack was giving the clothes lecture when she was the one to raise the biggest fuss about having to put clothes on every day. It wasn’t until she had received a few whistles and stares of her own that she finally complied with modest clothes every hour of every day. Still, she knew that Applejack was just using that as an excuse to give Rarity the space she wanted. Twilight watched Rarity give Applejack a glance of gratitude.

Pinkie looked down at her legs clad in night shorts and gave a loud exaggerated groan of contempt. She didn’t dislike the clothes. She just hated putting everything else on hold long enough to don them. “Okie~Dokie~Lokie.”

Rarity waited for the door to shut behind them before making her way to the stairwell. The humid air assaulted both their senses and began to break a thin line of sweat on their forehead, but it was nothing they weren’t used to by now.

“Well?” Twilight asked politely, if a little bluntly.

Rarity bit her lip as they quickly made their way down the stairs. She didn’t want to betray Firewall’s trust, but Twilight had shown an uncharacteristic amount of cold determination, which was a feat in itself, ever since he had been kidnapped by David back in Equestria. She knew the best way to face this problem was to bring it up first and take the momentum away from Twilight’s pressing curiosity. By the time she had sorted out all her thoughts though, they were already nearing the vehicle.

“Twilight,” Rarity started but lost herself in what to say. “I… Twilight, Firewall is… Oh, how to say this…”

Twilight patiently stared at Rarity as she reached for the door near the middle vehicle’s passenger side. Her expression was passive despite the anxiety broiling inside of her. Rarity bit her lip a second time before entering the vehicle and trying again.

As they entered, Rarity spun about to face her friend, prepared to explain as best she could.

“Think of Pinkie Pie and Firewall ,” she held up both her hands to demonstrate, “Pinkie is very… stochastic. And so is Firewall. Pinkie is very upbeat. Very much like Firewall. Pinkie and Firewall both love to make us laugh and smile, yes? They’re sweet, they’re dramatic, and they can, without a doubt, be positively infuriating at times…”

Twilight nodded, her visage becoming a mix of concern and confusion.

“Well, they both do this because they both feel as though they’re helping us; brightening our day through joy, in fact. Which is true, naturally; of that we can be certain. The difference between the two, Twilight,” Rarity said, pulling her hands apart before continuing, “Is that Pinkie Pie’s special talent is doing that very thing. It fulfills her as much as it makes her happy. It’s a rare calling that brings a pony to focus their lives around the very purpose of bringing joy to others. Firewall… He’s… Twilight, I don’t want to go into details and I ask that you don’t press for them. But he’s… just making the best of a bad situation. He’s using that attitude to hide things about himself. Awful things. Things that… I just… I’ve never heard of anything so terrible. And what was more frightening… He seems to think that his past is not an uncommon one. And that everyone has heard stories like this before. Not only heard of them, but experience it themselves. It’s… It’s just awful, Twilight.”

Rarity sat down on the long bench tracing the driver side wall and lowered her gaze to her lap before swallowing painfully. She tried to speak again but her voice cracked instead. Twilight blinked in shock. It was easy to tell when Rarity was being dramatic and when something was genuinely tearing at her. This was certainly falling into the second category.

“How bad?” Twilight wiped at the sweat as it started to bead, now a mite unsettled.

Rarity took a moment to compose herself before reaching into her purse and retrieving a tissue to dab at her eyes with.

“Twilight, I had to excuse myself. I couldn’t even look at him without feeling the urge to leap across that desk and hug him. It was just painful to…” She paused again, taking yet another deep breath in an attempt to collect herself. “You remember when Luna described humans? She said that we couldn’t see their Cutie Marks but that they have them? And that more often than not, a human’s Cutie Mark would oftentimes be better called a Cutie Scar?”

Twilight felt an icy sensation hit the pit of her stomach and spread out from there. Luna had tried to warn her of just how ugly humanity could get at times. It did help somewhat. Twilight was able to process such staggeringly brutal facts about Earth, but even just hearing about some of the darker sides of the human world bothered her at night. Twilight literally had been forced to shut off her emotional half just to function without fear of falling apart. Between the revelation of Equestria’s origins and the rigors of Firewall’s homeworld, Twilight was somewhat proud of the fact that she was keeping it together at all!

“So Firewall has a painful past,” Twilight licked her lip in contemplation and stared at Rarity’s purse.

“Oh, Twilight, it’s dreadful. You couldn’t possibly imagine how positively…” Rarity stopped again to dab at her eyes yet again. “Oh, just talking about it makes my heart ache.”

Twilight’s mind began to swirl with every horrific possibility she could imagine but she quickly put a lid on it and shook her head. Her eyes narrowed in focus as she coldly shunted her emotions away yet again. Now was not the time to fall apart. She was here to fix problems, not become one herself.

“Rarity, take the recording and don’t let anypony else listen to it,” she commanded in a soft voice, “Not even me. If it’s really that awful, then we don’t need complicate matters by distracting ourselves. Hold onto it just in case, though.”

Rarity nodded and took one last shuddering breath before bringing herself under control again.

“Yes, of course.”

Twilight began to move towards Rarity to embrace her but a shout from outside distracted them both.

“Hey! Girls get up here! You’re gonna want to see this!” called Applejack, her voice somewhat muffled by the distance, “I think we just found Dash!”

Twilight and Rarity blinked, taking a sparse number of seconds to digest the news before sprinting for the door. They both narrowly avoided tripping over one another as they raced across the parking lot, back up the stairs and to their apartment. As they entered, they saw Applejack and Pinkie Pie sitting on the bed whilst staring at the TV. The latter, Twilight noted, only had her pants halfway on. As they approached the television, Twilight’s eyes widened. A blonde-maned female reporter was busy covering a story with the headline ‘New Sentient Species Or Elaborate College Fraternity Hoax?’ stretched across the bottom of the screen. The upper left hand corner sported a picture of Rainbow Dash wrestling, and obviously winning, with a human roughly five times her size.

She didn’t, Twilight helplessly hoped.

“… strange creature was apparently capable of speech and went out of its way to meet any abrasive behavior with aggression of its own. A witness from the Phi Upsilon Kappa fraternity had this to say.”

They all stared in silence as the screen switched to that of a young man with a swollen black eye and split lip. As he began to describe the situation, Twilight suppressed the urge to groan at his beach-boy accent, finding it to be as annoying as it was common amongst the humans of America. The white cap he wore was turned somewhat to the side and his hair was stubbornly pushing out of every crevice it had.

“Yeah, she was pretty cool, man! I mean, at first we were freakin’ out like… ‘Woah! Talking blue horse with wings! Someone spiked the Natty!’ but she kept yellin’ about a yellow pony or something before breakin’ down like she’d lost her best friend! It was crazy! We got a few drinks in her to calm her down, but then Skyler started runnin’ his fat mouth because he thought she was some prank or somethin’? Dude’s an idiot, I dunno what he was talkin’ about. He mentioned something about Internet cancer, but he was pretty drunk and that Rainbow Horse wasn’t takin’ no off that . Knocked him the out. Like boom.”

Pinkie Pie threw her hands up in the air, her eyes wide with fascination. “Did you see him beep like that! I’ve never seen that! BOOP! Does it make my mouth fuzzy when I do that?! BOOP! BOOP! Bmmph~! … Mmm?”

Applejack had slowly moved her hand to cover Pinkie’s mouth as the TV panned back to the original reporter.

“After the altercation escalated, a call was made to the authorities for disturbing the peace. Officers arrived on the scene but it wasn’t until some half an hour later that the creature passed out from what seemed to be an excessive consumption of alcohol. Most of the officers declined to comment on the matter. Field Reporter Winifred is on site with more details…”

“Thank you, Lisa. And yes, you are correct, none of the officers would comment on what exactly took place after they arrived. We did, however, catch part of a conversation they were having amongst themselves. Apparently, the creature was more handling them than the other way around. More than once it was commented that tasers and other non-lethal forms of submission had no significant effect on it. As of this moment, the creature has not yet been moved from captivity within the University. The University is not allowing any further contact with the creature and has even barred further interference from the police, stating that the discovery belongs to them and any officer attempting to force their way in will be met with immediate legal action. However, if all suspicion of falsehood is dismissed, governmental intervention from Washington is expected to follow shortly after.”

Rarity quickly dove into her purse and began to scribble down details on a scratch piece of paper. It took the newscast a short while before it finally mentioned any details pertaining to location. After the reporter finally shifted her attention to a different story, Twilight switched the appliance off and turned to her friends. They were all huddled up on the bed, staring up at her as though she would know what to do. She took a deep breath as she tried to sort everything out. Progress wasn’t exactly stellar.

“Well, Twilight?” Applejack finally asked, voicing all their opinions.

“Alright… Alright… We need that uh… device that Luna gave us. Tom, that’s his name. Rarity, you have it, right?” she asked in a distracted tone, still trying to figure something out.

Rarity shuffled about in her purse for a bit before extracting a device known only as TomTom. Rarity found its voice somewhat endearing and had elected to be its carrier some time ago.

“Ask it where that… place is.” Twilight was having difficulty focusing. Was she to leave Dash? Or Firewall? Anything could happen at any time. Further delay was further risk. She couldn’t possibly justify losing one in favor of saving the other. Both of them were capable of defending themselves, but they were also defenseless in many different ways.

Rarity switched the GPS Guide on and waited for it to load before tapping it a few times, “Tom Tom. Could you please be a dear and direct me to the University of Nevada?”

“Maybe it’s not far away and we can do both in the same day!” Pinkie Pie chirped hopefully as she set her chin on Rarity’s shoulder and gazed longingly into the touch screen’s monitor.

After several seconds of silence, the device announced that the trip would take the better piece of an entire day. When the other three turned to look back at Twilight, she felt as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

“I… I don’t…” Twilight stammered, at a loss for what to do. Rainbow Dash might be taken by the police or worse yet, the American government (which was spoken of with little else but disdain, she noted). But Firewall was with David and if Twilight was certain of anything, it was that David was not to be trusted.

Upon seeing Twilight’s turmoil, Rarity spoke up, “I’ll get Rainbow Dash.”

All heads turned towards the white pony turned dark human.

“Rarity, this isn’t the same as checking up on a lead.” Twilight started to argue.

Applejack was quick to take her side, standing up from the bed, “Yeah, I’m thinkin’ I should go with. It sounds like they ain’t just gonna let her mosey on out the front door.”

“No, Applejack, I don’t believe that’s such a good idea.” Rarity replied before handing TomTom over to Pinkie. The frizzy pink-haired girl squealed with delight and immediately tried to strike up a conversation with the device. TomTom did its best to keep up.

“An’ just why not?” the farmer’s voice belied a hint of indignation at being turned down so curtly.

“Let us try to think of it from the human standpoint, Applejack. A strange new species has arrived in Equestria and the first thing it does is make strange demands, drink to excess, and starts a fight all in the same day.”

Twilight found it surprisingly easy to substitute drinking for smoking for that scenario to better match Firewall. She knew that really wasn’t how a comparison actually worked and thus knew not to bother bringing it up. Still, she found it somewhat amusing.

“What you’re suggesting, while no doubt effective, is to bring muscle and force to a delicate situation. What if we have to stay here a while longer, dear? Why, what you’re suggesting could very well make it impossible to go out in public at all!”

While a tad overdramatic, both Twilight and Applejack could not find a flaw in Rarity’s observation. At least, not without creating one far more glaring.

“Besides!” Pinkie piped up from the bed, laying on her back and staring at the TomTom clutched within her grasp. Her pants had somehow rearranged themselves backwards but were still only halfway up her legs. “If Twilight is right and David tries to pull a sneaky one, we’ll need all the ponies we can get!”

Applejack stared at Pinkie in shock, not especially prepared for such logical clarity from the party-girl.

“And if that’s the case, then I won’t be of much help in that department anyway,” Rarity added, silently reminding Twilight of their inability to rely on magic.

“Well, I still say it ain’t your call,” countered Applejack, bringing all attention back to Twilight, “What’s the plan, sugarcube?”

Twilight chewed on her lip nervously. What Rarity was proposing would put more than a thousand miles between them. Her instincts were telling her that neither of these situations were going to wait on them. To stick together would have been the safer way to go about things. But what good would it all be if they lost an opportunity to rescue one or the other?

“Do you have any money left, Rarity?” Twilight finally asked.

“Plenty, darling. I’ll be fine, I assure you. We may not get another chance like this.” Rarity was practically pleading by this point.

Twilight gave a short nod before moving to the chest of drawers near the beds. She pulled her old saddlebags out of the bottommost drawer and took a moment to marvel at how small they were compared to this form. She flipped open the heavier of the two and extracted a pair of gold bands. She sighed, remembering Luna’s gift just before The Battle of Shadows and spent a moment on lamentation. After recovering, though, she turned back to the others. She met their individual stares and inhaled deeply before letting it out slowly.

“I don’t have all the answers, you guys,” Twilight murmured as she let her visage fall down to focus on the two bracelets. “I may have studied for months with Luna to prepare for this, but I was more being groomed to help her, not stand in for her. With her not here, I’m at a loss. Loss or not, though, I must do what I think is right because a stupid human once told me that the wrong action is often better than no action at all.”

“Who told you that, Twilight? Was it Firewall? I bet it was!” Pinkie gasped as she rolled over on the bed to sit upright.

“Yes, it was him indeed.” Twilight couldn’t tell if that was nostalgia or exasperation in her voice. Either way, Firewall was to blame for it. “So… Rarity, if you’re willing… Do whatever you can. Even if you’re just able to stall, that might give us the time to get there and help.”

Rarity beamed at Twilight, the newfound contrast between her skin tone and teeth somehow intensifying her already dazzling smile.

“Thank you, Rarity,” said Twilight as she took Rarity’s hand and placed the bracelet within its grasp. “This is for emergencies. We’ll have the other one, so use this if you’re out of options. We’ll drop everything and get to you as soon as possible.”

Pinkie finally finished putting her pants on before bounding out the apartment door, proclaiming road trips for everypony and for everypony, a road trip. If they were lucky, it would only take an hour to recapture the bouncy Pinkie without the aid of magic.

“Great… Applejack, I’ll pack everything, if you could just…” Twilight started to ask before being interrupted by the blonde woman.

“Ah’m goin’, Ah’m goin’.” Applejack started for the door, pausing just long enough to glance back at the two unicorns. “And Rarity, Ah want that hat done by the next time I see ya.”

The glamorous pony turned human smiled in response. “Only if you promise to wear it, darling.”

With that said, Applejack went to chase down Pinkie Pie as Twilight and Rarity packed all their clothing, possessions, and tools. Luna had certainly done everything she could to prepare them and they all thanked her for it. Without her help, their days on Earth would have been far more difficult. After finishing, Twilight could not help but wonder just how Rarity was able to have just as many bags as the rest of them combined. Rather than draw attention to it, though, she simply went about her business and packed everything that wasn’t Rarity’s into the Winnebago. Approaching the stairs one last time, she prepared herself for a sobbing, overdramatic goodbye from Rarity. What she got instead, was a quiet figure sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at the loop of gold that Twilight had given her. In her delicate hand, the device looked almost sturdy. Naturally, it was very sturdy, having been made by Luna, but even Twilight felt the overbearing urge to treat them as though they were fragile glass.

Rarity rubbed her thumb along its reflective surface. After a heavy silence, she spoke up, “Twilight, I’m worried.”

“Don’t be, Rarity, you’ll do fine. We both know you shine under pressure.” Twilight moved to stand in front of Rarity before taking the other woman’s hand in her own, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Just like a diamond.”

Rarity could not help but smile at the compliment. However, she did not let it deter her from confronting her fears. “Thank you, darling, but I wasn’t talking about myself.”

Twilight’s encouraging demeanor faded almost instantly. It didn’t take a genius to know where this line of conversation was going. Still, she kept her composure and played it both cool and innocent.

“I’m talking about you,” Rarity murmured in a low voice before squeezing Twilight’s hand right back, “You haven’t been yourself. Not since The Battle of Shadows back at Appleloosa. I’m afraid for you. Not because you are changing. Everypony changes. That’s just a part of growing up, I suppose. But what bothers me is that you aren’t… talking about it. I’m fearful you may be… shutting us out. If I’m wrong, please tell me. I’m j-…”

Twilight interrupted her as she gently pulled her hand away and gave a soft nod. “You’re just concerned. I know, Rarity. You care, and that’s why you bring it up.”

Rarity felt a tense knot inside of her stomach slowly untangle as she nodded in agreement. Of course Twilight would understand where she was coming from. After all, this wasn’t the first time there had been rocky roads in the relationship that the six of them shared. Their love for one another had never been in question.

“Rarity, you’re right. I have been changing. And I’m not sure how to say this but… I need you to try and ignore it as best you can. At least until this is all behind us.” Twilight watched as Rarity stood up and met her gaze, comforted by her sincerity. “Mostly because… I’m not sure I’m going to handle it gracefully when I eventually get around to dealing with it. And I’m going to need you there for me when that time comes. But right now, the most important thing is that I do everything in my power to keep us safe. And I’m having a hard enough time without facing my… less tangible problems.”

Rarity nodded after a moment of consideration and pulled her friend into a tight embrace. Twilight resisted at first, but Rarity was insistent. After stemming the emotional tide welling up in her, she slowly wrapped her arms back around her friend, allowing only a heartfelt shudder to escape.

“I will always be here for you, Twilight,” she offered selflessly, “I want you to remember that I’ll always do everything that I can to help you in your times of need. You told me to use this charm of yours should I find myself in dire straits. To contact you if I need help.”

Twilight shut her eyes and willfully commanded the tears to stay put. They mostly obeyed. Mostly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Her voice was quiet and almost frustrated, Rarity noted.

“I expect you to do the likewise, darling,” she replied without as much as a moment’s hesitation.

And just like that, the burden Twilight carried seemed to lessen overall. She let out a long breath, unable to stop herself from taking comfort in her friend’s presence and care. Twilight couldn’t imagine a world without friends like Rarity. Without any of her friends, really.

“Thank you, Rarity.” Her voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper.

“You would do the same for me, dear,” she replied.

Twilight slipped into the Winnebago without so much as a word, but not before bidding Rarity farewell on her journey to track down Rainbow Dash. When the cab driver promised he could get her to the college without fail, Rarity practically forced Twilight to take the TomTom. Twilight didn’t like the idea of Rarity going off on her own, but there really was no better choice for the task. Rarity was intelligent, diplomatic, quickest to adapt, and quite manipulative. She also had magic to fall back on in should there be no other option, and even knew how to be subtle about such things. Applejack, while not easily deterred, was too ready to push around humans that would prove themselves stubborn obstacles and Pinkie Pie was… Well… Pinkie Pie.

“No, this is for the best,” Twilight murmured mostly to herself, “She’ll be alright.”

Applejack overheard her friend’s soft spoken fears from the passenger seat and glanced back at her with a comforting smile.

“Yeah, Twilight, we learned to not worry about Rarity a long time ago,” said the farmer pony.

Twilight startled a tad, unaware that she had given her fears a voice. Her eyes met that of her friend’s and even through all the dark, bottled up thoughts and cold, calculating cynicism she found a degree of comfort returning. The feeling was further enhanced when Pinkie Pie threw her arms around Twilight’s neck and squeezed happily. Twilight felt a small laugh escape and she hugged Pinkie back with a soft smile.

“Sorry for worrying you, girls,” she said truthfully, “You’re right. Rarity will be fine. She’ll find Rainbow Dash, we’ll get Firewall and Fluttershy, and we’ll be back home soon.”

You hope.

Not really your home.

“Is it being humanish, Twilight? Does it bother you?” Pinkie stayed attached to her purple friend for a few seconds longer.

“No, not really,” she replied, “Let’s not fuss over it; not really that important right now. We need to get moving and get Firewall. And hopefully the others will be waiting for us at The Magic City.”

Twilight waited patiently for Pinkie to let go and bounce over to the space between the two seats where she could play with the air conditioner and radio. Twilight slid into the driver’s seat and inserted the key.

“Go Whinny Bagel!” Pinkie demanded, furiously twisting the volume nob as the vehicle stirred to life.

o/EVERY DAY I’M SHUFFUHLIN’! o/

Twilight’s mind was suddenly flooded with music, confusion, and an inexplicable (maybe not that inexplicable) urge to squeeze Pinkie’s neck until her head popped off. As always, though, the sudden volume frightened Pinkie into immediately turning the music back down to nigh inaudibility. This not being the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth time it had happened, Applejack decided that enough was enough. After recovering from sudden deafness, the farmer pony took it upon herself to break the volume nob off the stereo and throw it out the window.

“Nooooo!” squealed the pink menace as she dived for the window, only to be caught by the very defenestrator that had robbed her of the little black dial in the first place.

“What for to have loved and to have lost!” Pinkie misquoted miserably, half hanging out the passenger side window after her failed attempt to rescue said adjuster of decibels.

“Ah told you Ah’d do it if ya’ll did that again,” Applejack pointed out in a flat tone, holding the pink-haired girl inside by the seat of her pants.

Twilight let her head smack against the steering wheel. Luna may have taught her how to drive. Luna may have taught her how to blend in. Luna may have taught her all the basics that were necessary when it came to fitting into the human world. But she did not teach her how to handle a pair of bickering friends. It was going to be a long trip.

