SPIRITED AWAY... TO EQUESTRIA
Chapter 1. SPIRITED AWAY… TO EQUESTRIA
Yusuke Urameshi hated America. He hated it with all his heart.
It wasn’t because they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end all Japanese Imperial ambitions in the pacific and essentially made Japan a vassal state. He didn’t really give two shits about that, since he was only a very mild nationalist who only really got prideful for his country whenever he had to learn or read about any language other than Japanese or use any writing systems other than kanji, hiragana, and katakana.
Suffice to say, he hated America mostly because, if they hadn’t gotten Hirohito aboard the USS Missouri, his asshat teachers wouldn’t have made him learn how to speak and write in English and write in romaji and always given him failing grades which his drunk ass, ho of a mother tended to punish with bitch smacks, like she always did whenever he did something wrong.
As he finally got his ass out of his own personal slice of the spirit world that was customs, he was reminded of this reason for his hatred of America so, SO much. Not one, repeat, NOT ONE, sign was written in Japanese. Oh, sure, a few were written in Spanish for those mexican shitheads he had heard snippets from the news saying were practically invading the country, but not one thing was written in anything remotely logosyllabic
He was going to have to use his brain extra hard to navigate around this country for the short time he thought he’d be here. He hated doing that, and he knew Botan certainly wasn’t going to.
Speaking of the blue haired pilot of the river styx, she caught up to him and put her hand on his shoulder as he walked around, quickly trying to find the little boy’s room, startling him as she said, in Japanese, <“Finally! We’ve made it to America!”>
<“Gah!”> Yusuke said, also in Japanese as he turned to regard her. <“Botan! Don’t sneak up on a man like that, especially not when he’s full of piss!”>
Botan harrumphed. <“Hmmm… if you have to go tinkle so much, why didn’t you do it on the plane?”>
<“Because I started feeling it right as the plane landed and I didn’t think the stewardesses would let me use it!”>
<“Then why are you walking about instead of going, then?”>
<“‘Cause I’m not too hot at reading latin script, including English, okay! So, please, if you see anything that can tell me where I can find a bathroom, tell me!”>
Botan’s arms crossed over her chest. <“Fine. But you better take me to the Grand Canyon after we’re done here.”>
Yusuke looked at her as though she had just grown a second head. <“Do you listen to yourself, Botan!? This country is huge! It makes Japan look like a micro apartment! The Grand Canyon is THOUSANDS of kilometers from here! I suck at geography and even I know that!”>
Botan brushed a stray lock from her cerulean hair, not looking the least bit amused. She placed her hands on her hips and said, <“Oh, it’s not like YOU’D be paying for gas or food or anything. Plus, it’s not THOUSANDS of kilometers. I checked. Grand Canyon National Park is 656.8 miles away from Denver or 1057.0171 kilometers. It’s only a little over twice the length of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen!”>
Yusuke pinched the bridge of his nose. He wanted to say something to the effect of rhetorically asking Botan if she knew just how Goddamn long the Tōkaidō Shinkansen railway line was. However, the sensation caused an uncomfortable feeling of boiling piss in his loins, so he settled for saying, <“Botan, no! We’re going to deal with whatever’s here and then we’re going back home to good ole’ Kaidan, okay? I don’t want to spend another second longer in this damn country than I have to.”>
Botan narrowed her eyes. <“Racist.”>
Yusuke slapped himself in the face, the sensation accidentally making him start doing the potty dance. <“Look, are you gonna help me, or what? I can’t hold it in much longer!”>
Botan stuck up her nose. <“No. I don’t think I will.”> She turned around. <“Good luck finding the bathroom on your own! I’m going to look for this Tex-Mex place called ‘Taco Bell’ and get a little of what they call ‘fourth meal!’”>
With that, she ran off as well she could considering the oversized duffle bag strapped to her shoulder.
Yusuke’s arm extended toward her as she got ever further away and he cried out, <“Botan! Wait! Don’t leave me hanging like this!”>
<“Crunchwrap Supreme, here I come!”> she called back.
