My Little Pony: Friendship is Brutal

“Hey you guys, I just had a really messed up dream.” Nathan shouted walking into the metal themed living room.

“Oh dude, did you have one of those uh- Night horse, horrors uh, Nightmares? Yeah one of those things.” Pickles asked.

“No, but I think there was a fucking Nightmare or something like that.” Nathan sat down hard on a wooden chair. It probably hurt, but he was too hungover to actually notice it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Murderface groused from the couch, pissy as usual. Fresh marks that were hardly visible among the dozens of old, decorated the table in front of him; his knife stood up-right in the table.

“No, dude I think he means, like, a dream within a dream, that inception stuff or some crap like that. I don’t know.” Pickles offered.

“No I mean like, this big huge dark blue flying pony thing, but it had like a horn it was a huge horn. And she was going to make night last forever after killing her sister. Then she was going to rule over everything forever. But then these six smaller ponies became friends and killed the Nightmare thing so the night went away; she must have forgotten to kill her sister ‘cuz she comes back.”

“I dreams about ponies too sometimes, you’re okays for that Nathan.”

“No Toki!” Nathan was getting tired of being interrupted, “you’ve told all of us about your pony dreams, they’re fucking gay. These ponies have wards and stuff, and that Nightmare one eats children or something like that.”

“My ponies are not gays Nathan, shuts up!” Toki said defensively

“Toki shut up! I’m not even finished!”

At this point Skwisgaar walked in, practicing, as always, on his guitar.

“What’s is all the yellings going ons in here?” His fingers danced up and down the neck of his guitar.

“Nathan’s talking about some little ponies that eat children.” Murderface summarized, making another mark in the table.

“Why the hells? Are yous dream sharings with Toki now?” Skwisgaar asked laughing.

“No, dammit!” Nathan growled, “These ponies are fucking brutal!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"All we know so far is that Nathan Explosion has had a dream or nightmare about ponies.” Senator Stampingston informed the tribunal.

“From the recording it seems as though one of these ‘ponies’ was the Nightmare. A god-like entity to the lesser ponies.” Vater Orlaag corrected.

“Likely true,” General Crozier agreed, “the point is how out of the ordinary it is for a member of Dethklok, who isn’t Toki Wartooth, to dream of ponies.” He folded his hands, and fixed his gaze on the silently replaying recording of Dethklok’s most recent discussion. “I however fail to see how Nathan’s dream of ponies could affect anything.”

“Remember General,” Orlaag began, “Any one of Dethklok’s actions may end in catastrophe.

“Gentlemen,” Stampingston interrupted, “I have received word that Nathan is pushing for several songs to be recorded related to his dream. It would seem that what he saw has had a strong effect on him.”

“What would you have us do?” The general said condescendingly, “Should we ask them not to record these songs?”

“Perhaps that would be best. Given past events, this Nightmare creature may be able to cause real harm to the real world. Not to mention what may happen to the world’s equine population if Dethklok were to create songs about them.” Orlaag said darkly.

“Right then,” Crozier maintained his sarcastic tone, “Who should we send to ask them?”

“Do not misunderstand what I am saying. I just-” Orlaag was interrupted by the man on the throne in the middle of the group.

“No, we will let Dethklok explore the power behind Nathan’s dream. It will teach them a valuable lesson on the power of friendship.” Mr. Selatcia’s word was the final of the tribunal.

All fell silent as the video recording started over, this time with audio.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Woah woah woah wait. So later you saw this messed up goat dragon bird tiger thing can drink glass and make milk explode?” Pickles begged Nathan to repeat himself.

“Yeah, that’s what I just said. He was called Discord or something, and all these ponies were running in terror, everything was messed up. The rain was chocolate, the streets were covered in soap. Those six ponies that killed the Nightmare, he fucked them up. He made them all fucking hate each other.”

“He sounds mean.” Toki complained.

“Toki I don’t care about your ponies, god!”

“I wasn’t evens talkings about my dream ponies, you’re just beings mean!”

“Whatever.” Nathan turned back to the rest of the group.

After breakfast, they had all reconvened in the audio mixing room of the recording studio. Skwisgaar was still fingering away on his guitar.

“But these six ponies the ones who killed the Nightmare, got back together and turned that Discord guy to stone. After a thousand years of being a statue he gets to mess up the entire world for a few days and then gets turned back to stone, probably forever. None of the ponies, not even the sister of the Nightmare, who is a bitch by the way, gave a shit about his suffering. That’s fucking brutal.” Nathan punctuated his last sentence by tapping his index finger on the table.

