Another day, another... Oh, about 83 cents. What with the rest going to booze and all. Gotta keep my priorities straight. Where was I? Oh yeah. I'm... You know, it doesn't matter. Just call me Nohbodi. I'd say Anonymous, but that's overused. You'd interpose yourself in the story anyway. Not that it's a bad thing, I suppose. As an avid reader, I know the value of that disassociative fantasy effect. Life is tedious. Or, at least, it was. Well, it's back to tedious, but in a different way. Repetition does that no matter what. Right, introductions aside, here's how it all went down.

It was one hell of a thunderstorm. We're talking a proper Midwest storm. If you lived around here, you'd know what I mean. Flashes of daylight-grade lightning over the black sky, and thunder that scares everyone's pets. Massive, driving rain soaking everything. I was there with an old oil lamp (Seriously, there's an antique oil lamp in this house), reading some Mark Twain. The power's been out for about a half hour – nothing surprising for this small-town grid.

Reminds me of the ice storm a few years back. 30-plus-year-old trees snapping under the weight of the ice build-up, the power's gone, and I'm in a local bar. The door's open, the beer's chilled by nature, and someone brought a battery radio. That's how we roll in the sticks. It's actually pretty awesome if you've got the constitution for it. They've improved it since then, so those outages aren't nearly as common or as long as they used to be. If there's ever a nuclear apocalypse, the only survivors will be military, the half-nuts bunker guys, and a good chunk of the Midwest. But I digress.

I'm here, hitting the cheap gin, and reading. Was going to go out, but didn't feel like fighting the storm. Still had my coat on, but was just too lazy to take it off at the moment. Another flash of lightning. This storm was epic, even for this location. The lightning is getting even more impressive. There's sure to be property damage, and the associated insurance claims. I could give half a shit if I were sober. Guess how many I gave then. Then, it hit. The biggest damn lightning strike I'd ever seen – and that's saying something. The windows went white and everything inside the house was indistinguishable. Then an odd sensation of falling. Followed by an even stranger (And less pleasant) feeling of landing on my ass.

“And that is how you open a portal.” said an magically-impressive Twilight Sparkle, standing in front of the class of Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorn's auditorium. She froze in place, a cross between horror and interest that only the perpetually curious can pull off as I was ejected from the mirror-like portal in front of her.

“Urrgh, the hell just happened?” as I regained my equilibrium and stood up. I looked around to see a small horde of tiny, quadrupedal creatures. Turning around, I saw a slightly larger, lavender example. “No way am I drunk enough to see things. Hate being shitfaced.”

“Uh. Oh my. Erm... Princess Celestia!” she called behind her to a relatively bigger example of the denizens of the room. I say “relatively” because when I turned around, I was still taller, if only by a small margin.

“Calm yourself, my little pony. This is certainly unusual, but nothing that can't be remedied. Simply put it back through the portal before it can respond. It is rare, but not unheard of.”

“Y-yes Princess.” she stammered as some sort of aura enveloped me. I reflexively waved a hand in front of it in some unconscious attempt to block it. Where my hand passed it dissipated, followed by the purple one jerking it's head back.

“Aaah!”

“Twilight!” The larger, white one answered. She aimed her... Horn? Why the hell did these horse-looking creatures have horns? At any rate, a beam of white light shot towards me. I held out a hand again, and it stopped, building an orb of that energy in front of me. I considered the amorphous light for a moment, being almost insatiably curious. The white one seemingly increased the width of the beam, causing the ball to grow in my hand.

At this point the entire auditorium was in a state of shock, which I only casually noticed. This was, apparently, something they'd never seen before. Was this ball of light supposed to do something?

A grunt refocused my attention as the light got even larger against my hand. It continued to grow, until it was twice the size of my head. Then I noticed the sensation. Heat. A slight sting. I looked down to realize the sleeve of my coat was being burned by this thing. I thrust my hand forward to distance it, unintentionally sending the sphere through the beam to its source. The white thing barely had time to refocus on the thing before it struck. It went reeling back to the end of the room, splayed out and seemingly unconscious. I patted my hand against the sleeve. It was still warm, but no longer being physically damaged.

Everything there looked on with huge, wide eyes and jaws practically to the floor. I looked at the sleeve of my coat. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find one of these cheap?” Now I went from confusion to pissed.

“I-I-I-I... You speak Equestrian?” the lavender one stammered, glancing between me and the knocked-out figure against the wall.

“You speak English?” I exclaimed in tandem with it. Following with “What the fuck is going on here!?"

“Uh....I-I-I...” It stopped, putting an appendage below it's head in a back-and-forth motion, audibly breathing. Eventually it stopped, and continued. “I... Erm... Opened a portal, and you came out.”

“Not answering enough.” I stood up to my full height (Finally, I spend too much time slouching). Slightly below average for a modern human, but it towered over it by somewhere between one and two feet. My right hand was balled into a fist, having long ago bordered fight-or-flight levels of agitation. Meanwhile, the smaller collection behind me smiled and snickered at the sounds of obscenity, having semi-forgotten the shock of my arrival.

“N-Now, relax. I'll just send you home, OK? Please stay still, this won't hurt...”

Another light shot towards me, going around this time. After being covered in the light, that sensation returned. I looked around to find the coat slowly dissolving, for lack of a better word. I clawed my hands around, leaving empty streaks where the purple light was. Soon enough the thing recoiled again, knocked down and making some sort of panting noise. Shortly after it's fall, the enveloping light-field dissipated. The crowd went back to wide-eyed shock and awe.

My coat was mostly gone now, mere tatters hanging over my arms and shoulders. The steel-toe of my boots was shining through a gap in the toe. Someone was gonna answer for this. Treading forward with heavy, thudding steps, I grabbed the thing by it's horn and lifted its head. As soon as its eyes faced mine (At least, I assumed it was the eyes at the time) I stared it down. “You're gonna stop that, and explain everything... NOW!” I unceremoniously let go, letting the wide eyes blink as it's head hit the ground.

“W-What are you?”

“Not an answer. Start talking!”

“I am talking!”

“I mean start answering! What is all this and what are you?”

“I-It-It should've sent you back! I don't know what's happening!”

“What should've sent me back?”

“M-My magic! This hasn't happened before!”

“... … … Magic?”

I was stunned. Magic? This place, these things think they have magic? This is pushing for the most fucked-up dream I'd ever had, and that's saying something. In a few seconds the seemingly solid state of the scenery implied that it wasn't a dream. In considerable confusion, I flatly stated “Magic? No such thing.”

“What do you mean? Magic is everywhere, it's why we're here, it's why YOU'RE here!”

“Magic doesn't exist.”

“You're not making any sense!”

“You're one to talk. Now back to the point. Where am I and what the hell's going on? Start explaining , and no bullshit!”

That's when it hit me. Literally. Something cracked me in the back of the skull, and everything went black.

Author's Note

Yes, there is an old oil lamp where I live, and it's been used during power outages. In fact, all the pre-Equestria stuff is true (Except the name, obviously).