Exploded Eyes and the Like
“I call this official case to order, in hope that we can put this evil behind bars once and for all.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Silence, fiend! This court shall be filled with only the voices of the sane and able-minded.”
I sighed, and stuffed my hands in my pockets, flicking around the pocket lint. I glanced at the Judge who stood above me with a furious expression.
“Will the prosecution tell us the details of this case, as horrible as they may be,” said the Judge, wiping sweat from her forehead with her hoof (I’m still kinda skeptical on this whole Equestria is filled with sapient ponies thing, so bare with me).
“Yes, your honor,” said the prosecutor, staring me down with daggers in his eyes. He stayed where he was, but using his magical horn, lifted a stack of papers into the air, sifted through them in the blink of an eye, and found the one he was looking for. Then, he cleared his throat. “This… creature of unknown origin appeared out of thin air yesterday, in the presence of the Princess, Twilight Sparkle herself.”
“I see,” said the Judge, nodding as she accepted his words. “And what did she do then?” The prosecutor then reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a tissue, wiping his eyes free of the tears that were welling up… apparently.
“She… she proceeded to batter the Princess senseless, using her… her…”
“Hands?” I said, opening and closing them. The prosecutor then burst into tears, falling to his, uh... horse knees? The Judge banged her gavel against the mound, this time using her mouth to operate it. When she was done, she glared at me.
“You will cease such action in a court of law!” she commanded, shaking her head. “You’ve already scared poor Mr. Nova with your barbaric tactics.” I glanced over at the prosecutor, who was having a full-on conniption.
“So, can I tell you what actually happened?” I asked making a hand gesture, which made the Judge flinch. When she composed herself, she nodded quickly. “I mean, since nobody here wants to defend me, I guess I’ll do it myself.”
“But if I find anything you say to be too preposterous, I will not hesitate to shut you down.” I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, so I was taken here through some kind of wibbly-wobbly magic stuff so the details of the events aren’t crystal clear, but—”
“So you admit that you were there,” said Nova, who was apparently over everything and back on his feet. Hooves. He was back up. “I see we are finally cracking into your real persona.”
“I never denied being there,” I said. “When I came to, I was in a world unlike my own. Filled with peculiar sights and creatures. I was approached by Twilight—”
“Princess Twilight,” corrected Nova. I rolled my eyes.
“I was approached by Princess Twilight—”
“Her Highness Princess Twilight,” corrected Nova once more. I narrowed my eyes at him. “We wouldn’t want you using the generous princess’ name wrong, now would we?”
“I was approached by the all-knowing, omnibenevolent goddess that is the Princess of Friendship, Her Highness, Princess Twilight.” This time Nova stayed silent as if I’d satisfied his fetish for prefixes. “Who was flanked by another girl named Starlight, I think.”
“Go on…” egged Nova. I rolled my eyes again.
“I assume she was going to introduce herself, tell me why I was there, and we’d go from there,” I explained. “But, in my shock, I… punched her in the chin.”
The doors exploded open, and a lone pony stood there. I recognized her purple hair with a teal streak running through it. Her fur was pink, and her blue eyes burned. As she stalked down the aisle towards the middle of the court (where I was telling my story), people whispered in clusters. When she finally got to the center, she looked up at me, and the courtroom got quiet.
“You’re… Starlight, right?” I asked, pointing down at her. “Yeah, sorry about what happened to you.”
“Sorry? Sorry?” She raised her voice and threw her hooves up into the air, which surprisingly didn’t make her topple over. “Sorry is what you say when you step on somebody’s hoof at the movie theater. Sorry is when you knock over someone’s drink. Sorry is when you say, ‘hey, when’s the baby due?’ and it turns out that the person is just fat!” Starlight put her hooves back down on the ground.
“What else do you want me to say?” I asked. “I apologize for drop kicking your shins. You crossed my kill zone!”
“You punched Twilight in the muzzle, turned to me, prepared to do it, fell from a standing position and drop kicked me!” she yelled. “And it took like 30 seconds to do it!”
“I’m a very careful planner when it comes to irrational and impulsive actions.” The gavel at the top of the Judge’s bench hit the mound, calling both my own and Starlight’s attention. The Judge glared at me even fiercer than before, if possible.
“Is this true, Starlight?” Starlight all but shoved me aside to make way for herself on the stand. “Has this anonymous, evil creature tormented you using her superior strength and body mass?”
“First of all, wow, you guys are over-the-top with this whole ordeal,” I said, shaking my head. “Secondly, the name’s Carrie. It’s not the anonymous evil creature.”