A long trip was an understatement. Time seemed to flow differently here, that much was certain. Applejack seemed to have absolutely no problem relaxing in the sun with her seat laid back. In fact, it seemed to keep her happy. Luckily, Pinkie’s energy always gave out when boredom set in and she eventually passed out with her head in Twilight’s lap. That somehow brought the librarian a great deal of comfort. As frustratingly annoying as Pinkie could be at times, Twilight wouldn’t trade her for a million wishes. Twilight knew, deep down, that she always would have her amazing friends to be there for her. Glancing over at the softly smiling Applejack, she found herself dreading the idea of ever truly losing them.

Applejack glanced her way and spotted the slightly frightened expression on her friend’s face. Rather than dig for whatever was on her mind, though, Applejack decided to give her something else to think about.

“Ya think Rarity’ll have my hat done by the time we get to The Magic City?” she asked nonchalantly.

It worked, seemingly. Twilight smiled before letting out an amused snort and looking back at the road. “I hope so. As pretty as your hair is, it just looks incomplete without that cowpony hat of yours.”

“Eeyup,” AJ agreed before checking her hand, sighing softly as she turned it over a few times. “Y’know, as frustratin’ as bein’ a human is, these hands are… well… handy. Y’know what Ah’m sayin’? I mean, it took a bit of getting’ used to, but d’ya realize just how much easier it is to lasso without havin’ to swing yer head back an’ forth?”

“Maybe not lassoing, but not having to rely on magic just to put on a scarf or brush my hair? Yeah, that’s actually quite nice, considering the amount of focus magic takes,” Twilight gave her a pleasant smirk, still keeping the lion’s share of her attention on the road. “It’s also nice not having to risk bumping my horn every time I don’t feel like using magic to open a door.”

“Or havin’ to stop walkin’ about if ya use a hoof to pick up anything?” AJ countered, smiling more.

“Or having to open an oven with your mouth, getting your face all sweaty and sticky?” Pinkie tiredly mumbled.

Twilight let out a laugh and reached a hand down to gently pat Pinkie’s head.

“Not that it’s all sugarcubes an’ carrots,” Applejack continued, “I do kinda miss my tail…”

“Don’t we all,” Twilight agreed. It was odd not having to brush her tail in the morning. It almost made her feel unclean. Like she wasn’t brushing her teeth or something.

“And this whole… clothes all day, every day… Ah can’t say Ah’m happy about that.”

“Rarity is,” Twilight reminded her.

AJ rolled her emerald eyes and ran a hand over her countenance. “Oh mah gosh, did ya’ll see her face when Luna brought that up?”

Pinkie snickered dreamily, somehow still able to be a part of the conversation even through all of her slumber.

“Which one? The dizzy face she had before passing out, or that dream-come-true stare she had after waking back up?” Twilight snickered.

“Either one’ll do,” she replied with a chuckle before looking out the window. “So do you think we’ll find ‘em?”

Twilight blinked at the sudden turn of the conversation. They had been here nearly a month and a half without progress until today. They had practically tripped over Firewall when he appeared on the news as a recovered missing person. The sheer luck of it was almost baffling. Enough to make her wonder if luck had anything to do with it. What made it worse was Rainbow Dash appearing in the same week. Still, that left Fluttershy. And if there was anything their time on Earth had proven so far, it was that Earth was big. The United States Of America was comprised of smaller provinces. Some of which were just as large as the entirety of Equestria. And there were several countries that were bigger than this one. Their quest to find Fluttershy could easily span over many years without the aid of magic.

Twilight felt a painful snag at that last thought. Without the aid of magic. She was certain that all she needed was just a day or two and a few spells. She didn’t even need much magic. Just enough to locate three close friends of hers and they could all be on their merry way home. The Resonant Hunters were the only thing stopping her from shortening this dangerous month-long foray into human territory into a week-long excursion. Luna was certain, however, that the use of magic would hurt more than help. Twilight had used a bit the first week without thinking about it, but luckily there had been no repercussions. Not this time anyway.

“Yes,” Twilight finally answered, but not after a long pause.

“Took an awful long while for just a one-word-answer,” Applejack noted, placing her long pale legs up on the dash, “Y’sure?”

A small part of her wanted to say she wasn’t sure at all, but that did not last. After realizing she was leaving room in her heart for doubt, she knew that she had to become more resolved. She may have been made a naïve little pony, but she knew that she would have to strive to break that mold if she wanted to survive in the human world long enough to save her friends. Firewall had told her more than once that Earth had a tendency to put one through trials that would make or break a person. Now she had to face them and show that she was her own pony, not some creation made for the purpose of entertainment.

“No matter how long it takes, Applejack. No matter what we have to do. No matter how hard we have to struggle,” Twilight almost whispered, “We’re going to get through this.”

“Yeehaw…” AJ accompanied her soft response with a smile, lifting a closed fist to Twilight. “S’what I wanted to hear.”

Twilight rapped her knuckles against Applejack’s, smiling fiercely.

“Consarn it all,” AJ whined impatiently before sticking her head out of the driver’s seat window and shouting at the buck impeding their progress, “GIT OUTTA THE WAY YA FLOWER MUNCHIN’ BONE HEADED…”

“Applejack,” Twilight murmured in frustration, her slumber having been very disturbed by the outburst.

Pinkie mumbled something about donkeys and turned her head over. Applejack cringed, a tad embarrassed at the fact that she had made such a scene over a deer in the road. If her temper had been more under control, she wouldn’t have woken up Twilight from her much needed rest.

“Sorry, Twilight,” she murmured gently, smiling shamefully, “But uh… If it’s all th’same, we’re almost there anyway.”

Twilight lazily opened her eyes and let them drift to her left towards the stereo that was perpetually playing music that was almost impossible to hear. It had been four hours. She blinked, not certain her eyes were telling her the truth. An entire, unbroken four hours of sleep. Maybe she was getting better?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, sister, she inwardly remarked whilst letting free a soft yawn. Her eyes slowly cleared up as she checked the TomTom. As always, she had to force herself to not ponder the inner workings of the alien machine and instead brought herself to compare time passed against distance traveled. Her quick mind crunched numbers with remarkable alacrity and she found herself satisfied with the result. They had not squandered their time and it was starting to show.

“Less than twenty minutes before we reach the city. I wonder how large it is.”

“Dunno,” Applejack replied with a shrug before pressing on the gas as the deer finally stepped out of the road. “Accordin’ to Rarity, though, there won’t be a city between us an’ where we’re goin’. Firewall’s job is on the outskirts on what’s known as a… Pine Tree farm.”

Applejack’s skeptical tone reflected Twilight’s opinion on such a notion. Whoever heard of such a silly thing?

“A… Pine tree farm?” she echoed.

“Eeyup,” Applejack nodded, giving her blue-haired friend an amused smirk.

“Maybe humans eat trees,” Pinkie mused sleepily before finally pulling her head out of Twilight’s lap and sitting up straight. She ran a hand over her bleary eyes with a yawn and proceeded to scoot over to Applejack.

“I mean, why else would they farm them?” she said, still in a dreamlike state. She then poked at Applejack’s leg before nudging at it some. “They probably find them tasty or something.”

“What in the hay…?” Applejack started to ask until it became apparent that Pinkie was fluffing her leg like a pillow. “Oh. Just ask next time. And didn’t you used to live on a rock farm? Ya’ll eat those rocks?”

Without further ado, Pinkie flopped her head down and went right back to sleep. Twilight laughed at the scene, particularly the somewhat exasperated Applejack. Only a few scant moments passed before the farmer began to chuckle right along with her.

The remaining drive was spent in relative silence. Twilight was not sure what to expect. Firewall worked as a Private Guard, as Rarity had told them. Apparently, he wasn’t to allow anyone past a certain point without proper clearance from his superiors. With any luck, he would be at the place of clearance, rather than somewhere behind it.

The last few miles were met pleasantly. All three of the girls found the gentle minty scent of the pine farm to be both earthy and refreshing. Applejack found the thousands of trees to be quite astonishing, seeing hundreds upon hundreds of pine-trees planted in perfect rows. Pinkie Pie found herself unable to stop trying to spot oddities in the gaps, such as fallen branches and workers cutting down bad trees that were leaning on their neighbors. Twilight, on the other hand, was still lost in a happy nostalgia, remembering the wooden interior of her home. She had purposefully cast spells once a month to keep her home smelling of fresh cut pine. It smelled so clean and reminded her of when she had first moved into the newly built library.

If that ever really happened. The cynical thought tore Twilight out of her happy memories and served only to dampen her mood. She wanted to find whatever part of her mind was saying such painful things and stick it in a box, never to frighten her again.

She let her eyes drift down towards the side mirror, distracting herself with the incredibly thick trail of dust they were leaving. It wasn’t a brown cloud like most dirt roads tend to kick up. Rather it was white and thicker than one might expect. Twilight looked ahead, confirming that the road they were on seemed to be made of a pale, chalk-like rock.

“What’s this road made of?” Twilight asked, latching onto the first thing she could think of to keep her mind off of the fears weighing her down.

“Ah think its limestone,” said Applejack, nodding apprehensively, “Y’don’t see’m much at all in Ponyville. They’re really dusty. You’ll see’m mostly on the outskirts of big cities. Like Manehatten.”

Pinkie snorted suddenly before giggling uncontrollably, lifting her head, “Limestone?”

Twilight felt a tad nauseous at the mention of Manehatten. Applejack had been there. Or so she believed. In Applejack’s mind, she had spent quite a bit of her youth in the big city. There were supposedly over a million ponies there, right alongside her Aunt and Uncle Orange. Twilight knew better. Manehatten didn’t exist. Not in reality. Appleloosa, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, and Canterlot… Those were real. Between hers and Luna’s efforts, they had confirmed the existence of those. But beyond that, there was nothing. Just a tangled weave of lies and fabrications. Nothing substantial. Nothing…

“Twi, what’s wrong?” Pinkie was gently shaking her shoulder, snapping her out of her introspective state.

“Huh?” Twilight blinked several times, finally able to shake off the dour thoughts. “Oh, sorry, I was…”

“Everything okay, Twilight?” Applejack tried to glance Twilight’s way, but was giving the greater share of her focus to the road in front of them.

“It’s okay if you didn’t think it was funny, Twilight! I mean, it wasn’t that funny.” Pinkie was still a little bleary-eyed and drowsy, so naturally her sentences were able to complete themselves in a grammatically sound fashion. She scratched at her frizzy hair, stretching her thin frame at an angle that Twilight wasn’t sure she could replicate. Even with the aid of magic.

“I guess it was still kinda funny. Limestone roads!” Pinkie threw her arms in the air. “Made of real limes!”

“You have arrived at your destination. On the Right,” TomTom sounded off, preventing further contemplation on the subject of fruit-comprised roads. Applejack very carefully pressed on the brake, smiling a tad when the vehicle’s response matched the desired results. Twilight spared Applejack an approving glance before turning her head to check the building in the distance. TomTom, being the helpful device it was, was kind enough to show them a picture to compare against. Sure enough, it was a match.

“Well, girls, we made it.” Twilight murmured before giving them a smile.

And then Pinkie Pie jumped out the window.

-=-

This has been a fan-written story by CardsLafter - Follow me onDeviantArt to stay up to date with TTEOAP

Questions, Comments, and Criticism may be directed to theEQD Blogpage

For other questions or more personal comments, email me at CardsLafter@gmail.com

Chapter One: Your Body Is Not Ready

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

Gentlecolts, I have but one question for you.

What is normal?

Is it doing what comes natural to you? Because I gotta tell you, there are plenty of people that do just that and still get tagged as deviants.

Is it holding up your local status quo? I don’t think that’s quite right either. I mean, think about it for a moment. In America, that’s getting a full-time job (or two (or three)) and supporting/contributing in some fashion towards your own care and/or the care of others. In certain parts of Africa, people would look at you funny for that.

You want to know what I think normal is? It’s the setting on my dryer back on Earth. That’s about as defined as normal gets for me. See also: Standard setting.

Why am I asking you this? Not certain other than I want to give you a frame of reference for what is normal. Because I’m about to jump into the far reaches of abnormal.

Now brace yourself for it. Take a deep breath through your nose, enter a state of zen, and let it out through your flapping lips. Don’t clench! I woke up in a cartoon. Wait, it gets better. It wasn’t just any cartoon. It was the cartoon to end all cartoons. No, not Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Let me take you back to what was happening last. Let’s see, I was drinking a lovingly made martini whilst partying up at my stepsister, Michelle’s, birthday bash. As was normal for her, rather than enjoy her own damn birthday, she was instead running damage control or something she felt was important. We actually got into a fight about it and I ended up walking out. Last thing I remember was leaving the party only slightly inebriated. Passed my own personal drunk test, even. Well, I never made it to my car.

Let me rephrase that: I don’t ever remember making it to my car. Because on the way there, I fell asleep. And woke up in the cartoony central square of a town called Ponyville.

Yeeaaahhh... It went a little something like this:

Bird was tweeting. I’m not sure what he was tweeting. I was quite certain, however, that I wasn’t subscribed to his channel, so I’m not sure why he had to let me know about it. But he was. And unfortunately, it was grating on my slowly awakening nerves. I opened my eyes and regretted that damn near instantly! It was bright out! I mean, not sun bright that seems to coat everything in a blinding layer of blinding white. No. Everything was bright. Brightly colored.

I slammed my poor orbs shut and whimpered before rolling over. I would not let the bright colors defeat me. I tried opening them ag-GAHOKAYCOLORSWIN!

I had lost the battle with bright colors. I didn’t even know what the colors were. I just knew they were incredibly bright and I was incredibly tired. Maybe I could get some more rest and try again tomorrow. Yeah. That sounded reasonable.

Then that damnable bird started up again. Oh bird. Just you wait. There would be a reckoning. I was about to get me some brand spankin’ new feathers for my dream catcher back home. Okay. For the bird-related vengeance. Let’s try this. One. Last. Time.

Bllllargh~! My poor defenseless eyes! I did it though. I opened them fully. I made those suckers stay open. They watered and burned as though they were on fire, but that’s okay. I beat the colors for the sake of fowl destruction. Oh-ho, but there would be a reckoning. A reckoning indeed. Right after this cigarette.

Yes, I smoke. I’m not apologizing. It’s an addiction. I feed it to prevent slaughter on a genocidal scale. Therefore, every time I light up, I’m taking one for the team. I am so freaking selfless, I know. You just can’t handle this brand of awesome selflessness. But there it is. You’re welcome. No no, don’t applaud. Just send cash.

So yeah, I lit up this awesome cigarette as part of my morning ritual -- See averting genocidal tendencies -- before rolling back over and pushing myself up off the ground.

Okay, I’m up, I thought to myself. Phase one of destroy annoyingly loud featherduster complete. Initiate phase two.

Find a rock. Rock rock rock. I began to look about at the ground. When did Michelle paint her lawn bright neon green? Rock! Phase two complete! I looked up towards the source of the sound before grabbing the rock and casting about for the target. It took me a few seconds, but I eventually spotted my victim atop a two-story Bavarian-style house with blindingly bright pink shutters, brown-red planking and pastel yellow walls. I spared enough thought towards the building to figure some rich idiot paid a ridiculous amount of money to have it built in the center of town. The rest of my thought however, focused on the rock.

“Fly true, weapon of salvation!” I yawned irritably before chucking the rock at the bird. As soon as I did though, the bird dropped a few priorities on my mental list. See, I expected to see a hand to throw the rock. I didn’t get a hand. No, I got something else. Something that just... It just wasn’t normal in the slightest.

I got a hoof. This, in turn, made my jaw drop as I brought it closer. I was so freaking absorbed in staring at that hoof. I didn’t even react to the rock bouncing back off the building and smacking me right atop my head. I mean, I reacted after it cleaned my clock, sure. But before that I was derpin’ out over the hoof that stubbornly insisted to exist where my right hand should have been.

“Gah! Sunova...” I hissed, rubbing the throbbing bump with my other hoof before realizing I indeed had a second hoof.

Hooves. I checked them. They were hooves. Definitely hooves. Ash-gray hooves to be exact. I could tell from the pixels and having seen quite a few hooves in my day. I compared them. One hoof. Two hoof. Hoovsies. Woah.

I looked myself over as I took another drag off my cigarette. Oh but yes. It was true. I was a buckmothering pony. Oh. My. Gawd.

My hooves were just a shade darker than my coat, which was charcoal-gray. And my tail! It was… Well, it looked like the colors of a butane lighter, to be exact. The center of the wild, fluffy thing was bright neon blue. The edges of it cut off abruptly into a bright fiery red.

That must mean... I started to think to myself before looking back at the un-freaking-reasonably bright Bavarian abode before me.

I began to hyperventilate. I’m sorry, just... just bear with me here. I know. I was definitely overreacting, but just... It was Sugarcube Corner that I was sitting in front of, okay? I was excited. Why, you might ask?

I’m a brony. Yes, you heard me. An honest-to-God brony.

Now, that means completely different things depending on whom you ask. If you ask the mouth-breathing idiots at Faux (Some people know it as 'Fox') News, a brony is a fat, unemployed middle-aged loser that draws in social security and does nasty things when thoughts of ponies enter his mind. If you ask an overprotective backwater parent, bronies are a group of pedophiles that creep around the internet and they will urge you to hide yo kids, hide yo wife, and hide yo husbands cuz they rapin’ ev’rybody out here ya’ll. If you ask some insecure homophobic Neanderthal, a brony is a load of four-letter words and quite a few three-letter ones, to boot!

However, if you (God forbid) do the sensible thing and ask someone in the know... Say, perhaps... an actual brony? Maybe you will find out the truth. They’re just normal people with abnormal enthusiastic hobbies. The only difference is rather than do something socially acceptable, they instead disregard the status quo and direct their enthusiastic tendencies towards the latest generation of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Holy shit, that’s just going too far! We can’t have normal people doing things they want to do! That’s just wr-... I’m ranting. Apologies.

Where was I? Oh. Right. Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie’s place of business. Partnered with Missus and Mister Cake. She’s like... critical to the show. Now, that’s not what I was thinking at the moment. My current line of thought was more along the lines of SUGARCUBE CORNER! OH MY GAWD! RIGHT HERE! I NEED IT!

Like I said, hyperventilation began to set in and I began to get dizzy from unintentionally rapid smoking. That was probably the only thing that kept me from running around in circles and crying happily as I soaked myself in the wonderful rays of Celestia’s Equestrian sun.

Oh yes, it was true. I was in Equestria. Oh. Oh, this was a happy day. So much to do. Geek talk with Twilight. Party with Pinkie. APPLEBUCKING! That sounded so incredibly redneck! Like frog gigging (Yes, that’s an actual thing) or... or mudding! And still more to do! Like glomp Fluttershy and wear dresses with Rarity!

Screeeeeeech~! My brain came to a halt and the rational half took over.

Yes, I am a two-sided coin. See, that spurt of random giddiness? That comes from the side I like to call Lafter. He’s in charge of my insanity, which consumes roughly half of my mental facilities. The other half, however, is just as strong and is quite capable of taking charge when things get out of hand. His name is Stoic. Stoic is the kind of guy that steps in and prevents Lafter from driving me off to Rarity’s Carousel Boutique and trying on a French Maid outfit. He was quick to point out that there were likely other ways to spend time with Rarity that didn’t involve crossdressing. Lafter pointed out that we would look damn good, no matter what we wore. Stoic agreed.

What can I say? I set the bar for self-confidence.

Before Lafter could respond to that, Stoic locked him away in the time-out box and proceeded to advise me in an entirely reasonable fashion. He hates fun things.

Okay, get a grip, I told myself before taking another puff of my cigarette. You’re obviously having a dream. Granted, it’s a bloody awesome dream, but it’s a dream nonetheless. No reason to go into shock just yet. Enjoy yourself and move on.

Killjoy. Whatever. I’ve had lucid dreams before. I usually screw around for a few minutes before getting bored and creating a tornado before jumping into it like a madman. I’m not easily entertained. At least not within the confines of my own mind.

“Whatever, let’s just skip to the tornado,” I muttered aloud. If I couldn’t meet the real ponies, I didn’t want to torture myself by pretending to meet them. So instead, I just threw my ‘hooves’ forward and yelled out, “TORNADO TIME!”

Imagine the disappointment when I didn’t get my wish. Bah. Nonsense. Try again.

“TORNADO TIME!!!” I roared, dramatically throwing out my hooves yet again.

Something happened this time. However, it was not a tornado. Instead, a window on one of the nearby buildings popped open to reveal a magenta p-OMGITWASBERRYPUNCH!

Easy, killer, Stoic reminded me. Initial tests suggest this might not be a dream. Just play it cool.

Playing it cool involved my eyes slowly widening as though they were being inflated.

She was glaring down from her second story window, her bleary eyes angrily fixed upon me. Whether she was hung over or just waking up, I couldn’t tell. Probably both. I stared back, my jaw slowly falling open yet again as I took in the sight of my first pony. My cigarette fell out of my mouth. I want you to know, I take nicotine abuse very seriously. So for me to just ignore the plummeting cylinder of tobacco… You just had to know me to understand the gravity of that thought. Waste not.

I don’t want to wake up from this dream, I stated to myself, as well as to both my subconscious halves.

They both agreed.

“Hi!” I enthusiastically waved a hoof up at her.

She glared obstinately at me. Ruby poked her head up over the window and after taking note of my cheerful greeting, eagerly waved back at me. Berry Punch yanked her back and glared some more before rudely slamming the window shut.

See? Overprotective parents hate bronies. It’s a fact. They think we touch kids or something. It sorta evens out though, because bronies find overprotective parents just as creepy/weird, too. No, that’s not a joke.