He grumbled, teeth gnashed together as though doing so would allow the ever weakening floodgates to hold. <“Gah! Stupid bitch!”> Turning back around, he looked up and tried reading one of the signs. “Dooooo...Teeeee...Freeeee...Shoppu… Fudo… Baggu…Clai--”
Yusuke suddenly felt like he was about to explode in a shower of piss if he didn’t relieve himself within the next half minute or so. <“Gah! Screw this shit!”>
As though he were trying to beat Hiei in a foot race, Yusuke took off like a cannon bolt, every person who saw him pass by giving him looks that, at any other time, he’d open his big mouth and say something about. Such as things were, though, he was too busy looking frantically up and down and side to side for anything, any indication whatsoever that a bathroom was within the next square kilometer.
After fifteen seconds, he found what he thought was such an indication: a pictogram of what looked vaguely like a man and a woman in a dress standing side by side one another but separated by a vertical line on one of the signs hanging from the ceiling. Next to the pictogram was an arrow that indicated he should go right.
Surely such graphical representation was universal in any language and culture nowadays, right?
Well, Yusuke betted that it was. Like a machine, he made the right turn the sign indicated as sharply as possible. Not too far down the new hallway he found himself running through, on his left, he could make out a couple of drinking fountains and, on either side of them, doors with vaguely humanoid pictograms on them just like the sign from earlier.
If those weren’t bathrooms, and he wound up pissing his pants, then Yusuke would have one other reason to hate America as much as he did.
With desperation enhanced speed, he quickened his pace, not wanting his odds at a photo finish to sink into becoming a‘just barely missed the finish line’ moment.
His face cringed down to the floor in pain as he struggled to hold it back for just a little while longer. He shoulder checked a door, almost knocking it off its hinges. He was right. Those doors on either side of the drinking fountains DID lead to bathrooms. For some strange reason, though, this one had all stalls. Whatever. So long as there were toilets behind those doors… or bidets... he’d be a-okay.
With a mighty kick, he opened the nearest stall door. He rushed in, locked the door behind him, pulled his pants and undies down, and proceeded to drain his pale garden hose of any and all salty lemonade.
<“Ahhh… thank you, God!”> He said with a goofy smile on his face.
He had just grabbed his fly in preparation for zipping it back up when he heard something he hadn’t expected: the voices of two giggling women entering the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind him.
<“Huh… that’s strange. Why would they be here?”>
He tilted his head to the side in thought, the golden stream of sweet relief still flowing like a mighty cascade.
It took a few moments for Yusuke to put all the pieces of the puzzle together being, well, Yusuke. Pieces like how, at the final stretch in his mad dash for the bathroom, he looked down without looking at the door as he barged in. Or how the bathroom had a complete lack of urinals. Or how the two women still giggling in the bathroom and probably discussing shopping or boys or something else equal parts feminine and vain while they powdered their noses or something in the sink didn’t seem to realize they had accidentally stepped into the men’s room… almost like… they hadn’t...
Yusuke’s eyes widened.
The yellow stream suddenly stopped.
He suddenly became very self conscious about raising his voice and about how big the cracks between the stall door behind him and the rest of the stall were.
<“Oh, God dammit!”> He thought to himself, teeth gritted in anger. <“Of course! I just HAD to run into the chicks’ room! Dammit, Botan! I swear to God or Koenma or Koenma’s old man or whoever that if I get out of this, I’ll find some diabolical way to pay you back!”>
With a vengeance, he zipped his fly up. He turned toward the stall door and grimaced a bit, brain trying to find a way out of this mess before the little hamster inside his head started running inside its little wheel at full speed.
And then, he smirked. His plan was that perfect… and evil.
<“Time to see if that training with that wrinkly old hag was really worth it.”>
He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. He blocked out the inane conversation the two girls were having.
And then, he opened them again.
Faster than the normal human eye could perceive, he opened the stall door, ran to the bathroom door, opened that one too, ran out into the hallway, and ran towards where last he saw Botan heading. He found her in line at the ‘Taco Bell,’ receiving her food. No doubt she had ordered it with that perfect, non-Engrish English she had used (complete with whatever accent she wanted since she was perfect at that too) since they got out of the passenger boarding bridge and first set foot in this damn airport. Looks like she had ordered it with some drinks too.
Perfect.