“Silence, anonymous evil creature!” I rolled my eyes. I still had my own article to finish working on when I got back home. I thought I might write about this experience when I got back home. I discarded the idea, though. What kind of dumbass would read about a person punching a pony in the face?
“My hooves are still sore from when she assaulted me,” cried out the pony, rubbing her hoof against the other. “She poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses!”
“She did!?” asked the crowd in unison.
“No…” admitted Starlight. “But are we just gonna sit around until she does!?”
“Okay. That’s enough!” The voice boomed through the small court, and everybody turned towards it, instantly bowing their heads in respect. I turned my head as well, looking at what everyone else was so fascinated about.
“Oh my!” said Nova, bowing his head like he needed to inspect the floors for stains. “The great conqueror, ever-pristine being, goddess of the land, who is so merciful to grant us this chance to speak in your presence, Twilight Sparkle the Royal.”
“I had no idea that there was anyone worse than Rarity,” said Twilight, raising an eyebrow. Well, I assumed she raised an eyebrow because one-half of her face was bandaged and covered up. I winced as I saw her, knowing that I’d caused it, but I was also tempted to smile at my handiwork. I didn’t know I could throw a punch so hard.
“Twilight! You shouldn’t be up.” Starlight rushed to her side. “Why did the doctors even let you out of bed? Your eye exploded!”
“It didn’t explode.” Starlight’s horn lit up like Nova’s to show a retelling of what happened. It was post-swing, with an explosion that would make Michael Bay proud coming from Twilight’s face as I apparently launched her about ten feet into the air. Underneath it, it said. “UNALTERED FOOTAGE”. Twilight shook her head as the video “Look, the point is, I’ve come to pardon this human.”
“Wait, really?” asked Starlight. “But… your face exploded…”
“It didn’t— that doesn’t matter right now,” said Twilight. “I have done quite a bit of research on humans in the past, and I should’ve known that you wouldn’t react to a different environment well.”
“You didn’t know that I’d punch you in the face, though,” I said, blushing a bit. “I don’t normally hit people when I first meet them.”
“Ponies,” corrected Twilight. “But, I know that it was a mistake, and that’s all that really matters.”
“What about the law against violence?” asked the Judge. She tapped her cheek with her hoof. “Or Ponyville’s legal system?”
“Ponyville doesn’t have a legal system, nor a law against violence,” said Twilight. “You guys just kinda dragged her into this building and put her on trial.”
“You’re telling me I took a job in a dying field!?” asked both Nova and the Judge simultaneously. Twilight shook her head.
“More like a nonexistent field, but you do you,” said Twilight.
“All those years of law school…” mumbled Nova. Twilight turned her attention.
“Now that you’re are cleared,” said Twilight. “I’d like to formally apologize that this whole debacle and return you home. Not only must you be tired, but bringing you here caused a small rip in the space-time continuum that may swallow both of our worlds, so…”
“It’ll be nice to go home,” I said, with a nod. “It’s been nice, but I’d rather not be drawn and quartered by ponies that can talk.” Twilight nodded as well as if she was in agreement.
“Okay. Stand still, this will take a little bit.” Purple light burst from her horn and surrounded me, enclosing me within her magical embrace. I took a deep breath, finally relieved to be going back home.
But then, it happened. An insignificant, small, little fly decided to start buzzing around me. I didn’t pay it any mind at first, but then it landed on my left cheek. It was being an annoying one. Buzzing in my ear and basically telling me that he knew I wasn’t gonna swat it. I didn’t have the skill nor the moxie to hit it without hitting myself.
Of course, I took this as a personal challenge and swatted the fly in a swift motion.
The problem is, between point A, my hand, traveling to point B, the fly, I ignored the most important part of this equation. C: Twilight’s face.
I’d never seen a pony fly into the air with such velocity before. There was a point where all four of her hooves were off of the floor, she did quite a few flips in the air, and landed on her back.
I just slapped the pretty off the purple princess.
As she lay in a heap, the court became deadly silent. It stayed like that for an uncomfortable few minutes. Afterward, I chuckled slightly, putting my hands up in a surrendering fashion.
“Look,” I said. “We can all agree that that was an accident right? I mean, of course, I—”
“One million years, DUNGEON!”
“Dag nabbit.”
Author's Note
Whaaaat? Conjure's alive and kicking? Well, more like punching ponies in the eye, but, yeah. I'm back while wearing my spectacular black.
Throw a like at the box at the top if you enjoyed, and take your flamethrower out of your pocket if you didn't. Bye now.