With a remorseful sigh I looked about. It was definitely Ponyville. The nondescript trees, the impossibly green grass, the crater still smoking just behind where I woke up. There was no mistak-… Wait a second.

I did a double take and stared at Town Square. Yup. There was a big fat crater right in the middle of it. Luckily it hit Town Square rather than a building or something. That would have been awful, ruining somepony’s home like that. Fortunately, all it amounted to was a big nasty scar right in the center of town. It smelled like brimstone and ashes and the small column wafting from its epicenter did so lazily towards the sky.

Did I do that? I caught myself wondering. I mean, it was feasible, right? If this wasn’t a dream, I may have pulled a trope and crashed from the sky. No wonder Berry Punch was so quick to regard me so suspiciously. If I reasonably came to this conclusion, then she could definitely do the same and would have all the justification in the world to avoid me.

I picked up my cigarette and took yet another drag. This… was troublesome. My first day in Ponyville (assuming I wasn’t crazy/dreaming) and I had already wrecked the place. Way to go, me!
And then it happened. Inward crazy panic. A jumble of thoughts! A cornucopia of mental chaos erupted from within! I’m going to list out the insanity rather than try to translate how it actually went. Trust me, this will make it easier on everyone involved.

-Holy bit, I’m a pony.

-Holy bit, I’m smoking in Equestria!

-I’ve only been here five minutes and I’ve already caused extensive property damage!

-I’m smoking in Ponyville! I can’t do this! Think of the ponies!

-How… How did I even light this damn thing? I don’t have any pockets on me!

-Where’d I even get this damn thing! I don’t have any pockets on me!

-Disregard nonsense! Acquire ponies!

-I can’t just go steal ponies!

-Need an ashtray! Wait no… I need to make sense of this insanity!

-I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown off the Emperor’s Groove.

And then I got thrown out of a window. Not really, but that’s what happened to the last guy to have that told to him. Anyway, out of all of that chaos, one thought stood out considerably more than the others.

I need to make sense of this. Disregard the cigarette, disregard the ponyness, disregard the ashtray, ponynapping, and Disney references. I needed to get to somepony that could help me. And the obvious answer was both obvious and exciting. Just contemplating the idea was raising my blood pressure to unsafe levels.

Go see Twilight Sparkle.

Stoic sat on Lafter’s timeout box to make sure he didn’t get loose (that would have been bad at this stage) and gave me the go-ahead. With that, I looked around and got a general feel for my surroundings. After feeding all given information into my mental navigational process, I realized that I both knew where I was and where to go. I couldn’t help but snicker at the irony of knowing the geographical layout of Ponyville. I mean, yeah, I may be a brony, but the idea that I watch a show for little girls never ceases to blow my mind.

I shook off the mirth and began to walk. It was actually quite easy adapting to my new form. I mean, I wasn’t struggling or anything. Go figure. I even figured out how to move my tail. TAIL! I swished it back and forth as I walked and felt the urge to squee bubbling forth.

No, no. Bad Lafter. Stay in that box. No freaking out until further notice.

The effort to stem that squee flow took a lot longer than those few sentences may have implicated. In fact, in the time it took me to force it down, I already had the Ponyville Library in sight. That started yet another emotional surge that I sadly failed to weather out. As soon as I set my eyes on that very special tree, I broke out into a sprint... err... gallop? The grin spreading across my face was inhumanly large, which made perfect sense since I was no longer a human. I was smiling so hard that it bloody hurt.

I paused just before the door though. Had to collect myself. Had to get a grip. Had to…

The door opened. I didn’t knock, it just opened. Out came the coolest dragon ever. Sure, he may have been a baby. Yeah, his colors of purple and green may have badly clashed. True, he was a mere library assistant. But that didn’t matter. It was Spike. And that was all that counted in my book. Cue the mouth-dropping moment of awesome.

He was carrying a large satchel, entirely bereft of any contents whatsoever.

“Okay, Twilight, anything else?” he called back into the treehouse before turning to see me staring at him like he was made of pure gold.

“No, that should cover it!” a very specific and important voice called back.

Spike took it all gracefully, which is a lot more than I could possibly say for myself. My eyes likely did not exude a calm message, but he played it cool, staring right back with an arched eyebrow.

“You uh… You never seen a dragon?” he asked helpfully.

I shook my head.

“You’re not going to run away screaming are you?” he asked, reaching a claw up to scratch his head.

I shook my head again.

“Well, that’s good,” he replied, “I guess.”

I nodded.

His confusion worsened and he turned his head a bit to give me a somewhat skeptical once over. “So uh… I guess I’ll be going now.”

“Kay,” I murmured softly, still praying that this wasn’t a dream. This couldn’t be a dream.

“Creepy~,” he whispered as he slowly stepped around me.

I watched him leave, keeping my eyes stalkerishly fixed on him. Oh yeah, I was totally keeping my composure. Totally. I sighed as he turned the street corner, now irritated with my inability to keep it together. With that, I resolved myself to do better with the other purple inhabitant and reached my hoof up to knock on the door.

Yet again, it opened before I could do so. Or at least the top half did. However, this time I was within its swinging range and was rewarded with a smack to the face. Related note: Twilight opens doors at astounding velocities. I toppled over and tumbled into Twilight’s lovely flower garden. It had roses for some reason. Oh Christ, the thorns. Why did it have to be roses?!

“Spike, wait!” Twilight hollered from the door before realizing she had struck some poor bastard with it. “Oh! Oh dear! I’m so sorry!”

“J-Just kill me… Stop the pain, I beg you,” I whimpered pitifully.

Twilight rushed out to help extract me from the evil, thorn-filled, vile rose bush, apologizing with a fervor rarely seen on Earth. It took a lot of whimpering, apologies, and agony, but I was eventually extracted from the sadistic shrubbery. It was not a nice shrubbery.

“Oh my goodness, you’re all scraped up!” Twilight pointed out the obvious.

“Common side effect of being bludgeoned into a rose bush,” I grimaced as I picked up a hoof and took a quick damage report from my entire front leg. If the rest of my body was as bad off as it was, then I probably looked like shit. With a capital shit.

“I am so, so very sorry!” she repeated for the umpteenth time.

The pain was already fading. In fact, it was almost bearable already. That didn’t make any sense! After all one does not simply shrug off an attack from a rose bush, but apparently that was not the case here. I wasn’t even bleeding. That, I knew to be freaky. I’d just dived headlong into a bush full of murderous roses and emerged without a single drop of blood lost. I guess ponies didn’t bleed? I mean, I sure as hell never saw them bleed, and I hoped to keep it that way.

“Here, this should help,” Twilight replied as she aimed her horn at me, “Hold still.”

I started to respond, but I was cut off staring at the sparkly pinkish glow that sprung forth. Before I could react, it washed over me and a moment later, all the scrapes and pain were gone.

Twilight just White Mage’d me. Technically she Magenta Mage’d me if you wanted to be literal, but still! How awesome is that!? Awesome enough to market for a premium, that’s how awesome!!

“Wow that’s… That’s mind blowing,” I muttered as I gave myself another once over. “Wow! Twilight, that is so OP.”

“How do you kno... Wait, come again?” she tilted her head, both mildly overcome with surprise and confusion, “Oh Pee? What does that mean?”

I gave a nervous chuckle, “Oh, it just means you are overpowered. OP. Makes sense?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but paused and give herself a bit more time to mull that over before raising an eyebrow, “Um... I suppose? And thank... you... I guess?”

“No problem!” I smiled brightly, before taking another puff of my cigarette.

That’s when I realized I was still smoking. Right in front of Twilight. Mortified doesn’t even begin to cover it. The only thing that could have been worse was being caught naked (which was already happening, technically) or something. I immediately spat it out onto the ground and gave it an angry stomp before showing her a nervous smile.

And thus began the first of very many looks of suspicion of insanity. I mean, what Spike had gave me earlier was close, but Twilight must have invested some time in honing her skills. Skills or not, I was too numb to feel the full effect of such an effort thanks to my nervous system already being flooded with awesome. I mean, for once in my life, I could say that I was experiencing something that matched the textbook definition of the word.

“Well, if... that’s all, then.” She slowly backed away, moving for the library door.

I panicked a bit, but quickly recovered and did the sensible thing. Be both honest and earnest.

“W-Wait, Twilight! It’s really, really important that I speak to you!” I said urgently, my face reflecting my desperation. “Please, I... I’m not from around here and I just... Seriously, you’ve no idea just how crazy this is.”

You know that look when someone you do not want to spend time with legitimately needs your help and you don’t want to be an ass by rejecting them? Yeah, that was pretty much Twilight’s face. I knew I had her at that point. It would just take a little more begging and pleading. Sometimes, being a psychology enthusiast really pays off. Don’t bother trying to call me out on it. Every single person on the planet does it. The only difference is that I do it actively, rather than subconsciously (kinda like your conniving mother?).

“Look, just let me take a bit of your time. At the very least, this will probably give you something to talk about later, even if you don’t believe me.” I offered half-seriously, “I’m not kidding, I don’t know who else to turn to.”

Twilight set me with a helpless stare before letting out a resigned sigh and turning back towards her door. “I... I suppose it’s the least I can do... Seeing as how I hit you with the door and everything.”

I resisted the urge to jump in the air and scream with delight. Instead, I settled for giving her a grateful smile and nodded with but a single word.

“Thanks.”

She invited me in and offered to get some tea. She gave me a strange look when I told her I took mine cold as ice with a ridiculous amount of sugar. Apparently, cold tea was abnormal or something. Pffft. Pony stereotypes. Just wait until I get me some hipster glasses. I was going to introduce them to so many strange and awesome things.

I hopped up onto a bench, sitting on it exactly as a human would (which is exactly as a pony wouldn’t!) whilst looking about the living room to the library. It looked almost identical to the show, save for a section in the back that apparently held the kitchen, bathroom, and a staircase leading down into the basement. Or maybe I had just never seen it from this angle. Whatever the case, I was mesmerized. It was a lot bigger than the show made it out to be, and smelled of musty old books and pine sawdust. Which sorta didn’t make any sense, because that was most definitely not a pine tree. However, it still smelled awesome and I was awestruck nonetheless.

She returned with two cups of hot tea, her soft smile both welcoming and happy. After setting mine beside me, she took a moment to cast a spell that chilled both the glass and the fluid inside. Magic. Oh, but it is awesome.

I smiled eagerly as she took a bench of her own nearby. I tried to pick it up with my hooves, but that... Well, it was damned hard is what it was! I must have fumbled with the stupid thing for a whole minute before Twilight finally came out with the question that I was already anticipating.

“What... What are you doing?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

I bit my lip and tried one last time, putting extra effort into it, only to end up spilling my cup on the floor. I could feel the blush burn my face off as I gasped and grabbed my tail to begin mopping up the mess as quickly as I could.

“S-Sorry!” I cried out, my anxiety just two steps from causing me to have a nervous breakdown.

“D-Don’t use your tail! We have napkins!” she called out, magicking some in from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” I cried out yet again before grabbing the closest one and slapping it against the offending puddle of cold tea. Because of my crazed anxiety, all I succeeded in doing was splash some onto my face and generally get it everywhere except into the napkin.

I glared at the offending napkin-slash-puddle and pursed my lips a bit in irritation, “Really, life? You do this to me now? Right when I’m sitting in front of one of the coolest chicks to have ever influenced my existence? This couldn’t have happened some other time?”

Without looking at Twilight, I snatched the other napkins out of the air and gently placed them over the remainder of the mess before looking up at Twilight with quite possibly the stalest expression ever.

“Well, now that I’m properly mortified and humiliated, I’m going to step outside and calm down before I die of embarrassment.” I said with a flat sigh before turning for the door. As I approached it, though, I felt a cold chill go throughout my body.

It had a doorknob.

Rather than do something stupid like try to open it with my teeth, I just looked back at her. I expected yet another strange expression, but she looked more worried for my sake than anything.

“Could you please get the door? I... I don’t know how to open it,” I explained in a tired voice.

Without saying a word, she magicked it open and let me out. I exited, my face still burning hot from the shame. I trotted out a bit to the soft grass of her front yard and flopped down onto it. Maybe I’ll just... lay here and will myself out of existence or something. Okay, maybe after a cigarette.

Without thinking about where it was coming from, I pulled out my pack of cigarettes as easily as I would produce them from a pocket. I blinked before looking at where I pulled them from, just to make sure there wasn’t a hole in my body. Okay, no, we’re good. Still, that was somewhat perplexing. I gave a sigh before glancing back at the pack foiled with silver and teal. I kid you not. It said ‘Mareboro Smooth 100’ on the front. That had me brain locked for quite a few seconds. Finally, I opened the pack only to realize that it was still full, despite me having already snagged a cigarette from it earlier. Wow. That part I could totally get used to. I retrieved a smoke and closed it before putting it away. Then I realized it just disappeared and I jumped up before looking around frantically.

“Is... Is everything okay?” Twilight asked, apparently having stepped out to check on me.

I continued to search about fruitlessly for a few seconds longer before groaning in irritation and sitting my frustrated plot down.

“No, Twilight!” I huffed, lighting my cigarette before explaining, “Why is everything not alright? Because I’ve gone insane. Really, I didn’t think it would take this long, but it’s finally happened just like my dad said it would and now I’ve apparently chosen Ponyville as my Sucker Punch mental escape. All-in-all, not a bad choice really but c’mon! I can’t even pick up a goddamn teacup! Not to mention my first act getting here was apparently to blow up Town Square, which probably isn’t going to win me any points with anypony. Not to mention the cartoon physics are already screwing with me and somewhere along the line, I turned into a pony! And to top it all off, I just made a complete jackass of myself using nothing but sugar, water, and boiled frickin’ tea leaves just after getting shoved into a satanic creation that most people know as a ‘Rose bush’! So no. Everything is not okay! I’m not okay! I’m like, ten different flavors of not-okay! If the Guiness World Book of Records held a spot in its pages for ‘Not-Okay-In-The-Slightest,’ I think I would have taken the gold, silver, bronze and all the runner-ups!”

I sighed before taking a puff off my cigarette before noticing that it somehow got lit without me thinking out it. Glaring at the suddenly offensive nicotine stick, I spit it out and accusingly pointed at it with a hoof.

“Mother... And how did I just get that stupid thing lit!?” I hollered in exasperation.

I heard Twilight let out a bemused chuckle before looking up at her with a tired visage.

“You used magic,” she explained as though it were obvious. She approached with a small towel and levitated it over to my face, wiping off the drying sticky-sweet tea with a relieved sigh.

“Magic?” I repeated dumbly, squinting at the warm-watered towel as she used it to clean off my face. After getting cleaned up a bit, I gave the still smouldering cigarette a suspicious glare. I had just used my hoof to bring it to my face and light it. Was that magic? Hell, it certainly wasn’t normal but then again, this entire day was straight-up freaky as of yet. I tried to pick it back up with a hoof, but it was for naught. Irritation was at an all time high. Why was it no longer working?

“Mmmhmm! Magic,” she replied with a sympathetic smile, “Well, at least this explains a lot. I take it you aren’t really a unicorn, then.”

I blinked in shock.

“A... A uni... Ahem. Run that by me again, Twilight?”

“Well, you said you got turned into a pony, so I figure you aren’t an actual unicorn. Or at least, not originally.” She placed a pensive hoof to her chin and stared up as she considered that. “Wow, now that I think about it, transmuting a living creature is not exactly a simple spell. I’m not even sure I could manage something lik-...”

“No, no. We’ll get to that next.” I waved a hoof to cut her off. “What did you say I was? Just to make sure I didn’t mishear you.”

“A unicorn? A pony with a horn used for focusing magic?” she explained with a slightly doubtful stare, “Wow, you weren’t stretching the truth when you said you weren’t from around here.”

Eyes widened. Breath came short. An explorative hoof came to my forehead. There it felt an ivory-like spiraled protrusion sticking out. Stoic dived to keep Lafter contained, but that... that wasn’t going to work for very long.

“Twilight, I’m about to make a lot of noises of incoherent excitement,” I warned her very seriously, “It’s probably best you get inside... Else I may get some of this squee on you and it doesn’t easily come out with a wash.”

She blinked in fearful confusion, stepping back cautiously. “W... What?”

My grin began to break through as I began to shake a little, “T-Too late!”

I suddenly burst into motion, jumping up and down in circles like a kid who just won a life-time supply of candy. As I promised, sounds of excited happyness erupted from me and while they had no specific definition, there was no mistaking that I was suddenly back on cloud nine.

“I’m a unicorn! I’m a friggin’ unicorn!” I cheered in time with my bouncing, tossing my mane about gleefully. Fillies and Gentlecolts, Lafter has entered the building.

I suddenly paused as my jaw fell open for what was probably the thousandth time. “What spells can I cast!”

I aimed my horn at nothing in particular and began to focus as though I were trying to force my brain through my forehead. Unicorn powers activate! … … Only not. Completely failed to do anything, but damn it, I was going to try until I had an aneurysm or a spell! I was really hoping the second would happen before the first, though.

“Are... you trying to cast a spell?” Twilight asked hesitantly. She... was probably doubting my sanity again. Not that I was giving her any reason to do anything else, but still. I was merely excited. No call for her to be so callous and uncaring towards my happyness! This was a great day all over again!

“Y-Yeah!” I grunted, still focused on making some magic. “But it’s... not... working.”

She didn’t reply and eventually, I gave up with an exhausted huff.

She walked up beside me, lowering her head beside mine with a nervous laugh. “Well... What are you trying to do?”

“Anything! I just want to know I can do it!” I cried before giving up with a huff.

Then I noticed the cigarette and I got an idea. Maybe I just needed to have a little faith and an idea of what I wanted. Without thinking about it, I pulled out the pack of cigarettes and paused yet again. I had it in my hoof. It was just sticking there like I had gecko pads for horseshoes.

“Heh. Well, now you know you have magic. Though that’s a peculiar way to perform a summoning spell,” she pointed out before peering at the box, “What is that anyway?”

“Let’s... Let’s not worry about it,” I murmured before opening the box. Still full. Holy hell, that was too good to be true. “Magic test number two.”

I simply inserted it in my mouth and forced myself to not focus on the peppermint-scented, methylated product. I thought about smoking and without any warning whatsoever, a spark flitted from my forehead and lit the cigarette with a somewhat audible snap.

“ACK!” I cried, jumping back as I dropped it out of my mouth. I wasn’t expecting the special effects, alright?

Twilight facehoofed as she shook her head, “I think that’s enough magic for one day.”

“Eeee~!” I squealed as I cantered back to the cigarette, making myself not focus on picking up the cigarette as I touched it with a hoof. Sure enough, it worked on the first try. That seemed to be the answer. Just... let it happen; don’t force it, yeah? “Okay, yeah! We’re good now! This solves the most immediate crisis!”

“Wonderful,” she remarked with a wry smirk, “So, do you still need my help, or does that solve your problems?”

“Problems?” I looked back at her as I took a puff, stomping out the previous cigarette.

I’m a unicorn? I’m in Equestria? I’m talking with Twilight? I’ve got what seems to be an endless supply of cigarettes? No SIR! NO PROBLEMS HERE! Wheeeeee~!!!! Oh, but how did I get here and property damage. Yeah, I suppose that still needed to be addressed.

“Oh, right,” I nodded, tapping my chin pensively, “I suppose it’s time to tell you the really freaky part.”

“It gets worse?” She almost looked scared.

“Oh, girl. Stand back. I’m about to blow your mind,” I uttered gravely, “Are you ready for this?”

She raised an eyebrow before sighing, “I suppose not, but that isn’t going to change anything. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m an alien,” I stated flatly.

Her half-irritated, half-bored expression told me that not only did she not believe me but her patience was suddenly under a fair amount of strain.

“Maybe I should explain a little better. This isn’t my world. I don’t come from this… reality? Universe?” I tried to shrug, but I found it extremely difficult. How do you shrug with just one hoof?

Twilight looked slightly less dubious, but her visage told me she still wasn’t excluding the possibility that I needed a fluffy pillow room and a jacket that helps me hug myself. Which, to her credit, was something I had yet to fully dismiss myself.

“Okay. Let’s try this again,” she gave a sigh that betrayed a hint of amusement and a mountain of suspicion. She was going to try and help me against her better judgment! Why, that was just so nice of her.

She turned and made towards the library, glancing at me before cocking her head at the entrance. “Come inside.”

I happily followed her in, nudging the door shut with my nose, which made her laugh at me because apparently I had this ultra-super concentrated look upon my face as I did it. Whatever, Twilight can laugh at me; she’s allowed.

“Ah, okay, let’s hear the stor…” she started to say before pausing at a largely audible groan echoing from her stomach.

Aaaand then my inner troll took over for a second. I gasped loudly, pointing an accusing hoof her way as I cried out in a disgusted tone, “My GOD, Twilight! … How unladylike!”

Dat blush. I immediately fell into an uncontrolled bout of laughter as her face slowly turned a bright shade of magenta (red + purple, I guess?). She looked all nervous and mortified for a few seconds. It took me a moment to register that she was actually humiliated as hell by my staged reaction. That kinda made me feel bad, so I knocked off the teasing guffaw without a moment’s hesitation and moved to fix what damage I had done.

“Hey, I was just kidding, don’t sweat it. I mean, I’ve held you up from lunch, right? C’mon, don’t be embarrassed or I might have to resort to self-depreciation and let’s be honest, I like me too much for that.”