He threw his fist out towards her, a gust of wind shooting out. It wasn’t infused with too much spirit energy. Just enough to blow the lids off of the drinks and knock them from the cashier’s hands as she transferred them over to Botans’ hands and splatter the carbonated contents every which way… especially on said blue haired ditz.
His beautiful masterpiece of retributive mayhem complete, Yusuke then ran back to the bathrooms, leaned against the wall to the left of the men’s room, and acted cool, whistling some merry tune he remembered from a Miyazaki movie from his childhood.
Some old timer leaning on the wall opposite him, whose head had previously been buried deep in a newspaper (or cheap toilet paper, as Yusuke’s mom liked to call it), poked his head up and asked Yusuke something in that damn English language. The only words he could make out were, “Where… you… come… from?”
Yusuke, feeling cheeky (and a little bit nervous about forgetting to check the hallway for anyone who might have seen him slow down and, to them at least, just appear leaning against the wall), rubbed the back of his head. He said, in terrible and terribly slow Engrish,“Well… wen… uhhh... Fada... and... Mada... luv eech uda… supah much…”
The old man put his hand up and said something Yusuke understood far more clearly. “Forget I asked.” With that, the old guy looked back down at his paper.
Yusuke put his arm down and returned to whistling.
A couple of minutes flew by when he noticed Botan walking down the hallway he had originally come from before making the right into the one he was currently in. He waved and called out to her, <“Hey, Botan! What took you so long!?”>
<“Yusuke? Huh. So you did find the bathroom in time after all.”>
Yusuke growled. <“Yeah. No thanks to you.”> He smiled and itched his nose with his thumb as was one of his many habits. <“But it looks like karma’s on my side, since you’re the one whose pants are all wet. And from the looks of it, so’s the rest of you.”>
<“Uhhh! Don’t remind me!”> Botan said, walking over and rolling her eyes. <“Strangest thing, too. It was like the pressure wave from one of plane's engines somehow managed to sneak its way into the airport. Anyways, hold this while I go clean up.”>
She pushed the paper bag containing the food and the paper pulp drink carrier containing the soda cups into Yusuke’s grasp.
<“I got you what they call a ‘crunchwrap supreme’ and a ‘quesarito.’ I didn’t know what soda you wanted, so I took the safe bet and just got you a pepsi.”>
<“That’s fine.”>
<“Good. PLEASE don’t eat my stuff, alright?”> With that, Botan gingerly pushed open the door into the little girl’s room and walked in.
Once the door was closed, Yusuke’s poker face dropped and he chuckled at just how clueless Botan was.
When he had his fill, Yusuke opened the bag and carefully inspected all of the damn latin letters written in that damn English to make sure he didn’t accidentally eat Botan’s food. Not because he really cared, but because he didn’t want Botan to have a reason to complain against him on the long taxi ride to the town they were heading. He deduced that Botan had ordered two crunchwrap supremes, that ‘quesarito’ she mentioned, and something called a ‘Five Layer Beefy Bean Burrito.’ Weird name. But then again, all foreign names were weird to him.
He grabbed the paper wrapper containing his crunchwrap supreme and pulled it out, inspecting the hexagonal flower tortilla wrap like an entomologist would some esoteric new species of insect. After sniffing it like a curious hound dog, he shrugged his shoulders and decided to throw caution to the wind by taking a big old bite out of it.
And then, he took another. And another. And another. Before he knew it, he had devoured the whole thing and was licking off leftover sour cream and sauce off his fingers.
And then, a terrible realization set in. <“Wait… I didn’t wash my hands!”>
Yusuke’s eyes widened in horror.
He gulped.
Then, he shrugged.
<“Ah well. After the six months of hell I’ve been through, what’s a few germs?”>
He pulled out his quesarito. After devouring it in a few big bites, he licked his fingers clean once more...
*****
<“So… this the place?”>
<“Yep.”>
The taxi Yusuke and Botan had taken to the small, obscure city they were now in sped off softly into the night, presumably back to Denver International. As requested by Botan given Yusuke’s ineptness with the local tongue, it left them amongst said city’s suburbs.
The suburbs of Canterlot, Colorado.