“Wait, a female horse isn’t a bitch I don’t thinks.” Pickles spoke up, steering the conversation in an entirely new direction.

“Yeah you’re ams thinkings of the females dogs. That is the bitch.” Skwisgaar said with disintrest.

“A females ponies is called a mares I thinks.” Toki added.

“No dammit guys, you’re missing the point. These colorful ponies are brutal, and I think it’s time the world knows about them.”

“Knows about thems what? You hads a dream abouts them, they aren’t real.” Skwisgaar pointed out unhelpfully. He momentarily ceased fingering.

“We'll make them.” Nathan countered, “We have billions of dollars we can do that genetic engining crap and make flying poines with horns.”

“What abouts the talkings parts?” Skwisgaar pushed.

“We’ll take some guy’s vocal cords if we have to, I don’t know!”

The room went quiet. Skwisgaar immediately returned to running his fingers up and down his guitar, his interest completely gone.

A door opened and the bands caretaker, Charles Ofdensen, walked in trying to make heads or tails of a torn note Nathan had left glued to his door.

“Nathan you wanted to see me about something?” He gave up trying to read it, crumpling it and placing it in a pocket.

“Yeah I need you to make talking, flying, ponies. Some of them need horns.” He demanded.

“Uh huh,” Offdensen intoned looking around the room at the others. “and you want this because?”

“I had a dream about talking ponies who kill and torture things they don’t like. This one huge pony has wings and a horn, like at the same time. She’s been teaching this one purple horned pony how to use a bunch of powerful magic and stuff. But the big white pony, like, tortures her student on a weekly basis. At one point the purple horned pony got-” Toki interrupted the retelling of another part of Nathan’s dream.

“They’s not horned ponies they’re called unicorns Nathan.” He was still grumpy at being yelled at.

“Toki stop interrupting me every other sentence.” Nathan slammed his fist on the table. “Oh yeah, I guess you’re right; the horned ones are unicorns.” He thought for a moment and chose to consult the “pony master” further. “What about the ones with wings only then?”

“I don’ts knows, pegasuses maybes?”

“Pegasai, I believe.” Offdensen offered.

“And what about those poor schmucks that don’t have either?”

“Ponies?” Toki shrugged.

“No that isn’t it, they’re all ponies.” Nathan grumbled.

“Schmuck ponies?” Skwisgaar came back into the conversation.

“No, it needs to be something that is them. You know what I mean? Ummmm...”

Nathan’s “ummm...” was echoed around the room by all but Skwisgaar and Offdensen.

“Grounds ponies?” Toki finally interrupted the thought-choir.

“They’re all stuck on the ground, they have to plant all the crops and stuff while the other ones can do whatever the hell they want; hey that's pretty brutal too, man that's got to suck. That might work.” Another moment of silence followed, while Nathan mouthed the word “ground pony” to himself.

“I don’t know about that one Toki, but I think I owe you an apology.” Nathan said after several minutes.

“Dude, what for? He like kept interrupting you earlier, shouldn’t he owe you an apology?” Pickles reminded the group.

“No. His gay pony dreams came in handy for once, and I kept telling him to shut up. So I owe him an apology.” Nathan admitted.

“I accepts your apologies.” Toki nodded, his mood slightly elevated. Only to come back down the next second.

“Chill out pony humper, I said ‘I owe you an apology.’ I didn’t say I was going to apologize. You know I don’t do that stuff.”

“Hmph.” Toki crossed his arms, and continued to sulk.

“Right.” Offdensen said, “Nathan, I’m not one-hundred percent sure flying or magical ponies can exist.”

“We have the money, we can make it happen right?” Nathan insisted.

“No, I mean it is physically impossible to make unicorns exist if they never have.”

“Aww man, that sucks. So we can wake up a lake troll, but we can’t make magic ponies?” He reached under the table and grabbed a beer. He tried to open it on the edge of the table and broke off the neck.

He tried two more times to open a beer; on the third just the cap came off, and he started chugging.

“The troll already existed.” Offdensen pointed out. “If it hadn’t been real, it wouldn’t have woken up.” He’d trained himself not to wince when using this kind of logic. It was somewhat painful, but if he’d put it any other way there would have been a hailstorm of questions and complaints.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Nathan chugged the rest of his beer, and threw the empty bottle on the floor.

“Fine whatever.” He slammed his fist on the floor to get everyone’s attention, “We’re still doing these songs!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twilight and Princess Celestia woke with a start; Twilight’s horn poking the side of the large body she had cuddled up to the night before, being the reason for the royal alicorn’s alarm. Tomes of all sorts lay around the cozy pair, signs of a long study session the evening prior.