The relief on her face helped to alleviate my guilt. She perked up from the humor and nodded a bit, a grateful smile appearing shortly after.

“Well, it’s actually my fault for having let the time get away from me,” she admitted shyly before looking around at the walls, “Hmmm. I missed breakfast altogether, no doubt. What time is it?”

Pure instinct. Checking the time? Just whip out the cellphone! Now, as you would surely assume, that shouldn’t have worked. Why it did, I’ve no clue. But there you have it. From the same wherever that I stashed my cigarettes in, I produced my slightly beat-up Motorola Atrix 4G with (ugh…) AT&T service.

It took me a few seconds of staring at the phone to accept that it was both real and functional. That was messing with me, I’ll admit. I started to put it back, but then realized I didn’t even check the time! After giving it one last once over for the sake of my sanity, I finally checked the time.

“It’s eleven-thirty,” I murmured with a blink, noticing something both interesting and bizarre on the device, “Huh. Twilight, this may sound weird, but I need you to answer a question that will likely make you think I’m crazy.”

“Oh, we’re far past that already,” she said with an off-hand (hoof?) giggle.

I blinked again before looking over at her with a slight amount of shock displayed on my face. Apparently, that made her realize what she had just said.

“O-Oh my goodness!” she slapped a hoof over her mouth, “T-That just came out, I’m so sorry!”

Number of times Twilight’s embarrassment has made me laugh: 2!

“You just called me crazy!” I don’t know why, but that was funny to me in a lot of ways. Mostly it was just a riot how much she actually panicked.

“I’m sorry!” she laughed back after becoming aware that I wasn’t actually offended. “I was just…”

“Trying to be witty, yeah. It’s cool, no worries,” I answered with a chuckle, “I’m the biggest advocate for well-timed shots.”

She let out a chuckle before taking notice of the device in my hoof. She then got all curious and stuff, cantering over and sticking her big purple nose into my personal space to gaze at the curious artifact.

“So, this is like a magic clock?” she asked as she leaned closer. My natural reaction was to lean away. It’s just something we as humans do.

“Well, actually, I still want to ask my question first,” I replied, “Do you have Wi-Fi or something? Because I’m getting full signal. And that makes no sense, because last I checked, you guys don’t even have television.”

“What-O-Vision?” she asked, looking back up at me before tilting her head.

“Long story,” I said with a sigh, unlocking the device and opening up the mighty purveyor of information known as Google. “No shit. That’s… pretty odd.”

“It is?” she looked back at it, blinking in confusion, “Why?”

“Think of it as a series of tubes,” I couldn’t help myself. “The tubes move entire libraries of information throughout them as quickly as lightning. I know for a fact that no tubes even exist here. So, no tubes are here, ergo I shouldn’t be able to access the information said tubes hold. Yet… Voila.”

The very idea seemed to be magnets to her. Her eyes got huge. Like…super-amazed, oh-my-Celestia, too-good-to-be-true huge.

“En… Entire libraries?” she repeated in awe.

“To be honest, if you built a library to encompass everything it had… Well, let’s just say you’d have an easier time building a second Canterlot.” I won’t lie, guys. I felt pretty hipster-hammy at the moment.

“What kind of information?” she asked, her eyes only getting bigger and shinier. Why they needed more shine, I’m not certain. But they were, and it was driving up my blood sugar.

Stoic tried. He really did. He did his damndest. But there was just no stopping Lafter. Irresponsibility was at hand! The opportunity would not be squandered!

I looked up pictures of Twilight. Because ponies, that’s why.

“W… H-How! That’s amazing!” she cried, poking at the screen testingly, “How is this possible!?”

Her poke enlarged a skillfully drawn image of her as an Alicorn princess. She squeaked in shock. I don’t know if it was a squee, a shriek, or something in between. But it only made her much more curious.

I went to scroll down a few more images before spotting some dreaded R34 (shudder) and hastily putting the phone away.

“Oh-ho-hokay there, that’s enough web-surfing for now!” I grinned nervously.

She did not like that. Her excitement immediately translated into heartbroken disappointment. And I thought the shiny-awe eyes were bad. Jesus.

“Woah woah woah, puppy dog eyes are foul play!” I cried out defensively. God forbid she cry. I can’t stand watching anyone cry in real life, much less awesome ponies. “I said for now, that doesn’t mean forever!”

She sighed reluctantly, her ears flopping down pitifully as she forced herself to accept that.

“Right,” she said dourly.

After a moment, though, the excitement returned with a great vengeance and sought to overpower me with its adorable.

“That’s so incredible, though! Information and pictures that can be accessed from a… a hub repository with a device! It’s brilliant!” she cried, her ears snapping back up with gusto.

“Trust me, Twilight. Your magic is just as amazing to us.” I let out a modest chuckle, my ham-repository having been filled for the moment. “So uh… Am I an alien or what?”

She smiled with a playfully forced sigh, “It’s either that or an all too elaborate joke. So… Mr. Alien. Oh… Actually, what is your name?”

I blinked before rubbing at the back of my neck with an irritated groan.

“Ummm. Well, it’s actually S-…” I started to say.

I was interrupted by the door suddenly being thrown open and slamming hard against its stopper.

“Spike, I’ve told you to stop doing that!” Twilight hollered at the short purple dragon entering.

I could tell it was Spike only by the purple claws walking underneath the small mountain of scrolls, quills, and ink bottles. Carrying the tremendous load in his arms, he used his tail to slam the door shut and poked his head around the side of the view-obstructing pile of literary material.

“Well, when I grow a magical horn that lets me open doors without using my claws, I’ll see about opening it your way!” he griped irritably, “Until that day though, tail it is!”

I winced at the angry exchange between the two. It wasn’t until that moment that Spike took notice of me.

“Spike! Manners! This is a guest!” she snapped, her eyes wide with shock.

I snickered, “It’s cool. Sup, Spike. I’m S-…”

“Yeah, yeah, listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really gotta get lunch going. I’m so hungry I could eat rocks and not care.” He waved me off dismissively after setting the vendor goods on a nearby table. Without leaving much room to get in an edgewise word, he vanished into the kitchen.

“Sorry, he gets really cranky when he misses breakfast,” Twilight murmured with a sigh, staring off at the kitchen before glancing back at me. “So… What was your name, again?”

“Tell ya what. If I get interrupted again, I’m going to make you give me a name instead,” I reasoned happily. “Unless, y’know… You want to just… give me one.”

“How about Hot Air!” Spike called from the kitchen.

Maybe there’s just something wrong with me. Maybe there’s something right with me. Maybe I’m just special. Whatever the case, I just don’t know how to take myself seriously. No really! Here Spike is, being a general PITA and the only thing I can do is laugh. Who does that? Even to me that sounds weird! Not that it changes anything, other than make me laugh a little harder. Still. I suppose it makes me very hard to dislike. Or maybe very easy and I’m just too dense to catch on. Either way, I remain happy as a clam.

“Spike~!” Twilight groaned, shamefully drooping her head.

I continued to snicker, my face buried beneath a hoof. Spike’s just awesome like that. Making those silly jokes.

“Declined, Spike, but thanks for the effort!” I called back before looking at Twilight. “Your turn, princess purple!”

Twilight lifted her head and simply stared at me for several seconds. She opened her mouth once but no sound came forth. After shutting it, she blinked and finally, turned a little pink around the cheeks.

“Can’t think of anything?” I trollfaced her RIGHT IN THE FACE.

She leaned away from me a little, blushing a tad more, “Give me a minute.”

I began to simulate the Jeopardy theme, staring her right in the eye as I did so. After about fifteen or more seconds of creepy eye contact, I finally lost my nerve and distracted her with a vocalized buzzer.

“Well, it’s your name! You pick it!” she demanded irritably.

“I’m sorry, Twilight, you must question in the form of an a-… Well, nevermind, I got that wrong,” I huffed before shrugging, “Heh. I kinda like the anonymity, actually. I shall be… Anon-Pony!”

Sometimes, even I have to look back at these past decisions and wonder… just what was I smoking and why didn’t I keep smoking it?

“A non-pony?” Twilight tilted her head, contemplatively considering it before giving a noncommittal nod, “I suppose that make sense. Since you aren’t really a pony after all.”

“No, no. Anon-Pony. As in anonymous pony,” I explained, my sails having gone somewhat slack from her misunderstanding. “Anonymous Pony. Anon-Pony. Get it?”

The good news was that she got it. The bad news was that I wish she hadn’t. Because then we got into this huge argument over the fact that nameless did not mean anonymous. And that I couldn’t be Anon-Pony if I wasn’t actually anonymous. I mean, it started out nice enough, but before long it just degraded into downright stubborn points of view with neither party willing to budge on the matter. Personally, if you ask me, Twilight’s just bullheaded. And I mean that.

After several minutes of that nonsense (no, we never settled on a name, sadly enough), we finally got down to the interesting part of the conversation. The part where we started to exchange fascinating information, that is. Twilight asked me a few questions a thousand different shades of interesting for her. Like, after I showed her what humans looked like (cellphone powah!), she simply couldn’t fathom just how different we were in appearance alone. And the fact that we thrived on the concept of technology and scientific exploitation was equally appealing to her. When I described weather prediction and how we worked around it, I had to reaffirm to her several times that Humans were nonmagical creatures.

Then I turned things around and began an intense interrogation of my own. Ponies! How do they work? We just don’t know! But that was about to change. Foreeeeveeeerrrrr~!

First of all, every last pony was packing magic. Yes, even the Earth Ponies. That’s how they were apparently able to pick things up with their hooves and even provided them with incredible strength. Pegasi, on the other hand, used their magic to make themselves feather-light for flying. Not only that, but were also able to trail their magic behind them for a variety of purposes such as more potent weather manipulation and leaving a wake of visible magic that was unique to each flyer. Unicorns had to rely on their horns to focus their magic, which prevented them from picking up most of the heavier objects with hooves or tails as an Earth Pony might. Their big advantage, however, were spells that could be used for a plethora of applications. Most Unicorns only get one or two spells, but their affinity with that spell would, over time, allow them to branch out to many other uses based entirely upon their will and desire. COMPLEX, EH?! But that wasn’t the extent of their magic. Hell, that wasn’t even scratching the surface of what magic did for ponies. Magic was in everything. Everything. Even in the butter.

Can you imagine that? This roll is not delicious enough! Let me smear a little magic vegetable spread on it, though, and it’s suddenly worthy of a ten dollar price tag! Grandma was good, but she wasn’t that good.

Seriously though, there was this thriving ecosystem of magic and I could talk about it all day long. In fact, me and Twilight would have done that very thing if Spike had not entered the room with pair of plates in his hands. His left cheek was gorged, as though he had a huge precious rock of some form stuffed in there. I got all excited at first, but that was before I noticed what was on the trays themselves.

Hay.

“Thank you, Spike!” Twilight was delighted by the arrival of tasty hay.

I was not.

He brought me my plate and set it down in front of me with a nervous smile, “Uhh, sorry about the… y’know… Being a jerk.”

“Totally forgiven,” I smiled back before glancing at the plate, “Ummm…”

Twilight noticed my hesitation before tilting her head. “Oh, I take it that humans aren’t herbivores.”

“Omnivores,” I distinguished before biting my lip reluctantly, “We just… don’t eat hay.”

Poor Spike had been left out. He was out of the loop and it was definitely showing on his face. What with the Spock eyebrow and the crossed arms. “Hu-whats now?”

“He’s an alien, Spike,” Twilight pointed out.

“Totally.” I nodded

“That’s… not as big a surprise as you might think,” Spike scratched at the side of his head pensively, “No offense.”

“I’ll get over it with some therapy,” I gave a shrug before sighing and looking back at the hay, “Okay… It’s not an onion.”

Onions are also known as Satan Tears or Gargantuan Disgusting Bulbs. Little known facts for you guys.

“I’ll always try something once,” I told myself audibly.

Both the purple inhabitants stared at me with their purple faces and waited with bated purple breath as I slowly forced myself to lower my head and take a bite of the hay. Moment of truth aaaaand… FAIL! Ugh, gag me! My eyes popped open as I chewed into the damn thing. Oh, it was exactly what you would expect it to taste like. Dried grass!

Have you ever eaten something that tasted so bad that it made you laugh? Saw my best friend do it once with this ‘organic’ nut bar (I swear to all things holy, it looked like it was made of birdseed). I never really understood why he would laugh. He said it was the irony. I never really knew what that meant until I ate a mouthful of hay.

I mean think about it. This stuff tastes like crap. I mean, I could see die-hard hippies turning this stuff down and washing their mouth out with dirty soapwater to scour out the foul taste. Yet, they actively grow this stuff as a freakin’ delicacy. What kind of abject nonsense is that?! I know they’re smart enough to come to the conclusion that this garbage is just garbage (heh, I can see it now… “Hey! This hay sucks! Hey, Hay! Did you know that you suck!?”).

Still, I was tough. I macho’d it down, swallowed the whole bite. Then I proceeded to fall off the bench and shudder all over at least twice.

“I think he likes it,” Spike commented with a smirk.

I slowly worked my way up to my hooves and took a deep, shaky breath (okay, so I tend to be a little dramatic. It’s good for cleansing the sinuses.) “Well, that’s another horror I’ll take to my grave. Okay, it’s time to show you guys the power of a super bachelor!”

Don’t worry; I didn’t take off my pants. Besides, I was already naked.

“A wh-…” Spike started to as shortly before I interrupted him.

“Spike! To the bat cave!” I cried before chomping down onto his spines and dashing off with him in tow.

“Be careful with him!” Twilight cried out worriedly before tagging on a mirthful second half, “I’ve only got one!”

“Help!” he pleaded with Twilight as we vanished into the kitchen.

It was a modest little thing with a black wood-fire stove tucked in the corner. The shelves were filled with a lot of the necessities as well as a few novelties (I had totally forgotten what a mortar and pestle was). It took me a moment to orient myself, but after ascertaining what was at my disposal, the choice was obvious.

Oriental, baby. Can’t go wrong.

“Bikuh!” I shouted with my mouth full of flailing Spike before giving him a toss onto my back, “Spike!”

“I’m developing a phobia of aliens,” he replied shakily as he adjusted his seat on my back.

“Sounds like a personal problem!” I retorted before I spotted the drawers that had all the sharp stuff. “Now, it’s time to get cookin’! First things first! As proper men, we need sweat rags! Because that is awesome and we’re awesome! Understood?!”

“What?” I was losing him.

“Who’s awesome, Spike?!” I demanded.

“Um… … What?” He replied.

I sighed sadly before asking in a more practical tone, “Who is awesome?”

“Um… Rainbow Dash is pretty cool,” he pointed out in an uncertain fashion. He wasn’t catching on, that much was apparent.

I blinked before looking back at him with incredulity written upon my face.

“Yes, I suppose she is,” I admitted before sighing, lowering my head in frustrated disappointment, “Now. Who else, within the immediate vicinity, mind you, is awesome? We are! Now say it!”

The poor guy just had not had enough male influence in his life and it showed in his response. “We’re awesome?”

“It doesn’t need that question mark at the end there, chief,” I told him with a second sigh, “Try again. Who’s awesome?!”

“We’re awesome.” Better, but insufficient fury nonetheless.

“Louder!” I cried out, “Who’s awesome!?”

“We’re awesome!” he replied with more enthusiasm, starting to get pumped.

“Yeah! Who’s awesome!?” I demanded yet again!

“We’re awesome!” he bellowed in return!

“YEAH!” I thrust a hoof into the air!

“YEAH!” He did likewise with a claw!

“YEAH!”

“YEAH! WHERE ARE THE RAGS!?” I hollered.

“THERE!” He pointed out excitedly.

Two seconds later, we had a pair of awesome (pink… *sigh*) do-rags wrapped over our heads to match our states of awesomeness, “IT’S ON, FILLIES! LET’S COOK SOME LUNCH!”

“Pardon me, boys.” Twilight derailed the whole damn thing, yelling at us from wherever she was currently busy doing... girly... pony... ... ... things. “But could we keep it down? This is still a library.”

Well. My face was some kind of red.

Eventually, we were able to get some homemade vegetable Lo-Mein served up with a bit of homemade sauce. I was worried I would die of starvation in the time it would have taken me to get the stove wood lit, but that wasn’t much of a problem with a tiny purple dragon at my side. Still, there were enough complications to keep it interesting. I actually had to brew my own damn soy sauce. Thankfully, I had done that a hundred times before working at a Japanese steakhouse in Alabama. So I wasn’t deterred. It wasn’t perfectly similar to the original thing, mostly because I had to make the noodles broad and then cut in half after frying (WHICH WAS TEDIOUS AS HELL!). In less than an hour, though, we had a load of cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and carrots all mixed up in a pile of soy sauce and noodles.

“That looks angry,” Spike admitted, giving it a fearful glance over the top of my head from his perch on my back.

“Oh, it is angry,” I agreed with him, tentatively poking it with a fork before jumping and screaming in horror.

“AHH!” I faked.

“AHHHH!!!” Spike clutched my mane in horror, screaming with me.

I smiled back at him.

“Gotcha.”

He wasn’t amused. That made it funnier. Tro-lo-lo-lo-looooool~!

“Would you two please stop making such a racket! I’m trying to read!” Twilight snapped as she poked her head inside. She then took a whiff on what was in the air and was suddenly all curious.

“Well, at least it smells like all the noise and effort was worth it,” she said with an eager smile.

“Say please~!” I ordered, serving up three bowls with a noodle spoon thingy.

She happily trotted over, smiling eagerly. “Please~!”

Cuter than a puppy wrestling with a shoe.

And a real lunch was served. I saved myself the biggest portion because Twilight had already had hay and Spike had chomped on a few pieces of jewelry or something to that effect. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still damn good and I was famished. I’m not a big fan of being forced into veganism... or vegtablarism... or whatever it’s called. I never took Theology in college. Nonetheless, if all the dishes tasted this good, I certainly wouldn’t lament it for long.

After looking upon the sloppy pile of noodles and veggies, Twilight took up Spike’s fearful distrust of the chow. It wasn’t until I began to greedily stuff it into my face that they finally took the plunge and tried it. That was mature of them at least, seeing as how I tried their despicable hay. The result was a big fat success! Om nom nom for everypony!

“So,” I said, munching through a mouthful of vegan-stuff, “Twilight, do you have any idea on how I could have gotten here?”

“You mean assuming you aren’t just a crazy unicorn with bizarre talents?” she asked with a laugh.

Spike snickered as he chomped down on his culinary gift.

“Well, from my point of view, I’m still not sure this isn’t all just a dream,” I replied with a laugh of my own, “But now that we’re done pointing out the elephants in the room…”

She shook her head as she tried to replicate the act of slurping up a single noodle after watching me do it. See, there’s an art to that. You gotta ease up at the end, and even that has to be done gradually. If you just willy-nilly go slurping about, you’re going to get what Twilight got, which was a noodle slap right in the nose.

“Twilight, you barbarian,” I huffed sarcastically, pulling the rag off my head and gently dabbing at saucy nose.

She chuckled with a blush and began to reply, but the door was bucked open and slammed against the stopper with a bang. It scared us all into freezing in place as we all turned to face the newcomer.

It was like magic. … Okay, maybe that was a little redundant.

In flew the bluest, coolest, awesomest mare in the world. Twenty-percent cooler than ice and faster than a speeding bullet. The badflank herself, Rainbow “Danger” Dash.

“Twilight, what is taking so long!?” she yelled, frustration marring her lovely face.

Jaw drop~!

She spotted the scene. Random colt wiping sauce off Twilight’s mouth from unknown dish that no doubt smelled delicious and looked angry. She processed that. She ran it through her priority algorithms. Out spewed the questions.

“What are you eating!? Who is thi… Is this your coltfriend! Hah! That’s so cool!” she cried, starting to get all chummy before shaking her head and realizing that she was here for a purpose, “Wait, why are you eating! I sent Spike to come get you over an hour ago! There’s a huge crater in the middle of Town Square!”

We all looked at Spike. He blushed in response before pulling a Twix commercial and stuffing so much Lo-Mein in his mouth that we could not decipher the multitude of excuses that failed to push past the noodlely obstructions.

I looked back at Rainbow Dash and continued with the jaw drop. All the way across the library. Wooooow~! Full on! I’ll stop that now; I apologize.

“Uhhh, no, this is not my coltfriend!” Twilight shoved my hoof away from her, blushing brightly as she swallowed the remaining food in her mouth, “He’s an alien.”

Well, I might as well have been dipped in gold as far as Dash was concerned. That was all she needed to hear before zipping right up to my face and staring at me suspiciously.

“Huh… You sure? He doesn’t look like an alien to me.” She was dubious, and for good reason.

“I… I…” I stammered is what I did!

Perhaps we need a little more context for the kids at home to understand. Bronies have a tendency to take their electronic devices and wrap them in pony themes. Well… I was one of many. I simply took it a little further than most. It started out innocent enough. A few chat avatars changed to Rainbow Dash doing awesome/silly things like flail her tongue about. Then it developed into changing program skins like Google Chrome and Trillian to Dashie’s color scheme. And then came the wallpapers (there were many). Before long, though, I was making WoW toons, Skype Accounts, and Steam names all centered around this prismatic pony. After I changed my seven-page background on my cellphone to the Sonic Rainboom (Which took some effort, I assure you), I told myself that I was done with it and would draw the line here.

That was a week before I purchased a Happy Meal to acquire a Rainbow Dash toy.