<“According to Lord Koenma, the weird Spikes in unusual energy have been zeroed in to a one kilometer radius around our present location in this particular part of Canterlot’s suburbs.”>
<“Really?”> Yusuke looked around them. Nothing but one story houses, two story houses, and the odd three story house as far as the eye could see. Well, there was what appeared to be a school to his left, a high school if the gaggle of six girls (in fru-fru dresses that would get even the most garish J-Pop star to tell them that they were overdoing it) walking out from where he assumed was the school’s entrance was any indication. All in all, the area was heavily residential. Suburban, just as Botan had said. Safe, laidback, and boring as all hell… except for the fact that the entrance to the high school looked like it got hit by a bus or two or twelve and the fact that there was a massive crater before it. <“You sure? Aside from maybe that high school, this place ain’t exactly giving off impending demonic invasion vibes.”>
<“Oh? And since when were you good at detecting demonic energy? As I recall, you spent most of Genkai’s tournament within a hundred meters of Shorin and you only suspected him of being Rando after every other fighter except you, him, and Kazuma were left.”>
Yusuke shrugged off her smugness. <“Well, when you spend six months being Genkai’s whipping boy like I did, you pick on a thing or two. So, believe me when I tell you that I’m not picking up one gram or joule or newton meter or whatever you spirit world jerks use to measure demon energy.”>
Botan’s mouth opened, no doubt to retort in a way she thought was witty but would only serve to piss him the fuck off. However, her eyes became like the milk saucers his mother sometimes like to leave out on the front porch of their apartment for the hordes of stray cats in their neighborhoods and her mouth only opened wider and stayed there.
Raising an eyebrow, Yusuke asked, <“Botan, what’s wrong?”>
<“Uhhh…”> was all Botan said as she pointed at something to Yusuke’s left.
Yusuke followed her index finger back to the high school. He was unsure of what could have gotten her so riled up. Yeah, the front of the school looked like it got bombed, but maybe that was just damage left over from some terrorist attack he heard so much about on the Kaidan six o’clock news that the school didn’t have enough funds to fix yet. I mean, after all, Canterlot wasn’t exactly a BIG city, so it made sense there wouldn’t be a large enough tax base to get the cash needed to fix that kind of damage.
And that was when he noticed it. Or rather, her. She was one the six girls he saw exiting the school earlier. Though her dress made him want to puke on it to give it some earth tones to balance it out and make it a little less of an eyesore, the rest of her was… well… DAMN! If she wasn’t dressed so gaudily and didn’t have exotically colored skin and hair that every foreigner he had seen since arriving to America had (and if Keiko and Botan wouldn’t kill him afterwards), he’d want to motorboat that pair of knocking sweater puppies jutting out from her chest like there were big, blocky white letters painted on his forehead that read, ‘Yamaha.’ DAMN that girl was fine! He could imagine Kuwabara, sucker for a fine piece of ass that he was, getting on his knees before her and begging her to be his wife and bare a dozen of his ugly ass, Japanese-Yankee children.
Yusuke stopped from drooling like the little piggy he was, however, when he also took stock of something else about the girl, or rather two somethings, that he had previously overlooked. The pair of perky, equine ears standing erect on either side of her head and the pair of purple feathered wings jutting out from the back of her dress.
If there was a record for the fastest time a dude ever lost an ever growing boner, Yusuke would have been crowned champ, never to be dethroned for at least a millennia.
Sure, he had vaguely noticed those inhuman features of hers and of the other six girls when had first looked at the school, but he had chalked it up to them coming from some really retarded costume party. But now, after his thorough second look, he could tell without a doubt that they weren’t part of a costume, but really were attached to her body.
They were real.
And to top off this F5 Tornado on the Fujita scale of what-the-fuckness, she she was talking to a dog at her side as she walked away from the other five girls, the dog talked back, neither her or the dog were giving off a whiff of demon energy.
Suffice it to say, Yusuke’s expression quickly mirrored Botan’s own. But, unlike the young grim reaper, beneath the skin and bone of his head, an ocean of something far darker began to roil and froth. Rip, roaring, choleric, frustration.