“Ow Twilight,” Celestia’s tone was harsher than she’d meant it to be, as she rubbed where she’d been jabbed, in an effort to lessen the sting. “What has you waking so violently this morning?”

“Oh Princess, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Twilight was further panicked, concerned that her beloved teacher was mad at her.

“Do not worry,” Celestia cooed, “you’ve done nothing besides making me worry about what has you so scared.”

“I’m sorry.” Twilight repeated, “I just, had this dream, no it was a nightmare. There were these things, they walked on their hind legs, and had hands like griffons do.” Twilight looked at the red mark that stood out against her mentor’s white coat and cringed.

“Twilight?” Celestia stroked her students mane tenderly.

“There were crowds of thousands of those things all different sorts, and they were gathered around a stage where five of them stood. The five were singing, it was a concert I guess, but it wasn’t a concert like I’ve ever seen. They all seemed to have gone mad; they started dying in horribly gruesome ways, but they kept on screaming and raving not wanting to leave the objects of their fanaticism.”

Twilight continued regailing the princess with her nightmare; she therefore missed the expression Celestia took on as thoughts of a threat to her power ran through her head. Hearing the voice of her beloved student brought her back to the present. Twilight was in fact, one of the few lives in all of Equestria that she truly valued.

“Twilight?” Celestia said softly. Any utterance from teacher was enough to silence the devout filly.

“Yes Princess?”

Celestia bent down, and taking care to avoid the protrusion of bone, kissed her worried, The young unicorn shuddered visibly as she felt the soft lips of the princess on her forehead.

“It was just a bad dream. You shouldn’t dwell on it, or it will never leave your thoughts.” She looked into Twilight’s dreamy stare.

“Okay Princess Celestia.” Twilight developed a light blush as she reveled in her nearly unconscious state of bliss. Just like in many of her more sordid dreams, she leaned closer to her mentor ready to receive another kiss.

“Twilight?” Celestia uttered a third time.

“Yes Princess~” Twilight responded breathlessly. Her now moist lips waiting expectantly for her “lovers” own.

Celestia had long suspected that the purple filly had developed these feelings, but did not think now was the time to let her explore them. With a sigh she levitated a book off the shelf, that she herself had helped to write, and put it just in front of her student’s nose.

The musty smell of the old tome made several things happen. First Twilight’s dreamstate was interrupted; second she opened her eyes to see the source of the smell.

The third was more blood rushing to the horrified filly’s face when she read the title, Courtship Throughout the Ages

“Perhaps you should read up on the subject before attempting such delicate social interactions, my dear Twilight.”

“Oh my gosh Princess I’m so so so so sososososo sooooo, sorry!” Twilight snatched the book up, simply at her teacher’s recommendation. “I need to get back to Ponyville soon, I should probably go to the restroom and dry my-” Twilight froze on the spot, and tucked her tail between her legs.

“Wow I need to dry my forehead, why am I sweating so much!?” Book still floating next to her, Twilight bowed her head and backed up to the two large wooden doors. As her back half disappeared out into the hallway she said, “I had a lot of fun, thank you Princess!”

A guard outside caught the scent of Twilight’s shame, and looked questioningly at the purple filly, known as “the most faithful student,” when he saw her furious blush.

“What!?” Twilight barked defensively, “I never get to spend time with Princess Celestia anymore, who are you to judge if I like seeing her.”

The guard turned his head in submission, but was really just hiding a grin at what he perceived to be Celestia’s embarrassed sexpet.

Twilight stomped down the hallway, and immediately quit when she realized the extra noise was going to bring unwanted attention to her current state.

Once Twilight had dried her forehead she stood at the edge of Canterlot, looking down at Ponyville clearly visible in the morning light.

She hadn't stopped beating herself up for her behaviour in the pressence of her teacher. Being prevented from preforming her nightly ministrations must have had something to do with the embarrassing situation. To her, there was no other explanation. She clopped herself in the side of the head.

Come on Twilight, now isn't the time. We'll just double up tonight. Focus.

She focused her magic, preparing to teleport back to Ponyville. Just as the world tore itself away from her hooves the visions of last night popped into her head.

What's a Mordhaus?

The sound of a thundercrash reached from Canterlot to Ponyville and beyond. No glass in Canterlot was left intact save for the warded stained glass of the palace. In the aftermath of ringing ears, residents of Canterlot heard for a brief moment the sound of hatred unlike anything they had heard before. Then it was gone.