Okay, now, we all have embarrassing moments in our lives that we’re not proud of. This was not one of them for me. I mean, yeah, some people will laugh at me. I will smile arrogantly in their faces and declare them jelly! I will never be ashamed about what happened next!

Which was me passing out like a teenage cheerleader at a Justin Bieber concert.

HOWEVER! I will say this! Those ‘awesome’ ponies?! The ones I love so much!? Refused to catch me when I fell! I know because I woke up with a bruise the size of a baseball on the side of my head!

… … … All of my rage and all of its children!

Chapter Four: Luna’s Gonna Loon, Lucky’s Gonna Luck, Twilight’s Gonna Beat You To Death With A Book!

Best viewed through the Google Chrome on the Google Document.

’m told I have, quite possibly, the strangest sleep schedule ever. I don’t keep myself adjusted to the position of hands on a clock; I just stay up until I feel like sleeping and then go to bed. This usually results in somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two hours of life followed by five to nine hours of rest. That has a lot of advantages. Enough that I’m not going to bother listing them all, anyway. One severe disadvantage that does come with it is when you are woken up by outside influences, your day is wrecked. Plain and simple. It’s like an ill omen prophesying your inevitable doom. The reason I am telling you this is because it applies to this day in particular.

So there I was, sleeping on Twilight’s balcony - Twilight’s house has NO AIR CONDITIONING AND IS STUFFY AS HELL - without a care in the world. I had an awesome dream about Super Smash Ponies and I didn’t want to wake up because I was still trying to figure out how to use the Sonic Rainboom. Much to my dismay, I wasn’t able to figure it out before that very awakening took place. The harbinger of unrest wasn’t even being that loud, oddly enough. I’m weird like that. I can sometimes be woken up by two people whispering two doors down, but if my roommates start blasting heavy metal, I won’t even twitch. I wish I could find a consistency as to what actually causes the disturbing of my slumber.

“There you are,” I heard Spike mutter, “What are you doing out here?”

“Blergh,” I blerghed before rolling over, slowly opening an eye and swiveling it around in an attempt to spot my disturber.

“He’s out here, Twilight!” he called back inside.

“I don’t want it~!” I whined, mustering the effort to scoot away from the source of sound. Thank Celestia that Twilight had a very well sanded balcony.

A few seconds later, Twilight added her disruption multiplier to Spike’s sleep-combo-breaker and I was forced to slip further into undesired consciousness. This resulted in more scooting until I eventually bumped into Twilight’s telescope. I guess I really should have been looking where I was going, but I was fortunate enough to have it fall over onto me instead of it breaking on the wood balcony. Rather than whine about being struck by a Telescope, however, I just sorta pulled it close and used it as a surrogate teddy-bear.

“Why are you sleeping outside?” I heard Twilight ask me in a puzzled voice.

“Your house has no ventilation,” I replied quite truthfully, snuggling up to the telescope and shutting my eyes again.

There was a heavy pause in there, and I could surmise that it originated from Twilight and Spike’s confusion on what I talking about.

“I’m tellin’ you, Twilight, there is no way he isn’t an alien,” Spike reasoned, “I’m gonna go make some breakfast.”

“I don’t g-… Actually, no, I’m not going to waste time trying to understand you.” Twilight was apparently frustrated with me. Still, she brought herself back to a reasonable level of calm and spoke very politely. “Now, Princess Celestia’s Envoy will be here soon to pick you up and you don’t need to keep them waiting. You’ll need to clean up a little, seeing as you’ll be appearing in Canterlot. Also, we sh-...”

“Them?” I questioned lazily.

“What?”

“You said them,” I explained before letting out a long yawn. “Implying that there will be multiple envoys.”

The sigh she let out told me that I was starting to work a purple nerve. “Please, No-Name…”

“That’s another thing…” I interjected again.

Y’know, I never actually realize how much of an ass I’m being until I look back on my actions. Because I was definitely being one right here. But while I was living in the moment, interrupting Twilight for a second time... I dunno, it just didn’t feel like I was being one at the time.

“What’s the difference between calling me Anon-Pony and No-Name?” I opened my eyes and glanced Twilight’s way, “I mean they’re both pretty… Well, you know. They’re lacking in identity. I think that makes you a hypocrite.”

“Look, I’m trying to help you, so… please stop being difficult?” she begged.

“One condition,” I offered.

“Anything!” (Note: This was one big pile of bullshit…)

“I want to be Anon-Pony.”

That’s where things went downhill.

“Spiiike!” Twilight shouted back inside in a rather saccharine, yet threatening tone.

I risked opening an eye, half-curious as to see where this was about to go.

“Uh oh,” I heard him reply from within. This helped to foster growing sense growing unease.

“What’s ‘Uh oh’?” I tried to make my voice sound even and nonchalant. Might have failed in that endeavor.

“Please bring me the ‘Ponypedia Equestria,’ the ‘Unabridged Trotster’s Dictionary,’ and a copy of ‘Magic 402: Pandimensional-Subradiation Applications’ if you please,” she called back inside.

Did you know that books are a viable weapon? Maybe not in your hands or mine, but when left in the magical sway of a librarian unicorn? Yeah, it’s not pretty. Basically when held tightly, the book is almost no different than a piece of wood of roughly the same size. And that can hurt when beaten about the head and shoulders. I have learned that one does not test Twilight when she has access to three-hundred plus pages. Also, she took her stupid telescope back because she’s a plot face.

Long story short, I was beaten with books, had my teddy-scope ripped from my grasp, beaten with more books, chased inside where I was beaten with a few more books, and finally corralled into the bathroom by way of being beaten with books. Also, I tripped over Spike. Collateral damage, Tony!

“THAT’S NOT VERY FRIENDSHIPFUL!” I shouted from behind the sanctity of the washroom door.

Her response was to beat on the door with books, which terrified me. Seriously, I developed a complex that was triggered by the sight of airborne books. It’s up there with spiders. Still, I played nice from thereon, cleaning up and making myself halfway decent. Just a note here, using magic to do everything actually requires a modicum of patience. Sure, I eventually got it all worked out, but damn it, if I’m going to have a fluffy tail then it will be brushed properly!

One thing that perplexed me: A toilet. It was there. It was a toilet used for what I assume is toilet-based activities. And yet, having been here for what was around twenty-four hours, I had not heard the alluring call of nature. Not once. I decided not to dwell on it. Not because I wasn’t curious, but that line of thinking was leading to the visualizing of ponies doing that very act. Which was unsettling, to say the least.

I was finished long before I bothered leaving the safety of the blessed water closet. Eventually, though, I poked my head out of the bathroom and quickly snatched it back inside on the off chance Twilight had not yet satisfied her desire to damage my person. When no books came flying at me, I peeked out once more and made sure the coast was clear before opening the door. I checked the library after stepping out and found Spike and Twilight tidying up like a pair of purple maids. It wasn’t until I spotted the telescope lying on the farthest bench that I was overcome with petty, impulsive desire. I would get Twilight back for abusing me with such impunity!

Without giving them any warning whatsoever, I dashed out of the bathroom and snagged the telescope with a bit of magic. Pure survival instinct drove me to sprint for the door as I screamed in triumph.

“FOR THE EMPRAH!!” I roared.

Now that I consider it, I think that may have been less about survival and more about causing as much of a ruckus as I possibly could. Still, for the sake of making me sound sane, we’re just going to go with survival instinct.

That’s not the important part, though. The important part was about my awesome magic; specifically my first ever successful magic multi-task. It was awesome, like I already told you. Brace yourselves for awesome: I yoinked the telescope, leapt over Spike, snatched a cigarette out of nothingness, put it in my mouth, threw open the threshold to liberty whilst lighting the Mareboro and told the police to go buck themselves all at the same time. All whilst in a full-on sprint. With a furious draw on my smoke and a maniacal laugh on my lips, I dashed out of the library with Twilight hot on my heels.

Boo. Yah. I’m awesome.

“What could have made that more awesome?” you might ask yourself. Quite frankly, making it ten steps out the door would have been lovely, but whatever. And no, Twilight didn’t catch me. The Princess’ little envoy did, as it turns out. And by catch me, I mean clip my flank with her flying sled-like car thingy to send me flying like a pegasus. It had to be going, like, a million miles per hour; ‘Cause I totally got some air. Enough of it that the driver had to jump out of the vehicle and tackle me mid-flight to catch me. I have no doubt that it looked utterly amazing to anypony fortunate enough to bear witness. For me, however, it was just awful. I mean, this day was off to one hell of schizophrenic start with how amazingly awesome it got before taking the worst of dives.

Cigarette lost? Check. Added bruising? Check. Tackled by a flying green pony that twisted my hoof behind my back and LITERALLY crammed my face into the ground upon impact. Check. No bullshit: She used… my face… as a brake. My face. It skidded along the grass and dirt. As she used it to create friction. To stop our momentum. Do you understand me? She was grinding my face into the ground! The very concept makes my skin crawl! What the French Canadian hell did I do deserve that?!

“In the name of Celestia, you are under arrest!” my assailant shouted at me in the most unthreatening squeak she could manage.

Great. Stuffing my eyes, nose, and mouth into the terrain wasn’t enough. I also get to go to pony prison and meet some deranged criminal pony named Love Sponge the Tickler… Did I mention that I occasionally will creep even myself out? Still, I didn’t cry. Mostly because it hurt too much to cry, but that’s beside the point.

“Oh goodness!” I heard Twilight cry out as I started to lift my head up.

My squeaky assailant shoved it right back into the dirt. Seems legit.

“Everything is alright, Miss Twilight. I caught the thief,” replied the face-grinding envoy from Hell.

Everything was most certainly not alright. Everything was filled with pain. I could see the pain. I could smell the pain. I could taste the pain. And it looked like, smelled like, and even tasted just like dirty grass. Or it could have just been dirty grass I was experiencing. Whatever the case was, all my brain knew was that dirty grass was equal to or greater than pain.

“No, you don’t understand!” Finally, someone else was getting some of that at purple pony perturbedfulness. “That’s the pony you’re to be escorting to Canterlot!”

“W-… What?” Dat voice. She sounded like Pinkie Pie after sucking in a tank of helium. Okay, maybe not that squeaky, but I promise that I’m not stretching the truth here by much.

The grip on my hoof lessened a bit, despite there being no fingers to actually hold onto me.

“That’s Princess Celestia’s guest!” Twilight shouted.

I found the strength to whimper right about here.

“But he… He was... He was running away with your telescope. And you were chasing…” the pony stammered in response.

I could hear the oddly familiar sound of Twilight slapping a hoof over her face as she sighed. Note, my face was still in the dirt and my hoof was still being twisted behind my back while this was all going on. But other than that, it was totally fine that they had this out before seeing to me.

“I… admit, the situation may have looked rather bad, but it was just… Well, we were both being rather silly,” Twilight clarified haltingly.

“S-Silly?” Face-Grinder echoed.

Silly was not the word I would have used.

“Yes, silly. Now, if you would be so kind as to release him?”

FINALLY!

I coughed as I extracted my countenance from the trench that it had been used to carve out of Twilight’s front lawn. I immediately broke away from the green terror and scampered over behind Twilight to put something living between myself and it.

Had I not been thoroughly terrified of ‘it,’ I would have instead marveled at the fiend. She was a good bit taller than your average mare; right around my size, in fact. Her eyes were bright yellow, and her hooves were like that of a Clydesdale’s: Huge and fuzzy. Even while I was busy cowering behind Twilight, I was still loving her emerald green coat. As a matter of fact, green is my favorite color! Well, not when my eyes are scraped across green grass, but just about all other times. She even had a chartreuse mane and tail that both sported a pair of forest green streaks that followed her straight, long hair all the way down. I don’t know where Rarity gets off hating green hair, but she obviously never met this pegasus. Her armor looked like the typical guard armor with the exception of being trimmed with red instead of blue.

“Oh my gosh, you’re a mess,” Twilight whined at me LIKE IT WAS MY FAULT.

“I am so sorry!” the large pega-mare squeaked, holding out a desperate hoof.

I spat out some dirt and roots in response.

“A-Are you okay?” she asked, fumbling over her words in horror.

Twilight started to reply on my behalf, but I totally had it under control.

“Well, my front leg hurts, my back aches like it’s been stepped on by a huge pegasus, my face…” I paused here to hock up a few twigs. “My face feels like it’s been used to sandpaper a whole pine tree and my vision has yet to clear up. But other than THAT? Yeah! We’re just %&#*ing peachy!”

When I look at a large-and-in-charge guard wrapped in gold armor with feral-yellow eyes, I expect that guard to kick my flank when I am dumb enough to yell at them. Which is why I picked up Twilight and held her in front of me the moment I finished my rant (she was much too surprised to actually stop me). Twilight had earned some beatings by this point anyway. However, I did not get what I was expecting. Instead of said guard reaching over and beating me senseless, she decided she would rather fall down in a fit of tears.

“P-P-Please don’t tell the Princess!” she wailed whilst clapping her hooves over her eyes.

Suffice it to say, Twilight and I were at a loss. A big loss. This was not what I was ready for. I was ready for violence. And a lot of it. This wishy-washy guard thingy was straight up bizarre.

“Captain S-S-S-Storm Wing’s g-gonna throw me out of the Archons!” she bawled miserably, curling up a bit more as she shrilly sobbed into her hooves.

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but it bothers the shit out of me when people cry in front of me. Like, I don’t know why. I can watch a movie with people crying, I can watch a show with ponies crying, and I will never blink to reading a book’s saddest scene. That said, the moment someone breaks out into tears right in front of me, I am faced with two options. The first is cheer them up before I start crying. The second is to start crying with them. I’m a freak, okay?

So I opted to try and save my dignity by creating a distracting scene.

“Good going, Twilight!” I hollered loudly to prevent my voice from cracking as I gave her a shove from behind. “Now this guard is fired and it’s all your fault!”

“W-What?!” Sorry, Twilight. If you ever read this, you were just a convenient target.

“Gosh, you should have just let me have the telescope!” I sat my plot down, crossed my hooves, and whipped out a cigarette before glaring off into the distance. “But nooo! You have to be selfish and make a complete plotface of yourself!”

“A… A what-face?!” Her bewilderment was like a fine, aged wine for a troll like me.

Face-Grinder the Green was starting to knock it off as she realized the blame was apparently being shifted away from her. I admit that she was pretty frick’n cute when she wasn’t digging ditches with my face or falling over in a slobbery, weeping mess.

“Hey, why don’t you go back inside before you ruin something else? And here’s your freaking telescope!” I magicked it over and floated it her way before giving her a knowing wink. “Gosh!”

I just have to say, Twilight’s brilliant and I am thankful for that. It took her all of two seconds to get what was going on and roll her eyes in amusement. She proved to be twice as cool when she actually went along with it.

“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t going to great efforts to sound convincing, but whatever, right? It got the job done.

With that, she conjured up a large, wet towel and took her telescope back, “Just… clean up a little and get going, already. I’ll ‘work on my attitude’ in the meantime. Okay?”

I caught the towel and blinked a few times as I stared at her. Nobody ever goes along with my half-baked plans. I’m sure if I had thought it through, I wouldn’t have tried it in a million years, but I’m stuck with an impulsive inner half that refuses to be bothered with the complexities of contemplation. All that besides, I still don’t expect anyone to play ball the way Twilight did and… Well, that got me all excited in and of itself.

“You’re, like, the best pony ever!” I squealed before initiating the choke-hug from hell.

“What… What is happening?” Greenie the Crusher of Faces was so confused. I don’t blame her.

“Wagh!” Twilight shrieked as I crushed her in my embrace. “No-Name, you’re filthy! Oh! You’re getting dirt in my mane!”

Some ponies just can’t appreciate being appreciated. Sigh.

* * *

So after the madness tapered off and both Twilight and I cleaned up, it was time for my daily dosage of awesome. Greenflank, Face-Destroyer Extraordinaire, remained dismally silent the entire time but she wasn’t crying, which was the important part. I was actually still trying not to wince in pain from her initial abuse, but I did my best to not show it so as to keep the waterworks away. Which wasn’t to say I was being super friendly to her; I was still a little irritated, after all. But as long as I had my cigarettes and my world full of ponies, I wasn’t going to fuss.

All my inner upsetness, however, was single-hoofedly dispelled when I beheld it.

“What is it?” I stared at the large sled-like contraption before me. It was silver and ivory with Celestia’s Cutie Mark emblazoned on its sides with gold trim. There also happened to be a dent in the passenger side that somewhat bore the resemblance of a certain pony that will forever remain a mystery.

“It’s the Royal Sky Carriage,” explained my surprisingly demure escort as we stepped aboard the strange craft.

“Sky Carriage?” I gasped, “You mean… it…”

It flies. Yes, it does. Yes, it flies when Anon-Ponies (He’s not Anon-Pony – ‘You Know Who’) jump on to ride it. I began to feel the elation and panic well up as it lifted higher and higher in the sky. When it finally began to move forward, I felt my fascination hit what I thought was my peak. It wasn’t until it started reaching speeds that were illegal in Germany that I finally panicked and grabbed hold of Miss Viridian Facebreaker. I felt not the slightest shame as a delighted, yet terrified shriek escaped me.

“GREENIE, WE’RE FLYING!” I’m not sure why I was yelling at a pony that I was attached to, but she was at least kind enough to yell back.

“OF COURSE WE ARE!” She blasted right into my left ear. “AND MY NAME IS LUCKY! NOT GREENIE!”

Having been on the receiving end of close-proximity roaring, I decided it was silly and that we should stop that nonsense.

“Jesus, I’m right here. Stop shouting,” I huffed before breaking away from her and peeking over the edge. “Oh wow. Greenie, look at this!”

“My name’s not Jesus and it’s not Greenie!” she whined at me.

I ignored the poor thing as I gazed down at what was unmistakably the Everfree Forest. I spotted what I think was a hydra from my elevated perch and felt the urge to hop in glee. Fortunately, Stoic grabbed control of the reigns in time to remind me how stupid that would be and that I needed to get a grip. Lafter agreed, but decided to simply distract me with something equally ridiculous, even if it was considerably safer.

“Greenie, we’re changing the name of this vehicle.” I can be a jerk sometimes.

“Can you call it Greenie instead of me?” she moped.

I glanced back at her as though she were turning into a Dalek.

“That makes no sense, Greenie. It’s not even kinda green. No, that won’t do at all. It shall be henceforth known as… ‘The Awesome Sky Carriage of Awesomeness!™’” I proclaimed before turning back to face her with a wince.

Yeah, I couldn’t even make sharp turns without feeling a nasty stab of pain in my neck thanks to the Killer of Countenances here. I was too filled with wonder to care though. At least I was before realizing that she saw through my act. It didn’t take me long to find out that Greenie had an awfully guilty conscience and a patch on her sleeve where she wore her heart. Talk about a mood killer.

“I’m very sorry, I really shouldn’t have acted so rashly,” she remarked with a pitiful sigh.

I failed my will-save versus guilt trip and immediately submitted to my baser urges. The urge to console.

“Hey, G-… Lucky? No sweat, okay?” I cantered over to her with a smile. “You’re a big girl, you can handle making a few mistakes. I do it all the time. Like running off with Twilight’s telescope. And tricking guards into thinking that I’m a thief. That was pretty stupid, eh?”

She gave me a reluctant smile, perking up a skosh.

“Still… I’m sorry,” she murmured, blushing as she went about scuffing her hoof. It wasn’t Flutteradorable, but it was close. And landing in the same neighborhood as Fluttershy was an accomplishment all on its own.

I blinked at the pegasus before narrowing my eyes at her. “You keep that up and you’ll be even sorrier when I hug you into submission. I’m like… the adorable police. And you’re dangerously close to a violation.”

I snapped my head forward (which hurt a lot), glaring off into the distance as we continued to sail through the air. All it did was confuse Lucky further. That was fine with me. She would live. I, on the other hoof, might not survive much more cuteness on a day-to-day basis.

“I don’t… understand,” she replied, staring at me worriedly.

I began to elaborate further on the matter, only to be distracted at the upcoming sight on the horizon. It was a mountain… It was a city… It was a mountain impaled on a city! Or something! It was Canterlot. Poor Stoic didn’t even bother trying to stop Lafter from taking control. This resulted in me grabbing poor Lucky and shaking her like a rag doll as I hyperventilated for a few seconds.

“LUCKY GREENHOOF, LOOK!” I hissed. My wide eyes fixed on the beautiful Minas-Tirith inspired castle. “IT’S CANTERLOT.”

“I s-s-s-see it-t-t-t,” she chattered through my impulsive assault.

I had forgotten how close Ponyville was to Canterlot. It was just a hop, skip, and a jump away as long as one was able to leap over the Everfree Forest that was inconveniently placed between the two. I tried to stop wheezing as we approached and had to light up a cigarette just to keep my blood pressure down to what most people consider a survivable level. I was stupid giddy, as you might have guessed. There was just no possible way for me to not enjoy the hell out of myself in the pony capital of Equestria! As we flew closer, I got an idea of just how incredibly huge Canterlot really was. It was seriously as big as the mountain that it was protruding out of. So much pony!

“Wow, I knew you were new to Equestria but…” Lucky let the rest of the implication go unspoken as I continued to squee all over the place.

“Lucky! Lucky, there’s a Wonderbolt… THERE’S THREE WONDERBOLTS OVER THERE!” And there totally was. I swear I saw the usual trio blitzing about in the sky and all I could do was continue losing my mind. “GIIIIRL, SHIT HAS OFFICIALLY GOTTEN CRAY-CRAY!”