<‘Goddamn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it… DAMN IT!’> he thought. <‘Of course! This just HAD to happen! You know, it’s just my luck that I spend six fucking months of my life that’ll never be tossed my way again working my ass off through horrible tests I don’t even want to think about to be a better, more perceptive demon ass-kicker and all that time ultimately amounted to me being Genkai’s gimp so the old, sick bag could get off at my suffering! I mean, FUCK! I’m supposed to be the detective here, not Botan, and yet despite all of that supposed progress I made, she spotted such an obvious demon with her eyes on thefirst glancewhile my extrasenses were useless! Shit! Even those hacks at spirit world were able to detect strange shit going on in this place, but not me! Fuck me with a pair of chopsticks!’>
With gnashing teeth, growling voice, and sweat dripping off his forehead from shear, blazing fury, Yusuke watched as the purple demon chick and her dog stopped before a statue, still chatting up a storm. A storm that paled in comparison to one billowing in his mind.
When he saw them walk into the statue and seemingly melt into it rather than collide with it like a bunch of clutzes, also failing to feel any demon energy from the undoubted portal they had just walked through, that was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
Steam practically coming out of his ears, Yusuke shouted, <“Botan! Hang on! We’re going for a little ride!”> before grabbing onto Botan’s wrist.
“Wait! Yusuke! Shouldn’t we think this throu--AHHH!”
Before she could finish that sentence, Yusuke ran into the portal, carrying her screaming for dear life by her hand at blinding speed and not caring about whether the draft his body made as he did so was slight or thunderous.
Yusuke Urameshi's final thought before plunging head first into the unknown, unholy stretch of demon world he thought for certain he was about to be the first human to see in centuries if not the first human ever to witness it was, ‘No time for thought! Only ass-kicking!’
*****
“Whoa! What in the Sam Hill just happened!?” Applejack yelled out.
She, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were standing around (or hovering in place just above the ground in the latter two’s case) and watching with forlorn glances as their two new friends entered the portal to return back to their home. The verb were was key. For, with the sudden fury of a thunderbolt from the blue, a gargantuan gale appeared, pushed them all back, and made them all land firmly and painfully on their butts.
“Don’t know,” Rainbow Dash said, massaging her aching cranium. “I think I saw a flash of colors and then the portal glowing again, but other than that, I got nothing.”
Any further conversation was stopped by an earsplitting shriek from Rarity, made all the more painful for everyone else due to the equine ears they all had.
“Goodness! What is it Rarity?” Fluttershy said, grabbing a hold of her friend’s arm.
“Oh, it’s simply THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!”
“What? Did you land on some broken glass?” Rainbow Dash queried.
“NO! WORSE!”
“Did you land on a tack?” Applejacked asked.
“EVEN MORE ABHORRENT!”
Rarity removed herself from Fluttershy’s grasp and stood up. She pulled a piece of her dress out from its usual spot behind her and put it in front of her for all to see. Several dried wads of pink bubblegum clung to the piece. “I fell in some old used up gum!”
Rarity began to sob like she was back in grade school and someone had just kicked a bunch of dirt from the sandbox into her face.
Rainbow and Applejack, with perfect choreography all the pop-stars in America would be jealous over, slapped themselves hard in the face.
Fluttershy got to her feet and began patting Rarity’s shoulder. “Oh… ummm… there… there?”
When they were done grumbling and muttering some very mean things they didn’t want anyone else to hear, Rainbow Dash and Applejack put their hands down and sighed before getting back to their feet. As they were dusting themselves off, the two of them noticed that Pinkie Pie was still on the ground, lying on her back there and perfectly still. Curious, they walked to either side of her and looked at her expression. She was looking at the sky, face blank and pupils contracted.
“Hey, Pinks. You okay?” Applejack asked.
Pinkie didn’t respond.
“Hey! Earth to Pinkie Pie! Hello!” Rainbow Dash said, waving her hand back and forth in front of her normally bubbly and loquacious friend to get her attention, to no avail.
Rainbow and Applejack shared a worried glance. The latter broke said glance first when she looked back down and asked, “Pinkie… are you oka--”
Before Applejack could finish, a sound like that of a bubble popping appeared, and with its passing, all of the girls’ equine features went poof back into the magical aether from whence they came.
After ensuring that they themselves were back to being one hundred percent human again, Rainbow and Applejack looked back down at Pinkie to find that her eyes were now dilated to the width of the colossal cakes she liked to bake so much. “Nooo…” Pinkie all but whispered. Frantically, she alternated between patting her head and pulling her now normal human ears.
“Ummm… Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked, hesitantly. With speed Rainbow would have been impressed by (and jealous of) at any other time, Pinkie Pie leapt back to her feet and made a bee-line for the statue. “Pinkie! Wait!” Rainbow called after her friend.
Her commands were not heeded, however, and Pinkie Pie ended up slamming face first into the stone pedestal upon which the rearing stone colt that was their school’s mascot rested upon.
“PINKIE!” Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy cried out before making a bee-line for her.
Fortunately, their friend didn’t act like she would need a one way trip to Canterlot General. For, much like a human tardigrade, she got back up as though she hadn’t just sprinted cranium first into a stone block. Her hands then proceeded to move about and tap said block almost like she hoped there was a secret switch or button or something of the like embedded upon it. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,NO!”
Her hands were stopped from further exploration of the stone when Rainbow Dash and Applejack locked their arms around either of Pinkie’s shoulders and yanked her back. “NOOO!” Pinkie violently tried to break free of their grasp to no effect. Both Rainbow Dash and Applejack were two of the most hardy kids at Canterlot High, after all. “LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET. ME. GO!”
“When you start making sense and tell us what the heck is wrong with you!” Applejack grunted out.
“Not me! Twilight! She’s in trouble! And not like the ‘haha-funny looking back’ kind of trouble like you were in when you tried using the old ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse on Mr. Donkey or I was in after I ate those ‘baked bads’ you helped me make! I’m taking more like fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods! A thousand years of darkness! Cats and dogs living together! The Spice Girls reunion! Mass hysteria! That kind of trouble!”
“Right… and you know this... how?” Rainbow Dash said with a skeptical brow.
“I… I dunno.” Pinkie said, finally ceasing her struggling. “I just got this feeling… like… this sixth sense or something. I felt cold like I was stuck in a freezer, I felt hot like I was trapped in a tanning booth, my nerves locked up so that I couldn’t even move, a bunch of horrible, horrible images too graphic for any horror movie I’ve ever seen flashed through my head like some sick slideshow, and I just knew! I just knew that Twilight’s in for a whole wide world of trouble once she gets back to Equestria, so I had to try and get there to help! I just had to!”
All four of her friends looked at each other with varying expressions of worry, confusion… and fear for several long moments until, finally, Applejack broke the silence. “But… Pinkie… if what you say is true, then it’ll be a whole ‘nother month before we can do anything to--”
“--I know.” Pinkie said in such a hushed, crestfallen way that all four of her friends could hear their hearts crack a little. “I know.”
Pinkie broke down and blubbered. Not in an exaggerated, melodramatic fashion as was her fancy, but in a low and forlorn way just like the words she had last spoken. She looked up at the tyrant moon that barred the way to Equestria for another thirty days and said, “Our new friend’s in deep trouble and we can’t do anything to help her in time…”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash let go of Pinkie, whose freed hands immediately went to covering her whimpering eyes. They, along with Fluttershy and Rarity, embraced Pinkie in a hug, the intent of all four of them, two fold.
To alleviate Pinkie’s worries, and, to alleviate their own…
*****
The first word Twilight heard after her now re-equinized upper body slamming back to its natural quadrupedal stance with a clop of her forehooves upon the floor was, “Twilight!”
Were Twilight to have not been busy inspecting herself to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything noticeable or important to her recently alicornized body that she was back in, she may have noticed that Fluttershy had proclaimed her name in a voice that, while not quite an uproarious cheer, was much louder than her normal voice and indicative of sudden, great joy.
She also might have noticed Rainbow Dash take to the air before she hovered up into her face and shouted, “You’re back!”
So too, could she have noticed Rarity galloping up to her and yelling, “You got your crown!”
Admittedly, however, being that Pinkie Pie was Pinkie Pie, Twilight probably wouldn’t have noticed her sneaking up on her right and hugging her like a vice while saying, “I knew you could do it!” before it was too late.
Twilight managed to regain enough control of her neck from the pink leviathan trying to squeeze the life out of her to see Applejack sniffling before saying, “Oh, we were so worried!”