“‘C… Cray cray?’” she echoed uncertainly.

“CRAY CRAY!” I repeated, spinning about face and showing her my best impression of the Cheshire cat.

I think that broke her daily insanity limit or something because the expression on her face was mostly a combination fear and worry. “Could… Um… Could you please stop… talking… or doing anything, really?”

I rapidly deflated. When you’re as excitable as me you find that rapid, controllable mood swings are not only easy, but rather fun. I sat my pony bottom down on the A.S.C.A.™ and stared at her quite plainly before letting out a sigh that was somewhere between happy and relaxed.

I rubbed the back of my neck with a nervous laugh. “Sorry, Lucky. I’m losing it. I know this doesn’t look good, but trust me when I say this: You just have no idea just how euphorically surreal this is to me.”

“No. No, I’m not letting my guard down. You’re insane. Just sit there and… and be good.” I can’t really say I blame her.

I pouted at her but she was having none of it. She stared at me as though I was about to jump and tear out her throat at any given second. My response was to pout harder. That seemed reasonable, if you ask me. So when she started to ignore me and stare straight ahead, I kinda wiggled over into her peripheral vision. Her willingness to ignore was measured, weighed, and ultimately found wanting.

“Stop it,” she urged, glancing at me as I continued to burn my puppy-dog face into her retina.

One day, folks, I would grow up to be a mature, decent respectable. That day was not this day.

“Stop!” Her pleas fell upon my deaf, merciless ears.

That’s when she hit the brakes and sent me flying right over the edge. I assume she did, anyway. It’s not like there was a gas pedal or something, the stupid thing just seemed to obey the thoughts of the driver. I think. Anyway, I let out the manliest scream a pony could make, flailing helplessly as I fell all of two feet over the edge. On one hand, I was happy that I wasn’t falling to my doom, but on the other, I was greatly put out that I landed on my back right where the green brute had stepped on me earlier and proceeded to tumble right into a statue, smacking my head upon it with a great fury.

As I was losing consciousness, I looked up in time to see this awesome-as-hell statue of one bigass pegasus stallion staring down at me. I proceeded to inquire as to why Equestria was so hellbent on beating me to death, hoping Mister Statue could shed some light on the matter. He didn’t answer me, sadly. At least, not before I fell asleep on his pillow-like dais. Mmmmm. Stone cold stone is stone cold.

* * *

Some undetermined amount of time later, I woke up in a bed, which was a first for Equestria. I couldn’t actually see the bed I was in. At least, not clearly enough to describe it. I tried to blink but my poor vision just didn’t feel like working at that particular moment so I was stuck with trying to decipher what the different colored shapes around me were.

“You’re in luck, Lucky. He’s waking up.”

That was definitely Celestia’s voice. She has a very unique voice that I’ve never heard anyone perfectly replicate.

“Your Majesty, I am so sorry!” The squeaking could only be Fluttershy or Lucky. Considering I’d yet to meet Fluttershy (much to my displeasure), I felt it was a safe bet that my attacker had followed me in hopes of finishing what it had started. I could only pray that Celestia would save me in time.

“Tears of Night, Lucky, how did you manage to wreck the Princess’ guest on the Sky Carriage?” This was a new voice. She sounded like one of those hot warrior chicks that you see in anime or DC Amazon Isles. “All you had to do was fly the thing there and back!”

“It wasn’t so simple with him, I assure you!” She lied like a rug. “J-Just… Please, Starlight, don’t tell the Captain!”

“She lies,” I truth’d, still not fully conscious. “Tell the Captain. She beat me. I cried and told her to stop but she just kept beating me. She’s a monster.”

“W… What?! I did no such thing!” her voice cracked as though she were hitting puberty or something. “Don’t believe him, Your Majesty!”

I took a guess at which blurry dark shape was Lucky and lazily pointed at it. “That’s the one, Celestia. She did this to me. Arrest that pony.”

Right as I said that, though, my vision decided it was the perfect comedic time to finally clear up. At least enough to realize that I was pointing at a dark royal blue pony and not a dark emerald green one. I blinked a few more times, finally bringing a bit of definition to my hazy world and I found myself staring at a frightening mare. She was right around Lucky’s height, which put her just a head and a half under Celestia’s towering frame. That, however, wasn’t what made her scary. No, it was the black bob haircut with a single white stripe in the center covering her right eye coupled with the exposed eye burning a hole into me with its blood red stare. Also her wings were bigger than mine, so I felt exceptionally unendowed before her. Yes, I’m aware I don’t actually have any wings, and that does not help my feelings of inadequacy.

“Show some respect before the princess before I show you some of the consequences,” the blue pegasus growled threateningly.

“That’s enough, Commander Starlight; you will do no such thing. You know I expect better self-control out of my Archons,” Celestia sighed, obviously unhappy with the way things were currently devolving. “I have no doubt that our guest was exceptionally difficult to put up with. I’ve only met him once and I’ve something of a grasp for just how… bizarre he can be.”

“I take objection to that, Celestia.” I turned my head her way whilst still pointing in the Archon’s face. “You should learn to be more considerate. I’m, like, right here and stuff.”

I gave a big, genuine smile to the princess who happily smiled back with a mirthful snort and a roll of her eyes. I started to further make a hammy ass of myself but Starlight distracted me by slapping the hoof out of her face. I let out a whine and rubbed the offended appendage with my other hoof.

“And you should learn to not harass every last pony you come across.” Celestia let out a laugh before shaking her head as though she were helpless to stop me. “How are you feeling?”

“Fantastic, actually, considering everything that’s happened to me just this morning.” I replied before sticking my tongue out at Starlight. “Who’s this you’ve brought with you? Does she bite? I’m not going to lie, she looks dangerous. Dangerous enough t-…”

“Have a care for whom you’re speaking to!” Starlight snapped at me, having raised her voice just enough to startle me.

“Woah! Down girl! Easy!” I leaned away from the vicious animal in an attempt to avoid getting my face eaten off.

“Oh, I’ll take it real easy after I give y-…”

Celestia cut that nonsense off with a vengeance! “Commander Starlight, apologize to our guest.”

“Pbbbhht~!” Raspberry of maturity, right here. Now, you probably assumed Celestia was the one to act like such an infant, but as amazing as this sounds, that was actually me.

“And you apologize as well,” the princess continued.

“But…” I started to protest until Celestia gave me this look. I don’t know if it was a super power or magic was involved, all I know is that I froze up like the chickens in that one episode with Fluttershy. It was stressful, being on the receiving end of that visionary assault, but I composed myself enough to do as I was told. (I wasn’t interested in finding out what would happen if I said, ‘No’ which is rather unusual for me!) “Woah… … … Hello, Archon Commander Starlight. My name is Anon-Pony. I am terribly sorry for being an inconsiderate jerk and ask your forgiveness for not showing the proper respect. Also, when I comment on just how frightening you look, I do so with the utmost of admiration. You’re exactly what I would expect a veteran guard of Equestria to look like. And yes, I really do mean this and I’m not just saying it to avoid angering the princess.”

Heavy silence was heavy. I don’t think any of them expected me to actually play ball. But Celestia has one scary glare and if there’s one thing that will help me be a little more self-aware of my actions, it’s fear of being stamped out of existence by a pony princess. Try explaining THAT one to St. Peter. Anyway, I got kinda fidgety with everyone being all shocked and stuff.

“What? Good lord, you ponies haven’t known me for more than a day! Why are you staring at me like that!?” I offered, throwing my hooves up into the air.

“See!” Lucky cried as though I had just proven some point she was trying to make. “Difficult!”

“‘See’ nothing! You dug a ditch with my face, you monster!” I snarled in return before slapping my hooves over my mouth in shock.

Starlight was the first to react, “Y… You did what, Lucky!?”

“I thought he was a thief!” she squeaked in defense.

“We can, should, and even need to just forget I said anything right then!” I hollered, throwing my hooves around madly to help capture attention. Pretty sure I just looked either stupid, amusing, or some amalgamation of the two.

“You attacked the Princess’ guest?!” Starlight was at a loss. It just didn’t make sense to her.

“It’s alright; I totally looked like a thief! She was well within her rights to smash my face into the ground!” Man, I can really say some stupid things when I’m panicking.

Celestia blinked, having not yet recovered entirely, “Smash your face…?”

Starlight was not pleased. “Archon! Explain yourself!”

“He was running away from Miss Twilight!” she whined.

“She saved the telescope!” I pointed out.

Starlight ignored the hell out of me. “What is wrong with you?!”

“No, it’s okay! Getting hit by the carriage was much worse! I’m fine, really!” Sigh… Why, self? Why must you/I do these things?

“You hit him with the Carriage?!” Go figure. She heard THAT.

Lucky looked my way, horror splayed uponst her countenance. “S-Stop! You’re making it worse!!”

“I’m just going to shut up now.” It seemed like a good idea. If only I came up with that more often.

“Archon, I will have you mixing storm clouds until the sight of rain makes you sick!” Starlight bellowed.

Lucky started to cry, to which I tried to stop her, but things were out of hoof already and I fell apart almost as quickly as she did. I grabbed the pillow closest to me and stuffed my face into it to cover my shame. Much to my surprise, everything went silent shortly thereafter. The curiosity and confusion quickly proved to be too much for me to handle and I dared a misty-eyed glance over the top of the pillow. They were all staring at me. Even Lucky, who was thankfully letting her lack of understanding override her need to blubber. AGAIN!

“What?!” I coughed out, all sorts of flustered.

“Why are you…?”

“IT’S NOT IMPORTANT!” I yelled before stuffing my face back into the pillow. “YOU’RE ALL JERKS!”

“Ladies, I think it best if the two of you left,” Celestia gently ordered, “and Starlight, spare Lucky any punishment for her actions. This is a very odd set of circumstances, after all.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Starlight replied before letting out a helpless chuckle, “come along then, Lucky. Only you could get away with attacking one of Celestia’s personal guests.”

“Sorry,” she whimpered pitifully in response.

I heard their hoofsteps clack against the marble floors of wherever I was. They continued to exchange words, but they quickly became so distant that discerning the conversation was pretty much impossible through the echoes. Celestia and I were alone at last and ironically enough, all I could do was blush in shame with my face stuffed into a pillow.

“They’re gone now,” she pointed out tactfully, “You can come out. Unless one ‘jerk’ is too much to face.”

I called Celestia a jerk. That realization was not a pleasant one.

I dropped the pillow and hastily spouted my apology, “No! You’re not a jerk, Celestia! I’m just stupid and have no self-control!”

“I deduced that much,” she replied with a smile, “Do not worry, Stranger. I can relate to the difficulty of suppressing impulses. I take it watching others cry is difficult for you?”

I let out an embarrassed sigh before giving her an answer by way of nodding.

“Do you w-“ she started to ask but I was pretty quick with the responding.

“No thanks, Celestia. I know you’re a nice pony princess and that I could totally confide in you, but digging up bad memories is what humans consider a faux pas.” I felt a little bad about interrupting the princess, but really, we’ve all got stuff that we don’t want brought up, right? I simply happen to be a little trigger happy when it comes to the shutting down of such pursuits. It helps to discourage the ‘fixers’ from messing with you, at least.

“Very well. I won’t pretend to understand, but I will respect your boundaries.” And that, people, is why Celestia is the best pony princess.

“You’re awesome, Princess. It must be hard being so amazing. Such a responsibility to live up to.” I looked up at her with a soft smile before finally taking in my surroundings. It looked like a medical ward, only extra decorative. Leave it to girly ponies to doll up a place of sickness and pain, I guess?

“Oh, I manage.” She winked, smiling back. “It’s not as difficult as it you might think.”

“Naw, you’re just that good at it,” I gushed back, happy to pull the conversation back to silliness. I hopped out of the bed and performed my best full-body cat stretch. “Ggghhnnn!! Oh, but damn do I feel great!”

“I would hope so. Princess Luna healed you after having witnessed your fall,” Celestia made mention, tilting her head just slightly to the left. “She brought you here to make sure you were alright, but was too tired to stay up for much longer.”

I dropped my jaw as I stood up straight. “Luna? She met me? And I missed it?!”

“Indeed,” she said with a nod, “Also, she made mention that you’ve quite a lovely singing voice.”

“She… She did?” For once, I was the flabbergasted pony.

“You’ll have to ask her about it tonight,” Celestia offered, giving me a helpless, if slightly amused, shrug of the wings.

I know; I already mentioned this once, but I swear, every time I see a pony shrug their wings at me, I just want to get offended. Now, I can’t rightly get on Celestia’s case for doing it, but that doesn’t mean that the urge is cancelled in return.

“Y-Yeah.” I was blushing. There was just no telling what song I was singing in my sleep. I’ve been known to do a teensy bit of sleep talking, but ever since I joined the Choir back in High School, I’d found out from multiple sources that I sometimes mumbled lyrics in my sleep.

… Y’know, I never really realize how weird I actually am until I start talking about my oddities.

“Anyway, please make yourself home here in Canterlot. If you need anything, any of the Royal Guard, Sky Archons, or palace staff will be happy to help you. I must get back to work, but I’ll be seeing you again before nightfall.”

“‘Work’?” I repeated. “You mean being a princess is not as simple as raising the sun, kicking back, and being awesome?”

She actually snorted a tad, bringing a hoof to cover her face before giggling. “Oh, if only that were the case. Take care of yourself and try to stay out of trouble.”

“My dear princess, you will not see a finer example of behavioral perfection in all the millennia to come!” I proclaimed with a goofy grin.

Oh yeah, that was so gonna happen.

* * *

“Seize him!”

Shit. Well, at least I tried. Hell, I made it until nightfall, if that tells you anything.

Seriously, this wasn’t my fault as much as it just looked like it was my fault. An everlasting victim of circumstance, I am. Still, I will concede that if I had not acted as reasonably furious as I had been, then this would not be a problem. But ‘reasonable’ was the operative word here. I had every right to become infuriated.

After all, this was pizza we were talking about.

“What do you mean you don’t know what cheese pizza is?!”

Anger.

“Exactly what I meant, sir!” the cook pony replied helplessly. “What is a pizza!?”

Rage.

“A MISERABLE PILE OF DELICIOUSNESS!” I bellowed in his face.

It just... Flames... Fla-Fl… Flames! On the side of my face. Heaving… breathless… heaving breaths.

“I don’t understand!” he replied, cowering from me somewhat.

“This can’t be true!” I seethed.

I almost exploded right there, which would have been a shame. Cleanup alone would have taken hours, and that’s only if they happened to have a load of bleach and wire brushes on hand. Luckily that was not the case. Instead, I turned around, sucked in a deep breath, increased my chi, and pivoted again to face the poor frightened chef pony. He had a slightly nervous air about him that I was undoubtedly doing wonders for with my uncharacteristically aggressive outburst.

He looked a little strange, having a rather peculiar color scheme going on. His coat was a bright yellow, almost like a Twinkie or something. Coincidentally, his mane and tail were as white as the cream filling inside of one, as well. And I had a little trouble believing he was both a stallion and a chef because A) He was not sweating at all. Cooking is hot. You sweat. No exceptions. B) His hair was long, luxurious, and shiny. He was like the bishounen of stallions, I kid you not. C) I had just walked into his kitchen and started making demands without getting my flank pummeled. You try that on Iron Chef and see how long you last. Those chefs will carve a plate of sashimi out of your ass and EAT IT, TOO.

“Okay. No, this is not your fault,” I said calmly, running a hoof through my mane to help remind myself that I had to keep a metaphorical level of chill maintained. “We can fix this. We can fix this. Alright. Okay. Sorry for the outburst.”

“I… I… It’s… okay?” he replied, confused as hell. He sounded British. Seriously. That made picking on him funnier. British Bishounen Pony is best pony?

“Thanks. That’s big of you. You’re a cool guy,” I pointed out before running a hoof over my face to help complete the combo of cool. “Alright, Cookie. We can fix this. But we should probably do this properly. First things first: What’s your name?”

“C-Cookie is my name,” he stammered, now so shocked that he wasn’t processing his brain stuff properly. “How… How did you know?”

Well, peeps, I’m not going to lie. I was definitely more than a little shocked that I had tripped over his name by pure chance. So shocked that, for a few seconds, I simply did not react as the realization began to sink in. That didn’t last long; I quickly put everything together and formed the fastest troll response ever. And thus, with the utmost of precision, I responded.

I looked to the left, then to the right. Then back to the left. And finally, I motioned for him to lean a little closer as I whispered, “Would you believe that it was… Magic?”

Well, he didn’t think it was funny, but I sure as hell did! I fell over cackling like a hyena and continued to do so for several seconds. Until “Cookie’s” assistant returned to interrupt my fun with some guards. I would say some people just can’t take a joke, but there’s this ever growing list of things you just don’t joke about. Pizza is one of them. So is chocolate, spiders, and a person’s past. Oh, and flying books, too (like I said, ever-growing).

So yeah. Now I was running from guards. All because I had an entirely reasonable outburst. Whatever. Fluttershy gets to chase a bunch of animals into the Equestria’s most noteworthy social event, but if you want to flip your shit over a pie of pizza then you’re going to JAIL! ‘Love and Tolerate’ my ass!

So I led them on a merry chase all throughout the castle, yelling obscenities back at them whenever they did that… that thing… You know the one. Where they demand you ‘stop’ or ‘freeze’ or something? Yeah, I’m running my ass away from you, but if you’re going to extend the effort to ask me to not flee, then let me be an Exemplar of Etiquette by actually obeying! Shall I also cuff my hooves together and fill out the report for you as well? Screw you, ponies! Work for your damn prisoner!

This lasted a while. Long enough for me to make the mistake of making a right turn that went straight into one of the spires. Meaning I was going in circles, up a staircase, to a place where I wouldn’t be able to get away. So… Rather than give up or something sensible like that, I decided to use their cartoon physics against them. Oh, I know that sounds like an incredibly bad idea. And it was, to be sure. But I was running out of options, and quite frankly, I was behind on my Sheer Stupidity Quota. Please, please, please keep in mind that this was a world of cartoon ponies and hopefully this won’t sound as… Well, no, let’s just be honest about it: There was no justifying this line of thought. At all.

The following line of logic is why they only let me write with crayons and not a dangerous pen (or God forbid, a pencil that’s been sharpened recently):

Brilliance #1: Oh man, I am so bucked sideways from Tuesday! These guys are relentless!

Brilliance #2: They know the layout way better than I do! Where the hell am I even going? Oh hell, I’m going up a tower. Now it’s just a matter of time before I get trapped!

Brilliance #3: Wait. This is a cartoon world! I can (Sigh…) jump off this tower and live! It’ll hurt, but I’ll escape! I’m so brilliant! And awesome!

That was it. I had signed up for the infamous Darwin Award and I was going to take the gold. I mean, there are just times you look back in life and you just cringe at what you did or what was going through your head. This one makes me want to beat my head against the wall. Like, really hard. I will never, in my many zany years, get over this single line of idiocy.

Side note: When life throws you a set of circumstances that requires you to run your sorry butt up two-hundred plus stairs, your life officially sucks. Not that your life is permanently ruined or anything, but damn. If Hell ever needs to get a headstart on making someone’s day miserable, it will involve a ridiculous amount of stairs.

Anyway, after triumphantly tackling the task of tedious tower ascension (see also: Buttload O’ Stairs), I approached a large wooden door. With four very shaky knees and a brain chock full of stupid ideas, I shoved it open and stumbled inside before slamming the damn thing shut. I turned around to take in my surroundings and locate a window, but I got distracted by the contents of the incredibly huge tower pinnacle. This had to be the royal library. The books gave it away. And when I say books, I mean this place had more shelves than my hometown’s library had individual books. I had not realized how bloody huge this spire was.

“Holy written page things, Batman!” I wheezed, somewhat flabbergasted by my surroundings. The immense room was of a circular variety with what had to be half a dozen levels, each lined with a tapering number of black curved shelves that broke apart regularly to allow freedom of movement. The floor was an indigo shag carpet, which was particularly strange. Every other square inch of the castle had been white or black marble up until this point (not to mention this was the first carpet I had seen since coming to Equestria), but the library was special, it seemed. What I eventually realized, much to my glee, was that I was not alone. In the center of this wondrous archive of literary treasure sat a pony that was too busy scribbling away to take note of my presence. This pony was the biggest reason I had not immediately begun scouring for windows to make a cartoony retreat. Because this pony was an alicorn.

I inhaled to commence my distracted freak out squee, but the sound of angry clopping royal guards was ever nearing. Also, get your mind out of the gutter.

“Crap!” I whined before turning for the door and praying for a lock. Fortune was on my side and there I found a simple sliding bar lock on the door. I slapped that sucker into place before rearing back on two hooves and cheering with my fore-hooves cast in the air.

“WOO! BEHOLD THE POWER OF PHYSICS!” I crowed loudly.

The angry hooves continued to near until making their inevitable impact with the locked barrier. It didn’t even shake from their heartfelt effort. That was one hell of a door.

“OPEN THIS DOOR!” a voice on the other side bellowed.

“KISS MY CUTIE-MARK, FLANK FACE!” I can make a pretty sweet pony insult on the fly.

“Excuse me,” said the alicorn in the center of the room.

I looked back at her and felt the urge to squee starting to boil over. The alicorn in question was none other than Princess Luna. She was right around my height with a matching corn-blue mane and tail. She stared at me with sea-green eyes that told me she just didn’t know what to make of my presence. Sitting at a table in front of a book, quill, and bottle of ink. And she was talking to me! Granted, she didn’t look amazingly pleased to see me, but that’s beside the point! I started to respond, but it did not take long for the guards to continue hollering and making an awful lot of ruckus.