Twilight also saw Princess Celestia, on Applejack’s left, bend down her neck so her and her former pupil’s eyes were eye level before asking, “Sunset Shimmer… is she alright?”
After finally finding the strength to get Pinkie off of her (or maybe the party pony just decided to let her grip slacken for whatever reason. Frankly, she couldn’t rightly say which), Twilight took in a few greedy gasps of air before wiping away some sweat that would have stuck to the fur on her brow otherwise and raising her head high and regal. “I think she’s going to be fine,” she said, before taking a glance back at the mirror. “I left her in good hands.”
Looking back, she noticed, much to her amusement, Rainbow Dash and Rarity sharing a confused glance before the former looked back at her, threw up her forehooves, and asked, “What are hands?”
As Rarity also looked back at her, Twilight raised a hoof to her mouth to keep her inward snickering from breaking out.
Then, suddenly, she heard the shimmering of the mirror’s portal again and felt something small impact upon her flank before bouncing off and hitting the floor with a small thud. Though the crash was short lived, she could tell that, whatever it was felt… scaley.
Her assumption as to what or rather ‘who’ it was, was proven correct when she turned around and looked down to find Spike laying in a heap on the ground, inspecting himself to make sure everything was in its proper place just as she had been doing to herself moments earlier.
Upon completing his inspection, Spike noticed her looking at him, raised a thumb, and smiled.
Twilight smiled back.
Her smile, however, quickly turned into a look of wide eyed surprise when she saw and heard the portal shed its light yet again.
After getting Spike back to his feet with the violet of her magic, she and her number one assistant slowly and cautiously backed away from the mirror with equal confusion written on their features.
Taking a few steps to the librarian’s and the dragon’s side, along with everypony else in the room, Applejack asked, “Ummm… Twi… did you bring back anypony else with you back to Equestria?” Applejack asked.
“No. It was just me and Spike. All of the friends I made on the other side of the portal stayed back there.”
Wracking her brain for answers, Twilight was left as utterly flabbergasted as her friends, her former mentor, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadence. This also held true when, from out of the portal, two humans she had never seen before shot out a good three feet from the portal before landing solidly on their feet, much to the shocked gasps of those present, herself very much included.
The first human was, from Twilight’s experience, female and looked to be in her late teens. A young ‘woman,’ using human terms. Her long hair, tied into a ponytail thanks to a red scrunchie, was blue and her skin a shade of pale, a far cry from the epidermises of the humans she had seen in Canterlot High that were every bit as varied as the furs of equestria’s ponies. She wore a crimson, buttoned up jacket with the sleeves pulled up to her elbows (revealing the sleeves of a grey undershirt she wore beneath) that stopped at her waist. From the waist to her heels, she was covered in jeans that were a lighter shade of red, said heels being covered in cuffed, white go-go boots. Twilight noted that slung over one of her shoulders hung a black duffle bag. One of the young woman’s arms was firmly locked in one of the other human’s hand, and she seemed to be trying desperately to escape, shouting in some language that Twilight found unintelligible.
Speaking of the other human, he was male and looked to be in his early teens. His hair was short, slicked back with gel, and black. His skin was a shade of pale that, while lighter, still didn’t compare to the menagerie of melanin the other humans she had seen so recently possessed. He wore a lime green jacket with orange cuffs around the wrist and an orange collar around the neck. Like the girl’s jacket, the sleeves were pulled up to the elbow and the jacket as a whole, stopped at his waist (though his was zipper based). Said zipper was unzipped and, because of that, Twilight was able to see he wore a yellow sweater underneath the jacket and a checkerboard colored flannel shirt beneath said sweater. From his waist to his heels, he wore blue jeans and his feet were covered in black and white tennis shoes. Despite the young woman trapped within the grasp of one of his hands now banging on his head like it was a drum with her free fist, he remained unmoved, his back bent forward and head hung low toward the ground, preventing Twilight from a getting a good look at his face.
Then, he chuckled, low and menacing enough that Twilight certainly felt the room temperature drop a good twenty degrees, and found herself involuntarily shivering...
*****
Yusuke pictured himself looking all badass and imposing as he stood in whatever partition of hell he was now in with his head hung low like he just didn’t give a fuck. Even considering he was holding Botan, whose struggles to get out of his grip, in his mind, kind of threw off the foreboding ambience a little, he thought he looked so cool.