“HEY!” I kicked back at the sealed threshold and snarled, “The Princess is trying to speak to me! You are being insolent by interrupting her! So shut up!”

“By Celestia’s sun! He has the princess hostage!” I heard one of them cry out in fear.

“What… I do?” I looked back at Luna, lifting an eyebrow askance. “Princess Luna, do you feel particularly threatened, withheld against your will, and-or possibly be of the opinion that your rights have been infringed upon?”

She blinked at me before tilting her head a bit and letting the slightest of smirks creep up one side of her face.

“Well, in all technicality, you have robbed me of a degree of freedom by locking us in. That could quite possibly be construed as a robbing of my rights to liberty.” I smell sarcasm.

“Right, but you have yet to try and open said door,” I pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone. “You can’t be certain that you are locked in here. Indeed, if I didn’t bother stopping you and you simply slid the lock aside, then it would be obvious that the seemingly apparent imprisonment was nothing but a misunderstanding and an assumption. And it’s very unbecoming of a princess to be so assuming!”

Her smirk. It was getting bigger. That should have been a sign. “I see. So, while you may appear to be a kidnapper, in reality you are just a friend?”

“Yes. Because friendship is magic?” I responded somewhat askance. I didn’t know where she was going with this, but she had not fed me to her stooges on the other side of the door, so I wasn’t complaining!

“Then why don’t you be a friend and open it for me, then?”

Uh-huh. Two can play this silly game.

“Because this isn’t real, your highness! Your self-perceived lack of liberties is nothing but a mental illness and this is just all in your head!” Yeah, I was going with the insanity defense. What of it?! Plausible deniability is best deniability!

“Princess Luna! Are you alright?” the ‘spokesguard’ cried out from behind the door.

Luna set down her quill and pulled herself out of the chair before cantering over my way. I could tell she wasn’t upset at the intrusion. Whatever she had been working on, it was either tedious and an interruption was welcome, or Luna really is crazy and she likes to be silly. At the time I was pretty sure it was the former but I’m going to spoil things just a little right now. Luna is crazy, okay? Absolutely bonkers. The girl just isn’t rolling with a full set of dice, if you know what I mean. If you ever see her, run in the other direction and don’t stop until her deranged giggling can no longer be heard.

“I’m not sure just yet,” she called out to the guards on the other side, “I’m locked inside the library with a stranger that claims he won’t try to stop me if I go to unlock the door. Also, I believe he insinuated that I might be crazy.”

“That’s just the insanity talking,” I shook my hoof at her, wishing I could ball it into a fist, “Those aren’t guards! They are figments of your imagination! As am I! This is a dream! Wake up, Luna!”

“Is he serious?” I heard a different pony ask on the other side of the door.

Luna just gave me a half-amused stare as she continued to approach the door. She was getting dangerously close, so I had to try one last time.

“If you open that door, you are telling your mind that it’s okay to let the madness in!” I half-pleaded, half-accused. “Don’t be weak, Luna! Oh wait… NO, LUNA, YOUR SHOES ARE UNTIED!”

Damn it, Lafter. Of all the ponies to try this on. Why doesn’t Stoic ever enter the equation where ponies are concerned!?

I didn’t expect her to fall for it when I pointed at them in horror, but I shit you not, she actually paused and looked down. Well, it only took point-four seconds of time for her to realize that her sparkly loafers had no strings. The cross look she gave me was pretty much the end of my charade as I simply could not hold it in any longer.

“YOU TOTALLY LOOKED!” I shouted before erupting into laughter. A lot of times I fall over whilst laughing just to be dramatic and silly. This time I was caught so unawares by my own audacity that I couldn’t help but laugh until I could no longer stand. For a solid minute I was doing nothing but crying, laughing, and clenching my gut in hopes that it wouldn’t give out on me.

She was patient. She waited through the entire thing, her visage a mix of shame, mirth, and annoyance. I eventually ran out of breath and had to resort to breathless giggling before finally surrendering to silence from sheer lack of breath. When I finally did give out, I wiped my eyes, tittered a little more, and smiled back up at the indigo alicorn.

“You enjoy that?” she asked sardonically.

“Oh man, you…” I snickered a bit more, still struggling to accept the amount of ham I was exuding. “… You have no idea.”

“Good, because I think I’m going to enjoy this just as much.” Her reply was sweet, sarcastic, and involved the oh-so-rude gesture of her sticking her tongue out at me.

And then she opened the door.

* * *

See, I should have had some reaction time in there to use for escaping, but those guards have some crazy reaction time of their own. Luna opened that door and they blasted through there like a pressurized hydraulic hose burst. Not that I was in any shape to run away after almost laughing myself into a coma. Coincidentally, pony beatings are not best beatings. Even if you do manage to giggle like a maniac as you are dragged to the dungeon.

“This guy’s some kind of whacko. He’s probably pretty dangerous.”

“I dunno, he’s kinda nutty, but I don’t think he’d actually try to hurt anyone.”

The guards made small talk about me as they hauled my sorry butt to the dungeon and tossed me in. I would have given my input but they had me gagged as well as fully bound. My cell was nothing spectacular. It was a lovely ten by ten with the same decorative marble floors that the ballroom sported. So either Celestia loves black and white marble and wants to share with the prisoners, or this wasn’t always a prison cell.

It wasn’t until they locked the door that the unicorn amongst them untied me from the safety of the barred window. Not that I was particularly bothered by that. After all, I still had my cell phone and cigarettes. Between those two things, I was able to whittle away a couple of hours. Angry Birds, Sangband, and Youtube are amazing time killers like that.

“Comfy?” I heard the voice of Princess Luna pop in from behind the window in the door.

“Hello, Luna!” I waved at her without ever looking away from the phone. “Are you here to bring more guards to hurt me?”

“Yes, that’s him.” I could hear Celestia’s voice from behind Luna. “I won’t bother asking how this happened. I’m almost certain I won’t like the answer and I’m even more convinced he brought it upon himself.”

“And that, Celestia, is just unfair!” I called out, still keeping my eyes fixed on the screen.

If you’re wondering why the phone was so damn important, it was because I had just mastered getting my hoof to manipulate the damn thing with a reasonable amount of consistency.

“Ugh! What is that smell? Is that you!?” Luna cried out in disgust.

“No, it’s that paper roll of his. The one in his mouth.”

“Yeah, the cigarette smells pretty damn awful,” I agreed, still happily puffing away as I began to google how to pick archaic locks. “Hey, so uh… Are you guys going to let me out or is harassing the royal pony chef a felony punishable by death and-or life in prison?”

“Harassing the… No, you’re in there because you tried to kidnap my sister,” said Celestia.

I finally looked up at the two princesses peering in at me.

“But I didn’t…” I started to say before glancing at Luna who had that look on her face that told me everything. It was the way she was pursing her lips and just barely shaking from the effort to not laugh. And then it all made sense.

“Oh… Wow, I totally didn’t see that coming,” I said with a giggle, “and I totally let you open that door, too.”

I stared right at Luna who was going out of her way to not laugh right along with me. Celestia’s eyebrow arched a bit as she considered me before glancing at her sister and realizing the situation for what it was. Huffing in frustration, Celestia threw open the cell door and (not making this up) gently bopped her sister upside the head with a wing.

“Of all the… Luna!” she cried out in anger as both myself and the younger alicorn began to cackle like idiots. “Framing my guest for kidnapping and throwing him in prison is not a harmless prank!”

Luna threw her wings up around herself defensively and proceeded to laugh as though this was the last day she had to enjoy such shenanigans. Celestia tried to apologize to me over and over on her sister’s behalf, but I had to admit, that was an awesome prank. It’s only something royalty could get away with, too! Why wouldn’t you abuse that? Still, all was good and Celestia was actually very relieved to find out that I did not try to kidnap her little sister. She even chuckled a bit when I told her about the untied shoes. We slowly made our way to what I can assume was the Canterlot castle gardens. Now, I’m sure everyone is really, extra, super excited to find out what Luna is like. Well, I’m going to be honest, peeps: You aren’t missing much.

Seriously, I can totally believe that she had a hissy fit and turned into Nightmare Moon. Hell, the only two differences now areher physical appearance and rather than inflict emotional agony on the entire populace, she limits it to just a few ponies at a time.

“So, what’s so special about this guest? Are you hiring him as a court jester?” Luna asked with a knowing smile in my direction.

I snorted with a roll of my eyes as I flopped down onto the nearest bench, lighting up a new cigarette.

“Actually, I was hoping to aim his abrasive tendencies towards you,” Celestia admitted with a smirk before yawning gracefully. Don’t ask how it was graceful, it just was. In fact, any time Celestia is mentioned, just imagine gracefulness. It almost makes me want to trip her just to see if she’ll break the laws of reality by falling over gracefully.

“Well, he’s going to have to try a lot harder,” she replied with a dark smirk. “And that’s just if he wants to keep up.”

“Oh hell, I’m being intimidated!” I cried out, sitting up and stiffening with wide eyes.

After a second of silence, I flopped back down against the bench and shut my eyes. “No, wait. That’s just gas. Carry on.”

“Dramatic little foal, isn’t he?” Luna offered.

“It gets worse.” Celestia promised with a chuckle. “Anyway, before this gets further sidetracked by immature sniping, I would make introductions…”

“Wait, let me guess. That’s Princess Luna. Damn, I’m good,” I said with a smoky chuckle.

Luna playfully swooned against her sister. “Woe betide us, Tia! We stand before a master.”

“Children. Focus, please. Thank you,”

“Yes, mother,” I sing-songed in response before sitting up and running a hoof through my mane, “Eh… Serious stuff, then.”

“Oh?” Luna looked at the two of us with a lack of understanding splayed on her face.

I tilted my head, somewhat surprised, “I take it you weren’t informed that The Nightmare is back in town?”

Luna’s eyes widened before narrowing as they honed in on Celestia. “I was not. It must not be that important.”

Celestia shook her head, “Stop it, Luna, the previous day and night preceding that were both very eventful and all I wanted to do was sleep.”

“Oh no, by all means. Beauty rest before Equestrian security. It’s just The Nightmare, no reason to bother me with such trivial matters.” Luna rolled her eyes before sighing helplessly. “Whatever, it’s in the past already.”

Celestia’s expression and body language in general told me that she was about to serve it right back to Luna, but I intervened. I see enough familial drama back on Earth. I wasn’t exactly eager to witness more of it.

“Time-out there, ladies!” I felt a little silly throwing up that symbol with my hooves, but it was a good silly. “Now, before we go get Dr. Phil involved, let us instead enjoy a reasonable session of Q&A! I’ll go first. First pony to answer gets to ask the next question! What is The Nightmare? I’ve never heard of the damn thing.”

Luna, as one would expect, had that answer. The way she answered it, though… I’m not going to say it was robotic, but it was certainly… I dunno. It almost sounded like she was reading a script. “The Nightmare is a metaphysical manifestation of my darker nature. A thousand years ago, I became consumed by my anger and jealousy and it took form before me. When I embraced The Nightmare, it changed me into what everyone knows as Nightmare Moon. By the time I realized the error of my ways, it was already in control and twice attempted to shroud Equestria in a shroud of eternal night.”

That… mostly fit with everything I knew. Except for The Nightmare actually being a separate entity from Luna. What was really weird, though, was Celestia’s reaction. She was almost grimacing. As though just listening was painful for her.

“My turn.” Luna didn’t even wait for me to approve of her answer. Because she’s a jerk with a horn. “How are you involved in all of this?”

“The Nightmare tried to possess him.” Celestia answered.

I took another drag before nodding. “Yeah. I’m not sure why, though. It totally knew that I was from Earth, though.”

“Not it. She. And Earth? Is there a new kingdom I need to know about?” Luna raised an eyebrow.

I started to shout something inane, but Celestia was quicker than me.

“He’s not from this world, Luna,” she pointed out glancing in my direction. “He’s not even a pony. He’s what is known as a human.”

I don’t think it was unfair of me to expect confusion on Luna’s part. I do think it was unfair that I was suddenly being regarded as a rabid dog.

“A human!?” she shrieked, jumping back a step and casting this nifty blue bubble about me that sparkled and chimed like magic seems to do in Equestria. “Tia, you’re insane! Why are you bringing humans to Canterlot?!”

“Oh goodness, this stuff isn’t radioactive is it?” I asked from within my fabulous new prison, gingerly tapping on the closest surface with a hoof. “That might be bad for my complexion.”

Celestia was not having any of this. “Luna, if this is your idea of a joke, I have been awake for far too long to be asked to laugh.”

Guys. I can’t make this shit up. Luna replied with, “Tia, just trust me! Humans are dangerous! Their ingenuity is only matched by their bloodthirst.”

That took me all of about three seconds to digest. Normally it doesn’t take so long, but that… that was something else entirely.

“Bloodthirst?” I snickered derisively before dousing my cigarette on my tongue and flicking it against my prison. If I had been less distracted, I would have just burned it or something. “Oh Christ, I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing my species described by a non-human, yet. Tell me more, Luna.”

“Luna, let him go. I can assure you, his most dangerous trait is his shamelessness.” Celestia shut her eyes and rubbed just under her horn with a hoof. “How do you know of humans anyway? Have you met any?”

“No. But I’ve seen them before. The Nightmare and I could see them. While on the moon, we saw many worlds but the humans were the only other species we had seen,” she explained, never taking her eyes or bubble off of me, “They’re so completely different than us. Even time moves differently for them. But they have incredible technology. Especially where their weapons are concerned.”

“Woah. Multiverse theory is best theory!” I exclaimed happily. Maybe the Justice League did exist out there after all! “Oh, I can think of a few scientists that are going to scream when they figure that one out. Seriously, though. You don’t honestly think…”

She quite rudely interrupted me, “All I know is what I saw!”

“Well… What did you see?”

I fetched myself a new cigarette. I could tell I was going to need it for the sake of patience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t anger easily. But misanthropy is one of my pet peeves. I find the truly cynical to be charmingly amusing at best and depressingly annoying at worst. So I steeled myself, not wanting to snap and hurt my chances of staying in Equestria’s good graces.

“Prisons holding hundreds of thousands!” she declared as though that should explain everything.

I gave a mirthful snort before lighting back up. “More like millions but go on.”

Celestia looked back and forth between us. I guess she wanted to get some answers as well. Or maybe she trusted Luna’s judgment enough to give her a say. Either way, I wasn’t worried.

“Images of violence and war being viewed for entertainment!”

Luna didn’t sound as confident this time. Which was good, actually. It meant she wasn’t one of those idiots that assume their first guess is correct no matter what and anyone that says differently is making an attack on them and their reputation. Seriously, you know how many people out there are like that? It’s staggering, and I’m certain I’m just reiterating what you already know.

“You’re either talking about memorials or possibly movies,” I replied with a nod and a one-hoof shrug. “Any other high notes you want to hit before I give my rebuttal?”

“Your leaders dedicate vast sums of currency towards the development of weapons. I can’t imagine why one would invest so heavily in violence.” And the supreme hostility finally tapered out.

“Right; heard enough. Somepony’s been watching a little too much Fox News.” I rolled my eyes before taking another drag and letting it out with a sigh.

“Okay. We’ll start with the top. Millions of people in prison? Yes. But when you take into account that there are seven-billion people on Earth, yes, you heard right… Seven billion. That’s a seven with nine cute, little zeroes chasing after that lucky bastard. Mathematically, you could have fifty-million people in prison and still not hit one percent of the population. I’m not saying we’re saints, but I am saying that you are judging the majority based on the minority.

“Now, your next point could have some merit if it were to be taken at face value. ‘Violent images being viewed for entertainment’? Yeah, that’s something we do. Humans can be pretty aggressive and action really speaks to the majority of us. However, no one goes in and watches just violence. They want the story behind it. Most people don’t even realize that they care more about the character rather than what the character actually does. And that’s just a fact. As cool as action is, we love us a damn good story even more. In fact, a good story can sell just about anything to a human, no matter what the genre. What I’m saying, Luna, is that you’ve taken our tolerance and acceptance of violence as a sign of sadism when really all it is for the most part is a heightened degree of desensitization towards darker topics.

“And now for the fun one: Weapons development! Yeah, sorry, I’ve got to shoot this down. I’m sure to the untrained eye that this is a terrible thing and it makes us look like a bunch of warmongers, but when you have a world full of passionate, ambitious people… Well, let’s just say you have to worry about protecting what you have. And nothing deters the greedy like a little bit of self-protection. A wise man once said, and I’m loosely quoting here: The best kind of weapon is the weapon that never need be used. No one’s going to swing a stick at a guy who’s holding a bigger stick than him. But hey, that argument isn’t for everyone so let me just promise you that I know humans better than you. It’s more necessary than you could possibly imagine. Because while most humans are content with what they have, it’s still wise to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.

“Now, finally, keep this little bit of information in mind. You don’t know me. All you know is some sensationalized B.S. conclusion you’ve drawn on your own. Now I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think you’ve ever met a single human, much less an average one. What you’re doing here is judging me based on limited knowledge. Ask yourself, if you did not know that I was a human, would you feel threatened by me? I can only imagine that you wouldn’t. Why? Because the fact of the matter is that I am no threat to you, Celestia, or even Equestria. And other than annoy a few ponies here and there, I’ve not bothered anyone. So if you would be so kind as to let me go, I’ll happily forget that you found it necessary to judge me guilty until proven innocent.”

Nothing happened for a few seconds. It was kind of a high-stress situation and everyone was trying to stay cool about it. I continued smoking, Luna continued holding me prison, and Celestia stared back and forth at the two of us as though she were having some trouble deciding whether she should take a side or stay out of it.

When the silence continued to stagnate though, Celestia decided to bring it to a close. “Luna. I think it’s obvious by now that you need to release him.”

“And why is that?” she responded, never taking her eyes off me.

Celestia rubbed at her eyes whilst yawning. “Because if you did feel threatened enough to imprison him without just cause, you would have already done it. Therefore you aren’t certain that he’s dangerous; meaning you would be detaining him on nothing but fear and assumption. And it’s very unbecoming of a princess to be so assuming.”

Celestia, you are just so awesome. If you had worded that any other way, it wouldn’t have been as awesome, but unintentionally repeating that line was exactly what was needed to break the situational drama.

“HAH!” I suddenly jumped up and pointed a hoof at Luna. “I TOLD YOU SO!”

“Tia,” Luna groaned, slapping a hoof over face as I began to guffaw like a boss.

Poor Celestia was so confused, but that was okay. It was a small price to pay for recanting the tension that had been growing ever more palpable. “Is there… something I missed?”

Luna sighed as she released me from my sparkly magic cage.

It was smooth sailing from thereon. Luna, while not as charming as before, was able to stop herself from being frigid and foul-tempered for the rest of the night. It didn’t take us long to get back on the subject of The Nightmare, not that that was a great help. To be perfectly honest, Luna didn’t know much more than we did. All she knew was that A) The Nightmare was symbiotic and needed a host for a lot of things, including the capacity to just think properly; B) She (Luna refers to it as a female and I don’t know why) wants to hurt a specific something or somepony but it can’t remember who; and C) The Nightmare is thoroughly convinced that it is a destroyer of civilizations even though it doesn’t have any compelling reason to be. We all concluded that there was only one thing we could deduce from all that: The Nightmare is nucking futs. Which sucks due to the fact that there really aren’t a wide variety of ways to go about handling the violently crazy.

Upon reaching that consensus, we moved to more pleasant topics. Such as Celestia’s change of eye-shadow colors. Which was actually me sticking my hoof in my mouth. I mentioned how it didn’t look that good on her. Only when Luna began to laugh did I realize that was just fatigue starting to show on the sun princess. Celestia was possessed of a great kindness, however, and did not smite my fuzzy grey plot into the ground for my insolence. Rather, she instead excused herself to bed and made mention that morning was going to be a little late. Before taking her leave, she politely suggested that it would be a good idea that Luna and I not kill one another during the night. We made no promises. Then we had that awkward situation where you’re with someone that you’re not sure you want to be around but don’t want to make matters worse by leaving for the sole reason of getting away from them.

Luckily, Luna showed how much of a big girl she was by stepping up to the plate of apologizingness.

“Look, I want to say I’m sorry for that just then.” She didn’t sound incredibly sincere, but then again it’s really hard to just throw off your suspicions all at once. The important thing was that she was making a genuine effort, begrudged as it was.

“Eh. I’ve had worse. No big deal,” I said with a smile before yawning. “Man, what time is it?”

I summoned up my phone and checked the time. I blinked as I realized I had just pushed a finger-sized button on the back of the phone with the same hoof that it was being held with and instantly had to keep myself from wondering how I managed that just to prevent my head from asploding. Still, I got what I wanted and discovered that it was already just past midnight.

“Wow,” I said with a chuckle, trying not to yawn a second time, “Well, we can either continue this conversation with some caffeine or you’re going to have to tuck me into bed.”

“What is that…?” Luna asked fearfully, staring at my Atrix 4G as though I were about to stab her to death with it.

“This? This is a phone. You talk to people with it. It keeps track of time. And the weather. And… Well, it’s called a smartphone, actually, because it does a whole bunch of things.”

“R… Really?” Dat mystified voice.

“Yeah, check this out.”