Considering he was undoubtedly somewhere within demon realm, though, he wondered if the ungodly satanic spawn would even have the IQ to be afraid of him. They’d probably think he was just a regular human teen with a death wish who just happened to stumble into one of their little spider-holes to and from home sweet shithole instead of a psychic revenant come back to kick their asses and chew Burakku Burakku. And he was all out of Burakku Burakku.
Then again, despite being an ungodly satanic spawn, that demon chick he saw entering the portal didn’t really appear to be all that threatening. But then again… again… since that midget Shorin turned out to be an ancient abomination with at least ninety-nine cases of murder one under his belt, maybe that was intentional and she was really some evil succubus hell bent on sucking souls through as many human cocks as possible.
Either way, he intended on repaying her and the demonic host he knew she was with from all of the heavy breathing he heard for showing him just how Genkai had screwed him over.
With a vengeance.
<“Alright you weird horned horse sex demon chick thing, my name’s Yusuke Urameshi, rated spirit world’s number one hell fighter six months running.”> Yusuke lifted his head. <“Now, prepare to have your hellish, but rockin’ tits--”>
The words, however, left his mouth when he got a better look at just where he was… and the inhabitants within.
Wherever he was looked like the wet dream of someone with a fetish for multi-colored crystal, because that stuff was EVERYWHERE and seemed to comprise everything about the spacious room he was in: the floor, ceiling, walls, everything… except the archway and the door it surrounded to his left. That seemed to be made of some black stone for some reason, indicating that whatever crystalphilic kook who built this place apparently had some moments, however brief, of sanity.
But the construction material of the room, was about as normal as Kuwabara actually winning a fight, was nowhere near as weird as the other beings, apart from Botan and himself, that inhabited it.
Horses.
Little, except one that came up to his chest and two of them that came up to his neck height, horses. Some had horns on their heads or wings on their sides. Four, including the three horses that he noticed weren’t so little, had both. He could only count two ‘regular’ horses without any of the excess bodily features, but their fur, along with the fur of all the others, looked like some little girl with access to a stable had gone crazy splashing the horses within with dozens of buckets of pastel paint since real horses had comparatively boring color schemes.
All of them, with eyes much too big and faces much too expressive for normal horses, looked his way with varying levels of shock. To add onto the levels of shock Yusuke himself was feeling, he also noticed a little, upright walking, bipedal purple lizard thing that somehow managed to look about as threatening or even less so than the horses it stood amongst despite clearly being more well suited for throwing down.
His eyes then fell upon her or rather… it, and stayed there. He had looked at her/it before when he first noticed the horses, of course, but at that moment, his mind had put together the pieces of the puzzle. The ears, wings, the color of the hair on her head right down to the highlighted stripe of magenta, the jeweled crown resting on her head. Hell, her/its fur was the same color pattern as her/its skin. There was no denying it. That sexy ass, but weird, horse sex demon thing and the winged and horned horse he was looking at were one in the same.
He had thought all of those terrible thoughts… over a little horse.
It was that sudden realization that made Yusuke’s jaw drop, his previously demanding stature to go all hunchback, and for his grip on Botan’s wrist to loosen enough that she was finally able to pull it free.
<“Finally!”> Botan said, massaging her wrist before fixing Yusuke with a stern glare. <“This human body I have is very new and very fragile, ya know! Do you know the level of paperwork I had to do to requisition--”>
The young grim reaper stopped her rant before it could get as epic as Yusuke’s, and noticed the spirit detectives’ disposition.
<“Huh? Yusuke? What’s--”> she began to say as she looked at where Yusuke was looking. However, as she saw what Yusuke had seen, her expression mirrored his. Pointing a finger at the equines and saurian, she asked, shakily, <“Yu… Yu… Yusuke?”>
<“Yeah… Botan?”>
<“Yusuke… I don’t think... we’re in demon world...”>
Yusuke nodded. < “You’re right. I think we’re someplace much worse.”> He then slapped himself on the forehead, hard enough to leave a big red mark in the shape of his hand. <“God, I hate America...”>
THE END... TILL NEXT TIME....