Seriously, I thought Twilight and Pinkie had been impressed. Luna was just straight up enthralled. And that was where the blessed friendshipping started. In retrospect, if it hadn’t been Luna, I probably would have been annoyed by all the questions. It was like Twilight all over again, except the direction of the conversation was all over the place. Weather prediction would lead into radars, which would quickly segway into recon boats, which would then take a turn towards the airforce, which led towards a classic airships-heavier-than-air-can’t-fly debate. Now, you might be wondering why I was giving Luna all this information after freaking out about telling the other ponies about humanity and everything relevant. My answer is that Luna already had a decent amount of exposure to humans on her own so I was more likely to dispel her fears more than giving her nasty ideas.

I had to hold the conversation hostage to get her to stop asking questions long enough to direct us to the kitchen (slightly off tangent – the castle’s kitchen is insanely well-stocked). Much to my dismay, ponies do not have coffee. Much to my delight, however, they have loads and loads of tea ingredients. You see, I’m probably the only American male that knows how to properly blend teas in my region. And with the proper equipment, you can make a blend of Matѐ tea that outshines coffee in flavor, aroma, and even amount of caffeine. Anyway, I couldn’t remember a good mix off the top of my head, so I did what any sensible guy with a smart phone would do: Google it.

Well, that was a mistake. Rather, answering Luna’s curious question as to what I was doing with the phone was where the mistake came into play. The idea of being able to access entire archives of information with a device no bigger than a hoof was tripping her out. I thought the first questionnaire was bad? I thought I was going to have to look up how to acid-etch a circuit board before she would let me make my damn tea! Not that I minded, I was still in the middle of an ongoing geek-out that I was getting to chill with Luna. Even coupled with that enthusiasm though, I still wasn’t able to keep up with her. So yet a second time, I had to hold the conversation hostage just to keep my wits about me. I realize I’m making the poor thing sound incredibly geeky, but let’s be honest here: Technology looks as amazing to the ponies as magic looks to us. If you can keep that in mind, you’ll have an easier time of understanding why it was freaking her out so much.

“Woah, Luna, stop right there,” I begged as I finished fetching the last of the tea’s ingredients, interrupting her spiel on how obsolete divination spells would become if ponies had access to a device such as my smartphone. Seriously, she’s something of a nerd. In a good way, though. She wasn’t being obnoxious as much as she was just being a skosh overwhelming. And I think you all can find it quite believable that I know what it’s like to become hopelessly and uncontrollably excited.

“Sorry!” She half grimaced, half smiled. “I’m just… I don’t think you realize just how incredible…”

“No, I totally realize! It’s nasty cool. And I get that containing so much excitement is damn near impossible. Just ask Twilight and Rainbow Dash. I went crazy when I first met them. Hell, I even lost consciousness,” I countered with a smile of my own. “I just need your help real quick. I need to heat this water up and I metaphorically suck so badly at magic that it’s comparable to a singularity.”

Luna processed that pretty slowly, blinking a bit before snort-laughing. By Celestia’s beard, that was almost too adorable to handle. The stupid mare nearly killed me some cruel mixture of heart failure and diabeetus.

“That was clever,” she snickered, hiding her muzzle behind a hoof as she tried to suppress her snorty snickers. “With the meta… Hee! Metaphorically sucking and black holes. That’s… -snort!-”

“Dude, you are like the least princess-y princess, ever,” I mocked with the most serious face I could muster for a solid three seconds.

Truthfully, I really couldn’t help but start to laugh as well. It was one of those times where you start laughing because someone else is trying not to laugh and failing so badly at it. This in turn causes a laughing feedback which escalates into a cacophony of two or more idiots laughing at one another laughing at one another. Laughception!

It took us awhile to get a hold of ourselves, but not before we’d spent a solid minute or more hooting it up like a pair of dumbasses.

“Oh wow,” she murmured before wiping her eyes and shaking her head at the current level of ludicrousness. “So you really need help with just warming some water? That’s pretty basic stuff, actually.”

“Umm… Yeah, I haven’t been a unicorn for a whole two days yet, so I know next to nothing, really.” I admitted, blushing as I showed her my most apologetic grin.

She jokingly rolled her eyes before letting out a sigh of faux exasperation. “Well, since you were nice enough to answer all my questions, I suppose can be bothered to do the same for you.”

“Awesome.” I floated her the cup of water and nodded eagerly. “Even if you were rude just then.”

She took that as a slight which was actually a perfect setup. “I was not!”

“Oh yeah? What’s my name, Princess of the Night?” I stuck my tongue out at her before pointing at the cup. “And heat the bloody water already.”

The shock on her face was rather entertaining. Crazy how such incredibly large details like that can be overlooked.

“My stars! Celestia never introduced you!”

Heh… ‘My stars,’ indeed!

“Nope,” I responded with a big grin before looking back at the top and frowning, “Hey, don’t forget about the water.”

“I’m sorry, how ru-…” Damn it, she almost said it, too! But unfortunately, she caught herself just before letting the damning word pass her lips and instead just gave me a sly look. “Nice try there, smart guy.”

“It almost worked. And seriously… I would totally be grateful for that water.” I should have just shut up after that. Really, I should have. I mean, her horn started to glow and she looked down at the cup of water in her hoof and I was about to have my hot tea. Instead, I opened my big fat mouth and distracted her again. I’m, like, my own worst enemy! “And on the offchance that you actually care, the name is Anon-Pony.”

She looked at me and the twinkly magic around her horn dissipated. She arched an eyebrow and stared at me as though I were speaking communism or something. “‘A Non Pony’? Really?”

“No, the water!” I cried out before face-hoofing and letting out a helpless sigh. “Anon-pony. As in a portmanteau of ‘anonymous’ and ‘pony’!”

“What…? Why would your parents name you that?”

I think it was on purpose. It had to be. She was just screwing around with me and I was too distracted by being too tired to notice at the time. I mean, she may be a pony, but make no mistake, Luna’s a master troll. I didn’t know this at the time, sadly. All I knew then was that I wanted my caffeinated tea and she wouldn’t give it to me! She wouldn’t give it to me! Why wouldn’t she just give me the damn tea?! Why was I stupid enough to continue answering her stupid questionnaire rather than do as I did before and just hold the conversation hostage?! Why did Rainbow Dash yell at the stupid stack of rocks in Party of One?!

“Luna, please,” I whimpered, sticking out my bottom lip, “The water.”

“Oh!” She was acting innocent, but I swear, I saw her struggling to not smile. Maybe it was all in my head, but I wouldn’t have put money on that being the case! The important thing, though, was that she began to heat the water and I did not speak again until it was good and steamy. “Have some.”

“Wee!” I squealed in delight, taking hold of the piping hot cup and setting it beside the tray of tea ingredients. “Finally. Let it… begin! Let it begin!”

I glanced back at her as I gathered everything in a steeping pouch and set it in the water.

“Sorry about that, I was just… Well, it just doesn’t make any sense.” And then she channeled Twilight… “You don’t lack identity. At worst you merely lack a moniker.”

Oh, that struck a nerve. I felt my bottom left eyelid twitch in fury as I continued to stir the tea bag around.

“What I mean to say is that, technically, you’re not anonymous,” she pointed out as politely as she could.

“This again?!” I lost my temper, flinging my hooves up into the air and unintentionally knocking over my teacup. I gasped in horror and dived to save it, but all I managed to do was smack the tray that held all the ingredients prepared on it and flip it on a fulcrum angled perfectly to fling it all on Luna.

“NOOO, MY BABIES!” I roared in protest despite being unable to stop the madness from happening. On instinct alone, I dived to catch the tray, but all I really managed to do was tackle the poor princess and send us smashing into a cabinet full of what was probably more precious china than the entirety of my apartment’s dish and silverware. I’m not going into details about what was said afterwards, but your hint is that Luna has quite the potty mouth. Also, some pony out there with a china teacup for a Cutie-Mark was able to retire, assuming half the shit we broke got replaced.

* * *

Well, it had been an interesting night to say the least. After cleaning up and cooling off my burning ears, - She called me a motherless blank flank! What the hell! That’s probably six times as offensive as it sounds, and it sounds downright hurtful! - I decided I would explore the atrium. I figured Luna would go do her own thing, but instead she elected to continue pestering me. Well, it wasn’t really her pestering me as much as the other way around, but she knew the risks when she chose to continue hanging around me. To be straight with you, I was actually trying to ask her questions to keep her from asking me a bunch of questions. I didn’t mind answering them, I was just afraid that things were going to take an inevitable turn towards the uglier side of humanity. Besides, Stupid Tissy Bird seemed to stay away when I wasn’t alone and I was just dandy with that.

As we walked out into the courtyard, I couldn’t help but spot the statue that I had so gracefully cracked my skull upon. I had not seen it without double vision until just then, so I was kind of shocked by its majesty. Seriously, it was huge and made of petrified wood and marble, with big dazzling sapphires for eyes. The armor was unique, and a bit flared at the edges with the helmet removed. The wings were outspread, proving to be just as large as Celestia’s, if not even moreso. I found myself wondering just who this guy was and I’d been running out of questions anyway. Besides, there were obviously a few differences between the continuity I was familiar with and the actual history of Equestria; so I figured, why the hell not, right?

“So,” I said as we approached the statue. “Who is this big ol’ hunk of pegasus?”

I moved closer to the memorial plaque that was set on the pedestal in front of the statue. It was very simple, surprisingly. No special inlays or anything, just that weird wing-ding language that the ponies have engraved into a plain plate of what was either bronze or gold. Couldn’t be certain in the dim night lighting.

“Oh. Him,” Luna replied. Her voice struggled to break flat, but there was a slight crack in her words.

I faced her somewhat, taking note of the regret that had suddenly stained her demeanor. “Memories much?”

“Bad ones,” she confirmed with a soft sigh, lifting her head a bit to look the statue in the eyes.

“Oh.” Well, shit. I didn’t want to dredge up the rough times; I just wanted to ask a few questions.

“Well uh… I know what it’s like to not want to dig up a rough past. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Never let it be said that I am a hypocrite, even if I sometimes tend to be one!

“No, it’s fine.” She narrowed her eyes a bit before glancing my way with a sad smirk. “I had plenty of time to think about what I had done. A thousand years, in fact.”

Well, they say time heals all wounds, right?

I let out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, I guess if you aren’t going to get over it with that much time, chances are you just aren’t going to get over it.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Indeed.”

“Well, if you’re sure it’s okay to talk about it, then who is he?” I looked back at the gibberish engraved onto the plaque. “I can’t read your freaky pictograms here.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” she replied with a snicker before glancing at the pedestal in front of me. “Well, since we don’t we don’t have any six-year olds to translate for you...”

“Oh, we’ve got us a six-year old!” I interrupted her, complimenting my sarcasm with a roll of the eyes. “She just happens to be older than dirt in all actuality.”

Her snicker graduated into a full-on laugh for a few moments. I had to listen to the whole thing, too. Not that it lasted especially long, but damn, it sucks to be the butt of Luna’s humor. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.

“You done yukin’ it up over there, chuckles?” I facehoofed, unable to resist letting a snort of my own.

“Oh, I suppose,” she said with smile before looking back at the commemorative inscription. “It says ‘Winter Sky – Hero of Equestria – May the worth of your sacrifice be reflected in all our actions’.”

“Sacrifice?” I tilted my head, looking back and forth between her and the statue.

“We did battle a thousand years ago when I let The Nightmare take control. She… We killed him,” she answered, raising her gaze to stare up at the statue and letting out a remorseful sigh. “His sacrifice gave Celestia the time she needed to save Equestria from us using the Elements of Harmony. I… Well, we thought she wouldn’t be able to use them without me. I’m glad that wasn’t the case.”

If you heard the squeal of tires just before a tumultuous explosion, let me assuage your fears by saying that was actually my perception of Equestria’s cartoonyness flying into the jagged rocks of reality whereupon it detonated violently. Seriously. My jaw dropped. Not only was this a memorial to a pony that died, but the pegasus in question actually perished by way of violence. Holy hell. I just wasn’t ready for that! I wasn’t ready for that at all!

“Woah.” My eyes were not wide enough to properly displayed just how floored I was, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t as wide as they could get.

“Mmm,” she commented, still staring at the statue.

I don’t think Luna realized I wasn’t making observations about her and her past, but rather was still trying to adjust myself to the reality that there was honest-to-God tragedy here in this world. I’m serious, the idea of a pony dying to save all of Equestria was mind fragging. I’m sure it was an awesome, noble story and everything but still. Ponies dying. I guess there are some harsh facts about life that one simply does not escape from, no matter how wonderful a society you live in.

I let out a soft whistle before looking back up at the statue.

“Uh-huh.” Luna turned away from the memorial and began to trot away.

I moved to trot alongside her, blinking as I continued to struggle with the acceptance of what I had just learned. “That’s… Wow.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t have a complex related to it or anything, else you might be upsetting me.” The sardonic edge in her voice was more than enough of a hint to realize that I needed to get a grip and stop freaking out.

“Sorry. But… Can you really blame yourself?” I asked, hoping to be helpful in any way possible. “I mean, The Nightmare was the one in control, right?”

“I guess if you were one to argue semantics or were looking to dodge responsibility, then yes. It wasn’t directly my fault,” she mused aloud, keeping her voice level and calm, “But the facts are that I let my petty jealousy consume me enough that I gave myself over willingly. I may have not have swung the sword, but I was the only one that could draw it. It was a… grave mistake. One that I will never repeat within the eternity of my life.”

This was the moment in life where Luna stopped being a half-nerd, half-smartass princess to being a deep, strong-hearted individual with a silly edge and a rough past. For me, that was totally relatable. I don’t think I’m nearly as deep or strong-hearted, personally, but I can definitely say that I know where that kind of thinking comes from.

“Damn, that’s…” I struggled as I contemplated Luna’s desire to accept responsibility. “I… I don’t… Shit, I don’t know a lot of people that would own up to their actions like that. I suppose asking if you’re alright would be a stupid thing to do.”

She smirked a bit, before looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Alright. Are you sure you’re okay with me knowing all this, though? This is some pretty candid stuff, so… I mean, I know I’d be a lot more hesitant to air out my closet like that,” I murmured, lowering my head. She made it look so easy, but anyone with a tough past can tell you that it’s a hundred times harder than it looks. And that’s with the knowledge that it doesn’t look easy to begin with.

“Well, it’s rather common knowledge. I’m sure you would have stumbled across it one day eventually,” she offered dryly.

We walked in silence for few more minutes. It was a nice break from all the zaniness I was prone to causing. I almost commented that this had to be a hallucination simply for the fact that I had not been painfully injured within the last hour. Though I will admit, that was mostly due to poor, defenseless Luna cushioning my assault on the fine china cabinet. Which was still her fault, by the way.

“Well, you suddenly make a lot more sense, at least,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself.

She arched an eyebrow at me in suspicion as we made our way out of the atrium and up the steps leading into the palace itself. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” I turned right around halfway and gently laid back on the steps, throwing my hooves behind my head and staring up at the moon. It was so much bigger than the one back on Earth. Well, it was likely the same size and just a bit closer instead. Whatever the case, it was pretty mystifying.

“And why’s that?” Luna did that pony sitting thing where they sorta just curl their legs under themselves. And it looks un-freakin’-comfortable to say the least.

“Humor as a coping mechanism,” I pointed out as I conjured myself another ‘Smokey Treat’ and lit up. “I do the same thing. Like… For everything. It takes the edge off of life’s nastier side. Helps to get me through the day. And helps a lot of other people, too.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t deign to sit, but rather conjured herself up a dark cloud to perch herself upon. “Y’know, you aren’t as stupid as you act or look.”

I stuck my tongue out at the moon. It wasn’t actually Luna, but close enough. “Well, unfortunately I can’t say the same about you.”

She snickered a bit. “Okay, okay, I’ll admit, I walked into that one. Are all humans as quick on the retort?”

“Hah!” I snorted, letting one side of my mouth curl up with a bit of arrogance. “They wish. Some are. Not many though. The best ones know how to sing or add rhythm to their comebacks, though. Those are fun. Most humans, though, don’t know how to string together a derogatory slur well enough to agitate a sink full of dishwater.”

“Huh.” She smiled down at me from her cloudy perch upon high. “You know, I’m glad I didn’t go with my gut instinct of imprisoning you without cause. You’re nothing like the humans that The Nightmare showed me. Just as dangerous, though; I’ll be lucky if I don’t have a bruise for the next week!”

“That’s because no two humans are the same.” I took another drag as I looked back up at her. “We’re so freaking diverse and numerous that there are hundreds of countries; dozens of religions; hundreds of thousands, if not millions of towns and cities.”

“I had no idea,” she mused, smiling a bit. “It’s incredible, really.”

“Hah!” I replied dryly before shaking my head. “No, this place is incredible. I mean, do you guys have wars?”

“Never.”

“Plagues?”

“Not with the aid of magic.”

“And crime, I hear is almost nonexistent.”

She considered that for a moment before giving a helpless wing shrug. I just wanted to punch those feathery attachments. I think you know why by now.

“It does cause quite a stir when it does come up, I suppose,” she admitted.

“Right. I hear about hundreds of crimes every week. Just within my region,” I pointed out with a tired sigh. “This place though? This is a utopia. This is where it’s at.”

Luna began to absently pick at her cloud with her hooves, glaring at it as though it were offending her. She spoke just as I began to take another puff off my cigarette, “It’s boring.”

“Objection!” I tried to croak through the smoke in my throat, causing me to hack up a lung for the next several seconds. After recovering, I defended my statement with watery eyes and a cracked voice, “This place is the shit! It’s an entire society that believes in altruism! How amazing is that?!”

“But humans have such drive and aspirations!” She sat up and directed her glare at me, throwing a hoof out as though to indicate everything around us. “Without magic, ponies would pale in comparison. Look at your technology! It looks more magical than what we use! And we use actual magic!”

If I had thought more on the matter, that would have made more sense. But my initial reaction was to dismiss such a ludicrous notion. “No way.”

“That glass of yours. The one you called a ‘Smart Phone’ earlier,” she said as she hopped off her cloud, casting a second spell to create a breeze to push away my cigarette smoke. “I saw the date, time, and weather! You may not realize how incredibly useful that knowledge could be, especially the last one. Unicorns would exhaust themselves if they tried to cast three divination spells within an hour.”

I started to contemplate the implications that she was getting at. I mean, if you were a farmer and didn’t need to guess the entire week’s weather, it could end up saving you plenty of time and hardship. And that was excluding the more impressive technology that we had access to. But a lot of it could be worked for ponies to use. Such as crop-dusting. Hell, it would cost a lot less for a pegasus to crop dust than some expensive plane with expensive fuel, not to mention you would still have to hire the expensive pilot. Anyway, this was all going through my head so I kinda-sorta forgot to pay attention to the conversation. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally ideas will race through my head so rapidly that I am no longer aware of everything that’s going on around me.

“Hellooo? Stupid human?” Luna waved a hoof in front of my face.

“Wh…?” I blinked before coming back down to Earth… Err… Equestria and looking back at her, “Oh. Hi, Luna. Have you considered pegasus crop dusting?”

“What!?” She’s so cute when she’s frustrated. “What is that and how does that have anything to do with what we were just talking about?!”

“Everything,” I said before taking one final drag off my cigarette and then held it up in my hoof. I began staring at it as hard as I could until it poofed into flame. It was getting easier, but I was still having some difficulty. It wasn’t until I saw Luna on the other side of the ashes that I got an idea. I immediately sat up with my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open.

“Wait! I got it!” I cried with a bubbly sensation welling up from the inside of the happy spot in my brain. “Okay! Get this! Since I’m going to be here in Equestria for a while, why don’t we help each other out? I’ve got the magical know-how to basically flip a pancake and that’s about it. I barely managed to grab three things at once this morning, and that was just a spur of the moment mixed in with a little bit of awesome.”

Luna raised an eyebrow and tilted her head as though she were struggling with the implications. “Wait, you want me to teach you magic? Me. The Princess. Not somepony more professional?”

“Maybe if I wanted to go about it in the most boring way possible.” I’m not going to lie. Learning magic from some stuffy professor sounded about as exciting as a prying off my fingernails with a crowbar. Which, amusingly enough, would get my heart rate up and going, but not in a good way. “And in exchange, I will answer any… Well… Most questions about humans.”

“Why only most!?” she cried with an adorable voice crack. Seriously, it was brutally endearing.

“Because there are some things I don’t want to expose ponies to,” I murmured sheepishly, “Humans can be really freakin’ horrific, Luna. And not even on purpose half the time.”

She cut a glare back at me that let me know she wasn’t satisfied with that argument. “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”

“You can always ask some other human… OH WAIT!” I can be a jerk sometimes.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re a jerk.”

See, even Luna agrees.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun.” I got to my hooves and hopped a couple times to emphasize my excitement. “We’ll both learn stuff and if things go well enough… That is, if you can handle some slightly grittier stuff, then maybe… Keep in mind, ‘maybe’ does not mean promise! Maybe… Just maybe we can start going into the darker subjects. Maybe. MAYBE!”

She mulled that over, pursing her lips as she considered the offer with half-lidded eyes aimed off to the side. One smirk later and I knew my fate been sealed.

“One condition,” she said, her eyes meeting mine with sinister intent, “When magic training makes you cry, and it will, you have to do it in front of me so I can laugh.”

AND LIKE A DUMBASS I SAID: “Deal!”

Remember when I said that I read the fine print? Yeah, this is proof that I was full of shit when I said that.

-=-

This has been a fan-written story by CardsLafter - Follow me onDeviantArt to stay up to date with TTEOAP

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